Sea-Dogs All! Part 7

"Thou hast been too harsh and hasty, my son. The meanest man will turn to bay if his dignity is wounded too sorely. We have found Master Windybank weak and pliable, and we have been too contemptuous of his manhood. He hath a little, and that last blow of thine has aroused it."

Basil fell on his knees in contrition. "Forgive me!" he murmured.

Jerome raised him up and gave him a perfunctory kiss on the forehead.

"We can forgive faults that arise from excess of zeal," he replied, "and we must have patience with the weak-kneed; a time will come when we shall be able to visit their sins upon them. At present we must play the loving friend; we can be the merciless judge at the opportune moment. Get thee to Gatcombe, my son. Watch the admiral well, and send the messenger thou wottest of down to Chepstow to learn if there be any tidings of our friends from Ireland. The time for action is fully come; the foresters are lulled again to security; we must strike as speedily as possible. I shall expect thee at midnight to-morrow.

Meantime I will bring back our host to a sense of his duty and religion."

Basil bent one knee to receive his superior's blessing. "Benedicite!"

murmured Jerome.

His subordinate seized his hand and pressed it to his lips. "I am forgiven, father?" he asked.

"Forgiven and blessed," answered Jerome. "Go! and the Holy Virgin watch over thee."

Basil pulled his hood over his face, opened a small oak door whose hinges had been generously oiled, and disappeared amongst the trees.

Jerome went back to Windybank.

Chapter XI.

DARKNESS AND THE RIVER.

The hunt and its incidents were three days old.

Johnnie Morgan had been to Newnham, and had spent a whole afternoon in Dorothy's company. Not once had she snubbed him or even contradicted him. Johnnie was home again, quietly happy. There was a battle of wit and song fixed for the night at the local tavern; several "jolly dogs"

had waylaid the young farmer and tried to drag him off for an evening's revelry, but he would have none of it. The sun was going down over the hills, and Johnnie sat in his parlour and watched it. His chair was tilted back against the heavy table, and his feet were on the window-ledge half shrouded in flowers. He stared at the rosy sky and dreamed dreams of the same colour.

Johnnie heard quick footsteps coming up to the porch, and immediately afterwards there was a l.u.s.ty banging at the door.

"Plague take 'em!" exclaimed the contemplative youth; "I'll not go."

A little, dark-haired maiden, who, with her mother, formed the whole of the farmer's domestic establishment, came into the room.

"The admiral's man would speak with you, master," she said.

Johnnie's feet were on the floor in an instant. "Show him in," he cried.

A weather-beaten Devon man, sailor to his finger-tips, rolled into the room. The two men gripped hands.

"At last?" asked Johnnie in a low tone.

"At last!" was the reply. "Gatcombe jetty at nightfall, and well armed."

"I'll be there."

Without further words the messenger turned about and went elsewhere on his errand. Morgan at once got out his sword, put on a thick leathern doublet and boots reaching to his thighs. Then, well knowing that he might be setting out on an all-night expedition, he proceeded to eat a hasty but hearty supper.

At the appointed time he stood with about a dozen others on the river-bank. The tide was about at half-flow and running strongly; moreover, a breeze was coming up behind it from the south-west. There was no moon, clouds were packing, and there was every sign of a pitch-dark night. The admiral's roomy boat, with its mast stepped and sail ready for hoisting, bobbed up and down on the water. Drake himself was there to receive his men.

"A rare night on the river for fish poachers, smugglers, and other nefarious rascals," said he.

"True, admiral," answered a Gatcombe pilot; "and I trow we shall find it trying work looking for black men on a black night."

"Well spoken, master pilot; but if thou canst keep our lives free of danger from shoal and sandbank, we'll e'en try to do the rest."

"I'll warrant ye safe pa.s.sage anywhere 'twixt Chepstow and Gloucester, Sir Francis."

"I ask no more.--Now, gentlemen, aboard!"

In silence the chosen band seated themselves. "Take the tiller, pilot; I myself will attend to the sail. Do thou, Master Morgan, seat thyself in the bow and maintain a sharp lookout; thine eyes are younger than mine, and more used to the lights of the river." The anchor was lifted in, and immediately the boat swung round into the path of the racing waters. "Make for the other side," ordered Drake, "and lay to in the backwater under the bank."

