Chapter 14 The Black Swan by Rafael Sabatini
The Nymph and the Satyr
When Major Sands and Monsieur de Bernis came to break their fast in the hut next morning, Miss Priscilla met de Bernis with a complaint concerning Pierre.
This was the third morning in succession that the half-caste had been absent when breakfast was to be prepared, with the result that she had been alone in preparing it.
'He is nowhere to be seen. Each day he does not appear again until close upon noon. What can he be doing? Where does he go?'
'He is seeking yams, perhaps,' de Bernis replied casually.
'If so, he never seems to find any. Both yesterday and the day before I saw him return, and he came empty-handed from the woods.'
'Perhaps the yams are becoming scarce, and he is driven farther afield in his search for them.'
His apparent indifference to his servant's evasion of duty seemed curious to her, as he might have read in the glance with which she searched his face.
'Could he not leave those quests until after we have broken our fast?'
'Perhaps he likes to find the yams still moist with morning dew.' At this absurdity her stare became more marked. 'I wonder why you should jest about it.'
'In our situation there are so few things that lend themselves for jesting that I may surely be forgiven if I neglect none of these few But I will speak to Pierre. I will see what can be arranged.'
This, she thought, was an oddly offhand way to treat the matter, of slight importance though it might be. And to say no more in conclusion than to promise to see what could be arranged, when a simple word from him could remove the cause of her complaint, seemed almost discourteously casual. She pressed the matter no further; but a sense of annoyance remained with her.
Later in the course of the morning, the Major and the Frenchman went off to their daily secret swordplay beyond the bluff.
Captain Leach was strolling alone at the time on the damp firm sands at the very edge of the receding tide, a vivid figure in his scarlet suit. Impatient to be afloat again, and so safe from surprise, he came from urging the men in the completion of the work; for now that the tarring of the hull was finished, only the greasing remained to be done, and in three days, or four at the most, the Black Swan should be ready for launching again.
From where he paced he saw the two men move away from their sequestered little camp and disappear into the woods. He had already observed these morning absences of theirs, and he halted, wondering vaguely whither they went. When his attention was attracted by the green-clad figure of Priscilla Harradine coming forth from her hut. From the distance he watched that trim, graceful shape with eyes of kindling admiration. He watched her turn to the right, and set out briskly, like one who was guided by a definite purpose. She proceeded for some little way along the summit of the beach, then she, too, vanished into the wood.
From wondering whither she might be going so unfalteringly and definitely, he reached almost at once the desire to ascertain. Resentment of the barrier raised against his attentions to the lady had never ceased to smoulder in him; and it was accompanied by a growing impatience for the time when, the business of the Spanish plate fleet being concluded, this barrier would definitely be removed. It had not often happened to Tom Leach to be under the necessity of restraining his lusts, and he remained unschooled as a savage in the art of it. Also, as is the way of unruly, undisciplined men, he must ever be preferring that which lay under his hand at the moment to the greater things that might be achieved by planning and waiting. It is an indication of his rudimentary intelligence.
It is doubtful, therefore, whether in obeying now the unreasoned instinct to follow her, he was prompted only by curiosity on the score of her movements.
In long, swift strides he crossed the beach diagonally, straight to the palm tree with the arnotto roses clustering about its stem by which he had marked the spot at which she had vanished into the wood. Once, himself under the shelter of the trees, he had little difficulty in picking up her trail. It was plainly marked in the undergrowth, thinner on the edges of this jungle than in the depths of it.
Cautiously, unhurried, but purposefully now as a hound upon a spoor he followed. The trail led upwards over rising ground. At the summit of this, the hard dry earth between the sparser palms was almost bare, and the trail lost its distinctness; he quested there for some moments, to be led eventually towards the open by signs which might be those of someone's recent passage that way. But having reached the edge of the bluff, he was entirely at fault. She was nowhere to be seen. Below him, like a gigantic emerald set in a vast cup of rock, he beheld a pool so clear that through its smooth, unruffled surface he could see the fish moving in the depths of it. Saving the unsuspected little platform under the black canopy of rock immediately beneath him, he could survey not merely the beach of this tiny cove, but long stretches of sand beyond the barriers of rock on either side of it, and nowhere in sight was Miss Priscilla.
He concluded that she must have continued through the wood, and went back to endeavour to pick up the trail again. Ahead, where the ground began gently to slope once more and the undergrowth increased again, he saw signs that it had been trampled, and cursing the time he had wasted, he was moving forward, when suddenly a splash below, too loud to have been made by any leaping fish, arrested him.
