Solitude now covered it as with a pall. At the door of the once noisy and frequented hostelry, instead of the bent but busy figure of old Mother Hays, two sea-gulls stalked, and flapped their wings, and screamed, and thrust their bills into the rude cooking-pots that stood without.
The two persons, who appeared intent upon investigating the mysteries of the place, could not be seen without bending over the edge of the topmost cliff. It was then at once perceived that they were occupied in fulfilling no ordinary or every-day task. They moved in and out of the lower entrance like bees intent on forming new cells. For a considerable time no word was spoken by either: at length the object they had in view appeared accomplished, and, after climbing to the highest cliff, they sat down opposite each other, so as to command a full prospect of both sea and land.
"It was only a little farther on--about a quarter of a mile nearer Cecil Place--that I first set foot on the Isle of Shepey," said the younger, "and a precious fright I got--a fright that never was clear explained, nor ever will be now, I guess."
"I little thought matters would have had such an end," replied the other. "Gad, I"m hardly paid for the powder of the train by the few bits I"ve picked up inside. I couldn"t believe, unless I"d seen it myself, that the place was so cleared out: except the furs and shawls belonging to the women, there wasn"t the wrapping round my finger of anything worth having. Well, Hugh had many friends--I never thought he"d turn tail."
"Turn tail!" repeated the youth: "who dares to say he turned tail? If any one repeats that before me, I"ll make free to give him a dose of cold lead without farther ceremony!"
"All our chickens are game-c.o.c.ks now-a-days!" returned the elder one, half laughing: "but, Springall, could you swear that the Skipper and Robin Hays didn"t concert it all together?"
"Let me alone, Jack, and don"t put my back up. I"ll lay my life, if there was any concerting in it, "twas between Robin and the maid Barbara. Well, girls have queer fancies!--Who"d ha" thought she"d ha"
fancied Robin?--though he"s a brave sound-hearted little fellow; yet who"d ha" thought she"d have preferred him to--to----"
"To you, I suppose. Lord, Springall, there"s no coming up to the women.
Bless ye, I"ve seen those who loved apes, and parrots, and puppy-dogs, and took more pride and pleasure in them than in their own lawful husbands and born children! What d"ye think o" that? Why, would you believe it? a girl I loved better than my heart"s blood took a fancy to an old man, and sent me adrift, though I was a likely fellow then--ah!
different, very different to what I am now;" and Jack Roupall, leaning his elbows on his knees, that were wide apart, commenced drawing, with the b.u.t.t end of his pistol, figures on the sand, which the wind, whether in anger or sportiveness, had flung upon the crag. After a lengthened pause, he looked suddenly up at the youth Springall, who still sat opposite to him, and said abruptly, "Are you sure you made no mistake?"
"Am I sure of the sight of my eyes, or the hearing of my ears?" returned the lad. "I was as close to the troopers as I am to you, though they saw me not, and their entire talk was of the Gull"s Nest, and how they were all to be down here soon after sunrise; and a deal of jokes, in their own way, they pa.s.sed upon it--stiff dry jokes, that were as hard to swallow as a poker."
"Ha, ha!" laughed the smuggler; "how they will pray when they see the crag dancing in the air! It would be ill done towards the secret stations of our friends on other parts of the coast, to let these fellows find the ins and outs of such a place as this; it would be holding a candle to the devil--giving them a guide to lead them on through all their plans henceforward and for ever. The Gull"s Nest shall go after the Fire-fly. It gives me joy to mar their sport--their peeping and prying. But we will not let off the train until we see them pretty close upon us. The Roundhead rascals shall have the full benefit of our gay bonfire. "Ods rot it! what else could we do, but make a gay ending of it at once. A gay ending!" he repeated--"a gay ending! No rock to mark the spot of so much merriment, so much joviality, so much spoil!
Ah! in a hundred years, few can tell where the watchers of the Gull"s Nest Crag lighted beacon and brand for the free rovers of the free sea!"
Another pause succeeded the rhapsody of Jack Roupall and then Springall inquired how it was that he could not open the strong room where the preacher had been left to his prayers.
"How it was? why, because I had not the key. And I am sure there"s nothing in it. I was in with the skipper after the long-legged puritan was out, and I could see only squashed fruit, broken boxes, and old good-for-nothing rags. Whatever had been worth moving was moved; but that room will mount as high as any of them, I warrant me. I laid a good lot of combustibles to the door. Ah! there was the gleam of a spear, to my thinking." And he arose as he spoke, groaning out a curse against Springall the moment after. "My back--a murrain upon you and upon me too!--aches like the rheumatism from the weight of that old hag"s coffin, which you would have me carry from the Gull"s Nest out yonder, for fear it should be blown up with the crag. What did it signify if it was, I wonder?"
