Sea-Dogs All! Part 9

cried the gallant Irishman, when those who cared to run for life had had their chance; and the braver ones amongst his men came in a ring about him, and fought on until struck down. Drake offered them quarter, but they proudly refused it. "No rope for my neck!" cried the captain; and his men cheered his resolve, and died fighting beside him.

Chapter XIV.

WHAT HAPPENED IN WESTBURY STEEPLE.

The battle was over, and there remained but the counting of the cost.

The admiral had lost a third of his force, who lay dead on the deck, or on the s.h.i.+fting sands beneath the yellow tide. There was hardly a man that had not received a wound. Johnnie Morgan had gone down under the last wild-cat spring of the Irish captain.

"We must have a light," cried Drake; "this vessel is a firebrand. Some of you fetch up combustibles from below."

The s.h.i.+p was stuck fast into the bank, the tide pounding her viciously as she lay. In a short while a fire was roaring on the Arlingham bank, and by its glare the deck was cleared of its ghastly burden, and the wounded attended to. Hallooing across the river, Drake ordered those on the other side to secure boats from somewhere, and come across stream to render him a.s.sistance. Messengers went off to the neighbouring farms to bring carts and mattresses and stuff for bandaging; for the tale of wounded, friend and foe, was a long one.

Willing hands and legs went to work, but it was bright morning ere much a.s.sistance arrived. Johnnie Morgan was not seriously wounded. A sword-cut on the head had stunned him for a while, and now laid him, sick, dizzy, and bleeding, on the bank; but he was able to tell the admiral that he felt nothing but a "plaguy bad headache."

We will leave him cooling in the dewy morning, and see what has become of Master Windybank and some of those a.s.sociated with him. The master of Dean Tower, deeming his treachery well known, and not reckoning upon any chance of life if he fell into the admiral's hands, rose to the height of a desperate occasion, and fought in so resolute a fas.h.i.+on that he was not outdone by the tigerish Basil or the cold-blooded Jerome. The arch-plotter, who kept by the side of his untrustworthy recruit, was astonished at the reckless valour he displayed. Truth to tell, Jerome was half inclined to believe that Windybank had played a double part, and was responsible for the admiral's knowledge of the plot for unlading the _Luath_.

Entertaining such a notion, he was watching Master Andrew closely; and had he detected any signs of half-heartedness, or any movement towards escape, he would have run the young man through the body without hesitation. But the suspected one proved, for the nonce, a leader that would have led stouter-hearted fellows to victory; and Father Jerome, seeing the fight was hopeless, determined to give Windybank a chance of further life and usefulness in the Spanish cause. He slowly gave way in the direction of the river, and whispered his companion to do likewise.

"Skin whole?" he asked.

"Ay," panted Andrew.

"Fall into the river as though badly wounded, and try to save thyself.

I shall do the same. Leave Basil and John to fight this out."

A moment later Windybank toppled backwards into the stream. He was a good swimmer, else had the Jesuit's advice availed him nothing, and he rose to the surface and turned over on to his breast like a porpoise.

He fixed his sword between his teeth, and left himself to the rush of the tide, putting in a few strokes now and then in order to keep a proper course. A short time sufficed to put him out of the area of actual conflict, and he rested himself for a moment to consider what was best for him to do. He did not suppose that his foes would put an escape to his credit, for his voice had been heard loudly enough in the fight until the waters had closed above him. He determined to essay the crossing of the river, as giving him the better chance of a run for liberty, but he found the task beyond him; the fighting had fatigued him, and the current ran like a mill-race. For the present, at any rate, he must remain on his own side of the Severn. He swam a little farther up-stream, then made for a place where the bank was low, and scrambled out. For a while he waited to see whether Father Jerome had followed him. Getting no signs of his leader, he turned to the pressing question of his own immediate safety. He quickly decided not to seek any hiding-place in the forest; the river offered a better channel for escape. If he could secrete himself for a while, a chance would offer itself of running down on the tide after nightfall. It would not be difficult to find a boat, and the Welsh coast of the estuary should afford him a safe asylum until he could make fuller plans concerning his future. The voyage would be a perilous one, but he saw no other chance of escaping capture and death.

