Captain Kyd Volume Ii Part 24

"Then go to the devil with my compliments."

With the words he placed a pistol at his breast and fired: the man leaped high into the air and fell backward dead.

"Now, fellows, return to your stations," he said, returning his smoking pistol to his belt. "The first who hesitates or falters lies beside this carca.s.s," he added, touching, with a contemptuous gesture, the body with his foot.

The mutineers dropped their weapons and returned to their posts without hesitation or a murmur. "Lawrence, you are no longer c.o.xswain," said Kyd. "Take this mutineer's rank. See that my orders are obeyed! Lay the main topsail to the mast!"

"Ay, ay, sir!" replied the new lieutenant, with alacrity.

The helm was put hard down, the vessel came up into the wind, the heavy sail was reversed against the topmast, and the vessel became stationary.

A plank was then run out over the gangway bulwarks with the largest end inboard.

"Now, Rupert Fitzroy, prepare to die!" said the bucanier, approaching his prisoner, who stood with folded arms and calm brow gazing upon the moon walking in her brightness, and looking as if he antic.i.p.ated the speedy flight of his spirit through the starry world. He evidently expected death, and was prepared to meet it. His companion stood by him leaning upon his shoulder; his hands were clasped together, and he was pale and deadly in aspect, but not less resigned: nevertheless, he involuntarily shuddered as the footsteps of the pirate approached them, and addresed the former.

"I will give you a free leap into the other world, as your blood is gentle, sir, and will set aside the cravat of hemp; though in a swing at the yard-arm many a better man has gone to his account than Mark Meredith."

"Ha! do you know me?" demanded the other, starting from his revery, and fixing his gaze upon him with surprise and curiosity.

"Thou hast heard whether I do or not, and what was but suspicion is now proved by thy manner."

"Who, then, art thou?"

"It matters not. You must die. The last link that binds you to life is broken. You will soon learn if the proverb be true that saith there is but a step between this world and the next, for you will speedily measure it. The step is rather a wet one, but there is a fire priests prate about that will soon dry you." This irony and sarcasm was spoken with the most unfeeling manner, while hatred and malice seemed to dictate each word.

"Surely you cannot, you will not be so inhuman as to do such foul murder!" cried the youthful secretary, placing himself between Kyd and Fitzroy, and stretching forth his hands deprecatingly.

"Who is the blacker murderer, sir--this man who robs of me my good name, or I, who merely take his life?" inquired Kyd, haughtily.

"I robbed you not of it," said Fitzroy. "'Tis true, I have talked to many of thy deeds. But your good name! 'twas already gone--thrown away by your lawless acts of piracy."

"'Tis false! I had never pirated when I took thee prisoner. Smuggling a few silks and laces, or costly wines; defending my s.h.i.+p against officious gentlemen under king's colours, who fain would board me, seeking contraband wares--this have I done, and will do again on like occasion; but pirated I had not then."

"A distinction without a difference; a mere quibble upon words, to cheat thy rankling conscience into security."

"Have it thy own way," said the pirate, with haughty carelessness. "I will not quarrel with a man who has but five brief minutes to use his tongue in. Is all ready there at the gangway? We're losing time here idly. Ho! lead him to his death!"

"Impossible," exclaimed Fitzroy, indignantly; "you will not carry out a suggestion so infernal."

"Nay, sir, you will not do such cold-blooded murder," cried the secretary, catching the hand of Kyd, and kneeling at his feet. "Spare!

oh, spare his life, and I will be thy slave!"

"Silence, boy! and you, sir, if you would use your speech, husband it in words of prayer. Thy time has come as surely as the moon now s.h.i.+nes in the east."

"All ready, sir!" said Lawrence, coming aft a step or two and addressing his captain.

"Will you walk to the gangway, sir, or shall my men conduct you?"

"Farewell, my faithful Edwin," he said, with manly dignity, tenderly embracing the youth. "We shall in a few minutes meet beyond the skies!"

