Everything on the shore was very dark and very silent when Blueneck
regained consciousness and sat up. His head ached and his body was stiff
and cold while his clothes, still wet and sticky with brine, clung to
him uncomfortably.
He peered round in the darkness, striving to remember where he was and
what had happened to him. There was no moon, or at least if there was it
was so hidden behind the clouds as to be of no use to any one, and he
could only faintly distinguish a kind of haze some quarter of a mile in
front of him which he supposed was the sea. Behind him he could see
nothing at all, only blackness. He put out a cold, trembling hand and
felt cautiously about; the first thing he touched was the dry, crumbly
seaweed. Not sure what it was he grasped a handful of it and pulled it
up. Immediately the sickening stench of stale salt water arose and he
spat and swore aloud. Then he reached out his other hand and touched
still more seaweed. He groaned with stiffness and pain and threw himself
back on the heap. As he did so his shoulders encountered something hard
and he almost screamed aloud, so much did it jar him. Changing to a
sitting posture again, he felt for the obstacle and found that whatever
it was it lay beneath the seaweed. Wearily he pushed the stuff aside and
thrust his hand into the clammy depths beneath. The hard thing was lower
down still and he burrowed feverishly in a tired, thoughtless way,
hardly knowing what he did or why he did it.
Suddenly he paused, and felt more gingerly, yes--surely he could not be
mistaken, he was running his hand over the hard round belly of a rum
keg. He twisted round quickly and winced as his stiffened muscles
twinged at the movement. Beside the first keg he felt another; and yet
another at the side of that. He lay back exhausted by the effort and
wondered at his find. He had no doubt it was some smuggler’s private
store, but was surprised that on such a lawless coast such secrecy
should be resorted to. He knew that in Mersea everyone was more or less
his own master and thought that it was therefore a rather unnecessary
precaution.
When he had arrived thus far in his thoughts, however, he felt a return
of the giddiness which he had before experienced and lay back, his eyes
open, staring in front of him.
He had not lain so many minutes before he caught the glimmer of a light
in the distance and he stared at it in surprise. It was not coming from
the sea and was therefore not the riding light of a boat, neither was it
coming from the direction of the brig or the Ship Inn, but from the
west, from the lonely strip of coast between the little villages of East
Mersea and West Mersea.
Nearer and nearer it came, till he could see how it jogged and danced
along the beach, swaying from side to side, pausing a minute here, and
then darting off again, sometimes vanishing completely only to reappear
considerably nearer.
Blueneck watched it, fascinated, a strange, uncanny fear creeping over
him; everywhere was so dark and lonely, and he strained his eyes peering
at the light, fancying that he saw sometimes a man behind it, sometimes
a beast, or a fiend. This fear grew upon him every moment, and he tried
to struggle to his feet, but his legs were too benumbed to bear him and
he sank back again.
The light came nearer and nearer, dancing and swaying more than ever. In
a flash the story of the lost rowboat ran through his mind and his flesh
began to creep.
Like most sailors, and Spaniards especially, Blueneck was very
superstitious; he shuddered and his teeth chattered as he imagined the
thing that was holding the lantern to be first a blue swollen corpse
with dead sightless eyes, then a rampaging devil with swinging tail and
ram’s horns, and then a mermaid whose white teeth were adder’s fangs and
whose lips were the nightshade’s berries.
His hand crept up to his neck where a little silver crucifix usually
hung, but it was gone; he must have lost it in the fight with Joe. He
trembled and mouthed a prayer.
The light seemed to be making straight for him, and as it came nearer,
wild, unearthly crooning noises came from it.
Blueneck gulped, and his eyes started from his head and the blood
tingled and danced in his veins.
The noise--it was certainly not a song nor yet the cry of an animal, but
a sort of long-drawn-out sighing on a high quavering note--came nearer
and grew louder. Now the light was within fifteen paces of him and he
held his breath. Nearer it came.
“Doña Maria, let it pass,” he prayed. Now it was within five yards of
him, and came nearer still. Straining his eyes, he could make out a
fearful bundle-like figure behind the lantern. The noise grew louder;
nearer it came till the light stopped three feet away from him, and fell
on the most evil and half-human face the terrified sailor had ever seen.
This was the last straw, and Blueneck screamed. The sound rang out high
and short as he dropped back on the weed, half insensible. However much
the thing with the lantern had frightened him, he certainly frightened
it with his yell, for it sprang back and emitted a howl which started
the echoes and woke the sea-birds who screamed also as they flapped
sleepily away.
