"Tuez-moi!" he whimpered hoarsely. "Tuez-moi!"

"I can't!" gasped Kit—"not in cold blood!"

The lad was face to face with one of the most appalling of God's mysteries, and was unhinged by it. Gwen with the toothache had been nothing to this.

The agonised man rolled his head from side to side.

"Sainte Mere de Dieu, intercedez pour moi!" he wailed.

Again that lightning flashed in the boy's mind.

The man's silver-mounted pistol lay on the deck beside him. He thrust it into the other's hand.

"Here, sir!"

The man clutched it, as one dying in a desert may clutch the flagon of water that means life to him.

The head ceased its dreadful weaving.

"Petit ange! petit Anglais!" he whispered, and tried to smile.

Kit ran for his bridge. Halfway across it, he heard a crack, and looked back.

He could not see the French skipper; but what he could see made his heart sick.

Boats, crammed to the teeth, were putting away from the Coquette. Black and scurrying, they tore across the water towards him, like rats racing for blood.



CHAPTER XII

BOARDERS

I

Kit rushed madly aft.

"Here they come, sir!" he screamed.

Old Ding-dong sat propped on his corpse, shaving a quid of tobacco.

"Who come?"

"The boats, sir—boarding."

"That's the game, is it?"

He shut his jack-knife deliberately, and arranged his plug in the corner of his jaw.

"Fetch me that ere boardin-pike. Now give me a hike up. Then nip below and pass the word to Mr. Lanyon."

As Kit turned, he heard the rip of the first boat under the counter of the sloop and a sharp command in French, sounding strange and terrible in his ears.

Furiously he sped along the deck. As he bundled down the ladder, he caught a glimpse of the old Commander, braced against the bulwarks, and spitting into his hands.

The boy dropped into hell.

Down there was no order. All was howling chaos. Each gun-captain fought his own gun, regardless of the rest. Billows of smoke drifted to and fro; shadowy forms flitted; guns bounded and bellowed; here and there a red glare lit the fog.

Through the shattering roar of the guns, the rendings of planks, the scream of round-shot, came the voices of men, dim-seen. Jokes, blasphemies, prayers, groans, issued in nightmare medley from that death-fog.

"Chri', kill me!—My God, I sweats!—Pore old Jake's got it!"

On mid-deck a shadow was pirouetting madly. Suddenly it collapsed; and the boy saw it ended at the neck.

A dim figure lolled against an overturned gun. As the lad gazed, it pointed to a puddle beside it.

"That's me," it said with slow and solemn interest.

The boy trod on something in the smoke. A bloody wraith, spread-eagled upon the deck, raised tired eyes to his.

"That's all right, sir," came a whisper. "Don't make no odds. I got all I want."

A hand out of the mist clutched his ankle.

"Stop this racket," gasped a voice, querulous and tearful. "I ain't well." A stump flapped in his face.

A ghost, sitting up against the side close by, began to titter.

"Once I was mother's darling. Mightn't think it to see me now."

A shot, screeching past the boy's nose, took his breath away. He staggered back, and brought up against a gun-captain, his shoulders to the breech of the gun.

The man turned with a grin. It was the Gunner, naked to the waist, and smoke-grimed.

"Sweet mess, ain't it?" he coughed. "How d'ye like your first smell o powder, sir?"

"They're boarding!" panted Kit. "Quick!"

The man leapt up.

"Boardin!" he roared. "Board ME! I'll give em board."

He snatched up a chain-shot, and raced down the deck.

"Up aloft the lot o you!" he howled. "Heaven waits ye there!"

II

As he flamed through the smoke-drift, the crew caught fire from him.

Behind him in roaring flood they poured—black men and bloody, snatching each the weapon nearest to hand.

An aweful joy seemed beating up through mists in their faces. Time and Eternity warred within them. Man, the creature, hideously afraid for his flesh, strove with Man, the Creator, impregnable in his immortality.

Kit, swept off his feet, was borne along with the flood. The fury of enthusiasm, which the splendid drunkard had roused in the hearts of his men, had seized him too.

His body was aflame; and his veins ran fire. Now for the first time he knew what it was to be alive—Life spurting from his finger-tips, making madness in his blood, issuing riotously from his lips. He sang; he yelled; he laughed, battering at the lunatic in front. He caught the blasphemies of his battle-fellows, and echoed them shrilly and with joy. The light in his comrades' eyes revealed to him deeps of being undreamed of before. His spirit was pouring through his flesh, making glory as it went.

Uplifted as a lover, the wine of War drowned his senses. In the glory of doing he had no thought for the thing done. His was the midsummer madness of slaying. In that singing moment how should he remember the bleak and shuddering autumn of pain inevitably to follow?—the winter of clammy death?—the March-wind voices of distant women wailing their mates?

"Jam, ain't it?" yelled a man in his ear, as they raced up the ladder.

"Glory! glory!" sang the boy, beside himself with passion.

III

Aft and alone stood the old Commander, a dead man at his feet.

Another swarmed over the side. The old Commander's boarding-pike met him fair in the face. Back the fellow went into darkness and death.

"Good old Ding-dong!" came the Gunner's rollicking bellow, as he stormed up on deck, swinging his chain-shot like a battle-axe. "That's your sort!—bash em! blast em!—disembowl the —— Turks!"

Behind him, out of the smoke, poured the men, red-hot and roaring, like lava spewed up from the bowels of a volcano.

A stream of boarders, trickling over the bulwarks, raced across the deck to meet them.

"Love and War! O my God, ain't they glory?" howled the Gunner, and plunged into the opposing flood.

One man he felled with his chain-shot; then flung it aside.

"Naked does it!" he roared, and swept up a boarder in his arms. "Ow, the luscious little armful! no good kickin, duckie! You've got to ave it!" He rushed to the side, hugging his man, and screaming fearful laughter.

"Love me and forgive me, pretty tartie!" he roared, and smashed his burthen down over the side.

The fellow crashed into a ladder of boarders, swarming up one behind the other. Back they hurled into the boats, a hurricane of men, one on top of t'other. The boat rocked, crumpled up, and sank.

The tears were rolling down the Gunner's face.

"Quenched their little ardour!" he bellowed, leaping on to the bulwark. "That's the style below there, boys! Go it, ye cripples! Give em the little Tremendous!"

Beneath him the sea was black with boats. From the port-holes of the main-deck the wounded were leaning out, hailing round-shot down into the boats.

"Plug em! ply em!" roared the Gunner. "Red ot shot—cannister—case! anything ye like only give em slaughter for eaven's sweet sake!"

He was back in the thick of it, raving up and down the deck, sowing death broadcast, his great voice everywhere.

Not a man on board but seemed to have caught something of his heroic fury. The purser's steward, primmest of Methodists, who was said to pass his time in action converting the cook, came tripping out of the galley, a black-jack of boiling water in his hand.

"Glory for you!" he screamed, and flung the contents in the face of a boarder.

"There's the proper Christian!" gasped the Gunner, slammed up against the main-mast. "Propagate the Gospel ow ye can!—bilin bilge!—buckets o filth!—spit in his face if ye can't do no better."

A tall Frenchman pistoled the little steward.

The ship's cook, a flabby great flat-footed man, all in white, and snorting strangely, bundled up with a poll-axe, and cleft the Frenchman's skull.

"It a chap your own size!" he yelled, and felled from behind, went down himself.

IV

Up and down the deck the battle raged: here a scrimmage; there a single fight; men at hand-grips; men hurling round-shot. They swayed, they staggered about in each other's arms; they shocked, parted, came together again. Dead men lay in the scuppers; wounded men crawled the deck; and up and down among them the living reeled. One man, turned cur, crouched under the bulwark with ghastly face uplifted, and met his death, whimpering. Another, strangely quiet amid the dance of devils, stood against the foremast, nursing a broken arm. Nobody heeded him. They were too busy.

To Kit a sudden madness seemed to have possessed the world. The deck danced before him. He was bumped; he was battered; he was hurled to and fro—a twig in a torrent.

All was dreadful; all was dizzy. Strange faces with appalling eyes rose before him; men breathing terribly flitted past. There was a smell of blood and sweat in his nostrils; a sound of panting and blasphemies in his ears.

This then was a battle—not much like the stories! All the same he wished they wouldn't tread on his toes so.

Blindly the boy slashed about him. Whether he killed them, or they killed him, he hardly knew, and didn't greatly care. A sort of instinct told him the men to stab at—the dirty beasts in shirts who showed their teeth. The naked men were his own lot.

Once he heard a voice beside him.

"Go it, little un! you're almost a man!"

Then the Gunner staggered by, all black eyes and straining face, his arms about a huge boarder, his teeth deep in the fellow's shoulder.

"Rip this ——'s backside up!" came a gurgling voice.

His hand went up automatically; automatically his dirk came down. A mountain fell on top of him....

As he crept out a voice panted hard by,

"Old man's down."

Dizzily he saw the old Commander sprawling to a fall, a man on top of him. The boy heard him grunt as he fell. That grunt angered him.

"I'm coming, sir!" he cried, and ran wrathfully with bloody dirk. "Beast!" he yelled. "Leave him alone!"

There was no need for him to cry.

The old man had done his own work from underneath with the jack-knife. Out poked his badger-grey head from under his man, much as the boy had often seen a ferret from beneath the body of a disembowelled rabbit.

"So fur so good," grunted the old man, crawling out on hands and knees, the scent-bottle between his teeth. "How's things forrad?"

Forward the deck was all but clear.

The remnant of the boarders, jammed up in the bows, were being hammered to death. A last fellow in a red night-cap, swarming out on the bowsprit, plumped into the sea.

The Gunner leapt on to the bulwark.

"Cleared, be God! alow and aloft!" he roared, swinging his chain-shot about his head. "Ats off all!—

God save h'our gracious King."

A bandaged head poked out of the hatchway.

