"No, sor," said Dinny, one morning, "the captain thought that as two of
'em had got their doses there ought to be no more killing. Faix, he
behaved like a lion when he came up that day. There was Black Mazzard
and five-and-twenty more of 'em as had been over-persuaded by him, all
shut up with plenty of firearms in the powder magazine. `Don't go nigh
'em--it's madness,' says the captain; but he goes into his place and
comes out again with a couple of pishtles shtuck in his belt, and his
best sword on--the one wid an edge as you could show to your beard and
it would all come off at wanst, knowing as it was no use to make a
foight of it again' such a blade, as a strong beard will against a bad
rashier. And then he sings out: `Now, my lads, who's for me?'"
"And they all rushed to his aid!" said Humphrey.
"Well, you see, sor," said Dinny, "it wasn't quite a rush. Lads don't
go rushing into a powdher-magazine when there's an ugly black divil
aside as swears if annybody comes anigh, he'll blow the whole place up
into smithereens."
"They never let him go alone?" cried Humphrey.
"Well, no, sor," said Dinny; "it wasn't exackly alone, bekase old Bart
run up, and then two more walked up, and another one wint up to him in a
slow crawl that made me want to take him by the scruff o' the neck and
the sate of his breeches, and pitch him down into that great hole
yander, where that blagguard was drowned. `Oh, ye cowardly cur!' I
says to him, quite red-hot like, sor--`Oh, ye cowardly cur! I says, you
as was always boasting and bragging about and playing at Hector an'
Archillus, and bouncing as if ye were a big ancient foighting man, and
ye goo crawling up to yer captain that way!' And then he whispers to me
confidential-like, he does: `Och, Dinny, owld lad!' he says, `it isn't
the foighting I mind; but I'm thinking of my poor mother,' he says.
`Ah, get out, ye coward!' I says; `ye're thinking of yerself.' `Divil
a bit!' he says; `it's the powdher I'm thinking of. I'd foight anny
man, or anny two men in the camp; but I can't fale to care about an
encounter wid tin tons o' divil's dust!' Oh, I did give it him, sor!"
"You had better have gone yourself than stood preaching to another,"
said Humphrey, indignantly.
"That's jist what I said to meself, sor," cried Dinny; "but the baste
wouldn't listen. `Och!' he says, `what would my mother's falings be if
she was to hear that instead of dying properly of a broken head she
heard that I was blown all into smithereens, widout a dacent-sized pace
left for the praste to say a blessing over?' `Ah, Dinny Kelly!' I
says, `that's a mane dirthy excuse, because ye're afraid; for the divil
a bit wid your mother care what became of such an ill-looking, black
buccaneer of a blagguard as ye are!'"
"Why, you're talking about yourself!" cried Humphrey.
"For sartin, sir. Sure, there isn't another boy in the whole crew that
I dare to spake to in such an onrespectful way."
"Why, Dinny, man, you did go?"
"Yes, sor, I wint, but in a way that I'm quite ashamed of. I didn't
think I was such a coward. But there! I niver turned back from a
shtick in me loife, and I faced the powdher afther all; but oh, it's
ashamed of meself intirely I am! A Kelly wouldn't have felt like that
if it hadn't been for the climate. It's the hot weather takes it out of
ye, sor. Why I felt over that job as a man couldn't fale in me own
counthry."
"Well, go on."
"That's what I did, sor. I stuck close to the captain's tail as he wint
sthraight up to the door--ye know the door, sor, where the owld
gintleman's sitting over the porch, looking down at ye wid a plisant
smile of his own."
"Yes, yes, I know. Go on."
"Well, sor, I did go on; and there stood Black Mazzard wid the two
biggest pishtols we have on the primises, wan in each hand and the other
shtuck in his belt. `Kim another shtep,' he says, `and I'll blow the
place about your heads!' Och, and I looked up thin to ask a blessing on
meself before I wint up in such a hurry that I hadn't time to confess;
and bedad there was the owld gintleman expanding his mouth into the
widest grin I iver saw in me life!"
"And the Commodore, what did he do?" cried Humphrey, impatiently.
"What did he do?"
"Yes--draw his men off?"
"Faix, he drew Black Mazzard's blood off, for he wint shtraight at him,
knocking one pishtol up in the air wid his hand as he did so. I niver
saw annything so nate in me life, sor. I told ye he'd got his best
sword on--the sharp one."
"Yes, yes!"
"Well, sor, he seemed just to lift it up and howld it forninst him, as
I'm howlding this knife--so; and it wint right through Black Mazzard;
just bechuckst his shoulder and his neck; and as he pulls it out he
takes him by the collar and drags him down upon his knees.
"`Come out, ye mad-brained idiots!' he shouts at the lads inside--`come
out, or I'll fire the powdher meself!'
