Chapter XII: The End (2)

He raised his hand in benediction over the corpse, then led Margaret out of the room. West followed them, reverent and awed, speaking in a hushed voice. The priest led them by a back way to the patio, thence by a postern to a side street, a good two hundred yards from the house. The burial-ground was hedged with stone, over which some creepers had grown. Little green lizards were darting among the creepers. They glittered like cut glass. The gate of the cemetery swung open on hinges of raw hide. When they entered, some large rats scuttled to their burrows among the graves.

“Much sickness here,” said the priest. “It is not good to dig deep in the ground.”

“I must dig this grave deep,” Margaret answered. “Look at the rats.”

“They are large,” the priest said. “Much sickness in this poor town.”

“Where can I find a spade?” Margaret asked.

“Who knows?” said the priest. “You will tell your men to find one? Ah?”

“I must do this myself,” he answered.

“But your men on the wall,” said the priest. “And your ship there. Ah?”

Margaret looked towards the west, over the low sea-wall. Some of his men were spiking the guns on the platform. He could hear the click of the malls upon the spikes, as they snapped the soft iron flush with the gun. Beyond them, very far away, were the ships; the tide and the land-wind had set them out to sea again.

“They are waiting for the sea-breeze,” said the priest. “No getting in till chocolate.”

“No,” said Margaret. “Now take me, please, to find a spade.”

“You are not a privateer?” the priest asked. “You do not sack us?”

“No,” he answered. “I am not a pirate. I demand the right to trade, and the recognition of Andria, King of Darien.”

“Don Andria,” the priest said. “Ah? Don Andria, the King. And so we are not sacked.”

“Now let us find a spade.”

They searched for half an hour before they found a spade.

“We do not use spades,” the priest said. “We tickle the earth with our toes and it laughs fruits for us.”

“I will lay him here, West,” Margaret said. “Looking towards England.”

“Sir,” the priest said, “he was a good Catholic. He must look towards the east.”

“Ah,” said Margaret. “And his wife would like that?”

“Yes. Ah, his wife, sir. Poor child. She was only married six weeks.”

“It is sad for her. He did not suffer much, father?”

“Ill for four days. But yesterday he was better. Then the fever grew again. As it does, sir, in some cases. The blood was before the dawn. Like a child, sir. And his eyes turned upon the Cross.”

“Then I will dig the grave here,” Margaret said. “This will be east and west by my watch.” He scratched a narrow oblong with the point of the spade.

“I’ll dig the grave here,” he said.

“Not you. Not in the sun,” the priest said. “There is very much sickness. Your men will dig.”

“I shall dig,” he answered. He felt that he was burying a part of Olivia. He would do her that service. He would make a grave for that unworthy part of her. That act of his should be a part of his penance towards the dead man’s ghost.

“It is very bad to dig this ground,” the priest said. “It is dust of the dead. We do not dig deep except for an Excellency. You see. The rats. Why toil, since God will bring them together at the Resurrection?”

“This is an evil country,” Margaret answered, driving the spade into the earth.

“There is fever and death. Very evil,” said the priest. “It is not wholesome to be in the sun, turning the earth, before chocolate. I will go to the widow.”

He left the cemetery, holding a handkerchief across his nose. The rats in their burrow-mouths watched him. One or two of them scuttled to other burrows. They seemed to play a game of general post, with Margaret as the “he.”

“Let me have a go at that spade, Captain Margaret, sir,” said West.

“No. I must do this,” he answered. “It is dangerous at the top. Perhaps deeper down you shall give me a hand. Gather stones from the wall. I want you to keep away from me, West. This soil is full of infection. Here is some tobacco. I want you to smoke, all the time you are here.”

“No, sir,” said West, looking uncomfortable. “Not just now, thank you, sir.”

“It will keep away the infection. You do smoke?”

“Yes, sir. But it wouldn’t be right, sir, nor respectful to Mrs. Stukeley.”

“Ah,” said Margaret, feeling himself rebuked. He dug for a few minutes in silence; it was light, sandy earth, easily shovelled.

“I wish you’d let me do that, sir,” said West.

“No. Not yet, West.”

“He was a big man, too, sir. He’d ’ave been a fine big man if he’d taken care of himself.”

“Yes,” Margaret answered. “He was a beautiful figure.”

“There’s a lot of poor fellows killed, sir,” said West. “But somehow it don’t come ’ome like this one does. That yellow look, after what he was. And the Spanish lady. She wasn’t his real lady, sir.”

“No. She wasn’t his real lady.”

So they talked as they dug turn and turn about for an hour and a half, when they had to stop digging. They were coming to water. The bottom of the grave was an inch or two deep in water.

“We can go no further,” Margaret said. “Now we’ll get stones.” They lined the bed of the grave with stones, and turned to the house for the body.

The priest and the woman had laid the body out. Margaret ripped down one of the long, jalousied shutters for a bier, while West searched in the patio for rope. An old Spanish tapestry of the death of Absalom served as a pall. They carried Stukeley to the grave, the priest preceding them, intoning the burial service. Then, very reverently, they lowered him. West and Margaret went aside after this and gathered a heap of lilies while the woman and priest prayed together.

“Take her away, father,” Margaret whispered. The priest led the woman to the house. She walked like one stunned. Margaret and West leaned over the grave, to look their last on Stukeley. They could see the water soaking into the linen, and above that the frayed body of Absalom, the handsome youth, caught in the thicket, as he rode. The town was noisy beyond them, two hundred yards away. Singing and shouting came from the Plaza. It seemed to Margaret to be the dirge the man would have chosen, this singing and shouting of men.

