Swords From the Sea

by Harold Lamb

  When the Englishman and Pierre had made themselves beds in the adjoining cabins and had fallen into the utter oblivion of their first sleep in forty-four hours, Ivak sat down in the passageway to smoke and rub his saber clean with a cloth that he always carried in his girdle. In spite of the heat, the strain of the fighting, and a day of hard labor that he did not relish, the big Cossack was alert and to all appearances untired.

  Certainly he polished the saber until it shone, and then put a new edge on it with a small whetstone. When he was satisfied with it, he laid it aside and after sitting for a long time, listening to the measured breathing of his companions, he rose and unlocked the teak door, making little noise for all his bulk.

  When he came out again darkness had fallen. Pierre found him a little after dawn, sitting by the kasha pot of the Cossacks, who had built a fire and were breakfasting off a pair of rabbits and a cask of vodka which they had managed to forage for themselves.

  "Pietr," announced Ivak, "I am going to find Paul. I will take the shallop and two men, and go and see that he does not get himself killed. You and the Englishman watch that." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the poop. "Here is the key."

  He had been gone for hours before Edwards was aroused. A courier boat came up from the flagship with an order from Jones for the interpreter to join him, if Edwards's wound permitted.

  The Englishman's arm pained him a good deal, but he waited only long enough to bolt some rabbit and vodka.

  "Where is Ivak?" he asked in French, and when Pierre explained he swore doubtfully.

  There was no wind, and they lacked men to handle the heavy sails; he could not take the galley, and the order did not admit of delay. There was no alternative but to leave the Frenchman in charge of Hassan's ship and treasure until he could find the admiral.

  He took the key and glanced inside the door, satisfying himself that the chests were all in their places. Calling for a candle, he smeared wax over the crack of the door after he had closed it, and pressed his watch fob into service for a seal.

  "Ivak says you are to be trusted," he remarked. "Consider that you are now rated acting sergeant of marines. Can you make these four chaps understand you? Good! Take charge of the galley and remember that the order is to give it up to no one except the admiral himself."

  "Monsieur," said Pierre, "I will not let any pig of a Muscovite set foot on this deck."

  "Hum!" Edwards took snuff with a wry grin. "I see that you have not been long on the Black Sea. It maybe some time before you are relieved. I'll offer odds that the admiral is bombarding Otchakof, or outfitting the squadron for a raid on Constantinople."

  Edwards's surmise was close to the truth. At intervals during the three days that he waited on the galley, Pierre heard the far-off booming guns, and noticed that couriers came and went along the Kherson trail that was within sight of their anchorage. After he had found the place where the Cossacks had stowed the odds and ends that they had looted from the decks, and had picked out a brace of serviceable pistols, he was more than a little content with his berth.

  His men never lacked for rations-trading melons and grapes with the native skiffs that passed up and down the river, and catching small sturgeon on lines of their own making. He was stiff from the healing of his wounds, and enjoyed to the full the luxury of the poop cabins. But he did not disturb the wax seal, telling himself that before long he would sail the galley down to the fleet and disclose to Paul Jones what a valuable prize they had taken. He was indulging in such pleasant speculation when one of the Cossacks came to the quarterdeck and called to him to look up the river.

  Approaching the galley he saw Nassau's great barge, rowed by twenty pairs of sweeps. The barge, instead of continuing on toward the fleet, turned and headed for the galley.

  "St. Anne of Auray!" he muttered. "This high-well-born is coming to burn this vessel, like the others."

  He ran to the ladder-head as the rowers on one side of the barge lifted their oars and the boat drifted down to the galley's side. Two men with boat-hooks held fast while an aide stepped from the stern to the ropes, and halted when his head came above the deck.

  "Pardon, monsieur," observed Pierre, "but the orders of his excellency the admiral are that no one is to be allowed on this galley." As he had come out of the fighting clad only in a tattered pair of breeches, Pierre had borrowed some garments from the gleanings of the Cossacks and now stood arrayed in a loose white shirt, a green sash, and a pair of pantaloons that rivaled those of the dead Dmitri. In fact Pierre had a suspicion that they were Dmitri's; but then the man was dead. Over his head, to keep off the midges, the Provencal had bound the turban cloth of a slain Moslem.

