CAPTAIN ICHABOD
Kate Bonnet was indeed in a sad case. She had sailed from Kingston with
high hopes and a gay heart, and before she left she had written to
Master Martin Newcombe to express her joy that her father had given up
his unlawful calling and to say how she was going to sail after him,
fold him in her forgiving arms, and bring him back to Jamaica, where she
and her uncle would see to it that his past sins were forgiven on
account of his irresponsible mind, and where, for the rest of his life,
he would tread the paths of peace and probity. In this letter she had
not yielded to the earnest entreaty which was really the object and soul
of Master Newcombe's epistle. Many kind things she said to so kind a
friend, but to his offer to make her the queen of his life she made no
answer. She knew she was his very queen, but she would not yet consent
to be invested with the royal robes and with the crown.
And when she had reached Belize, how proudly happy she had been! She
had seen her father, no longer an outlaw, honest though in mean
condition, earning his bread by honourable labour. Then, with a still
greater pride, she had seen him clad as a noble gentleman and bearing
himself with dignity and high complacence. What a figure he would have
made among the fine folks who were her uncle's friends in Kingston and
in Spanish Town!
But all this was over now. With his own hand he had told her that once
again she was a pirate's daughter. She went below to her cabin, where,
with wet cheeks, Dame Charter attended her.
Mr. Delaplaine was angry, intensely angry. Such a shameful, wicked trick
had never before been played upon a loving daughter. There were no words
in which to express his most justifiable wrath. Again he went to the
town to learn more, but there was nothing more to learn except that some
people said they had reason to believe that Bonnet had gone to follow
Blackbeard. From things they had heard they supposed that the vessel
which had sailed away in the night had gone to offer herself as consort
to the Revenge; to rob and burn in the company of that notorious ship.
There was no satisfaction in this news for the heart of the good
merchant, and when he returned to the brig and sought his niece's cabin
he had no words with which to cheer her. All he could do was to tell her
the little he had learned and to listen to her supplications.
"Oh, uncle," she exclaimed, "we must follow him, we must take him, we
must hold him! I care not where he is, even if it be in the company of
the dreadful Blackbeard! We must take him, we must hold him, and this
time we must carry him away, no matter whether he will or not. I believe
there must be some spark of feeling, even in the heart of a bloody
pirate, which will make him understand a daughter's love for her father,
and he will let me have mine. Oh, uncle! we were very wrong. When he was
here with us we should have taken him then; we should have shut him up;
we should have sailed with him to Kingston."
All this was very depressing to the soul of Kate's loving uncle, for how
was he to sail after her father and take him and hold him and carry him
away? He went away to talk to the captain of the Belinda, but that tall
seaman shook his head. His vessel was not ready yet to sail, being much
delayed by the flight of Bonnet. And, moreover, he vowed that, although
he was as bold a seaman as any, he would never consent to set out upon
such an errand as the following of Blackbeard. It was terrifying enough
to be in the same bay with him, even though he were engaged in business
with the pirate, for no one knew what strange freak might at any time
suggest itself to the soul of that most bloody roisterer; but as to
following him, it was like walking into an alligator's jaws. He would
take his passengers back to Kingston, but he could not sail upon any
wild cruises, nor could he leave Belize immediately.
But Kate took no notice of all this when her uncle had told it to her.
She did not wish to go back to Jamaica; she did not wish to wait at
Belize. It was the clamorous longing of her heart to go after her father
and to find him wherever he might be, and she did not care to consider
anything else.
Dame Charter added also her supplications. Her boy was with Blackbeard,
and she wished to follow the pirate's ship. Even if she should never see
Major Bonnet--whom she loathed and despised, though never saying so--she
would find her Dickory. She, too, believed that there must be some spark
of feeling even in a bloody pirate's heart which would make him
understand the love of a mother for her son, and he would let her have
her boy.
Mr. Delaplaine sat brooding on the deck. The righteous anger kindled by
the conduct of his brother-in-law, and his grief for the poor stricken
women, sobbing in the cabin, combined together to throw him into the
most dolorous state of mind, which was aggravated by the knowledge that
he could do nothing except to wait until the Belinda sailed back to
Jamaica and to go to Jamaica in her.
As the unhappy merchant sat thus, his face buried in his hands, a small
boat came alongside and a passenger mounted to the deck. This person,
after asking a few questions, approached Mr. Delaplaine.
"I have come, sir, to see you," he said. "I am Captain Ichabod of the
sloop Restless."
