Part 22

He loved Olivia still. His passion was his life, his imagination. While that fire burned in him the world was a metal from which he could beat brave sparks. He was not sure how she felt towards her husband. He had done his best for her husband. He could not say that there was much chance of a happy life for her. It had been hard to counsel her, doubly hard, for when she spoke gravely her voice thrilled, the tone burned through him like a flame. A little more, and honour would be thrown aside like a rag; the words would come in a rush, sweeping him away. She had never seemed more beautiful than now. She was pale, still; her eyes had dark rings; but she had never seemed more beautiful. She was still mysterious to him, though he knew her better than he had ever known her. She was an exquisite mystery, beautiful, sacred, unthinkable; but not for him, never for him. She would only be a shy friend to him, giving a little, hiding much, never truly herself before him. So much he could see, hating himself for his clumsy walk, for his gravity, for whatever it was, in him, which kept her away. He saw that she was timid, fearful of all rough and rude things, a shy soul, refined, delicate. He guessed that his love for her made her timid of him. Then came the thought of Stukeley, the torment and hate of the thought of Stukeley. He was to restore Stukeley to her, after all these agonizing weeks. They had been bad weeks, weeks of doubt, weeks of wicked opportunity. Had he followed his own heart, during those weeks, he might have wrought upon her, till the thought of Stukeley was loathsome to her. He could see no possible happiness for her in a life with Stukeley, if Stukeley were restored. She might find peace of mind in having him again beside her; but never happiness. He remembered an old phrase of Perrin’s, that women did not wish to be made happy, but to have the men they loved. It seemed true; possibly it explained many horrible tales of faithfulness. It had been a bitter task to plead for Stukeley. It would be bitter to bring him back, and to watch the new peace broken, as he knew it would be, himself making time and place. Still, it had been the right thing; the right was a better thing than love. He bit his lips for loathing when he thought how very far from the right his love for this woman had led him.

Was he right, he wondered, in attacking Tolu, in an attempt to win back Stukeley? The ambush on the beach had been sufficient declaration of war. They had shown that they wished for war. He had put his hand to the plough; it must drive on to the furrow’s end. But how many of his men would fight for a righteous cause when the issue was tried? To help the Indians, ancient lords of America, was a righteous cause, though the ancient lords lay in bones in the caves, dead long ago. Only their grandsons, servile degenerates, or men not yet dispossessed, now lived. And if he helped the Indians, beating the Spaniards, was his colony to sail away, or to have the fruit of their toil? If they were to stay, how soon would the clash come? How soon would the white men burn the forest, so that they might possess the land? When he asked himself this question, he could not honestly say that he was fighting for the Indians’ sake. His men were fighting for loot, like a gang of robbers on a road. And yet. If by their means he broke a corrupt power, so that the islands might become the world’s garden and granary, another Venice, a home of glory and honour, as he prayed, as he truly believed, it was right, the end justified him. Only he must see to it that the Venice rose from all this noisomeness. That was his task. That alone could keep his sword bright. This must be no colony, no refuse heap, where younger sons might work with their hands unseen, and the detected family knave escape his punishment. It must be other than that. When they sailed home from Tolu he would proclaim the republic of the keys; they would agree upon laws together; they would send their first-fruits home. He used to lie in his bunk at night in a trance of prayer that he might make these islands all that he had hoped. It might be, he thought. But there was much to do, and little could be done at once. When they came home from Tolu; perhaps, then, he would see his dream made real. Now and then, in the night watches, he asked himself whether his men would stand success. He remembered how Cammock had said that they would not stand failure. Thinking of Olivia, he knew which was the real test. He began to tremble for the moment of power. St. George became John Bull directly he had killed the dragon. His fine standard in the arts of life made him pray that he might never succeed in that way. Better fail. Failure is spiritual success. What is heaven to those who have the earth.

