THE ESCAPE
JACK did not—he could not—immediately realize that he was now
actually, so suddenly, and so unexpectedly, to undertake that which he
had dreamed of and vaguely planned that day. It was not until he saw
Dred in the act of lacing his shoes, not until he saw him in the act
of putting on his coat and taking his hat down from the peg behind the
door, that it really came upon him to thrill with that keen pang that
sometimes heralds the immediate performance of some pregnant act of
life. Then he did thrill, stretching himself with that sudden nervous
tension that perhaps all of us have sometimes felt. There was something
about the fact of Dred lacing his shoes, and putting on his coat and
hat, that made the certainty of what he was embarked upon very present
and very real. In one little hour, now, he might be upon his way back
to Virginia again, and once more he thrilled keenly and poignantly at
the thought.
Dred opened the stair door and stood listening for a while, but all was
perfectly still and hushed above. The pirate’s wife had evidently gone
to sleep with the instant sleep of a tired woman. Then Dred closed the
door again, and, nodding to Jack, led the way out into the darkness of
the night. Here again they stood for a while, the night air breathing
chilly about them, while Dred listened. But there was not a breath of
sound, not a glimmer of light. Then together they walked around to
the end of the house where Jack had before stopped to speak to the
young lady that evening. Jack went over beneath the open window, and
called to her in the same whispering voice he had used before, Dred
waiting the while at the corner of the house, keeping a sharp lookout.
Jack had to call again and again; for, whether she failed to hear him,
or whether she did not choose to immediately reply, it was some time
before the young lady showed her face. When she did appear at the
window, she stood for a while as though dazed, and listened to what he
had to tell her as though not understanding what he said. He had to
repeat to her that he and Dred had come to do what he had promised to
do that evening—to take her away back home again to Virginia if she
were willing to go with them. “To take me away?” she said, vaguely; and
then, as the meaning of it all broke upon her, she cried out, “Oh, do!
Oh, do take me away! For heaven’s sake, take me away from here!”
“We will, we will! That is what we have come for,” said Jack. But she
did not seem to hear him, but cried out again and vehemently, “If you
only will take me away, I’ll do anything in the world for you; and my
father will do anything for you. Oh, please, kind, good men, do take me
away!”
She was perhaps hysterical from the dreadful fright she must have
suffered in the morning, and, as the understanding of a possible escape
came upon her, she appeared to forget all caution. Jack was so struck
by her sudden passion that he did not know what to say to check her;
but Dred came hurrying up, and warned her in a whisper to be still:
“We mean to help you to get away, mistress,” he said, in a breathing
whisper; “but if ye takes on so as to disturb everybody in the house
and wake ‘em up, why, we can’t do anything to help you.”
They could see that she put a great restraint upon herself, trying to
stifle her crying, clinging to the frame of the lifted window-sash.
Then she seemed to suddenly remember that her clothes had been taken
away, and that the pirate’s wife had locked the door upon her. “But my
clothes!” she cried. “I had forgot them, and then the door is locked,
too. I can’t get away, after all. Oh, I know I never shall get away
from here!”
“Yes, you will, mistress,” said Dred; “don’t you fret about that, now.
Jack, here, shall fetch you your clothes, for they’re only just inside,
and I’ll go bring the ladder from the shed over yonder, and so you can
get down as quick as a wink. Don’t you fret and cry any more; you get
yourself dressed as quick as you can after Jack fetches your clothes,
and we two’ll go down and get the boat ready. Then we’ll come back for
you. Just you get ready, and we’ll be ready for you.”
Jack hurried off, glad to do something for her that might soothe her.
He entered the house very quietly, and had no difficulty in finding the
clothes that Betty had thrown into the hutch. When he returned with
them he found that Dred had already brought the ladder, and set it up
against the side of the house. He climbed part way up the ladder, and
reached the bundle silently up to her as she reached down for it.
His heart was very full of her as he and Dred walked down to the boat
together. “Pore young thing!” said Dred. “‘Twas as if the thought of
going had nigh broke her heart,” and Jack nodded his head without
speaking.
As they approached the waterside the broad mouth of the creek stretched
out dim and misty before them into the night. The trees of the further
shore stood out obscurely in the darkness, and the pallid, rippling
surface of the water seemed to stretch away to dim, infinite distance.
The little waves beat with a recurrent and pulsing plash and slide upon
the beach, and the chill air was full of the smell of brackish water
and of marshy ooze.
The yawl, a big, clumsy, broad-beamed, open boat, lay drawn up on the
beach near to the landing. The mast, with the sails furled close and
snug, the gaff, and the long oars lay along the thwarts. Jack helped
Dred step the mast, and together they partly loosened the reef-points
so that the sail hung limp and ready to be spread at a moment’s notice.
