Sir John Constantine by Prosper Paleologus Constantine

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"Many years after, at a time when the plague was raging through
Edinburgh, a Barbary corsair sailed boldly up the Firth of Forth and
sent a message ashore to the Lord Provost, demanding twenty thousand
pounds ransom, and on a threat, if it were not paid within
twenty-four hours, to burn all the shipping in the firth and along
the quays. He required, meanwhile, a score of hostages for payment,
and among them the Lord Provost's own son.

"The Lord Provost ran about like a man demented; since, to begin
with, audacious as the terms were, the plague had spared him scarcely
a hundred men capable of resistance. Moreover, he had no son, but an
only daughter, and she was lying sick almost to death with the
distemper. So he made answer, promising the ransom, but explaining
that he for his part could send no hostage. To this the Sallee
captain replied politely--that he had some experience of the plague,
and possessed an elixir which (he made sure) would cure the maiden if
the Lord Provost would do him the honour to receive a visit; nay,
that if he failed to cure her, he would remit the city's ransom.

"You may guess with what delight the father consented. The pirate
came ashore in state, and was made welcome. The elixir was given;
the damsel recovered; and in due course she married her Paynim foe,
who now revealed himself as the escaped prisoner, Andrew Gray.
He had risen high in the service of the Emperor of Morocco, and had
fitted out his ship expressly to be revenged upon the city which had
once condemned him to death. The story concludes that he settled
down, and lived the rest of his life as one of its most reputable
citizens."

"But what was the elixir?" inquired Mr. Badcock.

"T'cht!" answered my father testily.

"I agree with you, sir," said Mr. Fett. "Mr. Badcock's question was
a foolish one. Speaking, however, as a mere man of business, and
without thought of rounding off the story artistically, I am curious
to know how they settled the ransom?"

Captain Pomery had taken in all canvas, to be as little conspicuous
as possible; and all that day we lay becalmed under bare poles.
Not content with this, he ordered out the boat, and the two seamen
(Mike Halliday and Roger Wearne their names were) took turns with Nat
and me in towing the _Gauntlet_ off the coast. It was back-breaking
work under a broiling sun, but before evening we had the satisfaction
to lose all sight of land. Still we persevered and tugged until
close upon midnight, when the captain called us aboard, and we
tumbled asleep on deck, too weary even to seek our hammocks.

At daybreak next morning (Sunday) my father roused me. A light wind
had sprung up from the shore, and with all canvas spread we were
slipping through the water gaily; yet not so gaily (doubted Captain
Pomery) as a lateen-sailed craft some four or five miles astern of
us--a craft which he announced to be a Moorish xebec.

The _Gauntlet_--a flattish-bottomed ship--footed it well before the
wind, but not to compare with the xebec, which indeed was little more
than a long open boat. After an hour's chase she had plainly reduced
our lead by a mile or more. Then for close upon an hour we seemed to
have the better of the wind, and more than held our own; whereat the
most of us openly rejoiced. For reasons which he kept to himself
Captain Pomery did not share in our elation.

For sole armament (besides our muskets) the ketch carried, close
after of her fore-hatchway, a little obsolete 3-pounder gun, long
since superannuated out of the Falmouth packet service. In the dim
past, when he had bid for her at a public auction, Captain Pomery may
have designed to use the gun as a chaser, or perhaps, even then, for
decoration only. She served now--and had served for many a peaceful
passage--but as a peg for spare coils of rope, and her rickety
carriage as a supplement, now and then, for the bitts, which were
somewhat out of repair. My father casting about, as the chase
progressed, to put us on better terms of defence, suggested unlashing
this gun and running her aft for a stern-chaser.

Captain Pomery shook his head. "Where's the ammunition? We don't
carry a single round shot aboard, nor haven't for years.
Besides which, she'd burst to a certainty."

"There's time enough to make up a few tins of canister," argued my
father. "Or stay--" He smote his leg.

"Didn't I tell you old Worthyvale would turn out the usefullest man
on board?"

"What's the matter with Worthyvale?"

"While we've been talking, Worthyvale has been doing. What has he
been doing?" Why, breaking up the ballast, and, if I'm not mistaken,
into stones of the very size to load this gun."

"Give Badcock and me some share of credit," pleaded Mr. Fett.
"Speaking less as an expert than from an imagination quickened by
terror of all missiles, I suggest that a hundredweight or so of empty
bottles, nicely broken up, would lend a d--d disagreeable diversity
to the charge--"

"Not a bad idea at all," agreed my father.

