The House Under the Sea: A Romance

by Max Pemberton

Nepeen,quietly. "Yes; that's the stake, gentlemen. I don't think we need sayany more to nerve our arms and clear our eyes. We fight for all that ismost dear to honest men. If we fail, let us at least fail like trueseamen who answer 'Here' when duty has called."

  _At six o'clock._

  We all dined together at this time in the large dining-room near byMiss Ruth's boudoir. An odder contrast than that between this fine roombelow and the still, desolate sea above, no mind could imagine. For, onthe one hand, were the insignia of civilization--luxury, display, thesplendid apartment, the well-dressed women, the table decked out withfine linen and silver, the windows showing the sea-depths and all theirwondrous quivering life; on the other hand, the black shapes of nightand death, the menace of the boats, the anchored yacht, the darkeningskies, the looming island. We sat down fourteen souls, that might havemet in some great country house, and there have gathered in friendshipand frivolity. Never in all my life had I seen Miss Ruth so full ofvivacity or girlish charm. Her laughter was like the music of bells;the jest, the kindly word was for every man; and yet sometimes I, ather side, could look deep into those grey-blue eyes to read a truerstory there. And in the babble of the talk she would whisper sometreasured word to me, or touch my hand with her own, or say, "Jasper,it must be well, it must be well with us!" Of that which lay above inthe darkening East, no man spoke or appeared to think. There was rubywine in our glasses; the little French girls capered about us likenymphs from the sea; we spoke of the old time, of sunny days in theblue Mediterranean, of wilder days off the English shores, of our homesso distant and our hopes so high; but never once of the night or thatwhich must befall.

  _Monday. At eleven o'clock._

  We have now been at our stations for two hours and nothing hastranspired. I have Clair-de-Lune with me at the great sea-gate, andDolly Venn and Seth Barker are at the gun. The night is so dark thatthe best trained eye can distinguish little either on sea or land.Ken's Island itself is now but a blur of black on a cloud-veiledhorizon. We have shut off every light in the house itself; the reefruns no longer beneath the sea like a vein of golden light, nor do thewindows cast aureoles upon the sleeping water. What breeze there iscomes in hot gusts like breath from heated waters. We cannot seeCzerny's yacht nor espy any of his boats near or afar; but we crouchtogether in the shelter of the rocks, and there is water near to ourhand, and food if we seek it, and the ammunition piled, and the barrelsof the rifles outstanding, and the figures with their unspokenthoughts, their hopes, their fears of the dreadful dawn that must be.Whence out of the night shall the danger come? Shall it come leapingand brandishing knives, a veiled army springing up from the shadows, orshall it come by stealth, boat by boat, now upon this quarter, now uponthat, outposts seeking to flank us, deadly shots fired we know notwhere? I cannot tell you. The comrades at my side ask again and again,"Do you see anything, captain?" I answer, "Nothing!" It is the truth.

  _Monday. At midnight._

  We are still upon the rock and the shadows engulf us. The lad at myside, sick with waiting, has curled himself up upon a bed of stone andis half asleep; Seth Barker leans against a crag like some figure hewnout of granite; old Clair-de-Lune is all hunched up as a bundle.Nevertheless, masterly eyes scan the lapping waters. Will the nightnever speak to us? Will the day bring waiting? Ah, no! not that! A shotrings out clear on the still night air; a flash of fire leaps acrossthe sea. We spring to our feet; we cry, "Ready!" The sixty hours areover and the end is near!

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE SECOND ATTACK ON CZERNY'S HOUSE

  The shot was fired and answered at the lower gate. We had looked forthat; for that we had been waiting during the watching hours. Theywould attack the lesser reef, we said, and our own good men, standingsentinels, would flash the news of it to us, and the gun would do therest. Dark as it was, the blackest hour the island had given us,nevertheless by daylight we had trained our barrels upon the reef, andnow took aim in all confidence. Twice we whistled shrilly to warn ourmen; twice we heard their answering voices. Then the gun belched forthits hail of shot and the challenge was thrown down.

  "Give it to them, Dolly!" I cried, my brain afire at the call ofaction; "for every honest seaman's sake, give it to them, lad! We'lltell of this to-morrow--aye, Dolly, we'll tell a great story yet!"

