Wolf Slayer, who had brought warning of the menace of the freshet to Fort Beatrix, soon showed his evil hand. He had arrived at the fort in a starving condition and still weak from wounds received in the battle in which his father had been killed. Had he been well and filled with meat, he would undoubtedly have let the inmates of the fort and the camp lie in ignorance of the danger. For ten days he was fed and cared for by the settlers. By the end of that time, he felt himself again. The old arrogance burned in his eyes; the old sneer returned to his lips. Ouenwa read the signs and wondered how the deviltry would show itself under such unpropitious circumstances.
Ouenwa's sleep was light and fitful on the tenth night after the overflowing of the river. About midnight he awoke, turned over, and could not get back to his dreams. So he lay wide-awake, thinking of the future. He could hear Bernard Kingswell's peaceful breathing. He thought of his friend, and his heart warmed to him with gratitude and comrade-love. He thought of Beatrix, smiled wistfully in the darkness, and put the bright vision away from him. What was that? He breathed more softly and lifted his head. Was it fancy, or—or what? He shifted noiselessly to the farther edge of the couch. A hand brushed along his pillow of folded blanket. Next moment he gripped an unseen wrist and closed with a silent enemy.
Minutes passed before the wrestlers stumbled against a stool, with a clatter that startled Kingswell to his feet. The Englishman leaped to the hearth, kicked the fallen coals to life, and threw a roll of birch bark on top of them. Then he stepped aside until the yellow flame lighted the room. The illumination was just in time, for Wolf Slayer had the lighter boy on the floor and the knife raised, when Kingswell saw his way to the rescue. He recognized the youth, and in a fit of English indignation at such a return for hospitality caught him by neck and belt and hurled him bodily from the prostrate Ouenwa. Wolf Slayer alighted on his feet, snatched open the door (which he had left ajar), and fled into the darkness.
A morning of late May brought a friendly native to Fort Beatrix, with word that three English ships were in Wigwam Harbour. Then Ouenwa and Tom Bent made the journey and returned, in due season, with the welcome news that one of the vessels was the Heart of the West.
Both the new boats and the old Pelican were made ready for the expedition. Kingswell commanded the Pelican, with Ouenwa and six natives for crew. Tom Bent was put in charge of the second boat, and Black Feather of the third. William Trigget and Donnelly were left to see that no harm came to Mistress Westleigh—and, as the boats stole down-stream, in the gray of the dawn, William Trigget treasured in his hand a duly witnessed document, in which Bernard Kingswell, gentleman, of Bristol, bequeathed and willed all his earthly goods to Beatrix Westleigh, spinster, of Fort Beatrix, in the Newfounde Land, and late of Beverly and Randon, in Somersetshire, England.
The parting between Beatrix and her lover had been a fond one, but the man had noticed (and in his heart regretted) the fortitude with which she bade him farewell and godspeed. He worried about it in his sleep, and again, as he looked longingly at her cabin in the bleak dawn. He tried to comfort himself with memories of a hundred incidents that placed the sincerity of her love beyond a shadow of doubt. But, for all that, she might have shed a few tears. Surely she realized the chances of danger?—the risk he was running, for her sake? Love is edged and barbed by just such little and unreasonable questionings.
A white mist wreathed along the surface of Gray Goose River when the three boats swung down with the current. The Beothics were armed with English knives. There were no firearms aboard any of the little vessels. Kingswell and Ouenwa had swords at their belts, and Spanish daggers for their left hands. Tom Bent was armed with his oft-proved cutlass.
The sun did not get above the horizon until the little fleet was clear of the river's mouth. There a breath of wind sighed through the cordage, and the sails flapped up and rounded softly. Kingswell leaned forward and looked under the square canvas of the Pelican's big wing.
"An extra man," he remarked to Ouenwa, sharply. "Who has taken it upon himself to improve on my orders?"
A blanket-swathed figure, forward of the mast, turned and crawled aft. Then the blanket fell away, and Mistress Westleigh, rigged out in an amazing mixture of masculine and feminine attire, laughed up at the commander.
"Promise to shield me from the wrath of Maggie Stone, when we go back," she whispered, in mock concern.
For a moment Bernard stared, with wonder and embarrassment in his eyes, the while Ouenwa hid a smile. Then he doffed his hat and caught the queer figure to his knee; and in the flush of the morning, under the grave regard of the Beothic warriors, he kissed her on lips and brow.
"What authority has Maggie Stone?" he cried. "If any one has a right to control your actions, surely it is I."
She slipped to the seat beside him. "And you told me I could not accompany you—that it would not be safe," she replied.
"Ay, but it was my duty to bid you remain behind," he said. "God knows it hurt me to refuse your so—so flattering a wish. But you accepted it calmly, dear heart."
"I accepted it for what it was worth," she laughed. "I could not shed tears over a parting which I felt certain was not to take place." Her face changed quickly from merriment to gravity. "I could not have stayed in the fort without you," she whispered. "Dear lad, I am afraid to death whenever you are out of my sight. I do believe this love has made a coward of me!"
For a little while there was no sound aboard the Pelican save the tapping of the reef-points on the swelling breast of the sail, and the slow creak of the tiller. Ouenwa, leaning far to one side, gazed ahead, while the warriors crouched on the thwarts. Then the man stooped his head close to the girl's.
"But on this trip," he whispered, "you must obey me—for both our sakes, dearest. It would be mutiny else."
"I shall always obey you," she replied—"always, always—so long as you do not again leave me alone in Fort Beatrix."
"William Trigget was there," he ventured. "And Maggie Stone."
She laughed at that. "Poor Maggie!" she sighed. "Poor Maggie! She will rate me soundly for my boldness. She has ever a thousand discourses on the proprieties ready on the tip of her tongue."
"Ah, the proprieties," murmured Bernard, as if caught by a new and somewhat disconcerting idea. "Rip me, but I've never given them a thought!"
Beatrix laughed delightedly. "You must not let them trouble you now," she said. "When we get back to Bristol, I will guard myself with a dozen staid companions, and—" She paused, and blushed crimson. "I forget that I am penniless," she added.
Kingswell's left hand closed over hers where it lay in her lap. "How long, think you, shall you stand in need of chaperons in Bristol?" he asked.
The three boats sought shelter in a tiny, hidden bay, and Kingswell, Mistress Westleigh, Ouenwa, and Tom Bent made an overland trip to a wooded hill overlooking Wigwam Harbour. There lay the Heart of the West, close in at her old anchorage after the day's fishing. Work was going briskly forward on the stages at the edge of the tide. The other vessels, which were much smaller than Trowley's command, lay nearer the mouth of the river harbour. The declining sun stained spars and furled sails to a rosy tint above the green water.
