Prisoners of Hope Part 37

The whole house filled with smoke through which the figures of the besieged loomed large and indistinct, and the noise--the crack of the muskets, the loud commands and oaths, the scream of a frightened woman or child, the groans of the wounded, of whom there were now many--became deafening. The attack was now general, and the men on each face had their hands full. Without was horrible clamor, oaths, shots, yells, cras.h.i.+ng blows against door and window; within was noise and confusion, and fear, stern and controlled, but blanching the lip of the men and showing in the agony of the women's eyes.

Sir Charles, turning for a fresh musket, after a highly successful shot as the yell outside had testified, found Patricia at his elbow. "There are very few bullets left, cousin, and this is all the powder."

The baronet drew in his breath. "Peste! we are unfortunate! One of you men go beg, borrow, or steal from the others."

Landless left his loophole in charge of the Muggletonian and went swiftly into the hall, where he found the master, his wig off, his s.h.i.+rt torn, his face and hands blackened with powder, now firing with his own hand, now shouting encouragement to the panting men.

"Powder and shot!" he cried. "G.o.d help us! are you out? Not a grain or a bullet can we spare, for if we keep them not from the great door we are dead men!"

Landless went to the overseer. "Two more rounds and _we_ are out," said Woodson coolly, firing as he spoke.

"There is no sign that they have had enough," said Landless, as the clamor outside redoubled, and a man fell heavily back from his loophole with a bullet through his brain.

"Enough! d.a.m.n them, no!" said the overseer. "When they've had our lives they will have had enough--not before! They're paying dearly for their fun though."

Landless went back to the great room with empty hands.

"They are all in like case," he said, in answer to Sir Charles's lifted eyebrows.

The other shrugged his shoulders. "What will be, will be. If we could have saved our fire--but we had to keep them from the door! Get to your post, and we will hold them back as long as may be. Then a short pa.s.sage to eternal nothingness!"

"A short pa.s.sage!" muttered the Muggletonian at Landless's ear. "Well for those who find that at the hands of the uncirc.u.mcised heathen.

Eternal nothingness! The fool hath said in his heart There is no G.o.d--and he is being dashed headlong upon the judgment bar of the G.o.d who saith, I will repay. Cursed be the Atheist! May he find the pa.s.sage, fiery though it be, as nothing to the flames of the avenging G.o.d; may he go to his appointed place where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched; may--"

The trunk of a tree was dashed against the door with a force that shook the room. "Dey're comin'!" shouted Regulus, who stood behind Sir Charles, and raised the axe with which he was armed above his head.

Another crash and the wood splintered. Through the ragged opening was thrust a red hand--the axe, wielded by Regulus's powerful arms, flashed downwards, and the hand, severed at the wrist, fell with a dull thud upon the floor. A yell from without, and another blow, widening the opening. Landless fired his last bullet into the crowd, and clubbing his musket sprang to the door, in front of which were now ma.s.sed all the defenders of that side of the house. Sir Charles threw down his useless musket and drew his sword. "Cousin," he said over his shoulder to Patricia, standing white and erect in the midst of the cowering women, "you had best betake yourselves to the hall, and that quickly. This will be no ladies' bower presently."

"Come," said Patricia to the women, and led the way towards the door leading into the hall. As she pa.s.sed Sir Charles she put out her hand, and he caught it, sunk to his knee, and pressed his lips upon it.

"I am going to my father," she said steadily, "and I shall pray him as he loves me to pa.s.s his sword through my heart when they break into the hall. So it is farewell, cousin."

She drew her hand away and moved towards the door, pa.s.sing Landless so closely that her rich skirts brushed him, but without a change in the white calm of her face. The terrified women had pressed before her into the hall, only Betty Carrington keeping by her side. Her foot was upon the threshold, when with loud screams they surged back into the great room. A thundering crash in the hall was followed by a babel of oaths, screams, triumphant yells. The voice of the master made itself heard above all the hubbub, "Charles, Woodson, Haines, they are upon us!

Defend the women to the last, as you are men, all of you!"

