Dick soon realised that if the fight was to be fought to a finish the sooner they got to level ground the better, as his own people found the light deceptive. So he worked his way round to Blueneck, slashing right and left as he went.
Blueneck was apparently enjoying himself for, although the moonlight showed a gash across his temples about six inches long, from which blood poured freely, it also showed a smile on his ragged mouth and a dripping cutlass in his sinewy hand.
Dick spoke to him quickly, just a few muttered words, and almost immediately the smugglers began to give way. Back, back they went until they were flying across the saltings, over the meadows, and straight for the Ship, with the Preventative men in full pursuit.
Once the mocking voice of Playle called out to the Anny’s crew to surrender, and the flying smugglers paused and half-turned with many oaths, but Dick’s voice dragged them on again with “On, dogs, on, for your damned lives,” and the chase continued.
Suddenly, as they reached the Ship yard, Dick vanished: Blueneck, looking round for further orders, could not see him, and his heart sank. Was it possible that a knife-thrust from behind had killed the Captain? He dismissed that idea almost as soon as it came to him. The Spaniard was too wary to be the victim of such a mishap. The only other alternative was that he had deserted his crew.
Blueneck feared Dick, but he had no love for him, and this last seemed to be the only possible explanation. He spat on the ground contemptuously.
But by this time the Preventative folk were well upon them and Blueneck realised that it was a case of each man for himself, so calling a halt he turned on the oncoming force.
The smugglers were only too glad to obey, and with a redoubled force they turned on their enemy and hewed their way into them.
The Preventative men were not sorry to fight, however, and young Playle threw himself into the thick of the scrap with something very like pleasure.
The smugglers fought like wild beasts, preferring to close in and kill, but the others liked to thrust and parry, pricking and wounding, giving way here and pressing there, and as they had longer weapons than the smugglers they found their method an excellent one.
Back went the smugglers down the Ship yard, Blueneck slashing wildly, Noah Goody defending himself only, and little Habakkuk, his bare chest and shoulders a perfect network of cuts, darting here and there like a robin.
Onward pressed young Playle until he had the smugglers with their backs against the kitchen door, which opened suddenly from the inside.
Blueneck put himself on the step in the way of the excise men and shouted to his mates to get into the kitchen and form a guard. When the last man was in he retired also, but the excise men pressed on; first one of their men fell on attempting to enter the kitchen, then a second, and a third, but before the fourth was struck down, in response to a great crush behind him he broke through the smugglers’ guard and the Preventative men swarmed in.
Hal Grame suddenly darted forward out of the darkness. He carried an old sword which had hung over the kitchen shelf for years, and he now laid about him with great strokes, but a certain recklessness distinguished his fighting, and his red shirt was soon dyed a still deeper shade.
In spite of his help, however, the excise men drove on.
“God! if the Captain were only here!” groaned Blueneck aloud. The man next him caught his words and looked round, so did his neighbour, and in a moment all that was left of the Anny’s crew realised that their Captain had deserted them, and a certain hopelessness crept into the fighting from that time on, and in a minute or two the smugglers retreated in a body, knocking over the barrels and benches as they went. They scuttled into the inner room and then slammed the heavy oak door behind them.
Habakkuk alone was left behind and he, finding the door shut upon him, turned to fly through the other door into the yard, but a Preventative man’s sword ran him through just as he reached the threshold, and with one last sniff the brave little laundry-man fell prone in a pool of his own blood.
The kitchen was very dark, there being no fire, as it was summer-time, and the only light was the moonlight which showed in through the windows and fell on the floor in two bright patches.
So when the door slammed on them, Thomas Playle took the opportunity of counting his forces. He found to his deep disappointment that he had lost a great many more men than he had dreamed, and those around him in the kitchen numbered at the most no more than six or seven.
“We must get them yet,” he said, speaking to his few remaining followers in a low tone. “An you two stay here and I and Jacques go round to the other door we——” Suddenly he caught his breath, his voice trailed away into silence, and he started back, his drawn sword put up to shield his body.
The man to whom he had been principally speaking had quietly dropped without a cry, and as he touched the ground his head and shoulders rolled into the patch of moonlight, and his horrified comrades saw a thin spurt of blood shooting out from a clean, small wound in his neck just over the collarbone.
Before they could collect their wits after this shock there was a faint patter of feet behind them and another man staggered, tried to speak, reeled, and fell.
Instantly there was confusion; men slashed about in the darkness striking anything and anyone, shouting, and screaming. A terrible fear of something unknown and horrible possessed them and each man made for the yard, but one by one as they approached the doorway the unseen terror caught them and they fell. At last there were but three left, young Playle himself, his mate Jacques, and the Charles’s gunner, a tall, powerful man called Rilp.
These three stood back to back in the centre of the kitchen, making a triangle, their swords drawn before them, so that it was practically impossible for anything to harm them from behind.
