“A better mansion than you’ve got at home,” said Stukeley. “What are

you talking of?”

“Suppose the Dutch were here. Think what a city they’d have built.”

“What a hot head it is,” said Margaret gently. “I don’t agree with you

a bit, Edward. You’re all wrong. The Dutch haven’t done much in the

East.”

“At least, they’ve worked; and made the Indians work.”

“And the English here. Have they worked?”

“Not so much.”

“Isn’t that an argument against you? It tells just the other way. Work

is often one of the most degrading things in the world. All work that

gives no rapture of creation is degrading. That is why the merchant is

poor company, and the professional a conservative. The Dutch built

Batavia; but their system has ruined the spice trade. The Spaniards

built San Domingo; but their system ruined the island. They’ve built

Panama and Lima; but they’ve destroyed both Costa Rica and Peru. A

city can only be the growth of a civilization. You can only build a

colonial city by agreeing to ruin the colony. So here. There may be a

time when all the trees in sight will have sailed out to sea. This

harbour may be crowded with ships. Who knows? This place may be

another Athens some day.”

“There’s not much Athens here now. The colonials aren’t much like

Athenians.”

“I think they’re very like, Edward. They’re fond of liberty. They take

a beautiful pride in their bodies. They are attached to the country.

They’re very like Athenians. The world doesn’t alter much.”

“How about Plato and Sophocles?”

“They were not the world. They had wrought themselves to something

finer than the world.”

“The Governor’s got a devil of a lot of letters,” said Stukeley.

“There goes his secretary to him.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I pity the man who tries it,” Stukeley muttered, thinking of an

arrest.

“Is this a very good harbour for ships?” Olivia asked.

“Yes; very good,” said Margaret. “Don’t you love to imagine the river

here full of ships, the biggest and most beautiful kinds of ships? And

then the banks here, and yonder, with a city. A city, built of marble.

Marble cathedrals. And a great citadel on the hill there.”

“A great naval power is always on the brink of ruin,” said Perrin.

“Athens was a great naval power, and had her navy smashed by a power

without a navy. Carthage the same. Spain was greatest at the

eighty-eight. There’s another instance.”

“Naval power is a very fine thing,” said Margaret. “You’re mixing up

greatness, and the weakness which comes of overweening pride, or the

defect of greatness.”

“That’s what you silly Celts are always doing,” said Stukeley.

At this moment the orderly reappeared, saluting.

“Beg pardon, sirs,” he said, “but which of you gents is Captain

Margaret?”

“I am.”

“’Is lordship’s compliments, sir; ’n’ will you step this way?”

Margaret glanced at the faces of his friends. Stukeley sat down,

nursing the sword, looking at the doorway and at the window. Perrin,

who sincerely hoped he was about to see the end of Stukeley, enjoyed a

mental vision of the Ephesian matron. His day-dream was of Olivia in

black, in a darkened London room, and of himself, the comforter, come

to console her, with platitude in low tone, sentiment speaking grief’s

language. Olivia turned to the spinet. She tried one or two notes with

her finger, making little wry mouths at the want of tune. “Is there

any Virginian music, Edward?” she asked. “I heard some negroes singing

in the tobacco fields the other day. It sounded very sweet. It came

home to one strangely. All working songs come home to one, don’t you

think?”

“Yes,” said Perrin. “They are so simple. They’re like a simple person

speaking passionately. They leave the intellect untouched, of course.”

“Yes. But you and Charles are always blaming poultry, shall we say,

for not being golden eagles. Poultry as poultry are very good. Don’t

you think so? Won’t you sit down, Edward? This is the song the negroes

sang. I think it’s so charming.”

While she touched the tune upon the spinet, Margaret stood in the

presence of Howard, the Governor, a heavy-looking, weary-looking man

with dark moustaches. His voice was hard and grating, an official

voice. It jarred on Margaret, who expected bad news from it.

“Sit down, Margaret,” he said, picking up a letter. “I hope you’re

well.”

“Thanks. Yes. You wanted to see me?”

“Do you know that I could lodge you all in prison?”

“So you’ve heard, then?”

“Read this letter.”

He glanced through the letter of instructions from the Board. It set

forth Stukeley’s crime, the details of the escape from Salcombe, the

necessity for the arrest of the whole party; it was not a pleasant

letter. No one had ever before described Margaret as an abettor of

felons; the sensation was new; and oppressive, like some

contaminations.

“Well,” said Howard. “You seem to take it very coolly.”

“I’ve been preparing for this moment for a quarter of a year.”

“What is this Stukeley? He seems a boorish kind of fellow.”

“He’s an unpleasant man. A bad man.”

“I should call him a thorough scoundrel, from that letter.”

“He’s married to a charming woman. A woman I’ve known for years. You

can see for yourself that she’s a lot too good for him.”

“Do you wish him to be arrested? You know the penalty, of course?”

“I suppose I could plead ignorance?”

“You? Yes. But he. _Sus. per col._ Eh?”

“I think, Howard, he ought to be cut off. But his wife’s going to have

a child. I happen to know her, as I said. She believes in him. She

doesn’t suspect. I’m afraid the shock would kill both her and the

child.”

“You’d rather that I didn’t arrest?”

“For her sake, yes. And for the sake of the merchants concerned in the

venture with me.”

“Your tobacco will keep them from loss. They’re all right. Do you know

that your Darien scheme is known in Spain?”

“Ah. Then. Then the Government will curry favour with Spain by

arresting us on this pretext, and claiming to have stopped us on her

account?”

“That is, of course, possible. It depends on party needs at the

moment. I know nothing of that.”

“It is something you ought to reckon, Howard.”

“Well. If I don’t arrest you. You’ve put me in such an awkward

position. I can’t very well arrest my guests. It would bring me into

disfavour, and my office into disrepute. I don’t know what to say. Are

you ready to sail?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you sail two or three days ago? As soon as you’d made your

voyage. Why in the world did you wait for the tobacco fleet?”

“We were kept waiting for our new topmast. We found our foretopmast

sprung. It was only this morning that we finished setting up the

rigging on the new spar.”

“You understand, Margaret, that at this moment you’re Stukeley’s

judge. You’ve got power of life and death over him. You can turn it

over in your mind, and then say, whether you wish me to arrest him, or

not. You wish to spare the girl, his wife. Looking at it impartially,

I should doubt whether you would spare her by sparing him. The man’s a

scoundrel.”

“There’s the child, remember.”

“Yes. I was forgetting the child. Of course. There’s the child.”

“If you arrest us all and send us home, of course her people will look

after her on arrival. Is that a possible solution to you?”

“Between you and me, Margaret, I don’t want to arrest you all. If I

do, why, there’ll be a scandal here. ‘The Governor’s friends proved to

be escaping felons.’ The cry will be everywhere. I don’t want that. On

the other hand, the man’s a scoundrel. H’m. It’s a pretty problem.”

“You can arrest me in mistake for Stukeley. How would that do?”

“No,” said the Governor, shaking his head; “that won’t do. What are

your plans for the lady in case I don’t arrest?”

“I suppose we shall have to leave her at Jamaica after a month or two

in Darien.”

“Perhaps she’ll be better off there than in England. Has she a woman

with her?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t, in your heart, wish me to proceed?”

“No, Howard; I want you to spare her.”

“Very well, then. You must sail this night. Sail directly you get on

board.”

“Thank you, Howard. I will. You won’t get into trouble with the Board

over this?”

“I shall say that you crept away in the night. No singing at the

capstan, remember. No cheering. If you’re not gone by dawn I’ll arrest

the whole pack of you. I can’t do more.”

“I’m very---- This is very kind of you, Howard.”

“Kind? A kind man has no business in politics. I’m shirking my duty.”

“Yes,” said Margaret, with a sigh. “And I’m pleading with you, trying

to make you shirk it.”

“Not a bit of it,” said the Governor. “There’s the gong. We’ll go down

to dinner. By the way, there’s a letter for you. Where did I put it?

Here it is.” He handed a sealed packet to Margaret, who glanced

abstractly at the seal, and then, not recognizing the crest, put it in

his pocket, and followed his host to the door. “Honour,” he repeated

to himself. “Honour. My honour is a smirched rag. A smirched rag.”

The dining-room was a long, low, bare apartment. The whitewashed walls

were hung with one or two prints by Dürer, the “Adam and Eve,” the

“Justice,” and “The Man of Sorrows,” from the “Lesser Passion.” The

table was heaped with a deal of silver, all of it very crudely

designed. The dinner was mostly of fruit and vegetables; it was too

hot for meat. The wine bottles lay outside the window in jackets of

wetted flannel. Each guest had a palm fan at his side, for use between

the courses.

The Governor sat at the end of the table with the door at his back.

Olivia sat next to him, with Margaret beside her. Mrs. Prinsep sat

next to Margaret, with Stukeley on her right, then Perrin, then an

empty seat directly at the Governor’s left. During the dinner Howard

asked the footman if Captain Lewin had arrived. The man told him, no.

“Captain Lewin is in command of the frigate there,” Howard explained

to Olivia. “I asked him to join us, so that you could hear the news.

By the by, I’m sorry to hear you’re sailing.”

Olivia noticed that he, too, looked at her with something of the

shrewd, hard, medical gaze with which Perrin and Cammock sometimes

looked at her. She resented the look as an impertinence, half

wondering if there was something strange about her face--some sudden

growth of eyelid or droop of hair.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry we’re going, too, for several reasons. But

I hope we shall meet again in England. You must come and see us when

we’re settled there.”

“That will be delightful. In what part do you think of settling?”

“In Devon. Near a place called Flaxley.”

“Oh yes. Indeed. Flaxley. That’s near the sea. I know Flaxley, Mrs.

Stukeley. There’s a beautiful old house there. I once stayed a night

there. What was the fellow’s name, now?”

“Then you know my uncle. Do you? Neston Pile.”

“Pile. Yes. Pile. Of course. So he’s your uncle, Mrs. Stukeley? What a

fine old man he is.”

“Yes,” she said, with quiet indifference. “He is very much loved.” She

would have given much to be back at Flaxley sitting in the great hall

there. A Vandyck hung in the hall, the portrait of Sir Nicolas Pile,

her great-uncle, once the king’s standard-bearer, who had been killed

in the fight at Naseby. He looked down upon the hall in melancholy

honour, a noble guardian, full of grave pride, helpful to those who

sat there. Howard’s words gave her a longing to see that austere,

sweet, thoughtful face looking down upon her, a longing all the more

keen for the knowledge that perhaps she would never again see him, now

that her uncle had been so horrid to Tom. The pang of homesickness

went shrewdly to her heart; but she sipped her wine, her face

unchanged, her smile ready.

“What brought you to Flaxley, I wonder?” she added. “I wonder if I was

there then.”

“It was seven or eight years ago,” said Howard. “I had to go there

about some Roman coins. I collect antiques, you know. Rather a dull

subject for you. Your uncle had written a little pamphlet on the coins

dug up at Hurst’s Castle, that old Roman Camp in Somerset.”

“Yes. He used to collect coins then. He’d a few very rare ones. Were

you there in the summer? Did you see the rose-garden?”

“On a slope, somewhere at the back, rather exposed?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve a dim recollection of it. I was only there one night. You

weren’t there then?”

“My brothers were alive then. I expect I was with them.”

“Is that old gate-keeper of yours alive still? An oldish woman. Rather

a character?”

“Old Maggie? Oh, do you remember old Maggie? Poor old Maggie. She’s

dead now. There was a shipwreck on the rocks beyond Flaxley, and she

rowed out to the wreck with her idiot son. She was such a fine old

woman. None of the men would go out; so she said she would go. She

rowed and rowed. There’s a very strong current there, too. When she

got to the wreck her boat was smashed against the side, so she had to

stay there for nearly a day, I think, and she died soon afterwards

from the exposure.”

“Indeed. She impressed me. A fierce old Roman.”

Perrin looked up to remark that the courage of a woman was as it were

complementary to the courage of man. That women did things which men

could not do; and that their courage was on the whole of a finer

quality. Mrs. Prinsep, who may perhaps have thought that the

compliment to her sex was designed subtly to please her, seemed to

bridle.

“I think women would be proud to hear that,” she said contemptuously.

She disliked Perrin; all common natures did.

“Yes,” said Margaret. “A woman’s courage comes from a quality of soul.

A man’s comes more from a faculty of body. You can’t think of the two

without feeling that in the woman you have something far finer.”

“They squeal if they see a mouse,” said Stukeley.

“Yes? If you will name the highest flight of man’s courage, I will

prove to you that at that point woman’s courage begins.”

“A man’s courage is often indifference,” said Perrin. “When I was

nearly drowned once, I remember thinking, ‘I’m going to die. Why am I

not frightened?’ I wasn’t frightened. I was only tired of swimming and

swimming, with the water against me.”

“You skedaddled from that dog the other day,” said Stukeley.

“What dog was that, Mr. Stukeley?” Mrs. Prinsep asked.

“Oh,” said Stukeley, with a chuckle. “A dog that flounced out at him

from one of the houses here. Good luck. To see old Pilly run. Did he

get you, Pilly, or did you get up the tree in time?”

