CHAPTER XVI
SEVEN MEN DIE FROM THE KISS OF A CUTLAS EDGE
THE hush of the coming storm filled the cabin. Clobb's back was to the table, pressed against it.
He lifted the cleaver, about to throw, but did not. If the blow missed, one jump, a lunge, and he would be like a chicken on a spit.
Brundage did not flinch from the gesture nor move the point of the cutlas from the deck where it rested, point and wrist in a line with his straightened arm.
Men sidled this way and that, standing clear, looking from him to Clobb, waiting. They did not quite know what the fight was about, but they knew it had to come. Brundage's bearing demanded it. Leadership was deliberately challenged and sympathy was with Clobb as against the man who had been aloof, menacing, unsocial from the time he stepped on to the ship.
The cabin was littered with wasted food and broken dishes that had fallen or been thrown from the table, with stuff carried out of rooms and pitched down forgotten or discarded by those who had brought it.
Some men slept in chairs and some had been tumbled out of them so others might sleep there. They were in all stages of drunkenness. No man gave up easily to sleep, not if he could lift hand to mouth. It was throwing aside rare luck not to drink as long as fingers could move or the throat had a hole in it.
“What's the matter with you?” Clobb asked savagely, loudly and fiercely so as not to let anybody have reason to think that he was afraid. He was not. The question was honest. He wanted to know. He was not eager to fight with Brundage, though it could hardly be said that he had fear of him.
“The matter with you,” Brundage answered slowly, “seems to be the lack of a nigger's back to hide behind.”
He glanced down contemptuously at Sam-O, groaning as he sat half-upright, trying to look at his cuts. The negro was afraid, frightened. Death was at hand.
Clobb stared blankly. It took two or three pulse-beats for that sentence to get into his head; and it was not easy for him to believe that anybody would say that to him. Some men grinned. He saw the grins which helped to put fire into his anger.
Curses rolled out at Brundage, and in a passion Clobb threw a half-filled bottle—the nearest thing to his fingers for a missile. He brandished the meat-cleaver and roared:
“Down 'im! Down 'im, men!”
That was unexpected. He was making it more than a personal fight, was making it a matter between the crew and Brundage.
They might even have hesitated to take up Clobb's cause had not a fellow made an impulsive slash at Brundage from the side. The cutlas, driven in a sweeping upward blow, took the man's hand half-off at the wrist. A flash of circling steel and a second blow chopped into the head of a Spaniard who, perhaps unconsciously, reached for his own knife.
The fight was on. Men took it up on every side. Brundage had looked for nothing like that, but he more than accepted it. He carried the fight to them with cut and thrust so that men stumbled backward in fright. A gun roared. Others tried to come at his back.
There were cutlases a-plenty in hands that knew something of their use; but Brundage had a dangerous skill and a wrist strong as steel itself. Besides, he was full of contempt for them and was cold and sober too.
He made at Clobb and would have surely touched him with point or edge, but stumbled against the negro. Perhaps Brundage thought that Sam-O had tripped him; more likely he did not think at all, but scarcely looking down, curved his arm in a sidelong backward stroke for the negro's head. Sam-O threw up his arm. It was cut through just below the elbow.
Brundage did not pause except to make a sweep that checked the men behind him and went around the mirrored mizzen after Clobb. Shots were fired—a man howled. What came to hand was thrown. Another shot and Brundage was hit. A dozen hands had cutlases outthrust. Oaths crackled and yells, high, strident cries rose deafeningly even among the burst of shells. Drunk men were floundering into consciousness, startled.
Brundage was surrounded, and though one blow of his could strike down three points, from every side and all angles he was being pressed and shot at. Men searched Matt Ward's room for cartridges, hastily overturning everything at hand. Only the guns the petty officers had turned in the night before, and the two found in the rooms of the dead mates were loaded. Brundage was shot at repeatedly. Fellows were afraid to close with him. They struck, reaching from arm's length.
Over and over Brundage cut into some man's body, striking with a dexterous flash-like movement, wheeling with arm in full sweep, keeping off those that were trying to sneak on to him.
