THE SOCIETY FOR PIRATICAL RESEARCH
They were in a dark and narrow passage-way. As they stood huddled there
together, a candle glimmered at the end of the passage, held in a
tremulous hand, and lighting up the face of a very old woman. She
advanced towards the party by the door, and holding her candle high
above her head inspected the strangers with little blinking watery eyes.
She was short and bent; she hobbled as she came forward; her face was
seamed with deep wrinkles, and the hand which held the candle was
knotted and gnarled; wisps of dirty grey hair hung over her eyes.
"Aha! Mother Ketch," said Captain Lingo. "I wager thou didst not expect
us so soon. What's in the larder? We are famished."
Old Mother Ketch looked at her son, the Practitioner, and nodded her
head at him once or twice, blinking her eyes. Then she fixed her eyes on
Aunt Amanda, and seemed to forget everybody else.
"Well? well?" said Captain Lingo, impatiently. "Art going to keep us
here all night? Come, woman! Speak up directly! What's for supper, eh?"
Mother Ketch slowly removed her eyes from Aunt Amanda, and looked at the
captain steadily.
"There's nought but pigeons and mushrooms and--" said she.
"Good!" said the captain. "Then we will have pigeon pies; one for each;
and well filled, mind you. Now haste; be off."
Mother Ketch turned and hobbled slowly down the passage, and the glimmer
of her candle disappeared.
"Follow me," said Captain Lingo.
The six pirates vanished somewhere in the darkness, and the others
followed Captain Lingo up a winding stair. At the top was a heavy door,
which he unlocked with his key, and locked again on the inside after his
guests had passed through. He then led them down a dark passage-way, and
turning to the right unlocked a door with his key and threw it open.
They were in a large dining-room, on the table of which were numerous
candles, which the captain lighted. In one wall was an opening for a
dumb-waiter for sending up food from the kitchen below. The party seated
themselves at the table, and after a considerable time Ketch entered, a
napkin on his arm, and at the same time the dumb-waiter rose from the
kitchen, and the meal commenced.
Ketch waited on the table. Besides pigeon pies there were mushrooms, a
lettuce salad, hot biscuit, and excellent coffee. Ketch placed the first
pigeon pie before the captain, and Aunt Amanda noticed that he examined
the top of it carefully as he did so. She observed that he examined the
top of each pie carefully before he placed it, until he had put one
before herself, after which he put the others about without looking at
them. She examined the top of her own pie herself, to see what Ketch
could have been looking at. She saw in the center of it a tiny figure
made of very brown dough, and as she looked closer it seemed to have the
shape of a tiny key. She glanced at the other pies, and none of them
bore any mark of this kind.
Everyone set to with a good will, and Aunt Amanda opened her pie. She
remembered Ketch's caution, and she prodded it secretly with her fork
before taking a bite. At the bottom her fork touched something hard. She
immediately began to put the contents of her pie on her plate, and she
did so in such a way as to leave the hard object beneath the rest. In
the course of the meal, she dropped a portion of the pie to the floor,
and stooped to pick it up. As she did so, she managed to take the hard
object from her plate and conceal it in her lap. It was a key.
When the meal was over, the captain led his guests forth to their
respective bedrooms, each carrying a lighted candle from the table. At
the top of a stair was a closed door, which he unlocked with his key,
and locked after the others had passed through. Along the passage which
ran from this door were doors at intervals in the walls, and these he
opened, one after another, showing one of his guests each time into a
bedroom and leaving him there. On the stair, Aunt Amanda had whispered
into Toby's ear the words, "Don't go to bed. Pass it along." And these
words had been passed in a whisper from one to another of the captives.
Aunt Amanda, in her own room, now sat herself down to wait. She blew out
her candle, and sat watching the shaft of moonlight which came through
the slit that served for a window. She must have fallen asleep, for she
came to herself with a start, and found the shaft of moonlight gone. She
limped to the door, and found it locked. She took from her dress the
pigeon-pie key and unlocked the door. The passage-way outside was silent
and dark. She felt her way along the wall to the next door, and found it
locked. She quietly unlocked it with her key. Toby was sitting within,
waiting. He rose without a word, and followed her. They tiptoed from
door to door, finding each one locked, and silently released each of the
prisoners.
