The tide had turned. The river had given up its dead. There was no appeal from this distorted corpse, smirched with yellow so about the throat and breast, where my uncle's painted hands had gripped him. Wedged deep in the dead man's heart (I heard it said) a certain significant shred of blue silk was found that had been drawn in by the swinging blade, and torn from the murderer's sleeve.... After that there needed nothing more, and my uncle's luck, which a moment since had trembled to its apogee, shot downward like a portent star.
My pretence to write calmly of the sequel, to use the ordinary speech of every day, I support not as purposing to deceive, for it would deceive none, but rather as impelled thereto, lest writing as I feel (even yet after so long an interval) I should seem to set down frenzy itself in character, and illegible wild words.
But I may at least report my uncle's apology, as above the clamour I caught the most of it; and here affirm that, lying infamous villain as he was, yet so consummate a dignity did mark his every motion, and as it were attended upon all the situations in which he stood, as enforced respect of those even who knew him altogether base.
His judges had found against him to a man.
"Well, then, you have it," said he in his cold clear voice, "and are content enough this Malpas should have died, so you bring me in his slayer. You little men! I found a scorpion in my path and trampled on him; that's the sum of my offending. Or is it not? Nay, I had forgot the chief; that I would not betray my country, as you petty thieves would have done, and thought I did. What will you get of the Spaniards, prythee? Money, honours or what? Will those creeping Jesuits bestead you? Oh, you have their pledged words! I had as much. More; for I had their secret plans of conquest; their Enterprise of England forsooth! as they sat gnawing their crusts in my hall. There was to be an universal uprising of Papists, they told me; mutinies of the Queen's troops, and such; baubles of a fool!
"I have had my laugh, you scum, and I have lost. Well, then, what you shall hear may hearten you belike, and move you to laughter. If I have not been a traitor all this while, how have I been employed? Not having abetted their designs, why did I entertain these strangers? Let this example stand: there was the envoy Spurrier brought in, Don Florida of Seville, a fine bold gentleman and apt to lead a squadron of such orts as ye. He laid his plans before me openly. So, I took him by the throat and strangled him."
I make no attempt to describe the tumult of their rage who heard him; sufficient, that it passed.
"He was not singular in this business," the prisoner continued, "though he was perhaps the properest man. But what a nasty sort of spies I had in charge! I swear I think no starved lazar of Spain but was judged fit enough to come ambassador among us, and parcel out our land; and all the while you stood by grinning: When we be altogether conquered, ran your thoughts, we shall each get his share! Eh, you jolthead hucksters, was it to be so?
"But I was your leader, and that was where I had my laugh. For no single one of those you gave me into my keeping did I fail to slay save only that poor crazed Courcy whom the soldiers robbed me of, and some that the Council took alive. The residue you may reckon at your leisure; they lie rotting in two fathom of Thames water, 'twixt the Customers Quay and the Galley, ay, rotten as their cause....
"It were a pretty thought now that I should crave a favour at the Queen's hands for stout work done in her cause, though secretly; ay, and I would do it, but for two or three considerations that something hinder me; namely, that my life otherwise hath not been altogether law-worthy. And, moreover, there is these bonds, that, being I confess very workmanlike bound upon me, render my present access to Her Majesty less easy than I could wish; so that I doubt my defence of her realm shall go unrewarded....
"In such a company as this there is sure one clergyman. Let him shrive me, for I am not at all points ready to die.... Well, level your pieces and be done with it. I care not how soon. Foh! but you handle your weapons awkwardly; I should be ashamed, were I still your leader.... How—what is that?"
I had heard it too. "It is the soldiers come," I said to myself, and strained my ears to listen for a renewal of the sound. Within the room all expected in a sudden silence what should ensue. It came again; a dull noise as of men that rammed at the door with a heavy beam.
"I had thought they had gone," said one, in a thick voice.
"'Twas a fetch of theirs."
"The cellar door is strong," said the tapster Jocelin, but without confidence. "It will last."
"Until what time?" asked my uncle, mocking them. "And then, whence will you escape, you rats?"
One had blown out the light at the first alarm, and they conferred in the absolute dark.
"Ha!" cried Jocelin at that taunt of the prisoner's, and with a squealing note of triumph, "there is the new door in the sea-wall to escape by," and scrambling through their midst to the cellar door, he bade his comrades follow him forth. But at the door he stayed, as of necessity he must; for 'twas locked, and I that had locked it was within the room now, in the dark, with the key in my pocket. I had scarce time to slip aside, ere the next man had flung Jocelin by for a bungler, and the third trampled him down. Over his prostrate body the rest passed surging. Knives were out, for all had run distraught at this unlooked-for prevention. Treachery by each suspected was by every hand revenged. I heard the sobbing of stricken men, as I felt my way along the wall to the place where my uncle sat yet pinioned to his chair. And all this while the daunting clangour continued, as of a giant's mallet beating on the door; nay, even upon the stones of the wall, for the whole room shivered and rocked to the hideous repeated sound.
I unloosed my uncle, cutting his thongs with a cutlass I had kicked against and groped after on the floor; a hand still held it, but I got it free.
"Who is that?" asked my uncle composedly.
"Hist!" I whispered. "I am your nephew, Denis Cleeve."
"You add to my obligations, Mr. Denis," he replied, and stretched himself. "But how does my good brother the magistrate?"
"Enough of that," I said curtly; "how be we to get forth?"
"Why, I supposed you had provided for that," he said in some surprise, "else I were as well bound as free."
