THE EPISODE OF THE WINDING CREEK
THE singular discovery of Bill Saxby's jacket was like a shock to drive
all else out of their minds. Now they found that it had been thrown over
a jug of water and a bag of beef and biscuit stowed in the bow. This
solved one pressing problem, and they nibbled the hard ration while
debating the situation. It was agreed that they could not honorably run
away with the pirogue if it really belonged to Stede Bonnet's men, who
must have come on foot along the higher ground back of the coast and
descended the creek in the canoe stolen or purchased from Indians met by
chance.
Granted this much, it was fair to conjecture that Captain Bonnet's ship
was in some harbor not many leagues distant and that he knew where to
find Blackbeard's rendezvous, at Cherokee Inlet.
"'Tis your job to stand by the pirogue, Jack," suggested Hawkridge, "and
I will make a sally toward the pirates' camp afore they rouse out."
"Go softly, Joe, and don't be reckless. Why not lie up till night before
you reconnoitre?"
"'Cause the mist still hangs heavy and I'm blowed if I dilly-dally if
good Bill Saxby has come to grief."
"Supposing he has, you cannot wrest him single-handed from Blackbeard's
crew."
"Well, if I can but slip a word of comfort in his ear, it'll cheer him
mightily, unless his throat be cut by now," was the stubborn response.
"Sit thee taut, Jack, old _camarada_, and chuck the worry. Care killed a
cat. These rogues yonder in the camp won't _molest me_ if I walk boldly
amongst 'em."
"What if you don't return?" persisted Jack. "How long shall I wait here
with the pirogue?"
"Now what the deuce can I say to such foolish queries? If things go
wrong with me and Bill and his mate, you will have to cruise alone or
hop back to the _Revenge_."
With a laugh and a wave of the hand, the dauntless adventurer leaped
from the nose of the canoe, nimbly hauled himself into a tree, and then
plunged into the gloomy swamp where he was speedily lost to view. Jack
Cockrell settled himself to wait for he knew not what. Clouds of midges
and mosquitoes tormented him and he ached with fatigue. Soon after
sunrise the mist began to burn away and the mouth of the creek was no
longer obscured by shadows. In the glare of day Jack thought it likely
that the canoe might be detected by some pair of keen eyes aboard the
_Revenge_.
To move it far might imperil Joe Hawkridge and Bonnet's two seamen
should they come in haste with a hue-and-cry behind them. Jack paddled
the pirogue up the creek and soon found a safe ambuscade, a stagnant
cove in among the dense growth, where he tied up to a gnarled root. Then
he climbed a wide-branching oak and propped himself in a crotch from
which he could see the open water and the two vessels at anchor. Clumps
of taller trees cut off any view of the beach and the camp but he dared
stray no farther from the pirogue.
Tediously an hour passed and there was no sign of Joe Hawkridge. He had
a journey of only a few hundred yards to make, and Jack began to imagine
all kinds of misfortune that might have befallen him, such as being
mired beyond his depth in the swamp and perishing miserably. The
sensible conclusion was, however, that he had tarried among his
shipmates in the camp with some shrewd purpose in mind.
A little later in the morning, Jack's anxious cogitations were diverted
by the frequent passage of boats between the _Revenge_ and the sloop
which was anchored nearer the beach. One of these small craft was
Blackbeard's own cock-boat, or captain's gig, which he used for errands
in smooth water, with a couple of men to pull it. Jack was reminded of
that secret conference in the cabin and Joe's conviction that some
uncommon devilment was afoot. It appeared as though "Tallow Dick"
Spender, that unwholesome master of the _Triumph_ sloop, had been chosen
as the right bower.
And now there arose a sudden and riotous noise in the camp. It was not
the mirth and song of jolly pirates a-pleasuring ashore but the
ferocious tumult of men in conflict and taken unawares. Perched in the
tree, Jack Cockrell listened all agog as the sounds rose and fell with
the breeze which swayed the long gray moss that draped the branches. He
heard a few pistol shots and then was startled to see a spurt of flame
dart from a gun-port of the sloop. The dull report reached him an
instant later. He could see that the gun had been fired from the
vessel's shoreward battery. It meant that Blackbeard was making a target
of some part of the camp. Another gun belched its cloud of smoke.
The noise died down, save for intermittent shouts and one long wail of
anguish. Presently a boat moved out past the sloop. A dozen men tugged
at the oars and others stood crowded in the stern-sheets. Jack caught
the gleam of weapons and thought he recognized the squat, broad figure
of Blackbeard himself beside the man at the steering oar. Behind this
pinnace from the _Revenge_ trailed two other boats in tow. They passed
in slow procession, out between the vessels. The boats which the pinnace
towed were not empty. Instead of sitting upon the thwarts, men seemed to
be strewn about in them as if they had been tossed over the gunwales
like so much dunnage.
