“Think you that having led me this far, and accomplished such wonders, the Power will strike us down now? Nay! Evil flourishes and rules in the cities of men and the waste places of the world, but anon the great giant that is God rises and smites for the righteous, and they lay faith on him.
“I say this: this cliff shall we descend in safety, and yon dank jungle traverse in safety, and it is as sure that in old Devon your people shall clasp you again to their bosom, as that you stand here.”
And now for the first time Marylin smiled, with the quick eagerness of a normal young girl, and Kane sighed in relief. Already the ghosts were fading from her haunted eyes, and Kane looked to the day when her horrible experiences should be as a dimming dream. One glance he flung behind him, where beyond the scowling hills the lost city of Negari lay shattered and silent, amid the ruins of her own walls and the fallen crags which had kept her invincible so long, but which had at last betrayed her to her doom. A momentary pang smote him as he thought of the myriad of crushed, still forms lying amid those ruins; then the blasting memory of their evil crimes surged over him and his eyes hardened.
“And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare; for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake.
“For Thou hast made of a city an heap; of a defended city a ruin; a palace of strangers to be no city; it shall never be built.
“Moreover, the multitude of Thy strangers shall be like small dust and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth suddenly away; yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly.
“Stay yourselves and wonder; cry ye out and cry; they are drunken but not with wine; they stagger but not with strong drink.
“Verily, Marylin,” said Kane with a sigh, “with mine own eyes have I seen the prophecies of Isaiah come to pass. They were drunken but not with wine! Nay, blood was their drink and in that red flood they dipped deep and terribly.”
Then taking the girl by the hand he started toward the edge of the cliff. At this very point had he ascended, in the night – how long ago it seemed.
Kane's clothing hung in tatters about him. He was torn, scratched and bruised. But in his eyes shone the clear calm light of serenity as the sun came up, flooding cliffs and jungle with a golden light that was like a promise of joy and happiness.
The One Black Stain
Sir Thomas Doughty, executed at St. Julian's Bay, 1578
They carried him out on the barren sand
where the rebel captains died;
Where the grim grey rotting gibbets stand
as Magellan reared them on the strand,
And the gulls that haunt the lonesome land
wail to the lonely tide.
Drake faced them all like a lion at bay,
with his lion head upflung:
“Dare ye my word of law defy,
to say that this traitor shall not die?”
And his captains dared not meet his eye
but each man held his tongue.
Solomon Kane stood forth alone,
grim man of a somber race:
“Worthy of death he well may be,
but the court ye held was a mockery,
“Ye hid your spite in a travesty
where Justice hid her face.
“More of the man had ye been,
on deck your sword to cleanly draw
“In forthright fury from its sheath,
and openly cleave him to the teeth –
“Rather than slink and hide beneath
a hollow word of Law.”
Hell rose in the eyes of Francis Drake.
“Puritan knave!” swore he,
“Headsman, give him the axe instead!
He shall strike off yon traitor's head!”
Solomon folded his arms and said,
darkly and somberly:
“I am no slave for your butcher's work.”
“Bind him with triple strands!”
Drake roared in wrath and the men obeyed,
hesitantly, as men afraid,
But Kane moved not as they took his blade
and pinioned his iron hands.
They bent the doomed man to his knees,
the man who was to die;
They saw his lips in a strange smile bend;
one last long look they saw him send
At Drake, his judge and his one-time friend,
who dared not meet his eye.
The axe flashed silver in the sun,
a red arch slashed the sand;
A voice cried out as the head fell clear,
and the watchers flinched in sudden fear,
Though 'twas but a sea-bird wheeling near
above the lonely strand.
“This be every traitor's end!” Drake cried,
and yet again;
Slowly his captains turned and went,
and the admiral's stare was elsewhere bent
Than where cold scorn with anger blent
in the eyes of Solomon Kane.
Night fell on the crawling waves;
the admiral's door was closed;
Solomon lay in the stenching hold;
his irons clashed as the ship rolled,
And his guard, grown weary and overbold,
laid down his pike and dozed.
He woke with a hand at his corded throat
that gripped him like a vise;
Trembling he yielded up the key,
and the somber Puritan stood up free,
His cold eyes gleaming murderously
with the wrath that is slow to rise.
Unseen to the admiral's cabin door
went Solomon from the guard,
Through the night and silence of the ship,
the guard's keen dagger in his grip;
No man of the dull crew saw him slip
in through the door unbarred.
Drake at the table sat alone,
his face sunk in his hands;
He looked up, as from sleeping –
but his eyes were blank with weeping
As if he saw not, creeping,
Death's swiftly flowing sands.
He reached no hand for gun or blade
to halt the hand of Kane,
Nor even seemed to hear or see,
lost in black mists of memory,
Love turned to hate and treachery,
and bitter, cankering pain.
A moment Solomon Kane stood there,
the dagger poised before,
As a condor stoops above a bird,
and Francis Drake spoke not nor stirred,
And Kane went forth without a word
and closed the cabin door.
The Blue Flame of Vengeance
Previously published as Blades of the Brotherhood
“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!”