The sun was just about to set over the Island in a blaze of glorious
colour when the _Anny_, sailing peacefully under half canvas, came in
sight of Bradwell Point.
Blueneck and Habakkuk Coot were below deck in a little bunk-hole which
they had fitted up as a sort of wash-house. It was one of Black’erchief
Dick’s fads to have his linen always spotless and marvellously
laundered, and, as this was a luxury hardly dreamed of on the Island,
during his visits to England the valiant Captain had to have his washing
done aboard. The job of laundryman had almost naturally fallen to
Habakkuk, who had accepted the office joyfully, and he now stood, clad
in nothing but his breeches, in front of an emptied Canary tub immersed
up to the elbows in soapy water.
Blueneck leaned against the doorway watching him.
“Santa Maria! what an occupation,” he remarked contemptuously.
Habakkuk sniffed.
“It’s very nice when you’re used to it,” he said without looking up from
the garment he was pounding and squeezing with a kind of vicious
delight.
Blueneck shrugged his shoulders.
“Maybe,” he said, “anyway, I’m going on deck; this here rat-hole’s too
stinking for me.”
Habakkuk sniffed again but took no other notice of his friend, who
presently lumbered off up the hatchway.
The water was very green and the waves rolled lazily after one another
as though it were hot even for them, while the _Anny_ dipped and rolled
gently among them at about one third her usual speed.
They were early, and, careless though he was, Dick did not like landing
until it was at least dusk.
Blueneck strode across the deck and stood staring toward the Island, now
just a streak on the flaming horizon.
Suddenly he started, and, speaking sharply, ordered one of the sailors
who was sprawling on the deck to bring him a telescope.
The man went off at once and returned in a second, bringing a long brass
spy-glass with him.
As the mate of the _Anny_ clapped it to his eye an exclamation of
surprise escaped him.
“Mother of Heaven, what will that be?” he murmured, and putting the
glass under his arm went down the deck in search of the Captain.
As usual the little Spaniard was standing against the main mast, his
arms folded across his chest, and his heavy-lidded eyes half closed.
Blueneck approached him deferentially and reported--“Ship ahead,
Capt’n.”
The deeply sunken eyes opened at once and Dick put out one delicately
scented hand for the glass.
“She’s sighted us, dogs,” he remarked calmly a second or so later.
Blueneck gasped.
“I’ll go and head her round, Capt’n,” he said at once.
Dick lowered the telescope and looked over it in quiet surprise.
“That you will not, son of a snipe,” he said, his soft voice playing
musically with the words.
Blueneck began to expostulate.
“The Preventative folk?” he said fearfully.
Dick swore.
“And since when have you been feared of the Preventative folk, dog?” he
asked, and his fingers played round the hilt of his knife.
Blueneck flushed.
“I’m not feared,” he said stoutly, “but ’tis madness to go on.”
Dick laughed happily, putting the glass up again. Suddenly his whole
manner changed. His bright black eyes lost their sleepy indifference and
became alight with interest and excitement, his slender white hand
ceased to play with his knife, and his voice, no longer caressing,
adopted a note of command as he wheeled round and strode off down the
deck shouting orders here and there.
“Put on full canvas and keep her straight,” Blueneck heard him say, and
he groaned inwardly.
Under the extra load of canvas the _Anny_ plunged and righted herself,
speeding through the water at her full speed.
The other brig was well in sight now, and she hailed the smugglers
several times.
Dick took the wheel himself and shouted an order for the cannon to be
looked to.
The other brig had turned her head straight for the _Anny_ as soon as
she saw that her salute was ignored, and now a ball from one of her
several brass cannon fell some two yards short of the smuggler’s bows.
“Fire!” shouted Dick, and Noah Goody, the _Anny’s_ old gunner, lit the
match; the shot cleared the pursuing brig and Noah loaded again.
Nearer and nearer came the brig until Blueneck could read the name on
her bows, the _Royal Charles_.
Faster and faster went the _Anny_, but the _Charles_ gained on her every
second. They were well inside the bay by this time, but escape seemed
impossible, for the tide was barely past the turn and between them and
the Island lay a great gray field of soft slushing mud. Any moment they
might strike a bank of it and be compelled to stay there, an easy prey
to the Preventative men.
