The Buccaneer Part 54

"Yes," was the Ranger's concise reply. "And now," he added, "Jack, remember, the moment you see my signal, deliver this to the Skipper; but, as you value your life, not before."

He plunged into the ocean as he spoke; and presently, the sound of the dividing waters was lost in the distance.

"Well!" exclaimed Roupall, "that beats all the freaks I ever knew even Robin to be after! Why, the vessel's near a mile off; and, now I think of it, I never asked him what we were to do when he gave the signal; but I suppose his paper tells. Lying about here, in such peril! But it's always the way--the minute a sailor touches land, good-by to his well-doing."

Before the speaker had climbed the topmost cliff, he met the Buccaneer.

"Hast seen Robin Hays?" was his first question.

"Ay, sir; and, if it was day, you might see him too--at least, the best part of him--his head, yonder--making for the Fire-fly."

"How! making for the Fire-fly! What do ye mean. Jack? this is no time for jesting."

"I mean, Captain, that Robin Hays is swimming to the Fire-fly; and that he told me to watch for a signal he would make; and----"

"And what?"

"Why, he is to make a signal--a red light from the ship."

"Red light from the ship!" repeated the Buccaneer, in a voice of astonishment; "He has lost his senses! What can this mean? Left he no message for me?"

"None," replied Roupall; thinking to himself, "a piece of parchment's no message, so that's no lie."

Dalton paced to and fro on the small ledge that had been beaten smooth by the step of many an illegal sentry in days gone by: beneath his feet lay the subterraneous apartments of the Gull's Nest; and before him (although the night had so darkened that it was no longer visible), before him was his own vessel anch.o.r.ed. At any other time he would have felt secure of refuge in the one resource or the other; but circ.u.mstances combined to convince him there was now no certain safety by sea or land. At one moment, he thought of manning his boat, and carrying his daughter boldly to the ship. Had he been alone, such would at once have been his determination--but he could not expose much less leave her to peril. With the common blindness of those who argue only on their own side of the question, he could not see why the Protector should object to the preservation of the Fire-fly; and he had hoped for Robin's return with tidings that would have made his child's heart, as well as his own, leap with joy. He knew that Cromwell would make a large sacrifice to secure the Jewess, Zillah; and he had also reasons to believe the Protector suspected there were other secrets within his keeping, the nature of which he would give much to learn. Robin's motive, in thus visiting the Fire-fly, was beyond his comprehension; and he had no alternative but to await the promised signal with all the patience he could command. As he paced the ledge, now with a slow now with a hurried footstep, the darkness increased, and the stars twinkled less frequently:--there was no storm--no fierce blast swept along the heavens, or disturbed the earth, but dense heavy clouds canopied the the ocean as with a pall. Roupall was seated on a huge stone, his elbows resting on his knees, his eyes fixed on the "mult.i.tudinous sea,"

silently, and not less anxiously, watching for the flash which he expected would disturb the dull and sleepy night. Ever and anon, the querulous voice of the woman, keeping watch by the lifeless clay, which she had laid in decent order upon its humble pallet, in the Gull's Nest, floated over the cliffs, and died away on the bosom of the waters. At times, Roupall would growl and fret as a chained mastiff; but the anxiety of the Skipper had so increased, that he ceased moving, and stood on the bold brow of the crag, like a black monument of stone.

Suddenly, a strong light, a fierce blaze, as if the ocean had thrown up one immense pyramid of flame, to dispel the darkness and divide the clouds, sprang into the heavens! and then a peal, loud as the straggling thunder! The cliff shook beneath their feet--the sea-birds started from their nests, and flew, and screamed, and wheeled in the air! From behind the different points and crags along the sh.o.r.e rushed forth the smugglers, who had lain to, watching the time when it would have been prudent for them to put off their boats and join the ship, as Dalton had directed. The old death-dresser forsook the corpse, and standing on the highest crag, her long hair floating backwards on the breeze, her arms tossing from the effects of terror and astonishment, looked like the sibyl whose spells and orgies have distracted nature by some terrible convulsion. The cliffs and strand at the moment formed a picture that Salvator would have gloried in conveying to his canva.s.s--the line of coast now rising boldly from the ocean, each projecting point catching the glaring blaze, and seeming itself on fire--the caverns overhung by creeping plants, revelling in gorgeous colours from every changing light that touched their beauties:--then the wild figures clasping by the rocks, panting with terror and excitement--the sibyl on her pinnacle--the gigantic frame of Roupall, rendered still more gigantic to the eye by the position in which he stood, breathless, with the written parchment in his hand, yet unable to move or direct Dalton's attention to it. The Skipper, still like a monument of stone, but called to animation by astonishment and dismay, while the light played with the grace and brilliancy of lightning on the bright mountings of his pistols. Still the flames towered brightly to the heavens, while each fresh explosion separated their condensed effect, and sent a portion of them higher in the clouds, or hissing over the variegated and sparkling sea, which rolled to the sh.o.r.e in ma.s.ses of glowing fire.

