CHAPTER XLII
THE NEXT DAY
JACK was awakened at the first dawn of day by the sea-gulls clamoring above him. Their outcries mingled for a little while with his dreams before he fairly awoke. He found himself standing up. The sun was shining. There was the beach and the sandy distance. Dred came walking toward him up from the boat, and a great and sudden rush of joy filled his heart. “Why, Dred,” he cried out, “I thought you were dead!” Dred burst out laughing. “I was only fooling you, lad,” he said; “I weren’t hurt much after all.” Then that terrible tragedy had not really happened. He must have dreamed it. Dred had not been shot, and he had not died. The sea-gulls flew above their heads screaming, and his soul was full of the joy of relief.
Then he opened his eyes. The sun had not yet arisen, but he was still full of the echo of joy, believing that Dred was alive, after all. He arose and stood up. The motionless figure was lying in the distance just as he had left it the night before.
But, after all, Dred might not be dead, and there might be some truth in his dream. He might have been mistaken last night. Perhaps Dred was alive, after all, and maybe better this morning.
He went over to where the silent figure lay, and looked down into the strange, still face—upon the stiff, motionless hands. Yes; Dred was dead. As Jack stood looking he choked and choked, and one hot tear and then another trickled down either cheek. They tasted very salt.
Then he began to think. What was he to do now? Something must be done, and he must do it himself, for he must not ask the young lady to help him. He went down to the boat. There was nothing there that he could use, and so he walked off some distance along the beach. At last he found a barrel, that had perhaps been cast up by a storm, and which now lay high and dry upon the warm, powdered sand which had drifted around it, nearly covering it. He kicked the barrel to pieces with his heel, and pulled up two of the staves from the deeper layer of damp sand beneath. He had walked some distance away, and now he turned and went back to where the still figure lay motionless in the distance. The young lady had not yet awakened, and he was glad of it.
He was trembling when he had ended his task. Suddenly, while he was still kneeling, the sun arose, throwing its level beams of light across the stretch of sand, now broken and trampled, where he had been at work. He smoothed over the work he had made. The damper particles stuck to his hands and clothes, and he brushed them off. Then he took down the shelter that he and the young lady had built up over Dred’s head the day before, carrying the oars and the young lady’s clothes down to the boat. Then he came back and carried down the overcoats. By that time she had arisen. Jack went straight up to her where she stood looking around her. “Where is he?” she said.
Jack did not reply, but he turned his face in the direction. She saw where the smooth surface of the sand had been broken and disturbed, and she understood. She hid her face in her hands and stood for a moment, and Jack stood silently beside her. “Oh,” she said, “I was dreaming it was not so.”
“So was I,” said Jack, brokenly, and again he felt a tear start down his cheek.
“It did not seem to me as if it could be so,” she said. “It don’t even seem now as though it were so. It was all so dreadful. It doesn’t seem as though it could have happened.”
“Well,” said Jack, heaving a convulsive sigh, “we’ll have to have something to eat, and then we’ll start on again.” The thought of eating in the very shadow of the tragedy that had happened seemed very grotesque, and he felt somehow ashamed to speak of it.
“Eat!” she said. “I do not want to eat anything.”
“We’ll have to eat something,” said Jack; “we can’t do without that.”
The task of pushing the yawl off into the water was almost more than Jack could accomplish. For a while he thought they would have to wait there till high tide in the afternoon. But at last, by digging out the sand from under the boat, he managed to get it off into the water. “I’ll have to carry you aboard, mistress,” he said.
He stooped and picked her up, and walked with her, splashing through the shallow sheet of water that ran up with each spent breaker upon the shining sand. He placed her in the boat and then pushed it off. The breakers were not high, but they gave the boat a splash as Jack pulled it through them.
He rowed out some distance from the shore, and she sat silently watching him. Then he unshipped the oars and went forward and raised the sail. By this time the morning was well advanced. The breeze had not yet arisen, but cat’s-paws began to ruffle the smooth surface of the water. Then by and by came a gentle puff of breeze that filled out the sail, and swung the boom out over the water. Jack drew in the sheet, and the boat slid forward with a gurgle of water under the bows. Then the breeze began blowing very lightly and gently.
This was Sunday morning.
They sailed on for a long, long distance without speaking. Both sat in silence, he sunk in his thoughts, and she in hers. He was trying to realize all that had happened the day before, but he could hardly do so. It did not seem possible that such things could have actually happened to him. He wondered what she was thinking about—Virginia, perhaps. Yes; that must be it. And he was going back to Virginia, too. How strange that he should be really going back there—the very place from which he had escaped two months before! Was there ever anybody who had had so many adventures happen to him in six months as he? Then something caused him suddenly to remember how he had reached out the evening before, and had touched Dred’s senseless hand. There seemed to him something singularly pathetic in the stillness and inertness of that unfeeling hand. Then came the memory of the silent face, of those cold lips that one day before had been full of life, and it was profoundly dreadful. He shuddered darkly. Was this always the end of everything?—of the rushing breeze, the dazzling sunlight, the beautiful world in which men lived? Death is terrible, terrible to the eyes of youth.
“Do you know,” said the young lady, suddenly, breaking upon the silence, “it does not seem possible that I am really to see my father again, and maybe so soon. I’m trying to feel that it is so, but I can’t. I wonder what they will all say and do! Oh, it seems as though I couldn’t wait! I wonder how much further ’tis to Virginia?”
“I don’t know,” said Jack; “but it can’t be much further. I’ve been thinking that those sand-hills on ahead must be at Cape Henry. I only saw it in the evening when I was on Blackbeard’s sloop, the time we were bringing you down to Bath Town; but the hills look to me like Cape Henry. And, do you see, the coast runs inward there. I can’t tell, though, whether ’tis only a bend in the shore, or whether ’tis the bay.”
“My father will never forget what you’ve done,” she said, looking straight at him.
“Will he not?” said Jack.
“He will never forget it.”
Her words brought a quick spasm of pleasure to Jack. He had not thought before of the reward he should receive. Of course there would be some reward—some great reward. It was perhaps then that he first realized what a thing it was he had done—that he had brought Colonel Parker’s daughter safe away from the pirates, through the very jaws of death! Yes; it was a great thing to have done; and again there came that spasm of delight. The future had suddenly become very bright. It seemed now to throw back a different light upon all those dreadful things that had passed, and they became transformed into something else. They were no longer gloomy terrors—they were great events leading to a great success.
