Sir Thomas Doughty, executed at St. Julian’s Bay, 1578
They carried him out on the barren sand where the rebel captains died;
Where the grim grey rotting gibbets stand as Magellan reared them on the strand,
And the gulls that haunt the lonesome land wail to the lonely tides.
Drake faced them all like a lion at bay, with his lion head upflung:
«Dare ye my word of law defy, to say that this traitor shall not die?»
And his captains dared not meet his eye but each man held his tongues.
Solomon Kane Stood forth alone, grim man of a sombre race:
«Worthy of death he well may be, but the court ye held was a mockery,
«Ye hid your Spite in a travesty where Justice hid her facts.
«More of the man ye been, on deck your sword to cleanly draw
«In forthright fury from its sheath, and openly cleave him to the teeth—
«Rather than slink and hide beneath a hollow word of Law».
Hell rose in the eyes of Francis Drake. «Puritan knave!», swore he,
«Headsman, give him the axe instead! He shall Strike off your traitor’s head!».
Solomon folded his arms and said, darkly and sombrely:
«I am no slave for your butcher’s work». «Bind him with triple strands!».
Drake roared in wrath and the men obeyed, hesitantly, as men afraid,
But Kane moved not as they took his blade and pinioned his iron hands.
They bent the doomed man to his knees, the man who was to die;
They saw his lips in a Strange smile bend; one last long look they saw him send
at Drake, his judge and his one-time friend, who dared not meet his eyes.
The axe flashed silver in the sun, a red arch slashed the sand;
A voice cried out as the head fell clear, and the watchers flinched in sudden fear,
Though’t was but a sea-bird wheeling near above the lonely strand.
«This be every traitor’s end!». Drake cried, and yet again;
Slowly his captains turned and went, and the admiral’s Stare was elsewhere bent
Then where cold scorn with anger blent in the eyes of Solomon Kanes.
Night fell on the crawling waves; the admiral’s door was closed;
Solomon lay in the Stenching hold; his irons clashed as the ship rolled.
And his guard, grown weary and overbold, laid down his pike and dozed.
He woke with a hand at his corded throat that gripped him like a vise;
Trembling he yielded up the key, and the sombre Puritan Stood up free,
His cold eyes gleaming murderously with the wrath that is slow to rises
Unseen to the admiral’s cabin door went Solomon from the guard,
Through the night and silence of the ship, the guard’s keen dagger in his grip;
No man of the dull crew saw him slip in through the door unbarred.
Drake at the table sat alone, his face sunk in his hands;
He looked up, as from sleeping —but his eyes were blank with weeping
As if he saw not, creeping, Death’s swiftly flowing sands.
He reached no hand for gun or blade to halt the hand of Kane,
Nor even seemed to hear or see, lost in black mists of memory,
Love turned to hate and treachery, and bitter, cankering pain.
A moment Solomon Kane Stood there, the dagger poised before,
As a condor Stoops above a bird, and Francis Drake spoke not nor stirred,
And Kane went forth without a word and closed the cabin door.
One slept beneath the branches dim.
Cloaked in the crawling mist,
And Richard Grenville came to him
And plucked him by the wrist.
No nightwind shook the forest deep
Where the shadows of doom were spread,
And Solomon Kane awoke from sleep
And looked upon the dead.
He spoke in wonder, not in fear,
«How walks a man who died?
«Friend of old times, what do ye here,
«Long fallen at my side?».
«Rise up, rise up», sir Richard said,
«The hounds of Doom are free;
«The slayers come to take your head
«To hang on the ju-ju trees.
Swift feet press the jungle mud
«Where the shadows are grim and stark,
«And naked men who pant for blood
«Are racing through the dark».
And Solomon rose and bared his sword,
And swift as tongue could tell,
The dark spewed forth a painted horde
Like shadows out of Hell.
His pistols thundered in the night,
And in that burst of flame
He saw red eyes with hate alight,
And on the figures came.
His sword was like a cobra’s stroke
And death hummed in its tune;
His arm was steel and knotted oak
Beneath the rising moon.
But by him sang another sword,
And a great form roared and thrust,
And dropped like leaves the screaming horde
To writhe in bloody dust.
Silent as death their charge had been,
Silent as night they fled;
And in the trampled glade was seen
Only the torn dead.
And Solomon turned with outstretched hand,
Then halted suddenly,
For no man stood with naked brand
Beneath the moon-lit trees.
The white gulls wheeled above the cliffs, the air was slashed with foam,
The long tides moaned along the strand when Solomon Kane came hornet.
He walked in silence strange and dazed through the little Devon town,
His gaze, like a ghost’s come back to life, roamed up the Streets and down.
The people followed wonderingly to mark his spectral stare,
And in the tavern silently they thronged about him theres.
