Marjorie Part 14

It was decided by Lancelot that the first thing to do was to prevent the pirates from landing. If they succeeded by untoward chance in effecting a landing, then all of us who were lucky enough to be left alive were to retreat with all speed to the stronghold and fasten ourselves in there. To this end the gate was left open, and in the charge of two men, whose duty it would be to swing it to and bolt it the moment the last of our men had got inside. A few men were left inside the stockade, including the fugitives, to whom we had given arms. The main body of our men were drawn up along the beach, with their muskets ready. Between these and the stockade a few men were thrown out to cover our retreat, if retreat there had to be.

It was anxious work to watch the advance of those two boats with their scarlet crews over that tranquil tropic sea. The water was smooth, as it had been now for days, and their coming was steady and measured. As had been the case ever since we made Fair Island, there was almost no wind, so that their sails were of little service, but their rowing was excellent, as the rowing of good seamen always is. And, villains though they were, those underlings of Jensen's were admirable sailors.

When they were quite near we could recognise the faces of the fellows in the two boats. Cornelys Jensen was in the first boat, and he was dressed out as sumptuously as any general of our army on a field day. For though every man jack of them in the two boats was blazing in scarlet, and though that scarlet cloth was additionally splendid with gold lace, the cloth and the cut of Jensen's coat were finer and better than those of the others, and it was adorned and laced with far greater profusion.

With his dark face and evil expression he looked, to my mind, in all his finery more like my lady's monkey in holiday array than man, pirate, or devil, although he was indeed all three.

Every man in those two boats was decked out in scarlet cloth and gold lace--except one. Every man in those two boats was heavily armed with muskets, pistols and cutla.s.ses--except one. The exception was a man who sat by the side of Jensen. He was clad in black, and his face was very pale, and there was an ugly gash of a raw wound across his forehead. I could see that his hands were tied behind him, and in the wantonness of power Jensen had laid his own bare hanger across the prisoner's knees. I knew the captive at once. He was the Reverend Mr. Ebrow, who had so strengthened us by his exhortation during our peril on board the Royal Christopher.

When Lancelot saw whom they had with them and the way that those villains treated their captive I noted that his face paled, and that there came a look into his eyes which I had not often seen there, but which meant no good for Jensen and his sc.u.m if Lancelot got the top of them. For Lancelot was a staunch Churchman and a respecter of ministers of G.o.d's Word, and as loyal to his religion as he was to his King.

There was one face which I missed out of those boatloads of blackguards, a face which I had very confidently expected to find most prominent amongst them. When I missed it in the first boat I made sure that I should find it in the second, and probably in the place of command; but it was not there either, very much to my surprise. At that crisis in our affairs, at that instant of peril to my life, I was for the moment most perturbed, or at least most puzzled by the fact that I could not find this familiar face among the collection of scarlet-coated scoundrels who were creeping in upon us.

The face that I was looking for was a face that would have gone well enough too with a scarlet coat, for it was a scarlet face in itself. I looked for that red-haired face which I had seen for the first time leering at me over Barbara's shoulders on the last day that ever I set foot within the Skull and Spectacles. I was looking for the face of Jensen's partner in treason--Hatchett.

By this time our enemies had come to within perhaps ten boats' lengths of Fair Island. All this time they had kept silence, and all this while we had kept silence also. But now, as if Lancelot had made up his mind exactly at what point he would take it upon him to act, we a.s.sumed the defensive. For Lancelot gave the command to make ready and to present our pieces, and his words came from his lips as clearly and as composedly as if he were only directing some drilling on an English green. In a moment all our muskets were at the shoulder, while Lancelot called out to the pirates that if they rowed another inch nearer he would give the order to fire. Our men were steady men, and, though I am sure that more than one of them was longing to empty his piece into the boats, all remained as motionless as if on parade.

The pirate boats came to a dead stop, and I could see that all the men who were not busy with the oars were gripping their guns. But Jensen kept them down with a gesture. Then, as the boats were steady, he rose to his feet and waved a white handkerchief in sign that he wished for parley. It was part of the foppishness of the fellow that the handkerchief was edged with lace, like a woman's or a grandee's.

