Part 12

He closed and hid his terrible casket in the black flag, and thrust the bundle back into the box. He muttered to me, “For you! D’ye hear me? For my son’s son! Set the box back; keep ye the keys”—and thrust box and keys into my hands, and whispered, “Haste! Haste! Quiet as you go. They’re out there—mayhap all of ’em!”

Loud and insistent the knocking sounded, as I sped across the room to set the box back; close the panel, and draw the hangings into place once more.

_Chapter XXXII_. _Will of a Man_

My grandfather asking, “What hour is it?” stretched out his hand to a press beside him and drew forth a pistol, and set this by him on the arm of his chair.

“Midnight!” I answered, glancing at the clock.

“Bradbury should have returned,” he said. “Go to the door, lad, and ask who knocks.”

I hurried to the door, and to my question “Who’s there?” my Uncle Charles replied, “I, to be sure, nephew. Pray open the door!”

“Let him come in,” my grandfather said. “I bade him keep away. Yet let him in.”

I drew the bar and opened the door, and instantly was thrust aside. There entered, indeed, my uncle; there entered with him Blunt, Thrale, Mistress Barwise and her man and sons; and at their heels there came a surging crew, striving so one to precede the other that they blocked the doorway momentarily; cursing, struggling, contending, they came on,—all the old rogues of Rogues’ Haven, and with them seamen of Blunt’s crew. Fired with drink, disorderly they came, with clatter of shoes, roar of voices, sounding above the very wind; all so intent upon their purpose—all so covetous for plunder, that though they flung me back against the wall, they passed me by. I realised that Oliver was by me; that his hands gripped my arms, and pulled me back, when I would have struggled to reach my grandfather; he was growling thickly, “Get away! Now’s your chance! Get away! They’re mad with drink. God knows what they’ll do.”

“I’ll stay here,” cried I. “Don’t hold me, Oliver! What of Miss Milne?”

“Locked in her room or fled the house. I’ve not heard or seen her. They’ve been looting. Get away!”

I shook my head; his strong hands held me back against the wall; I must stand and watch, nor bear a hand to aid my grandfather. He needed none, for though they burst in with a rush after my uncle, they paused, and fell to silence, seeing the old man sitting grimly in his chair. Charles, slipping from them, held himself behind his father’s chair; the rogues crowding about the hearth approached no nearer.

My grandfather roared out in so full and strong a tone that for the shock of it they fell back from him, “What in the devil’s name is this? Have ye gone mad? Why d’ye come bursting into my room in the dead of night? Speak, some of ye! Charles, what is this?”

“I do assure you,” said my uncle clearly, “I have no part in this.”

“No part,” the woman Barwise jeered. “Ay, then, no share in what we’ve come for, and what we’ll surely have.” She thrust herself forward, her face enflamed; she pointed her skinny hand at my grandfather and cried:

“D’ye hear me? What we’re going to have! What we’ve waited for too long. What you took when you was pirate, and sunk English ships, and murdered—what you stole!”

He broke out with a bellow of anger, “Mutiny, hey? Mutiny! Thinking me dead or dying. Thinking now you’ll take what you never had the courage to take—ay, and you’ve all grown old waiting for. Mutiny! Hey, you dogs? Mark me, you dogs—am I broken? Am I broken yet?”

And then it seemed that the will of the man triumphed over the wreck of his body. Watching him from the wall, I saw him rise up from his chair, his hand gripping his pistol; I saw his eyes blaze and his face take colour; I saw the old rogues cower and break before him,—only the Barwise sons and the men who had never sailed with him yet held their ground; and Blunt watched unfaltering. He laughed upon them trembling before him; he pointed his pistol at Thrale, and the fellow quivered like a leaf, and seemed the palsied dotard, while the master was yet strong.

“Hey, Thrale,” my grandfather mocked him, “you were bold with drink when you came in; but you never had the heart of a man. You’d slit a throat in the dark; you’d no stomach for a red deck, and you’d vomit at the smoke of powder—rogue! Hey, Barwise,—hey, your woman took you, for you’d not the heart to refuse her. Ay, you’re drunk now, and you thought you were brave, but you sweat for terror. Mistress, you were a bold wench once, and you did many things in your thieves’ kitchen at Shadwell a man would shudder for the very thought of. Hey, you rogues, mutiny is it? Mutiny? You’d rob me—murder me—thinking me sick and weak? D’ye mind a night off Malabar? Roger Quirk it was—he’d a mind to be master of my ship. And he came sneaking into my cabin in the night, thinking to find me sleeping, and some of you were shuddering in the dark at his back, and ready to call him captain, and sail under him, if so be he murdered me. But Roger Quirk died; at midnight he died, and it’s midnight now. Hey, Roger Quirk led you then; who leads you now?”

