EVERYTHING on the shore was very dark and very silent when Blueneck regained consciousness and sat up. His head ached and his body was stiff and cold while his clothes, still wet and sticky with brine, clung to him uncomfortably.

He peered round in the darkness, striving to remember where he was and what had happened to him. There was no moon, or at least if there was it was so hidden behind the clouds as to be of no use to any one, and he could only faintly distinguish a kind of haze some quarter of a mile in front of him which he supposed was the sea. Behind him he could see nothing at all, only blackness. He put out a cold, trembling hand and felt cautiously about; the first thing he touched was the dry, crumbly seaweed. Not sure what it was he grasped a handful of it and pulled it up. Immediately the sickening stench of stale salt water arose and he spat and swore aloud. Then he reached out his other hand and touched still more seaweed. He groaned with stiffness and pain and threw himself back on the heap. As he did so his shoulders encountered something hard and he almost screamed aloud, so much did it jar him. Changing to a sitting posture again, he felt for the obstacle and found that whatever it was it lay beneath the seaweed. Wearily he pushed the stuff aside and thrust his hand into the clammy depths beneath. The hard thing was lower down still and he burrowed feverishly in a tired, thoughtless way, hardly knowing what he did or why he did it.

Suddenly he paused, and felt more gingerly, yes—surely he could not be mistaken, he was running his hand over the hard round belly of a rum keg. He twisted round quickly and winced as his stiffened muscles twinged at the movement. Beside the first keg he felt another; and yet another at the side of that. He lay back exhausted by the effort and wondered at his find. He had no doubt it was some smuggler’s private store, but was surprised that on such a lawless coast such secrecy should be resorted to. He knew that in Mersea everyone was more or less his own master and thought that it was therefore a rather unnecessary precaution.

When he had arrived thus far in his thoughts, however, he felt a return of the giddiness which he had before experienced and lay back, his eyes open, staring in front of him.

He had not lain so many minutes before he caught the glimmer of a light in the distance and he stared at it in surprise. It was not coming from the sea and was therefore not the riding light of a boat, neither was it coming from the direction of the brig or the Ship Inn, but from the west, from the lonely strip of coast between the little villages of East Mersea and West Mersea.

Nearer and nearer it came, till he could see how it jogged and danced along the beach, swaying from side to side, pausing a minute here, and then darting off again, sometimes vanishing completely only to reappear considerably nearer.

Blueneck watched it, fascinated, a strange, uncanny fear creeping over him; everywhere was so dark and lonely, and he strained his eyes peering at the light, fancying that he saw sometimes a man behind it, sometimes a beast, or a fiend. This fear grew upon him every moment, and he tried to struggle to his feet, but his legs were too benumbed to bear him and he sank back again.

The light came nearer and nearer, dancing and swaying more than ever. In a flash the story of the lost rowboat ran through his mind and his flesh began to creep.

Like most sailors, and Spaniards especially, Blueneck was very superstitious; he shuddered and his teeth chattered as he imagined the thing that was holding the lantern to be first a blue swollen corpse with dead sightless eyes, then a rampaging devil with swinging tail and ram’s horns, and then a mermaid whose white teeth were adder’s fangs and whose lips were the nightshade’s berries.

His hand crept up to his neck where a little silver crucifix usually hung, but it was gone; he must have lost it in the fight with Joe. He trembled and mouthed a prayer.

The light seemed to be making straight for him, and as it came nearer, wild, unearthly crooning noises came from it.

Blueneck gulped, and his eyes started from his head and the blood tingled and danced in his veins.

The noise—it was certainly not a song nor yet the cry of an animal, but a sort of long-drawn-out sighing on a high quavering note—came nearer and grew louder. Now the light was within fifteen paces of him and he held his breath. Nearer it came.

“DoÑa Maria, let it pass,” he prayed. Now it was within five yards of him, and came nearer still. Straining his eyes, he could make out a fearful bundle-like figure behind the lantern. The noise grew louder; nearer it came till the light stopped three feet away from him, and fell on the most evil and half-human face the terrified sailor had ever seen.

This was the last straw, and Blueneck screamed. The sound rang out high and short as he dropped back on the weed, half insensible. However much the thing with the lantern had frightened him, he certainly frightened it with his yell, for it sprang back and emitted a howl which started the echoes and woke the sea-birds who screamed also as they flapped sleepily away.

