by Howard Pyle
“Fend off!” called Claiborne, sullenly, to the man at the prow of the small boat, and seating himself in the stern he pulled his cloak close about him, muttering to himself, —
“Damn the fellow! I begin to hate him worse than Calvert.”
“Dick,” said Ralph Ingle as the two brothers were left alone together, “what treatment might a prisoner look for if brought aboard this ship?”
“Why, all the difference betwixt a swift death and a slow one.”
“And if the prisoner were a woman—”
“Nay, none of that business, Ralph! I was but jesting when I spoke of carrying off the villagers’ wives. Remember, we take our commission from the Roundheads, who do faithfully believe we are bent on promoting the Puritan religion in this part of the world.” Here Richard Ingle burst into a roar of laughter, but his brother’s eyes flashed.
“You know not how to take a gentleman,” he said.
“Indeed,” sneered his brother, “have a few months in the Brent household turned thee into such a white-livered fellow, half prude, half priest? Nay, nay,” seeing his brother’s sulky looks; “I meant not to vex thee, though ’tis a damned odd time for talking of such matters; but take thy pleasure as thou wilt, only now make ready for the prettiest fight thou hast seen since we met the pirates off Algiers.”
“The other pirates,” corrected Ralph, and began buckling on his cutlass and feeling for his pistols.
“Come on, then,” called Richard, lowering himself over the ship’s side, “come on, men; rally to the cry of ‘Ingle!’ Never mind giving quarter, and set the torches to every house in St. Mary’s. There’s plunder enough for us all, and then up sail and away before the burghers know who’s struck them.”
The muffled oars sped silently through the water; silently, too, the keels of the boats slipped over the sand of the beach. With unshod feet, pistols in belts, and cutlass in hand, the men ranged themselves in a ragged line, and before them, Richard Ingle stood in a theatrical attitude, with one hand on his hip, the other waving a sword.
“Are you ready for a fight, my men?”
“Try us!”
“Ready to make a bonfire of yonder town?”
A waving torch answered, but was speedily extinguished by Ingle’s order.
“Ready to open the bung-holes in the tavern barrels?”
“Ay, and drink the spirit as it runs.”
“Then you’re the men for Dick Ingle. Claiborne, how many have you in your command?”
“Forty.”
“Take twenty, and climb yonder stairs. There is a gap in the palisade at their head. Put your men through it single file, and in dead silence. There is no guard.
“Ralph!”
“Ay.”
“Do you take the other twenty and follow the longer trail leading to the rear of the town. When our approach is known, the rush will be for the river gate. That leaves your gate weak. Beat it down. Once in, I leave you to your work.”
“Trust me!”
“The rest of you follow me. Swift and still. That’s your motto till we burst in with a yell, and surprise our friends. The guard is bribed, the gate unbarred. Up and forward!”
Forward they went with a rush, Ingle well in front, — up the hilly road at a double quick to the very shadow of the palisade, not a sound giving warning of their approach.
Suddenly from that gray picketed line of logs broke a zigzag streak of fire, and out into the stillness boomed the sound of guns.
“We are betrayed!” muttered Claiborne, turning at the head of the steps, out of breath with the climb.
“Follow me!” cried Richard Ingle. “Twenty pounds to the first man over the wall, or through the gate!”
“Ingle! Ingle!” the cry rose from all sides, as the men rushed after their leader toward the stockade. Several fell; but the others closed in and rushed on the faster.
“I fear they’re too many for us!” muttered Giles Brent, as he peered through the peep-hole of the gate. “If we could have had the news but a few hours earlier! Fire at the tall man with the green cap, Neville! — and there’s Ingle, the same swashbuckler as ever! But he’s a brave devil. Gather the guard, Neville. Open on them with the culverin; if they break in the gate, give them clubbed muskets: Hey for St. Mary’s, and wives for us all!”
No man who took part in that morning’s fight ever forgot the day. Almost every fighter had his private feud to avenge, and under the guise of sustaining his colony, slashed and hacked for St. Mary, or St. Richard Ingle, and broke heads in fine style, all for the honor of the Commonwealth or the Palatinate in general, and the satisfaction of James and John and Robert in particular.