“Is that gentleman’s service enough, sir?” West asked.

“Quite enough,” he answered. “You heard him say that Mr. Stukeley had changed his religion?”

“I’d feel easier if you’d say a few words, sir.”

He spoke the few words. Then with the shovel he began to fill in the grave, from the foot. He placed many heavy stones among the earth, so that the rats might be foiled. When he had levelled the surface he heaped a cairn of stones at the head, and laid the lilies there. He went to a neighbouring garden, and dug up an arnotto rose-bush, to plant upon the grave. When this had been planted, the rites were over, he could do no more. They stood looking down at the grave for a moment, before they left the graveyard. The singing was loud behind them. In front of them, darkening under the breeze, was the bay, with the ships and sloops running in, distant some two or three miles.

“Come, West,” Margaret said. “I must see after the wounded.” He took a last look at the grave, at the already drooping lilies and dejected rose-bush. “Good-bye, Stukeley,” he murmured. He stooped, and picked some rose-buds, and a little scrap of stone from the grave, putting them carefully in a pocket-case. “Now smoke, West,” he said. “And rub tobacco on your hands.”

He reproached himself for having neglected his wounded for so long; but he knew that Tucket and Pain would look to them. He wished that the singing and shouting would stop. “Old Rose” and “The green grass grew” were not songs which the army in his mind had sung. Thermopylæ was not possible to an army which sang such songs. Pistol-shots marked the singing of each stanza; there were yells and cries. He thought he heard the screams of women. He saw two men come from a house with their arms full of plunder. “My God,” he said to himself bitterly. “Is Stukeley to check me even in death?” He drew his pistols again. “Come on, West,” he cried. He ran to the two looters.

“What are you doing?” he said. “Take that stuff back where you got it.”

“Get ter hell,” said the men. “You ain’t our captain. Who in hell are yer talking to?” Both men were drunk. One of them had been wounded in the head.

“I been doing your dirty work all morning,” said the wounded man, with drunken gravity. “I’m a free man, and I’m getting a little for myself. You ain’t my cap. Wot d’yer talk to us for? Go and see ’em in the Plaza,” said the other man. “Git ter the swamps and shove yer ’ed in.” They rolled off shouting. The noise in the Plaza became louder at each moment. It was useless to shoot the looters; two-thirds of the whole force were looting. Pain himself was looting.

Indeed, the sight of the Plaza haunted Margaret like a nightmare till he died. Of the two hundred men gathered there, hardly thirty were sober. These stood aloof under Tucket, guarding the wounded and laughing at the antics of the rest. A heap of loot was piled under the cotton tree. At every moment a buccaneer added to the pile. Wine casks lay open about the square, with drunken men lying near them, in the sun, too drunk to stir. Other drunkards, with linked arms, danced and sang, making catcalls and obscene noises. A half-conscious girl lay against a wall, gasping, shaken by hysteria. Her wild eyes were hard and dry, her hands clutched the dress across her bosom. Parties of drunken men hacked at doors with axes, and tossed household gear through the windows on to the heads of other drunkards beneath. Some had been torturing a Spaniard with woolding. The man lay dead with the cords about him, his face in the sands. Others, in wantonness, were now firing the church, dancing obscenely about in the priests’ robes. Women were screaming in an upper room. A dozen savages pursued one shrieking woman. They bawled filthy jests to each other as they ran. Margaret stood over her, as she fell, moaning, unable to run further. He drove the ruffians back, threatening them with his sword.

“It’s the cap,” they said. “If the cap wants ’er he must ’ave ’er.” He placed the woman in a house which had been sacked; it seemed the safest place in that lost city. Pain came by him, drunk, dragging a silver tray.

“No looting,” the drunkard called. “Strictly college gents. No looting ’tall. None. Won’t have it. No.” He passed on, crying drunken catcalls. The eastern side of the town, fanned by the breeze, was fast spreading to a blaze. The dry wood crackled as the flame caught. The church roof was pouring smoke. Little flames were licking out from the eaves. “My God. My God,” said Margaret. “And this is my act and deed. My act and deed.” He went to Tucket, who stood with the wounded, grimly watching it all. He could not speak. He could only shake his head, white to the lips.

“How’s this for hell?” said Tucket. “This is Captain Pain.”

“Are the guards at the gates still?” Margaret answered.

“Some of ’em are. Your own men are. Mine are. I never saw men like these, though.”

“Let’s get the wounded to the boats. How many have we? How many men are steady still?”

“Sir,” Tucket answered, “I’ve twenty-five men by me. We lost fourteen killed. There’s nineteen hurt here. That’s fifty-eight. Say there’s twenty at the gates still. That leaves a matter of a hundred and seventy like what you see. Get them hurt into the carts, boys, and start ’em to the boats. Gently does it. That’s you.”

They laid the wounded men in litters and carts, and wheeled them down gently to the canoas. Margaret walked by the side of the carts, talking to the men about their wounds, fanning them with his handkerchief, getting drink for them, wetting their brows with water whenever they passed a cistern. The ships were then coming to anchor within half a mile of the town.

“You won’t be long in the boats,” he told the wounded men. “You’ll soon be in bed on board. You can see the ships. There they are. Do you see?”

He spoke to Tucket, urging that they should withdraw the guards from the east and north gates, lest the Spaniards, guessing what had happened, should attack suddenly, and overpower them.

“I’ve already sent,” said Tucket. “I ain’t goin’ to lose good men because these swine choose to raise hell. This was Captain Pain’s piece. The sooner we’re off the better.”

“I’d sound the assembly,” Margaret said. “But the trumpeter’s drunk.”

