Part 20

“No, sir. This country horses. Imported horses die of the heat, or the change of grass. Beyond Carta-yaina there’s very good horse country.”

The rabble on the beach drew back now towards the town, handling their arms. Half a dozen horsemen rode as though to meet the boat, almost to the lip of the sea. One of them, a negro, who held his stirrups with his toes, carried a pennon.

“The lad on the pinto’s the capataz,” said Tucket in his beard. “Stand up with the flag in the bows there. Down sail. Let your oars swing fore and aft in their grummets, ready to back her off. Wave your flag of truce, Ed. Don’t shake your pistols out though. Stand by, Captain Stukeley.”

“Are they friendly, do you think?”

“Sure.”

“Oh, Stukeley,” Margaret said. “This little case contains a ring for the Governor. Say that you trust that it may have the felicity to fit.”

“I will,” said Stukeley. “They carry some plate on their headstalls, don’t they?” He put the case in his pocket.

The bow man waved his flag of truce, then lowered it, and knelt, waiting for the shock of the grounding. Very gently, in the wash of little waves and slipping shingle, the boat’s nose took the sand. Captain Margaret stepped across the thwarts, holding a white cloth in his hand. Watching his time, he leaped nimbly beyond the water, and uncovered. Stukeley followed him, jumping clumsily. It seemed to Margaret, as he turned sharply, thinking that the man had fallen, that a book in Stukeley’s inner pocket was surely Cammock’s map-book. It half jolted out as the coat flew open. It was a glimpse, nothing more. Perhaps he was wrong. The two men stood uncovered before the horsemen, who watched them with the grave eyes of animals. An elderly man among the riders rode forward for a pace or two, uncovering with a gesture full of dignity. He had the bearing of a soldier. It seemed to Margaret that the gesture explained the might of Spain. Stukeley advanced towards the horseman with his hat beating against his knee. He spoke quietly in Spanish. After a few words, the elderly man dismounted, and the two walked to and fro together, talking with a grave politeness, which seemed to extend to the listeners, whether they understood or not.

Presently Stukeley bowed very low to the captain, and walked jauntily to Margaret. “It’s all right,” he said. “I think they’ll do your business for you. They’re very friendly. They’re going to take me to see the Governor.”

“Am I to come?”

“Only one man, he says. I may have to stay to dinner.”

“You think you run no risk? I’m willing to come if you think you run any. I ought to share it.”

“They’re all right. There’s no risk. But he offers a hostage.”

“One of those cut-throats?”

“It ain’t very polite to accept. Eh? I’ll go alone. He knows you’ve a commission. I’ve shown him that duplicate. It’s all right. I’ll go off now. So long, my Maggy. Con Dios, caballero. Try and keep warm on the sands here.”

He saluted the boat’s crew, gave Margaret a queer glance, and rejoined the capataz, who bowed to them gravely. The negro with the pennon led the dismounted horse. The capataz walked with Stukeley, followed by the other troopers. They went slowly towards the gate of the city. The troopers made their horses curvet and passage, clashing their silver gear. Margaret stood at the lip of the water, watching them, till they had passed within the gate, followed by the rabble.

The boatmen held that it would not be politic to return to the sloop. “It might seem as we didn’t trust them,” Tucket said. So they rigged the boat-rug as an awning over the sternsheets, and whiled away the time, suffering much from the heat. It was a stifling day. The time passed slowly, with many calls for the water-breaker. They made their dinner of plantains, then smoked, exchanging stories, longing for Stukeley’s return. Margaret found the time less irksome than he had expected; for Tucket began to talk, out of a full heart, about the subjects dear to him. He had never had such a listener before. Margaret drew him out, with his usual sympathy, till the man’s inmost life was bare before him. Such woods would take a polish, and such other woods would take a stain; and such and such resins, why should they not stain a wood to all colours of the rainbow, if treated with care in the right way? It would be fine, Captain Tucket said, to be a chemist, and have nothing else to do but to watch your dye vats all day long. Vats of indigo, of anatta, of cochineal, all the lovely colours, and---- Say. If one could get a green that showed the light in it, like the water breaking on a reef. The hours passed; it was nearly three o’clock; but still no Stukeley.

“The Guv’nor dines late,” said one of the men.

“I guess it’s difficult to get away from the donnas,” said another. The others laughed; for Stukeley’s faults were well known.

“I dunno, sir,” said Tucket. “It seems a bit odd.”

“He seemed very sanguine about it,” Margaret answered.

