CHAPTER XXIV
AT MARLBOROUGH
SOME time a little after noon the sloop sailed into the wide mouth of a lesser stream that opened into the broader waters of the James.
The pirate captain lounged upon the rail not far from Dred, who held the wheel, stooping as he looked out ahead under the boom of the mainsail. The gunner, a man named Morton, joined the pirate captain, with whom he stood talking for a while in low tones, Dred every now and then turning to speak to them. The sloop, close hauled to the wind, drifted slowly into the tributary river. “I reckon they’re going to bring her up back o’ the p’int yonder,” said one of the pirates to Jack, where nobody’ll be like to see us till we gets our young lady aboard.
“Isn’t that a house over on the other side of the river?” asked Jack. “Those look like chimneys over the top of the trees.”
“Why, yes,” said the other, “that’s a place they call Marlborough. They say ’tis a grand, big, fine house.”
“Marlborough!” said Jack, “and so ’tis a big, fine house, for I’ve been there myself and have seen it; ’tis as grand a house as ever you would wish to see.”
“Do you, then, know it?” said the other. “Well, ’tis there the captain’s going to-night to bring off a young lady he’s going to fetch down to North Caroliny.”
Jack listened to the man, not for a moment supposing anything else than that the young lady of whom the pirate spoke was to be a willing passenger. He only wondered vaguely why she should choose to go with Blackbeard.
The sloop lay in the creek all that afternoon. Dred was in the cabin nearly all the time, and Jack saw almost nothing of him. Meantime the crew occupied themselves variously. Six of them near Jack were playing cards intently; sometimes in silence, sometimes breaking out into loud bursts of talking and swearing. Jack lay upon the forecastle hatch watching them. Every now and then the trum-trumming of Blackbeard’s guitar sounded from the cabin. As the dealer dealt the cards around, one of the pirates snapped his fingers in time to the strumming of the music. “I tell you what ’tis, messmates,” he said, “the captain be the masterest hand at the guitar that ever I heard in all my life.”
“To be sure,” said another, “he plays well enough, but Jem Willoughby down at Ocracock can give him points how to play.”
“Did ye ever hear Jem Willoughby play the fandango?” said one of a half-dozen men who lay at a little distance under the shade of the rail.
“Never mind Jem Willoughby and the fandango now,” said the dealer, as he took up his hand of cards and, wetting his thumb, ran them over; “you play your game, messmates, and never mind Jem Willoughby.”
Again they played with silent intentness. Meantime a negro was dancing in the forecastle below. From above, Jack could see his dim form obscurely in the darker depths, and, as he watched the hands of cards that the others played, he could not but hearken to the shuffling and pat of the dancing feet sounding in rhythmical time to the clapping of hands. Then, after awhile, there was a sudden burst of talking from the card-players, and the dealer reached out and raked in the half score of silver pieces that lay upon the deck-house.
The afternoon slowly waned; the sun set, and a dim gray of twilight seemed to rise from the swampy lagoon. Then the dusk shaded darker and darker to the dimness of early nightfall. Suddenly the pirate captain came up on deck, followed by Hands and Dred. Dred spoke to the boatswain, who came forward directly and ordered the crews of the three boats to lower them and to bring them alongside. Then there followed a bustle of preparation. Presently, through the confusion, Jack saw that the men were arming themselves. They were going down below into the cabin and were coming up again, each with a pistol or a brace of pistols and a cutlass. Finally Morton, the gunner, came up on deck, and soon after the crews began scrambling over the rail and into the three boats with a good deal of noise and disorder. It was after dark when they finally pushed off from the sloop. The pirate captain sat in the stern of the yawl-boat, Hands took command of one of the others, and Dred and Morton went off in the third. Jack stood watching them pull away into the darkness, the regular chug-chug-chug of the oars in the rowlocks sounding fainter and fainter as the dim forms of the boats were lost in the obscurity of the distance.
Everything seemed strangely silent after the boats were gone. Only five men besides Jack remained aboard the sloop, and the solitude of the darkness that seemed to envelop them all around about was only emphasized by the tide that gurgled and lapped alongside. “Who is it they’re going to fetch from Marlborough?” Jack asked of one of the men who stood beside him leaning over the rail, smoking his pipe and looking after his companions.
“Who?” said he, without looking around. “Why, they’re going to fetch a young lady”; and that was all Jack knew until she was actually aboard the pirate sloop.
Colonel Parker was away from home. He had gone to Williamsburgh, but there was some company at Marlborough—Mr. Cartwright (a cousin of Madam Parker’s), his wife, and the Reverend Jonathan Jones, minister of Marlborough parish church—a rather sleek, round-faced man, dressed in sober clerical black, with a very white wig and a smooth, clean, starched band of fine, semi-transparent linen. Madam Parker and her guests sat at a game of ruff. Miss Eleanor Parker was trying a piece of music at the spinet, playing smoothly but with an effort at certain points, and then stumbling at the more difficult passages, to which she sometimes returned, repeating them. The four played their game out without speaking, and then, as the last trick was taken, released the restraint of attentive silence to a sudden return of ease. “‘Twas two by honors this time, I think,” said Mr. Cartwright to Madam Parker, who was his partner.
“Yes,” she said, “I held the queen and ace myself, and you the knave.”
“Then that makes four points for us,” said Mr. Cartwright, as he marked them.
“’Tis strange how ill the hands run with me to-night,” said the reverend gentleman; “that makes the third hand running without a single court card.” He opened his snuff-box and offered it to Madam Parker, and then to the others, taking finally a profound and vigorous pinch himself, and then shutting the lid of the box with a snap. Madam Parker and her partner smiled with the amused good-nature of winners at the game.