  So he looked like a blood-stained giant, bearded and smiling, with the butts of two long pistols sticking out of his sash.

  "What -'s leavings are you?" demanded the aide in bad French.

  "Sergeant Pierre Pillon, your nobility, at present in command of this vessel."

  "In command-" The officer spluttered, and realized that he was being kept waiting. "Out of the way, dog!"

  "The order was the admiral's," objected Pierre. "This galley is one prize you will not burn."

  A burst of laughter from below showed that he had been overheard, and the officer grew red. Presently his head disappeared, and when it came up again he waved a sheet of paper like a flag of truce. Pierre could not read his own name, fairly printed, but he knew a document signed by a general officer when he saw one. This had a scrawl, and under it a broad seal hung by a silk ribbon.

  "It is you who will burn, you dolt!" snapped the officer. "This is an order signed by his illustriousness, Prince Potemkin, commander-in-chief in the Black Sea. We are not going to burn the galley. His Highness desires it to be brought up to Kherson, so that he can sail down in it to review the fleet."

  "Well, he didn't bother his noddle about the fleet when the Turks were around all the same," the Provencal muttered to himself, bitterly regretting the absence of Ivak and Edwards.

  What they would have done, he did not know, but Ivak was a resourceful person. The aide pushed past him and turned to assist the prince to the deck. A half-dozen others followed and stared at the empty poop and the Cossacks curiously.

  "You lied, rogue, when you said you were in command here," said the aide.

  "No, monsieur, it is true. The officers were summoned away."

  The aide spoke to Nassau, who barely glanced at Pierre and turned into the passage. They passed by the side cabins, and stopped to inspect the seal on the end door. Then Nassau called out and one of the sailors came up from the barge with an ax.

  "Messieurs," cried the Provencal angrily, "an officer has sealed up his personal belongings in that cabin."

  "Who told you that?" demanded the aide.

  "Lieutenant Edwards, if it please you." Nassau merely signed to the sailor and the ax began to splinter the teak. Pierre ground his teeth, well aware that he was helpless. He had risked his life in speaking, and it would need only a word of any of the boyars, much less an order from the PrinceMarshal, to have him shot down where he stood.

  The door crashed in, and Nassau and his aide entered with more than a little eagerness. Pierre approached until he stood by the sailor and listened with all his ears. The officers were ransacking the chests-he caught the clink of plate-and talking excitedly.

  After a long pause Nassau swore angrily.

  "By the eyes of -! Alexiano said there would be more than this. Those pearls are worth no more than a wench or two."

  "Mordieu-the Greek is not to be believed."

  "He was afraid to come. It's vastly quaint; he was knifed after all in Kherson by a native woman."

  Nassau seemed to be in no mood for amusement, and there was more rummaging while Pierre did some rapid thinking. Alexiano had fled from the fleet to Kherson, where he must have heard of the capture of the galley. He had hinted to the Prussian that the prize was a rich one.

  There would have been time, and no more for
Nassau to get the order from Potemkin and travel back to the fleet to investigate the matter for himself.

  "My dear count," the prince spoke again. "This casket is empty. Burn me, but that whippersnapper Edwards has had his finger in this. Have in the surly rogue, and question him."

  Pierre put in appearance promptly, and a glance showed him that the suspicions of the boyars were well founded. Most of the swords that had lain in the corner were missing, and the chest that had held the gold plate had no more than a layer on the top, the rest being filled up with quilts.

  Also the casket in which he had seen the best of the precious stones was quite empty.

  He was sure that the seal Edwards had left on the door had been unbroken until now. Assuredly the lieutenant took nothing away; he had been asleep until Pierre wakened him. The Cossacks would not have known how to replace the seal, and he was morally certain that they had no loot stored on the galley that he had not unearthed.

