Complete Works of Howard Pyle

by Howard Pyle

  It was horribly and grotesquely tragic and the two young men were glad to get out into the open air again. They lingered about for awhile, listening to the scattering talk and comments, and presently Abe Lynch came out of the house and joined them. He appeared stunned and bewildered.

  It seemed very strange to Abe Lynch as he walked back to the hotel with the two Philadelphia gentlemen, that everything around him should be just as it always had been — the trees, the houses, the people. He could think of nothing but that still form lying upon the bed in the back room waiting for the coroner. Oh, God! if he could only undo what he had done! It did not seem to him that it could really be so — there must -be some dreadful mistake.

  “By the way, Abe,” said Ellsworth, his voice cutting with a keen, sudden jar upon the intense silence, “Mr. Paton and I are going back to Philadelphia this morning.”

  “What are you going back for?” said. Abe Lynch, speaking aimlessly for the sake of saying something.

  “Oh, well,” said Ellsworth, “this easterly weather seems likely to hang on for no end of time; and to tell you the truth, we’re tired of it down here. It’s so thunderingly dull.”

  Abe Lynch listened dully. He was thinking to himself, “Oh, if they only had gone home yesterday, then this would not have happened.” He walked on in silence, thinking and thinking.

  “I wish you’d fetch my rifle over this morning, Abe,” said Paton. “You may keep the bottle of whiskey.”

  “How much do you expect to charge us, Abe?” said Ellsworth.

  “I don’t know,” said Abe Lynch. “I guess five dollars is about right, isn’t it?”

  “By George! you stick it on pretty well, Abe,” said Paton.

  “I’ve been with you three days,” said Abe Lynch, sullenly.

  “That’s all right,” said Ellsworth, “let it be at his own figure, Tom,”

  “By the way,” said Paton, suddenly, after a moment or two of silence, “I forgot to tell you — I didn’t think to draw the cartridge from that rifle yesterday.”

  Abe Lynch’s every nerve thrilled. “There ain’t no cartridge there,” said he, after a long pause. “Somebody shot it off.”

  “Oh, you’re mistaken,” said Paton. “I put a fresh cartridge in yesterday morning.”

  “All the same somebody’s shot it off,” said Abe Lynch, doggedly. “I looked at it last night before I put it away, and I seen it myself.”

  Paton looked puzzled for a moment or two. “That’s queer,” he said; “I could have sworn I slipped in a fresh cartridge yesterday morning.”

  Ellsworth laughed. “I don’t believe you knew what you was doing half the time, Tom,” said he.

  Then a sudden recollection of that still, half-dressed figure came simultaneously to both young men and they fell silent. Abe Lynch drew a deep, slow breath. He moistened his lips with his tongue.

  “Who do you suppose shot him, Abe?” said Ellsworth.

  “I don’t know,” said Abe Lynch; “unless,” he added, “it was Mace Green.”

  Nobody in Marley even accused Mason Green of shooting Tony Bratton; but if it were not he, who could it have been? The unanswered question grew by degrees to suspicion, and by and by it was no longer possible for Mason Green to live at Marley. Then during the fall the Philadelphia Wrecking Company failed, and he went to Philadelphia. Maggie Bratton had gone to Camden to live with her aunt, and after awhile news reached Marley that Mason Green and she were married. During the spring Ned Handy came home to Marley for a visit. He said that he had seen Mace Green, and that Green had told him that he was about to sail as supercargo on one of William White & Sons’ coasting schooners.

  II

  THE great blizzard of 1888 struck Marley between one and two o’clock at night, coming down upon the town and the harbor and the vessels crowded together back of the breakwater, out of the northwest, a tremendous unseen blow, delivered out of the gulf of midnight darkness. In half an hour it was blowing a howling, thundering hurricane the snow driving in blinding sheets and a surf almost like that of the Atlantic breaking upon the harbor beach.

  In a hurricane from such a quarter the breakwater is no protection to the vessels. Besides that, the storm broke so suddenly and unexpectedly that they had not time to get out extra anchors. Presently the anchored vessels began to drag toward the shore and then every ship-captain knew that a great disaster was impending.