Lancelot called out to him to know what he wanted. Jensen shouted back that he wished to parley with us. Lancelot promptly made answer that he needed no parley, that he knew him and his crew for traitors, murderers, and pirates, with whom he would have no dealings save by arms.

At those bold words of his we could see that the fellows in the scarlet coats were furious, and we could guess from their gestures that many of them were urging Jensen to attack us at once, thinking, no doubt, that they might return our fire and, being able to effect a landing before we could reload, might cut us to pieces.

But, whatever their purposes were, Jensen restrained them, and it was a marvel to see the ease with which he ruled those savages. He again addressed himself to Lancelot, warning him that it would be for his peace and the peace of those who were with him to come to some understanding with the invaders. And at last, having spoken some time without shaking Lancelot's resolve, Jensen asked if he would at least receive an envoy upon the island.

Lancelot was about to refuse again when something crossed his mind, and he shouted back to Jensen to know whom he would send. Jensen, who had probably divined his thoughts, clapped his hand upon the shoulder of that prisoner of his who sat by his side all in black, and called out to Lancelot that he proposed to send the parson as his envoy. To this Lancelot agreed, but I saw that he looked anxious, for it crossed his mind, as he afterwards told me, that this proposition might merely serve as an excuse for the pirate boats to come close, and so give them a better chance of attacking us. However, the pirates made no such attempt. It may be that Jensen, who was quick of wit, guessed Lancelot's thought. The boats remained where they were. We saw the reverend gentleman stand up. One of Jensen's fellows untied his hands, and then without more ado Jensen caught the poor man up by his waistband and straightway flung him into the sea.

A cry of anger broke from Lancelot's lips when he saw this, for he feared that the man might drown. But he was a fair swimmer, and the distance was not so great, so within a few seconds of his plunge he found his depth and came wading towards us with the water up to his middle, looking as wretched as a wet rat, while all the rogues in the boats laughed loud and long at the figure he cut.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "LANCELOT RUSHED FORWARD INTO THE WATER."]

Lancelot rushed forward into the water to give him his hand, and so drew the poor fellow on to the dry land and amongst us again.

The first thing he did was to a.s.sure us--which was indeed hardly necessary, considering his cloth and his character--that he was in no wise leagued with the pirates, but simply and solely a prisoner at their mercy, whose life they had preserved that he might be of use to them as a hostage.

Lancelot called out to the pirate boats to withdraw further back, which they did after he had pa.s.sed his word that he would confer with them again in a quarter of an hour, after he had heard what their envoy had to say. When they had withdrawn out of gunshot, their scarlet suits glowing like two patches of blood on the water, then Lancelot, still bidding our line to be on guard against any surprise, withdrew with me and the clergyman and two or three of our friends a little way up the beach. And there we called upon Mr. Ebrow to tell us all that he had to tell.

CHAPTER XXVII

AN ILL TALE

It was an ill tale which he had to tell, and he told it awkwardly, for he was not a little confused and put about, both by his wound and by his treatment at the hands of those people. We gave him somewhat to eat and drink, and he munched and sipped between sentences, for he had not fared well with the pirates. We would have given him a change of raiment, too, after his ducking, but this he refused stiffly, saying that he was well enough as he was, and that a wetting would not hurt him. And he was indeed a strong, tough man.

Much of what he had to tell us we knew, of course, already--of the appearance of Jensen on the island, of the attack upon the colonists and the ma.s.sacre of the most part of them. He himself had got his cut over the head in the fight, a cut that knocked him senseless, so that by the time he came to again the business was over and the pirates were masters of the island.

But he was able to tell us the thing we most wanted to know, the thing which the fugitives could give us no inkling of, and that was how it came to pa.s.s that Jensen, whom we all deemed dead and drowned, should have come so calamitously to life again.

