Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  So, half-stifled and bitterly chagrined as they were, they did not waste their strength in a vain resistance. They allowed themselves to be pushed this way and pulled that, took what care they could of their limbs, and for their thoughts gave as many to vengeance as to safety. They had known many reverses in many lands. They did not believe that this was the end. And presently it would be their turn.

  With the third of the prisoners it was otherwise. The courage of the Irish is more conspicuous in the advance than in the retreat; and even of that recklessness in fight, that joy in the conflict, which is their birthright and their fame, Flavia had taken more than her woman’s share. In James McMurrough’s mean and narrow nature there was small room for the generous passions. Unlike his sister, he would have struck the face of no man in whose power he lay; nor was he one to keep a stout heart when his hands were bound. Conscience does not always make cowards. But he knew into whose hands he had fallen, he knew the fate to which he had himself consigned Colonel John — or would have consigned him but for self-interest — and his heart was water, his knees were aspens, his hair rose, as, helpless, he pictured in livid hues the fate that now awaited himself.

  As he had meant to do to the other, it would be done to him! He felt the cruel pike rend the gasping throat; he had heard that it was the most painful death that a man could die, and that the shrieks of men dying on the pike-point could be heard a mile! Or would they throw him, bound and blind as he was, into the sullen lake — yes, that was it! They were carrying him that way, they were taking him to the lake.

  And once and twice, in the insanity of fear, he fought with his bonds until the blood came, even throwing himself down, until the men, out of patience, pricked him savagely, and drove him, venting choked cries of pain, to his feet again. After the second attempt, if attempt that could be called which had no reasoning behind it, but only sheer animal fear, he staggered on, beaten, hopeless. He was aware that Colonel John was not with them; and then, again, that he was with them; and then — they were on the wide track now between the end of the lake and the sea — that they were proceeding with increased caution. That might have given a braver man hope, the hope of rescue. But rescue had itself terrors for The McMurrough. His captors, if pressed, might hasten the end, or his friends might strike him in the mêlée. And so, with every furlong of the forced journey, he died a fresh death.

  And the furlongs seemed interminable, quickly and roughly as he was hurried along. In his terror the pains of his position, the heat, the friction of the rough sacking, the want of air, went for little. But at last he heard the fall of the waves on the shore, gorse pricked his legs or tripped him up, the men about him spoke louder, he caught a distant hail. Laughter, and exclamations of triumph reached him, and the voices of men who had won in spite of odds.

  Then a boat grated on the pebbles, he was lifted into it, and thrust down in the bottom. He felt it float off, and heard the measured sound of the oars in the thole-pins. A few moments elapsed, the sound of the oars ceased, the boat bumped something. He was raised to his feet, his hands were unbound, he was set on a rope-ladder, and bidden to climb. Obeying with shaking knees, he was led across what he guessed to be a deck, and down steep stairs. Then his head was freed from the sack, and, sweating, dishevelled, pale with exhaustion and fear, he looked about him.

  The fog was still thick outside, turning day into twilight, and the cabin lamp had been lit and swung above the narrow table, filling the lowbrowed, Dutch-like interior with a strong but shifting light. Behind the table Colonel John and the skipper leant against a bulkhead; before them, on the nearer side of the table, were ranged the three captives. Behind these, again, the dark, grinning faces of the sailors, with their tarred pigtails and flashing eyes, filled the doorway; and, beyond doubt, viewed under the uncertain light of the lamp, they showed a wild and savage crew. As James McMurrough looked, his hopes, which had risen during the last few minutes, sank. Escape, or chance of escape, there was none. He was helpless, and what those into whose hands he had fallen determined, he must suffer. For a moment his heart stood still, his mouth gaped, he swayed on his feet. Then he clutched the table and steadied himself.

  “I am — giddy,” he muttered.

  “I am sorry that you have been put to so much inconvenience,” Colonel John answered civilly.

  The words, the tone, might have reassured him, if he had not suspected a devilish irony. Even when Colonel John proceeded to direct one of the men to open a porthole and admit more air, he derived no comfort from the attention. But steady! Colonel John was speaking again.

  “You, too, gentlemen,” he said, addressing Cammock and the Bishop, “I am sorry that I have been forced to put you to so much discomfort. But I saw no other way of effecting my purpose. And,” he went on with a smile, “if you ask my warranty for acting as I have acted — —”

  “I do!” the Bishop said between his teeth. The Admiral said nothing, but breathed hard.

  “Then I can only vouch,” the Colonel answered, “the authority by virtue of which you seized me yesterday. I give you credit, reverend father, and you, Admiral, for a belief that in acting as you did you were doing your duty; that in creating a rising here you were serving a cause which you think worthy of sacrifice — the sacrifice of others as well as of yourselves. But I tell, you, as frankly, I feel it my duty to thwart that purpose and prevent that rising; and for the moment fortune is with me. The game, gentlemen, is for the present in my hand; the move is mine. Now I need hardly say,” Colonel John continued, with an appearance almost of bonhomie, “that I do not wish to proceed to extremities, or to go farther than is necessary to secure my purpose. We might set sail for the nearest garrison port, and I might hand you over to the English authorities, assured that they would pay such a reward as would compensate the shipmaster. But far be it from me to do that! I would have no man’s blood on my hands. And though I say at once I would not shrink, were there no other way of saving innocent lives, from sending you to the scaffold — —”

  “A thousand thanks to you!” the Bishop said. But, brave man as he was, the irony in his voice masked relief; and not then, but a moment later, he passed his handkerchief across his brow. Cammock said nothing, but the angry, bloodshot eyes which he fixed on the Colonel lost a little of their ferocity.

