Kitabı oku: «Grace O'Malley. Machray Robert», sayfa 6
Telling Calvagh, who had come out of the fight without a scratch, to take what men he thought needful, I directed him to attack the forecastle, and at the same time protected his assault of it by a discharge from the poop of a small cannon I found there loaded. This position of the Spaniards, however, was one of such strength that they inflicted heavy loss upon us before they were all put to the sword.
We were now masters of the entire vessel, but its capture had cost us dear. Fifteen of the Irish were killed, and as many more wounded, several of them seriously; and when the sun rose across the dim outline of the hills away beyond Galway its rays fell upon decks that ran dark with blood, and upon a wearied band of men, whose gasping breath came and went in sobs of pain, now that the excitement was past, and who threw themselves down in sheer exhaustion. I myself was sore spent, but the day was only begun, and the rest of the wine fleet might come into view at any moment. Therefore I bade my men rise up as soon as they had rested somewhat, and then endeavoured to put the Capitana into sailing trim.
While this was being done I shaped our course for Inisheer, remaining on the Capitana myself with some of my crew, and sending Calvagh to take charge of The Cross of Blood. I also had the captain of the galleon brought before me, to see if I could get any information from him about the other ships of the fleet.
“Señor Captain,” said I, “the chance of war has delivered you and your ship to me. Ye fought well, and I am grieved that so many valiant souls no longer see the light; yet would I have spared them, as many as I could, but they would not. You are in no danger of your life, if you will but answer the questions I ask of you.”
I spoke in English, my knowledge of Spanish being slight, but I judged that the captain of a ship trading to Ireland, and particularly to the English city of Galway, would be certain to understand the English tongue. At first it appeared, however, as if he did not comprehend my words.
“Kill me, kill me!” he exclaimed in Spanish, while his face was distorted with impotent rage.
Replying to him mildly that I had no intention of putting him to death, I informed him that I had no sufficient acquaintance with his own language, and therefore I was unable to converse with him in it.
“You surely understand English,” said I.
One of the Irish who was on guard over him thrust a dagger into him for an inch or more before I knew what he would be about, whereupon the Spaniard cursed him and us and himself and his ship and the day he was born in as good English as ever I heard.
“I shall tell you nothing,” said he. “No, by St. Jago, nothing, nothing, nothing!”
I felt a pity for the man, and told one of those standing near me to fetch him some wine, and that as speedily as might be, and again asked him if he were resolved to die; but he merely glared at me like a wild animal, and I left him alone, reserving him to be questioned by Grace O’Malley.
When the wine was brought he drank it thirstily, saying, “If it is poisoned, so much the better.”
And now we drew near again to Inisheer. Rounding the Point of Trawkeera, we dropped anchor beside the two other galleys, and my mistress came on board of our prize. When I told her of the great fight the Spaniards had made, and what it had cost us to take the ship, she sighed and became pensive.
“We can ill afford so many men,” she said, “but the other ships of the wine fleet may be captured or destroyed more easily. Bring the captain of the galleon to me, and let me see if I can learn anything from him of his companions.”
“He will say nothing,” I exclaimed.
Grace O’Malley’s face grew dark, but she merely repeated her command. When the Spanish captain was fetched in, he was struck with amazement when he beheld a woman, young, handsome, and, as some thought, beautiful, who appeared to be the chief and leader of us all. At first he gazed at her as one who sees an apparition or a phantom.
“Madre de Dios! Madre de Dios!” he said aloud in his astonishment, and for some time acted as one might who suspected that his sense of sight was playing him a trick. He was faint and pale from loss of blood, and presented a piteous appearance.
“Free him from his bonds,” said Grace O’Malley, and I cut away the thongs that held him.
“Señor Captain,” continued she when this had been done, “I have a quarrel with the Governor of Connaught and the people of Galway, who have treated me despitefully, – therefore has your galleon been taken.”
“You, Señorita!” he said.
“I was beguiled with fair words and promises,” said she, “and then they made me a prisoner, but I escaped from them. War have I declared against them, and a great revenge shall I take. You, I hear, are a brave man, and I have need of such in this contest with the English. Will you join me?”
