THE SEA GIVES UP ITS QUICK
The clatter of that reverberation altered in a trice the whole
conditions of our game. Jensen, in his surprise, looked up for a moment,
and in that moment I had flung myself upon him, and his pistol, going
off, spent its bullet harmlessly in the skies. In another second he had
knocked me to the ground with a force that nearly stunned me; but before
he could use another weapon twenty hands were upon him, and twenty
weapons would have ended him but for Lancelot's command to take him
alive. In a trice we had flung our door in its place and swung the beam
across, and there we were, none the worse for our adventure, with the
chief of our enemies fast prisoner in our hands. Already the pirates
were scouring back into the woods, and though certain of our men had the
presence of mind to empty their muskets after them, and bring down the
two rogues who had carried the sham Ebrow to us, most of us were
occupied in peering through the loopholes on the other side of the
fortress at a blessed sight. Not half a mile away rode the ship that had
fired the shot; the smoke of the discharge was still in the air about
her. She was a frigate, and she flew the Dutch flag.
You may imagine with what a rapture we saw that frigate and that flag.
It could only mean succour, and we were sick at heart to think that we
had no flag with us to fly in answer. But we waited and watched with
beating hearts behind our walls, and presently we could see that a boat
was lowered and that men came over the side and filled it, and then it
began to make for Fair Island as fast as stroke of oar could carry it.
With a cry of joy Lancelot thrust his spy-glass into my hand, crying out
to me that Captain Amber was on board the boat. And so indeed he was,
for I had no sooner clapped the glass to my eye than there I saw him,
sitting in the stern in his brave blue coat, and at the sight of him my
heart gave a great leap for joy. We opened our seaward gate at once, and
in a moment Marjorie and Lancelot and I were racing to the strand,
followed by half a dozen others, leaving the stockade well guarded, and
orders to shoot Jensen on the first sign of any return of the pirates
from the woods. Though, indeed, we felt pretty sure that they would
make no further attempt against us, having lost their leader, and being
now menaced by this new and unexpected peril.
As the boat drew nearer shore Lancelot tied a handkerchief to the point
of his cutlass and waved it in the air, and at sight of it the figure in
blue in the stern raised his hat, and the men rowing, seeing him do
this, raised a lusty cheer, and pulled with a warmer will than ever, so
that in a few more minutes their keel grated on the sand.
Captain Amber leaped out of the boat like a boy, splashing through the
water to join us, while the Dutch seamen hauled the boat up and stared
at us stolidly. Captain Amber clasped Marjorie's hand and murmured to
himself 'Thank God!' while tears stood in his china-blue eyes, and were
answered, for the first time that I ever saw them there, by tears in
Marjorie's. Next he embraced Lancelot, and then he turned to me and
wrung my hand with the same heartiness as on that first day in
Sendennis, and it seemed to me for the moment as if that strand and
island and all those leagues of land and water had ceased to be, and I
were back again in the windy High Street, with my mother's shop-bell
tinkling.
Only for a moment, however. There was no time for day-dreams. Hurriedly
we told Captain Amber all that we had to tell. Much of the ugly story we
found that he knew, and how he knew you shall learn later. Our immediate
duty was to secure the pirates who were still at large on the island,
and this proved an easy business. For the Dutch commander, who claimed
the authority of his nation for all that region, sent one of his men
with a flag of truce, accompanied by one of us for interpreter, to let
them know that if they did not surrender unconditionally he would first
bombard the wood in which they sheltered, and then land a party of men,
who would cut down any survivors without mercy. As there was no help for
it, the pirates did surrender. They came out of the woods, a sorry gang,
and laid down their arms, and with the help of the Dutchmen, who lent us
irons, we soon had the whole band manacled and helpless.
So there was an end of this most nefarious mutiny. With Cornelys Jensen
fast in fetters the heart of the business would have been broken even
without help from the sea. There was no man of all the others who was at
all his peer, either for villainy or for enterprise and daring. Even if
there had been, the pirates would have had no great chance, while, as
it was, their case had no hope in it, and they succumbed to their fate
in a kind of sullen apathy. Honest men had triumphed over rogues once
more in the swing of the world's story, as I am heartily glad to believe
that in the long run they always have done and always will do, until the
day when rogues and righteous meet for the last time.
We soon heard of all that had happened to Captain Marmaduke after he
left the Royal Christopher--or rather, after he had been forced to put
forth from Early Island. It had been Captain Marmaduke's intention to
make for Batavia, in the certainty of finding ships and succour there.
By the good fortune of the fair weather, his course, if slow by reason
of the little wind, was untroubled; and by happy chance, ere he had come
to the end, he sighted the Dutch frigate, and spoke her. The Dutch
captain consented to carry Captain Amber back to the wreck. On their
arrival at Early Island they found the place in the possession of a few
half-drunken mutineers, who were soon overpowered, and they learnt the
tale of Jensen's treachery from the lips of the captive women. It was
then that they sailed for Fair Island, with the women and prisoners on
board, and arrived just in time to serve us the best turn in the world.
