Читать книгу The Siege of Malta (St. Elmo) - S. Fowler Wright - Страница 10

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It was in the later day that Morayma came to Angelica, where she still sat apart in a mood of rebellion against the fate that was closing her in. The call of sea and wind and the wide freedom of life became louder and more alluring as it seemed more hopeless that she could accept its charm. She had all the hunger of youth and she looked down on a meal which was to lie for a lifetime untasted before her eyes. At least, so it seemed to her. The Abbess of Holy Cross, had she been in a confessional mood, might have told her that the plate was not always bare.

“Señor Francisco,” Morayma said, “has sent for some things he needs but lacks time to fetch. There is a yellow scarf which he says you have.”

“Yes. It is in my chest. It has been there since the masquerade. I will get it now.”

She went to a coffer in which she kept such clothes as she seldom wore. After turning out much that it held, she came to the scarf she sought. It was last winter that she had dressed herself as a page for the Twelfth-day masque, which her uncle had chidden somewhat at first, and then praised her, as making a pretty boy. There was not much that might not be done on that night. She had borrowed her cousin’s doublet and hose; a suit that had become small for him, though it had been ample for her. The clothes were still there.

As she looked at them now, a thought came which she put away, but which would come back to her mind. “There is none,” she thought, “that would guess, if my hair were shed.” Then she thought: “But I should be shamed if they did.” And after that: “But I am slim enough, and I stride well. I see not how they should know.”

She said aloud: “It is a wild thought. It is a thing I shall never try.... I should need a sword, if I did.”

She might be sure that it was a thing she would never try, yet she went to her cousin’s room and found the rapier he mostly wore when he was dressed in a formal way. He had left it for a heavier sword, now that he went to the grim business of war, so it was there with the belt and dagger to which it belonged, all of which she took to her own room, with some other things which were of a man’s kind.

She had some gold saved, which her uncle would give her freely at times, and this she put in a hollow belt that ran round the inside of the doublet, where it was drawn close at the waist, and was well concealed. She did not know what her need might be, but she knew that to have gold at hand is best for those who wander about. There was a pouch also hanging upon the belt, at the dagger’s guard, and she put some smaller money in that for an instant need.

“It is what,” she said to herself, “I shall never dare; but it can be no loss to have ordered well if my mind change at the last, as it will not do.”

It was in this mood she remained till the day went down and the darkness came, though her hands had not been idle the while, and after that, as the space of escape narrowed towards its last hour, she came to a mood that was both active and bold, and though it might change with another day, it might do more before then than could be undone by too late a fear.

Through the hours of night there was coming and going of men between castle and quay, and the castle gates were not closed, nor its lights dimmed. At two hours before dawn it was easy for one who walked out with assurance enough to pass unchallenged and unobserved; and it was at about that time that an old fisherman, grounding his skiff on his own beach—to which he had returned from taking some goods to Rinaldo’s galley—was aware of a young gentleman who stood at the water’s edge, and asked him, in a voice that was somewhat husky and low, if he would earn some coins by pulling out again to the Flying Hawk.

Vaguely, for he was a tired man, Pedro heard a familiar sound in the voice and, had there been better light, he would more certainly have recognized Francisco’s clothes and given a closer look to one who wore them with doubtful right. As it was, he thought only of time and toil.

“Señor,” he said, “it will be a hard pull, and the time is short, for they weigh anchor in much less than an hour. But I will do what I can.”

“There is time, if you pull well. If you get me aboard I will give you something more than I said. There is this to take.”

She handed him a valise which she had found heavy enough, though it was not large. The beach at this place had a good slope, and the boat could come well ashore, but as she got aboard she wetted one leg to the knee, at which she was less than pleased. Pedro had settled more than he knew, for she had resolved that he should be the test of whether her disguise would prevail. As he knew her voice as well as herself, it had seemed a sufficient ordeal to pass, and as he pulled over the dark waters of the bay, she had a better confidence that none would guess that she was not that which she appeared, which did much to control her fear of what her greeting might be when she had climbed to the galley’s deck.

They passed close enough under the stern of the Santa Anna to hear the voices of those who were casting the hawsers clear, and when they drew into the shadow of the Flying Hawk they heard the noise of men who sang at the capstan bars, and the bow anchor was already awash. Pedro pulled round to the low waist of the ship, and when he hailed that he had a gentleman to be put aboard, the rope-ladder was cast, with less pause to ask for whom it might be required than there might have been in the light of day, or at any moment than that, for the sheet-anchor was hard apeak and as it came clear of the sea-bottom the galley must fall away with the wind. The oarsmen had their long sweeps ready to pull, and Angelica found that she must be agile to seize the swaying ropes before the boat would be backed away. The valise was handled in such a sort that it was by no more than a good chance that it did not fall to the sea.

