T he B lue F lame of V engeance Previously published as Blades of the Brotherhood T he B lue F lame of V engeance “Death is a blue flame dancing over corpses.” SOLOMON KANE I SWORDS CLASH AND A STRANGER COMES The blades crossed with a sharp clash of venomous steel; blue sparks showered. Across those blades hot eyes burned into each other – hard inky black eyes and volcanic blue ones. Breath hissed between close locked teeth; feet scruffed the sward, advancing, retreating. He of the black eyes feinted and thrust as quick as a snake strikes. The blue-eyed youth parried with a half turn of a steely wrist and his counter stroke was like the flash of summer lightning. “Hold, gentlemen!” The swords were struck up and a portly man stood between the combatants, jeweled rapier in one hand, cocked hat in the other. “Have done! The matter is decided and honor satisfied! Sir George is wounded!” The black-eyed man with an impatient gesture put behind him his left arm from which, from a narrow wound, blood was streaming. “Stand aside!” cried he furiously and with an oath. “A wound – a scratch! It decides nothing! 'Tis no matter. This must be to the death!” “Aye, stand aside, Sir Rupert,” said the victor, quietly, but his hot blue eyes were sparks of steel. “The matter between us can be settled only by death!” “Put up your steel, you young cockerels!” snapped Sir Rupert. “As magistrate I command it! Sir physician, come and look to Sir George's wound. Jack Hollinster, sheathe your blade, sirrah! I'll have no bloody murders in this district an' my name be Rupert d'Arcy.” Young Hollinster said nothing, nor did he obey the choleric magistrate's command, but he dropped his sword point to the earth and with head half lowered, stood silent and moody, watching the company from under frowning black brows. Sir George had hesitated, but one of his seconds whispered urgently in his ear and he sullenly acquiesced, handed his sword to the speaker and gave himself up to the ministrations of the physician. It was a strange setting for such a scene. A low level land, sparsely grown with sickly yellow grass, now withered, ran to a wide strip of white sand, strewn with bits of driftwood. Beyond this strip the sea washed grey and restless, a dead thing upon whose desolate bosom the only sign of life was a single sail hovering in the distance. Inland, across the bleak moors there could be seen in the distance the drab cottages of a small village. In such a barren and desolate landscape, the splash of color and passionate life there on the beach contrasted strangely. The pale autumn sun flashed on the bright blades, the jeweled hilts, the silver buttons on the coats of some of the men, and the gilt-work on Sir Rupert's vast cocked hat. Sir George's seconds were helping him in his coat, and Hollinster's second, a sturdy young man in homespun, was urging him to don his. But Jack, still resentful, put him aside. Suddenly he sprang forward with his sword still in his hand and spoke, his voice ringing fierce and vibrant with passion. “Sir George Banway, look to yourself! A scratch in the arm will not blot out the insult whereof you know! The next time we meet there will be no magistrate to save your rotten hide!” The nobleman whirled round with a black oath, and Sir Rupert started forward with a roar: “Sirrah! How dare you –” Hollinster snarled in his face and turning his back, strode away, sheathing his sword with a vicious thrust. Sir George made as if to follow him, his dark face contorted and eyes burning like hot coals, but his friend whispered again in his ear, motioning seaward. Banway's eyes wandered to the single sail which hung as if suspended in the sky and he nodded grimly. Hollinster strode along the beach in silence, bareheaded, hat in one hand and his coat slung over his arm. The bleak wind brought coolness to his sweat-plastered locks and it seemed he sought coolness for a turmoiled brain. His second, Randel, followed him in silence. As they progressed along the beach, the scenery became more wild and rugged; gigantic rocks, grey and moss-grown, reared their heads along the shore and straggled out to meet the waves in grim jagged lines. Further out a rugged and dangerous reef sent up a low and continuous moaning. Jack Hollinster stopped, turned his face seaward and cursed long, fervently and deep-throated. The awed listener understood the burden of his profanity to be regret at the fact that he, Hollinster, had failed to sink his blade to the hilt in the black heart of that swine, that jackal, that beast, that slanderer of innocence, that damned rogue, Sir George Banway! “And now,” he snarled, “it's like the villain will never meet me in fair combat again, having tasted my steel, but by God –” “Calm yourself, Jack,” honest Randel squirmed uneasily; he was Hollinster's closest friend but he did not understand the black furious moods into which his comrade sometimes fell. “You drubbed him fairly; he got the worst o' it all around. After all, you'd hardly kill a man for what he did –” “No?” Jack cried passionately. “I'd hardly kill a man for that foul insult? Well, not a man, but a base rogue of a nobleman whose heart I'll see before the moon wanes! Do you realize that he publicly slandered Mary Garvin, the girl I love? That he befouled her name over his drinking cup in the tavern? Why –” “That I understand,” sighed Randel, “having heard the full details not less than a score of times. Also I know that you threw a cup of wine in his face, slapped his chops, upset a table on him and kicked him twice or thrice. Troth, Jack, you've done enough for any man! Sir George is highly connected – you are but the son of a retired sea-captain – even though you have distinguished yourself for valor abroad. Well, after all Jack, Sir George need not have fought you at all. He might have claimed his rank and had his serving men flog you forth.” “An' he had,” Hollinster said grimly with a vicious snap of his teeth, “I had put a pistol ball between his damned black eyes – Dick, leave me to my folly. You preach the right road I know – the path of forbearance and meekness. But I have lived where a man's only guide and aid was the sword at his belt; and I come of hot wild blood. Just now that blood is stirred to the marrow by reason of that swine-nobleman. He knew Mary was my beloved, yet he sat there and insulted her in my presence – aye, in my very teeth! – with a leer at me. And why? Because he has monies, lands, titles – high family connections and noble blood. I am a poor man and a poor man's son, who carries his fortune in a sheath at the belt-side. Had I, or had Mary been of high birth, he had respected –” “Pshaw!” broke in Randel. “When did George Banway ever respect – anything? His black name hereabouts is well deserved. He respects his own desires.” “And he desires Mary,” moodily growled the other. “Well, mayhap he'll take her as he's taken many another maid hereabouts. But first he'll kill John Hollinster. Dick – I would not appear churlish but mayhap you'd better leave me for a space. I am no fit companion to anyone and I need solitude and the cold breath of the sea to cool my burning blood.” “You'll not seek Sir George –” Randel hesitated. Jack made a gesture of impatience. “I'll go the other way, I promise you. Sir George went home to coddle his scratch. He'll not show his face for a fortnight.” “But Jack, his bullies are of unsavory repute. Is it safe for you?” Jack grinned and the grin was wolfish in spite of his open and frank countenance. “'Twould be no more than I could ask. But no fear; if he strikes back that way – 'twill be in the darkness of midnight – not in open day.” Randel walked away toward the