The Gentleman

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"In with you, sir!" urged the old man, ablaze. "Bolt and bar."

"O Piper!" whimpering.

"Nelson, sir!"

The word went home. The boy shot in, and slammed the door. All again
was darkness, and Blob breathing heavily at his side.

"I'm through! I'm through!" came a triumphant yell.

Kit's eye was at a crack.

The Parson had broken away from the rout, and was making for the
hills, the despatch-bag flopping in his back.

The Gentleman, leading the charge at the cottage, turned.

"_Abattez moi eel homme la!_" he sang.

A Grenadier dropped to his knee.

Outside the door a musket cracked.

The Grenadier leapt to his feet, whirled round with floating tails,
bowed to his executioner in absurdest doll-fashion, and subsided
languidly into death.

The Parson was away, the Gentleman after him with sleuth-hound
strides.

The bunch of Grenadiers stormed on for the cottage.

Kit shot the bolts.

He was banging the door of life on that maimed old man, and he would
as soon have slammed the gate of heaven in his mother's face.

"Good-bye, _dear_ old Piper!" he whispered.

"Good-bye, sir," cheerily. "And if I might make so bold my sarvice to
Lard Nelson--Ralph Piper, old _Agamemnon_."

There was silence: then the patter of feet and deep breathing of men
racing to kill.

Kit could see the back of the old man's head on a level with his eye,
and just beyond, growing hugely on his gaze, the face of the leading
Grenadier, livid beneath his bearskin.

Kit shut his eyes as he rammed the last bolt home. Close to his ear,
he heard a voice, low as the sea and as deep. It was humming

Soldiers of Christ arise.

That too ceased.

Old Faithful was spitting on his hands.

CHAPTER LXXI

ON THE SHINGLE-BANK

A crash and grunt covered the noise of the front door opening.

Kit peeped out. The way was clear.

"Now, Blob! for your life."

Out the boys sped.

How still it was on this side after the other!

There was a fury of fighting in the distance and a dreadful smothered
worry against the back door; here a tranquil sward, trees bowing, and
the shingle-bank a roan breast-work against a background of silver.

"Run quietly, boy! On your toes like me. You run like a walrus."

"Tidn't me," gasped Blob. "It's ma legs. They keep on a-creakin."

Swiftly they fled across the grass.

Was there anybody at the lugger?--were they free?

The boy was sick with hope.

Behind him he could hear far yells and the occasional clash of steel.
Kit guessed what had happened. The Parson, wary old man of war, his
ruse successful, the enemy drawn off, had flung back into the fight.

So far his plan had worked to a miracle.

The boy recalled Piper's last words.

His sarvice to Lard Nelson!

Piper never doubted then. Piper had been sure.

And Piper was right. The Lord was on their side. He felt it, and his
spirit began to sing.

Then the song died, and his soul with it.

He could hear voices behind the shingle-bank. A double-sentry at the
least had been left over the lugger.

Well, they must go through with it now.

"Knife ready?" he croaked.

"Ye'."

The grass was growing sparse about them. He began to hear his feet. So
did the men beyond the bank. There was the click of a cocking musket.
The fellow was ready: the fellow would pot them at twenty yards as
they came over the crest.

Thought was lost in lightning action.

"Hola, l'ami!" he yelled.

"_Qui vive?_" came the unseen voice.

"Ami! a moi!"

Feet crashed up the shingle. As he topped the crest, a Grenadier, all
eyes and bayonet and bristling chin, was plunging up the steep,
another at his heels. The first flashed his eyes up in the boy's.

"_Sapristi!_" he cried, and tried to come down to the ready. The
shingle roared away beneath his feet. Back he slithered. And as he did
so, Kit launched down on him.

"_Sacre nom!_" the fellow screamed, and toppled back on the
bayonet of his mate.

Kit ran over his falling body into the arms of the other.

"Take the man behind!" he yelled back.

Arms wound about him: a stertorous breathing was at his ear: for a
moment the two rocked, then fell.

