A few seconds later they turned into the Ship yard; the door was still open, and a bright light shone from within the kitchen while all around was dark and very silent.
Running all round the paved yard, which was long and very narrow, was a wider one of beaten earth, and, as the three men turned into the gate, they could just make out the form of a tall woman standing well on their left. She was digging.
Old Gilbot met them in the doorway; he was very excited but quite sober.
On seeing Blueneck he seized him by the arm and dragged him into the room.
Joe and Hal followed slowly.
Inside the kitchen everything seemed dead and quiet; the atmosphere was cold and damp, and smelt of stale rum, the fire had died down to a few smouldering embers, and the steady ticking of the clock was the only sound.
Sue crouched in a corner shivering, her eyes wild with horror, and her teeth chattering. The two long tables had been dragged together and on this rough bier Dick and Anny lay side by side, the knife between them.
There had not been time to wash the tables even had anyone desired to do so, and the two lay among the dregs and sloppings of the night’s drinking.
Blueneck walked across the kitchen and stood looking down at the bodies, without uncovering.
Gilbot followed nervously.
“What are you going to do?” he whispered anxiously.
The sailor said nothing for a moment or two but continued to stare down at the limp, blood-stained figure, whose white fingers held the thin red knife.
Gilbot stood trembling behind him, a picture of a wild crowd of captainless seamen sacking his inn rising up in his mind.
A strange light began to break over the Spanish sailor’s face and he stroked his ill-shaven chin thoughtfully.
“Do?” he said slowly.
Gilbot swallowed painfully, his fat podgy knees shaking under him and his little reddened eyes shifting uneasily.
“He killed hisself,” he muttered.
Blueneck bent over the table for a second and with his finger and thumb lifted one of the dark eyelids. He appeared satisfied, and straightening his back looked at the two critically.
“I knew it wasn’t no usual affair with him,” he said almost complacently. Then he turned to Gilbot. “She was a pretty wench,” he said, nodding at the little white still smiling face on the table.
Gilbot did not speak, and the man went on: “I never thought he’d do for himself, though,” he muttered, “but it’s his stroke right enough; see,” he dragged the lace ruffles from the small, gushing wound, “right over the collar-bone and down to the neck—he was a wonder with that knife of his; there wasn’t another man in the country who could try that stroke on himself and hit so clean.”
Gilbot nodded.
“Ay, he was a wonderful little fellow,” he said, “though I never took much notice of him. But what are you going to do, sir?”
Blueneck faced the three men steadily, a smile breaking out on his lips.
“Put to sea!” he said deliberately. “The men are a mangy lot, God knows, but if they’d sail under him they’ll sail under me, and be glad of the change.”
He paused and Gilbot heaved a sigh of relief, and Blueneck, seeing that his decision was approved of, added: “And if ever I come near this accursed, God-forsaken Island again the devil scuttle my brig and carry off my canvas,” and so saying he turned on his heel and strode to the door. “Good-night, good people,” he said, turning on the threshold.
Hal stepped forward and took the little knife from out the fingers that were still warm.
“Will you take this?” he said, holding it out to the sailor. “It served him well and may you.”
Blueneck drew back.
“Nay!” he said hastily, “I’ll have none of it, and, mark my words, lad, you put it down; the thing is evil. The man there was harmless enough without it, but together, by God, they were devils. Put it down. Fare you well, my masters,” he added, and went out.
They heard his footsteps die away down the road before anyone spoke; then Gilbot wiped his beaded forehead and turned to the two friends.
“You must get them out of here; get them buried,” he said jerkily, pointing to the table. “Sink them in the mud,” he added, an idea coming to him.
Hal sprang suddenly forward, a light in his dulled eyes and his mouth half-open—but his words died on his lips for at that moment Nan Swayle, spade in hand, appeared in the open doorway.
“It is done,” she said, her big booming voice sounding strangely hollow in the silent room. “Susan, are you ready? Come, help me.”
The frightened girl crept out of her corner and went towards the table; the old woman followed.
Gilbot put his hand on her arm.
“What are you doing, woman?” he said.
“Burying my gran’daughter,” replied Nan laconically.
“Not in my land,” said the old man quickly. “I’ll have no graves in my land.”
Mother Swayle turned and looked at him steadily.
“The lass shall be buried in good Island earth, near the only home she ever had,” she said determinedly, “and the grave is dug, and, thy land or no, Master Gilbot, there she shall lie.”
The man hesitated for a moment, but little by little his wavering eyes dropped before Nan’s bright ones, and, shrugging his shoulders, he drew back to let her pass.
Hal, who had stood motionless watching them, now stepped forward.
“I—I’ll carry her for you, mother,” he said, without looking up.
Nan stared contemptuously at him for a moment her bright eyes growing suddenly hard.
“Had you carried her off ere now all had been well,” she said abruptly.
The boy winced, and something like a sob escaped him, but he turned and faced the old woman dry-eyed.
“May I take her?” he said again.
Nan made a gesture of impatience.
“Ay, take her, take her, boy, take her,” she said bitterly. “None of your carelessness can hurt her now.”