It was late afternoon when they slid before the wind around the high sand-hills of the cape. As the bay slowly opened before them they saw that there were three sails in sight. One of them, far away, apparently a schooner, was coming down the bay as though to run out around the cape to the southward.
“See that boat!” cried out the young lady. “’Tis coming this way. Don’t you believe we could stop it, and get the captain to take us back to Virginia?”
“I don’t know,” said Jack; “’tis like she won’t stop for me, but I’ll try it if you’d like me to.”
He put down the helm of the yawl so as to run up across the course upon which the distant vessel seemed to be sailing. They watched her in silence as slowly, little by little, she came nearer and nearer. “I ought to have something to wave,” said Jack, “to make her see us. I don’t believe she’ll stop for us unless we signal her in some such way.”
“Why not my red scarf!” said the young lady. “Stop, I’ll get it for you.”
She handed the bright red scarf to Jack, who tied it to the end of an oar. The schooner was now some three quarters of a mile away. Jack stood up in the boat, and began waving the scarf at the end of the blade, hallooing as he did so. As the course of the schooner was laid, she would run past them about half a mile distant. “I don’t believe she’s going to stop for us, after all,” said Jack. “Bear the tiller a little to the left. That’s as it should be. Now hold it steady, and I’ll wave again.” Then, even as he spoke, he saw that those aboard the schooner were hauling in the foresail and mainsail, and that she was coming about. “She is going to stop for us!” he cried.
The schooner had gone a little past them before her sails swung over; then, sweeping around in a great semi-circle, she bore down upon them, bow on. Jack laid down the oar, and, taking the tiller again, brought the yawl up into the wind, and so lay waiting for the schooner to reach them. She ran to within maybe thirty or forty yards of them, and then, coming up into the wind, lay rising and falling, swinging slowly back and forth with the regular heave of the ground-swell. She looked very near. There was a group of faces clustered forward, looking out at them across the restless water, and another little group of three men and a woman stood at the open gangway. A large, rough man, with a red face prickled over with a stubby beard, hailed them. He wore baggy breeches tied at the knees, and a greasy red waistcoat. “Boat ahoy!” he called out. “What boat is that?”
Jack was standing up in the yawl. “We’ve come up from North Carolina!” he called back in answer. “We’ve just escaped from the pirates.”
“Is that Miss Eleanor Parker?” the other called out instantly.
“Ay!” said Jack.
There was an instant commotion aboard the schooner, and the captain called out: “Bring your boat over here!”
Jack seated himself and set the oars into the rowlocks. He pulled the bow of the boat around with a few quick strokes, and then rowed toward the schooner. In a minute or so he was close alongside. The men and the woman were standing on the deck just above, looking down at him. The six or eight men of the crew were also standing at the rail, gazing at them. Jack could see that the schooner carried as a cargo three or four hogsheads of tobacco and a great load of lumber.
“Was it you brought the young lady away?” said the captain to Jack. “You’re a mightily young fellow to do that, if you did do it.”
“I didn’t bring her off my own self,” said Jack. “One of the pirates helped us get away. But Blackbeard came up with us at Currituck Inlet, and before we could get away the man who helped us was shot. He died last night.”
“So, then!” said the captain. “Then it was Blackbeard, arter all, who carried off the young lady, was it?” Then he added, “Colonel Parker’s at Norfolk now. I’ll run back with you, and tow the yawl into the bargain, if the young lady’ll guarantee me that her father’ll pay me five pounds for doing it.”
“Five pounds!” cried Jack. “Why, that is a deal of money, master, for such a little thing.”
“Well, ’tis the best I’ll do. It may lose me three days or more, and I won’t do it for less.”
“Oh, it does not matter,” said the young lady to Jack, in a low voice. “I’ll promise him that papa will pay him five pounds.”
Jack felt that the captain was taking advantage of her probable eagerness to return, but he also saw that she would not allow him to bargain at such a time. “She says her father will pay it, master,” he said; “but ’tis a great deal of money to make her promise.”
The captain of the schooner did not reply to this latter part of Jack’s speech. “Here, Kitchen,” he said to the mate, “help her ladyship aboard. Look alive, now!”
The mate jumped down into the boat (he was in his bare feet), and he and Jack helped the young lady to the deck above. Jack followed immediately after her, and the mate remained, busying himself in making the yawl-boat fast.
“Here, Molly,” said the captain to the woman, who was his wife, “take her young ladyship into my cabin and make her comfortable.”
Jack was standing, looking around him like one in a dream. The crew and the man whom the captain afterward called Mr. Jackson (whom Jack took to be a passenger) stood staring at him. The schooner was a common coaster. The decks were littered and dirty; the captain and the crew rough and ordinary.
“This way, master,” said the captain; and then he, too, went down into the cabin. It was close and hot, and smelled musty and stuffy. The young lady was sitting at the table, while the woman, the captain’s wife, was busy in the inner cabin beyond. She had left the door open, and Jack, from where he sat, could see her making up a tumbled bed in the berth. He could also see a sea-chest, some hanging clothes, a map, and a clock through the open door. The schooner was getting under way again, and he could hear the pat of bare footsteps passing across the deck overhead, the creaking of the yards, and then the ripple and gurgle of the water alongside.
“When did you leave Bath Town?” said the captain.
“On Wednesday morning early,” said Jack. Now that all was over, he was feeling very dull and heavily oppressed in the reaction from the excitement that had kept him keyed up to endure. His hands, from which the skin had been rubbed by rowing, had begun again to throb and burn painfully; he had not noticed before how great was the smart. He looked at them, picking at the loose skin. Nobody cared how much his hands hurt him, now that Dred was gone, and his throat began choking at the foolish thought.
“Wednesday! Why, ’tis only Sunday now. D’ ye mean to say that ye’ve sailed all the way from Bath Town in five days in that there yawl-boat?”
“Is this Sunday?” said Jack. “Why, so ’tis.”
“How long will it take to get to Norfolk?” asked the young lady.
“Well, we ought to get there by midnight if this wind holds,” said the captain.
“The berth’s made up now if your ladyship’d like to lie down,” said the captain’s wife, appearing at the door of the inner cabin.
After the young lady had gone, the captain and the man named Jackson plied Jack with questions as to all that had happened. He answered dully and inertly; he wished they would let him alone and not tease him with questions. “I’m tired,” he said, at last; “I’d like to lie down for a while.”
