Swords of the Red Brotherhood/Chapter 2

And on the beach, not many miles from the cavern where the silent figures sat, other, denser shadows were gathering over the tangled lives of men ....

Francoise d'Chastillon idly stirred a sea-shell with a daintily slippered toe, comparing its delicate pink edges to the first pink haze of dawn that rose over the misty beaches. It was not dawn now, but the sun was not long up, and the pearl-grey mist which drifted over the waters had not yet been dispelled.

Francoise lifted her splendidly shaped head and stared out over a scene alien and repellent to her, yet drearily familiar in every detail. From her feet the tawny sands ran to meet the softly lapping waves which stretched westward to be lost in the blue haze of the horizon. She was standing on the southern curve of the bay, and south of her the land sloped upward to the low ridge which formed one horn of that bay. From that ridge, she knew, one could look southward across the bare waters-into infinities of distance as absolute as the view to west and north.

Turning landward, she absently scanned the fortress which had been her home for the past year. Against the cerulean sky floated the golden and scarlet banner of her house. She made out the figures of men toiling in the gardens and fields that huddled near the fort, which, itself, seemed to shrink from the gloomy rampart of the forest fringing the open belt on the east, and stretching north and south as far as she could see. Beyond it, to the east, loomed a great mountain range that shut off the coast from the continent that lay behind it. Francoise feared that mountain-flanked forest, and her fear was shared by every one in the tiny settlement. Death lurked in those whispering depths, death swift and terrible, death slow and hideous, hidden, painted, tireless.

She sighed and moved listlessly toward the water's edge. The dragging days were all one color, and the world of cities and courts and gaiety seemed not only thousands of miles, but long ages away. Again she sought in vain for the reason that had caused a Count of France to flee with his retainers to this wild coast, exchanging the castle of his ancestors for a hut of logs.

Her eyes softened at the light patter of small bare feet across the sands. A young girl quite naked, came running over the low sandy ridge, her slight body dripping, and her flaxen hair plastered wetly on her small head. Her wistful eyes were wide with excitement.

"Oh, my Lady!" she cried. "My Lady!"

Breathless from her scamper, she made incoherent gestures. Francoise smiled and put an arm about the child. In her lonely life Francoise bestowed the tenderness of a naturally affectionate nature on the pitiful waif she had picked up in the French port from which the long voyage had begun.

"What are you trying to tell me, Tina? Get your breath, child."

"A ship!" cried the girl, pointing southward. "I was swimming in a pool the sea had hollowed in the sand on the other side of the ridge, and I saw it! A ship sailing up out of the south!"

She tugged at Francoise's hand, her slender body all aquiver. And Francoise felt her own heart beat faster at the thought of an unknown visitor. They had seen no sail since coming to that barren shore.

Tina flitted ahead of her over the yellow sands. They mounted the low, undulating ridge, and Tina poised there, a slender white figure against the clearing sky, her wet hair blowing about her thin face, a frail arm outstretched.

"Look, my Lady!"

Francoise had already seen it---a white sail, filled with the freshening wind, beating up along the coast, a few miles from the point. Her heart skipped a beat. A small event can loom large in colorless and isolated lives; but Francoise felt a premonition of evil. She felt that this sail was not here by mere chance. The nearest port was Panama, thousands of miles to the south. What brought this stranger to lonely d'Chastillon Bay?

Tina pressed close to her mistress, apprehension pinching her thin features.

"Who can it be, my Lady?" she stammered, the wind whipping color into her pale cheeks. "Is it the man the Count fears?"

Francoise looked down at her, her brow shadowed.

"Why do you say that, child? How do you know my uncle fears anyone?"

"He must," returned Tina naively, "or he would never have come to hide in this lonely spot. Look, my Lady, how fast it comes!"

"We must go and inform my uncle," murmured Francoise. "Get your clothes, Tina. Hurry!"

The child scampered down the low slope to the pool where she had been bathing when she sighted the craft, and snatched up the slippers, stockings and dress she had left lying on the sand. She skipped back up the ridge, hopping grotesquely as she donned them in mid-flight.

Francoise, anxiously watching the approaching sail, caught her hand and they hurried toward the fort.

A few moments after they had entered the gate of the log stockade which enclosed the building, the strident blare of a bugle startled both the workers in the gardens and the men just opening the boat-house doors to push the fishing boats down their rollers to the water's edge.

Every man outside the fort dropped whatever he was doing and ran for the stockade, and every head was twisted over its shoulder to gaze fearfully at the dark line of woodland to the east. Not one looked seaward.

They thronged through the gate, shouting questions at the sentries who patrolled the firing-ledges built below the points of the upright logs.

