A GAUDY PICTURE IN A DARK FRAME.
The common sort of pirates had their dwelling both in the Cells, and in
a system of caves, in part natural, in part excavated out of the cliff,
on the further shore of the island.
The Doctor had both a cell and a cave, sometimes taking up his abode in
one, sometimes in the other. Adjacent to his cell, was his laboratory,
which was described sufficiently by the Englishman in his narrative.
As concerning the Caves, I was never in them, nor so much as set eyes
on them in all my sojourn on the island; being kept pretty busy from
day to day with Ambrose in the Cloisters. On this account, also, I can
tell you nothing of the ship-building which went on at the other side
of the island. But, as that topping pirate told us, they built the ship
on the pattern of the _Tiger_; wherein doth appear the main of the
Doctor’s intent in enticing us to the island. And what we overheard him
say at the volcan, as to the hatred he had for some nation, and his
search for a combustible, may hint us he designed to cruise upon that
nation, and with that combustible (when it was found), to destroy it.
Further, as I surmise, that nation was none other than England.
But leaving this in the midst, I continue my relation.
Looking down from the cliff, then, on the morning after the destruction
of the four ships, as I wended with Ambrose to the Cloisters, I spied
the pirate ship lying at an anchor close in; and her longboat, heavy
laden, was being rowed to the shore, to a point where some six or seven
pirates stood ready to unlade her. But of the shipwracks there was
never a trace.
Returning at midday, we fell in on the cliff with Surgeon Burke. He
stood in converse with the surgeon of the pirate ship, and introduced
me to him. I, in return, introduced Ambrose: we might have been at a
country ball, there was such a ducking and bowing and doffing of hats!
When the last “Your servant, sir” had been spoken, I asked the pirate
surgeon whether his voyage had prospered. He answered grimly that they
had gotten more blood than purchase; whereupon Burke clapt him on the
shoulder for a “jolly leg and joint-carver for Jack Shark.”
“But come, Frank,” says Burke, turning to me and crooking his arm in
mine, “come you for a jaunt with me. It’s long since we had sweet
converse, you and I; and Mr. Ambrose, I’ll warrant, will not be hard
hearted enough to withhold ye!”
“Nay,” says Ambrose, “you may take your jaunt for me.”
“Give me leave,” hereupon thrust in the pirate, and would have taken
my other arm; but I stepped on one side and put him off: whereupon he
laid hold on Burke instead.
Now, it was evident that Burke was willing to converse me in private,
and wanted none of the other; yet he was so nice and genial by nature,
that to tell the man plainly so, he would not, but must be still
mincing the matter, throwing out one glancing hint or another, which
upon the tough hide of the pirate proved but glancing indeed.
But I, who could not away with such trifling, put a period to it
presently.
“Mr. Harper,” says I (for such was the pirate’s name), “_Two are
company, three are none._ ’Tis an old saying.”
He stared at me; then he flared up.
“What mean you by that, you prating fool?” cried he.
“I mean,” quoth I, “since you’re so dull, that your room is better than
your company.”
On that he drew his hanger and made a pass on me; but I, too, could
sail on that course: not for nothing had I wrought at Clayton Manor,
and learnt to hold a foil under one of the cunningest sworders of
Italy. I stepped swiftly aside, and drew my rapier; and, as sword and
pirate came blundering by me, I caught the one a tricksy turn beneath
the haft, so that it sped hurtling in the air, and gave the other so
shrewd a taste of rapier-point as set him howling.
He recovered himself; and, firing off a volley of threats and
imprecations at me, turned furiously, and cast about for his hanger.
It was fallen, however, into a cane-brake.... We left him to fish it
out as best he could, and parted from him, not without laughter. I
doubt not, he wished he had his pistols.
“’Twas jolly sport,” cried I, giving him a parting shot. “Another day
we’ll to’t again!”
And Burke, who had got over his queasiness, added:
“As good as quoits, i’ faith!” and bent double with a laughter-fit.
Indeed, we were gotten quite out of sight of the pirate ere Burke
ceased to make merry over him. Burke was ever inclined to hilarity; but
never, methought, so high as this. As we swung along arm in arm, and
taking no heed of the way, he began to tell me many a merry tale and
many a jolly jest. But sure his jollity was a malignant jollity, an
elfin intoxication....
The island was most witchingly beautiful, the woodland being a harmony
of green and gold, a chequer-work of mellow light and flashing arcs;
whilst golden shadows waved, and jewelled motes danced in the shade of
the bowering trees.
Of all the merry japes that Burke told me then, but one remains in my
memory, like a gaudy picture in a dark frame. It was the last jest he
was to make in this world.
“Did ever I tell you, Frank,” said he, “of old John Baluster and the
fun we had with him when I was a boy? No? Well, this Baluster, you
must know, was a miserly flint of a man, and withal as guzzling and
greedy as a cardinal. He contrived to stuff his paunch, and husband his
moneybags, by quartering himself upon his acquaintances--friends he had
none; and kept flitting from one easy-going soul to another of such as
would suffer him.
“Of these was my father; a country doctor he, but one more busied with
his garden, his plum trees, his dahlias, his roses, than with the sick,
of which (to speak sooth), he dealt with but a few, and of that few
(dear man), killed as many as he cured.
