Sir Ludar Part 21

I wished I was the heathen Briareus then, with an hundred arms. There was magic in her touch; and no charm of witch or fairy could have mended my bruised limb as did she.

After that, we sat silent awhile, looking out to sea. The soft light was spreading on the east, heralding the coming day. The slack breeze flapped lazily in the sails overhead and scarce ruffled the drowsy ocean. The stars one by one put out their little lights and vanished into the blue. There was no sound but the creaking of the yards and the gentle plash of the water on the hull; only these and the music of a maiden's song. It went hard with me, that night. For a while, as I sat there, gazing into her face and listening to her music and feeling the touch of her hand on my arm, I was fool enough to think all this--all this peace, all this beauty of the ocean dawn, all this lulling of the breeze, all this music, this gentle smile, this tender touch, spelt love; and there came a voice from the tempter that I should tell her as much then and there. What hindered me, I know not. 'Twas not alone the thought of Ludar, or the remembrance of my own honour, or the fear of her contempt. Be it what it may, I was helped by Heaven that night to be a man, and with a mighty effort to shake off the spell that was on me. So I rose to my feet and walked abaft. Many a time I paced to and fro cooling my fevered brow ere I ventured to return. But when at last I did, I was safe. She stood there motionless, radiant with the first beams of the royal sun as he leapt up from the sea.

"Look, Humphrey," she cried. "Is not that worth keeping watch for?"

Then she broke again into song.

"Is that an Irish song you sing?" I asked.

"It is. How knew you that?"

"I guessed it. What does it mean?"

She blushed.

"'Tis a song the maidens sing at home--an old, old song," said she, "that I learned from my nurse."

"I pray you, sing it again," said I.

She turned her face to the rising sun, and sang, in English words, as follows:

Who cometh from the mountain like the sun for brightness?

Whose voice ringeth like the wave on the shingle?

Who runneth from the east like the roe?

Who cometh?

Is it the wind that kisses my tresses?

Or is it the harp of Innis thrilling my ear?

Or is it the dawn on Ramore that dims my eyes?

Who cometh?

Is he far? Is he near? Whence comes he riding?

Dazzling in armour and white of brow?

Is it for me that he filleth the mountains with music?

Who waiteth?

Who cometh?

"'Tis a wild song, full of riddles," said I. "Maybe there is a song somewhere which has the answers."

"I know it not," said she.

"Not yet," said I.

She looked up at me quickly as if she doubted my meaning. But I looked out seaward and asked:

"Where in Ireland is your home, maiden? Is it near Ludar's castle on the sea?"

"Hard by," said she. "The McDonnells and O'Neills are neighbours and foes." And her brow clouded. "My father, Humphrey, is the bravest of the O'Neills as Ludar's father is the bravest of the McDonnells."

"And does your father hold Dunluce?" asked I.

"I know not," said she. "I have never seen my father, Turlogh Luinech O'Neill, though I love him as my life. At two years I was sent away to England with my English mother, who was but a hand-fast bride to the O'Neill."

"And what may that be?" I asked.

"'Tis a custom with us," said she, "for the chiefs to take wives who are theirs only so long as a better does not present herself. My mother, Alice Syngleton, the daughter of my father's English ally and preserver, Captain Syngleton, was thus wedded, and when I was two years old--so my old nurse tells me--he married the great Lady Cantire of the Isles.

Wherefore my mother was sent home to England with me, and there we lived till she died three years ago; since when I have pined in a convent, and am now, in obedience to my father's summons, on my way to my unknown home. My father, being, as I understand, allied to the English, who have dispossessed the McDonnells, I was to come over under the escort of an English officer of Sir William Carleton's choosing, who was my mother's kinsman. You know what peril that brought me to, and how, thanks to you, I am now making a safer journey, and a happier.

Humphrey," said she, "till I met you and Sir Ludar, I had thought all men base; 'twas the one lesson they taught us at the convent. I have unlearned the lesson since."

"Pray Heaven you never have to relearn it," said I, groaning inwardly to think how near I had been to giving her cause.

Thus we talked that morning. At every word, what little hope I had once had of her love faded like the stars above our heads. Yet, instead of it came the promise of an almost sisterly friendship, which at the time seemed poor enough exchange, but which was yet a prize worth any man's having. She bade me tell her about myself, and heard me so gently, and concerned herself so honestly in all that touched me, and praised and chid me so prettily for what I had done well and ill, that I would my story had been twice as long and twice as pitiful. The only secret I did not tell her, you may guess. She did not. But she heard me greedily when I came to tell of my meeting with Ludar and of our adventures near Oxford; and for his sake, as much as for my own, she thought kindly of me and promised me her friendship.

Our watch was ended, and we were in the act of quitting our post, when the maiden, taking one last look seaward, cried: "Is not that a sail away there?"

Sure enough it was, sparkling on the westward horizon, some two leagues to the larboard.

"Who cometh?" said I to myself, echoing the maiden's song.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

HOW WE SAILED INTO LEITH.

A strange joy seized me as I sighted the unknown ship. For my heart told me she was no friend, and I was just in the humour for a fight. I was one too many on board the _Misericorde_; and a brush with the Queen's foes just now would comfort me amazingly. And yet, when I came to think of it, she lay in nearer the English coast than we, and was like enough to be no Queen's enemy after all, but a Queen's cruiser on the look-out for suspicious craft like ours. For we floated no colours aloft. After the late fight Ludar had hauled down the Frenchman's flag; but it was in vain I begged him to hoist that of her royal Majesty in its place. He would not hear of it.

"No," said he, "I sail under no false colours. This is a voyage for safety, not for glory, else I know the flag would fly there. As it is, Humphrey, 'tis best for us all to fly nothing. The masts shall go bare.

The blue of a maiden's eyes is colour enough for you and me to fight under."

I could not gainsay him. We were in no trim for receiving broadsides, or grappling with sea-dogs, however merry the ports might be for a man in my plight. Our business was to bring the _Misericorde_ safe into Leith Roads, and to that venture we stood pledged.

Ludar ordered the maiden to her quarters and me to my cabin.

"In this calm," said he, "'twill be hours before we foregather if foregather we may. So below, while the poet and I whistle for a breeze."

Towards afternoon we lay much as we were, drifting a little westward.

But then came some clouds up from the south-east and with them a puff into our canvas.

"We may be glad to take in a reef on her before daybreak, Captain," said the seaman.

"Time, enough till then," said Ludar. "Take all you can now."

We had not long to wait before the _Misericorde_ had way on once more.

Then Ludar called his crew to him and said:

"To-night, be yonder stranger who she may, we run a race. Maiden, you have the keenest eyes; keep the watch forward. Humphrey, do you and the poet see to the guns and have all ready in case we need to show our teeth. Pilot, budge not one point out of the wind; but let her run. We may slip past in the dark, and then we are light-heeled enough to keep ahead. Old nurse, I warrant you have loaded a piece before now--we may need you to do it again. Meanwhile, to bed with you."

Then the race began. The wind behind us freshened fast, so that in an hour's time our timbers were creaking under stress of canvas. Before that, the stranger ship, though still a league and a half to larboard, had caught the breeze and was going too, canvas crowded, with her nose a point out of the wind into our course. For a long while it seemed as if we were never to come nearer, so anxious was she to give us no more advantage than she could help. But towards sundown we may have been a league asunder running neck and neck.