CHAPTER XXIV
In which We Choose the Lesser of Two Evils
The luck that had been ours could not hold; when the tide turned, itebbed fast.
The weather changed. One hurricane followed upon the stride of another,with only a blue day or two between. Ofttimes we thought the ship waslost. All hands toiled like galley-slaves; and as the heavens darkened,there darkened also the mood of the pirates.
In sight of the great island of Cuba we gave chase to a barque. The sunwas shining and the sea fairly still when first she fled before us; wegained upon her, and there was not a mile between us when a cloudblotted out the sun. The next minute our own sails gave us occupationenough. The storm, not we, was victor over the barque; she sank with ashriek from her decks that rang above the roaring wind. Two days laterwe fought a large caravel. With a fortunate shot she brought down ourforemast, and sailed away from us with small damage of her own. All thatday and night the wind blew, driving us out of our course, and by dawnwe were as a shuttlecock between it and the sea. We weathered the gale,but when the wind sank there fell on board that black ship a menacingsilence.
In the state cabin I held a council of war. Mistress Percy sat besideme, her arm upon the table, her hand shadowing her eyes; my lord,opposite, never took his gaze from her, though he listened gloomily toSparrow's rueful assertion that the brazen game we had been playing waswell-nigh over. Diccon, standing behind him, bit his nails and stared atthe floor.
"For myself I care not overmuch," ended the minister. "I scorn not life,but think it at its worst well worth the living; yet when my God callsme, I will go as to a gala day and triumph. You are a soldier, CaptainPercy, you and Diccon here, and know how to die. You too, my LordCarnal, are a brave man, though a most wicked one. For us four, we candrink the cup, bitter though it be, with little trembling. But there isone among us----" His great voice broke, and he sat staring at thetable.
The King's ward uncovered her eyes. "If I be not a man and a soldier,Master Sparrow," she said simply, "yet I am the daughter of many valiantgentlemen. I will die as they died before me. And for me, as for youfour, it will be only death,--naught else." She looked at me with aproud smile.
"Naught else," I said.
My lord started from his seat and strode over to the window, where hestood drumming his fingers against the casing. I turned toward him. "MyLord Carnal," I said, "you were overheard last night when you plottedwith the Spaniard."
He recoiled with a gasp, and his hand went to his side, where it foundno sword. I saw his eyes busy here and there through the cabin, seekingsomething which he might convert into a weapon.
"I am yet captain of this ship," I continued. "Why I do not, even thoughit be my last act of authority, have you flung to the sharks, I scarcelyknow."
He threw back his head, all his bravado returned to him. "It is not Ithat stand in danger," he began loftily; "and I would have you remember,sir, that you are my enemy, and that I owe you no loyalty."
"I am content to be your enemy," I answered.
"You do not dare to set upon me now," he went on, with his old insolent,boastful smile. "Let me cry out, make a certain signal, and they withoutwill be here in a twinkling, breaking in the door----"
"The signal set?" I said. "The mine laid, the match burning? Then 'tistime that we were gone. When I bid the world good-night, my lord, mywife goes with me."
His lips moved and his black eyes narrowed, but he did not speak.
"An my cheek did not burn so," I said, "I would be content to let youlive; live, captain in verity of this ship of devils, until, tired ofyou, the devils cut your throat, or until some victorious Spaniard hungyou at his yardarm; live even to crawl back to England, by hook orcrook, to wait, hat in hand, in the antechamber of his Grace ofBuckingham. As it is, I will kill you here and now. I restore you yoursword, my lord, and there lies my challenge."
I flung my glove at his feet, and Sparrow unbuckled the keen blade whichhe had worn since the day I had asked it of its owner, and pushed it tome across the table. The King's ward leaned back in her chair, verywhite, but with a proud, still face, and hands loosely folded in herlap. My lord stood irresolute, his lip caught between his teeth, hiseyes upon the door.
"Cry out, my lord," I said. "You are in danger. Cry to your friendswithout, who may come in time. Cry out loudly, like a soldier and agentleman!"
With a furious oath he stooped and caught up the glove at his feet; thensnatched out of my hand the sword that I offered him.
"Push back the settle, you; it is in the way!" he cried to Diccon; thento me, in a voice thick with passion: "Come on, sir! Here there are nomeddling governors; this time let Death throw down the warder!"
"He throws it," said the minister beneath his breath.
