Porto Bello gold

CHAPTER XI

PETER PLAYS AT BOWLS WITH DESTINY

Darby McGraw's red head shone in the lanthorn-light.

"Whisht, but it's Master Bob again! Now ain't this the mighty forchune to have ye with us! Ha' ye left the old devil yon for good?"

He nodded his torch of hair at the vague hull of the James. Flint exploded with raucous laughter.

"'The old devil yon,'" he repeated. "—— me, but it takes Darby to put the right word to a man. 'Tis what he is, blast him for the —— —— —— he sets himself up to be!"

Darby proffered him a huge silver beaker of rum.

"I fetched this from the cabin after ye, captain," said the Irish boy in his wheedling brogue. "Troth, say I to meself, if the captain must talk with Murray he'll ha' a bad taste in the mouth o' him to be washed out, and I'd best ha' a sup o' sugar-juice handy for his needin's."

Flint seized the rum, threw back his head and drained the fiery stuff as if it had been wine.

"You said right, my lad," he answered sourly. "And I'm thinking I'll maybe need all the luck that red head o' yours can bring me. Where's Billy Bones?"

"Dhrunk under the cabin table," returned Darby promptly.

"Gut him for the souse he is! And Long John?"

"Sure, captain dear, 'twas yourself sent him ashore to keep the lads up to the fort from carvin' theirselves."

"So I did. Well, I'll see to the prisoners myself then."

"Pris'ners!" protested Darby, wide-eyed. "Troth, himself is the nevvy or what-not o' the old devil. For why'll ye be makin' him a pris'ner? More by token, he was me friend in New York, and Peter too. Grand pirates they'll be, if ye do but give 'em time."

"Prisoners I said, and prisoners they are!" glowered Flint. "D'ye know what a hostage is, Darby?"

"One that'll be by-ordinary wicked?" answered Darby.

"More'n likely," assented Flint with a pardonable chuckle. "Well, these is hostages, Darby. Likewise prisoners."

"Och, captain, ye won't be hard on Master Bob! He's as kindly a young gentleman as ever I see—and Peter there is a grand fightin' feller. Ye should hear to tales they tell o' his murtherin' and slayin' with the red Injuns."

"I'll be as hard as they make me be," returned Flint. "But for tonight I must have them safe."

Darby plucked at his sleeve.

"I'll say naught if ye must put Peter away—though a good friend I ha' called him. But be aisy wi' Master Bob and let me take him below for a sup for old times' sake. Troth, there's no harm in nature in him. And if he has a chance at education in the right way 'tis a fine, brave pirate we'll make o' him that can fight two men at once wi' knife and tomahawk."

Flint's eyes narrowed.

"Ho-ho!" he exclaimed. "Is that the kind of cockerel ye are, Master Ormerod or whatever ye may be called? I'm main thankful for the tip-off, Darby. I knew Buckskin was dangerous, but I'd never ha' been on my guard for the young 'un, except for you. Gut me, if I take chances wi' two such champions!"

I saw that Darby was doing more harm than good by his sponsoring of me, so I spoke up for myself.

"You need not take what the boy says for truth," I said. "He means well, but——"

"And if I didn't see ye knock the hatchet from Tom Trumbull's hand the while ye were fending Dick Varje's knife—and could easily ha' stabbed him, fightin' earnest, as Peter said—may I be hornswoggled for a lubber!" proclaimed Darby indignantly.

"That's enough for me," snarled Flint. "No lies, if it please you, my fine gentleman! The time may come we'll put your boasts to——

"I have not boasted."

"Keep your tongue behind your teeth! Hold still, the two o' ye, or I'll give ye a bellyful o' pickling-brine."

He signaled up a dozen or so of the nearest of his men, all of whom had been observing us with a mingling of interest and hostility.

"We'll put these knife-fighters in the lazaret for the night," he announced. "They're a desperate pair, and we'll watch 'em close until they are under hatches."

"Oh, whirra, whirra!" sobbed Darby. "Do but see what I did to ye with my tongue that wags from the middle both ways! Sure, captain darlin', ye don't need to hold against Master Bob what I said. All he seeks is to be a grand, murtherin' pirate. Troth, we talked o' nothin' else in the old days."

"Don't be foolish, Darby," I said.

And to Flint, as the group closed around us—

"Captain Murray bade you——"

"I know, I know!" he interrupted impatiently. "The treatment you receive will be whatever you earn for yourselves. I'm an easy skipper, as any man aboard the Walrus will tell ye, my lad. But you are my stakes in a rich venture, and I'll be —— —— if I take any chance on losing ye or your fat friend as goes with you. So stow your gab, and come wi' me willingly, and no blows struck or feelings injured. Tomorrow the James will ha' sailed, and then we'll deal a new hand all around."

His narrow green eyes, squinting out on either side of his thin nose, surveyed me with a kind of appraisal.

"I have an idea we may yet find interests in common," he concluded. "But that's to be seen."

Peter, at my elbow, spoke for the first time.

"Ja, ja. We go. I hafe a wish to sleep."

"Sleep, is it?" jeered Flint. "That ye shall, my hearty! Come along o' me."

He led us aft, the others following, Darby in the rear almost in tears. We entered the poop quarters, stumbling over empty bottles, broken platters, discarded garments, boots, articles of equipment and weapons. At the end of a dark passage Flint unhooked a lanthorn from a wall and one of his men heaved up a trapdoor. Below was a pool of shadows that scuttled and swayed as if to escape the feeble light. There was an odor, also, none too pleasant.

I drew back.

"Certes, you could lodge us securely otherwhere than this," I protested.