“I was in time,” said Perrin, flushing, looking very uncomfortable.

“Are you very much afraid of dogs, Mr. Perrin?” Mrs. Prinsep asked.

“Yes,” he answered rudely. “So are you.”

At this moment Captain Lewin entered, so that the discussion came to

an end before it had well begun, like most discussions of the kind.

Captain Lewin was a tall, grey, upright man, with a sharp, dictatorial

manner that was somehow not authoritative, and therefore not

offensive. He entered the room with his hands behind his back,

snapping quickly from the nervous strain of being late. Howard greeted

him and introduced him. He sat down nervously on his host’s left,

looked round the room with the quick apprehension of an animal, much

as he would have looked aloft on coming on deck, and began to

apologize for his lateness.

“I dined before I left the ship,” he said. “That rascal, my purser,

kept me. Very good claret, your Excellency. Who’s the man next but one

on my left? I seem to know his face.”

“Stukeley. Thomas Stukeley, husband of the lady here,” the Governor

answered in a low voice.

“I seem to have seen him somewhere. Wasn’t he in the rising in

Beverley’s time?”

“No, captain.”

“Reminds me of that beauty who led us such a dance up the Delaware.”

“Oh, George Bond?”

“Yes. He was a beauty. I wonder what’s become of George Bond?”

“Yes. He kept us all alive here.”

“You have just come from England?” Olivia asked.

“Yes,” said the captain. “We sailed at the end of July. Your

Excellency, I wouldn’t go down the river with such another convoy. Not

if the King knighted me.”

Olivia was not quite sure of the technical terms, so she answered

nothing, but smiled a smile of interested sympathy. She remembered

suddenly that perhaps he had brought mails. She asked him.

“Mails? Yes, madam. Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh I’ve brought the mails. They’re

in his Excellency’s hands.”

“None for you, Mrs. Stukeley, I’m afraid,” said Howard. “Captain

Margaret had one.”

“Captain Margaret?” said Lewin quickly. “Do you know a Captain

Margaret here?”

Stukeley pushed back his chair, and seemed to fumble in his pocket.

Margaret looked up quickly from the cracking of a nut.

“I am he,” he said quietly.

“You are he, are you? I missed your name just now,” said Lewin,

putting his hand within his coat.

Perrin pushed back his chair so that his body covered Lewin from

Stukeley.

“Ah,” continued Lewin, in his hard voice with its ring of jocularity,

“I’ve a letter for you. I was to deliver it into your hands. You’ve

got friends at Court, I think, sir. It came to me through the

Secretary.”

Margaret kept a steady face, not daring to glance at Stukeley; for a

wink to a blind horse may be as disastrous as a blow. His first

thought was, “here it ends”; his second thought told him that Perrin

was giving the show away, by pushing back his chair; his third thought

took in the possibilities of the pistol. He filled his wine-glass

composedly, so that he might have a missile handy, then poured a

little claret into Olivia’s glass.

“Friends at Court, Captain Lewin?” he answered. “No. I don’t think so.

Let me see this mysterious letter.” A sudden impulse urged him to keep

Olivia’s eyes from her husband’s face. “Howard,” he added, “you never

showed Mrs. Stukeley those experiments of yours on the maize-ear.

Aren’t those some of the maize-ears just behind you?”

“Ah yes, Mrs. Stukeley,” said Howard, reaching behind him to the jar.

“Let me explain them to you.”

Lewin selected a sealed packet from his pocket-book and handed it

across the table. Olivia, reaching out her hand to pass the letter to

Margaret, saw the superscription.

“Why,” she cried, “it’s from Uncle Nestor. How strange. We were just

now talking of him.”

“So is this Sir Nestor’s hand?” said Margaret, putting the letter to

one side. He asked because the letter in his pocket was addressed in

the same hand.

“Yes,” said Olivia, looking down at it. “Aren’t you going to read it?”

“Read it,” said Stukeley in a strange voice.

Howard laid down his maize-cobs. The letter lay at Margaret’s side;

everybody looked at it. Mrs. Prinsep, in her shrewd Scotch way,

glanced at her neighbours, and saw that there was something wrong.

“There is something wrong somewhere,” she said to herself. Olivia,

looking at Perrin and at her husband, wondered if the heat had been

too much for them. Their faces were so very curious. It struck her

that the talk had gone to pieces. The host, waiting for her head to

turn, so that he might expound his new science to her, held his peace.

“Everybody’s waiting for you, Charles,” she added.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Prinsep, guessing that Margaret disliked Olivia’s

prompting. “Captain Margaret will tell us all the news.”

Captain Margaret asked Mrs. Prinsep if he might hand her a sapadillo.

“I’m anxious to hear the news,” she answered. “No, thank you.”

“Oh,” said Margaret lightly, as he put the letter in his pocket, “I

won’t read the letter during dinner. I’ve been meaning to ask you,

Mrs. Prinsep, how you keep domestic servants here, with such a

scarcity of white women.”

“I’d rather hear what the letter says,” she answered, “than talk about

servants. We get so little news here from England.”

“I don’t understand the craving for news,” said Perrin. “One carries

the world in one’s head.”

“You must want a big head to do that,” said Mrs. Prinsep.

“It doesn’t matter what size it is, so long as it’s empty. Why read

letters and gazettes when one can read imaginative work?”

Mrs. Prinsep remarked with bitterness that she knew not what

imaginative work meant, unless it was a kind of thing which she

disliked very much. She half rose, catching Olivia’s eye. The two

ladies left the room--Mrs. Prinsep to abuse Perrin and to apply

crudely an examination; Olivia to suffer from home-sickness, thinking

of her uncle’s letter. Mrs. Prinsep could draw little from her; for

Mrs. Prinsep, while suspecting something wrong, naturally suspected a

woman of finer beauty than her own of being a party to it. Her theory

was that Olivia had run away from her home, and that, being beautiful,

she was possibly not correctly married. She liked Stukeley; but she

had her duty to herself to consider. She put Olivia through a

conventional catechism, in the course of which she asked for

particulars of the wedding. Olivia, seeing her drift, replied coldly,

in monosyllables.

Meanwhile, in the dining-room, over the wine, Stukeley badgered

Margaret to read the letter.

“Read it,” he kept saying. “Read it. Let’s hear what’s in it.”

Howard wondered at his tone; but as he knew something of Stukeley’s

affairs, he drew Lewin out of the room, so that the voyagers might

read the letter together undisturbed. When he had gone, Margaret

opened the packet brought by Lewin. Stukeley picked up his wine-glass

and crossed over towards Margaret, so that he, too, might read.

“What do you want, Stukeley?” Margaret asked him.

“I want to read that letter, of course. It’s about me.”

“Do you generally read the letters of others?”

“I’m going to read this.”

“Are you?” Margaret looked at him coolly, finished his letter, and

started to read the other. As he had expected, the letters were alike.

One had been brought by a merchantman, the other by the man-of-war.

The letter was that saddest of all letters, the letter of the old man

who asks humbly, knowing the selfishness of youth. That the old man

wrote without hope seemed evident to Margaret from the appeal he made

to chivalrous sentiment. “I am confident to write to you,” ran the

un-confident words, “though we are little acquainted. I had the honour

to serve with your father more than forty years ago.” Then there came

a request that Captain Margaret would cause Stukeley to be arrested

and brought home to trial, so that Olivia might again be under his

care. There was also a moving prayer that he, the son of that old

brother-in-arms who had ridden with the writer at Newbury forty odd

years before, would let Olivia know what her husband had done. She was

ignorant of her husband’s nature; but in England it was said that she

was not so ignorant. In England her honour seemed smirched, for there

were some who saw in her flight the ruse of a criminal and his doxy.

It was right that she should know this, and very right that her

husband should stand his trial, so that their honour might be cleared.

The letter was bitter reading to Margaret. It made him feel that he

had stained Olivia’s honour in staining his own, and all for the sake

of a ruffian incapable of feeling the sacrifice. If the letter had

come before his interview with Howard he would have pleaded

differently, child or no child. He looked grave, helped himself to

more wine, and handed a letter to Perrin.

“What’s the old boy say?” said Stukeley.

“That is surely not your business,” Margaret answered.

“I’ll make it my business. It concerns me. Isn’t it all about me? Eh?”

“No.”

“Isn’t it? I’ll soon see. Now then, Pilly. Hand over.”

“Leave Edward alone,” said Margaret. “The letter’s a private letter to

myself. I prefer that you shall not read it, Stukeley.”

“Shall not. Eh? Blood. Eh? Shall not. Give it to me, Pilly.”

“Sit down, Stukeley,” said Margaret.

“Don’t you touch me, Stukeley,” said Perrin.

“Give me that letter.” He was within snatching distance; but Perrin

twisted aside, so that he missed his mark. He sprawled across Perrin

trying to reach his outstretched hand.

“Get out, you beast,” said Perrin, thrusting with his elbow.

“Temper, eh?” said Stukeley. He feinted quickly for Perrin’s nose;

Perrin’s outstretched hand flew back to guard; the letter was seized

with a whoop of triumph. Stukeley glanced contemptuously at Perrin,

and began to read the letter, as Margaret quietly walked round the

table to him.

Stukeley saw him coming, and kicked Mrs. Prinsep’s chair across his

shins, checking his progress for an instant. As he kicked the chair,

Perrin dashed at him, to snatch the paper. Stukeley flung him aside

heavily, laughing at the fun of the tussle.

“You see what you get, little Pilly,” he said. “You see what you get.

Eh?”

Margaret set aside the chair and advanced upon him. “Now, Stukeley,”

he said, “that letter.”

Stukeley backed a pace to avoid him. Perrin, recovering, felt blindly

along the table for a knife. At this moment the door opened, and

Olivia entered.

“I’ve come to ask if I might read the letter. Uncle Nestor’s letter,

Charles,” she said.

Perrin, in a voice which shook with the hysteria of wrath, told her

that she had better ask her husband.

“There it is,” said Margaret quietly, indicating Stukeley.

Olivia glanced at the three men with surprise, even anxiety. Stukeley,

who had not yet read the letter, looked to Margaret for a hint that

the letter might be shown.

“There it is,” Margaret repeated.

“What is the matter with you three men?” Olivia asked. “You were

fighting.”

“Pilly gets so excited,” Stukeley said.

“What were you doing, Tom?”

“Reading the letter,” Perrin said.

“What is in the letter?”

“There it is,” said Margaret.

Olivia walked softly to her husband. “May I see the letter?” she said,

her eyes full of tears. “I may read the letter, Charles?”

“Yes. I wish you to read it.”

“There it is,” said Stukeley, handing it to her. “What did you two

asses make such a fuss for?” He sat down, helped himself to wine, and

lighted a roll of tobacco-leaf, a kind of primitive cigar. Between the

puffs, he glanced at the two men, and at Olivia’s face. Something in

Olivia’s face attracted him: the eyes seemed to burn; the eyes seemed

to be her intelligence, now starting outward. He looked at Margaret,

wondering if he had done rightly to give the letter; but Margaret

stood there, grave, courteous, self-controlled, his face a mask.

Olivia read the letter, turned the sheet to see if a postscript had

been added, then read it through a second time, turning very white.

“I don’t understand,” she said slowly. “Have you read this, Tom?”

“No, Livy. Let’s see it.”

“I suppose I may show it to Tom, Charles?”

“Yes, Olivia.”

“You’ve read the letter, Charles?”

“Yes, Olivia.”

“Well. I don’t understand. What is Uncle Nestor thinking, Tom?”

Stukeley read the letter, with a desire to have Margaret’s throat in

his hands, squeezing the life out of him. He looked savagely at

Margaret. “You swine, to let me in for this,” he thought. Then he

became conscious that Olivia was closely watching him.

“Strange,” he said, puckering his brows. He took a gulp of wine and

looked at Margaret. “Hadn’t we better go aboard?” he added. “It’s not

a thing we can discuss here. Old Howard might come in.”

“But we can’t go aboard, Tom. The ship is sailing.”

“All our things are on board.”

“Yes. But we must get them. We must go home. You see that, Tom, don’t

you? We must go home to clear our names.”

“We can’t go, Livy, for the reason I told you before.”

“They’re saying these things about us, though.”

“Who is? Some tea-drinking old maids who’ve got at your uncle Nestor.

He doesn’t like me, as you know, so naturally he believes them.”

“But, Tom, what could have started the old maids, as you call them?”

“Our hurried leaving, of course. What else?”

“Ah,” she said, turning very pale, as though a bitter thought had come

to her. “Charles, Charles. Oh, why did not Uncle Nestor write to me,

instead of you? He need not have told you the scandal.”

Margaret, who had gone to the window with Perrin, to look out over the

darkened harbour, while the husband and wife talked together, now

turned gravely towards her, too sad to answer.

“I didn’t mean that, Charles.” She looked from one face to another,

searching for a key to the puzzle, for a way back to the peace of ten

minutes ago.

“What were you doing, Charles, when I came in just now?”

“We were struggling for the letter, Olivia.”

“You had snatched the letter, Tom?”

“From me,” said Perrin.

“I did not wish your husband to read it, Olivia,” Margaret added.

