The Count drew his sword and ran to the gate, cursing like a madman, and a clump of desperate men-at-arms, gripping their pikes, closed in behind him. In another moment the gate would burst asunder and they must stop the gap with their living bodies.
Then a new note entered the clamor of the melee. I t was a trumpet, blaring stridently from the ship. On the crosstrees a figure waved his arms and gesticulated wildly.
The sound registered on Harston's ears, even as he lent his strength to the swinging ram. Bracing his legs to halt the ram on its backward swing, his great thews standing out as he resisted the surge of the other arms, he turned his head, and listened. Sweat dripped from his face.
"Wait!" he roared. "Wait, damn you! Listen!"
In the silence that followed that bull's bellow, the blare of the trumpet was plainly heard, and a voice yelled something which was unintelligible to the people inside the stockade.
But Harston understood, for his voice was lifted again in profane command. The ram was released, and the mantlet began to recede from the gate.
"Look!" cried Tina at her window. "They are running to the beach! They have abandoned the shield! They are leaping into the boats and rowing for the ship! Oh, my Lady, have we won?"
"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."
