Chapter 27

HOW I FELL INTO THE _RED HAND_

I must have fallen into a stupor, as the effect of the terrible strain on mind and body of all I had gone through. For I remember nothing of that first night on the spar, and only came slowly back to sense of sodden pain and hunger when the sun was up. Some sailorly instinct, of which I have no recollection whatever, had taken a turn of the rope under my arms and round the yard, and so kept me from slipping away. But I woke up to agonies of cold--a sodden deadness of the limbs which set me wondering numbly if I had any legs left--and a gnawing hunger and emptiness. I felt no thirst; perhaps because my body was so soaked with water. In the same dull way the horrors of the previous day came back on me, and I wondered heavily if my dead comrades had not the better lot.

But the bright sun warmed the upper part of me, and I essayed to drag my dead legs out of the water, if perchance they might be warmed back to life also. They came back in time, with horrible pricking pains and cramps which I could only suffer, lest I should roll off into the water. And if I had, I am not at all sure that I would have struggled further, so weary and broken had the night left me.

All that day I lay on my spar, warmed into meagre life by the sun, and tortured at first with the angry clamour of an empty stomach, for it was full twenty hours since I had eaten, and the wear and tear alone would have needed very full supplies to make good. But in time the bitter hunger gave place to a sick emptiness which I essayed to stay by chewing bits of floating seaweed. And this, and the drying of my body by the sun, brought on a furious thirst, to which the sparkling water that broke against my spar proved a most horrible temptation. So torturing was it in the afternoon that the sodden cold of the night now seemed as nothing in comparison, and to relieve it I dropped my body into the water to soak again.

Not a sail did I see that whole day, but being so low in the water my range was of course very limited. In the times when I could get away for a moment or two from my hunger and thirst, my thoughts ran horribly on the previous day's happenings--those hurtling iron flails against which we were powerless--that little round hole that bored itself in John Ozanne's forehead--that cold-blooded shooting of drowning men--the monstrous brutality of it all! What little blood was in me, and cold as that was, surged up into my head at the recollection, and set me swaying on my perch.

And then my thoughts wandered off to the poor souls in Peter Port, hopefully speculating on the luck we were like to have, counting on the return of those whose broken bodies were dredging the bottom below me,--to the shocking completeness of our disasters. Truly when it all came back on me like that I felt inclined at times to loose my hold and have done with life. And then the thought of Carette, and my mother, and my grandfather, and Krok, would brace me to further precarious clinging with a warming of the heart, but chiefly the thought of Carette, and the good-bye she had waved to me from the point of Brecqhou.

I might, perhaps, with reason have remembered that what had happened to us was but one of the natural results of warfare--barring, of course, the murderous treatment of which no British seaman ever would be guilty. But I did not. My thoughts ran wholly on the actual facts, and, as I have said, faintly at times, but to my salvation, on Carette and home.

While the sun shone, and the masses of soft white cloud floated slowly against the blue, hope still held me, if precariously at times. At midday, indeed, the fierce bite of his rays on my bare back--for we had stripped for the fight and I had on only my breeches and belt--combined with the salting of the previous night and the dazzle of the dancing waves added greatly to my discomfort. I felt like an insect under a burning glass, and suffered much until I had the sense to slice a piece off my sail with my knife and pull it over my raw shoulder bones. But when night fell again, the chill waste of waters washed in on my soul and left me desolate and hopeless, and I hardly hoped to see the dawn.

I remember little of the night, except that it was full of long-drawn agony and seemed as if it would never end. But for the rope under my arms and the loop of the sail, into which some time during the night I slipped, I must have gone, and been lost.

In the morning the sun again woke what life was left in me. I had been nearly forty-eight hours without food or drink, and strained on the edge of death every moment of that time. It was but the remnant of a man that lay like a rag across the spar, and he looked only for death, and yet by instinct clung to life.

