A STOP OVER NIGHT
AS THE DAY had settled toward sundown the breeze had sprung up again.
There was a growing bank of haze in the west through which the sun
shone fainter and fainter as it approached the horizon and then was
swallowed up and lost. The wind, blowing strong and full, drove the
water into ridges that caught up to the yawl as it sailed free before
the breeze, ran past it swiftly, and left it behind. Dred seemed almost
elated. “This be the wind for luck,” he said. “Why, I do suppose that,
gin the captain the best he could have, we’ve got a fifteen-league
start on him, and he’ll never overhaul that. ‘T will blow up stiff from
the east’rd to-morrow, like enough, and ‘twill be a cross sea ag’in’
us beating up into the head of the Sound, but fifteen leagues of start
means a deal, I can tell ye. And, besides that, the captain’ll most
likely sail straight for Ocracock. It be n’t likely, d’ye see, that
he’d think of running up into the sounds. He’d think that we’d trust
to our lead of any chase and strike right for the open water through
Ocracock, and he’ll not think we’d try to make through the shoals out
Currituck way.”
Jack had no notion at all of the geography of the sounds, but he
did understand that while they were going one way, Blackbeard would
probably be going another.
Meantime the gray light of the failing day had softened the harsh
outlines of the pine and cypress woods into a mysterious gloom of
shadows. They were sailing now not over two or three furlongs from the
shore as they ran yawing along before the wind. Upon one side of them
were thick swamp forests, upon the other the seemingly limitless water
of the sound, reaching away its restless gray without any sign of a
further shore.
So they sailed for a while in silence, the gray light growing duller
and still more dull. “Do you know,” said Dred, suddenly speaking,
“there’s a settlement up beyond that island yonder—or leastwise there
was some houses there three or four year ago. I knowed the man what
lived there then, and I’m going to put in, d’ye see, and find out
whether he lives there yet awhile. If he do, I’ll get him to let us
stay over night. D’ye see, I can’t stand sailing forever, and the young
lady can’t stand it, neither. So we’ll make a stop here, if we’re able.
Like enough we’ll make another in Shallowbag Bay in Roanoke Island.
Arter that we’ll make a straight stretch for Currituck.”
Jack was looking out ahead at the island of which Dred had spoken. It
was separated by a little inlet from the wooded shores. Dred laid his
course toward a point of land that jutted out into the water, and the
shore slid swiftly away behind them as they rushed onward before the
wind. “How far is it to the settlement?” asked Jack.
“Just beyond the p’int yonder,” said Dred, briefly. He was looking
steadily out ahead.
As they came nearer to the point, the waters of a little bay began to
open out before them. It spread wider and wider, and at last they were
clear of the jutting point. Then Jack saw the settlement of which Dred
had spoken.
There was a slight rise of cleared land, at the summit of which perched
a group of four or five huts or cabins. They were built of logs and
unpainted boards beaten gray with the weather. Two of the houses showed
some signs of being inhabited; the others were plainly empty and
deserted, and falling to ruin. Near the houses was a field of Indian
corn dried brown with the autumn season, and there were two or three
scrubby patches of sweet potatoes, but there was no other sign of
cultivation.
Dred put down the tiller and drew in the sheet, and the boat, heeling
over to the wind that now caught her abeam, met the waves splashing and
dashing as it drove forward upon its other course. Gradually the trees
shut off the rougher sea, and then the yawl sailed more smoothly and
easily. Presently a dog began barking up at one of the houses, and then
two or three joined in, and Jack could see the distant hounds dim in
the twilight gray of the falling evening, running down from the houses
toward the landing. At the continued noise of their barking several
figures appeared at the door of the two cabins—first a man, then two
or three half-naked children, then a woman. Then a young woman came
to the door of the other cabin with a baby in her arms, and a young
man. “Ay,” said Dred, “that be Bill Gosse, for certain.” Then finally
the boat grated upon the shore, the sail falling off flapping and
clattering in the wind, and the voyage of the day was ended.
The man who had first appeared went into the house, the next moment
coming out with a tattered hat upon his head. He came down toward
the landing, the children following him scatteringly, and the woman
standing in the doorway, looking down toward them. The young man was
also coming slouching behind. Dred and Jack had lowered the peak and
had begun to take in the boom when the man reached the shore. Jack
looked at him with a good deal of curiosity, and the young lady sat in
the stern thwarts also gazing at him. He was tall and lean and sallow.
A straggling beard covered his thin cheeks and chin, and a mat of hair
plaited behind hung down in a queue. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and
he wore a pair of baggy breeches tied at the knees. “Hullo, Bill!” said
Dred. “How be ye?”
“Be that you, Chris Dred?” said the man in a slow, dull voice. “Who’ve
ye got there with ye?”
“This? This here is a young Virginny lady of quality,” said Dred.
“She’s been took sick, and we—this lad and me—is carrying her back
home again. I’ll tell ye all about that by and by. What I want to know
now is, will you take us in for the night? The holy truth is, I’m just
getting over the fever, and this here young lady, as I said, be sick
too. We’ve been sailing all day, and so I thought maybe you’d let us
make port here for the night.”
The man stood stolidly watching Dred and Jack furl and tie up the sail.
He did not offer to help them. “Where did ye come from?” he asked, at
last, in the same slow, heavy voice.
“Down from the Pungo,” said Dred.
