whose lofty aisle of dark green foliage framed, in a diminishing
perspective, a squat white house with a wide verandah, crouched beneath
a little hill of tropical foliage. Our negro stopped; his errand, he
said, was done,--that was Mr Murch’s house. He stood shifting from one
leg to the other, his white eyeballs glancing on every side, holding
out his dingy paw for his fee, in a terrible hurry to be gone. As the
money touched his palm he was off like an arrow.
“He doesn’t seem to relish the neighbourhood,” Pomfrett observed,
staring after the fleeing figure. “It seems quiet enough.”
It was quiet, indeed. The breeze hummed in the vast, feathery
tree-tops, the grasshoppers chirped, and the droning of the flies was
like the turning of a wheel; but these monotonous sounds made but an
undercurrent in the deep stillness. Not a soul was in sight. The low,
secret-looking house with the green shutters stood to all appearance
wholly deserted, as we approached. The whole place was noiseless as
a dream. I had a fancy, indeed, that I was walking in a dream, as we
came to the neatly raked sand in front of the verandah, upon which our
footsteps made no sound, and noted the shuttered windows, and spied in
vain for any sign of habitation. But Pomfrett had no such fancies.
“I suppose these people sleep in the day-time. We’ll make ’em rouse and
bitt,” said he, and rapped smartly on the door.
It was opened with unexpected promptness by an old, white-haired negro.
We asked him if Mr Jevon Murch were within. Instead of answering, the
black opened his mouth and, gaping at us horribly, pointed down that
red cavern. Our eyes following his gesture, we saw that his tongue had
been cut out. Pomfrett had the letter of introduction in his hand.
Still fearfully staring, he offered it mechanically to this nightmare
of a negro, who took it, nodded, flashed a grin upon us, and shut the
door in our faces.
We looked at one another, not without dismay.
“Oh, dear me!” said Pomfrett, with great gravity. “What next, I wonder?”
The hot silence settled thick about us, as we waited on the threshold.
V
MR MURCH’S REPENTANCE
Presently the negro reappeared, motioned us within, and led us into a
cool, gloomy room with a matted floor, sparely furnished with a table,
a great carved settle, and a red earthenware water-jar, oozing a cold
perspiration. The walls, of baked earth, or adobe, were two or three
feet thick in the embrasure of the small window, which was fitted with
an iron grille, curiously wrought. The square of the window framed
a space of blinding sunshine, continually crossed and recrossed by
darting, many-coloured flies. We had a few minutes in which to remark
these things, before the heavy door opened, and there entered a tall
old man, dressed in loose clothes of white linen. His complexion was
of the colour of old mahogany, so that his eyes glinted light like
steel, and his thick white hair and beard were as snow. With his strong
projection of chin, line of forehead running sharply backward and
upward, and upward slant of tufted eyebrow and long, narrow eye, there
was at the first glance a certain viperine aspect about Mr Jevon Murch.
The skin of his face was wrought into a net-work of fine lines, not
only about the eyes, where the net was closest, but covering cheek and
forehead.
“Mr Pomfrett,” said Mr Murch, bending his keen glance upon each of us
in turn. He had a beautiful deep voice, like a bell.
Pomfrett signified that he was the person addressed.
“Ah! You are Brandon Pomfrett? And you, sir, are Henry Winter?
Precisely. Well, gentlemen,” said Mr Murch, with stern deliberation, “I
am sorry to see you here. But I have my duty to do, as you have yours.”
At this unexpected address, we stared in amazement.
“I surprise you,” said Mr Murch. “Or, rather, God surprises you. You
shall never escape Him. He is ever in ambuscade. Did you think to avoid
His arm by fleeing across the seas? Why, you witless boys, all the
while ’twas His wind was blowing you to the place of repentance.”
We had no notion of what this extraordinary man might mean; but it
seemed clear enough that the sooner we were out of his house the better.
“I fear,” said Brandon, politely, “there has been some mistake, sir.
We have the honour to wish you good-day.” He made as if to go, but Mr
Murch stood against the door, his hand upon the lock.
“As to a mistake, be sure, Mr Pomfrett, I will ascertain the rights of
the business. Sir,” said Mr Murch, with great dignity, “I keep a clean
ship here--no slaver. Meanwhile, sirs, I must ask you to accept my
hospitality.” He slipped from the room, and we heard the bolt click. We
were prisoners.
