Captain Kyd Volume Ii Part 30

"For this very enterprise am I now preparing. Within this last half hour I have got a s.h.i.+p that sails like the wind, which, with arms and ammunition on board, will place me on a better deck than that I have lost."

"Why did you delay to tell this, and lead me to blame you in my thoughts for supineness?"

"I would have kept it secret from thee till I had sailed."

"Wherefore?"

"Having," he said, with hesitation, "some regard for your former love--friends.h.i.+p, I should say."

"Love it once was, therefore speak out and call it love!"

"I feared this might lead you to dissuade me from it. But this sudden att.i.tude you have a.s.sumed fills me with surprise and admiration."

"Rupert Fitzroy, have you not been told from what peril I was but now saved? Have you forgotten how, in a jealous fit, you have unawares let drop that Robert Kyd, with his false lips, had said--no matter what--but, being false, can never be forgiven? Until this man is captive and lying at her feet in chains, Catharine of Bellamont's hand shall not be given in marriage. You have heard me, Fitzroy?" she added, retiring to the farther part of her room, as if she would be left alone.

"I have, and you shall be obeyed," he replied, leaving the boudoir.

The next morning but one a merchant-s.h.i.+p was hauled from the dock in which she had been several weeks lying, undergoing repairs; and two guns from the Rondeel, and several from the other forts, were placed on board of her, making eight in all. With a bold and willing crew, most of whom had volunteered on the service, at sundown she got under weigh, under the command of Fitzroy, accompanied by Edwin his secretary, and put to sea in search of the bucanier. She sailed through the Narrows instead of h.e.l.l Gate, a fisherman having informed him, as they were getting under weigh, that he had seen a vessel answering the description of the pirate sailing towards the mouth of the Raritan; and as sufficient time had elapsed to have enabled him to sail up through the Sound and double Montauk Point, Fitzroy determined to go in pursuit of the vessel mentioned by the fisherman.

The promontory off which Kyd had anch.o.r.ed at the mouth of the Raritan, now called Perth Amboy, descended on the south side to the river above named, with a gentle inclination. On the east it was washed by the waters of Staten Island Sound, and the island which gives name to it stretched east of it, with its high wooded bank far towards the north, till it terminated in New-York Bay. On the summit of the promontory was a small rustic church, with a slender spire towering high above the surrounding trees and humble hamlets. Around the church was a primitive graveyard, with here and there the unpretending tombstone which designated the last resting-place of some English Protestant or French Huguenot. From this rural cemetery was a wide view of island, main, and ocean.

It was twilight when the bucanier's vessel anch.o.r.ed beneath this promontory. At midnight the little churchyard presented a singular scene. In a deep shadow cast by the moon on the west side of the lonely church, were gathered a group of men--the pale light s.h.i.+ning broadly upon their rude costume and savage features, mingled with the red flame of dark lanterns, giving them a singularly wild appearance. They were standing with superst.i.tious awe round an open grave, from which the fresh body had just been dishumed and was now lying white and glaring in its shroud upon the ground not far off. Over the grave stood the wizard Cusha, and beside it glittered heaps of treasure. Apart walked Kyd in thought, occasionally turning to the grave, and then walking with quicker pace and uttering his thoughts half aloud:

"Though reason tells me there is nothing in it, and laughs at charms, spells, and incantations curling her lip with incredulity, I cannot get the mastery o'er this superst.i.tion, but live its very slave, using the instruments of her dark craft as if my destiny and they were linked, yet scorning while I use them."

"All's ready, sir, black wizard and all," said the mate, approaching him and interrupting his meditations.

"You treat too lightly these ceremonies, mate! There may be deeper meaning in them than you dream of."

"If the infernal pit is at the bottom of them, they are deep enough!

This negro wizard looks ugly enough to be the devil's grandfather."

"No more, Loff. Is all prepared?"

"All."

"Then give orders to the men."

"Ay, ay, sir. All hands to bury money!"

The pirates gathered round the grave, part of their number thrown into the shadow cast by the tower of the church, the remainder exposed to the full light of the moon. And moon scarcely ever shown on stranger or wilder scene. The negro was seated sullenly, with his head on his knees, upon the pile of grave-dirt, nor had he spoken until Kyd now approached and addressed him.

"If, as thou dost profess, dark slave, power to thee is delegated, by her whom thou hast served, to deal with beings of another world, by this amulet I wear I command thy service and obedience!"

As he spoke he held the amulet up to his view.

The wizard crossed his hands on his breast, and bowed himself to the ground.

"Cusha is thy slave. Speak."

"There lies heaped beside thee countless treasure--jewels, stones of price, gold and silver coin untold--each ounce of which has been purchased by its weight of human blood. What is so dearly bought should be safely stored and guarded. Perhaps some future day, awearied of the ocean, we may give up our roving life and settle down honest country gentlemen. We shall then need it to buy men's tongues and memories! Now perform the mystic orgies prescribed for such occasions."

The wizard slowly rose to his feet, and walked deliberately three times around the grave, the pirates giving back as he walked in superst.i.tious alarm. The third time he began to chant, in a low key, unintelligibly; but, gradually rising in wildness and distinctness, he, with strange gestures and contortions of form and face, broke forth into the following chant:

"Beelzebub, prince of air!

Mortals wors.h.i.+p thee."

He elevated his arms as he sung this in an att.i.tude of wild devotion.

"Apollyon, prince of sea!

Mortals wors.h.i.+p thee."

He stretched his arms towards the sea as he chanted, and a sudden dash and roar of its wares upon the beach rose to the ears of the listeners with an appalling sound.

"Sathanas, prince of earth!

Mortals wors.h.i.+p thee."

He struck the earth with his foot as he repeated the words, and then, prostrating himself, kissed the ground.

"Lucifer, prince of air!

Mortals wors.h.i.+p thee."

The wind seemed to sigh through the trees and to howl about the church tower as he recited the mystic verse. Then, with a singular union of all the gestures and ceremonies he had hitherto used, he chanted, in a tone that echoed like a chorus of demons through the surrounding forests,

"Prince of air, earth, sea and fire!

Mortals bow and wors.h.i.+p thee!"

"It's an accursed lie!" suddenly cried Loff, the mate, who, with the pirate crew, had been an appalled listener and spectator of the scene.

"Hist!" exclaimed Kyd, in a suppressed voice, forcibly grasping his arm; "a word of incredulity will destroy the spell."

"I have too much respect for my soul, captain, to let this black son of darkness sell it to the devil so glibly."

"Silence! Observe him!"

The wizard again began to chant, acknowledging the presence of each element by some appropriate gesture as he named it:

"By thy four great names we call thee!

By the power thou hast conferr'd, Let our voices now be heard!

By fire we call on thee!"

He then seized a torch held by one of the men, and waved it to and fro above his head.

"By water we call on thee!"

From a cruise that he had placed beside him, he took up water in his palm and cast it into the air.

"By air we call on thee!"