The Star Woman/Book 1/Chapter 4

N the meanwhile, during three days the men left aboard the Irondelle slaved, as Vanderberg put it, like dogs of Holland, yet never was slavery more richly rewarded.

Frontin's hawk-nose led them aright, but not his calculations, for so toilsome was the road along the shore-ice under the cliffs, that in the end Vanderberg rigged shears up above and rove his unrotted mooring-lines together, and so made an easy descent and a quick road over the snow above the cliffs. This let the Irondelle pursue her own fate, and a current threw her ashore when the remaining bower-hawser chafed through and she lay stranded on a shallow. Who cared? They were mad, those men, doing the work of giants for the reward of the earth-gnomes. On the ledge under the cliff, the ledge which was flooded at high tide, or had been, were great masses of snow-clear ice like crystal, and under the ice lay the shattered and sundered galleon, and chests plain to be seen. Then there was chopping and splitting of ice, and Frontin dried out the wet powder and tampered with it, and made some of it to burn so that the ice was riven asunder.

Because the days were short, they hurled dead trees and logs over the cliff-edge, and built them fires on the ledge, laboring through the night. When wearied, they dropped and slept, and rose and took up axe and chisel again, now snatching a bite to eat and now a dram of hot rum, staggering as they hewed; and the smoke of the burning rose up by day and the flame seared the cliff-side by night. In three days those six men accomplished what any other twelve men would have done in a fortnight, so that in the end they reached the shattered galleon.

On the fourth day came to pass the prodigious finale. The plunder was got at and laid out—six chests of mahogany bound with sea-greened brass, three baggy canvas sacks bulging with gold cups and like articles, and two casks of good Spanish wine. Frontin and the four men were swung up to the cliff-top to haul, while Vanderberg remained below to make each chest fast in turn. A hard driving rain had been falling all night, and Vanderberg had laid fire to the high carven stern-portion of the galleon's wreck, so that presently the ledge and the niche in the cliffs were roaring warm, and the work went on merrily. One by one the chests swung up, and the bags, and one of the casks of wine. Then, as Vanderberg was making fast the second cask, the fire reached some unsuspected powder in the wreck.

Those up above knew not what had happened, nor cared greatly, for the rain was driving down and they had broached the cask of wine and were hammering at one of the mahogany chests for a sight of the gold. Then, when the shock of the explosion was gone, and the roaring echoes had died out, they heard Vanderberg bawling at them and saw the rope shaking; so Frontin flailed them to the lines, and presently the captain was hauled up and landed like a sack of meal.

All fell to laughing at him, for he was spitting oaths and curses like any cat; the clothes were stripped from him, half the great beard was flamed away, and a brand had smitten him across the face, blackening him and bringing the claret from his nostrils in a stream.

"The day of miracles isn't passed yet," cackled Frontin. "Faith, we left you a Dutchman and up you come a black Guinea-man!"

"Give me your breeches, damn you," roared Vanderberg, who was furious.

"Go to the devil," said Frontin, and turned to draw a cup of wine, but Vanderberg struck him from one side and sent him senseless into the snow.

Now Vanderberg stripped one of the men, donned the wet clothes, and sent the fellow running naked in his boots through the rain and snow for the Irondelle. Then, repenting the blow and perhaps a little afraid, he roused Frontin to life and held wine to his lips.

"Fiend take me, it was a foul blow," said he.

Frontin gulped the wine, staggered up, and felt his jaw. He gave the captain one look from his glittering eyes, then shrugged.

"It's nothing," he said lightly, while the men gaped, expecting a fight. "Come, to work! We must get these chests and bags to the cove."

So that matter passed over, for the moment, though more than likely it drew certain results in train.

Frontin showed them how to make a  of poles, on which the chests might be dragged by two men. The first was loaded with a chest and sent off, and a second was made and sent off likewise, Frontin and the fourth man dragging it, while Vanderberg followed with one of the bags of small loot pulling from his wide shoulders.

When they neared the cove, the man who had gone to clothe himself now came running, with word that the tide was high and the ketch was floated from the shoal. Sure enough, they sighted the Irondelle on an even keel and drifting with the currents toward an inner ledge of rocks, though there was a drift of wind and rain offshore. Now, with the gold safely garnered, wakened thoughts of safety, and there was a wild race down to the cove. Tumbling into the boat, they rowed to the ketch and fell to work; she was a sorry thing enough, but better than naught, and there was no time to lose, the tide being at flood.