I asked whether he could lay hand on his sword, but he answered, scoffing, that his enemies had saved him the trouble of using it; and indeed that bloody unseen strife about the door saved us both for that while. Presently he drew me a little apart into a corner where, he said, we might discourse together reasonably and without molestation. He cleared his voice once or twice ere he made known his mind to me thus—
"When the soldiers shall break in, as nothing can long withstand such engines as they have brought to bear, slip you forth, Mr. Denis, and ascend immediately to a small retired chamber above the stair where my ward lies, Mistress Avenon. Lay your modesty aside for this once, and enter. If she wake not, so much the better; as 'tis better she should know nothing. But I am a fool! for who may sleep on such a night of hell? Anywise enter, and I will answer for it, she will not repulse you as she did yon Malpas, the brave lass!
"She hath in keeping a certain jar of mine, Denis, a toy, that nevertheless I set some value on; this I would have you privily convey to the house where the Chinese inhabited—I make no question but you know where it stands. Do this, my dear nephew, and I shall confess myself every way bound to serve you when I shall come to be enfranchised of this place; for I myself may not undertake the bearing off of this jar (it stands in a little cupboard by the bed, Denis, now I think on't), my dress being not such, as wearing it, I might hope to escape challenge of the guard, but with you, Denis, 'twill be a mere frolick adventure." He laid his mouth close to my ear. "Besides, there is the lass Idonia..."
What more he might have added, I know not, for his beastly greed in so safeguarding his wealth, and that at my risk, who had delivered him, sickened me in such sort as I could no longer abide to hear it, but left him, and going straightway forward into the screaming press about the door, struck out a path for myself through the midst of them. At the same moment the hammering without in one peal ended; the half of a wall fell in, and through the breach thus made came a wavering and intermittent light.
Unspeakably astonished, I gazed about me, upon the dead and writhing bodies that lay at my feet thus uncertainly illumined, and upon my uncle, huddled up in his torn silken robe. But when I had averted my eyes with a shudder to the breach in the wall, I saw a sight I may neither forget nor endure the remembrance of; for it seemed to me that there entered in by that way a figure—inhuman tall, black visaged, and of a most cruel aspect. Perhaps for the space of a man's counting ten, he leaned forward through the aperture, regarding us all in that ghostly dimness, and then, with an equal suddenness, was gone, and the light with him....
No one word passed our trembling lips, for all felt the horror of impending destruction. Only the dying yet moved a little, stirring in their blood, but even they soon lay still. Meanwhile, through the great rent in the wall, the wind blew exceeding strong, so that although at the first we had postponed all thoughts to that one vision of the giant presence, we now perceived by the direction of the wind and the saltness of it that it was the river-wall was down, and not (as in our confusion we had supposed) the inner wall, by which the soldiers must necessarily have assaulted us.
I am not altogether sure who it was by this means solved the mystery, but I think it was Captain Spurrier; howbeit we had not endured that sweeping gale above an half-minute, before some one cried out that the apparition was nothing else than the carven prow of the Saracen's Head, that dragging at her moorings by the wharf had run against the Inn wall and destroyed it; which was presently confirmed by the ship's again battering us, but broadside, and not head-on as before. For as I have (I think) already said, the Inn was jutted out to the extreme edge of the Fair Haven wharf, so that at the high tide there was a deepness of water sufficient for any ordinary ship to lie alongside and discharge her cargo upon the quay; the tide mark running a little below the vault where we were, that else would have been suddenly flooded by the inflow of water through the broken wall. Beyond measure relieved that we were besieged by neither soldier nor devil, we could not restrain our joy, and so by a common impulse moved to be gone, the whole company of us that yet remained alive and able, ran forward to the breach, and to the ship's side, having her starboard light to further us that had formerly so stricken us into dismay. And thus by this way and that, grasping at whatever projection of blocks and shrouds lay to our hands, some helping and other hindering our escape, we had at length all clambered up into the ship, save only that traitor Cutts, who, upon a sudden lurch of the ship, was crushed betwixt the bulwark and the wall, and so died.
I looked about for my uncle, and soon found him, leaning over the rail.
"Ha, Denis," said he coolly, "so thou art escaped. I had a notion 'twas thou wert crushed against the wall."
"You mistook then," said I, and might have said more, had not Captain Spurrier laid a hand upon my collar, the whiles he clapped his pistol to my uncle's ear, and called out—
"Lay me these men in irons, Attwood. I am master on my own good ship, if not in that fiends' compter."
We were seized upon instantly and hurried down to the hold, where, heavily shackled, we were thrown among such stuff as there lay stored. The vessel rolled horribly, and often drove against the impediments upon the bank with a dreadful grinding noise, but about morning, as I supposed, they got her about, and into the stream, where, the tempest somewhat abating, she rode pretty free, though what course she kept I could not be certain in, and indeed soon gave over the attempt to follow their purposes that had us so utterly in their power.
Whatever the doubts I may at first have entertained, it was soon enough abundantly clear that the Saracen's Head was under way toward the open sea; for from my place in the hold I could hear the shipmen calling to one another as such and such a landmark or hamlet came into sight; as the green heights of Greenwich; and Tilbury, where there was a troop of horse at exercise, the which sight was occasion of a good deal of rough wit amongst the crew. At the mouth of the Medway we spoke a great merchant galley that was returned from Venice, and put in to Rochester for repairs, she having come by some damage in the late storm. Of the passage of time I soon lost count lying in the dark bottom of the ship, where was nought to denote those petty accidents by which we customarily reckon it. So I knew not positively whether 'twere day or night I waked and slept in nor whether we made good progress or slow. For awhile I tried to keep measure of the hours by our meals, as it might be three meals to an whole day; but this would not hold neither, for there was no regularity in the serving of them, they being brought us quite by haphazard and as they were thought on: which was seldom enough, and the food so stale and nauseating, as led me suppose we only received it by afterthought, or in such grudging contempt as is sometimes termed charity. To do him right, I must allow that my uncle took this reversal of his fortunes with a perfect indifference; as no doubt in the like situation my father would have done, though upon a loftier consideration; but however come by, his patience shamed me, who could by no means attain thereto, nor I think did seriously attempt it. My sufferings were indeed very great, and in that voyage I conceived such a passionate disgust of the sea as hath caused me to regard it as being (what in fact it is) the element the nearest to chaos, and therefore the least to be accounted for perfect—and yet perhaps not altogether the least, for I soon found myself doubting if a man's stomach were every way a sound device; it being very certain that mine often fell away into the original incoherence that all things had before the Creation, or ever I had gone three leagues from the shore.
