The last buccaneer

For seven days longer did we lie rolling in the sun, awaiting Mr Murch’s return. Morgan Leroux discussed many a plan with me; but, since they all depended for their fulfilment upon the issue of unknown events, we naturally concluded upon nothing. We were extremely friendly together, now; and though Mistress Morgan had a shrewd notion of her own security, I do not know what might not have befallen the poor schoolmaster-clerk, had he been left much longer with this engaging young woman. The thing called love is, of course, much a matter of propinquity, and of a protean aspect. I say no more. Time and chance took us by the shoulders in due season; for, on the evening of the twelfth day after Mr Murch’s departure, when the dark had fallen at a stride, there came the red flash of an arquebus on the shore, then two more, the noise of the discharges echoing among the rocks.

A boat was manned inside of a minute and pulling for the shore, with Morgan Leroux and myself in the stern-sheets. Within shot of the beach, I hailed; and Murch’s unmistakable bellow replied. So Murch was safe, at least. They had set light to a handful of branches; we steered for that solitary flame; and there, huddled together in the wavering red light and vast shadow, were seven or eight figures. No sign of booty. It was Murch that caught the rope and hauled in the boat, the rest limping and stumbling behind him, two or three falling and lying where they fell; and Murch, without a word to us, gave orders to carry them into the boat. But where was Brandon Pomfrett? I was first ashore, peering into each face of the survivors. No owners’ agent was there. I demanded of Murch, where he was?

“Ah, Mr Winter, is that you?” says Murch. “We have met with accidents, sir. Mr Pomfrett not with us? Where is Mr Pomfrett?” he called aloud.

“Fell out, sir,” said two or three voices.

“Why, there, now,” Murch went on, “he cannot be far behind. I saw him but now. Climb the beach, and you will find him, Mr Winter. But make haste.”

Climb the beach, quoth he—run my head into a solid wall of blackness. There was no help for it, and on I went, stumbling over the rocks at every step, and shouting my comrade’s name. Suddenly, out of the thick darkness, a hand clutched my arm. I had a jolt of fright, but the voice of Morgan Leroux brought me to my senses.

“Keep quiet,” said she, speaking low. “Stop where you are.”

At the same moment I heard Murch give the order to shove off. The splash of the oars was inaudible in the thunder of the surf.

“Why, is he going to leave us?” I said.

“We are going to leave him, Harry,” said Morgan. “Keep quiet, I say, if you value your life. As for me, he thinks I am on board. Now come.”

There was no disputing Morgan, any more than her grandsire. We stumbled forward in the dark until we fetched up against a boulder. Looking back, we saw the water all a-gleam with phosphorescent light, flakes of fire dropping from the oar-blades, where the boat was ploughing a channel of lambent flame. Far away the ship’s lights shone, swinging to and fro in the dark. Overhead a thick curtain of cloud hid the stars; landward the fire-flies glimmered and darted, and we knew we were close to the forest.

“We must get forward,” said Morgan. “When Murch comes aboard and misses me, he’ll send a search-party.”

We found a way round the boulder, plunged into the wood, and struggled onward, striking against tree-trunks, lashed with branches, sinking knee-deep in moss or rotting wood. The air was heavy and fragrant, and whenever we halted, a thousand little wood-noises assailed our ears. And presently we caught the cry of a man’s voice, calling for help. Now here, in the pitch-dark wood, I was taken with a sudden revelation. This Morgan Leroux, this strange volume written in an unknown tongue, hardly deciphered here and there, whose hidden meaning both allured and warned, was turned unaccountably to a human creature, quick and fierce with some nameless emotion.

“That’s Brandon Pomfrett,” says Morgan, and answered him, high and shrill. He replied, and we replied; and so back and forth, as we floundered in the wood, this way and that. It is no easy matter to track a voice in the dark. And they must have heard us on the ship, for answering hails came, far and long-drawn, so that we confused their cries with Brandon’s, and the fear of pursuit was added to our confusion. But Morgan Leroux was brave as a man in the stress of that passage, and we kept on, boring our way like rats in a faggot-stack, until Brandon’s voice rang nearer and nearer, and we stumbled upon him where he lay at the foot of a rock, bound hand and foot.

“God! I thought I was dead,” says he, rolling over, as we freed him. “Have you any drink? I’ve touched nothing for two days.”

We had neither food nor drink with us; and if we were hungry, what was the supercargo? Morgan explained the posture of affairs, but I doubt if Pomfrett understood what she said. He hugged himself with his arms, and seemed to sleep. Never was so unheroic a rescue. Since, in all likelihood, Murch would delay sending to find us until the dawn, we composed ourselves to watch for the light. There we sat, in that discomfortable wilderness, while Pomfrett groaned and muttered in his sleep, and the leaden minutes laboured by with incredible sluggishness, until our faces showed dimly visible, each to the other, strange as ghosts, as a flaky greyness began to mingle with the dark. Then we took Pomfrett by the shoulders, dragged him protesting to his feet, and made him stand between us.