“Upon my word, Eleanor,” said Madam Parker, “I wish you would not play so loud; my nerves are all of a jingle to-day; as ’tis, I can’t fix my mind on the game.” The young lady made no answer; she did not even turn round, but she continued her playing in a more subdued key.
“Was not that Lady Betty Arkwright in your pew last Sunday, Madam?” asked the rector of Madam Parker, as he shuffled the cards.
“Yes, ’twas,” said the lady. “She came up from Williamsburgh last week, and Colonel Parker went back with her yesterday.”
“I thought I could not be mistook,” said the Reverend Jonathan, “and that ’twas indeed her. She hath a fine air of good breeding, hath she not, Madam?”
“Why, yes, she is good enough,” said Madam Parker, “but has nothing like the fine breeding of her sister, Lady Mayhurst.”
The reverend gentleman did not reply except by a deferential smile and half bow. He had picked up his hand and had begun to run it over swiftly, and then another round of the game began in silence.
Presently the young lady ceased playing and began turning over the leaves of her music-book.
It was in this pause of silence that there came suddenly a loud and violent knock upon the outside hall door. Madam Parker started. “Why, who can that be?” she said, folding her hand of cards nervously and holding it face downward, and looking around the table at the others.
The players all sat listening, and Miss Eleanor partly turned around upon her music-stool. It was very late for visitors, and the negroes had closed the house some time since. “It sounded like some one who may have come in a haste,” said Mr. Cartwright. “Maybe Colonel Parker has sent a message.”
“I don’t know why he should send a message,” said Madam Parker. “I hope he has not been ailing again. But that may hardly be, for he has not had a single touch of the gout for over three months, and no sign of its coming back again.”
They listened as the negro crossed the hall to answer the knock. Then came the sound of the rattling of the chain and the turning of the key. Then the door was opened. As the card-players listened they heard the sound of a man’s voice and then the reply of the negro. Then once more the man’s voice and then the negro’s again—this time speaking, as it seemed, rather eagerly. Then there came a sharp exclamation and then a sound as of some one pushed violently against the door—then silence. There was something unusual, something very alarming in the noise. “What was that?” said Madam Parker, sharply, and there was a tone of keen anxiety in her voice.
As in answer, there was the shuffling sound of many feet crossing the hall. Mr. Cartwright rose from his seat, and the Reverend Jonathan Jones turned half-way round upon his chair. The next instant three or four men with blackened faces were in the room. The foremost man wore the loose petticoat trousers of a sailor, a satin waistcoat, and a coat and hat trimmed with gold braid. His face was tied up in a handkerchief, but they could see that he had gold ear-rings in his ears. “Don’t you be frightened,” said he in a hoarse, husky voice, “there’ll no harm happen to you if you only be quiet and make no noise. But I won’t have any noise, d’ye hear?”
The three ladies sat staring with wide-eyed, breathless terror at the speaker. His companions stood silently at the doorway, each armed with a brace of pistols. There was something singularly dreadful in their silence, their black faces, their lips red by contrast with their sooty countenances, the whites of their eyes, which every now and then blinked into darkness and then were white again.
“What d’ye want?” said Mr. Cartwright. “Who are you? What do you want?” He had grown very pale, but his voice was strong and full, without a tremor in it.
The stranger, though he was armed, did not carry any weapon in his hand. He came out a little further into the room. “Ye see I have nothing to make you afraid of me!” he said, opening the palms of his hands. “So you may see I mean you no harm. But harkee! there’s to be no noise—no screaming, d’ye understand—no calling for help. So long as you keep still no harm shall be done to any of ye—man or woman.”
“You villain!” cried out Mr. Cartwright, with rising choler. “What do you mean by coming here this way, breaking into Coloner Parker’s house and blustering and threatening? Do you know where you are?” He pushed back the chair from which he had risen and looked around the room as though seeking for some weapon.
“Come, come, sir,” said the other sharply, and he clapped his hand to the butt of one of his pistols, “don’t you make any trouble for yourself, sir. I say there’ll be nobody harmed if you don’t make any trouble for yourself. But if you do, I tell you plain it’ll be the worse for you. I’ve got a score of men outside, and you can’t do anything at all, and if you make any trouble you’ll be shot, with no good to come of it. I’ll tell you what we came for—but first of all I want you to understand plainly that no harm is intended to the young lady and that no harm shall happen to her. And now I’ll tell you what we have come for. Young Mistress Parker yonder must go along with us.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth when Madam Parker started up out of her chair with a loud and violent scream. Then she fell back again, catching at the table, overturning one of the candles, and scattering the cards on the floor in a litter. The other ladies screamed as in instant echo, and shriek upon shriek rang violently through the house. Miss Eleanor Parker had run to her mother, burying her face in Madam Parker’s lap. “You villain!” roared Mr. Cartwright, and as he spoke he snatched up the heavy candlestick that had been overturned, and threw it with all his might at the head of the pirate. Blackbeard ducked, and the candlestick whirled past his head, striking with a crash against the wall beyond. “What d’ye mean?” roared he, as Mr. Cartwright grasped at the other candlestick; “don’t you touch that candlestick! Ha! would you?” The next instant he had flung himself upon the gentleman, clutching him around the body. Mr. Cartwright struck at his assailant again and again, trying to free himself. For one moment he had almost wrenched himself loose. The men at the door ran around to their leader’s aid. A chair was overturned with a crash, and the next moment the two had stumbled over it and fallen, and had rolled under the table.
