PRISONERS
“Ahoy, the blockhouse!”
Moira stayed her weeping, and I rose from my knees as the hail
thundered from the night.
“Dot’s Flint,” whispered Peter. “You talk to him, Bob, _ja_.”
“What is it?” I shouted back.
“Is Murray with ye?”
“He’s dead,” I answered after a moment of reflection.
“And that’s ---- ---- lucky for him! Here’s Tom Morphew ready to
give him a taste of the cat.”
A shrill howl echoed the words.
“Don’t ’ee believe mun, Cap’n Flint! ’Tis all a lie! And ’ee
promised I should ha’ t’ beatin’ o’ mun.”
“’Tis true,” I said wearily. “After sunrise you can send in a man to
see for himself.”
“Ah!” jeered Flint. “But ye see I’m not waiting for sunup or moonset
or aught else, my Buckskin. We know how many o’ ye there are; and if
ye don’t surrender, why, we’ll put a torch to the blockhouse and
roast ye out. Fire won’t hurt gold and silver, but ’tain’t friendly
to live meat.”
“’Twill cost you something first,” I retorted.
“Not so much as ye might think.”
“Dot’s right,” squeaked Peter beside me. “_Ja_, you better make a
bargain wit’ him, Bob.”
“A bargain,” I repeated. “What on earth can we bargain with?”
“Der treasure on der Dead Man’s Chest.”
“But that is----”
I turned to Moira.
“In a manner of speaking, that treasure is yours. ’Twas in your
father’s name, to be held in trust for others. Are you willing----”
“My faith, any cause will be the better without it,” she interrupted.
“What has it done but bring bloodshed and suffering upon all who
trafficked in it? If it will just win us our lives, Bob, ’twill be
the one good deed to its credit.”
“Time’s runnin’ short,” shouted Flint. “If ye won’t surrender we’ll
start the fagots.”
“Suit yourself,” I replied with as much confidence as I could muster.
“There are three of us here, and ’tis we know where the treasure lies
on the Dead Man’s Chest. If you won’t even promise our lives we’ll
make the bitterest fight we can and carry the secret with us.”
There was a gabble of protest at this, several others joining their
voices to Flint’s, among them Silver.
“Naught’s been said o’ slayin’ ye,” declared Flint. “Give up the
treasure, and we’ll part friends.”
“Aye, aye, Master Ormerod,” called Silver. “Cap’n Flint puts it
straight. There ain’t a man of us would wish to be your enemy.”
I looked hopelessly at Peter.
“What more can we win?” I asked. “’Tis a mockery to place credence
in their promises.”
“_Ja_,” nodded Peter. “We don’t trust ’em. But we know dot, Bob.
We don’t be fooled. Andt now anyway we get off alive.
Afterwards----”
He shrugged his mountainous shoulders.
“If we do but get off this terrible island we are that much improved
in our circumstances!” exclaimed Moira. “Glory, but I’ll wear the
skin from me knees when I see another woman’s face--not that I’m
ungrateful to the two of ye here, that are as brave cavaliers as any
maid ever owed her all to.”
What she said set me to pondering again, and I called to Flint----
“Mistress O’Donnell must have every consideration she is accustomed
to, with decent lodging in the cabin and we two to attend her.”
“Gut me!” roared Flint. “D’ye think we conduct a nunnery aboard the
_Walrus_?”
“I am thinking she is a young maid by her lone, which is hard enough,
let be she must dwell with pirates,” I answered.
“There’s Rule Four of our Articles,” he sneered. “Ye will ha’ heard
it before. It should be assurance for any maid.”
“You have heard my terms,” I said. “Take them or leave them.
There’s eight hundred thousand pounds to be gained from treating us
kindly. If you do not so, as sure as I am here we will die, the
three of us, before we yield you the secret--and you should know the
years ’twill require to dig over the Dead Man’s Chest.”
“We’ll take you,” he replied ill-naturedly. “And such a argufying
swab I never listened to or will again, ---- my eyes. Are ye fixed
in your mind, Buckskin?”
“Yes.”
“Drop your arms and bide where ye are, then. We’re comin’ in to look
ye over.”
Torches flickered around the circuit of the stockade, and as they
drew nearer Peter and I tore down the barricade of treasure I had
built across the doorway. Figures appeared in the wavy light, naked
to the waist, scratched by the jungle growth; uncouth, grizzled faces
lowered at us.