  He answered me with a boy's glad cry; I do believe it was like a gameto him.

  "Pass here, pass here!" he kept crying; "we have them every time! Inwith the shot, Seth--in with it! Don't keep them waiting! Oh, captain,what a night!"

  The others said nothing; even Peter Bligh's tongue was still in thatsurpassing moment. The doubt of it defied words. We knew nothing, norcould we do aught but leave our fortune to the darkness of the night.The rogues who fell, the rogues who stood, the boats that came on, theboats that withdrew, of these we were ignorant. All was hidden from oureyes; the veil of the night cloaked from us the work we had done. Ifmen cried in agony, if groans mocked angry boasts, if we heard thesplashing of the oars, the hoarse command, the vile blasphemy, the restwas in imagination's keeping. The outposts of Czerny's crew, we said,had tried to rush the gate where our own men watched; but our own werebehind the steel doors now and the gun's hail swept the barren rock.The dawn would show us the harvest we had reaped.

  Now, the volleys rolled their thunder right away to the hills of Ken'sIsland, and the whistling of the bullets was like the singing of unseenbirds above our heads; there were oases of red flame in the waste ofblackness; we heard oaths and cries, commands roared hoarsely acrossthe water, voices triumphant and voices that were stilled; and thencame the first great silence. Whatever had befallen on the rock, thosewho sought to force the lesser gate were, for the moment, driven back.Even little Dolly, mad at the gun like one whom no reason couldrestrain, heard me at last and obeyed my command.

  "Cease firing, lad!" roared I, "cease firing! Would you shoot the sea?Yonder's the captain's whistle. It means that the danger's nearer. Aye,stand by, lads," I said, "and look out for it."

  We swung the gun round so that it faced the basin before us, and,rifles ready, we peered again in the lowering darkness. About me now Icould hear the deep breathing of my comrades and see their crouchingfigures and say that every nerve was tautened, every faculty awakened.Shielded by the night, those hidden boats were creeping up to us footby foot. Whatever had been done at the lesser gate had been done as aruse, I did not doubt. Czerny's goal was the greater door we held sodesperately, his desire the full possession, the mastery of the housewherein lay life and treasure and lasting security.

  I counted twenty, no man speaking, and then I raised my voice. Dimly,in the shadows, I made out the shape of a longboat drifting to thebrink; and to Dolly I said:

  "Let go--in God's name, let go, lad!"

  He stood to the gun with a cry of defiance and blazed into thedarkness. The drifting boat lurched and sagged and turned her beam tothe seas. I could distinguish the faces of men, ferocious andthreatening, as they peered upward to the rock; I saw other boatslooming over the dark water; I heard the ringing command, "In at them!To hell with them!" and then, I think, for many minutes together Ifired wildly at the figures before me, swung round now to this side,now to that; was unconscious of the bullets splintering the rock or ofthe lead shower pouring on us. The battle raged; we were at the heartof it. What should a man remember then but those who counted upon him?

  Now, you have imagined this picture, and you seem to stand with me uponthat split of rock, that defiant crag in the great Pacific Ocean, withthe darkness of heaven above and the darkness of the sea below, withthe belching guns and the spitting rifles, the yells of agony and thecrouching figures, the hearts beating high and the sweating faces; andjust as the outcome was hidden from me and I knew not from minute tominute whether it were life or death to us, so will you share themeaning of that suspense and all the terror of it. From every side nowthe rain of shot was poured in upon us, the unceasing torrent came;above, below, ringing upon the iron shield, scattering deadlyfragments, plough
ing the waters, it fell like a wave impotent, a brokensea whose spindrift even could not harm us. For a good ring of steelfenced us about; we held the turret, and we laughed at the madnessbelow.

  "Round with the gun!" I would cry, again and again; "round with her,Dolly. Let them have it everywhere. No favours this night, my lad; fullmeasure and overflowing--let them have it, for Miss Ruth's sake!"

  His joyous "Aye, aye, sir!" was a thing to hear. No sailor of the oldtime, black with powder, mad on a slippery deck, fought, I swear, as wefour in that shelter of the turret. Clear as in the sun's day were thewaves about us while the crimson flame leaped out. Crouched alltogether, the sweat upon our foreheads, smoke in our eyes, the wilddelight of it quickening us, we blazed at the