And when my weary eyes lifted themselves to look dully round, there, like a white cloud of hope, came life pressing gloriously towards me--a pyramid of snowy canvas, dazzling in the sunshine, the upper courses of a very large ship.

She was still a great way off, but I could see down to her lower foretop-gallant sail, and to my starting eyes she seemed to grow as I watched her. She was coming my way, and I have little doubt that, in the weakness of the moment and the sudden leap of hope when hope seemed dead, I laughed and cried and behaved like a witless man. I know that I prayed God, as I had never prayed in my life before, that she might keep her course and come close enough for some sharp eye to see me.

Now I could see her fore and main courses, and presently the black dot of her hull, and at last the white curl at her forefoot, as she came pressing gallantly on, just as though she knew my need and was speeding her best to answer it.

While she was still far away, I raised myself as high as I could on my spar and waved my rag of sail desperately. I tried to shout, but could not bring out so much as a whisper. I waved and waved. She was coming--coming. She was abreast of me, and showed no sign of having seen me. She was passing--passing. I remember scrambling up onto the spar and waving--waving--waving--

* * * * *

I came to myself in the comforting confinement of a bunk. I could touch the side and the roof. They were real and solid. I rubbed my hand on them. There was mighty comfort and assurance of safety in the very feel of them.

I lay between white sheets, and there was a pillow under my head. I tried to raise my head to look about me, but it swam like oil in a pitching lamp, and I was glad to drop it on the pillow again. The place was full of creakings, a sound I knew right well.

A door opened. I turned my head on the pillow and saw a stout little man looking at me with much interest.

"Ah ha!" he said, with a friendly nod. "That's all right. Come back at last, have you? Narrow squeak you made of it. How long had you been on that spar?"

"I remember--a night and a day--and a night--and the beginning of a day," I said, and my voice sounded harsh and odd to me.

"And nothing to eat or drink?"

"I chewed some seaweed, I think."

"Must have been in excellent condition or you'd never have stood it."

"What ship?"

"_Plinlimmon Castle_, East Indiaman, homeward bound. This is sick-bay. You're in my charge. Hungry?"

"No," and I felt surprised at myself for not being.

"I should think not," he laughed. "Been dropping soup and brandy into you every chance we got for twenty-four hours past. Head swimmy?"

"Yes," and I tried to raise it, but dropped back onto the pillow.

"Another bit of sleep and you shall tell us all about it." And he went out, and I fell asleep again.

I woke next time to my wits, and could sit up in the bunk without my head going round. The little doctor came in presently with another whom I took to be the captain of the Indiaman. He was elderly and jovial-looking, face like brown leather, with a fringe of white whisker all round it.

In answer to his questions I told him who I was, and where from, and how I came to be on the spar.

"But, by ----!" he swore lustily, when I came to the flying flails and the shooting of the drowning men, "that was sheer bloody murder!"

"Murder as cruel as ever was done," I said, and told him further of the round hole that bored itself in John Ozanne's forehead right before my eyes.

"By ----!" he said again, and more lustily than ever. "I hope to God we don't run across him! Which way did he go, did you say?"

"He went off nor'-east, but his prowling-ground is hereabouts. What guns do you carry, sir?"

"Ten eighteen-pound carronades."

I shook my head. "He could play with you as he did with us, and you could never hit back."

"---- him!" said the old man, and went out much disturbed.

The cheery little doctor chatted with me for a few minutes, and told me that both they and the Indiaman we saw _Red Hand_ looting belonged to the convoy we had seen pass three days before, but, having sprung some of their upper gear in the storm, they had had to put into Lisbon for repairs, and the rest could not wait for the two lame ducks.

"Think he'll come across us?" he asked anxiously.

"I'll pray God he doesn't. For I don't see what you can do if he does."

"I'm inclined to think that the best thing would be to let him take what he wants and go. He let the _Mary Jane_ go, you say?"

"She went one way and he the other, when he'd sunk us, and we were told he rarely makes prizes. Just helps himself to the best, like a pirate. He's just a pirate, and nothing else."

