little we knew of governors did not incline us to this course. If he
sent a ship-of-war after Mr Dawkins--which was highly improbable--any
booty there might be would be confiscate to the government. The ship
might be confiscate, too, for all we knew to the contrary. Besides,
Dawkins would assuredly fight, and the ship would be knocked to pieces,
or sunk, very likely. And if she were taken without damage, what
should we be doing with a shipload of pirates, in strange waters,
without captain, pilot, or sailing-master? The enterprise did not
promise much. True, it seemed the legal, proper procedure; but were
we not bound to do the best for the owners, irrespective of legal
considerations?
“Very well,” says Pomfrett, “shall we ship with Murch? He’s----”
The door opened, and there was Mistress Morgan.
“He’s our only chance,” Brandon ended, hastily.
“And pray, sir, who is your only chance?” asked Mistress Morgan,
familiarly. She seated herself in Mr Murch’s chair. This lady did not
at all resemble our English ladies at home. She looked you in the face;
she spoke to you as to an equal; she had no tricks of attitude or
manner; but walked or reclined with the graceful, languorous freedom of
an animal. In England, they would have said she lacked breeding.
Pomfrett had a notion that it was improper to discuss affairs with
ladies, as his countenance plainly showed. “We were talking of some
business, madam,” said he.
“Oh, I know your story,” said Mistress Morgan. “Mr Murch told me. I
begged him, when,” says she, without the faintest reticence, “he bought
you, to give you to me. I seldom see gentlemen fresh from England. I
hoped you would amuse me.”
I do not know if it amused Mistress Morgan to see at least one
gentleman fresh from England, sitting in a dumb agony of embarrassment
before her.
“Tell me,” repeated Morgan Leroux, “who is your only chance? You are my
lawful prey, you know. Would you escape my bondage?”
“On the contrary,” says Brandon, with sudden courage, “we would embrace
it?”
“Embrace! Fie, Mr Pomfrett, what a word to use to a lady!” says
Mistress Leroux, and Brandon flushed to his ears.
“Never mind,” she went on, “you meant no harm, I can see. Now, are
we to sail to England together? Before you came, I was pestering Mr
Murch night and day to take me to England, and he kept fobbing me off
with this and that. And this morning he tells me it all depends on
your consent to a proposal of his. Why, now, can you hesitate? Will
you condemn poor Morgan Leroux to a lifetime on a plantation? Oh, if
you knew how I hate the everlasting dulness of the days, everyone
alike--and the smell of the black people!”
Pomfrett looked furtively at me. We had not taken the lady into
consideration hitherto. Here was a new inducement; to Pomfrett,
perilously attractive. I could see that he was trying to square his
impulse with his duty to his owners. Morgan Leroux turned to me.
“Mr Winter, how mum you sit in your corner. Why, I’m ready to swear
I’ve not yet heard the sound of your voice. What do you say, now?”
I said I was but an humble clerk, whose duty it was to follow whither
he was led.
“A very proper answer, Mr Winter,” said Morgan, bluntly. She meant
nothing contemptuous; she said what she thought.
“Mistress Leroux,” said Brandon, “you know our story. You know what
we are. We’re marooned by a pirate; we’ve lost our ship; we’ve not a
guinea in the world; we’re ruined. Mr Murch makes us an offer. Had we
only ourselves to consider, we would accept it without question. But we
are answerable to the owners. Now, Mr Murch may mean very honestly by
us; or--if you will pardon me--he may not. We don’t know Mr Murch. You
do. I put myself in your hands. I appeal to you. What do you say?”
Thus Brandon, with a strong flush and very earnestly. Morgan Leroux
considered him for a moment.
“You say I know him,” she answered, slowly. “I doubt if I do, though
I’ve lived in his house for several years. All I can tell you is, he is
just and kind to me, and he has the name of a just man. What he thinks
right, that he does, and nothing stops him.”
“There it is!” said Brandon, eagerly--“what he thinks right! The
question is, what _does_ he think right? You see, we’re new to this
buccaneering business--it seems to have laws of its own, quite
different from the Ten Commandments. We haven’t quite got the drift of
the thing.”
Morgan looked at him with real concern in her vivid face.
“Do you know, Mr Pomfrett,” said she, gravely, “I think both you and I
must take our chance. And for your business, I can tell you that it is
of no use appealing to the Governor,” she added, significantly.
This, chiming with our own desires, clinched the matter.
“It seems,” said Brandon, as soon as we were alone, “that we are
appointed to serve as pirates’ catspaws. Well, we’ll see which will
pull the most from the fire, the thieves or the honest men.”
