The Sea Wolves/Chapter 26

night was clear, with a fine flood of moonlight, and after the first ascent to the heights the path became narrow, running through a great ravine of the mountains, which so sheltered it that its security from all but the hillmen was unquestionable. It was, in truth, a path which nature might have cut for the peculiar protection of those in the great house below it; and while Messenger wondered at first that the soldiers knew nothing of it, he had no surprise when ultimately he had traced it to its end.

The cavalcade which now mounted this hidden way was by no means an unpicturesque one. At the head of it there walked six men with guns upon their shoulders, men dressed in the finery of velvet and silver-broidered habiliments. Behind them came sixteen mules, lacking the customary bells, but bedecked with fine ribbons and rosettes, as are all the mules of Spain. The arrieros, or muleteers, sat in many cases upon the top of the kegs and packages which the mules bore; but others of them walked, cracking their whips at the difficult places, and muttering the "Macho, macho, macho-o," which is the national encouragement to horse or ass. In the rear of the mules the Spanish woman. Messenger, and Fisher rode upon ponies; while six more personal attendants, armed with rifles, followed them. The nigger, Joe, whipped in the whole, sitting upon a sturdy "burro," like a sable Sancho upon a Spanish ass.

For a mile, or even more, the curious procession marched in silence, but when it had gained the first woods, which stood between two of the nearer mountains, the woman reined in her pony, and surveyed the scene spread out below her. Straight down, as it were, at her feet she could look in the courtyard of her home, where there were now many lanterns, and soldiers tethering horses, and the flash of polished helmets. Out upon the sea the masthead lights of the two warships burned brightly; in the park the flare of fires showed the new camps of the shoremen. But the whole spectacle excited the woman to merriment rather than to concern.

"Let them do their worst!" said she mockingly. "I will return before the year has run, and reckon with them."

"If they don't reckon with you first," said Messenger.

"Pshaw!" she cried, "it will be the affair of the month. I have friends at Madrid who will think of me—and ministries, mon ami, ministries fall! Let us get on while the light holds, for day must find us many miles from here."

"I hope it will," said the man; "the stake is big, and is worth the danger."

"Danger! You talk always of danger. There is no more danger now—I tell you so, and I am no optimist. Let us go."

She gave rein to her pony, and he turned with her; but as she spoke there came from the heights above them a weird, wild cry, which echoed in all the hills, and died away with a long-drawn sob, most pitiful to hear.

So mournful was it, so long did its vibration ring in the heights, that the whole of the riders stopped abruptly, waiting to hear its repetition; but although they halted for many minutes, the cry was not raised again, nor was there any sound save of the restless sway of the pines and the tremble of the grasses. To the Spaniards the very silence was ominous, the portent of ghostly visitation or of mountain spirit. They knew that they had little to fear from any human enemy in the almost inaccessible pass; but their faith was chiefly in omens, and they began to beat their breasts, or to recite their rosaries, while one or two fell upon their knees and did not hide their panic. Even the woman herself was for a moment bewildered, and could find no words, only looking at Messenger enquiringly.

"What, in Heaven's name, was that?" she asked him presently. "Was it the cry of a beast? It ran down my spine like cold water!"

"I should say that it was the shout of some hillman gone out of his wits at the sight of the fires," said he; but he only told her half the truth, for he was sure that he had heard the cry before, although he could not now recall the precise circumstances.

"I've lived here half my life," said she, "and never heard its like. It was no human cry, or the men would make light of it. Look at them now!"

The spectacle was unmistakably odd, for the cut-throats, who had devoted the previous hour to the gratification of their savage lust for murder, now prayed with the feverish piety of the fanatic; and the simpler muleteers stood grovelling with their fears.

"When they have quite finished their exercise," said Messenger, as he watched them contemptuously, for he had begun to recover himself, "they might as well get on, unless they wish for the company of the men below. At this rate morning will trap us in the woods here!"

"You are quite right," said she. "But I must admit that it was strange. I have never heard any thing so wild."

The woman's superstition had undoubtedly done for her what human danger could not have done. For the first time since the Englishman had known her she had lost her readiness; and when, at last, she began to shout at her servants, it was with but a half of her earlier vigour. Nor did she after this give any immediate sign that she had forgotten the episode, for she rode a long way in silence; while the others, equally dumb, followed her thoughtfully. To Messenger the cry had been the echoing of some voice of the unremembered past; to Fisher it was a cry which seemed to utter a warning that the end of the hazardous venture was near, though for this he had no reason save the shallow faith which every man in his own way gives to omen.

The strange company had now reached the summit of the pass, and traversed a dark road through an exceedingly close wood, on either side of which bold, treeless rocks, with insurmountable precipices, made a natural fortress. The one danger of pursuit lay, so far as Messenger could see, in the possibility of the troopers bursting the portcullis of the lagoon; and as he went on, and the pace of the mules seemed every minute to be more exasperating, he found himself listening for the tramp of infantry or the whinnying of horses.