"No, no," answered Flint. "There's not a door aboard hath a lock would hold Darby, let alone you two. I'm sorry for ye, lad, if it's no fault o' yours that you're here; but for tonight at least you must lie in the lazaret. Come, come; don't make me use force. Here, ye shall ha' the lanthorn to keep the rats off, and in the morning we'll manage different."

Peter pushed past me, and took the lanthorn from his hand.

"We go, ja," he squeaked. "Come, Bob."

I followed him without another word, already wondering at his extraordinary docility.

"Do ye see your way, my masters?" Flint called after us, mimicking the servile tones of a tavernkeeper to the considerable amusement of his body-guard. "Mind the low roof, an' it please ye, sirs. The beds ha' not been aired, but then we had no expectation o' your company."

A guffaw of rough merriment, pierced by Darby's Irish wail, and the trapdoor crashed down. A hasp clacked home in a bolt, and footsteps thudded away. I sat on the bottom-most step of the ladder and peered hopelessly around me as Peter, swinging the lanthorn as high as the low deck-room allowed, prowled around the limited area of our prison.

A black rat as large as a cat rushed across my feet. Squeaks and rustlings sounded in the corners. There was the lap-lap-lap of water against the vessel's hull, the creak of the rudder and the strange moaning noises which any ship emits, whether at anchor or under way.

Peter returned to the ladder-foot, deposited the lanthorn on the floor and plumped himself beside it.

"What you t'ink, Bob?" he said blandly. "Do we stay or get oudt?"

I frowned at him.

"'Tis no joke," I snapped. "I had reasons for——"

"Ja," he agreed. "Der little gal."

The Dutchman said so little and revealed such scant interest in what went on about him that he frequently surprized even those who knew him best, as my father never tired of maintaining. He had not spoken, up to this evening, of Murray's plan to employ me as a hostage to conciliate Flint. He had never suggested that he would accompany me. He had never betrayed by any hint a supposition that I might prefer to remain aboard the Royal James during the cruise after the treasure-ship. But on all these points he had done considerable thinking as he now proceeded to demonstrate.

"How did you know!" I exclaimed.

"I know," he replied with his simpering imitation of a laugh. "You t'ink der little gal is a good gal. You t'ink it is not goodt dot she be taken aboard der James. You want to be there andt be sure dot she is safe."

"'Tis true as gospel, Peter," I groaned. "I hoped to the last this ridiculous plan of Murray's would fall through in some manner, but the man has a damnable determination."

"Ja," agreed Peter. "I t'ink he takes der treasure-ship, Bob. Dot's easy."

"Easy? I see not how!"

"Ja, it is easy to take her. But after comes his troubles. Much treasure is bad for pirates. We hafe troubles after."

"'We!' We won't be there. Very likely we'll be dead, Peter, slain in one of the Walrus' knife frays."

"Suppose we get oudt tonight," answered Peter persuasively. "Suppose we get oudt and back to der James. Ja?"

I looked around me skeptically at the heavy planking and stout timbers of the sides and for'ard bulkhead.

"It can't be done. 'Twould take a week to break out of this—and the James will be sailing in five or six hours."

"Neen," said Peter. "We get oudt—any time we get oudt."

"How?" I demanded.

He picked up the lanthorn and led me for'ard to the bulkhead. The light showed that one of the oaken planks was slightly sprung, leaving an infinitesimal crack between its edge and the uppermost of its fellows.

"Are you planning to pry that off with your fingernails?" I taunted him.

"Neen," he answered, and conducted me to a corner whence the rats scudded as we approached.

He stirred his foot amongst some rubbish and turned up several long, wrought-iron spikes, such as are used to bolt together the heavier ship-timbers.

"Dot's plenty," he said.

I could hardly control the gush of relief that welled up in me.

"I believe it is," I whispered. "But, oh, Peter, there is such little time!"

"Enough," he grunted. "Come! We begin."

We listened at the bulkhead for signs of life on the opposite side, but not a sound came through to us, although the clamor on the upper deck and in the poop cabin seeped into our dungeon from overhead. 'Twas stiflingly hot, and Peter's first care was to strip off his buckskin shirt and leggings.

"We got to swim," he said, eying them regretfully. "You don't need clothes tonight, Bob."

So I followed his example, and we fell to work with our spikes upon the sprung plank, the sweat pouring in rills of moisture from our half-naked bodies, our crude tools slipping in our greasy fingers as we pried and pushed and fought for every inch of space betwixt the plank and the upright it was nailed to. Peter did all the work. It was his tremendous muscles that fretted and teased the point of his spike into the tiny gap that awaited us, that gradually enlarged the advantage. All I could do was to hold whatever space he won, giving him opportunity to improve upon it until a smashing drive of his great shoulder tore the plank loose at one end.

We waited, then, gasping for breath, wiping the sweat from our eyes, fearful lest the wrench of the wood as it was ripped free should have attracted the attention of some member of the crew. But nobody appeared, and the uproar on deck was audibly decreased. Even the crew of the Walrus found occasion for sleep.

The most difficult portion of our task was immediately ahead. We had to pry loose now a plank which was nailed fast to the uprights, and we dared not resort to the use of any substitute for a hammer because of the noise. 'Twas necessary for Peter's fingers to force the point of a spike between plank and upright and slowly wedge the two apart. He did it, with the palm of his bare hand for a mallet, his muffled grunts the only indication of the energy he expended.

But this was a matter of several hours, for I was less able to assist than I had been before. My puny strength was wholly inadequate to the wrestle with seasoned wood and tempered iron which he must carry on in cramped quarters and semidarkness.

As the last nail yielded to Peter's shoulder the thin clangor of the bell of the Royal James stole down to us out of the night. Four times it rang—two o'clock! No answering strokes sounded on the deck above us. Ship routine was a thing of caprice aboard the Walrus.

