PETER PLAYS AT BOWLS WITH DESTINY
Darby McGraw’s red head shone in the lanthorn-light.
“Whisht, but it’s Master Bob again! Now ain’t this the mighty
forchune to have ye with us! Ha’ ye left the old devil yon for good?”
He nodded his torch of hair at the vague hull of the _James_. Flint
exploded with raucous laughter.
“‘The old devil yon,’” he repeated. “---- me, but it takes Darby to
put the right word to a man. ’Tis what he is, blast him for the ----
---- ---- he sets himself up to be!”
Darby proffered him a huge silver beaker of rum.
“I fetched this from the cabin after ye, captain,” said the Irish boy
in his wheedling brogue. “Troth, say I to meself, if the captain
must talk with Murray he’ll ha’ a bad taste in the mouth o’ him to be
washed out, and I’d best ha’ a sup o’ sugar-juice handy for his
needin’s.”
Flint seized the rum, threw back his head and drained the fiery stuff
as if it had been wine.
“You said right, my lad,” he answered sourly. “And I’m thinking I’ll
maybe need all the luck that red head o’ yours can bring me. Where’s
Billy Bones?”
“Dhrunk under the cabin table,” returned Darby promptly.
“Gut him for the souse he is! And Long John?”
“Sure, captain dear, ’twas yourself sent him ashore to keep the lads
up to the fort from carvin’ theirselves.”
“So I did. Well, I’ll see to the prisoners myself then.”
“Pris’ners!” protested Darby, wide-eyed. “Troth, himself is the
nevvy or what-not o’ the old devil. For why’ll ye be makin’ him a
pris’ner? More by token, he was me friend in New York, and Peter
too. Grand pirates they’ll be, if ye do but give ’em time.”
“Prisoners I said, and prisoners they are!” glowered Flint. “D’ye
know what a hostage is, Darby?”
“One that’ll be by-ordinary wicked?” answered Darby.
“More’n likely,” assented Flint with a pardonable chuckle. “Well,
these is hostages, Darby. Likewise prisoners.”
“Och, captain, ye won’t be hard on Master Bob! He’s as kindly a
young gentleman as ever I see--and Peter there is a grand fightin’
feller. Ye should hear to tales they tell o’ his murtherin’ and
slayin’ with the red Injuns.”
“I’ll be as hard as they make me be,” returned Flint. “But for
tonight I must have them safe.”
Darby plucked at his sleeve.
“I’ll say naught if ye must put Peter away--though a good friend I
ha’ called him. But be aisy wi’ Master Bob and let me take him below
for a sup for old times’ sake. Troth, there’s no harm in nature in
him. And if he has a chance at education in the right way ’tis a
fine, brave pirate we’ll make o’ him that can fight two men at once
wi’ knife and tomahawk.”
Flint’s eyes narrowed.
“Ho-ho!” he exclaimed. “Is that the kind of cockerel ye are, Master
Ormerod or whatever ye may be called? I’m main thankful for the
tip-off, Darby. I knew Buckskin was dangerous, but I’d never ha’
been on my guard for the young ’un, except for you. Gut me, if I
take chances wi’ two such champions!”
I saw that Darby was doing more harm than good by his sponsoring of
me, so I spoke up for myself.
“You need not take what the boy says for truth,” I said. “He means
well, but----”
“And if I didn’t see ye knock the hatchet from Tom Trumbull’s hand
the while ye were fending Dick Varje’s knife--and could easily ha’
stabbed him, fightin’ earnest, as Peter said--may I be hornswoggled
for a lubber!” proclaimed Darby indignantly.
“That’s enough for me,” snarled Flint. “No lies, if it please you,
my fine gentleman! The time may come we’ll put your boasts to----
“I have not boasted.”
“Keep your tongue behind your teeth! Hold still, the two o’ ye, or
I’ll give ye a bellyful o’ pickling-brine.”
He signaled up a dozen or so of the nearest of his men, all of whom
had been observing us with a mingling of interest and hostility.
“We’ll put these knife-fighters in the lazaret for the night,” he
announced. “They’re a desperate pair, and we’ll watch ’em close
until they are under hatches.”