"Hark!" whispered Kingswell, touching the girl's arm, as she crouched beside him in the fringe of spruces.
A bellowing voice, loud and harsh in abuse, reached their ears.
"'Tis Trowley," he said, and chuckled. "How will he sound to-night, I wonder?"
"You will not be rash, Bernard,—for my sake," pleaded the girl.
He assured her that he would be discreet.
It was dark when they got back to the little cove in which the boats were beached. About midnight, with no light save the vague illumination of the scattered stars, they rowed out with muffled oars. They moved with such caution that it took them two hours to reach Wigwam Harbour. They passed the outer ships unchallenged. Then Beatrix was transferred from the Pelican to Black Feather's boat, and Tom Bent joined the commander. A veil of drifting cloud shut out even such feeble light as had disclosed the course to the voyagers. Before them the Heart of the West loomed dark, a thing of massed shadows and a few yellow lights.
The new-built boats lay about thirty yards aft and seaward of the ship. The Pelican stole in under the looming stern, with no more noise than a fish makes when he breaches in shallow water. The crew steadied her beside the groaning rudder with their hands. Kingswell stood on a thwart and peered in at the cabin window, as Ouenwa had peered on a night of the preceding season. The low, oak-ceiled room was empty. A lantern hung from the starboard bulkhead, and two candles, in silver sticks that bore the Kingswell crest, burned, with bending flames, on the table. On the locker under the lantern lay a cutlass in its sheath, and a boat-cloak in an untidy heap. The edge of the table was within two feet of the square stern-window.
For a little while Kingswell listened with guarded breath. Then, swiftly and lightly, he pulled himself across the ledge of the window, scrambled through, and crouched behind the table. Very cautiously he drew his rapier with his right hand and his dagger with his left. For a minute or two he squatted in the narrow quarters, breathing regularly and deeply, and harkening to the innumerable creaking voices of the decks and bulkheads, and the muffled voices and laughter from forward. For the occasion he had donned the hat, coat, breeches, and boots—all now stained and faded—in which Master Trowley had last seen him.
Suddenly a heavy, uncertain step sounded on the companion ladder just forward of the cabin door. A volley of stout Devonshire oaths boomed above the lesser sounds. The door flew open, smote the bulkhead with a resounding crack, and swung, trembling. The bulky figure of Trowley entered, and the heady voice of the old sea-dog cursed the door, and big, red hands slammed it shut again. Kingswell drew a deep breath, and composed his dancing nerves and galloping blood as best he could. His emotions were disconcertingly mixed.
The masterful old pirate (for such he surely was, deny the charge if you like) seemed to fill the cabin to overflowing with his lurching, great body. He tossed boat-cloak and cutlass on the deck, and yanked up the top of the locker. With muttered revilings at the excessive cost of West Indies rum, he produced a bottle of no mean capacity from its hiding-place, and a fine glass sparkled in the candle-light like diamonds. Kingswell recognized the glass as one from which he had often drunk his grog—a rare piece from his house in Bristol. Those articles the mariner placed on the table, scarcely a foot from the watcher's head. Next he loaded himself a china pipe with black tobacco, and lit it at one of the candles. In doing so, Master Bernard heard the puffings and gruntings with which the deed was accomplished, like half a gale in his ear. At last the fellow sat down with a thud, squared his elbows on the table, gazed for a second at the square window that opened on to the mysterious gloom of the night, and tipped the bottle. The liquor gulped and gurgled in its passage to the glass. The reek of it permeated the air.
"Dang it," grumbled the mariner, "d'ye call this rum! Sink me, but it be half water!"
However, he swallowed the dose with gusto, and smacked his lips at the end of it as he never would have after a draught of water.
Very steadily and quietly Bernard Kingswell arose to his feet and looked down at Master Trowley with inscrutable eyes shadowed by his wide, stained hat. The silence that followed lasted only a few seconds, but to the staring mariner it seemed a matter of hours. He sprawled on his low stool, open-mouthed, red-eyed, with his big hands nerveless on the table, and the lighted pipe unheeded at his feet.
"Traitor!" said Kingswell, coldly; and leaning across the table he tweaked the purple tip of Trowley's nose between thumb and finger. To do so, he laid his dagger on the edge of the mahogany for a second. The indignity called forth no more than a gurgle of terror from the master mariner. Kingswell plucked up the thin blade and flashed it within an inch of the whiskered face. Still the fellow sagged on his stool, unable to stir a muscle. Kingswell whistled three low notes. Ouenwa crawled through the port, with a coil of light rope in his hand. Tom Bent followed. Trowley threw off the spell of the supposed ghostly visitation and got to his feet with a bellow of rage and fear. In an instant he was flat on his back, with a gagging hand across his mouth and another at his throat. He was soon bound hand and foot, and securely gagged with a strip of his own boat-cloak.
Ouenwa stuck his head through the open port, and whispered a word or two. One by one, four of his braves entered, with their knives unsheathed. Kingswell motioned them to follow, and softly opened the cabin door. On the port side of the alley-way, beside the companion ladder, Trowley's mate lay asleep in his bunk. Kingswell bent over him and saw that he was a stranger. He nodded significantly; and in an amazingly short time the mate of the Heart of the West was as neatly trussed up as the master.
Fifteen minutes later, Tom Bent hung over the rail, aft, and waved a lantern in three half-circles. And not long after that, Mistress Westleigh, Master Kingswell, and Ouenwa filled glasses with Canary wine, in the cabin of the Heart of the West. In the waist of the ship the stout English sailors and the skin-clad Beothics drained their pannikins, and eyed each other with good-natured curiosity. Old Tom Bent was toast-master; and also he told them an amazing story.
Shortly before midnight, Tom Bent went quietly about the task of waking both watches and the Beothics. The three boats from Fort Beatrix were manned, with the muffling oars. The two small anchors by which the Heart of the West swung in the tide were fished into two of the boats by hand. It was a tough job; but, when it was accomplished, the ship was free without so much as a clank of cable or a turn of the noisy capstan. Hawsers were passed from the small craft over the bows of the ship, and at a signal from a lantern in Kingswell's hand, the men bent their backs to the oars. Then all lights aboard the Heart of the West were covered, and in the darkness, beside the great tiller, Kingswell caught his inspiration and his reward to his heart again.