“He told me it concerned me,” said Stukeley, “and naturally, in a

playful way, I snatched it. In a playful way.”

“I told you no such thing,” said Margaret.

“And yet, Charles, you say you did not wish Tom, my husband, to read

it?”

“I did not wish it.”

“And you could hand it on to Edward?”

“Yes.”

“But I don’t understand. And you wished me to read it?”

“Yes, Olivia. I wished you to read it.”

“We can’t discuss it here, Livy,” Stukeley said. “Old Howard may come

in. Let’s go on board.”

“Tom, we can’t go on board. I can’t enter that ship again. They’ve

been calling us that for three months. Do think what it means, dear.”

“Only cackle,” he answered sullenly. “I’m not going to alter my plans

for a little old wives’ cackle.”

“You think it’s only that, Tom?”

“Good luck. Yes.”

“But let’s go home and put an end to it. If we don’t it may grow. It

may----”

The door opened. Howard entered. He looked round them with his air of

weary boredom.

“Captain Margaret,” he said coldly, “your boat is waiting. Your

captain is anxious not to lose the tide.”

“Well, we’ll go on board then. Edward, fetch Olivia’s wraps.”

“No,” Olivia said. “No. Not that. We’re not going, Charles. We’re

going home. Oh, this letter is like a fire.”

“Come, Edward,” said Margaret, “we’ll be getting our cloaks.”

“I’ll get Olivia’s things,” Stukeley said.

“Tom,” she cried, “you aren’t going to run away like this, letting

them think you guilty? You can’t, Tom. Go back. No. No. I can’t let

you. Dear, we must face this. We must go home and face this.”

Margaret was at the door again, hooking the heavy silver cloak-clasp

at his throat. He looked at her pitifully, saying nothing. He wished

that he could help her, for the sake of her little one; but the letter

had struck a jangle in him, and Stukeley had made him lose his temper.

He thought that he had gone too far now, that he had shown Stukeley to

be guilty. He could not bring himself to speak. He was worn out with

the long anxiety of love. He was tired. Stukeley must fight his own

battles, tell his own lies, maintain his own deceptions. He was too

weary of it all to be sad, even when, after shaking the Governor’s

hand and thanking him for his kindness, he turned to Olivia, with his

hand outstretched.

“Well, Olivia,” he said.

“Well,” she said. “What d’you want, Charles?”

“Are you going home?” he asked bluntly.

“Of course I’m going home. Do you think that. Do you think I could

live longer in that ship, eating, and lying down, and watching the

sea, with this being said of me?”

“Yes,” said Stukeley, “I think you could. Put on your wraps, Livy, and

come on.”

“Tom. Tom, dear.”

“I would go, Mrs. Stukeley, if I were you,” said the Governor. “You

couldn’t leave the colony here much before November.”

“I am very sorry,” she answered. “But I don’t think you know the

circumstances.”

“I’ve discussed them with Captain Margaret,” he answered.

“You discussed them, Charles?”

“Yes,” Margaret said. “Howard gives good advice, Olivia.”

“I don’t think my wife wants your advice,” said Stukeley. “Come, Livy.

Here are your wraps. Come on. Don’t let’s have a scene.”

“Tom,” she said, holding out her hands, swaying a little, her eyes

blind with tears. “Tom, I beseech you, let’s go home. What is your

pledged word to--to what they are saying?”

“I’m going to keep my word,” he answered brutally. “Good-bye, Howard.

Thanks for the pie-crust. I hope, next time I see you, you’ll have

some decent wine. Your port is---- So long.” He turned to the other

men. “Come on, Pilly. Come, Maggy.” As he walked to the door, he

looked again at Howard. “So long, me lord,” he said.

“Good-bye, Mr. Stukeley,” said Howard.

“Shake hands.”

“No, thank you.”

Stukeley looked at him with some amusement.

“Oxford man. Eh!” he said, and passed out. Olivia stood swaying,

looking after him, calling to him, through her tears.

“Will you come, Olivia?” Margaret asked her gently.

“Come with you, Charles? With you? You believe Tom guilty.”

“Olivia,” Perrin said, “this goes round your throat, doesn’t it? Then,

here’s your glove. You mustn’t forget your glove.” He helped her with

her things, evidently deeply pained.

“Thank you, dear,” she said, speaking as one stunned.

“Take my arm,” Perrin whispered. “Let’s get into the fresh air.”

She took a stumbling step forward, her hand on Perrin’s arm, then

paused, and faced Margaret. “You think, Charles. You think, because.

Because I’m not very happy. That I shall not notice. But I see. Oh, I

see so well. You wish to poison me against Tom. You wish me to think.

That. That. Him guilty.”

“Quiet, Margaret,” said Howard. “Mrs. Stukeley, it’s my duty to tell

you that your husband is guilty. Better now than later,” he added to

Margaret in a low voice. “She can’t have two scenes like this. It’d

kill her. It is true, Mrs. Stukeley,” he continued. “If he returns to

England, he will be hanged. Now you two, take her out. She’s stunned.

Take her out before the flunkies notice. Get to sea. Don’t wait. Into

the boat with her. Get to sea. Get to the devil.”

The two men supported the dazed creature to the boat. Howard watched

them from his pleasaunce, with an air of weary boredom. “Like clubbing

a kitten,” he said to himself. “But nervous women are. They are.”

He watched them pass away into the night, the oars grunting through

the darkness, the voice of the coxswain sounding very clear. He noted

it as a sign of rain. Afterwards he heard the feet tramping round the

capstan, amid yells and screams and pistol-shots. “There are the men

of war. The buccaneers,” he said cynically. “My reputation’s gone. I

forgot them.” He stood amid his flowers, watching the fireflies,

waiting for the end. He saw dimly the jib of the great ship cloaking a

star. Then among the screams of many drunken men, with laughter, and

shots, and oaths, the topsails jolted up, the parrels groaning, to a

ditty about a girl in Paradise Street. The roaring chorus woke the

ships in harbour. The crews answered, cheering, beating their bells.

The bell of the _Broken Heart_ was rung like the alarm of fire. He

smiled to hear them, repeating the phrases he had planned for his

official report. “She stole away, unnoticed, in the night,” he

repeated. “So that I could not give effect to the Honourable Board’s

command.” “It’s getting chilly,” he said. “I must go in. She’s gone.

She’s out of sight.” From very far away came the words of a chorus,

the cat-fall chorus, sung by men so drunk that they had to take the

cat-fall to the capstan:--

Blow, my bullies, blow

For Springer’s Key, ay O.

There’s plenty of gold,

So I’ve been told,

On the banks of the Rio Diablo.

It was the last of her farewells. Howard went indoors, to his game of

cribbage with Mrs. Prinsep. “They have gone to found an empire,” he

said to himself. “That song is an imperial hymn. Men of the Breed.

Eh?”

X.

THE LANDFALL

“We are arrived among the blessed islands,

Where every wind that rises blows perfumes,

And every breath of air is like an incense;

The treasure of the sun dwells here.”

_The Island Princess._

“This new come Captain

Hath both a ship and men.”

_The Sea Voyage._

The _Broken Heart_ made a poor passage. The eighteen hundred miles

of sea between the Capes and the Samballoes were dragged through

wearily, in calms, in light airs, in head winds, during six weeks of

torment. Through the Florida Channel, across a sea of brass; through

the Yucatan Channel, hugging the Cuban side; then launching out, past

Grand Cayman, past Providence, she rolled and drove, foul with her

months at sea. Her gilt was battered off, her paint peeled; her once

white decks were crossed with tar marks, where the seam-tar, sticking

to shoes, had been impressed crosswise as the seamen walked. An awning

was over her poop. Her boys splashed her decks continually with salt

water. The men about decks did their work languidly. At night they lay

among the booms, sheltered from the dew, sleeping in their watches,

their eyes covered lest the moon should blast them.

A ship driving to the south, with all her sails set, her side a little

bowed, whitening a line along her fo’c’s’le, is beautiful to see,

noble, an image of wonder. She should be allowed to pass, swaying her

beauty in a rhythm; for beauty is enough; one should not question

beauty. If one question, then in that stately ship may be found a

hell. Men mutinous, officers overdriven, boys in misery, the captain

drunk; wasted men forward, flying from justice; broken men aft,

carrying their incompetence to other lands, to breed it there

unchecked; the rigging rotten, the sails threadbare, all the hull of

the ship in outcry, a decay, a fraud; down in the hold a fire

smouldering, a little red glow, a fireball, not flame yet, waiting,

charring the beams, blackening in the bales, till the wind fan it to a

crackling triumph, to a blaze, a mastery, amid the screams of men,

amid death. Even such a ship was the _Broken Heart_, as she drove on

to the south, her sails slatting. Within her were many tortured

hearts, each heart a chamber in hell, in the hell of the wicked or the

weak, where the prisoned soul atoned, or added to the account to be

paid later. At the galley door, waiting for the cook to let them light

their pipes, their one pleasure, the seamen watched the gentry,

envying them, talking bitterly of them, angry at the world’s injustice

to themselves, angry at the ease which they would lack, though they

lived to be old men, always working hard.

Of all the ship’s company, Olivia was the most to be pitied, for she

was in the worst hell. Her soul had been bruised in the stalk; all

that made life for her had been taken from her violently. She could

not think. When she rose up an image rose up with her. If she shut her

eyes, it was there; if she looked out over the sea, it was there

still: the image of the room ashore; the fruit plates, the smell of

wine, the men standing guiltily, the sheet of creased letter, with its

fine, tremulous writing. All of it she saw. It was always with her.

When she lay down it was there; when she slept it was heavy upon her,

like the trance of a sick man. Sometimes, in spite of her will,

against her nature, it played itself over to her in her mind, like a

farce, a stupid farce, ending in tragedy, in one stunning blow,

crushing out sense, as it had crushed her in life. Her husband would

be there, rude and common--rude to her, common before all those

men--stripping away the cloaks her love had wrapped about him. Her

husband, the flaming young love, the man she had chosen, was before

her, acting as she had once seen a drunken man act when dragged by his

wife out of a beer-shop. She had loved that, given herself to that.

Then Howard’s words, clubbing home the meaning of her husband’s

rudeness. That horrible flash of insight, of intuition, which made the

guilt apparent; that was harder to bear than Howard’s words, more

terrible, now that it returned to her. All along the memories of her

married life were headlands, promontories, projecting blacknesses,

unexplained, irritating; the unanswered questions which had puzzled

her. Thus and thus her husband had acted in the past, queerly, she had

thought, even then, not as she would have had him act, not as a knight

would have acted, not as the men she had known would have acted. The

acts had puzzled her, they had frightened her; but she had explained

them, she had told herself that men were different, and that she loved

this man. Now there came a light, a sudden meteor. The black capes and

headlands glared out upon her, lit up, one after the other, in a

baleful vista, a marching, illuminated army of witnesses, glaring out

his guilt, one after the other, day after day, night after night, a

sleepless company. They seemed to shout to her, tossing the words one

from the other, in her disordered mind, “If he returns to England, he

will be hanged.” He had said that he had loved her; but that seemed

ages ago; and he had tricked her into this, deceived her at every

turn, lied to her, cajoled others into lying to her, all the time

amusing himself, laughing, pretending, a common thing, a man with a

mind like a footman’s. At first, nerving herself, she had tried to

talk with him, willing to forgive, only asking, for her own part, an

explanation. She would have been content with that. She would have

been almost happy had he come to her like an erring boy, asking her to

count him merely that. She had spoken to him in her cabin that night,

pleading with him, kneeling to him, while the drunkards on deck made

sail. Her whole world had lain in ruins; she had thought that nothing

more could hurt her; but when she spoke the ruins flew about her,

wounding her, cutting her to the quick. He had answered her brutally.

His answer had come, as it were, set to the music of the drunkards

above. It would not out of her head. All her nerves shook with it, as

though the blow struck her in her face. He had sworn at her, jeered at

her, called her a lump of cold batter, told her to get to the devil,

told her that he was sick of the sight of her, that he had married her

for her money, that if she gave him any more of her canting preaching

he’d hit her one that she’d remember. Later in the night, as she lay

crying at his side, he bade her for God’s sake to stop snivelling, so

that he might get to sleep. As she could not stop, he had arisen,

telling her that she might cry herself sick, but that he was going to

Mrs. Inigo, a woman who wasn’t quite such a cold poultice. She had not

stopped him. She could not stop him. He had gone from her; leaving her

life too empty for her to wish even to kill herself.

Another dreadful thing, still dreadful, although so much was numbed in

her, was the meeting with her husband the next day. She had thought

him some common stranger; that had been the dreadful thing. He had

seemed vulgar to her; a person out of her circle; she could not bring

herself to speak to him. All that she could do was to glance at his

neck continually. It had a horrible fascination for her, this neck

that the rope was laid for. She did not hate him. He was dead to her;

that was all; the worst horror was when she remembered her love-days,

seeing him now as he was. She bore her lot alone, shut up in her

cabin, seldom venturing out. At times she would lie back, in a nervous

crisis, clenching her fingers into her palms, shaking with the hate of

Captain Margaret. He might, she thought, have spared her that scene at

the Governor’s. But no; it was all his plan; all; from the very first;

his plan to have her near him. That was his love for her, to have her

near him, to poison her against her husband, to tempt her husband with

another woman, to heap all these indignities, all these torments, so

that he, the lover, might triumph. All the voyage he had been at it.