Pedro pulled away in some wonder and doubt of what he had done, for, as Angelica gave him that he had earned, she had been careless to speak in her own voice, saying farewell. It seemed a wild thought at the first, but when he heard, at a later hour, that the Señorita could not be found, he had little doubt of what he had done, about which he had sufficient sense to keep quiet. He had not seen her, he said, with an oath which his conscience allowed; for who can see in the dark?

Angelica was led by the light of lanterns that swung from the masts, and the first faint efforts of dawn, along a raised plank from which she could look down on the benches of those who were chained to the oarsman’s task. She had to keep her footing with care as the ship came loose to the wind, and she heard strange-tongued cries from those who controlled the oarsmen by word and lash, bidding them dip their sweeps to a task which must be sustained till the voyage’s end.

She had asked for Captain Rinaldo, not knowing if that were the proper designation to apply to the pursuivant who was also (as she understood) in command of the vessel by which he came. The seaman whom she addressed, who appeared to be of the rank of a quartermaster or boatswain, but whose features were hard to see in the wavering light, had replied in a foreign tongue, which might be Maltese for any better knowledge she had, and had led her toward the poop. He had, in fact, understood no word except “capitan,” which conveyed all that she needed to say, and her dress and manner were sufficient to indicate the part of the vessel to which she would most naturally be assigned.

When she had climbed to the high poop, she saw Rinaldo there, but the man, having led her so far, either had other work of an urgent nature upon his hands, or he did not think it necessary, or perhaps wise, to interrupt the captain in his task of guiding the ship through the harbour-mouth. He pointed to Rinaldo, with some more words of the foreign tongue he had used before, and hurried away. Angelica stood in the shadow of a short mizzen-mast which rose from the poop deck. She saw Rinaldo in the light of a lantern which hung over the stern. He was clothed in somewhat looser garments than he had worn when he came ashore, and had a curved sword at his side. She was not sufficiently familiar with the equipment or crew of a Maltese warship to judge the meaning of all she saw, but was aware of a barbaric tone in her new surroundings beyond anything she had expected to meet. It was exotic, even intoxicating, in its first effect, as though she were privileged to walk in safety in Algiers or Egypt, where no Christian, other than the ingratiating ubiquitous Greek, could hope to enter, save in the heavy gyves of a slave.

Finding herself unobserved or unregarded by those around, she turned her attention to the dim forms of her uncle’s galleys, coming up behind with spreading widths of canvas which hid at times the lights of the castle which she had left for so wild a path. As she looked back in a tumult of contending thoughts, she was aware of Rinaldo’s voice at her side.

There was now a broadening line of dove-grey light on the rim of the eastern sky, foretelling a quiet and misty dawn. She could not see his face clearly, and he less of hers, she being in shadow and her back turned to what light there was.

“May I ask to whom I have the honour to speak?”

The words were courteous, but the tone had an inflection of satire, at which her heart stirred to a sudden fear; but it was a question she had expected, and for which she had an answer prepared.

“I must ask your grace for the way I have come aboard without leave. My name is Garcio—Don Garcio of Murcia—I am near of blood to Don Manuel, and came to give such aid as I could. I did not arrive till his galleys were near to sail, and they were so thronged that I thought it best to ask if you could find me space here.”

There was no answer to this, and she added: “If I have taken too great a freedom, I have no doubt Señor Ramegas will find means to bring me to his own vessel. Or I could pace the deck here, if your cabins are full below. You would not mind that?”

She did not want to face Ramegas, but it appeared best to speak in a bold way, and, at the worst, he could not put back for her. She felt that the die had fallen now, and it might not have been unwelcome to have found herself among friends again, and to discard a dress which had served its use. Yet it was not easily to be thought that Rinaldo would be reluctant to welcome any who might come as a volunteer to the defence of the threatened isle, or to refuse hospitality on a ship which the Knights of Malta owned.

“We will speak of this at a later hour.” As Rinaldo said this, he moved away without inviting reply. There had been a subtle note of ironic mockery in his voice, at which her heart stirred again to that first instinct of fear.

Yet she was of too fine a blood to be lightly frightened without a cause, and her reason told her that there could be no need for alarm. Even if he had guessed who she was—which she was not quick to believe—she must be in safety enough, with the Maltese flag over her head, and its own envoy in charge. She did not forget that she was the niece of one of the Commanders of the great Order to which the galley belonged. One who was next in rank to the Grand Master, La Valette himself.

Perhaps it was just because Rinaldo had not guessed who she was that he had dared to speak in that mocking tone. He might think her to claim a rank that she did not own. He might even think her a spy. But, even so, she need have no fear. The truth would be her secure defence. Had she been really alone she might have stirred to a sharper fear. But she looked at the two great ships that were but three furlongs behind, drawing out of the harbour now, the Santa Martha slightly in advance on the starboard side, and she knew that Ramegas—her cousin—and a hundred others upon those decks could speak for her of who she was. She looked at the beauty of sea and sky in the growing light with a mind that was more at ease than it had been since Rinaldo’s coming had broken the peace of the castle life, as a stone drops in a pool.

