CHAPTER XXI.
THE VILLAIN'S DEN
'Twas as I have writ, a night vastly different from the precedent one, beautifully calm in this little channel, or river, with the moon arising behind the wood that bordered its eastern bank, and with a cool breeze coming from the sea and rustling through the leaves. And as the moon rose above the treetops she flooded all the river with light, making a great shadow of the Etoyle on the water, and also of the galliot.
I lay me down upon the deck of my craft wrapped in a boat-cloak, as soon as I had gotten things a little ship-shape for the night (I had anchored the galliot before I went off to the Snow), but sleep came not easily. There were, indeed, many things a-running through my brain. Firstly, there were my poor dead sailors sleeping below in the water-probably already food for the great variegated crabs that do here abound-whom I could not but lament, and especially Israel Cromby, with his dying thoughts of the poor old dependent mother at Rotherhithe. Then there was the position to be thought of in which I now stood. I had the galliot to get me away in, 'twas true, to the adjacent islands, some of which were inhabited by my own countrymen, and not far off neither-but, supposing I got back the treasure from the pirates, should I ever get it safe home to England? I knew not, as yet, how much it was; whether the casket was all or only a portion; whether also that portion was a huge mass of gold or silver, or a small one of jewels. Above all, should I get it in any form or shape whatever? Was it buried in the river ere the last of the pirates died, or were those two men alive, and had they got ashore and buried it there? Still my fatigues were such that, in spite of all my conflicting and unhappy thoughts, I slumbered at last. Long and peacefully I slept aboard the little craft, which had none other now but myself for its inhabitant, with the cool night wind blowing all over me, and freshening me as I lay.
Yet I awoke ere daylight had come-startled by something, I knew not what!
The moon was at her full height now, the channel was as light as day, 'twas that, I thought to myself, had waked me; and I turned over on my side to sleep again. Yet, as I dozed, and should soon have been gone again, once more I was disturbed. "Perhaps 'tis a beast," thought I, "in the wood, crashing through the undergrowth," – for such I fancied to be the sound-"perhaps 'tis-"but here I ended my speculations, for I saw what had aroused me.
'Twas the two villains, Alderly and his diver, a-standing on the bank of the river gazing into it. 'Twas their steps I had heard crunching on the underbrush.
Now it did so happen that our galliot had a cabin aft, with, cut into it on either side of the sternpost, two portholes, so that, lying here, I could very well see through those scuttles what they were a-doing without their seeing me. Whether they thought I was not in my vessel I could not guess; or whether they knew I was, having watched me all the latter part of the day from the wood, but deemed me now asleep, 'twas impossible for me to tell-yet doubtless 'twas the latter, since they seemed wary in their movements.
Yet was it obvious to me, watching them as I did, that both were still under the influence of the drink; as they stood gazing into the water, first one would give a lurch, then the other, or one would hiccough, and the other would curse him under his breath for making of a noise; and once the diver-whose name I knew not-nearly fell forward into the river, and would have done so, had not Alderly clutched him and hauled him back. And all the time the moon enabled me to see the latter's tawdry finery, all smirched with dirt, with powder and filth, and his broken feather in his hat, and the stains and grime about him, while, as for the other, he had nought but the coarsest of apparel upon him.
Now, seeing they were still drunk, I did begin to think they had a resort of some sort in this isle, perhaps comrades upon it from whom they could get drink, since 'twas hours since they had had any in the Snow. Which led me to reflect that, if there were more of these wretches here, my case was a bad one. However, watching of their actions drove these reflections from out my head, for a time at least.
Presently, one, Alderly, stoops him down, going on to his hands and knees and, baring his arm up to the shoulder, thrusts it into the water, and begins moving it backwards and forwards as though feeling for something in it. And shortly he found what he wanted, for he lifted up a stone as big as my head, with round it a rope that ran on, into, and under the water as he lifted of it up. This was easy to perceive, for the drops of water sparkled on it like diamonds as he held it at his end.
