THE MEETING ON THE SEA.
For another minute or more the San Antonio held on until she divined
the desperate purpose of her foe. Then, seeing that soon the carack’s
prow must crash into her frail side, she shifted her helm and came
round several points, so that in the end the Margaret ran, not into
her, but alongside of her, grinding against her planking, and shearing
away a great length of her bulwark. For a few seconds they hung
together thus, and, before the seas bore them apart, grapnels were
thrown from the Margaret whereof one forward got hold and brought them
bow to bow. Thus the end of the bowsprit of the Margaret projected over
the high deck of the San Antonio.
“Now for it,” said Peter. “Follow me, all.” And springing up, he ran to
the bowsprit and began to swarm along it.
It was a fearful task. One moment the great seas lifted him high into
the air, and the next down he came again till the massive spar crashed
on to the deck of the San Antonio with such a shock that he nearly flew
from it like a stone from a sling. Yet he hung on, and, biding his
chance, seized a broken stay-rope that dangled from the end of the
bowsprit like a lash from a whip, and began to slide down it. The gale
caught him and blew him to and fro; the vessel, pitching wildly, jerked
him into the air; the deck of the San Antonio rose up and receded like
a thing alive. It was near—not a dozen feet beneath him—and loosing his
hold he fell upon the forward tower without being hurt then, gaining
his feet, ran to the broken mast and flinging his left arm about it,
with the other drew his sword.
[Illustration: ]
The gale caught him and blew him to and fro
Next instant—how, he never knew—Castell was at his side, and after him
came two more men, but one of these rolled from the deck into the sea
and was lost. As he vanished, the chain of the grappling iron parted,
and the Margaret swung away from them, leaving those three alone in the
power of their foes, nor, do what she would, could she make fast again.
As yet, however, there were no Spaniards to be seen, for the reason
that none had dared to stand upon this high tower whereof the bulwarks
were all gone, while the bowsprit of the Margaret crashed down upon it
like a giant’s club, and, as she rolled, swept it with its point.
So there they stood, clinging to the mast and waiting for the end, for
now their friends were a hundred yards away, and they knew that their
case was desperate. A shower of arrows came, loosed from other parts of
the ship, and one of these struck the man with them through the throat,
so that he fell to the deck clasping at it, and presently rolled into
the sea also. Another pierced Castell through his right forearm,
causing his sword to drop and slide away from him. Peter seized the
arrow, snapped it in two, and drew it out; but Castell’s right arm was
now helpless, and with his left he could do no more than cling to the
broken mast.
“We have done our best, son,” he said, “and failed. Margaret will learn
that we would have saved her if we could, but we shall not meet her
here.”
Peter ground his teeth, and looked about him desperately, for he had no
words to say. What should he do? Leave Castell and rush for the waist
of the ship and so perish, or stay and die there? Nay, he would not be
butchered like a bird on a bough, he would fall fighting.
“Farewell,” he called through the gale. “God rest our souls!” Then,
waiting till the ship steadied herself, he ran aft, and reaching the
ladder that led to her tower, staggered down it to the waist of the
vessel, and at its foot halted, holding to the rail.
The scene before him was strange enough, for there, ranged round the
bulwarks, were the Spanish men, who watched him curiously, whilst a few
paces away, resting against the mast, stood d’Aguilar, who lifted his
hand, in which there was no weapon, and addressed him.
“Señor Brome,” he shouted, “do not move another step or you are a dead
man. Listen to me first, and then do what you will. Am I safe from your
sword while I speak?”
Peter nodded his head in assent, and d’Aguilar drew nearer, for even in
that more sheltered place it was hard to hear because of the howling of
the tempest.
“Señor,” he said to Peter, “you are a very brave man, and have done a
deed such as none of us have seen before; therefore, I wish to spare
you if I may. Also, I have worked you bitter wrong, driven to it by the
might of love and jealousy, for which reason also I wish to spare you.
To set upon you now would be but murder, and, whatever else I do, I
will not murder. First, let me ease your mind. Your lady and mine is
aboard here; but fear not, she has come and will come to no harm from
me, or from any man while I live. If for no other reason, I do not
desire to affront one who, I hope, will be my wife by her own free
will, and whom I have brought to Spain that she might not make this
impossible by becoming yours. Señor, believe me, I would no more force
a woman’s will than I would do murder on her lover.”