"You wouldn"t like the body of your own mother to go heavenward after such a fashion, sinner as ye are, would ye, Jack?"
"They are coming," observed the rover, without heeding Springall"s words, "they are coming."
It was a fine sight to see even a small number of such well-disciplined soldiers winding their way under the shadow of the hill nearest the scene of so many adventures.
Roupall and the youth crept stealthily down the cliff by a secret path; then, with the greatest deliberation, Jack struck a light, and prepared to fire the train they had connected with those within the nest, to which we alluded at the commencement of our narrative; while Springall proceeded to perform a similar task a little lower down the Crag, towards the window from whence the preacher, Fleetword, slung the packet which so fortunately arrived at the place of its destination.
The instant their purpose was effected by a signal agreed upon between them they quickly withdrew, and sheltered beneath the shade of a huge rock left bare by the receding tide, where no injury could befal them.
It was well they did so, for in a moment the report as of a thousand cannon thundered through the air, and fragments of clay, rock, and shingle fell, thick as hail, and heavy as millstones, all around.
Immediately after a piercing cry for aid burst upon their ear, and spread over land and water.
"G.o.d of Heaven!" exclaimed Springall, "it is not possible that any human creature could have been within the place!" and he stretched himself forward, and looked up to where the cry was uttered.
The young man, whose locks were then light as the golden beams of the sun, and whose step was as free as that of the mountain roe, lived to be very old, and his hair grew white, and his free step crippled, before death claimed his subject; he was moreover one acquainted in after years with much strife and toil, and earned honour, and wealth, and distinction; but often has he declared that never had he witnessed any thing which so appalled his soul as the sight he beheld on that remembered morning. He seized Roupall"s arm with convulsive energy, and dragged him forward, heedless of the storm of clay and stones that was still pelting around them. Wherever the train had fired, the crag had been thrown out; and as there were but few combustibles within its holes, and the gay sunlight had shorn the flames of their brightness, the objects that struck the gaze of the lookers on were the dark hollows vomiting forth columns of black and noisome smoke, streaked with a murky red.
As the fire made its way according to the direction of the meandering powder, which Dalton himself had laid in case of surprise, the earth above reeled, and shook, and sent forth groans, like those of troubled nature when a rude earthquake bursts asunder what the Almighty united with such matchless skill. The lower train that Springall fired had cast forth, amongst rocks and stones, the ma.s.s of clay in which was the loophole through which Fleetword had looked out upon the wide sea.
Within the chasm thus created was the figure of a living man. He stood there with uplifted hands, lacking courage to advance; for beneath, the wreathed smoke and dim hot fume of the consuming fire told him of certain death; unable to retreat,--for the insidious flame had already destroyed the door which Roupall had failed to move, and danced, like a fiend at play with destruction, from rafter to rafter, and beam to beam, of the devoted place.
"Ha!" exclaimed the reckless rover, with a calmness which at the moment made his young companion upbraid him as the most merciless of human kind; "ha! I wonder how he got there? I heard that some how or other he was in limbo at Cecil Place; he wanted to make an escape, I suppose, and so took to the old earth. Ay, ay! look your last on the bright sun, that"s laughing at man and man"s doings--you"ll never mount to where it shines, I trow."
Sir Willmott Burrell--for Roupall had not been deceived either as to the ident.i.ty of the person, or the motive which led him to seek refuge in the Gull"s Nest--had effected an almost miraculous escape, considering how closely he was guarded, a few hours before, and secreted himself in the very chamber where he had left poor Fleetword to starvation, little imagining that he was standing on the threshold of retributive justice.
He had caught at flight, even so far, as a sort of reprieve; and was forming plans of future villany at the very moment the train was fired.
G.o.d have mercy on all sinners! it is fearful to be cut off without time for repentance. Sir Willmott had none. In the flower of manhood, with a vigorous body and a skilful mind, he had delighted in evil, and panted for the destruction of his fellows. His face, upon which the glare of the garish fire danced in derision of his agony, was distorted, and terrible to look upon: brief as was the s.p.a.ce allotted to him, each moment seemed a year of torture. As the flames rose and encircled their victim, his cries were so dreadful, that Springall pressed his hands to his ears, and buried his face in the sand; but Roupall looked on to the last, thinking aloud his own rude but energetic thoughts.
"Ah! you do not pray, as I have seen some do! Now, there come the Ironsides," he added, as those grave soldiers drew up on a projection of the opposite cliff, which, though lower than the ruined Gull"s Nest, commanded a view of the cavern and its sole inmate; "there they come, and just in time to see your departure for your father the devil"s land.
You don"t even die game! What an end one of those Ingy chiefs would ha"
made of it on such a funeral pile; but some people have no feeling--no pride--no care for what looks well!"