The girl did not leave the commander's side, but kept watch on the high poop-deck throughout the journey. Until dawn the rowers held to their toil, and after them, drawn by lines that were sometimes taut and sometimes under water, but always invisible in the darkness, the ship stole like a shape of cloud and dream. It was hard work, and slow. With the breaking of dawn, the leviathan took on signs of life. By that time she was hidden from Wigwam Harbour by more than one bluff headland. The pulling boats drifted to her bows, the capstan was manned, and the anchors were lifted to their places on the forecast rail. Headsails were set, and the square mizzen was run up. The boats dropped astern and were made fast, and the weary men climbed aboard the ship.
All day the Heart of the West threaded the green waterways of the great Bay of Exploits. A light and favourable breeze lent itself to the venture. After the midday meal, Beatrix, wrapped in a blanket, lay down by the mizzen and fell asleep. She was tired. The easy motion of the ship, and the song of the wind in ropes and canvas, sank her fathoms deep in slumber, with the magic of a fairy lullaby. Kingswell rigged a piece of sail-cloth from the bulwarks to the mast to shade her face from the sun.
At last the wide estuary, which ends in Gray Goose River, was reached. By sunset the mouth of the river was entered. Just then the wind failed. The boats were manned again, and the ship taken in tow.
Still Mistress Westleigh slumbered peacefully, with the rough blanket about her dainty body and her head pillowed on Kingswell's folded coat. Kneeling beside her, Kingswell peered under the shelter of canvas, and saw that she was smiling in her dreams. How white were her dropped eyelids, and how clear and rose-tinted her small face. Her lips were parted a little, as if to whisper some sweet secret. A strand of her bright, dark hair was across her forehead, and one arm, clear of the blanket and the deerskin on which she lay, rested on the deck. The rosy palm was upturned. Kingswell stooped lower and kissed it softly. Standing up, he found Tom Bent beside him. The mahogany-hued mariner grinned sheepishly, and gave a hitch to his belt.
"Beggin' the lady's pardon," he whispered, "but, if the angels in heaven be half so sweet to look at as herself, I'm for going to heaven, in spite o' the devil. Sink me, but I'd play one o' they golden harps with a light heart if—if the equals of herself were a-listenin' on the quarter-deck."
Kingswell blushed and smiled. "You, too?" said he. "You are in love, Tom Bent."
"Ay, sir," replied the boatswain, "for it can't be helped. I'm in love and awash, and danged near to sinkin'. Might as well expect a man to keep sober in the 'Powdered Admiral' on Bristol dock as within ten knots, to win'ward or lee'ard, o' your sweetheart, sir."
"I agree with you," replied the gentleman, bowing gravely.
Tom Bent pulled his scant forelock, and rolled away about his duty. He was mightily pleased with himself at having expressed his admiration for his young commander's choice in such felicitous terms. He prided himself on his eye for feminine beauty, no matter what the race or the rank of the fair one,—and a fairer than Mistress Westleigh he swore by all the gods of the Seven Seas he had never laid eyes on.
The long spring twilight was gathering into dusk when the toiling boats and the tall ship rounded the point, and opened the fort to the view of the daring cruisers. Directly in front of the stockade the anchors plunged into the brown current. The rattle of the cables through the hawse-holes awoke Beatrix. She had been dreaming of a great garden in Somerset, and of walking along box-hedged paths with her father on one side and her lover on the other. Opening her eyes upon the canvas shelter which Kingswell had spread above her, and with the clangour of the running cables in her ears, for a second she did not know where she was. A vague fear oppressed her for a little. Then she recalled the incidents of the last two days, and was about to crawl from her resting-place, when the edge of the shelter was lifted, and Kingswell looked down at her.
"Wake up," he said. "We are at the fort, and Trigget and Maggie Stone are coming off in a canoe."
"Nay, then I'll stay here until you explain matters," she replied. "You must bear the brunt of Maggie Stone's displeasure for my sake." She sat up, laughing softly, and lifted her face in a way that only a dunce could fail to comprehend. Under cover of the strip of sail-cloth, he kissed the warm lips and the bright hair.
"Trust me," he laughed; and at that moment Trigget and the servant climbed to the poop by way of the ladder from the ship's waist. He advanced to meet them. He saw that Trigget held a folded paper in his hand, and that the honest eyes of that bold mariner were red and moist.
"What is it?" he inquired; for he had entirely forgotten, for the time being, the manner of Mistress Westleigh's joining with the expedition.
"Here be your will, sir," said Trigget, handing him the paper. "It—it—well, maybe it'll not be o' any use now."
"Of course not," replied Kingswell, cheerfully, tearing it across.
Maggie Stone burst into tears. "Jus' the way Sir Ralph went," she sobbed. "Oh, my beautiful little lady—an' her fit mate for any nobleman of London town!"
"What the devil do you mean?" cried Kingswell. Then the truth dawned in his preoccupied brain. "Dry your eyes," he said. "She is safe and sound."
"Thank God for that," exclaimed William Trigget, devoutly.
"What—the mistress be safe, d'ye say?" cried Maggie Stone, with a sudden change of face.
Kingswell nodded curtly. He did not like being bawled at on the poop of his recaptured ship, even by an old serving maid. "Your mistress is safe—and in my care," he said.
"Indeed, sir?" she queried. "An' may I make so bold as to ax when ye married Sir Ralph Westleigh's daughter?"
William Trigget murmured something to the effect that his presence was required forward, and took his departure. Kingswell bit his lip and stared haughtily at the woman; but he was at a loss for words fully expressive of his feelings. His indignation brought a flush to his cheeks which even the dusk of evening could not hide.
"Ye may well redden," cried Maggie Stone. "Ay, ye may well redden, after sailin' away with an unprotected lass, an' near terrifyin' her old nurse into fits."
The gentleman recovered his power of speech. "My good girl," he said (and she was a full twenty years older than his mother), "your joy at hearing of your mistress's safety takes a wondrous queer and unseemly way of expressing itself. You seem to forget that you, the lady's servant, are addressing the lady's betrothed husband."
The old maid glared and drew her scanty skirts about her.
"Maybe so," she retorted. "'Twould never have happened in Somerset."
At that moment Mistress Beatrix appeared suddenly from the other side of the mizzen.
"How dare you!" she cried. "How dare you speak so to Master Kingswell!"
Anger—quick, scathing anger—rang in her voice. Standing there in her short skirt, high, beaded moccasins, and blue cloth jacket, she looked like an indignant boy, save for her coiled hair and bright beauty.
"I am ashamed of you," she added; and then, turning quickly, she flung herself into Kingswell's ever ready embrace.
Maggie Stone was flustered and somewhat awed by the sudden attack. She had not been spoken to so for years and years. Would she resort to tears again, or would she answer back? She was jealous of the girl's love for Kingswell—and yet she had thanked God many times that that love had been won by the young Englishman instead of by the swarthy D'Antons. She sniffed, and mopped her eyes with the back of her hand. Then she changed her mind and bridled.