“Oh, whirra, whirra!” sobbed Darby. “Do but see what I did to ye
with my tongue that wags from the middle both ways! Sure, captain
darlin’, ye don’t need to hold against Master Bob what I said. All
he seeks is to be a grand, murtherin’ pirate. Troth, we talked o’
nothin’ else in the old days.”
“Don’t be foolish, Darby,” I said.
And to Flint, as the group closed around us--
“Captain Murray bade you----”
“I know, I know!” he interrupted impatiently. “The treatment you
receive will be whatever you earn for yourselves. I’m an easy
skipper, as any man aboard the _Walrus_ will tell ye, my lad. But
you are my stakes in a rich venture, and I’ll be ---- ---- if I take
any chance on losing ye or your fat friend as goes with you. So stow
your gab, and come wi’ me willingly, and no blows struck or feelings
injured. Tomorrow the _James_ will ha’ sailed, and then we’ll deal a
new hand all around.”
His narrow green eyes, squinting out on either side of his thin nose,
surveyed me with a kind of appraisal.
“I have an idea we may yet find interests in common,” he concluded.
“But that’s to be seen.”
Peter, at my elbow, spoke for the first time.
“_Ja, ja_. We go. I hafe a wish to sleep.”
“Sleep, is it?” jeered Flint. “That ye shall, my hearty! Come along
o’ me.”
He led us aft, the others following, Darby in the rear almost in
tears. We entered the poop quarters, stumbling over empty bottles,
broken platters, discarded garments, boots, articles of equipment and
weapons. At the end of a dark passage Flint unhooked a lanthorn from
a wall and one of his men heaved up a trapdoor. Below was a pool of
shadows that scuttled and swayed as if to escape the feeble light.
There was an odor, also, none too pleasant.
I drew back.
“Certes, you could lodge us securely otherwhere than this,” I
protested.
“No, no,” answered Flint. “There’s not a door aboard hath a lock
would hold Darby, let alone you two. I’m sorry for ye, lad, if it’s
no fault o’ yours that you’re here; but for tonight at least you must
lie in the lazaret. Come, come; don’t make me use force. Here, ye
shall ha’ the lanthorn to keep the rats off, and in the morning we’ll
manage different.”
Peter pushed past me, and took the lanthorn from his hand.
“We go, _ja_,” he squeaked. “Come, Bob.”
I followed him without another word, already wondering at his
extraordinary docility.
“Do ye see your way, my masters?” Flint called after us, mimicking
the servile tones of a tavernkeeper to the considerable amusement of
his body-guard. “Mind the low roof, an’ it please ye, sirs. The
beds ha’ not been aired, but then we had no expectation o’ your
company.”
A guffaw of rough merriment, pierced by Darby’s Irish wail, and the
trapdoor crashed down. A hasp clacked home in a bolt, and footsteps
thudded away. I sat on the bottom-most step of the ladder and peered
hopelessly around me as Peter, swinging the lanthorn as high as the
low deck-room allowed, prowled around the limited area of our prison.
A black rat as large as a cat rushed across my feet. Squeaks and
rustlings sounded in the corners. There was the _lap-lap-lap_ of
water against the vessel’s hull, the creak of the rudder and the
strange moaning noises which any ship emits, whether at anchor or
under way.
Peter returned to the ladder-foot, deposited the lanthorn on the
floor and plumped himself beside it.
“What you t’ink, Bob?” he said blandly. “Do we stay or get oudt?”
I frowned at him.
“’Tis no joke,” I snapped. “I had reasons for----”
“_Ja_,” he agreed. “Der little gal.”
The Dutchman said so little and revealed such scant interest in what
went on about him that he frequently surprized even those who knew
him best, as my father never tired of maintaining. He had not
spoken, up to this evening, of Murray’s plan to employ me as a
hostage to conciliate Flint. He had never suggested that he would
accompany me. He had never betrayed by any hint a supposition that I
might prefer to remain aboard the _Royal James_ during the cruise
after the treasure-ship. But on all these points he had done
considerable thinking as he now proceeded to demonstrate.
“How did you know!” I exclaimed.
“I know,” he replied with his simpering imitation of a laugh. “You
t’ink der little gal is a good gal. You t’ink it is not goodt dot
she be taken aboard der _James_. You want to be there andt be sure
dot she is safe.”
