A strange joy seized me as I sighted the unknown ship. For my heart
told me she was no friend, and I was just in the humour for a fight. I
was one too many on board the _Misericorde_; and a brush with the
Queen's foes just now would comfort me amazingly. And yet, when I came
to think of it, she lay in nearer the English coast than we, and was
like enough to be no Queen's enemy after all, but a Queen's cruiser on
the look-out for suspicious craft like ours. For we floated no colours
aloft. After the late fight Ludar had hauled down the Frenchman's flag;
but it was in vain I begged him to hoist that of her royal Majesty in
its place. He would not hear of it.
"No," said he, "I sail under no false colours. This is a voyage for
safety, not for glory, else I know the flag would fly there. As it is,
Humphrey, 'tis best for us all to fly nothing. The masts shall go bare.
The blue of a maiden's eyes is colour enough for you and me to fight
under."
I could not gainsay him. We were in no trim for receiving broadsides,
or grappling with sea-dogs, however merry the ports might be for a man
in my plight. Our business was to bring the _Misericorde_ safe into
Leith Roads, and to that venture we stood pledged.
Ludar ordered the maiden to her quarters and me to my cabin.
"In this calm," said he, "'twill be hours before we foregather if
foregather we may. So below, while the poet and I whistle for a
breeze."
Towards afternoon we lay much as we were, drifting a little westward.
But then came some clouds up from the south-east and with them a puff
into our canvas.
"We may be glad to take in a reef on her before daybreak, Captain," said
the seaman.
"Time, enough till then," said Ludar. "Take all you can now."
We had not long to wait before the _Misericorde_ had way on once more.
Then Ludar called his crew to him and said:
"To-night, be yonder stranger who she may, we run a race. Maiden, you
have the keenest eyes; keep the watch forward. Humphrey, do you and the
poet see to the guns and have all ready in case we need to show our
teeth. Pilot, budge not one point out of the wind; but let her run. We
may slip past in the dark, and then we are light-heeled enough to keep
ahead. Old nurse, I warrant you have loaded a piece before now--we may
need you to do it again. Meanwhile, to bed with you."
Then the race began. The wind behind us freshened fast, so that in an
hour's time our timbers were creaking under stress of canvas. Before
that, the stranger ship, though still a league and a half to larboard,
had caught the breeze and was going too, canvas crowded, with her nose a
point out of the wind into our course. For a long while it seemed as if
we were never to come nearer, so anxious was she to give us no more
advantage than she could help. But towards sundown we may have been a
league asunder running neck and neck.
"She's an English cruiser, Captain," cried the helmsman, "and takes us
for a Spaniard--that's flat."
"Then run as if we were so," said Ludar. "Budge not an inch from your
course even if we scrape her bows as we pass."
So we held on straight down the wind, while the Englishman, closing in
at every mile, held on too; and no one was to say which of us gained an
inch on the other.
The sun tumbled into the sea and the brief twilight grew deeper, while
behind us the wind gathered itself into a squall. Just before daylight
failed, we could perceive the cruiser, not two miles away, leaning
forward on her course, with the Queen's flag on her poop, and a row of
portholes gaping our way. Then we lost her in the dusk.
The poet, who stood near me at the gun, said:
"Night is as a cave of which none seeth the end from the beginning; and
a man hooded feeleth what he before saw. My Hollander, I bargained not
for this when I took passage here. I wish it were to-morrow. Why do we
not, under cover of night, change our course?"
"Because, since that is what our pursuers will expect of us, it will
delude them the more if we keep straight on."
"O truth, many are thy arts!" said he. "But if, my Soothsayer, the
wolf's cunning be a match for that of the lamb? What then?"
"Then you may want your match, and your knife too," said I.
He shivered a little.
"My Hollander," said he, "if I fall, say to my lady 'twas for her; and I
pray you give her the gem in my bonnet. Say to her its brightness was
dimmer than the remembrance of her eyes; and its price meaner than the
dewdrop on her lip. Bring her to see me where I lie; and compose my
face to greet her. Tell me, my Dutchman, doth a cannon ball give short
shrift, or were it easier to die by the steel?"