“Well, on a day when Baluster was thus battening upon us, having
already stayed above a month, my brother Dirk and I resolved, by fair
means or foul, to fire him out from thence.
“We stole into the parlour, where ’twas his custom of an afternoon to
snore off the surfeits of his midday meal. There of a surety lay John,
a tunbelly of a man, a weary burden for my mother’s dainty settee. His
bald pate was covered about with a crimson scarf (Lord! I can see him
now); his vast mouth sagged open like a cod’s, the horrible sound that
issued therefrom frighted off the flies.
“For a space we stood, Dirk and I, looking on him; then stole up; and,
betwixt those cavernous jaws, each, one after t’other, did empty a
black draught!
“We did this thing again on the next day; and on the next we gave him
the equal of three black draughts!
“A change came over John Baluster. He lost great part of his
equanimity. He became a trouble to my father: followed him about, a
consulting importunity. My father administered unto him many various
drugs; my father bled him. Meanwhile, by some device or other contrived
by Dirk and me, he never wanted for his black draughts. He had tendance
enough!
“At last he took a notion that some one of the servants was poisoning
him, had his trunk packed the self-same day, and departed.”
Burke ended with loud laughter, in which, I joined; for he had a droll,
dry manner of telling a tale. Also I had contracted this while much of
his outrageous jollity. Hereafter, as though spent with such laughter,
we fell silent.
But, it seemed to me, that upon the woods, also, a silence fell, and a
shadow and a fear. I looked up; but the sky was deep blue, and no cloud
obscured the sun.
Suddenly we came to a stop. There had come a sound of singing in the
woods, and the voice that sang was that unearthly, magical high treble!
And thus it was:
The whole heart is sick,
And the whole life is weary:
There rides an island in the central sea.
Lord of the island,
Lo! the Magician;
He knows the secret,
He hath the key.
“What is it?” cried Burke. “Where is it?”
Hereupon he set off running in the direction whence the singing had
appeared to come. I followed; but I run lurching to this side and that
like a drunken man.
We came within a thick wood. Suddenly I, who had taken no thought of
the way hitherto, espied close at hand a curious triad of palm trees
which I remembered to have seen before.
I thought swiftly as I went, asking myself where I had seen those
trees, and the answer was borne in upon my mind with a gush of fear:
I remarked them in my second passing with Ambrose through the second
wood, and they stood in that region of the wood which he had warned me
against venturing into!
I hallooed to Burke, who was gotten some way in advance of me. “Come
back!” cried I, “Come back!”
But too late!
For, having found his way obstructed by a sort of hedge, or clump, of
mangrove roots, he had leapt over it; and his voice came to me in a
note of fear.
“Help!” cried he, “I sink! Climb the hedge.... Nay, cut a stick and
hold it forth to me. Haste! Haste!”
I spied a strong sapling, whipped out my knife, and cut it through.
With this in my hand, I mounted to a fork in the hedge, and looked over.
There lay a tract of flat ground, all grown over with shimmering green
and yellow moss and mottled with lichen and fungi, which stretched away
to tall reeds, and thence to woods. A mist hung over it, and a cloud of
buzzing insects. On the marge stood Burke sunk to his thighs in ooze,
and sinking still. His face, as he turned it towards me, was drawn and
grey, and moist with the sweat of fear.
Staying myself upon the fork, I held the sapling forth to him.
He clutched it, and I pulled away; but, though I used my utmost
endeavours, straining to the last bent, I could not hale him out: the
morass held him like a live thing.
Indeed, my efforts did but hasten his fate; for, when, my strength
being spent, I desisted, it began to suck him in faster than before. At
length I yielded the attempt.
Thereupon Burke bethought him to cast himself flat, that his body might
offer the greater obstruction to the swamp; but it was too late: he was
sunk too deep.
At last he ceased to struggle, and yielded himself for lost; and,
conquering his terror as well as he could, be entrusted to me certain
charges in respect of his wife and child, to enact if ever I should
return to England. He died bravely, committing his spirit unto God.
But this dreadful passage wrought a strange effect in me. It filled me
full of anger against Doctor Copicus and all his works. As I gazed upon
the morass, which lay all shimmering and steaming in the sun-glare, I
swore that I would bring the man to the bar of justice and judgment.
I stood there in the dank wood, in the dismal shade of the mangrove
trees, and I raged--I, a weak, futile lad--against the man whose might
was like a strong tower. And suddenly, as though deriding me, the
voice of the volcan roared in thunder....
It came into my mind that the volcan was a demoniac creature of the
Doctor enforcing and bodying forth his power; and, on the thought, I
shook my clenched fist towards the place where it stood concealed.
But, ah, if I had but _known_!
* * * * *
It was becoming late; so I turned, and set off, wending slowly and
heavily, to the Cells.
As I came forth from the wood, I spied divers of our men gathered
together in talk, lying sprawling upon the cliff; and, coasting over to
them, I sat down in the midst, and began to question them upon their
lot in the island, and how it liked them. For I was willing to learn
whether there might be any possibility of banding them together in a
venture against the Doctor.
It appeared, however, that they were all well content with the new
state of things, and to consort with the pirates.
Nay, they looked eagerly forward to go out on the account (as the
saying is), and to take part in many a brave carouse at Caraccas or at
Port Royal.