“Keep back,” I warned them. “We’ll let no man in until Captain Flint
is here.”
“Careful, ain’t ye, Buckskin?” he mocked me from behind a clump of
pirates. “Make way, shipmates. Ye’ll all ha’ a chance to see the
treasure, soon or late, and we’ll share in it equal and regular,
accordin’ to the Articles.”
The group split to make way for him, and he strode up to the door.
Bones was with him, and Silver, and the man they called Black Dog,
who carried a torch, as did Bones. And behind them all limped an
awful creature, whose grimy face was a mask of pain, whose bare back
and flanks were crisscrossed with festering welts. In one hand he
held a cat-o’-nine-tails, the pendent rope lashes with their jagged
knots stained a dark claret hue.
Bones flourished his torch as they entered the low door, and the
light shone into every corner of the big hut.
“Is that Murray?”
He pointed to the body that lay beneath the hacked remnants of the
plum satin coat which served as shroud.
“Yes,” I said, and Moira shrank betwixt Peter and me as they crowded
forward, staring open-mouthed at the cold clay that represented the
man they had so feared and hated.
“Gut me,” swore Flint. “I never thought to see Andrew Murray lyin’
stark.”
Silver’s eyes glinted from his slab of a face.
“He don’t figure much now, do he, mates?” he said.
“Let’s have a look at him,” spoke up Bones abruptly. “Here, Black
Dog, bring up your light, too.”
The man with the sore back limped after them, drawing the tails of
his cat through the fingers of one hand with a kind of lingering
caress.
“Let me at mun,” he muttered. “I’ll flay mun, I will! I’ll learn
mun t’ murder sailormen. Five o’ us, and----”
Bones brushed off the plum satin coat with one toe, and Murray’s
gaunt white face smiled up at them, faintly satirical, the snuff-box
still clutched in one hand.
“---- me, ’tis so he looked ever!” gasped Flint.
“’Tain’t right nor natural,” said Bones. “He looks like he knowed we
was here--and couldn’t harm him none.”
Silver said nothing, peering down at the dead man with a puzzled
frown as if he were trying to read something that was hidden behind
the impassive features.
“He’ll look dif’rent when I lash mun,” whined the man with the cat,
pushing past Black Dog. “Wait till t’ cat slices into t’ back o’
mum, cap’n. I’ll cut t’ grin off’n t’ devil’s face o’ mun.”
’Twas Silver caught the poor fellow’s arm as it was raised to strike.
“No, no, Tom!” he cried. “Murray’s dead.”
“Dead?” answered the man dazedly. “But ’ee promised I should ha’ t’
beatin’ o’ mun!”
“Aye, Tom; but ye can’t beat a dead man.”
“Why? He beat me till I was like t’ die. He beat three o’ my mates
till they died, an’ Job Pytchens is a-dyin’ out in the sand right
now.”
But Flint himself snatched the cat from the man’s grasp with
unaffected horror.
“Ye can’t beat a dead man, Tom,” insisted the _Walrus’_ captain.
“’Tis bad luck. And look at the good luck we ha’ had since we found
Darby McGraw! I can tell ye, mates, I’m a-going to hang on to my
luck.”
Bones growled assent, and Silver added----
“Aye, aye, cap’n; and if ye’ll be guided by me ye’ll lose no time in
puttin’ Murray underground.”
They all exchanged superstitious glances, and Bones said hoarsely----
“He were close to bein’ more’n human, weren’t he?”
“They do say as how ye can chain down a ha’nt by drivin’ a stake
through the body,” suggested Black Dog--and he shook so that his
torch scattered sparks.
“Ye couldn’t pin Murray down that way if he was of a mind to ha’nt
ye,” answered Silver. “Not that I believe in ha’nts myself.”
“It’s bad luck to mutilate the dead,” objected Flint. “No, no, we’ll
bury him quick and be done with it.”
“But ’ee promised I was t’ beat mun,” sobbed Tom Morphew. “I let ’ee
in, Long John, and ’ee promised!”
“How was I to know he’d be dead?” returned Silver. “Don’t ye take on
so, Tom. We’ll give ye a double handful o’ onzas for what ye done,
and when your back’s well ye’ll ha’ a rare spree wi’ the yellow boys,
eh?”