Blueneck shut his eyes and waited during three seconds of horrible suspense. Then he felt the light beating on his eyelids, and heard a cracked human voice very near him say:

“Oh! ye would be spying on me, would ye, ye hell-traitor?”

The words reassured Blueneck more than perhaps anything else would have done and he opened his eyes. The terrible old face was very near his own, and hot spirit-tainted breath blew into his nostrils, but what fixed his attention was the glitter of steel above the figure’s head.

Blueneck rose to the situation now that he was assured of the old woman’s mortality (he decided that it must be an old woman). He was not the man to be frightened of a knife other than his captain’s.

“Pity a poor sailor; so stiff with the cold that his legs will not bear him,” he moaned, in a pitiful pleading whine.

The old woman laughed horribly.

“You don’t catch birds like Pet Salt with chaff, hell-rat,” she said.

“Pet Salt!” Blueneck began to understand. “Mistress,” he said, “what are you about?”

“Killing a spying knave,” was the reply, and the blade descended until its point pricked his throat.

Things were turning out more seriously than Blueneck had expected, and he spoke quickly.

“Is it rum you want, lady?” he said as steadily as he could, the blade pricking deeper as the words moved the muscle of his throat.

“It is, hell-rat, it is.” Pet Salt bent nearer. “And no spying dog shall stop me from getting it. Ye waited out here till you were too stiff to move, did you? Ah, you blue-livered pike, the devil looks after his own.”

“Then I’m the man to get it for thee. I’m the mate of the Coldlight.”

Blueneck had just time to get out the words or she would have killed him.

“How do I know you be not?” she said shrewdly, though visibly shaken at his words, as she withdrew the knife.

“I swear,” began the sailor.

Pet Salt stopped him.

“Swear!” she screamed. “What’s a seaman’s oath to me?”

“Look at my garments,” said the anxious Blueneck. “Are they those of a common man or one befitting my station?”

Pet, like many other women before and since, was moved at the sight of the bright colours and good stuffs.

“They be ruined with salt water,” she remarked. “What happened to you, hell-rat?”

Blueneck paused before he spoke. His pride forbade him to tell the truth, and his prudence warned him against a lie. Finally he made a compromise between the two and told a fairly plausible story of two men setting upon him, of a fearful fight, and finished up with a faithful account of the ducking which he had received.

Pet seemed satisfied. How much she believed is another matter but, as she often told Ben Farran, she understood sea-folk and all their tricks.

She put up the knife somewhere in her rags and set down the lantern.

“Try and stand,” she commanded.

Blueneck obeyed as one in a dream; slowly and painfully he staggered to his feet, only to drop again almost immediately.

Pet waddled after him.

“Rub your legs,” she said, “and hurry. You’ve got to work for me before the cocks crow.”

Wearily Blueneck did as he was bid, and the old woman hobbled to the bank of seaweed where she set to work unearthing the kegs. With a grunt of satisfaction she set the last one beside the others and turned to the sailor.

“Come on,” she said.

Blueneck staggered to his feet; he was still very unsteady, but the rubbing had partially restored his circulation and he was just able to stumble along.

Pet pointed to the three kegs.

“Carry two,” she said shortly.

Blueneck looked around him hopelessly. It was still dark and lonely and some of the horror he had felt when he first saw Pet Salt returned to him. He shuddered; the bent old figure in front of him clad in dirty, evil-smelling rags seemed again to take on some of the fear-inspiring qualities of a fiend or marsh-goblin. He struggled on to where the kegs were lying and with great difficulty hoisted one onto his shoulder.

Pet lifted up another.

“Put this under your other arm,” she said, “and mind your stepping; it’s heavy.”

Blueneck took it without a word.

Pet picked up the last keg and turned to him, her ugly bulbous face showing red with exertion in the lantern’s flickering light.

“Now follow after me,” she said, and hobbled off.

Long afterward Blueneck described this journey from the bank of seaweed to Ben Farran’s boat as a walk through hell itself.

Time after time the keg under his arm slipped and fell in the soft powdery shingle, and he had to bend his stiffened and aching body to pick it up again, while the terrible cracked voice of Pet Salt, railing in the most fearful language, rang in his ears.

But he went on. Once he fell and cut his head on a breakwater stone, and the old woman kicked him with her wood-shod foot and bade him rise in a tone that had fear in it as well as command.