Mr. Delaplaine looked up in surprise. "That is a pirate ship," said he.
"Yes," said the other, "I'm a pirate."
The newcomer was a tall young man, with long dark hair and with
well-made features and a certain diffidence in his manner which did not
befit his calling.
Mr. Delaplaine rose. This was his first private interview with a
professional sea-robber, and he did not know exactly how to demean
himself; but as his visitor's manner was quiet, and as he came on board
alone, it was not to be supposed that his intentions were offensive.
"And you wish to see me, sir?" said he.
"Yes," said Captain Ichabod, "I thought I'd come over and talk to you. I
don't know you, bedad, but I know all about you, and I saw you and your
family when you came to town to visit that old fox, bedad, that
sugar-planter that Captain Blackbeard used to call Sir Nightcap. Not a
bad joke, either, bedad. I have heard of a good many dirty, mean things
that people in my line of business have done, but, bedad, I never did
hear of any captain who was dirty and mean to his own family. Fine
people, too, who came out to do the right thing by him, after he had
been cleaned out, bedad, by one of his 'Brothers of the Coast.' A rare
sort of brother, bedad, don't you say so?"
"You are right, sir," said Mr. Delaplaine, "in what you say of the wild
conduct of my brother-in-law Bonnet. It pleases me, sir, to know that
you condemn it."
"Condemn! I should say so, bedad," answered Captain Ichabod; "and I came
over here to say to you--that is, just to mention, not knowing, of
course, what you'd think about it, bedad--that I'm goin' to start on a
cruise to-morrow. That is, as soon as I can get in my water and some
stores, bedad--water anyway. And if you and your ladies might happen to
fancy it, bedad, I'd be glad to take you along. I've heard that you're
in a bad case here, the captain of this brig being unable or quite
unwilling to take you where you want to go."
"But where are you going, sir?" in great surprise.
"Anywhere," said Captain Ichabod, "anywhere you'd like to go. I'm
starting out on a cruise, and a cruise with me means anywhere. And my
opinion is, sir, that if you want to come up with that crack-brained
sugar-planter, you'd better follow Blackbeard; and the best place to
find him will be on the Carolina coast; that's his favourite
hunting-ground, bedad, and I expect the sugar-planter is with him by
this time."
"But will not that be dangerous, sir?" asked Mr. Delaplaine.
"Oh, no," said the other. "I know Blackbeard, and we have played many a
game together. You and your family need not have anything to do with it.
I'll board the Revenge, and you may wager, bedad, that I'll bring Sir
Nightcap back to you by the ear."
"But there's another," said Delaplaine; "there's a young man belonging
to my party--"
"Oh, yes, I know," said the other, "the young fellow Blackbeard took
away with him. Clapped a cocked hat on him, bedad! That was a good joke!
I will bring him too. One old man, one young man--I'll fetch 'em both.
Then I'll take you all where you want to go to. That is, as near as I
can get to it, bedad. Now, you tell your ladies about this, and I'll
have my sloop cleaned up a bit, and as soon as I can get my water on
board I'm ready to hoist anchor."
"But look you, sir," exclaimed Mr. Delaplaine, "this is a very important
matter, and cannot be decided so quickly."
"Oh, don't mention it, don't mention it," said Captain Ichabod; "just
you tell your ladies all about it, and I'll be ready to sail almost any
time to-morrow."
"But, sir--" cried the merchant.
"Very good," said the pirate captain, "you talk it over. I'm going to
the town now and I'll row out to you this afternoon and get your
instructions."
And with this he got over the side.
Mr. Delaplaine said nothing of this visit, but waited on deck until the
captain came on board, and then many were the questions he asked about
the pirate Ichabod.
"Well, well!" the captain exclaimed, "that's just like him; he's a rare
one. Ichabod is not his name, of course, and I'm told he belongs to a
good English family--a younger son, and having taken his inheritance, he
invested it in a sloop and turned pirate. He has had some pretty good
fortune, I hear, in that line, but it hasn't profited him much, for he
is a terrible gambler, and all that he makes by his prizes he loses at
cards, so he is nearly always poor. Blackbeard sometimes helps him, so I
have heard--which he ought to do, for the old pirate has won bags of
money from him--but he is known as a good fellow, and to be trusted. I
have heard of his sailing a long way back to Belize to pay a gambling
debt he owed, he having captured a merchantman in the meantime."