"What would the countess, your aunt, say to such behaviour?" she asked. "Her who watched over ye like a guardian angel in London town."
Beatrix turned, and, still holding her lover's hands, faced the carping critic.
"And who turned me out of her house at the last of it," she cried, scornfully. "Who is she, or who was she ever, to question my behaviour? And who are you, woman, to insult your mistress and the gentleman who saved you from the knives of the savages? Go back to the fort."
Maggie Stone saw that she had made a serious mistake,—a mistake which, perhaps, would alienate the lady's affection for ever. She turned, a pitiable figure, and made to descend the steep ladder which stood close to the starboard side of the ship, and led to the waist. Her foot caught in a loop of rope that had not been properly stopped up to its belaying-pin. She lurched against the line that ran from the break of the poop to the bulwarks below, made a blind effort to right herself, and pitched over into the shadowed water below. She did not even scream.
Kingswell dropped his sweetheart's hands, ran to the side and jumped after the foolish old woman. By that time the twilight had left the river. The current carried him swiftly down-stream, close under the side of the ship. The water was uncomfortably cold, and his thick clothes dragged at his limbs. He cleared his hair from his eyes. A disturbance appeared on the surface of the stream a few yards ahead. With a quick stroke or two, he reached it, and caught Maggie Stone by a thin shoulder. She struggled desperately, mad with fright. Both were pulled over the gunwale of the Pelican not a moment too soon.
It is difficult to imagine the feelings of the skippers and crews of the good ship Plover and Mary and Joyce, when the gray light of dawn disclosed the fact that the Heart of the West had vanished completely. What a rubbing of eyes must have taken place! What a dropping of whiskered jaws and ripping of sea oaths!
"Sunk," said one heavy-shouldered mariner.
"Then where be her spars?" inquired a messmate.
"Cut an' run," suggested another.
"Then the devil must have been after her! Ol' Trowley'd run from nothin' else," replied the cook of the Plover.
The captain of the Mary and Joyce scanned the inner harbour and what he could see of the outer bay. Then he turned his brass telescope upon the cliffs and hills and inland woods.
"Maybe the French has towed mun out," he said at last.
No fishing was done that day. The neighbouring bays and coves were searched, and even the "River of Three Fires" was investigated, with a deal of trouble, for several miles up its swift current. That night the skippers of the two vessels decided, over several hot glasses, that Wigwam Harbour was no safe place for honest English sailor men. Next morning found them sailing northward in search of another haven from which to reap the harvest of the great bay.
To Fort Beatrix journeyed all the Beothics from many miles around, for a great trade was going on. Influenced by Maggie Stone's foolish outbreak, Beatrix and Bernard had decided to seek a priest in the port of St. John's on their way to England, and so cross the ocean as man and wife, to the bitter chagrin of Bristol scandal-mongers. Though the idea had not occurred to either of the lovers before the old woman's outcry in the name of suffering propriety, it was none the less to their liking now that they had accepted it.
"And it will please poor Maggie Stone," said the girl.
"I was not thinking of her," replied Kingswell, lifting the glowing face to his by a hand beneath the rounded chin.
"Nor I, dear heart," she replied.
To the others of that wilderness the trading seemed a greater matter than that romantic attachment of a man and a maid. Blankets, trinkets, inferior weapons, and even the spare clothing of the settlers were bartered for pelts of beaver, mink, marten, otter, musquash, and red, patched, and black fox, to make up a cargo for the Heart of the West. The price of an axe-head was twice its weight in beaver skins. Even Maggie Stone, with an eye to adding to her nest-egg, traded a skillet (the identical implement with which she had floored D'Antons) for a beautiful foxskin. Only Trowley had no finger in the trading. Sullen and silent, he wandered about the fort, and a few paces behind him a brawny Beothic always stalked.
The storehouse of the fort was replenished from the well-stocked pantries and lazaret of the ship. Kingswell smiled grimly when, during the overhauling of the cabin lockers, he discovered choice wines, cheeses, and pots of jam which his lady mother had given to Master Trowley as a slight mark of her gratitude for his services to her son. He forced an admittance of these things from the old rascal himself. It had been as he had hinted to Beatrix. The fellow had told the tearful and credulous lady that he had risked his life in her son's defence, during an engagement with the savages; and she, grateful heart, had made such an unbusiness-like agreement with him for the sailing of the ship that, had the voyage run its anticipated course, even a full load of fish would not have saved her from a shrewd loss. Happily for Trowley, Master Kingswell was far too happy for such trivial matters to really anger him.
"The old rogue staked his soul and lost on the last throw," he said to Beatrix, "and I staked my heart, and won all that the world holds of joy. Surely I should be a low fellow to add to his misfortunes, poor devil. I can afford to be charitable now."
They were seated on the grassy edge of the river meadow, looking out at the anchored ship, where sailors were repairing the rigging and scraping the spars. The girl did not seem keenly interested in Trowley's underhand behaviour to Dame Kingswell. As to his treachery toward Kingswell, to tell the truth, she was very grateful to the old thief for having sailed away and left her lover in the wilderness. Such thoughts flitted pleasantly through her mind.
"When did you stake your heart?" she asked, as if that were the core of the whole thing.
"I cannot tell you the date exactly," replied Kingswell, "but I was in Pierre d'Antons' company at the time, and—and I was mightily surprised to find Somersetshire people in this country. Lord, but your eyes were bright."
"Do you mean that you—do you mean that it happened on the first day of your arrival at the fort?" she queried.
"Surely," said he.
"And you loved me then?"
He nodded, smiling across toward the busy mariners in the rigging of his ship. His memories of those perilous days were fragrant as an English rose-garden.
"Do you know," she whispered, "that, though I felt sure I had made an impression on you then, I began to doubt it later. You were so self-satisfied that you shook my faith in my own powers to charm."
He laughed softly, and with a note of wonder. Then, for a little while, they were silent.
"Tell me," she said, suddenly. "Did you really love me that first day you came to the fort, or was it just—just surprise at seeing a—a civilized girl in so forsaken a place?"
He considered the question gravely and at some length. "I wanted to kill D'Antons," he answered, presently, "and I would gladly have given ten years of my life for a kiss from your lips, a caress from your hands. Was that love, think you?"
"I should call it a right hopeful beginning," she replied, brightly; but tears which she could not explain shone in her eyes. Across the hurrying water drifted the song of the men at work upon the tall masts of the Heart of the West.