village, shaking his head dubiously, and Jack strode on along the beach, each step taking him further away from the habitations of man and further into a dim realm of waste lands and waste waters. The wind sighed through his clothing, cutting like a knife, but he did not don his coat. The cold grey aura of the day lay like a shroud over his soul and he cursed the land and the clime. His soul hungered for the far warm southern lands he had known in his wanderings, but a face rose in his visions – a laughing girlish face crowned with golden curls, in whose eyes lay a warmth which transcended the golden heat of tropic moons and which rendered even this barren country warm and pleasant. Then in his musings another face rose – a dark mocking face, with hard black eyes and a cruel mouth curled viciously under a thin black mustache. Jack Hollinster cursed sincerely. A deep vibrant voice broke in on his profanity. “Young man, your words are vain and worldly. They are as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Jack whirled, hand shooting to hilt. He had thought he was alone. On a great grey boulder there sat a Stranger. This man rose as Jack turned, unwrapping a wide black cloak and laying it over his arm. Hollinster gazed at him curiously. The man was of a type to command attention and something more. He was inches taller than Hollinster who was considerably above medium height. There was no ounce of fat or surplus flesh on that spare frame, yet the man did not look frail or even too thin. On the contrary. His broad shoulders, deep chest and long rangy limbs betokened strength, speed and endurance – bespoke the swordsman as plainly as did the long unadorned rapier at his belt. The man reminded Jack, more than anything else, of one of the great gaunt grey wolves he had seen on the Siberian steppes. But it was the face which first caught and held the young man's attention. The face was rather long, was smooth-shaven and of a strange dark pallor which together with the somewhat sunken cheeks lent an almost corpse-like appearance at times – until one looked at the eyes. These gleamed with vibrant life and dynamic vitality, pent deep and ironly controlled. Looking directly into these eyes, feeling the cold shock of their strange power, Jack Hollinster was unable to tell their color. There was the greyness of ancient ice in them, but there was also the cold blueness of the Northern sea's deepest depths. Heavy black brows hung above them and the whole effect of the countenance was distinctly Mephistophelean. The stranger's clothing was simple, severely plain and suited the man. His hat was a black slouch, featherless. From heel to neck he was clad in close-fitting garments of a sombre hue, unrelieved by any ornament or jewel. No ring adorned his powerful fingers; no gem twinkled on his rapier hilt and its long blade was cased in a plain leather sheath. There were no silver buttons on his garments, no bright buckles on his shoes. Strangely enough the drab monotone of his dress was broken in a novel and bizarre manner by a wide sash knotted gypsy-fashion about his waist. This sash was silk of Oriental workmanship; its color was a sinister virulent green, like a serpent's hide, and from it projected a dirk hilt and the black butts of two heavy pistols. Hollinster's gaze wandered over this strange apparition even as he wondered how this man came here, in his strange apparel, armed to the teeth. His appearance suggested the Puritan, yet – “How came you here?” asked Jack bluntly. “And how is it that I saw you not until you spoke?” “I came here as all honest men come, young sir,” the deep voice answered, as the speaker wrapped his wide black cloak about him and reseated himself on the boulder, “on my two legs – as for the other: men engrossed in their own affairs to the point of taking the Name in vain, see neither their friends – to their shame – nor their foes – to their harm.” “Who are you?” “My name is Solomon Kane, young sir, a landless man – one time of Devon.” Jack frowned uncertainly. Somewhere, somehow, the Puritan had certainly lost all the unmistakable Devonshire accent. From the sound of his words he might have been from anywhere in England, north or south. “You have travelled a great deal, sir?” “My steps have been led in many far countries, young sir.” A light broke in on Hollinster and he gazed at his strange companion with quickened interest. “Were you not a captain in the French army for a space, and were you not at –” he named a certain name. Kane's brow clouded. “Aye. I led a rout of ungodly men, to my shame be it said, though the cause was a just one. In the sack of that town you name, many foul deeds were done under the cloak of the cause and my heart was sickened – oh, well – many a tide has flowed under the bridge since then, and I have drowned some red memories in the sea – “And speaking of the sea, lad, what make you of yonder ship standing off and on as she hath done since yesterday's daybreak?” A lean finger stabbed seaward, and Jack shook his head. “She lies too far out. I can make naught of her.” The sombre eyes bored into his and Hollinster did not doubt that that cold gaze might plumb the distances and detect the very name painted on the far away ship's bows. Anything seemed possible for those strange eyes. “'Tis in truth a thought far for the eye to carry,” said Kane. “But by the cut of her rigging I believe I recognize her. It is in my mind that I would like to meet the master of this ship.” Jack said nothing. There was no harbor hereabouts, but a ship might, in calm weather, run close ashore and anchor just outside the reef. This ship might be a smuggler. There was always a good deal of illicit trade going on about this lonely coast where the custom officers seldom came. “Have you ever heard of one Jonas Hardraker, whom men call The Fishhawk?” Hollinster started. That dread name was known on all the coasts of the civilized world, and in many uncivilized coasts, for the owner had made it feared and abhorred in many waters, warm and cold. Jack sought to read the stranger's face, but the brooding eyes were inscrutable. “That bloody pirate? The last I heard of him, he was purported to be cruising the Caribees.” Kane nodded. “Lies travel ahead of a fast craft. The Fishhawk cruises where his ship is, and where his ship is, only his master Satan knows.” He stood up, wrapping his cloak more closely about him. “The Lord hath led my feet into many strange places, and over many queer paths,” said he sombrely. “Some were fair and many were foul; sometimes I seemed to wander without purpose or guidance but always when I sought deep I found fit reason therefor. And harkee, lad, forbye the fires of Hell there is no hotter fire than the blue flame of vengeance which burneth a man's heart night and day without rest until he quench it in blood. “It hath been my duty in times past to ease various evil men of their lives – well, the Lord is my staff and my guide and methinks he hath delivered mine enemy into mine hands.” And so saying Kane strode away with long cat-like strides, leaving Hollinster to gape after him in bewilderment. II ONE COMES IN THE NIGHT Jack Hollinster awoke from a dream-haunted slumber. He sat up in bed and stared about him. Outside the moon had not risen but in his window a head and a pair of broad shoulders were framed black in the starlight. A warning “Shhhh!” came to him like a serpent's hiss. Slipping his sword from the scabbard which hung on the bed post, Jack rose and approached the window. A bearded face set with two small sparkling eyes looked in at him; the man was breathing deeply as if from a long run. “Bring tha swoord, lad, and follow me,” came the