Mr. Jones, with a face ghastly white and eyes straining with terror, thrust away his chair and rose, drawing back from the two as they struggled and kicked upon the floor beneath the table; and still the ladies screamed piercingly, shriek upon shriek. “Would you?” snarled the pirate captain, almost breathlessly, under the table—“Would you! Here—Morton—Dred—the devil’s choking me! Ach! let go there!” The men who had run to his aid strove to drag the two apart, and a dozen or more, all with faces blackened, came running into the room just as they were separated. The pirate captain scrambled to his feet disheveled and furious. Before he raised himself he tied up his face in the handkerchief again. Then he stood up, feeling at his throat and glaring around him. Mr. Cartwright lay upon the ground, held down by two or three men. His lip had been cut in the struggle, and was bleeding. His breath came thick and hoarse, and his face was strained and knotted with fury. Every now and then he made a futile effort to wrench his arm loose.
“I don’t know what you all mean, anyhow,” said the pirate captain, “squalling and fighting like that. By Zounds!”—to Mr. Cartwright, as he lay upon the floor—“I believe you’ve broke my Adam’s apple—I do. I tell you”—said he to Madam Parker, who, white and haggard, and shrunk together with terror, sat looking up at him—“I tell you, and I tell you again, that I don’t mean any harm to you or to the young lady. She’s got to go along with me, and that’s all. I tell you I’ll take good care of her, and she’ll be in the care of a woman who knows how to look after her; and just as soon as his honor the colonel chooses to pay for her coming back, then she’ll come. I’ve got a good safe boat down here at the shore, and no harm’ll come to her. She’ll only be gone for a month or so, and then she’ll be fetched back safe and sound. Now, if she wants to carry any change of her clothes along with her to wear, she’d better get ‘em together. D’ye understand me, Madam?”
Madam Parker, with her daughter’s face buried in her lap, still sat looking up at the pirate captain. Her lips moved once or twice, and then she whispered breathlessly, “Yes—I understand.”
“What d’ ye say, Madam? I don’t hear ye.”
“I understand,” she repeated a little louder, as he leaned forward across the table to hear her.
“Why, then, Madam,” said he, “I’m glad you do; for I want the young mistress to be as comfortable as she can, and if you don’t get something for her to wear and make her comfortable, I’ve got to take her off without. Now, Madam, will you get some clothes together? Maybe you’ll send one of your black women to get them.”
Madam Parker sat gazing at him without moving; the pirate captain stood looking at her. “What’s the matter with her, anyhow?” said he. One of the men stooped forward and looked into her face. “Why, captain,” said he, “the lady’s dazed like; she don’t know what you’re saying. Don’t you see she don’t understand a word you say?”
The captain looked round and his eyes fell upon Mrs. Cartwright. “D’ ye think ye could get some change of clothes for the young lady, some clothes to take away with her, mistress?” said he. “She can’t go away from home for a month or so without a change of clothes to wear. You can see that for yourself.”
“Shall I go, Edward?” said Mrs. Cartwright.
Mr. Cartwright groaned. “You’ll have to go, Polly,” he said; “there ‘s nothing else to do. But, oh, you villains, mark my words! You’ll hang for this, every mother’s son of you!”
“Why, I like your spirit, Mr. Tobacco-Planter,” said the pirate captain; “and maybe you’ll hang us, and maybe you wouldn’t, but we’ll take our chances on that.” Then with a sudden truculence, “I’ve put up with all the talk from you I’m going to bear, and if you know what’s good for you you’ll stop your ‘villains’ and your ‘hangings’ and all that. We’ve got the upper hand here, and you’re the cock that’s down, so you won’t crow any more, if you please.”
Mr. Cartwright groaned again. “You’re breaking my arm,” he said to the men who were holding him down.
When Mrs. Cartwright came back into the room, carrying a large silk traveling-bag packed with clothes, she was crying, making no attempt to wipe away the tears that ran down her cheeks. The pirate captain came and stooped over Miss Eleanor as she knelt with her face in her mother’s lap. “Come, mistress,” he said, “you must go along with us now.” He waited for a moment, but she made no reply. “You must go along with us,” he repeated in a louder tone; and he took her by the arm as he spoke. Still she made no sound of having heard him. Then he stooped over and lifted her head. Mr. Cartwright caught sight of the face, and felt a keen thrill pierce through him. “She is dead,” he thought. “Come here, Morton,” called out the pirate captain, “and lend a hand; the young lady’s swooned clean away.”
Madam Parker made some faint movement as her daughter was taken from her, but she could not have been conscious of what was passing. Mrs. Cartwright wept hysterically in her husband’s arms as they carried the young lady away, leaving behind them the room littered with the cards, the chair overturned, and the one candle burning dimly on the card-table. Outside of the house the negroes and the white servants stood looking on in helpless, interested terror from a distance, hidden by the darkness. Mr. Simms was sitting in his office, gagged and bound in his chair.
CHAPTER XXV
IN CAPTIVITY
IT seemed to Jack as he sat in the darkness with the watch upon the deck of the sloop, that the time passed away very, very slowly. The vessel lay pretty close to the shore, and myriad sounds from the dark, woody wilderness seemed to fill the air—the sharp quivering rasp of multitudinous insects, the strange noise of the night birds, and now and then the snapping and cracking of a branch, and always the lapping gurgle of water. He lounged on a coil of rope, watching the twinkling flicker of the fireflies, and listening to the men as they talked among themselves about people whom he did not know. There was a strong interest in hearing what they said, and so catching, as it were, a glimpse of a world so different from his own. A lantern swung in the shrouds, shedding a dim, yellow circle of light upon the deck, in which sat and squatted the five men left in charge of the sloop.
