Five men had emerged from the woods behind the clearing, so quietly
that they were in the center of the camp before Crusoe's shrill
bark, or the outcry of the cook, warned us of their presence. By
that time they had us covered. Three of them carried rifles, the
other two revolvers. One of these was Captain Magnus.
Advancing a step or two before the others he ordered us to throw up
our hands. Perhaps he meant only the men--but my hands and Aunt
Jane's and Miss Higglesby-Browne's also went up with celerity. He
grinned into our astounded faces with a wolfish baring of his
yellow teeth.
"Never guessed I wasn't here jest to do the shovel work, but might
have my own little side-show to bring off, hey?" he inquired of no
one in particular. "Here, Slinker, help me truss 'em up."
The man addressed thrust his pistol in his belt and came forward,
and with his help the hands of the Scotchman, Cuthbert Vane and Mr.
Tubbs were securely tied. They were searched for arms, and the
sheath-knives which Mr. Shaw and Cuthbert carried at their belts
were taken away. The three prisoners were then ordered to seat
themselves in a row on the trunk of a prostrate palm.
The whole thing had happened in the strangest silence. Except for
a feeble moaning from Aunt Jane, like the bleating of a sheep,
which broke forth at intervals, nobody spoke or made a sound. The
three riflemen in the background, standing like images with their
weapons raised, looked like a well-trained chorus in an opera.
And indeed it was all extraordinarily like something on a stage.
Slinker, for instance. He had a prowling, sidelong fashion of
moving about, and enormous yellow mustaches like a Viking. Surely
some artist in the make-up line had invented Slinker! And the
burly fellow in the background, with the black whiskers--too bad
he'd forgotten his earrings---
But I awoke to the horrid reality of it all as Captain Magnus,
smiling his wolfish smile, turned and approached me.
"Well, boys," he remarked to his followers, who had now lowered
their weapons and were standing about at ease, "here's the little
pippin I was tellin' of. 'Fraid we give her a little scare bustin'
in so sudden, so she ain't quite so bright and smilin' as I like to
see. Its all right, girlie; you'll soon cheer up when you find out
you're go'in' to be the little queen o' this camp. Things will be
all your way now--so long as you treat me right." And the
abominable creature thrust forth a hairy paw and deliberately
chucked me under the chin.
I heard a roar from the log--and coincidently from Captain Magnus.
For with the instant response of an automaton--consciously I had
nothing at all to do with it--I had reached up and briskly boxed
the captain's ears.
Furiously he caught my wrist. "Ah, you red-headed little devil,
you'll pay for this! I ain't pretty, oh, no! I ain't a handsome
mooncalf like the Honorable; I ain't got a title, nor girly pink
cheeks, nor fine gentleman ways. No walks with the likes o' me, no
tatey-tates in the woods--oh, no! Well, it's goin' to be another
story now, girlie. I guess you can learn to like my looks, with a
little help from my fist now and then, jest as well as you done the
Honorable's. I guess it won't be long before I have you crawlin'
on your knees to me for a word o' kindness. I guess--"
"Aw, stow that soft stuff, Magnus," advised Slinker. "You can do
your spoonin' with the gal later on. We're here to git that gold,
and don't you forget it. Plenty o' time afterwards to spark the
wimmen."
"That's the talk," chimed in Blackbeard. "Don't run us on a lee
shore for the sake of a skirt. Skirts is thicker'n herring in
every port, ain't they?"
"I got a score to settle with this one," growled Magnus sullenly,
but his grasp loosened on my arm, and I slipped from him and fled
to Aunt Jane--yes, to Aunt Jane--and clung to her convulsively.
The poor little woman was crying, of course, making a low
inarticulate whimper like a frightened child. Miss
Higglesby-Browne seemed to have petrified. Her skin had a withered
look, and a fine network of lines showed on it, suddenly clear,
like a tracery on parchment. Beyond her I saw the face of Dugald
Shaw, gray with a steely wrath. A gun had been trained anew on him
and Cuthbert, and the bearer thereof was arguing with them
profanely. I suppose the prisoners had threatened outbreak at the
spectacle of the chin-chucking.
No one had bothered to secure Cookie, and he knelt among the pots
and pans of his open-air kitchen, pouring forth petitions in a
steady stream. Blackboard, who seemed a jovial brute, burst into a
loud guffaw.
"Ha, ha! Look at old Soot-and-Cinders gittin' hisself ready for
glory!" He approached the negro and aimed at him a kick which
Cookie, arising with unexpected nimbleness, contrived to dodge.
"Looky here, darky, git busy dishin' up the grub, will you? I
could stand one good feed after the forecastle slops we been livin'
on."
Blackbeard, whom his companions addressed indiscriminately as
"Captain," or "Tony," seemed to exercise a certain authority. He
went over to the prisoners on the log and inspected their bonds.
"You'll do; can't git loose nohow," he announced. Then, with a
savage frown, "But no monkey business. First o' that I see, its a
dose o' cold lead for youse, savvy?"
