That night the traps I set brought me another fox, a mink, and a rabbit. I
skinned out the first two, ate the third, and at daybreak was working my way
through the sandhills toward one hill, taller than most, from which I hoped to
have a view of the sound.
Coming through the brush, I stumbled upon a path, a well-used path, and my first
glance brought me up standing. There in the path, clear-cut and sharp, was a
heel print! No moccasin, but a small boot, perfectly-shaped and not worn.
Astonished, I glanced right and left, saw nothing, and began a study of the
trail.
The wearer of the small boot had come along the trail from between the
sandhills, and not longer ago than last night or the afternoon before. She had
been accompanied by at least two men.
She?
It was a small print, a very small boot, and it must be a woman’s. Yet I knew of
no woman, not an Indian, in this part of the world but …
Abigail!
Smoke … I smelled smoke. A moment later I glimpsed their camp. There were
three men and Abigail.
She sat across the fire from me and I was proud of her. No downcast face, no
sloping shoulders, no look of defeat. She held her head up. “You will be hung in
chains,” she was saying, and her manner was assured. “You do not realize what
you have done.”
Darkling was there, he was one of them, and he was a hard man. “You’re a simple
fool,” he said roughly. “Who is to know what happens here? You’re ours, to do
with as we choose. We’ll have Tempany himself before dark. Not a prisoner mind
you, but dead. We’ve no time for prisoners … unless they are young and pretty.
“We have to decide.” He glanced at the others. “Do we take her back to the
others? Or keep her here for awhile?”
At that moment I stood up directly opposite her, and she saw me at once. I
wasted no time on politeness or warnings. These were evil men and I well knew
it. I loosed an arrow at the man nearest Darkling, a swarthy, muscular fellow
who looked to be the most dangerous.
The distance was not over fifteen yards, if so much, and the arrow shot true.
It went through him about six inches above his great brass belt-buckle, and he
gave a grunt and grabbed it with both hands, then went to his knees.
The others turned sharply, but I had dropped down, another arrow notched and
ready. Someone shot, far to the right, for my target had half-turned after
taking the arrow, giving a false impression of its origin.
My second arrow was less successful, for it struck a great bone-button on the
man’s coat. One saw few buttons and I had no use for them, and less now. The
arrow glanced upward, inflicting a minor scratch on the man’s face, and then
they saw me.
Both men came out with their blades and they started for me. Abigail—bless
her—gathered her skirts and fled into the brush.
Managing a longbow in that brush was not easy, so I tried no more shots, nor did
I intend to fight. I simply fled as she had done, circling to intercept her,
which I soon did. I could hear them crashing in the brush, but they were off the
point. Catching Abigail by the hand, we ran a weaving route through the trees
and to my sandhill.
There was a deep cut in that dune made by some water cutting a way down where a
tree’s roots had left a gaping hole. We climbed to the hill’s top, hidden as it
was, and sat down on a great log.
“I must say,” Abigail said, “you took long enough!”
“Long enough?” I stared at her dumbfounded.
“Well,” she smoothed her skirt with both hands, “if a man is going to rescue a
lady he should have done it sooner, but thank you, nonetheless. I am obliged.”
“Where is the Tiger?”
“On the sand not far from here. That awful Captain Bardle hulled her twice and
shot away our foremast. Several of the men have been killed and all were
scattered.”
“Captain Tempany?”
“He’s kept some of them together! I was going to join him with Lila. She turned
back to the ship to get something she had forgotten, and while I waited these
men rushed from the trees and captured me.”
We had a good view and for the moment we were safe.
I could barely make out the Tiger through the trees. She was hard aground, no
mistaking that, and her foremast was down, trailing over her side. When I moved
away a little to get a better view, I could see no movement near her. Nor was
there any sign of the Jolly Jack.
“I think we had best remain,” I suggested, “until matters settle down a bit.
From here we can see all about and can choose our way when we leave.”
She glanced at the bow. “Where did you get that?”
“I made it. It isn’t very good, but I was hungry and in a hurry.”
“I think it does very well. I could have cheered when you shot that man.” She
glanced at me. “We are going to have a bad time, aren’t we?”
I shrugged, watching the beach and the slope to the beach. “She doesn’t look too
badly hurt,” I nodded to indicate the Tiger, “so we may be able to float her
again.”
Pacing about I studied all the approaches to our sandhill. It appeared to offer
so little in the way of shelter that I doubted they would come hence, yet if
they wished to see about—
“I am very tired,” Abigail said suddenly. “Would you think me ungrateful if I
slept?”
“You’d be wise,” I said bluntly. “My father was a soldier and he always told me
a good soldier never stood when he could sit, and never sat when he could lie
down, and ate whenever there was food.”
I showed her a place near a log where leaves had thickly gathered. It was a
shadowed place and still. I picked up broken branches from the leaves and
smoothed them for her, and when she lay down she went at once to sleep. Would
that I could lie down and sleep so easily!
I peered at the woods below. After a while I found several straight, light
branches and commenced to work on them with an edge of stone to make more arrows
for the crude quiver I had shaped from bark.
Suddenly a knowledge came upon me. I would take my furs and return to England.
But I would gather about me a few trusty souls and return again. This was the
land!
Yet there was a shadow across my return. Rupert Genester would be there,
awaiting me.
Well, he need not wait. I would seek him out, and have done with it once and for
all.
I must find Captain Tempany and we must prepare to assert ourselves. We must
rear a defensible position and we must repair and refloat, if possible, the
Tiger. If not, but one thing remained.
Take the Jolly Jack.
It would serve Nick Bardle right to be left ashore, then. My eyes went again to
the Tiger. The three-master was well aground, but aside from the fallen mast
seemed to be damaged but little. It had been hulled twice, Abigail said. Yet the
holes might be patched.
My furs should still be aboard her, and some of my trade goods.
Abigail was stirring when I next looked at her, and then her eyes opened. She
looked at me, startled, then gradually came awake. She sat up. Automatically her
hands went to her hair. “Barnabas!” It was, I believed, the first time she had
called me that. “What shall we do?”
“Go down to the Tiger,” I said.
“The Tiger! But they will find us there!”
“We do nothing here. Sooner or later Captain Tempany will come back to his ship.
We shall be there and ready.”
“And if Nick Bardle comes first?”
“We shall prepare to receive him. I have no time to waste dodging him, nor do I
intend to. He has cost me dearly already, but next time he shall pay.”
Late afternoon came across the sound leaving an edging of silver on the sand
behind it, dusk crept up the hills and erased the last vestiges of color from
the tops of the old trees. And when the last shadow was gone, we went down from
the mountain and across the beach to the vessel.
Aft, where she lay in water, a rope ladder trailed down. Sheathing my sword, a
dagger in my teeth, I went up and aboard, ready for what might come. All was
dark and still.
Abigail followed after, doing remarkably well on the ladder and over the rail,