Kitabı oku: «Commodore Junk», sayfa 21
Chapter Thirty Eight
Last Words
The officer who led the strong boat’s crew to the rescue, guided by some of Captain Armstrong’s men who had escaped weeks before and after terrible privations at last found help, drew back and signed to his followers.
It was enough. Hats were doffed, and a strange silence reigned in the gloomy chamber as Humphrey knelt there holding the dead hand in his till he was touched upon the shoulder, and looking up slowly, half-stunned by the event, it was to meet the pale, drawn face of Bart.
“Do they know, captain?” he whispered, meaningly.
For a few moments Humphrey did not realise the import of his question, till he turned and gazed down once more upon the stern, handsome face fixing rigidly in death.
“No,” he said quickly, as he drew a handkerchief from his breast and softly spread it over the face of the dead. “It is our secret – ours alone.”
“Hah!” sighed Bart, and he drew back for a moment, and then gave Humphrey an imploring look before advancing once more, going down upon his knee, and taking and kissing the cold hand lying across the motionless breast.
“Captain Humphrey Armstrong, I think!” said the officer of the rescue party.
“Yes,” said Humphrey, in a dreamy way.
“We were just in time, it seems.”
“Yes,” said Humphrey, with a dazed look.
“I’m glad you are safe, sir; and this is – ”
He had not finished his sentence when one of Black Mazzard’s men yelled out —
“The Commodore – our captain – sir!”
“Once,” said Humphrey, roused by the ruffian’s words, and gazing sharply round; “but one who spared my life, sir, and with this poor fellow here defended me from that dead scoundrel and his gang!”
As he spoke he spurned the body of Black Mazzard, who had hardly stirred since he received Bart’s bullet.
“I am at your service, Captain Armstrong,” said the officer, “and will take my instructions from you.”
“For the wretches taken in arms, sir, I have nothing to say; but for this poor wounded fellow I ask proper help and protection. I will be answerable for him.”
Bart looked at him quickly and reeled slightly as he limped to his side.
“Thank ye, captain,” he said. “I ought to hate you, but she loved you, and that’s enough for me. If I don’t see you again, sir – God bless you and good-bye!”
“But we shall see each other again, Bart, and I hope – here, quick!” he cried, “help here; the poor fellow is fainting from loss of blood!”
Bart was borne off to be tended by the surgeon, and Humphrey Armstrong stood gazing down at the motionless form at his feet.
He did not speak for some minutes, and all around respected his sorrow by standing aloof; but he turned at last to the officer —
“I ask honourable burial, sir, for the dead – dead to save my life.”
The officer bowed gravely, and then turned away to give a few short, sharp orders to his men, who signed to their prisoners.
These were rapidly marched down to the boats, two and two, till it came to the turn of Dinny, who stood with Mrs Greenheys clinging to him, trembling with dread.
“Now, my fine fellow,” said the warrant officer who had the prisoners in charge; “this way.”
“Sure, and ye’ll let me have a wurrud wid the captain first?”
“No nonsense. Come along!”
“Sure, an’ he’d like to shpake to me wan wurrud,” said Dinny. “Wouldn’t ye, sor!”
Humphrey, who was standing with his arms folded, wrapped in thought, looked up sharply on hearing the familiar tones of the Irishman’s voice.
“There, what did I tell ye, sor?” he cried. “Sure, an’ I’m not a buccaneer by trade – only a prishner.”
Humphrey strode up, for Mrs Greenheys had run to him with clasped hands.
“I’d take it kindly of ye, sor, if ye’d explain me position to these gintlemen – that I’m not an inimy, but a friend.”
“Yes,” said Humphrey, turning to the officer in command; “a very good friend to me, sir, and one who would be glad to serve the king.”
“Or anny wan else who behave dacently to him.”
“Let him tend his companion,” said Humphrey. “He is a good nurse for a wounded man.”
Mistress Greenheys caught Humphrey’s hand and kissed it.
“But she would have betrayed us,” he said to himself, as he looked down into the little woman’s tearful face; “still, it was for the sake of the man she loved.”
That night, covered with the English flag, which she had so often defied, the so-called Commodore Junk was borne to the resting-place selected by Humphrey Armstrong.
It was a solemn scene as the roughly-made bier was borne by lantern-light through the dark arcade of the forest, and the sailors looked up wonderingly at the strange aspect of the mouldering old pile.
But their wonder increased as they entered the gloomy temple, and the yellow light of their lanterns fell upon the flag-draped coffin in the centre, and the weird-looking figures seated round.
Side by side with the remains of her brother, Mary Dell was laid and then draped with the same flag, spread by Humphrey Armstrong’s hands, the picture exciting the wonder of the officer in command, to whom it all seemed mysterious and strange. Greater wonder than all, though, was that Humphrey Armstrong, lately a prisoner of the famous buccaneer who had been laid to rest, should display such deep emotion as he slowly left the spot.
As he stepped outside volleys were fired by the men, and as the reports of the pieces rumbled through the antique building, and echoed in the cavernous cenote, the reverberation loosened some portion of the roof over the vast reservoir; an avalanche of stone falling with a reverberating hollow splash, and a great bird flew out and disappeared in the darkness overhead.