Dick looked behind; the _Charles_ was very near. For a moment he
hesitated. He knew the Western creeks like the back of his hand, but in
order to reach that side of the Island he would have to cross in front
of the enemy, and although he was a daring little man Black’erchief
Dick was no fool. The only course left open to him, then, was to make
for the East. He knew there were two creeks that were deep enough to
take the brig, but they were no more than thirty feet in their widest
part and that was dangerous going. Besides, he was not nearly so
familiar with these as with those on the Western side.
At this moment a ball from the _Charles_ dropped through the little
deck-house and then rolled off the deck harmlessly.
Dick made up his mind.
“Send Habakkuk Coot hither,” he shouted, for he remembered that the man
had spent his boyhood in the East of the Island.
Everyone had forgotten Habakkuk in the excitement of the moment and now
he was nowhere to be found.
Dick cursed him for a skulking rat and in other terms.
Blueneck went down the hatchway to look for him; the smell of steaming
soap and water still came from the dirty little hole where he had left
him.
Blueneck looked in; Habakkuk was there, his arms still in the soapy
water. He was singing in a high nasal voice and sniffing at frequent
intervals.
He listened to Blueneck’s incoherent account of the chase in profound
astonishment, but nevertheless went steadily on with his washing, and
refused to leave it until Blueneck in desperation took him by the scruff
of the neck and the seat of the breeches and carried him before the
Captain, his arms still wet and soapy, and a dripping shirt clutched in
his hand.
But the situation was too serious for Dick, or, indeed, any one else, to
notice any little irregularities of this sort.
The _Royal Charles_ was within a musket shot of the _Anny’s_ bows and
every second the mud flat in front grew nearer.
Habakkuk, however, had a very good memory, and under his guidance the
_Anny_ shot down a wide, river-like stream of water, the mud forming
banks on either side.
Dick looked at it in surprise.
“I did not know that there were any creeks as wide as this on the East,”
he said.
“Ah,” said Habakkuk wisely, “this ain’t no more ’an twenty foot
wide--it’s very deceiving. Look over the side, Captain, there’s about
six inches of water on the starboard--an’--they don’t know that, do
they?” he chuckled, jerking his thumb over his shoulder to where the
_Royal Charles_ had just turned after them. “It’s only about twenty wide
a bit farther along,” he announced cheerfully a little later. “I hopes I
ain’t forgot where.”
Dick stood watching the _Charles_ as she followed them down the
treacherous creek. She must have a pilot who knows the place, he
thought, for she still gained on them.
At last, when they were within five hundred yards of the shore, Habakkuk
gave a short exclamation.
“We’re stuck,” he cried.
“What?” Dick sprang round on his heel.
Habakkuk grinned foolishly.
“Little tiny channel’s silted up, I reckon,” he said. “We’re aground.”
Dick struck him off his feet with an oath.
“Out with your knives,” he shouted.
It was beginning to get dusk and the _Charles_ bore down upon the _Anny_
like a great gray tower; nearer she came and nearer until they could
plainly hear the voices of the men on her deck.
And then it happened. In his excitement the man at her tiller let it
swerve a little, a very little, but enough; there was a soft swishing
sound, and the _Charles’s_ nose cut deep into the soft cheesy mud--she
also was aground.
Exciseman Thomas Playle swore with disappointment as he ran forward and
saw the very little distance between the two brigs, but he loosened the
broad-bladed cutlass at his hip and, shouting to his men to follow,
swung himself into one of the boats.
“Maria! they’re trying to board us,” shouted Blueneck, whipping out his
knife and running to the side.
Instantly there was confusion, the greater portion of the crew running
after their mate to the still floating side of the brig.
This sudden change of weight saved the situation. With a lurch, a roll,
and a quiver, the _Anny_ jerked off the mud, Habakkuk seized the tiller
just in time, and the brig slid on down the creek.
A yell of disappointment rang out from the first boatload of
Preventative men and echoed over the fast-darkening mud-flats. The tide
was coming in like a mill-stream, and any moment the _Charles_ might
also swing clear, but Playle would not wait; springing into a second
boat, he urged his men to row the faster in a vain attempt to catch the
_Anny_.