"They're swarmin in through the port-holes!" came a husky scream.

Old Ding-dong lifted on his elbows.

"Leave the quarter-deck to me and the boy!" he roared. "Clear the main-deck."

"Ay, ay, sir," answered the Gunner, racing for the ladder. "Back to hell, the leetle beetches!"

The old man looked up.

"Any more for us, Mr. Caryll?"

A boat swept under the stern.

"Here's another of them, sir!"

The boy staggered to the side. A grappling iron swung from beneath almost struck him in the face.

He seized the cook's poll-axe, and hacked away at the bulwark. Then he put his shoulder to a carronade and shoved.

"H'all together eave!" whispered the dying cook, and lent a feeble hand.

Over went the carronade with spinning wheels. It caught the boat fair amidships, and broke it up like matchwood.

The boy leaned over. Beneath him in the green and sucking waters amid a litter of wreckage one or two heads showed, swimming faintly.

Pale and panting, he turned.

"I think that's the last, sir," languidly.

The old Commander removed the plug from his mouth.

"There's two things go to make a British seaman," he growled—"guts and gumption. Maybe you've got both, as your father had afoor you. We're like to see e'er the day's out."

He wiped his jack-knife on his breeches, and began to carve his plug again.

"Now run below and see how things are going with Mr. Lanyon."

The boy went. His passion had long passed. He was sick and weary. Head and heart ached.

With shaking knees, he tottered below. Had a party of jabbering Frenchmen met him, he wouldn't have minded. He was too spent.

But no.

All below was calm now and silence; smoke-drift and dying men.

The Gunner was standing at an open port, directing operations.

His passion too had passed. The giant-hero of a few minutes' back seemed almost small now. And a strange figure he made.

The sweat had coursed through the rouge on his cheeks; and the dye on his whiskers had run, dripping on to neck and shoulders. He was naked still, save for his trousers, but wearing his cocked hat a-rake.

The man at his side heaved a French corpse through the port.

"That's the lot," said the Gunner, picking his teeth, and turned with black and grinning face to the boy.

"Well, sir, what d'ye think? me?—earty fighter, ain't I?"



CHAPTER XIII

AFTER THE FIGHT

I

All was very still on the deck of the Tremendous; and those quiet men lolling in the sun added to the hush.

They sprawled about in all attitudes—on their faces, on their backs, in each other's arms, as though snoozing. And the snoring noise that came from one or two of them enhanced the illusion. Only the blank unwinking eyes of those upon their backs, the expression of the upturned faces, and the wet red stuff smeared everywhere, showed that they were not holiday picnickers.

Aft by the binnacle a man sat up against the side watching with appalling solemnity the blood pat-pat-patting down from a wound in his side. He dabbed a finger in the mess, and scrawled his name on the deck,

Tom Bleach. R.I.P._

"Tom Bleach—Remember Im Please," he repeated, nodding his head with portentous gravity.

A white and crimson huddle beside him groaned.

The man of letters frowned at it.

"How d'ye feel, cookie?" he asked.

"Mortal queer," whispered the dying man.

"It do feel queer, dyin," admitted the other solemnly.

A French officer close by opened glazed eyes.

"I too I die," he announced. "What then will I do?"

"Why, pray God forgive you bein French," growled old Ding-dong, propped against the wheel. "That's your worst crime."

II

The boy came up from below, deathly pale, the wind lifting his hair. He crossed to the old Commander, reeling faintly among the dead as he came.

"Lanyon alive?"

"Yes, sir. All well below," in thin and ghostly voice.

The old man nodded satisfaction.

"Starry fighter, ain't he?—Wonderful gift that way. Don't know as I ever saw his ekal at a pinch."

He looked up at the lad, swaying above him.

"Feel funny?"

The boy did not reply, leaning against the side, a far-away look in his eyes.

Then he burst into tears.

"There, there!" said the old man soothingly. "Sure to come a bit okkud-like first start-off. It's been a nasty beginning for you too—messy fightin, I call it. Look at my quarter-deck! More like a slaughter-house nor a King's ship."

He mopped at his leg.

"And all the shore-goin folk on their knees in Church all the time!—Funny to think on, ain't it?"

III

The Gunner came up the ladder.

A sack was cast about his naked shoulders; his cocked hat was on the back of his head; and a tooth-pick between his lips.

He strolled to the side.

Beneath him the Cocotte, smoking like a damped furnace, the blood trickling from between her seams, was settling fast.

"Got her bellyful all snug," said the Gunner complacently, picking his teeth.

He strolled off to old Ding-dong, propped on his corpse beside the wheel.

"Well, sir, you play a pretty stick with a handspike still!—how's yerself?"

"Tidy," grunted the veteran. "How fur's yon frigate yet? I can't see over the side, settin on my little sofia."

"Within random shot, sir. She's got a slant of wind, and is crowding all sail to get alongside."

"Then we'd best be sturrin. How are we ridin?"

The Gunner looked over the side.

"Why, middlin deep, sir."

"Then cut the boats away, and the anchors. Stave in the water-casks. Heave all spare shot and tackle overboard—we need nowt but the boards we stand on and the guns we fight; and make what sail you can on her.... I shall bear away for the shore. Don't mean bein took at my time o life."

IV

A breeze light as a lady's kiss smote the water. The topsails of the sloop began to fill and flutter.

Deep in the water as a barge, she drew away from her floundering antagonist. As she did so, the privateer, as though loth to let her depart unsaluted, barked a sullen farewell.

A roar of triumph from the Coquette, clearing now on the port-bow and a fainter shout from the frigate to starboard, told their own tale.

The mizzen, struck twenty foot above the deck, came down with a crash. With it fell the red-cross flag, and the faces of the crew.

"Hand me that striped petticut!" roared the Gunner, pointing to the tricolour lying entangled in the ruins of the privateer's main-top on the deck of the sloop. "I want to blow me nose."

He leaped on to the bulwark, flag in hand; and staying himself by the shroud, blew his nose boisterously on the enemy's colours.

The crew, busy clearing the wreckage of the mizzen, roared delight.

The Gunner jumped down, and spread the flag over the old Commander's feet as he lay.

"There's the first on em, sir. There's two more to follow."

"Make it so," said the old man grimly.

He was chewing a quid, and a battered cocked hat tilted over his eyes.

V

The Gunner marched away, eyes to his right, eyes to his left. And as he marched, he swept off his cocked hat.

"Chaps," he called to the remnant of the crew gathered grimy about the after-hatch. "I thank my God for this booriful sight. Frenchman to port!" shooting his left arm. "Frenchman to starboard!" shooting his right. "Frenchman astarn!" with a backward toss. "And God A'mighty aloft. What more can a Christian ask?"

A shot from the frigate splashed under the bows of the sloop, sluicing her deck.

"There she spouts!" roared the Gunner, and clapping on his hat ran, kicking his heels behind him. "Come along, the baby-boys!—the last fight o the little Tremendous—and the best."



III

UNDER THE CLIFF



CHAPTER XIV

SUNDAY EVENING

It was evening.

The little Tremendous lay under the cliff, pounding gently, gently, on a reef. Her back was broken, she had a heavy list to starboard, and her bulwark was awash.

The mainmast had gone by the board. The quarterdeck carronades, loosed from their moorings, sprawled in the wash of the water, a dead man floating amongst them. The deck was a tangle of wreckage and bloody sails. From a splintered stump, more like a shaving-brush than a mast, the red-cross flag still flapped.

Astern of her, in the deep water, lay her enemies in smoking ruins. The privateer, her foretop in flames, was dishevelled as a virago after a street fight; while great white clouds puffing out of the frigate's quarter-gallery told that she was afire.

The sea wallowed about the sloop, green and sleek and greedy. There was scarcely a ruffle on the water; only a huge slow heaving, as of some monster breathing deeply, and licking its lips before an orgie.

Firing had long ceased.

Kit, squatting, his back against the mizzen-stump, was coming to with splitting head.

All through that golden summer afternoon the sloop had drifted shoreward, privateer and frigate hammering her from either side. Towards evening, her last shot spent, the frigate boarded. The Gunner, hoarse as a crow, bloody as a beefsteak, had brought up the weary remnant of the crew to repel the attack, Kit aiding him manfully.

Men had been dancing idiotically about the boy; he had heard the Gunner's raucous voice close in his ear,

"Gad, you're a game un!" and had run at a nightmare man with goggle eyes.

Then something had happened.

Now all was calm and sunset peace, and dew on the deck among the blood stains.

And how beautiful it was, this strange twilight quiet, after the howl and torment of battle!

Warily the boy opened eyes and ears. He was not dead then, not even wounded, only horribly parched, and how his head ached!

Before him the cliff fell sheer and blank—a white curtain dropped from heaven.

Over it sea-gulls floated on dream-wings. While from some remote Down village, church bells swung out the old song—

Come to Christ, Come to Christ, Come, dear children, come to Christ.

The boy, lying on the bloody deck, his feet cushioned on a dead man, listened with closed eyes to the old call.

Last Sunday at that hour, the blackbirds hopping on the lawn without, the swifts screaming above, he and mother and Gwen had been singing hymns together in the schoolroom—rather chokily indeed, for it was his last Sunday at home.

All that was ages and ages ago. He had lived and died a hundred times since then.

Now....

There by the wheel, in a puddle of his own blood, lay old Ding-dong, grey and ghastly. His eyes were closed; his cocked hat with a rakish forward tilt sat on his nose. He lay with shoulders hunched, his legs spread helplessly along the deck before him, stubborn chin digging into the breast of his frock-coat.

One grim fist was frozen to the shattered wheel; the other, grimmer still, clutched the scent-bottle.



CHAPTER XV

THE VOICE FROM THE POWDER-MAGAZINE

I

A bosun's whistle sounded.

On hands and knees the lad crept along the tilted deck past the old Commander.

"That you, Mr. Caryll?" came a husky voice. "I canna see over plain."