And the scene was one of beauty and quiet peace, though it might be pregnant with menace of coming war, as the three galleys, like wide-winged birds, with white gleams of foam at their sides from the measured strokes of the oars, left the dark coastline of Spain behind, and moved outward toward the dawn.

The two galleys of Don Manuel, which had been built at Cadiz, and were the gift of the Spanish king, were each of a length of two hundred feet, being among the largest ships of their kind that were then afloat. The waist was low, where the rowers sat, and they would be drenched in a windy storm, and might even be glad of their chains at such times, without which they had been sucked away by a falling wave; but poop and bow were built high, having several decks. They were like castles, bristling with cannon, crowded with men.

They were built somewhat broad of beam and round of bow, speed being less regarded than strength, and space for armaments and for a large regiment of fighting men. But they carried three masts, and could show a spread of sail that was high and wide. They had twenty oars on either side, each being pulled by three men. With a good wind they could do ten knots an hour, if not more.

The Flying Hawk was a smaller ship of a different kind. It was lean and swift. It had some height of poop, and there were gun-decks there, where it showed teeth that were strong and sharp. But the bow was lower and pointed keenly ahead, like a falcon’s beak. It had cannon there on a single deck, long brass swivel-mounted guns that could be trained ahead on a flying prey. It had great grappling-hooks hung out on either side of the prow, that could be used to grip the bulwarks of a ship that might be too shy to close with less persuasion than that. With the sharp-pointing prow, they showed like the beak and claws of the deadly bird that it claimed to be.

It had but twelve oars aside, with two rowers to each, but it could make as good speed with those on a calm sea as could the greater galleys with six score rowers that pulled on their longer oars; and with a fair wind, it could do nigh three knots to their two.

Angelica looked at it now, gliding forward with less than its full effort of sail, and with its oars stilled for a time, that it might not draw too far ahead of her uncle’s galleys, which might be said to be panting behind, and she thought it to be a ship which it would be easy to love. She was at peace with herself and with all she saw, when a man stood at her elbow and spoke to her in a tongue which she did not know, but which had some sound of that which Morayma used when she met one of her own race.

The man had on a red cap, and his jacket and drawers were linen, not over-white, which might be excused on a ship that was scarcely clear of the harbour-bar, and was still busy with a crowd of men who were carrying stores to the hold, coiling cables away, and removing raffle from off the decks.

When she answered in Spanish, and he saw that she did not understand him, he found enough words of that tongue to say that Captain Hassan wished to speak to the Señor.

“Captain Hassan?” she asked, in some surprise, thinking that this must be another officer to whom Rinaldo had referred her business; but she followed the man across the deck, and it was to Rinaldo that she was led.

He looked at her in a cold way, and there was no friendliness in his voice, as he asked:

“Señor Garcio, you are, as I understand from yourself, of a wealthy house? You are one for whom a good ransom might well be paid? Should we say of two thousand crowns, or perhaps more?”

“Yes,” she said in some wonder and doubt how to reply to this most unexpected query. “What of that?”

“It may be well for you that you have such friends. You were not asked to come here, and must look for the fate of those who adventure with rashness thus.”

Angelica was more puzzled than alarmed by the threat which the words contained. She still thought that, if all else should fail, she had but to reveal who she was, and her safety, at least, was sure. She looked at the Maltese flag overhead, and at the two great galleys that were scarce a gunshot away, and there was no more than a foolish jest in the words she heard.

“Captain Rinaldo,” she said, “you talk in a strange way. I am on a Maltese ship, and it is Malta I come to aid. Do the Knights of Malta think that to hold their friends to ransom will aid their cause? Why, all Europe would cry them shame.”

“Señor, I know not what the Knights of Malta may do. I am not of their Order, nor was I put in command when this galley was sent to sea.”

“Then I will speak to who is.”

“If you would do that, you must call the dead.”

“Do you tell me that the Captain died, and that you, being no more than the Grand Master’s envoy at first, have taken his power?”

“The Grand Master’s envoy is on the third bench from the fore, on the starboard side. It is he over whom the driver is standing now with his whip raised, which he will feel the first time that his oar lags, as it is soon that it will.”

“I cannot tell what you mean.”

“Yet it is simple to see. You are speaking to Captain Hassan, of whom it is likely you may have heard. Six days ago, I was in command of a part of my father’s fleet. I fell in with this galley, which I have long lusted to take. Being six to one, we were able to gain it with little loss, having hemmed it round. I took it by the board, for I would not batter it with our guns, more than by the shooting down of some spars to reduce its speed, which were soon repaired.

