IN WHICH I HOLD A PARLEY
The two pirates turned to each other for consultation, irresolute, but
evidently impressed by the fact that their prize did not purpose to
hoist sail and make a run for it.
"What ho! mates?" demanded the captain, in as gruff a voice as he
could compass: "Ye've heard his speech, and he has struck his flag."
"Suppose the villain plays us false," rejoined the "mates" or rather,
the mate, in a voice so high or quavering that for a moment it was
difficult for me to repress a smile; although these three years past I
rarely had smiled at all.
The captain turned to one side, so that now I could see both him and
his crew. The leader was as fine a specimen of boy as you could have
asked, sturdy of bare legs, brown of face, red of hair, ragged and
tumbled of garb. His crew was active though slightly less robust, a
fair-haired, light-skinned chap, blue-eyed, and somewhat better clad
than his companion. There was something winning about his face. At a
glance I knew his soul. He was a dreamer, an idealist, an artist, in
the bud. My heart leaped out to him instinctively in a great impulse
of sympathy and understanding. Indeed, suddenly, I felt the blood
tingle through my hair. I looked upon life as I had not these three
years. The imagination of Youth, the glamour of Adventure, lay here
before me; things I cruelly had missed these last few years, it seemed
to me.
"How, now, shipmates?" I remarked mildly. "Wouldst doubt the faith of
one who himself hath flown the Jolly Rover? Cease your fears and come
aboard--that is to say, come ashore."
"Git out, Jimmy," I heard the captain say in a low voice, after a
moment of indecision. "Keep him covered till I tie her up."
Jimmy, the fair-haired pirate, hauled in on the alders and flung a
grappling iron aboard my bank, which presently he ascended. As he
stood free from the screening fringe of bushes, I saw that he was
slender, and not very tall, one not wholly suited by nature to his
stern calling. His once white jacket now was soiled, and one leg of
his knickers was loose, from his scramble up the bank. He was belted
beyond all earl-like need; wore indeed two belts, which supported two
long hunting knives and a Malay kris, such as we now get from the
Philippines; as well as a revolver large beyond all proportion to his
own size. A second revolver of like dimensions now trembled in his
hand, and even though its direction toward me was no more than
general, I resumed the goose-flesh underneath my waistcoat, for no man
could tell what might happen. In none of my works with dangerous big
game have I felt a similar uneasiness; no, nor even in the little
affair in China where the Boxers held us up, did I ever really
consider the issue more in doubt. It pleased me, however, to make no
movement of offense or defense; and luckily the revolver was not
discharged.
When the two had topped the bank, and had approached me--taking cover
behind trees in a way which made me suspect Boy Scout training,
mingled with bandit literature--to a point where we could see each
other's features plainly, I moved over to one side of my bank, and
motioned them to approach.
"Come alongside, brothers," said I, pushing my fly-rod to one side;
"make fast and come aboard. And tell me, what cheer?"
They drew up to me, stern of mien, bold of bearing, dauntless of
purpose. At least, so I was convinced, each wished and imagined
himself to seem; and since they wished so to be seen thus, seized by
some sudden whim, I resolved to see them. How I envied them! Theirs
all the splendor of youth, of daring, of adventure, of romance;
things gone by from me, or for the most part, never known.
Frowning sternly, they seated themselves reluctantly on the grassy
bank beside me, and gazed out in the dignity of an imagined manhood
across my river, which now was lighted bravely by the retiring sun.
Had I not felt with them, longed with them, they could never so
splendidly have maintained their pretense. But between us, there in
the evening on my stream with only the birds and the sun to see, it
was not pretense. Upon the contrary, all cloaks were off, all masks
removed, and we were face to face in the strong light of reality. As
clearly as though I always had known them, I saw into the hearts of
these; and what I saw made my own heart ache and yearn for something
it had ever missed.
"What cheer, comrades?" I repeated at length. "Whither away, and upon
what errand?"