“’Tis true as gospel, Peter,” I groaned. “I hoped to the last this
ridiculous plan of Murray’s would fall through in some manner, but
the man has a damnable determination.”
“_Ja_,” agreed Peter. “I t’ink he takes der treasure-ship, Bob.
Dot’s easy.”
“Easy? I see not how!”
“_Ja_, it is easy to take her. But after comes his troubles. Much
treasure is bad for pirates. We hafe troubles after.”
“‘We!’ We won’t be there. Very likely we’ll be dead, Peter, slain
in one of the _Walrus’_ knife frays.”
“Suppose we get oudt tonight,” answered Peter persuasively. “Suppose
we get oudt and back to der _James_. _Ja_?”
I looked around me skeptically at the heavy planking and stout
timbers of the sides and for’ard bulkhead.
“It can’t be done. ’Twould take a week to break out of this--and the
_James_ will be sailing in five or six hours.”
“_Neen_,” said Peter. “We get oudt--any time we get oudt.”
“How?” I demanded.
He picked up the lanthorn and led me for’ard to the bulkhead. The
light showed that one of the oaken planks was slightly sprung,
leaving an infinitesimal crack between its edge and the uppermost of
its fellows.
“Are you planning to pry that off with your fingernails?” I taunted
him.
“_Neen_,” he answered, and conducted me to a corner whence the rats
scudded as we approached.
He stirred his foot amongst some rubbish and turned up several long,
wrought-iron spikes, such as are used to bolt together the heavier
ship-timbers.
“Dot’s plenty,” he said.
I could hardly control the gush of relief that welled up in me.
“I believe it is,” I whispered. “But, oh, Peter, there is such
little time!”
“Enough,” he grunted. “Come! We begin.”
We listened at the bulkhead for signs of life on the opposite side,
but not a sound came through to us, although the clamor on the upper
deck and in the poop cabin seeped into our dungeon from overhead.
’Twas stiflingly hot, and Peter’s first care was to strip off his
buckskin shirt and leggings.
“We got to swim,” he said, eying them regretfully. “You don’t need
clothes tonight, Bob.”
So I followed his example, and we fell to work with our spikes upon
the sprung plank, the sweat pouring in rills of moisture from our
half-naked bodies, our crude tools slipping in our greasy fingers as
we pried and pushed and fought for every inch of space betwixt the
plank and the upright it was nailed to. Peter did all the work. It
was his tremendous muscles that fretted and teased the point of his
spike into the tiny gap that awaited us, that gradually enlarged the
advantage. All I could do was to hold whatever space he won, giving
him opportunity to improve upon it until a smashing drive of his
great shoulder tore the plank loose at one end.
We waited, then, gasping for breath, wiping the sweat from our eyes,
fearful lest the wrench of the wood as it was ripped free should have
attracted the attention of some member of the crew. But nobody
appeared, and the uproar on deck was audibly decreased. Even the
crew of the _Walrus_ found occasion for sleep.
The most difficult portion of our task was immediately ahead. We had
to pry loose now a plank which was nailed fast to the uprights, and
we dared not resort to the use of any substitute for a hammer because
of the noise. ’Twas necessary for Peter’s fingers to force the point
of a spike between plank and upright and slowly wedge the two apart.
He did it, with the palm of his bare hand for a mallet, his muffled
grunts the only indication of the energy he expended.
But this was a matter of several hours, for I was less able to assist
than I had been before. My puny strength was wholly inadequate to
the wrestle with seasoned wood and tempered iron which he must carry
on in cramped quarters and semidarkness.
As the last nail yielded to Peter’s shoulder the thin clangor of the
bell of the _Royal James_ stole down to us out of the night. Four
times it rang--two o’clock! No answering strokes sounded on the deck
above us. Ship routine was a thing of caprice aboard the _Walrus_.
“Get oudt, Bob,” whispered Peter.
I wriggled through the gap in the bulkhead, and he passed the
lanthorn after me. Its flame was burning low, but I had sufficient
light to determine that I stood in a stores-hold crammed with casks
of rum, salt meat and ship’s biscuit. A door in its for’ard bulkhead
led to another hold of the orlop deck, where were a hatch and ladder
leading up to the gundeck. I crept as far as the foot of the ladder
and listened to the snores of the scores of men who slept in hammocks
slung between the great guns of the battery. That way lay our only
path of escape.
