A PIECE OF DIPLOMACY
When Jensen was within a few feet of the stockade he halted, and
saluted Lancelot with a formal gravity that seemed grotesque under
the circumstances. I will do the rascal this justice, that he looked
well enough in his splendid coat, though his carriage was too
fantastical--more of the stage player than the soldier. Lancelot,
looking down at the fellow without returning his salutation, asked him
what he wanted.
'Come, Captain Amber,' said Jensen boldly, 'you know what I want very
well. I want to come to terms. Surely two men of the world like us ought
to be able to make terms, Captain Amber.'
'I do not carry the title of Captain,' Lancelot answered, 'and I have
no more in common with you than mere life. My only terms are the
unconditional surrender of yourself and your accomplices. In their
case some allowance may be made. In yours--none!'
Jensen shrugged his shoulders and smiled with affability at Lancelot's
menaces.
'The young cock cackles louder than the old cock ever crowed,' he said;
but he said it more good-humouredly than sneeringly, and it was evident
that he was more than willing to propitiate Lancelot. 'We ought to make
terms, for we are both at a loose end here, and might at least agree not
to annoy each other. For you see, Lieutenant--if you will take that
title--that as you judge you shall be judged. If you have no terms for
us we will have no terms for you.'
It was a proof of his own vanity that he thus thrust a title upon
Lancelot, thinking to please him, for when Lancelot, calling him by his
surname, told him again that he had no terms to make with him, he drew
himself up with an offended air and said:
'I call myself Captain Jensen, if you please.'
'It does not please me,' Lancelot retorted, 'to call you anything but a
pirate and a rogue. Go back to your brother rogues at once!'
To my surprise, Jensen kept his temper, and seemed only hurt instead of
angry at Lancelot's attack.
'Hot words,' he said quietly, 'hot words. Upon my honour, you do me
wrong, Lieutenant Amber, for I persist in respecting the courtesies of
war. I wish with all my heart that we could agree, but if we cannot we
cannot, and there's an end of it. But there is another matter I wish to
speak about.' He paused, as if waiting for permission, and when Lancelot
bade him be brief, he went on: 'We have one among us who is more
inclined to your party than to mine. I mean your reverend friend Parson
Ebrow.'
For my part I was glad to hear that the poor man was still alive, for I
feared that the pirates had killed him after their first attempt. But I
saw Lancelot's face flush with anger, and his voice shook as he called
out that if any harm came to Mr. Ebrow he would hold every man of the
gang responsible for his life.
'Harm has come to him already,' Jensen answered; 'but not from us, but
from you, his friends. He was hurt in the boats last night by your
fire.'
At this Lancelot gave a groan, and we all felt sick and sorry, while
Jensen, who knew that we could hear, though he could only see Lancelot,
smiled compassionately.
'Do not be alarmed,' he said. 'The godly man is not mortally wounded.
Only his face, which was always far from comely, has not been bettered
by a shot that travelled across the side of the left cheek from jaw to
ear. Now, another man in my place, Lieutenant, knowing the store you set
by the parson, might very well use him to drive a bargain with you. He
is no friend of ours, and the use upon him of a little torture might
induce you to think better of the terms you deny.'
Lancelot grew pale, and he made as if he would speak, but Jensen delayed
him with a wave of the arm.
'Pray let me conclude, Lieutenant Amber,' he went on. 'Another man,
having such a hostage, might use him pretty roughly. But I am not of
that kidney. I want to fight fair. The reverend gentleman is no use to
me. We want no chaplain. He is a friend of yours, and if we win the day
some of you will be glad of his ghostly offices. But he is in our way,
and I cannot answer for the temper of my people if he exhorts us any
more. So I shall be heartily obliged if you will take him off our hands
and relieve me of the responsibility of his presence.'
I had listened to this, as you may believe, in some amazement, and
Lancelot seemed no less surprised. 'What do you mean?' he asked; and
Jensen answered him:
'I mean what I say. You can have your parson. Two of my men, with this
flag, will bring him down, for the poor gentleman is too feeble to walk
alone from loss of blood, and leave him in your charge. After that we
will send no more messages, but fight it out as well as we can till one
or other wins the day.'
He took off his hat as he spoke and made Lancelot a bow; and this time
Lancelot returned his salutation.
'I can only thank you for your offer,' Lancelot said, 'and accept it
gladly. If I cannot change my terms, at least be assured that this
charity shall be remembered to your credit.'
'I ask no more,' Jensen replied; 'and you shall have your man within the
half-hour.'
With that he clapped his hat proudly upon his head again, and turning on
his heel marched away in a swaggering fashion, while Lancelot slipped
down again into the shelter of the house. In a few minutes Jensen's red
coat had disappeared among the trees, and then we all turned and stared
at each other.
'The devil is not so black as he is painted, after all,' Lancelot said
to me, 'if there is a leaven of good in Cornelys Jensen. But I shall be
heartily glad to have Mr. Ebrow among us, for if the worst come it will
be better to perish with us than to lie at their mercy.'
I did not altogether relish Lancelot's talk about our perishing, for
I had got it into my head that we were more than a match for the
pirates, with all their threats and all their truculence, and my
friend's readiness to face the possibility of being victims instead
of victors dashed my spirits. But I thought of Marjorie, and felt that
we must win or--and then my thoughts grew faint and failed me, but not
my promise and my resolve.
