It was not until the guns had been fired that the young lady appreciated the full danger they were in. Jack’s own feelings for the immediate time had been too tense to notice her. Now he saw that she was wringing her hands and tearlessly sobbing, her face as white as ashes. “Come, come, mistress!” said Dred, roughly. “‘Twon’t do no good for you to take on so. Be still, will you?”
The brusqueness of his speech silenced her somewhat. Jack saw her bite at her hand in the tense suppression she set upon herself.
“How far is it to the inlet?” said Jack, hoarsely.
“Half a mile,” said Dred.
Jack turned his head to look. “Mind your oars,” said Dred, sharply; “’tis no time to look now. I’ll mind the inlet. ‘Twon’t get us there any quicker for you to look. By blood!” he added, “she’s coming about again.”
The sloop was maybe a mile away; again it was coming about. “Now for it!” said Dred. “’Tis they or us this time.” Jack swung desperately to the oars. “That’s right – pull away! Every inch gained is that much longer life for all on us.”
The water was now dappled with white caps, and the swift wind drove the yawl plunging forward. The sloop was now set upon the same course that they were, only bearing toward them to head them off. As for them, their leeway was bringing them nearer and nearer the shore. Dred put down the helm a little further so as to keep the boat off the shoals. This lost them a little headway. Jack’s every faculty was bent upon rowing. The sea-gulls rose before them in dissolving flight – the cannon-shots had aroused them all along the shore, and Jack heard their clamor dimly and distantly through the turmoil of his own excited fears. His throat was dry and hot, and his mouth parched. He could hear the blood surging and thumping in his ears. He looked at the young lady as though in a dream, and saw dully that her face was very white and that she gripped the rail of the boat. Her knuckles were white with the strain, and he saw the shine of the rings upon her fingers. The sloop, as he looked at it, seemed to grow almost visibly larger to his eyes; it seemed to tower as it approached. He could see the figures of the men swarming upon the decks. He looked over his shoulder – the inlet was there. “Unship them oars,” said Dred sharply; “’tis sail or naught now.” Then as Jack, unshipping the oars, tipped the boat a little, Dred burst out hoarsely, “Steady, there, you bloody fool! what d’ye heave about so for?” Jack drew in the oars and laid them down across the thwarts, and again Dred burst out roughly: “Look out what ye’re doing! You’re scattering the water all over me.”
“I didn’t mean it,” said Jack; “I couldn’t help it.”
Dred glared at him, but did not reply. Jack looked over his shoulder; the broad mouth of the inlet was opening swiftly before them – the inlet and safety. Suddenly the bottom of the boat grated and hung upon the sand; and Jack, with a dreadful thrill, realized that they were aground. The young lady clutched the rail with both hands with a shriek as the boat careened on the bar, almost capsizing. Dred burst out with a terrible oath as he sprang up and drew in the sheets hand over hand. “Push her off!” he roared. Jack seized one of the oars; but before he could use it the yawl was free again and afloat, and once more Dred sat down, quickly running out the sheets.
Jack’s heart was beating and fluttering in his throat so that he almost choked with it. Dred did not look at the sloop at all. Some one was calling to them through a speaking-trumpet, but Jack could not distinguish the words, and Dred paid no attention to them. There was another puff of smoke, and this time a loud, booming report, and the almost instant splash and dash of the shot across their stern. Jack saw it all, dully and remotely. Why was Dred sailing across the mouth of the inlet instead of running into it? “Why don’t you run into the inlet, Dred?” he cried, shrilly. “Why don’t you run into the inlet? You’re losing time! They’ll be down upon us in a minute if you don’t run in!”
“You mind your own business,” shouted Dred, “and I’ll mind mine!” Then he added, “I’ve got to run up past the bar, ha’n’t I? I can’t run across the sand, can I?”
The sea-gulls were whirling and circling all about them, and the air was full of their screaming clamor.
