The Light of Scarthey: A Romance

He steadied himself firmly with one hand on the rigging.

Now musket shots flashed on board the cutter in quick succession, and sundry balls whizzed over the poop, intended for the helmsman by their side. Captain Jack gnashed his teeth, as the menacing drone of one of them came perilously close to the beloved head by his cheek.

"Look out, every man. We'll run her down!" he called. His voice was like the blast of bugles. Cheers broke out from every part of the ship, drowning the yells of execration and the shouts of fear from below. And now, with irresistible sway, the rushing Peregrine heavy and powerful was closing and bearing down upon her frailer enemy.

There was a spell of suspense when all was silence, save the rush and turmoil of the waters, and the flapping of the cutter's sails, helpless for the moment in the teeth of the breeze. Like a charging steed the schooner seemed to leap at her foe. Then came the shock. There was a brief check in her career, she rose by the head; the rigging strained and sighed, the masts swayed groaning, but stood. Over the bows, in the darkness was heard a long-drawn crash, was seen a white wall of foaming water rising silently to break the next moment with a great roar.

The cutter, struck obliquely amidships, was thrown straightway on her beam ends: the Peregrine, with every sail spread and swollen, held her as the preying bird with outstretched wings holds its quarry, and pressed her down until she began to fill and settle. It was with wide-open eyes, with eager, throbbing heart that Molly watched it all.

"Lights, my lads," cried Captain Jack, with a shout of exultation, when the anxious instant had passed. "Take in every man you can save but handspike is the word for the first who shows fight! Curwen, do you get her clear again."

All around upon the deck, sprang rumour and turmoil, came shouts and sounds of scuffling and the rushing of feet; from the blank waters came piteous calls for help. But paying little heed to aught but Molly, Captain Jack seized a lighted lantern from the hands of a passing sailor and drew her aside.

Fevered with pain and fascinated by the horror of fight and death's doings, yet instinctively remembering to pull her hood over her face, she allowed herself to be taken into the little deck cabin.

He placed the lantern upon the table:

"Rest here," he said quickly, once more striving to see her beneath the jealous shade. "I must find out if anything is amiss on board the ship and attend to these drowning men – even before you, my darling! But I shall be back instantly. You are not faint?"

The light shone full on his features which Molly eagerly scanned from her safe recess. When she met his eyes, full of the triumph of love and hope, her soul broke into fierce revolt – again she felt upon her lips that kiss of young passionate love that had been the first her life had ever known … and might be the last, for the disclosure was approaching apace.

She was glad of the respite.

"Go," she said with as much firmness as she could muster. "Let me not stand between you and your duty. I am strong."

Strong indeed – Captain Jack might have wondered whence had come to this gentle Madeleine this lioness-strength of soul and body, had he had time to wonder, time for aught but his love thoughts and his fury, as he dashed back again panting for the moment when he could have her to himself.

"Any damage, Curwen?"

"Bowsprit broken, and larboard bulwark stove in, otherwise everything has stood."

"Casualties?"

"No, sir. We have three of the cutter's men on board already. They swarmed over the bows. One had his cutlass out and had the devil's impudence to claim the schooner, but a boat-hook soon brought him to reason. There they be, sir," pointing to a darker group huddled round the mast. "I have lowered the gig to see if we can pick up the others, damn them!"

"As soon as they are all on board bring them aft, I will speak to them."

When, with a master's eye, he had rapidly inspected his vessel from the hold to the rigging, without finding aught to cause anxiety for its safety, Captain Jack returned to the poop, and there found the party of prisoners arranged under the strong guard of his own crew. Molly stood, wrapped up in her cloak, at the door of the cabin, watching.

One of the revenue men came forward and attempted to speak – but the captain impatiently cut him short.

"I have no time to waste in talk, my man," he said commandingly. "How many were you on board the cutter?"

"Nine," answered the man sullenly.

"How many have we got here?"

"Six, sir," interposed Curwen. "Those three," pointing to three disconsolate and dripping figures, "were all we could pick up."

"Hark ye, fellows," said the captain. "You barred my road, I had to clear you away. You tried to sink me, I had to sink you. You have lost three of your ship-mates, you have yourselves to blame for it; your shot has drawn blood from one for whom I would have cut down forty times your number. I will send you back to shore. Away with you! No, I will hear nothing. Let them have the gig, Curwen, and four oars."

"And now God speed the Peregrine," cried Jack Smith, as the revenue men pushed off in the direction of the light and the wind was again swelling every sail of his gallant ship. "We are well out of our scrape. Shape her course for St. Malo, Curwen. If this wind holds we should be there by the nineteenth in the morning, at latest."