“Now,” says Morgan, “can you walk? So! Then we’ll strike for Porto-Bello. I can pass for a Spaniard anywhere.”

Pomfrett, coming to his senses, flatly refused to budge. “What are you doing here?” says he. “You must go directly back to Murch. As for us, we can shift for ourselves. Murch is quit of us—that’s all he wants. He told me so when he tied me up, and I was too tired to prevent him. Come, we’ll take you back to the beach.”

Thus was the first blow struck in the duel between these two. Pomfrett might have remembered that Morgan had risked her life to find him; but starving men cannot pick their words.

“Oh, is that the way of it?” said Morgan. “Is that how you talk to me?”

“Look you,” returned Brandon, laboriously, stopping at every other word to find the next, “I’ve lost my ship and I’ve lost the silver—Dawkins has it—he came with fifty men and beat us off. Well, then, we’ve lost all, we’re marooned—cannot you see? We’re like to die. You go back to your ship, and you’re safe.”

“All very noble and generous, Brandon Pomfrett. But let me tell you, my friend, that you waste time. If Murch catches you, I’ll not answer for what he’ll do this time. I can’t keep my petticoat over you for ever. Murch has done with you, has he? Well, now, I’ve done with Murch, do you see?”

“Do you mean,” said Brandon, stupidly, “that you’re coming with us?”

Sure, here was a laggard in love, if ever there was one. Morgan drew a little apart and looked at him. There was an uncomfortable silence. Here were we, lost, starving, in imminent danger of capture, and we must needs stand and dally with fine feelings.

“You would be rid of me, Mr Pomfrett,” says Morgan, presently, with a formidable quietude. “Is that what you would say? Out with it!”

Brandon clutched his chin. “I would not be unkind. I am thinking of you——” he began.

“That’s enough,” said Morgan. She plunged into the thicket, and was gone. In the deep stillness, we heard her crashing through the underwood. So we stood for a long time, till the sounds died away. I don’t know what were Brandon’s feelings; for myself, I own I felt a certain relief. What we chiefly wanted was breakfast. As the light broadened in the sky, we went a little forward, and presently found a patch of sunlight in a glade, where Brandon sat down, while I went to shoot something eatable with a pistol. Since the danger of pursuit was gone with Morgan’s departure, one might, I supposed, shoot as one pleased. I wasted a deal of ammunition on that breakfast. A pistol in unskilful hands is a miserable weapon for the uses of the chase, but I brought down a fat bird like a pheasant, a sitting shot, at last, and we devoured it raw, and found it excellent good. Brandon drank the warm blood like any heathen savage, and was wonderfully cheered. I told him, then, where we were—not in Yucatan at all, but on the coast of Darien; and I related Mistress Morgan’s story of her grandmother, the Incomparable Lady.

“Oh, now I understand,” said Pomfrett. “But Murch has lost his chance. We had found the plate, with the help of the old negro, when Dawkins came up with double our numbers. There was a bloody fight, and we lost nearly all our men. The rest escaped as best they could, and a fine march we had of it, with neither bite nor sup for two days and two nights. Well, if Dawkins has the plunder, it’s mine.”

“If it please you to think so,” I said.

“Where’s the ship, do you think?” asked Brandon, disregarding innuendo.

“At sea, where else?”

“And where’s the nearest port?”

“Porto-Bello, that Captain Morgan sacked, if he left any of it.”

“And where’s Porto-Bello?”

“Southward a day’s march.”

“Come along,” says Brandon, getting to his feet quite briskly.

“What do you think you’re going to do?”

“Ask me when we get to Porto-Bello,” says Pomfrett. “Up, you lazy swab!”

“Oh, very well,” I said. “Take the town of Porto-Bello, take Dawkins, take the Blessed Endeavour, and take Morgan Leroux’s marriage portion, we two, all by our two selves. Then take Murch and the Wheel of Fortune, and—what of Mistress Leroux? You’ll have her money, you may as well have herself. Take Morgan Leroux. Is that all?”

“The money’s aboard my ship,” says Brandon, with unmoved solemnity. “That’s enough for me. Come, now, march!”

And march we did, with intolerable labour, through that infernal wilderness, keeping the eternal booming of the surf on our left hand for a guide. Up and up we climbed in the fainting heat of the forest until we came out upon a spur of the mountains, and beheld the coast-line, jutting forth into many a rocky headland away to the northward, and beneath our feet the huddled brown roofs and white fortifications of Porto-Bello town, and its harbour thick with masts. Far as eye could reach the great glistening plane of the sea was bare of shipping. Where, then, was Mr Dawkins? and where Mr Murch? Down we went, two hapless wights, knowing no more than our boot-soles what should befall us.

