Captain Kyd Volume Ii Part 20

An hour after sunrise the pirate vessel had gained an offing, and, under all her light canva.s.s, wafted by a fresh wind from the northwest, was running the coast down, leaving the Highlands of Neversink on her starboard quarter. On her deck stood Kyd, with his gla.s.s in his hands, with which every few minutes he would sweep the horizon, and then turn and walk the deck. It was a bright, sunny morning; the crested waves leaped merrily about the prow and glanced in the sun as if tipped with gold.

The vessel was a low-built brigantine, with a flush deck, on either side of which was ranged a battery of six carronades--in all twelve guns. Eighty men, half of whom were blacks, that composed her crew, were variously occupied forward and in the waist, though many of them were lying listlessly between the guns. They were a desperate band, with hard looks, and the aspects of men accustomed to crime and inured to danger.

Every man was armed with pistols and cutla.s.s, while racks of these weapons, with the addition of boarding pikes and harquebusses, were ranged about the masts and bulwarks. Order and discipline prevailed throughout the wild company, and, save the bucanier-like character and build of the vessel, it differed not materially in its internal arrangements from a king's s.h.i.+p. The bold spirit that kept these inferior and scarcely less fierce beings in subjection walked the deck with a determined tread, now bending his eyes in thought, now lifting them, flas.h.i.+ng with excitement, towards the sea, and rapidly scanning its wide circle. He was dressed in the same picturesque costume that he wore when he first appeared in the presence of Kate Bellamont at the White Hall, though his sword lay upon the companion-way instead of being sheathed at his belt. After taking a longer survey than usual of the horizon, and turning away with an exclamation of disappointment, he was addressed by a short, square-built, swarthy man, with large mustaches and long, matted hair that hung low over his eyes and descended to his broad shoulders, who had hitherto been silently pacing the leeward side of the deck.

"What's in the wind, captain? You seem to steer as if in chase! You gave your orders so briefly to get under weigh, and have loved your own thoughts since so well as to forget to speak. I have not even asked our course."

"We are full three leagues from our anchorage, and, if you have no objections, suppose we open our sailing orders."

"You are right, Loff," said Kyd, smiling at the blunt address of his first mate, "Listen," he said, walking aft, followed by the mate, where they could speak without being overheard by the helmsman. "Now learn my plans!"

"I have half guessed them."

"What?"

"Some Indiaman, ballasted with guilders, you have heard of in sh.o.r.e."

"Far better than a Spanish argosy. I pursue a rival. Thou art no stranger to an amour pursued by me some years ago with a fair and n.o.ble maid of Erin. Before I took the seas I was her only and accepted lover.

She is now in the port we left this morning."

"And so you are running away from her."

"No. As some fiend would have it, rumours of my deeds, blown far and wide, at last reached her ears. She lends them to the tale. And when last eve I hastened to her arms, she meets me cold as an icicle; but soon gets warm, charges me with my misdeeds, and at length, taking fire with her own heat, breaks out in full blaze, dips her tongue inch deep in gall, and paints me blacker than the devil."

"Just like these sort o' craft," remarked Loff, dryly.

"This is not all. I found she had plugged the hole in her broken heart with another lover sound and hale."

"And who was this interloper?"

"No less a cavalier than that Fitzroy of the British navy whom we took by stratagem in the Mediterranean, slaying his crew; and who afterward escaped us by swimming a league to the sh.o.r.e."

"I remember him. A proper youth for a woman's eye."

"It shall ne'er look on him again," said Kyd, with fierceness. "He told the story of his escape, confirmed that which before was rumour--"

"And so she put you out her heart and took him in."

"Even so."

"That's what I couldn't stand, captain."

"I'll have revenge. Besides, I think I have an old quarrel to settle with him, if he be the same Fitzroy who escaped from us. Did I not tell thee then he reminded me of one whom I had known under peculiar circ.u.mstances in my boyish days?"

"You did," said the mate, after a moment's thought; "and that you said you would, in the morning, see if your suspicions were true."

"And in the morning the bird had flown. It is this suspicion that, from the first mention of his name last night, added to a new object I have in view (which, if he be the one I suspect he is, cannot be accomplished without his death), that sends me in pursuit of him. 'Tis rumoured that he whom I mean was lost at sea; but, if he escaped us by swimming a league, he may have escaped also at that time."