Three days later, laden with the valuable plunder amassed by the buccaneers, and a vast amount consigned to the flames in pursuance of the orders to thoroughly destroy the hornets’-nest, the rescue ship set sail, in company with the buccaneer’s fast schooner, the prize Humphrey Armstrong once longed to take into Dartmouth Harbour. But the sight of the warship’s consort only gave him pain now as he lay in his berth or reclined helplessly on deck, suffering from the serious fever which supervened.
“It’s a curious whim,” said the captain of the ship to his lieutenant. “One would have thought he’d rather have had a couple of decent sailors to tend him, and not those two fellows, who must have been regular pirates in their time.”
But it was so. Humphrey Armstrong was not content without Bart or Dinny at his side all through his severe illness, which lasted till they were nearing home.
During the voyage he learned by degrees the whole history of the escape of the relics of his crew, consequent upon the division in the camp and the chaotic state of discipline which obtained among the buccaneers during the latter days. He heard more, too, of their struggles to reach a port, and of the rescue which had been planned and successfully carried out.
One evening as Humphrey Armstrong sat on deck wondering to himself that he could be so changed as to look with distaste upon the western shores of England, gilded by the evening sun, he became conscious of another presence close behind, and looking sharply round it was to see the haggard, worn face of Bart as he stood there, bent and terribly changed by mental suffering, and his wounds.
As he saw Humphrey Armstrong gaze wonderingly at him he raised one hand and pointed to the dimly-seen cliff line, ruddy in the western glow.
“Home, sir,” he cried, hoarsely.
“Yes, Bart, home,” said Humphrey, gloomily. “What are you going to do!”
“You know best, sir. Prison, or the rope!”
Humphrey started sadly, and held out his hand, which the rough fellow, after a momentary hesitation, took.
“Bart, my lad,” said Humphrey, “why not take the old cottage and settle down to your former life! I should like it if you’d do this thing. Will you!”
“Will I!” said the poor fellow in suffocating tones. “God bless you, sir! You’ve made me happier than I ever hoped to be again.”
“Take it or buy it, Bart, as soon as you reach home. I wish it done, only it is to be kept unchanged, as we two keep her secret.”
A fortnight had passed, during which period Humphrey Armstrong had kept himself quite in seclusion, when in obedience to a stern resolve he journeyed slowly up to town.
He had good excuse for his dilatory ways, being still far from strong; but now he was bound on the task of performing what he told himself was his duty – that of going straight to Lady Jenny Wildersey, confessing every thing in an open, manly way, and begging her to set him free from the engagement he had made.
“I could not marry such a woman now,” he said to himself again and again; “she would drive me mad!”
It was a hard struggle, but he was determined to carry it through, and one morning he crossed the Park and the Mall, and made his way straight into Saint James’s Square.
Everything looked the same, except himself, for he was bronzed and worn, and his countenance displayed a scar. But he was as brightly dressed as on the day he called to say fare well, for he had had to attend at the admiral’s to give an account of his proceedings, and had found, to his surprise, that not only was the loss of his ship condoned by the complete rooting out of the buccaneers, but he had been promoted, and was shortly to engage in another expedition, this time to the East.
Saint James’s Square looked just as of old, and the same servant opened to his hasty knock and met him with a smile.
He had come without sending notice, and he had made no inquiry since his landing, telling himself that it was better so; and now, strung up for his painful task, he strode into the great marble-paved hall.
“Ask Lady Jenny if she will see me – a private interview,” he said to the ponderous old butler who came forward as the footman closed the door.
“Lady Jenny, sir? The countess is at the lakes with his lordship.”
“The countess! I said Lady Jenny.”
“Yes, sir,” said the old butler with a smile. “We always speak of her young ladyship now as the countess.”
“The countess! Why, you don’t mean – ”
“Yes, sir; she was married to the Earl of Winterleyton a year ago, sir. His lordship’s town house is a hundred and ten Queen Square, and Hallybury, Bassenthwaite, sir.”
“Oh!” said Humphrey, calmly; “I have been to the West Indies, and had not heard the news.”
He nodded good-humouredly to the old butler, and went off across the square.
“Now, it’s my belief,” said the old butler, “that he’s another on ’em as her young ladyship was always a-leading on!”
“Thank Heaven!” said Humphrey, with a sigh of relief; and he went and behaved like an Englishman, for he walked straight to his club, ordered his dinner, and for the first time for months thoroughly enjoyed it; while as he sat afterwards over the remains of his bottle of fine old Carbonell port – a wine that was likely to restore some of the lost blood to his veins – he filled his glass slowly, thought of his next expedition, and that it with its earnest work would be the best remedy for a mind diseased, and made up his mind that if he could persuade him to leave his newly-made wife he would have Dinny for one of his men.
“And old Bart, too, if he will serve,” he said half aloud. Then two or three times over, as a pretty, powdered-and-painted image, all silk and gewgaws and flowers, filled his imagination, “What a release! Thank Heaven!”
At last there was but one glass left in the bottle, and raising the handled basket in which it reclined, he carefully poured it out, and held it up, seeming to see in the candle-lit, ruby rays a torrid land, a sun-browned face, and two dark, imploring eyes gazing into his till they grew dewy, and all around him seemed to be blurred and dim. He was almost alone in the great club-room, for the various diners had risen and gone, and for the time being the long, gloomy place seemed to be the old prison chamber, with its stone altar and great carven idol gazing stolidly down upon him as he said softly:
“Mary Dell! True woman! I shall never love again!”
He drained the glass to the memory of Commodore Junk, and, stubborn Englishman to the last, he kept his word.