Little things came back to her now; little tender, insinuating acts.

They came over her in a shock of shame. She hated him, she hated him.

And yet, for all her hate of him, she could not think of leaving the

ship, nor of what her future was to be; that was all dead and blank to

her. England was dead and blank to her. She could not go back to

England, save as some wounded hare, with the blood glazing on her fur,

limping to her form to die. She was stunned; she could not think. Her

death in life would go on for a little; perhaps for a long while; it

did not matter how. Then it would stop; all that she could ask would

be that it might soon stop. Perrin was the only person whom she could

bear to see, or to speak with. It was through him, she guessed, that

her husband was removed from her sight. He was living now, Perrin told

her, in the ’tween-decks, having his meals in the wardroom. Perrin,

Margaret, and Cammock had taken to living in their cabins, so that she

might not be oppressed with company. She filled in the unsaid portion

of Perrin’s speech with “living with Mrs. Inigo”; and she knew from

Perrin’s face that he understood her thought, and that she was right.

She liked Perrin more and more as the days passed. She understood him

now, she thought. The world had gentled him by some such blow as had

crushed her. She could never think of him as the thoroughly foolish

man he was. She only thought of him as a poor hurt waif, almost a

woman in many ways, who felt for her keenly enough to know that he

must not show his feeling. She liked his shy way of coming into the

cabin in the late afternoon, when the steward served the chocolate. He

would enter shyly, speaking with a false air of jocularity, to propose

chess, poetry, a game at cards, or a little music. The time would pass

quietly. He would lose that false air of his; they would talk together

almost like sisters, until the change of the watch at six o’clock. He

helped her through her worst days, nor did she ever know that the

tales he told her, the little jokes in his conversation, were repeated

from the talk of the man she hated; as the hated man had planned, in

his blind love for her.

Captain Margaret had his little hell about him; the days were bitter

to him. All day long, and through the night, he had the image of his

dishonour with him. All the weeks of deceit, all the acts of deceit,

all the long strain of pretence; they were all over. They had ended in

her hating and suspecting him. He would lie awake in the night, and

the memory of his deceit would eat into him like acid, burning. He

would blush, lying there in his bunk, at the thought of his baseness;

it stuck in his throat, now that he could see things clearly. He had

eaten dirt in a vile cause; all honest men must loathe him, he

thought. Then came another memory, the memory of Olivia, her beauty,

her paleness, her voice, her sorrow. It was bitter to him to feel that

he was the bitterest part of her sorrow, and that he could not help

her, nor comfort her, but only prompt Perrin to help her. He tried to

tell himself that her beauty was an excuse for him. His love had been

noble enough; it had not been selfish; he had had little joy of the

ignoble things he had done for her sake. He wished that some spirit

would surround his tortured head with heavenly essence, so that he

might see clearly, as God sees, all the moral value of his acts, all

the right and the wrong, in fiery letters, easy to read. She was very

beautiful, and still young. Meanwhile he had his life to live, and his

task to do. It was not going to be an easy task. He was coming to it

broken. His only comfort in these days was the knowledge that Stukeley

had lied when he had said that Olivia was going to have a child. That

horror was removed for ever. Stukeley had lied. He prayed that some

day the patient fates would take Stukeley, and show him, for an

instant, before death, the image of himself. He needed not to have

prayed. To most of us the patient fates come, holding up that image.

Besides, Margaret knew well that Stukeley had had his image spoiled

for him by the accident of his birth. The man loved animals; was truly

kind and thoughtful with them. He should have been a groom, a hunt

groom, with an alehouse and ostlers for his evenings. Margaret could

see Stukeley holding up his hands, when his image came to him, saying

that it was not his own work, but the work of the drunken fox-hunter

his father, who came home bloody from the mangling of a fox, to give

his little son drink, and to egg him on to kiss the maids.

Cammock was not free from trouble; he had his own share. The _Broken

Heart_ was no happier to him, though he no longer suffered from

Stukeley. The men of war were the cause of the trouble, even as he had

feared. They were too independent, they resented control, they had a

bad effect upon the ship’s discipline. He had had trouble with them

from the very first, when they came aboard drunk, twenty-seven of

them, bringing with them, as members of their company, the two

deserters from the trading-booth. He had promptly put the two

deserters into irons for a night. He had then turned them forward,

stopped their rum for the voyage, and forced them to work on deck from

eight in the morning till four in the afternoon, on all days, whether

it was their watch or not. This had caused a mutiny among the men of

war. They had come on deck to demand the return of their mates.

Margaret, having called all hands aft, had spoken to them, as Cammock

confessed, “like a father.” He had read his commission to them. He had

promised them that, if they showed any signs of rebellion, he would

land them at an English colony, where they should be drafted into the

Navy without mercy. He had then called out the two men who had been

most noisy in the mutiny, and had put them in the bilboes abaft the

main mast, under a sentry, for the next three days. But though the

mutiny was crushed, the ill-feeling remained. The men of war went

about their duties sullenly, showing that they resented his action.

The fo’c’s’le hands, quick to catch the mutinous temper, became

“soldiers,” who loafed and skulked, till the mates, goaded by their

insolence, made protest, with a bight of the topgallant brace. Cammock

had more than the anxieties of office on his shoulders. He had to walk

the poop, the captain of all on board, in a false position. In a sense

he was a privateer. Had he been, as he once was, a privateer only, he

would have known how to handle the privateers beneath him. He

understood them. He could even feel for them; he knew how they felt

towards him; when he saw them hanging round the hatch, cursing the

cruise and all on board. But in the _Broken Heart_ he was less the

privateer than the merchant captain going trading. He had divided

interests to manage; he had a divided crew under his command. He could

see that the temper of the ship was as bad as it could be. The men

were in that difficult state a little on this side of mutiny, always

on the verge, never quite declaring, but sullen enough to make their

captain’s life an anxious life. He expected that their arrival at

Springer’s Key would put them in a better spirit. He wished that he

could give them some fighting on the way; for it was the belief of his

old commander that there is nothing like the sight of a dead or

wounded comrade to make a man look to his leader with trust and

thankfulness. Meanwhile he drilled all hands daily at the guns,

expecting a refusal of duty at any moment. Thinking of the situation

in the quiet of his cabin, he decided that the crew would not stand

failure. “If we fail,” he said, “this gang will not try twice. No

privateers will. And these aren’t the pick of the Kipe.” He felt that

the cruise would fail. His forebodings obsessed him. When he walked

the poop at nights, walking athwartships now, not fore and aft, lest

the helmsman should attack him from behind, he was sure that he would

never see home again. He was always imagining a place of noise and

smoke, with himself falling forward on the sand, looking his last,

shot in the body. The obsession made him more serious than usual. He

borrowed a Testament from Perrin and read the last chapter. Perrin

angered him by saying that the last chapter bored him to death.

As for Stukeley, his senses were gratified; he asked for nothing more

from the world. He had every reason to feel satisfied. He had not been

arrested in Virginia, that was good; he had broken with his

batter-pudding of a wife, that was better; and he was no longer

tortured by the prigs of the cabin. He was messing now in the

wardroom, with Cottrill and Ramage, visiting Mrs. Inigo openly,

whenever he liked; that was best of all. Neither Margaret nor Perrin

had spoken to him since he had bragged to them of having broken with

Olivia, of having fooled them about her child. Cammock had told him

that he was to leave the cabin precincts and that when they wanted him

as an interpreter they would send for him; but that until then he

would either lie low or go in irons. At the moment he was too pleased

with his successes to regret his loss of power. He was content to lie

low, and to refrain from offering insults to all who irritated him. He

patched up a truce with Mr. Cottrill, whom he found to be good

company. He made friends with Smut, the ship’s cat, and taught one of

her kittens to walk on bottle-mouths. He made friends with several of

the men of war, who had their mess without the wardroom. He would sing

“Old Rose” and “Twankydillo” to them, in the fine bass voice of which

he was so vain. Like most seafaring men, the privateers thought much

of a fine singer. They used to hang about the wardroom door after

supper, to hear him singing quietly to himself, going over his trills

and gurgles. He had but to come out into the ’tween-decks to find

himself a popular idol. Men would rise up from their chests, with real

courtesy, as he came among them. If there were singers there they

became silent suddenly, tale-tellers ceased in their stories. There

came a low murmur of “Good evening, sir. Good evening, Mr. Stukeley.

Will you sit down, sir? Are we past the Serranas yet, d’ye know, sir?”

till he was entrapped among them. As he did not know sailors, he took

all this to be a tribute to his good looks, to his fine physique, to

his manner, to his taking conversation. He used to get them to tell

him of their lives on the coast, believing that it was a kind of life

which might please himself. He inquired also of the life in the

Spanish towns, that lazy, luxurious life, with so many opportunities

for amassing wealth and for self-indulgence. A buccaneer would handle

a guitar, and sing, in a high, false, musical whine, about “my Santa

Marta.” Another buccaneer, drumming on his chest-lid, would begin

about the Spanish girls and the sack of Porto Bello. Listening to

them, down in the half-darkness, Stukeley felt that he, too, would

soon taste of that life. He would lie in a grass hammock, fanned by a

Spanish-Indian girl, whose great eyes would look into his. Eh? He

would eat skewered “soldiers” from the hands of an Indian wife. He

would catch fireflies to stick in her hair. Perhaps he would see the

sack of a town, with the women crouched in their rooms, waiting for

the conquerors. “Brown women; modest, lively little things,” so

Raphael Gamage told him.

The days dragged by slowly. The _Broken Heart_ crawled like a slug,

leaving a slug’s track on the sea. The bells struck, the sails

slatted. The sun arose greyly in mist, then burned the mist away, a

spilling spring of light, in a sky like blue fire. Then in the glare

of noon the chart was marked, the pencilled dot moved forward in its

zigzag, past the Serranas, past Roncif, past the Roncadores. Then the

wind came fair for a few days to help her to the south, her bows in a

heap of smother. Presently, when the first land-wind came to them, in

a faint breath, smelling, as they said, of arnotto roses, there came

drifting butterflies, white and blue, very lovely, settling and dying

on the deck, like petals from a fruit tree in spring. A strange bird

sailed past them, drooping her legs, her wings beating like a

mill-wheel, rhythmically, her fierce eyes looking ahead, searching the

sky. A tree tumbled in their wash, rolling over and over. A creeper

from the branches sank in the wake, its leaves like little green

hands, clutching out, far down, among the globes of the bubbles. Then

when the sun was sinking, when the air was intense and clear, like the

air in a vision, far ahead a bluish mist showed, so dimly, in such

blue faintness, that one could not be sure. Till dark they watched it.

When the dawn made each cloud a scale of scarlet, edged with fire to

the mid-heaven, the mist took outline. Long before sunset the land lay

clear, a long purplish line of land, with a gleaming peak or two round

which the cloud streamed. It stretched away on each side of them, like

an army in rank. Parts of it were dim; its wings were dim; but ahead

the hills were gathered close; one could count each fold in them.

Margaret, loitering on the poop with Perrin, watched them intently,

with emotions which mastered him. A voice seemed to be talking to him.

“What went ye out for to see?” it repeated. He had gone out to see

this land, to hear the multitudes of sea-fowl scream. There lay the

land. Like all lands seen from the sea, it seemed to lure him, to

beckon to him, to be full of mystery, of mystery which he could solve.

“So that’s the land,” he said at length. “What do you make of it,

Edward?”

“I?” said Edward. “It makes me shudder somehow. It’s the end of

something. Change is always horrible to me.”

Cammock joined them, thumbing the leaves of a portolano.

“We’re away to the east, sir,” he said to Margaret. “If you’ll stand

in a bit further, sir, we shall open Golden Island clear, before dark.

That’ll give me a landfall to go by.”

“And when shall we make Springer’s Key, captain?”

“To-morrow, some time, sir. But we’ll stand in further here, if you

don’t mind. There may be some of those friends of ours in the harbour

here. A nice little sandy bay in there, sir.”

Soon the hills drew nearer. The line of land became jagged. What had

seemed to be the main now showed as islands, a long, low island, dark

with mangrove, and to the south of it a sloping peak, wooded to the

top, a cone of green, with rocks about it over which the breakers

toppled. Margaret could see the line of the breakers advancing towards

them, blue and glassy. In the stillness, he could see the curl on the

wave, the slow running curl along the line, then the intense

brightness of the burst, a momentary marvel of white. He looked at

Cammock, who was looking at the wooded hill, full of memories. A few

of the men of war, faking a hawser in the waist, stopped their work to

look with him. One or two of them, raising their caps, waved to the

island. “Good old Golden Island,” they cried. “The good old Golden

Island.”

“Yes,” said Captain Cammock to Margaret. “That’s Golden Island. Last

time I was ashore there we were three hundred strong, going across the

Isthmus. We’d fires on the sands there, I and my brother Bill,

roasting crabs together. I remember we chucked pebbles over that palm

on the spit there. Queer the palm being there and Bill gone, sir. He

could chuck good, too; further’n I could.”