No loathing can compare with that a man experienceth at such a time, when dinner is a greater insult than a blow. And I am ashamed even now to remember the hate I cherished for the honest mariner that stumbled down the companion bearing my platter of salt beef; which feeling found its vent in my imagining a world of tortures for the bearer of the beef and for all jovial ruddy mariners, and for every shipwright since the days of Noah.
Nevertheless, since into what state soever we come, we be so framed as by degrees to acquire a sort of habit, if not a content, therein, so it befell that I also, in due time, from my amazing and profound malady recovered some fragment of a willingness to live. It might have been the third or fourth day after, that I ate without such consequences as I had supposed necessarily incident to the act, and life came to assume an aspect wherein it stood on favourable terms with sudden death. This surprised me, seeing that of late I had conceived life to be (at the best) but a protracted and indefinite dissolution; and I ate again....
"The devil take you!" I cried to the fellow that had just entered the hold with a handful of biscuits and a little rundlet of burnt wine. "What a meal is that to set before starving men?"
"Courage, master," said the mariner with a great laugh, "we be come within but a few leagues of the Straits, and perhaps shall touch at one of the Spanish ports, where we may better provision the ship than our Captain thought it altogether safe to do, the night we set sail."
"And shall we be released then?" I asked eagerly.
The man shrugged up his shoulders with a grin, and for the first time my uncle, who all these days had lain quite silent in the dark of the hold, leaned over from his place among the stuff, and thus accosted me—
"Are you so great a fool yet? When the pawn is taken, it is cast aside, and the game goes on. Teach your mind to expect nothing, and your tongue to require nothing. There is an hell where they and I shall meet." He paused a space, and then with an intensity of purpose that held my blood in the veins: "We shall meet there," he added slowly, "and shall need all eternity for that we shall there do. 'Tis the privilege of hell that no enmities be in that place forgot, nor forgiven."
When the mariner had left us, I asked my uncle what he considered our fate would be; who answered that, as it had been put into the articles of the false contract he had made with Spurrier, that offers of help should be made to the Spaniards, in the which embassage he himself had promised (though he intended nothing less) to undertake the chiefest part; so, he being now deposed, it was probable that Spurrier would take upon him the fulfilment of that office.
"In the which event," he said with great deliberation, "we shall certainly be given over to those devils, to be clapped up in their filthy dungeons, or else sent to New Spain, to work in the mines there. You spoke of a release a little since; there is but one release from this pass."
We conversed in this strain from time to time; but ordinarily kept silence. By the running out of a cable, we knew that we were come into that harbour the seaman spoke of, and momently looked for the trap above in the deck to be opened, and ourselves to be haled out to our dooms. A curious sense of unreality came over me in this interval, yet joined to a minute perception of all that passed, as though I could actually see the same with my eyes. For I seemed to detect the departure of our Captain, that went ashore; I heard the rattle of the oars against the pins as he was rowed off. Later, I understood that he was returned again, and with him another, whose step upon the deck was firm and stately. His spurs jangled as he moved. "It is the Governor of this Port," I said to myself, "and they debate of treason together."
The most of the crew hung about amidships; the principal persons being upon the quarterdeck, and there remaining a great while. Some little movement as of men dissatisfied, I noted later; and then there was the business of the Governor's leaving us, I supposed to consult with others, his lieutenants, upon the quay.
Presently I was startled by the firing of a cannon, which made our ship to reel as she would have split, and there was trampling and shouted words of command. Spurrier's bargain had failed.
"They had best have left it," said my uncle with a sneering laugh, when he saw how things had gone. "A greedy boastful knave as Spurrier is, none will be matched with. I know this Governor well, if this place we be come to be, as I think, Puerto Real. 'Twas his brother I slew, Don Florida. He would inquire after him, like enough, and wherefore he had not returned into Spain, to which Spurrier would answer him astray and then lie to mend it; a paltry bungler as he is! I might have played this hand through, Denis, had I chosen. But being no traitor I would not. Well, let them look to their stakes!"
It may appear a strange thing, but 'tis true, that our old animosity had quite sunk between us and although we used no particular courtesy in our scanted speech, yet my uncle and I nevertheless found (I believe) an equal pleasure in our enforced companionship. In the presence of almost certain death, whether men fear or contemn it, there is in the mere thought of it a compelling quality that directs the mind to it only; and where two minds be thus constrained to the same point, along whatever paths they may have moved, there is of necessity a kind of sympathy betwixt them, and a resolution of their differences in that common attent.