“Could we ring the church bell or something, sir?” said one of the men.

“The church is on fire.”

“Beg pardon, sir. But we’d oughtn’t to wait,” said Tucket. “We’d ought to get these fellers on board. The sun’s strong. And we got to make two journeys as it is.”

At the boats they were joined by the north-gate guards, about a dozen men in all.

“We can only send away six canoas at a time,” Margaret said. “That’ll mean twenty-four oars. Two wounded men in each canoa. You can’t put more, comfortably.”

“That’s so,” said Tucket. “Get ’em in, sons. Ask Captain Cammock to fire guns.”

They manned six canoas, and laid the worst cases in the sternsheets. The one sober doctor went with them. He was a clever surgeon, pretty well known all over the Indies as Doctor Glass Case. He had left England under a cloud; it was not known why. No man knew his real name.

“Take them aboard the _Broken Heart_,” Margaret said. “And then come back for the rest. Tell Captain Cammock how things stand here.”

The boats shoved off from the shore below the water-gate. Boat-covers propped on oars made awnings for the wounded. Margaret and Tucket watched them quartering on each other, stringing out into line, some of the stroke oars splashing, so as to spatter water, by request, into the faces of the wounded.

“Gully-shooting,” Tucket said.

“They’re racing,” said Margaret. He thought how strongly these men resembled boys. They never lost a chance of competing. Now, in that hot sun, after seven hours of exertion, they were making the broad oars bend, driving the canoas through it, racing to the ship.

Men came straggling to the water-gate, asking if they were to go aboard. Margaret and Tucket told them to tend the wounded, while they returned to the Plaza to try to bring off the rest of the hands. There was no question of holding the town. The east side was a roaring bonfire. All that they could hope was that the Spaniards would not attack.

“There are three garrisons only twelve miles away,” Margaret said.

“Yes,” Tucket answered. “And them we fit this morning must be in the woods.”

“I thought I could have trusted Pain,” said Margaret. “They would have ransomed the town. It’s a merchant town. Look at all the balsam sheds. And now they’ve thrown it away.”

“That was Captain Pain,” said Tucket. “He said as all he wanted was for you to help him take the town. He’d do the rest, he said. He’s deceived you, sir. Deceived you all along. He was telling his hands just now, he was going to seize your ship, as soon as he got the stuff aboard.”

They were entering the Plaza as Tucket said this. They were just in time to see the church roof fall in, with a sudden uprush of fire. Many of Pain’s men were dragging the loot out of the heat. They were stripped nearly naked. They tossed the heavy silver from hand to hand. Sometimes a piece was flung at a man’s head, and then a fight would begin. At least thirty men lay drunk about the square, too drunk to move. About thirty others formed a rank across the eastern side, firing and clubbing at the rats which ran from the burning houses. They turned and fired at the rats which broke through them. The Plaza hummed with flying bullets. Bullets were chipping the adobe walls. Splintered tiles of a soft warm redness lay in flakes below each house. Whenever a rat was killed, the slayers yelled and screamed, swinging the corpse by the tail, hitting each other in the face. Tears ran down Margaret’s cheeks. He had never before seen a sight like this. He had never seen a mob at work. And these were the men he had led; these were the men who were to found a new nation with him.

A sudden roar of cannon made them turn to look seaward. The _Broken Heart_ was wreathed in smoke from a broadside; but as the smoke blew clear they could see the danger signal; the foretopsail dropping to the cap, and a red weft dipped at the peak. Two musket-shots followed from the fo’c’s’le.

“Danger from the south,” said Margaret. “Here are the garrisons.”

Pain lay in the sand, propped against a wine cask, with his hat tilted over his eyes. Margaret ran to him and shook him. “Up,” he cried. “Wake up, man.”

A man came running from the south gate shouting, “The Dagoes. The Dagoes.” He was bleeding from his mouth. He was gasping his life out as he ran. “Dagoes,” he gurgled. “Dagoes, you.” He stood for a moment, swaying, pointing half round the compass behind him.

“Right, son,” said Tucket. “Take a rest. You’re hit. Lie down.”

The man stared at him stupidly, groping with his hands. “Take. These feathers. Off my teeth,” he gasped, and sank forward gently from his knees, dead.

Tucket kicked Pain savagely.

“Wha’s a marrer? Wharrer hell’s the marrer?” said Pain, struggling to his feet.

“We’re attacked,” said Margaret, shaking him. “Get your men. Lord, man, get your men to the south gate.”

“Hands off, you damcarajo,” he answered angrily. “Why the hell couldn’t you look out? Hadn’t you sense enough to set a sentry? I’m awake. You Port Mahon fiddler. What in hell are you looking at me for? Get the men.”

The guns of the _Broken Heart_ opened fire in succession, blowing white rings over the trucks. Heavy musket-fire was breaking out at the south gate. Some of the rat-catchers ran towards it.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” said Margaret. “You drunken little boor. See what you’ve done. You and your gang of thieves. Look at your work. Look at it. Answer me again and I’ll run you through.”

“Lord’s sake,” Tucket cried. “They’re on to us. Here they are. Cuidado, sons.”