There was a small barraca nearly half-full of water in the bow of the
boat. Dred lifted it out, drew the plug, smelled briefly at the water,
and then turned it out upon the sand. Then he sat down upon the rail
for a talk, while the water glugged and gurgled out of the keg upon the
beach. “D’ye see,” he began, “I look at this here affair this way. ’Tis
not as though I was playing the captain false, d’ye see? for I was dead
set against this here venture from the very first, and he went into it
in spite of me. I didn’t want the girl fetched here, and I told him he
would be getting hisself into bitter trouble if he did fetch her. Well,
he would do it, and now ’tis just as I said. Now, d’ye see, ’tis either
to take this young lady away, or else to sit by and see her die, as
she’s bound to do if she lives here much longer; and ’tis as bad for
the captain one way as ’tis another. If she dies on his hands he’ll be
hung for sure, and if she gets away, the whole province of Virginny’ll
be down here to roast him out; and either way ’tis as bad as can be,
and nothing gained if she dies. Well, then, I don’t choose to sit by,
and let her die, and no good come of it. My neck’s mightily precious to
me, for ’tis all I’ve got; and if I can save it from being stretched by
taking her back home again, why not do it—can ye tell me that?”
“What you say’s true enough, Dred,” said Jack.
But Dred appeared to be speaking more for himself than for Jack, and he
sat for a while in silence. The water had all run out from the keg, but
still he did not move. Then he suddenly began speaking again. “There’s
summat as I don’t know as I ever told ye about, lad. D’ye remember my
telling you once how I shot a young gentleman aboard an English bark
the captain took some two years or more ago?”
“Yes, I do,” said Jack. And then an instant light flashed upon him.
Dennis had several times told how young Mr. Edward Parker had been
killed by the pirates, but the coincidence had never before struck him.
It had never before occurred to him to parallel the tragedy of young
Mr. Parker with the story Dred had told him about shooting a young
gentleman aboard the _Duchess Mary_; nor is it likely that he would
have thought of it now, only for the very meaning tone in which Dred
spoke. “Why, then, was it you shot Mr. Edward Parker?” he cried out,
and he could see in the gloom that Dred nodded his head. It was only
after quite a while that Dred said, “Ay, ‘twas I shot him, and now you
knows it.” Jack sat looking intently at him through the glimmering
darkness. “Now, what I mean to say is this,” he continued; “when we
gets back to Virginny, don’t you go telling to anybody that I was ever
mixed up in that there business, for ‘twould mean hanging for me if you
did. What’s done can’t be cured, and ‘twould only get me into a peck
of trouble if you was to talk about it. D’ye see, if I’m going to take
the trouble and risk of carrying this young lady back to her father,
why, I ought to get paid for it, and not get hung at the end of all my
trouble.”
“I’ll not say anything about it,” said Jack. “I never thought of it
being you who shot the young gentleman. So far as I’m concerned, I
sha’n’t say a word about it; but how about the captain? Won’t he be
likely to tell about it for the sake of getting even with you?”
“That for the captain!” said Dred, with a gesture. “Who’ll mind what he
says? If Colonel Parker’s going to give me anything for bringing his
gell back he’ll give it, and then away I goes out of harm’s way. By the
time the captain’s had time to talk, why, I may be as far away as Indjy
or Cochin Chiny.”
Then he arose and picked up the empty barraca and led the way up to the
house.
It was maybe half an hour before everything was ready for the
departure. Beside a barraca of fresh water, they brought down and
stowed away in the boat a ham, a flitch of bacon, a bag and a half of
biscuit, and a lemon net full of yams. Everything was done so silently
that the pirate captain and his wife and the wounded Hands slept on
undisturbed by their preparations. Then, all being ready, they shoved
the yawl off from the shore, and drew it around to the end of the
wharf, where they lashed it with stern-lines and bow-lines to the
piles. “Now, lad,” said Dred, “we’re ready to start; and if you’ll go
up and fetch the young lady, I’ll go up to the house and bring down the
two storm-coats. Like enough we’ll need ‘em afore we gets to the end of
our cruise.”
Jack found Miss Eleanor Parker ready, and waiting for him. He climbed
the ladder to the window, and she handed him out her traveling-bag.
Then he noiselessly assisted her to the ladder, and thence to the
ground. He did not say anything to her nor she to him, as they walked
rapidly away together in the silence down toward the boat. Before
they had gone very far they caught up with Dred, carrying the two
storm-coats. He opened one of the pockets, and showed Jack that he had
brought Captain Teach’s case-bottle, which had been newly filled with
rum, and he burst out into a soundless laugh as he dropped the bottle
back into the pocket again. “A cruise with a girl and a boy,” he said,
“and a yawl-boat for to cruise in! What d’ye think of that for a bloody
salt like I be?” and he fetched Jack a slap on the back. Jack could
smell the fumes of rum upon his breath, and he knew that Dred must have
been taking a drink before he left the house. He did not reply, and
after that they walked on in silence down to the little wharf and out
to where the yawl lay at the end of the landing.
“I tell ye what ’tis, mistress,” said Dred; “if your father don’t stand
to me for this here, there’s no such thing as thankfulness in the
world. I tell you, he ought to pay me well for doing this, and trying
to get you back home again.”
“Indeed—indeed, my father’ll never forget what you’re doing for me!”
she cried. “Nor shall I ever forget it either, but will be grateful to
you both for as long as ever I live.” Then Jack and Dred helped her
down into the boat. As Dred stepped forward to spread the sail, Jack
pushed the yawl off with one of the oars, and it drifted slowly away
from the end of the little wharf into the broad, dim, night-lit waters
of the creek. Then he turned to help Dred loose the sail, the boat
drifting slowly further and further away into the pallid night, and the
young lady sitting silent and motionless in the stern thwarts.