From without came a trampling and a sudden burst of excited voices. Thenext instant the door was burst open, and a most villainous, fiery-redface thrust itself inside. "A ship!" bawled the apparition, andvanished. The clamour increased; voices cried for captain and mate, andmore pirates appeared at the door, swearing out the good news, come insearch of Kirby, and giving no choice but to go with them at once.
"Until this interruption is over, sir," I said sternly, bowing to him asI spoke. "No longer."
"Be sure, sir, that to my impatience the time will go heavily," heanswered as sternly.
We reached the poop to find the fog that had lain about us thick andwhite suddenly lifted, and the hot sunshine streaming down upon a roughblue sea. To the larboard, a league away, lay a low, endless coast ofsand, as dazzling white as the surf that broke upon it, and running backto a matted growth of vivid green.
"That is Florida," said Paradise at my elbow, "and there are reefs andshoals enough between us. It was Kirby's luck that the fog lifted.Yonder tall ship hath a less fortunate star."
She lay between us and the white beach, evidently in shoal and dangerouswaters. She too had encountered a hurricane, and had not come forthvictorious. Foremast and forecastle were gone, and her bowsprit wasbroken. She lay heavily, her ports but a few inches above the water.Though we did not know it then, most of her ordnance had been flungoverboard to lighten her. Crippled as she was, with what sail she couldset, she was beating back to open sea from that dangerous offing.
"Where she went we can follow!" sang out a voice from the throng in ourwaist. "A d----d easy prize! And we'll give no quarter this time!"There was a grimness in the applause of his fellows that boded littlegood to some on either ship.
"Lord help all poor souls this day!" ejaculated the minister inundertones; then aloud and more hopefully, "She hath not the look of adon; maybe she's buccaneer."
"She is an English merchantman," said Paradise. "Look at her colours. ACompany ship, probably, bound for Virginia, with a cargo of servants,gentlemen out at elbows, felons, children for apprentices, traders,French _vignerons_, glass-work Italians, returning councillors and headsof hundreds, with their wives and daughters, men-servants andmaid-servants. I made the Virginia voyage once myself, captain."
I did not answer. I too saw the two crosses, and I did not doubt thatthe arms upon the flag beneath were those of the Company. The vessel,which was of about two hundred tons, had mightily the look of the_George_, a ship with which we at Jamestown were all familiar. Sparrowspoke for me.
"An English ship!" he cried out of the simplicity of his heart. "Thenshe's safe enough for us! Perhaps we might speak her and show her thatwe are English, too! Perhaps----" He looked at me eagerly.
"Perhaps you might be let to go off to her in one of the boats,"finished Paradise dryly. "I think not, Master Sparrow."
"It's other guess messengers that they'll send," muttered Diccon."They're uncovering the guns, sir."
Every man of those villains, save one, was of English birth; every manknew that the disabled ship was an English merchantman filled withpeaceful folk, but the knowledge changed their plans no whit. There wasa great hubbub; cries and oaths and brutal laughter, the noise of thegunners with their guns, th
e clang of cutlass and pike as they weredealt out, but not a voice raised against the murder that was to bedone. I looked from the doomed ship, upon which there was now frantichaste and confusion, to the excited throng below me, and knew that I hadas well cry for mercy to winter wolves.
The helmsman behind me had not waited for orders, and we were bearingdown upon the disabled barque. Ahead of us, upon our larboard bow, was apatch of lighter green, and beyond it a slight hurry and foam of thewaters. Half a dozen voices cried warning to the helmsman. It was he ofthe woman's mantle, whom I had run through the shoulder on the islandoff Cape Charles, and he had been Kirby's pilot from Maracaibo to FortCaroline. Now he answered with a burst of vaunting oaths: "We're in deepwater, and there's deep water beyond. I've passed this way before, andI'll carry ye safe past that reef were't hell's gate!"
The desperadoes who heard him swore applause, and thought no more of thereef that lay in wait. Long since they had gone through the gates ofhell for the sake of the prize beyond. Knowing the appeal to behopeless, I yet made it.
"She is English, men!" I shouted. "We will fight the Spaniards whilethey have a flag in the Indies, but our own people we will not touch!"
The clamour of shouts and oaths suddenly fell, and the wind in therigging, the water at the keel, the surf on the shore, made themselvesheard. In the silence, the terror of the fated ship became audible.Confused voices came to us, and the scream of a woman.