Succeeding upon that firing of the great gun there was an immediate confusion wherein we in our dungeon were wholly forgot. A cannon from the fort answered our challenge a while after, but by its faintness 'twas easy to suppose we had got a good way out of the harbour and thus were free from any present danger from a land attack. But whether there were in the roads gathered any vessels of war that might do us harm upon the sea we could not conjecture, though it appeared not altogether likely, or at the least that they were not at all points prepared upon the sudden to give chase. Our main fear lay in the probability that, the alarm being given, messengers would be dispatched to all points of the coast, with particulars given of the rank and appearance of our ship, in order that, attempting to sail through the Straits into the Mediterranean or to slip away again northward, we should be made to answer for our gunnery salute in such sort as would hardly please us.
But however these considerations affected his two censors in the hold, Captain Spurrier was evidently nothing moved thereby, who warped his ship as it were along the very shore with a most insensate impudency until he had her within the narrow waters about Gibraltar, where a man could have slung a stone upon our decks, so nearly did we venture ourselves into the enemy's power. Nay, a general madness seemed to have grown to possess the whole crew, so disappointed were they of the outcome of their late negotiations and proffers of treachery; and no folly that presented itself to them, but they took it as a drunken man takes water, feverishly. Thus our cannon were continually being shot off, not of offence but for the mere show of bravery it put upon us; and so likewise of defence, there was no order taken nor was any especial guard kept, so far as we could tell who knew not the watches, but yet could distinguish well enough the sounds of cups clinking and of quarrelling and curses. Indeed I doubt whether, at any hour of this our frenzied voyage, had a cock-boat of resolute men put out to intercept us, we should not have been made prize of, before we were aware that opposition was so much as offered.
In the meanwhile we in our chains were, as I say, left undisturbed; and as hour after hour went by the hunger we suffered increased so that I think another day of such absolute privation, and of the burning thirst that went with it, would have ended our business altogether. Yet it was to this incredible affliction we owed our resolution to get free, come what would thereafter.
I must have fallen into some raving speech, that served to make manifest to my uncle the abject condition I was in, for before I knew of it, he had dragged himself over to me, and with his skeleton fingers had loosened the band at my throat and chafed my hands together between his own.
"Oh, let me die," I cried fiercely.
"You are like to," said he, without the least resentment; "but if you will take the advice I shall give, you will either notably increase your chances of it, or else will get what is hardly less to be desired, I mean food."
Too faint to demand what he intended by that, I lay still, careless whether he made his purpose clear or not.
"Seeing that we cannot get off our irons," he went on, "we must eat or die, bound. Now I believe that it is night and most of the crew drunk. If it be so, we shall get food enough and perhaps our freedom too. If it be not so, you shall have your will presently and die; for it is you who must go above, Denis, seeing I cannot do so, that have my ankle broke with this cursed chain."
I got upon my feet, all confused as I was and sick with famine; but his greater courage moved me to obey him in this if I could, though I expected but little good of it.
"They will hear my chains," I said.
"I will muffle them," he replied, and tore off three or four strips of his silken coat that he yet wore, and with them wrapped up the links in such sort as I should move along without noise, though still heavily. After that I left him, going up the ladder to the trap in the roof of the hold, which none had troubled to make fast, knowing, or at least believing, that we were safe enough in our shackles, without further precaution taken.
It was indeed night, as my uncle had supposed; and such a night as seemeth to lift a man out of his present estate, so limited and beat upon by misfortunes, and to touch his lips with a savour of things divine. There is a liberation in the wide spaces of the night, and a glory unrevealed by any day.
I stood awhile where I was upon the deck, simply breathing in the cool air and taking no thought for my safety. A gunner lay beside his gun, asleep with his head upon the carriage; I could have touched him with my outstretched arm....
I looked about me. We were riding at anchor in a little bay that from the aspect of the stars I took to be upon the Moorish side of the Straits: an opinion that became certainty when I gradually made out the form of that huge rock of Gibraltar to the northward and the mountainous promontory which lieth thereabout. There was no wind at all, which something excused the slack seamanship that was used amongst us, and in this principally showed, that our sails were but some of them furled up, although we rode at anchor; and the rest of them hung flat upon the yards. The moon had not risen, or was already set, but there was that soft diffused pallor of the stars by which, after awhile, I could see very well. In the general negligence the ship's lanterns were left unlit, but the gunner had one beside him, and also (what imported me more to find) a few broken morsels of bread. To carry these and the lantern down to the hold was my next concern, and was happily effected; but I judged my enterprise incomplete until I had got wine, or at least water, to wash it down, for even less to be supported than our hunger was our horrible scorching thirst.
Now, how I should have fared in my quest of that commodity I know not, seeing I did not proceed further in it than just so far as the prostrate gunner, whose leg in passing I chanced to touch and so woke him. He raised himself on his elbow, grumbling that he was o'er-watched, and would stand sentinel no more for all the Moors in Barbary. Upon the impulse I fell upon and grappled with him, managing the chain betwixt my wrists so that I had his neck in a loop of it, upon which I pulled until his eyes and mouth were wide and the blood pouring from his nose. Gradually I slackened my hold to let him breathe, for he was pretty far gone.
"You must knock off my irons," I whispered, "or else I will strangle you outright," and made as if to begin again.
He was beyond speech, but made signs he would do it, and implored me with his eyes to desist. Then he made me to understand that his tools were abaft in the gunroom, so that I was fain to follow him thither, or rather to go beside him with my arms about his neck like a dear friend. We encountered some dozen men in the way, but all sleeping, save one that I made my captive put to silence, which he did very properly and workmanlike.
Not to be tedious in this matter, I say that at length I stood free; for the which enfranchisement when my man had perfected it, perceiving that he was like to be called in question, he fell on his knees before me and besought me to let him escape with me.
"I have had pity of you many a time," he cried, "when, but for me, you must have starved;" which was indeed true, he being the bluff ruddy fellow that had brought us our meals from time to time.