"In a week's time," said Kingswell, "she will fill her sails for St. John's—and then for home."
The girl nestled closer to his side. Looking down, he saw that she was weeping.
"God grant that we find a parson in that harbour," he added. She nodded, and choked with a sob she could not stifle.
"Why do you weep, dearest?" he asked.
"For those whom we must leave behind," she whispered.
He had no answer to make to that. Together they looked beyond the anchored ship and the bright river to the inscrutable wilderness that held the fate of the mad baronet so securely.
At nine o'clock of the morning of the twenty-second day of June, the bow of the Heart of the West was towed around and pointed down-stream by willing boats and canoes; a light wind filled such sails as were set, and the voyage was begun. Trigget fired a salute from a new gun which Kingswell had given him from the armament of the ship. It was answered by the barking of cannon and the fluttering of sails.
Ouenwa stood with Mistress Westleigh, Kingswell, and Maggie Stone, aft by the tiller, which was in the hands of Tom Bent. The lad was fairly wild with excitement. Now, it seemed to him, his great dreams were assured; and yet a pang of homesickness went through the joy like the blade of a knife, as he watched the faces of the clustered people along the meadow and in the boats grow dim,—the faces of William Trigget and Black Feather, and of a dozen more who were dear to him. He shouted back to them in English and in his native tongue, and waved his cap frantically. The faces blurred and wavered. The ship swam around the wooded point, and meadow and stockade and camp of wigwams vanished like a picture withdrawn. The lad turned and glanced at Mistress Westleigh. Then he walked forward to the break of the poop, and blinked very hard at nothing in particular in the belly of the maintopsail.
Soon the wooded banks fell away on either side, and the water changed its tint of amber for wind-roughened green. The gray, purple, and brown shores of the roadstead widened and dropped lower, and azure uplands shone beyond their frowning brows. The wind freshened, and white flakes of foam whipped from crest to crest across the ever-shifting, ever-vanishing valleys of green. Along the fading cliffs white sea-birds circled and settled like flakes of snow. A few great gulls winged around the ship, fleeing to leeward like bolts of mist, and beating up again with quivering pinions.
Kingswell had taken the duties of sailing-master upon himself. He was as good a deep-sea navigator as any man on the whole width of the North Atlantic. When the outer bay was reached, yards were swung around, and the stout bark headed due east at his orders. To see old Tom Bent push the tiller over, and other seasoned mariners man brace and sheet, at the command of that gold-haired youth, made the heart of Beatrix Westleigh flutter with pride. Her dark eyes, already bright and lovely beyond power of description, shone yet more brightly; and her cheeks, already flushed to clear flame by the wind, deepened their glow. As the ship answered to his will, so would he answer to her whim. It was a pleasant reflection to the lady; and to realize it she called softly. Without a glance at the straining sails, he turned and hastened to her side.
The voyage from Fort Beatrix to the wonderful harbour and brave little town of St. John's was made without accident, though not without incident. In Bonavista Bay, at a gray hour of the morning, the stump of a great iceberg was narrowly avoided. A day later, a large vessel that was evidently employed at fishing evinced an undesirable interest in the business of the Heart of the West. She was not a quarter of a mile distant when first sighted, for a light fog was on the water. She flew no flag, and changed her course and altered her speed with sinister promptness. Kingswell, and every man of the ship's company, knew that pirates of many nationalities infested those waters during summer. The worst of the thieves were Turks; and the fishing-ship or store-ship that was overhauled by those gentry usually lost more than its cargo. Frenchmen, Englishmen, and Spaniards also had a weakness for playing the part of the bald eagle, with their heavy metalled and wide-sailed craft, to the rôle of the fishhawk so unwillingly played by the merchantmen. Happily for Kingswell's command, the stranger was inshore and to leeward. Both watches were piped up by Tom Bent. The gunners went to their quarters. Sail after sail unfurled about the already straining masts and yards. The brave little ship answered willingly to the pressure, and her cutwater broke the flanks of the waves into sibilant foam.
A rumour of the chase reached Mistress Beatrix and her old maid, in the seclusion of that snug cabin in which Master Trowley was, at one time, wont to revel. Maggie Stone drew the curtains across the thick glass of the after-port (as if fearing that the eagle glance of one of the pirates might pierce the privacy of her retreat), and then devoted herself to tearful prayer. Beatrix completed her toilet, threw a cloak over her shoulders, and climbed the companion. She joined Kingswell by the tiller, and, after saluting him tenderly and with a composure that took no heed of the sailor at the helm, watched the chase with interest.
"They outsail us," she said, presently.
Kingswell nodded. "But she'll never get near us on that course," he replied. "She is for heading us off, and getting to windward. If she gets to windward of us—Lord, but I scarce think she will."
He said a word of preparation to the man at the tiller, and then gave a few quick orders from the break of the poop. In half a minute the Heart of the West headed out on an easy tack. When every sail was drawing to his liking, he returned to the girl.
"How glorious!" she cried. "A good horse, a singing pack, and an old fox make but slow sport compared to this."
"We are the fox on this hunting morning," smiled Kingswell.
"With teeth," she hinted.
He noticed that the unwelcome stranger was shouldering the wind on the new course. He looked at the girl.
"Ay, we have teeth, sweeting," he said, "and soon we'll be gnashing them."
Though the Heart of the West sailed well, to windward, the big craft astern sailed even better. The ships, crowded with canvas, the dancing blue water and cloudless sky, and the brown and azure coast to leeward, made a fine picture under the white sun. As the stranger drew near and nearer, excitement increased aboard the merchantman. Old Trowley bawled to be set free, that he might not die in the sail-locker like a rat in a hole. Tom Bent spat on his hard hands, and pulled his belt an inch shorter. Ouenwa lugged up shot and powder, and was for opening fire at an impossible range. Beatrix roused Maggie Stone from her devotions, and took her forward to a place of greater safety in the men's quarters.
Along either side of the after-cabin of the Heart of the West ran a narrow passage. Each passage ended in a blind port, and behind each port crouched a gun of unusual size for so peaceful an appearing ship. Now Kingswell blessed the day that a youthful love of warlike gear and a heart for adventure had led him to add these pieces to the armament of his ship. He remembered, with a contented smile, how Master Trowley had growled at the delay caused by getting the great guns aboard and partitioning off the passage. Even his mother had urged him to put more faith in the great ship which the king was so gracious as to send to Newfounde Land each spring, as a convoy to the fishing fleet. But Master Bernard, spoiled child, had had his way; and now he thanked the gods of war for it.