“You were very much attached to your brother, weren’t you?” Margaret

asked him.

“I didn’t set much value by him at the time, sir. It’s afterwards one

feels it. There’s a little black devil of a reef beyond there, two

feet under water at a low spring. You don’t see it, and yet it rips

you across all right. Ready oh, Mr. Cottrill. Haul the foot of the

mainsail up. Hands about ship. Ease down the hellum.”

They sailed past Golden Island, and past Sasardi, watching the colours

of the sunset on the rocks and woods. The brilliant birds flew homing,

screaming. A faint smell, sickly sweet, came to them in puffs from the

shore. Now and then, in the quiet, they heard the wash of breakers

bursting on reefs. The noise kept them company at intervals through

the night, as they drove on, under the stars, past Pinos, past Zambo

Gandi, towards the Point of San Blas. It burst upon them mournfully,

like the blowing of a sea-beast, a wash, a breathing of the sea. When

the dawn broke, flashing the flying-fish into silver arrows, they were

at their hearts’ desire. The palms on Springer’s Key were trembling,

in the light air, before them. The ring of reef on the key’s north

side stood up black amid the surf that toppled tirelessly. Pelicans

flew past to fish. Macaws screamed from the fruit trees. Two Indians,

with gold in their noses, waved to them from their canoe as they

paddled softly, to spear cavally. Beyond them, at anchor off the key,

was a small sloop. Her men were filling water ashore, wading slowly up

the beach with puncheons. The saluting gun, fired by Cammock’s order,

made them gather together in a group. One of them waved. Others, still

in the boat, rowed out to show the channel. The sun shone bright over

the multitude of islands. The sea was so blue that the beauty of her

colour was like a truth apprehended. It was so perfect a beauty that

Margaret, looking on it, felt that he apprehended the truth.

“Perrin,” he said, “Edward, what do you think of our home?”

“I’m not thinking of that,” he answered. “I think that all these

things are images in an intellect. I think, by brooding on them, one

passes into that intellect.”

The colours and house-flag blew out clear as the ship came to her

berth. The sloop fired a salute; the _Broken Heart_ answered her. Soon

she was opposite the little sandy beach in the centre of the key. Her

sails drooped, her way checked; then, at Cammock’s shout, the anchor

dropped, the cable running with a rattle, making the little fish

scurry past, in view, though a fathom down.

“Well, sir,” said Cammock, “we’ve broken the neck of that.”

“Yes, captain. And now?”

“I’ve had the old sail-room turned into a dining-room. It’s laid for

breakfast now, sir. I’ve got to see the captain of that sloop and

learn the news. That’s the first thing. Call my boat away, boatswain.”

The privateer sloop was the _Happy Return_ of Jamaica, Captain Tucket,

bound on a roving cruise with twenty men and a French commission. She

carried six small guns, and her men wore arms, all of the very

choicest make; but her hold was full of goods which Captain Tucket

wished to sell. From Jamaica he had brought beads and coloured cloths,

with which he was buying gold-dust, wax, and bird-peppers from the

Indians. He had also several tons of Guiaquil chocolate and sweetmeats

lately taken on the sea. He had come to Springer’s Key, he said, to

fill water, before going east along the coast, as far as the ’Seniqua,

looking for logwood. Things were quiet, he said, along the Main; there

was nothing doing; only a few barcalongas taken. There had been talk

at La Sound’s Key of combining and going to the Santa Maria

gold-mines, but it had come to nothing. The French and English would

not agree upon a leader. For his own part, he said, he believed there

was logwood along some of these rivers east there, and he was going to

look for it. He was a shrewd, but frank, elderly man.

“Look here,” he said, taking out a handkerchief. “There’s some of it.

I dyed that of a slip I cut. None of your business where. There’s a

pretty red for you. And I got another dodge I’m working at. Here. What

d’you make of these?”

He flung upon the table a few little sticks, some of them crimson,

some blue.

“What are these?” said Margaret, examining them. “Are they wax?”

“Yes, sir. Ordinary beeswax.”

“You’ve got them a very beautiful clear colour. Look, Edward. Did you

learn the secret yourself?”

“You wouldn’t learn to do them at one of your English colleges, sir.”

“No. Will the colour stand fire?”

“They’re very good coloured wax anyway,” said Captain Tucker, putting

them away.

“We was thinking of trying to trade at Tolu,” Cammock said. “Would you

care to stand in with us?”

“At Tolu?”

“They may not trade, of course; but----”

“I’ve come here,” Margaret said, “to establish a trade, Captain

Tucker. If I’m not allowed to trade with the Spanish towns, I shall

trade here, like you, and defend such traders as come to me. All this

coast is going to waste. I want to see all you roving traders banded

together to make use of it. The Spanish can’t work it. Why should not

you join us, with your men, for a beginning?”

“The jackal went a-hunting with the lion, sir. But it wasn’t him got

the tender-loin,” said Tucket.

“You mean you’re afraid that my men might impose on yours?”

“Ah come, come, Abel,” said Cammock. “We’re old hands, you and I. It’s

all a matter of articles.”

“I must talk it over,” said Abel. “I’ll run over to La Sound’s Key and

talk it out with my mates. I won’t say. No, sir. I won’t say. Not one

way or the other.”

He left soon after breakfast, and, having now filled his water, sailed

from the key.

“He’s afraid of me,” said Margaret. “He’s afraid that I come from the

Government, to put down privateering. Isn’t that what’s in his mind?”

“No, sir,” said Cammock. “He’s pleased with the notion. He’s a trader.

He wants to cut logwood without any fear of guarda-costas. He’ll take

all the defence you care to give; but he won’t come cruising with you

till he’s got enough friends to stop you taking the lion’s share.

He’ll be back to-morrow with some friends.”

Margaret went ashore, after this, to view the key. It was one of the

larger keys of the archipelago. It was about a mile long, running east

and west, and about a quarter of a mile across at its broadest part.

In its highest part it was not more than sixty feet above the water;

but the trees rising up above it to great height made it seem hilly. A

sandy beach shelved down into the water on the side facing the

Isthmus. On the north side the shore was rocky and steep-to, and

hemmed about, by a five-mile sweep of reef, in a ring of breakers.

Indeed, the reef ringed the key round; but the rocks about the beach

did not break the seas. The island could only be approached from the

south and east. On the other side neither ship nor boat could come

within great-gun-shot. To the east, for a dozen miles or more, an

array of palm keys stretched, with reefs in tumult round them. To

approach the key from the east one had to sail within these keys, in a

channel or fairway known as Springer’s Drive. This channel was

bordered to the south by the keys fringing the Isthmus. The double

line of keys, separated by three miles of sea, made a sort of palm

hedge, or avenue, up to the anchorage. There was good holding-ground

and riding in every part of the Drive; but ships usually rode near

Springer’s Key, for they could get water there. Unlike most of the

keys, it had a spring, which bubbled up strongly on the beach, through

an old sunk tar-barrel, some yards beyond the tide-marks. The water

was cold and clear, gushing up with a gurgle, making the sand grains

dance. The bottom of the cask was covered with rusty iron, old nails,

old blades of knives, old round-shot, laid there by sailors, long ago,

in the belief that they would make the water medicinal. Some one had

dammed up a pool below the cask, for the easier filling of the

water-breakers. The water gurgled away, over the lip of the pool, amid

a tangle of water plants that bore a profuse sweet blossom, like a

daisy. Margaret had never seen a lovelier place. The brightness of the

sun on the sea, the green of the trees towering up beyond him, the

macaws of all colours, making their mockeries in sweet notes, were

beautiful exceedingly. It was all new and strange to him. He half

wished that he might be left alone there. He had no longer any wish to

succeed. Had Olivia been on the other side of the world, his strength

would have gone to make this spot a home for half the ships in the

world. They would have lain there, with their sails as awnings, at

anchor off the city he had builded. His citizens would have made those

islands another Venice, another Athens, a glorious city, a city of

noble life and law. All that was in his imagination might have

existed, he thought. All the splendour should have come in praise of

her. Nothing would have stopped him. In his heart her face would have

flowered, that beautiful, pale face, the image of the woman he loved;

he would have made his city glorious. Marble bridges should have

spanned the channels. His empire would have spread. It would have

spread over the sea there, over the keys, over the low coast fringed

with mangroves, over the hills, dim in the south, over the crags where

the clouds streamed, beyond the great bay, far into the south, past

Garachina, past Tumbez, beyond Ylo to the Evangelists. He would have

been a king. His ships would have scented all the seas of the world,

bringing balms and spice home. Now all that was over, he saw what

might have been. It would not now be. He had no wish now to see his

city rise. He found his imagination dulled. The woman who had been his

imagination, through whom, alone, he had lived imaginatively, walked,

a tired shadow, with heavy eyes, in the ship beyond the reef. If he

passed her she shuddered, averting her eyes. If he spoke to her--twice

he had tried to speak to her--she drew in her breath, her eyes shut;

she drew away from him as from a snake. He had no heart left to think

of cities. All that he wished now was to do what he could for the

merchants who had risked their money. The city would have to wait till

the other lover came. The city would rise up glorious from the beauty

of some other woman. All his love, and high resolve, and noble effort

had come to this, that Olivia thought him something lower than

Stukeley, something baser than the beasts.

He walked with Cammock to the island’s eastern end, where a rocky

hillock stood out from the trees. He saw that a fort there would

command the channel. Six of his long-range guns planted there under

cover would be enough to defend the anchorage against any probable

attack from guarda-costas. He drew a sketch-plan for a small redoubt,

and ordered half his crew ashore to begin the clearing of the ground.

He would have a wall of unmortared stones, backed by gabions, leaving

embrasures for the six cannon. The outside of the fort would be

covered with earth and sand, so that from a little distance it would

look like a natural hillock. He caused a dozen men to cut down bejuco

cane, and to plait it, while green, into wattle for the gabions. An

Indian prince came to him from the Main that afternoon. He entertained

him with ceremony, giving gifts of beads and petticoats, with the

result that, the next morning, there were fifty natives on the key

helping in the clearing of the ground. They, too, were bribed by

beads. They were kindly, intelligent fellows, accustomed to be

reckoned as the equals of white men, so that Cammock, superintending

the work, had to watch his hands, lest they should treat their guests,

in the English style, as niggers. The fort, such as it was, was

finished on the third day. Its outer face showed from the sea like a

sloping hillock, which in a few days would be again green with

creepers. Within the wall of gabions, backed by wattle-bound piles,

was a gun platform, with dry powder storerooms twenty feet behind each

gun. The guns were mounted on iron carriages, and so arranged that

each of the six could play across some ninety degrees of the compass.

A roof of felt was rigged over each gun to protect the gunners in the

rains. Margaret wished to hoist the colours over the fort; but Perrin

begged that the new republic might be spared, at any rate till it was

worth appropriating. Cammock advised him to refrain, lest the

buccaneers should suspect him of playing for the hand of the Crown. So

no flag was hoisted, though within the fort, daily, military sentries

paced, firing a gun at dawn and sunset.

While the fort was in building some of the Indians cleared a space

among the wood. In the clearing they built a great house for the

workers: a thatched house twelve feet high, with wattle walls made

rainproof. The uprights supported the hammocks at night. Those who

slept ashore built always a fire of aromatic leaves in the house’s

centre. Before turning in they sprinkled this with water to make a

smoke. Those who woke in the night smelt the sweet, strong smoke which

made their eyes smart, and heard without the never-ceasing march of

the surf, the drone of the dew-flies, and the drowsy twang of the

mosquitoes, plagued by the smoke.

Captain Tucket returned after some days with a sample of logwood and a

consort. The consort was that Captain Pain who afterwards made such a

stir in the Western Gulf. He was a prosperous captain even then. His

ship was a fine French-built vessel of great beauty. His crew numbered

ninety-seven hands, the very flower of the trade. He seemed suspicious

of Margaret, who opened a trade with him on liberal terms. The

privateers bought arms and clothes, paying for them with silver and

gold; but there was constraint on both sides. The privateers were

suspicious. At dinner in the trade-room Captain Pain gave voice to his

suspicions.

“You’re a gentleman,” he said. “I don’t know what you want out here.”

“Well,” said Margaret, “I’ve already told you. I’ve a scheme for

breaking the Spanish power here. But before I take any violent action

I wish to try once again to establish a trade on ordinary, peaceful,

European lines. There is no reason why they shouldn’t trade.”

“And if they do,” said Pain, “where do we come in?”

“You will be my partner, I hope,” said Margaret. “We will have all

these islands laid out in vanillas, cacao, indigo, anatta, cochineal,

everything. All the Isthmus there will be our estate. We shall trade

with the Spaniards and the whole of Europe.”

“Very nice, too,” said Pain. “But if the Spaniards won’t trade?”

“Then we shall declare that they’ve no right here, and that we, in the

name of the rest of the world, have a right to assist the rightful

owners of the country, who wish us to trade.”

“And then a governor’ll come, and stop our going on the account,” said

Pain.

