The SEA-HAWK
PART II
SAKR-EL-BAHR
CHAPTER XXI
MORITURUS
He departed from her presence with bitterness in his heart, leaving a
profound contrition in her own. The sense of this her last injustice to him so
overwhelmed her that it became the gauge by which she measured that other
earlier wrong he had suffered at her hands. Perhaps her overwrought mind
falsified the perspective, exaggerating it until it seemed to her that all the
suffering and evil with which this chronicle has been concerned were the direct
fruits of her own sin of unfaith.
Since all sincere contrition must of necessity bring forth an ardent desire
to atone, so was it now with her. Had he but refrained from departing so
abruptly he might have had her on her knees to him suing for pardon for all the
wrongs which her thoughts had done him, proclaiming her own utter unworthiness
and baseness. But since his righteous resentment had driven him from her
presence she could but sit and brood upon it all, considering the words in which
to frame her plea for forgiveness when next he should return.
But the hours sped, and there was no sign of him. And then, almost with a
shock of dread came the thought that ere long perhaps Sir John Killigrew's ship
would be upon them. In her distraught state of mind she had scarcely pondered
that contingency. Now that it occurred to her all her concern was for the result
of it to Sir Oliver. Would there be fighting, and would he perhaps perish in
that conflict at the hands either of the English or of the corsairs whom for her
sake he had betrayed, perhaps without ever hearing her confession of penitence,
without speaking those words of forgiveness of which her soul stood in such
thirsty need?
It would be towards midnight when unable longer to bear the suspense of it,
she rose and softly made her way to the entrance. Very quietly she lifted the
curtain, and in the act of stepping forth almost stumbled over a body that lay
across the threshold. She drew back with a startled gasp; then stooped to look,
and by the faint rays of the lanterns on mainmast and poop-rail she recognized
Sir Oliver, and saw that he slept. She never heeded the two Nubians immovable as
statues who kept guard. She continued to bend over him, and then gradually and
very softly sank down on her knees beside him. There were tears in her
eyes—tears wrung from her by a tender emotion of wonder and gratitude at so much
fidelity. She did not know that he had slept thus last night. But it was enough
for her to find him here now. It moved her oddly, profoundly, that this man whom
she had ever mistrusted and misjudged should even when he slept make of his body
a barrier for her greater security and protection.
A sob escaped her, and at the sound, so lightly and vigilantly did he take
his rest, he came instantly if silently to a sitting attitude; and so they
looked into each other's eyes, his swarthy, bearded hawk face on a level with
her white gleaming countenance.
"What is it?" he whispered.
She drew back instantly, taken with sudden panic at that question. Then
recovering, and seeking womanlike to evade and dissemble the thing she was come
to do, now that the chance of doing it was afforded her—"Do you think," she
faltered, "that Lionel will have reached Sir John's ship?"
He flashed a glance in the direction of the divan under the awning where the
Basha slept. There all was still. Besides, the question had been asked in
English. He rose and held out a hand to help her to her feet. Then he signed to
her to reenter the poop-house, and followed her within.
"Anxiety keeps you wakeful?" he said, half-question, half-assertion.
"Indeed," she replied.
"There is scarce the need," he assured her. "Sir John will not be like to
stir until dead of night, that he may make sure of taking us unawares. I have
little doubt that Lionel would reach him. It is none so long a swim. Indeed,
once outside the cove he could take to the land until he was abreast of the
ship. Never doubt he will have done his errand."
She sat down, her glance avoiding his; but the light falling on her face
showed him the traces there of recent tears.
"There will be fighting when Sir John arrives?" she asked him presently.
"Like enough. But what can it avail? We shall be caught—as was said to-day—in
just such a trap as that in which Andrea Doria caught Dragut at Jerba, saving
that whilst the wily Dragut found a way out for his galleys, here none is
possible. Courage, then, for the hour of your deliverance is surely at hand."
He paused, and then in a softer voice, humbly almost, "It is my prayer," he
added, "that hereafter in a happy future these last few weeks shall come to seem
no more than an evil dream to you."
To that prayer she offered no response. She sat bemused, her brow wrinkled.
"I would it might be done without fighting," she said presently, and sighed
wearily.
"You need have no fear," he assured her. "I shall take all precautions for
you. You shall remain here until all is over and the entrance will be guarded by
a few whom I can trust."
"You mistake me," she replied, and looked up at him suddenly. "Do you suppose
my fears are for myself?" She paused again, and then abruptly asked him, "What
will befall you?"
"I thank you for the thought," he replied gravely. "No doubt I shall meet
with my deserts. Let it but come swiftly when it comes."
"Ah, no, no!" she cried. "Not that!" And rose in her sudden agitation.
"What else remains?" he asked, and smiled. "What better fate could anyone
desire me?"
"You shall live to return to England," she surprised him by exclaiming. "The
truth must prevail, and justice be done you."
He looked at her with so fierce and searching a gaze that she averted her
eyes. Then he laughed shortly.
"There's but one form of justice I can look for in England," said he. "It is
a justice administered in hemp. Believe me, mistress, I am grown too notorious
for mercy. Best end it here to-night. Besides," he added, and his mockery fell
from him, his tone became gloomy, "bethink you of my present act of treachery to
these men of mine, who, whatever they may be, have followed me into a score of
perils and but to-day have shown their love and loyalty to me to be greater than
their devotion to the Basha himself. I shall have delivered them to the sword.