"You seem to make the poorest way," said he. "What if they come up here from the house? we are no better then than rats in a trap!"

"If they come up!" she cried, with her grim laugh. "If they cut through six-inch iron bars and two doors of steel in twenty minutes—let them!"

"But they will certainly find the road before daylight—and then?"

"Mon ami, let me answer you in the old proverb: 'He who despises a woman's counsel is a fool!' Do you judge of me so poorly as to believe that I have not thought of that?"

"I merely point out what occurs to me; but I will take your word for it. I must say the same of the road ahead of us. Suppose that is closed by troops"

She laughed again unrestrainedly.

"Wait until you have passed it," said she, "and you shall tell me then what sort of a road for troops you find it; but we are near the bridge, and I am going to show you why no one shall follow me here."

As she spoke they had emerged from the wood, and stood upon the edge of an immense ravine, which seemed utterly to block egress from the amphitheatre. Long grass and weeds grew upon the bank of the precipice, down which the man of weakened nerve might scarce trust himself to look. The pines were thick even to the border of the chasm. But the muleteers, turning their beasts dexterously upon the brink of the abyss, marched for more than a quarter of a mile at the very side of it, and then came suddenly upon a small drawbridge of iron suspended upon chains from the far side.

Across this bridge the cavalcade went quickly at the woman's orders; but the last of the serving-men, when they had made the transit, worked briskly at a rude windlass, and drew the structure up perpendicular against their own side of the ravine. The whole danger of the pursuit was thus cut off, so far as the rear of the little expedition went; and from that time the spirits of the Spaniards rose, and they began even to hum their ballads and to smoke the indispensable cigarrito. The way had become an ideal one. Luxurious grass was beneath their feet; the strong scent of rich flowers and of hay came up to them upon the refreshing breeze; the hills around shone like domes and spires of marble in the glorious moonlight. Above all, they had put their first barrier between themselves and their enemies; and the road to freedom seemed open.

"Well," said Messenger, as he urged his pony to the trot, and rode on with the woman, who now put herself at the head of the company, "I admit that I was wrong. The place seems honeycombed with paths. If all the road is like this, we should reach Finisterre. I wish I could be as sanguine as you are."

"Hope, my friend," said she in answer, "is the keynote of enterprise. I told you that our real dangers will begin when we leave the mountains; but I think they are to be met. Directly we are in the open we shall break up, and make for my châlet in twos and threes. If any are taken, well, that will be a misfortune; but it must be faced."

"How far will the troops follow us?"

"They—they will return to their quarters at the first opportunity. A Spanish carabineer does not follow any one. He is the guardian of law and order—when it come in his way; otherwise be assumes that all is well with the world. Of course this is a more serious case, for men have been killed. But we forget an  very quickly in Spain, especially if we have friends; and I have many."

"And once at Finisterre?"

"We shall get a ship and sail for the Adriatic, and after that for the East, if you will listen to me. All you Englishmen run for shelter to America. It is your mistake. I have a haven near Scutari where no government could find me. We will share it until this is forgotten; then, perhaps, we will return here."

He shrugged his shoulders, for the prospect was not to his liking. But this he did not tell her, since they were now beginning to skirt a low hill, upon which one of the beacon-fires still burned.

The deep red light cast a lurid glow upon the pine forests beneath. When the men turned at length and entered a wooded ravine which led from the amphitheatre between the heights to the outer country, the flicker of it was strong, lighting even the tangled depths of the forest path. By the light of such a rude lantern they emerged from the valley, to come upon a narrow ledge running around the outer side of the hill, and, this being no more than three feet wide, with woods upon the left hand and a deep precipice upon the right, the march was slow, and not a little hazardous.

Below this ledge of rock a long and fertile valley, dotted with hamlets and pastures, spread for many miles. Even by the moon's light the land had a fair aspect; the breeze upon the heights was exhilarating as strong wine. The Spaniards, trusting in the sure steps of the mules, did not even come down from their saddles; the woman set a brisk pace, now gossiping to Messenger behind her with the flippancy of a girl of twenty. Nor did a remote possibility of peril appear to threaten them when the first signal of their ultimate hazard rose up on the night air.

It was the repetition of the wild, weird cry they had heard in the first of the woods.

Suddenly, with the piercing wail and long-drawn sob, the cry rose in the forest above the goat track. Once, twice, thrice they heard it, with stiffening of limbs and hearts palpitating. Then it was echoed back from the depths below them in the cry of a strong man hailing a friend.

"Halloa!" said the invisible voice, "halloa-oa-oa! Billy, where are you? Show yourself, Billy!"