It was, it seemed, in this wise. Jensen, who united a madman's cunning to a bad man's daring, saw that my suspicions of him might prove fatal to his plans. Those plans had indeed been, as I had guessed, to seize the Royal Christopher and make a pirate ship of her, with himself for her captain; and to that end he had manned the ship with men upon whom he could rely, many of whom had been pirates before, all of whom were willing to go to any lengths for the sake of plunder and pleasure. But so long as our party were suspicious of him, and had arms in readiness to shoot him and his down at the first show of treachery, it was plain to a simpler man that his precious scheme stood every chance of coming to smoke.

He guessed, therefore, that if we could be led to believe that he was dead and done with our suspicions would be lulled, and he would be left with a fair field to carry out his plan. To that end he devised a scheme to befool us, and, having primed his party as to his purpose, he carried it out with all success.

It was no man's body that went overboard on that night, but merely a mighty beam of wood that one of Jensen's confederates cast over the vessel's side just before he raised the cry of 'Man overboard!' Jensen himself was snugly concealed in the innermost parts of the ship, where he lay close, laughing in his sleeve at us and our credulity. After we left he came out of his hole and made his way to Early Island, as agreed upon with his companions, who, on his arrival, butchered the most of the colonists.

One mystery was disposed of. So was the other mystery--how Jensen and his men came to be so well-armed and so gaily attired. When our expedition was preparing, Captain Marmaduke commissioned Jensen to buy a store of all manner of agricultural and household implements and utensils for the use of the young colony. Now, as such gear was not likely to be of service to Jensen in his piracies, he was at pains to serve his own ends while he pretended to obey the Captain's commands.

He had therefore made up and committed to the hold a quant.i.ty of cases which professed to contain what the Captain had commanded. But never a spade or pick, never a roasting-jack or flat-iron, never a string of beads or a mirror for barter with natives was to be found in all those boxes. If our colony had ever by any chance arrived at their goal they would have found themselves in sore straits for the means of tilling the earth and of cooking their food.

The boxes contained instead a great quant.i.ty of arms, such as muskets and pistols and cutla.s.ses, together with abundance of ammunition in the shape of powder, bullets and shot. Others of those boxes contained goodlier gear, for Jensen was a vain rogue as well as a clever rogue, and dearly loved brave colours about him and to make a gaudy show. I believe that it was a pa.s.sion for power and the pomp that accompanies power more than anything else which drove him to be a pirate, and that if he could have been, say, a great Minister of State, who is, after all, often only another kind of pirate, he might have carried himself very well and been looked upon by the world at large as a very decent, public-spirited sort of fellow. I have known men in high office with just such pa.s.sion for display and dominion as Jensen, and I do not think that there is much to choose between him and them in that regard.

So sundry of those lying boxes were loaded with gay clothing, such as those scarlet coats with which we had now made acquaintance, and which were fashioned on the pattern of those of the bodyguard of His Majesty, only much more flauntingly tricked out with gold lace and gilded b.u.t.tons. It added a shade of darkness to the treachery of this scoundrel that he should thus presume to parade himself in a parody of such a uniform.

But besides all this there was yet another secret which those same false coffers concealed. He had dealings with shipbuilders at Haarlem, who were noted for their ingenuity and address, and this firm had built for him two large skiffs, which were made in such a fashion that the major part of them could be taken to pieces and the whole packed away in a small s.p.a.ce with safety and convenience for his purpose. These vessels were as easily put together as taken to pieces, and were as serviceable a kind of boat as ever vessel carried. And so there was the rascal well prepared to make sure of our ship.

It makes my heart bleed now, after all these years, to think how the fellow deceived my dear patron, and how the Royal Christopher went sailing the seas with that secret in her womb, and that we all walked those decks night after night and day after day, and never suspected the treason that lay beneath our feet.

But we never did suspect it, and when the time came for us to leave the ship in a hurry we had little thought in our minds of taking agricultural implements or household gear or articles of barter with us.

So they lay there snugly in the hold, and Jensen with them, and Jensen was busy and happy in his wicked way in getting at them, and in laughing as he did so over our folly in being deceived by him.

