transcriber's note: minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. dialect spellings, contractions and discrepancies have been retained. "where angels fear to tread" and other tales of the sea by morgan robertson published by the century co. new york m dccc xc ix copyright, , by the century co. copyright, , by houghton, mifflin & co. copyright, , , by the curtis publishing co. copyright, , by peter fénelon collier. copyright, , by street & smith. copyright, , , by the s. s. mcclure co. copyright, , by harper & brothers. to its godfather john s. phillips this book is gratefully dedicated "'where angels fear to tread'" was first published in the "atlantic monthly"; "salvage" in the "century magazine"; "the brain of the battle-ship," "the wigwag message," "between the millstones," and "the battle of the monsters," in the "saturday evening post"; "the trade-wind" in "collier's weekly"; "from the royal-yard down" in "ainslee's magazine"; "needs must when the devil drives" and "when greek meets greek" in mcclure's syndicate; and "primordial" in "harper's monthly magazine." to the publishers of these periodicals i am indebted for the privilege of republishing the stories in book form. morgan robertson. contents page "where angels fear to tread" the brain of the battle-ship the wigwag message the trade-wind salvage between the millstones the battle of the monsters from the royal-yard down needs must when the devil drives when greek meets greek primordial "where angels fear to tread" "i have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of each; and i believe they both get paid in the end, but the fools first." robert louis stevenson. part i the first man to climb the _almena's_ side-ladder from the tug was the shipping-master, and after him came the crew he had shipped. they clustered at the rail, looking around and aloft with muttered profane comments, one to the other, while the shipping-master approached a gray-eyed giant who stood with a shorter but broader man at the poop-deck steps. "mr. jackson--the mate here, i s'pose?" inquired the shipping-master. a nod answered him. "i've brought you a good crew," he continued; "we'll just tally 'em off, and then you can sign my receipt. the captain'll be down with the pilot this afternoon." "i'm the mate--yes," said the giant; "but what dry-goods store did you raid for that crowd? did the captain pick 'em out?" "a delegation o' parsons," muttered the short, broad man, contemptuously. "no, they're not parsons," said the shipping-master, as he turned to the man, the slightest trace of a smile on his seamy face. "you're mr. becker, the second mate, i take it; you'll find 'em all right, sir. they're sailors, and good ones, too. no, mr. jackson, the skipper didn't pick 'em--just asked me for sixteen good men, and there you are. muster up to the capstan here, boys," he called, "and be counted." as they grouped themselves amidships with their clothes-bags, the shipping-master beckoned the chief mate over to the rail. "you see, mr. jackson," he said, with a backward glance at the men, "i've only played the regular dodge on 'em. they've all got the sailor's bug in their heads and want to go coasting; so i told 'em this was a coaster." "so she is," answered the officer; "round the horn to callao is coasting. what more do they want?" "yes, but i said nothin' of callao, and they were all three sheets i' the wind when they signed, so they didn't notice the articles. they expected a schooner, too, big enough for sixteen men; but i've just talked 'em out of that notion. they think, too, that they'll have a week in port to see if they like the craft; and to make 'em think it was easy to quit, i told 'em to sign nicknames--made 'em believe that a wrong name on the articles voided the contract." "but it don't. they're here, and they'll stay--that is, if they know enough to man the windlass." "of course--of course. i'm just givin' you a pointer. you may have to run them a little at the start, but that's easy. now we'll tally 'em off. don't mind the names; they'll answer to 'em. you see, they're all townies, and bring their names from home." the shipping-master drew a large paper from his pocket, and they approached the men at the capstan, where the short, broad second mate had been taking their individual measures with scowling eye. it was a strange crew for the forecastle of an outward-bound, deep-water american ship. mr. jackson looked in vain for the heavy, foreign faces, the greasy canvas jackets and blanket trousers he was accustomed to see. not that these men seemed to be landsmen--each carried in his face and bearing the indefinable something by which sailors of all races may distinguish each other at a glance from fishermen, tugmen, and deck-hands. they were all young men, and their intelligent faces--blemished more or less with marks of overnight dissipation--were as sunburnt as were those of the two mates; and where a hand could be seen, it showed as brown and tarry as that of the ablest able seaman. there were no chests among them, but the canvas clothes-bags were the genuine article, and they shouldered and handled them as only sailors can. yet, aside from these externals, they gave no sign of being anything but well-paid, well-fed, self-respecting citizens, who would read the papers, discuss politics, raise families, and drink more than is good on pay-nights, to repent at church in the morning. the hands among them that were hidden were covered with well-fitting gloves--kid or dog-skin; all wore white shirts and fashionable neckwear; their shoes were polished; their hats were in style; and here and there, where an unbuttoned, silk-faced overcoat exposed the garments beneath, could be seen a gold watch-chain with tasteful charm. "now, boys," said the shipping-master, cheerily, as he unfolded the articles on the capstan-head, "answer, and step over to starboard as i read your names. ready? tosser galvin." "here." a man carried his bag across the deck a short distance. "bigpig monahan." another--as large a man as the mate--answered and followed. "moccasey gill." "good god!" muttered the mate, as this man responded. "sinful peck." an undersized man, with a cultivated blond mustache, lifted his hat politely to mr. jackson, disclosing a smooth, bald head, and passed over, smiling sweetly. whatever his character, his name belied his appearance; for his face was cherubic in its innocence. "say," interrupted the mate, angrily, "what kind of a game is this, anyhow? are these men sailors?" "yes, yes," answered the shipping-master, hurriedly; "you'll find 'em all right. and, sinful," he added, as he frowned reprovingly at the last man named, "don't you get gay till my receipt's signed and i'm clear of you." mr. jackson wondered, but subsided; and, each name bringing forth a response, the reader called off: "seldom helward, shiner o'toole, senator sands, jump black, yampaw gallagher, sorry welch, yorker jimson, general lannigan, turkey twain, gunner meagher, ghost o'brien, and poop-deck cahill." then the astounded mr. jackson broke forth profanely. "i've been shipmates," he declared between oaths, "with freak names of all nations; but this gang beats me. say, you," he called,--"you with the cro'-jack eye there,--what's that name you go by? who are you?" he spoke to the large man who had answered to "bigpig monahan," and who suffered from a slight distortion of one eye; but the man, instead of civilly repeating his name, answered curtly and coolly: "i'm the man that struck billy patterson." fully realizing that the mate who hesitates is lost, and earnestly resolved to rebuke this man as his insolence required, mr. jackson had secured a belaying-pin and almost reached him, when he found himself looking into the bore of a pistol held by the shipping-master. "now, stop this," said the latter, firmly; "stop it right here, mr. jackson. these men are under my care till you've signed my receipt. after that you can do as you like; but if you touch one of them before you sign, i'll have you up 'fore the commissioner. and you fellers," he said over his shoulder, "you keep still and be civil till i'm rid of you. i've used you well, got your berths, and charged you nothin'. all i wanted was to get cappen benson the right kind of a crew." "let's see that receipt," snarled the mate. "put that gun up, too, or i'll show you one of my own. i'll tend to your good men when you get ashore." he glared at the quiescent bigpig, and followed the shipping-master--who still held his pistol ready, however--over to the rail, where the receipt was produced and signed. "away you go, now," said the mate; "you and your gun. get over the side." the shipping-master did not answer until he had scrambled down to the waiting tug and around to the far side of her deck-house. there, ready to dodge, he looked up at the mate with a triumphant grin on his shrewd face, and called: "say, mr. jackson, 'member the old bark _fair wind_ ten years ago, and the ordinary seaman you triced up and skinned alive with a deck-scraper? d' you 'member, curse you? 'member breakin' the same boy's arm with a heaver? you do, don't you? i'm him. 'member me sayin' i'd get square?" he stepped back to avoid the whirling belaying-pin sent by the mate, which, rebounding, only smashed a window in the pilot-house. then, amid an exchange of blasphemous disapproval between mr. jackson and the tug captain, and derisive jeers from the shipping-master,--who also averred that mr. jackson ought to be shot, but was not worth hanging for,--the tug gathered in her lines and steamed away. wrathful of soul, mr. jackson turned to the men on the deck. they had changed their position; they were now close to the fife-rail at the mainmast, surrounding bigpig monahan (for by their names we must know them), who, with an injured expression of face, was shedding outer garments and voicing his opinion of mr. jackson, which the others answered by nods and encouraging words. he had dropped a pair of starched cuffs over a belaying-pin, and was rolling up his shirt-sleeve, showing an arm as large as a small man's leg, and the mate was just about to interrupt the discourse, when the second mate called his name. turning, he beheld him beckoning violently from the cabin companionway, and joined him. "got your gun, mr. jackson?" asked the second officer, anxiously, as he drew him within the door. "i started for mine when the shippin'-master pulled. i can't make that crowd out; but they're lookin' for fight, that's plain. when you were at the rail they were sayin': 'soak him, bigpig.' 'paste him, bigpig.' 'put a head on him.' they might be a lot o' prize-fighters." mr. becker was not afraid; his position and duties forbade it. he was simply human, and confronted with a new problem. "don't care a rap what they are," answered the mate, who was sufficiently warmed up to welcome any problem. "they'll get fight enough. we'll overhaul their dunnage first for whisky and knives, then turn them to. come on--i'm heeled." they stepped out and advanced to the capstan amidships, each with a hand in his trousers pocket. "pile those bags against the capstan here, and go forrard," ordered the mate, in his most officer-like tone. "go to the devil," they answered. "what for?--they're our bags, not yours. who in sam hill are you, anyhow? what are you? you talk like a p'liceman." before this irreverence could be replied to bigpig monahan advanced. "look here, old horse," he said; "i don't know whether you're captain or mate, or owner or cook; and i don't care, either. you had somethin' to say 'bout my eyes just now. nature made my eyes, and i can't help how they look; but i don't allow any big bull-heads to make remarks 'bout 'em. you're spoilin' for somethin'. put up your hands." he threw himself into an aggressive attitude, one mighty fist within six inches of mr. jackson's face. "go forrard," roared the officer, his gray eyes sparkling; "forrard, all o' you!" "we'll settle this; then we'll go forrard. there'll be fair play; these men'll see to that. you'll only have me to handle. put up." mr. jackson did not "put up." he repeated again his order to go forward, and was struck on the nose--not a hard blow; just a preliminary tap, which started blood. he immediately drew his pistol and shot the man, who fell with a groan. an expression of shock and horror over-spread every face among the crew, and they surged back, away from that murderous pistol. a momentary hesitance followed, then horror gave way to furious rage, and carnage began. coats and vests were flung off, belaying-pins and capstan-bars seized; inarticulate, half-uttered imprecations punctuated by pistol reports drowned the storm of abuse with which the mates justified the shot, and two distinct bands of men swayed and zig-zagged about the deck, the center of each an officer fighting according to his lights--shooting as he could between blows of fists and clubs. then the smoke of battle thinned, and two men with sore heads and bleeding faces retreated painfully and hurriedly to the cabin, followed by snarling maledictions and threats. it was hardly a victory for either side. the pistols were empty and the fight taken out of the mates for a time; and on the deck lay three moaning men, while two others clung to the fife-rail, draining blood from limp, hanging arms. but eleven sound and angry men were left--and the officers had more ammunition. they entered their rooms, mopped their faces with wet towels, reloaded the firearms, pocketed the remaining cartridges, and returned to the deck, the mate carrying a small ensign. "we'll run it up to the main, becker," he said thickly,--for he suffered,--ignoring in his excitement the etiquette of the quarter-deck. "aye, aye," said the other, equally unmindful of his breeding. "will we go for 'em again?" the problem had defined itself to mr. becker. these men would fight, but not shoot. "no, no," answered the mate; "not unless they go for us and it's self-defense. they're not sailors--they don't know where they are. we don't want to get into trouble. sailors don't act that way. we'll wait for the captain or the police." which, interpreted, and plus the slight shade of anxiety showing in his disfigured face, meant that mr. jackson was confronted with a new phase of the problem: as to how much more unsafe it might be to shoot down, on the deck of a ship, men who did not know where they were, than to shoot down sailors who did. so, while the uninjured men were assisting the wounded five into the forecastle, the police flag was run up to the main-truck, and the two mates retired to the poop to wait and watch. in a few moments the eleven men came aft in a body, empty-handed, however, and evidently with no present hostile intention: they had merely come for their clothes. but that dunnage had not been searched; and in it might be all sorts of dangerous weapons and equally dangerous whisky, the possession of which could bring an unpleasant solution to the problem. so mr. jackson and mr. becker leveled their pistols over the poop-rail, and the chief mate roared: "let those things alone--let 'em alone, or we'll drop some more o' you." the men halted, hesitated, and sullenly returned to the forecastle. "guess they've had enough," said mr. becker, jubilantly. "don't fool yourself. they're not used to blood-letting, that's all. if it wasn't for my wife and the kids i'd lower the dinghy and jump her; and it isn't them i'd run from, either. as it is, i've half a mind to haul down the flag, and let the old man settle it. steward," he called to a mild-faced man who had been flitting from galley to cabin, unmindful of the disturbance, "go forrard and find out how bad those fellows are hurt. don't say i sent you, though." the steward obeyed, and returned with the information that two men had broken arms, two flesh-wounds in the legs, and one--the big man--suffered from a ragged hole through the shoulder. all were stretched out in bedless bunks, unwilling to move. he had been asked numerous questions by the others--as to where the ship was bound, who the men were who had shot them, why there was no bedding in the forecastle, the captain's whereabouts, and the possibility of getting ashore to swear out warrants. he had also been asked for bandages and hot water, which he requested permission to supply, as the wounded men were suffering greatly. this permission was refused, and the slight--very slight--nautical flavor to the queries, and the hopeful condition of the stricken ones, decided mr. jackson to leave the police flag at the masthead. when dinner was served in the cabin, and mr. jackson sat down before a savory roast, leaving mr. becker on deck to watch, the steward imparted the additional information that the men forward expected to eat in the cabin. "hang it!" he mused; "they can't be sailor-men." then mr. becker reached his head down the skylight, and said: "raisin' the devil with the cook, sir--dragged him out o' the galley into the forecastle." "are they coming aft?" "no, sir." "all right. watch out." the mate went on eating, and the steward hurried forward to learn the fate of his assistant. he did not return until mr. jackson was about to leave the cabin. then he came, with a wry face and disgust in his soul, complaining that he had been seized, hustled into the forecastle, and compelled, with the chinese cook, to eat of the salt beef and pea-soup prepared for the men, which lay untouched by them. in spite of his aches and trouble of mind, mr. jackson was moved to a feeble grin. "takes a sailor or a hog to eat it, hey, steward?" he said. he relieved mr. becker, who ate his dinner hurriedly, as became a good second mate, and the two resumed their watch on the poop, noticing that the cook was jabbering chinese protest in the galley, and that the men had climbed to the topgallant-forecastle--also watching, and occasionally waving futile signals to passing tugs or small sailing-craft. they, too, might have welcomed the police boat. but, either because the _almena_ lay too far over on the jersey flats for the flag to be noticed, or because harbor police share the fallibility of their shore brethren in being elsewhere when wanted, no shiny black steamer with blue-coated guard appeared to investigate the trouble, and it was well on toward three o'clock before a tug left the beaten track to the eastward and steamed over to the ship. the officers took her lines as she came alongside, and two men climbed the side-ladder--one, a sandy hook pilot, who need not be described; the other, the captain of the ship. captain benson, in manner and appearance, was as superior to the smooth-shaven and manly-looking mr. jackson as the latter was to the misformed, hairy, and brutal second mate. with his fashionably cut clothing, steady blue eye, and refined features, he could have been taken for an easy-going club-man or educated army officer rather than the master of a working-craft. yet there was no lack of seamanly decision in the leap he made from the rail to the deck, or in the tone of his voice as he demanded: "what's the police flag up for, mr. jackson?" "mutiny, sir. they started in to lick me 'fore turning to, and we've shot five, but none of them fatally." "lower that flag--at once." mr. becker obeyed this order, and as the flag fluttered down the captain received an account of the crew's misdoing from the mate. he stepped into his cabin, and returning with a double-barreled shot-gun, leaned it against the booby-hatch, and said quietly: "call all hands aft who can come." mr. jackson delivered the order in a roar, and the eleven men forward, who had been watching the newcomers from the forecastle-deck, straggled aft and clustered near the capstan, all of them hatless and coatless, shivering palpably in the keen december air. with no flinching of their eyes, they stared at captain benson and the pilot. "now, men," said the captain, "what's this trouble about? what's the matter?" "are you the captain here?" asked a red-haired, roman-nosed man, as he stepped out of the group. "there's matter enough. we ship for a run down to rio janeiro and back in a big schooner; and here we're put aboard a square-rigged craft, that we don't know anything about, bound for callao, and 'fore we're here ten minutes we're howled at and shot. bigpig monahan thinks he's goin' to die; he's bleedin'--they're all bleedin', like stuck pigs. sorry welch and turkey twain ha' got broken arms, and jump black and ghost o'brien got it in the legs and can't stand up. what kind o' work is this, anyhow?" "that's perfectly right. you were shot for assaulting my officers. do you call yourselves able seamen, and say you know nothing about square-rigged craft?" "we're able seamen on the lakes. we can get along in schooners. that's what we came down for." captain benson's lips puckered, and he whistled softly. "the lakes," he said--"lake sailors. what part of the lakes?" "oswego. we're all union men." the captain took a turn or two along the deck, then faced them, and said: "men, i've been fooled as well as you. i would not have an oswego sailor aboard my ship--much less a whole crew of them. you may know your work up there, but are almost useless here until you learn. although i paid five dollars a man for you, i'd put you ashore and ship a new crew were it not for the fact that five wounded men going out of this ship requires explanations, which would delay my sailing and incur expense to my owners. however, i give you the choice--to go to sea, and learn your work under the mates, or go to jail as mutineers; for to protect my officers i must prosecute you all." "s'pose we do neither?" "you will probably be shot--to the last resisting man--either by us or the harbor police. you are up against the law." they looked at each other with varying expressions on their faces; then one asked: "what about the bunks in the forecastle? there's no bedding." "if you failed to bring your own, you will sleep on the bunk-boards without it." "and that swill the chinaman cooked at dinner-time--what about that?" "you will get the allowance of provisions provided by law--no more. and you will eat it in the forecastle. also, if you have neglected to bring pots, pans, and spoons, you will very likely eat it with your fingers. this is not a lake vessel, where sailors eat at the cabin table, with knives and forks. decide this matter quickly." the captain began pacing the deck, and the listening pilot stepped forward, and said kindly: "take my advice, boys, and go along. you're in for it if you don't." they thanked him with their eyes for the sympathy, conferred together for a few moments, then their spokesman called out: "we'll leave it to the fellers forrard, captain"; and forward they trooped. in five minutes they were back, with resolution in their faces. "we'll go, captain," their leader said. "bigpig can't be moved 'thout killin' him, and says if he lives he'll follow your mate to hell but he'll pay him back; and the others talk the same; and we'll stand by 'em--we'll square up this day's work." captain benson brought his walk to a stop close to the shot-gun. "very well, that is your declaration," he said, his voice dropping the conversational tone he had assumed, and taking on one more in accordance with his position; "now i will deliver mine. we sail at once for callao and back to an american port of discharge. you know your wages--fourteen dollars a month. i am master of this ship, responsible to my owners and the law for the lives of all on board. and this responsibility includes the right to take the life of a mutineer. you have been such, but i waive the charge considering your ignorance of salt-water custom and your agreement to start anew. the law defines your allowance of food, but not your duties or your working- and sleeping-time. that is left to the discretion of your captain and officers. precedent--the decision of the courts--has decided the privilege of a captain or officer to punish insolence or lack of respect from a sailor with a blow--of a fist or missile; but, understand me now, a return of the blow makes that man a mutineer, and his prompt killing is justified by the law of the land. is this plain to you? you are here to answer and obey orders respectfully, adding the word 'sir' to each response; you are never to go to windward of an officer, or address him by name without the prefix 'mr.'; and you are to work civilly and faithfully, resenting nothing said to you until you are discharged in an american port at the end of the voyage. a failure in this will bring you prompt punishment; and resentment of this punishment on your part will bring--death. mr. jackson," he concluded, turning to his first officer, "overhaul their dunnage, turn them to, and man the windlass." a man--the bald-headed sinful peck--sprang forward; but his face was not cherubic now. his blue eyes blazed with emotion much in keeping with his sobriquet; and, raising his hand, the nervously crooking fingers of which made it almost a fist, he said, in a voice explosively strident: "that's all right. that's _your_ say. you've described the condition o' nigger slaves, not american voters. and i'll tell you one thing, right here--i'm a free-born citizen. i know my work, and can do it, without bein' cursed and abused; and if you or your mates rub my fur the wrong way i'm goin' to claw back; and if i'm shot, you want to shoot sure; for if you don't, i'll kill that man, if i have to lash my knife to a broom-handle, and prod him through his window when he's asleep." but alas for sinful peck! he had barely finished his defiance when he fell like a log under the impact of the big mate's fist; then, while the pilot, turning his back on the painful scene, walked aft, nodding and shaking his head, and the captain's strong language and leveled shot-gun induced the men to an agitated acquiescence, the two officers kicked and stamped upon the little man until consciousness left him. before he recovered he had been ironed to a stanchion in the 'tween-deck, and entered in the captain's official log for threatening life. and by this time the dunnage had been searched, a few sheath-knives tossed overboard, and the remaining ten men were moodily heaving in the chain. and so, with a crippled crew of schooner sailors, the square-rigger _almena_ was towed to sea, smoldering rebellion in one end of her, the power of the law in the other--murder in the heart of every man on board. part ii five months later the _almena_ lay at an outer mooring-buoy in callao roads, again ready for sea, but waiting. with her at the anchorage were representatives of most of the maritime nations. english ships and barks with painted ports and spider-web braces, high-sided, square-sterned american half-clippers, clumsy, square-bowed "dutchmen," coasting-brigs of any nation, lumber-schooners from "'frisco," hide-carriers from valparaiso, pearl-boats and fishermen, and even a couple of homesick malay proas from the west crowded the roadstead; for the guano trade was booming, and callao prosperous. nearly every type of craft known to sailors was there; but the postman and the policeman of the seas--the coastwise mail-steamer and the heavily sparred man-of-war--were conspicuously absent. the pacific mail boat would not arrive for a week, and the last cruiser had departed two days before. beyond the faint land- and sea-breeze, there was no wind nor promise of it for several days; and captain benson, though properly cleared at the custom-house for new york, was in no hurry, and had taken advantage of the delay to give a dinner to some captains with whom he had fraternized on shore. "i've a first-rate steward," he had told them, "and i'll treat you well; and i've the best-trained crew that ever went to sea. come, all of you, and bring your first officers. i want to give you an object-lesson on the influence of matter over mind that you can't learn in the books." so they came, at half-past eleven, in their own ships' dinghies, which were sent back with orders to return at nightfall--six big-fisted, more or less fat captains, and six big-fisted, beetle-browed, and embarrassed chief mates. as they climbed the gangway they were met and welcomed by captain benson, who led them to the poop, the only dry and clean part of the ship; for the _almena's_ crew were holystoning the main-deck, and as this operation consists in grinding off the oiled surface of the planks with sandstone, the resulting slime of sand, oily wood-pulp, and salt water made walking unpleasant, as well as being very hard on polished shoe-leather. but in this filthy slime the men were on their knees, working the six-inch blocks of stone, technically called "bibles," back and forth with about the speed and motion of an energetic woman over a wash-board. the mates also were working. with legs clad in long rubber boots, they filled buckets at the deck-pump and scattered water around where needed, occasionally throwing the whole bucketful at a doubtful spot on the deck to expose it to criticism. as the visitors lined up against the monkey-rail and looked down on the scene, mr. becker launched such a bucketful as only a second mate can--and a man who happened to be in the way was rolled over by the unexpected impact. he gasped a little louder than might have been necessary, and the wasting of the bucketful of water having forced mr. becker to make an extra trip to the pump, the officer was duly incensed. "get out o' the way, there," he bawled, eying the man sternly. "what are you gruntin' at? a little water won't hurt you--soap neither." he went to the pump for more water, and the man crawled back to his holystone. it was bigpig monahan, hollow-eyed and thin, slow in his voluntary movements; minus his look of injury, too, as though he might have welcomed the bowling over as a momentary respite for his aching muscles. now and then, when the officers' faces were partly turned, a man would stop, rise erect on his knees, and bend backward. a man may work a holystone much longer and press it much harder on the deck for these occasional stretchings of contracted tissue; but the two mates chose to ignore this physiological fact, and a moment later, a little man, caught in the act by mr. jackson, was also rolled over on his back, not by a bucket of water, but by the boot of the mate, who uttered words suitable to the occasion, and held his hand in his pocket until the little man, grinning with rage, had resumed his work. "there," said captain benson to his guests on the poop; "see that little devil! see him show his teeth! that is mr. sinful peck. i've had him in irons with a broken head five times, and the log is full of him. i towed him over the stern running down the trades to take the cussedness out of him, and if he had not been born for higher things, he'd have drowned. he was absolutely unconquerable until i found him telling his beads one time in irons and took them away from him. now to get an occasional chance at them he is fairly quiet." "so this is your trained crew, is it, captain?" said a grizzled old skipper of the party. "what ails that fellow down in the scuppers with a prayer-book?" he pointed to a man who with one hand was rubbing a small holystone in a corner where a large one would not go. "ran foul of the big end of a handspike," answered captain benson, quietly; "he'll carry his arm in splints all the way home, i think. his name is gunner meagher. i don't know how they got their names, but they signed them and will answer to them. they are unique. look at that outlaw down there by the bitts. that is poop-deck cahill. looks like a prize-fighter, doesn't he? but the steward tells me that he was educated for the priesthood, and fell by the wayside. that one close to the hatch--the one with the red head and hang-dog jib--is seldom helward. he was shot off the cro'-jack yard; he fell into the lee clew of the cro'-jack, so we pulled him in." "what did he do, captain?" asked the grizzled skipper. "threw a marlinespike at the mate." "what made him throw it?" "never asked. i suppose he objected to something said to him." "ought to ha' killed him on the yard. are they all of a kind?" "every man. not one knew the ropes or his place when he shipped. they're schooner sailors from the lakes, where the captain, if he is civil and respectful to his men, is as good as any of them. they started to clean us up the first day, but failed, and i went to sea with them. since then, until lately, it has been war to the knife. i've set more bones, mended more heads, and plugged more shot-holes on this passage than ever before, and my officers have grown perceptibly thinner; but little by little, man by man, we've broken them in. still, i admit, it was a job. why, that same seldom helward i ironed and ran up on the fall of a main-buntline. we were rolling before a stiff breeze and sea, and he would swing six feet over each rail and bat against the mast in transit; but the dog stood it eight hours before he stopped cursing us. then he was unconscious. when he came to in the forecastle, he was ready to begin again; but they stopped him. they're keeping a log, i learn, and are going to law. every time a man gets thumped they enter the tragedy, and all sign their names." captain benson smiled dignifiedly in answer to the outburst of laughter evoked by this, and the men below lifted their haggard, hopeless faces an instant, and looked at the party with eyes that were furtive--cat-like. the grinding of the stones prevented their hearing the talk, but they knew that they were being laughed at. "never knew a sailor yet," wheezed a portly and asthmatic captain, "who wasn't ready to sue the devil and try the court in hell when he's at sea. trouble is, they never get past the first saloon." "they got a little law here," resumed captain benson, quietly. "i put them all in the guardo. the consul advised it, and committed them for fear they might desert when we lay at the dock. when i took them out to run to the islands, they complained of being starved; and to tell the truth, they didn't throw their next meal overboard as usual. nevertheless, a good four weeks' board-bill comes out of their wages. i don't think they'll have a big pay-day in new york: the natives cleaned out the forecastle in their absence, and they'll have to draw heavily on my slop-chest." "that's where captains have the best of it," said one of the mates, jocularly--and presumptuously, to judge by his captain's frown; "we hammer 'em round and wear out their clothes, and it's the captain that sells 'em new ones." "captain," said the grizzled one, who had been scanning the crew intently, "i'd pay that crew off if i were you; you ought to ha' let 'em run, or worked 'em out and saved their pay. look at 'em--look at the devils in their eyes. i notice your mates seldom turn their backs on 'em. i'd get rid of 'em." "what! just when we have them under control and useful? oh, no! they know their work now, and i'd only have to ship a crowd of beach-combers and half-breeds at nearly double pay. besides, gentlemen, we're just a little proud of this crew. they are lake sailors from oswego, a little port on lake ontario. when i was young i sailed on the lakes a season or two and became thoroughly acquainted with the aggressive self-respect of that breed. they would rather fight than eat. their reputation in this regard prevents them getting berths in any but oswego vessels, and even affects the policy of the nation. there's a fort at oswego, and whenever a company of soldiers anywhere in the country become unmanageable--when their officers can't control them outside the guard-house--the war department at washington transfers them to oswego for the tutelage they will get from the sailors. and they get it; they are well-behaved, well-licked soldiers when they leave. an oswego sailor loves a row. he is possessed by the fighting spirit of a bulldog; he inherits it with his irish sense of injury; he sucks it in with his mother's milk, and drinks it in with his whisky; and when no enemies are near, he will fight his friends. pay them off? not much. i've taken sixteen of those devils round the horn, and i'll take them back. i'm proud of them. just look at them," he concluded vivaciously, as he waved his hand at his men; "docile and obedient, down on their knees with bibles and prayer-books." "and the name o' the lord on their lips," grunted the adviser; "but not in prayer, i'll bet you." "hardly," laughed captain benson. "come below, gentlemen; the steward is ready." from lack of facilities the mild-faced and smiling steward could not serve that dinner with the style which it deserved. he would have liked, he explained, as they seated themselves, to bring it on in separate courses; but one and all disclaimed such frivolity. the dinner was there, and that was enough. and it was a splendid dinner. in front of captain benson, at the head of the table, stood a large tureen of smoking terrapin-stew; next to that a stuffed and baked freshly caught fish; and waiting their turn in the center of the spread, a couple of brace of wild geese from the inland lakes, brown and glistening, oyster-dressed and savory. farther along was a steaming plum-pudding, overhead on a swinging tray a dozen bottles of wine, by the captain's elbow a decanter of yellow fluid, and before each man's plate a couple of glasses of different size. "we'll start off with an appetizer, gentlemen," said the host, as he passed the decanter to his neighbor. "here is some of the best dutch courage ever distilled; try it." the decanter went around, each filling his glass and holding it poised; then, when all were supplied, they drank to the grizzled old captain's toast: "a speedy and pleasant passage home for the _almena_, and further confusion to her misguided crew." the captain responded gracefully, and began serving the stew, which the steward took from him plate by plate, and passed around. but, either because thirteen men had sat down to that table, or because the fates were unusually freakish that day, it was destined that, beyond the initial glass of whisky, not a man present should partake of captain benson's dinner. on deck things had been happening, and just as the host had filled the last plate for himself, a wet, bedraggled, dirty little man, his tarry clothing splashed with the slime of the deck, his eyes flaming green, his face expanded to a smile of ferocity, appeared in the forward doorway, holding a cocked revolver which covered them all. behind him in the passage were other men, equally unkempt, their eyes wide open with excitement and anticipation. "don't ye move," yelped the little man, "not a man. keep yer hands out o' yer pockets. put 'em over yer heads. that's it. you too, cappen." they obeyed him (there was death in the green eyes and smile), all but one. captain benson sprang to his feet, with a hand in his breast pocket. "you scoundrels!" he cried, as he drew forth a pistol. "leave this----" the speech was stopped by a report, deafening in the closed-up space; and captain benson fell heavily, his pistol rattling on the floor. "hang me up, will ye?" growled another voice through the smoke. in the after-door were more men, the red-haired seldom helward in the van, holding a smoking pistol. "get the gun, one o' you fellows over there," he called. a man stepped in and picked up the pistol, which he cocked. "one by one," said seldom, his voice rising to the pitch and timbre of a trumpet-blast, "you men walk out the forward companionway with your hands over your heads. plug them, sinful, if two move together, and shoot to kill." taken by surprise, the guests, resolute men though they were, obeyed the command. as each rose to his feet, he was first relieved of a bright revolver, which served to increase the moral front of the enemy, then led out to the booby-hatch, on which lay a newly broached coil of hambro-line and pile of thole-pins from the boatswain's locker. here he was searched again for jack-knife or brass knuckles, bound with the hambro-line, gagged with a thole-pin, and marched forward, past the prostrate first mate, who lay quiet in the scuppers, and the erect but agonized second mate, gagged and bound to the fife-rail, to the port forecastle, where he was locked in with the chinese cook, who, similarly treated, had preceded. the mild-faced steward, weeping now, as much from professional disappointment as from stronger emotion, was questioned sternly, and allowed his freedom on his promise not to "sing out" or make trouble. captain benson was examined, his injury diagnosed as brain-concussion, from the glancing bullet, more or less serious, and dragged out to the scuppers, where he was bound beside his unconscious first officer. then, leaving them to live or die as their subconsciousness determined, the sixteen mutineers sacrilegiously reëntered the cabin and devoured the dinner. and the appetites they displayed--their healthy, hilarious enjoyment of the good things on the table--so affected the professional sense of the steward that he ceased his weeping, and even smiled as he waited on them. when you have cursed, beaten, and kicked a slave for five months it is always advisable to watch him for a few seconds after you administer correction, to give him time to realize his condition. and when you have carried a revolver in the right-hand trousers pocket for five months it is advisable occasionally to inspect the cloth of the pocket to make sure that it is not wearing thin from the chafe of the muzzle. mr. jackson had ignored the first rule of conduct, mr. becker the second. mr. jackson had kicked sinful peck once too often; but not knowing that it was once too often, had immediately turned his back, and received thereat the sharp corner of a bible on his bump of inhabitiveness, which bump responded in its function; for mr. jackson showed no immediate desire to move from the place where he fell. beyond binding, he received no further attention from the men. mr. becker, on his way to the lazarette in the stern for a bucket of sand to assist in the holystoning, had reached the head of the poop steps when this occurred; and turning at the sound of his superior's fall, had bounded to the main-deck without touching the steps, reaching for his pistol as he landed, only to pinion his fingers in a large hole in the pocket. wildly he struggled to reclaim his weapon, down his trouser leg, held firmly to his knee by the tight rubber boot; but he could not reach it. his anxious face betrayed his predicament to the wakening men, and when he looked into mr. jackson's revolver, held by sinful peck, he submitted to being bound to the fife-rail and gagged with the end of the topgallant-sheet--a large rope, which just filled his mouth, and hurt. then the firearm was recovered, and the descent upon the dinner-party quickly planned and carried out. have you ever seen a kennel of hunting-dogs released on a fine day after long confinement--how they bark and yelp, chasing one another, biting playfully, rolling and tumbling over and over in sheer joy and healthy appreciation of freedom? without the vocal expression of emotion, the conduct of these men after that wine dinner was very similar to that of such emancipated dogs. they waltzed, boxed, wrestled, threw each other about the deck, turned handsprings and cartwheels,--those not too weak,--buffeted, kicked, and clubbed the suffering mr. becker, reviled and cursed the unconscious captain and chief officer, and when tired of this, as children and dogs of play, they turned to their captives for amusement. the second mate was taken from the fife-rail, with hands still bound, and led to the forecastle; the gags of all and the bonds of the cook were removed, and the forecastle dinner was brought from the galley. this they were invited to eat. there was a piece of salt beef, boiled a little longer than usual on account of the delay; it was black, brown, green, and iridescent in spots; it was slippery with ptomaïnes, filthy to the sight, stinking, and nauseating. there were potatoes, two years old, shriveled before boiling--hard and soggy, black, blue, and bitter after the process. and there was the usual "weevily hardtack" in the bread-barge. protest was useless. the unhappy captives surrounded that dinner on the forecastle floor (for there was neither table to sit at, nor chests, stools, or boxes to sit on, in the apartment), and, with hands behind their backs and disgust in their faces, masticated and swallowed the morsels which the chinese cook put to their mouths, while their feelings were further outraged by the hilarity of the men at their backs, and their appetites occasionally jogged into activity by the impact on their heads of a tarry fist or pistol-butt. at last a portly captain began vomiting, and this being contagious, the meal ended; for even the stomachs of the sailors, overcharged as they were with the rich food and wine of the cabin table, were affected by the spectacle. there were cool heads in that crowd of mutineers--men who thought of consequences: poop-deck cahill, square-faced and resolute, but thoughtful of eye and refined of speech; seldom helward, who had shot the captain--a man whose fiery hair, arching eyebrows, roman nose, and explosive language indicated the daredevil, but whose intelligent though humorous eye and corrugated forehead gave certain signs of repressive study and thought; and bigpig monahan, already described. these three men went into session under the break of the poop, and came to the conclusion that the consul who had jailed them for nothing would hang them for this; then, calling the rest to the conference as a committee of the whole, they outlined and put to vote a proposition to make sail and go to sea, leaving the fate of their captives for later consideration--which was adopted unanimously and with much profanity, the central thought of the latter being an intention to "make 'em finish the holystonin' for the fun they had laughin' at us." then bigpig monahan sneaked below and induced the steward to toss through the store-room dead-light every bottle of wine and liquor which the ship contained. "for seldom and poop-deck," he said to him, "are the only men in the gang fit to pick up navigation and git this ship into port again; but if they git their fill of it, it's all day with you, steward." six second mates on six american ships watched curiously, doubtingly, and at last anxiously, as sails were dropped and yards mastheaded on board the _almena_, and as she paid off from the mooring-buoy before the land-breeze and showed them her stern, sent six dinghies, which gave up the pursuit in a few minutes and mustered around the buoy, where a wastefully slipped shot of anchor-chain gave additional evidence that all was not right. but by the time the matter was reported to the authorities ashore, the _almena_, having caught the newly arrived southerly wind off the peruvian coast, was hull down on the western horizon. * * * * * four days later, one of the _almena's_ boats, containing twelve men with sore heads, disfigured faces, and clothing ruined by oily wood-pulp,--ruined particularly about the knees of their trousers,--came wearily into the roadstead from the open sea, past the shipping, and up to the landing at the custom-house docks. from here the twelve proceeded to the american consul and entered bitter complaint of inhuman treatment received at the hands of sixteen mutinous sailors on board the _almena_--treatment so cruel that they had welcomed being turned adrift in an open boat; whereat, the consul, deploring the absence of man-of-war or steamer to send in pursuit, took their individual affidavits; and these he sent to san francisco, from which point the account of the crime, described as piracy, spread to every newspaper in christendom. part iii a northeast gale off hatteras: immense gray combers, five to the mile, charging shoreward, occasionally breaking, again lifting their heads too high in the effort, truncated as by a knife, and the liquid apex shattered to spray; an expanse of leaden sky showing between the rain-squalls, across which heavy background rushed the darker scud and storm-clouds; a passenger-steamer rolling helplessly in the trough, and a square-rigged vessel, hove to on the port tack, two miles to windward of the steamer, and drifting south toward the storm-center. this is the picture that the sea-birds saw at daybreak on a september morning, and could the sea-birds have spoken they might have told that the square-rigged craft carried a navigator who had learned that a whirling fury of storm-center was less to be feared than the deadly diamond shoals--the outlying guard of cape hatteras toward which that steamer was drifting, broadside on. clad in yellow oilskins and sou'wester, he stood by the after-companionway, intently examining through a pair of glasses the wallowing steamer to leeward, barely distinguishable in the half-light and driving spindrift. on the main-deck a half-dozen men paced up and down, sheltered by the weather rail; forward, two others walked the deck by the side of the forward house, but never allowed their march to extend past the after-corner; and at the wheel stood a little man who sheltered a cheerful face under the lee of a big coat-collar, and occasionally peeped out at the navigator. "poop-deck," he shouted above the noise of the wind, "take the wheel till i fire up." "thought i was exempt from steering," growled the other, good-humoredly, as he placed the glasses inside the companionway. "you're getting too fat and sassy; steer a little." poop-deck relieved the little man, who descended the cabin stairs, and returned in a few moments, smoking a short pipe. he took the wheel, and poop-deck again examined the steamer with the glasses. "there goes his ensign, union down," he exclaimed; "he's in trouble. we'll show ours." from a flag-locker inside the companionway he drew out the stars and stripes, which he ran up to the monkey-gaff. then he looked again. "down goes his ensign; up goes the code pennant. he wants to signal. come up here, boys," called poop-deck; "give me a hand." as the six men climbed the steps, he pulled out the corresponding code signal from the locker, and ran it up on the other part of the halyards as the ensign fluttered down. "go down, one of you," he said, "and get the signal-book and shipping-list. he'll show his number next. get ours ready--r. l. f. t." while a man sprang below for the books named, the others hooked together the signal-flags forming the ship's number, and poop-deck resumed the glasses. "q. t. f. n.," he exclaimed. "look it up." the books had arrived, and while one lowered and hoisted again the code signal, which was also the answering pennant, the others pored over the shipping-list. "steamer _aldebaran_ of new york," they said. the pennant came down, and the ship's number went up to the gaff. "h. v.," called poop-deck, as he scanned two flags now flying from the steamer's truck. "what does that say?" "damaged rudder--cannot steer," they answered. "pull down the number and show the answering pennant again," said poop-deck; "and let me see that signal-book." he turned the leaves, studied a page for a moment, then said: "run up h. v. r. that says, 'what do you want?' and that's the nearest thing to it." these flags took the place of the answering pennant at the gaff-end, and again poop-deck watched through the glasses, noting first the showing of the steamer's answering pennant, then the letters k. r. n. "what does k. r. n. say?" he asked. they turned the leaves, and answered: "i can tow you." "tow us? we're all right; we don't want a tow. he's crazy. how can he tow us when he can't steer?" exclaimed three or four together. "he wants to tow us so that he _can_ steer, you blasted fools," said poop-deck. "he can keep head to sea and go where he likes with a big drag on his stern." "that's so. where's he bound--'you that has knowledge and eddication'?" "didn't say; but he's bound for the diamond shoals, and he'll fetch up in three hours, if we can't help him. he's close in." "tow-line's down the forepeak," said a man. "couldn't get it up in an hour," said another. "yes, we can," said a third. then, all speaking at once, and each raising his voice to its limit, they argued excitedly: "can't be done." "coil it on the forecastle." "yes, we can." "too much sea." "run down to wind'ard." "line 'ud part, anyhow." "float a barrel." "shut up." "i tell you, we can." "call the watch." "seldom, yer daft." "needn't get a boat over." "hell ye can." "call the boys." "all hands with heavin'-lines." "can't back a topsail in this." "go lay down." "soak yer head, seldom." "hush." "shut up." "nothing _you_ can't do." "go to the devil." "i tell you, we can; do as i say, and we'll get a line to him, or get his." the affirmative speaker, who had also uttered the last declaration, was seldom helward. "put me in command," he yelled excitedly, "and do what i tell you, and we'll make fast to him." "no captains here," growled one, while the rest eyed seldom reprovingly. "well, there ought to be; you're all rattled, and don't know any more than to let thousands o' dollars slip past you. there's salvage down to looward." "salvage?" "yes, salvage. big boat--full o' passengers and valuable cargo--shoals to looward of him--can't steer. you poor fools, what ails you?" "foller seldom," vociferated the little man at the wheel; "foller seldom, and ye'll wear stripes." "dry up, sinful. call the watch. it's near seven bells, anyhow. let's hear what the rest say. strike the bell." the uproarious howl with which sailors call the watch below was delivered down the cabin stairs, and soon eight other men came up, rubbing their eyes and grumbling at the premature wakening, while another man came out of the forecastle and joined the two pacing the forward deck. seldom helward's proposition was discussed noisily in joint session on the poop, and finally accepted. "we put you in charge, seldom, against the rule," said bigpig monahan, sternly, "'cause we think you've some good scheme in your head; but if you haven't,--if you make a mess of things just to have a little fun bossin' us,--you'll hear from us. go ahead, now. you're captain." seldom climbed to the top of the after-house, looked to windward, then to leeward at the rolling steamer, and called out: "i want more beef at the wheel. bigpig, take it; and you, turkey, stand by with him. get away from there, sinful. give her the upper maintopsail, the rest of you. poop-deck, you stand by the signal-halyards. ask him if he's got a tow-line ready." protesting angrily at the slight put upon him, sinful peck relinquished the wheel, and joined the rest on the main-deck, where they had hurried. two men went aloft to loose the topsail, and the rest cleared away gear, while poop-deck examined the signal-book. "k. s. g. says, 'have a tow-line ready.' that ought to do, seldom," he called. "run it up," ordered the newly installed captain, "and watch his answer." up went the signal, and as the men on the main-deck were manning the topsail-halyards, poop-deck made out the answer: "v. k. c." "that means 'all right,' seldom," he said, after inspecting the book. "good enough; but we'll get our line ready, too. get down and help 'em mast-head the yard first, then take 'em forrard and coil the tow-line abaft the windlass. get all the heavin'-lines ready, too." poop-deck obeyed; and while the main-topsail-yard slowly arose to place under the efforts of the rest, seldom himself ran up the answering pennant, and then the repetition of the steamer's last message: "all right." this was the final signal displayed between the two craft. both signal-flags were lowered, and for a half-hour seldom waited, until the others had lifted a nine-inch hawser from the forepeak and coiled it down. then came his next orders in a continuous roar: "three hands aft to the spanker-sheet! stand by to slack off and haul in! man the braces for wearing ship, the rest o' you! hard up the wheel! check in port main and starboard cro'-jack braces! shiver the topsail! slack off that spanker!" before he had finished the men had reached their posts. the orders were obeyed. the ship paid off, staggered a little in the trough under the right-angle pressure of the gale, swung still farther, and steadied down to a long, rolling motion, dead before the wind, heading for the steamer. yards were squared in, the spanker hauled aft, staysail trimmed to port, and all hands waited while the ship charged down the two miles of intervening sea. "handles like a yacht," muttered seldom, as, with brow wrinkled and keen eye flashing above his hooked nose, he conned the steering from his place near the mizzenmast. three men separated themselves from the rest and came aft. they were those who had walked the forward deck. one was tall, broad-shouldered, and smooth-shaven, with a palpable limp; another, short, broad, and hairy, showed a lamentable absence of front teeth; and the third, a blue-eyed man, slight and graceful of movement, carried his arm in splints and sling. this last was in the van as they climbed the poop steps. "i wish to protest," he said. "i am captain of this ship under the law. i protest against this insanity. no boat can live in this sea. no help can be given that steamer." "and i bear witness to the protest," said the tall man. the short, hairy man might have spoken also, but had no time. "get off the poop," yelled seldom. "go forrard, where you belong." he stood close to the bucket-rack around the skylight. seizing bucket after bucket, he launched them at his visitors, with the result that the big man was tumbled down the poop steps head first, while the other two followed, right side up, but hurriedly, and bearing some sore spots. then the rest of the men set upon them, much as a pack of dogs would worry strange cats, and kicked and buffeted them forward. there was no time for much amusement of this sort. yards were braced to port, for the ship was careering down toward the steamer at a ten-knot rate; and soon black dots on her rail resolved into passengers waving hats and handkerchiefs, and black dots on the boat deck resolved into sailors standing by the end of a hawser which led up from the bitts below on the fantail. and the ship came down, until it might have seemed that seldom's intention was to ram her. but not so; when a scant two lengths separated the two craft, he called out: "hard down! light up the staysail-sheet and stand by the forebraces!" around the ship came on the crest of a sea; she sank into the hollow behind, shipped a few dozen tons of water from the next comber, and then lay fairly steady, with her bow meeting the seas, and the huge steamer not a half-length away on the lee quarter. the fore-topmast-staysail was flattened, and seldom closely scrutinized the drift and heave of the ship. "how's your wheel, bigpig?" he asked. "hard down." "put it up a little; keep her in the trough." he noted the effect on the ship of this change; then, as though satisfied, roared out: "let your forebraces hang, forrard there! stand by heavin'-lines fore and aft! stand by to go ahead with that steamer when we have your line!" the last injunction, delivered through his hands, went down the wind like a thunder-clap, and the officers on the steamer's bridge, vainly trying to make themselves heard against the gale in the same manner, started perceptibly at the impact of sound, and one went to the engine-room speaking-tube. breast to breast the two vessels lifted and fell. at times it seemed that the ship was to be dropped bodily on the deck of the steamer; at others, her crew looked up a streaked slope of a hundred feet to where the other craft was poised at the crest. then the steamer would drop, and the next sea would heave the ship toward her. but it was noticeable that every bound brought her nearer to the steamer, and also farther ahead, for her sails were doing their work. "kick ahead on board the steamer!" thundered seldom from his eminence. "go ahead! start the wagon, or say your prayers, you blasted idiots!" the engines were already turning; but it takes time to overcome three thousand tons of inertia, and before the steamer had forged ahead six feet the ship had lifted above her, and descended her black side with a grinding crash of wood against iron. fore and main channels on the ship were carried away, leaving all lee rigging slack and useless; lower braces caught in the steamer's davit-cleats and snapped, but the sails, held by the weather braces, remained full, and the yards did not swing. the two craft separated with a roll and came together again with more scraping and snapping of rigging. passengers left the rail, dived indoors, and took refuge on the opposite side, where falling blocks and small spars might not reach them. another leap toward the steamer resulted in the ship's maintopgallantmast falling in a zigzag whirl, as the snapping gear aloft impeded it; and dropping athwart the steamer's funnel, it neatly sent the royal-yard with sail attached down the iron cylinder, where it soon blazed and helped the artificial draft in the stoke-hold. next came the foretopgallantmast, which smashed a couple of boats. then, as the round black stern of the steamer scraped the lee bow of the ship, jib-guys parted, and the jib-boom itself went, snapping at the bowsprit-cap, with the last bite the ship made at the steamer she was helping. but all through this riot of destruction--while passengers screamed and prayed, while officers on the steamer shouted and swore, and seldom helward, bellowing insanely, danced up and down on the ship's house, and the hail of wood and iron from aloft threatened their heads--men were passing the tow-line. it was a seven-inch steel hawser with a manila tail, which they had taken to the foretopsail-sheet bitts before the jib-boom had gone. panting from their exertions, they watched it lift from the water as the steamer ahead paid out with a taut strain; then, though the crippled spars were in danger of falling and really needed their first attention, they ignored the fact and hurried aft, as one man, to attend to seldom. encouraged by the objurgations of bigpig and his assistant, who were steering now after the steamer, they called their late commander down from the house and deposed him in a concert of profane ridicule and abuse, to which he replied in kind. he was struck in the face by the small fist of sinful peck, and immediately knocked the little man down. then he was knocked down himself by a larger fist, and, fighting bravely and viciously, became the object of fist-blows and kicks, until, in one of his whirling staggers along the deck, he passed close to the short, broad, hairy man, who yielded to the excitement of the moment and added a blow to seldom's punishment. it was an unfortunate mistake; for he took seldom's place, and the rain of fists and boots descended on him until he fell unconscious. mr. helward himself delivered the last quieting blow, and then stood over him with a lurid grin on his bleeding face. "got to put down mutiny though the heavens fall," he said painfully. "right you are, seldom," answered one. "here, jackson, benson--drag him forrard; and, seldom," he added, reprovingly, "don't you ever try it again. want to be captain, hey? you can't; you don't know enough. you couldn't command my wheelbarrow. here's three days' work to clear up the muss you've made." but in this they spoke more, and less, than the truth. the steamer, going slowly, and steering with a bridle from the tow-line to each quarter, kept the ship's canvas full until her crew had steadied the yards and furled it. they would then have rigged preventer-stays and shrouds on their shaky spars, had there been time; but there was not. an uncanny appearance of the sea to leeward indicated too close proximity to the shoals, while a blackening of the sky to windward told of probable increase of wind and sea. and the steamer waited no longer. with a preliminary blast of her whistle, she hung the weight of the ship on the starboard bridle, gave power to her engines, and rounded to, very slowly, head to sea, while the men on the ship, who had been carrying the end of the coiled hawser up the foretopmast rigging, dropped it and came down hurriedly. released from the wind-pressure on her strong side, which had somewhat steadied her, the ship now rolled more than she had done in the trough, and with every starboard roll were ominous creakings and grindings aloft. at last came a heavier lurch, and both crippled topmasts fell, taking with them the mizzentopgallantmast. luckily, no one was hurt, and they disgustedly cut the wreck adrift, stayed the fore- and mainmasts with the hawser, and resigning themselves to a large subtraction from their salvage, went to a late breakfast--a savory meal of smoking fried ham and potatoes, hot cakes and coffee served to sixteen in the cabin, and an unsavory meal of "hardtack-hash," with an infusion of burnt bread-crust, pease, beans, and leather, handed, but not served, to three in the forecastle. three days later, with sandy hook lighthouse showing through the haze ahead, and nothing left of the gale but a rolling ground-swell, the steamer slowed down so that a pilot-boat's dinghy could put a man aboard each craft. and the one who climbed the ship's side was the pilot that had taken her to sea, outward bound, and sympathized with her crew. they surrounded him on the poop and asked for news, while the three men forward looked aft hungrily, as though they would have joined the meeting, but dared not. instead of giving news, the pilot asked questions, which they answered. "i knew you'd taken charge, boys," he said at length. "the whole world knows it, and every man-of-war on the pacific stations has been looking for you. but they're only looking out there. what brings you round here, dismasted, towing into new york?" "that's where the ship's bound--new york. we took her out; we bring her home. we don't want her--don't belong to us. we're law-abidin' men." "law-abiding men?" asked the amazed pilot. "you bet. we're goin' to prosecute those dogs of ours forrard there to the last limit o' the law. we'll show 'em they can't starve and hammer and shoot free-born americans just 'cause they've got guns in their pockets." the pilot looked forward, nodded to one of the three, who beckoned to him, and asked: "who'd you elect captain?" "nobody," they roared. "we had enough o' captains. this ship's an unlimited democracy--everybody just as good as the next man; that is, all but the dogs. they sleep on the bunk-boards, do as they're told, and eat salt mule and dunderfunk--same as we did goin' out." "did they navigate for you? did no one have charge of things?" "poop-deck picked up navigation, and we let him off steerin' and standin' lookout. then seldom, here, he wanted to be captain just once, and we let him--well, look at our spars." "poop-deck? which is poop-deck? do you mean to say," asked the pilot when the navigator had been indicated to him, "that you brought this ship home on picked-up navigation?" "didn't know anything about it when we left callao," answered the sailor, modestly. "the steward knew enough to wind the chronometer until i learned how. we made an offing and steered due south, while i studied the books and charts. it didn't take me long to learn how to take the sun. then we blundered round the horn somehow, and before long i could take chronometer sights for the longitude. of course i know we went out in four months and used up five to get back; but a man can't learn the whole thing in one passage. we lost some time, too, chasing other ships and buying stores; the cabin grub gave out." "you bought, i suppose, with captain benson's money." "s'pose it was his. we found it in his desk. but we've kept account of every cent expended, and bought no grub too good for a white man to eat." "what dismasted you?" they explained the meeting with the steamer and seldom's misdoing; then requested information about the salvage laws. "boys," said the pilot, "i'm sorry for you. i saw the start of this voyage, and you appear to be decent men. you'll get no salvage; you'll get no wages. you are mutineers and pirates, with no standing in court. any salvage which the _almena_ has earned will be paid to her owners and to the three men whom you deprived of command. what you can get--the maximum, though i can't say how hard the judge will lay it on--is ten years in state's prison, and a fine of two thousand dollars each. we'll have to stop at quarantine. take my advice: if you get a chance, lower the boats and skip." they laughed at the advice. they were american citizens who respected the law. they had killed no one, robbed no one; their wages and salvage, independently of insurance liabilities, would pay for the stores bought, and the loss of the spars. they had no fear of any court of justice in the land; for they had only asserted their manhood and repressed inhuman brutality. the pilot went forward, talked awhile with the three, and left them with joyous faces. an hour later he pointed out the _almena's_ number flying from the masthead of the steamer. "he's telling on you, boys," he said. "he knew you when you helped him, and used you, of course. your reputation's pretty bad on the high seas. see that signal-station ashore there? well, they're telegraphing now that the pirate _almena_ is coming in. you'll see a police boat at quarantine." he was but partly right. not only a police boat, but an outward-bound man-of-war and an incoming revenue cutter escorted the ship to quarantine, where the tow-line was cast off, and an anchor dropped. then, in the persons of a scandalized health-officer, a naval captain, a revenue-marine lieutenant, and a purple-faced sergeant of the steamboat squad, the power of the law was rehabilitated on the _almena's_ quarter-deck, and the strong hand of the law closed down on her unruly crew. with blank faces, they discarded--to shirts, trousers, and boots--the slop-chest clothing which belonged to the triumphant captain benson, and descended the side to the police boat, which immediately steamed away. then a chuckling trio entered the ship's cabin, and ordered the steward to bring them something to eat. * * * * * now, there is no record either in the reports for that year of the police department, or from any official babbling, or from later yarns spun by the sixteen prisoners, of what really occurred on the deck of that steamer while she was going up the bay. newspapers of the time gave generous space to speculations written up on the facts discovered by reporters; but nothing was ever proved. the facts were few. a tug met the steamer in the narrows about a quarter to twelve that morning, and her captain, on being questioned, declared that all seemed well with her. the prisoners were grouped forward, guarded by eight officers and a sergeant. a little after twelve o'clock a battery boatman observed her coming, and hied him around to the police dock to have a look at the murderous pirates he had heard about, only to see her heading up the north river, past the battery. a watchman on the elevator docks at sixty-third street observed her charging up the river a little later in the afternoon, wondered why, and spoke of it. the captain of the _mary powel_, bound up, reported catching her abreast of yonkers. he had whistled as he passed, and though no one was in sight, the salute was politely answered. at some time during the night, residents of sing sing were wakened by a sound of steam blowing off somewhere on the river; and in the morning a couple of fishermen, going out to their pond-nets in the early dawn, found the police boat grounded on the shoals. on boarding her they had released a pinioned, gagged, and hungry captain in the pilot-house, and an engineer, fireman, and two deck-hands, similarly limited, in the lamp-room. hearing noises from below, they pried open the nailed doors of the dining-room staircase, and liberated a purple-faced sergeant and eight furious officers, who chased their deliverers into their skiff, and spoke sternly to the working-force. among the theories advanced was one, by the editor of a paper in a small lake ontario town, to the effect that it made little difference to an oswego sailor whether he shipped as captain, mate, engineer, sailor, or fireman, and that the officers of the new york harbor patrol had only under-estimated the caliber of the men in their charge, leaving them unguarded while they went to dinner. but his paper and town were small and far away, he could not possibly know anything of the subject, and his opinion obtained little credence. years later, however, he attended, as guest, a meeting and dinner of the shipmasters' and pilots' association of cleveland, ohio, when a resolution was adopted to petition the city for a harbor police service. captain monahan, captain helward, captain peck, and captain cahill, having spoken and voted in the negative, left their seats on the adoption of the proposition, reached a clear spot on the floor, shook hands silently, and then, forming a ring, danced around in a circle (the tails of their coats standing out in horizontal rigidity) until reproved by the chair. and the editor knew why. the brain of the battle-ship build an inverted harvey-steel box about eight feet high, one hundred and fifty feet long, half as wide, with walls of eighteen-inch thickness, and a roof of three, and you have strong protection against shot and shell. build up from the ends of the box two steel barbettes with revolving turrets as heavy as your side-walls; place in each a pair of thirteen-inch rifles; flank these turrets with four others of eight-inch wall, each holding two eight-inch guns; these again with four smaller, containing four six-inch guns, and you have power of offense nearly equal to your protection. loosely speaking, a modern gun-projectile will, at short range, pierce steel equal to itself in cross-section, and from an elevated muzzle will travel as many miles as this cross-section measures in inches. placed upon an outlying shoal, this box with its guns would make an efficient fortress, but would lack the advantage of being able to move and choose position. build underneath and each way from the ends of the box a cellular hull to float it; place within it, and below the box, magazines, boilers, and engines; construct above, between the turrets, a lighter superstructure to hold additional quick-fire guns and torpedo-tubes; cap the whole with a military mast supporting fighting-tops, and containing an armored conning-tower in its base; man and equip, provision and coal the fabric, and you can go to sea, confident of your ability to destroy everything that floats, except icebergs and other battle-ships. of these essentials was the first-class coast-defense battle-ship _argyll_. she was of ten thousand tons displacement, and was propelled by twin screws which received ten thousand horse-power from twin engines placed below the water-line. three long tubes--one fixed in the stem, two movable in the superstructure--could launch whitehead torpedoes,--mechanical fish carrying two hundred and twenty pounds of guncotton in their heads,--which sought in the water a twenty-foot depth, and hurried where pointed at a thirty-knot rate of speed. their impact below the water-line was deadly, and only equaled in effect by the work of the ram-bow, the blow of the ship as a whole--the last glorious, suicidal charge on an enemy that had dismounted the guns, if such could happen. besides her thirteen-, eight-, and six-inch guns, she carried a secondary quick-fire battery