We had not waited very long after Jensen's departure when we saw signs
of the fulfilment of his promise. Three men came out of the wood where
he had entered, two in scarlet and one in black. We could see that the
two men in scarlet were supporting the man in black, who seemed to be
almost unable to move, and as the three drew nearer we could see, at
first with a spy-glass and soon without, that he in the middle had his
face all bound about with bloody cloths. At this sight all our hearts
grew hot with anger and pity, and there was not one of us that did not
long to be the first to reach out a helping hand to the parson. We
could see, as the group came nearer, that Jensen's men were not handling
their captive very tenderly. Though his limbs seemed so weak that his
feet trailed on the ground, they made shift to drag him along at a walk
that was almost a trot, as if their only thought was to be rid as soon
as possible of their burden, whose moanings we could now plainly hear as
he was jerked forward by his escort. It seemed such a shocking thing
that a man so good and of so good a calling should be thus maltreated
that, to speak for myself, it called for all my sense of the obligations
of a white flag to stay me from sending a bullet in the direction of his
cowardly companions. I could see that Lancelot was as much angered as I,
by the pallor of his face and the way in which he clenched his hands.
However, in a few seconds more the pirates had hauled their helpless
prisoner to within a few feet of our fortress. Then, to the increase of
our indignation, they flung him forward with brutal oaths, so that he
fell grovelling on his injured face just in front of our doorway, and
while he lay prone one of the ruffians dealt him a kick which made him
groan like a dog. After they had done this the two red-jackets drew back
a few paces and waited, according to the agreement, laughing the while
at the plight of the clergyman.
In a moment, obedient to a word from Lancelot, a dozen hands lifted
the beam and swung the door back. Lancelot sprang forward, followed hard
by me, to succour our unhappy friend; and between us we lifted him from
the ground, though with some effort, for he seemed quite helpless and
senseless with his ill-treatment and the fall, and unable to give us
the least aid in supporting him. Jensen's two brutes jeered at us for
our pains, bidding us mind our sermon-grinder and the like, with many
expletives that I shall not set down. Indeed, their speech and behaviour
so discredited their mission that it would have jeopardised their
safety, for all their flag of truce, with a commander of less
punctiliousness than Lancelot. But he, without paying heed to their
mutterings, propped the prisoner up stoutly, and carried him, huddled
and trailing, toward the stockade. As we moved him he moaned feebly,
and kept up this moaning as we carried him inside the stockade and drew
him toward the most sheltered corner to lay him down.
My heart bled for the parson in his weakness, with his head all swathed
in bloody bandages, and I shuddered to think what his face would be
like when we took off those coverings. I turned to pile some coats
together for him to rest upon, but I was still looking at him as he hung
helpless against Lancelot, when, in a breath, before my astounded eyes,
the limp form stiffened, and Mr. Ebrow, stiff and strong, flung himself
upon Marjorie and caught her in his arms. Quickly though the act was
done, I still had time to think that Mr. Ebrow's calamities had turned
his brain, and to feel vexation at the increase to our difficulties with
a mad-man in our midst. In the next instant I saw that Mr. Ebrow was
squatting on the ground behind Marjorie, sheltered by her body, which he
held pinioned to his with his left arm, while his right hand held a
pistol close to her forehead. Then a voice that was not the voice of Mr.
Ebrow called out that Marjorie was his prisoner, and that if any man
moved to rescue her he would blow the girl's brains out. And the voice
that made these threats was the voice of Cornelys Jensen!
I cannot tell you how astounded we were at this sudden turn in our
fortunes. Our garrison, taken by surprise, had left their posts every
man, and stood together at one end of our parallelogram. Lancelot stood
still and white as a statue. I leant against the wall and gasped for
breath like a man struck silly. Marjorie lay perfectly still in the
grasp of her enemy, and Jensen's eyes between the bandages seemed to
survey the whole scene with a savage sense of mastery. He was so well
protected where he crouched by Marjorie's body that no one dared to
fire, or, indeed, for the moment, to do anything but stare in
stupefaction. The stroke was so sudden, the change so unexpected, the
dash so bold, that we were at a disadvantage, and for a space no one
moved.
In a loud voice Jensen called upon every man to throw down his weapons,
swearing furiously that if they did not do so he would kill Marjorie.
Marjorie, on her part, though she could not free herself from Jensen's
hold--for Jensen had the clasp and the hold of a bear--cried out to them
bravely to do their duty, and defend the place, and pay no heed to her.
But the men were not of that temper; they were at a loss; they feared
Jensen, and this display of his daring unnerved them. They stood idly in
a mass, while I, from where I stood, could see through the open door, to
which no one else paid any heed, Jensen's men coming out of the wood,
with only a few hundred yards of level ground between them and us. I
was cumbered, as I told you, with some sea-coats, that I had caught up
to make a couch for Mr. Ebrow, and as I held them to me with my left
arm, they almost covered me from neck to knee. Now, in my pocket I
carried the little pistol that Lancelot had given me, and in my first
moment of surprise my right hand had involuntarily sought it out. Now, I
was not much of a shot, and yet in a moment I made my mind up what I
would do. I would, under cover of the coats, which I clutched to me,
fire my piece through my pocket at Jensen, trusting to God to straighten
the aim and guide the bullet. In that moment I took all the chances. If
I hit Jensen, who was somewhat exposed to me where I stood, all would be
well. If I missed him and he at once killed Marjorie, or if, missing
him, I myself wounded or killed Marjorie, I knew that at least I should
be doing as Marjorie would have me do, and in either of these cases we
could despatch Jensen and have up our barricade again before help would
come to him. All this takes time to tell, but took no time in the
thinking, and my finger was upon the trigger when, in the providence of
God, something happened which altered every purpose--Jensen's and the
others', and mine. There came a great crash through the air loud as
immediate thunder, with a noise that seemed to shake heaven above and
earth below us. Every one of us in that narrow place knew it for the
roar of a ship's gun.