“I suppose you be feeling kind of used up, ben’t you?” asked the man Jackson.
Jack nodded his head.
“Won’t you have a bite to eat first?” asked the captain.
“I’m not hungry,” said Jack; “I want to rest—that’s all.”
“I’m going to let you have the mate’s cabin,” said the captain. “You said I made the young lady promise too much for carrying ye back to Norfolk. Well, I’m doing all I can to make you comfortable. I give my cabin to her, and I give the mate’s cabin to you; and if you’ll only wait I’ll have a good hot supper cooked.”
“Just where did the bullet hit him?” asked Jackson.
“I don’t know just where,” said Jack. “Somewhere about here (indicating the spot with his finger). Can I go to the mate’s cabin now?”
“Well, I think ‘twas mortal strange,” said Jackson, “that he didn’t fall down straight away, or at least drop the tiller, or something of the sort. He just sat there, did he?”
The mate came in, still in his bare feet. He sat down without saying anything, and stared at Jack.
“I’m going to let him have your berth for to-night, Kitchen,” said the captain.
CHAPTER XLIII
THE RETURN
THE breeze had fallen during the night so that it was nearly daylight when the schooner came to anchor off Norfolk. The captain sent the mate directly to carry the news of the young lady’s return to Colonel Parker’s schooner. Colonel Parker himself was not on board, but the lieutenant came at once out of his cabin, half dressed as he was, and the mate told him the news. Mr. Maynard at once sent word ashore to Colonel Parker, and then had himself rowed aboard the schooner on which the young lady was.
Within an hour Colonel Parker came off from the town. The first man he met when he stepped aboard the coaster was Lieutenant Maynard. “Why, Maynard, is that you?” he said, and Mr. Maynard had never seen him so overcome. He grasped the lieutenant’s hand and wrung it and wrung it again. His fine, broad face twitched with the effort he made to suppress his emotions. “Where is she?” he said, turning around almost blindly to Captain Dolls, who, with his mate, had been standing at a little distance looking on. “This way, your honor,” said the captain with alacrity.
He led the way across the deck to the great cabin; Lieutenant Maynard did not accompany them. “She’s in my cabin here, your honor,” said the captain. “I let her have it, for ‘twas the best aboard. Her ladyship’s asleep yet, I do suppose. If your honor’ll sit down here I’ll send my wife into the cabin to wake her and to help her dress.”
“Never mind,” said the colonel, “where is she—in here?” He opened the door and went into the cabin. She was lying upon the berth sleeping. She had only loosened her clothes when she lay down the night before, and she was lying fully dressed. “Nelly!” said Colonel Parker, leaning over her, “Nelly!” She did not stir. He had not entirely closed the door, and it stood a little ajar. Captain Dolls, in the great cabin beyond, stood looking in, and for the moment Colonel Parker did not notice him. “Nelly!” he said again. “Nelly!” and he laid his hand upon her shoulder.
She stirred; she raised her arm; she drew the back of her hand across her eyes; she opened her eyes and they looked directly into his face as he leaned over her. “What is it?” she said, vacantly.
Colonel Parker was crying. “’Tis I—’tis thy poor father, Nelly.” The tears were trickling down his cheeks, but he did not notice them. Suddenly her vacancy melted and dissolved, and she was wide awake. “Papa! O papa!” she cried, and instantly her arms were about his neck and she was in his arms.
She cried and cried. Colonel Parker, still holding her with one arm, reached in his pocket and drew out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes and his cheeks. As he did so he caught sight of Captain Dolls standing without in the great cabin looking in at them. The captain moved instantly away, but Colonel Parker reached out and closed the door.
Presently she looked up into his face, her own face wet with tears. “Mamma,” she said,—“how is poor mamma?”
“She is well—she is very well,” he said. “My dear! my dear!”
Once more she flung her arms about his neck. She pressed her lips to his again and again, weeping tumultuously as she did so. “O papa, if you only knew what I’ve been through!”
“I know—I know,” he said.
“Oh, but you can’t know all that I’ve been through—all the dreadful, terrible things. They shot poor Mr. Dred, and he died. I saw them shoot him,—I was in the boat,—I saw him die. Oh, papa! I can’t tell you all. Oh, it was so terrible. He lay on the sand and died. There was sand on the side of his face, and the young man, Jack, did not see it to brush it off, and I could not do it, and there it was.”
“There! there!” said Colonel Parker, soothingly. “Don’t talk about it, my dear. Tell me about other things. The sailor who came to bring me off told me there was a young man—a lad—with you when they picked you up down at the capes.”
“Yes,” she said, “that was late yesterday afternoon.”
“But the young man; is he the young man you call Jack?”
“Yes, that is he.”
“He is aboard here now, is he not? Who is he?”
So they talked together for a long time. She had lain down again, and she held his hand in hers as he sat upon the edge of the berth beside her. As they talked she stroked the back of his hand, and once she raised it to her lips and kissed it.
A while later Jack was awakened from a sound sleep by some one shaking him. He opened his eyes and saw that a rough, red face was bending over just above him. In the first instant of waking he could not remember where he was, or what face it was looking down at him. Then he recognized Captain Dolls. He was, first of all, conscious of a throbbing, beating pain in the palms of his hands. It seemed to him that he had been feeling it all night.
“COLONEL PARKER REACHED AND LAID HIS HAND UPON JACK’S SHOULDER. ‘AY,’ SAID HE, ‘TIS A GOOD HONEST FACE.’”
“What is it?” he said. “What do you want?”
“Well,” said Captain Dolls, “we’re at Norfolk, and have been here for three hours and more.”
“Norfolk!” said Jack, vaguely. “Are we, then, at Norfolk? How came we there?” His mind was still clouded with the fumes of sleep.
Captain Dolls burst out laughing. “We got there by sailing,” he said. “How else? But come! get up! Colonel Parker’s aboard, and he wants to see you. He’s out in the great cabin now.”
Then Jack was instantly wide awake. “Very well,” he said, “then I’ll go to him directly. Have you a bucket of water here that I may wash myself? I’m not fit to go as I am.”
He stood lingering for a moment before he entered the cabin. He could hear Colonel Parker’s voice within, and he shrank from entering, with a sudden trepidation.