Old Noah Goody did his best with the cannon, but the progress of the
little rowboats was so irregular that he could never get the exact
range.
The _Anny_ shot away from the boats at first, but as she came nearer
into the shore the channel grew narrower and narrower and she was forced
to take in most of her canvas.
Dick stood on the bows looking at the fast-gaining boats, and thinking.
If on reaching the shore he abandoned the brig and he and his men ran to
hide on the Island, the Preventative men would scuttle the _Anny_ and
confiscate her cargo, which was an extra valuable one of Jamaica rum and
fine Brussels lace. His only alternative was to fight.
By this time the brig was within twenty yards of the beach, and in
another moment her keel grated on the muddy shingle.
The excise men were not far behind.
Dick seemed suddenly to come to life; leaping out into the centre deck,
he shouted:
“To the shore, lads, and fight the liverish dogs on land!” Then, agile
as a monkey, he slid down the hawser and pulled in a boat--the crew
followed, some wading through the shallow water and others in the
boats.
Once on shore they ranged themselves in a double line along the beach,
waiting, with drawn knives, for the boats. It had grown almost dark by
now, and one by one the stars had come out in the fast-deepening sky,
but there was a big moon and the line of rugged, rum-stamped faces on
the shore showed clearly in the yellow light. Their brutal expressions
and the flicker of steel about their belts might have frightened many a
man older and more tried than Master Playle, but the little boats came
on undaunted, and just as the first keel touched the shingle a musket
shot rang out and the man next to Blueneck dropped silently.
Dick swore in Spanish and, raising his pistol--the one he had taken from
Mat Turnby--fired at the man nearest him, a fat elderly servant of
Master Francis Myddleton’s. The man was almost out of range, but the
shot wounded him, for he screamed and dropped into the water. For half a
second there was no sound, and then with a yell the crew of the
_Charles_ charged over the soft, slithering mud at the solid line of
grim, taut figures who awaited them.
“Pick out your men!” Dick rapped out the order, and as he spoke the
handle of his knife slipped into the hollow of his soft white palm as if
it had suddenly grown there, and the slender hand and delicate weapon
quivered as one living thing.
There were fully ten more excise men than smugglers and they came on
with such a rush that the crew of the _Anny_ was forced to give way a
little, but they rallied immediately, and although the Preventative folk
had the advantage of numbers Dick’s people had the priceless knowledge
of the ground they were fighting on. The wiry grass which covered the
unlevel saltings that lay the other side of the narrow beach was very
slippery, and in the pale light the ridges and dykes were almost
invisible.
Dick soon realized that if the fight was to be fought to a finish the
sooner they got to level ground the better, as his own people found the
light deceptive. So he worked his way round to Blueneck, slashing right
and left as he went.
Blueneck was apparently enjoying himself for, although the moonlight
showed a gash across his temples about six inches long, from which the
blood poured freely, it also showed a smile on his ragged mouth and a
dripping cutlass in his sinewy hand.
Dick spoke to him quickly, just a few muttered words, and almost
immediately the smugglers began to give way. Back, back, they went until
they were flying across the saltings over the meadows and straight for
the Ship, with the Preventative men in full pursuit.
Once the mocking voice of Playle called out to the _Anny’s_ crew to
surrender, and the flying smugglers paused and half-turned with many
oaths, but Dick’s voice dragged them on again with, “On, dogs, on, for
your damned lives,” and the chase continued.
Suddenly, as they reached the Ship yard, Dick vanished: Blueneck,
looking round for further orders, could not see him, and his heart sank.
Was it possible that a knife-thrust from behind had killed the Captain?
He dismissed that idea almost as soon as it came to him. The Spaniard
was too wary to be the victim of such a mishap. The only other
alternative was that he had deserted his crew.
Blueneck feared Dick, but he had no love for him, and this last seemed
to be the only possible explanation. He spat on the ground
contemptuously.
But by this time the Preventative folk were well upon them and Blueneck
realized that it was a case of each man for himself, so calling a halt
he turned on the oncoming force.
The smugglers were only too glad to obey, and with a redoubled force
they turned on their enemy and hewed their way into them.