“That will I not,” said he; and I heard him muttering to himself, “She is a devil.”
“Better consider before you speak,” said I, seizing his arm roughly.
“Let me be, let me be,” said he, “for I am a dying man!” And he swooned upon the deck. Reviving in a few minutes, he staggered to his feet, whereupon I put my arm round him for his support.
“Where are the other ships of the fleet, tell me,” said Grace O’Malley, “and how many are there?”
“You can kill me,” said he, “and I shall thank you for it, but that which I know I shall never tell you.”
And again I heard him muttering, “Devil, devil!” and calling upon “Santiago” to protect him from her spells.
Grace O’Malley gazed at him, and of a sudden there was in her eyes – what I never looked to see in them on such an occasion – a dew of tears springing from an unsuspected fount of pity. After all, she was a woman, as I have said.
“You are a brave man and a true,” said she, “and I will not plague you more. Let him die in peace,” cried she to me, “if die he must.”
As I was about to place him with his back against a mast so as to ease him, he made a snatch at the dagger which was in my belt; his fingers closed over it, but even as he grasped it his lips parted and his spirit fled.
“God rest thee, thou gallant mariner of Spain!” said Grace O’Malley, when she saw that the captain of the galleon was dead.
“Amen,” cried I, for the firmness of the man had seemed to me a very noble thing.
CHAPTER IX.
A CHEST OF GOLD
The day had worn on to noon but without its brightness, for the sky had again become full of heavy clouds driven up from the west; the wind moaned and raved over land and sea, and the waves beat drearily upon the shore. The thunder rolled and the lightning flashed, while the pelting rain came down in huge drops that sounded on our decks like hail or the cracking of whips.
The ensanguined waters flowed in floods from the planking and the sides of the captured galleon, which lay like some great wounded monster of the deep, sweating blood. Closer into the land we steered, and so saved ourselves from the worst of the gale.
For the present all thoughts of searching for the other vessels of the fleet had to be given up, and fain was I to rest, for my wounds, though slight, were sore, and the dull aching of my shoulder was hard to bear. Seeing my state, Grace O’Malley bade me go to her own galley, where Eva would attend to my wounds with her gentle fingers, and then, perhaps, sing me to sleep with one of the songs of her people.
This command went so well with every beating of my heart that my pains were all but forgotten, and when I reached The Grey Wolf, Eva met me, and waited upon me, and made so much of the “Mountain of a Man,” as she often called me, that the only pangs I felt were those caused by my love for her – so much so that the tale of it was trembling on my lips, though I could not for the life of me put it into words, but dumbly looked, and longing – looked again and again at her.
Fool that I was, dolt that I was, not to have spoken then! But my tongue was tied, as with a ribbon of steel, and if one were to ask me why this was, I could not tell, nor can I now, looking back across the blunt edge of years. Yet here was such an opportunity, if I could have grasped it, but it passed.
Eva sang softly to me as I lay with my harness off on a couch, until I fell a-sleeping and a-dreaming, and all through the sleeping and the dreaming did I hear the sound of her singing, far off, indistinctly, and murmurous, like that of the brooks among the silent hills.
When I awoke, it was evening, and both she and Grace O’Malley were seated by my side. The storm had abated, and already a weak, watery moon was riding in the heavens, and, as I opened my eyes, its faint beams fell whitely upon the faces of my mistresses, so that to me, being still only half awake, they looked like spirits. I rose to a sitting posture, and felt that my strength had come back to me.
“Has your weariness left you?” asked Grace O’Malley, smiling kindly at me.
For answer I stretched my limbs and my body, and smiled at her without speaking, though the pain in my shoulder still troubled me, and I could not move without feeling it.
“While you have slept, Ruari,” she went on, “I have gone over as much of the galleon as might be in the hours of daylight at my disposal, and the riches in her are truly wonderful. Never saw I so great a store of all manner of things of value in a ship before. ’Tis a splendid spoil, and the merchants of Galway will have good cause to remember me, and Sir Nicholas will be beside himself with rage.”