Nevertheless I would not altogether promise to do as he wished, but commanded him first to fetch drink and more food to my uncle, and to me too; which when he had done, I told him we would at our leisure consider of the success.
"At your leisure, quotha!" cried the man, whose name was Attwood (a Midland man and a famous forger of iron as I found). "'Twill be but an hour ere the sun rise."
"Whither are we bound?" I demanded.
"To some port of Italy," he replied, "or Sicily, as I think. But upon our voyage it is intended to snap up whatever craft we shall encounter and may not be able to withstand us; at which trade, if it prosper, it is purposed we shall continue, and perhaps join with others that do the like. And to this course our Captain is principally moved by one, a rascal Greek, that affecteth to have knowledge of a certain stronghold and harbourage in an island to the northward of Sicily, where he saith he is acquainted with a notable commander of armed galleys that should welcome our adherence."
"Bring forth our supper therefore, Master Attwood," said I, "for if not now, I see not when we shall eat it."
We ate and drank very heartily together; for we made Attwood of the company, who knocked off my uncle's chains and bound his ankle very deftly betwixt two battens to set it. Our conversation was naturally upon what should be our means of escape, which would have been settled out of hand had it not been for my uncle's broken bone that prevented his swimming ashore as else we might have done; for our cock-boat had been lost at the start in the gale, and we had nothing of which to make a raft, or at least none we could get loose without risk of alarming the crew.
But as was usual my uncle gave the word by which we were ready to abide, and that was that I should swim to shore alone and seize upon one of the boats that would certainly be to be found drawn up on the sands (for we lay close under the shore), and with this returning with all dispatch, take them off that awaited me. Accordingly, I let myself down by the side, Attwood assisting me, and swam toward the shore. But scarce had I set foot upon it, when I saw a long boat, filled with a troop of half-naked Moors, that rowed out from beyond the point and aimed directly for the vessel I had left.
Without any other thought but to save them if I could, I shouted to Attwood that they were threatened by the Moors, and the distance being as I say but small betwixt us, he heard me, and ran to his cannon. But the stir he made aroused two or three of the mariners, so that soon all stood upon their guard to defend themselves. The Captain ordered the gunner to lay to his piece and sink the enemy, but they got away in the dark, and so nothing was done. However, the Captain, who was greatly affrighted by this accident, called out to them to weigh anchor, for he would presently be gone; and about sunrise, a wind springing up, he loosed from his moorings and made away eastward under all sail.
Now, if it be admired why I neither returned to the ship, rather than remain alone in this barbarous unknown country, nor yet extended a finger to help my uncle and Attwood to their freedom, I must answer that it was because I could not. For I had not stood above three minutes upon that starlit shore, ere I was seized by two Moors, that carried me with them to a rough hutch of skins they had hard by the quay. And here they told me, by signs, I must await their king and by him be judged for my swimming ashore in the night; which manner of reaching the country was, I understood, as well open to suspicion as a notable infraction of the rights of the licensed ferrymen. They seemed to be honest fellows enough, and except that they kept me in pretty close ward in the tent, treated me, in all else, very well.
Now, had I but had the luck to know it, my two captors were themselves of this guild of the ferrymen whose rights they so stoutly stood by; and I could have obtained my freedom at any hour of the night for two-pence: the statutory passage money of which I had unwittingly defrauded them. But upon this twopence saved were to depend many events I could well have spared, together, too, with much I yet thank Heaven for; so small a matter doth our fate require (as a rudder) to steer us by along what course she will....
The sun came up, as I say, in a little fresh scud of wind, and athwart the golden dancing waters went the good ship the Saracen's Head, fair and free; while I, her supercargo, remained behind in this evil-smelling tent of half-naked and infidel Moors; cursing the mischance that had led me thither, and altogether discouraged.
The thought of Idonia, that amid all the distractions of my late captivity on board the ship had been predominant over all, affected me more than ever now, as I sat in this pure light of dawn, in a perfect silence save for the little lapping of the waves. I remembered the wild look of love that her eyes had held, when she said: "Free, oh, free!" and: "Denis, Denis, do not let me go!" I caught again the drooping lassitude of her posture, when, spent by the varying terrors of the night, she had swooned in my arms. For the thousandth time I reviewed the dangers that threatened her, the bitter cold of the rain, insults of the soldiers, her wandering wits and the nearness of the river. To this was added a fearful burden of doubt whether I should at all be suffered to return home, to seek her; knowing as I did that not two or three, but many men that had set foot upon this coast, had been sold as slaves or slain outright; while others, to escape the seeming worst, abjuring their faiths (as Nelson the Yeoman's son had done), had embraced the false religion of this country and by that currish means gained favour and furtherance in their servitude. It seemed to me a strange thing, as I sat in this place where all around was peace and grave silence, that so small an interval might separate me from such intolerable cruelties as we in England had oftentimes heard tell of as continually practised by the men of these parts; and I in particular had listened to this sort of tales, by the mariners of our Company narrated, when, as I was used, I went to meet them and bring them to Osborne the Governor. But there is (I find) a surprising declension from the amusement got by hearing of the customs of other nations, to that is got by going where they are practised; and I settled it in my mind at that time (nor have I ever exchanged the opinion) that what lieth beyond the West Country is of very small account; always excepting the City of London and the Berkshire downs.
Now when the sun had been risen about an hour, I perceived some stir to grow in the town, and men to begin going about their daily business. From the petty harbour I saw a barque or two warping their way out, and was marvellous surprised when, presently, that great boat that had rowed, as we all supposed, to the attack of the Saracen's Head, returned very peaceably to the quayside laden with a fine catch of fish; by the which it manifestly appeared that they were no robbers, but a company of Moorish fisherfolk that had gone before daybreak to cast their seines; and as the sequel showed, to good purpose.