The gray cottages of Westbury were before him, backed by the church and its tall spire. A thought flashed across his mind like an inspiration: his riverside hiding-place was found! The spire was isolated from the church, and was entirely of wood, save for a stone stump. Great beams crossed and recrossed one another, in an ever-narrowing pyramid, for about two hundred feet. Up in the dimness and final darkness near the apex was security for any man.

Windybank stole across the river meadow to the nearest house. The door stood open and the place was empty. The neighbouring house was in like condition, and a quick survey told him that the fisher-folk, hearing sounds of the fight, had gone down to learn what strange business was adoing at midnight. Master Andrew was deficient neither in caution nor in cunning. He acted promptly. A pantry was visited, and a loaf of bread abstracted. He slipped from the house and pa.s.sed through the orchard. He stuffed his pockets with half-ripe apples; they would help to quench his thirst, and he could hope for no water in his lofty place of concealment.

He got to the churchyard wicket, pa.s.sed through, floundered over the melancholy mounds that strewed G.o.d's acre, and reached the square, stone stump upon which the wooden spire was reared, and in which hung the bells. The door was on the latch, the lower part of the belfry being used as a storehouse for odds and ends of stone, wood, and rope belonging to the church itself. Windybank knew his bearings fairly well. He found the staircase, and began to wend upwards to the bell-chamber. About twenty feet up he felt a rush of cool, river air, and he knew that he had pa.s.sed the first lattice. A little later, and he was on the belfry floor, his hands feeling the chill, smooth surface of the largest bell. Aching with fatigue and excitement, he sat down.

He did not propose to attempt the perilous climb upwards in the darkness, and daylight could not be far off. Hunger sent in its claims; he broke the loaf, and munched a couple of sour apples. The food refreshed him, and he felt he could wait patiently for the dawn.

Day came, and with it a buzz of excitement in the village. Windybank ventured to peep through the topmost lattice and scan the groups of excited gossips. Then he looked aloft through the great network of beams and rafters. He was tired, and his brain swam inside his head.

The apex of the spire looked fearfully high and dark, and the brown, cobwebbed maze of woodwork bewildered him. The latch below clicked; some one was in the lower tower. The great bell began to swing; the s.e.xton was ringing an alarm. Seized by a sudden fright, Windybank clambered by a bell-wheel to the first huge beam. He got his fingers on it and swung his body across. He gained the next, and the next; he was twenty feet above the floor of the bell-chamber. The boom of the bell was deafening. He paused for breath, and then hurried on his upward way, slipping sometimes, but never falling.

Suddenly the bell stopped; a deep hum of sound spun and echoed in the narrowing cone where Windybank was giddily clinging. He had paused again to recover breath and stability. Looking down, he saw a head rising from the tower steps into the bell-chamber; the s.e.xton had come up to readjust the rope. The fugitive's guilty conscience put another meaning upon his act; he felt sure that signs of his presence had been noted, and that the fellow had come up to search for him. A little way above him was darkness and security. He turned quickly to make a last noiseless dash, but he missed his grip and his footing. For a moment he hung, while his heart stood still. Then he fell with sickening thud and crash from beam to beam. The startled s.e.xton looked up and cried out; and the traitor's body toppled in its last wild spin, and fell at his feet. He lifted it up. The face was beaten almost out of recognition, and the neck was broken.

The receding tide left Father Jerome's body on the sands. He delayed his plunge into the river a moment too long, and a thrust from Raleigh's sword speeded him into the yellow waters. John was found on the bank, dead likewise. Basil's body was searched for in vain. He was accounted as dead, for men protested stoutly that they had wounded him more than once. But a scotched viper does not always die.

Gatcombe men were destined to prove the truth of that.

Chapter XV.

A LETTER FROM COURT.

Affairs in the forest had settled down; "excursions and alarums" were no longer the order of the day and the dread of the night. Wounded men were healed of the hurts gotten in the fray with the conspirators, and their whole-skinned neighbours had ceased to ask them how they did and envy them the marks of patriotic valour that they carried on their bodies. The dead were buried, and the tears of wives, mothers, and sisters were dried, and sad memories--when they came--called up only a sigh of resignation: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away!"

