“FETCH AFT THE RUM, DARBY MCGRAW!”
Murray had predicted that the looting of the _Sanctissima Trinidad_
would send the frigates to sea from Santo Domingo, St. Pierre, the
Havana and Kingston, and the adventures of the _Walrus_ furnished
ample confirmation of his words. Six days’ sail to the southward we
raised the tops’ls of a lofty stranger whom the lookouts identified
as a King’s ship.
Flint, summoned from his perpetual debauch in the main cabin, agreed
with them and ordered the helm put over. The _Walrus_ headed west,
and the stranger followed her. She clung to us through the day and
night, and in the morning our glasses revealed the ominous belt of
gunports of a sixty-gun razee. But like all English second-rates,
she was clumsy in the water; and Flint was a good seaman, if nothing
else. He contrived to keep beyond cannonshot and during the second
night shifted his course cleverly and gave our pursuer the slip.
Yet he dared not turn back immediately, and we held on northeast into
the track of the Spanish _flotas_, passing four ships westbound in
the three days we continued upon this course. On the fourth day
Flint deemed himself safe from the razee, the _Walrus_ went about and
he resumed his solitary rum-swigging in the cabin, drinking bottle
after bottle the day long, cursing and singing and shouting his
bloody tales and chanteys to an invisible audience that sat or fought
with him.
For us three prisoners the _Walrus_ was a floating bedlam. Moira
might not stir from her stateroom unless it be at night when Flint
occasionally slept and the most of the crew were carousing in the
fo’csle; but she never complained of the confinement that washed the
color from her cheeks, and retained her buoyant spirits despite the
hideous danger which shadowed her every hour.
Without Darby she would have been in even worse case. ’Twas he spied
out the moments she could venture abroad and thrust himself
dauntlessly betwixt her and any threats. He carried her such food as
she would eat and often did the same for us, for Flint was become
subject to seizures of ungovernable ferocity, in the grip of which he
distrusted all aboard the ship saving Bill Bones and Darby, and was
in terror of unseen presences that lurked about the cabin’s corners
and mowed at him from the stern windows.
In these seizures he would take his pistols and shoot in every
direction, regardless of who might be present, or with his hanger he
would hack at the walls and pursue imaginary enemies along the
companionway. But for Darby he would have slain Ben Gunn, and he did
actually cut down one unfortunate fellow who goggled at him as he
stamped out upon the deck, foaming and mouthing defiance of the
ghosts that tormented him.
Darby alone could handle him. Bones he trusted, but would brook no
interference from; Darby, however, could talk to him freely and
sometimes curb his violence, providing rum was forthcoming whenever
he demanded it.
In the latitude of the Windward Passage a Spanish line-ship and two
frigates blundered upon us unexpectedly out of a bank of mist. There
was naught to do but run, and again Flint rallied to the emergency.
That day we held our own; but in the night a moderate gale blew up,
and the seventy-four was able to carry canvas that would have ripped
the masts from the _Walrus_.
At dawn she opened with her chase-guns, and for five glasses Flint
must jockey his ship to dodge the eighteen-pounder shot. Then the
wind moderated, and as we hoisted sail after sail we commenced to
draw away from the big Spaniard. She was a lubberly craft, and her
captain was no man to develop her possibilities--as her gunners were
unable to get upon a bouncing target in those slashing head seas.
The frigates even yet, I think, might have overhauled us, but they
were afraid to close and engage by themselves.
In the night Flint attempted to escape his pursuers as he had the
King’s ship by heading west toward the empty gulf of the Atlantic.
But the Spaniards were prepared for this maneuver. They had spread
out to cover a wide area of sea, with the result that we passed
almost under the bows of one of the frigates, and the flashes of her
guns warned her consorts where we were.
Undismayed, Flint varied the trick the next night, lying to in that
dark hour which comes before moonrise, and they passed us without
suspecting the ruse. By morning we were leagues away on our
back-track, and Flint boasted of his luck until he became maudlin,
sprawling upon the cabin-table in a mess of broken meats and glasses
that must have sickened any sensible man.
He had a sorry awakening from his fool’s dream two days later when a
stately French forty-four showed herself at our heels. Ah, she was a
greyhound! Every foot of her hull was molded for speed, and her
rakish spars were clothed with a sail area that drove her a good
three leagues to the glass. Bones, with Darby to aid him, pulled
Flint away from the cabin-table and threw buckets of sea-water over
him to unlock the fetters the rum had fastened upon his brain. And
he staggered on deck, cursing like a fiend, to squint his bloodshot
eyes over the stern rail. In a moment he was cold sober.