Jack rubbed his eyes in amazement and watched the line of boats turn to
follow the channel which led out of the sheltered roadstead to the sea
beyond. When they vanished beyond a sandy island, the lad in the
live-oak tree said to himself:
"My guess is that Blackbeard has put a stopper on all talk of mutiny by
one bold stroke. A bloody weeding-out, and in those two boats are the
poor wretches who were taken alive. Alas, one of 'em may be Joe
Hawkridge unless he be dead already. He talked too much of Stede Bonnet
aboard the ship. And there were sneaking dogs in the crew who spied on
their comrades. We saw them enter the cabin last night."
There was no getting around the evidence. It fitted together all too
well. Jack sadly reflected that, beyond a doubt, he had seen the last of
gallant, loyal Joe Hawkridge. Left alone with the pirogue, which he
could not paddle single-handed, it was folly to think of trying to
escape along the coast. And to wander inland, ignorant of the country,
was to court almost certain death. Nor could he now expect mercy from
Blackbeard, having deserted the ship against orders and known to be a
true friend of Captain Stede Bonnet.
The most unhappy lad could no longer hold his cramped station in the
tree and he decided to seek the canoe and find the meagre solace of a
little food and water. He was half-way to the ground when he clutched a
limb and halted to peer into the swamp. Something was splashing through
the mud and grass and making a prodigious fuss about it. Then Jack heard
two voices in grunts and maledictions. Fearing the enemy might have
tracked him, he stood as still as a mouse in the leafage of the oak.
Out of the swamp emerged a young man with a musket on his shoulder.
Behind him came one very much older, gaunt and wrinkled, his hair as
gray as the Spanish moss that overhung his path. They reached the edge
of the creek and then turned down to halt where the pirogue had been
left. At failing to find it there, they argued hotly and were much
distressed. Jack Cockrell's fears were calmed. These were no men of
Blackbeard's company, but good Bill Saxby and his mate. He called to
them from his perch and they stood wondering at this voice from heaven.
In a jiffy Jack had slid down and was beckoning them. They hurried as
fast as they could pull their feet out of the muck, and were overjoyed
to jump into the hidden canoe. There they sat and thumped Jack Cockrell
on the head by way of affectionate greeting. The younger man had a
chubby cheek, a dimple in his chin, and blue eyes as big and round as a
babe's.
"Bill Saxby is me," said his pleasant voice, "and a precious job had I
to get here. Joe Hawkridge told me of you, Master Cockrell."
"Where is Joe?" cried Jack, dreading to hear his own opinion confirmed.
"Marooned, along with two dozen luckless lads that were trapped like
pigeons----"
"'Twas more like turtles all a-sleepin' in the sand," the old man
croaked in rusty accents. "A few was sharp awake and they fought pretty
whilst the rest rallied, but they got drove with their backs to the
swamp and a deep slough. Then the sloop turned her guns on 'em and they
struck their colors."
"And Joe Hawkridge sided with his friends, of course," said Jack.
"Would ye expect aught else of him?" proudly answered Bill Saxby. "He
searched us out where we lay trussed like fowls, all bound with ropes.
We blundered fair into the camp last night, and old Trimble Rogers here,
his legs knotted with cramps, couldn't make a run for it. They saved us
for Blackbeard's pleasure but he had other fish to fry."
"What then?" demanded Jack.
"'Twas Joe Hawkridge that ran to cut our bonds when the fight began. And
he bade us leg it for the pirogue and carry word to you. A pledge of
honor, he called it, to stand by his dear friend Jack, and he made us
swear it."
"Bless him for a Christian knight of a pirate," said Jack, with tears in
his eyes. "Was he hurt, did ye happen to note?"
"We hid ourselves till the prisoners were flung into the boats. I marked
Joe as one of 'em, and he was sprightly, barring a bloody face."
"Marooned, Bill Saxby?" asked Jack. "What's your judgment on that
score? It cannot be many leagues from here, or the ship would have
transported them instead of the boats."
"These barren islands lie strung well out from the coast, Master
Cockrell. Waterless they be, and without shelter. Blackbeard's fancy is
to let the men die there----"
"An ancient custom of buccaneers and pirates," put in old Trimble
Rogers, with an air of grave authority. "I mind me in the year of 1687
when I sailed in the South Sea with that great captain, Edward
Davis,--'twas after the sack of Guayaquil when every man had a greater
weight of gold and silver than he could lug on his back----"
Bill Saxby interrupted, in a petulant manner:
"Stow it, grandsire! At a better time ye can please the lad with your
long-winded yarns,--of marching on Panama with Henry Morgan when the
mother's milk was scarce dry on your lips."
