ARMS AND THE MAN.
Silas Upcliff groaned bitterly when he heard the Puritan's shout.
Being a brave man, his spirit inclined towards lending aid to his
compatriots, but being honest also, his sense of duty impelled him to
observe the oath which he had made to his niggardly owner. While he
was thus halting between two opinions, the three venturers left him
upon the shore, the blood tingling in their veins at the prospect of a
glorious death.
Penfold led the way and took command, carrying his burden of years as
lightly as any man upon that coast. Striking upward from the bay,
where the sailors were fighting the ice, he brought his companions to a
height of three hundred feet above the sea, where the cliffs were
divided by a narrow defile down which in summer coursed a stream.
"I have kept this place in mind," said the old man, when they halted at
the extremity of the pass. "Here we shall make our stand."
So contracted was the way that the snow, massed heavily upon the sides,
in places nearly touched. Some pines clung to the rock, hanging over
the defile, straining at their rope-like roots. At these the old
yeoman pointed with the order:
"Fell me two trees so that they shall fall along the pass."
The others scrambled up the cliff and cut at the snaky roots, while
Penfold occupied himself below in treading the snow into a firm bed.
Soon the tough pines began to crack and sway. First one crashed down,
then another, and after that Upcliff came running, short of breath,
into the defile, having at length made up his mind that Master Grignion
must lose his ship.
"The enemy show black against the snow yonder, a hundred men if there
be one," he shouted. "Tell me now, how shall I dispose my men?"
"Return to your ship, Master Skipper, and cut her free with what speed
you may," replied Penfold gruffly. "We stand here to hold back the
enemy so long as life remains."
"Mayhap they shall not come this way?" suggested Upcliff.
"If they do not, then are ye doubly safe. Before they can pass round
you shall be away, for I know of no easy path up yonder wall, and on
the south the sea guards us. See you not that they must here advance
singly, and that one good fighter may hold them all at bay?"
"They have guns," said Upcliff, cocking his ear to listen to the axes
ringing keenly in the bay.
"They shall not use them. The snow must drench their priming."
The skipper made a step back, but halted again.
"I cannot desert you, comrades," he said hoarsely. "My owner is also
an Englishman, an alderman of London town, and, close-minded though he
be, I wot he would lose his venture and his ship rather than see
England shamed. Bid me call my men to the far end of this pass, and
there let us stand together until the end."
"See you not that this is our affair?" replied Penfold. "We are
fighting for our own hands, having blood of comrades to avenge. Go,
for you do but waste your time and ours."
"Away," added Hough, pushing the skipper gently back. "The Lord being
on our side, how should we be afraid? They come about us like bees,
and are extinct even as the fire among the thorns, for in the name of
the Lord shall we destroy them. Go, good master, and while we smite
these worshippers of idols do you release your ship."
Thus compelled to observe his oath, Upcliff gave way, though with great
unwillingness, and ran to the end of the pass, where his eyes were
gladdened by the sight of the _Dartmouth_ riding in the black channel,
dressed out in all her canvas. His sailor's heart warmed at the
spectacle, but sank again when he contemplated the wide white field
which still spread between the deep sea and his ship. He staggered
down, blowing like a whale, and snatching an axe from the tired hands
of one of his sailors wielded it furiously.
The men in the pass twisted the pine-boughs and snagged the trunks to
form a rough chevaux-de-frise. Before an hour had passed they heard
footfalls crushing the snow, and then Penfold smiled and rose to his
feet. The old man had been resting beneath a tree.
"Comrades," he said, "I lead by the privilege of age. Not more than
one can make a stand in this narrow pass. Do you ascend the cliff, one
on either side, and as the enemy attempt to climb the barrier cast snow
into their faces. The rest you shall leave to me."
"Out on you, old Simon," said Hough strongly. "I am younger than you
by many years, and thus shall last the longer."
"You may fill this place after me," said Penfold. "But while I live I
rule."
Hough was not satisfied, and the argument was only brought to an end by
the sight of a cap lifting above the ridge.
"To your places," whispered Penfold, stepping quickly to the barrier.
The knight was already upon the cliff, sheltering his spare body behind
a pine. He awaited the one man who, he felt assured, would not lose
the opportunity of a fight, and he did not desire to risk his life
until he and that man could meet.
"Captain!" called a French voice startlingly, "a barrier is thrown
across the way."