While Vanderberg fell to work with the hawser-lines they had brought back, bending them to the larboard bower, Frontin and another man got a butt sawed asunder and slung, while the other three loosed the fore-topsail, eased the buntlines, braced the yard and hauled home the sheets and sent the rotten, mended canvas up to catch the higher drift of wind. Leaving Vanderberg and another to brace up as required, Frontin and the three remaining men tumbled into the boat, took out a coil of the old feeble rope, spanned the boat from stem to stern, and set out the butts. The captain and his one man hauled in, the boat hung athwart, and with the dragging butts counteracted the pull of the current. So the ketch got a start, and the upper breeze caught her topsail, and she drew away from the rocky ledge. In two minutes she was moored again by one hawser and safe enough.

Then, with a pint stoup of raw rum all around, it was back to the shore again and all hands for the gold. By the time the six chests and the bags and what was left of the Spanish wine was got down to the cove, the six of them were reeling and staggering with maudlin weariness, and the afternoon half-gone. To get the gold aboard ship and finish their task, however, remained; and Vanderberg drove them at it. Racked and rain-soaked, weary to death, swigging more rum and cursing the gold and the rain, they made shift to row out the boat again and again, until at last the burden was on deck. Then there was a flicker of life as a chest was hammered open, and gold gleamed in little heavy bars all stamped with the Spanish seal; after this they dropped below like dead men and lay huddled in any shelter they could find, and slept.

Sometime toward morning Vanderberg wakened with cold; the rain had ceased and frost was come again with a clear sky. He got lanterns lighted and a fire going in the galley, and with the dawn all hands were about, the last of the food was set forth, and the click-clack of the pumps was heard. One of the blackamoors went down for more rum, but he came out of the hold with his face all grey.

"The devil has got us now!" he shouted out. "She's all under water, and a butt started, and the seams opened by the pounding."

"Then let her sink and be damned," said Vanderberg, with a storm of oaths. "We're in three fathoms and can't hurt."

By sunrise, indeed, she was settled on bottom, with the side down; but an hour after this there was a shout from the cook on deck. The others were below, eating like starved men, and poured up to see two craft standing in around the headland for the cove.

"English!" said Frontin coolly. "A bark and a ketch, and either of them could master us"

Oaths stormed and curses rang, for there was no powder and the guns were useless. Some wanted to flee ashore with the gold, but Vanderberg, his half-beard floating in the wind, cursed them into silence and ordered the guns unstopped and run out.

"Little they know we can't bite!" said he. While they were at this, however, and the two English ships running into the cove, Frontin fell suddenly to laughing and pointed to a man in the bows of the bark, which was the nearer craft.

"There's Bose—ha! Crawford has brought us the ships and men."

Oaths and sour curses changed to yells of mad delight, which were answered from the two ships; and these ran down and anchored a cable-length away. A boat put off from the ketch, with Crawford in her, and picked up Bose from the bark. When Vanderberg saw all his old men coming in the boat, and other men still aboard the bark, he swore with mad joy that Crawford should have an extra share of the gold, to which the other men joined their vote. But Frontin stood to one side, his glittering eyes hard and cold, and a saturnine smile just touching his thin lips.

Crawford came over the rail, Bose and the men poured aboard, and there was pandemonium for a while, stories bawled forth, chests and gold to be stared at, rum to be swigged. Crawford looked at the loot and turned away with a cool shrug, exchanged a glance with Frontin, and found Vanderberg tugging at his sleeve and squinting at the two craft.

"What men are those? Where did ye find 'em? The ketch is a prize," he said.

"Ay, a Bostonnais—a fur pirate, blown out of her course by storm. When her cap'n and officers were pistoled, she gave in," said Crawford. "Eleven men left alive aboard her who are glad enough to go pirating under Vanderberg or Crawford. On the bark I have eight Irishmen who care naught for Vanderberg but much for Crawford."

"Damme and sink me!" roared Vanderberg delightedly, and smote him between the shoulders. "Come down to the cabin and talk in peace."