Both ships sailed as close to the wind as their models and rigging and the laws of nature would allow. They went about often on ever shortening tacks. The hunter outsailed the hunted, though it is safe to say that her seamanship was no better. Suddenly she luffed until her sails quivered, and from her bows broke two puffs of smoke with inner cores of flame. Both shots flew high, and fell ahead of the quarry in brief spouts of torn water. At that, the blind ports in the stern of the merchantman opened up, and the sinister muzzles of the guns were run out with a gust of English cheering. Then their sudden voices boomed defiance, and the smoke rolled along the water and clung to the leaping waves.
Kingswell felt the deck jump under his feet. His pulses leaped with the good planks. "Hit!" he cried—and sure enough, one of the enemy's upper spars, with its burden of flapping canvas, tottered desperately, and then swooped down on the clustered buccaneers beneath. Half an hour later the Heart of the West was spinning along on her old course, and far astern the stranger lay to and nursed her wound.
Three days later, at high noon, the Narrows opened in the sheer brown face of the cliffs, and the people of the Heart of the West caught a glimpse of the harbour and the shipping beyond. Then the rocky portals seemed to close, and the spray flew like smoke along the unbroken ramparts. The ship was put about, and again the magic entrance opened and shut.
"I knows the channel, sir," said Tom Bent. "Ye needn't wait for no duff-headed pilot."
So the stout ship went 'round again, with a brisk shouting of men at the braces and a booming of canvas aloft. Her colours flew bravely in the sunlight, answering the colours of the fort and the battery on Signal Hill. She raced at the towering cliff as if she would try to overthrow it with her cocked-up bowsprit. Even Kingswell caught his breath. Beatrix looked away, so fearful was the sight of the unbroken rock that seemed to swim toward them with a voice of thunder and the smoking surf along its foot. Ouenwa wondered if Tom Bent were mad. But the boatswain gripped the big tiller, and squinted under the yards, and cocked an eye aloft at the flags and men on the cliff. Then, of a sudden, the narrow passage of green water, spray-fringed, opened under their bows, and the walls of rock slid aside and let them in.
The Heart of the West was boarded by a lieutenant of infantry, inside the Narrows, and was quickly piloted to a berth on the north side of the great harbour, where her anchors were merrily let go. The lieutenant welcomed Master Kingswell in the governor's name, and vowed to Mistress Westleigh that the old shellback (with so little respect will a subaltern sometimes speak of his superior into safe ears) would never have allowed his gout to keep him ashore had he guessed that the new arrival carried such a passenger.
"But his Excellency is a sailor," he added, "so, after all, he'd blink his old eyes at you unmoved. These sailors, ecod, are not the worshippers of beauty that the poets would have us believe."
He bowed again, very fine in his new uniform and powdered hair. Beatrix shot a glance at Kingswell, who seemed in no wise conscious of the dimness of his own attire and the rents in the silk facings of his coat. Then she smiled upon the soldier.
"Both the army and navy have my esteem," she said, "but my particular fancy is for the Church."
The lieutenant seemed overwhelmed. "Say you so?" he cried. "And to think, mistress, that I refused to take Holy Orders, despite the combined persuasion of both my parents and my uncle, the Bishop of Bath. Stab me, but why did not my heart give me a hint of your preference?"
"Perhaps you have a parson ashore," suggested Kingswell.
"Ay, we have a parson—a ranting old missionary," replied the lieutenant.
"He'll serve my turn," said Beatrix, "so long as he can read the marriage service."
"Ay, he'll serve our turn," said Kingswell.
The soldier sighed, and smiled whimsically from the one to the other. He was not much older than Bernard Kingswell, and of a pleasant, boyish countenance.
"You have a story," he said, "with which I hope you will honour us in the governor's house. A brave tale, too, I'll stake my sword." He smiled good-naturedly at Master Kingswell. "But d'ye know," he added, gazing at Mistress Westleigh, "I had quite set my heart on it that you two were brother and sister."
The governor received them in his best coat, with one foot in a boot, and the other swathed to the bulk of a soldier's knapsack. His face was of the tint of russet leather, and, roughened by many inclement winds and darkened by high living. His voice was of a rancorous quality, as if he had frayed it by too much shouting through fogs and against gales. His hands were big, knotted, and tremulous, and his eyes not unlike those of a new-jigged codfish. Altogether he was a figure of a man for his place as king's representative. He led Mistress Beatrix to a chair with such grace as he could command, and presented a ponderous snuff-box to Master Kingswell. Then he called for refreshments. The lieutenant made himself at home beside the lady, and waited upon her with wine and cakes. When the servants were gone and the door closed, Kingswell stated his name and degree.
"Let me shake your hand again, young sir," cried his Excellency, extending an unsteady hand. "Your honoured father dined and wined me more than once in his great house in Bristol,—ay, and treated the poor sailor like a peer of the realm."
Kingswell leaned sideways in his chair and gave a brief account of Sir Ralph Westleigh's and Mistress Westleigh's sojourn in the wilderness, and of the baronet's death. He did not mention the fact that the fort was still inhabited, nor did he give a very definite idea of its whereabouts. It was well to be cautious in regard to unchartered plantations in those days of greedy fishermen. He mentioned the brief engagement with the buccaneer. He told of his betrothal to Mistress Westleigh, and of their anxiety to be married immediately. The governor was deeply affected by the story of Sir Ralph Westleigh's last days. He murmured an oath. "And the day was," he said, "that not a duke in England was more looked up to than that same baronet of Somerset. Well do I recall the pride that inflated me when Lady Westleigh—ay, the young lady's mother—bowed to me in Hyde Park. Only once had she met me, and that in a crush to which I'd been invited through my commander. And she was as beautiful as she was gracious, sir. 'Twas after her death that Sir Ralph threw over his ballast, poor devil."
Kingswell nodded, and remembered the winter of alarms and loneliness.
"They were bitter years for the daughter," he said, softly. "Motherless, and with a father whom she loved letting slip his old pride and honour day by day, she shared his downfall and his exile with fortitude, sir, I can assure you."
"Ay, as became her brave beauty," replied the governor, with a gleam in his staring eyes.
Now fate would have it at that time the only divine in the great island, the Reverend Thomas Aldrich, M. A., was away from the little town of St. John's, on a preaching tour among the English fishermen in Conception Bay. He might be back in a day's time; he was more likely not to return within the week.
"In the meantime," said the honest governor, "my house is at Mistress Westleigh's service. Let her send for her maid and her boxes. My good housekeeper will tidy up the best chamber. Gad, Master Kingswell, but we'll cheer this God-forsaken, French-pestered hole in the rock with a touch of gaiety."