“She never got the better of me,” one of the men was saying. “I tell you what ’tis, I ain’t the man to put up with any women’s notions. Her and I was keeping company then, and I took her down to Derrick’s P’int—that time you was speaking of, Bob. Well, Ned Salter had just come back from South Caroliny with the captain, and had a pocket full of money. I see her making eyes at him all the time, and by and by they stands up to dance together. Jem Smith, he says to me, ‘Tommy, my boy, d’ ye see what a figure Sally and Ned Salter be a-cutting together?’ ‘I do,’ says I, and I just walks across the floor and up to her, and says: ‘Sally, I fetched you here, and if you means to shake me loose you means it, and that’s all.’ She laughed, kind of like, and I saw her give Ned Salter a nudge with her elbow. She didn’t think I see it, but I see it all the same. ‘Very well,’ says I, ‘then I see how ’tis.’ So without another word I goes away. I goes right down to the P’int, and I gets in my boat and I rows back to Ocracock, leaving her to get home as she chose. The next day I see her, and she says to me: ‘Why, Tommy,’ says she, ‘where was you last night? I couldn’t find you nowheres.’ ‘Why,’ says I, ‘I was where it suited me to be,’ and I walks on and leaves her. I tell you, there be n’t a woman around that can try her tricks with me.”
They all sat in silence for a while, digesting what the speaker had said. “It must be pretty near midnight,” said another of the men irrelevantly, looking up into the starry sky as he spoke.
“Harkee, I hear summat,” said another, holding up his finger. “Like enough it be the boats a-coming back.”
They all listened intently, but only the ceaseless murmurings of the night filled the air, and always the lapping gurgle of the water. “Then, there was Hetty Jackson,” said the man who had just told of his adventure. “D’ ye remember her, Bill? She’d just come down from Maryland way—”
Suddenly one of the men—he who had spoken before—scrambled up to his feet. “There they are,” he said, cutting sharply into the narrative that the other was beginning. “I knowed I heard ‘em.”
A breath of air had sprung up from the river and had brought down with it the distant sound of measured chug-chug of the oars in rowlocks.
“Yes, that’s them for certain,” said another of the watch, and every one scrambled to his feet. They all stood looking out toward the river. It was a great while before the distant boats gradually shaped themselves into forms out of the pale watery darkness beyond. “There they are; I see them,” said one of the men. And then, in a minute, Jack also saw the dim, formless dark blots upon the face of the water. As the boats drew slowly nearer and nearer to the sloop, Jack climbed up into the shrouds, whence he might obtain a better view of the men when they should come aboard. He did not know at all what the business was that had taken the pirates to Marlborough, nor did he suspect that it was anything startlingly unusual; he was merely curious to see the return of the boats. Presently they were alongside—the yawl-boat first of all—the men unshipping their oars with a noisy rattle and clatter. Some of them caught the chains just below Jack as the boat slid under the side of the sloop, and the other boats came alongside almost at the same time. Jack could see by the light of the lantern that those in the stern of the yawl were assisting a dark figure to arise, and that a sort of hushed attention was directed toward it. He wondered what was the matter, and his first thought was that some one had been hurt; then he saw that they were helping somebody up to the deck, and then, as the light fell upon the face, recognition came with a sudden keen shock,—it was Miss Eleanor Parker,—and even in the dim light he could see that her face was as white as death. Then he saw that the faces of all that had come in the boats were blackened as though with soot. The pirate captain had come aboard the sloop. “Easy, now,” he said, as they lifted the young lady up to the deck. Jack still clung to the ratlines, looking after them as they partly supported, partly carried the fainting figure across the deck. The next moment they had assisted her down into the cabin. Then Jack, who had been lost in wonder, returned sharply to the consciousness of other things. He became aware of the confusion of the boats’ crews coming aboard, the rattling and clatter and movement and bustle all around him on the deck. “Look alive, now, Gibbons!” he heard Hand’s voice say to the boatswain. “Get her under way as quick as you can,” and he knew that the sloop was about to quit its anchorage.
Dred, who had gone down into the cabin, had by and by returned upon deck, his face still sooty black. He stood by while the men hoisted the boats aboard. Jack came over to where he stood. “Why, Dred,” said he, “wasn’t that Mistress Eleanor Parker you brought aboard just now?” for even yet he thought he might possibly have been mistaken.
“You mind your own business, lad,” said Dred, turning upon him and speaking more sharply than he had ever spoken to Jack before. “You mind your own business and go for’ard where you belong.” Then he turned on his heel and walked away as though in a hurry, and the next moment Jack saw him go down into the cabin again.
The next morning Jack came on deck to find the sloop beating down the river in the face of a stiff breeze. They had been sailing all night and had made a long reach. He recognized where they were. The shore toward which they were now heading was the high, sandy bluff that overlooked the oyster banks, where he had once gone fishing with Dennis and the negro. He could see in the distance the shed standing upon the summit of the high, sandy bank. It looked very strange and new to him, and, at the same time, curiously familiar. It was as though a piece of his past life had been broken out and placed oddly into the setting that was so strangely new and different.
“Where’s Jack Ballister?” he heard Dred’s voice say, and then he turned around sharply.
“Here I am!” he said.
Dred came forward a little distance, then he beckoned and Jack went over to him. “The young lady down in the cabin seems very queer like,” said Dred. “She won’t say nothing and she won’t eat nothing. Didn’t you say as you knowed her at one time and that she knowed you, or summat of the sort?”
