with this sword!’
At the word ‘sword,’ the misshapen lump of metal seemed to Rachel to
flicker to a sharp, wicked point.
She looked Emily in the eyes, doubtfully. Did she mean it, or was it a
game?
As a matter of fact, she had always been a little afraid of Emily.
Emily was so huge, so strong, so old (as good as grown up), so cunning!
Emily was the cleverest, the most powerful person in the world! The
muscles of a giant, the ancient experience of a serpent!--And now, her
terrible eyes, with no hint in them of pretence.
Emily glared fixedly, and saw real panic dawn in Rachel’s face.
Suddenly the latter turned, and as fast as her short fat legs would
carry her began to swarm up the ladder. Emily rang her iron once
against it, and Rachel nearly tumbled down again in her haste.
The iron was so big and heavy it took Emily a long time to haul it
up on deck. Even when that was done, it greatly impeded her running,
so that she and Rachel did three laps round the deck without their
distances altering much, cheered boisterously by Edward. Even in her
terror Rachel did not forget to work her arms as in breast-stroke.
Finally, with a cry of ‘Oh, I can’t run any more, my bad leg’s
hurting!’ Emily flung down the iron and dropped panting beside Edward
on the main-hatch.
‘I shall put poison in your dinner!’ she shouted cheerfully to Rachel:
but the latter retreated behind the windlass and began to nurse with an
abandoned devotion the particular brood she had parked there, working
herself almost to tears with the depth of her maternal pity for them.
Emily went on chuckling for some time at the memory of her sport.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ asked Edward scornfully, puffing out his
chest. He was feeling particularly manly at the moment. ‘Have you got
the giggles?’
‘I _like_ having the giggles,’ said Emily disarmingly. ‘Let’s see if we
can’t all get them. Come on, Laura! Harry, come!’
The two smaller ones came obediently. They stared her in the face
attentively and seriously, awaiting the Coming of the God, while she
herself broke into louder and louder explosions of laughter. Soon the
infection took and they were laughing too, each shriller and more
wildly than the other.
‘I can’t stop! I can’t stop!’ they cried at intervals.
‘Come on, Edward! Look me in the face!’
‘I won’t!’ said Edward.
So she set on him and tickled him till he was as hysterical as the rest.
‘Oh, I _do_ want to stop, my tummy is hurting so!’ complained Harry at
last.
‘Go away then,’ advised Emily in a lucid interval. And so the group
presently broke up. But they had all to avoid each other’s eye for a
long while, if they were not to risk another attack.
It was Laura who was cured the quickest. She suddenly discovered what a
beautiful deep cave her armpit made, and decided to keep fairies in it
in future. For some time she could think of nothing else.
v
Captain Jonsen called suddenly to José to take the wheel, and went
below for his telescope. Then, buttressing his hip against the rail,
and extending the shade over the object-glass, he stared fixedly at
something almost in the eye of the setting sun. Emily, in a gentle
mood, wandered up to him, and stood, her side just touching him. Then
she began lightly rubbing her cheek on his coat, as a cat does.
Jonsen lowered the glass and tried his naked eye, as if he had more
trust in it. Then he explored with the glass once more.
What was that business-like-looking sail, tall and narrow as a pillar?
He swept his eye round the rest of the horizon: it was empty: only that
single threatening finger, pointing upwards.
Jonsen had chosen his course with care to avoid all the ordinary tracks
of shipping at that time of year. Especially he had chosen it to avoid
the routine-passages of the Jamaica Squadron from one British island to
another. This--it had no business here: no more than he had himself.
Emily put her arm round his waist and gave it a slight hug.
‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Do let me look.’
Jonsen said nothing, continuing to stare with concentration.
‘_Do_ let me look!’ said Emily. ‘I haven’t ever looked through a
telescope, ever!’
Jonsen abruptly snapped the glass to, and looked down at her. His
usually expressionless features were stirred from their roots. He
lifted one hand and gently began to stroke her hair.
‘Do you love me?’ he asked.
‘Mm,’ assented Emily. Later she added, with a wriggle, ‘You’re a
darling.’
‘If it was to help me, would you do something ... very difficult?’
‘Yes, but _do_ let me have a look through your telescope, because I
haven’t, not ever, and I do so want to!’
Jonsen gave a weary sigh, and sat down on the cabin-top. What _on
Earth_ were children’s heads made of, inside?