"Read! read!" at length exclaimed Roupall, thrusting the parchment into the hand of the Buccaneer. "Read! read!" he repeated, for Dalton heeded him not.

"Read what?" said the Skipper, in a voice which entered the heart of all who heard it; "do I not read--do I not read--black, bitter, burning treachery?--It is my own ship--I know every spar that flits like a meteor through the air. My heart was never crushed till now."

"Read--I will read it, if I can," said Springall, who had joined the party. With some difficulty he succeeded in making audible its contents.

"Dalton, you are safe! it may be that I perish: I knew you would never sacrifice your ship for your own life, so I have done it for you. Go with the Jewess, your daughter, and the Preacher, immediately to Cecil Place, to the small pa.s.sage leading to the purple chamber, and demand admittance. You are pardoned--and all the rest may leave the island, provided they depart before the hour of one."

The Buccaneer apparently heard it not: the communication made no visible impression upon him; he stood in the same position as before. Even Springall spoke no word, although his feeling of attachment to Dalton was rendered sufficiently obvious by his creeping close to his side, and grasping his arm with a gesture which said, "I will not be separated from you."

At this moment a cry arose from the beach, and, though the flames were fading, it could be seen that several of the men had rushed to the water's edge, and a.s.sisted a creature to the sh.o.r.e who was unable to struggle longer for himself; soon, however, he contrived to mount the cliff on which Dalton still remained a living statue of despair, and faint, dripping, unable to utter a single word, Robin stood, or rather drooped, by the side of the Buccaneer. He came too soon; Dalton, irritated, maddened by the loss of his ship, was unable to appreciate the risk which the Ranger had run, or the sacrifice he had made. He thought but of what he had lost, not of what he had gained; and saw in Robin only the destroyer of his vessel, not the obtainer of his long sought-for pardon. Urged by uncontrollable frenzy, he seized his preserver with the grasp and determination of a desperate man, and, raising him from the ledge, would have hurled him over the cliff, had not one, weak and gentle, yet with that strength to which the strongest must ever yield, interposed to thwart his horrid purpose. It was Barbara, who clung to her father's arm: feeble as she was, the death-throes of the gallant vessel had frighted her and her companion from their retirement, and she now came, like the angel of mercy, between her parent and his ill-directed vengeance. When the Buccaneer found that his arm was pressed, his impulse was to fling off the hand that did it; but when he saw who it was that stayed him, and gazed upon the bloodless face and imploring eyes of his sweet daughter, he stood a harmless unresisting man, subdued by a look and overpowered by a touch.

Barbara never was a girl of energy, or a seeker after power. She considered obedience as woman's chief duty--duty as a child to the parent--as a wife to the husband; and, perhaps, such was her timidity, had there been time to deliberate, she would have trembled at the bare idea of opposing her father's will, though she would have mourned to the end of her days the result of his madness; but she acted from the impulse of the moment. Nothing could be more touching than the sight of her worn and almost transparent figure, hanging on her father's dark and muscular form, like a frail snow-wreath on some bleak mountain.

Robin, whose resentments were as fierce as his fidelity was strong, felt in all the bitterness of his nature the indignity the Buccaneer had put upon him, and stood panting to avenge the insult and injustice, yet withheld from either word or deed by the presence of Barbara, who remained in the same att.i.tude, clinging to her father, unable, from weakness, either to withdraw or to stand without a.s.sistance.

Springall, who did not love her so much as to prevent his being useful, was the first to regain his self-possession; he brought in his cap some water that was trickling down the rock, and threw it on her pallid brow--while Zillah chafed her hands, and endeavoured to separate her from her father. At last she spoke, and, though her voice was feeble as the cry of infancy, the Buccaneer heard it, and withdrew his gaze from the remains of his burning vessel to look on the living features of his child.

