"There"s a fine Spanish dame, And Joanna"s her name, Shall follow wherever ye go: "Till your black heart shall feel Yow cursed steel: Black Bartlemy--Bartlemy ho!"
"You heard!" says I, clapping hand on knife, "You heard?"
"Yes--yes," she whispered, her embrace tightening until I might feel her soft body all a-tremble against mine. "But you are safe--here, Martin!"
"So safe," says I, "that needs must I go and find out this thing--nay, never fear, beloved, life hath become so infinite precious that I shall be a very coward--a craven for your sake. Here shall be no fighting, Damaris, but go I must. Meanwhile do you wait me in the secret cave and let down the ladder only to my whistle."
But now, and lying all trembling in my embrace, she brake into pa.s.sionate weeping, and I powerless to comfort her.
"Farewell happiness!" she sobbed. "Only, Martin, dear Martin, whatsoever may chance, know and remember always that I loved and shall love you to the end of time."
Then (and all suddenly) she was her sweet, calm self again, and bringing me my chain-shirt, insisted I must don it there and then beneath my fine doublet, the which (to please her) I did. Then she brought me one of the arquebuses, but this I put by as too c.u.mbersome, taking one of the pistols in its stead. So, armed with this together with my hatchet and trusty knife, I stepped from the cave and she beside me. And now I saw she had dried her tears and the hand clasping mine was firm and resolute, so that my love and wonder grew.
"Damaris," I cried, casting me on my knees before her, "O G.o.d, how I do love thee!" And, kneeling thus, I clasped her slender loveliness, kissing the robes that covered her; and so, rising to my feet I hasted away. Yet in a little I turned to see her watching me but with hands clasped as one in prayer. Now, beholding her thus, I was seized of a sudden great desire to go back to give her that promise and swear that oath she sought of me, viz., that I would forego my vengeance and all thought thereof, forgetting past wrongs in the wonder of her love.
But, even as I stood hesitating, she waved her hand in farewell and was gone into the cave.
CHAPTER XLIII
OF THE DEATH-DANCE OF THE SILVER WOMAN
A small wind had sprung up that came in fitful gusts and with sound very mournful and desolate, but the moon was wonderfully bright and, though I went cautiously, my hand on the b.u.t.t of the pistol in my girdle, yet ever and always at the back of my mind was an infinitude of joy by reason of my dear lady"s love for me and the wonder of it.
I chose me a devious course, avoiding the white sands of Deliverance Beach, trending towards that fatal cleft hard by Bartlemy"s tree (the which we had come to call Skeleton Cove) though why I must go hither I knew no more then than I do now.
Thus went I (my eyes and ears on the stretch) pondering what manner of man this should be who sang words the which had so haunted my sick dreams; more than once I stopped to stare round about me upon the wide expanse of ocean, dreading and half expecting to behold the loom of that black craft had dogged us over seas.
Full of these disquieting thoughts I reached the cove and began to descend the steep side, following goat-tracks long grown familiar. The place hereabouts was honeycombed with small caves and with ledges screened by bushes and tangled vines; and here, well hid from observation, I paused to look about me. But (and all in a moment) I was down on my knees, for from somewhere close by came the sharp snapping of a dried stick beneath a stealthy foot.
Very still I waited, every nerve a-tingle, and then, forth into the moonlight, sudden and silent as death, a man crept; and verily if ever murderous death stood in human shape it was before me now. The man stood half-crouching, his head twisted back over his shoulder as watching one who followed; beneath the vivid scarf that swathed his temples was a shock of red hair and upon his cheek the sweat was glittering; then he turned his head and I knew him for the man Red Andy, that same I had fought aboard ship. For a long moment he stood thus, staring back ever and anon across Deliverance, and so comes creeping into the shadow of the cliff, and I saw the moon glint on the barrel of the long pistol he clutched, as, sinking down behind a great boulder, he waited there upon his knees.
Now suddenly as I lay there watching Red Andy"s murderous figure and strung for swift action, I started and (albeit the night was very warm) felt a chill pa.s.s over me, as, loud and clear upon the stilly air, rose again that full, deep voice singing hard by upon Deliverance:
"Go seek ye women everywhere, North, South, lads, East or West, Let "em be dark, let "em be fair, My Silver Woman"s best, Blow high, blow low, Where e"er ye go The Silver Woman"s best.
Aha!
My Silver Woman"s best!"
Thus sang the unknown who, all unwitting, was coming to his death; sudden as it came the voice was hushed and nought to hear save the hiss and murmur of the surge, and I saw the man Andy stir restlessly as minute after minute dragged by.
The rock where he crouched lay at the mouth of this cove towards Deliverance, it being one of many that lay piled thereabout. Now chancing to look towards these scattered rocks (and for no reason in the world) I saw a thing that held me as it were spellbound, and this a small enough thing in itself, a sharp, glittering thing that seemed fast caught in a fissure of one of those rocks, and I knew it for a steel hook; but even as I stared at it, the thing was gone and so noiselessly that I half-doubted if I had seen it or no. But, out from the shadow of this rock flashed something that whirled, glittering as it flew, and Red Andy, starting up from his knees was shaken by a fit of strange and awful coughing and came stumbling forward so that I could see his chin and breast bedabbled with the blood that spurted from his gaping mouth. All at once he sank to his knees and thence to his face, spreading his arms wide like one very weary, but with the moonlight flashing back from that which stood upright betwixt his shoulder-blades. And thus I saw again the silver haft of the dagger that was shaped like to a woman, saw this silver woman dance and leap, glittering, ere it grew terribly still.