of twenty six-pounders, four one-pounders, and four gatling guns distributed about the superstructure and in the fighting-tops. the peculiar efficacy of this battery lay in its menace to threatening torpedo-boats, and its hostility to range-finders, big-gun sights, and opposing gunners. a torpedo-boat, receiving the full attention of her quick-fire battery, could be disintegrated and sunk in a yeasty froth raised by the rain of projectiles long before she could come within range of torpedo action; while a simultaneous discharge of all guns would distribute over seven thousand pounds of metal with foot-tons of energy sufficient to lift the ship herself high out of water. bristling, glistening, and massive, a reservoir of death potential, a center of radiant destruction, a spitting, chattering, thundering epitome of racial hatred, she bore within her steel walls the ever-growing burden of progressive human thought. she was a maker of history, a changer of boundaries, a friend of young governments; and it chanced that on a fine tropical morning, in company with three armored cruisers, four protected cruisers, and a fleet of torpedo-boats and destroyers, she went into action. she was stripped to bare steel and signal-halyards. davits, anchors, and cables were stowed and secured. ladders, gratings, stanchions, and all movable deck-fittings were below the water-line. wooden bulkheads, productive of splinters, were knocked down and discarded, while all boats, with the plugs out, were overboard, riding to a sea-anchor made up of oars and small spars. the crew was at quarters. below, in the magazine, handling-rooms, stoke-holds, and bunkers, bare-waisted men worked and waited in stifling heat; for she was under forced draft, and compartments were closed, even though the enemy was still five miles away. the chief and his first assistant engineer watched the main engines in their twin compartments, while the subordinate aids and machinists attended to the dynamos, motors, and auxiliary cylinders that worked the turrets, pumps, and ammunition-hoists. all boilers were hot and hissing steam; all fire-pumps were working; all fire-hose connected and spouting streams of water. perspiring men with strained faces deluged one another while they waited. in the turrets were the gun-crews, six men to a gun, with an officer above in the sighting-hood; behind the superstructure-ports were the quick-fire men, sailors and marines; and above all, in the fighting-tops, were the sharp-shooters and men who handled the one-pounders and gatling guns--the easiest-minded of the ship's company, for they could see and breathe. each division of fighters and workers was overseen by an officer; in some cases by two and three. preparatory work was done, and, excepting the "black gang," men were quiescent, but feverish. few spoke, and then on frivolous things, in tones that were not recognized. occasionally a man would bring out a piece of paper and write, using for a desk a gun-breech or -carriage, a turret-wall, or the deck. an officer in a fighting-top used a telegraph-dial, and a stoker in the depths his shovel, in a chink of light from the furnace. these letters, written in instalments, were pocketed in confidence that sometime they would be mailed. from the captain down each man knew that a large proportion of their number was foredoomed; but not a consciousness among them could admit the possibility of itself being chosen. the great first law forbade it. senior officers pictured in their minds dead juniors, and thought of extra work after the fight. junior officers thought of vacancies above them and promotion. men in the turrets bade mental good-by to their mates in the superstructure; and these, secure in their five-inch protection, pitied those in the fighting-tops, where, cold logic says, no man may live through a sea-fight. yet all would have volunteered to fill vacancies aloft. the healthy human mind can postulate suffering, but not its own extinction. in a circular apartment in the military mast, protected by twelve inches of steel, perforated by vertical and horizontal slits for observation, stood the captain and navigating officer, both in shirt-sleeves; for this, the conning-tower, was hot. around the inner walls were the nerve-terminals of the structure--the indicators, telegraph-dials, telephones, push-buttons, and speaking-tubes, which communicated with gun-stations, turrets, steering-room, engine-rooms, and all parts of the ship where men were stationed. in the forward part was a binnacle with small steering-wheel, disconnected now, for the steering was done by men below the water-line in the stern. a spiral staircase led to the main-deck below, and another to the first fighting-top above, in which staircase were small platforms where a signal-officer and two quartermasters watched through slits the signals from the flag-ship, and answered as directed by the captain below with small flags, which they mastheaded through the hollow within the staircase. the chief master-at-arms, bareheaded, climbed into the conning-tower. "captain blake, what'll we do with finnegan?" he said. "i've released him from the brig as you ordered; but mr. clarkson won't have him in the turret where he belongs, and no one else wants him around. they even chased him out of the bunkers. he wants to work and fight, but mr. clarkson won't place him; says he washes his hands of finnegan, and sent me to you. i took him to the bay, but he won't take medicine." captain blake, stern of face and kindly of eye, drew back from a peep-hole, and asked: "what's his condition?" "shaky, sir. sees little spiders and big spiders crawling round his cap-rim. him and the recording angel knows where he gets it and where he keeps it, sir; but i don't. i've watched him for six months." "send him to me." "very good, sir." the master-at-arms descended, and in a few moments the unwanted finnegan appeared--a gray-bearded, emaciated, bleary-eyed seaman, who brushed imaginary things from his neck and arms, and stammered, as he removed his cap: "report for duty, sir." "for duty?" answered the captain, eying him sternly. "for death. you will be allowed the honorable death of an english seaman. you will die in the fighting-top sometime in the next three hours." the man shivered, elevated one shoulder, and rubbed his ear against it, but said nothing, while mr. dalrymple, the navigating officer, with his eyes at a peep-hole and his ears open to the dialogue, wondered (as he and the whole ship's company had wondered before) what the real relation was between the captain and this wretched, drunken butt of the crew. for the captain's present attitude was a complete departure. always he had shielded finnegan from punishment to the extent that naval etiquette would permit. "i have tried for six years," continued the captain, "to reform you and hold you to the manhood i once knew in you; but i give you up. you are not fit to live, and will never be fitter to die than this morning, when the chance comes to you to die fighting for your country. but i want you to die fighting. do you wish to see the surgeon or the chaplain?" "no, no, no, cappen; one's bad as t' other. the chaplain'll pray and the doctor'll fill me up wi' bromide, and it just makes me crazy, sir. i'm all right, cappen, if i only had a drink. just give me a drink, cappen,--the doctor won't,--and send me down to my station, sir. i know it's only in my head, but i see 'em plain, all round. you'll give me a drink, cappen, please; i know you'll give me a drink." he brushed his knees gingerly, and stepped suddenly away from an isolated speaking-tube. captain blake's stern face softened. his mind went back to his midshipman days, to a stormy night and a heavy sea, an icy foot-rope, a fall, a plunge, and a cold, hopeless swim toward a shadowy ship hove to against the dark background, until this man's face, young, strong, and cheery then, appeared behind a white life-buoy; and he heard again the panting voice of his rescuer: "here ye are, mr. blake; boat's comin'." he whistled down the speaking-tube, and when answered, called: "send an opened bottle of whisky into the conning-tower--no glasses." "thankee, sir." the captain resumed his position at the peep-hole, and finnegan busied himself with his troubles until a japanese servant appeared with a quart bottle. the captain received it, and the jap withdrew. "help yourself, finnegan," said the captain, extending the bottle; "take a good drink--a last one." finnegan took the equivalent of three. "now, up with you." the captain stood the bottle under the binnacle. "upper top. report to mr. bates." "cappen, please send me down to the turret where i b'long, sir. i'm all right now. i don't want to go up there wi' the sogers. i'm not good at machine-guns." "no arguments. up with you at once. you are good for nothing but to work a lever under the eye of an officer." finnegan saluted silently and turned toward the stairs. "finnegan!" he turned. the captain extended his hand. "finnegan," he said, "i don't forget that night, but you must go; the eternal fitness of things demands it. perhaps i'll go, too. good-by." the two extremes of the ship's company shook hands, and finnegan ascended. when past the quartermasters and out of hearing, he grumbled and whined: "no good, hey? thirty years in the service, and sent up here to think of my sins like a sick monkey. good for nothin' but to turn a crank with the sogers. nice job for an able seaman. what's the blasted service a-comin' to?" the two fleets were approaching in similar formation, double column, at about a twelve-knot speed. leading the left column was the _lancaster_, and following came the _argyll_, _beaufort_, and _atholl_, the last two, like the _lancaster_, armored cruisers of the first class. on the _lancaster's_ starboard bow was the flag-ship _cumberland_, a large unarmored cruiser, and after her came the _marlborough_, _montrose_, and _sutherland_, unarmored craft like the flag-ship, equally vulnerable to fire, the two columns making a zigzag line, with the heaviest ships to the left, nearest the enemy. heading as they were, the fleets would pass about a mile apart. led by a black, high-sided monster, the left column of the enemy was made up of four battle-ships of uncouth, foreign design and murderous appearance, while the right column contained the flag-ship and three others, all heavily armored cruisers. flanking each fleet, far to the rear, were torpedo-boats and destroyers. "we're outclassed, dalrymple," said captain blake. "there are the ships we expected--_warsaw_, _riga_, _kharkov_, and _moscow_, all of fighting weight, and the _obdorsk_, _tobolsk_, _saratov_, and _orenburg_. leaving out the _argyll_, we haven't a ship equal to the weakest one there. this fight is the _argyll's_." "and the _argyll_ is equal to it, captain. all i fear is torpedoes. of course our ends and superstructure will catch it, and i suppose we'll lose men--all the quick-fire men, perhaps." "those in the tops surely," said the captain. "dalrymple, what do you think? i don't feel right about finnegan. he belongs in the turret, and i've sentenced him. have i the right? i've half a mind to call him down." he pushed a button marked "forward turret," and listened at a telephone. "mr. clarkson!" he called. "i've put your man finnegan in the upper top; but he seems all right now. can you use him?" the answer came: "no, sir; i've filled his place." "die, then. on my soul be it, finnegan, poor devil," muttered the captain, gloomily. his foot struck the bottle under the binnacle, and, on an impulse due to his mood, he picked it up and uncorked it. mr. dalrymple observed the action and stepped toward him. "captain, pardon me," he said, "if i protest unofficially. we are going into action--not to dinner." the captain's eyes opened wide and shone brighter, while his lip curled. he extended the bottle to the lieutenant. "the apologies are mine, mr. dalrymple," he said. "i forgot your presence. take a drink." the officer forced a smile to his face, and stepped back, shaking his head. captain blake swallowed a generous portion of the whisky. "the fool!" mused the navigator, as he looked through the peep-hole. "the whole world is watching him to-day, and he turns to whisky. that's it, dammit; that's the bond of sympathy: blake and finnegan, finnegan and blake--dipsomaniacs. lord, i never thought. i've seen him drunker than finnegan, and if it wasn't for his position and obligations, he'd see spiders, too." mr. dalrymple was not the only one on board who disapproved of "dutch courage" for captains. the japanese servant, whose station was at the forward-turret ammunition-hoist, reported the service of the whisky to his mates, and from here the news spread--as news will in a cellular hull--up to turrets and gun-rooms, through speaking-tubes and water-tight bulkheads, down to stoke-hold, engine-rooms, and steering-room; and long before captain blake had thought of taking a drink the whole ship's company was commenting, mentally and openly, and more or less profanely, on the story that "the old man was getting drunk in the conning-tower." and another piece of news traveled as fast and as far--the whereabouts of finnegan. mr. clarkson had incidentally informed his gun-captain, who told the gun-crew; and from them the news went down the hoist and spread. men swore louder over this; for though they did not want finnegan around and in the way, they did not want him to die. strong natures love those which may be teased; and not a heart was there but contained a soft spot for the helpless, harmless, ever good-natured, drunk, and ridiculous finnegan. the bark of an eight-inch gun was heard. captain blake saw, through the slits of the conning-tower, a cloud of thinning smoke drifting away from the flag-ship. stepping back, he rang up the forward turret. "mr. clarkson," he said to the telephone when it answered him, "remember: aim for the nearest water-line, load and fire, and expect no orders after the first shot." calling up the officer in the after-turret, he repeated the injunction, substituting turrets as the object of assault. he called to the officers at the eight-inch guns that conning-towers and superstructure were to receive their attention; to those at the six-inch guns to aim solely at turret apertures; to ensigns and officers of marine in charge of the quick-fire batteries to aim at all holes and men showing, to watch for torpedo-boats, and, like the others, to expect no orders after the first shot. then, ringing up the round of gun-stations, one after another, he sang out, in a voice to be heard by all: "fire away!" the initial gun had been fired from the flag-ship when the leading ships of the two fleets were nearly abreast. it was followed by broadsides from all, and the action began. the _argyll_, rolling slightly from the recoil of her guns, smoked down the line like a thing alive, voicing her message, dealing out death and receiving it. in this first round of the battle the fire of the eight opposing vessels was directed at her alone. shells punctured her vulnerable parts, and, exploding inside, killed men and dismounted guns. the groans of the stricken, the crash of steel against steel, the roar of the turret-guns, the rattling chorus of quick-fire rifles, and the drumming of heavy shells against the armor and turrets made an uproarious riot of sound over which no man above the water-line could lift his voice. but there were some there, besides the dead,--men who worked through and survived the action,--who, after the first impact of sound, did not hear it, nor anything else while they lived. they were the men who had neglected stuffing their ears with cotton. a fundamental canon of naval tactics is to maintain formation. another is to keep moving, at the full speed of the slowest ship, not only to disconcert the enemy's fire, but to obtain and hold the most advantageous position--if possible, to flank him. as these rules apply equally well to both sides, it is obvious that two fleets, passing in opposite directions, and each trying to flank the rear of the other, will eventually circle around a common center; and if the effort to improve position dominates the effort to evade fire, this circle will narrow until the battle becomes a mêlée. the two lines, a mile apart and each about a mile in length, were squarely abreast in less than five minutes from the time of firing the first gun; and by now the furious bombardment of the _argyll_ by eight ships had ceased, for each one found it more profitable to deal with its vis-à-vis. but there was yet a deafening racket in the _argyll's_ conning-tower as small projectiles from the rear battle-ship abreast impinged on its steel walls; and captain blake, his ears ringing, his eyes streaming, half stunned by the noise, almost blinded and suffocated by the smoke from his forward guns, did not know that his ship had dropped back in the line until the signal-officer descended and shouted in his ear an order signaled from the admiral: "move ahead to position." "hang the man who invented conning-towers," he muttered angrily. "keep a lookout up there, mr. wright," he shouted; "i can see very little." the officer half saluted, half nodded, and ran up the stair, while captain blake rang "full speed" to the engines. the indicators on the wall showed increased revolution, and he resumed his place at the peep-hole. in a few moments mr. wright reappeared with a message from the flag-ship to "starboard helm; follow ship ahead." "all right. watch out up there; report all you see," he answered. peeping out, he saw the _lancaster_ and the _cumberland_ sheering to port, and he moved the lever of the steering-telegraph. there was no answering ring. "shot away, by george," he growled. he yelled into a supplementary voice-tube to "starboard your wheel--slowly." this was not answered, and with his own hands he coupled up the steering-wheel on the binnacle and gave it a turn. it was merely a governor, which admitted steam to the steering-engine, and there was no resisting pressure to guide him; but a helm indicator showed him the changed position of the rudder, and, on looking ahead, he found that she answered the wheel; also, on looking to starboard, he found that he had barely escaped collision with the _montrose_, whose fire he had been masking, to the scandal of the admiral and the _montrose's_ officers. a little unnerved, captain blake called down a seven-inch tube to an apartment in the depths,--a central station of pipes and wires, to be used as a last resort,--directing the officer on post to notify the chief engineer of the damage, and to order the quartermasters in the steering-room to disconnect their wheel and stand by. this was answered, and the captain resumed his lookout, one hand on the wheel. "reduces the captain of the ship to a helmsman," he muttered. the navigating officer approached, indicating by gesture and expression his intention of relieving him, but was waved away. "i want the wheel myself," shouted the captain. "devil take a conning-tower, anyhow! keep a lookout to port. but say, dalrymple, send up for finnegan. i'll not have him killed. get him down, if he's alive." mr. dalrymple ascended the stair to pass the word for finnegan, but did not come down. he had reached the signal-platform, where one quartermaster lay dead, and was transmitting the order to mr. wright, when a heavy shell struck the mast, above their heads and below the lower top, exploded inside, killed the three men on the platform, and hurled the upper part of the mast, with both tops full of dead men and living, high in air. the conning-tower was filled with gas and smoke; but captain blake, though burned and nearly stripped of clothing by the blast of flame, was uninjured by the flying fragments of the shell. smarting, gasping, and choking, fully aware of the complete destruction above, his mind dwelt for an instant on the man who had once saved his life, whom he had sentenced to death. he looked up the hollow within the wrecked staircase, but saw nothing. mr. clarkson, however, happened to be looking through an upper peep-hole in the sighting-hood at this moment, and saw the upper half of the mast lift and turn; also, dimly through the smoke, he noticed, among the dozen of men hurled from the tops, the blue-shirted figure of one whom he knew to be finnegan, clinging at arm's-length in mid-air to a gatling gun, which had been torn from its fastenings. then the smoke thickened and shut out the view; but a moment later he heard the rattling crash of the mast as it fell upon the superstructure beneath. "the whole mast's gone, boys," he shouted to his crew--"both tops. finnegan's done for." and the story of finnegan's finish went down the hoist and through the ship, everywhere received with momentary sorrow, and increased malediction on the drunken captain, who thought no more--and knew no more--of a blue-jacket than to masthead him with the marines. the tactics of both admirals being the same, and the speed of both fleets--that of their slowest ships--being equal, they turned, and, like two serpents pursuing each other's tails, charged around in a circle, each ship firing at the nearest or most important enemy. this fire was destructive. a ship a mile distant is a point-blank target for modern guns and gunners, and everything protected by less than eight inches of steel suffered. the _argyll_ had lost her military mast and most of her secondary guns. the flag-ship _cumberland_, raked and riddled by nine- and eleven-inch shells, surrounded herself with steam from punctured boilers shortly after the signal to turn, and swung drunkenly out of line, her boilers roaring, her heavy guns barking. a long, black thing, low down behind the wave created by its rush, darted by her, unstruck by the shells sent by the flag-ship and the _marlborough_. a larger thing, mouse-colored and nearly hidden by a larger wave, was coming from the opposite direction, spitting one-pound shot at the rate of sixty a minute, but without present avail; for a spindle-shaped object left the deck of the first when squarely abreast of the helpless flag-ship, diving beneath the surface, and the existence and position of this object were henceforth indicated only by a line of bubbles, a darting streak of froth, traveling toward the _cumberland_. in less than a minute it had reached her. the sea alongside arose in a mound, and she seemed to lean away from it; then the mound burst, and out of it, and spouting from funnels, ventilators, and ports, came a dense cloud of smoke, which mingled with the steam and hid her from view, while a dull, booming roar, barely distinguishable in the noise of battle, came across the water. when the cloud thinned there was nothing to be seen but heads of swimming men, who swam for a time and sank. the flag-ship had been torpedoed. but the torpedo-boat followed her. pursued by the mouse-colored destroyer, she circled around and headed back in the endeavor to reach her consorts; but she had not time. little by little the avenger crept up, pounding her with small shot and shell, until, leaking from a hundred wounds, she settled beneath the surface. she had fulfilled her mission; she was designed to strike once and die. no armored cruiser may withstand the fire of a battle-ship. the _lancaster_, leading the _argyll_, received through her eight-inch water-line belt the heavy shot and shell of the _moscow_ and _orenburg_. nine- and eleven-inch shell fire, sent by canet and hontoria guns, makes short work of eight-inch armor, and the doomed _lancaster_ settled and disappeared, her crew yelling, her screws turning, and her guns firing until the water swamped her. the following _argyll_ scraped her funnels and masts as she passed over. eight hundred feet back in the line was the _beaufort_, armored like the _lancaster_. her ending was dramatic and suicidal. drilled through and through by the fire of the _riga_, she fought and suffered until the _lancaster_ foundered; then, with all guns out of action, but with still intact engine-power, she left the line, not to run, but to ram. the circle was narrowing, but she had fully four minutes to steam before she could reach the opposite side and intercept her slayer. and in this short time she was reduced to scrap-iron by the concentrated fire of the _warsaw_, _riga_, and _kharkov_. every shot from every gun on the three battle-ships struck the unlucky cruiser; but in the face of the storm of flame and steel she went on, exhaling through fissures and ports smoke from bursting shells and steam from broken pipes. half-way across, an almost solid belching upward and outward of white steam indicated a stricken boiler, and from now on her progress was slow. she was visibly lower in the water and rolled heavily. soon another cloud arose from her, her headway decreased, and she came to a stop, two hundred yards on the port bow of the onrushing _riga_, whose crew yelled derisively--whose quick-fire guns still punished her. but the yells suddenly ceased and the gunners changed their aim. a small thing had left the nearly submerged tube in the cruiser's stem, and the gunners were now firing at a darting line of bubbles, obliterating the target for a moment with the churning of the water, only to see the frothy streak within their range, coming on at locomotive speed. they aimed ahead; two five-inch guns added their clamor, and even a hontoria turret-gun voiced its roar and sent its messenger. but the bubbles would not stop; they entered the bow wave of the battle-ship, and a second later the great floating fort separated into two parts, with a crackling thunder of sound and an outburst of flame and smoke which came of nothing less than an exploded magazine. the two halves rolled far to starboard, then to port, shivered, settled, turned completely over, and sank in a turmoil of bursting steam and air-bubbles. three minutes later the _beaufort_ lifted her stern and dived gently after her victim, still groaning hoarsely from her punctured iron lungs. in her death-agony she had given birth to a child more terrible than a battle-ship. the rear ship of the inner column, the _atholl_, was officially an armored cruiser, but possessed none of the attributes of the cruiser class. she was the laggard of the fleet, and her heaviest guns were of six-inch caliber; but, being designed for a battle-ship, she carried this temporary battery behind sixteen inches of steel, and had maintained her integrity, taking harder blows than she could give. with the going down of the _beaufort_ she took a position astern of the _sutherland_, and the double line of battle was reduced to a single line; for the _argyll_ had left the column when the flag-ship sank. and this is why the overmatched, battered, and all but demoralized cruisers received no more attention from the enemy; it were wiser to deal with the _argyll_. the _saratov_, blazing fiercely from the effects of a well-planted shell, had drawn out of line, the better to deal with her trouble. her place in the line and that of the sunken _riga_ were filled by the following ships drawing ahead; but the fleet still held to double column, and into the lane between the lines the _argyll_ was coming at sixteen knots, breathing flame, vomiting steel--delivering destruction and death. she had rounded the _moscow's_ stern, raking her as she came, and sending armor-piercing shells through her citadel. some exploded on impact, some inside; all did work. an eight-inch projectile entered the after turret-port, and silenced the gun and gun-crew forever. before the _argyll_ was abeam the _moscow_ had ceased firing. rolling and smoking, her crew decimated, her guns disabled and steering-gear carried away, she swung out of line; and the appearance in his field of vision of several rushing waves with short smoke-stacks behind, and the supplementary pelting his ship was now receiving from the _marlborough_, decided her commander to lower his flag. on the starboard bow of the _argyll_ was the armored cruiser _orenburg_. her fire, hot and true, ceased on the explosion of a large shell at her water-line, and she swung out of the fight, silent but for the roar of escaping steam, heeled heavily to port, and sank in ten minutes, her ensigns flying to the last. mr. clarkson rejoiced with his gun-crew. he had sent the shell. on stormed the _argyll_. her next adversary was the _kharkov_, a battle-ship nearly equal in guns and armor to herself, but not quite--by an inch. and that inch cost her the fight. with her main turrets damaged, her superstructure, secondary guns, and torpedo-tubes shot away, she yielded to fate, and, while the _argyll_ passed on, hauled down her ensigns at the request of a torpedo-boat. ahead and to starboard was the cruiser _tobolsk_, leaving the neighborhood as fast as her twin screws could push her. her end was in sight; in her wake were two gray destroyers, and behind, charging across the broken formation, was the fleet _marlborough_. the _argyll_ ignored the _tobolsk_; for slowing down to await her coming was the black and high-sided _warsaw_, the monster of the fleet, bristling with guns, somber, and ominous in her silence. ahead of her, and turning to port, was the flag-ship _obdorsk_, also slowed down; but she promised to be fully occupied with the _atholl_, _sutherland_, and _montrose_, who had wheeled in their tracks, no longer obliged to traverse a circle to reach an enemy. on rushed the _argyll_, and when nearly up to the _warsaw_, the latter gave steam to her engines. breast to breast the gladiators charged across the sea, roaring, flaming, and smoking. a torpedo left the side of the _warsaw_, pointed diagonally ahead, to intercept the _argyll_. but it was badly aimed, and the hissing bubbles passed under her stern. before another could be discharged, the torpedo-room, located by the _argyll's_ officers, was enlarged to the size of three by the succeeding bombardment and the explosion of the remaining torpedoes. twelve-inch armor cannot keep out thirteen-inch armor-piercing shell, and torpedoes cannot explode on board without damage to machinery, steering-gear, and vital connections. the _warsaw_ yawed, slackened speed, and came to a stop, her turret-guns still speaking, but the secondary guns silent. the _argyll_ circled around her, sending her thirteen-, eight-, and six-inch shells into her victim with almost muzzle energy. the two military masts of the _warsaw_ sank, and dead men in the fighting-tops were flung overboard. the forward turret seemed to explode; smoke and flame shot out of the ports, and its top lifted and fell. then the _argyll_ turned and headed straight for her side. there was little need of gun fire now; but the forward-turret guns belched once during the charge, and the more quickly handled eight- and six-inch rifles stormed away while there was time to reload. smoking, rolling, and barking,--ten thousand tons of inertia behind a solid steel knife,--she pounced on her now silent enemy. there was a crunching sound, muffled and continuous. the speed of the _argyll_ seemed hardly checked. in went the ram farther and farther, until the slanting edge began cutting above the water. then the _warsaw_, heeled far over by the impact, rolled back, and the knife cut upward. the smooth plates at the _argyll's_ water-line wrinkled like paper, and the pile of shattered steel which had once been her forward deck and bulkheads was shaken up and adjusted to new positions; but not until her nose was actually buried in the wound--until the _warsaw_ was cut half in two--did the reversed engines begin to work. the _argyll_ backed out, exposing for a moment a hole like a cavern's mouth; then the stricken ship rolled heavily toward her, burying the sore, and, humming and buzzing with exhausting steam and rushing air, settled rapidly and sank, while out from ports, doors, and nearly vertical hatches came her crew, as many as could. they sprang overboard and swam, and those that reached the now stationary _argyll_ were rescued; for a cry had gone through the latter from the central station in her depths: "all hands on deck to save life! bring ladders, life-buoys, and ropes' ends!" the battle was ended; for, with the ramming of the _warsaw_, the _obdorsk_ struck to the three ships circling around her. they had suffered, but the battle-ship _argyll_ was reduced to a monitor. her superstructure and the bow and stern above the water-line were shattered to a shapeless tangle of steel. what was left of her funnels and ventilators resembled nutmeg-graters, and she was perceptibly down by the head; for her bow leaked through its wrinkled plates, and the forward compartment below the protective deck was filled. yet she could still fight in smooth water. her box-like citadel was intact, and standing naked out of the wreck, scarred and dented, but uninjured, were the turrets, ammunition-hoists, and conning-tower. in the latter was the brain of the ship, that had fought her to victory and then sent the call to her crew to save the lives of their enemies. two men met on a level spot amidships and clasped hands. both were bare-waisted and grimy, and one showed red as a lobster under the stains. he was the chief engineer. "we've won, clarkson," he said. "we've won the hottest fight that history can tell of--won it ourselves; but he'll get the credit." "and he's drunk as a lord--drunk through it all. what did he ram for? why did he send two millions of prize-money to the bottom? o lord! o lord! it's enough to make a man swear at his mother. we had her licked. why did he ram?" "because he was drunk, that's why. he rang seven bells to me along at the first of the muss, and then sent word through young felton that he wanted full speed. dammit, he already had it, every pound of it. and he gave me no signal to reverse when we struck; if it wasn't for luck and a kind providence we'd have followed the _warsaw_. i barely got her over. here, mr. felton; you were in the central, were you not? how'd the old man appear to be making it? were his orders intelligible?" a young man had joined them, hot, breathing hard, and unclothed. "not always, sir; i had to ask him often to repeat, and then i sometimes got another order. he kept me busy from the first, when he sent the torpedoes overboard." "the torpedoes!" exclaimed mr. clarkson. "did we use them? i didn't know it." "he was afraid they'd explode on board, sir," he said. "that was just after we took full speed." "and just before he got too full to be afraid of anything," muttered the lieutenant. "why don't he come out of that?" he glanced toward the conning-tower. other officers had joined them. "we'll investigate," said mr. clarkson. the door on the level of the main-deck leading into the mast was found to be wedged fast by the blow of a projectile. men, naked and black, sprawled about the wreckage breathing fresh air, were ordered to get up and to rig a ladder outside. they did so, and mr. clarkson ascended to the ragged end of the hollow stump and looked down. standing at the wheel, steering the drifting ship with one hand and holding an empty bottle in the other, was a man with torn clothing and bloody face. in spite of the disfigurement mr. clarkson knew him. jammed into the narrow staircase leading below was the body of a man partly hidden by a gatling gun, the lever of which had pierced the forehead. "finnegan," yelled the officer, "how'd you get there?" the man at the wheel lifted a bleary eye and blinked; then, unsteadily touching his forehead, answered: "fe' dow'-shtairs, shir." "come out of that! on deck there! take the wheel, one hand, and stand by it!" mr. clarkson descended to the others with a serious look on his grimy face, and a sailor climbed the ladder and went down the mast. "gentlemen," said the first lieutenant, impressively, "we were mistaken, and we wronged captain blake. he is dead. he died at the beginning. he lies under a gatling gun in the bottom of the tower. i saw finnegan hanging to that gun, whirling around it, when the mast blew up. it is all plain now. finnegan and the gun fell into the tower. finnegan may have struck the stairs and rolled down, but the gun went down the hollow within and killed the captain. we have been steered and commanded by a drunken man--but it was finnegan." finnegan scrambled painfully down the ladder. he staggered, stumbled, and fell in a heap. "rise up," said mr. clarkson, as they surrounded him; "rise up, daniel drake nelson farragut finnegan. you are small potatoes and few in the hill; you are shamefully drunk, and your nose bleeds; you are stricken with spanish mildew, and you smell vilely--but you are immortal. you have been a disgrace to the service, but fate in her gentle irony has redeemed you, permitting you, in one brief moment of your misspent life, to save to your country the command of the seas--to guide, with your subconscious intelligence, the finest battle-ship the science of the world has constructed to glorious victory, through the fiercest sea-fight the world has known. rise up, daniel, and see the surgeon." but finnegan only snored. the wigwag message as eight bells sounded, captain bacon and mr. knapp came up from breakfast, and mr. hansen, the squat and square-built second mate, immediately went down. the deck was still wet from the morning washing down, and forward the watch below were emerging from the forecastle to relieve the other half, who were coiling loosely over the top of the forward house a heavy, wet hawser used in towing out the evening before. they were doing it properly, and as no present supervision was necessary, the first mate remained on the poop for a few moments' further conversation with the captain. "poor crew, cap'n," he said, as, picking his teeth with the end of a match, he scanned the men forward. "it'll take me a month to lick 'em into shape." to judge by his physique, a month was a generous limit for such an operation. he was a giant, with a giant's fist and foot; red-haired and bearded, and of sinister countenance. but he was no more formidable in appearance than his captain, who was equally big, but smooth-shaven, and showing the square jaw and beetling brows of a born fighter. "are the two drunks awake yet?" asked the latter. "not at four o'clock, sir," answered the mate. "mr. hansen couldn't get 'em out. i'll soon turn 'em to." as he spoke, two men appeared from around the corner of the forward house, and came aft. they were young men, between twenty-five and thirty, with intelligent, sun-burnt faces. one was slight of figure, with the refinement of thought and study in his features; the other, heavier of mold and muscular, though equally quick in his movements, had that in his dark eyes which said plainly that he was wont to supplement the work of his hands with the work of his brain. both were dressed in the tar-stained and grimy rags of the merchant sailor at sea; and they walked the wet and unsteady deck with no absence of "sea-legs," climbed the poop steps to leeward, as was proper, and approached the captain and first mate at the weather rail. the heavier man touched his cap, but the other merely inclined his head, and smiling frankly and fearlessly from one face to the other, said, in a pleasant, evenly modulated voice: "good morning. i presume that one of you is the captain." "i'm the captain. what do you want?" was the gruff response. "captain, i believe that the etiquette of the merchant service requires that when a man is shanghaied on board an outward-bound ship he remains silent, does what is told him cheerfully, and submits to fate until the passage ends; but we cannot bring ourselves to do so. we were struck down in a dark spot last night,--sandbagged, i should say,--and we do not know what happened afterward, though we must have been kept unconscious with chloroform or some such drug. we wakened this morning in your forecastle, dressed in these clothes, and robbed of everything we had with us." "where were you slugged?" "in cherry street. the bridge cars were not running, so we crossed from brooklyn by the catherine ferry, and foolishly took a short cut to the elevated station." "well, what of it?" "what--why--why, captain, that you will kindly put us aboard the first inbound craft we meet." "not much i won't," answered the captain, decidedly. "you belong to my crew. i paid for twenty men; and you two and two others skipped at the dock. i had to wait all day in the horseshoe. you two were caught dead drunk last night, and came down with the tug. that's what the runners said, and that's all i know about it. go forrard." "do you mean, captain----" "go forrard where you belong. mr. knapp, set these men to work." captain bacon turned his back on them, and walked away. "get off the poop," snarled the mate. "forrard wi' you both!" "captain, i advise you to reconsider----" the words were stopped by a blow of the mate's fist, and the speaker fell to the deck. then a hoarse growl of horror and rage came from his companion; and captain bacon turned, to see him dancing around the first officer with the skill and agility of a professional boxer, planting vicious blows on his hairy face and neck. "stop this," roared the captain, as his right hand sought the pocket of his coat. "stop it, i say. mr. hansen," he called down the skylight, "on deck, here." the huge mate was getting the worst of the unexpected battle, and captain bacon approached cautiously. his right hand had come out of his pocket, armed with large brass knuckles; but before he could use them his dazed and astonished first officer went down under the rain of blows. it was then, while the victor waited for him to rise, that the brass knuckles impacted on his head, and he, too, went down, to lie quiet where he fell. the other young man had arisen by this time, somewhat shocked and unsteady in movement, and was coming bravely toward the captain; but before he could reach him his arms were pinioned from behind by mr. hansen, who had run up the poop steps. "what is dis, onnyway?" he asked. "mudiny, i dink?" "let go," said the other, furiously. "you shall suffer for this, you scoundrels. let go of my arms." he struggled wildly; but mr. hansen was strong. mr. knapp had regained his feet and a few of his faculties. his conqueror was senseless on the deck, but this other mutineer was still active in rebellion. so, while the approving captain looked on in brass-knuckled dignity, he sprang forward and struck, with strength born of his rage and humiliation, again and again at the man helpless in the arms of mr. hansen, until his battered head sank supinely backward, and he struggled no more. then mr. hansen dropped him. "lay aft, here, a couple o' hands," thundered the captain from the break of the poop, and two awe-struck men obeyed him. the whole crew had watched the fracas from forward, and the man at the wheel had looked unspeakable things; but no hand or voice had been raised in protest. one at a time they carried the unconscious men to the forecastle; then the crew mustered aft at another thundering summons, and listened to a forceful speech by captain bacon, delivered in quick, incisive epigrams, to the effect that if a man aboard his ship--whether he believed himself shipped or shanghaied, a sailor, a priest, a policeman, or a dry-nurse--showed the slightest hesitation at obeying orders, or the slightest resentment at what was said to him, he would be punished with fists, brass knuckles, belaying-pins, or handspikes,--the officers were here for that purpose,--and if he persisted, he would be shot like a mad dog. they could go forward. they went, and while the watch on deck, under the supervision of the second mate, finished coiling down the tow-line, the watch below finished their breakfast, and when the stricken ones had recovered consciousness, advised them, unsympathetically, to submit and make the best of it until the ship reached hong-kong, where they could all "jump her" and get better berths. "for if ye don't," concluded an irishman, "i take it ye'll die, an' take sam wan of us wid ye; fur this is an american ship, where the mates are hired fur the bigness o' their fists an' the hardness o' their hearts. look pleasant, now, the pair o' ye; an' wan o' ye take this hash-kid back to the galley." the larger of the two victims sprang to his feet. he was stained and disfigured from the effects of the brass knuckles, and he looked anything but "pleasant." "say, irish," he said angrily, "do you know who you 're talkin' to? looks as though you don't. i'm used to all sorts of guff from all sorts of men, but mr. breen here----" "johnson," interrupted the other, "wait--it's of no account now. this man's advice is sound. no one would believe us, and we can prove nothing. we are thoroughly helpless, and must submit until we reach a consular port, or something happens. now, men," he said to the others, "my name is breen. call me by it. you, too, johnson. i yield to the inevitable, and will do my share of the work as well as i can. if i make mistakes, don't hesitate to criticize, and post me, if you will. i'll be grateful." "but i'll tell you one thing to start with," said johnson, glaring around the forecastle: "we'll take turns at bringin' grub and cleanin' up the forecastle. another thing: i've sailed in these wind-jammers enough to know my work; and that's more than you fellows know, by the looks of you. i don't want your instructions; but mr. breen, here--breen, i mean" (a gesture from the other had interrupted him)--"breen's forgotten what you and i will never learn, though he might not be used to pullin' ropes and swabbing paint-work. if i find one o' you pesterin' him, or puttin' up any jobs, i'll break that man's head; understand me? any one want to put this thing to the test, now?" he scanned each man's face in turn; but none showed an inclination to respond. they had seen him fight the big first mate. "there's not the makin' of a whole man among you," he resumed. "you stand still while three men do up two, when, if you had any nerve, mr. ---- breen, here, might be aft, 'stead o' eatin' cracker-hash with a lot o' dock-rats and beach-combers. he's had better playmates; so 've i, for that matter, o' late years." "johnson, keep still," said the other. "it doesn't matter what we have had, who we were or might be. we're before the mast, bound for hong-kong. we may find a consul at anjer; i'm not sure. meanwhile, i'm breen, and you are johnson, and it is no one's business what we have been. i'm not anxious for this matter to become public. i can explain to the department, and no one else need know." "very good, sir." "no; not 'sir.' keep that for our superiors." johnson grumbled a little; then mr. hansen's round swedish face appeared at the door. "hi, you in dere--you big feller--you come out. you belong in der utter watch. you hear? you come out on deck," he called. "aye, aye, sir," said johnson, rising sullenly. "all the better, johnson," whispered breen. "one can keep a lookout all the time. keep your eyes open and your mouth shut." so for these two men the work of the voyage began. the hard-headed, aggressive johnson, placed in the mate's watch, had no trouble in finding his place, and keeping it, at the top of the class. he ruled the assorted types of all nations, who worked and slept with him, with sound logic backed by a strong arm and hard fist, never trying to conceal his contempt for them. "you mixed nest o' mongrels," he would say, at the end of some petty squabble which he had settled for them, "why don't you stay in your own country ships? or, if you must sign in american craft, try to feel and act like americans. it's just this same yawping at one another in the forecastles that makes it easy for the buckoes aft to hunt you. and that's why you get your berths. no skipper 'll ship an american sailor while there's a dutchman left in the shippin'-office. he wouldn't think it safe to go to sea with too many american sailors forward to call him down and make him treat 'em decent. he picks a dago here, and a dutchman there, and all the sou'wegians he sees, and fills in with the rakin's and scrapin's o' hell, bedlam, and newgate, knowin' they'll hate one another worse than they hate him, and never stand together." to which they would respond in kind, though of lesser degree, always yielding him the last word when he spoke it loud enough. but breen, in the second mate's watch, had trouble with his fellows at first. they could not understand his quiet, gentlemanly demeanor, mistaking it for fear of them; so, unknown to johnson, for he would not complain, they subjected him to all the petty annoyances which ignorance may inflict upon intelligence. though he showed a theoretical knowledge of ships and the sea superior to any they had met with, he was not their equal in the practical work of a sailor. he was awkward at pulling ropes with others, placing his hands in the wrong place and mixing them up in what must be a concerted pull to be effective. his hands, unused to labor, became blistered and sore, and he often, unconsciously perhaps, held back from a task, to save himself from pain. he was an indifferent helmsman, and off hatteras, in a blow, was sent from the wheel in disgrace. he did not know the ropes, and made sad mistakes until he had mastered the lesson. he could box the compass, in his own way; for instance, the quarter-points between north-northeast and northeast by north he persisted in naming from the first of these points instead of from the other, as was seamanlike and proper; and the same with the corresponding sectors in the other quadrants. once, at the wheel, when the ship was heading southeast by south half-south, he had been asked the course, and answered: "south-southeast half-east, sir." for this he was profanely admonished by the captain and ridiculed by the men. johnson had made the same mistake, but corrected himself in time, and nothing was said about it; but breen was bullied and badgered in the watch below,--the lubberly nomenclature becoming a byword of derision and contempt,--until, patience leaving him, he doubled his sore fingers into fists one dog-watch, and thrashed the irishman--his most unforgiving critic--so quickly, thoroughly, and scientifically that persecution ceased; for the irishman had been the master spirit of the port forecastle. but the captain and mates were not won over. practical johnson--an able seaman from crown to toe--knew how to avoid or forestall their abuse; but breen did not. the very presence of such a man as he before the mast was a continuous menace,--an insult to their artificial superiority,--and they assailed him at each mistake with volleys of billingsgate that brought a flush to his fine face and tears to his eyes; later, a deadly paleness that would have been a warning to tyrants of better discrimination. once again, while being rebuked in this manner, his self-control left him. with white face and blazing eyes he darted at mr. knapp, and had almost repeated johnson's feat on the poop when an iron belaying-pin in the hands of the captain descended upon him and broke his left arm. mr. knapp's fists and boots completed his tutelage, and he was carried to his bunk with another lesson learned. johnson, swearing the while, skilfully set the broken bones and made a sling; then, by tactful wheedling of the steward, secured certain necessaries from the medicine-chest, with hot water from the galley; but open assistance was refused by the captain. breen, scarcely able to move, held to his bunk for a few days; then, the first mild skirts of the trade-wind being reached, the mate drove him to the wheel, to steer one-handed through the day, while all hands (in the afternoon) worked in the rigging. but the trade-wind freshened, and his strength was not equal to the task set for it. with the men all aloft and the two mates forward, the ship nearly broached to one day, and only the opportune arrival of captain bacon on deck saved the spars. he seized the wheel, ground it up, and the ship paid off; then a whole man was called to relieve him, and the incompetent helmsman was promptly and properly punished. he was kicked off the poop, and his arm, as a consequence, needed resetting. johnson had been aloft, but there was murder in his dark eyes when he came down at supper-time. yet he knew its futility, and while bandaging the broken arm earnestly explained, as breen's groans would allow, that if he killed one the other two would kill him, and nothing would be gained. "for they've brass knuckles in their pockets, sir," he said, "and pistols under their pillows. we haven't even sheath-knives, and the crew wouldn't help." whereupon, an inspired russian finn of the watch remarked: "if a man know his work an' do his work, an' gif no back lip to te mates, he get no trupple mit te mates. in my country ships----" the dissertation was not finished. johnson silently knocked him down, and the incident closed. but they found work which the crippled man could do, after a short "lying up." with the steward's washboard, he could wash the captain's soiled linen, which the steward would afterward wring out and hang up. he refused at first, but was duly persuaded, and went to work in the lee scuppers amidships. johnson made a detour on his way to the main-rigging, and muttered: "say the word, sir, and i 'll chance it. no jury'd convict." "no, no; go aloft, johnson. i'm all right," answered breen, as he bent over the distasteful task. johnson climbed the rigging to the main-royalyard, which he was to scrape for reoiling, and had no sooner reached it than he sang out: "sail oh! dead ahead, sir. looks like an armored cruiser o' the first class." "armored cruiser o' the first class?" muttered the captain, as he carried his binoculars to the weather rail and looked ahead. "more 'n i can make out with the glasses." if three funnels, two masts, two bridges, and two sets of fighting-tops indicate an armored cruiser of the first class, johnson was right. these the oncoming craft showed plainly even at seven miles' distance. fifteen minutes later she was storming by, a half-mile to windward; a beautiful picture, long and white, with an incurving ram-bow, with buff-colored turrets and superstructure, and black guns bristling from all parts of her. the stars and stripes flew from the flagstaff at the stern; white-clad men swarmed about her decks, and one of them, on the forward bridge, close to a group of officers, was waving by its staff a small red-and-white flag. captain bacon brought out the american ensign, and with his own hands hoisted it to the monkey-gaff on the mizzen, dipped it three times in respectful salute, and left it at the gaff-end. then he looked at the cruiser, as every man on board was doing except the man washing clothes in the lee scuppers. his business was to wash clothes, not to cross a broad deck and climb a high rail to look at passing craft; but, as he washed away, he looked furtively aloft, with eyes that sparkled, at the man on the mainroyalyard. johnson was standing erect on the small spar, holding on with his left hand to the royal-pole,--certainly the most conspicuous detail of the whole ship to the eyes of those on board the cruiser,--and with his right hand he was waving his cap to the right and left, and up and down. there was method in his motions, for when he would cease, the small red-and-white flag on the cruiser's bridge would answer, waving to the right and left, and up and down. a secondary gun spoke from a midship sponson, and captain bacon exclaimed enthusiastically, "salutin' the flag," and again dipped his ensign. then, after an interval, during which it became apparent that the cruiser had altered her course to cross the ship's stern, there was seen another tongue of flame and cloud of smoke, and something seemed to rush through the air ahead of the ship. but it was a splash of water far off on the lee bow which really apprised them that the gun was shotted. at the same time a string of small flags arose to the signal-yard, and when captain bacon had found this combination in his code-book, he read with amazement: "heave to or take the consequences." by this time the cruiser was squarely across his wake, most certainly rounding to for an interview. "heave to or take the consequences!" he exclaimed. "and he's firin' on us. down from aloft, all hands!" he roared upward; then he seized the answering pennant from the flag-locker and displayed it from the rail, begrudging the time needful to hoist it. the men were sliding to the deck on backstays and running-gear, and the mates were throwing down coils of rope from the belaying-pins. "man both main clue-garnets, some o' you!" yelled the captain. "clue up! weather main-braces, the rest o' you! slack away to looward! round wi' the yards, you farmers--round wi' 'em! down wi' the wheel, there! bring her up three points and hold her. h----l an' blazes, what's he firin' on me for?" excitedly, the men obeyed him; they were not used to gun fire, and it is certainly exciting to be shot at. conspicuous among them was johnson, who pulled and hauled lustily, shouting exuberantly the formless calls which sailors use in pulling ropes, and smiling sardonically. in five minutes from the time of the second gun the yards were backed, and, with weather leeches trembling, the ship lay "hove to," drifting bodily to leeward. the cruiser had stopped her headway, and a boat had left her side. there were ten men at the oars, a cockswain at the yoke-ropes, and with him in the stern-sheets a young man in an ensign's uniform, who lifted his voice as the boat neared the lee quarter, and shouted: "rig a side-ladder aboard that ship!" he was hardly more than a boy, but he was obeyed; not only the side-ladder, but the gangway steps were rigged; and leaving the cockswain and bow oarsman to care for the boat, the young officer climbed aboard, followed by the rest--nine muscular man-of-war's-men, each armed with cutlass and pistol, one of them carrying a hand-bag, another a bundle. captain bacon, as became his position, remained upon the poop to receive his visitor, while the two mates stood at the main fife-rail, and the ship's crew clustered forward. johnson, alert and attentive, stood a little in the van, and the man in the lee scuppers still washed clothes. "what's the matter, young man?" asked the captain from the break of the poop, with as much of dignity as his recent agitation would permit. "why do you stop my ship on the high seas and board her with an armed boat's crew?" "you have an officer and seaman of the navy on board this ship," answered the ensign, who had been looking about irresolutely. "produce them at once, if you please." "what--what----" stuttered the captain, descending the poop steps; but before more was said there was a sound from forward as of something hard striking something heavy, and as they looked, they saw captain bacon's bucket of clothes sailing diagonally over the lee rail, scattering a fountain of soapy water as it whirled; his late laundryman coming toward them with head erect, as though he might have owned the ship and himself; and johnson, limping slightly, making for the crowd of blue-jackets at the gangway. with these he fraternized at once, telling them things in a low voice, and somewhat profanely, while the two mates at the fife-rail eyed him reprovingly, but did not interrupt. breen advanced to the ensign, and said, as he extended his hand: "i am lieutenant breen. did you bring the clothing? this is an extremely fortunate meeting for me; but i can thank you--you and your brother officers--much more gracefully aboard the cruiser." the officer took the extended hand gingerly, with suspicion in his eyes. perhaps, if it had not been thoroughly clean from its late friction with soap and water, he might have declined taking it; for there was nothing in the appearance of the haggard, ragged wreck before him to indicate the naval officer. "there is some mistake," he said coldly. "i am well acquainted with lieutenant breen, and you are certainly not he." breen's face flushed hotly, but before he could reply, the captain broke in. "some mistake, hey?" said he, derisively. "i guess there is--another mistake--another bluff that don't go. get out o' here; and i tell you now, blast yer hide, that if you make me any more trouble 'board my ship yer liable to go over the side feet first, with a shackle to yer heels. and you, young man," he stormed, turning to the ensign, "you look round, if you like. there's my crew. all the navy officers you find you can have, and welcome to 'em." he turned his back, stamped a few paces along the deck, and returned, working himself into a fury. breen had not moved, but, with a slight sparkle to his eyes, said to the young officer: "i think, sir, that if you take the trouble to investigate, you will be satisfied. there are two breens in the navy. you know one, evidently; i am the other. lieutenant william breen is on shore duty at washington, i think. lieutenant john breen, lately in command of the torpedo-boat _wainwright_, with his signalman thomas johnson, are shanghaied on board this ship. there is johnson talking to your men." the young man's face changed, and his hand went to his cap in salute; but the mischief was done. captain bacon's indignation was at bursting-pressure, and his mind in no condition to respond readily to new impressions. he was captain of the ship, and grossly affronted. johnson, noting his purple face, wisely reached for a topsail-brace belaying-pin, and stepped toward him; for he now towered over breen, cursing with volcanic energy. "didn't i tell you to go forrard?" he roared, drawing back his powerful fist. breen stood his ground; the officer raised his hand and half drew his sword, while the blue-jackets sprang forward; but it was johnson's belaying-pin which stopped that mighty fist in mid-passage. it was an iron club, eighteen inches long by an inch and a half diameter; and johnson, strong man though he was, used it two-handed. it struck the brawny forearm just above the wrist with a crashing sound, and seemed to sink in. captain bacon almost fell, but recovered his balance, and, holding the broken bones together, staggered toward the booby-hatch for support. he groaned in pain, but did not curse; for it requires a modicum of self-respect for this, and captain bacon's self-respect was completely shocked out of him. but mr. knapp and mr. hansen still respected themselves, and were coming. "you keep back, there--you two," yelled johnson, excitedly. "stand by here, mates. these buckoes 'll kill someone yet. look out for their brass knuckles and guns." and the two officers halted. they had no desire to assert themselves before nine scowling, armed men, an angry and aggressive mutineer with a belaying-pin, and a rather confused, but wakening, young officer with drawn sword. johnson backed toward the latter. "don't you know me, mr. bronson," he said--"tom johnson, cocks'n o' the gig on your practice-cruise? 'member me, sir? this is lieutenant breen--take my word, sir." "yes--yes--i understand," said the ensign, with a face redder than breen's had been. "i really beg your pardon, mr. breen. it was inexcusable in me, i know--but--i had expected to see a different face, and--and--we're three months out from hong-kong, you see----" breen smiled, and interrupted with a gesture. "no time for explanations, mr. bronson," said he, kindly. "did you bring the clothes? thoughtful of johnson to ask for them, wasn't it? it really would be embarrassing to join your ship in this rig. in the grip and bundle? all right. form your men across the deck, please, forward of the cabin. keep these brutes away from us while we change. come, johnson." taking the hand-bag and the bundle, they brazenly entered the cabin by the forward door. in ten minutes they emerged, johnson clad in the blue rig of a man-of-war's-man, breen in the undress uniform of an officer, his crippled arm buttoned into the coat. as they stepped toward the gangway, captain bacon, pale and perspiring, wheezing painfully, entered the cabin and passed out of their lives. the steward followed at his heels, and the two mates, with curiously working faces, approached breen. "excuse me, sir," said mr. knapp, "but i want to say that i had no notion o' this at all; and i hope you won't make no trouble for me ashore." breen, one foot on the steps while he waited for the blue-jackets to file over the side, eyed him thoughtfully. "no," he said slowly. "i hardly think, mr. knapp, that i shall exert myself to make trouble for you personally, or for the other two. there is a measure now before congress which, if it passes, will legislate brutes like you and your captain off the american quarter-deck by its educational conditions. this, with a consideration for your owners, is what permits you to continue this voyage, instead of going back to the united states in irons. but if i had the power," he added, looking at the beautiful flag still flying at the gaff, "i would lower that ensign, and forbid you to hoist it. it is the flag of a free country, and should not float over slave-ships." he mounted the steps, and, assisted by the young officer and johnson, descended to the boat; but before johnson went down, he peered over the rail at the two mates, grinning luridly. "and i'll promise you," he said, "that i'm always willing to make trouble for you, ashore or afloat, and wish i had a little more time for it now. and you can tell your skipper, if you like, in case he don't know it, that he got smashed with the same club that he used on mr. breen, and i'm only d----d sorry i didn't bring it down on his head. so long, you bloody-minded hell-drivers. see you again some day." he descended, and mr. knapp gave the order to brace the yards. "give a good deal," he mused, as the men manned the braces, "to know just how they got news to that cruiser. homeward bound from hong-kong--three months out. couldn't ha' been sent after us." but he never learned. the trade-wind the orgy was finished. the last sea-song had resounded over the smooth waters of the bay; the last drunken shout, oath, and challenge were voiced; the last fight ended in helplessness and maudlin amity, and the red-shirted men were sprawled around on the moonlit deck, snoring. though the barrel of rum broached on the main-hatch was but slightly lowered, their sleep was heavy; scurvy-tainted men at the end of a cape horn passage may not drink long or deeply. some lay as they fell--face upward; others on their sides for a while, then to roll over on their backs and so remain until the sleep was done; for in no other position may the human body rest easy on a hard bed with no pillow. and as they slept through the tropic night the full moon in the east rose higher and higher, passed overhead and disappeared behind a thickening haze in the western sky; but before it had crossed the meridian its cold, chemical rays had worked disastrously on the eyes of the sleeping men. captain swarth, prone upon the poop-deck, was the first to waken. there was pain in his head, pain in his eyes,--which were swollen,--and a whistling tumult of sound in his ears coming from the plutonian darkness surrounding him, while a jarring vibration of the deck beneath him apprised his awakening brain that the anchor was dragging. as he staggered to his feet a violent pressure of wind hurled him against the wheel, to which he clung, staring into the blackness to windward. "all hands, there!" he roared! "up with you all! go forward and pay out on the chain!" shouts, oaths, and growls answered him, and he heard the nasal voice of his mate repeating his order. "angel," he called, "get the other anchor over and give her all of both chains." "aye, aye, sir," answered the mate. "send a lantern forrard, bill. can't see our noses." "steward," yelled the captain, "where are you? light up a deck-lantern and the binnacle. bear a hand." he heard the steward's voice close to him, and the sound of the binnacle lights being removed from their places, then the opening and closing of the cabin companionway. he could see nothing, but knew that the steward had gone below to his store-room. in a minute more a shriek came from the cabin. it rang out again and again, and soon sounded from the companionway: "i'm blind, i'm blind, capt'n. i can't see. i lit the lantern and burned my fingers; but i can't see the light. i'm blind." the steward's voice ended in a howl. "shut up, you blasted fool," answered captain swarth; "get down there and light up." "where's that light?" came the mate's voice in a yell from amidships. "shank-painter's jammed, bill. can't do a thing without a light." "come aft here and get it. steward's drunk." the doors in the forward part of the cabin slammed, and the mate's profanity mingled with the protest of the steward in the cabin. then shouts came from forward, borne on the gale, and soon followed by the shuffling of feet as the men groped their way aft and climbed the poop steps. "we're stone-blind, cappen," they wailed. "we lit the fo'c'sle lamp, an' it don't show up. we can't see it. nobody can see it. we're all blind." "come down here, bill," called the mate from below. as captain swarth felt his way down the stairs a sudden shock stilled the vibrations caused by the dragging anchor, and he knew that the chain had parted. "stand by on deck, angel; we're adrift," he said. "it's darker than ten thousand black cats. what's the matter with you?" "can you see the light, bill? i can't. i'm blind as the steward, or i'm drunker." "no. is it lit? where? the men say they're blind, too." "here, forrard end o' the table." the captain reached this end, searched with his hands, and burned them on the hot glass of a lantern. he removed the bowl and singed the hair on his wrists. the smell came to his nostrils. "i'm blind, too," he groaned. "angel, it's the moon. we're moonstruck--moon-blind. and we're adrift in a squall. steward," he said as he made his way toward the stairs, "light the binnacle, and stop that whining. maybe some one can see a little." when he reached the deck he called to the men, growling, cursing, and complaining on the poop. "down below with you all!" he ordered. "pass through and out the forrard door. if any man sees the light on the cabin table, let that man sing out." they obeyed him. twenty men passed through the cabin and again climbed the poop stairs, their lamentations still troubling the night. but not one had seen the lantern. some said that they could not open their eyes at all; some complained that their faces were swollen; others that their mouths were twisted up to where their ears should be; and one man averred that he could not breathe through his nose. "it'll only last a few days, boys," said the captain, bravely; "we shouldn't have slept in the moonlight in these latitudes. drop the lead over, one of you--weather side. the devil knows where we're drifting, and the small anchor won't hold now; we'll save it." captain swarth was himself again. but not so his men. they had become children, with children's fear of the dark. even the doughty angel todd was oppressed by the first horror of the situation, speaking only when spoken to. above the rushing sound of wind and the smacking of short seas could be heard the voice of the steward in the cabin, while an occasional heart-borne malediction or groan--according to temperament--added to the distraction on deck. one man, more self-possessed than the rest, had dropped the lead over the side. an able seaman needs no eyes to heave the lead. "a quarter six," he sang out, and then, plaintively: "we'll fetch up on the barrier, capt'n. s'pose we try an' get the other hook over." "yes, yes," chorused some of the braver spirits. "it may hold. we don't want to drown on the reef. let's get it over. chain's overhauled." "let the anchor alone," roared the captain. "no anchor-chain'll hold in this. keep that lead a-going, tom plate, if it's you. what bottom do you find?" "quarter less six," called the leadsman. "soft bottom. we're shoaling." "angel," said the captain to his mate, who stood close to him, "we're blowing out the south channel. we've been drifting long enough to fetch up on the reef if it was in our way. there's hard bottom in the north channel, and the twenty-fathom lead wouldn't reach it half a length from the rocks." the mate had nothing to say. "and the south channel lay due southeast from our moorings," continued the captain. "wind's nor'west, i should say, right down from the hilltops; and i've known these blasted west india squalls to last three days, blowing straight and hard. this has the smell of a gale in it already. keep that lead a-going, there." "no bottom," answered the leadsman. "good enough," said the captain, cheerfully. "no bottom," was called repeatedly, until the captain sang out: "that'll do the lead." then the leadsman coiled up the line, and they heard his rasping, unpleasant voice, cursing softly but fiercely to himself. captain swarth descended the stairs, silenced the steward with a blow, felt of the clock hands, secured his pistols, and returned to the deck. "we're at sea," he said. "two hands to the wheel. loose and set the foretopmast-staysails and the foretopsail. staysail first. let a man stay in the slings to square the yard by the feel as it goes up." "what for?" they answered complainingly. "what ye goin' to do? we can't see. why didn't you bring to when you had bottom under you?" "no arguments!" yelled swarth. "forrard with you. what are you doing on the poop, anyway? if you can't see, you can feel, and what more do you want? jump, now. set that head-sail and get her 'fore the wind--quick, or i'll drop some of you." they knew their captain, and they knew the ropes--on the blackest of dark nights. blind men climbed aloft, and felt for foot-ropes and gaskets. blind men on deck felt for sheets, halyards, and braces, and in ten minutes the sails were set, and the brig was charging wildly along before the gale, with two blind men at the wheel endeavoring to keep her straight by the right and left pressure of the wind on their faces. "keep the wind as much on the port quarter as you can without broaching to," yelled the captain in their ears, and they answered and did their best. she was a clean-lined craft and steered easily; yet the off-shore sea which was rising often threw her around until nearly in the trough. the captain remained by them, advising and encouraging. "where're ye goin', bill?" asked the mate, weakly, as he scrambled up to him. "right out to sea, and, unless we get our eyes back soon, right across to the bight of benin, three thousand miles from here. we've no business on this coast in this condition. what ails you, angel? lost your nerve?" "mebbe, bill." the mate's voice was hoarse and strained. "this is new to me. i'm falling--falling--all the time." "so am i. brace up. we'll get used to it. get a couple of hands aft and heave the log. we take our departure from kittredge point, barbados island, at six o'clock this morning of the th october. we'll keep a geordie's log-book--with a jack-knife and a stick." they hove the log for him. it was marked for a now useless -second sand-glass, which captain swarth replaced by a spare chronometer, held to his ear in the companionway. it ticked even seconds, and when twenty-eight of them had passed he called, "stop." the markings on the line that had slipped through the mate's fingers indicated an eight-knot speed. "seven, allowing for wild steering," said the captain when he had stowed away his chronometer and returned to the deck. "angel, we know we're going about