He turned to us women.
"Well, chickabiddies, we ain't treated you harsh, I hope? Now I
don't care about tyin' youse up, in case we can help it, so jest be
good girls, and I'll let youse run around loose for a while."
But Magnus struck in with an oath.
"Loose? You're turnin' soft, I say. The future Mrs. M.
there--which I mean to make her if she behaves right--she's a
handful, she is. There ain't no low trick she won't play on us if
she gets the chance. Better tie her up, I say."
"Magnus," responded Tony with severity, "it'd make a person think
to hear you talk that you wasn't no gentleman. If you can't keep
little Red-top in order without you tie her, why, then hand her
over to a guy what can. I bet I wouldn't have a speck o' trouble
with her--her and me would git along as sweet as two turtle-doves."
"You dry up, Tony," said Magnus, lowering. "I'll look after my own
affairs of the heart. Anyway, here's them two old hens what have
been makin' me sick with their jabber and nonsense all these weeks.
Ain't I goin' to have a chance to get square?"
"Here, youse!" struck in Slinker, "quit your jawin'! Here's a feed
we ain't seen the like of in weeks."
Tony thereupon ordered the women to sit down on the ground in the
shade and not move under penalty of "gettin' a wing clipped." We
obeyed in silence and looked on while the pirates with wolfish
voracity devoured the meal which had been meant for us. They had
pocket-flasks with them, and as they attacked them with frequency
the talk grew louder and wilder. By degrees it was possible to
comprehend the extraordinary disaster which had befallen us, at
least in a sketchy outline of which the detail was filled in later.
Tony, it appeared, was the master of a small power-schooner which
had been fitting out in San Francisco for a filibustering trip to
the Mexican coast. His three companions were the crew. None was
of the old hearty breed of sailors, but wharf-rats pure and simple,
city-dregs whom chance had led to follow the sea. Tony, in whom
one detected a certain rough force and ability, was an Italian, an
outlaw specimen of the breed which mans the fishing fleet putting
forth from the harbor of San Francisco. When and where he and
Magnus had been friends I do not know. But no sooner had the
wisdom of Miss Browne imparted the great secret to her chance
acquaintance of the New York wharves, than he had communicated with
his old pal Tony. The power-schooner with her unlawful cargo stole
out through the gate, made her delivery in the Mexican port, took
on fresh supplies, and stood away for Leeward Island. The western
anchorage had received and snugly hidden her. Captain Magnus,
meanwhile, by means of a mirror flashed from Lookout, had
maintained communication with his friends, and even visited them
under cover of the supposed shooting expedition. And now, while we
had been striving to overcome the recalcitrancy of Mr. Tubbs,
Captain Magnus had taken a short cut to the same end. You felt
that the secret of Mr. Tubbs would be extracted, if need be, by no
delicate methods.
But Mr. Tubbs's character possessed none of that unreasonable
obstinacy which would make harsh measures necessary under such
conditions. His countenance, as the illuminating conversation of
the pirates had proceeded, lost the speckled appearance which had
characterized it at the height of his terrors. Something like his
normal hue returned. He sat up straighter, moistened his dry lips,
and looked around upon us, yes, even upon Aunt Jane and Miss
Higglesby-Browne, with whom he had been so lately and so tenderly
reconciled, with a sidelong, calculating glance. After the pirates
had eaten, the prisoners on the log were covered with a rifle and
their hands untied, while Cookie, in a lugubrious silence made
eloquent by his rolling eyes, passed around among us the remnants
of the food. No one can be said to have eaten with appetite except
Mr. Tubbs, who received his portion with wordy gratitude and
devoured it with seeming gusto. The pirates, full-fed, with pipes
in mouths, were inclined to be affable and jocular. "Feeding the
animals," as Slinker called it, seemed to afford them much
agreeable diversion. Even Magnus had lost in a degree his usual
sullenness, and was wreathed in simian smiles. The intense terror
and revulsion which he inspired in me kept my unwilling eyes
constantly wandering in his direction. Yet under all the terror
was a bedrock confidence that there was, there must be somehow in
the essence of things, an eternal rightness which would keep me
safe from Captain Magnus. And as I looked across at Dugald Shaw
and met for an instant his steady watchful eyes, I managed a swift
little smile--a rather wan smile, I dare say, but still a smile.
Cuthbert Vane caught, so to speak, the tail of it, and was
electrified. I saw his lips form at Mr. Shaw's ear the words,
_Wonderful little sport, by jove_! For some time after our capture
by the pirates Cuthbert's state had been one of settled
incredulity. Even when they tied his hands he had continued to
contemplate the invaders as illusions. It was, this remarkable
episode, altogether a thing without precedent--and what was that
but another name for the impossible? And then slowly, by painful
degrees--you saw them reflected in his candid face--it grew upon
him that it was precisely the impossible, the unprecedented, that
was happening.
