"You anticipate matters," he rebuked his associate. "There is no occasion for a hostage yet. We shall sail at once for the Rendezvous. It will be weeks, aye, months, before I am in shape to sail west under Hispaniola. Time enough then to talk of delivering your hostage."
For an instant Flint appeared to be about to object to this view, but he evidently decided it was not worth another dispute.
"Let it go," he assented gruffly. "We'll settle the details at the island. —— me—" this with a sudden revival of friendliness—"I knew we had not picked up that red-headed lad for nothing! 'Tis a sure sign o' luck."
And out he swaggered from the cabin, stamping and banging the door and sprinkling curses freely as he gained the deck and shouted for his boat's crew to row him back to the Walrus.
CHAPTER VIII
A WICKED OLD MAN'S DREAM
My great-uncle sank into his chair with a gesture of disgust and poured three fingers of brandy into a wine-glass.
"Phaugh!" he exclaimed. "At times I am nauseated by the company perforce I keep."
He rang the silver bell.
"Gunn," he said as the steward sidled in, "we are awaiting the food I ordered. But stay! Open a window before you go. This place reeks with the stench of decayed honor."
I laughed, and he put the glass from his lips, peering at me across its rim as if surprized.
"You find occasion for mirth in my remark, Robert?"
"I find myself in extraordinary agreement with you for the nonce," I returned. "You are correct. This place doth reek of 'decayed honor.'"
"Ah!"
He finished his drink, wiped his mouth carefully and set down the glass.
"You are, I suspect, attempting sarcasm," he continued. "'Tis a diversion frequently favored by the young."
"No," I said; "I am only expressing to you my feeling that you have as little claim to possession of a sense of honor as the man who was just here."
Gunn unbolted one of the stern windows, and a fine breath of salty air was blown in our faces. Murray inhaled it deeply, and Peter, whose face had become leaden in the cabin's close atmosphere, regained a touch of color and edged forward in his seat. My great-uncle turned to him courteously, ignoring me for the moment.
"I fear you have been suffering from my thoughtlessness, friend Peter. Let me recommend a draft of this aqua vitae. 'Tis excellent for settling the stomach."
"Ja," nodded Peter.
"We shall presently have a chicken broiled over a slow fire," pursued Murray. "A few slices of the breast should be easy for your digestion and assist in the filling of the void which our rough fare on the brig was unable to satisfy.
"But Robert and I were discussing a question of honor. Pardon me if I return to it."
His large face, with its powerful, craggy features, glowed with the radiance of an intense personal conviction.
"What is honor? Or dishonor? Certes, here we have a call for close reasoning. No hasty generalities can dismiss so vexed a problem, which hath consumed the attention of gentlemen since gentility's institution."
"I should call it dishonorable to assure your grandnephew that you had kidnaped him for desire of his aid and to make his fortune, when actually you intended only to employ him as a hostage to further your personal schemes," I said deliberately.
And if I spoke restrainedly 'twas by no mean effort, for inwardly I seethed with resentment.
"The situation is susceptible to the interpretation which you place upon it," he admitted evenly. "Yet a reasonable temperament must concede 'twas necessary for me to place the consummation of my project before the claims of kinship. And though you appear not to be disposed to accept my assertions for fact, I will say once and for all that my intentions toward you are benevolent and affectionate—and this despite the contumely you have heaped upon me with no regard for the disparity of our ages."
I was nonplussed, but dissatisfied.
"If that were my only count against your honor—if, indeed, a pirate can have honor——"
"And why not?" says he sharply. "I conceive of honor as the quality of being faithful to oneself, to the ethical standard one has established for this life we pass through so precariously."
"So that if a man practices dishonesty toward all save himself he preserves his honor!" I protested.
"Now do you twist my thoughts," replied my great-uncle. "And in the same breath you raise a complementary question: What is dishonesty—or honesty? As I have told you before, I take from those who have much, those who prey upon others. I am no more dishonest than that William of Normandy, who seized upon England and farmed it out to his barons in payment for their assistance."
"You are clever with words," I sneered; "but I'll not be fooled. What have you to say of your craft in deluding O'Donnell into risking his daughter aboard this treasure-ship? Do you call it honorable to persuade a foolish unbalanced fellow to take an innocent young girl out of a convent, carry her half across the world, and then, to cloak a miserable conspiracy, plunge her into the society of such scoundrels as Flint and yourself?"
Instead of losing his temper, as I had expected, my great-uncle stared at me very earnestly throughout this tongue-lashing. A speculative look came into his eyes.
"You have seen this maid, I believe," he said.
"I met her by accident. 'Twas I saved her from walking into the Whale's Head after her father."
"You did well," he approved warmly. "And you spoke to her? Prithee, Robert, what manner of maid is she?"
"Oh, fair enough," I answered, wondering what he was driving at.
"And well-spoken?" he pressed. "I have never encountered her."
"She has the Irish way of speech."
"But is she nice in her ways? A lady?"
"Yes."
Ben Gunn fetched in the chicken upon a salver, and my great-uncle busied himself in carving. 'Twas comical to see how Peter's stolid face lighted up. As he carved Murray talked.
"She should be an exquisite chit, Robert. She has good blood in her. Her mother was a younger sister of the Duke of Leitrim, and her father's father was a younger son of Lord Donegal. She will be much to the fore when King James returns to Whitehall."
"If he does!" I jeered. "I marvel that you should use so hardly a maid of such birth."
"Hardly?" He looked up from his carving. "Why do you say that?"
"Oh, an end to your shabby deceits and subterfuge!" I shouted. "I ha' told you already I know she is to be dragged aboard your ship when you take the Santissima Trinidad. What good will the Duke of Leitrim and Lord Donegal and Jamey Stuart and all their string of Popish knaves be to her then? Bah! I could stomach your treatment of me, Murray. But to expose a slip of a girl, scarce more than a child, to life on this floating hell and the attentions of Flint and his lambs!"
My great-uncle pursed his lips.
"What a vehement youth! Friend Peter, I trust that chicken is done to your taste?"
"Ja," grunted Peter, plying a ready knife and fork.
"Will a thigh be satisfactory, Robert? This dish contains potatoes which were fresh when we started our voyage and should be so still. Serve Master Ormerod, Gunn. So! We will resume our debate.
"As to the maid's inclusion in our scheme, 'twas manifestly of the chiefest importance that Colonel O'Donnell's connection with me be not suspected. And the best way to cloak that was to have his daughter accompany him. Not even a Spanish official—than which there is no more suspicious breed—can carp at O'Donnell's movements whilst she is with him."
"But why?" I persisted. "Why all this devious deceit? Why mix a young maid in an unsavory intrigue? Why make her father disloyal to his master?"
Murray flushed crimson.
