Michel and Angele [A Ladder of Swords] Part 5

"Thy father, then?" he asked, scowling hard in his attempt to think it out.

"He must go with me--I will seek him now."

"It must be at once, i' faith, for how long, think you, can I stay here unharmed? I was sighted off St. Ouen's sh.o.r.e a few hours agone."

"To-night?" she asked.

"By twelve, when we shall have the moon and the tide," he answered. "But hold!" he hastily added. "What, think you, could you and your father do alone in England? And with me it were worse than alone. These be dark times, when strangers have spies at their heels, and all travellers are suspect."

"We will trust in G.o.d," she answered.

"Have you money?" he questioned--"for London, not for me," he added hastily.

"Enough," she replied.

"The trust with the money is a weighty matter," he added; "but they suffice not. You must have 'fending."

"There is no one," she answered sadly, "no one save--"

"Save the Seigneur of Rozel!" Buonespoir finished the sentence. "Good.

You to your father, and I to the Seigneur. If you can fetch your father by your pot-of-honey tongue, I'll fetch the great Lempriere with muscadella. Is't a bargain?"

"In which I gain all," she answered, and again touched his arm with her finger-tips.

"You shall be aboard here at ten, and I will join you on the stroke of twelve," he said, and gave a low whistle.

At the signal three men sprang up like magic out of the bowels of the boat beneath them, and scurried over the side; three as ripe knaves as ever cheated stocks and gallows, but simple knaves, unlike their master.

Two of them had served with Francis Drake in that good ship of his lying even now not far from Elizabeth's palace at Greenwich. The third was a rogue who had been banished from Jersey for a habitual drunkenness which only attacked him on land--at sea he was sacredly sober. His name was Jean Nicolle. The names of the other two were Herve Robin and Rouge le Riche, but their master called them by other names.

"Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego," said Buonespoir in ceremony, and waved a hand of homage between them and Angele. "Kiss dirt, and know where duty lies. The lady's word on my ship is law till we anchor at the Queen's Stairs at Greenwich. So, Heaven help you, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego!" said Buonespoir.

A wave of humour pa.s.sed over Angele's grave face, for a stranger quartet never sailed high seas together: one blind of an eye, one game of a leg, one bald as a bottle and bereft of two front teeth; but Buonespoir was sound of wind and limb, his small face with the big eyes lost in the ma.s.ses of his red hair, and a body like Hercules. It flashed through Angele's mind even as she answered the gurgling salutations of the triumvirate that they had been got together for no gentle summer sailing in the Channel. Her conscience smote her that she should use such churls; but she gave it comfort by the thought that while serving her they could do naught worse; and her cause was good. Yet they presented so bizarre an aspect, their ugliness was so varied and particular, that she almost laughed. Buonespoir understood her thoughts, for with a look of mocking innocence in his great blue eyes he waved a hand again towards the graceless trio, and said, "For deep-sea fishing." Then he solemnly winked at the three.

A moment later Angele was speeding along the sh.o.r.e towards her home on the farther hillside up the little glen; and within an hour Buonespoir rolled from the dusk of the trees by the manor-house of Rozel and knocked at the door. He carried on his head, as a fishwife carries a tray of ormers, a basket full of flagons of muscadella; and he did not lower the basket when he was shown into the room where the Seigneur of Rozel was sitting before a trencher of spiced veal and a great pot of ale. Lempriere roared a hearty greeting to the pirate, for he was in a sour humour because of the taking off of Michel de la Foret; and of all men this pirate-fellow, who had quips and cranks, and had played tricks on his cousin of St. Ouen's, was most welcome.

"What's that on your teacup of a head?" he roared again as Buonespoir grinned pleasure at the greeting. "Muscadella," said Buonespoir, and lowered the basket to the table.

Lempriere seized a flagon, drew it forth, looked closely at it, then burst into laughter, and spluttered: "St. Ouen's muscadella, by the hand of Rufus!"

Seizing Buonespoir by the shoulders, he forced him down upon a bench at the table, and pushed the trencher of spiced meat against his chest.

"Eat, my n.o.ble lord of the sea and master of the cellar," he gurgled out, and, tipping the flagon of muscadella, took a long draught.

"G.o.d-a-mercy--but it has saved my life," he gasped in satisfaction as he lay back in his great chair, and put his feet on the bench whereon Buonespoir sat.

They raised their flagons and toasted each other, and Lempriere burst forth into song, in the refrain of which Buonespoir joined boisterously:

"King Rufus he did hunt the deer, With a hey ho, come and kiss me, Dolly!

It was the spring-time of the year, Hey ho, Dolly shut her eyes!

King Rufus was a bully boy, He hunted all the day for joy, Sweet Dolly she was ever coy: And who would e'er be wise That looked in Dolly's eyes?

"King Rufus he did have his day, With a hey ho, come and kiss me, Dolly!

So get ye forth where dun deer play-- Hey ho, Dolly comes again!

The greenwood is the place for me, For that is where the dun deer be, 'Tis where my Dolly comes to me: And who would stay at home, That might with Dolly roam?