If one risen from the dead had confronted Messenger, he could not have been struck with a greater fear than the horrible, overwhelming panic which now came upon him; for the second voice he recognized as the voice of Mike Brennan, the drunken mate of the tug Admiral whom he had last seen drawn down to the waters of the North Sea. As the cry of one coming from the deep of death to claim justice upon the living were the words to him; and to the Spanish woman and her men they were as an inexplicable omen, which struck them with terror to their very marrows.

"Oh, Holy Mother! what is it? what does it mean? where does it come from?" she cried; and as in answer to her the wail rose again with a long-drawn sob of "Ayo, ayo, ayo!" and then a horrid shriek of laughter, which was like a knife in the ear of those that heard it. Plaintive moaning and piercing cries followed upon the laughter, and were answered again by the shout of the burly voice below; but the unmistakably human note of this did nothing to reassure the Spaniards upon the ledge. Terror beyond control now seized upon them. Some shouted out as if in agony; others tried to turn their mules upon the path, and were with difficulty restrained; some fell into pious ejaculations; others, again, to deep and guttural curses. And while they stood, struck with apprehension of the unseen, lights began to move in the valley below, soldiers came from the houses, the orders to fall in were heard in pure Spanish, horses were saddled quickly, and troops were soon perceived gathering in the single street of the solitary hamlet. The company, by a supreme ill-chance, had chosen for the passage of the ledge the very hour when a troop of mounted carabineers and a large body of infantry had bivouacked in the plain below it!

The appearance of the soldiers quelled somewhat the panic of the fugitives. It was clear that, after all that the enemy was man, and no ghostly apparition. No sooner were the troops visible beyond possibility of doubt than the woman shook her fears from her as leaves from a tree, and began to command again.

"Cowards!" she cried, with a curious forgetfulness of her own state five minutes gone, "cowards! will you let them shoot you as you ride? Where is your courage? Do you fear a handful of carabineers, who are as dirt beneath your feet? I have shame for you."

But to Messenger she said—

"This is the moment. The second bridge is three hundred yards from here. Once past that the danger is no more. But we must run the gauntlet, and some will fall. How light it is; a curse upon it! I never saw such a night."

"You didn't look to find men here—at least you never mentioned it to me," said he, biting his lip in his perplexity.

"I did not look for the unexpected," she said in answer. "These men are returning, and not going; they have tired of the business yonder, and are getting home again. I could not foresee that. Their laziness has trapped us, and now they will shoot."

"If the light would only fail," said he next, "it would be as easy as walking along a road. I can't make it out; we seem to be focussed in the very centre of it. And what a light!"

She could not answer him, for as she turned about her startled exclamation was joined to his.

"Great God!" said he, "the wood is on fire!"

A deep lurid light glowed upon him as he spoke; it cast a crimson flush upon the darker shadows of the wood; it lit up the face of the precipice with an unsurpassable brilliancy. The fire kindled as a beacon on the hill-top had set flame to the surrounding thickets; and now from grass to grass, and bush to bush, and tree to tree the devastation leaped with insatiable tongue. Even at the cramped station of the goat track the company could follow its path—the path of radiant light and rolling smoke and horrid roaring. It was as if some huge volcano had begun to vomit flames of wood, to wrap in its far-reaching light the stately pines, the coniferæ, the spreading chestnut, the climbing creepers. Now hissing, now crackling, now marking its way with the bursting asunder of rock and root, the fire crept on, bridging chasms, enveloping thickets, running swiftly to the summits of the loftiest trunks, sending the birds screaming and circling above it, driving the swine headlong into chasms and ravines, painting the sky with a quivering scarlet beneath which the mighty clouds of smoke lay as hills and mountains raised magically in the ether.

Soon the hither valley was incarnadined; the troop of horsemen stood clear to be viewed as in the sun's light; the river shone as with red of blood; the flocks rushed wildly from pasture to pasture in unrestrained terror; the bells of the churches began to ring; the sleeping hamlets awoke. But those upon the ledge, for the most part dumb with their terror, could only rush on headlong toward the distant bridge, which would carry them from the amphitheatre of the hills; and as they went the fire crept slowly down to them, flakes of burning matter fell upon their mules, red-hot branches struck their faces; they were in danger of immediate suffocation from the vapour and the smoke which began to roll around them.

To the soldiers in the valley the spectacle was one for profound amazement. They had been sent to hunt down the Spanish woman and the English fugitives, but here was nature doing the work. And they stood dumb with astonishment, while the mules cried upon the path above, and the woman roared for the mule-men to push on, and the fire came down and yet down, so that at last it burned upon the very edge of the goat-track, and men and mules and ponies began to fall headlong to the rocks below. And thus it stood that of the sixteen mules, seven had rolled into the valley, and there were but eight men left of the whole company when the small plateau which led to the ledge across the second chasm came in sight.

