To Have and to Hold Part 24

By this the score or more who had come in the two boats were halfway up the beach. In front, side by side, as each conceding no inch of leaders.h.i.+p, walked three men: a large man, with a villainous face much scarred, and a huge, bushy, dark red beard; a tall dark man, with a thin fierce face and bloodshot eyes, the Spaniard by his looks; and a slight man, with the face and bearing of an English gentleman. The men behind them differed no whit from the two gravediggers, being as scoundrelly of face, as great of strength, and as curiously attired. They came straight to the open grave, and the dead man beside it. The three who seemed of most importance disposed themselves, still side by side, at the head of the grave, and their following took the foot.

"It's a dirty piece of work," said Red Gil in a voice like a raven's, "and the sooner it's done with, and we are aboard again and booming back to the Indies, the better I'll like it. Over with him, brave boys!"

"Is it yours to give the word?" asked the slight man, who was dressed point-device, and with a finical nicety, in black and silver. His voice was low and clear, and of a somewhat melancholy cadence, going well with the pensiveness of fine, deeply fringed eyes.

"Why should n't I give the word?" growled the personage addressed, adding with an oath, "I've as good a right to give it as any man,--maybe a better right!"

"That would be scanned," said he of the pensive eyes. "Gentlemen, we have here the pick of the s.h.i.+p. For the captain that these choose, those on board will throw up their caps. Let us bury the dead, and then let choice be made of one of us three, each of whom has claims that might be put forward"--He broke off and picking up a delicate sh.e.l.l began to study its pearly spirals with a tender, thoughtful, half-pleased, half-melancholy countenance.

The gravedigger with the wrought handkerchief looked from him to the rascal crew ma.s.sed at the foot of the grave, and, seeing his own sentiments mirrored in the countenances of not a few, s.n.a.t.c.hed the b.l.o.o.d.y clout from his head, waved it, and cried out, "Paradise!"

Whereupon arose a great confusion. Some bawled for Paradise, some for Red Gil, a few for the Spaniard. The two gravediggers locked horns, and a brawny devil with a woman's mantle swathed about his naked shoulders drew a knife, and made for a partisan of the Spaniard, who in his turn skillfully interposed between himself and the attack the body of a bawling well-wisher to Red Gil.

The man in black and silver tossed aside the sh.e.l.l, rose, and entered the lists. With one hand he seized the gravedigger of the ruff, and hurled him apart from him of the velvet breeches; with the other he presented a dagger with a jeweled haft at the breast of the ruffian with the woman's mantle, while in tones that would have befitted Astrophel plaining of his love to rocks, woods, and streams, he poured forth a flood of wild, singular, and filthy oaths, such as would have disgraced a camp follower. His interference was effectual. The combatants fell apart and the clamor was stilled, whereupon the gentleman of contrarieties at once resumed the gentle and indifferent melancholy of manner and address.

"Let us off with the old love before we are on with the new, gentlemen,"

he said. "We'll bury the dead first, and choose his successor afterward,--decently and in order, I trust, and with due submission to the majority."

"I'll fight for my rights," growled Red Gil.

"And I for mine," cried the Spaniard.

"And each of us'll back his own man," muttered in an aside the gravedigger with the broken head.

The one they called Paradise sighed. "It is a thousand pities that there is not amongst us some one of merit so preeminent that faction should hide its head before it. But to the work in hand, gentlemen."

They gathered closer around the yawning grave, and some began to lift the corpse. As for me, I withdrew as noiselessly as an Indian from my lair of gra.s.s, and, hidden by the heaped-up sand, made off across the point and down the beach to where a light curl of smoke showed that some one was mending the fire I had neglected. It was Sparrow, who alternately threw on driftwood and seaweed and spoke to madam, who sat at his feet in the blended warmth of fire and suns.h.i.+ne. Diccon was roasting the remainder of the oysters he had gathered the night before, and my lord stood and stared with a frowning face at the nine-mile distant mainland. All turned their eyes upon me as I came up to the fire.

"A little longer, Captain Percy, and we would have had out a search warrant," began the minister cheerfully. "Have you been building a bridge?"

"If I build one," I said, "it will be a perilous one enough. Have you looked seaward?"

"We waked but a minute agone," he answered. As he spoke, he straightened his great form and lifted his face from the fire to the blue sea.

Diccon, still on his knees at his task, looked too; and my lord, turning from his contemplation of the distant kingdom of Accomac; and Mistress Percy, one hand shading her eyes, the slender fingers of the other still immeshed in her long dark hair which she had been braiding. They stared at the s.h.i.+p in silence until my lord laughed.

"Conjure us on board at once, captain," he cried. "We are thirsty."

I drew the minister aside. "I am going up the beach, beyond that point, again; you will one and all stay here. If I do not come back, do the best you can, and sell her life as dearly as you can. If I come back,--you are quick of wit and have been a player; look that you take the cue I give you!"

I returned to the fire, and he followed me, amazement in his face. "My Lord Carnal," I said, "I must ask you for your sword."

