NIGHT, TEMPEST, LOVE AND BATTLE
And, indeed, if Cleggett had been of a mind to abandon the vessel, he
could scarcely have done so now. For his words were no more than
uttered when the sharp racket of a volley of pistol shots ripped its
way through the low-pitched roaring of the wind.
Loge had chosen the height of the storm to mask his approach. He
attacked with the tempest.
Without a word Cleggett put out the light in the cabin. His men
grasped their weapons and followed him to the deck. A flash of
lightning showed him, through the driving rain, the enemy rushing
towards the Jasper B., pistol in hand. They were scarcely sixty yards
away, and were firing as they came. Loge, a revolver in one hand, and
Cleggett's own sword cane in the other, was leading the rush. Besides
their firearms, each of Loge's men carried a wicked-looking machete.
"Fire!" shouted Cleggett. "Let them have it, men!" And the rifles
blazed from the deck of the Jasper B. in a crashing volley. Instantly
the world was dark again; it was impossible to determine whether the
fire of the Jasper B. had taken effect.
"To the starboard bulwark," cried Cleggett, "and give them hell with
the next lightning flash!"
It came as he spoke, with its vivid glare showing to Cleggett the enemy
magnified to a portentous bigness against a background of chaotic
night. Two or three of them stood, leaning keenly forward; several of
the others had dropped to one knee; the rifle discharge had checked the
rush, and they also were waiting for the lightning. Cleggett and his
men threw a second volley at this wavering silhouette of astonishment.
A cartridge jammed in the mechanism of Cleggett's gun. With an oath he
flung the weapon to the deck. A hand thrust another one into his
grasp, and Lady Agatha's voice said in his ear, "Take this one--it's
loaded."
"My God," said Cleggett, "I thought you were in the cabin!"
"Not I!" she cried, "I'm loading!"
Just then the lightning came again and showed her to him plainly.
Drenched, bare-armed, bareheaded, her hair down and rolling backward in
a rich wet mass, she knelt on the deck behind the bulwark. Her eyes
blazed with excitement, and there was a smile upon her lips. Beside
her was the zinc bucket half full of cartridges. George tossed a rifle
to her. She flung him back a loaded one, and began methodically to
fill the empty one with cartridges.
"Agatha," shouted Cleggett, catching her by the wrist, "go to the cabin
at once--you will get yourself killed!"
"I'll do nothing of the sort!" she shouted.
"I love you!" cried Cleggett, beside himself with fear for her, and
scarcely knowing what his words were. "Do you hear--I love you, and I
won't have you killed!"
A bullet ripped its way through the bulwark, perforated the zinc
bucket, struck the gun which Lady Agatha was loading and knocked it
from her hands.
"Go to the cabin yourself!" she shouted in Cleggett's ear. "As for me,
I like it!"
"I tell you," shouted Cleggett, "I won't have you here--I won't have
you killed!"
He rose to his feet, and attempted to draw her out of danger. She rose
likewise and struggled with him in the dark. She wrenched herself
free, and in doing so flung him back against the rail; it lightened
again, and she screamed. Cleggett turned, and with the next flash saw
that one of the enemy, his face bloody from the graze of a bullet
across his forehead, and evidently crazed with excitement of fight and
storm, was leaping towards the rail of the vessel.
Cleggett stooped to pick up a gun, but as he stooped the madman vaulted
over the bulwark and landed upon him, bearing him to the deck. As he
struggled to his feet Lady Agatha, who had grasped a cutlass, cut the
fellow down. The man fell back over the rail with a cry.
For a long moment there was one continuous electric flash from horizon
to horizon, and Cleggett saw her, with windblown hair and wide eyes and
parted lips, standing poised with the red blade in her hand beneath the
driving clouds, the figure of an antique goddess.
The next instant all was dark; her arms were around his neck in the
rain. "Oh, Clement," she sobbed, "I've killed a man! I've killed a
man!"