But Morphew refused to be comforted. He limped from the hut,
trailing his whip behind him.
“’Tisn’t goold I want,” he wept. “’Tis to lay my lash to t’ back o’
mun. Aye! Till he do be bloody raw, same as Job Pytchens and they
other lads as is under sod. Oh, my pore back!”
There was an interval of silence after he was gone.
“It’s bad luck to touch the dead,” reaffirmed Flint. “No, no, the
thing to do is to bury him quick. You take half a dozen men, Bill,
and plant him anywhere--so’s he’s deep enough.”
“And what about the treasure?” called one of the men by the door.
“Aye, aye,” chimed in a second. “When do we shift it aboard and
divvy up?”
Flint stroked his chin, considering.
“Why, there’s no hurry about the treasure, mates,” he answered
finally. “’Tis safe here. What we all need now is a dram o’ rum and
two watches below.”
There was a general murmur of assent with this sentiment, and he
crooked his finger at me.
“Come along, Buckskin. We’ll put the three o’ ye aboard-ship, out o’
harm’s way, seein’ as ye’re so precious o’ your skins. Long John,
I’ll leave it to ye to guard the prisoners. Give the girl a
stateroom for herself--less’n ye might wish to share it, Buckskin?”
he added with a leer that fetched a ruddy tide to Moira’s cheeks.
He guffawed.
“Dainty, ain’t ye, my lass? Well, the _Walrus_ is a pirate, not a
private man-o-war, and maybe ye’ll learn a thing or two.”
Silver motioned us to precede him into the night, and as we passed
out he gathered together a party of men who formed loosely around us.
“If so be as ye’ll give me your word to come peaceable, Master
Ormerod, I can make things easier for ye,” he offered when we were
clear of the hut.
“What do you say, Peter?” I asked the Dutchman.
“_Ja_.”
“That’s enough for me,” announced Silver cheerfully. “And very
sensible of ye, too, gentlemen. Not quite so fast. I’m only a
crippled sailorman, and I ha’ labored hard this night. Aye, it were
such a seesaw o’ fortune as kep’ my heart a-poppin’ in my throat. I
thought ye had me on the stockade; but there’s none like Pew wi’ the
knife, and he can smell his man when he can’t see him. Well, well,
who’d ha ’s’posed when we met in New York we’d come to aught like
this, Master Ormerod?”
I lacked the heart to answer him, and we stumbled through the woods
in silence to the shore of the Anchorage. Here one of the _Walrus’_
boats was launched, and we were rowed out to where she lay, her hull
squatting like a rock in the quiet water. Men hailed us from her
deck, a whip was sent down for Silver’s convenience, and the rest of
us climbed the side ladder, Moira as agile as any after her months at
sea.
“Here we are, safe and snug on the old _Walrus_,” remarked Silver,
still aggressively cheery; “and them as is here can call theirselves
fortunate, ’cause there’s a plenty as ha’ kept Murray company. Aye,
blast me for a swab, but it ha’ been a bloody night. Get for’ard,
mates.”
This to the men who had come off with us.
“I’ll see to the pris’ners. Now then, gentlemen--and mistress--you
come along wi’ me, and I’ll make ye all as comf’table as if ye was in
a Bristol packet.”
He prodded a muscular forefinger into my chest.
“You mind that, Master Ormerod. You mind that Long John was your
friend. ’Cause why, says you? ’Cause there’s never a man could see
through the sand in the hourglass, could he now? And we’ll ha’ queer
times ahead o’ us--aye, queer times. How queer, says you? Ah, how’m
I to know? All I says, and I stands on my words, is there’ll be
queer times--and you mind Long John was kindly and stood your friend,
hearty and free. D’ye see?”
He plainly desired an answer, although I was not very certain of what
he was driving at with this rigmarole.
“I’m afraid I don’t,” I said shortly.
He cocked his head on one side.
“Ye don’t? Humph, there’s things best left unsaid, but I’ll put this
to ye. Here’s the _Walrus_, and here’s a treasure, and here’s Flint,
and here’s maybe twelvescore lads as don’t all think alike, and
here’s Bill Bones--and here’s me. A goodish bit might happen, my
master. And who’s to say what will start it a-happenin’? Not me!