"Discretion is sometimes the better part of valour," he said musingly. "When you can't fight it's no good pretending you can, and this old hooker can't do more than seven knots, and not often that. We've been last dog all the way round. The frigates used to pepper us till they got tired of it;" and he went out, and I knew what his advice would be if he should be asked for it.

About midday I felt so much myself again--until I got onto my feet, when I learned what forty-eight hours starving on a spar can take out of a man--that I got up and dressed myself, by degrees, in some things I found waiting for me in one of the other bunks.

I hauled myself along a passage till I came to a gangway down which the sweet salt air poured like new life, and the first big breath of it set my head spinning again for a moment.

I was hanging on to the handrail when a man came tumbling down in haste.

"It's you," he cried, at sight of me. "Cap'n wants you;" and we went up together, and along the deck to the poop, where the captain stood with his officers and a number of ladies and gentlemen. From the look of them they all seemed disturbed and anxious, and they all turned to look at me as if I could help them.

"Carré," said the captain, as I climbed the ladder, "look there! Is that the ---- villain?" and pointed over the starboard quarter.

One look was enough for me. I had stared hard enough at that long black hull three days before, while it thrashed us to death with its whirling devilries. And there was no mistaking the splash of red on his foretopsail.

"It's him, captain;" and the ladies wrung their hands, while the men looked deadly grim, and the captain took a black turn along the deck and came back and stood in front of them.

"It's not in an Englishman's heart to give in without a fight," he said gruffly, "and I'm not in the habit of asking any man's advice about my own business, but from what this man says that ---- villain over yonder can flay us to pieces at his pleasure and we can't touch him;" and he looked at me.

"That is so," I said.

"If we let him have his way the chances are he'll take all he wants and go. If we fight--My God, how can we fight? We can't reach him. What would _you_ do now? You've been through it once with him," he turned suddenly on me.

"I'd give five years of my life to have a grip of his throat--"

"And how'd you get there under these conditions, my man?"

"You can't do a thing, captain. And anything you try will only make it worse. He'll send you one of his damnable cart-wheels aboard and you'll see the effect. You know how far your carronades will carry."

"Get you below, all of you," he said to his white-faced passengers. "No need to get yourselves killed. He'll probably go for our spars, but when shots are flying you can't tell what'll happen. Stop you with me!" he said to me, and the poop cleared quickly of all outsiders.

The schooner came on like a racehorse. While yet a great way off a puff of smoke balled out on his fore-deck and disappeared before the report reached us.

"That's blank to tell us to stop. I must have more to justify me than that," said the captain, and held on.

Another belch of white smoke on the schooner, and in a minute our foremast was sliced through at the cap, and the foretopmast, with its great square sails, and their hamper, was banging on the deck, while the jibs and staysail fell into the sea to leeward, and the big ship fell off her course and nosed round towards the wind.

"---- him! That's dismantling shot and no mistake about it. There's nothing else for it. Haul down that flag!" cried the captain; and we were captive to _Red Hand_.

"Sink his ---- boats as he comes aboard, sir!" said one of the mates in a black fury. "He's only a ---- pirate."

"I would, if we'd gain anything by it," said the captain grimly. "But it'd only end in him sinking us. Our pop-guns are out of it;" and they stood there, with curses in their throats--it was a cursing age, you must remember--and faces full of gloomy anger, as helpless against the Frenchman's long-range guns as seagulls on a rock.

The schooner came racing on, and rounded to with a beautiful sweep just out of reach of our guns. Practice had made him perfect. He knew his damnable business to the last link in the chain.

We could see his deck black with men, and presently a boat dropped neatly and came bounding towards us.

"Depress your carronades and discharge them," ordered a black-bearded young man in her, in excellent English, as they hooked on. "If one is withdrawn, we will blow you out of the water."

