"Vengeance?" she cried, "Ah, G.o.d pity thee! Doth life hold for thee nought better?"
"Nought!"
"Vengeance is a consuming fire!"
"So seek I vengeance!"
"O Martin Conisby, bethink you! Vengeance is but a sickness of the mind--a wasting disease--"
"So seek I vengeance!"
"For him that questeth after vengeance this fair world can hold nought beside."
"So give me vengeance, nought else seek I of this world!"
"Ah, poor soul--poor man that might be, so do I pity thee!"
"I seek no man"s pity."
"But I am a woman, so shall I pity thee alway!"
Now as I prepared to climb through the lattice she, beholding the sword where it yet lay, stooped and, taking it up, sheathed it. "This was thine own once, I"ve heard," says she. "Take it, Martin Conisby, keep it clean, free from dishonour and leave thy vengeance to G.o.d."
"Not so!" says I, shaking my head. "I have my knife, "tis weapon better suited to my rags!" So saying, I clambered out through the lattice even as I had come. Being upon the terrace, I glanced up to find her leaning to watch me and with the moon bright on her face.
"Live you for nought but vengeance?" she questioned softly.
"So aid me G.o.d!" says I.
"So shall I pity thee alway, Martin Conisby!" she repeated, and sighed, and so was gone.
Then I turned, slow of foot, and went my solitary way.
CHAPTER X
HOW I SWORE TO THE BLOOD-BROTHERHOOD
I remember the moon was very bright as, reaching the end of a gra.s.sy lane (or rather cart-track) I saw before me a small, snug-seeming tavern with a board over the door, whereon were the words:
YE PECK OF MALT
BY
JOEL BYM.
And looking the place over, from trim, white steps before the door to trim thatched roof, I marvelled at its air of prosperity; for here it stood, so far removed from road and bye-road, so apparently away from all habitation, and so lost and hid by trees (it standing within a little copse) that it was great wonder any customer should ever find his way hither.
The place was very quiet, not a light showed anywhere and the door was fast shut, which was nothing strange, for the hour was late. Stepping up to the door I knocked loudly thereon with my cudgel, at first without effect, but having repeated the summons, a voice from within hailed me gruffly:
"Who knocks?"
""The Faithful Friend!"" says I. At this, the door swung suddenly open and a lanthorn was thrust into my face, whereupon I fell back a step, dazzled; then gradually, beyond this glare, I made out a dark shape blocking the doorway, a great fellow, so prodigiously hairy of head and face that little was there to see of features, save two round eyes and a great, hooked nose.
"And who d"ye seek, Faithful Friend?" says he.
"Master Adam Penfeather."
"Why then, Faithful Friend, heave ahead!" says he, and, making way for me to enter, closed the door (the which I noticed was mighty stout and strong) and, having locked and bolted it, barred it with a stout iron set into ma.s.sy sockets in either wall.
"You go mighty secure!" says I.
"c.o.c.k," quoth the giant, eyeing me over slowly, "c.o.c.k, be ye a cackler--because if so be you do cackle overly here"s we as won"t love ye no whit, my c.o.c.k."
"Good!" says I, returning his look. "I seek no man"s love!"
"c.o.c.k," quoth he, plunging huge fist into his beard and giving it a tug, "I begin to love ye better nor I thought! This way, c.o.c.k!"
Herewith he led me along a wide, flagged pa.s.sage and up a broad stair with ma.s.sy, carven handrail; and as I went I saw the place was much bigger than I had deemed it, the walls, too, were panelled, and I judged it had once formed part of a n.o.ble house. At last we reached a door whereon the fellow knocked softly, and so presently ushered me into a fair chamber lit by wax candles; and here, seated at a table with papers before him and a pen in his fingers, sat Master Adam Penfeather.
"Ha, shipmate," says he, motioning to a chair, "you be something earlier than I expected. Suffer me to make an end o" this business--sit ye, comrade, sit! As for you, Bo"sun, have up a flask o"
the Spanish wine--the black seal!"
"Aye, cap"n!" says he, and seizing a fistful of hair above his eyebrow, strode away, closing the door behind him.
Now beholding Penfeather as he bent to his writing--the lean, aquiline face of him so smooth and youthful in contrast to his silver hair--I was struck by his changed look; indeed he seemed some bookish student rather than the lawless rover I had thought him, despite the pistols at his elbow and the long rapier that dangled at his chair-back; moreover there was about him also an air of latent power I had not noticed ere this.
At length, having made an end of his writing, he got up and stretched himself:
"So, shipmate, art ready to swear the blood-fellowship wi" me?"
"Aye!" says I. "When do we sail?" At this he glanced at me swiftly from the corners of his eyes:
"So ho!" he murmured, pinching his chin. "The wind"s changed it seems, you grow eager--and wherefore?"
""Tis no matter!"
"Shipmate," says he, shaking his head, "an we sail as brothers and comrades there must be never a secret betwixt us--speak!"
"As ye will!" quoth I, leaning back in my chair. "I learn then you are sailing as master in a ship bound for the Main in quest of Sir Richard Brandon lost off Hispaniola two years agone. Sir Richard Brandon is the man I have sought ever since I broke out of the h.e.l.l he sold me into. Now look"ee, Adam Penfeather," says I, springing to my feet and grasping his arm, "look"ee now--put me in the way of meeting this man, aid me to get my hand on this man and I am yours--aye, body and soul--to the end o" things, and this I swear!"
While I spake thus, my voice hoa.r.s.e with pa.s.sion, my fingers clutching his arm, Penfeather stood pinching his chin and watching me beneath his black brows; when I had ended he turned and falls a-pacing to and fro across the room as it had been the narrow p.o.o.p of a ship.
"Ah--I know you now, my lord!" says he, pausing suddenly before me.
"As the sailor-man who watched you as you lay a-groaning in your sleep outside the Conisby Arms, I guessed you one o" the Conisby breed by your ring, and as one born and bred here in Kent I mind well the adage, "To hate like a Brandon and revenge like a Conisby," and by G.o.d, my lord, you are a true Conisby, it seemeth! Vengeance!" says he, his thin features grown sharp and austere, "Ah! I have seen much and overmuch of it aboard lawless craft and among the wild islands of the Caribbees. I have seen the devilish cruelties of Spaniard, Portugal, and the red horrors of Indian vengeance--but, for cold, merciless ferocity, for the vengeance that dieth not, biding its time and battening on poisonous hate, it needeth your man o" n.o.ble birth, your gentleman o" quality!" Here he turned his back and paced slowly to the end of the room; when he faced me again his austere look was gone, in its stead was the grimly whimsical expression of the mariner, as I had seen him first.
"Damme!" says I, scowling, "Was it to read me homilies that you had me here?"
"Aha, shipmate," says he with rueful smile, "there spake the young divine, the excellent divinity student who committed a peccadillo long years agone and, sailing to the Golden West, gave place to one Adam Penfeather a sailor-man--as you shall hear tell of at St. Kitt"s, Tortuga, Santa Catalina and a score o" places along the Main. As to yourself, shipmate, if "tis only vengeance ye seek, vengeance let it be, though, when all"s done, "tis but wind--hist! Here cometh the Bo"sun--come in, Jo lad, come in! "Twas trusty Joel Bym here gave me my first lesson in navigation--eh, Jo?"