urgent whisper. “'E's got she!” “How now? Who's got who?” “Sir Garge!” was the chilling whisper. “'E sent she a writin' wi' your name onto it, biddin' 'er come to the Rocks, and his rogues grabbed she and –” “Mary Garvin?” “Truth as ever was, maaster!” The room reeled. Hollinster had anticipated attack on himself; he had not supposed the villainy of Sir George's nature went deep enough for an abduction of a helpless girl. “Blast his black soul,” he growled between his teeth as he snatched at his clothes. “Where is she now?” “They tooken she to 'is 'ouse, sur.” “And who are you?” “No' but poor Sam as tends stable down to the tavern, sur. I see 'em grab she.” Dressed and bare sword in hand, Hollinster climbed through the window. He would not risk awaking his parents by going out the front door. “I thank you, Sam,” said he. “If I live, I'll remember this.” Sam grinned, showing his yellow fangs: “I'll go wi' 'e, maaster; I've a grudge or twain to settle wi' Sir Garge!” His eyes gleamed with hatred and he flourished a wicked looking bludgeon. “Come then. We'll go straight to the swine's house.” Sir George Banway's huge ancient manor house, in which he lived alone except for a few evil-visaged servants and several more evil cronies, stood some two miles from the village, close to the beach but in the opposite direction from that taken by Jack in his stroll yesterday. A great lowering bulk of a house, in some disrepair, its oaken panels stained with age, many ill tales were told about it, and of the villagers, only such rowdies and ruffians as enjoyed the owner's confidence, had ever set foot in it. No wall surrounded it, only a few ragged hedges and a few straggling trees. The moors ran to the back of the house and the front faced a strip of sandy beach some two hundred yards wide which lay between the house and the boulder-torn surf. The rocks directly in front of the house, at the water's edge were unusually high, barren and rugged. It was said that there were curious caves among them, but no one knew exactly for Sir George regarded that particular strip of beach as his own private property and had a way of taking musket shots at parties who showed a curiosity regarding it. Not a light showed in the house as Jack Hollinster and his strange follower made their way across the dank moor. A thin mist had blotted out most of the stars and through it the great black house reared up dark and ominous, surrounded by dark, bent ghosts which were hedges and trees. Seaward all was veiled in a grey shroud but once Jack thought he heard the muffled clank of a mooring chain. He wondered if a ship could be anchored outside that venomous line of breakers. The grey sea moaned restlessly as a sleeping monster might moan without waking. “The windy, maaster,” came from the man Sam in a fierce whisper. “'E'll have tha glims doused but 'e be there, just the same!” Together they stole silently to the great dark house. Jack found time to wonder at the silence and the lack of guards. Was Sir George so certain of himself that he had not taken the trouble to throw out sentries? Or were the sentries sleeping on duty? He tried a window cautiously. It was heavily shuttered but the shutters swung open with surprizing ease. Even as they did, a suspicion crossed his mind like a lightning flash – all this was too sure – too easy! He whirled, just as he saw the bludgeon in Sam's hand go up. There was no time to thrust or duck. Yet even in that fleeting flash of vision he saw the evil triumph in the little swinish eyes – then the world crashed about him and all was utter blackness. III “– DEATH'S WALKIN' TONIGHT –” Slowly Jack Hollinster drifted back to consciousness. A red glow was in his eyes and he blinked repeatedly. His head ached sickeningly and this glare hurt his eyes. He shut them, hoping it would cease, but the merciless radiance beat through the lids – into his throbbing brain, it seemed. A confused medley of voices bore dimly on his ears. He tried to raise his hand to his head but was unable to stir. Then it all came back with a rush and he was fully and poignantly awake. He was bound hand and foot with cruel tightness and was lying on a dank dirt floor. He was in a vast cellar, piled high with squat casks and kegs and black sticky-looking barrels. The ceiling or roof of this cellar was fairly high, braced with heavy oaken timbers. On one of these timbers hung a lanthorn from which emanated the red glow that hurt his eyes. This light illuminated the cellar but filled its corners with flickering shadows. A flight of broad stone stairs came down the cellar at one end and a dark passageway led away out of the other end. There were many men in the cellar; Jack recognized the dark mocking countenance of Banway, the drink-flushed bestial face of the traitor Sam, two or three bullies who divided their time between Sir George's house and the village tavern. The rest, some ten or twelve men, he did not know. They were all indubitably seamen; brawny hairy men with ear rings and nose rings and tarry breeches. But their dress was bizarre and grotesque. Some had gay bandannas bound about their heads and all were armed to the teeth. Cutlasses with broad brass guards were much in evidence as well as jewel-hilted daggers and silver-chased pistols. These men diced and drank and swore terrific oaths, while their eyes gleamed terribly in the lanthorn light. Pirates! No true honest seamen, these, with their strange contrast of finery and ruffianism. Tarry breeks and seamen's shirts, yet silken sashes lapped their waists; no stockings to their legs, yet many had on silver-buckled shoes and heavy gold rings to their fingers. Great gems dangled from many a heavy gold hoop serving as ear ring. Not an honest sailorman's knife among them, but costly Spanish and Italian daggers. Their gauds, their ferocious faces, their wild and blasphemous bearing stamped them with the mark of their red trade. Jack thought of the ship he had seen before sundown and of the rattle of the anchor chain in the mist. He suddenly remembered the strange man, Kane, and wondered at his words. Had he known that ship was a buccaneer? What was his connection with these wild men? Was his Puritanism merely a mask to hide sinister activities? A man casting dice with Sir George turned suddenly toward the captive. A tall, rangy, broad-shouldered man – Jack's heart leaped into his mouth. Then subsided. At first glimpse he had thought this man to be Kane, but he now saw that the buccaneer, though alike to the Puritan in general build, was his antithesis in all other ways. He was scantily but gaudily clad, and ornate with silken sash and silver buckles, and gilded tassels. His broad girdle bristled with dagger hilts and pistol butts, scintillant with jewels. A long rapier, resplendent with gold-work and gems, hung from a rich scroll-worked baldric. From each slim gold ear ring was pendant a sparkling red ruby of goodly size, whose crimson brilliance contrasted strangely with the dark face. This face was lean, hawk-like and cruel. A cocked hat topped the narrow high forehead, pulled low over sparse black brows, but not too low to hide the gay bandanna beneath. In the shadow of the hat a pair of cold grey eyes danced recklessly, with changing sparks of light and shadow. A knife-bridged beak of a nose hooked over a thin gash of a mouth, and the cruel upper lip was adorned with long drooping mustachios, much like those worn by Manchu mandarins. “Ho, George, our prey wakes!” this man shouted with a cruel slash of laughter in his words. “By Zeus, Sam, I'd thought you'd given him his resting dose. But he'd a thicker pate than I thought for.” The pirate crew ceased their games