The splintered plank between them in the great room and the murderers without was dashed inwards. An Indian, naked, horribly painted, brandis.h.i.+ng a tomahawk, sprang through the opening, and Sir Charles ran him through with his sword. A second followed, and Landless dashed his brains out with the b.u.t.t of his musket. A third, and the Muggletonian struck at him through the wildly flaring light and the drifting smoke wreaths, and missed his aim. The knife of the savage gleamed high in air, then, descending, stuck quivering in the breast of the fanatic. He sunk to his knees, flung up his skeleton arms, and raised his scarred face, into which a light that was not of earth had come, then cried in a loud voice, "Turn ye, turn ye to the Stronghold, ye prisoners of Hope!"

His eyes closed and he fell forward upon his face, his blood making the ground slippery about the feet of the others.

Landless closed with the Indian, finally slew him, and turned to behold a stream, impetuous, not to be withstood, of Indians and negroes pouring through the doorway. From the hall came the clash of weapons and a most terrific din, and presently there burst into the great room the Colonel, Laramore, Woodson, and Haines, followed by some fifteen men--making, with the five in the great room, all that were left of the defenders of Verney Manor.

CHAPTER XXVII

MORNING

The women crouched in a far corner of the room behind a barricade of chairs and tables; the men stood between them and the thirsters for blood, and fought coolly, desperately, with such effect that, fearful as were the odds, a glimmering of hope came to them. The ammunition on both sides was exhausted, and it had become a hand to hand struggle in which the advantage of position and weapons was with the a.s.sailed.

"Damme, but we will beat them yet!" cried Laramore, panting, and leaning heavily upon his rapier. "They're drawing off; we've tired them out!"

"They'll never tire while that h.e.l.lhound of an Indian whoops them on and that yellow devil, Luiz Sebastian, backs him up," said the overseer.

"They are gathering for a rush," said Landless.

The a.s.sailants had fallen back to the opposite wall, leaving a s.p.a.ce, c.u.mbered with the dead and slippery with blood, between them and the defenders of the house. In this s.p.a.ce now appeared the lithe figure, and the watchful, large-eyed, amber countenance of Luiz Sebastian.

"Ohe!" he cried, "slaves, all of you! Ashantees, Popoes, Angolans, Fidas, Malimbe, Ambrice! you who are all black! think of the jungle and the village; think of the wives and the children! think of the slaver and the slave s.h.i.+p! You from the Indies, you who are like me, Luiz Sebastian, think of the blood which is the white man's blood and yet the blood of a slave--and hate the white man as I, Luiz Sebastian, hate him!

Kill them and take the women!"

The swollen figure and dreadful face of Roach appeared at his side.

"Ay!" cried the murderer, with a tremendous oath. "Kill them! Smash them, batter them, hear them scream! In the old man's pocket is the key of his money chest. It is filled with bright yellow gold. Kill him and get the money, and away to turn pirate and get more!"

"It grows late!" cried Trail. "We must up sail, and away before the dawn!"

The gigantic, horribly painted form of the Ricahecrian chief stalked into the open s.p.a.ce and commenced a harangue in his own tongue. It was short, but effective.

"G.o.d!" said the Colonel, under his breath, and grasped his bloodstained sword more closely.

With one shrill and horrible cry Indians, negroes, mulattoes, and villainous whites were upon them, breaking their line, forcing them apart into knots of two and three away from the frail barrier, behind which cowered the screaming women, striking with knife and tomahawk, axe and club. Two of the Colonel's men fell, one under the knife of the seven-year-captive Ricahecrian, the other beaten down by the jagged and knotted club with which Roach, foaming at the mouth, and swearing horribly, struck madly to left and right. The Ricahecrian, drawing the knife from the heart of his victim, rushed on to where Landless and Sir Charles still maintained, by dint of desperate fighting, their position before the women, but Luiz Sebastian with Roach and half a dozen negroes swept between him and his prey. He swerved aside, and, bounding into the midst of the women, seized the one who chanced to be in his path,--a young and beautiful girl, newly come over from Plymouth, and a favorite with the ladies of Verney Manor. The despairing scream which the poor child uttered rang out above all the tumult. Landless turned, saw, and darted to her aid--but too late. With one hand the savage gathered up the loosened hair, with the other he pa.s.sed the scalping knife around the young head--when Landless reached them, she who so short time before had been so fair to see, lay a shocking spectacle, writhing in her death agony. With white lips and burning eyes Landless swung his gun above his head, and brought it down upon the shaven crown of Grey Wolf. It cracked like an egg sh.e.l.l, and the Indian dropped across the body of his victim.

