Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  “You’ll be as wise as the lave of us by-and-by!” Og answered sulkily.

  They crossed the shoulder near the tower, which loomed uncertainly through the fog, and they strode down the slope to the stone pier. The mist lay low on the water, and only the wet stones of the jetty, and a boat or two floating in the angle between the jetty and the shore, were visible. The tide was almost at the flood. Og bade the men draw in one of the boats, ordered Colonel Sullivan and Bale to go into the bow, and the pikemen to take the oars. He and the two firelock-men — the messenger had vanished — took their seats in the stern.

  “Pull out, you cripples,” he said. “And be pulling stout, and there’ll be flood enough to be bringing us back.”

  The men bent to the clumsy oars, and the boat slid down the inlet, and passed under the beam of the French sloop, which lay moored farther along the jetty. Not a sign of life appeared on deck as they passed; the ship seemed to be deserted. Half a dozen strokes carried the boat beyond view of it, and the little party were alone on the bosom of the water, that lay rocking smoothly between its unseen banks. Some minutes were spent in stout rowing, and the oily swell began to grow longer and slower. They were near the mouth of the inlet, and abreast of the east-and-west-running shore of the bay. Smoothly as the sea lapped the beach under the mist, the boat began to rise and fall on the Atlantic rollers.

  “Tis more deceitful than a pretty colleen,” O’Sullivan Og said, “is the sea-fog, bad cess to it! My own father was lost in it. Will you be seeing her, boys?”

  “Ye’ll not see her till ye touch her!” one of the rowers answered.

  “And the tide running?” the other said. “Save us from that same!”

  “She’s farther out by three gunshots!” struck in a firelock-man. “We’ll be drifting back, ye thieves of the world, if ye sit staring there! Pull, an’ we’ll be inshore an’ ye know it.”

  For some minutes the men pulled steadily onwards, while one of the passengers, apprised that their destination was the Spanish war-vessel which had landed Cammock and the Bishop, felt anything but eager to reach it. A Spanish war-ship meant imprisonment and hardship without question, possibly the Inquisition, persecution, and death. When the men lay at last on their oars, and swore that they must have passed the ship, and they would go no farther, he alone listened indifferently, nay, felt a faint hope born in him.

  “’Tis a black Protestant fog!” O’Sullivan cried. “Where’ll we be, I wonder?”

  “Sure, ye can make no mistake,” one answered. “The wind’s light off the land.”

  “We’ll be pulling back, lads.”

  “That’s the word.”

  The men put the boat about, a little sulkily, and started on the return journey. The sound of barking dogs and crowing cocks came off the land with that clearness which all sounds assume in a fog. Suddenly Colonel John, crouching in the bow, where was scant room for Bale and himself, saw a large shape loom before him. Involuntarily he uttered a warning cry, O’Sullivan echoed it, the men tried to hold the boat. In doing this, however, one man was quicker than the other, the boat turned broadside on to her former course, and before the cry was well off O’Sullivan Og’s lips, it swept violently athwart a cable hauled taut by the weight of a vessel straining to the flow of the tide. In a twinkling the boat careened, throwing its occupants into the water.

  Colonel John and Bale were nearest to the hawser, and managed, suddenly as the thing happened, to seize it and cling to it. But the first wave washed over them, blinding them and choking them; and, warned by this, they worked themselves desperately along the rope until their shoulders were clear of the water and they could twist a leg over their slender support.

  That effected, they could spit out the water, breathe again, and look about them. They shouted for help once, twice, thrice, thinking that some on the great ship looming dim and distant to shoreward of them must hear. But their shouts were merged in the wail of despair, of shrieks and cries that floated away into the mist. The boat, travelling with the last of the tide, had struck the cable with force, and was already drifting a gunshot away. Whether any saved themselves on it, the two clinging to the hawser could not see.

  Bale, shivering and scared, would have shouted again, but Colonel John stayed him. “God rest their souls!” he said solemnly. “The men aboard can do nothing. By the time they’ll have lowered a boat it will be done with these.”

  “They can take us aboard,” Bale said.

