CHAPTER XL

THE SWIM IN THE DARK

Kit awoke with the horrors.

All was black about him, and a great hand lay on his breast.

He gripped it, gurgling.

A calm voice, already strangely familiar, reassured him.

"By your leave, sir, it's about time for you to rouse and bitt."

It was Nelson's old foretop-man. The moon, slanting through the window, shone on his white head and those tranquil, big-dog eyes of his.

Kit relaxed his hold.

"That you, Piper?" he sighed. "I was dreaming of Fat George. What's the time?"

"It's a little better'n two o'clock, sir; you've had a tidy sleep. The tide's pretty near down, and the moon's a-nigh off the water. By than you get alongside there'll likely be a bit o' mist on the water crep up from the eastud with the sun."

The boy slipped off his clothes, shivering.

"Where's Mr. Joy?"

"He came in from the Wish just on midnight. 'No Knapp yet?' says he. 'Then I shall make a reconnaissance in force myself.' 'Beggin your pardon, sir,' says he, don't see the force--one man agin a score.' 'Ah,' says he, 'you forget my lady.' And he whips up his Polly, and off he pops over the grass like a lad a-courtin." The old man chuckled as he told.

"What's Knapp up to?" trembled the boy.

"Why, sir, gone over to Lewes for the soldiers, and should ha been back hours sen."

"Wonder why he's not?"

"Got fightin and foolin on the road, sir, I'll lay," chuckled the old man. "Like a lamb with the heart of a lion is Knapp, sir. Frisks into trouble, and then fights out again. This is first time he's been let out of hissalf since he went into training. So he's all of a bubble like. Bubble or bust--that's how Knapp feels."

Stripped, the boy stood up in the darkness.

"Got the flag, Piper?"

"Here it be, sir. How'll you carry it?"

"So." He wound it up in a coil and tied it about his neck, scarf-like.

"Now I'm ready."

II

The old man wheeled out to the edge of the shadow of the house.

All about was black and silver in the moon. A faint breeze ruffled the sycamores upon the knoll. Stars strewed the heavens. Beyond the shingle-bank the sea glistened like satin.

It was very still, very cold, very lonely.

Kit set his teeth to prevent them chattering. The night air kissed him coldly, and the moon, white above the inky Downs, glistened on his shoulders.

"There she lays, in the Channel off the Boulder Bank," whispered the old man, pointing to the privateer, dull-black against the glitter. "And it's my belieft there's not a sober man aboard of her. All stow'd away dead drunk under hatches--that's my belieft, sir. They kep it up from dark till midnight--dancin, drummin, fightin, and all manner. More like a cage full? wild beasties from Bedlam than a Christian ship. And for the last hour she might ha been a hulk full o corpuses."

He dropped his voice still further.

"He's in it, sure!" jerking his thumb starward. "Made em blind to the world for His own good purpose--which is as you should lay em aboard unbeknownst and knife the blessed lot if so be it was your fancy."

The boy choked a laugh brimming on the edge of being. The old man's solemnity, his profound simplicity, touched the springs of mirth within him.

"Perhaps," he panted. "I hope so."

"Ah! I'm certain sure," replied the other with firm confidence.

Faith, the most infectious quality in the world because the truest, seized the boy's heart and lifted it.

"Good-bye, Piper."

"Good luck, sir."

The lad plunged into the moonlight.

III

A moon-clad wisp, he flitted across the greensward, the fringe of the flag-scarf fluttering behind him. It was a fine thing to do, but he wished devoutly somebody else had the doing of it. On the Wish in the sunshine, the Parson at his side, when the idea first struck him, it had seemed splendid. Now, alone in the dark, with the idea to translate into reality, he saw it very differently. It gave him no thrill of glory. He felt exactly as he had felt last March on the way to the dentist to have a tooth out--a mean sense of his own mortality, and an earnest desire to run away.

The turf shaded off into long bents growing out of sand; and that again ran away into shingle. As he breasted the bank, his hands succouring his feet, he heard steps behind him.

"Who's that?" he snarled, crouching.

Blob was standing at gaze a little way behind him.

"What ye want?"

The boy made no answer, staring with round moon-eyes.

"He's noiked," came a musing voice. "Oi dew loike to see un."