“My vessels lie with their yards aback but fifty miles off Iviza’s coast, and I lead Don Manuel’s ships to that place, as two cows that the butcher needs.

“Yet I will not say I have done all that I meant, for I thought that the Lord of Vilheyna would have been the best part of the prey which I took some venture to have. He would have pleased my father better than all, for he had longed to bait him for many years; since, in fact, he broke his helm at Golitta’s siege, though he might have borne no malice for that. It was some words that Don Manuel said at that time which he must learn to repent. My father will not be content that either shall die till he have him impaled at his galley’s stern, for he has a stake there, as you may know, which is seldom vacant of some Christian to whom he may talk at will.

“There is a chance that he may honour you in that way, but it is the larger odds that he will let you go at a good price, thinking you are too feeble and mean for that which he will keep for his major foes.”

Angelica heard this with a mind that was stunned by a horror that left it numb, as the pain of a wound delays till the first shock is spent.

She did not doubt it was true; nor to whom it was that she spoke. It was to Hassan, the son-in-law of Dragut, who was the Sultan’s Viceroy of Algiers, the scourge of the Mediterranean for the last thirty years, the best naval commander who supported the Turkish power. And Hassan, Barbarossa’s son, was his most dreaded lieutenant, to whom he had given his daughter in reward for a former act of audacity such as that which had brought her here. At least—it was her own folly that brought her here!

She looked back at her uncle’s ships, striving to make pace with the swifter vessel, and thinking that every knot they gained made it more sure that they would arrive at Malta before the Turks could obstruct their way to the harbour mouth, and she felt, illogically enough, as though she had betrayed them to the doom that they strained to reach. And yet, if she could warn.... And what way could there be to that? She saw—she could have admired at another time in another mood—the superb audacity which had anchored that galley in Aldea Bella bay, with its benches of Christian slaves: slaves too closely watched, too entirely cowed by their ruthless owners, to be able to give alarm, perhaps too terror-weakened to have used such an opportunity had it come.

But now she saw only the eyes which had looked at her so differently two mornings before—which were now cruel with derisive scorn. Was she to watch impotent here while her cousin and all her uncle’s power were lured to slaughter or slavery at the Corsair’s will? What would be her own fate when the truth were known, which she could not hope that she would be long able to hide?

Desperation brought its own courage. If she had abandoned her womanhood for this pit of horror and shame, was she to forget also the manhood that she assumed? The sword that she yet wore?

They were alone on the high deck, in an ample space, for Captain Hassan was not one on whom others would intrude unless they knew that they were required. Bitter passion and pride, and the wild hope that she might do something to break the trap to which her friends were now led, urged the sudden movement that brought her rapier clear of its sheath. She would have struck, in the revulsion of that instant’s despair, be the consequences what they might, but he was as nimble as she. The curved scimitar leapt to light.

“Back!” he cried. “Stand away!” to the running crew. “Do I need aid for such a boy’s bodkin as that?”

Angelica thrust twice with a fury replacing strength. Then she knew that her rapier was snapped off at the hilt. The scimitar skimmed over her head, which it did not cut.

“You are more worth,” Captain Hassan remarked, “while you yet live. Yet I see not why you should idle here. You may look again at the pursuivant that you thought me to be. He will not last for an hour. When he faints, they will cast him over the side, and his place will be bare for you.”

She looked at the bench to which he had pointed before. Standing at the poop-rail, she looked down on the face of a man who was at the extremity of exhaustion and the desperation of a great dread. His bench companion was a huge negro, with a green turban about his head, who pulled strongly and must, indeed, have been doing three-fourths of the work, but the oars were beyond the power of a single man.

The pursuivant, the real Rinaldo, pulled with the knowledge that, if the oar should fail to keep its place with the rest, the lash would descend on a back that was already swollen and raw and in a torture of pain every time that it bent for the next stroke. Nature may do much under the stimulus of such fear, but there is a limit it cannot pass. As Angelica looked, the man’s body sank limply forward upon the oar. The lash descended in vain upon a back that quivered but did not rise. The oar fouled the one that came forward from those who pulled on the bench behind. There was confusion and loss of stroke till the negro lifted it clear.

The driver called two men forward to strike off the chains of the swooning man. He shouted also for one of the slaves who were held in reserve for such a need to be brought to supply his place.

Angelica saw the pursuivant’s senseless form lifted over the bench, and dragged to the vessel’s side. She realized abruptly that he was to be thrown overboard while he still lived. She had known, all her life, that such things were but daily events in the merciless Mediterranean warfare that had been waged for five hundred years between the Christian and Moslem powers. For the moment she forgot her own peril, even the threat that she was to take the vacated place. She turned to Hassan with a cry in which horror and appeal had an equal part.

“Oh, not that! You can’t let them throw him over. He isn’t dead.”