He turned. He saw wavelets moving outwards in widening circles, from some point which the rock screened from his gaze, rippling the mirror-like surface of the pool. A moment later, whilst he was staring frowning inquiry, he saw that which made him catch his breath, and instinctively drop upon hands and knees amongst the trees so as to avoid, himself, being seen. A nymph of an incredible whiteness was swimming out across the tiny lagoon. As beheld through the water, her limbs seemed of marble.
Leach, so pale through his tan that his countenance seemed almost green, feasted hot eyes upon that vision of incredible loveliness. At one moment he made an animal noise, something between a grunt and a groan, and held his nether lip thereafter caught in his strong white teeth.
As she turned to swim back, he dropped still lower, into a supine position. In this, wriggling upon his belly like a snake, he thrust himself forward to the very edge of the bluff, above which, had she looked up, she would have beheld no more than his head from the eyes upwards. Thus he remained until she had passed again under the screening canopy.
He scrambled to his feet then, and took off his hat to dash the perspiration from his face. That face, leering now like a satyr's, was at the same time overcast with thought. His little eyes were narrowed and calculating. There was blood on his lip where his teeth had fastened on it, and a little trickle of blood was on his black tuft of beard.
In that moment de Bernis, the Spanish plate fleet, his officers, his lawless followers and the account they might demand of him if the enterprise of the plate fleet were now wrecked, had ceased to be of any deterring account. All that he considered was whether he should leap down from that bluff or fall back and wait here among the friendly shelter of the trees. In the end he decided for the trees, and went recklessly crashing through the undergrowth to conceal himself amongst them.
Livid, panting, his heart beating in his throat, he crouched there waiting, a beast in ambush for its prey.
At last she came. He saw first her head, that golden head about which the sunlight seemed now to place an aureole, and then her bust, and gradually the whole of her, as, demurely clad once more in her gown of green, she reached the summit of the bluff, from which the path ran back to the encampment.
His pulses galloped. Pausing there just beyond the screen of trees, she whipped up by that pause his intolerable impatience. But he knew that he could afford to wait a little moment longer, wait until she had come within that green shelter, when she would no longer be within range of any stray eyes from the encampment.
But, as if further to try his patience, she remained poised there, looking away to her left, down the southern slope. And when at last she stepped under, within shadow of the palms, she was still half-turning to the left, and as she advanced, to his unutterable rage and horror, she flung up an arm as if in greeting and beckoning, and he heard her voice suddenly raised to call.
'Pierre! D'ou viens tu a cette heure-ci?'
A moment later his furious eyes beheld the half-caste advancing rapidly with that long, loping stride of his, and answering her as he came, though what he said, Leach in his seething, baffled rage, neither heard nor cared.
Not until Pierre was at last level with her did she turn to her right, and set out along the path by which she had come, the tall, lithe half-caste, in his cotton shirt and rawhide breeches, trotting after her.
Tom Leach made animal noises through his clenched teeth as he stepped forth from his ambush, and moved to follow them. For once he was utterly without weapons, otherwise it is possible that he might in his madness have added murder to what else he contemplated. As it was, the long athletic limbs of the half-caste made him think twice about falling upon him with his bare hands.
He paused a moment on the path, watching them as they receded and widened the distance between themselves and him. Then, without precautions, since he was no longer the stalker, he set out to follow. Instantly the head of the alert Pierre was turned to look over his shoulder. Having seen who came, and no doubt reported it, the two went on without change of pace, whilst Leach with a leisurely step kept in their wake, carrying hell in his evil soul.
By the time the Captain came level with the hut, Miss Priscilla had already entered it. From his tent, a little farther on, Pierre was in the act of taking the fresh-water cask, to go and replenish it. He delayed but a moment over this, and was off again, almost at once, along the beach.
The Captain checked in renewed hope. Opportunity, it seemed, was to serve him, after all.
He allowed Pierre to go some little way, before deliberately advancing to come and place himself before the entrance of the hut, from which the heavy curtain was lifted.
Within stood Miss Priscilla with comb in one hand and a hand-mirror in the other, to repair the disorder in her moist hair. As the buccaneer's shadow fell across the threshold, she looked up quickly Seeing him, his face still oddly pallid, his eyes glowing curiously, she stood at gaze, incomprehensibly perturbed.
He showed his white teeth in a wide smile, and doffed the hat from his short curly black hair.
'God save ye, mistress,' was his odd greeting.
And then before she could even answer him, the crisp voice and light, ready laugh of Monsieur de Bernis sounded close at hand, reassuringly to herald his opportune return.