and stared curiously or mockingly at Jack. Sir George's dark face darkened and he indicated his left arm, with the bandage showing through the ruffled silk sleeve. “You spoke truth, Hollinster, when you said with our next meeting no magistrate should intervene. Only now, methinks 'tis your rotten hide shall suffer.” “Jack!” Deeper than Banway's taunts, the sudden agonized voice cut like a knife. Jack, with his blood turning to ice, wrenched frantically over and craning his neck, saw a sight that almost stopped his heart. A girl was bound to a great ring in an oaken support – a girl who knelt on the dank dirt floor, straining toward him, her face white, her soft eyes dilated with fright, her golden locks in disarray – “Mary – oh my God!” burst from Jack's anguished lips. A brutal shout of laughter chorused his frantic outcry. “Drink a health to the loving pair!” roared the tall pirate captain, lifting a frothing drinking jack. “Drink to the lovers, lads! Meseemeth he grudges us our company. Wouldst be alone with the little wench, boy?” “You black-hearted swine!” raved Jack, struggling to his knees with a superhuman effort. “You cowards, you poltroons, you dastards, you white-livered devils! Gods of Hell, if my arms were but free! Loose me, an' the pack of you have a drop of manhood between you all! Loose me, and let me at your swines'-throats with my bare hands! If I make not corpses of jackals, then blast me for a varlet and a coward!” “Judas!” spoke one of the buccaneers admiringly. “The lad hath the good right guts, even so! And what a flow o' speech, keelhaul me! Blast my lights and liver, cap'n, but –” “Be silent,” cut in Sir George harshly, for his hatred ate at his heart like a rat. “Hollinster, you waste your breath. Not this time do I face you with naked blade. You had your chance and failed. This time I fight you with weapons better suited to your rank and station. None knows where you went or to what end. None shall ever know. The sea has hidden better bodies than yours, and shall hide still better ones after your bones have turned to slime on the sea bottom. As for you –” he turned to the horrified girl who was stammering pitiful pleas, “you will bide with me awhile in my house. In this very cellar, belike. Then when I have wearied of you –” “Hadst better be wearied of her by the time I return, in two months,” broke in the pirate captain with a sort of fiendish joviality. “If I take a corpse to sea this trip – which Satan knoweth is a plaguey evil cargo! – I must have a fairer passenger next time.” Sir George grinned sourly. “So be it. In two months she is yours – unless she should chance to die before that time. You sail just before dawn with the red ruin of a man I intend to make of Hollinster wrapped in canvas, and you sink the remains so far out at sea they will never wash ashore. (Though it's few will recognize the corpse after I am through with him.) That is understood – then in two months you may return for the girl.” As Jack listened to this callous and frightful program his heart shrivelled within him. “Mary, my girl,” he said weakly, “how came you here?” “A man brought a missive,” she whispered, too faint with fear to speak aloud. “It was written in a hand much like yours, with your name signed. It said that you were hurt and for me to come to you to the Rocks. I came; these men seized me and bore me here through a long evil tunnel.” “As I told 'e, maaster!” shouted the hirsute Sam with gloating glee. “Trust ole Sam to trick 'em! 'E come along same as a lamb! Oh, that were a rare trick – and a rare fool 'e were, too!” “Belay,” spoke up a dark, lean saturnine pirate, evidently first mate, “'tis perilous enough puttin' in this way to get rid o' the loot we takes. What if they find the girl here and she tips 'em the lay? Where'd we find a market this side the Channel for the North Sea plunder?” Sir George and the captain laughed. “Be at ease, Allardine. Wast ever a melancholy knave. They'll think the wench and the lad eloped together. Her father is against him, George says. None of the villagers will ever see or hear of either of them again and they'll never look here. You're downhearted because we're so far from the Main. Faith man, haven't we threaded the Channel before, aye, and taken merchantmen in the Baltic, under the very noses of the men-o'-war?” “Mayhap,” mumbled Allardine, “but I'll feel safer wi' these waters far behind. The day o' the Brotherhood is passin' in these climes. Best the Caribs for us. I feel evil in my bones. Death hovers over us like a black cloud and I see no channel to steer through.” The pirates moved uneasily. “Avast man, that's ill talk.” “It's an ill bed, the sea bottom,” answered the other gloomily. “Cheer up,” laughed the captain, slapping his despondent mate resoundingly on the back. “Drink a swig o' rum to the bride! It's a foul berth, Execution Dock, but we're well to windward of that, so far. Drink to the bride! Ha ha! George's bride and mine – though the little hussy seems not overjoyful –” “Hold!” the mate's head jerked up. “Was not that a muffled scream overhead?” Silence fell while eyes rolled toward the stair and thumbs stealthily felt the edge of blades. The captain shrugged his mighty shoulders impatiently. “I heard nothing.” “I did. A scream and a fallin' carcase – I tell you, Death's walkin' tonight –” “Allardine,” said the captain, with a sort of still passion as he knocked the neck from a bottle, “you are become an old woman, in very truth, of late, starting at shadows. Take heart from me! Do I ever fret myself wi' fear or worry?” “Better if you went wi' more heed,” answered the gloomy one direly. “A-takin' o' break-neck chances, night and day – and wi' a human wolf on your trail day and night as you have – ha' you forgot the word sent you near two years ago?” “Bah!” the captain laughed, raising the bottle to his lips. “The trail's too long for even –” A black shadow fell across him and the bottle slipped from his fingers to shatter on the floor. As if struck by a premonition, the pirate paled and turned slowly. All eyes sought the stone stairway which led down into the cellar. No one had heard a door open or shut, but there on the steps stood a tall man, dressed all in black save for a bright green sash about his waist. Under heavy black brows, shadowed by a low-drawn slouch hat, two cold eyes gleamed like burning ice. Each hand gripped a heavy pistol, cocked. Solomon Kane! IV THE QUENCHING OF THE FLAME “Move not, Jonas Hardraker,” said Kane tonelessly. “Stir not, Ben Allardine! George Banway, John Harker, Black Mike, Bristol Tom – keep your hands in front of you! Let no man touch sword or pistol, lest he die suddenly!” There were nearly twenty men in that cellar, but in those gaping black muzzles there was sure death for two, and none wished to be the first to die. So nobody moved. Only the mate Allardine with his face like snow on a winding sheet, gasped: “Kane! I knew it! Death's in the air when he's near! I told you, near two years ago when he sent you word, Jonas, and you laughed! I told you he came like a shadow and slew like a ghost! The red Indians in the new lands are naught to him in subtlety! Oh, Jonas, you should ha' harkened to me!” Kane's sombre eyes chilled him into silence. “You remember me of old, Ben Allardine – you knew me before the brotherhood of buccaneers turned into a bloody gang of cutthroat pirates. And I had dealings with your former captain, as we both remember – in the Tortugas and again off the Horn. An evil man he was and one whom Hell fire hath no doubt devoured – to which end I aided him with a musket ball. “As to my subletly – true I have dwelt in Darien and learned somewhat of