The old man had not moved, but one eye had opened and was glaring up from under the eaves of his cocked hat.

"Yes, sir."

"Are they coomin?"

Kit threw a glance seaward.

"The frigate's piped her boats away, sir."

The old man's head, still forward on his breast, did not move; he did not seem to breathe. All of him was dead save that little eye, cocking up at the lad from under the tilted hat.

"Canst walk?"

"Yes, sir. I'm not wounded, only stunned."

"Then run below to Mr. Lanyon, and tell him to bide my whistle."

"Where is he, sir?"

"Where he ought to be," growled the old man—"powder-magazine o coorse."

The eye closed: the little ray of soul, still haunting the body, seemed quenched for ever; but it was not.

"And bring along a brace o round-shot when ye coom back, wilta?" came the painful voice out of the deeps.

II

Kit slid down the companion ladder.

The lower deck was half awash, and foul with smoke. There was a stink of dead men, bilge, and powder.

But what a change from when he was last here!

Then sights so ghastly that he dared not recall them: screams of torn men, rending of torn planks; howling terrors on every side, shattering his head, bursting his heart, dissipating his mind.

Now silence everywhere, beautiful silence, the silence of Death.

And those leaping devils with the hoarse throats, who had barked themselves red-hot then, were strangely hushed now. Loosed from their moorings, they huddled, together beneath him half under water, like so many great black beasts, cowed, it seemed, almost ashamed; here a huge breech showing, there a blunt snout, and again a thrusting trunnion.

As he crawled along in the gloom among blackened corpses he thanked God for the stillness. It was comforting to him as water in the desert to a man dying. He drank it in gulps.

A sound in the darkness and silence stopped him.

Out of the deeps a shuddering voice rose up to him, mumbling a Litany of the dead,

"Lord ha mercy on me a sinner— Lord ha mercy on me a sinner— Lord ha mercy on me a sinner."

The boy crept to the forehatch and peered down.

One tiny yellow star flickered in the pitch blackness beneath.

"Mr. Lanyon!" His voice was frightened of itself. "Is that you?"

The Litany ceased. Some one cleared his throat.

"That's me, sir," came a voice from the pit. "I'm back where I belong—in her bow'ls."

The Gunner was squatting in a powder barrel, a lighted purser's glim between his teeth, and a pistol in one hand. Kit caught the glimmer of naked shoulders, the wet gleam of eyes, and the shine of sweat on a face black as a sweep's.

"I was ummin all the bawdy bits I know to keep me company," called up a voice husky as a ghost's and cheery as a robin's: "It's lonesome-like kickin your heels in the dark against the powder bar'l you're goin to ell in next minute. Not that it's ell I mind. Ell's all right once you're there. It's the gettin there's the trouble—the messin about and waitin and that."

"You won't have to wait long now," replied Kit in a voice so still and solemn that he hardly recognised it himself. Nothing was very real to him. Even the words he uttered were not his own: they were machine-made somehow.

"They'll be alongside in a minute. Commander Harding says you're to wait for his whistle. Then—"

"Amen. So be it. God save the King."

The Gunner dropped his voice to a whisper, rolling up his eyes.'

"Say, Sonny, are you afraid?"

"No. I can't take anything in."

"Nor'm I; and ain't got no cause neether," came the voice from the darkness, defiant almost to truculence. "I only ad but the two talents—lovin and fightin; and they can't say I've id eether o them up in a napkin. They can't chuck that in me face."

He spat philosophically between his thighs.

"On'y one thing I wish," he continued confidentially. "I wish all the totties was settin atop o that clift to see Magnificent Arry go aloft. Ah, you mightn't think it to see me now, Mr. Caryll, squattin mother-naked in this bar'l, but I been a terror in me time. Sich a way with em and all!"

"You might think about something more decent just now," said the boy coldly. "Good-bye. I'm afraid you haven't lived a very good life."

As the boy groped his way back, the parched voice pursued him from the nether hell.

"My respects to the old man. We seen a tidy bit together, him and me; but reck'n this last little bust-up bangs the lot. I'd ha gone through a world without women for its sweet sake, blest if I wouldn't.... And now," came the voice in a sort of chant, "avin lived like a blanky King I'm goin to die like a blanky cro. Arry the Magnificent always and for h'ever!"



CHAPTER XVI

MAGNIFICENT ARRY GOES ALOFT

Old Ding-Dong lay as the boy had left him.

"Got them round-shot?" hoarsely.

"Yes, sir."

"Stuff em in my tails then."

The boy obeyed.

"Ah, that's better," sighed the old man comfortably. "No fear I shall break adrift o my moorings." He slipped the scent-bottle into his breast-pocket and patted it. "She'll lay snug along o me, she will."

He closed his eyes.

Kit, kneeling at his side, held a pannikin to his lips.

"Water, sir. Will you have a drop?"

"Nay, thank ee, ma lad. I'll bide till t'other side. Shan't be long now."

Kit drank greedily. He could hear the oars of the approaching boat; he had at the most some two minutes of life, but O! the delight of that draught.

A hand grasped his.

"Mr. Caryll," said the old Commander in strange and formal voice, "I've sent for you upon the quarter-deck to thank you for your gallantry in your first action, which is also, I fear, your last.... Can you swim?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, then, slip overboard, if you've a mind, and make shift for yourself."

"No, sir, thank you. I'll stand by the ship."

The old man grunted satisfaction.

"Then say your prayers."

He put the whistle between his teeth.

The flag he had kept flying, nailed to the splintered mizzen, curled languidly above his head.

The old mail, dying in its shadow, eyed it with silent content.

"Are they coomin, Mr. Caryll?"

"Yes, sir—near now."

"Lay low," whispered the old man, "and we'll bag the lot, God helpin us."

The sound of oars ceased. Out of the silence a voice hailed.

"Any one alife on board?"

Old Ding-dong hearkened, his cocked hat far over his eyes.

That look of the Eternal Child, arch and mischievous, played among the wrinkles about his eyes.

"Cuckoo!" he muttered. "Cuckoo!"

Kit giggled.

He knew the ship was about to be blown up; but he didn't take much interest in it himself. It didn't seem to affect him. Somehow he was so far away. All that was happening was happening in a dream-world of which he was a spectator only. True he felt a vague discomfort at the heart; but he knew that in a minute he should wake up—to find mother's eyes smiling into his, and her laughing voice saying,

"My dear boy, what have you been dreaming about?"

The boats were drawing nearer again, wary as hunters drawing on a dying lion.

Old Ding-dong heard them, and smiled.

The little Tremendous was a sheer hulk; her back was broken; her crew were dead—and still they feared her!

The old seaman's heart warmed within him. That one sweet moment paid him generously for fifty years of toil, of battle, of chagrin.

And as though thrilling to the emotion of the man who had loved her for so long, the little ship trembled as she settled deeper.

The old man patted the deck.

"There! it wonna urt you, my dear," he said soothingly. "Too suddint."

A tricorne rose over the bulwark.

An officer cast his eyes up and down the deck, swift and alert as a bird.

"Anybody alife on board?" he repeated, and in the vast silence his voice came small and very shrill.

He clambered over the bulwark, and came up the steep deck monkey-wise.

At the foot of the mizzen he paused.

Kit, crouching in a heap close by, noticed his boots, old, split across the toe, dingy white socks showing through. He found himself wondering whether the man had corns.

Clinging to the stump the Frenchman drew his sword, and looked up at the red-cross flag flapping sullen defiance overhead.

"Dans le nom de l'Empereur!" he cried pompously.

A whistle, swift as the arrow of death, pierced him to the heart.



CHAPTER XVII

THE GRAVE OF THE LITTLE TREMENDOUS

I

A roar drowned the boy's senses, sweeping his mind away on a mountainous billow of sound.

Earth and sea were a bubble beneath his feet, swelling and sailing; and he was walking on the bubble, and toppling backwards as he walked.

He felt himself smiling in a foolish way. There was no pain then about dying, he thought with a pleased and remote surprise—only this silly smiling content.

Things hit him outside. He was aware of them; but they did not hurt. His body was wood, dull to sensation. He himself was within somewhere, snug and safe. He had heard the parson at home talk about eternal life. Now he knew what the man meant. To be alive yet above pain, to be dead yet dimly comfortable—that was the heavenly life. It was very curious, and not half bad.

And—he had been there before. When and where, he could not recollect. But all was friendly, all familiar.

Suddenly there came a change, and for the worse. A great wet cloud swamped him. The light went out. All about him was cold, and dark, and clinging. Was this the grave and gate of Death?

He shuddered, and yet was not greatly afraid.

Everything was so far away, on the circumference of being, as it were; and he at the centre, safe and warm, was mildly interested—little more.

Somehow he knew he was in the sea, walking dream-waters; whether conscious, or unconscious, in the spirit or out of it, he knew not, and didn't greatly care.

Grotesque yet beautiful impressions of things familiar flitted across his mind. He saw his mother in a cocked hat; Cuddie Collingwood, his pet canary, strutting the maindeck and picking his teeth; and Gwen with a tarred pigtail, her brawny bosom tattooed with dancing-girls.

She was making faces at him, the faces that none but Gwen could make; and he was about to shoot his tongue back brotherly, when there came another change, terrible this time.

There was a singing in his ears; a sense of suffocation and appalling impotence. He was rushing back to the world of sense and pain—in time, no doubt, to die, when he thought he was through that trouble. Just his luck!

He was throttled, battling, distraught. About him was the rush and smother of waters. A secret power clutched him about the waist and tugged him back. For the first time in his life he felt the aweful and inexorable grip of Necessity; and his heart screamed.

Then with a bob and a gasp, he was up; the water in his nostrils; and his hands clinging to a spar.

II

About him was a fog of smoke, and the throes of water in torment, sucking, spewing, pouncing.

