The last buccaneer

So our quest of the stolen ship promised to issue, in no tragical adventure but, a simple dinner-party. When there’s a lady in the case, the schemes of men are commonly disposed quite otherwise than they had planned.

Pacing the quarterdeck, sitting down, getting up again, trying to smoke and forgetting to keep the tobacco alight, now neglecting all oversight of the men, and again turning upon some luckless seaman like a tiger—who now so uneasy as the captain, deprived of his gentleman-adventurer?

“And what in the wide world am I to do with Dawkins, should he come aboard?” says he.

“Put him in irons, take over the Blessed Endeavour, then maroon him; simple as you stand there.”

“Don’t you see, you fool, I can’t touch the man so long as he’s aboard? He’s my guest.”

“Morgan’s, you mean.”

“Well, the scoundrel’s a guest, at any rate,” says the skipper, angrily.

“All’s fair in love and piracy. But, of course, if you’re going to stand on scruples with a pirate——”

“And pray what would you do yourself, Harry?”

“I should do what Mistress Morgan bid me,” I answered, promptly.

Brandon had nothing to say to that. “The question is,” he began again, “does he know we’re aboard? If that was his boat came sneaking in the dark, why, he does. If it wasn’t, he doesn’t know, but someone else does. And who may that be? Can it be Murch?”

“If you’ll take a humble clerk’s advice,” I said, “you’ll sit quiet instead of asking riddles; you’ll say your prayers, and keep your powder dry. This is Morgan Leroux’s affair. We have only to look on. If Dawkins doesn’t know we’re aboard, it were a pity to enlighten him. So keep dark, I say.”

The captain condescended to approve this counsel, and we made arrangements accordingly. The dinner—the notion of the dinner struck the skipper as so monstrous absurd, he could not bring himself to instruct the cook, and I had to do so—the dinner was to be served in the captain’s cabin. Next to the captain’s cabin was the great cabin, occupied by Morgan Leroux. We bored spy-holes in the bulkhead between the two, and then, there was no more to be done but to wait. The ship rolled at her moorings, blocks banging and clattering, cordage creaking; the brazen sunlight lapped ship and sea and shore in a blinding glare; the everlasting rumour of the breaking surf, unheeded in the ordinary course of occupation, began to wear upon the mind. All day long the shadows crept or receded upon the white beach, the rocks, piled or scattered, the lofty barrier of forest; all day long the far sea-line, joining the horns of the wide bay, lay vacant of the smallest blur; all day long the sea-birds screamed and dived about the ship, and rode on the heaving water. The shadows lengthened, and the heat lessened sensibly; the men had finished their work, and lay and lounged about the waist and forecastle, smoking and talking, while a savoury smell of cooking meats was diffused from the galley.

If we were but cruising for pleasure, now, with hearts at ease, what a good hour would this be: the day’s work done, the aromatic breath of the woods blown off-shore by the cool land-breeze, the stars beginning to shine in the quiet sky, the great peace of the night descending upon us; whereas, under the prick of hidden circumstance, the tightening cord of suspense, we could neither stand nor lie, and the shining calm about us served but to increase discomfort. But time must go, drag his feet as he may; and there came at last a little sound of music, as of drums and fifes, and the white triangle of a sail came round the point. It was a yawl, filled with people, and drummers and fifers making melody. We stayed until we distinguished Morgan Leroux sitting in the stern-sheets, alongside Mr Dawkins, then dived below, while the boatswain piped all hands to the side. We heard the familiar voice of Dawkins roaring out the stave of a nonsensical sea ditty, as his boat drew near, and from the sound, we took that eminent commander to be half-seas over.

The boat’s crew joined in the chorus, very much out of time, and ceased; we could hear the sea-birds, disturbed from their nesting-places among the rocks, crying and calling overhead, as the party came aboard; then Dawkins struck up again, as he came stumbling down the companion-ladder.

“Chorus! Cap’n Morgan Leroux, hey? Why, your namesake, my old commander, God bless him, would a loved that song like his very own. I mind one day, he—why, now, split me,” said Mr Dawkins, sitting down with a drunken chuckle, “if I rec’lect what in the deep sea I do rec’lect.”