They answered nothing; Charles leaned indolently against his father’s chair. My grandfather grinned at the cowering rogues; he pointed at Mistress Barwise, “Is it old Bess Barwise? D’ye shelter behind her skirts? Blunt—you, why the devil do you break into my house in the night? Answer me!”

But Mr. Blunt met him boldly, “I’m no servant of yours, Craike,” he said. “I’ve no cause to fear you. Nor have I ever feared.”

“Ay, you were cabin-boy on my last cruise, and profited by it.”

“And kept my eyes and ears open. And know what you put away. More, I’ve a right to come into the house when I will, and I’ve come. You’ve profited by me. Your son’s profited. Your cellars are stocked with my cargoes. I’ll not go out of this house to-night till I have what I’ve come for. Where’s the loot? That’s what you’ll hand over to us before we go to-night”—and suddenly swung round, and called to his seamen, “Where’s the boy?”

The seamen were upon me instantly; Oliver was thrust aside, cursing most foully. Two fellows gripped me and dragged me forward, ranging me a prisoner before my grandfather and Blunt. Said Blunt coolly, “Here’s one who’ll make you speak. Hark’ee, Craike, you tell us where the loot is, or the lad’ll suffer for it. Have you told him, Craike, where it’s hid? Have you? Then, by the Lord, he’ll tell us!”

“Loose the boy!” my grandfather said, quietly, “Hands off the boy!”

“Not till you say where the stuff’s hid. He’ll go down to my ship to-night, except you speak. D’ye hear me, Craike?”

My grandfather’s right hand shot up suddenly from the fold of his gown. His pistol blazed; I heard Blunt scream; I saw him fall and writhe, and struggle on the floor. My grandfather was roaring, “Loose the boy! Loose him!”—and as the seamen recoiled before him, his hand had dragged me from them, and pulled me in beside him. And a great cry arose among them all; and silence fell as suddenly—silence save for the crying of the winds about the house. I snatched my pistol from my tail-pocket and thrust it into his hand; he advanced slowly, and they fell back from him; he towered above them—a man above wolves. I could picture him so upon the deck of his own ship in battle or in storm, or mutineers so cowering before him; peril could be of no account to such a man—no, though he knew himself upon the shores of the eternal sea; though all the night seemed burthened with his sins; though his enemies were all about him, menacing in the house, or risen from the sea, he blenched in no way. The huge figure, the face suffused, the eyes aflame, the head thrown proudly back, the mocking laughter on his lips.

He cried to them, “Would you threaten me, rogues? Would you come like carrion crows about a dying beast? Think you that I am dying—think you? Hey, but I’ve whipped you many’s the time, when you’ve thought to put me from command of my ship, and set another in my place! Hey, and men have died, and backs have run red—hey, and I’ve won; always I’ve won! Blunt would have robbed me! Take your man! You! You!”—pointing to two fellows of Blunt’s crew. “Pick him up and take him out of here. D’ye hear me?”—the pistol quivering in his grasp.

The seamen cowered; bent low, took up Blunt’s body, and so bore him forth—their shipmates slouching after. I heard the muttering of their voices and the clatter of their shoes sound away down the corridor. Mistress Barwise and the old rogues would have scuttled after, but my grandfather roared out, “Stay! I’ve words for your ears—for you who have robbed me. Stay!”

Shuddering, pale-faced, the rogues stood eyeing him,—the old brown men peering like so many ghosts from the dark by the door, the dying candles casting only a dim light, the leaping flame reflected in the puddle of blood where Blunt had lain. My grandfather faced them still, laughing upon them. The wind came rolling up, and struck the house; the crying of the wind was as the crying of many voices; the rushing of the wind as the onrush of the sea. He ceased to laugh; staring at him, while my uncle, white to the lips and wide-eyed, watched him from the hearth, I saw him stagger. The pistols dropped from his hands. He fell with a crash across the hearth.