Then a great swell, roaring into foam, lifted him. He was swung out of the stinging smother, away from the shock and battle of waters, out and out under the calm sky.

Beneath him a sheer white wall rose. There was no top to it, and no bottom. He could have screamed. It was so huge, so blank, so incomprehensible. It fell from heaven. Was it the skirt of God?

Then he saw the dark crest miles overhead, and knew it for a cliff. He was right beneath it, and swinging towards it.

Suddenly he became aware of a badger-grey head bobbing beside him on the spar.

"Hullo, sir!" he gasped.

A voice spluttered,

"Pockets sprung a leak!—tailor! ruffian!"

A great following swell lifted them.

"Hold fast, sir!" called Kit. "This'll throw us up."

The swell drove forward, toppling to a fall; curled, and crashed down.

Kit found himself on hands and knees, banged, dripping, dizzy, in a hiss and turmoil of waters. The backward sweep of the waves almost carried him with it. But his hands were in the shingle up to the wrist, anchoring him. The body of water passed him. A thousand tresses of foam reminding him of his Granny's hair swept across his fingers.

He looked up. He was kneeling on a tiny strip of beach at the foot of the cliff. On his left sprawled the old Commander. His knees, cocked by the receding wave, swayed and toppled now; the legs wooden and dreadful as a dummy's.

Kit crawled towards him.

"Are you hurt, sir?"

The old man answered nothing. His eyes were shut, his arms wide. He lay upon his back on the wet and running shingle, his white knee-breeches sodden and rusty with blood, the square chin heavenward.

Another of those sleek green monsters stole towards them out of the smoke.

In an agony the lad tried to drag the old man back under the cliff. He might as well have attempted to lift a cask of lead.

"O, what shall I do?" wailed the boy to heaven.

"Why, cut and run," answered the voice from earth.

Then the wave was on them, swooping, worrying, white-toothed.

Kit did his best. Kneeling behind the old man, he heaved him into a sitting position, and propped him there, as the tumult of waters sluiced about them. Over the limp legs, up the great chest, the wave swept greedily; but the badger-grey head stayed above the flood.

Then the water withdrew, blind and baffled.

Kit lowered the grey head.

"Thank ee," grunted the old man, and seemed to sleep.

Kit made no answer. He was watching the sea with dreadful anxiety. Was it coming up? Was it going down? Were there to be more of those smothering floods? If so, they were lost. He knew he could not lift again that leaden old man.

No. The worst was over. A lesser wave swept towards them. It tossed those wooden legs, dreadfully sporting with them, and fled, snarling.

The boy bent with thankful heart.

"That's all, sir. It won't come again. It's the swell made by the explosion—not the tide."

"Ah," said the other sleepily; and opened his eyes.

Seaward hung a huge toad-stool of smoke. Out of the heart of it came the clash and cry of torn waters. All else was still, save for the scream of disturbed sea-birds.

Through the frayed and drifting edge of the smoke could be seen the frigate and the spars of the privateer; and sticking out of the water, a jagged mizzen—all that was left of the little Tremendous.

As his eye fell on the splintered stump the old Commander lifted a hand to his forehead.

"Plucky little packet," he muttered. "Plucky little packet."



CHAPTER XVIII

OLD DING-DONG'S REVENGE

Old Ding-dong lay at the foot of the cliff among the chalk boulders, his limp white legs glimmering in the twilight.

To Kit, kneeling at his side, it seemed that only the old man's slow blinking eyelids were alive. The horror of it thrilled the boy, and woke the woman in him. He was not repelled; he was drawn closer.

Taking off his coat, he rolled it, sopping as it was, and stuffed it beneath the other's head.

Propped so, the old man lay in the falling gloom, head quaintly cocked, and chin crushed down on his chest.

"Are you comfortable, sir?"

"Comforubble as a man can be that canna feel," the other grunted. "My back's bruk. I'm dyin uppuds."

Stealthily the boy took the old man's hand in his. A faint tightening of the clay-cold fingers surprised him.

The dusk was falling fast. At their feet the sea still crashed uneasily. Above them the cliff showed white. Under the moon one red star sparkled. From out of the smoke they could hear the sound of oars and voices. Boats were searching amid the wreckage.

"Ay, you may sarch," muttered the grim old man. "It's little you'll find but your own carpses."

He rolled his head round. Kit marked the shine of his eyes, the blink of pale lids, and the glimmer of his face.

"Look in ma breast-pocket. It's there."

The boy's scared fingers travelled over the other's sodden coat. It was like searching a drowned man.

"Yes, sir. Here it is."

"Hod it oop."

The boy held the scent-bottle before the other's eyes. The old man gazed at it, licking his lips.

Then he rolled his eyes up to the boy's.

"Kit Caryll," came the squeezed voice suddenly, "are you your father's son?"

"I hope so, sir."

There was a thrilling silence.

"Then take charge."

Slowly the boy received the trust into his soul.

"Very good, sir."

He slipped the scent-bottle into his pocket.

"It's all in there," continued the ghastly voice. "It's a plot, see?—to kidnap Nelson. There's a gal in it—o coorse. Thinks she can twiddle the A'mighty round her thumb because her face ain't spotty. Lay that in Nelson's hands—and we'll see."

The dusk was falling fast; the sea stilled; a breathing calm was everywhere.

"This here's Beachy Head. Birling Gap's yonder—where there's a last glimmer yet. Don't go that road. Soon as the tide's down, round the Head, and climb t'other side. It falls away there. Make for Lewes along the top o the Downs. There's a camp o soldiers there. Soldiers ain't much account, but they'll serve to see you through to Merton. And once there, and that in Nelson's hands—I ain't died in vain."

The hoarse voice grew hoarser.

"And mind! trust no one; don't go anigh farm, cottage, or village. It's an enemy's land all this side o Lewes. Gap Gang country, the folk call it. They're all in it—up to the neck."

"I'll do my best, sir," said the boy, licking up his tears.

"And not a bad best eether, as I know," came the squeezed voice. "And when you've won through to Nelson, as win through it's my firm faith you will—and laid that there in his hand"—his voice came in pants, and pauses, and with little runs—"tell him I sarved him all I was able and give him—my kind dooty—old Ding-dong's dooty."

There was a gasping silence.

"That's my revenge. He'll understand."



CHAPTER XIX

OLD DING-DONG HOMEWARD-BOUND

The light was ebbing fast, and old Ding-dong with it.

All was silence and a few pale stars.

The old seaman began to wander.

Scenes near, scenes far, drifted across his fading mind. Now he was a tiny lad babbling in broadest dialect to his mother at the washing-tub; now he was a pit boy yelling at Susannah, the one-eyed pit pony; anon he was on the spar-deck of the Don, holding by the hand the father of the boy who now held his.

Then there came a silence, and out of it the words, clean and quiet:

"I'm the old man Nelson never forgave for doin of his dooty."

His brain seemed to clear. He began to tell a story half to himself, half to the stars—the story of the incident of his life.

"A'ter the Nile [Footnote: It was after the battle of the Nile, on his return to Naples, that Nelson succumbed to the fascination of Lady Hamilton.] it were—when we got back to Naples. Things got bad, very bad. At last Tom Troubridge wrote to him—I saw the letter. Tom and he'd been very thick—till then. Things got worse. It was in the papers and all. Somebody had to tackle him. Nobody durst—only old Ding-dong."

The wind gathered round to listen. A few curious stars pricked the darkness above. The old man's voice was gaining strength as he went on.

"So I goes aboord the Vanguard, and there in his own state-room I says the thing that had to be said and I says it straight."

Kit was listening intently. The strange blurred voice coming to his out of the darkness moved him to his deeps.

"Ooop joomps Nelson, raving mad. 'My God, Hardin!' he screams—'Ger off o my ship!—Ger off o my ship! GER OFF O MY SHIP!'

"'Pardon, my lord,' says I. 'I've done my dooty as a man, though I may have exceeded it as a sailor!'

"He called me a blanky pit boy.

"'A pit boy I was, my lord,' says I, 'and not ashamed on it; and powder-monkey to Hawke afoor your lordship was born. For nigh on fifty years I've touched the King's pay, and ate the King's salt. I'm the Father o this fleet, and all for the Service, as the sayin is. And I can't stand by and see the first officer in the British Navy lowerin himself in the eyes of Europe without a word.'"

The darkness hushed; the moon stared; the stars crept closer.

"He struck me. Nelson struck me in the mug. I wiped the blood away with my cuff. 'That's not the Nelson I know, my lord,' says I, and stumps out. And I never seen him from that day to this."

The boy could hear the old man's breath fluttering in the darkness.

"He was mad, ye see. She'd gone to his head; and she's stayed there ever since. Mad—as a man. As a sailor he's still Nelson—the first seaman afloat, ever was, or will be."

There was a thrill in the fading voice; a thrill of devotion to the man who had destroyed him.

"So he broke me, Nelson did, and I don't blame him: discipline is discipline, all said. Told the Admiralty they could choose between him and me—between Lord Nelson of the Nile, that is, and old Ding-dong, who'd climbed to the quarter-deck through the hawse-holes.... So they chose."

The sea rustled; the night was sprinkled with stars.

"But I've paid him now," ended the old man comfortably. "Reck'n I've paid him now."

Kit had heard the tale with puzzled but passionate interest.

"What was it all about, sir?" he asked at last in awed voice.

"Why; what it's always about," grunted the other. "One o them gals."

He coughed faintly.

"Thank the Lord there's been nobbut one woman in ma life, and that's the one a man can't help.

"What did I want with a pack?—trashy wives?... Nay. Fear God; fight to a finish; and steer clear o them gals—that's been old Ding-dong's rule o life: and it's the whole duty of a British seaman."

The old man's hand stirred in the boy's.

"In ma breech-pocket you'll find a Noo Testament and the Articles o War—all my readin these forty year; and all a sailor needs. Take em and study em. It'll pay you. Happen they run a bit athwart here and there; but that makes no odds, if you keep your head. There's always light enough to steer by if your heart's right. 'Christ's my compass,' your father'd say. 'He don't deviate.'"