“Did you never feel,” I asked him, “when we started the business with
Dawkins, that there was something behind--that it came too easy to be
natural?”
“No,” said Brandon. “Did you?”
I told him that I did; and, what was more, that I had the same feeling
at that moment. I told him Murch was too prodigal of his assurances of
plain dealing; that, so far as my experience served, honest men did not
indulge in these protestations; that I believed them (as I do still) to
be the infallible mark of insincerity.
“Why the devil, then,” said Pomfrett, “didn’t you say so before? It’s
too late to begin croaking now.”
At which I showed him we had no choice; and, therefore, needed all the
more to be wary.
“Well,” said Pomfrett, assuming a light and careless manner, “I believe
the girl is honest. She’s on our side.”
I hoped so; but to Master Pomfrett, at that time of his ingenuous life,
every wench was an angel of honesty and virtue.
Mr Murch received our decision without changing a line of his cobwebbed
countenance or a note in his deep voice. “Very well. We must sail
within the week,” was all he said.
VII
THE _WHEEL OF FORTUNE_ MAKES A QUICK RUN
To man, arm, and victual a ship of some sixty men and eight guns,
though the ship herself were ready for sea, takes ordinarily three
months or more; and so to fit out a privateer, in the guise of a
merchant vessel, in six days would seem an incredible performance.
Yet we did it in a week--and it took a week to create the world, with
unlimited facilities. Mr Murch must have been secretly preparing for
some such enterprise for a long time. True, he never said so; but
how else should a fine snow (a two-masted, square-sailed vessel),
new rigged and cleaned, be waiting at the quay-side for a purchaser?
How else should sundry merchants have the indents of stores ready
made out in the back office, and the ammunition packed? And how else
should the men of the crew present themselves in batches with such
remarkable celerity? And what a crew! ’Twas the rout of Comus putting
to sea. Scarred, dangerous, foul-mouthed ruffians; little, bustling
Frenchmen; thick, mahogany-faced English; oily, sullen Portuguese;
huge brutes of negroes and half-castes, most villanous of all. Some
came shaking with drink, from the crimps’ houses; some, lean and
lusty from their last ship; some, fat with soft living ashore; and
some, dreadful tallow-faced creatures, with unkempt hair falling over
snakes’ eyes, and hands like claws, from I know not what dark places
of iniquity. And they all knew Mr Jevon Murch. I was certain of this.
Not a day passed, while they were signing-on in the little office on
the quay at Bridgetown, but Murch’s name would recur in their mongrel
dialect as they stood talking and waiting their turn. And, of course,
the merchants we dealt with had a private understanding with Mr
Murch. Sometimes they forgot the pretence, and, a point arising for
settlement, it was, “Well, sir, Mr Murch will tell you;” or, “As Mr
Murch pleases.” But all business documents were made out in the name
of Brandon Pomfrett. And no one asked awkward questions; it was no
one’s business to ask questions, unless it were the Governor’s. And,
after all, what was it to that high official that a cock-a-hoop young
gentleman from England should choose to sail in the snow _Wheel of
Fortune_ on a private trading venture?
All that week we worked day and night, ate when we could, and slept
where we sat. Heat, dust, smell, cockroaches, a fever of hurry, a
nightmare jumble of black people and white; the long road to Murch’s
house, hastily traversed at all times of the day and night; Murch
sitting at his table, with his unchangeable iron face, steadily
transacting business and directing affairs, the week through; mounted
men riding up at all hours, sitting awhile with the unchangeable iron
face, and riding away; Brandon Pomfrett snatching five bitter-sweet
minutes of Mistress Morgan’s company, coming away and pretending he
hadn’t; the ship in a dreadful confusion of packages and bales; and
always heat, dust, smell, cockroaches, a fever of hurry, and the
nightmare jumble of faces black and white--these are the remembrances
of that strenuous week. A beastly climate and a beastly place, though
curious to see.
We were to sail with the morning tide, keep the offing until dark, then
stand in, with two lights in the foremast, to pick up Mr Murch and
Mistress Morgan Leroux, off a point below the plantation. All their
effects were already aboard, and a cabin fitted up for the lady with
every luxury Pomfrett could improvise. Mr Murch had not only got his
ship during the week, but had sold his plantation--slaves, house, and
all. It was sink or swim, then, for Mr Murch and his ward, as for our
two selves, on this venture.