“Gut me, ’tis a Frenchy! We’re his meat, mates. But we’ll sell for
our own price, eh? Pipe all hands to quarters, Bill. Cast loose and
provide.”
There was muttering amongst the crew. This was what Allardyce had
foretold, and the survivors of his group of protestants were not slow
to exploit the opportunity. But the majority of the men went to the
guns as doggedly determined as Flint.
“Fight, ye dogs!” he bade them from the poop, swaying his mottled
blue jowl from side to side. “’Tis a noose or the galleys for ye the
one way, and Davy Jones’ locker the other. Betwixt the two ye may
win free if ye fight. But wi’out fighting ye are ruined men.”
The Frenchman disdained to use his chase-guns, so confident was he of
bringing us to action at broadside range; but all the forenoon the
breeze dwindled, and at midday both ships were caught in a dead calm.
The frigate put out her boats, and so did we, and at once the
advantage shifted in our favor. For ’twas one thing to tow a great
forty-four, loaded with vast weight of metal, men and stores, and
entirely a different task to tow the _Walrus_, of two-thirds the bulk
and practically unladen below the gundeck. Moreover, the French
sailors were in no wise so hardy or so desperate as the pirates, who
knew that their chances of life were in proportion to the distance
they extended betwixt the two vessels.
Flint swaggered around the fo’csle, swearing and urging on the men in
the boats like the spectator of a horse-race who has staked more than
he can afford upon the issue.
“We’ll make it, ---- me,” he would say. “My luck’s with us, I tell
ye all. Here, Darby, jump on to the bulwarks and let ’em see your
red head. Mark him, men! There’s luck for ye. There don’t live the
man can stop me whilst the lad’s with us.”
And he would brandish his hanger at the towering sails of the
frigate, lying slack against the yards, just out of cannonshot, and
burst into the wildest imprecations and challenges.
“No Frenchman’ll pull down John Flint! Aye, ---- ---- me for a ----
---- ---- if he will! I tell ye I ha’ luck. Look to what I ha’
done. There were three after us but two days since, and we lost ’em
as we’ll lose yon fellow.”
His promises were justified amazingly. In the course of the
afternoon we gained a hard-won league; and that night under cloak of
darkness we stole silently north before a freshening wind, which by
morning was a tempest. The French frigate disappeared, making the
best of the heavy weather, and the _Walrus_ was blown north and west
for five days, past the latitude of Spyglass Island, past the
scattered rocks and cays of the Bahamas, past the Floridas.
Impossible now to watch for the tall spars of fighting-ships--as
impossible as it would have been to fight them or for them to fight
us, with the gray waves toppling mainyard high and the gunports
buried half the time.
Flint had only dead reckoning to go by, for low-hung clouds and black
banks of rain obscured sun and stars. Literally we did not know
where we were, and our lookouts were peering through the scud for a
landfall in the Bermoothes the morning the storm flailed itself to
pieces.
It was this morning that the fever first appeared in our midst. I
can still see the look, half-doubt, half-misgiving, in Silver’s face
as he heaved himself aft by one of the life-lines which grilled the
maindeck and hailed Flint on the poop.
“There’s ten lads groanin’ in their hammocks, cap’n.”
“Take your crutch to ’em,” snapped Flint.
“Them lads is sick,” answered Silver. “Bellyaches and headaches
a-twistin’ em in knots.”
“They’re soldierin’ so as not to have to go aloft,” returned Flint.
“But if you’re afraid of ’em, I’m not.”
The first of the sick men he prodded with his hanger already was
dead, and he hastened back to the cabin and fortified himself anew
with rum. I heard him mumbling to Bones as he entered the
companionway:
“It’s main queer, Bill. I don’t like it. Maybe my luck ain’t good
against sickness.”
“Maybe,” answered Bones. “What ha’ ye done wi’ the map?”’
Flint’s teeth gritted together.
“If I thought ye----”
“Belay there, John. I’m only thinkin’ as if ye was sick some o’ them
swabs for’ard might try and come by it.”
“Don’t ye worry about that,” advised Flint grimly. “It’s safe--and
it will stay safe.”
