Martin Conisby's Vengeance Part 11

"You talk blasphemy!" quoth I.

"Avast, avast!" cried he. "Here's no blasphemy, thought or word. I love this little Bible o' mine; His meat and drink to me, the friend o' my solitude, my solace in pain, my joy for ever and alway. Some men, being crossed in fortune, hopes, ambition or love, take 'em to drink and the like vanities. I, that suffered all this, took to the Bible and found all my needs betwixt the covers o' this little book. For where shall a wronged man find such a comfortable a.s.surance as this? Hark ye what saith our Psalmist!" Turning over a page or so and lifting one knotted fist aloft, Resolution Day read this:

"'I shall bathe my footsteps in the blood of mine enemies and the tongues of the dogs shall be red with the same!' The which," said he, rolling his bright eye at me, "the which is a sweet, pretty fancy for the solace of one hath endured as much as I. Aye, a n.o.ble book is Psalms. I know it by heart.

List ye to this, now! 'The wicked shall perish and the enemies of the Lord be as the fat of rams, as smoke shall they consume away.' Brother, I've watched 'em so consume many's the time and been the better for't. Hark'ee again: 'They shall be as chaff before the wind. As a snail that melteth they shall every one pa.s.s away. Break their teeth in their mouth, O G.o.d!'

saith Davy, aye and belike did it too, and so have I ere now with a pistol b.u.t.t. I mind once when we stormed Santa Catalina and the women and children a-screaming in the church which chanced to be afire, I took out my Bible here and read these comfortable words: 'The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance, he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked so that a man shall say: Verily there is a reward for the righteous.' Aha, brother, for filling a man wi' a gust of hate and battle, there's nought like the Bible. And when a curse is wanted, give me David. Davy was a man of his hands, moreover, and so are you, friend. I watched ye fight on the sand-spit yonder; twelve to one is long enough odds for any man, and yet here's five o' the twelve wi' bones broke and never a one but wi' some mark o' your handiwork to show, which is vastly well, comrade. Joanna's choice is mine, messmate--"

"How d'ye mean?" I demanded, scowling, whereupon he beamed on me friendly-wise and blinked his solitary eye.

"There is no man aboard this s.h.i.+p," quoth he, nodding again, "no, not one as could keep twelve in play so long, friend, saving only Black Pompey--"

"I've heard his name already," said I, "what like is he and who?"

"A poor heathen, comrade, a blackamoor, friend, a child of Beelzebub abounding in blood, brother--being torturer, executioner and cook and notable in each several office. A man small of soul yet great of body, being nought but a poor, black heathen, as I say. And ash.o.r.e yonder you shall hear our Christian messmates a-quarrelling over their rum as is the way o' your Christians hereabouts--hark to 'em!"

The _Happy Despatch_ lay anch.o.r.ed hard by the reef and rode so near the island that, glancing from one of her stern-gallery windows I might behold Deliverance Beach s.h.i.+ning under the moon and a great fire blazing, round which danced divers of the crew, filling the night with lewd, unholy riot of drunken singing and shouts that grew ever more fierce and threatening. I was gazing upon this scene and Resolution Day beside me, when the door was flung open and Job the quartermaster appeared.

"Cap'n Jo wants ye ash.o.r.e wi' her!" said he, beckoning to Resolution, who nodded and thrusting Bible into pocket, took thence the silver-mounted pistol, examined flint and priming and thrusting it into his belt, followed Job out of the cabin, locking the door upon me. Thereafter I was presently aware of a boat putting off from the s.h.i.+p and craning my neck, saw it was rowed by Resolution with Joanna in the stern sheets, a naked sword across her knees; and my gaze held by the glimmer of this steel, I watched them row into the lagoon and so to that spit of sand opposite Skeleton Cove.

I saw the hateful glitter of this deadly steel as Joanna leapt lightly ash.o.r.e, followed more slowly by Resolution. But suddenly divers of the rogues about the fire, beholding Joanna as she advanced against them thus, sword in hand, cried out a warning to their fellows, who, ceasing from their strife, immediately betook them to their heels, fleeing before her like so many mischievous lads; marvelling, I watched until she had pursued them out of my view.

Hereupon I took to an examination of my fetters, link by link, but finding them mighty secure, laid me down as comfortably as they would allow and fell to pondering my desperate situation, and seeing no way out herefrom (and study how I might) I began to despond; but presently, bethinking me of Don Federigo and judging his case more hopeless than mine (if this could well be), and further, remembering how, but for me, he would by death have delivered himself, I (that had not prayed this many a long month) now pet.i.tioned the G.o.d to whom nothing is impossible that He would save alive this n.o.ble gentleman of Spain, and thus, in his sorrows, forgot mine own awhile.