stealth and woodcraft and strategy, but your true pirate is a very hog and easy to steal upon. Those who watch outside the house saw me not as I stole through the thick fog, and the bold rover who with sword and musket guarded the cellar door, knew not that I entered the house; he died suddenly and with only a short squeal like a stuck hog.” Hardraker burst out with a furious oath: “What want you? What do you here?” Solomon Kane regarded him with a cold concentrated hate in his eyes; yet it was not so much the hatred that was blood chilling – as it was a bleak certainty of doom, a relentless cold blood lust that was sure of satiety. “Some of your crew know me of old, Jonas Hardraker whom men call the Fishhawk.” Kane's voice was toneless but deep feeling hummed at the back of it. “And you well know why I have followed you from the Main to Portugal, from Portugal to England. Two years ago you sank a ship in the Caribees, ‘The Flying Heart' out of Dover. Thereon was a young girl, the daughter of – well, never mind the name. You remember the girl. The old man, her father, was a close friend to me, and many a time, in bygone years have I held his infant daughter on my knee – the infant who grew up to be torn by your foul hands, you black devil. Well, when the ship was taken, this maid fell into your clutches and shortly died. Death was more kind to her than you had been. Her father who learned of her fate from survivors of that massacre, went mad and is in such state to this day. She had no brothers, no one but that old man. None might avenge her –” “Except you, Sir Galahad?” sneered the Fishhawk. “Yes, I, you damned black swine!” roared Kane unexpectedly. The crash of his powerful voice almost shattered the ear drums and hardened buccaneers started and blenched. Nothing is more stunning or terrible than the sight of a man of icy nerves and iron control suddenly losing that control and flaming into a full withering blast of murderous fury. For a fleeting instant as he thundered those words, Kane was a fearful picture of primitive, relentless and incarnate passion. Then the storm passed instantly and he was his icy self again – cold as chill steel, calm and deadly as a cobra. One black muzzle centered directly on Hardraker's breast, the other menaced the rest of the gang. “Make your peace with God, pirate,” said Kane tonelessly, “for in another instant it will be too late.” Now for the first time the pirate blenched. “Great God,” he gasped, sweat beading his brow, “you'd not shoot me down like a jackal, without a chance?” “That will I, Jonas Hardraker,” answered Kane, with never a tremor of voice or steely hand, “and with a joyful heart. Have you not committed all crimes under the sun? Are you not a stench in the nostrils of God and a black smirch on the books of men? Have you ever spared weakness or pitied helplessness? Shrink you from your fate, you black coward?” With a terrific effort the pirate pulled himself together. “Why, I shrink not. But it is you who are the coward.” Menace and added fury clouded the cold eyes for an instant. Kane seemed to retreat within himself – to withdraw himself still further from human contact. He poised himself there on the stairs like some brooding unhuman thing – like a great black condor about to rend and slay. “You are a coward,” continued the pirate recklessly, realizing – for he was no fool – that he had touched the one accessible chord in the Puritan's breast – the one weak spot in Kane's armor – vanity. Though he never boasted, Kane took a deep pride in the fact that whatever his many enemies said of him, no man had ever called him a coward. “Mayhap I deserve killing in cold blood,” went on the Fishhawk, watching him narrowly, “but if you give me no chance to defend myself, men will name you poltroon.” “The praise or the blame of man is vanity,” said Kane somberly. “And men know if I be coward or not.” “But not I!” shouted Hardraker triumphantly. “An' you shoot me down I will go into Eternity, knowing you are a dastard, despite what men say or think of you!” After all Kane, fanatic as he was, was still human. He tried to make himself believe that he cared not what this wretch said or thought, but in his heart he knew that so deep was his underlying vanity of courage, that if this pirate died with a scornful sneer on his lips, that he, Kane, would feel the sting all the rest of his life. He nodded grimly. “So be it. You shall have your chance, though the Lord knoweth you deserve naught. Name your weapons.” The Fishhawk's eyes narrowed. Kane's skill with the sword was a byword among the wild outcasts and rovers that wandered over the world. With pistols, he, Hardraker, would have no opportunity for trickery or to use his iron strength. “Knives!” he snapped with a vicious clack of his strong white teeth. Kane eyed him moodily for a moment, the pistols never wavering, then a faint grim smile spread over his dark countenance. “Good enough; knives are scarce a gentleman's arm – but with one an end may be made which is neither quick nor painless.” He turned to the pirates. “Throw down your weapons.” Sullenly they obeyed. “Now loose the girl and the boy.” This also was done and Jack stretched his numbed limbs, felt the cut in his head, now clotted with dried blood, and took the whimpering Mary in his arms. “Let the girl go,” he whispered, but Solomon shook his head. “She could never get by the guards outside the house.” Kane motioned Jack to stand part way up the stairs, with Mary behind him. He gave Hollinster the pistols and swiftly undid his sword belt and jacket, laying them on the lower step. Hardraker was laying aside his various weapons and stripping to his breeches. “Watch them all,” Kane muttered. “I'll take care of the Fishhawk. If any other reaches for a weapon, shoot quick and straight. If I fall, flee up the stairs with the girl. But my brain is on fire with the blue flame of vengeance and I will not fall!” The two men now approached each other, Kane bareheaded and in his shirt, Hardraker still wearing his knotted bandanna, but stripped to the waist. The pirate was armed with a long Turkish dagger which he held point upward. Kane held a dirk in front of him as a man holds a rapier. Experienced fighters, neither held his blade point down in the conventional manner – which is unscientific and awkward, except in special cases. It was a strange, nightmare scene that was lighted by the guttering lanthorn on the wall: the pale youth with his pistols on the stair with the shrinking girl behind him, the fierce hairy faces ringed about the walls, reddened eyes glittering with savage intensity – the gleam on the dull blue blades – the tall figures in the center circling each other while their shadows kept pace with their movements, changing and shifting as they advanced or gave ground. “Come in and fight, Puritan,” taunted the pirate, yet giving ground before Kane's steady though wary approach. “Think of the wench, Broadbrim!” “Iam thinking of her, offal of Purgatory,” said Kane somberly. “There be many fires, scum, some hotter than others –” how deadly blue the blades shimmered in the lanthorn light! – “but save the fires of Hell – all fires – may be – quenched – by – blood!” And Kane struck as a wolf leaps. Hardraker parried the straight thrust and springing in, struck upward with the venomous disembowelling stroke. Kane's down-turned point deflected the sweep of the blade and with a dynamic coil and release of steel-spring muscles, the pirate bounded backward out of reach. Kane came on in a relentless surge; he was ever the aggressor in any battle. He thrust like lightning for face and body and for an instant the pirate was too busy parrying the