Sir Mortimer Part 9

Sedley raised his white face to the stars, then: "On men, on! We've to help Sir John, you know!" Tone of voice, raised arm, and waving hand, subtle and elusive likeness to the leader whom he worshipped, upon whom he had moulded himself--for the moment it was as though Sir Mortimer Ferne had cried encouragement to their sunken hearts, was beckoning them on to ultimate victory plucked from present defeat. A cheer, wavering, broken, touched with hysteria, broke from throats that were dry with the horror of past moments. On with Henry Sedley, their leader now, they struggled, making what mad haste they might through the tunal.

In wrath and grief, set of face, hot of heart, they burst at last from the tunal into the open with sky and sea, the plain, the town and the river before them--the river where the ships lay in safety, the _Cygnet_ and the _Phoenix_ close in sh.o.r.e, the _Mere Honour_ and the _Marigold_ in midstream. The ships in safety--then what meant those distant cries, that thrice repeated booming of a signal gun, that glare upon the river, those two boats filled with rowers making mad haste up the stream, that volley from the _Mere Honour's_ stern guns beneath which sank one of the hurrying craft?

Turned to stone they upon the hillside watched disaster at her work. The _Cygnet_ was a n.o.ble ship, co-equal in size and strength with the _Mere Honour,_ well beloved and well defended. Now for one instant of time a great leap of flame from her decks lit all the scene and showed her in her might; it was followed by a frightful explosion, and the great ship, torn from her anchorage, wrecked forever, a flaming hulk, a torch, a pyre, a potent of irremediable ruin, bore down the swift current and struck the _Phoenix_.... Once more the _Mere Honour's_ cannon thundered loud appeal and warning. In the red light cast by her destroyer the galleon began to sink, and that so rapidly that her seamen threw themselves overboard. Yet burning, the _Cygnet_ kept on her way. Borne by the tide she pa.s.sed from the narrow to the wider waters; to-night a waning star, the morn might find her a blackened derelict, if indeed there was sign of her at all upon the surface of the sea.

Around the base of the hill swept the Admiral and his force. Vain had been the attack upon the fortress, heavy the loss of the English, but it was not the Spanish guns which had caused that retreat. Where were Robert Baldry and his men? What strange failure, unlooked-for disaster, portended that heavy firing at the rear of the fortress?... The signal gun! The ships!

John Nevil and his company left attacking forever the fortress of Nueva Cordoba, and rushed down the hillside towards plain and river. Forth from the town burst Ambrose Wynch with the guard which had been left in the square--but where were Robert Baldry and his men? Were these they--this dwindled band staggering, leaping down from the heights, led by Henry Sedley, gray, exhausted, speaking in whispers or in strained, high voices? No time was there for explanation, bewildered conjecture, tragic apprehension. Scarcely had the three parties joined, when hard upon their heels came De Guardiola and all his men-at-arms. Nevil wheeled, fought them back, set face again to the river, but his adversaries chose not to have it so.

They achieved their purpose, for he gave them battle on the plain, at his back the red light from the river, before him that bitter, triumphant fortress. Hard and long did they fight in a death struggle, fierce and implacable, where quarter was neither asked nor given. Nevil himself bore a charmed life, but many a gentleman adventurer, many a simple soldier or mariner gasped his last upon Spanish pike or sword.

Not fifty paces from the river bank Henry Sedley received his quietus.

He had fought as one inspired, all his being tempered to a fine agong of endeavor too high for suffering or for thought. So now when Arden caught him, falling, it was with an unruffled brow and a smile remote and sweet that he looked up at the other's haggard, twisted features.

"My knighthood's yet to seek," he said. "It matters not. Tell my Captain that as I fought for him here, so I wait for him in Christ His court.

Tell my sister Damaris--" He was gone, and Arden, rising, slew the swordsman to whom his death was due.

Still fighting, the English reached the brim of the river and the boats that were hidden there. The _Mere Honour_ and the _Marigold_ were now their cities of refuge. Lost was the town, lost any hope of the fortress and what it contained, lost the _Cygnet_ and the _Phoenix_, lost Henry Sedley and Robert Baldry and many a gallant man besides, lost Sir Mortimer Ferne. Gall and vinegar and Dead Sea fruit and frustrated promise this night held for them who had been conquerors and confident.

