Swords of the Red Brotherhood/Chapter 7

Night had fallen, but torches streamed across the strand, casting the mad scene into lurid revealment. Naked men in paint swarmed the beach; like waves they came against the palisade, bared teeth and blazing eyes gleaming in the glare of the torches thrust over the wall.

From up and down the coast the tribes had gathered to rid their country of the white-skinned invaders, and they surged against the stockade, driving a storm of arrows before them, fighting into the hail of bullets and shafts that tore into their masses. Sometimes they came so close to the wall they were hewing at the gate with their war-axes and thrusting their spears through the loopholes. But each time the tide ebbed back, leaving its drift of dead. In this kind of fighting the pirates were at their stoutest. Their matchlocks tore holes in the charging horde, their cutlasses hewed the wild men from the palisades.

Yet again and again the men of the woods returned to the onslaught with all the stubborn ferocity that had been roused in their fierce hearts.

"They are like mad dogs!" gasped Villiers, hacking downward at the savage hands that grasped at the palisade points, the dark faces that snarled up at him.

"If we can hold the fort till dawn they'll lose heart," grunted Vulmea, splitting a feathered skull. "They won't maintain a long siege. Look, they're falling back again."

The charge rolled back and the men on the wall shook the sweat out of their eyes, counted their dead, and took a fresh grasp on the blood-slippery hilts of their swords. Like blood-hungry wolves, grudgingly driven from a cornered prey, the Indians slunk back beyond the ring of torch-light. Only the bodies of the slain lay before the palisades.

"Have they gone?" Harston shook back his wet, tawny locks. The cutlass in his fist was notched and red, his brawny bare arm was splashed with blood.

"They're still out there." Vulmea nodded toward the outer darkness which ringed the circle of torches. He glimpsed movements in the shadows, glitter of eyes and the dull sheen of spears.

"They've drawn off for a bit, though," he said. "Put sentries on the wall and let the rest drink and eat. It's past midnight. We've been fighting steadily for hours."

The captains clambered down, calling their men from the walls. A sentry was posted in the middle of each wall, east, west, north and south, and a clump of soldiers was left at the gate. The Indians, to reach the wall, would have to charge across a wide, torch-lit space, and the defenders could resume their places long before the rush could reach the stockade.

"Where's d'Chastillon?" demanded Vulmea, gnawing a huge beef-bone as he stood beside the fire the men had built in the center of the compound. Englishmen and Frenchmen mingled together, wolfing the meat and wine the women brought them, and allowing their wounds to be bandaged.

"He was fighting on the wall beside me an hour ago," grunted Harston, "when suddenly he stopped short and glared out into the darkness as if he saw a ghost. 'Look!' he croaked. 'The black devil! I see him, out there in the night!' Well, I could swear I saw a strange figure moving among the shadows; it was just a glimpse before it was gone. But Henri jumped down from the wall and staggered into the manor like a man with a mortal wound. I haven't seen him since."

"He probably saw a forest-devil," said Vulmea tranquilly. "The Indians say this coast is lousy with them. What I'm more afraid of is fire-arrows. They're likely to start shooting them at any time. What's that? It sounded like a cry for help!"

When the lull came in the fighting, Francoise and Tina had crept to their window, from which they had been driven by the danger of flying arrows. They watched the men gather about the fire.

"There are not enough sentries on the stockade," said Tina.

In spite of her nausea at the sight of the corpses sprawled about the palisades, Francoise was moved to laugh.

"Do you think you know more about war than the men'?" she chided gently.

"There should be more men on the walls," insisted the child, shivering. "Suppose the black man came back! One man to a side is not enough. The black man could creep beneath the wall and shoot him with a poisoned dart before he could cry out. He is like a shadow, and hard to see by torchlight."

Francoise shuddered at the thought.

"I am afraid," murmured Tina. "I hope Villiers and Harston are killed."

"And not Vulmea?" asked Francoise curiously.

"Black Vulmea would not harm a woman," said the child confidently.

"You are wise beyond your years, Tina," murmured Francoise.

"Look!" Tina stiffened. "The sentry is gone from the south wall! I saw him on the ledge a moment ago. Now he has vanished."

From their window the palisade points of the south wall were just visible over the slanting roofs of a row of huts which paralleled that wall almost its entire length. A sort of open-topped corridor, three or four yards wide, was formed by the stockade-wall and the back of the huts, which were built in a solid row. These huts were occupied by the retainers.

"Where could the sentry have gone?" whispered Tina uneasily.