"A peace to your nonsense," said I. "You have more sonnets to write
before we need think of laying you out."
He was comforted at this, and we resumed our watch in silence.
The night grew very dark, and at every gust our masts stooped further
before the wind. The _Misericorde_ hissed her way through the water,
and still our pilot turned not his helm an inch right or left.
Presently, Ludar came up to where we stood. I could see his eyes flash
even in the dark.
"Go forward now," said he to me. "Should we both be running as we were,
and as I think we are our courses ought to meet not far hence. Send the
maiden to me--I need her to take the helm while we three stand to the
guns. Pray Heaven we win clear; if not, it will go hard with you,
friend, in the prow. Let go your pistol at first sight of them, and, if
you can, come abaft to join us before we strike."
I could tell by the tone in which he spoke that he took in every inch of
our peril, and trembled, not for himself, but for some one else.
The maiden was loth to quit her post; for she, too, knew the risk of it
and claimed it as her right. But when I told her the Captain had so
ordered, and required her at the helm, she obeyed without another word.
Then followed a quarter of an hour that seemed like a lifetime. As I
stood craning my neck forward, gazing under my hands seaward, there
crowded into my memory visions of all my past life. I seemed to see the
home of my boyhood, and looked again into my mother's face. And I stood
once more before my case in the shop outside Temple Bar, and listened to
Peter Stoupe humming his psalm-tune, and heard my types click into the
stick. I marched once more at the head of my clubs to Finsbury Fields,
and there I saw Captain Merriman--drat him!--with his vile lips at a
maiden's ear. And I passed, too, along the village street at Kingston
where met me my mistress and her sweet daughter; and as I looked back,
Jeannette turned too and--
What was that? Surely in the darkness I saw something! No. All was
pitch black. The wind roared through the rigging, and the water seethed
up at the plunging prow. But though I saw nothing, I felt the pursuer
near; so near, I wondered not to hear the swish of her keel through the
waves. On we went and nearer and nearer we seemed together. Oh for one
sign of them, were it even a gun across our path! But sign there came
none. The darkness seemed blacker than ever and--
All of a sudden I seemed to detect something--a spark, or a glow, or the
luminous break of a wave. So swiftly it came and went, that it was gone
before I could look. A trick of my vision, thought I. No! there it was
again, this time nothing but a spark, close by, on a level, perhaps,
with our mizzen. So near was it, I wondered whether it might not be the
lighting of a match at our own guns. It went again: and as it did so,
my finger, almost without my knowing it, tightened on the trigger of my
pistol and it went off.
At the same moment, there was a blaze, a roar, a crash, and a shout.
For an instant the _Misericorde_ reeled in her course and quivered from
stern to stern. Then, another shout and a wild irregular roar astern.
Then our good ship gathered herself together and leapt forward once more
into the darkness, and the peril was passed.
All was over so suddenly that the pistol was still smoking in my hand as
I leapt from the forecastle and rushed aft.
"Is all well?" I shouted.
"All well," said Ludar, quietly. "She grazed our poop and no more."
"And the maiden?" said I.
"All well," cried she, cheerily from the helm, "and fair in the wind."
"Stand at your posts still," cried Ludar.
So for another half-hour yet we stood at our posts, just as we had stood
before the crisis came; and not a word said any one.
Then in the stormy east came a faint flush of dawn, and we knew that
this perilous night was over.
"Seaman," said Ludar, "relieve the maiden at the helm, and bid her come
hither."
She came, radiant and triumphant.
"Sir Ludar," she said, "I thank you for letting me hold the helm this
night. You gave it me as the place of safety; but I had my revenge,
since it proved the post of honour."
"It was indeed the post of danger," said Ludar. "Had you swerved and
not held straight on, we might not have been here to honour you for it.
But say, did none of the Englishman's shot reach the poop?"
"Some of it. Witness the sail there and the rail and the stern windows;
but it spared me."