The key fitted every lock on their way down stairs. They reached the
ground floor without an accident, and there in the passage which they
had first seen they stopped to listen. They heard the click of a latch
at the rear; a door there opened quietly on a crack and a light shone
through; every heart stopped beating for a moment. The door opened
wider, and a lighted candle appeared, and over it the wrinkled face of
an old woman; she peered out into the passage, shading the candle with a
trembling hand; the party of quaking runaways stood as still as mice,
and held their breath; the old woman blinked for a moment into the
darkness, and blew out her candle. All was dark again, and the latch of
the door clicked.
The runaways lost no time. They crept silently but rapidly to the
entrance door. Aunt Amanda unlocked and opened it, and they pressed out
hurriedly. They were standing on the grass in a flood of moonlight.
Aunt Amanda, whose lameness had been almost forgotten in her excitement,
now leaned on Toby, who was holding Freddie's hand, and who led the way
to the rim of the forest where the trail lay. There was some difficulty
in finding the trail, but they did find it at last, and they filed into
the forest. They had not gone more than twenty yards when Toby, who was
in advance, saw a great black object directly across their path. He went
forward cautiously, in spite of his alarm, and breathed a sigh of joy
when he saw what it was: it was a mule, saddled and bridled, and tied to
a bush. Further on were other mules, all tethered; there were ten in
all, of which eight were saddled and two were laden with packs.
"Blessings on that Ketch," whispered Aunt Amanda.
In a moment the entire party were mounted. In another moment they were
going along the trail at a fast walk. The mules knew the way, and there
was now no danger of going astray in the forest. Only, where were they
to go, after all? If the pirates should catch them, everything would
soon be over. If they should manage to elude the pirates, they would
still be lost in the wilderness of this unknown Island. What was to
become of them not one could tell. The future seemed very dark indeed.
Once or twice they paused, to listen for sounds of pursuit; but they
heard nothing; not a sound disturbed the stillness; and the little
moonlight which filtered here and there through the trees seemed to make
the darkness more intense.
They had gone about half a mile, and were plodding along in drowsy
silence, when suddenly, out of the tall bushes beside the trail, seven
dark figures sprang upon them and seized the bridles of their mules.
"Ah!" cried Toby. "We are lost! The pirates!"
The mules stood stock still.
"It's no use," said Toby. "We can't escape. They are armed, and we are
not. All right, Captain Lingo, don't strike; we surrender. We'll go back
with you; don't strike."
"I beg your pardon," said a voice which none of them had ever heard
before. "Are you pirates?"
"Ain't you pirates yourselves?" cried Aunt Amanda.
"What?" said the voice. "Is there a lady here? In that case, you are
probably not pirates. Perhaps we have been too hasty. I beg your
pardon."
"Who are you?" said Aunt Amanda.
"Do you admit that you are not pirates?" said the voice.
"Admit it!" said Aunt Amanda. "We vow and declare it! The very idea!"
"I am sorry to hear it," said the voice. "We are deeply disappointed. We
of course cannot doubt the word of a lady, but we were almost sure we
had found them. We have been searching for pirates for a long time, and
we were advised that they lived somewhere near here. We must have missed
our way. Could you perhaps direct us? It is a place called High
Dudgeon."
"You bet we could," said Toby, "but we won't. We are running away from
there, and you had better run too."
"Then perhaps you happen to know the whereabouts of a place called Low
Dudgeon, where the pirates formerly lived?"
"We do," said Toby. "You are about half-way now between High Dudgeon and
Low Dudgeon; and you had better get out of this neighborhood as fast as
you can."
"This is very interesting," said the voice. "I feel that you will be
able to give us some valuable information. If you have no objection, we
will walk behind you until we come to a place where there is more light,
when we will have a few minutes' conversation on this interesting
subject."