I returned to Peter in a mood that was none too cheerful; but he was
already at work with his spike, hissing like a kettle on the boil as
he prodded away with its blunted point. I was able to be of more
assistance to him this time, since from the farther side ’twas
possible to exert a greater leverage, once the plank was sprung
loose. Yet the _James_ sounded seven bells before we were
successful. Peter grunted his satisfaction.
“We got time,” he said. “Whoof! So much I sweat I slide me t’rough
dot hole.”
The lanthorn’s flicker was little more than a pin-prick of flame in
the darkness of the ship’s bowels, but I lighted my shirt from it and
held this aloft to help him see his way. He was stripped to the
buff, and his pink, hairless body was all a-glisten as he rolled into
the opening. His head and shoulders made it easily, but I saw with
dismay that his immense paunch was an insurmountable obstacle. He
heaved and shoved and twisted. ’Twas no manner of use. He could not
pass that gap without the removal of another plank, and there was not
time for that. At any moment the _James_ would ring eight bells.
And at any moment then she would be under way.
Peter backed out of his predicament to an accompaniment of squeaking
grunts, and I followed him, too bitterly disappointed for words.
Escape had seemed so easy--and now we were condemned to two months
aboard the _Walrus_, very likely to exceedingly uncomfortable deaths,
for I fancied that Flint was the sort of man to lose his queer
mixture of fear and respect for my great-uncle as soon as they were
out of touch.
“Hold der light here, Bob,” said Peter, squatting on the litter of
the deck, and he proceeded to extract a splinter from his foot.
“_Ja_, dot’s goodt,” he went on, standing up. “Well, we don’t get
oudt dot way.”
“Are you sure we could not tear off another plank?” I answered. “I
might find a hammer--or a chisel----”
“Andt der noise brings der watch! _Neen_, we got a better chance.”
“What, Peter?”
“You see!”
He felt his way toward the ladder to the cabin-hatch.
“Always there is another way, Bob. If one way is not goodt, der
other maybe is better. _Ja_! You see.”
He climbed the ladder silently in his bare feet until his great
shoulders were directly beneath the square of the hatch, and I heard
a faint grinding of straining metal, the crackling of tortured wood.
“_Ja_,” he panted, desisting. “We do dot. Now you be ready, Bob.
Jump oop, quick. Maybe we got to kill some fellers, andt if we do we
don’t let them holler.”
I could feel his legs quivering above me; the ladder itself vibrated
under us. There was a whine, a sudden pop--and the hatch flew up in
the air. Peter caught it on the flats of his hands before it could
settle again and lifted it back. He was out in a flash, and I was
hard on his heels.
We crouched on the main-cabin floor, staring about us for a sign of
the pirates. The lights had all burned out, and it was several
minutes before our eyes became adjusted to the star-shine that sifted
through the stern window.
A snore from the settee which ran along beneath the windows brought
both of us to our feet, and I bent over the table, fingers crooked,
to clutch the throat of whoever it might be. But I was put to it not
to laugh aloud as I looked into the flushed face and open mouth of
Darby McGraw. Poor Darby! A little rum went a long way with him,
and he loved to ape his elders.
“‘Drink an’ the devil--done for th’ rest,’” he hiccoughed in his
sleep.
“He’s safe,” I murmured.
“_Ja_,” whispered Peter, and busied himself reshutting the trap-door
and arranging the bolt and hinges so as to conceal the fact of its
having been forced.
We tiptoed into the companionway, and a very cannonade of snores
assailed us from the staterooms on either hand. The doors stood
open, and we looked in upon the prickly jowl of Flint, Bones’ mottled
cheeks and two other drunken underlings. Flint held a cocked pistol
in his right hand, which was flung across his chest. Why he did not
shoot himself only an obscure Providence can explain.
At the exit to the deck we tarried to reconnoiter our situation, and
’twas lucky we did so. Eight bells rang out from the _Royal James_,
and a voice most astonishingly close muttered a curse.
“Ye might think they ’ad a blarsted admiral aboard,” answered a
second voice.