Once they saw a lantern in the far distance and Pet made him crouch and wait silent till it passed on. Again and again he felt that he must break away and regain his lost courage, but always the fear of the dark desolateness and the awful old woman prevented him, and he went on meekly.

How at last he managed to climb up the rope ladder and scramble on to the deck of the Pet and then down the hatchway to the stifling cabin and bunk-room below he did not know. However, he did it and fell through the doorway into Ben Farran’s presence in a fainting condition.

When he recovered himself the air was full of a strange sickening odour mixed with the fumes of steaming rum.

He looked round him curiously. The room was very small even for a boat and marvellously dirty and untidy.

A few rags were bundled together in a corner, forming a rude sort of bed, and an old iron stove smoked and spat in another. On the top of this stood an iron bowl, and it was from this Blueneck decided that the strange smell came.

In a corner by the stove lay Ben Farran, snoring loudly with his mouth open.

Blueneck looked at him curiously. He had been a fine big man, he judged, and had had some strength and comeliness, but much rum had changed him and he sprawled there a most ungainly, loathsome figure. His shoulders were bent till he lost any pretension to height, his jaw was weak and drooping, and great blue pouches of flesh hung under his eyes. This, combined with an enormous stomach and bent podgy legs, gave him a great resemblance to a fat toad.

Blueneck looked away and turned his attentions to himself. He found that his outer garments had been removed and that his arms and legs were covered with a black-greenish paste. He looked at them in surprise and disgust and began to rub off the caked mixture as fast as he could. But he noticed that his stiffness had left him and that he felt as well and strong as he had done the night before he had his fight with Joe Pullen.

Pet came in presently and he saw that she was growing fast like Ben, rum-sodden and old. She smiled when she saw him and he thought how horribly pale her toothless gums showed across the flaming purple redness of her face.

“Now, master, mate of the Coldlight, I bargain with thee,” she began as she handed him his clothes newly dried and motioned him to dress.

Blueneck said nothing but took his garments and began to put them on.

“Methinks your captain, the Spanish Dick, has set eyes on a pretty wench,” she said slowly.

The sailor did not look up; he was mournfully regarding his best doublet coat stained and faded with salt water.

“Oh, there be many pretty wenches who have had his eyes upon them,” he said carelessly.

Pet swore roundly and with such vehemence that he glanced at her.

“But one particular wench?” she went on, relapsing again into quietness. “I have long ears.”

Blueneck, who was slow of comprehension, looked at her in surprise; her remark struck him as being strangely irrelevant.

“I hear what is said on the Island,” the old woman continued. “I know your captain hath a great liking for Ann Farran, Ben’s gran’daughter.”

Blueneck looked even more puzzled.

“Ay, and if it be so, what then?” he said.

Pet smiled again.

“Your captain carries much rum,” she observed.

Blueneck nodded and pulled on his boots.

“This Ann Farran hath but one kinsman in the world save her bastard half-brother,” Pet went on crooningly.

Blueneck stood up and began to see what she was leading up to.

“There would be none to look for the wench, or hark to the wench if one were quieted,” she went on suggestively.

“And that one loves rum!” observed Blueneck.

Pet smiled again.

“And that one loves rum!” she repeated.

Blueneck stood thinking for a moment or two, his hands in his pockets.

“For this news, mistress, I will say naught of what has passed this evening, nor of the three rum kegs,” he said.

Pet nodded; the man seemed intelligent.

“Nor will I say aught of a lost boat,” continued the sailor, darting his bright black eyes upon her.

Pet blinked. This man was too intelligent, she told herself.

“I will tell the Captain of your bargain,” Blueneck went on. “It may be he will hear. Meanwhile”—he looked at the array of little kegs on the floor—“you will not die of thirst, mistress.”

Pet shrugged her shoulders and looked across at the slovenly figure by the stove.

“We both drink well,” she said.

Blueneck looked from one to the other.

“Of that I have no doubt,” he sneered, and walked out up the hatchway. “I will tell the Captain,” he called back, as he climbed down the rope ladder and on to the now sunlit wall.

He walked along, talking to himself in a whisper. Now and again he paused and made as though to go back. Then he recovered himself and went on, still muttering. Finally he shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, it won’t be the first time rum has bought a fair lass, anyway,” he said aloud, “and it ain’t a right thing in a man to go against old habits.”

And lifting his head he began to whistle blithely.