DARKNESS AND THE RIVER.
The hunt and its incidents were three days old.
Johnnie Morgan had been to Newnham, and had spent a whole afternoon in
Dorothy's company. Not once had she snubbed him or even contradicted
him. Johnnie was home again, quietly happy. There was a battle of wit
and song fixed for the night at the local tavern; several "jolly dogs"
had waylaid the young farmer and tried to drag him off for an evening's
revelry, but he would have none of it. The sun was going down over the
hills, and Johnnie sat in his parlour and watched it. His chair was
tilted back against the heavy table, and his feet were on the
window-ledge half shrouded in flowers. He stared at the rosy sky and
dreamed dreams of the same colour.
Johnnie heard quick footsteps coming up to the porch, and immediately
afterwards there was a lusty banging at the door.
"Plague take 'em!" exclaimed the contemplative youth; "I'll not go."
A little, dark-haired maiden, who, with her mother, formed the whole of
the farmer's domestic establishment, came into the room.
"The admiral's man would speak with you, master," she said.
Johnnie's feet were on the floor in an instant. "Show him in," he
cried.
A weather-beaten Devon man, sailor to his finger-tips, rolled into the
room. The two men gripped hands.
"At last?" asked Johnnie in a low tone.
"At last!" was the reply. "Gatcombe jetty at nightfall, and well
armed."
"I'll be there."
Without further words the messenger turned about and went elsewhere on
his errand. Morgan at once got out his sword, put on a thick leathern
doublet and boots reaching to his thighs. Then, well knowing that he
might be setting out on an all-night expedition, he proceeded to eat a
hasty but hearty supper.
At the appointed time he stood with about a dozen others on the
river-bank. The tide was about at half-flow and running strongly;
moreover, a breeze was coming up behind it from the south-west. There
was no moon, clouds were packing, and there was every sign of a
pitch-dark night. The admiral's roomy boat, with its mast stepped and
sail ready for hoisting, bobbed up and down on the water. Drake
himself was there to receive his men.
"A rare night on the river for fish poachers, smugglers, and other
nefarious rascals," said he.
"True, admiral," answered a Gatcombe pilot; "and I trow we shall find
it trying work looking for black men on a black night."
"Well spoken, master pilot; but if thou canst keep our lives free of
danger from shoal and sandbank, we'll e'en try to do the rest."
"I'll warrant ye safe passage anywhere 'twixt Chepstow and Gloucester,
Sir Francis."
"I ask no more.--Now, gentlemen, aboard!"
In silence the chosen band seated themselves. "Take the tiller, pilot;
I myself will attend to the sail. Do thou, Master Morgan, seat thyself
in the bow and maintain a sharp lookout; thine eyes are younger than
mine, and more used to the lights of the river." The anchor was lifted
in, and immediately the boat swung round into the path of the racing
waters. "Make for the other side," ordered Drake, "and lay to in the
backwater under the bank."
A few deft strokes of the oars carried the boat into the rush of the
tide; for an instant it hung wavering, and then shot off like an arrow
up and across the roaring river. Then followed a few minutes of
intense excitement. The little craft rocked and swayed, and rose and
fell, tossed like a cork on the turbid waters. Morgan could scarcely
see a hand's-breadth before him. The rudder creaked as the pilot moved
it to and fro, and only his voice was heard as, very softly, he ordered
one oarsman after another to pull or back-water in order to hold the
course safely between the shallows and avoid the shifting sands, whose
presence, in the darkness, no eye could descry. Morgan was kneeling in
the bow, a stout pole in his hands; only once was he called upon to use
it, when the nose of the boat went crunching along the slope of a
sandbank for a few yards. At length came the welcome order, "Easy
all!" A minute later the boat was riding on an even keel under the
bank, rising and falling in rhythm with the suck and lap of the water
as it devoured the soft, red-brown walls that shut it in. The heads of
the men were on a level with the strip of turf that formed the land's
margin. Fifty yards back was the outer edge of a belt of dark wood
that covered the flat lands and swept up the sides of the hills that
lay off ten or twelve miles to the east. Against such a background
nothing would be visible in the darkness. Across on the Gatcombe side
were the steep sandstone cliffs, storm-washed and clean, and topped
with primeval forest.
