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Was it, after all, a mistake that she should have given this man her
solicitude and confidence?
A knock at the door fell almost as loudly upon her ears as the
crash of ordnance had done. When a second and sharper knock
resounded, she summoned her voice to answer.
“Madame, it is I,” came in low tones from without. “If you can find
it convenient to open—”
At the sound of the voice she gained courage. Monsieur had come
to her. Trembling, yet still undismayed, she crept to the door and
opened it.
The face of the Frenchman was dark and impassive. If the night
had brought a new resolution to her, it was plain that monsieur was
in no wise different from yesterday. All this she noted while her hand
still clung falteringly to the knob of the door.
“Madame,” he began, “the matter is most urgent. If it will please
you to follow me—”
Mistress Barbara with difficulty found her tongue.
“Where, monsieur. What—”
“Madame, I pray that you will make haste. There is little time to
lose. I should be at this moment upon the deck.”
“Monsieur would take me—?”
“Below the water-line, madame. There will be a fight. Shots may
be fired. I would have you in safety.”
Alas for Mistress Barbara’s crafty plans and gentle resolutions. In a
moment they were dissipated by the imperturbability, the tepid
indifference of his manner, which should have been so different in
the face of a situation which promised so much that was ominous to
her. His coolness fell about her like a bucket of water, and sent a
righteous anger to her rescue, so that her chill terror was driven
forth for the nonce by a flush of hot blood. When she spoke, her
voice rang clear with a certain bitter courage.
 “Safety!” she cried. “Monsieur is too kind. I shall prefer to be killed
here—here in the decent privacy of the cabin.”
“Madame,” said he, in impatience, “it is no time for delay. There
must be no obstacle to your obedience.”
She looked at him in an angry wonder. If this were mock insult, it
had too undisguised a taste to be quite palatable.
“Monsieur,” she said, stamping her foot in a rage, “I go nowhere
for you. Nowhere. I will die before I follow you. Battle or no battle,
here I shall remain. Am I a lackey or a woman-of-all-work that you
order me thus! Safety! If you value my safety, why do you permit
them to make war over my very head? No, no. You are transparent—
a very tissue of falsities. I read you as an open book, monsieur.”
She paused a moment for the lack of breath.
“I do not believe in you. How do you repay me for what I have
done? Refuse me, deny me, and order me about like a willful child
with your insolent glare and your cool, puckered brow. What is my
safety to you? I do not believe—”
“Madame, you must come at once.”
“Never!” she cried. “Never! No power shall move me from the
spot. Nothing—” At this moment a crash ten times more dreadful
than the first shook the vessel like a hundred thunderbolts.
Cornbury, in blissful ignorance of the battle raging below, had
opened the battle above with the entire starboard broadside.
Mistress Barbara stammered, faltered, and fell back towards the
table, trembling with fear. She put her hands to her ears as though
to blot out the sounds. And then, in a supplicating dependence
which set at naught all the hot words that had poured from her lips,
she leaned forward listlessly upon the table.
“Take me,” she said, brokenly. “Take me. I am all humility. I will
go, monsieur.”
 A soft light she had seen there before crept into the eyes of Bras-
de-Fer. As though unconscious, she saw his extended arms thrust
forward to her support and heard as from a distance the resonant
voice, the notes of which, with a strange, sweet insistence, sang
among her emotions until, like lute strings, they sang and trembled
in return. And the chord which they awoke to melody rang through
every fiber of her being with a new-pulsing joy, a splendid delight,
like the full-throated song of praise of a bird at early morn.
She felt his hand seek hers. She made no move to resist him. She
could not. Something in the break of his voice, the reverence in his
touch, sought and subdued her. In a moment she learned that the
love of a life had come and that all else was as nothing.
“Barbara! Barbara!” he was saying. “Look at me, chérie. Tell me
that you are not angry. I have tried so hard to leave you—so hard. I
have spoken to you bitterly and coldly, that your mind might be
poisoned and frozen against me, that you might hate and despise
me for the unworthy thing that I am. Alas! it is my own heart that I
have pierced and broken. Look up at me, Barbara. I cannot bear to
see you thus. Ah, if you had only opposed me in anger, I could have
continued the deception. Your anger was my refuge. It was the only
thing that made my cruelty possible. It cried aloud like a naked
sword. I welcomed it, and set steel upon steel that I might shield my
heart. But now, listless, yielding, submissive, you disarm me, you rob
me of my only weapon. I am yours. Do with me what you will.”
His voice trembled, and he bent his head upon her hand to hide
the excess of his emotion. As she felt the touch of his lips, she
started and moved ever so slightly, but with no effort to withdraw.
When he lifted his head it was to meet eyes that wavered and
looked away.
“Do not turn from me, Barbara. Do not add to the deep measure
of my contrition. The cup is full. Add to it but one drop and it will
overflow. Requite me with tenderness, madame, if you can find it in
your heart, for mine is very near to breaking. Look in my eyes,
where my love glows like a beacon. Listen, and you will hear it speak
in my voice like a young god. Can you not feel my very finger-tips
singing into your palms the cadences of my heart’s chorus? Is it not
thus that women wish to be loved? Search my heart as you will,
you’ll find an answer there to every wish and every prayer.”