"And a certain sting to our defiance; since I understand these
ruffians drink nothing stronger than water," Mr. Fett concluded.

We spent the next half-hour in dragging the gun aft, and fetching up
from the hold a dozen basket-loads of stone. It required a personal
appeal from my father before old Worthyvale would part with so much
of his treasure.

During twenty minutes of this time, the xebec, having picked up with
the stronger breeze, had been shortening her distance (as Captain
Pomery put it) hand-over-fist. But no sooner had we loaded the
little gun and trained her ready for use, than my father, pausing to
mop his brow, cried out that the Moor was losing her breeze again.
She perceptibly slackened way, and before long the water astern of
her ceased to be ruffled. An oily calm spreading across the sea from
shoreward overhauled her by degrees, overtook, and held her, with
sails idle and sheets tautening and sagging as she rolled on the
heave of the swell.

Captain Pomery promptly checked our rejoicing, telling us this was
about the worst that could happen. "We shall carry this wind for
another ten minutes at the most," he assured us. "And these devils
have boats."

So it proved. Within ten minutes our booms were swinging uselessly;
the sea spread calm for miles around us; and we saw no fewer than
three boats being lowered from the xebec, now about four miles away.

"There is nothing but to wait for 'em," said my father, seating
himself on deck with his musket across his knees. "Mr. Badcock!"

"Sir?"

"To-day is Sunday."

"It is, sir. Six days shalt thou labour and do all thou hast to do,
but on the Seventh day (if you'll excuse me) there's a different kind
of feeling in the air. At home, sir, I have observed that even the
rooks count on it."

"You have a fine voice, Mr. Badcock, and have been, as I gather, an
attentive hearer of sermons."

"I may claim that merit, sir."

"If you can remember one sufficiently well to rehearse it to us, I
feel that it would do us all good."

Mr. Badcock coughed. "Oh, sir," he protested, "I couldn't! I reelly
couldn't. You'll excuse me, but I hold very strong opinions on
unlicensed preaching." He hesitated; then suddenly his brow cleared.
"But I can read you one, sir. _Reading_ one is altogether another
matter."

"You have a book of sermons on board?"

"Before starting, sir, happening to cast my eye over the book-case in
the bedroom . . . a volume of Dr. South's, sir, if you'll excuse my
liberty in borrowing it."

He ran and fetched the volume, while we disposed ourselves to listen.

"Where shall I begin, sir?"

"Wherever you please. The book belongs to my brother Gervase.
For myself I have not even a bowing acquaintance with the good
Doctor."

"The first sermon, sir, is upon Human Perfection."

"It should have been the last, surely?"

"Not so, sir; for it starts with Adam in the Garden of Eden."

"Let us hear, then."

Mr. Badcock cleared his throat and read:

"The image of God in man is that universal rectitude of all the
faculties of the soul, by which they stand apt and disposed to
their respective offices and operations."

"Hold a moment," interrupted my father, whose habit of commenting
aloud in church had often disconcerted Mr. Grylls. "Are you quite
sure, Mr. Badcock, that we are not starting with the Doctor's
peroration?"

"This is the first page, sir."

"Then the Doctor himself began at the wrong end. Prosper, will you
take a look astern and report me how many boats are coming?"

"Three, sir," said I. "The third has just pushed off from the ship."

"Thank you. Proceed, Mr. Badcock."

"And first for its noblest faculty, the understanding. It was
then sublime, clear, and aspiring, and as it were the soul's
upper region, lofty and serene, free from the vapours and
disturbances of the inferior affections. . . . Like the sun it
had both light and agility; it knew no rest but in motion; no
quiet but in activity. . . . It did arbitrate upon the several
reports of sense, and all the varieties of imagination; not
like a drowsy judge, only hearing, but also directing their
verdict. In sum, it was vegete quick and lively; open as the
day, untainted as the morning, full of the innocence and
sprightliness of youth; it gave the soul a bright and a full
view into all things."

"A fine piece of prose," remarked Mr. Fett as Mr. Badcock drew
breath.

"A fine fiddlestick, sir!" quoth my father. "The man is talking
largely on matters of which he can know nothing; and in five minutes
(I bet you) he will come a cropper."

Mr. Badcock resumed--

"For the understanding speculative there are some general maxims
and notions in the mind of man, which are the rules of
discourse and the basis of all philosophy."

"As, for instance, never to beg the question," snapped my father, who
from this point let scarce a sentence pass without pishing and
pshawing.

"Now it was Adam's happiness in the state of innocence to have
these clear and unsullied. He came into the world a
philosopher--"

("Instead of which he went and ate an apple.")