“Why, yes,” said Jack. “I know her very well, but I don’t know whether or no she remembers me now.”
“Well, lookee,” said Dred, “the captain thinks as how it might rouse her up a bit if somebody as knowed her was to come down and speak to her and take her down summat to eat. Can’t you get summat to eat, such as gentlefolk like her cares for? D’ ye see, we don’t know just what they kind likes and what they needs, and ’twould be a mightily serious thing for all on us if this here young lady was to take ill and die on our hands.”
“I don’t know,” said Jack, “whether I could do anything for her or not, but I’ll try.”
“Well, then, you go down into the galley and see if you can get summat for her to eat, and then fetch it aft to the cabin, and try to persuade her to eat a bite.”
When Jack came out of the galley a half hour later, carrying a plate of food, he heard the trum-trumming of the guitar sounding distantly from below, aft. It was the first time he had been down into the cabin. He found it fitted up with some considerable comfort, but now dirty and disorderly. The bedding in the berths was tumbled and dirty, as though it had not been made up for a long time, and the place was filled with a close, stuffy, sour smell, pervaded with the odor of stale tobacco smoke. Hands was lying, apparently asleep, upon the bench that ran around the cabin, and Captain Teach sat upon the other side of the table, with a glass of grog at his elbow. He held his guitar across his breast, and his brown fingers—one of them wearing a silver ring—picked at the strings. Behind the captain a dark figure lay in the berth, still and motionless. Jack could see one hand, as white as wax, resting upon the edge of the berth, and he noticed the shine of the rings upon the fingers.
Captain Teach looked at him as he entered. He stopped playing as Jack came to the place where the young lady lay and kneeled with one knee upon the cushions of the bench. The pirate looked at him with great curiosity, and Jack stood there for a while, not knowing what to say. “Won’t you eat something, mistress?” he said at last, awkwardly. No reply. “Won’t you eat something, mistress?” he said, again; “I brought you something here that I think you can eat—a bit of chicken and some rice. Won’t you eat it?”
She shook her head, without turning around. He stood there for a while in silence, looking at her. “She won’t eat anything,” said he at last, turning toward Captain Teach.
The pirate captain stared at her for a while, in brooding thought. “Oh, very well, then,” he said; “let her alone. She’ll be sharp enough for something to eat, maybe, by afternoon. You can take the victuals back to the galley. Stop! let’s see what you’ve got.” He fingered the food over curiously, as Jack held the plate for him to see. “Chicken and rice, heh?” he said. “Where did you get the chicken?”
“The cook had two of them in a coop up in the bows,” said Jack.
That day it became known that the captain was going to stop over night at Norfolk, where he had friends; and about sundown they dropped anchor in the river, with the little town, the spire of its church showing above the trees, lying about a mile away. Presently the captain came up from below. He had combed out the plaits of his long black beard, and he was dressed rather quietly in a suit of brown clothes with brass buttons, white stockings, and shoes with plate buckles. The boat was ready and waiting for him alongside, and he stepped down into it. Jack watched it as it pulled away toward the shore, rising and falling and bobbing over the tumbling waves, the brown figure of the captain perched high in the stern, with his coat tails spread out upon either side. “He’s got a lot of friends in Norfolk,” said one of the men, who, smoking his pipe, lounged over the rail not very far from Jack, “but he’s got no call to stop there now. If he were in my place and I in hisn, I’d make out to sea without stopping to go ashore for a game of cards or a taste o’ grog at this time.” He took his pipe from between his teeth and puffed a broken cloud of smoke out into the swift windy air, looking gloomily after the boat. “’Tis as much as our necks are worth, as he well knows, for to lie in these here waters with this young lady aboard. Supposen some ‘un was to take a notion to come aboard on us and should find out who we had here in the cabin, how long do you suppose ’twould be afore all on us would be a-lyin’ in the jug in Williamsburgh with a halter about our necks?”
Jack felt a sudden rush of apprehension seize upon him at the man’s words. He had not realized, until that moment, what it meant for him to be aboard the pirate’s sloop; that, having joined himself with outlaws, he himself was now an outlaw. He stood silently for a while, staring after the receding boat. “I do suppose,” he said at last, “that the captain won’t be long ashore.”
The man shrugged his shoulders. “If he once gets ashore with his friends and a bottle of grog, maybe ’twill be the best part of the night afore he gets away again.”
Jack drew a deep breath. “Well,” he said, “’twas a mightily foolhardy thing for him to do, to be sure.”
Just then some one laid a hand upon his shoulder, and he turned around with a start. It was Dred. “The young lady’s roused up a bit,” he said; “maybe, if you’d take summat down to her now, she’d eat it.”
CHAPTER XXVI
THE PIRATE’S LAIR
IT took nearly a week to run from Norfolk to Bath Town. The sloop had run into Ocracock before the breaking of the fourth day; had discharged nearly all of its crew, with noisy hubbub, into the inscrutable gray of the dawning, and had then sailed away up the sound, with only the pirate captain, Dred, and Hands, and Jack, and two negroes left of the thirty or more who had comprised the vessel’s company. It was in the early daylight of the following day that the sloop came about and, with a short tack, sailed into the mouth of Bath Creek. On one side a swamp fringed with giant cypress-trees, their bright-green foliage standing out against the darker green of the trees behind, came close down to the point. Upon the other side were open clearings of plantations. About half a league up, at the head of the mouth of the creek, the houses of the little town clustered among the trees upon a gentle rise of open ground. The sloop was sailing smoothly nearer and nearer to the bluff shore, upon which stood a square frame house with a tall, sloping roof and two lean chimneys. The house, which appeared to be of a somewhat better quality than the ordinary wooden house of the common settler, was almost hidden by the shade of two great cypress-trees that grew up from what seemed to be a little marshy hollow. Behind it, a glimpse of a clearing showed, stretching away to the edge of the woods beyond. A skiff and a dug-out lay drawn up on the beach close to a landing-place, and Jack could see two rough-looking white men standing on the little wharf, looking out toward the sloop. He was standing by with the two negroes who now composed the crew, ready to help let go the anchor at the word of command, when Dred came up out of the cabin and across the deck to where he stood. “You come with me,” he said; “the captain wants you down in the cabin.”