"What is it? Why are we called in? Are the Indians coming'?"

For answer one taciturn man-at-arms pointed southward. From his vantage point the sail was now visible. Men climbed on the ledge, staring toward the sea.

On a small lookout tower on the roof of the fort, Count Henri d'Chastillon watched the onsweeping sail as it rounded the point of the southern horn. The Count was a lean man of late middle age. He was dark, somber of countenance. His trunk-hose and doublet were of black silk; the only color about his costume were the jewels that twinkled on his sword hilt, and the wine-colored cloak thrown carelessly over his shoulder. He twisted his thin black mustache nervously and turned gloomy eyes on his majordomo, a leather-featured man in steel and satin.

"What do you make of it, Gallot?"

"I have seen that ship before," answered the majordomo. "Nay, I think - look there!"

A chorus of cries below them echoed his ejaculation; the ship had cleared the point and was slanting inward across the bay. And all saw the flag that suddenly broke forth from the masthead-a black flag, with white skull and crossbones gleaming in the sun.

"A cursed pirate!" exclaimed Gallot. "Aye, I know that craft! It is Harston's War-Hawk. What is he doing on this naked coast?"

"He means us no good," growled the Count. The massive gates had been closed and the captain of his men-at-arms, gleaming in steel, was directing his men to their stations, some to the firing-ledge, others to the lower loop-holes. He was massing his main strength along the western wall, in the middle of which was the gate.

A hundred men shared Count Henri's exile, both soldiers and retainers. There were forty soldiers, veteran mercenaries, wearing armor and skilled in the use of sword and arquebus. The others, house-servants and laborers, wore shirts of toughened leather, and were armed mostly with hunting bows, woodsmen's axes and boar-spears. Brawny stalwarts, they took their places scowling at the oncoming vessel, as it swung inshore, its brass work flashing in the sun. They could see steel twinkling along the rail, and hear the shouts of the seamen.

The Count had left the tower, and having donned helmet and cuirass, he betook himself to the palisade. The women of the retainers stood silently in the doorways of their huts, built inside the stockade, and quieted the clamor of their children. Francoise and Tina watched eagerly from an upper window in the fort, and Francoise felt the child's tense little body all aquiver within the crook of her protecting arm.

"They will cast anchor near the boat-house," murmured Francoise. "Yes! There goes their anchor, a hundred yards offshore. Do not tremble so, child! They can not take the fort. Perhaps they wish only fresh water and meat."

"They are coming ashore in long boats!" exclaimed the child. "Oh, my Lady, I am afraid! How the sun strikes fire from their pikes and cutlasses! Will they eat us?"

In spite of her apprehension, Francoise burst into laughter.

"Of course not! Who put that idea into your head?"

"Jacques Piriou told me the English eat women."

"He was teasing you. The English are cruel, but they are no worse than the Frenchmen who call themselves buccaneers. Piriou was one of them."

"He was cruel," muttered the child. "I'm glad the Indians cut his head off."

"Hush, child." Francoise shuddered. "Look, they have reached the shore. They line the beach and one of them is coming toward the fort. That must be Harston."

"Ahoy, the fort there!" came a hail in a voice as gusty as the wind. "I come under a flag of truce!"

The Count's helmeted head appeared over the points of the palisade and surveyed the pirate somberly. Harston had halted just within good ear-shot. He was a big man, bare-headed, his tawny hair blowing in the wind.

"Speak!" commanded Henri. "I have few words for men of your breed!"

Harston laughed with his lips, not with his eyes.

"I never thought to meet you on this naked coast, d'Chastillon," said he. "By Satan, I got the start of my life a little while ago when I saw your scarlet falcon floating over a fortress where I'd thought to see only bare beach. You've found it, of course?"

"Found what?" snapped the Count impatiently.

"Don't try to dissemble with me!" The pirate's stormy nature showed itself momentarily. "I know why you came here; I've come for the same reason. Where's your ship?"

"That's none of your affair, sirrah."

"You have none," confidently asserted the pirate. "I see pieces of a galleon's masts in that stockade. Your ship was wrecked! Otherwise you'd sailed away with your plunder long ago."

"What are you talking about, damn you'?" yelled the Count. "Am I a pirate to burn and plunder? Even so, what would I loot on this bare coast?"

"That which you came to find," answered the pirate coolly. "The same thing I'm after. I'm easy to deal with - just give me the loot and I'll go my way and leave you in peace."

"You must be mad," snarled Henri. "I came here to find solitude and seclusion, which I enjoyed until you crawled out of the sea, you yellow-headed dog. Begone! I did not ask for a parley, and I weary of this babble."