“I’ll lay ye a castellano there was a whole watch awake on her the
night long,” said the first speaker.
A whistle shrilled, and the gruff voice of Saunders reached us quite
distinctly ordering the topmen aloft.
“There they go, Jemmy,” returned the second man. “We’ll be free o’
the swabs in another glass.”
“And good riddance, says I,” declared Jemmy, spitting into the
scuppers.
I saw where they were then, leaning against the starboard poop-ladder
and peering overside at the vague hull of the _James_. Peter’s
little eyes had identified them, too, and his fingers sank into the
flesh of my arm, signaling me to stay where I was. He glided past me
on to the deck, his body ghostly in the gloom.
“I’m ---- if I can see as why we has to keep our peepers open,”
growled the second man.
“’Tain’t long now till morning,” replied Jemmy. “What d’ye s’y to a
dash o’ rum, matey?”
He half-turned, and saw Peter’s enormous white bulk hovering over
him, and his teeth gleamed as he opened his mouth involuntarily to
scream.
“I don’t care if--” the second man said.
The Dutchman leaped, and his two arms whipped out. Jemmy’s scream
died in a guttural cough. Peter grappled the throat of each. He
held them poised for a moment, then brought their heads together with
an odd hollow smack like the cracking of egg-shells. They collapsed
inert on the deck.
I darted for the rail, but Peter stayed me.
“_Neen, neen,_” he objected. “First I get me some pants, Bob. Andt
we drop these fellers overboardt.”
He was divesting the larger of the two of the single garment each one
wore the while he talked, and, conquering an instinctive sensation of
repugnance, I did likewise.
“Dot’s better, _ja_,” remarked Peter complacently. “A little tight;
but I don’t like it to be naked, Bob. _Neen!_”
He rose to his feet, buckling the dead man’s belt around him.
“They’ll splash!” I warned him as he picked up the big one.
“Nobody hears,” he answered.
He lowered the body over the rail feet first, and the splash was less
than I had expected. The second body followed with equal expedition,
and Peter laid hold of one of several ropes that trailed untidily
over the _Walrus’_ side.
“Now we go, Bob,” he said.
We entered the water almost together, and swam side by side down the
anchorage toward the _James_. I realized at once that the tide had
turned, for the ebb sucked us along at a rate vastly swifter than we
could have achieved by our own unaided efforts, although Peter,
despite his discomfort at sea, was a remarkably powerful swimmer,
thanks to his lifetime in the wilderness country of the frontier.
“The tide will take care of the dead men,” I panted, stroking for all
I was worth to keep pace with the Dutchman.
A whistle shrilled again aboard the _James_.
“_Ja_,” said Peter. “Der anchor goes oop, Bob. We hurry!”
He was a dozen strokes ahead of me at the end. I found him hanging
on to the heel of the rudder and calmly treading water. For’ard the
capstan was clanking to a steady yo-ho-hoing and trampling of feet.
Yards were banging, sails were slatting, men were shouting and
calling.
“Anchor up-and-down, sir!” called Saunders.
My great-uncle’s voice answered him.
“Very good! We will weigh. Oh, Master Martin, are you sure there is
no boat from the _Walrus_? I could have sworn I heard the splash of
the falls.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Martin. “I’ll be ---- ---- ---- ---- for a
---- ---- ---- if there is so much as a man awake aboard the ----
---- craft.”
I looked up at the stern windows, so high above us. From our
precarious perch on the rudder the _James_ towered like Spyglass
Mountain, touchable but unattainable. Almost I could have cried out
to my great-uncle and hailed him to have us hauled aboard. But
common sense warned me he would certainly seize upon the opportunity
to send us back to the _Walrus_ as clinching evidence of his good
faith. And I had no desire to face Flint with those two dead men to
account for.
“What’s to do?” I whispered to Peter, whose eyes were roving over the
lofty stern. “We can not bide here. Once she has way on her, we’ll
be tossed off.”
“_Ja_,” agreed Peter. “You see dot shiny picture oop there?”
He indicated a golden sunburst, carved across the stern beneath the
cabin windows. ’Twas a minor tragedy in my great-uncle’s life that
he was without the gold-leaf to make this part of his ship as
immaculate as the rest. The constant battering of following seas had
cracked and diminished the gilding, but the ridges and niches of the
carving were still visible.
