Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer, Cyrus Townsend Brady [i read book TXT] 📗

But in that fancy he was wrong, for in the solitary little copse of bushes of which mention has been made there lay hidden a man--an ancient sailor. His single eye gleamed as fiercely upon the bound, shackled prisoner as did the setting sun itself.

Old Benjamin Hornigold, who had schemed and planned for his revenge, had insisted upon being put ashore on the other side of the island after the boats had rowed out of sight of the captive, that he might steal back and, himself unseen, watch the torture of the man who had betrayed him and wronged him so deeply that in his diseased mind no expiation could be too awful for the crime; that he might glut his fierce old soul with the sight for which it had longed since the day Harry Morgan, beholden to him as he was for his very life and fortune, for a thousand brave and faithful, if nefarious, services, had driven him like a dog from his presence. Alvarado--who, being a Spaniard, could sympathize and understand the old sailor's lust for revenge--had readily complied with his request, and had further promised to return for the boatswain in two days. They calculated nicely that the already exhausted prisoner would scarcely survive that long, and provisions and water ample for that period had been left for the sustenance of Hornigold--alone.

Morgan, however, did not know this. He believed his only companions to be the body of the half-breed who had died for him as he had lived for him, and the severed head of a newer comrade who had not betrayed him. The body lay almost at his feet; the head had been wedged in the sand so that its sightless face was turned toward him in the dreadful, lidless staring gaze of sudden death. And those two were companions with whom he could better have dispensed, even in his solitude.

They had said to the buccaneer, as they fastened him to the rocks, that they would not take his life, but that he would be left to the judgment of God. What would that be? He thought he knew.

He had lived long enough on the Caribbean to know the habits of that beautiful and cruel sea. There was a little stretch of sand at his feet and then the water began. He estimated that the tide had been ebbing for an hour or so when he was fastened up and abandoned. The rock to which he had been chained was still wet, and he noticed that the dampness existed far above his head. The water would recede--and recede--and recede--until perhaps some three hundred feet of bare sand would stretch before him, and then it would turn and come back, back, back. Where would it stop? How high would it rise? Would it flood in in peaceful calm as it was then drawing away? Would it come crashing in heavy assault upon the sands as it generally did, beating out his life against the rock? He could not tell. He gazed at it intently so long as there was light, endeavoring to decide the momentous question. To watch it was something to do. It gave him mental occupation, and so he stared and stared at the slowly withdrawing water-line.

Of the two he thought he should prefer a storm. He would be beaten to pieces, the life battered out of him horribly in that event; but that would be a battle, a struggle,--action. He could fight, if he could not wait and endure. It would be a terrible death, but it would be soon over and, therefore, he preferred it to the slow horror of watching the approach of the waters creeping in and up to drown him. The chief agony of his position, however, the most terrifying feature in this dreadful situation to which his years of crime had at last brought him, was that he was allowed no choice. He had always been a man of swift, prompt, bold action; self-reliant, fearless, resolute, a master not a server; accustomed to determine events in accordance with his own imperious will, and wont to bring them about as he planned. To be chained there, impotent, helpless, waiting, indeed, the judgment of God, was a thing which it seemed impossible for him to bear. The indecision of it, the uncertainty of it, added to his helplessness and made it the more appalling to him.

The judgment of God! He had never believed in a God since his boyhood days, and he strove to continue in his faithlessness now. He had been a brave man, dauntless and intrepid, but cold, paralyzing fear now gripped him by the heart. A few lingering sparks of the manhood and courage of the past that not even his crimes had deprived him of still remained in his being, however, and he strove as best he might to control the beating of his heart, to still the trembling of his arms and legs which shook the chains against the stone face of the rock making them ring out in a faint metallic clinking, which was the sweetest music that had ever pierced the eager hollow of the ear of the silent listener and watcher concealed in the thicket.

So long as it was light Morgan intently watched the sea. There was a sense of companionship in it which helped to alleviate his unutterable loneliness. And he was a man to whom loneliness in itself was a punishment. There were too many things in the past that had a habit of making their presence felt when he was alone, for him ever to desire to be solitary. Presently the sun disappeared with the startling suddenness of tropic latitudes, and without twilight darkness fell over the sea and over his haggard face like a veil. The moon had not yet risen and he could see nothing. There were a few faint clouds on the horizon, he had noticed, which might presage a storm. It was very dark and very still, as calm and peaceful a tropic night as ever shrouded the Caribbean. Farther and farther away from him he could hear the rustle of the receding waves as the tide went down. Over his head twinkled the stars out of the deep darkness.