Mr Murch was to act both as captain and master when he came aboard;
meanwhile, Pomfrett, who was nominal captain and master as well as
nominal owner, was in command. We came aboard the evening before; and
Brandon sat for a long time studying a Manual of Seamanship, which he
had borrowed from Murch. He read and read, the sweat dropping upon the
open page.
“I shall have to take the cursed ship out to-morrow,” said he. “I don’t
know how to do it, any more than the dead. And I can’t understand the
book. I may have to sail close-hauled, large, quartering, or afore the
wind, and how am I to know where the blessed wind will be to-morrow?
I can’t remember the directions for each. And the least thing you do
wrong, she broaches-to.”
“I thought you told Dawkins you could sail a ship.”
“I can _navigate_ her,” said Pomfrett. “At least, I could if I tried.
I’ve learnt the theory. But that’s not _sailing_ her, you fool.”
“Can’t you find a kind of general direction, that will serve for any
emergency--a sort of common denominator?”
“You’ll never make a sailor,” says Brandon. “Now listen: _When the wind
is on the quarter, the fore-tack is brought to the cat-head, and, the
main-tack being cast off, the weather-clue of the main-sail is hoisted
up to the yard, and the yards are so disposed as to make an angle of
twenty-two degrees with the keel_.”
“Very well. ‘Bring fore-tack to cat-head, cast off main-tack’ (“But
supposing it is cast off already?” said Brandon), ‘hoist main-sail, go
on rounding yards till I tell you to stop.’ Nothing could be simpler.”
“Ah, but,” says the hopeful mariner, “_when the wind is one point on
the quarter, the angle which the yards and sails make with the keel
is somewhat less than a point_. See what a delicate business it is!
And again, when the wind is right aft, they’re at right angles with
the keel, the stay-s’ls hauled down, the main-s’l brailed up, but
you mustn’t furl the main-top-s’l and main-t’gallant-s’l, for fear of
broaching-to! And supposing the winds fall to light and baffling airs,
now a point this way, now the other--what then?”
“I’ll tell you what,” I said, “you’d better keep below and let the
boatswain take charge.”
“No,” said Brandon, firmly. “One doesn’t command a ship every day. Keep
below?--not I. Besides, I should forfeit the respect of the crew if I
did.”
“And it would be better to forfeit the ship than that, wouldn’t it?”
“Of course,” says Captain Pomfrett, with perfect seriousness.
I had a premonitory vision of the _Wheel of Fortune_, staggering to and
fro in the harbour, running down a boat here, carrying away bow-sprits
and jib-booms there, the derision of Bridgetown; and I privately sought
the boatswain. Since it was that officer’s duty to repeat the captain’s
orders to the crew, he might yet save us. Our boatswain was a fat,
good-humoured person, with a very long body, very short legs, and a
tiny grey eye shining in the crease of his red cheek. I approached
him with delicacy--so much delicacy that the worthy man, who was three
parts drunk, had a difficulty in apprehending my drift.
“Ho,” says he, expostulating, “you’re a pleasant gentleman, Mr Winter,
and no mistake. What harm have I ever done to you, Mr Winter, that you
should wish to see me triced up to the gratings, a-biting on a cork,
and the corporal a-laying on his twelve dozen for mutiny? And before
we’re out o’ harbour too!”
I explained laboriously that my meaning was quite otherwise. I put it,
that the captain’s long spell of work, combined with unusual potations,
might cause him to give somewhat uncertain directions; that, in fact,
the boatswain was to be responsible for taking out the ship.
“Taking out the ship? Why, now I understand you, Mr Winter. Don’t you
fret yourself on that score, sir. I got my orders from Mr Murch. And
Mr Pompion” (tompion, I suppose he was thinking of) “three sheets in
the wind, is he? Ah, well, my advice to you, Mr Winter, is to go and do
thou likewise. There ain’t no better way for to start a v’yage, nor to
continue in the same, nor to end it. Rum’s the word, mate--rum!”
His voice dying away, he continued to regard me with a broad smile,
apparently under the delusion that he was still speaking. I took his
advice--not that I meant to do so. But I had an easy mind, since the
wonderful Murch, who forgot nothing, had provided for our safety. We
drank not much, that I remember. The rest of the night I forget. The
ship was moving when we awoke. We scrambled on deck into the splendid
sunshine, to see the quays and houses and green hills sliding behind
us as the boats towed the _Wheel of Fortune_ into mid-stream. A light
air ruffled the shining water. Captain Pomfrett cocked a haggard eye
aloft. The sails were furled, the yards squared by the lifts--that
is, at right angles to the ship’s length. The faithful boatswain,
bellowing orders from the forecastle, had the tow-rope cast off, the
boats hoisted inboard, the men to their stations by the ropes, alow
and aloft. Then he walked aft and reported all clear, with a solemn
countenance. Captain Pomfrett stood as still as a statue, his legs wide
apart, his face blue and white, his hat over one eye. There was a
minute’s silence, the ship yawing slowly to the tide-rip.