A curious stiffening came over Cuthbert Vane. For the first time
in my knowledge of him he showed the consciousness--instead of only
the sub-consciousness--of the difference between Norman blood and
the ordinary sanguine fluid. His shoulders squared; he lost his
habitual easy lounge and sat erect and tall. Something stern and
aquiline showed through the smooth beauty of his face, so that you
thought of effigies of crusading knights stretched on their ancient
tombs in High Staunton church. He was their true descendant after
all, this slow, calm, gentle-mannered Cuthbert. It was a young
lion that I had been playing with, and the claws were there, strong
and terrible in their velvet sheath.
Captain Tony, having finished his pipe, knocked the ashes out
against the heel of his boot and put the pipe in his pocket.
"Well," he said, stretching, "I'd ruther have a nap, but business
is business, so let's get down to it. Which o' them guys has the
line on the stuff, Magnus?"
"Old Baldy, here," returned Magnus, with a nod at Mr. Tubbs. "Old
Washtubs I call him generally, ha, ha!"
"Then looky here, Washtubs," said Tony, addressing Mr. Tubbs with
sudden sternness, "maybe you could bluff these here soft guys, but
we're a different breed o' cats, we are. Whatever you know, you'll
come through with it and come quick, or it'll be the worse for your
hide, see?"
Mr. Tubbs rose from the log with promptness.
"Captain," he said earnestly, "from long experience in the
financial centers of the country, I have got to be a man what
understands human nature. The minute I looked at you, I seen it in
your eye that there wasn't no use in tryin' to bluff you. What's
more, I don't want to. Once he gets with a congenial crowd, there
ain't a feller anywheres that will do more in the cause o'
friendship than old Hamilton H. Tubbs. And you are a congenial
crowd, you boys--gosh, but you do look good to me after the bunch
o' stiffs I been playin' up to here! All I ask is, to let me in on
it with you, and I'll be glad to put you wise to the best tricks of
a sly old fox who ain't ever been caught yet without two holes to
his burrow. I won't ask no half, nor no quarter, either, though I
jest signed up for that amount with the old girl here. But give me
freedom, and a bunch o' live wires like you boys! I've near froze
into a plaster figure o' Virtue, what with talkin' like a
Sunday-school class, and sparkin' one old maid, and makin' out like
I wouldn't melt butter with the other. So H. H. will ship along of
you, mates, and we'll off to the China coast somewheres where the
spendin' is good and the police not too nosy, and try how far a
trunkful of doubloons will go!"
With a choky little gurgle in her throat Aunt Jane fell limply
against me. It was too much. All day long she had been tossed
back and forth like a shuttlecock by the battledore of emotion.
She had borne the shock of Mr. Tubbs's sordid greed for gold, his
disloyalty to the expedition, his coldness to herself; she had been
shaken by the tender stress of the reconciliation, had been
captured by pirates, and now suffered the supreme blow of this
final revelation of the treachery of Tubbs. To hear her romance
described as the sparking of an old maid--and by the sparker! From
Miss Higglesby-Browne had come a snort of fury, but she said
nothing, having apparently no confidence in the effect of oratory
on pirates. She did not even exhort Aunt Jane, but left it to me
to sustain my drooping aunt as best I could.
As Mr. Tubbs made his whole-hearted and magnanimous proposal
Captain Tony opened his small black eyes and contemplated him with
attention. At the conclusion he appeared to meditate. Then he
glanced round upon his fellows.
"What say, boys? Shall we ship old Washtubs on the schooner and
let him have his fling along with us? Eh?" And as Captain Tony
uttered these words the lid of his left eye eclipsed for an instant
that intelligent optic.
From the pirates came a scattering volley of assents. "All
right--hooray for old Washtubs--sure, close the deal."
"All right, Washtubs, the boys are willing. So I guess, though
this island is the very lid of the hot place, and when I come again
it's going to be with an iceberg in tow to keep the air cooled off,
I guess we better be moving toward that chest of doubloons."
It was arranged that Slinker and a cross-eyed man named Horny
should remain at the camp on guard. As a measure of precaution
Cookie, too, was bound, and Aunt Jane, Miss Browne and I ordered
into the cabin. The three remaining pirates, armed with our spades
and picks and dispensing a great deal of jocular profanity, set out
for the cave under the guidance of Mr. Tubbs.
Thankful as I was for the departure of Captain Magnus, I underwent
torments in the stifling interior of the cabin. Aunt Jane wept
piteously. I had almost a fellow-feeling with Miss
Higglesby-Browne when she relapsed from her rigidity for a moment
and turning on Aunt Jane fiercely ordered her to be still. This
completed the wreck of Aunt Jane's universe. Its two main props
had now fallen, and she was left sitting solitary amid the ruins.
She subsided into a lachrymose heap in the corner of the cabin,
where I let her remain for the time, it was really such a comfort
to have her out of the way. At last I heard a faint moan:
"Virginia!"