Commodore Junk

“No, no!” he panted. “We are saved! Mary – dearest – ”

He said no more, for the longing look in those eyes seemed intensified, and the pupils dilated slowly to remain fixed and stern.

It was the buccaneer’s last look on earth.

Chapter Thirty Eight

Last Words

The officer who led the strong boat’s crew to the rescue, guided by some of Captain Armstrong’s men who had escaped weeks before and after terrible privations at last found help, drew back and signed to his followers.

It was enough. Hats were doffed, and a strange silence reigned in the gloomy chamber as Humphrey knelt there holding the dead hand in his till he was touched upon the shoulder, and looking up slowly, half-stunned by the event, it was to meet the pale, drawn face of Bart.

“Do they know, captain?” he whispered, meaningly.

For a few moments Humphrey did not realise the import of his question, till he turned and gazed down once more upon the stern, handsome face fixing rigidly in death.

“No,” he said quickly, as he drew a handkerchief from his breast and softly spread it over the face of the dead. “It is our secret – ours alone.”

“Hah!” sighed Bart, and he drew back for a moment, and then gave Humphrey an imploring look before advancing once more, going down upon his knee, and taking and kissing the cold hand lying across the motionless breast.

“Captain Humphrey Armstrong, I think!” said the officer of the rescue party.

“Yes,” said Humphrey, in a dreamy way.

“We were just in time, it seems.”

“Yes,” said Humphrey, with a dazed look.

“I’m glad you are safe, sir; and this is – ”

He had not finished his sentence when one of Black Mazzard’s men yelled out —

“The Commodore – our captain – sir!”

“Once,” said Humphrey, roused by the ruffian’s words, and gazing sharply round; “but one who spared my life, sir, and with this poor fellow here defended me from that dead scoundrel and his gang!”

As he spoke he spurned the body of Black Mazzard, who had hardly stirred since he received Bart’s bullet.

“I am at your service, Captain Armstrong,” said the officer, “and will take my instructions from you.”

“For the wretches taken in arms, sir, I have nothing to say; but for this poor wounded fellow I ask proper help and protection. I will be answerable for him.”

Bart looked at him quickly and reeled slightly as he limped to his side.

“Thank ye, captain,” he said. “I ought to hate you, but she loved you, and that’s enough for me. If I don’t see you again, sir – God bless you and good-bye!”

“But we shall see each other again, Bart, and I hope – here, quick!” he cried, “help here; the poor fellow is fainting from loss of blood!”

Bart was borne off to be tended by the surgeon, and Humphrey Armstrong stood gazing down at the motionless form at his feet.

He did not speak for some minutes, and all around respected his sorrow by standing aloof; but he turned at last to the officer —

“I ask honourable burial, sir, for the dead – dead to save my life.”

The officer bowed gravely, and then turned away to give a few short, sharp orders to his men, who signed to their prisoners.

These were rapidly marched down to the boats, two and two, till it came to the turn of Dinny, who stood with Mrs Greenheys clinging to him, trembling with dread.

“Now, my fine fellow,” said the warrant officer who had the prisoners in charge; “this way.”

“Sure, and ye’ll let me have a wurrud wid the captain first?”

“No nonsense. Come along!”

“Sure, an’ he’d like to shpake to me wan wurrud,” said Dinny. “Wouldn’t ye, sor!”

Humphrey, who was standing with his arms folded, wrapped in thought, looked up sharply on hearing the familiar tones of the Irishman’s voice.

“There, what did I tell ye, sor?” he cried. “Sure, an’ I’m not a buccaneer by trade – only a prishner.”

Humphrey strode up, for Mrs Greenheys had run to him with clasped hands.

“I’d take it kindly of ye, sor, if ye’d explain me position to these gintlemen – that I’m not an inimy, but a friend.”

“Yes,” said Humphrey, turning to the officer in command; “a very good friend to me, sir, and one who would be glad to serve the king.”

“Or anny wan else who behave dacently to him.”

“Let him tend his companion,” said Humphrey. “He is a good nurse for a wounded man.”

Mistress Greenheys caught Humphrey’s hand and kissed it.

“But she would have betrayed us,” he said to himself, as he looked down into the little woman’s tearful face; “still, it was for the sake of the man she loved.”

That night, covered with the English flag, which she had so often defied, the so-called Commodore Junk was borne to the resting-place selected by Humphrey Armstrong.

It was a solemn scene as the roughly-made bier was borne by lantern-light through the dark arcade of the forest, and the sailors looked up wonderingly at the strange aspect of the mouldering old pile.

But their wonder increased as they entered the gloomy temple, and the yellow light of their lanterns fell upon the flag-draped coffin in the centre, and the weird-looking figures seated round.

Side by side with the remains of her brother, Mary Dell was laid and then draped with the same flag, spread by Humphrey Armstrong’s hands, the picture exciting the wonder of the officer in command, to whom it all seemed mysterious and strange. Greater wonder than all, though, was that Humphrey Armstrong, lately a prisoner of the famous buccaneer who had been laid to rest, should display such deep emotion as he slowly left the spot.

As he stepped outside volleys were fired by the men, and as the reports of the pieces rumbled through the antique building, and echoed in the cavernous cenote, the reverberation loosened some portion of the roof over the vast reservoir; an avalanche of stone falling with a reverberating hollow splash, and a great bird flew out and disappeared in the darkness overhead.

Three days later, laden with the valuable plunder amassed by the buccaneers, and a vast amount consigned to the flames in pursuance of the orders to thoroughly destroy the hornets’-nest, the rescue ship set sail, in company with the buccaneer’s fast schooner, the prize Humphrey Armstrong once longed to take into Dartmouth Harbour. But the sight of the warship’s consort only gave him pain now as he lay in his berth or reclined helplessly on deck, suffering from the serious fever which supervened.

“It’s a curious whim,” said the captain of the ship to his lieutenant. “One would have thought he’d rather have had a couple of decent sailors to tend him, and not those two fellows, who must have been regular pirates in their time.”