“Señor,” was the cold reply, “the man had no ransom to pay.”

There was no mercy in Hassan’s heart, for he had known the misery of a slave himself, all the bitterness and the blows, as he had toiled in Malta at the fortifications of St. Elmo, while his captors had refused to discuss any possible ransom, so that he was only released at last when Dragut made capture of a Commander of the Maltese Order, and both parties had been glad to effect exchange.

The pursuivant’s body was flung over the side, to tumble for a moment and disappear among the swirling foam of the oars; but Captain Hassan’s attention had left it before it fell.

Something in Angelica’s voice, in the urgency of that appealing cry, in which she had forgotten the pose of manhood she had assumed, awaked memory and brought his eyes upon her with a new sharpness, even as he lifted the pipe to his mouth, the shrill note of which had been intended to summon those who would have chained her in the vacant place, and put back the wretch who was now being driven toward the bench.

“Now,” he said, “you may call me fool if you will. Allah be thanked for the better light! Did not Morayma say you could use the sword? But she left the doublet unsaid. There will be no slave-bench for you—Señor Garcio. You shall have the cabin beside my own.”

“I see you know who I am. There is no occasion to mock. And the sword I had was no more than a fragile thing. It might have snapped in your own hand. But if you treat me with honour, you may be sure there will be exchange or ransom agreed.”

She was conscious, amid the horror of the murder she had just seen, and a host of contending fears, of some satisfaction, even relief, in the fact that he knew her for whom she was, and that the true issue alone need concern her now. She could feel confidence once again in the great name that was hers, and that might, she thought, be some protection, even in this pit to which she had slipped. Fear she must have; but, for the moment, at least, she faced him with a courage that ruled her fear. And as she heard his reply, she had need of all that she could gather from her own spirit or her race’s pride.

“You will be held in honour enough. You need have no doubt about that, for it is there that your value lies. But it will be time to talk of ransom when it is asked, if at all. My father may think you a gift that our Sultan will not disdain to take from his hand; though I do not say you should look for that, for the years of the Protector of the Faithful are more than few, and it is said that his seraglio is already beyond his need. My father may think that I have done well, and that I may claim a rose for my own wreath, if I will.”

Angelica checked a reply that was near her lips. It seemed that she gained coolness as well as courage from the extremity of danger which was not hers alone, but that of all who were aboard those following ships. If there were a way that they could be warned in time! She saw that the more quietly she accepted the doom that his words implied, the more freedom she was likely to have, and on the retention of such freedom must rest any hope that she could communicate with those who were now being guided to the waiting trap. She said only:

“I had no rest during last night. Will you show me the cabin I am to have?”

He saw that she accepted the position in a very quiet and sensible way, and though he might not have cared had she wept or pleaded or stormed, there being those at call who had the expertness of use in dealing with such cases as hers, yet her attitude proved her friend in securing a different treatment from that which she would have been likely to have.

“Come this way,” he said, and led down a short companion-way to the poop-cabins beneath their feet. She recognized in the curt order that she was now something less than either the Señorita Angelica of Vilheyna, or the Señor Garcio that she had claimed to be; but it was something gained that she was being led to the best quarters that the galley held, rather than to the hard slavery of the oar, which she would have had no strength to endure.

“There is no need,” he said, as they entered the cabin in which his meals were served, “that it should be known who you are at this time, and will be better not, in two ways.”

The room in which they stood was surprisingly large, though its height was little more than six feet. It was on the port-side, and as they entered, looking toward the rudder, there were portholes facing them, and on their right hand, through one of which, as the ship dipped to the waves, Angelica had a glimpse of the Santa Anna. She saw the length of its starboard side, and the lifted oars gleam in the sun. She had some comfort in this nearness of friends, and a brave and yet fearful thought that their safety might be dependent upon herself. “I must warn them,” she thought, “while there is time, though my life go.”

While she thought this, Captain Hassan had called to a Moorish boy, and had led the way to the further of two doors which opened at their left hand.

“You will prepare this cabin,” he said, in his own tongue, “for Señor Garcio’s use, bringing his baggage here from the deck, and from now you will serve meals for two.”

Angelica saw that she was in the sternmost of two sleeping-cabins which opened into each other and into the larger one, the suite of three taking the whole width of the stern. The Knights of Malta might crowd their fighting galleys with men, but they had spacious accommodation provided for the one, whether of themselves or not, who was likely to have command. There would be comfort for him and for one other, wife or amie, whom he might bring aboard on a safe voyage.

“You will live here,” Hassan went on, when the boy had gone, speaking in Spanish again, “till we come to port, and my father will order all. You may think that you can call to your friends, but you know more than I, if you know how. For even could you swim such a length through the waves (which it would be random to think), you would be shot from these decks as you rose from the first dive, nor would your friends haul a yard that they might come by your way, for they will not pick up that which a consort drowns.”

