Dabney got to his feet at once. “I think she is not.” He turned to me. “Shall we go on deck, Chantry? The attack is about to come.”
Instantly I was on my feet. Guadalupe started to rise too, but my hand pressed her down. “Stay … it will be safer, and I want not to worry about you in what happens.”
The clouds were low and gray still. The sea was ruffled with whitecaps but the swell had lessened. We lay scarcely a hundred yards offshore as the cove was not a large one, but the pinnace had skirted its far rim in reaching the entrance. All eyes were upon her.
Suddenly, she seemed to change course toward us, then her bow swung away again. Puzzled, I looked at Dabney. “What is he about? Is he going to sea? Is he going to attack? Is he—?”
Guadalupe screamed.
Spinning around, I was in time to see them coming over the rail, dripping wet, cutlasses in hand. While all our attention had been taken by the seemingly erratic maneuvers of the pinnace, the attackers had swum out from shore. Over the rail they came, some with cutlasses or knives in their teeth to allow both hands for climbing. They spilled onto our lower deck, in a mass.
They swarmed over the rail ready for attack, and they found the deck was empty!
The Captain and I faced them from the top of the ladders leading from the poop deck.
On the deck below there was only Guadalupe, standing in the doorway of the passage leading to the main cabin, which was under the poop deck.
The attackers halted momentarily, Rafe Leckenbie among them, caught off guard by the empty deck where they had expected enemies. Cutlasses lowered, they stared about them, and at that moment, Captain Dabney fired his pistol.
He shot into the mass of attackers, and a man fell, but instantly on the shot the ship’s crew rushed from under the fo’c’stle and from the cabins aft.
Taken from both sides, the surprise of Leckenbie’s men was total. They were doubly shocked, first at the empty deck, and then at the attack.
Leaping to the deck, I took a cut at a brawny pirate with a hairy chest and a ring in his one ear. The cut only scratched him and he lunged at me but I thrust low and hard and he impaled himself on my sword. For a moment we were face to face, then I jammed my palm under his chin and shoved him back off my sword,
Rafe Leckenbie stood waiting, smiling. He saluted me with his blade. “It has been a long time since first we met, Tatton Chantry!”
“But worth the waiting, Rafe,” I said. “Do you wish to die now?”
He laughed, a great laugh, a fine laugh. “Die? Me? I have just begun to live!”
We crossed blades. His skill, I perceived at once, had grown with time. There was fighting about us, but we ignored it. This was our moment, and I was remembering that awful night on the high moors when he had come so close to killing me.
He fenced coolly, skillfully. He was a man with greed only for power, a man born to dominate—or die in the attempt. If he had one love, this was it. This crossing of blades, the art of the sword. And he was a man created to fight.
For all his great size and strength, he moved with the speed and ease of a dancer, on his toes, poised, smooth. For every move of mine, he had an answer. I felt he was toying with me, and yet…
“Ah!” he said, as I parried his blade, “you have learned!”
He feinted for my head and attempted a flank cut. I parried and thrust to the right cheek. He parried the blow easily, again attempted a head thrust and then to the chest. Again I parried and my point tore his sleeve near the shoulder, but touched no flesh.
The fighting around us ceased, but neither of us noticed nor moved except toward each other. He attacked suddenly, coming in fast with a style I had never encountered before, a whole series of thrusts and cuts, baffling in their speed and unexpectedness. It needed all my skill to escape them. His point, needle sharp, touched my thigh. I parried his next blow and with a quick riposte, drew blood from his cheek. For an instant his eyes flamed with anger, then it was gone.
“You are good!” he said. “Very good!”
Yet I was not to be misled. That he flattered me to lead me into taking unnecessary chances I was sure, yet I fenced cautiously, studying his methods, yet careful not to take anything for granted, for he was a shrewd blade and meant to kill me. He was very sure of himself, fencing with the absolute confidence of a man who had never been bested with a blade. Several times he lunged, yet each time I managed to deflect his blade. Steadily I retreated, circled a little, but fell back. He was constantly upon me, and time and again I had the narrowest of escapes. Once he nicked my shoulder, again he grazed my cheek, drawing blood. He smiled at that. On the instant I moved, grazing his blade and with the slightest flexing of the wrist pressing it out of line, then instantly lunging. My point went two inches into the latissimus muscle, reached by a thrust that went between arm and body.
Recovering instantly, I pressed the attack. Blood stained his shirt and ran down his side. And now his coolness was gone. He had been hurt; I had actually drawn blood. In a fury he came at me and for several wild minutes I was hard put to defend myself.
As he came on fast, I circled and stepped in a spot of blood. I slipped. Instantly he was upon me, his sword lifted for a killing thrust.
As he stabbed downward I threw myself at his legs, and he staggered back. Coming up fast, I grasped his sword arm and pressed him back.
He laughed, and deliberately began to force his arm down. The strength of the man was prodigious. He was laughing at me now, laughing with a terrible rage as he forced my arm down and down, bringing his blade closer and closer to my throat. Yet the years had done much for me, and I was no longer the boy he had fought that first time. The long months of fencing with Fergus MacAskill, the climbing in the mountainous crags of the Hebrides, and the years in the wars, all had conspired to make me a different man.
Suddenly I began to shove back. Harder and harder I pressed and my arm ceased to move downward. His blade stayed firm and then inexorably I was pushing him back.
He could not believe it. Nothing in his life of continual triumph had prepared him for what was happening now. My strength was not only equal to his, but was surpassing it. His arm went back, and suddenly he sprang away, jerking his wrist from my grip and striking out with a wild slash that ripped wide my shirt and left a bloody gash across my stomach.
Swiftly he pressed his attack. He thrust hard and I felt the point of his blade in my side. Another twist of the blade and he had cut my cheek. He was a fighting fury now, filled with hatred of the threat I presented to him.
Nothing I could do seemed to stop him. He came on, pushing hard. Suddenly I gave way, and he came in, closing the distance. My next lunge took him by surprise. I risked all … but the blade caught him coming in and thrust deep.
For a moment he stared, unbelieving. Then he leaped back. For an instant he swayed, drenched now along his lower side and leg with the red blood of his wound.
He lifted his sword, threw it in the air and caught the blade, then threw it like a spear!
Yet my blade lifted and caught his, throwing it aside. I went at him then, standing close to the rail, and he stood, braced to meet me, no weapon in his hands. Then his left hand went behind his back to his belt and came from under his jerkin with a knife, a sword-breaker such as Fergus had carried!
I feinted, and he moved to catch my blade but I swept it down and then up, ripping the inside seam of his breeches and cutting half through his wide leather belt.
Blood was pooling beneath him. He crouched, teeth bared in anger. Then suddenly like a flash he turned and threw himself over the rail and into the water!
Leaning over the rail, I saw blood on the water. His body had gone down, his blood mixing with the bubbles of the sea.