Nor who might come out on top a’terwards.”
And with a parting wink he stumped aft, crooking his finger in sign
that we should follow him across the untidy deck.
“Glory!” sniffed Moira, her nose in air. “This will be more the like
of a stable than a ship.”
She did not exaggerate. The _Walrus_ was dirtier than she had been
the night Peter and I were committed to her as hostages. Her decks
were foul with grease and all manner of filth; her paint was cracked
and peeling; a cloud of flies buzzed around a tub of fish-guts which
nobody would take the trouble to cast overside; from an open hatch
poured a sour, acrid stench. A strange contrast with the _Royal
James_!
Inside the companionway under the poop we tripped over the usual
litter of broken bottles, pistol-flints and odds and ends of cast-off
clothing. Silver balanced himself on his crutch against the wall,
struck flint and steel to a slow-match and ignited the wick of a
whale-oil lanthorn which depended from a hook. Holding this above
his head, he surveyed the double line of stateroom doors, very
similar to the plan of the cabin quarters of the _James_.
“Room for all,” he pronounced. “This here to larboard is Flint’s,
and Bones’ berth’s opposite. T’others are full o’ junk, but ye can
soon clear ’em out.”
Inspection revealed that the junk was mostly Jamaica rum and other
strong liquors, which we removed to the main cabin. But the crusted
dirt of years was not so easily dispossessed. Silver, to do him
justice, was tolerant of our initial efforts, and went so far as to
procure us a bucket on a rope which we could lower over the side for
water; but he wearied of such fruitless work after a time and hopped
away to his hammock with admonitions to us to be satisfied “there
ain’t no nipper-bugs in them bunks.”
We did the best we could, which was very little, and then persuaded
Moira to risk lying in the cleaner of the two rooms--we had chosen it
for her because it had a bolt on the inside of the door and offered
her a degree of privacy--while Peter and I berthed across the
companionway, Peter on the floor by reason of his bulk, and I in the
one cramped bunk. And I marvel to say that we went promptly asleep
and did not waken until the noon sun was flooding through the grimy
panes of the cabin windows.
A rumble of snores assured us that Flint and Bones were in their
berths, but the sound of a familiar brogue drew us aft to the main
cabin.
“And what way will ye ha’ cause for complaint that ha’ seen men walk
the plank and been to Madygascar and the East Indies and Afriky where
the naygurs come from? On me soul, ye sicken me with your whining!
Holy ----, man, do but look to me that am a pirate these many months,
and all the fighting they will ha’ throwed in me way was with other
pirates--and them great, powerful rogues that give as good as we
sent. Sure, I haven’t been at the scuttling of any wan----”
“But ye had a cutlass to your hand and a musket on your shoulder,”
protested another familiar voice. “And ye walk the deck wi’out shoes
to your feet, and ye ha’ a fine bright kerchief to the head o’ ye,
and if ye seek to haul on a rope or hold to the wheel there’s no man
will say ye nay, Darby. But wi’ me it’s been lackey’s work an’
livery-shuits since the first day I went to sea. It’s ‘Ben, clear
the table!’ or ‘Fill up the glasses, Ben Gunn!’ or ‘Fetch me the
’backy, Gunn!’ I’m no more a pirate than the Irish maid----”
“Don’t ye be naming her, or I’ll lay the end o’ a rope to ye! I
won’t ha’ ye talkin’ the way ye were betther nor ye are. Didn’t the
cap’n give ye to me for me sarvant? Sure, he did! ‘---- me,’ says
he when we took ye, ‘Darby, you’re a good cabin boy and main lucky.
I’ll give ye the feller to be doin’ your work for ye.”
“Well, there was one promised to take me out o’ livery-shuits,”
answered Gunn doggedly, “and if he----”
He broke off as we entered from the companionway, writhing with the
excess of embarrassment which visited him when in the presence of
several persons. Darby McGraw was no less surprized and leaped up
from the chair in which he had been lounging, bobbing his head to
Moira with the vigor of a heathen kowtowing to an idol. All the boy
wore was a pair of canvas trousers belted about his waist and a
kerchief from which straggled his carroty locks. A cutlass slapped
his thighs, and three pistols were stuck through his belt.