The boy was buried alive. A stifling carcase blotted out the sun. His
arms were pinioned, but his hands remained free.

Short-handling his dirk, he turned it in.

"_Assassin!_" muttered the man, in his ear.

Kit pressed and slowly pressed. The man writhed and tried to rise. The
boy's lithe young arms, though they could not squeeze to death, could
hold; and hold they did. The man saw it, ceased to struggle, and
hugged.

Thank God the boy had the under-grip. His arms protected him. Else he
must have burst.

A groan was squeezed out of him.

"_Quittez donc!_" in his ear.

"Jamais," faintly.

He pressed and pressed. The man hugged and hugged. One must give.
Which should it be? Not he, not he, not he, though he fainted. Piper
had been _sure_.

A warm gush spouted out upon his fingers, and trickled down his fore-
arm.

It was horrible. He felt it to be murder, not war. Yet that python-
embrace was squeezing the heart out of his mouth.

Great heavens!--was the man made of iron?--would he never have enough?

Then he felt a prick in his own flesh. Perforce he stayed his hand.

Well, he had done his best. And even at that moment, his brain
swimming to a death-swoon, his humour flashed out of the darkness to
his succour.

If that didn't stop the chap, hang it! he deserved victory.

But it did.

Gently, very gently, the arms relaxed. He could feel the man fading
away and away in his embrace. All that power and stress of life was
pouring out into infinity. The man was dying at his ear. Lying his
length upon the boy, he shuddered from head to heel.

"_Marie_," he sighed.

There was a last ripple of life, and the boy knew he was holding
earth.

He wriggled out into the light with throbbing temples.

His hand and shirt-cuff caught his eye. He started back. They followed
him. He tried to fling his hand away. It would not be flung. He
stared, breathing like a frightened horse.

His jaw dropping, he looked at his handiwork.

The fellow was lying on his face, long legs wide. But for the hilt of
the dirk sticking out of his loins, he looked much as other men. Yet--
he was not. Think! A minute ago--and now! How wonderful it all was,
and how terrible! The mystery of it made chaos in his brain.

He was frightened at himself, even more than at the dead man, or his
deed.

Leaning back on his hands, the man he had killed at his feet, those
instant questions which oppress us all in the rare moments when we
stand still and are compelled by the shock of circumstance to look
inward on ourselves, drummed at his brain.

What was he?--where was he?--why was he?

He staggered to his feet, pressing his hands to his eyes, to try to
recollect his meaning.

He failed, only recalling his mission of the moment.

Shutting his eyes, he grasped the dirk.

"Awful sorry," he whispered hoarsely. "I must," and plucked it forth
with a shudder.

Then he looked up.

The first Grenadier lay spread-eagled on the slope above him.

Blob was crawling out from beneath him, his pink muzzle thrust up with
an air of grave and innocent amazement.

Kit pointed a finger.

"Ha! ha! you do look funny!" he laughed madly. "You're like one of
Magic's puppies poking out to have a first peep at the world."

"Oi loike killin better'n bein kill'd," Blob announced solemnly, and
crept out on hands and knees, a tip of pink tongue travelling about
his lips. Then he turned to his dead.

Kit wound up again.

"Never mind about him," he said, staggering to his feet. "He'll keep.
This way. Bring his musket along. Quick!"

He picked up the musket of his own dead, and swayed blindly down
towards the lugger.

Blob followed at first reluctantly. Then some memory amused him, and
he began to brim slow mirth.

"Er says--'Dear! dear!' and Oi says--'Theer! theer!' and plops it in,
and plops it in."

Still adrift on the sea of his emotions, Kit paid no heed.

He was swimming down the shingle-bank, aware of nothing but the tip of
his nose and vague bad dreams at the back of his heart.

The lugger was lying on the steep of the shingle, poised as though for
launching.

The swarthy jib was bellying seaward. She was yearning for the water.

Kit rallied.

The slope was with them; the wind was with them; the very boat was
with them. And the tide, running in with a splash, already flopped
about her keel.