Francoise was watching one end of the hut-row which was not far from a side door of the manor. She could have sworn she saw a shadowy figure glide from behind the huts and disappear at the door. Was that the vanished sentry? Why had he left the wall, and why should he steal so subtly into the manor? She did not believe it was the sentry she had seen, and a nameless fear congealed her blood.

"Where is the Count, Tina?" she asked.

"In the great hall, my Lady. He sits alone at the table, wrapped in his cloak and drinking wine, with a face grey as death."

"Go and tell him what we have seen. I will keep watch from this window, lest the Indians climb the unguarded wall."

Tina scampered away. Francoise heard her slippered feet pattering along the corridor, receding down the stair. Then suddenly, terribly, there rang out a scream of such poignant fear that Francoise's heart almost stopped with the shock of it. She was out of the chamber and flying down the corridor before she was aware that her limbs were in motion. She ran down the stair-and halted as if turned to stone.

She did not scream as Tina had screamed. She was incapable of sound or motion. She saw Tina, was aware of the reality of small hands grasping frantically. But these were the only realities in a scene of nightmare, and brain-shattering horror.

Out in the stockade Harston had shaken his head at Vulmea's question.

"I heard nothing."

"I did!" Vulmea's wild instincts were roused. "It came from the south wall, behind those huts!"

Drawing his cutlass he strode toward the palisades. From the compound the south wall and the sentry posted there were not visible, being hidden behind the huts. Harston followed, impressed by Vulmea's manner.

At the mouth of the open lane between the huts and the wall Vulmea halted, swearing. The space was dimly lighted by torches flaring at either corner of the stockade. And midway in that natural corridor a crumpled shape sprawled on the ground.

"The sentry!"

"Hawksby!" swore Harston, running forward and dropping on one knee beside the figure. "By Satan, his throat's cut from ear to ear!"

Vulmea swept the alley with a quick glance, finding it empty save for himself, Harston and the dead man. He peered through a loop-hole. No living man moved within the ring of torch-light outside the fort.

"Who could have done this?" he wondered.

"Villiers!" Harston sprang up, spitting fury like a wildcat. "He has set his dogs to stabbing my men in the back! He plans to destroy me by treachery!"

"Wait, Dick!" Vulmea caught his arm. He had glimpsed the tufted end of a dart jutting from the dead pirate's neck. "I don't believe Villiers-"

But the maddened pirate jerked away and rushed around the end of the but row, breathing blasphemies. Vulmea ran after him, swearing. Harston made straight toward the fire by which Villiers' tall form was visible as the buccaneer chief quaffed a jack of ale.

His amazement was supreme when the jack was dashed violently from his hand, spattering his breastplate with foam, and he was jerked around to confront the convulsed face of the Englishman.

"You murdering dog!" roared Harston. "Will you slay my men behind my back while they fight for your filthy hide as well as for mine'?"

On all sides men ceased eating and drinking to gape in amazement.

"What do you mean?" sputtered Villiers.

"You've set your men to murdering mine at their posts!" bellowed Harston.

"You lie!" Smoldering hate burst into sudden flame.

With a howl Harston heaved up his cutlass and cut at the Frenchman's head. Villiers caught the blow on his armored left arm and sparks flew as he staggered back, ripping out his own sword.

In an instant the captains were fighting like madmen, their blades flaming and flashing in the firelight. Their crews reacted instantly and blindly. A deep roar went up as Englishmen and Frenchmen drew their swords and fell upon one another. The pirates left on the walls abandoned their posts and leaped down into the stockade, blades in hand. In an instant the compound was swarming with battling groups of men. The soldiers at the gate turned and stared down in amazement, forgetful of the enemy lurking outside.

It had all happened so quickly ---smoldering passions exploding into sudden battle- that men were fighting all over the compound before Vulmea could reach the maddened captains. Ignoring the swords that flashed about his ears, he tore them apart with such violence that they staggered backward and Villiers tripped and fell headlong.

"You cursed fools, will you throw away all our lives?"

Harston was frothing, and Villiers was bawling for assistance. A buccaneer ran at Vulmea and cut at him from behind. The Irishman half turned and caught his arm, checking the stroke in midair.

"Look, you fools!" he roared, pointing with his sword.

Something in his tone caught the attention of the battle-crazed mob. Men froze in their places, with lifted swords, and twisted their heads to stare. Vulmea was pointing at a soldier on the wall. The man was reeling, clawing the air, choking as he tried to shout. Suddenly he pitched to the ground and all saw the shaft standing up between his shoulders.

A yell of alarm rose from the compound. On the heels of the shout came a clamor of blood-freezing screams, the shattering impact of axes on the gate. Flaming arrows arched over the wall and stuck in logs, and thin wisps of blue smoke curled upward. Then from behind the huts along the south wall dark figures came gliding.

