Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four)

by Robert E. Howard

  “That was why Piriou recognized the bay,” muttered Henri.

  “Did that dog lead you here? I might have guessed it. Where is he?”

  “Slain by Indians, evidently while searching for the treasure.”

  “Good!” approved Harston heartily. “Well, I don’t know how you knew my mate was carrying the map. I trusted him, and the men trusted him more than they did me, so I let him keep it. But this morning he wandered in and got separated from the rest, and we found him sworded to death near the beach, and the map gone. The men accused me of killing him, but we found the tracks left by the man who killed him, and I showed the fools my feet wouldn’t fit them. There wasn’t a boot in the crew that made that sort of track. Indians don’t wear boots. So it had to be a Frenchman.

  “You’ve got the map, but you haven’t got the treasure. If you had it, you wouldn’t have let me in the fort. I’ve got you penned up here. You can’t get out to look for the loot, and no ship to carry it away, anyhow.

  “Here’s my proposal: Villiers, give me the map. And you, Count, give me fresh meat and supplies. My men are nigh to scurvy after the long voyage. In return I’ll take you three men, the Lady Francoise and her girl, and set you ashore at some port of the Atlantic where you can take ship to France. And to clinch the bargain, I’ll give each of you a handsome share in the treasure.”

  The buccaneer tugged his mustache meditatively. He knew that Harston would not keep any such pact, if made. Nor did Villiers even consider agreeing to the proposal. But to refuse bluntly would be to force the issue into a clash of arms, and Villiers was not ready for that. He wanted the War-Hawk as avidly as he desired the jewels of Montezuma.

  “What’s to prevent us from holding you captive and forcing your men to give us your ship in exchange for you’?” he asked.

  Harston laughed at him.

  “Do you think I’m a fool? My men have orders to heave up the anchors and sail hence at the first hint of treachery. They wouldn’t give you the ship, if you skinned me alive on the beach. Besides, I have Henri’s word.”

  “My word is not wind,” said Henri somberly. “Have done with threats, Villiers.”

  The buccaneer did not reply, his mind being wholly absorbed in the problem of getting possession of Harston’s ship; of continuing the parley without betraying the fact that he did not have the map. He wondered who in Satan’s name did have the accursed map.

  “Let me take my men away with me on your ship,” he said. “I can not desert my faithful followers-”

  Harston snorted.

  “Why don’t you ask for my cutlass to cut my throat with? Desert your faithful-bah! You’d desert your brother to the devil if it meant money in your pocket. No! You’re not going to bring enough men aboard to mutiny and take my ship.”

  “Give us a day to think it over,” urged Villiers, fighting for time.

  Harston’s heavy fist banged on the table, making the wine dance in the glasses.

  “No, by Satan! Give me my answer now!”

  Villiers was on his feet, his black rage submerging his craftiness.

  “You English dog! I’ll give you your answer-in your guts!”

  He tore aside his cloak, caught at his sword hilt. Harston heaved up with a roar, his chair crashing backward to the floor. Henri sprang up, spreading his arms between them as they faced each other across the board.

  “Gentlemen, have done! Villiers, he has my pledge-”

  “The foul fiend gnaw your pledge!” snarled Villiers.

  “Stand from between us, my lord,” growled the pirate, his voice thick with the killing lust. “I release you from your word until I have slain this dog!”

  “Well spoken, Harston!” It was a deep, powerful voice behind them, vibrant with grim amusement. All wheeled and glared open-mouthed. Up on the stair Francoise started up with an involuntary exclamation.

  A man strode out from the hangings that masked a chamber door, and advanced toward the table without haste or hesitation. Instantly he dominated the group, and all felt the situation subtly charged with a new, dynamic atmosphere.

  The stranger was as tall as either of the freebooters, and more powerfully built than either, yet for all his size he moved with a pantherish suppleness in his flaring-topped boots. His thighs were cased in close-fitting breeches of white silk, his wide-skirted sky-blue coat open to reveal a white silken shirt beneath, and the scarlet sash that girdled his waist. There were silver acorn-shaped buttons on the coat, and it was adorned with gilt-worked cuffs and pocketflaps, and a satin collar. A broad brimmed, plumed hat was on the stranger’s head, and a heavy cutlass hung at his hip.