They saw the _Cygnet_, yet burning, upon her way to the open sea; from the galleon _San Jose_ it was gone to join the caravels. Wreckage strewed the river's bosom, and for those who had manned the two ships, destroyer and destroyed, where were they? Down with the _allegartos_ and the river slime--yet voyaging with the _Cygnet_--rushing, a pale accusing troop towards G.o.d's justice bar?... The night was waxing old, the dawn was coming. Upon the _Mere Honour_ Baptist Manwood, a brave and honest soul who did his duty, steered his ship, encouraged his men, fought the Spaniard and made no more ado, trained his guns upon the landing, and with their menace kept back the enemy while, boatload after boatload, the English left the bank and reached in safety the two ships that were left them.

The day was breaking in red intolerable splendor, a terrible glory illuminating the _Mere Honour_ and the _Marigold_, the river and the sandy sh.o.r.e where gathered the flamingoes and the herons and the egrets, as the Admiral, standing on the p.o.o.p of the _Mere Honour_, pressed the hands of those his officers that were spared to him, and spoke simply and manfully, as had spoken Francis Drake, to the gentlemen adventurers who had risked life and goods in this enterprise, and to the soldiers and mariners gathered in the waist; then listened in silence to the story of disaster. Nor Robert Baldry nor Henry Sedley was there to make report, but a grizzled man-at-arms told of the trap beyond the tunal into which Baldry had been betrayed. "How did the Dons come to know, Sir John? We'll take our oath that the trench was newly dug, and sure no such devil's battery as opened on us was planted there before this night! 'Twas a traitor or a spy that wrought us deadly harm!" He ended with a fearful imprecation, and an echo of his oath came from his fellows in defeat.

Michael Thynne, Master of the _Cygnet_, a dazed and bleeding figure, s.n.a.t.c.hed from the water by one of the _Marigold's_ boats, spoke for his ship. "Came to us that were nearest the sh.o.r.e a boat out of the shadow--and we saw but four or maybe five rowers. 'Who goes there?'

calls I, standing by the big culverin. 'The word or we fire!' One in the boat stands up. '_Dione_,' says he, and on comes the boat under our stern." He put up an uncertain hand to a ghastly wound in his forehead.... "Well, your Honor, as I was saying, they were Spaniards, after all, and a many of them, for they were hidden in the bottom of the boat. '_Dione_,' says they, and I lean over the rail to see if 'twere black Humphrey clambering up and to know what was wanted....

After that I don't remember--but one had a pistolet, I think.... There was another boat that came after them--and we were but twenty men in all. They swarmed over the side and they cut us down. They must ha'

found the magazine, for they fired the ship--they fired the _Cygnet_, Sir John, and it bore down with the tide and struck the _Phoenix_." His voice falling, one caught and drew him aside to the chirurgeon's care.

The Admiral turned to Ambrose Wynch, who burst forth with: "Sir John Nevil, as I have hope of heaven, I swear I did guard that man as you bade me do! The room was safe, the window high and barred, the door locked--"

"I doubt not that you did your duty, Ambrose Wynch," spoke the Admiral.

"But the man escaped--"

"At the nooning he was safe enough," pursued the other, with agitation.

"I, going the rounds, looked in and saw him sitting on his bed, smiling at me like a woman--Satan take his soul! I left Ralph Walter in the hall without, and you know him for a stanch man.... When we heard the _Mere Honour's_ guns, and the town rose against us who were left within it, and I and my handful were cutting our way out to join you, Walter got to my side for a moment. 'He's gone!' says he. 'When I heard the alarum I went to fetch him forth to the square with me--and he was not there!

When he went and how, except the devil aided him, I know no more than you!'"

"Where is Ralph Walter?" said the Admiral.

"Dead on the plain yonder!" groaned his lieutenant, and sitting down, covered his face with his hands.

From the main-deck arose a long, shrill cry. Arden drew a shuddering breath.

"It's that boy Robin! Had they not bound him he would have thrown himself overboard. I doubt you'll have to flog his senses back to him."

Robin-a-dale's voice again, this time from the break of the p.o.o.p;--Robin-a-dale himself upon them, his bonds broken, his eyeb.a.l.l.s starting, a wild blue-jerkined Ariel filled with tidings. In this moment a scant respecter of persons, he threw himself upon Nevil, pointing and stammering, inarticulate with the wealth of his discovery. The eyes of the two men followed his lean, brown finger.... Above the quay where boats made landing a sand-spit ran out from the tamarind-shadowed bank, and now in the red dawning the mist that clung to it lifted. A man who for an hour had lain heavily in the heavy shadow where he had been left by De Guardiola's picked men had arisen, and with feeble and uncertain steps was treading the sand-spit in the direction of the ships. Even as Nevil and Arden looked where Robin's shaking forefinger bade them look, he raised and waved his hand. It was the shadow of an old familiar gesture.