Joe, who had been watching the whole proceedings, now came forward and caught the old woman’s sleeve, and drew her away; then whispered:
“The lad is wonderful over-wrought, witch; leave taunting him.”
Nan looked at him fiercely, but she drew back, and the boy, stepping past her, picked up the light, cold form of his love and, holding her in his arms, her blood-stained corsage pressed against his breast and her pretty head with its long black plaits lolling heavily on his shoulder, carried her quickly out of the room.
Sue began to cry softly, and Nan stood leaning on her spade and looking down into the fast whitening embers in the open grate.
In two or three minutes Hal came back; he was very pale and there was blood upon his hands and clothes. “I have left her to you, mother,” he said rather unsteadily, as he stood in the doorway looking across at the old woman.
Nan turned from the fire without a word and beckoning to Sue, who followed her, still weeping, she went out and shut the door behind her.
Gilbot looked after her.
“’Tis a wonderful strange woman she is,” he said thoughtfully, “talking about granddaughters and such like, and her never having had a child.”
He shook his head and then turned to the table. “We must get him out of here,” he said, suddenly growing nervous again, as he looked at the dead Spaniard.
“Here, Hal, Joe, take him down to the mud. It will do the old place no good if folks get to know he’s lying here,” and he began to drag the limp mass on to the floor.
Joe looked up at the clock.
“Half-past twelve,” he said thoughtfully. “Twill be full dawn at five.”
Then he turned to Hal.
“In four hours I’ll risk going out with him, lad,” he said. “Will you wait till then?”
Hal nodded.
Gilbot looked up.
“I had forgot,” he said, “I had forgot; it is a long time since I went out on the
mud—ah, well! Hal, bring me some rum.”
The sky was a pale grey, in which two or three late stars still shone faintly, and there was a sharp twang of frost in the air, when two men, carrying the body of a third between them, and four great weights slung over their shoulders, stumbled out of the old Ship’s kitchen, leaving behind them a girl asleep by the empty grate and an old man lying drunk upstairs.
As they came out into the yard, they both turned instinctively to a patch of newly-disturbed earth on their right, from the side of which rose a dark figure, who glided off into the greyness beyond.
The shorter of the two men spoke gruffly.
“The witch was fond enough of the lass,” he said, “I wonder she didn’t do more to save her.”
The other answered him bitterly.
“It wasn’t her place, Joe. Twas mine. And I did naught. God knows; I—I thought she loved him,” he added, giving the slim little figure whose shoulders he held a violent shake.
Pullen shook his head, and a drop of pure sentiment crept into his bright blue eyes.
“’Tis a wonderful pity,” he said slowly, “a wonderful pity—poor little lass—and him too—he must have loved her, or he’d never have killed hisself.”
The memory of Nan’s upstretched arm and fierce blow came clearly to Hal and he opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it, and they trudged on in silence.
The mud looked very black, cold, and sinister when they at last reached the shore; the tide was well out, and the sea seemed a full mile the other side of the soft, greenish belt.
Joe dropped the Spaniard’s feet and stood staring in front of him for a moment; then he stooped down and lifted them again.
“It’s a bit further up,” he said shortly, and they went on.
Presently he stopped again.
“Here we are,” he remarked, as he sat down on the shingle, and, taking off his back a pair of boards specially cut for the purpose, he proceeded to tie them on to his feet.
Hal did the like and the two set out over the black, evil-smelling ooze.
The boards prevented them from sinking more than a few inches at each step, but it was not easy going, for the limp body of the Spaniard, although not heavy, was yet not light.
The two slipped often, sometimes almost falling.
After some fifteen minutes of this Joe paused.
“This’ll do,” he said, nodding to a circular patch of smooth, greyish mud which lay just in front of them.
Hal looked at it and at the white face of the Spaniard; then he shuddered.
“It’s horrible,” he said.
Joe grunted.
“Give us those weights, lad,” he demanded, holding out his hand.
Hal slung them over.
Hastily, and with perfect calmness, Joe tied them to the Spaniard’s feet; he had to bend nearly double to do this, as to kneel with the boards on was impossible, and he straightened his back with some relief on finishing.
“That’s enough; now in with him,” he said briskly, wiping his hands on his jersey. Then his eyes fell on the silver buttons on the black velvet coat and the rings on the white hands, and he pulled out his knife.
“’Twould be a pity to leave him these,” he said practically, bending down again.
“Let be, Joe Pullen.” Hal’s voice rang out clear over the wind-swept flats. “We’ll have naught of his. Let the devil keep his own.” He drew from his belt the thin two-edged knife, now brown and clotted with dry blood, round which was still the flower-ring, and threw it into the centre of the grey circle. It sank almost immediately.
Pullen watched him.
“Ay, maybe the knife, but not the buttons; there’s no evil in them.”
Hal shook his head.
“Nay,” he said determinedly, “evil in everything he touched, everything he owned—sink it deep, Joe, sink it deep.”
Pullen sighed and shrugged his shoulders.
“Maybe you’re right, lad,” he said, “maybe you’re right,” and added cheerfully, “and I don’t know who’d buy them anyway. Come then, heave him in.”