  “Vulmea!” ejaculated Harston, and the others caught their breath.

  “Who else?” The giant strode up to the table, laughing sardonically at their amazement.

  “What-what do you here?” stuttered Gallot.

  “I climbed the palisade on the east side while you fools were arguing at the gate,” Vulmea answered. His Irish accent was faint, but not to be mistaken. “Every man in the fort was craning his neck westward. I entered the house while Harston was being let in at the gate. I’ve been in that chamber there ever since, eavesdropping.”

  “I thought you were drowned,” said Villiers slowly. “Three years ago the shattered hull of your ship was sighted off the coast of Amichel, and you were seen no more on the Main.”

  “But I live, as you see,” retorted Vulmea.

  Up on the stair Tina was staring through the balustrades with all her eyes, clutching Francoise in her excitement.

  “Vulmea! It is Black Vulmea, my Lady! Look! Look!”

  Francoise was looking. It was like encountering a legendary character in the flesh. Who of all the sea-folk had not heard the tales and ballads celebrating the wild deeds of Black Vulmea, once a scourge of the Spanish Main’? The man could not be ignored. Irresistibly he had stalked into the scene, to form another, dominant element in the tangled plot.

  Henri was recovering from the shock of finding a stranger in his hall. “What do you want?” he demanded. “Did you come from the sea?”

  “I came from the woods,” answered the Irishman. “And I gather there is some dissension over a map!”

  “That’s none of your affair,” growled Harston.

  “Is this it?” Grinning wickedly, Vulmea drew from his pocket a crumpled object — a square of parchment, marked with crimson lines.

  Harston started violently, paling.

  “My map!” he ejaculated. “Where did you get it?”

  “From Richardson, after I killed him!” was the grim answer.

  “You dog!” raved Harston, turning on Villiers. “You never had the map! You lied—”

  “I never said I had it,” snarled the Frenchman. “You deceived yourself. Don’t be a tool. Vulmea is alone. If he had a crew he’d have cut our throats already. We’ll take the map from him—”

  “You’ll never touch it!” Vulmea laughed fiercely.

  Both men sprang at him, cursing. Stepping back he crumpled the parchment and cast it into the glowing coals of the fireplace. With a bellow Harston lunged past him, to be met with a buffet under the ear that stretched him half-senseless on the floor. Villiers whipped out his sword, but before he could thrust Vulmea’s cutlass beat it out of his hand.

  Villiers staggered against the table, with hell in his eyes. Harston lurched to his feet, blood dripping from his ear.

  Vulmea leaned over the table, his outstretched blade just touching Count Henri’s breast.

  “Don’t call for your soldiers, Count,” said the Irishman softly. “Not a sound out of you, either, dog-face!” His name for Gallot, who showed no intention of disobeying. “The map’s burned to ashes, and it’ll do no good to spill blood. Sit down, all of you.”

  Harston hesitated, then shrugged his shoulders and sank sullenly into a chair. The others followed suit. Vulmea stood, towering over the table, while his enemies watched him with bitter eyes of hate.

  “You were ba
rgaining,” he said. “That’s all I’ve come to do.”

  “And what have you to trade?” sneered Villiers.

  “The jewels of Montezuma!”

  “What?” All four men were on their feet, leaning toward him.

  “Sit down!” he roared, banging his broad blade on the table. They sank back, tense and white with excitement. He grinned hardly.

  “Yes! I found it before I got the map. That’s why I burned the map. I don’t need it. And now nobody will ever find it, unless I show him where it is.”

  They stared at him with murder in their eyes, and Villiers said: “You’re lying. You’ve told us one lie already. You say you came from the woods, yet all men know this country is a wilderness, inhabited only by savages.”

  “And I’ve been living for three years with those same savages,” retorted Vulmea. “When a gale wrecked my ship near the mouth of the Rio Grande, I swam ashore and fled inland and northward, to escape the Spaniards. I fell in with a wandering tribe of Indians who were drifting westward to escape a stronger tribe, and nothing better offering itself, I lived with them and shared their wanderings until a month ago.