A lone figure he stood among them, erect and grim. The numbers were too many. A second bullet caught him. He put his back to the cabin's after bulkhead and pulled a heavy chair into position before him. Shots splattered in the wood near his head. Hurled glass broke in splinters, dropping to the deck about his feet. Men reached at him from all sides. Men with cuts in them yelled and cried, pained, angered, crazed. Men called one on the other to strike him down.
Somebody brought out a rifle and resting it on the edge of the table, fired. The rifle exploded, killing the marksman—the barrel was full of grease to protect it from sea air, and pieces of iron went like a bomb.
The Crab sneaked up to the chair, straightened with a lunge behind a cutlas and died on the instant, his head split wide.
Another bullet was known to have reached Brundage; he was seen to give way for a minute. Men paused, thinking he was falling, but he stiffened, stood erect. He had three bullets in him, many jabs, more cuts. Few of the crew dared come in close enough to bring down a smashing blow.
All the firing was not at him. McGuire was shooting and getting shot at. He had thrown wide the stateroom door and opened fire on the crescent shaped group at the other end of the cabin. To help Brundage he imperiled Eve, who crouched on her knees beside the narrow bed. He had called at her to crawl under it, but she did not hear. She seemed to hear nothing.
McGuire acted as though it was not worth while to protect himself. He believed then that nothing could be done to protect or save anybody. This was the end; and he wanted one man's life. It was Dicer's. But not seeing Dicer, he turned on Clobb. Aware that he was not likely to hit what he aimed at, he was deliberate in taking sight as he shot again and again. And missed him.
Guns were turned on McGuire; but in the fight Brundage was not forgotten. They were drunk and reckless, those fellows, and not wholly cowards, though bravery is hardly the word for men who have such numbers against so few.
The shouting, screams, wails of those dying or who thought they were, the racket and clash of steel and broken glass, roar of guns, made a deafening noise; the shifting and darting about of bodies increased the confusion and the cabin was misty from burned powder.
Brundage in a strong ringing voice called on McGuire to get back out of the way:
“I'm all right, boy!” Again, “Back—I'm all right.” The grim old fellow said it knowing better than any of them how far he was from being anything of the kind.
Clobb had held a cutlas in one hand and a gun in the other. After Brundage had brought up against the bulkhead, Clobb had thrown the cleaver, but the heavy blade whirred harmlessly and hit the wood. He shot as near point-blank as he dared to get and was getting closer when bullets from rearward made him jump.
Clobb crouched behind the table and shot at McGuire. Men stood clear from between them that they might have a duel, and they blazed away. Such as still had loaded guns fired on McGuire. Close rapid shooting is seldom so deadly as it seems that it must be.
McGuire, standing back in the open doorway to rest his revolver against the jamb, was rather sheltered, and the cabin was so thick with smoke from the burst rifle and the repeated firing that figures were soon only dimly seen as in a fog. Bullets struck all about him, behind him too. Once a ricochet whumm-eed like a terrible insect. He fired till the hammer clicked.
“Get back—get back—I'm all right!” Brundage shouted again.
McGuire could not see clearly through the smoke, and peered hard as he was closing the door. Perhaps Brundage had got into a room; but as he called to know, figures swept down upon the door and he barely got it shut and locked before they were beating as though to drive themselves through the wood.
Brundage could have got away then, or before, had not one of the first bullets caught him in the thigh so that he had been forced to put his back to the nearest shelter; and the chair was seized as much for support as for a breastworks. But he stood erect, and his long arm darted with blade turning in quick chopping blows.
Some fellow broke off the lid of a sea-chest and binding rope around it, made a buckler with which he approached confidently. In holding it up to protect his head securely, he exposed his stomach and the point of Brundage's cutlas went deep. The fellow's howl was ear-splitting.
They could tell that Brundage was tired; but he was resolutely straight, his shoulders back, his head up, though at times he seemed a little unsteady on his feet. He had a bullet in his thigh, another in his shoulder, two in his breast; but if any one came within striking-distance all his strength and quickness flared into the stroke.