"He could see consequents yet dormant in their principles, and
effects yet unborn and in the womb of their causes."

("'Tis a pity, then, he took not the trouble to warn Eve.")

"His understanding could almost pierce to future contingencies.
. . ."

("Ay, 'almost.' The fellow begins to scent mischief, and thinks to
set himself right with a saving clause. Why 'almost'?" )

"his conjectures improving even to prophecy, or to certainties
of prediction. Till his fall he was ignorant of nothing but
sin; or, at least, it rested in the notion without the smart of
the experiment."

My father stamped the butt of his musket upon deck. "'Rested in the
notion,' did it? Nothing of the sort, sir! It rested in the apple,
which he was told not to eat; but, nevertheless, ate. Born a
philosopher, was he? And knew the effect of every cause without
knowing the difference between good and evil? Why, man, 'twas
precisely against becoming a philosopher that the Almighty took pains
to warn him!"

Mr. Badcock hastily turned a page.

"The image of God was no less resplendent in that which we call
man's practical understanding--namely, that storehouse of the
soul in which are treasured up the rules of action and the
seeds of morality. Now of this sort are these maxims: 'That
God is to be worshipped,' 'That parents are to be honoured,'
'That a man's word is to be kept.' It was the privilege of Adam
innocent to have these notions also firm and untainted--"

My father flung up both hands. "Oh! So Adam honoured his father and
his mother?"

"Belike," suggested Billy Priske, scratching his head, "Eve was
expecting, and he invented it to keep her spirits up."

"I assure you, sir," Mr. Badcock protested with dignity, "Dr. South
was the most admired preacher of his day. Her late Majesty offered
him the Deanery of Westminster."

"I could have found a better preferment for him, then; that of Select
Preacher to the Marines."

"If you will have patience, sir--"

"Prosper, how near is the leading boat?"

"A good mile away, sir, as yet."

"Then I will have patience, Mr. Badcock."

"The Doctor, sir, proceeds to make some observations on Love, with
which you will find yourself able to agree. Love, he says--

"'is the great instrument and engine of Nature, the bond and
cement of society; the spring and spirit of the universe. . . .
Now this affection in the state of innocence was happily
pitched upon its right object--'"

"'Happily,' did you say? 'Happily'? Why, good heavens, sir! how
many women had Adam to go gallivanting after? Enough, enough,
gentleman! To your guns! and in the strength of a faith which must
be strong indeed, to have survived its expositors!"

By this time, through our glasses, we could discern the faces of the
pirates, who, crowded in the bows and stern-sheets of the two leading
boats, weighted them almost to the water's edge. The third had
dropped, maybe half a mile behind in the race, but these two came on,
stroke for stroke, almost level--each measuring, at a guess, some
sixteen feet, and manned by eight rowers. They bore down straight
for our stern, until within a hundred yards; then separated, with the
evident intention of boarding us upon either quarter. At fifty yards
the musketeers in their bows opened fire, while my father whistled to
old Worthyvale, who, during Dr. South's sermon, had been bringing the
points of half a dozen handspikes to a red heat in the galley fire.
The two seamen, Nat and I, retorted with a volley, and Nat had the
satisfaction to drop the steersman of the boat making towards our
starboard quarter. Unluckily, as it seemed--for this was the boat on
which my father was training our 3-pounder--this threw her into
momentary confusion at a range at which he would not risk firing, and
allowed her mate to run in first and close with us. The confusion,
however, lasted but ten seconds at the most; a second steersman
stepped to the helm; and the boat came up with a rush and grated
alongside, less than half a minute behind her consort.

Now the _Gauntlet_, as the reader will remember, sailed in ballast,
and therefore carried herself pretty high in the water. Moreover,
our enemies ran in and grappled us just forward of her quarter, where
she carried a movable panel in her bulwarks to give access to an
accommodation ladder. While Nat, Captain Pomery, Mr. Fett, and the
two seamen ran to defend the other side, at a nod from my father I
thrust this panel open, leapt back, and Mr. Badcock aiding, ran the
little gun out, while my father depressed its muzzle over the boat.
In our excess of zeal we had nearly run her overboard; indeed, I
believe that overboard she would have gone had not my father applied
the red-hot iron in the nick of time. The explosion that followed
not only flung us staggering to right and left, but lifted her on its
recoil clean out of her rickety carriage, and kicked her back and
half-way across the deck.

