Talbot Baines Reed

“ What is your quarrel? and have you no work for your captain, that you thus bring civil war into his castle?”
“By your leave, fair maiden,” said the Englishman, “no man here is my captain. This brave lad is an enemy to my Queen; therefore it is my duty to slay him.”
“If so,” said the maiden, “I too must be slain, for I love not your Queen.”
“But you be no traitor like this—”
Here I whipped out my sword, and we were at it again, ere the maiden, with flashing eyes, could step once more between us.
“Humphrey Dexter!” ”

“ A month later, Ludar and the maiden and I stood on a cliff in Cantire which overlooks the Irish coast. The September sun was dipping wrathfully on the distant Donegal heights, kindling, as he did so, the headlands of Antrim with a crimson glow. Below us, the Atlantic surged heavily and impatiently round the rugged Mull. Opposite—so near, it seemed we might almost shout across—loomed out, sheer from the sea, the huge cliff of Benmore, dwarfing the forelands on either hand, and looking, as we saw it then, anything but the Fair Head which people call it. ”

“ When we had leisure to look at one another and see how we stood, we found we had been playing no child’s play. Ludar was pale, his sleeve was bloody, and his sword broken in two. As for me, drops were trickling through my hair and down my cheek, and I needed no astronomer to tell me the earth turned round. But the Don, when we came to him, was in a worse plight yet. For he lay where he had fallen, white as a marble statue, his eyes closed, his breath coming and going in quick, short gasps. As best we could we tore off his breastplate, and looked to the wound beneath. ”

“ One day, however, he seemed more like a plain man and said: “’Tis time thou wert up, my Hollander. There is thunder in the air, the horizon is big with clouds, the dull sea rustleth with the coming storm, and I smell the wind afar off.”
“Why,” said I, starting up, “Ludar told me but just now the weather was fair and settled, and that the breeze was shifting to the south.”
“I spoke not of the weather,” said he. “Let it be. The thunder may hide beneath a brow, the lightning may flash from out two eyelids, and the storm may break in a man’s breast.” ”

“ I was growing tired of the Invincible Armada, and thought with longing of the snug parlour in the printing house without Temple Bar, where I had sat of old, listening to the music of a certain sweet voice which now seemed all but lost to me in the howling of winds and booming of guns and grinding of Spanish teeth.
Where now was she, and that fair maiden whom Ludar loved? What hope were there of our ever meeting or hearing of one another’s fate? ”

“ The whistling whirlwind fills the night;
Bears each a message to my love,
Whose stony heart I faint to move.”
“’Tis too short,” said the maiden, “we shall be friends, I hope, long enough to hear more of it.”
“Meanwhile, Sir Poet,” said Ludar, who chafed at these civilities, “go forward again, and keep the watch. Call if you spy aught, and keep your eyes well open.”
Fortune favoured us that day, as she had handled us roughly in the days before. The wind held good, and filled our slender canvas. The pilot’s charts deceived not; nor did friend or enemy stand across our path. ”

“ They that had the right and they that had none were mingled in a fray which strewed the water’s edge with corpses. Some flung themselves into the sea after the boats, yelling and cursing till the flash of a sword or the pitiless thud of an oar sent them back into silence. Some, rather than others should go and not they, tore the craft board from board, and fought with the fragments. Some with muskets poured fire on the boats. And some wreaked their vengeance on the haughty Spanish gallant and hurled him from the rock on which he stood into the depths below. ”

“ Above us, the noise of the guns was already lost in the thunder of the waves as they echoed in the cave under the castle rock. It seemed, as we stood there and looked up, that not a foot further could we go. The great angry cliff beetled over our heads, and on its very edge, far above, we might discern against the gloomy sky the dim corner of a buttress.
But it was not here that Ludar meant us to ascend. “Now, my men,” said he, “put your powder in your bonnets and follow me.” ”

