The Gentleman: A Romance of the Sea Part 22

And how beautiful it was, this strange twilight quiet, after the howl and torment of battle!

Warily the boy opened eyes and ears. He was not dead then, not even wounded, only horribly parched, and how his head ached!

Before him the cliff fell sheer and blank--a white curtain dropped from heaven.

Over it sea-gulls floated on dream-wings. While from some remote Down village, church bells swung out the old song--

_Come to Christ, Come to Christ, Come, dear children, come to Christ._

The boy, lying on the b.l.o.o.d.y deck, his feet cushioned on a dead man, listened with closed eyes to the old call.

Last Sunday at that hour, the blackbirds hopping on the lawn without, the swifts screaming above, he and mother and Gwen had been singing hymns together in the schoolroom--rather chokily indeed, for it was his last Sunday at home.

All that was ages and ages ago. He had lived and died a hundred times since then.

Now....

There by the wheel, in a puddle of his own blood, lay old Ding-dong, grey and ghastly. His eyes were closed; his c.o.c.ked hat with a rakish forward tilt sat on his nose. He lay with shoulders hunched, his legs spread helplessly along the deck before him, stubborn chin digging into the breast of his frock-coat.

One grim fist was frozen to the shattered wheel; the other, grimmer still, clutched the scent-bottle.

CHAPTER XV

THE VOICE FROM THE POWDER-MAGAZINE

I

A bosun's whistle sounded.

On hands and knees the lad crept along the tilted deck past the old Commander.

"That you, Mr. Caryll?" came a husky voice. "I canna see over plain."

The old man had not moved, but one eye had opened and was glaring up from under the eaves of his c.o.c.ked hat.

"Yes, sir."

"Are they coomin?"

Kit threw a glance seaward.

"The frigate's piped her boats away, sir."

The old man's head, still forward on his breast, did not move; he did not seem to breathe. All of him was dead save that little eye, c.o.c.king up at the lad from under the tilted hat.

"Canst walk?"

"Yes, sir. I'm not wounded, only stunned."

"Then run below to Mr. Lanyon, and tell him to bide my whistle."

"Where is he, sir?"

"Where he ought to be," growled the old man--"powder-magazine o coorse."

The eye closed: the little ray of soul, still haunting the body, seemed quenched for ever; but it was not.

"And bring along a brace o round-shot when ye coom back, wilta?" came the painful voice out of the deeps.

II

Kit slid down the companion ladder.

The lower deck was half awash, and foul with smoke. There was a stink of dead men, bilge, and powder.

But what a change from when he was last here!

Then sights so ghastly that he dared not recall them: screams of torn men, rending of torn planks; howling terrors on every side, shattering his head, bursting his heart, dissipating his mind.

Now silence everywhere, beautiful silence, the silence of Death.

And those leaping devils with the hoa.r.s.e throats, who had barked themselves red-hot then, were strangely hushed now. Loosed from their moorings, they huddled, together beneath him half under water, like so many great black beasts, cowed, it seemed, almost ashamed; here a huge breech showing, there a blunt snout, and again a thrusting trunnion.

As he crawled along in the gloom among blackened corpses he thanked G.o.d for the stillness. It was comforting to him as water in the desert to a man dying. He drank it in gulps.

A sound in the darkness and silence stopped him.

Out of the deeps a shuddering voice rose up to him, mumbling a Litany of the dead,

"Lord ha mercy on me a sinner-- Lord ha mercy on me a sinner-- Lord ha mercy on me a sinner."

The boy crept to the forehatch and peered down.

One tiny yellow star flickered in the pitch blackness beneath.

"Mr. Lanyon!" His voice was frightened of itself. "Is that you?"

The Litany ceased. Some one cleared his throat.

"That's me, sir," came a voice from the pit. "I'm back where I belong--in her bow'ls."