It seems that after the departure of Lancelot and our little party certain of the sailors, as agreed upon beforehand, made their way back to the ship, and in the dead of night transported the greater quant.i.ty of the weapons and ammunition. They put the skiffs together, too, and lowered them over the side. The camp had gone to rest when Jensen, shrieking like a fiend, leaped from his concealment among the trees and gave the signal for attack. The butchery was brief. The few men who were armed found that their weapons had been rendered useless, but even if their murderers had not taken that precaution their victims could have made no sort of a stand. They were taken by surprise. The horrible cries that the pirates made as they rushed from their ambush helped to dishearten the colonists, for they took those noises for the war-cries of savages, and they yielded to the panic. A very few escaped from the slaughter, and hid themselves in the woods in the centre of the island.

The manner of their escape I have already related. It seemed from what the parson now told us that Jensen made little effort to pursue them, feeling confident that they must perish miserably from hunger and thirst, if not from wild beasts, in the jungle.

The first use Jensen made of his triumph was to bring over to the island from the wreck everything that he believed to be needful for the comfort and adornment of his person and the persons of his following. All the arms and ammunition that his malign thoughtfulness had provided, all the fine clothes that he had hidden away, all the store of wines and strong waters that still remained upon the ship were carefully disembarked and brought to Early Island. He dressed himself and his followers up in the smart clothes that we had seen, called himself king of the island, made his companions take a solemn oath of allegiance to him and sign it with their blood, and then they all gave themselves up to an orgie.

For, bad as all this was to tell and to listen to, there was still worse to be told and heard. To treachery and bloodshed were added treachery and l.u.s.t. The cup of Jensen's iniquity was more than full. It ran over and was spilt upon the ground, crying out to Heaven for vengeance.

There were, as you know, women among our colonists--not many, but still some, the wives of some of the settlers, the daughters and sisters of others. None of these were hurt when Jensen and his fellow-fiends made their attack--none of them, unhappily for themselves, were killed. My cheeks blazed with shame and wrath as I listened to what the parson had to say, and if Jensen had been before me I would have been rejoiced to pistol him with my own hand.

The women were parcelled out among the men as the best part of their booty. There was not a wickeder place on G.o.d's earth at that hour than the island, and its sins, as I thought, should be blotted out by a thunderbolt from Heaven.

Yet there is something still worse to come, as I take it. In all this infamy Jensen reserved for himself the privilege of a deeper degree of infamy. For he told Hatchett, it seems, that he must give up Barbara, and when Hatchett laughed in his face Jensen shot him dead where he stood and took her by force. Such was the terror the man inspired that no one of all his fellows presumed to avenge Hatchett, or even to protest against the manner of his death. As for the woman, as for Barbara, she was a strong woman, and she loved Hatchett with all her heart, and she fought, I believe, hard. But if she was strong, Jensen was stronger, and merciless. He had everything his own way at the island; he had his arts of taming people, and the parson told me that he had tamed Barbara.

I have had to set these wrongs down here for the sake of truth, and to justify our final deeds against Jensen and his gang. I have set them down as barely and as briefly as possible, for there are some things so terrible that they scarcely bear the telling. I cannot be more particular; the whole bad business was hideous in the extreme, with all the hideousness that could come from a mind like Jensen's--a mind begotten of the Bottomless Pit.

But in all my sorrow I was grateful to Heaven that Marjorie had not been left upon that other island. Better for her to die here by the hand of the man who loved her than to have been on that island at the mercy of such men. Thank G.o.d, thank G.o.d, thank G.o.d! I said to myself again and again. I could say nothing more, I could think nothing more, only thank G.o.d, thank G.o.d!

CHAPTER XXVIII

WE DEFY JENSEN

That unhappy Barbara! Her sin had found her out indeed. She was a wicked woman, for she had been part and parcel in the treason, she had been hand and glove with the traitors. But she did not mean such wickedness to the women-folk, and she did what she had done for her husband's sake, thinking that he would be a pirate king and she his consort. This was what she meant when she had called herself a queen. With such falsehoods had Jensen stuffed the ears of the man and his wife, snaring them to their fate. As I had loved her once, so I pitied her now. She had shared in a great crime, but it would be hard to shape a greater penalty for her sin.

By the time that the parson had finished his story we who were listening to him felt dismal, and we looked at each other grimly.