“Yes,” I answered, puzzled.
“I climb oop on der rudder, andt I holdt me on to der roundness in
der middle. Andt you climb oop on my shoulders andt into der cabin
windows, _ja_.”
“You can’t hold me up in that position, Peter!” I exclaimed.
“’Twould be all you could do to maintain yourself.”
“I do it, _ja_,” insisted Peter.
“But you? How will you----”
“You t’row me a rope.”
He scrambled on to the rudder and slowly spread-eagled himself upward
against the scrollwork which covered the stern. His hands, feeling
blindly above his head, sought for and found a deep indentation in
the rays below the center of the sunburst, and with this to cling to,
he climbed a foot or two higher on to a shallow ridge which ran
across the stern, a shelf scarce wide enough to give him toehold.
His grip shifted with lightning precision, his fingers clamping
themselves about the embossed figure of the sun, deeply carven for
relief.
“Now you climb, Bob,” he grunted.
I obeyed him without objection, for every breath was precious and the
_James_ was already adrift, her anchor merely a pendulous weight
for’ard.
The rudder I surmounted with ease, standing erect with a hand on one
of Peter’s legs to steady me. I stepped up to the ridge upon which
the Dutchman stood with no more difficulty, holding to his leather
belt. Then I changed my hand-hold to a ridge in the carving, and by
his direction braced the toes of one foot in the slack of his belt as
I heaved myself upward. Peter grunted. That was all.
I found a new hand-hold and brought my other foot up on to Peter’s
shoulder and stood erect there. Reaching upward now, better than two
tall men’s height above the waterline, my groping finger-tips were
still below the level of the stern windows. Peter sensed my
difficulty.
“On my headt,” he grunted.
I carefully lifted one foot, selected another hand-grip and mounted
Peter’s tow locks. Again I explored upward with one arm stretched to
the limit of safety, but I failed by inches to clutch the sill of the
stern windows.
“Jump,” sobbed Peter.
“But you!”
“Jump!”
The rudder clacked as it was put over, and the _James_ heeled
slightly to the breeze. The water commenced to purr as she gathered
way.
I jumped. Peter sagged beneath me, but the fingers of my right hand
fastened upon the ledge of the window. I heard a splash, and caught
hold with my left hand.
“Ooop!” spluttered Peter from the water.
The rest was child’s play compared to what had preceded it. The
carving afforded toe-holds in plenty, and soon I had a leg over the
windowsill and looked down at Peter trailing in the _James’_ wake as
he clung to the shelf which crossed the stern perhaps a foot above
the water. He dared no longer hold to the rudder.
His big face was so white that it frightened me, and I tumbled
inboard without stopping to make sure the cabin was empty. But my
luck was with me, and I scurried around to find a rope. This was a
hopeless quest in that luxurious apartment, so I ran up the
companionway and just inside the door to the deck came upon a lead
line, coiled and hung to a hook, which I appropriated.
Altogether these movements consumed less time than is required to
describe them; but when I returned to the stern windows Peter was
gone. I leaned out and stared back at the _James’_ creaming
wake--and a white arm flashed in a gesture of appeal twenty feet
astern. I cast the lead behind him, and he caught the line as it
settled into the water, cut the lead free with the dead man’s knife
at his belt, looped the slack under his shoulders, and with my
feverish help hauled himself back to the shelf above the water line.
I lacked the strength to draw him up; but I fastened my end of the
line to the cabin table, which was bolted to the floor, and then,
foot by foot, Peter toiled upward. He was so weary at the last that
I must pull him through the window, and he fell in a heap across the
table, puddling the polished surface with the sea-water that streamed
off him and the blood from his scarred hands.
A bottle of the _aqua vitae_ my great-uncle favored stood by his
place, and I took this and poured a liberal tot between Peter’s lips.
He staggered to his feet, blinking his eyes and red as a school miss.
“All right, Bob,” he squeaked. “I be all right, _ja_.”
His eyes chanced upon the lead-line, still fast to the table’s leg,
and he stooped and unknotted it and dropped it out of the window.
“We better not stay here,” he muttered. “_Neen_! If Murray sees
us----”
“Oh, my Gawd!”