Angelica feared, as he said this, that he might have observed a moment’s change in her face, for to swim to her uncle’s ships had been a faint hope that had already come to her mind, though it had also filled it with fear. For, having been born at the sea’s side, and of a race that had been less often on land than a ship’s deck, she had learnt to swim, which she could do well, though she had never put her strength to a test such as this would be sure to be.

“If you are wise,” he went on, “you will put such thoughts from your mind, for your own peace. You can bar these doors or not, as you will. While I live, you will be troubled by none till this voyage is through. And you can drive that toy” (looking at the dagger that hung from her belt) “into my back at a likely time, if your folly rise to that height; but it will be no avail to your friends nor to yourself. If you should do that, you might pray for a quick death in the next hour. There are three hundred men on this ship, besides slaves, and no woman at all. They would have no mercy on one who had wrought my death; and what they would do, should they find that which you are, I may guess but I will not say. You might be glad at the last to be impaled on the stake you will have seen at the helmsman’s side, which your friends of Malta have used to the torture of those of the True Faith, as its stains attest, but which will bear Christian fruit from this day.”

“I am not of those,” she said, “who slay sleeping men or who will strike at the back, as I think you know.”

“Are you not? There are few, either women or men, who will not do that at an urgent fear, unless they are faint of heart, which I do not think that you are. I will trust your sense as a better pledge.”

“You may trust what you will. While you leave me at peace, I shall not desire evil to you. I can see that it might be to fall into more difficult hands.”

“Then we are agreed for this time.” He went back to the deck.

Angelica remained in the larger cabin, which was furnished in the style of the Italian luxury of that time, having much of novelty to one who had been brought up in the austere atmosphere of Andalusian grandeur, while the boy Alim prepared her own cabin, fitting with soft cushions and silk coverings a deep-sided berth, which was more fit for a woman’s ease than the man she proposed to be.

When he had gone, she lay down in the berth, though without discarding her clothes, for, having had no rest during the previous night, she was physically and mentally exhausted by the experiences through which she had gone. Now, while adversity threatened but paused to strike, she lay for some time devising plans by which she might reach her friends who were so near, and so much more numerous and powerful than these men by whom she was held. But her thoughts showed her no more than the strength of the trap into which she had walked, in a blind way; and, after a time, with the resilient spirit of youth, she passed into dreamless sleep, from which she waked in a mood of buoyant hope, having little cause, beyond the fact that there appeared to be a short space of days during which she need have no imminent fear.

She entered the larger cabin to find a table laden with food, and bearing signs that Captain Hassan had eaten and gone. She ate and drank with some zest, during which she was even aware of some doubt whether she would be back in the walls of Andrea Bella, if the choice could be hers, considering that it must be about the hour when she would have been setting out for the Convent of Holy Cross.

Having eaten, and observing that the air was somewhat oppressive in the low-roofed cabin, she found courage enough to seek the sun and wind that the deck would give. If she were to be Don Garcio till the voyage should end, she need not deny herself such freedom as could be expected to be attached thereto. Captain Hassan walked the deck, watching the ship’s response to a gusty and changeful wind. He did not regard her at all.

She looked down at the bare-backed slaves who toiled under the constant fear of the driver’s lash, and her mood sobered again to the depth of the peril in which she lay. The man who had been put in Rinaldo’s place had a broad red weal across the white of his back. He did not look very strong. Probably he, too, would go overside, if he had no ransom to pay. Many did. Others had strength to endure, and, in the end, the toil would become almost easy for them.

It was a cruel custom, doing no good to either side, Christian or Infidel, in its result. The galleys of each were pulled by the war-taken slaves of the alien race. They might equally well have each pulled on their own oars, but so the custom had been; slaves died, or were exchanged if they were of sufficient rank; ransoms were paid and repaid. It cancelled out more or less, as it had done since the days of Carthage and Rome. So long had the custom endured, and so long might it last, till the end of time.

Captain Hassan had occupation for his own mind. A cold wind came from the north. The galleys sailed close-hauled to the wind, and the oars pulled under the urgent threats of the drivers’ whips. Captain Hassan had no care for his own ship. He could sail two points nearer the wind than the round-hulled vessels that came behind. He felt like a dog that brings slow-moving cattle to the place where they are appointed to die. If there should be a further rise in the wind—if there should be storm in the night, such as would break them apart—it might be the loss of almost all that he had so audaciously attempted to gain.

Angelica felt the chill of that Alpine wind which the Southerner hates to feel, either on water or land. She saw the grey of the sky and the rising sea. She saw that the galleys that held her friends were more distant then they had been on the earlier day. There was no comfort in that.