One after another ventured to a duel and others paused with lowered or poised blades to watch. Man after man edged in to have the perilous distinction of cutting him down when they thought he was weakened; but either their hearts failed them or their blades.
Clobb, his gun empty and no shells at hand, rushed infuriatedly to have it over; but his foot slipped on a red smear and he fell, sprawling. Brundage leaned as far as he could strike, and was jabbed by a broken rib in bending; Clobb rolled scramblingly away, untouched. Brundage was slashed on the side of the head before he could straighten. The man who struck him leaped back safely, loud with boasting.
Brundage was very tired. His wrist ached. When he stooped the splintered rib had been driven outward until it protruded through his skin. There were four bullets in him and many gashes, each draining blood. He could not see clearly and distance became confusing. The cutlas was getting heavy as an oar; and the ship seemed to be rolling. He wondered how the men about him held their feet so easily when the deck seemed swaying.
He felt that if he could only have a cool drink of water, then lie down and sleep for a little while he would be all right; by that time the smoke that seemed to have got right inside of his eyes would have cleared away and it would make no difference how many men came at him. He put his back stiffly against the bulkhead and with his left arm out rigidly to the top of the chair, braced himself, standing erect as marble.
Clobb came to his feet angry as a man can be. He was furious that one fellow should be so baffling; and cursed. Malign luck seemed against him, making him futile, ridiculous, his hot temper boiled. Seizing a cutlas and tearing it out of a man's hand, Clobb cried:
“Rush him! Rush 'im—all o' you—on him!”
They pressed forward. They too were infected with desperation at Brundage. He seemed unkillable. A little more and they would have begun to be superstitious about him. But nothing is scarcely more enraging to men who are not in a mood for gallantry than to be opposed by one lone figure.
For the first time, as by common impulse, every man threw away caution and rushed heedless. A dozen blades flashed out in lunges or cutting downward.
Brundage struck to left and right, broke down one guard, overreached the other and split two heads.
Clobb's blade went through him—and Clobb leaped back, his hand letting go of his cutlas as Brundage raised his arm. The arm did not fall. He was impaled on two other blades and more were hacking him. He did not speak. He did not crumple. His strong old heart did not betray him even then. Supported by the very blades through his body he stood two seconds or more, tall, erect, grim, and so died as he had lived—silent, implacable, sinister.
He gave way, dead; but as he fell, the uplifted cutlas held in frozen fingers dropped its edge on the head of the goiter-throated man and blood streaked into the thick hair and down the bearded face of the fellow who backed away in terror—wounded by a dead man.
Brundage was dead; but they were a sorry lot of victors. Seven men he had killed and many had wounds to nurse.
Fighting is sobering work; and they stared at him with no pride in themselves. Fight madness went out of them. Suddenly there seemed nothing to have hated him for. They could not escape the awe of his bravery and deadliness. They had no old grudge against him to make them gleeful.
From somewhere, Old Tom staggered, drunk, helplessly drunk and reckless. He swayed reelingly across the cabin. No one spoke to him. He hung on to the chair behind which Brundage lay, half propped against the bulkhead. Old Tom peered down, blinking, unsteady. Then he looked around and cried drunkenly: “T' hell wi' you fellows! 'Ear me? T' hell wi' you—all you—dogs! 'Ear me? Why don't ye do somethin'—dogs!”
He glared, scarcely able to stand. His words were thick, but understood. His manner too.
They did nothing except turn away, ignoring him. There was in them no further desire to kill anybody. If Brundage had gone down at the first stroke or bullet
Glaring fixedly, Old Tom staggered off for the stairs and they could hear him stumbling, thumping, falling as he made his way. He fell and did not move, but muffled, distant “T' hell—dogs—” came down to them. Then silence. He was in a drunken sleep.
They had begun to drink again, but not merrily.
Sam-O had huddled himself into a corner and bled until he was unconscious. He had tried to thrust the stump of his arm into the yellow scarf about his waist and check the spurting blood; but it was useless. He was being drained, and at last peacefully, as if in a sleep, was dying.