The Iron Pirate Part 5

Billy Eightbells, the second mate, was quite of Dan's opinion. The looks of the others told me then that they began to fear the adventure.

Billy was the first really to give expression to the common sentiment.

"Making bold to speak," he said, "it were two years ago come Christmas as I met something like this afore, down Rio way----"

"Was it at eight bells, Billy?" asked Mary mischievously. She knew that all Billy's yarns began at eight bells.

"Well, I think it were, mum, but as I was saying----"

"Flash again," said the skipper, suddenly interrupting the harangue, and as the blue light flashed we saw right ahead of us the wanderer we sought; but she was bearing down upon us, and there was fear in the skipper's voice when he roared--

"For G.o.d's sake, hard a-starboard!"

The helm went over, and the yacht loomed up black, as our own light died away; and pa.s.sed us within a cable's length. What lift of the night there was showed us her decks again; but they were not deserted, for as one or two aboard gave a great cry, I saw the white and horridly distorted face of a man who clung to the main shrouds--and he alone was guardian of the wanderer.

The horrid vision struck my own men with a deadly fearing.

"May the Lord help us!" said Dan.

"And him!" added Piping Jack solemnly.

"Was he alive, d'you think?" asked Dan.

"It's my opinion he'd seen something as no Christian man ought to see.

Please G.o.d, we all get to port again!"

"Please G.o.d!" said half-a-dozen; and their words had meaning.

For myself, my thoughts were very different. That vision of the man I had left well and hopeful and strong not three days since was terrible to me. A brave man had gone to his death, but to what a death, if that agonised face and distorted visage betokened aught! And I had promised to aid him, and was drifting there with the schooner, raising no hand to give him help.

"Skipper," I cried, "this time we'll risk getting a boat off; I'm going aboard that vessel now, if I drown before I return." Then I turned to the men, and said: "You saw the yacht pa.s.s just now, and you saw that man aboard her--he's my friend, and I'm going to fetch him. Who amongst you is coming with me?"

They hung back for a moment before the stuff that was in them showed itself; then Dan lurched out, and said--

"I go!"

Billy Eightbells followed.

"And I," said he, "if it's the Old One himself."

"And I," said Piping Jack.

"And I," said Planks, the carpenter.

"Come on, then, and take your knives in your belts. Skipper, put about and show another light."

He obeyed mechanically, saying nothing; but he was a brave man, I knew.

It was our luck to find that the boat went away from the davits with no more than a couple of buckets of water in her; and in two minutes' time the men were giving way, and we rose and fell to the still choppy sea, while the green spray ran from our oilskins in gallons. In this way we made a couple of hundred yards in the direction we judged the yacht would turn, and lit a flash. It showed her a quarter of a mile away, jibbing round and coming into the wind again.

"We shall catch her on the tack if she holds her bearing," said Dan, "and be aboard in ten minutes."

"What then?" said Billy.

"Ay, what then?" echoed the others.

"But it's a friend of the guv'nor's," repeated Dan, "and he's in danger--no common danger, neither. Please G.o.d, we all get to port again."

"Please G.o.d!" they responded, and Roderick, who sat at the tiller with me, whispered--

"I never saw men who liked a job less."

As the good fellows gave way again, and the boat rode easily before the wind, I noticed for the first time that the clouds were scattering; and we had not made another cable's length when a great cloud above us showed silver at its edges, and opaquely white in its centre, through which the moon shone. Anon it dissolved, and the transformation on the surface of the water was a transformation from the dark of storm to the chrome light of a summer moon. There, around us, the panorama stretched out: the sea, white-waved and rolling; the lights of a steamer to port; of a couple of sailing vessels astern; of a fis.h.i.+ng fleet away ahead, and nearer to the sh.o.r.e. But these we had no thought for, since the deserted yacht was beating up to us, and we stood right in her track.

"Get a grapnel forward, and look out there," cried Dan, who was in command; and Billy stood ready, while we could hear the swish of the waves against the cutter's bows, and every man instinctively put his hand on his pistol or his knife.

As if to help us, the wind fell away as the schooner came up, and she began to shake her sails; making no way as she headed almost due east.

It seemed a fit moment for effort, and Dan had just sung out "Give way," when every man who had gripped an oar let go the handle again and sat with horror writ on his countenance. For, almost with the words of the order, there was the sound as of fierce contest, of the bursting of wood, and the spread of flame; and in that instant the decks of the yacht were ripped up, and sheets of fire rose from them to the rigging above. The light of this mighty flare spread instantly over the sea about her, and far away you could look on the rolling waves, red as waves of fire. A terrible sight it was, and terrible sounds were those of the wood rending with the heat, of the stays snapping and flying, of the hissing of the flame where it met the water. But it was a sight of infinite horror to us, because we knew that one who might yet live was a prisoner of the conflagration--the one pa.s.senger, as it seemed then, of the vessel which was doomed.

"Give way," roared Dan again, for the men sat motionless with terror.

"Are you going to let him burn? May G.o.d have mercy on him, for he needs mercy!"

The words awed them. They shot the long-boat forward; and I stood in her stern to observe, if I could, what pa.s.sed on the burning decks. And I saw a sight the like to which I pray that I may never see again.

Martin Hall stood at the main shrouds, motionless, volumes of flame around him, his figure clear to be viewed by that awful beacon.

"Why doesn't he jump it?" I called aloud. "If he can't swim, he could keep above until we're alongside"; and then I roared "Ahoy!" and every man repeated the cry, calling "Ahoy!" each time he bent to his oar, his voice hoa.r.s.e with excitement. But Martin Hall never moved, his gaunt figure was motionless--the flames beat upon it, it did not stir; and we drew near enough anon and knew the worst.

"Devils' work, devils' work!" said Dan; "he's lashed there--and he's dead!" But the men still cried "Ahoy!" as they rushed their oars through the water, and were as those mad with fiery drink.

"Easy!" roared Dan. "Easy, for a parcel of stark fools! Would you run alongside her?"

There they lay, for any nearer approach would have been perilous, and even in that place where we were, twenty feet on the windward side, the heat was nigh unbearable. So near were we that I looked close as it might be into the dead face of Martin Hall, and saw that the fiends who had lashed him there had done their work too well. But I hoped in my heart that he had been dead when the end of the s.h.i.+p had begun to come, and that it were no reproach to me that he had perished: for to save his body from that holocaust was work no man might do.

So did we watch the mounting fire, and the last tack of the yacht _La France_. Saucily she raised her head to a new breeze, shook her great sail of flame in the night, and scattered red light about her. Then she dipped her burning jib as if in salute, and there was darkness.

"Rest to a good s.h.i.+p," said Dan, in melancholy mood; but I said--

"Rest to a friend." I had known the man whose death had come; and when his body went below I hungered for the grip of the hand which was then washed by the Channel waves.

"Give way," I cried to the men, who sat silent in their fear of it, and when they rowed again they cried as before, "Ahoy": so strong and vivid was the picture which the sea had then put out.

As we neared our own s.h.i.+p, Roderick endeavoured to speak to me, but his voice failed, and he took my hand, giving it a great grip. Then we came on board, where Mary waited for us with a white face, and the others stood silent; but we said nothing to them, going below. There I locked myself in my own cabin, and though fatigue lay heavy on me, and my eyes were clouded with the touch of sleep, I took Martin Hall's papers from my locker, and lighted the lamp to read them through.

But not without awe, for they were a message from the dead.

CHAPTER V.

THE WRITING OF MARTIN HALL.