There was nothing for us now to do but to ship off our prisoners to
Batavia in the frigate, where they would be dealt with by Dutch justice,
and be hanged with all decorum, in accordance with the laws of civilised
States. We were to go with the frigate ourselves, for at Batavia it was
our Captain's resolve to buy him a new ship and so turn home to his own
people and his own country, and try his hand no more at colonies, which
was indeed the wisest thing he could do. Let me say here that to our
great satisfaction we found Mr. Ebrow in the woods, tied nearly naked to
a tree, alive and well, if very weak; but without a complaint on his
lips or in his heart.
I was one of the earliest to go aboard the frigate, and the first sight
I saw on her decks was a group of women huddled together in all the
seeming of despair. These were the victims of the pirates' lust, and as
they sat together they would wail now and then in a way that was pitiful
to hear. But there was one woman who sat a little apart from the others
and held her head high, and this woman was Barbara Hatchett. I scarce
knew if I should approach her or no, but when she saw me, which was the
moment I came aboard, she made me a sign with her head, and I at once
went up to her. All the warm colour had gone out of her dark face, and
the fire had faded from her dark eyes, but she was still very beautiful
in her misery, and she carried herself grandly, like a ruined queen. As
I looked at her my mind went back to that first day I ever saw her and
was bewitched by her, and then to that other day when I found her in the
sea-fellow's arms and thought the way of the world was ended. And for
the sake of my old love and my old sorrow my heart was racked for her,
and I could have cried as I had cried that day upon the downs. But there
were no tears in the woman's eyes, and as I came she stood up and held
out her hand to me with an air of pride; and I am glad to think that I
had the grace to kiss it and to kneel as I kissed it.
'Well, Ralph,' she said, 'this is a queer meeting for old friends and
old flames. We did not think of this in the days when we watched the sea
and waited for my ship.'
I could say nothing, but she went on, and her voice was quite steady:
'This is a grand ship, but it is not my ship. My ship came in and my
ship went out, and the devil took it and my heart's desire and me.'
She was silent for a moment, and then she asked me what the boats were
bringing from the island. I told her that they were conveying the
prisoners aboard to be carried to trial at Batavia. She heard me with a
changeless face, as she looked across the sea where the ship's boats
were making their way to the ship, and after awhile she asked me if I
thought that we were bound to forgive our enemies and those who had used
us evilly.
I was at a loss what to answer, but I stammered out somewhat to the
effect that such was our Christian duty. The words stuck a little in my
throat, for I did not feel in a forgiving mood at that moment.
'So Mr. Ebrow tells us,' she went on softly. Mr. Ebrow had been sent on
board at once, and had immediately devoted himself, sick and weak though
he was, to ministrations among the unhappy women. 'So Mr. Ebrow says,
and he is a good man, and ought to know best. Shall I forgive, Ralph,
shall I forgive?'
There was to me something infinitely touching in the way in which she
spoke to me, as if she felt she had a claim upon me--the claim that a
sister might have upon a brother.
I told her that Mr. Ebrow, being a man of God, was a better guide and
counsellor than I, but that forgiveness was a noble charity. Indeed, I
was at a loss what to say, with my heart so wrung.
'Well, well,' she said, 'let us forgive and forget,' and--for there was
no restraint upon the movements of the woman--she moved toward the side,
where they were lifting the manacled prisoners on board. Jensen was in
the first batch, but not the first to be brought on board, and he
carried himself sullenly, with his eyes cast down, and seemed to notice
nothing as he was brought up on the deck. The prisoners were so securely
bound that no especial guard was placed over them during the process of
taking them from the boats, and so, before I was aware of it, Barbara
had slipped by me and between the Dutch sailors, and was by Jensen's
side. For the moment I thought that she had come to carry out her
promise of forgiveness; but Jensen lifted his face, and I saw it, and
saw that it was writhed with a great horror and a great fear. And then I
saw her lift her hand, and saw a knife in her hand, and the next moment
she had driven it once and twice into his breast by the heart, and
Jensen dropped like a log, and his blood ran over the deck. Then she
turned to me, and her face was as red as fire, and she cried out,
'Forgive and forget!' and so drove the knife into her own body and fell
in her turn. It was all done so swiftly that there was no time for
anyone to lift a hand to interfere, and when we came to lift them up
they were both dead. This was the end of that beautiful woman, and this
the end of Cornelys Jensen. He should have lived to be hanged; it was
too good a death for him to die by her hand; but I can understand how it
seemed to her hot blood and her wronged womanhood that she could only
wash out her shame by shedding her wronger's blood. May Heaven have
mercy upon her!