Suddenly he exploded into life. “Slack away!” he shouted, arms waving.
“Slack away!”
The boatswain’s whistle caught the words, the boatswain’s great voice
bawled a string of commands, the yards were rounded, the sails let
fall, and the ship, a tower of pearl-white canvas, began to travel
with a noise of talking water. What Captain Pomfrett meant by his
order, neither he nor I nor the boatswain ever knew. “It came upon me,”
said Brandon, afterwards, “like an inspiration. It seemed to cover
everything, and yet do no harm.”
We stood south-west until Barbadoes dropped beyond the sea-line; went
about as the dark fell, and lay-to a couple of miles off-shore, with
two lights on the foremast, the signal agreed upon. The moon rose
beyond the black hulk of the island; and out of the shadow, down its
silver pathway of light, came the boat, rowing with muffled oars.
We were rolling heavily, with much banging and creaking of tackle; but
Mr Murch came briskly up the side, followed by a slim and pretty young
gentleman. Slings with a chair attached were dropped into the rocking
boat, and a white-haired old negress was hoisted inboard, and then the
old negro without a tongue. Mr Murch took command, and we stood away
again into the night.
“Gentlemen,” said Murch, as Pomfrett and I entered the lighted cabin,
“let me present you to Mr Morgan Leroux, a gentleman-adventurer like
yourselves.” There, indeed, was Morgan Leroux, in a fine suit of sable
trimmed with scarlet, her bright black hair powdered white and tied in
a queue. She leaned back in her chair and regarded Pomfrett’s solemn
face with tranquil amusement.
“Mr Murch kept swearing he would have no trouble with women aboard his
ship,” said she, with her customary frankness. “There can’t be any
trouble now, can there?”
Before we turned in for the night Murch produced a document setting
forth with all due prolixity how Brandon Pomfrett, gentleman, in
respect of certain considerations, made over to Jevon Murch, gentleman,
the snow _Wheel of Fortune_, and all, excepting personal effects,
contained therein or properly belonging to her.
“Now,” says Murch, “you know me; anyone can under-run _my_
cable--they’ll find it sound. This is a matter of form, to be executed
in case a Queen’s ship runs us aboard and looks at the ship’s papers,
or some such emergency. When we fall across Dawkins, I’ll engage to get
your own ship back for you. Meanwhile, put your signature to that, and
we’re all square and shipshape.”
Brandon considered the instrument with a doubtful eye. “You will
understand, Mr Murch, I have my owners to consider,” says he. “As a
matter of form, I think I should sign this when I’ve got my ship again,
and not before. Your ship represents my owners’ security.”
“Does it?” Murch returned, grimly. “You may have overlooked the fact
that this ship is mine already. And what about my security for salvage
money? Have I insisted on that?”
Brandon was obliged to admit that point.
“It seems to me,” Murch went on, with massive deliberation, “that
neither you nor I, Mr Pomfrett, would cut a hopeful figure in a court
of law. No, sir. We’re outside the law, and must just conduct business
as between gentlemen of for--of honour. And you might ask yourself, in
a moment of leisure, what is to prevent Captain Murch from marooning
two young gentlemen of your acquaintance on the next key?”
How much deeper Brandon would have plunged I know not, for at this
moment Murch was called on deck.
“Now look you here, Brandon Pomfrett,” said Morgan Leroux, angrily,
“if you will persist in running your head into the noose, you’ll be
hanged at last, and I can’t save you. Can’t you see--oh, but men are
stupid!--can’t you see Mr Murch has you in his hand? Signing all the
documents in the world won’t leave you a ha’porth the worse; and if you
anger Murch, he’ll toss you overboard. Why, what stops him now?”
“God knows,” said the bewildered Brandon, staring upon the lighted eyes
under the level black brows.
“Why, what but Morgan Leroux, who took you from slavery, you fool,”
says she. “But there’s bounds to Morgan’s power, let me tell you. Now
sign, and no more nonsense. I’ll be one witness, and Mr Winter, who can
write, I daresay, if he can’t talk, will be the other. God bless me,”
says Morgan, “signing away a ship that ain’t yours won’t hurt you!”