Recovering myself, I gripped my musket and ran to the bulwarks.
A heave of the swell had lifted the boat up to receive our discharge,
which must have burst point-blank upon her bottom boards; for I
leaned over in bare time to see her settling down in a swirl beneath
the feet of her crew, who, after vainly grabbing for hold at the
_Gauntlet's_ sides, flung themselves forward and were swimming one
and all in a sea already discoloured for some yards with blood.

My father called to me to fire. I heard; but for the moment the
dusky upturned faces with their bared teeth fascinated me.
They looked up at me like faces of wild beasts, neither pleading nor
hating, and in response I merely stared.

A cry from the larboard bulwarks aroused me. Three Moors, all naked
to the waist, had actually gained the deck. A fourth, with a long
knife clenched between his teeth, stood steadying himself by the main
rigging in the act to leap; and in the act of turning I saw Captain
Pomery chop at his ankles with a cutlass and bring him down. We made
a rush on the others. One my father clubbed senseless with the butt
of his musket; another the two seamen turned and chased forward to
the bows, where he leapt overboard; the third, after hesitating an
instant, retreated, swung himself over the bulwarks, and dropped back
into the boat.

But a second cry from Mr. Fett warned us that more were coming.
Mr. Fett had caught up a sack of stones, and was staggering with it
to discharge it on our assailants when this fresh uprush brought him
to a check.

"That fellow has more head than I gave him credit for," panted my
father. "The gun, lad! Quick, the gun!"

We ran to where the gun lay, and lifted it between us, straining
under its weight; lurched with it to the side, heaved it up, and sent
it over into the second boat with a crash. Prompt on the crash came
a yell, and we stared in each other's faces, giddy with our triumph,
as John Worthyvale came tottering out of the cook's galley with two
fresh red-hot handspikes.

The third boat had come to a halt, less than seventy yards away.
A score of bobbing heads were swimming for her, the nearer ones
offering a fair mark for musketry. We held our fire, however, and
watched them. The boat took in a dozen or so, and then, being
dangerously overcrowded, left the rest to their fate, and headed back
for the xebec. The swimmers clearly hoped nothing from us.
They followed the boat, some of them for a long while. Through our
glasses we saw them sink one by one.

CHAPTER XII.

HOW WE LANDED ON THE ISLAND.

"Friend Sancho," said the Duke, "the isle I have promised you
can neither stir nor fly. And whether you return to it upon
the flying horse, or trudge back to it in misfortune, a pilgrim
from house to house and from inn to inn, you will always find
your isle just where you left it, and your islanders with the
same good will to welcome you as they ever had."--
_Don Quixote_.

Night fell, and the xebec had made no further motion to attack: but
yet, as the calm held, Captain Pomery continued gloomy; nor did his
gloom lift at all when the enemy, as soon as it was thoroughly dark,
began to burn flares and torches.

"That will be a signal to the shore," said he. "Though, please God,
they are too far for it to reach."

The illumination served us in one way. While it lasted, no boat
could push out from the xebec without our perceiving it. The fires
lasted until after eight bells, when the captain, believing that he
scented a breeze ahead, turned us out into the boat again, to tow the
ketch toward it. For my part, I tugged and sweated, but scented no
breeze. On the contrary, the night seemed intolerably close and
sultry, as though brooding a thunderstorm. When the xebec's fires
died down, darkness settled on us like a cap. The only light came
from the water, where our oars swirled it in pools of briming,[1] or
the tow-rope dropped for a moment and left for another moment a trail
of fire.

Neither Mr. Fett nor Mr. Badcock could pull an oar, and old
Worthyvale had not the strength for it. The rest of us--all but the
captain, who steered and kept what watch he could astern--took the
rowing by hourly relays, pair and pair: Billy Priske and I, my father
and Mike Halliday, Nat and Roger Wearne.

It had come round again to Billy's turn and mine, and the hour was
that darkest one which promises the near daylight. Captain Pomery,
foreboding that dawn would bring with it an instant need of a clear
head, and being by this time overweighted with drowsiness, had
stepped below for forty winks, leaving Wearne in charge of the helm.
My father and Nat had tumbled into their berths. We had left Mr.
Badcock stationed and keeping watch on the larboard side, near the
waist; and now and then, as we tugged, I fancied I could see the dim
figures of Mr. Fett and Mike Halliday standing above us in converse
near the bows.