His Excellency's hospitality was accepted, and for eight days the little settlement gave itself over to merrymaking. There were dances in the governor's house every night, at which Beatrix was the only lady. There were great dinners, during which Beatrix sat on his Excellency's right and Kingswell on his left. There were inspections of the fort, boating parties on the harbour, and outings among the woods and natural gardens that graced the valley at the head of the beautiful basin.
The beauty and graciousness of Mistress Westleigh, and the knowledge of her loyalty to her father, and her bravery won the heart of that rude village. From the governor to the youngest sailor lad, every man in the harbour was her humble and devoted servant.
Before the kindly soldiers and merchants and adventurers, she was always merry. The main street along the water-front took on a light of distant England did she but appear in it for a minute. The three officers of the garrison swore that they preferred it to the most fashionable promenade on London. But, alone, or with her lover, she eased, with tears, the grief for her father's fate, which all the junketing and gaiety but seemed to uncover.
On the eighth day after the arrival of the Heart of the West in the harbour of St. John's, the parson returned from his preaching among the boisterous fishing-ships in Conception Bay. He shook his head at the state in which he found his home flock; for he was of that gloomy persuasion known as low church, and held little with frivolity. But, after meeting Beatrix, he thawed, and even went so far as to attempt a pun on his willingness to marry her. The sally of wit was received by the lady with so lovely a smile that the divine forgot his austerity so far as to poke Kingswell in the ribs, and call him a sly dog.
The ceremony took place in the little church behind the governor's house; and, after it was over, his Excellency, the parson, the officers of the garrison, the merchants, the captains of the ships, and many more, accompanied the happy couple aboard the Heart of the West, where sound wines were drunk by the quality, and rum and beer by the commonalty. All the shipping, the premises of the merchants, and the forts flew bunting, as if for a demonstration to royalty itself. At noon farewells were said, and a dozen willing boats towed the Heart of the West down the harbour and through the Narrows.
The wilderness, that grim thing of naked rock, brown barren, gray marsh, and black wood, which had claimed the mad baronet so surely, was unable to keep Pierre d'Antons in its spacious prison. With the return of summer, the dark adventurer and the Beothic girl deserted their inland retreat, and set out for a certain grim cape which thrusts far into the Atlantic. The crown of that cape affords an uninterrupted view to seaward and north and south across the waters of two great bays. A fire at night, or a column of smoke in the day, glowing or streaming upward from that vantage place, would be sighted from the deck of a passing ship at a distance of many miles.
The journey proved a long and trying one, through swamps and barrens, and over rock-tumbled knolls. Streams were forded, lakes circumambulated, and rivers crossed on insecure rafts. Through it all, the native girl, Miwandi, kept a brave heart and bright face. D'Antons, however, was preoccupied in his manner, and even gloomy at times. The hardships of that wild existence had begun to tell on his body, and the loneliness to fret his nerves. His infatuation for Mistress Westleigh had dimmed and faded out altogether, leaving only a mean desire for the salve of revenge with which to soothe his injured pride. He would wound her through Kingswell. Sometimes a fear oppressed him that his men might have forgotten his mastery by this time, and might fail, after the two seasons of silence, to continue their cruising of those northern waters throughout June and July, as he had commanded. But that doubt only troubled him in his darkest moods. The loyalty of his subordinate buccaneers of the Cristobal was not to be questioned seriously, for it had been tested in many tight places. Comradeship often forms as trusty ties between the hearts of pirates as between the hearts of honest gentlemen. Once grown beyond the temptations of greed and treachery, it is a safe thing, this loyalty of desperate men for their messmates.
It was Pierre d'Antons' dream to regain the deck of the Cristobal (with Miwandi, of course), and to appear, some fine day, before the little fort of Gray Goose River; to put the settlers to the sword, the buildings to the torch, and to carry the English beauty away with him. He felt that his passion for the proud lady might be easily and pleasantly refired. But he made no mention of Mistress Westleigh to Miwandi, the Beothic girl.
After more than a week of hard travelling, the two ascended the wooded ridge which runs seaward to the bleak and elevated acres of the grim cape of their desire. In a shaggy grove they set up their lodge. At the extremity of the headland, high above the wheeling, screaming gulls and noddies, D'Antons built a circular fireplace of the stones that lay about. Completed, it looked like an altar reared by some benighted priesthood to the gods of the wind and the sea. But no such thought occurred to its architect. His case was too desperate to allow his mind to indulge in such whimsical fancies.
While the woman went in quest of food—fish, flesh, or fowl, what did it matter which?—the man gathered wood and piled it near the queer hearth. He worked without intermission until Miwandi returned from her foraging with a string of bright trout in her hand. Then he built a modest fire within the rough walls of his furnace, and helped the girl clean and cook the fish. By that time the glow of the afternoon was centred behind the gloomy hills, and a clear twilight was over the sea; but as yet the atmosphere held no suggestion of dusk. No sail broke the wide expanse of dark blue ocean with its flake of gray; but to the nor'east a whale breached and blew its little fountain of spray across the still line of the horizon. D'Antons and Miwandi noted these things as they ate, but made no comment upon them.
For several days after the arrival of the two upon the overseeing headland, D'Antons made no other use of his furnace than for the cooking of meals. For that purpose it served admirably, for the walls protected the flame from the ever-flying winds that prevailed over that exposed spot. The adventurer knew that he was early for the Cristobal. Several sails were detected; but of them the only heed taken was the precaution of blanketing the little fire in the hearth with damp soil. The Frenchman did not desire a visit from fishermen of any nationality whatever. He might find it difficult to explain his presence in so unfavourable a spot for either a fishery or a settlement. No doubt they would persist in rescuing him, and, in that case, what reason could he give for wishing to stay in his cheerless camp? So he lay low and watched the passing of more than one stout craft without a sign.
The time arrived when he must set his signals, despite the risk of attracting unwelcome visitors. So he closed the front of the furnace with a boulder, built a brisk fire within, which he heaped with damp moss and punk, and then laid a large, flat stone over the opening in the top of the unique structure. By removing the flat stone, he allowed a column of dense smoke to issue into the air, stream aloft and scatter in the wind. By replacing the stone, the smoke was cut short off. Finding that the contrivance worked to his satisfaction, he let the smoke stream up, uninterrupted. The signalling would only be resorted to when a vessel, which might possibly be the Cristobal, should be sighted. When darkness fell, the fire was allowed to die down. A night signal was unnecessary, as the Cristobal, should she keep the tryst at all, was sure to make an examination of the cape by daylight. D'Antons' last orders had been strictly and particularly to that effect.
