Then I leaped and kicking the knife out of reach, had him in my grip, my right hand fast about his throat. I remember his roar, the crash of the trap as it closed, and after this a grim and desperate scuffling in the dark; now he had me down, rolling and struggling and now we were up, locked breast to breast, swaying and staggering, stumbling and slipping, crashing into bulkheads, panting and groaning; and ever he beat and buffeted me with mighty fists, but my head bowed low betwixt my arms, took small hurt, while ever my two hands squeezed and wrenched and twisted at his great, fleshy throat. I remember an awful gasping that changed to a strangling whistle, choked to a feeble, hissing whine; his great body grew all suddenly lax, swaying weakly in my grasp, and then, as I momentarily eased my grip, with a sudden, mighty effort he broke free. I heard a crash of splintering wood, felt a rush of sweet, pure air, saw him reel out through the shattered door and sink upon his knees; but as I sprang towards him he was up and fleeing along the deck amidships, screaming as he ran.
All about me was a babel of shouts and cries, a rush and trampling of feet, but I sped all unheeding, my gaze ever upon the loathed, fleeing shape of this vile blackamoor. I was hard on his heels as he scrambled up the quarter-ladder and within a yard of him as he gained the deck, while behind us in the waist were men who ran pell-mell, filling the night with raving clamour and drunken halloo. Now as I reached the quarter-deck, some one of these hurled after me a belaying pin and this, catching me on the thigh, staggered me so that I should have fallen but for the rail; so there clung I in a smother of sweat and blood while great moon and glittering stars span dizzily; but crouched before me on his hams, almost within arm"s reach, was this accursed negro who gaped upon me with grinning teeth and rolled starting eyeb.a.l.l.s, his breath coming in great, hoa.r.s.e gasps. And I knew great joy to see him in no better case than I, his clothes hanging in blood-stained tatters so that I might see all the monstrous bulk of him.
Now, as he caught his breath and glared upon me, I suffered my aching body to droop lower and lower over the rail like one nigh to swooning, yet very watchful of his every move. Suddenly as we faced each other thus, from the deck below rose a chorus of confused cries:
"At him, Pompey! Now"s ye time, boy! Lay "im aboard, lad, "e be a-swounding! Ha--out wi" his liver, Pompey--at him, he"s yourn!"
Heartened by these shouts and moreover seeing how feebly I clutched at the quarter-rail, the great negro uttered a shrill cry of triumph and leapt at me; but as he came I sprang to meet his rush and stooping swiftly, caught him below the knees and in that same moment, straining every nerve, every muscle and sinew to the uttermost, I rose up and hove him whirling over my shoulder.
I heard a scream, a scurry of feet, and then the thudding crash of his fall on the deck below and coming to the rail I leaned down and saw him lie, his mighty limbs hideously twisted and all about him men who peered and whispered. But suddenly they found their voices to rage against me, shaking their fists and brandishing their steel; a pistol flashed and roared and the bullet hummed by my ear, but standing above them I laughed as a madman might, jibing at them and daring them to come on how they would, since indeed death had no terrors for me now. And doubtless steel or shot would have ended me there and then but for the man Diccon who quelled their clamour and held them from me by voice and fist:
"Arrest, ye fools--stand by!" he roared. "Yon man be the property o"
Captain Jo--"tis Joanna"s man and whoso harms him swings--"
"Aye, but he"ve murdered Pompey, ain"t "e?" demanded Job.
"Aye, aye--an" so "e have, for sure!" cried a voice.
"Well an" good--murder"s an "anging matter, ain"t it?"
"An" so it be, Job--up wi" him--hang him--hang him!"
"Well an" good!" cried Job again. ""Ang "im we will, lads, all on us, every man"s fist to the rope--she can"t hang us all, d"ye see. You, Diccon, where be Belvedere; he shall be in it--"
"Safe fuddled wi" rum, surely. Lord, Job, you do be takin" uncommon risks for a hatful o" guineas--"
So they took me and, all unresisting, I was dragged amidships beneath the main yard where a noose was for my destruction; and though hanging had seemed a clean death by contrast with that I had so lately escaped at the obscene hands of this loathly blackamoor, yet none the less a sick trembling took me as I felt the rope about my neck, insomuch that I sank to my knees and closed my eyes.
Kneeling thus and nigh to fainting, I heard a sudden, quick patter of light-running feet, a gasping sigh and, glancing up, beheld Job before me, also upon his knees and staring down with wide and awful eyes at an ever-spreading stain that fouled the bosom of his shirt; and as he knelt thus, I saw above his stooping head the blue glitter of a long blade that lightly tapped his brawny neck.
"The noose--here, Diccon, here, yes!"
As one in a dream I felt the rope lifted from me and saw it set about the neck of Job.
"So! Ready there? Now--heave all!"
I heard the creak of the block, the quick tramp of feet, a strangling cry, and Job the quartermaster was s.n.a.t.c.hed aloft to kick and writhe and dangle against the moon.