They went below and settled about the table, leaving the eager men to smash the mahogany chests with axes. Frontin brought what was left of the Spanish wine, and a rare old drink it was; Crawford made his own tale brief, and listened to Vanderberg's tale, and presently Bose came down to hear, fists full of gold and a wide grin on his face. The other men drifted down by ones and twos, until they were all crowded into the cabin and some with gold bars, others with coin found in one of the chests.

Crawford sipped at the Spanish wine but refused to drink heavily. In his manner was a certain constraint, a cold and imperturbable air of waiting; as he listened to Vanderberg's ranting about roaming the Indies with his squadron and mayhap taking aboard more men and sacking some Spanish town on the main, a smile tugged at his lips and his blue eyes glinted frostily. Presently this mien of his impinged upon Vanderberg's perception, so that the captain turned to him with an oath.

"What's in you, Crawford? Hast no warmth in life? Come, down with the wine and well go aboard the bark and take possession."

"Nay," said Crawford. "Our ways part here."

Now Vanderberg stared at him, and Bose and the men stared, and a moment of heavy silence settled upon them all. But Frontin's smile grew more saturnine.

"What d'ye mean?" growled Vanderberg, meeting the icy stab of those blue eyes.

"The bark's new and uncommon stout," said Crawford quietly. "No better ship could be found to batter ice. The ketch is near as large as this craft of yours and an even better sailer. I've put no lack of supplies aboard her; indeed, I took her for your use. Move your guns into her and head south or to the devil. I'll take the bark, with my eight Irish and five of the English who want to fare with me to Hudson Bay"

Vanderberg's eyes blazed. "Eh? Take the bark? I say you shall not." And his big fist crashed down on the table, while the men around uttered blasphemous approval. Vanderberg bawled at the men for silence, reduced himself to calmness by an effort, and turned to Crawford.

"Hark'ee!" said he, leaning forward over the table and giving look for look. "One thing ye forgot. All of us are sworn to certain articles. Any of us may quit the ship whenever he chooses; but company property's another thing. The bark belongs to all of us."

"Ay!" chimed up a chorus of voices. But Crawford laughed a little.

"Who's sworn? Not I. To perdition with your buccaneering articles! As for the bark beings yours—who took her? I did, and I mean to have her. But listen, all of ye! I'll be fair. What's my share of that gold up above?"

"One third to Frontin as discoverer," said the Captain promptly. "The rest in shares. Five to me, two to each officer, one to each man. We voted you an extra share."

"You are generous, and I thank you," said Crawford drily. "But I'll turn back my three shares and take the bark instead. How's that, lads? Vote on it!"

There was a howl of dissent at this, and Vanderberg grinned nastily. He had viewed that bark with a seaman's eye, as had they all, and had found her better than good. Then a sudden thought struck him.

"Why did ye not run with her when ye had her, Crawford?"

Crawford shrugged lightly.

"Why? What I want I take—I don't steal. Bose, will ye go to the bay with me?"

"Nay, sink me if I will!" cried out the big ruffian swiftly. "To a land of ice where devils play all the Winter, and there's but a week i' the year a ship can pass the straits? Not me!"

Crawford looked at Frontin, but the latter made no sign. So he sent his gaze again to Vanderberg, and what he read in the latter's face told him there was storm ahead.

"Take the ketch, Crawford," said Vanderberg, grasping at this bright thought. "Ye could not work the bark with so few men, anyhow. Take the ketch, and what ye will of the stores. How's that, lads?"

"Ay!" roared up the sudden yell, but Crawford only smiled frostily at them.

"I take the bark," said he quietly.

"Settle it as ye will," said Frontin, laughing, and caught a mug from the table. "I'm up above for a dram."

He worked his way through the crowd, none heeding him, and vanished up the ladder that led to the deck.

"Crawford, be reasonable!" growled Vanderberg, with a ponderous oath. "The bark ye shall not have—so say we all."

"She has three guns trained on you," said Crawford coolly. "Perhaps you noticed how she was moored? She'll blow you all to hell and the gold with you, if I come not back."

Now, at any other time this threat would have won the day, for none doubted that it would be carried out. As it happened, however, the men who had returned with Bose were drunk with exultation and hot raw rum and the touch of gold; and those with Vanderberg were worn to the quick with mad drinking and madder work, so that at a dare they would all of them have attacked the devil and his angels.