The old man lay back, his eyes shut, the light on his uplifted face.

About him was stillness, hushed waters, and the moon a silver bubble.

In the quiet cove, beneath the quiet stars, after sixty years of storm, his soul was slipping away into the Great Quiet.

"I like layin here," came the ghostly voice. "So calm-like a'ter the trouble."

The cold fingers grew stiff; the eyes closed.

Kit laid a hand on the old man's forehead, and stroked his hair.

"I'm a-coomin," came a tiny chuckle as of a sleepy child—"Billy's coomin."

Seaward something flapped.

The boy turned.

At first he thought the Angel of Death was hovering over the white waters on sable wings.

Then he recognised what he saw for the flag on the splintered mizzen of the Tremendous saluting solemnly the dying seaman.

Old Ding-dong saw it too.

He raised his head. The moonlight was on his face, and the hand in Kit's quivered.

"Them's my colours," he whispered. "I never struck em."



BOOK II

BEACHY HEAD



I

THE GAP GANG



CHAPTER XX

THE LAST OF A BRITISH SEAMAN

I

The dawn-wind blowing chilly on the boy's skin roused him.

All night he had slept like a child far from the world and its terrible distresses. The weary body had brought peace to the worn mind. The two had merged in sleep, neither demanding aught of the other except to feed and to refresh.

He was coming to himself with a sore throat and a shiver.

His bed was hard; the bed-clothes had slipped off. He tried to pull them round him. His groping hand found nothing but impossible lumps, and stuff that trickled between his fingers. Why was he naked? where was his night-shirt? and what was this small hard thing he clutched in his hand?

With a puzzled frown he opened his eyes.

Overhead rose a dim white wall, a thin curtain swaying before it. At first he took it for the white-washed wall of his attic at home, the lace-curtains at the head of the bed blowing in the wind. Then a slow-winged shadow, passing between him and the ceiling with puling cry, startled him to the truth.

The memories surged back on him. He knew.

That white wall sheer above him was the cliff; that swaying curtain was the mist; that passing shadow a sea-bird. The hard something he was clutching so jealously was the scent-bottle; this still thing at his side was—

The thought stabbed him awake. He sat up with a start.

About him drifted a white and waving mist. It shrouded him, chilly as a winding-sheet. There was no shore, no sea—only a hiss and rustle in the silence; and this still thing at his feet.

"Sir!" he gasped.

The still thing did not answer him.

The body leapt to his feet. He was alone; alone for ever in a blank universe where nothing was—but the still thing!

A sodden heap of clothes caught his eye. Last night; he had doffed them, dripping as they were, and slept naked beside that, his head pillowed on a chalk boulder. The huddle of clothes, sprawling there so unconcerned, comforted him. They weren't afraid: they took it calmly enough. Hang it! he was as good a man as they.

And after all the old man was dead; and so long as he stayed dead the boy didn't mind. It was the chance of his coming to life again, of his stirring, winking an eye-lid, speaking, that he feared.

At length he dared to look at the old man's face. A sand-fly was crawling on his nose. The boy sighed. He wasn't quite alone then: the fly was there, and the fly was alive. His courage returned to him with a leap. He flicked the fly off with joyful indignation. They knew no reverence, these beastly little beasts! The old man lay upon his back, a rusty stream running down his white shorts. The salt had dried in scurfy ridges on hair and face. His head had slipped off Kit's coat; the little tail of neat-tied hair peeped from beneath; the eyes, wide- open, stared skyward.

Kit closed them; and the action cost him more than all his valours of the day before. Almost he expected to hear the old man's harsh voice— "Now then!"

The deed done, it seemed to the boy as if his action had eased the dead man. The look of strain on the set and yellowing face passed. The old man was tired: he had done with the world; he would shut his eyes for ever on it. The kind wrinkles, deep-puckered about his mouth, seemed to gather into a smile.

Lying there with set mouth, and stubborn chin, in death, as in life, he was old Ding-dong still.

II

Kit could not bury the old man: he had no tools. He could not stay with him: time pressed. What he could, he did with the tenderness of a woman, and the respect of a midshipman for the bravest of the brave.

He arranged the body orderly, straightening the legs and pulling down the coat.

As he did so, he felt something bulky in the flaps. He looked. It was a little old leather-bound New Testament, sea-soaked; and between the leaves of it the Articles of War.

The book fell open at the fly-leaf. On it three names were written, each in a different hand.

Horatio Nelson, Christopher Caryll, William Harding.

A bracket bound the three, and opposite the bracket, in the same hand as the first name, the words,

England and Duty.

The date was a week before St. Vincent.

The fly-leaf turned. On the back of it, in the great vague hand of a peasant-woman, rheumatic-ridden,

bili from mother Xmas 1755 be a good boy.

Kit read the inscription with full throat. In his chest, awaiting him at the Bridge at Newhaven, there was such another book, with such another inscription, from such another mother—given him the night before his setting out on his life's voyage, she sitting on his bed with rather a rainy smile.

The old man had left him that little sea-worn book with his last breath; but he could not take it, perhaps the last gift from mother to son. It had seen the old man through his life; in it were to be found the Fighting Instructions which had led him on through fifty years of battle to the last great Victory; in death the two should not be divided.

He laid the book on the old man's breast, and his sword beside him, as he remembered his mother had done when Uncle Jacko Gordon died.

What more could he do?

It seemed an ill thing to desert the old man; to leave him alone among the sea-birds. Yet he must.

Putting his arm round the other, he raised his head; then thrust a boulder between the dead man's shoulders to prop him.

A moment he knelt beside the old Commander with closed eyes. Then he bent and kissed the chill forehead.

"Good-bye, sir," he said in breaking voice, and rising to his feet saluted.

III

Old Ding-dong was left alone: his back against the white cliffs for which he had lived and died; his head with a skyward cock; his gaze seaward to where, when the mists rose with the morning, he would see the Colours of his Country waving above those waters that he, and his peers, had made hers for ever.

The old man asked no more.

Tired now, he wished to be alone with his sword, his Bible, and his memories.



CHAPTER XXI

KIT STARTS ON HIS MISSION

The boy blew his nose, and set off along the foot of the cliff, the scent-bottle in his hand.

Beneath the chalk boulders that strewed the bottom of the cliff, weird in the white gloom, a band of shingle ran like a road before him. He took it, the shingle crunching beneath his feet.

The tide was rising: he could hear its stealthy rustle beneath him. He must reach the Head and round it before the water; and how far off the ultimate point might be, he did not know, and could not see.

Once round it, if he had understood the old man aright, the cliffs fell away. There he would climb them; and he hoped to be on the top of the Downs before the mist rolled away and the frigate, were she still lying off the wreck, could send boats to search the beach.

He was very hungry; but his heart soared. Youth, the great healer, had done its work. Already the terrors of that fierce yesterday, the tendernesses of that solemn night, were far away.

He laboured on as rapidly as the backward drag of the shingle would permit; at every stride clutching the scent-bottle to make sure of it.

His was a tremendous mission.

Yet surely it was not for the first time he had set out on such an errand? alone, journeying through perilous lands, the fate of the world on his shoulders. No, no, no. Somewhere, somewhen.... He had forgotten; yet somehow he remembered.

Well, he had won through then: he must have—else he would not be here now. Yet not in this little life, these fifteen years of home- experience. Death then, perhaps a thousand deaths, must have intervened between him—and him. Such a strange mystery!—What was the answer to it?—Was death a sham? was there no such thing?—did He, the real He, go on for ever not merely in heaven, as the parsons affirmed, but on earth? was this life of his One, One reiterated, One to Everlasting, a tide ebbing and flowing between the night of Time and the day of Eternity? these recurring deaths only barriers blocking off terms of his Eternal Self?

Digging his toes into the shingle, he marched on, his heart strangely uplifted, the sense of his immortality strong on him.

And besides, the darkness and danger lay behind. Discretion, sharp eyes, and a nimble pair of feet should do the rest. Above all, his experience of the last thirty-six hours had given him confidence, the mother of success. He began to be aware of his own power. Action had revealed him to himself. Responsibility now confirmed him. The boy was merging in the man with extraordinary swiftness. There was in his soul an aweful joy, the joy of dawn, the dawn of holy manhood.

Rejoicing in his newly found strength, he laboured on gallantly. With luck, he would be in Lewes before the coach left; in London before night; and at Merton before Nelson sat down to breakfast to-morrow morning.

His, his, his, to save Nelson!

And O, mother? would not her heart be proud?

The mist grew thin before him, as though lace curtain after lace curtain was being swept back by unseen hand. The sun, the colour of a shilling, and as round, glimmered above the horizon. At his feet he could distinguish the sea silvery-twinkling; and not a hundred yards away the Head, bluff as a wall, loomed before him.

His heart leapt.... Hurrah!... Once round that....

He began to run with noisy feet.

A shadow stooping on the edge of the tide sprang up.

"Hell!" came a sudden scream.



CHAPTER XXII

FAT GEORGE & CO.

Kit's heart brought up with an appalling jerk.

He dropped behind a boulder.

A filthy little scarecrow of a man, trousers rolled about his knee, was standing in the sea, holding some one by the hand not ten yards away.

In the mist Kit thought at first that he was paddling with a child. Then he saw his mistake. The scarecrow was holding a bare arm by the hand. That arm thrust up horribly from the water: the body to which it belonged was beneath the surface. Between his dirty teeth the man held a knife. His business was obvious. He was spoiling the dead.

A huge fellow with a tawny beard spread fan-like on his chest strolled round the Head, a musket beneath his arm.

"What, Dingy! got the jumps aboard again?" he growled.

"I thart I yeard a chap a-walkin," trembled the scarecrow.

He let the dead man's hand flop into the water.