Ensconced in the adjoining cabin, we had our eyes glued to the spy-holes, you may be sure. Morgan Leroux fetched out bottle and glasses from the locker.

“A tot of rum, Mr Dawkins, now, to set you fair for dinner?”

“Spoken like your namesake,” said Dawkins, approvingly. “And you’ll surely join me this time, so I shan’t be ashamed. No? Well, strike me blind if ever I see a thing like this here. A gentleman of fortune, and not drink—why, it ain’t in nature. Well, here’s plate and plunder, full cargoes for every gentleman of fortune!”

Morgan Leroux opened the door between the cabins, and at sight of us her eyes lighted and her cheeks flushed. Brandon caught her hand, as she swiftly slipped the bolt.

“Lass,” he whispered, “I never thought to see you again.”

“All’s well,” said she, giving him both her hands. “I’ve caught the thief for you; he’s properly trepanned. Leave him to me; he’ll drink himself drunk hand to fist before the liquor’s done. Then you can lay him by the heels. But listen,” she added, whispering very low, “Dawkins never sent that boat. I found that out for certain. There’s trouble in the wind; never a ship in sight outside; where could the boat come from? Do you think it was Obeah work? Were they ghosts in the boat, that called out ‘Dead or alive?’”

Morgan had been nurtured, you see, among the black people; she believed in the Obeah magic, and hoodoo, and devils and spirits, quite naturally. But, white or black, Eastern or Western, there are few, indeed, who are not secretly credulous of the supernatural; and for a moment we three stared upon one another in a foolish silence; while Dawkins, in the next cabin, happily oblivious, began singing to himself again.

“What ho, shipmate!”

“Have you pistols?—very well. Come when I call, but not a moment before. Wait till you hear me say—what shall I say?—O, ‘Dead or alive,’” whispered Morgan, and slipped from the cabin.

So the old buccaneer and the young decoy-duck, dressed in the drake’s finery, set to at their victuals, Dawkins talking noisily the while.

“Now, I don’t ask—nor I haven’t never asked—for anything better than this here,” says Dawkins. “Plenty of rations and plenty of rum and a smart shipmate to keep the bottle rolling. Not that you shines in that last, cap’n, much as I admire your parts and person—no, you don’t, and it’s a sad pity. But there, I seen many a stout seaman gone to the devil by way of this same liquor, and every man to his taste, says I.”

“It’s the sober man that gets the booty, Mr Dawkins,” Morgan put in, to keep the old ruffian talking.

“But the drunk ones is the happiest,” retorted Mr Dawkins. “Look at me! I’m happy—let no one deny it. Leastways, till the liquor’s out, I wouldn’t change with kings on their golden thrones. Why, now, what a thing it is, as a man what wants so little, like me, should have so hard a job to get it—like I have. All my life it’s been the blessed same, ever since I shipped as cabin-boy out o’ Bristol city, me starving at the time. All the dirty work to do, a kick here, a clout with a marlinspike there, the cat going, knives out, provisions running short, and every man-jack with his little bit o’ luck except Dawkins, poor old Dawkins, what only wanted to sit quiet on his beam-ends and consume his victuals in due season.”

“What made you join the Brotherhood, Mr Dawkins?”

“It’s plain to see you’ve never sailed in a merchant bottom, nor yet in the Royal Navy,” replied the buccaneer, with great meaning, “or you wouldn’t ask the question. No, by the bones of the deep, you wouldn’t! What’s the merchant service? Worms in the pork, weevils in the biscuit, no wages, and what there is you’re robbed of. Set a litter of pigs afloat in a coffin, and they’d make better weather of it. Ah, my David, they would so! And talk of the Queen’s Navy—why, there,” said Mr Dawkins, pausing to spit on the floor, “that’s what I think o’ that degraded mess o’ swabs. Lord save you, Cap’n Morgan, you are but young, and the world’s changed since my time; but when I was your age there was but one way of going to sea, any sense, and that was the way of Brotherhood of the Sea, as they called it. Now your namesake, good old Harry Morgan—there was a man!”

“Oh, you sailed under Morgan, did you?”