How soon would she float?

Two minutes might do it--or twenty.

CHAPTER LXXII

THE RACE FOR THE LUGGER

I

There was not a moment to be lost.

"Throw your musket aboard her!" cried Kit, bringing up against the
lugger. "Now put your shoulder to and heave with a will! heave!"

They might as well have tried to move a mountain. Yet even as the boy
strained, a wave shot up and sluiced his feet. And how that cold clasp
warmed his heart!

The tide was tumbling in, the Lord God thrusting it. A minute, a
little minute, and they would be away.

"Aboard her, Blob!" he panted. "That's right, clumsy! Noisy does it!
Now chuck every single thing you can lay hands on, overboard--except
the muskets, idiot!"

Fiercely the boys set to work. Kits and cans, ballast and blocks,
spare spars and tackle, higgledy-piggledy overboard they went, some on
the shingle, some splashing into the tide, to be snatched and tumbled
and ducked.

As yet they were not discovered. Kit working madly in the belly of the
boat could see nothing; but afar he could hear the Parson's terrible
roar, and Knapp's crisp,

"_Ow's that-a-tat, ow's that?_"

Somehow, only the Lord knew how, those two inspired warriors still
kept the ring.

It was great, but it could not last. The end must come, and it must
come soon.

Anxiously the boy peeped over the side. The tide seemed to mock them.
With what a swoop it rushed to their rescue, and with what a scream of
derision it withdrew again! Kit compared it unconsciously to the to
and fro of the emotions in his heart, now surging him heaven-high, now
leaving him stranded.

Then he spied a greased bat for launching lying on the slope. In a
trice he was overboard, had seized it, and racing down the streaming
shingle as a wave withdrew, thrust the bat beneath the keel. The wave
curled, stemmed by the advancing water, and swept about him to the
knee.

As it clasped the lugger, a puff of wind leapt from the land, and
skirmished across the sea.

The jib filled to it, and strained seaward.

Was he wrong?--or did she stir and tremble, like a girl to her lover?

How to help her?

If they could hoist the main-sail!

He was back over the side in a moment.

The boat was clean-swept now of everything but the muskets and a mess
of shingle for ballast at the bottom. The anchor had gone over the
stern and trailed on the slope. Even Blob had disappeared.

Kit pushed at the boom to thrust it over.

"Blob! Blob! where are you?"

"Here Oi be!" panted a voice forward.

Kit turned to see Blob, his shoulders rounded, and arms taut, heaving
at the main-mast.

"She wun't budge!" he cried, his face crimson with honest effort.
"Seems she's grow'd in loike."

"Fool!" he cried. "Lend a hand with the boom here! Shove, boy, shove!
--Now on to the main-brace! No, fool, no!--Here--on to this! Now all
together--heave! heave! heave!"

The great sail rose, groaning terribly.

Heaven send the smugglers hadn't heard!

But they had.

II

So much a far scream told them.

"We're seen!" panted Kit. "Now whistle for the wind, my boy, and hand
me that musket."

The water was slopping all about the lugger. Empty as a barrel she
began to rock to the rocking of the tide. A puff would launch her.

The boy glanced seaward.

Over there was that white glimmer, clearer now. It was like the arm of
a drowning woman flinging up for help. The glimpse of it inspired the
boy.

"I'm coming, sir," he called across the waters. "One more fight
first."

He hitched his belt. Now he had no doubt of the issue. Here his
friend, the sea, was beside him, whispering to him, loving him,
taunting him. She was his hope, his heart, his strength. And for the
first time it flashed upon the lad what the fight was really for. It
was for her, the World's Woman. She went to the Victor, and she was on
his side: for he was England, and England had won her first, and, true
woman that she was, she clove to her first conqueror.

III

They were coming.

He thrilled to them.

"Now, Blob! you take that side. I'll take this. Pick off a man as he
comes over the crest. Then out knives, and do your best!"

He leapt on to the taffrail, balancing by the mizzen. Tiptoeing so, he
could just see over the crest of the shingle-bank.