The youth cast himself into his arms, and the next moment Fitzroy unclasped his hold and laid him upon the deck insensible.

"I am ready!" he said, calmly.

"Perhaps you have a last request to make," said the pirate chief, sarcastically; "doubtless some wish is lurking in your breast, which, unexpressed, will add bitterness to death! If so, intrust it to me. I'll be its executor. Perhaps," he continued, in the same tone, "you have a ring, a lock of hair, some tender love-token to be returned to the giver. Perchance some maiden will ask how Fitzroy died. I'll bear to her a message! Ere to-morrow night I shall see the peerless Kate of Bellamont; she'll love me for bringing it, and perhaps yield the pressure of her haughty lips. I've had love favours on my own account of the willing maid ere now."

"Villain! thou liest!" cried the young man, goaded to phrensy by his words, and only restrained from springing upon him by the weight of the irons which shackled him.

"Ask her when you meet hereafter in the other world, for you meet no more in this!"

"Monster! the cup of death hath its own bitterness, and needs not thy impious words to drug it."

"Thou hast nothing, then, to ask?" said the bucanier, in the same tone of irony he had hitherto used. "I fain would do thee a kindness."

"I _have_ one request!"

"Name it."

"Take off my irons, and let me freely spring into the grave you have designed for me!"

"Knock off his chains! The devil'll have him bound in double irons ere the waves that gape to take him in flow smooth again above his head."

The manacles were unlocked and removed, when Kyd, turning to him, asked with bitter malice,

"What else?"

"This broadsword!"

Quicker than thought, he s.n.a.t.c.hed a cutla.s.s from one of the pirates, and attacked Kyd with a sudden vigour and skill that was irresistible. The bucanier retreated on the defensive several paces before he could rally or return a single blow for the shower that rained fiercely and unceasingly upon him. At length he caught the blade of his prisoner on the guard of his own, and arrested it. An instant they stood with their crossed weapons in the air, eying each other, and then simultaneously stepped back and resumed the fight. The pirates closed round and would have struck Fitzroy in the back, but the voice of Kyd restrained them.

"Not a blow, men! He is mine! I will tame him down ere long!"

For a few seconds longer they battled with terrible fury, neither having the advantage; now on one side of the deck, now on the other; now striding the body of the insensible Edwin, now fighting together in the waste, retreating and advancing alternately. At length the bucanier began to gain an advantage over his less athletic antagonist; he pushed him hard, and, step by step, compelled him to retreat towards the stern.

Finally, by a strong and sudden stroke, he s.h.i.+vered his sword to his hand and left him defenceless. The blow with which he was about to follow up his advantage was arrested in its descent, and, turning away with a gesture of triumph, he said, as the other, with his arms folded, stood pa.s.sive to receive the blow,

"'Tis enough for me that I have worsted thee! I have struck my game, so now let the pack worry him! Set upon him, men, and cut him down; he is yours!" he cried, with savage ferocity, pointing to the young officer.

The pirates, with a yell of joy, rushed aft like a pack of wolves and leaped upon him. With the strength and skill of desperation, he wrested the cutla.s.s from the first who reached him, and, springing backward upon the taffrail, defended himself a few seconds against the fearful odds.

But at length, yielding to superior numbers, he cast his sword into the air, and, leaping over the stern, amid the yells of the pirates and the firing of pistols, sunk from their sight.

Kyd cast a glance into the dark wave, and, after a few seconds' survey, said half aloud,

"He is no more! Henceforward I am sole Lord of Lester!"

These last words gave the clew to his strange and vindictive thirst for the death of his victim, and was a key to his otherwise unaccountable bloodthirstiness. "Ho! there, villains! why do you gaze upon the water?

Make sail on the brig! Man the braces all! Helm hard up! There she yields! Now she falls off. Steady! belay all!"

The after sails swung back to their original position as the vessel obeyed her helm; and at first with scarcely perceptible motion, but gathering momentum as she moved, she parted the moonlit waves before her, and went careering over the sparkling seas in the direction of New-York.