The last buccaneer

Those of Mr Murch’s men who were of our party set up a cheer for the Wheel of Fortune, but we ourselves were far from any such demonstration. Mr Murch was a dangerous enigma; we lay at his mercy; there was not a gunner left aboard, and there was no question of resistance. But pirates never fight for fun, and we did not anticipate bloodshed. We ran up English colours in response to their salute, and we saw them lowering a boat, which glided towards us across the intolerable glitter of the water, silent, save for the splash of oars, with Murch’s great figure sitting immobile in the stern-sheets. Morgan Leroux clasped Pomfrett’s arm. It was the first sign of dependence I had remarked in that courageous lady. The boatswain piped all hands to the side as she drew near, and Murch stepped aboard between the files of saluting men, as stately as an admiral. He greeted us with his customary solemn courtesy; his large and solemn countenance, netted all over with fine lines, betrayed no more emotion than a bronze mask; and, though he must have known of Morgan’s escape in La Modeste, yet, for all we knew to the contrary, he had supposed that the agent and his clerk were still ranging the woods by Porto-Bello. And here we were, a little family party on the quarterdeck of the Blessed Endeavour; and I leave you to imagine which of us felt the less at ease on that occasion.

“I am glad, Mr Pomfrett, to perceive you have found your ship again,” said Mr Murch, politely.

“I think,” retorted Pomfrett, “I can scarce thank you for carrying out that part of your agreement, Mr Murch.”

“You think not?” says Murch. “Well, well, I would not be too hasty, neither, sir. Youth is prone to be hasty. But we’ll talk of that, too, among other matters. I’ll have no knots in the cable—all shall be clear before we’ve done, Mr Pomfrett, be sure of that.”

I own that, for my part, my heart sank to hear the old spider closing upon us once more with his web of fine speeches, that seemed, as I fancied, to answer in some mysterious way to the net-work of hieroglyphics on his sombre countenance. We went down, then, to finish our talk in the privacy of the great cabin, which Mr Dawkins had left in a wretched disorder: books, charts, and instruments tossed pell-mell on the lockers, empty bottles rolling on the floor, and a heavy reek of tobacco.

“Mr Dawkins keeps a dirty ship, it seems,” quoth Murch. “But you and I will soon alter that, Mr Pomfrett.”

The owners’ agent fixed his blue eyes on the speaker. His glance had lost its look of mild and innocent enquiry of late; it was hard, even menacing, the eyelids drawn obliquely at their outer corners. Mr Pomfrett was beginning to know his own mind, you see.

“I stop not to enquire how you came hither,” continued Murch, returning look for look. “I make it a rule to deal with a situation as I find it; and I may tell you, we have no time at present to be swapping stories of adventure. They will serve for our amusement when we are fairly on the high seas, with Mr Dawkins hull-down on the lee. It’s with Dawkins we are first concerned, Mr Pomfrett—dead or alive, you know, dead or alive,” says Murch, with a peculiar intonation.

“Then it was your boat paid us a visit by night, under Cape Gracias?” said Pomfrett.

“Did you take us for ghosts, sir? Well, I may tell you, I have a singular belief that the grave would not hold me—no, nor the deep sea—had I a duty left undone. I have the highest opinion of your integrity, Mr Pomfrett; as a guardian of youth, your qualifications are, I doubt not, superior to my own; but even that belief cannot absolve me from my trust to a dead friend; nor can a similar confidence pretermit the obligations of my ward.”

He glanced sternly at Morgan Leroux, who was seated in her usual attitude, chin on hand, regarding him composedly, though she had gone, I thought, a little pale.

“But I accuse no one of such ingratitude,” Murch went on, “for, had you desired to escape me indeed, you would surely not have left two or three plundered ships to mark your way, broad as sign-posts, when it were so easy to scuttle them. No, no. I prefer to believe that you did but anticipate my plans a little, and to save time, the while I was engaged in Porto-Bello, you went to find Mr Dawkins for me. I thank you. You have found him. And so have I—in Cartagena. Of course, all the inhabitants had taken to the woods, with their possessions; it is singular how a man of Dawkins’s experience will never learn to close the earths before he bolts the prey; but there it is, and I was able to save him the trouble of collecting their dues from them. I have a bag or two of diamonds aboard the Wheel of Fortune, Mr Pomfrett, as to which I should like your opinion.”