"I cruised with the best of 'em," boasted the last of the storied race
of true buccaneers of the Spanish Main, "and now I be in this cheap
trade of piratin'. The fortunes I gamed away, and the plate ships I
boarded! Take warnin', boy, and salt your treasure down."
"This Trimble Rogers will talk you deaf," said Bill Saxby, "but there's
pith in his old bones and wisdom under yon hoary thatch. Cap'n Bonnet
sent him along with me as a rare old hound to trail the swamps."
In a vivid flash of remembrance, Jack Cockrell saw this salty relic of
the Spanish Main among the crew which had disported itself on the tavern
green at Charles Town,--the old man sitting aside with a couple of stray
children upon his knees while his head nodded to the lilt of the fiddle.
And again there had been a glimpse of him trudging in the column which
had followed Stede Bonnet, with trumpet and drum, to attack the hostile
Indians. Jack's heart warmed to Trimble Rogers and also to young Bill
Saxby. They would find some way out of all this tribulation.
"Whither lies Captain Bonnet's stout ship?" eagerly demanded Jack.
"On this side the Western Ocean," smiled Saxby. "We shall waste no time
in finding her. We had better bide where we are a few hours, eh,
Trimble?"
"Aye, and double back up the stream in the canoe to spend the night on
dry land and push on afoot at dawn. If we wait to sight Blackbeard's
boats come in from sea, 'twill aid us to reckon how far out they went
and what the bearings are."
"So Captain Bonnet may sail to pick off those poor seamen marooned,"
exclaimed Jack.
"He is not apt to leave 'em to bleach their bones," said Bill Saxby.
"And when it comes to closing in with Blackbeard, they will have a
grudge of their own."
They made themselves as comfortable as possible on the bottom of the
pirogue. Now and then Jack climbed the live-oak to look for the return
of the boats. There was no more leisure for the pirates left in the ship
and the sloop. Evidently Blackbeard had been alarmed by the tidings that
two of Stede Bonnet's men had been caught spying him out and had made
their escape in the confusion. The sloop was now listed over in shoal
water and Bill Saxby ventured the opinion that they intended to take the
mast out of her and put it in the _Revenge_.
"Along with most of her guns, I take it," said Trimble Rogers. "What
with losing all those men, in one way or another, this Blackbeard, as
Cap'n Ed'ard Teach miscalls hisself, must needs abandon the sloop. The
more the merrier, says I, when we come at close quarters."
Jack asked many curious questions, by way of passing the time. The old
man was easy to read. He had been a lawless sea rover in the days when
there was both gold and glory in harrying Spanish towns and galleons,
from Mexico to Peru. The real buccaneers had vanished but he was too old
a dog to learn new tricks and he faithfully served Stede Bonnet, who had
a spark of the chivalry and manliness which had burned so brightly in
that idolized master, Captain Edward Davis.
As for this blue-eyed smiling young Bill Saxby, he had been a small
tradesman in London. Through no fault of his own, he was cruelly
imprisoned for debt and, after two years, shipped to the Carolina
plantations as no better than a slave. For all he knew, the girl wife
and child in London had been suffered to starve. He had never heard any
word of them. As a fugitive he had been taken aboard a pirate vessel.
There he found kindlier treatment than honest men had ever offered him,
and so grew somewhat reconciled to this wicked calling.
On one of the occasions when Jack left these entertaining companions to
visit his high sentry post in the tree, he surmised that all hands had
been summoned on the vessel and lifting out her mast. He could see two
boats plying back and forth and filled with men. He lingered because
something else caught his interest. A little boat was putting out from
the seaward side of the _Revenge_ and it fetched a wide circuit of the
harbor. This brought the ship between it and the sloop so that its
departure would be unobserved by the toiling crew.
Two men were at the oars and a third sat in the stern. At a distance,
Jack guessed they were bound to one of the nearest islands, perhaps in
search of oysters or crabs, but after making a long sweep which carried
the boat out of vision of the sloop and the beach, it swung toward the
shore, a little to the northward of the mouth of the creek. The errand
had a stealthy air. Jack Cockrell started and almost fell out of the
tree. He had been mistaken in his fancy that Blackbeard was in the
pinnace which had towed the prisoners out to be marooned. This was none
other than the grotesque fiend of a pirate himself, furtively steering
his cock-boat on some private errand of his own.