  Before morning broke half of Marley was out along the beach. Half a score of vessels had already come ashore, and little crowds gathered here and there, watching the crews of the life-saving station taking off the shipwrecked men.

  But during the night the greatest crowd of all — maybe a hundred men and boys — had gathered to watch an English bark and a coasting schooner that were slowly drifting together. Every now and then the bark burned a blue light, the sudden livid halo flashing out in the drifting whiteness of a snow-storm and showing the looming mass of the two vessels ever closer and closer together, their hulls black and gleaming with freezing sheets of brine, pitching and tossing to the run of the swell, their masts and rigging towering, swaying pinnacles of ice, as white as snow.

  In one such time of livid light the two vessels came together. For a moment the schooner seemed to tower in a smothering cloud of foam. Then it drove down and against the bark with a crash that could almost be heard above the trembling thunder of the hurricane and the roar of the breakers. The bark heeled over before the impact and for a second or two, as the two vessels ground together, and by the glaring brightness of the blue-light the spectators upon the shore could see the crew of the sinking schooner swarming up over the sides of the bark. Then the light went out again into sudden darkness.

  Those on the shore stood waiting and watching, but there was no recurrence of the light; nothing but darkness.

  But about the gray of the morning word flew about that the bark had broken loose from her moorings — perhaps from the impact of the schooner — and had driven out upon the outer bar. The crowd along the beach began to gather thither, out upon the point of the cape. There they collected watching the vain efforts of the life - saving crews from Marley, Hennipen, and Indian Head to get away in the life-boats. Each time a boat was launched it was only to be whirled around by the wind and driven back again upon the beach.

  Every now and then, through snow-squalls, the wreck of the great vessel could be seen rolling sullenly back and forth to the sweep of the swell, her hull now and again a smother of foam, her masts and rigging pinnacles of ice, the foremast gone, the mainmast standing apparently firm, the mizzen-mast rocking back and forth, ready any moment to fall. There were little clusters of men crowded together in the main rigging, clinging blackly amid the ice and snow, waiting the desperate chance of being saved. Every now and then a towering wave would come marching up from oceanward, and in the suction from the undertow the hulk would heel to windward to meet the smothering impact of mountainous water, before which she would roll over with a tremendous sweep while the onlookers held their breath. Then she would right again, the black figures still clinging to the rigging. Then, perhaps, there would be a long period of comparative calm in which the life-saving crews would try again to launch the life-boats.

  About half-past seven o’clock the storm began to lull, and a little before nine the Hennipen life-boat got off. The crowd cheered; the sound of their voices rising faint and thin in the ceaseless roaring monotone of surf and vibrating counterroar of the hurricane.

  It was a noble sight, the boat launched by a score of rubber-coated men, meeting the tossing whirl of surf with a tremendous burst of exploding cataractal water; the crew scrambling into her; the rattle of dropping oars; an onrushing breaker that meeting the boat whirled it high aloft like a chip; the captain standing in the stern shining in drenched and gleaming waterproof, grasping the oar and steadying the boat swaying back and forth but never losing his footing; another rush of breakers pitching the boat, cork-like, into the air; then the tremendous down dip int
o the trough of the next oncoming sea. Then the onlookers saw that the boat was off and they cheered again.

  One of the crew was Abe Lynch.

  Almost immediately the Marley lifeboat also got away, and by and by the two were under the side of the bark — now riding duck-like on the rise of a wave, now lost in the trough of the sea. As the people on the shore stood watching they saw that Captain Turnbull was shouting orders to the men in the rigging. Then they saw one of the sailors upon the wreck crawl perilously out upon the ice-coated yard-arm and drop a line that fell like a thread down toward the boats below. They could see that the life-boat had presently caught the end of the line, and that the sailor had crawled back with it to the shrouds. A sudden squall of snow almost hid the wreck from sight, and when it passed a man was seen slipping down the rope to the life-boat below. Another cheer went up from the shore — the men were about to be saved. Both life-boats were now floating under the lee of the doomed vessel, and one after another the figures in the rigging were sliding down the thin, thread-like line. Each minute there were fewer and fewer men in the rigging and more and more men huddled into the life-boats.