Of course, we tried to get out; and, of course, we failed. The door
was of some dark, hard, foreign wood, inches thick; the window-bars
were immovable. We discussed the situation. At first we were ready to
conclude that Mr Jevon Murch was mad, since he was evidently sober; but
the explanation seemed inadequate. Such were the hurry and disorder of
our spirits, that it took us a long time to arrive at the conclusion
which, to the reader, must appear fairly obvious. Mr Dawkins had
sold us to his friend, Mr Murch, who would either keep us captive
until the ship had sailed, or, what in those days was the more likely
supposition, would enslave us to work on his plantation. Either way,
the prospect did not smile. Either way, as the supercargo remarked, we
were in a clove hitch. But, why should Mr Dawkins desire to be rid of
the owners’ agent and, by consequence, his assistant? Here, again, we
were long in debate before we came to a plausible theory. The owners’
representatives out of the way, Mr Dawkins would lift the plate and
skip with the profits--this was our brilliant solution.
“Why, the man’s a common pirate,” cried Brandon. “However could we
have engaged him? But it was the bottle did it; we had to, you see. It
was all my fault, but it seemed such plain sailing at the time. I can
never go back to England now, whatever this Murch does with us. We’re
done--the game’s up. And I’ve dragged you into it, too, Harry,” says
Brandon, with a very proper expression of remorse.
But regrets were unavailing, as I told him; this world is
unsusceptible of refinements. It was to be supposed that Dawkins’s
letter to Murch had described us as two young gallows-birds whose
ingenuous faces our relatives were not anxious to behold again.
Everyone is aware that the plantations used to relieve of their
failures who knows how many excellent families? There was nothing
strange in that. Dawkins had probably garlanded our necks for the
sacrifice with the fragments of all the Ten Commandments; or, rather,
it was to be supposed, Gamaliel’s fertile wit had done so for him,
since Dawkins was no hand with a pen. Mr Murch, in all likelihood, was
even now gone to see Captain Dawkins on our account; Dawkins would
confirm his letter with damning detail; the bonds would be signed,
and Mr Dawkins would pouch two hundred pieces of eight, or so. He
would be at no loss to explain to the officers the continued absence
of two dissolute young men; would make great pretence of delaying his
departure; and would finally cut sail, swearing that he declined to
lose another half-hour for the Angel Gabriel himself. We could see
him at it. As for Mr Jevon Murch, he would return with Dawkins’s
sign-manual for value received in his pocket, and--what then? We should
be his property, as much as his ass, or his ox, or anything that was
his. We should have lost everything in the world, and ourselves into
the bargain. And yet, Mr Murch seemed possessed of piety, a strange
quality in a friend of Mr Dawkins’s and one of Captain Morgan’s men.
“If there’s anything I hate,” says Brandon, with great energy, “’tis
hypocrisy.”
I was beginning to explain to him how rare was this vice, so fluently
imputed, so difficult to learn, when there came a knock at the door,
a little barred wicket opened in the panel, and the face of the dumb
negro appeared in the opening. He handed in a bottle of wine, a couple
of cold roasted fowls, a branch of bananas, some good white bread, and
various small delicacies. These I received and set out on the table,
for Pomfrett refused to touch them.
“I will not break bread in the house of this canting scoundrel of
a crimp and buccaneer,” said he, nobly, with a ravenous eye on the
victuals, the like of which he had not smelt for weeks.
And all hungry and thirsty as I was, I had to persuade the virtuous
supercargo that here were no hospitalities of an equal, but rations for
prisoners, before I could begin.
“Do you really think so?” said Brandon.
I understood him. “My dear man,” said I, “do you take my feelings to be
less delicate than your own?”
This was all he wanted; and, honour being satisfied, we made a heavenly
meal. The negro kept in attendance and brought us cigarros, and we
lay on the floor and smoked. We were not nearly so sad as we thought
we were. I think, secretly, we began to conceive a sneaking kindness
towards Mr Jevon Murch.
The twilight was gathering, when the bolts shot back, the door swung
wide, and the great figure of Mr Murch appeared in the dark of the
doorway.
“If you will have the kindness to come into my room, gentlemen, we will
have a talk,” said he.
“Sir,” began Pomfrett, “what----”
But Murch had turned his back. Following him, we stepped into the
passage, glancing left and right for a chance of escape. The passage
opened at either end to the cool of the evening air; and in the
doorways lounged two or three white men in great hats, holding long
guns in the hollow of their arms, whom I took to be overseers. We
followed Mr Murch into the room opposite our prison. He sat beside a
tall scrutoire, a pair of lighted candles in silver candlesticks at his
elbow.
“Now, gentlemen,” said he. “I have heard your captain’s account of you.
I should be glad to hear your own.”