The seven dark figures stood aside, and the mules moved onward. The
seven figures walked behind.
In five minutes they reached a patch of ground where the moon shone
brightly through the trees, and the riders drew in their animals, and
turned to look at the figures who now marched sedately up beside them.
These figures stood in a row facing the riders, and six of them turned
their heads to the right, looking towards the first in the row, who was
probably their leader.
They were seven tall men, dressed in black frock coats and striped
trousers, with pearl-gray spats; but instead of high silk hats each wore
a small black skull-cap, as more convenient, no doubt, for their rough
life in the forest. It could be seen that they were no ordinary men;
they looked like professors at college; their faces were thoughtful and
even intellectual; each one wore spectacles; they squinted as if from
too much poring over books by lamplight. The one at the head of the row
was fat, with mutton-chop whiskers, and his frock coat was buttoned
tight over a round stomach. He spoke in the same voice which they had
heard in the dark.
"I beg your pardon," said he. "If you will be so kind as to direct us
either to High Dudgeon or to Low Dudgeon, we will not fail to gratefully
acknowledge--"
"Aha!" said one of the others, in a playful tone. "A split infinitive,
Professor!"
"I beg your pardon. A slight inadvertence. To acknowledge gratefully
your kind--"
"There's no time to talk now," said Toby. "We are running away from
these bloodthirsty cut-throats, and if they catch us we are dead, as
sure as you're born. I'll tell you what we will do. We'll all keep on to
Low Dudgeon, and we'll go in there, if we can get in, and decide there
what we had better do. It looked like a strong tower, and we would
certainly be as safe inside there as out of doors, if the pirates should
come along."
The Professor looked down the line of his companions. "What is the sense
of the Committee on this proposal?" said he. "Ah. Very good. We are
agreed. Proceed, my dear sir."
"One minute," said Aunt Amanda. "Excuse my asking, but I should like to
know who you are, anyway."
The Professor waved a fat hand towards his companions, and looking at
Aunt Amanda, said:
"We belong, madam, to the Society for Piratical Research, under the
patronage of his gracious Majesty, the King of this Island. You behold
before you a committee of that Society; the Committee on Doubtful and
Fabulous Tales, sometimes called for the sake of brevity, from the
initials of its title, the Daft Committee. As Third Vice-President of
the Society for Piratical Research, I have the honour to be Chairman of
the Daft Committee. The seat of our Society is far from here, in the
principal city of this kingdom, the famous City of Towers, blest as the
residence of his gracious Majesty, the most learned and liberal of
princes. Our camp, which we made only late this evening, lies at no
great distance from this spot. We did not wish to delay our researches
until morning, and so, as Third Vice-President of the Society for
Piratical Research, and Chairman of the Daft Committee, I--"
"Much obliged," said Toby. "We've no time to listen to any more. We must
get on."
The Daft Committee, led by the Third Vice-President, fell in behind the
mules, and the whole party moved forward, as rapidly as the mules and
the committee could walk.
Aunt Amanda felt far from easy at the prospect of entering Low Dudgeon;
but she had told Toby something of Ketch's strange words and manner
regarding that place, and she was glad to leave the responsibility to
him. Their dark and silent progress through the forest continued, and
when they had gone what they thought must have been about half a mile,
they knew they must be near their destination. Every eye was watchful
and every ear was alert. A grunt from Toby in advance notified the
others that they had arrived, and they filed out of the forest into the
clearing, and saw before them the squat tower of Low Dudgeon in the
moonlight.
The same light as before appeared from within, through the upper slits
in the side of the tower. As they drew in their mules at the edge of the
clearing, the Daft Committee came up, and the Third Vice-President spoke
in a low voice.
"I presume," he said, "that this is Low Dudgeon. I have heard of it, but
I have never seen it. It was formerly, some hundred years ago, the
headquarters of the pirates. But something occurred here, I do not know
what, which impelled the pirates to move. They accordingly built
themselves a much better residence, known as High Dudgeon, where I
understand they now live. I do not believe that Low Dudgeon has been
occupied since. Gentlemen," he said, turning to his companions, "we are
fortunate in having found this interesting place at last, after so much
trouble. It is the very spot in which to begin our researches."