The guns were discharged. The schooner gave a coquettish shake and came sweeping down alongside the Indiaman; some of her crew leaped into our main chains, and lashed the two ships together. Then a mob of rough-looking rascals came swarming up our side, and at their head was one at sight of whom my breath caught in my throat, and I rubbed my eyes in startled amazement, lest their forty-eight hours' salting should have set them astray.

But they told true, and a black horror and a cold fear fell upon me. I saw the bloody scum swirling round on the _Swallow's_ deck as she sank. I saw the heads of my struggling shipmates disappearing one by one under those felon shots from the schooner. I saw once more that little round hole bore itself in John Ozanne's forehead on the spar. And I knew that there was not room on earth for this man and me. I knew that if he caught sight of me I was a dead man.

For the last time I had seen that grim black face--which was also the first time--he was leaning over the rock wall of Herm, watching me steadfastly as I pulled away from him towards Peter Port, and his face was stamped clear on my memory for all time.

It was Torode of Herm, and in a flash I saw to the bottom of his treachery and my own great peril. No wonder he was so successful and came back full from every cruise, when others brought only tales of empty seas. He lived in security on British soil and played tinder both flags. By means of a quickly assumed disguise, he robbed British ships as a Frenchman, and French ships as an Englishman. That explained to the full the sinking of the _Swallow_ and the extermination of her crew. It was to him a matter of life or death. If one escaped with knowledge of the facts, the devilment must end. And I was that one man.

His keen black eyes had swept over us as he came over the side. I shrank small and prayed God he had not seen me.

He walked up to the captain and said gruffly, "You are a, wise man, monsieur. It is no good fighting against the impossible."

"I know it, or I'd have seen you damned before I'd have struck to you," growled the old man sourly.

"Quite so! Now, your papers, if you please, and quick!" and the captain turned to go for them.

All this I heard mazily, for my head was still whirring with its discovery.

Then, without a sign of warning, like one jerked by sudden instinct, Torode turned, pushed through the double row of men behind whom I had shrunk--and they opened quickly enough at his approach--and raising his great fist struck me to the deck like an ox.

When I came to I was lying in a bunk, bound hand and foot. My head was aching badly, and close above me on deck great traffic was going on between the ship and the schooner, transferring choice pickings of the cargo, I supposed, when my senses got slowly to work again.

But why was I there--and still alive? That was a puzzle beyond me entirely. By all rights, and truly according to my expectation, I should have been a dead man. Why was I here, and unharmed, save for a singing head?

Puzzle as I might, I had nothing to go upon and could make nothing of it. But since I was still alive, hope grew in me. For it would have been no more trouble to Torode to kill me--less indeed. And since he had not, it could only be because he had other views.

For a long time the shuffling tread of laden men went on close above my head--for hours, I suppose. The sun was sinking when at last the heel and swing of the schooner told me we were loosed and away.

No shot had been fired, save the first one calling the Indiaman to stop, and the second one that drove the command home. To that extent I had been of service to them, bitter as surrender without a fight had been, for an utterly impossible resistance could only have ended one way and after much loss of life.

Long after it was dark a man came in with a lantern and a big bowl of soup, good soup such as we get in the Islands, and half a loaf of bread, and a pannikin of water. He set the things beside me, and untied my hands, and placed the light so that it fell upon me, and stood patching me till I had finished.

From his size I thought it was Torode himself, but he never opened his mouth, nor I mine, except to put food into it. When I had done, he tied my hands again and went out.

I slept like a top that night, in spite of it all, and felt better in the morning and not without hope. For, as a rule, civilised men, ruffians though they may be, do not feed those they are going to kill. They kill and have done with it.

The same man brought me coffee and bread and meat, and stood watching me again with his back to the porthole while I ate.

It was, as I had thought, Torode himself, and I would have given all I possessed--which indeed was not overmuch--to know what was passing concerning me in that great black head of his. But I did not ask him, for I should not have expected him to tell me. I just ate and drank every scrap of what he brought me, with as cheerful an air as I could compass, and thanked him politely when I had done.