He shot out a finger, and, flinging back his head, gurgled laughter.

"Here, boy!" called Kit. "As you are there, you can carry me over these pebbles."

He leapt on the other's back, and Blob, sturdy as he looked limp, crashed down the shingle and across the stretch of wet sand at a loose-jointed canter.

"That'll do, my boy, thank you," said Kit, slipping down at the edge of the tide. "I'd give you a penny, only I've not got one. No, you can't come any further. It's too dangerous. This is a job for officers."

He began to paddle out, the ripples playing about his ankles.

Blob's presence braced him to his task. It called to his spirit of a gentleman. He would just show this lout what blood meant.

Blob followed him with awed eyes.

"She's aloive," he warned his brother-boy. "She'll swallow ee."

"No, she won't," Kit replied. "She's an old friend of mine."

IV

The boy could swim at an age when to most lads walking is still an accomplishment. Now he waded quietly down a sandy reach between black rocks.

The water was warmer than the air. When it clasped his waist, he trusted himself to it faithfully.

The sea was his mother, and the mother of his race. Her arms were about him; her spirit entered into his. How pure she was, how strong, how good! He kissed her cool brow and dropped his head upon her bosom. Turning on his back, he saw the wall of the Downs, black beneath glorious stars. On the top of the wall poised the moon, peeping over the brim of the world at him. He waved to her, laughing: she too was a friend. And the moon, wise as innocent, smiled back.

He swam leisurely, without splash, almost without ripple, quiet as the tide.

He had the world to himself, and loved the loneliness.

Out here, the sea about him, the night above, he could feel the slow tides of God pushing onwards through the dark of Time.

Wars and tumults and all the tiny irritations and griefs of life, what were they to that immense-moving flood? And he was one with that flood. Stealing through the water with cleaving arms, he was assured of it.

V

Something rose shadowy and gaunt before him. It was the privateer.

The sight tumbled him out of Eternity into Time. His heart began to clamour, as though it would force its way out of his body.

No longer one with God, seeing all things with His large eyes, and loving them--he was a little boy, mortally afraid, alone in the vast and callous night.

In his flurry be began to splash about: then recollected himself, and trod water quietly.

The moon was deserting him, the sardonic moon he had thought of as a friend. Her silver rim glimmered behind the Downs and was gone. He missed her. Cold she was, still she had been company. He thought she might have stayed--just this one night! He felt aggrieved, and very much alone. And those stars strewing the night above him were so far, and had such hard little eyes.

The water grew dull and dark about him, and of a sudden greatly colder. The flag hung like a clammy halter about his neck. Verdun was not far, and death very near. But for the cold he would have cried. He wished he'd never come.

It flashed in upon him to hail the ship, and ask them for a cup of coffee. The thought amused him and saved the situation. He began to chuckle.

Squeezing the fear out of his mind, he set himself to the accomplishment of his task.

The thought of old Piper, calm invincibly, confirmed him in his purpose.

Yet he couldn't help reminding himself with a snigger, that old Piper was safe in an arm-chair on land, while he was out there in the water with the work to do.

Still, now if ever was his time. The moon was gone. In another hour the dawn would begin to glimmer. Between the two his chance lay.

Treading water a cable's-length away, he observed the ship intently.

She lay upon the water like a dead thing. The great dark hull, seen against the living night, appeared carcass-like. Her stillness was almost terrible.

Not a spar creaked, not a match glowed. She was dark as death, and as silent.

As he watched, a humming noise, rising and falling, came to him across the water. He held his breath. Then he recognised it, with a gasp of relief.

Somebody was snoring.

That domestic sound cheered him amazingly.

At least the ship was not a sepulchre. Her crew were neither dead nor devils. They were human. They snored.

He swam round the ship, stealthy as an otter in the Coquet.

So far as he could see there was not a soul on deck.

Then, as he came under her stern, he noticed for the first time that another vessel lay alongside.

A thought, swift as a dagger, struck at his heart.

Could it be that the Gentleman had somehow picked up a lugger, and so won aboard? Was he too late?

Then with a gasp of thankfulness he remembered.

It was the _Kite_, of course.

The tide had set her alongside; and now she lay scraping the side of the privateer. A handier stepping-stone he could not have asked.

##