Blueneck shut his eyes and waited during three seconds of horrible
suspense. Then he felt the light beating on his eyelids, and heard a
cracked human voice very near him say:
“Oh! ye would be spying on me, would ye, ye hell-traitor?”
The words reassured Blueneck more than perhaps anything else would have
done and he opened his eyes. The terrible old face was very near his
own, and hot spirit-tainted breath blew into his nostrils, but what
fixed his attention was the glitter of steel above the figure’s head.
Blueneck rose to the situation now that he was assured of the old
woman’s mortality (he decided that it must be an old woman). He was not
the man to be frightened of a knife other than his captain’s.
“Pity a poor sailor; so stiff with the cold that his legs will not bear
him,” he moaned, in a pitiful pleading whine.
The old woman laughed horribly.
“You don’t catch birds like Pet Salt with chaff, hell-rat,” she said.
“Pet Salt!” Blueneck began to understand. “Mistress,” he said, “what are
you about?”
“Killing a spying knave,” was the reply, and the blade descended until
its point pricked his throat.
Things were turning out more seriously than Blueneck had expected, and
he spoke quickly.
“Is it rum you want, lady?” he said as steadily as he could, the blade
pricking deeper as the words moved the muscle of his throat.
“It is, hell-rat, it is.” Pet Salt bent nearer. “And no spying dog
shall stop me from getting it. Ye waited out here till you were too
stiff to move, did you? Ah, you blue-livered pike, the devil looks after
his own.”
“Then I’m the man to get it for thee. I’m the mate of the _Coldlight_.”
Blueneck had just time to get out the words or she would have killed
him.
“How do I know you be not?” she said shrewdly, though visibly shaken at
his words, as she withdrew the knife.
“I swear,” began the sailor.
Pet Salt stopped him.
“Swear!” she screamed. “What’s a seaman’s oath to me?”
“Look at my garments,” said the anxious Blueneck. “Are they those of a
common man or one befitting my station?”
Pet, like many other women before and since, was moved at the sight of
the bright colours and good stuffs.
“They be ruined with salt water,” she remarked. “What happened to you,
hell-rat?”
Blueneck paused before he spoke. His pride forbade him to tell the
truth, and his prudence warned him against a lie. Finally he made a
compromise between the two and told a fairly plausible story of two men
setting upon him, of a fearful fight, and finished up with a faithful
account of the ducking which he had received.
Pet seemed satisfied. How much she believed is another matter but, as
she often told Ben Farran, she understood sea-folk and all their tricks.
She put up the knife somewhere in her rags and set down the lantern.
“Try and stand,” she commanded.
Blueneck obeyed as one in a dream; slowly and painfully he staggered to
his feet, only to drop again almost immediately.
Pet waddled after him.
“Rub your legs,” she said, “and hurry. You’ve got to work for me before
the cocks crow.”
Wearily Blueneck did as he was bid, and the old woman hobbled to the
bank of seaweed where she set to work unearthing the kegs. With a grunt
of satisfaction she set the last one beside the others and turned to the
sailor.
“Come on,” she said.
Blueneck staggered to his feet; he was still very unsteady, but the
rubbing had partially restored his circulation and he was just able to
stumble along.
Pet pointed to the three kegs.
“Carry two,” she said shortly.
Blueneck looked around him hopelessly. It was still dark and lonely and
some of the horror he had felt when he first saw Pet Salt returned to
him. He shuddered; the bent old figure in front of him clad in dirty,
evil-smelling rags seemed again to take on some of the fear-inspiring
qualities of a fiend or marsh-goblin. He struggled on to where the kegs
were lying and with great difficulty hoisted one onto his shoulder.
Pet lifted up another.
“Put this under your other arm,” she said, “and mind your stepping; it’s
heavy.”
Blueneck took it without a word.
Pet picked up the last keg and turned to him, her ugly bulbous face
showing red with exertion in the lantern’s flickering light.
“Now follow after me,” she said, and hobbled off.
Long afterward Blueneck described this journey from the bank of seaweed
to Ben Farran’s boat as a walk through hell itself.
Time after time the keg under his arm slipped and fell in the soft
powdery shingle, and he had to bend his stiffened and aching body to
pick it up again, while the terrible cracked voice of Pet Salt, railing
in the most fearful language, rang in his ears.
But he went on. Once he fell and cut his head on a breakwater stone, and
the old woman kicked him with her wood-shod foot and bade him rise in a
tone that had fear in it as well as command.