Ben Gunn goggled at us from the companionway.
“Drowned, they be!” he gasped to himself. “He done for ’em, Flint
did!”
I was afraid he would run out on deck and cry an alarm, and I started
for him to prevent this. But the poor creature was fettered by
superstitious fear.
“Dear Christ!” he mumbled. “It’s a-comin’ for me. Oh, sweet Lord,
don’t ’ee let the ghostie take Ben Gunn. Don’t ’ee, now! A good,
pious lad I was, as went to church reg’lar and said my catechism, and
if my old mother could----”
“Be still, Ben,” I said. “We don’t mean to hurt you.”
He plucked up a little courage when I spoke.
“’Tain’t right for ye to talk,” he objected. “I never heard tell as
how sperets----”
“We’re not spirits,” I answered. “We are as alive as you are. Here,
feel this.”
He shrank back as I placed my clammy, wet hand upon his neck, but the
touch reassured him.
“Ye ain’t sperets, says you,” he repeated amazedly. “Nor ye ain’t
ghosts. And consekently ye ain’t dead. And seein’ as you’re here,
why, it do stand to reason as how ye ain’t aboard the _Walrus_, which
is where ye was and where ye oughter be.”
He shook his head.
“’Tain’t right, Master Ormerod, and don’t follow in nature nohow.”
“’Tis perfectly natural,” I retorted. “Master Corlaer and I have
escaped from the _Walrus_.”
Ben came a step or two into the cabin and stared hard at Peter. Then
he turned a disapproving eye upon the pools of water we had sprinkled
on the table and the rich carpet.
“Well, it do look to be ’ee two,” he conceded grudgingly. “But ye
ha’ mucked up the cabin awful, and the captain will be like to ha’ me
triced to the main for a round dozen wi’ the cat.”
“Not if you work quickly with a bucket and mop, Ben,” I said, for I
was as anxious as himself to conceal the traces of our entrance from
Murray.
“Maybe so,” he agreed. “But he won’t like it that ye come aboard
this way.”
I seized upon his opening without scruple.
“Yes, he’ll hold it against you, Ben. ’Tis a shame.”
He shivered, and I appreciated what my great-uncle’s wrath must be.
“Ye wouldn’t let him now! Master Ormerod! Oh, say ye wouldn’t! Ye
don’t want poor Ben Gunn to be screamin’ on the triangle.”
“That I don’t,” I assented warmly. “You must hide us, Ben. Hide us
and clean up the cabin, and he’ll never know we are aboard.”
“Aye, but then?” he asked shrewdly.
“Oh, then ’twill not matter. Nobody will know that you had aught to
do with our coming aboard; and indeed Captain Murray will not care, I
think. ’Twas not of his own will he gave us to Flint.”
“If ’tis so, why don’t ’ee go up on the poop and tell the captain
now?”
“He’d have to send us back to Captain Flint. You wouldn’t like to be
sent aboard the _Walrus_ to stay, Ben.”
Ben Gunn cocked his head on one side.
“I ain’t so sure,” he answered. “Maybe Flint would let me wear
seaman’s gear and tar my hair.”
Despite the urgency of our plight I was interested in the humor of
the steward’s ambition.
“Aren’t you satisfied with your lot?” I inquired.
“Not I!” he replied with unexpected determination. “Look ’ee, Master
Ormerod, I went to sea for to be a swearin’, cutlass-lashin’ pirate,
and they put me in a livery-shuit! All my life I been wearin’ livery
o’ one kind or another. Now if you, or Cap’n Flint, we’ll say, was
to hail Ben Gunn and argyfy as how ye’d take him out o’ livery--never
a livery-shuit again--and make him a reg’lar sailorman as pulls on
ropes and climbs masts and holds a wheel and swabs decks--if you was
to do all this, why, maybe Ben Gunn, he’d do ’most anything for
you--or Cap’n Flint, if so be as Flint spoke fust.”
“’Tis I speak first,” I replied. “If I ever command a ship you shall
be a tarry sailorman aboard her, Ben. Or if I don’t have a ship of
my own I’ll help you to a berth on another such as you desire.”
He came close to me, and his eyes bored into mine with an earnestness
that was pathetic.
