I never could determine whether Holgate in that moment realized that all was up, and the end was come, and had carried things through with a swagger, or whether he had a hope of escape. Nothing showed in his voice or in his manner save extreme resolution and contemptuous indifference. These men he had misled and cheated were to him no more than brutes of the field, to be despised and ridiculed and browbeaten. At his words, indeed, the old habit of obedience asserted itself and the knot fell apart; as it did I saw Pierce with his revolver up, but Holgate did not move. He fired carefully and Pierce uttered a curse. Then another weapon barked, and Holgate moved a pace forwards. He fired again, and a man dropped. Two or more shots rang out, and the arch-mutineer lifted his left hand slowly to his breast.
"Bully for you, Pierce," he said, and fired yet once more.
The knot now had dissolved, and Gray ran in the gathering gloom a little way up the beach. He halted, and raising his weapon, fired. It was abominable. It may have been execution, but it was horribly like murder. As Gray fired, Holgate turned and put his hand to his shoulder. Immediately he let his last barrel go.
"Ha! That's done you, Pierce," he wheezed out. "By heavens, I thought I'd do for you!"
Crack! went Gray's pistol again from his rear, and he swung round; his weapon dropped, and he began to walk up the beach steadily towards me. In the blue gloom I could see his eyes stolidly black and furtive, and I could hear him puffing. He came within ten paces of me, and then stood still, and coughed in a sickening, inhuman way. Then he dropped and rolled heavily upon his back.
I had witnessed enough. Heaven knows we had no reason to show mercy to that criminal, but that last hopeless struggle against odds had enlisted some sympathy, and I had a feeling of nausea at the sight of that collapse. He must have fallen riddled with bullets. He had played for high stakes, had sacrificed many innocent lives, and had died the death of a dog. And there he would rest and rot in that remote and desert island.
I stole from my bush and crept upwards through the darkness. I had not gone a hundred yards before my ears were caught by a rustling on my left. Had I put up some animal? I came to a pause, and then there was a swift rush, and a man's figure broke through the undergrowth and disappeared across the slope of the hill. It was near dark, but I thought in that instant I recognised it as the figure of the little lawyer's clerk.
When I reached the cavern I found no sign of any one, and I was wondering what could have become of my companions when I heard a voice calling low through the gloaming:
"Dr. Phillimore!"
It was Alix. I sprang to her side and took her hands. Then I learnt that Legrand had decided, as a counsel of prudence, to occupy the second cavern on the northern slope, which he considered more private than that which we had found first.
"And you came back to warn me?" I asked in a low voice.
"No; I waited," said she as low. "I was afraid, although you told me.... Ah, but you have never told me wrong yet! I believe you implicitly."
"Princess," I said with emotion.
"No, no," she whispered. "Not any more … never any more."
"Alix," I whispered low, and I held her closer. She gave a little cry.
"What is it?" I asked anxiously.
For answer her head lay quiet on my shoulder, and the stars looked down upon a pale sweet face. She had fainted. Now the hand which clasped her arm felt warm and wet, and I shifted it hastily and bent down to her. It was blood. She was wounded. Tenderly I bound my handkerchief about the arm and waited in distress for her to revive. If we had only some of the mutineers' brandy! But presently she opened her eyes.
"Dearest … dearest," she murmured faintly.
"You are wounded, darling," I said. "Oh, why did you not tell me?"
"It was the first shot," she said in a drowsy voice. "When—when I had my arm about you."
I kissed that fair white arm, and then for the first time I kissed her lips.
We reached Legrand's cave after Alix had rested, and I related the tragedy that had passed under my eyes on the beach below. Legrand listened silently, and then:
"He was a black scoundrel. He died as he should," he said shortly, and said no more.
Wearied with our exertions, and exhausted by the anxieties of the day, we gradually sank to sleep, and as I passed off Alix's hand lay in mine. She slept sweetly, for all the profound miseries of those past days.
I awoke to the sound of a bird that twittered in the bushes, and, emerging from the cavern, looked around. The sun was bright on the water, the foam sparkled, and the blue tossed and danced as if Nature were revisiting happily the scene of pleasant memories. It seemed as if those deeds of the previous night, that long fight against fate, those dismal forebodings, the tragedy of the Prince, were all separated from us by a gulf of years. It was almost impossible to conceive of them as belonging to our immediate precedent past and as colouring our present and our future. And as my gaze swept the horizon for the orient towards the west it landed upon nothing less than the Sea Queen!
I could have rubbed my eyes, and I started in amazement. My heart beat heavily. But it was true. There rode the yacht in the offing, idly swinging and plunging on the tide and clearly under no man's control. She must have drifted in upon Hurricane Island again through the stress of some backward tide, and here she bobbed on the broken water safe from the eyes of the mutineers. As soon as I had recovered from the shock of surprise, I reëntered the cavern and woke Legrand, and in less than five minutes all of us were outside our shelter and gazing at the welcome sight.
"We have the boat hidden," said Legrand. "We must work our way back to it, and the sooner the better."
"Too much risk," said I. "I know a better way. At the tail of the island we may be seen and pursued. There are boats aboard, and she's not more than three hundred yards out."
"What, swim?" he asked, and looked rueful. He was one of the many sailors I have known who had not that useful art.
I nodded. "It won't take me long."
As I passed, Alix caught my hand. She said nothing, but her eyes devoured me and her bosom heaved. I smiled.
"My Princess!" I whispered, and her soul was in her look.
"I can't see a sign of any one on board," said Legrand, with his hand over his eyes.
"Mademoiselle would not be awake yet. It can't be later than five," said Lane, who was much better to-day.
"I make it 5:30," said Legrand. "We have some time to ourselves if we have luck. After last night those fiends will sleep well and with easy consciences." He spoke grimly.
"Have everything ready," I called as I left. "We must not lose a chance or hazard anything."
"What do you think?" said Lane, in his old cheerful manner.
I quickly descended to the beach, threw off my coat, waistcoat, and boots, and tightened my belt. Then I waded into the sea. It was cold, and, when I first entered, struck a chill into me. But presently, as I walked out into the deepening waters, with the sparkling reflection of the sun in my eyes from a thousand facets of ripples, I began to grow warm. I reached water waist-high, and next moment I was swimming.
The tide sucked at me in a strong current, and soon, I perceived, would carry me across the Sea Queen's bows unless I made a struggle. The water was racing under me, and I felt that my strength was as nothing compared with it. I was thrown this way and that as the flood moved. My passage had been taken incredibly quick, and now I was conscious that I was past the level of the yacht, and I turned and battled back. So far as I could see, I made no impression on the space that separated me from her, and I began to despair of reaching the yacht. In my mind I revolved the possibility of going with the flood and trusting to work ashore at the tail of the island. If that were not practicable, I was lost, for I should be blown out to the open sea.