The last buccaneer

The dusky chamber, its lattices closed against the heat, was filled with the rushing noise of the wind in the trees without. Brandon Pomfrett gazed at me with a rueful countenance; he was thinking of the Blessed Endeavour, our tall ship, thrashing along before the gale, main-chains under, while we were caged with the old buccaneer.

“Well,” said Mr Murch, answering our thought, “so Mr Dawkins is cracking on for Yucatan, is he? From what I saw of your ship, I should say Dawkins could knock nine knots out of her, on a wind. He’ll soon fetch up in Catoche Bay. Now, I wonder, Mr Supercargo, if your owners would entertain a claim for salvage? I mean, if Dawkins were taken, now, with the plate on board, what, sir, on behalf of your owners, would you propose, for example?”

Mr Supercargo, excited but cautious, was understood to propose full and adequate compensation. Mr Murch appeared to reflect upon the proposition.

“Now,” he resumed, presently, “you know my rule,—a clean ship alow and aloft, nothing to hide, nothing hidden. Plain, open dealing. I tell you, candidly, I should find it hard to get a ship. I was one of Morgan’s men, you see. I’m earmarked. Every governor in these islands is bound to put down piracy. That is, if he hears of it. He’s not forced to ask questions. But Jevon Murch—no, they couldn’t allow Jevon Murch. That were too undisguised. But you, my lads,” says the old gentleman, stroking his beard and surveying us with narrowed eyes, “you could take your pick of every clipper bottom in the Indies.”

“There’s a trifling obstacle—we’ve no money,” said Pomfrett.

“There’s money to be had, perhaps,” said Murch. “I’ll be plain with you. I’ve a notion to end my days in England—I want to see Mistress Morgan settled there before I die. But England is no place for a poor man. I should have to sell the plantation, you see. To leave the estate to an agent is as good as to lose it—no reflection intended, Mr Pomfrett, I assure you. The sale would bring something, but not enough. How am I to get more? I’ll tell you, and here’s my offer. You get the ship, I’ll find the money. Fit her out as a privateer, and make sail after Dawkins. If we catch him, there’s your ship for you and salvage for me. If we don’t, why, with two stout ships I’ll engage to cut the guts out of Frenchman and Spaniard from the River Plate to California. It would be worth my while, you see. The question is, do you take it to be worth yours, Mr Agent?”

Mr Agent sat gazing upon the old pirate out of troubled blue eyes. The noise of the wind filled the room, thundering about the house, and beating with muffled blows upon the windows. Before the same gale Dawkins was slipping northward.

“Isn’t it too late?” said Brandon, dubiously.

“For Dawkins? No,” returned Murch. “No, I think not. I’ll tell you why. Dawkins will require another-guess crew to what he shipped with. There’s old seamen who’ve sailed on the account scattered in every port from here to Tortuga. Dawkins will shed his green stuff on the beach and fill up with the preserved ginger, if I know him. Let him, I say. All the better for us.”

Another pause, the hurry and the tumult of the wind mixed with the hurry and tumult of our minds. The new prospect was so unexpected, so suddenly opened, we were confounded. Mr Murch sat looking placidly down his nose.

“I’ll wager,” said he, presently, “you are wondering how I can trust two strange gentlemen so instantly. Simple enough. At my age, I can tell a man when I see him. At yours, now—why, you’re thinking even now that you put your heads in the lion’s mouth when you ship with me; deny it if you can,” says the old gentleman, creasing his face into a grin that curved his mouth upward, revealing his strong white teeth.

It was true. For me, I could conceive of no more desperate enterprise. But, our case was desperate. And Brandon, who would have given his body to be burned to get his ship back, asked for a day to consider the matter.

“A day!” cried Mr Murch. “Why, I would undertake to think the sun out of the heavens in a day. Better spin a ducat and be done. But take your time, gentlemen, take your time. Meanwhile, I’ll take a walk to the harbour. No sense in losing time, and I might fall across something which would come in useful. Remember, gentlemen, you are to use this house as your own.”

With that, he was gone. There seemed in us, upon discussion, some fatal attraction to piracy. Dawkins comes to Bristol, and chance, which might have led us twenty other ways, takes us straight into his company. He has us safe in that accursed bottle of his the same day, and there we are fitting out a fine ship for him to steal. We come to Barbadoes, are cast straightway into Mr Murch’s clutches, and in a trice we are getting a ship for Mr Murch—for him to steal, for all we knew. A fate was upon us: we were born to be catspaws for pirates.

We debated the question of appealing to the Governor of Barbadoes. What little we knew of governors did not incline us to this course. If he sent a ship-of-war after Mr Dawkins—which was highly improbable—any booty there might be would be confiscate to the government. The ship might be confiscate, too, for all we knew to the contrary. Besides, Dawkins would assuredly fight, and the ship would be knocked to pieces, or sunk, very likely. And if she were taken without damage, what should we be doing with a shipload of pirates, in strange waters, without captain, pilot, or sailing-master? The enterprise did not promise much. True, it seemed the legal, proper procedure; but were we not bound to do the best for the owners, irrespective of legal considerations?

