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[Illustration: "If a man starts to haul on that line, I'll shoot him
dead!" [See page 62.]]
THE BLACK BUCCANEER
BY
STEPHEN W. MEADER
ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR
NEW YORK
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.
Twelfth printing, May, 1940
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY QUINN & BODEN COMPANY, INC., RAHWAY, N. J.
FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
"If a man starts to haul on that line, I'll shoot him
dead!" _Frontispiece_
FACING
PAGE
"Ho, ho, young woodcock, and how do ye like the
company of Stede Bonnet's rovers?" 23
"Don't say a word--sh!--easy there--are you
awake?" 143
A sudden red glare on the walls of the chasm 223
Job had bracketed his target 247
THE BLACK BUCCANEER
CHAPTER I
On the morning of the 15th of July, 1718, anyone who had been standing
on the low rocks of the Penobscot bay shore might have seen a large,
clumsy boat of hewn planking making its way out against the tide that
set strongly up into the river mouth. She was loaded deep with a
shifting, noisy cargo that lifted white noses and huddled broad, woolly
backs--in fact, nothing less extraordinary than fifteen fat Southdown
sheep and a sober-faced collie-dog. The crew of this remarkable craft
consisted of a sinewy, bearded man of forty-five who minded sheet and
tiller in the stern, and a boy of fourteen, tall and broad for his age,
who was constantly employed in soothing and restraining the bleating
flock.
No one was present to witness the spectacle because, in those remote
days, there were scarcely a thousand white men on the whole coast of
Maine from Kittery to Louisberg, while at this season of the year the
Indians were following the migrating game along the northern rivers. The
nearest settlement was a tiny log hamlet, ten miles up the bay, which
the two voyagers had left that morning.
The boy's keen face, under its shock of sandy hair, was turned toward
the sea and the dim outline of land that smudged the southern horizon.
"Father," he suddenly asked, "how big is the Island?"
"You'll see soon enough, Jeremy. Stop your questioning," answered the
man. "We'll be there before night and I'll leave you with the sheep.
You'll be lonesome, too, if I mistake not."
[Illustration: Jeremy]
"Huh!" snorted Jeremy to himself.
Indeed it was not very likely that this lad, raised on the wildest of
frontiers, would mind the prospect of a night alone on an island ten
miles out at sea. He had seen Indian raids before he was old enough to
know what frightened him; had tried his best with his fists to save his
mother in the Amesbury massacre, six years before; and in a little
settlement on the Saco River, when he was twelve, he had done a man's
work at the blockhouse loophole, loading nearly as fast and firing as
true as any woodsman in the company. Danger and strife had given the
lad an alert self-confidence far beyond his years.
Amos Swan, his father, was one of those iron spirits that fought out the
struggle with the New England wilderness in the early days. He had
followed the advancing line of colonization into the Northeast, hewing
his way with the other pioneers. What he sought was a place to raise
sheep. Instead of increasing, however, his flock had dwindled--wolves
here--lynxes there--dogs in the larger settlements. After the last
onslaught he had determined to move with his possessions and his two
boys--Tom, nineteen years old, and the smaller Jeremy--to an island too
remote for the attacks of any wild animal.
So he had set out in a canoe, chosen his place of habitation and built a
temporary shelter on it for family and flock, while at home the boys,
with the help of a few settlers, had laid the keel and fashioned the
hull of a rude but seaworthy boat, such as the coast fishermen used.
Preparations had been completed the evening before, and now, while Tom
cared for half the flock on the mainland, the father and younger son
were convoying the first load to their new home.
In the day when these events took place, the hundreds of rocky bits of
land that line the Maine coast stood out against the gray sea as bleak
and desolate as at the world's beginning. Some were merely huge
up-ended rocks that rose sheer out of the Atlantic a hundred feet high,
and on whose tops the sea-birds nested by the million. The larger ones,
however, had, through countless ages, accumulated a layer of earth that
covered their gaunt sides except where an occasional naked rib of gray
granite was thrust out. Sparse grass struggled with the junipers for a
foothold along the slopes, and low black firs, whose seed had been
wind-blown or bird-carried from the mainland, climbed the rugged crest
of each island. Few men visited them, and almost none inhabited them.
Since the first long Norse galley swung by to the tune of the singing
rowers, the number of passing ships had increased and their character
had changed, but the isles were rarely touched at except by mishap--a
shipwreck--or a crew in need of water. The Indians, too, left the outer
ones alone, for there was no game to be killed there and the fishing was
no better than in the sheltered inlets.
It was to one of the larger of these islands, twenty miles south of the
Penobscot Settlement and a little to the southwest of Mount Desert, that
a still-favoring wind brought the cumbersome craft near mid-afternoon.
In a long bay that cut deep into the landward shore Amos Swan had found
a pebbly beach a score of yards in length, where a boat could be run in
at any tide. As it was just past the flood, the man and boy had little
difficulty in beaching their vessel far up toward high water-mark. Next,
one by one, the frightened sheep were hoisted over the gunwale into the
shallow water. The old ram, chosen for the first to disembark, quickly
waded out upon dry land, and the others followed as fast as they were
freed, while the collie barked at their heels. The lightened boat was
run higher up the beach, and the man and boy carried load after load of
tools, equipment and provisions up the slope to the small log shack,
some two hundred yards away.
Jeremy's father helped him drive the sheep into a rude fenced pen beside
the hut, then hurried back to launch his boat and make the return trip.
As he started to climb in, he patted the boy's shoulder. "Good-by, lad,"
said he gently. "Take care of the sheep. Eat your supper and go to bed.
I'll be back before this time tomorrow."
"Aye, Father," answered Jeremy. He tried to look cheerful and
unconcerned, but as the sail filled and the boat drew out of the cove he
had to swallow hard to keep up appearances. For some reason he could not
explain, he felt homesick. Only old Jock, the collie, who shouldered up
to him and gave his hand a companionable lick, kept the boy from
shedding a few unmanly tears.