Volume II Part 98 (1/2)

Once, as the pace flagged, Over his shoulder he turned his great scarred face And snarled, with a trickle of blood on his coa.r.s.e lips, ”Hard!”-- And blood and fire ran through my veins again, For half a minute more.

Yet we fell back.

Our course was crooked now. And suddenly A grim black speck began to grow behind us, Grow like the threat of death upon old age.

Then, thickening, blackening, sharpening, foaming, swept Up the bright line of bubbles in our wake, That armoured wherry, with its long twelve oars All well together now.

”Too late,” gasped Ben, His ash-grey face uplifted to the moon, One quivering hand upon the thwart behind him, A moment. Then he bowed over his knees Coughing. ”But we'll delay them. We'll be drunk, And hold the catch-polls up!”

We drifted down Before them, broadside on. They sheered aside.

Then, feigning a clumsy stroke, Ben drove our craft As they drew level, right in among their blades.

There was a shout, an oath. They thrust us off; And then we swung our nose against their bows And pulled them round with every well-meant stroke.

A full half minute, ere they won quite free, Cursing us for a pair of drunken fools.

We drifted down behind them.

”There's no doubt,”

Said Ben, ”the headsman waits behind all this For Raleigh. This is a play to cheat the soul Of England, teach the people to applaud The red fifth act.”

Without another word we drifted down For centuries it seemed, until we came To Greenwich.

Then up the long white burnished reach there crept Like little sooty clouds the two black boats To meet us.

”He is in the trap,” said Ben, ”And does not know it yet. See, where he sits By Stukeley as by a friend.”

Long after this, We heard how Raleigh, simply as a child, Seeing the tide would never serve him now, And they must turn, had taken from his neck Some trinkets that he wore. ”Keep them,” he said To Stukeley, ”in remembrance of this night.”

He had no doubts of Stukeley when he saw The wherry close beside them. He but wrapped His cloak a little closer round his face.

Our boat rocked in their wash when Stukeley dropped The mask. We saw him give the sign, and heard His high-pitched quavering voice--”IN THE KING'S NAME!”

Raleigh rose to his feet. ”I am under arrest?”

He said, like a dazed man.

And Stukeley laughed.

Then, as he bore himself to the grim end, All doubt being over, the old sea-king stood Among those glittering points, a king indeed.

The black boats rocked. We heard his level voice, ”_Sir Lewis, these actions never will turn out To your good credit._” Across the moonlit Thames It rang contemptuously, cold as cold steel, And pa.s.sionless as the judgment that ends all.

Some three months later, Raleigh's widow came To lodge a se'nnight at the Mermaid Inn.

His house in Bread Street was no more her own, But in the hands of Stukeley, who had reaped A pretty harvest ...

She kept close to her room, and that same night, Being ill and with some fever, sent her maid To fetch the apothecary from Friday Street, Old ”Galen” as the Mermaid christened him.

At that same moment, as the maid went out, Stukeley came in. He met her at the door; And, chucking her under the chin, gave her a letter.

”Take this up to your mistress. It concerns Her property,” he said. ”Say that I wait, And would be glad to speak with her.”

The wench Looked pertly in his face, and tripped upstairs.

I scarce could trust my hands.

”Sir Lewis,” I said, ”This is no time to trouble her. She is ill.”

”Let her decide,” he answered, with a sneer.

Before I found another word to say The maid tripped down again. I scarce believed My senses, when she beckoned him up the stair.

Shaking from head to foot, I blocked the way.

”Property!” Could the crux of mine and thine Bring widow and murderer into one small room?

”Sir Lewis,” I said, ”she is ill. It is not right!

She never would consent.”

He sneered again, ”You are her doctor? Out of the way, old fool!

She has decided!”

”Go,” I said to the maid, ”Fetch the apothecary. Let it rest With him!”