A murmur of approval arose from the other members of the committee.
"I don't know whether it's occupied or not," said Aunt Amanda. "Ketch
told me that no one lives there, and that there's thirteen of 'em; and
he seemed to be afraid of the place. And there's a light up there. I
don't understand it."
"Gentlemen," said the Third Vice-President, "is it the sense of the
committee that we begin our researches in Low Dudgeon?"
Every member of the Daft Committee murmured his assent.
"If we go into the forest," said Toby, "we may be caught; if we go in
here, we are safe for a while, anyway, and we can decide there what we
had better do; maybe these gentlemen can send for help. Anyway, let's
get in if we can."
The riders dismounted from their mules and tied them to trees; in
another moment the whole party were standing before the door of the
tower.
"Better knock," said Toby.
They knocked, and knocked again; there was no answer.
"Aunt Amanda," said Toby, "try your key."
Aunt Amanda tried the key, and it fitted; she turned it, and the lock
snapped back. Toby thrust open the door.
The company entered, and Toby took the key and locked the door behind
them. They were in a dark passage, near the foot of a winding stair.
"We had better go up where the light is," said Toby, in a whisper.
They went cautiously and noiselessly up the stair to the landing. There
they found themselves in a hall, and at a little distance down the hall
they saw a dim light shining under a closed door. "There it is," said
Toby. "Come on."
With the same breathless caution they tiptoed to the door. It had no
lock, and Toby turned the knob and slowly pushed it open.
"Ah!" said Toby, in a frightened gasp, and started back.
The others crowded at his back and pushed him forward. The Third
Vice-President of the Society for Piratical Research brushed past him
into the room, and the other six members followed him. The party of
fugitives moved slowly in after them.
In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the center of this
table stood some twenty wax tapers in silver candlesticks, burning
brightly; and seated around the table were thirteen men.
Not one of these men moved as the party came into the room. Not a limb
nor muscle stirred. The Third Vice-President coughed aloud. Still none
of the men moved so much as a finger. The whole party came forward to
the table and stood close behind the thirteen men and examined them.
They were dead.
They were sitting in all positions. Food was before them, as if they
were in the midst of a meal. Some were leaning across the table as if in
conversation. Some were in the act of cutting meat on their plates, some
in the act of putting forks to their mouths. Every face was ghastly
white, and every eye was fixed in a vacant stare.
"See!" said Toby, in a whisper, pointing to their backs.
From the back of each was sticking the handle of a knife, the blade of
which was buried in the flesh to the hilt.
Aunt Amanda sank on Toby's shoulder for a moment, but she soon
recovered. Freddie grasped Toby's hand.
"Look," said Toby. "They must be pirates."
Each head was bound with a bright-colored kerchief, and as the horrified
company examined the dead men closer, it was seen that they all wore
knee breeches. A long dagger was sticking upright in the table, just
under the candles. Pinned by this dagger to the table was a large sheet
of white paper, and there was evidently writing on it.
The Third Vice-President had apparently little fear of thirteen dead
men; he went directly to the table, and reaching across between two of
the stiff figures drew the dagger from the table and took from the
dagger's point the sheet of paper. He adjusted his spectacles, turned
his back to the candles so as to obtain a good light on the paper, and
read from it aloud:
"Thus does Captain Lingo serve All Traitors."
For a moment there was silence. Then Aunt Amanda spoke sharply.
"The wicked villain!" said she. "Thirteen of his men dead at once, by
his own hand! No wonder the six that are left are afraid of him! No
wonder they don't like this place! Oh the wicked scoundrel! If I had him
here, I declare I would--"
She paused suddenly and listened. There was a stealthy creaking on the
stairs. It grew more distinct; then it stopped, and there was silence.