“Here’s his health, and may you grow to his likeness,” cried Dawkins, filling his glass to the brim and spilling a good deal as he raised it to his lips. “Ah, I sailed under Morgan, and Captain Hansel and Captain Bartholomew Sharp afterwards. Why, I was with Morgan when he took and burned Panama, and that’s a thing not many has lived to brag of—not many, no, no, not many, shipmate.”

Mr Dawkins had reached that stage of intoxication when the patient keeps smiling to himself and repeating the same words over and over.

“Yes,” continued Dawkins, “I was with Cap’n Henry Morgan at the taking of Panama. Ah, the cap’n had all the luck there was on that v’yage, by all accounts.”

“I’ve heard,” said Morgan Leroux, “that Captain Morgan was accused of embezzling the plunder.”

“I never see the end of the exp’dition,” Dawkins answered, shortly. “So I can’t say as to that, you see.” And Brandon nudged me.

“You don’t know, then, what became of the bar silver?” said Morgan. “The cache of bar silver, eh, Mr Dawkins?”

Dawkins stared at the speaker with an expression of amazement that changed to suspicion. His shaggy, rusty brows shut down over his little eyes, his nostrils dilated, he glanced swiftly to left and right, and back again to Morgan’s placid countenance. She was not even looking at him, but was gazing at the lighted candle that stood between them on the table. So they rested a minute or more, the little yellow flame of the candle swaying gently back and forth with the motion of the vessel, lighting Morgan’s high-coloured, straight-browed face of abstraction, and the hairy, lined, mahogany visage, with the little glinting eyes, opposite. Dawkins was labouring with his muddled intelligence, trying hard to think.

“Now, I wonder, just as a matter of curiosity, what made you ask that there question, shipmate,” said Mr Dawkins, with an elaborate show of indifference, evidently desiring to gain time. Mr Dawkins’s interval of reflection had perhaps suggested to him that Morgan’s question might be merely an innocent enquiry suggested by some old, vague story. There were plenty of wild yarns afloat concerning buried treasure and the like.

“Because,” Morgan replied, with a reckless audacity that made us jump, “that silver belongs to me.”

“Ho, it does, does it,” said Dawkins, after a little uneasy silence. “And how might that be, shipmate, make so humbly bold?” he added, with the ominous politeness we knew.

“Ah, well, you know the saying, Mr Dawkins, ‘the longest liver takes all.’”

“Seems to me, shipmate,” said Dawkins, with laboured sweetness, “you’re a-talking in riddles. Now, I was never no hand at riddles.”

Without removing his eyes from Morgan, he was stealthily fingering one of the pistols he wore in his cross-belt of silk, after the manner of the pirates. The persuasion that he had been trepanned was working itself clear in his mind.

“No riddle at all, Mr Dawkins,” said Morgan, pleasantly. “Your old commander, Sir Henry Morgan, was my grandfather——”

Dawkins, in his amazement, dropped his hands upon the table and leaned forward with fallen jaw.

“——And he left his wealth to me. You’ll find it hard to bam your old commander, Mr Dawkins, dead or alive!”

We were in the room on the instant, covering Mr Dawkins with our pistols, like a scene in a playhouse. He gave up his arms quite peaceably, in a dazed, helpless way; and sat all shrunken together and staring upon us. Then he turned upon Morgan Leroux, and delivered himself of some pungent observations. Pomfrett stopped him sharply.

“Avast there, Mr Dawkins. I’ll have no swearing aboard my ship.”

“Your ship, was it? ’Twas this pretty little monkey was skipper just now,” growled Dawkins. “Come,” he went on, “I know when I’m beaten, I do. I had some opportunities to learn, you see. Now you got the weather-gauge of poor old Dawkins, not a doubt of it. Let’s know the worst. ’Tis Jevon Murch as put you up to this here little game—enticing a man with a invitation to dinner, and what not, and call yourselves gentlemen. I’d make better gentlemen out of a pope’s head and a slush-bucket, split me!” said Dawkins, his choler getting the better of him.

“No,” said Pomfrett, quietly, “Mr Murch knows nothing of the matter. It’s you and I that have to settle accounts, Mr Dawkins.”