Once they saw a lantern in the far distance and Pet made him crouch and
wait silent till it passed on. Again and again he felt that he must
break away and regain his lost courage, but always the fear of the dark
desolateness and the awful old woman prevented him, and he went on
meekly.
How at last he managed to climb up the rope ladder and scramble on to
the deck of the _Pet_ and then down the hatchway to the stifling cabin
and bunk-room below he did not know. However, he did it and fell through
the doorway into Ben Farran’s presence in a fainting condition.
When he recovered himself the air was full of a strange sickening odour
mixed with the fumes of steaming rum.
He looked round him curiously. The room was very small even for a boat
and marvellously dirty and untidy.
A few rags were bundled together in a corner, forming a rude sort of
bed, and an old iron stove smoked and spat in another. On the top of
this stood an iron bowl, and it was from this Blueneck decided that the
strange smell came.
In a corner by the stove lay Ben Farran, snoring loudly with his mouth
open.
Blueneck looked at him curiously. He had been a fine big man, he judged,
and had had some strength and comeliness, but much rum had changed him
and he sprawled there a most ungainly, loathsome figure. His shoulders
were bent till he lost any pretension to height, his jaw was weak and
drooping, and great blue pouches of flesh hung under his eyes. This,
combined with an enormous stomach and bent podgy legs, gave him a great
resemblance to a fat toad.
Blueneck looked away and turned his attentions to himself. He found that
his outer garments had been removed and that his arms and legs were
covered with a black-greenish paste. He looked at them in surprise and
disgust and began to rub off the caked mixture as fast as he could. But
he noticed that his stiffness had left him and that he felt as well and
strong as he had done the night before he had his fight with Joe Pullen.
Pet came in presently and he saw that she was growing fast like Ben,
rum-sodden and old. She smiled when she saw him and he thought how
horribly pale her toothless gums showed across the flaming purple
redness of her face.
“Now, master, mate of the _Coldlight_, I bargain with thee,” she began
as she handed him his clothes newly dried and motioned him to dress.
Blueneck said nothing but took his garments and began to put them on.
“Methinks your captain, the Spanish Dick, has set eyes on a pretty
wench,” she said slowly.
The sailor did not look up; he was mournfully regarding his best doublet
coat stained and faded with salt water.
“Oh, there be many pretty wenches who have had his eyes upon them,” he
said carelessly.
Pet swore roundly and with such vehemence that he glanced at her.
“But one particular wench?” she went on, relapsing again into quietness.
“I have long ears.”
Blueneck, who was slow of comprehension, looked at her in surprise; her
remark struck him as being strangely irrelevant.
“I hear what is said on the Island,” the old woman continued. “I know
your captain hath a great liking for Ann Farran, Ben’s gran’daughter.”
Blueneck looked even more puzzled.
“Ay, and if it be so, what then?” he said.
Pet smiled again.
“Your captain carries much rum,” she observed.
Blueneck nodded and pulled on his boots.
“This Ann Farran hath but one kinsman in the world save her bastard
half-brother,” Pet went on crooningly.
Blueneck stood up and began to see what she was leading up to.
“There would be none to look for the wench, or hark to the wench if one
were quieted,” she went on suggestively.
“And that one loves rum!” observed Blueneck.
Pet smiled again.
“And that one loves rum!” she repeated.
Blueneck stood thinking for a moment or two, his hands in his pockets.
“For this news, mistress, I will say naught of what has passed this
evening, nor of the three rum kegs,” he said.
Pet nodded; the man seemed intelligent.
“Nor will I say aught of a lost boat,” continued the sailor, darting his
bright black eyes upon her.
Pet blinked. This man was too intelligent, she told herself.
“I will tell the Captain of your bargain,” Blueneck went on. “It may be
he will hear. Meanwhile”--he looked at the array of little kegs on the
floor--“you will not die of thirst, mistress.”
Pet shrugged her shoulders and looked across at the slovenly figure by
the stove.
“We both drink well,” she said.
Blueneck looked from one to the other.
“Of that I have no doubt,” he sneered, and walked out up the hatchway.
“I will tell the Captain,” he called back, as he climbed down the rope
ladder and on to the now sunlit wall.
He walked along, talking to himself in a whisper. Now and again he
paused and made as though to go back. Then he recovered himself and went
on, still muttering. Finally he shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, it won’t be the first time rum has bought a fair lass, anyway,”
he said aloud, “and it ain’t a right thing in a man to go against old
habits.”
And lifting his head he began to whistle blithely.