  “I say, I would not shrink from doing that,” Colonel John continued mildly, “were it necessary. Fortunately for us all, it is not necessary. Still I must provide against your immediate return, against immediate action on your part. I must see that the movement which will die in your absence is not revived by any word from you, or by tidings of you! To that end, gentlemen, I must put you to the inconvenience of a prolonged sea-voyage.”

  “If I could speak with you in private?” the Bishop said.

  “You will have every opportunity,” Colonel John answered, smiling, “of speaking to Captain Augustin in private.”

  “Still, sir, if I could see you alone I think I could convince you — —”

  “You shall have every opportunity of convincing Captain Augustin,” Colonel John returned, smiling more broadly, “and of convincing him by the same means which I venture to think, reverend sir, you would employ with me. To be plain, he will take you to sea for a certain period, and at the end of that time, if your arguments are sufficiently weighty, he will land you at a convenient harbour on the French shore. He will be at the loss of his cargo, and that loss I fear you will have to make good. Something, too, he may charge by way of interest, and for your passage.” By this time the sailors were on the broad grin. “A trifle, perhaps, for landing dues. But I have spoken with him to be moderate, and I doubt not that within a few weeks you, Admiral Cammock, will be with your command, and the reverend father will be pursuing his calling in another place.”

  For a moment there was silence, save for a titter from the group of seamen. Then Cammock laughed — a curt, barking laugh. “A bite!” he said. “A d —— d bite! If I can ever repay it, sir, I will! Be su
re of that!”

  Colonel John bowed courteously.

  The Bishop took it otherwise. The veins on his forehead swelled, and he had much ado to control himself. The truth was, he feared ridicule more than he feared danger, perhaps more than he feared death; and such an end to such an enterprise was hard to bear. To have set forth to raise the south of Ireland, to have undertaken a diversion that would never be forgotten, that, on the contrary, would be marked by historians as a main factor in the restoration of the house of Stuart — to have embarked on such an enterprise and to be deported like any troublesome villager delivered to the pressgang for his hamlet’s good! To end thus! It was too much.

  “Is there no alternative?” he asked, barely able to speak for the chagrin that took him by the throat.

  “One, if you prefer it,” Colonel Sullivan answered suavely. “You can take your chance with the English authorities. For myself, I lean to the course I have suggested.”

  “If money were paid down — now? Now, sir?”

  “It would not avail.”

  “Much money?”

  “No.”

  The Bishop glared at him for a few seconds. Then his face relaxed, his eyes grew mild, his chin sank on his breast. His fingers drummed on the table. “His will be done!” he said— “His will be done! I was not worthy.”

  His surrender seemed to sting Cammock. Perhaps in the course of their joint adventures he had come to know and to respect his companion, and felt more for him than for himself.

  “If I had you on my quarter-deck for only half an hour,” he growled, “I would learn who was the better man! Ah, my man, I would!”

  “The doubt flatters me,” Colonel John answered, viewing them both with great respect; for he saw that, bad or good, they were men. Then, “That being settled,” he continued, “I shall ask you, gentlemen, to go on deck for a few moments, that I may say a word to my kinsman.”

  “He is not to go with us?”

  “That remains to be seen,” Colonel John replied, a note of sternness in his voice. Still they hesitated, and he stood; but at last, in obedience to his courteous gesture, they bowed, turned — with a deep sigh on the Bishop’s part — and clambered up the companion. The seamen had already vanished at a word from Augustin, who himself proceeded to follow his prisoners on deck.

  “Sit down!” Colonel Sullivan said, the same sternness in his voice. And he sat down on his side of the table, while James McMurrough, with a sullen look but a beating heart, took his seat on the other. The fear of immediate death had left the young man; he tried to put on an air of bravado, but with so little success that if his sister had seen him thus she had been blind indeed if she had not discerned, between these two men seated opposite to one another, the difference that exists between the great and the small, the strong and the infirm of purpose.

  It was significant of that difference that the one was silent at will, while the other spoke because he had not the force to be silent.

  “What are you wanting with me?” the young man asked.

  “Is it not you,” Colonel John answered, with a piercing look, “will be wanting to know where O’Sullivan Og is — O’Sullivan Og, whom you sent to do your bidding this morning?”

  The young man turned a shade paler, and his bravado fell from him. His breath seemed to stop. Then, “Where?” he whispered— “where is he?”

  “Where, I pray, Heaven,” Colonel John answered, with the same solemnity, “may have mercy upon him.”