“I’ll talk t’you later,” Pain said. “Up with her, sons. Rally an’ bust ’em.” He unslung his piece, and ran, followed by the others, to the south road. They reached the mouth of it in time to see their fellows scattering towards them from the breach. All the wall was covered with clambering Spaniards, hundreds of them. They came swarming on like a wave of bodies, firing and dropping down to load, firing again, ever firing, till the air was full of fire. Margaret saw privateers running up to support him. They came from all sides, fifty or sixty men in all, enough to make a rough double rank across the street. They made a stand here, at the corner of the Plaza, fighting steadily and well, but losing heavily. Margaret picked up a gun and fired with them, praying only that a bullet might find him soon. He had no thought of anything save that. He had failed. Now he would die unpitied in a hopeless fight against odds. There were several hundreds of Spaniards coming up, and the privateers’ ammunition failed. They were searching the dead for cartridges. Men were running back to the Plaza to search the drunkards for cartridges. A few men climbed to the roof of a house, and fired above the smoke into the enemy. Margaret climbed up with them, so that he might order the battle. He lay on the tiles with the rest, firing and cheering. For ten minutes they lay there, firing till they had no more powder. Then, as the smoke cleared away, he saw that a troop of horse was coming up. He saw the Indian lances swaying like boat-masts in a sea. He climbed down from his perch, at that, and gave the word to retire, fighting, to the boats. He knew that the fight now was only a matter of moments.

The men fell back, losing heavily. The Spaniards pressed on, cheering, trying to flank them. At the boats was a mob of flying drunkards, struggling with the boat-guard. They were trying to get the canoas for the loot. The beach was littered with loot. A couple of thousand pounds’ worth of plate was lying in the sands. Seventy or eighty men were fighting in the water, shouting and damning, tugging the canoas to and fro. They left the canoas when the fight ranged down to the beach. They ran to save the plate from the sands, to snatch the loot from under the feet of the fighters. They shrieked, with tears in their eyes, to the fighters. They struck at them with fists and guns and candlesticks, telling them to save the loot, damn them, save this precious gear, never mind the Dagoes. The fighters struck back at them, clubbing their guns. That was the end of the fighting. The ranks broke. Fighters, drunkards, boat-guard, all the wreck of the force, were jumbled in a mob among the boats, knee-deep in water. Margaret, Tucket, and a few more, managed to keep clear of the mob, and fired at the sallyport as the Spaniards pressed through to end them. Tucket’s mate cooly filled their pockets with cartridges, helping himself from the men about him. Two canoas upset; a third, with only three men in her, drew clear and pulled for the ships. Spaniards were on the walls above them, firing into them from the platform. The dead and dying men were beaten down and stamped on by the herd of wild beasts in the water. Margaret was careless how it ended for him. He had no wish to live. He felt only the horror of having mixed with men like these, of having led them, of having soiled his honour for ever with them. His gun was shattered with a bullet; the wound in his shoulder had broken out again; he could feel his shirt, sized with blood gluing to his skin. He drew his sword, and waited, looking at the walls, watching the heads of the Spaniards showing in glimpses among the smoke. As he looked there came a rush above him. A yard of the wall shattered into dust with a burst. Cammock had opened on the town with his broadside. That saved them.

He was in the water still. Some loaded canoas were pulling clear. The last canoas were loading. A dozen steady men, calmed by the gun-fire, were covering the retreat. One by one they climbed into the canoas, firing over the gunwales, standing up to fire, anxious to have the last word. A canoa which had pulled clear backed up to Margaret, and a voice shouted in his ear. Looking round, he saw that it was Pain, a grimed and bloody scarecrow, still savage with drink.

“You Portuguese get,” the drunkard screamed. “You called me down just now. Did you, by God. You junk-laid carajo. Now I’m even. See?” He swung his knobbed pistol on to Margaret’s brow with a smash, knocking him senseless. “Give way,” he shouted. “Give way. That’s what I give to college gents what gets gay with Captain Pain.”

When Margaret recovered consciousness he was in the last canoa, a hundred yards from the shore. One of the Indians was mopping his brow with water. Tucket, who was steering, was uncorking a rum-flask with his teeth.

“You’ll be all right,” Tucket said. “Take a rinse of this.”

“I’m all right,” he answered, with a little, hysterical laugh. “Where is that man? The man who hit me?”

“Gone aboard your ship,” said Tucket.

“My God,” he answered. “Give way then, quick.”

He sat up, fully roused, splashing water over his head. He felt ill and stupid; but the thought of possible danger to Olivia roused him. Looking back, he saw Tolu blazing above the palm-tree tops, the flames sucking at the forest, scorching the boughs. Looking forward, he saw the _Broken Heart_, with men struggling on her gangway amid the flash of pistols.

“Captain Pain,” Tucket said. “Up with her, boys.”

“I cain’t row no harder,” said one of the men petulantly, like a child about to cry. “I see old Jimmy shot, as I owed the dollar to. It ain’t my fault, cap.”

“If I put any more weight on,” said another rower, “this oar’ll go in the slings. It’s got a chewed slug through the service.”

Margaret noticed then, for the first time, that the canoa had a foot of water in her. There were seven men in her. Tucket, himself, an Indian, and four rowers, all of them wounded.

“Let me take an oar,” he said. “Give me your oar, bowman. You’re hit.”

“I ain’t goin’ to lay up,” the bowman answered. “A sailor don’t lay up, nor he don’t take medicine, not till he’s dying, and then he don’t need to.”

“Let me double-bank the stroke then.”

“You stay still,” Tucket said. “You been as near it as most. We’re the last canoa. D’ye know what that means? We five got an upset boat and righted her. The Spaniards were riding after us finishing the wounded. Robin there, the Indian, saved you. He swam a matter of thirty yards with you before we picked him up. Then we’d to lie-to and bale her out before she sank, with the Dagoes blazing hell at us. As it is, we’re only crawling.”

“Robin,” said Margaret, “I shall tell Don Toro to call you by my name.”