"I think," said Ludar, "we maimed them in one of their masts in passing,
and their bowsprit broke short when it touched our stern. I doubt if we
shall find them following us."
"As for our Hollander," said the poet, who had been wondrous silent thus
far, "he hath this night proved himself twice a prophet. He said we
should win this race; he said, moreover, I should live to write another
ode. And lo! he spoke true. By your leave, Captain, I will go
celebrate this notable occasion in a strain worthy of it and to the
glory of my fair Amazon who--"
"Go below and cook this company some pottage," said Ludar, "and see you
be not long over it."
Whereat the poet, with the muse taken out of him, departed. We stood
watching the dawn till there was light enough to look back on our
night's work. There was the Englishman with her main-mast gone, and
draggled about the bows, beating up under reefed sails for the coast.
It was plain to see, although we were two long leagues away, that she
had had enough for one night and was going to leave us in peace. For
myself, as I looked, I could not wholly glory in having thus flouted her
Majesty's flag; but I considered that we had run that night for our
lives, so I hoped the sin would be forgiven me.
And now, when we come to look round us, we found the wind still running
high, and shifting a point or so to the eastward, promising a stormy
day. So Ludar bade us shorten our canvas and put out our ship's head a
bit, so as to give the coast a wide berth.
And, in truth, as the day wore on, the wind freshened into a gale, and
the gale into a tempest, so that if we had promised ourselves relief
after the perils of last night, our hopes were dashed. The sea, which
so far had been easy, ran now high, and washed over our prow as we stood
across the wind, and it was plain we were going to find out before long
of what mettle our brave timbers were.
'Twas no light thing to face a night like this, even with a good crew--
how much less with but four men and a maid? Yet I never saw Ludar more
at his ease. In the danger of last night his face had been troubled and
his manner excited. Now he gave his orders as if this were a pleasure
trip on a quiet lake.
"What is there to mind," said he, "in a capful of wind? 'Tis sent to
help us on our way; whereas, had we been taken last night where should
we be now? Come, my men, help me shorten sail, for a little will go a
long way a night like this. Maiden, to you I trust the helm with a
light heart. 'Twill tax your strength more to keep her head thus than
to run, as you did last night, clean before the wind; but you are strong
and brave, and teach us to be the same."
The subtlest courtier's speech could not have won her as did these blunt
words. She said no more than "I go, my Captain." But the look of her
eyes as they met his spoke volumes of joy and gratitude, a tithe of
which would have gladdened me for a lifetime.
Then we fell to shortening our canvas--a perilous task. When that was
done, leaving only the topsails spread, Ludar bade us make good the
hatches, and fall to and eat. Which we did, all but the poet, who,
being either big with his ode, or misliking the wildness of the night,
sat idle.
"Come, Sir Popinjay," said Ludar. "Eat, for no man can work on an empty
stomach, and even poetry will not help haul a rope."
"We avoid Scylla, my Captain, only to fall into Charybdis. Methinks
Scylla were the better fate. At least I might have passed this night
recumbent. The eagle, at the day's end, flieth to his nest, and the
lion hath his den; to all toil cometh an evensong, save to the
shuttlecocks of Aeolus."
"Nay, Sir Poet, you did bravely last night. Fall to and eat now, and we
shall see you do more bravely to-night."
"Orpheus, his weapon, is a harp, not a gun. Nevertheless, I am one of
five, and shall yield me to a man's bidding for the sake of her, my
mistress, to whose glory I have this day indited my ode, and into whose
sweet ear I will even now go recite it."
"No, no," said Ludar, "stay here and eat, and then go make a better one
on the starboard bow, with your hand on the forestays, and your eye
seaward."
He obeyed at length and swallowed his supper. Then, lamenting the
maiden's fate at being deprived of his ode, he went gallantly forward.
"There goes a brave man in the garb of a fool," said Ludar. "Humphrey,
in this wind, the maiden will be hard put to it to keep her post on the
poop. 'Twould help her to lash her to her helm. Will you go and do
it?"
