Joan, The Curate/Chapter 18
It was useless to pursue the smugglers any longer, and equally useless to make any plans for seizing them on land on their way back to the sloop. As they had friends all along the coast, it was very certain that they would make no attempt to re-embark from the beach at Hastings, but would reach the ship from some other point of the shore.
All that Tregenna could do, therefore, was to seize the boat they had left upon the beach, and then to return to the cutter. Here he learnt that the sloop had sailed away under cover of the mist, so that there was nothing for it but to take their chance of falling in with her crew on their way back to her.
When night came on, therefore, a couple of boats, with Tregenna in one of them, left the cutter and cruised about, the one on the Hastings side, the other in the direction of the marshes.
Tregenna was in the former boat; but it had not got very far when one of the men at the oars raised his head, as if listening intently.
"Did you hear that, sir?" asked he, in a low voice.
"What? I heard nothing."
The man rested on his oar, and his example was followed by the others. There was a moment of dead silence, no sounds reaching their straining ears but the cry of a sea-bird and the soft plash of the calm water as it lapped the sides of the boat. It was a beautiful night, the sea as smooth as a lake, and the moon, which was almost at the full, making a bright path of silvery yellow on the still water. There was nothing to tell of early winter save for a touch of frost in the air, and a thin line of November fog along the shore.
Suddenly there rang out in the keen night air the sharp report of a pistol, followed by a cry, which sounded shrill in the distance.
"Turn," said Tregenna, "and row hard for the other boat."
As they went, pulling with all their strength, they heard nothing more for some time. It was not until they had come in sight of their second boat that they perceived that a stern chase was in progress.
Well out to sea, and rowing out at a rapid rate, was a long, low craft which was painted a light color, and which it was easy to guess was the property of the "free-traders." It was much longer than either of the pursuing craft, lightly built, and well manned. So that singly one of the cutter's boats and its small crew would have had little chance with it, had the two come to close quarters.
Nevertheless, the revenue-men were giving chase with a will, and at sight of their comrades on the way to join them they gave forth a cheer which rang out over the water, putting spirit into the heart of their comrades, and vigor into their strokes.
As the answering cheer came forth from the throats of Tregenna and his crew, a shout of hoarse, mocking laughter, mingled with oaths and foul threats, came in a volley from the smugglers' craft; and the next moment, finding that the two opposing boats were gaining on her, she swung round and waited for them to come up with her.
Tregenna's boat was now the nearer of the two. In the moonlight the lieutenant saw a face, coarse, evil, with eyes aflame, peering over the side of the smuggler's craft from under one of the knitted caps the most of them wore: it was that of Ben the Blast. The next moment the rascal raised his right arm, and pointed a pistol at him.
The rest of the smugglers were all crouching, like Ben, round the sides of the boat. Suddenly there sprang up above their heads the slighter, more lithe figure, in open jacket and loose shirt-collar, which Tregenna had so much reason to remember. Even at that moment of excitement, the thought that this was a woman who stood exposed to his own fire and that of his men made Tregenna feel for a moment sick and faint. Before he had recovered from the effects of his recognition of Ann Price in the guise of "Jem Bax," he saw her strike a violent blow at Ben's right arm: and the upraised pistol dropped into the water.
Then there came a cry from the crew of the second cutter's boat; in the last few moments they had gained on their comrades, and it was they who first came up with the smugglers.
Over Tregenna there had suddenly come a frightful sense of a new and sickening danger, that of killing a woman in open fight. Unsexed creature as she had seemed, when he had heard her cursing and uttering threats against him at the farmhouse, he could not but remember, at this fearful moment, how she had conversed with him in the garden at Hurst Court, with all the sweet tones and soft looks, the pleading words and winning ways, of a very woman.
The feeling was paralyzing; it went near to making a coward of him. Then, just as his boat was drawing in its turn alongside that of the smugglers, he saw one of his own men, from the other boat, in actual conflict with "Jem."
He saw the gleam of knives; he saw the two boats rocking like cradles on the surface of the water. Then it was "Jem" who uttered a cry; the red blood gushed forth over the white shirt she wore, and the next moment she staggered, and fell, not back into her comrades' boat but into that of the revenue-men.