"Master Morgan," said Drake, "how far out in the stream must we lie in
order that thou mayest distinguish the sail or hull of a ten-ton craft
against the cliff face?"
"I can do it from here, Sir Francis. The channel is about mid-stream;
and now that mine eyes are got accustomed to the dull tinge of the
water, I can see the fleck and scum on the farther sand-ridge."
"Good! thou art our watch."
The admiral turned to the rest of his party. "Gentlemen," said he, "in
one sense we work in the dark to-night; our foes have willed it so. Ye
have come out on this errand at my bidding, asking no questions, and
so, in a way, ye are groping in a double darkness. 'Tis not my way to
have men follow me blindly if I can open their eyes. I want those at
my back to see; by so doing they will strike the surer. Now, tidings
have reached me that those Spanish rascals whom ye wot of are about to
bring their plot to a head. Tomorrow night they hope to see the forest
in flames." The men stirred uneasily; Drake went on: "We have had a
long drought, and master-pilot will tell ye that there are strong winds
coming up from the sou'-west. For to-night and to-morrow they may be
dry; after that we may expect rain. Some of ye will know the _Luath_
that trades between Gloucester and Waterford in Ireland. The Irish are
not loyal to our Queen--that ye also know. The _Luath_ came up to
Chepstow on the tide this morning, and no one, unless in the secret of
these Spanish villains, would dream that she carried ought but honest
cargo. Her hull, gentlemen, hides four rascal priests and other
desperate fellows to the full total of half a score, and much of her
merchandise is tar, oils and resin, and bales of tow. The boat should
wait off Chepstow for the tide that runs to-morrow forenoon before
attempting the dangerous run onwards to Gloucester. She really leaves
to-night. Just above Westbury she hath planned an anchorage, and there
Master Windybank of Dean Tower--whom, God helping me, I will hang over
his own gateway before another sunset--will meet them with pack-horses
wherewith to convey the combustibles to their appointed places. 'Tis
our business to capture the _Luath_. The good knight Sir Walter
Raleigh and the gallant Mayor of Newnham will see to Master Windybank
and the black-garbed villains that consort with him. That is our
mission; it remains for us to bring about a sure accomplishment."
"'Tis as good as done, admiral," murmured the men.
"There'll be a little tough fighting first," was the quiet reply.
"Capture means death to these fellows. They are brave, and will prefer
to die fighting."
The river still rose; the tide was nearing full flood, and the wind
steadily increased. Soon there was water of a navigable depth above
every sandbank, and there was no longer a swirl to indicate a shallow.
Morgan had seen nothing; the men were getting cramped and impatient.
There was now no need for the _Luath_ to pick her way; she might race
up anywhere between the wide banks: her chances of detection were
greatly lessened.
The pilot spoke. "Saving your presence, admiral, but this Irish
skipper is a deep dog. He should have passed ere now if he intends to
do his business at Westbury and then make Gloucester on this tide. He
suspects us."
"How so, pilot?"
"He hath not ventured to navigate the usual channels, which could be
watched."
"He'll have no pilot; don't forget that."
"True; nevertheless he is behaving right cunningly."
"I never expected him to behave foolishly."
"'Sh!" Morgan's voice broke in. There was tense silence in a moment.
All eyes were staring across the river. "Row out!" cried Johnnie;
"they won't hear us in this wind."
After about a dozen full strokes the command came from the bow, "Cease
rowing and keep her steady a moment!"
Another palpitating wait; then an excited cry from more than one voice,
"There she goes!" And the _Luath_, every thread of her brown sail
taut, swept by like a greyhound, wind and wave hurrying her upstream.
Round swung the admiral's boat, up went the sail, and in a moment she
was bowling along in the wake of the foe. "Put your backs into it,
lads," cried Drake; "we must have her before she gets too far up the
river, else will the longshore rascals get warning."
The stout foresters and fishers needed no incentive; they were rowing
as well as ever Jason's Argonauts rowed, and a greater than Jason was
directing them.
The yellow waters rushed and swirled and bubbled; objects drifting up
on the tide were left hopelessly behind. But the stout little Irish
boat had got under good headway, and for a while she kept it, looming
before them a blacker patch in a black night.