He started, and his black brows drew together. "Though the fortunes of war have made me in some sort your captive, sir," he said at last, and not without dignity, "I do not see, upon this isle to which we are all prisoners, the need of so strong testimony to the abjectness of my condition, nor deem it generous"--

"We will speak of generosity another day, my lord," I interrupted. "At present I am in a hurry. That you are my prisoner in verity is enough for me, but not for others. I must have you so in seeming as well as in truth. Moreover, Master Sparrow is weaponless, and I must needs disarm an enemy to arm a friend. I beg that you will give what else we must take."

He looked at Diccon, but Diccon stood with his face to the sea. I thought we were to have a struggle, and I was sorry for it, but my lord could and did add discretion to a valor that I never doubted.

He shrugged his shoulders, burst into a laugh, and turned to Mistress Percy.

"What can one do, lady, when one is doubly a prisoner, prisoner to numbers and to beauty? E'en laugh at fate, and make the best of a bad job. Here, sir! Some day it shall be the point!"

He drew his rapier from its sheath, and presented the hilt to me. I took it with a bow, and handed it to Sparrow.

The King's ward had risen, and now leant against the bank of sand, her long dark hair, half braided, drawn over either shoulder, her face marble white between the waves of darkness.

"I do not know that I shall ever come back," I said, stopping before her. "May I kiss your hand before I go?"

Her lips moved, but she did not speak. I knelt and kissed her clasped hands. They were cold to my lips. "Where are you going?" she whispered.

"Into what danger are you going? I--I--take me with you!"

I rose, with a laugh at my own folly that could have rested brow and lips on those hands, and let the world wag. "Another time," I said.

"Rest in the suns.h.i.+ne now, and think that all is well. All will be well, I trust."

A few minutes later saw me almost upon the party gathered about the grave. The grave had received that which it was to hold until the crack of doom, and was now being rapidly filled with sand. The crew of deep-dyed villains worked or stood or sat in silence, but all looked at the grave, and saw me not. As the last handful of sand made it level with the beach, I walked into their midst, and found myself face to face with the three candidates for the now vacant captaincy.

"Give you good-day, gentlemen," I cried. "Is it your captain that you bury or one of your crew, or is it only pezos and pieces of eight?"

CHAPTER XXII IN WHICH I CHANGE MY NAME AND OCCUPATION

"THE sun s.h.i.+ning on so much bare steel hurts my eyes," I said. "Put up, gentlemen, put up! Cannot one rover attend the funeral of another without all this crowding and display of cutlery? If you will take the trouble to look around you, you will see that I have brought to the obsequies only myself."

One by one cutla.s.s and sword were lowered, and those who had drawn them, falling somewhat back, spat and swore and laughed. The man in black and silver only smiled gently and sadly. "Did you drop from the blue?" he asked. "Or did you come up from the sea?"

"I came out of it," I said. "My s.h.i.+p went down in the storm yesterday.

Your little c.o.c.kboat yonder was more fortunate." I waved my hand toward that s.h.i.+p of three hundred tons, then twirled my mustaches and stood at gaze.

"Was your s.h.i.+p so large, then?" demanded Paradise, while a murmur of admiration, larded with oaths, ran around the circle.

"She was a very great galleon," I replied, with a sigh for the good s.h.i.+p that was gone.

A moment's silence, during which they all looked at me. "A galleon,"

then said Paradise softly.

"They that sailed her yesterday are to-day at the bottom of the sea," I continued. "Alackaday! so are one hundred thousand pezos of gold, three thousand bars of silver, ten frails of pearls, jewels uncounted, cloth of gold and cloth of silver. She was a very rich prize."

The circle sucked in their breath. "All at the bottom of the sea?"

queried Red Gil, with gloating eyes fixed upon the smiling water. "Not one pezo left, not one little, little pearl?"

I shook my head and heaved a prodigious sigh. "The treasure is gone,"

I said, "and the men with whom I took it are gone. I am a captain with neither s.h.i.+p nor crew. I take you, my friends, for a s.h.i.+p and crew without a captain. The inference is obvious."

The ring gaped with wonder, then strange oaths arose. Red Gil broke into a bellow of angry laughter, while the Spaniard glared like a catamount about to spring. "So you would be our captain?" said Paradise, picking up another sh.e.l.l, and poising it upon a hand as fine and small as a woman's.

"Faith, you might go farther and fare worse," I answered, and began to hum a tune. When I had finished it, "I am Kirby," I said, and waited to see if that shot should go wide or through the hull.

For two minutes the dash of the surf and the cries of the wheeling sea fowl made the only sound in that part of the world; then from those half-clad rapscallions arose a shout of "Kirby!"--a shout in which the three leaders did not join. That one who looked a gentleman rose from the sand and made me a low bow. "Well met, n.o.ble captain," he cried in those his honey tones. "You will doubtless remember me who was with you that time at Maracaibo when you sunk the gallea.s.ses. Five years have pa.s.sed since then, and yet I see you ten years younger and three inches taller."

"I touched once at the Lucayas, and found the spring de Leon sought,"