whistling strokes to launch an attack of his own. This could not last; a knife fight is necessarily short and deadly. The nature of the weapons prevents any long drawn play of fencing skill. Now Hardraker, watching his opportunity, suddenly caught Kane's knife wrist in an iron grip and at the same time ripped savagely upward for the belly. Kane, at the cost of a badly cut hand, caught the uplunging wrist and checked the point an inch from his body. There for a moment they stood like statues glaring into each other's eyes, exerting all their strength. Kane did not care for this style of fighting. He had rather trust the other way which was more swiftly deadly – the open free style, the leaping in and out, thrusting and parrying, where one relied on his quickness of hand and foot and eye, and gave and invited open strokes. But since it was to be a test of strength – so be it! Hardraker had already begun to doubt. Never had he met a man his equal in sheer brute power, but now he found this Puritan as immovable as iron. He threw all his strength, which was immense, into his wrists and his powerfully braced legs. Kane had shifted his grip on his dirk to suit the emergency. At first grips, Hardraker had forced Kane's knife hand upward. Now Solomon held his dirk poised above the pirate's breast, point downward. His task at hand was to force down the hand that gripped his wrist until he could drive the dirk through Hardraker's breast. The Fishhawk's knife hand was held low, the blade upward; he sought to strain against Kane's arresting left hand and braced arm until he could rip open the Puritan's belly. So there they strained, man to man, until the muscles bulged in tortured knots all over them and sweat stood out on their foreheads. The veins swelled in Hardraker's temples. In the watching ring breath hissed sharply between clenched teeth. For awhile neither gained the advantage. Then slowly but surely, Kane began to force Hardraker backwards. The locked hands of the men did not change in their relative position but the pirate's whole body began to sway. The pirate's thin lips split in a ghastly grin of superhuman effort, in which there was no mirth. His face was like a grinning skull and the eyes bulged from their sockets. Inflexibly as Death, Kane's greater strength asserted itself. The Fishhawk bent slowly like a tree whose roots are ripped up and which falls slowly. His breath hissed and whistled as he fought fiercely to brace himself like steel, to regain his lost ground. But back and down he went, inch by inch, until after what seemed hours, his back was pressed hard against an oaken table top and Kane loomed over him like a harbinger of Doom. Hardraker's right hand still gripped his dagger, his left hand was still locked on Kane's right wrist. But now Kane, holding the dagger point still at bay with his left, began to force his knife hand downward. It was slow agonizing hard work. The veins stood out on Kane's temples with the effort. Inch by inch, as he had forced the Fishhawk down on the table, he forced the dirk downward. The muscles coiled and swelled like tortured steel cables in the pirate's slowly bending left arm, but slowly the dirk descended. Sometimes the Fishhawk managed to halt its relentless course for an instant, but he could never force it back by a fraction of an inch. He wrenched desperately with his right hand which still gripped the Turkish dagger, but Kane's bloody left hand held it as in a steel vise. Now the implacable dirk point was within an inch of the pirate's heaving breast, and Kane's deathly cold eyes matched the chill of the blue steel. Within two inches of that black heart the point stopped, held fixed by the desperation of the doomed man. What were those distended eyes seeing? There was a faraway glassy stare in them, though they were focussed on the dirk point which was the center of the universe to them. But what else did they see? – Sinking ships that the black sea drank and gurgled over? Coastal towns lit with red flame, where women screamed and through whose red glow dark figures leaped and blasphemed? Black seas, wild with winds and lit with the sheet lightning of an outraged heaven? Smoke and flame and red ruin – black shapes dangling at the yard-arms – writhing figures that fell from a plank laid out over the rail – a white girlish shape whose pallid lips framed frenzied pleas –? From Hardraker's slavering lips burst a terrible scream. Kane's hand lurched downward – the dirk point sank into the breast. On the stairs Mary Garvin turned away, pressed her face against the dank wall to shut out sight – covered her ears to shut out sound. Hardraker had dropped his dagger; he sought to tear loose his right to fend off that cruel dirk. But Kane held him, vise-like. Yet still the writhing pirate did not release Kane's wrist. Holding death at bay to the bitter end, he clutched and as Kane had forced the point to his breast, so he forced it into his heart – inch by inch. The sight brought cold sweat to the brows of the onlookers, but Kane's icy eyes never flickered. He too was thinking of a bloodstained deck and a weak young girl who cried in vain for mercy. Hardraker's screams rose unbearably, thinned to a frightful thin squealing; not the cries of a coward afraid of the dark, but the blind unconscious howling of a man in his death agony. The hilt of the dirk almost touched his breast when the screaming broke in a ghastly strangled gurgling and then ceased. Blood burst from the ashy lips and the wrist in Kane's left hand went limp. Only then did the fingers of the left hand fall away from Kane's knife wrist – relaxed by the death they had striven so madly to hold at bay. Silence lay like a white shroud over all. Kane wrenched his dirk clear and a trickle of seeping blood followed sluggishly, then ceased. The Puritan mechanically swished the blade through the air to shake off the red drops which clung to the steel, and as it flashed in the lanthorn light, it seemed to Jack Hollinster to glitter like a blue flame – a flame which had been quenched in scarlet. Kane reached for his rapier. At that instant, Hollinster, jerking himself out of his trance-like mood, saw the man Sam stealthily lift a pistol and aim at the Puritan. Sight and action were as one. At the crash of Jack's shot Sam screamed and reared upright, his pistol exploding in the air. He had been crouched directly under the lanthorn. As he flung out his arms in his death throes, the pistol barrel struck the lanthorn and shattered it, plunging the cellar into instant blackness. Instantly the darkness crashed into sound, strident and blasphemous. Kegs were upset, men fell over each other and swore soulfully, steel clashed and pistols cracked as men found them with groping hands and fired at random. Somebody howled profanely as one of these blind bullets found a mark. Jack had the girl by the arm and was half leading, half carrying her up the dark stairs. He slipped and stumbled, but eventually reached the top and flung open the heavy door. A faint light which this opening let in showed him a man just behind him and a dim flood of figures scrambling up the lower steps. Hollinster swung the remaining loaded pistol around, then Kane's voice spoke: “'Tis I – Kane – young sir. Out swiftly, with your lady.” Hollinster obeyed and Kane, leaping out after him, turned and slammed the oaken door in the faces of the yelling horde which surged up from below. He dropped a strong bolt into place and then stepped back, eyeing his work with satisfaction. Inside sounded muffled yells, hammerings and shots, and in places the wood of the door bulged outward as bullets chunked into the other side. But none of the