Captain Kyd Volume Ii Part 7

"A female voice!" shouted one, as he entered the cabin.

"Love and ransom," cried another, with a sensual laugh.

"We will draw lots for her, Hans."

"The captain has saved us that trouble," growled a third. "Ho! who have we here?" he cried, seeing Mark, with his dripping cutla.s.s in his hand, standing resolutely with his back against the door of the stateroom.

"Our captain is slain!" cried another, fiercely, now for the first time seeing the body of his chief lying in its gore.

The pirates for a moment forgot Mark, and gathered around their fallen leader. They raised him up, and his head fell back helpless upon his shoulder, and his eyes glared with the fixed stare of death.

"He is dead! His sword is broken. Let us avenge the old man!" they cried, with one voice. "Ha! here is the point of his weapon, that ne'er failed him before, sticking in the deck, and he hath been taken at vantage ere he could draw it out."

"He who hath done this for thee, old man, shall die by my hand!" said one of them, letting him fall again.

With one accord, their glances rested on Mark, and he was fiercely attacked by the one who had last spoken and another, while the remainder commenced breaking open chests in search of treasure. For a few seconds he defended himself with great skill and courage. But, being hard pressed, and twice severely wounded by his fierce opponents, he became faint with loss of blood; his head swam; his eyes became dim; he grew bewildered, and struck at random. His a.s.sailants saw their advantage, and one of them made a final lunge at his breast to transfix him. But, ere the blow could take effect, he sunk sideways to the floor, and falling behind the hangings, the blade buried itself within the door of the cabin.

"Curses light on the foul steel! Finish him, Renard."

"He is done for," said the other, sheathing his blade through the curtain.

"Now for the woman! His mistress, I dare say, he fought so like a lion.

I will try and console her for his loss," he added, with a laugh.

The fall of its brave defender left the way undisputed to the inner cabin. With united efforts, they forced open the slightly-secured leaves of the door. Grace stood before them in an att.i.tude of sublime self-sacrificing, her eyes raised heavenward full of hope and faith, while the uplifted dagger was in the act of descending into her bosom.

The foremost pirate instantly comprehended her purpose. Quick as lightning, he leaped forward, and, with his cutla.s.s, struck the weapon from her grasp as it was entering her bosom.

"By the Virgin! that was skilfully done, Renard!" said the other. "You have won her fairly."

"And he who would have her must win her from me," he continued, with dogged resolution, catching her as, with a shriek of hopeless despair and wretchedness unspeakable, she was falling to the deck.

"A sweet voice, but somewhat loud!" said the other, with a laugh. "Ho!

what have we here? Another prize," he exclaimed, descrying the helpless maid. "Smaller game! but not the less welcome. Dead, for a guilder! No, she breathes! We are lucky, Renard. It will cost us some hard knocks to keep possession of our prizes."

"We have no captain now, and each man is for himself."

"Not quite. Our new fighting lieutenant will command us now; and suppose he should, as he is like to do, take a fancy to your bit of womankind?"

"He will first have to fancy me!" said the other, menacingly. "Nor shall he command me while men older than he are in the lugger."

"He will have a word to say on that score, and here he comes to speak for himself."

He had scarcely spoken ere the young pirate made his appearance in the cabin. The shriek of Grace had drawn him from the deck, where he had been defending the entrance to the companion-way against the whole force of the yacht, under the captain and the earl--the danger menacing his niece having suddenly restored the latter to almost supernatural strength, and a fierceness of spirit that rose superior to physical suffering. With his wound hastily bound up, he had once more joined in the fight, and was foremost in battling with those who opposed his pa.s.sage to the cabin. Repeatedly his life was exposed, but saved by the voice of the young leader, forbidding his men to harm him; and even in the heat, and noise, and fury of battle, their wild spirits involuntarily yielded obedience to a voice that seemed formed to command and to be obeyed.

With flas.h.i.+ng eyes he entered the stateroom, and his glance rested on the lifeless form of Grace, clasped in the arms of the pirate Renard.

"I am right! It is she!" he cried. "Release your prize, villain!"

"You say well, boy; she is my prize," he answered, with a menacing look.

"Ha!" shouted the youth.

Quicker than thought he sprang upon him, got within his sword arm, seized him by the throat, closed with him, and buried his sabre to its hilt in his chest.

"So have I washed out the pollution of thy touch on this fair creature," he said, attempting to disengage Grace from his hold as he fell backward.

But his arm so firmly encircled her, that he was forced to sever the tendons of it with his cutla.s.s before he could release her from this horrible embrace of l.u.s.t and death.

"Oh G.o.d!" he said, involuntarily, "that I should be an actor in such a scene as this. Yet my presence here has been her preservation. I will save her and protect her now, even with the life of the captain!"

"His life is already ended," said the bucanier, who, on witnessing the fate of his comrade, had quietly dropped the lifeless form of the maid where he had found her.

He pointed as he spoke to his body.

"Dead!" exclaimed the youth. "Then am I chief here. I will save, for her sake, all that are left alive. But she shall not know me! She shall ever be ignorant to whom she is indebted. Yet methinks I would like to send by her a message to the haughty daughter of the house of Bellamont."

This was spoken with bitter irony. "But I must try to restore her."

He poured a vase of water over her forehead, and moistened her lips, and she revived.

"Where am I? What has transpired? Who--how--where--"

She glanced wildly around, and everything that had pa.s.sed flashed upon her mind. She bounded from him with a deplorable cry, and covered her face with her hands. "Mercy, oh G.o.d! mercy!"

"Grace!" he said, in a gentle tone.

"Who speaks? who?"

"Grace!"

"Thou art no enemy! Bless thee for the sound of thy voice. Tell me what has happened? Where is my uncle? Oh, speak as if life hung on thy words."

"The Earl of Bellamont is living."

"Heaven, I thank thee! And this dead body?"

"I have protected thee from a fate worse than death, with the life of this man."

"Who--who art thou? I should know that voice," she exclaimed, with returning confidence and hope, gazing upon his now swarthy and disfigured features which defeated her scrutiny, deeply shaded, too, as they were by his bonnet, which he pulled farther over his brows.

"An outcast, unworthy a thought from innocence and purity like thee."

"Yet you are my friend. How came you here?"

"To save thee!"

"I am confused, puzzled, perplexed! your voice, your air! I know not what to think or say. A pirate boarded us, and you--you are not a pirate. Oh, my uncle! my dear uncle! Heaven be thanked, you are safe!"

she cried, darting forward and flinging herself into his arms as he entered the cabin, literally covered with blood, while behind him crowded a dark ma.s.s of pirates, through whom he had cut his way.