“By what right----” Brandon began.
“By right of purchase,” Mr Murch broke in. “You are as much mine”--he
spread his broad hand upon the desk--“to keep, burn, or destroy, as
this piece of furniture. Do you require documentary evidence? Here it
is.”
He took a folded paper from his vest and laid it beside him. It was as
we thought. We were indentured slaves for five years.
But Brandon declined to look at the document, declined to accept Mr
Murch’s explanation, declined to have anything to do with him. He
demanded, as a free British subject, to be liberated instantly, and
so forth, with a fine indignation; to all of which Mr Murch hearkened
with more patience than I should have expected him to manifest, on
the whole. As he reclined in his chair, his great size and mass half
in light and half in shadow, his narrow eyes, the upper lids drawn
close, like the lids of a hawk’s eye, fixed upon the speaker’s simple
countenance, the old buccaneer disengaged a strong expression of latent
force; of sleeping fires that a touch might kindle into a highly
disagreeable conflagration.
“I should tell you, Mr Pomfrett,” said he, in his sounding, deliberate
tones, “that all this is nothing. Barbadoes is not England. Once for
all, I am master here. There’s no admiral that sails the seas commands
the obedience I command. Now, as to my request, again. Your story,
gentlemen, is of no moment to me. You, Mr Pomfrett, may have misapplied
your uncle’s money; you, Mr Winter, may have stolen a virtuous young
woman from her parents”--here, then, were some of Mr Dawkins’s rather
clumsy inventions--“it is nothing to me. It was rather for your own
sakes that I made my request. I make it again.”
Every line upon his swarthy face, every hair of his strong white beard,
every vibration of his deep voice cried “Beware!” We complied. We told
Mr Jevon Murch all that had befallen, from the meeting in Gamaliel’s
tavern to our landing in this accursed island. Pomfrett ended by a
fervent adjuration, imploring Mr Murch, if he could not give or sell
his liberty, at least to let him go down to the ship, on his parole,
and challenge Captain Dawkins to mortal combat.
Mr Murch, who had listened without a word, good or bad, treated the
proposition very airily.
“My lad,” said he, “don’t you know Dawkins better than that? He does
not fight except for gain. Moreover, he sails to-night--has already cut
sail, in all likelihood.”
I thought Brandon would have sprung at his throat, and then I thought
he would break into weeping. He glanced at the iron face of his master,
and then he stood looking down, with a bitten lip. Before he had time
to give way to his feelings, Murch struck a silver gong, and a brown
servant appeared, by whom preceded, and followed by Mr Murch, we were
conducted into a sleeping-chamber. Murch commended to us the food and
wine set out on a side-table, bade us good-night, and left us, bolting
the door after him.
These emergencies of life are worse in either anticipation or
retrospect than in experience. We thought little, and said little, ate
and drank, and slept soundly, chiefly conscious of the pleasure of
being ashore, in a clean house, with fresh food. That we were sold into
slavery was certainly a disaster; we were aware of it, in the abstract;
but, at present, we felt it not. As for Mr Murch, he puzzled us.
But, somehow or other, during the night-watches the shadow of servitude
descended upon us. We awoke at first to a vague consciousness of a
nameless taint, then to a clear perception of that infamy. In the good
hour of the dawn, when the world is all still, and the air scented
with the smoke of wood-fires, we stood sullen at the window, gazing at
the clear glory of the sky with the eyes of chained dogs. It was so Mr
Murch found us, when he came briskly in, at the heels of a thundering
knock, cat-footed, for all his bulk, and massively alert.
“Gentlemen, what cheer? I have brought you a little present,” quoth
he, tapping a folded paper with his thick fingers. “Do me the favour to
glance at this document.”
Pomfrett received the paper, and together we ran our eyes over it. It
was the same I had perused the night before, signed with Dawkins’s
great sprawling signature, and purporting to be the indenture
delivering us to Mr Jevon Murch for a term of five years. The sum paid
was one hundred and fifteen pieces of eight for Brandon Pomfrett, aged
twenty-two; one hundred for Henry Winter, aged twenty-five; both being
“notorious profligate evil-livers.” The schoolmaster, it appeared, was
the cheaper article--why?
“You have us in a trap--we knew that last night,” said Brandon,
returning the paper. “But let me tell you, that’s a shameful document,”
he added, hardily.
Mr Murch, with those narrow-lidded eyes of his on Brandon, slowly tore
the paper across and across. We stared at the pieces as they dropped,
and up at the bronze countenance with its inscrutable hieroglyphic of
fine lines.
