Part 32 (1/2)

_Page 351._]

The boy was trembling; but he did not give way. He pulled a little dirk from his belt.

”Yes; but I must defend you, Jessy; not you me. You have risked your life already. You must not do more. It is me they want--not you.”

But the injured arm had no power to strike a blow. Jessy tenderly took the dirk from between the numbed fingers.

”Say your prayers, Tim, if you can remember any,” said Jessy, between long breaths, ”for we shan't easily get out of this alive.”

”There they are--see them? The witch-wench and the boy? Ah, ha, my fine maid, you'll sing a more civil tune to-day I warrant. Give us over the boy, and maybe we'll let you off easy!”

”The first man that touches him I'll kill!” cried Jessy.

”Curse her for a witch,” cried one of the men, recoiling before the fierce aspect of the girl; but Moffat was filled with the l.u.s.t of blood and of fury, and with a yell of menace, he pushed up the boat against the narrow shelf on which the pair were cowering.

”Hand over the boy.”

A yell of pain interrupted him. Jessy, seeing better than she could be seen, had seized the moment and driven her dagger clean through the arm of the man who was seeking to clutch at the shelf.

Just for a few minutes the girl held her ground against the six furious men below, who, losing all sense of humanity at last, lifted their cutla.s.ses and struck her blow upon blow; some of which missed their aim, for Jessy was nimble as a wild cat, but some of which fell upon her flesh, and at last brought her blinded with blood to her knees.

A stifled gasp close at hand told her of another deed of cruel cowardice. She turned to see Moffat wiping his cutla.s.s, and little Tim lying stark and dead at her very feet.

At that sight a strange phrensy fell upon Jessy. Forgetting her wounds and her weakness, inspired as it seemed by some spirit other than her own, she rose to her feet, her eyes blazing in her head, and, with a loud and sonorous voice, she spoke the words of a terrible curse. She cursed the vessel whose crew had done this deed of infamy and shame; she cursed the men who had been the instruments of a bad man's rage; above all, she cursed the master himself, turning her gaze upon Moffat with such fearful effect, that he slipped back into the boat, and his men pulled away in the direst terror they had ever experienced.

Next morning Jessy Varcoe was found by some fishermen, seated on a ledge of rock just above high watermark, with the corpse of little Tim, whose life she had sought to save at risk of her own, folded in her arms.

She begged them not to wake him; she called him her baby, her darling.

When they laid him to rest in the churchyard, she would spend long days sitting beside the mound, gazing over the sea for the sails of the _Black Prince_.

But from that day forward the _Black Prince_ was never seen or heard of again. Perhaps the crew, fearing to return to a place where they had done such evil work, changed its name and rig, and took up life elsewhere. Perhaps she foundered in a gale, or fell a prey to some enemy's s.h.i.+p. But no news of her ever reached Morwinstow again.

Somehow the story of Jessy's curse got abroad, and her reputation as a witch was made for ever; but she hardly knew it herself. From that day she never fully regained her faculties; and at last poor Jessy's life was ended through a fall down the cliffs from the heights above, near to the grave of the little boy, and from whence she had kept a ceaseless watch for the return of the _Black Prince_; terrified alike at the thought of its return with the dreaded Moffat, or of its destruction in response to her curse.

The children will look fearfully down this chasm, and whisper that Jessy leapt down it to expiate the curse; but whether or not this was so, will hardly now be known, for her mind was never the same from the dreadful day when she risked her life to save that of the boy, and saw him slain at her feet.

URSULA PENDRILL

The Captain's face was so grave, that instinctively the pa.s.sengers exchanged anxious glances. He had given out that he had something to say to them, and they had a.s.sembled in the large saloon in full force.

When he came amongst them the look on his face was different from anything they had seen before. The cheery expression was replaced by one of clouded anxiety; and the infection of it spread quickly amongst the group in the saloon.

It was not a very large number of pa.s.sengers that this steamer carried.

This was before the day of pleasure trips to and from India. Those who went to that land or returned from it, only did so when necessity compelled them. The voyage was not the speedy matter it has now become, and there were far more hindrances and hards.h.i.+ps than since the days of the Suez Ca.n.a.l. Still there was a fair gathering to hear what the Captain wanted of them, and it was plain that the matter in his mind was a grave one.

”Oh, Captain, is there danger?” asked a lady, cowering upon one of the fixed seats, and holding a little boy clasped in her arms.

The keen blue eyes of the Captain turned upon her for a moment, and glanced away to the circle of strained eyes fixed upon him; he seemed to understand what it was that all these people were thinking, and hastened to rea.s.sure them.