“Yes. But if he does,” said Margaret, “you must see that with the

Isthmus in your hands you’ll be better off than you are now. What do

you do now? You pick up a boatful of sugar once a month, and share a

crown a man. Then you run short of food and go to Toro for turtle.”

“That’s it, Pete,” said Cammock.

“Your scheme’s very pretty,” Pain said. “But you’re a gentleman. I

ain’t a gentleman myself, thank God, and I don’t know what your game

is. You’re either a bit off your biscuit, or you’re in with the

Government. That’s my candid opinion.”

“All right,” said Margaret. “We won’t go into that.”

At this moment Stukeley entered, a little flown with rum, from the

ward-room dinner.

“Hello, Maggy,” he said. “I’ve come to talk with Captain Pain here.

Your servant, captain. I suppose these twisters here have been talking

about and about it. Eh? They make a man sick, I say. Eh? Hold your

tongue, Maggy. Wait till you’re spoken to. I’ve got something to say.

The men of war--my friends in the ’tween-decks there--they’ve been

talking with me while you’ve been talking here. You talk all day, and

leave off just where you were.”

“And what have you done?” said Perrin.

“I’m not addressing you, Pilly.”

“Do you come as the spokesman of the men of war?” Margaret asked.

“Yes, I do, my little Maggy.”

“Gamage is a shy, retiring soul,” Perrin said.

“He isn’t a crawler, anyway.”

“Well,” Cammock said, “let’s have the message. Here’s Captain Pete

waiting on us.”

“Right,” Stukeley said, sitting down at the table. “Then I’m to tell

you that the men of war want to know when they’re going to have what

they came for. They’re sick of doing sentry-go in the ant-heap yonder.

They signed for a roving life.”

“They signed to obey our orders,” Cammock said. “They’ll get all the

roving they’ve a need for soon enough.”

“So they say,” Stukeley answered. “If you don’t give it them they’ll

take it, and half your crew besides.”

“I’ll look after my crew,” Cammock said.

“Not with Captain Tucket and Captain Pain here,” said Stukeley,

grinning. “You see. If you cut up nasty, Cammock. Why. You’ve a very

good ship, and a lot of useful weapons in your hold. Long eighteens.

Eh? Carry a mile and a quarter. What’s to stop us putting you ashore.

Eh?”

“That’s what we did to the Frenchman,” Cammock said. “D’you remember,

Pete?”

“At the Isla Vache,” said Pain, looking down modestly. “I remember.”

He spoke with such a strange inflection that none there could guess

his meaning, though all looked at him curiously. He turned to Stukeley

with attention, as though expecting something more.

“So,” Stukeley continued, “your humble servants of the ’tween-decks

ask that you will give them a brush. Or----”

“Or what?”

“They’ll ask Captain Pain here to find them hammock-space.”

Captain Pain seemed to search Stukeley’s face for something further.

“You seem determined to put me in a queer position, mister,” he said.

“But come now, Mr. Margaret. What’s wrong with having a go at Tolu?

We’ve a hundred and ninety men. Why not?”

“I must trade, or try to trade. I’ve told you. I’m a merchant.”

“Quite right, sir,” said Tucket. “I’m a merchant, too. I’d be only too

glad to trade.”

“They won’t let you,” said Stukeley. “So why not look at the position

honestly.”

“Well. Trade. Try it,” said Pain. “If you try it, you’ll get a

sickener. Then you’ll fight all the better, after.”

“They used to trade,” said Cammock. “I’ve known a lot of interloping

done. At Maracaibo they traded.”

“They won’t now,” Pain said. “Any man caught trading without the

King’s license is up for the everlasting prison remediless. You don’t

believe me. You try.”

“I shall try,” Margaret said.

“Right O,” said Pain. “Then we’ll sail to-morrow. Our two ships will

keep out of sight of land. We could lie by among them Bernadoes. You

can send in samples with your interpreter in Captain Tucket’s sloop.

If they see a big ship standing in they’ll fire at her. So send the

sloop. They’ll not listen to you. They’ll likely fire at the sloop. So

the next morning we’ll land and take the town. There’s twenty pound a

man in Tolu. Silver.”

Cammock, to give Margaret the cue, for he knew that Pain held the whip

hand, said that he approved. “That sounds like business,” he said.

“This is Tolu, Captain Margaret.” He pulled out a quarto pocket-book

containing elaborate charts of many places on the Main. The book had

been the work of many days, and of many hands, for some of the charts

had been copied, some made on the spot, some taken in fight, others

bought, or drawn from hearsay, or bequeathed. It contained manuscript

notes worth a lot of money to a good many people. “This is Tolu, sir.

In Morrosquillo Gulf here. This long beach runs twenty miles. It’s all

hard sand, shelving, and shallowish water in the gulf. Then back of

the town there’s forest. But all very flat land, as far as Cispata.

Ain’t that so, Pete?”

“Flat as your palm. Them’s nice maps you got, Lion.”

“Yes. I got some nice ones of these here islands. Every anchorage and

spring marked. Basil done them. You remember Basil, Pete. He was a

very good drawer.”

“Doctor Basil? Yes. He drawed a tooth of mine once.”

“Ah? Now as for Tolu, Captain Margaret. It’s a walled town. But the

only guns are in the sea-wall. And the wall ain’t much more than

gabions. Not much stone about it. If it comes to fighting, we’ll land

on the beach away south here, and creep up, wading, along the beach,

so as to arrive about dawn.”

“Well, Captain Pain,” said Margaret. “We’ll sail to-morrow. We’ll see

which of us is right.”

He smiled pleasantly, but his thoughts were bitter. He saw that to

succeed on the Main one needed to be one of the crowd. Pain there, the

inscrutable, pale man, had long ago decided how to use him. He, a

cultured gentleman, with a King’s commission, was in Pain’s hands. He

must either go with Pain, or lose his crew. His crew would follow Pain

at a nod. If he tried to coerce either Pain or his crew, he saw that

there would be trouble. The _Broken Heart_ would be taken from him. He

had not thought of this chance; but he remembered a word of Cammock’s:

“Give them some little success, and they’ll do anything.” If this

trading venture prospered, he could proceed to Jamaica, he could come

to some treaty with the Spaniards, pledging himself to put down

privateering. If the trading venture failed, then it would rest with

him to make a conquest of the Indies, to gather all these thieves into

a company, and strike at Spain till she tottered. After Tolu, and Tolu

would have to be a success, he would lead them against Cartagena. Then

he might be able to make a head. At present he was a “new standard.”

He understood Pain’s point of view. He knew that he must appear to

Pain as an uppish youth who thought that he knew more than old hands.

He would show them that he did know more.

“By the way, Pete,” Cammock said, “what come of George Bond?”

Pete laughed. “Oh, him,” he said. “He went to Portobel, and joined the

Spaniards.”

“How did the Spaniards treat him?” Perrin asked. He had heard of that

wild spirit from Cammock.

“Dunno,” said Pain carelessly. “Give him a position in the Government,

I heard.” He turned to Cammock. “One of Bill Knight’s lot was in

Panama a year ago,” he continued. “He said he was got to be a big one

there.”

“Ah?” said Cammock. “Well. It’s right, too. There’s very good openings

for a man in a Spanish town here.”

“Indeed,” said Margaret. “I should have thought there was bitter

feeling.”

“Not a bit of it, sir. There’s only the religious trouble.”

“That didn’t worry George much,” Pete said.

After this the conversation died down, till Stukeley asked if a herald

from a landing party ran risk of being shot.

“No,” said Pain. “I done it two or three times. You go ashore under a

white flag, holding up your hands, and then they come and blindfold

you, and take you into the town. Then you say your piece to the

Governor, and then you come back.”

“Then,” said Stukeley, “you’d better prime me now in what you want

said, Maggy. I must have a set speech ready for anything the old cove

asks me.”

“That’s quite true. I’m glad you reminded me. We’ll go into it.

To-morrow morning, then, Captain Pain. But I wish you could have

waited till my ship was scrubbed.”

“Time enough, Mr. Margaret,” Pain answered. “We’ll careen her when we

come back.”

He went on deck with Cammock, leaving Margaret to instruct Stukeley in

the matter of his speech to the Spanish Governor. One speech, which

ran, “Your Excellency, I hold my King’s commission. If you permit me

to trade here I pledge my honour to assist your King against his

enemies in these seas,” seemed to Stukeley to be a pleasant jest. He

repeated it, grinning, till he had it letter perfect. Then he repeated

it in Spanish, and left the cabin, laughing.

“Come back here a moment, Stukeley,” Margaret called. “I’ve got

something I want to say to you.”

“What now?” Stukeley answered.

“Stukeley,” he said, “we’re going on a dangerous business to-morrow. I

want you before we leave the ship to see your wife. Will you do that?

I don’t want to preach. I only ask you to realize what it might be to

her if anything happened to you.”

“I’ll manage my own relations with my wife,” he answered.

“Stukeley, she’s a long way from friends. Life isn’t very sweet to

her.”

“I’ll make it a good deal sourer if you come crawling round. Well,

I’ll see her. Now then. No more. Good night, Captain Maggy.”

The door slammed behind him with a clatter of swinging hooks. Margaret

was alone, his face buried in his hands, with his world tottering

about him, ready to fall.

XI.

THE FLAG OF TRUCE

“Was it not sin enough, and wickedness,

Thus like a rotten rascal to abuse

The name of Heav’n, the tie of marriage,

The honour of thy friends, the expectation,

Of all that thought thee virtuous, with rebellion,

After forgiveness, too?”

_The Woman’s Prize._

In the morning, when they were under way, with the two little hills

of Pinos astern of them, and the ship’s bows turned towards

Morrosquillo, far to the east, still two days distant, Captain

Margaret sent Perrin to the cabin to request an audience with Olivia.

As he had feared, she refused to see him. She sat, pale and exhausted,

at the table, Perrin said, too weary of life to ask whither they were

bound, or to ask the nature of their consorts, now sailing easily,

under reduced sail, near the lumbering _Broken Heart_, foul with long

weeks at sea. She did not care what happened; but, finding Perrin

importunate, she left the cabin, and for two days saw no one. On the

second day the ships anchored between Ceycen and the Overfalls, in a

harbour shut away by wooden keys, from which the brooks fell

pleasantly, with a rippling chatter, that was drowsy and delightsome,

after the glare of the sun on the sea, in the hot calms. They loaded

the sloop with samples during the afternoon, and chose out hands to go

in her. Stukeley was to go as herald and interpreter, Margaret as

principal, in case the matter came to a conference; while as crew they

picked ten from the _Broken Heart_, five from Pain, five from Tucket,

all good shots, well armed. Perrin was to stay aboard with Cammock, so

that Olivia might have a friend aboard, in case the sloop was lost.

After breakfast, Margaret made a last attempt to speak with her. He

entered the cabin unannounced, to find her sitting alone, in a black

gown, a Bible before her, and her face all pale, her eyes with dark

rings round them. She looked up as he entered, then sank back, closing

her eyes, with a sharp intake of her breath.

“What do you want with me?” she asked in a hard voice. “Have you come

to see if--if----”

“Olivia,” he answered, “I’ve come to tell you that I’m going to a

town, now. There’s danger. I’m going with. I mean. Your husband is

coming. It’s a dangerous service. I want you to try to realize that.

That your husband’s going on a dangerous service. That you might like

to see him.”

“Yes,” she answered. “That I might like to see him. Go on.”

“That is all,” he said. “Except that I may not see you again. That I

wouldn’t like.” The words dragged; his mouth was quite dry. He

stumbled in his speech and began again.

“Olivia,” he said. “My conduct. I thought I acted for the best. I ask

you to forgive me.”

“Forgive you?” she said. “Thank you. But I’ve no wish to. You lied to

me from the moment I came into the ship. You lied at Salcombe. At

Falmouth. All the voyage. In Virginia. And then you thought you had

lied enough for your purpose. You let me learn the truth.”

“Yes,” he answered, “I lied. I lied to save you.”

“Ah,” she said, with disgust. “You lied to save me, till it was too

late for me to hear the truth.”

“Olivia,” he continued, “I won’t speak more of myself. Your husband. I

think he wants. He wants to see you. There may be danger. He wants to

see you. He wants to say good-bye. I am going now,” he added. “Olivia,

we’ve been in each other’s lives a long time. Could you. Could you let

this.” He stumbled in his speech again. She did not help him. His

throat was dry like a kiln; he seemed unable to speak. “I am going

now,” he said again. “I’ll send your husband to you.” He bowed, and

left the cabin. As he closed the door he thought that he could not

remember his last sight of her. He could not remember her face as it

had last looked upon him.

In the alleyway he met Stukeley coming from Cammock’s state-room.

“I was looking for you,” said Stukeley. “We’re waiting for you. It’s

time we went.”

“Your wife’s in the cabin,” he answered. “She’s waiting for you. To

say good-bye.” As he spoke, the cabin door opened, and Olivia came out

into the alley-way.

“Tom,” she said, “where are you going with this man?”

“Hello, Livy,” he answered. “I’m just going ashore, to interview the

Spaniards.”

“He says that there is danger.”

