"I think not!" Françoise was staring seaward. "Look!"
She threw aside the curtains and leaned from the window. Her clear young voice rose above the din, turning men's heads in the direction she pointed. They yelled in amazement as they saw another ship swinging majestically around the southern point. Even as they looked, she broke out the lilies of France.
The pirates swarmed up the sides of their ship, then heaved up the anchor. Before the stranger had sailed half-way across the bay, the War-Hawk vanished around the point of the northern horn.
III. — THE COMING OF THE BLACK MAN
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"OUT, quick!" snapped the Count, tearing at the bars of the gate. "Destroy that mantlet before these strangers can land!"
"But yonder ship is French!" expostulated Gallot.
"Do as I order!" roared Henri. "My enemies are not all foreigners! Out, dogs, and make kindling of that mantlet!"
Thirty axemen raced down to the beach. They sensed the possibility of peril in the oncoming ship, and there was panic in their haste. The splintering of timbers under their axes came to the ears of the people in the fort, and then the men were racing back across the sands again, as the French ship dropped anchor where the War-Hawk had lain.
"Why does the Count close the gate?" wondered Tina. "Is he afraid that the man he fears might be on that ship?"
"What do you mean, Tina?" Françoise demanded uneasily. The Count had never offered a reason for this self-imposed exile. He was not the sort of a man likely to run from an enemy, though he had many. But this conviction of Tina's was disquieting, almost uncanny.
The child seemed not to have heard her question.
"The axemen are back in the stockade," she said. "The gate is closed again. The men keep their places on the wall. If that ship was chasing Harston, why did it not pursue him? Look, a man is coming ashore. I see a man in the bow, wrapped in a dark cloak."
The boat grounded, and this man came pacing leisurely up the sands, followed by three others. He was tall and wiry, clad in black silk and polished steel.
"Halt!" roared the Count. "I'll parley with your leader, alone!"
The tall stranger removed his morion and made a sweeping bow. His companions halted, drawing their wide cloaks about them, and behind them the sailors leaned on their oars and stared at the palisade.
When he came within easy call of the gate: "Why, surely," said he, "there should be no suspicion between gentlemen." He spoke French without an accent.
The Count stared at him suspiciously. The stranger was dark, with a lean, predatory face, and a thin black mustache. A bunch of lace was gathered at his throat, and there was lace on his wrists.
"I know you," said Henri slowly. "You are Guillaume Villiers."
Again the stranger bowed. "And none could fail to recognize the red falcon of the d'Chastillons."
"It seems this coast has become the rendezvous of all the rogues of the Spanish Main," growled Henri. "What do you want?"
"Come, come, sir!" remonstrated Villiers. "This is a churlish greeting to one who has just rendered you a service. Was not that English dog, Harston, thundering at your gate? And did he not take to his sea-heels when he saw me round the point?"
"True," conceded the Count grudgingly. "Though there is little to choose between pirates."
Villiers laughed without resentment and twirled his mustache.
"You are blunt, my lord. I am no pirate. I hold my commission from the governor of Tortuga, to fight the Spaniards. Harston is a sea-thief who holds no commission from any king. I desire only leave to anchor in your bay, to let my men hunt for meat and water in your woods, and, perhaps, myself to drink a glass of wine at your board."
"Very well," growled Henri. "But understand this, Villiers: no man of your crew comes within this stockade. If one approaches closer than a hundred feet, he will immediately find a bullet through his gizzard. And I charge you do no harm to my gardens, or the cattle in the pens. Three steers you may have for fresh meat, but no more."
"I guarantee the good conduct of my men," Villiers assured him. "May they come ashore?"
Henri grudgingly signified his consent, and Villiers bowed, a bit sardonically, and retired with a tread as measured and stately as if he trod the polished floor of Versailles palace, where, indeed, unless rumor lied, he had once been a familiar figure.
"Let no man leave the stockade," Henri ordered Gallot. "His driving Harston from our gate is no guarantee that he would not cut our throats. Many bloody rogues bear the king's commission."
Gallot nodded. The buccaneers were supposed to prey only on the Spaniards; but Villiers had a sinister reputation.
So no one stirred from the palisade while the buccaneers came ashore, sunburnt men with scarfs bound about their heads and gold hoops in their ears. They camped on the beach, more than a hundred of them, and Villiers posted lookouts on both points. The three beeves designated by Henri, shouting from the wall, were driven forth and slaughtered. Fires were kindled on the strand, and a wattled barrel of wine was brought ashore and broached.
Other kegs were filled with water from the spring that rose a short distance south of the fort, and men began to straggle toward the woods. Seeing this, Henri shouted to Villiers: "Don't let your men go into the forest. Take another steer from the pens if you haven't enough meat. If they go tramping into the woods, they may fall foul of the Indians.
"We beat off an attack shortly after we landed, and since then six of my men have been murdered in the forest, at one time or another. There's peace between us just now, but it hangs by a thread."
Villiers shot a startled glance at the lowering woods, then he bowed and said, "I thank you for the warning, my Lord!" Then he shouted for his men to come back, in a rasping voice that contrasted strangely with his courtly accents when addressing the Count.
If Villiers' eyes could have penetrated that forest wall, he would have been shaken at the appearance of a sinister figure lurking there, one who watched the strangers with resentful black eyes—an unpainted Indian warrior, naked but for a doeskin breech-clout, a hawk feather drooped over his left ear.
As evening drew on, a thin skim of grey crawled tip from the sea-rim and darkened the sky. The sun sank in a wallow of crimson, touching the tips of the black waves with blood. Fog crawled out of the sea and lapped at the feet of the forest, curling about the stockade in smoky wisps. The fires on the beach shone dull crimson through the mist, and the singing of the buccaneers seemed deadened and far away. They had brought old sail-canvas from the ship and made them shelters along the strand, where beef was still roasting, and the wine was doled out sparingly.
The great gate was barred. Soldiers stolidly tramped the ledges of the palisade, pike on shoulder, beads of moisture glistening on their steel caps. They glanced uneasily at the fires on the beach, stared with greater fixity toward the forest, a vague dark line in the fog. The compound lay empty of life. Candles gleamed feebly through the cracks of the huts, light streamed from the windows of the manor building. There was silence except for the tread of the sentries, the drip of the water from the eaves, the distant singing of the buccaneers.
Some faint echo of this singing penetrated into the great hall where Henri sat at wine with his unsolicited guest.
"Your men make merry, sir," grunted the Count.
"They are glad to feel the sand under their feet again," answered Villiers. "It has been a wearisome voyage—yes, a long, stern chase." He lifted his goblet gallantly to the unresponsive girl who sat on his host's right, and drank ceremoniously.
Impassive attendants ranged the walls, soldiers with pikes and helmets, servants in worn satin coats. Henri's household in this wild land was a shadowy reflection of the court he had kept in France.