sou'east by east, seven knots. there's practically no variation o' the compass in these seas, and that course'll take us clear of cape st. roque. just as fast as the men can stand it at the wheel, we'll pile on canvas and get all we can out o' this good wind. if it takes us into the southeast trades, well and good. we can feel our way across on the trade-wind--unless we hit something, of course. you see, it blows almost out of the east on this side, and 'll haul more to the sou'east and south'ard as we get over. by the wind first, then we'll square away as we need to. we'll know the smell o' the trades--nothing like it on earth--and the smell o' the gold coast, ivory coast, slave coast, and the kameruns. and i'll lay odds we can feel the heat o' the sun in the east and west enough to make a fair guess at the course. but it won't come to that. some of us 'll be able to see pretty soon." it was wild talk, but the demoralized mate needed encouraging. he answered with a steadier voice: "lucky we got in grub and water yesterday." "right you are, angel. now, in case this holds on to us, why, we'll find some of our friends over in the bight, and they'll know by our rig that something's wrong. flanders is somewhere on the track,--you know he went back to the nigger business,--and chink put a slave-deck in his hold down rio way last spring. and old man slack--i did him a service when i crippled the corvette that was after him, and he's grateful. hope we'll meet him. i'd rather meet chink than flanders in the dark, and i'd trust a javanese trader before either. if either of them come aboard we'll be ready to use their eyes for our benefit, not let 'em use ours for theirs. flanders once said he liked the looks of this brig." "s'pose we run foul of a bulldog?" "we'll have to chance it. this coast's full o' them, too. great guns, man! would you drift around and do nothing? anywhere east of due south there's no land nearer than cape orange, and that's three hundred and fifty miles from here. beginning to-morrow noon, we'll take deep-sea soundings until we strike the trade-wind." the negro cook felt his way through the preparing of meals and served them on time. the watches were set, and sail was put on the brig as fast as the men became accustomed to the new way of steering, those relieved always imparting what they had learned to their successors. before nightfall on that first day they were scudding under foresail, topsail and topgallantsail and maintopsail, with the spanker furled as useless, and the jib adding its aid to the foretopmast-staysail in keeping the brig before the quartering seas which occasionally climbed aboard. the bowsprit light was rigged nightly; they hove the log every two hours; and captain swarth made scratches and notches on the sliding-hood of the companionway, while careful to wind his chronometer daily. but, in spite of the cheer of his indomitable courage and confidence, his men, with the exception of a few, dropped into a querulous, whining discontent. mr. todd, spurred by his responsibility, gradually came around to something like his old arbitrary self. yank tate, the carpenter, maintained through it all a patient faith in the captain, and, in so far as his influence could be felt, acted as a foil to the irascible, fault-finding tom plate, the forecastle lawyer, the man who had been at the lead-line at barbados. but the rest of them were dazed and nerveless, too shaken in brain and body to consider seriously tom's proposition to toss the afterguard overboard and beach the brig on the south american coast, where they could get fresh liver of shark, goat, sheep, or bullock, which even a "nigger" knew was the only cure for moon-blindness. they had not yet recovered from the unaccustomed debauch; their clouded brains seemed too large for their skulls, and their eyeballs ached in their sockets, while they groped tremblingly from rope to rope at the behest of the captain or mate. so tom marked himself for future attention by insolent and disapproving comments on the orders of his superiors, and a habit of moving swiftly to another part of the deck directly he had spoken, which prevented the blind and angry captain from finding him in the crowd. dim as must have been the light of day through the pelting rain and storm-cloud, it caused increased pain in their eyes, and they bound them with their neckerchiefs, applying meanwhile such remedies as forecastle lore could suggest. the captain derided these remedies, but frankly confessed his ignorance of anything but time as a means of cure. and so they existed and suffered through a three days' damp gale and a fourth day's dead calm, when the brig rolled scuppers under with all sail set, ready for the next breeze. it came, cool, dry, and faint at first, then brisker--the unmistakable trade-wind. they boxed the brig about and braced sharp on the starboard tack, steering again by the feel of the wind and the rattling of shaking leeches aloft. the removal of bandages to ascertain the sun's position by sense of light or increase of pain brought agonized howls from the experimenters, and this deterred the rest. not even by its warmth could they locate it. it was overhead at noon and useless as a guide. in the early morning and late afternoon, when it might have indicated east and west, its warmth was overcome by the coolness of the breeze. so they steered on blindly, close-hauled on the starboard tack, nearly as straight a course as though they were whole men. they took occasional deep-sea soundings with the brig shaking in the wind, but found no bottom, and at the end of fifteen days a longer heave to the ground-swell was evidence to captain swarth's mind that he was passing cape st. roque, and the soundings were discontinued. "no use bothering about st. paul rocks or the rocas, angel," said he. "they rise out o' the deep sea, and if we're to hit, soundings won't warn us in time. i take it we'll pass between them and well north of ascension." so he checked in the yards a little and brought the wind more abeam. one day yank tate appeared at the captain's elbow, and suggested, in a low voice, that he examine the treasure-chests in the 'tween-deck. "i was down stowing away some oakum," he said, "an' i was sure i heard the lid close; but nobody answered me, an' i couldn't feel anybody." captain swarth descended to his cabin and found his keys missing; then he and the carpenter visited the chests. they were locked tight, and as heavy as ever. "some one has the keys, yank, and has very likely raided the diamonds. we can't do anything but wait. he can't get away. keep still about it." the air became cooler as they sailed on; and judging that the trade-wind was blowing more from the south than he had allowed for, the captain brought the wind squarely abeam, and the brig sailed faster. still, it was too cool for the latitude, and it puzzled him, until a man came aft and groaned that he had lifted his bandage to bathe his eyes, and had unmistakably seen the sun four points off the port quarter; but his eyes were worse now, and he could not do it again. "four points off!" exclaimed swarth. "four o'clock in the afternoon. that's just about where the sun ought to be heading due east, and far enough south o' the line to bring this cool weather. we're not far from ascension. never knew the sou'east trade to act like this before. must ha' been blowing out o' the sou'west half the time." a week later they were hove to on the port tack under double-reefed topsails, with a cold gale of wind screaming through the rigging and cold green seas boarding their weather bow. it was the first break in the friendly trade-wind, and swarth confessed to himself--though not to his men--that he was out of his reckoning; but one thing he was sure of--that this was a cyclone with a dangerous center. the brig labored heavily during the lulls as the seas rose, and when the squalls came, flattening them to a level, she would lie down like a tired animal, while the æolian song aloft prevented orders being heard unless shouted near by. captain swarth went below and smashed the glass of an aneroid barometer (newly invented and lately acquired from an outward-bound englishman), in which he had not much confidence, but which might tell him roughly of the air-density. feeling of the indicator, and judging by the angle it made with the center,--marked by a ring at the top,--he found a measurement which startled him. setting the adjustable hand over the indicator for future reference, he returned to the deck, ill at ease, and ordered the topsails goose-winged. by the time the drenched and despairing blind men had accomplished this, a further lowering of the barometer induced him to furl topsails and foretopmast-staysail, and allow the brig to ride under a storm-spanker. then the increasing wind required that this also should be taken in, and its place filled by a tarpaulin lashed to the weather main-rigging. "angel," said the captain, shouting into the mate's ear, "there's only one thing to account for this. we're on the right tack for the southern ocean; but the storm-center is overtaking us faster than we can drift away from it. we must scud out of its way." so they took in the tarpaulin and set the foretopmast-staysail again, and, with the best two helmsmen at the wheel, they sped before the tempest for four hours, during which there was no increase of the wind and no change in the barometer; it still remained at its lowest reading. "keep the wind as much on the port quarter as you dare," ordered swarth. "we're simply sailing around the center, and perhaps in with the vortex." they obeyed him as they could, and in a few hours more there was less fury in the blast and a slight rise in the barometer. "i was right," said the captain. "the center will pass us now. we're out of its way." they brought the brig around amid a crashing of seas over the port rail, and stowing the staysail, pinned her again on the port tack with the tarpaulin. but a few hours of it brought an increase of wind and a fall of the barometer. "what in d--nation does it mean, angel?" cried the captain, desperately. "by all laws of storms we ought to drift away from the center." the mate could not tell; but a voice out of the night, barely distinguishable above the shrieking wind, answered him. "you--all-fired--fool--don't--you--know--any--more--than--to--heave--to --in--the--gulf--stream?" then there was the faintest disturbance in the sounds of the sea, indicating the rushing by of a large craft. "what!" roared swarth. "the gulf stream? i've lost my reckoning. where am i? ship ahoy! where am i?" there was no answer, and he stumbled down to the main-deck among his men, followed by the mate. "draw a bucket of water, one of you," he ordered. this was done, and he immersed his hand. the water was warm. "gulf-stream," he yelled frantically, "gulf stream--how in h----l did we get up here? we ought to be down near st. helena. angel, come here. let's think. we sailed by the wind on the southeast trade for--no, we didn't. it was the northeast trade. we caught the northeast trade, and we've circled all over the western ocean." "you're a bully full-rigged navigator, you are," came the sneering, rasping voice of tom plate from the crowd. "why didn't you drop your hook at barbados, and give us a chance for our eyes?" the captain lunged toward him on the reeling deck; but tom moved on. "your time is coming, tom plate," he shouted insanely; then he climbed to the poop, and when he had studied the situation awhile, called his bewildered mate up to him. "we were blown out of the north entrance o' the bay, angel, instead of the south, as we thought. i was fooled by the soundings. at this time o' the year barbados is about on the thermal equator--half-way between the trades. this is a west india cyclone, and we're somewhere around hatteras. no wonder the port tack drifted us into the center. storms revolve against the sun north o' the line, and with the sun south of it. oh, i'm the two ends and the bight of a d--d fool! wear ship!" he added in a thundering roar. they put the brig on the starboard tack, and took hourly soundings with the deep-sea lead. as they hauled it in for the fourth time, the men called that the water was cold; and on the next sounding the lead reached bottom at ninety fathoms. "we're inside the stream and the hundred-fathom curve, angel. the barometer's rising now. the storm-center's leaving us, and we're drifting ashore," said the captain. "i know pretty well where i am. these storms follow an invariable track, and i judge the center is to the east of us, moving north. that's why we didn't run into it when we thought we were dodging it. we'll square away with the wind on the starboard quarter now, and if we pick up the stream and the glass don't rise, i'll be satisfied to turn in. i'm about fagged out." "it's too much for me, bill," answered mr. todd, wearily. "i can navigate; but this ain't navigation. this is blindman's-buff." but he set the head-sail for his captain, and again the brig fled before the wind. only once did they round to for soundings, and this time found no bottom; so they squared away, and when, a few hours later, the seas came aboard warm, swarth was confident enough of his position to allow his mind to dwell on pettier details of his business. it was nearly breakfast-time now, and the men would soon be eating. with his pistols in his coat pockets he stationed himself beside the scuttle of the fore-hatch,--the entrance to the forecastle,--and waited long and patiently, listening to occasional comments on his folly and bad seamanship which ascended from below, until the harsh voice of tom plate on the stairs indicated his coming up. he reached toward tom with one hand, holding a cocked pistol with the other; but tom slid easily out of his wavering grasp and fled along the deck. he followed his footsteps until he lost them, and picked up instead the angry plaint of the negro cook in the galley amidships. "i do' know who you are, but you want to git right out o' my galley, now. you heah me? i'se had enough o' dis comin' inter my galley. gwan, now! is you de man dat's all time stealin' my coffee? i'll gib you coffee, you trash! take dat!" captain swarth reached the galley door in time to receive on the left side of his face a generous share of a pot of scalding coffee. it brought an involuntary shriek of agony from him; then he clung to the galley-lashings and spoke his mind. still in torment, he felt his way through the galley; but the cook and the intruder had escaped by the other door and made no sound. all that day and the night following he chose to lie in his darkened state-room, with his face bandaged in oily cloths, while yank tate stood his watch. in the morning he removed the bandages and took in the sight of his state-room fittings: the bulkhead, his desk, chronometer, cutlass, and clothing hanging on the hooks. it was a joyous sight, and he shouted in gladness. he could not see with his right eye and but dimly with his left, but a scrutiny of his face in a mirror disclosed deep lines that had not been there, distorted eyelids, and the left side where the coffee had scalded puffed to a large, angry blister. he tied up his face, leaving his left eye free, and went on deck. the wind had moderated, but on all sides was a wild gray waste of heaving, white-crested combers, before which the brig was still scudding under the staysail. three miles off on the port bow was a large, square-bowed, square-yarded ship, hove to and heading away from them, which might be a frigate or a subsidized englishman with painted ports; but in either case she could not be investigated now. he looked at the compass. the brig was heading about southeast, and his judgment was confirmed. two haggard-faced men with bandaged eyes were grinding the wheel to starboard and port, and keeping the brig's yaws within two points each way--good work for blind men. angel todd stood near, his chin resting in his hand and his elbow on the companionway. forward the watch sat about in coils of rope and sheltered nooks or walked the deck unsteadily, and a glance aloft showed the captain his rigging hanging in bights and yards pointed every way. she was unkempt as a wreck. the same glance apprised him of an english ensign, union down, tattered and frayed to half its size, at the end of the standing spanker-gaff, with the halyards made fast high on the royal-backstay, above the reach of bungling blind fingers. tom plate was coming aft with none of the hesitancy of the blind, and squinting aloft at the damaged distress-signal. he secured another ensign--american--from the flag-locker in the booby-hatch, mounted the rail, and hoisted it, union down, in place of the other. then he dropped to the deck and looked into the glaring left eye and pepper-box pistol of captain swarth, who had descended on him. "hands up, tom plate, over your head--quick, or i'll blow your brains out!" white in the face and open-mouthed, tom obeyed. "mr. todd," called the captain, "come down here--port main-rigging." the mate came quickly, as he always did when he heard the prefix to his name. it was used only in emergencies. "what soundings did you get at the lead when we were blowing out?" asked the captain. "what water did you have when you sang out 'a quarter six' and 'a quarter less six'?" "n-n-one, capt'n. there warn't any bottom. i jess wanted to get you to drop the other anchor and hold her off the reef." "got him tight, cappen?" asked the mate. "shall i help you hold 'im?" "i've got my sight back. i've got tom plate under my gun. how long have you been flying signals of distress, tom plate?" "ever since i could see, capt'n," answered the trembling sailor. "how long is that?" "second day out, sir." "what's your idea in keeping still about it? what could you gain by being taken aboard a man-of-war?" "i didn't want to have all the work piled on me jess 'cause i could see, capt'n. i never thought anybody could ever see again. i slept partly under no. gun that night, and didn't get it so bad." "you sneaked into my room, got my keys, and raided the treasure-chests. you know what the rules say about that? death without trial." "no, i didn't, capt'n; i didn't." "search him, mr. todd." the search brought to light a tobacco-pouch in which were about fifty unset diamonds and a few well-jeweled solid-gold ornaments, which the captain pocketed. "not much of a haul, considering what you left behind," he said calmly. "i suppose you only took what you could safely hide and swim with." "i only took my share, sir; i did no harm; i didn't want to be driftin' round wi' blind men. how'd i know anybody could ever see any more?" "sad mistake, tom. all we wanted, it seems, was a good scalding with hot coffee." he mused a few moments, then continued: "there must be some medical virtue in hot coffee which the doctors haven't learned, and--well--tom, you've earned your finish." "you won't do it, capt'n; you can't do it. the men won't have it; they're with me," stuttered the man. "possibly they are. i heard you all growling down the hatch yesterday morning. you're a pack of small-minded curs. i'll get another crew. mr. todd," he said to the listening mate, "steward told me he was out of coffee, so we'll break a bag out o' the lazarette. it's a heavy lift--two hundred pounds and over--'bout the weight of a man; so we'll hoist it up. let tom, here, rig a whip to the spanker-gaff. he can see." "aye, aye, sir," answered the mate. "get a single block and a strap and a gant-line out o' the bo's'n's locker, tom." "is it all right, capt'n?" asked tom, lowering his hands with a deep sigh of relief. "i did what seemed right, you know." "rig that whip," said swarth, turning his back and ascending the poop. tom secured the gear, and climbing aloft and out the gaff, fastened the block directly over the lazarette-hatch, just forward of the binnacle. then he overhauled the rope until it reached the deck, and descended. "come up here on the poop," called the captain; and he came. "shall i go down and hook on, sir?" he asked zealously. "make a hangman's noose in the end of the rope," said swarth. "eh--what--a runnin' bowline--a timber-hitch? no, no," he yelled, as he read the captain's face. "you can't do it. the men----" "make a hangman's knot in the end of the rope," thundered the captain, his pistol at tom's ear. with a face like that of a death's-head he tied the knot. "pass it round your neck and draw it tight." hoarse, inarticulate screams burst from the throat of the man, ended by a blow on the side of his face by the captain's iron-hard fist. he fell, and lay quiet, while swarth himself adjusted the noose and bound the hands with his own handkerchief. the men at the wheel strained their necks this way and that, with tense waves of conflicting expressions flitting across their weary faces, and the men forward, aroused by the screams, stood about in anxious expectancy until they heard swarth's roar: "lay aft here, the watch!" they came, feeling their way along by rail and hatch. "clap on to that gant-line at the main fife-rail, and lift this bag of coffee out o' the lazarette," sang out the captain. they found the loose rope, tautened it, hooked the bight into an open sheave in the stanchion, and listlessly walked forward with it. when they had hoisted the unconscious tom to the gaff, swarth ordered: "belay, coil up the fall, and go forrard." they obeyed, listlessly as ever, with no wondering voice raised to inquire why they had not lowered the coffee they had hoisted. captain swarth looked at the square-rigged ship, now on the port quarter--an ill-defined blur to his imperfect vision. "fine chance we'd have had," he muttered, "if that happened to be a bulldog. angel," he said, as the mate drew near, "hot coffee is good for moon-blindness, taken externally, as a blistering agent--a counter-irritant. we have no fly-blisters in the medicine-chest, but smoking-hot grease must be just as good, if not better than either. have the cook heat up a potful, and you get me out a nice small paint-brush." forty-eight hours later, when the last wakening vision among the twenty men had taken cognizance of the grisly object aloft, the gaff was guyed outboard, the rope cut at the fife-rail, and the body of tom plate dropped, feet first, to the sea. then when captain swarth's eyes permitted he took an observation or two, and, after a short lecture to his crew on the danger of sleeping in tropic moonlight, shaped his course for barbados island, to take up the burden of his battle with fate where the blindness had forced him to lay it down; to scheme and to plan, to dare and to do, to war and to destroy, against the inevitable coming of the time when fate should prove the stronger--when he would lose in a game where one must always win or die. salvage she had a large crew, abnormally large hawse-pipes, and a bad reputation--the last attribute born of the first. registered as the _rosebud_, this innocent name was painted on her stern and on her sixteen dories; but she was known among the fishing-fleet as the _ishmaelite_, and the name fitted her. secretive and unfriendly, she fished alone, avoided company, answered few hails, and, seldom filling her hold, disposed of her catch as her needs required, in out-of-the-way ports, often as far south as charleston. and she usually left behind her such bitter memories of her visit as placed the last port at the bottom of her list of markets. no ship-chandler or provision-dealer ever showed her receipted bills, and not a few of them openly averred that certain burglaries of their goods had plausible connection with her presence in port. be this as it may, the fact stood that farmers on the coast who saw her high bow and unmistakable hawse-pipes when she ran in for bait invariably double-locked their barns and chicken-coops, and turned loose all tied dogs when night descended, often to find both dogs and chickens gone in the morning. once, too, three small schooners had come home with empty holds, and complained of the appearance, while anchored in the fog, of a flotilla of dories manned by masked men, who overpowered and locked all hands in cabin or forecastle, and then removed the cargoes of fish to their own craft, hidden in the fog. shortly after this, the _ishmaelite_ disposed of a large catch in baltimore, and the piracy was believed of her, but never proved. her luck at finding things was remarkable. drifting dories, spars, oars, and trawl-tubs sought her unsavory company, as though impelled by the inanimate perversity which had sent them drifting. they were sold in port, or returned to their owners, when paid for. in the early part of her career she had towed a whistling buoy into boston and claimed salvage of the government, showing her logbook to prove that she had picked it up far at sea. the salvage was paid; but, as her reputation spread, there were those who declared that she herself had sent the buoy adrift. as poets and sailors believe that ships have souls, it may be that she gloried in her shame, like other fallen creatures; for her large, slanting oval hawse-pipes and boot-top stripe gave a fine, oriental sneer to her face-like bow, and there was slur and insult to respectable craft in the lazy dignity with which she would swash through the fleet on the port tack, compelling vessels on the starboard tack to give up their right of way or be rammed; for she was a large craft, and there was menace in her solid, one-piece jib-boom, thick as an ordinary mainmast. an outward-bound coasting-schooner, resenting this lawlessness on one occasion, attempted to assert her rights, and being on the lawful starboard tack, bore steadily down on the _ishmaelite_,--who budged not a quarter-point,--and, losing heart at the last moment, luffed up, all shaking, in just the position to allow the ring of her port anchor to catch on the bill of the _ishmaelite's_ starboard anchor. as her own ring-stopper and shank-painter were weak, the patent windlass unlocked, and the end of the cable not secured in the chain-locker, the _ishmaelite_ walked calmly away with the anchor and a hundred fathoms of chain, which, at the next port, she sold as legitimate spoil of the sea. as her reputation increased, so did the hatred of men, while the number of ports on the coast which she could safely enter became painfully small. to avoid conflict with local authority, she had hurried to sea without clearing at the custom-house from boston, bangor, portland, and gloucester. she had carried local authority in the persons of distressed united states marshals to sea with her from three other ports, and landed it on some outlying point before the next meal-hour. with her blunt jib-boom she had prodded a hole in the side of a lighthouse supply-boat, and sailed away without answering questions. the government was taking cognizance, and her description was written on the fly-leaves of several revenue cutters' log-books, while sunday newspapers in the large cities began a series of special articles about the mysterious schooner-rigged pirate of the fishing-fleet. the future looked dark for her, and when the time came that she was chased away from plymouth harbor--which she had entered for provisions--by a police launch, it seemed that the end was at hand; for she had done no wrong in plymouth, and the police boat was evidently acting on general principles and instructions, which were vital enough to extend the pursuit to the three-mile limit. her trips had become necessarily longer, and there was but two weeks' supply of food in the lazarette. the new england coast was an enemy's country, but in the crowded harbor of new york was a chance to lie unobserved at anchor long enough to secure the stores she needed, which only a large city can supply. so cape cod was doubled on the way to new york; but the brisk offshore wind, which had helped her in escaping the police boat, developed to a gale that blew her to sea, and increased in force as the hours passed by. hard-headed, reckless fellows were these men who owned the _rosebud_ and ran her on shares and under laws of their own making. had they been of larger, broader minds, with no change of ethics they would have acquired a larger, faster craft with guns, hoisted the black flag, and sailed southward to more fruitful fields. being what they were,--fishermen gone wrong,--they labored within their limitations and gleaned upon known ground. they were eighteen in number, and they typified the maritime nations of the world. americans predominated, of course, but english, french, german, portuguese, scandinavian, and russian were among them. the cook was a west india negro, and the captain--or their nearest approach to a captain--a portland yankee. both were large men, and held their positions by reason of special knowledge and a certain magnetic mastery of soul which dominated the others against their rules; for in this social democracy captains and bosses were forbidden. the cook was an expert in the galley and a thorough seaman; the other as able a seaman, and a navigator past the criticism of the rest. his navigation had its limits, however, and this gale defined them. he could find his latitude by meridian observation, and his longitude by morning sights and chronometer time; his dead-reckoning was trustworthy, and he possessed a fair working conception of the set and force of the atlantic currents and the heave of the sea in a blow. but his studies had not given him more than a rudimentary knowledge of meteorology and the laws of storms. a gale was a gale to him, and he knew that it would usually change its direction as a clock's hands will in moving over the dial; and if, by chance, it should back around to its former point, he prepared for heavier trouble, with no reference to the fluctuations of the barometer, which instrument to him was merely a weather-glass--about as valuable as a rheumatic big toe. so, in the case we are considering, not knowing that he was caught by the southern fringe of a st. lawrence valley storm, with its center of low barometer to the northwest and coming toward him, he hove to on the port tack to avoid cape cod, and drifted to sea, shortening sail as the wind increased, until, with nothing set but a small storm-mainsail, he found himself in the sudden calm of the storm-center, which had overtaken him. here, in a tumultuous cross-sea, fifty miles off the shore, deceived by the light, shifty airs and the patches of blue sky showing between the rushing clouds, he made all sail and headed west, only to have the masts whipped out as the whistling fury of wind on the opposite side of the vortex caught and jibed the canvas. it was manifestly a judgment of a displeased providence; and, glad that the hull was still tight, they cut away the wreck and rode out the gale,--now blowing out of the north,--hanging to the tangle of spar and cordage which had once been the foremast and its gear. it made a fairly good sea-anchor, with the forestay--strong as any chain--for a cable, and she lay snug under the haphazard breakwater and benefited by the protection, as the seas must first break their heads over the wreckage before reaching her. the mainmast was far away, with all that pertained to it; but the solid, hard-pine jib-boom was still intact, and not one of the sixteen dories piled spoon-fashion in the four nests had been injured when the spars went by the board. so they were content to smoke, sleep, and kill time as they could, until the gale and sea should moderate, and they could rig a jury-foremast of the wreck. but before they could begin,--while there was still wind enough to curl the head of an occasional sea into foam,--a speck which had been showing on the shortened horizon to windward, when the schooner lifted out of the hollows, took form and identity--a two-masted steamer, with english colors, union down, at the gaff. high out of water, her broadside drift was faster than that of the dismasted craft riding to her wreckage, and in a few hours she was dangerously near, directly ahead, rolling heavily in the trough of the sea. they could see shreds of canvas hanging from masts and gaffs. "wunner what's wrong wid her," said the cook, as he relinquished the glasses to the next man. "amos," he called to another, "you've been in the ingine-room, you say. is her ingine bus' down?" "dunno," answered amos. "steam's all right; see the jet comin' out o' the stack? there! she's turnin' over--kickin' ahead. 'bout time if she wants to clear us. she's signalin'. what's that say, elisha?" the ensign was fluttering down, and a string of small flags going aloft on the other part of the signal-halyards, while the steamer, heading west, pushed ahead about a length under the impulse of her propeller. elisha, the navigator, went below, and returned with a couple of books, which he consulted. "her number," he said. "she's the _afghan prince_ o' london." as the schooner carried no signal-flags, he waved his sou'wester in answer, and the flags came down, to be replaced by others. "rudder carried away," he read, and then looked with the glasses. "rudder seems all right; must mean his steerin'-gear. why don't they rig up suthin', or a drag over the stern?" "don't know enough," said an expatriated englishman of the crew. "she's one o' them bloomin', undermanned tramps, run by apprentices an' thames watermen. they're drivin' sailors an' sailin'-ships off the sea blarst 'em!" "martin," said elisha to the cook, "what's the matter with our bein' a drag for her?" "dead easy, if we kin git his line an' he knows how to rig a bridle." "we can show him, if it comes to it. what ye say, boys? if we steer her into port we're entitled to salvage. she's helpless; we're not, for we've got a jury-rig under the bows. hello! what's he sayin' now?" other flags had gone aloft on the steamer, which asked for the longitude. then followed others which said that the chronometer was broken. "better 'n ever!" exclaimed elisha, excitedly. "can't navigate. our chronometer's all right; we never needed it, an' don't now, but it's a big help in a salvage claim. what ye say? can't we get our hemp cable to him with a dory?" why not? they were fishermen, accustomed to dory work. a short confab settled this point; a dory was thrown over, and elisha and amos pulled to the steamer, which was now abreast, near enough for the name which elisha had read to be seen plainly on the stern, but not near enough for the men shouting from her taffrail to make themselves heard on the schooner. elisha and amos, in the dory, conferred with these men and then returned. "badly rattled," they reported. "tiller-ropes parted, an' not a man aboard can put a long splice in a wire rope, an' o' course we said we couldn't. they'll take our line, an' we're to chalk up the position an' the course to new york. clear case o' salvage. we furnish everything, an' sacrifice our jury-material to aid 'em." "what'll be our chance in court, i'm thinkin'," said one, doubtfully. "hadn't we better keep out o' the courts? it's been takin' most of our time lately." "what's the matter wi' ye?" yelled elisha. "we owe a few hundreds, an' mebbe a fine or two; an' there's anywhere from one to two hundred thousand--hull an' cargo--that we save. we'll get no less than a third, mebbe more. go lay down, bill." bill subsided. they knotted four or five dory rodings together, coiled the long length of rope in the dory, unbent the end of their water-laid cable from the anchor, and waited until the wallowing steamer had drifted far enough to leeward to come within the steering-arc of a craft with no canvas; then they cut away the wreck, crowded forward, all hands spreading coats to the breeze, and when the schooner had paid off, steered her down with the wind on the quarter until almost near enough to hail the steamer, where they rounded to, safe in the knowledge that she could not drift as fast as the other. away went the dory, paying out on the roding, the end of which was fastened to the disconnected cable, and when it had reached the steamer, a heaving-line was thrown, by which the roding was hauled aboard. then the dory returned, while the steamer's men hauled the cable to their stern. the bridle, two heavy ropes leading from the after-winch out the opposite quarter-chocks to the end of the cable, was quickly rigged by the steamer's crew. with a warning toot of the whistle, she went ahead, and the long tow-line swept the sea-tops, tautened, strained, and creaked on the windlass-bitts, and settled down to its work, while the schooner, dropping into her wake, was dragged westward at a ten-knot rate. "this is bully," said elisha, gleefully. "now i'll chalk out the position an' give her the course--magnetic, to make sure." he did so, and they held up in full view of the steamer's bridge a large blackboard showing in six-inch letters the formula: "lat. - . lon. - . mag. co. w. half s." a toot of the whistle thanked them, and they watched the steamer, which had been heading a little to the south of this course, painfully swing her head up to it by hanging the schooner to the starboard leg of the bridle; but she did not stop at west-half-south, and when she pointed unmistakably as high as northwest, still dragging her tow by the starboard bridle, a light broke on them. "she's goin' on her way with us," said elisha. "no, no; she can't. she's bound for london," he added. "halifax, mebbe." they waved their hats to port, and shouted in chorus at the steamer. they were answered by caps flourished to starboard from the bridge, and outstretched arms which pointed across the atlantic ocean, while the course changed slowly to north, then faster as wind and sea bore on the other bow, until the steamer steadied and remained at east-by-north. "the rhumb course to the channel," groaned elisha, wildly. "the nerve of it! an' i'm supposed to give the longitude every noon. why, dammit, boys, they'll claim they rescued us, an' like as not the english courts'll allow them salvage on our little tub." "let go the tow-line! let 'em go to h----l!" they shouted angrily, and some started forward, but were stopped by the cook. his eyes gleamed in his black face, and his voice was a little higher pitched than usual; otherwise he was the steadiest man there. "we'll hang right on to our bran-new cable, men," he said. "it's ours, not theirs. 'course we kin turn her adrif' ag'in, an' be wuss off, too; we can't find de foremast now. but dat ain't de bes' way. john," he called to the englishman of the crew, "how many men do you' country tramp steamers carry?" john computed mentally, then muttered: "two mates, six ash-cats,[ ] two flunkies, two quartermasters, watchman, deck-hands--oh, 'bout sixteen or seventeen, martin." [ ] ash-cats: engineers and firemen. "boys, le' 's man de win'lass. we'll heave in on our cable, an' if we kin git close enough to climb aboard, we'll reason it out wid dat english cappen, who can't fin' his way roun' alone widout stealin' little fishin'-schooners." "right!" they yelled. "man the windlass. we'll show the lime-juice thief who's doin' this." "amos," said martin to the ex-engineer, "you try an' 'member all you forgot 'bout ingines in case anything happens to de crew o' dat steamer; an', elisha, you want to keep good track o' where we go, so's you kin find you' way back." "i'll get the chronometer on deck now. i can take sights alone." they took the cable to the windlass-barrel and began to heave. it was hard work,--equal to heaving an anchor against a strong head wind and ten-knot tideway,--and only half the crew could find room on the windlass-brakes; so, while the first shift labored and swore and encouraged one another, the rest watched the approach of a small tug towing a couple of scows, which seemed to have arisen out of the sea ahead of them. when the steamer was nearly upon her, she let go her tow-line and ranged up alongside, while a man leaning out of the pilot-house gesticulated to the steamer's bridge and finally shook his fist. then the tug dropped back abreast of the schooner. she was a dingy little boat, the biggest and brightest of her fittings being the name-board on her pilot-house, which spelled in large gilt letters the appellation _j. c. hawks_. "say," yelled her captain from his door, "i'm blown out wi' my barges, short o' grub an' water. can you gi' me some? that lime-juice sucker ahead won't." "can you tow us to new york?" asked elisha, who had brought up the chronometer and placed it on the house, ready to take morning sights for his longitude if the sun should appear. "no; not unless i sacrifice the barges an' lose my contract wi' the city. they're garbage-scows, an' i haven't power enough to hook on to another. just got coal enough to get in." "an' what do you call this--a garbage-scow?" answered elisha, ill-naturedly. "we've got no grub or water to spare. we've got troubles of our own." "dammit, man, we're thirsty here. give us a breaker o' water. throw it overboard; i'll get it." "no; told you we have none to spare; an' we're bein' yanked out to sea." "well, gi' me a bottleful; that won't hurt you." "no; sheer off. git out o' this. we're not in the samaritan business." a forceful malediction came from the tug captain, and a whirling monkey-wrench from the hand of the engineer, who had listened from the engine-room door. it struck elisha's chronometer and knocked it off the house, box and all, into the sea. he answered the profanity in kind, and sent an iron belaying-pin at the engineer; but it only dented the tug's rail, and with these compliments the two craft separated, the tug steaming back to her scows. "that lessens our chance just so much," growled elisha, as he joined the rest. "now we can't do all we agreed to." "keep dead-reckonin', 'lisha," said martin; "dat's good 'nough for us; an', say, can't you take sights by a watch--jess for a bluff, to show in de log-book?" "might; 't wouldn't be reliable. good enough, though, for log-book testimony. that's what i'll do." inch by inch they gathered in their cable and coiled it down, unmoved by the protesting toots of the steamer's whistle. when half of it lay on the deck, the steamer slowed down, while her crew worked at their end of the rope; then she went ahead, the schooner dropped back to nearly the original distance, and they saw a long stretch of new manila hawser leading out from the bridle and knotted to their cable. they cursed and shook their fists, but pumped manfully on the windlass, and by nightfall had brought the knot over their bows by means of a "messenger," and were heaving on the new hawser. "weakens our case just that much more," growled elisha. "we were to furnish the tow-line." "heave away, my boys!" said martin. "dey's only so many ropes aboard her, an' when we get 'em all we've got dat boat an' dem men." so they warped their craft across the western ocean. knot after knot, hawser after hawser, came over the bows and cumbered the deck. they would have passed them over the stern as fast as they came in, were they not salvors with litigation ahead; for their hands must be clean when they entered their claim, and to this end elisha chalked out the longitude daily at noon and showed it to the steamer, always receiving a thankful acknowledgment on the whistle. he secured the figures by his dead-reckoning; but the carefully kept log-book also showed longitude by chronometer sights, taken when the sun shone, with his old quadrant and older watch, and corrected to bring a result plausibly near to that of the reckoning by log and compass. but the log-book contained no reference to the loss of the chronometer. that was to happen at the last. on stormy days, when the sea rose, they dared not shorten their tow-line, and the steamer-folk made sure that it was long enough to eliminate the risk of its parting. so these days were passed in idleness and profanity; and when the sea went down they would go to work, hoping that the last tow-line was in their hands. but it was not until the steamer had given them three manila and two steel hawsers, four weak--too weak--mooring-chains, and a couple of old and frayed warping-lines, that the coming up to the bow of an anchor-chain of six-inch link told them that the end was near, that the steamer had exhausted her supply of tow-lines, and that her presumably sane skipper would not give them his last means of anchoring--the other chain. they were right. either for this reason or because of the proximity to english bottom, the steamer ceased her coyness, and her crew watched from the taffrail, while those implacable, purposeful men behind crept up to them. it was slow, laborious work; for the small windlass would not grip the heavy links of the chain, and they must needs climb out a few fathoms, making fast messengers to heave on, while the idle half of them gathered in the slackened links by hand. on a calm, still night they finally unshipped the windlass-brakes and looked up at the round, black stern of the steamer not fifty feet ahead. they were surrounded by lights of outgoing and incoming craft, and they knew by soundings taken that day, when the steamer had slowed down for the same purpose, that they were within the hundred-fathom curve, close to the mouth of the channel, but not within the three-mile limit. rejoicing at the latter fact, they armed themselves to a man with belaying-pins from their still intact pin-rails, and climbed out on the cable, the whole eighteen of them, man following man, in close climbing order. "now, look here," said a portly man with a gilt-bound cap to the leader of the line, as he threw a leg over the taffrail, "what's the meaning, may i ask, of this unreasonable conduct?" "you may ask, of course," said the man,--it was elisha,--"but we'd like to ask something, too" (he was sparring for time until more should arrive); "we'd like to ask why you drag us across the atlantic ocean against our will?" another man climbed aboard, and said: "yes; we 'gree to steer you into new york. you's adrif' in de trough of de sea, an' you got no chronometer, an' you can't navigate, an' we come 'long--under command, mind you--an' give you our tow-line, an' tell you de road to port. wha' you mean by dis?" "tut, tut, my colored friend!" answered the man of gilt. "you were dismasted and helpless, and i gave you a tow. it was on the high seas, and i chose the port, as i had the right." another climbed on board. "we were not helpless," rejoined elisha. "we had a good jury-rig under the bows, and we let it go to assist you. are you the skipper here?" "i am." martin's big fist smote him heavily in the face, and the blow was followed by the crash of elisha's belaying-pin on his head. the captain fell, and for a while lay quiet. there were four big, strong men over the rail now, and others coming. opposing them were a second mate, an engineer, a fireman, coal-passer, watchman, steward, and cook--easy victims to these big-limbed fishermen. the rest of the crew were on duty below decks or at the steering-winch. it was a short, sharp battle; a few pistols exploded, but no one was hurt, and the firearms were captured and their owners well hammered with belaying-pins; then, binding all victims as they overcame them, the whole party raided the steering-winch and engine-room, and the piracy was complete. but from their standpoint it was not piracy--it was resistance to piracy; and when amos, the ex-engineer, had stopped the engines and banked the fires, they announced to the captives bound to the rail that, with all due respect for the law, national and international, they would take that distressed steamboat into new york and deliver her to the authorities, with a claim for salvage. the bargain had been made on the american coast, and their log-book not only attested this, but the well-doing of their part of the contract. when the infuriated english captain, now recovered, had exhausted his stock of adjectives and epithets, he informed them (and he was backed by his steward and engineer) that there was neither food nor coal for the run to new york; to which elisha replied that, if so, the foolish and destructive waste would be properly entered in the log-book, and might form the basis of a charge of barratry by the underwriters, if it turned out that any underwriters had taken a risk on a craft with such an "all-fired lunatic" for a skipper as this. but they would go back; they might be forced to burn some of the woodwork fittings (her decks were of iron) for fuel, and as for food, though their own supply of groceries was about exhausted, there were several cubic yards of salt codfish in the schooner's hold, and this they would eat: they were used to it themselves, and science had declared that it was good brain-food--good for feeble-minded englishmen who couldn't splice wire nor take care of a chronometer. before starting back they made some preliminary and precautionary preparations. while martin inventoried the stores and amos the coal-supply, the others towed the schooner alongside and moored her. then they shackled the schooner's end of the chain cable around the inner barrel of the windlass and riveted the key of the shackle. they transhipped their clothing and what was left of the provisions. they also took the log-book and charts, compass, empty outer chronometer-case,--which elisha handled tenderly and officiously by its strap in full view of the captives,--windlass-brakes, tool-chest, deck-tools, axes, handspikes, heavers, boat-hooks, belaying-pins, and everything in the shape of weapon or missile by which disgruntled englishmen could do harm to the schooner or their rescuers. then they passed the rescued ones down to the schooner, and martin told them where they would find the iron kettle for boiling codfish, with the additional information that with skill and ingenuity they could make fish-balls in the same kettle. martin had reported a plenitude of provisions, and anathematized the lying captain and steward; and amos had declared his belief that with careful economy in the use of coal they could steam to the american coast with the supply in the bunkers: so they did not take any of the codfish, and the hawsers, valuable as fuel in case of a shortage, were left where they would be more valuable as evidence against the lawless, incompetent englishmen. and they also left the dories, all but one, for reasons in elisha's mind which he did not state at the time. they removed the bonds of one man--who could release the others--and cast off the fastenings; then, with amos and a picked crew of pupils in the boat's vitals, they went ahead and dropped the prison-hulk back to the full length of the chain, while the furious curses of the prisoners troubled the air. they found a little difficulty in steering by the winch and deck-compass (they would have mended the tiller-ropes with a section of backstay had they not bargained otherwise), but finally mastered the knack, and headed westerly. you cannot take an englishman's ship from under him--homeward bound and close to port--and drag him to sea again on a diet of salt codfish without impinging on his sanity. when day broke they looked and saw the hawsers slipping over the schooner's rail, and afterward a fountain of fish arising from her hatches to follow the hawsers overboard. "what's de game, i wunner?" asked martin. "tryin' to starve deyselves?" "dunno," answered elisha, with a serious expression. "they're not doin' it for nothin'. they're wavin' their hats at us. somethin' on their minds." "we'll jes let 'em wave. we'll go 'long 'bout our business." so they went at eight knots an hour; for, try as he might, amos could get no more out of the engine. "she's a divil to chew up coal," he explained; "we may have to burn the boat yet." "hope not," said elisha. "'tween you an' me, amos, this is a desperate bluff we're makin', an' if we go to destroyin' property we may get no credit for savin' it. we'd have no chance in the english courts at all, but it's likely an american judge 'ud recognize our original position--our bargain to steer her in." "too bad 'bout that tarred cable of ours," rejoined amos; "three days' good fuel in that, i calculate." "well, it's gone with the codfish, and the fact is properly entered in the log as barratrous conduct on the part of the skipper. enough to prove him insane." and further to strengthen this possible aspect of the case, elisha found a blank space on the leaf of the log-book which recorded the first meeting and bargain to tow, and filled it with the potential sentence, "steamer's commander acts strangely." for a well-kept logbook is excellent testimony in court. elisha's knowledge of navigation did not enable him to project a course on the great circle--the shortest track between two points on the earth's surface, and the route taken by steamers. but he possessed a fairly practical and ingenious mind, and with a flexible steel straight-edge rule, and a class-room globe in the skipper's room, laid out his course between the lane-routes of the liners,--which he would need to vary daily,--as it was not wise to court investigation. but he signaled to two passing steamships for greenwich time, and set his watch, obtaining its rate of correction by the second favor; and with this, and his surely correct latitude by meridian observation, he hoped to make an accurate landfall in home waters. and so the hours went by, with their captives waving caps ceaselessly, until the third day's sun arose to show them an empty deck on the schooner, over a dozen specks far astern and to the southward, and an east-bound steamship on their port bow. the specks could be nothing but the dories, and they were evidently trying to intercept the steamship. elisha yelled in delight. "they've abandoned ship--just what i hoped for--in the dories. they've no case at all now." "but what for, elisha?" asked martin. "mus' be hungry, i t'ink." "mebbe, or else they think that liner, who can stop only to save life,--carries the mails, you see,--will turn round and put 'em in charge here. why, nothin' but an english man-o'-war could do that now." they saw the steamship slow down, while the black specks flocked up to her, and then go on her way. and they went on theirs; but three days later they had reasoned out a better explanation of the englishmen's conduct. martin came on deck with a worried face, and announced that, running short of salt meat in the harness-cask, he had broken out the barrels of beef, pork, and hard bread that he had counted upon, and found their contents absolutely uneatable, far gone in putrescence, alive with crawling things. "must ha' thought he was fitting out a yankee hell-ship when he bought this," said elisha, in disgust, as he looked into the ill-smelling barrels. "overboard with it, boys!" overboard went the provisions, for starving animals could not eat of them, and the odor permeated the ship. they resigned themselves to a gloomy outlook--gloomier when amos reported that the coal in the bunkers would last but two days longer. he had been mistaken, he said; he had calculated to run compound engines with scotch boilers, not a full-powered blast-furnace with six inches of scale on the crown-sheets. "and they knew this," groaned elisha. "that's why they chucked the stuff overboard--to bring us to terms, and never thinkin' they'd starve first. they were dead luny, but we're lunier." they stopped the engines and visited the schooner in the dory. not a scrap of food was there, and the fish-kettle was scraped bright. they returned and went on. with plenty of coal there was still six days' run ahead to new york. how many with wood fuel, chopped on empty stomachs and burned in coal-furnaces, they could not guess. but they went to work. there were three axes, two top-mauls, and several handspikes and pinch-bars aboard, and with these they attacked bulkheads and spare woodwork, and fed the fires with the fragments; for a glance down the hatches had shown them nothing more combustible and detachable in the cargo than a few layers of railroad iron, which covered and blocked the openings to the lower hold. with the tools at hand they could not supply the rapacious fires fast enough to keep up steam, and the engines slowed to a five-knot rate. as this would not maintain a sufficient tension on the dragging schooner to steer by, they were forced to sacrifice the best item in their claim for salvage: they spliced the tiller-ropes and steered from the pilot-house. they would have sacrificed the schooner, too, for amos complained bitterly of the load on the engines; but elisha would not hear of it. she was the last evidence in their favor now, their last connection with respectability. "she and the pavement o' h----l," he growled fiercely, "are all we've got to back us up. without proof we're pirates under the law." however, he made no entry in the log of the splicing, trusting that a chance would come in port to remove the section of wire rope with which they had joined the broken ends. and, indeed, it seemed that their claim was dwindling. the chronometer which they were to use for the steamer's benefit was lost; the tow-line which they were to furnish had been given back to them; the course to new york which they chalked out had not been accepted; the abandoning of their ship by the englishmen was clearly enforced by the pressure of their own presence; and now they themselves had been forced to cancel from the claim the schooner's value as a necessary drag behind the steamer, by substituting a three hours' splicing-job, worth five dollars in a rigging-loft, and possibly fifty if bargained for at sea. nothing was left them now but their good intentions, duly entered in the log-book. but fate, and the stupid understanding of some one or two of them, decreed that their good intentions also should be taken from them. the log-book disappeared, and the strictest search failing to bring it to light, the conclusion was reached that it had been fed to the fires among the wreckage of the skipper's room and furniture. they blasphemed to the extent that the occasion required, and there was civil war for a time, while the suspected ones were being punished; then they drew what remaining comfort they could from burning the steamer's log-book and track-chart, which contained data conflicting with their position in the case, and resumed their labors. martin had raked and scraped together enough of food to give them two scant meals; but these eaten, starvation began. the details of their suffering need not be given. they chopped, hammered, and pried in hunger and anxiety, and with lessening strength, while the days passed by--fortunately spared the torture of thirst, for there was plenty of water in the tanks. upheld by the dominating influence of elisha, martin, and amos, they stripped the upper works and fed to the fires every door and sash, every bulkhead and wooden partition, all chairs, stools, and tables, cabin berths and forecastle bunks. then they attempted sending down the topmasts, but gave it up for lack of strength to get mast-ropes aloft, and attacked instead the boats on the chocks, of which there were four. it was no part of the plan to ask help of passing craft and have their distressed condition taken advantage of; but when the hopelessness of the fight at last appealed to the master spirits, they consented to the signaling of an east-bound steamer, far to the northward, in the hope of getting food. so the english ensign, union down, was again flown from the gaff. it was at a time when elisha could not stand up at the wheel, when amos at the engines could not have reversed them, when martin--man of iron--staggered weakly around among the rest and struck them with a pump-brake, keeping them at work. (they would strive under the blows, and sit down when he had passed.) but the flag was not seen; a haze arose between the two craft and thickened to fog. by elisha's reckoning they were on the banks now, about a hundred miles due south from cape sable, and nearer to boston than to halifax; otherwise he might have made for the latter port and defied alien prejudice. but the fog continued, and it was not port they were looking for now; it was help, food: they were working for life, not salvage; and, wasting no steam, they listened for whistles or fog-horns, but heard none near enough to be answered by their weak voices. and so the boat, dragging the dismal mockery behind her, plodded and groped her way on the course which elisha had shaped for boston, while man after man dropped in his tracks, refusing to rise; and those that were left nourished the fires as they could, until the afternoon of the third day of fog, when the thumping, struggling engines halted, started, made a half-revolution, and came to a dead stop. amos crawled on deck and forward to the bridge, where, with elisha's help, he dragged on the whistle-rope and dissipated the remaining steam in a wheezy, gasping howl, which lasted about a half-minute. it was answered by a furious siren-blast from directly astern; and out of the fog, at twenty knots an hour, came a mammoth black steamer. seeming to heave the small tramp out of the way with her bow wave, she roared by at six feet distance, and in ten seconds they were looking at her vanishing stern. but ten minutes later the stern appeared in view, as the liner backed toward them. the reversed english ensign still hung at the gaff; and the starving men, some prostrate on the deck, some clinging to the rails, unable to shout, had painted to the flag of distress and beckoned as the big ship rushed by. * * * * * "there's a chance," said the captain of this liner to the pilot, as he rejoined him on the bridge an hour later, "of international complications over this case, and i may have to lose a trip to testify. that's the _afghan prince_ and consort that i was telling you about. strange, isn't it, that i should pick up these fellows after picking up the legitimate crew going east? i don't know which crew was the hungriest. the real crew charge this crowd with piracy. by george, it's rather funny!" "and these men," said the pilot, with a laugh, "would have claimed salvage?" "yes, and had a good claim, too, for effort expended; but they've offset it by their violence. their chance was good in the english courts, if they'd only allowed the steamer to go on; and then, too, they abandoned her in a more dangerous position than where they found her. you see, they met her off nantucket with sea-room, and nothing wrong with her but broken tiller-ropes; and they quit her here close to sandy hook, in a fog, more than likely to hit the beach before morning. then, in that case, she belongs to the owners or underwriters." "why didn't they make boston?" asked the pilot. "tried to, but overran their distance. chronometer must have been 'way out. i talked to the one who navigated, and found that he'd never thought of allowing for local attraction,--didn't happen to run against the boat's deviation table,--and so, with all that railway iron below hatches, he fetched clear o' nantucket, and 'way in here." "that's tough. the salvage of that steamer would make them rich, wouldn't it? and i think they might have got it if they could have held out." "yes; think they might. but here's another funny thing about it. they needn't have starved. they needn't have chopped her to pieces for fuel. i just remember, now. her skipper told me there was good anthracite coal in her hold, and chicago canned meats, minnesota flour, beef, pork, and all sorts of good grub. he carried some of the rails in the 'tween-deck for steadying ballast, and i suppose it prevented them looking farther. and now they'll lose their salvage, and perhaps have to pay it on their own schooner if anything comes along and picks them up. that's the craft that'll get the salvage." "not likely," said the pilot; "not in this fog, and the wind and sea rising. i'll give 'em six hours to fetch up on the jersey coast. a mail contract with the government is sometimes a nuisance, isn't it, captain? how many years would it take you to save money to equal your share of the salvage if you had yanked that tramp and the schooner into new york?" "it would take more than one lifetime," answered the captain, a little sadly. "a skipper on a mail-boat is the biggest fool that goes to sea." the liner did not reach quarantine until after sundown, hence remained there through the night. as she was lifting her anchor in the morning, preparatory to steaming up to her dock, the crew of the _rosebud_, refreshed by food and sleep, but still weak and nerveless, came on deck to witness a harrowing sight. the _afghan prince_ was coming toward the anchorage before a brisk southeast wind. astern of her, held by the heavy iron chain, was their schooner. moored to her, one on each side, were two garbage-scows; and at the head of the parade, pretending to tow them all,--puffing, rolling, and smoking in the effort to keep a strain on the tow-line,--and tooting joyously with her whistle, was a little, dingy tugboat, with a large gilt name on her pilot-house--_j. c. hawks_. between the millstones he stood before the recruiting officer, trembling with nervousness, anxious of face, and clothed in rags; but he was clean, for, knowing the moral effect of cleanliness, he had lately sought the beach and taken a swim. "want to enlist?" asked the officer, taking his measure with trained eye. "yes, sir; i read you wanted men in the navy." "want seamen, firemen, and landsmen. what's your occupation? you look like a tramp." "yes," he answered bitterly, "i'm a tramp. that's all they'd let me be. i used to be a locomotive engineer--before the big strike. then they blacklisted me, and i've never had a job above laborin' work since. it's easy to take to the road and stay at it when you find you can't make over a dollar a day at back-breakin' work after earnin' three and four at the throttle. an engineer knows nothin' but his trade, sir. take it away, and he's a laborin' man. "i'd ha' worked and learned another, but they jailed me--put me in choky, 'cause i had no visible means o' support. i had no money, and was a criminal under the law. and they kept at it,--jailed me again and again as a vagrant,--when all i wanted was work. after a while i didn't care. but now's my chance, sir, if you'll take me on. i don't know much about boats and the sea, but i can fire an engine, and know something about steam." "a fireman's work on board a war-vessel is very different from that of a locomotive fireman," said the officer, leaning back in his chair. "i know, sir; that may be," the tramp replied eagerly; "but i can shovel coal, and i can learn, and i can work. i'm not very strong now, 'cause i haven't had much to eat o' late years; but i'm not a drinkin' man--why, that costs more than grub. give me a chance, sir; i'm an american; i'm sick o' bein' hunted from jail to jail, like a wild animal, just 'cause i can't be satisfied with pick-and-shovel work. i've spent half o' the last five years in jail as a vagrant. i put in a month at fernandina, and then i was chased out o' town. they gave me two months at cedar keys, and i came here, only to get a month more in this jail. i got out this mornin', and was told by the copper who pinched me to get out o' pensacola or he'd run me in again. and he's outside now waitin' for me. i dodged past 'im to get in." "pass this man in to the surgeon," said the officer, with something like a sympathetic snort in the tone of his voice; for he also was an american. an orderly escorted him to the surgeon, who examined him and passed him. then the recruit signed his name to a paper. "emaciated," wrote the surgeon in his daily report; "body badly nourished, and susceptible to any infection. shows slight febrile symptoms, which should be attended to. an intelligent man; with good food and care will become valuable." the tramp marched to the receiving-ship with a squad of other recruits, and on the way smiled triumphantly into the face of a mulatto policeman, who glared at him. he had signed his name on a piece of paper, and the act had changed his status. from a hunted fugitive and habitual criminal he had become a defender of his country's honor--a potential hero. on board the receiving-ship he was given an outfit of clothes and bedding; but before he had learned more than the correct way to lash his hammock and tie his silk neckerchief he was detailed for sea duty, and with a draft of men went to key west in a navy-yard tug; for war was on, and the fleet blockading havana needed men. at key west he was appointed fireman on a torpedo-boat, where his work--which he soon learned--was to keep up steam in a tubular boiler. but he learned nothing of the rest of the boat, her business, or the reason of her construction. seasickness prevented any assertion of curiosity at first, and later the febrile symptoms which the examining surgeon had noted developed in him until he could think of nothing else. there being no doctor aboard to diagnose his case, he was jeered by his fellows, and kept at work until he dropped; then he took to his hammock. shooting pains darted through him, centering in his head, while his throat was dry and his thirst tormenting. life on a torpedo-boat engaged in despatch duty and rushing through a gulf stream sea at thirty knots is torture to a healthy, nervous system. it sent this sick man into speedy delirium. he could eat very little, but he drank all the water that was given him. moaning and muttering, tossing about in his hammock, never asleep, but sometimes unconscious, at other times raving, and occasionally lucid, he presented a problem which demanded solution. his emaciated face, flushed at first, had taken on a peculiar bronzed appearance, and there were some who declared that it was yellow jack. but nothing could be done until they reached the fleet and could interview a cruiser with a surgeon. the sick man solved the problem. he scrambled out of his hammock at daylight in the morning and dressed himself in his blue uniform, carefully tying his black neckerchief in the regulation knot. then, muttering the while, he gained the deck. the boat was charging along at full speed, throwing aside a bow wave nearly as high as herself. three miles astern, just discernible in the half-light, was a pursuing ram-bowed gunboat, spitting shot and shell; and forward near the conning-tower were two blue-coated, brass-buttoned officers, watching the pursuer through binoculars. the crazed brain of the sick man took cognizance of nothing but the blue coats and brass buttons. he did not look for locust clubs and silver shields. these were policemen--his deadliest enemies; but he would escape them this time. with a yell he went overboard, and, being no swimmer, would have drowned had not one of the blue-coated officers flung a lifebuoy. he came to the surface somewhat saner, and seized the white ring, which supported him, while the torpedo-boat rushed on. she could not stop for one man in time of war, with a heavily armed enemy so near. a twenty-knot gunboat cannot chase a thirty-knot torpedo-boat very long without losing her below the horizon; but this pursuit lasted ten minutes from the time the sick man went overboard before the gunboat ceased firing and slackened speed. the quarry was five miles away, out of spanish range, and the floating man directly under her bow. he was seen and taken on board, with spanish profanity sounding in his unregarding ears. he lay on the deck, a bedraggled heap, gibbering and shivering, while a surgeon, with cotton in his nostrils and smelling-salts in his hand, diagnosed his case. then the gunboat headed north and dropped anchor in the bight of a small, crescent-shaped sand-key of the florida reef. for the diagnosis was such as to suggest prompt action. two brave men bundled him into the dinghy, lowered it, pulled ashore, and laid him on the sand. returning, they stripped and threw away their clothing, sank the boat with a buoy on the painter, took a swim, and climbed aboard to be further disinfected. then the gunboat lifted her anchor and steamed eastward, her officers watching through glasses a small, low torpedo-boat, far to the southeast,--too far to be reached by gun fire,--which was steering a parallel course, and presumably watching the gunboat. an idiot, a lunatic, with bloodshot eyes glaring from a yellow face, raved, rolled, and staggered bareheaded under the sun about the sandy crescent until sundown, then fell prostrate and unconscious into the water on the beach, luckily turning over so that his nostrils were not immersed. the tide went down, leaving him damp and still on the sands. in about an hour a sigh, followed by a deep, gasping breath, escaped him; another long inhalation succeeded, and another; then came steady, healthy breathing and childlike sleep, with perspiration oozing from every pore. he had passed a crisis. about midnight the cloudy sky cleared and the tropic stars came out, while the tide climbed the beach again, and lapped at the sleeping man's feet; but he did not waken, even when the spanish gunboat stole slowly into the bay from the sea and dropped anchor with a loud rattling of chain in the hawse-pipe. a boat was lowered, and a single man sculled it ashore; then lifting out a small cask and bag, he placed them high on the sands and looked around. spying the sleeping man, half immersed now, he approached and felt of the damp clothing and equally damp face. not noticing that he breathed softly, the man crossed himself, then moved quickly and nervously toward his boat, muttering, "muerto, muerto!" pushing out, he sculled rapidly toward the anchored craft, and disposed of the boat and his clothing as had been done before; then he swam to the gangway and climbed aboard. shortly after, the sleeping man, roused by the chill of the water, crawled aimlessly up the sand and slept again--safe beyond the tide-line. in three hours he sat up and rubbed his eyes, half awake, but sane. strange sights and sounds puzzled him. he knew nothing of this starlit beach and stretch of sparkling water--nothing of that long black craft at anchor, with the longer beam of white light reaching over the sea from her pilot-house. he could only surmise that she was a war-vessel from the ram-bow,--a feature of the government model which had impressed him at key west,--and from the noise she was making. she quivered in a maze of flickering red flashes, and the rattling din of her rapid-fire and machine guns transcended in volume all the roadside blastings he had heard in his wanderings. dazed and astonished, he rose to his feet, but, too weak to stand, sat down again and looked. half a mile seaward, where the beam of light ended, a small craft, low down between two crested waves, was speeding toward the gunboat in the face of her fire. the water about her was lashed into turmoil by the hail of projectiles; but she kept on, at locomotive speed, until within a thousand feet of the gunboat, when she turned sharply to starboard, doubled on her track, and raced off to sea, still covered by the search-light and followed by shot and shell while the gunners could see her. when the gun fire ceased, a hissing of steam could be heard in the distance, and a triumphant spanish yell answered. the small enemy had been struck, and the gunboat slipped her cable and followed. the tired brain could not cope with the problem, and again the man slept, to awaken at sunrise with ravenous hunger and thirst, and a memory of what seemed to be horrible dreams,--vague recollections of painful experiences,--torturing labor with aching muscles and blistered hands; harsh words and ridicule from strong, bearded men; and running through and between, the shadowy figures of blue-coated, brass-buttoned men, continually ordering him on, and threatening arrest. the spectacle of the night was as dream-like as the rest; for he remembered nothing of the gunboat which had rescued and marooned him. his face had lost its yellowish-bronze color, but was pale and emaciated as ever, while his sunken eyes held the soft light which always comes of extreme physical suffering. he was too weak to remain on his feet, but in the effort to do so he spied the cask and bag higher up on the beach and crawled to them. prying a plug from the bunghole with his knife, he found water, sweet and delicious, which he drank by rolling the cask carefully and burying his lips in the overflow. evidently some one in authority on the gunboat had decreed that he should not die of hunger or thirst, for the bag contained hard bread. stronger after a meal, he climbed the highest sand-dune and studied the situation. an outcropping of coral formed the backbone of the thin crescent which held him, and which was about half a mile between the points. to the south, opening out from the bay, was a clear stretch of sea, green in the sunlight, deep blue in the shadows of the clouds, and on the horizon were a few sails and smoke columns. west and east were other sandy islets and coral reefs, and to the north a continuous line of larger islands which might be inhabited, but gave no indication of it. out in the bay, bobbing to the heave of the slight ground-swell, were the three white buoys left by the spaniards to mark the sunken boats and slipped cable; and far away on the beach, just within the western point, was something long and round, which rolled in the gentle surf and glistened in the sunlight. he knew nothing of buoys, but they relieved his loneliness; they were signs of human beings, who must have placed him there with the bread and water, and who might come for him. "wonder if i got pinched again, and this is some new kind of a choky," he mused. "been blamed sick and silly, and must ha' lost the job and got jailed again. just my luck! s'pose the jug was crowded and they run me out here. wish they'd left me a hat. wonder how long i'm in for this time." he descended to the beach and found that repeated wettings of his hair relieved him from the headache that the sun's heat was bringing on; and satisfied that the strong hand of local law had again closed over him, he resigned himself to the situation, resenting only the absence of a shade-tree or a hat. "much better 'n the calaboose in el paso," he muttered, "or the brickyard in chicago." as he lolled on the sand, the glistening thing over at the western point again caught his eye. after a moment's scrutiny he rose and limped toward it, following the concave of the beach, and often pausing to rest and bathe his head. it was a long journey for him, and the tide, at half-ebb when he started, was rising again when he came abreast of the object and sat down to look at it. it was of metal, long and round, rolling nearly submerged, and held by the alternate surf and undertow parallel with the beach, about twenty feet out. he waded in, grasped it by a t-shaped projection in the middle, and headed it toward the shore. then he launched it forward with all his strength--not much, but enough to lift a bluntly pointed end out of water as it grounded and exposed a small, four-bladed steel wheel, shaped something like a windmill. he examined this, but could not understand it, as it whirled freely either way and seemed to have no internal connection. the strange cylinder was about sixteen feet long and about eighteen inches in diameter. "boat o' some kind," he muttered; "but what kind? that screw's too small to make it go. let's see the other end." he launched it with difficulty, and noticed that when floating end on to the surf it ceased to roll and kept the t-shaped projection uppermost, proving that it was ballasted. swinging it, he grounded the other end, which was radically different in appearance. it was long and finely pointed, with four steel blades or vanes, two horizontal and two vertical,--like the double tails of an ideal fish,--and in hollowed parts of these vanes were hung a pair of unmistakable propellers, one behind the other, and of opposite pitch and motion. "one works on the shaft, t' other on a sleeve," he mused, as he turned them. "a roundhouse wiper could see that. bevel-gearin' inside, i guess. it's a boat, sure enough, and this reverse action must be to keep her from rolling." on each of the four vanes he found a small blade, showing by its connection that it possessed range of action, yet immovable as the vane itself, as though held firmly by inner leverage. those on the horizontal vanes were tilted upward. just abaft the t-shaped projection--which, fastened firmly to the hull, told him nothing of its purpose--were numerous brass posts buried flush with the surface, in each of which was a square hole, as though intended to be turned with a key or crank. some were marked with radiating lines and numbers, and they evidently controlled the inner mechanism, part of which he could see--little brass cog-wheels, worms, and levers--through a fore-and-aft slot near the keyholes. rising from the forward end of this slot, and lying close to the metal hull in front of it, was a strong lever of brass, l-shaped, connected internally, and indicating to his trained mechanical mind that its only sphere of action was to lift up and sink back into the slot. he fingered it, but did not yet try to move it. a little to the left of this lever was a small blade of steel, curved to fit the convex hull,--which it hugged closely,--and hinged at its forward edge. this, too, must have a purpose,--an internal connection,--and he did not disturb it until he had learned more. to the right of the brass lever was an oblong hatch about eight inches long, flush with the hull, and held in place by screws. three seams, with lines of screws, encircled the round hull, showing that it was constructed in four sections; and these screws, with those in the hatch, were strong and numerous--placed there to stay. fatigued from his exertion, he moistened his hair, sat down, and watched the incoming tide swing the craft round parallel with the beach. as the submerged bow raised to a level with the stern, he noticed that the small blades on the horizontal vanes dropped from their upward slant to a straight line with the vanes. "rudders," he said, "horizontal rudders. can't be anything else." with his chin in his hand and his wrinkled brow creased with deeper corrugations, he put his mind through a process of inductive reasoning. "horizontal rudders," he mused, "must be to keep her from diving, or to make her dive. they work automatically, and i s'pose the vertical rudders are the same. there's nothing outside to turn 'em with. that boat isn't made to ride in,--no way to get into her,--and she isn't big enough, anyhow. and as you can't get into her, that brass lever must be what starts and stops her. wonder what the steel blade's for. 