Сердца трех / Hearts of Three

And in the sharp pause of silence, it seemed that a fresh vision of old Sir Henry came to him, down out of. the frame and beside him, real in all seeming, plucking at his sleeve to lead him out of the hut and whispering a ghostly repetition of:

�Back to back against the mainmast

Held at bay the entire crew.’

The young man obeyed his shadowy guide, or some prompting of his own profound of intuition, and went out the door and down to the beach, where, gazing across the narrow channel, on the beach of the Bull, he saw his late antagonist, backed up against the great boulder of coral rock, standing off an attack of sack-clouted, machete wielding Indians with wide sweeping strokes of a driftwood timber.

And Francis, in extremity, swaying dizzily from the blow of a rock on his head, saw the apparition, that almost convinced him he was already dead and in the realm of the shades, of Sir Henry Morgan himself, cutlass in hand, rushing up the beach to his rescue. Further, the apparition, brandishing the cutlass and laying out Indians right and left, was bellowing:

�Back to back against the mainmast,

Held at bay the entire crew.

’

As Francis’ knees gave under him and he slowly crumpled and sank down, he saw the Indians scatter and flee before the onslaught of the weird pirate figure and heard their cries of:

�Heaven help us!’ �The Virgin protect us!’ �It’s the ghost of old Morgan!’

Francis next opened his eyes inside the grass hut in the midmost center of the Calf.

First, in the glimmering sight of returning consciousness, he beheld the pictured lineaments of Sir Henry Morgan staring down at him from the wall. Next, it was a younger edition of the same, in three dimensions of living, moving flesh, who thrust a mug of brandy to his lips and bade him drink. Francis was on his feet ere he touched lips to the mug; and both he and the stranger man, moved by a common impulse, looked squarely into each other’s eyes, glanced at the picture on the wall find touched mugs in a salute to the picture and to each other ere they drank.

�You told me you were a Morgan,’ the stranger said. �I am a Morgan. That man on the wall fathered my breed. Your breed?’

�The old buccaneer’s,’ Francis returned. �My first name is Francis. And yours?’

�Henry straight from the original. We must be remote cousins or something or other. I’m after the foxy old niggardly old Welshman’s loot.