"She"s an English cruiser, Captain," cried the helmsman, "and takes us for a Spaniard--that"s flat."
"Then run as if we were so," said Ludar. "Budge not an inch from your course even if we sc.r.a.pe her bows as we pa.s.s."
So we held on straight down the wind, while the Englishman, closing in at every mile, held on too; and no one was to say which of us gained an inch on the other.
The sun tumbled into the sea and the brief twilight grew deeper, while behind us the wind gathered itself into a squall. Just before daylight failed, we could perceive the cruiser, not two miles away, leaning forward on her course, with the Queen"s flag on her p.o.o.p, and a row of portholes gaping our way. Then we lost her in the dusk.
The poet, who stood near me at the gun, said:
"Night is as a cave of which none seeth the end from the beginning; and a man hooded feeleth what he before saw. My Hollander, I bargained not for this when I took pa.s.sage here. I wish it were to-morrow. Why do we not, under cover of night, change our course?"
"Because, since that is what our pursuers will expect of us, it will delude them the more if we keep straight on."
"O truth, many are thy arts!" said he. "But if, my Soothsayer, the wolf"s cunning be a match for that of the lamb? What then?"
"Then you may want your match, and your knife too," said I.
He shivered a little.
"My Hollander," said he, "if I fall, say to my lady "twas for her; and I pray you give her the gem in my bonnet. Say to her its brightness was dimmer than the remembrance of her eyes; and its price meaner than the dewdrop on her lip. Bring her to see me where I lie; and compose my face to greet her. Tell me, my Dutchman, doth a cannon ball give short shrift, or were it easier to die by the steel?"
"A peace to your nonsense," said I. "You have more sonnets to write before we need think of laying you out."
He was comforted at this, and we resumed our watch in silence.
The night grew very dark, and at every gust our masts stooped further before the wind. The _Misericorde_ hissed her way through the water, and still our pilot turned not his helm an inch right or left.
Presently, Ludar came up to where we stood. I could see his eyes flash even in the dark.
"Go forward now," said he to me. "Should we both be running as we were, and as I think we are our courses ought to meet not far hence. Send the maiden to me--I need her to take the helm while we three stand to the guns. Pray Heaven we win clear; if not, it will go hard with you, friend, in the prow. Let go your pistol at first sight of them, and, if you can, come abaft to join us before we strike."
I could tell by the tone in which he spoke that he took in every inch of our peril, and trembled, not for himself, but for some one else.
The maiden was loth to quit her post; for she, too, knew the risk of it and claimed it as her right. But when I told her the Captain had so ordered, and required her at the helm, she obeyed without another word.
Then followed a quarter of an hour that seemed like a lifetime. As I stood craning my neck forward, gazing under my hands seaward, there crowded into my memory visions of all my past life. I seemed to see the home of my boyhood, and looked again into my mother"s face. And I stood once more before my case in the shop outside Temple Bar, and listened to Peter Stoupe humming his psalm-tune, and heard my types click into the stick. I marched once more at the head of my clubs to Finsbury Fields, and there I saw Captain Merriman--drat him!--with his vile lips at a maiden"s ear. And I pa.s.sed, too, along the village street at Kingston where met me my mistress and her sweet daughter; and as I looked back, Jeannette turned too and--
What was that? Surely in the darkness I saw something! No. All was pitch black. The wind roared through the rigging, and the water seethed up at the plunging prow. But though I saw nothing, I felt the pursuer near; so near, I wondered not to hear the swish of her keel through the waves. On we went and nearer and nearer we seemed together. Oh for one sign of them, were it even a gun across our path! But sign there came none. The darkness seemed blacker than ever and--
All of a sudden I seemed to detect something--a spark, or a glow, or the luminous break of a wave. So swiftly it came and went, that it was gone before I could look. A trick of my vision, thought I. No! there it was again, this time nothing but a spark, close by, on a level, perhaps, with our mizzen. So near was it, I wondered whether it might not be the lighting of a match at our own guns. It went again: and as it did so, my finger, almost without my knowing it, tightened on the trigger of my pistol and it went off.
At the same moment, there was a blaze, a roar, a crash, and a shout.
For an instant the _Misericorde_ reeled in her course and quivered from stern to stern. Then, another shout and a wild irregular roar astern.
Then our good ship gathered herself together and leapt forward once more into the darkness, and the peril was pa.s.sed.
