It was a still, sultry afternoon, and as I lay on my oars half-a-mile
from shore I made up my mind I had little help to look for from the
breezes; nor, as the tide was then running, could I afford to drift. I
must row steadily, unless I wished to find myself out in the open,
without supplies, before nightfall. However, that was no great
hardship, and after my idle week in the cave I was glad enough (had my
stomach only been a little less empty!) of a little hard work.
Whether the two men whose boat I had borrowed discovered their loss
sooner or later I do not know to this day. But they might have left me
a handier craft. I knew her of yore, an old Rathmullan tub, useful
enough to ferry market women across to Inch, but ill-suited for a single
rower on a windless sea.
For all that I was glad enough to have her, and feel myself once more my
own master.
I would fain have put her head to Knockowen had I dared. But there I
knew I could not look for safety. His honour, no doubt thankful to be
allowed to consider me dead, would resent my return, and a way would
soon be had of handing me over to the League, who by this time were in
hue and cry to have my life. Martin, fool as he was, could be trusted
to see to that business, while his honour received the compliments of
his brother magistrates on his loyalty and sacrifices.
No; if I landed anywhere it must be at Kilgorman, where I should hardly
be looked for, or if I was, should possibly pass for one of the ghosts
of the place.
It was a dark night, without even a moon, before the distant light of
Knockowen far up the lough showed me I must be coming within reach of my
destination. A little breeze was now coming in from the open, which
would, did I only dare to take it, carry me to my little lady's side in
less than an hour. Alas, it was not for me! and I pulled toilfully on.
It was not without some groping that at last I found the little creek
into which the _Cigale_ was wont to creep on her secret visits; and here
at last, worn-out with fatigue and hunger, and still more with care, I
ran my boat and landed.
What to do next I hardly knew. Food was what I needed most; after that,
sleep; and after that, safety. It seemed as if I was to sup off the
last, which was poor comfort to an empty stomach. I felt my way as
quietly as I could up the track which led from the creek, and found
myself presently on the cliff above, close to my dear mother's grave. I
might as well sleep here as anywhere else, and when they found me dead
in the morning they would not have far to carry me.
Was I turning coward all of a sudden--I, who had looked down the barrel
of a gun a week ago and not quailed? The gleam of the white cross on
the Gormans' tomb made me start and shiver. I seemed to hear footsteps
in the long grass, and detect phantom lights away where the house was.
Presently I felt so sure that I heard steps that I could stay where I
was no longer, and hurried back by the way I had come towards the boat.
Then gathering myself angrily together, and equally sure I had heard
amiss, I turned back again and marched boldly up towards Kilgorman
House.
Whether it was desperation or some inward calling, I know not, but my
courage rose the nearer I came. What had I to fear? What worse could
happen to me in the house of my birth than out here on the pitiless
hillside?
Even when I found the avenue-gate locked and barred I did not repent.
It was easily climbed.
Soon I came under the grim walls, and, as if to greet me, a wandering
ray of the moon came out and fell on the window above the hall-door. It
even surprised me how little fear I felt as I now hauled myself up by
the creepers and clambered on to the porch. But here my triumph reached
its limit.
The window this time was closely barred. His honour had no doubt
guessed how, on my former visits, I had found entrance, and had taken
this means to thwart my next. No shaking or pulling was of any avail.
Kilgorman, by that way at least, was unassailable.
Yet I was not to be thwarted all at once. My courage, I confess, was a
little daunted as I clambered down to earth, and proceeded to feel my
way carefully round the house for some more likely entry. But entry
there was none. Every window and door was fast. The moonlight, which
swept fitfully over the stagnant swamp, struck only on sullen,
forbidding walls, and the breeze, now fast rising, moaned round the
eaves to a tune which sent a shudder through my vitals.
My courage seemed to die away with it. But I determined to make one
more round of the walls before I owned myself beaten. I tried the bar
of every window. One after another they resisted stiffly, till suddenly
I came on one (that below the room where I had found the strange relic
of my mother months ago) which yielded a little in my hand, and seemed
to invite me to test it again. The second time it gave more, and after
a while, being eaten through with rust, it broke off.
The bars on either side of it proved equally yielding, and though some
cost more trouble than others, I succeeded in about half-an-hour in
breaking away sufficient to effect an entrance. The window behind the
bars was easily forced, and once more I found myself standing inside
Kilgorman.
It would be a lie to say that I felt no fears. Indeed every step I took
along the dark passage helped to chill my blood, and long before I had
reached the door of the great kitchen I wished myself safe outside
again.