He paused, thrusting his lower jaw a little forward, so that the semicircular wrinkles curving from nostril to chin deepened; his narrow eyes roved from face to face with a sort of stealthy derision, highly disagreeable to his audience. The old beast of prey had tracked us leisurely across the trackless sea, kept his ship out of sight while we lay under Cape Gracias à Dios, where he spied upon us with boats, and waited until we had settled with Dawkins for peace or war, as we were bound to settle soon or late. Had we fought with Dawkins, both sides would have been weakened, to Mr Murch’s advantage; but, as we concluded a treaty together, Mr Murch bided his time a little longer, until we were separated from Dawkins. Then, having us safely on the beach, Murch followed Dawkins up the River Coco and swept up the plunder of Cartagena while Dawkins did the fighting. Evidently, it were better to have Murch on our side than against us.

“Is Dawkins returning?” Pomfrett asked, curtly.

“I reckon Mr Dawkins is on the road,” answered Murch. “That is, unless the Spaniards have cut off his retreat, which they might have done, for Dawkins mislaid his boats. It was a pity they should be lost, so I even brought them down-stream myself; you can’t have too many boats, as a general rule.”

Pomfrett considered this intelligence; then he turned sharply upon Murch.

“Come, Mr Murch,” says he, “let us be clear, and no misunderstanding at all, as you might say yourself. You took Dawkins’s boats, you say. Was there any fighting?”

“I’m always charmed to answer questions when they bear to the point,” says Murch. “If you mean, was there any collision betwixt Dawkins and myself, I may tell you that the two parties never saw each other, with the exception of a trifling few men Mr Dawkins left to guard the boats.”

“Then I may take it that Dawkins, having captured the town and driven the inhabitants into the woods”—Pomfrett was conscientiously mastering the situation, as usual—“you robbed them and then came away in Dawkins’s boats, leaving him——”

“To pad the hoof, sir, like the old cut-purse he is,” Murch concluded, with a grave nod. “Now, are you satisfied, Mr Pomfrett? Very well. Then I have a proposal to make to you two gentlemen, to which I beg your serious attention.”

He leaned forward, rapping the table once or twice with the knuckles of his clenched fist, and glowering upon us like a thunderstorm.

“You and me have got to square accounts, Mr Pomfrett,” says he. “Now, I’m not a man that wastes two words where one will serve, and so I’ll ask but this question: Are you prepared to take my ward here, Morgan Leroux, in lawful and honourable marriage? Yes or no?”

“Yes.” Pomfrett answered prompt as an echo.

Mr Murch, his arm outstretched, the great corded hand resting on the table, stared at Pomfrett, quiet as a man of stone, for perhaps five seconds. Then, without moving any other part of him, he turned his eyes on Morgan Leroux.

“And what do you say, wench?”

Morgan’s wide black eyes blinked swiftly once or twice. “Yes,” said she, and closed her mouth and sat composedly watching, as before.

Murch’s whole figure relaxed, and he slowly drew himself upright. Then he nodded again, two or three times, very solemnly.

“I notice, Mr Pomfrett,” said he, “that you have not, at present, made any reference to myself in this matter.”

“Do you wonder at that, Mr Murch?” said Brandon.

“Ah,” said Mr Murch. “Hasty, hasty—hot and hasty, Mr Pomfrett, never got to church. If I am willing to forget the past, sir, surely you should be. I would have marooned you for reasons of my own, which figure well enough in the account betwixt my Maker and myself, let me tell you. But you have stolen away my ward, Mr Pomfrett—you took advantage of the ignorance and credulity of an innocent girl, unused to the world’s ways.”

“Let it go at that, uncle,” Morgan put in. “You’ll not better it. Cry quits, now.”