Oh, but it was a fine skirmish! and when the invaders, despite the thunder of the culverin, broke in the iron-studded gate and rushed upon the defenders, the fighting took on still more interest. If there is pleasure in knocking over your enemy at a distance with a cannon-ball, it is as nothing to the joy of felling him with your clubbed musket, where he can claim no foul, no better armament, but must acknowledge as he falls, that he dies because you are the better man, and surrender his pride before he gives up the ghost.
Who would not throw away years of inglorious safety to know the mad leap of the blood bounding along his veins as he cut and thrust and parried in the rough give and take of battle? When the Anglo-Saxon forgets that stern ecstasy, his domination of the earth is at an end.
There is, however, one class to whom the struggle brings little of this exhilaration. The non-combatants bear the heart-breaking anxieties of the combat and know nothing of its delights. Little did Elinor Calvert know or care about the effect of fighting on national character as she stood at the door of her cottage in the little hamlet of St. Mary’s, holding her boy by the hand. Her heart had room for only one thought, — terror, — not so much for herself as for her child. “But surely,” she thought, “none could be so cruel as to harm him!” and she looked down on his yellow curls and drew him closer, and folded her cloak about him as though that feeble shelter could avail anything against men with hearts of steel and arms of iron. Her mind was still bewildered with the suddenness of the excitement.
“Oh, Mother!” cried Cecil, anxious to be a hero, but conscious of a painful sinking at the pit of his stomach, “what manner of man is this Ingle? Will he have horns and a tail like the devil?”
“Fear not, Cecil,” Margaret Brent answered. “Dick Ingle has cowered before me ere this. Let him face me now if he dares. He has lied about me to the man I loved, he has done his best to ruin my life, but he has never yet dared to look me in the eye since. If he enters the town this day, he and I will have it out. Elinor, are there fire-arms in the house?”
“Nay, but I have my dagger—”
“Keep it; thou mayst have need of it. Stay thou here with the child, and I will take my pistol and go to the gate. Doubtless Giles will take command at the gate next the river.”
“Nay, Margaret, are there not men enough?”
“Not so many but they will be the better for one woman.”
“Thou canst not fight like a man.”
“Perhaps not, — I have not yet tried; but at least I can make the men fight better. There was never soldier yet that did not shoot straighter and strike deeper if a woman were looking on. That’s what we’re for, Coz, — not to pit our strength against men’s, but to double theirs.”
“Margaret, thy courage shames me; I will come too. At least, I can carry powder and water-buckets.”
“No; rather make ready thine house here, for I know Ingle well enough to be sure of hot fighting and many hurt. We shall need a hospital and a nurse. Tear thy linen into bandages, and set Cecil to preparing lint for wounds. Now, good-bye, and may God have you both in his keeping till we meet again!”
As the door closed after her, Elinor felt that a strong presence had passed out and she shivered. Now she caught the sharp clash of combat at the gate and the rival cries, —
“Ingle! Ingle! Claiborne and In
gle!”
Then, louder still, —
“Hey for St. Mary’s, and wives for us all!”
Her heart failed her as she looked at Cecil, and she thought of the powerful arm that might have been near to protect both her boy and her. She breathed a deep sigh.
“Mother,” whispered Cecil, “I will guard thee; do not fear!” But he crowded closer against her skirt.
“Sweet one, ’tis for thee I fear most. Run thou within and hide thyself while thou canst.”
“Mother!” cried the boy, “I am a Calvert. Dost think Cousin Giles would ever speak with me again if I deserted thee? Why, I am almost a man. See, up to thy shoulder already. I can, at least, throw a stone;” and he picked one up from the road.
“We can at least die together,” Elinor murmured, “and it may be soon.”