't isn't a handy shape for a lever,--to be handled with fingers,--too sharp; but it has work to do, or it wouldn't be there. that section o' railroad iron on top must be to hang the boat by,--a traveler,--when she's out o' water. "and the fan-wheel on the nose--what's that for? if it's a speed or distance indicator, the dial's inside, out o' sight. there's no exhaust, so the motive power can't be steam. clockwork or electricity, maybe. mighty fine workmanship all through! that square door is fitted in for keeps, and she must ha' cost a heap. now, as she has horizontal rudders, she's intended to steer up and down; and as there's no way to get into her or to stay on her, and as she can't be started from the inside or steered from the outside, i take it she's a model o' one o' those submarine boats i've heard of--some fellow's invention that's got away from him. guess i'll try that lever and see what happens. i'll bury the propellers, though; no engine ought to race." he pushed the craft into deeper water, pointed it shoreward, and cautiously lifted the curved blade to a perpendicular position, as high as it would go. nothing happened. he lowered it, raised it again,--it worked very easily,--then, leaving it upright, he threw the long brass lever back into the slot. a slight humming came from within, the propellers revolved slowly, and the craft moved ahead until the bow grounded. then he followed and lifted the lever out of the slot to its first position, shutting off the power. delighted with his success, he backed it out farther than before and again threw back the brass lever, this time with the curved blade down flat on the hull. with the sinking of the lever into the slot the mechanism within gave forth a rushing sound, the propellers at the stern threw up a mound of foam, and the craft shot past him, dived until it glanced on the sandy bottom, then slid a third of its length out of water on the beach and stopped, the propellers still churning, and the small wheel on the nose still spinning with the motion given it by the water. "air-pressure!" he exclaimed, as he shut it off. he had seen a line of bubbles rise as the thing dived. "an air-engine, and the whole thing must be full o' compressed air. the brass lever turns it on, and if the steel blade's up it gives it the slow motion; if it's down, she gets full speed at once. now i know why it's blade-shaped. it's so the water itself can push it down--after she starts." he did not try to launch it; he waited until the tide floated it, then pushed it along the beach toward his store of food, arriving at high water too exhausted to do more that day than ground his capture and break hard bread. and as the afternoon drew to a close the fatigue in his limbs became racking pain; either as a result of his exposure, or as a later symptom of the fever, he was now in the clutch of a new enemy--rheumatism. then, with the coming of night came a return of his first violent symptoms; he was hot, shivery, and feverish by turns, with dry tongue and throat, and a splitting headache; but in this condition he could still take cognizance of a black, ram-bowed gunboat, which stole into the bay from the east and dropped anchor near the buoys. a half-moon shone in the western sky, and by its light the steamer presented an unkempt, broken appearance, even to the untrained eye of this castaway. her after-funnel was but half as high as the other; there were gaps in her iron rail, and vacancies below the twisted davits where boats should be; and her pilot-house was wrecked--the starboard door and nearest window merged in a large, ragged hole. officers on the bridge gave orders in foreign speech, in tones which came shoreward faintly. men sprang overboard with ropes, which they fastened to the buoys; then they swam back, and for an hour or two the whole crew was busy getting the boats to the davits and the end of the cable into the hawse-pipe. the man on the beach recognized the craft he had seen when he wakened. he felt that she must in some way be connected with his being there, and he waited, expecting to see a boat put off; but when both boats were hoisted and he heard the humming of a steam-windlass, he gave up this expectation and tried to hail. his voice could not rise above a hoarse whisper. the anchor was fished, and after an interval he heard the windlass again, heaving in the other chain. they were going away--going to leave him there to die. he crawled and stumbled down to the water's edge. the tide was up again, rippling around the strange thing he had resolved to navigate. it was not a boat, but it would go ahead, and it would float--it would possibly float him. with strength born of desperation and fear, he pushed it, inch by inch, into the water until it was clear of the sand, and tried the engine on the slow motion. the propellers turned and satisfied him. he shut off the power, swung the thing round until it pointed toward the steamer, and seated himself astride of it, just abaft the t-shaped projection in the middle. the long cylinder sank with him, and when it had steadied to a balance between his weight and its buoyancy he found that it bore him, shoulders out; and the position he had taken--within reach of the levers behind him--lifted the blunt nose higher than the stern, but not out of water. this was practicable. he reached behind, raised the blade lever, threw back the large brass lever, and the craft went ahead, at about the speed of a healthy man's walk. he kept his left hand on the blade lever to hold it up, and by skilful paddling with his right maintained his balance and assisted his legs in steering. he had never learned to swim, but he felt less fear of drowning than of slow death on the island. in five minutes he was near enough to the steamer to read her name. he pulled the starting-lever forward, stopping his headway; for he must be sure of his welcome. "say, boss," he called faintly and hoarsely, "take me along, can't you? or else gi' me some medicine. i'm blamed sick--i'll die if i stay here." the noise of the windlass and chain prevented this being heard, but at last, after repeated calls on his part, a spanish howl went up from amidships, and a sailor sprang from one of the boats to the deck, crossed himself, and pointing to the man in the water, ran forward. "madre de dios!" he yelled. "el aparecido del muerto." work stopped, and a call down a hatchway stopped the windlass. in ports and dead-lights appeared faces; and those on deck, officers and men, crowded to the rail, some to cross themselves, some to sink on their knees, others to grip the rail tightly, while they stared in silence at the torso and livid face in the moonlight on the sea--the ghastly face of the man they had marooned to die alone, who had been seen later dead on the beach. "take me with you, boss," he pleaded with his weak voice. "i'm sick; i can't hold on much longer." it was not the dead man's body washed out from the beach, for it moved, it spoke. and it was not a living man; no man may recover from advanced yellow fever, and this man had been found afterward, dead--cold and still. and no living man may swim in this manner--high out of water, patting and splashing with one hand. it was a ghost. it had come to punish them. "por qué nos atormentan así, hombre, deja?" cried a white-faced officer. "can't you hear me?" asked the apparition. "i'll come closer." he threw back the starting-lever, and the thing began moving. then a rifle-barrel protruded from a dead-light. there was a report and a flash, and a bullet passed through his hair. the shock startled him, and he lost his balance. in the effort to recover it his leg knocked down the blade lever, and the steel cylinder sprang forward, leaving him floundering in the water. pointed upward, it appeared for a moment on the surface, then dived like a porpoise and disappeared. in five seconds something happened to the gunboat. coincident with a sound like near-by thunder, the black craft lifted amidships like a bending jack-knife, and up from the shattered deck, and out from ports, doors, and dead-lights, came a volcano of flame and smoke. the sea beneath followed in a mound, which burst like a great bubble, sending a cloud of steam and spray and whitish-yellow smoke aloft to mingle with the first and meet the falling fragments. these fell for several seconds--hatches, gratings, buckets, ladders, splinters of wood, parts of men, and men whole, but limp. a side-ladder fell near the choking and half-stunned sick man, and he seized it. before he could crawl on top the two halves of the gunboat had sunk in a swirl of bubbles and whirlpools. a few broken and bleeding swimmers approached to share his support, saw his awful face in the moonlight, and swam away. a few hours later a gray cruiser loomed up close by and directed a search-light at him. then a gray cutter full of white-clad men approached and took him off the ladder. he was delirious again, and bleeding from mouth, nose, and ears. * * * * * the surgeon and the torpedo-lieutenant came up from the sick-bay, the latter with enthusiasm on his face,--for he was young,--and joined a group of officers on the quarterdeck. "he'll pull through, gentlemen," said the surgeon. "he is the man mosher lost overboard, though he doesn't know anything about it, nor how he got on that sand-key. i suppose the _destructor_ picked him up and landed him. he found bread and water, he says. you see, the first symptoms are similar in yellow jack and relapsing bilious fever. i don't wonder that mosher was nervous." "then it _was_ the _destructor_?" asked an ensign, pulling out a note-book and a pencil. "and lieutenant mosher was right, after all?" "yes; this man read her name before she blew up; and a spanish sailor has waked up and confirmed it. she was the _destructor_, just over, and trying to get into havana. instead of blowing up in algeciras bay, as they thought, she had left with despatches for havana, only to blow up on the florida reef." "the _destructor_," said the ensign, as he pocketed his note-book and pencil, "carried fifty-five men. don't we get the bounty as the nearest craft?" "not much," said the young and enthusiastic torpedo-lieutenant. "we were not even within signal distance, and came along by accident. listen, all of you. when an american war-craft sinks or destroys a larger enemy, there is a bounty due her crew of two hundred dollars for every man on board the enemy. that is law, isn't it?" they nodded. "if a submarine boat can be a war-craft, so may a whitehead torpedo, and certainly is one, being built for war. a war-craft abandoned is a derelict, and the man who finds her becomes her lawful commander for the time. if he belongs to the navy his position is strengthened, and if he is alone he is not only commander, but the whole crew, and consequently he is entitled to all the bounty she may earn. that is law. "now, listen hard. lieutenant mosher sent one torpedo at the gunboat; it missed and became derelict, while mosher escaped under one boiler. this man found the derelict adrift, puzzled out the action, waited until the gunboat came back for her anchor, then straddled his craft, and rode out with the water-tripper up. they shot at him. he turned his dog loose and destroyed the enemy. if the _destructor_ carried fifty-five men he is entitled to eleven thousand dollars, and the government must pay, for that is law." the battle of the monsters extract from hospital record of the case of john anderson, patient of dr. brown, ward , room : august . arrived at hospital in extreme mental distress, having been bitten on wrist three hours previously by dog known to have been rabid. large, strong man, full-blooded and well nourished. sanguine temperament. pulse and temperature higher than normal, due to excitement. cauterized wound at once ( p.m.) and inoculated with antitoxin. as patient admits having recently escaped, by swimming ashore, from lately arrived cholera ship, now at quarantine, he has been isolated and clothing disinfected. watch for symptoms of cholera. august , p.m. microscopic examination of blood corroborative of metschnikoff's theory of fighting leucocytes. white corpuscles gorged with bacteria. he was an amphibian, and, as such, undeniably beautiful; for the sunlight, refracted and diffused in the water, gave his translucent, pearl-blue body all the shifting colors of the spectrum. vigorous and graceful of movement, in shape he resembled a comma of three dimensions, twisted, when at rest, to a slight spiral curve; but in traveling he straightened out with quick successive jerks, each one sending him ahead a couple of lengths. supplemented by the undulatory movement of a long continuation of his tail, it was his way of swimming, good enough to enable him to escape his enemies; this, and riding at anchor in a current by his cable-like appendage, constituting his main occupation in life. the pleasure of eating was denied him; nature had given him a mouth, but he used it only for purposes of offense and defense, absorbing his food in a most unheard-of manner--through the soft walls of his body. yet he enjoyed a few social pleasures. though the organs of the five senses were missing in his economy, he possessed an inner sixth sense which answered for all and also gave him power of speech. he would converse, swap news and views, with creatures of his own and other species, provided that they were of equal size and prowess; but he wasted no time on any but his social peers. smaller creatures he pursued when they annoyed him; larger ones pursued him. the sunlight, which made him so beautiful to look at, was distasteful to him; it also made him too visible. he preferred a half-darkness and less fervor to life's battle--time to judge of chances, to figure on an enemy's speed and turning-circle, before beginning flight or pursuit. but his dislike of it really came of a stronger animus--a shuddering recollection of three hours once passed on dry land in a comatose condition, which had followed a particularly long and intense period of bright sunlight. he had never been able to explain the connection, but the awful memory still saddened his life. and now it seemed, as he swam about, that this experience might be repeated. the light was strong and long-continued, the water uncomfortably warm, and the crowd about him denser--so much so as to prevent him from attending properly to a social inferior who had crossed his bow. but just as his mind grasped the full imminence of the danger, there came a sudden darkness, a crash and vibration of the water, then a terrible, rattling roar of sound. the social inferior slipped from his mouth, and with his crowding neighbors was washed far away, while he felt himself slipping along, bounding and rebounding against the projections of a corrugated wall which showed white in the gloom. there was an unpleasant taste to the water, and he became aware of creatures in his vicinity unlike any he had known,--quickly darting little monsters about a tenth as large as himself,--thousands of them, black and horrid to see, each with short, fish-like body and square head like that of a dog; with wicked mouth that opened and shut nervously; with hooked flippers on the middle part, and a bunch of tentacles on the fore that spread out ahead and around. a dozen of them surrounded him menacingly; but he was young and strong, much larger than they, and a little frightened. a blow of his tail killed two, and the rest drew off. the current bore them on until the white wall rounded off and was lost to sight beyond the mass of darting creatures. here was slack water, and with desperate effort he swam back, pushing the small enemies out of his path, meeting some resistance and receiving a few bites, until, in a hollow in the wall, he found temporary refuge and time to think. but he could not solve the problem. he had not the slightest idea where he was or what had happened--who and what were the strange black creatures, or why they had threatened him. his thoughts were interrupted. another vibrant roar sounded, and there was pitch-black darkness; then he was pushed and washed away from his shelter, jostled, bumped, and squeezed, until he found himself in a dimly lighted tunnel, which, crowded as it was with swimmers, was narrow enough to enable him to see both sides at once. the walls were dark brown and blue, broken up everywhere into depressions or caves, some of them so deep as to be almost like blind tunnels. the dog-faced creatures were there--as far as he could see; but besides them, now, were others, of stranger shape--of species unknown to him. a slow current carried them on, and soon they entered a larger tunnel. he swam to the opposite wall, gripped a projection, and watched in wonder and awe the procession gliding by. he soon noticed the source of the dim light. a small creature with barrel-like body and innumerable legs or tentacles, wavering and reaching, floated past. its body swelled and shrank alternately, with every swelling giving out a phosphorescent glow, with every contraction darkening to a faint red color. then came a group of others; then a second living lamp; later another and another: they were evenly distributed, and illumined the tunnel. there were monstrous shapes, living but inert, barely pulsing with dormant life, as much larger than himself as the dog-headed kind were smaller--huge, unwieldy, disk-shaped masses of tissue, light gray at the margins, dark red in the middle. they were in the majority, and blocked the view. darting and wriggling between and about them were horrible forms, some larger than himself, others smaller. there were serpents, who swam with a serpent's motion. some were serpents in form, but were curled rigidly into living corkscrews, and by sculling with their tails screwed their way through the water with surprising rapidity. others were barrel- or globe-shaped, with swarming tentacles. with these they pulled themselves along, in and out through the crowd, or, bringing their squirming appendages rearward,--each an individual snake,--used them as propellers, and swam. there were creatures in the form of long cylinders, some with tentacles by which they rolled along like a log in a tideway; others, without appendages, were as inert and helpless as the huge red-and-gray disks. he saw four ball-shaped creatures float by, clinging together; then a group of eight, then one of twelve. all these, to the extent of their volition, seemed to be in a state of extreme agitation and excitement. the cause was apparent. the tunnel from which he had come was still discharging the dog-faced animals by the thousand, and he knew now the business they were on. it was war--war to the death. they flung themselves with furious energy into the parade, fighting and biting all they could reach. a hundred at a time would pounce on one of the large red-and-gray creatures, almost hiding it from view; then, and before they had passed out of sight, they would fall off and disperse, and the once living victim would come with them, in parts. the smaller, active swimmers fled, but if one was caught, he suffered; a quick dart, a tangle of tentacles, an embrace of the wicked flippers, a bite--and a dead body floated on. and now into the battle came a ponderous engine of vengeance and defense. a gigantic, lumbering, pulsating creature, white and translucent but for the dark, active brain showing through its walls, horrible in the slow, implacable deliberation of its movements, floated down with the current. it was larger than the huge red-and-gray creatures. it was formless, in the full irony of the definition--for it assumed all forms. it was long--barrel-shaped; it shrank to a sphere, then broadened laterally, and again extended above and below. in turn it was a sphere, a disk, a pyramid, a pentahedron, a polyhedron. it possessed neither legs, flippers, nor tentacles; but out from its heaving, shrinking body it would send, now from one spot, now from another, an active arm, or feeler, with which it swam, pulled, or pushed. an unlucky invader which one of them touched made few more voluntary movements; for instantly the whole side of the whitish mass bristled with arms. they seized, crushed, killed it, and then pushed it bodily through the living walls to the animal's interior to serve for food. and the gaping fissure healed at once, like the wounds of milton's warring angels. the first white monster floated down, killing as he went; then came another, pushing eagerly into the fray; then came two, then three, then dozens. it seemed that the word had been passed, and the army of defense was mustering. sick with horror, he watched the grim spectacle from the shelter of the projection, until roused to an active sense of danger to himself--but not from the fighters. he was anchored by his tail, swinging easily in the eddy, and now felt himself touched from beneath, again from above. a projection down-stream was extending outward and toward him. the cave in which he had taken refuge was closing on him like a great mouth--as though directed by an intelligence behind the wall. with a terrified flirt of his tail he flung himself out, and as he drifted down with the combat the walls of the cave crunched together. it was well for him that he was not there. the current was clogged with fragments of once living creatures, and everywhere, darting, dodging, and biting, were the fierce black invaders. but they paid no present attention to him or to the small tentacled animals. they killed the large, helpless red-and-gray kind, and were killed by the larger white monsters, each moment marking the death and rending to fragments of a victim, and the horrid interment of fully half his slayers. the tunnel grew larger, as mouth after mouth of tributary tunnels was passed; but as each one discharged its quota of swimming and drifting creatures, there was no thinning of the crowd. as he drifted on with the inharmonious throng, he noticed what seemed the objective of the war. this was the caves which lined the tunnel. some were apparently rigid, others were mobile. a large red-and-gray animal was pushed into the mouth of one of the latter, and the walls instantly closed; then they opened, and the creature drifted out, limp and colorless, but alive; and with him came fragments of the wall, broken off by the pressure. this happened again and again, but the large creature was never quite killed--merely squeezed. the tentacled non-combatants and the large white fighters seemed to know the danger of these tunnel mouths, possibly from bitter experiences, for they avoided the walls; but the dog-faced invaders sought this death, and only fought on their way to the caves. sometimes two, often four or more, would launch themselves together into a hollow, but to no avail; their united strength could not prevent the closing in of the mechanical maw, and they were crushed and flung out, to drift on with other debris. soon the walls could not be seen for the pushing, jostling crowd, but everywhere the terrible, silent war went on until there came a time when fighting ceased; for each must look out for himself. they seemed to be in an immense cave, and the tide was broken into cross-currents rushing violently to the accompaniment of rhythmical thunder. they were shaken, jostled, pushed about and pushed together, hundreds of the smaller creatures dying from the pressure. then there was a moment of comparative quiet, during which fighting was resumed, and there could be seen the swiftly flying walls of a large tunnel. next they were rushed through a labyrinth of small caves with walls of curious, branching formation, sponge-like and intricate. it required energetic effort to prevent being caught in the meshes, and the large red-and-gray creatures were sadly torn and crushed, while the white ones fought their way through by main strength. again the flying walls of a tunnel, again a mighty cave, and the cross-currents, and the rhythmical thunder, and now a wild charge down an immense tunnel, the wall of which surged outward and inward, in unison with the roaring of the thunder. the thunder died away in the distance, though the walls still surged--even those of a smaller tunnel which divided the current and received them. down-stream the tunnel branched again and again, and with the lessening of the diameter was a lessening of the current's velocity, until, in a maze of small, short passages, the invaders, content to fight and kill in the swifter tide, again attacked the caves. but to the never-changing result: they were crushed, mangled, and cast out, the number of suicides, in this neighborhood, largely exceeding those killed by the white warriors. and yet, in spite of the large mortality among them, the attacking force was increasing. where one died two took his place; and the reason was soon made plain--they were reproducing. a black fighter, longer than his fellows, a little sluggish of movement, as though from the restrictive pressure of a large, round protuberance in his middle, which made him resemble a snake which had swallowed an egg, was caught by a white monster and instantly embraced by a multitude of feelers. he struggled, bit, and broke in two; then the two parts escaped the grip of the astonished captor, and wriggled away, the protuberance becoming the head of the rear portion, which immediately joined the fight, snapping and biting with unmistakable jaws. this phenomenon was repeated. and on went the battle. illumined by the living lamps, and watched by terrified non-combatants, the horrid carnival continued with never-slacking fury and ever-changing background--past the mouths of tributary tunnels which increased the volume and velocity of the current and added to the fighting strength, on through widening archways to a repetition of the cross-currents, the thunder, and the sponge-like maze, down past the heaving walls of larger tunnels to branched passages, where, in comparative slack water, the siege of the caves was resumed. for hour after hour this went on, the invaders dying by hundreds, but increasing by thousands and ten thousands, as the geometrical progression advanced, until, with swimming-spaces nearly choked by their bodies, living and dead, there came the inevitable turn in the tide of battle. a white monster was killed. glutted with victims, exhausted and sluggish, he was pounced upon by hundreds, hidden from view by a living envelop of black, which pulsed and throbbed with his death-throes. a feeler reached out, to be bitten off; then another, to no avail. his strength was gone, and the assailants bit and burrowed until they reached a vital part, when the great mass assumed a spherical form and throbbed no more. they dropped off, and, as the mangled ball floated on, charged on the next enemy with renewed fury and courage born of their victory. this one died as quickly. and as though it had been foreseen, and a policy arranged to meet it, the white army no longer fought in the open, but lined up along the walls to defend the immovable caves. they avoided the working jaws of the other kind, which certainly needed no garrison, and drifting slowly in the eddies, fought as they could, with decreasing strength and increasing death-rate. and thus it happened that our conservative non-combatant, out in midstream, found himself surrounded by a horde of black enemies who had nothing better to do than attack him. and they did. as many as could crowd about him closed their wicked jaws in his flesh. squirming with pain, rendered trebly strong by his terror, he killed them by twos and threes as he could reach them with his tail. he shook them off with nervous contortions, only to make room for more. he plunged, rolled, launched himself forward and back, up and down, out and in, bending himself nearly double, then with lightning rapidity throwing himself far into the reverse curve. he was fighting for his life, and knew it. when he could, he used his jaws, only once to an enemy. he saw dimly at intervals that the white monsters were watching him; but none offered to help, and he had not time to call. he thought that he must have become the object of the war; for from all sides they swarmed, crowding about him, seeking a place on which to fasten their jaws. little by little the large red-and-gray creatures, the non-combatants, and the phosphorescent animals were pushed aside, and he, the center of an almost solid black mass, fought, in utter darkness, with the fury of extreme fright. he had no appreciation of the passing of time, no knowledge of his distance from the wall, or the destination of this never-pausing current. but finally, after an apparently interminable period, he heard dimly, with failing consciousness, the reverberations of the thunder, and knew momentary respite as the violent cross-currents tore his assailants away. then, still in darkness, he felt the crashing and tearing of flesh against obstructing walls and sharp corners, the repetition of thunder and the roar of the current which told him he was once more in a large tunnel. an instant of light from a venturesome torch showed him to his enemies, and again he fought, like a whale in his last flurry, slowly dying from exhaustion and pain, but still potential to kill--terrible in his agony. there was no counting of scalps in that day's work; but perhaps no devouring white monster in all the defensive army could have shown a death-list equal to this. from the surging black cloud there was a steady outflow of the dead, pushed back by the living. weaker and weaker, while they mangled his flesh, and still in darkness, he fought them down through branching passages to another network of small tunnels, where he caught a momentary view of the walls and the stolid white guard, thence on to what he knew was open space. and here he felt that he could fight no more. they had covered him completely, and, try as he might with his failing strength, he could not dislodge them. so he ceased his struggles; and numb with pain, dazed with despair, he awaited the end. but it did not come. he was too exhausted to feel surprise or joy when they suddenly dropped away from him; but the instinct of self-preservation was still in force, and he swam toward the wall. the small creatures paid him no attention; they scurried this way and that, busy with troubles of their own, while he crept stupidly and painfully between two white sentries floating in the eddies,--one of whom considerately made room for him,--and anchored to a projection, luckily choosing a harbor that was not hostile. "any port in a storm, eh, neighbor?" said the one who had given him room, and who seemed to notice his dazed condition. "you'll feel better soon. my, but you put up a good fight, that's what you did!" he could not answer, and the friendly guard resumed his vigil. in a few moments, however, he could take cognizance of what was going on in the stream. there was a new army in the fight, and reinforcements were still coming. a short distance above him was a huge rent in the wall, and the caves around it, crushed and distorted, were grinding fiercely. protruding through the rent and extending half-way across the tunnel was a huge mass of some strange substance, roughly shaped to a cylindrical form. it was hollow, and out of it, by thousands and hundred thousands, was pouring the auxiliary army, from which the black fighters were now fleeing for dear life. the newcomers, though resembling in general form the creatures they pursued, were much larger and of two distinct types. both were light brown in color; but while one showed huge development of head and jaw, with small flippers, the other kind reversed these attributes, their heads being small, but their flippers long and powerful. they ran their quarry down in the open, and seized them with outreaching tentacles. no mistakes were made--no feints or false motions; and there was no resistance by the victims. where one was noticed he was doomed. the tentacles gathered him in--to a murderous bite or a murderous embrace. at last, when the inflow had ceased,--when there must have been millions of the brown killers in the tunnel,--the great hollow cylinder turned slowly on its axis and backed out through the rent in the wall, which immediately closed, with a crushing and scattering of fragments. though the allies were far down-stream now, the war was practically ended; for the white defenders remained near the walls, and the black invaders were in wildest panic, each one, as the resistless current rushed him past, swimming against the stream, to put distance between himself and the destroyer below. but before long an advance-guard of the brown enemy shot out from the tributaries above, and the tide of retreat swung backward. then came thousands of them, and the massacre was resumed. "hot stuff, eh?" said his friendly neighbor to him. "y-y-y-es--i guess so," he answered, rather vacantly; "i don't know. i don't know anything about it. i never saw such doings. what is it all for? what does it mean?" "oh, this is nothing; it's all in a lifetime. still, i admit it might ha' been serious for us--and you, too--if we hadn't got help." "but who are they, and what? they all seem of a family, and are killing each other." "immortal shade of darwin!" exclaimed the other sentry, who had not spoken before. "where were you brought up? don't you know that variations from type are the deadliest enemies of the parent stock? these two brown breeds are the hundredth or two-hundredth cousins of the black kind. when they've killed off their common relative, and get to competing for grub, they'll exterminate each other, and we'll be rid of 'em all. law of nature. understand?" "oh, y-yes, i understand, of course; but what did the black kind attack me for? and what do they want, anyway?" "to follow out their destiny, i s'pose. they're the kind of folks who have missions. reformers, we call 'em--who want to enforce their peculiar ideas and habits on other people. sometimes we call them expansionists--fond of colonizing territory that doesn't belong to them. they wanted to get through the cells to the lymph-passages, thence on to the brain and spinal marrow. know what that means? hydrophobia." "what's that?" "oh, say, now! you're too easy." "come, come," said the other, good-naturedly; "don't guy him. he never had our advantages. you see, neighbor, we get these points from the subjective brain, which knows all things and gives us our instructions. we're the white corpuscles,--phagocytes, the scientists call us,--and our work is to police the blood-vessels, and kill off invaders that make trouble. those red-and-gray chumps can't take care of themselves, and we must protect 'em. understand? but this invasion was too much for us, and we had to have help from outside. you must have come in with the first crowd--think i saw you--in at the bite. second crowd came in through an inoculation tube, and just in time to pull you through." "i don't know," answered our bewildered friend. "in at the bite? what bite? i was swimming round comfortable-like, and there was a big noise, and then i was alongside of a big white wall, and then----" "exactly; the dog's tooth. you got into bad company, friend, and you're well out of it. that first gang is the microbe of rabies, not very well known yet, because a little too small to be seen by most microscopes. all the scientists seem to have learned about 'em is that a colony a few hundred generations old--which they call a culture, or serum--is death on the original bird; and that's what they sent in to help out. pasteur's dead, worse luck, but sometime old koch'll find out what we've known all along--that it's only variation from type." "koch!" he answered eagerly and proudly. "oh, i know koch; i've met him. and i know about microscopes, too. why, koch had me under his microscope once. he discovered my family, and named us--the comma bacilli--the spirilli of asiatic cholera." in silent horror they drew away from him, and then conversed together. other white warriors drifting along stopped and joined the conference, and when a hundred or more were massed before him, they spread out to a semi-spherical formation and closed in. "what's the matter?" he asked nervously. "what's wrong? what are you going to do? i haven't done anything, have i?" "it's not what you've done, stranger," said his quondam friend, "or what we're going to do. it's what you're going to do. you're going to die. don't see how you got past quarantine, anyhow." "what--why--i don't want to die. i've done nothing. all i want is peace and quiet, and a place to swim where it isn't too light nor too dark. i mind my own affairs. let me alone--you hear me--let me alone!" they answered him not. slowly and irresistibly the hollow formation contracted--individuals slipping out when necessary--until he was pushed, still protesting, into the nearest movable cave. the walls crashed together and his life went out. when he was cast forth he was in five pieces. and so our gentle, conservative, non-combative cholera microbe, who only wanted to be left alone to mind his own affairs, met this violent death, a martyr to prejudice and an unsympathetic environment. * * * * * extract from hospital record of the case of john anderson: august . as period of incubation for both cholera and hydrophobia has passed and no initial symptoms of either disease have been noticed, patient is this day discharged, cured. from the royal-yard down as night descended, cold and damp, the wind hauled, and by nine o'clock the ship was charging along before a half-gale and a rising sea from the port quarter. when the watch had braced the yards, the mate ordered the spanker brailed in and the mizzen-royal clued up, as the ship steered hard. this was done, and the men coiled up the gear. "let the spanker hang in the brails; tie up the royal," ordered the mate from his position at the break of the poop. "aye, aye, sir," answered a voice from the group, and an active figure sprang into the rigging. another figure--slim and graceful, clad in long yellow oilskin coat, and a sou'wester which could not confine a tangled fringe of wind-blown hair--left the shelter of the after-companionway and sped along the alley to the mate's side. "the foot-rope, mr. adams," she said hurriedly. "the seizing was chafed, you remember." "by george, miss freda!" said the officer. "forgot all about it. glad you spoke. come down from aloft," he added in a roar. the sailor answered and descended. "get a piece of spun yarn out o' the booby-hatch and take it up wi' you," continued the mate. "pass a temporary seizing on the lee royal foot-rope. make sure it's all right 'fore you get on it, now." "aye, aye, sir." the man passed down the poop steps, secured the spun yarn, and while rolling it into a ball to put in his pocket, stood for a moment in the light shining from the second mate's room. the girl on the poop looked down at him. he was a trim-built, well-favored young fellow, with more refinement in his face than most sailors can show; yet there was no lack of seamanly deftness in the fingers which balled up the spun yarn and threw a half-hitch with the bight of the lanyard over the point of the marlinespike which hung to his neck. as he climbed the steps, the girl faced him, looking squarely into his eyes. "be careful, john--mr. owen," she said. "the seizing is chafed through. i heard the man report it--it was dutch george of the other watch. do be careful." "eh, why--why, yes, miss folsom. thank you. but you startled me. i've been jack for three years--not john, nor mister. yes, it's all right; i----" "get aloft to that mizzenroyal," thundered the mate, now near the wheel. "aye, aye, sir." he touched his sou'wester to the girl and mounted the weather mizzen-rigging, running up the ratlines as a fireman goes up a ladder. it was a black night with cold rain, and having thrown off his oiled jacket, he was already drenched to the skin; but no environment of sunshine, green fields and woodland, and flower-scented air ever made life brighter to him than had the incident of the last few moments; and with every nerve in his body rejoicing in his victory, and her bitter words of four years back crowding his mind as a contrasting background, he danced up and over the futtock-shrouds, up the topmast-rigging, through the crosstrees, and up the topgallant-rigging to where the ratlines ended and he must climb on the runner of the royal-halyards. as the yard was lowered, this was a short climb, and he swung himself upward to the weather yard-arm, where he rolled up one side of the sail with extravagant waste of muscular effort; for she had said he was not a man, and he had proved her wrong: he had conquered himself, and he had conquered her. he hitched the gasket, and crossed over to the lee side, forgetting, in his exhilaration, the object of the spun yarn in his pocket and the marlinespike hung from his neck, stepped out on the foot-rope, passed his hands along the jack-stay to pull himself farther, and felt the foot-rope sink to the sound of snapping strands. the jackstay was torn from his grasp, and he fell, face downward, into the black void beneath. an involuntary shriek began on his lips, but was not finished. he felt that the last atom of air was jarred from his lungs by what he knew was the topgallant-yard, four feet below the royal; and, unable to hold on, with a freezing cold in his veins and at the hair-roots, he experienced in its fullness the terrible sensation of falling,--whirling downward,--clutching wildly at vacancy with stiffened fingers. the first horror past, his mind took on a strange contemplativeness; fear of death gave way to mild curiosity as to the manner of it. would he strike on the lee quarter, or would he go overboard? and might he not catch something? there was rigging below him--the lee royal-backstay stretched farthest out from the mast, and if he brushed it, there was a possible chance. he was now face upward, and with the utmost difficulty moved his eyes,--he could not yet, by any exercise of will or muscle, move his head,--and there, almost within reach, was a dark line, which he knew was the royal-backstay; farther in toward the spars was another--the topgallant-backstay; and within this, two other ropes which he knew for the topgallant-rigging, though he could see no ratlines, nor could he distinguish the lay of the strands; the ropes appeared like solid bars. this, with the fact that he was still but a few feet below the topgallant-yard, surprised him, until it came to him that falling bodies travel over sixteen feet in the first second of descent, which is at a rate too fast for distinct vision, and that the apparent slowness of his falling was but relative--because of the quickness of his mind, which could not wait on a sluggish optic nerve and more sluggish retina. yet he wondered why he could not reach out and grasp the backstay. it seemed as though invisible fetters bound every muscle and joint, though not completely. an intense effort of will resulted in the slow extension of all the fingers of his right hand, and a little straightening of the arm toward the backstay; but not until he had fallen to the level of the upper topsail-yard was this result reached. it did no good; the backstay was now farther away. as it led in a straight line from the royal-masthead to the rail, this meant that he would fall overboard, and the thought comforted him. the concussion would kill him, of course; but no self-pity afflicted him now. he merely considered that she, who had relented, would be spared the sight of him crushed to a pulp on the deck. as he drifted slowly down past the expanse of upper topsail, he noticed that his head was sinking and his body turning so that he would ultimately face forward; but still his arms and legs held their extended position, like those of a speared frog, and the thought recalled to him an incident of his infancy--a frog-hunt with an older playmate, his prowess, success, wet feet, and consequent illness. it had been forgotten for years, but the chain was started, and led to other memories, long dead, which rose before him. his childhood passed in review, with its pleasures and griefs; his school-days, with their sports, conflicts, friends and enemies; college, where he had acquired the polish to make him petted of all but one--and abhorrent to her. almost every person, man or woman, boy or girl, with whom he had conversed in his whole life, came back and repeated the scene; and as he passed the lower topsail-yard, nearly head downward, he was muttering commonplaces to a brown-faced, gray-eyed girl, who listened, and looked him through and through, and seemed to be wondering why he existed. and as he traversed the depth of the lower topsail, turning gradually on his axis, he lived it over--next to his first voyage, the most harrowing period of his life: the short two months during which he had striven vainly to impress this simple-natured sailor-girl with his good qualities, ending at last with his frantic declaration of a love that she did not want. "but it's not the least use, john," she said to him. "i do not love you, and i cannot. you are a gentleman, as they say, and as such i like you well enough; but i never can love you, nor any one like you. i've been among men, real men, all my life, and perhaps have ideals that are strange to you. john,"--her eyes were wide open in earnestness,--"you are not a man." writhing under her words, which would have been brutal spoken by another, he cursed, not her, nor himself, but his luck and the fates that had shaped his life. and next she was showing him the opened door, saying that she could tolerate profanity in a man, but not in a gentleman, and that under no circumstances was he to claim her acquaintance again. then followed the snubbing in the street, when, like a lately whipped dog, he had placed himself in her way, hoping she would notice him; and the long agony of humiliation and despair as his heart and soul followed her over the seas in her father's ship, until the seed she had planted--the small suspicion that her words were true--developed into a wholesome conviction that she had measured him by a higher standard than any he had known, and found him wanting. so he would go to her school, and learn what she knew. with lightning-like rapidity his mind rehearsed the details of his tuition: the four long voyages; the brutality of the officers until he had learned his work; their consideration and rough kindness when he had become useful and valuable; the curious, incongruous feeling of self-respect that none but able seamen feel; the growth in him of an aggressive physical courage; the triumphant satisfaction with which he finally knew himself as a complete man, clean in morals and mind, able to look men in the face. and then came the moment when, mustering at the capstan with the new crew of her father's ship, he had met her surprised eyes with a steady glance, and received no recognition. and so he pleaded his cause, dumbly, by the life that he lived. asking nothing by word or look, he proved himself under her eyes--first on deck; first in the rigging; the best man at a weather-earing; the best at the wheel; quick, obedient, intelligent, and respectful, winning the admiration of his mates, the jealous ill will of the officers, but no sign of interest or approval from her until to-night--the ninety-second day of the passage. she had surrendered; he had reached her level, only to die; and he thought this strange. facing downward, head inboard now, and nearly horizontal, he was passing the cross-jack yard. below him was the sea--black and crisp, motionless as though carved in ebony. neither was there movement of the ship and its rigging; the hanging bights of ropes were rigid, while a breaking sea just abaft the main chains remained poised, curled, its white crest a frozen pillow of foam. "the rapidity of thought," he mused dreamily; "but i'm falling fast enough--fast enough to kill me when i strike." he could not move an eyelid now, nor was he conscious that he breathed; but, being nearly upright, facing aft and inboard, the quarter-deck and its fittings were before his eyes, and he saw what brought him out of eternity to a moment of finite time and emotion. the helmsman stood at the motionless wheel with his right hand poised six inches above a spoke, as though some sudden paralysis gripped him, and his face, illumined by the binnacle light, turned aloft inquiringly. but it was not this. standing at the taffrail, one hand on a life-buoy, was a girl in yellow looking at him,--unspeakable horror in the look,--and around her waist the arm of the mate, on whose rather handsome face was an evil grin. a pang of earthly rage and jealousy shot through him, and he wished to live. by a supreme effort of will he brought his legs close together and his arms straight above his head; then the picture before him shot upward, and he was immersed in cold salt water, with blackness all about him. how long he remained under he could not guess. he had struck feet first and suffered no harm, but had gone down like a deep-sea lead. he felt the aching sensation in his lungs coming from suppressed breathing, and swam blindly in the darkness, not knowing in which direction was the surface, until he felt the marlinespike--still fastened to his neck--extending off to the right. sure that it must hang downward, he turned the other way, and, keeping it parallel with his body, swam with bursting lungs, until he felt air upon his face and knew that he could breathe. in choking sobs and gasps his breath came and went, while he paddled with hands and feet, glad of his reprieve; and when his lungs worked normally, he struck out for a white, circular life-buoy, not six feet away. "bless her for this," he prayed, as he slipped it under his arms. his oilskin trousers were cumbersome, and with a little trouble he shed them. he was alive, and his world was again in motion. seas lifted and dropped him, occasionally breaking over his head. in the calm of the hollows, he listened for voices of possible rescuers. on the tops of the seas,--ears filled with the roar of the gale,--he shouted, facing to leeward, and searching with strained eyes for sign of the ship or one of her boats. at last he saw a pin-point of light far away, and around it and above it blacker darkness, which was faintly shaped to the outline of a ship and canvas--hove to in the trough, with maintopsail aback, as he knew by its foreshortening. and even as he looked and shouted it faded away. he screamed and cursed, for he wanted to live. he had survived that terrible fall, and it was his right. something white showed on the top of a sea to leeward and sank in a hollow. he sank with it, and when he rose again it was nearer. "boat ahoy!" he sang out. "boat ahoy!--this way--port a little--steady." he swam as he could, cumbered by the life-buoy, and with every heaving sea the boat came nearer. at last he recognized it--the ship's dinghy; and it was being pulled into the teeth of that forceful wind and sea by a single rower--a slight figure in yellow. "it's freda," he exclaimed; and then, in a shout: "this way, miss folsom--a little farther." she turned, nodded, and pulled the boat up to him. he seized the gunwale, and she took in the oars. "can you climb in alone, john?" she asked in an even voice--as even as though she were asking him to have more tea. "wait a little,--i am tired,--and i will help you." she was ever calm and dispassionate, but he wondered at her now; yet he would not be outdone. "i'll climb over the stern, freda, so as not to capsize you. better go forward to balance my weight." she did so. he pulled himself to the stern, slipped the life-buoy over his head and into the boat, then, by a mighty exercise of all his strength, vaulted aboard with seeming ease and sat down on a thwart. he felt a strong inclination to laughter and tears, but repressed himself; for masculine hysterics would not do before this young woman. she came aft to the next thwart, and when he felt steadier he said: "you have saved my life, freda; but thanks are idle now, for your own is in danger. give me the oars. we must get back to the ship." she changed places with him, facing forward, and said wearily, as he shipped the oars: "so you want to get back?" "why, yes; don't you? we are adrift in an open boat." "the wind is going down, and the seas do not break," she answered, in the same weary voice. "it does not rain any more, and we will have the moon." a glance around told him that she spoke truly. there was less pressure to the wind, and the seas rose and fell, sweeping past them like moving hills of oil. moonlight shining through thinning clouds faintly illumined her face, and he saw the expressionless weariness of her voice, and a sad, dreamy look in her gray eyes. "how did you get the dinghy down, freda?" he asked. "and why did no one come with you?" "father was asleep, and the mate was incompetent. i had my revolver, and they backed the yards for me and threw the dinghy over. i had loosened the gripes as you went aloft. i thought you would fall. still--no one would come." "and you came alone," he said in a broken voice, "and pulled this boat to windward in this sea. you are a wonder." "i saw you catch the life-buoy. why did you fall? you were cautioned." "i forgot the foot-rope. i was thinking of you." "you are like the mate. he forgot the foot-rope all day because he was thinking of me. i should have gone aloft and seized it myself." there was no reproof or sarcasm in the tired voice. she had simply made an assertion. "why are you at sea, before the mast--a man of your talents?" it was foolish, he knew; but the word "man" sent a thrill through him. "to please you if i may; to cultivate what you did not find in me." "yes, i knew; when you came on board i knew it. but you might have spoken to me." there was petulance in the tone now, and the soul of the man rejoiced. the woman in her was asserting itself. "miss folsom," he answered warmly, "i could not. you had made it impossible. it was your right, your duty, if you wished it. but you ignored my existence." "i was testing you. i am glad now, mr. owen." the petulance was gone, but there was something chilling in this answer. "can you see the ship?" he asked after a moment's silence. "the moonlight is stronger." "we will not reach her. they have squared away. the mate had the deck, and father is asleep." "and left you in an open boat," he answered angrily. "he knew i was with you." what was irrelevant in this explanation of the mate's conduct escaped him at the time. the full moon had emerged from behind the racing clouds, and it brightened her face, fringed by the tangled hair and yellow sou'wester, to an unearthly beauty that he had never seen before. he wondered at it, and for a moment a grisly thought crossed his mind that this was not life, but death; that he had died in the fall, and in some manner the girl had followed. she was standing erect, her lithe figure swaying to the boat's motion, and pointing to leeward, while the moonlit face was now sweetened by the smile of a happy child. he stood up, and looked where she pointed, but saw nothing, and seated himself to look at her. "see!" she exclaimed gleefully. "they have hauled out the spanker and are sheeting home the royal. i will never be married! i will never be married! he knew i was with you." again he stood up and searched the sea to leeward. there was nothing in sight. "unhinged," he thought, "by this night's trouble. freda," he said gently, "please sit down. you may fall overboard." "i am not insane," she said, as though reading his thought; and, smiling radiantly in his face, she obeyed him. "do you know where we are?" he asked tentatively. "are we in the track of ships?" "no," she answered, while her face took on the dreamy look again. "we are out of all the tracks. we will not be picked up. we are due west from ilio island. i saw it at sundown broad on the starboard bow. the wind is due south. if you will pull in the trough of the sea we can reach it before daylight. i am tired--so tired--and sleepy. will you watch out?" "why, certainly. lie down in the stern-sheets and sleep if you can." she curled up in her yellow oil-coat and slumbered through the night, while he pulled easily on the oars--not that he had full faith in her navigation, but to keep himself warm. the sea became smoother, and as the moon rose higher, it attained a brightness almost equal to that of the sun, casting over the clear sky a deep-blue tint that shaded indefinitely into the darkness extending from itself to the horizon. late in the night he remembered the danger of sleeping in strong moonlight, and arising softly to cover her face with his damp handkerchief, he found her looking at him. "we are almost there, john. wake me when we arrive," she said, and closed her eyes. he covered her face, and, marveling at her words, looked ahead. he was within a half-mile of a sandy beach which bordered a wooded island. the sea was now like glass in its level smoothness, and the air was warm and fragrant with the smell of flowers and foliage. he shipped the oars, and pulled to the beach. as the boat grounded she arose, and he helped her ashore. the beach shone white under the moonlight, and dotting it were large shellfish and moving crabs that scuttled away from them. bordering the beach were forest and undergrowth with interlacery of flowering vines. a ridge of rocks near by disclosed caves and hollows, some filled by the water of tinkling cascades. oranges snowed in the branches of trees, and cocoa-palms lifted their heads high in the distance. a small deer arose, looked at them, and lay down, while a rabbit inspected them from another direction and began nibbling. "an earthly paradise, i should say," he observed, as he hauled the boat up the beach. "plenty of food and water, at any rate." "it is ilio island," she answered, with that same dreamy voice. "it is uninhabited and never visited." "but surely, freda, something will come along and take us off." "no; if i am taken off i must be married, of course; and i will never be married." "who to, freda? whom must you marry if we are rescued?" "the mate--mr. adams. not you, john owen--not you. i do not like you." she was unbalanced, of course; but the speech pained him immeasurably, and he made no answer. he searched the clean-cut horizon for a moment, and when he looked back she was close to him, with the infantile smile on her face, candor and sanity in her gray eyes. involuntarily he extended his arms, and she nestled within them. "you _will_ be married, freda," he said; "you _will_ be married, and to me." he held her tightly and kissed her lips; but the kiss ended in a crashing sound, and a shock of pain in his whole body which expelled the breath from his lungs. the moonlit island, sandy beach, blue sea and sky were swallowed in a blaze of light, which gave way to pitchy darkness, with rain on his face and whistling wind in his ears, while he clung with both arms, not to a girl, but to a hard, wet, and cold mizzentopgallant-yard whose iron jack-stay had bumped him severely between the eyes. below him in the darkness a scream rang out, followed by the roar of the mate: "are you all right up there? want any help?" he had fallen four feet. when he could speak he answered: "i'm all right, sir." and catching the royal foot-rope dangling from the end of the yard above him, he brought it to its place, passed the seizing, and finished furling the royal. but it was a long job; his movements were uncertain, for every nerve in his body was jumping in its own inharmonious key. "what's the matter wi' you up there?" demanded the mate when he reached the deck; and a yellow-clad figure drew near to listen. "it was nothing, sir; i forgot about the foot-rope." "you're a bigger lunkhead than i thought. go forrard." he went, and when he came aft at four bells to take his trick at the wheel, the girl was still on deck, standing near the companionway, facing forward. the mate stood at the other side of the binnacle, looking at her, with one elbow resting on the house. there was just light enough from the cabin skylight for owen to see the expression which came over his face as he watched the graceful figure balancing to the heave of the ship. it took on the same evil look which he had seen in his fall, while there was no mistaking the thought behind the gleam in his eyes. the mate looked up,--into owen's face,--and saw something there which he must have understood; for he dropped his glance to the compass, snarled out, "keep her on the course," and stepped into the lee alleyway, where the dinghy, lashed upside down on the house, hid him from view. the girl approached the man at the wheel. "i saw you fall, mr. owen," she said in a trembling voice, "and i could not help screaming. were you hurt much?" "no, miss folsom," he answered in a low though not a steady tone; "but i was sadly disappointed." "i confess i was nervous--very nervous--when you went aloft," she said; "and i cleared away the life-buoy. then, when you fell, it slipped out of my hand and went overboard. mr. adams scolded me. wasn't it ridiculous?" there were tears and laughter in the speech. "not at all," he said gravely; "it saved my life--for which i thank you." "how--why----" "who in sam hill's been casting off these gripe-lashings?" growled the voice of the mate behind the dinghy. the girl tittered hysterically, and stepped beside owen at the wheel, where she patted the moving spokes, pretending to assist him in steering. "miss freda," said the officer, sternly, as he came around the corner of the house, "i must ask you plainly to let things alone; and another thing, please don't talk to the man at the wheel." "will you please mind your own business?" she almost screamed; and then, crying and laughing together: "if you paid as much attention to your work as you do to--to--me, men wouldn't fall from aloft on account of rotten foot-ropes." the abashed officer went forward, grumbling about "discipline" and "women aboard ship." when he was well out of sight in the darkness, the girl turned suddenly, passed both arms around owen's neck, exerted a very slight pressure, patted him playfully on the shoulder as she withdrew them, and sped down the companionway. he steered a wild course during that trick, and well deserved the profane criticism which he received from the mate. needs must when the devil drives hogged at bow and stern, her deck sloped at the ends like a truck's platform, while a slight twist in the old hull canted the foremast to port and the mizzen to starboard. it would be hard to know when she was on an even keel. the uneven planking, inboard and out, was scarred like a chopping-block, possibly from a former and intimate acquaintance with the coal trade. aloft were dingy gray spars, slack hemp rigging, untarred for years, and tan-colored sails, mended with patch upon patch of lighter-hued canvas that seemed about to fall apart from their own weight. she was english-built, bark-rigged, bluff in the bow, square in the stern, unpainted and leaky--on the whole as unkempt and disreputable-looking a craft as ever flew the black flag; and with the clank of the pumps marking time to the wailing squeak of the tiller-ropes, she wallowed through the waves like a log in an eddying tideway. even the black flag at the gaff-end wore a makeshift, slovenly air. it was a square section of the bark's foreroyal, painted black around the skull-and-cross-bones design, which had been left the original hue of the canvas. the port-holes were equally slovenly in appearance, being cut through between stanchions with axes instead of saws; and the bulwarks were further disfigured by extra holes smashed through at the stanchions to take the lashings of the gun-breechings. but the guns were bright and cared for, as were the uniforms of the crew; for they had been lately transhipped. far from home, with a general cargo, this ancient trader had been taken in a fog by captain swarth and his men an hour before their own well-found vessel had sunk alongside--which gave them just time to hoist over guns and ammunition. when the fog shifted, the pursuing english war-brig that had riddled the pirate saw nothing but the peaceful old tub ahead, and went on into the fog, looking for the other. "any port in a storm, angel," remarked captain swarth, as he flashed his keen eyes over the rickety fabric aloft; "but we'll find a better one soon. how do the boys stand the pumping?" mr. angel todd, first mate and quartermaster, filled a black pipe before answering. then, between the first and second deep puffs, he said: "growlin'--dammum." "at the work?" "yep, and the grub. and they say the 'tween-deck and forecastle smells o' bedbugs and bilge-water, and they want their grog. 