All at once I started up, full of sudden great and joyful content in all that was, or might be, beholding in my fetters the very Providence of G.o.d (as it were) and in my captivity His answer to my so oft-repeated prayer; for now I remembered that with the flood this s.h.i.+p was to sail for Nombre de Dios, where, safe-dungeoned and secure against my coming lay my hated foe and deadly enemy, Richard Brandon. And now, in my vain and self-deluding pride (my heart firm-set on this miserable man, his undoing and destruction) I cast me down on my knees and babbled forth my pa.s.sionate grat.i.tude to Him that is from everlasting to everlasting the G.o.d of Mercy, Love and Forgiveness.

CHAPTER XI

HOW I FOUGHT IN THE DARK WITH ONE POMPEY, A GREAT BLACKAMOOR

I was yet upon my knees when came Job the quartermaster with two men who, at his command, dragged me to my feet and out upon deck; cursing my hampering fetters, they tumbled me down the quarter-ladder and so down into the waist of the s.h.i.+p.

Now as I went I kept my eyes upraised to the serene majesty of the heavens; the moon rode high amid a glory of stars, and as I looked it seemed I had never seen them so bright and wonderful, never felt the air so good and sweet upon my lips.

Being come to the fore-hatchway I checked there, despite my captors'

buffets and curses, to cast a final, long look up, above and round about me, for I had a sudden uneasy feeling, a dreadful suspicion that once I descended into the gloom below I never should come forth alive. So I stared eagerly upon these ever-restless waters, so bright beneath the moon, upon the white sands of Deliverance Beach, on lofty palmetto and bush-girt cliff and then, s.h.i.+vering despite all my resolution, I suffered them to drag me down into that place of shadows.

I remember a sharp, acrid smell, the reek of bilge and thick, mephitic air as I stumbled on betwixt my captors through this foul-breathing dimness until a door creaked, yawning suddenly upon a denser blackness, into which I was thrust so suddenly that I fell, clas.h.i.+ng my fetters, and lying thus, heard the door slammed and bolted.

So here lay I in sweating, breathless expectation of I knew not what, my ears on the stretch, my manacled hands tight-clenched and every nerve a-tingle with this dreadful uncertainty. For a great while it seemed I lay thus, my ears full of strange noises, faint sighings, unchancy rustlings and a thousand sly, unaccountable sounds that at first caused me direful apprehensions but which, as I grew more calm, I knew for no more than the flow of the tide and the working of the vessel's timbers as she strained at her anchors. All at once I sat up, crouching in the dark, as from somewhere about me, soft yet plain to hear, came a sound that told me some one was stealthily drawing the bolts of the door. Rising to my feet I stood, shackled fists clenched, ready to leap and smite so soon as chance should offer. Then came a hissing whisper:

"Easy all, brother! Soft it is, comrade! 'Tis me, messmate, old Resolution, friend, come to loose thy bilboes, for fair is fair. Ha, 'tis plaguey dark, the pit o' Acheron ain't blacker, where d'ye lay--speak soft for there's ears a-hearkening very nigh us."

In the dark a hand touched me and then I felt the muzzle of a pistol at my throat.

"No tricks, lad--no running for't if I loose ye--you'll bide here--come life, come death? Is't agreed?"

"It is!" I whispered. Whereupon and with no more ado, he freed me from my gyves, making scarcely any sound, despite the dark.

"I'll take these wi' me, friend and--my finger's on trigger."

"Resolution, how am I to die?"

"Black Pompey!" came the hissing whisper.

"Hath Joanna ordered this?"

"Never think it, mate--she's ash.o.r.e and I swam aboard, having my suspicions."

"Resolution, a dying man thanks you heartily, purely never, after all, was there pirate the like o' you for holiness. Could I but find some weapon to my defence now--a knife, say." In the dark came a griping hand that found mine and was gone again, but in my grasp was a stout, broad-bladed knife.

"'Let the heathen rage,' saith Holy Writ, so rage it is, says I, only smite first, brother and smite--hard. And 'ware the starboard scuttle!" Hereafter was the rustle of his stealthy departure, the soft noise of bolts, and silence.

And now in this pitchy gloom, wondering what and where this scuttle might be, I crouched, a very wild and desperate creature, peering into the gloom and starting at every sound; thus presently I heard the sc.r.a.pe of a viol somewhere beyond the bulkheads that shut me in and therewith a voice that sang, the words very clear and distinct:

"Oh, Moll she lives in Deptford town, In Deptford town lives she; Let maid be white or black or brown.

