CHAPTER XLIII
A BLACK BORDERER TO THE RESCUE
I
A boy was wading shoreward dizzily. As he surged through the water, his body made long rippling waves. He watched them with dull fascination, pointing.
Then he began to whimper peevishly. He was tired, he was cold. The shore waved up and down before his eyes. He knew he couldn't do it.
From behind him a yell penetrated his dying mind.
It stopped him dead.
He was a little child, nightmare-bound.
Waving to and fro, the water to his knees, he stretched both arms shoreward.
"Mother!" he wailed.
A shout answered him.
Some one was crashing down the shingle, racing across the sand, and plunging through the water towards him.
The boy began to titter.
"Come on, Kit! come on!" came a rousing voice. "Don't look behind you! That's the style! Come on!"
What was this black splashing figure, sword in hand? Was it the Angel of Death in full regimentals? Surely he recognised the face beneath the shako?
"You aren't mother," the boy giggled, swaying.
A strong arm was round him; a body, firm and full of life, was pressed against his dying one; a voice, quickening as the Spring, was in his ear.
"Splendid, Kit! Well done indeed! Lean on me. Lots o time."
"Have the soldiers come?" sobbed the boy, struggling forward.
"One has," came the sturdy voice--"a Black Borderer."
They waded through the shallows, the ripples breaking prettily about them.
Behind them a fierce voice sang out an order.
The galley, which had brought up with a bump against the submerged longboat, had hoisted the Gentleman on board, and was swooping in pursuit.
The boy heard the beat of the oars, and sank on his knees at the edge of the sea.
"I can't, sir. Take the bag. O go on!"
Two strong arms clutched him, and he was hoisted up.
All things were swimming away from him.
The last thing he knew was that he was in somebody's arms, and the somebody was running.
II
The boat swept shoreward.
A man with a musket, standing in the bows, was about to fire at the fugitives.
A sharp voice stayed him.
"_Ne tirez point! Nous les prendrons vivants. Ce n'est qu'un seul homme et le gosse._"
A bugle from the shingle-bank retorted defiantly.
"_Halte!_"
The boat stopped short.
The crew looked over their shoulders.
_"Les soldats!"_
Upon the ridge a shako bobbed up.
A figure in uniform rose and ran at it
"Keep your eads down there all along the line!" it shouted. "Wait till I give the word, Royal Stand-backs."
The Gentleman sprang up in the boat.
_"Ramez toujours, mes enfants!_" he cried. "_C'est une ruse!_"
The men hung on their oars.
"_Laches!_" cried the Gentleman, smote the man on the foremost thwart a buffet, and leaping overboard floundered through the water.
The man in the bows fired.
There was no reply from the shingle-bank.
The men of the galley took courage. The boat swished through the shallows, and bumped ashore.
Out tumbled her crew, and stormed across the sand at the heels of the Gentleman.
The Parson was staggering up the shingle-bank, the boy in his arms.
At the top he paused, heaving like an earthquake, and looked back on his scampering pursuers.
"Yes, my beauties," he panted. "You just won't do it."
Knapp, keen as a terrier, bobbed up at his side.
"Shall I charge em, sir?" his little brown eyes bursting with desire-- "me and the boy. Down the ill and into em plippety-plumpety-plop! O for God's sake, sir!" whimpering, dancing. "Ave mercy as you ope for it. Let me ave me smack if it's only for the glory of the old rigiment."
"Certainly not," said the Parson sternly. "This is war, not tomfoolery."
The little man collapsed sullenly.
"_From the right--retire by companies--on your sup-ports!_" shouted the Parson in measured regimental voice.
From his manner he might have been addressing a Brigade and not merely Blob, disguised in an ancient shako, lying on his stomach, and armed with a hay-rake.
III
He plunged down the bank.
As he reached the greensward a warning shout from the cottage reached him.
"Ha! what's this?" joggled the Parson sharply. "Flank attack! who the pest? Oh, Gap Gang--I forgot."
A stream of fierce dark figures with running legs poured down the Wish and across the greensward at him.
"Hold tight round my neck, Kit!" he panted, taut to meet the new attack. "I want my sword-arm free. What! the boy's fainted!" He gave the limp body a hoist on his shoulder. "Now, Knapp! Let's see these guts o yours!"
Knapp shot by him, his arms working like piston-rods.
"Come on, Blob, me boy. Slaughder for somebody!" He pranced into
## action, throwing his legs like a hackney trotter. "Pray, duckie
darlins, pray!" he called. "I'm a-comin! I'm a-comin! I'm a-comin!"
The life was bursting out of him. It made him laughing-mad. He was lusty as a young lion.
"Here they come!" muttered the Parson, labouring behind.
And come they did at a hound-slink, bunched together, and babbling. It was clear they were uncertain of each other and of success. Sin, the mighty Disintegrator, was at work upon their spirits. A more half- hearted crew of blackguards never attempted murder. They needed Black Diamond. He, and he alone, might have held them and swung them, as a fine horseman holds and swings a refuser at a fence.
And what dark faces! what dreadful eyes! what voices popping up like foul bubbles from a sewage pond!
_"Them three all?"
"Enough too, ain't it?"
"I'm for gain back. Look at the face on that buster with the sword!"
"H'into em!"_ came a shrill treble from the rear. _"Cheerily, chaps, cheerily!"_
A crack from the cottage, the crack of doom.
The leading ruffian, a lumbering great horse-faced fellow, clapped his hand to his side.
_"What's that?"_ he snapped.
_"That's death!"_ came a solemn voice from across the green.
The man bowed his head as though in acknowledgement.
_"I got it,"_ he said, and fell like a falling tower.
His fellows wavered. This sudden arrow from the quiver of the Great Bowman, so unexpected expected, pierced the hearts of all.
Into them, toppling, bowled Knapp like a cannon-ball.
"_Ow,_ dear! _Ow's_ that? _Ow,_ my pore face!"
The chirpy Cockney voice popped out from the thick of them like a cork from a bottle, and a smack from a sledge-hammer fist punctuated each ow.
Blob, at a lurching gallop, plunged into the opening his leader had made, flashing his knife with a gurgling "Ho! ho!"
Last came the Parson with terrific sword.
It was all over before it had begun: a scuffle, a squeak, the flicker and tinkle of steel; and the cloud burst and scattered into its component drops.
The smugglers scampered away.
The Parson was wiping the point of his sword on a man.
"Dirty skunks!" he panted. "Had their bellyful before I'd begun."
Blob was laughing to himself.
"Oi loike killin," he gurgled. "It goos in so plop-loike."
A figure, tall and black as a winter tree, shot up against the light on the shingle-bank, and hung a second there.
The Parson waved.
"Too late, Monsieur le Poseur," he called mockingly. "Better luck next time."
The little party trotted across to the cottage, and entered.
Piper, awaiting them, slammed the door, and made all fast.
"Near thing, sir," chuckled the old man.
"Would have been but for that shot of yours," said the Parson, laying his burthen on the bed.
He leaned up against the wall, and panted, his good red face dripping.
"First round to England--eh?" he grinned.
## BOOK III
FORT FLINT
I
BESIEGED
##