"Plenty o chaps—not much walkin," chirped a voice of one unseen.

A treble laugh greeted the sally.

Round the Head a boat came paddling.

In it was a man fat as a sow, and not unlike one. Honey-coloured ringlets hung down to his neck. He had slits for eyes, and the great face, dough-like, was set in an ogreish smile.

Kit saw before him in the flesh the worst of the nightmare imaginings of his nursery days. He began to dither like a monkey in the presence of a snake. There was a horror of the unnatural about the man that turned him faint. Here was Mammon, Mammon in the flesh; and so close that the boy could smell him.

"Belike it's Black Diamond come after you, Jow!" wheezed the fat man— "to pay you for what you done to him night afore last." The shrill voice, squeezing from that vat-like carcass, added to the terror of the man.

'"Twarn't me, I tall you!" screamed the scarecrow.

"It were you, Fat George; and now you're for puttin it on me."

The fat man backwatered in-shore; the smile set and horrible on his face.

"None o that, my lad, if you please," he husked—"that's to say if you're wishful to stay friends with George—ole George, who don't forget."

Dingy Joe began to whimper.

"I suppose it were me flashed my knife on the Gentleman too?"

The fat man leaned on his oars.

"Now," he said with manly frankness, "that were me. Every man answers for his own work in this gang, and none needn't go short. I faced the Gentleman plucky, didn't I, Bandy?"

"You faced him plucky from behind," chirped the voice of the man unseen.

Hoarse laughter from behind the Head told that the shaft had gone home.

Fat George held a deprecating hand to heaven.

"Now eark to that, my God!" he squeaked. "I risk my blessed neck for em. I'm the only man o the lot got the guts to stand up to him. I tells him straight, I says—'We've lost our leader and our lugger in your service, my lord,' says I, 'and now you got to—well square it.'"

"'—well square it!'" snorted the giant. "That's a pretty way to talk to a gentleman, ain't it?"

Fat George pointed a derisive finger at him.

"Can't forget he was a gamekeeper!" he tittered. "Touch his at and all, didn't you, Red Beard?"

"And wish I'd never stopped touchin it!" shouted the giant. "Blasted young fool that I were!—Thought I'd take a short cut to fortune, same as the rest.—And where's it landed me?"

He swept his hand around.

"Heark to Red Beard!" giggled Fat George. "Quite the Methody man, ain't he?"

A gust of passion darkened the giant's face. He surged through the water towards the boat.

"—well square it!" he foamed. "I'll—well square you, you lump o lard with the heart of a maggot!" He stopped, steadying down to a fierce scorn.

"And he would ha—well squared it only for you messin about with that blasted knife o your'n be'ind him."

"He would ha—well squared it only for you knockin the blasted knife up!" shrilled the fat man. "That's the best you can do. Pretty set for a man to be 'sociated with."

He bent over his hand; his locks fell about his face; and he rocked to and fro like a weeping woman.

The sound of angry voices brought others trooping round the Head. Some slopped along in the water, others trailed along the edge. The eyes of all were down, hunting for prey.

Kit, watching them with shuddering heart, recalled that passage in his mother's favourite Sunday book where Christian, at the mouth of Hell, heard a company of fiends coming to meet him.

He found himself envying Christian. An honest fiend was an honest fiend; but these were men! It was their humanity, the sense of his kinship with them, that seemed to make his heart collapse.

And their names!

Toadie, the squat brute, with the front teeth; Whitey, the albino, peering and prying; One-eye, Humpy, Bandy and the rest—all labelled like dogs from some physical deformity.

Once and for all they slew in the boy's mind the Romance of Crime. Now he understood what the old Book meant about the Wages of Sin. Death indeed; death in life. He read it in their faces. Yes; it was all true. These men had done evil, and they had come forth unto the Resurrection of Damnation.

And not so very long ago he had wished to be one such!—a highwayman, a smuggler, a gentlemanly villain of some sort, very devil-may-care and gallant, robbing the rich, helping the poor, waving a scented handkerchief to the ladies as he rode to Tyburn, debonair to the last.

Now he was face to face with criminals in real life. And what was their distinguishing feature?—Filth.

They had not shaved for days, nor washed for years. The stink of them blew off the clean sea towards him. It seemed to his imagination that the water curdled with disgust as the brutes slushed through it.

A phrase of his laughing mother's occurred to him—no soap, no soul. True too.

He would have given all he had for a look at one clean-fleshed, clear- eyed Englishman, smelling of earth and honest tobacco.

"Listen to im!" grumbled Red Beard. "Might be Cock o the Gang the way he carries on."

The fat man tossed back his locks.

"All mighty fine!" he shrilled. "But if you'd follow'd me, where'd you be now?—why back in Boulon. And cause you didn't, where are you?—why hung up on a dead foul leeshore: Diamond dead, lugger gone, the hue- and-cry up after you—"

"And our only ope in eaven," chimed in Bandy of the chirpy voice.

"And how'd stickin the Gentleman elp us?" grumbled the brutal Toadie. "I'd stuck him fast enough if I'd twigged that!"

Fat George leaned forward.

"What's the reward out agin him?—Thousand guineas, ain't it?"

"Go on!—We'd never ha took him alive. You know his hackle."

"Ah!" interposed the fat man, "but what d'ye think his corpse'd ha been worth to the British Government? him and the papers on him, to say nothin o pickins for pore men, what nobody needn't know nothin about—them rings, that pin, and the bundle o notes in his tail-pocket." He combed his fingers through his locks. "What'd that ha been worth? I'll tell you." He wagged a fat finger. "A free pardon to h'every man h'all round, a free pass back to Boulon—"

"And the thanks o Parlyment for what we done to the crew o the Curlew!" piped Bandy.

"It's God's truth, I'm talkin!" screamed the fat man. "And there's the man what stood between you and it!" He flung a fat hand at Red Beard.

The giant turned.

"What, sell him!" he drawled. "Sell the man that made you; that trusted you; that never turned his back on a rat yet—much less a pal." He spat into the sea curling at his feet. "What was it old Diamond says?—'We're all—traitors,' says he, poor old horse; 'but we are men, only Fat George. And he's a—sow without a soul."

A murmur of approval ran round.

"You're right, Red Beard."

"The Genelman were a genelman."

"That he were!" came a chorus from the maingy crew.

"Gentleman!" put in Bandy. "He were better. He were a—lord. I ought to know seein I rode for one—afore my misfortune."

The boat had drifted sea-ward, the fat man giving an occasional sly dig.

Suddenly he flung back into the oars.

"Ave it your own way," he sang out. "Ole George ain't good enough for you, I see. I'll say good-day."

The giant jerked his musket to his shoulder.

"Come in!" he thundered. "Or I'll plug a hole through that great paunch o your'n."

The fat man saw himself covered. He paddled back, grinning ghastly.

"Avast there, Red Beard!" he tittered. "You're that asty. Can't you take a little joke?"

"I can take one o your little jokes about as easy as you can take one o my little bullets in the belly," rumbled the giant. "Come in now. Get out o that boat. You'd sell us as you sold the Gentleman. That bit o wood's all that stands atween us and Kingdom Come."

"Easy all," chimed in Bandy Dick. "Only one thing's sure in our present interestin sitiwation; and that is if we don't ang together, we'll ang separate."



CHAPTER XXIII

THE CLIMB

I

Crouched behind the boulder, Kit listened.

Surely they must hear his heart! It was thumping so that he took his hand off the boulder before him lest it should betray him by its shaking.

Black Diamond!—Fat George!—the Gentleman!

There could be no question as to the identity of these kites. They were the Gap Gang, and in desperate plight. Their lugger was gone, and their leader dead. At sixes and sevens among themselves, they had quarrelled with the only man who might somehow have saved them. Behind them lay the gallows; before them the sea—and nothing to cross it in but the lugger's long-boat, and that water-logged.

Their condition was desperate; but what about his own?

He could not round the Head. They stood between him and his goal. Could he go back along the bay? He glanced back at the line of headlands, shimmering in the sun. The tide in places already lapped the foot of the cliff. And even as he pondered, a chill something startled his feet. He looked down. It was the water, stealing in upon him, quiet as a cat. He could not stay where he was. To do so was to drown.

There was but one thing for it—to climb.

He glanced up. Things were not so hopeless as he had feared. The mists were drifting seaward. He could see the dark crest of grass rimming the cliff-edge above him.

Thank heaven!—this was no longer the blank and aweful wall, hundreds of feet high and sheer as a curtain, which he had found above him last night. The cliff must have fallen away towards the point. That dark crest of grass, shivering in the wind, was not so far away; and the cliff itself was by no means sheer.

The tide was already lapping the point. The smugglers had drifted away before it. He could hear their voices on the other side. Now was his chance.

II

On tiptoe he crept off the betraying shingle, and began to climb, the scent-bottle in his mouth.

A recent fall of cliff helped him, making a ramp. Up it he went, a tiny trickle of dislodged shale dribbling away beneath his feet.

At the top of the fall a mat of weeds had grown. On this he stayed. The cliff arched out blue-white over him like the inside of a shell. There was no hope there.

He looked about him. On his right a narrow ledge, grass-grown, trickled darkly across the face of the cliff, inclining upwards and out of sight. It would give him foothold, and no more.

He took it tremblingly, sidling along, his face pressed close to the cliff, his hands finding finger-hold on the ridges and irregularities above his head.

The track led up and up. He dared not look down: all there was sheer now, he knew, and the sea lapping among the dead bones of the cliff. He could not look up: to have done so, he must have craned backwards; and little thing as that might seem, it would have been enough to upset his balance on that skimpy track.

Up and up he sidled to the noise of trickling chalk, his eyes glued to the white and callous cliff. His hands were damp and chill; his back set against nothingness; his long eyelashes swept the chalk-surface. He had a sense that the cliff was swelling itself to thrust him off. It was alive; it was hostile. The leer he detected in the great blank face pressed against his own roused his anger. He clung the more tenaciously because of it, snarling back. G-r-r!—it shouldn't beat him—beast!