"Ha!" thinks I to myself. "I do guess what's at t'other end now. Well, well, we will see." Yet, as I so thought, I looked to my priming. I thought it would not be very long ere I should have to shoot these two ruffians, and take my chance of there being more of the same sort on the isle. But the time had not come yet, I did perceive, and meanwhile I lay perfectly snug watching their doings.
A moment after Alderly had gotten the stone and rope up, he threw away the former, and began, with his comrade's assistance, hauling and tugging at it, and presently they got ashore from under the water a long box of about four feet-though 'twas not what I expected to see, namely, the casket. This, I made sure, would have been fished up, but 'twas not. I never did see it again.
'Twas plain to observe there was no more to come, for no sooner was this box up than they made as though they would depart, Alderly letting the rope drop back gently into the water; and then, as I could see by his gestures, making signs to the diver to pick the box up and carry it. But this led to an argument between them; I could observe them shrugging of their shoulders with a drunken gravity, lurching about now and again as they did so, and stumbling against the box more than once; and then, suddenly, I perceived Alderly strike the other in the mouth and knock him down.
"Now," thinks I, "this leads to more things. If they go on like this, there will be only one pirate soon for me to contend with, so far as I know."
Even as I pondered, my words came true. The diver got up, whips out a long knife, and made a rush at the other-the weapon sparkling as though it was dipped in phosphorus in the rays of the moon-and in another moment they had closed together.
But Alderly was the best man of the two-which was perhaps why he was chief of the Etoyle-and ere long he had hold of the other's wrist with one hand and had got him round the body with the other. Then, by degrees, he did bring the body down until it lay across his own knee, face upwards, and having, as I did see, the strength of a bullock, or a vice, he forced the other's arm up and down, directing so his clenched hand that he compelled him to plunge his own dagger into his own breast. Once, twice, thrice, he did it! – the diver screaming with the first plunge of the knife into his bosom, groaning with the second, and with the third making no noise. Then Alderly lets go the diver's fist from out of his own, and frees his own body from his grasp, and down the diver fell to the brink of the river.
"You slew yourself," says he, looking down at him; "'twas your own knife that did it, your own hand that plunged it in." And here he laughed, an awful, blood-curdling laugh. The laugh of a maniac or a fiend! Then he put his foot to the dead man's body and tumbled it over into the river, so that I saw it no more. Next, seizing on to the long box-and nearly falling over it as he did so in his half-drunkenness-he lifted it on to his shoulder and went into the wood. Only, as he departed I saw him also lift up his foot and touch his shoe with his finger, and hold that finger up in the moon to look at; and then he gave again that awful laugh. He was a-laughing at the dead man's blood in which he had trampled!
"Now," says I, "is my time; I will find out if he can also slay me. At any rate he shall not escape without doing so," and with these words I lowered the boat again, got into it and went ashore-the distance from the galliot being not twenty yards. And then, securing of the boat to the trunk of a small tree by the river's brink, I plunged in after him to the wood. Only, you may be sure, I had my pistols with me and my sword.
At first the little wood was so dark that I could not see, or scarce see, the moon a-shining dimly through the thickness-a thickness all made of wild orange, citron, and pomegranate trees, as well as of campeachy trees, and mountain cabbage palms. Yet soon this wood opened out somewhat; there rose before my eyes a little glade, on which the moon did here shine as though on a sweet English field at home, and, reaching this, I perceived by stopping and looking carefully that my man had passed this way. The long grass was all trodden down-nay, so much so, that the two must have also come this way when they set out as comrades-and, since the imprints of the footsteps were most uneven and without regularity, I felt sure my drunken pirate had struggled and staggered along this track.