Still Moll's the la.s.s for me; Sweet Moll as lives in Deptford town, Yo-ho, s.h.i.+pmates, for Deptford town, Tis there as I would be."

Mingled with this singing I thought to hear the heavy thud of an unshod foot on the planking above my head, and setting my teeth I gripped my knife in sweating palm.

But now (and to my despair) came the singing again to drown all else, hearken how I would:

"Come whistle, messmates all.

For a breeze, for a breeze Come pipe up, messmates all, For a breeze.

When to Deptford town we've rolled Wi' our pockets full o' gold; Then our la.s.ses we will hold On our knees, on our knees."

Somewhere in the dark was the sudden, thin complaint of a rusty and unwilling bolt, though if this were to my right or left, above or below me, I could not discover and my pa.s.sionate listening was once more vain by reason of this accursed rant:

"Who will not drink a gla.s.s, Let him drown, let him drown; Who will not drink a gla.s.s, Let him drown.

Who will not drink a gla.s.s For to toast a pretty la.s.s, Is no more than fool and a.s.s; So let him drown, let him drown!"

A sudden glow upon the gloom overhead, a thin line of light that widened suddenly to a square of blinding radiance and down through the trap came a lanthorn grasped in a hugeous, black fist and, beyond this, an arm, a mighty shoulder, two rows of flas.h.i.+ng teeth, two eyes that glared here and there, rolling in horrid fas.h.i.+on; thus much I made out as I sprang and, grappling this arm, smote upwards with my knife. The lanthorn fell, clattering, and was extinguished, but beyond the writhing, shapeless thing that blocked the scuttle, I might, ever and anon, behold a star twinkling down upon me where I wrestled with this mighty arm that whirled me from my feet, and swung me, staggering, to and fro as I strove to get home with my knife at the vast bulk that loomed above me. Once and twice I stabbed vainly, but my third stroke seemed more successful, for the animal-like howl he uttered nigh deafened me; then (whether by my efforts or his own, I know not) down he came upon me headlong, das.h.i.+ng the good knife from my grasp and whirling me half-stunned against the bulkhead, and as I leaned there, sick and faint, a hand clapped-to the scuttle. And now in this dreadful dark I heard a deep and gusty breathing, like that of some monstrous beast, heard this breathing checked while he listened for me a stealthy rustling as he felt here and there to discover my whereabouts. But I stood utterly still, breathless and sweating, with a horror of death at this great blackamoor's hands, since, what with the palsy of fear by reason of the loss of my knife, I did not doubt but that this monster would soon make an end of me and in horrid fas.h.i.+on.

Presently I heard him move again and (judging by the sound) creeping on hands and knees, therefore as he approached I edged myself silently along the bulkhead and thus (as I do think) we made the complete circuit of the place; once it seemed he came upon the lanthorn and das.h.i.+ng it fiercely aside, paused awhile to listen again, and my heart pounding within me so that I sweated afresh lest he catch the sound of it. And sometimes I would hear the soft, slurring whisper his fingers made against deck or bulkhead where he groped for me, and once a snorting gasp and the crunch of his murderous knife-point biting into wood and thereafter a hoa.r.s.e and outlandish muttering. And ever as I crept thus, moving but when he moved, I felt before me with my foot, praying that I might discover my knife and, this in hand, face him and end matters one way or another and be done with the horror. And whiles we crawled thus round and round within this narrow s.p.a.ce, ever and anon above the stealthy rustle of his movements, above his stertorous breathing and evil muttering, above the wild throbbing of my heart rose the wail of the fiddle and the singing:

"Who will not kiss a maid, Let him hang, let him hang; Who fears to kiss a maid, Let him hang.

Who will not kiss a maid Who of woman is afraid, Is no better than a shade; So let him hang, let him hang!"

until this foolish, ranting ditty seemed to mock me, my breath came and went to it, my heart beat to it; yet even so, I was praying pa.s.sionately and this my prayer, viz: That whoso was waiting above us for my death-cry should not again lift the scuttle lest I be discovered to this man-thing that crept and crept upon me in the dark. Even as I prayed thus, the scuttle was raised and, blinded by the sudden glare of a lanthorn, I heard Job's hoa.r.s.e voice:

"Below there! Pompey, ahoy! Ha'n't ye done yet an' be curst?"

And suddenly I found in this thing I had so much dreaded the one chance to my preservation, for I espied the great blackamoor huddled on his knees, shading his eyes with both hands from the dazzling light and, lying on the deck before him a long knife.

"Oh, ma.r.s.e mate," he cried, "me done fin' no curs' man here'bouts--"