CHAPTER XXV

THE FIGHT FOR THE OPEN

As o'er the grass, beneath the larches there
We gaily stepped, the high noon overhead,
Then Love was born – was born so strong and fair.
Knowest thou! Love is dead.

    Gipsy Song.
At last he was free. He had wrested his bride and the treasure trusted to his honour from the snares so unexpectedly laid on his path; whatever troubles might remain stored against him in the dim distance of time, he would not reck them now. The present and the immediate future were full of splendour and triumph.

All those golden schemes worked out under yonder light of Scarthey – God bless it – now receding in the gloom behind his swift running ship, whether in the long watches of the night, or in the recent fevered resolves of imminent danger, they had come to pass after all! And she, the light of his life, was with him. She had trusted her happiness, her honour, herself, to his love. The thought illumined his brain with glory as he rushed back to the silent muffled figure that still stood awaiting his coming.

"At last!" he said, panting in the excess of his joy; "At last, Madeleine … I can hardly believe it! But selfish brute that I am, you must be crushed with fatigue. My brave darling, you would make me forget your tender woman's frame, and you are wounded!"

Supporting her – for the ship, reaching the open sea, had begun to roll more wildly – he led her back into the little room now lighted by the fitful rays of a swinging lamp. With head averted, she suffered herself to be seated on a kind of sofa couch.

When he had closed the door, he seized her hand, on which ran streaks of half-dried blood, and covered it with kisses.

"Ah, Madeleine! here in the sanctuary I had prepared for you, where I thought you would be so safe, so guarded, tell me that you forgive me for having brought this injury to you. Wounded, torn, bleeding… I who would give all my blood, my life, if life were not so precious to me now that you have come into it, to save you from the slightest pain! At least here you are secure, here you can rest, but – but there is no one to wait on you, Madeleine." He fell on his knees beside her. "Madeleine, my wife, you must let me tend you." Then, as she shivered slightly, but did not turn to him, he went on in tones of the most restrained tenderness mingled with humblest pleading:

"Had it not been for your accident, I had not ventured even to cross the threshold of this room. But your wound must be dressed; darling, darling, allow me, forgive me; the risk is too great."

Rising to his feet again he gently pulled at her cloak. Molly spoke not a word, but untied it at the neck and let it fall away from her fair young body; and keeping her hooded face still rigidly averted, she surrendered her wounded arm.

He muttered words of distress at the sight of the broad blood stains; stepped hurriedly to a little cupboard where such surgical stores as might be required on board were hoarded, and having selected scissors, lint, and bandages, came back and again knelt down by her side to cut off, with eager, compassionate hands, the torn and maculated sleeve.

The wound was but a surface laceration, and a man would not have given a thought to it in the circumstances. But to see this soft, white woman's skin, bruised black in parts, torn with a horrid red gap in others; to see the beauty of this round arm thus brutally marred, thus twitching with pain – it was monstrous, hideously unnatural in the lover's eyes!

With tenderness, but unflinchingly, he laved the mangled skin with cool, fresh water; pulled out, with far greater torture to himself than to her, some remaining splinters embedded in the flesh; covered the wound with lint, and finished the operation by a bandage as neat as his neat sailor's touch, coupled with some knowledge of surgery, gained in the experiences of his privateering days, could accomplish it. He spoke little: only a word of encouragement, of admiration for her fortitude now and then; and she spoke not at all during the ministration. She had raised her other hand to her eyes, with a gesture natural to one bracing herself to endurance, and had kept it there until, his task completed, her silence, the manner in which she hid her face from him awoke in him all that was best and loftiest in his generous heart.

As he rose to his feet and stood before her, he too dared not speak for fear of bruising what he deemed an exquisite maidenliness, before which his manhood was abashed at itself. For some moments there was no sound in the cabin save that of the swift rushing waters behind the wooden walls and of the labour and life of the ship under full sail; then he saw the tumultuous rising of her bosom, and thought she was weeping.

"Madeleine," he cried with passionate anxiety, "speak! Let me see your face – are you faint? Lie upon this couch. Let me get you wine – oh that these days were passed and I could call you wife and never leave you! Madeleine, my love, speak!"

Molly rose to her feet, and with a gesture of anger threw off her hood and turned round upon him. And there in the light of the lamp, he glared like one distraught at the raven locks, the burning eyes of a strange woman.

She was very pale.

"No," said Molly, defiantly, when twice or thrice his laboured breath had marked the passing of the horrible moment, "I am not Madeleine." Then she tried to smile; but unconsciously she was frightened, and the smile died unformed as she pursued at random:

"You know me – perhaps by hearsay – as I know you, Captain Smith."

But he, shivering under the coldness of his disappointment, answered in a kind of weary whisper: