Was the boat coming on or going back? The question was vital to them, the pause exasperating. Their nerves were now so knit-up that they moved restlessly in spite of themselves, and the deep gasps of men trying to hush their breathing was distinctly to be heard. They knew well that if they permitted escape to the attackers they might as well give themselves over to the soldiers at once. And they could hear the bated discussions, the low talk, the arguments of those who unwittingly stood so near to death: and still the boat did not advance, while the flare died down, and darkness reigned again. Then, suddenly, the whole of the watchers gave a simultaneous movement of unrest, and crouched as beasts that await their prey. The boat was rippling onward; was being punted, in the light of a lantern, through the tunnel; and, as the water from its prow lapped the stonework the Spaniards prepared quickly for action.
It was at this moment that the woman's design first became apparent to Messenger. He saw, as some of the Spaniards crawled swiftly into the cavern, what he had not seen before. A great portcullis of iron covered the shoreward end of the tunnel, which here had comparatively a small arch, and this portcullis was now to do the work which neither knife nor pistol could do. It was at the best a rough contrivance, drawn up with chains which turned about iron drums; but the spikes at the lower end of it were heavy as pike-heads, and the weight of it was to be measured in tons. Toward such a trap the long-boat now came slowly, and the party watched as they would have watched a snake waiting to spring upon a rabbit.
At the very head of the tunnel, less than a half of the boat being in the lagoon, the rowers ceased to work, and stood under the death-trap while they lighted another flare. As the brilliant blue light flashed up, and the whole of the Spaniards instantly became visible, the sixteen seamen in the craft uttered a loud shout of triumph, and sprang to their oars again; but it was their last action. In that instant the Spanish woman, with hands clenched and streaming hair, cried out in a shrill treble voice which rang through the cave, and the great portcullis, being let go at the drums, fell, with a grating of iron and a horrid crash, upon the boat and its crew, and the shout of triumph became a shout of agony.
The fall of the iron gate split the long-boat as a hammer will split a nut. One of the lance-like bars actually drove through the body of a burly seaman sitting amidships, and, cleaving his skull, ultimately pinned him upon the bottom of the pool as a moth is pinned upon a board. The craft herself was shivered and crashed down upon the hard rocks, and, being cut almost in half, the two ends of her rose up all splintered, and were chased furiously by the seamen, now at their last extremity. Of these four were held down under the sluice of the tunnel, but two rose on the seaward side of the portcullis, and ten in the pool, and all of them, swimming or clutching wreckage, or seeking to come to the quay, cried out for mercy most pitifully.
As well might they have clamoured for the fall of the sky. Urged on by the Spanish woman, who shouted incessantly: "Cut them down! cut them down!" the defenders began to use their clubs and knives with savage jubilation. Where a face showed above the water they struck at it; they beat and cut the hands of the driven men who held to the quay; they dived boldly into the water and stabbed those who had harbourage at the fragments of the broken boat. In ten minutes there was not a cry, not a sound, where there had been uproar. Only a breathless throng of savage men, whose clothes were in many cases dripping upon their backs, whose hands were weary with the pursuit of the butchery.
Thus was the peril from the sea turned, and at the end of another hour, it being then near to eleven o'clock, the whole of the money had been bound to the backs of the mules, and the party moved from up the steep road from the creek, and soon gained the wooded heights at the back of the castle.
XXVI. A STRANGE CRY IN THE HILLS
The night was clear, with a fine flood of moonlight, and after the first ascent to the heights the path became narrow, running through a great ravine of the mountains, which so sheltered it that its security from all but the hillmen was unquestionable. It was, in truth, a path which nature might have cut for the peculiar protection of those in the great house below it; and while Messenger wondered at first that the soldiers knew nothing of it, he had no surprise when ultimately he had traced it to its end.
The cavalcade which now mounted this hidden way was by no means an unpicturesque one. At the head of it there walked six men with guns upon their shoulders, men dressed in the finery of velvet and silver-broidered habiliments. Behind them came sixteen mules, lacking the customary bells, but bedecked with fine ribbons and rosettes, as are all the mules of Spain. The arrieros, or muleteers, sat in many cases upon the top of the kegs and packages which the mules bore; but others of them walked, cracking their whips at the difficult places, and muttering the "Macho, macho, macho-o," which is the national encouragement to horse or ass. In the rear of the mules the Spanish woman. Messenger, and Fisher rode upon ponies; while six more personal attendants, armed with rifles, followed them. The nigger, Joe, whipped in the whole, sitting upon a sturdy "burro," like a sable Sancho upon a Spanish ass.
For a mile, or even more, the curious procession marched in silence, but when it had gained the first woods, which stood between two of the nearer mountains, the woman reined in her pony, and surveyed the scene spread out below her. Straight down, as it were, at her feet she could look in the courtyard of her home, where there were now many lanterns, and soldiers tethering horses, and the flash of polished helmets. Out upon the sea the masthead lights of the two warships burned brightly; in the park the flare of fires showed the new camps of the shoremen. But the whole spectacle excited the woman to merriment rather than to concern.
"Let them do their worst!" said she mockingly. "I will return before the year has run, and reckon with them."
"If they don't reckon with you first," said Messenger.
"Pshaw!" she cried, "it will be the affair of the month. I have friends at Madrid who will think of me—and ministries, mon ami, ministries fall! Let us get on while the light holds, for day must find us many miles from here."
"I hope it will," said the man; "the stake is big, and is worth the danger."
"Danger! You talk always of danger. There is no more danger now—I tell you so, and I am no optimist. Let us go."
She gave rein to her pony, and he turned with her; but as she spoke there came from the heights above them a weird, wild cry, which echoed in all the hills, and died away with a long-drawn sob, most pitiful to hear.
So mournful was it, so long did its vibration ring in the heights, that the whole of the riders stopped abruptly, waiting to hear its repetition; but although they halted for many minutes, the cry was not raised again, nor was there any sound save of the restless sway of the pines and the tremble of the grasses. To the Spaniards the very silence was ominous, the portent of ghostly visitation or of mountain spirit. They knew that they had little to fear from any human enemy in the almost inaccessible pass; but their faith was chiefly in omens, and they began to beat their breasts, or to recite their rosaries, while one or two fell upon their knees and did not hide their panic. Even the woman herself was for a moment bewildered, and could find no words, only looking at Messenger enquiringly.
"What, in Heaven's name, was that?" she asked him presently. "Was it the cry of a beast? It ran down my spine like cold water!"
"I should say that it was the shout of some hillman gone out of his wits at the sight of the fires," said he; but he only told her half the truth, for he was sure that he had heard the cry before, although he could not now recall the precise circumstances.
"I've lived here half my life," said she, "and never heard its like. It was no human cry, or the men would make light of it. Look at them now!"
The spectacle was unmistakably odd, for the cut-throats, who had devoted the previous hour to the gratification of their savage lust for murder, now prayed with the feverish piety of the fanatic; and the simpler muleteers stood grovelling with their fears.
"When