House of Torment Part 33

Then he turned and stared at Don Pedro, almost as if he would have sprung at him.

"'Tis nothing of mine, Senor," the little man said. "You asked me to tell you, and that I have done. I am no enemy of yours, so look not at me in that way. Here"--he put his hand out and touched John Hull--"here I have a very worthy brother, eke a Master of mine, who will answer for me in all that I do."

The old Frenchwoman began to gather her vast bulk together to descend into the cabin for sleep.

Johnnie helped her to her feet, and as he did so a sweet tenor voice shivered out beneath the bellying sails, and there was the thrid of a lute accompanying it:

"_I sail, I sail the Spanish seas, Hey ho, in the sun and the cloud To bring fair ladies Wool to Cadiz, To deck their bodies that are so proud, In the ship of St. James a mariner I_"....

Suddenly the voice of the singer ceased, shut off into silence.

There was a half-frightened shout, a flapping of the sails as the square-rigged ship fell out of the night wind for a moment, and then a clamour of loud voices.

"Over the side! Over the side! The man from Lisbon's gone."

Johnnie had jumped to the port taffrail at the noise, and he saw what had happened. He saw the whole of it quite distinctly. A long, lithe figure had been balancing itself upon the bulwarks, giving its body to the gentle motion of the ship.

Suddenly it fell backwards, there was a resounding splash in the quiet sea, and something black was struggling and threshing in a pool of silver water. From the sea came a loud cry--"_Socorro! Socorro!_"

From the time the splash was heard and the cry came up to the forecastle the ship had slipped a hundred yards through the still waters.

Johnnie jumped up upon the bulwarks, held his hands above his head for a moment, judged his distance--ships were not high out of the water in that day--and dived into the phosph.o.r.escent sea.

He was lightly clad, and he swam strongly, with the long left-arm overhand stroke--conquering an element with joy in the doing of it--glad to be in wild and furious action, happy to throw off the oppression of the dreadful things which the little Spaniard had droned upon the deck.

He got up to the man easily enough, circled round him, as he rose splashing for the third time, and caught him under the arm-pits, lying on his back with the other above him.

The man began to struggle, trying to turn and grip.

Johnnie raised his head a little from the water, sinking as he did so, and pulling down the other also, and shouted a Spanish curse into his ear.

"Be quiet," he said; "lie still! If you don't I'll drown you!"

Commendone was a good swimmer. He had swam and dived in the lake at Commendone since he was a boy. He knew now exactly what to do, and his voice, though half-strangled with the salt water, and his grip of the drowning man's arm-pits had their effect.

There was a half-choked, "_Si, Senor_," and in twenty to thirty seconds Johnnie lay back in the warm water of the Atlantic, knowing that for a few minutes, at any rate, he could support the man he had come to save.

It was curious that at this moment he felt no fear or alarm whatever.

His whole mind was directed towards one thing--that the man he had dived to rescue would keep still. His mouth and nose were just out of the water, when suddenly there came into his mind the catch of an old song.

He heard again the high, delicate notes of the Queen's lute--"_Time hath to siluer turn'd_...."

Hardly knowing what he did, he even laughed with pleasure at the memory.

As that was heard, a strong, l.u.s.ty voice came to him.

"I'm here, master, I'm here! We shall not be long now. Ah--ah-h-h!"

Hull, blowing like a grampus, had swam up to them.

"I'll take him, master," he said; "do you rest for a moment. They'll have us out of this 'fore long."

There were no life-belts invented in those days, and to lower a boat from the ship was long in doing. But the _St. Iago_ was brought up with all sails standing, the boat at the stern was let down most gingerly into the sea, and four mariners rowed towards the swimming men. It was near twenty minutes before Hull and Commendone heard the chunk of the oars in the rowlocks. But they heard it at last. The tub-like galley shadowed them, there was a loud cry of welcome and relief, and then the two men, still grasping the inert figure of him who had fallen overboard, caught hold of the stern of the boat. Willing hands hauled the half-drowned man into the boat. Johnnie and Hull clambered over the broad stern, sat down amid-ships, and shook themselves.

The moonlight was still extraordinarily powerful, and gave a fallen day to this southern world.

As Commendone shot the water out of his ears, he looked upon the limp, p.r.o.ne figure of the man he had rescued.

"_Dame!_" he cried; "it is the torturer that we've been overboard for.

Pity we didn't let him drown."

John Hull had turned the figure of the Spaniard upon its stomach and was working vigorously at the arms, using them like pump-handles, as the sailors got their oars into the rowlocks again, and pulled back towards the shivering, silver ship near quarter of a mile away.

"I'll bring the life back to him, master," said John Hull. "He's warm now--there! He's vomited a pint or more of sea-water as I speak."

"I doubt he was worth saving," Johnnie said in a low voice to his servant's ear. "Still, he is saved, and I suppose a man like this hath a soul?"

Hull looked at Commendone in surprise. He knew nothing about the man they had rescued; he could not understand why his master spoke in this way.

But with his usual dog-like fidelity he nodded an a.s.sent, though he did not cease the pumping motion of the half-drowned man's arms.

"Perhaps he hath no soul, master," Hull said, "you know better than I.

At any rate, we have got him out of this here sea, and so praise G.o.d Who hath given us the st.u.r.diness to do it."

Commendone looked at his henchman and then at the slowly reviving Spaniard.

"Amen," he said.

CHAPTER X

THE SILENT MEN IN BLACK

"Sing to us, Johnnie."

"_Mais oui, chantez, Monsieur_," said Madame La Motte.

Johnnie took up a chitarrone, the archlute, a large, double-necked Spanish instrument, which lay upon a marble table by his side in the courtyard.

He looked up into the sky, the painted sunset sky of Spain, as if to find some inspiration there.

The hum of Seville came to them in an almost organ-like harmony. Bells were tolling from the cathedral and the innumerable churches; pigeons were wheeling round the domes and spires; occasionally a faint burst of music reached them where they sat.

The young man looked gravely at the two women. His face at this moment was singularly tranquil and refined. He was dressed with scrupulous care--the long journey over, his natural habits resumed. He had all the air and grace of a gallant in a Court.

He bowed to Madame La Motte and to his sweetheart, smiling gently at them.