  A river thief might have entered one of the ports of the other cabins while he was out on deck, or asleep. But there was the seal again. He thought of Ivak. Had the Cossack stolen the better half of the loot? But how? Ivak had carried nothing out of the galley.

  "Search the galley," snarled Nassau.

  "And flog these duraks at the mast until they tell anything they know. Begin with this one." He turned back to his examination of the chests, turning over the ivory and silk in his fingers impatiently until an exclamation from his companion made him look up.

  The aide was moving slowly back toward the bulkhead, his lace jabot and carefully dressed peruke fairly quivering with indignation. The sailor had dropped the ax and was staring, slack jawed, as if a water fiend had invaded the cabin of a sudden.

  Pierre had drawn his pistols and leveled them at the noblemen. His hands quivered and his brown eyes blazed with rage.

  "Messieurs," he said hoarsely, "I have sworn an oath to the good Mary of the Seas. With these hands I will let out the life of the man who lays a lash on my back. Give the order, and these barkers will do for you."

  Sheer incredulity held the Prince of Nassau-Siegen voiceless. A Russian peasant would have fallen on his knees to thank the boyars for not taking his life. He lifted the eyeglass at the end of a silk cord and tried to focus it on Pierre, to study his face and to observe if the pans of the pistols were primed. But his fingers were not steady enough.

  "Let me leave the ship," went on Pierre. "Consider, messieurs, I am a sergeant acting under orders from the admiral. I will take my men with me."

  Nassau's skin had whitened, and a small patch under one eye stood out distinctly.

  "Do not pull the trigger," he muttered. "You will not be harmed. Only go quickly-you and your men." And he added, remembering that his aide was present, "Since you have orders."

  "Then remain where you are, gentlemen." When Pierre had backed out, the Prussian waited until his hand was steady again, and took snuff liberally.

  "That is all the doing of this of an American," he remarked to his companion, "who has made wolves out of these dogs of mariners. You noticed, my dear Count, how the sailor swore he had orders from the admiral to admit no one upon the galley?"

  "Assuredly, mon prince." The aide, who hoped for much from Nassau's influence at court, nodded repeatedly. "His Highness, the Prince-Marshal Potemkin, should hear of this."

  "It is not necessary. Yesterday that bavard Jones haltered his own neck. Burn and blister me, if he did not play the wrong card. Potemkin will never forgive him."

  "But how?"

  "Tomorrow you will know." Nassau brushed the snuff from the lace at his throat. "It only remains for us to see how he will take his disgrace."

  They lingered on one pretext or another until Pierre was well away from the galley with his men in one of the fishing skiffs that came up to hover around the barge. They understood each other perfectly, each thinking what a coward the other was.

  Chapter XI

  The Admiral's Walk

  That evening Suvarof sat in the admiral's cabin of the Vladimir, having come twenty miles by horse litter and boat to talk with Paul Jones, who was then with the frigates that blockaded the peninsula. He was propped up on an ottoman, one leg stretched out, playing a game of chess against himself.

  Ivak came and went, passing from wardroom to the admiral's gallery, outside the stern windows, his sheepskin shuba smelling to high heaven and his damp boots creaking as he tried to walk on his toes. It had rained all that day.

  The Cossack had entree to Jones's quarters, unannounced, but this evening he seemed to be on a self-appointed sentry-go on the gallery. Ostensibly he was watching for Jones. Actually he eyed Suvarof uneasily, like a gigantic urchin who both fears and hopes to be noticed.

  Even privileged sotniks of a crack cavalry regiment do not interrupt the meditation of a general who has conquered an empire and opened up a new sea; Ivak probably was unaware that the man who sat hunched over the chessboard nursing a reed pipe had once stalemated Frederick the Great of Prussia, but he understood the significance of the sword that lay on the table-the blade of a Damascus scimitar, the gold-inlaid hilt agleam with sapphires and diamonds.

  Suvarof, however, was more sparing of speech than usual, and only when Ivak had paused to stare admiringly at the sword of honor did he look up, frowning. From long experience with the Don Cossacks he knew that Ivak had a troubled conscience and wanted badly to tell about it.