We were seated at the table, opposite the old buccaneer, each with a couple of pistols lying under his hand, the candle-flames streaming this way and then that way, with the motion of the ship. Morgan Leroux had retired into a corner and sat in the shadow, with her chin in her hand, watching us under her level, black brows. We could hear the noise of Dawkins’s men carousing with the crew in the waist.

“Settle away, then, Mr Supercargo,” said Dawkins, who appeared a little more at ease upon learning that Murch was not at hand. “There’s no man alive what’s more open to fair discussion than me, though I say it.”

“Very well,” says Brandon. “First, then, you sold Mr Winter and myself for slaves.”

“It looks like as if I did at this present moment, don’t it?” growled Dawkins. “But I won’t quarrel over details, cap’n. Heave ahead.”

“Second, you stole the Blessed Endeavour.”

“Who says so?”

“Well, you did, you know,” returned Brandon, a little set back. “What’s the use of talking?”

“Not much, by the look of it,” retorted Mr Dawkins. “You say I stole the ship. I say I didn’t, nor I haven’t. I was elected captain—you helped elect me, you two, ’long of the others. I’m captain still. What are you? Deserters, I reckon. If you was to come aboard, I’d clap you in irons, and no mistake about it. Now, then! What next? You’ll tell me I stole a cargo of silver, I shouldn’t wonder, like young jackanapes in the corner there, what’s grandson to Cap’n Morgan. Grandson, says he! Ho, ho!”

At this, Brandon advised Mr Dawkins, in forcible terms, to keep a civil tongue in his head.

“Why, what now?” cried the injured Dawkins. “A man may speak, I should hope! One would think Cap’n Morgan’s grandson was a young lady what couldn’t defend herself, to hear you. But there, Mr Pomfrett, you got the weather-gauge, as I say, and you can give your orders. Go on, sir. I’ll give my best attention.”

But Pomfrett was somewhat at a loss. Perceiving, for the first time, how strong a case Dawkins could make out in his own defence, Pomfrett sat uncomfortably silent. Old Dawkins grinned at him.

“You got me here by treach’ry, Mr Pomfrett,” says he, “and I reckon ’tis no use asking for a fair hearing in full council aboard the Blessed Endeavour. I ain’t a fool. I know what you want—you want to see me a-drying in the sun at Execution Dock, while you takes all the cash and all the credit too. And very natural, I’m sure. On’y, how are you a-going to do it?”

Still Brandon sat silent. Morgan Leroux gazed at him intently, anxiously. He was contending with his scruples; the civilised conventions which would prevent his fighting a man like Dawkins with his own weapons. Was he, at the dictates of scrupulosity, to let the thief go free, because he was his guest, and so forfeit all his owners’ fortune, and the fortune of Morgan Leroux likewise? For a minute or two, I believe the notion presented itself to Brandon Pomfrett in the alluring light of an heroical sacrifice, such as you read of in books. But common men in common life must act as they can, not as they would, and the truth that Dawkins had taken to his heart in infancy Brandon was to recognise now—just in time.

“Dawkins,” says he, in a hard, sharp voice, that caused the old pirate to look up with a start, “I’ve just two words to say to you. Give me sixfold compensation for having sold us as slaves—that’s six hundred pieces of eight for each, you know; give me back the ship and all that’s in her, resign command in my favour in full council of officers, and you shall go free.”

Morgan Leroux, sitting silent in the corner, clapped her hands.

Dawkins’s tufted eyebrows climbed his forehead, and he looked at the young captain with a queer expression of mingled dismay and admiration.

“Spoken like a gentleman o’ fortune, by the bones of the deep!” says he. “Blest if I thought you had it in you, Mr Supercargo. Very good, commander. And what if I refuse this here modest proposal?”

“You’ll hang at the yard-arm at sunrise.”

“Dear me! At sunrise, too—quite poetical, ain’t it?” said Dawkins; but for all his bold front, he was visibly shaken. “But just a moment, commander, just one little question. What would you gain, now, by hanging poor old Dawkins—at sunrise?”

“Well, you see, it’s not so much what I should gain as what you would lose, Mr Dawkins,” says Pomfrett.