All the same his fingers were getting tired and sore. He was whimpering as he went. The great horror was overwhelming him. He shut his mind against it: still it crept in. Head swirled: brain lost grip of body: all was dissipation.

O—o—oh!

The voice of one of the Gang rose to his ears. It steadied him; recalling all that hung on him ... old Ding-dong's trust ... Nelson ... Duty....

The track led round a corner—and ran away into nothing.

Retreat along that path or headlong death—these seemed his alternatives. Of the two the latter appeared just then least horrible, as swifter, and more certain: he had no need to look down to make sure of that.

Biting his nails, he listened to his own breathing. A tiny shell had become incrusted in the great blind face, so close to his own. Putting out his tongue, he licked it, and hardly knew he had.

Suddenly he saw his mother. She was sitting in her particular little low chair beside the fire in the Library, reading aloud a favourite passage from her favourite Sunday book, Gwen sprawling at her feet.

To go back is nothing but Death, came the familiar voice, pure and tranquil; to go forward is fear of Death, and life everlasting beyond it. I will yet go forward.

The book snapped softly; his mother's eyes lifted to his as she repeated,

I will yet go forward.

III

Yes, if there's a way!

On his right, some ten feet distant, a little table-land of grass projected from the face of the cliff—the green top of a flying buttress, as it were.

Once there he could at least lie down and recover himself. And, unless he was mistaken, the cliff above there was no longer sheer.

But how to get there?—a ten-foot jump to be attempted off one leg at a stand and sideways.

Half-way between him and the plateau a bush with feathery green plumes grew out of a crevice overhead. Those green plumes stirred deliciously in the breeze; the little stem, thick as his wrist, and reddish of hue, thrust out sturdily over the sea. It was three feet out of reach, and above him.

He scanned the distance. Without wings he certainly could not do it.

A butterfly settled on a purple sea-thistle close to his head. It poised there with fanning wings, so languid, so unconcerned. It didn't mind.

A bitter anger surged up in the boy's heart. It was sitting there flopping its wings out of swagger—to show it had them. He'd teach it to swagger!

He put up his thumb to crush it.

Then he remembered himself. He must be just in this that might be his last moment on earth. After all the butterfly couldn't help itself. It was made that way; and perhaps it didn't mean it. To kill it was spiteful—worthy of a girl, worthy of Gwen, as he would have told her had she been present. That would get Gwen into one of her states. His eyes twinkled, and grew haggard again.

He observed the butterfly with extraordinary intensity. Its body and wings were the colour of the sea; the undersides of the wings a silvery-brown. The face was white, with large black eyes, and long antennae. Lovely furry down clothed body, thighs, and lower wings. On the nose two tiny horns stuck up....

He would have given all he possessed to be that butterfly just then. Yet after all—could the butterfly venture for his country?—and would he if he could?

Suddenly the boy's soul broke through the darkness shrouding it, and bubbled up, a sea of twinkling, tumbling light. Standing there, clawing the cliff, death at his feet, Eternity within touch of him, he laughed.

At the crisis his humour, heaven's best gift, had saved him.

I will yet go forward.

A knob of chalk, swelling out of the side of the cliff, caught his eye. He saw it, and too wise to pause for thought, sprang. His foot touched the knob. He thrust back. As he thrust, it gave beneath him, and fell with a resounding splash into the sea.

But it had done its work; and he was swinging with one hand on the stem of the green-plumed bush....

Curiously familiar this swinging in space with fluttering heart.... Was it only in dreams?...

The splash of the falling boulder set the gulls screaming.

"There!" shrilled a voice, faint and far beneath. "What did I tell you?"

"Take the boat, Red Beard, and have a look."

Kit, swinging, heard the dip of oars. Another second and the boat would be round the Head, and he, hanging there, black against the white cliff, as easy to kill as a fly on a window-pane.

He reached up his left arm, swung once and again, and loosed his hold.

He flung through the air, the sea glancing sickeningly miles below, and landed on hands and knees on the green carpet.

Hallowed be Thy Name.



CHAPTER XXIV

THE CLIMB

I

"There's nowt here," called a voice from below. "A fall of the cliff belike."

The boat put back.

Kit stayed on hands and knees on the grass plateau, his forehead bowed to the ground in attitude of prayer.

He was sick with humility and thankfulness.

Already the boy began to have that sense which distinguishes the great man from the herd, swinging him over obstacles to others insurmountable, the sense that God is with him, and therefore he cannot fail.

A fly was buzzing somewhere near. It comforted him amazingly. It was earthy and every-day, that solid buz-z-z-z; reminding him of the kitchen at home, fat Maria kneading dough, and the smell of fly- papers. It steadied him as a feast of bread and meat steadies a man heady with long fasting.

Rolling over on his back, he lay flat, panting.

How good it was to feel the earth beneath him once more! Faithful old thing! she wouldn't give way beneath her child. He hammered her with his heels; he patted her with his hands; he wriggled his shoulders into her: all massive, all motherly, all good.

Turning on his side, he kissed her.

A while he lay there, arms and legs wide, eyes shut, breathing in security and peace. Angels fanned him; strong arms held him up. Yes, yes. It was all true. He was loved.

The sea rustled beneath him, flowing on and on. How happy it was in its work! He could have listened to it for ever. The sun, labouring too, was climbing upwards in a shroud of glory. It stared him fiercely in the face, bidding him rise and get to business.

He sat up and looked round.

It was as he had thought. He was on a flying buttress of the cliff, at his feet a floor of water, silvery-ruffled.

On his right cathedral cliffs blocked out the light. Mighty-towering, they made a white and awful gloom between him and heaven. The shadow of them darkened his heart. Crouching fly-like there, he cowered as he peered up at them. They were terrible: so stern, so white, so inexorable. Had he wronged them?—They seemed to stand over him in fearful and affronted majesty. Yet with the awe there came a pride, the pride of possession. They were his, these tremendous battlements; they were England's. With what a high and massive steadfastness they challenged France! Surely they knew themselves impregnable.

Beneath him the sea, a vast plain of silver-blue, merged in a sky white as diamonds. The one drifted, the other was still; the one sparkled, the other shone: for the rest there was no distinction, no dividing line. Each ran into the other; and all was splendid with light and life.

Below, those dark dead men still scavenged on the edge of the tide. He could have dropped a pebble on them. Dingy Joe's whine floated up to him....

"This cove's rings won't come off."

"Ain't you got a knife, then?" growled the brutal Toadie— "talks like a Miss."

"Say! look at this chap's lady-bird."

Bandy Dick held something aloft.

"He won't want no lady-bird no more. She'll ave to get another fancy-man."

Followed filthiest jests on women ... love.... Such love!

Pah!—Were they men?—The beasts were purer.

The boy straight from his own white home and gayhearted mother sickened as he heard.

Hell?—What need of Hell hereafter for these men, when they had plunged into it on earth?

The words of a greater than Bunyan rang in his ears—

Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.

Servants! slaves rather; slaves of themselves.

From his perch in the high heavens the boy looked down on them as an angel may look down on souls in torment.

An aweful anger seized his heart. He longed to do God's work for Him— to avenge.

"Vengeance is mine," came a voice. "I will repay."

He started back, amazed.

Had he spoken? had the Lord?

The lightning words flashed down out of the heavens on the self-damned below.

Dingy Joe flung up a ghastly face, screamed, and falling on his knees in the water, began to babble about his Redeemer.

Fat George took to his heels. Furiously he splashed along, yellow locks flopping. Kit could hear him snorting as he ran. All his life the fat man had been running away from God, the Great Enemy; and still He was there. Some day He would catch him—Fat George never doubted that ... some day ... but not while he had legs.

How should he know that as he ran, God ran with him?

The others huddled together like thunder-frightened cattle. Bandy Dick cocked a scared snook, while Red Beard was man enough to loose his musket at the zenith.

"Not yet, Governor!" he shouted with a roaring laugh—"not yet!"

Fools!—they were living in the Hell they feared. Their punishment was now. They had long been damned. While they lived God, the Avenger, would punish them inexorably. When they died, God, the merciful Saviour, would take them and make them clean.

Death, the death they feared and fled from, would be their Salvation, as it is every man's.

II

I will yet go forward. Kit turned to a reconsideration of his enterprise.

The top was far yet, but the cliff was no longer sheer; a precipitous slope rather, patched with grass.

On hands and knees he set out. The grass trickled down like a dark torrent from above, cutting as it were a channel between two bastions, sheer on either side of him, and naked as the moon.

Up that dark trickle he climbed, and the sun climbed with him.

The grass gave him hand-hold. The chalk was rough and shale-like. He dug knees and toes into it. There was a constant dribble of stuff away from beneath his feet, and once a little land-slide, slithering seaward.

Beneath was nothing but a shining waste, waiting for him. He rather felt than saw it: for he dared not look down. He must think of what lay above. Therein was his hope. He clung to it, as he clung to the cliff-face, desperately.

The sun blazed on his back. The sweat trickled down his face. He kept his mind to his work, and his nose to the cliff. A bee with an orange tail sucked at a purple thistle. Butterflies chased, loved, and sipped all round him. O for Gwen, and her killing-bottle!

Up and up; the sun fierce upon his back; the earth bulging beneath his nose, the splash and ripple of the sea growing fainter and more faint below.

Blue above him, blue beneath, blue in his brain, blue everywhere, save for this dull leprous white beneath his nose—blue emptiness, calling him, clutching him, waiting for him. Would it never end?

Once he looked up.

He was climbing into heaven.

The cliff bluffed up into the sky. He could see the bearded crest dark against the light. Up there a pair of kestrels floated—two living cross-bows bent above him. They were almost transparent and very still: a tremble of the wings, a turn of the broad steering tail, a motion of the blunt head, a swoop and a sway and a glint of russet back.