“Danger? Rubbish. You ass, Maggy. Why can’t you keep your head shut?”

“Oh. So perhaps he lied again.”

“I’ll leave you,” Margaret said, turning away.

“No. Do not go,” she answered. “I’ve something to say to you, Tom. I

want you to hear it, Charles. Tom, there’s danger in going ashore

here. Oh, I know it. I know it. Tom, dear, since we came here there’s

been something between us always. Ever since. Tom, dear, you were

afraid that I should be angry. Unforgiving. You might have trusted me,

Tom. You were afraid I should hate you. I wasn’t very wise. It was so

sudden. And I wasn’t myself, Tom. It’s not too late, dear. Don’t let

it be too late, Tom.” She paused, looking to her husband for the

answer she had put into his mouth. Stukeley found it hard to answer.

“Oh, Tom, I want you back. I want you back.”

“There, Livy,” Stukeley said. “There, Livy.” He took her in his arms

and kissed her. “When I come back, dear,” he added. “I must go now.

I’m going ashore.”

“Don’t go, Tom. Oh, Tom, don’t go. There’s danger. You may be hurt.

Charles, tell him.”

“It’s all right, old girl. They all swore there’s not the slightest

danger. We shall be back by four o’clock if the wind holds.”

“There’s danger,” Margaret said.

“Tom, you wouldn’t leave me at a moment like this.”

“I must, Livy.” A thought seemed to strike him. “Look here, Livy. It

must be our first step to--to our new life together. To a new life out

here.”

“Tom, my darling, are you sure there’s no danger?”

“There is no danger. None. How many more times?”

“Charles,” she said, “come here. I’ve been. Been. Not myself. I spoke

cruelly. I want you to forgive me, Charles. Take my hand. And yours,

Tom. This is going to be the beginning of a new life together. Will

you let it be that, Charles? You will, Tom?”

“Yes,” said Tom.

“It shall be that,” Margaret said. They shook hands in the alleyway,

making their bonds of peace.

“You’re my Tom again now,” she said lowly. “I’ve forgotten all the

rest, dear.”

“Right,” he said, kissing her. “I was a beast. Good-bye, dear.”

“Not a beast,” she said. “Never that.”

Margaret turned aside, crushing his hat-brim, wondering what new

misery was in store for her. He walked softly out on deck, leaving the

two to their farewell. Perrin said something to him. Cammock was not

in sight. A little knot of men stood in the waist, idly watching the

sloop.

Presently Stukeley came from the alleyway with a grin upon his face.

“Anything for a quiet life,” he said. “Down into the boat with you,

Maggy.”

As they shoved off from the _Broken Heart_, Olivia waved to them from

her state-room port. Margaret felt a pang of remorse that he had not

shaken hands with Perrin, nor spoken with Cammock, before leaving the

ship. He was nearly alongside the sloop when he saw Cammock’s hat

above the poop nettings.

“He’s hailing you, Captain Margaret,” said the stroke oar.

“Oars a moment.” The men lay on their oars, watching the drops fall

from the blades into the sea. The roar of Cammock sounded.

“What does he say?” said Margaret. “I can’t make out.”

“Something about a map, I think he said, sir.”

“Did you hear, Stukeley?”

“Map or tap, or something. But let’s go on. We’re late.”

“No. I must hear. Back a stroke, port oars. Why, starboard. I’ll pull

back to find out. Way together.”

Fifty yards nearer to the ship they again lay on their oars. This time

the hail was clear.

“Have you seen my book of maps?”

“No,” Margaret shouted. “You had it in your pocket last night.”

“What’s that you say?”

“You had it in your pocket last night.”

“Yes. But I can’t find it.”

“I’ve not had it. Ask Mr. Perrin.” He sat down in his seat, Cammock

shouted a farewell, to which Margaret raised his hand in salute.

“He’s lost his book of maps,” said Margaret to Stukeley.

“Nothing can be lost in a ship,” said Stukeley. “Besides, what’s a

book of maps?”

“That book was worth a good deal. The Spaniards would pay a high price

for it. With all those charts to help them, they could put down

privateering when they pleased.”

“Oh, rubbish,” said Stukeley, swinging himself up the sloop’s side.

“He could easy get duplicates.”

The sloop was already under sail. The men climbed aboard, and let the

boat drag astern. The helm was put up a little, the fore sheet was let

draw. Soon, as the boom swung over, straining the blocks, when the

mainsail filled, they slipped clear the anchorage. Looking over the

rail, they saw the nettings of the two ships lined with men, some of

whom waved caps in farewell.

Captain Tucket came to command his sloop. He talked little; for he was

trying a new dye. He was boiling a handkerchief in a pan of herbs,

over a little brazier fixed on the deck. The experiment made him

silent; but in moments of enthusiasm he spoke a few words, stirring

the mess with a fid.

“What colour are you trying to get?” Margaret asked.

“One of them bright greens the Indians get.”

“You never will, cap,” said the helmsman. “Them Indians use moss; a

kind of tree moss. I’ve seed ’em do it.”

“Well, if this don’t turn out a green, I’ll wash in it.”

“What’s the matter, Stukeley? Is anything the matter?” Stukeley had

burst out laughing without apparent reason.

“Nothing’s the matter,” Stukeley answered. “I was thinking of my

interview with the Governor.”

It was high noon when they arrived at Tolu Road. They hoisted a white

flag, and stood in boldly till they were a mile to the south-west of

the town. Here the sloop was hove-to, while the men prepared for their

journey. The six oarsmen of the whale-boat stuffed loaded pistols

within their shirts, and laid their muskets in oilskin cases below the

thwarts. Margaret and Stukeley sat in the sternsheets, both wearing

their swords. Tucket, who steered with an oar, was armed with pistols.

A flag of truce was hoisted in the boat. Tucket told his mate to keep

a sharp look out in the sloop, and to run in to pick them up “if

anything happened.” Then the little lugsail was hoisted, and the boat

began to move towards the town.

Margaret was disappointed with himself as the boat crept on towards

the town. He had so often lived over this adventure in his fancy that

the reality seemed tame to him. He was disappointed with the look of

the city; it seemed but a mean place; a church, a fort, a few stone

houses, a gleam of red pantiles against the forest, and a mud wall

ringing it in. The bell tinkled in the belfry, tinkled continually,

jerked by a negro who had had no orders to stop. It seemed to Margaret

that a bell was out of place in that half-savage town. It was not a

Christian town. Those were not Christians on the beach. They were

Indians, negroes, convicts, runaways, half-breeds. They needed some

bloodier temple than that old church in the square. They needed a

space in the forest, lit by fires in the night. They needed the reek

of sacrifice and the clang of gongs. And this was the place he had

sailed to. Here his life’s venture was to be put to the touch. Here,

in this place, this little old squalid city between the sea and the

jungle. All the long anxieties were to be resolved there. There on the

sand, beyond the spume of the breakers, the doubts were to end. He

could not bring himself to care. His thoughts ran on the pale face of

Olivia, on her words to him, on the possibility of a new life for her.

“Stukeley,” he said, speaking very quietly in his hearer’s ear, “look

here. I want to say this. After this business, if you care, would you

like to settle in Jamaica or somewhere? Or in France? You and Olivia?

You could draw on me, you know. We could start something together.”

Stukeley seemed to measure the distance between the boat and the

shore. He looked at Margaret with a gleam of humour in his eyes.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll think it over.”

“Very well,” Margaret said. “There comes the captain. What strange

little horses. Are they imported, Captain Tucket?”

“No, sir. This country horses. Imported horses die of the heat, or the

change of grass. Beyond Carta-yaina there’s very good horse country.”

The rabble on the beach drew back now towards the town, handling their

arms. Half a dozen horsemen rode as though to meet the boat, almost to

the lip of the sea. One of them, a negro, who held his stirrups with

his toes, carried a pennon.

“The lad on the pinto’s the capataz,” said Tucket in his beard. “Stand

up with the flag in the bows there. Down sail. Let your oars swing

fore and aft in their grummets, ready to back her off. Wave your flag

of truce, Ed. Don’t shake your pistols out though. Stand by, Captain

Stukeley.”

“Are they friendly, do you think?”

“Sure.”

“Oh, Stukeley,” Margaret said. “This little case contains a ring for

the Governor. Say that you trust that it may have the felicity to

fit.”

“I will,” said Stukeley. “They carry some plate on their headstalls,

don’t they?” He put the case in his pocket.

The bow man waved his flag of truce, then lowered it, and knelt,

waiting for the shock of the grounding. Very gently, in the wash of

little waves and slipping shingle, the boat’s nose took the sand.

Captain Margaret stepped across the thwarts, holding a white cloth in

his hand. Watching his time, he leaped nimbly beyond the water, and

uncovered. Stukeley followed him, jumping clumsily. It seemed to

Margaret, as he turned sharply, thinking that the man had fallen, that

a book in Stukeley’s inner pocket was surely Cammock’s map-book. It

half jolted out as the coat flew open. It was a glimpse, nothing more.

Perhaps he was wrong. The two men stood uncovered before the horsemen,

who watched them with the grave eyes of animals. An elderly man among

the riders rode forward for a pace or two, uncovering with a gesture

full of dignity. He had the bearing of a soldier. It seemed to

Margaret that the gesture explained the might of Spain. Stukeley

advanced towards the horseman with his hat beating against his knee.

He spoke quietly in Spanish. After a few words, the elderly man

dismounted, and the two walked to and fro together, talking with a

grave politeness, which seemed to extend to the listeners, whether

they understood or not.

Presently Stukeley bowed very low to the captain, and walked jauntily

to Margaret. “It’s all right,” he said. “I think they’ll do your

business for you. They’re very friendly. They’re going to take me to

see the Governor.”

“Am I to come?”

“Only one man, he says. I may have to stay to dinner.”

“You think you run no risk? I’m willing to come if you think you run

any. I ought to share it.”

“They’re all right. There’s no risk. But he offers a hostage.”

“One of those cut-throats?”

“It ain’t very polite to accept. Eh? I’ll go alone. He knows you’ve a

commission. I’ve shown him that duplicate. It’s all right. I’ll go off

now. So long, my Maggy. Con Dios, caballero. Try and keep warm on the

sands here.”

He saluted the boat’s crew, gave Margaret a queer glance, and rejoined

the capataz, who bowed to them gravely. The negro with the pennon led

the dismounted horse. The capataz walked with Stukeley, followed by

the other troopers. They went slowly towards the gate of the city. The

troopers made their horses curvet and passage, clashing their silver

gear. Margaret stood at the lip of the water, watching them, till they

had passed within the gate, followed by the rabble.

The boatmen held that it would not be politic to return to the sloop.

“It might seem as we didn’t trust them,” Tucket said. So they rigged

the boat-rug as an awning over the sternsheets, and whiled away the

time, suffering much from the heat. It was a stifling day. The time

passed slowly, with many calls for the water-breaker. They made their

dinner of plantains, then smoked, exchanging stories, longing for

Stukeley’s return. Margaret found the time less irksome than he had

expected; for Tucket began to talk, out of a full heart, about the

subjects dear to him. He had never had such a listener before.

Margaret drew him out, with his usual sympathy, till the man’s inmost

life was bare before him. Such woods would take a polish, and such

other woods would take a stain; and such and such resins, why should

they not stain a wood to all colours of the rainbow, if treated with

care in the right way? It would be fine, Captain Tucket said, to be a

chemist, and have nothing else to do but to watch your dye vats all

day long. Vats of indigo, of anatta, of cochineal, all the lovely

colours, and---- Say. If one could get a green that showed the light

in it, like the water breaking on a reef. The hours passed; it was

nearly three o’clock; but still no Stukeley.

“The Guv’nor dines late,” said one of the men.

“I guess it’s difficult to get away from the donnas,” said another.

The others laughed; for Stukeley’s faults were well known.

“I dunno, sir,” said Tucket. “It seems a bit odd.”

“He seemed very sanguine about it,” Margaret answered.

“I ain’t much charmed with your friend myself,” said Tucket. “I don’t

trust that Master Stukeley.”

“You don’t think he’s deserted? Is that your meaning?”

“Well, I wouldn’t a trusted him to be my interpreter,” Tucket

answered, with the growl of one whose superior wisdom, now proved, is

proved too late. “We could a give you Thomas Gandy. He’d have done as

good. He knows Spanish just like a book, Tom do. And you could a

trusted Tom with your life. Now you ain’t on too good terms with the

Mr. Stukeley feller.”

“Shall I go into the town, then? To see if anything’s wrong?”

“Why, no, sir. That’s putting your joint in the fire to hot your soup.

Stay here, sir.”

“Well, we’ll wait a little longer. What d’you say to bathing?”

“It’s not really safe, sir. There’s cat-fish on this coast. Besides,

we better not get all over the place like shifting backstays. Them

Dagoes might come some of their monkey-tricks.”

“The town is quiet enough.”

“Siesta time,” said one of the men. “They likes a doss in the

afternoon.”

“I dunno what to think,” Tucket said. “But ’t’ain’t too wholesome, to

my mind.”

“He said he might be kept for dinner.”