They stood there for some moments holding their breath; everything was silent. Then there was a light patter of feet again and a small bent shape darted through the patch of moonlight. It seemed to Playle’s terrified eyes to be an evil spirit not three feet high from the ground and to have its head almost level with its waist while its back was bent into a monstrous hump. Instinctively he put up his sword to shield his head and at that moment something brushed past him; he slashed at it and fancied that he had wounded it, but the next moment he felt Jacques grunt and stumble. He was just going to spring away when he felt the man right himself, and once again a man’s back was firm against his own.
Then there was silence again for a second.
Suddenly Rilp staggered, shivered, and dropped.
Playle immediately darted forward, when to his amazement and horror the man whom he thought was Jacques darted after him; something sprang on his shoulders from behind, a streak of silver light darted before his eyes and plunged down into his neck; he felt the blood well up in his throat, his breath failed him, a dark cloud passed over his eyes, and he died, crashing face downwards into the little patch of moonlight.
In the scullery, Blueneck, his shoulders against the door, turned to his comrades and urged them to pull themselves together; put forward every excuse for Blackkerchief Dick’s extraordinary behaviour, and he besought them to get ready to fight again.
Inside the kitchen they could hear the Preventative men talking together, and by their low tones came to the conclusion that they were planning the next attack.
Suddenly Blueneck started.
“Marry! they’re fighting among themselves,” he whispered. “Hark!”
From inside the kitchen came the sounds of clashing steel and angry oaths and ejaculations, followed by screams and groans. Then there was silence for a while immediately followed by footsteps, mutterings, and one terrible yell.
Then all was silent again.
“Shall we go in?” whispered Hal.
“Nay, ’tis a trap,” said another man, whose hand and cutlass were one red mass.
“Nay, I’ll go,” said Hal stubbornly.
“I shouldn’t, lad,” said Blueneck, stanching t
he bleeding wound on his forehead as best he could.
Hal put his hand to a dark patch at his side and brought it away wet and sticky.
“Oh, what does it matter?” he said; taking a candle from the table he opened the door, holding the light above his head. Then he gasped and threw the door wide.
“Mother o’ God!” he exclaimed weakly. “Look!”
Blueneck and the others crowded behind him and they, too, gasped and fell back in astonishment.
In the centre of the room, the flickering light showed a terrible bent little figure; it was a man, but the crouching attitude in which he stood suggested rather a beast of prey. He was literally surrounded with bodies, and he looked down at them with an almost ghoulish delight, which was terrible to see. But only for a second; as soon as he became conscious of the little group in the doorway he straightened himself and stood smiling at them.
He was clothed only in his breeches and immaculate white shirt; his black kerchief was half off showing the black curls beneath, while his white hands were clean and undyed.
Dick Delfazio smiled again, and then began to clean his knife on a dainty lace-edged handkerchief.
Then his crew entered, and he looked up casually as they filed in, and turning to the least wounded man he pointed to a chair over the back of which his black silk coat was hung.
“Prithee, friend, help me into my sur coat,” he said, his voice caressing and honey-like as ever. “For see,” he added, turning round, “I am much hampered.”
The crew started.
The sleeve of the white shirt was split from the shoulder to the elbow, displaying a terrible ragged wound which at one place had laid bare the bone, and from the bend in the elbow the warm blood trickled on to the floor.
This was the last act of Thomas Playle’s hand and he had done his best.
Dick slipped into his coat and then surveyed the crew.
“Wash thyselves, friends,” he admonished, “the wenches will come down now and may be feared at the sight of blood.” He staggered a little and his face grew ashy pale, but he rallied himself and with some of his usual jauntiness said loudly, “Bring me some wine.” Already the black silk sleeve of his coat was sodden and sticky, and the arm inside it hung limply from its socket; once again he staggered, tried to recover himself and failed, and then, very faint from loss of blood, Blackkerchief Dick rolled over on his side unconscious.
Blueneck picked him up like a child and, stripping off the coat, called loudly for Anny.
“Surely the girl knows somewhat of physicing. The Captain may bleed to death,” he said sharply, in answer to Hal’s suggestion that they didn’t want wenches about the place.
Hal put his hand over his own wound and, shrugging his shoulders, a gesture which cost him a great deal of blood, went off to find Anny and beseech her to attend to his rival’s arm.
Late the same evening a tumbril borrowed from a neighbouring farmer carried a gruesome burden from the Ship door down to the beach, and along the road it stopped from time to time to collect additions to its load.
A little later a party of men in three rowing-boats loaded a terrible cargo into a lonely ship which rode at anchor not far from the shore where a brig lay aground, and then that same lonely ship sailed off out of the bay, and later, after three boats had left her side, broke into flames.
And later still, widows and children in Brightling-sea wept to see charred spars and planks cast up on the beach outside their homes.
Chapter XVII
“There, there, Master Dick, don’t fluster yourself so; ’twill only smart your arm the more.”
Anny spoke timidly and shrank behind one of the high-backed seats in the old Ship’s kitchen, as Blackkerchief Dick, his eyes dark with anger, raved up and down the room. It was some three weeks after the affair with the Preventative folk, and the Island had once more regained its usual serenity.