“ I remember a vision of Ludar, bloody and gasping, reeling across the deck towards us, fighting his way, foot by foot, with four or five savage devils who followed yelling at his back.
Then for a time all seemed dim and horrible. I knew that we were fighting desperately for our lives; that men fell heavily and with a groan on to the deck; that the maiden stood by us, undaunted; that presently there was a report of a pistol, followed by a hideous shouting and shrieking. After that, all seemed to grow still of a sudden, and Ludar shouted, “Look to Humphrey.” ”

“ Instantly I sprang to my feet and shouted, and called to Ludar to do the same. For a moment it seemed we were unheeded. The light swung once more upwards, and after it the great ship, carrying a swirl of water with it, and throwing off a whirlpool of little eddies, in which our boat spun and shook like a leaf in a torrent. Again we shouted, frantically. And then it seemed the bell ceased tolling, and instead there came a call; after that something sharp struck me on the cheek, and flinging up my hand I caught a cord, and felt the boat’s keel grind sharply against the side of the great ship. ”

“ Scarcely further, on our right, lapped in the lurid water, lay the sweet Isle of Raughlin, ablaze with heather, and resounding with its chorus of sea-birds. A finer scene you could scarce desire. A scene which one day, when the sun is high and the calm water blue, may glisten before you like a vision of heaven; or, on a wild black day of storm, may frown over at you like a prison wall of lost souls; or (as it seemed to-night) , like the strange battlements of a wizard’s castle, which, while you dread, you yet long to enter. ”

“ And as I did so, the load on my heart concerning Ludar grew so heavy, that not even the presence of Jeannette could banish it.
I begged to see the maiden.
’Twas wonderful to see her as she came in, stately and beautiful as ever, betraying only in the pallor of her cheeks the terrible anguish that possessed her.
She came and kissed me like a sister, and then, laying her hand in Jeannette’s, tears came to her eyes as she gave us joy of our happy meeting, after so much peril.
“Maiden,” said I, “we know no happiness while you stand thus desolate. But Ludar lives. ”

“ When at last the cry was raised, I scarcely durst look up, for fear that among them should tower the form of Ludar. But when I lifted my eyes and saw only six hang-dog men, who held their hands to their ears to keep out the yelling of the mob, and shrunk closer to their guards to save them from a worse fate than the hangman’s, the beating of my heart eased. For he was not amongst them. So joyful was I that I could even lend my voice for a while to the general cry, and, when night fell, bring my torch to the flaming barrels that blazed on Finsbury Fields. ”

“ The deck was ablaze with pennons and scutcheons. Somewhere near, the noise of trumpets rose above the roar of the waves. The sun, as it struggled through the mist, flashed on the brass of guns, and the jewels of sword-hilts. The poop behind rose like a stately house, illumined with its swinging lanthorns. Now and again there flitted past me a long-robed priest, to whom all bowed, and after him boys with swaying censers. There was a neighing of horses amidships, and a tolling of bells in the forecastle. The great bellying sails glittered with painted dragons and eagles and sun-bursts. ”

“ As soon as ever it was dark, Ludar and I and some dozen others were ordered over the stern in baskets to patch up the holes made by the English shot, and repair the insulted gilding of his Majesty of Spain. No light work it was; suspended betwixt wind and water, groping with lanthorns at our work, rearing and plunging with the waves, and every now and then hearing the boom of a gun behind, which made us wince and wonder whose head was wanted next. ”

“ The great anchors of the Rata were swung in readiness over the prow, and a score of men stood by to pay out the cable. Then, as we strained our eyes eagerly ahead, we could see the tall masts of the Duke’s ship, and of all the ships betwixt him and us, suddenly swing round into the wind’s eye. There was a great flapping of canvas, a rattle of chains, and a plunging of anchors, and then, as if by magic, the great Armada stood still, at bay. ”

