Martin Conisbys Vengeance | Page 6

knees--down and sue pardon
of me!" But now, stung by her words and the quaking of my coward
flesh, I found voice.
"Shoot, wanton!" said I. "Shoot, lest I beat you again for the vile,
shameless thing you are." At this she flinched and her fierce eyes
wavered; then she laughed loud and shrill:
"Will ye die then? Yes? Will ye die?"
"Aye," I nodded, "So I may be quit of you."
"Hath dying then no fears for you--no?"

"'Tis overpast!" quoth I.
"Liar!" said she. "Wipe the craven sweat from you! You beat me, and
for this you should die, but though you fear death you shall live to fear
me more--aye, you shall live awhile--take your life!"
So saying, she tossed the pistols down beside me and laughed.
"When I wish to kill and be done with you, my steel shall take you in
your sleep, or you shall die by poison; there be many roots and berries
hereabout, Indian poisons I wot of. So your life is mine to take
whensoever I will."
"How if I kill you first?"
"Ah, bah!" said she, snapping her fingers. "Try an you will--but I know
men and you are not the killing sort. I've faced death too oft to fear it,
or the likes of you. There lie your pistols, fool; take 'em and shoot me if
you will!"
Thereupon I stooped and catching up the pistols tossed them behind
me.
"And now," said I, rising, "leave me--begone lest I thrash you again for
the evil child you are."
"Child?" says she, staring as one vastly amazed, "child--and to me, fool,
to me? All along the Main my name is known and feared."
"So now will I whip you," quoth I, "had others done as much ere this,
you had been a little less evil, perchance." And I reached down a coil of
small cord where it hung with divers other odds and ends. For a
moment she watched me, scowling and fierce-eyed, then as I
approached her with the cords in my hands, she turned on her heel with
a swirl of her embroidered coat-skirts and strode away, mighty proud
and disdainful.
When she was clean gone I gathered me brush and driftwood, and

striking flint and steel soon had a fire going and set about cooking
certain strips of dried goat's flesh for my breakfast. Whiles this was
a-doing I was startled by a sudden clatter upon the cliff above and
down comes a great boulder, narrowly missing me but scattering my
breakfast and the embers of my fire broadcast. I was yet surveying the
ruin (dolefully enough, for I was mighty hungry) when hearing a shrill
laugh I glanced up to find her peering down at me from above. Meeting
my frowning look she laughed again, and snapping her fingers at me,
vanished 'mid the bushes.
Spoiled thus of my breakfast I was necessitated to stay my hunger with
such viands as I had by me. Now as I sat eating thus and in very ill
humour, my wandering gaze lighted by chance on the shattered remains
of a boat that lay high and dry where the last great storm had cast it. At
one time I had hoped that I might make this a means to escape from the
island and had laboured to repair and make it seaworthy but, finding
this beyond my skill, had abandoned the attempt; for indeed (as I say) it
was wofully bilged and broken. Moreover, at the back of my mind had
always lurked a vague hope that some day, soon or late, she that was
ever in my dreams, she that had been my love, my Damaris, might yet
in her sweet mercy come a-seeking me. Wherefore, as I have before
told, it had become my daily custom, morn and eve, to climb that high
land that I called the Hill of Blessed Hope, that I might watch for my
lady's coming.
But to-day, since Fate had set me in company with this evil creature,
instead of my noble lady, I came to a sudden and fixed resolution, viz:
That I would waste not another hour in vain dreams and idle
expectations but would use all my wit and every endeavour to get quit
of the island so soon as might be. Filled with this determination I rose
and, coming to the boat, began to examine it.
And I saw this: it was very stout-built but its planks wofully shrunk
with the sun, and though much stove forward, more especially to
larboard, yet its main timbers looked sound enough. Then, too, it lay
none so far from high-water mark and despite its size and bulk I
thought that by digging a channel I might bring water sufficient to float

it, could I