‘Now listen,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to you seriously.’
‘Yes,’ said Emily, trying to hide her extreme discomfort. Her eye
plaintively searched the deck for something to hold it. He pressed her
against his knee in an attempt to win her attention.
‘If bad, cruel men came and wanted to kill me and take you away, what
would you do?’
‘Oh, how horrid!’ said Emily. ‘Will they?’
‘Not if you help me.’
It was unbearable. With a sudden leap she was astride his knees, her
arms round his neck and her hands pressing the back of his head.
‘I wonder if you make a good Cyclops?’ she said; and holding his head
firmly laid her nose to his nose, her forehead to his forehead, both
staring into each other’s eyes, an inch apart, till each saw the
other’s face grow narrow and two eyes converge to one large, misty eye
in the middle.
‘Lovely!’ said Emily. ‘You’re just right for one! Only now one of your
eyes has got loose and is floating up above the other one!’
The sun touched the sea, and for thirty seconds every detail of the
distant man-of-war was outlined in black against the flame. But, for
the life of him, Jonsen could think of nothing but that house in quiet
Lübeck, with the green porcelain stove.
_Chapter 9_
The darkness closed down with its sudden curtain on that minatory
finger.
Captain Jonsen remained on deck all night, whether it was his watch or
not. It was a hot night, even for those latitudes: and no moon. The
suffused brilliance of the stars lit up everything close quite plainly,
but showed nothing in the distance. The black masts towered up, clear
against the jewelry, which seemed to swing slowly a little to one
side, a little to the other, of their tapering points. The sails, the
shadows in their curves all diffused away, seemed flat. The halyards
and topping-lifts and braces showed here, were invisible there, with an
arbitrariness which took from them all meaning as mechanism.
Looking forward with the glowing binnacle-light at one’s back, the
narrow milky deck sloped up to the fore-shortened tilt of the bowsprit,
which seemed to be trying to point at a single enlarged star just above
the horizon.
The schooner moved just enough for the sea to divide with a slight
rustle on her stem, breaking out into a shower of sparks, which lit
up also wherever the water rubbed the ship’s side, as if the ocean
were a tissue of sensitive nerves; and still twinkled behind in the
mere paleness of the wake. Only a faint tang of tar in the nostrils
was there to remind one that this was no ivory and ebony fantasia but
a machine. For a schooner is in fact one of the most mechanically
satisfactory, austere, unornamented engines ever invented by Man.
A few yards off, a shoal of luminous fish shone at different depths.
But a few hundred yards off, one could see nothing! The sea became a
steady glittering black that did not seem to move. Near, one could see
so much detail it seemed impossible to believe that there a whole ship
might lie invisible: impossible to believe that by no glass, no anxious
straining of the eyes, could one ever _see_.
Jonsen strode up and down the lee-side of the vessel, so that what
breeze there was, collecting in the hollow of the sails, overflowed
down onto him in a continuous cool cascade. From time to time he
climbed to the foremast-head, in spite of the fact that added height
could not possibly give added vision: stared into the blank till his
eyes ached, and then came down and resumed his restless pacing. A ship
with her lights out might creep within a mile of him, and he not know
it.
Jonsen was not given to intuitions: but he had now an extraordinary
feeling of certainty that somewhere close in that cover of darkness his
enemy lay, preparing destruction for him. He strained his ears too:
but he could hear nothing either, except the rustle of the water, the
occasional knocking of a loose block.
If only there had been a moon! He remembered another occasion, fifteen
years before. The slaver of which he was then second mate was bowling
along, the hatches down on her stinking cargo, all canvas spread, when
right across the glittering path of the moon a frigate crossed, almost
within gun-shot--crossed the light, and disappeared again. Jonsen had
realised at once that though the frigate, with the light behind it,
was now invisible to them, they, with the moonlight shining full on
them, would be perfectly visible to the frigate. The boom of a gun soon
proved it. He had wanted to make a blind bolt for it: but his captain,
instead, ordered every stitch of sail to be furled: and so they lay all
night under their bare poles, not moving, of course, but (with nothing
to reflect the light) grown invisible in their turn. When dawn came the
frigate was so far down the wind they had easily shown her a clean pair
of heels.
But to-night! There was no friendly moon-track to betray the attacker:
nothing but this inner conviction, which grew every moment more
certain.