“He could a sent word. Or they’d a sent dinner here. I’ve knowed

Dagoes do that. You got good eyes, Ed. What d’you make of the woods

there, back of the sand?” He turned to Margaret. “He’d been with the

Indians three or four years, Ed done. He sees things in brush like

that, just like an animal.”

All hands stared into the wall of green, which rose up eighty yards

away, beyond the line of the sand. The trees towered up, notching the

sky with their outlines. The sun blazed down upon them, till they

flashed, as though their leaves were green steel. They made a wall of

forest, linked, tangled, criss-crossed, hiding an inner darkness. A

parrot was tearing at a blossom high up on a creeper, flinging out the

petals with little wicked twists of his head. He showed up clearly

against the sky in that strong light.

“Nothing wrong there,” said Ed. “Look at the parrot.”

They looked at the parrot, and laughed to hear him abuse the flower.

“They’re the kind you can learn to speak, sir,” said a seaman. “I’ve

known some of them birds swear, you would think it was real. Some of

them can do it in Spanish.”

“The Spaniards don’t swear,” said another man.

“They’ve got caramba,” said the first. “Caramba. That’s the same as

God damn is in English.”

“Funny way of saying it,” said the other.

“Some one’s in that brush,” said the man called Ed. “See the paharo?”

Something had startled the parrot. He leaped up with a scream from his

liane, made a half-circle in the air, and flew away, wavering, along

the coast. One or two other birds rose as quietly as moths, and

flitted into the night of the wood. A deer stepped out on to the beach

daintily, picking her steps. She sniffed towards the town, listened,

seemed to hear something, caught sight of the boat, and fled. Then

came a sudden chattering of monkeys, a burst of abusive crying,

lasting only for a moment.

“D’ye see anything, Ed?”

“There’s plenty of ’em, cap, I guess.”

“Can you hear ’em? Lay your head on the ground.”

“The wash of the sea’s too loud. I can’t hear nothing.”

“They’re coming from the town, are they?”

“Sure.”

“Is there a road at the back of that wood?” Margaret asked.

“No, sir. I guess not. The Dagoes use the beach as a road.”

“Yes,” said a seaman. “They go to Covenas. A town along there. They

always go by the beach.”

“Do you know this place, then?”

“I worked on them walls a year, once. I’d ought to know it.”

“D’ye make out anything more, Ed?”

“They’re not far off yet, I guess, cap.”

“Do you think it’s an ambush, Captain Tucket?” Margaret asked.

“No saying, mister. May as well make ready,” he answered. “We’ll lay

out our boat’s kedge to seaward, so as we can warp off in a hurry.”

They rowed the boat out into the bay, dropped their kedge, and backed

her stern-first to the beach. They struck the awning, hoisted sail,

and laid their oars in the thole-pins. They waited for another

half-hour, watching the mysterious forest.

“I guess we’ll go off to the sloop, cap,” said a seaman. “He’s give us

the flying foretopsail.”

“Them paharos is back among them berries,” said Ed. “I guess it was

boys come for plantains.”

“I dunno,” said Tucket. “It’s odd our man ain’t come.”

“I must go up to the town to find out about him,” Margaret said. “I

can’t wait like this.”

“I wouldn’t, sir,” said Tucket. “What do you say, boys?”

“No,” said the men. “No. It wouldn’t do.”

“But I got him to go. I can’t let him get into trouble through me. I’m

responsible. I must see about him. I can’t go back without him.”

“He’s give you the foresheet, sir,” said one of the men.

“Yes. The son of a gun. I guess he has,” said another.

“There’s some one in that brush,” said Ed. “Them paharos has topped

their booms for keeps.”

“Well,” said Margaret, taking out his white cloth, noting the wild,

frightened flight of a half-dozen parrots, “I’m going to the some one,

to find out.” He leaped from the sternsheets into the shallow water,

and began to wade ashore, holding his cloth.

“Don’t you try it. You come back, sir,” called Tucket.

Margaret heard some one (he thought it was Ed’s voice) saying, “He’s

brave all right,” and then, behind him, came the click of gunlocks. He

glanced back, and saw that two of the men in the sternsheets had taken

out their guns, while a third man laid other loaded guns ready to

their hands. Ed called to him as he turned.

“You come back, sir.” Then, seeing that his words were of no avail, he

leaped into the water and caught him by the arm. “Back to the boat,

sir,” he said. “It’s not you only. It might be us.”

“I must find out about my friend,” said Margaret. “I can’t leave him

as he is.”

“Bring him back, Ed. Make him come back,” called the boatmen.

“Now you go back,” Ed repeated, grinning, “or I’ll have to put you.”

He looked up suddenly at the forest. “My Santa Marta!” he cried. “Into

the boat. Here they are.” He thrust Margaret backwards towards his

fellows, and instantly bent down to shove the boat clear. Both were up

to their knees in water at the boat’s side. Some one, it was the man

who had worked in Tolu, leaned out and grabbed at Margaret’s collar.

“Look out, sons!” cried Tucket.

At the instant a swarm of men burst from the edge of the forest. One

or two of them who were mounted charged in at a gallop. The others ran

down, crying, firing their guns as they ran. The water about the boat

was splashed violently, as though some one flung pebbles edgewise from

a height. Margaret drew his sword and turned. He saw a horse come down

within twenty yards of him. Some one shouted “Crabs” derisively. Half

a dozen fierce faces seemed staring on him, rushing on him, their

mouths open, their eyes wide. There was a crack of guns. Men were

falling. Then the wildness passed; he was calm again. A Spaniard, the

rider of the fallen horse, was in the water, thrusting at him with a

lance, calling him cuckold and bastard in the only English words he

knew. Margaret knocked the lance aside with difficulty, for the man

was strong and wild. His thoughts at the moment, for all the danger,

was “I can’t be both.” He wondered in that flash of time whether a man

could be both. All the beach seemed hidden from him with smoke and

fire and the hurrying of splashing bodies. Where was Ed gone? It was

all smoke and racket. He was being hit. Something struck his left arm.

Striking at random at a voice in the smoke, his sword struck

something. He dragged his sword back, and slipped with the effort. He

was up to his waist in water for an instant, below the smoke. He saw

men’s legs. He saw water splashing. Then there was smoke everywhere.

Smoke of a hundred guns. A racket like the chambers shot off at the

end of _Hamlet_; exactly like. A wave went into his face. Some one

fell across him and knocked him down again. It was Ed.

“Hold up, you fool,” Ed cried. The voice was the high, querulous voice

of the hurt man.

“You’re hit, Ed,” he said, catching him about the body. His arm stung

along its length with the effort. “Where are you hit, Ed?”

“Abajo. Vete al carajo, hijo de la gran puta. Cabron! Mierda!” The

words came out of the smoke like shots. The roar of the battle seemed

to be all about him. He backed, staggering, to get out of the smoke.

A half-tamed horse’s teeth ripped the sleeve from his hurt arm,

knocking them both down again. Some one jabbed him with a lance in the

shoulder. He struck the horse as he rose half choked, still clutching

Ed. The horse leaped with a scream. The smoke lifted. It was all

bright for a moment. A mad horse; a trooper swearing; Ed’s body like a

sack with blood on it; a smoke full of fiery tongues. There was the

boat though. Then the smoke cloaked it. Bullets splashed water in his

face. The butt of a flung lance banged him on the side of the head.

The horse reared above him, screaming, floundering in foam, then

falling heavily. He was almost out of his depth now, half swimming,

half dead, lugging a nether millstone. Blood was in his eyes, his

sword dangled from his wrist, his free hand tried to swim. He clutched

at the boat, missed, went under, gulping salt. He clutched again as

the white side slid away. His fingers caught upon the gunwale, near

the stroke’s thwart. He made the boat sway to one side a little. “Trim

her,” said Tucket, as he hauled, face forward, on the warp. He did not

look round; merely trimmed her mechanically, flinging the warp’s fakes

aft. “Away-hay-hay-i-oh,” he sang. “Lively, Jude,” said another. “If

you fire like you load, your bullets has moss on them.” Two of them

were firing sharply, lying behind the backboard. “Cut,” cried Tucket.

There was a shock of chopping on the gunwale. A hand sculled way upon

her with the steering-oar as the sail filled. The midship oars were

manned.

“Give me a hand here, please,” said Margaret weakly. “Catch Ed.”

“Lord. I thought you were in,” said Tucket. “Up with him. Ed’s gone.

Don’t capsize the ship, you. I’d forgot you two.”

Margaret managed to scramble in, helped by the boatmen. Then he

collapsed in the bottom of the boat over Ed. He had had a moving time.

He came-to quickly, with the taste of rum in his mouth and a feeling

of intense cold. His teeth chattered; he was weak and sick. “Land and

bring off Stukeley,” he said. “I can’t leave Stukeley.”

“We’ll be in the sloop in a minute,” said one of the men. “We’ll shift

him there. He got a prod in the shoulder.”

“How is it, Ed?” said another voice. “You’re all right.”

“What’s wrong with Ed?” said one of the rowers.

“Got a bat with a stone, I guess. I can’t see no shot hole. Hold up,

Ed. You ain’t dead yet.”

“I’m all right,” said Ed weakly. “That Margaret fellow fell all across

me and knocked me down.”

“He pulled you quit of the mix,” said Tucket. “Don’t you forget it.”

“He did, hell,” said Ed.

Margaret rose up in the boat. “I can’t leave Stukeley,” he said. “Pull

in, Captain Tucket, and bring him off.”

“You lie down, sir, and stay quiet,” said Captain Tucket. “We’ll be

there directly.”

One or two of the men tittered. Margaret tried to raise himself to

look at the land. He heard the roar of cannon from somewhere astern.

“That’s a heavy gun,” he said. “Who’s firing a heavy gun?” Then he

felt suddenly very tired, the boat and the guns became blurred to him,

he felt that there were ships sailing into action, firing their guns

in succession, shaking with the shock. An array of ships was sailing.

There were guns, guns. Guns that would never cease firing. There was

water roaring. No. Not water. Horses. Horses and ships. Roaring,

roaring. They were calling some one “Puta.” When he came-to, he was

lying below in the sloop, with a cold mess on his arm and a fiery pain

along his shoulder.

“Is Mr. Stukeley on board?” he asked.

“No, sir,” said Tucket, drying his hands. “Mr. Stukeley’s ashore. It’s

my belief our Mr. Stukeley put that ambush on us. Mr. Stukeley’ll stay

ashore.”

“I must bring him off. Land me, captain. There’s his wife.”

“You just have a lap of this lemon-drink,” said Tucket. “We had about

as near a call as may be. Ed got a bat on the head. You been pretty

near killed. There’s a pound’s worth of paint knocked off the boat.

Jude’s got a slug in his pants. The sail’s like a nutmeg-grater. If

we’d not laid that warp out, the land-crabs would be eating us at this

present. There’s a couple of hundred soldiers on the beach; besides

the guns.”

“They came at us in a rush,” said Margaret. The words seemed not to

come from him. His meaning had been to ask Tucket what had happened.

“That’s why they fired so wild,” said Tucket. “They rushed. They saw

you and Ed, and thought they’d take you.”

“But Stukeley. We must get Stukeley. They may have killed him.”

“He’s all right. You settle off.”

After some hours of quiet, Margaret rose up, feeling very weak. The

cabin was hot and foul, so he dressed, and went on deck for the

freshness. The boat’s crew were telling the sloop hands exactly what

had happened. Margaret knew from the way in which they spoke to him,

from the plain words of “Good evening, sir,” and “I hope you’re

better, sir,” that he was, for some reason, the hero of the moment.

His shoulder pained him, so he sat down, with his back against the

taffrail. A sailor placed a coat behind him, so that his rest might be

easy. Tucket was steering. The lights of the _Broken Heart_ were

visible a couple of miles ahead, against the mass of Ceycen, which hid

the stars to the north-eastward.

“Are you dead yet?” said Tucket.

“I’m well, thanks. I’m thinking of Mr. Stukeley.”

There came a sort of growl of “Stukeley” from the seamen about him.

“Stukeley,” they said. “He’s a mother’s joy, the Portuguese drummer’s

get.”

“Stukeley,” said Tucket. “He put that little quiff on us on the beach.

I ain’t goin’ to drown no one, shedding tears for Stukeley.”

“Nor I,” said the man called Jude. “I’d only bought them pants a

week.”

“Pants,” said Tucket. “You’d not a wanted many pants if Ed and Mr.

Margaret hadn’t been in the water. Them two in the water made ’em

rush. If they’d come slow, you’d a been a hit in the neck with that

chewed slug, my son. Don’t you forget it.”

“Did anybody see Mr. Stukeley?” Margaret asked. “Was he in the rush?

Could anybody see in the smoke?”

“No, sir. No one saw him.”

“Then why do you think he, he prompted the raid? What makes you think

that?”

“They’ve always received flags of truce before,” he answered. “And

you’d a commission besides. You aren’t like one of us. Why didn’t they

shoot when we put the son-of-a-gun ashore? I’ll tell you. They thought

we were ordinary flag of truce. That curly-headed gentleman’s son put

’em up to it, after dinner. Why? I know. That’s why.”