OUR FLAG COMES DOWN
We lay still inside our fortalice for awhile, listening, as well as the
throbbing of our pulses would allow, to try and hear what our invaders
were doing.
We could hear the sound of their voices down on the beach, and the
splashing they made in the water as they dragged their dead or wounded
comrades out of the water and hauled their boats close up to the shore.
But beyond this we heard nothing, though the air was so still, now that
the screaming of the birds had died away, that we felt sure that we must
hear the sound of any advance in force.
Lancelot whispered to me that it was possible that they might put off
their assault until daybreak. They were in this predicament, that if
they lit any of the lights which we made no doubt they carried, in order
to ascertain the plight that they were in, they would make themselves
the targets for our muskets. But the one thing certain was that, under
the control of a man like Jensen, they would most certainly not rest
till they tried to get the better of us.
That Jensen himself was not among the disabled we felt confident, for
Lancelot, who had a fine ear, averred that he could distinguish the
sound of Jensen's voice down on the beach, which afterward proved to be
so, for Jensen, unable to distinguish in the darkness the amount of
injury that his army had sustained, was calling over from memory the
name of each man of his gang. Every pirate who answered to his name
stated the nature of his wounds, if he had any. Those who made no answer
Jensen counted for lost, and of these latter there were no less than
three.
There was something terrible in the sense of a darkness that was
swarming with enemies. We were not wholly in obscurity inside our
enclosure, for we had a couple of the boat's lanterns, which shed enough
light to enable us to see each other, and to look to our weapons,
without allowing any appreciable light to escape between the timbers of
our fortification. Soon all our muskets were loaded again. Lancelot
appointed one of the men who came to us on the raft, and who was still
too weak for active service, as a loader of guns, that in case of
attack we could keep up a steady firing. Happily for us, our supply of
ammunition was tolerably large.
For some time, however, we were left in peace. The blackness upon which
the pirates had counted as an advantage had proved their bane. So there
was nothing for them to do but to wait with what patience they could for
the dawn.
The dawn did come at last, and I never watched its coming with more
anxiety. Often and often in those days when I believed myself to be
fathom-deep in love I used to lie awake on my bed and watch the dawn
filling the sky, and find in its sadness a kind of solace for mine own.
For a sick spirit there is always something sad about the breaking of
the day. Perhaps, if I had been like those who know the knack of verses,
I should have worked off my ill-humours in rhyme, and slept better in
consequence, and greeted the dawn with joy. Wonder rather than joy was
in my mind on this morning as the sky took colour and the woods stirred
with the chatter of the birds. For the pirates had disappeared! Their
boats lay against the beach, but there was, as it seemed to us at first,
no visible sign of their masters.
We soon discovered their whereabouts, however. They had groped, under
cover of night, to the woods, and we soon had tokens of their presence.
For by-and-by we could hear them moving in the wood, and could catch the
gleam of their scarlet coats and the shine upon their weapons.
In the wood they were certainly safe from us, if also we were, though in
less measure, safe from them. As I have said, the wooded hill ran at a
sharp incline at some distance from the place where we had set up our
stockade, so we were not commanded from above, and, no matter how high
the pirates climbed, they could not do us a mischief in that way by
firing down on to us.
They did climb high, but with another purpose, for presently we saw,
with rage in our eyes and hearts, one bit of business they were bent on.
Our flag fluttered down like a wounded bird, and it made me mad to think
that it was being hauled down by those rascals, and that we had no art
to prevent them.
Could we do nothing? I asked Lancelot impatiently. Could we not make a
sortie and destroy the boats that lay down there all undefended? But
Lancelot shook his head. The way to the sea was doubtless covered by our
enemies in the wood. We should only volunteer for targets if we
attempted to stir outside our stockade. There was nothing for it but to
wait.
I think that it must have enraged the pirates to find us so well
protected that there was no means of taking us unawares or of creeping
in upon us from the rear. With the daylight they essayed to hurt us by
firing from the hill; but from the lie of the ground their shots did us
no harm, either passing over our heads or striking the wall of our
stronghold and knocking off a shower of splinters, but doing no further
damage. We, on the contrary, were able to retaliate, firing through our
loopholes up the slope at the red jackets in the woods, and with this
much effect, that soon the scarlet rascals ceased to show themselves,
and kept well under cover. We felt very snug where we were, and fit to
stand a siege for just so long as our victuals and water held out. Then,
if the pirates remained upon the island, famine would compel us to a
sortie in the hope of clearing them from the woods, an adventure in
which our chances of success seemed to kick the balance.
But it did not come to that. About an hour before noon those of us who
were at the loopholes saw the shine of a scarlet coat among the trees on
the nearest slope, but before there was time to aim a musket something
white fluttered above it. It was, as it proved, but a handkerchief tied
to a ramrod, but it was a flag of truce for all that, and a flag of
truce is respected by gentlemen of honour, whoever carries it.
When the white flag had fluttered long enough for him who held it to
make sure that it must have been seen by us, the bearer came out from
the cover of the wood and walked boldly down the slope. For all the
distance the sharp-sighted among us knew him at once for Cornelys
Jensen, and it came into my mind that perhaps Lancelot might refuse to
accept him as an emissary. Lancelot, however, said nothing, but stood
quietly waiting while the man came nearer. But when he came within pitch
of voice Lancelot called out to him to come to a halt.
Jensen stopped at once and waited till Lancelot again called out to him
to ask what he wanted. Jensen replied that he came under the protection
of a flag of truce; that he wished to come to terms with Captain
Amber--for so he called him--if it were by any means possible; that he
was alone and unarmed, and trusted himself to our honour. Thereupon
Lancelot called back to him to come nearer, and he would hear what he
had to say. We had driven some great nails that we had with us into one
of the posts of our wall to serve as a kind of ladder, and by these
nails Lancelot lifted himself to the top of the palisade, and sat there
waiting for Jensen's approach. I begged him not to expose himself, but
he answered that there was no danger, so long as Jensen remained within
short range of half a dozen of our guns, that the fellows in the woods
would make himself a target. And so he sat there as coolly as if he were
in an ingle, whistling 'Tyburn Tree' softly to himself as Jensen drew
near.