"Where does he hail from now?"

"He is master of the brig of war that brought the new governor to the province; and, hearing of us, with laudable ambition set sail, directly after his arrival, in pursuit of us. He is now on his return, as his leave of absence has expired. I learn by a skipper of a Carolina schooner I hailed in the harbour as I pa.s.sed him in my boat, that a vessel answering his description was seen three days ago becalmed off the Capes of Delaware."

"s.h.i.+ver my mizzen! we will soon fall in with him if he is steering back to port."

"If the 'Silver Arrow' hang not like a sleuth-hound on his track, there is no virtue in wind or canva.s.s."

"What is the name of the chase?" demanded Loff, taking a deliberate survey of the horizon with a weather-beaten spygla.s.s he held in his hand.

"The 'Ger-Falcon,' I am told; and this name, for certain reasons, increases my suspicions that this Fitzroy is he I suspect. If so, I have an old score to balance with him. It is this that adds point to my revenge, and which has led me to seek aid of earth and h.e.l.l to accomplish my desires."

The "Silver Arrow," bound on its mission of vengeance and crime, continued for the remainder of the day steadily to sail on its southerly course, keeping sufficiently far from land to command a scope of vision on either side nearly forty miles in breadth, so that any vessel following the sh.o.r.e northwardly, if within ten or twelve leagues of the land, could not escape observation.

Two hours before sunset of the same day, in the entrance of one of the numerous inlets that, like a chain of marine lakes, line the eastern sh.o.r.e of Jersey, lay a brig of war at anchor, her upper sails clewed down and her topsails furled. She was lying so close to the wooded sh.o.r.e, that the branches of the trees that grew on the verge of its high banks hung over and mingled with the rigging, while from the main yard it was easy to step on the rocks that towered above the water. On her decks lay several deer recently killed, while sailors were engaged in bringing on board, across a staging that extended from the s.h.i.+p to the sh.o.r.e, a n.o.ble stag, with antlers like a young tree. On the summit of a rock that overlooked the scene stood two young men habited as hunters, one leaning on a rifle, the other with a hunting-spear in his hand. Two n.o.ble stag-hounds lay panting at their feet. The scene that lay outspread around them was picturesque as it was boundless.

On the east, rolling its waves towards a silvery beach of sand that stretched north and south many leagues, spread the ocean, without a sail to relieve its majestic bosom, which, save here and there a gull with snowy wing skimming its breast, was as lonely and silent as on the day it was created. North, extended a vast forest of foliage, the surface of which, as the winds swept over it wave after wave, was not less restless than the sea. West, lay interminable woods; and nearer slept the lagoon, running northwardly and southwardly in a line with the coast on the outside, broken into many little lakes by green islands, on the sides of which browsed numerous deer. Immediately at their feet was the vessel of war, which, with its busy decks, gave life and variety to the scene.

The two who were enjoying the prospect strikingly contrasted in appearance. One of them was dark and strikingly handsome, with black, penetrating eyes, and a fine mouth characterized by much energy of expression. His hair was jetty black; and, parted on his forehead, fell in natural ringlets about his neck, descending even to his shapely shoulders. His figure was n.o.ble and commanding, and his air strikingly dignified. His age could not have been above twenty-three. There was a hue on his cheek, and a certain negligent ease in his air and manner, that showed that his profession was that of the sea. Yet his costume was by no means nautical. He leaned on a short rifle, with a black velvet hunter's bonnet in his hand, shaded by a sable plume. He wore a green embroidered frock, with buff leggins of dressed deerskin richly worked by some Indian maid, and on his feet were buskins of dressed doeskin.

Around his waist was a black leathern belt containing a hunting-knife, with a drop or two of fresh blood still upon its blade, and a hunting-horn curiously carved and richly mounted.

His companion was less in height and of lighter make. His face was less browned, nay, scarcely tinged by the suns that had left their shadows upon the other's cheek. His forehead, though partly concealed beneath a hunting-cap of green cloth from which drooped a snow-white feather, was so fair and beautiful, that through the transparent skin of the temples were seen the azure veins tinting the surface with the most delicate lights of blue. The eyes were of a dark hazel, with a merry light dancing in them, which gave promise both of ready wit and good nature, and his cheeks had a bright, glowing colour, doubtless caused by the recent exercise of the chase. His mouth was extremely beautiful, with a winning smile playing about it like sunlight of the heart. The chin beneath was exquisitely rounded, neither too full nor too square, but of that faultless symmetry of which a sculptor would have made a model.