'an ungodly witness scorneth judgment: and the mouth of the wicked devoureth iniquity.'" mr. todd had been educated for the pulpit; but, going out as a missionary, he had fallen into ungodly ways and taken to the sea, where he was more successful. many of his old phrasings clung to him. "well," drawled the captain, "men get fastidious and high-toned in this business,--can't blame them,--but we've got to make the coast, and if we don't pick up something on the way, we must careen and stop the leak. then they'll have something to growl about." "s'pose the brig follows us in?" "hope she will," said captain swarth, with a pleasant smile and a lightening of his eyes--"hope she will, and give me a chance. her majestic widowship owes me a brig, and that's a fine one." mr. todd had never been known to smile, but at this speech he lifted one eyebrow and turned his saturnine face full at his superior, inquiry written upon every line of it. captain swarth was musing, however, and said no more; so the mate, knowing better than to attempt probing his mind, swung his long figure down the poop-ladder, and went forward to harass the men--which, in their opinion, was all he was good for. according to his mood, mr. todd's speech was choicest english or the cosmopolitan, technical slang of the sea, mingled with wonderful profanity. but one habit of his early days he never dropped: he wore, in the hottest weather, and in storm and battle, the black frock and choker of the clerical profession. standing now with one foot on the fore-hatch, waving his long arms and objurgating the scowling men at the pumps, he might easily have seemed, to any one beyond the reach of his language, to be a clergyman exhorting them. captain swarth watched him with an amused look on his sunburnt face, and muttered: "good man, every inch of him, but he can't handle men." then he called him aft. "angel," he said, "we made a mistake in cutting the ports; we can't catch anything afloat that sees them, so we'll have to pass for a peaceable craft until we can drift close enough to board something. i think the brig'll be back this way, too. get out some old tarpaulins and cover up the ports. paint them, if you can, the color of the sides, and you might coil some lines over the rail, as though to dry. then you can break out cargo and strike the guns down the main-hatch." three days later, with cape st. roque a black line to the westward, a round shot across her bows brought the old vessel--minus the black emblem now, and outwardly respectable--up to the wind, with maintopsail aback, while captain swarth and a dozen of his men--equally respectable in the nondescript rig of the merchant sailor--watched the approach of an english brig of war. mr. todd and the rest of the crew were below hatches with the guns. the brig came down the wind like a graceful bird--a splendid craft, black, shiny, and shipshape, five guns to a side, brass-bound officers on her quarter-deck, blue-jackets darting about her white deck and up aloft, a homeward-bound pennant trailing from her main-truck, and at her gaff-end a british ensign as large as her mainroyal. captain swarth lazily hoisted the english flag to the bark's gaff, and, as the brig rounded to on his weather beam, he pointed to it; but his dark eyes sparkled enviously as he viewed the craft whose government's protection he appealed to. "bark ahoy!" came a voice through a trumpet. "what bark is that?" captain swarth swung himself into the mizzen-rigging and answered through his hands with an excellent cockney accent: "_tryde wind_ o' lunnon, cappen quirk, fifty-one dyes out fro' liverpool, bound to callao, gen'ral cargo." "you were not heading for the horn." "hi'm a-leakin' badly. hi'm a-goin' to myke the coast to careen. d'ye happen to know a good place?" an officer left the group and returned with what captain swarth knew was a chart, which a few of them studied, while their captain hailed again: "see anything more of that pirate brig the other day?" "what! a pirate? be 'e a pirate?" answered captain swarth, in agitated tones. "be that you a-chasin' of 'im? nao, hi seed nothink of 'im arter the fog shut 'im out." the captain conferred with his officers a moment, then called: "we are going in to careen ourselves. that fellow struck us on the water-line. we are homeward bound, and rio's too far to run back. follow us in; but if you lose sight of us, it's a small bay, latitude nine fifty-one forty south, rocks to the north, lowland to the south, good water at the entrance, and a fine beach. look out for the brig. it's swarth and his gang. good morning." "aye, that hi will. thank ye. good marnin'." in three hours the brig was a speck under the rising land ahead; in another, she was out of sight; but before this captain swarth and his crew had held a long conference, which resulted in sail being shortened, though the man at the wheel was given a straight course to the bay described by the english captain. late on the following afternoon the old bark blundered into this bay--a rippling sheet of water, bag-shaped, and bordered on all sides by a sandy beach. stretching up to the mountainous country was a luxurious forest of palm, laurel, and cactus, bound and intertwined by almost impassable undergrowth, and about half-way from the entrance to the end of the bay was the english brig, moored and slightly careened on the inshore beach. captain swarth's seamanly eye noted certain appearances of the tackles that held her down, which told him that the work was done and she was being slacked upright. "just in time," he muttered. they brought the bark to anchor near the beach, about a half-mile from the brig, furled the canvas, and ran out an anchor astern, with the cable over the taffrail. heaving on this, they brought the vessel parallel with the shore. so far, good. guns and cargo lightered ashore, more anchors seaward to keep her off the beach, masthead tackles to the trees to heave her down, and preventer rigging and braces to assist the masts, would have been next in order, but they proceeded no further toward careening. instead, they lowered the two crazy boats, provisioned and armed them on the in-shore side of the bark, made certain other preparations--and waited. on the deck of the english brig things were moving. a gang of blue-jackets, under the first lieutenant, were heaving in the cable; another gang, under the boatswain, were sending down and stowing away the heavy tackles and careening-gear, tailing out halyards and sheets and coiling down the light-running rigging, while topmen aloft loosed the canvas to bunt-gaskets, ready to drop it at the call from the deck. the second lieutenant, overseeing this latter, paced the port quarter-deck and answered remarks from captain bunce, who paced the sacred starboard side (the brig being at anchor) and occasionally turned his glass on the dilapidated craft down the beach. "seems to me, mr. shack," he said across the deck, "that an owner who would send that bark around the horn, and the master who would take her, ought to be sequestered and cared for, either in an asylum or in jail." "yes, sir, i think so too," answered the second lieutenant, looking aloft. "might be an insurance job. clear away that bunt-gasket on the royal-yard," he added in a roar. captain bunce--round, rosy, with brilliant mutton-chop whiskers--muttered: "insurance--wrecked intentionally--no, not here where we are; wouldn't court investigation by her majesty's officers." he rolled forward, then aft, and looked again through the glass. "very large crew--very large," he said; "very curious, mr. shack." a hail from the forecastle, announcing that the anchor was short, prevented mr. shack's answering. captain bunce waved a deprecatory hand to the first lieutenant, who came aft at once, while mr. shack descended to the waist, and the boatswain ascended the forecastle steps to attend to the anchor. the first lieutenant now had charge of the brig, and from the quarter-deck gave his orders to the crew, while captain bunce busied himself with his glass and his thoughts. fore-and-aft sail was set and head-sheets trimmed down to port, square sails were dropped, sheeted home, and hoisted, foreyards braced to port, the anchor tripped and fished, and the brig paid off from the land-breeze, and, with foreyards swung, steadied down to a course for the entrance. "mr. duncan," said the captain, "there are fully forty men on that bark's deck, all dressed alike--all in red shirts and knitted caps--and all dancing around like madmen. look!" he handed the glass to the first lieutenant, who brought it to bear. "strange," said the officer, after a short scrutiny; "there were only a few showing when we spoke her outside. it looks as though they were all drunk." as they drew near, sounds of singing--uproarious discord--reached them, and soon they could see with the naked eye that the men on the bark were wrestling, dancing, and running about. "quarters, sir?" inquired mr. duncan. "shall we bring to alongside?" "well--no--not yet," said the captain, hesitatingly; "it's all right--possibly; yet it is strange. wait a little." they waited, and had sailed down almost abreast of the gray old craft, noticing, as they drew near, an appreciable diminution of the uproar, when a flag arose from the stern of the bark, a dusky flag that straightened out directly toward them, so that it was difficult to make out. but they soon understood. as they reached a point squarely abreast of the bark, five points of flame burst from her innocent gray sides, five clouds of smoke ascended, and five round shot, coming with the thunder of the guns, hurtled through their rigging. then they saw the design of the flag, a white skull and cross-bones, and noted another, a black flag too, but pennant-shaped, and showing in rudely painted letters the single word "swarth," sailing up to the forepeak. "thunder and lightning!" roared captain bunce. "quarters, mr. duncan, quarters, and in with the kites. give it to them. put about first." a youngster of the crew had sprung below and immediately emerged with a drum which, without definite instruction, he hammered vigorously; but before he had begun, men were clearing away guns and manning flying-jib downhaul and royal clue-lines. others sprang to stations, anticipating all that the sharp voice of the first lieutenant could order. around came the brig on the other tack and sailed back, receiving another broadside through her rigging and answering with her starboard guns. then for a time the din was deafening. the brig backed her main-yards and sent broadside after broadside into the hull of the old craft. but it was not until the eighth had gone that captain bunce noticed through the smoke that the pirates were not firing. the smoke from the burning canvas port-coverings had deluded him. he ordered a cessation. fully forty solid shot had torn through that old hull near the water-line, and not a man could now be seen on her deck. "out with the boats, mr. duncan," he said; "they're drunk or crazy, but they're the men we want. capture them." "suppose they run, sir--suppose they take to their boats and get into the woods--shall we follow?" "no, not past the beach--not into an ambush." the four boat-loads of men which put off from the brig found nothing but a deserted deck on the sinking bark and two empty boats hauled up on the beach. the pirates were in the woods, undoubtedly, having kept the bark between themselves and the brig as they pulled ashore. while the blue-jackets clustered around the bows of their boats and watched nervously the line of forest up the beach, from which bullets might come at any time, the two lieutenants conferred for a few moments, and had decided to put back, when a rattling chorus of pistol reports sounded from the depths of the woods. it died away; then was heard a crashing of bush and branch, and out upon the sands sprang a figure--a long, weird figure in black frock of clerical cut. into their midst it sped with mighty bounds, and sinking down, lifted a glad face to the heavens with the groaning utterance: "o god, i thank thee. protect me, gentlemen--protect me from those wicked men." "what is it? who are you?" asked mr. duncan. "were they shooting at you?" "yes, at me, who never harmed a fly. they would have killed me. my name is todd. oh, such suffering! but you will protect me? you are english officers. you are not pirates and murderers." "but what has happened? do you live around here?" it took some time for mr. todd to quiet down sufficiently to tell his story coherently. he was an humble laborer in the vineyard of the lord. he had gleaned among the poorest of the native population in the outskirts of rio de janeiro until his health suffered, and had taken passage home in a passenger-ship, which, ten days out, was captured by a pirate brig. and the pirate crew had murdered every soul on board but himself, and only spared his life, as he thought, for the purpose of amusement; for they had compelled him to dance--he, a minister of the gospel--and had made him drink under torture, and recite ribald poetry, and swear, and wash their clothes. all sorts of indignities had been heaped upon him, but he had remembered the injunction of the master; he had invariably turned the other cheek when smitten, and had prayed for their souls. he told of the flight from the english war-brig, of the taking of the old bark in the fog and the sinking of the pirate craft, of the transfer of guns and treasure to the bark, and the interview at sea with the english brig, in which captain swarth had deceived the other, and of captain swarth's reckless confidence in himself, which had induced him to follow the brig in and careen in the same bay. he wound up his tale with a lurid description of the drunken debauch following the anchoring of the bark,--during which he had trembled for his life,--of the insane firing on the brig as she passed, and the tumbling into the boats when the brig returned the fire, of the flight into the woods, the fighting among themselves, and his escape under fire. as he finished he offered an incoherent prayer of thankfulness, and the sympathetic mr. shack drew forth his pocket-flask and offered it to the agitated sufferer; but mr. todd, who could probably drink more whisky and feel it less than any other man in the pirate crew, declined the poison with a shiver of abhorrence. then mr. duncan, who had listened thoughtfully, said: "you speak of treasure; did they take it with them?" mr. todd opened wide his eyes, looked toward the dark shades of the forest, then at the three masts of the bark rising out of the water, and answered impressively: "gentlemen, they did not. they were intoxicated--mad with liquor. they took arms and a knapsack of food to each man,--they spoke of an inland retreat to which they were going,--but the treasure from the passenger-ship--the bars of gold and the bags of diamonds--they forgot. they transferred it from their sinking vessel when sober, but when intoxicated they remembered food and left it behind. gentlemen, there is untold wealth in the hull out there which your fire has sunk. it is, verily, the root of all evil; let us hope that it remains at the bottom of the sea." "bars of gold--bags of diamonds!" said mr. duncan. "come on board, mr. todd; we'll see what the captain thinks." at dinner in the brig's cabin that evening--as a prelude to which mr. todd said grace--his account of the wealth spread out on captain swarth's cabin table after the taking of the passenger-ship was something to arouse interest in a less worldly man than captain bunce. virgin gold--in bars, ingots, bricks, and dust--from the morro velho mines of brazil was there, piled up on the table until the legs had given way and launched the glittering mass to the floor. diamonds uncut, uncounted, of untold value,--a three years' product of the whole chapada district,--some as large as walnuts, had been spread out and tossed about like marbles by those lawless men, then boxed up with the gold and stowed among the cargo under the main-hatch. again mr. todd expressed the hope that providence would see fit to let this treasure remain where the pirates had left it, no longer to tempt man to kill and steal. but captain bunce and his officers thought differently. glances, then tentative comments, were exchanged, and in five minutes they were of one mind, even including mr. todd; for it may not be needless to state that the treasure and the passenger-ship existed only in his imagination. pending the return of the boats the brig's anchor had been dropped about two hundred yards from the bark; now canvas was furled, and at eight bells all hands were mustered aft to hear what was in store. captain bunce stated the case succinctly; they were homeward bound and under general orders until they reported to the admiral at plymouth. treasure was within their reach, apportionable, when obtained, as prize-money. it was useless to pursue the pirates into the brazilian jungle; but they would need to be watchful and ready for surprise at any moment, either while at work raising the bark or at night; for though they had brought out the two boats in which the pirates had escaped, they could find other means of attack, should they dare or care to make it. the english sailors cheered. mr. todd begged to say a few words, and enjoined them not to allow the love of lucre to tempt their minds from the duty they owed to their god, their country, and their captain, which was also applauded and forgotten in a moment. then, leaving a double-anchor watch, provided with blue fire and strict instructions, on deck, the crew turned in to dream of an affluent future, and mr. todd was shown to a comfortable state-room. he removed his coat and vest, closed the door and dead-light, filled and lighted his black pipe, and rolled into the berth with a seaman's sigh of contentment. "that was a good dinner," he murmured, after he had filled the room with smoke--"a good dinner. nothing on earth is too good for a sky-pilot. i'd go back to the business when i've made my pile, if it wasn't so all-fired hard on the throat; and then the trustees, with their eternal kicking on economy, and the sisters, and the donation-parties--yah, to h----l with 'em! wonder if this brig ever carried a chaplain? wonder how bill and the boys are making out? fine brig, this,--'leven knots on a bow-line, i'll bet,--fine state-room, good grub, nothin' to do but save souls and preach the word on sunday. guess i'll strike the fat--duffer--for the--job--in--the--morn----" the rest of the sentence merged into a snore, and mr. todd slept through the night in the fumes of tobacco, which so permeated his very being that captain bunce remarked it at breakfast. "smoke, captain bunce? i smoke? not i," he answered warmly; "but, you see, those ungodly men compelled me to clean all their pipes,--forty foul pipes,--and i do not doubt that some nicotine has lodged on my clothing." whereupon captain bunce told of a chaplain he had once sailed with whose clothing smelled so vilely that he himself had framed a petition to the admiral for his transfer to another ship and station. and the little story had the effect on mr. todd of causing him mentally to vow that he'd "ship with no man who didn't allow smoking," and openly aver that no sincere, consistent christian clergyman would be satisfied to stultify himself and waste his energies in the comfort and ease of a naval chaplaincy, and that a chaplain who would smoke should be discredited and forced out of the profession. but later, when captain bunce and his officers lighted fat cigars, and he learned that the aforesaid chaplain had merely been a careless devotee of pipe and pigtail twist, mr. todd's feelings may be imagined (by a smoker); but he had committed himself against tobacco and must suffer. during the breakfast the two lieutenants reported the results of a survey which they had taken of the wreck at daylight. "we find," said mr. duncan, "about nine feet of water over the deck at the stern, and about three feet over the fore-hatch at low tide. the topgallant-forecastle is awash and the end of the bowsprit out of water, so that we can easily reach the upper ends of the bobstays. there is about five feet rise and fall of tide. now, we have no pontoons nor casks. our only plan, captain, is to lift her bodily." "but we have a diving-suit and air-pump," said mr. shack, enthusiastically, "and fifty men ready to dive without suits. we can raise her, captain, in two weeks." "gentlemen," said captain bunce, grandly, "i have full faith in your seamanship and skill. i leave the work in your hands." which was equivalent to an admission that he was fat and lazy, and did not care to take an active part. "thank you, sir," said mr. duncan, and "thank you, sir," said mr. shack; then the captain said other pleasant things, which brought other pleasant responses, and the breakfast passed off so agreeably that mr. todd, in spite of the soul-felt yearning for a smoke inspired by the cigars in the mouths of the others, felt the influence of the enthusiasm and bestowed his blessing--qualifiedly--on the enterprise. every man of the brig's crew was eager for the work, but few could engage at first; for there was nothing but the forecastle-deck and the bark's rigging to stand upon. down came the disgraceful black flags the first thing, and up to the gaff went the ensign of britain. then they sent down the fore and main lower and topsail yards, and erected them as sheers over the bow and stern, lower ends well socketed in spare anchor-stocks to prevent their sinking in the sand, upper ends lashed together and stayed to each other and to the two anchors ahead and astern. to the sheer-heads they rigged heavy threefold tackles, and to the disconnected bobstays (chains leading from the bowsprit end to the stem at the water-line) they hooked the forward tackle, and heaving on the submerged windlass, lifted the bow off the bottom--high enough to enable them to slip two shots of anchor-chain under the keel, one to take the weight at the stern, the other at the bow, for the bobstays would pull out of the stem under the increased strain as the bark arose. most of this work was done under water; but a wetting is nothing to men looking for gold, and nobody cared. yet, as a result of ruined uniforms, the order came from captain bunce to wear underclothing only or go naked, which latter the men preferred, though the officers clung to decency and tarry duck trousers. every morning the day began with the washing of the brig's deck and scouring of brasswork--which must be done at sea though the heavens fall; then followed breakfast, the arming of the boats ready for an attack from the shore, and the descent upon the bark of as many men as could work. occasionally captain bunce would order the dinghy, and, accompanied by mr. todd, would visit the bark and offer interfering suggestions, after the manner of captains, which only embarrassed the officers; and mr. todd would take advantage of these occasions to make landlubberly comments and show a sad ignorance of things nautical. but often he would decline the invitation, and when the captain was gone would descend to his room, and, shutting the door, grip his beloved--though empty--black pipe between his teeth and breathe through it, while his eyes shone fiercely with unsatisfied desire, and his mind framed silent malediction on bill swarth for condemning him to this smokeless sojourn. for he dared not smoke; stewards, cooks, and sailors were all about him. in three days the bark's nose was as high as the seven-part tackle would bring it, with all men heaving who could find room at the windlass-brakes. then they clapped a luff-tackle on the fall, and by heaving on this, nippering and fleeting up, they lifted the fore-hatch and forecastle scuttle out of water--which was enough. before this another gang had been able to slip the other chain to position abaft the mizzenmast, hook on the tackle, and lead the fall through a snatch-block at the quarter-bitts forward to the midship capstan. disdaining the diving-suit, they swam down nine feet to do these things, and when they had towed the rope forward they descended seven feet to wind it around the capstan and ship the bars, which they found in a rack at the mainmast. a man in the water weighs practically nothing, and to heave around a capstan under water requires lateral resistance. to secure this they dived with hammers and nails, and fastened a circle of cleats to catch their feet. then with a boy on the main fife-rail (his head out) holding slack, eighteen men--three to a bar--would inhale all the air their lungs could hold, and, with a "one, two, three," would flounder down, push the capstan around a few pawls, and come up gasping, and blue in the face, to perch on their bars and recover. it went slowly, this end, but in three days more they could walk around with their heads above water. the next day was sunday, and they were entitled to rest; but the flavor of wealth had entered their souls, and they petitioned the captain for privilege to work, which was granted, to the satisfaction of the officers, and against the vigorous protest of mr. todd, who had prepared a sermon and borrowed clean linen from mr. shack in which to deliver it. with luff-tackles on the fall they hove the stern up until the cabin doors and all deck-openings but the main-hatch were out of water, and then, with the bark hanging to the sheers as a swinging-cradle hangs from its supports, some assisted the carpenter and his mates in building up and calking an upward extension of the main-hatch coaming that reached above water at high tide, while others went over the side looking for the shot-holes of eight broadsides. these, when found, were covered with planking, followed by canvas, nails being driven with shackles, sounding-leads, and stones from the bottom in the hands of naked men clinging to weighted stagings--men whose eyes protruded, whose lungs ached, whose brains were turning. then, and before a final inspection by the boatswain in the diving-suit assured them that the last shot-hole was covered, they began bailing from the main-hatch, and when the water perceptibly lowered--the first index of success--a feverish yell arose and continued, while nude lunatics wrestled and floundered waist-deep on the flooded deck. the bark's pumps were manned and worked under water, bailing-pumps--square tubes with one valve--were made and plunged up and down in each hatch, whips were rigged, and buckets rose and fell until the obstructing cargo confined the work to the bark's pumps. can-hooks replaced the buckets on the whips, then boxes and barrels were hoisted, broken into, and thrown overboard, until the surface of the bay was dotted with them. they drifted back and forth with the tide, some stranding on the beach, others floating seaward through the inlet. and all the time that they worked, sharp eyes had watched through the bushes, and a few miles inland, in a glade surrounded by the giant trees of the brazilian forest, red-shirted men lolled and smoked and grew fat, while they discussed around the central fire the qualities of barbecued wild oxen, roast opossum and venison, and criticized the seamanship of the englishmen. with a clear deck to work on, every man and boy of the brig's crew, except the idlers (stewards, cooks, and servants), was requisitioned, and boxes flew merrily; but night closed down on the tenth day of their labor without sign of the treasure, and now mr. todd, who had noticed a shade of testiness in the queries of the officers as to the exact location of the gold and diamonds, expressed a desire to climb the rigging next afternoon, a feat he had often wished to perform, which he did clumsily, going through the lubber's hole, and seated in the maintop with mr. duncan's bible, he remained in quiet meditation and apparent reading and prayer until the tropic day changed to sudden twilight and darkness, and the hysterical crew returned. then he came down to dinner. in the morning the work was resumed, and more boxes sprinkled the bay. they drifted up with the flood, and came back with the ebb-tide; but among them now were about forty others, unobserved by captain bunce, pacing his quarter-deck, but noted keenly by mr. todd. these forty drifted slowly to the offshore side of the brig and stopped, bobbing up and down on the crisp waves, even though the wind blew briskly with the tide, and they should have gone on with the others. it was then that captain bunce stepped below for a cigar, and it was then that mr. todd became strangely excited, hopping along the port-rail and throwing overboard every rope's end within reach, to the wonder and scandal of an open-eyed steward in the cabin door, who immediately apprised the captain. captain bunce, smoking a freshly lit cigar, emerged to witness a shocking sight--the good and godly mr. todd, with an intense expression on his somber countenance, holding a match to a black pipe and puffing vigorously, while through the ports and over the rail red-shirted men, dripping wet and scowling, were boarding his brig. each man carried a cutlass and twelve-inch knife, and captain bunce needed no special intelligence to know that he was tricked. one hail only he gave, and mr. todd, his pipe glowing like a hot coal, was upon him. the captain endeavored to draw his sword, but sinewy arms encircled him; his cigar was removed from his lips and inserted in the mouth of mr. todd alongside the pipe; then he was lifted, spluttering with astonishment and rage, borne to the rail and dropped overboard, his sword clanking against the side as he descended. when he came to the surface and looked up, he saw through a cloud of smoke on the rail the lantern-jaws of mr. todd working convulsively on pipe and cigar, and heard the angry utterance: "yes, d--n ye, i smoke." then a vibrant voice behind mr. todd roared out: "kill nobody--toss 'em overboard," and the captain saw his servants, cooks, and stewards tumbling over to join him. captain bunce turned and swam--there was nothing else to do. soon he could see a black-eyed, black-mustached man on his quarter-deck delivering orders, and he recognized the thundering voice, but none of the cockney accent of captain quirk. men were already on the yards loosing canvas; and as he turned on his back to rest--for, though fleshy and buoyant, swimming in full uniform fatigued him--he saw his anchor-chains whizzing out the hawse-pipes. he was picked up by the first boat to put off from the bark, and ordered pursuit; but this was soon seen to be useless. the clean-lined brig had sternway equal to the best speed of the boats, and now head-sails were run up, and she paid off from the shore. topsails were sheeted home and hoisted, she gathered way, and with topgallantsails and royals, spanker and staysails, following in quick succession, the beautiful craft hummed down to the inlet and put to sea, while yells of derision occasionally came back to the white-faced men in the boats. a month later the rehabilitated old bark also staggered out the entrance, and, with a naked, half-starved crew and sad-eyed, dilapidated officers, headed southward for rio de janeiro. when greek meets greek "thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just." bard of avon. "but times he who gits hiz blo' in fust." josh billings. captain william belchior was more than a martinet. he was known as "bucko" belchior in every port where the english language is spoken, having earned this prefix by the earnest readiness with which, in his days as second and chief mate, he would whirl belaying-pins, heavers, and handspikes about the decks, and by his success in knocking down, tricing up, and working up sailors who displeased him. with a blow of his fist he had broken the jaw of a man helplessly ironed in the 'tween-deck, and on the same voyage, armed with a simple belaying-pin, had sprung alone into a circle of brandishing sheath-knives and quelled a mutiny. he was short, broad, beetle-browed, and gray-eyed, of undoubted courage, but with the quality of sympathy left out of his nature. during the ten years in which he had been in command, he was relieved of much of the executive work that had made him famous when he stood watch, but was always ready to justify his reputation as a "bucko" should friction with the crew occur past the power of his officers to cope with. his ship, the _wilmington_, a skysail-yard clipper, was rated by sailormen as the "hottest" craft under the american flag, and captain belchior himself was spoken of by consuls and commissioners, far and near, as a man peculiarly unfortunate in his selection of men; for never a passage ended but he was complainant against one or more heavily ironed and badly used-up members of his crew. his officers were, in the language of one of these defendants, "o' the same breed o' dorg." no others could or would sign with him. his crews were invariably put on board in the stream or at anchorage--never at the dock. drunk when coerced by the boarding-masters into signing the ship's articles, kept drunk until delivery, they were driven or hoisted up the side like animals--some in a stupor from drink or drugs, some tied hand and foot, struggling and cursing with returning reason. equipped thus, the _wilmington_, bound for melbourne, discharged her tug and pilot off sandy hook one summer morning, and, with a fresh quartering wind and raising sea, headed for the southeast. the day was spent in getting her sail on, and in the "licking into shape" of the men as fast as they recovered their senses. oaths and missiles flew about the deck, knock-downs were frequent, and by eight bells in the evening, when the two mates chose the watches,--much as boys choose sides in a ball game,--the sailors were well convinced that their masters lived aft. three men, long-haired fellows, sprawling on the main-hatch, helpless from seasickness, were left to the last in the choosing and then hustled into the light from the near-by galley door to be examined. they had been dragged from the forecastle at the mate's call for "all hands." "call yourselves able seamen, i suppose," he said with an oath, as he glared into their woebegone faces. "no, pard," said the tallest and oldest of the three, in a weak voice. "we're not seamen; we don't know how we got here, neither." the mate's answer was a fist-blow under the ear that sent the man headlong into the scuppers, where he lay quiet. "say 'sir' when you speak to me, you bandy-legged farmers," he snarled, glowering hard at the other two, as they leaned against the water-tank. "i'm pard to none of ye." they made him no answer, and he turned away in contempt. "mr. tomm," he called, "want these ethiopians in your watch?" "no, sir," said the second mate; "i don't want 'em. they're no more use 'an a spare pump." "i'll make 'em useful 'fore i'm done with 'em. go forrard, you three. get the bile out o' yer gizzards 'fore mornin', 'f ye value yer good looks." he delivered a vicious kick at each of the two standing men, bawled out, "relieve the wheel an' lookout--that'll do the watch," and went aft, while the crew assisted the seasick men to the forecastle and into three bedless bunks--bedless, because sailors must furnish their own, and these men had been shanghaied. the wind died away during the night, and they awoke in the morning with their seasickness gone and appetites ravenous. somber and ominous was their bearing as they silently ate of the breakfast in the forecastle and stepped out on deck with the rest in answer to the mate's roar: "all hands spread dunnage." having no dunnage but what they wore, they drew off toward the windlass and conferred together while chests and bags were dragged out on deck and overhauled by the officers for whisky and sheath-knives. what they found of the former they pocketed, and of the latter, tossed overboard. "where are the canal-drivers?" demanded the chief mate, as he raised his head from the last chest. "where are our seasick gentlemen, who sleep all night--what--what----" he added in a stutter of surprise. he was looking down three eight-inch barrels of three heavy colt revolvers, cocked, and held by three scowling, sunburnt men, each of whom was tucking with disengaged left hand the corner of a shirt into a waistband, around which was strapped a belt full of cartridges. "hands up!" snapped the tall man; "hands up, every one of ye! up with 'em--over yer heads. that's right!" the pistols wandered around the heads of the crowd, and every hand was elevated. "what's this? what d' ye mean? put them pistols down. give 'em up. lay aft, there, some o' ye, and call the captain," blustered the mate, with his hands held high. not a man stirred to obey. the scowling faces looked deadly in earnest. "right about, face!" commanded the tall man. "march, every man--back to the other end o' the boat. laramie, take the other side and round up anybody ye see. now, gentlemen, hurry." away went the protesting procession, and, joined by the carpenter, sail-maker, donkey-man, and cook, "rounded up" from their sanctums by the man called laramie, it had reached the main-hatch before the captain, pacing the quarter-deck, was aware of the disturbance. with captain belchior to think was to act. springing to the cabin skylight, he shouted: "steward, bring up my pistols. bear a hand. lower your weapons, you scoundrels; this is rank mutiny." a pistol spoke, and the captain's hat left his head. "there goes your hat," said a voice; "now for a button." another bullet sped, which cut from his coat the button nearest his heart. "come down from there--come down," said the voice he had heard. "next shot goes home. start while i count three. one--two----" captain belchior descended the steps. "hands up, same as the rest." up went the captain's hands; such marksmanship was beyond his philosophy. "'pache," went on the speaker, "go up there and get the guns he wanted." the steward, with two bright revolvers in his hands, was met at the companion-hatch by a man with but one; but that one was so big, and the hand which held it was so steady, that it was no matter of surprise that he obeyed the terse command, "fork over, handles first." the captain's nickel-plated pistols went into the pockets of 'pache's coat, and the white-faced steward, poked in the back by the muzzle of that big firearm, marched to the main-deck and joined the others. "go down that place, 'pache, and chase out any one else ye find," called the leader from behind the crowd. "bring 'em all down here." 'pache descended, and reappeared with a frightened cabin-boy, whom, with the man at the wheel, he drove before him to the steps. there was no wind, and the ship could spare the helmsman. "now, then, gentlemen," said the tall leader, "i reckon we're all here. keep yer hands up. we'll have a powwow. 'pache, stay up there, and you, laramie, cover 'em from behind. plug the first man that moves." he mounted the steps to the quarter-deck, and, as he replaced empty shells with cartridges, looked down on them with a serene smile on his not ill-looking face. his voice, except when raised in accents of command, had in it the musical, drawling, plaintive tone so peculiar to the native texan--and so deceptive. the other two, younger and rougher men, looked, as they glanced at their victims through the sights of the pistols, as though they longed for the word of permission to riddle the ship's company with bullets. "you'll pay for this, you infernal cut-throats," spluttered the captain. "this is piracy." "don't call any names now," said the tall man; "'t ain't healthy. we don't want to hurt ye, but i tell ye seriously, ye never were nearer death than ye are now. it's a risky thing, and a foolish thing, too, gentlemen, to steal three american citizens with guns under their shirts, and take 'em so far from land as this. hangin''s the fit and proper punishment for hoss-stealin', but man-stealin''s so great a crime that i'm not right sure what the punishment is. now, we don't know much 'bout boats and ropes,--though we can tie a hangman's knot when necessary,--but we do know somethin' 'bout guns and human natur'--here, you, come 'way from that fence." the captain was edging toward a belaying-pin; but he noticed that the speaker's voice had lost its plaintiveness, and three tubes were looking at him. he drew inboard, and the leader resumed: "now, fust thing, who's foreman o' this outfit? who's boss?" "i'm captain here." "you are? you are not. i'm captain. get up on that shanty." the small house over the mizzen-hatch was indicated, and captain belchior climbed it. the tubes were still looking at him. "now, you, there, you man who hit me last night when i was sick, who are you, and what?" "mate, d---- you." "up with you, and don't cuss. you did a cowardly thing, pardner--an unmanly thing--low down and or'nary. you don't deserve to live any longer; but my darter, back east at school, thinks i've killed enough men for one lifetime, and mebbe she's right--mebbe she's right. anyhow, she don't like it, and that lets you out--though i won't answer for 'pache and laramie when my back's turned. you kicked 'em both. but i'll just return the blow." the mate had but straightened up on top of the hatch-house when the terrible pistol spat out another red tongue, and his yell followed the report, as he clapped his hand to the ear through which the bullet had torn. "hands up, there!" thundered the shooter, and the mate obeyed, while a stream of blood ran down inside his shirt-collar. "any more bosses here?" the second mate did not respond; but 'pache's pistol sought him out, and under its influence, and his guttural, "i know you; get up," he followed his superiors. "any more?" a manly-looking fellow stepped out of the group, and said: "you've got the captain and two mates. i'm bo's'n here, and yonder's my mate. we're next, but we're not bosses in the way o' bein' responsible for anything that has happened or might happen to you. we b'long forrard. there's no call to shoot at the crew, for there's not a man among 'em but what 'ud be glad to see you get ashore, and get there himself." "silence, bo's'n," bawled the captain. but the voice of authority seemed pitifully ludicrous and incongruous, coupled with the captain's position and attitude, and every face on the deck wore a grin. the leader noticed the silent merriment, and said: "laramie, i reckon these men'll stand. you can come up here. i'm gettin' 'long in years, and kind o' steadyin' down, but i s'pose you and 'pache want some fun. start yer whistle and turn loose." up the steps bounded laramie, and, with a ringing whoop as a prelude, began whistling a clear, musical trill, while 'pache, growling out, "dance, dance, ye white-livered coyotes," sent a bullet through the outer edge of the chief mate's boot-heel. "dance," repeated laramie between bars of the music. _crack, crack_, went the pistols, while bullets rattled around the feet of the men on the hatch, and laramie's whistle rose and fell on the soft morning air. the sun, who has looked on many scandalous sights, looked on this, and hid his face under a cloud, refusing to witness. for never before had the ethics of shipboard life been so outrageously violated. a squat captain and two six-foot officers, nearly black in the face from rage and exertion, with hands clasped over their heads, hopped and skipped around a narrow stage to the accompaniment of pistol reports harmoniously disposed among the notes of a whistled tune, while bullets grazed their feet, and an unkempt, disfigured, and sore-headed crew looked on and chuckled. when the mate, weak from loss of blood, fell and rolled to the deck, the leader stopped the entertainment. "now, gentlemen," he said in his serious voice, "i'm called pecos tom, and i've had considerable experience in my time, but this is my fust with human creatur's so weak and thoughtless that they'll drug and steal three men without takin' their guns away from them. and so, on 'count o' this shiftless improvidence, i reckon this boat will have to turn round and go back." they bound them, rolled and kicked the two mates to the rail, lifted the captain to his feet, and then the leader said significantly: "give the right and proper order to yer men to turn this boat round." with his face working convulsively, captain belchior glanced at his captors, at his eager, waiting crew, at the wheel without a helmsman, at a darkening of the water on the starboard bow to the southward, up aloft, and back again at the three frowning muzzles so close to his head. "one hand to the wheel! square in main and cro'-jack yards!" he called. he was conquered. with a hurrah which indicated the sincerity of these orders, the crew sprang to obey them, and with foreyards braced to starboard and head-sheets flat, the ship _wilmington_ paid off, wore around, and bringing the young breeze on the port quarter, steadied down to a course for sandy hook, which the captain, with hands released, but still under the influence of those threatening pistols, worked out from the mate's dead-reckoning. then he was pinioned again, but allowed to pace the deck and watch his ship, while the two officers were kept under the rail, sometimes stepped upon or kicked, and often admonished on the evil of their ways. early passengers on the east river ferryboats were treated to a novel sight next morning, which they appreciated according to their nautical knowledge. a lofty ship, with sky-sails and royals hanging in the buntlines, and jibs tailing ahead like flags, was charging up the harbor before a humming southerly breeze, followed by an elbowing crowd of puffing, whistling, snub-nosed tugs. it was noticeable that whenever a fresh tug arrived alongside, little white clouds left her quarter-deck, and that tug suddenly sheered off to take a position in the parade astern. abreast of governor's island, topgallant-halyards were let go, as were those of the jibs; but no cluing up or hauling down was done, nor were any men seen on her forecastle-deck getting ready lines or ground-tackle. she passed the battery and up the east river, craft of all kinds getting out of her way,--for it was obvious that something was wrong with her,--until, rounding slowly to a starboard wheel, with canvas rattling and running-gear in bights, she headed straight for a slip partly filled with canal-boats. now her topsail-halyards were let go, and three heavy yards came down by the run, breaking across the caps; and amid a grinding, creaking, and crashing of riven timbers, and a deafening din of applauding tug whistles, she plowed her way into the nest of canal-boats and came to a stop. then was a hejira. down her black sides by ropes and chain-plates, to the wrecked and sinking canal-boats,--some with bags or chests, some without,--came eager men, who climbed to the dock, and answering no questions of the gathering crowd of dock-loungers, scattered into the side-streets. then three other men appeared on the rail, who shook their fists, and swore, and shouted for the police, calling particularly for the apprehension of three dark-faced, long-haired fellows with big hats. in the light of later developments it is known that the police responded, and with the assistance of boarding-house runners gathered in that day nearly all of this derelict crew,--even to the cautious boatswain,--who were promptly and severely punished for mutiny and desertion. but the later developments failed to show that the three dark-faced men were ever seen again. primordial gasping, blue in the face, half drowned, the boy was flung spitefully--as though the sea scorned so poor a victory--high on the sandy beach, where succeeding shorter waves lapped at him and retired. the encircling life-buoy was large enough to permit his crouching within it. pillowing his head on one side of the smooth ring, he wailed hoarsely for an interval, then slept--or swooned. the tide went down the beach, the typhoon whirled its raging center off to sea, and the tropic moon shone out, lighting up, between the beach and barrier reef, a heaving stretch of oily lagoon on which appeared and disappeared hundreds of shark-fins quickly darting, and, out on the barrier reef, perched high, yet still pounded by the ocean combers raised by the storm, a fragment of ship's stern with a stump of mizzenmast. the elevated position of the fragment, the quickly darting dorsal fins, and the absence of company for the child on the beach spoke, too plainly, of shipwreck, useless boats, and horrible death. sharks must sleep like other creatures, and they nestle in hollows at the bottom and in coral caves, or under overhanging ledges of the reefs which attract them. the first swimmer may pass safely by night, seldom the second. like she-wolves, fiendish cats, and vicious horses, they have been known to show mercy to children. for one or both reasons, this child had drifted to the beach unharmed. anywhere but on a bed of hot sand near the equator the sleep in wet clothing of a three-year-old boy might have been fatal; but salt water carries its own remedy for the evils of its moisture, and he wakened at daylight with strength to rise and cry out his protest of loneliness and misery. his childish mind could record facts, but not their reason or coherency. he was in a new, an unknown world. his mother had filled his old; where was she now? why had she tied him into that thing and thrown him from her into the darkness and wet? strange things had happened, which he dimly remembered. he had been roused from his sleep, dressed, and taken out of doors in the dark, where there were frightful crashing noises, shoutings of men, and crying of women and other children. he had cried himself, from sympathy and terror, until his mother had thrown him away. had he been bad? was she angry? and after that--what was the rest? he was hungry and thirsty now. why did she not come? he would go and find her. with the life-buoy hanging about his waist--though of cork, a heavy weight for him--he toddled along the beach to where it ended at a massive ridge of rock that came out of the wooded country inland and extended into the lagoon as an impassable point. he called the chief word in his vocabulary again and again, sobbing between calls. she was not there, or she would have come; so he went back, glancing fearfully at the dark woods of palm and undergrowth. she might be in there, but he was afraid to look. his little feet carried him a full half-mile in the other direction before the line of trees and bushes reached so close to the beach as to stop him. here he sat down, screaming passionately and convulsively for his mother. crying is an expense of energy which must be replenished by food. when he could cry no longer he tugged at the straps and strings of the life-buoy. but they were wet and hard, his little fingers were weak, and he knew nothing of knots and their untying, so it was well on toward midday before he succeeded in scrambling out of the meshes, by which time he was famished, feverish with thirst, and all but sunstruck. he wandered unsteadily along the beach, falling occasionally, moaning piteously through his parched, open lips; and when he reached the obstructing ridge of rock, turned blindly into the bushes at its base, and followed it until he came to a pool of water formed by a descending spray from above. from this, on his hands and knees, he drank deeply, burying his lips as would an animal. instinct alone had guided him here, away from the salt pools on the beach, and impelled him to drink fearlessly. it was instinct--a familiar phase in a child--that induced him to put pebbles, twigs, and small articles in his mouth until he found what was pleasant to his taste and eatable--nuts and berries; and it was instinct, the most ancient and deeply implanted,--the lingering index of an arboreal ancestry,--that now taught him the safety and comfort of these woody shades, and, as night came on, prompted him--as it prompts a drowning man to reach high, and leads a creeping babe to a chair--to attempt climbing a tree. failing in this from lack of strength, he mounted the rocky wall a few feet, and here, on a narrow ledge, after indulging in a final fit of crying, he slept through the night, not comfortably on so hard a bed, but soundly. during the day, while he had crawled about at the foot of the rocks, wild hogs, marsupial animals, and wood-rats had examined him suspiciously through the undergrowth and decamped. as he slept, howling night-dogs came up, sniffed at him from a safe distance, and scattered from his vicinity. he would have yielded in a battle with a pugnacious kitten, but these creatures recognized a prehistoric foe, and would not abide with him. a week passed before he had ceased to cry and call for his mother; but from this on her image grew fainter, and in a month the infant intelligence had discarded it. he ate nuts and berries as he found them, drank from the pool, climbed the rocks and strolled in the wood, played on the beach with shells and fragments of splintered wreckage, wore out his clothes, and in another month was naked; for when buttons and vital parts gave way and a garment fell, he let it lie. but he needed no clothes, even at night; for it was southern summer, and the northeast monsoon, adding its humid warmth to the radiating heat from the sun-baked rocks, kept the temperature nearly constant. he learned to avoid the sun at midday, and, free from contagion and motherly coddling, escaped many of the complaints which torture and kill children; yet he suffered frightfully from colic until his stomach was accustomed to the change of diet, by which time he was emaciated to skin and bone. then a reaction set in, and as time passed he gained healthy flesh and muscle on the nitrogenous food. six months from the time of his arrival, another storm swept the beach. pelted by the warm rain, terror-stricken, he cowered under the rocks through the night, and at daylight peered out on the surf-washed sands, heaving lagoon, and white line of breakers on the barrier reef. the short-lived typhoon had passed, but the wind still blew slantingly on the beach with force enough to raise a turmoil of crashing sea and undertow in the small bay formed by the extension of the wall. the fragment of ship's stern on the reef had disappeared; but a half-mile to the right--directly in the eye of the wind--was another wreck, and somewhat nearer, on the heaving swell of the lagoon, a black spot, which moved and approached. it came down before the wind and resolved into a closely packed group of human beings, some of whom tugged frantically at the oars of the water-logged boat which held them, others of whom as frantically bailed with caps and hands. escorting the boat was a fleet of dorsal fins, and erect in the stern-sheets was a white-faced woman, holding a child in one arm while she endeavored to remove a circular life-buoy from around her waist. at first heading straight for the part of the beach where the open-eyed boy was watching, the boat now changed its course and by desperate exertion of the rowers reached a position from which it could drift to leeward of the point and its deadly maelstrom. with rowers bailing and the white-faced woman seated, fastening the child in the life-buoy, the boat, gunwale-deep, and the gruesome guard of sharks drifted out of sight behind the point. the boy had not understood; but he had seen his kind, and from association of ideas appreciated again his loneliness--crying and wailing for a week; but not for his mother: he had forgotten her. with the change of the monsoon came a lowering of the temperature. naked and shelterless, he barely survived the first winter, tropical though it was. but the second found him inured to the surroundings--hardy and strong. when able to, he climbed trees and found birds' eggs, which he accidentally broke and naturally ate. it was a pleasant relief from a purely vegetable diet, and he became a proficient egg-thief; then the birds built their nests beyond his reach. once he was savagely pecked by an angry brush-turkey and forced to defend himself. it aroused a combativeness and destructiveness that had lain dormant in his nature. children the world over epitomize in their habits and thoughts the infancy of the human race. their morals and modesty, as well as their games, are those of paleolithic man, and they are as remorselessly cruel. from the day of his fracas with the turkey he was a hunter--of grubs, insects, and young birds; but only to kill, maim, or torture; he did not eat them, because hunger was satisfied, and he possessed a child's dislike of radical change. deprived of friction with other minds, he was slower than his social prototype in the reproduction of the epochs. at a stage when most boys are passing through the age of stone, with its marbles, caves, and slings, he was yet in the earlier arboreal period--a climber--and would swing from branch to branch with almost the agility of an ape. on fine, sunny days, influenced by the weather, he would laugh and shout hilariously; a gloomy sky made him morose. when hurt, or angered by disappointment in the hunt, he would cry out inarticulately; but having no use for language, did not talk, hence did not think, as the term is understood. his mind received the impressions of his senses, and could fear, hate, and remember, but knew nothing of love, for nothing lovable appealed to it. he could hardly reason, as yet; his shadow puzzled, angered, and annoyed him until he noticed its concomitance with the sun, when he reversed cause and effect, considered it a beneficent, mysterious something that had life, and endeavored by gesture and grimace to placate and please it. it was his beginning of religion. his dreams were often horrible. strange shapes, immense snakes and reptiles, and nondescript monsters made up of prehistoric legs, teeth, and heads, afflicted his sleep. he had never seen them; they were an inheritance, but as real to him as the sea and sky, the wind and rain. every six months, at the breaking up of the monsoon, would come squalls and typhoons--full of menace, for his kindly, protecting shadow then deserted him. one day, when about ten years old, during a wild burst of storm, he fled down the beach in an agony of terror; for, considering all that moved as alive, he thought that the crashing sea and swaying, falling trees were attacking him, and, half buried in the sand near the bushes, found the forgotten life-buoy, stained and weather-worn. it was quiescent, and new to him,--like nothing he had seen,--and he clung to it. at that moment the sun appeared, and in a short time the storm had passed. he carried the life-buoy back with him--spurning and threatening his delinquent shadow--and looked for a place to put it, deciding at last on a small cave in the rocky wall near to the pool. in a corner of this he installed the ring of cork and canvas, and remained by it, patting and caressing it. when it rained again, he appreciated, for the first time, the comfort of shelter, and became a cave-dweller, with a new god--a fetish, to which he transferred his allegiance and obeisance because more powerful than his shadow. from correlation of instincts, he now entered the age of stone. he no longer played with shells and sticks, but with pebbles, which he gathered, hoarded in piles, and threw at marks,--to be gathered again,--seldom entering the woods but for food and the relaxation of the hunt. but with his change of habits came a lessening of his cruelty to defenseless creatures,--not that he felt pity: he merely found no more amusement in killing and tormenting,--and in time he transferred his antagonism to the sharks in the lagoon, their dorsal fins making famous targets for his pebbles. he needed no experience with these pirates to teach him to fear and hate them, and when he bathed--which habit he acquired as a relief from the heat, and indulged daily--he chose a pool near the rocks that filled at high tide, and in it learned to swim, paddling like a dog. and so the boy, blue-eyed and fair at the beginning, grew to early manhood, as handsome an animal as the world contains, tall, straight, and clean-featured, with steady eyes wide apart, and skin--the color of old copper from sun and wind--covered with a fine, soft down, which at the age of sixteen had not yet thickened on his face to beard and mustache, though his wavy brown hair reached to his shoulders. at this period a turning-point appeared in his life which gave an impetus to his almost stagnant mental development--his food-supply diminished and his pebble-supply gave out completely, forcing him to wander. pebble-throwing was his only amusement; pebble-gathering his only labor; eating was neither. he browsed and nibbled at all hours of the day, never knowing the sensation of a full stomach, and, until lately, of an empty one. to this, perhaps, may be ascribed his wonderful immunity from sickness. in collecting pebbles his method was to carry as many as his hands would hold to a pile on the beach and go back for more; and in the six years of his stone-throwing he had found and thrown at the sharks every stone as small as his fist, within a sector formed by the beach and the rocky wall to an equal distance inland. the fruits, nuts, edible roots, and grasses growing in this area had hitherto supported him, but would no longer, owing to a drought of the previous year, which, luckily, had not affected his water-supply. one morning, trembling with excitement, eye and ear on the alert,--as a high-spirited horse enters a strange pasture,--he ventured past the junction of bush and tide-mark, and down the unknown beach beyond. he filled his hands with the first pebbles he found, but noticing the plentiful supply on the ground ahead of him, dropped them and went on; there were other things to interest him. a broad stretch of undulating, scantily wooded country reached inland from the convex beach of sand and shells to where it met the receding line of forest and bush behind him; and far away to his right, darting back and forth among stray bushes and sand-hummocks, were small creatures--strange, unlike those he knew, but in regard to which he felt curiosity rather than fear. he traveled around the circle of beach, and noticed that the moving creatures fled at his approach. they were wild hogs, hunted of men since hunting began. he entered the forest about midday, and emerging, found himself on a pebbly beach similar to his own, and facing a continuation of the rocky wall, which, like the other end, dipped into the lagoon and prevented further progress. he was thirsty, and found a pool near the rocks; hungry, and he ate of nuts and berries which he recognized. puzzled by the reversal of perspective and the similarity of conditions, he proceeded along the wall, dimly expecting to find his cave. but none appeared, and, mystified,--somewhat frightened,--he plunged into the wood, keeping close to the wall and looking sharply about him. like an exiled cat or a carrier-pigeon, he was making a straight line for home, but did not know it. his progress was slow, for boulders, stumps, and rising ground impeded him. darkness descended when he was but half-way home and nearly on a level with the top of the wall. forced to stop, he threw himself down, exhausted, yet nervous and wakeful, as any other animal in a strange place. but the familiar moon came out, shining through the foliage, and this soothed him into a light slumber. he was wakened by a sound near by that he had heard all his life at a distance--a wild chorus of barking. it was coming his way, and he crouched and waited, grasping a stone in each hand. the barking, interspersed soon with wheezing squeals, grew painfully loud, and culminated in vengeful growls, as a young pig sprang into a patch of moonlight, with a dozen dingoes--night-dogs--at its heels. in the excitement of pursuit they did not notice the crouching boy, but pounced on the pig, tore at it, snapping and snarling at one another, and in a few minutes the meal was over. frozen with terror at this strange sight, the boy remained quiet until the brutes began sniffing and turning in his direction; then he stood erect, and giving vent to a scream which rang through the forest, hurled the two stones with all his strength straight at the nearest. he was a good marksman. agonized yelps followed the impact of stone and hide; two dogs rolled over and over, then, gaining their feet, sped after their fleeing companions, while the boy sat down, trembling in every limb--completely unnerved. yet he knew that he was the cause of their flight. with a stone in each hand, he watched and waited until daylight, then arose and went on homeward, with a new and intense emotion--not fear of the dingoes: he was the superior animal, and knew it--not pity for the pig: he had not developed to the pitying stage. he was possessed by a strong, instinctive desire to emulate the dogs and eat of animal food. it did not come of his empty stomach; he felt it after he had satisfied his hunger on the way; and as he plodded down the slope toward his cave, gripped his missiles fiercely and watched sharply for small animals--preferably pigs. but no pigs appeared. he reached his cave, and slept all day and the following night, waking in the morning hungry, and with the memory of his late adventure strong in his mind. he picked up the two stones he had brought home, and started down the beach, but stopped, came back, and turned inland by the wall; then he halted again and retraced his steps--puzzled. he pondered awhile,--if his mental processes may be so termed,--then walked slowly down the beach, entered the bush a short distance, turned again to the wall, and gained his starting-point. then he reversed the trip, and coming back by way of the beach, struck inland with a clear and satisfied face. he had solved the problem--a new and hard one for him--that of two roads to a distant place; and he had chosen the shortest. in a few hours he reached his late camping-spot, and crouched to the earth, listening for barking and squealing--for a pig to be chased his way. but dingoes hunt only by night, and unmolested pigs do not squeal. impatient at last, he went on through the forest in the direction from which they had come, until he reached the open country where he had first seen them; and here, rooting under the bushes at the margin of the wood, he discovered a family--a mother and four young ones--which had possibly contained the victim of the dogs. he stalked them slowly and cautiously, keeping bushes between himself and them, but was seen by the mother when about twenty yards away. she sniffed suspiciously, then, with a warning grunt and a scattering of dust and twigs, scurried into the woods, with her brood--all but one--in her wake. a frightened pig is as easy a target as a darting dorsal fin, and a fat suckling lay kicking convulsively on the ground. he hurried up, the hunting gleam bright in his eyes, and hurled the second stone at the little animal. it still kicked, and he picked up the first stone, thinking it might be more potent to kill, and crashed it down on the unfortunate pig's head. it glanced from the head to the other stone and struck a spark--which he noticed. the pig now lay still, and satisfied that he had killed it, he tried to repeat the carom, but failed. yet the spark had interested him,--he wanted to see it again,--and it was only after he had reduced the pig's head to a pulp that he became disgusted and angrily threw the stone in his hand at the one on the ground. the resulting spark delighted him. he repeated the experiment again and again, each concussion drawing a spark, and finally used one stone as a hammer on the other, with the same result--to him, a bright and pretty thing, very small, but alive, which came from either of the dead stones. tired of the play at last, he turned to the pig--the food that he had yearned for. it was well for him, perhaps, that the initial taste of bristle and fat prevented his taking the second mouthful. slightly nauseated, he dropped the carcass and turned to go, but immediately bounded in the air with a howl of pain. his left foot was red and smarting. once he had cut it on a sharp shell, and now searched for a wound, but found none. rubbing increased the pain. looking on the ground for the cause, he discovered a wavering, widening ring of strange appearance, and within it a blackened surface on which rested the two stones. they were dry flint nodules, and he had set fire to the grass with the sparks. considering this to be a new animal that had attacked him, he pelted it with stones, dancing around it in a rage and shouting hoarsely. he might have conquered the fire and never invoked it again, had not the supply of stones in the vicinity given out, or those he had used grown too hot to handle; for he stayed the advancing flame at one side. but the other side was creeping on, and he used dry branches, dropping to his hands and knees to pound the fire, fighting bravely, crying out with pain as he burned himself, and forced to drop stick after stick which caught fire. soon it grew too hot to remain near, and he stood off and launched fuel at it, which resulted in a fair-sized bonfire; then, in desperation and fear, he hurled the dead pig--the cause of the trouble--at the terrible monster, and fled. looking back through the trees to see if he was pursued, he noticed that the strange enemy had taken new shape and color; it was reaching up into the air, black and cloud-like. frightened, tired mentally and physically, and suffering keenly from his burns, he turned his back on the half-solved problem and endeavored to satisfy his hunger. but he was on strange territory and found little of his accustomed food; the chafing and abrading contact of bushes and twigs irritated his sore spots, preventing investigation and rapid progress, and at the end of three hours, still hungry, and exasperated by his torment into a reckless, fighting mood, he picked up stones and returned savagely to battle again with the enemy. but the enemy was dead. the grass had burned to where it met dry earth, and the central fire was now a black-and-white pile of still warm ashes, on which lay the charred and denuded pig, giving forth a savory odor. cautiously approaching, he studied the situation, then, yielding to an irresistible impulse, seized the pig and ran through the woods to the wall and down to his cave. two hours later he was writhing on the ground with a violent stomach-ache. it was forty-eight hours after when he ate again, and then of his old food--nuts and berries. but the craving returned in a week, and he again killed a pig, but was compelled to forego eating it for lack of fire. though he had discovered fire and cooked food, his only conception of the process, so far, was that the mysterious enemy was too powerful for him to kill, that it would eat sticks and grass but did not like stones, and that a dead pig could kill it, and in the conflict be made eatable. it was only after months of playing with flints and sparks that he recognized the part borne by dry grass or moss, and that with these he could create it at will; that a dead pig, though always improved by the effort, could not be depended upon to kill it unless the enemy was young and small,--when stones would answer as well,--and that he could always kill it himself by depriving it of food. it is hardly possible that animal food produced a direct effect on his mind; but the effort to obtain it certainly did, arousing his torpid faculties to a keener activity. he grasped the relation of cause to effect--seeing one, he looked for the other. he noticed resemblances and soon realized the common attributes of fire and the sun; and, as his fetish was not always good to him,--the sun and storm seeming to follow their own sweet will in spite of his unspoken faith in the lifebuoy,--he again became an apostate, transferring his allegiance to the sun, of which the friendly fire was evidently a part or symbol. he did not discard his dethroned fetish completely; he still kept it in his cave to punch, kick, and revile by gestures and growls at times when the sun was hidden, retaining this habit from his former faith. the life-buoy was now his devil--a symbol of evil, or what was the same to him--discomfort; for he had advanced in religious thought to a point where he needed one. every morning when the sun shone, and at its reappearance after the rain, he prostrated himself in a patch of sun-light--this and the abuse of the life-buoy becoming ceremonies in his fire-worship. in time he became such a menace to the hogs that they climbed the wall at the high ground and disappeared in the country beyond. and after them went the cowardly dingoes that preyed on their young. rodent animals, more difficult to hunt, and a species of small kangaroo furnished him occupation and food until they, too, emigrated, when he was forced to follow; he was now a carnivorous animal, no longer satisfied with vegetable food. the longer hunts brought with them a difficulty which spurred him to further invention. he could carry only as many stones as his hands would hold, and often found himself far from his base of supply, with game in sight, and without means to kill it. the pouch in which the mother kangaroo carried her young suggested to his mind a like contrivance for carrying stones. since he had cut his foot on the shell, he had known the potency of a sharp edge, but not until he needed to remove charred and useless flesh from his food did he appreciate the utility. it was an easy advance for him roughly to skin a female kangaroo and wear the garment for the pocket's sake. but it chafed and irritated him; so, cutting off the troublesome parts little by little, he finally reduced it to a girdle which held only the pouch. and in this receptacle he carried stones for throwing and shells for cutting, his expeditions now extending for miles beyond the wall, and only limited by the necessity of returning for water, of which, in the limestone rock, there were plenty of pools and trickling springs. he learned that no stones but the dry flints he found close to the wall would strike sparks; but, careless, improvident, petulant child of nature that he was, he exhausted the supply, and one day, too indolent to search his hunting-tracts to regain the necessary two, he endeavored to draw fire from a pair that he dug from the moist earth, and failing, threw them with all his strength at the rocky wall. one of them shivered to irregular pieces, the other parted with a flake--a six-inch dagger-like fragment, flat on one side, convex on the other, with sharp edges that met in a point at one end, and at the other, where lay the cone of percussion, rounded into a roughly cylindrical shape, convenient for handling. though small, no flint-chipping savage of the stone age ever made a better knife, and he was quick to appreciate its superiority to a shell. like most discoveries and inventions that have advanced the human race, his were, in the main, accidental; yet he could now reason from the accidental to the analogous. idly swinging his girdle around his head, one day, and letting go, he was surprised at the distance to which, with little effort, he could send the stone-laden pouch. months of puzzled experimenting produced a sling--at first with a thong of hide fast to each stone, later with the double thong and pouch that small boys and savages have not yet improved upon. to this centrifugal force, which he could use without wholly understanding, he added the factor of a rigid radius--a handle to a heavy stone; for only with this contrivance could he break large flints and open cocoanuts--an article of good food that he had passed by all his life and wondered at until his knife had divided a green one. his experiments in this line resulted in a heavy, sharp-edged, solid-backed flint, firmly bound with thongs to the end of a stick,--a rude tomahawk,--convenient for the _coup de grâce_. the ease with which he could send a heavy stone out of sight, or bury a smaller one in the side of a hog at short range, was wonderful to him; but he was twenty years old before, by daily practice with his sling, he brought his marksmanship up to that of his unaided hand, equal to which, at an earlier date, was his skill at hatchet-throwing. he could outrun and tomahawk the fastest hog, could bring down with his sling a kangaroo on the jump or a pigeon on the wing, could smell and distinguish game to windward with the keen scent of a hound, and became so formidable an enemy of his troublesome rivals, the dingoes,--whose flesh he disapproved of,--and the sharks in the lagoon, that the one deserted his hunting-ground and the other seldom left the reef. he broke or lost one knife and hatchet after another, and learned, in making new ones, that he could chip them into improved shape when freshly dug, and that he must allow them to dry before using--when they were also available for striking fire. he had enlarged his pocket, making a better one of a whole skin by roughly sewing the edges together with thongs, first curing the hide by soaking in salt water and scraping with his knife. his food-list now embraced shellfish and birds, wild yams, breadfruit, and cocoanuts, which, even the latter, he cooked before eating and prepared before cooking. pushed by an ever-present healthy appetite, and helped by inherited instincts based on the habits and knowledge of a long line of civilized ancestry, he had advanced in four years from an indolent, mindless existence to a plane of fearless, reasoning activity. he was a hunter of prowess, master of his surroundings, lord over all creatures he had seen, and, though still a cave-dweller when at home, in a fair way to become a hut-builder, herdsman, and agriculturist; for he had arranged boughs to shelter him from the rain when hunting, had attempted to block up the pass over the wall to prevent the further wanderings of a herd of hogs that he had pursued, and had lately become interested in the sprouting of nuts and seeds and the encroachments and changes of the vegetation. yet he lacked speech, and did his thinking without words. the deficiency was not accompanied by the unpleasant twisted features and grimacing of mutes, which comes of conscious effort to communicate. his features were smooth and regular, his mouth symmetrical and firm, and his clear blue eye thoughtful and intent as that of a student; for he had studied and thought. he would smile and frown, laugh and shout, growl and whine, the pitch and timbre of his inarticulate utterance indicating the emotion which prompted it to about the same degree as does an intelligent dog's language to his master. but dogs and other social animals converse in a speech beyond human ken; and in this respect he was their inferior, for he had not yet known the need of language, and did not, until, one day, in a section of his domain that he had never visited before,--because game avoided it,--down by the sea on the side of the wall opposite to his cave, he met a creature like himself. he had come down the wooded slope on the steady jog-trot he assumed when traveling, tomahawk in hand, careless, confident, and