The Indian sucked in his golden nose-plate, and cringed upon his hams, grinning. He was the only happy man in the force, this Indian “sin razon.” Tucket added to his happiness by hailing him with his new name, in his own speech of San Blas pigeon, a jumble of Spanish and Indian, spoken as English.

“You Captain Margaret now, Robin. Sabe? You Capitano. Capitano sobre tula guannah anivego. Mamaubah. Eh? Shennorung Capitano. Muchas mujercillas. Eh?”

Five hundred yards further on the rowers had to rest. They splashed themselves with water, took a drink of spirits, and lay back in the stern-sheets. They were worn out. Margaret was worn out, too. He had no strength left in him. He lay back, dully, watching the ship; noting, though with no intellectual comprehension, an array of men passing down the gangway, making a great noise. It was still, after the roar of the battle. The cries and oaths came down the wind to him, clearly, across the water. He saw three long canoas, full of men, pull clear from the ship’s side, with one man, not very big, standing in the sternsheets of the largest, shrilly cursing at the ship. “That’s my note,” were the only words which he could catch. “That’s my note.” He wondered whose note and what note it could be. But his head was reeling; he didn’t really care.

“There’s a woman in the canoa there,” said one of the rowers.

“My God,” he said, rousing up, as the beaten boxer rises, though spent, at his second’s cheer. “It’s not Mrs. Stukeley? It’s not Mrs. Stukeley?”

“No, sir,” said a rower. “The other lady.”

“Yes,” he said, looking intently. “The other. Mrs. Inigo. What’s happened?”

“Pain’s got your crew,” Tucket answered. “He’s leaving you to the Spaniards.”

Dully, as they passed about the rum-flask, they saw the boats draw up to Pain’s ship. They saw sail made upon her, the sprit-sail for casting, the topgallant-sails in the buntlines. Soon she was under way, lying over to the breeze, sailing a point or two free, bound past the Mestizos to the southward. Her men, gathered on her poop to hoist the mizen, cursed the _Broken Heart_ from the taffrail, firing a volley of pistols at her in farewell. Two of the three sloops sailed at the same time. As they passed away, crowding all sail, foaming at the bows with their eight-knot rush, Margaret heard the chanties at the halliards, a broken music, coming in the gusts of the wind.

Tucket took one of the oars, and sat at the thwart wearily, searching for a helper among the sternsheets. Captain Margaret, the Indian, could not row. The other five were exhausted. “Boys,” he said, “if we don’t get a gait on us, we’ll be sunstruck. We’re losing way, too. The breeze is setting us ashore.”

Margaret rose up wearily, like a man in a dream, and sat down to row at the thwart. They pulled a ragged stroke together. They were too tired to do much. They pulled a few strokes, and paused, to look round. Then pulled again painfully and again paused. One of the men took up a pistol and fired into the air. “We’ll never make it,” he said. He fired again and again, till some one in the ship caught sight of them and fired in reply. A boat manned by half a dozen men put off to them, veering out line astern, so that those aboard might heave them in at the capstan. Cammock and Perrin were two of the rowers, the only two who could pull an oar; the negro steward steered. The rest of them rowed like marines on pay-day going through the platoon. The wounded and weary smiled to see them; they had never seen such rowing. Slowly they drew up. Margaret saw Perrin and Cammock glancing over their shoulders at him. They cheered and waved when they saw him. He waved his unhurt arm to them. The canoa swung round and backed alongside. Cammock, laying in his oar, shifted his towing-line to the bow, and bent to it the painter of Tucket’s canoa, so that the boats might tow together. “Let your oars swing fore and aft, boys,” he said. He lifted his voice, and yelled to the ship to heave in. “Well, sir,” he said, coming aft alongside Margaret. “And how are you? I’m glad to see you alive. The men said you were killed.”

“I’m all right,” he said. “But we had. We had enough, over there. What has happened in the ship?”

“Well, sir,” said Cammock. “Pain’s gone off with most of what were left to us. That’s what happened.”

“Tell me,” Margaret said. “How was it?”

“I was on deck with Mr. Perrin till the last canoas were putting off,” Cammock answered. “We’d been working the guns. We saw there was rather a mess. Then the doctor sends for us two to help him take off Jowett’s leg. So we went into the wardroom, where he was working. We heard the boats come alongside, and Pain lashing out like a chocalatto-north; so when we got the arteries fast, and Jowett in a cot, we ran on deck to see if you were safe and to see what the row was. They’d been making enough row to caulk a flagship. That was too late, then. Pain had been saying that you were dead, that you’d spoiled the show and got a hundred of ’em killed. God knows what he hadn’t said. More’n half of them were drunk. Our lot had been up all night. So by the time we got on deck they were bundling their bags into the canoas. There was that Fraser fellow going down the gangway with one of our guns. I knocked him back where he belonged. Then they began to fire. I’ll show you my hat when we get aboard. Then they tried to rush the gangway. So I cut the fall, and spilled ’em off it. We’d a lively fight for a few minutes. Pain and Ackett’s lots (Ackett’s lot weren’t so bad) went off then. It was them really kept Pain back a bit. They said they’d play hell with Springer’s Key for me. Ackett’s lot said I’d better stand in with them. They said they’d seen you corpsed on the beach.”

“He wasn’t far off it,” Tucket said. “But for this capitano here.”

“Mrs. Inigo went off with Iles,” said Perrin. “They’ve gone with Pain and the rest.”

“The rest. The rest. What rest? We must have lost. Oh, my God,” said Margaret weakly. “We must have lost half. Was any roll called?”

“No,” said Perrin. “Twelve of your men went to your sloop, Captain Tucket, after bringing off some wounded. They said there was hell to pay ashore, so they stayed here. That was before the attack. And you’ve five more here; seventeen that makes, besides your ship-keepers.”