"Get oudt, Bob," whispered Peter.

I wriggled through the gap in the bulkhead, and he passed the lanthorn after me. Its flame was burning low, but I had sufficient light to determine that I stood in a stores-hold crammed with casks of rum, salt meat and ship's biscuit. A door in its for'ard bulkhead led to another hold of the orlop deck, where were a hatch and ladder leading up to the gundeck. I crept as far as the foot of the ladder and listened to the snores of the scores of men who slept in hammocks slung between the great guns of the battery. That way lay our only path of escape.

I returned to Peter in a mood that was none too cheerful; but he was already at work with his spike, hissing like a kettle on the boil as he prodded away with its blunted point. I was able to be of more assistance to him this time, since from the farther side 'twas possible to exert a greater leverage, once the plank was sprung loose. Yet the James sounded seven bells before we were successful. Peter grunted his satisfaction.

"We got time," he said. "Whoof! So much I sweat I slide me t'rough dot hole."

The lanthorn's flicker was little more than a pin-prick of flame in the darkness of the ship's bowels, but I lighted my shirt from it and held this aloft to help him see his way. He was stripped to the buff, and his pink, hairless body was all a-glisten as he rolled into the opening. His head and shoulders made it easily, but I saw with dismay that his immense paunch was an insurmountable obstacle. He heaved and shoved and twisted. 'Twas no manner of use. He could not pass that gap without the removal of another plank, and there was not time for that. At any moment the James would ring eight bells. And at any moment then she would be under way.

Peter backed out of his predicament to an accompaniment of squeaking grunts, and I followed him, too bitterly disappointed for words. Escape had seemed so easy—and now we were condemned to two months aboard the Walrus, very likely to exceedingly uncomfortable deaths, for I fancied that Flint was the sort of man to lose his queer mixture of fear and respect for my great-uncle as soon as they were out of touch.

"Hold der light here, Bob," said Peter, squatting on the litter of the deck, and he proceeded to extract a splinter from his foot.

"Ja, dot's goodt," he went on, standing up. "Well, we don't get oudt dot way."

"Are you sure we could not tear off another plank?" I answered. "I might find a hammer—or a chisel——"

"Andt der noise brings der watch! Neen, we got a better chance."

"What, Peter?"

"You see!"

He felt his way toward the ladder to the cabin-hatch.

"Always there is another way, Bob. If one way is not goodt, der other maybe is better. Ja! You see."

He climbed the ladder silently in his bare feet until his great shoulders were directly beneath the square of the hatch, and I heard a faint grinding of straining metal, the crackling of tortured wood.

"Ja," he panted, desisting. "We do dot. Now you be ready, Bob. Jump oop, quick. Maybe we got to kill some fellers, andt if we do we don't let them holler."

I could feel his legs quivering above me; the ladder itself vibrated under us. There was a whine, a sudden pop—and the hatch flew up in the air. Peter caught it on the flats of his hands before it could settle again and lifted it back. He was out in a flash, and I was hard on his heels.

We crouched on the main-cabin floor, staring about us for a sign of the pirates. The lights had all burned out, and it was several minutes before our eyes became adjusted to the star-shine that sifted through the stern window.

A snore from the settee which ran along beneath the windows brought both of us to our feet, and I bent over the table, fingers crooked, to clutch the throat of whoever it might be. But I was put to it not to laugh aloud as I looked into the flushed face and open mouth of Darby McGraw. Poor Darby! A little rum went a long way with him, and he loved to ape his elders.

"'Drink an' the devil—done for th' rest,'" he hiccoughed in his sleep.

"He's safe," I murmured.

"Ja," whispered Peter, and busied himself reshutting the trap-door and arranging the bolt and hinges so as to conceal the fact of its having been forced.

We tiptoed into the companionway, and a very cannonade of snores assailed us from the staterooms on either hand. The doors stood open, and we looked in upon the prickly jowl of Flint, Bones' mottled cheeks and two other drunken underlings. Flint held a cocked pistol in his right hand, which was flung across his chest. Why he did not shoot himself only an obscure Providence can explain.

At the exit to the deck we tarried to reconnoiter our situation, and 'twas lucky we did so. Eight bells rang out from the Royal James, and a voice most astonishingly close muttered a curse.

"Ye might think they 'ad a blarsted admiral aboard," answered a second voice.

"I'll lay ye a castellano there was a whole watch awake on her the night long," said the first speaker.

A whistle shrilled, and the gruff voice of Saunders reached us quite distinctly ordering the topmen aloft.

"There they go, Jemmy," returned the second man. "We'll be free o' the swabs in another glass."

"And good riddance, says I," declared Jemmy, spitting into the scuppers.

I saw where they were then, leaning against the starboard poop-ladder and peering overside at the vague hull of the James. Peter's little eyes had identified them, too, and his fingers sank into the flesh of my arm, signaling me to stay where I was. He glided past me on to the deck, his body ghostly in the gloom.

"I'm —— if I can see as why we has to keep our peepers open," growled the second man.

"'Tain't long now till morning," replied Jemmy. "What d'ye s'y to a dash o' rum, matey?"

He half-turned, and saw Peter's enormous white bulk hovering over him, and his teeth gleamed as he opened his mouth involuntarily to scream.

"I don't care if—" the second man said.

The Dutchman leaped, and his two arms whipped out. Jemmy's scream died in a guttural cough. Peter grappled the throat of each. He held them poised for a moment, then brought their heads together with an odd hollow smack like the cracking of egg-shells. They collapsed inert on the deck.

I darted for the rail, but Peter stayed me.

"Neen, neen," he objected. "First I get me some pants, Bob. Andt we drop these fellers overboardt."