“I ain’t much charmed with your friend myself,” said Tucket. “I don’t trust that Master Stukeley.”

“You don’t think he’s deserted? Is that your meaning?”

“Well, I wouldn’t a trusted him to be my interpreter,” Tucket answered, with the growl of one whose superior wisdom, now proved, is proved too late. “We could a give you Thomas Gandy. He’d have done as good. He knows Spanish just like a book, Tom do. And you could a trusted Tom with your life. Now you ain’t on too good terms with the Mr. Stukeley feller.”

“Shall I go into the town, then? To see if anything’s wrong?”

“Why, no, sir. That’s putting your joint in the fire to hot your soup. Stay here, sir.”

“Well, we’ll wait a little longer. What d’you say to bathing?”

“It’s not really safe, sir. There’s cat-fish on this coast. Besides, we better not get all over the place like shifting backstays. Them Dagoes might come some of their monkey-tricks.”

“The town is quiet enough.”

“Siesta time,” said one of the men. “They likes a doss in the afternoon.”

“I dunno what to think,” Tucket said. “But ’t’ain’t too wholesome, to my mind.”

“He said he might be kept for dinner.”

“He could a sent word. Or they’d a sent dinner here. I’ve knowed Dagoes do that. You got good eyes, Ed. What d’you make of the woods there, back of the sand?” He turned to Margaret. “He’d been with the Indians three or four years, Ed done. He sees things in brush like that, just like an animal.”

All hands stared into the wall of green, which rose up eighty yards away, beyond the line of the sand. The trees towered up, notching the sky with their outlines. The sun blazed down upon them, till they flashed, as though their leaves were green steel. They made a wall of forest, linked, tangled, criss-crossed, hiding an inner darkness. A parrot was tearing at a blossom high up on a creeper, flinging out the petals with little wicked twists of his head. He showed up clearly against the sky in that strong light.

“Nothing wrong there,” said Ed. “Look at the parrot.”

They looked at the parrot, and laughed to hear him abuse the flower.

“They’re the kind you can learn to speak, sir,” said a seaman. “I’ve known some of them birds swear, you would think it was real. Some of them can do it in Spanish.”

“The Spaniards don’t swear,” said another man.

“They’ve got caramba,” said the first. “Caramba. That’s the same as God damn is in English.”

“Funny way of saying it,” said the other.

“Some one’s in that brush,” said the man called Ed. “See the paharo?”

Something had startled the parrot. He leaped up with a scream from his liane, made a half-circle in the air, and flew away, wavering, along the coast. One or two other birds rose as quietly as moths, and flitted into the night of the wood. A deer stepped out on to the beach daintily, picking her steps. She sniffed towards the town, listened, seemed to hear something, caught sight of the boat, and fled. Then came a sudden chattering of monkeys, a burst of abusive crying, lasting only for a moment.

“D’ye see anything, Ed?”

“There’s plenty of ’em, cap, I guess.”

“Can you hear ’em? Lay your head on the ground.”

“The wash of the sea’s too loud. I can’t hear nothing.”

“They’re coming from the town, are they?”

“Sure.”

“Is there a road at the back of that wood?” Margaret asked.

“No, sir. I guess not. The Dagoes use the beach as a road.”

“Yes,” said a seaman. “They go to Covenas. A town along there. They always go by the beach.”

“Do you know this place, then?”

“I worked on them walls a year, once. I’d ought to know it.”

“D’ye make out anything more, Ed?”

“They’re not far off yet, I guess, cap.”

“Do you think it’s an ambush, Captain Tucket?” Margaret asked.

“No saying, mister. May as well make ready,” he answered. “We’ll lay out our boat’s kedge to seaward, so as we can warp off in a hurry.”

They rowed the boat out into the bay, dropped their kedge, and backed her stern-first to the beach. They struck the awning, hoisted sail, and laid their oars in the thole-pins. They waited for another half-hour, watching the mysterious forest.

“I guess we’ll go off to the sloop, cap,” said a seaman. “He’s give us the flying foretopsail.”

“Them paharos is back among them berries,” said Ed. “I guess it was boys come for plantains.”

“I dunno,” said Tucket. “It’s odd our man ain’t come.”

“I must go up to the town to find out about him,” Margaret said. “I can’t wait like this.”

“I wouldn’t, sir,” said Tucket. “What do you say, boys?”

“No,” said the men. “No. It wouldn’t do.”

“But I got him to go. I can’t let him get into trouble through me. I’m responsible. I must see about him. I can’t go back without him.”