  “Ay, if we want to go to Cadiz gaol,” Colonel John answered slowly. He was peering keenly towards the land.

  “But what can we do, your honour?” Bale asked with a shiver.

  “Swim ashore.”

  “God forbid!”

  “But you can swim?”

  “Not that far. Not near that far, God knows!” Bale repeated with emphasis, his teeth chattering. “I’ll go down like a stone.”

  “Cadiz gaol! Cadiz gaol!” Colonel John muttered. “Isn’t it worth a swim to escape that?”

  “Ay, ay, but — —”

  “Do you see that oar drifting? In a twinkling it will be out of reach. Off with your boots, man, off with your clothes, and to it! That oar is freedom! The tide is with us still, or it would not be moving that way. But let the tide turn and we cannot do it.”

  “It’s too far!”

  “If you could see the shore,” Colonel John argued, “you’d think nothing of it! With your chin on that oar, you can’t sink. But it must be done before we are chilled.”

  He was stripping himself to his underclothes while he talked: and in haste, fearing that he might feel the hawser slacken and dip — a sign that the tide had turned. Or if the oar floated out of sight — then too the worst might happen to them. Already Colonel John had plans and hopes, but freedom was needful if they were to come to anything.

  “Come!” he cried impulsively. “Man, you are not a coward, I know it well! Come!”

  He let himself into the water as he spoke, and after a moment of hesitation, and with a shiver of disgust, Bale followed his example, let the rope go, and with quick, nervous strokes bobbed after him in the direction of the oar. Colonel John deserved the less credit, as he was the better swimmer. He swam long and slow, with his head low: and his eyes watched his follower. A half minute of violent exertion, and Bale’s outstretched hand clutched the oar. It was a thick, clumsy implement, and it floated high. In curt, clipped sentences Colonel John bade him rest his hands on it, and thrust it before him lengthwise, swimming with his feet.

  For five minutes nothing was said, but they proceeded slowly and patiently, rising a little above each wave and trusting — for they could see nothing, and the light wind was in their faces — that the tide was still seconding their efforts. Colonel John knew that if the shore lay, as he judged, about half a mile distant, he must, to reach it, swim slowly and reserve his strength. Though a natural desire to decide the question quickly would have impelled him to greater exertion, he resisted it as many a man has resisted it, and thereby has saved his life. At the worst, he reflected that the oar would support them both for a short time. But that meant remaining stationary and becoming chilled.

  They had been swimming for ten minutes, as he calculated, when Bale, who floated higher, cried joyfully that he could see the land. Colonel John made no answer, he needed all his breath. But a minute later he too saw it loom low through the fog; and then, in some minutes afterwards, they felt bottom and waded on to a ledge of rocks which projected a hundred yards from the mainland eastward of the mouth of the inlet. The tide had served them well by carrying them a little to the eastward. They sat a moment on the rocks to recover their strength — while the seagulls flew wailing over them — and for the first time they took in the full gravity of the catastrophe. Every other man in the boat had perished — so they judged, for there was no stir on shore. On that they uttered some expressions of pity and of thankfulness; and then, stung to action by the chill wind, which set their teeth chattering, they got to their f
eet and scrambled painfully along the rocks until they reached the marshy bank of the inlet. Thence a pilgrimage scarcely less painful, through gorse and rushes, brought them at the end of ten minutes to the jetty.

  Here, too, all was quiet. If any of O’Sullivan Og’s party had saved themselves they were not to be seen, nor was there any indication that the accident was known on shore. It was still early, but little after six, the day Sunday; and apart from the cackling of poultry, and the grunting of hogs, no sound came from O’Sullivan’s house or the hovels about it.

  While Colonel John had been picking his way over the rocks and between the gorse bushes, his thoughts had not been idle; and now, without hesitation, he made along the jetty until the masts of the French sloop loomed beside it. He boarded the vessel by a plank and looked round him. There was no watch on deck, but a murmur of talk came from the forecastle and a melancholy voice piping a French song rose from the depths of the cabin. Colonel John bade Bale follow him — they were shivering from head to foot — and descended the companion.