At this plateau a great ravine opened irregularly, having a breadth of thirty yards where the bridge was, but almost closing upon its summit, so that the fire raging above dropped burning flakes upon the woodwork of the bridge, and threatened every moment to consume it; while boughs and chunks of flaming wood and red-hot stones and dying beasts were heaped pell-mell upon the open plane of rock which gave access to the passage.

To this semblance of shelter came at last the woman and Messenger and Fisher; but the nigger had gone over, and the number of mules was five, with but six men of the whole Spanish company. These now fell gasping upon the secure shelter of the plateau, and cried for the death which they felt must so surely come to them. But Messenger, almost falling from his pony, began to moan pitifully, and held to Fisher with a nervous grip which was eloquent of his fate. Fire had struck him in the face, and he was then quite blind.

"Hal!" he cried, as he clutched the strong hand held out to him, "I have lost my eyes! Hal, I'm blind, man, blind! my brain's burning! Let me have your hands! Oh, what darkness! my eyes are gone!"

"It can't be as bad as that, old man!" cried Fisher, who held the extended hands with a firm grip; "Cling to me now, for we must cross the bridge. It won't last another ten minutes. Did you ever hear such a pandemonium as that old hag is making?"

"Where is she?" asked the other, holding to the lad with terrible desperation; "where are they all? Is the money safe? Don't you see that I'm in darkness? My brain's burning; I can't bear it; there's fire in my eyes now! Great Heaven, what pain!"

"The woman is now flogging the mule-men with her whip—at least the five that are left," said Fisher. "They won't face the fire, and she's making them. Can't you hear her voice? But this is no place to stop, money or no money; the rocks are heating, and the bridge is beginning to burn."

"I'll stand by the woman, any way!" said Messenger, suddenly drawing back; "we will sink or swim together. She's stood by me; and there's five hundred thousand pounds in it! Do you hear? I say the money's there; take me to it. I'll see it through! Where's Burke? And old Kenner? Halloa, there, Kenner! Why don't you hail, man? You always were a tenderfoot, Kenner; you think on liquor. Ha! ha! drown your old carcase in it! Take me to the woman, lad; do you hear?"

Fisher, regardless of his delirium, quickly led him across the bridge, telling him that the way to the money lay there. It was a short passage, but the soldiers in the valley fired a volley vainly at them as they went; and the woodwork burned in places so fiercely that the soles of their feet were scorched. When they had come to the other side, the man dropped exhausted upon a grass bank; but the other stood up to watch the Spanish hag, who had compelled the muleteers now to venture upon the transit. She herself waited until the six men and the five beasts were treading the structure before she rode boldly upon it, and, still commanding harshly, drove the terrified men forward toward the dangerous place where the fire burned most fiercely, and the wood was crackling briskly, as wood long dry and ready for the flame.

Had the bridge strength left for their passage? The question must have been put by a hundred men who watched the passage from the valley below, for this was the supreme moment of the fire, when the hills stood up with amazing clearness in the flood of light, and the valley of the rocks was red with a dazzling radiance as of the glow of jewels. The whole path of the burning in the wood now showed in a crimson field of ash of trees and grasses that shone red with the consuming heat. A few coverts—and these containing many great trees—yet burned about the chasm as torches, exceeding brilliant and fierce in their fires. The bridge itself was alight with flame; and men, both upon it and below it, heard themselves breathing in the moment of the peril.

It is just possible, had the Spaniards and the woman dared the passage on foot, that they had come to safety. The timidity of horse or mule in the face of fire is a fact as old as man; and it was the terror of the mules that ultimately brought the end of the venture. Although the arrieros had blindfolded the quaking brutes with strips torn from the shirts upon their backs, they were driven to the dangerous place only with a measure of extreme cruelty; and so soon as the tongue of the flame was blown near to the first of them the beast reared straight up, and fell back upon the one that followed him. A moment after, the pair of them, with their packs and riders, went bounding down to the crags of rock below, turning twice in the air as they went. Of the three behind two endeavoured to wheel about upon the narrow planking, but broke away the balustrade, and fell quickly; while the last stood immovable, nor would whip nor words move him. Thus it came that the road was barred to the Spanish woman, who sat raving upon her pony, the light showing on her as upon some beldame screeching; and while she stood, the fire got firmer hold upon the bridge; and at last it broke, with a fountain of sparks and a rush of flame and a great crash of blinding light; and beams and men and beast went down to the darkness of the valley.

And this was the end of it, and of the man's hope; for as the bridge fell it took the woman with it in a sea of flame, and her cry of death rang out horridly in the hills; but the cry was answered again by one far up in the heights who wailed, as they had first heard him, a weird, sobbing cry as of a doomed soul.