happy because of the bright sunshine and his lately appeased hunger, and, as he bounded on to the beach with a joyous whoop, was startled by an answering scream. mingled with the frightful monsters in the dreams of his childhood had been transient glimpses of a kind, placid face that he seemed to know--a face that bent over him lovingly and kissed him. these were subconscious memories of his mother, which lasted long after he had forgotten her. as he neared manhood, strange yearnings had come to him--a dreary loneliness and craving for company. in his sleep he had seen fleeting visions of forms and faces like his reflection in a pool--like, yet unlike; soft, curving outlines, tinted cheeks, eyes that beamed, and white, caressing hands appeared and disappeared--fragmentary and illusive. he could not distinctly remember them when he wakened, but their influence made him strangely happy, strangely miserable; and while the mood lasted he could not hunt and kill. standing knee-deep in a shallow pool on the beach, staring at him with wide-open dark eyes, was the creature that had screamed--a living, breathing embodiment of the curves and color, the softness, brightness, and gentle sweetness that his subconsciousness knew. there were the familiar eyes, dark and limpid, wondering but not frightened; two white little teeth showing between parted lips; a wealth of long brown hair held back from the forehead by a small hand; and a rounded, dimpled cheek, the damask shading of which merged delicately into the olive tint that extended to the feet. no venus ever arose from the sea with rarer lines of beauty than were combined in the picture of loveliness which, backed by the blue of the lagoon, appeared to the astonished eyes of this wild boy. it was a girl--naked as mother eve, and as innocently shameless. in the first confusion of his faculties, when habit and inherent propensity conflicted, habit dominated his mind. he was a huntsman--feared and avoided: here was an intruder. he raised his hatchet to throw, but a second impulse brought it slowly down; she had shown no fear--no appreciation of what the gesture threatened. dropping the weapon to the ground, he advanced slowly, the wonder in his face giving way to a delighted smile, and she came out of the pool to meet him. face to face they looked into each other's eyes--long and earnestly; then, as though the scrutiny brought approval, the pretty features of the girl sweetened to a smile, but she did not speak nor attempt to. stepping past him, she looked back, still smiling, halted until he followed, and then led him up to the wall, where, on a level with the ground, was a hollow in the formation, somewhat similar to his cave, but larger. flowering vines grew at the entrance, which had prevented his seeing it before. she entered, and emerged immediately with a life-buoy, which she held before him, the action and smiling face indicating her desire that he admire it. the boy thought that he saw his property in the possession of another creature, and resented the spoliation. with an angry snarl he snatched the life-buoy and backed away, while the girl, surprised and a little indignant, followed with extended hands. he raised it threateningly, and though she did not cower, she knew intuitively that he was angry, and feeling the injustice, burst into tears; then, turning from him, she covered her eyes with her hands and crouched to the ground, sobbing piteously. the face of the boy softened. he looked from the weeping girl to the life-buoy and back again; then, puzzled,--still believing it to be his own,--he obeyed a generous impulse. advancing, he laid the treasure at her feet; but she turned away. sober-faced and irresolute, not knowing what to do, he looked around and above. a pigeon fluttered on a branch at the edge of the wood. he whipped out his sling, loaded it, and sent a stone whizzing upward. the pigeon fell, and he was beneath it before it reached the ground. hurrying back with the dead bird, he placed it before her; but she shuddered in disgust and would not touch it. off in the lagoon a misguided shark was swimming slowly along,--its dorsal fin cutting the surface,--a full two hundred yards from the beach. he ran to the water's edge, looked back once, flourished his sling, and two seconds later the shark was scudding for the reef. if she had seen, she evidently was not impressed. he returned, picked up his tomahawk on the way, idly and nervously fingered the pebbles in his pocket, stood a moment over the sulky girl, and then studied the life-buoy on the ground. a light came to his eyes; with a final glance at the girl he bounded up the slope and disappeared in the woods. three hours later he returned with his discarded fetish, and found her sitting upright, with her life-buoy on her knees. she smiled gladly as he approached, then pouted, as though remembering. panting from his exertion, he humbly placed the faded, scarred, and misshapen ring on top of the brighter, better-cared-for possession of the girl, and stood, mutely pleading for pardon. it was granted. smiling radiantly,--a little roguishly,--she arose and led him again to the cave, from which she brought forth another treasure. it was a billet of wood,--a dead branch, worn smooth at the ends,--around which were wrapped faded, half-rotten rags of calico. hugging it for a moment, she handed it to him. he looked at it wonderingly and let it drop, turning his eyes upon her; then, with impatience in her face, she reclaimed it, entered the cave,--the boy following,--and tenderly placed it in a corner. it was her doll. up to the borders of womanhood--untutored, unloved waif of the woods--living through the years of her simple existence alone--she had lavished the instinctive mother-love of her heart on a stick, and had clothed it, though not herself. with a thoughtful little wrinkle in her brow, she studied the face of this new companion who acted so strangely, and he, equally mystified, looked around the cave. a pile of nuts in a corner indicated her housewifely thrift and forethought. a bed of dry moss with an evenly packed elevation at the end--which could be nothing but a pillow--showed plainly the manner in which she had preserved the velvety softness of her skin. tinted shells and strips of faded calico, arranged with some approach to harmony of color around the sides and the border of the floor, gave evidence of the tutelage of the bower-birds, of which there were many in the vicinity. and the vines at the entrance had surely been planted--they were far from others of the kind. in her own way she had developed as fully as he. as he stood there, wondering at what he saw, the girl approached, slowly and irresolutely; then, raising her hand, she softly pressed the tip of her finger into his shoulder. in the dim and misty ages of the past, when wandering bands of ape-like human beings had not developed their tribal customs to the level of priestly ceremonies,--when the medicine-man had not arisen,--a marriage between a man and young woman was generally consummated by the man beating the girl into insensibility, and dragging her by the hair to his cave. added to its simplicity, the custom had the merit of improving the race, as unhealthy and ill-favored girls were not pursued, and similar men were clubbed out of the pursuit by stronger. but the process was necessarily painful to the loved one, and her female children very naturally inherited a repugnance to being wooed. when a civilized young lady, clothed and well conducted, anticipates being kissed or embraced by her lover, she places in the way such difficulties as are in her power; she gets behind tables and chairs, runs from him, compels him to pursue, and expects him to. in her maidenly heart she may want to be kissed, but she cannot help resisting. she obeys the same instinct that impelled this wild girl to spring from the outstretched arms of the boy and go screaming out of the cave and down the beach in simulated terror--an instinct inherited from the prehistoric mother, who fled for dear life and a whole skin from a man behind armed with a club and bent upon marriage. shouting hoarsely, the boy followed, in what, if he had been called upon to classify it, might have seemed to him a fury of rage, but it was not. he would not have harmed the girl, for he lacked the tribal education that induces cruelty to the weaker sex. but he did not catch her; he stubbed his toe and fell, arising with a bruised kneecap which prevented further pursuit. slowly, painfully, he limped back, tears welling in his eyes and increasing to a copious flood as he sat down with his back to the girl and nursed his aching knee. it was not the pain that brought the tears; he was hardened to physical suffering. but his feelings had been hurt beyond any disappointment of the hunt or terror of the storm, and for the first time in his life since his babyhood he wept--like the intellectual child that he was. a soft, caressing touch on his head aroused him and brought him to his feet. she stood beside him, tears in her own eyes, and sympathy overflowing in every feature of the sweet face. from her lips came little cooing, gurgling sounds which he endeavored to repeat. it was their first attempt at communication, and the sounds that they used--understood by mothers and infants of all races--were the first root-words of a new language. he extended his arms, and though she held back slightly, while a faint smile responded to his own, she did not resist, and he drew her close--forgetting his pain as he pressed his lips to hers. none [illustration: the challenge studio april . h. pyle. del.] [illustration: howard pyle's book of pirates ye pirate bold, as imagined by a quaker gentleman in the-- farm lands of pennsylvania-- howard pyle--chadds ford september th --] [illustration: an attack on a galleon] howard pyle's book of pirates fiction, fact & fancy concerning the buccaneers & marooners of the spanish main: _from the_ writing & pictures _of_ howard pyle: _compiled by_ merle johnson harper & brothers _publishers_ new york & london * * * * * contents page foreword by merle johnson xi preface xiii i. buccaneers and marooners of the spanish main ii. the ghost of captain brand iii. with the buccaneers iv. tom chist and the treasure box v. jack ballister's fortunes vi. blueskin, the pirate vii. captain scarfield viii. the ruby of kishmoor [illustration] * * * * * [illustration] illustrations an attack on a galleon _frontispiece_ on the totugas _facing p._ capture of the galleon " henry morgan recruiting for the attack " morgan at porto bello " the sacking of panama " marooned " blackbeard buries his treasure " walking the plank " "captain malyoe shot captain brand through the head" " "she would sit quite still, permitting barnaby to gaze" " buried treasure " kidd on the deck of the "adventure galley" " burning the ship " who shall be captain? " kidd at gardiner's island " extorting tribute from the citizens " "pirates used to do that to their captains now and then" " "jack followed the captain and the young lady up the crooked path to the house" " "he led jack up to a man who sat upon a barrel" " "the bullets were humming and singing, clipping along the top of the water" " "the combatants cut and slashed with savage fury" " so the treasure was divided " colonel rhett and the pirate " the pirate's christmas " "he lay silent and still, with his face half buried in the sand" " "there cap'n goldsack goes, creeping, creeping, creeping, looking for his treasure down below!" " "he had found the captain agreeable and companionable" " the buccaneer was a picturesque fellow " then the real fight began " "he struck once and again at the bald, narrow forehead beneath him" " captain keitt " how the buccaneers kept christmas " the burning ship " dead men tell no tales " "i am the daughter of that unfortunate captain keitt" " * * * * * foreword pirates, buccaneers, marooners, those cruel but picturesque sea wolves who once infested the spanish main, all live in present-day conceptions in great degree as drawn by the pen and pencil of howard pyle. pyle, artist-author, living in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth, had the fine faculty of transposing himself into any chosen period of history and making its people flesh and blood again--not just historical puppets. his characters were sketched with both words and picture; with both words and picture he ranks as a master, with a rich personality which makes his work individual and attractive in either medium. he was one of the founders of present-day american illustration, and his pupils and grand-pupils pervade that field to-day. while he bore no such important part in the world of letters, his stories are modern in treatment, and yet widely read. his range included historical treatises concerning his favorite pirates (quaker though he was); fiction, with the same pirates as principals; americanized version of old world fairy tales; boy stories of the middle ages, still best sellers to growing lads; stories of the occult, such as _in tenebras_ and _to the soil of the earth_, which, if newly published, would be hailed as contributions to our latest cult. in all these fields pyle's work may be equaled, surpassed, save in one. it is improbable that anyone else will ever bring his combination of interest and talent to the depiction of these old-time pirates, any more than there could be a second remington to paint the now extinct indians and gun-fighters of the great west. important and interesting to the student of history, the adventure-lover, and the artist, as they are, these pirate stories and pictures have been scattered through many magazines and books. here, in this volume, they are gathered together for the first time, perhaps not just as mr. pyle would have done, but with a completeness and appreciation of the real value of the material which the author's modesty might not have permitted. merle johnson. [illustration] [illustration] preface why is it that a little spice of deviltry lends not an unpleasantly titillating twang to the great mass of respectable flour that goes to make up the pudding of our modern civilization? and pertinent to this question another--why is it that the pirate has, and always has had, a certain lurid glamour of the heroical enveloping him round about? is there, deep under the accumulated debris of culture, a hidden groundwork of the old-time savage? is there even in these well-regulated times an unsubdued nature in the respectable mental household of every one of us that still kicks against the pricks of law and order? to make my meaning more clear, would not every boy, for instance--that is, every boy of any account--rather be a pirate captain than a member of parliament? and we ourselves--would we not rather read such a story as that of captain avery's capture of the east indian treasure ship, with its beautiful princess and load of jewels (which gems he sold by the handful, history sayeth, to a bristol merchant), than, say, one of bishop atterbury's sermons, or the goodly master robert boyle's religious romance of "theodora and didymus"? it is to be apprehended that to the unregenerate nature of most of us there can be but one answer to such a query. in the pleasurable warmth the heart feels in answer to tales of derring-do nelson's battles are all mightily interesting, but, even in spite of their romance of splendid courage, i fancy that the majority of us would rather turn back over the leaves of history to read how drake captured the spanish treasure ship in the south sea, and of how he divided such a quantity of booty in the island of plate (so named because of the tremendous dividend there declared) that it had to be measured in quart bowls, being too considerable to be counted. courage and daring, no matter how mad and ungodly, have always a redundancy of _vim_ and life to recommend them to the nether man that lies within us, and no doubt his desperate courage, his battle against the tremendous odds of all the civilized world of law and order, have had much to do in making a popular hero of our friend of the black flag. but it is not altogether courage and daring that endear him to our hearts. there is another and perhaps a greater kinship in that lust for wealth that makes one's fancy revel more pleasantly in the story of the division of treasure in the pirate's island retreat, the hiding of his godless gains somewhere in the sandy stretch of tropic beach, there to remain hidden until the time should come to rake the doubloons up again and to spend them like a lord in polite society, than in the most thrilling tales of his wonderful escapes from commissioned cruisers through tortuous channels between the coral reefs. and what a life of adventure is his, to be sure! a life of constant alertness, constant danger, constant escape! an ocean ishmaelite, he wanders forever aimlessly, homelessly; now unheard of for months, now careening his boat on some lonely uninhabited shore, now appearing suddenly to swoop down on some merchant vessel with rattle of musketry, shouting, yells, and a hell of unbridled passions let loose to rend and tear. what a carlislean hero! what a setting of blood and lust and flame and rapine for such a hero! piracy, such as was practiced in the flower of its days--that is, during the early eighteenth century--was no sudden growth. it was an evolution, from the semilawful buccaneering of the sixteenth century, just as buccaneering was upon its part, in a certain sense, an evolution from the unorganized, unauthorized warfare of the tudor period. for there was a deal of piratical smack in the anti-spanish ventures of elizabethan days. many of the adventurers--of the sir francis drake school, for instance--actually overstepped again and again the bounds of international law, entering into the realms of _de facto_ piracy. nevertheless, while their doings were not recognized officially by the government, the perpetrators were neither punished nor reprimanded for their excursions against spanish commerce at home or in the west indies; rather were they commended, and it was considered not altogether a discreditable thing for men to get rich upon the spoils taken from spanish galleons in times of nominal peace. many of the most reputable citizens and merchants of london, when they felt that the queen failed in her duty of pushing the fight against the great catholic power, fitted out fleets upon their own account and sent them to levy good protestant war of a private nature upon the pope's anointed. some of the treasures captured in such ventures were immense, stupendous, unbelievable. for an example, one can hardly credit the truth of the "purchase" gained by drake in the famous capture of the plate ship in the south sea. one of the old buccaneer writers of a century later says: "the spaniards affirm to this day that he took at that time twelvescore tons of plate and sixteen bowls of coined money a man (his number being then forty-five men in all), insomuch that they were forced to heave much of it overboard, because his ship could not carry it all." maybe this was a very greatly exaggerated statement put by the author and his spanish authorities, nevertheless there was enough truth in it to prove very conclusively to the bold minds of the age that tremendous profits--"purchases" they called them--were to be made from piracy. the western world is filled with the names of daring mariners of those old days, who came flitting across the great trackless ocean in their little tublike boats of a few hundred tons burden, partly to explore unknown seas, partly--largely, perhaps--in pursuit of spanish treasure: frobisher, davis, drake, and a score of others. in this left-handed war against catholic spain many of the adventurers were, no doubt, stirred and incited by a grim, calvinistic, puritanical zeal for protestantism. but equally beyond doubt the gold and silver and plate of the "scarlet woman" had much to do with the persistent energy with which these hardy mariners braved the mysterious, unknown terrors of the great unknown ocean that stretched away to the sunset, there in far-away waters to attack the huge, unwieldy, treasure-laden galleons that sailed up and down the caribbean sea and through the bahama channel. of all ghastly and terrible things old-time religious war was the most ghastly and terrible. one can hardly credit nowadays the cold, callous cruelty of those times. generally death was the least penalty that capture entailed. when the spaniards made prisoners of the english, the inquisition took them in hand, and what that meant all the world knows. when the english captured a spanish vessel the prisoners were tortured, either for the sake of revenge or to compel them to disclose where treasure lay hidden. cruelty begat cruelty, and it would be hard to say whether the anglo-saxon or the latin showed himself to be most proficient in torturing his victim. when cobham, for instance, captured the spanish ship in the bay of biscay, after all resistance was over and the heat of the battle had cooled, he ordered his crew to bind the captain and all of the crew and every spaniard aboard--whether in arms or not--to sew them up in the mainsail and to fling them overboard. there were some twenty dead bodies in the sail when a few days later it was washed up on the shore. of course such acts were not likely to go unavenged, and many an innocent life was sacrificed to pay the debt of cobham's cruelty. nothing could be more piratical than all this. nevertheless, as was said, it was winked at, condoned, if not sanctioned, by the law; and it was not beneath people of family and respectability to take part in it. but by and by protestantism and catholicism began to be at somewhat less deadly enmity with each other; religious wars were still far enough from being ended, but the scabbard of the sword was no longer flung away when the blade was drawn. and so followed a time of nominal peace, and a generation arose with whom it was no longer respectable and worthy--one might say a matter of duty--to fight a country with which one's own land was not at war. nevertheless, the seed had been sown; it had been demonstrated that it was feasible to practice piracy against spain and not to suffer therefor. blood had been shed and cruelty practiced, and, once indulged, no lust seems stronger than that of shedding blood and practicing cruelty. though spain might be ever so well grounded in peace at home, in the west indies she was always at war with the whole world--english, french, dutch. it was almost a matter of life or death with her to keep her hold upon the new world. at home she was bankrupt and, upon the earthquake of the reformation, her power was already beginning to totter and to crumble to pieces. america was her treasure house, and from it alone could she hope to keep her leaking purse full of gold and silver. so it was that she strove strenuously, desperately, to keep out the world from her american possessions--a bootless task, for the old order upon which her power rested was broken and crumbled forever. but still she strove, fighting against fate, and so it was that in the tropical america it was one continual war between her and all the world. thus it came that, long after piracy ceased to be allowed at home, it continued in those far-away seas with unabated vigor, recruiting to its service all that lawless malign element which gathers together in every newly opened country where the only law is lawlessness, where might is right and where a living is to be gained with no more trouble than cutting a throat. [illustration: howard pyle, his mark] howard pyle's book of pirates [illustration] ye pirate bold. it is not because of his life of adventure and daring that i admire this one of my favorite heroes; nor is it because of blowing winds nor blue ocean nor balmy islands which he knew so well; nor is it because of gold he spent nor treasure he hid. he was a man who knew his own mind and what he wanted. howard pyle [illustration] chapter i buccaneers and marooners of the spanish main just above the northwestern shore of the old island of hispaniola--the santo domingo of our day--and separated from it only by a narrow channel of some five or six miles in width, lies a queer little hunch of an island, known, because of a distant resemblance to that animal, as the tortuga de mar, or sea turtle. it is not more than twenty miles in length by perhaps seven or eight in breadth; it is only a little spot of land, and as you look at it upon the map a pin's head would almost cover it; yet from that spot, as from a center of inflammation, a burning fire of human wickedness and ruthlessness and lust overran the world, and spread terror and death throughout the spanish west indies, from st. augustine to the island of trinidad, and from panama to the coasts of peru. about the middle of the seventeenth century certain french adventurers set out from the fortified island of st. christopher in longboats and hoys, directing their course to the westward, there to discover new islands. sighting hispaniola "with abundance of joy," they landed, and went into the country, where they found great quantities of wild cattle, horses, and swine. now vessels on the return voyage to europe from the west indies needed revictualing, and food, especially flesh, was at a premium in the islands of the spanish main; wherefore a great profit was to be turned in preserving beef and pork, and selling the flesh to homeward-bound vessels. the northwestern shore of hispaniola, lying as it does at the eastern outlet of the old bahama channel, running between the island of cuba and the great bahama banks, lay almost in the very main stream of travel. the pioneer frenchmen were not slow to discover the double advantage to be reaped from the wild cattle that cost them nothing to procure, and a market for the flesh ready found for them. so down upon hispaniola they came by boatloads and shiploads, gathering like a swarm of mosquitoes, and overrunning the whole western end of the island. there they established themselves, spending the time alternately in hunting the wild cattle and buccanning[ ] the meat, and squandering their hardly earned gains in wild debauchery, the opportunities for which were never lacking in the spanish west indies. [footnote : buccanning, by which the "buccaneers" gained their name, was a process of curing thin strips of meat by salting, smoking, and drying in the sun.] at first the spaniards thought nothing of the few travel-worn frenchmen who dragged their longboats and hoys up on the beach, and shot a wild bullock or two to keep body and soul together; but when the few grew to dozens, and the dozens to scores, and the scores to hundreds, it was a very different matter, and wrathful grumblings and mutterings began to be heard among the original settlers. but of this the careless buccaneers thought never a whit, the only thing that troubled them being the lack of a more convenient shipping point than the main island afforded them. this lack was at last filled by a party of hunters who ventured across the narrow channel that separated the main island from tortuga. here they found exactly what they needed--a good harbor, just at the junction of the windward channel with the old bahama channel--a spot where four-fifths of the spanish-indian trade would pass by their very wharves. there were a few spaniards upon the island, but they were a quiet folk, and well disposed to make friends with the strangers; but when more frenchmen and still more frenchmen crossed the narrow channel, until they overran the tortuga and turned it into one great curing house for the beef which they shot upon the neighboring island, the spaniards grew restive over the matter, just as they had done upon the larger island. accordingly, one fine day there came half a dozen great boatloads of armed spaniards, who landed upon the turtle's back and sent the frenchmen flying to the woods and fastnesses of rocks as the chaff flies before the thunder gust. that night the spaniards drank themselves mad and shouted themselves hoarse over their victory, while the beaten frenchmen sullenly paddled their canoes back to the main island again, and the sea turtle was spanish once more. but the spaniards were not contented with such a petty triumph as that of sweeping the island of tortuga free from the obnoxious strangers; down upon hispaniola they came, flushed with their easy victory, and determined to root out every frenchman, until not one single buccaneer remained. for a time they had an easy thing of it, for each french hunter roamed the woods by himself, with no better company than his half-wild dogs, so that when two or three spaniards would meet such a one, he seldom if ever came out of the woods again, for even his resting place was lost. but the very success of the spaniards brought their ruin along with it, for the buccaneers began to combine together for self-protection, and out of that combination arose a strange union of lawless man with lawless man, so near, so close, that it can scarce be compared to any other than that of husband and wife. when two entered upon this comradeship, articles were drawn up and signed by both parties, a common stock was made of all their possessions, and out into the woods they went to seek their fortunes; thenceforth they were as one man; they lived together by day, they slept together by night; what one suffered, the other suffered; what one gained, the other gained. the only separation that came betwixt them was death, and then the survivor inherited all that the other left. and now it was another thing with spanish buccaneer hunting, for two buccaneers, reckless of life, quick of eye, and true of aim, were worth any half dozen of spanish islanders. by and by, as the french became more strongly organized for mutual self-protection, they assumed the offensive. then down they came upon tortuga, and now it was the turn of the spanish to be hunted off the island like vermin, and the turn of the french to shout their victory. having firmly established themselves, a governor was sent to the french of tortuga, one m. le passeur, from the island of st. christopher; the sea turtle was fortified, and colonists, consisting of men of doubtful character and women of whose character there could be no doubt whatever, began pouring in upon the island, for it was said that the buccaneers thought no more of a doubloon than of a lima bean, so that this was the place for the brothel and the brandy shop to reap their golden harvest, and the island remained french. [illustration: on the tortugas _illustration from_ buccaneers and marooners of the spanish main _by_ howard pyle _originally published in_ harper's magazine, _august and september_, ] hitherto the tortugans had been content to gain as much as possible from the homeward-bound vessels through the orderly channels of legitimate trade. it was reserved for pierre le grand to introduce piracy as a quicker and more easy road to wealth than the semihonest exchange they had been used to practice. gathering together eight-and-twenty other spirits as hardy and reckless as himself, he put boldly out to sea in a boat hardly large enough to hold his crew, and running down the windward channel and out into the caribbean sea, he lay in wait for such a prize as might be worth the risks of winning. for a while their luck was steadily against them; their provisions and water began to fail, and they saw nothing before them but starvation or a humiliating return. in this extremity they sighted a spanish ship belonging to a "flota" which had become separated from her consorts. the boat in which the buccaneers sailed might, perhaps, have served for the great ship's longboat; the spaniards outnumbered them three to one, and pierre and his men were armed only with pistols and cutlasses; nevertheless this was their one and their only chance, and they determined to take the spanish ship or to die in the attempt. down upon the spaniard they bore through the dusk of the night, and giving orders to the "chirurgeon" to scuttle their craft under them as they were leaving it, they swarmed up the side of the unsuspecting ship and upon its decks in a torrent--pistol in one hand and cutlass in the other. a part of them ran to the gun room and secured the arms and ammunition, pistoling or cutting down all such as stood in their way or offered opposition; the other party burst into the great cabin at the heels of pierre le grand, found the captain and a party of his friends at cards, set a pistol to his breast, and demanded him to deliver up the ship. nothing remained for the spaniard but to yield, for there was no alternative between surrender and death. and so the great prize was won. it was not long before the news of this great exploit and of the vast treasure gained reached the ears of the buccaneers of tortuga and hispaniola. then what a hubbub and an uproar and a tumult there was! hunting wild cattle and buccanning the meat was at a discount, and the one and only thing to do was to go a-pirating; for where one such prize had been won, others were to be had. in a short time freebooting assumed all of the routine of a regular business. articles were drawn up betwixt captain and crew, compacts were sealed, and agreements entered into by the one party and the other. in all professions there are those who make their mark, those who succeed only moderately well, and those who fail more or less entirely. nor did pirating differ from this general rule, for in it were men who rose to distinction, men whose names, something tarnished and rusted by the lapse of years, have come down even to us of the present day. pierre françois, who, with his boatload of six-and-twenty desperadoes, ran boldly into the midst of the pearl fleet off the coast of south america, attacked the vice admiral under the very guns of two men-of-war, captured his ship, though she was armed with eight guns and manned with threescore men, and would have got her safely away, only that having to put on sail, their main-mast went by the board, whereupon the men-of-war came up with them, and the prize was lost. but even though there were two men-of-war against all that remained of six-and-twenty buccaneers, the spaniards were glad enough to make terms with them for the surrender of the vessel, whereby pierre françois and his men came off scot-free. bartholomew portuguese was a worthy of even more note. in a boat manned with thirty fellow adventurers he fell upon a great ship off cape corrientes, manned with threescore and ten men, all told. her he assaulted again and again, beaten off with the very pressure of numbers only to renew the assault, until the spaniards who survived, some fifty in all, surrendered to twenty living pirates, who poured upon their decks like a score of blood-stained, powder-grimed devils. they lost their vessel by recapture, and bartholomew portuguese barely escaped with his life through a series of almost unbelievable adventures. but no sooner had he fairly escaped from the clutches of the spaniards than, gathering together another band of adventurers, he fell upon the very same vessel in the gloom of the night, recaptured her when she rode at anchor in the harbor of campeche under the guns of the fort, slipped the cable, and was away without the loss of a single man. he lost her in a hurricane soon afterward, just off the isle of pines; but the deed was none the less daring for all that. another notable no less famous than these two worthies was roch braziliano, the truculent dutchman who came up from the coast of brazil to the spanish main with a name ready-made for him. upon the very first adventure which he undertook he captured a plate ship of fabulous value, and brought her safely into jamaica; and when at last captured by the spaniards, he fairly frightened them into letting him go by truculent threats of vengeance from his followers. such were three of the pirate buccaneers who infested the spanish main. there were hundreds no less desperate, no less reckless, no less insatiate in their lust for plunder, than they. the effects of this freebooting soon became apparent. the risks to be assumed by the owners of vessels and the shippers of merchandise became so enormous that spanish commerce was practically swept away from these waters. no vessel dared to venture out of port excepting under escort of powerful men-of-war, and even then they were not always secure from molestation. exports from central and south america were sent to europe by way of the strait of magellan, and little or none went through the passes between the bahamas and the caribbees. so at last "buccaneering," as it had come to be generically called, ceased to pay the vast dividends that it had done at first. the cream was skimmed off, and only very thin milk was left in the dish. fabulous fortunes were no longer earned in a ten days' cruise, but what money was won hardly paid for the risks of the winning. there must be a new departure, or buccaneering would cease to exist. then arose one who showed the buccaneers a new way to squeeze money out of the spaniards. this man was an englishman--lewis scot. the stoppage of commerce on the spanish main had naturally tended to accumulate all the wealth gathered and produced into the chief fortified cities and towns of the west indies. as there no longer existed prizes upon the sea, they must be gained upon the land, if they were to be gained at all. lewis scot was the first to appreciate this fact. gathering together a large and powerful body of men as hungry for plunder and as desperate as himself, he descended upon the town of campeche, which he captured and sacked, stripping it of everything that could possibly be carried away. when the town was cleared to the bare walls scot threatened to set the torch to every house in the place if it was not ransomed by a large sum of money which he demanded. with this booty he set sail for tortuga, where he arrived safely--and the problem was solved. after him came one mansvelt, a buccaneer of lesser note, who first made a descent upon the isle of saint catharine, now old providence, which he took, and, with this as a base, made an unsuccessful descent upon neuva granada and cartagena. his name might not have been handed down to us along with others of greater fame had he not been the master of that most apt of pupils, the great captain henry morgan, most famous of all the buccaneers, one time governor of jamaica, and knighted by king charles ii. [illustration: capture of the galleon _illustration from_ buccaneers and marooners of the spanish main _by_ howard pyle _originally published in_ harper's magazine, _august and september_, ] after mansvelt followed the bold john davis, native of jamaica, where he sucked in the lust of piracy with his mother's milk. with only fourscore men, he swooped down upon the great city of nicaragua in the darkness of the night, silenced the sentry with the thrust of a knife, and then fell to pillaging the churches and houses "without any respect or veneration." of course it was but a short time until the whole town was in an uproar of alarm, and there was nothing left for the little handful of men to do but to make the best of their way to their boats. they were in the town but a short time, but in that time they were able to gather together and to carry away money and jewels to the value of fifty thousand pieces of eight, besides dragging off with them a dozen or more notable prisoners, whom they held for ransom. and now one appeared upon the scene who reached a far greater height than any had arisen to before. this was françois l'olonoise, who sacked the great city of maracaibo and the town of gibraltar. cold, unimpassioned, pitiless, his sluggish blood was never moved by one single pulse of human warmth, his icy heart was never touched by one ray of mercy or one spark of pity for the hapless wretches who chanced to fall into his bloody hands. against him the governor of havana sent out a great war vessel, and with it a negro executioner, so that there might be no inconvenient delays of law after the pirates had been captured. but l'olonoise did not wait for the coming of the war vessel; he went out to meet it, and he found it where it lay riding at anchor in the mouth of the river estra. at the dawn of the morning he made his attack--sharp, unexpected, decisive. in a little while the spaniards were forced below the hatches, and the vessel was taken. then came the end. one by one the poor shrieking wretches were dragged up from below, and one by one they were butchered in cold blood, while l'olonoise stood upon the poop deck and looked coldly down upon what was being done. among the rest the negro was dragged upon the deck. he begged and implored that his life might be spared, promising to tell all that might be asked of him. l'olonoise questioned him, and when he had squeezed him dry, waved his hand coldly, and the poor black went with the rest. only one man was spared; him he sent to the governor of havana with a message that henceforth he would give no quarter to any spaniard whom he might meet in arms--a message which was not an empty threat. the rise of l'olonoise was by no means rapid. he worked his way up by dint of hard labor and through much ill fortune. but by and by, after many reverses, the tide turned, and carried him with it from one success to another, without let or stay, to the bitter end. cruising off maracaibo, he captured a rich prize laden with a vast amount of plate and ready money, and there conceived the design of descending upon the powerful town of maracaibo itself. without loss of time he gathered together five hundred picked scoundrels from tortuga, and taking with him one michael de basco as land captain, and two hundred more buccaneers whom he commanded, down he came into the gulf of venezuela and upon the doomed city like a blast of the plague. leaving their vessels, the buccaneers made a land attack upon the fort that stood at the mouth of the inlet that led into lake maracaibo and guarded the city. the spaniards held out well, and fought with all the might that spaniards possess; but after a fight of three hours all was given up and the garrison fled, spreading terror and confusion before them. as many of the inhabitants of the city as could do so escaped in boats to gibraltar, which lies to the southward, on the shores of lake maracaibo, at the distance of some forty leagues or more. then the pirates marched into the town, and what followed may be conceived. it was a holocaust of lust, of passion, and of blood such as even the spanish west indies had never seen before. houses and churches were sacked until nothing was left but the bare walls; men and women were tortured to compel them to disclose where more treasure lay hidden. then, having wrenched all that they could from maracaibo, they entered the lake and descended upon gibraltar, where the rest of the panic-stricken inhabitants were huddled together in a blind terror. the governor of merida, a brave soldier who had served his king in flanders, had gathered together a troop of eight hundred men, had fortified the town, and now lay in wait for the coming of the pirates. the pirates came all in good time, and then, in spite of the brave defense, gibraltar also fell. then followed a repetition of the scenes that had been enacted in maracaibo for the past fifteen days, only here they remained for four horrible weeks, extorting money--money! ever money!--from the poor poverty-stricken, pest-ridden souls crowded into that fever hole of a town. then they left, but before they went they demanded still more money--ten thousand pieces of eight--as a ransom for the town, which otherwise should be given to the flames. there was some hesitation on the part of the spaniards, some disposition to haggle, but there was no hesitation on the part of l'olonoise. the torch was set to the town as he had promised, whereupon the money was promptly paid, and the pirates were piteously begged to help quench the spreading flames. this they were pleased to do, but in spite of all their efforts nearly half of the town was consumed. after that they returned to maracaibo again, where they demanded a ransom of thirty thousand pieces of eight for the city. there was no haggling here, thanks to the fate of gibraltar; only it was utterly impossible to raise that much money in all of the poverty-stricken region. but at last the matter was compromised, and the town was redeemed for twenty thousand pieces of eight and five hundred head of cattle, and tortured maracaibo was quit of them. in the ile de la vache the buccaneers shared among themselves two hundred and sixty thousand pieces of eight, besides jewels and bales of silk and linen and miscellaneous plunder to a vast amount. such was the one great deed of l'olonoise; from that time his star steadily declined--for even nature seemed fighting against such a monster--until at last he died a miserable, nameless death at the hands of an unknown tribe of indians upon the isthmus of darien. * * * * * and now we come to the greatest of all the buccaneers, he who stands pre-eminent among them, and whose name even to this day is a charm to call up his deeds of daring, his dauntless courage, his truculent cruelty, and his insatiate and unappeasable lust for gold--capt. henry morgan, the bold welshman, who brought buccaneering to the height and flower of its glory. having sold himself, after the manner of the times, for his passage across the seas, he worked out his time of servitude at the barbados. as soon as he had regained his liberty he entered upon the trade of piracy, wherein he soon reached a position of considerable prominence. he was associated with mansvelt at the time of the latter's descent upon saint catharine's isle, the importance of which spot, as a center of operations against the neighboring coasts, morgan never lost sight of. the first attempt that capt. henry morgan ever made against any town in the spanish indies was the bold descent upon the city of puerto del principe in the island of cuba, with a mere handful of men. it was a deed the boldness of which has never been outdone by any of a like nature--not even the famous attack upon panama itself. thence they returned to their boats in the very face of the whole island of cuba, aroused and determined upon their extermination. not only did they make good their escape, but they brought away with them a vast amount of plunder, computed at three hundred thousand pieces of eight, besides five hundred head of cattle and many prisoners held for ransom. [illustration: henry morgan recruiting for the attack _illustration from_ buccaneers and marooners of the spanish main _by_ howard pyle _originally published in_ harper's magazine, _august and september_, ] but when the division of all this wealth came to be made, lo! there were only fifty thousand pieces of eight to be found. what had become of the rest no man could tell but capt. henry morgan himself. honesty among thieves was never an axiom with him. rude, truculent, and dishonest as captain morgan was, he seems to have had a wonderful power of persuading the wild buccaneers under him to submit everything to his judgment, and to rely entirely upon his word. in spite of the vast sum of money that he had very evidently made away with, recruits poured in upon him, until his band was larger and better equipped than ever. and now it was determined that the plunder harvest was ripe at porto bello, and that city's doom was sealed. the town was defended by two strong castles thoroughly manned, and officered by as gallant a soldier as ever carried toledo steel at his side. but strong castles and gallant soldiers weighed not a barleycorn with the buccaneers when their blood was stirred by the lust of gold. landing at puerto naso, a town some ten leagues westward of porto bello, they marched to the latter town, and coming before the castle, boldly demanded its surrender. it was refused, whereupon morgan threatened that no quarter should be given. still surrender was refused; and then the castle was attacked, and after a bitter struggle was captured. morgan was as good as his word: every man in the castle was shut in the guard room, the match was set to the powder magazine, and soldiers, castle, and all were blown into the air, while through all the smoke and the dust the buccaneers poured into the town. still the governor held out in the other castle, and might have made good his defense, but that he was betrayed by the soldiers under him. into the castle poured the howling buccaneers. but still the governor fought on, with his wife and daughter clinging to his knees and beseeching him to surrender, and the blood from his wounded forehead trickling down over his white collar, until a merciful bullet put an end to the vain struggle. here were enacted the old scenes. everything plundered that could be taken, and then a ransom set upon the town itself. this time an honest, or an apparently honest, division was made of the spoils, which amounted to two hundred and fifty thousand pieces of eight, besides merchandise and jewels. the next towns to suffer were poor maracaibo and gibraltar, now just beginning to recover from the desolation wrought by l'olonoise. once more both towns were plundered of every bale of merchandise and of every piaster, and once more both were ransomed until everything was squeezed from the wretched inhabitants. here affairs were like to have taken a turn, for when captain morgan came up from gibraltar he found three great men-of-war lying in the entrance to the lake awaiting his coming. seeing that he was hemmed in in the narrow sheet of water, captain morgan was inclined to compromise matters, even offering to relinquish all the plunder he had gained if he were allowed to depart in peace. but no; the spanish admiral would hear nothing of this. having the pirates, as he thought, securely in his grasp, he would relinquish nothing, but would sweep them from the face of the sea once and forever. that was an unlucky determination for the spaniards to reach, for instead of paralyzing the pirates with fear, as he expected it would do, it simply turned their mad courage into as mad desperation. a great vessel that they had taken with the town of maracaibo was converted into a fire ship, manned with logs of wood in montera caps and sailor jackets, and filled with brimstone, pitch, and palm leaves soaked in oil. then out of the lake the pirates sailed to meet the spaniards, the fire ship leading the way, and bearing down directly upon the admiral's vessel. at the helm stood volunteers, the most desperate and the bravest of all the pirate gang, and at the ports stood the logs of wood in montera caps. so they came up with the admiral, and grappled with his ship in spite of the thunder of all his great guns, and then the spaniard saw, all too late, what his opponent really was. [illustration: morgan at porto bello _illustration from_ morgan _by_ e. c. stedman _originally published in_ harper's magazine, _december, _] he tried to swing loose, but clouds of smoke and almost instantly a mass of roaring flames enveloped both vessels, and the admiral was lost. the second vessel, not wishing to wait for the coming of the pirates, bore down upon the fort, under the guns of which the cowardly crew sank her, and made the best of their way to the shore. the third vessel, not having an opportunity to escape, was taken by the pirates without the slightest resistance, and the passage from the lake was cleared. so the buccaneers sailed away, leaving maracaibo and gibraltar prostrate a second time. and now captain morgan determined to undertake another venture, the like of which had never been equaled in all of the annals of buccaneering. this was nothing less than the descent upon and the capture of panama, which was, next to cartagena, perhaps, the most powerful and the most strongly fortified city in the west indies. in preparation for this venture he obtained letters of marque from the governor of jamaica, by virtue of which elastic commission he began immediately to gather around him all material necessary for the undertaking. when it became known abroad that the great captain morgan was about undertaking an adventure that was to eclipse all that was ever done before, great numbers came flocking to his standard, until he had gathered together an army of two thousand or more desperadoes and pirates wherewith to prosecute his adventure, albeit the venture itself was kept a total secret from everyone. port couillon, in the island of hispaniola, over against the ile de la vache, was the place of muster, and thither the motley band gathered from all quarters. provisions had been plundered from the mainland wherever they could be obtained, and by the th of october, (o. s.), everything was in readiness. the island of saint catharine, as it may be remembered, was at one time captured by mansvelt, morgan's master in his trade of piracy. it had been retaken by the spaniards, and was now thoroughly fortified by them. almost the first attempt that morgan had made as a master pirate was the retaking of saint catharine's isle. in that undertaking he had failed; but now, as there was an absolute need of some such place as a base of operations, he determined that the place _must_ be taken. and it was taken. the spaniards, during the time of their possession, had fortified it most thoroughly and completely, and had the governor thereof been as brave as he who met his death in the castle of porto bello, there might have been a different tale to tell. as it was, he surrendered it in a most cowardly fashion, merely stipulating that there should be a sham attack by the buccaneers, whereby his credit might be saved. and so saint catharine was won. the next step to be taken was the capture of the castle of chagres, which guarded the mouth of the river of that name, up which river the buccaneers would be compelled to transport their troops and provisions for the attack upon the city of panama. this adventure was undertaken by four hundred picked men under command of captain morgan himself. the castle of chagres, known as san lorenzo by the spaniards, stood upon the top of an abrupt rock at the mouth of the river, and was one of the strongest fortresses for its size in all of the west indies. this stronghold morgan must have if he ever hoped to win panama. the attack of the castle and the defense of it were equally fierce, bloody, and desperate. again and again the buccaneers assaulted, and again and again they were beaten back. so the morning came, and it seemed as though the pirates had been baffled this time. but just at this juncture the thatch of palm leaves on the roofs of some of the buildings inside the fortifications took fire, a conflagration followed, which caused the explosion of one of the magazines, and in the paralysis of terror that followed, the pirates forced their way into the fortifications, and the castle was won. most of the spaniards flung themselves from the castle walls into the river or upon the rocks beneath, preferring death to capture and possible torture; many who were left were put to the sword, and some few were spared and held as prisoners. so fell the castle of chagres, and nothing now lay between the buccaneers and the city of panama but the intervening and trackless forests. and now the name of the town whose doom was sealed was no secret. up the river of chagres went capt. henry morgan and twelve hundred men, packed closely in their canoes; they never stopped, saving now and then to rest their stiffened legs, until they had come to a place known as cruz de san juan gallego, where they were compelled to leave their boats on account of the shallowness of the water. leaving a guard of one hundred and sixty men to protect their boats as a place of refuge in case they should be worsted before panama, they turned and plunged into the wilderness before them. there a more powerful foe awaited them than a host of spaniards with match, powder, and lead--starvation. they met but little or no opposition in their progress; but wherever they turned they found every fiber of meat, every grain of maize, every ounce of bread or meal, swept away or destroyed utterly before them. even when the buccaneers had successfully overcome an ambuscade or an attack, and had sent the spaniards flying, the fugitives took the time to strip their dead comrades of every grain of food in their leathern sacks, leaving nothing but the empty bags. says the narrator of these events, himself one of the expedition, "they afterward fell to eating those leathern bags, as affording something to the ferment of their stomachs." ten days they struggled through this bitter privation, doggedly forcing their way onward, faint with hunger and haggard with weakness and fever. then, from the high hill and over the tops of the forest trees, they saw the steeples of panama, and nothing remained between them and their goal but the fighting of four spaniards to every one of them--a simple thing which they had done over and over again. down they poured upon panama, and out came the spaniards to meet them; four hundred horse, two thousand five hundred foot, and two thousand wild bulls which had been herded together to be driven over the buccaneers so that their ranks might be disordered and broken. the buccaneers were only eight hundred strong; the others had either fallen in battle or had dropped along the dreary pathway through the wilderness; but in the space of two hours the spaniards were flying madly over the plain, minus six hundred who lay dead or dying behind them. as for the bulls, as many of them as were shot served as food there and then for the half-famished pirates, for the buccaneers were never more at home than in the slaughter of cattle. then they marched toward the city. three hours' more fighting and they were in the streets, howling, yelling, plundering, gorging, dram-drinking, and giving full vent to all the vile and nameless lusts that burned in their hearts like a hell of fire. and now followed the usual sequence of events--rapine, cruelty, and extortion; only this time there was no town to ransom, for morgan had given orders that it should be destroyed. the torch was set to it, and panama, one of the greatest cities in the new world, was swept from the face of the earth. why the deed was done, no man but morgan could tell. perhaps it was that all the secret hiding places for treasure might be brought to light; but whatever the reason was, it lay hidden in the breast of the great buccaneer himself. for three weeks morgan and his men abode in this dreadful place; and they marched away with _one hundred and seventy-five_ beasts of burden loaded with treasures of gold and silver and jewels, besides great quantities of merchandise, and six hundred prisoners held for ransom. [illustration: the sacking of panama _illustration from_ buccaneers and marooners of the spanish main _by_ howard pyle _originally published in_ harper's magazine, _august and september, _] whatever became of all that vast wealth, and what it amounted to, no man but morgan ever knew, for when a division was made it was found that there was only _two hundred pieces of eight to each man_. when this dividend was declared, a howl of execration went up, under which even capt. henry morgan quailed. at night he and four other commanders slipped their cables and ran out to sea, and it was said that these divided the greater part of the booty among themselves. but the wealth plundered at panama could hardly have fallen short of a million and a half of dollars. computing it at this reasonable figure, the various prizes won by henry morgan in the west indies would stand as follows: panama, $ , , ; porto bello, $ , ; puerto del principe, $ , ; maracaibo and gibraltar, $ , ; various piracies, $ , --making a grand total of $ , , as the vast harvest of plunder. with this fabulous wealth, wrenched from the spaniards by means of the rack and the cord, and pilfered from his companions by the meanest of thieving, capt. henry morgan retired from business, honored of all, rendered famous by his deeds, knighted by the good king charles ii, and finally appointed governor of the rich island of jamaica. other buccaneers followed him. campeche was taken and sacked, and even cartagena itself fell; but with henry morgan culminated the glory of the buccaneers, and from that time they declined in power and wealth and wickedness until they were finally swept away. the buccaneers became bolder and bolder. in fact, so daring were their crimes that the home governments, stirred at last by these outrageous barbarities, seriously undertook the suppression of the freebooters, lopping and trimming the main trunk until its members were scattered hither and thither, and it was thought that the organization was exterminated. but, so far from being exterminated, the individual members were merely scattered north, south, east, and west, each forming a nucleus around which gathered and clustered the very worst of the offscouring of humanity. the result was that when the seventeenth century was fairly packed away with its lavender in the store chest of the past, a score or more bands of freebooters were cruising along the atlantic seaboard in armed vessels, each with a black flag with its skull and crossbones at the fore, and with a nondescript crew made up of the tags and remnants of civilized and semicivilized humanity (white, black, red, and yellow), known generally as marooners, swarming upon the decks below. nor did these offshoots from the old buccaneer stem confine their depredations to the american seas alone; the east indies and the african coast also witnessed their doings, and suffered from them, and even the bay of biscay had good cause to remember more than one visit from them. worthy sprigs from so worthy a stem improved variously upon the parent methods; for while the buccaneers were content to prey upon the spaniards alone, the marooners reaped the harvest from the commerce of all nations. so up and down the atlantic seaboard they cruised, and for the fifty years that marooning was in the flower of its glory it was a sorrowful time for the coasters of new england, the middle provinces, and the virginias, sailing to the west indies with their cargoes of salt fish, grain, and tobacco. trading became almost as dangerous as privateering, and sea captains were chosen as much for their knowledge of the flintlock and the cutlass as for their seamanship. as by far the largest part of the trading in american waters was conducted by these yankee coasters, so by far the heaviest blows, and those most keenly felt, fell upon them. bulletin after bulletin came to port with its doleful tale of this vessel burned or that vessel scuttled, this one held by the pirates for their own use or that one stripped of its goods and sent into port as empty as an eggshell from which the yolk had been sucked. boston, new york, philadelphia, and charleston suffered alike, and worthy ship owners had to leave off counting their losses upon their fingers and take to the slate to keep the dismal record. "maroon--to put ashore on a desert isle, as a sailor, under pretense of having committed some great crime." thus our good noah webster gives us the dry bones, the anatomy, upon which the imagination may construct a specimen to suit itself. it is thence that the marooners took their name, for marooning was one of their most effective instruments of punishment or revenge. if a pirate broke one of the many rules which governed the particular band to which he belonged, he was marooned; did a captain defend his ship to such a degree as to be unpleasant to the pirates attacking it, he was marooned; even the pirate captain himself, if he displeased his followers by the severity of his rule, was in danger of having the same punishment visited upon him which he had perhaps more than once visited upon another. the process of marooning was as simple as terrible. a suitable place was chosen (generally some desert isle as far removed as possible from the pathway of commerce), and the condemned man was rowed from the ship to the beach. out he was bundled upon the sand spit; a gun, a half dozen bullets, a few pinches of powder, and a bottle of water were chucked ashore after him, and away rowed the boat's crew back to the ship, leaving the poor wretch alone to rave away his life in madness, or to sit sunken in his gloomy despair till death mercifully released him from torment. it rarely if ever happened that anything was known of him after having been marooned. a boat's crew from some vessel, sailing by chance that way, might perhaps find a few chalky bones bleaching upon the white sand in the garish glare of the sunlight, but that was all. and such were marooners. by far the largest number of pirate captains were englishmen, for, from the days of good queen bess, english sea captains seemed to have a natural turn for any species of venture that had a smack of piracy in it, and from the great admiral drake of the old, old days, to the truculent morgan of buccaneering times, the englishman did the boldest and wickedest deeds, and wrought the most damage. first of all upon the list of pirates stands the bold captain avary, one of the institutors of marooning. him we see but dimly, half hidden by the glamouring mists of legends and tradition. others who came afterward outstripped him far enough in their doings, but he stands pre-eminent as the first of marooners of whom actual history has been handed down to us of the present day. when the english, dutch, and spanish entered into an alliance to suppress buccaneering in the west indies, certain worthies of bristol, in old england, fitted out two vessels to assist in this laudable project; for doubtless bristol trade suffered smartly from the morgans and the l'olonoises of that old time. one of these vessels was named the _duke_, of which a certain captain gibson was the commander and avary the mate. away they sailed to the west indies, and there avary became impressed by the advantages offered by piracy, and by the amount of good things that were to be gained by very little striving. one night the captain (who was one of those fellows mightily addicted to punch), instead of going ashore to saturate himself with rum at the ordinary, had his drink in his cabin in private. while he lay snoring away the effects of his rum in the cabin, avary and a few other conspirators heaved the anchor very leisurely, and sailed out of the harbor of corunna, and through the midst of the allied fleet riding at anchor in the darkness. by and by, when the morning came, the captain was awakened by the pitching and tossing of the vessel, the rattle and clatter of the tackle overhead, and the noise of footsteps passing and repassing hither and thither across the deck. perhaps he lay for a while turning the matter over and over in his muddled head, but he presently rang the bell, and avary and another fellow answered the call. "what's the matter?" bawls the captain from his berth. "nothing," says avary, coolly. "something's the matter with the ship," says the captain. "does she drive? what weather is it?" "oh no," says avary; "we are at sea." "at sea?" "come, come!" says avary: "i'll tell you; you must know that i'm the captain of the ship now, and you must be packing from this here cabin. we are bound to madagascar, to make all of our fortunes, and if you're a mind to ship for the cruise, why, we'll be glad to have you, if you will be sober and mind your own business; if not, there is a boat alongside, and i'll have you set ashore." the poor half-tipsy captain had no relish to go a-pirating under the command of his backsliding mate, so out of the ship he bundled, and away he rowed with four or five of the crew, who, like him, refused to join with their jolly shipmates. the rest of them sailed away to the east indies, to try their fortunes in those waters, for our captain avary was of a high spirit, and had no mind to fritter away his time in the west indies, squeezed dry by buccaneer morgan and others of lesser note. no, he would make a bold stroke for it at once, and make or lose at a single cast. on his way he picked up a couple of like kind with himself--two sloops off madagascar. with these he sailed away to the coast of india, and for a time his name was lost in the obscurity of uncertain history. but only for a time, for suddenly it flamed out in a blaze of glory. it was reported that a vessel belonging to the great mogul, laden with treasure and bearing the monarch's own daughter upon a holy pilgrimage to mecca (they being mohammedans), had fallen in with the pirates, and after a short resistance had been surrendered, with the damsel, her court, and all the diamonds, pearls, silk, silver, and gold aboard. it was rumored that the great mogul, raging at the insult offered to him through his own flesh and blood, had threatened to wipe out of existence the few english settlements scattered along the coast; whereat the honorable east india company was in a pretty state of fuss and feathers. rumor, growing with the telling, has it that avary is going to marry the indian princess, willy-nilly, and will turn rajah, and eschew piracy as indecent. as for the treasure itself, there was no end to the extent to which it grew as it passed from mouth to mouth. cracking the nut of romance and exaggeration, we come to the kernel of the story--that avary did fall in with an indian vessel laden with great treasure (and possibly with the mogul's daughter), which he captured, and thereby gained a vast prize. having concluded that he had earned enough money by the trade he had undertaken, he determined to retire and live decently for the rest of his life upon what he already had. as a step toward this object, he set about cheating his madagascar partners out of their share of what had been gained. he persuaded them to store all the treasure in his vessel, it being the largest of the three; and so, having it safely in hand, he altered the course of his ship one fine night, and when the morning came the madagascar sloops found themselves floating upon a wide ocean without a farthing of the treasure for which they had fought so hard, and for which they might whistle for all the good it would do them. [illustration: marooned _illustration from_ buccaneers and marooners of the spanish main _by_ howard pyle _originally published in_ harper's magazine, _august and september, _] at first avary had a great part of a mind to settle at boston, in massachusetts, and had that little town been one whit less bleak and forbidding, it might have had the honor of being the home of this famous man. as it was, he did not like the looks of it, so he sailed away to the eastward, to ireland, where he settled himself at biddeford, in hopes of an easy life of it for the rest of his days. here he found himself the possessor of a plentiful stock of jewels, such as pearls, diamonds, rubies, etc., but with hardly a score of honest farthings to jingle in his breeches pocket. he consulted with a certain merchant of bristol concerning the disposal of the stones--a fellow not much more cleanly in his habits of honesty than avary himself. this worthy undertook to act as avary's broker. off he marched with the jewels, and that was the last that the pirate saw of his indian treasure. perhaps the most famous of all the piratical names to american ears are those of capt. robert kidd and capt. edward teach, or "blackbeard." nothing will be ventured in regard to kidd at this time, nor in regard to the pros and cons as to whether he really was or was not a pirate, after all. for many years he was the very hero of heroes of piratical fame; there was hardly a creek or stream or point of land along our coast, hardly a convenient bit of good sandy beach, or hump of rock, or water-washed cave, where fabulous treasures were not said to have been hidden by this worthy marooner. now we are assured that he never was a pirate, and never did bury any treasure, excepting a certain chest, which he was compelled to hide upon gardiner's island--and perhaps even it was mythical. so poor kidd must be relegated to the dull ranks of simply respectable people, or semirespectable people at best. but with "blackbeard" it is different, for in him we have a real, ranting, raging, roaring pirate _per se_--one who really did bury treasure, who made more than one captain walk the plank, and who committed more private murders than he could number on the fingers of both hands; one who fills, and will continue to fill, the place to which he has been assigned for generations, and who may be depended upon to hold his place in the confidence of others for generations to come. captain teach was a bristol man born, and learned his trade on board of sundry privateers in the east indies during the old french war--that of --and a better apprenticeship could no man serve. at last, somewhere about the latter part of the year , a privateering captain, one benjamin hornigold, raised him from the ranks and put him in command of a sloop--a lately captured prize--and blackbeard's fortune was made. it was a very slight step, and but the change of a few letters, to convert "privateer" into "pirate," and it was a very short time before teach made that change. not only did he make it himself, but he persuaded his old captain to join with him. and now fairly began that series of bold and lawless depredations which have made his name so justly famous, and which placed him among the very greatest of marooning freebooters. "our hero," says the old historian who sings of the arms and bravery of this great man--"our hero assumed the cognomen of blackbeard from that large quantity of hair which, like a frightful meteor, covered his whole face, and frightened america more than any comet that appeared there in a long time. he was accustomed to twist it with ribbons into small tails, after the manner of our ramillies wig, and turn them about his ears. in time of action he wore a sling over his shoulders, with three brace of pistols, hanging in holsters like bandoleers; he stuck lighted matches under his hat, which, appearing on each side of his face, and his eyes naturally looking fierce and wild, made him altogether such a figure that imagination cannot form an idea of a fury from hell to look more frightful." the night before the day of the action in which he was killed he sat up drinking with some congenial company until broad daylight. one of them asked him if his poor young wife knew where his treasure was hidden. "no," says blackbeard; "nobody but the devil and i knows where it is, and the longest liver shall have all." as for that poor young wife of his, the life that he and his rum-crazy shipmates led her was too terrible to be told. for a time blackbeard worked at his trade down on the spanish main, gathering, in the few years he was there, a very neat little fortune in the booty captured from sundry vessels; but by and by he took it into his head to try his luck along the coast of the carolinas; so off he sailed to the northward, with quite a respectable little fleet, consisting of his own vessel and two captured sloops. from that time he was actively engaged in the making of american history in his small way. he first appeared off the bar of charleston harbor, to the no small excitement of the worthy town of that ilk, and there he lay for five or six days, blockading the port, and stopping incoming and outgoing vessels at his pleasure, so that, for the time, the commerce of the province was entirely paralyzed. all the vessels so stopped he held as prizes, and all the crews and passengers (among the latter of whom was more than one provincial worthy of the day) he retained as though they were prisoners of war. and it was a mightily awkward thing for the good folk of charleston to behold day after day a black flag with its white skull and crossbones fluttering at the fore of the pirate captain's craft, over across the level stretch of green salt marshes; and it was mightily unpleasant, too, to know that this or that prominent citizen was crowded down with the other prisoners under the hatches. one morning captain blackbeard finds that his stock of medicine is low. "tut!" says he, "we'll turn no hair gray for that." so up he calls the bold captain richards, the commander of his consort the _revenge_ sloop, and bids him take mr. marks (one of his prisoners), and go up to charleston and get the medicine. there was no task that suited our captain richards better than that. up to the town he rowed, as bold as brass. "look ye," says he to the governor, rolling his quid of tobacco from one cheek to another--"look ye, we're after this and that, and if we don't get it, why, i'll tell you plain, we'll burn them bloody crafts of yours that we've took over yonder, and cut the weasand of every clodpoll aboard of 'em." there was no answering an argument of such force as this, and the worshipful governor and the good folk of charleston knew very well that blackbeard and his crew were the men to do as they promised. so blackbeard got his medicine, and though it cost the colony two thousand dollars, it was worth that much to the town to be quit of him. they say that while captain richards was conducting his negotiations with the governor his boat's crew were stumping around the streets of the town, having a glorious time of it, while the good folk glowered wrathfully at them, but dared venture nothing in speech or act. having gained a booty of between seven and eight thousand dollars from the prizes captured, the pirates sailed away from charleston harbor to the coast of north carolina. and now blackbeard, following the plan adopted by so many others of his kind, began to cudgel his brains for means to cheat his fellows out of their share of the booty. at topsail inlet he ran his own vessel aground, as though by accident. hands, the captain of one of the consorts, pretending to come to his assistance, also grounded _his_ sloop. nothing now remained but for those who were able to get away in the other craft, which was all that was now left of the little fleet. this did blackbeard with some forty of his favorites. the rest of the pirates were left on the sand spit to await the return of their companions--which never happened. as for blackbeard and those who were with him, they were that much richer, for there were so many the fewer pockets to fill. but even yet there were too many to share the booty, in blackbeard's opinion, and so he marooned a parcel more of them--some eighteen or twenty--upon a naked sand bank, from which they were afterward mercifully rescued by another freebooter who chanced that way--a certain major stede bonnet, of whom more will presently be said. about that time a royal proclamation had been issued offering pardon to all pirates in arms who would surrender to the king's authority before a given date. so up goes master blackbeard to the governor of north carolina and makes his neck safe by surrendering to the proclamation--albeit he kept tight clutch upon what he had already gained. and now we find our bold captain blackbeard established in the good province of north carolina, where he and his worship the governor struck up a vast deal of intimacy, as profitable as it was pleasant. there is something very pretty in the thought of the bold sea rover giving up his adventurous life (excepting now and then an excursion against a trader or two in the neighboring sound, when the need of money was pressing); settling quietly down into the routine of old colonial life, with a young wife of sixteen at his side, who made the fourteenth that he had in various ports here and there in the world. becoming tired of an inactive life, blackbeard afterward resumed his piratical career. he cruised around in the rivers and inlets and sounds of north carolina for a while, ruling the roost and with never a one to say him nay, until there was no bearing with such a pest any longer. so they sent a deputation up to the governor of virginia asking if he would be pleased to help them in their trouble. there were two men-of-war lying at kicquetan, in the james river, at the time. to them the governor of virginia applies, and plucky lieutenant maynard, of the _pearl_, was sent to ocracoke inlet to fight this pirate who ruled it down there so like the cock of a walk. there he found blackbeard waiting for him, and as ready for a fight as ever the lieutenant himself could be. fight they did, and while it lasted it was as pretty a piece of business of its kind as one could wish to see. blackbeard drained a glass of grog, wishing the lieutenant luck in getting aboard of him, fired a broadside, blew some twenty of the lieutenant's men out of existence, and totally crippled one of his little sloops for the balance of the fight. after that, and under cover of the smoke, the pirate and his men boarded the other sloop, and then followed a fine old-fashioned hand-to-hand conflict betwixt him and the lieutenant. first they fired their pistols, and then they took to it with cutlasses--right, left, up and down, cut and slash--until the lieutenant's cutlass broke short off at the hilt. then blackbeard would have finished him off handsomely, only up steps one of the lieutenant's men and fetches him a great slash over the neck, so that the lieutenant came off with no more hurt than a cut across the knuckles. at the very first discharge of their pistols blackbeard had been shot through the body, but he was not for giving up for that--not he. as said before, he was of the true roaring, raging breed of pirates, and stood up to it until he received twenty more cutlass cuts and five additional shots, and then fell dead while trying to fire off an empty pistol. after that the lieutenant cut off the pirate's head, and sailed away in triumph, with the bloody trophy nailed to the bow of his battered sloop. those of blackbeard's men who were not killed were carried off to virginia, and all of them tried and hanged but one or two, their names, no doubt, still standing in a row in the provincial records. but did blackbeard really bury treasures, as tradition says, along the sandy shores he haunted? [illustration: blackbeard buries his treasure _illustration from_ buccaneers and marooners of the spanish main _by_ howard pyle _originally published in_ harper's magazine, _august and september, _] master clement downing, midshipman aboard the _salisbury_, wrote a book after his return from the cruise to madagascar, whither the _salisbury_ had been ordered, to put an end to the piracy with which those waters were infested. he says: "at guzarat i met with a portuguese named anthony de sylvestre; he came with two other portuguese and two dutchmen to take on in the moor's service, as many europeans do. this anthony told me he had been among the pirates, and that he belonged to one of the sloops in virginia when blackbeard was taken. he informed me that if it should be my lot ever to go to york river or maryland, near an island called mulberry island, provided we went on shore at the watering place, where the shipping used most commonly to ride, that there the pirates had buried considerable sums of money in great chests well clamped with iron plates. as to my part, i never was that way, nor much acquainted with any that ever used those parts; but i have made inquiry, and am informed that there is such a place as mulberry island. if any person who uses those parts should think it worth while to dig a little way at the upper end of a small cove, where it is convenient to land, he would soon find whether the information i had was well grounded. fronting the landing place are five trees, among which, he said, the money was hid. i cannot warrant the truth of this account; but if i was ever to go there, i should find some means or other to satisfy myself, as it could not be a great deal out of my way. if anybody should obtain the benefit of this account, if it please god that they ever come to england, 'tis hoped they will remember whence they had this information." another worthy was capt. edward low, who learned his trade of sail-making at good old boston town, and piracy at honduras. no one stood higher in the trade than he, and no one mounted to more lofty altitudes of bloodthirsty and unscrupulous wickedness. 