She watched them awhile over the stern-rail, and when she turned to go below, after she had been spattered by the spray of a heavy wave, she saw that she was standing beside the stake of which Captain Hassan had warned her that she might make closer acquaintance if she should do him hurt. It was a strong, upright stake, about five feet high, firmly fixed in the deck, and having a sharp point. A man being seated thereon, and the stake being thrust in so far that he would not fall off, but no more, might live, it was said, for as much as four days, while the stake would be driven in by his own weight till it should come to a vital part.

It was a form of execution very popular in Asia and Eastern Europe at that time. It resembled crucifixion in that a man might be able to think and talk for a long time after the executioner’s work was done; but it was unlike in that a man could not be taken down, and his life saved. After he had once been fixed on the stake a slow death was his certain fate.

There were corsairs at that time, both Christian and Turk—between which there was little to choose in the modes of warfare they used—who would have a victim impaled by the ship’s helm as a constant thing, saying that they must have someone with whom to talk while they steered.

Angelica had heard of such things, which she knew were done, but it is different to see. It was but a bare stake, which had been scrubbed clean of all but some stains that were darker than the grain of the wood. There was nothing frightful in that, nor had she much fear that she would come herself to an end so foul, yet it was not pleasant to see.

She went to her own cabin, and watched for a time, through a stern port-hole, the ships where, if she could reach them, her safety lay.

Lacking air, she tried to open it, but found that it was secured beyond her strength, and, as she thought, on the outside. She went to the starboard port-hole and found that it was easy to set it wide, which she was glad to do, that side being away from the wind. She wondered whether the port-hole astern had been secured so that she should not signal at a place which her friends could see, and whether it might have been done in the last hour, while she was on the deck. She had a fear that she might be watched more than she knew, and resolved to be wary to hide her thoughts.

The ships lay-to during the night, resting their oars, and after the darkness fell, and when she had barred both her doors, she watched the triple masthead lights of the two ships that, at one time, were but a short distance away. She supposed that she could go on deck if she would, by no more than opening her own door; and if she were once in the sea, she thought that she would not be easy to follow or stay. But the night was dark, the waves high. She had little hope that she could do more than drown herself, if she should attempt such a swim; and though she saw that she might have no better chance till it would be too late, she could not make the resolve. She slept for that night, and waked in an April dawn to find that the ships were moving again. The wind had veered to the south of west: the sea was more quiet: the Santa Anna and Santa Martha came with a full strength of sail: the oars flashed in the foam. With a wind which was dead astern, as it now was, their speed was not greatly less than that of the Flying Hawk: they sought to recover the time that had been lost as they lay-to in the night. They made haste to their doom.

Angelica looked, and called herself coward that she had let the night go without an effort to reach their decks. She saw that her life was a small thing beside the stake for which it would be cast in the scale. She might not succeed, but it was a thing that she ought to try. Rather, that she ought to have tried; for there could be no chance now, unless it should come with another night.

Captain Hassan clearly thought it to be an impossible thing. But he might not guess how well she could swim. There were few Spanish ladies at that day who could have lived in the water at all. Few, indeed, who would have made such an attempt as she now pondered and feared, and yet thought it likely that she could do if she should have sufficient courage to try.

Yet Captain Hassan might be right. To swim in the dark to the side of a moving ship was a thing she had never tried. She thought of herself as struggling vainly among the moving blades of the oars. They were not always out. But they might be put out at any time, even while she were swimming toward the ships.

Even if they had not to be faced, she must so contrive that she must come close to the moving side, amid the darkness and tossing waves, and her cries must be heard, or something seized by which she could climb, or in a moment it would have slipped away, and she be left to a hopeless death. She should have tried while they lay-to, however rough was the sea. It was the one chance she had, and her cowardice had let it go.

As she reproached herself thus, there was a sound of distant guns that came over the sea. She looked out, and far to south there were flashes at times where sea and sky met in a vagueness of morning mist.

The firing was not heavy, but came often from single guns. It was most likely that of flight and pursuit. The dawn had come to one of the pitiless Mediterranean hawks, and had shown it a pigeon near. It was only a detail of the ruthless warfare that never ceased on the inland sea, over which merchant vessels, hugging the land, glad of the coming night, would scurry from coast to coast, as a rabbit dashes across a field where foxes prowl.

There was some signalling between Don Manuel’s ships and the Flying Hawk, as though they discussed whether they should endeavour to intervene, but it came to nothing. They went on as before. Had they been drawn into such a strife, it might have been hard for Hassan to conceal the side to which he belonged, but it is likely that he would have continued the part he had chosen to play, even to the point of sinking a galley of his own land, rather than lose the greater prey that he had brought so near to the trap.

But they did not turn for a chase which they might have been too slow to reach, even had it been a Christian vessel that was in jeopard of loss, as to which they may have known more than Angelica was able to see. They held their course all that day, the wind continuing fair under a sky that was warm and blue. The sea became a bright mirror that held the sky.