So across the little glade I went, following ever the irregular crushings down of the grass, until I came to where it was bordered by more thick underbrush and shrub, and then, even had I doubted I was on the steps of Alderly, I could do so no longer. For now through that thick brushwood and tangled growth of briar, and lacery of trailing things, there was crushed aside a most distinct opening through which a man, or men, must have passed, while, had I desired further proofs of where the man had gone whom I sought, it was before me. Lying on the brushwood, catched off and torn by a thorn, was the broken end of Alderly's red feather, the piece that had hung down over his savage face as he forced the diver to slay himself, and that gave, even in that awful moment, an appearance to him of almost comicality. A comicality, though, to cause a shudder!
Now did I, therefore, loosen my blade in its sheath and set my pistols in my belt carefully, for, since by this time I had gone a mile at least, 'twas not very like I should go much farther before coming on to the desperado, unless he should have turned off at an angle-a thing I could not judge he should have any reason to do. And so I went on very carefully, keeping ever a watch about and around me, so that I should fall into no trap.
Soon, however, I did perceive that the path turned, as I guessed it might perhaps do, and I thought the time was not yet come for me to get up with my chase, when, to my astonishment-in spite of my former ideas that there might be other buccaneers upon this isle-there came to me the sounds of singing and revelling, of shouting and whooping and drinking of healths, and clapping of canikins or glasses on a table.
"The health," I heard a voice shout, "of Winstanley, the diver of Liverpool, the man who strove to contend with Alderly. His health in the place where he is gone, and another to his taker off!" And then there followed the banging and smashing of drinking vessels on the table again, and huzzas and shriekings.
Next uprose a voice a-trolling of a song.
"When money's plenty, boys, we drink To drown our troubles, oh-oh! Carouse, revel, and never think, Upon the morrow, oh-oh!"
"When money's plenty," I heard Alderly repeat. "When money's plenty! Why, and so it is, my blithe lads. Look here in this box, my hearties. Here's enough and to spare for all. Diamonds, sapphires, pearls, gold and silver. Ha! ha! Drink, my lads. Give me the bowl. Peter Hynde, my lad, drink up, and you, Robert Birtson, and Will Magnus, you, and you, Petty, and Crow, and Moody, and fat John Coleman. Drink, you dogs, I say, drink."
"I have landed on a nest of them!" thinks I to myself. "A dozen at least, I believe. Well, I will lie hid awhile, and if they o'ermaster me, why-"
"When money's plenty, boys, we drink! And bring the girls along, oh! Of blood we've shed we never think, Midst dance and jocund song, oh!"
burst out the ruffian again. Then he yelled out, "A toast! a toast! The health of Phips and that accursed Crafer, whose blood I've drunk," at which I started. "So," thinks I, "he deems me dead. 'Tis perhaps best. Yet shall he learn," I muttered twixt my set lips, "that in spite of him and his horde I am alive-he shall-"
"And Bess, my Coromandel girl, bring in the meats!" the villain now shouted. "Ha! ha! here she comes with the steaming turtle! Fall to, my boys, fall to; and here comes our Queen of Port Royal, our golden-haired Barbara who loves us well. My lads! a health to the girl of Port Royal!"
And again there came the banging on the table of fists, then cans, and the voice of Alderly whooping and shouting.
"I must see this crew," I whispered to myself, "e'en though I die for it. I must see these ruffians in their den with their loathsome womankind. I have four shots in my belt, and a good sword. All must be drunk and I am sober! I will do some execution amongst them."
So through the brushwood I went a pace or so, parting the leaves as gently as might be-though that I should be heard there was no fear amidst the infernal clamour and din and shouting of Alderly.
Then, next, I saw before me a hut, or big cabin, built of logs, with a wide, open door and thatched with palm leaves; from out the door there gleamed the light of a lamp, and as I parted some boughs and bushes to get me a view, I could see very well into the hut.
And this is what I witnessed.
CHAPTER XXII.
MAD!