“But perhaps we sha’n’t die,” Cecil whispered consolingly. “Thou knowst to-day is the festival of Candlemas. I remember, when we were gathering the greens and taking them down from the chapel last night, some one bade me see that no leaf was neglected, for as many as I left, so many goblins should I see. And so I went back and picked up the very last, and then Father White blessed two great candles and gave them me and bade me burn them on the shrine of St. Michael, because he was my patron saint and I was born on his day.”
“And didst thou?”
“Ay, Mother, when I came home and saw the image in my room, — thou knowst the one of the saint, with his foot on the devil’s head, — I thought, for safety’s sake, I would offer one to the devil, too, for who knew when it might come his turn to befriend one. Now I will go in and light the candles, and I will pray to Michael and beg him to come and set his foot on Dick Ingle’s neck. Ingle must look a deal like Lucifer; and Michael — Mother, dost not think Michael must look rather like Master Neville?”
Elinor started as if a bandage had been torn from some hidden wound. She gave a little gasp; but the nearer trampling of feet called her thoughts back to the pressing needs of the present moment. In truth, they were urgent. Already the fighting mob was surging through highway and byway lighted by the glare of the burning church. They fought, not like an army, but in little detached groups, without order or leadership. Here the enemy gained ground, here the townsfolk.
What was this the men were bearing to her door? Her heart sank as she recognized Giles Brent.
“Oh, Giles! Cousin! — art thou hurt?”
“A scratch, — a mere scratch, on my honor;” but he whitened as he spoke.
“Bear him in,” said Elinor to the two men on whose shoulders he was leaning, “bear him in, and I will make a bed ready for him.”
As she watched the men following her bidding, her mind leaped back to the last time she had seen Brent, — the day when he told her of Neville’s death, and when she had sworn never to own kinship or speak with him again till he took back his accusation. “I have broken my vow,” she said to herself. “God forgive me! Yet not so much the breaking as the making.”
Then she turned to follow him in; but as she moved, she felt her wrist grasped from behind, softly but with the irresistibleness of a handcuff of iron.
Looking round, she caught sight of a sleeve of russet cloth bound about with a green ribbon with gold and emerald tags, and turning she found herself face to face with Ralph Ingle.
Instinctively she struggled to free herself, then perceiving that her strength was no match for his, she stood still.
“I am thy slave still,” he whispered. “Give me one kind word, one glance to kindle hope in my heart, and my sword is thine for offence and defence. Nay, ’tis in my power to save thy kinsman, whom I have just seen borne in at thy door. I saw him fall and followed his bearers, sure that they would bring him here.”
“’Tis a fair return thou art making for his hospitality.”
“I wonder not at thy surprise.”
“Surprise! I feel none. ’Tis what I should look for in one of thy name and race. If I was once deceived in thee, I know thee now for what thou art.”
“What am I?”
“A traitor.”
“Harsh words, my lady! Couldst not choose some gentler name?”
“Nay, if I called thee aught else, ’twould be murderer.”
Ingle turned pale.
“By what token?”
“By that Iscariot badge on thine arm.”
The man looked down in bewilderment.
“Ay, that point convicts thee. ’Tis as though the finger of the Lord were laid upon that emerald tag, and His voice said, ‘Thou art the man.’”
“Who told thee?”
“No man told me; but murder will out, though the deed be wrought in the blackness of midnight and the body of the victim lie hid in the shadows of the forest.”
“’Tis false. Thou dost but babble to gain time.”
“’Tis true. Thy very pallor and trembling proclaim it true. Thou didst slay an unarmed man, alone and unprotected in the wilderness. Worse than that, thy victim was a priest of Holy Church, whose very garb should have been sacred to thee.”
Ingle reddened and spoke more sullenly.
“There be many sins heavier than the taking off of a Jesuit.”
“Ay, there be heavier sins. Shall I name thee one?”
“An it please thee.”
“Then I count it a heavier sin than the committing of a crime to let another be charged with thy deed, and still baser when thou thyself dost egg on his accusers. Thou Judas!”
Ingle’s look darkened, and he grasped her wrist still more firmly.
“Thou hast had thy say. Now I will have mine. I will teach thee to call me by a new name.”
Elinor’s lip curled with scorn.