  “By this time our rovings had brought us so far westward I believed I could reach the Pacific Coast, so I set forth alone. But a hundred miles to the east I encountered a hostile tribe of red men, who would have burned me alive, if I hadn’t killed their war-chief and three or four others and broken away one night.

  “They chased me to within a few miles of this coast, where I finally shook them off. And by Satan, the place where I took refuge turned out to be the treasure trove of da Verrazano! I found it all: chests of garments and weapons-that’s where I clothed and armed myself-heaps of gold and silver, and in the midst of all the jewels of Montezuma gleaming like frozen starlight! And da Verrazano and his eleven buccaneers sitting about an ebon table as they’ve sat for nearly a hundred years!”

  “What?”

  “Aye! They died in the midst of their treasure! Their bodies have shrivelled but not rotted. They sit there with their wine glasses in their stiff hands, just as they have sat for nearly a century!”

  “That’s an unchancy thing!” muttered Harston uneasily, but Villiers snarled: “What boots it? It’s the loot we want. Go on, Vulmea.”

  Vulmea seated himself and filled a goblet before he resumed: “I lay up and rested a few days, made snares to catch rabbits, and let my wounds heal. I saw smoke against the western sky, but thought it some Indian village on the beach. I lay close, but the loot’s hidden in a place the redskins shun. If any spied on me, they didn’t show themselves.

  “Last night I started for the beach, meaning to strike it some miles north of the spot where I’d seen the smoke. I was close to the shore when the storm hit. I took shelter under a big rock, and when it had blown itself out, I climbed a tree to look for Indians. Then I saw your ship at anchor, Harston, and your men coming in to shore. I was making my way toward your camp on the beach when I met Richardson. I killed him because of an old quarrel. I wouldn’t have known he had a map if he hadn’t tried to eat it before he died.

  “I recognized it, of course, and was considering what use I could make of it, when the rest of you dogs came up and found the body. I was lying in a thicket close by while you were arguing with your men about the killing. I judged the time wasn’t ripe for me to show myself then”

  -He laughed at the rage displayed in Harston’s face.

  “Well, while I lay there listening to your talk, I got a drift of the situation and learned, from the things you let fall, that d’Chastillon and Villiers were a few miles south on the beach. So when I heard you say that Villiers must have done the killing and taken the map, and that you meant to parley with him, seeking an opportunity to murder him and get it back-”

  “Dog!” snarled Villiers.

  Harston was livid, but he laughed mirthlessly.

  “Do you think I’d deal fair with a dog like you? Go on, Vulmea.”

  The Irishman grinned. It was evident that he was deliberately fanning the fires of hate between the two men.

  “Nothing much, then I came straight through the woods while you were beating along the coast, and raised the fort before you did. And there’s the tale. I have the treasure, Harston has a ship, Henri has supplies. By Satan, Villiers, I don’t see where you fit in, but to avoid strife I’ll include you. My proposal is simple enough.

  “We’ll split the loot four ways. Harston and I will sail away with our shares aboard the War-Hunk. You and d’Chastillon take yours and remain lords of the wilderness, or build a ship out of logs, as you wish.”

  Henri blenched arid Villiers swore, while Harston grinned quietly.

  “Are you fool enough to go aboard the War-Hawk with Harston?” snarled Villiers. “He’ll cut your throat before you’re out of sight of land!”

  “This is like the problem of the sheep, the wolf and the cabbage,” laughed Vulmea. “How to get them across the river without their devouring each other!”

  “And that appeals to your Celtic sense of humor,” complained Villiers.

  “I will not stay here!” cried Henri. “Treasure or no, I must go!”

  Vulmea gave him a slit-eyed glance of speculation.

  “Well, then,” said he, “let Harston sail away with Villiers, yourself, and such members of your household as you may select, leaving me in command of the fort and the rest of your men, and all of Villiers’. I’ll build a boat that will get me into Spanish waters.”

  Villiers looked slightly sick.

  “I am to have the choice of remaining here in exile, or abandoning my crew and going alone on the War-Hawk to have my throat cut?”

  Vulmea’s gusty laughter boomed through the hall, and he smote Villiers jovially on the back, ignoring the black murder in the buccaneer’s glare.