"The Indians are in!" roared Vulmea.

Bedlam followed his yell. The freebooters ceased their feud, some turned to meet the savages already within the stockade, some to spring to the wall. The painted men were pouring from behind the huts and their axes clashed against the cutlasses of the sailors.

Villiers was struggling to his feet when a painted savage rushed upon him from behind and brained him with a waraxe.

Vulmea led the Frenchmen against the Indians inside the stockade, and Harston, with most of his men, climbed on the firing-ledge, slashing at the dark figures already swarming up on the wall. The savages, who had crept up unobserved while the defenders of the fort were fighting among themselves, were attacking from all sides. Henri's soldiers were clustered at the gate, trying to hold it against a howling swarm of blood-mad demons.

More and more savages scaled the undefended south wall and streamed from behind the huts. Harston and his men were beaten back from the north and west walls and in an instant the compound was swarming with naked warriors who came over the palisades in a wave. They dragged down the defenders like wolves dragging down a stag; the battle resolved into swirling whirlpools of painted figures surging about small clumps of desperate white men. Bloodsmeared braves dived into the huts and the shrieks that rose as women and children died beneath the red axes rose above the roar of the battle. The soldiers abandoned the gate when they heard those cries, and in an instant the savages had burst it in and were pouring into the stockade at that point also. Huts began to go up in flames.

"Make for the manor!" roared Vulmea, and a dozen men surged in behind him as he hewed a red way through the snarling pack.

Harston was at his side, wielding his red cutlass like a cleaver.

"We can't hold the manor," grunted the Englishman.

"Why not'?" Vulmea was too busy with his crimson work to spare a glance.

"Because-uh!" A knife in a savage hand sank deep in the pirate's back. "Devil eat you, dog!" Harston turned and split the savage's head, then reeled and fell to his knees, blood starting from his lips.

"The manor's burning!" he croaked, and slumped over in the dust.

Vulmea glared about him. The men who had followed him were all down in their blood. An Indian gasping out his life under his feet was the last of the group which had barred his way. All about him battle swirled and surged, but for the moment he stood alone. A few strides and he could leap to the wall, swing over and be gone through the night. But he remembered the helpless girls in the manor-from which, now, smoke was rolling in billowing masses. He ran toward the manor.

A feathered chief wheeled from the door, lifting a war-axe, and behind the Irishman groups of fleet-footed braves were converging upon him. He did not check his stride. His downward sweeping cutlass met and deflected the axe and crushed the skull of the wielder, and an instant later he was through the door and had slammed and bolted it against the axes that splintered into the wood.

The great hall was full of drifting wisps of smoke through which he groped, half blinded. Somewhere a woman was sobbing hysterically. He emerged from a whorl of smoke and stopped dead in his tracks.

The hall was dim and shadowy with the drifting smoke; the silver candelabrum was overturned, the candles extinguished. The only illumination was a lurid glow from the great fireplace and the flames which licked from burning floor to smoking roof beams. And against that lurid glare Vulmea saw a human form swinging slowly at the end of a rope. The dead face turned toward him as the body swung, and it was distorted beyond recognition. But Vulmea knew it was Count Henri d'Chastillon, hanging from his own roof beam.

He saw Francoise and Tina, clutched in each others' arms, crouching at the foot of the stair. And he saw something else, dimly through the smoke--a giant black man, looming against the red glare like a black devil stalking out of hell. The scarred, twisted face, dim in the smoke, was fiendish, the eyes burned red as the reflection of flame on black waters. At the stark evil of that face even the fierce pirate felt a chill along his spine. And then the shadow of death fell across him as he saw the long bamboo tube in the black man's hand.

Slowly, gloatingly the black man lifted it to his lips, and Vulmea knew winged death would strike him before he could reach the killer with his sword. His desperate eyes fell on a massive silver bench, ornately carven, once part of the splendor of Chateau d'Chastillon. It stood at his feet. With desperate quickness he grasped it and heaved it above his head.

"Take this to hell with you!" he roared in a voice like a clap of wind, and hurled the bench with all the power of his iron muscles, even as the dart leaped from the lifted bamboo. In midair it splintered on the hurtling bench, and full on the broad black breast crashed a hundred pounds of silver. The impact shattered bones and carried the black man off his feet-hurled him backward into the open fireplace. A horrible scream shook the hall. The mantel cracked and stones fell from the great chimney, half hiding the black, writhing limbs. Burning beams crashed down from the roof and thundered on the stones, and the whole heap was enveloped by a roaring burst of flames.