Shortly after midnight he had descended from one of his useless climbs
to the mast-head, and stood for a moment by the open fore-hatch. The
warm breath of the children was easily discernible. Margaret was
chattering in her sleep--quite loud, but you could not distinguish a
single clear word.
Moved by a whim, Jonsen climbed down the ladder into the hold. Below,
it was hot as an oven. A zooming winged cockroach cannoned about. The
sound of the water, a dry rustle above, was here a pleasant gurgle and
plop against the wooden shell; most musical of sounds to a sailor.
Laura lay on her back in the faint light of the open hatch. She had
discarded her blanket; and the vest which did duty for a night-gown was
rucked right up under her arms. Jonsen wondered how anything so like a
frog could ever conceivably grow into the billowy body of a woman. He
bent down and attempted to pull down the vest: but at the first touch
Laura rolled violently over onto her stomach, then drew her knees up
under her, thrusting her pointed rump up at him; and continued to sleep
in that position, breathing noisily.
As his eyes got used to the gloom, vague white splodges showed him that
most of the children had discarded their dark blankets. But he did not
notice Emily, sitting up in the darkness and watching him.
As he turned to go, an experimental smile lit up his face: he bent, and
gently flicked Laura’s behind with his finger-nail. It collapsed like a
burst balloon; but still she went on sleeping, flat on her face now.
Jonsen was still chuckling to himself as he reached the deck. But
there his forebodings returned to him with redoubled force. He could
_feel_ that man-of-war lying-to in the darkness, biding its time! For
the fiftieth time he climbed the ratlines and took his stand at the
cross-trees, skinning his eyes.
Presently, looking down, he could just discern the small white figure
on the deck which was Emily, hopping and skipping about. But it passed
at once out of his mind.
Suddenly his tired eye caught a patch of something darker than the sea.
He looked away, then back again, to make sure. It was still there: on
the port bow: impossible to make out clearly, though.... Jonsen slid
down the shrouds in a flash, like a prentice. Landing on the deck like
a thunderbolt, he nearly startled Emily out of her life: she had no
idea he was up there. She startled him no less.
‘It’s so _hot_ down there,’ she began, ‘I can’t sleep----’
‘Get below!’ hissed Jonsen furiously: ‘don’t you dare come up again!
And don’t let any of the others, till I tell you!’
Emily, thoroughly frightened, tumbled down the ladder as fast as she
could, and rolled herself in her blanket from head to foot: partly
because her bare legs were really a little chilled, but more for
comfort. What had she done? What was happening? She was hardly down
when feet were heard scurrying across the deck, and the hatches over
her head were loosely fitted into place. The darkness was profound, and
seemed to be rolling on her. No one was within reach: and she dared not
move an inch. Every one was asleep.
Jonsen called all hands on deck: and in silence they mustered at the
rail. The patch was clearly visible now: nearer, and smaller than he
had thought at first. They listened for the splash of oars: but it came
on in silence.
Suddenly they were upon it, it was grating against the ship’s side,
slipping astern. It was a dead tree, carried out to sea by some river
in spate, and tangled up with weed.
But after that, he kept all hands on deck till dawn. In their new mood
they obeyed him readily enough. For they knew he was not incompetent.
He generally did the right thing--it was only the fuss he made in any
emergency which gave him the appearance of blundering.
Yet, though there were now so many eyes watching, no further alarm was
given.
But the moment the first paleness of dawn glimmered, every one’s nerves
tightened to cracking-point. The rapidly increasing light would any
moment show them their fate.
It was not till full daylight, however, that Jonsen would let himself
be convinced there was absolutely no man-of-war there.
As a matter of fact, its royals had sunk below the horizon less than an
hour after he had first sighted it.
ii
But the alarm of that night caused Jonsen at last to make up his mind.
He altered his course: and as before he had designed it to avoid other
shipping, now on the contrary it was calculated to run as soon as
possible into the very track of the Eastward Bounders.
Otto rubbed his eyes. What had come over the fellow? Did he want
revenge for the fright he had had? Was he going to try and cut out a
prize right in the thick of the traffic? It would be like Jonsen, that:
to put his head in the lion’s mouth after trembling at its roar: and
Otto’s heart warmed towards him. But he asked no questions.