_Chapter XXXIII_. _Carrion Crows_

My uncle, rushing forward, dropped on his knees beside him, and lifted up his head.

I took the glass from the press, and poured a little of the spirit into it, and handed this to my uncle, who moistened my grandfather’s lips with it, and sought to dribble a few drops down his throat. And nearer, nearer yet, crept the rogues; recoiling from the living, they feared him still, lest even now he should arise, and his voice send them scurrying as so little a while before. But he lay still,—his eyes open and glassy; his lips parted. My uncle lowered his head to the floor, and rising, said, “I think him dead”—but with no tremor in his voice or hint of sorrow or compassion.

And instantly the woman Barwise laughed horribly, and screamed, “Dead, and we’ve naught to fear!”—and pointing her hand at me, “What now, Mr. John—what now?”

My uncle, in a harsh voice cried out, “Be silent, woman! Respect the dead! Out of the room, all of you!”

She answered with defiance, “Not now! While he was livin’, we couldn’t have what we’re here for. And I for one stays here, and don’t stir for you; that’s what I say, and that’s what ye all say, if ye’re men.” Whereat her sons thrust their way forward, and the old men piped shrilly, “Ay, ay, that’s what we all say. Ay, ay!”

My uncle said disdainfully, “I can tell you only that, if you think to find treasure in the house, you deceive yourselves grievously. Do you think that my father was such a fool as to hoard money or jewels in this house with such a company as you about him? I promise you that all he had was long since converted into East India stock and the like; he kept nothing by him.”

“But that’s a lie!” Thrale piped. “He had treasure by him. Many’s the time he’s been laughing to himself for thinking that we who’d fought and bled, and risked the sea and the shot and the rope, sought our share of it, and never took a dollar of it. I’ve been minded to stick this knife into him many a time!”—and his skeleton-hand showed a lean, glittering blade, “Oh, and I come in one day and he don’t hear me, and he has a box and a death’s head, and ’tis all on fire with baubles. All aflame! What’s come of ’em, Mr. Charles, what’s come of ’em?”

“I tell you—” my uncle began; but their yell of derision silenced him; a wicked ring of faces was about us: old faces stained with all the sins, old eyes bright for the lust of treasure, old hands clutching and covetous; their voices sounding as the cawing of crows; like carrion crows they flapped about us, and the dead man lying stretched across the hearth. The tall Barwise sons watched them, grinning and muttering between themselves. Four of Blunt’s men had sneaked back into the room.

My uncle, smiling contemptuously upon the rogues, asked quietly, “Do you know anything of this, nephew?”

I answered steadily, “Nothing! Nothing!”—but must have flushed for my lie; the woman Barwise cried out instantly, “He’s lying! He’s lying! look at him,—all red-faced now, when he was sick and white afore”—and rushing on me, clawing at my jacket, “Where’s it hid? You know! Where’s it hid?”

But instantly my uncle intervened—concerned now for my knowledge, and by the dread that all these rogues should share the secret. He ordered her, “Stand back, woman! Do you hear me? Stand back!” in so threatening a tone that she recoiled and loosed me.

My uncle, gripping me by the shoulder, drew me beside him; I had taken up the pistols fallen from his father’s hands; now we stood with our backs against the chimney-piece, and my grandfather’s body lay between us and the rogues. Oliver came shouldering his way among them to our side, a hunting crop clutched in his hand. Mistress Barwise, as beside herself, screamed out a curse at us, and shook her fist, so inciting them that in a sullen surge they were sweeping forward, when my uncle, livid with rage, cried out, “Back, you fools,—back! Do you know this, that while you waste your time here, Bradbury returns, with Gavin Masters and his folk, who’ve sworn to smoke us out of this hold? Do you know this and palter?”

“Ay, then stand aside,” retorted Mistress Barwise, “and let us have the handling of the lad there. He knows for sure, and we have the means to make him talk”—and pointed to the fire. “He’ll speak for the burning of his bare flesh. He’ll speak, if he knows to keep his mouth shut now, means to keep it shut come Judgment Day!”

“You’ll not lay hands upon him!” said my uncle, as I made play with the loaded pistol. “Give me a word with him alone! All of you out of the room now! Let me but reason with him!”

“And plot to rob us!” Thrale squeaked.

“Nay, nay!” my uncle protested, smiling.