"He is not disloyal to his master," he replied with his first show of anger. "Colonel O'Donnell's master, my master—aye, your master—is King James! What doth O'Donnell care for the paltry Spaniard who sits in the palace at Madrid? What do any of us care for the Spaniards, who have not been men enough to live up to their declarations of support of the Stuarts? Why, this girl you mouth about would cheerfully suffer death, dishonor, any torment, to win for her king the means of power we shall afford him. And this treasure, which the Spaniards have wrung from the lands they stole from the poor Indians, we wring from them as remorselessly that we may apply it to a purpose infinitely higher than the placating of royal favorites and mistresses, which is the way 'twould go in Madrid. An unsavory business, forsooth! Boy, are you a fool?"
There was that about his rage which benumbed my own and awakened again the reluctant admiration which puzzled and embarrassed me. What was it my father had said of him?
"He is sincere in a queer, twisted way."
Past doubt, he was. I sensed a warped nobility of mind which stirred me to sympathy and pity. I felt of a sudden as if our places had been reversed, as if his white hairs were mine, and his my unlined face.
"Perhaps I am a fool," I said. "Yet if I know nothing of your plan and so am inclined to misconstrue it, whose fault is that?"
He dropped knife and fork and fixed me with his eyes, so marvelously alive and bright in their setting of crow's feet and wrinkles, so luminous with youth.
"Those are the first words you have spoken which have had any tinge of kindness to them," he answered.
"I am not kind," I denied; "but curious. You have torn me out of my natural course and thrown me into a network of intrigue of which I know nothing. You would have me think well of you and work with you, but you have not taken the ordinary pains to acquaint me with your purposes and the part you have designed for me."
Peter sat back with a sigh of content, his plate empty.
"Ja, Murray, you don't say much," he said in his squeaky voice. "You don't tell dot feller Flint so much as wouldt gife him der trail."
I had not observed this, and I felt secretly ashamed. My great-uncle smiled.
"Stap me, but I might ha' known you would see it, Peter!" he exclaimed. "Now, tell me: Why did not Flint ask me the treasure-ship's course and port o' sailing? Did he not think to in his fuddlement with the rum? Or did he know I would not tell him and reckon to save his tongue?"
"He knows you, ja," answered Peter.
Murray nodded.
"Yes, that would be it, and it took you to see it. You have not lived with the red Indians for naught, Peter. But this doth not answer Nephew Robert's question. 'Tis my fault you are so far ignorant, Robert, and I will endeavor to repair the error. I did not seek to delude you when I told you I carried you from New York because I needed your assistance, and that is so far true that I admit without hesitation I must have your help before I can achieve aught of my future plans for bettering your station in life. In fine, Robert, I need you at this time being more than you can need me; and your hostageship with Flint is but the least of the services I hope from you."
"That is frank," I replied. "And I will match it. I have told you I'll not help in piracy; nor will I. The taking of this treasure-ship is——"
"Bide, bide," he interrupted. "Before you commit yourself further let me tell my story. I ask only your promise to hold it secret from all men on these two ships."
"I'll promise that," I said.
"Ja," assented Peter.
"So be it."
He left the table and took from a cupboard in the wall a rolled map which he spread upon the table between us, shoving aside the plates and glasses to make room for it. I saw at a glance 'twas a chart of the Caribbean Sea and the Spanish Main and the islands which stretched from the tip of the Floridas to the Brazils.
"This is for reference," he remarked. "My story begins in Europe, and we require no map for that. Your father, Robert, was a stout Jacobite at your age. He has since changed his convictions; but we'll say nothing on that score. I, on the contrary, was born a Jacobite and am one still, heart and soul. I shall never rest until the Hanoverian usurper has been displaced.
"I was on the other side of Africa when I first had word Prince Charles had raised the White Cockade in Scotland in the '45. I sailed for home, as you have heard, and was many months too late to be of service. But I established touch with friends in France who work for the cause, and so learned that the good work was going merrily on. We all know now that Prince Charles might have remedied his plight after Culloden had he been more fortunate in his advisers. I will tell you beyond that that the disarming measures in the Highlands have been a failure and the clans have only turned sullen from the oppression they have received. All that is wanted for another rising is money—gold!"
His luminous, dark eyes looked from one to the other of us, and I thought the tawny flecks in the pupils increased in brilliancy as he cried out that last word on a rising note that thrilled and disturbed me.
"Gold!" he said over again. "Why, there is one little hoard of treasure Prince Charles had to leave behind him—the Loch Arkaig treasure they call it. Cluny MacPherson and Locheil's brother have had the keeping of it, and you'd scarce believe the source of trouble it has been to the English! And it not more than forty thousand louis at the beginning, and dribbling fast before it was turned to account. It has set all the Highlands by the ears—forty thousand louis, spent by fives and tens, a good bit of it going to feed gillies in the heather or gambled away in some clachan of the Cameron country, if what I hear be right.
"Think what a real treasure would accomplish! Think what— But I am going too fast."
He paused, and a slow, strange smile shadowed his face as he drew a finger across the map upon the table.
"I said I would tell you a story," he went on. "But after all 'tis only a dream—a wicked old man's dream, Robert. 'Tis so you think of me, I know—and your father—and Peter there—and—I wonder what the little maid you spoke with would think! Or the poor, throneless old king who huddles over his brazier for warmth in the dreary palace in Rome that is all he has left of his majesty! Or Prince Charlie, who flits back and forth from France to the Low Countries, scheming and plotting and always curbed for lack of—gold!
"Gold! We stumble for lack of it in every enterprise. With sufficient of it you may upset kingdoms, buy pardons, obtain patents and honors and place. 'Tis a definite substance, mark you, hard and shining and heavy in the hand—not such thistle-down as dreams are made o'.
"But the virtue of dreams, Robert—" he addressed himself direct to me, seeming to forget that Peter was present—"is that they can be transmuted into that which is palpable and finite, aye, even into gold. And the dreams of a wicked old man may become as efficacious to right wrong or to throw down the mighty or to redeem the weak and the persecuted as the gold which Indian slaves mine under the whip of Spanish masters. For the dream may lead to the gold. What is the ancient saw? 'First the thought, then the deed.'
"When was the thought born? I can not say. Flint and I had often sought the yearly treasure-ship, but never had sight of her. Then one day the idea came to me to utilize my Jacobite friends in France and Spain. They leaped at the suggestion, for to say truth, Robert, both Spaniards and Frenchmen have treated our party shabbily. An intrigue was set afoot through the medium of a cardinal who is partial to King James, and so we gained access to the Council of the Indies. A bribe, which I supplied, procured for O'Donnell, already an officer on the regular establishment of the Spanish forces, appointment as an Inspector of Fortifications of the ports on the Main. And with the prestige of this post and the assistance of our friend the cardinal 'twas easy for O'Donnell to secure complete information as to the Council's plans for the dispatch of this year's treasure-ship."
His forefinger explored the chart before us and came to rest upon a dot on the flank of the narrow neck of land which joins the two Americas.
"There is Porto Bello, which was the port of the old treasure galleons and discarded as such by the Spaniards after Morgan sacked it. But later they restored and strengthened the fortifications, although in the late war our Admiral Vernon carried it by surprize. At that time Cartagena was the treasure center, and when Vernon attempted it he was repulsed with loss. Two years since the Council of the Indies decided to resume sailings from Porto Bello, which is the most advantageously situated of all ports on the Main for the collection of the treasure.
