So about two in the afternoon he died.
They took his body away that evening, and left the door of the cell open for a few minutes to create a draught of air through.
There were only five of us now: Crocker, George, Stevens, Fletcher and myself. I had stared for the last time at features clear-cut and thin but already beginning to lose their familiar outlines in the great heat and with the first touch of corruption. George was working away at his window; Crocker was supporting him; Fletcher and Stevens were too ill to help; I sat and fingered the lute.
This was the only symbol of him left, and its strings were silent. It was like the corroding body which had just been carried out, an empty thing without the animating spirit to give it sentience and purpose.
And where was that animating spirit? Not here. Not ever again here.
I seemed to hear Victor’s voice in my ear, echoing from three months back: ‘She’s superstitious. She considers him unlucky. She says on each voyage he loses some splendid youth. John Grenville last time. Who this?’
Somewhere a lamb was bleating, and it set a mule off whinnying and snorting. Today had been the day of the market in the square, and some peasants were still clearing up. You could hear the sound of earthenware pots knocking together, and sometimes the rattle of a cart. Presently there was another sound much nearer at hand, metal falling, but I gave it no attention until Major George spoke.
“Killigrew! We’re through! Killigrewl By the bowels of Christ, we’re through I “
‘I would not want it to be me,’ Victor had said. ‘I would not call you a splendid youth,’ I said. ‘Agreed!’ he said. ‘The dangers which threaten don’t threaten me. Tell her so.’
“Killigrew,” said George. “Do you hear me? We’re through I “
I got up. “I hear you.”
Did a young woman in Cerne Abbas turn and twist that night beside her sleeping husband? ‘Kathy! Kathy!’ That was what he had muttered when I had dragged him half conscious out of the Cadiz church. So life and love are lost, and the lute is silent . . O
“Killigrew! “
“It’s too lafe.”
George slipped off Crocker’s shoulders and came up. One side of his face was like a riven tree, the eye puckered and sightless.
“It’s never too late to get out of here, boy. Remember what you’re threatened with on Friday.”
“It’s too late! ” I shouted angrily. “Victor is gone … And these …” I gestured at Fletcher and Stevens. “They can scarcely stand.”
Crocker came over to us. “Well? Are we making a dash tonight? Are you with us, Killigrew? Say Yes or No. The moon’ll be gone in an hour. I say, go now. Who knows what may happen tomorrow?”
“Yes,” said George, “there’s nothing to delay for.” He patted my arm. “Come, Killigrew, you can help your friend no more. He would not want to hinder you.”
Tears blinded my eyes. “D’you remember, George,” I said, “what you said on your way back from our talk with Buarcos? “
“Yes … I said I thought we must kill that man.”
“I’ll come with you,” I said.
We left about eleven. George, as the originator of the escape went first, then I, then Crocker, who was the fittest of the three. We could do nothing for Fletcher and Stevens; to have taken them would have been to set the attempt at nothing from the start. They wished us God speed and a safe journey through a hostile and barren land. Fletcher was able to stand only long enough to support Cracker his shoulders; then we were gone.
The guard house was beside the jail, separated by a dusty quadrangle perhaps designed for drilling and the exercise of prisoners. Beyond the guard house at the corner of the square stood the house where we had had our interviews.
All the stalls had been moved and the last of the peasants were gone. A wind was blowing through the town, a dry off-land wind full of dust and heat. It was gusty; whirlwinds rose like ghosts conjured from the arid earth, dipping and swirling in baleful rhythms, then collapsing among the shadows or exploding into the upper air as the wind tired of them.
He dined at ten in the upstairs room this much I knew because last week his servant had been waiting with the tray to go up as we came out. It was now eleven by the town clock. He should be down to the dregs of his wine.
In a town in an occupied but quiescent country far from any real enemy or risk of surprise, it was unlikely that a guard would be posted at his door; but one could not take the risk. A window into a passage; we climbed in and came to a wide hall. It was empty and in darkness, but there was a candle burning on the stairs, and light came ‘from the kitchens and the ante-room where we had once waited. Major George grabbed up a pike leaning beside the door.
I peered through the hinge slit into the kitchens. A pot was bubbling on the fire, unwashed pans lay on the table and mosquitoes and flies swarmed round them. The place was empty. I heard voices outside and saw through the farther door three men, the cook and two servants, squatting in the yard playing dice where they had gone for coolness.
On the table, still greasy with the young lamb it had carved, was a long serving knife which through the years had been honed down for sharpness until it was like a stiletto. George was in the doorway, but I motioned him back as I picked up the knife. Captain Buarcos’s room was not over the kitchens but over the stables and separated from the kitchens by the width of the hall. We could not tackle three servants in an open yard.
Over the door were two bells. The knife cut the cords working these. I latched the door behind me.
We went up the stairs. A light shone out from his illfitting door. In that moment before action I remember the smell of bay leaves, of vinegar and of quinces, the creak of George’s military boot on the stairs, the heavy, hesitant breathing of Crocker. A great death’s head moth was beating against one of the slits of the door. We let him in.
Perhaps when the body is sick it narrows the mind’s preparedness for surprise; one pursues an object with only one’s own choices in view. Since we made this plan an hour ago we had concluded without reason that Buarcos always dined alone. Tonight sitting with him was a thin small-featured young officer we had sometimes seen about, a young man who wore his hair long and walked with an affected step.
We brought in a draught, and the candles dipped and guttered; shadows curtsied on the yellow plaster walls. &rprise should have been on our side only, instead it was on two; but we recovered first. Buarcos’s goblet was overturned as he moved to get up his sword-belt was on a chair four paces away.
“Stay!” said George, lowering his pike. “One word ~
Fine muscatel dripped on the floor. The young officer could reach his sword: he did so as George charged him. At the same moment Buarcos kicked over the table and leaped for the bell push. I went after him. He pulled the bell and shouted and got to his sword, but before he could draw it I was on him. It would have been good to talk but there was no time to talk. We rolled over, clawing. His nails reached my eyes as my knife went deep into his belly. Then I ripped him up. Blood spurted two feet; he got to his knees and his entrails were pushing through his tunic as he fell.
I got up trembling. George had killed the young man by running him through with the pike. It was all over in two minutes. I stood there trembling. One of the overturned candles had set fire to the table-cloth; it flickered and sizzled as Crocker beat it out. A decent darkness fell on the scene; one candle only burned on the mantelshelf. Crocker was at the door listening. I trembled like a man in a late state of St Vitus’s dance.
George put his hand on my shoulder. “Well, lad, you opened him like a ripe musk-melon. There’s nothing more to do here.”