The Barwise woman, swinging round, muttered and whispered with old Thrale; turning back to us presently to say, “We’ll go—but only outside the door. But we’ll keep the key, lest you think to lock us out.” Oliver had drawn away from the hearth to the wall.

“Surely take the key, Barwise,” said my uncle. “But a few words with my nephew, and you’ll know whether he will confide in me or no. And if he prove intractable, I promise you that I’ll hand him over to you for discipline”—I believed that the gentleman found himself at a loss to prevent their participation in my secret.

“Out of the room, then, all of you,” she ordered them, and drove them before her like so many hens; they protested with many oaths; she screaming at them in kind so berated them that they were out at last. She paused by the door to take the key from the lock. Of a sudden Oliver leaped forward and thrust her after them; banged the door with a crash, and turned the key. Her cry of rage was shrill as the wind itself; she plunged against the door and beat upon it like a madwoman, screaming out, “Break it down! Break it down! They’re tricking us!”

Oliver set the bar in its place, and turned back to us grinning.

My uncle smiled his approval, “I never gave you credit for any wit,” he said; “I offer you apology. I confess I was at a loss,—I thank you for having given me the opportunity of a little talk with my nephew. Be sure of the bar, Oliver; the door will hold them out, I trust, till Bradbury returns.”

Oliver, coming back to the hearth, growled, “Help me first to lift the old man. Is he to lie here longer in this blood?”

“Nay, nay,” said my uncle hastily; and among us, we lifted my grandfather’s body and laid it upon the bed, and drew the curtains; all the while the clamour at the door continued; the winds yet beat upon the house. My uncle, returning to the fireside, sat down in his father’s chair—for all the raging of the rogues without seeming as indolent and unruffled as in the arbour.

“Nephew,” he said, “I would our conversation could have been conducted with proper privacy. Oliver, oblige me by withdrawing to the door.”

Oliver answered boldly, “I stay here!”

“You heard me, Oliver!”

“I heard you, sir! And you have never heard me ere this night. By God, sir, you should have taught me by now to be ashamed at nothing; yet—yet—to know the part that you have played this night,—you to have raised these rogues against my cousin and the old man there!”

My uncle smiling, though his brow grew black, cried out, “If I’d my cane, sir, I’d discipline you now. Are you drunk yet from dinner? Or do you think to win your cousin’s patronage at my expense? You think him heir to Craike and all my father had. I having nothing, you range yourself beside him!”

“I am ashamed,” said Oliver, regarding him with dark and lowering look. “By God, sir, I’ve been silent long enough. I’ll endure no more. Now this I’ll say to my cousin—if he’ll believe me; if he’ll think I have no motive but to be his friend, and save my father from fresh roguery and shame—I stand beside him.”

“When the door goes down, my good fellow, as presently it will,” my uncle sneered, “they’ll have your life and his.”

Oliver stretched out his hand to me; I gripped it; side by side we faced my uncle.

He said, “I have no time to bandy words with you, my son. I say this to you, John, that the Barwise sons are pledged to me, and will obey me, and Blunt’s men also will obey me! It is my condition only that you tell me where my father’s hoard is hid; for clearly he revealed it to you while you were with him; and that the agreement between us be, that we shall share this treasure. It’s hid in the house,—I assume in this very room.”

“And you assume,” I said, “my grandfather revealed it to me. You assume too much, sir.”

“Dear lad, your very face reveals your knowledge to me. Come, write, sign—there are pens and paper in the press there!”

“I answer this,” I said; “whatever come or have come to me from my grandfather, you shall not share. You would have had me kidnapped and shipped out of England. You have ever been an enemy to mine and me. What of my father?”

“Nephew,” he said, “hark to the pack outside the door!”

He rose; his look surveyed the room—the hangings were waving in the draught. He pointed suddenly to the tapestry drawn yet a little aside from the sliding panel; and at my start and confusion he laughed triumphantly, and strode forward. I lost my head; I sought to interpose; he thrust me from him, and rushing to the wall drew back the hangings. All this while the rogues without battered upon the door; I heard it groan and split, and knew that it was going down before their blows.

My uncle’s fingers strayed over the panels; touched the spring; the panels parted. He cried out gaily, “Oh, ’tis here, nephew—’tis here! And I asked but a half, nephew,—what now? What now?”

“Would you steal?” Oliver growled. “Are you thief?”