“Go on,” said Captain Dolls, who had followed him. “What d’ ye stop for?” Then Jack opened the door and went in.
Some one rose as he entered; it was Colonel Parker. In a swift look Jack saw that the young lady had been sitting beside her father. She had been holding her father’s hand, and she released it as he arose. Captain Doll’s wife was also in the cabin busily packing the young lady’s clothes ready for her departure. Jack knew that Eleanor Parker was looking at him, and he also saw in the glance that she had been crying. Colonel Parker was gazing at him also. “Was it, then, one so young as you,” he said, “who would dare to bring my Nelly away from the villains? Come hither,” and as Jack came lingeringly forward Colonel Parker reached out and laid a hand upon his shoulder, holding it firmly. He looked long and steadily at Jack’s face. “Ay,” said he, “’tis a good, honest face.” Jack was very conscious of the presence of the captain’s wife, and it made him feel more embarrassed than he would otherwise perhaps have been. He could not look up. “Ay,” said Colonel Parker again, “’tis a good, honest face, and the face of an honest young man. I am glad ‘twas such a good, honest soul that brought our Nelly back to us. We shall never, never forget what you have done—never forget it.”
His mood was still very warm with the emotions that had melted him. “And that other preserver,” he said, “that other noble preserver who gave his life that he might save my girl; never can I forget him. But he is beyond anything that I can do to reward him and to bless him now. I would that he were here, that I might show him, as I shall show you, that we shall never forget what you have done for us—never forget it.” In his softened mood, still holding Jack by the shoulder, he drew out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes and his face. Jack, knowing that there were tears running down from the great man’s eyes, had not dared to look up into his face, but it suddenly came into his mind to remember how it was Dred who had shot and killed this man’s only son.
“Well,” said Colonel Parker, “we are just making ready to leave this and to go aboard of my own vessel, and so back to Marlborough. If you have anything to get ready you had better do so, for of course you go along with us.”
“I have nothing to get ready,” said Jack. “There were two overcoats we brought with us,—they belong to Captain Teach,—but I left them in the yawl last night.”
“What does your ladyship intend doing with this petticoat?” said the captain’s wife, holding up a mud-stained skirt. “Shall I bundle this up with the others?”
“No,” said the young lady, “you need not do so, for I sha’n’t need that any longer. Do you know, papa,” she said, “that was a part of the clothes I wore when I tried to run away by myself down in North Carolina, and ran into the swamp. ’Tis the mud from the swamp that stains it so.”
Jack had sat down on the bench opposite to Colonel Parker and the young lady. Every moment he was growing happier and happier. He had an indefinable feeling that some great good was coming to him. His hands hurt him very much. He awoke from his golden thoughts to hear Colonel Parker saying to his daughter, “And now, my dear, if you are quite ready, we will go.”
Lieutenant Maynard stood waiting at the open gangway as the three came up out of the cabin. He took off his hat as the young lady approached.
“This is my daughter, Lieutenant Maynard,” said Colonel Parker. And the lieutenant bowed low to her with a fine air, to which she replied with as fine a courtesy. “And this,” said Colonel Parker, “is the young man who brought her back—a fine, noble fellow, and a good, honest, comely lad, too.”
“Why, then,” said the lieutenant, “I shall ask you to let me take your hand. Give me your hand.” Jack reached out his throbbing palm to the lieutenant, who took the hand and shook it firmly. “By zounds! you are a hero,” he said. “See, sir,”—to Colonel Parker—“that is the boat they escaped in—such a little open boat as that to come all the way from Bath Town and through a storm, they tell me, in the lower sound. We are going to tow it over to the schooner.”
He pointed down at the yawl as it lay alongside, fastened to the other boat by the bow-line. Colonel Parker looked down into the empty boat. There was the stain of blood still upon the seat where Dred had sat when he was shot. The very emptiness of the boat as it lay there seemed to speak all the more vividly of the tragedy that had been enacted in it.
As they left the coaster, Jack sat in the stern of the boat not far from Colonel Parker and the young lady. As he looked back he could see the figures of Captain Dolls and his wife, of the barefoot mate with his knit cap, and of Mr. Jackson standing at the gangway. The yawl was towing behind them. His smarting palms throbbed and burned in pulsations of pain, and he looked furtively down into one of his hands.
“Why, what is the matter with your hand, my lad?” Colonel Parker asked, suddenly.
Jack blushed red and shut his fist tight. “I flayed them rowing, your honor,” he said.
“While you were helping Nelly away?”
“Yes, your honor.”
“Let me see your hand.”
Jack held it out reluctantly, conscious of the rough knuckles and nails, and Colonel Parker took it into his soft, white grasp. “Why,” he exclaimed, “what a dreadful, terrible sore hand is this! Let me see t’other. And did you suffer this in helping Nelly get away? Look, lieutenant, at the poor boy’s hands. They must be salved and dressed as soon as we get him aboard the schooner.”
“Let me see, my lad,” said the lieutenant.
CHAPTER XLIV
RISING FORTUNES
PERHAPS there was no period of the attorney Burton’s misfortunes more bitter to him than when he stood that morning upon the deck of Colonel Parker’s schooner, and saw the town almost within hand’s reach, and yet felt himself so helpless, so utterly powerless to escape.
All hands were talking about Colonel Parker’s daughter, and how she had been brought back from the pirates, and by and by an interest in what he heard began to work its way into his consciousness in spite of the misfortunes that overhung him. So it was that, when he saw the boat coming toward the schooner, he went over to the rail and stood with the others gathered there looking out as it approached. He saw that there were several people sitting in the stern-sheets,—one of them the young lady,—and that they were towing an empty boat behind them. All hands aboard the schooner were standing at the rail or clinging to the shrouds watching their approach, and from where the little attorney stood he could see that the surgeon and the sailing-master and the shipwrecked mate were at the gangway waiting for them.
He at once singled out the pirate who had rescued the young lady—the young man with the long, shaggy hair and rough, half-sailor clothes. He seemed to the attorney Burton to be singularly young for a pirate, with a round, smooth, boyish face. Presently the boat was close under the side of the schooner, and the next moment the crew had unshipped their oars with a loud and noisy clatter. The lieutenant leaned out astern and stopped the yawl as it slid past with the impetus of its motion, and then it also fell around broadside to the schooner.