“He’s give you the foresheet, sir,” said one of the men.

“Yes. The son of a gun. I guess he has,” said another.

“There’s some one in that brush,” said Ed. “Them paharos has topped their booms for keeps.”

“Well,” said Margaret, taking out his white cloth, noting the wild, frightened flight of a half-dozen parrots, “I’m going to the some one, to find out.” He leaped from the sternsheets into the shallow water, and began to wade ashore, holding his cloth.

“Don’t you try it. You come back, sir,” called Tucket.

Margaret heard some one (he thought it was Ed’s voice) saying, “He’s brave all right,” and then, behind him, came the click of gunlocks. He glanced back, and saw that two of the men in the sternsheets had taken out their guns, while a third man laid other loaded guns ready to their hands. Ed called to him as he turned.

“You come back, sir.” Then, seeing that his words were of no avail, he leaped into the water and caught him by the arm. “Back to the boat, sir,” he said. “It’s not you only. It might be us.”

“I must find out about my friend,” said Margaret. “I can’t leave him as he is.”

“Bring him back, Ed. Make him come back,” called the boatmen.

“Now you go back,” Ed repeated, grinning, “or I’ll have to put you.” He looked up suddenly at the forest. “My Santa Marta!” he cried. “Into the boat. Here they are.” He thrust Margaret backwards towards his fellows, and instantly bent down to shove the boat clear. Both were up to their knees in water at the boat’s side. Some one, it was the man who had worked in Tolu, leaned out and grabbed at Margaret’s collar.

“Look out, sons!” cried Tucket.

At the instant a swarm of men burst from the edge of the forest. One or two of them who were mounted charged in at a gallop. The others ran down, crying, firing their guns as they ran. The water about the boat was splashed violently, as though some one flung pebbles edgewise from a height. Margaret drew his sword and turned. He saw a horse come down within twenty yards of him. Some one shouted “Crabs” derisively. Half a dozen fierce faces seemed staring on him, rushing on him, their mouths open, their eyes wide. There was a crack of guns. Men were falling. Then the wildness passed; he was calm again. A Spaniard, the rider of the fallen horse, was in the water, thrusting at him with a lance, calling him cuckold and bastard in the only English words he knew. Margaret knocked the lance aside with difficulty, for the man was strong and wild. His thoughts at the moment, for all the danger, was “I can’t be both.” He wondered in that flash of time whether a man could be both. All the beach seemed hidden from him with smoke and fire and the hurrying of splashing bodies. Where was Ed gone? It was all smoke and racket. He was being hit. Something struck his left arm. Striking at random at a voice in the smoke, his sword struck something. He dragged his sword back, and slipped with the effort. He was up to his waist in water for an instant, below the smoke. He saw men’s legs. He saw water splashing. Then there was smoke everywhere. Smoke of a hundred guns. A racket like the chambers shot off at the end of _Hamlet_; exactly like. A wave went into his face. Some one fell across him and knocked him down again. It was Ed.

“Hold up, you fool,” Ed cried. The voice was the high, querulous voice of the hurt man.

“You’re hit, Ed,” he said, catching him about the body. His arm stung along its length with the effort. “Where are you hit, Ed?”

“Abajo. Vete al carajo, hijo de la gran puta. Cabron! Mierda!” The words came out of the smoke like shots. The roar of the battle seemed to be all about him. He backed, staggering, to get out of the smoke. A half-tamed horse’s teeth ripped the sleeve from his hurt arm, knocking them both down again. Some one jabbed him with a lance in the shoulder. He struck the horse as he rose half choked, still clutching Ed. The horse leaped with a scream. The smoke lifted. It was all bright for a moment. A mad horse; a trooper swearing; Ed’s body like a sack with blood on it; a smoke full of fiery tongues. There was the boat though. Then the smoke cloaked it. Bullets splashed water in his face. The butt of a flung lance banged him on the side of the head. The horse reared above him, screaming, floundering in foam, then falling heavily. He was almost out of his depth now, half swimming, half dead, lugging a nether millstone. Blood was in his eyes, his sword dangled from his wrist, his free hand tried to swim. He clutched at the boat, missed, went under, gulping salt. He clutched again as the white side slid away. His fingers caught upon the gunwale, near the stroke’s thwart. He made the boat sway to one side a little. “Trim her,” said Tucket, as he hauled, face forward, on the warp. He did not look round; merely trimmed her mechanically, flinging the warp’s fakes aft. “Away-hay-hay-i-oh,” he sang. “Lively, Jude,” said another. “If you fire like you load, your bullets has moss on them.” Two of them were firing sharply, lying behind the backboard. “Cut,” cried Tucket. There was a shock of chopping on the gunwale. A hand sculled way upon her with the steering-oar as the sail filled. The midship oars were manned.