They sailed from Springer’s Key three hundred strong, packed in the two ships and three sloops. Fifty men remained behind to garrison the key. A party of Indians, under Don Toro, followed the fleet in a large periagua. Each ship in the fleet towed a bunch of canoas in which the attacking force would go ashore. They were very gay with flags when they left the anchorage. They fired guns, and sang, glad of the battle. In a few days a score at least of the singers would be dead in the sand, others would be stricken down, perhaps maimed. Margaret asked Cammock if they ever thought of this before a fight; but he answered, “No.”

“No one would ever fight if he thought,” he said. “I’ve been, now (with other fellows), in three big fights. We’d not got a chance in any one of ’em, if you’d asked before. I was at Panama, where we were all starved and worn, while they’d a fresh army, with a city to fall back on. I was at Perico, and five or six boats of us fought three big ships full of troops. I was at Arica, where about a hundred of us fought what was really a brigade of an army. I don’t think once I heard any say, or even think, as some would be killed and shot.”

“I was in the Low Countries,” said Margaret. “It was the same there. Each man thinks and hopes that it will be the other fellow. Sometimes I feel that if a man thinks with sufficient strength he really makes a sort of intellectual guard about himself. I mean, as faith saved the men in the furnace. What do you think?”

“Yes?” said Cammock. “A man who goes in thinking about himself like that isn’t going to do much with his gun. Besides, he couldn’t.”

“You see them sometimes.”

“Ay,” said Cammock. “You see ’em swaying from side to side to touch their next-hand man. For company. You see ’em all swaying in a row. Like this. Side to side. But the first shot locks the ranks. When they begin to fire they forget it all. They’ve got to manage their guns. And they get all hid in smoke. That’s another comfort. And they can shout, ‘Give ’em hell. Give ’em hell. Give it the hijos del horos.’ But afterwards. What about afterwards?”

“The dead and wounded? Yes,” said Margaret. “Poor wretches lying out without water. Ammunition carts going over them. Camp followers. The night after a battle. I remember my first. It was all still after the firing. Then one heard cries in the stillness, from all round one. Awful cries. Like wild beasts.”

“I never heard that, sir. But I’ve seen blood really running out of a ship’s scuppers. That gives you a turn. That was at Perico. She was coming past us full tilt, under all sail. Her decks were full of men; full. We were only eighteen of us in the long-boat. So we gave her one volley. It was like a deer dropping dead, sir. The ship broached to. There was scarcely a man left standing in her. Their matches set her on fire. I was aboard her afterwards. I never see such a sight.”

“And how many are over there, now, going about the town, to be killed in a few days, not seeing their slayer? Have you ever thought of the soul, captain? It must be startled to be driven from the body like that.”

“The faces are peaceful, sir.”

“Yes. Many are. But the faces one sees in a fight. I never saw a noble expression on a man’s face in a battle. I’ve seen fear, and sickness, and madness. I always feel a compound of all three. What do you feel? I don’t believe you do feel. You are always so wonderful. I wish I had your self-control.”

“I don’t know what I feel, sir. Fear of having my retreat cut off. That’s the thing I worry over. I tell you, sir, frankly. I don’t want that ever to happen to me. I don’t care who knows it.”

“About our battle, captain. We shall land in force to south of the town, while Tucket’s party makes a strong feint on the north wall. We shall creep up along the beach, and attack the south wall as soon as Tucket’s party draws their fire. We ought to be in the town by the time the sun’s at all strong. The canoas will follow us up, and lie below the sea-wall, ready for us. The ships will anchor within gunshot of the town as soon as we hoist English colours.”

“It’d be well to get all hands off soon, sir. They’ll get straggled, looking for loot, and there’s three garrisons--Lobos, Covenas, and Cispata--within an hour or two’s ride of the place. Another thing, they’ll likely take to drinking.”

“We’re not in the town yet, captain.”

“That’ll come, sir.”

“You know, captain, we may be taking our friend back.”

“Yes, sir. The lady, poor thing. She must be suffering now, sir. We’re anxious. But nothing to her, poor thing, wondering if that man’s alive.”

“I’m wondering if we are making more trouble for her by bringing him back to her.”

“He’s not been brought yet, sir.”

“In three days, captain.”

