Adventure Books
10 - Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson
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- 09 Oct 2024
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So you can get big flavors and big savings, king supers, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply. Chapter 10. The Siege of the Roundhouse But now our time of truce was come to an end. Those on deck had waited for my coming till they grew impatient and scarce had Alan spoken when the captain showed face in the open door. "Stand!" cried Alan, and pointed his sword at him. The captain stood indeed, but he neither winced nor drew back a foot. "Unnaked sword," said he. "This is a strange return for hospitality." "Do you see me?" said Alan. "I am come of kings. I bear a king's name. My badge is the oak. Do you see my sword?" "It is slashed the heads off mer, wigamores, then you have toes upon your feet. Call up your vermin to your back, sir, and fall on. The sooner the clash begins, the sooner you'll taste this steel through your vitals." The captain said nothing to Alan, but he looked over at me with an ugly look. "David," said he, "I'll mine this." And the sound of his voice went through me with a jar. At this moment he was gone. "And now," said Alan, "let your hand keep your head, for the grip is coming." Alan drew a dirk, which he held in his left hand in case they should run in under his sword. "I, on my part, clambered up into the berth with an armful of pistols and something of a heavy heart, and set open the window where I was to watch. It was a small part of the deck that I could overlook, but enough for our purpose. The sea had gone down, and the wind was steady, and kept the sails quiet, so that there was a great stillness in the ship, in which I made sure I heard the sound of muttering voices. A little after, and there came a clash of steel upon the deck, by which I knew they were dealing out the cutlaces, and wanted been let fall. After that, silence again. I do not know if I was what you call a frayed, but my heart beat like a bird's, both quick and little, and there was a dimness come before my eyes which I continually rubbed away, and which continually returned. As for hope, I had none, but only a darkness of despair and a sort of anger against all the world that may be long to sell my life as dear as I was able. I tried to pray, I remember, but that same hurry of my mind, like a man running, would not suffer me to think upon the words, and my chief wish was to have the thing begin and be done with it. It came all of a sudden when it did, with a rush of feet and a roar, and then a shout from Alan, and a sound of blows and someone crying out as if hurt. I looked back over my shoulder and saw Mr. Schuan in the doorway crossing blades with Alan. "That's him that killed the boy," I cried. "Look to your window," said Alan, and as I turned back to my place, I saw him pass his sword through the mate's body. It was none too soon for me to look to my own part. For my head was scarce back at the window before five men, carrying a spare yard for a battering ram, ran past me, and took post to drive the door in. I had never fired with a pistol in my life, and not often with a gun, far less against a fellow creature. But it was now or never, and just as they swung the yard I cried out, "Take that!" and shot into their midst. I must have hit one of them, for he sang out and gave back a step, and the rest stopped as if a little disconcerted. Before they had time to recover I sent another ball over their heads, and at my third shot, which went as wide as the second, the whole party threw down the yard and ran for it. Then I looked round again into the deckhouse. The whole place was full of the smoke of my own firing, just as my ears seemed to be burst with the noise of the shots, but there was Alan, standing as before, only now his sword was running blood to the hilt, and himself so swelled with triumph, and fallen into so fine an attitude that he looked to be invincible. Right before him on the floor was Mr. Shuan on his hands and knees, the blood was pouring from his mouth, and he was sinking slowly lower, the terrible white face. And just as I looked, some of those from behind caught hold of him by the heels and dragged him bodily out of the roundhouse. I believe he died as they were doing it. "Deers, one of your wigs for ya!" cried Alan, and then turning to me he asked if I had done much execution. I told him I had winged one, and thought it was the captain. "And I have settled, too," says he. "No, there's not enough blood let, they'll be back again. Do you watch, David? This was but a dram before meet." I settled back to my place, recharging the three pistols I had fired, and keeping watch with both eye and ear. Our enemies were disputing not far off upon the deck, and that so loudly that I could hear a word or two above the washing of the seas. It was Shuan bockeleded, I heard one say. And another one answered him with a reached man, he's paid the piper. And after that the voices fell again into the same muttering as before. Only now one person spoke most of the time as though laying down a plan, at first one and then another answered him briefly, like men taking orders. By this I made sure they were coming on again, and told Alan. "It's what we have to pray for," said he, "unless we can give them a good distaste of us and done with it, there'll be no sleep for either you or me. But this time mind, they'll be in earnest." By this my pistols were ready, and there was nothing to do but listen and wait. While the brush lasted I had not the time to think if I was frightened, but now when all was still again. My mind ran upon nothing else. The thought of the sharp swords and the cold steel was strong in me, and presently when I began to hear stealthy steps and a brushing of men's clothes against the roundhouse wall, and knew they were taking their places in the dark, I could have found it in my mind to cry out aloud. All this was upon Alan's side, and I had begun to think my share of the fight was at an end, when I heard someone drop softly on the roof above me. Then there came a single call on the sea-pipe, and that was the signal. A knot of them made one rush of it cutless in hand against the door, and at the same moment the glass of the skylight was dashed in a thousand pieces and a man leaped through and landed on the floor. Before he got his feet I had clapped the pistol to his back, and I might have shot him too, only at the touch of him and him alive my whole flesh misgave me, and I could no more pull the trigger than I could have flown. He had dropped his cutless as he jumped, and when he felt the pistol, whipped straight around and laid hold of me, roaring out an oath, and at that either my courage came again or I grew so much afraid as came to the same thing, for I gave a shriek and shot him in the midst of the body. He gave the most horrible ugly groan and fell to the floor. The foot of a second fellow whose legs