Then they began to come aboard, first the lieutenant, then Colonel Parker, then the young lady. At that instant the young pirate looked up, and the attorney looked full into his face. If a thunderbolt had fallen and burst at the little lawyer’s feet, he could not have been more amazed than he was to see the face of Jack Ballister looking toward him.
It is such wonderful chance meetings as this, and as that other time when Jack met Dred at Bullock’s Landing, that teach us how little is this little world of ours, and how great is the fatality that drifts men apart and then drifts them together again.
The next moment Jack also had climbed aboard, and had gone into the cabin with the others. “You must look at the poor lad’s hands before you do anything else, doctor,” Colonel Parker was saying to the physician who accompanied them.
Jack was still filled full of warm happiness as he sat there in the fine cabin, watching Dr. Poor as the surgeon dressed his hands, winding the clean white linen bandage around one of them. The dressing felt very soothing and cool. Colonel Parker and the young lady and Lieutenant Maynard sat opposite to him across the table, Colonel Parker asking him many things about the circumstances of their escape. Jack had been telling what he knew concerning the young lady’s abduction. “And were you with the pirates, then, when they took Nelly away?” said Colonel Parker.
The surgeon was trimming away the rough edges of skin from the palm of Jack’s other hand, and Jack looked down at the skilful touches upon the sore and tender place. “I didn’t go with them over to the house, if you mean that, your honor. I stayed aboard of the boat while they went. There was a watch of half a dozen left aboard, and I was with them. The others went off in three boats; the yawl was one of them. It was the biggest of the three, and Blackbeard went in it. I had only just come aboard, and I don’t think they would have chosen me to go with them upon such an expedition. I had just run away from Mr. Parker’s then, and that was my first day with them.”
“Why, then, I am glad of that,” said Colonel Parker. “I am glad you were not with them in such an unlovely business as attacking a defenseless houseful of women. But I don’t see how they could dare to do such a thing. There must have been some one set the villains on to do it. Did you hear whether there was any one else concerned in it—instigating them to the outrage?”
Jack had heard enough talk in Blackbeard’s house to feel sure that Mr. Richard Parker had been the prime mover in the outrage, but he did not dare to tell Colonel Parker about it. “I don’t know,” said he; “but they’re very desperate villains, your honor, and that’s the truth. You don’t think what desperate villains they are when you are with them, for they talk and act just like other men. But I do believe that there’s nothing they would stop at. They are very desperate villains.”
Colonel Parker was looking intently at him as he spoke. “You speak mightily good language,” he said; “are you educated?”
Jack blushed red. “Yes, your honor,” he said; “my father taught me. He was a clergyman, and a great scholar, I’ve heard say.”
Colonel Parker appeared very much interested. “Indeed!” he said, “is that the case? Why, then, I am very glad to hear it. Your being a gentleman’s son makes it easier for me to do all that I want to do for you. But you were kidnapped, you say?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jack.
Suddenly the surgeon clipped the thread of the second bandage. “There, you are as well as I can make you now,” he said.
“And indeed they feel mightily comfortable,” said Jack, opening and shutting his hand; “and I thank you kindly for the ease you have given me.”
“Now go and dress yourself, ready for breakfast,” said Colonel Parker. “My man Robin hath set out some clothes for you in the lieutenant’s cabin.”
Colonel Parker’s body-servant Robin was just coming out of the lieutenant’s cabin when Jack entered. “You’ll find everything you want in there, I do suppose,” he said. “If you don’t you may call me. I’ll be just outside here.”
He had laid the clothes upon the lieutenant’s berth. He closed the door as he went away, and Jack stood looking about him. It was all very clean and neat. It was the cabin that Miss Eleanor Parker generally used when she was aboard the schooner. A cool, fresh smell pervaded it. He laid his clothes aside, and sat down upon the edge of the berth, and then, presently, lay down at length upon its clean surface. As he lay there resting he was very, very happy. He went over in his mind all that had passed that morning. How beautiful it all was! How kind was Colonel Parker! Yes; he was reaping his reward. He lay there for a long time, yielding himself to his pleasant thoughts. Everything seemed very bright and hopeful. His hands felt so comfortable. He lifted them and looked at the bandages: how white and clean they were, how neatly they were stitched! He could smell the salve, and it seemed to have a very pleasant savor in the odor. He was glad now that Colonel Parker had seen his hands, and that they had looked so terribly sore. At last he roused himself, and looked at the clothes that had been laid out for him, turning them over and feeling them. They were of fine brown cloth, and there was a pair of white stockings. “I wish I had something to rub up my shoes a trifle,” he thought; “they look mightily rusty and ugly.”
Then he got up and began dressing, only to stop in the midst of it and to lie down once more to build those bright castles in the air. How fine it would be to live at Marlborough, not as a servant, but as one of the household! And now such good fortune was really his own. He lay there for a long, long time until, suddenly, the door was opened, and Colonel Parker’s servant looked in. Jack sprang up from where he lay. “Not dressed yet?” said the man. “Well, then, hurry as quick as you can. His honor wants you out in his own cabin. There’s somebody aboard here knows you, and he’s been in his honor’s cabin now for ten minutes or more.”
“Somebody who knows me?” said Jack. “Why, who can that be, pray?”
“’Tis a lawyer,” said the man—“a man named Burton. He says he knew you in Southampton.”
“Master Roger Burton!” cried Jack. “Why, to be sure I know him. Are you sure that is who ’tis? Why, how does he come aboard here? When did he come to America?”
He was getting dressed rapidly as he talked, and the servant came into the cabin and closed the door after him. “As to coming to America,” he said, “he came here naturally enough. He was kidnapped just as you and me were. I heard him tell his honor the lieutenant he had been knocked on the head and kidnapped.”
“Knocked on the head and kidnapped!” Jack cried; “why, that was just what happened to me.”
“Here, let me hold your coat for you,” said Robin. He held it up as Jack slipped his arms into the sleeves. “There, now then, you come straight along,” he said, and he led the way across the great cabin to Colonel Parker’s own private cabin beyond. He tapped on the door and then opened it.
“Come in,” called out Colonel Parker, and Jack entered.
He saw the attorney Burton immediately. He would not have recognized him if he had not known whom he was to see. The marks of the smallpox, the rough clothes he wore, and the thin, stringy beard that covered his cheeks and chin made him look like altogether a different man. Only his little stature and his long nose fitted with the memory of him in Jack’s mind. He stood for a while gazing at the little man. “Why, how now, Master Jack,” said the attorney, “don’t you know me?”