“Ah, I reckon you’re too clever for me, too deep altogether,” retorted Dawkins. “But I ain’t scared, not me, so don’t think it. I’ve lived cheek by jowl with goodman death for a matter of fifty year, you see. What do I lose, says you? Why now, I’ll tell you. I’ll lose a little cottage by the water-side, with a bit of a flagstaff in the garden, and flowers and a seat in it, and what not. I’ll lose a few quiet years of steady rations, which enables a man to fix his attention on repentance, ready for kingdom come, with a Holy Joe a-taking his Sunday tea in the parlour, very likely. Not much by the sound of it, is it? But it’s all poor old Dawkins has in store, for fifty year of hard service—just enough to make the difference of hell on the one side of the great gulf, and a golden crown and harps and such on t’other, for a poor old seaman.”

“Accept my terms, and I’ll give you a chance of the cottage and heaven and all,” said Brandon.

“Would you, now?” cried Dawkins, with a cunning leer. “Why, that’s mortal kind of you, commander, to be sure! You’re a man to be trusted—we all knows that—and I’ll take your word on it, Mr Pomfrett. I know when I’m beaten, I reckon. How much now, would you——”

“All in good time,” said Brandon. “We’ll have the dividend declared before the Blessed Endeavour sails.”

“Now that’s what I call talking!” says Dawkins. “The dividend declared—that’s real business. And then she sails for England, does she? That’s good news, too. And who’ll command the barky, cap’n, if I might ask?”

“I will,” said Brandon.

“Ho!” said Dawkins, with an appearance of deep thought. “Yes, of course. I might a knowed that much, says you. But now you and me is friends again, commander, you’ll not take a friendly hint amiss, I’m sure. The crew I got together, Mr Pomfrett, ain’t exactly Mary’s little lambs, as you might say—eh?”

He cocked his eye at Pomfrett with an expression of extraordinary significance.

“I’ll take my chance of that,” says the valiant skipper.

“Now you listen to me for a brace of shakes,” returned Dawkins, with a sudden change of manner. “This is straight talk, this is. I know where I stand. I’m a-going to play the square game. You can see for yourself I’ve naught to gain by telling you. But as sure as sunrise, if anyone but Dawkins—or Cap’n Murch, maybe, but he ain’t about, you say?—as sure as death, I say, if you takes command of that there ship, there’ll be mutiny, hot mutiny, damned hot. By the bones of the deep, Mr Pomfrett, there’ll be a bloody throat-cutting, gospel truth there will.”

Pomfrett glanced uneasily at Morgan Leroux. The probability of the statement was undeniable. Love and war are excellent pursuits, but they should be carried on separately. Dawkins dropped the lids over his little, twinkling eyes, and seemed to study the table.

“Under favour, commander,” he resumed, presently, “I would humbly suggest another way—me what has a rope round his neck and feels the hemp rough on his skin a’ready.”

“Well?”

“Declare the dividend as you say, all well and good. The officers, they don’t know—any more than you do, come to that, Mr Pomfrett—they don’t know, not being told, d’ye see, that the ship ain’t being sailed on the private account for the owners’ satisfaction, all the samey as we started, so there won’t be no trouble about the dividend of the plunder. You and me can settle that, private. Then there’s pickings for the crew, for we ain’t been altogether idle while you was a holiday-making in Barbadoes, so there won’t be no trouble about that, neither. And then—well, I hardly like to mention it, commander, I don’t indeed.”

“Speak up,” says Brandon.

“Why,” Dawkins went on, with a sort of deprecating suggestion that he was laying himself open to a painful misunderstanding, and knew it, and could bear it—“why, it come into my mind that bygones being bygones, and you and Mr Winter aboard again, all shipshape and comfortable, and the dividend being declared, and all, d’ye see,”—Mr Dawkins’s laborious insinuation of extraordinary sincerity was a thing to behold—“I thought to myself, d’ye see, why not let things be as they was afore, commander?”

“You mean, you propose to retain the command of the Blessed Endeavour yourself—is that it?”