“ Even Ludar, I could see, was at a loss. But to halt now was useless; to turn back impossible. So, gripping as best he might at the rugged rock, he stepped boldly on to the ledge. I could but follow. Yet, at the first step, my feet slid from under me, and but that my hands held firm I should have been headlong. Inch by inch hugging the cliff, with our backs to the sea, we crawled over that treacherous ledge, sometimes slipping to our knees, sometimes hanging sheer by our hands. ”

“ He was delivering himself of some poetic rapture, addressed, as it seemed, to the mud banks of the Essex shore, and feigned to perceive neither Ludar nor me till he came upon us.
“So,” said he then, eyeing me, “here is our Flying Dutchman, our bolt out of the blue, our dragon’s tooth turned to man. And, by my sword, a pretty fellow too. Count me as thy patron, my Hollander, and if, as I judge by thy face, thou hast a tooth for the honey of Parnassus his garden, and the dainty apples of the Muses’ orchard, thou shalt not starve verily. To be brief, I favour thee therefore, thy fortune is made.” ”

“ We looked up and there was our gallant at our elbows.
“As the loadstone to his star, as the compass to the pole, as the river to the sea, so come I, fair tyrant of my heart. For thy sake, I even salute these thy satellites, O moon of my vision! who derive from thee their lustre.”
“Witness Sir Ludar’s countenance,” said the maiden. “But now that the sun has come on the horizon, Sir Poet, shall not we lesser lights all pale? Pray, did you catch any fish to-day?”
“Nay, mistress mine, how should the silly fish, dazzled by thy heavenly brightness, see the humble bait of a mortal?” ”

“ Never did I see Ludar so noble a man as during those gloomy months. Never once did he waver in his loyalty to his father; never once did he suffer a word to be said to rebuke the old man’s harshness; never once did he complain if more than a common soldier’s hardships, with a common soldier’s fare, fell to his lot; never once would he allow the men, who were ready to die for him, raise a shout when he came among them, or even salute him in his father’s presence. ”

“ Then a cry went up, so terrible that on the light summer breeze it floated to the mainland, to where on the headland the noble father of that boy stood, like a statue of horror, as the flames shot up. The wretched captives fought among themselves who should reach the door and die on the sword of the enemy rather than by the fire. That boy saw his playmates tossed in sport on the swords of their murderers, and heard his sisters shriek to him—boy as he was—to slay them before a worse death befel. ”

“ How calls he himself?”
“He is one Captain Fortescue, and hath a commission to engage loyal men to the Queen’s service. And, indeed, she needs it; for she lies in prison, watched and solitary, with scarce a face about her that is not an enemy’s. What would you do, Humphrey, were your Queen in such a plight?”
“Were my Queen a traitor—” I began, and stopped.
“I cannot help myself,” said he. “I owe her my life. Only one woman else could claim it, and her I have lost.”
“But,” said I, “are you sure of this man? May this not be some trap to your ruin? What if he be a spy and no more?”
Ludar laughed. ”

“ Never shall I forget the howl of Spanish curses which greeted this misadventure. The grandees swore at the sailors, and bade them put about and give chase; the sailors swore at the grandees, and bade them come and try to turn the ship quicker than they, if they knew how. The gunners blamed the captain for holding them back, and the captain blamed men and crew alike for behaving like spoiled children, and forgetting their honour and dignity. As for Ludar, he was so tickled by the whole business that he laughed outright, and I had much ado to sober him in the presence of the angry foreigners. ”

“ I fear we shall none of us get more than will whet our appetite. As for you and me, McDonnell, this business is like to settle scores between our houses and the vixen—”
“Stay, Captain Desmond,” said Ludar, interposing suddenly betwixt me and this blasphemer. “My comrade here is a servant of Elizabeth, and has no sword. As for me, my queen is dead—dead on the scaffold. I hate the English Queen as you do; but, if I fight against her, it shall be in my own quarrel, and no man else’s. Therefore appoint us a duty whereby we may repay the Spanish King his hospitality, without fighting his battles.” ”