At that moment Tregenna's attention was recalled to his own situation by his receiving a blow on the breast from a weapon in the hands of one of the smugglers. The attack recalled him to himself, roused again the savage instinct which is the best for a man to feel at such a time, and nerved his arm to retaliation.
He saw no more of "Jem;" he was able, therefore, in the excitement of the fight, to forget her. And, although the smuggler's boat presently succeeded in sheering off, after having inflicted some damage on their opponents, it was with more than one of their number hurt and disabled that they made off in the direction of the sloop.
Tregenna would have followed; but to the signals he made to his second boat to accompany him, the crew replied that they were unable to do so. He had, therefore, to be content with the damage he had undoubtedly inflicted upon the "free-traders," and to return to the cutter, which he reached some minutes before the second boat did.
When this came up, in its turn, the boatswain, who was in charge of it, saluted, in some triumph, as he drew alongside.
Tregenna was looking over the side, anxious to learn whether his men had suffered much.
"Sir," called out the boatswain, cheerily, "I've good news for you!"
"Well, and what is it?" asked the lieutenant, as he scanned, with some bewilderment, a sort of heap which lay in the bows of the little boat.
"Oons, sir, we've brought a prisoner along," answered the boatswain, in a ringing voice. "And wounded beside. And 'tis none other than Jem Bax, that's long been known as the biggest rascal of the lot!"
Instead of receiving this intelligence with the delight and congratulations which the hero of the capture evidently expected, Tregenna uttered a sound which was very like a groan, and exclaimed, in a most lugubrious voice—
"The devil you have!"
The boatswain, startled and disappointed, looked at his captain in astonishment.
"Plague on't, sir, but I thought I'd done the smartest night's work ever fell to my lot!" cried he.
"Take him back!" roared Tregenna, as soon as he caught the first sight of the white face he had so much reason to remember.
The boatswain had uncovered the heap in the bows, exposing to view the prostrate form of "Jem Bax," who lay, with closed eyes, and with blood-stains on face and breast, limp, motionless, helpless, without giving a sign of life.
Tregenna's face and voice changed at the sight.
"Well, haul him up," said he, with a sudden change to anxiety, as the thought struck him that Ann was perhaps already dead. "We'll see what we can do for the fellow!"
None of the others had, apparently, the least suspicion that "Jem Bax" was a woman; and Tregenna intended to keep the secret to himself if he could, and to get rid of her as fast as possible.
There was something so ridiculous in having caught such a prisoner that he would not for worlds have had the truth suspected.
They raised the still motionless body to the level of the cutter's deck, and Tregenna himself knelt down to examine the injuries of the seemingly unconscious prisoner. The men would have taken her below; but Tregenna, whose great anxiety was, after seeing to her wounds, to get rid of her as quickly as he could, without discovery of her sex, desired them to leave her where she lay, at any rate for the time, and threw his own cloak over her, while he sought the wound which had reduced her to this condition.
He could find nothing but a superficial cut near the collar-bone, which had indeed bled freely, but scarcely to such an extent, to judge by appearances, as to have produced insensibility. Further examination disclosed a large bruise on the upper part of the right arm; but this seemed to be the full extent of her injuries.
It was not unnatural that Tregenna, knowing the artful character of the woman, should come to the conclusion that she was shamming sick to some extent, and that her injuries were not alone the cause of this excessive prostration.
He dismissed his men, therefore, and performed for her the same office that had fallen to him before, by producing his flask of aqua vitæ, and holding it to her lips.
He did not, however, on this occasion, bestow so much patience or so much tenderness upon her as he had done before. As soon as the men had retired far enough for him not to risk being overheard, he said in her ear—
"Come, Jem, 'tis vastly well done, but 'tis wasted on me this time!"
Very little to his surprise, she opened her eyes immediately, and said, but in a faint husky voice—
"I did but wait till I could speak with you alone, sir. I am dying—I am bleeding within—I know it, I feel it—But I care not. So I die in your arms, or, at least, with you by me, I care naught: I shall die happy!"
As she spoke, her great, weird gray eyes unnaturally large in appearance through the drawn expression of her features and the utter absence of color from her cheeks and lips, were fixed intently upon his face.