“Well, you see, commander, I was elected in full council. There’s no getting away from that. And the officers, they wouldn’t understand a new arrangement, d’ye see; they’d want a explanation. And then, d’ye see, if you was to give ’em what you might call your explanation, they mightn’t—I don’t say they wouldn’t—but they mightn’t believe you, captain. It ain’t,” said Mr Dawkins, piously, “that I want to put myself forward—you see that, don’t you, commander?—it’s on’y what’s best to be done for all parties consarned.”

We looked at each other in silence. There was no doubt about it—Dawkins dead was more dangerous than Dawkins living; since, if he lived, we had but to reckon with himself alone; but if he were removed, perils multiplied at every step. The old rascal had the weather-gauge of us, after all. We looked at each other. It was Morgan Leroux who broke into a peal of laughter, and suddenly we were all laughing; we laughed until the tears came, all except Mr Dawkins, who sat with his big, scarred hands loosely clasped on the table in front of him, gazing at us with a face of wood. His gravity was like a reproof. We turned serious again as suddenly as we had broken into mirth.

“Well, gentlemen, what’s it to be?” said Dawkins. “Hang me and put your heads in a hornets’ nest, or call me Captain Dawkins and sail to England as safe and easy as the Lord High Admiral in a blessed ship-o’-the-line?”

“Why, really, Mr Dawkins,” began Pomfrett, “I think you should offer some sort of security, just as a matter of form, you know, that we shan’t be hove overboard, or marooned on the next island.”

“Security? Why, I’ll do what I can. I’ll give you what I got. I can’t do no more,” said Dawkins. “Gratitude, now, gratitude for saving me a hanging, what d’ye say to that, commander, for a sheet-anchor to wind’ard?”

“No; won’t do,” said Brandon. “I’ve got to set twice six hundred pieces of eight, a cargo of silver, and a tall ship against that item. Try again.”

“Fear of committing sin?” suggested Dawkins.

“No.”

“Fear of the law, then?”

“No; there’s not enough of that commodity south of the Line, Mr Dawkins.”

“Fear of the ship’s company? There’s some of ’em would be almost called honest.”

“Pass again,” said Brandon.

“Well, you’re hard to please, commander, so help me. What,” said Mr Dawkins, “if I were to swear a oath on the Book, now?”

“That’s better,” said Brandon, “and the least you can do.”

“Oh, that’s better, is it?” said Dawkins, evidently discomfited. “Well what must be, must, I reckon. Fetch aft the Book, commander.”

Brandon took a Testament from the locker where his kit was stowed, and there and then administered a terrific oath to Mr Dawkins, binding him, under the most blasting penalties in this world and the next, to perform his share of our mutual agreement. A pirate has a certain respect for an oath taken on the Bible; and although it is always doubtful how far it will bind him when the pinch comes, this thin strand of superstitious faith was all we had to trust in.

“Well an’ good,” said Dawkins, drawing the back of his hand across his lips. “Now it’s my turn, commander. Take the Book in your right hand and say after me.”

And he launched into an apocalyptic imprecation beside which Brandon’s attempt at a sacrament paled its ineffectual fire. To Morgan Leroux, and to me, did Mr Dawkins, not sparing us a single jot, then administer this tremendous compact.

“And now,” said Mr Dawkins, filling his glass for the first time since we had entered the cabin, “a glass all round to wet the agreement, shipmates, and then—as there ain’t to be no hanging at sunrise—why, I’ll turn in for a stretch off-shore on this here locker, commander, by your kind leave.”

He lay down, wrapped in his boat-cloak, and slept instantly. A sentry was stationed at the door of the cabin, and we three went on deck. As we emerged into the dusky glimmer of moonlight shining diffused behind clouds, the watch challenged loudly. “Boat ahoy!” But there was no boat to be seen. “I could ’a’ sworn there was a boat, too,” said the man. “Yonder, out by the headland.”

The crag stood forth black upon the dim glow of the sky, and the sparkling heave of the empty sea. There might be a whole fleet behind the rock, for all we knew. This second mysterious visitation, false alarm though it might be, affected us disagreeably. Was it not enough, we complained, to be finally committed to a hazardous adventure, a voyage whose every hour brought peril, but we must have a new terror thrust upon us out of the night?