“We’ve got eleven left,” Cammock said, “besides nineteen wounded and the doctor. Not counting them. Tucket, we got thirty-nine able-bodied between us. Twenty-four of them yours.”

“By the way, I’ve got your maps, Cammock,” Margaret said. “Here they are. I’m sorry they’re so wet. I fell in the sea coming off.”

Cammock took the maps with a groan. “Thank you very much, sir,” he said. “But I don’t much value the maps, though, when I think of what’s happened.”

“It must have been hell,” said Perrin.

“Yes,” Margaret answered. “It was hell.”

“Why didn’t Pain take the ship?” Perrin asked. “That’s what puzzles me.”

“Afraid you’d government friends, sir. Besides. He thought if he took your men the Dagoes’d get you.”

Very slowly the men at the capstan walked the canoas to the side. Margaret stood on his own deck again, asking himself how many years had gone since he last stood there. The guns were cast loose. Round shot, fallen from the garlands, rolled to and fro as the ship rolled. The decks were littered with wads. Smears, as of lamp-black, showed where the gun-sponges had been dropped. The hammock-nettings were fire-pocked and filthy. There were marks of blood on the coamings, where wounded men had lain, waiting to be carried below.

“Charles,” said Perrin, “you come to the cabin and lie down. I’ll fetch Olivia to you. She’s with the wounded. What about Stukeley?”

“He’s dead, Edward. He died of yellow fever this morning. I buried him.”

“My God. Dead?”

“Yes. He was married there.”

“He deserted then, that time?”

“Yes.”

“And so he’s dead. The dead are.”

“The dead are our only links with God, I think,” Margaret said gravely. “I’ve been in hell to-day, Edward. In hell. In hell.”

He lay down on the window-seat in the cabin, where Stukeley had so often lain. The breeze had swung the ship head to sea. He had only to turn his head to see the fire of Tolu, burning below its pillar of cloud. The sea-wall spurted with smoke at intervals. The flashes were very white and bright, not like the smoke of firelocks. Cammock came in to him with a mess of cold poultice for his head.

“We’re getting under way, sir,” he said. “The Dagoes are blowing the spikes out of their guns. They’ll be firing soon. We’re cutting our cable, sir. We haven’t strength to weigh. Tucket the same. Mrs. Stukeley is coming to you, sir. I told her you were hurt. She wants you not to get up, sir.”

He then went away. By and by Olivia entered.

“Don’t get up, Charles,” she said. “Oh. Don’t get up.”

He raised himself to greet her, looking at her sadly. She came up to him and took his hand, and sat at his side.

“Olivia,” he said gently. “Olivia, I bring another sorrow for you. Your husband is dead, Olivia. He died this morning.”

“Yes,” she answered quietly. “I knew he would be dead.”

He tried to read her thought; but his head was stupid with pain; he could not. He saw only the calm, pale face with that quality of mystery upon it which is upon all beauty.

“I feel for your sorrow,” he stammered.

“Yes, Charles,” she answered. “You feel for my sorrow, I know.”

“Olivia,” he said, “would it pain you too much to hear. To hear about it?”

“You ought not to be talking with your wound, Charles.”

“I must tell you, Olivia. If you can bear it. It may be harder to-morrow.”

“Tell me then,” she said. “If you feel. If you wish. I am quite calm, Charles. Tell me everything.”

“He died of yellow fever, Olivia. In the Governor’s house there. The tall house above the bastion there.”

“I can’t look, Charles. Don’t tell me where. I’m. Yes?”

“He was ill for four days,” Margaret continued. “They thought he was getting better yesterday.”

“They, Charles? Who were ‘they’?”

“The Governor and a priest, Olivia.”

“He was in the Governor’s house,” she said. “As a friend?”

“A secretary there.” His mouth had grown very dry; it was hard to answer these questions.

“Then he stole the book of maps, Charles?”

“Yes.”

“Did you find it?”

“Yes. I found it.”

“Was there fighting? Fighting in the town? Was he alone when he died?”

“He died before the fighting began. An hour or two before.”

“Who was with him, Charles?”

“A priest was with him.”

“A Roman Catholic priest?”

“Yes. I found the priest in the room with him. The priest had attended him. At the end.”

“He had become a Roman Catholic?”

“Yes, Olivia.”

“I want to picture it, Charles. Was there fighting in the town when you. When you found him?”

“There was a little firing. But the men were at breakfast. I heard a few shots. Distant shots. So. So I left the men. And West and I made a grave. We buried him there, Olivia. The priest. There was a service.”

“And then. What happened then, Charles?”

“I picked these rosebuds, and this pebble, Olivia. From the grave. For you.”

The rosebuds were crushed and dropping. She took them in the hollow of her hand. There was a grace in all that she did. The holding out of her delicate palm was beautiful; the movement showed curiously her exquisite refinement; it was as though she had said some beautiful thing; her mind showed in it. She took the relics, looking not at them, but at Charles, her eyes swimming with tears, her dear mind wild with tears.

“Thank you,” she said, on a sob. “You planted the roses, Charles? You thought of it.”

He did not answer. He turned his head, to look out over Tolu. The ship was moving slowly, heading out over the gulf; the fiery town was dwindling; the wake whirled pale bubbles about the rudder.

“I think no other man would have thought of it,” she said quietly.

“Ah,” he said, sighing.

“Charles,” she said, “tell me now, will you. That’s over. That part. What happened in the town?”

“The men got drunk, Olivia, and set the town on fire. They sacked the place. When I came back to the Plaza. Oh, I can’t. I can’t.”

