As if in answer there came from our forecastle a flame and thunder of guns. The gunners there, intent upon their business, and now within range of the merchantman, had fired the three forecastle culverins. The shot cut her rigging and brought down the flag. The pirates' shout of triumph was echoed by a cry from her decks and the defiant roar of her few remaining guns.
I drew my sword. The minister and Diccon moved nearer to me, and the King's ward, still and white and braver than a man, stood beside me. From the pirates that we faced came one deep breath, like the first sigh of the wind before the blast strikes. Suddenly the Spaniard pushed himself to the front; with his gaunt figure and sable dress he had the seeming of a raven come to croak over the dead. He rested his gloomy eyes upon my lord. The latter, very white, returned the look; then, with his head held high, crossed the deck with a measured step and took his place among us. He was followed a moment later by Paradise. "I never thought to die in my bed, captain," said the latter nonchalantly. "Sooner or later, what does it matter? And you must know that before I was a pirate I was a gentleman." Turning, he doffed his hat with a flourish to those he had quitted. "Hell litter!" he cried. "I have run with you long enough. Now I have a mind to die an honest man."
At this defection a dead hush of amazement fell upon that crew.
One and all they stared at the man in black and silver, moistening their lips, but saying no word. We were five armed and desperate men; they were fourscore. We might send many to death before us, but at the last we ourselves must die, - we and those aboard the helpless ship.
In the moment's respite I bowed my head and whispered to the King's ward.
"I had rather it were your sword," she answered in a low voice, in which there was neither dread nor sorrow. "You must not let it grieve you; it will be added to your good deeds. And it is I that should ask your forgiveness, not you mine."
Though there was scant time for such dalliance, I bent my knee and rested my forehead upon her hand. As I rose, the minister's hand touched my shoulder and the voice spoke in my ear. "There is another way," he said. "There is God's death, and not man's. Look and see what I mean."
I followed the pointing of his eyes, and saw how close we were to those white and tumbling waters, the danger signal, the rattle of the hidden snake. The eyes of the pirate at the helm, too, were upon them; his brows were drawn downward, his lips pressed together, the whole man bent upon the ship's safe passage. . . . The low thunder of the surf, the cry of a wheeling sea bird, the gleaming lonely shore, the cloudless sky, the ocean, and the white sand far, far below, where one might sleep well, sleep well, with other valiant dead, long drowned, long changed. "Of their bones are coral made."
The storm broke with fury and outcries, and a blue radiance of drawn steel. A pistol ball sang past my ear.
"Don't shoot!" roared the gravedigger to the man who had fired the shot. "Don't cut them down! Take them and thrust them under hatches until we've time to give them a slow death! And hands off the woman until we've time to draw lots!"
He and the Spaniard led the rush. I turned my head and nodded to Sparrow, then faced them again. "Then may the Lord have mercy upon your souls!" I said.
As I spoke the minister sprang upon the helmsman, and, striking him to the deck with one blow of his huge fist, himself seized the wheel. Before the pirates could draw breath he had jammed the helm to starboard, and the reef lay right across our bows.
A dreadful cry went up from that black ship to a deaf Heaven, - a cry that was echoed by a wild shout of triumph from the merchantman. The mass fronting us broke in terror and rage and confusion. Some ran frantically up and down with shrieks and curses; others sprang overboard. A few made a dash for the poop and for us who stood to meet them. They were led by the Spaniard and the gravedigger. The former I met and sent tumbling back into the waist; the latter whirled past me, and rushing upon Paradise thrust him through with a pike, then dashed on to the wheel, to be met and hewn down by Diccon.
The ship struck. I put my arm around my wife, and my hand before her eyes; and while I looked only at her, in that storm of terrible cries, of flapping canvas, rushing water, and crashing timbers, the Spaniard clambered like a catamount upon the poop, that was now high above the broken forepart of the ship, and fired his pistol at me point-blank.
