Читать книгу The Siege of Malta (St. Elmo) - S. Fowler Wright - Страница 11

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She came to the first of the galleys on its windward side. It rose above her, a monster of moving gloom. Its masts, its wide spread of sail which towered to an incredible height among distant stars, were leaning somewhat away. So was the smooth side that slipped from her clutching hands as it slid past with such terrible speed. There was nothing to which she could hold. No one answered her cries. The whole ship seemed asleep. Only, as she came under the stern, and looked up in a last despair, high above she saw Francisco’s face, on which the light shone from a stern-hung lantern, as he leaned over the rail. He was puzzled by what he heard. Did mermaids call from the sea? And it was strange that the sound should recall Angelica’s voice, the more so that it had a note of pleading and fear such as he had never heard from her lips. But the sound went with the wind, where he supposed that its birth had been.

She saw the towering vessel recede, and she felt that her life was done. By instinct she kept afloat, though she did not doubt that the waste of waters would be her tomb. In that minute’s despair, as she saw the ship go by, she almost lost the little chance that was still hers, for when she looked for the second galley, she waked to the realization that it was coming up fast, and was not in line behind, but would pass some hundred yards further south.

She knew it to be the last chance of life that was hers, and she struck out again with all the strength that she still had.

How foolish she had been not to cast some of her clothes! Even the belt, with its slender burden of gold, was still round her waist. She could not wait now to endeavour to get it free. She could only exhaust her breath in the effort to reach the ship before it should pass for ever. She did not even call as she swam.

The wide shadow of sail made a black lake of the water to which she came while there was still half the length of the ship to pass, but the hull leaned over her now. At its waterline it was further away, taking some strokes to reach, and there was again nothing to clutch. It slid past her desperate, groping hands. It was at the corner of the stern, at the last second of hope, that her chance came, in a wooden cornice across the stern. Had she been on the starboard side, it would have been lifted high from her reach, but with the ship leaning as it did from the wind, it came down at times, where she was, to the water’s edge.

When she looked down in the daylight hours, she was surprised that she had done that climb with such ease in the dark, but she had been bred on the hills, and there had been no more than a steady breeze which, with the way the ship heeled thereto, had been less hindrance than help. In fact, she remembered little of what she did until she had pulled herself over the bulwark rail, and was aware of a curt crisp voice that asked:

“Now who may you be that come thus where you have no business to be?”

She confronted the small truculent form of Señor Antonio, the Genoese seaman who had been captain of the Santa Anna before Ramegas came aboard. He stood with his legs apart, and his left hand bearing down the sword-hilt, so that its blade stuck upwards jauntily at his back. Angelica had seen him once or more at her uncle’s board, enough to know who he was, but they had not exchanged twenty words. He was not likely to know her in such a light as that in which she stood now, making a pool of water upon the deck.

“I am—I have swum here from the Flying Hawk. I must see Señor Ramegas at once.”

“You must be content to see me. Why did they throw you out from the Flying Hawk?”

“I was not thrown. I came to bring news of weight.”

“Well, you are small enough. You must tell me more.”

Antonio thought it an improbable tale. He supposed that he saw one who had been cast out to drown for sufficient cause, and who would now save his life, if he could, on another deck. He expected to hear lies. But he saw that, if the tale were true, it was a bold thing to have done, and he had a belief that most of the world’s valour is in the hearts of its smaller men. The slimness of the dripping form that had climbed over his rail caused him to show more patience then he would have given to one of a larger bulk. So he said: “You are small enough. You must tell me more.”

“Captain Antonio, it is no time for delay of words, and I am too cold to stand longer here. The Flying Hawk is in the hands of the Moors.”

He had expected a perjured tale, but not such a wild statement as that. Yet he had lived a life which had taught him to be quickly prepared for most improbable things.

“You will be hanged,” he said, “if you lie. Will you say it twice?”

Angelica laughed, which she had not done in the last two days, though she shivered as she stood in the cold of the night-wind. She had been warned of evils enough since she left her home, including impaling, which is not a death to prefer; but to be threatened with hanging on the Santa Anna was an addition she had not foreseen.

“I will say it till you are tired. But I shall not be hanged on my uncle’s ship, be it false or true. Señor Ramegas will explain that. We lose time standing here.”

Antonio might strut through life with his head back and his plumed hat on the left side, but he was shrewd and discreet, or he would not have stood where he then did.

“You have been warned enough,” he said. “Follow me.”