  “He is not dead?” The McMurrough cried, his voice rising on the last word.

  “I have little doubt he is,” the Colonel replied. “Dead, sir! And the men who were with him — dead also, or the most part of them. Dead, James McMurrough, on the errand they went for you.”

  The shock of the news struck the young man dumb, and for some moments he stared at the Colonel, his face colourless. At length, “All dead?” he whispered. “Not all?”

  “For what I know,” Colonel John replied. “Heaven forgive them!” And, in half a dozen sentences, he told him what had happened. Then, “They are the first fruits,” he continued sternly, “God grant that they be the last fruits of this reckless plot! Not that I blame them, who did but as they were bid. Nor do I blame any man, nor any woman who embarked on this — reckless as it was, foolish as it was — with a single heart, either in ignorance of the things that I know, or knowing them, for the sake of an end which they set above their own lives. But — but” — and Colonel John’s voice grew more grave— “there was one who had neither of these two excuses. There was one who was willing to do murder, not in blind obedience, nor for a great cause, but to serve his own private interest and his own advantage!”

  “No! no!” the young man cried, cowering before him. “It is not true!”

  “One who was ready to do murder,” Colonel John continued pitilessly, “because it suited him to remove a man!”

  “No! no!” the wretched youth cried, almost grovelling before him. “It was all of them! — it was all!”

  “It was not all!” Colonel John retorted; but there was a keenness in his face which showed that he had still something to learn.

  “It was — those two-on deck!” The McMurrough cried eagerly. “I swear it was! They said — it was necessary.”

  “They were one with you in condemning! Be it so! I believe you! But who spared?”

  “I!” The McMurrough cried, breathlessly eager to exculpate himself. “It was I alone. I! I swear it. I sent the boy!”

  “You spared? Yes, and you alone!” the Colonel made answer. “So I thought, and out of your own mouth you are condemned. You spared because you learned that I had made a will, and you feared lest that which had passed to me in trust might pass to a stranger for good and all! You spared because it was — because you thought it was to your interest, your advantage to spare! I say, out of your own mouth you are condemned.”

  James McMurrough had scarcely force to follow the pitiless reasoning by which the elder man convicted him. But his conscience, his knowledge of his own motives, filled the hiatus, and what his tongue did not own his colourless face, his terrified eyes, confessed.

  “You have fallen into our hands,” Colonel John continued, grave as fate. “Why should we not deal with you as you would have dealt with us? No!” — the young man by a gesture had appealed to those on deck, to their escape, to their impunity— “no! They may have consented to my death; but as the judge condemns, or the soldier kills; you — you, for your private profit and advantage. Nevertheless, I shall not deal so with you. You can go as they are going — abroad, to return at a convenient season, and I hope a wiser man. Or — —”

  “Or — what?” the young man cried hurriedly.

  “Or you can stay here,” Colonel John continued, “and we will treat the past as if it had not been. But on a condition.”

  James’s colour came back. “What’ll you be wanting?” he muttered, averting his gaze.

  “You must swear that you will not pursue this foolish plan further. That first.”

  “What can I be doing without them?” was the sullen answer.

  “Very true,” Colonel John rejoined. “But you must swear also, my friend, that you will not attempt anything against me, nor be party to anything.”

  “What’d I be doing?”

  “Don’t lie!” the Colonel replied, losing his temper for a single instant. “You know what you have done, and therefore what you’d be likely to do. I’ve no time to bandy words, and you know how you stand. Swear on your hope of salvation to those two things, and you may stay. Refuse, and I make myself safe by your absence. That is all I have to say.”

  The young man had the sense to know that he was escaping lightly. The times were rough, the district was lawless, he had embarked — how foolishly he saw — on an enterprise too high for him. He was willing enough to swear that he would not pursue that enterprise further. But the second undertaking stuck in his gizzard. He hated Colonel John. For the past wrong, for the
past defeat, above all for the present humiliation, ay, and for the very magnanimity which spared him, he, the weak spirit, hated the strong with a furious, if timid malignity.

  “I’m having no choice,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Very good,” Colonel John answered curtly. And, going to the door, he called Bale from his station by the hatchway, and despatched him to the Bishop and to Admiral Cammock, requesting them to do him the honour to descend.

  They came readily enough, in the hope of some favourable turn. But the Colonel’s words quickly set them right.

  “Gentlemen,” he said politely, “I know you to be men of honour in private life. For this reason I have asked you to be present as witnesses to the bargain between my cousin and myself. Blood is thicker than water: he has no mind to go abroad, and I have no mind to send him against his will. But his presence, after what has passed, is a standing peril to myself. To meet this difficulty, and to free me from the necessity of banishing him, he is ready to swear by all he holds sacred, and upon his honour, that he will attempt nothing against me, nor be a party to it. Is that so, sir?” the speaker continued. “Do you willingly, in the presence of these gentlemen, give that undertaking?”

  The young man, with averted eyes and a downcast face, nodded.

  “I am afraid I must trouble you to speak,” Colonel John said.

  “I do,” he muttered, looking at no one.