The House Under the Sea: A Romance
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enemy unseen; we saidthat right was with us.
There were, as far as I could make out, six boats set to the attackupon the great gate, and seventy or eighty men manning them. Actingtogether on such a plan as a master-mind had laid down for them, theytried to rush the rock from four points of the compass, trusting, itmay be, that one boat, at least, would land its crew upon the plateau.And in this they were successful. Pour shot upon them as we might,search every quarter with the flying shells, nevertheless one boattouched the rock in spite of us, one crew leaped up in frenzy towardsthe turret. So sudden it was, so unlooked for, that great demoniacalfigures seemed upon us even while we said that the seas were clear.Whirling their knives, yelling one to the other, some slipping on theslimy weed, others, more sure in foothold, making for the turret'sheight, the mutineers fell upon us like a hurricane and so beat us downthat my heart sank away from me, and I said that the house was lost andlittle Ruth Bellenden their prey at last.
"Stand by the gun--by the gun to the last, if you love your life!" Icried to Dolly Venn. "Do you, Peter, old comrade, follow me; I am goingto clear the rock. You will help me to do that, Peter?"
"Help you, captain! Aye," roared he, "if it was the ould divil himselfin a travelling caravan, I'd help you!"
He swung his rifle by the barrel as he spoke the words and, bringing itdown crash, he cleaved the skull of a great ruffian whose face wasalready glowering down from the turret's rim. Nothing, I swear, in allthat night was more wonderful than the _sang-froid_ of this greatIrishman (as he would call himself in fighting moods) or the merrywords which he could find for us even then in the very crisis of it,when hope seemed gone and the worst upon us. For Peter knew well what Iwas about when I leapt from the turret and charged down upon themutineers. A dozen men, perchance, had gained foothold on the rock. Wemust drive them back, he said, stand face to face with them, let theodds be what they might.
"God strengthen my arm this hour and show me the bald places!" crieshe, leaping to the ground and whirling his musket like a demon. SethBarker, do not doubt, was on his heels--trust the carpenter to be wheredanger was! I could hear him grunting even above that awful din. Hefought like ten, and wherever he swung his musket there he left deathbehind him.
So follow us as we leap from the turret, and hurl ourselves upon thatastonished crew. Black as the place was, tremulous the light,nevertheless the cabined space, the open plateau, was our salvation. Isaw figures before me; faces seemed to look into my own; and as abattle-axe of old time, so my rifle's butt would fall upon them. Heavenknows I had the strength of three and I used it with three's agility,now shooting them down, now hitting wildly, thrust here, thrust there,bullets singing about my ears, haunting cries everywhere. Aye, how theywent under! What music it was, those crashing blows upon head andbreast, the loud report, the gurgling death-rattle, the body throwninto the sea, the pitiful screams for mercy! And yet the greaterwonder, perhaps, that we lived to tell of it. Twelve against three; yeta craven twelve, remember, who feared to die and yet must fight tolive! And to nerve our arms a woman's honour, and to guide us aright,the watchword: "Home!"
I fought my way to the water's edge, and then turned round to see whatthe others were doing. There were two upon Peter Bligh at that moment,but one fell headlong as I took a step towards them; and the other'sdriving-knife fell on empty air, and the man himself, struck fullbetween the eyes, rolled dead into the lapping sea.
"Well done, Peter, well done!" I cried, wildly; and then, as though itwere an answer to my boasts, something fell upon my shoulder like agreat weight dropped from above, and I went down headlong upon therock. Turning as I fell, I clutched a human throat, and, closing myfingers upon it, he and I, the man out of the darkness and the fool whohad forgotten his eyes, went reeling over and over like wild beaststhat seek a hold and would tear and bite when the moment comes. Aye,how I held him, how near his eyes seemed to mine, what gasping soundshe uttered, how his feet fought for foothold on the rock, how his handfelt for the knife at his girdle! And I had him always, had him surely;and seeking to force himself upward, the slippery rock gave him nofoothold, and he slipped at last from my very fingers, and some greatfish, hidden from me, drew him down to the water and I saw the wavesclose above his mouth. Henceforth there were but three men left at thegate of Czerny's house. They were three who, even at that time, couldthank God because the peril was turned.