A few deft strokes of the oars carried the boat into the rush of the tide; for an instant it hung wavering, and then shot off like an arrow up and across the roaring river. Then followed a few minutes of intense excitement. The little craft rocked and swayed, and rose and fell, tossed like a cork on the turbid waters. Morgan could scarcely see a hand's-breadth before him. The rudder creaked as the pilot moved it to and fro, and only his voice was heard as, very softly, he ordered one oarsman after another to pull or back-water in order to hold the course safely between the shallows and avoid the shifting sands, whose presence, in the darkness, no eye could descry. Morgan was kneeling in the bow, a stout pole in his hands; only once was he called upon to use it, when the nose of the boat went crunching along the slope of a sandbank for a few yards. At length came the welcome order, "Easy all!" A minute later the boat was riding on an even keel under the bank, rising and falling in rhythm with the suck and lap of the water as it devoured the soft, red-brown walls that shut it in. The heads of the men were on a level with the strip of turf that formed the land's margin. Fifty yards back was the outer edge of a belt of dark wood that covered the flat lands and swept up the sides of the hills that lay off ten or twelve miles to the east. Against such a background nothing would be visible in the darkness. Across on the Gatcombe side were the steep sandstone cliffs, storm-washed and clean, and topped with primeval forest.

"Master Morgan," said Drake, "how far out in the stream must we lie in order that thou mayest distinguish the sail or hull of a ten-ton craft against the cliff face?"

"I can do it from here, Sir Francis. The channel is about mid-stream; and now that mine eyes are got accustomed to the dull tinge of the water, I can see the fleck and sc.u.m on the farther sand-ridge."

"Good! thou art our watch."

The admiral turned to the rest of his party. "Gentlemen," said he, "in one sense we work in the dark to-night; our foes have willed it so. Ye have come out on this errand at my bidding, asking no questions, and so, in a way, ye are groping in a double darkness. 'Tis not my way to have men follow me blindly if I can open their eyes. I want those at my back to see; by so doing they will strike the surer. Now, tidings have reached me that those Spanish rascals whom ye wot of are about to bring their plot to a head. Tomorrow night they hope to see the forest in flames." The men stirred uneasily; Drake went on: "We have had a long drought, and master-pilot will tell ye that there are strong winds coming up from the sou'-west. For to-night and to-morrow they may be dry; after that we may expect rain. Some of ye will know the _Luath_ that trades between Gloucester and Waterford in Ireland. The Irish are not loyal to our Queen--that ye also know. The _Luath_ came up to Chepstow on the tide this morning, and no one, unless in the secret of these Spanish villains, would dream that she carried ought but honest cargo. Her hull, gentlemen, hides four rascal priests and other desperate fellows to the full total of half a score, and much of her merchandise is tar, oils and resin, and bales of tow. The boat should wait off Chepstow for the tide that runs to-morrow forenoon before attempting the dangerous run onwards to Gloucester. She really leaves to-night. Just above Westbury she hath planned an anchorage, and there Master Windybank of Dean Tower--whom, G.o.d helping me, I will hang over his own gateway before another sunset--will meet them with pack-horses wherewith to convey the combustibles to their appointed places. 'Tis our business to capture the _Luath_. The good knight Sir Walter Raleigh and the gallant Mayor of Newnham will see to Master Windybank and the black-garbed villains that consort with him. That is our mission; it remains for us to bring about a sure accomplishment."

"'Tis as good as done, admiral," murmured the men.

"There'll be a little tough fighting first," was the quiet reply.

"Capture means death to these fellows. They are brave, and will prefer to die fighting."

The river still rose; the tide was nearing full flood, and the wind steadily increased. Soon there was water of a navigable depth above every sandbank, and there was no longer a swirl to indicate a shallow.

Morgan had seen nothing; the men were getting cramped and impatient.

There was now no need for the _Luath_ to pick her way; she might race up anywhere between the wide banks: her chances of detection were greatly lessened.

The pilot spoke. "Saving your presence, admiral, but this Irish skipper is a deep dog. He should have pa.s.sed ere now if he intends to do his business at Westbury and then make Gloucester on this tide. He suspects us."

"How so, pilot?"

"He hath not ventured to navigate the usual channels, which could be watched."

"He'll have no pilot; don't forget that."

"True; nevertheless he is behaving right cunningly."

"I never expected him to behave foolishly."

"'Sh!" Morgan's voice broke in. There was tense silence in a moment.

All eyes were staring across the river. "Row out!" cried Johnnie; "they won't hear us in this wind."