“You sent off the wounded, then, did you not?”

“Yes.”

“I helped them, down in the ward-room. Oh, poor fellows. I asked them about the battle. I think I’ve. I think, Charles, I’ve come very near to the world in these last days. They told me a little. Then I heard firing. We were busy below, with a sheet over the ports to keep out the sun. Some of them are dreadfully hurt. I couldn’t see what was happening. But I knew you were attacked. Then the cannon overhead began. The ship shook. Then a wounded man came down. He said you were dead, Charles. It was like the end of everything.”

“It was, Olivia,” he said.

“I know now, Charles, what war is.”

“You didn’t see that water,” he answered. “Oh, not that water. My act and deed. All of it. All of it by me. And there was a girl in the Plaza. I’m disgraced. Oh, I shall never. It’s all over. All over after to-day.”

“No, Charles. Don’t say that. You. At Springer’s Key. You can begin again there. With better men.”

“Springer’s Key will be a failure, too,” he said bitterly. “Oh, Olivia,” he added, going off into an hysterical laugh, “that water gets on my nerves. There were two upset boats, and they can’t right them.”

“Charles,” she said, frightened. “You’re hurt. You’re hit again.”

“I think my old wound has broken out,” he said.

“Lie down,” she answered, rising swiftly, to lay the relics on the table. “I’ll see to it at once. Why didn’t I think?”

“I’ll get Perrin,” he said. “Don’t you. You mustn’t. Oh, Olivia, you’ve enough without me.”

She ripped the coat of soiled linen with the scissors in her chatelaine. The old negro, coming in with chocolate, brought hot water for her. Together they dressed the wound with balsam and pitoma leaf, binding it with Indian cotton. The steward brought in fruit and bread. They ate and drank together, mechanically, not as though they wanted food.

“Olivia,” Margaret said, “you are in great sorrow. Some of it, Olivia, perhaps all of it, is due to me. I want you. I want you to feel that I feel for you. Feel deeply. Oh, my God. I’m sorry for you. You poor woman.”

“Charles,” she said, “you mustn’t think. You’ve no right. You mustn’t think that. That what has happened was due to you. Don’t, Charles. You won’t, I know. I see too clearly what happened. I see your mind, Charles, all along. I understand.” She knelt very swiftly and kissed his hand. “There,” she said, very white. “I understand.”

Margaret closed his eyes, then looked at a gleam of flame far distant, and at the blue band on the bows of Tucket’s sloop, plunging the sea into milk within hail of him.

“You were right, Olivia,” he said, in a shaking voice. “I shall never reap my plantations yonder.”

“No,” she answered. “Nor I.”

There was silence between them for a little while.

“Charles,” she added, “we both had Darien schemes.”

“Yes, Olivia.”

“They came to nothing. Because. There. We were too wild to see what, what we were building with.”

“Yes, Olivia. And you reap sorrow. And I dishonour.”

“Not that, Charles. We reap the world.”

“Ah no, Olivia. This is the end of everything. For me it is.”

“No, Charles,” she said. “We were living in one little corner of our hearts, you and I. In fool’s paradises. We were prisoners. This is not the end. We only begin here.”

He sighed, thinking of the shame of the morning’s work in Tolu. “My father’s sword,” he thought. “In that cause.”

“Charles,” she asked, “haven’t you. Something more to tell me?”

He thought for a moment, dully, wondering in his blurred brain if she wished to hear more of the battle.

“No,” he said. “No. That is the end.”

She stood up, facing him, her great eyes looking down on him.

“I must go now to the wounded,” she said softly. “Edward and the doctor will be wanting me. God bless you, Charles.”

“God bless you, Olivia. And comfort you.”

Before she left the cabin she turned and spoke again.

“He was married, Charles,” she said. “You never told me that.”

“Yes, Olivia, he was married.”

“I knew that, Charles. I saw him so clearly. With a woman with a cruel face. Oh, I knew it. It was generous of you not to tell me. But I knew all the time.”

Late that night, in the darkened cabin, Olivia leaned upon the port-sill, looking out over the rudder eddies, as they spun away in fire rings, brightening and dying. She propped the cushions at her back, so that she might rest her head. The nightmare of the past was ashes to her. That evil fire had burned out, as Tolu had burned out. The past and Tolu lay smouldering together somewhere, beyond Fuerte there, beyond the Mestizos. The embers lay red there, crusted in ash.

She had come to see clearly in the pain of her sorrow. She saw her life laid bare and judged. She saw the moral values of things. Great emotions are our high tides. They brim our natures, as a tide brims the flood-marks, bringing strangeness out of the sea, wild birds and amber. She had relics in her hand; rosebuds and a pebble, “feathers and dust.” The rosebuds had spilled their petals. She looked at them there, turning them over with her fingers, holding them to the open port to see them. There was no moon; but the great stars gave the night a kind of glimmering clearness. The sea heaved silvery with star-tracks. Fish broke the water to flame. The scutter of a settling sea-bird made a path of bright scales a few yards from her. She laid the relics on the port-sill, near the open window. Very gently she pushed the pebble into the water, leaning forward to see the gleam of its fall. One by one she pushed the rosebuds over, till they were all gone too. She watched the petals float away into the wake, chased by the sea-birds. They were out of sight in a moment, but the gulls mewed as they quarrelled over them, voices in the darkness, crying in the air aloft. Olivia leaned there, looking after them, for many minutes. Then she drew close the window and covered her eyes with her hands.