Could I survive with honour? They may be but poor heathens to you and yours, but
to me they are my sea-hawks, my warriors, my faithful gallant followers, and I
were a dog indeed did I survive the death to which I have doomed them."
As she listened and gathered from his words the apprehension of a thing that
had hitherto escaped her, her eyes grew wide in sudden horror.
"Is that to be the cost of my deliverance?" she asked him fearfully.
"I trust not," he replied. "I have something in mind that will perhaps avoid
it."
"And save your own life as well?" she asked him quickly.
"Why waste a thought upon so poor a thing? My life was forfeit already. If I
go back to Algiers they will assuredly hang me. Asad will see to it, and not all
my sea-hawks could save me from my fate."
She sank down again upon the divan, and sat there rocking her arms in a
gesture of hopeless distress.
"I see," she said. "I see. I am bringing this fate upon you. When you sent
Lionel upon that errand you voluntarily offered up your life to restore me to my
own people. You had no right to do this without first consulting me. You had no
right to suppose I would be a party to such a thing. I will not accept the
sacrifice. I will not, Sir Oliver."
"Indeed, you have no choice, thank God!" he answered her. "But you are astray
in your conclusions. It is I alone who have brought this fate upon myself. It is
the very proper fruit of my insensate deed. It recoils upon me as all evil must
upon him that does it." He shrugged his shoulders as if to dismiss the matter.
Then in a changed voice, a voice singularly timid, soft, and gentle, "it were
perhaps too much to ask," said he, "that you should forgive me all the suffering
I have brought you?"
"I think," she answered him, "that it is for me to beg forgiveness of you."
"Of me?"
"For my unfaith, which has been the source of all. For my readiness to
believe evil of you five years ago, for having burnt unread your letter and the
proof of your innocence that accompanied it."
He smiled upon her very kindly. "I think you said your instinct guided you.
Even though I had not done the thing imputed to me, your instinct knew me for
evil; and your instinct was right, for evil I am—I must be. These are your own
words. But do not think that I mock you with them. I have come to recognize
their truth."
She stretched out her hands to him. "If... if I were to say that I have come
to realize the falsehood of all that?"
"I should understand it to be the charity which your pitiful heart extends to
one in my extremity. Your instinct was not at fault."
"It was! It was!"
But he was not to be driven out of his conviction. He shook his head, his
countenance gloomy. "No man who was not evil could have done by you what I have
done, however deep the provocation. I perceive it clearly now—as men in their
last hour perceive hidden things."
"Oh, why are you so set on death?" she cried upon a despairing note.
"I am not," he answered with a swift resumption of his more habitual manner.
"'Tis death that is so set on me. But at least I meet it without fear or regret.
I face it as we must all face the inevitable—the gifts from the hands of
destiny. And I am heart-ened—gladdened almost—by your sweet forgive-ness."
She rose suddenly, and came to him. She caught his arm, and standing very
close to him, looked up now into his face.
"We have need to forgive each other, you and I, Oliver," she said. "And since
forgiveness effaces all, let... let all that has stood between us these last
five years be now effaced."
He caught his breath as he looked down into her white, straining face
"Is it impossible for us to go back five years? Is it impossible for us to go
back to where we stood in those old days at Godolphin Court?"
The light that had suddenly been kindled in his face faded slowly, leaving it
grey and drawn. His eyes grew clouded with sorrow and despair.
"Who has erred must abide by his error—and so must the generations that come
after him. There is no going back ever. The gates of the past are tight-barred
against us."
"Then let us leave them so. Let us turn our backs upon that past, you and I,
and let us set out afresh together, and so make amends to each other for what
our folly has lost to us in those years."
He set his hands upon her shoulders, and held her so at arm's length from him
considering her with very tender eyes.
"Sweet lady!" he murmured, and sighed heavily. "God! How happy might we not
have been but for that evil chance...." He checked abruptly. His hands fell from
her shoulders to his sides, he half-turned away, brusque now in tone and manner.
"I grow maudlin. Your sweet pity has so softened me that I had almost spoke of
love; and what have I to do with that? Love belongs to life; love is life;
whilst I... Moriturus te salutat!"
"Ah, no, no!" She was clinging to him again with shaking hands, her eyes
wild.
"It is too late," he answered her. "There is no bridge can span the pit I
have dug myself. I must go down into it as cheerfully as God will let me."
"Then," she cried in sudden exaltation, "I will go down with you. At the
last, at least, we shall be together."
"Now here is midsummer frenzy!" he protested, yet there was a tenderness in
the very impatience of his accents. He stroked the golden head that lay against
his shoulder. "How shall that help me?" he asked her. "Would you embitter my
last hour—rob death of all its glory? Nay, Rosamund, you can serve me better far
by living. Return to England, and publish there the truth of what you have
learnt. Be yours the task of clearing my honour of this stain upon it,
proclaiming the truth of what drove me to the infamy of becoming a renegade and
a corsair." He started from her. "Hark! What's that?"
From without had come a sudden cry, "Afoot! To arms! To arms! Holâ! Balâk!
Balâk!"
"It is the hour," he said, and turning from her suddenly sprang to the
entrance and plucked aside the curtain.