* * *
We beat the twelve off, as I have told you, and for an hour at least nofresh attack was made on the rock. The sharpest eye now could notdetect boats in the darkness; the sharpest ear could not distinguishthe muffled splash of oars. We lay all together in the turret, and verymethodically, as seamen will, we stanched our wounds and asked, "Whatnext?" That we had some hurt of such an affray goes without saying. Myown shoulder was bruised and aching; the blood still trickled downPeter Bligh's honest face from the knife-wound that had gashed hisforehead; Seth Barker pressed his hand to a jagged side and said thatit was nothing. But for these scratches we cared little, and when ourcomrades hailed us from the lesser gate, their "All's well!" made usglad men indeed. In spite of it all, one of us, at least, I witness,could tell himself, "It is possible--by Heaven, it is possible--that weshall see the day!" That we had beaten off the first attack was not tobe doubted. Wherever the mutineers had gone to, they no longer rowed inthe loom of the gate. And yet I knew that the time must be short; daywould not serve them nor the morning light. The dark must decide it.
"They will come again, Peter, and it will be before the dawn," said I,when one thing and another had been mentioned and no word of theirmisfortune. "It's beyond expectation to suppose anything else. If thishouse is to be taken, they must take it in the dark. And more thanthat, lads," said I, "it was a foolish thing for us to go amongthem as we did and to fight it out down yonder. We are safer in theturret--safer, by a long way!"
"I thought so all the time, sir," answered Dolly Venn, wisely. "Theycan never get below if you cover the door; and I can keep the sea. It'slucky Czerny loopholed this place, anyway. If ever I meet him I shallquote poetry: 'He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel.' It wouldabout make him mad, captain!"
"Aye," says Peter Bligh, "poetry is well enough, as my poor old fatherused to say; but poetry never reefed a to'gallon sail in a hurricaneand isn't going to begin this night. It's thick heads you need, lad,and good, sound sense inside of 'em! As for what the captain says, I dohold it, truly. But, Lord! I'm like a boy at a fair when the crowns arecracking, and angels themselves wouldn't keep me back!"
"You'd affright them, Mister Bligh," puts in, Seth Barker, "you'daffright them--asking your pardon--with your landgwich!"
"What!" cries Peter, as though in amazement; "did I say things thatoughtn't to be said? Well, you surprise me, Barker, you do surpriseme!"
Well, I was glad to hear them talk like this, for jest is better thanthe coward's "if"; and men who can face death with a laugh will winlife before your craven any day. But for the prone figures on therock, looking up with their sightless eyes, or huddled in cleft andcranny--but for them, I say, and distant voices on the sea, and theblack shape of Ken's Island, we four might have been merry comrades ina ship's cabin, smoking a pipe in the morning watch and looking gladlyfor dawn and a welcome shore. That this content could long endure was,beyond all question, impossible. Nevertheless, when next we started upand gripped our rifles and cried "Stand by!" it was not any alarm fromthe sea that brought us to our feet, but a sudden shout from the housebelow, a rifle-shot echoing in the depths, a woman's voice, and thena man's rejoinder, a figure appearing without any warning at thestairs-head, the figure of a huge man, vast and hulking, with longyellow hair, and fists clenched and arms outstretched--a man who tookone scared look round him and then leaped wildly into the sea. Nowthis, you may imagine, was the most surprising event of all thateventful night. So quickly did it come upon us, so little did we lookfor it, that when Kess Denton, the yellow man, stood at the open gateand uttered a loud and piercing yell of defiance, not
one among uscould lift a rifle, not one thought of plan or action. There the fellowwas, laughing like a maniac. Why he came, whence he came, no man couldtell. But he leaped into the seas and the night engulfed him, and onlyhis mocking laugh told us that he lived.
"Kess Denton!" cried I, my head dazed and my words coming in a torrent;"Kess Denton. Then there's mischief below, lads--mischief, I swear!"
Clair-de-Lune answered me--old Clair-de-Lune, standing in a blaze oflight; for they had switched on the lamps below, and the vein of thereef stood out suddenly like some silver monster breathing on thesurface of the sea. Clair-de-Lune answered me, I say, and his