It took them five days to win back to the Samballoes. They entered Springer’s Drive a little before noon, eagerly looking out towards the anchorage. No ships lay there, no guns greeted them from the fort. Margaret and Cammock, walking the poop together, knew that Pain had been before them. A thin expanse of smoke wavered and drifted in films among the trees. When it drove down into the palms, after rising above their level, it scattered the macaws, making them cry out. The flagstaff lay prone, like a painted finger, pointing down the spit to the sea. Tucket’s sloop was fifty yards ahead of the ship, plunging in a smother. There was a cockling sea that morning, the reefs were running white, they gleamed milky for fifty yards about them. There was no other sign of life about the island. The smoke was so thin that it was like mist. The beach, which had so lately been thronged, was busy now with crabs, which scuttled and sidled, tearing at the manchineel trees. A wounded man limped down the sand and waved to them. Margaret, going in in his boat, saw that it was the seaman West.

“I been here two days, sir,” he said, “waiting for you. I been living on sapadillies. There been awful times, sir.”

“What has happened, man?”

“I came from the town, Tolu town, in one of the sloops, sir,” the man answered. “The _Lively_, as they called her. When we come here, Captain Pain got all the men you left, all the guard like, to sign on with him. Then he set the town on fire, and scoffed all your gear, the guns and powder and that. So I got away and hid in the wood. I was afraid they want me to join ’em, or put a knife into me. Then I saw ’em flog that Don Toro, and two other Indians. He flog ’em on the beach, and sent ’em back to the Main, sir. He said that would put all them Indians off giving you a hand in the future.”

“What a devil the man must be,” Margaret said.

“So I stayed hidden, sir, ever since, hoping no Indians would come over and find me.”

“So that’s the end,” said Margaret to himself. He would not go ashore there. He could see the ruins of his city, a mass of fallen earth, a heap of ashes, a sprouting crop blasted. He would never set foot there again. That dream had ended like the other, in savagery, in waste, in cruelty. He would let it end. The fallen gabions of the fort would soon be tangled with grasses. In three months there would be shrubs on the city site. The key would be jungle again, the Indians would be savage again, the privateers would be plundering vagabonds again. The dream was over. All that he could do now was to proceed to Jamaica, to sell his goods there, before sailing for England, a beaten man, threatened by the law.

Tucket’s men helped his crew to fill fresh water. Tucket offered to take seven of the slightly wounded men in his ship in exchange for five unhurt men from his own crew. As the men were willing to exchange, this brought the _Broken Heart’s_ complement to twenty men; enough, at a strain, for the passage to Jamaica, if no enemy threatened and no storm arose. When the water had been filled, and the manger stacked with wood, the men gathered stores of fruit. They were ready to sail then. Margaret gave the Indian Robin enough goods to make him a chief in his own land. He made gifts to all of Tucket’s crew. To Tucket himself he gave a pair of pistols, choice weapons, made by the best artist in Paris. Tucket asked for his address, in writing.

“I shall come and look you up, one day,” he said, as he put the paper in his pocket. “I shall be coming home to set up dyer. We’ll have a great yarn, that day.”

“I shall expect you,” Margaret said. “You shall dye for me. But won’t you come home now, captain? With me?”

“No, sir,” he answered. “I want to get that green the Indians get. Then I’ll come home.”

“I’m sorry,” Margaret said. “Good-bye, then, Captain Tucket. I wonder if we shall ever meet again.”

“Well. We met. Haven’t we? We neither of us expected to.”

“Good-bye, then. Let me hear from you, if a ship is going home from here?”

“I will, indeed, sir. So long. So long, Lion.”

“So long,” said Cammock.

They were under way again, close-hauled to the breeze, going out of Springer’s Drive to the east of Caobos. All the Holandès keys were roaring with surf. The palms were bending. The smoke from the key astern trailed in a faint streamer towards the Grullos. That was the last picture which Margaret formed of the keys. The sun bright, the palms lashing, the noise of the surf like a battle, the welter of the surf like milk on the reefs. Tucket was in his sloop now, with all hands gathered on deck, their faces turned to him. The men of the _Broken Heart_ were gathered at the hammock nettings. Margaret thought of the sadness of parting. Two men had shaken hands only a moment before. Now there was this gulf of sea between them. To-morrow they would be many miles apart; and who knew whether they would ever meet again, for all their wandering.

The bells of the ships rang out together, a furious peal. Cammock, standing on a gun, took off his hat, and called for three cheers for the sloop. The sloop’s men cheered the ship. The men of the _Broken Heart_ answered with a single cheer. The bells rang out again, the colours dipped, the guns thundered, startling the pelicans. Tucket had turned away now, to help to secure his guns. His helmsman let the sloop go off three points. She was slipping fast away now, bound towards Zambo-Gandi. Now the figures of the men could no longer be recognized. She was hidden behind the palms of Puyadas. Tucket was gone. Margaret never saw him again.

“That breaks the neck of that,” said Cammock. “All gone, main-topgallant yard?”

“All gone, main-topgallant yard, sir.”

“Then hoist away.”

Under all sail the _Broken Heart_ swayed seawards, treading down the rollers, creaming a track across the sea, dark now in its blueness, with crinkling wind-ruffles. When the night fell, shutting out the Main, and the stars climbed out, solemn and golden, she was in the strength of the trade, rolling to the northward, circled by the gleams of dolphins, hurrying in sudden fires.

After dark that night Margaret sat on the locker-top, looking at the wake, as it shone below him about the rudder. He was thinking over his manifold failure, feeling disgraced and stained, a defeated, broken man. Olivia entered quietly from the alleyway. He only felt her enter. There was no light in the cabin. The steward was busy with the wounded.