They crossed a deck which was similar to that of the Flying Hawk, but of twice the width, and they descended to a passage which had the doors of cabins on either side. Antonio tapped upon one, calling his own name, and the voice of Ramegas invited him to come in. Angelica, hearing it, felt that she had come at last to a safe place. She could have cried on his neck.

Ramegas was awake and dressed, though it was night, and was not his watch. He was one who had always been sparing of sleep.

He thought of himself as a man of action rather than business affairs, and now he was gravely glad that a time had come when he might prove to the world that he was no less than his secret dream; yet the custom of stewardship was still his, and he sat at a table which was strewn with records and bills of accounts from which he made schedules of the men and stores that were under his charge, and the extent of the succour which he was bringing to Malta in Don Manuel’s name.

His eyes passed Captain Antonio to rest on the slim, drenched form, in Francisco’s clothes, that came in behind. She knew that she was recognized at the first glance, and would have come quickly forward, but he raised his hand, waving her back. He had hardly allowed the instant of first surprise to change the settled gravity of his eyes.

“Señor,” Captain Antonio began, “here is one who comes up from the sea with a tale that the Moors have captured the Flying Hawk. I thought——”

“You have done well. But you should hold your watch till the truth be known. I will deal with this.”

Captain Antonio showed his discretion again. Without further words he went back to the deck, where his duty lay. He looked at the Flying Hawk, running before the wind with its topsail reefed so that its consorts might not be left in the rear. It was within range of the heavier guns that the Santa Martha carried on her forward decks, though beyond gunshot of the Santa Anna, which was further away. Its oars were not out, and it was evident that it was making no effort to draw apart, which its greater speed would have made it easy to do. It could not hope to fight the two great galleys if the truth should be shown when the morning came. It was absurd to suppose that Moors would have captured it and make no attempt to part company from the heavier vessels. Besides, how could that have occurred unobserved? From where could they have come? Captain Antonio had no difficulty in concluding that the tale had been a bold lie to secure audience with Señor Ramegas, for whom he recognized that it had been well chosen, and had succeeded with speed. His conceit was chafed that he should have been the subject of such a trick, but he had seen the instant of recognition in Ramegas’ eyes. He felt that he had done well to conduct Angelica below without more opposition than he had shown. And whatever mystery there might be, he felt it was one that he would soon know.

He looked again at the Flying Hawk, and then at a long brass culverin, swivel-mounted, upon the poop, that was so placed on that topmost deck that it could be swung round for forward fire with no more than a slight luff of the ship, even though the mark should be straight ahead. He gave an order that the gunner should be called to his place.

He gave order to trim a yard. There would be nothing to rouse suspicion in that. Why should they be behind the Santa Martha, as they were now?

Beyond that, he waited till Señor Ramegas should come on deck. If the tale were true, he felt that that time would not be greatly deferred.

When he had left the cabin below, Ramegas said: “You had better tell me from where you came.”

“I swam from the Flying Hawk. You will give me clothes of some kind, and show me where I can change, unless you wish me to die. Then I will tell you all. But I tell you this first, for it may be that it should not wait. Rinaldo is not Rinaldo at all. He is Hassan, Dragut’s son-in-law, of Tunis. The ship has a crew of Moors. There are no Christians there but those who pull at the oars.”

“Is this sober truth, or no more than a girl’s guess? The Maltese are a swarthy race.”

“I saw the true Rinaldo cast into the sea, being yet alive. Do you think I have swum here, barely saving my life, which I thought to lose, to bring you a doubtful tale?”

“Yet I see not to what end——”

“That is what I am coming to say. It is why I am here now. The fleet of Algiers lies await, fifty miles off Iviza isle. It is to that trap you are being led.”

As she said this, Ramegas had ceased to doubt that the tale was true. The fact that she had seen a man thrown overboard alive showed that it was more than the conceit of a frightened girl.

“I doubted that man,” he said, “from the first. Yet I could not see what could be wrong, it being a Maltese boat, as was known by a score that I trusted well. But you must not stand thus. Come with me.”

He led her to his own cabin, for there was no better place to which she could be taken at once on that crowded ship. He gave her a loose robe and some other garments of which she could make use till her own should be dried.

“How you came to be on that ship,” he said, “can be told at a better time. But if this be true, as I do not doubt, you have done a great thing, at your life’s risk. I praise the saints that you have come through, taking no harm.”

He said no more beyond that, asking no further questions, not even how Hassan came to be in control of the Flying Hawk, for his mind was on the main issue he had to face. It seemed that it was soon to be proved whether he were fit for the command he held.