The Preventative men were not sorry to fight, however, and young Playle
threw himself into the thick of the scrap with something very like
pleasure.
The smugglers fought like wild beasts, preferring to close in and kill,
but the others liked to thrust and parry, pricking and wounding, giving
way here and pressing there, and as they had longer weapons than the
smugglers they found their method an excellent one.
Back went the smugglers down the Ship yard, Blueneck slashing wildly,
Noah Goody defending himself only, and little Habakkuk, his bare chest
and shoulders a perfect network of cuts, darting here and there like a
robin.
Onward pressed young Playle until he had the smugglers with their backs
against the kitchen door, which opened suddenly from the inside.
Blueneck put himself on the step in the way of the excise men and
shouted to his mates to get into the kitchen and form a guard. When the
last man was in he retired also, but the excise men pressed on; first
one of their men fell, on attempting to enter the kitchen, then a
second, and a third, but before the fourth was struck down in response
to a great crush behind him he broke through the smugglers’ guard and
the Preventative men swarmed in.
Hal Grame suddenly darted forward out of the darkness. He carried an old
sword which had hung over the kitchen shelf for years, and he now laid
about him with great strokes, but a certain recklessness distinguished
his fighting, and his red shirt was soon dyed a still deeper shade.
In spite of his help, however, the excise men drove on.
“God! if the Captain was only here!” groaned Blueneck aloud. The man
next him caught his words and looked round, so did his neighbour, and in
a moment all that was left of the _Anny’s_ crew realized that their
captain had deserted them, and a certain hopelessness crept into the
fighting from that time on, and in a minute or two the smugglers
retreated in a body, knocking over the barrels and benches as they
went. They scuttled into the inner room and then slammed the heavy oak
door behind them.
Habakkuk alone was left behind and he, finding the door shut upon him,
turned to fly through the other door into the yard, but a Preventative
man’s sword ran him through just as he reached the threshold, and with
one last sniff the brave little laundryman fell prone in a pool of his
own blood.
The kitchen was very dark, there being no fire, as it was summer-time,
and the only light was the moonlight which showed in through the windows
and fell on the floor in two bright patches.
So when the door slammed on them, Thomas Playle took the opportunity of
counting his forces. He found to his deep disappointment that he had
lost a great many more men than he had dreamed, and those around him in
the kitchen numbered at the most no more than six or seven.
“We must get them yet,” he said, speaking to his few remaining followers
in a low tone. “An you two stay here and I and Jacques go round to the
other door we----” Suddenly he caught his breath, his voice trailed away
into silence, and he started back, his drawn sword put up to shield his
body.
The man to whom he had been principally speaking had quietly dropped
without a cry, and as he touched the ground his head and shoulders
rolled into the patch of moonlight, and his horrified comrades saw a
thin spurt of blood shooting out from a clean small wound in his neck
just over the collar-bone.
Before they could collect their wits after this shock there was a faint
patter of feet behind them and another man staggered, tried to speak,
reeled, and fell.
Instantly there was confusion; men slashed about in the darkness
striking anything and any one, shouting, and screaming. A terrible fear
of something unknown and horrible possessed them and each man made for
the yard, but one by one as they approached the doorway the unseen
terror caught them and they fell. At last there were but three left,
young Playle himself, his mate, Jacques, and the _Charles’s_ gunner, a
tall, powerful man called Rilp.
These three stood back to back in the centre of the kitchen, making a
triangle, their swords drawn before them, so that it was practically
impossible for anything to harm them from behind.
They stood there for some moments holding their breath; everything was
silent. Then there was a light patter of feet again and a small bent
shape darted through the patch of moonlight. It seemed to Playle’s
terrified eyes to be an evil spirit not three feet high from the ground
and to have its head almost level with its waist while its back was bent
into a monstrous hump. Instinctively he put up his sword to shield his
head and at that moment something brushed passed him; he slashed at it
and fancied that he had wounded it, but the next moment he felt Jacques
grunt and stumble. He was just going to spring away when he felt the man
right himself and once again a man’s back was firm against his own.
Then there was silence again for a second.
Suddenly Rilp staggered, shivered, and dropped.