“We have not yet finished with them or with Sir Nicholas,” said I. “The Capitana is not the only ship of the wine fleet.”
“Neither has Sir Nicholas done with us, I fear,” said Eva, sadly, “nor the people of Galway.”
“Sometimes it seems to me, Eva,” said Grace to her foster-sister, “as if you were only half an O’Malley.” Then she turned to me again. “Ruari, I have more to tell about the galleon. On board of her there is a chest of gold – all money of Spain, coined pieces, bearing the effigy of the late Emperor, Charles. Now, hearken! A strange, wild story goes with this chest of gold, and there is that in it which may concern us very closely.”
“Yes,” I said, my interest being keenly stirred as I guessed from the slow and almost solemn way in which she addressed me, that she had stumbled probably on some mystery of the sea – something, at any rate, unexpected and out of the way, and yet something that might touch us nearly. “Yes,” I said, watching her intently, “it is naught of evil import for us, surely?”
“That I know not as yet,” she replied. “Rather does it portend a benefit; time alone can tell. This is how we came to find the gold, and we might never have gotten it of ourselves – we were told of it.”
“How was that?”
“While our search through the galleon was being made, two men, bound in fetters and chained together, were discovered in a small, dark den, low down in the ship; a hole, indeed, so cunningly concealed from observation that even the very sailors on board the Capitana might not have known of its existence, if its being hidden from them were deemed necessary or expedient. The men were half-starved, and so utterly wretched that when they were brought into the light they were as the blind, and gibbered like idiots. What they say, now that they have come to themselves, is pitiful enough, and I believe they are telling the truth.”
“Who are they?” asked I, as she meditated on their story. “What account do they give of themselves? You have said nothing about the chest of gold.”
“One of them,” said she “tells me that he is a Geraldine, a near relative of Garrett, Earl of Desmond.”
“An Irishman!” I broke in.
“Yes, so he says, and I doubt it not,” said she. “The other is a Spaniard, Don Francisco de Vilela by name, a man of rank, if one may judge of him from his speech and carriage. But you will see them yourself shortly.”
“What is their explanation of their being prisoners on board of the galleon? Is it concerned with the chest of gold?”
“Yes, so they say,” she replied; “and they relate that before the Capitana left Spain they made a bargain with its captain to convey them to Ireland for a certain sum of money, which they paid over to him before he put out from port. Their compact with him was that they were to be landed at some lonely point or secluded place on our western coasts, and not at any town, such as Limerick or Galway.”
“Why was that?” I asked. “Doubtless the captain of the galleon made a similar inquiry of them.”
“They say he asked them no questions whatever,” replied she; “but he must have understood that they had some business of a very private nature, probably concerned with State affairs. Evidently that business lay with the native Irish, and not with the English, from whom they wished their movements to be kept secret, else would there have been no need to have avoided any of the English towns in Ireland.”
“It may be,” said I, for I could not help seeing the drift of her words, “that they are the bearers of some message from the King of Spain to the Earl of Desmond, or some other chief of the Irish.”
“You do not fall very short of the mark,” said she.
“But,” asked I, “how came it about, or what happened to cause them to be thrust into chains, and that on board a Spanish ship? Those who brought a message from the Spanish King would surely have been well-treated, and even honoured, by the captain of a ship coming out of Spain. Plainly, there is something here which fits not in with their narration.”
“They say that it was because of the chest of gold,” she replied. “The captain is dead, so that we shall never hear his version of the affair, but they affirm he could not withstand the temptation of the gold. Brave, as we know he was, and an excellent sailor, as they say he was reputed to be, yet would he have sold his very soul for gold.”
“How did he know of it?”
“So heavy a chest could hardly have been brought on board without his knowledge, and to conjecture what it contained was no such difficult matter. They did not conceal from him their anxiety for its safe-keeping, and one or other of them was always on guard over it. Anyone would have known, therefore, that it held a treasure of some kind. All went well until they reached the coast of Kerry, when, reminding the captain of their agreement with him, they requested him to send them, the chest, and the rest of their belongings ashore in a boat. The sea was very rough, however, and he assured them the thing was impossible.