And he was never to forget the sight he then saw.

Towards him across the greensward, a torrent of men streamed like a
tide-race, silent all.

A huge Grenadier led them. Behind in a bunch came the smugglers, Fat
George shambling along in the midst with a fury of arm-work. As his
swifter comrades passed him, he clutched at them covetously.

"_Ands off!_" screamed a lanky lad.

The fat man's knife flashed. The lad fell.

The others raced on. What was it to them?

As they came, they tossed up tormented faces. Their eyes were peep-
holes. Through them he stared into the bottomless pit, and there
beheld things not meant for human vision.

His eyes passed with relief to the wholesome ugliness of the little
Englishman pounding at the smugglers' heels.

Knapp had dropped his drumsticks, and was limping along now naked-
fisted. His eyes were shut, and his running drawers red in patches as
his tunic. He was merry no more, his head on one shoulder, labouring
painfully in his stride. It was clear that he was hard-hit, and just
as clear that he meant going through to the finish.

Behind him three Grenadiers, one behind the other, strung out across
the green. The Parson coursed the last of them; the Gentleman coursed
the Parson.

They were all running swiftly, but the last two were the swiftest.

The Parson was gaining on the Grenadier, and the Gentleman on the
Parson.

It was such a race as Kit had never seen before.

Which would reach his man first?

On that, it seemed to his prophetic vision, hung all.

He tried to yell,

"Come on, sir!"

But his voice stuck as in a nightmare, and seemed to suffocate him.

A blade soared and swooped.

"_One!_" came the Parson's voice, clear across the green, as he
took the falling man in his stride.

The Gentleman, hard at his heels, tripped over the dead man.

Collected as always, he snatched the fellow's musket, and sprawling on
his face, fired at the Parson's back.

A smuggler fell.

"_Thank ye!_" gasped the Parson. "_Two!_" as the second
Grenadier went down.

Then the flight of men, pursuer and pursued, dipped out of sight; but
Kit could hear the stampede of feet behind the bank racing towards
him, then a hiss and stumbling fall.

"_Three!_" panted the Parson's voice, and in a dying roar,
"_Mind yourselves, boys! They're on you_."

IV

"Ready, Blob!"

The boy was white as steel.

He had no body. He was not afraid.

Nelson was calling him, and he should not call in vain.

Over the crest stormed the leading Grenadier, monstrous-seeming
against the sky.

Kit fired at the man's cross-belts.

Down the shingle the fellow sprawled, whether dead or alive, wounded
or whole, Kit knew not till he splashed into the water, and lay still
in the flop of the tide.

Behind him came the smugglers.

As they topped the crest a star hung above their heads, then fell,
flashing.

"_Four--and--five!_" came the Parson's voice.

"He's on us!" screamed Dingy Joe. "Sword and all!"

They broke away to right and left along the ridge like a covey of
partridges when the hawk swoops.

Anything to get away from that avenging voice roaring out of a
whirlwind of lightnings!

"After em, Knapp!"

Slung along by his own impetus, the Parson hurled down the steep.

"Warm work!" he panted, grinning luridly at the boy, and he brought up
with a bang against the lugger.

As he shocked against the boat, the great tan sail filled. Shock and
wind together gave the necessary impulse. The lugger, light as a
bubble, swayed, slithered, crunched down the shingle, felt the greased
bat, and took the water with a dip and lovely curtsey.

"We're through!" roared the Parson, sprawling upon the side.

CHAPTER LXXIII

NOBLESSE OBLIGE

I

The anchor was trailing down the shingle-bank after them.

The Gentleman had picked it up, and came walking down the slope,
leaning back a little as he came.

He was smiling the brave man's wistful smile.

He had lost and he knew it.

Blob snatched a musket and aimed at his waistcoat.

The Parson struck up the barrel.

"Your friends are safe, sir," he called, hoarse and quiet. "I've burnt
the despatches."

"They don't deserve to be, but thank you all the same," replied the
other as quiet.