“What did you, then, when you snatched her from her home by some foul
trick?” asked Peter fiercely.
“Señor, I did wrong to her and all of you, for which I would make
amends.”
“What amends? Will you give her back to me?”
“No, that I cannot do, even if she should wish it, of which I am not
sure; no—never while I live.”
“Bring her forth, and let us hear whether she wishes it or no,” shouted
Peter, hoping that his words would reach Margaret.
But d’Aguilar only smiled and shook his head, then went on:
“That I cannot either, for it would give her pain. Still, Señor, I will
repay the heavy debt that I owe to you, and to you also, Señor.” And he
bowed towards Castell who, unseen by Peter, had crept down the ladder,
and now stood behind him staring at d’Aguilar with cold rage and
indignation. “You have wrought us much damage, have you not? hunting us
across the seas, and killing sundry of us with your arrows, and now you
have striven to board our ship and put us to the sword, a design in
which God has frustrated you. Therefore your lives are justly forfeit,
and none would blame us if we slew you. Yet I spare you both. If it is
possible I will put you back aboard the Margaret, and if it is not
possible you shall be set free ashore to go unmolested whither you
will. Thus I will wipe out my debt and be free of all reproach.”
“Do you take me for such a man as yourself?” asked Peter, with a bitter
laugh. “I do not leave this ship alive unless my affianced wife,
Mistress Margaret, goes with me.”
“Then, Señor Brome, I fear that you will leave it dead, as indeed we
may all of us, unless we make land soon, for the vessel is filling fast
with water. Still, knowing your metal, I looked for some such words
from you, and am prepared with another offer which I am sure you will
not refuse. Señor, our swords are much of the same length, shall we
measure them against each other? I am a grandee of Spain, the Marquis
of Morella, and it will, therefore, be no dishonour for you to fight
with me.”
“I am not so sure,” said Peter, “for I am more than that—an honest man
of England, who never practised woman-stealing. Still, I will fight you
gladly, at sea or on shore, wherever and whenever we meet, till one or
both are dead. But what is the stake, and how do I know that some of
these,” and he pointed to the crew, who were listening intently, “will
not stab me from behind?”
“Señor, I have told you that I do not murder, and that would be the
foulest murder. As for the stake, it is Margaret to the victor. If you
kill me, on behalf of all my company, I swear by our Saviour’s Blood
that you shall depart with her and her father unharmed, and if I kill
you, then you both shall swear that she shall be left with me, and no
suit or question raised but to her woman I give liberty, who have seen
more than enough of her.”
“Nay,” broke in Castell, speaking for the first time, “I demand the
right to fight with you also when my arm is healed.”
“I refuse it,” answered d’Aguilar haughtily. “I cannot lift my sword
against an old man who is the father of the maid who shall be my wife,
and, moreover, a merchant and a Jew. Nay, answer me not, lest all these
should remember your ill words. I will be generous, and leave you out
of the oath. Do your worst against me, Master Castell, and then leave
me to do my worst against you. Señor Brome, the light grows bad, and
the water gains upon us. Say, are you ready?”
Peter nodded his head, and they stepped forward.
“One more word,” said d’Aguilar, dropping his sword-point. “My friends,
you have heard our compact. Do you swear to abide by it, and, if I
fall, to set these two men and the two ladies free on their own ship or
on the land, for the honour of chivalry and of Spain?”
The captain of the San Antonio and his lieutenants answered that they
swore on behalf of all the crew.
“You hear, Señor Brome. Now these are the conditions—that we fight to
the death, but, if both of us should be hurt or wounded, so that we
cannot despatch each other, then no further harm shall be done to
either of us, who shall be tended till we recover or die by the will of
God.”
“You mean that we must die on each other’s swords or not at all, and if
any foul chance should overtake either, other than by his adversary’s
hand, that adversary shall not dispatch him?”
“Yes, Señor, for in our case such things may happen,” and he pointed to
the huge seas that towered over them, threatening to engulf the
water-logged caravel. “We will take no advantage of each other, who
wish to fight this quarrel out with our own right arms.”
“So be it,” said Peter, “and Master Castell here is the witness to our
bargain.”
d’Aguilar nodded, kissed the cross-hilt of his sword in confirmation of
the pact, bowed courteously, and put himself on his defence.