"See! 'Tis about midway betwixt Mexico and Peru, and the mines of Veragua are at its back door. The treasures of the South Sea islands can be fetched by sea to Panama and thence carried overland by the recoes, the royal mule-trains which are the link betwixt Panama and the West Coast and the cities of the Main. The Peruvian treasures come by the same route. Those from Mexico are fetched south from La Vera Cruz by a ship under escort of the Garda Costas and transferred at Porto Bello to the ship for Spain, which puts forth about the beginning or middle of September.
"This is a strong ship and well manned, but the Spaniards have been taught by centuries of experience to accept no risk for her. Her identity is never known in advance, even to her captain. He sails from Cadiz for the Main under sealed orders which he doth not open until mid-Atlantic is passed, and these orders do but carry him to Porto Bello. There a strict embargo is laid upon him and his crew, and the port is rigidly closed the while the assembling of the treasure is under way. So soon as that is accomplished 'tis laded aboard him, and he sails in the night, the hour known to no more than the Governor and higher officers; and to make assurance surer the port is kept closed for two weeks additional."
"Then how shall you have word of her sailing?" I broke in, swept off my feet by the rush of this amazing narrative.
"That is O'Donnell's task. He will reach Porto Bello during the Summer and be so concerned for the state of the fortifications that he'll refuse to leave until he has put them in defensible condition."
My great-uncle gave me a chiding smile.
"You ha' been vastly concerned for the well-being of the maid his daughter, Robert—and I am bound to say your feeling is highly becoming—but you might better fret for her health in that —— hole at the most pestilent time o' year. I hope, for her sake, she will be sent away with the officers' ladies into one of the mountain retreats the Spaniards have erected for their refreshment."
"Better Porto Bello and pestilence than a pirate ship," I muttered angrily.
"You will harp upon that word," he answered sorrowfully. "I am yet far from converting you, I perceive. Well, well! To my story again.
"Whilst he is there he will receive dispatches from Spain summoning him home on urgent affairs. He will elect to embark upon the treasure-ship because she is large and commodious and likewise safe. And thanks to his position, he will have accurate knowledge some days in advance of her sailing-date. When he has obtained this fact he will convey it secretly to one Diego Salvez, an agent I maintain in that port, as I maintain others in almost every place of importance along the coast of the Main and in the islands. Diego, by O'Donnell's help, will get out of the town and put to sea in a fast sloop he hath in a little river near where was the ancient town of Nombre de Dios, so that we shall have sure tidings of the Santissima Trinidad's coming and be prepared for her."
"But what of her course?" I scrutinized the map. "There are three several exits from the Caribbean into the Atlantic."
And I pointed them out in order: The Straits of Florida to the north of Cuba; the Windward Passage between Cuba and Hispaniola, with the great island of Jamaica lying to the westward of it; and last, the Mona Passage between Hispaniola and Porto Rico.
"She would never point up for the gaps between the lesser islands in the south," I added.
My great-uncle chuckled with a keenness of relish that was new to him.
"You read the chart well for a landsman, boy," he said. "What say you, Peter? Here is a stout sailor in the making."
"Neen," answered Peter earnestly. "You stick to der landt, Bob."
And for the first time my great-uncle and I laughed together, so comical was the Dutchman's repudiation of the sea and its folk.
"You have clapped on to the nub of our problem," said Murray. "'Twas the piece of information I was at most pains to obtain. The Santissima Trinidad will head for the Mona Passage. I will show you why. The first aim of the Spaniards is to conceal her voyage; she sails a course which keeps her as much as possible in open seas. And the best exit for that purpose is the opening between Hispaniola and Porto Rico. There are no islands in the Caribbean on that course, and once through the passage she fetches south and east of the Bahamas and so beats up for the Cape Verdes.
"My intent is that the Royal James shall ply off the westerly mouth of the passage from about the end of August, avoiding all intercourse with shipping and keeping as far out to sea as is practicable. When Diego appears we will restrict the space of our beat, and 'twill be impossible for the treasure-ship to escape us. If she runs we can catch her, and at fighting I can take any don under a ship-o'-the-line."
"So much I heard you declare to Colonel O'Donnell aboard the brig," I said. "But what comes next? You take the Santissima Trinidad—and then?"
He moved his forefinger over the surface of the map and brought it to rest in front of a tiny outline sketched in ink on the expanse of sea east of Cuba and somewhat to the north of Hispaniola. Northward of this spot stretched the far-flung myriads of the Bahamas.
"That is what you have heard Flint and me refer to as the Rendezvous and Spygass Island," he answered. "It has other names, I believe. Some have called it Treasure Island, although I know of no treasure upon it. In truth, its one value is that it doth not appear upon any map, and its comfortable isolation and sheltered havens supply an excellent resort for such outlaws as ourselves. 'Tis said that Kidd discovered it, and certes, others of the old-time buccaneers were wont to maintain themselves there. Flint had the secret of it from a tarry-breeks who claimed to have sailed on the Adventure galley. We are bound thither now to refit and careen, and when we have the treasure safe under hatches we will return to the island to divide it and concert arrangements for delivering their share to Colonel O'Donnell's friends."
"What will Flint say to your fetching in strangers to your hiding-place?" I asked.
A furrow deepened betwixt my great-uncle's lambent eyes.
"He'll not like it, Robert," he admitted. "I have O'Donnell's word to betray none of our secrets, and indeed 'tis to his own interest to keep hidden his part in this affair; but Flint may well make trouble. 'Tis a determined dog, and a greedy. Look you, boy, will you stand by me in the affair? For the girl's sake, if for no other reason?"
"Why not leave her aboard the treasure-ship?"
He regarded me askance.
"It may be we must sink——"
I started up.
"Now, that I'll ha' naught to do with! I ha' told you I'd fight if you butchered the defenseless."
He waved me back.
"Peace, peace! We can not carry off all the Spaniards in any case, and——"
He hesitated.
"—O'Donnell must be protected," he concluded.
"Against what?"
"Wagging tongues. I tell you his part must never be known. The Santissima Trinidad disappears, and with her the treasure and all her company. There's no other way."
"But if O'Donnell and his daughter survive to reach Europe there must be talk," I pointed out.
"True," he agreed; "but they will have their story ready. A shipwreck, perhaps, and they alone contriving to reach shore."
"Who beliefes dot?" Peter interjected contemptuously.
"What else can we do?" countered Murray.
"Take the treasure, if you must," I retorted; "but do not stain your hands with the blood of men who have not harmed you."
"I must slay some of them in all probability," returned my great-uncle. "What difference between that and slaying all?"
I remembered the thrill of reprobation with which even the most devoted adherents of King George had heard of the butchery of the Scots wounded after Culloden.