Playle immediately darted forward, when to his amazement and horror the
man whom he thought was Jacques darted after him; something sprang on
his shoulders from behind, a streak of silver light darted before his
eyes and plunged down into his neck; he felt the blood well up in his
throat, his breath failed him, a dark cloud passed over his eyes, and he
died, crashing face downward into the little patch of moonlight.
In the scullery Blueneck, his shoulders against the door, turned to his
comrades and urged them to pull themselves together; put forward every
excuse for Black’erchief Dick’s extraordinary behaviour and besought
them to get ready to fight again.
Inside the kitchen they could hear the Preventative men talking
together, and by their low tones came to the conclusion that they were
planning the next attack.
Suddenly Blueneck started.
“Marry! they’re fighting among themselves,” he whispered. “Hark!”
From inside the kitchen came the sounds of clashing steel, and angry
oaths and ejaculations, followed by screams and groans. Then there was
silence for a while immediately followed by footsteps, mutterings, and
one terrible yell.
Then all was silent again.
“Shall we go in?” whispered Hal.
“Nay, ’tis a trap,” said another man, whose hand and cutlass were one
red mass.
“Nay, I’ll go,” said Hal stubbornly.
“I shouldn’t, lad,” said Blueneck, staunching the bleeding wound on his
forehead as best he could.
Hal put his hand to a dark patch at his side and brought it away wet and
sticky.
“Oh, what does it matter?” he said; taking a candle from the table he
opened the door, holding the light above his head. Then he gasped and
threw the door wide.
“Mother o’ God!” he exclaimed weakly. “Look!”
Blueneck and the others crowded behind him and they, too, gasped and
fell back in astonishment.
In the centre of the room the flickering light showed a terrible bent
little figure; it was a man, but the crouching attitude in which he
stood suggested rather a beast of prey. He was literally surrounded with
bodies, and he looked down at them with an almost ghoulish delight which
was terrible to see. But only for a second; as soon as he became
conscious of the little group in the doorway he straightened himself and
stood smiling at them.
He was clothed only in his breeches and immaculate white shirt; his
black kerchief was half off, showing the black curls beneath, while his
white hands were clean and undyed.
Dick Delfazio smiled again and then began to clean his knife on a dainty
lace-edged handkerchief.
Then his crew entered, and he looked up casually as they filed in and
turning to the least wounded man he pointed to a chair over the back of
which his black silk coat was hung.
“Prithee, friend, help me into my surcoat,” he said, his voice caressing
and honey-like as ever. “For see,” he added, turning round, “I am much
hampered.”
The crew started.
The sleeve of the white shirt was split from the shoulder to the elbow,
displaying a terrible ragged wound which at one place had laid bare the
bone, and from the bend in the elbow the warm blood trickled on to the
floor.
This was the last act of Thomas Playle’s hand and he had done his best.
Dick slipped into his coat and then surveyed the crew.
“Wash yourselves, friends,” he admonished, “the wenches will come down
now and may be feared at the sight of blood.” He staggered a little and
his face grew ashy pale, but he rallied himself and with some of his
usual jauntiness said loudly, “Bring me some wine.” Already the black
silk sleeve of his coat was sodden and sticky, and the arm inside it
hung limply from its socket; once again he staggered, tried to recover
himself and failed, and then, very faint from loss of blood,
Black’erchief Dick rolled over on his side, unconscious.
Blueneck picked him up like a child and stripping off the coat called
loudly for Anny.
“Surely the girl knows somewhat of physicking. The Captain may bleed to
death,” he said sharply in answer to Hal’s suggestion that they didn’t
want wenches about the place.
Hal put his hand over his own wound and, shrugging his shoulders, a
gesture which cost him a great deal of blood, went off to find Anny and
beseech her to attend to his rival’s arm.
* * * * *
Late the same evening a tumbril borrowed from a neighbouring farmer
carried a gruesome burden from the Ship door down to the beach, and
along the road it stopped from time to time to collect additions to its
load.
A little later a party of men in three rowing-boats loaded a terrible
cargo into a lonely ship which rode at anchor not far from the shore
where a brig lay aground, and then that same lonely ship sailed off out
of the bay, and later, after three boats had left her side, broke into
flames.
And later still widows and children in Brightlingsea wept to see charred
spars and planks cast up on the beach outside their homes.