'tis strange that so little has been written and sung of this man of might, for he was as worthy of story and of song as was blackbeard. it was under a yankee captain that he made his first cruise--down to honduras, for a cargo of logwood, which in those times was no better than stolen from the spanish folk. one day, lying off the shore, in the gulf of honduras, comes master low and the crew of the whaleboat rowing across from the beach, where they had been all morning chopping logwood. "what are you after?" says the captain, for they were coming back with nothing but themselves in the boat. "we're after our dinner," says low, as spokesman of the party. "you'll have no dinner," says the captain, "until you fetch off another load." "dinner or no dinner, we'll pay for it," says low, wherewith he up with a musket, squinted along the barrel, and pulled the trigger. luckily the gun hung fire, and the yankee captain was spared to steal logwood a while longer. all the same, that was no place for ned low to make a longer stay, so off he and his messmates rowed in a whaleboat, captured a brig out at sea, and turned pirates. he presently fell in with the notorious captain lowther, a fellow after his own kidney, who put the finishing touches to his education and taught him what wickedness he did not already know. and so he became a master pirate, and a famous hand at his craft, and thereafter forever bore an inveterate hatred of all yankees because of the dinner he had lost, and never failed to smite whatever one of them luck put within his reach. once he fell in with a ship off south carolina--the _amsterdam merchant_, captain williamson, commander--a yankee craft and a yankee master. he slit the nose and cropped the ears of the captain, and then sailed merrily away, feeling the better for having marred a yankee. new york and new england had more than one visit from the doughty captain, each of which visits they had good cause to remember, for he made them smart for it. along in the year thirteen vessels were riding at anchor in front of the good town of marblehead. into the harbor sailed a strange craft. "who is she?" say the townsfolk, for the coming of a new vessel was no small matter in those days. who the strangers were was not long a matter of doubt. up goes the black flag, and the skull and crossbones to the fore. "'tis the bloody low," say one and all; and straightway all was flutter and commotion, as in a duck pond when a hawk pitches and strikes in the midst. it was a glorious thing for our captain, for here were thirteen yankee crafts at one and the same time. so he took what he wanted, and then sailed away, and it was many a day before marblehead forgot that visit. some time after this he and his consort fell foul of an english sloop of war, the _greyhound_, whereby they were so roughly handled that low was glad enough to slip away, leaving his consort and her crew behind him, as a sop to the powers of law and order. and lucky for them if no worse fate awaited them than to walk the dreadful plank with a bandage around the blinded eyes and a rope around the elbows. so the consort was taken, and the crew tried and hanged in chains, and low sailed off in as pretty a bit of rage as ever a pirate fell into. the end of this worthy is lost in the fogs of the past: some say that he died of a yellow fever down in new orleans; it was not at the end of a hempen cord, more's the pity. here fittingly with our strictly american pirates should stand major stede bonnet along with the rest. but in truth he was only a poor half-and-half fellow of his kind, and even after his hand was fairly turned to the business he had undertaken, a qualm of conscience would now and then come across him, and he would make vast promises to forswear his evil courses. however, he jogged along in his course of piracy snugly enough until he fell foul of the gallant colonel rhett, off charleston harbor, whereupon his luck and his courage both were suddenly snuffed out with a puff of powder smoke and a good rattling broadside. down came the "black roger" with its skull and crossbones from the fore, and colonel rhett had the glory of fetching back as pretty a cargo of scoundrels and cutthroats as the town ever saw. after the next assizes they were strung up, all in a row--evil apples ready for the roasting. "ned" england was a fellow of different blood--only he snapped his whip across the back of society over in the east indies and along the hot shores of hindustan. the name of capt. howel davis stands high among his fellows. he was the ulysses of pirates, the beloved not only of mercury, but of minerva. he it was who hoodwinked the captain of a french ship of double the size and strength of his own, and fairly cheated him into the surrender of his craft without the firing of a single pistol or the striking of a single blow; he it was who sailed boldly into the port of gambia, on the coast of guinea, and under the guns of the castle, proclaiming himself as a merchant trading for slaves. the cheat was kept up until the fruit of mischief was ripe for the picking; then, when the governor and the guards of the castle were lulled into entire security, and when davis's band was scattered about wherever each man could do the most good, it was out pistol, up cutlass, and death if a finger moved. they tied the soldiers back to back, and the governor to his own armchair, and then rifled wherever it pleased them. after that they sailed away, and though they had not made the fortune they had hoped to glean, it was a good snug round sum that they shared among them. [illustration: walking the plank _illustration from_ buccaneers and marooners of the spanish main _by_ howard pyle _originally published in_ harper's magazine, _august and september, _] their courage growing high with success, they determined to attempt the island of del principe--a prosperous portuguese settlement on the coast. the plan for taking the place was cleverly laid, and would have succeeded, only that a portuguese negro among the pirate crew turned traitor and carried the news ashore to the governor of the fort. accordingly, the next day, when captain davis came ashore, he found there a good strong guard drawn up as though to honor his coming. but after he and those with him were fairly out of their boat, and well away from the water side, there was a sudden rattle of musketry, a cloud of smoke, and a dull groan or two. only one man ran out from under that pungent cloud, jumped into the boat, and rowed away; and when it lifted, there lay captain davis and his companions all of a heap, like a pile of old clothes. capt. bartholomew roberts was the particular and especial pupil of davis, and when that worthy met his death so suddenly and so unexpectedly in the unfortunate manner above narrated, he was chosen unanimously as the captain of the fleet, and he was a worthy pupil of a worthy master. many were the poor fluttering merchant ducks that this sea hawk swooped upon and struck; and cleanly and cleverly were they plucked before his savage clutch loosened its hold upon them. "he made a gallant figure," says the old narrator, "being dressed in a rich crimson waistcoat and breeches and red feather in his hat, a gold chain around his neck, with a diamond cross hanging to it, a sword in his hand, and two pair of pistols hanging at the end of a silk sling flung over his shoulders according to the fashion of the pyrates." thus he appeared in the last engagement which he fought--that with the _swallow_--a royal sloop of war. a gallant fight they made of it, those bulldog pirates, for, finding themselves caught in a trap betwixt the man-of-war and the shore, they determined to bear down upon the king's vessel, fire a slapping broadside into her, and then try to get away, trusting to luck in the doing, and hoping that their enemy might be crippled by their fire. captain roberts himself was the first to fall at the return fire of the _swallow_; a grapeshot struck him in the neck, and he fell forward across the gun near to which he was standing at the time. a certain fellow named stevenson, who was at the helm, saw him fall, and thought he was wounded. at the lifting of the arm the body rolled over upon the deck, and the man saw that the captain was dead. "whereupon," says the old history, "he" [stevenson] "gushed into tears, and wished that the next shot might be his portion." after their captain's death the pirate crew had no stomach for more fighting; the "black roger" was struck, and one and all surrendered to justice and the gallows. * * * * * such is a brief and bald account of the most famous of these pirates. but they are only a few of a long list of notables, such as captain martel, capt. charles vane (who led the gallant colonel rhett, of south carolina, such a wild-goose chase in and out among the sluggish creeks and inlets along the coast), capt. john rackam, and captain anstis, captain worley, and evans, and philips, and others--a score or more of wild fellows whose very names made ship captains tremble in their shoes in those good old times. and such is that black chapter of history of the past--an evil chapter, lurid with cruelty and suffering, stained with blood and smoke. yet it is a written chapter, and it must be read. he who chooses may read betwixt the lines of history this great truth: evil itself is an instrument toward the shaping of good. therefore the history of evil as well as the history of good should be read, considered, and digested. chapter ii the ghost of captain brand [illustration] it is not so easy to tell why discredit should be cast upon a man because of something that his grandfather may have done amiss, but the world, which is never overnice in its discrimination as to where to lay the blame, is often pleased to make the innocent suffer in the place of the guilty. barnaby true was a good, honest, biddable lad, as boys go, but yet he was not ever allowed altogether to forget that his grandfather had been that very famous pirate, capt. william brand, who, after so many marvelous adventures (if one may believe the catchpenny stories and ballads that were written about him), was murdered in jamaica by capt. john malyoe, the commander of his own consort, the _adventure_ galley. it has never been denied, that ever i heard, that up to the time of captain brand's being commissioned against the south sea pirates he had always been esteemed as honest, reputable a sea captain as could be. when he started out upon that adventure it was with a ship, the _royal sovereign_, fitted out by some of the most decent merchants of new york. the governor himself had subscribed to the adventure, and had himself signed captain brand's commission. so, if the unfortunate man went astray, he must have had great temptation to do so, many others behaving no better when the opportunity offered in those far-away seas where so many rich purchases might very easily be taken and no one the wiser. to be sure, those stories and ballads made our captain to be a most wicked, profane wretch; and if he were, why, god knows he suffered and paid for it, for he laid his bones in jamaica, and never saw his home or his wife and daughter again after he had sailed away on the _royal sovereign_ on that long misfortunate voyage, leaving them in new york to the care of strangers. at the time when he met his fate in port royal harbor he had obtained two vessels under his command--the _royal sovereign_, which was the boat fitted out for him in new york, and the _adventure_ galley, which he was said to have taken somewhere in the south seas. with these he lay in those waters of jamaica for over a month after his return from the coasts of africa, waiting for news from home, which, when it came, was of the very blackest; for the colonial authorities were at that time stirred up very hot against him to take him and hang him for a pirate, so as to clear their own skirts for having to do with such a fellow. so maybe it seemed better to our captain to hide his ill-gotten treasure there in those far-away parts, and afterward to try and bargain with it for his life when he should reach new york, rather than to sail straight for the americas with what he had earned by his piracies, and so risk losing life and money both. [illustration: "captain malyoe shot captain brand through the head" _illustration from_ the ghost of captain brand _by_ howard pyle _originally published in_ harper's weekly, _december , _] however that might be, the story was that captain brand and his gunner, and captain malyoe of the _adventure_ and the sailing master of the _adventure_ all went ashore together with a chest of money (no one of them choosing to trust the other three in so nice an affair), and buried the treasure somewhere on the beach of port royal harbor. the story then has it that they fell a-quarreling about a future division of the money, and that, as a wind-up to the affair, captain malyoe shot captain brand through the head, while the sailing master of the _adventure_ served the gunner of the _royal sovereign_ after the same fashion through the body, and that the murderers then went away, leaving the two stretched out in their own blood on the sand in the staring sun, with no one to know where the money was hid but they two who had served their comrades so. it is a mighty great pity that anyone should have a grandfather who ended his days in such a sort as this, but it was no fault of barnaby true's, nor could he have done anything to prevent it, seeing that he was not even born into the world at the time that his grandfather turned pirate, and was only one year old when he so met his tragical end. nevertheless, the boys with whom he went to school never tired of calling him "pirate," and would sometimes sing for his benefit that famous catchpenny song beginning thus: oh, my name was captain brand, a-sailing, and a-sailing; oh, my name was captain brand, a-sailing free. oh, my name was captain brand, and i sinned by sea and land, for i broke god's just command, a-sailing free. 'twas a vile thing to sing at the grandson of so misfortunate a man, and oftentimes little barnaby true would double up his fists and would fight his tormentors at great odds, and would sometimes go back home with a bloody nose to have his poor mother cry over him and grieve for him. not that his days were all of teasing and torment, neither; for if his comrades did treat him so, why, then, there were other times when he and they were as great friends as could be, and would go in swimming together where there was a bit of sandy strand along the east river above fort george, and that in the most amicable fashion. or, maybe the very next day after he had fought so with his fellows, he would go a-rambling with them up the bowerie road, perhaps to help them steal cherries from some old dutch farmer, forgetting in such adventure what a thief his own grandfather had been. well, when barnaby true was between sixteen and seventeen years old he was taken into employment in the countinghouse of mr. roger hartright, the well-known west india merchant, and barnaby's own stepfather. it was the kindness of this good man that not only found a place for barnaby in the countinghouse, but advanced him so fast that against our hero was twenty-one years old he had made four voyages as supercargo to the west indies in mr. hartright's ship, the _belle helen_, and soon after he was twenty-one undertook a fifth. nor was it in any such subordinate position as mere supercargo that he acted, but rather as the confidential agent of mr. hartright, who, having no children of his own, was very jealous to advance our hero into a position of trust and responsibility in the countinghouse, as though he were indeed a son, so that even the captain of the ship had scarcely more consideration aboard than he, young as he was in years. as for the agents and correspondents of mr. hartright throughout these parts, they also, knowing how the good man had adopted his interests, were very polite and obliging to master barnaby--especially, be it mentioned, mr. ambrose greenfield, of kingston, jamaica, who, upon the occasions of his visits to those parts, did all that he could to make barnaby's stay in that town agreeable and pleasant to him. so much for the history of our hero to the time of the beginning of this story, without which you shall hardly be able to understand the purport of those most extraordinary adventures that befell him shortly after he came of age, nor the logic of their consequence after they had occurred. for it was during his fifth voyage to the west indies that the first of those extraordinary adventures happened of which i shall have presently to tell. at that time he had been in kingston for the best part of four weeks, lodging at the house of a very decent, respectable widow, by name mrs. anne bolles, who, with three pleasant and agreeable daughters, kept a very clean and well-served lodging house in the outskirts of the town. one morning, as our hero sat sipping his coffee, clad only in loose cotton drawers, a shirt, and a jacket, and with slippers upon his feet, as is the custom in that country, where everyone endeavors to keep as cool as may be--while he sat thus sipping his coffee miss eliza, the youngest of the three daughters, came and gave him a note, which, she said, a stranger had just handed in at the door, going away again without waiting for a reply. you may judge of barnaby's surprise when he opened the note and read as follows: mr. barnaby true. sir,--though you don't know me, i know you, and i tell you this: if you will be at pratt's ordinary on harbor street on friday next at eight o'clock of the evening, and will accompany the man who shall say to you, "the _royal sovereign_ is come in," you shall learn something the most to your advantage that ever befell you. sir, keep this note, and show it to him who shall address these words to you, so to certify that you are the man he seeks. such was the wording of the note, which was without address, and without any superscription whatever. the first emotion that stirred barnaby was one of extreme and profound amazement. then the thought came into his mind that some witty fellow, of whom he knew a good many in that town--and wild, waggish pranks they were--was attempting to play off some smart jest upon him. but all that miss eliza could tell him when he questioned her concerning the messenger was that the bearer of the note was a tall, stout man, with a red neckerchief around his neck and copper buckles to his shoes, and that he had the appearance of a sailorman, having a great big queue hanging down his back. but, lord! what was such a description as that in a busy seaport town, full of scores of men to fit such a likeness? accordingly, our hero put away the note into his wallet, determining to show it to his good friend mr. greenfield that evening, and to ask his advice upon it. so he did show it, and that gentleman's opinion was the same as his--that some wag was minded to play off a hoax upon him, and that the matter of the letter was all nothing but smoke. nevertheless, though barnaby was thus confirmed in his opinion as to the nature of the communication he had received, he yet determined in his own mind that he would see the business through to the end, and would be at pratt's ordinary, as the note demanded, upon the day and at the time specified therein. pratt's ordinary was at that time a very fine and well-known place of its sort, with good tobacco and the best rum that ever i tasted, and had a garden behind it that, sloping down to the harbor front, was planted pretty thick with palms and ferns grouped into clusters with flowers and plants. here were a number of little tables, some in little grottoes, like our vauxhall in new york, and with red and blue and white paper lanterns hung among the foliage, whither gentlemen and ladies used sometimes to go of an evening to sit and drink lime juice and sugar and water (and sometimes a taste of something stronger), and to look out across the water at the shipping in the cool of the night. thither, accordingly, our hero went, a little before the time appointed in the note, and passing directly through the ordinary and the garden beyond, chose a table at the lower end of the garden and close to the water's edge, where he would not be easily seen by anyone coming into the place. then, ordering some rum and water and a pipe of tobacco, he composed himself to watch for the appearance of those witty fellows whom he suspected would presently come thither to see the end of their prank and to enjoy his confusion. the spot was pleasant enough; for the land breeze, blowing strong and full, set the leaves of the palm tree above his head to rattling and clattering continually against the sky, where, the moon then being about full, they shone every now and then like blades of steel. the waves also were splashing up against the little landing place at the foot of the garden, sounding very cool in the night, and sparkling all over the harbor where the moon caught the edges of the water. a great many vessels were lying at anchor in their ridings, with the dark, prodigious form of a man-of-war looming up above them in the moonlight. there our hero sat for the best part of an hour, smoking his pipe of tobacco and sipping his grog, and seeing not so much as a single thing that might concern the note he had received. it was not far from half an hour after the time appointed in the note, when a rowboat came suddenly out of the night and pulled up to the landing place at the foot of the garden above mentioned, and three or four men came ashore in the darkness. without saying a word among themselves they chose a near-by table and, sitting down, ordered rum and water, and began drinking their grog in silence. they might have sat there about five minutes, when, by and by, barnaby true became aware that they were observing him very curiously; and then almost immediately one, who was plainly the leader of the party, called out to him: "how now, messmate! won't you come and drink a dram of rum with us?" "why, no," says barnaby, answering very civilly; "i have drunk enough already, and more would only heat my blood." "all the same," quoth the stranger, "i think you will come and drink with us; for, unless i am mistook, you are mr. barnaby true, and i am come here to tell you that the _royal sovereign is come in_." now i may honestly say that barnaby true was never more struck aback in all his life than he was at hearing these words uttered in so unexpected a manner. he had been looking to hear them under such different circumstances that, now that his ears heard them addressed to him, and that so seriously, by a perfect stranger, who, with others, had thus mysteriously come ashore out of the darkness, he could scarce believe that his ears heard aright. his heart suddenly began beating at a tremendous rate, and had he been an older and wiser man, i do believe he would have declined the adventure, instead of leaping blindly, as he did, into that of which he could see neither the beginning nor the ending. but being barely one-and-twenty years of age, and having an adventurous disposition that would have carried him into almost anything that possessed a smack of uncertainty or danger about it, he contrived to say, in a pretty easy tone (though god knows how it was put on for the occasion): "well, then, if that be so, and if the _royal sovereign_ is indeed come in, why, i'll join you, since you are so kind as to ask me." and therewith he went across to the other table, carrying his pipe with him, and sat down and began smoking, with all the appearance of ease he could assume upon the occasion. "well, mr. barnaby true," said the man who had before addressed him, so soon as barnaby had settled himself, speaking in a low tone of voice, so there would be no danger of any others hearing the words--"well, mr. barnaby true--for i shall call you by your name, to show you that though i know you, you don't know me--i am glad to see that you are man enough to enter thus into an affair, though you can't see to the bottom of it. for it shows me that you are a man of mettle, and are deserving of the fortune that is to befall you to-night. nevertheless, first of all, i am bid to say that you must show me a piece of paper that you have about you before we go a step farther." "very well," said barnaby; "i have it here safe and sound, and see it you shall." and thereupon and without more ado he fetched out his wallet, opened it, and handed his interlocutor the mysterious note he had received the day or two before. whereupon the other, drawing to him the candle, burning there for the convenience of those who would smoke tobacco, began immediately reading it. this gave barnaby true a moment or two to look at him. he was a tall, stout man, with a red handkerchief tied around his neck, and with copper buckles on his shoes, so that barnaby true could not but wonder whether he was not the very same man who had given the note to miss eliza bolles at the door of his lodging house. "'tis all right and straight as it should be," the other said, after he had so glanced his eyes over the note. "and now that the paper is read" (suiting his action to his words), "i'll just burn it, for safety's sake." and so he did, twisting it up and setting it to the flame of the candle. "and now," he said, continuing his address, "i'll tell you what i am here for. i was sent to ask you if you're man enough to take your life in your own hands and to go with me in that boat down there? say 'yes,' and we'll start away without wasting more time, for the devil is ashore here at jamaica--though you don't know what that means--and if he gets ahead of us, why, then we may whistle for what we are after. say 'no,' and i go away again, and i promise you you shall never be troubled again in this sort. so now speak up plain, young gentleman, and tell us what is your mind in this business, and whether you will adventure any farther or not." if our hero hesitated it was not for long. i cannot say that his courage did not waver for a moment; but if it did, it was, i say, not for long, and when he spoke up it was with a voice as steady as could be. "to be sure i'm man enough to go with you," he said; "and if you mean me any harm i can look out for myself; and if i can't, why, here is something can look out for me," and therewith he lifted up the flap of his coat pocket and showed the butt of a pistol he had fetched with him when he had set out from his lodging house that evening. at this the other burst out a-laughing. "come," says he, "you are indeed of right mettle, and i like your spirit. all the same, no one in all the world means you less ill than i, and so, if you have to use that barker, 'twill not be upon us who are your friends, but only upon one who is more wicked than the devil himself. so come, and let us get away." thereupon he and the others, who had not spoken a single word for all this time, rose from the table, and he having paid the scores of all, they all went down together to the boat that still lay at the landing place at the bottom of the garden. thus coming to it, our hero could see that it was a large yawl boat manned with half a score of black men for rowers, and there were two lanterns in the stern sheets, and three or four iron shovels. the man who had conducted the conversation with barnaby true for all this time, and who was, as has been said, plainly the captain of the party, stepped immediately down into the boat; our hero followed, and the others followed after him; and instantly they were seated the boat was shoved off and the black men began pulling straight out into the harbor, and so, at some distance away, around under the stern of the man-of-war. not a word was spoken after they had thus left the shore, and presently they might all have been ghosts, for the silence of the party. barnaby true was too full of his own thoughts to talk--and serious enough thoughts they were by this time, with crimps to trepan a man at every turn, and press gangs to carry a man off so that he might never be heard of again. as for the others, they did not seem to choose to say anything now that they had him fairly embarked upon their enterprise. and so the crew pulled on in perfect silence for the best part of an hour, the leader of the expedition directing the course of the boat straight across the harbor, as though toward the mouth of the rio cobra river. indeed, this was their destination, as barnaby could after a while see, by the low point of land with a great long row of coconut palms upon it (the appearance of which he knew very well), which by and by began to loom up out of the milky dimness of the moonlight. as they approached the river they found the tide was running strong out of it, so that some distance away from the stream it gurgled and rippled alongside the boat as the crew of black men pulled strongly against it. thus they came up under what was either a point of land or an islet covered with a thick growth of mangrove trees. but still no one spoke a single word as to their destination, or what was the business they had in hand. the night, now that they were close to the shore, was loud with the noise of running tide-water, and the air was heavy with the smell of mud and marsh, and over all the whiteness of the moonlight, with a few stars pricking out here and there in the sky; and all so strange and silent and mysterious that barnaby could not divest himself of the feeling that it was all a dream. so, the rowers bending to the oars, the boat came slowly around from under the clump of mangrove bushes and out into the open water again. instantly it did so the leader of the expedition called out in a sharp voice, and the black men instantly lay on their oars. almost at the same instant barnaby true became aware that there was another boat coming down the river toward where they lay, now drifting with the strong tide out into the harbor again, and he knew that it was because of the approach of that boat that the other had called upon his men to cease rowing. the other boat, as well as he could see in the distance, was full of men, some of whom appeared to be armed, for even in the dusk of the darkness the shine of the moonlight glimmered sharply now and then on the barrels of muskets or pistols, and in the silence that followed after their own rowing had ceased barnaby true could hear the chug! chug! of the oars sounding louder and louder through the watery stillness of the night as the boat drew nearer and nearer. but he knew nothing of what it all meant, nor whether these others were friends or enemies, or what was to happen next. the oarsmen of the approaching boat did not for a moment cease their rowing, not till they had come pretty close to barnaby and his companions. then a man who sat in the stern ordered them to cease rowing, and as they lay on their oars he stood up. as they passed by, barnaby true could see him very plain, the moonlight shining full upon him--a large, stout gentleman with a round red face, and clad in a fine laced coat of red cloth. amidship of the boat was a box or chest about the bigness of a middle-sized traveling trunk, but covered all over with cakes of sand and dirt. in the act of passing, the gentleman, still standing, pointed at it with an elegant gold-headed cane which he held in his hand. "are you come after this, abraham dawling?" says he, and thereat his countenance broke into as evil, malignant a grin as ever barnaby true saw in all of his life. the other did not immediately reply so much as a single word, but sat as still as any stone. then, at last, the other boat having gone by, he suddenly appeared to regain his wits, for he bawled out after it, "very well, jack malyoe! very well, jack malyoe! you've got ahead of us this time again, but next time is the third, and then it shall be our turn, even if william brand must come back from hell to settle with you." this he shouted out as the other boat passed farther and farther away, but to it my fine gentleman made no reply except to burst out into a great roaring fit of laughter. there was another man among the armed men in the stern of the passing boat--a villainous, lean man with lantern jaws, and the top of his head as bald as the palm of my hand. as the boat went away into the night with the tide and the headway the oars had given it, he grinned so that the moonlight shone white on his big teeth. then, flourishing a great big pistol, he said, and barnaby could hear every word he spoke, "do but give me the word, your honor, and i'll put another bullet through the son of a sea cook." but the gentleman said some words to forbid him, and therewith the boat was gone away into the night, and presently barnaby could hear that the men at the oars had begun rowing again, leaving them lying there, without a single word being said for a long time. by and by one of those in barnaby's boat spoke up. "where shall you go now?" he said. at this the leader of the expedition appeared suddenly to come back to himself, and to find his voice again. "go?" he roared out. "go to the devil! go? go where you choose! go? go back again--that's where we'll go!" and therewith he fell a-cursing and swearing until he foamed at the lips, as though he had gone clean crazy, while the black men began rowing back again across the harbor as fast as ever they could lay oars into the water. they put barnaby true ashore below the old custom house; but so bewildered and shaken was he by all that had happened, and by what he had seen, and by the names that he heard spoken, that he was scarcely conscious of any of the familiar things among which he found himself thus standing. and so he walked up the moonlit street toward his lodging like one drunk or bewildered; for "john malyoe" was the name of the captain of the _adventure_ galley--he who had shot barnaby's own grandfather--and "abraham dawling" was the name of the gunner of the _royal sovereign_ who had been shot at the same time with the pirate captain, and who, with him, had been left stretched out in the staring sun by the murderers. the whole business had occupied hardly two hours, but it was as though that time was no part of barnaby's life, but all a part of some other life, so dark and strange and mysterious that it in no wise belonged to him. as for that box covered all over with mud, he could only guess at that time what it contained and what the finding of it signified. but of this our hero said nothing to anyone, nor did he tell a single living soul what he had seen that night, but nursed it in his own mind, where it lay so big for a while that he could think of little or nothing else for days after. mr. greenfield, mr. hartright's correspondent and agent in these parts, lived in a fine brick house just out of the town, on the mona road, his family consisting of a wife and two daughters--brisk, lively young ladies with black hair and eyes, and very fine bright teeth that shone whenever they laughed, and with a plenty to say for themselves. thither barnaby true was often asked to a family dinner; and, indeed, it was a pleasant home to visit, and to sit upon the veranda and smoke a cigarro with the good old gentleman and look out toward the mountains, while the young ladies laughed and talked, or played upon the guitar and sang. and oftentimes so it was strongly upon barnaby's mind to speak to the good gentleman and tell him what he had beheld that night out in the harbor; but always he would think better of it and hold his peace, falling to thinking, and smoking away upon his cigarro at a great rate. a day or two before the _belle helen_ sailed from kingston mr. greenfield stopped barnaby true as he was going through the office to bid him to come to dinner that night (for there within the tropics they breakfast at eleven o'clock and take dinner in the cool of the evening, because of the heat, and not at midday, as we do in more temperate latitudes). "i would have you meet," says mr. greenfield, "your chief passenger for new york, and his granddaughter, for whom the state cabin and the two staterooms are to be fitted as here ordered [showing a letter]--sir john malyoe and miss marjorie malyoe. did you ever hear tell of capt. jack malyoe, master barnaby?" now i do believe that mr. greenfield had no notion at all that old captain brand was barnaby true's own grandfather and capt. john malyoe his murderer, but when he so thrust at him the name of that man, what with that in itself and the late adventure through which he himself had just passed, and with his brooding upon it until it was so prodigiously big in his mind, it was like hitting him a blow to so fling the questions at him. nevertheless, he was able to reply, with a pretty straight face, that he had heard of captain malyoe and who he was. "well," says mr. greenfield, "if jack malyoe was a desperate pirate and a wild, reckless blade twenty years ago, why, he is sir john malyoe now and the owner of a fine estate in devonshire. well, master barnaby, when one is a baronet and come into the inheritance of a fine estate (though i do hear it is vastly cumbered with debts), the world will wink its eye to much that he may have done twenty years ago. i do hear say, though, that his own kin still turn the cold shoulder to him." to this address barnaby answered nothing, but sat smoking away at his cigarro at a great rate. and so that night barnaby true came face to face for the first time with the man who murdered his own grandfather--the greatest beast of a man that ever he met in all of his life. that time in the harbor he had seen sir john malyoe at a distance and in the darkness; now that he beheld him near by it seemed to him that he had never looked at a more evil face in all his life. not that the man was altogether ugly, for he had a good nose and a fine double chin; but his eyes stood out like balls and were red and watery, and he winked them continually, as though they were always smarting; and his lips were thick and purple-red, and his fat, red cheeks were mottled here and there with little clots of purple veins; and when he spoke his voice rattled so in his throat that it made one wish to clear one's own throat to listen to him. so, what with a pair of fat, white hands, and that hoarse voice, and his swollen face, and his thick lips sticking out, it seemed to barnaby true he had never seen a countenance so distasteful to him as that one into which he then looked. but if sir john malyoe was so displeasing to our hero's taste, why, the granddaughter, even this first time he beheld her, seemed to him to be the most beautiful, lovely young lady that ever he saw. she had a thin, fair skin, red lips, and yellow hair--though it was then powdered pretty white for the occasion--and the bluest eyes that barnaby beheld in all of his life. a sweet, timid creature, who seemed not to dare so much as to speak a word for herself without looking to sir john for leave to do so, and would shrink and shudder whenever he would speak of a sudden to her or direct a sudden glance upon her. when she did speak, it was in so low a voice that one had to bend his head to hear her, and even if she smiled would catch herself and look up as though to see if she had leave to be cheerful. as for sir john, he sat at dinner like a pig, and gobbled and ate and drank, smacking his lips all the while, but with hardly a word to either her or mrs. greenfield or to barnaby true; but with a sour, sullen air, as though he would say, "your damned victuals and drink are no better than they should be, but i must eat 'em or nothing." a great bloated beast of a man! only after dinner was over and the young lady and the two misses sat off in a corner together did barnaby hear her talk with any ease. then, to be sure, her tongue became loose, and she prattled away at a great rate, though hardly above her breath, until of a sudden her grandfather called out, in his hoarse, rattling voice, that it was time to go. whereupon she stopped short in what she was saying and jumped up from her chair, looking as frightened as though she had been caught in something amiss, and was to be punished for it. barnaby true and mr. greenfield both went out to see the two into their coach, where sir john's man stood holding the lantern. and who should he be, to be sure, but that same lean villain with bald head who had offered to shoot the leader of our hero's expedition out on the harbor that night! for, one of the circles of light from the lantern shining up into his face, barnaby true knew him the moment he clapped eyes upon him. though he could not have recognized our hero, he grinned at him in the most impudent, familiar fashion, and never so much as touched his hat either to him or to mr. greenfield; but as soon as his master and his young mistress had entered the coach, banged to the door and scrambled up on the seat alongside the driver, and so away without a word, but with another impudent grin, this time favoring both barnaby and the old gentleman. such were these two, master and man, and what barnaby saw of them then was only confirmed by further observation--the most hateful couple he ever knew; though, god knows, what they afterward suffered should wipe out all complaint against them. the next day sir john malyoe's belongings began to come aboard the _belle helen_, and in the afternoon that same lean, villainous manservant comes skipping across the gangplank as nimble as a goat, with two black men behind him lugging a great sea chest. "what!" he cried out, "and so you is the supercargo, is you? why, i thought you was more account when i saw you last night a-sitting talking with his honor like his equal. well, no matter; 'tis something to have a brisk, genteel young fellow for a supercargo. so come, my hearty, lend a hand, will you, and help me set his honor's cabin to rights." what a speech was this to endure from such a fellow, to be sure! and barnaby so high in his own esteem, and holding himself a gentleman! well, what with his distaste for the villain, and what with such odious familiarity, you can guess into what temper so impudent an address must have cast him. "you'll find the steward in yonder," he said, "and he'll show you the cabin," and therewith turned and walked away with prodigious dignity, leaving the other standing where he was. as he entered his own cabin he could not but see, out of the tail of his eye, that the fellow was still standing where he had left him, regarding him with a most evil, malevolent countenance, so that he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had made one enemy during that voyage who was not very likely to forgive or forget what he must regard as a slight put upon him. the next day sir john malyoe himself came aboard, accompanied by his granddaughter, and followed by this man, and he followed again by four black men, who carried among them two trunks, not large in size, but prodigious heavy in weight, and toward which sir john and his follower devoted the utmost solicitude and care to see that they were properly carried into the state cabin he was to occupy. barnaby true was standing in the great cabin as they passed close by him; but though sir john malyoe looked hard at him and straight in the face, he never so much as spoke a single word, or showed by a look or a sign that he knew who our hero was. at this the serving man, who saw it all with eyes as quick as a cat's, fell to grinning and chuckling to see barnaby in his turn so slighted. the young lady, who also saw it all, flushed up red, then in the instant of passing looked straight at our hero, and bowed and smiled at him with a most sweet and gracious affability, then the next moment recovering herself, as though mightily frightened at what she had done. the same day the _belle helen_ sailed, with as beautiful, sweet weather as ever a body could wish for. there were only two other passengers aboard, the rev. simon styles, the master of a flourishing academy in spanish town, and his wife, a good, worthy old couple, but very quiet, and would sit in the great cabin by the hour together reading, so that, what with sir john malyoe staying all the time in his own cabin with those two trunks he held so precious, it fell upon barnaby true in great part to show attention to the young lady; and glad enough he was of the opportunity, as anyone may guess. for when you consider a brisk, lively young man of one-and-twenty and a sweet, beautiful miss of seventeen so thrown together day after day for two weeks, the weather being very fair, as i have said, and the ship tossing and bowling along before a fine humming breeze that sent white caps all over the sea, and with nothing to do but sit and look at that blue sea and the bright sky overhead, it is not hard to suppose what was to befall, and what pleasure it was to barnaby true to show attention to her. but, oh! those days when a man is young, and, whether wisely or no, fallen in love! how often during that voyage did our hero lie awake in his berth at night, tossing this way and that without sleep--not that he wanted to sleep if he could, but would rather lie so awake thinking about her and staring into the darkness! poor fool! he might have known that the end must come to such a fool's paradise before very long. for who was he to look up to sir john malyoe's granddaughter, he, the supercargo of a merchant ship, and she the granddaughter of a baronet. nevertheless, things went along very smooth and pleasant, until one evening, when all came of a sudden to an end. at that time he and the young lady had been standing for a long while together, leaning over the rail and looking out across the water through the dusk toward the westward, where the sky was still of a lingering brightness. she had been mightily quiet and dull all that evening, but now of a sudden she began, without any preface whatever, to tell barnaby about herself and her affairs. she said that she and her grandfather were going to new york that they might take passage thence to boston town, there to meet her cousin captain malyoe, who was stationed in garrison at that place. then she went on to say that captain malyoe was the next heir to the devonshire estate, and that she and he were to be married in the fall. but, poor barnaby! what a fool was he, to be sure! methinks when she first began to speak about captain malyoe he knew what was coming. but now that she had told him, he could say nothing, but stood there staring across the ocean, his breath coming hot and dry as ashes in his throat. she, poor thing, went on to say, in a very low voice, that she had liked him from the very first moment she had seen him, and had been very happy for these days, and would always think of him as a dear friend who had been very kind to her, who had so little pleasure in life, and so would always remember him. then they were both silent, until at last barnaby made shift to say, though in a hoarse and croaking voice, that captain malyoe must be a very happy man, and that if he were in captain malyoe's place he would be the happiest man in the world. thus, having spoken, and so found his tongue, he went on to tell her, with his head all in a whirl, that he, too, loved her, and that what she had told him struck him to the heart, and made him the most miserable, unhappy wretch in the whole world. she was not angry at what he said, nor did she turn to look at him, but only said, in a low voice, he should not talk so, for that it could only be a pain to them both to speak of such things, and that whether she would or no, she must do everything as her grandfather bade her, for that he was indeed a terrible man. to this poor barnaby could only repeat that he loved her with all his heart, that he had hoped for nothing in his love, but that he was now the most miserable man in the world. it was at this moment, so tragic for him, that some one who had been hiding nigh them all the while suddenly moved away, and barnaby true could see in the gathering darkness that it was that villain manservant of sir john malyoe's and knew that he must have overheard all that had been said. the man went straight to the great cabin, and poor barnaby, his brain all atingle, stood looking after him, feeling that now indeed the last drop of bitterness had been added to his trouble to have such a wretch overhear what he had said. the young lady could not have seen the fellow, for she continued leaning over the rail, and barnaby true, standing at her side, not moving, but in such a tumult of many passions that he was like one bewildered, and his heart beating as though to smother him. so they stood for i know not how long when, of a sudden, sir john malyoe comes running out of the cabin, without his hat, but carrying his gold-headed cane, and so straight across the deck to where barnaby and the young lady stood, that spying wretch close at his heels, grinning like an imp. "you hussy!" bawled out sir john, so soon as he had come pretty near them, and in so loud a voice that all on deck might have heard the words; and as he spoke he waved his cane back and forth as though he would have struck the young lady, who, shrinking back almost upon the deck, crouched as though to escape such a blow. "you hussy!" he bawled out with vile oaths, too horrible here to be set down. "what do you do here with this yankee supercargo, not fit for a gentlewoman to wipe her feet upon? get to your cabin, you hussy" (only it was something worse he called her this time), "before i lay this cane across your shoulders!" what with the whirling of barnaby's brains and the passion into which he was already melted, what with his despair and his love, and his anger at this address, a man gone mad could scarcely be less accountable for his actions than was he at that moment. hardly knowing what he did, he put his hand against sir john malyoe's breast and thrust him violently back, crying out upon him in a great, loud, hoarse voice for threatening a young lady, and saying that for a farthing he would wrench the stick out of his hand and throw it overboard. sir john went staggering back with the push barnaby gave him, and then caught himself up again. then, with a great bellow, ran roaring at our hero, whirling his cane about, and i do believe would have struck him (and god knows then what might have happened) had not his manservant caught him and held him back. "keep back!" cried out our hero, still mighty hoarse. "keep back! if you strike me with that stick i'll fling you overboard!" by this time, what with the sound of loud voices and the stamping of feet, some of the crew and others aboard were hurrying up, and the next moment captain manly and the first mate, mr. freesden, came running out of the cabin. but barnaby, who was by this fairly set agoing, could not now stop himself. "and who are you, anyhow," he cried out, "to threaten to strike me and to insult me, who am as good as you? you dare not strike me! you may shoot a man from behind, as you shot poor captain brand on the rio cobra river, but you won't dare strike me face to face. i know who you are and what you are!" by this time sir john malyoe had ceased to endeavor to strike him, but stood stock-still, his great bulging eyes staring as though they would pop out of his head. "what's all this?" cries captain manly, bustling up to them with mr. freesden. "what does all this mean?" but, as i have said, our hero was too far gone now to contain himself until all that he had to say was out. "the damned villain insulted me and insulted the young lady," he cried out, panting in the extremity of his passion, "and then he threatened to strike me with his cane. but i know who he is and what he is. i know what he's got in his cabin in those two trunks, and where he found it, and whom it belongs to. he found it on the shores of the rio cobra river, and i have only to open my mouth and tell what i know about it." at this captain manly clapped his hand upon our hero's shoulder and fell to shaking him so that he could scarcely stand, calling out to him the while to be silent. "what do you mean?" he cried. "an officer of this ship to quarrel with a passenger of mine! go straight to your cabin, and stay there till i give you leave to come out again." at this master barnaby came somewhat back to himself and into his wits again with a jump. "but he threatened to strike me with his cane, captain," he cried out, "and that i won't stand from any man!" "no matter what he did," said captain manly, very sternly. "go to your cabin, as i bid you, and stay there till i tell you to come out again, and when we get to new york i'll take pains to tell your stepfather of how you have behaved. i'll have no such rioting as this aboard my ship." barnaby true looked around him, but the young lady was gone. nor, in the blindness of his frenzy, had he seen when she had gone nor whither she went. as for sir john malyoe, he stood in the light of a lantern, his face gone as white as ashes, and i do believe if a look could kill, the dreadful malevolent stare he fixed upon barnaby true would have slain him where he stood. after captain manly had so shaken some wits into poor barnaby he, unhappy wretch, went to his cabin, as he was bidden to do, and there, shutting the door upon himself, and flinging himself down, all dressed as he was, upon his berth, yielded himself over to the profoundest passion of humiliation and despair. there he lay for i know not how long, staring into the darkness, until by and by, in spite of his suffering and his despair, he dozed off into a loose sleep, that was more like waking than sleep, being possessed continually by the most vivid and distasteful dreams, from which he would awaken only to doze off and to dream again. it was from the midst of one of these extravagant dreams that he was suddenly aroused by the noise of a pistol shot, and then the noise of another and another, and then a great bump and a grinding jar, and then the sound of many footsteps running across the deck and down into the great cabin. then came a tremendous uproar of voices in the great cabin, the struggling as of men's bodies being tossed about, striking violently against the partitions and bulkheads. at the same instant arose a screaming of women's voices, and one voice, and that sir john malyoe's, crying out as in the greatest extremity: "you villains! you damned villains!" and with the sudden detonation of a pistol fired into the close space of the great cabin. barnaby was out in the middle of his cabin in a moment, and taking only time enough to snatch down one of the pistols that hung at the head of his berth, flung out into the great cabin, to find it as black as night, the lantern slung there having been either blown out or dashed out into darkness. the prodigiously dark space was full of uproar, the hubbub and confusion pierced through and through by that keen sound of women's voices screaming, one in the cabin and the other in the stateroom beyond. almost immediately barnaby pitched headlong over two or three struggling men scuffling together upon the deck, falling with a great clatter and the loss of his pistol, which, however, he regained almost immediately. what all the uproar meant he could not tell, but he presently heard captain manly's voice from somewhere suddenly calling out, "you bloody pirate, would you choke me to death?" wherewith some notion of what had happened came to him like a flash, and that they had been attacked in the night by pirates. looking toward the companionway, he saw, outlined against the darkness of the night without, the blacker form of a man's figure, standing still and motionless as a statue in the midst of all this hubbub, and so by some instinct he knew in a moment that that must be the master maker of all this devil's brew. therewith, still kneeling upon the deck, he covered the bosom of that shadowy figure point-blank, as he thought, with his pistol, and instantly pulled the trigger. in the flash of red light, and in the instant stunning report of the pistol shot, barnaby saw, as stamped upon the blackness, a broad, flat face with fishy eyes, a lean, bony forehead with what appeared to be a great blotch of blood upon the side, a cocked hat trimmed with gold lace, a red scarf across the breast, and the gleam of brass buttons. then the darkness, very thick and black, swallowed everything again. but in the instant sir john malyoe called out, in a great loud voice: "my god! 'tis william brand!" therewith came the sound of some one falling heavily down. the next moment, barnaby's sight coming back to him again in the darkness, he beheld that dark and motionless figure still standing exactly where it had stood before, and so knew either that he had missed it or else that it was of so supernatural a sort that a leaden bullet might do it no harm. though if it was indeed an apparition that barnaby beheld in that moment, there is this to say, that he saw it as plain as ever he saw a living man in all of his life. this was the last our hero knew, for the next moment somebody--whether by accident or design he never knew--struck him such a terrible violent blow upon the side of the head that he saw forty thousand stars flash before his eyeballs, and then, with a great humming in his head, swooned dead away. when barnaby true came back to his senses again it was to find himself being cared for with great skill and nicety, his head bathed with cold water, and a bandage being bound about it as carefully as though a chirurgeon was attending to him. he could not immediately recall what had happened to him, nor until he had opened his eyes to find himself in a strange cabin, extremely well fitted and painted with white and gold, the light of a lantern shining in his eyes, together with the gray of the early daylight through the dead-eye. two men were bending over him--one, a negro in a striped shirt, with a yellow handkerchief around his head and silver earrings in his ears; the other, a white man, clad in a strange outlandish dress of a foreign make, and with great mustachios hanging down, and with gold earrings in his ears. it was the latter who was attending to barnaby's hurt with such extreme care and gentleness. all this barnaby saw with his first clear consciousness after his swoon. then remembering what had befallen him, and his head beating as though it would split asunder, he shut his eyes again, contriving with great effort to keep himself from groaning aloud, and wondering as to what sort of pirates these could be who would first knock a man in the head so terrible a blow as that which he had suffered, and then take such care to fetch him back to life again, and to make him easy and comfortable. nor did he open his eyes again, but lay there gathering his wits together and wondering thus until the bandage was properly tied about his head and sewed together. then once more he opened his eyes, and looked up to ask where he was. either they who were attending to him did not choose to reply, or else they could not speak english, for they made no answer, excepting by signs; for the white man, seeing that he was now able to speak, and so was come back into his senses again, nodded his head three or four times, and smiled with a grin of his white teeth, and then pointed, as though toward a saloon beyond. at the same time the negro held up our hero's coat and beckoned for him to put it on, so that barnaby, seeing that it was required of him to meet some one without, arose, though with a good deal of effort, and permitted the negro to help him on with his coat, still feeling mightily dizzy and uncertain upon his legs, his head beating fit to split, and the vessel rolling and pitching at a great rate, as though upon a heavy ground swell. so, still sick and dizzy, he went out into what was indeed a fine saloon beyond, painted in white and gilt like the cabin he had just quitted, and fitted in the nicest fashion, a mahogany table, polished very bright, extending the length of the room, and a quantity of bottles, together with glasses of clear crystal, arranged in a hanging rack above. here at the table a man was sitting with his back to our hero, clad in a rough pea-jacket, and with a red handkerchief tied around his throat, his feet stretched out before him, and he smoking a pipe of tobacco with all the ease and comfort in the world. as barnaby came in he turned round, and, to the profound astonishment of our hero, presented toward him in the light of the lantern, the dawn shining pretty strong through the skylight, the face of that very man who had conducted the mysterious expedition that night across kingston harbor to the rio cobra river. this man looked steadily at barnaby true for a moment or two, and then burst out laughing; and, indeed, barnaby, standing there with the bandage about his head, must have looked a very droll picture of that astonishment he felt so profoundly at finding who was this pirate into whose hands he had fallen. "well," says the other, "and so you be up at last, and no great harm done, i'll be bound. and how does your head feel by now, my young master?" to this barnaby made no reply, but, what with wonder and the dizziness of his head, seated himself at the table over against the speaker, who pushed a bottle of rum toward him, together with a glass from the swinging shelf above. he watched barnaby fill his glass, and so soon as he had done so began immediately by saying: "i do suppose you think you were treated mightily ill to be so handled last night. well, so you were treated ill enough--though who hit you that crack upon the head i know no more than a child unborn. well, i am sorry for the way you were handled, but there is this much to say, and of that you may believe me, that nothing was meant to you but kindness, and before you are through with us all you will believe that well enough." here he helped himself to a taste of grog, and sucking in his lips, went on again with what he had to say. "do you remember," said he, "that expedition of ours in kingston harbor, and how we were all of us balked that night?" "why, yes," said barnaby true, "nor am i likely to forget it." "and do you remember what i said to that villain, jack malyoe, that night as his boat went by us?" "as to that," said barnaby true, "i do not know that i can say yes or no, but if you will tell me, i will maybe answer you in kind." "why, i mean this," said the other. "i said that the villain had got the better of us once again, but that next time it would be our turn, even if william brand himself had to come back from hell to put the business through." "i remember something of the sort," said barnaby, "now that you speak of it, but still i am all in the dark as to what you are driving at." the other looked at him very cunningly for a little while, his head on one side, and his eyes half shut. then, as if satisfied, he suddenly burst out laughing. "look hither," said he, "and i'll show you something," and therewith, moving to one side, disclosed a couple of traveling cases or small trunks with brass studs, so exactly like those that sir john malyoe had fetched aboard at jamaica that barnaby, putting this and that together, knew that they must be the same. our hero had a strong enough suspicion as to what those two cases contained, and his suspicions had become a certainty when he saw sir john malyoe struck all white at being threatened about them, and his face lowering so malevolently as to look murder had he dared do it. but, lord! what were suspicions or even certainty to what barnaby true's two eyes beheld when that man lifted the lids of the two cases--the locks thereof having already been forced--and, flinging back first one lid and then the other, displayed to barnaby's astonished sight a great treasure of gold and silver! most of it tied up in leathern bags, to be sure, but many of the coins, big and little, yellow and white, lying loose and scattered about like so many beans, brimming the cases to the very top. barnaby sat dumb-struck at what he beheld; as to whether he breathed or no, i cannot tell; but this i know, that he sat staring at that marvelous treasure like a man in a trance, until, after a few seconds of this golden display, the other banged down the lids again and burst out laughing, whereupon he came back to himself with a jump. "well, and what do you think of that?" said the other. "is it not enough for a man to turn pirate for? but," he continued, "it is not for the sake of showing you this that i have been waiting for you here so long a while, but to tell you that you are not the only passenger aboard, but that there is another, whom i am to confide to your care and attention, according to orders i have received; so, if you are ready, master barnaby, i'll fetch her in directly." he waited for a moment, as though for barnaby to speak, but our hero not replying, he arose and, putting away the bottle of rum and the glasses, crossed the saloon to a door like that from which barnaby had come a little while before. this he opened, and after a moment's delay and a few words spoken to some one within, ushered thence a young lady, who came out very slowly into the saloon where barnaby still sat at the table. it was miss marjorie malyoe, very white, and looking as though stunned or bewildered by all that had befallen her. barnaby true could never tell whether the amazing strange voyage that followed was of long or of short duration; whether it occupied three days or ten days. for conceive, if you choose, two people of flesh and blood moving and living continually in all the circumstances and surroundings as of a nightmare dream, yet they two so happy together that all the universe beside was of no moment to them! how was anyone to tell whether in such circumstances any time appeared to be long or short? does a dream appear to be long or to be short? the vessel in which they sailed was a brigantine of good size and build, but manned by a considerable crew, the most strange and outlandish in their appearance that barnaby had ever beheld--some white, some yellow, some black, and all tricked out with gay colors, and gold earrings in their ears, and some with great long mustachios, and others with handkerchiefs tied around their heads, and all talking a language together of which barnaby true could understand not a single word, but which might have been portuguese from one or two phrases he caught. nor did this strange, mysterious crew, of god knows what sort of men, seem to pay any attention whatever to barnaby or to the young lady. they might now and then have looked at him and her out of the corners of their yellow eyes, but that was all; otherwise they were indeed like the creatures of a nightmare dream. only he who was the captain of this outlandish crew would maybe speak to barnaby a few words as to the weather or what not when he would come down into the saloon to mix a glass of grog or to light a pipe of tobacco, and then to go on deck again about his business. otherwise our hero and the young lady were left to themselves, to do as they pleased, with no one to interfere with them. [illustration: "she would sit quite still, permitting barnaby to gaze" _illustration from_ the ghost of captain brand _by_ howard pyle _originally published in_ harper's weekly, _december , _] as for her, she at no time showed any great sign of terror or of fear, only for a little while was singularly numb and quiet, as though dazed with what had happened to her. indeed, methinks that wild beast, her grandfather, had so crushed her spirit by his tyranny and his violence that nothing that happened to her might seem sharp and keen, as it does to others of an ordinary sort. but this was only at first, for afterward her face began to grow singularly clear, as with a white light, and she would sit quite still, permitting barnaby to gaze, i know not how long, into her eyes, her face so transfigured and her lips smiling, and they, as it were, neither of them breathing, but hearing, as in another far-distant place, the outlandish jargon of the crew talking together in the warm, bright sunlight, or the sound of creaking block and tackle as they hauled upon the sheets. is it, then, any wonder that barnaby true could never remember whether such a voyage as this was long or short? it was as though they might have sailed so upon that wonderful voyage forever. you may guess how amazed was barnaby true when, coming upon deck one morning, he found the brigantine riding upon an even keel, at anchor off staten island, a small village on the shore, and the well-known roofs and chimneys of new york town in plain sight across the water. 