“Maybe so, sir. If you ask me, I say no. She’ll never see him again. I ask Mr. Perrin that. One always comes back to Mr. Perrin. They call him a fool, forward there; but he sees things shrewder than some of these wise ones that tried to drown the duck. He said, ‘No. You’ll never see him again. He’s married to a Spanish girl, and changed his religion, by this time.’ One never believes Mr. Perrin till one finds he was right after all. Then it’s too late.”

“Perhaps,” Margaret said. “He may be right. That may be it. He may be killed in the assault. He may have left the town. We may never see him again. It may be the end. I wonder what sort of life it is going to be for her if it is the end.”

“Life goes on much the same way, sir. Women feel it more than men; they live so cramped. But I always say a man’s a bigger thing than anything he makes. If he makes trouble he’d ought to be big enough to bear it.”

“And if the trouble’s made for him?”

“There’s always more than yourself in the world. Come, sir.”

“I think, captain,” said Margaret, “you’re the only one of us all who comes up prepared and calm, ready for everything. I ought to have been on the Main with you and Morgan, instead of learning Latin at a university. If I ever have a son, I shall send him abroad with you to be a buccaneer.”

They entered the gulf in the darkness of the new moon. They sailed in a clump together, Tucket leading. They sailed without lights, but for the night-lights in the binnacles. They moved in blackness on the sea, great fish making fire-streaks, lumbering whales with their brood. The men aboard them, waiting in the darkness for the word, struck their shins on guns and longed to be off. Few of them took their hammocks from the nettings that night. They passed the hours talking and smoking, in slow sea-walks to and fro, humming old tunes over their pipestems. They had made themselves ready many hours before. Their guns had been oiled and loaded, and their belts filled with cartridges, during the afternoon. All that they had to do now was to buckle on their water-bottles and snapsacks, and get into their boats. They heard the surf tumbling on the Mestizos. Setting stars, like ships’ lights, burned out into the sea. The seamen watched them as they shifted their tides, talking of the past, with its memories, of ships and women, its memories of life and the sun.

The word was given some four miles from the city, lest the Indian sentinels should sight the ships from the walls. The land was like a cloud at that distance, like a sharply defined blackness on the sky, shutting off the rising stars. It was a dark morning; but to the seamen’s eyes it was light enough. They had been on deck since the setting of the watch. They had grown accustomed to the darkness. It was now an hour before the dawn. It was to be a red dawn above Tolu.

Captain Margaret stood with Cammock at the gangway watching his men go over the side to the canoas. All the men of war, twenty of his crew, and a few Indians, fifty men in all, were coming with him from the ship. They loitered about the gangway like sheep at a gap, they seemed a great company. They did not talk much among themselves. One or two, the wags of the fo’c’s’le, made jests about “Tolu soup”; and the laughter spread in the canoas, where the men were packed tightly, like lovers on a bench. One or two of the men, the most intelligent among them, asked to shake hands with Captain Margaret as they passed him at the gangway side. Perrin touched him on the shoulder when about half of them had gone.

“Charles,” he said, “Olivia wants to see you. She’s in the alleyway.”

“In a minute,” he answered. “Good-bye, West.”

“Good-bye, sir.”

“Look after them, captain. Don’t let them shove off without me.”

In the darkness of the alleyway he found Olivia. He could see her great eyes in the oval of her face. She was trembling.

“Well, Olivia,” he said gravely. He took her hands in his, wondering, dully, if he would ever see her again. “I’m just off, Olivia.”

“I wanted to see you,” she said, in a shaking little voice. “I know I’ve only a minute. I tried last night. I want to thank you, Charles. You’ve been good. You’ve been very good to me. Whether you succeed. Or don’t succeed. I mean now. On shore. I. I thank you. Thank you. God keep you.”

“You, too, Olivia.”

He felt that this was the supreme moment of his life, this moment in the dark, with the forms of seamen passing across the door, and the white, beloved face half seen, strained up towards him. He knew that he might kiss her face. Their souls were very near together, nearer, he knew, than they would ever again be. There was the beloved face near his; there was his reward, after all these days, after all this wandering the world.

“Good-bye, Olivia.”

She did not answer, but her hands pressed his hands to her side for a moment.

