Captain Kyd Volume Ii Part 22

"No."

"No! then, by Heaven, he was ign.o.ble indeed, and her love was ill placed, poor lady!"

"Nay--he _loved another_!"

"Ha, was it so?" he said, with a peculiar smile; "then I must pardon him! But did she tell him of her love?"

"Never!"

"Who was this village maiden that supplanted her?"

"She was no lowly maid! but n.o.ble as herself."

"He was full ambitious! Did she love him in return?"

"Nay, not then," said he, hesitatingly.

"Edwin, you are giving my very history! You hang your head! What, is it I of whom you speak?" he exclaimed, with animated interest.

"I gave no name."

"Nay," he said, blus.h.i.+ng, "I will not think, though the tale tallies in some parts so well with my own, that a n.o.ble maiden e'er could have regarded me with sentiments beneath her station. Go on."

"Time went on, and her love grew. Unseen, unknown, she exerted her influence, and had him (for he took to the seas) elevated from rank to rank, though his own prowess won for him each grade ere he rose to it; at length he became a captain. Many years had elapsed in the interval, and she had not seen him; but, every few months, rumour trumpeted to her his gallant deeds, and in her secret heart she rejoiced with all the pride of love."

"And still she loved him?"

"Better and better. Absence only increased the intensity of her pa.s.sion.

At length she resolved to see him, and, unknown to him, see if she could not win his love; for she believed, silly girl, that time had caused him to forget his first pa.s.sion for the n.o.ble maid who had disdained him for his low birth. At length an opportunity presented itself that held out to her the prospect of accomplis.h.i.+ng her wish. A n.o.bleman related to her was appointed governor of a distant province, and this youth was appointed to the command of the vessel that should convey him to his government. The n.o.ble was the father of the highborn maiden he loved.

Love roused _her_ fears. She resolved to go in the same s.h.i.+p, and be a check upon the renewal of his love."

"Your story interests me. Do not pause. Go on!"

"So she disguised herself as a page, and, under the pretence of going to Ireland, to spend a few weeks with a maiden aunt, came on board his vessel, and offered herself as his secretary!"

"Edwin, this is a wondrous tale!" he exclaimed, starting to his feet with surprise. "Yet no, it cannot be," he said, half aloud, after steadily looking at him a moment. "Proceed!"

"She was received and sailed with him. Love excuses much. Yet her friends were on board with her, and it was not as if she had thrown herself on this rash adventure alone. The maiden that he had loved in youth he wooed and won. She knew him not as the humble youth. He had taken another name with his better fortunes. In the n.o.ble-looking officer that commanded the s.h.i.+p, and whose gallant name had filled the world, she did not recognise the humble lad whom she had known in earlier years. The disguised girl witnessed the progress of their love with a breaking heart."

"Poor maiden! She should have made known her love, and it might have met return."

"No, no, she could not. Yet she could not leave him, even when she knew he cared not for her--knew not of her existence, or that he was loved by her with such enduring attachment."

"Had it been my case, I would have loved her, had she made herself known, for her very devotion. Love begets love, and so does grat.i.tude. I could not but have loved her."

"Nay--if you loved another?"

"Not while I loved that other. But if that love had met no return, or afterward were crushed and blighted by adverse circ.u.mstances, then my heart would have turned to this gentle, devoted, heroic maiden, whose love had been so strong as to lead her to idolize me, and follow me in disguise even over the sea."

"Wouldst thou have done this?"

"By my troth! would I. I half love the maiden now, of whose devotedness you speak so eloquently. If it were my case, Kate would have a dangerous rival. I never could resist so much womanly devotion. Not I, Edwin."

"Would you not rather despise her?"

"No. True love is sacred and honourable ever."

"When it o'ersteps the bounds of maidenly propriety?"

"Yes, Edwin, in a case like this of which you speak."

At this instant the officer of the deck reported that the strange sail had suddenly changed her course from the southeast, and was standing towards them.

The captain seized his gla.s.s, and, examining her, said with animation,

"Her hull has lifted, and she shows a tier of ports. A red riband running around her bends! polacca rigged, and courses up, with a bow as sharp as a canoe! It is 'the Kyd,'" he cried, with joyful surprise.

Instantly all was animation and intense excitement on board. The guns were double-shotted, the hammock nettings were stowed closer and firmer than usual, hand-grenades lined the decks, and every missile and weapon of offence or defence that could be pressed into service on so desperate an encounter as that antic.i.p.ated, was brought forth and placed ready for use. All that skill and determination to conquer could devise was done; and, under a steady but light wind on her larboard quarter, she fast neared the stranger, who also was observed to shorten sail and make other demonstrations of a hostile character. They continued to approach each other until less s.p.a.ce than a mile separated them, when the youthful captain, who, with his trumpet in his hand, had taken his place in the main rigging, shouted,

"Hoist the ensign, and pitch a shot from the weather-bow gun across his fore-foot."