Landless, springing back to the post he had quitted, found Sir Charles in desperate case, but as coolly composed as ever, and with the air of the Court still about him despite his bared head and torn and bloodstained clothing, treating those who came against him to an exhibition of swordsmans.h.i.+p such as the New World had probably rarely witnessed. Landless, striking down a cutpurse from Tyburn, saw him run the Turk through, and saw behind him the nightmare visage and the raised club of Roach. He uttered a warning cry, but the club descended, and the handsome, careless face fell backwards, and the slender debonair figure swayed and fell. Landless caught him, saw that he was but stunned, and letting him drop to the floor at his feet, wrenched the sword from his hand, and stood over him, facing Roach with a stern smile.

The murderer raised his club again.

"We've met at last!" he cried with a taunting laugh. "Do you remember the tobacco house, and what I said? I says: 'Every dog has its day, and I'll have mine.' It's my day now!"

"And I said," rejoined Landless, "'I let you go now, but one day I will kill you.' And _that_ day has come."

With an oath Roach brought down the club. Landless swerved, and the blow fell harmlessly; before the arm could be again raised, he caught it, held it with a grasp of steel, and shortened his sword. The miscreant saw his death, and screamed for mercy. "Remember Robert G.o.dwyn!" said Landless, and drove the blade home.

The sword was a more effective weapon than the gun, and with it he kept the enemy at bay, while he glanced despairingly around. There were as many dead as living within the room by this. The floor was piled with the slain; they made traps for the living who in the wild surging to and fro stumbled over them, and fell, and were slain before they could rise.

Three fourths of the dead belonged to the insurgents, but the attacked had suffered severely. Of the thirty men with whom the defense had commenced there now remained but twelve, and of that number several were wounded. The Colonel was bleeding from a cut on the head, the under overseer had a ball through his arm, Sir Charles still lay without movement at Landless's feet.

Forced, together with almost all of his party, by the mad rush of the a.s.sailants to the further end of the room, the master had seen with agony the women left well-nigh defenseless. Followed by Woodson, Havisham, Regulus, and young Whittington, he had all but cut his way back to them, when a fresh influx from the hall of slaves and whites who had been engaged in plundering the house, drove them apart again.

The newcomers came fresh to the work, maddened, moreover, by the master's wines. They advanced upon the Colonel and his party with drunken shouts, some brandis.h.i.+ng rude weapons, others silver salvers and tankards, the spoil of the plate chest. The voice of Luiz Sebastian rang through the room. "Quick work of them, friends; I smell the morning!"

With a laugh and a sc.r.a.p of Spanish song upon his lips he came at Landless with a knife, but a turn of the white man's wrist sent the weapon hurling through the air.

"Curse you!" cried the mulatto, springing out of reach of the deadly point, and holding his arm from which the blood was flowing. "Mother of G.o.d! but I will have you yet!" and bounded towards his weapon. Landless, steadily watchful, and pointing that fatal sword this way or that against all comers, cleared for himself and the still senseless man at his feet a circle into which few cared to intrude, for the fame of that blade had gone through the room. "Leave him until we have dealt with the others," said the mulatto between his teeth. "Then will we give him reason to wish that he had never been born."

A touch upon his arm, and Landless turned to find Patricia standing beside him. "Go back," he cried. "Go back!"

"They are murdering them all over there," she said steadily. "My father is dead. I saw him fall."

"Not so, madam. He did but stumble over the dead. See, Woodson fights them back from him. For G.o.d's sake, get back behind the barricade!"

She shook her head. "He is dead. They will all be dead directly, my cousin and all. My father cannot help me, and he who lies here cannot help me. I will not be taken alive by these devils, and I have no knife.