Inside the hut ran a long table on trestles; upon that table were platters and drinking vessels; on it also were some dried fruits, some pieces of dirty, coarse bread, and also some scraps of jerked beef, or, as 'tis called here in the Caribbee-Indian, Boucan; and that, with the exception of some drink in a tub, was all!
There was no steaming turtle or other savoury viands, neither were there any women, golden-haired or others, nor a nest of pirates. Besides Alderly himself, there was in the hut no living soul that I could see. He was alone!
Yet, in front of the table, there lay something on which my eyes could not but fasten, the long box, in which I did believe the stolen treasure was. And also by its side were three bags, or sacks, bulging out full of coin-I could see the impress made upon the canvas by the pieces within-and these I did guess had never come out of the wreck we had been fishing on. They were, I thought-and found afterwards that my thoughts were right-spoils from some others than us. The plunder of another foray!
But at the time I could do nought but watch the great villain, the creature whom I could not deem aught but mad, or, at least, mad from the drink.
His eyes glistening and rolling like a maniac's, he sat in the middle of the table, gibbering and grimacing to either side of him, as if the companions he had named were there; now shouting out a toast, then banging on the table with both his fists, then seizing a can or mug in each of them; next calling out in a deep voice "huzza, huzza," and then altering it to the shrill one of a woman doing the same thing.
Next, he would seize the scooper of the liquor tub, and, with clumsy bows to the empty chairs or stools, for such indeed they were, would fill the glasses standing on the table in front of those chairs, though they being already full he did but pour liquor upon liquor until the whole table streamed with it. Then, for variety, he would tear with his fingers a piece of Boucan off, and with solemn gravity lay it on some tin plates near him, saying to the vacant space behind the plate:
"Barbara, my sweet, 'tis the choicest piece of the haunch; I beseech of you to taste a little more"; or, "Coleman, my fat buck, take a bit more of your own kind," and so forth. Or he would crumble off a bit of his dirty, frowsy bread, and, with his filthy hands putting of it in his mouth, would say, "The turtles' eggs are at their best now. 'Tis the season. Ha! They are succulent!" Then he would drink a deep draught of the spirits by him, call a toast, and begin his bawlings and clappings again.
To see the ruffian sitting there in the half-dim light-for his lamp was none of the best-grimacing and gibbering to vacancy, and addressing people who existed not, was to me a truly awful, nay, a blood-creeping sight! For now I knew what I had before me. I knew that this pirate, this man, whose hands still reeked with the blood of his comrade-one of those whom he had but recently called on them to drink a toast to-was mad with long-continued drinking and p'raps scarce any food since they left the reef; that, indeed, he had the horrors, called by the learned, the "Delirium."
Still, all was not yet at its worst, as I found out and you shall see.
Meanwhile, amidst his bellowings and howlings, which I need not again write down, since they varied not, I pondered on what I must do. I had the fellow caged now; if he attempted to come out of the hut I was resolved to shoot him down or run him through as I would a mad dog; indeed, any way, I was determined now to be his executioner. He was a pirate, a thief who had caused us of the Furie much trouble and loss of good life-and here I thought of Israel Cromby and my other poor men, all dead! – also he was a secret murderer. He must die by my hand-but it must not be now when he was mad. I was ordained to be his executioner, I felt, but I would not be a secret murderer myself also. No! not unless I was forced to it.
But, still, I decided now to advance in upon him-the position I was in was cramped and painful; the hut would be better than this, with now many night dews arising from the soil and enveloping of me, and-if the worst came to the worst-I would knock him on the head and secure him. Also, I remembered, I had the treasure to secure. So I moved into the path, rounded it, and, pistol in hand, advanced towards the door of the hut, and, standing in it, regarded him fixedly.
At first he saw me not. The light was growing dimmer, so that to me he looked more like the dull, cloudy spectre of a man than a man itself as he sat there-perhaps, too, I, with nought behind me but the dark night, may have looked the same to him. Then, as he still sat talking to an imaginary figure behind him, his conversation running on the drinking and carousing he and his supposed comrade had once evidently had on the coast of Guinea, I said, clearly though low-
"Alderly, you seem gay to-night, and entertain good company."