Hal bent down and together they lifted the once so gallant little figure, still clad in all its bravery, and dropped it gently into the grey patch; the weights hit the mud first and sank quickly out of sight, dragging the silk-stockinged feet with them; the ooze clicked and chuckled to itself as it sucked down its prey. Further and further in sank the body of the great little Captain, who twelve hours before was so gay, so sure of himself, so debonair.
The dawn breeze came stealing across the sea, and a sea-gull screamed lazily near by, while a faint yellow light began to glow over the mainland the other side of the bay. Now the mud had reached the Spaniard’s breast; his head, still bound with his famous black kerchief, had fallen forward and his limp arms lay loosely on the soft slime.
Joe looked at him critically.
“I wonder now has he struck the hard?” he said thoughtfully, and leaning forward he put his foot on the black-coated shoulder and pushed vigorously. The mud sucked noisily and the body vanished rapidly. Now only the head and one arm was visible. Now the head was gone. The dark eyes, the terrible crooked smile, the white flashing teeth, the cold, silent mud had them all. Now only a hand was left; it lay for a second on the grey background white and shapely, and then it too vanished, leaving the grey circle as quiet and untroubled as before.
Joe turned away.
“Come,” he said slowly, “it’s all over now.”
Hal looked up.
“Ay,” he said, and his voice was heavy and toneless. “It is all over—Joe, all over in one night. Come.”
And they toiled, slipped, and struggled back to their homes again.
The yellow light over the mainland grew brighter and brighter, turned to gold and then to crimson, and the rising sun rose once more over the Island as quiet and peaceful as if the Spaniard and his love had never been.
Chapter XXVI
One evening two or three years later, Big French and Sue, his wife, their young daughter, and little Red Farran, whom they had taken to live with them, sat round the fire in the Ship kitchen.
Gilbot was dead. It was said in the village that he had died singing “Pretty Poll.” And he had left the old inn to Hal Grame, who proved himself a very able landlord. He had grown very taciturn, however, since the affair of the Spaniard and the girl, which had by this time been almost forgotten by the easy-going Islanders, and he had taken to tobacco, with which Fen de Witt was well able to supply him at a cheap rate, and he sat now in a haze of smoke on the opposite side of the fireplace to French, his pipe in his mouth and his head thrown back as though in earnest contemplation of the rafters.
Joe sat at his elbow drinking ale; they two were as friendly as ever, but Pullen had been known to aver that no word of Anny or the Spaniard had been exchanged between them since that cold September morning long ago when black mud had swallowed the last trace of the affair.
It was late and all the other company had gone; the dips were beginning to die out one by one, and tall shadows began to creep over the oak-beamed ceiling and dark, rum-fumed walls.
Presently French rose to his feet.
“Ah well,” he said, “I reckon we’ll go home, Sue. Good rest to you, Hal.”
The landlord nodded.
“Same to you, Master French, and you too, Mistress,” he said, without taking his pipe out of his mouth.
Sue smiled and picked up her baby, who was crawling on the long seat beside her.
“Good-night, Hal,” she said, and then added, looking round the room affectionately, “it’s almost like the old days to be all here together again.”
“All?” murmured Hal bitterly.
Sue did not hear him, but went on gaily:
“Yet I would not change,” she said. “These days are happier, I with my man and my little one.”
Hal winced, and French who was watching put an arm affectionately round his wife’s shoulders.
“Co
me, lass, we stay too long a-talking,” he said, gently drawing her to him.
Sue looked up at him a smile on her lips. She was very proud of her handsome husband, and they went out together, little Red following, his hand clutching French’s big coat skirts.
After they had gone there was silence in the room for a second or two, while Pullen helped himself to more ale from a pitcher at his elbow.
Hal stared into the blazing fire.
“Like the old days?” he said at last half to himself. “Like the old days? My God!”
Joe put down his tankard and wiped his lips.
“I reckon I’ll be going home to Amy—damn her,” he said, getting up.
Hal looked up frowning.
“Must ye so, mate?” he said wistfully.
“No, no, er—no, lad, no need,” and Joe sat down again and refilled his pot.
The silence continued.
Suddenly Hal rose and standing on tiptoe reached down one of the old cracked cups on the high mantelshelf, and emptied its contents into his hand.
Joe heard the clink of coins and looked up.
His friend was leaning against the chimney-piece, his face half-hidden, and in his hand which he held open before him were two little coins.
Presently the younger man turned away from the fire and held out his hand to Pullen.
“Do you remember these, mate?” he said rather abruptly.
Joe looked at the money curiously.
“Groats?” he said. “Well now I can’t say as I do, but “—he broke off suddenly—“that day we’d bin after fish?” he enquired.
Hal nodded.
Joe looked at him in astonishment.
“Why, lad, you don’t go thinking o’ that now, surely?” he said.
Hal clinked the coins together and looked round the kitchen ruefully. “I couldn’t give her aught then—but now—if only——” his voice trailed off and ceased.
Joe shifted uneasily in his seat.
“Don’t think on it, lad, don’t think on it,” he advised.
Hal laughed bitterly.
“You know not what you say, Joe Pullen,” he said. “I must think on it; ’tis all I have to think on,” and he puffed at his pipe almost fiercely.
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