"Bedad, sor, ye might have heard a pin dhrop if there'd bin wan there,
but there wasn't; and we heard Black Mazzard's pishtol dhrop instead--
the big one being on the pavemint, where it went off bang and shot a
corner off a big shtone. But nobody came from inside the magazine, and
the owld gintleman grinned more and more, and seemed to rowl his oies;
and I belave he wanted to hear the owld place go up. And there you
could hear thim inside buzzing about like my mother's bees in the sthraw
hive, when ye give it a larrup on the top wid a shtick."
Dinny gave his head a nod, and went on. "That roused up the Captain,
and he roars out--`Here, Dinny--Dick--Bart,' he says, `go in and fetch
out these idiots.' And I shpat in me fist, and ran in wid the other
two. `Now, Dinny, my lad,' I says to meself, `if ye're blown up it'll
be bad for ye, but ye'll be blown up towards heaven, and that's a dale
better than being blown down.' And avore I knew where I was, I was
right in among the lads, about foive-and-twenty of them; and then talk
about a foight, sor! Ah, musha, it was awful!"
"Did they make such a desperate defence!"
"Deshperate, sor! Oh, that don't describe it! Bedad, I nivver saw
anything like it in me loife!"
"Were there many killed? Were you wounded!"
"Killed! Wounded! Did ye iver see a flock o' sheep when a big dog goes
at 'em, sor?"
"Often, in Devon."
"Ah, then it's the same as it would be in Oireland. Bedad, sor, the
name of the captain, and seeing Black Mazzard tuk, was enough. They all
walked out and pitched their swords and pishtols down, in a hape before
the shkipper and then stands in a row like sodgers; sure and it's meself
that had some of the drilling of them.
"`Come here, Bart,' says the shkipper then; and as Bart goes up, the
captain gives Black Mazzard a shove like and throws him down. `Here,'
he says, `put your foot on this dog's throat.' Bart had it there before
ye knew where ye were, and thin if the skipper didn't go right up to the
row of min and walks slowly along 'em, looking 'em wan by wan in the
face wid his dark oi, sor. And he made 'em turn white and shiver, he
did, sor, till he'd looked 'em all down, and then he shteps out, little
shtiff fellow as he is, and he says:
"`You fools, to be led away by a thing like that! How shall I punish
'em, Dinny?' he says, turning to me.
"`Sure, captain,' I says, `they are all shtanding nate and handy, and if
ye give me word, I'll shtand at wan ind and send a bullet through the
lot, and there'll be no waste.'
"`Pah!' he says, `I don't make war on the lads who've fought by my side.
Go back to your quarthers,' he says, `and if ye turn again me once more
I'll give ye such a punishment as ye disarve. You shall have your
Captain Mazzard.'
"`D'ye hear that, ye divils?' I says, for I couldn't stop meself, sor;
and they give three cheers for the captain and wint off to quarthers;
and that was all."
"But Mazzard--what of him!"
"Oh, he's putt away in as nice and plisant a place as a gintleman could
wish to have, sor. It's cool, and undherground, and the only way to it
is down through a hole in a stone like Father O'Grady's well, and Bart
fades him wid food at the ind of a long shtick. He's safe enough now.
But sure and the best thing for everyone would be for him to doi by
accident through Bart forgetting to take him his mate."
"Starve him to death?" cried Humphrey.
"Faix, no, not a bit of it, sor. He's a bad one anny way, and if he
died like a sparrow in a cage, sure it would be a blessing for all of
us."
"And the widow Greenheys, Dinny!"
"Whisht! be aisy, sor, wid a lady's name."
"Dinny," cried Humphrey sternly, "how long are you going to play fast
and loose with me!"
"`An' is it me ye mane?' Sure I couldn't do it, sor."
"Dinny, now is the time to escape, now that Mistress Greenheys is safe
from the persecution of that scoundrel."
"Oh, whisht, sor! whisht! Sure and I've grown shtrong again, and ye
want to timpt me from the ways of vartue."
"Nonsense, man! Your plan--the explosion!"
"Oh, faix! It was only me fun. I couldn't do such a thing."
"Do you want that man to escape or be set free, and lay claim again to
that poor little woman?"
"Oh, the poor little crathur! no."
"Then help me to escape."
"Sure and ye're good friends wid the shkipper and don't want to go,
sor."
"I must and will escape, Dinny, and you shall help me for Mistress
Greenheys' sake."
"Ah, and it's touching me on me soft place ye are," said Dinny
pitifully.
"For her sake, I tell you, and you shall be happy with her at home."
"Sure an' I haven't got an `at home,'" said Dinny.
"Then, as I promised you, I'll make you one. Come, save her from that
scoundrel."
"Faix, an' he is a blagguard anny way."
"Who is?" said a deep voice.
"Yerself for wan," said Dinny. "Sure, and Black Mazzard another; and
I'm telling the captain here that he needn't grumble and call himself a
prishner, for he's rowling in comfort; while as to Black Mazzard, ah, he
should see his cell!"
Bart scowled and stopped till Dinny had finished and gone, leaving the
prisoner alone with his thoughts, which were of liberty.