CHAPTER XXXII.
ARMS AND THE MAN.
Silas Upcliff groaned bitterly when he heard the Puritan's shout.Being a brave man, his spirit inclined towards lending aid to hiscompatriots, but being honest also, his sense of duty impelled him toobserve the oath which he had made to his niggardly owner. While hewas thus halting between two opinions, the three venturers left himupon the shore, the blood tingling in their veins at the prospect of aglorious death.
Penfold led the way and took command, carrying his burden of years aslightly as any man upon that coast. Striking upward from the bay,where the sailors were fighting the ice, he brought his companions to aheight of three hundred feet above the sea, where the cliffs weredivided by a narrow defile down which in summer coursed a stream.
"I have kept this place in mind," said the old man, when they halted atthe extremity of the pass. "Here we shall make our stand."
So contracted was the way that the snow, massed heavily upon the sides,in places nearly touched. Some pines clung to the rock, hanging overthe defile, straining at their rope-like roots. At these the oldyeoman pointed with the order:
"Fell me two trees so that they shall fall along the pass."
The others scrambled up the cliff and cut at the snaky roots, whilePenfold occupied himself below in treading the snow into a firm bed.Soon the tough pines began to crack and sway. First one crashed down,then another, and after that Upcliff came running, short of breath,into the defile, having at length made up his mind that Master Grignionmust lose his ship.
"The enemy show black against the snow yonder, a hundred men if therebe one," he shouted. "Tell me now, how shall I dispose my men?"
"Return to your ship, Master Skipper, and cut her free with what speedyou may," replied Penfold gruffly. "We stand here to hold back theenemy so long as life remains."
"Mayhap they shall not come this way?" suggested Upcliff.
"If they do not, then are ye doubly safe. Before they can pass roundyou shall be away, for I know of no easy path up yonder wall, and onthe south the sea guards us. See you not that they must here advancesingly, and that one good fighter may hold them all at bay?"
"They have guns," said Upcliff, cocking his ear to listen to the axesringing keenly in the bay.
"They shall not use them. The snow must drench their priming."
The skipper made a step back, but halted again.
"I cannot desert you, comrades," he said hoarsely. "My owner is alsoan Englishman, an alderman of London town, and, close-minded though hebe, I wot he would lose his venture and his ship rather than seeEngland shamed. Bid me call my men to the far end of this pass, andthere let us stand together until the end."
"See you not that this is our affair?" replied Penfold. "We arefighting for our own hands, having blood of comrades to avenge. Go,for you do but waste your time and ours."
"Away," added Hough, pushing the skipper gently back. "The Lord beingon our side, how should we be afraid? They come about us like bees,and are extinct even as the fire among the thorns, for in the name ofthe Lord shall we destroy them. Go, good master, and while we smitethese worshippers of idols do you release your ship."
Thus compelled to observe his oath, Upcliff gave way, though with greatunwillingness, and ran to the end of the pass, where his eyes weregladdened by the sight of the _Dartmouth_ riding in the black channel,dressed out in all her canvas. His sailor's heart warmed at thespectacle, but sank again when he contemplated the wide white fieldwhich still spread between the deep sea and his ship. He staggereddown, blowing like a whale, and snatching an axe from the tired handsof one of his sailors wielded it furiously.
The men in the pass twisted the pine-boughs and snagged the trunks toform a rough chevaux-de-frise. Before an hour had passed they heardfootfalls crushing the snow, and then Penfold smiled and rose to hisfeet. The old man had been resting beneath a tree.
"Comrades," he said, "I lead by the privilege of age. Not more thanone can make a stand in this narrow pass. Do you ascend the cliff, oneon either side, and as the enemy attempt to climb the barrier cast snowinto their faces. The rest you shall leave to me."
"Out on you, old Simon," said Hough strongly. "I am younger than youby many years, and thus shall last the longer."
"You may fill this place after me," said Penfold. "But while I live Irule."
Hough was not satisfied, and the argument was only brought to an end bythe sight of a cap lifting above the ridge.
"To your places," whispered Penfold, stepping quickly to the barrier.
The knight was already upon the cliff, sheltering his spare body behinda pine. He awaited the one man who, he felt assured, would not losethe opportunity of a fight, and he did not desire to risk his lifeuntil he and that man could meet.
