IN CAPTIVITY
IT seemed to Jack as he sat in the darkness with the watch upon the
deck of the sloop, that the time passed away very, very slowly. The
vessel lay pretty close to the shore, and myriad sounds from the dark,
woody wilderness seemed to fill the air—the sharp quivering rasp of
multitudinous insects, the strange noise of the night birds, and now
and then the snapping and cracking of a branch, and always the lapping
gurgle of water. He lounged on a coil of rope, watching the twinkling
flicker of the fireflies, and listening to the men as they talked
among themselves about people whom he did not know. There was a strong
interest in hearing what they said, and so catching, as it were, a
glimpse of a world so different from his own. A lantern swung in the
shrouds, shedding a dim, yellow circle of light upon the deck, in which
sat and squatted the five men left in charge of the sloop.
“She never got the better of me,” one of the men was saying. “I tell
you what ’tis, I ain’t the man to put up with any women’s notions.
Her and I was keeping company then, and I took her down to Derrick’s
P’int—that time you was speaking of, Bob. Well, Ned Salter had just
come back from South Caroliny with the captain, and had a pocket full
of money. I see her making eyes at him all the time, and by and by they
stands up to dance together. Jem Smith, he says to me, ‘Tommy, my boy,
d’ ye see what a figure Sally and Ned Salter be a-cutting together?’
‘I do,’ says I, and I just walks across the floor and up to her, and
says: ‘Sally, I fetched you here, and if you means to shake me loose
you means it, and that’s all.’ She laughed, kind of like, and I saw her
give Ned Salter a nudge with her elbow. She didn’t think I see it, but
I see it all the same. ‘Very well,’ says I, ‘then I see how ’tis.’ So
without another word I goes away. I goes right down to the P’int, and
I gets in my boat and I rows back to Ocracock, leaving her to get home
as she chose. The next day I see her, and she says to me: ‘Why, Tommy,’
says she, ‘where was you last night? I couldn’t find you nowheres.’
‘Why,’ says I, ‘I was where it suited me to be,’ and I walks on and
leaves her. I tell you, there be n’t a woman around that can try her
tricks with me.”
They all sat in silence for a while, digesting what the speaker had
said. “It must be pretty near midnight,” said another of the men
irrelevantly, looking up into the starry sky as he spoke.
“Harkee, I hear summat,” said another, holding up his finger. “Like
enough it be the boats a-coming back.”
They all listened intently, but only the ceaseless murmurings of the
night filled the air, and always the lapping gurgle of the water.
“Then, there was Hetty Jackson,” said the man who had just told of
his adventure. “D’ ye remember her, Bill? She’d just come down from
Maryland way—”
Suddenly one of the men—he who had spoken before—scrambled up to his
feet. “There they are,” he said, cutting sharply into the narrative
that the other was beginning. “I knowed I heard ‘em.”
A breath of air had sprung up from the river and had brought down with
it the distant sound of measured chug-chug of the oars in rowlocks.
“Yes, that’s them for certain,” said another of the watch, and every
one scrambled to his feet. They all stood looking out toward the
river. It was a great while before the distant boats gradually shaped
themselves into forms out of the pale watery darkness beyond. “There
they are; I see them,” said one of the men. And then, in a minute,
Jack also saw the dim, formless dark blots upon the face of the water.
As the boats drew slowly nearer and nearer to the sloop, Jack climbed
up into the shrouds, whence he might obtain a better view of the men
when they should come aboard. He did not know at all what the business
was that had taken the pirates to Marlborough, nor did he suspect that
it was anything startlingly unusual; he was merely curious to see the
return of the boats. Presently they were alongside—the yawl-boat first
of all—the men unshipping their oars with a noisy rattle and clatter.
Some of them caught the chains just below Jack as the boat slid under
the side of the sloop, and the other boats came alongside almost at the
same time. Jack could see by the light of the lantern that those in
the stern of the yawl were assisting a dark figure to arise, and that
a sort of hushed attention was directed toward it. He wondered what
was the matter, and his first thought was that some one had been hurt;
then he saw that they were helping somebody up to the deck, and then,
as the light fell upon the face, recognition came with a sudden keen
shock,—it was Miss Eleanor Parker,—and even in the dim light he could
see that her face was as white as death. Then he saw that the faces of
all that had come in the boats were blackened as though with soot. The
pirate captain had come aboard the sloop. “Easy, now,” he said, as they
lifted the young lady up to the deck. Jack still clung to the ratlines,
looking after them as they partly supported, partly carried the
fainting figure across the deck. The next moment they had assisted her
down into the cabin. Then Jack, who had been lost in wonder, returned
sharply to the consciousness of other things. He became aware of the
confusion of the boats’ crews coming aboard, the rattling and clatter
and movement and bustle all around him on the deck. “Look alive, now,
Gibbons!” he heard Hand’s voice say to the boatswain. “Get her under
way as quick as you can,” and he knew that the sloop was about to quit
its anchorage.
Dred, who had gone down into the cabin, had by and by returned upon
deck, his face still sooty black. He stood by while the men hoisted the
boats aboard. Jack came over to where he stood. “Why, Dred,” said he,
“wasn’t that Mistress Eleanor Parker you brought aboard just now?” for
even yet he thought he might possibly have been mistaken.
“You mind your own business, lad,” said Dred, turning upon him and
speaking more sharply than he had ever spoken to Jack before. “You mind
your own business and go for’ard where you belong.” Then he turned on
his heel and walked away as though in a hurry, and the next moment Jack
saw him go down into the cabin again.