“Yes,” he went on, “I will show thee what I am, and first of all I am thy master.”
“A moment since thou wert my slave.”
“Ay, both slave and master in one; and I am come to take thee with me to a place where thou shalt know me under both guises.”
“Never!”
With her left hand Elinor Calvert pulled a dagger from her belt; but before she had time to use it, Ingle loosed her other hand and seizing Cecil cried, “When thou wouldst see thy boy again, seek the world through for Ralph Ingle.”
He was gone before Elinor could utter a word; and when she would have rushed after him her limbs seemed made of lead, her outstretched arms fell nerveless at her side, her knees tottered under her, and with her child’s shriek of terror ringing in her ears, his pleading eyes still straining toward hers, she fell to earth in a dead swoon.
As she fell, Margaret Brent turned the corner of the street, and seeing her believed her wounded, and rushed toward her with open arms, while from the other side Richard Ingle advanced, brandishing a pistol in one hand and a torch in the other. He and Margaret Brent met above the prostrate form.
“So you are here,” he said; “I thought you were at Kent Fort, and I meant to seek you there. I killed that precious brother of yours.”
Margaret Brent paid no more heed to him than if he had been a fly in her path. She knelt by Elinor’s side, and finding the pulse beating still drew a breath of relief. Once more, however, she bent over lower still, and when she rose it was with a cocked pistol, which she pointed full at Ingle’s head.
“If you move so much as a finger, I fire!”
So amazed was the invader that he made no attempt to stir, but stood looking at the woman before him with ashen face and dropped jaw.
“Dick Ingle,” said Margaret, still with pistol levelled, “you have pursued me for years, first with your unwelcome love and then with malignant hate; you have lied about me to Thomas White; you have tried to ruin my life. Now you say you have killed my brother. Is there any reason why I should not kill you? Nay, do not move so much as a hair, or you are a dead man. I know how to shoot, and I have no hesitation in taking life. Answer me. Have you not deserved death at my hands?”
“The devil take my soul! — I have.”
�
��I like you for owning it. I like you for appealing to the devil, whom you love and serve, instead of to God. If you had denied your deviltries, I swear I would have put a bullet through your heart. As it is, I am satisfied. Go!”
She lowered her pistol and stood looking at him, alone, helpless, unprotected. So he had seen her in imagination many times. So he had vowed he would have no mercy. Now she had shown mercy. She had held his life in her hand, and had spared it. This was the worst of all the wrongs she had done him. The thought galled him beyond endurance. Quick as lightning, he raised his pistol and fired, then covered his eyes with his arm. God forgive the wretch! He loved this woman still.
When he looked again the vision stood there yet, the eyes still dominating him, a cool smile on the haughty lips.
“Coward!” was all she said; but it was enough. Ingle, the redoubtable, the terror of the seas, the conqueror in fifty combats with desperate men, turned and ran as though the fiends were after him. The groups of his men that he passed, seeing a sight never before witnessed, — their leader fleeing with a look of terror on his face, — joined in the retreat toward the steps which led down the bluff, crying as they went, “To the ships! to the ships! Ingle! Ingle!”
Cornwaleys, who had hastily gathered a band of followers from neighboring plantations, came rushing after and fancied that it was he and his men who had routed Ingle. So he told the story afterward at the tavern. So the villagers all believed.
Only Margaret Brent knew.
CHAPTER XXIV. THE CALVERT MOTTO
“PUT ME DOWN! Put me down!” screamed Cecil.
“I put thee down? I’ll see thee roasted first!”
“I hate thee!”
“Very like; but wait, thou little imp, till I have thee safe in the ship!”
“In St. Michael’s name!” cried the child, and beat Ralph Ingle lustily about the head; but Ingle swept down his chubby arms as though they had been gnats, and ran on toward the nearest gate.
When he reached the Governor’s Spring, he noticed that the waters ran red with blood. By its margin two men were cutting and thrusting with sword and cutlass, while a third with hand clasped to his throat lay along the curb, his head hanging lifeless over the water.