...Captain Burke ordered seven guns to be fired, which was the signal agreed upon with me
to give me notice of his success, which you may be sure I was very glad to
hear. Having thus heard the signal, I did head away from the shore to my castle
for sleep, it having been a day of great fatigue to me. Yet I had not cover'd half the distance when
one stepped from the trees to confront me with a drawn broad sword, or cutlass,
and made me set my hand upon my own.
At first, I
bethought myself this was one of the four pirates lost in the shadow'd
valley. And then the quarter moon did
come from behind a cloud and cast some light upon the shore, and I saw the Moor
Slaader before me. An awful wound marr'd
his features, and show'd the skull and teeth below his flesh, for Burke's
weapon had ruin'd much of his face.
Indeed, it had kill'd him, of this I would be sure even if the beast did
not assure me of it from beneath my skin with furious snarls. Yet before me he stood, and many of the dark
symbols ink'd in his skin did burn and gleam like lamp light.
"Robin
Crusoe," said Slaader, and his voice was that of the grave, "there
you are." His brow did wrinkle in
anger, tho' he was beyond all such feeling, and he point'd a stern finger at
me. "You shall not leave, Robin
Crusoe! Your soul will feed the Great Dreamer! You shall not leave!!"
At this he
lunged at me with his cutlass. I drew my
own sword and leapt aside. The boatswain
follow'd, swinging his great weapon. The
blades met, but I was no swords man, and Slaader had a furious strength upon
him. Our swords met twice, high and low,
and twice again, side to side, and then the pirate knock'd my blade from my
hand and it flew far from my grasp. Now
from his mouth came the words, the awful words of Poll and the savages and
Walla-Kay, Friday's father. The dark
prayers of Kathooloo. The ink of his
skin did flicker and flare with his words, like a lantern being brush'd with a
breeze.
Within my
skin the beast did howl for freedom, for the words of Slaader anger'd it, as
the like words of Poll had years and years ago, as I have said.
I dodged a
swipe of his cutlass and felt a great freedom come across me, as a man must
when he sees the door of his prison open'd after many, many years, yet the
feeling was not mine but that of the beast.
The moon was of no consequence, for the years alone had made us too
close for such things to matter, and like in the stories I had heard of my
father's father, I call'd to the beast and set it free.
The mantle
of the beast fell upon me, and through the smok'd lens did I see the look of
surprise come across the face of Slaader.
I felt the beast's displeasure at my cloathes, and its hunger for flesh,
and its rage at the dead boatswain...
No comments:
Post a Comment