She trembled and swayed in his arms like a slender shrub in a
storm. It seemed as though, in his fervor, he were running the
gamut of her every vulnerable sensibility. But as she felt his breath
warm upon her hair and cheek she raised her eyes until they looked
into his; then drew away from him with a gentle firmness. She was
perturbed and shaken with the compounding of new emotions. She
could not see all things clearly. She only knew that what she had
expected least had come to pass. She had burnished her woman’s
weapons in vain. She had sought to delude and beguile, and had
only deluded and beguiled herself. As she had promised herself, she
had drawn aside the mask, but she had unmasked herself at the
same time. She had sought and she had found so many things that
she knew not which way to turn. She must do something to gain
time to think and plan. It was all so different to London. In spite of
herself, she knew that he had conquered, and a suffusion of shame
that she had been so easily won mounted to her neck and forehead,
and she turned her head away. And then, in a last obedience to that
instinct of self-preservation which sets a woman upon the defensive
when she knows not what she would defend (nor would defend it if
she could), she broke away from him and stood alone, pulsing with
the effort, but triumphant.
“Monsieur,” she breathed with difficulty, “it is unfair—to—to—press
me so.”
But he was relentless. “Ah, madame, am I then despised, as on
that night in Dorset Gardens? Nay, I am as God made me—not the
thing you would have supposed—”
“Monsieur, have pity.”
“Ah, then look at me again, Barbara. Look in my face and deny.
Look in my eyes, chérie—deny me if you can.”
 She felt his arms encircle her, and she struggled faintly.
“No, no. It is not so.”
“Look me in the eyes, Barbara; I will not believe it else. If I am
nothing to you, look me in the eyes and tell me so.”
“No! No! No!”
She raised her face until her closed eyes were on a level with his
own. Then she opened them with an effort to look at him, as though
to speak.
A deafening crash again shook the Sally, so that the ship’s dry
bones rattled and quivered under their feet like a being with the
ague, and she seemed about to shake her timbers asunder. Mistress
Barbara’s answer was not spoken, for at this rude sound a fit of
trembling seized her again and she sank listlessly into the protecting
shelter of his arms, and hid her face upon his bosom in a
commingling of terror and wonderment that were only half real.
“No, no,” she sobbed at last, “it is not true. It is not true.”
Bras-de-Fer bent over her in a blind adoration and gently touched
his lips to her hair. She made no further effort to resist him. Then,
when the tear-stained face was raised to his own, in her eyes he
read a different answer to his pleading.
“Bien adorée!” he whispered, kissing her tenderly—“Barbara!”
The hand within his own tightened and the lissome figure came
closer to his own. “Take me away, monsieur,” she murmured. “Take
me away. Oh, I am so weary—so weary.”
“Struggle no more,” he whispered. “Courage; all will yet be well.
Come with me below to safety, and it will soon be over.”
He had moved away from her towards the door, and would have
withdrawn his hand, but she held it with both of her own while her
eyes looked into his with an anxious query.
 “Oh, I,” he said, with a smile—“I shall be in no danger, madame.
That I promise you. ’Tis but a Spanish merchantman, with little skill
in war. Why, Sally will run her aboard in the skipping of a shot. And
now”—as they moved towards the door—“but a little while and I
shall be with you again, to keep guard over your door, to keep guard
upon you always—always.”
 CHAPTER XV
MUTINY

S he summoned all her courage, and Bras-de-Fer led her forward

along the passage upon the deck to the other hatch. Yan Gratz,
Jacquard, and the crew were crowded at the broadside guns, and at
the sight of monsieur the Dutchman’s face broke into a pasty smile
as he sneered to his neighbor.
“Vos dis a schip or Vitehall Palace? Pots blitz!” And he spat
demonstratively.
But Bras-de-Fer was handing my lady down the hatch into the
after-hold, with a gesture into which he put even more of a manner
than the occasion demanded. Jacquard had gone down before with
a lighted lantern, and had unfastened the hatch of the lazaretto, the
opening of which made a murky patch in the obscurity. Mistress
Barbara shuddered a little and drew back, but the strong arm of
monsieur encircled her waist, his firm hand reassured her own, and
his low voice spoke in even accents.
“These are chests of gold and silver, jewels and silks, madame”;
and then, “It is here that we keep our priceless captures,” he
whispered, smiling. “Sit in comfort. The water-line is above, where
you see the beams o’erhead. In a little while I will come again, and
all will be well.” He pressed the trembling hand in both his own, and
she saw him follow the long figure of Jacquard, who with sympathy
and discretion, of which his glum demeanor gave no indication, had
left the light hanging to a timber and gone growling above.
Alone with the swaying lantern, the beams and bulkheads, the
boxes and chests, she gave herself over to her own turbulent
reflections. There was a swish and hollow gurgle at her very ear as
the seas alongside washed astern, a creaking and a groaning of the
timbers, which made her tremble for the stanchness of the vessel.