“About!” called Dred, sharply; and he put down the helm.
Jack could see straight out of the inlet to the wide ocean beyond. It was a quarter of a mile away, and there was a white line of breakers. There was a loud, heavy report – startlingly loud to Jack’s ears – and a cannon-ball rushed, screeching, past them. He ducked his head, crouching down, and the young lady screamed out shrilly. Dred sat at the helm, as grim and as silent as fate. Again the bottom of the boat grated upon the sand. “My God!” burst out Jack, “we’re aground again!” Dred never stirred. The yawl grated and ground upon the sandy bar and then, once more, it was free.
Then Dred looked over his shoulder. He looked back. Then he looked over his shoulder again. “Get down, mistress!” he called out, sharply. “Get down in the bottom of the boat! They’re going to give us a volley.” Jack saw the glint of the sunlight upon the musket-barrels. The young lady looked at Dred with wide eyes. She seemed bewildered. “Get down!” cried out Dred, harshly. “Are you a fool? Get down, I say!” Jack reached out and caught her violently by the arm and dragged her down into the bottom of the boat. Even as he did so he saw a broken, irregular cloud of smoke shoot out from the side of the sloop. He shut his eyes spasmodically. There was a loud, rattling report. He heard the shrill piping and whistling of the bullets rushing toward them. There was a splashing and clipping. Would he be hurt? There was the jar of thudding bullets. There was a shock that seemed to numb his arm to the shoulder. He was hit. No; the bullet had struck the rail just beside his hand. He was unhurt. He opened his eyes. A vast rush of relief seemed to fill his soul. No one was hurt. The danger was past and gone. No! some of the pirates were about to fire again. There was a puff of smoke; then a broken cloud of smoke, a sharp report, another, and another; then three or four almost together. The bullets were humming and singing, clipping along the top of the water. One – two, struck with a thud against the side of the boat. Jack saw, in a blinded sort of way, that the sloop had come up into the wind; she could follow them no further. There were half a dozen puffs of smoke altogether. O God! would the dreadful danger never be past? Was there no way of escape?
“Ach!” cried out Dred, sharply.
Jack looked up with an agonizing, blinding terror. Was Dred hurt? No; he could not be. There was no sign of hurt. Was that a little tear in his shirt! O God! Was it real? Suddenly there was blood. O, it could not be. Yes; there was a great, wide stain of blood shooting out and spreading over his shirt! “O, Dred!” screamed Jack, shrilly.
“Sit down!” roared Dred. He put his hand to his stomach, at the side, and then there was blood in his hand. Suddenly there was a broken swirl and toss all around them. It was the broken ground-swell coming in past the shoals. The boat pitched and tossed. There was a thundering splash of breakers. Jack sprang up. “Steady!” cried out Dred. Jack’s blinded eyes saw that the pirate sloop was far away in the distance. Were they still shooting? He did not know. He saw everything with dizzy vision. O God! Dred’s shirt was all soaked with blood. What was it now? There was something. They were out in the ocean; that was it – the inlet was passed. “Oh – h!” groaned Dred, “I’m hurt – I’m hurt!”
CHAPTER XL
FIAT JUSTITIA
AS THE BOAT swept into the great lift and fall of the ocean swell, Dred had leaned forward and rested his forehead upon the tiller, which he still held. His body shook and heaved, and Jack sat like one turned to stone. The thought went through his mind, “He is dying – will he die as he sits there? Can it really be that he is dying?” Then Dred looked up, and his face was as white as ashes. Great beads of sweat stood on his forehead. “Some water,” he said, hoarsely; “give me some water, lad.”