A week passed, during which a sharp lookout was kept by the fugitives on the brow of the cape, and the signal of smoke was operated a dozen times without the desired effect. In fact, a large vessel, attracted by the smoke (which was due to D'Antons' tardy realization that the approaching ship was not the Cristobal) altered her course, sailed close in, and sent a boat ashore to investigate. D'Antons and Miwandi had just enough time, with not a minute to spare, to roll up their wigwam and hide it in the bushes, gather together their most valuable belongings, and flee inland to a shelter of tangled spruces and firs. The boat's crew was composed of peaceful fishermen, who were free from suspicion and malice. They climbed to the brow of the promontory with fine hardihood, but once there did little but examine the marks where the lodge had so lately stood and partially overthrow the queer fireplace. They believed that structure to be an altar, built to the glory of some unorthodox god. Then they retraced their perilous way to the little cove under the cliff, and rowed back to the ship. D'Antons stole from his retreat and crawled to the edge of the cliff. He felt a glow of satisfaction when the big vessel stood away on her northward course.
Another week drifted along, and hope wavered in the buccaneer heart. His gloomy moods began to wear on the young squaw's spirits. She begged him to return to the inland rivers—to make peace with her people—to cease his unprofitable staring at the sea.
"The sorrow of the great salt water has entered your heart," she said, "and the moaning of it has deafened your ears to my voice."
He did not turn his eyes from the undulations of the gray horizon. "Would you have me rot in this place for the remainder of my life?" he asked, harshly, in her language.
The poor girl sobbed for an hour after that, and reproved her heart for the image of a god it had set up. She tried to overthrow the idol from its inner shrine; she tried to change it to a grim symbol of hate; she pressed her face to the coarse herbage, and tore the sod with her fingers.
"Miwandi! Come to me, little one," cried the man from the edge of the cliff.
Her anger, her bitterness, vanished like thinnest smoke. She sprang up and ran to him. He drew her to his side, and with his right hand pointed southward across the glinting deep.
"The Cristobal!" he cried. "Good God, I'll stake my life on it!"
So intense was his satisfaction at the sight of those unmistakable topsails that his selfish affection for the woman lighted again. He pressed his lips to the tear-wet cheek; and immediately the simple creature was in the seventh heaven of bliss.
While the gray flake of sail expanded on the horizon, Pierre d'Antons and the woman hurriedly and roughly rebuilt the walls of the fireplace, lit and fed a blaze, and piled it high with moss and rotten bark. The thick pillar of smoke arose like a tree, and bent in the moderate wind. Miwandi busied herself with breaking the wood to the required length and carrying damp moss. For several minutes the smoke was allowed to ascend in an unbroken shaft. Then D'Antons cut it off for a few seconds, let it rise again, broke it again, and again let it stream aloft, uninterrupted. He had signalled his name according to the code of the Cristobal.
The welcome ship gradually enlarged to the eager eyes of the watchers on the cape. North, east, and south there was no other sail in sight. At last three flags ran up to the topforemast and fluttered out. The question was read instantly by D'Antons, who returned to his fire and interrupted the stream of smoke five times in quick succession. The translation of that was "All's well. You may approach without danger."
A message of congratulation appeared promptly against the bellying foresail of the Cristobal; and the watchers saw the rolls of white foam gleaming like wool under the forging of the bow.
D'Antons was cordially welcomed aboard the Cristobal. Miwandi was received without question. The acting commander of the ship was a grizzled Spanish mariner by the name of Silva,—a fellow steeped in crime and uncertain of temper, yet possessed of a marvellous devotion for D'Antons, which was due to an act of kindness performed by the Frenchman years before, in the town of Panama.
Silva was delighted to find his captain alive and ready for the high seas again. He asked no questions concerning his adventures until more than one bottle of wine had been emptied, and the captain's travel-stained garments had been exchanged for the best the cabin lockers contained. Miwandi, too, was reclothed; and the beauty and softness of the silks that were presented to her fairly turned her little head. She did not know that the fair French lady for whom they had been made, in gay Paris, and who had worn them only three months ago, was somewhere in the dredge of emerald tides between the Bahaman reefs. She knew only that the texture and colours delighted her skin and her eyes. So, in her narrow room, she attired herself in the finery, toiling at the ties and lacing with unfamiliar fingers.
In the captain's cabin D'Antons motioned to his friend to close the door. He had consumed a soup, and was still engaged with the wine. Silva returned to his seat at the table, after a final reassuring push on the bolt of the door. It is always wise to be sure that the door you considered fastened is fastened indeed. Then, with their elbows on the table and their heads close together, the more salient incidents of D'Antons' sojourn in the wilderness were rehearsed and keenly listened to. Silva displayed a prodigious indignation at the story of the captain's failure to win the affections of Mistress Westleigh. At word of Sir Ralph's death (and the murder became a desperate duel in the telling), a crooked smile of satisfaction distorted his face. As to what he heard of Kingswell—ah, but oaths in two languages were quite inadequate for the expression of his feelings.
"We'll inspect the heart of that cockerel—and the gizzard as well," said he, and drank off his wine.
"Leave him to my hand," replied D'Antons, darkly.
Silva nodded, with a sinister leer.
"So it's 'bout ship and blow the little stockade into everlasting damnation," he said.
"Ay, but the lady must come to no harm in the attack," warned the captain.
So the Cristobal headed northward, and the evil-looking rascals of her crew were informed that the morrow would bring them some work to limber their muscles. The information was received with cheers, in which hearty English voices were not lacking.
However, in the early morning, Fate, in the shape of the Heart of the West, turned the danger away from the little fort.
"She looks like a likely prize," said D'Antons, when he sighted the ship. The old fever awoke in his blood. He longed for the old excitement.
"Give chase," he ordered. "The fort can well do without the honour of our attentions for a little while."
So the chase was carried on, as has been described in a previous chapter, and went merrily enough for the Cristobal until the unexpected shot from the stern of the quarry brought down her foretopmast and its weight of sail. But before that had happened, D'Antons, unrecognizable himself in new clothes and a great hat, marked Bernard Kingswell on the poop of the Heart of the West. He cursed like a madman, or a true-bred pirate, when his ship was crippled.
"The fort may rot of old age in the midst of its desolation," he cried to Silva, "for what I would have is aboard that cursed craft ahead."
A few days later, with their spars repaired, they picked up a small fishing-boat, and learned from the skipper that a great ship from the north had entered the harbour of St. John's. So, knowing the virtue of precaution, they impressed the master and crew and scuttled the little vessel. Then, with admirable patience, they cruised up and down, far to seaward of the brown cliffs which guarded that hospitable port.