The boxes and chests resolved themselves into great square patches
of light which thrust their staring presence forward obtrusively; and
the vagrant diagonal shadow took a new direction and meaning in
the misty darkness beyond the sphere of light at each new posture
of the vessel. Strange odors—musty, dry, and evil-smelling—afflicted
her nostrils; and the air, hot and fetid, hung about her and upon her
offensively. Breathing became a muscular exertion and an effort of
the will. She bit her lip and clenched her hands upon the chest
where she was seated, to keep from crying aloud her misery and
terror. Suddenly there was a sound of rending and tearing among
the complaining timbers, and the guns above renewed their angry
threats. One, two, three, four single discharges she heard, a
scattering broadside, and then silence. Again that chorus of
unfamiliar sounds, each one of which spoke to her in a different way
of danger in some new and dreadful form. Presently the clamorous
sea sang a louder, wilder note, the timbers cried aloud in their
distress, the lantern swung sharply in abrupt and shortening circles,
and the shadows, like arms, thrust out at her from the unseen and
filled her with a new and nameless terror. The motion of the vessel
was sickening. And the black, noisome air, from which there was no
escape, seemed to fill her very brain and poison her faculties.
With a blind effort she arose, and in affright at she knew not what
crept up the ladder to the hatch. It were better to die the death at
once than to be poisoned by inches. She drank gratefully of the
purer air above her and listened to the sounds of shouting from the
deck. There was a shock and a crash as the ships came together,
and then all sounds, save at intervals, were lost in the grinding of
the vessels and the roar of the sea between. She heard several shots
as though at a great distance, but these were as nothing after the
noise of the great guns, and she almost smiled as she thought how
easily the victory was accomplished.
And he—had monsieur come off free of harm? She trembled a
little at the thought of it, and yet even the trembling had in it
something of a new and singular delight. With her eyes free to roam
in the gray of the half-deck, where there was air, if ever so faint, and
the sweet smell of the sea, she thought no more of herself. The
silence above boded no ill. She heard nothing but the wash of the
sea alongside, the creaking and clatter of blocks on the deck, and
the craunch of the ships to the roll of the sea. At last the sound of
voices was nearer and louder, whether in anger, fear, or pleasure she
could not discover; then the tramping of heavy boots and the
rushing of men forward and aft; but no sound of shot or clash of
steel, to remind her of her continued jeopardy. Five, ten minutes she
listened, all her faculties alert for the sound of his voice. The
grinding of the vessels ceased, and when the main-deck hatch was
removed she could hear quite plainly the sounds upon the deck. The
voices of men in fierce disputation fell hollowly down through a crack
in the narrow aperture. One was thin and small, like that of a child.
Another was heavy and gruff, and cursed volubly in French. Sharper
tones rang between and through it all, the roar or continuous
murmur of a crowd. Something had fallen amiss, she was sure.
Suddenly, as though a spell had fallen upon their tongues, the
clamor was hushed, and in the brief second of desperation the sea
noises about her sang loudly in her ears, which strained to catch
every sound.
At last a single voice, slow, calm, dispassionate, began to speak; it
was his. She emerged upon the half-deck in order that nothing of
what was passing might escape her, and leaned upon the ladder,
looking to where the daylight flickered down.
“Your humor is changed wondrously, mes amis. You ask many
things, not the least of which is this Spaniard’s death. You, Yan
Gratz, and you, Barthier, Troc, and Duquesnoy, you, Craik and Goetz,
stand aside. I grant nothing—nothing—where I see the gleam of a
weapon naked. Sheathe your cutlasses and stand aside. Then,
maybe, we shall see.”
There was an ominous movement of scraping feet, a clatter of
weapons, and then a hoarse turmoil, a very bedlam of sounds, a
wild scratching and scuffling upon the deck, and hoarse, dreadful
cries, savage and fierce, like the bark of hungry dogs, yet, with its
ringing accompaniment of clanging steel, infinitely more terrible. Half
mad with the terror at this struggle, of which she could see nothing,
faint and weak with the accumulation of her distresses, she hung
more dead than alive to the companion-ladder, in one moment
shutting her ears to the mad din above her, in another listening
eagerly for the broken fragments of sound, fearful that the end of all
things might come in one of those merciful moments in which she
heard nothing. She thrust her hand into her breast and pulled forth
the slender petronel which she had brought from the San Isidro. She
looked at the shining barrel and saw to the flint and charge. There
should be no hesitation. If monsieur—
But no! no! He was there yet. She heard his voice, strong, valiant,
ringing like a clarion above the medley: “Aha, Cornbury!” it cried.
“Point and edge, mon ami!... Your pupils are too apt, Monsieur le
Maître d’Armes.... Ah, Craik, would you?... Voilà ... touché,
Duquesnoy ... touché, mais ... ce n’est rien!... Well struck,
Cornbury!... Jacquard, help us, coquin!... To the rail ... back to back
... we will drive them ... into the sea!”
The rushing feet clattered over her head and she heard the sound
of his voice no more. She wondered whether it was because it rang
no more that she did not hear it, or whether her terror and her
weakness had deprived her of her senses. The seconds grew into
hours. Broken cries and curses in strange, harsh voices came to her
again, and she knew that she heard aright; the sound of blows, the
hard breathing of men, all swallowed in the many noises of the
combat, and at the last the fall of something muffled, heavy, and
resistless upon the deck came with a new and dreadful portent to
her ears. She stifled the shriek which rose to her lips and pressed
her hands to her bosom to still its tremors. That dull, echoless sound
could have but one meaning.