“Yes, I do, now that you speak,” said Jack, “but to be sure I wouldn’t have known you if I hadn’t been told you were here.”
Colonel Parker was lying in his berth, a blanket spread over his knees and feet. Miss Eleanor Parker sat on the edge of the berth, holding his hand, and the lieutenant sat opposite, crowded into the narrow space. “Come hither,” said Colonel Parker, reaching out his hand, and as Jack came toward him he took the lad’s bandaged hand into his own and held it firmly. “Why did you not tell me who you were?” said he.
“I don’t know what you mean, your honor,” said Jack.
“Don’t call me ‘your honor,’” said Colonel Parker. “Call me ‘sir,’ or else ‘Colonel Parker.’”
“Yes, sir,” said Jack, blushing.
“What I mean,” said Colonel Parker, “is that you did not tell me that you were Sir Henry Ballister’s nephew and a young gentleman of such high quality, nor that you were the heir of any such fortune as I am told hath been left to you. You should have told me all this at once. I might have gone on for a long while without knowing, had this good man not told me what was your family and condition.”
“I don’t know, sir,” said Jack, awkwardly, “why I didn’t tell you, but I didn’t think to do it.”
Lieutenant Maynard burst out laughing, and even Colonel Parker smiled. “Well, well,” he said, “family and fortune are something worth while to talk about, as the world goes. But I am glad that I shall know what to do for you now.”
Jack looked up at Miss Eleanor Parker, and saw that she was gazing straight at him. She smiled brightly as their eyes met.
The schooner left Norfolk that morning, but the breeze was very light, and it was not until the following day that they reached Marlborough.
The great house was in clear sight when Jack came up on deck at sunrise. Colonel Parker and Miss Eleanor were standing at the rail gazing out toward the house, which had been already aroused by the approach of the schooner. People were hurrying hither and thither, and then a number came running down to the landing from the house and the offices and the cabins, until a crowd had gathered at the end of the wharf.
“Yonder is thy mother, Nelly,” said Colonel Parker—“yonder is thy mother, my dear.” He spoke with trembling lips. The tears were running down the young lady’s cheeks, but she seemed hardly to notice them, and she was not crying. She wiped her eyes and her cheeks with her handkerchief, and then waved it; then wiped her eyes again, then waved it again. “Yonder is your Uncle Richard with her,” said Colonel Parker, and he also wiped his eyes as he spoke.
Jack could see his former master standing close to the edge of the wharf. He himself stood a little to one side with the Attorney Burton, who had also come up on deck. He had an uncomfortable feeling of not being exactly one in all the joy of this home-bringing.
A boat was pulling rapidly off from the shore, and in a moment the anchor fell with a splash. They were close to the wharf, and almost immediately the boat from the shore was alongside. Everybody was cheering, and Jack and the Attorney Burton stood silently in the midst of it all. Suddenly Colonel Parker turned to Jack, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Come,” he said, “you must go along with us. The others may follow later.”
The young lady did not see him or seem to think of him. She was weeping and weeping, clinging to the stays, and now and then wiping her eyes. The crew helped her down into the boat, where Colonel Parker was already seated. Jack followed after her, and then the men pulled away toward the shore; in a moment they were at the wharf. The people, black and white, were crowded above them, and Madam Parker had struggled so close to the edge that her brother-in-law and Mr. Jones were holding her back. She was crying convulsively and hysterically, and reaching out her hands and arms, clutching toward her daughter. Jack sat, looking up at all the faces staring down at them. The only unmoved one among them all upon the wharf was Mr. Richard Parker. He stood, calm and unruffled, with hardly a change of expression upon his handsome face. The next moment the mother and daughter were in one another’s arms, weeping and crying; and then, a moment more, and Colonel Parker was with them, his arms around them both.
Still Mr. Richard Parker stood calmly by; only now, when Jack looked, he saw that his eyes were fastened steadily upon him—but there was neither surprise nor interest in his face. Then Jack, too, went ashore. Colonel Parker saw him. “My dear,” he said to his wife in a shaking voice, “this is our dear Nelly’s preserver—the young hero who brought her back to us. Have you not a welcome for him?”
Madam Parker looked up, her eyes streaming with tears. She could not have seen Jack through them, and Jack stood, overcome and abashed. Through it all he was conscious that Mr. Parker was still looking steadily at him.
“Ay, brother Richard,” said Colonel Parker, wiping his eyes, “you know him, do you not? Well, ’tis to him we owe it that our Nelly hath been brought back to us again, for ‘twas he who brought her.”
Then Jack looked at his former master and wondered what he was thinking; he said nothing.
CHAPTER XLV
PREPARATION
WE, OF THESE times, protected as we are by the laws and by the number of people about us, can hardly comprehend such a life as that of the American colonies in the early part of the last century, when it was possible for a pirate like Blackbeard to exist, and for the governor and the secretary of the province in which he lived perhaps to share his plunder, and to shelter and to protect him against the law.
At that time the American colonists were in general a rough, rugged people, knowing nothing of the finer things of life. They lived mostly in little settlements, separated by long distances from one another, so that they could neither make nor enforce laws to protect themselves. Each man or little group of men had to depend upon his or their own strength to keep what belonged to them, and to prevent fierce men or groups of men from seizing what did not belong to them.
It is the natural disposition of every one to get all that he can. Little children, for instance, always try to take away from others that which they want, and to keep it for their own. It is only by constant teaching that they learn that they must not do so; that they must not take by force what does not belong to them. So it is only by teaching and training that people learn to be honest and not to take what is not theirs. When this teaching is not sufficient to make a man learn to be honest, or when there is something in the man’s nature that makes him not able to learn, then he only lacks the opportunity to seize upon the things he wants, just as he would do if he were a little child.
In the colonies at that time, as was just said, men were too few and scattered to protect themselves against those who had made up their minds to take by force that which they wanted, and so it was that men lived an unrestrained and lawless life, such as we of these times of better government can hardly comprehend.
The usual means of commerce between province and province was by water in coasting vessels. These coasting vessels were so defenseless, and the different colonial government were so ill able to protect them, that those who chose to rob them could do it almost without danger to themselves.
So it was that all the western world was, in those days, infested with armed bands of cruising freebooters or pirates, who used to stop merchant vessels and take from them what they chose.