“Give me a hand here, please,” said Margaret weakly. “Catch Ed.”

“Lord. I thought you were in,” said Tucket. “Up with him. Ed’s gone. Don’t capsize the ship, you. I’d forgot you two.”

Margaret managed to scramble in, helped by the boatmen. Then he collapsed in the bottom of the boat over Ed. He had had a moving time. He came-to quickly, with the taste of rum in his mouth and a feeling of intense cold. His teeth chattered; he was weak and sick. “Land and bring off Stukeley,” he said. “I can’t leave Stukeley.”

“We’ll be in the sloop in a minute,” said one of the men. “We’ll shift him there. He got a prod in the shoulder.”

“How is it, Ed?” said another voice. “You’re all right.”

“What’s wrong with Ed?” said one of the rowers.

“Got a bat with a stone, I guess. I can’t see no shot hole. Hold up, Ed. You ain’t dead yet.”

“I’m all right,” said Ed weakly. “That Margaret fellow fell all across me and knocked me down.”

“He pulled you quit of the mix,” said Tucket. “Don’t you forget it.”

“He did, hell,” said Ed.

Margaret rose up in the boat. “I can’t leave Stukeley,” he said. “Pull in, Captain Tucket, and bring him off.”

“You lie down, sir, and stay quiet,” said Captain Tucket. “We’ll be there directly.”

One or two of the men tittered. Margaret tried to raise himself to look at the land. He heard the roar of cannon from somewhere astern. “That’s a heavy gun,” he said. “Who’s firing a heavy gun?” Then he felt suddenly very tired, the boat and the guns became blurred to him, he felt that there were ships sailing into action, firing their guns in succession, shaking with the shock. An array of ships was sailing. There were guns, guns. Guns that would never cease firing. There was water roaring. No. Not water. Horses. Horses and ships. Roaring, roaring. They were calling some one “Puta.” When he came-to, he was lying below in the sloop, with a cold mess on his arm and a fiery pain along his shoulder.

“Is Mr. Stukeley on board?” he asked.

“No, sir,” said Tucket, drying his hands. “Mr. Stukeley’s ashore. It’s my belief our Mr. Stukeley put that ambush on us. Mr. Stukeley’ll stay ashore.”

“I must bring him off. Land me, captain. There’s his wife.”

“You just have a lap of this lemon-drink,” said Tucket. “We had about as near a call as may be. Ed got a bat on the head. You been pretty near killed. There’s a pound’s worth of paint knocked off the boat. Jude’s got a slug in his pants. The sail’s like a nutmeg-grater. If we’d not laid that warp out, the land-crabs would be eating us at this present. There’s a couple of hundred soldiers on the beach; besides the guns.”

“They came at us in a rush,” said Margaret. The words seemed not to come from him. His meaning had been to ask Tucket what had happened.

“That’s why they fired so wild,” said Tucket. “They rushed. They saw you and Ed, and thought they’d take you.”

“But Stukeley. We must get Stukeley. They may have killed him.”

“He’s all right. You settle off.”

After some hours of quiet, Margaret rose up, feeling very weak. The cabin was hot and foul, so he dressed, and went on deck for the freshness. The boat’s crew were telling the sloop hands exactly what had happened. Margaret knew from the way in which they spoke to him, from the plain words of “Good evening, sir,” and “I hope you’re better, sir,” that he was, for some reason, the hero of the moment. His shoulder pained him, so he sat down, with his back against the taffrail. A sailor placed a coat behind him, so that his rest might be easy. Tucket was steering. The lights of the _Broken Heart_ were visible a couple of miles ahead, against the mass of Ceycen, which hid the stars to the north-eastward.

“Are you dead yet?” said Tucket.

“I’m well, thanks. I’m thinking of Mr. Stukeley.”

There came a sort of growl of “Stukeley” from the seamen about him. “Stukeley,” they said. “He’s a mother’s joy, the Portuguese drummer’s get.”

“Stukeley,” said Tucket. “He put that little quiff on us on the beach. I ain’t goin’ to drown no one, shedding tears for Stukeley.”

“Nor I,” said the man called Jude. “I’d only bought them pants a week.”