Miss Eleanor Parker still lay in the bottom of the boat, whither Jack had dragged her. Jack went forward blindly across the thwarts and brought out a cup of water. His hand shook and trembled; his eyes saw, but did not see, what he was doing; his throat was constricted as though it would choke him. Then he came back with the cup of water. It slopped and spilled over his hand. Suddenly, Miss Eleanor Parker shrieked. She had aroused, and in her first glance had seen the blood. “Oh, what is it?” she cried. Dred had raised himself again from the tiller upon which he had been leaning, and he groaned. Jack pushed past the young lady without speaking to her or noticing her, and Dred reached out his hand for the cup of water. It shook, and part of the water spilled, as he put it to his lips and, throwing back his haggard face, drank it off. The young lady was sitting staring at him, white even to the very lips. “Oh! oh!” she moaned, wringing her hands, “oh! oh!” Jack panted, his breath coming hot in his dry mouth. He tried to moisten his lips again and again, but they remained dry.
The yawl, its course unheeded, had come up into the wind, rising and falling with the slow heaving of the ground-swell, the sail fluttering and flapping. Dred leaned with one elbow upon the seat beside him. “Ye’ll have to go up for’rd, mistress,” he said presently, in a hoarse voice, “I’ve got to do summat – I’ve got to do summat to stop this here place somehow. O Lord!” he groaned. She got up and went forward to the bow, where she crouched down, hiding her face in her hands. “Reach me that there shawl,” said Dred. “We’ve got to tear it up.”
Jack wrenched open the bundle, and with hands and teeth tore the shawl into strips. Dred had stripped off his shirt. Jack looked at him. He saw it, and he thrilled dreadfully and turned his eyes away. “Come, come, lad,” said Dred, “this be no time for any such-like foolishness. Well, give me that strip, I’ll do it for myself.”
The young lady still sat crouched down in the bow. It was all perfectly silent as Jack busied himself about Dred. “Are you more comfortable?” he said, at last.
“Yes,” said Dred. “M-m-m-m,” he groaned. “Let me lie down.” Jack had helped him on with his coat again, and had buttoned it under his chin. He had rolled up the shirt and thrown it overboard. “’Tis all right now, mistress,” he said; “you can come back here again now.”
He supported Dred as the wounded man lay down upon the stern thwart, then he covered him over with the overcoats. He did not leave him to help the young lady as she came aft to sit down upon the bench opposite to where Dred lay. Suddenly she burst out crying.
Dred lay with his eyes closed. His face was white and his forehead covered with a dew of sweat. He opened his eyes for a moment and looked at her, but said nothing, and closed them again. Jack, his breast heaving and panting, sat at the tiller. As he did so he saw that there were stains of blood upon it and upon the seat. Then he drew in the sheets, and the yawl once more came up to its course.
The pirates must have landed from the sloop, for they had come out across the land and down to the beach. They fired a few muskets-shots after the boat, but the bullets fell short, and Jack held the yawl steadily to her course, and soon they were dropping the hills of the inlet far and farther away behind.
After a while Dred began every now and then to sigh recurrently, and it was very dreadful to listen to him. All about them was the bright sunlight and the swift salt wind driving the boat onward with its tragic freight under the warm, mellow sky, so serenely calm and so remotely peaceful. Jack, sitting there, heard, as from a distance, the young lady’s convulsive sobbing. Suddenly Dred spoke hoarsely. “I want another drink of water,” he said.
“Will you get the water for him, mistress?” said Jack. Then he knew that he too was crying, and he wiped his eyes with the skirt of his jacket.
She instantly arose and went forward to the barraca in the bows, presently coming back with a brimming cup of water. Dred raised himself upon his elbow and drank it off, and again they sailed onward for a long time of silence.
Suddenly Dred spoke in a low, uncertain voice. “You’ve got to run ashore, lad,” he said. “I can’t stand this any more; I’ve got to get ashore.”
“Do you think I can get the boat through the breakers?” Jack said, chokingly.