I laughed aloud at the error into which I had fallen, and the more when I imagined with what consternation these simple men would have received Master Attwood's cannon shot, had he prosecuted his intention and fired it.
My two guards looked upon me with some anxiety, when they saw me laughing in this manner, and spoke together in a low voice; after which the one of them got up softly and went away. Something perturbed, I questioned the other man, by signs, that being our only method of converse, whither it was he went; who answered, similarly, that he was gone to see if the king were yet awake, and ready to administer justice in my cause. I should have sought to learn more, had I not chanced to observe upon one of the ships that lay by the wharf, a flag hauling up, at which sight I was filled with an excessive joy; for it was the English flag; and the ship, when I had more particularly noted her, one of our Turkey Company's merchant vessels, namely, the Happy Adventure, seventy tons burden and very sound craft.
Leaping to my feet, I made signs to my Moor that these were friends of mine who would speak for my general probity, and at the same time offered him three or four pieces of silver (all I had) the better to enforce my request.
Never have I seen a man so metamorphosed as he, who, expecting at the utmost to receive his legal two-pence, had suddenly thrust upon him a handful of crowns. From a petty evader of duties, I became in his eyes a fountain of generosity, and prince of swimmers. He fell prone on his face before me in the sand, and covered my shoes with kisses, naming me in his language his eternal benefactor, the light of his life, the supporter of his age (or if not these then what you shall please, for I understood nothing of it all save his cringing and kissing of my toe).
Now while he was thus engaged, his companion returned together with him they called their king, but was only an ordinary Moor to see to, extremely fat (which is perhaps a sign of pre-eminence in these parts) and abominably filthy. He had two curved swords stuck in his waist, and wore a patched green cloak.
But when he saw who it was approached, my newly purchased friend left kissing me, and did obeisance to his king, very reverently saluting him with his hands raised to his forehead; and the king in his turn bade him, as well as he could for lack of breath, be at peace. Which done, a long debate ensued among the three of them wherein my gratuity was displayed and commented upon, with a great show of delight by the Moor, with astonishment by the king, and with an uncontrolled disappointment by the Moor that had gone to bring him. By the greedy looks with which he, and soon the king too, regarded this chiefest feature of the case, I understood that my acquittal was likely to depend upon the nature of the evidence (that is the amount of the bribe) I could bring in, to satisfy my second accuser, and after him the Judge. But satisfy them in this kind I could not, for as I have said, I had imprudently parted with my entire wealth to my first accuser, who, as I am assured, would have been perfectly content with half a groat. The fat king, without the least disguise, but pointing to my unlucky crown-pieces, told off upon his fingers the rate at which I might obtain my discharge, while the ferryman, whom anger seemed to have robbed of speech, convulsively gripped at the haft of a very dangerous long knife he had, as if to demonstrate the province of effective law.
What course I might have followed herein I am not careful to imagine; enough that it was decided for me by one of the ship's company of the Adventure, who, observing us, came over a little way to see what should be the occasion of this argument. To him then, without delay, I dispatched my Moorish friend I had suborned, praying the mariner to hasten to my assistance. And no sooner did he see the English pieces in the fellow's hand than he understood it was a countryman of his in peril, and so called together the rest of his crew, or at least such as were within hail. A little after, therefore, I was set free, the whole company coming about me, and thrusting away the poor fat king, that they told me was but a petty chieftain, of no authority at all, except that he took the half of the harbour dues; which being a mere pittance, however, he was fain to eke out the stipend with the selling of sweet oil and justice, as either was called for.
But when they heard I was employed by the Turkey Company, as they were, and moreover was acquainted with Sir Edward Osborne, whom every one greatly honoured, there was no end to their protestations of friendship; and in especial the master of that voyage, one Captain Tuchet, offered to carry me with him to England; albeit he must first, he said, finish his trading in these waters, as he had engaged to do.
I thanked him very heartily for his kindness, and, at his request, opened with him at large of my imprisonment on board the Saracen's Head, and of all matters I have above set down, which he heard very patiently and advised himself of the principal outrages that were either committed or intended by Spurrier and the rest. He was a short, squat man, of a very heavy appearance and so dull an eye that I had set him down for almost a fool before he showed me pretty convincingly that he was not, but rather of a nature at once astute and undaunted, he being indeed at all points a commander and worthy of trust.
"So you tell me that these gentlemen purpose to join themselves to a certain pirate of note," he said, blinking his thick-lidded eyes, as we leaned over the rail of his high deck. "And where might he be found, prythee?"
"It was upon some island, as I remember, to the northward of Sicily," I answered.
"'Tis as I thought then," said he, "and having a part of our cargo to discharge at Amalfi, we will read our instructions something more liberally than we be wont to do, and shape our course toward—well, should we chance to make this island of yours upon the way, there's no harm done, Master Supercargo;" and he blinked again.
"You will give them chase?" cried I.
"We be men peaceably inclined at all times," replied Tuchet, closing his eyes altogether, "and I should be sorry if resistance to our demands led to bloodshed."
"But my uncle..." I said and hesitated.
"Is a reasonable villain by all accounts," replied the Captain, and so for that while dismissed me.