  "Are you hatching eggs on the gallery, sotnik? Brandy or plunderingwhich?"

  Ivak started and took off his cap.

  "As God lives, Little Father, I haven't tasted brandy since the crops were put in the ground this season. And I haven't taken a copeck's worth of loot from a single Turk." When Suvarof went on with his maneuvering of the chessmen, he mustered up his courage. "It happened, Little Father, that I've hidden some gold and fine swords and precious stones."

  "Ah."

  "It happened that way. We found a cabin full of such things in the pasha's galley; fine things, truly, better than you could get by raiding a hundred Turkish villages." And he told the story of Hassan's treasure and its discovery.

  "That Frenchman, Pietr, is a galliard, a splendid chap. But he cannot see around a turn in the trail. I knew that somebody would hear of the treasure and loot it, so I took away the best of the things. When he and the Englishman slept the first night I went through everything and filled one chest with the best of the plate and the jewels. I made one bundle of the finest weapons. Then I lowered the chest and the bundle out of the port of the next cabin, into the shallop that was alongside us."

  He glanced at Suvarof, trying to make out how his confession would be received.

  "Ekh, no one suspected. We threw some skins over the things and watched like hawks, without telling Pietr, because whatever a chap says in this place is known to the spies. The boyars have their eyes and ears everywhere.

  "We rowed around the Liman until dark; then we pulled up to the rump of this big ship and I climbed to the little gallery, and drew up the chest and the bundle with ropes. I covered them with the skins again, and watched. But no one ever comes out on the gallery, because only the admiral walks there, and he was away. I thought he would be on the Vladimir; but he was flying around after the Turks, far out at sea. He is a at that sort of thing."

  "Do his men obey?"

  "Obey? They would die with Paul, as they call him."

  Suvarof nodded, moving out a pawn to make good a line of defense.

  "You have stolen horses in your day, Ivak. I did not send you to the fleet to steal."

  "But this is different. The gold and the other things belong to Paul."

  "You think he will distribute them among his men, and you and the Frenchman will share in it?"

  "Aye-" Ivak checked himself. "But, look here, Little Father Suvarof-we pray that you will take charge of the treasure now-"

  "And explain things to the American, to get you off," grumbled the old officer. "What has the French fire-eat
er done?"

  "He fought on the galley like a wounded tiger. Cut-slash-he ripped right through them. That was what he did. But he drew a pistol on the Prussian prince, and the boyar's men will flay him alive if they can catch him."

  "Devil take both of you! What else have you done? Well, send him in-if he is on the ship."

  "Aye, balko," nodded Ivak, "a few hours ago he came up." The Cossack hastened out, well content. He had told everything to Suvarof and had not been degraded and not much sworn at. Now that his general was on the ship, Ivak felt that his responsibilities were at an end. He returned with Pierre, who was less sure that they would escape unpunished, but gave a truthful account of what happened on the galley.

  Suvarof sighed and filled his pipe slowly, wincing when he moved, for his leg pained him.

  "Little Father," the Cossack observed after a moment's reflection, "when you sent us to this ship we built a lopazik and watched all that went on. When the Turks were hacking at Paul we were able, by God's mercy, to do a little to help; but when the boyars fell away from him and plotted, we could do no more than a dog outside a fox's burrow. The boyars were worse than the Turks-"

  "Enough said," grumbled Suvarof. "Go, you and the Frenchman, and sit on that chest until I summon you."

  "Well, God be with you, Father!" Ivak nudged Pierre and they went out to sit in the rain and speculate as to what would happen to their trove.

  Suvarof's quick ear had heard footsteps in the passage, and when the door opened he was bending over the chessboard again. Then his dark eyes gleamed with pleasure and he swept the miniature silver warriors off the board.

  "Ah, Jones, my friend; I cannot stand to greet you. A ball through the hip, so I came to your flagship to get well."

  Flinging off his wet cloak, Paul Jones stepped to the table. He smiled, but there were fresh lines around his eyes that told of a sleepless night, and the hollows under the cheekbones were deeper.