As Jack went below he heard the loud splash of the anchor, and then the sound of the running of the block as Hands let the sail go to the wind. The captain was combing out his shaggy hair, and the young lady sitting leaning with her arms upon the table as he came down the companion-way. She wore an air as of dumb expectation. “Here, young man,” said the captain, “you’re to go ashore with me and the young lady. I want you to carry that bag of clothes up to the house,” nodding his head toward the table where lay the bundle. There was a long pause as the pirate continued his toilet. “You’re to wait upon the young lady, and be handy to help whenever my wife wants you,” he continued, “d’ ye understand?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jack.
Then Hands came to the companion-way to say that the boat was ready; and Blackbeard turned to the young lady. “Come, mistress,” he said, “if you’re ready now we’ll go ashore.”
The young lady rose instantly from her place, and stood resting her hand upon the table, looking about her. “D’ ye want any help?” said the pirate. She shook her head. “Well, come along, then.”
The captain led the way to the deck; Miss Eleanor Parker followed, and Jack came behind. The young lady looked around her as she came up into the open air. The faint wind stirred the hair at her temples as she gazed steadily at the little town lying seemingly so close. Jack had not noticed before how thin and pale she had grown. The bright glare of the sunlight made her look singularly wan. The boat was alongside, the negroes holding it close to the side of the sloop. They helped the young lady into it almost officiously, and then the captain took his place beside her. “You jump aboard up there in the bow,” he said to Jack; and, as Jack took his place, the negroes pushed off and began rowing away toward the shore. Jack watched the wharf as it came nearer and nearer. He could see that one of the white men who stood there looked haggard and pinched as though with illness. They did not look like sea-faring men, and he judged them to be neighboring planters from some of the places further inland. The next moment the negroes backed oars, the bow of the boat touched with a bump against the landing, and Jack jumped ashore. At the captain’s bidding he reached out his hand, and in instant response felt Miss Eleanor Parker’s grasp, soft and warm. She held tightly to him as he helped her up from the boat to the landing, and he was conscious that the two men on the wharf were staring intently at him and at her.
They still stood dumbly staring as Jack, carrying Miss Eleanor Parker’s bundle, followed the captain and the young lady up the crooked path to the house.
“JACK FOLLOWED THE CAPTAIN AND THE YOUNG LADY UP THE CROOKED PATH TO THE HOUSE.”
From a distance the house had appeared picturesque—almost beautiful—hidden among the soft-green foliage of the cypress-trees; but it looked shabby and weather-worn and even squalid upon a nearer approach. A young woman of sixteen or seventeen years old stood in the doorway, looking at them as they came up the path. Her face was not uncomely, but was heavy and dull. Her hair was light and colorless, and was tied up under a dirty cap. She was in her bare feet; she wore a jacket without sleeves, partly pinned, partly buttoned, and under it a flaming red petticoat. She stared at them with wide eyes, but the pirate said nothing at all to her, and she stood aside as he led the way directly into the house. The floor was bare and uncarpeted. There were a table and two chairs; some tin boxes and a couple of candlesticks, caked with grease, stood upon the mantel together with a loud-ticking clock. Altogether, the room, with its bare plastered walls, was very naked and cheerless, and was filled with a rank, smoky smell. “Sit down, mistress,” said Blackbeard; and then, as Miss Eleanor Parker obeyed him, “This is my wife,” he said, “and she’ll look after you for a while. D’ ye hear, Betty? You’re to look after the young lady. Go up-stairs now, and get the spare room ready, and be as lively about it as you can. You take the young lady’s bundle up-stairs, boys; he—” nodding toward his wife—“she’ll show you where.”
Jack followed the young woman up the rickety stairs to the sagging floor above. “Here, this is the place,” she said, opening the door upon a room directly under the roof. It looked out through two windows across the creek to the swamp on the other side, a half mile or so away. “Who is she?” said the woman to Jack, as he followed her into the room, and laid the traveling-bag upon the bed.
“The young lady down-stairs? She’s Miss Eleanor Parker,” Jack answered.
“A grand, fine lady, ben’t she?” and Jack nodded. “Well, you trig up the room a little now, won’t you? I’ll just go put on a better dress, for, d’ ye see, I didn’t look for Ned to bring such fine company. You’d better bring up a pail of water, too, for I reckon she’ll be wanting to wash herself.”
Blackbeard’s wife was gone for a long time. The pirate walked restlessly and irritably up and down the room, stopping once at the mantel-shelf to fill a pipe of tobacco. The young lady sat impassively, with her hands lying in her lap, gazing absently upon the floor. Once or twice the pirate glared with angry impatience at the door. At last there was the sound of footsteps—this time not of bare feet—clattering down the stairs, and a second later the pirate’s wife opened the door and entered the room. She had changed her slatternly dress for a medley of finery. She wore high-heeled shoes and silk stockings with red clocks. She courtesied to the young lady as Blackbeard glared at her. “If you come along with me now, madam,” she said with an air, “I’ll show you to your room.”