“Ye’ll have to,” said Dred, groaning as he spoke, “for I can’t bear it here.” Then Jack drew in the sheets and brought the boat up with its bow diagonally toward the distant beach. The sand-hills of the inlet were lost in the distance, and all danger of pursuit was over. As the yawl drew nearer to the beach, Jack could see that very little surf was running. “You’ll have to bring her around with her bows to the sea,” whispered Dred, opening his eyes; “and then take to the oars – and let the surf drive her in to the beach. Try to keep her off – lad – keep her bows steady.” He panted as he spoke.
Jack left the tiller and shipped the oars. They were now close to the beach, and the ground-swell was sharpening to the breakers that burst into foam a little further in. He brought the bows of the boat around to the sea, and then backed water toward the shore. “Keep her off,” panted Dred, “she’ll go in fast – fast enough of herself.”
Presently they were among the breakers; they were not very heavy, but enough to make it needful to be careful. Suddenly, a coming breaker shot the yawl toward the beach. As the water ebbed, the boat tilted upon the sand. Jack dropped his oars and leaped out. The sweep of the next wave struck against the yawl and tilted it violently the other way. The barraca and the oars slid rattling. Dred groaned, and the young lady grasped convulsively at the rail. “Pull her up!” exclaimed Dred.
“I will,” said Jack, “but I can hardly manage her.” He held to the bows, and when the next wave came he pulled the boat around up upon the beach. The wash of the breaker ebbed, the sand sliding from under his heels. Then came another wave, and with its wash he dragged the yawl still further up the beach. Then he ran up with the bow-line and drove the anchor into the sand. He came back, his shoes and stockings and loose breeches soaked with the salt water. “You get out, mistress,” he said, “then I’ll help Dred.” She obeyed him silently, going a little distance up from the edge of the shore and there sitting crouched down upon the sand. “Now, Dred,” said Jack. Dred groaned as he arose slowly and laboriously. “Easy, easy, lad,” he whispered, as Jack slipped his arm around him. Then he laid his arm over Jack’s shoulder and heavily and painfully clambered out of the boat. He sat for a while upon the rail, the wash of a breaker sweeping up around his feet and ankles. “What a lucky thing ‘twas,” he said, looking down at the thin slide of water, “that we had high tide to carry us through the inlet, else we’d ‘a’ been lost.” Then Jack burst out crying. There seemed something very pitiful in Dred’s thinking about that now. After a while Dred steadied himself and then arose slowly, leaning heavily upon Jack, who supported him as he walked up to the little bank of sand that fronted upon the beach. Here the wounded man made an effort as though to sit down.
“Can’t you go a little further?” said Jack.
“Not much,” he whispered.
“O Dred!” said Jack, “I’m afraid you’re worse, I’m afraid you’re worse – ” Dred did not reply. His hand touched Jack’s cheek, and it felt cold and limp.
“What can I do?” said the young lady, rousing herself.
“You may fetch up the two overcoats from the boat,” Jack said, “and be quick about it.”
He had seated Dred upon the sand, where he instantly sank down and lay at length. Jack supported his head until the young lady came with the two rough overcoats. He rolled one of them up into a pillow which he slid beneath Dred’s head, and then he went down to the boat and brought up the oars, and with them and the other overcoat, he and the young lady arranged a shelter over the wounded man’s face.
“Bring me a drink of rum, lad; I feel sort of faint-like,” Dred whispered, and Jack again ran off down to the boat, presently returning with the bottle. He poured out some of the liquor into the cup, and Dred drank it off. It seemed to revive him. “Come here, lad, there’s summat – summat I want to say to ye.” Jack came close to him, and the young lady also approached. “I want to speak to – Jack hisself, mistress, – if you’ll leave us alone a bit,” said Dred; and then she turned and walked away.
Jack watched her as she sat down upon the sand some distance away, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. The sun stood midway in the heavens and it was very warm, and he stripped off his coat as he sat down alongside of Dred. Dred reached out his hand. Jack hesitated for a moment, then, seeing what he wanted, took it. Dred pressed Jack’s hand strongly. “I believe I’ve got my – dose, this time – lad,” he whispered.