At that instant the Preacher Fleetword, who had accompanied the troops, stood a little in advance of the Protector himself. Cromwell had a curiosity to inspect the resort of the Buccaneers; and, perfectly unconscious of Sir Willmott"s escape, was petrified with horror and astonishment on seeing him under such appalling circ.u.mstances; the tumbling crags--the blazing fire--the dense smoke mounting like pillars of blackness into the clear and happy morning sky--and, above all, the agonised scorching figure of the wretched knight, writhing in the last throes of mortal agony!
"The Lord have mercy on his soul!" exclaimed Fleetword: "Pray, pray!" he continued, elevating his voice, and hoping, with a kindliness of feeling which Sir Willmott had little right to expect, that he might be instrumental in directing the wretched man"s attention to a future state. "Pray! death is before you, and you cannot wrestle with it! Pray!
even at the eleventh hour! Pray!--and we will pray with you!"
The Preacher uncovered: the Protector and his soldiers stood also bareheaded on the cliff. But not upon the prayers of brave and honest soldiers was the spirit of active villany and cowardly vice to ascend to the judgment seat of the Almighty--before one word of supplication was spoken, a column of flame enwreathed the remaining portion of the crag: it was of such exceeding brightness that the soldiers blinked thereat; and, when its glare was past, they looked upon a smouldering heap at the foot of the cliffs: it was the only monument of "The Gull"s Nest Crag;"
and the half-consumed body of Sir Willmott Burrell was crushed beneath it.
While the attention of Cromwell and his friends was fixed upon the desperate end of the miserable man, Roupall was crawling under a ledge of black rock, that stretched to a considerable distance into the sea, where he calculated on remaining safe until high tide drove him to another burrow. Not so Springall: the moment he saw the Protector on the cliff, he appeared to have forgotten every thing connected with disguise or flight; he no longer sought concealment, but hastened to present himself in front of the soldiers, who still remained uncovered, expecting, doubtless, that such an event would be followed by exposition or prayer.
Nothing daunted, he advanced with a steady and determined step, without so much as removing his hat, until he stood directly opposite to Cromwell, whose countenance, under the influence of awe and horror, had something in it more than usually terrific. The clear blue eye of the young intrepid boy encountered the grey, worn, and bloodshot orb of the great and extraordinary man.
For an instant, a most brief instant, eye rested upon eye--then the young seaman"s dropped, and it would seem that his gay and lofty head bent of itself, the hat was respectfully removed, and he confessed to himself that he trembled in the presence of the mysterious being.
"We would not quench the spirit," said the Protector, addressing Fleetword, "but let your prayer be short--a word in season is better than a sermon out of season. We have somewhat to investigate touching the incendiaries by land as well as sea."
For the first time in his life Springall considered that a prayer might not be of wearisome length. There he stood, as if nailed to the same spot, while the smoke of the Gull"s Nest ascended, and the soldiers remained with their helmets in their hands.
Cromwell manifested an occasional impatience, but only by moving first on one leg, then on the other; which, however, escaped the observation of Fleetword, who most certainly became a more dignified and self-important person ever after the hour when he was "permitted to speak in the presence of the ruler in the New Jerusalem."
His address was brief and emphatic; and upon its conclusion the Protector commanded Springall to advance.
"It appears to us that you had something to communicate."
"I believe I made a mistake," replied the boy, "I took you--your Highness, I should say--for one Major Wellmore."
"We know you to be a faithful watchman, but it remains to be proved if you are an honest witness. Canst tell how came about this business, and how Sir Willmott Burrell escaped, and took refuge there?"
"It was always settled, please your Highness, that, if any thing happened, whoever could was to fire off the trains, which were always ready laid, to make an ending when needed: we little thought that there was any living being within the nest; but Sir Willmott had access to many of the cells, being as deep in their secrets as other resorters to this place--only he never had the bravery of the free trade about him, seeing he was far from honest."
Springall observed not the warning finger of Robin Hays, nor heard the murmured sentence of caution that fell upon his ear from the lips of Walter Cecil. Although he had a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of daring, his whole thoughts were fixed on the Protector. He was proceeding in the same strain, when Cromwell interrupted him.
"Peace, youngster! it is ill from one who has committed evil, like yourself, to speak evil of the living, much less the dead;--it was you, we take it, who reduced this place to destruction?"
"Please your Highness, I did."
"You and another?"
"Well, sir, there was another: but he"s gone--no use in trying to find him, he"s away. If," added the young man, with his usual recklessness, "there should be punishment for destroying a wasp"s nest, your Highness shall see that I will bear it as well as----"
The Protector again interrupted the youth"s eloquence by adding, "As well as you did the hanging over yonder bay? No, no--we can discriminate, by G.o.d"s blessing, between the young of the plundering fox and the cub of a lion: both are destructive, but the one is mean and cowardly: the other--it shall be our care to train the other to n.o.bler purposes."