For a moment they stood facing each other, a well-matched pair—Peter,
lean, fierce-faced, long-armed, a terrible man to see in the fiery
light that broke upon him from beneath the edge of a black cloud; the
Spaniard tall also, and agile, but to all appearance as unconcerned as
though this were but a pleasure bout, and not a duel to the death with
a woman’s fate hanging on the hazard. d’Aguilar wore a breastplate of
gold-inlaid black steel and a helmet, while Peter had but his tunic of
bull’s hide and iron-lined cap, though his straight cut-and-thrust
sword was heavier and mayhap half an inch longer than that of his foe.
Thus, then, they stood while Castell and all the ship’s company, save
the helmsman who steered her to the harbour’s mouth, clung to the
bulwarks and the cordage of the mainmast, and, forgetful of their own
peril, watched in utter silence.
It was Peter who thrust the first, straight at the throat, but
d’Aguilar parried deftly, so that the sword point went past his neck,
and before it could be drawn back again, struck at Peter. The blow fell
upon the side of his steel cap, and glanced thence to his left
shoulder, but, being light, did him no harm. Swiftly came the answer,
which was not light, for it fell so heavily upon d’Aguilar’s
breastplate, that he staggered back. After him sprang Peter, thinking
that the game was his, but at that moment the ship, which had entered
the breakers of the harbour bar, rolled terribly, and sent them both
reeling to the bulwarks. Nor did she cease her rolling, so that,
smiting and thrusting wildly, they staggered backwards and forwards
across the deck, gripping with their left hands at anything they could
find to steady them, till at length, bruised and breathless, they fell
apart unwounded, and rested awhile.
“An ill field this to fight on, Señor,” gasped d’Aguilar.
“I think that it will serve our turn,” said Peter grimly, and rushed at
him like a bull. It was just then that a great sea came aboard the
ship, a mass of green water which struck them both and washed them like
straws into the scuppers, where they rolled half drowned. Peter rose
the first, coughing out salt water, and rubbing it from his eyes, to
see d’Aguilar still upon the deck, his sword lying beside him, and
holding his right wrist with his left hand.
“Who gave you the hurt?” he asked, “I or your fall?”
“The fall, Señor,” answered d’Aguilar; “I think that it has broken my
wrist. But I have still my left hand. Suffer me to arise, and we will
finish this fray.”
As the words passed his lips a gust of wind, more furious than any that
had gone before, concentrated as it was through a gorge in the
mountains, struck the caravel at the very mouth of the harbour, and
laid her over on her beam ends. For a while it seemed as though she
must capsize and sink, till suddenly her mainmast snapped like a stick
and went overboard, when, relieved of its weight, by slow degrees she
righted herself. Down upon the deck came the cross yard, one end of it
crashing through the roof of the cabin in which Margaret and Betty were
confined, splitting it in two, while a block attached to the other fell
upon the side of Peter’s head and, glancing from the steel cap, struck
him on the neck and shoulder, hurling him senseless to the deck, where,
still grasping his sword, he lay with arms outstretched.
Out of the ruin of the cabin appeared Margaret and Betty, the former
very pale and frightened, and the latter muttering prayers, but, as it
chanced, both uninjured. Clinging to the tangled ropes they crept
forward, seeking refuge in the waist of the ship, for the heavy spar
still worked and rolled above them, resting on the wreck of the cabin
and the bulwarks, whence presently it slid into the sea. By the stump
of the broken mainmast they halted, their long locks streaming in the
gale, and here it was that Margaret caught sight of Peter lying upon
his back, his face red with blood, and sliding to and fro as the vessel
rolled.
She could not speak, but in mute appeal pointed first to him and then
to d’Aguilar, who stood near, remembering as she did so her vision in
the house at Holborn, which was thus terribly fulfilled. Holding to a
rope, d’Aguilar drew near to her and spoke into her ear. “Lady,” he
said, “this is no deed of mine. We were fighting a fair fight, for he
had boarded the ship when the mast fell and killed him. Blame me not
for his death, but seek comfort from God.”
She heard, and, looking round her wildly, perceived her father
struggling towards her; then, with a bitter cry, fell senseless on his
breast.
[Illustration: ]
“Lady,” he said, “this is no deed of mine”