Each province in those days was ruled over by a royal governor appointed by the king. Each governor, at one time, was free to do almost as he pleased in his own province. He was accountable only to the king and his government, and England was so distant that he was really responsible almost to nobody but himself.
The governors were naturally just as desirous to get rich quickly, just as desirous of getting all that they could for themselves, as was anybody else—only they had been taught and had been able to learn that it was not right to be an actual pirate or robber. They wanted to be rich easily and quickly, but the desire was not strong enough to lead them to dishonor themselves in their own opinion and in the opinion of others by gratifying their selfishness. They would even have stopped the pirates from doing what they did if they could, but their provincial governments were too weak to prevent the freebooters from robbing merchant vessels, or to punish them when they came ashore. The provinces had no navies, and they really had no armies; neither were there enough people living within the community to enforce the laws against those stronger and fiercer men who were not honest.
After the things the pirates seized from merchant vessels were once stolen they were altogether lost. Almost never did any owner apply for them, for it would be useless to do so. The stolen goods and merchandise lay in the storehouses of the pirates, seemingly without any owner excepting the pirates themselves.
The governors and the secretaries of the colonies would not dishonor themselves by pirating upon merchant vessels, but it did not seem so wicked after the goods were stolen—and so altogether lost—to take a part of that which seemed to have no owner.
A child is taught that it is a very wicked thing to take, for instance, by force, a lump of sugar from another child; but when a wicked child has seized the sugar from another and taken it around the corner, and that other child from whom he has seized it has gone home crying, it does not seem so wicked for the third child to take a bite of the sugar when it is offered to him, even if he thinks it has been taken from some one else.
It was just so, no doubt, that it did not seem so wicked to Governor Eden and Secretary Knight of North Carolina, or to Governor Fletcher of New York, or to other colonial governors, to take a part of the booty that the pirates, such as Blackbeard, had stolen. It did not even seem very wicked to compel such pirates to give up a part of what was not theirs, and which seemed to have no owner.
In Governor Eden’s time, however, the colonies had begun to be more thickly peopled, and the laws had gradually become stronger and stronger to protect men in the possession of what was theirs. Governor Eden was the last of the colonial governors who had dealings with the pirates, and Blackbeard was almost the last of the pirates who, with his banded men, was savage and powerful enough to come and go as he chose among the people whom he plundered.
Virginia, at that time, was the greatest and the richest of all the American colonies, and upon the further side of North Carolina was the province of South Carolina, also strong and rich. It was these two colonies that suffered the most from Blackbeard, and it began to be that the honest men that lived in them could endure no longer to be plundered.
The merchants and traders and others who suffered cried out loudly for protection; so loudly that the governors of these provinces could not help hearing them.
Governor Eden was petitioned to act against the pirates; but he would do nothing, for he felt very friendly toward Blackbeard—just as a child who has had a taste of the stolen sugar feels friendly toward the child who gives it to him.
At last, when Blackbeard sailed up into the very heart of Virginia, and seized upon and carried away the daughter of that colony’s foremost people, the Governor of Virginia, finding that the Governor of North Carolina would do nothing to punish the outrage, took the matter into his own hands and issued a proclamation offering a reward of one hundred pounds for Blackbeard, alive or dead, and different sums for the other pirates who were his followers.
Governor Spottiswood had the right to issue the proclamation, but he had no right to commission Lieutenant Maynard, as he did, to take down an armed force into the neighboring province and to attack the pirates in the waters of the North Carolina sounds. It was all a part of the rude and lawless condition of the colonies at the time that such a thing could have been done.
The governor’s proclamation against the pirates was issued upon the eleventh day of November. It was read in the churches the Sunday following and was posted upon the doors of all the government custom offices in lower Virginia. Lieutenant Maynard, in the boats that Colonel Parker had already fitted out to go against the pirates, set sail upon the seventeenth of the month for Ocracock. Five days later the battle was fought.
Blackbeard’s sloop was lying inside of Ocracock Inlet among the shoals and sand-bars, when he first heard of Governor Spottiswood’s proclamation.
There had been a storm, and a good many vessels had run into the inlet for shelter. Blackbeard knew nearly all of the captains of these vessels, and it was from them that he first heard of the proclamation.
He had gone aboard one of the vessels—a coaster from Boston. The wind was still blowing pretty hard from the southeast. There were maybe a dozen vessels lying within the inlet at that time, and the captain of one of them was paying the Boston skipper a visit when Blackbeard came aboard. The two captains had been talking together. They instantly ceased when the pirate came down into the cabin, but he had heard enough of their conversation to catch its drift. “Why d’ye stop?” he said. “I heard what you said. Well, what then? D’ ye think I mind it at all? Spottiswood is going to send his bullies down here after me. That’s what you were saying. Well, what then? You don’t think I’m afraid of his bullies, do you?”
“Why, no, captain, I didn’t say you was afraid,” said the visiting captain.
“And what right has he got to send down here against me in North Carolina, I should like to ask you?”
“He’s got none at all,” said the Boston captain, soothingly. “Won’t you take a taste of Hollands, Captain?”
“He’s no more right to come blustering down here into Governor Eden’s province than I have to come aboard of your schooner here, Tom Burley, and to carry off two or three kegs of this prime Hollands for my own drinking.”
Captain Burley—the Boston man—laughed a loud, forced laugh. “Why, captain,” he said, “as for two or three kegs of Hollands, you won’t find that aboard. But if you’d like to have a keg of it for your own drinking, I’ll send it to you and be glad enough to do so for old acquaintance’ sake.”
“But I tell you what ’tis, captain,” said the visiting skipper to Blackbeard, “they’re determined and set against you this time. I tell you, captain, Governor Spottiswood hath issued a hot proclamation against you, and ‘t hath been read out in all the churches. I myself saw it posted in Yorktown upon the Custom-House door and read it there myself. The governor offers one hundred pounds for you, and fifty pounds for your officers, and twenty pounds each for your men.”
“Well, then,” said Blackbeard, holding up his glass, “here, I wish ‘em good luck, and when they get their hundred pounds for me they’ll be in a poor way to spend it. As for the Hollands,” said he, turning to Captain Burley, “I know what you’ve got aboard here and what you haven’t. D’ ye suppose ye can blind me? Very well, you send over two kegs, and I’ll let you go without search.” The two captains were very silent. “As for that Lieutenant Maynard you’re all talking about,” said Blackbeard, “why, I know him very well. He was the one who was so busy with the pirates down Madagascar way. I believe you’d all like to see him blow me out of the water, but he can’t do it. There’s nobody in his Majesty’s service I’d rather meet than Lieutenant Maynard. I’d teach him pretty briskly that North Carolina isn’t Madagascar.”
