"Aye, Heaven do to them as they've done to those poor creatures!Did man ever hear of such a villainy--to fire a good ship in hermisfortune? It would be a sin against an honest rope to hang such acrew as that!"
I stepped forward to the water's edge that I might see the thing moreclearly. Looming up upon that fair horizon were wreathing clouds ofsmoke and crimson flames, and in the heart of it all the outline of theship these fiends had doomed. No picture ever painted could presentthat woful scene or describe its magnificence as we saw it from thewatch-tower of the reef. It was, indeed, as though the very heavenswere on fire, while the sea all about the burning hull shone like apool of molten gold in which strange shapes moved and the shadows ofliving things were to be seen. Now licking the quivering masts, nowblown aside in tongue-shaped jets, the lambent flame spurted from everycrack and crevice, leaped up from every port-hole of that splendidsteamer. I saw that her minutes were numbered, and I said that beforethe dawn broke she would sink, a mass of embers, into the hissingbreakers.
"Good Lord, Mister Bligh!" cried I, the seaman's habit coming to me atthe dreadful spectacle, "was ever such a thing heard of? And the poorpeople aboard--what of them now? What haven may they look for?"
"They've put the men ashore, sir," said Dolly Venn, hardly able tospeak for his anxiety. "I saw two boat-loads go across to the bay whileMister Bligh was piling the ammunition. They've sent them to die on theisland. And we so helpless that we must just look on like schoolgirls.Oh! I'd give all I've got to be over yonder with a hundred bluejacketsat my elbow. Think of it, sir! Just a hundred, and cutlasses in theirhands."
"Aye," said I, "and a tree for every rogue that rows a boat yonder.Well, my lad, thinking's no good this night, nor can you get thebluejackets by whistling. We haven't all served our time in a Queen'sship, Dolly, and we're just plain seamen; but we'll try and speak aword to Edmond Czerny by-and-bye, or I'll never speak another. Now,help me with your young eyes, will you, and tell me if that's a ship'sgig yonder, or if it isn't----"
He said that it was a ship's gig, and he pointed out that which I hadnot seen before--a steam yacht lying off to the east of us and waitingfor some of her crew to go aboard. Edmond Czerny would be on deckthere, I thought, watching the hounds he had sent to the work; and ifthat spectacle of death and destruction did not gratify him, thennothing would in all the world. And surely such a sight even he had notbeheld in all his years. That shimmering molten sea, the islandcatching the reflected lights and making its own pictures of them; thedistant forests, whose trees lifted fiery branches and leaves of flame;the mist-clouds raining blood and gold, the burning steamer, the greatarena of fire-flecked sea and the small-boats swimming upon it--whatmore of delight or devilry could Ken's Island give this vulture of thedeep?
So much the night would show us as Providence willed and good heartsmight determine.
Now, I have told you that little Dolly Venn had served in the NavalReserve and knew more of gunnery than the most of us. To this, I bearwitness, we owed much that night.
"You've got a skipper's part, Dolly, lad," said I, "and yon gig beginsthe trouble, if my eyes don't deceive me. Why, she's coming in here,lad, straight to this very door, just as fast as oars can bring her.And there's more to follow--a fleet of them, as any lubber could tellyou."
"'Tis like a fete and gala on the old stinking Liffey," says PeterBligh, peering with me across the busy sea. "A dozen boats, and everyone of them full. I'd give something to see Mister Jacob to-night;indeed, and I would, captain. We are over few for such an 'out andhome' as this."
It was rare to see Peter Bligh serious, but he had the right to be thatnight, and I was the last to blame him. Consider our situation and askwhat others would have felt, placed as we were--four willing men upon abit of craggy rock rising sheer out of a thousand fathom sea, andcommanded to hold the gate for our lives and for another life moreprecious against all the riff-raff that Ken's Island could send againstus. Out on the shimmering sea I counted twelve boats with my own eyes,and knew that every one of them was full of cut-throats. In the half ofan hour or sooner that devil's crew would knock at our gate and demandto come in. Whatever way we answered them, however clever we might be,was it reason to suppose that we could hold the rock against such odds,hold it until help came when help was so distant? I say that it wasnot. By all the chances, by every right reason, we should have been cutdown where we stood, and our bodies swimming in the sea before the sunshone again on Ken's Island and its mysteries. And if this truth waspresent in my mind, how should it be absent from the minds of theothers? Brave faces they showed me, bright words they spoke; but I knewwhat these concealed. We stood together for a woman's sake; we knewwhat the price might be and made no complaint of it.