“What do you mean by that?” asked Pomfrett, stupidly.
“I desire your company, gentlemen, at breakfast--and my servants do
not sit at table with me,” said Mr Murch. “I beg you will so favour
me.” With his customary abrupt action, he turned about and padded from
the room. What should we do but follow? Mr Murch led us out into the
verandah. A lady wearing a black lace mantilla, as the Spanish ladies
use, came to him and kissed him.
We were presented in due form to Mistress Morgan Leroux. What shall I
say of her? She had the blackest eyes I ever beheld (but no eyes are
truly black), beneath level brows, and a mouth the colour of bruised
poppies. In the shadow of her hood and her dark hair she glowed like
a rose, a refreshing vision to eyes tired with the eternal waste of
sea. Mistress Morgan looked curiously at these two gentlemen, who were
slaves (the taint was upon us still) no later than this morning, and it
was their glance that dropped.
Mr Murch ate enough for three, and talked in a proportion.
“A clean ship, and the log posted--there’s the rule for a mariner,”
says he. “Now, gentlemen, I’ll tell you. I’ve had youngsters shipped to
me before; their cases were clear; repentance was the thing for them,
and discipline to back it. Repentance is the word. A man is blown out
of his course--there’s never mortal man that isn’t--and fetches up on a
lee-shore very likely. He claws off as best he may, and thinks no more
about it. And when he’s shipwrecked once for all, he’s surprised. He
likes to consider himself a clever man, you see--he hasn’t the heart
to repent--he’s a fool. Well, now, when I came to post up the log last
night, I had in my mind that Dawkins was lying, after what you told me
of yourselves. I know Mr Dawkins better than he knows me. But I wasn’t
sure. I took the night to think it over, and this morning I saw what to
do. Yours, gentlemen, is not a common case.”
“I hope not,” said Pomfrett. “I’ve lost my ship.”
“And that’s better than losing your head, my lad,” observed Mr Murch.
“Was that the alternative?” enquired Pomfrett, apparently with ironical
intention.
“Dawkins is bitter fond of money, but he must be growing strangely
patient in his old age to have suffered an owners’ agent so long,”
returned Mr Murch, shaking his great head. “Why, next to the captain
who died, and lucky for him, you were the thorn in his pillow from the
beginning. What! not content with being an agent, you must hector him
on his quarterdeck, by your own account! No--it’s a miracle you came
ashore, Mr Supercargo.”
Here was a new point of view. Mr Murch began to appear transfigured
into the light of a saviour.
“Yes,” he went on, “you may say I bought your salvation, gentlemen.
No--don’t thank me.” Mr Murch waved deprecating hands. “If I hadn’t
bought you, others would. Dawkins came to me as an old shipmate, you
see.”
It was like a dream to be sitting in that strange place, with the girl
watching us, and the old buccaneer discussing, between mouthfuls, the
question of our death or purchase as though we had been a brace of
poultry.
“But what I say and maintain, is a clean ship above board and below,”
said Murch, harping back. “I hope I make myself clear, gentlemen. I
want you to understand me. I know what’s right and I know what’s wrong,
as well as any man alive. I consider it right to buy slaves under
certain conditions, wrong under others. You do right, as you think;
you find it wrong; what then? Repent, as I was saying. Repent, smart
and handsome, and that brings you to your course again. Take your own
case--you see? Why, now, that’s all shipshape. With your leave, we’ll
talk business presently. Mistress Morgan will entertain you in the
meanwhile, I daresay.”
Having delivered himself of these sentiments in his weighty, sonorous
manner, whose positive assurance implied negation of even the
possibility of contradiction, the old gentleman clapped a palm-leaf hat
on his head, called for his horse, and disappeared.
“When Mr Murch talks in this way, you may believe him. It is true what
he says.” Thus abruptly did Mistress Morgan Leroux address us, with a
clear foreign-accented enunciation.
“Is Mr Murch your----?” asked Pomfrett, rather at a loss.
“My guardian, yes,” said the girl. “Ever since Sir Henry Morgan went
to England. He was my grandfather--Sir Henry; that is why I am called
Morgan.”
She sent for cigarros, and took one herself. We sat there in the
cool shadow, well filled and comfortable. Pomfrett talked with
Morgan Leroux. He forgot his ship, and his owners, and his aunt, and
everything--you had only to glance at his face to know that. I let them
talk; women are not much in my way. After a while old Murch came back
and carried us into his room.