He stood in thought for a moment beside the litter of papers and parchments that he had ceased to heed, and then went on deck. He had decided that the tale he had heard was true, and that he must act on that presumption without weakness or doubt, though he saw that, if he should make mistake, he would be ruined indeed. But he had known Angelica for eight years, and he did not think her to be one who would speak or act as she had on no more than a doubtful guess.

He said to Antonio: “Have you checked our course? How far do we lie from Iviza now?”

Captain Antonio might have been more careful had the course not been set by the Flying Hawk. He had been content to keep that vessel in sight during his watch, and had felt that was as far as his duty lay. But there was no need to say that. He had sailed those seas so long that it was said that he could tell where he might be by the very scent of the air.

“We should be twenty leagues south,” he said, “or it may be more, but not much.”

“Then we are near trapped. The Flying Hawk is in the hands of the Moors, as it has been from when it sailed into Aldea Bella bay. Hassan, Dragut’s son, has the command, so it is said. He is leading us to where the Algiers fleet lies await.”

Antonio stood with his legs well apart. He threw up his head, and his jaw set, so that he looked pleased, in a grim way.

“Then you would say it is time to run. Shall we put about, with no foe in sight, or what will you have us do?”

He looked up at the quiet gravity of the man who held a command which he would have been glad to have, thinking that he would soon know of what sort he would prove to be.

Ramegas looked down at him. “We must sink him first, if we cannot lay him aboard, unless he show heels that we cannot catch.”

“That is how I would have it be. Shall we creep near, and challenge him when our guns are trained?”

“We will draw as near as we may, but we will not challenge a treasoned foe. We will send a broadside among her masts, which may be useful to hold her here while we have further to say. But we may find she is too wary to let us close.”

Ramegas turned to the helmsman as he said this. He said: “Bring her up to the wind. I would have you cross the track of the Santa Martha, and close in on the weather side.” He turned to Captain Antonio again. “Have the guns manned, and the slaves roused, and ready to row, but show no more lights than you cannot spare. I would have waited the dawn, but the time is short. And they may take alarm if they guess we had warning brought.”

Antonio saw that he was second to one who could plan in a cool and resolute mind. For as they brought the Santa Anna across her consort’s stern, the stir and movement of lights, which they could not entirely avoid as their preparations were made, would be hidden from any eyes that might watch from the Flying Hawk. He issued such orders as waked the ship to a sudden life, and though the bustle that followed thereon might be concealed from the Flying Hawk, it was plain enough to the nearer eyes of those on the Santa Martha’s deck. They were soon about to know what it might mean, and to receive the letter an arrow brought as the Santa Anna crossed their stern, at a distance of no more than a galley’s length; after which she fell off from the wind again, sailing at their side, but somewhat faster than they, for there had been further spreading of sail while they had come up astern.

Francisco read a note that was brief and clear:

“The Flying Hawk is in the hands of the Moors. She leads us to where the Algiers fleet lies await. We must take a more southern course, but will sink her first, if she do not fly. Support me when you have read this, with all the speed that you can, and have your guns manned. I need not tell you beyond that.

“Ramegas.”

He read this by the lantern’s light, and he looked again at the Santa Anna, which was shaking out all the sail she had; and as he looked he saw her oars come over the side. It was a strange thing to learn in that sudden way, but he did not doubt its truth, nor fail to see that every second was of a golden weight, now that Ramegas’ ship had made it clear what she would do.

The Santa Martha waked to life at a trumpet’s sound. Her oars came overside. Lights shone, and men shouted and ran at the battle-summons that they had been trained to know. Francisco did not mean that his first fight should find him far in the rear.

He looked at the Flying Hawk, and saw that her oars also were out, and at the same moment the flashes of sudden light were a tempest along her side. The thunder of half her guns sounded across the sea. She had not waited to be attacked, but had been the first to fire, even as she gathered speed for her flight.

The next moment the Santa Anna, showing no sign of hurt from the shot that had battered about her bows, luffed somewhat, and a blaze of light leaped out from her guns. As the Flying Hawk lit the darkness again with backward flashes of light from decks that were somewhat more distant now, the Santa Anna replied with all the weight of her port-side guns. But even as her broadside deafened the night, her foremast, which had been struck by a shot from the first discharge of the Flying Hawk, and had now taken the strain as the bow came up into the wind for the port guns to bear, gave a loud crack, and leaned, for a long moment, with all its spread of canvas and weight of cordage and spars, before it snapped off, at a height of about six feet from the deck, and fell outward and somewhat astern, cumbering the main shrouds and causing the port-side oars to be drawn inward in haste.