Before the c.o.c.kboat reached the point he had fallen, first to his knee, then p.r.o.ne upon the sand. It was in that deep swoon that he was brought aboard the _Mere Honour_ and laid in the Admiral's cabin, whence Arden, leaving the chirurgeon and Robin-a-dale with the yet unconscious man, presently came forth to the Admiral and to Ambrose Wynch and asked for aqua vitae, then drew his hand across his brow and wiped away the cold sweat; finally found voice with which to load with curses Luiz de Guardiola and his ministers. The Admiral listening, kept his still look upon the fortress. When Arden had ended his imprecations he spoke with a quiet voice:

"I love a knightly foe," he said. "For that churl and satyr yonder, may G.o.d keep him in safety until we come again!"

"Till we come again!" Arden cried, in the fierceness of his unwonted pa.s.sion. "Are we not here? Why is the boatswain calling? Why do we make sail, and that so hastily?"

"Look!" said Ambrose Wynch, gruffly, and pointed to the west. "The plate-fleet!"

Those many white flecks upon the horizon grew larger, came swiftly on.

Forth from the river's mouth, out to sea, put the _Mere Honour_ and the _Marigold_, for they might not tarry to meet that squadron. None that looked upon Nevil's face doubted that though now he went, he would come again. But he must gather other ships, replace his dead, renew his strength by the touch of his mother earth. Home therefore to England, to the friends and foes of a man's own house! To the eastward turned the prows of the English ships; the sails filled, the sh.o.r.es slipped past.

In the town the bells were ringing, on the plain were figures moving; from the fortress boomed a gun, and the sound was like a taunt, was like a blow upon the cheek. Swift answer made the cannon of both ships, and the sullen, defiant roar awoke the echoes. Taunt might they give for taunt. Three ships had the English taken, three towns had they sacked; in sea-fights and in land-fights they had been victors! Where were the caravels, where the ruined battery at the river's mouth, where the great magazine of Nueva Cordoba? Where was Antonio de Castro?--and the galleon _San Jose_ was lost to friend as well as foe--and Spaniard no more than Englishman might gather again the sunken treasure. Thus spake the guns, but the hearts of the men behind were wrung for the living and the dead.

The sh.o.r.es slipped by, the fortress hill of Nueva Cordoba lessened to a silver speck against the mountains; swift-sailing ships they feared no chase by those galleons of Spain. Islands were pa.s.sed, behind them fell bold coasts, before them spread the waste of waters. Beyond the waste there was home, where friend and foe awaited tidings of the expedition which had gone forth big with promise.

In the _Mere Honour's_ state-cabin upon the evening of that decisive day were gathered a number of the adventurers who had staked life and goods in this enterprise. Not all were there who had sailed from England to the Spanish seas. Then as now England paid t.i.thes of her younger sons to violent death. Many men were missing whose voices the air seemed yet to hold. They had outstripped their comrades, they had gone before: what bustling highways or what lonely paths they were treading, what fare they were tasting, for what mark they were making, and upon what long, long adventure bound--these were hidden things to the travellers left behind in this murky segment of life. But to the strained senses of the men upon whom, as yet, had hardly fallen the upas languor of accepted defeat, before whose eyes, whether shut or open, yet pa.s.sed insistent visions of last night's events, like an echo, like a shade, old presences made themselves felt. Swinging lanterns dimly lit the cabin of the _Mere Honour_, and in ranks the shadows rose and fell along its swaying walls. From without, the sound of the sea came like an inarticulate murmur of far-away voices. There were vacant places at the table, and upon the long benches that ran beneath the windows; yet, indefinably, there seemed no less a company than in the days before the taking of the galleon _San Jose_ and the town of Nueva Cordoba. One arose restlessly and looked out upon the star-rimmed sea, then in haste turned back to the lit cabin and pa.s.sed his hand before his eyes. "I thought I saw the _Phoenix_," he said, "huge and tall, with Robert Baldry leaning over the side." Another groaned, "I had rather see the _Cygnet_ that was the best-loved ship!" At the mention of the _Cygnet_ they looked towards a door. "How long his stupor holds!" quoth Ambrose Wynch. "Well, G.o.d knows 'tis better dreaming than awaking!" The door opened and Sir Mortimer Ferne stood before them.

From the Admiral to the last ne'er-do-weel of a n.o.ble house all sprang to their feet. "G.o.d!" said one, under his breath, and another's tankard fell clattering from his shaking hand. Nevil, the calm accustomed state, the iron quiet of his nature quite broken, advanced with agitation.

"Mortimer, Mortimer!" he cried, and would have put his arms about his friend, but Ferne stayed him with a gesture and a look that none might understand. Behind him came Robin-a-dale, slipped beneath his outstretched arm, then with head thrown back and wild defiant eyes faced the little throng of adventurers. "He's mad!" he shrilled. "My master's mad! He says strange things--but don't you mind them, gentles.... Oh!