"'Tis not yourself alone must bear the disgrace of such a deed," I tried again. "'Twill attach an irremovable stigma to your cause. No honest Jacobite can ever afterward call Cumberland butcher. Aye, and if I know aught of Mistress O'Donnell she will refuse to have anything to do with so horrible a crime. Be sure 'twill bring a trail of ill-luck will swamp the Pretender and all his train."
He took snuff with his accustomed fastidiousness.
"Your arguments carry weight, I am bound to admit," he said, returning the box to his pocket. "What alternative have you to suggest?"
"Cripple the ship to give you time to escape."
"That's well enough," he argued; "but you take no thought to Colonel O'Donnell's plight. What will be said of him after he is brought aboard the James?"
The idea which came to me then I put away as distasteful, but rack my brain as I would I could produce no substitute for it.
"There's but one thing to do," I said. "You must make pretense of bearing off the daughter, and you can imprison the father, too, in order to silence his objections."
"A fit rôle for a pirate captain," mused my great-uncle. "El capitán Rrrip-Rrrap and how he devoured the virgin! I can hear the stories that will be told in the Havana wine-shops. But I must have my price, Robert. If I spare such Spaniards as escape our great guns and the boarding-cutlasses, will you agree to stand back of me in the division of the spoils with Flint?"
"I'll not become lieutenant in your piracies, if that be your meaning," I returned.
"No; my meaning is plain, boy. I wish you and Peter to help me to get clear of Flint with the O'Donnells and their portion of the treasure."
"But why return to the Rendezvous at all? Bear off with the O'Donnells, and land them and their treasure before you deliver Flint his share."
My great-uncle shook his head.
"'Tis not so simple as all that. The action with the Santissima Trinidad will require cannonading, and that will be heard. Probably we shall be seen sailing away. We may be pursued. The surviving Spaniards, whom you will have me spare, will speedily have out their frigates after us. We must remain under cover for a period. And finally, for various reasons too complex for discussion, I can not make delivery of the treasure to my friends in France before the Spring. Seven hundred thousand pounds in gold and silver bullion is no easy mass to handle. Preparations must be made for its landing and transportation.
"No, Robert, the Rendezvous is necessary to my plans. Furthermore, I am surprized that you, who prate so much of honor, should seek to encourage me to act dishonorably toward my associates by withholding from them, for however short a time, their just share of our spoils. You will grant me, I hope, the credit of being at least an honorable pirate."
He spoke at the last with a kind of mincing solemnity which was vastly funny, and both Peter and I fell a-laughing for it. Read me for a fool or a knave if you will, but I protest I was conscious of a growing inclination for my relative. So whimsical a scoundrel could not be altogether without redeeming qualities; and sure, his courage and resource by themselves were sufficient to set him apart from ordinary men.
"Very well," I said. "I will do what you ask for the maid's sake—if Peter is willing."
"Ja," assented Peter.
Murray caught my hand in a quick, firm clasp.
"Good!" he cried. "'Twill be the first o' many times we stand shoulder to shoulder. Ah, Robert, I ha' dreamed a splendid dream, and any man who helps in its achievement will not have lived in vain. We'll take this gold and build an avenue of victories for the king's ride to Whitehall. What will we not do? We'll rouse the claymores from the hills! We'll carry the Irish Brigade to London town! We'll fetch home the Wild Geese from their haunts of exile! We'll ha' the beacon fires ablaze from end to end of the Three Kingdoms! And the White Cockade over all!
"There'll be no talk of pirates then! 'Twill be my Lord Duke of Jedburgh, Marquis of Cobbielaw and Earl and Baron Broomfield; aye, and an English peerage to boot. We'll ride high, Robert—aye, with the highest!"
He broke off short, and the glow in his eyes charred out.
"'Tis not a bad vision for a wicked old man to dream; eh, boy? Remember it when you hear the crowds a-cheering us in the Strand."
Almost he made me believe him, this outlaw of the sea. But Peter broke the spell.
"Me, I don't beliefe in dreams," yawned the Dutchman. "Neen."
Murray glared at him.
"What you believe is of little account, Corlaer," he said curtly, and strode from the cabin.
Peter took a sip of aqua vitae.
"He is a great dreamer, Murray," he squeaked. "Ja, all der time he dreams. He dreamed when we fight wit' him before, me andt your father, Bob. It is not goodt to dream too much, neen."
He sighed.
"My stomach is better. We finish der chicken, ja?"
CHAPTER IX
THE ISLAND
One day was like another aboard the Royal James, although to a landsman the routine of duties, work and varying weather was charged with unending interest. My great-uncle held his pack of wolves on a short leash and exacted from them all the efficiency of a man-o'-war's company. Indeed, he rather fancied himself in the status of admiral upon a private establishment, and occasionally indulged in visions of the James gazetted to the roster of the royal fleet and himself flying a broad pennant in a line-ship at the head of a squadron.
"His Majesty could scarce make me Lord Admiral, Robert," he would say, pacing the poop with hands clasped behind him and spyglass tucked beneath his left arm. "I am one for maintaining the rights of tradition, and the Howards have an inalienable claim to the place. But a regular commission—that would be vastly different. Admiral of the White, let us say—or if that grade be filled, perhaps of the Red. I understand there to be considerable jealousy amongst the sea-dogs of the Navy over the rankings on the White, and I am a reasonable man. Military or naval fitness must never be sacrificed to political ends. 'Tis a canker will wreck the most powerful State in time."
Each morning he inspected the ship from stem to stern, accompanied by his officers, and he was not slow to administer rebukes for shortcomings or oversights. Later in the forenoon the men were exercised at the great guns, and in the afternoon there was pike and cutlass drill. The watch was rigorously maintained. We carried lookouts day and night at all three mast-heads and on poop and fo'csle, and every one of them was equipped with an observation glass. The handling of the sails was astonishingly smart to me, who, of course, had had no previous experience to go by.
The cleanliness of the decks and living-quarters was beyond any peradventure of criticism. Even the men of the crew—as choice a collection of hangman's favorites, jail-breakers, road-wanderers, hedge-thieves, pickpockets, murderers and mutineers as could have been mustered upon one deck—were kept personally tidy and clothed with a rough similarity in wide trousers of tough canvas, gaudy shirts of calico and round-jackets of Irish frieze.
There was plenty of food, and of far better quality than is served on King's ships, as I have since learned, and enough rum to keep all hands in good humor without being drunk. None of this broaching a cask on the spar-deck according to Flint's habit, but a full pannikin three times a day. And in tropical waters, so Master Martin told me, Murray was at great pains to keep the ship stocked with fresh fruit to prevent the scurvy and the wasting fevers of the hot latitudes.
The officers lodged for'ard of the cabin in what answered, I suppose, for a gun-room. Murray had the poop quarters to himself, with only Peter and me for company, aside from Ben Gunn and the two negro lackeys, who were more for show than aught else, seeing that the steward did practically all the work.
With our accommodations I could find no cause for quarrel. My great-uncle had promised me I should fare like an admiral, and certes, like an admiral or a princeling did I fare. There was a stateroom each for Peter and me, and whilst constricted in space by shore standards, they were spacious beside the cubby-hole we had shared aboard the brig.