"We are over few, Peter," said I, "but over few is better than manywhen the heart is right. Just you drink up that grog and put yourselfwhere there is not so much of your precious body in the moonlight. Itwill be Dolly's place at the gun, and mine to help him. There is thisin my mind, Peter, that we've no right to shoot fellow-creatures unlessthey call upon us so to do. When the gig comes up I'll give them a fairchallenge before the volley's fired. After that it's up and at them,for Miss Ruth's sake. You will not forget, Peter, that if we can holdthis place until help comes, belike we'll carry Miss Ruth to Europe andshut down this devil's den forever. If that's not work good enough toput heart into a man, I don't know what is. Aye, my lads," said I tothem all, "tell yourselves that you are here and acting for the sake ofone who did you many a kindness in the old time; and mind you shootstraight," says I, "and don't go wasting honest lead when there'scarrion waiting for it."
They answered "Aye, aye!" and Dolly, leaping up to the gun, began togive his orders just for all the world as though he skippered the shipand I was but a passenger.
"We'll put Regnarte in front," says he, "so that we can keep an eye onhim. Let Peter hail them from where he's standing now; the rock covershim, captain, and the shield will take care of you and me. And oh?"says he, "I do wish it would begin--for my fingers are just itching!"
"Let them itch, lad, let them itch," was my answer; "here's the gig bythe point, and they won't trouble you with that complaint long. Do you,Peter, give them a hail when I cry, 'Now!' If they stop, well and good;if they come on--why, you won't be asking them to walk right in!" saysI.
He took my meaning and set to work like the brave man that he was. Verydeliberately and carefully I saw him slip out of his coat and fold itup neatly at his feet. He had a rifle in his hand and a pile ofammunition on the floor, and now he opened his Remington and began tofill it. For my part, I stood by the gun's shield, and from that place,covered by a ring of steel, I looked out across the awaking sea.Impatience, doubt, hope, fear--these I forgot in the minutes whichpassed while the gig crept slowly across that silver pool. The silencewas so great that a man might almost breathe it. Slow, to be sure, shewas; and every man who has waited at a post of danger knows what itmeans to see a strange sail creeping up to you foot by foot, and to beasking yourself a dozen times over whether she be friend or enemy, awelcome consort or a rogue disguised. But there is an end to allthings, even to the minutes of such suspense; and I bear witness that Inever heard sweeter music than the ringing hail which Mister Bligh sentacross the still sea to the eight men in the gig, and to any other hismessage might concern.
"Ahoy!" cries he, "and what may you be wanting, my hearties, and whatflag do you sail under?"
Now, if ever a hail out of the night surprised eight men, this was theoccasion and this the scene of it. They had come back from the pillagedship believing that the sea-gate of the house stood open to them andthat friends held it in all security. And here upon the threshold astrange voice hails them; they are asked a question which turns everyear towards the rock, sends every man's hand to the gun beside him.Instantly, their own vile deeds accusing them, they cry, "Discovery!"They tell each other, I make sure, that Czerny's house is in thepossession of strangers. They are stark mad with curiosity, and unablefor a spell to say a word
to us.
They would not speak a word, I say; their oars were still, their boatdrifted lazily to the drowsy tide. If they peered with all their eyes athe rock from which the voice came, but little consolation had they ofthe spectacle. The shadows spoke no truth, the gate hid the unknown;they could read no message there. Neither willing to go back nor toadvance, they sat gaping in the boat. How could they know what anxiousears and itching hands waited for their reply?
A voice at last, crying harshly across the ripple of the water, brokethe spell and set every tongue