"That task belongs to the Captain," said I. "She will suffer it from
you." He smiled at me grimly and went astern. And, as I said, the
maiden let him have his way; and there she stood, as night closed, erect
and steadfast, with her hands on the tiller and her brave face set
seaward.
'Twas a fearful night of shrieking wind and thundering wave. Often and
often as the brave _Misericorde_ reared and hung suspended on a wave's
crest, we knew none of us if she would ever reach the next. Lucky for
us we were a flush-decked ship and our hatches sound, for the seas that
poured over us would have filled us to the brim in an hour. Lucky, too,
the Frenchman's cargo had been snugly stowed, or we should have been on
our beam-ends before midnight. Half-way through the night, there was a
loud crack and over went our main top-mast with her sails in ribbons.
We had scarce time, at great peril, to cut her away, when another burst
snapped our mizzen almost at the deck.
"That lightens us still more," said Ludar. "Let go all the forward
canvas, and cut away. We must put her into the wind and let her drive
under bare poles."
With that he went to the helm, where indeed the maiden must have needed
succour. And there he stayed beside her till the night passed.
Afterwards he told me that he found her there, half stunned by the wind,
but never flinching, or yielding a point out of the course. "I know not
if she was pleased to see me there," said he. "She said little enough,
and hardly surrendered me the tiller. But when we put the ship into the
wind, there was little to do, save to stand and watch the sea, and
shield ourselves as best we might from the force of the waves that leapt
over the poop."
And fierce enough they were, in truth. But what was worse was that our
course now lay due west, bringing us every league nearer the coast.
Should the tempest last much longer we might have a sterner peril to
face on the iron Northumbrian shore than ever we had escaped in the open
sea.
The night passed and morning saw us driving headlong, with but one mast
standing and not a sail to bless it. The maiden who had stood at her
post since sundown yielded at last and came down, pale and drenched, to
her quarters. The poet too, who had clung all night to the halyards,
looking faithfully ahead and polishing his ode inwardly at the same
time, also crawled abaft, half frozen and stupid with drowsiness.
Indeed, there was little any of us could do, and one by one Ludar
ordered us to rest, while he, whom no labour seemed to daunt, clung
doggedly to the helm.
Thus half that day the wind flung us forward, till presently, far on the
horizon, we could discern the sullen outline of a cliff.
"We are lost!" said I.
"Humphrey, you are a fool," said Ludar. "See you not the wind is
backing fast?"
So it was, and as we drove on, ever nearer the fatal coast, it swung
round again to the southerly, and the sun above us blazed out fitfully
from among the breaking clouds.
"Heaven fights for us," said Ludar. "Quick, rig up a sail forward and
fly a yard; and do you, seaman, look to your charts and say where we
are."
"That I have done long since," said the sailor. "We are scarce a league
from the Holy Island, and 'tis full time we put her head out, sir."
"Come and take the helm then."
For a while it seemed as if we were to expect as wild a tempest from the
south as ever we had met from the east. But towards evening, the wind
slackened a bit, and, veering south-east, enabled us to stand clear of
the coast, and make, battered and ill canvassed as we were, straight for
the Scotch Forth.
The maiden slept all through that night, and when at dawn she came on
deck, fresh and singing, we were tumbling merrily through a slackening
sea, with the Bass Rock looming on the horizon.
"Methinks the jaded Greek felt not otherwise when, leaving behind him
the blood-stained plains of Troy, he espied the cloud-topped mountains
of Hellas," said the poet, who joined us as we stood.
"Which means," said the maiden, "you are glad?"
"Shall Pyramus rejoice to see the wall that hides him from his Thisbe?
or Hector leap at the trumpet which parts him from his Andromache?
Mistress mine, in yonder rock shall I read my doom?"
"Rather read us your ode, Sir Poet," said she. "It has had a stormy
hatching, and should be a tempestuous outburst."
"As indeed you shall find it, if I have your leave to rehearse it," said
he.
"I beg no greater favour," said she.