He let the anchor go. It fell with a splash into the water.

"I salute a gallant soldier, a gallant sailor, and my friend Monsieur
Moon-calf!" he said, and stood, the water to his ankles, and hilt to
his lips.

II

On the ridge the man-pack was at the worry.

Suddenly a face gleamed up through the thick of them.

"_Sir!_" screamed a voice.

The Parson started round.

"Knapp!" he cried, with sickening face. "Put back!"

A hand was on his shoulder. It was Kit.

The boy did not speak; he did not weep; he pointed seaward to where a
topsail flashed white on the horizon.

The Parson looked at the green waters swinging by.

"And I can't swim!" he groaned. "God forgive me!"

An inspiration seized him.

He leapt on to the taffrail.

"Sir," he shouted, pointing, "that's a brave man!"

The Gentleman turned and saw the bloody business going on behind him.

"I am the servant of the brave," he cried, and stormed back.

The Parson sat down, and broke into tears.

BOOK IV

_NELSON_

I

H.M.S. _MEDUSA_

CHAPTER LXXIX

NATURE, THE COMFORTER

I

The crash of the waves on the shingle grew faint behind.

The lugger began to prattle, as she took the water bobbingly. Overhead
the sky was blue, with wisps of snow. Kit hugged the tiller, shivering in
spasms.

On his right Beachy Head, rusty of hide, waded white-footed into the
deep. Before him opened the sea, a plain of palest blue, blurred with
wind and patched here and there with silver. Eastward a road of twinkling
light ran across the water. Pevensey Levels lay behind him, brown beyond
the shingle. At back of them a range of dim hills rose and launched into
the sea; and Northward a vague gloom in the sky told of man's great
camping-place by the Thames.

The great sea lolled about the boy, breathing in sleep.

How soothing was the slow large life of the waters after the hubbub and
horror of those last few minutes, already so remote!

Above him a kittiwake dreamed. The boy let himself drift, his mind
rocking to the rock of the sea.

The waters swung by, singing to themselves. They poured peace upon his
troubled spirit. Their strong life entered into his, a resistless tide.
Feebly he tried to stay it. He wanted to go back to his distress, to
dwell upon it, to worry it, as a young dog frets to go back to the kill.

Nature, the Comforter, would have none of it. She loved her ailing little
one over well to let him have his way. She had him in her arms, and would
not let him go. She sang in his ear; she rocked his spirit to sleep. The
floodgates were open; and that tide of healing stole in upon his being.
In his mind it made religious music. He could not resist it. Half
reluctant he let himself drift on those sweet waters.

The sea roamed blindly by. He watched her as a sick child watches his
mother. Sense was alive; self was dead. His body was the eye of his soul,
the avenue of spirit. It had no life of its own to cloud his clear
vision.

The tide of healing swept forward, smoothing the rough surfaces, washing
away the jagged edges of pain. As it flowed on, that squabble on the
beach a few minutes back receded, ultimately to be lost to view. It had
been drowned by the incoming waters.

He was walking backwards on himself towards the centre that some call
Christ; withdrawing from the Circumference, where the winds of the World
moan always. And in that Centre, always for all men the same, there was
Peace and Love and Life Eternal, as on that Circumference there had been
War and Darkness and Discord.

Lying on the bosom of the mother-deep, watching her breathe, the boy
smiled.

II

The Parson at his side was stroking his calves.

The boy watched him with dreamy eyes.

"Are you hurt, sir?" he asked in a far-away voice.

It came from the depths of no-where. It seemed no longer his. He listened
to it with awe.

"Nothing that matters," replied the Parson. "Thank God for His great
mercies, and my dear lady here."

Lifting his sword, he kissed the hilt.

"She was inspired," he said in reverent whisper. "I never saw the like
and never shall again." He wiped the blade upon his knee-breeches. "Their
beastly hairs stick yet--see!"