The news that we were to alter our course in order to the end I have named, soon spread amongst the crew, who one and all rejoiced at the prospect of fighting it offered them; that being a luxury not often to be indulged in upon a merchant ship and therefore the more highly prized. From the mate I learned that there was an infinite number of such secret nooks and fastnesses by pirates and desperate thieves infested, in this sea, and that to any ordinary man it would appear an absurd thing to attempt, from amongst so many, to discover the particular refuge that Spurrier might affect. "So that were it not for some hint we have to go upon, which our Captain thinks sufficient, we might indeed run far astray; though now, if we do, I shall greatly admire it."
"Upon what place hath he fixed as likely?" I asked.
"'Tis a little rock among the Æolian Islands," he answered me, "for it is indeed hardly more than a bare rock. The people name it the Three Towers, because of certain watch-towers formerly set up against the Saracens and yet remaining: as you may see them likewise in Amalfi, and other places too. It hath a fair anchorage and haven and a flat strip of good land where they used to cultivate vines before the robbers took the place and killed the islanders. There was a pleasant village there among the vineyards, and a temple, nigh perfect, of the old heathen gods. But now all is in ruins, except that those men have retained for their safeguard, or for the storage of their treasure."
"You seem to know their lurking-place pretty well," said I, with a smile.
He let the jest pass, it being none to him as I soon learned.
"I should know it, master," he replied, "having lived there, and there married and had children. 'Twas those devils of pirates drove me forth ... but not my wife. My children they slew in the room where the wine-press stood. I think if we fall in with that company, sir, by how much soever their number exceed ours, we shall yet get the better of them, God helping us."
All that day we held our course eastward, with a pretty strong wind following, so that we had got about seventy or eighty miles from the port by sunset. The night also continuing fair, with lucky weather, we made a further good progress, by which the Captain hoped, within two or three days at the most, we should make the Island of Tre Torre (that is, the Three Towers aforesaid), and therefore set every one to the preparing of his weapon, and the hauling up of the powder from the magazine.
For my part, while these preparations were making, I was full of heavy thoughts, for it must needs be in this imminent battle that my uncle and I should be opposites, who but lately were become friends.
I doubted indeed whether Spurrier would grant him liberty to fight; but the alternative was rather to be feared, namely that, unwilling to be cumbered with the ward of prisoners at such a time, the Captain would rid himself of him before the fight should begin. But either way I certainly could not refuse to draw my sword against these pirates merely because my uncle was kept prisoner by them, and especially since our quarrel was like to extend to all such robbers as should choose to take sides with Spurrier against us. It appeared indeed a mad impossible enterprise we undertook, and had it not been for the extreme faith all our crew had in Mr. Tuchet, I might perhaps have gone the length of protesting against the risk we ran.
However I did not, and am glad that I refrained, for no man loveth to be thought a coward, though some that are not be content to appear so in a noble cause; which I think is the greatest degree of courage a man can attain to.
Now, about the fourth morning, when the watch was changed, I being one of those appointed to serve that turn, we remarked that the sky, which until then had been quite clear, was now spread over with a thin haze, such as ordinarily intendeth an excessive heat; and indeed as the day wore on it became oppressively hot, the vapour remaining the while, or rather withdrawing to an unusual height, so that there was no mist upon the waters, but merely a white sky for a blue one. At noonday this strange whiteness of the heavens became charged with a dull copper colour particularly to the eastward, and the wind died away suddenly, leaving us becalmed.
Tuchet summoned the mate to him, to the upper deck, and held him long in consultation of this mystery, presently calling me too to join them there, when he put two or three brief questions to me as touching the rig and burden of the Saracen's Head, which, when I had answered, he resumed his conference with the mate, jerking his finger impatiently toward some object far out to sea.
I followed the direction of his finger, and at last perceived right upon the clear line of the horizon a grey blot, that might have been a rock or ship, or indeed anything, so great was the distance of it from us.
"I cannot tell," said the mate; "but I think 'tis not so big."
"Tush!" said the Captain. "Consider it more closely."
Again I strained my eyes for any indication of sail or hull that should resolve my doubt; but even as I gazed the thing was lost as completely as though the sea had opened to swallow it.
"Why, 'tis gone!" I cried.
Neither of the men spoke for a while, but after a full half minute the mate said in a low voice—
"Yonder comes the eagre," meaning, as I learned afterwards, that great wave that sometimes comes with the high tide, and is otherwise named the Bore; the cause of it none knoweth certainly, though it is said to follow upon an uncommon meeting of tides, or else is rolled back by earthquakes and such-like horrid disturbances and visitations of the Almighty.
"Strike sail, lads," shouted the Captain, "and close up all hatches; there's tempest at hand."
We did what we could, but the time was brief enough, so that before we had well concluded the wave struck us. The ship seemed to be lifted like a plaything and tossed about as lightly as though a giant had put forth his hand from the deep and flung us. Three men were washed overboard at the first assault and our mizzen mast burst asunder, which falling, grievously hurt one that stood by, who a little after died.
Meanwhile the calm that had previously held us bound, was exchanged for a furious hurricane worse almost to withstand than the shock of the eagre-wave itself. The sky was now as black as night, with great hurrying clouds urged on as it seemed by the pitiless goad of lightning that lacerated them as they thundered by. Wave after wave swept over us as we rose and fell, abject and waterlogged, now lying low in the lane of waters, now impelled to the summit from which we looked forth as from a falling tower in whose ruin we were presently to be involved....