The main cabin I have already described, but I may add that in addition to its artistic decorations it possessed a well-chosen library of Latin, French, Italian, Spanish and British authors, including such recent works as our own Cadwallader Colden's "History of the Iroquois Nations," which my father esteemed a masterpiece of historical authority; Smollet's novels, several pamphlets and slim volumes dealing with the experiences of spirited gentlemen who had participated in the struggles of the '45; and a variety of philosophical studies and disquisitions upon political economy. Perceiving that I displayed some interest in it, my great-uncle commended to my attention Monsieur de Montesquieu's "Spirit of Laws," Cervantes' "Don Quixote," the "Satyricon" of Petronius, Carte's monumental "Life of the Duke Ormond" and Clarendon's "History of the Rebellion."
"There, Robert," he remarked of the last, "is an object-lesson in the success to which a man may attain by application, diplomacy and native genius. My Lord Clarendon began life as a commoner; yet he lived to see his daughter married to the brother of the King of England, and only by the obscure bafflements of fate was he prevented from beholding the offspring of her body occupying the holy eminence of the throne. I have derived much satisfaction from the contemplation of his success in moments when I might have despaired of the future's reward of my own efforts."
He was particular that I should be well garbed, and forced upon me several suits out of his abundant wardrobe which were given the necessary alterations by a former journeyman tailor who had escaped from Newgate on the eve of execution for the murder of a scolding wife. He would have done as much for Peter also; but the Dutchman refused to be parted from his salt-stained buckskin shirt and leggings; and an odd figure Corlaer made, in all conscience, striding the decks of the Royal James in the costume of a forest-runner, even to the knife and hatchet hung on either thigh.
We were fortunate in our weather until we had gained the latitude of Florida, when a northwesterly storm drove us some hundreds of miles out of our course and separated us for several weeks from our consort. By reason of this misadventure we were obliged to beat back to the north in order to take advantage of the trades to run down upon the island from the nor'east, which was highly essential, so my great-uncle said, else we must be compelled to thread the dangerous mazes of the Bahama group or sail uncomfortably close to the eastern coast of Cuba.
To the west of the Bermoothes—within sight of which we never came—we encountered the Walrus again, Flint having had substantially the same experience as ourselves, and thenceforward we continued in company. Other ships we occasionally sighted from the mast-head; but as Murray was particularly anxious to avoid calling attention to his presence the cry, "Sail ho!" was the signal for our bearing off upon any course which would fetch a compass around the strangers. This fact, together with the time lost through the storm, protracted the voyage near a month beyond what might have been expected, and we were eleven weeks out of New York when a cluster of rocky peaks soared above the heat-haze dead ahead.
My great-uncle, after a single squint through his object-glass, handed the instrument to me.
"'Tis the island," he said. "I'd know those peaks anywhere."
The double lens etched distinctly a rugged spread of land, shelving up out of the sea from a succession of yellow beaches on the east to a series of small hills which culminated in a range of considerable height along the westward side, running almost due north and south. The interior seemed to be heavily forested; the trees climbed the mountains to within the last few hundred feet of their summits, which were bare rock, precipitous in the case of the midmost and highest, a cloud-hung giant which dominated the island.
"That is Spyglass Hill," said my great-uncle, noting the intentness of my survey of it. "'Tis there we maintain our lookouts whilst we are in harbor, and some men give the name of the hill to the island. But in truth the place hath no set name, and is dubbed by each to suit his fancy. You may judge this to be all the more so when I add that Spyglass Hill is known likewise as Mainmast Hill. Do you see the two other high peaks in line with it, north and south? That to the nor'ard is called Foremast Hill, and its twin in the south is Mizzenmast Hill."
We were on the la'b'd tack, clawing off to work eastward of the island's mass, and as he spoke we opened up a sizable bight. Rocky headlands fell away to tree-clad shores, and I caught the gleam of a little river which flowed into the upper end of the basin.
"Is that our haven?" I asked.
"No, 'tis in no sense as secure as that which we customarily use," replied Murray, "although safe enough in storm. It is called the North Inlet. The principal harbor is known as Captain Kidd's Anchorage, and is bitten into the so'east corner of the island. We shall not open it for another two glasses."
The breeze was dwindling, which was fortunate for us as we required plenty of sea-room to weather the island; and the east coast, though flat and sandy, offered no feasible harbor or roadstead. The surf boomed up on the beaches with a steady roar which we could hear above the creaking of our vessel's cordage and the shrieking of the sea-birds whose countless flocks wheeled overhead as we approached. A half-mile astern of us the Walrus was bouncing in our wake. Seaward in every quarter the horizon-line melted into the infinite expanse of the ocean.
To me, used to the busy life of a bustling little town or the tossing treetops of the forests of the wilderness, cloaking beneath their restless boughs all manner of wild and savage life, there was something appalling in the isolation of the blotch of land ahead of us.
A continent in miniature, complete with capes, bays, inlets, rivers, mountains, woods and fields, it was yet so utterly desolate in its setting of blue-green water. Actually, I believe, 'twas as much as three leagues in length from north to south, and perhaps better than a league across at its widest. But as I stared at it from the poop of the Royal James it seemed less than the green dot of Nutting Island,[1] which lies in the mouth of the East River over against New York. And what scenes of heart-rending cruelty it had witnessed! What acts of ruthless perfidy!
[1] Governors Island.
Nearing its shores, I descried the tangled masses of trees which clothed most of its surface. A few conifers shot up to goodly stature, but the greater part of the forest growth was gnarled, wind-tortured dwarfs, misshapen abortions of trees. The whole effect of the place seen from offshore was sinister and forbidding, repulsive as the silent ferocity which emanated from the blind man Pew.
The crew of the Royal James eyed the unfolding shoreline with a slackness of interest which surprized me. Men did not talk together. There was no jesting. The bracing of the sheets and trimming of the yards brought forth no more than the customary amount of shouting and "yo-ho-hoing" without which the sailorman is powerless for good or ill.
I commented upon this; and my great-uncle, silently contemplative beside me, smiled.
"If the ensuing weeks meant leisure and carousing it might be we should be put to it to maintain our standard of discipline," he said. "But as it chances, our crew find confronting them a task of difficulty and duration, the which they know and realize. And therefore, Robert, are they silent, and not because of the spell of evil deeds which you think to decipher from our surroundings. Evil enough the island hath known, I doubt not. What place could not as much be said of? But men, and especially seamen, reck little of an evil past if land be usefully available for their needs. No, no, my boy; you shall sleep securely tonight in Captain Kidd's Anchorage, for all the ghostly memories it contains. And Peter shall eat without a qualm, for the James will lie as still as the dry land in the haven's shelter."
"We get some fenison, ja," spoke up Peter, with marked enthusiasm for him.
He pointed toward the slopes of a hill this side of the Spyglass, and I had a brief glimpse of a string of white dots which leaped from crag to crag.
Murray laughed.