Meanwhile Jonsen went to his cabin, opened a secret receptacle in his
bunk, and took out a job-lot of ships’ papers which he had bought from
a Havana dealer in such things. _The ‘John Dodson,’ of Liverpool, bound
for the Seychelles with a cargo of cast-iron pots_--what use was that
in these waters? The man had sold him a pup!--Ah, this was better:
‘_Lizzie Green,’ of Bristol, bound from Matanzas to Philadelphia in
ballast_ ... a funny trip to make in ballast, true: but that was no
one’s affair but his imaginary owner’s. Jonsen made sure all was in
order--filled in the blank dates, and so on--then returned the bundle
to its hiding-place for another occasion. Coming on deck, he gave a
number of orders.
First, stages were rigged over the bows and stern, and José and a
paint-pot went over the rail to add _Lizzie Green_ to the many names
which from time to time had decorated the schooner’s escutcheon.
Not content with that, he had it painted on every other appropriate
place--the boats, the buckets--it was as well to be thorough.
Meanwhile, many of the sails were taken down and new ones bent--or
rather, old ones, distinctive sails that a man would swear he couldn’t
have forgotten if he had ever seen them before. Otto sewed a large
patch to the mainsail, where there was no hole. In his zeal Jonsen even
considered lowering the yards and rigging her as a pure fore-and-after:
but luckily for his sweating crew, abandoned the idea.
The master-stroke of his disguise was permanent--that he carried no
guns. Guns can be hidden or thrown overboard, it is true: but the
grooves they make in the deck cannot, as many a protesting-innocent
sea-robber has found to his cost. Jonsen not only had no guns to hide,
he had no grooves: any fool could see he had no guns, and never had had
any. And who ever heard of a pirate without guns? It was laughable:
yet he had proved again and again that one could make a capture just
as easily without them: and further, that the captured merchantman, in
making his report, could generally be counted on to imagine a greater
or less display of artillery. Whether it was to save their faces, or
pure conservatism--presumption that there must have been guns--nearly
every vessel Jonsen had had dealings with had reported masked
artillery, manned by ‘fifty or seventy ruffians of the worst Spanish
type.’
Of course if he met and was challenged by a man-of-war, he would
have to give in without a fight. But then, it never pays to fight a
man-of-war anyhow. If he is a big one, he sinks you. If he is some
little cock-shell of a cutter, commanded by a fire-eating young officer
just into his teens, you sink him--and then there is the devil to pay.
Better be sunk outright than insult the honour of a great nation in
that fashion.
When he at last remembered to take the hatches off the children, they
were half dead with suffocation. It was hot enough, stuffy enough
anyhow down there, only the square opening above for ventilation; but
with the hatches even loosely in place it was a Black Hole. Emily had
at last dropped asleep, and slept late, through a chain of nightmares:
when she did wake in the closed hold, she sat up, then fainted
immediately, and fell back, her breath coming in loud snores. Before
she came to again she was already sobbing miserably. At that the little
ones began to cry too: which sound it was that reminded Jonsen, rather
late, to take the hatches off.
He was quite alarmed when he saw them. It was not till they had been
out in the morning freshness of the deck for some time that they even
summoned up interest in the strange metamorphosis of the schooner that
was in progress.
Jonsen looked at them with a troubled eye. They had not indeed the
appearance of well-cared-for children: though he had not noticed this
before. They were dirty to a fault: their clothes torn, and mended, if
at all, with twine. Their hair was not only uncombed--there was tar
in it. They were mostly thin, and a yellowy-brown colour. Only Rachel
remained obstinately plump and pink. The scar on Emily’s leg was still
a blushing purple: and they all were blotched with insect bites.
Jonsen called José off his painting job: gave him a bucket of fresh
water: the mate’s (the only) comb: and a pair of scissors. José
wondered innocently: they did not look to him particularly dirty. But
he did his duty, while they were still too sorry for themselves to
object actively, to do anything more than sob weakly when he hurt them.
Even when he had finished their toilet, of course, he had not reached
the point at which a nursemaid usually begins.
It was noon before the _Lizzie Green_ looked herself--whoever
that might be: and a little after noon she was still heading for
‘Philadelphia’ when, hull down on the horizon, two sail were sighted,
many miles apart, at about the same minute. Captain Jonsen considered
them carefully; made his choice, and altered his course so as to fall
in with her as soon as might be.
Meanwhile, the crew had no more doubt than Otto had of Jonsen’s
intention: and the sound of the whetstone floated merrily aft, till
each man’s knife had an edge that did its master’s heart good. I have
said that the murder of the Dutch captain had affected the whole
character of their piracy. The yeast was working.
