It was Jeremy who, five minutes later, held Job's head on his knees,
while the weary, bleeding sailors stood silently by with their hats off.
The bo's'n, a grizzled veteran of many sea-fights, was kneeling beside
his Captain with an ear to his side. There was hope in the man's face
when at length he looked up.
"He's breathin' yet," was his verdict, "breathin', but not much more.
There's half a score of cuts in him, different places. Here, lads, rig a
stretcher, an' let's get him back to the ship."
When the unconscious body of their big friend had been placed gently in
the boat, Bob and Jeremy turned to each other with sober faces.
"It was a costly sort of victory," said Bob. "This deck's not a pretty
sight, and there's nothing much we can do to help. Let's have a look at
the cabin."
They went below and forced open the door of the after compartment, which
had once housed the great Stede Bonnet. Instead of its old immaculate
and almost scholarly appearance, the place now had an air of desolation.
It reeked of filth, stale tobacco-smoke, and the spilled lees of
liquor. In the clutter on the cabin table lay two bulging sacks and a
small box.
"Well," said Bob, as he felt the weight of one of the bags, "here's the
rest of Brig's gold!"
But Jeremy's attention was occupied. He had picked up the box from the
table and was examining it curiously.
"See here, Bob," he cried, "this is the little chest I was carrying the
night we ran through the woods. I dropped it when that pirate tackled
me. What do you suppose is in it?"
The box was leather-covered and heavily studded with nails. Jeremy tried
the small padlock and found it rusty and weak. A hard pull on the staple
and it came away in his hand. He threw open the cover and the two boys
stood back, gasping with astonishment.
There on the lining of soft buckskin lay twelve great emeralds, gleaming
with a clear green light even in that dark place. They were perfectly
matched and as large as the end of a man's thumb, each cut in a square
pattern after the oldtime fashion. Such stones they were as could have
come only from the coffers of an oriental king--the ransom, perhaps, of
a prince of the blood, or of the favorite wife of some Maharajah, seized
in one of Solomon Brig's daredevil raids.
Bob found breath at last.
"It's a fortune!" he cried. "They're worth more than all the gold
together! And they're yours, Jeremy--yours by right of discovery twice
over. You're rich--you and your father and Tom! Think of it! You can buy
a whole fleet of big ships like the _Indian Queen_, and become a great
merchant. You and I'll be partners when we're grown up!" Jubilant, he
picked up one of the sacks of gold and made his way to the deck,
followed by the half-dazed Jeremy, who carried the rest of the treasure.
The sun was close to setting when the _Tiger's_ boat made its last trip
to the pirate sloop. This time its errand was a sad one. Silently the
crew passed long, limp bundles across the rail, rowed with them to the
beach, and clambered up the desolate dunes with picks and shovels in
their hands. There, where the wind moaned in the beach-plum thickets and
the white gulls wheeled and screamed, they dug a long grave and laid the
dead to rest, pirates and honest men together under the wintry sky.
The boat returned and was hoisted aboard. Just as the mainsail had been
run up and the schooner was filling away for her northward beat, a
single shout from the crosstrees caused every man to turn his gaze
shoreward into the gathering dark. A faint glow seemed to hang in the
air above the pirate sloop. A little snaky flame wriggled its way along
a piece of sagging cordage, licked at the edges of a torn sail, and
flared outward in a burst of red fire. A moment later, and the whole
schooner was ablaze, from waterline to masthead. Jeremy, watching,
fascinated, from the _Tiger's_ rail, thought of the night when he had
first seen that black hull, and of the burning brig that had lit up the
sky as the pirate sloop now illumined it. Her fate was the same that she
had meted out to many a good ship.
They were rapidly drawing away, now. The great glare of the burning
schooner faded out as the flame devoured her fabric. The foremast
toppled and fell in a shower of sparks. The mainmast followed. Only a
feeble light flickered along the edges of the low-lying hulk. The faint
gleam of it was visible, astern, for some time before it was swallowed
by the dark sea.
The _Revenge_ was gone.
* * * * *
This is the end of my story.
Of the voyage to Boston town; of how Job was nursed back to health by
Phineas Whipple, the best surgeon in all the colonies; of the glorious
reunion when Amos Swan and Clarke Curtis rejoined their sons; of the
many pleasant things that Bob and Jeremy found to do together, after the
Swans had come to live in Philadelphia--of all these things there is
not space enough in this book for me to tell.
Jeremy Swan grew up to be one of the great Americans of his day: a man
strong, wise and independent. And although he became rich and highly
honored, he never lost the simplicity of his ways.
Sometimes when he was a hale old man of seventy, he would take his
grandson, who was named Job Cantwell Swan, on his knee, and tell him
stories. But the story that young Job loved best to hear and that old
Jeremy loved best to tell was about a boy in deerskin breeches, and the
wild days and nights he saw aboard the Black Buccaneer.
THE END.
Transcriber's Notes
Page 43, 2nd paragraph - changed "broad-side" to "broadside" to match
other instances
Page 63, next to last line - added opening quote before "Herriot"
Page 73, first line - corrected typo "priate" to "pirate"
Page 88, 3rd paragraph - corrected typo "fidgetted" to "fidgeted"
Page 91, 1st paragraph, next to last sentence - changed "a a man" to "a
man"
Page 102, second paragraph, 6th line - corrected typo "showly" to
"slowly"
Page 120, line 21 - added missing end quote at the end after "pirate."
Page 164, 2nd paragraph, line 8 - added opening quote to "Daggs' chest!"
Page 189, line 4 - corrected typo "somethinig" to "something"
Page 196, last line - removed second "and"
Page 231, 5th line from bottom - corrected typo "neck" to "deck"
Page 268, 6th paragraph - changed "round-shot" to "roundshot" to match
other instances
Page 273, 2nd paragraph, line 2 - corrected typo "thmselves" to
"themselves"
End of Project Gutenberg's The Black Buccaneer, by Stephen W. Meader