"You have keen eyes, friend Peter," he observed. "But if you will accept the aid of my glass you will perceive that what you saw were goats—the descendants, we are told, of a flock left here by the old buccaneers, to whom we owe an appreciable debt therefor. Goatflesh is not venison by long odds, but it hath much to commend it over salt beef and pork, and the tender bits of a young kid seethed in the milk of its dam—we are not obligated to obey the Mosaic code—might appeal even to an epicure of as unquestioned taste as yourself. There are, too, certain wildfowl and a breed of duck not to be despised; and we shall have much store of fish and shellfish. Yes, I can assure you additions to our diet which should go far to reconcile you with your lot."
Peter's face shone.
"Dot's goodt," he said. "Ja, now I fill oop my stomach wit'out it yumps from der wafes."
Several miles south of this mountain we sighted a white rock on a point of land and beyond it an islet and beyond that a much larger island. Murray ordered the helmsman to edge away to the east, and presently we bore off on a long tack to the so'east to fetch us around a patch of shoals. A man was ordered into the forechains with a leadline, and several others relayed his soundings aft along the deck to the poop. The water shoaled rapidly from ten fathoms to five and a trifle less; but Murray conned his way coolly, the Walrus scrupulously exact in our wake, and of a sudden we went about on the starboard tack and opened a wider, deeper harbor even than the North Inlet, on the right hand the shores of the smaller island, on the left the main itself.
My great-uncle turned over the conduct of the ship to Martin and crossed to where Peter and I stood, staring about us. Already we were under the lee of the smaller island, and the ship was making less way as the force of the wind was decreased. The water seemed strangely quiet—instead of bouncing us up and down, it did no more than purr and ripple as the bow cleaved through it. And the heat of the sun, unrelieved by the free sweep of the wind, became intense. In a few moments the decks were hot to the touch, and we might not lay our hands with comfort upon the bulwarks.
Here were no beaches; only mud-banks covered to the waterline with twisting, many-rooted trees, their foliage of an ardently soft green presenting impenetrable, whispering barriers to the eye. The channel curved, following the contour of the smaller island, and we sighted the mouth of a little river similar to that which had flowed into the head of the North Inlet.
"Starboard, Master Martin!" called my great-uncle as he joined Peter and me. "Starboard your helm, if you please. Aye, on to this shoal here. We shall have three fathoms and less to careen in. Bid them drop the anchor."
Martin bawled an order. A whistle piped, and there was a great clatter and rustling of rope running loose, a mighty splash that drove the birds in tumult into the air; and the Royal James swung to her cable close under the lesser island's shore. My great-uncle waved one hand over the bulwark.
"Skeleton Island this is called, Robert," he said. "I tell you because you demonstrate so gruesome an interest in the more horrifying episodes of our past. But I regret I must confess that I know of no authentic detail to account for the nomenclature. Pirates have a way of naming a spot to suit themselves, without rime or reason, if the fancy once moves them."
"May we land?" I answered, ignoring his gibe.
"Suit yourselves," he returned with a shrug. "I must have all my men busy aboard here, however, and can spare none to guide you."
"Ja, ja," urged Peter. "We shoodt some goats, eh?"
"If you please," agreed Murray. "Ben Gunn will find you a brace of light muskets preferable to our rack-blunderbusses. I'll have the gig put overside, and you may row yourselves, if you will."
"Are you not afraid we may plan to escape?" I asked curiously.
"How?" he countered. "Look about you."
"We might fashion ourselves a vessel," I declared. "A raft, at the least."
"And whither would you go?" he pressed me. "These seas are unfrequented and tempestuous. Also, I do not think that you would be able to construct a vessel in the amount of uninterrupted time I should allow you. And finally, my dear nephew, I must remind you that you have promised your aid to me in a certain matter."
"I need not consider that binding in event of an opportunity to escape," I retorted.
"You need not perhaps," said he. "Yet you would."
And with that he walked off and bade Saunders order the gig lowered overside. Nor did he say another word until we had secured our weapons and a packet of food from Ben Gunn and returned to the deck. Then he gave over supervising the cock-billing of the mainyard and joined us at the gangway.
"I desire above all things, Robert," he said, "to deal gently with you. Therefore I ask you to believe I am considering your own safety when I require your promise to be aboard again not later than an hour after sundown."
"Why, what harm——"
The Walrus slatted past us, her canvas in a slovenly mess alow and aloft, a dozen men howling orders and counter-orders from poop, waist and fo'csle, Flint in his red coat strutting the poop and adding his own bellow to the din whenever the confusion showed signs of dissolving. Pew was huddled over the wheel, the green eyeshade masking his powder-burned eyes, John Silver tall beside him, a-leaning on the carven mahogany crutch, his cool, pleasant voice the one sensible sound in the tumult on those disordered decks.
My great-uncle's eyes strayed across the narrow gap of water betwixt the two vessels.
"Well, damme, it's been a —— of a voyage, Murray!" shouted Flint.
"We are here," returned my great-uncle urbanely.
"Aye, and what to do wi' ourselves?" Flint called back. "Blast me for a —— —— —— if I can see what five hundred —— —— —— are to do wi' months on their hands, and naught but rum-drinkin' and quarrellin' for diversion."
"There's your ship to clean, man," replied Murray. "She needs it."
Flint answered with a curse. The Walrus had slid on too far for all his words to be distinct, but I heard a fragment of the beginning.
"—use o' cleaning' ship? Only a —— —— swab o' a —— —— Navy officer 'ud think to —— —— his ——"
My great-uncle indulged in one of his essentially Gallic shrugs and dusted a pinch of snuff into his nostrils.
"Captain Flint doth not agree with me, it seems. A strange character, and eke a forceful one, Robert, for all his inherent stupidity and blindness of view. But to return to your question. You were about to ask me what harm could befall you ashore. I answer you that I do not know, but that in all candid truth we are here, to quote my associate, some 'five hundred —— —— ——,' and accidents may happen. Therefore, I suggest that you be aboard not later than an hour after sunset. On second thoughts, Robert, I regret that I shall be unable to permit you to leave the ship save upon your parole on those terms."
"You have it," I answered shortly, and followed Peter down the side-cleats into the gig.
We rowed up the estuary for the mouth of the little river which we had seen from the James' deck, and our course took us under the yellow hull of the Walrus. A shrill voice hailed from a gunport, and Darby McGraw's red head was thrust out beside the frowning black muzzle.
"Glory be, Master Bob, and do they let ye go free wherever ye will? Sure, it's yourself must be one o' the grand favorites over yon. Are ye an officer yet?"
I was about to answer him when Flint gloomed down at us from the towering poop.
"Gut me!" he sneered. "'Tis Murray's by-blow, no less! What d'ye make o' this, Billy?"
The brutal face of Bones showed above the bulwarks.
"He's a pris'ner," jeered Bones. "Only he ain't; d'ye see, Flint? Into New York Murray went to crimp him, and now, by —— —— —— he gives him shore-leave!"
"Come aboard here, my hearty," Flint hailed me.