They had wings too! Everything in the world had wings but himself, the only one who really needed them.

Once he slipped, and hung sprawling over Eternity. The grass, tough as wire, and wound about his hands, stood his friend. He recovered foothold.

On again with battering heart. The top was not far now.

Hope began to flutter in his breast. It seemed to heave him upwards. The way grew steeper and more steep. The stream of grass, faithful so far, ended abruptly five feet below the top. Those feet were sheer, the chalk darkening to the blackness of soil, and the crest of grass making a rusty chevaux-de-frise at the summit.

Cautiously he crept on, his hands feeling the blank wall. Now his fingers touched the top.

He drew himself up.

His struggling toes found some sort of foot-hold. The wind blew on his wet forehead. His eyes were on a level with the summit.

He could see over.

A man was sitting by the edge.

Kit could have stroked his back.



II

THE MAN ON THE CLIFF



CHAPTER XXV

THE GENTLEMAN BOWS

I

The man was babbling French and weeping; weeping over a dead woman.

So much was clear.

His back was against the light. He wore no hat; and here and there a hair caught the sun and flashed like the sword of a fairy.

The dead girl must be lying with her head in his lap.

Unaware of anybody by, the young man poured out his heart: the dead woman was his little one, his darling of the chestnut hair, his petite pit-a-pat.

There was something so desolate about the grief of man, perched up there between sea and sky, nobody near but a floating sea-gull, that Kit almost wept to hear him.

But he had his own affairs to think about.

The man was a Frenchman: therefore an enemy.

What should he do?

As often happens, the question was decided for him.

Suddenly the projection on which his feet had found resting-place gave way.

A lurch, and he was dangling at arms' length. His toes could find no foothold. To drop even an inch or two was certain death: for he would land on a slope almost sheer; and the impetus must carry him—down— down—down....

"Sir!" he gasped.

II

A face flashed over the cliff, eagle-beaked and beautiful.

A young man knelt above him.

"Hullo!" he said in voice of quiet amusement, peering down at the boy beneath him. "May I ask what you are doing here?"

If he was a Frenchman, he spoke English without a trace of accent.

"Hanging on for dear life!" gurgled Kit, the scent-bottle between his teeth.

The young man broke into a ripple of boyish laughter.

"Flew so far: then the wings gave out, eh?"

He rose to his feet, and Kit saw he was wearing buck-skin breeches and top-boots.

Bending, he grasped the boy's wrists.

"One—two—and—h'up she comes!"

He staggered back, and fell with a gay laugh, the boy on top of him.

"Thank you," said Kit between his teeth. "Let go my wrists, please."

The man, lying on his back, smiled up at him.

How strong he was! how young! and how handsome!

Tears still bedewed his lashes, and his eyes had the sparkle and colour of the sword he wore at his side.

"What have you got between those nice milk-teeth of yours, Little Chap?"

"Nothing for you," stammered the boy. "That is—only eggs. I've been birds-nesting. Let go, please. I must get home. I'm late. I'll get into a row as it is."

The other loosed his wrists suddenly; a long arm swept about him; the thumb and forefinger of a hand like a steel-vice pressed his jaws asunder.

"Parrdon," said a voice, half tender, half teasing, the roll of the r for the first time betraying an alien strain.

Perforce the boy must open.

The scent-bottle rolled out upon the grass, and trundled towards the edge.

Lithe as a panther, the young man pounced and snatched it.

As he did so, Kit leapt on his back.

"Give it up or I dirk!" he panted.

For all answer the man fell back on top of him with the merriest laughter.

The boy's breath was shaken out of him. Two hands loosed his; and he was left gasping on his back.

"I say! did I hurt you?" came an anxious voice.

Kit scrambled to his feet.

"Give it up!" he cried passionately, thrusting out a hand. "It was given me. It's a trust."

"It's only eggs," the other reminded him, twinkling.

"I don't care what it is!" cried the boy. "It's mine!"

He was almost in tears, stamping his foot, much as in old days when Gwen, a born tease, had stolen his woolly bear, and refused to give it up.

The man made him feel like a baby—he, a King's officer.

"Forgive me," replied the other. "It is mine."

"Finding's keeping, I suppose!" sneered the boy, ablaze. "You take it by brute force—you steal it—and it's yours! And I daresay you call yourself a gentleman!"

"When I said it was mine," replied the other with the grave tenderness of a gentleman dealing with an angry woman, "I meant it was mine. It was given me by a lady. These are her initials on the stopper—E.H., d'you see?—If I was to surrender this bottle to you, two things would happen. My work of weeks past would be undone, and a noble woman would be hung unjustly." He put the bottle into his pocket. "And now to prove to you that it really is mine I will tell you what it contains, shall I?—A letter on tissue paper signed A. F. Is it not so?"

The flames in the boy's soul were beaten back.

"How d'you know?" sullenly.

"I wrote it."

Breathing through his nostrils, Kit eyed him.

"Then you're the Gentleman."

The young man bowed with an action that was altogether French.



CHAPTER XXVI

THE DEAD WOMAN

I

He stood bareheaded in the sun in long black riding-coat and muddied boots and breeches.

"What's that red riband in your button-hole?" asked the boy in a kind of awe.

"That! that's the Legion of Honour." He came a step forward. "Put your finger on it. That little bit of riband once lay upon the heart of Napoleon."

The boy began to tremble. That tiny square of red from which he could not take his eyes had once throbbed to the heart-beats of the Arch- enemy!

"D'you know him?"

"Little Boney!" laughing. "Yes, I know him."

The boy listened without hearing. It was all too dreamlike.

"D'you—d'you like him?"

The other chuckled.

"Like him?—I don't know that I exactly like him. You see he's not what you and I should call a gentleman. Still he serves me, so I serve him."

The boy's thumb was to his mouth, baby-like. All his anger had passed. He was gazing at the other with brooding admiration.

This was the man who had kept three counties agog these two months past!

He was an enemy, but O! he was a hero.

Strangely young too, almost a boy; tall and slight as his own sword, the grey eyes big under dark brows, the face sun-golden and lean almost to gauntness.

"How did you do it?" murmured the boy.

The other's eyes clouded; the lids fell.

"I could not have done it but for her," he said.

Then for the first time the boy remembered the dead woman.

II

But it was no dead woman the Gentleman was standing over now; it was a chestnut mare, the sun glistening on a coat that shone like a girl's hair. She lay along the turf with lank neck, belly exposed, and shoes flashing; strangely pathetic as a horse seen in such position always looks.

There was not a stain of sweat on her coat, not a trace of froth about her muzzle. A plain snaffle bridle lay beside her. Her head was bare and fine as a lady's; the eyes wide, the nostrils still.

Strangely like somehow, mare and man; and about both faces something of the length and strength of the eagle.

There was one marked difference. In the man life still rippled gloriously; the mare was quiet for ever.

Born to the saddle as to the sea, the boy's eye ran over her.

"What a beauty!" he gasped.

"I couldn't have attempted it but for her," replied the other quietly. "When the Emperor asked me to undertake it—'Sire,' I said, 'if I may take my Bonnet Rouge!'... I tell you," he cried, turning almost fiercely on the boy, "I've left Merton as the first star peeped, and seen the sun rise out of the sea from here!... But I forgot...."

III

A cold shadow swept over him. Kit could feel the change—it was like passing from day to night; and it chilled the boy's heart.

Up there in the lonely stillness, sea beneath, heaven above, earth around, the two faced each other.

All the laughter had ebbed from the man's being. He was still and cold as his sword.

"D'you know what is in here?" tapping the scent-bottle.

His eyes, frosty now, seemed to bore down to the boy's soul.

Kit froze too.

"Why?"

"Because if you will give me your word that you do not know, I will let you go."

Those eyes of his were terrible.

"Will you give me your word?"

The boy was pale as ice.

Death in cold blood here on the quiet hillside—death like a pig's in a sty.... Ugh!...

"No, thank you."

"Then prepare to meet your Maker."

He turned and fiddled with a pistol, snapped it, cursed in an undertone, and thrust it back in his pocket.

Then he turned again.

The boy stood before him with dark eyes. Slight as a lily, and the colour of one, he seemed to sway in the breeze.

"Give me your word not to speak of what you know till after Thursday next—and you may go."

The boy shook his head.

"I mustn't."

The man flashed the hue of lightning.

"Then I must."

An arm swept about the boy. A hand at his waist was fumbling for his dirk.

For a second the lad struggled: then he felt himself helpless as a rabbit in a python's grip, and lay back quite still.

Once face to face with God, his heart calmed strangely.

There was a horrible breathing in his ear.

A face, all eyes, was bending over him.

"My God! how like a girl he is!" came a far whisper.

"Go on, please, and don't insult me," gurgled the boy. And as he said it, his mind flashed back to Gwen: Gwen with her pride of sex, standing before him, fists closed, challenging him to fight—"cad!"

"What are you chuckling about?"

"Gwen—my sister.... She thinks a girl's as good as a boy.... Go on."

The hand upon his forehead quitted its hold.

"I can't," said the Gentleman.

The arm about the boy relaxed.

Kit stood up.

"Thank you," he said, and readjusted his collar.

The Gentleman rippled off into laughter.



CHAPTER XXVII

THE HOLLOW IN THE COOMBE

For the first time Kit glanced round him.

On the top of the cliff, they were by no means on the top of the Downs. A great dun wave of earth, patched with gorse, surged up into the sky before him.

It flopped and flowed down to the edge of the cliff, swelling up round and steep towards the brow, a quarter of a mile back from the sea. He was standing at the foot of a prominent shoulder, curving away above him. On the right was a deep coombe, the hill at the blind-end of it sheer-seeming. On his left the jagged edge of the cliff ran up and up and out of sight. Beneath him the sea was a sparkling plain.