He was divesting the larger of the two of the single garment each one wore the while he talked, and, conquering an instinctive sensation of repugnance, I did likewise.

"Dot's better, ja," remarked Peter complacently. "A little tight; but I don't like it to be naked, Bob. Neen!"

He rose to his feet, buckling the dead man's belt around him.

"They'll splash!" I warned him as he picked up the big one.

"Nobody hears," he answered.

He lowered the body over the rail feet first, and the splash was less than I had expected. The second body followed with equal expedition, and Peter laid hold of one of several ropes that trailed untidily over the Walrus' side.

"Now we go, Bob," he said.

We entered the water almost together, and swam side by side down the anchorage toward the James. I realized at once that the tide had turned, for the ebb sucked us along at a rate vastly swifter than we could have achieved by our own unaided efforts, although Peter, despite his discomfort at sea, was a remarkably powerful swimmer, thanks to his lifetime in the wilderness country of the frontier.

"The tide will take care of the dead men," I panted, stroking for all I was worth to keep pace with the Dutchman.

A whistle shrilled again aboard the James.

"Ja," said Peter. "Der anchor goes oop, Bob. We hurry!"

He was a dozen strokes ahead of me at the end. I found him hanging on to the heel of the rudder and calmly treading water. For'ard the capstan was clanking to a steady yo-ho-hoing and trampling of feet. Yards were banging, sails were slatting, men were shouting and calling.

"Anchor up-and-down, sir!" called Saunders.

My great-uncle's voice answered him.

"Very good! We will weigh. Oh, Master Martin, are you sure there is no boat from the Walrus? I could have sworn I heard the splash of the falls."

"Aye, aye, sir," replied Martin. "I'll be —— —— —— —— for a —— —— —— if there is so much as a man awake aboard the —— —— craft."

I looked up at the stern windows, so high above us. From our precarious perch on the rudder the James towered like Spyglass Mountain, touchable but unattainable. Almost I could have cried out to my great-uncle and hailed him to have us hauled aboard. But common sense warned me he would certainly seize upon the opportunity to send us back to the Walrus as clinching evidence of his good faith. And I had no desire to face Flint with those two dead men to account for.

"What's to do?" I whispered to Peter, whose eyes were roving over the lofty stern. "We can not bide here. Once she has way on her, we'll be tossed off."

"Ja," agreed Peter. "You see dot shiny picture oop there?"

He indicated a golden sunburst, carved across the stern beneath the cabin windows. 'Twas a minor tragedy in my great-uncle's life that he was without the gold-leaf to make this part of his ship as immaculate as the rest. The constant battering of following seas had cracked and diminished the gilding, but the ridges and niches of the carving were still visible.

"Yes," I answered, puzzled.

"I climb oop on der rudder, andt I holdt me on to der roundness in der middle. Andt you climb oop on my shoulders andt into der cabin windows, ja."

"You can't hold me up in that position, Peter!" I exclaimed. "'Twould be all you could do to maintain yourself."

"I do it, ja," insisted Peter.

"But you? How will you——"

"You t'row me a rope."

He scrambled on to the rudder and slowly spread-eagled himself upward against the scrollwork which covered the stern. His hands, feeling blindly above his head, sought for and found a deep indentation in the rays below the center of the sunburst, and with this to cling to, he climbed a foot or two higher on to a shallow ridge which ran across the stern, a shelf scarce wide enough to give him toehold. His grip shifted with lightning precision, his fingers clamping themselves about the embossed figure of the sun, deeply carven for relief.

"Now you climb, Bob," he grunted.

I obeyed him without objection, for every breath was precious and the James was already adrift, her anchor merely a pendulous weight for'ard.

The rudder I surmounted with ease, standing erect with a hand on one of Peter's legs to steady me. I stepped up to the ridge upon which the Dutchman stood with no more difficulty, holding to his leather belt. Then I changed my hand-hold to a ridge in the carving, and by his direction braced the toes of one foot in the slack of his belt as I heaved myself upward. Peter grunted. That was all.

I found a new hand-hold and brought my other foot up on to Peter's shoulder and stood erect there. Reaching upward now, better than two tall men's height above the waterline, my groping finger-tips were still below the level of the stern windows. Peter sensed my difficulty.

"On my headt," he grunted.

I carefully lifted one foot, selected another hand-grip and mounted Peter's tow locks. Again I explored upward with one arm stretched to the limit of safety, but I failed by inches to clutch the sill of the stern windows.

"Jump," sobbed Peter.

"But you!"

"Jump!"

The rudder clacked as it was put over, and the James heeled slightly to the breeze. The water commenced to purr as she gathered way.

I jumped. Peter sagged beneath me, but the fingers of my right hand fastened upon the ledge of the window. I heard a splash, and caught hold with my left hand.

"Ooop!" spluttered Peter from the water.

The rest was child's play compared to what had preceded it. The carving afforded toe-holds in plenty, and soon I had a leg over the windowsill and looked down at Peter trailing in the James' wake as he clung to the shelf which crossed the stern perhaps a foot above the water. He dared no longer hold to the rudder.

His big face was so white that it frightened me, and I tumbled inboard without stopping to make sure the cabin was empty. But my luck was with me, and I scurried around to find a rope. This was a hopeless quest in that luxurious apartment, so I ran up the companionway and just inside the door to the deck came upon a lead line, coiled and hung to a hook, which I appropriated.

Altogether these movements consumed less time than is required to describe them; but when I returned to the stern windows Peter was gone. I leaned out and stared back at the James' creaming wake—and a white arm flashed in a gesture of appeal twenty feet astern. I cast the lead behind him, and he caught the line as it settled into the water, cut the lead free with the dead man's knife at his belt, looped the slack under his shoulders, and with my feverish help hauled himself back to the shelf above the water line.