Presently the smoke of a large steamer cropped up over the horizon as
well. Otto sniffed the breeze. It might hold, or it might not. They
were still far from home, and these seas crowded. The whole enterprise
looked to him pretty desperate.
Jonsen was at his usual shuffle-shuffle, nervously biting his nails.
Suddenly he turned on Otto and called him below. He was plainly very
agitated; his cheeks red, his eye wild. He began by plotting himself
meticulously on the chart. Then he growled over his shoulder:
‘Those children, they must go.’
‘Aye,’ said Otto. Then, as Jonsen said no more, he added: ‘You’ll land
them at Santa, I take it?’
‘No! They must go now. We may never get to Santa.’
Otto took a deep breath.
Jonsen turned on him, blustering:
‘If we get taken with them, where’ll _we_ be, eh?’
Otto went white, then red, before he answered.
‘You’ll have to risk that,’ he said slowly. ‘You can’t land them no
other place.’
‘Who said I was going to land them?’
‘There’s nothing else you can do,’ said Otto stubbornly.
A light of comprehension dawned suddenly in Jonsen’s worried face.
‘We could sew them up in little bags,’ he said with a genial smile,
‘and put them over the side.’
Otto gave him one quick glance; what he saw was enough to relieve him.
‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.
‘Sew them up in little bags! Sew them up in little bags!’ Jonsen
affirmed, rubbing his hands together and chuckling, all the latent
sentimentality of the man getting the better of him. Then he pushed
past Otto and went on deck.
The big brigantine, which he had aimed for at first, was proving a
bit too far up the wind for him: so now he took the helm and let the
schooner’s head down a couple of points, to intercept the steamer
instead.
Otto whistled. At last an inkling of what the captain was at had dawned
on him.
iii
As they drew nearer, the children were all immensely interested: they
had never before seen anything like this big, miraculous tub. The Dutch
steamer, an old-fashioned craft, had not differed very materially from
a sailing-vessel: but this, in form, was already more like the steamers
of our own day. Its funnel was still tall and narrow, with a kind of
artichoke on top, it is true: but otherwise it was much the same as you
and I are used to.
Jonsen spoke her urgently: and presently her engines stopped. The
_Lizzie Green_ slipped round under her lee. Jonsen had a boat lowered:
then embarked in it himself. The children and the schooner’s crew stood
at the rail in tense excitement: watched a little ladder lowered from
her towering iron side: watched Jonsen, alone, in his dark Sunday suit
and the peaked cap of his rank, climb on board. He had timed it nicely:
in another hour it would be dark.
He had no easy task. First he had his premeditated fiction to
establish, his explanation of how he came by his passengers. Secondly,
he had to persuade the captain of the steamship, a stranger, to relieve
him, where he had so signally failed to persuade his friend the señora
at Santa Lucia.
Otto was not a man to show agitation: but he felt it, none the less.
This scheme of Jon’s was the foolhardiest thing he had ever heard of:
the slightest suspicion, and they were as good as done for.
Jonsen had ordered him, if he guessed anything was wrong, to run.
Meanwhile, the breeze was dropping, and it was still light.
Jonsen had vanished into the steamer as into a forest.
Emily was as excited as any of them, pointing out the novel features
of this extraordinary vessel. The children still thought it was
professional quarry. Edward was openly bragging of what he would do
when he had captured it.
‘I shall cut the captain’s head off and throw it in the water!’ he
declared aloud.
‘S-s-sh!’ exclaimed Harry in a stage whisper.
‘Coo! I don’t care!’ cried Edward, intoxicated with bravado. ‘Then I
shall take out all the gold and keep it for myself.’
‘I shall sink it!’ said Harry, in imitation: then added as an
afterthought, ‘Right to the very bottom!’
Emily fell silent, her peculiarly vivid imagination having the mastery
of her. She saw the hold of the steamer, piled with gold and jewels.
She saw herself, fighting her way through hordes of hairy sailors,
with her bare fists, till only the steamer’s captain stood between her
and the treasure.
Then it happened! It was as if a small cold voice inside her said
suddenly, ‘_How can you? You’re only a little girl!_’ She felt herself
falling giddily from the heights, shrinking. She was _Emily_.
The awful, blood-covered face of the Dutch captain seemed to threaten
her out of the air. She cowered back at the shock. But it was over in a
moment.