CHAPTER XX

AT THE DAWN OF A SUMMER'S DAY

It was still dark when I awoke to feel rough hands about me, and the tightening grip of ropes around my arms and legs. I shouted, and a huge hand was promptly clapped across my mouth, and a moment later a suffocating gag, knotted mercilessly at the back of my neck, stifled the least groan. A bandage, too, was fastened over my eyes. I made one convulsive effort to burst the bonds which were rapidly netting me about, but with the only result that they were twisted the more cruelly, crushing me in as though by the embrace of some enormous bear, till I thought my ribs would crack beneath the strain.

The agony was almost unendurable, and was made still worse by the gag over my mouth; for it would have been some relief to have been able to rage and curse and scream. But not a sound could I utter. It seemed as though a terrible explosive force were being compressed within me, unable to burst free. And then a sacking of some kind was drawn over my head, and the mouldy reek of it made me want to vomit; and though suffocating for lack of air it was even worse agony to breathe the foul fumes that came through the filthy stuff about my face. A spasm convulsed my whole body from within, but the cords around me were too tight to allow so much as a tremble to shake my limbs; and then I felt suddenly limp and made no struggle, but yielded to the inevitable without a question or a hope. Something was about to happen at last. Perhaps I was to be thrown into the sea. Well, life's whole treatment of me had been so unjust, so spiteful, and during the last two weeks so cruel and intolerable, that any sort of end would be a relief.

So I gave no heed to the bumpings and shakings I had to undergo. I didn't ask myself what was happening to me. And lying calmly so I was probably happier than questioning and struggling. It was impossible for me to stir a finger to help myself. I simply didn't care what became of me. I think I even fell into swooning sleep, so indifferent was I to my fate. For I was tired out with my captivity, first at Rancey Bridge and then in this vessel, and my spirit was broken.

But if I swooned or slept I was roused to consciousness again by the feel of cold water about my legs. I thought I had passed beyond all self-concern, but at the touch of the sea my love of life revived, and I became acutely aware of all that was happening to me. My feet were being fixed to something, and I was being held upright, for I couldn't support myself; not only was I too securely bound to have any control of my limbs, but there was a swaying and lurching beneath me which would have made standing difficult in any case. I began to wonder where I was; but all I could surmise was that I was on an open raft being tossed up and down at sea. Presently the worst of the tossing stopped, and I assumed we had come into quieter water. But why were my feet being fixed to the raft? Why was I being held upright? Then with a deeper dip of the raft I felt a sharp upward jerk beneath my arms; there was a rope fixed about me from somewhere above. But what did it mean? Then the hands that had been supporting me were withdrawn, and I began to sway dizzily; but the rope clutched at me viciously as I fell. For a while I lurched backwards and forwards, my feet fixed to the raft, if raft it were, as it rose and sank with the waves, and the rope catching me with malicious jerks as I toppled and swung.

Then suddenly the terrible significance of it all was borne in upon me with a cruel clearness. I seemed to hear my father telling over again that story of dreadful vengeance, the most appalling that the brutal minds of smugglers and pirates could devise; and at the thought of it an agonized cry gushed up from my soul, though not a murmur could pass my lips. For I knew I was hanging between earth and sea, and my fate was to be slowly drawn asunder between them; for as the tide ebbed the raft beneath me would sink and the rope above me would tighten, till gradually my body would be stretched and strained to an agonizing death. The realization came to me with a shock of horror, the more so as my father's vivid story had impressed me with the lingering torment I might expect to suffer. I ceased even to cry out in my heart, "Why, why, why?" as I had done on board ship, exclaiming against the malignant destiny that ever pursued me. For with the fear of such a death upon me I had no place in my mind for anything except the frenzied anticipation of it in all its horror. And still the raft rolled beneath me. I lurched and toppled, while the rope gripped me like a relentless hand which would soon be tightening to drag me limb from limb.

Then I felt the sacking over my face being removed, and I caught my first keen whiff of the beautiful sea air. It came like a cruel reminder of all I was about to lose, and once again a spasm of surgent rebellion against my fate convulsed me. The pain of it was dreadful, for still it was as though that violent explosive power were struggling to burst free from within me, but was restrained by an aching pressure at every pore.