CHAPTER XXVII
AT BATH TOWN
“YOU and Chris Dred will have to sleep together,” the pirate’s wife had said to Jack, the first evening of his arrival. “He’s lived here ever since he came back. He sleeps in the corner room; there ain’t no bed in t’other; so, now the young lady’s come, you’ll have to sleep together, or one of you’ll have to sleep on the floor.” And so Jack was settled at the pirate’s house.
The next morning the pirate captain sent Jack in a boat up to the town with a letter to Mr. Knight, the colonial secretary.
The town appeared singularly interesting to Jack as, leaving the skiff at a little landing, under the care of the negro who had rowed him up to the place, he walked up a straggling lane between some fishing huts, and so to the main street, which, with its dirt sidewalk, was shaded with trees, through which filtered uncertain, wavering spots of sunlight. The day was hot, a dry wind rustled the leaves overhead, and a belated cicada trilled its shrill note that, rising for a while, pulsed whirring away into silence. The houses, mostly built of wood, were small and not very clean. They nearly all stood close to the street. A sort of indolent life stirred in the place, and further down the street a lot of men were lounging in front of a building that looked as if it might be a store of some sort. They stared at Jack as he drew near, and when he asked where he should find Mr. Knight, they did not immediately reply.
“Mr. Knight?” said one of the group. “Why, I reckon Mr. Knight be n’t in town; he went off across the country the day afore yesterday, and I reckon he be n’t back yet.”
“Yes, he be back,” said another; “anyways, his horse be back again, for I saw Jem a-rubbing it down as I came by the stable a while ago.”
Then one of the men got slowly up from where he sat, and led Jack out into the middle of the street. “D’ ye see that open place yonder? Well, that’s where the church stands. Just beyond that—you can see it from here—is the house. ’Tis the very next house to the church. Well, that’s Mr. Knight’s house.”
Mr. Knight’s residence was built of brick and was very much better looking than the houses that surrounded it. Jack found that the secretary was at home, and was shown into his office. He was smoking a pipe of tobacco and looking over some papers which littered the writing-desk at which he sat. He was a rather thin, dark man, not ill-looking, but nervous and jerky in his movements. He wore a black cloth skull-cap upon his head, and Jack saw a fine wig of black hair hanging behind the door.
He turned his head and looked over his shoulder at Jack as he came into the room. “Well,” he said in a sharp, quick voice, “what d’ ye want?”
“Why, master,” said Jack, “Captain Teach hath sent me up with this note for you, sir.”
“O! he did, did he? Well, let me have it.” He leaned back in his chair and reached out for the note, which Jack handed to him and which he tore open quickly and sharply. Jack noticed how the letter trembled in his nervous hand as he held it. He watched his eyes as they traveled down the page until they reached the bottom, and then as he turned over the paper to make sure that there was nothing upon the other side. “Very well,” he said when he had ended; “tell the captain I’ll be there to-morrow.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jack, lingering for a moment. “Is that all?”
“That’s all. I’ll be down to-morrow night.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jack again.
Mr. Knight came down to the pirate’s house at the appointed time, and Captain Teach stood at the door watching him as he came up the crooked path. The pirate had been playing upon his guitar, and he now stood holding it under his arm as Mr. Knight approached, limping slightly and walking with a cane. The evening was warm, and he carried his hat under his arm. Jack stood around the end of the house, also looking at the colonial secretary as he approached. “How d’ ye do, captain?” said Mr. Knight, as soon as he had come near enough.
“Why, I’m well enough,” said Blackbeard, surlily, taking his pipe out of his mouth to reply. “Hands and Dred are both here, and we’ve been waiting for you for some time now. Come in.”
He led the way into the room, where the two of whom he had spoken were sitting smoking and drinking rum and water in the dusk. Mr. Knight nodded to the others. “Well, captain,” he said as he took his seat and laid his hat and cane upon the table, “what’s this business you want to see me about? What’s this I hear about a young lady you’ve brought down from Virginia?”
“Why,” said Captain Teach, “I reckon ’tis just about as you’ve heard it.” He had laid aside his guitar, and had gone to the mantel-shelf and was striking a flint and steel to light the candle. “I brought a young lady down with me from Virginia—she’s staying here with my wife.”
“Well, what’s the business you have with me?”
“I’ll tell you that in a minute as soon as I get this bloody candle lighted. I’ll murder that woman some day. This is the third time she’s left the punk out to get wet. There it comes!” He blew the spark into blaze and lit the candle. “Now, Mr. Secretary Knight,” he said, “I’ll tell you just exactly what the business is we want of you and just what we’ve been doing. Do you know of Colonel Birchall Parker?”
“Why, to be sure I do,” said Mr. Knight. “Why do you ask such a thing as that?”
“Well, I’ve carried his daughter off from Virginia; we’ve got her here in this house.”
Mr. Knight sat quite still for a long time. “Then ’tis just as I heard this morning,” he said at last, “but indeed I couldn’t believe it, nor how you would dare do such a thing as to carry off Colonel Birchall Parker’s daughter. ’Tis the maddest thing I ever heard tell of in all my life, and if I was you I’d send the young lady back just as soon as ever I could.”
“Why, then, Mr. Secretary,” said Captain Teach, “I’m much beholden to you for advice, but just you listen to me for a little, will you? and give me time to say my say before you advise me. I’m not going to send her back just now, in spite of your advice, nor until her father pays a good round sum to get her back.” And then, after a little pause, during which he filled his pipe,—“I tell you what ’tis, Mr. Secretary Knight, there be a greater one than you or me mixed up in this here business—no less a one, if you will believe me, than Mr. Dick Parker.”