I lacked the strength to draw him up; but I fastened my end of the line to the cabin table, which was bolted to the floor, and then, foot by foot, Peter toiled upward. He was so weary at the last that I must pull him through the window, and he fell in a heap across the table, puddling the polished surface with the sea-water that streamed off him and the blood from his scarred hands.

A bottle of the aqua vitae my great-uncle favored stood by his place, and I took this and poured a liberal tot between Peter's lips. He staggered to his feet, blinking his eyes and red as a school miss.

"All right, Bob," he squeaked. "I be all right, ja."

His eyes chanced upon the lead-line, still fast to the table's leg, and he stooped and unknotted it and dropped it out of the window.

"We better not stay here," he muttered. "Neen! If Murray sees us——"

"Oh, my Gawd!"

Ben Gunn goggled at us from the companionway.

"Drowned, they be!" he gasped to himself. "He done for 'em, Flint did!"

I was afraid he would run out on deck and cry an alarm, and I started for him to prevent this. But the poor creature was fettered by superstitious fear.

"Dear Christ!" he mumbled. "It's a-comin' for me. Oh, sweet Lord, don't 'ee let the ghostie take Ben Gunn. Don't 'ee, now! A good, pious lad I was, as went to church reg'lar and said my catechism, and if my old mother could——"

"Be still, Ben," I said. "We don't mean to hurt you."

He plucked up a little courage when I spoke.

"'Tain't right for ye to talk," he objected. "I never heard tell as how sperets——"

"We're not spirits," I answered. "We are as alive as you are. Here, feel this."

He shrank back as I placed my clammy, wet hand upon his neck, but the touch reassured him.

"Ye ain't sperets, says you," he repeated amazedly. "Nor ye ain't ghosts. And consekently ye ain't dead. And seein' as you're here, why, it do stand to reason as how ye ain't aboard the Walrus, which is where ye was and where ye oughter be."

He shook his head.

"'Tain't right, Master Ormerod, and don't follow in nature nohow."

"'Tis perfectly natural," I retorted. "Master Corlaer and I have escaped from the Walrus."

Ben came a step or two into the cabin and stared hard at Peter. Then he turned a disapproving eye upon the pools of water we had sprinkled on the table and the rich carpet.

"Well, it do look to be 'ee two," he conceded grudgingly. "But ye ha' mucked up the cabin awful, and the captain will be like to ha' me triced to the main for a round dozen wi' the cat."

"Not if you work quickly with a bucket and mop, Ben," I said, for I was as anxious as himself to conceal the traces of our entrance from Murray.

"Maybe so," he agreed. "But he won't like it that ye come aboard this way."

I seized upon his opening without scruple.

"Yes, he'll hold it against you, Ben. 'Tis a shame."

He shivered, and I appreciated what my great-uncle's wrath must be.

"Ye wouldn't let him now! Master Ormerod! Oh, say ye wouldn't! Ye don't want poor Ben Gunn to be screamin' on the triangle."

"That I don't," I assented warmly. "You must hide us, Ben. Hide us and clean up the cabin, and he'll never know we are aboard."

"Aye, but then?" he asked shrewdly.

"Oh, then 'twill not matter. Nobody will know that you had aught to do with our coming aboard; and indeed Captain Murray will not care, I think. 'Twas not of his own will he gave us to Flint."

"If 'tis so, why don't 'ee go up on the poop and tell the captain now?"

"He'd have to send us back to Captain Flint. You wouldn't like to be sent aboard the Walrus to stay, Ben."

Ben Gunn cocked his head on one side.

"I ain't so sure," he answered. "Maybe Flint would let me wear seaman's gear and tar my hair."

Despite the urgency of our plight I was interested in the humor of the steward's ambition.

"Aren't you satisfied with your lot?" I inquired.

"Not I!" he replied with unexpected determination. "Look 'ee, Master Ormerod, I went to sea for to be a swearin', cutlass-lashin' pirate, and they put me in a livery-shuit! All my life I been wearin' livery o' one kind or another. Now if you, or Cap'n Flint, we'll say, was to hail Ben Gunn and argyfy as how ye'd take him out o' livery—never a livery-shuit again—and make him a reg'lar sailorman as pulls on ropes and climbs masts and holds a wheel and swabs decks—if you was to do all this, why, maybe Ben Gunn, he'd do 'most anything for you—or Cap'n Flint, if so be as Flint spoke fust."

"'Tis I speak first," I replied. "If I ever command a ship you shall be a tarry sailorman aboard her, Ben. Or if I don't have a ship of my own I'll help you to a berth on another such as you desire."

He came close to me, and his eyes bored into mine with an earnestness that was pathetic.

"That's a solemn-honest promise, ain't it, Master Ormerod? Ye wouldn't go for to fool Ben Gunn, would 'ee, now?"

"No, no," I promised. "But if you don't hide us quickly, Ben, I'll never be able to make good on it."

He caught my hand in his.

"You jes come along o' me. Ben Gunn knows a thing or two, he does. I'll show 'ee, my master. You jest come along o' me."

Peter and I sopped after him up the companionway to a door for'ard of the staterooms we occupied, which led by way of a steep flight of ladder-stairs to the galley and service quarters, a space partitioned off from the vast sweep of the gundeck. Ben unhooked a lanthorn from the wall, opened a trap in the deck and signed us to follow him. At the bottom of a second ladder we found ourselves in a lazaret such as had been our prison aboard the Walrus. But there was this difference in our surroundings: That they were clean. The walls were whitewashed, and around them were ranged kegs and pipes of wines, ale and rum, and racks laden with bottles of various liquors.