Then fingers were tearing at the bandage over my eyes, and it was wrenched roughly away; and I could see, but not distinctly. For it was still in the dusk of the early morning, and I seemed to be in a cave of some kind, for before my eyes the air grew into a darkness of retreating gloom. But I couldn't turn my head to see what lay on either side of me, though the swaying of the raft gave me passing glimpses of a dark rock wall dripping with damp and spray.

But what came upon my vision with a shock, at first of rapture, then of strange fear, and lastly whirling me in a maze of mystified wonder, was a face very white against the shadow, with wide terrible eyes fixed on mine as though in a frenzy. For the face was the face of Dirk.

Forgetting my gag I raised my voice to cry his name, and the sudden checking of my breath sent the blood surging dizzily to my head, so that my eyes clouded with a gush of darkness and I nearly swooned. But as my sight cleared terror began to settle on my heart, for Dirk faced me with eyes blazing with such a madness of hate, and his lips curled into such a leer of malice, that the dreadful vision framed white against the darkness was like some emanation from a terrible dream. And slowly he drew nearer, his eyes fixed on mine, till at length his face almost touched me, and I could feel his breath curl hotly about my brow. And all the while I was too numbed and stupefied to ask myself what it could mean.

Then I noticed a change come over his face. He drew back; the tension of his evil glare relaxed, and a puzzled wavering loosened his lips. Then he suddenly darted his face once more at mine, searching my eyes for I knew not what. And then he turned me about to the light, and with an oath began fingering the gag about my mouth, and tore it violently off, staring at me like a madman.

"Dirk!" I croaked out faintly, "save me, Dirk!"

"Devil of hell!" he cried. "It's Tommy!"

He drew his knife and slashed feverishly at the rope beneath my arms, cursing at the strands that foiled his impatient onslaught. But at last they came away in his hands; then stooping he set to work to release my feet, while I half fell on top of him, supporting myself as well as I could on the unsteady raft, till one by one the cords that bound me were cut away. With a wonderful sense of freedom I kicked my legs and waved my arms, then collapsed on to the raft half delirious from the sudden relief. Dirk lifted me into his boat; and so overpowering was the good thought of life again, and the clean air after the stuffy suffocation of the gag and the sacking, and the feel of the blood flushing along my numbed limbs and tingling in my feet and fingers, that I lay in the rocking boat and sobbed like a child.

Presently I looked up through my tears, smiling I think, to see Dirk seated above me, his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees, still gazing at me half frenziedly, till I began to wonder whether the veil had lifted only to fall again.

I stopped my crying, and laying my hands on his knees said, "Dirk, what is it? Why do you want to kill me?"

"Little kid Tommy" was all he could say, repeating it over and over. He thrust a hand through my hair, tenderly enough for such a great rough fellow, and bending my head back looked at me earnestly and enquiringly. At last he fetched a heavy breath and said, "Yus, it's little kid Tommy, an' no mistake. But it beats me; it beats me."

I understood nothing of the matter that was troubling him. I was utterly without a clue to the mystery. I could only say, "Tell me, Dirk; what is it?"

It was a long time before he answered, "Wull, kiddy, I was on his track, an' I thought I'd got him at last; but it was you I nabbed, though hell knows how it chanced."

"Who was he?" I asked. But before he replied I knew whom he meant.

"Have you forgotten, kiddy?" he asked. "The King's Man."

"You found him?" I questioned.

"I've hunted him high an' low," he replied, "an' I've had my fingers on him, _so_!" He clawed the air about my throat. "But he's slipped through every time, blast him! He's got as many shapes as a cloud in a gale, an' as many voices as the wind; so when they telled me you was only a nipper I grinned to meself an' said nothing. You see I thought I had him safe. But it beats me, it does."

He shook his head sorrowfully.

I was beginning to understand something of the mystery, and suddenly everything seemed clear as though I had followed it in a book. "Dirk," I cried, "I know how it was. He was hiding in the corner. He was chasing me. An officer, you know. I'd run away from school. Then I suppose he heard you after him, and lay low. And I heard you and thought it was him. So I hid there in the doorway. And then I felt him there and got frightened, and jumped out, and you nabbed me instead." I ended breathlessly: "You see, you see."