A second man died the next day, and there were eighteen sick instead
of ten. A panic possessed the crew, and Silver mustered a fo’csle
council of frightened pirates, who whispered and nudged each other as
they gazed awestruck at Flint’s congested visage atop of the barrel
which was his official throne. Thorough scoundrels themselves, they
accorded him the sincere respect which was the due of one who utterly
surpassed them in wickedness. He was “a rare ’un,” “a main desperate
rogue”; “lead and steel was same as bread and meat to him.”
“What’ll ye have?” he growled.
“Well, ’tis this way, cap’n,” Silver broached diplomatically. “The
crew feels as the fever comes from the ship bein’ foul and so long at
sea----”
“We ain’t been long at sea.”
“Maybe not so long from the Rendeyvoo, but we ain’t careened or
cleaned ship this year.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“It ain’t nobody’s fault. But it do seem as if we’d oughter run into
some likely port where we could get sweet water and greens and check
the fever before it runs through the crew.”
“There’s a many ports we could make,” commented Flint sarcastically.
“We could allus head up for the island,” interposed a man.
“So’s ye could go for to dig up the treasure we just stowed away,”
snorted Flint. “Not if I know it!”
“There ain’t been talk o’ the island,” said Silver hastily. “But
what would ye say to the Bermoothes?”
“Too many reefs to pile ourselves on--and Hamilton is a port o’ call
for the King’s ships.”
“Them’s the very words I said myself!” exclaimed Silver. “And what
would ye say to Savannah, cap’n, which same is a quiet spot and has
no garrison, seein’ as Georgy is the newest o’ all the colonies in
Ameriky?”
Flint reached down to the deck beside him and lifted a bottle of rum
to his mouth, going through the usual performance of draining it at
one colossal gulp to the considerable admiration of the crew.
“Aaa-aah,” he muttered, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.
“Savannah, eh? That might do. But mind ye, men, I’ll ha’ no talk o’
disbandment there or elsewhere. We’ll stop by to clean up the fever
and water, and when that’s done we’ll square off south and collect
what’s comin’ to us on the Dead Man’s Chest. I’m a man o’ my word!”
Silver made quick assent.
“Fairly put. And the while we’re lyin’ off Savannah the frigates
will be a-wearin’ themselves out on false scents. It works both
ways, cap’n.”
“It’ll work my way,” rapped Flint.
He slid off the barrel, balanced dizzily for a moment and walked into
the companionway under the poop.
“Darby McGraw!” he called harshly. “Ho, Darby, fetch aft the rum.”
That night he had another of his fits, declaring that Andrew Murray
was come aboard to slay him. He chased Bones from the cabin, hanger
in hand, and was for setting upon the watch on deck when Darby
restrained him with a bottle of rum, asserting it to contain Murray’s
heart’s blood. Flint tossed it off with howls of infernal glee and
retired to snore on the cabin floor, twitching and foaming at the
mouth in his slumber like one possessed. The next day as we rolled
in the oily swell under a torrid sun with the pitch pricking up in
bubbles from the seams, the fever laid its hot hand upon him.
“Don’t ye look at me that way, Gonzalez,” he would scream. “Here,
Bill, what kind o’ shipmate are you to be lettin’ old Ross in here
wi’ his bloody throat?”
And then he would turn pious.
“Ah, now, mother, ye’d not ha’ me bide home all my days like a baby,
would ye? Look at these gold jos. Ain’t they pretty? I’ll wager ye
ain’t got a friend as has a son can fetch her stuff the like o’ that!
No, no; don’t ye ask no questions. Oh, dear Christ, what a pain I
got! God, God, don’t ye let me go this way. I’ll build a chapel
home to Tewkesbury when I find Murray’s cache. A million and a half
pounds, God; aye, that and more--and just you ’n’ me to share it, wi’
some for Bill Bones and Darby, as is a good lad and lucky.”
He babbled childishly of his luck.
“Ye wouldn’t break my luck, God! Oh, Ye wouldn’t! There never was
none like John Flint to rove the seas, John Flint as outwitted old
Murray and was the end of him.”
The droning voice would ramble on day and night, with intervals of
exhausted sleep, punctuated by awful, explosive screams:
“Ho, Darby! Darby McGraw! Fetch aft the rum, Darby!”
And again:
“I’m a-burnin’ in my guts, Darby. Ye wouldn’t leave me to burn.
Fetch me a noggin o’ rum!”
Other times he would sing, and always the one song that had been my
introduction to his company:
“Bellamy’s hangin’ all dried and brown--
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle o’ rum!
A-rattlin’ his chains by Kingston town--
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle o’ rum!”