She stood inert, her mind and body things apart. She could not
bring herself into accord with the too obtrusive fact, and wondered
aimlessly that her ear caught at the cries of the complaining timbers
and rush of water alongside, rather than at the vortex of her life’s
tragedy which whirled just at her elbow. And thus, in a merciful
tempering of her spirit to the occasion she hung swaying to the
ladder, her mind gaining a cool and purposeful self-possession which
was to nerve her frail body to further efforts. If monsieur were dead,
then she had but to die also. She knew that she must keep her
strength, for if she lost consciousness they would come below and
find her; and when she awoke—alive and alone upon this horrible
ship— The thought gave a new life to her energies, and she
determined to put an end at once to the uncertainty. Anything were
better than the suspense which each moment made the danger of
weakness more imminent. Step by step she crept up the staggering
ladder until her head had reached the level of the hatch above. Then
she pushed aside the covering, and, the pistolet in her nerveless
fingers, peered forth upon deck.
Joy gave her new strength and energy. There against the
bulwarks, pale and breathless, but erect and strong, with the light of
battle still undiminished in his eyes, was Bras-de-Fer; while around
him in a wide, snarling circle were a dozen of the wolves of the
Saucy Sally, ready to spring in upon him, and yet each fearful to be
the first to bite. There was a smell of rum in the air, and a broken
cask told a part of the cause of the difficulty. Upon the deck curious
loose distortions made a ghastly parody of the flesh which they had
been. All these things she noted in a glance, but her eyes fell
instinctively upon the figure of a tall man, the one who had lighted
her below, who was brandishing his arms, not at monsieur, but
towards a stout man in baggy breeches, who stood defiantly blinking
at him, raising first a pistol and then a sword towards Bras-de-Fer in
a manner not to be misinterpreted. Here was the key to the
situation. He was not then quite alone. But as she looked a thrill of
horror came over her. Two men fell upon the tall man from behind
and seized his arms. Then the fat man leaned forward towards
monsieur, with an oily, vicious smile. He said nothing at all, but,
keeping his sword in front of him, with his left hand, slowly and with
a grim deliberation, raised his pistol into a line.
Barbara’s wild cry rang from one end of the deck to the other.
Regardless of her own danger and scarce responsible, she was flying
across the intervening space towards Yan Gratz. The startled
Dutchman, disconcerted for a moment by this unfamiliar sound,
turned, his mouth agape, his pistol pointing purposeless at the
empty air. “Stop!” she cried, supremely imperious, yet affrighted at
the sound of her own voice. “Stop! You must not! I command you!”
Yan Gratz paused, uncertain for a moment. He looked at this
gentle adversary as though he did not know whether to scowl or
laugh. Then his lumpy face broke into a smile and his lifted brows
puckered his forehead into innumerable wrinkles. The pistol dropped
to his side.
“Aw—yaw—you commandt me?”—he began wagging his head
—“but who in de name o’ Cott vhas you?”
Then for the first time his eye fell upon the pistolet which Mistress
Barbara still held tightly clutched in her extended hand. In her
solicitude for monsieur she had forgotten herself and the weapon,
which now, still unconsciously, she pointed directly at the portly
person of Yan Gratz. He stammered and fell back a pace in
amazement. The diversion was sufficient. For by this time Jacquard
had struggled to his feet, and, throwing aside the fellows who were
holding him, had rushed in and seized the pistol from the hand of
the Dutchman before he could use it. At the same moment Bras-de-
Fer, with a fierce cry, had sprung forward among the amazed
mutineers and had taken Barbara under the cover of his weapon.
“Listen, mes camarades!” roared Jacquard above the confusion,
waving the pistol in wide, commanding circles. “Listen, mes braves,
and you will not regret. Listen, I say. It is I, Jacquard, who speaks.
Wait but a moment and hear me. Listen. And when I am done you
will say old Jacquard is wise.” His ungainly figure towered before
them—the swinging arms like great wings, the hooked brows and
curved beak making him look not unlike some gigantic bird of prey
ready at a moment to fall upon any who denied him. At last, such
was his influence that they were brought to a measure of calmness.
Then with crafty deliberation he began to speak.
“Ah, mes galants, we have hunted together long, you and I, and
we have hunted well. Last year you drank or spent or gamed a
thousand pounds away. To-day the hold and lazaretto of old Sally
are full of Spanish silks and laces and plate for the selling. In Port
Royal are other ships which will yield ye more. And you will sacrifice
these ships and these cargoes and all the money they’ll bring to
you.”
Many cries arose, the loudest of which was that of Yan Gratz.
“Sacrifice de schips, Shacky Shackart! Py Cott! It is a lie, verdomd!”
“It is so, mateys, I will swear it. Kill monsieur, yonder, and not one
shilling from the ships do you get. Why? In Port Royal monsieur
showed his warrant to the governor. The governor has a certain
share in the takings from the Isidro. ’Twill be a strange tale ye’ll tell
if Bras-de-Fer comes not back with the ship. The master-at-arms
ye’ve killed, if I mistake not. He’s captain in his Majesty’s Guards.
Perhaps ye can explain that.”
Anxious glances passed among the rascals as they looked first at
monsieur and then at Jacquard. But Yan Gratz was not to be
deceived or robbed of his vengeance.
“Donner vetter!” he cried. “Ay, yai. Vhat tifference it makes? De
varrant is de varrant of Pilly Vinch; no odder—I am as goot a man as
him. Tunder of der Teufel! I vill make a call mineself upon de
covernor of Chamaica.”