“You are bewitched, girl; what are you to refuse the love of a man like me?” Dick said angrily, and then as she did not answer, he continued more softly, “Why not come with me, beautiful Ann of the Island? We will leave this God-forsaken mud heap and sail away to Spain, cross the great river to the beautiful country beyond, where all the grass is green and all the plants have bright flowers. What is there about this rum-sodden drinking hut that you will not leave it for Utopia?”
“I never heard of Utopia and Mersea is good enough for me,” said Anny stolidly. “Besides, if you want to marry me, why not tell everybody and have a proper wedding by the parson from the West? but even then I wouldn’t marry you; I don’t love you, sir.”
The Spaniard paused suddenly in his walk up and down and looked at her.
“Never has a woman said so much to me before,” he said slowly, his voice soft and smooth as ever.
Anny shrugged her shoulders.
“’Tis time then one should,” she laughed. “Rest your arm, sir, and leave worrying a poor girl that has work and enough to do, now that Mistress Sue be for ever out along the beach with Big French.” She turned away.
The Spaniard was beside her in a second and his slim white fingers fastened round her chapped little wrist like a vice.
“Oh, you silly little wench,” he said, with a laugh in his voice, “do you think you can turn off Dick Delfazio easily like that? Mistress, I am of some account on the Island. Is a man who kills six Preventative folk single-handed to be stayed in his heart’s desire by a little serving-maid, think you?”
“What would you do?” Anny, her big green eyes wide with apprehension, and her back against the wall, jerked out the question fearfully.
Blackkerchief Dick looked at her in admiration, and, swinging her towards him, he put his arm round her waist, and Hal, passing the window at that moment, suddenly changed his mind about entering the kitchen and marched off down the garden coughing and swearing to himself.
Anny freed herself in a moment and stood with her arms akimbo.
“An you were not wounded and a customer, I should smack you across the mouth,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.
Dick laughed.
“Come, we should not quarrel, sweetheart,” he said. “When you are aboard the Anny——”
“I pray God I shall be dead before,” the girl interrupted angrily, her tears overflowing and rolling down her cheeks.
Dick caught her hand again and looked at her fiercely.
“I have played enough, lass,” he said. “You must come off secretly with me or——”
Anny laughed.
“Must?” she said. “Must, indeed! and why-fore? I tell you, sir, I hate you, and if you pursue me more I’ll have the landlord at you.”
“The landlord!” Dick sneered.
Anny was desperate.
“Or Hal Grame,” she said.
Dick threw back his head and laughed aloud.
“A tapster! Oh, pretty, pretty little wench, you are very amusing!”
The girl wrenched her hand away.
“Master Blackkerchief Dick,” she said slowly, her little face very white and grave, “will you understand please that I do not love you, I do not even like you, and I will never go anywhere with you of my own will?”
The Spaniard stepped back a pace or two. He seemed to have realised at last that she was speaking the truth, for he looked at the earnest little face in front of him with a mixture of amazement and anger.
“You do not like me?” he said, his voice losing all its music and becoming almost childish in its extreme surprise.
Anny nodded.
“No, I don’t like you. Will you please go away and leave me to my work, sir?”
Dick’s anger rose up and boiled over in a moment.
“I tell you you shall come, you pretty little fool,” he swore. “Or——” he paused suddenly. “Is there some other man you love? Tell me, tell me!”
Anny cowered before his angry, distorted face.
“No, sir, of course not, no, sir!” she lied vehemently. “Let go my wrist, sir
. Marry, how you hurt me!”
“This great hulking French, now, have you set your heart on him? Speak out, girl!”
“No, sir, of course not!” Anny’s amazement was too genuine to be mistaken.
“Yet you will not marry me?” Dick spoke sharply.
“No—no—no, sir! Go away!”
Dick turned on his heel and went to the door.
“By this knife,” he said, turning on the threshold, “you shall come with me. I wish it, and never yet have I been prevented from my desires.”
“Lord! you’re mad!” Anny flung after him.
“Ay, mad for you, Mistress.”
Dick’s voice had grown soft again and he laughed unpleasantly as he strolled off down the yard. Anny watched him go and then turned back to her work.
“Now I wonder will I ever be married at all?” she said to herself, as she picked up a broom from the chimney corner and began to sweep away the dirty sand which lay all over the floor.
Blueneck was sitting on the sea-wall, thinking regretfully of Habakkuk Coot, when Blackkerchief Dick strode up, and without speaking, dropped down beside him.
Blueneck looked at his Captain slyly and without turning his head.
Dick was smiling sardonically and his knife slid in and out the slim white fingers of his right hand.
Blueneck considered it prudent to sit still and say nothing.
Dick did not speak for some time, and Blueneck began to get uneasy. Finally he rose to his feet as nonchalantly as he was able and started to stroll off down the beach.
Dick raised his eyes.
“Sit where you are, dog!” he said sharply.
Blueneck slid back to his place without a murmur.
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