They humbly thanked the Lord that He had given their men honourable pa.s.sage into the next world.

The admiral was no longer at Gatcombe, but had gone to London, and thence to Plymouth. Raleigh had gone to London with him, and in London had he stayed. After the solitude of the forest, the gaiety of the court attracted him strongly; and, as her most gracious Majesty was disposed to smile upon him, he had said to Drake, "The sun s.h.i.+nes, Frank; beshrew me if I stray out of the circle of its warm rays." To which the seaman replied, "G.o.d forgive thee, Wat, for dancing so much after a woman's heels. The sea--as I know full well--can be treacherous, but I serve a less fickle mistress than thou."

Raleigh laughed lightly, kissed the storm-roughened cheek of his friend, and bade him G.o.d-speed. "What would our royal mistress say if she heard thee call her 'fickle'?" he whispered.

"I am not fool enough, Wat, to speak such words in her hearing. But have a care--courts are slippery places in which to walk. An honest man is safer on a s.h.i.+p's deck during a hurricane than on a palace floor even when the royal sun is s.h.i.+ning. Have a care of thyself, dear heart, if only for the sake of us rough sea-dogs of Devon that love thee."

Whereupon Raleigh kissed the admiral again, and sent loving messages to Jack Hawkins and d.i.c.k Grenville and all the other gallant gentlemen that quaffed their ale with eyes on the sea on Plymouth Hoe.

Johnnie Morgan stood watching the last wagon from his harvest field go creaking and groaning into the rickyard in the rear of his house. It was quite early in the afternoon, and the September sun shone with an ardour worthy of fierce July. There was a wind, but it came dead from the south, and its pa.s.sage across the hot, moist sands of the river had no cooling influence upon it. Johnnie mopped his brow and leant wearily upon a pitchfork whilst a maiden ran indoors for a flagon of cider. She came back, followed closely by a dusty stranger.

The farmer stared at the stranger. The latter surveyed Johnnie pretty coolly, measured him from head to heel, and then took off his hat with a sweeping forward movement of the arm. "By the look of thee thou art Master Morgan, the yeoman of Blakeney, for whom I have hunted high and low since noon," he exclaimed.

"I am Master Morgan," replied Johnnie; "who art thou?"

"Timothy Jeffreys, at your service. I serve the good knight, Sir Walter Raleigh."

"Say no more until thy throat be better moistened," cried Morgan, handing him the flagon of cider. "Let it never be said that a message from the n.o.ble Sir Walter was spoken to me with dry lips."

Master Jeffreys took the cider off at a draught. "Pa.s.sable--on a hot day, palatable--to a man thirsty enough to lap from a wayside ditch; but--!" he shook his head expressively, "'tis not Devons.h.i.+re juice, Master Morgan."

"True; 'tis good Glo'sters.h.i.+re, and we humble forest folk keep sound heads and sound stomachs by quaffing it. I'm sorry 'tis not to your liking; maybe I should cry 'faugh!' over your Devons.h.i.+re tipple, good sir." Johnnie was annoyed, for he prided himself on his apple-brew, and the airs and graces of Master Jeffreys were not altogether to his liking. "You have a message to me," he said. "No doubt you will tell it better sitting than standing. Come into my parlour.--Meg, take this gentleman's cloak and dust it, and bring him a brush for his boots."

The maid took the horseman's cloak, and her master led his guest indoors. Meg was ready on the threshold to brush off the heavy coating of red, forest dust.

"Bachelor?" asked Jeffreys when he found himself lying back in a cosy chair, a bowl of sweet, old-time flowers adjacent to his nose.

"Bachelor!" answered Johnnie.

"Pardon my question; but this room is so trim and neat that, methought, there must be some dainty housewife under the roof."

"And thou wert curious to see her."

"Exactly. I have travelled, Master Morgan, and I love to look about me and ponder upon what I see."

"Thy conclusions are not always correct."

"The wisest men make mistakes, Master Morgan."

"What a comfort to us that are fools!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the forester. "But thy message, my good sir."

"I like thy house; 'tis uncommon pretty."

"A good enough nest," a.s.sented Morgan.

"Wants another bird in it."