“That might well have been the case,” said I.
“They therefore confided to him – what he most likely knew already – that they had come over on a secret embassy from the King of Spain, and besought him, by his fidelity to his King, to put them ashore. He protested that their landing at the time would be attended with difficulty, and even danger, and again refused their request.
“They expostulated with him, but in vain; he was not to be moved, having already, they say, determined that they should never deliver their message. Next they offered him a large sum of money, and, when he asked where they were to get it from, told him of the gold, but without informing him of the amount they had in the chest. Still, he would not give way, and, at length, on their continuing to urge him, he became sullen, angry and abusive, hurling many hurtful words at them in his wrath. His real reason, they began to fear, was not the roughness of the sea, for some sheltered bay or inlet with calm water might have easily been reached, had he so desired, but that he had resolved to possess himself of their treasure.”
“They had played into his hands by speaking of the contents of the chest,” I said.
“That was their mistake, and they have had to repent themselves of it. That same night, while they slept, they were seized, put into manacles, and thrown into the close and filthy den in which they were discovered by us.
“They saw the captain but once after their imprisonment, and he had told them – for their comfort – that it had been his original intention to fling them overboard, but that he had changed his mind, and would deliver them up, instead, to the English Governor of Connaught, when the ship arrived at Galway, as plotters against the peace of Ireland. Then they never would be heard of again, for all men knew of what sort of stuff Sir Nicholas Malby was made, and how short and sharp were his dealings with those who conspired against the Queen, once they were in his power.”
This was an evil hearing in regard to one who in his dying had shown a not unmanly kind of virtue; but who is there that does not know that gold is for most men the god of the whole earth? The story of the two struck me as being true, as it was stamped through and through with a sort of human naturalness. And I said as much.
“When the captain told them,” continued Grace O’Malley, “of the fate in store for them, they offered him all the gold they had in the chest if only he would let them go. But he answered them that it was his already, and that he had no intention of parting with it. If they lived, he would never feel safe – and the dead had no tongue. Hearing this, they gave up all hope, and abandoned themselves to the gloom of despair, cursing the captain for his perfidy.
“Then the storm came on, and the galleon drove hither and thither with the tempest. Their wretchedness increased, until they reflected that it would be better to perish by drowning than to live to undergo the torture and miserable death which Sir Nicholas would be certain to inflict upon them.”
“The tale,” I said, when I had pondered it for a few minutes, “does not sound to me as if it were false.”
“It was so far confirmed,” said Grace O’Malley, “inasmuch as the chest of gold, the possession of which worked their undoing, lay concealed in the cabin which the captain had occupied. For safe-keeping I had it removed to this galley.”
“Did they tell you,” said I, my thoughts reverting to what, after all, was the most important part of their statements, “what was the burden of their message from the King of Spain?”
“Not fully,” she replied, “and I forebore from questioning them more narrowly until they had recovered. They did say that Philip wishes well to Ireland, or rather, he loves not the English, who condemn him to his face, and singe his very beard. They hinted that the King had sent Don Francisco to spy out the land, and to become acquainted with the wishes of the princes and chiefs of the island.”
“For what purpose? To what end?”
“To encourage them to rebel against the Queen, by giving them such help as is within his power. At the same time, he does not wish to appear to be concerned in the affairs of Ireland at all.”
I had heard of Philip before as a man who was uncertain of purpose and infirm of will, timid when he should have been bold, and bold when he should have been timid; one who covered himself and his designs with a cloak of clumsy cunning which it required no skill to see through, and of deceit which deceived none of the least discerning of his enemies. Therefore said I not a word, but contented myself to wait for what my mistress might say further on the matter.
She was silent, however, and I could see from her rapt, indrawn look, that her thoughts had wandered far away from us and the galleys and the wine fleet – perhaps to Spain and its shifty King. I, too, was busy thinking, and, as I conceived that we had affairs immediately before us of more importance than even Philip of Spain, I made bold to interrupt her reveries.