On the evening of the twenty-second the two vessels under command of Lieutenant Maynard came into the mouth of Ocracock Inlet and there dropped anchor. Meantime the weather had cleared, and all the vessels but one had gone from the inlet. The one vessel that remained was a New Yorker. It had been there over a night and a day, and the captain and Blackbeard had become very good friends.
The same night that Maynard came into the inlet, a wedding was held on the shore. A number of men and women came up the beach in ox-carts and sledges; others had come in boats from more distant points and across the water.
The captain of the New Yorker and Blackbeard went ashore together a little after dark. The New Yorker had been aboard of the pirate’s sloop for all the latter part of the afternoon, and he and Blackbeard had been drinking together in the cabin. The New York man was now a little tipsy, and he laughed and talked foolishly as he and Blackbeard were rowed ashore. The pirate sat grim and silent.
It was nearly dark when they stepped ashore on the beach. The New York captain stumbled and fell headlong, rolling over and over, and the crew of the boat burst out laughing.
The people had already begun to dance in an open shed fronting upon the shore. There were fires of pine-knots in front of the building, lighting up the interior with a red glare. A negro was playing a fiddle somewhere inside, and it was filled with a crowd of grotesque dancing figures—men and women. Now and then they called with loud voices as they danced, and the squeaking of the fiddle sounded incessantly through the noise of outcries and the stamp and shuffling of feet.
Captain Teach and the New York captain stood looking on. The New York man had tilted himself against a post and stood there holding one arm around it, supporting himself. He waved the other hand foolishly in time to the music, now and then snapping his thumb and finger.
The young woman who had just been married approached the two. She had been dancing, and she was warm and red, her hair blowsed about her head. “Hi, captain, won’t you dance with me?” she said to Blackbeard.
Blackbeard stared at her. “Who be you?” he said.
She burst out laughing. “You look as if you’d eat a body,” she cried.
Blackbeard’s face gradually relaxed. “Why, to be sure, you’re a brazen one, for all the world,” he said. “Well, I’ll dance with you, that I will. I’ll dance the heart out of you.”
He pushed forward, thrusting aside with his elbow the newly-made husband. The man, who saw that Blackbeard had been drinking, burst out laughing, and the other men and women who had been standing around drew away, so that in a little while the floor was pretty well cleared. One could see the negro now; he sat on a barrel at the end of the room. He grinned with his white teeth and, without stopping in his fiddling, scraped his bow harshly across the strings, and then instantly changed the tune to a lively jig. Blackbeard jumped up into the air and clapped his heels together, giving, as he did so, a sharp, short yell. Then he began instantly dancing grotesquely and violently. The woman danced opposite to him, this way and that, with her knuckles on her hips. Everybody burst out laughing at Blackbeard’s grotesque antics. They laughed again and again, clapping their hands, and the negro scraped away on his fiddle like fury. The woman’s hair came tumbling down her back. She tucked it back, laughing and panting, and the sweat ran down her face. She danced and danced. At last she burst out laughing and stopped, panting. Blackbeard again jumped up in the air and clapped his heels. Again he yelled, and as he did so, he struck his heels upon the floor and spun around. Once more everybody burst out laughing, clapping their hands, and the negro stopped fiddling.
Near by was a shanty or cabin where they were selling spirits, and by and by Blackbeard went there with the New York captain, and presently they began drinking again. “Hi, captain!” called one of the men, “Maynard’s out yonder in the inlet. Jack Bishop’s just come across from t’other side. He says Mr. Maynard hailed him and asked for a pilot to fetch him in.”
“Well, here’s luck to him, and he can’t come in quick enough for me!” cried out Blackbeard in his hoarse, husky voice.
“Well, captain,” called a voice, “will ye fight him to-morrow?”
“Ay,” shouted the pirate, “if he can get in to me, I’ll try to give ‘em what they seek, and all they want of it into the bargain. As for a pilot, I tell ye what ’tis. If any man hereabouts goes out there to pilot that villain in, ‘twill be the worst day’s work he ever did in all of his life. ‘Twon’t be fit for him to live in these parts of America if I am living here at the same time.” There was a burst of laughter.
“Give us a toast, captain! Give us something to drink to! Ay, captain, a toast! A toast!” a half dozen voices were calling out at the same time.
“Well,” cried out the pirate captain, “here’s to a good, hot fight to-morrow, and the best dog on top! ‘Twill be, Bang! bang!—this way!”
He began pulling a pistol out of his pocket, but it stuck in the lining, and he struggled and tugged at it. The men ducked and scrambled away from before him, and then the next moment he had the pistol out of his pocket. He swung it around and around. There was perfect silence. Suddenly there was a flash and a stunning report, and instantly a crash and tinkle of broken glass. One of the men cried out, and began picking and jerking at the back of his neck. “He’s broken that bottle all down my neck,” he called out.
“That’s the way ‘twill be,” said Blackbeard.
“Lookee,” said the owner of the place, “I won’t serve out another drop if ’tis going to be like that. If there’s any more trouble I’ll blow out the lantern.”
The sound of the squeaking and scraping of the fiddle and the shouts and the scuffling feet still came from the shed where the dancing was going on.
“Suppose you get your dose to-morrow, captain,” some one called out, “what then?”
“Why, if I do,” said Blackbeard, “I get it, and that’s all there is of it.”
“Your wife’ll be a rich widdy then, won’t she?” cried one of the men; and there was a burst of laughter.
“Why,” said the New York captain,—“why, has a—a bloody p—pirate like you a wife then—a—like any honest man?”
“She’ll be no richer than she is now,” said Blackbeard.
“She knows where you’ve hid your money, anyways; don’t she, captain?” called out a voice.
“The divil knows where I’ve hid my money,” said Blackbeard, “and I know where I’ve hid it; and the longest liver of the twain will get it all. And that’s all there is of it.”
The gray of early day was beginning to show in the east when Blackbeard and the New York captain came down to the landing together. The New York captain swayed and toppled this way and that as he walked, now falling against Blackbeard, and now staggering away from him.