In the afternoon the Flying Hawk steered a more northerly course. It must have seemed a cautious route to those who followed, leaving Algiers as far away as they well could, unless they would go round the Balearic Isles, which had been far out of the course that they ought to make. The day ended without event. The night came, and though she could make no more than a vague guess, having little knowledge of navigation or of distances on the sea, it seemed to Angelica that they could not be far from the place where the trap was set. All the day she had vexed her mind with vain plans by which she should have made a warning signal to those who followed, but she could think of none that would be likely to be understood, though they might lead to her own death. She had leisure enough, for she appeared to be disregarded by all around. The boy Alim was alert to observe her needs, but she did not know his tongue, nor he hers. If he thought her to be other than what she seemed, he made no sign. Captain Hassan gave her no notice at all: his mind, we may suppose, was on larger things.

They met no ships during these two days that were more than a flicker of distant sails, such as would fade away almost as soon as they showed on the horizon, for they were too formidable in their own aspect to invite the weak to a closer view. Curiosity would have been a fatal vice in a merchant-captain of that day, and indifference would have led to the same end by a road nearly as short. They lived longest who were most timid of mood, and would fly from peril while it was no more than a speck on the distant sea.

On the second night, Angelica lay at ease in the soft berth, though she kept her clothes on as before, for there was good reason to rest while she could, if she were to adventure that on which it was hard to resolve, but which yet would not leave her mind.

She rose after a time and looked out on a night that was dark and still. There was no moon, and the stars were few. The two sets of triple masthead lights followed at some distance apart. Perhaps they were further away than they had been during the day, but one was much in advance. They came on with some spread of canvas, but their oars were drawn in; for no weight of lashes will give men the strength to pull without rest and sleep, and the galleys did not carry a reserve of slaves sufficient for complete relief shifts during the night.

She said to herself: “It must be tried now, if at all. If I stay here, I shall be no more than a bartered slave, of such shame as I partly guess, and do not wish to know more; and I shall have the further shame in my own heart that I have not tried to do what I could. If I try and fail, I have lost no more than a life which is near to wreck, and all else will be as though I had never come. But if I succeed, I have saved my uncle’s galleys from being seized and my friends from death. I shall have done more for Malta, besides, than I ever thought when I made that my excuse to come by a wilful way.”

And as she thought thus, she saw that the fact that one galley was in advance gave her a double chance, for if she should fail in boarding the first, the second would still be coming in the right way; and she saw also that the distance they might be behind did not matter as much as she had been inclined to think at first. For if she could leave the ship unobserved, she could wait rather than tire herself in an effort to swim to them, doing little more than to keep herself afloat till they should be nearer to her.

Having resolved upon this, she lost no more time, but addressed her mind to the trouble of getting clear of the ship. She prayed to St. Christopher first, he being the patron saint of her house, as well as the right one to guide her through a dark flood, and crossed herself with the three names of God, and stood awhile with a hand that trembled upon the bar of the door, listening for any sound there might be before she consented to draw it back.

She knew that Captain Hassan was in the cabin beside her own, where she must hope that he slept, and so, after she had drawn the bolt back, hearing no sound, she crossed the larger cabin on quiet feet, from which she had drawn the shoes that she would not need. She should have cast more of her clothes, but had been loth to do this, not knowing what she would be able to get again, and was glad to silence a wiser thought with the fear that if she should be stopped by any upon the ship, and were not fully clad, it would be harder to deceive them as to what she proposed to do.

She went through the larger cabin, dimly lit by a lantern which swung from the roof, and up the companion ladder, which had no light but the stars, for she must first mount the poop before she could get down to the low waist of the ship. On the poop deck she stood awhile in the dark shadow of the mast, on the further side from that on which its lantern was hung.

She saw—through the helmhouse window—Salim, Hassan’s chief mate, a turbaned Turk with a beard that spread as loosely as the clothes he wore, standing beside the helmsman, to whom he talked as he pointed northward into the night.

Seeing that he was not looking her way, she crossed to the head of the ladder that descended to the waist of the ship. She could observe no motion. She heard no sound except the voices of the watch on the forward deck, which came clearly through the night air, but she knew that she would not be noticed by them.

Thinking that she increased her risk by delay, she descended to the oarsmen’s level. She came to a vague awareness of men who lay under the stars, sprawling asleep in their chains. The overseers dozed or slept in their places alike, for they were nearly as wearied as those they drove. They must snatch sleep when they could, waking at once if the boatswain’s pipe should call them to action again.

The big negro, who had partnered Rinaldo until he died, half waked as someone stumbled against his feet. He heard a splash, such as might be made by a leaping fish. He raised his head, but there was no further sound. He looked at the dim forms of those who were sleeping around, and then up at the quiet stars, and turned to slumber again.