The broad flag of England instantly ascended to the peak, and unfolded its united crosses displayed on its blood-red field. At the same time a column of flame shot from her sides, and the vessel shook with the loud report of the gun.

"It has dashed the spray into their faces," said the captain, who had followed the path of the ball with the gla.s.s at his eye. "Ha! by Heaven, there goes the black flag, with its silver arrow emblazoned on it. _It is Kyd._ He has fired!"

A puff of smoke at the instant curled up from the side of the pirate vessel, as it now proved to be beyond question, and the next moment a twelve pound shot, with a roaring noise, buried itself deep in the mainmast, twenty feet above the deck. The spar trembled from the shock, and even the vessel reeled to one side from the force of the iron projectile.

"This is an unlucky hit. It has weakened our best spar! We must have the weather-gauge of him, and run down and lay him by the board if he is so good a marksman at a long shot," said the captain.

No more shots were fired, and the vessels were now within hailing distance, when, cheering his crew by animated words as well as by his example, and irresistibly communicating to them a portion of his own spirit, the young captain stood by the helmsman, and directed him to steer so as to strike the advancing pirate with the larboard bow just forward of the fore-chains. He ordered the hand-grenades to be in readiness to be thrown on board as soon as they should come near enough, and the grappling-irons to be kept clear and cast at an instant's notice, while in two dense parties, commanded by the chief officers, the boarders were drawn up, prepared to leap on board cutla.s.s in hand.

Swiftly and with appalling stillness the two hostile barks approached each other, both close hauled on the wind, and moving at nearly equal speed. It was within half an hour of sunset, and the level rays of the sun suffused the sea with a flush of gold and crimson. The wooded sh.o.r.es, which were two miles distant, were touched with a brighter green, and the western sky was as bright and varied with gorgeous colours as if a rainbow had been dissipated over it. The hostile companies in the two vessels saw none of its beauties and thought only of the sun that gave glory to the scene, as a light that was to lend its aid to the approaching conflict. Nearer and nearer they came together, yet unable, from their direct advance upon each other, to bring their guns to bear. To fire their bow guns would have checked their speed: both, therefore, advanced in silence until each could see the features of his foe. Conspicuous on their decks stood the commanders of each brig, directing their several courses, and giving commands that were distinctly heard from one vessel to the other: Kyd, with his light flowing locks, his fair, n.o.ble brow and commanding figure, on the quarter-deck near the helmsman with a stern and hostile expression in his eyes and the alt.i.tude of one impatient to mingle in the conflict, which he seemed to antic.i.p.ate with vengeful triumph: the young captain, calm, cool, and commanding, his features glowing with the excitement of the occasion, and animated, as it seemed, with an honest ambition to punish a lawless bucanier who had so long filled sea and land with the terror of his name.

"Stand by, hand-grenades!" he shouted, as the vessels were within a few feet of each other.

"All ready!"

"Cast!" he cried, with a voice of thunder.

Instantly a score of these missiles were flying through the air in the direction of the crowded decks of the pirate. But, ere they had left the hand, quicker than thought the pirate's helm had been put hard up, and every sheet and brace being at the same time let go, she fell off suddenly from the wind, and presented her broadside to the bows of the brig; all but one or two of the grenades fell short and plunged into the water, and those that struck her were thrown overboard ere they could do injury. At the same instant the bows of the brig struck her starboard side nearly mids.h.i.+ps, and such was the tremendous force of the shock that her slight timbers were stove in, four out of six of the guns that composed the battery dismounted, while, vibrating with the shock beyond its tensity, the foremast, with its chain of connected yards, snapped off even with the deck, and fell with a terrible crash and dire confusion and ruin into the sea. Loud was the shout of success that rose from the crew of the brig, and, rus.h.i.+ng forward, they prepared to leap upon the deck of the bucanier.

"Back, men! she is filling!" cried the young captain, who had gained the bowsprit of his vessel, where he stood sword in hand, and, like his crew, in the act of springing on board.

"We are going down!" was the universal cry that rose from the pirate's decks, and the rush of the waters into her hold was distinctly heard above the noise and confusion of the scene.

"Let her sink!" shouted Kyd, bounding amids.h.i.+ps among his men. "Here is a king's s.h.i.+p worth three of it!"

His appeal was answered by a demoniac yell from his pirate crew; and, inspired by their imminent peril as well as their natural ferocity, they sprung, as one man, upon the bows of the brig, and, by mere force of numbers and desperation, in an instant took possession of the forecastle, and drove its defenders aft. The last man had scarcely gained a footing upon it, when, with a plunge like the dying struggle of a wounded animal, the "Silver Arrow," so long the besom of the ocean, shot down into its unfathomable depths, finding a grave in the element upon which it had so long rode in triumph. The brig pitched and rolled from side to side fearfully as she was received into the vortex the sinking vessel had left, while she so far sunk down that the waves rolled a foot deep over her bows, and flowed in an irresistible torrent aft to the quarter-deck.