Then came Roger Tressady from the shadows and stooping, turned up the dead face to the moon, and tapped it gently with his shining hook. And now, whipping out his dagger, he bent to wipe it on the dead man"s shirt, but checked suddenly as a pebble started beneath my foot, and, stooped thus, he glared up beneath thick brows as I rose up with pistol levelled and the moon bright upon my face, whereupon he leaped backwards, uttering a choking cry:
"Black Bartlemy--by G.o.d!" he gasped and let fall his reeking dagger upon the sand; and so we stood staring on each other and with the dead man sprawling betwixt us.
CHAPTER XLIV
HOW I HAD SPEECH WITH ROGER TRESSADY TO MY UNDOING
For maybe a full minute we fronted each other unmoving and with never a word; and thus at last I beheld this man Tressady.
A tall, l.u.s.ty fellow, square of face and with pale eyes beneath a jut of s.h.a.ggy brow. A vivid neckerchief was twisted about his head and in his hairy ears swung great gold rings; his powerful right hand was clenched to knotted fist, in place of his left glittered the deadly hook.
"Sink me!" says he at last, drawing clenched fist across his brow, "Sink me, but ye gave me a turn, my lord! Took ye for a ghost, I did, the ghost of a shipmate o" mine, one as do lie buried yonder, nought but poor bones--aye, rotten bones--as this will be soon!" Here he spurned the dead man with his foot. ""Tis black rogue this, my lord, one as would ha" made worm"s-meat o" poor Tressady--aye, a lump o"
murdered clay like my shipmate Bartlemy yonder--but for this Silver Woman o" mine!" Here he stooped for the dagger, and having cleaned it in the sand, held it towards me upon his open palm: "Aha, here"s woman hath never failed me yet! She"s faithful and true, friend, faithful and true, this Silver Woman o" mine. But "tis an ill world, my master, and full o" b.l.o.o.d.y rogues like this sly dog as stole ash.o.r.e to murder me--the fool! O "tis a black and b.l.o.o.d.y world."
"So it is!" quoth I, "twixt shut teeth, "And all the worse for the likes o" you, Roger Tressady!"
"So ho--he knoweth my name then!" says Tressady, rubbing shaven chin with silver dagger-hilt and viewing me with his pale, keen gaze: "But do I know him now--do I?"
"I know you for pirate and d.a.m.ned murderer, Roger Tressady, so shall you quit this island this very hour or stay here to rot along with Bartlemy and Red Andy!"
Now at this (and all careless of my pistol) he drew a slow pace nearer, great head out-thrust, peering.
"Why," says he at last, "why--bleed me! If--if it aren"t--aye "tis--Martin! Why for sure "tis my bonnet Marty as saved my skin time and again aboard the "Faithful Friend!" Though ye go mighty fine, lad, mighty fine! But good luck t"ye and a fair wind, say I!" And thrusting the dagger into his girdle he nodded mighty affable. "But look"ee now, Marty, here"s me wishing ye well and you wi" a barker in your fist, "tis no fashion to greet a shipmate, I"m thinking."
"Enough words!" says I, stepping up to him. "Do you go--alive, or stay here dead--which?"
"Split me!" says he, never stirring. "But "tis small choice you offer, Marty--"
"My name"s Martin!"
"And a curst good name too, Marty. But I"ve no mind to be worm"s-meat yet awhile--no! Come, what"s your quarrel wi" me? First Andy would murder me and now "tis you--why for? Here"s me wi" a heart of gold t"
cherish a friend and never a friend t" cherish! What"s your quarrel, lad, what?"
"Quarrel enough, what with your drugging me and murder aboard ship--"
"Avast, lad! Here"s unchancy talk, ill and unmannered!"
"You murdered divers men aboard the "Faithful Friend.""
"Only three, Marty, only three--poor souls! Though yours is a foul word for"t. I took "em off, lad, took "em off as a matter of policy.
I"ve never took off any yet as I wasn"t forced to by circ.u.mstances.
Look"ee, there"s men in this world born to be took off by someone or other, and they always come a-drifting across my hawse and get took off accordingly, but don"t blame me, lad, don"t. And as for a-drugging of ye, Marty, true again! But love me! What was I to do? But I didn"t take you off, lad, no, nor never shall unless you and policy force me so to do. I"m no murderer born--like Adam--curse him! Clap me alongside Adam and I"m a turtle-dove, a babe for innocence and a lamb for meekness! There never was such a murderer born into this wicked world as Adam Penfeather, with a curse! "Twas he as murdered Black Bartlemy and nine sweet, bright lads arter him, murdered "em here one by one, and wi" a parchment rove about the neck of each poor corpse, Marty. "Twas he as drove their mates out to sea to perish in a leaky boat--ask Abnegation Mings! "Twas him nigh murdered me more than once, aye me, lad, as can"t BE killed according to the prophecy of the poor mad soul aboard the old "Delight." Why Adam, curse him, has murdered more men than you have years. And talking of him, how cometh it you aren"t blown t" h.e.l.l along wi" him and the rest?"
"Do you tell me Adam is dead?"
"Blown up aboard the "Faithful Friend," lad. Just after we run her aboard and grappled, aye blew up she did and nigh took us wi" her.
Aha, but Adam"s dead at last, curse him! Unless he can"t be killed either, unless he is--"
Here, and all at once, he turned to stare away across Deliverance, then shrinking, cowered towards me as in sudden terror stabbing at the empty air with his glittering hook:
"Ha--what"s yon!" cried he in awful voice; and I turning whither his glaring eyes stared (and half-dreading to behold my lady) had the pistol wrenched from my hold and the muzzle under my ear all in a moment; and stood scowling and defenceless like the vast fool I was.