In answer to this sally, Jacquard burst into a loud laugh. “Ha, ha!
Ye’re swelled out of all proper dimensions, Yan Gratz. Ye forget that
Monsieur the Governor and Monsieur Bras-de-Fer are friends. Listen,
then, to what I propose. Bras-de-Fer will write us a letter saying that
you or I may receive the ships for our owners. In return we will give
monsieur and madame the pinnace and let them go whither they
will.”
“No, py Cott!” roared Gratz, furious at being balked of his
vengeance. “He shall not get avay from me!”
There was a mingling of opinions, loudly and profanely expressed,
and it looked for the moment as though the strife would be
renewed. Yan Gratz’s Dutchmen stood by him to a man. And while
the gleaming sword and pistolet of monsieur held them at a safe
distance, they sought by their shouting of wild threats to make up
for their other deficiencies. Barbara, hid behind Bras-de-Fer, sought
valiantly to match her courage to his, but with pale face and quaking
limbs she awaited the decision upon which rested his life or death,
and hers. It mattered little which it was to be. She had suffered so
much that anything—anything which brought rest—would be
welcome. But monsieur had lost no whit of his aggressiveness. If he
was silent, it was because silence was best. With a keen eye he
noted the effect of the speech of Jacquard. He saw that his
compatriot had chosen wisely in leaving his sword undrawn. Thus
Jacquard retained his influence with the crew, whose sympathy and
arms he could not have swayed alone against Yan Gratz. Had
Jacquard drawn his weapon, all would have been lost. As it was,
Bras-de-Fer noted that the larger number of the crew were wagging
and nodding their heads in a propitious deliberation. Frenchmen,
many of them, they were willing to forget the discipline and
restriction of their liberties. Only one of them, Duquesnoy, had
joined in the conflict against their compatriot. Duquesnoy was dead.
They would be satisfied now if the cause of their grievances was
removed. There was a way which offered complete compensation.
With Bras-de-Fer marooned with his lady and his imperious notions,
they would be free to lead the life which Billy Winch had not
scrupled to deny them.
Barthier, gray-haired, pock-marked, earringed, shoved his huge
frame before Yan Gratz.
 “We have deliberated, Yan Gratz,” said he. “Jacquard has spoken
the truth. Monsieur has fought well. He has bought his life, and that
of his lady. San Salvador is distant but twenty leagues to the south.
We will give them provisions for a week, weapons, and the pinnace,
and set them free.”
Gratz glared around at him and past Barthier at the row of grim,
hairy faces; and he knew that he was defeated. With an ill grace he
sheathed his sword, thrust his pistol in his belt, and, muttering,
waddled forward into the forecastle with his following.
When they were gone, Bras-de-Fer fell upon his knees beside a
figure upon the deck at his feet. He lifted Cornbury’s head upon his
knee, and, calling for a pannikin of rum, forced a small quantity of
the fluid between the lips of the Irishman. Jacquard felt for his
heart, and Barbara tore a bit of her skirt to stanch the flow of blood.
They bathed his forehead with water, and in a moment were
rewarded by a flicker of the eyelid and a painful intaking of the
breath. Presently, resting upon Jacquard’s knee, he opened his eyes
and heaved a deep sigh.
“I am near spent,” he muttered. And then, as his eye caught those
of Bras-de-Fer, a smile with the faintest glimmer of professional pride
twitched at his lip.
“Ah, monsieur,” he said, “did I not teach them well their thrust and
parry?”
“Too well, indeed; Destouches himself could not have done better.
I would you had given them less skill, mon ami.”
“’Twas Craik—my favorite stroke—in tierce,” he gasped, and then
his head fell back against Jacquard. Presently he revived and looked
at Barbara and Bras-de-Fer, while another smile played at the corner
of his blue eye.
“Madame,” he whispered to Barbara—“madame, he has loved ye
long and well. Take him to London and there serve him as a
boucanier and renegado should be served. Take him prisoner to yer
house and yer heart, and keep him there for as long as ye both shall
live.” A spasm of pain shot across his features, and he clutched at
his wound. “Bedad,” he said, “but the plaguy thing burns at me like
an ember. It’s nearly over, I’m thinking. René,” he cried, “my dear
man, if ye tell them at the barracks that I was brought to my death
by the low thrust in tierce in the hands of such a lout, I’ll come from
my grave and smite ye. An’ if ye see my brother, the Earl, ye may tell
him for me—to send my pittance to—”
The effort had been too much for his waning strength. His eyes
closed again. And this time they did not open.
 CHAPTER XVI
MAROONED

J acquard conducted Mistress Barbara aft to the cabin until the boat
could be prepared. And Monsieur silently followed, his eyes dim
with tears at the loss of this friend to whose helpful skill both he and
Mistress Barbara owed their lives. When they were safe within,
Jacquard blurted forth:
“It was the best I could do, monsieur, the very best I could do.
The danger is not yet past. There is no safety for you or madame
upon the same ship with Yan Gratz.”
Bras-de-Fer silently wrung his hands.
“It is a desperate journey for a lady tried already to the point of
breaking, Jacquard. If they would but land us—”
“Ah, monsieur. It were madness to try them again. Have you not
seen their temper?”
“No, no, monsieur, I am strong!” cried Barbara. “See! I am strong.