He answered, snarling, “Ah, God, what I’ve endured these years, and now this boy would rob me. I’ll have what’s mine. I care not how you fare, nephew—whether they do you to death, or drag you aboard the _Black Wasp_—I care not. I’ll have what’s mine, and be away ere Bradbury comes!”—and thrust the panels back, and fumbled with the lock, but could make nothing of it.

I laughed at him. “My uncle,” cried I, “it’s for me to dictate terms. Your interest with these rogues for me, and I’ll make you rich; but the secret of the lock I’ll keep!”

He whirled round upon me, his mask off, his face malignant, his lips snarling. He let the tapestry fall before the hollow in the wall. He pointed to the door. It had parted asunder, the wreckage fell against the bar.

_Chapter XXXIV_. _Flight of Crows_

Mrs. Barwise headed them still—Lord, what a strength must have been hers in youth; even now her withered hands tore at the wreckage of the door. Her sons and she had cleared a way presently; the bar was drawn, and all the rogues were in the room once more. But, setting my back against the chimney-piece, with Oliver beside me, I levelled my pistol as they came on, menacing, and I cried out, “Keep back! You’ll not lay hands on me. Back, I say!”

At this Mrs. Barwise checked her onrush; and whirled round towards my uncle stepping back from the wall. The rogues at her back halted and peered at us, muttering among themselves; Nick and Isaac Barwise and Blunt’s men yet held apart. The woman demanded furiously of my uncle, “Well? Well? What’s the answer? You’ve not tricked us after all, d’ye see? D’ye see? What’s his answer?”

He said coolly, “I’ve no answer for you. Ask him!”

As she swung round and faced me, I said, as bravely as I might, though shaking still for terror of them, “My answer is that there’s no treasure. Ay, and were there treasure, every gold piece or jewel of it would belong to me, even as, now my grandfather is dead, this house belongs to me. And I say to you you’d best be packing while you may. You there from the _Black Wasp_, d’ye know that while you’re paltering here your ship’s cut out? D’ye know the King’s men are aboard her?”

“Bold words, but lies!” cried Mistress Barwise.

“No! For but yesterday I was with old Sir Gavin, who’s sworn to put an end to smuggling on the coast here. Your ship was never to put to sea. Not Blunt himself would have got her from the teeth of the King’s ship. Would you be taken here?”

The four seamen muttered among themselves; I saw them drawing to the doorway—scuttling out; only the old rogues and the Barwise sons yet held their ground, and Mrs. Barwise sought still to enflame them to her purpose.

“Words—ay, but we’ve not come for words from you, master,” she burst out. “Where’s the baubles, master? Where’s the gold? Our baubles and our gold!”

“Ay, ay, ours! That’s what we’re here to know! Where’s the stuff hid?”—came the chorus.

I faced them still,—Oliver with his swinging whip beside me. I said, “Keep back! I’ve a word for you, as a word for Blunt’s men. I tell you Mr. Bradbury comes this night, with his men, and Sir Gavin’s folk, and all the gentry round. He comes to make an end here—to sweep this house clean—for me! You’ve threatened murder; you’ve robbed and broken; you’ve set every man of you his neck in reach of a rope to-night; I warn you all, for you served my grandfather, that soon, perhaps now, the house must be surrounded. You’ve escaped hanging so long, how d’ye like the prospect of swinging at the end of a rope at the end of your days? Take what you’ve looted—plate and what not?—and go! You’ll take no more. There is no treasure!”

“Lies!” screamed the woman, as they quailed and wavered. “Where’s the blunt first? Don’t go till you’ve laid hands on what’s your own.”

“Go now!” I shouted, to be heard above the instant uproar. “Go now before it is too late!”

As they wavered, she shrieked out, “Pull him down! Take him and hold him but the moment, and I’ll have the truth out of him—with the irons and the fire!”

They surged forward, but before my levelled pistol and Oliver’s uplifted hunting crop, they wavered still; having each and every man of them so little left of life, and valuing it at a price above visionary treasure. My uncle, leaning unconcerned against his father’s chair, neither incited them nor assisted us; Nick and Isaac Barwise seemed to await their orders from him, yet holding themselves apart from the old rogues.

And suddenly I saw Mr. Bradbury standing within the doorway, his hair all blown with the wind—else, as cool and unperturbed as ever I had known him; seeing him come in, with Galt and the two runners at his back, I cried out triumphantly, “Too late! Too late!”