But words cannot describe the horrors of the week which succeeded.
For five days men died at the rate of three a day. Then the disease
seemed to diminish in virulence, and although we had as many as
seventy sick at once, practically all survived. As a rule, men who
were stricken either perished within twenty-four hours or else made a
slow recovery. Flint was one of the few exceptions, and I can only
suppose that in his case the illness resolved itself into a battle
betwixt a naturally sinewy frame and the weaknesses developed by the
strong liquors with which it had been saturated.
That we three and Darby were untouched I attribute as much as
anything to the measures which Peter took. He brewed a drastic
purgative of rum, molasses and gunpowder, and he was insistent that
Darby should procure a large earthen crock to contain boiled water
which we kept in Moira’s stateroom. Bones, Silver, Pew and those
others of the crew who escaped the infection did so simply because of
their physical vigor or perhaps because they were so accustomed to
living in filth that the exaggerated conditions aboard the _Walrus_
might not harm them.
A week from the day we steered westward we sighted the mouth of a
broad river, crossed a bar at high tide and bore upstream between
low, sandy shores overgrown with pine forests. On the verge of
evening we rounded a point of land and dropped our anchor opposite a
little, log-built town perched on a sandy bluff.
A huddle of merchant shipping eyed askance the splintered sides and
serried ports of the _Walrus_, and there was a general tendency to
slacken anchor-cables and allow us ample room. Ashore men scurried
to and fro; several small cannon were run out upon the platform of
the stockade, and the British flag was displayed.
Peter and I had seized the opportunity of the semidarkness to escort
Moira to the rail for a view of our new surroundings, and we were
staring hungrily at this outpost of civilization when the thud-thud
of Silver’s crutch sounded on the deck behind us.
“Ye might think from them goin’s-on ashore as there was a mighty
treasure in Savannah,” he observed; “but bless ye, there ain’t enough
worth the takin’ in that town to pay for the gunpowder to blow down
the stockade.”
I assented, and Flint’s voice came faintly through the twilight:
“Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s Chest--
Yo-ho-ho, and a----
“Ho, Darby! Darby McGraw! Fetch aft the rum, Darby McGraw!”
“He’s main bad, Flint is.”
Silver thrust a thumb over his shoulder.
“Won’t hardly last till mornin’, Bill says.”
“Oh, poor soul!” exclaimed Moira. “And him with so much wickedness
to answer for! I am thinking he will have a great need of prayers,
so if you will be after taking me below, Bob----”
“Bide a moment, mistress,” interrupted Silver. “Ha’ ye seen aught o’
the map, Master Ormerod?”
“No,” I answered briefly. “And I’ll not be involved in your quarrels
aboard this hell-ship.”
“Easy, easy,” he admonished me. “Rough words won’t further ye, my
gentleman. Here’s me as will be glad to stand your friend, and you
know best whether you need a friend. Figger it out for yourselves.
Flint’s as good as dead. Who comes a’ter him--me or Bill Bones?
Which o’ us would ye plump for? Bill, he’s a desp’rate villain--and
has his fish-eyes on the maid here.
“Long John, he wants treasure and a clean path home. I’m none o’
your rum-swiggers and tavern-brawlers, gentlemen. I ha’ had
eddication, and I aims to get more. Give me a million and a half
pounds to divvy, and I’ll sack the old _Walrus_ and ride to Parlyment
in my coach, I will.”
“What has that to do with us?” I demanded.
He winked.
“What has it to do with you, says you? Ah, what! Why, just this.
I’m your friend. You stand by me and I’ll stand by you. There’ll be
a ’lection of a cap’n, and if I knows this crew, him as has the
treasure-map will come out on top. You get me the map, and I’ll put
you ashore.”
Flint called out again suddenly in a frenzy of fear:
“Bill! Where’s Bill Bones? Stand afore me, Bill. There’s them here
I can’t face.”
The guttural mutter of Bones’ voice answered the plea. Silver cocked
his head on one side, hand cupped to ear, listening eagerly. But the
words were impossible to distinguish.
“No, no, not yet, Bill,” wailed Flint. “I ain’t a-goin’ to die.
Where’s Darby? Here, lad, you come and sit by me. You’re my luck,
Darby. I can’t die with you by me.”
Bones spoke again, and with an oath Silver cuddled his crutch in his
armpit and hopped over the deck to the companionway.
“We better go,” said Peter. “_Ja_, we take der little gal to her
room, Bob. I don’t like this.”