“Master Bob!” he exclaimed. “And Master Peter, too!
And--and--Misthress O’Donnell--sure, there’s a harp within me does be
strummin’ pretty music this instant!”
He grinned; and for all his months aboard the _Walrus_, his grin was
as sunny as in the counting-room in Pearl Street.
“Ye’ll be forgivin’ me, ma’am, that am Irish meself, and must think
o’ the lakes o’ Wicklow when I look to your eyes.”
Moira clasped her hands.
“Wicklow!” she cried. “’Twas in Wicklow I was born, and my mother
before me.”
“Ah, then, ’tis glad I will be I met ye this side o’ the world,” he
answered, clapping his hand to his cutlass-hilt very hardily. “For
if we’d come on each other in Wicklow I’d be no more nor a gossoon of
a bog-trotter and ye one o’ the grand gentry-folk.”
Moira’s laugh had the note of fairy chimes I had not heard since her
father fell on the _James’_ deck.
“’Tis you are the lad with the silver tongue,” she said. “But if ye
come from Wicklow, Darby, it will be almost as if we were of the same
family.”
She suddenly sobered.
“And I, that might be elder cousin or maybe sister to you, must be
asking why ye are a pirate? Were ye not honest-born?”
Darby’s embarrassment was almost as painful as Ben Gunn’s.
“Why, ye see-- There was in me always the wish for the sea-- I was
no more nor a bound-boy-- And Long John, he says----”
“Darby,” she interrupted sternly, “how long will it be since ye
confessed?”
He poked at his bare toes with the tip of his cutlass-sheath.
“Why, maybe--oh, a month this way or maybe that, I’d say--well,
troth, if ye put it to me----”
“A many months,” she asserted.
“I’ll not deny it,” he admitted, shamefaced.
“And you from Wicklow, Darby!”
“’Tis no fault o’ mine when I couldn’t come at the priest.”
“Maybe no, if you held your ways in places a priest would frequent;
but who would be expecting a priest in a pirate-ship? And what would
the priest say did ye go to him and confess what ye ha’ done? Oh,
Darby, ye will be a monstrous wicked boy!”
Darby was overwhelmed.
“On me soul, I never meant to be! Troth, there’s none will ever be
repenting better nor me--if I do but get the chance. But do ye see,
misthress, it will be the like o’ this: Whiles ye lives wi’ pirates
ye must be main wicked, and aftherwards, when ye break free o’ them,
there’ll be lashin’s o’ time to make up for it.”
He sought to cover his confusion by rounding upon Ben Gunn, who had
stood trembling to one side throughout this dialogue.
“What way will this be that ye act, ye lackey?” he demanded with an
excellent imitation of Flint’s manner. “Will ye be too stupid or
feared to see we are waitin’ our bite and sup?”
“Stop! Stop!” I intervened as poor Gunn started to scramble from the
cabin. “How comes it you are here? Do I understand you have been
relegated to your former duties by Captain Flint?”
“I don’t know what relegated means, Master Ormerod,” replied Gunn
forlornly; “but I’m doin’ my former dooties, yessir. I figgered last
night ’twas all up wi’ Cap’n Murray, which same I hears is true, and
so I says to myself, I says, ‘Ben, you go and tell Cap’n Flint here’s
a man as is glad and willin’ to j’in up and serve him handsome, a man
as is as good a sailor, give him a chance, as any afloat.’”
He shuffled his feet a moment, regarding me sidewise.
“Ye see,” he amended, “I figgered as how with Cap’n Murray gone
’twouldn’t hardly be possible for you to give me the new ratin’ we
talked about once. And then bein’ the circumstances it seemed all
ways fair as I should make the best deal----”
“Yes, yes,” I said; “but what did Cap’n Flint say?”
Ben Gunn scratched his head in some perplexity.
“He said summat as how I was too good a lackey to spoil. And then he
called to Darby and told him a good cabin boy desarved his own
sarvant and here I was. And here I be, sir! Unlucky I were born,
steppin’ into a livery-shuit as page-boy, and unlucky I ha’ lived.
And unlucky I’ll die, I reckon, sir. But I won’t die in no
livery-shuit, no, sir!”
With which he shuffled off.
“The ignorant natural!” snorted Darby disgustedly. “Him to be a
pirate!”