"Father! you frighten me by those wild pa.s.sions--and this wild place!

let us go from it, and be at peace; poor Robin is your true friend, father. Be friends with him."

"You speak as a woman, a young weak woman, Barbara," replied the Skipper, evincing his returning interest in present objects by pa.s.sing his arm round his daughter, so as to support her on his bosom. "Look out, girl, and say what you see."

"Father, huge ma.s.ses of burning wood, floating over the ocean, and borne to other sh.o.r.es by the rising breeze."

"And know you what that burning wood was scarce a minute since?"

"Father--no."

"Those blazing ma.s.ses were once the Fire-fly--my own ship--my own ship!"

"And Robin----?"

"Has been the means of its destruction."

"Has he?" Barbara paused after she had so exclaimed, and then, clasping her hands, raised them upwards as she continued, "a blessing, a thousand blessings on him! for what he does is ever good, and full of wisdom. Ah!

now I see it all: he destroyed the bad vessel that you, dear father, might no more to sea; but stay on sh.o.r.e with us--with _me_, I would have said--" she added, hiding, as she spoke, her face on her father's shoulder.

Five or six of the crew had clambered up the cliff, and cl.u.s.tered round their Skipper. Roupall, Springall, and the Jewess were close to Barbara, and Robin stood exactly on the spot where Dalton's rage had left him--one foot on the edge of the crumbling cliff, his long arms enwreathing his chest.

The red glare had faded from the waters, the sea-birds were settling in their nests, but the government-ships were alive with lights, and, suddenly bursting through the night, came the shrill blast of a trumpet from Cecil Place. It called Robin Hays into activity, and, while the men were looking on each other, he advanced and spoke.

"Hugh Dalton, the ship was yours, and yours alone, and to you the parchment which Springall holds accounts for its destruction; that destruction, Captain, ought to prove one thing, and one thing only--that I loved you better than the Fire-fly. Both could not have been preserved. You have treated me as a dog, to whom you would have given a dog's death; and I shall not forget it."

"Robin!" exclaimed a small soft voice.

"I cannot forget it," repeated the Ranger; and then the voice again said, "Robin," in a tone of such sweetness, that all present were moved.

After another pause, hardy Jack Roupall put in his word.

"The Skipper was hurt, and no marvel, to see her burning. You mustn't be spiteful, Robin Hays,--only what hindered to get her out?"

"She was known, marked, and watched, as I am well a.s.sured of," he replied. "Had you attempted to weigh anchor, every man on board would have been blown to atoms. Not a life would have been spared. The men who had charge of her are safe. I sent them to the Ess.e.x side--though they little thought why."

Another trumpet-blast mounted with the breeze, and Robin exclaimed,

"Away, away, lads! It is not yet midnight, and no hindrance will be offered to any who quit the island before the hour of one. Away, away!

Ye are foxes, and have earths in plenty. Away, for your lives away!"

"Away!" replied Roupall. "Whither, good Ranger? Heard ye not the trumpet, and know ye not that every outlet will be guarded, every man on the watch after such a sound?"

"Had your safety not been cared for, there need have been no trumpet-blast. I pledge my faith--my life--for your security," exclaimed Robin, energetically. "Only away, and quickly!"

One or two of the men sullenly and quietly dropped down the cliff; but there were others who would not thus part from their captain,--sailors, who had braved danger, disease, and death in his company; these would not leave him now, but, as if in expectation of an attack, they looked to their pistols and jerked their daggers sharply in their sheaths.

Dalton still remained, uncertain, perhaps, or careless as to his future course, with Barbara still hanging on his arm, while the Jewess clung closely to her side.

"Springall!" said Robin, "you have influence with him. Use it for his good: his pardon is secured if he complies with the terms I have mentioned."

"Great tidings! glad tidings!" exclaimed a hoa.r.s.e voice a little above them. "The Philistines will be overthrown, and the men of Judah triumph!

I have heard in my solitude, yea in my extremity, tidings of exceeding gladness: and, albeit not of quick hearing, the tramp of Joshua and his army hath come upon mine ear. Oh, ye Canaanites! ye dwellers in the accursed land!"