Too late, Crawford saw that his main petard had failed to explode. Ugly grins ran along the circle of black and bronzed and bearded faces, and an uglier murmur; hands went fumbling to knives, and men drew closer together before the companionway. Vanderberg showed his great yellow teeth in a grin of sneering anger.

"Ye think that bullies of the main are adread of a shotted gun or two? Ye poor simpleton!"

A wild outburst of laughter went up at this, and devilry was in the laughter. For a moment rang out scurrilous jests and oathy jibes; but as Crawford sat unmoving and quite cool, and as his frosty blue eyes swept them from man to man with a calm unconcern, they presently quieted. Not that they were abashed, however.

"Traitor!" spat a negro, and others caught up the word.

Now they were dangerous, for steel was out; they were persuaded against him in their hearts, and murder came close to the surface. Nor could it be avoided. Massed against him, Vanderberg with them, they had no fear of him now. They were on three sides of him, Bose and the captain at the table, his back to the wall of the cabin. There was a large stern window, but the glass had been smashed and a cloth nailed over it.

Now an irresolute silence. Vanderberg put out a hand and gulped down what was left of the Spanish wine; it mixed ill with rum, for his cheeks fired red at once. Then he cocked his head, listening. In the silence came a squeaking from above, as of a block and tackle at work; but this was instantly forgotten, when Crawford played his last and most desperate card.

He drew two pistols from under his coat and laid them on the table, and calmly primed them with a pinch of powder.

"Gentlemen," he said coolly, "we fail to agree. The one determining factor must be hot lead, if ye'll have it so. So far as my share of the gold is concerned, I'll give it to the fellows aboard the ketch who want to join you, but the bark is mine. I'm going back to her. Any of you lads want to ship with me?"

"We'd ship wi' the foul fiend sooner," muttered one of them. Crawford laughed.

"You'll do that if ye try to stop me; lads. Careful, cap'n! Here are two pistols, and ye have none. I'll"

"Your high hand has gripped too far this time!" bawled Vanderberg, and shoved back his chair. "Stop him, lads! Give him the steel."

Even before the word was spoken, the surging movement of men began, and Crawford knew there was no more hope. Therefore, he acted.

With one movement he lifted the heavy table with his knees, threw his shoulder against it, and hurled it back upon Vanderberg and the men. One of them plunged at him with knife ready, and Crawford's pistol roared in his very face. Over his body Crawford leaped for the ladder, and shot down with his second pistol a negro in his way. Then he was upon the ladder.

The hand of the dying negro clamped upon his ankle.

A long howl, as of ravening beasts, filled the cabin; the men hurtled forward, knives out, fighting each other to get at the tripped figure. The empty pistols smashed in their faces, but they gripped him, they had him down, they dragged him back from the ladder and seethed above him in a wild tangle of fighting shapes. In that confined space the reek of powder went to their lungs and brains. They were no longer men, but blood-scenting beasts, each of them striving only to sink his knife into the man who had dared them. The powder-smoke rolled up to the ceiling and back down upon them, blinding everything, creating an obscurity that was hideous with yells and the spreading stink of raw blood. Man slashed man indiscriminately. The roaring bellow of Vanderberg was drowned in yells and maddened oaths.

In one corner the twisting mass of men disintegrated. Crawford, writhing from the heart of the blind fury, came to one knee, knife and tomahawk in hand. A Frenchman screamed out horribly. Coming to his feet, Crawford dimly beheld the hulking figure of Bose rushing at him; he slipped aside, struck out with the deadly tomahawk, felt the blade sink in between ear and shoulder. Neck half severed, dead in his stride, Bose pitched forward headlong at the cloth covering the window, burst it away, lingered limply for an instant over the sill, and then lurched through the smashed frame and was gone. The morning sunlight streamed in across the reek of powder.

Crawford plunged for the window, seeing there his one chance of getting clear. He was at it, had a hand at the opening, when a man swung into him full force, hurled him aside, drove at him with a knife. They went down together, and now the pack was upon him once more with shrill yells as the new flood of light betrayed their prey.

Again Crawford rose, back to window, and cut with knife and axe at the ringing faces. Knives bit back; blood was streaming from him in a dozen places. Then, flailing his way through the midst of them, splitting the serried rank asunder, came Vanderberg, whirling in both hands a leg from the wrecked table. He whirled and struck. Crawford ducked the blow, the club struck the cabin wall—and the tomahawk left Crawford's hand.