On the faces of a very few of the pirates there was a look of momentarydoubt and wavering; it passed, and the most had never worn it. Theybegan to press forward toward the poop, cursing and threatening, workingthemselves up into a rage that would not care for my sword, theminister's cutlass, or Diccon's pike. One who called himself a wit criedout something about Kirby and his methods, and two or three laughed.
"I find that the role of Kirby wearies me," I said. "I am an Englishgentleman, and I will not fire upon an English ship."
As if in answer there came from our forecastle a flame and thunder ofguns. The gunners there, intent upon their business, and now withinrange of the merchantman, had fired the three forecastle culverins. Theshot cut her rigging and brought down the flag. The pirates' shout oftriumph was echoed by a cry from her decks and the defiant roar of herfew remaining guns.
I drew my sword. The minister and Diccon moved nearer to me, and theKing's ward, still and white and braver than a man, stood beside me.From the pirates that we faced came one deep breath, like the first sighof the wind before the blast strikes. Suddenly the Spaniard pushedhimself to the front; with his gaunt figure and sable dress he had theseeming of a raven come to croak over the dead. He rested his gloomyeyes upon my lord. The latter, very white, returned the look; then, withhis head held high, crossed the deck with a measured step and took hisplace among us. He was followed a moment later by Paradise. "I neverthought to die in my bed, captain," said the latter nonchalantly."Sooner or later, what does it matter? And you must know that before Iwas a pirate I was a gentleman." Turning, he doffed his hat with aflourish to those he had quitted. "Hell litter!" he cried. "I have runwith you long enough. Now I have a mind to die an honest man."
At this defection a dead hush of amazement fell upon that crew. One andall they stared at the man in black and silver, moistening their lips,but saying no word. We were five armed and desperate men; they werefourscore. We might send many to death before us, but at the last weourselves must die,--we and those aboard the helpless ship.
In the moment's respite I bowed my head and whispered to the King'sward.
"I had rather it were your sword," she answered in a low voice, in whichthere was neither dread nor sorrow. "You must not let it grieve you; itwill be added to your good deeds. And it is I that should ask yourforgiveness, not you mine."
Though there was scant time for such dalliance, I bent my knee andrested my forehead upon her hand. As I rose, the minister's hand touchedmy shoulder and the minister's voice spoke in my ear. "There is anotherway," he said. "There is God's death, and not man's. Look and see what Imean."
I followed the pointing of his eyes, and saw how close we were to thosewhite and tumbling waters, the danger signal, the rattle of the hiddensnake. The eyes of the pirate at the helm, too, were upon them; hisbrows were drawn downward, his lips pressed together, the whole man bentupon the ship's safe passage.... The low thunder of the surf, the cry ofa wheeling sea-bird, the gleaming lonely shore, the cloudless sky, theocean, and the white sand far, far below, where one might sleep well,sleep well, with other valiant dead, long drowned, long changed. "Oftheir bones are coral made."
The storm broke with fury and outcries, and a blue radiance of drawnsteel. A pistol ball sang past my ear.
"Don't shoot!" roared the gravedigger to the man who had fired the shot."Don't cut them down! Take them and thrust them under hatches untilwe've time to give them a slow death! And hands off the woman untilwe've time to draw lots!"
He and the Spaniard led the rush. I turned my head and nodded toSparrow, then faced them again. "Then may the Lord have mercy upon yoursouls!" I said.
As I spoke the minister sprang upon the helmsman, and, striking him tothe deck with one blow of his huge fist, himself seized the wheel.Before the pirates could draw breath he had jammed the helm tostarboard, and the reef lay right across our bows.
A dreadful cry went up from that black ship to a deaf Heaven--a cry thatwas echoed by a wild shout of triumph from the merchantman. The massfronting us broke in terror and rage and confusion. Some ran franticallyup and down with shrieks and curses; others sprang overboard. A fewmade a dash for the poop and for us who stood to meet them. They wereled by the Spaniard and the gravedigger. The former I met and senttumbling back into the waist; the latter whirled past me, and rushingupon Paradise thrust him through with a pike, then dashed on to thewheel, to be met and hewn down by Diccon.
The ship struck. I put my arm around my wife, and my hand before hereyes; and while I looked only at her, in that storm of terrible cries,of flapping canvas, rushing water, and crashing timbers, the Spaniardclambered like a catamount upon the poop, that was now high above thebroken forepart of the ship, and fired his pistol at me point-blank.
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