  Meantime the bark was palpably going to pieces. At each leaden blow of onsweeping wave there would be a larger and more ragged gap in the bulwarks. The shore was already littered with wreckage, and the tangled wreck of the foremast tossed helpless arms in the foaming surge of the water.

  At last it seemed to those ashore that all of the men were out of the rigging of the wreck. Yet still the life-boats lingered under the lee of the bark. Why did they not come ashore? Then the onlookers began to see that there was one man yet clinging, lashed to the shrouds just above the main-top. That was why’ one of the life-boats was coming up close under the stern-quarter of the wreck; that man was to be saved before they left the dissolving hull.

  Those on the beach watched the boat as it came close up under the towering hulk of the bark, the crew staving it off with oars and boat-hooks. The next moment a man in yellow water-proof and sou’wester was seen scrambling up by the mizzen-chains and over the rail. He carried with him, hung over his arm, a coil of line, which he paid out to the life-boat as he ran along by the rail to the main-shrouds.

  It was Abe Lynch.

  The man who clung to the rigging was the supercargo of the schooner which had stove in against the bark during the night.

  Until Abe Lynch had scrambled up over the rail and had fairly stood upon the ice-sheeted deck of the bark, he did not see what a wreck she was. The side nearest the shore was pretty sound; upon the other side the whole stern-quarter was stove in — a great ragged gap open to the sea, which at every plunge shook the shattered hulk as though to burst it into fragments.

  Abe Lynch ran along the lee rail, shaking out the coil of rope as he did so, Captain Turnbull in the life-boat hauling in the slack, and so he reached the shrouds. They were coated almost solidly thick with ice, and he had to kick the frozen mass loose in a shower of fragments and broken lumps. Then he began slowly and carefully to mount the icy ratlins. Now and again he stopped to pay out the line a little more, then again he would mount a few steps. At last he had reached the main-top. The still and apparently lifeless figure was just above him.

  He did not stop to look at him, except to see that he was apparently lashed to the ratlins, for at that moment a great sea was coming towering toward the wreck and thither his eyes were turned. Would the bark hold together under the impact? The outgoing rush of water heeled the vessel over dizzily toward the oncoming mountainous gray of advancing water. The next minute the sea struck with a shock that rocked the loosened mizzenmast back and forth, whipping it like a switch. Then the wreck swayed tremendously over the lee, Abe Lynch clinging tight to the ratlins. Looking down he could see that the hull beneath him was entirely covered with the mass of white foam, and he felt that the wreck was melting away. Still he clung dizzily to the rigging. Then the sea was gone and he saw the deck below emerging from the sliding rush of water. The mizzen-mast had now gone, and was rolling a wreck astern. But the mainmast still stood; he was still safe, and he aroused himself to act.

  Shaking out the slack of the line he still held, he climbed up to the figure in the shrouds. Coming near, he saw that the man, whoever he was, was coated with ice; that he wore heavy sea-boots and a waterproof coat. He thought at first that the poor fellow was frozen dead, but when he got to him and felt him he knew that he was yet alive. He stooped around and looked into the face, and then in an instant he knew who it was — it was Mason Green. The hands covered with slivers of ice clutched desperately to the ratlins; they were white and waxy, the eyes were set and fixed, but the man was frozen and exhausted, not dead, and it was Abe Lynch’s paid business to save him. He threw the end of the line he held over the ratlins above the unconscious head, drawing it down until he had enough slack for his purpose. Then he made a sliding-knot, leaving enough of the slack to lash fast under the arm-pits and around the body. As he reached the line around the senseless figure the frozen waterproof rattled and little broken sheets of ice fell in a shower. He tested the knot to see that it was perfectly safe. Then he cut loose the lashings that held the other fast to the shrouds.