He heard as a man hears in the dream the worn old rafters creak,
And Solomon lifted his drinking-jack and spoke as a ghost might speak:
«There sat sir Richard Grenville once; in smoke and flame he passed,
«And we were one to fifty-three, but we gave them blast for blast.
«From crimson dawn to crimson dawn, we held the Dons at bay.
«The dead lay littered on our decks, our masts were shot away.
«We beat them back with broken blades, till crimson ran the tide;
«Death thundered in the cannon smoke when Richard Grenville died.
«We should have blown her hull apart and sunk beneath the Main».
The people saw upon his wrists the scars of the racks of Spain.
«Where is Bess?», said Solomon Kane. «Woe that I caused her tears».
«In the quiet churchyard by the sea she has slept these seven years».
The sea-wind moaned at the window-pane, and Solomon bowed his head.
«Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, and the fairest fade», he said.
His eyes were mystical deep pools that drowned unearthly things,
And Solomon lifted up his head and spoke of his wanderings.
«Mine eyes have looked on sorcery in the dark and naked lands,
«Horror born of the jungle gloom and death on the pathless sands.
«And I have known a deathless queen in a city old as Death,
«Where towering pyramids of skulls her glory witnesseth.
«Her kiss was like an adder’s fang, with the sweetness Lilith had,
«And her red-eyed vassals howled for blood in that City of the Mad.
«And I have slain a vampire shape that sucked a black king white,
«And I have roamed through grisly hills where dead men walked at night.
«And I have seen heads fall like fruit in the slaver’s barracoon,
«And I have seen winged demons fly all naked in the mooru.
«My feet are weary of wandering and age comes on apace;
«I fain would dwell in Devon now, forever in my place»,
The howling of the ocean pack came whistling down the gale,
And Solomon Kane threw up his head like a hound that snuffs the trail.
A-down the wind like a running pack the hounds of the ocean bayed,
And Solomon Kane rose up again and girt his Spanish blades.
In his Strange cold eyes a vagrant gleam grew wayward and blind and bright,
And Solomon put the people by and went into the night.
A wild moon rode the wild white clouds, the waves in white crests flowed,
When Solomon Kane forth again and no man knew his road.
They glimpsed him etched against the moon, where clouds on hilltop thinned;
They heard an eery echoed call that whistled down the wind.
The white gulls wheeled above the cliffs, the wind was slashed with foam,
The long tides moaned along the strand when Solomon Kane came home.
He walked in silence through the streets of the little Devon town,
The folk all followed whispering all up the streets and down.
They whispered of his sun-bronzed hue and his deep Strange Stare;
They followed him into the tavern and thronged about him there.
He heard, as a man hears in a dream, the old worn rafters creak,
And Solomon lifted his drinking jack and Spoke as a ghost might Speak:
«Where are the lads that gathered here so many years ago?
«Drake and Hawkins and Oxenham, Grenville and Leigh and Yeo?
«Was it so long ago», said Kane, «sat Richard Grenville there?
«The dogs of Spain», said Solomon Kane, «by God, we fought them fair!
«For a day and a night and a day again we held their fleet at bay,
«Till their round shot riddled us through and through and ripped our masts away.
«Where is Bess?», said Solomon Kane. «It racked me hard to go—
«But I heard the high tide grate the keel and I heard the sea-wind blow.
«I left her —though it racked my heart to see the lass in tears».
«In the quiet churchyard by the sea she has slept these seven years».
The sea-wind moaned at the window-pane and Solomon bowed his head.
«Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and the fairest fade», he said.
His eyes were mystical deep pools that drown unearthly things,
And Solomon lifted up his head and Spoke of his wanderings.
«My feet have tracked a bloody way across the trackless sands,
«Mine eyes have looked on sorcery in the dark and naked lands.
«And I have known a deathless queen in a city old as Death;
«Her smile was like a serpent’s kiss, her kiss was Lilith’s breath.
«And I have roamed in grisly hills where dead men walked by night,
«And I have seen a tattered corpse stand up to blast men’s sight.
«And I have heard the death-chant rise in the slaver’s barracoon.
«And I have seen a winged fiend fly, all naked, in the moon.
«My feet are weary of wandering and age comes on space—
«I fain would dwell in Devon now, forever in my place».
The shouting of the ocean-winds went whirling down the gale,
And Solomon Kane raised up his head like a hound that snuffs the trail.
A-down the winds like a running pack, the hounds of the ocean bayed,
And Solomon Kane rose up again and girt his Spanish blades.
Hands held him hard, but the vagrant gleam in his eyes grew blind and bright,
And Solomon Kane put by the folk and went into the night.
A wild moon rode in the wild white clouds, the waves their white crests showed
When Solomon Kane went forth again, and no man knew his road.
They saw him etched against the moon on the hill in clouds that thinned,
They heard an eery, echoed call that whiffled down the wind.
Out of the tavern into the night went Solomon Kane once mores.
He had heard the clamor of the winds, he had harked to the ocean’s roar.