VI
TWO CATSPAWS AND A LADY
The dusky chamber, its lattices closed against the heat, was filled
with the rushing noise of the wind in the trees without. Brandon
Pomfrett gazed at me with a rueful countenance; he was thinking of the
_Blessed Endeavour_, our tall ship, thrashing along before the gale,
main-chains under, while we were caged with the old buccaneer.
“Well,” said Mr Murch, answering our thought, “so Mr Dawkins is
cracking on for Yucatan, is he? From what I saw of your ship, I should
say Dawkins could knock nine knots out of her, on a wind. He’ll soon
fetch up in Catoche Bay. Now, I wonder, Mr Supercargo, if your owners
would entertain a claim for salvage? I mean, if Dawkins were taken,
now, with the plate on board, what, sir, on behalf of your owners,
would you propose, for example?”
Mr Supercargo, excited but cautious, was understood to propose full
and adequate compensation. Mr Murch appeared to reflect upon the
proposition.
“Now,” he resumed, presently, “you know my rule,--a clean ship alow
and aloft, nothing to hide, nothing hidden. Plain, open dealing. I
tell you, candidly, I should find it hard to get a ship. I was one of
Morgan’s men, you see. I’m earmarked. Every governor in these islands
is bound to put down piracy. That is, if he hears of it. He’s not
forced to ask questions. But Jevon Murch--no, they couldn’t allow Jevon
Murch. That were too undisguised. But you, my lads,” says the old
gentleman, stroking his beard and surveying us with narrowed eyes, “you
could take your pick of every clipper bottom in the Indies.”
“There’s a trifling obstacle--we’ve no money,” said Pomfrett.
“There’s money to be had, perhaps,” said Murch. “I’ll be plain with
you. I’ve a notion to end my days in England--I want to see Mistress
Morgan settled there before I die. But England is no place for a poor
man. I should have to sell the plantation, you see. To leave the estate
to an agent is as good as to lose it--no reflection intended, Mr
Pomfrett, I assure you. The sale would bring something, but not enough.
How am I to get more? I’ll tell you, and here’s my offer. You get the
ship, I’ll find the money. Fit her out as a privateer, and make sail
after Dawkins. If we catch him, there’s your ship for you and salvage
for me. If we don’t, why, with two stout ships I’ll engage to cut the
guts out of Frenchman and Spaniard from the River Plate to California.
It would be worth my while, you see. The question is, do you take it to
be worth yours, Mr Agent?”
Mr Agent sat gazing upon the old pirate out of troubled blue eyes.
The noise of the wind filled the room, thundering about the house,
and beating with muffled blows upon the windows. Before the same gale
Dawkins was slipping northward.
“Isn’t it too late?” said Brandon, dubiously.
“For Dawkins? No,” returned Murch. “No, I think not. I’ll tell you
why. Dawkins will require another-guess crew to what he shipped with.
There’s old seamen who’ve sailed on the account scattered in every port
from here to Tortuga. Dawkins will shed his green stuff on the beach
and fill up with the preserved ginger, if I know him. Let him, I say.
All the better for us.”
Another pause, the hurry and the tumult of the wind mixed with the
hurry and tumult of our minds. The new prospect was so unexpected, so
suddenly opened, we were confounded. Mr Murch sat looking placidly down
his nose.
“I’ll wager,” said he, presently, “you are wondering how I can trust
two strange gentlemen so instantly. Simple enough. At my age, I can
tell a man when I see him. At yours, now--why, you’re thinking even now
that you put your heads in the lion’s mouth when you ship with me; deny
it if you can,” says the old gentleman, creasing his face into a grin
that curved his mouth upward, revealing his strong white teeth.
It was true. For me, I could conceive of no more desperate enterprise.
But, our case was desperate. And Brandon, who would have given his body
to be burned to get his ship back, asked for a day to consider the
matter.
“A day!” cried Mr Murch. “Why, I would undertake to think the sun out
of the heavens in a day. Better spin a ducat and be done. But take your
time, gentlemen, take your time. Meanwhile, I’ll take a walk to the
harbour. No sense in losing time, and I might fall across something
which would come in useful. Remember, gentlemen, you are to use this
house as your own.”
With that, he was gone. There seemed in us, upon discussion, some fatal
attraction to piracy. Dawkins comes to Bristol, and chance, which might
have led us twenty other ways, takes us straight into his company. He
has us safe in that accursed bottle of his the same day, and there we
are fitting out a fine ship for him to steal. We come to Barbadoes,
are cast straightway into Mr Murch’s clutches, and in a trice we are
getting a ship for Mr Murch--for him to steal, for all we knew. A fate
was upon us: we were born to be catspaws for pirates.