“We shall be back in a few hours, Olivia.”

“Ah, not that. Not that,” she said, shuddering. “Never that again.”

“Perhaps, Olivia, he may be with us.”

“No,” she said faintly.

“I must go now, Olivia. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” she murmured. “God keep you, Charles.”

He knew that he might kiss her face; but would not. He knew that it was the mood and the moment which brought them thus together. She should never reproach herself. He did not love for pay. He pressed her hands for an instant. “Good-bye then,” he said lightly.

“Thank you,” she said, so lowly that he could hardly hear her.

He knew that she stood there, leaning against the bulkhead in the dark, long after he had reached the deck. It was like waking from a dream to come on deck again.

“Good-bye, Cammock,” he said, putting his emotion from him. “We’ve got our bearings. Don’t stand further in for half an hour. If anything happens. Well. We’ve talked that out. Haven’t we? Good-bye, Edward.”

“Good-bye. Look here, Charles. Here are my pistols. I should like you to have them.”

“Very well,” he said. “Thanks. How do you put them on?” He slung the pistol-belt over his shoulder, in the sea-style. “Good-bye,” he said again. “Look after her.”

He passed quickly down the ladder to the waiting canoas, which still dragged at the gangway with their freights of armed men. A canoa was pulling towards them out of the night; her oars stroked the sea into flame. Gleams of flame broadened at her bows. Little bright sparks scattered from the oar-blades as the rowers feathered.

“Is that you, Captain Margaret?” said Pain’s voice. “I’ve sent Tucket’s party on ahead. They’ve got a mile further to pull than we got. We’re all ready ahead there. You’re all ready and loaded, and your guns flinted?”

“Yes. All ready here, Captain Pain.”

“Your oars are in grummets, ain’t they?”

“Yes, all of them.”

“And you’ve all got white scarves on your arms? Right. The word is ‘Up with her.’”

“‘Up with her.’ You hear that, all of you? The word is ‘Up with her.’”

“Up with her,” the men repeated. “We’ll rally her up for a full due.”

“We’ll shove ahead, then, cap,” said Captain Pain. “If any man speaks above a whisper, mind, we’ll deal with him after.”

“Silence in the boats,” said Margaret. “On a morning so still as this we may be heard a couple of miles off. Sound goes a long way over water. Remember, all hands. No looting. There’s to be no looting. After the city’s taken, we shall hold it to ransom. After the fight, the trumpeter here will sound the assembly in the Plaza. You will all fall in there. Understand?”

“Are you ready in the bows there?”

“All ready, sir.”

“Shove off. Give way together. Make it long, stroke oars.”

“Long and lairy, sir.”

“We’ll follow you, Captain Pain.”

“Right,” came the voice out of the darkness. The hulk of the _Broken Heart_ fell away into the night. The ripple of flame at her bows died astern. The boats drew up into order, Pain’s canoa leading, the other fourteen following close behind, two and two together. There was silence in all the boats, a silence like the hush in a theatre. The wash of the hundred oars, and the slow breathing of the rowers, was all that could be heard. All that could be seen was the advancing oily swell of the water, the gleam where the oars dipped, the track of the great stars dancing on the swell. Dimly one could see the other boats. One could see the transom of Pain’s boat, a ghostly oval, dying away ahead, but never quite gone. Far in front, seeming slowly to climb higher, was the blackness of the shore, from which, very faintly, came the roll of the surf. So they rowed on, in the darkness, pausing sometimes to change their rowers, two hundred men, going to the presence of death.

Their first real sight of the shore was a twinkle of fire upon the beach, below the city. Some infected clothes had been set on fire there the night before. The fire had smouldered all night, and had then broken out, in little leaping tongues, lighting the town’s south gate. Those in the boat wondered when they saw it, thinking that Indians must be camped there, or travellers from Covenas, perhaps, arrived after the shutting of the gates. There was some anxiety lest it should be a signal; but the flames, lighting up the beach, showed them no watchers, and no answering signal shone in the south-west, either from shore or sea. They learned from the fire that they were pointing too near to the city. They swung off four points, and rowed to the south-east, into the shallow water off the mouth of the Pesquero.