The next morning Jack came on deck to find the sloop beating down the
river in the face of a stiff breeze. They had been sailing all night
and had made a long reach. He recognized where they were. The shore
toward which they were now heading was the high, sandy bluff that
overlooked the oyster banks, where he had once gone fishing with Dennis
and the negro. He could see in the distance the shed standing upon the
summit of the high, sandy bank. It looked very strange and new to him,
and, at the same time, curiously familiar. It was as though a piece of
his past life had been broken out and placed oddly into the setting
that was so strangely new and different.
“Where’s Jack Ballister?” he heard Dred’s voice say, and then he turned
around sharply.
“Here I am!” he said.
Dred came forward a little distance, then he beckoned and Jack went
over to him. “The young lady down in the cabin seems very queer like,”
said Dred. “She won’t say nothing and she won’t eat nothing. Didn’t you
say as you knowed her at one time and that she knowed you, or summat of
the sort?”
“Why, yes,” said Jack. “I know her very well, but I don’t know whether
or no she remembers me now.”
“Well, lookee,” said Dred, “the captain thinks as how it might rouse
her up a bit if somebody as knowed her was to come down and speak to
her and take her down summat to eat. Can’t you get summat to eat, such
as gentlefolk like her cares for? D’ ye see, we don’t know just what
they kind likes and what they needs, and ’twould be a mightily serious
thing for all on us if this here young lady was to take ill and die on
our hands.”
“I don’t know,” said Jack, “whether I could do anything for her or not,
but I’ll try.”
“Well, then, you go down into the galley and see if you can get summat
for her to eat, and then fetch it aft to the cabin, and try to persuade
her to eat a bite.”
When Jack came out of the galley a half hour later, carrying a plate
of food, he heard the trum-trumming of the guitar sounding distantly
from below, aft. It was the first time he had been down into the cabin.
He found it fitted up with some considerable comfort, but now dirty
and disorderly. The bedding in the berths was tumbled and dirty, as
though it had not been made up for a long time, and the place was
filled with a close, stuffy, sour smell, pervaded with the odor of
stale tobacco smoke. Hands was lying, apparently asleep, upon the bench
that ran around the cabin, and Captain Teach sat upon the other side
of the table, with a glass of grog at his elbow. He held his guitar
across his breast, and his brown fingers—one of them wearing a silver
ring—picked at the strings. Behind the captain a dark figure lay in
the berth, still and motionless. Jack could see one hand, as white as
wax, resting upon the edge of the berth, and he noticed the shine of
the rings upon the fingers.
Captain Teach looked at him as he entered. He stopped playing as Jack
came to the place where the young lady lay and kneeled with one knee
upon the cushions of the bench. The pirate looked at him with great
curiosity, and Jack stood there for a while, not knowing what to say.
“Won’t you eat something, mistress?” he said at last, awkwardly. No
reply. “Won’t you eat something, mistress?” he said, again; “I brought
you something here that I think you can eat—a bit of chicken and some
rice. Won’t you eat it?”
She shook her head, without turning around. He stood there for a while
in silence, looking at her. “She won’t eat anything,” said he at last,
turning toward Captain Teach.
The pirate captain stared at her for a while, in brooding thought. “Oh,
very well, then,” he said; “let her alone. She’ll be sharp enough for
something to eat, maybe, by afternoon. You can take the victuals back
to the galley. Stop! let’s see what you’ve got.” He fingered the food
over curiously, as Jack held the plate for him to see. “Chicken and
rice, heh?” he said. “Where did you get the chicken?”
“The cook had two of them in a coop up in the bows,” said Jack.
That day it became known that the captain was going to stop over night
at Norfolk, where he had friends; and about sundown they dropped anchor
in the river, with the little town, the spire of its church showing
above the trees, lying about a mile away. Presently the captain came
up from below. He had combed out the plaits of his long black beard,
and he was dressed rather quietly in a suit of brown clothes with
brass buttons, white stockings, and shoes with plate buckles. The boat
was ready and waiting for him alongside, and he stepped down into it.
Jack watched it as it pulled away toward the shore, rising and falling
and bobbing over the tumbling waves, the brown figure of the captain
perched high in the stern, with his coat tails spread out upon either
side. “He’s got a lot of friends in Norfolk,” said one of the men, who,
smoking his pipe, lounged over the rail not very far from Jack, “but
he’s got no call to stop there now. If he were in my place and I in
hisn, I’d make out to sea without stopping to go ashore for a game of
cards or a taste o’ grog at this time.” He took his pipe from between
his teeth and puffed a broken cloud of smoke out into the swift windy
air, looking gloomily after the boat. “’Tis as much as our necks are
worth, as he well knows, for to lie in these here waters with this
young lady aboard. Supposen some ‘un was to take a notion to come
aboard on us and should find out who we had here in the cabin, how long
do you suppose ’twould be afore all on us would be a-lyin’ in the jug
in Williamsburgh with a halter about our necks?”
Jack felt a sudden rush of apprehension seize upon him at the man’s
words. He had not realized, until that moment, what it meant for him to
be aboard the pirate’s sloop; that, having joined himself with outlaws,
he himself was now an outlaw. He stood silently for a while, staring
after the receding boat. “I do suppose,” he said at last, “that the
captain won’t be long ashore.”
The man shrugged his shoulders. “If he once gets ashore with his
friends and a bottle of grog, maybe ’twill be the best part of the
night afore he gets away again.”
Jack drew a deep breath. “Well,” he said, “’twas a mightily foolhardy
thing for him to do, to be sure.”
Just then some one laid a hand upon his shoulder, and he turned around
with a start. It was Dred. “The young lady’s roused up a bit,” he said;
“maybe, if you’d take summat down to her now, she’d eat it.”