The thirteen in their chairs made no motion whatever; but the living
turned with one accord towards the open doorway of the room. They waited
with bated breath. In another moment Captain Lingo himself was standing
in the doorway, a pistol in his right hand and a knife in his left.
Without a word he advanced into the room, and behind him came his six
men, shrinking obviously away from the sight of their thirteen murdered
friends.
As Captain Lingo came to a stand before his recent prisoners, his eyes
blazed, and with his right thumb he cocked his pistol. Each of his men
held a pistol in his right hand and a cutlass in his left, and each
cocked his pistol with his thumb.
The Third Vice-President of the Society for Piratical Research, who
seemed in no wise disconcerted, stepped forward and addressed the
pirate.
"Captain Lingo, I presume?"
"Ay, ay; be quick. I must finish this business quickly."
"My committee and myself have been long anxious, sir, in the interest of
science, to make your acquaintance. I rejoice at this opportunity."
"Oh, indeed," said Captain Lingo, drily.
"Yes, sir; I assure you I am delighted. I believe I have the pleasure of
speaking to a subject of King James the Second."
"Ay, ay," said Lingo, eyeing him suspiciously. "What then?"
"Then the records of our Society are vindicated. They go back, my dear
sir, some two hundred years; and they contain, from various sources, an
unbroken account of Captain Lingo and his exploits from the time of
James the Second to the present. But the sources of our information were
not always reliable; some doubts were thrown upon our records by jealous
persons outside the Society; and as it is the special business of the
Committee on Doubtful and Fabulous Tales to look into such matters, the
Committee is here before you at the present moment in the interest of
truth. No member of our Society has ever seen Captain Lingo, and the
jealous persons I have mentioned pretend that no such person has ever
existed. The chief mission of our Committee is to vindicate our records
by a sight of Captain Lingo himself. Thanks to you, sir, that has now
been done. Our next mission is to determine for our Society this most
important question: are you alive or dead?"
At this, the captain's brows came together in a terrible frown; the scar
across his cheek and chin turned very white; and he glared under his
eyebrows dangerously at the complacent Third Vice-President. His lips
parted, showing his white teeth clenched tight together. He started to
speak through his clenched teeth, and leveled his pistol straight at the
Third Vice-President's breast; but at that moment a cry from the
Churchwarden startled everybody.
"Bless my soul! Why didn't I never once think of this before? These men
ain't real persons at all! How could they be, after two hundred years?
They're no better than wicked spirits! That's what they are, wicked
spirits! Why didn't we think of that before? Aha! my fine friends, I've
got a little medicine here for you! Ha! ha!"
He drew forth from his back pocket a little perfume bottle, and waved it
over his head.
"Hurrah!" he cried. "Hurrah for the Odour of Sanctity!" And with these
words the Churchwarden uncorked the bottle and sprinkled a few drops of
his perfume on the floor, directly at the feet of Captain Lingo.
A sharp odour instantly filled the air; so sharp that it brought tears
to the eyes of everyone. Captain Lingo and his men stepped quickly
backward, but it was too late. A look of pained surprise crept over
their faces, and remained fixed there. Their feet stood rooted to the
floor, and the hands which held the cutlasses and pistols stiffened and
became rigid. Not one of them could move an eye-lash. Their outlines
began to waver; their faces began to be dim and vague, as if covered
with close white veils; from their outsides inward they slowly faded,
melted, dissolved; nothing remained of any of them but a wraith, a
vapor, a puff of smoke, remotely in the shape of a human being; and then
that also vanished; nothing remained; the place where they had been was
empty.
All eyes turned to the table where the thirteen murdered pirates had
been sitting. They were gone. Their chairs were vacant.
The Churchwarden calmly put the stopper in his bottle and restored it to
his pocket.
"Humph!" said he. "Nothing like Odour of Sanctity. Never knew it to
fail. No harm to human persons, but no wicked spirit as ever lived can
stand against it; and a blessed good thing the bottle didn't break as we
came down the water-fall. No perfumery in this world like Odour of
Sanctity!"