"When I go I'll leave that hovel in ashes!" roared the pirate in a transport of rage. "For the last time - will you give me the loot in return for your lives? I have you hemmed in here, and a hundred men ready to cut your throats."

For answer the Count made a quick gesture with his hand below the points of the palisade. Instantly a matchlock boomed through a loophole and a lock of yellow hair jumped from Harston's head. The pirate yelled vengefully and ran toward the beach, with bullets knocking up the sand behind him. His men roared and came on like a wave, blades gleaming in the sun.

"Curse you, dog!" raved the Count, felling the offending marksman with an iron-clad fist. "Why did you miss? Ready, men - here they come!"

But Harston had reached his men and checked their headlong rush. The pirates spread out in a long line that overlapped the extremities of the western wall, and advanced warily, firing as they came. The heavy bullets smashed into the stockade, and the defenders returned the fire methodically. The women had herded the children into their huts and now stoically awaited whatever fate God had in store for them.

The pirates maintained their wide-spread formation, creeping along and taking advantage of every natural depression and bit of vegetation - which was not much, for the ground had been cleared on all sides of the fort against the threat of Indian raids.

A few bodies lay prone on the sandy earth. But the pirates were quick as cats, always shifting their positions and presenting a constantly moving target, hard to hit with the clumsy matchlocks. Their constant raking fire was a continual menace to the men in the stockade. Still, it was evident that as long as the battle remained an exchange of shots, the advantage must remain with the sheltered Frenchmen.

But down at the boat-house on the shore, men were at work with axes. The Count cursed sulphurously when he saw the havoc they were making among his boats, built laboriously of planks sawn from solid logs.

"They're making a mantlet, curse them!" he raged. "A sally now, before they complete it - while they're scattered-"

"We'd be no match for them in hand-to-hand fighting," answered Gallot. "We must keep behind our walls."

"Well enough," growled Henri. "If we can keep them outside!"

Presently the intention of the pirates became apparent, as a group of some thirty men advanced, pushing before them a great shield made out of the planks from the boats and the timbers of the boat-house. They had mounted the mantlet on the wheels of an ox-cart they had found, great solid disks of oak, and as they rolled it ponderously before them the defenders had only glimpses of their moving feet.

"Shoot!" yelled Henri, livid. "Stop them before they reach the gate!"

Bullets smashed into the heavy planks, arrows feathered the thick wood harmlessly. A derisive yell answered the volley. The rest of the pirates were closing in, and their bullets were beginning to find the loop-holes. A soldier fell from the ledge, his skull shattered.

"Shoot at their feet!" screamed Henri, and then: "Forty men at the gate with pikes and axes! The rest hold the wall!"

Bullets ripped into the sand beneath the moving breastwork and some found their mark. But, with a deep-throated shout, the mantlet was pushed to the wall, and an iron-tipped boom, thrust through an aperture in the center of the shield, began to thunder on the gate, driven by muscle-knotted arms. The massive gate groaned and staggered, while from the stockade arrows and bullets poured in a steady hail, and some struck home. But the wild men of the sea were afire with fighting lust. With deep shouts they swung the ram, and from all sides the others closed in, braving the weakened fire from the walls.

The Count drew his sword and ran to the gate, cursing like a madman, and a clump of desperate men-at-arms, gripping their pikes, closed in behind him. In another moment the gate would burst asunder and they must stop the gap with their living bodies.

Then a new note entered the clamor of the melee. It was a trumpet, blaring stridently from the ship. On the crosstrees a figure waved his arms and gesticulated wildly.

The sound registered on Harston's ears, even as he lent his strength to the swinging ram. Bracing his legs to halt the ram on its backward swing, his great thews standing out as he resisted the surge of the other arms, he turned his head, and listened. Sweat dripped from his face.

"Wait!" he roared. "Wait, damn you! Listen!"

In the silence that followed that bull's bellow, the blare of the trumpet was plainly heard, and a voice yelled something which was unintelligible to the people inside the stockade.

But Harston understood, for his voice was lifted again in profane command. The ram was released, and the mantlet began to recede from the gate.

"Look!" cried Tina at her window. "They are running to the beach! They have abandoned the shield! They are leaping into the boats and rowing for the ship! Oh, my Lady, have we won?"

"I think not!" Francoise was staring seaward. "Look!"

She threw aside the curtains and leaned from the window. Her clear young voice rose above the din, turning men's heads in the direction she pointed. They yelled in amazement as they saw another ship swinging majestically around the southern point. Even as they looked, she broke out the lilies of France.

The pirates swarmed up the sides of their ship, then heaved up the anchor. Before the stranger had sailed half-way across the bay, the War-Hawk vanished around the point of the northern horn.