  The singer was Captain Augustin. He lay on his back in his bunk, while his mate, between sleep and waking, formed an unwilling audience.

  Tout mal chaussé, tout mal vêtu,

  sang the Captain in a doleful voice,

  Pauvre marin, d’où reviens-tu?

  Tout doux! Tout doux!

  With the last word on his lips, he called on the name of his Maker, for he saw two half-naked, dripping figures peering at him through the open door. For the moment he took them, by the dim light, for the revenants of drowned men; while his mate, a Breton, rose on his elbow and shrieked aloud.

  It was only when Colonel John called them by name that they were reassured, lost their fears, and recognised in the pallid figures before them their late passenger and his attendant. Then, as the two Frenchmen sprang to their feet, the cabin rang with oaths and invocations, with Mon Dieu! and Ma foi! Immediately clothes were fetched, and rough cloths to dry the visitors and restore warmth to their limbs, and cognac and food — for the two were half starved. Meantime, and while these comforts were being administered, and half the crew, crouching about the companion, listened, and volleys of questions rained upon him, Colonel John told very shortly the tale of their adventures, of the fate that had menaced them, and their narrow escape. In return he learned that the Frenchmen were virtually prisoners.

  “They have taken our equipage, cursed dogs!” Augustin explained, refraining with difficulty from a dance of rage. “The rudder, the sails, they are not, see you! They have locked all in the house on shore, that we may not go by night, you understand. And by day the ship of war beyond, Spanish it is possible, pirate for certain, goes about to sink us if we move! Ah, sacré nom, that I had never seen this land of swine!”

  “Have they a guard over the rudder and the sails?” Colonel John asked, pausing to speak with the food half way to his mouth.

  “I know not. What matter?”

  “If not, it were not hard to regain them,” Colonel John said, with an odd light in his eyes.

  “And the ship of war beyond? What would she be doing?”

  “While the fog lies?” Colonel John replied. “Nothing.”

  “The fog?” Augustin exclaimed. He clapped his hand to his head, ran up the companion and as quickly returned. A skipper is in a low way who, whatever his position, has no eye for the weather; and he felt the tacit reproach. “Name of Names!” he cried. “There is a fog like the inside of Jonah’s whale! For the ship beyond I snap the finger at her! She is not! Then forward, mes braves! Yet tranquil! They have taken the arms!”

  “Ay?” Colonel John said, still eating. “Is that so? Then it seems to me we must retake them. That first.”

  “What, you?” Augustin exclaimed.

  “Why not?” Colonel John responded, looking round him, a twinkle in his eye. “The goods of his host are in a manner of speaking the house of his host. And it is the duty — as I said once before.”

  “But is it not that they are — of your kin?”

  “That is the reason,” Colonel John answered cryptically, and to the skipper’s surprise. But that surprise lasted a very short time. “Listen to me,” the Colonel continued. “This goes farther than you think, and to cure it we must not stop short. Let me speak, and do you, my friends, listen. Courage, and I will give you not only freedom but a good bargain.”

  The skipper stared. “How so?” he asked.

  Then Colonel John unfolded the plan on which he had been meditating while the waves lapped his smarting chin, while the gorse bushes pricked his feet, and the stones gibed them. It was a great plan, and before all things a bold one; so bold that Augustin gasped as it unfolded itself, and the seamen, who, with the freedom of foreign sailors in a ship of fortune, crowded the foot of the companion, opened their eyes.

  Augustin smacked his lips. “It is what you call magnifique!” he said. “But,” he shrugged his shoulders, “it is not possible!”

  “If the fog holds?”

  “But if it — what you call — lifts? What then, eh?”

  “Through how many storms have you ridden?” the Colonel answered. “Yet if the mast had gone?”

  “We had gone! Vraiment!

  “That did not keep you ashore.”

  Augustin cogitated over this for a while. Then, “But we are eight only,” he objected. “Myself, nine.”

  “And two are eleven,” Colonel John replied.

  “We do not know the ground.”

  “I do.”

  The skipper shrugged his shoulders.

  “And they have treated you — but you know how they have treated you,” Colonel John went on, appealing to the lower motive.