“Pants,” said Tucket. “You’d not a wanted many pants if Ed and Mr. Margaret hadn’t been in the water. Them two in the water made ’em rush. If they’d come slow, you’d a been a hit in the neck with that chewed slug, my son. Don’t you forget it.”

“Did anybody see Mr. Stukeley?” Margaret asked. “Was he in the rush? Could anybody see in the smoke?”

“No, sir. No one saw him.”

“Then why do you think he, he prompted the raid? What makes you think that?”

“They’ve always received flags of truce before,” he answered. “And you’d a commission besides. You aren’t like one of us. Why didn’t they shoot when we put the son-of-a-gun ashore? I’ll tell you. They thought we were ordinary flag of truce. That curly-headed gentleman’s son put ’em up to it, after dinner. Why? I know. That’s why.”

“I can’t see your point,” Margaret answered. His thought was that he would have a bad hour with Olivia. The thought had no bitterness; it occurred to him simply, as a necessary part of the pain of moving from the sloop. His shoulder gave him pain; the thought of climbing his ship’s side gave him pain. He had a blurred feeling that he would have to stand painfully, explaining to a nervous woman. He would never be able to do it, he thought. He was too stupid with pain. He was feverish. He was tired. He would have to stand there, trying to be tender and sympathetic, yet failing, stupid, blunt. They would have to rescue Stukeley. Rescue him. “Yes,” he said to himself, “I’ll rescue him for you. I’ll bring him back to you from Tolu, Olivia.” He mumbled and muttered as the fever grew upon him. “I wish all this had never happened,” he said aloud.

“You’re goin’ off into the shakes,” said one of the men, putting a blanket round him. “You want to take bark in a sup of rum, sir, and then turn in.”

“Every one with a green wound gets the shakes in this country,” said another man. “Now up in Virginia you can go from September to May and never have ’em once.”

“There’s a light in the cabin,” said Margaret, with his teeth chattering.

“That’s your ship all right, sir. Ahoy, you! _Broken Heart_ ahoy-ah!”

“Ahoy, you!” came out of the night. “Is that the _Happy Return_?”

“We’re the jolly come-backs.”

Bells were beaten from somewhere in the darkness. To Margaret’s throbbing brain the strokes seemed to be violent lights. He thought in his fever that all physical objects were interchangeable, that they all, however indifferent, expressed with equal value (though perhaps to different senses) the infinite intellect that was always One. He thought that the boat was a thought of a thought; and that a ship and a house were much alike, very worthless the pair of them. One should get away from these thoughts of thoughts to thought itself. The _Broken Heart_ loomed large above him.

“Send down a chair, Lion,” some one said. “Mr. Margaret’s had a nasty clip.”

“Easy now with the chair,” said Cammock’s voice. “Is Mr. Stukeley there?”

“He’s swallowed the killick,” said Tucket, with a hard laugh.

“He’s got my map-book, then,” said Cammock. “He’s gone with my map-book.”

“Yes,” said Margaret, getting out of the chair. “Your map-book. It’s in his pocket. I think I saw it there.”

“Lean on me, sir,” said Cammock. “The lady’s expecting you. She’s sitting up in the cabin.”

“Let me go. You turn in. I’ll break it to her,” Perrin said.

“No. I must go,” Margaret answered. “How has it been here, captain?” Feverish as he was, he felt that he had been away for many days. The ship was strange to him.

“I’ve been throwing the ship overboard, looking for my maps,” Cammock answered. “How is your hurt, sir? When you talk to the lady, you had better have a drop of something. Just stop at my cabin for a moment.”

He fetched wine and bark from his cupboard. Then the three men entered the cabin, where Olivia stood expectantly, her cheeks flushed, waiting for her husband’s return. She had made the most of her beauty for him. She had decked herself out with an art that brought tears to Perrin’s eyes. She had done her best, poor beauty, to keep the heart which, as she thought, she had won back again. Looking at her, as she stood there, Perrin learned that Stukeley had commended a slip of black velvet round her throat, that he had praised her arms, that he liked the hair heaped in such a fashion, with a ribbon of such a tone of green. He guessed all this at a glance, telling himself that he must never again speak of these things to her. And the poor girl had rouged her cheeks, to hide the paleness. She had pencilled her eyebrows. She had drunken some drug to make her eyes bright. In the soft light of the lamp she looked very beautiful. She stood there, half-way to the door, waiting for the lover of her love-days to take her to his heart again.

“Where is Tom?” she said. “You’re hurt, Charles. Where’s Tom? He isn’t killed? He isn’t killed?”

“He went into the city,” said Margaret dully.