In the darkening brows and harshly twisted features of Tom Leach she read the need for that reassurance.
As the Captain stepped back, Monsieur de Bernis and Major Sands came up.
'Ah, Tom,' was the Frenchman's easy greeting, 'were you seeking me?'
'Seeking thee?' the other was beginning in scornful, fierce repudiation. But he controlled himself in time. 'Aye,' he added slowly.
'What is it?'
'Why, naught. I were just passing by, so thought I'd see if thee was here. We never sees thee at th' camp nowadays. We hasn't seen thee for days.'
After that, dissembling ever, he spoke grumblingly of the progress of the work. It went slowly. It would be another four days, perhaps five, before they could get the ship afloat again. Was de Bernis quite certain that they were not behind time?
De Bernis reassured him. The appointed date for the sailing of the plate fleet was the third of July. It was certain that it would not sail before that date, probable that it would not sail until a few days later. No Spaniard was ever known to be ahead of time. Procrastination was in the blood of Spain. In twenty-four hours Leach could easily reach the point at which de Bernis proposed to intercept the Spanish ships, and he would prefer not to take the seas any earlier than was necessary.
With mutterings of reassurance, Leach took his departure. But de Bernis did not immediately turn, or immediately speak when he had gone. He remained standing there, looking after him with brooding, thoughtful eyes. He had discovered something queer, something uncomfortable, furtive, and constrained in the Captain's manner, qualities these not usually displayed by him.
At last Monsieur de Bernis turned to Priscilla. 'Of what was he speaking when we arrived?' he abruptly asked her.
'You did not give him time to speak of anything. You were here as soon as he had greeted me.' She laughed as she answered him, and scarcely knew why. All that she knew was that she wanted to laugh, in the sudden relief from the indefinable fear which the sight of Captain Leach's face had inspired in her.
'I have spoken to Pierre about his morning absences,' she went on to say. 'But he gives me no satisfaction.'
'He has returned?' said de Bernis; and added sharply, 'Where is he?'
'He has gone for water. He will be here soon.'
'Gone for water?' de Bernis echoed, and his tone had changed. The eagerness that momentarily had gleamed in his eyes died out of them again. He shrugged as he turned away, leaving her alone with the Major.
She had missed none of this, being naturally alert. Trifling though it seemed, there was something odd in it, and it left her preoccupied, returning vague answers to the Major's idle chatter, as he sat there cooling himself in the shade of the hut.
Monsieur de Bernis had gone to Pierre's tent. He remained there until Pierre returned, bearing the refilled water-cask on his shoulder.
Watching and listening, she heard de Bernis greet him.
'Eh bien?' And the Frenchman's dark eyes might almost have seemed anxious as they scanned the half-caste's face.
Pierre lowered his water-cask to the ground. 'Still nothing, monsieur,' Miss Priscilla heard him reply in French.
'Sh!' De Bernis dropped his voice, and muttered rapidly, almost it seemed impatiently, ill-humouredly. She wondered was his master speaking to Pierre about his early absences. But from the manner in which the conversation had opened, she could hardly suppose it. She strained her ears. Probably it never crossed her mind that she was spying; had it done so, she would have accounted that all the circumstances justified it. The Major's chatter prevented her from hearing more than the murmur of those rapid voices. But in a pause he made, she caught again the voice of de Bernis.
'We have still five days, according to Leach, and the weather is fine.'
'Too fine, perhaps,' said Pierre. 'It may be that.'
Again they became inaudible, and so continued until de Bernis turned away, and came slowly back, his fingers tugging thoughtfully at his nether lip.
If de Bernis had admonished Pierre at all about his absences, the admonition produced no change in his habits. For when on the following morning, being dressed, Miss Priscilla lifted the curtain from her door, and called Pierre, it was de Bernis who came from his tent, dressed only in shirt and breeches, and carrying a tray that was laden with the requisites for breakfast.
'Monsieur de Bernis!' she cried. 'But where is Pierre again?'
Smiling and speaking easily, Monsieur de Bernis replied: 'I have sent him on an errand, Priscilla. But I will help you to contrive without him.'
'You have sent him on an errand? But on what errand could you send him?'
'Lord! Here's curiosity!' he laughed. 'Shall I indulge it? Faith, not I. He has gone on an errand. That is all. Come, let us make ready before that ravenous wolf the Major awakens to be fed.'
And that was all she could elicit from him, to her annoyance and even uneasiness; for her environment and circumstance were not such as made it possible to bear with equanimity a mystery, however trivial it might seem.