"We are going ashore," I answered; "and I have reason to hasten."
Flint scowled.
"Well, ye'll come soon enough. And when I get ye I'll learn ye a thing or two! There's too much politics and favoritism aboard the James to suit me, and ye can tell your great-uncle or granddaddy or whatever he may be, blast him for a —— —— —— —— ——, that John Flint says so!"
Darby bobbed up on the poop beside him very much out of breath.
"Och, will ye let me go along o' Master Bob, captain?" he cried. "Do now, avick! Sure, I hain't seen him this long three-month gone."
"That I'll not," snarled Flint, turning his back to us. "Isn't this ship good enough for ye, Darby? Ain't you our luck? Will I let you go and ruin it by rounding up wi' Murray's by-blow?"
"Troth, he's no more'n the old master's son that I worrked for in New York, captain darlin', and him that good to me always I had a main likin' for him, indeed and indeed I did! And I'm fair crazy to be ashore afther the weeks and months we'll ha'——"
Flint clapped him on the shoulder, abruptly jovial.
"Ah, if it's ashore you'd be that's a different matter," says he. "I'm for goin' ashore myself. Bill, call all hands away for the boats, and we'll have a grand goat-hunt up Spyglass. John Silver shall barbecue 'em for us. And break out a couple o' casks o' rum. Lively now, my lads! We'll enjoy ourselves like the honest pirates we are!"
A frenzy of cheering answered him, and I backed water with my oars.
"You heard, Peter?" I said over my shoulder.
"Ja; dot's badt."
"We can't go where they do."
"Neen."
I reflected and examined the surface of the main island, rearing itself before us on the opposite side of the estuary. A half-mile, perhaps, eastward of the river we had been heading for a second and less inviting stream oozed its way into the haven through a succession of swamps. Beyond it toward the island's eastern shore the country was sandy and open. The Spyglass and the intervening hills were miles to the west, clear across the island and the two streams.
"There we'll be safe, Peter," I said. "They're not going in that direction, and if they do by chance come after us we'll be able to see them."
"Maybe we better go back to der ship," he answered doubtfully.
"Not I," I returned grimly. "We won't look for trouble; but if it comes our way we'll meet it."
"Ja," he said, and bent to his oars.
We did not enter the second stream, because the swamps along its course presented no landing-place, but ran our boat aground on a sandy bank on the far side of a point which concealed us from the Walrus. Then we took our guns and walked inland through the trees up a graduated sandy slope to the top of a little hillock whence we could look off through the aisles of pines and see the Walrus, with boats putting off from her sides and pulling into the mouth of the first of the two streams, and over a spur of Skeleton Island the topmasts of the Royal James.
"This would be a good place for a fort," I mused.
"Ja," said Peter. "You got water, too."
He pointed to a streak of green vegetation along the sandy slope of the knoll which we traced to a spring issuing from the summit.
"Now we got water, we better eat," he added.
"But what about the goats?" I cried. "We were to——"
"No," he insisted stubbornly; "we don't shoodt. If we shoodt, der pirates hear us andt come. We waidt until they are all ashore. Then we go back to Murray."
"I'll not be driven from the first pleasure we have had in months," I protested childishly.
"We do it again," replied Peter placidly. "Next time Murray he come wit' us himself, ja."
"Yes, but——"
"Now you be sensible, Bob. Der Injuns is goodt friendts beside them fellers, ja. We go back to der James. Soon all o' them be ashore andt drunk. Drunk, they like to kill us, but they can't row—neen."
And we rowed back to the James ingloriously in the dusk, the shouts of the Walrus' carousers echoing to us from the shore.
CHAPTER X
HOSTAGES
The watch aboard the Royal James challenged us as we made fast by the larboard side-ladder, and when we climbed over the bulwarks to the deck Master Martin flashed a lanthorn in our faces with a gust of oaths in his absurdly gentle tones.
"By the —— —— —— ——, but I hoped 'twas that —— —— Flint come a-seekin' mischief," he complained.
"Where is Captain Murray?" I answered.
"In his cabin."
And in the same mild manner he continued to his men:
"To your stations. Remember cap'n's orders. Now these two are aboard, ye'll fire at any boat that approaches and challenge afterward."
The negro lackeys stood aside as we came to the cabin entrance under the poop; the door was open. Down the dark tunnel of the companionway with its stateroom doors on either hand Peter and I could see my great-uncle sitting at the table in the main cabin, a glass of wine at his elbow, a chart spread out before him. He raised his head as we entered.
"You were cheated of your sport, I conclude," he greeted us. "The watch informed me a half-hour since they had heard no shots ashore."
I recounted briefly our conversation with Flint and the determination Peter and I had reached in consequence. He nodded agreement with it.
"You did quite right, Robert. Peter did not exaggerate the dangers inherent in the situation."
"You appear not to feel any too safe yourself," I answered sarcastically, "with sentinels posted on your decks ordered to shoot into any approaching boat."
"I do not," he assented with perfect equanimity. "'Tis true I should be surprized did our confrères of the Walrus undertake to assault us, but I have had too much experience with desperate men, especially when they are under the influence of liquor, to discount the possibility of their adopting any atrocious idea which might enter their heads."
"Do you mean that you live in perpetual fear of treachery from Flint's crew?"
He considered the question, sipping at his wine.
"Perpetual is too strong a word for the occasion," he decided at length. "Let us say rather that the experience to which I have previously referred has taught me that under certain circumstances—such as the license practised after the tedium of a long voyage—a band of men who recognize no authority save the strong arm may be induced to excesses they would not otherwise attempt."
"Then we don't shoodt no goats?" asked Peter sorrowfully.
"On the contrary, friend Peter. We most certainly shall. 'Tis not only a question of securing you the opportunity of sport which I promised you, but of varying the diet of my crew, with an eye to maintaining all hands in good health at a time when we can not afford incapacity. Tomorrow morning I shall be occupied in organizing the work of careening the ship, so that her bottom may be cleaned; but in the afternoon we will take a party of beaters to aid us and arrange a battue in the Continental fashion. By that time, I anticipate, Captain Flint will have returned to his senses—recovered from his debauch, in other words. If he has not——"
He shrugged, and I gathered that the contingency would not be a happy one for Flint.
"You will excuse me," he went on, "if I return to my studies. I have much upon my mind."
We bade him good night and went to our staterooms, weary enough from the unwonted exercise of rowing. As I shut my door I noted that he was measuring distances in the Caribbean with calipers and jotting figures upon the margin of the chart.
In the morning, as he had said, all hands were occupied with the task of careening the ship. In the first place she was to be hauled over to starboard to expose her larboard bottom, and all her guns and movable stores and heavy equipment were shifted to starboard to give her a list on that side. Then her yards were cockbilled to keep them clear of the water, and heavy cables were run from her masts to the shore, looped around trees and carried back aboard, and the crew by main force, a few inches or a foot at a time, canted her over. The tide, as it dropped, aided them by bedding the keel in the estuary's soft mud floor, and gradually the James came to assume a most lopsided appearance.
