Martin Conisbys Vengeance | Page 3

mighty kindly fashion.

"Halt, friends!" cries I. "Here is harm for no man that meaneth none.
Nay, rather do I give ye joyous welcome in especial such of you as be
English, for I am an Englishman and very solitary."
But now (and even as I spake them thus gently) I espied the fugitive on
his knees, saw him whip up one of my muskets (all in a moment) and
fire or ever I might stay him. The shot was answered by a cry and out
from the underbrush a man reeled, clasping his hurt and so fell and lay
a-groaning. At this his comrades let fly their shot in answer and made
off forthwith. Deserted thus, the wounded man scrambled to hands and
knees and began to creep painfully after his fellows, beseeching their
aid and cursing them by turns. Hearing a shrill laugh, I turned to see the
fugitive reach for and level another of my weapons at this wounded
wretch, but, leaping on him as he gave fire, I knocked up the muzzle of
the piece so that the bullet soared harmlessly into the air. Uttering a
strange, passionate cry, the fugitive sprang back and snatching out an
evil-looking knife, made at me, and all so incredibly quick that it was
all I could do to parry the blow; then, or ever he might strike again, I
caught that murderous arm, and, for all his slenderness and seeming
youth, a mighty desperate tussle we made of it ere I contrived to twist
the weapon from his grasp and fling him panting to the sward, where I
pinned him beneath my foot. Then as I reached for the knife where it
had fallen, he cried out to me in his shrill, strangely clear voice, and
with sudden, fierce hands wrenched apart the laces and fine linens at
his breast:
"Stay!" cried he. "Don't kill me--you cannot!"
Now looking down on him where he lay gasping and writhing beneath
my foot, I started back all in a moment, back until I was stayed by the
rampire, for I saw that here was no man but a young and comely
woman.
CHAPTER II
MY TROUBLES BEGIN
Whiles I yet stood, knife in hand, staring at her and mute for wonder,

she pulled off the close-fitting seaman's bonnet she wore and scowling
up at me shook down the abundant tresses of her hair.
"Beast!" said she. "Oh, beast--you hurt me!"
"Who are you?" I questioned.
"One that doth hate you!" Here she took a silver comb from her pocket
and fell to smoothing her hair; and as she sat thus cross-legged upon
the grass, I saw that the snowy linen at throat and bosom was spotted
with great gouts of blood.
"Are ye wounded?" quoth I, pointing to these ugly stains.
"Bah! 'Tis none of mine, fool! 'Tis the blood of Cestiforo!"
"Who is he?"
"The captain of yon ship."
"How cometh his blood on you?"
"'Twas when I killed him."
"You--killed him?"
"Aye--he wearied me. So do all my lovers, soon or late."
Now as I looked on this woman, the strange, sullen beauty of her
(despite her masculine apparel) as she sat thus combing her long hair
and foul with a dead man's blood, I bethought me of the wild tales I had
heard of female daemons, succubi and the like, so that I felt my flesh
chill and therewith a great disgust and loathing of her, insomuch that,
not abiding the sight of her, I turned away and thus beheld a thing the
which filled me with sudden, great dismay: for there, her sails spread to
the fitful wind, I saw the ship standing out to sea, bearing with her all
my hopes of escape from this hated island. Thus stood I, watching
deliverance fade on my sight, until the ship was no more than a speck
upon the moon-bright waters and all other thoughts 'whelmed and lost

in raging despair. And now I was roused by a question sudden and
imperious:
"Who are you?"
"'Tis no matter."
"How came you here?"
"'Tis no matter for that, either."
"Are you alone?"
"Aye!"
"Then wherefore trouble to shave your beard?"
"'Tis a whim."
"Are you alone?"
"I was."
"And I would you were again."
"So do I."
"You are Englishman--yes?"
"I am."
"My mother was English--a poor thing that spent her days weeping and
died of her tears when I was small--ah, very small, on this island."
"Here?" quoth I, staring.
"Twenty and one years agone!" said she, combing away at her glossy
hair. "My mother was English like you, but my father was a noble
gentleman of Spain and Governor of Santa Catalina, Don Esteban da

Silva y Montreale, and killed by Tressady--Black Tressady--"
"What, Roger Tressady--o' the Hook?"
"True, Señor Englishman,"