Too slow! Vanderberg interposed the club, and the steel glanced. Again the table-leg swung; as it fell, Crawford darted inside the blow, though the force of it jarred him to the heels, and struck out with his knife. The point raked across Vanderberg's brow, no more, and from one side came a thrown knife that struck Crawford over the temple, but haft first. He threw out his arms, caught at the cabin wall, fell to one knee, crouched.

A wild howl roared up, and the men surged in on him. Then, under their very hands and knives, he sprang. The leap took him upward, sent him head first through the window-opening, banged his hips against the frame—and he was gone.

Meantime, regardless of the raging tumult down below, Frontin had been hard at work on deck. He got his dram of rum, then he clapped on the companion-hatch and stoppered it. Moving with incredible agility, he went to the smashed mahogany chests, filled two of them with the scattered gold bars, whipped slings around them, and drew in the block and tackle, still reeved, which had brought them aboard.

One by one he lowered them into the boat lying alongside. From the men crowded at the rail of bark and ketch, who had heard the two pistol-shots, were coming angry shouts and queries, but Frontin only waved his hand at them and followed the chests down into the boat. This was a perilous matter, since now she rode heavily, but he put an oar from the stern and began to scull. He went, not toward the other craft nor the shore, but along the side of the Irondelle to the stern, where he waited.

He was still waiting there, a twisted grin upon his thin lips, anxiety in his glittering eyes, when Crawford dropped all asprawl into the water. An instant later Frontin was bending above the spot, while heads crowded through the stern window above and yells roared at him. He grinned, waved his hand. They watched, wondering at his purpose there.

The wonder was soon flamed into wild rage when they saw him pull the dripping figure of Crawford in over the stern. Weak, half-conscious, yet wakened anew by his icy immersion, Crawford came over the gunnel and managed to drag himself to the thwart, as Frontin bent to the oar. The yells of fury from above died away, for the boat shot back around the side of the ketch.

"You came by the wrong road," said Crawford, gasping. "Why the devil didn't you get 'em in the rear? Sink me, man, I'd given up hope of help from you."

Frontin fastened upon him a saturnine regard. Crawford was looking up at the ship.

"I'm not a fool," he said, "and I had no pistols. No need to look up! The hatch is clapped on. I had to get this gold of mine."

Crawford glanced around at the chests, and broke into a laugh. From the Irondelle came a hammering and pounding, a wild roar of muffled voices.

"Now's your chance," said Frontin coolly. "Say the word and I'll slip aboard her, or call your men from the bark. Touch fire to her, take the gold, and leave the dogs to roast. Eh?"

"Plague take the gold, and them with it, you ruffian!" said Crawford. He could feel the strength ebbing out of him rapidly. "What brought you to aid me?"

Frontin squinted at the bark, and made a slight gesture. "The Star of Dreams," said he, and laughed thinly. "But tell me swiftly what you want me to do. I don't think you're hurt to death, yet in another minute the blood will be drained out of you"

"Some of the English aboard the ketch will join me. Get them. Set a course for the north. Tell Phelim not to fire the guns"

"And yonder ketch?"

"Leave her here—for Vanderberg." Crawford uttered a wild, swift laugh. "’Twas he and you gave the Star into my hands. Then I was a homeless, destitute wanderer, an escaped felon; now I've a stout ship, a heavy lading, true friends to aid, and the Star of Dreams to lead into the north—into the north, over the horizon—always over the horizon! Ay, after all"

"After all?" prompted Frontin, as the words failed weakly.

"After all, Vanderberg made only one mistake—he—he opposed the—destiny of—the Star of—Dreams"

Crawford's head drooped, and he pitched forward off the thwart, senseless. But Frontin, rapidly working the oar, glanced down at the reddening body with a thin smile.

"Nay, nay!" he murmured. "That talk will do for fools, but not for me. Where poor Vanderberg made his mistake, was in opposing the destiny of Harry Crawford! En avant—the Star goes north, and I follow it. Immortality awaits us; whether we gain immortality by pike-thrust, bullet, or frost, what matter?"

He shrugged a little, then dropped his oar and deftly caught the line flung to him by Sir Phelim Burke of Murtha.

Ten minutes afterward, the bark was standing out of the cove toward the ice blink on the north horizon.