In truth, there was no intention in my heart to banter the man or jest with such a brute, only I had to let him know of my presence there, and one way seemed to me as good as another.
Instead of starting up, as I had thought he might do, and, perhaps, discharging a pistol at me, he turned his head towards the door, put that head between his two hands, and peered between them towards where I stood.
"Who is't?" he asked. "I cannot see you. Is it Martin come back from the isles with the sloop?"
This gave me an idea that there were some comrades expected-perhaps from some other villainies! but I had just now no time for pondering on such things, so I replied:
"No, 'tis not Martin. But, 'Captain' Alderly, you should know me; you drank a health to me not long ago. I am Lieutenant Crafer of the Furie."
"I do not know you," he replied; "I never heard of you. Yet you must be dry in the throat. Come in and drink."
In other circumstances I might have thought this to be a ruse-now I could not deem it such. Beyond all doubt he was mad-my only wonder was that such a desperado should not be more ferocious. Perhaps, however, this might be to come.
I sat me down opposite to him and regarded him fixedly in that gloomy light, and it seemed as though I brought by my presence some glimmer of reason to the wandering brain.
"Crafer!" he exclaimed. "Ah yes, Crafer! Drink, Crafer, drink. So thou hast join'd us. 'Tis well, and better than serving Phips. We have more wealth here than ever Phips dreamed of-if we could but get it away. Away! Yes! away! What might we not do if we could but get it to England! We might all be gallant, topping gentlemen with coaches and horses, and a good house, and see ridottos and-but stay, Crafer, you must know my friends." And here the creature stood upon his feet-I standing, too, not knowing but what he was going to spring at me, though he had no such intention-and began naming his phantom friends to me and presenting them, so to speak.
"This," says he, "is Peter Hynde, a gay boy and a good sailor. Also he is our musicianer of nights-he singeth too a sweet song. Stand up, Hynde, and make your service. And this is Will Magnus, with a good heart, but ever lacking money till he joined us. A brave lad! 'Tis he who has cut many a throat! Barbara, my dear, throw thy golden mane back and kiss the brave gentleman-she was but a child, sir, when we found her, yet now, now, she-Ha! again that wound! How the thrust of the steel bites!"
He sank back into his chair, and tore at his damask waistcoat and then at his ruffled shirt-yellow with dirt and spilt drink, and dabbled with thick bloodstains-and so, opening of his bosom, there I did see a great gash just over the heart, in his left pap.
And I wondered not now that he was mad with the drink and the fever of his wound; the wonder was more that he was not quite dead.
He sat a-gazing at this, with his eyes turned down upon it, and muttered,
"One gave it me as from that accursed galliot, as they boarded. It seemed I had gotten my death. Ah! how it burns, how it throbs! Barbara! Black Bess! hast thou no styptic for stopping of this flux, no balm for this pain? Ha! No? Then give me drink, drink; 'tis the best consoler of all, the best slayer of pain." And here he seized his ladle, filled a glass from the tub, and drained it at a gulp. Then he wandered on again: "Barbara, get you up to the chirugeon at Kingston; tell him I am sore wounded."
"Jamaica is far away from here," I said to him. "Barbara will scarce bring you aught from the pharmacie there to-night." Then, bending forward to him across the table, I said, "Alderly, you are wounded to the death; that stab and your drinkings have brought you to the end, or nearly so. Tell me truly, did this," and I kicked the box at my feet, "and these bags of coin come from the plate-ship? Tell me!"