"Captain!" called a French voice startlingly, "a barrier is thrownacross the way."
"Over it," ordered the officer.
The man jumped upon the fallen trunk and threw up his hands to graspthe higher branches; but his fingers merely clutched the air, he gave agroan, and fell back, pierced through the heart by Penfold's sword,which had darted from the interlacing branches. A shout went up fromthe pass, which was now a struggling mass of soldiers.
"Information ever costs a man," said the officer coolly. "Storm thebarrier."
Two soldiers rushed out and flung themselves upon the locked trees,jostling each other in the constricted space. A lump of snow hit theforemost between the eyes, he gasped, and would have turned, but asword-thrust sent him to his doom, and his comrade, blinded in theself-same manner, shared his fate.
"There are men in hiding yonder," rang a voice. "The villains shelterbehind the trees."
"Find me a way round," roared an angry voice, and La Salle pushed alongthe pass. "Are we to be held here by one man behind a fallen tree?"
"There is no way up, Excellency," said an officer, gazing up the faceof the rock. "The heretics have well chosen their place."
"Send men round," shouted the priest.
A detachment was sent instantly to find a way over the cliff, whilewoodmen with axes went out and laid furiously upon the pines. Penfolddisabled the first, but another advanced, and after him another, eachunwilling to obey, but unable to hang back.
Three dead bodies were dragged out, and La Salle tried the expedient ofsending his men in rapid succession against the barrier. The wet snowdashed upon their faces, one by one they dropped before that stingingsword, man after man fell back, but another always stood ready to rushinto the gap, to make the attempt, and give way to someone moreconfident than he. Penfold's dogged old tongue counted off the strokesto the ringing of the ice-axes from the bay. The soldier-settlers camefaster, each man more fierce than the last, because their blood washeated by the shame of this defeat. The old man's misty breath camestreaming between the branches where his untiring sword flickered inand out.
Two at a time came the Frenchmen, until at length, profiting by amis-stroke, a couple gained the summit of the barrier. The first tojump down fell a prey to the stout yeoman, but the second reached theground unharmed. A shout of triumph went up, and the soldiers swarmedthe obstacle.
"Excellency, the Indian woman has shown us a way over the cliff,"exclaimed a voice beside La Salle. "That way, says she, we shallencounter no opposition."
"I will myself make the trial," La Salle answered. "Do you in themeantime win this pass."
"She says also that we must hasten, because these men are holding thepass while their comrades free the ship from the ice."
Penfold fought on, grim to the end, but his sword had lost itsdeadliness and his arm was growing numb. His comrades aided him asbest they could, but they too were acting upon the defensive, becausesome of the more daring soldiers had scaled the slippery sides of thepass in a futile endeavour to drag them down. The old man groaned andtottered as the light failed gradually from his eyes.
"Let it be said of me," he gasped, "that I gave them half an hour."
/> Voices roared in his ears, like the waves of a stormy sea about toclose over his head.
"Strike! He is spent. Strike him down."
There followed an onward rush. Over the old man's failing body spedthe bitterness of death.
He felt a sword in his side, another in his shoulder, and at the painhe revived like an old lion, and roared and plunged forward, feelinghis way with his point, until he found his striker's heart, and then heshouted with all the strength that was left:
"Stand up in my stead, comrade! I have made a good fight, andaccounted for the best. They shall run before us yet. To me, comrade!Ha! St. Edward and St. George!"
With that last shout he fell, deep into the red snow, his old bodyspouting blood, and so died like a valiant man of Berks, with his swordfast held, and his grey head set towards the foe.
Hough hurled back a soldier, who had clambered up the cliff to dislodgehim, and would have flung himself down to stop the way, when on asudden a tall figure slid down the side opposite him, and stoodimmediately to defy the body of men sweeping through like an inundatingwave, wielding his sword with calm, nervous strength, his keen eyesstarting from a thin, brown face.
Then Hough's courage gave way, and sinking to his knees, while theenemy rushed through, he cried aloud. Death had no terror for him; butthe spectacle of that cold man, whom for an instant he had seen,fighting in the raw light of the dawn, then thrown down and troddenunder foot, made him shiver to the heart.
"The Lord encompasses us with the spirits of our friends," he cried,knowing that it was Jesse Woodfield who already lay hacked and bruisedand buried in the snow of the defile.