Let us leave this dreadful charnel-ship. If I must die, let it be alone
upon the broad ocean. That at least is clean of evil intent.”
“Nay, madame,” continued the Frenchman. “If they would but sail
us—”
“No, no. Let us go at once. I can meet death bravely if need be,
but not here.”
“Monsieur, it will not be so bad,” broke in Jacquard. “The sea has
gone down, and, although a long swell is running, it is low and
smooth. A fair breeze draws from the west. The pinnace is stanch.
The day is young. By the morrow you should raise the palms of
Guanahani above the sea. I shall see you well provided with food,
water, and weapons. Upon San Salvador are friendly Caribs, and in
due course—”
“Mon ami,” said Bras-de-Fer at last, “you are right. Were it not for
madame, perhaps, I should yet make some small effort to establish
myself upon the Sally. They have beaten me, but I am grieving little.
I have no stomach for this life, my friend. The letting of blood in any
but honest warfare sickens me and turns me to water. I leave the
dogs without regret. But you, you and my gallant Cornbury.” He
paused a moment, his hand to his brow, then raised his head with a
glad smile.
“Jacquard, will you not come with us? If we get safe ashore I can
perhaps give you a service which will requite you.”
But Jacquard was wagging his head.
“No, no, monsieur. It is too late. I am too old a bird. Would ye clip
the eagle’s wings? Would ye pen the old falcon in a gilded humming-
bird cage? I’ve chosen to fly broadly, and broadly I’ll fly till some
stray bullet ends my flapping. And now make ready, madame. A
warm cloak against the night air, a pillow—for boat-thwarts are none
too soft; and when ye are ready I shall be at the door.” And he
vanished, his bullet head, with its round wool cap, scraping at the
door-jamb as he passed.
When he had gone, Barbara sank upon the bench at the table.
Had it not been for the strong arms of Bras-de-Fer she must have
fallen to the deck. Tired nature, overwrought nerves, rebellious,
refused to obey.
“But a little while, Barbara, dear, and we will be alone. Courage,
brave one! Courage! We will soon gain the shore. Then, a ship—and
—life!”
“Ah, monsieur, I am weary. So weary that I fear for this journey in
the open boat. God grant we may reach its ending.” Her head fell
forward upon his breast and she breathed heavily as one in a deep
sleep.
 He laid her gently so that her arms rested upon the table. Then he
quickly prepared a package of articles which would be most
necessary for her. Jewels there were and a packet of his own money.
He found a flask of eau-de-vie, and when he had aroused her he
gently forced her to drink a half-tumbler of it mixed with water.
Presently Jacquard and Barthier came with the papers for him to
sign. When this was done they all went upon the deck. The Spanish
prize lay at a distance of several cables’ lengths, and, from a
movement among the spars, was getting under way in charge of the
prize crew. Alongside, at the starboard gangway, rode the pinnace.
It looked so small, so masterless and helpless, by the side of the
larger vessels in that infinity of ocean, that Mistress Barbara shivered
as she looked down into it. But one glance around the decks to
where the prostrate figures had lain reconciled her to her lot.
Between Bras-de-Fer and Jacquard there was but one hearty
hand-shake. The very lack of more effusive demonstration between
them meant more than many words could have done. And as
monsieur passed over the gangway and down into the vessel there
was little in his demeanor to show the sting of his defeat at the
hands of these devils of the sea, whom he had sought, and
unsuccessfully, to bring into the domain of a proper humanity. A
scornful laugh broke from among the men as he disappeared over
the side, and Yan Gratz, waving a pistol, piped obscene threats and
criticism from the quarter-deck. But presently, when Mistress
Barbara had been slung over the side in a whip from the main-yard,
Jacquard disappeared from the rail, and the falsetto of the
Dutchman was no longer heard.
The mast in the pinnace had been stepped, and the sail, strong
and serviceable, but none too large, flapped impatiently in the
breeze. And so when Barbara was seated, white and dark-eyed,
showing with a painful effort a last haughty disdain to the rascals at
the portholes and bulwarks, Bras-de-Fer shipped his tiller and hauled
his sheet aft to the wind. The little vessel bounced in a sprightly,
joyous fashion, the brown sail bulged stanchly, and in a moment a
patch of green water, ever growing wider, flashed and trembled
between the pinnace and the Saucy Sally. Among the row of dark
heads along the rail Bras-de-Fer looked for only one, and to him he
presently turned and raised his hat in salute. Jacquard replied; and
then his long arms went flying and his hoarse voice cried aloud the
orders to set the vessel upon her course. Presently the yards flew
around, the vessel squared away, and the Saucy Sally was but a
memory. A vessel nameless, without identity, was sailing away from
them upon the sea, and they were alone.
Barbara looked no more. She had seated herself upon the gratings
at the bottom of the craft, her arms resting upon the stern thwart.
But now that all immediate danger had passed and she sat safe and
at peace, the wonderful spirit and courage to which she had nerved
herself in a moment failed her. Her head fell forward upon her arms
and she sank inert and prone at the feet of the Frenchman. Scarce
realizing what had happened, yet fearful that some dreadful fate had
intervened to take his love from him, he dropped the tiller and fell
upon his knees by her side, his mind shaken by the agony of the
moment; for her face had taken a kind of waxen, leaden color more
terrifying than mere pallor, and the lips, save for a faint-blue tinge,
became under his very eyes of the same deathly hue. He dashed
handful after handful of the sea-water into her face and rubbed her
chill arms and hands. He poured a draught of the rum between her
cold lips. But she moved not. Beseech her as he might, there was no
response to his petitions. He sought the pulse; he could feel nothing.