It was plain that the Santa Anna would make no speed, nor could she be handled with ease, till she had broken clear from the wreckage which dragged like a sea-anchor along her side.

Hassan, watching from a deck where a man died at his feet, joyous of heart as he would ever be when a battle came, though with some cause for wrath both at his own folly and fate’s caprice, had an audacious thought that he would put about and use his forward guns at a shortened range on a wreckage which, in the dim light of the stars, he may have thought to be somewhat worse than it was. Even to board might not have been beyond his attempt, for, though his force might have been little better than one to three, he had a high belief in the fighting quality of the pirate crew, which was of the pick of his father’s fleet; and the evidence of that fallen mast showed that he had gunners who did not fail.

But the thought died as it rose, his foes being not one, but two. For as the Santa Anna lost speed, her consort came up on her starboard side. She came past with a spread of all the sail that she had to a freshening wind. The whips cracked over the rowers’ backs. The oars moved rhythmically and fast. As they glided by, Francisco leaned over the rail, and called to know what the damage was. Ramegas answered with words that the wind carried away. Antonio, better practised in the science of shouting at sea, could be partly heard. Between the bursting din of the guns which were now firing each for itself, as their crews could reload and train them again, his voice came clearly enough, though only to a fragment of what he said: “Hold them in play, if you can, till we get it clear.”

The Santa Martha, straining to equal the speed of the Flying Hawk, put her helm down till she had interposed her own bulk between the crippled ship and her smaller, but perhaps deadlier, foe. For the first time her guns entered the fight, making the night louder than before and adding to the heavy drifts of sulphurous smoke which increased its gloom. The gun-flashes stabbed into a darkness they could not lift.

Francisco saw that the Flying Hawk was drawing further away. He had a ruthless thought which showed him true to the stern creed of those who had striven for so many inconclusive centuries for the control of the central sea of the civilized world.

It was the traditional custom of both sides to avoid attack on the galley-slaves, being so largely recruited from those of their own blood. But now Francisco saw that the Flying Hawk was drawing surely away. If he luffed, to give her the weight of more than his forward guns, it would be for the last time, unless that broadside could check her speed. He had been taught that no price for victory was too high: no excuse for failure was good enough, if a possibility had been left untried. He ordered that every gun should be trained on the starboard oars of the Flying Hawk.

They were to be directed upon the oars, not the men; but the range was already long, the gunnery of that time not exact, and some of the gunners were unused to the pieces they had to work, for Don Manuel’s galleys were new ships, which had not been in action before. Some of the shots went wide, but enough found their mark to shatter the starboard oars, and to scatter death among rowers who were also struck by the kicking fragments of the smashed oars that they were pulling as the broadside came.

For a moment Francisco thought that the fight was won. The Flying Hawk floundered upon the sea, like a duck with a broken leg. Being lighter, and the swifter sailer, she still kept ahead, but the distance shortened as the chase left the Santa Anna behind. Had not the wind increased at this time to half a gale, it is likely that Captain Hassan would have fought his last fight, or had a second spell of slavery which might have been even worse than that from which he had been delivered so hardly before. As it was, the Santa Martha soon found that the Flying Hawk was beyond the reach of her guns. But having struggled to that distance away, it seemed that she could do no more. She changed her course more than once, as though she would dodge pursuit in the light of a growing dawn. She spat backwards with bursts of fire that seemed no more than a demonstration of futile rage, the shots falling short, though not much.

But Captain Hassan was not one to waste powder with no better purpose than that. He fired that the sound might be carried on the wind to the ears of a fleet which should not be far distant now. He had changed the course of his flight point by point to the north with the same object, until the broadening dawn showed the long line of Formentera upon the northern horizon.

Francisco saw it as well. He looked back to see the Santa Anna far to the south. She had cleared her deck, and was sailing freely again, steering an easterly course. Urgently, she signalled for his return.

Reluctantly he gave the order which he should have done half an hour before, shaping his yards for a south-easterly course, and letting the chase go; and, as he did so, the yards of the Flying Hawk came round to the same point and she followed upon his track.

He had some cause to doubt the wisdom of his pursuit when he saw that, and still more when he saw, where the dawn-light curved to the north, making a horizon of lemon sky, the dark specks that were the Algerian fleet coming out from Formentera’s easterly point, behind which they may have been at anchor during the night.