All was over so suddenly that the pistol was still smoking in my hand as I leapt from the forecastle and rushed aft.
"Is all well?" I shouted.
"All well," said Ludar, quietly. "She grazed our p.o.o.p and no more."
"And the maiden?" said I.
"All well," cried she, cheerily from the helm, "and fair in the wind."
"Stand at your posts still," cried Ludar.
So for another half-hour yet we stood at our posts, just as we had stood before the crisis came; and not a word said any one.
Then in the stormy east came a faint flush of dawn, and we knew that this perilous night was over.
"Seaman," said Ludar, "relieve the maiden at the helm, and bid her come hither."
She came, radiant and triumphant.
"Sir Ludar," she said, "I thank you for letting me hold the helm this night. You gave it me as the place of safety; but I had my revenge, since it proved the post of honour."
"It was indeed the post of danger," said Ludar. "Had you swerved and not held straight on, we might not have been here to honour you for it.
But say, did none of the Englishman"s shot reach the p.o.o.p?"
"Some of it. Witness the sail there and the rail and the stern windows; but it spared me."
"I think," said Ludar, "we maimed them in one of their masts in pa.s.sing, and their bowsprit broke short when it touched our stern. I doubt if we shall find them following us."
"As for our Hollander," said the poet, who had been wondrous silent thus far, "he hath this night proved himself twice a prophet. He said we should win this race; he said, moreover, I should live to write another ode. And lo! he spoke true. By your leave, Captain, I will go celebrate this notable occasion in a strain worthy of it and to the glory of my fair Amazon who--"
"Go below and cook this company some pottage," said Ludar, "and see you be not long over it."
Whereat the poet, with the muse taken out of him, departed. We stood watching the dawn till there was light enough to look back on our night"s work. There was the Englishman with her main-mast gone, and draggled about the bows, beating up under reefed sails for the coast.
It was plain to see, although we were two long leagues away, that she had had enough for one night and was going to leave us in peace. For myself, as I looked, I could not wholly glory in having thus flouted her Majesty"s flag; but I considered that we had run that night for our lives, so I hoped the sin would be forgiven me.
And now, when we come to look round us, we found the wind still running high, and shifting a point or so to the eastward, promising a stormy day. So Ludar bade us shorten our canvas and put out our ship"s head a bit, so as to give the coast a wide berth.
And, in truth, as the day wore on, the wind freshened into a gale, and the gale into a tempest, so that if we had promised ourselves relief after the perils of last night, our hopes were dashed. The sea, which so far had been easy, ran now high, and washed over our prow as we stood across the wind, and it was plain we were going to find out before long of what mettle our brave timbers were.
"Twas no light thing to face a night like this, even with a good crew-- how much less with but four men and a maid? Yet I never saw Ludar more at his ease. In the danger of last night his face had been troubled and his manner excited. Now he gave his orders as if this were a pleasure trip on a quiet lake.
"What is there to mind," said he, "in a capful of wind? "Tis sent to help us on our way; whereas, had we been taken last night where should we be now? Come, my men, help me shorten sail, for a little will go a long way a night like this. Maiden, to you I trust the helm with a light heart. "Twill tax your strength more to keep her head thus than to run, as you did last night, clean before the wind; but you are strong and brave, and teach us to be the same."
The subtlest courtier"s speech could not have won her as did these blunt words. She said no more than "I go, my Captain." But the look of her eyes as they met his spoke volumes of joy and grat.i.tude, a t.i.the of which would have gladdened me for a lifetime.
Then we fell to shortening our canvas--a perilous task. When that was done, leaving only the topsails spread, Ludar bade us make good the hatches, and fall to and eat. Which we did, all but the poet, who, being either big with his ode, or misliking the wildness of the night, sat idle.
"Come, Sir Popinjay," said Ludar. "Eat, for no man can work on an empty stomach, and even poetry will not help haul a rope."
"We avoid Scylla, my Captain, only to fall into Charybdis. Methinks Scylla were the better fate. At least I might have pa.s.sed this night rec.u.mbent. The eagle, at the day"s end, flieth to his nest, and the lion hath his den; to all toil cometh an evensong, save to the shuttlec.o.c.ks of Aeolus."
"Nay, Sir Poet, you did bravely last night. Fall to and eat now, and we shall see you do more bravely to-night."