The breath had ceased. Oh, God! Had the cup of happiness been
placed at their lips only to sip? Was it to be poured out before his
very eyes? He cried aloud in his agony and raised the face to his
own, kissing it again and again, as if by the warmth of his own
passion he could awaken it to life.
“My love! my love!” he cried. “Come back to me! Come back to me
again! Open thine eyes! Breathe but my name! Come back to me,
my love!”
 He had waited an eternity. At last, as he put his ear to her breast,
a sound, ever so faint, but still a sound, told him that the heart was
pulsing anew. He forced a generous draught of the rum through her
lips and madly renewed his efforts to arouse the blood. Several
moments more he struggled in pitiful suspense, and then a gentle
color flowed under the marble skin, a touch of pink rose to the blue
lips, the eyelids quivered a moment and then opened. He hauled the
sail to shield her from the glare of the sun, and held a cup of fresh
water to her lips. She looked at him, but no words came from her
lips. Instead, she breathed a sigh and with a faint smile relinquished
herself and fell back peacefully into his arms. Once or twice she
opened her eyes in an effort to speak, but each time he soothed her
and bade her rest. He was but a man, and it needed a gentler hand
to cope with such an emergency; but now that the danger was past
he felt instinctively that nature would seek in her own ways to
restore, and he let her lie quiet, pillowed in the curve of his arm
against his breast. And so, presently, her breathing was regular, and
she slept.
He could not know how long it had been since they left the Sally,
but by the sun he saw that there was yet an hour or two of the day.
The ships were become mere dull blotches upon the sky, and from
his position the lower tier of guns seemed just at the line of the sea.
Time was precious, for the land lay a full day’s sail, even should the
breeze continue to favor them, and he could not tell how long it
would blow thus steadily. Fearful of awakening Barbara and yet
anxious to take advantage of every favorable opportunity, he
reached for the sheet and tiller and set the little vessel upon her
course. She heeled gladly to the wind, and the coursing of the water
beneath her long keel made a sound grateful to his ears. He had
taken the Sally’s position upon the charts before leaving, and steered
a course which should surely fetch a sight of the land upon the
morrow. If the breeze held and the night were clear, he could steer
by the stars. He blessed the habits of his training, in which he had
studied the heavens in his night watches, wherever he might be.
There was no sign of any disturbance of the elements. The heavy
swell now and then shook the wind out of his tiny sail, but not a
cloud flecked the sky above him, and the sea which glittered and
sprang playfully at the sides of the pinnace seemed to beckon to him
gladly in hopeful augury for the hours to come.
The apprehensions that he had felt were dissipated in the mellow
glow of the southern sun. Had he been alone, this voyage in an
open boat over an unknown sea would have filled him with delight.
But the slender figure at his side, which lay pale and silent in the
shadow of the gunwale, filled him with vague alarms.
On, on into the void, the tiny vessel crept. The sun sank low in the
sky and dropped, a red ball, behind the disk of sea. The dusk swept
up over the ocean like the shadow of a storm, and night drew a
purplish curtain across the smiling heaven. The stars twinkled into
sudden life, and night fell, clear, warm, spangled, while the soft,
stealthy seas crept alongside and leaped and fawned at the shearing
prow of the pinnace. An arching moon arose and sailed, a silver
boat, high into the heavens. But Bras-de-Fer moved not and Barbara
still slept. Continually his keen eyes swept the dark rim of the
horizon for a blur of sail or the sign of any portentous movement of
the elements. He knew the horrors of this southern ocean, and the
catlike purring of the silken seas did not deceive him; for in the
swaying deep he could feel the great rhythmical pulse of the heart of
the sea, which spoke a continuous, sullen, ominous threat of
resistless might, ready at the turn of a mood to rise, engulf, and
devour.
By midnight the wind fell, and with the flapping of the idle sail
Barbara awoke.
She lay for some moments, her eyes winking at the swinging
stars, then pushed the cloak aside, lifted her head, and looked wide-
eyed around and into the face of Bras-de-Fer.
“I have slept?” she asked, bewildered—“I have slept in this boat?”
He bent forward over her eager delight.
 “The clock around, Barbara, dear. You were so weary, so weary, I
have let you rest.”
“Ah, yes, I remember. The Saucy Sally—”
“An evil dream, a nightmare. See; we are borne upon a fairy sea.
All the world is at peace. This infinity of beauty is ours—it is for us
alone.”
She shuddered a little and drew closer to him. “Oh, it is so vast, so
inscrutable, this treacherous, pitiless water! Have we come nearer to
the land?”
“Fifteen leagues at least. The wind has failed us but this half-hour.
After you have eaten and drunk you shall sleep again, and when you
awake I promise you land under the very lid of the eye.”
“And you—have you not slept?”
“Madame, I am a very owl of birds. But I have the hunger of a
lynx.”
Then while she took the helm he set before her the food which
Jacquard had provided. There were sea-biscuit, boucan, preserved
fruits from the store of the San Isidro, and a pannikin of rum-and-
water.