“That’s a solemn-honest promise, ain’t it, Master Ormerod? Ye
wouldn’t go for to fool Ben Gunn, would ’ee, now?”
“No, no,” I promised. “But if you don’t hide us quickly, Ben, I’ll
never be able to make good on it.”
He caught my hand in his.
“You jes come along o’ me. Ben Gunn knows a thing or two, he does.
I’ll show ’ee, my master. You jest come along o’ me.”
Peter and I sopped after him up the companionway to a door for’ard of
the staterooms we occupied, which led by way of a steep flight of
ladder-stairs to the galley and service quarters, a space partitioned
off from the vast sweep of the gundeck. Ben unhooked a lanthorn from
the wall, opened a trap in the deck and signed us to follow him. At
the bottom of a second ladder we found ourselves in a lazaret such as
had been our prison aboard the _Walrus_. But there was this
difference in our surroundings: That they were clean. The walls were
whitewashed, and around them were ranged kegs and pipes of wines, ale
and rum, and racks laden with bottles of various liquors.
“’Tis Murray’s wine-cellar,” I commented aloud.
Ben Gunn deposited the lanthorn in the middle of the floor and
approached his mouth to my ear.
“Aye, and he keeps his treasure ’ere--when so be he has any,” he
whispered throatily.
“Doth he never come here?”
“Not he. Nor the naygurs, neither. Only Ben Gunn.”
“What shall we do for food?”
Ben wiggled with embarrassment.
“Jest you leave that to Ben Gunn. He’ll feed ye well, my master, as
spoke kind to him and promises to take him out o’ livery-shuits.
Aye, that he will. And fetch ye clothes from the cabin. But don’t
’ee forget the promise, sir. Oh, say ye won’t!”
“I won’t,” I assured him. “But you must get back to the cabin and
tidy up the mess we made. Haste, man!”
He scampered up the ladder as if the devil were after him--or
Paradise within view.
And during the two days of our stay in the wine-cellar of the _Royal
James_ he was as good as his word. He fed us well. He brought me a
sufficiency of clothing. And he procured for Peter a quantity of
linen and cotton cloth, with thread and needles, with which the
Dutchman fashioned himself garments to cover his inconveniently large
body.
On the evening of the second day, having learned from Ben that the
_James_ had logged several hundred knots since leaving the
Rendezvous, we decided ’twould be safe to appear before Murray, and
we took an opportunity whilst Ben was serving his dinner to ascend
through the galley and present ourselves in the main cabin.
My great-uncle was poring over the chart of the Caribbean which so
frequently engaged his attention, but he glanced up as he heard the
shuffling of our feet on the carpet. A furrow of perplexity was dug
betwixt his eyes. Otherwise he revealed no astonishment.
“So! You two have taken matters into your own hands! Did you by any
chance slay Flint?”
“We might have,” I answered. “But we did not.”
“A pity in the circumstances,” he ruminated. “’Ods-blood! Here is a
pretty coil! Peter, I’ll wager I have you to thank for it.”
“_Ja_,” said Peter, and sat himself in his accustomed place at the
table.
“’Tis true,” I agreed, “that without Peter we might not have escaped,
but the responsibility is equally mine.”
“How did you compass it?”
I told him, and he stared curiously at Peter, placidly eating across
the table from him.
“I might have known it, Peter. No man ever held you in constraint
against your will. I might have known it. What a mess! My plans
and combinations all askew! Peter, y’ have played at bowls with
destiny! A half-hour since I saw my way clear. Now I must plot it
fresh. Stap me, what a coil!”
He rose and started to walk the cabin, hands clasped behind him, head
on his chest. Suddenly he paused in front of me.
“What moved you to such a desperate course, Robert?”
His tawny eyes glowed with the light of inner speculation.
“Was it to be with me? Or was it O’Donnell’s lass?”
I hesitated, frankly loath to hurt him.
“I was concerned for her,” I admitted finally. “This ship is no fit
place for a maid, as I have said before.”
“’Tis better than some,” he answered.
But my reply did not seem to annoy him. His gaze dwelt upon my face
for several moments longer.
“Well, well,” he said as he began to pace the carpet again. “We
must make the best of it, lad.”