_The Hidden Creek._
I woke just as dawn was waking too, very still and windless; for the
threatening nor'easter had changed its mind, and the world was as quiet
as though there weren't a human being in it. Near by, stretched the long
low coast-line, nothing but level brush, with an occasional thatch-palm
lifting up a shock-head against the quickening sky. Out to sea, the
level plains of lucent water spread like a vast floor, immensely
vacant--not a sail or even a wing to mar the perfect void.
As the light grew, I scanned the shore to see whether I could detect the
entrance of the hidden creek; but, though I swept it up and down again
and again, it continued to justify the "King's" boast. There was no sign
of an opening anywhere. Nothing but a straight line of brush, with
mangroves here and there stepping down in their fantastic way into the
water. And yet we were but a hundred yards from the shore. Certainly
"Blackbeard"--if the haunt had really been his--had known his business;
for an enemy could have sought him all day along this coast and found
no clue to his hiding-place.
But, presently, as my eyes kept on seeking, a figure rose, tall and
black near the water's edge, a little to our left, and shot up a long
arm by way of signal. It was Samson; and evidently the mouth of the
creek was right there in front of us--under our very noses, so to
say--and yet it was impossible to make it out. However, at this signal,
I stirred up the still-sleeping crew, and presently we had the anchors
up, and the engine started at the slowest possible speed.
The tide was beginning to run in, so we needed very little way on us. I
pointed out Samson to the captain, and, following the "King's"
instructions, told him to steer straight for the negro. He grumbled not
a little. Of course, if I wanted to run aground, it was none of his
affair--etc., etc. Then I stationed the sturdiest of the two deck-hands
on the port bow with a long oar, while I took the starboard with
another. Very slowly and cautiously we made in, pointing straight for a
thick growth of mangrove bushes. Samson stood there and called:
"All right, sar. Keep straight on. You'll see your way in a minute."
And, sure enough, when we were barely fifty feet away from the shore,
and there seemed nothing for it but to run dead aground, low down
through the floating mangrove branches we caught sight of a narrow gleam
starting inland, and in another moment or two our decks were swept with
foliage as the _Flamingo_ rustled in, like a bird to cover, through an
opening in the bushes barely twice her beam; and there before us,
snaking through the brush, was a lane of water which immediately began
to broaden between palmetto-fringed banks, and was evidently deep enough
for a much larger vessel.
"Plenty of water, sar," hallooed Samson from the bank, grinning a huge
welcome. "Keep a-going after me," and he started trotting along the
creek-side.
As we pushed into the glassy channel, I standing at the bow, my eyes
were arrested by a tremendous flashing commotion in the water to the
right and left of us--like the fierce zigzagging of steel blades, or the
ferocious play of submerged lightning. It was a select company of
houndfish and sharks that we had disturbed, lying hellishly in wait
there for the prey of the incoming tide. It was a curiously sinister
sight, as though one had come upon a nest of water-devils in council,
and the fancy jumped into my mind that here were the spirits of Teach
and his crew once more evilly embodied and condemned to haunt for ever
this gloomy scene of their crimes.
Samson went trotting along the twisting banks, we cautiously feeling our
way after him, for something like a quarter of a mile; and then, coming
round a sudden bend, the creek opened out into a sort of basin. On the
left bank stood two large palmetto shanties. Samson indicated that there
was our anchorage; and then, as we were almost alongside of them, the
cheery halloos of a well-known voice hailed us. It was the "King"; and,
as I answered his welcome, the morning suddenly sang for me--for there
too was Calypso, at his side.
The water ran so deep at the creek's side that we were able to moor the
_Flamingo_ right up against the bank, and, when I had jumped ashore and
greeted my friends, and the "King" had executed a brief characteristic
fantasia on the manifest advantages of having a hidden pirate's creek in
the family, he unfolded his plans, or rather that portion of them that
was necessary at the moment.
The crew of the _Flamingo,_ he said, had better stay where they were for
the present. If they were tired of sleeping aboard, there were his two
palmetto palaces, with couches of down on which to stretch their
limbs--and, for amusement--poor devils!--he swept his eyes whimsically
around that dreariest of landscapes--they might exercise their
imaginations by pretending, after the manner of John Teach, that they
were on an excursion to Hades--this was the famous River Acheron--and so
on. But, seriously, he ended, we would find some way of keeping them
from committing hari-kari and, meanwhile, we would leave them in peace,
and stroll along toward breakfast.
At that moment, Sailor rubbed his head against my knee.
"Ah!" said the "King," "the heroic canine! He, of course, must not be
left behind. We may very well need you in our counsels, eh, old fellow?"
and he made friends with Sailor in a moment, as only a man who loves
dogs can.
I believe I was second in Sailor's affection from that moment of his
meeting the "King." But then, who wouldn't have been?
So then, after a reassuring word or two with Tom and the Captain, we
went our ways toward breakfast--the "King's" tongue and Sailor's wagging
happily in concert every inch of the way.