CHAPTER LXV

THE DOINGS IN THE CREEK

I

As he ran he seemed to himself to be a body of lead borne on watery dream-legs.

In the sally of yesterday at least he had Knapp with him. Now he was alone. And to dare alone is to be revealed to yourself, naked as you are.

A visible danger would have strengthened him. It was the horror of he- knew-not-what coming from he-knew-not-where that made his heart hammer.

The boy's body screamed to go back. His will thrust it forward. The shock and struggle of the two charged him as with electricity. A touch, he felt, and he might go off in a flash of lightning.

As he held on, and nothing happened, mind began to ride body more masterfully. The flesh, beaten, gave and gave; till in despair, abandoning its backward pull, it threw forward into the work.

What was death? was it what the parsons seemed to think--a foreign land, millions of miles away, with an old man in a temper waiting somewhere in the middle to be nasty to him?

Heaven and earth, this world and the next! Were there indeed two? a great gulf between them. Or were both one and everlasting? Was he, believing himself in Time, dwelling in Eternity now? Was he immortal now?

His heart answered, _Now or never_.

What then to fear?

The thought whirled him forward.

The grass felt goodly beneath his feet. The sun, still pale in mist, blessed him. A fresh wind flowed about him, flustering hair and shirt. His heart eased.

After all his rear was fairly safe, and his flank unthreatened. As to his front--well, he had his eyes and his dirk.

Gripping himself together, every hair alert, he ran.

He was nearly across the sward now. Tall grass-blades pricked sparsely through the sand. The shingle-bank, roan against the sparkle of the sea, surged before him, and behind it--what?

He was living in his eyes.

The knoll lay now to his right rear. Behind it, across the creek, rose the Wish; and on the crest a Grenadier gazing seawards.

Opposite the little hill, standing on the bank somewhere just above the entrance to the sluice, stood the Gentleman.

II

Kit dropped to his hands and knees.

The other had not seen him: for he was standing, back turned, and a short black-snouted pistol in the hand behind him; directing operations in the creek.

What did it all mean? what was that banging and business in the creek?

It was to find this out that he had come.

A sound close at hand drew his mind to his ears.

The crest of the shingle-bank was some twenty yards away. From the reverse slope came the crunch and scream of disturbed pebbles.

Somebody was scrambling up the bank towards him, the pebbles pouring noisily away beneath his feet.

What to do?--turn and bolt? He could be back across the grass before the slow-foot Frenchman had sworn himself to the crest. Lie there out in the open, to be made prisoner, or potted at thirty yards?

No, no, no! To retreat was shame: to stay death. But one course remained--the riskiest, which, as he had heard the Parson say, in a tight place is often the safest. That course was forward. Take the man unawares as he crested the rise; dirk him; one swift glimpse at the lugger and the doings in the creek; and then pelting home before the enemy had realised the situation and begun to shout.

"_François! François!_" came an irritable voice.

The climber stopped.

"_Qu'as-tu donc, mon Caporal?_"

"_Nom d'un chien!_" snapped the other. "_Faut il me faire matelot? Aidez moi un peu avec ces satanées cordes!_"

The climber slithered down on his heels, a cataract of shingle streaming behind him.

Swift to seize his chance, Kit rushed the crest, the crash of the Frenchman's retreat drowning his approach.

There, flat on his face, he peeped.

Beneath him, on the run of the shingle, lay the lugger. Her jib was flapping; the mainsail set for the hoisting; every stick and stay in place. Half a dozen burly Grenadiers, black-muzzled with a week's beard, were busy about her, stowing their kits, laughing and chattering.

A sprightly little Corporal, balancing on the stern, was spitting forth orders.

The foreign language, there on his native shore, made a discord in the boy's heart.

"_Quand partirons-nous?_" asked François, wading down the shingle, pack on back.

"_Aussitôt que tout sera prêt la-bas,_" answered the corporal, casting a glance over his shoulder. "_Bah! ces gueux d'Anglais! Monsieur le Général en a par dessus les yeux._"

Kit followed the man's eyes.

III

A track of feet led from the lugger to the creek across the wet sand. Along it a tail of smugglers were trundling barrels gingerly. At the entrance to the sluice others were hoisting and heaving. Above them stood that slight figure against the sky-line, the ominous pistol lurking behind him.

And it was clear the ruffians were smouldering to mutiny. Their heads were over their shoulders as they worked, and their eyes on the lugger. The soldiers were coming! they felt the halter tightening round their necks; and they were mad to be away.

Only one man in the world could have held them there at all, Kit felt, and he had all his work cut out. That slight figure against the sky- line, so calm, so terrible, seemed compact of power.

Kit had seen his friend in many moods; now he saw him in another. And the boy thought he loved him in this last rôle best, because in it he feared him most. This was not the man of poetry, charming as April, gay-hearted as a boy; this was the remorseless leader, iron for his cause, brutal, if you will, as a man who deals with brutes must be.

There was a sultry silence--the silence and horror before the storm breaks. Kit felt it and was appalled. He could almost hear the flames of mutiny roaring in those dull and darkened hearts.

For one moment the boy forgot himself and his cause. He was a play- goer, watching a drama. This man was the hero, valiant, lonely, a miracle of strength. The boy felt for him a passionate sympathy. Could he hold them?--Would they break?

Even as he watched, a man shot out of the ruck and away, scampering furiously with the shrugged shoulders and ducked head of one expecting a blow.

It came sure as fate, and as deliberate.

Out shot the Gentleman's pistol hand.

A crack, a stab of flame, and the man was flopping on the sand like a landed fish.

As the Gentleman fired, another from below stormed up the bank at him. A flash of lightning darted at him, and struck him in the chest. The fellow collapsed in a heap.

The boy had half risen to his elbow.

"Well done!" he cried with blazing enthusiasm. Then he remembered where he was, and dropped.

No man had heard. The Grenadiers like himself were busy watching the doings in the creek. A murmur of applause rose from among them.

"_Bravo, Monsieur le Général! Hein! Canaille_!"

In the creek all was quiet again now. The flame of mutiny was quenched; the Gang had resumed their work; and the Gentleman was wiping his blade upon his sleeve.

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