"'Tis Murray's wine-cellar," I commented aloud.

Ben Gunn deposited the lanthorn in the middle of the floor and approached his mouth to my ear.

"Aye, and he keeps his treasure 'ere—when so be he has any," he whispered throatily.

"Doth he never come here?"

"Not he. Nor the naygurs, neither. Only Ben Gunn."

"What shall we do for food?"

Ben wiggled with embarrassment.

"Jest you leave that to Ben Gunn. He'll feed ye well, my master, as spoke kind to him and promises to take him out o' livery-shuits. Aye, that he will. And fetch ye clothes from the cabin. But don't 'ee forget the promise, sir. Oh, say ye won't!"

"I won't," I assured him. "But you must get back to the cabin and tidy up the mess we made. Haste, man!"

He scampered up the ladder as if the devil were after him—or Paradise within view.

And during the two days of our stay in the wine-cellar of the Royal James he was as good as his word. He fed us well. He brought me a sufficiency of clothing. And he procured for Peter a quantity of linen and cotton cloth, with thread and needles, with which the Dutchman fashioned himself garments to cover his inconveniently large body.

On the evening of the second day, having learned from Ben that the James had logged several hundred knots since leaving the Rendezvous, we decided 'twould be safe to appear before Murray, and we took an opportunity whilst Ben was serving his dinner to ascend through the galley and present ourselves in the main cabin.

My great-uncle was poring over the chart of the Caribbean which so frequently engaged his attention, but he glanced up as he heard the shuffling of our feet on the carpet. A furrow of perplexity was dug betwixt his eyes. Otherwise he revealed no astonishment.

"So! You two have taken matters into your own hands! Did you by any chance slay Flint?"

"We might have," I answered. "But we did not."

"A pity in the circumstances," he ruminated. "'Ods-blood! Here is a pretty coil! Peter, I'll wager I have you to thank for it."

"Ja," said Peter, and sat himself in his accustomed place at the table.

"'Tis true," I agreed, "that without Peter we might not have escaped, but the responsibility is equally mine."

"How did you compass it?"

I told him, and he stared curiously at Peter, placidly eating across the table from him.

"I might have known it, Peter. No man ever held you in constraint against your will. I might have known it. What a mess! My plans and combinations all askew! Peter, y' have played at bowls with destiny! A half-hour since I saw my way clear. Now I must plot it fresh. Stap me, what a coil!"

He rose and started to walk the cabin, hands clasped behind him, head on his chest. Suddenly he paused in front of me.

"What moved you to such a desperate course, Robert?"

His tawny eyes glowed with the light of inner speculation.

"Was it to be with me? Or was it O'Donnell's lass?"

I hesitated, frankly loath to hurt him.

"I was concerned for her," I admitted finally. "This ship is no fit place for a maid, as I have said before."

"'Tis better than some," he answered.

But my reply did not seem to annoy him. His gaze dwelt upon my face for several moments longer.

"Well, well," he said as he began to pace the carpet again. "We must make the best of it, lad."

CHAPTER XII

THE TREASURE SHIP

There was no hint of triumph in my great-uncle's manner as the sloop came about and lay to under our lee quarter; nor did he exhibit excitement when she unloosed the small boat she towed astern and a half-dozen swarthy fellows commenced to pull it toward us. He indulged in a pinch of snuff and took his station by the starboard rail at the break of the poop. Peter and I followed him. Besides us there was only Martin, who stood aft by the man at the wheel. For'ard on the spar-deck men slouched away from the starboard bulwarks as Murray appeared. The gunports were all closed because of the swell which rolled the Royal James until it seemed she must dip her yard-arms under. So I think—aside from the lookouts lashed in the crosstrees of all three masts—we on the poop were the only ones who watched the little boat come sliding across the great, heaving mountains of water that surged out of the misty reaches of the Caribbean as if they would overflow the shores of Hispaniola, which loomed purple in the north beyond leagues of indigo sea.

The rowboat was as infinitesimal as an insect in those tossing wastes; but the man at the steering-oar guided it with uncanny skill, up the toppling crests that threatened to crush it, down the dizzy steeps that bade fair to hurl it to the ocean's oozy bottom, and brought it to rest a scant fifty feet from the James' hull, his long sweep fending and twisting to maintain the position. He was very dark and lean, with bare, corded limbs and a sinewy trunk covered by the remnants of a cotton shirt and trousers. His hair was a stringy black. His voice, when he spoke in answer to a sign from my great-uncle, was harshly rhythmical, but what he said I could not understand, for both he and Murray used Spanish.

My great-uncle asked two questions, both brief, and he answered as briefly. My great-uncle waved his hand again; he dug his steering-oar into the crest of one of the monstrous surges, and the little boat shot away like a roundshot from a gun. A few moments later we saw them make fast to the sloop and leap aboard, one by one. The sloop hauled her wind and beat off to westward in long, slanting tacks, and the James was once more alone in the western mouth of the Mona Passage, Hispaniola a blur in the north and Porto Rico somewhere out of sight southeast of us.

Murray dusted a second pinch of snuff into his nostrils as he turned from the rail.

"Our three weeks' waiting hath not been in vain," he said. "The Santissima Trinidad was to sail from Porto Bello within the forty-eight hours after Diego put forth. She will be up with us in another five days—before the week is over at the latest."

I was conscious of a conflict of emotions.

"She may slip by you. 'Tis a wide gut—and what's to do if she comes in the night?"

"She can not slip by," returned my great-uncle. "For all the leagues of channel and the darkness of the nights, she can not slip by, Robert. The fools have delivered her into our hands. By her sailing-orders, so Diego told me, she must hug the south shore of Hispaniola, that she may be within easy run of Santo Domingo in case of accident. As for the nights, she'll be lighted up like Bartholomew's Fair."

