The humour of the thing--this lonely swordsman lying in wait behind the door for the crew of the privateer--seized the boy by the throat.
The laughter poured out of him headlong.
The man leapt round, dark-faced and terrible. In a twinkle he was across the floor, wary as a panther.
The door opened.
Out he came, thrusting stealthily, his blade leading him. His flanks were covered, himself almost unseen in the dark of the door.
Whatever else the man might be, he was a soldier born.
Then he saw the boy and halted on the threshold.
A man more aggressively English Kit thought he had never seen.
Forty or thereabouts, five feet ten high, and perfectly compact: he wore no wig, and his hair broke in crisp grey curls all about his head: a ruddy face, fighting jowl, and blue eyes, kindled with equal ease to savagery or smiles.
The boy"s heart leapt to those eyes, as it leapt to the first blossom starring the black-thorn after winter"s desolation. There was hope in them, the hope of Spring.
The man smelt of roast beef and Old England.
Kit loved him at a glance. And was he a stranger?--Had he not fought with this man, hunted with him, died with him a thousand times of old?
Had they not stood shoulder to shoulder, and back to back, in many a desperate venture in the past that haunted him? Had he not tried him time and again on the anvil of hard experience, always to find that he rang true? Would he fail him now at his need, this old comrade, who had never failed him before? No. That old sense of the familiarity of all experience swept in on him with staggering force.
Drawn as in a dream, he stepped forward and took the other"s hand.
"Friend," he said.
The man lowered his point. His eyes drank in the boy"s face.
"So be it," he answered, twinkling.
The blue eyes lived in the brown ones; the hands gripped.
CHAPTER x.x.xII
THE BROKEN SQUARE
"My name is Caryll--Christopher Caryll."
The other nodded over him.
"Christopher Caryll, called by his mother Kit: an officer of the Sea Service, eh?"
The boy"s eyes brightened.
"Yes, sir. How did you know?"
"I remember a Kit Caryll by name in the Mediterranean in the nineties.
And I ought to know the King"s uniform, seeing I was a King"s officer myself before I took orders."
"A sailor?"
"Sailor be d"d!" cried the Parson, heartily. "I"d sooner be a cod- fish. No, sir, no: I hate the sea like I hate the French. D"you think if the Almighty had meant me for the water, He"d have troubled to give me that?" He thrust forth his right leg, and dwelt fondly on the calf, contracting and relaxing it.
"But I forget my manners."
He bent over his blade with tenderest chivalry.
"Will you allow me," with a sweep, "to introduce to your ladyship a young gentleman of the sister Service? Mr. Caryll--Lady Polly Kiss-me- quick."
He averted the sword, and shielding his mouth, whispered confidentially--
"The sweetest of her s.e.x, Mr. Caryll, but that hot after the men you wouldn"t believe."
Kit threw back his head and gurgled. Only fifteen, and man enough not to be ashamed to be a boy, he still loved make-believe. And his heart went out to this man, who was after all a brother-boy.
"No, I wasn"t a sailor. I had my company in the King"s Black Borderers," continued the Parson--"the old Blackguards, as they call us, of whom you may have heard."
The boy"s eyes flashed.
"I should think I had!" he cried. "It was a brute in the Borderers nearly killed my Uncle Jacko in a duel--in Corsica--in "94. A chap called Joy. He was a notorious bully--a cursing swearing fellow.
After-wards he died of drink, mother says. Uncle Jacko was her favourite brother."
The other"s face had chilled.
"And what was mother"s favourite brother"s name--if I may ask?"
"Gordon, sir--Jacko Gordon."
"Jacko Gordon--the Horse-Gunner!" laughed the Parson. "Ha! ha! ha!"
"Did you know him, sir?"
The Parson tossed his Polly in the air, and caught her deftly.
"Did we know him? did we not? You remember Jacko Gordon, my lady?--and the sands of Calvi?"
"That was where the bully fought him!" cried Kit. "Ran him through the fore-arm when he wasn"t ready."
A dark breeze swept across the other"s face.
"He was ready; and it was not the fore-arm," he replied with icy chilliness. "It was the wrist; was it not, my own?" bending over his blade.... "Yes; he had a lovely wrist--until she kissed it...." He shrugged. "But what would you?--"Calves!" says he; and it was before the mess-tent--" d"you call those things? yours calves?"--"And what d"you call em yourself?" says I, mighty polite. "Why, _cows in calf!"_ says he, and swaggers off with a silly guffaw.
"After that there was nothing for it but the usual of course. I ran him through the wrist. He dropped his blade....