soft lead went entirely through the thick hard panels. “And now what?” asked Jack, turning to the tall Puritan. He noticed for the first time that a bizarre figure lay at his feet – a dead pirate with ear rings and gay sash, whose futile sword and useless musket lay beside him. Undoubtedly the sentry whose watch Kane's silent sword had ended. The Puritan casually shoved the corpse aside with his foot and motioned the two lovers to follow him. He led the way up a short flight of wooden steps, down a dark hallway, into a chamber, then halted. The chamber was lit by a large candle on a table. “Wait here a moment,” he requested. “Most of the evil ones are confined below, but there be guards without – some five or six men. I slipped between them as I came, but now the moon is out and we must be wary. I will look through an outer window and see if I can spy any.” Left alone in the great chamber, Jack looked at Mary in love and pity. This had been a hectic night for any girl. And Mary, poor child, had never been used to violence and ill treatment. Her face was so pale that Jack wondered if the color would ever come back into her once rosy cheeks. Her eyes were wide and haunted, though trusting when she looked at her lover. He drew her gently into his arms. “Mary girl –” he began tenderly when, looking over his shoulder, she screamed, her eyes flaring with new terror. Instantaneously came the scrape of a rusty bolt. Hollinster whirled. A black opening gaped in the wall where formerly had been only one of the regular panels. Before it stood Sir George Banway, eyes blazing, garments dishevelled, pistol leveled. Jack flung Mary aside and threw up his weapon. The two shots crashed together. Hollinster felt the bullet cut the skin on his cheek like a red-hot razor edge. A bit of cloth flew from Sir George's shirt bosom. With a sobbing gasp of curse he went down – then as Jack turned back to the horrified girl, Banway reeled up again. He was drinking in the air in great gasps as if his breath had been driven out of him, but he did not seem hurt and there was no spot of blood about him. Aghast and astounded – for he knew the ball had struck squarely – Jack stood gaping, dazed, holding the smoking pistol, until Sir George knocked him sprawling with a hard buffet of his fist. Then Hollinster bounded up, raging, but in that second Banway snatched the girl, and dragging her in a brutal grip, leaped back through the opening with her, slamming shut the secret panel. Solomon Kane, returning as fast as his long legs could carry him, found Hollinster raving and bruising his bare fists against a blank wall. A few gasping words interlarded with wild blasphemies and burning self-reproaches, gave Kane the situation. “The hand of Satan is over him,” raved the frantic youth. “Full in the breast I shot him – yet he took no hurt! Oh, fool and drooling imbecile I am – I stood there like an image instead of rushing him with the barrel for a club – stood there like a blind, dumb fool while he –” “Fool that I am, not to have thought that this house might have secret passages,” said the Puritan. “Of course this secret doorway leads into the cellar. But stay –” as Hollinster would have attacked the panel with the dead sailor's cutlass which Kane had brought. “Even if we open the secret door and go into the cellar that way, or back through the bolted stair-door, they will shoot us like rabbits, uselessly. Now be calm for a moment, and harken: “You saw that dark passageway leading out of the cellar? Well, it is in my mind that must be a tunnel which leads to the rocks along the sea shore. Banway has long been in league with smugglers and pirates. Spies have never seen any bundles carried into the house or out, though. It follows therefore that there needs must be a tunnel connecting the cellar with the sea. Therefore, it likewise follows that these rogues, with Sir George – who can never bide in England after this night – will run through the tunnel and take to ship. We will go across the beach and meet them as they emerge.” “Then in God's name, let us hasten!” begged the youth, wiping the cold sweat from his brow. “Once on that hellish craft, we can never get the girl again!” “Your wound bleeds again,” muttered Kane with a worried glance. “No matter; on, for God's sake!” V “– INTO THE SUNRISE I GO –” Hollinster followed Kane who went boldly to the front door, opened it and sprang out. The fog had faded and the moon was clear, showing the black rocks of the beach two hundred yards away and beyond them the long low evil-looking ship riding at anchor outside the foam line of the breakers. Of the guards outside the house there were none. Whether they took alarm at the noise inside the house and fled, whether they had received a command in some way, or whether they had had orders to return to the beach before this time, Kane and Jack never knew. But they saw no one. Along the beach the Rocks rose black and sinister like jagged dark houses, hiding whatever was going on in the sand at the water's edge. The companions raced recklessly across the separating space. Kane showed no signs that he had just gone through a terrible gruelling grind of life and death. He seemed made of steel springs and an extra two hundred yard dash had no effect on nerve or wind. But Hollinster reeled as he ran. He was weak from worry, excitement and loss of blood. Only his love for Mary and a grim determination kept him on his feet. As they approached the Rocks, the sound of fierce voices instilled caution into their movements. Hollinster, almost in delirium, was for leaping across the rocks and falling on whoever was on the other side, but Kane restrained him. Together they crept forward and lying flat on their bellies on a jutting ledge, they looked down. The clear moonlight showed the watchers that the buccaneers on board the ship were preparing to weigh anchor. Below them stood a small group of men. Already a long-boat full of rogues was pulling away to the ship, while another boatload waited impatiently, resting on their oars, while their leaders argued out a question on shore. Evidently the flight through the tunnel had been made with no loss of time. Had Sir George not halted to seize the girl, in which act luck was with him, all the rogues would have been aboard ship. The watchers could see the small cave, revealed by the rolling back of a large boulder, which was the mouth of the tunnel. Sir George and Ben Allardine stood facing each other in hot debate. Mary, bound hand and foot, lay at their feet. At the sight Hollinster made to rise but Kane's iron grip held him quiescent for the time. “I take the girl aboard!” rose Banway's angry voice. “And I say ‘no'!” came Allardine's answering rasp. “No good'll come o' it! Look! There's Hardraker a-lyin' in his blood in yon cellar this minute account o' a girl! Women stirs up trouble and strife between men – bring that wench aboard and we'll have a dozen slit gullets afore sunrise! Cut her throat here, I says, and –” He reached for the girl. Sir George struck aside his hand and drew his rapier, but Jack did not see that motion. Throwing aside Kane's restraining hand, Hollinster bounded erect and leaped recklessly from the ledge. At the sight the pirates in the boat raised a shout, and evidently thinking themselves to be attacked by a larger party, laid to their oars, leaving their mate and patron to shift for themselves. Hollinster, striking feet first in the soft sand, went to his knees from the impact, but bounding up again, he charged the two men who stood gaping at him. Allardine went down with a cleft skull before he could lift his steel, and then Sir George parried Jack's second ferocious