But shame, and the memory of that pathetic message from my dead mother,
held me to my purpose. And, as if to encourage me, the candle stood
where I had found it once before on the little ledge, and beside it, to
my astonishment, a small crust of bread. It must have stood there a
week, and was both stale and mouldy. But to my famishing taste it was a
repast for a king, and put a little new courage into me.
It surprised me to find the great apartment once again crowded with
arms, stacked all along the sides and laid in heaps on the centre of the
floor. What perplexed me was not so much the arms themselves as the
marvel how those that brought them entered and left the house.
But just now I had no time for such speculations. I was strung up to a
certain duty, and that I must perform, and leave speculation for later.
My mother's letter, if it meant anything, meant that I was to seek for
something below or behind the great hearth; and as I peered carefully
round it with my candle I could not help recalling the ghost which Tim
and I had both heard, years ago, advance to this very spot and there
halt.
Save the deep recess of the fireplace itself, there was no sign above or
below of any hiding-place. The flagstones at my feet were solid and
firm, and the bricks on either side showed neither gap nor crack. I
pushed the candle further in and stepped cautiously over the crumbled
embers into the hollow of the deep grate itself.
As I did so a blast from above extinguished the light, and at the same
moment a sound of footsteps fell on my ear, not this time from the outer
passage, but apparently from some passage on the other side of the wall
against which I crouched.
I felt round wildly with my hands for the opening by which I had
entered. Instead of that I found what felt like a step in the angle of
the wall, and above it another. An instinct of self-preservation
prompted me to clamber up here, and ensconce myself on a narrow ledge in
the chimney, some six feet above the level of the ground.
Here I waited with beating heart as the footsteps came nearer. I could
judge by the sound that they belonged not, like the last I had heard, to
a wandering woman, but to two men, advancing cautiously but with set
purpose, and exchanging words in whispers.
Presently, to my amazement, a ray of light shot through the blackness of
the recess below me, followed by a creaking noise as a part of the floor
of the hearth swung slowly upwards, and revealed to my view a dimly-lit,
rocky passage below, slanting downwards, and leading, as I could judge
by the hollow sound that came through it, towards the shore of the
lough.
I could now understand how it came that a house so closely barred and
bolted was yet so easily frequented. And, indeed, the whole mystery of
the smuggled arms became clear enough.
The two men who now clambered up, carrying a lantern, which illuminated
the whole of the recess, and (had they only thought of looking up) the
very ledge on which I sat, were sailors; and in one I recognised the
foreign-looking fellow who, years ago, had commanded the _Cigale_ and
attended my mother's wake. I knew from what I had overheard at his
honour's that, since my father had given himself up to the smuggling of
arms, and received charge of the _Cigale_, this worthy fellow had left,
that ship and devoted himself to the more perilous occupation of robbing
his Majesty's subjects indiscriminately on the high seas. His companion
was evidently, by his villainous looks, a desirable partner in the same
business.
"I told you so," said the latter, turning his lantern into the room.
"Guns enough for a regiment. Luck for us."
"We have room enough for the lot," growled the Frenchman in pretty plain
English. "Monsieur Gorman shall find that two can play at one game. He
smuggles the guns in in the _Cigale_, I smuggle them out in the _Arrow_.
_Parbleu_! we are quits."
And he laughed a loud laugh at his own jest. Then they proceeded to
count their booty, and while so engaged it seemed to me that I had
better escape before my position became more exposed, as it would be
sure to be as soon as the business of carrying the guns through the
recess began. So I took advantage of the darkness, when they were
engaged at the far end of the kitchen, to drop from my perch and slip
through the trap-door.
The peril of this movement only dawned on me when I found myself in the
narrow, rocky cave. If this secret passage were guarded at the other
end, as was most likely, by sentinels from the ship, what was to become
of me? However, there was no retreating now. So I groped my way
forward, down the ever-widening passage, till at last I found myself in
a great wide-mouthed cave, full of water, in the middle of which ran a
smooth causeway of stones, forming a kind of natural pier and landing-
place. The rocky ledges running out beyond on either side formed a
little harbour, in which, in the roughest weather, the water was fairly
calm; and a further tongue of rock beyond that, rising some thirty or
forty feet, and seeming to any one approaching it from without to be
part of the cliffs, offered a safe riding-place for a ship of moderate
draught.