“Very well,” says Pomfrett, “shall we ship with Murch? He’s——”

The door opened, and there was Mistress Morgan.

“He’s our only chance,” Brandon ended, hastily.

“And pray, sir, who is your only chance?” asked Mistress Morgan, familiarly. She seated herself in Mr Murch’s chair. This lady did not at all resemble our English ladies at home. She looked you in the face; she spoke to you as to an equal; she had no tricks of attitude or manner; but walked or reclined with the graceful, languorous freedom of an animal. In England, they would have said she lacked breeding.

Pomfrett had a notion that it was improper to discuss affairs with ladies, as his countenance plainly showed. “We were talking of some business, madam,” said he.

“Oh, I know your story,” said Mistress Morgan. “Mr Murch told me. I begged him, when,” says she, without the faintest reticence, “he bought you, to give you to me. I seldom see gentlemen fresh from England. I hoped you would amuse me.”

I do not know if it amused Mistress Morgan to see at least one gentleman fresh from England, sitting in a dumb agony of embarrassment before her.

“Tell me,” repeated Morgan Leroux, “who is your only chance? You are my lawful prey, you know. Would you escape my bondage?”

“On the contrary,” says Brandon, with sudden courage, “we would embrace it?”

“Embrace! Fie, Mr Pomfrett, what a word to use to a lady!” says Mistress Leroux, and Brandon flushed to his ears.

“Never mind,” she went on, “you meant no harm, I can see. Now, are we to sail to England together? Before you came, I was pestering Mr Murch night and day to take me to England, and he kept fobbing me off with this and that. And this morning he tells me it all depends on your consent to a proposal of his. Why, now, can you hesitate? Will you condemn poor Morgan Leroux to a lifetime on a plantation? Oh, if you knew how I hate the everlasting dulness of the days, everyone alike—and the smell of the black people!”

Pomfrett looked furtively at me. We had not taken the lady into consideration hitherto. Here was a new inducement; to Pomfrett, perilously attractive. I could see that he was trying to square his impulse with his duty to his owners. Morgan Leroux turned to me.

“Mr Winter, how mum you sit in your corner. Why, I’m ready to swear I’ve not yet heard the sound of your voice. What do you say, now?”

I said I was but an humble clerk, whose duty it was to follow whither he was led.

“A very proper answer, Mr Winter,” said Morgan, bluntly. She meant nothing contemptuous; she said what she thought.

“Mistress Leroux,” said Brandon, “you know our story. You know what we are. We’re marooned by a pirate; we’ve lost our ship; we’ve not a guinea in the world; we’re ruined. Mr Murch makes us an offer. Had we only ourselves to consider, we would accept it without question. But we are answerable to the owners. Now, Mr Murch may mean very honestly by us; or—if you will pardon me—he may not. We don’t know Mr Murch. You do. I put myself in your hands. I appeal to you. What do you say?”

Thus Brandon, with a strong flush and very earnestly. Morgan Leroux considered him for a moment.

“You say I know him,” she answered, slowly. “I doubt if I do, though I’ve lived in his house for several years. All I can tell you is, he is just and kind to me, and he has the name of a just man. What he thinks right, that he does, and nothing stops him.”

“There it is!” said Brandon, eagerly—“what he thinks right! The question is, what does he think right? You see, we’re new to this buccaneering business—it seems to have laws of its own, quite different from the Ten Commandments. We haven’t quite got the drift of the thing.”

Morgan looked at him with real concern in her vivid face.

“Do you know, Mr Pomfrett,” said she, gravely, “I think both you and I must take our chance. And for your business, I can tell you that it is of no use appealing to the Governor,” she added, significantly.

This, chiming with our own desires, clinched the matter.

“It seems,” said Brandon, as soon as we were alone, “that we are appointed to serve as pirates’ catspaws. Well, we’ll see which will pull the most from the fire, the thieves or the honest men.”

“Did you never feel,” I asked him, “when we started the business with Dawkins, that there was something behind—that it came too easy to be natural?”

“No,” said Brandon. “Did you?”

I told him that I did; and, what was more, that I had the same feeling at that moment. I told him Murch was too prodigal of his assurances of plain dealing; that, so far as my experience served, honest men did not indulge in these protestations; that I believed them (as I do still) to be the infallible mark of insincerity.

“Why the devil, then,” said Pomfrett, “didn’t you say so before? It’s too late to begin croaking now.”

At which I showed him we had no choice; and, therefore, needed all the more to be wary.

“Well,” said Pomfrett, assuming a light and careless manner, “I believe the girl is honest. She’s on our side.”

I hoped so; but to Master Pomfrett, at that time of his ingenuous life, every wench was an angel of honesty and virtue.

Mr Murch received our decision without changing a line of his cobwebbed countenance or a note in his deep voice. “Very well. We must sail within the week,” was all he said.