“We can at least gather from the two men,” said I, “how many ships were in the wine fleet. The rest of them cannot now be far off from us.”
“Yes,” said she, rousing herself from her musings like one from slumber, “they informed me that there were nine galleons in the fleet when they left Cadiz, four of them were bound for Limerick and five for Galway.”
“Then there are still four ships for us to fight,” I exclaimed. “Let the chest of gold and the King of Spain wait, say I. Would it not be well, now that the wind has fallen, to send one of the galleys to keep a look-out?”
“Tibbot the Pilot,” she replied, “already watches the Sound in The Winged Horse. The galleons will most likely have been separated from each other by the recent storms, but if any one of them comes into sight we will quickly be apprised of it.”
“Have you not had enough of fighting for one day?” asked Eva.
“We have vowed vengeance on Galway,” I said, and Eva said no more, but sighed deeply.
There was a knocking at the door of the cabin, and a servant entered with the message that Don Francisco de Vilela and Dermot Fitzgerald desired speech of Grace O’Malley, to thank her for her kindness to them. Permission being granted, the two men soon made their appearance. They had eaten, had washed themselves, and were attired in fresh clothes taken from the supplies on board the galleon, and looked very different, I imagine, from what they had done when they had emerged from the hole in the Capitana, where they had been imprisoned.
Both of them bowed with a profound reverence to my mistresses, and I took note, even in the half-light, of the contrast they made as they stood together. The Irishman was fair and ruddy, the Spaniard dark and swarthy as most Spaniards are. Fitzgerald was tall – nearly as tall as myself – Don Francisco of the middle height, but having a very soldierly bearing and an air of resolution which his comrade lacked. Thus much I saw at a glance.
De Vilela was the first to speak, and his accent had all the smooth deference of the court rather than the rough sincerity of the camp.
“Señorita,” said he, “if you will suffer a poor gentleman of Spain to offer you his thanks – ”
“Madame,” said the Irishman, interrupting him impulsively, “I never dreamt the day would come when I should be glad to be a prisoner – ”
“Nay, nay!” quoth Grace O’Malley, “no more of that, I beg.”
The glance of the two men swept past her, de Vilela’s to fasten on Eva O’Malley, Fitzgerald’s on me, while my mistress made us known to each other. Then they entreated her to say what was her will in regard to them, and what ransom she demanded for their release. But she replied that she had not yet determined, and so put them off.
She conversed for some minutes with de Vilela, speaking to him of the West Indies, whither, it appeared, he had been in one of the very ships for which Tibbot the Pilot was watching – the San Millan de Simancas.
I now had had leisure to observe him more closely, and he gave me the impression of a man of high breeding. He discoursed with a tongue of winning sweetness, more like a woman’s than a man’s, and yet one had only to examine with a little carefulness the lines of his face to be convinced that these soft tones were like the fur over claws, and that there was nothing else of the feminine about him.
His companion, Fitzgerald, was of a very different type, although he, too, was of knightly birth – rash, unstable, easily swayed, but generous and warm of heart, with quick, unstudied manners, and no capacity for much besides the wielding of his sword.
Ever as the Spaniard spoke his dark, eloquent eyes wandered from one to another of us, resting with an absorbed intensity longest on Eva – a thing in no wise to be wondered at, but which I did not care to see, although I had no right to be jealous.
And then there broke upon the hush of the night, now grown still and calm, the zip-zap-swish, zip-zap-swish of the oars of a galley, quickly driven by its rowers through the water; there was the low, clear call of Tibbot as The Winged Horse came up towards us, while at his word the oars hung motionless and glistening in the pale moonlight, and I went out to hear what tidings he brought.
He reported that the tops of the masts of two large ships were to be seen on the horizon, and that there might be more, as the light was but faint owing to the clouds that still passed over the sky. I hastened back to inform my mistress of Tibbot’s news. The door of the cabin opened before I had reached it and Grace O’Malley appeared upon the scene, and as the door closed behind her I saw that Don Francisco was speaking earnestly to Eva, who, for her part, was listening to him with deep attention.