The boy heard no word. He sat quite still, his eyes on that twinkling
waste beneath the boom. The sun, which had been shining through mist, now
blazed hot upon his face. He eased the boat away, and the shadow of the
great brown lug fell upon him comfortably.

"It's all very wonderful," he said, his eyes on the musing waters.

"It's a miracle--nothing less," replied the Parson, unslinging the
despatch-bag. "This bag did me yeoman service. Look!" It was slashed to
ribands, the rolled coat within gashed through and through; and as he
shook it a bullet fell out of the folds. "I owe my life to it and Piper's
shooting. The old man dropped a chap dead at two hundred yards as he was
braining me."

The boy woke at last.

"What of him--old Piper?"

"Ah, what?" said the Parson, grey and grave beneath the sweat.

Neither spoke again.

III

Beyond the Boulder Bank the wind freshened. The lugger began to breast
the water merrily, plumping into the swells with a delicious shock,
shooting the water aside in spurts of foam, and ploughing a furrow white
behind her.

The Parson stared about him with startled eyes.

"Good Lord!" he said, breathing deep, as one just awaking to a new and
terrible danger.

Kit looked at him, and was shocked at the change that had come over him.
He could scarcely recognise in this grey-green spectre the roaring
swordsman of the shingle-bank.

"I'm tired," said the Parson suddenly, "very tired."

He flopped forward on his knees.

"My sins have found me out," he moaned. "May mother forgive me!"

His courage had faded with his colour.

Collapsing, he lay like a dead thing in a slop of sand and water at the
bottom of the boat.

Kit heard his voice as in a dream.

The boy was sitting quite still, the smell of the sea in his nostrils,
the wind in his hair, the hiss and flop of the waters in his ears.

The life of the body was coming back to him. The good salt breeze flushed
his veins. The tiller began to pull at his hand. The lugger swung and
curtseyed, graceful as a dancing girl. She was alive. She was careering
over the swells, snatching for her head. She knew her mission, and
revelled in it.

Nelson, Nelson, Nelson! she whispered, hissed, and sang the word.

The boy began to hand her over the seas, as a man hands his lady down a
ball-room. She was so swift so strong: throbbing-full of life. He loved
her, and began to live again.

Blob was sitting cocked up in the bows, pink as ever and as impassive.

At the sight of the boy Kit felt a certain resentment, and, with the
swift self-knowledge peculiar to him, was glad to feel it, for it told
him he was coming round. He wished the boy to collapse alongside the
Parson. Why didn't he, the silly little land-lubber? Kit, the one sailor
aboard, here on his own element, wished to lord it out alone.

"How d'you feel, Blob?" he called, hoping for the best.

"Whoy," said Blob, the breeze in his teeth, "Oi'm that empty Oi can hear
me innuds rollin. Oi could just fancy a loomp o porruk--fatty-loike."

The Parson raised himself.

"Swine," he moaned, "have you no soul?"

He turned on his elbow.

"Can't you take her where it's flatter?" he snarled.

"I like a bit of a bobble myself, sir," answered Kit.

"Calls himself a sailor!" sneered the other, and collapsed again.

IV

The frigate was drawing near, the lily flag of a Vice-Admiral of the
White at her foretop-gallant mast-head.

A tide of delicious tears surged up in the lad's heart as he beheld her.
She was England; she was his own. He possessed her, and was she not
beautiful?

Stately lady, she walked the waters, swaying them, her breasts splendid
in the sunshine. Her head was in the heavens, a stir of snow at her feet.
She was mistress of the seas, and mother of them. And with what noble
mirth she lorded it in this her nursery! The turbulent little folks
swarmed to clutch her skirts as she swept by. She moved among them, their
play-fellow and yet their sovereign lady: here a mocking bow, there a
laughing curtsey; anon a stoop, a swift kiss, and she rose, an armful of
blossom-babies smothering her.

The boy's heart went out to her in a passion of worship.

She was a tall Princess, stone-blind and beautiful, walking to her doom;
and he a boy-knight bucketing across the moor on his pony to save her and
the burthen she bore so preciously in her arms--her little son.

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