  “That’s it, Guillaume!” quoth he. “Stay here while Dick and I sail away, or sail away with Dick, leaving your men with me.”

  “I’d rather have Villiers,” said Harston frankly. “You’d turn my own men against me, Vulmea, and cut my throat before I rounded the Horn.”

  Sweat dripped from Villiers’ face.

  “Neither I, the Count, nor his niece will ever reach France alive if we ship with that devil,” said he. “You are both in my power now. My men surround this hall. What’s to prevent me cutting you both down?”

  “Nothing,” admitted Vulmea cheerfully. “Except that if you do Harston’s men will sail away with the ship and that with me dead you’ll never find the treasure; and that I’ll split your skull if you summon your men.”

  Vulmea laughed as he spoke, but even Francoise sensed that he meant what he said. His naked cutlass lay across his knees, and Villiers’ sword was under the table, out of reach.

  “Aye!” said Harston with an oath. “You’d find the two of us no easy prey. I’m agreeable to Vulmea’s offer. What do you say, my lord?”

  ` I must leave this coast!” whispered Henri, staring blankly. “I must hasten. I must go far-go quickly!”

  Harston frowned, puzzled at the Count’s strange manner, and turned to Villiers, grinning wickedly: “And you Guillaume?”

  “What choice have I?” snarled Villiers. “Let me take my three officers and forty men aboard the War-Hawk, and the bargain’s made.”

  “The officers and fifteen men!”

  “Very well.”

  “Done!”

  There was no shaking of hands to seal the pact. The two captains glared at each other like hungry wolves. The Count plucked his mustache with a trembling hand, rapt in his own somber thoughts. Vulmea drank wine and grinned on the assemblage, but it was the grin of a stalking tiger. Francoise sensed the murderous purposes that reigned there, the treacherous intent that dominated each man’s mind. Not one had any intention of keeping his part of the pact, Henri possibly excluded. Each of the freeboaters intended to possess both the ship and the entire treasure. Neither would be satisfied with less. But what was going on in each crafty mind? F
rancoise felt oppressed by the atmosphere of hatred and treachery. The Irishman, for all his savage frankness, was no less subtle than the others-and even fiercer. His gigantic shoulders and massive limbs seemed too big even for the great hall. There was an iron vitality about the man that overshadowed even the hard vigor of the other freebooters.

  “Lead us to the treasure!” Villiers demanded.

  “Wait a bit,” returned Vulmea. “We must keep our power evenly balanced, so one can’t take advantage of the others. This is what we’ll do: Harston’s men will come ashore, all but half a dozen or so, and camp on the beach. Villiers’ men will come out of the fort and likewise camp on the beach, within easy sight of them. Then each crew can keep a check on the other, to see that nobody slips after us who go after the treasure. Those left aboard the War-Hawk will take her out into the bay out of reach of either party. Henri’s men will stay in the fort, but leave the gate open. Will you come with us, Count?”

  “Go into that forest?” Henri shuddered, and drew his cloak about his shoulders. “Not for all the gold of Mexico!”

  “All right. We’ll take fifteen men from each crew and start as soon as possible.”

  Francoise saw Villiers and Harston shoot furtive glances at each other, then lower their gaze quickly as they lifted their wine glasses to hide the murky intent in their eyes. Francoise saw the fatal weakness in Vulmea’s plan, and wondered how he could have overlooked it. She knew he would never come out of that forest alive. Once the treasure was in their grasp, the others would form a rogue’s alliance long enough to rid themselves of the man both hated. She shuddered, staring morbidly at the man she knew was doomed; strange to see that powerful fighting man sitting there, laughing and swilling wine, in full prime and power, and to know that he was already doomed to a bloody death.

  The whole situation was pregnant with bloody portents. Villiers would trick and kill Harston if he could, and she knew that the Englishman had already marked Villiers for death, and doubtless, also, her uncle and herself. If Villiers won the final battle of cruel wits, their lives were safe-but looking at the buccaneer as he sat there chewing his mustache, with all the stark evil of his nature showing naked in his dark face, she could not decide which was more abhorrent — death or Villiers.