Martin Conisbys Vengeance | Page 9

But here I
stopped and gasped as an intolerable pain shot through me.
"Ah--ah!" said she, leaning forward to stare at me keen-eyed. "And
doth it begin to work--yes? Doth it begin so soon?"
"Woman," I cried, as my pains increased, "what mean you now? Why
d'ye stare on me so? God help me, what have you done--"
"The milk, fool!" said she, smiling.
"Ha--what devil's brew--poison--"
"I warned you but, being fool, you nothing heeded--no!"
Now hereupon I went aside and, dreading to die thus miserably, thrust a
finger down my throat and was direly sick; thereafter, not abiding the
sun's intolerable heat, I crawled into the shade of a rock and lay there as
it were in a black mist and myself all clammy with a horrible, cold
sweat. And presently in my anguish, feeling a hand shake me, I lifted
swooning eyes to find this woman bending above me.
"How now," said she, "wilt crave mercy of me and live?"
"Devil!" I gasped. "Let me die and be done with you!"
At this she laughed and stooped low and lower until her hair came upon
my face and I might look into the glowing deeps of her eyes; and then
her arms were about me, very strong and compelling.
"Look--look into my eyes, deep--deep!" she commanded.
"Now--ha--speak me your name!"
"Martin," I gasped in my agony.

"Mar--tin," said she slowly. "I will call you Martino. Look now,
Martino, have you not seen me long--long ere this?"
"No!" I groaned. "God forbid!"
"And yet we have met, Martino, in this world or another, or mayhap in
the world of dreams. But we have met--somewhere, at some time, and
in that time I grasped you thus in my arms and stared down thus into
your eyes and in that hour I, having killed you, watched you die, and
fain would have won you back to life and me, for you were a man,--ah,
yes, a man in those dim days. But now--ah, bah! You are but poor fool
cozened into swallowing a harmless drug; to-morrow you shall be your
sluggish self. Now sleep, but know this--I may slay you whenso I will!
Ah, ah--'tis better to win my love than my hate." So she loosed me and
stood a while looking down on me, then motioned with imperious hand:
"Sleep, fool--sleep!" she commanded and frowning, turned away. And
as she went I heard her singing of that vile song again ere I sank into
unconsciousness:
"There are two at the fore. At the main hang three more Dead men that
swing all of a row--"
CHAPTER IV
HOW I LABOURED TO MY SALVATION
I found myself still somewhat qualmish next morning but, none the less,
got me to labour on the boat and, her damage being now made good on
her larboard side, so far as her timbering went, I proceeded to make her
seams as water-tight as I could. This I did by means of the fibre of
those great nuts that grew plenteously here and there on the island,
mixed with the gum of a certain tree in place of pitch, ramming my
gummed fibre into every joint and crevice of the boat's structure so that
what with this and the swelling of her timbers when launched I doubted
not she would prove sufficiently staunch and seaworthy. She was a
stout-built craft some sixteen feet in length; and indeed a poor enough
thing she might have seemed to any but myself, her weather-beaten
timbers shrunken and warped by the sun's immoderate heats, but to me

she had become as it were a sign and symbol of freedom. She lay upon
her starboard beam half full of sand, and it now became my object to
turn her that I might come at this under side, wherefore I fell to work
with mattock and spade to free her of the sand wherein (as I say) she
lay half-buried. This done I hove and strained until the sweat poured
from me yet found it impossible to move her, strive how I would.
Hereupon, and after some painful thought, I took to digging away the
sand, undermining her thus until she lay so nicely balanced it needed
but a push and the cumbrous structure, rolling gently over, lay in the
necessary posture, viz: with her starboard beam accessible from
gunwale to keel. And mightily heartened was I thus to discover her
damage hereabouts so much less than I had dared hope.
So I got me to work with saw, hammer and rivets and wrought so
diligently (staying but to snatch a mouthful of food) that as the sun
westered, my boat was well-nigh finished. Straightening my aching
back I stood to examine my handiwork and though of necessity
somewhat rough yet was it