"Ja, it's all right if dot Englishman we sighted last week don't find a frigate," said Peter.

Murray's face fell a trifle.

"Yes, we have always that to reckon with," he acknowledged. "Stap me, I see not what the fellow could have suspected to send him kiting from us. But with any luck he'll not flush a frigate this side of Jamaica, and that should give us time."

"If he suspected us, why not some of the other craft that have passed us on our beat?" I interjected. "There ha' been plenty."

My great-uncle pointed to the white ensign floating from the mizzen-truck.

"They were all Spaniards or Frenchmen," he answered. "They took us for a King's ship. No, there's little chance of interference. If there is—" his jaw squared—"I'll hunt the Santissima Trinidad into Cadiz port."

He broke off abruptly.

"Master Martin!"

"Aye, aye, sir," responded the mate, stepping for'ard from the wheel.

"I would have all lookouts notified that I shall give ten onzas to him who first hails the deck for a large Spaniard of forty-four guns coming from the west. She'll show a red-and-yellow light o' nights at her fore-peak. You will also see that all men sent aloft carry night-glasses."

Martin touched his forelock.

"Aye, aye, sir! I'll pipeclay the —— —— —— who misses the —— dago. Curse me for a lubber, but I knew there must be fat game a-comin' after such a spell o' idleness."

"She'll be the fattest prize we have ever boarded," rejoined Murray. "You may tell all hands as much."

There was no formal mustering of the James' crew; but Martin evidently had his own means of circulating information, for the polyglot seamen had shaken off their lethargy and sullen quiet within a glass of the sloop's departure. All around the decks men were oiling pistols, sharpening cutlasses and whispering in secret. Coupeau was busier than ever about the battery, testing breech-ropes, pinning tighter carriage-wheels, filing glassy-smooth a pile of shot for the chase-guns that might be called upon to lop a vital spar at extreme range.

But nothing happened that day or the next. And so three more days passed with increasing tension. The lookouts in the crosstrees were relieved every two hours, that the men's vision might be fresh and unstrained. The sight of a sail anywhere on the horizon sent the crew scampering to the guns and swung the ship's bows in that quarter; and four times in those five days the James boomed down upon Spanish fishermen, a Martinico brig, a Yankee schooner and a Plymouth snow, tacking away again the moment she identified each one as impossible to be her prey.

The sixth day was like its predecessors, blazing hot, bubbling the pitch out of the deck-seams, a gentle sou'east breeze barely sufficient to keep the sails drawing. The swell, which had bothered us for several weeks, had almost disappeared, and the Caribbean might have been a land-locked lake. Daylight found us farther to the south than we usually plied, since Murray feared the Spaniard might have missed his reckoning and shifted the designed course he was to follow.

For the first time in days we could descry the shadowy hills of Porto Rico as we wore around and beat north again. As the sun rose higher a haze danced along the horizon's rim. Porto Rico was swallowed up; Hispaniola's soaring peaks were buried before we had come within normal view of them.

Noon observation saw us returned to our customary station, and to guard against the possibility that the Santissima Trinidad had passed us in the heat-haze whilst we were beating up from the south my great-uncle ran down the wind into the mouth of the passage for several glasses. We encountered a fishing-periagua then, and the Indians of its crew shouted back to Murray's question that no great ship had entered the passage that day. So back again we beat to windward the whole weary afternoon.

Night brought rest to nobody. Even my great-uncle paced the poop by the hour, snatching an occasional nap upon a pallet which Ben Gunn laid for him where it would catch the breeze. Peter and I dozed on the deck-planks with the crew.

In the shadowy hour that precedes the dawn the hail came from the mast-head——

"Lights ho!"

Murray was on his feet as quickly as any of us.

"How do you make them?" he trumpeted.

"Red and yellow, over and under," answered the main crosstrees.

"Very good," replied my great-uncle. "Master Martin, you will single out that man and present him this purse."

He handed it over.

"Pipe all hands to breakfast, and serve an extra ration of rum."

"Aye, aye, sir," sighed Martin. "And here's to luck, —— my eyes!"

The dawn came all at once, as if a magician had waved his wand. A crimson glow in the east, soft at first, then spreading and deepening, and the light expanded almost like an explosion in the night. The red disk of the sun lifted over the horizon. And it was day. Westward, perhaps half a league, a great ship was wallowing toward us before the freshening wind. The coloring of her figurehead sparkled in the level rays which touched her dingy canvas and turned the sails to cloth-of-gold. The gaudy banner of Spain flapped with a splendid insolence in the pure light. The spray which was tossed over her bowsprit as she buried her stem in the easy swell was transformed into threaded amethysts, turquoises, emeralds!

"She is heavy-laden!" exclaimed my great-uncle, staring at her through his prospect-glass.

"Heavy-armed too," I added, pointing at the band of cannon along her sides.

"We'll make light of that," he answered. "But I shall have to pay somewhat for my Quixotic promise to you, Robert, to spare her crew. Ho, Coupeau!" he hailed the gunner who was passing on the spardeck.

The former galley-slave turned his terrible face to the poop and saluted.

"Pass the word, Coupeau, that the prize must not be pierced betwixt wind and water. I would bring down a spar or two at the beginning of the action, but concentrate your fire upon her decks."

"Oui, m'sieu'."

"But what of O'Donnell and his daughter!" I exclaimed. "On a shot-swept deck!"

My great-uncle regarded me curiously.

"'Tis not a game of lawn bowls we are about to play, Robert," he replied. "I ask you to remember that the Spaniard carries forty-four cannon which he will discharge against us, with some probability of slaying certain of our people, including perhaps ourselves."