I cannot relate all that followed, for a spar struck me senseless, and when I recovered we were riding in an untroubled bay, under a lee shore. Too sick and weak to question those that stood about me, I nevertheless could not but note the amazing beauty of the scene. Upon an eminence a grove of palm trees stood out against the blue of the sky, while upon the slope of this hill and below it to the water's edge extended the buildings of a city, dazzling white and magnificently builded with long arcades and lofty gateways and tiled domes. At first I supposed we had been carried by the storm backward to that Moorish port where I was held captive, but soon I perceived that this place greatly exceeded it in splendour and apparent wealth. The city, in fact, was Argiers, whither we had been carried wide of our course by the stress of the storm: but being here our Captain thought fit to make good our ship that was pretty near stove in. Some nine or ten days in all we stayed, during which I not only regained my health but took an infinite pleasure in going about in the town, which was like nothing I had ever seen or imagined, so white it was, and so strangely supported upon deep arches that caught the shade at all hours; and having high towers with balconies, from which a man called these poor infidels to prayer. The flies were abominable, and the stench incredibly offensive; but saving these things, Argiers is a good town, and the people of it (that is, the men, for I saw no women) very grave and orderly.
Our masts and timbers made good at length, Mr. Tuchet called the crew aboard, and bade them cast off the hawser that held us, which was soon done, and we departed. And because of the privilege extended to me and the favour of the Captain, I left the common seamen and went upon the deck that the Captain used, who spoke cheerily to me, saying he hoped we should meet with no more disasters on this voyage. I laughed and said I hoped not neither, and asked him when he thought we should come to Amalfi; for it never entered my mind that he would prosecute his old purpose of going against the pirates.
"To Amalfi?" said Tuchet, scratching his grey stubble beard. "Oh, about a week hence, Mr. Denis, if we get done with your uncle by Thursday, as I expect to do."
Nothing deterred him when he had once resolved upon any course, and I am assured that had we lost half our complement of men and all our ammunition, he would have gone into it with his fists. The Thursday then, having doubled the Cape of Marsala, which is the westward point of Sicily, we came amongst the Æolian Islands to the very hour Tuchet had named; and towards evening we clearly descried the little rocky islet of the Three Towers; whereat every man grasped his weapon, and the gunner ran out his long brass piece. 'Twas no time for the conning over of moral sentences but rather of rapid silent preparation; yet I could not but feel the solemnity of this our slowly sailing onward through the still autumn evening, whose outgoing seemed so sweetly attuned to that praise for which the Scripture saith it was created, but which for us meant no more than an unlucky light to shoot by. For, as more than one stout fellow whispered, our ship having the sun behind it was a mark for any fool to hit, while we upon our part could distinguish nought upon that barren rock but the crumbled watch-towers that crowned it.
Without a word, we stole on. It was dangerous navigation, for there were said to be sunken reefs to the westward (that is the nearest to us as we came from the west), where the rock divided into two horns or spurs, that, jutting out into the sea, enclosed the little parcel of flat land where the vineyards used to be and the ruined temple. The harbourage lay a little to the southward behind the right-hand spur I have noted, and was therefore not yet to be seen; though we, approaching so closely, must have been perfectly visible to any one that lay concealed amidst the innumerable lurking-places and caves of the rock.
The mate, who knew the island but too well, had gone forward, but now returned to us, that is to Tuchet and me, upon the high deck. His face was very white.
"The shore hath sunk," he said.
"What do you mean?" cried Tuchet, turning about sharply.
"Vineyard and all gone; our cottage and the garden where my boys played.... The eagre hath whelmed them."
"But the wave hath long since receded, man; it cannot be! You have mistaken the place belike."
"Mistaken!" repeated the mate with a hard laugh. "I tell you the whole island hath been disturbed; its foundations shaken—Lo, there!" he cried out. "A whole cliff hath gone down in the earthquake; and there is driftwood under the headland, of wrecked ships."
And even as he had said, so it was.
For the late upheaval had had its origin in the recesses of this barren rock, which it had burst open as a robber bursts forth from his ambush, and loosed that charging hurricane upon the sea. And indeed not this island of Tre Torre only, but all these islands to the northward of Sicily be so eaten under by fire, and liable to sudden calamity therefrom, as none may properly be named habitable, though the most of them be inhabited in despite of almost constant threatenings, until, as this place was, they be at length in a night destroyed.
We sailed about the place in our ship, but found no living soul, and night soon after falling, we were fain to use the shattered remnant of the pirates' harbour, where we lay till the morning, very sad and perplexed.
But a great while before full day I rose up alone and went ashore, in the hope to light upon some vestiges of my uncle, or if not of him, then of any of that infamous crew of the Saracen's Head. From the one of the watch-towers that I found to be the least shaken I surveyed the rock over every part, but could discover nothing more than that we had before espied, namely, the few broken boards of a ship and spars strewn about the sweep of ground betwixt the two promontories, and so descended slowly to where they lay. And having descended but a little of the broken path that led, as I judged, to the submerged hamlet amidst the vineyards, I looked out upon the waters of the bay; and on the sudden, clear beneath them, saw the hamlet, house by house, and the pergolas of hanging vines. So translucent and untroubled was the water at that hour that scarce anything the least was hid, but even the grass between the stones I saw, yet fresh and waving, and the rusted tools abandoned in the fields. An untended way led further off to the temple, of which I could dimly perceive the pillars, between which great silver fish swam in and out, and upon its steps the seaweed slightly stirred.
But caught in the weed on the steps of the temple I saw a drowned man lying, and when I had gone down to the edge of the shore, I knew him for my uncle....
Of the rest we could find at first no trace at all, but (having sent down divers into the deep water about the northward headland) we at length recovered the bodies of Spurrier and Attwood and one or two beside. When the ship had split, idly trusting to such pieces of the wreck as they could lay hold of, they had evidently been dashed against the rock, and so perished. But the prisoner in the hold had been carried forward, as it seemed, almost into safety, but at the last had been let slip. There was no hurt upon his body when we raised it, and the features were unclouded by any premonition of his fate.