As good luck would have it, the cave was empty. The _Arrow_ must have
come in after I had crossed the lough that evening. And the French
skipper and his mate had evidently left their crew to anchor and clear
the vessel in the roads while they reconnoitred the house.
I could see very little of the ship through the darkness, and, indeed,
was too busy making myself scarce to heed her.
Nor had I much time to spare. For almost before I had got round the
ledge and clambered partly up the cliff at the top of the cave mouth, I
heard a boat putting off and voices making for the little harbour.
After that, fatigue and hunger did their work with me, and despite the
peril of my position I fell asleep, and never woke till the sun was high
and hot in the heavens.
Then, when I looked out, I saw as pretty a little schooner as I had ever
set eyes on lying in the roads. I used to think it hard to beat the
_Cigale_ for looks, but the _Arrow_ was her superior in every way. She
was a bigger vessel, and armed at every port. Her lines were both light
and strong, and by the cut of her rigging I could fancy she had the
speed of a greyhound.
The sight of her set all my old sea-longing aflame. Pirate as she was,
it would be good, I thought, to be on her and face the open sea, far
away from my persecutors and enemies--away from Knockowen, and
Kilgorman, and--
Here I stopped short. Knockowen, next to the _Cigale_ where Tim was,
held what counted most to me of this world's good. Kilgorman held the
spirit of my dead mother, waiting to be relieved of its trouble. How
could I desert the one or the other and call myself a brave man?
What I could not decide, fate decided for me. The cave below me was
guarded by the pirate's men, who clattered their muskets on the stones
and kept a keen look-out on all sides for any chance intruder. To quit
my present perch would be certain death. So I lay and watched the boat
as she plied backwards and forwards with the guns, and wondered how soon
the task of loading would be done.
It went on all the day, and every hour I felt myself grow fainter and
more sick with hunger. For nearly two days, except last night's crust,
I had tasted nothing; and before that, sea-weed had been the chief
article of my diet. The scene presently seemed to swim before me, and
at last, what with the heat and famine, I fairly swooned away.
When I came to, two curious faces were bent over me, and my bed was no
longer the rocky cliff side, but the hard floor of a boat as it danced
over the waves.
"He looks a likely lad," said one voice.
"He's safer with us than ashore," said another. "I warrant he was put
there to spy on us."
"Come, lad," said the first speaker, shaking me not altogether roughly;
"we have you safe this time."
"'Deed, sir," said I, "as long as you give me some food you may do what
you like with me."
And with this I rolled over again and all grew dim. When I opened my
eyes next it was dark, and by the motion under me I guessed I was on the
ship. A lantern swung dimly overhead, and a loud snoring below me
showed me I was not alone in my bunk. What was of more interest just
then, a piece of a loaf and some salt meat stood within reach of where I
lay, and had evidently been put there for my use. You may guess if I
let them stand long.
This refreshment, with the sleep I had had, and a few drops of rum in
the tail of a bottle that stuck from my messmate's pocket, made a new
man of me. And I sank back to my rest with a sense of comfort I have
rarely known the like of since.
In the morning a rough hand roused me.
"Come, you have had enough coddling, my hearty. The captain wants you.
And, if you'll take my advice, you'll say your prayers before you go on
deck, as he'll likely drop you overboard."
This failed to frighten me, as it was meant to do; and I gathered myself
together and climbed the hatchway, feebly enough, I confess, but with
good cheer, and stood on the deck of the _Arrow_.
The coast of Donegal was clear over our stern, and a smart breeze from
the east filled our sails and sent us spanking through the water.
The skipper was sitting aft, pipe in mouth, and waiting for me. I
resolved to take the bold course and not wait to be spoken to.
"The top of the morning to you, captain," said I, saluting; "and it's
well you're looking since you were at my mother's wake."
He stared at me, and then seemed to understand.
"You--you are Gallagher's boy, then?"
"The same, captain," said I; "and I'm obliged to you for this day's
food."
"Gallagher was no friend of mine," said he; "but since he is dead, that
shall not be against you, if you sail with me."
"Dead!" I exclaimed. "Is my father dead?"
"The _Cigale_ went down off Foreland Head a month since."
"And Tim, my brother, was he drowned?"
"Likely enough, if he was aboard. Only two of the crew escaped.--So you
sail under my orders?"
"I have nothing else to do," said I.
"You may swing at the yard-arm, if you prefer it," said he.
"Thanking you all the same, I'll sail where I am," said I.
So, with a very heavy heart, I found myself one of the crew of the
_Arrow_.