Although he reproached himself for the suspicion, Tregenna did at first ask himself whether this speech, moving as it was meant to be, were not part of the deception she had intended throughout to play upon him. But before he could utter a word in answer, she said, looking at him reproachfully the while—
"You doubt me, sir; I can see it in your face! But, tell me, did I not stay the hand of Ben the Blast, when he would have shot you down? Did you not see how I caused his pistol to fall into the water? Wherefore should I have acted so, I, who can fight as well as I can love, but for some feeling for you which was not that of an enemy.
"'Tis true you saved me from that bullet, and I am grateful, Ann," said Tregenna. "And I will hope you think too gravely of your own case, and that I may soon be able to send you back on shore. Drink this, drink it, and it will, I hope, put some life into you, some warmth, as it did before!"
The reminder brought a tinge of color to Ann's white face.
"Raise my head with your arm then, sir," said she, "and I will drink, since 'tis you who bid me!"
She gave him another long look, passionate, earnest, full of a strange, mysterious pain. Then, having sipped the cordial, she drew a long breath, as if its potency were too great for her in her weakened state, and whispered—
"I have something to ask you, sir, before—I—die!" Her voice failed her on the last words, and he had to wait a little before she gained strength enough to go on. "Will you promise that, when the breath has gone out of my body, you will let me lie here, in the open air, and with your cloak over me, till the morning? Nay, sure, sir," she went on feebly, as Tregenna would have spoken, "you can't refuse me so small a boon!"
She clutched at his hand as she spoke, and held it with a convulsive grip, as he answered her.
"You shall stay here, if you please," said he. "But do not give way. You are young, and strong: you will live yet, I doubt not. I can see no wound upon you that should lead to your death!"
"None the less," said she, as she tried to shake her head, "I shall die. And I am glad of it, since my body, in death, shall lie where I would have it lie, in Heaven's sweet air, and on your ship, yours." She pronounced the last word with inexpressible tenderness, and turned upon him, as she spoke, a look so moving, so piercing in its wistfulness, that the tears sprang to Tregenna's eyes.
"Kiss me," said she quickly. "Kiss me, once, kiss me twice, and thrice—before I die!"
As she uttered these words, in a hoarse and broken voice, she strove to raise herself, and lifted her white and eager face to his.
He obeyed her, kissing her three times, not with the feeling that it was a dying woman whose lips touched his, but with a horrible, uncanny sense of contact with some being that was not honest flesh and blood. It seemed to him that her dry lips burned, seared his, as if he had been touched by red-hot coals.
It was with difficulty that he repressed a shudder as she let him go. She fixed upon him her dark gray eyes, to which the black lines sunk beneath gave a strange brilliancy; then suddenly her head fell forward upon his breast and she lay limp and motionless in his arms.
He laid her down, looked long at the white face, fixed and ghastly in the moonlight. Then he felt himself seized once more with that sick horror which had taken possession of him once before that evening. As he turned his head away, the boatswain came up, and looked curiously down at the prostrate body.
"Why, sir, he's dead!" cried he.
Tregenna nodded.
"Leave—him lying there—till morning!" stammered he.
And as he spoke, he replaced his cloak, as he had promised Ann that he would do, upon her quiet limbs.
It was a moment of intense horror for him: although the passion the woman had felt, or professed to feel for him had left him almost cold, it was impossible not to be moved by the sight of that form, which he had seen so full of life and fire and energy, cold and still at his feet.
He could not shake off the chilly feeling of having held converse with a creature of weird and supernatural attributes. Even when he retired to rest, leaving a sailor to watch by the corpse till morning, the thought of the woman and her strange end haunted him, would not let him rest.
It was long before he slept, and his slumber was disturbed by many an uneasy dream.
When he awoke, in the early morning light, there was a good deal of commotion on deck. On going to see what was the matter, he found that the body of Ann Price, alias "Jem Bax," had disappeared.
At first the man who had been left in the position of watcher professed to know nothing about the strange disappearance. But, upon being questioned with some shrewdness by Tregenna, he confessed that a small boat had come alongside about two hours before daybreak, with a couple of men whom he did not know, who asked what had become of "Jem."
With a sailor's superstition, he had been only too glad to tell them of what had happened, and to let them carry away the body in their boat, still covered with Tregenna's cloak.
The last he had seen of them was that, in the gray dawn, they had reached the shore, and landed their silent burden with difficulty on the beach, when the tide was out and the rocks lay bare and cold in the morning mist.