They landed about three miles from the town, and at once formed for action. Some Indian scouts led the party, then came Margaret with a dozen axemen, all carrying powder-kegs, for the destruction of the gate. The _Broken Heart_ men formed the vanguard. Pain’s men followed, in rough order. The boats, with a boat-guard of thirty or forty men, some of whom were leeches, pulled out into the gulf, to prepare lint and salves for the hurt. The landing party looked to their firearms. There was a little confusion and splashing, owing to the narrowness of the beach, which forced some of them to stand in the sea. In a few minutes they were all ready. They set forward, as silently as they could, keeping a fast walk, lest Tucket’s men, now hidden among rocks a mile to the north of the town, should grow weary of waiting. It was still dark night about them; but they knew from the faintness of the wind that it was near dawn. The macaws were waking in the forest. Strange cries, strange primeval noises, sounded in the forest. There were stealthy patterings, quick scuttering droppings, as some animal brushed among the scrub, knocking off the dew. The Indian who walked by Margaret knew what these noises meant. He paused at each sound, as though to make sure that they were really what they seemed. A chicaly-chicaly made her sweet, sharp cry, from somewhere ahead. It touched Margaret to the heart; it was so like the tolling of a cuckoo. The Indian bent his head back and replied, so exactly that the bird answered. Margaret had never before heard this done; though he had read of it. He wondered, as he marched, if all knowledge ranked alike, if all power, all imagination, ranked alike, and whether this Indian, who could apprehend the natures of all these creatures in the wood, were not really a finer product than himself. He could not imitate a chicaly-chicaly, he could not raise the devil, he could not see a three-days’-old track on stones. He wished that in the march to a full life one had not to forget so much. One should have all the powers, all the savage powers even, one should be a divine spirit of apprehension, one should inform the whole world, feeling the pismire’s want as keenly as the saint’s ecstasy. One should be able to apprehend the wild things, the things of the wood, as well as the spirit of a poet in his divine moment. True life is to be alive in every fibre to the divine in all things. He wondered whether the Indians communed with the beasts, getting from them something which the white men ignored; coming, through them, to secrets unknown to white men, secrets of nature, of the universal spirit, of the spirit which binds the herds of peccary, and slinks in the wild cat, and sings in the bell-voiced golden-comb. He thought little of the business in hand. His mind was blank about it. All that he could think of the coming struggle was that he must bring back Stukeley, find him and bring him back, or never go back himself. The men were all round him, some of them even ahead of him by this time, for, going fast as they were, often up to their knees in the sea, it was impossible to keep good order.

After half an hour’s march they forded the Arroyo Francesco and came to the broader sands. Here they all marched in the wash; for now they were within twelve minutes of the town. They could see the dark mass of the town ahead of them, a city of sleepers, no light burning, no one stirring, only a little fire near the gate, and a dog baying in the Plaza. The dawn was beginning to change the darkness; it was growing lighter. The screams of the macaws set the monkeys swearing. The men halted, formed into order, and hurried on for another half-mile. They paused again, only four hundred yards from the walls. The pioneers with the powder-kegs made ready for their dash to the gate. The fusemen, carrying many yards of match, now lit their fuses in the scrub. The army marked time, feeling the chill of the dawn, waiting for Tucket to begin. Margaret could feel that many of his men were nervous, waiting like that, with the light growing above them. They had timed the attack well; but to stand, waiting, while the precious moments passed, was hard. Very soon the sentinels would see them. A low growl of discontent muttered up and down the ranks. Voices urged Margaret to attack at once, without waiting for Tucket. “We shall be seen.” “What’s the good of waiting here?” “Why, Lord love us, we could have took the town by this time.” “Shove ahead.” “This is a bit of ‘up with her,’ I don’t think, waiting ’ere.” There was a tendency to edge forward, to press towards the front, to see what was going on. Margaret urged them back, and passed word to Pain to keep his rear ranks from firing into the backs of the storming party. The rear ranks were the eager ranks, as they always are. The front ranks are nearest to the bullets; they have their minds engaged.