In that vast silence he seemed to hear a voice, still and small, talking to him in a faint whisper that yet pierced the very centre of his being. All that it said was one word repeated over and over again, "God--God--God!" The low whisper beat into his brain and began to grow there, rising louder and louder in its iteration until the whole vaulted heaven throbbed with the ringing sound of it. He listened--listened--it seemed for hours--until his heart burst within him. At last he screamed and screamed, again and again, "Yes--yes! Now I know--I know!" And still the sound beat on.

He saw strange shapes in the darkness. One that rose and rose, and grew and grew, embracing all the others until its head seemed to touch the stars, and ever it spoke that single word "God--God--God!" He could not close his eyes, but if he had been able to raise his hand he would have hid his face. The wind blew softly, it was warm and tender, yet the man shivered with cold, the sweat beaded his brow.

Then the moon sprang up as suddenly as the sun had fallen. Her silver radiance flooded the firmament. Light, heavenly light once more! He was alone. The voice was still; the shadow left him. Far away from him the white line of the water was breaking on the silver sand. His own cry came back to him and frightened him in the dead silence.

Now the tide turned and came creeping in. It had gone out slowly; it had lingered as if reluctant to leave him; but to his distraught vision it returned with the swiftness of a thousand white horses tossing their wind-blown manes. The wind died down; the clouds were dissipated. The night was so very calm, it mocked the storm raging in his soul. And still the silvered water came flooding in; gently--tenderly--caressingly--the little waves lapped the sands. At last they lifted the ghastly head of young Teach--he'd be damnably mouldy a hundred years hence!--and laid it at his feet.

He cursed the rising water, and bade it stay--and heedlessly it came on. It was a tropic sea and the waters were as warm as those of any sun-kissed ocean, but they broke upon his knees with the coldness of eternal ice. They rolled the heavier body of his faithful slave against him--he strove to drive it away with his foot as he had striven to thrust aside the ghastly head, and without avail. The two friends receded as the waves rolled back but they came on again, and again, and again. They had been faithful to him in life, they remained with him in death.

Now the water broke about his waist; now it rose to his breast. He was exhausted; worn out. He hung silent, staring. His mind was busy; his thought went back to that rugged Welsh land where he had been born. He saw himself a little boy playing in the fields that surrounded the farmhouse of his father and mother.

He took again that long trip across the ocean. He lived again in the hot hell of the Caribbean. Old forms of forgotten buccaneers clustered about him. Mansfelt, under whom he had first become prominent himself. There on the horizon rose the walls of a sleeping town. With his companions he slowly crept forward through the underbrush, slinking along like a tiger about to spring upon its prey. The doomed town flamed before his eyes. The shrieks of men, the prayers of women, the piteous cries of little children came into his ears across forty years.

Cannon roared in his ear--the crash of splintered wood, the despairing appeals for mercy, for help, from drowning mariners, as he stood upon a bloody deck watching the rolling of a shattered, sinking ship. Was that water, spray from some tossing wave, or blood, upon his hand?

The water was higher now; it was at his neck. There were Porto Bello, Puerto Principe, and Maracaibo, and Chagres and Panama--ah, Panama! All the fiends of hell had been there, and he had been their chief! They came back now to mock him. They pointed at him, gibbered upon him, threatened him, and laughed--great God, how they laughed!

There was pale-faced, tender-eyed Maria Zerega who had died of the plague, and the baby, the boy. Jamaica, too, swept into his vision. There was his wife shrinking away from him in the very articles of death. There was young Ebenezer Hornigold, dancing right merrily upon the gallows together with others of the buccaneers he had hanged.

The grim figure of the one-eyed boatswain rose before him and leered upon him and swept the other apparitions away. This was La Guayra--yesterday. He had been betrayed. Whose men were those? The men hanging on the walls? And Hornigold had done it--old Ben Hornigold--that he thought so faithful.

He screamed aloud again with hate, he called down curses upon the head of the growing one-eyed apparition. And the water broke into his mouth and stopped him. It called him to his senses for a moment. His present peril overcame the hideous recollection of the past. That water was rising still. Great God! At last he prayed. Lips that had only cursed shaped themselves into futile petitions. There was a God, after all.

The end was upon him, yet with the old instinct of life he lifted himself upon his toes. He raised his arms as far as the chains gave him play and caught the chains themselves and