"Over it," ordered the officer.
The man jumped upon the fallen trunk and threw up his hands to grasp
the higher branches; but his fingers merely clutched the air, he gave a
groan, and fell back, pierced through the heart by Penfold's sword,
which had darted from the interlacing branches. A shout went up from
the pass, which was now a struggling mass of soldiers.
"Information ever costs a man," said the officer coolly. "Storm the
barrier."
Two soldiers rushed out and flung themselves upon the locked trees,
jostling each other in the constricted space. A lump of snow hit the
foremost between the eyes, he gasped, and would have turned, but a
sword-thrust sent him to his doom, and his comrade, blinded in the
self-same manner, shared his fate.
"There are men in hiding yonder," rang a voice. "The villains shelter
behind the trees."
"Find me a way round," roared an angry voice, and La Salle pushed along
the pass. "Are we to be held here by one man behind a fallen tree?"
"There is no way up, Excellency," said an officer, gazing up the face
of the rock. "The heretics have well chosen their place."
"Send men round," shouted the priest.
A detachment was sent instantly to find a way over the cliff, while
woodmen with axes went out and laid furiously upon the pines. Penfold
disabled the first, but another advanced, and after him another, each
unwilling to obey, but unable to hang back.
Three dead bodies were dragged out, and La Salle tried the expedient of
sending his men in rapid succession against the barrier. The wet snow
dashed upon their faces, one by one they dropped before that stinging
sword, man after man fell back, but another always stood ready to rush
into the gap, to make the attempt, and give way to someone more
confident than he. Penfold's dogged old tongue counted off the strokes
to the ringing of the ice-axes from the bay. The soldier-settlers came
faster, each man more fierce than the last, because their blood was
heated by the shame of this defeat. The old man's misty breath came
streaming between the branches where his untiring sword flickered in
and out.
Two at a time came the Frenchmen, until at length, profiting by a
mis-stroke, a couple gained the summit of the barrier. The first to
jump down fell a prey to the stout yeoman, but the second reached the
ground unharmed. A shout of triumph went up, and the soldiers swarmed
the obstacle.
"Excellency, the Indian woman has shown us a way over the cliff,"
exclaimed a voice beside La Salle. "That way, says she, we shall
encounter no opposition."
"I will myself make the trial," La Salle answered. "Do you in the
meantime win this pass."
"She says also that we must hasten, because these men are holding the
pass while their comrades free the ship from the ice."
Penfold fought on, grim to the end, but his sword had lost its
deadliness and his arm was growing numb. His comrades aided him as
best they could, but they too were acting upon the defensive, because
some of the more daring soldiers had scaled the slippery sides of the
pass in a futile endeavour to drag them down. The old man groaned and
tottered as the light failed gradually from his eyes.
"Let it be said of me," he gasped, "that I gave them half an hour."
Voices roared in his ears, like the waves of a stormy sea about to
close over his head.
"Strike! He is spent. Strike him down."
There followed an onward rush. Over the old man's failing body sped
the bitterness of death.
He felt a sword in his side, another in his shoulder, and at the pain
he revived like an old lion, and roared and plunged forward, feeling
his way with his point, until he found his striker's heart, and then he
shouted with all the strength that was left:
"Stand up in my stead, comrade! I have made a good fight, and
accounted for the best. They shall run before us yet. To me, comrade!
Ha! St. Edward and St. George!"
With that last shout he fell, deep into the red snow, his old body
spouting blood, and so died like a valiant man of Berks, with his sword
fast held, and his grey head set towards the foe.
Hough hurled back a soldier, who had clambered up the cliff to dislodge
him, and would have flung himself down to stop the way, when on a
sudden a tall figure slid down the side opposite him, and stood
immediately to defy the body of men sweeping through like an inundating
wave, wielding his sword with calm, nervous strength, his keen eyes
starting from a thin, brown face.
Then Hough's courage gave way, and sinking to his knees, while the
enemy rushed through, he cried aloud. Death had no terror for him; but
the spectacle of that cold man, whom for an instant he had seen,
fighting in the raw light of the dawn, then thrown down and trodden
under foot, made him shiver to the heart.
"The Lord encompasses us with the spirits of our friends," he cried,
knowing that it was Jesse Woodfield who already lay hacked and bruised
and buried in the snow of the defile.