"But the girl!"

He took snuff.

"Tut, tut, my boy! You concern yourself needlessly. 'Tis a risky business and can not be otherwise. Yet she'll probably come safe through it. What part do you and Peter purpose to play in the action?"

I was about to answer hotly that we would have naught to do with piracy when Peter said—

"Maybe we better go aboardt der Spaniard and catch der little gal, ja."

"An excellent idea," returned my great-uncle, looking expectantly at me. "I shall lead the boarders myself, and in the confusion I may be hard put to it, single-handed, to direct the fighting and save the O'Donnells from injury. If you two——"

"We'll do it," I said ungraciously. "'Tis of a parcel with your crazy notions that you can not even safeguard your accomplice without aid."

"That is quite true," he agreed mildly. "I am free to admit, Robert, your presence takes a load off my mind, notwithstanding your escape from Flint hath created other difficulties for me to contend with. However, I shall be sufficiently grateful to you if you will assist me. My notions, whether 'crazy' or not, are not easily carried into execution."

I nodded to the white ensign at the main peak.

"Will you fight under false colors?"

"They are not false," he retorted with tightened lips. "We fight for England today."

"England and Flint and Long John Silver and Bill Bones and Martin and Coupeau and——"

"Myself? Perhaps. But if those you have named share in the rewards of victory 'tis that England may profit thereby and the Good Cause triumph. What doth it matter if King James return to London?"

"What indeed?" I echoed sarcastically, yet impressed against my will by his deadly earnestness.

"'Tis not my way, Robert, to fight under false colors," he proceeded, as if determined to argue me over to his view-point. "Any sailorman will tell you that, whatever other slander he may relate of Captain Rip-Rap. As for the Jolly Roger—pho! 'Tis a tradition required by any pirate crew. I look upon it as a somewhat humorous attempt to terrify the timid; but I ha' fought under it without shame, since 'tis the only emblem of the sea outlaw. But today 'tis different. We fight, not as pirates, but as servants of King James."

A white puff of smoke jetted from our fo'csle, and a crackling explosion smote our ears. Coupeau had fired the first shot from one of the chase guns, long eighteens, beautiful bronze pieces of prodigious range. Involuntarily we all focused our eyes upon the treasure-ship, and a cheer from the gun-crews applauded the flapping rent that showed in the bulge of the Spaniard's foretops'l.

"Excellent!" murmured my great-uncle.

The Santissima Trinidad staggered for an instant like a man who has been struck unexpectedly by one he supposed to be a friend. Then she yawed to give us a full view of her colors; and as she yawed, broadening the target, Coupeau fired again. 'Twas a low shot, fired as the James dropped into the trough betwixt two waves, and all we could see of it was that apparently it plowed into the waist.

The Spaniard fired a gun to leeward and put over his helm, aiming to cross our bows and head up for Santo Domingo. Plainly he did not know what to make of the incident. To all appearances the Royal James was a King's ship. She showed the English naval ensign. To a Spanish eye, at any rate, she might well seem to possess the solidly rakish aspect which was the usual keynote of an English frigate. So he evidently decided that hostilities must have broken out between the two countries, and in obedience to his sailing-orders endeavored to avoid a fight and make for the nearest fortified Spanish port.

But the James sailed two feet to the treasure-ship's one; and, splendidly handled, we overhauled her within a glass of the first shot. In the meantime Coupeau kept pecking away at her, and as we came within range of our main battery her foretopmast crashed, covering her fo'csle with a tangle of top-hamper.

This was too much for her people, and she put up her helm, brought her entire battery to bear and let fly at us with all her starboard metal. 'Twas a poorly managed salvo, yet three or four round-shot swished across our decks, and an eighteen-pounder smashed a couple of men to jelly just for'ard of the poop.

Murray stepped to the poop-rail to examine the damage and shouted to Coupeau:

"Hold your broadside, Master Gunner! He must come to to clear his decks."

And to Martin, who was conning the ship:

"Bear up! Bear up! He still hath the weather gage of us."

Coupeau, working like a madman with his chase guns, was firing both together, laid on the same target, and now he succeeded in cutting down the foremast about twenty feet from the deck, sending the heavy spar and billowing canvas a-tumbling after the fallen topmast. The bulk of the wreckage fell overside, dragging the Santissima Trinidad down by the head and forming a sea-anchor to hold her stationary.

My great-uncle smiled with grim satisfaction.

"Ho, Saunders!" he hailed the second mate, who was stationed amidships. "Rig grappling-irons on the larboard bulwarks. We'll round the Spaniard as he lies."

The Royal James forged abeam of the treasure-ship, approaching at an angle which diminished the effectiveness of her second broadside, and as we entered the filmy cloud-bank of smoke from her guns Murray gave the order to fire.

"Let go your broadside, Coupeau!" he called.

The gunner ran to the open main-hatch and bellowed the order down to the gun-deck. The planks seemed to spring under our feet. A thunderous series of detonations shook the James' whole fabric. The smoke-clouds were first driven away, then thickened to an impalpable mist, and the acrid stench of saltpeter and brimstone was choking in the nostrils. I had a wavery glimpse of a vast gilded figurehead, a heap of torn canvas and rigging.

"Sta'b'd your helm, Master Martin!" shouted Murray.

We headed up into the wind with much creaking of yards and slatting of sails, and I heard faintly a clamor of wailing outcries from the smoke-bank that masked the Santissima Trinidad. Almost at once our broadside roared again, the red flames from the gun-muzzles licking out like hungry tongues. Another dim vision of shot-rent bulwarks and towering sails, and the gray gloom became denser than ever. Figures on our own deck were indistinct in it.