“Well, you’d better come up to the house and talk to my woman,” said
the man, answering Dred’s initial question. “I be willing enough for
you to stay, so far as I’m concerned.”
“Very well,” said Dred, “so I will. You wait here, Jack, till I come
back again.”
He stepped stiffly out of the boat, and then the two went away
together. The young man who had also come down to the shore remained
behind, squatted upon the ground, staring fixedly at Jack and the young
lady, who looked back at him with a good deal of interest.
“I do hope the good woman’ll let us stay all night,” said the young
lady, suddenly breaking the long silence. “Indeed I feel mightily
tired, and if I could only rest for that long I know it would do me a
vast deal of good.”
“She’ll let you stay,” said the young man. “That’ll be all right,
mistress.”
Just then Dred reappeared, coming back alone from the house down
through the twilight, and confirmed what the young man had said. “’Tis
all right,” he said, “and they’ll give us a berth for the night. Come
along, mistress, I’ll help you.”
Miss Eleanor Parker rose, stiffened with the long sitting in the boat,
supporting herself with her hand upon the rail. Dred reached out a hand
and helped her out over the thwarts and to the beach. Then he climbed
into the boat, and taking the case-bottle of rum out of the locker,
slipped it into his pocket.
The woman and the three children stood in the doorway watching the
three as they approached. As Jack entered he looked back and saw that
the young man was bending over the yawl, examining it curiously.
The house consisted of one large room. There was a fireplace at one
end of it; two benches, and two or three rickety chairs, a table,
and two beds comprised the furniture. The man was standing by the
fireplace with an empty pipe between his lips. “This here is the young
lady,” said Dred to the woman. “I dare say she’d like to lie down now
a bit while you’re getting supper ready,” and Miss Eleanor Parker
acknowledged that she was very tired.
“Wasn’t that there Captain Teach’s yawl-boat?” the man asked of Dred.
“Ay,” said Dred.
“I thought I knowed her,” the man said.
* * * * *
Almost as soon as she had eaten her supper, the young lady went again
and lay down upon the bed. Then Dred brought out the case-bottle of
rum, and he and the two men began drinking. Jack watched them with
growing apprehension, for they were helping themselves very freely.
He thought every moment Dred would cork the bottle again, but he did
not do so, and gradually the effect of the drink began to show itself.
Jack could see that Dred was taking more of it than he should. He began
to talk more volubly, and the stolid silence of the men began to melt
also. The older man became at times almost quarrelsome. He repeated
the same thing over and over again, and the young man would laugh
foolishly at everything that was said. Jack looked toward the young
lady, wondering whether she was conscious of what was going on. But she
lay perfectly quiet and motionless, and he thought that maybe she did
not perceive it. “Won’t you come over and join us?” said Dred, waving
the bottle toward Jack, and then taking a drink himself.
“No,” said Jack, “I won’t.”
“Why not?” said the man. “You be n’t too proud to drink with us, be
you?”
“No, I’m not,” said Jack, shortly, “but I don’t choose to. I’m tired,
and I wish you’d stop drinking yourselves.”
“You be too proud by half,” the man said, thickly; “that be the trouble
with you. You be too proud.”
The young man laughed and wiped his mouth with his fingers. “Why, no,
Jack hain’t proud,” said Dred; “Jack and I’ve been messmates for many
a day, hain’t we, Jack? D’ye know, he was kidnapped from England. His
uncle over there is a rich lord or summat of the sort. Anyways, he’s
got a stack of money. Hain’t that so, Jack?”
“I don’t care,” said the man, “who he be. The trouble with him is he
be too proud—that’s what’s the trouble with him. When a man axes me
to come and drink with him, I don’t care who he be, I goes. I wouldn’t
be too proud to drink—no, not if I was a lord instead of a beggarly
runaway.”
“He be n’t no runaway,” said Dred. “He and me was two of Blackbeard’s
men. Now we be our own men. We be taking that there young lady back
to Virginny.” Then he leaned across the table and whispered hoarsely,
“She’s a beauty—she is.”
His hoarse whisper sounded very loud through the cabin. Jack shot a
look at the young lady, but she did not move or seem to notice what was
said. “I wish you’d be still, Dred,” he said; “you’re drinking more
than you ought, and you don’t know what you’re saying.”
Dred looked gloomily at him for a while. “You mind your business, lad,”
he said, “and I’ll mind mine. I know what I’m doing and what I’m saying
well enough.”
Jack made no reply. He curled himself up on the bench and shut his
eyes. Dred sat still, looking moodily at him for a little while. “You
think I be drinking more than I ought, do you?” But still Jack did not
reply nor open his eyes. “I’ll drink as much as I choose, and no man
shall stop me.”
“You’ll make yourself sick again, that’s what you’ll do,” Jack said,
shortly.
He lay there with his eyes closed, and presently, in spite of himself,
the events of the day before and the sleepless nights he had passed
began to press upon him, and he drifted off into broken fragments of
sleep, through which he heard the men still talking and laughing. At
last, after a while, he opened his eyes to silence. The fire had burned
low, and the men lay sleeping on the floor with their feet turned
toward the blaze. Jack arose, took up the bottle upon the table, and
shook it beside his ear. There was still a little liquor in it, and he
corked it and laid it behind him on the bench so as to make sure it
should not be touched again.