It was dark by the time we gained the outskirts of the town, on the inland side. Dark walls blotted upon the stars; we could hear the sentries call and counter-call. Captain Morgan had battered Porto-Bello to pieces; but the indomitable Spaniard had built it up again, it seemed. Within was supper. We could see in our minds the spit turning, and hear the hissing of the fat; we beheld the ruby sparkle of the wine in the hospitable light of a tavern. The risk of capture was not great. We might pass as common sailors; only, how to persuade the sentry? Brandon would have been glad to kill him, I make no doubt; but Brandon was spent nearly to death; and as for Henry Winter, he had never slain a man, and had small stomach for the experiment.

We stood in the shadow of the trees by the road-side, bitterly considering the matter; but we could think of nothing to serve, save to wait until the country carts came in at sunrise, and pass in their train, if, indeed, it were the custom of this country for carts to come in. So we stayed, shivering in the heavy dew, until we were aware of footsteps drawing near along the road, and three men came walking softly. We followed them, keeping hidden, into the very shadow of the wall, where the sentry stood or paced before the gate. Voices spoke low in Spanish, there were a sudden stamping and a sound of hard breathing as of men struggling together, and three men came back along the road, closed about a fourth—the sentry, by the glimmer of his steel cap. Now more and yet more men appeared softly out of the dark, talking low together; and their words were English. Without more ado, we joined ourselves to them, unnoticed in the dark, and immediately recognized the men of the Wheel of Fortune. The redoubtable Murch was not there; we looked in vain for his head and shoulders looming above the rest. The whole body of some thirty men moved forward, and it was the sentry (I knew he had a pistol at his ear and a knife in the small of his back) who gave the countersign, and brought us under the deep arch of the gateway into Porto-Bello town. Not to excite suspicion, we broke up into groups of two or three, following each other at intervals of twenty paces or so; and in this manner we traversed the principal street, which was lighted by lamps here and there, turned to the right hand, and ascended dark and narrow ways until we gathered about a door in a high wall. Within, the garden was lighted as for a festival; the leaves of the trees above the wall glimmered gold; there was a noise of music and a gay sound of many voices.

“There’s victuals going inside,” says Brandon, hoarsely, in my ear. “In we go, whoever stays out.” And we edged through the crowd towards the door.

“You know your orders,” said one, and lo! it was the voice of Morgan Leroux. Brandon started back, but I took him firmly by the arm. I was hungry. “You two come with me,” went on Morgan.

“That we will,” said I, at her elbow. She turned as though she had been stung, and scanned us sharply.

“’Twas you I meant,” said she, with wonderful readiness. “Crowby and Harper, fall back.” And she knocked upon the door with the handle of her walking-cane.

The door was opened at once by a servant in livery, to whom Morgan spoke in Spanish. In the light of the garden we perceived that Mistress Morgan was dressed like a great gentleman, in lace and velvet and silk. Lamps of many colours gleamed and shone among the trees; within the house fiddles were going to a merry measure, and we could see the flitting figures of the dancers through the lighted windows. Many ladies and gentlemen moved in the garden, passing from shadow to shine with a gleam of finery and sparkle of jewels. There we stood, a crowd of lackeys and negroes staring upon this pair of scarecrows with matted hair, unshaven faces, tattered and miry clothes, while Morgan talked with the man who opened the door. Presently he went away, with an obeisance, and Morgan took us aside and spoke low.

“I have brought a letter for the Governor. I have told the servant you brought it to me through the forest; this will account for your state; he will bring you food. Eat and drink, and wait here by the door; if you hear me call, open the door and bring in the crew. But there is little danger. If you must speak, speak French—not a word of English, mind!”

Here, one with a silver wand came up, and Morgan went away with him—into the Governor’s presence, it was to be supposed. They brought us food and wine, and we ate and drank, sitting with our backs against the wall, hard by the door. We could hear the men on the other side talking low among themselves, while in front of us the festival went forward like a scene in a playhouse. But, before very long the music stopped, the assembly in the garden streamed within-doors, there was a great noise of talking, and presently the company began to depart in haste. They all passed close to us, as we sat by the door—fine ladies, hooded and cloaked, bearded Spanish gentlemen, some wearing swords, some without, some dressed in full uniform, some habited like merchants; the rout huddled past us in a hurry and out into the road, and before we had finished the jug of wine the garden was deserted, the house fallen silent, its lighted windows empty, and we were alone. Pomfrett was asleep by this time; and as for me, I thought I was asleep too, and dreaming. In my dream it seemed that Morgan Leroux came out of the house and called the crew within, and disposed them as sentries about the house; that two of them carried Pomfrett into the house and laid him upon a bed in a high, dark chamber smelling of cedar, while some draggled remains of one who was formerly known as Henry Winter, but who must on no account be confused with the real owner of that respectable name, staggered in to sink into a heap on the floor; that Morgan Leroux held a taper to the dazzled eyes of the said heap, which was then hove bodily upon a soft bed. Here the dream ended.