  The group of seamen who stood about the door growled seamen’s oaths.

  “There are things that seem hard,” the Colonel continued, “and being begun, pouf! they are done while you think of them!”

  Captain Augustin of Bordeaux swelled out his breast. “That is true,” he said. “I have done things like that.”

  “Then do one more!”

  The skipper’s eyes surveyed the men’s faces. He caught the spark in their eyes. “I will do it,” he cried.

  “Good!” Colonel John cried. “The arms first!”

  CHAPTER XIII

  A SLIP

  Flavia McMurrough enjoyed one advantage over her partners in conspiracy. She could rise on the morning after the night of the bonfires with a clear head and an appetite undiminished by punch; and probably she was the only one at Morristown of whom this could be said. The morning light did not break for her on aching eyelids and a brain at once too retentive of the boasts of the small hours and too sensitive to the perils of the day to come. Colonel John had scarcely passed away under guard, old Darby had scarcely made his first round — with many an ominous shake of the head — the slatternly serving-boys had scarcely risen from their beds in the passages, before she was afoot, gay as a lark, and trilling like one; with spirits prepared for the best or the worst which the day might bring forth — though she foresaw only the best — and undepressed even by the blanket of mist that shrouded lake and hills and all the world from view.

  If the past night, with its wassail and its mirth, its toasts and its loud-voiced bragging, might be called “the great night of Morristown,” this, the girl promised herself, should more truly and more fitly be styled “the great day of Ireland.” On this day would they begin a work the end of which no man could see, but which, to the close of time, should shed a lustre on the name of McMurrough. No more should their native land be swept along, a chained slave, a handmaid, in the train of a more brutal, a more violent, and a more stupid people! From this day Ireland’s valour, that had never known fit leading, should be recognised for what it was, her wit be turned to good uses, her old traditions be revived in the light of new glories. The tears rose to the girl’s eyes, her bosom heaved, her heart seemed too large for her, as she pictured the fruition of the work to be begun this day, and with clasped
hands and prayerful eyes sang her morning hymn.

  No more should an Irish gentleman walk swordless and shamed among his equals. No more should the gallant beast he had bred be seized with contumely in the market-place. No more should all the nobler services of his native land be closed to him, his faith be banned, his priests proscribed! No more should he be driven to sell his valour to the highest bidder, and pour forth his blood in foreign causes, under the walls of old Vienna, and on every stricken field from Almanza to the Don. For on this day Ireland should rouse herself from the long nightmare, the oppression of centuries. She should remember her greatness of old time and the blessing of Patrick; and those who had enslaved her, those who had scorned her and flouted her, should learn the strength of hands nerved by the love of God and the love of country! This day at Morristown the day should break.

  The tears gushed from her eyes as she thought of this, and with an overflowing heart thanked Heaven for the grace and favour that assigned her a part in the work. And the halo formed of those tears ennobled all she saw about her. The men, still sprawling up and down the courtyard in the abandonment of drink, her brother calling with a pale face and querulous oaths for a cooling draught, Sir Donny and old Tim Burke, yawning off, like the old topers they were, the effects of the carouse — the cause and her hopes ennobled all. It was much — may she be forgiven! — if, in the first enthusiasm of the morning, she gave a single thought to the misguided kinsman whose opposition had hurried him into trouble, and exposed him to dangers at which she vaguely guessed.

  Fool that he was, she reflected, to pit himself against such men as the Bishop and the Spanish Admiral! From her window she saw the two walking in the garden with bent heads, aloof from the yawning crowd, and now appearing beyond the line of Florence yews, now vanishing behind them. On which she came near to worshipping them. Had they not brought to Ireland, to Kerry, to Morristown, the craft and skill in counsel, the sagacity and courage, which had won for them the favour of foreign kings, and raised them high in exile? Lacking their guidance, the movement might have come to nothing, the most enthusiastic must have wasted their strength. But they were here to inspire, to lead, to control. Against such men the parlour-captains of Tralee, the encroaching Pettys, and their like, must fail indeed. And before more worthy opponents arrived to encounter the patriots, who could say what battles might not be won, what allies gained?