Sir John Nevil, don't you mind them--"

"Robin!" said Ferne, and the boy was silent.

Arden pushed forward the huge and heavy chair from the head of the board. "Stand not there before us like the shade of him who was Mortimer Ferne," he cried, his dark face working. "Sit here among us who dearly love you, truest friend and n.o.blest gentleman!--Pour wine for him, one of you!"

Ferne made no motion of acquiescence. He stood against the door which had shut behind him and looked from man to man. "Humphrey Carewe--and you, Gilbert--and you, Giles Arden--why are you here upon the _Mere Honour_? The _Cygnet_ is your ship." None answering him, his eyes travelled to others of the company. "You, Darrell, and you, Black Will Cotesworth, were of the _Phoenix_. What do you here?... The water rushes by and the timbers creak and strain. Whither do we go under press of sail?"

Before the intensity of his regard the men shrank back appalled. A moment pa.s.sed then. "My friend, my friend!" cried Nevil, hoa.r.s.ely, "you have suffered.... Rest until to-morrow."

The other looked steadfastly upon him. "Why, 'tis so that I have been through the fires of h.e.l.l. Certain things were told me there--but I have thought that perhaps they were not true. Tell me the truth."

The silence seemed long before with recovered calmness the Admiral spoke. "Take the truth, then, from my lips, and bear it highly. As we had plotted so we did, but that vile toad, that engrained traitor, learning, we know not how, each jot and t.i.ttle of our plan and escaping by some secret way, sold us to disaster such as has not been since Fayal in the Azores! For on land we fought to no avail, and by treachery the Spaniards seized the _Cygnet_, slew the men upon her, and fired her powder-room. Dressed in flame she bore down upon, struck, and sunk the _Phoenix_.... Now we are the _Mere Honour_ and the _Marigold_, and we go under press of sail because behind us, whitening the waters that we have left, is the plate-fleet from Cartagena."

"Where is Robert Baldry?" asked Ferne.

"In the hands of Don Luiz de Guardiola--dead or living we know not. He and a hundred men came not forth from the tunal--stayed behind in the snare the Spaniard had set for them."

"Where is Henry Sedley?"

"He died in my arms, Mortimer, thrust through by a pike in that bitter fight upon the plain!" Arden made reply. "I was to tell you that he waited for you in Christ His court."

"Then will he wait for aye," said the man who leaned so heavily against the door. "Or till Christ beckons in Iscariot."

They looked at him, thinking his mind distraught, not wondering that it should be so. He read their thought and smiled, but his eyes that smiled not met Arden's. "Great G.o.d!" cried the latter, shrank back against the table and put out a shaking hand.

Slowly Ferne left the support of the wood and straightened his racked frame until he stood erect, a figure yet graceful, yet stately, but pathetic and terrible, bearing as it did deep marks of Spanish hatred.

The face was ghastly in its gleaming pallor, in its effect of a beautiful mask fitted to tragedy too utter for aught but stillness. He wore no doublet, and his shirt was torn and stained with blood, but in last and subtlest mockery De Guardiola had restored to him his sword. He drew it now, held the blade across his knee, and with one effort of all his strength broke the steel in twain, then threw the pieces from him, and turned his sunken eyes upon the Admiral. "I beg the shortest shrift that you may give," he said. "It was I who, when they tormented me, told them all. Hang me now, John Nevil, in the starlight."

The Admiral's lips moved, but there came from them no sound, nor was there sound in the cabin of the _Mere Honour_. Not the _Cygnet_ or the _Phoenix_ were more quiet far away, far below, on the gray levels of the sea. At last a voice--Ambrose Wynch's--broke the silence that had grown too great to bear. "It was Francis Sark," he said, and again monotonously, "It was Francis Sark--it was Francis Sark." Another swore with a great oath, "'Tis as the boy says--they've crazed him with their torments!" Humphrey Carewe, a silent and a dogged man, who wore not his heart upon his sleeve, broke into a pa.s.sionate cry: "Sir Mortimer Ferne!

Sir Mortimer Ferne!"

To them all it seemed that the name broke the spell that was upon them.

The name stood for very much. Carewe's outcry called up a cloud of witnesses--the deeds of a man's lifetime--and marshalled them against this monstrous accusation of a sick and whirling hour. "You know not what you say!" spoke Nevil, harshly. "Good and evil are blent in you as in all men, but G.o.d used no traitorous or craven stuff in your making!

Rest now,--speak to us to-morrow!"