'Fire was licking at the stair when Vulmea reached it. He caught up Tina under one arm and dragged Francoise to her feet. Through the crackle and snap of the flames sounded the splintering of the door under the war-axes.

He glared about, sighted a door at the other end of the hall, and hurried through it, half carrying, half dragging his dazed charges. As they came into the chamber beyond, a reverberation behind them told them that the roof was falling in the hall. Through a strangling cloud of smoke Vulmea saw an open, outer door on the other side of the chamber. As he lugged his charges through it, he saw that the lock had been forced.

"The black man came in by this door!" Francoise sobbed hysterically. "I saw him-but I did not know--"

They emerged into the fire-lit compound, a few yards from the hut-row that lined the south wall. A warrior was skulking toward the door, eyes red in the firelight, axe lifted. Turning the girl on his arm away from the blow, Vulmea drove his cutlass through the Indian's breast, and ran toward the south wail.

The enclosure was full of smoke clouds that hid half the red work going on there, but the fugitives had been seen. Naked figures, black against the red glare, pranced out of the smoke, brandishing axes. They were only a few yards behind him when Vulmea ducked into the space between the huts and the wall. At the other end of the lane he saw other warriors running to cut him off. He tossed Francoise bodily to the firing-ledge and leaped after her. Swinging her over the palisades he dropped her to the sand outside and dropped Tina after her. A thrown axe crashed into a log by his shoulder, and then he too was over the wall and gathering up his helpless charges. When the Indians reached the wall the space before the palisades was empty of any living humans.

Dawn was tinging the dim waters with an old rose hue. Far out across the tinted waters a fleck of white grew out of the mist-a sail that seemed to hang suspended in the pearly sky. On a bushy headland Black Vulmea held a ragged cloak over a fire of green wood. As he manipulated the cloak, puffs of smoke rose upward.

Francoise sat near him, one arm about Tina.

"Do you think they'll see it and understand?"

"They'll see it, right enough," he assured her. "They've been hanging off and on this coast all night, hoping to sight some survivors. They're scared stiff. There's only a dozen of them, and not one can navigate well enough to reach the Horn, much less round it. They'll understand my signal; it's a trick the lads of the Brotherhood learned from the Indians. They know I can navigate, and they'll be glad enough to pick us up. Aye, and to give me command of the ship. I'm the only captain left."

"But suppose the Indians see the smoke?" She shuddered, glancing back over the misty sands and bushes to where, miles to the north, a column of smoke stood up in the still air.

"Not likely. After I hid you in the woods last night I sneaked back and saw them dragging barrels of wine out of the storehouses. Most of them were reeling already. They'll be lying around dog-drunk by this time. If I had a hundred men I could wipe out the whole horde. Look! The War-Hawk's coming around and heading for the shore. They've seen the signal."

He stamped out the fire and handed the cloak back to Francoise, who watched him in wonder. The night of fire and blood, and the flight through the black woods afterward, had not shaken his nerves. His tranquil manner was genuine. Francoise did not fear him; she felt safer with him than she had felt since she landed on that wild coast. The man had his own code of honor, and it was not to be despised.

"Who was that black man?" he asked suddenly.

She shivered "A man the Count sold as a galley- slave long ago. Somehow he escaped and tracked us down. My uncle believed him to be a wizard."

"He might have been," muttered Vulmea. "I've seen some queer things on the Slave Coast. But no matter. We have other things to think of. What will you do when you get back to France?"

She shook her head helplessly. "I do not know. I have neither money nor friends. Perhaps it would have been better had one of those arrows struck my heart."

"Do not say that, my Lady!" begged Tina. "I will work for us both!"

Vulmea drew a small leather bag from inside his girdle.

"I didn't get Montezuma's jewels," he rumbled, "but here are some baubles I found in the chest where I got these clothes." He spilled a handful of flaming rubies into his palm. "They're worth a fortune, themselves."

He dumped them back into the bag and handed it to her.

"But I can't take these-" she began.

"Of course you'll take them! I might as well leave you for the Indians to scalp as to take you back to France to starve."

"But what of you?"

Vulmea grinned and nodded toward the swiftly approaching War-Hawk.

"A ship and a crew are all I want. As soon as I set foot on that deck I'll have a ship, and as soon as I raise the coast of Darien I'll have a crew. I'll take a galley and free its slaves, or raid some Spanish plantation on the coast. There are plenty of stout French and British lads toiling as slaves to the Dons, and waiting the chance to escape and join some captain of the Brotherhood. And, as soon as I get back on the Main, and put you and the girl on some honest ship bound for France, I'll show the Spaniards that Black Vulmea still lives! Nay, nay, no thanks! What are a handful of gems to me, when all the loot of the western world is waiting for me!"