About his neck and shoulders flowed glossy waves of auburn hair, while his upper lip was graced by a luxuriant mustache of the same, or, perhaps, of a little darker hue. He wore no cravat, and the collar of his green hunting-coat was turned back, displaying a throat and neck of dazzling whiteness and beauty. Through the bosom of the frock, which was folded back, appeared linen of the finest cambric, richly tamboured, as if done by the fair fingers of some tasteful maiden. The wristbands over his finely shaped and gloved hands were tamboured in the same beautiful manner, and fringed with lace of the most costly texture. Around his waist was bound a crimson sash for a hunting-belt, in which was stuck a _couteau du cha.s.se_, with a hilt sparkling with jewels. Oriental trousers, ample in width and of snowy whiteness, fringed at the bottom with ta.s.sels depending from a hem of network, descended just below the calf of the leg, between which and the ankle appeared flesh-coloured silken hose of the finest texture and material. Boots of dressed doeskin, soft and smooth as a glove, nicely fitted the feet and ankles, and, divided at the top in two parts, were turned over like the buskins of his companion, but, unlike his, fringed with gold and ornamented with ta.s.sels. In his hand he carried a light hunting-spear, which he held with a spirited air, braced against the rock, his att.i.tude being at the same time graceful and gallant. His age appeared to be less than seventeen. The two had gazed upon the n.o.ble and extended prospect spread out before them for some time in silence, when the elder, turning to his companion with a condescending yet courteous air, spoke.

"A fair scene, Edwin! I scarcely know which impresses me most, the majesty of the ocean or that of these boundless forests of the New World. Both are alike illimitable. Perhaps the sea has more of the sublime, for it is a.s.sociated with the tempest in its terrible power, and its ever-heaving bosom seems to me the pulse of the earth."

"You give language to the thoughts which were pa.s.sing in my own mind.

The world seems to me a vast being ever--its flowing rivers like veins and arteries in the human system--its subterranean fires like the pa.s.sions slumbering in our hearts--its ocean heaving like a bosom lifted by a heart beneath it. See! the stag has leaped the bulwarks into the water!"

His companion turned and beheld the n.o.ble monarch of the wood, who had broke away from his captors at a bound, parting the flood with his broad breast, and swimming across the lagoon towards the opposite sh.o.r.e, tossing his branching antlers in the air as if in defiance, and rejoicing at obtaining his wild freedom. A dozen pistols and handguns were instantly levelled at him, when the taller of the two cried out from the cliff,

"Hold! Fire not, on your lives! He has n.o.bly won his freedom!"

Every weapon was lowered obedient to his voice, and proudly the enfranchised animal breasted his way towards a wooded isle a few hundred yards off.

"We have venison enough, and the princely creature shall escape," he added, turning to the other. "By the bow of Diana! we have well done for a four hours' hunt with but a brace of dogs--though ye are n.o.ble brutes, both Cha.s.seur and Di!" The dogs seemed to comprehend instinctively his words of praise, and, with a glad whine sliding along to his feet, at a sign of encouragement bounded upon him with joyful barks. "Hist! be still! Ye are over rude because I give ye a word and a nod."

"They must come in for a portion of our thanks from the earl when he gets his game."

"And a feast they shall have, for they have shown their true Irish blood."

"You speak of Ireland often, sir. You must love it."

"I do." He then said quickly, "You alone must he thank, Edwin, that he gets even a haunch instead of nearly a score of fat bucks such as strew our decks yonder. It was well thought of, as this bucanier had escaped us on this cruise, to put in at this famous deer island, and, by supplying the governor's table for the month to come, make him forget our failure. I would the stag had not escaped, nevertheless, for I would gladly have made a present of it to his fair daughter. You sigh, Edwin!"

"Did I?"

"By the bow of Dan Cupid, did you! You are full young to think of maiden's love."

"Am I?" said the youth, absently, and with an abstracted air.