He peered at me through the deepening gloom made by the expiring lamp, as though his senses were returning and he knew me, and muttered:
"More-more-than the plate-ship-this is a treasure house-" and then, suddenly, he stopped and, pointing a shaking finger over my head, stared as one who saw a sight to blast him, and whispered in a voice of horror:
"Look! look! behind you. God! I stabbed him thrice. Yet now he is come back. See him, look to him at the open door. 'Tis Winstanley, the diver of Liverpool. Ah! take those eyes away from me-away-away! 'Twas your hand did it, not mine," and with a shriek the wretch buried his head in his own hands.
That the murdered diver was not there I did know very well, yet the ravings of the man, the melancholy of the hut in the wood, the dimness of the lamp, all made my very flesh to creep, and instinctively I did cast my eye over my shoulder, seeing, as was certain, nought but the moon's flood pouring in at the door. Yet I shivered as with a palsy, for though no ghost was there all around me was ghostly, horrible!
With a yell Alderly sprang to his feet a moment after he had sunk his head in his hands; his looks were worse now than before, his madness stronger upon him; great flecks of foam upon his lips, and from his wound the blood trickling anew.
"Away! away!" he shouted. Then moaned. "Those eyes! those eyes! They scorch my very soul. Away!" And he cowered and shrank, but a minute later seemed to have recovered his old ferocity. "Begone!" he now commanded the spectre of his distorted vision. "Begone!" and with that he rushed forward, forgetting in his madness the table was betwixt him and his fears, and knocking it over in the rush.
And with it the lamp went too. Only fortunately it was at its end, there was no longer any oil in it-otherwise the hut would have been burnt to the ground.
But all was now darkness save for the moonlight on the floor within and on the brushwood without, and, as Alderly recovered himself from his entanglement with the fallen table and trestles, I could see it shining upon his glaring, savage eyes. And he took me-I having been knocked to the door by the crash-for the ghost of the diver, the spirit he feared so much.
"Peace, you fool!" I exclaimed, "there is no spirit here, nought worse than yourself. And stand back, or, by the God above, I will blow your frenzied brains out," and as I spoke, I drew a pistol, cocked it and covered him.
With a howl he came at me, missing my fire in his onward rush, dashing the pistol from my hand with a madman's force, and, seizing me round the waist, endeavoured to throw me to the earth. Yet, though I had no frenzy, I too was strong, and I wrestled with him, so that about the hut we went, knocking over first the tub of liquor with which the place became drenched, and falling at last together on the ground. And all this time, Alderly was cursing and howling, sometimes even biting at me, and tearing my flesh with his teeth, especially about the hands, and gripping my throat with his own strong hands-made doubly strong because of his frenzy. I smelt his hot, stinking, spirit-sodden breath all over me; I could even smell the filth of his body as he hissed out:
"I ever hated you, Winstanley; I hated you when I made your own hands slay you. I hated you in life, I hate you now in death. And as I slew you in life, again will I slay you in death."
Then at this moment he gave a yell of triumph. His hand had encountered the hilt of my sword, and drawing it forth from its broken sheath, he shortened it to plunge it into my breast.
But as he did so I got one of my hands released. I felt for my other pistol, I cocked it with my thumb, when, ere I could fire, the cutlash dropped from Alderly's hand and he sprang to his feet, his hands upon his wound.
"See," he whispered now, "there be two Winstanleys: one here-one coming through the wood. Are there any more-?"
Staggering, he stood glaring forth into the wood through the open door, seeing another spectre, as he thought, there; then slowly he sank to the ground, letting his hands fall away from the gash in his breast, from which the tide now ran swiftly.
"Oh, agony! agony!" he moaned. "Can one live and feel such pain as this. Nay! this is death. Barbara, draw near me. Listen. This hut is full of spoil-beneath-none know but I-all mine-now all yours. The other is buried-elsewhere-Oh! God-the agony! Barbara-rich-rich-for life-lady-fortune-give me drink-drink-" Then once more singing in a broken voice,
"When money's-plenty-boys-we drink To drown-"
he fell back moaning again.
And so he died.