Part 22 (1/2)

”Tis more deceitful than a pretty colleen,” O'Sullivan Og said, ”is the sea-fog, bad cess to it! My own father was lost in it. Will you be seeing her, boys?”

”Ye'll not see her till ye touch her!” one of the rowers answered.

”And the tide running?” the other said. ”Save us from that same!”

”She's farther out by three gunshots!” struck in a firelock-man. ”We'll be drifting back, ye thieves of the world, if ye sit staring there!

Pull, an' we'll be insh.o.r.e an' ye know it.”

For some minutes the men pulled steadily onwards, while one of the pa.s.sengers, apprised that their destination was the Spanish war-vessel which had landed Cammock and the Bishop, felt anything but eager to reach it. A Spanish war-s.h.i.+p meant imprisonment and hards.h.i.+p without question, possibly the Inquisition, persecution, and death. When the men lay at last on their oars, and swore that they must have pa.s.sed the s.h.i.+p, and they would go no farther, he alone listened indifferently, nay, felt a faint hope born in him.

”'Tis a black Protestant fog!” O'Sullivan cried. ”Where'll we be, I wonder?”

”Sure, ye can make no mistake,” one answered. ”The wind's light off the land.”

”We'll be pulling back, lads.”

”That's the word.”

The men put the boat about, a little sulkily, and started on the return journey. The sound of barking dogs and crowing c.o.c.ks came off the land with that clearness which all sounds a.s.sume in a fog. Suddenly Colonel John, crouching in the bow, where was scant room for Bale and himself, saw a large shape loom before him. Involuntarily he uttered a warning cry, O'Sullivan echoed it, the men tried to hold the boat. In doing this, however, one man was quicker than the other, the boat turned broadside on to her former course, and before the cry was well off O'Sullivan Og's lips, it swept violently athwart a cable hauled taut by the weight of a vessel straining to the flow of the tide. In a twinkling the boat careened, throwing its occupants into the water.

Colonel John and Bale were nearest to the hawser, and managed, suddenly as the thing happened, to seize it and cling to it. But the first wave washed over them, blinding them and choking them; and, warned by this, they worked themselves desperately along the rope until their shoulders were clear of the water and they could twist a leg over their slender support.

That effected, they could spit out the water, breathe again, and look about them. They shouted for help once, twice, thrice, thinking that some on the great s.h.i.+p looming dim and distant to sh.o.r.eward of them must hear. But their shouts were merged in the wail of despair, of shrieks and cries that floated away into the mist. The boat, travelling with the last of the tide, had struck the cable with force, and was already drifting a gunshot away. Whether any saved themselves on it, the two clinging to the hawser could not see.

Bale, s.h.i.+vering and scared, would have shouted again, but Colonel John stayed him. ”G.o.d rest their souls!” he said solemnly. ”The men aboard can do nothing. By the time they'll have lowered a boat it will be done with these.”

”They can take us aboard,” Bale said.

”Ay, if we want to go to Cadiz gaol,” Colonel John answered slowly. He was peering keenly towards the land.

”But what can we do, your honour?” Bale asked with a s.h.i.+ver.

”Swim ash.o.r.e.”

”G.o.d forbid!”

”But you can swim?”

”Not that far. Not near that far, G.o.d knows!” Bale repeated with emphasis, his teeth chattering. ”I'll go down like a stone.”

”Cadiz gaol! Cadiz gaol!” Colonel John muttered. ”Isn't it worth a swim to escape that?”

”Ay, ay, but----”

”Do you see that oar drifting? In a twinkling it will be out of reach.

Off with your boots, man, off with your clothes, and to it! That oar is freedom! The tide is with us still, or it would not be moving that way.

But let the tide turn and we cannot do it.”

”It's too far!”