were dangling through the skylight struck me at the same time upon the head, and at that I snatched another pistol and shot this one through the thigh, so that he slipped through and tumbled in a lump on his companion's body. There was no talk of missing any more than there was time to aim, I clapped the muzzle to the very place and fired. I might have stood and stared at them for long, but I heard Alan shout as if for help that brought me to my senses. He had kept the door so long, but one of the seamen while he was engaged with others had run in under his guard and caught him about the body. Alan was durking him with his left hand, but the fellow clung like a leech. Another had broken in and had his cutless raised. The door was thronged with their faces. I thought we were lost and catching up my cutless fell on them in flank. But I had not time to be of help; the wrestler dropped at last, and Alan leaping back to get his distance, ran upon the others like a bull roaring as he went. They broke before him like water, earning and running and falling one against another in their haste. The sword in his hands flashed like quicksilver into the huddle of our fleeing enemies, and at every flash there came the scream of a man hurt. I was still thinking we were lost when, low, they were all gone, and Alan was driving them along the deck as a sheep dog chases sheep. But he was no sooner out than he was back again, being as cautious as he was brave, and meanwhile the seamen continued running and crying out as if he was still behind them, and we heard them tumble one upon another into the forecastle and clap to the hatch upon the top. The roundhouse was like a shambles. Three were dead inside, another lay in his death agony across the threshold, and there were Alan and I, victorious and unhurt. He came up to me with open arms, "Come to my arms!" he cried, and embraced and kissed me hard upon both cheeks. "David!" said he, "I love you like a brother, and oh, man!" he cried in a kind of ecstasy. "Am I no a bony fighter?" Their upon he turned to the four enemies, passed his sword clean through each of them, and tumbled them out of doors one after the other. As he did so, he kept humming and singing and whistling to himself, like a man trying to recall an air. Only what he was trying was to make one. All the while the flush was in his face, and his eyes were as bright as a five-year-old child's with a new toy. And presently he sat down upon the table, sword in hand, the air that he was making all the time began to run a little clearer, and then clearer still, and then out he burst with a great voice into a Gaelic song. I have translated it here, not in verse of which I have no skill, but at least in the King's English. He sang it often afterwards, and the thing became popular, so that I have heard it and had explained to me many's the time. This is the song of the sword of Alan, the Smith made it, the fire set it, now it shines in the hand of Alan Breck. Their eyes were many and bright, swift were they to behold, many the hands they guided, the sword was alone, the Dundere troop over the hill, they are many, the hill is one, the Dundere vanish, the hill remains. Come to me from the hills of Heather, come from the aisles of the sea, O far beholding eagles, here is your meat. Now this song which he made, both words and music, in the hour of our victory, is something less than just to me, who stood beside him in the tussle. Mr. Schuon and five more were either killed outright or thoroughly disabled, but of these two fell by my hand, the two that came by the skylight. Four more were hurt, and of that number one, and he not the least important, got his hurt from me. So that altogether I did my fair share both of the killing and the wounding, and might have claimed a place in Alan's verses. But poets have to think upon their rhymes, and in good prose talk, Alan always did me more than justice. In the meanwhile I was innocent of any wrong being done me, for not only I knew no word of the Gaelic, but what with the long suspense of the waiting, and the scurry and strain of our two spurts of fighting, had more than all the horror I had of some of my own share in it, the thing was no sooner over than I was glad to stagger to a seat. There was that tightness on my chest that I could hardly breathe, the thought of the two men I had shot sat upon me like a nightmare, and all upon a sudden, before I had a guess of what was coming, I began to sob and cry like any child. My mind clapped my shoulder, and said I was a brave lad, and wanted nothing but a sleep. "I'll take the first watch," said he, "you've done well by me, David, first and last, and I wouldn't lose you for all apan—no, nor for bridal-bain." So I made up my bed on the floor, and he took the first spell, pistol and hand and sword on knee, three hours by the captain's watch upon the wall. And he roused me up, and I took my turn of three hours, before the end of which it was broad day, and a very quiet morning, with a smooth rolling sea that tossed the ship and made the blood run to and fro on the roundhouse floor, and a heavy rain that drummed upon the roof. All my watch there was nothing stirring, and by the banging of the helm I knew they had even no one at the tiller. Indeed, as I learned afterwards, there were so many of them hurt or dead, and the rest and so ill a temper, that Mr. Reatch and the captain had a take turn in turn like Alan and me, while the brig might have gone ashore, and nobody the wiser. It was a mercy the night had fallen so still, for the wind had gone down as soon as the rain began. Even as it was, I judged by the whaling of a great number of gulls that went crying and fishing round the ship, that she must have drifted pretty near the coast or one of the islands of the Hebrides, and at last looking out of the door of the roundhouse, I saw the great stone hills of sky on the right hand, and a little more a stern, a strange aisle of room. We wear our work, day by day, stitch by stitch. Or looking to add some tried and true work wear to your collection. Remember that Dickies has been standing the test of time for a reason. The work wear isn't just about looking good, it's about performing under pressure and lasting through the toughest jobs. Head over to Dickies.com and use the promo code WorkWear20 at checkout to save 20% on your purchase. It's the perfect time to experience the quality and reliability that has made Dickies a trusted name for over a century. When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping king supers for thousands of appetizing ingredients that inspire countless mouth-watering meals. And no matter what tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our everyday low prices, plus extra ways to save, like digital coupons worth over $600 each week, and up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with points, so you can get big flavors and big savings, king supers, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply. [ Silence ]