It was not until she ate that she discovered how hungry she was;
Bras-de-Fer had eaten nothing for eight-and-forty hours. And so like
two children they sat and supped hungrily. When the meal was
done, Bras-de-Fer arranged the bread-bags and the pillow so that
she might sleep in greater comfort, but she would not have it so.
“No, no,” she insisted, “I am well again and strong. If you do not
sleep I shall not.” And so resolute was her tone that he forbore to
press her further.
But sleep was the furthest from his own eyes. He felt not even the
faintest touch of weariness. She leaned back upon his arm again,
and so, hand in hand, they sat in their little vessel, mute and
spellbound at the completeness of their happiness, which even the
presence of grim danger was powerless to steal away from them.
The air was sweet and balmy and brushed their cheeks like the
breath from an angel’s wing. The first pungent aromatic odor of the
land reached their nostrils, mingled delicately with the salt of the
sea. In silence they watched the planets burn and glow red like
molten iron against the star-bepowdered sky, across which the placid
moon sailed down upon its promised course. Flying stars vied with
each other in the brightness of their illuminations in their honor. And
presently, shaming them into darkness, a giant meteor shot like a
flaming brand across the spacious sky, spurning and burying in its
splendid pathway a myriad of the lesser embers; which, when it was
done, peeped forth again timidly upon the velvet night, ashamed of
their small share in its glory. All of this they saw reflected doubly on
an ocean of gray satin, which sent the bright reflections in wriggling
rays like so many snakes of fire to mingle and play amid the glow of
the caressing surges, which gushed languidly at their very feet.
To have spoken would have been to break the spell which bound
them to the infinite. And so they sat enthroned in these wonderful
dominions of which for the nonce they were prince and princess.
“Thou art content?” he asked at last.
She did not answer him at once. When she did, it was softly and
with eyes which sought the distant horizon away from him.
“If to be content means to breathe freely, deeply, the pure air of
heaven, to thank God for the present, to care not what evil has been
or what evil may be, to be engulfed in quiet delight, to be swathed
in peace, then, monsieur, I am content.”
He flushed warmly, and the arm about her tightened. He sought
her lips with his own. She did not resist him. And so before the high,
effulgent altar of God’s heaven, with the surges for choristers, the
stars for candles, and the voices of the sentient night for company,
he plighted her his troth.
It was then that she swept away the only shadow that remained
upon their love. With head bowed, in deep contrition he told her of
his madness that first night upon the Saucy Sally, when he had
wildly railed at fate, at all things, and promised to wreak upon her
he knew not what dire vengeance.
“Our accounts are balanced, then,” she smiled. “We shall begin
anew. For I, too, have many times denied you in my heart and on
my lips. And I know that I have loved you always.”
“Adorée!” he whispered.
It was Barbara, as if to belie her own happiness, who first broke
the spell of witchery that had fallen upon them. Her eyes, which had
aimlessly sought the horizon, stopped and dilated as she fixed her
gaze upon one spot which trembled and swam in the light. Bras-de-
Fer started up, straining his eyes to where she pointed.
“Look!” she cried. “Is it—”
There, her rigging and sails clearly drawn in lines of ice, a
phantom of the thing that she was, hung a vessel. She had crept up
on some flaw of wind, her sail in the shadow, and now upon another
tack had thrown her white canvases to the reflection of the sky.
“It is no phantom,” cried monsieur, in delight. “A ship, Barbara,
chérie! By her build a man-of-war, not two leagues distant.”
“Will she have seen us, do you think?”
“If she has not, it will be but a matter of moments.”
He ran forward to where the provisions and weapons had been
put under a piece of pitched canvas. He drew forth a musket, and
loaded it with an extra charge of powder. Barbara put her fingers to
her ears as the gun roared forth its salute.
The silent night was split and riven asunder by the mighty echoes;
the robe of enchantment fell, the prince and princess were prince
and princess no longer. Barbara sighed. Their throne was but a
rugged boat and themselves but castaways wildly seeking a refuge.
The dream of an hour was over. But none the less she helped
monsieur load the muskets, and cried gladly when a flash and a puff
of smoke came from the side of the stranger, and the low
reverberation of the echoes of the shot told her that they were
rescued.
The ship came slowly down. ’Twas evident she brought the wind
with her, for about the pinnace all was a dead calm. Barbara’s
qualms that she, too, might be a boucanier were speedily set at rest;
for as she came nearer they discovered that she sat tall upon the
water, and the glint of her ordnance along her larboard streaks
proclaimed her trade. No sign of her nationality she gave until she
had come within long earshot. Then a round, honest English voice
rang heartily:
“Ahoy the boat! Who are ye? Whence d’ye come?”
To this Bras-de-Fer replied that they were castaways, marooned,
and in sore need of help. The ship, they learned, was his Majesty’s
Royal Maid, war brig of his excellency the governor of Jamaica.
“See, madame,” he murmured as the ship drew near. “’Tis
manifest you are my destiny. While you have frowned, Dame
Fortune would have none of me. And now she is benignity itself.” He
paused, sighing. “And yet I could almost wish she had not smiled so
soon.”
Her hand under cover of the cloak sought his. “Insatiable man,
can you not be content?”
“It was too, too sweet an enchantment to be so soon ended.”
“Nay,” she whispered. “It is but just begun.”

THE END
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