Murch was just a hair taken aback. “Here’s too much talk altogether,” he cried roughly. “Come. Yea or nay, and be done. Will you sail to-night for England, Mr Pomfrett?”

“With you?”

“Under me,” Mr Murch corrected him.

Pomfrett glanced at Morgan Leroux. There was no mistaking the look in her eyes.

“See, now, how simple stands the matter,” Murch went on, with his weighty deliberation. “We sail in this ship, this very Blessed Endeavour, that has cost us so much endeavour, blessed or not; transfer the cargo from the Wheel of Fortune, take her to Barbadoes, and sell her there; the Governor will be glad to have her back again, for I may tell you, Mr Pomfrett, to show how fenced by the law is an enterprise, that his Excellency hath a share in the adventure. We will take your little bark as a tender, and sell her or not, as we find convenient. After Barbadoes, we cut sail for England, sir.”

Pomfrett sat silent, with his eyes on the floor. Morgan was steadfastly regarding him, with a distressed, appealing look that I could never have withstood for a moment, myself.

“Perhaps you think it strange in me to propose this arrangement,” continued Murch. “But if you will so consider the matter, ’tis entirely natural. My motive is pure self-interest—the mainspring of man’s actions here below. There is no other worth mentioning that influences any one; therefore, why deny it? I want to see my ward settled in marriage; the single estate is dangerous for females. I want to settle myself, in a manner which shall enable me to move in the society of my equals—a society,” says Murch, with dignity, “from which I have been too long estranged. I see in you, Mr Pomfrett, a respectable gentleman who shall serve me to both these ends. I need not, I think, say more.”

Still the owners’ agent sat silent, frowning at the floor. He was inly writhing on the horns of a most savage dilemma. All he valued in life drew him to close with Murch. On the one hand, he could see his owners satisfied and himself married and wealthy, all his troubles done. And on the other, only poor old Dawkins and a famine-stricken crew struggling down the river-banks, through the forest, with nothing in the world to hope for save the agent’s word of honour—the good faith of the supercargo with whom Mr Dawkins had dealt so crookedly. And why should a man keep faith with that treacherous old person, Dawkins? Perhaps in this painful crisis Mr Pomfrett recalled his own proud words: “What does it matter whom you swore to, if you did swear?” And, again, what use to Dawkins in refusing to take advantage of Murch’s offer. Murch, with his men and guns, had us all in the hollow of his hand. Still, the fact remained, that Mr Dawkins was rightful captain of the Blessed Endeavour, ostensibly commanding her for the owners; and for the owners’ agent to acquiesce in Murch’s suggestion were nothing less than to make terms with a thief and a robber. In some such guise must the problem have framed itself in the agent’s mind while he sat with his face averted from Morgan’s burning eyes. He broke silence at last, raising his head and turning to Murch, without looking towards Morgan.

“It seems to me, Mr Murch, I’ve no more choice in the matter than any skipper of an unarmed merchant ship you choose to lay aboard.”

“Why, there’s always the beach, Mr Pomfrett,” Murch returned. “I shall be glad to have you with me, sir, but God knows I’ll force my kindness on no man living, and there you have it, once for all. Now, I would not hurry you, sir, but time presses. Which is it to be?”

“I’ll sail under you, Mr Murch,” said Pomfrett, and the face of Morgan Leroux lightened like a breaking sky. Murch never altered a line of his countenance—that great dark face, which began to oppress me, like some monstrous visage seen in a dream.

“And really, Mr Pomfrett, I think you are well advised,” said Murch; and for my part, I agreed with the old buccaneer. I did not guess, as you will see, the extent of the supercargo’s mental reservations.

And that evening, before sunset, three ships sailed from Caratasca Cays. Mr Murch and his ward sailed in his ship, the Wheel of Fortune, Murch’s first mate had charge of ours, the Blessed Endeavour, while the owners’ agent, all forsworn, and his accomplice, Harry Winter, had command of his Modesty ship, with her original crew. But, before these arrangements were complete, I have a little episode to relate, of a nature so tender that it demands a chapter to itself.