Sing hey ho, come and kiss me, Dolly!"

Lempriere, perspiring with the exertion, mopped his forehead, then lapsed into a plaintive mood.

"I've had naught but trouble of late," he wheezed. "Trouble, trouble, trouble, like gnats on a filly's flank!" and in spluttering words, twice bracketed in muscadella, he told of Michel de la Foret's arrest, and of his purpose to go to England if he could get a boat to take him.

"'Tis that same business brings me here," said Buonespoir, and forthwith told of his meeting with Angele and what was then agreed upon.

"You to go to England!" cried Lempriere amazed. "They want you for Tyburn there."

"They want me for the gallows here," said Buonespoir. Rolling a piece of spiced meat in his hand, he stuffed it into his mouth and chewed till the grease came out of his eyes, and took eagerly from a servant a flagon of malmsey and a dish of ormers.

"Hush, chew thy tongue a minute!" said the Seigneur, suddenly starting and laying a finger beside his nose. "Hush!" he said again, and looked into the flicker of the candle by him with half-shut eyes.

"May I have no rushes for a bed, and die like a rat in a moat, if I don't get thy pardon too of the Queen, and bring thee back to Jersey, a thorn in the side of De Carteret for ever! He'll look upon thee a.s.soilzied by the Queen, spitting fire in his rage, and no canary or muscadella in his cellar."

It came not to the mind of either that this expedition would be made at cost to themselves. They had not heard of Don Quixote, and their gifts were not imitative. They were of a day when men held their lives as lightly as many men hold their honour now; when championship was as the breath of life to men's nostrils, and to adventure for what was worth having or doing in life the only road of reputation.

Buonespoir was as much a champion in his way as Lempriere of Rozel. They were of like kidney, though so far apart in rank. Had Lempriere been born as low and as poor as Buonespoir, he would have been a pirate too, no doubt; and had Buonespoir been born as high as the Seigneur, he would have carried himself with the same rough sense of honour, with as ripe a vanity; have been as naive, as sincere, as true to the real heart of man untaught in the dissimulation of modesty or reserve. When they shook hands across the trencher of spiced veal, it was as man shakes hand with man, not man with master.

They were about to start upon their journey when there came a knocking at the door. On its being opened the bald and toothless Abednego stumbled in with the word that immediately after Angele and her father came aboard the Honeyflower some fifty halberdiers suddenly appeared upon the Couperon. They had at once set sail, and got away even before the sailors had reached the sh.o.r.e. As they had rounded the point, where they were hid from view, Abednego dropped overboard and swam ash.o.r.e on the rising tide, making his way to the manor to warn Buonespoir. On his way hither, stealing through the trees, he had pa.s.sed a half-score of halberdiers making for the manor, and he had seen others going towards the sh.o.r.e.

Buonespoir looked to the priming of his pistols, and buckling his belt tightly about him, turned to the Seigneur and said: "I will take my chances with Abednego. Where does she lie--the Honeyflower, Abednego?"

"Off the point called Verclut," answered the little man, who had travelled with Francis Drake.

"Good; we will make a run for it, flying dot-and-carry-one as we go."

While they had been speaking the Seigneur had been thinking; and now, even as several figures appeared at a little distance in the trees, making towards the manor, he said, with a loud laugh:

"No. 'Tis the way of a fool to put his head between the door and the jamb. 'Tis but a hundred yards to safety. Follow me--to the sea--Abednego last. This way, bullies!"

Without a word all three left the house and walked on in the order indicated, as De Carteret's halberdiers ran forward threatening.

"Stand!" shouted the sergeant of the halberdiers. "Stand, or we fire!"

But the three walked straight on unheeding. When the sergeant of the men-at-arms recognised the Seigneur, he ordered down the blunderbusses.

"We come for Buonespoir the pirate," said the sergeant.

"Whose warrant?" said the Seigneur, fronting the halberdiers, Buonespoir and Abednego behind him. "The Seigneur of St. Ouen's," was the reply.

"My compliments to the Seigneur of St. Ouen's, and tell him that Buonespoir is my guest," he bellowed, and strode on, the halberdiers following. Suddenly the Seigneur swerved towards the chapel and quickened his footsteps, the others but a step behind. The sergeant of the halberdiers was in a quandary. He longed to shoot, but dared not, and while he was making up his mind what to do, the Seigneur had reached the chapel door. Opening it, he quickly pushed Buonespoir and Abednego inside, whispering to them, then slammed the door and put his back against it.

There was another moment's hesitation on the sergeant's part, then a door at the other end of the chapel was heard to open and shut, and the Seigneur laughed loudly. The halberdiers ran round the chapel. There stood Buonespoir and Abednego in a narrow roadway, motionless and unconcerned. The halberdiers rushed forward.

"Perquage! Perquage! Perquage!" shouted Buonespoir, and the bright moonlight showed him grinning. For an instant there was deadly stillness, in which the approaching footsteps of the Seigneur sounded loud.