I record this trifling incident, because it showed us clearly, for
the first time, in what a perilous strait we were, and how our lives
depended upon the favour of this singular, plain-spoken, fiery exotic
of a girl, Morgan Leroux. Pomfrett consoled himself by the reflection
that, after all, Murch bore no spite against us.
“Unless you drive him to desperation with your sea-lawyer’s tongue,” I
said.
“But I’ve got to think of my owners,” was Pomfrett’s eternal cry. He,
the agent, was continually inspired to a sense of duty by the thought
of Mrs A., the crabbed old woman with the black slave, his pompous
uncle, and the whole hotch-potch of paunchy burgesses who snuffled and
canted and sent poor seamen to starve at sea--a remembrance which was
merely disgusting to the agent’s clerk. They had taken their chance,
and lost it, in my view. And yet I, too, was uncomfortably haunted by a
sense of responsibility. Once a trustee, always a trustee.
Now, from Barbadoes to Catoche Bay, in Yucatan, is fifteen days’
sailing with a fair wind, and I had anticipated, as, no doubt, had
Master Pomfrett, fifteen days’ pleasant wooing of Mistress Morgan by
the enamoured agent. But, somehow or other, I failed to remark the
operation. From the moment when the swain clapped eyes on the lady
in man’s attire, methought there was a change in his demeanour. Had
Morgan not assumed protection of the agent so cavalierly, the change
might have passed, but I doubt Mr Pomfrett could not stomach that
improper reversal of their relations, in his helpless condition. He
was bound to her by gratitude, or conceived that he was, and he sulked
accordingly. Morgan forced him to run races with her round the ship, up
to the cross-trees and down again, and beat him; made him compete with
her in shooting at a mark, and beat him again; persuaded him to dance
with her, and reviled his clumsiness with great freedom. Young Brandon
began to think small beer of himself under this discipline; he lost
a deal of dignity in the process, and conceived an immoderate desire
to perform some exploit which should set him even with his tormentor.
Yet this Morgan had nothing of the shrew, nothing of the virago. She
was simply herself; she had no care, as Murch would say, to make any
pretence. What she wanted to do, that she did, openly and freely; what
she thought, that she said. Now this behaviour differed so extremely
from the conduct of the English girls of Brandon’s acquaintance, that
at first he was shocked. He thought, though he never said it, that she
must be a bad woman, and this, I think, rather tempted him into her
company. Be sure that Mistress Morgan knew what was in his mind. So the
duel went forward between these two. I used to remark the boy’s square,
guileless face beside the girl’s straight-browed, vigorous beauty, and
wonder which would win.
As for Mr Jevon Murch, he left us much to ourselves, being entirely
occupied in commanding the ship. If Mr Dawkins could sail a ship the
way she ought to be sailed, so could Mr Murch. Yet he never took the
chances that the jovial Dawkins risked so gaily. And while Dawkins
cared nothing for the looks of the ship, and let the filth accumulate
in heaps, Murch would have the decks like snow, the brass-work dazzling
bright, the masts and yards scraped and varnished, the guns polished
daily. The crew grumbled bitterly among themselves, and presently
broke into open complaint. Murch had six men tied to the gratings,
and gave them twelve dozen apiece. Their backs were cut to pieces.
And thereafter, by a look here, a word there, now and again a blow
that shook the offender for a week, Murch established discipline among
that wild crew. How long they would have stood the strain I know not;
for, so marvellous was Murch’s seamanship that we made Catoche Bay
on the evening of the tenth day out, five whole days, or four at the
least, before we were due, by all calculation. This was mysterious.
But Murch kept the chart in a lockfast place, so we had no notion of
where we were until he told us we were come “to our destination.”
We had spoken ships almost daily, but there was never a sign of the
_Blessed Endeavour_. Had she come and gone? That was the question.
Murch wasted no time in solving it. It was dark when we dropped anchor;
nevertheless, the captain went immediately ashore, taking with him
his negro slave, twenty men, and five officers fully armed, and Mr
Brandon Pomfrett. The ship was left in charge of Morgan Leroux, who
had her instructions how to deal with Mr Dawkins, should he appear.
The boatswain was second in command. I suppose that Murch took the
officers with him to neutralize the risk of mutiny in his absence.
It is of no use to steal a ship unless you can navigate her, and in
his knowledge of navigation lies much of the secret of the officer’s
ascendancy in the ships that sail on the private account. As for the
humble compiler of these memoirs, he was left aboard as a kind of tame
watch-dog.