Silver reached the door of Flint’s stateroom as we stepped inside the
companionway. We could see him distinctly in the light of the fading
sunset glow which came through the stern-windows. Ben Gunn was
crouching by the door, with his back toward us, hugging his arms
about himself and evidently eavesdropping upon what went on in the
stateroom. As we watched, Silver swung his right arm and dealt Gunn
a blow which knocked him head over heels into the main cabin. The
steward emited one agonized howl and scuttled under the cabin table.
Silver wrenched open the stateroom door and poked his head inside.
“Well, well, if this ain’t a touchin’ picter!” he remarked. “Bill, I
see you’re doin’ the kind and dootiful by our lamented skipper. But
anybody as knowed ye would expect it of ye. Is that the
treasure-map?”
“What are ye goin’ to do about it?” snarled Bones by way of answer.
Silver backed into the companionway, as if in mute obedience to a
leveled weapon.
“Do?” he repeated. “That depends, Bill. We’ll see what the crew has
to say.”
“Aye, that we will,” retorted Bones, and his voice vibrated with
undisguised triumph. “Who’s to come a’ter ye, cap’n?” he added.
“I ain’t goin’ to die, Bill,” came Flint’s mournful wail. “Where’s
the rum, Darby? I’m a-burnin’ wi’ thirst.”
“Who’s to come a’ter ye, John?” pressed Bones remorselessly.
Silver indulged in a mocking laugh.
“Aye, he knows what to answer!”
And Flint echoed him gaspingly:
“Bill’s mate. He--has--map.”
“Satisfied?” jeered Bones.
“I be, Bill,” Silver assured him. “But we’ll put it to the crew
first, all fair and reg’lar. And whatever they say, Bill, you
remember I’ll be watchin’ ye. Don’t try any tricks wi’ that map.
I’m ready for ye, and if ye start tricks we’ll put the Black Spot on
ye.”
“To ---- wi’ you and your Black Spot!” roared Bones. “Get out o’
here afore I take my knife to ye.”
Silver stumped toward us, his face distorted with rage.
“He has it,” he rasped. “---- him for the shifty scoundrel he is!
Well, the next move is for ye to plot, Master Ormerod.”
“I see it not,” I said coldly.
“Wait till he thinks o’ the maid here,” replied the one-legged man
and hopped out on deck.
From Flint’s stateroom Darby’s voice rose in protest.
“Take your hand off me, ye-- Ah, if he wants the rum do be lettin’
him have it! Sure, what will it matther----”
“’Tain’t no use wastin’ good rum on a dead man,” said Bones,
chuckling thickly.
There was a gurgle of liquor, and Flint moaned:
“Where’s my rum? Fetch aft the rum, Darby McGraw!”
“Ah, ye black-hearted wretch!” shrilled Darby. “May the banshees
whistle for ye, and-- I’ll not! Beware do ye touch me, I say, or
I’ll----”
The door of the stateroom crashed open again, and Darby was bundled
out into the companionway.
“’Tis bad luck, and not good, I’ll wish on ye!” he screamed.
Bones’ ugly face was projected from the doorway long enough to squirt
a stream of tobacco-juice at the boy.
“Be off with ye, ye red-haired rat,” he growled. “You and your luck!
Aye, ’tis fine luck ye brought to John Flint, wi’ the rattles in his
throat.”
“Darby McGraw!” wailed Flint. “Ho, Darby! Fetch aft the rum, Darby
McGraw!”
The stateroom door slammed shut on the dying man’s plaint, and Darby
stood for an instant shaking his fist at its panels.
“May the priest fall dead that would be sayin’ mass for your soul!”
he cursed. “May him that offers ye bite or sup put the bitter poison
in it! May ye never know sleep that will rest ye or kindness that--
Ah, but what will be the use of it all? For there will be nothing
but just the fires of hell to punish one that’s as bad as you.”
He turned wearily and saw me, and the tears trickled down his
freckled cheeks.
“Oh, Master Bob, I doubt me the cap’n dead or close to it, and Bones
he--he--drove me forth, for--for fear I’d spy on him, says he--and
him wi’ the treasure-map he blan-handered from Flint in his weakness!
By the Rock o’ Cashel, I’m finished wi’ pirates. They’re a poor lot.
Leave us go home.”
“If we only could, Darby!” I said.
He dashed a grimy paw across his eyes and gave me one of his shrewd
looks.
“Troth, Master Bob, I’m thinkin’ we’re none of us like to live else,”
he answered.