“Don’t say that, Dred,” said Jack; “I – ” and then he broke down, his body shaking convulsively.
“I don’t know,” said Dred, “but I kind o’ think I – won’t get over this. But if I should die, I want to ax you, lad – don’t you never tell the young mistress ‘twas I – shot her brother.”
“No, I won’t,” gasped Jack. “I won’t tell her, Dred,” and again Dred pressed the hand he held.
He waited for a long, long while, – his breath every now and then catching convulsively, – thinking Dred might have something more to say; but the wounded man did not speak again, but lay there holding his hand. “Is that all, Dred?” he said at last. “Have you nothing more on your mind to say?”
Dred did not answer for a while. Then, as though collecting himself, “No – that’s all,” he said; and then again, presently, “I’ve been a bad man, I have. Well, I – can’t help that now – now – now,” and then he lapsed away into silence. He loosened his hold upon Jack’s hand and let his own fall limp.
Then Jack realized with a shock, how very much worse Dred was than he had been. He had been growing ever weaker and weaker, but Jack only fully realized it now. He sat watching; Dred seemed to be drowsing. “I want another drink of rum,” he whispered presently. “Another drink o’ rum – another drink o’ rum – drink o’ rum – drink o’ rum,” and he fell to repeating the words with lips that whispered more and more.
Jack arose instantly. The bottle and cup were at a little distance. The cup had sand in it, and he wiped it out. The young lady, who was sitting a little piece away, arose as she saw him coming. “Is he any better now?” she asked.
Jack could not answer; he shook his head. He knew that Dred was going to die. He was so blinded that he could hardly see to pour out the liquor. But he did so and then brought it to Dred. “Here ’tis, Dred,” he said, but there was no reply. “Here ’tis, Dred,” he said again, but still there was no answer.
Jack thrilled dreadfully. He bent down and set the cup to the wounded man’s lips, but Dred was unconscious of everything. Then he stood up and tossed out the liquor upon the sand. “Mistress!” he called out in a keen, startled voice – “mistress, come here quick! I do believe he’s passing.”
She came over and stood looking down at Dred. She was crying violently. Jack sat squatting beside him. He reached out and felt Dred’s hand, but it was very cold and inert. The young lady crouched down upon the other side, and so they sat for a long, long time. But there did not seem to be any change. The afternoon slowly waned toward sundown, and still they sat there. “You’d better go and rest a bit,” said Jack, at last, to the young lady. “You’re worn out with it all. I’ll call you if there’s any change.”
She shook her head; she would not go.
The sun sank lower and lower and at last set, but still there was no change. The young lady moved restlessly now and then. “You’d better get up and walk a bit,” said Jack, as the gray of twilight began to settle upon them. “You’re cramped, sitting there so long.” Then she got up and walked up and down at a little distance. Jack sat still. By and by he leaned over Dred. Dred had ceased breathing. A sharp pang shot through him. Was it over? Then suddenly Dred began again his convulsive breathing, and Jack drew back once more. The young lady still walked up and down, and the twilight settled more and more dim and obscure. There was a slight movement, and again Jack leaned over and touched Dred. He began breathing again, and again Jack sat down. Then there came a longer pause than usual in the breathing. It is over, thought Jack. But no; he breathed again, now fainter and shorter. He ceased. He breathed. He ceased. There was a long, long pause, then there was a rustling movement, and then silence. Was it over? Jack sat waiting, tremblingly and breathlessly, but there was no further sound. Then he reached over in the darkness and touched Dred’s face. He drew back his hand quickly and sat for a moment stunned and inert. He knew in an instant what it was. He arose.
The stars had begun to twinkle in the dim sky, but sky and sea and earth were blurred and lost to his flooded eyes. He walked over toward the young lady. She stopped as he approached. “How is he?” she said.
“He – he’s dead,” said Jack; and then he put up his arm across his face and began crying.