Of imminent danger--danger close at hand--I had no fear at all,
trusting that the still night would carry any sound of mischief, and,
moreover, that no boat could approach without being signalled, a
hundred yards off, by the briming in the water. So intolerably hot
and breathless had the night become that I spoke to Billy to ease a
stroke while I pulled off my shirt. I had drawn it over my head and
was slipping my arms clear of the sleeves, when I felt, or thought I
felt, a light waft of wind on my right cheek--the first breath of the
gathering thunderstorm--and turned up my face towards it. At that
instant I heard a short warning cry from somewhere by the helm; not a
call of alarm, but just such a gasp as a man will utter when slapped
on the shoulder at unawares from behind; then a patter of naked feet
rushing aft; then a score of outcries blending into one wild yell as
the whole boatload of Moors leapt and swarmed over the starboard
bulwarks.

The tow-rope, tautening under the last stroke of our oars, had drawn
the boat back in its recoil, and she now drifted close under the
_Gauntlet's_ jibboom, which ran out upon a very short bowsprit.
I stood up, and reaching for a grip on the dolphin-striker, swung
myself on to the bobstay and thence to the cap of the bowsprit, where
I sat astride for a moment while Billy followed. We were barefoot
both and naked to the waist. Cautiously as a pair of cats, we worked
along the bowsprit to the foremast stay, at the foot of which the
foresail lay loose and ready for hoisting. With a fold of this I
covered myself and peered along the pitch-dark deck.

No shot had been fired. I could distinguish no sound of struggle, no
English voice in all the din. The ship seemed to be full only of
yellings, rushings to-and-fro of feet, wild hammerings upon timber,
solid and hollow: and these pell-mell noises made the darkness, if
not darker, at least more terribly confusing.

The cries abated a little; the noise of hammering increased, and at
the same time grew persistent and regular, almost methodical. I had
no sooner guessed the meaning of this--that the ruffians were
fastening down the hatches on their prisoners--than one of them, at
the far end of the ship, either fetched or found a lantern, lit it,
and stood it on the after-hatch. Its rays glinted on the white teeth
and eyeballs and dusky shining skins of a whole ring of Moors
gathered around the hatchway and nailing all secure.

Now for the first time it came into my mind that these rovers spared
to kill while there remained a chance of taking their prisoners
alive; that their prey was ever the crew before the cargo; and that,
as for the captured vessel, they usually scuttled and sank her if she
drew too much water for their shallow harbours, or if (like the
_Gauntlet_) she lacked the speed for their trade. The chances were,
then, that my father yet lived. Yet how could I, naked and unarmed,
reach to him or help him?

A sound, almost plumb beneath me, recalled me to more selfish alarms.
The Moors, whether they came from the xebec or, as we agreed later,
more probably from shore, in answer to the xebec's signal-lights--
must have dropped down on us without stroke of oars. It may be that
for the last half a mile or more they had wriggled their boat down to
the attack by means of an oar or sweep shipped in the stern notch: a
device which would avoid all noise and, if they came slowly, all
warning but the ripple of briming off the bows. In any case they had
not failed to observe that the ketch was being towed; and now, having
discharged her boarding-party, their boat pushed forward to capture
ours, which lay beneath us bumping idly against the _Gauntlet's_
stem. I heard some half a dozen of them start to jabber as they
found it empty. I divined--I could not see--the astonishment in
their faces, as they stared up into the darkness.

Just then--perhaps in response to their cries--a comrade on deck ran
forward to the bows and leaned over to hail them, standing so close
to me that his shoulder brushed against the fold of the foresail
within which I cowered. Like me he was bare to the waist, but around
his loins he wore a belt scaled with silver sequins, glimmering
against the ray of the lantern on the after-hatch, and maybe also in
the first weak light of the approaching dawn. . . .

A madness took me at the sight. In a sudden rage I gripped the
forestay with my left hand, lowered my right, and, slipping my
fingers under his belt, lifted him--he was a light man--swung him
outboard and overboard, and dropped him into the sea.

I heard the splash; with an ugly thud, which told me that some part
of him had struck the boat's gunwale. I waited--it seemed that I
waited many seconds--expecting the answering yell, or a shot perhaps.
Still gripping the forestay with my left hand, I bent forward, ready
to leap for deck. But even as I bent, the bowsprit shook under me
like a whip, and the deck before me opened in a yellow sheet of fire.
The whole ship seemed to burst asunder and shut again, the flame of
the explosion went wavering up the rigging, and I found myself
hanging on to the forestay and dangling over emptiness. While I
dangled I heard in the roaring echoes another splash, and knew that
Billy Priske had been thrown from his hold; a splash, and close upon
it a heavy grinding sound, a crash of burst planks, an outcry ending
in a wail as the lifting sea bore back the Moor's boat and our own
together upon the Gauntlet's stem and smashed them like egg-shells.

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