'Twas when the work had gone so far and was proceeding satisfactorily that my great-uncle bade Martin tell off a dozen hands who were good shots and call away the longboat.
"I marvel that you dare to leave the James in this defenseless condition," I said to him as the longboat pulled off up the anchorage past the silent bulk of the Walrus. "If there was danger last night——"
"—there need not necessarily be danger this afternoon," he interrupted. "'Tis all quiet ashore, and I doubt if there is a man sufficiently sober aboard the Walrus to carry a carton of powder from the magazine."
"But by evening they'll ha' slept it off," I insisted.
"True, and with it their lust for bloodshed—for the time being, at any rate. Our problem then will be to turn Flint's mind to some undertaking which will divert his attention and occupy him until we need no longer be concerned for his whimsies."
We landed south of the first river, below where Flint's party had held their carouse, and proceeded inland through a wooded valley, with hills rising to right and left of us and the Spyglass towering in the distance. The day was very clear, and the mountain's summit was a gray cone against the blue of the sky. A soft wind whispered in the trees; the beat of the surf came to us faintly; the severity of the sun was tempered by the shade; and the pine-mast was springy to our feet. Even our sullen, hangdog escort of seamen became almost cheery under the influence of their changed surroundings, and with the sight of their first goat they began to whoop and shout like schoolboys. Murray, despite his age, was as spry as the youngest of us, and he never wasted a shot.
At his suggestion we turned north along the lower flanks of the Spyglass, circled the intervening hills—foot-hills they might be called—crossed the headwaters of the first river, traversed another patch of forest and forded the second river at a point where it ran shallow and clear between two of the marshy stretches which were its distinguishing characteristic. This route brought us over to the eastern side of the island some distance north of the hillock Peter and I had visited the preceding evening, and when I remarked this fact my great-uncle expressed interest and requested that we should visit the place. We had by now shot sufficient goats to load down all our bearers, whilst Peter carried half a dozen brace of various birds, to the eatable qualities of which Murray bore testimony.
We had maintained a brisk pace on our wanderings, and we reached the site of the spring well before sunset. My great-uncle surveyed the situation with a calculating eye, estimated the stand of timber on the hill's sides, and exclaimed that there was no neighboring eminence whence an enemy could command it.
"'Tis all you have asserted it to be," he said. "Moreover, it gives me an idea of a way in which we may occupy the energies of Captain Flint and his lambs for the ensuing weeks of our stay."
I asked him what he intended, but he would not answer me, striding off with his head sunk on his chest after his manner when plunged in thought. The seamen, who had awaited us at the foot of the hill, fell in behind us, and we retraced our steps across the swampy river and the intervening belt of forest to the first and larger stream. This, too, we recrossed, but instead of continuing on as we had come Murray turned down the course of the stream in a south-easterly direction. A thread of smoke trickled up beside the mouth of the rivulet in the woods along the estuary, and I indicated it to him.
"There is Flint," I said.
"Yes," he replied absently, and kept on.
The shadows were lengthening as we stepped out of the forest into a glade on the river's bank. Several additional fires had been kindled, and around each were huddled groups of pirates much the worse for the last night's drinking-bout. John Silver was the only man who appeared to have any animation left in him; he hopped on his crutch from one fire to another, supervising the roasting of the haunches of goat, which were spitted in front of the flames with pieces of hardtack placed beneath to catch the dripping juices. 'Twas he first saw us, and evidently spoke to Flint, who sat with Bones and several other cronies at the smallest of the fires. He swung toward us as Flint rose unsteadily and tacked in his wake.
"Come a-visitin', captain?" Silver inquired cheerfully. "Mighty kind o' ye, sir, seein' as how most o' our lads is a bit the worse for liquor and blood-lettin'. My duty to ye, Master Ormerod. I hopes I sees you and your friend well?"
"Blood-letting?" repeated Murray, ignoring the balance of his remarks. "The old story, eh? Well, well! You'll never learn. How many for the sailmaker's palm and needle?"
"Three, captain. And main lucky we are as——"
Flint lurched up beside him.
"Stow that, John," growled his captain. "I'll do the talkin'. What's your trouble, Murray?"
My great-uncle took a pinch of snuff with his inimitable knack of expressing acute disgust without moving a muscle of his face.
"I have been a-hunting," he replied. "Shooting for the pot. We stopped on the way to our boat to pass the time o' day with you, Flint."
Flint snorted
"Time o' day! ——! 'Tain't like you to take the trouble."
"I am a person of most uncertain proclivities," replied my great-uncle. "I hear from Silver that last night's episode was accompanied by the usual fatalities."
"Three," assented Flint. "Two o' 'em could be spared—lousy dogs. The other was Toby Welsh, as stout a fellow as we had."
"Not bad for one night's work," commented Murray.
Flint was obviously in no very belligerent mood; he could scarce stand. But he flamed up at this.
"Aye, and what d'ye expect? How many months did ye tell me I must bide here wi' a crew that knows naught but how to brew the Devil's broth? And how many men d'ye think will be alive by the end of the time? Gut me, but 'twill be like the song we sing o' the Dead Man's Chest!"
"I fear it will," agreed my great-uncle. "Unless you take measures to prevent it."
"Measures?"
Flint cursed with the fluency of the man who enjoys his work.
"There's a deal to be done in keeping twelvescore men from fighting on this chunk o' earth and rock!"
"There's your ship to be cleaned," said my great-uncle tentatively.
"I'd ha' mutiny on my hands did I call for it! They're all for a run ashore, and there'll be no working them aboard-ship until they ha' had their fill o' woods and mountains."
"Ah!" said my great-uncle. "Doubtless that is so. Well, if they must remain ashore a time, is it not in their own interest to erect themselves some shelter from the elements?"
Flint stared at him curiously.
"Ye've an idea in the back o' your head, Murray. Out with it!"
"We have often said that some day we should build ourselves a fort on the island," answered my great-uncle.
"We ha'."
"I came upon the ideal spot this afternoon—a sand hillock overgrown with fine pines and oaks eastward of the swamps. It hath the airs from the ocean, a good prospect of the anchorage and the nearer waters, and there is a spring at the very top."
"And I'm to do the work!" snarled Flint.
"Your men are to do the work," corrected Murray. "I should gladly assist them in it but for the fact that my own crew will be occupied aboardship during the duration of our stay. We of the Royal James, I may point out, are laboring in the common interest no less than your people will be if they undertake the construction of the fort."
"Blast me for a —— —— fool if I care two —— —— —— for the common interest!" cried Flint. "But 'tis true there is need of the fort, and if the men will bide ashore they should ha' a roof to their heads and a better place to camp than down here in the river vapors. I'll see what's to be done, Murray. Not tonight—there's no man of us, except Long John, curse him! can put two thoughts together. But in the morning 'twill be different. We'll fetch off a boatload o' axes and shovels, and I'll turn 'em to. I think it can be done. —— me, it must be done! I can't lose three men a day for the next six months!"