“What?” exclaimed Mr. Knight, “Mr. Richard Parker? What d’ ye mean by that?”
“Why, I just mean what I say,” said Captain Teach. “Mr. Parker is the one man in this, and we manage it as his agents. So you may see for yourself we’re not so likely to come to any harm as ye might think, for if we come to any harm it drags him along with us. ‘Twas his plan and by his information that the young lady was taken—and, more than that, his plan is that you shall write to him as though to give him the first information of her being here in the keep of the Pamlico Pirates. Then he’s to go to Colonel Parker and make the best bargain he can to have her redeemed.”
“Stop a bit, captain!” interrupted Mr. Knight. “You’re going all too fast in this matter. You seem to be pleased to count on me in this business without asking me anything about it. I tell you plain that this is too serious a thing for me to tamper with. Why, d’ye think I’m such a villain as to trade in such business as this at the risk of my neck?”
“Well,” said the pirate captain, “that is just as you choose, Mr. Secretary. But I don’t see that you need bring yourself into any danger at all. You won’t appear in it as a principal in any way. ’Tis I and those with me,” sweeping his hands toward Hands and Dred, “who really take all the risk; and I take it even though I know that if anything should happen you’d throw us overboard without waiting a second moment to think about it.”
Mr. Knight sat in thoughtful silence for a while. “What money is there in this for you?” said he, looking up sharply.
“That I don’t know, neither,” said the other. “Mr. Parker will manage that at t’other end, and methinks we can trust him to squeeze out all there is in it.”
“What does he expect for his share in this precious conspiracy?” the secretary asked after a while of silent thought.
“Why,” said the other, “there he drives a mightily hard bargain—he demands a half of all for his share, and he will not take a farthing less.”
Mr. Knight whistled to himself. “Well,” he said, “he does indeed drive hard at you, captain. But, after all, I do not know that I can be easier upon you; for if I go into this business it’ll be upon the same stand that Mr. Parker takes: I will have the half that is left after he has taken his half.”
Captain Teach burst out laughing. “Why, ye bloody leech!” he roared, “what d’ ye mean by saying such a thing as that to me? ’Tis one thing for Mr. Parker to make his terms, and ’tis another thing for you to do it: ye pistareen. I tell you what shall be your share of it: I shall have my third first of all, and you shall stand in for your share with Hands and Morton and Dred.”
Mr. Knight shook his head. “Very well, then,” said the pirate captain, harshly, pushing back his chair and rising as he spoke. “If you choose to throw away what may drop into your hands without any risk to yourself, you may do so and welcome. I’ll manage the business as best I can without you.”
“Stop a bit, captain,” said Mr. Knight. “You are too hasty by half. Tell me now, just what is it you want me to do in this affair?”
“Why,” said Captain Teach, “I have told you in part what I want you to do. ’Tis first of all to write a letter to Mr. Richard Parker, saying that you have certain information that the young lady, Colonel Parker’s daughter, is in the hands of certain pirates, and that they won’t give her up unless a ransom is paid for her. Ye may add also—as is the truth—that she appears to be in the way of falling sick if she isn’t taken away home pretty quick. Then, after you have writ your letter, you must hunt up a decent, respectable merchant-captain or master to take it up to Virginia and see that it is delivered into Mr. Richard Parker’s hands.”
Mr. Knight looked very serious. “But is the young lady really sick?” he asked.
“Well, I can’t truly say she is sick, but she’s not so well, neither.”
“And have you thought of what danger you’d be in if she was to die on your hands?”
“Yes, I have,” said the other, “and so you needn’t waste any more words about it. Tell me, will you take in with this business, or will you not?”
“Humph!” said Mr. Knight, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He sat for a long time looking broodingly at the flickering candle-light. “There’s Nat Jackson hath gone up the river for a cargo of wood shingles. He’s looked for back here on Friday: ’tis like enough he would be your man to take the letter if I go into this business.”
“I dare say he’ll do well enough,” said Captain Teach, impatiently. “But tell me, what is your answer, Mr. Secretary? Will you go into the business or not?”
“I’ll tell you to-morrow,” said Mr. Knight. “If I go into it I’ll send you a draft of the letter to Mr. Parker. Will that suit you?”
“Why,” said the other, sullenly, “’twill have to suit; but methinks you might give a plain yes or no without so much beating around the bush, or taking so much time to think it over.”
Jack and the pirate’s wife sat in the kitchen. They could hear the grumble of talk from the room beyond. “I tell you what ’tis,” said Jack, breaking the silence, “to my mind the young lady don’t look anything like so well as when I saw her in Virginia.”
“I don’t know why she’d be sick,” said the woman. “We give her good enough victuals to eat and she don’t lack for company. I’m sure I sat with her nigh all afternoon, and she answered me pretty enough when I talked to her.”
By and by they heard the party in the other room break up and Mr. Knight’s parting words as he left the house. Presently Dred came into the kitchen; he looked dull and heavy-eyed. “I reckon I must ‘a’ caught the fever,” he said; “my head beats fit to split, and I’m that hot I’m all afire. D’ye have any spirits of bark here, mistress?”
The pirate’s wife got up and went to the closet and brought out a bottle of decoction of bitter bark from which she poured a large dose into a teacup. Dred drank it off at a gulp, making a hideous, wry face. Then he spat and wiped his hand across his mouth.