As soon as he was certain of this, Jack fairly scurried down the tree,
digging his toes in the bark like a squirrel, and tumbling head over
heels into the pirogue. Breathing rapidly, he stuttered:
"The--the devil himself,--in that little w-wherry of his,--c-coming
inshore. He must ha' seen the canoe. He is in chase of me."
"Go take a look, Bill," coolly remarked old Trimble Rogers, who was busy
slapping at mosquitoes. "A touch o' the sun has bred a nightmare in the
lad."
Bill Saxby swarmed up the live-oak like a limber seaman with fish-hooks
for fingers and he, too, almost lost his balance at what he saw. He
waved a warning hand at the canoe and then put his fingers to his lips.
Down he came in breakneck haste and urged the others to haul their craft
farther up into the sedge. He was plucking green bushes and armfuls of
dried grass to fling across the gunwales.
Satisfied that the canoe was entirely concealed, they crouched low. The
old man was more concerned with the pest of insects and he reached out
to claw up the sticky mud with which he plastered his face and neck like
a mask. This seemed to give him some relief and his comrades were glad
to do the same. Bill Saxby was attentive to the priming of the musket,
which he passed over to Trimble Rogers, saying:
"You are the chief gunner, old hawk. But hold your fire. I'm itching to
know what trick this Don Whiskerando is up to."
"Fair enough," muttered the old man. "Cap'n Bonnet 'ud clap me in irons
if I slew this filthy Ed'ard Teach and robbed him of that enjoyment.
I'll pull no trigger save in our own defense."
They heard the faint splash of oars. Soon the little cock-boat came
gliding around the bend of the shore and floated into the mouth of the
creek. Bill Saxby raised himself for a moment and ducked swiftly as he
whispered:
"He is not lookin' about but motions 'em to row on up the stream."
"Then our canoe is not what he's after?" murmured Jack.
"'Tis some queer game. Were he hunting us, he'd fetch along more hands
than them two. Hush! Let him pass."
The little boat came steadily on, the tide helping the oars. It sat very
low in the water, oddly so for the weight of three men. Blackbeard,
hunched in the stern, held a pistol in one hand while the other gripped
the tiller. This was not in fear of danger from the shore because he
kept his eyes on the two seamen at the oars and it was plain to see that
the pistol was meant to menace them.
The boat passed abreast of the pirogue so artfully concealed in the
pocket of a tiny cove. The intervening distance was no more than a dozen
yards. Old Trimble Rogers wistfully fingered the musket and lifted it to
squint along the barrel. Never was temptation more sturdily resisted.
Then his face, hard as iron and puckered like dried leather, broke into
a smile. The idea pleased him immensely. They would follow Blackbeard
and watch the chance to take him alive. He who had trapped his own men
in camp was now neatly trapped himself, his retreat cut off. Tie a
couple of fathom of stout cord to his whiskers and tow him along by
land, all the way to Stede Bonnet's ship. There the worthy captain could
bargain with him at his own terms, silently chuckled the old buccaneer.
They held their breath and gazed at the fantastic scoundrel who had made
himself the ogre among pirates. He had discarded the great hat as
cumbersome and his tousled head was bound around with a wide strip of
the red calico from India. Still and solid he sat, like a heathen idol,
staring in front of him and intent on his mysterious errand. The unseen
spectators in the pirogue scanned also the two seamen at the oars and
felt a vague pity for them. Unmistakably they were sick with fear. It
was conveyed by their dejected aspect, by the tinge of pallor, by the
fixity with which they regarded the cocked pistol in Blackbeard's fist.
Jack Cockrell knew them as abandoned villains who had boasted of many a
bloody deed but the swarthy, pockmarked fellow had been in the boat
which had saved the two lads from the drifting raft. This was enough to
awaken a lively sympathy.
Trimble Rogers gripped Jack's shoulder with a strength which made him
wince and pointed a skinny finger at the boat. The fate of the two
seamen did not trouble him greatly. Those who lived by violence should
rightly expect to die by it. The sea was their gaming table and it was
their ill luck if the dice were cogged. Just then Bill Saxby stifled an
ejaculation. He, too, had discovered the freightage in the cock-boat,
the heavy burden which made it swim so low.
It rested in front of Blackbeard's knees, the top showing above the
curve of the gunwales. It was a sea-chest, uncommonly large, built of
some dark tropical wood and strapped with iron. Old Trimble Rogers'
fierce eyes glittered and he licked his lips. He leaned over to whisper
in Bill Saxby's ear the one word:
"_Treasure!_"