Now a strange thing happened, which I do not explain, for that I can
not. In plain fact, these two were obviously runaway boys, not the
first, nor perhaps the last of runaway boys; and I was a man of means,
a retired man, supposedly somewhat of a hermit, although really
nothing of the sort; lately a lawyer, hard-headed and disillusioned,
always a man of calm reason, as I prided myself; subject to no
fancies, a student and a lover of science, a mocker at all
superstition and all weak-mindedness. (Pardon me, that I must say all
these things of myself.) Yet, let me be believed who say it, some
spell, whether of this presence of Youth, whether of the evening and
the sun, or whether of the inner and struggling soul of Man, so fell
upon us all then and there, that we were not man and boys, but bold
adventurers, all three of like kidney! This was not a modern land that
lay about us. Yonder was not the copse beyond the birches, where my
woodcock sometimes found cover. This was not my trout-stream. Those
yonder were not my elms and larches moving in the evening air. No,
before us lay the picture of the rolling deep, its long green swells
breaking high in white spindrift. The keen wind of other days sounded
in our ears, and yonder pressed the galleons of Spain! Youth, Youth
and Adventure, were ours.
We smiled not at all, therefore, as, with some thoughtful effort, it
is true, we held to fitting manner of speech. "We seek for treasure,"
piped the thin voice of him I had heard called Jimmy. "Let none dare
lift hand against us!"
"And whither away, my hearties?"
"Spang! to the Spanish Main." This also from the blue-eyed boy; who,
now, with some difficulty, managed to let down the hammer of his
six-shooter without damage to himself or others.
"We didn't know but youse would try to stop us," exclaimed the
red-haired leader. "We come around the bend and seen you settin'
there; an' we was resolved--to--to----"
"To sell our lives dearly!" supplemented Jimmy. "He who would seek to
stop us does so at his peril." And Jimmy made so fell a movement
toward his side-arms that I hastened to restrain him.
"Yes," said I; "you are quite right, my hearties."
"But, gee!" ventured the red-haired pirate, "what was you thinkin'
about?"
"You ask me to tell truth, good Sire," I made reply, "and I shall do
no less. At the very moment you trained your bow-chaser on me, I was
thinking of two things."
"Speak on, caitiff!" demanded Jimmy fiercely.
"Nay, call me not so, good Sir," I rejoined, "for such, in good-sooth,
I am not, but honest faithful man. Ye have but now asked what I
pondered, and I fain would speak truth, an' it please ye, my
hearties."
"What's he givin' us, Jimmy?" whispered the pirate captain dubiously,
aside.
"Speak on!" again commanded he of the blue eyes. "But your life blood
dyes the deck if you seek to deceive Jean Lafitte, or Henry
L'Olonnois!"
(So then, thought I, at last I knew their names.)
In reply I reached to my belt and drew out quickly--so quickly that
they both flinched away--the long handled knife which, usually, I
carried with me for cutting down alders or other growth which
sometimes entangled my flies as I fished along the stream. "Listen,"
said I, "I swear the pirates' oath. On the point of my blade," and I
touched it with my right forefinger, "I swear that I pondered on two
things when you surprised me."
"Name them!" demanded Jimmy L'Olonnois fiercely.
"First, then," I answered, "I was wondering what I could use as a cork
to my phial, when once I had yonder Anopheles in it----"
"Who's he?" demanded Jean Lafitte.
"Anopheles? A friend of mine," I replied; "a mosquito, in short."
"Jimmy, he's crazy!" ejaculated Jean Lafitte uneasily.
"Say on, caitiff!" commanded L'Olonnois, ignoring him; "what else?"
"In the second place," said I--and again I placed my right forefinger
on the point of my blade, "I was thinking of Helena."
"Is she your little girl," hesitatingly inquired Jimmy L'Olonnois, for
the instant forgetting his part.
"No," said I sadly, "she is not my little girl."
"Where is she?" vaguely.
"Regarding the whereabouts of either Anopheles or Helena, at this
moment," said I still sadly, "I am indeed all at sea, as any good
pirate should be."
I tried to jest, but fared ill at it. I felt my face flush at hearing
her name spoken aloud. And sadly true was it that, on that afternoon
and many another, I had found myself, time and again, adream with
Helena's face before me. I saw it now--a face I had not seen these
three years, since the time when first I had come hither with the
purpose of forgetting.
Jimmy was back in his part again, and doing nobly. "Ha!" said he. "So,
fellow, pondering on a fair one, didst not hear the approach of our
good ship, the _Sea Rover_?"
"In good sooth, I did not," I answered; "and as for these other
matters, I swear on my blade's point I have spoken the truth."
Our conversation languished for the moment. Illusion lay in the
balance. The old melancholy impended above me ominously.