slash. A cutlass is clumsy and not suitable for fencing or quick clever work. Jack had proved his superiority over Banway with the straight light blade, but he was unused to the heavy curved weapon and he was weakened and weary. Banway was fresh. Still, for a few seconds Jack kept the nobleman on the defensive by the sheer fury of his onslaught – then in spite of his hate and determination, he began to weaken. Banway, with a cruel cold smile on his dark face, touched him again and again, on cheek, breast and leg – not deep wounds, but stinging scratches which, bleeding, added to the general score of his weakness. Sir George feinted swiftly, started his finishing lunge. His foot slipped in the shifty sand, he lost balance, slashed wildly, leaving himself wide open. Jack, seeing this dimly through blood-blinded eyes, threw all his waning strength into one last desperate effort. He sprang in and struck from the side, the keen edge crunching against Sir George's body half way between hip and arm pit. That blow should have cleft the ribs into the lung, but instead, the blade shivered like glass. Jack, dazed, reeled back, the useless hilt falling from his nerveless hand. Sir George recovered himself and thrust with a wild cry of triumph. But even as the blade sang through the air, straight toward Jack's defenseless breast, a great shadow fell between. Banway's blade was brushed aside with incredible ease. Hollinster, crawling away like a snake with a broken back, saw Solomon Kane looming like a black cloud over Sir George Banway, while the Puritan's long rapier, inexorable as doom, forced the nobleman to break ground, fencing desperately. In the light of the moon which frosted the long quick blades with silver, Hollinster watched that fight as he leaned over the fainting girl and tried with weak and fumbling hands to loosen her bonds. He had heard of Kane's remarkable sword play. Now he had an opportunity to see for himself and – born sword lover that he was – found himself wishing Kane faced a more worthy foe. For though Sir George was an accomplished swordsman and had a name as a deadly duellist hereabouts, Kane merely toyed with him. With a great advantage in height, weight, strength and reach, Kane had still other advantages – those of skill and of speed. For all his size he was quicker than Banway. As to skill, the nobleman was a novice in comparison. Kane fought with an economy of motion and a lack of heat which robbed his play of some brilliance – he made no wide spectacular parries or long breath-taking lunges. But every motion he made was the right one; he was never at loss, never excited – a combination of ice and steel. In England and on the Continent, Hollinster had seen more flashy, more brilliant fencers than Kane, but he realized as he watched that he had never seen one who was as technically perfect, as crafty, as deadly, as the tall Puritan. It seemed to him that Kane could have transfixed his adversary at the first pass, but such was not the Puritan's intention. He kept close in, his point ever threatening the other's face, and as he kept the young nobleman ever on the defensive, he talked in a calm passionless tone, never losing the play for a second, as if tongue and arm worked far apart. “No, no, young sir, you need not leave your breast open. I saw Jack's blade shatter on your side and I will not risk my steel, strong and pliant as it is. Well, well, never take shame, sir; I have worn a steel mail under my shirt also, in my time, myself, though methinks 'twas scarce as strong as yours, to so turn a bullet at close range. However, the Lord in his infinite justice and mercy hath so made man that his vitals be not all locked up in his brisket. Would you were handier with the steel, Sir George; I take shame in slaying you – but – well, when a man sets foot on an adder he asks not its size.” These words were delivered in a serious and sincere manner, not in a sardonic fashion. Jack knew that Kane did not mean them as taunts. Sir George was white-faced; now his hue grew ashy under the moon. His arm ached with weariness and was heavy as lead; still this great devil in black pressed him as hard as ever, nullifying his most desperate efforts with superhuman ease. Suddenly Kane's brow clouded, as if he had an unpleasant task to do and would do it quickly. “Enough!” he cried in his deep vibrant voice which chilled and thrilled his hearers. “This is an ill deed – let it be done quickly!” What followed was too quick for the eye to follow. Hollinster never again doubted that Kane's sword play could be brilliant when he wished. Jack caught a flashing hint of a feint at the thigh – a sudden blinding flurry of bright steel – Sir George Banway lay dead at Solomon Kane's feet without twitching. A slight trickle of blood seeped from his left eye. “Through the eye ball and into the brain,” said Kane rather moodily, cleansing his point on which shone a single drop of blood. “He knew not what took him and died without pain. God grant all our deaths be as easy. But my heart is heavy within me, for he was little more than a youth, albeit an evil one, and was not my equal with the steel. Well, the Lord judge between him and me on the Judgment Day.” Mary whimpered in Jack's arms, coming out of her swoon. A strange glow was spreading over the land and Hollinster heard a peculiar crackling. “Look! The house burns!” Flames leaped from the black roof of the Banway manor house. The departing pirates had set a blaze and now it sprang into full fury, dimming the moon. The sea shimmered gorily in the scarlet glare and the pirate ship which was beating out to open sea seemed to ride in a sea of blood. Her sails redly reflected the glow. “She sails in an ocean of crimson blood!” cried Kane, all the latent superstition and poetry roused in him. “She sails in gore and her sails are bright with blood! Death and destruction follow her and Hell cometh after! Red be her ruin and black her doom!” Then with a sudden change in mood, the fanatic bent over Jack and the girl. “I would bind and dress your wounds, lad,” said he gently, “but methinks they are not serious, and I hear the rattle of many hoofs across the moors and your friends will soon be about you. Out of travail cometh strength and peace and happiness, and mayhap your paths will run straighter for this night of horror.” “But who are you?” cried the girl, clinging to him. “I know not how to thank you –” “Thou hast thanked me enough, little one,” said the strange man tenderly. “'Tis enough to see thee well and delivered out of persecution. May thou thrive and wed and bear strong sons and rosy daughters.” “But who are you? Whence come you? What seek you? Whither do you go?” “I am a landless man.” A strange intangible, almost mystic look flashed into his cold eyes. “I come out of the sunset and into the sunrise I go, wherever the Lord doth guide my feet. I seek – my soul's salvation, mayhap. I came, following the trail of vengeance. Now I must leave you. The dawn is not far away and I would not have it find me idle. It may be I shall see you no more. My work here is done; the long red trail is ended. The man of blood is dead. But there be other men of blood, and other trails of revenge and retribution. I work the will of God. While evil flourishes and wrongs grow rank, while men are persecuted and women wronged, while weak things, human or animal, are maltreated, there is no rest for me beneath the skies, nor peace at any board or bed. Farewell!” “Stay!” cried out Jack, rising, tears springing suddenly into his eyes. “Oh wait, sir!” called Mary, reaching out her white arms. But the tall form had vanished in the darkness and no sound came back of his going.