He scratched his head somewhat bewildered, and said, "Here, kiddy, just say that lot again."

So I began at the beginning, and explained how the officers were after me, and how I had heard footsteps and taken cover, till comprehension dawned on him at last. "That's him," I concluded, "that's the King's Man; the officer who was waiting there for me."

Dirk sat there weighing the matter in his mind, and presently exclaimed, "An' it were you, Tommy, I've been keeping in that filthy hole, starving you an' gagging you an' frightening you an' all."

"Nothing," I said, "nothing," and to ease his mind added: "Don't you see, if you hadn't nabbed me the officer would have had me instead, and I should have been back in the cells again."

"That's a brave thing to say, kiddy," he exclaimed fervently, and seized my hand, till I nearly cried with the pain of a friendly grip. "Wull," he added releasing me, and thumping his fist on his knee, "I'll go an' find him again, an' I'll catch him next time. An' then I'll.... You know what I meant doing?" he broke off fiercely.

"Yes," I said.

"Ha!" he cried, grinning evilly, "I'll tear him limb from limb; slowly, kiddy, _slowly_!" He stressed the word lingeringly. "An' I'll sit just here an' watch his eyes, same as I meant to this morning."

He sat motionless awhile, gazing terribly before him as though witnessing his cruel revenge in actual progress.

"Six hours," he said. Then with an oath he dashed his hand across his eye as though to obliterate the picture, and smiling more pleasantly said, "Wull, let's row in for a bit, an' then for something wet at the _Dolphin_."

"The _Dolphin_!" I cried.

I gazed about me, and realized where we were. It was the very spot where the betrayal had been committed which was to have been so horribly expiated. We were by the Smugglers' Gate in Ebb-Tide Cave.

Ebb-Tide Cave!

"Dirk," I cried in sudden excitement, "is this the first of May?"

"Ay, kiddy," he answered, "it is that."

My father's song came into my mind. I could almost hear him singing it:

"'Twas at Ebb-Tide Cave by the Smuggler's Gate, At the dawn of a summer's day; And there those happy lovers met, All on the first of May."

So vivid was the fancy that I could actually hear my father's voice that I sat motionless, listening, till Dirk asked what ailed me.

"Oh, Dirk," I said, "you must have fallen from Heaven. I've got to meet my father here to-day; and you've brought me."

"Fallen from Heaven!" he repeated, his lips curling bitterly. "Yus, I reckon I have that. An' I don't see myself climbing back again. An' so," his voice changed, "your dad's coming, is he? Wull, I'll be off an' leave you to him then. An' if I see him at the _Dolphin_ I'll let him know there's a surprise packet down this way."

He rowed me out into the Pool, where a great wind greeted us, and landed me on the rocks, then turned to row in up the Smugglers' Tunnel, for the tide was still almost at the full. But I suddenly remembered my knife and pistol. I think he understood my gesture as I clapped my hands to my sides feeling for them. He smiled darkly and nodded at my waist. I looked down; and there they were tucked in my belt, and in my excitement I hadn't noticed them. He didn't explain the mystery, but I thought I understood it: the sight of them there, to hand, yet useless, would have been an added torment to the perishing victim. So he left me and I watched him vanish, then clambered up the cliff so that I could see if any boat were making for the shore, and also if any one appeared from above, for I didn't know whether my father would come by sea or land; but that he would come I held for a certainty.

Half-way up I found a good lookout point, and sat down and waited, my heart in a whirl of excitement at the prospect of seeing my father again. Indeed the joy of meeting him was so great that I hardly had a thought to bestow on the extraordinary way I had been spirited to the rendezvous.

So I sat there gazing out to sea, glorying in the huge bursting rollers that strained and pounded at the rocks beneath me; for a south-west gale was racing in across the white-streaked waters, dewing my face with the spray in its breath and slapping my hair in heavy, damp tangles against my forehead. Before me lying out at anchor in the heaving sea was the brig that had brought me there; and away to the east the sky was reddening with the coming of the sun.