"Very honourable, indeed," remarked Mr. Delaplaine.
"As pirates go, a white crow," said the other. "Now, sir, if you and
your ladies want to go to Blackbeard, and a rare desire is that, I
swear, you cannot do better than let Captain Ichabod take you. You will
be safe, I am sure of that, and there is every reason to think he will
find his man."
When Mr. Delaplaine went below with his extraordinary news, Dame Charter
turned pale and screamed.
"Sail in a pirate ship?" she cried. "I've seen the men belonging to one
of them, and as to going on board and sailing with them, I'd rather die
just where I am."
To the good Dame's astonishment and that of Mr. Delaplaine, Kate spoke
up very promptly. "But you cannot die here, Dame Charter; and if you
ever want to see your son again you have got to go to him. Which is also
the case with me and my father. And, as there is no other way for us to
go, I say, let us accept this man's offer if he be what my uncle thinks
he is. After all, it might be as safe for us on board his ship as to be
on a merchantman and be captured by pirates, which would be likely
enough in those regions where we are obliged to go; and so I say let us
see the man, and if he don't frighten us too much let us sail with him
and get my father and Dickory."
"It would be a terrible danger, a terrible danger," said Mr. Delaplaine.
"But, uncle," urged Kate, "everything is a terrible danger in the search
we're upon; let us then choose a danger that we know something about,
and which may serve our needs, rather than one of which we're ignorant
and which cannot possibly be of any good to us."
It was actually the fact that the little party in the cabin had not
finished talking over this most momentous subject before they were
informed that Captain Ichabod was on deck. Up they went, Dame Charter
ready to faint. But she did not do so. When she saw the visitor she
thought it could not be the pirate captain, but some one whom he had
sent in his place. He was more soberly dressed than when he first came
on board, and his manners were even milder. The mind of Kate Bonnet was
so worked up by the trouble that had come upon her that she felt very
much as she did when she hung over the side of her father's vessel at
Bridgetown, ready to drop into the darkness and the water when the
signal should sound. She had an object now, as she had had then, and
again she must risk everything. On her second look at Captain Ichabod,
which embarrassed him very much, she was ready to trust him.
"Dame Charter," she whispered, "we must do it or never see them again."
So, when they had talked about it for a quarter of an hour, it was
agreed that they would sail with Captain Ichabod.
When the sloop Restless made ready to sail the next day there was a
fine flurry in the harbour. Nothing of the kind had ever before happened
there. Two ladies and a most respectable old gentleman sailing away
under the skull and cross-bones! That was altogether new in the
Caribbean Sea. To those who talked to him about his quixotic expedition,
Captain Ichabod swore--and at times, as many men knew, he was a great
hand at being in earnest--that if he carried not his passengers through
their troubles and to a place of safety, the Restless, and all on board
of her, should mount to the skies in a thousand bits. Although this
alternative would not have been very comforting to said passengers if
they had known of it, it came from Captain Ichabod's heart, and showed
what sort of a man he was.
Old Captain Sorby came to the Restless in a boat, and having previously
washed one hand, came on board and bade them all good-bye with great
earnestness.
"You will catch him," said he to Kate, "and my advice to you is, when
you get him, hang him. That's the only way to keep him out of mischief.
But as you are his daughter, you may not like to string him up, so I say
put irons on him. If you don't he'll be playin' you some other wild
trick. He is not fit for a pirate, anyway, and he ought to be taken back
to his calves and his chickens."
Kate did not resent this language; she even smiled, a little sadly. She
had a great work before her, and she could not mind trifles.
None of the other pirates came on board, for they were afraid of Sorby,
and when that great man had made the round of the decks and had given
Captain Ichabod some bits of advice, he got down into his boat. The
anchor was weighed, the sails hoisted, and, amid shouts and cheers from
a dozen small boats containing some of the most terrible and bloody
sea-robbers who had ever infested the face of the waters, the Restless
sailed away: the only pirate ship which had, perhaps, ever left port
followed by blessings and goodwill; goodwill, although the words which
expressed it were curses and the men who waved their hats were
blasphemers and cut-throats.
Away sailed our gentle and most respectable party, with the Jolly Roger
floating boldly high above them. Kate, looking skyward, noticed this and
took courage to bewail the fact to Captain Ichabod.
He smiled. "While we're in sight of my Brethren of the Coast," he said,
"our skull and bones must wave, but when we're well out at sea we will
run up an English flag, if it please you."