  As the inanimate figure swung out into space he looked down and sang out, “Lower away!” He held fast to the ratlins, still looking down as the nearly dead man was lowered slowly, slowly down into the boat below. He knew that the crowd was watching from the shore, and he felt a great pride that they were seeing what he was doing. The next moment the life-boat had received the rescued man.

  Then he made ready himself to descend. That was an easy enough matter. He grasped the doubled rope that hung to the life-boat below, threw his leg around it, swung out into space, and slid rapidly down.

  As he did so he saw over his shoulder a towering mountain of water come sweeping slowly and enormously toward the wreck. It seemed to lift higher and higher as it came nearer and nearer, and again the suction from the trough of the sea heeled the wreck over in the direction of the oncoming sea — at first slowly, then with a rushing sweep. Abe Lynch saw himself being swung in toward the hull of the wreck, and knew that he would be dashed against it, unless the men in the life-boat below held the lower end of the line. For a moment he hung poised. Then suddenly he felt that the line had slipped from those who held it. He whirled dizzily half around and swung violently toward the wreck. In an instant he saw the shattered hull flying at him. Then there was a tremendous deafening crash, a flash of light, then a humming darkness circled by a myriad sparks of light. With a glimmering consciousness he still clung instinctively to the line he held, but he felt that he was badly hurt. The next moment he was in the ice-cold water. He still strove to cling to the line, but the monstrous power of the water swept him loose and he felt himself whirled away helplessly by the waves. Again he felt something strike him, this time more heavily and dully. Then he lost consciousness.

  The crew of the life-boat saw his helpless body entangled in the wreck of the mizzen-mast. A few strokes brought them to him, and the next moment he was dragged into the boat. They pulled quickly away from the wreck of the mast. Then they looked at him and saw that a little trickle of blood was running out of the corner of his mouth and spreading down across his wet cheek.

  It was eleven o’clock when Abe Lynch regained a numb, senseless consciousness. He felt no pain, but everything glimmered pallidly to his sight. He saw that Dr. Closson was standing over him, and then that he was in the Quarantine Hospital. He tried to speak to the doctor, but could only whisper. The physician bent over him. “Am I hurt, doctor?” said he, and he panted as he spoke.

  “I am afraid you are pretty badly hurt, Abe,” said the doctor, very seriously. “Don’t talk any more.” He wiped the wounded man’s lips, and the cloth came away stained red.

  “I must — talk,” panted Abe Lynch. “It — wasn’t Mace Green — shot — Tony Bratton. It was me.”

  He died at two o’clock in the afternoon, and if he had taken
a life he had given one in exchange for it.

  THE END

  A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.

  A TRUE STORY BY HOWARD PYLE.

  Harper’s New Monthly Magazine Dec 1893

  I.

  ON the morning of the 7th of December, 1670, the city of London and the court at Whitehall were met, when they awakened in the morning, by a most exciting, a most sensational, piece of news. During the night that had just passed, the Duke of Ormond had been attacked in his coach almost at the very gates of Clarendon House, and had been rescued, by the merest chance in the world, in the mud and dirt of a kennel, from a shameful and ignoble death upon the gallows at Tyburn.

  About a year and a half later — the 10th of May, 1672 — a still greater and still more vivid excitement ran like wildfire throughout the metropolis, and set the whole town in a blaze. A bold and bloody attempt had been made to rob the Tower of London of the crown jewels. It had failed, but it had failed only by a chance that was as one in a million.

  The leader and the contriver of both these attempts was a certain Irish malcontent Presbyterian, one Colonel Blood, sometimes known as Thomas Blood, Esq., of Sarney.

  “Dined at my Lord Treasurer’s,” says Evelyn, “ where dined Mons de Grammont and several French noblemen, and one Blood, that impudent, bold fellow who had not long before attempted to steal the imperial crown itself out of the Tower. How he came to be pardoned, and even received in favor, not only after this, but several other exploits almost as daring both in Ireland and here, I could never come to understand. The man,” he adds, “has not only a daring, but a villainous, unmerciful look, a false countenance, and very well spoken and dangerously insinuating.”