"Diccon, we have lost our quartermaster and we sail on the flood; you are quartermaster henceforth, yes. Ha--look--see, my Englishman is sick! Dowse a bucket o" water over him, then let him be ironed and take him forward to the fo"castle; he shall serve you all for sport--but no killing, mind."
Thus lay I to be kicked and buffeted and half-drowned; yet when they had shackled me, cometh the man Diccon to clap me heartily on the shoulder and after him Resolution to nod at me and blink with his single, twinkling eye:
"Oh, friend," quoth he, "Oh, brother, saw ye ever the like of our Captain Jo? Had Davy been here to-day he might perchance ha" wrote a psalm to her."
That morning with the flood tide we hove anchor and the _Happy Despatch_ stood out to sea and, as she heeled to the freshening wind, Job"s stiffening body lurched and swayed and twisted from the main yard. And thus it was I saw the last of my island.
CHAPTER XII
OF BATTLE, MURDER AND RESOLUTION DAY, HIS POINT OF VIEW
And now, nothing heeding my defenceless situation and the further horrors that might be mine aboard this accursed pirate ship, I nevertheless knew great content for that, with every plunge and roll of the vessel, I was so much the nearer Nombre de Dios town where lay prisoned my enemy, Richard Brandon; thus I made of my sinful l.u.s.t for vengeance a comfort to my present miseries, and plotting my enemy"s destruction, found therein much solace and consolation.
I had crept into a sheltered corner and here, my knees drawn up, my back against one of the weather guns, presently fell a-dozing. I was roused by a kick to find the ship rolling prodigiously, the air full of spray and a piping wind, and Captain Belvedere scowling down on me, supporting himself by grasping a backstay in one hand and flourishing a case-bottle in the other.
"Ha, "s fish, d"ye live yet?" roared he in drunken frenzy. "Ha"n"t Black Pompey done your business? Why, then--here"s for ye!" And uttering a great oath, he whirled up the bottle to smite; but, rolling in beneath his arm, I staggered him with a blow of my fettered hands, then (or ever I might avoid him) he had crushed me beneath his foot: and then Joanna stood fronting him. Pallid, bare-headed, wild of eye, she glared on him and before this look he cowered and shrank away.
"Drunken sot!" cried she. "Begone lest I send ye aloft to join yon carrion!" And she pointed where Job"s stiff body plunged and swung and twisted at the reeling yard-arm.
"Nay, Jo, I--I meant him no harm!" he muttered, and turning obedient to her gesture, slunk away.
"Ah, Martino," said Joanna, stooping above me, ""twould seem I must be for ever saving your life to you, yes. Are you not grateful, no?"
"Aye, I am grateful!" quoth I, remembering my enemy.
"Then prove me it!"
"As how?"
"Speak me gently, look kindly on me, for I am sick, Martino, and shall be worse. I never can abide a rolling ship--"tis this cursed woman"s body o"
mine. So to-day am I all woman and yearn for tenderness--and we shall have more bad weather by the look o" things! Have you enough knowledge to handle this ship in a storm?"
"Not I!"
""Tis pity," she sighed, ""tis pity! I would hang Belvedere and make you captain in his room--he wearies me, and would kill me were he man enough--ah, Mother of Heaven, what a sea!" she cried, clinging to me as a great wave broke forward, filling the air with hissing spray. "Aid me aft, Martino!"
Hereupon, seeing her so haggard and faint, and the decks deserted save for the watch, I did as she bade me as well as I might by reason of my fetters and the uneasy motion of the ship, and at last (and no small labour) I brought her into the great cabin or roundhouse under the p.o.o.p. And now she would have me bide and talk with her awhile, but this I would by no means do.
"And why not, Martino?" she questioned in soft, wheedling fashion. "Am I so hateful to you yet? Wherefore go?"
"Because I had rather lie in my fetters out yonder at the mercy o" wind and wave!" said I.
Now at this she fell to sudden weeping and, as suddenly, to reviling me with bitter curses.
"Go then!" cried she, striking me in her fury. "Keep your chains--aye, I will give ye to the mercy of this rabble crew ... leave me!" The which I did forthwith and, finding me a sheltered corner, cast myself down there and fell to hearkening to the rush of the wind and to watching the awful might of the racing, foam-capped billows. And, beholding these manifestations of G.o.d"s majesty and infinite power, of what must I be thinking but my own small desires and unworthy schemes of vengeance! And bethinking me of Don Federigo (and him governor of Nombre de Dios) I began planning how I might use him to my purpose. My mind full of this, I presently espied the mate, Resolution Day, his laced hat and n.o.ble periwig replaced by a close-fitting seaman"s bonnet, making his way across the heaving deck as only a seaman might (and despite his limp) and as he drew nearer I hailed and beckoned him.
"Aha, and are ye there, camarado!" said he. ""Tis well, for I am a-seeking ye."
"Tell me, Resolution, when shall we sight Nombre de Dios?"
"Why look now, if this wind holdeth fair, we should fetch up wi" it in some five days or thereabouts."
"Don Federigo is governor of the town, I think?"
"Verily and so he is. And what then?"
"Where lieth he now?"