The Wild Geese. Weyman Stanley John
to tack. She might still clear the westerly rocks and run out to sea, but the skipper saw – with an oath – that this was doubtful, and with a seaman's quickness he made up his mind.
"Keep her on! – keep her on!" he roared, "you son of a maudite mère! Child of the accursed! We must run into Skull haven! And if the men of Skull take so much as an iron bolt from us, and I misdoubt them, I'll keel-haul you, son of the Diable! I'll not leave an inch of skin upon you!"
The man, cowering over the wheel, obeyed, and the little vessel ran up the narrowing water – in which she had become involved – on an even keel. The crew were already on their feet, they had loosened the sheet, and squared the boom; they stood by to lower the yard. All – the skipper with a grim face – stood looking forward, as the inlet narrowed, the green banks closed in, the rocks that fringed them approached. Silently and gracefully the sloop glided on, more smoothly with every moment, until a turn in the passage opened a small land-locked haven. At the head of the haven, barely a hundred yards above high-water mark, stood a ruined tower – the Tower of Skull – and below this a long house of stone with a thatched roof.
It was clear that the sloop's movements had been watched from the shore, for although the melancholy waste of moor and mountain disclosed no other habitation, a score of half-naked barefoot figures were gathered on the jetty; while others could be seen hurrying down the hillside. These cried to one another in an unknown tongue, and with shrill eldritch voices, which vied with the screams of the gulls swinging overhead.
"Stand by to let go the kedge," Augustin cried, eyeing them gloomily. "We are too far in now! Let go! – let go!"
But the order and the ensuing action at once redoubled the clamour on shore. A dozen of the foremost natives flung themselves into crazy boats, that seemed as if they could not float long enough to reach the vessel. But the men handled them with consummate skill and with equal daring. In a twinkling they were within hail, and a man, wearing a long frieze coat, a fisherman's red cap, and little besides, stood up in the bow of the nearest.
"You will be coming to the jetty, Captain?" he cried in imperfect English.
The skipper scowled at him, but did not answer.
"You will come to the jetty, Captain," the man repeated in his high, sing-song voice. "Sure, and you've come convenient, for there's no one here barring yourselves."
"And you're wanting brandy!" Augustin muttered bitterly under his breath. He glanced at his men, as if he meditated resistance.
But, "Kerry law! Kerry law!" the man cried. "You know it well, Captain! It's not I'll be answerable if you don't come to the jetty."
The skipper, who had fallen ill at Skull once before, and got away with some loss, hoping that he might never see the place again, knew that he was in the men's power. True, a single discharge of his carronades would blow the boats to pieces; but he could not in a moment warp his ship out through the narrow passage. And if he could, he knew that the act would be bloodily avenged if he ever landed again in that part of Ireland. He swore under his breath, and the steersman who had wrought the harm by holding on too long wilted under his eye. The crew looked other ways.
At length he yielded, and sulkily gave the order, the windlass was manned, and the kedge drawn up. Fenders were lowered, and the sloop slid gently to the jetty side.
In a twinkling a score of natives swarmed aboard. The man in the frieze coat followed more leisurely, and with such dignity as became the owner of a stone-walled house. He sauntered up to the skipper, a leer in his eye. "You will have lost something the last time you were here, Captain?" he said. "It is not I that will be responsible this time unless the stuff is landed."
Augustin laughed scornfully. "The cargo is for Crosby of Castlemaine," he said. And he added various things which he hoped would happen to himself if he landed so much as a single tub.
"It's little we know of Crosby here," the other replied; and he spat on the deck. "And less we'll be caring, my dear. I say it shall be landed. Here, you, Darby Sullivan, off with the hatch!"
Augustin stepped forward impulsively, as if he had a mind to throw the gentleman in the frieze coat into the sea. But he had not armed himself before he came on deck, the men of Skull outnumbered his crew two to one, and, savage and half-naked as they were, were furnished to a man with long sharp skenes and the skill to use them. If resistance had been possible at any time, he had let the moment pass. The nearest Justice lived twelve Irish miles away, and had he been on the spot he would, since he was of necessity a Protestant, have been as helpless – unless he brought the garrison of Tralee at his back – as a churchwarden in a Synod of Cardinals. The skipper hesitated, and while he hesitated the hatches were off, and the Sullivans swarmed down like monkeys. Before the sloop could be made fast, the smaller kegs were being tossed up, and passed over the side, a line was formed on land, and the cargo, which had last seen the sun on the banks of the Garonne, was swiftly vanishing in the maw of the stone house on the shore.
The skipper's rage was great, but he could only swear, and O'Sullivan Og, the man in the frieze coat, who bore him an old grudge, grinned in mockery. "For better custody, Captain!" he said. "For better custody! Under my roof, bien! And when you will to go again there will be the dues to be paid, the little dues over which we quarrelled last time! And all will be rendered to a stave!"
"You villain!" the Captain muttered under his breath. "I understand!" Turning – for the sight was more than he could bear – he found his passenger at his elbow.
The Colonel, if his face went for anything, liked the proceedings almost as little as the skipper. His lips were tightly closed, and he frowned.
"Ay," Augustin cried bitterly – for the first instinct of the man who is hurt is to hurt another – "now you see what it is you've come back to! It's rob, or be robbed, this side of Tralee, and as far as the devil could kick you beyond it! I wish you well out of it! But I suppose it would take more than this to make you draw that long hanger of yours?"
The Colonel cast a troubled eye on him. "Beyond doubt," he said, "it is the duty of a man to assist in defending the house of his host. And in a sense and measure, the goods of his host" – with an uneasy look at the fast-vanishing cargo, which was leaping from hand to hand so swiftly that the progress of a tub from the hold to the house was as the flight of a swallow – "are the house of his host. I do not deny that," he continued precisely, "but – "
"But in this instance," the sea-captain struck in with a sneer, contempt for the first time mastering wonder, "in this instance?"
"In this instance," the Colonel repeated with an unmistakable blush, "I am not very free to act. The truth is, Captain Augustin, these folk are of my kin. I was born not many miles from here" – his eye measured the lonely landscape as if he compared it with more recent scenes – "and, wrong or right, blood is thicker than wine. So that frankly, I am not clear that for the sake of your Bordeaux, I'm tied to shed blood that might be my forbears'!"
"Or your grandmother's," Augustin cried, with an open sneer.
"Or my grandmother's. Very true. But if a word to them in season – "
"Oh, d – n your words," the skipper retorted disdainfully.
He would have said more, but at that moment it became clear that something was happening on shore. On the green brow beside the tower a girl mounted on horseback had appeared; at a cry from her the men had stopped work. The next moment her horse came cantering down the slope, and with uplifted whip she rode in among the men. The whip fell twice, and down went all the tubs within reach. Her voice, speaking, now Erse, now Kerry English, could be heard upbraiding the nearest, commanding, threatening, denouncing. Then on the brow behind her appeared in turn a man – a man who looked gigantic against the sky, and who sat a horse to match. He descended more slowly, and reached the girl's side as O'Sullivan Og, in his frieze coat, came to the front in support of his men.
For a full minute the girl vented her anger on Og, while he stood sulky but patient, waiting for an opening to defend himself. When he obtained this, he seemed to the two on the deck of the sloop to appeal to the big man, who said a word or two, but was cut short by the girl. Her voice, passionate and indignant, reached the deck; but not her words.
"That