'twas the last place in the world he had expected to see. and, indeed, it did seem strange to lie there alongside staten island all that day, with new york town so nigh at hand and yet so impossible to reach. for whether he desired to escape or no, barnaby true could not but observe that both he and the young lady were so closely watched that they might as well have been prisoners, tied hand and foot and laid in the hold, so far as any hope of getting away was concerned. all that day there was a deal of mysterious coming and going aboard the brigantine, and in the afternoon a sailboat went up to the town, carrying the captain, and a great load covered over with a tarpaulin in the stern. what was so taken up to the town barnaby did not then guess, but the boat did not return again till about sundown. for the sun was just dropping below the water when the captain came aboard once more and, finding barnaby on deck, bade him come down into the saloon, where they found the young lady sitting, the broad light of the evening shining in through the skylight, and making it all pretty bright within. the captain commanded barnaby to be seated, for he had something of moment to say to him; whereupon, as soon as barnaby had taken his place alongside the young lady, he began very seriously, with a preface somewhat thus: "though you may think me the captain of this brigantine, young gentleman, i am not really so, but am under orders, and so have only carried out those orders of a superior in all these things that i have done." having so begun, he went on to say that there was one thing yet remaining for him to do, and that the greatest thing of all. he said that barnaby and the young lady had not been fetched away from the _belle helen_ as they were by any mere chance of accident, but that 'twas all a plan laid by a head wiser than his, and carried out by one whom he must obey in all things. he said that he hoped that both barnaby and the young lady would perform willingly what they would be now called upon to do, but that whether they did it willingly or no, they must, for that those were the orders of one who was not to be disobeyed. you may guess how our hero held his breath at all this; but whatever might have been his expectations, the very wildest of them all did not reach to that which was demanded of him. "my orders are these," said the other, continuing: "i am to take you and the young lady ashore, and to see that you are married before i quit you; and to that end a very good, decent, honest minister who lives ashore yonder in the village was chosen and hath been spoken to and is now, no doubt, waiting for you to come. such are my orders, and this is the last thing i am set to do; so now i will leave you alone together for five minutes to talk it over, but be quick about it, for whether willing or not, this thing must be done." thereupon he went away, as he had promised, leaving those two alone together, barnaby like one turned into stone, and the young lady, her face turned away, flaming as red as fire in the fading light. nor can i tell what barnaby said to her, nor what words he used, but only, all in a tumult, with neither beginning nor end he told her that god knew he loved her, and that with all his heart and soul, and that there was nothing in all the world for him but her; but, nevertheless, if she would not have it as had been ordered, and if she were not willing to marry him as she was bidden to do, he would rather die than lend himself to forcing her to do such a thing against her will. nevertheless, he told her she must speak up and tell him yes or no, and that god knew he would give all the world if she would say "yes." all this and more he said in such a tumult of words that there was no order in their speaking, and she sitting there, her bosom rising and falling as though her breath stifled her. nor may i tell what she replied to him, only this, that she said she would marry him. at this he took her into his arms and set his lips to hers, his heart all melting away in his bosom. so presently came the captain back into the saloon again, to find barnaby sitting there holding her hand, she with her face turned away, and his heart beating like a trip hammer, and so saw that all was settled as he would have it. wherewith he wished them both joy, and gave barnaby his hand. the yawlboat belonging to the brigantine was ready and waiting alongside when they came upon deck, and immediately they descended to it and took their seats. so they landed, and in a little while were walking up the village street in the darkness, she clinging to his arm as though she would swoon, and the captain of the brigantine and two other men from aboard following after them. and so to the minister's house, finding him waiting for them, smoking his pipe in the warm evening, and walking up and down in front of his own door. he immediately conducted them into the house, where, his wife having fetched a candle, and two others of the village folk being present, the good man having asked several questions as to their names and their age and where they were from, the ceremony was performed, and the certificate duly signed by those present--excepting the men who had come ashore from the brigantine, and who refused to set their hands to any paper. the same sailboat that had taken the captain up to the town in the afternoon was waiting for them at the landing place, whence, the captain, having wished them godspeed, and having shaken barnaby very heartily by the hand, they pushed off, and, coming about, ran away with the slant of the wind, dropping the shore and those strange beings alike behind them into the night. as they sped away through the darkness they could hear the creaking of the sails being hoisted aboard of the brigantine, and so knew that she was about to put to sea once more. nor did barnaby true ever set eyes upon those beings again, nor did anyone else that i ever heard tell of. it was nigh midnight when they made mr. hartright's wharf at the foot of wall street, and so the streets were all dark and silent and deserted as they walked up to barnaby's home. you may conceive of the wonder and amazement of barnaby's dear stepfather when, clad in a dressing gown and carrying a lighted candle in his hand, he unlocked and unbarred the door, and so saw who it was had aroused him at such an hour of the night, and the young and beautiful lady whom barnaby had fetched with him. the first thought of the good man was that the _belle helen_ had come into port; nor did barnaby undeceive him as he led the way into the house, but waited until they were all safe and sound in privity together before he should unfold his strange and wonderful story. "this was left for you by two foreign sailors this afternoon, barnaby," the good old man said, as he led the way through the hall, holding up the candle at the same time, so that barnaby might see an object that stood against the wainscoting by the door of the dining room. nor could barnaby refrain from crying out with amazement when he saw that it was one of the two chests of treasure that sir john malyoe had fetched from jamaica, and which the pirates had taken from the _belle helen_. as for mr. hartright, he guessed no more what was in it than the man in the moon. the next day but one brought the _belle helen_ herself into port, with the terrible news not only of having been attacked at night by pirates, but also that sir john malyoe was dead. for whether it was the sudden shock of the sight of his old captain's face--whom he himself had murdered and thought dead and buried--flashing so out against the darkness, or whether it was the strain of passion that overset his brains, certain it is that when the pirates left the _belle helen_, carrying with them the young lady and barnaby and the traveling trunks, those left aboard the _belle helen_ found sir john malyoe lying in a fit upon the floor, frothing at the mouth and black in the face, as though he had been choked, and so took him away to his berth, where, the next morning about ten o'clock, he died, without once having opened his eyes or spoken a single word. as for the villain manservant, no one ever saw him afterward; though whether he jumped overboard, or whether the pirates who so attacked the ship had carried him away bodily, who shall say? mr. hartright, after he had heard barnaby's story, had been very uncertain as to the ownership of the chest of treasure that had been left by those men for barnaby, but the news of the death of sir john malyoe made the matter very easy for him to decide. for surely if that treasure did not belong to barnaby, there could be no doubt that it must belong to his wife, she being sir john malyoe's legal heir. and so it was that that great fortune (in actual computation amounting to upward of sixty-three thousand pounds) came to barnaby true, the grandson of that famous pirate, william brand; the english estate in devonshire, in default of male issue of sir john malyoe, descended to captain malyoe, whom the young lady was to have married. as for the other case of treasure, it was never heard of again, nor could barnaby ever guess whether it was divided as booty among the pirates, or whether they had carried it away with them to some strange and foreign land, there to share it among themselves. and so the ending of the story, with only this to observe, that whether that strange appearance of captain brand's face by the light of the pistol was a ghostly and spiritual appearance, or whether he was present in flesh and blood, there is only to say that he was never heard of again; nor had he ever been heard of till that time since the day he was so shot from behind by capt. john malyoe on the banks of the rio cobra river in the year . chapter iii with the buccaneers _being an account of certain adventures that befell henry mostyn under capt. h. morgan in the year - _ [illustration] i although this narration has more particularly to do with the taking of the spanish vice admiral in the harbor of porto bello, and of the rescue therefrom of le sieur simon, his wife and daughter (the adventure of which was successfully achieved by captain morgan, the famous buccaneer), we shall, nevertheless, premise something of the earlier history of master harry mostyn, whom you may, if you please, consider as the hero of the several circumstances recounted in these pages. in the year our hero's father embarked from portsmouth, in england, for the barbados, where he owned a considerable sugar plantation. thither to those parts of america he transported with himself his whole family, of whom our master harry was the fifth of eight children--a great lusty fellow as little fitted for the church (for which he was designed) as could be. at the time of this story, though not above sixteen years old, master harry mostyn was as big and well-grown as many a man of twenty, and of such a reckless and dare-devil spirit that no adventure was too dangerous or too mischievous for him to embark upon. at this time there was a deal of talk in those parts of the americas concerning captain morgan, and the prodigious successes he was having pirating against the spaniards. this man had once been an indentured servant with mr. rolls, a sugar factor at the barbados. having served out his time, and being of lawless disposition, possessing also a prodigious appetite for adventure, he joined with others of his kidney, and, purchasing a caravel of three guns, embarked fairly upon that career of piracy the most successful that ever was heard of in the world. master harry had known this man very well while he was still with mr. rolls, serving as a clerk at that gentleman's sugar wharf, a tall, broad-shouldered, strapping fellow, with red cheeks, and thick red lips, and rolling blue eyes, and hair as red as any chestnut. many knew him for a bold, gruff-spoken man, but no one at that time suspected that he had it in him to become so famous and renowned as he afterward grew to be. the fame of his exploits had been the talk of those parts for above a twelvemonth, when, in the latter part of the year , captain morgan, having made a very successful expedition against the spaniards into the gulf of campeche--where he took several important purchases from the plate fleet--came to the barbados, there to fit out another such venture, and to enlist recruits. he and certain other adventurers had purchased a vessel of some five hundred tons, which they proposed to convert into a pirate by cutting portholes for cannon, and running three or four carronades across her main deck. the name of this ship, be it mentioned, was the _good samaritan_, as ill-fitting a name as could be for such a craft, which, instead of being designed for the healing of wounds, was intended to inflict such devastation as those wicked men proposed. [illustration: buried treasure] here was a piece of mischief exactly fitted to our hero's tastes; wherefore, having made up a bundle of clothes, and with not above a shilling in his pocket, he made an excursion into the town to seek for captain morgan. there he found the great pirate established at an ordinary, with a little court of ragamuffins and swashbucklers gathered about him, all talking very loud, and drinking healths in raw rum as though it were sugared water. and what a fine figure our buccaneer had grown, to be sure! how different from the poor, humble clerk upon the sugar wharf! what a deal of gold braid! what a fine, silver-hilted spanish sword! what a gay velvet sling, hung with three silver-mounted pistols! if master harry's mind had not been made up before, to be sure such a spectacle of glory would have determined it. this figure of war our hero asked to step aside with him, and when they had come into a corner, proposed to the other what he intended, and that he had a mind to enlist as a gentleman adventurer upon this expedition. upon this our rogue of a buccaneer captain burst out a-laughing, and fetching master harry a great thump upon the back, swore roundly that he would make a man of him, and that it was a pity to make a parson out of so good a piece of stuff. nor was captain morgan less good than his word, for when the _good samaritan_ set sail with a favoring wind for the island of jamaica, master harry found himself established as one of the adventurers aboard. ii could you but have seen the town of port royal as it appeared in the year you would have beheld a sight very well worth while looking upon. there were no fine houses at that time, and no great counting houses built of brick, such as you may find nowadays, but a crowd of board and wattled huts huddled along the streets, and all so gay with flags and bits of color that vanity fair itself could not have been gayer. to this place came all the pirates and buccaneers that infested those parts, and men shouted and swore and gambled, and poured out money like water, and then maybe wound up their merrymaking by dying of fever. for the sky in these torrid latitudes is all full of clouds overhead, and as hot as any blanket, and when the sun shone forth it streamed down upon the smoking sands so that the houses were ovens and the streets were furnaces; so it was little wonder that men died like rats in a hole. but little they appeared to care for that; so that everywhere you might behold a multitude of painted women and jews and merchants and pirates, gaudy with red scarfs and gold braid and all sorts of odds and ends of foolish finery, all fighting and gambling and bartering for that ill-gotten treasure of the be-robbed spaniard. here, arriving, captain morgan found a hearty welcome, and a message from the governor awaiting him, the message bidding him attend his excellency upon the earliest occasion that offered. whereupon, taking our hero (of whom he had grown prodigiously fond) along with him, our pirate went, without any loss of time, to visit sir thomas modiford, who was then the royal governor of all this devil's brew of wickedness. they found his excellency seated in a great easy-chair, under the shadow of a slatted veranda, the floor whereof was paved with brick. he was clad, for the sake of coolness, only in his shirt, breeches, and stockings, and he wore slippers on his feet. he was smoking a great cigarro of tobacco, and a goblet of lime juice and water and rum stood at his elbow on a table. here, out of the glare of the heat, it was all very cool and pleasant, with a sea breeze blowing violently in through the slats, setting them a-rattling now and then, and stirring sir thomas's long hair, which he had pushed back for the sake of coolness. the purport of this interview, i may tell you, concerned the rescue of one le sieur simon, who, together with his wife and daughter, was held captive by the spaniards. [illustration] this gentleman adventurer (le sieur simon) had, a few years before, been set up by the buccaneers as governor of the island of santa catharina. this place, though well fortified by the spaniards, the buccaneers had seized upon, establishing themselves thereon, and so infesting the commerce of those seas that no spanish fleet was safe from them. at last the spaniards, no longer able to endure these assaults against their commerce, sent a great force against the freebooters to drive them out of their island stronghold. this they did, retaking santa catharina, together with its governor, his wife, and daughter, as well as the whole garrison of buccaneers. this garrison was sent by their conquerors, some to the galleys, some to the mines, some to no man knows where. the governor himself--le sieur simon--was to be sent to spain, there to stand his trial for piracy. the news of all this, i may tell you, had only just been received in jamaica, having been brought thither by a spanish captain, one don roderiguez sylvia, who was, besides, the bearer of dispatches to the spanish authorities relating the whole affair. such, in fine, was the purport of this interview, and as our hero and his captain walked back together from the governor's house to the ordinary where they had taken up their inn, the buccaneer assured his companion that he purposed to obtain those dispatches from the spanish captain that very afternoon, even if he had to use force to seize them. all this, you are to understand, was undertaken only because of the friendship that the governor and captain morgan entertained for le sieur simon. and, indeed, it was wonderful how honest and how faithful were these wicked men in their dealings with one another. for you must know that governor modiford and le sieur simon and the buccaneers were all of one kidney--all taking a share in the piracies of those times, and all holding by one another as though they were the honestest men in the world. hence it was they were all so determined to rescue le sieur simon from the spaniards. iii having reached his ordinary after his interview with the governor, captain morgan found there a number of his companions, such as usually gathered at that place to be in attendance upon him--some, those belonging to the _good samaritan_; others, those who hoped to obtain benefits from him; others, those ragamuffins who gathered around him because he was famous, and because it pleased them to be of his court and to be called his followers. for nearly always your successful pirate had such a little court surrounding him. finding a dozen or more of these rascals gathered there, captain morgan informed them of his present purpose--that he was going to find the spanish captain to demand his papers of him, and calling upon them to accompany him. with this following at his heels, our buccaneer started off down the street, his lieutenant, a cornishman named bartholomew davis, upon one hand and our hero upon the other. so they paraded the streets for the best part of an hour before they found the spanish captain. for whether he had got wind that captain morgan was searching for him, or whether, finding himself in a place so full of his enemies, he had buried himself in some place of hiding, it is certain that the buccaneers had traversed pretty nearly the whole town before they discovered that he was lying at a certain auberge kept by a portuguese jew. thither they went, and thither captain morgan entered with the utmost coolness and composure of demeanor, his followers crowding noisily in at his heels. the space within was very dark, being lighted only by the doorway and by two large slatted windows or openings in the front. in this dark, hot place--not over-roomy at the best--were gathered twelve or fifteen villainous-appearing men, sitting at tables and drinking together, waited upon by the jew and his wife. our hero had no trouble in discovering which of this lot of men was captain sylvia, for not only did captain morgan direct his glance full of war upon him, but the spaniard was clad with more particularity and with more show of finery than any of the others who were there. him captain morgan approached and demanded his papers, whereunto the other replied with such a jabber of spanish and english that no man could have understood what he said. to this captain morgan in turn replied that he must have those papers, no matter what it might cost him to obtain them, and thereupon drew a pistol from his sling and presented it at the other's head. at this threatening action the innkeeper's wife fell a-screaming, and the jew, as in a frenzy, besought them not to tear the house down about his ears. our hero could hardly tell what followed, only that all of a sudden there was a prodigious uproar of combat. knives flashed everywhere, and then a pistol was fired so close to his head that he stood like one stunned, hearing some one crying out in a loud voice, but not knowing whether it was a friend or a foe who had been shot. then another pistol shot so deafened what was left of master harry's hearing that his ears rang for above an hour afterward. by this time the whole place was full of gunpowder smoke, and there was the sound of blows and oaths and outcrying and the clashing of knives. as master harry, who had no great stomach for such a combat, and no very particular interest in the quarrel, was making for the door, a little portuguese, as withered and as nimble as an ape, came ducking under the table and plunged at his stomach with a great long knife, which, had it effected its object, would surely have ended his adventures then and there. finding himself in such danger, master harry snatched up a heavy chair, and, flinging it at his enemy, who was preparing for another attack, he fairly ran for it out of the door, expecting every instant to feel the thrust of the blade betwixt his ribs. a considerable crowd had gathered outside, and others, hearing the uproar, were coming running to join them. with these our hero stood, trembling like a leaf, and with cold chills running up and down his back like water at the narrow escape from the danger that had threatened him. nor shall you think him a coward, for you must remember he was hardly sixteen years old at the time, and that this was the first affair of the sort he had encountered. afterward, as you shall learn, he showed that he could exhibit courage enough at a pinch. while he stood there, endeavoring to recover his composure, the while the tumult continued within, suddenly two men came running almost together out of the door, a crowd of the combatants at their heels. the first of these men was captain sylvia; the other, who was pursuing him, was captain morgan. as the crowd about the door parted before the sudden appearing of these, the spanish captain, perceiving, as he supposed, a way of escape opened to him, darted across the street with incredible swiftness toward an alleyway upon the other side. upon this, seeing his prey like to get away from him, captain morgan snatched a pistol out of his sling, and resting it for an instant across his arm, fired at the flying spaniard, and that with so true an aim that, though the street was now full of people, the other went tumbling over and over all of a heap in the kennel, where he lay, after a twitch or two, as still as a log. at the sound of the shot and the fall of the man the crowd scattered upon all sides, yelling and screaming, and the street being thus pretty clear, captain morgan ran across the way to where his victim lay, his smoking pistol still in his hand, and our hero following close at his heels. our poor harry had never before beheld a man killed thus in an instant who a moment before had been so full of life and activity, for when captain morgan turned the body over upon its back he could perceive at a glance, little as he knew of such matters, that the man was stone-dead. and, indeed, it was a dreadful sight for him who was hardly more than a child. he stood rooted for he knew not how long, staring down at the dead face with twitching fingers and shuddering limbs. meantime a great crowd was gathering about them again. [illustration] as for captain morgan, he went about his work with the utmost coolness and deliberation imaginable, unbuttoning the waistcoat and the shirt of the man he had murdered with fingers that neither twitched nor shook. there were a gold cross and a bunch of silver medals hung by a whipcord about the neck of the dead man. this captain morgan broke away with a snap, reaching the jingling baubles to harry, who took them in his nerveless hand and fingers that he could hardly close upon what they held. the papers captain morgan found in a wallet in an inner breast pocket of the spaniard's waistcoat. these he examined one by one, and finding them to his satisfaction, tied them up again, and slipped the wallet and its contents into his own pocket. then for the first time he appeared to observe master harry, who, indeed, must have been standing, the perfect picture of horror and dismay. whereupon, bursting out a-laughing, and slipping the pistol he had used back into its sling again, he fetched poor harry a great slap upon the back, bidding him be a man, for that he would see many such sights as this. but indeed, it was no laughing matter for poor master harry, for it was many a day before his imagination could rid itself of the image of the dead spaniard's face; and as he walked away down the street with his companions, leaving the crowd behind them, and the dead body where it lay for its friends to look after, his ears humming and ringing from the deafening noise of the pistol shots fired in the close room, and the sweat trickling down his face in drops, he knew not whether all that had passed had been real, or whether it was a dream from which he might presently awaken. iv the papers captain morgan had thus seized upon as the fruit of the murder he had committed must have been as perfectly satisfactory to him as could be, for having paid a second visit that evening to governor modiford, the pirate lifted anchor the next morning and made sail toward the gulf of darien. there, after cruising about in those waters for about a fortnight without falling in with a vessel of any sort, at the end of that time they overhauled a caravel bound from porto bello to cartagena, which vessel they took, and finding her loaded with nothing better than raw hides, scuttled and sank her, being then about twenty leagues from the main of cartagena. from the captain of this vessel they learned that the plate fleet was then lying in the harbor of porto bello, not yet having set sail thence, but waiting for the change of the winds before embarking for spain. besides this, which was a good deal more to their purpose, the spaniards told the pirates that the sieur simon, his wife, and daughter were confined aboard the vice admiral of that fleet, and that the name of the vice admiral was the _santa maria y valladolid_. [illustration: kidd on the deck of the _adventure galley_] so soon as captain morgan had obtained the information he desired he directed his course straight for the bay of santo blaso, where he might lie safely within the cape of that name without any danger of discovery (that part of the mainland being entirely uninhabited) and yet be within twenty or twenty-five leagues of porto bello. having come safely to this anchorage, he at once declared his intentions to his companions, which were as follows: that it was entirely impossible for them to hope to sail their vessel into the harbor of porto bello, and to attack the spanish vice admiral where he lay in the midst of the armed flota; wherefore, if anything was to be accomplished, it must be undertaken by some subtle design rather than by open-handed boldness. having so prefaced what he had to say, he now declared that it was his purpose to take one of the ship's boats and to go in that to porto bello, trusting for some opportunity to occur to aid him either in the accomplishment of his aims or in the gaining of some further information. having thus delivered himself, he invited any who dared to do so to volunteer for the expedition, telling them plainly that he would constrain no man to go against his will, for that at best it was a desperate enterprise, possessing only the recommendation that in its achievement the few who undertook it would gain great renown, and perhaps a very considerable booty. and such was the incredible influence of this bold man over his companions, and such was their confidence in his skill and cunning, that not above a dozen of all those aboard hung back from the undertaking, but nearly every man desired to be taken. of these volunteers captain morgan chose twenty--among others our master harry--and having arranged with his lieutenant that if nothing was heard from the expedition at the end of three days he should sail for jamaica to await news, he embarked upon that enterprise, which, though never heretofore published, was perhaps the boldest and the most desperate of all those that have since made his name so famous. for what could be a more unparalleled undertaking than for a little open boat, containing but twenty men, to enter the harbor of the third strongest fortress of the spanish mainland with the intention of cutting out the spanish vice admiral from the midst of a whole fleet of powerfully armed vessels, and how many men in all the world do you suppose would venture such a thing? but there is this to be said of that great buccaneer: that if he undertook enterprises so desperate as this, he yet laid his plans so well that they never went altogether amiss. moreover, the very desperation of his successes was of such a nature that no man could suspect that he would dare to undertake such things, and accordingly his enemies were never prepared to guard against his attacks. aye, had he but worn the king's colors and served under the rules of honest war, he might have become as great and as renowned as admiral blake himself. but all that is neither here nor there; what i have to tell you now is that captain morgan in this open boat with his twenty mates reached the cape of salmedina toward the fall of day. arriving within view of the harbor they discovered the plate fleet at anchor, with two men-of-war and an armed galley riding as a guard at the mouth of the harbor, scarce half a league distant from the other ships. having spied the fleet in this posture, the pirates presently pulled down their sails and rowed along the coast, feigning to be a spanish vessel from nombre de dios. so hugging the shore, they came boldly within the harbor, upon the opposite side of which you might see the fortress a considerable distance away. being now come so near to the consummation of their adventure, captain morgan required every man to make an oath to stand by him to the last, whereunto our hero swore as heartily as any man aboard, although his heart, i must needs confess, was beating at a great rate at the approach of what was to happen. having thus received the oaths of all his followers, captain morgan commanded the surgeon of the expedition that, when the order was given, he, the medico, was to bore six holes in the boat, so that, it sinking under them, they might all be compelled to push forward, with no chance of retreat. and such was the ascendancy of this man over his followers, and such was their awe of him, that not one of them uttered even so much as a murmur, though what he had commanded the surgeon to do pledged them either to victory or to death, with no chance to choose between. nor did the surgeon question the orders he had received, much less did he dream of disobeying them. by now it had fallen pretty dusk, whereupon, spying two fishermen in a canoe at a little distance, captain morgan demanded of them in spanish which vessel of those at anchor in the harbor was the vice admiral, for that he had dispatches for the captain thereof. whereupon the fishermen, suspecting nothing, pointed to them a galleon of great size riding at anchor not half a league distant. [illustration] toward this vessel accordingly the pirates directed their course, and when they had come pretty nigh, captain morgan called upon the surgeon that now it was time for him to perform the duty that had been laid upon him. whereupon the other did as he was ordered, and that so thoroughly that the water presently came gushing into the boat in great streams, whereat all hands pulled for the galleon as though every next moment was to be their last. and what do you suppose were our hero's emotions at this time? like all in the boat, his awe of captain morgan was so great that i do believe he would rather have gone to the bottom than have questioned his command, even when it was to scuttle the boat. nevertheless, when he felt the cold water gushing about his feet (for he had taken off his shoes and stockings) he became possessed with such a fear of being drowned that even the spanish galleon had no terrors for him if he could only feel the solid planks thereof beneath his feet. indeed, all the crew appeared to be possessed of a like dismay, for they pulled at the oars with such an incredible force that they were under the quarter of the galleon before the boat was half filled with water. here, as they approached, it then being pretty dark and the moon not yet having risen, the watch upon the deck hailed them, whereupon captain morgan called out in spanish that he was capt. alvarez mendazo, and that he brought dispatches for the vice admiral. but at that moment, the boat being now so full of water as to be logged, it suddenly tilted upon one side as though to sink beneath them, whereupon all hands, without further orders, went scrambling up the side, as nimble as so many monkeys, each armed with a pistol in one hand and a cutlass in the other, and so were upon deck before the watch could collect his wits to utter any outcry or to give any other alarm than to cry out, "jesu bless us! who are these?" at which words somebody knocked him down with the butt of a pistol, though who it was our hero could not tell in the darkness and the hurry. before any of those upon deck could recover from their alarm or those from below come up upon deck, a part of the pirates, under the carpenter and the surgeon, had run to the gun room and had taken possession of the arms, while captain morgan, with master harry and a portuguese called murillo braziliano, had flown with the speed of the wind into the great cabin. here they found the captain of the vice admiral playing at cards with the sieur simon and a friend, madam simon and her daughter being present. captain morgan instantly set his pistol at the breast of the spanish captain, swearing with a most horrible fierce countenance that if he spake a word or made any outcry he was a dead man. as for our hero, having now got his hand into the game, he performed the same service for the spaniard's friend, declaring he would shoot him dead if he opened his lips or lifted so much as a single finger. all this while the ladies, not comprehending what had occurred, had sat as mute as stones; but now having so far recovered themselves as to find a voice, the younger of the two fell to screaming, at which the sieur simon called out to her to be still, for these were friends who had come to help them, and not enemies who had come to harm them. all this, you are to understand, occupied only a little while, for in less than a minute three or four of the pirates had come into the cabin, who, together with the portuguese, proceeded at once to bind the two spaniards hand and foot, and to gag them. this being done to our buccaneer's satisfaction, and the spanish captain being stretched out in the corner of the cabin, he instantly cleared his countenance of its terrors, and bursting forth into a great loud laugh, clapped his hand to the sieur simon's, which he wrung with the best will in the world. having done this, and being in a fine humor after this his first success, he turned to the two ladies. "and this, ladies," said he, taking our hero by the hand and presenting him, "is a young gentleman who has embarked with me to learn the trade of piracy. i recommend him to your politeness." think what a confusion this threw our master harry into, to be sure, who at his best was never easy in the company of strange ladies! you may suppose what must have been his emotions to find himself thus introduced to the attention of madam simon and her daughter, being at the time in his bare feet, clad only in his shirt and breeches, and with no hat upon his head, a pistol in one hand and a cutlass in the other. however, he was not left for long to his embarrassments, for almost immediately after he had thus far relaxed, captain morgan fell of a sudden serious again, and bidding the sieur simon to get his ladies away into some place of safety, for the most hazardous part of this adventure was yet to occur, he quitted the cabin with master harry and the other pirates (for you may call him a pirate now) at his heels. having come upon deck, our hero beheld that a part of the spanish crew were huddled forward in a flock like so many sheep (the others being crowded below with the hatches fastened upon them), and such was the terror of the pirates, and so dreadful the name of henry morgan, that not one of those poor wretches dared to lift up his voice to give any alarm, nor even to attempt an escape by jumping overboard. at captain morgan's orders, these men, together with certain of his own company, ran nimbly aloft and began setting the sails, which, the night now having fallen pretty thick, was not for a good while observed by any of the vessels riding at anchor about them. indeed, the pirates might have made good their escape, with at most only a shot or two from the men-of-war, had it not then been about the full of the moon, which, having arisen, presently discovered to those of the fleet that lay closest about them what was being done aboard the vice admiral. at this one of the vessels hailed them, and then after a while, having no reply, hailed them again. even then the spaniards might not immediately have suspected anything was amiss but only that the vice admiral for some reason best known to himself was shifting his anchorage, had not one of the spaniards aloft--but who it was captain morgan was never able to discover--answered the hail by crying out that the vice admiral had been seized by the pirates. at this the alarm was instantly given and the mischief done, for presently there was a tremendous bustle through that part of the fleet lying nighest the vice admiral--a deal of shouting of orders, a beating of drums, and the running hither and thither of the crews. but by this time the sails of the vice admiral had filled with a strong land breeze that was blowing up the harbor, whereupon the carpenter, at captain morgan's orders, having cut away both anchors, the galleon presently bore away up the harbor, gathering headway every moment with the wind nearly dead astern. the nearest vessel was the only one that for the moment was able to offer any hindrance. this ship, having by this time cleared away one of its guns, was able to fire a parting shot against the vice-admiral, striking her somewhere forward, as our hero could see by a great shower of splinters that flew up in the moonlight. at the sound of the shot all the vessels of the flota not yet disturbed by the alarm were aroused at once, so that the pirates had the satisfaction of knowing that they would have to run the gantlet of all the ships between them and the open sea before they could reckon themselves escaped. and, indeed, to our hero's mind it seemed that the battle which followed must have been the most terrific cannonade that was ever heard in the world. it was not so ill at first, for it was some while before the spaniards could get their guns clear for action, they being not the least in the world prepared for such an occasion as this. but by and by first one and then another ship opened fire upon the galleon, until it seemed to our hero that all the thunders of heaven let loose upon them could not have created a more prodigious uproar, and that it was not possible that they could any of them escape destruction. by now the moon had risen full and round, so that the clouds of smoke that rose in the air appeared as white as snow. the air seemed full of the hiss and screaming of shot, each one of which, when it struck the galleon, was magnified by our hero's imagination into ten times its magnitude from the crash which it delivered and from the cloud of splinters it would cast up into the moonlight. at last he suddenly beheld one poor man knocked sprawling across the deck, who, as he raised his arm from behind the mast, disclosed that the hand was gone from it, and that the shirt sleeve was red with blood in the moonlight. at this sight all the strength fell away from poor harry, and he felt sure that a like fate or even a worse must be in store for him. but, after all, this was nothing to what it might have been in broad daylight, for what with the darkness of night, and the little preparation the spaniards could make for such a business, and the extreme haste with which they discharged their guns (many not understanding what was the occasion of all this uproar), nearly all the shot flew so wide of the mark that not above one in twenty struck that at which it was aimed. meantime captain morgan, with the sieur simon, who had followed him upon deck, stood just above where our hero lay behind the shelter of the bulwark. the captain had lit a pipe of tobacco, and he stood now in the bright moonlight close to the rail, with his hands behind him, looking out ahead with the utmost coolness imaginable, and paying no more attention to the din of battle than though it were twenty leagues away. now and then he would take his pipe from his lips to utter an order to the man at the wheel. excepting this he stood there hardly moving at all, the wind blowing his long red hair over his shoulders. [illustration: burning the ship] had it not been for the armed galley the pirates might have got the galleon away with no great harm done in spite of all this cannonading, for the man-of-war which rode at anchor nighest to them at the mouth of the harbor was still so far away that they might have passed it by hugging pretty close to the shore, and that without any great harm being done to them in the darkness. but just at this moment, when the open water lay in sight, came this galley pulling out from behind the point of the shore in such a manner as either to head our pirates off entirely or else to compel them to approach so near to the man-of-war that that latter vessel could bring its guns to bear with more effect. this galley, i must tell you, was like others of its kind such as you may find in these waters, the hull being long and cut low to the water so as to allow the oars to dip freely. the bow was sharp and projected far out ahead, mounting a swivel upon it, while at the stern a number of galleries built one above another into a castle gave shelter to several companies of musketeers as well as the officers commanding them. our hero could behold the approach of this galley from above the starboard bulwarks, and it appeared to him impossible for them to hope to escape either it or the man-of-war. but still captain morgan maintained the same composure that he had exhibited all the while, only now and then delivering an order to the man at the wheel, who, putting the helm over, threw the bows of the galleon around more to the larboard, as though to escape the bow of the galley and get into the open water beyond. this course brought the pirates ever closer and closer to the man-of-war, which now began to add its thunder to the din of the battle, and with so much more effect that at every discharge you might hear the crashing and crackling of splintered wood, and now and then the outcry or groaning of some man who was hurt. indeed, had it been daylight, they must at this juncture all have perished, though, as was said, what with the night and the confusion and the hurry, they escaped entire destruction, though more by a miracle than through any policy upon their own part. meantime the galley, steering as though to come aboard of them, had now come so near that it, too, presently began to open its musketry fire upon them, so that the humming and rattling of bullets were presently added to the din of cannonading. in two minutes more it would have been aboard of them, when in a moment captain morgan roared out of a sudden to the man at the helm to put it hard a starboard. in response the man ran the wheel over with the utmost quickness, and the galleon, obeying her helm very readily, came around upon a course which, if continued, would certainly bring them into collision with their enemy. it is possible at first the spaniards imagined the pirates intended to escape past their stern, for they instantly began backing oars to keep them from getting past, so that the water was all of a foam about them; at the same time they did this they poured in such a fire of musketry that it was a miracle that no more execution was accomplished than happened. as for our hero, methinks for the moment he forgot all about everything else than as to whether or no his captain's maneuver would succeed, for in the very first moment he divined, as by some instinct, what captain morgan purposed doing. at this moment, so particular in the execution of this nice design, a bullet suddenly struck down the man at the wheel. hearing the sharp outcry, our harry turned to see him fall forward, and then to his hands and knees upon the deck, the blood running in a black pool beneath him, while the wheel, escaping from his hands, spun over until the spokes were all of a mist. in a moment the ship would have fallen off before the wind had not our hero, leaping to the wheel (even as captain morgan shouted an order for some one to do so), seized the flying spokes, whirling them back again, and so bringing the bow of the galleon up to its former course. in the first moment of this effort he had reckoned of nothing but of carrying out his captain's designs. he neither thought of cannon balls nor of bullets. but now that his task was accomplished, he came suddenly back to himself to find the galleries of the galley aflame with musket shots, and to become aware with a most horrible sinking of the spirits that all the shots therefrom were intended for him. he cast his eyes about him with despair, but no one came to ease him of his task, which, having undertaken, he had too much spirit to resign from carrying through to the end, though he was well aware that the very next instant might mean his sudden and violent death. his ears hummed and rang, and his brain swam as light as a feather. i know not whether he breathed, but he shut his eyes tight as though that might save him from the bullets that were raining about him. [illustration] at this moment the spaniards must have discovered for the first time the pirates' design, for of a sudden they ceased firing, and began to shout out a multitude of orders, while the oars lashed the water all about with a foam. but it was too late then for them to escape, for within a couple of seconds the galleon struck her enemy a blow so violent upon the larboard quarter as nearly to hurl our harry upon the deck, and then with a dreadful, horrible crackling of wood, commingled with a yelling of men's voices, the galley was swung around upon her side, and the galleon, sailing into the open sea, left nothing of her immediate enemy but a sinking wreck, and the water dotted all over with bobbing heads and waving hands in the moonlight. and now, indeed, that all danger was past and gone, there were plenty to come running to help our hero at the wheel. as for captain morgan, having come down upon the main deck, he fetches the young helmsman a clap upon the back. "well, master harry," says he, "and did i not tell you i would make a man of you?" whereat our poor harry fell a-laughing, but with a sad catch in his voice, for his hands trembled as with an ague, and were as cold as ice. as for his emotions, god knows he was nearer crying than laughing, if captain morgan had but known it. nevertheless, though undertaken under the spur of the moment, i protest it was indeed a brave deed, and i cannot but wonder how many young gentlemen of sixteen there are to-day who, upon a like occasion, would act as well as our harry. v the balance of our hero's adventures were of a lighter sort than those already recounted, for the next morning the spanish captain (a very polite and well-bred gentleman) having fitted him out with a shift of his own clothes, master harry was presented in a proper form to the ladies. for captain morgan, if he had felt a liking for the young man before, could not now show sufficient regard for him. he ate in the great cabin and was petted by all. madam simon, who was a fat and red-faced lady, was forever praising him, and the young miss, who was extremely well-looking, was as continually making eyes at him. she and master harry, i must tell you, would spend hours together, she making pretense of teaching him french, although he was so possessed with a passion of love that he was nigh suffocated with it. she, upon her part, perceiving his emotions, responded with extreme good nature and complacency, so that had our hero been older, and the voyage proved longer, he might have become entirely enmeshed in the toils of his fair siren. for all this while, you are to understand, the pirates were making sail straight for jamaica, which they reached upon the third day in perfect safety. in that time, however, the pirates had well-nigh gone crazy for joy; for when they came to examine their purchase they discovered her cargo to consist of plate to the prodigious sum of £ , in value. 'twas a wonder they did not all make themselves drunk for joy. no doubt they would have done so had not captain morgan, knowing they were still in the exact track of the spanish fleets, threatened them that the first man among them who touched a drop of rum without his permission he would shoot him dead upon the deck. this threat had such effect that they all remained entirely sober until they had reached port royal harbor, which they did about nine o'clock in the morning. [illustration] and now it was that our hero's romance came all tumbling down about his ears with a run. for they had hardly come to anchor in the harbor when a boat came from a man-of-war, and who should come stepping aboard but lieutenant grantley (a particular friend of our hero's father) and his own eldest brother thomas, who, putting on a very stern face, informed master harry that he was a desperate and hardened villain who was sure to end at the gallows, and that he was to go immediately back to his home again. he told our embryo pirate that his family had nigh gone distracted because of his wicked and ungrateful conduct. nor could our hero move him from his inflexible purpose. "what," says our harry, "and will you not then let me wait until our prize is divided and i get my share?" "prize, indeed!" says his brother. "and do you then really think that your father would consent to your having a share in this terrible bloody and murthering business?" and so, after a good deal of argument, our hero was constrained to go; nor did he even have an opportunity to bid adieu to his inamorata. nor did he see her any more, except from a distance, she standing on the poop deck as he was rowed away from her, her face all stained with crying. for himself, he felt that there was no more joy in life; nevertheless, standing up in the stern of the boat, he made shift, though with an aching heart, to deliver her a fine bow with the hat he had borrowed from the spanish captain, before his brother bade him sit down again. and so to the ending of this story, with only this to relate, that our master harry, so far from going to the gallows, became in good time a respectable and wealthy sugar merchant with an english wife and a fine family of children, whereunto, when the mood was upon him, he has sometimes told these adventures (and sundry others not here recounted), as i have told them unto you. [illustration] chapter iv tom chist and the treasure box _an old-time story of the days of captain kidd_ i to tell about tom chist, and how he got his name, and how he came to be living at the little settlement of henlopen, just inside the mouth of the delaware bay, the story must begin as far back as , when a great storm swept the atlantic coast from end to end. during the heaviest part of the hurricane a bark went ashore on the hen-and-chicken shoals, just below cape henlopen and at the mouth of the delaware bay, and tom chist was the only soul of all those on board the ill-fated vessel who escaped alive. this story must first be told, because it was on account of the strange and miraculous escape that happened to him at that time that he gained the name that was given to him. even as late as that time of the american colonies, the little scattered settlement at henlopen, made up of english, with a few dutch and swedish people, was still only a spot upon the face of the great american wilderness that spread away, with swamp and forest, no man knew how far to the westward. that wilderness was not only full of wild beasts, but of indian savages, who every fall would come in wandering tribes to spend the winter along the shores of the fresh-water lakes below henlopen. there for four or five months they would live upon fish and clams and wild ducks and geese, chipping their arrowheads, and making their earthenware pots and pans under the lee of the sand hills and pine woods below the capes. sometimes on sundays, when the rev. hillary jones would be preaching in the little log church back in the woods, these half-clad red savages would come in from the cold, and sit squatting in the back part of the church, listening stolidly to the words that had no meaning for them. but about the wreck of the bark in . such a wreck as that which then went ashore on the hen-and-chicken shoals was a godsend to the poor and needy settlers in the wilderness where so few good things ever came. for the vessel went to pieces during the night, and the next morning the beach was strewn with wreckage--boxes and barrels, chests and spars, timbers and planks, a plentiful and bountiful harvest to be gathered up by the settlers as they chose, with no one to forbid or prevent them. the name of the bark, as found painted on some of the water barrels and sea chests, was the _bristol merchant_, and she no doubt hailed from england. as was said, the only soul who escaped alive off the wreck was tom chist. a settler, a fisherman named matt abrahamson, and his daughter molly, found tom. he was washed up on the beach among the wreckage, in a great wooden box which had been securely tied around with a rope and lashed between two spars--apparently for better protection in beating through the surf. matt abrahamson thought he had found something of more than usual value when he came upon this chest; but when he cut the cords and broke open the box with his broadax, he could not have been more astonished had he beheld a salamander instead of a baby of nine or ten months old lying half smothered in the blankets that covered the bottom of the chest. matt abrahamson's daughter molly had had a baby who had died a month or so before. so when she saw the little one lying there in the bottom of the chest, she cried out in a great loud voice that the good man had sent her another baby in place of her own. the rain was driving before the hurricane storm in dim, slanting sheets, and so she wrapped up the baby in the man's coat she wore and ran off home without waiting to gather up any more of the wreckage. it was parson jones who gave the foundling his name. when the news came to his ears of what matt abrahamson had found he went over to the fisherman's cabin to see the child. he examined the clothes in which the baby was dressed. they were of fine linen and handsomely stitched, and the reverend gentleman opined that the foundling's parents must have been of quality. a kerchief had been wrapped around the baby's neck and under its arms and tied behind, and in the corner, marked with very fine needlework, were the initials t. c. "what d'ye call him, molly?" said parson jones. he was standing, as he spoke, with his back to the fire, warming his palms before the blaze. the pocket of the greatcoat he wore bulged out with a big case bottle of spirits which he had gathered up out of the wreck that afternoon. "what d'ye call him, molly?" "i'll call him tom, after my own baby." "that goes very well with the initial on the kerchief," said parson jones. "but what other name d'ye give him? let it be something to go with the c." "i don't know," said molly. "why not call him 'chist,' since he was born in a chist out of the sea? 'tom chist'--the name goes off like a flash in the pan." and so "tom chist" he was called and "tom chist" he was christened. so much for the beginning of the history of tom chist. the story of captain kidd's treasure box does not begin until the late spring of . that was the year that the famous pirate captain, coming up from the west indies, sailed his sloop into the delaware bay, where he lay for over a month waiting for news from his friends in new york. for he had sent word to that town asking if the coast was clear for him to return home with the rich prize he had brought from the indian seas and the coast of africa, and meantime he lay there in the delaware bay waiting for a reply. before he left he turned the whole of tom chist's life topsy-turvy with something that he brought ashore. by that time tom chist had grown into a strong-limbed, thick-jointed boy of fourteen or fifteen years of age. it was a miserable dog's life he lived with old matt abrahamson, for the old fisherman was in his cups more than half the time, and when he was so there was hardly a day passed that he did not give tom a curse or a buffet or, as like as not, an actual beating. one would have thought that such treatment would have broken the spirit of the poor little foundling, but it had just the opposite effect upon tom chist, who was one of your stubborn, sturdy, stiff-willed fellows who only grow harder and more tough the more they are ill-treated. it had been a long time now since he had made any outcry or complaint at the hard usage he suffered from old matt. at such times he would shut his teeth and bear whatever came to him, until sometimes the half-drunken old man would be driven almost mad by his stubborn silence. maybe he would stop in the midst of the beating he was administering, and, grinding his teeth, would cry out: "won't ye say naught? won't ye say naught? well, then, i'll see if i can't make ye say naught." when things had reached such a pass as this molly would generally interfere to protect her foster son, and then she and tom would together fight the old man until they had wrenched the stick or the strap out of his hand. then old matt would chase them out of doors and around and around the house for maybe half an hour, until his anger was cool, when he would go back again, and for a time the storm would be over. besides his foster mother, tom chist had a very good friend in parson jones, who used to come over every now and then to abrahamson's hut upon the chance of getting a half dozen fish for breakfast. he always had a kind word or two for tom, who during the winter evenings would go over to the good man's house to learn his letters, and to read and write and cipher a little, so that by now he was able to spell the words out of the bible and the almanac, and knew enough to change tuppence into four ha'pennies. this is the sort of boy tom chist was, and this is the sort of life he led. in the late spring or early summer of captain kidd's sloop sailed into the mouth of the delaware bay and changed the whole fortune of his life. and this is how you come to the story of captain kidd's treasure box. ii old matt abrahamson kept the flat-bottomed boat in which he went fishing some distance down the shore, and in the neighborhood of the old wreck that had been sunk on the shoals. this was the usual fishing ground of the settlers, and here old matt's boat generally lay drawn up on the sand. there had been a thunderstorm that afternoon, and tom had gone down the beach to bale out the boat in readiness for the morning's fishing. it was full moonlight now, as he was returning, and the night sky was full of floating clouds. now and then there was a dull flash to the westward, and once a muttering growl of thunder, promising another storm to come. all that day the pirate sloop had been lying just off the shore back of the capes, and now tom chist could see the sails glimmering pallidly in the moonlight, spread for drying after the storm. he was walking up the shore homeward when he became aware that at some distance ahead of him there was a ship's boat drawn up on the little narrow beach, and a group of men clustered about it. he hurried forward with a good deal of curiosity to see who had landed, but it was not until he had come close to them that he could distinguish who and what they were. then he knew that it must be a party who had come off the pirate sloop. they had evidently just landed, and two men were lifting out a chest from the boat. one of them was a negro, naked to the waist, and the other was a white man in his shirt sleeves, wearing petticoat breeches, a monterey cap upon his head, a red bandanna handkerchief around his neck, and gold earrings in his ears. he had a long, plaited queue hanging down his back, and a great sheath knife dangling from his side. another man, evidently the captain of the party, stood at a little distance as they lifted the chest out of the boat. he had a cane in one hand and a lighted lantern in the other, although the moon was shining as bright as day. he wore jack boots and a handsome laced coat, and he had a long, drooping mustache that curled down below his chin. he wore a fine, feathered hat, and his long black hair hung down upon his shoulders. all this tom chist could see in the moonlight that glinted and twinkled upon the gilt buttons of his coat. they were so busy lifting the chest from the boat that at first they did not observe that tom chist had come up and was standing there. it was the white man with the long, plaited queue and the gold earrings that spoke to him. "boy, what do you want here, boy?" he said, in a rough, hoarse voice. "where d'ye come from?" and then dropping his end of the chest, and without giving tom time to answer, he pointed off down the beach, and said, "you'd better be going about your own business, if you know what's good for you; and don't you come back, or you'll find what you don't want waiting for you." [illustration: who shall be captain?] tom saw in a glance that the pirates were all looking at him, and then, without saying a word, he turned and walked away. the man who had spoken to him followed him threateningly for some little distance, as though to see that he had gone away as he was bidden to do. but presently he stopped, and tom hurried on alone, until the boat and the crew and all were dropped away behind and lost in the moonlight night. then he himself stopped also, turned, and looked back whence he had come. there had been something very strange in the appearance of the men he had just seen, something very mysterious in their actions, and he wondered what it all meant, and what they were going to do. he stood for a little while thus looking and listening. he could see nothing, and could hear only the sound of distant talking. what were they doing on the lonely shore thus at night? then, following a sudden impulse, he turned and cut off across the sand hummocks, skirting around inland, but keeping pretty close to the shore, his object being to spy upon them, and to watch what they were about from the back of the low sand hills that fronted the beach. he had gone along some distance in his circuitous return when he became aware of the sound of voices that seemed to be drawing closer to him as he came toward the speakers. he stopped and stood listening, and instantly, as he stopped, the voices stopped also. he crouched there silently in the bright, glimmering moonlight, surrounded by the silent stretches of sand, and the stillness seemed to press upon him like a heavy hand. then suddenly the sound of a man's voice began again, and as tom listened he could hear some one slowly counting. "ninety-one," the voice began, "ninety-two, ninety-three, ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred, one hundred and one"--the slow, monotonous count coming nearer and nearer; "one hundred and two, one hundred and three, one hundred and four," and so on in its monotonous reckoning. suddenly he saw three heads appear above the sand hill, so close to him that he crouched down quickly with a keen thrill, close beside the hummock near which he stood. his first fear was that they might have seen him in the moonlight; but they had not, and his heart rose again as the counting voice went steadily on. "one hundred and twenty," it was saying--"and twenty-one, and twenty-two, and twenty-three, and twenty-four," and then he who was counting came out from behind the little sandy rise into the white and open level of shimmering brightness. it was the man with the cane whom tom had seen some time before--the captain of the party who had landed. he carried his cane under his arm now, and was holding his lantern close to something that he held in his hand, and upon which he looked narrowly as he walked with a slow and measured tread in a perfectly straight line across the sand, counting each step as he took it. "and twenty-five, and twenty-six, and twenty-seven, and twenty-eight, and twenty-nine, and thirty." [illustration] behind him walked two other figures; one was the half-naked negro, the other the man with the plaited queue and the earrings, whom tom had seen lifting the chest out of the boat. now they were carrying the heavy box between them, laboring through the sand with shuffling tread as they bore it onward. as he who was counting pronounced the word "thirty," the two men set the chest down on the sand with a grunt, the white man panting and blowing and wiping his sleeve across his forehead. and immediately he who counted took out a slip of paper and marked something down upon it. they stood there for a long time, during which tom lay behind the sand hummock watching them, and for a while the silence was uninterrupted. in the perfect stillness tom could hear the washing of the little waves beating upon the distant beach, and once the far-away sound of a laugh from one of those who stood by the ship's boat. one, two, three minutes passed, and then the men picked up the chest and started on again; and then again the other man began his counting. "thirty and one, and thirty and two, and thirty and three, and thirty and four"--he walked straight across the level open, still looking intently at that which he held in his hand--"and thirty and five, and thirty and six, and thirty and seven," and so on, until the three figures disappeared in the little hollow between the two sand hills on the opposite side of the open, and still tom could hear the sound of the counting voice in the distance. just as they disappeared behind the hill there was a sudden faint flash of light; and by and by, as tom lay still listening to the counting, he heard, after a long interval, a far-away muffled rumble of distant thunder. he waited for a while, and then arose and stepped to the top of the sand hummock behind which he had been lying. he looked all about him, but there was no one else to be seen. then he stepped down from the hummock and followed in the direction which the pirate captain and the two men carrying the chest had gone. he crept along cautiously, stopping now and then to make sure that he still heard the counting voice, and when it ceased he lay down upon the sand and waited until it began again. presently, so following the pirates, he saw the three figures again in the distance, and, skirting around back of a hill of sand covered with coarse sedge grass, he came to where he overlooked a little open level space gleaming white in the moonlight. the three had been crossing the level of sand, and were now not more than twenty-five paces from him. they had again set down the chest, upon which the white man with the long queue and the gold earrings had seated to rest himself, the negro standing close beside him. the moon shone as bright as day and full upon his face. it was looking directly at tom chist, every line as keen cut with white lights and black shadows as though it had been carved in ivory and jet. he sat perfectly motionless, and tom drew back with a start, almost thinking he had been discovered. he lay silent, his heart beating heavily in his throat; but there was no alarm, and presently he heard the counting begin again, and when he looked once more he saw they were going away straight across the little open. a soft, sliding hillock of sand lay directly in front of them. they did not turn aside, but went straight over it, the leader helping himself up the sandy slope with his cane, still counting and still keeping his eyes fixed upon that which he held in his hand. then they disappeared again behind the white crest on the other side. so tom followed them cautiously until they had gone almost half a mile inland. when next he saw them clearly it was from a little sandy rise which looked down like the crest of a bowl upon the floor of sand below. upon this smooth, white floor the moon beat with almost dazzling brightness. the white man who had helped to carry the chest was now kneeling, busied at some work, though what it was tom at first could not see. he was whittling the point of a stick into a long wooden peg, and when, by and by, he had finished what he was about, he arose and stepped to where he who seemed to be the captain had stuck his cane upright into the ground as though to mark some particular spot. he drew the cane out of the sand, thrusting the stick down in its stead. then he drove the long peg down with a wooden mallet which the negro handed to him. the sharp rapping of the mallet upon the top of the peg sounded loud in the perfect stillness, and tom lay watching and wondering what it all meant. the man, with quick-repeated blows, drove the peg farther and farther down into the sand until it showed only two or three inches above the surface. as he finished his work there was another faint flash of light, and by and by another smothered rumble of thunder, and tom, as he looked out toward the westward, saw the silver rim of the round and sharply outlined thundercloud rising slowly up into the sky and pushing the other and broken drifting clouds before it. [illustration: kidd at gardiner's island _illustration from_ sea robbers of new york _by_ thomas a. janvier _originally published in_ harper's magazine, _november, _] the two white men were now stooping over the peg, the negro man watching them. then presently the man with the cane started straight away from the peg, carrying the end of a measuring line with him, the other end of which the man with the plaited queue held against the top of the peg. when the pirate captain had reached the end of the measuring line he marked a cross upon the sand, and then again they measured out another stretch of space. so they measured a distance five times over, and then, from where tom lay, he could see the man with the queue drive another peg just at the foot of a sloping rise of sand that swept up beyond into a tall white dune marked sharp and clear against the night sky behind. as soon as the man with the plaited queue had driven the second peg into the ground they began measuring again, and so, still measuring, disappeared in another direction which took them in behind the sand dune where tom no longer could see what they were doing. the negro still sat by the chest where the two had left him, and so bright was the moonlight that from where he lay tom could see the glint of it twinkling in the whites of his eyeballs. presently from behind the hill there came, for the third time, the sharp rapping sound of the mallet driving still another peg, and then after a while the two pirates emerged from behind the sloping whiteness into the space of moonlight again. they came direct to where the chest lay, and the white man and the black man lifting it once more, they walked away across the level of open sand, and so on behind the edge of the hill and out of tom's sight. iii tom chist could no longer see what the pirates were doing, neither did he dare to cross over the open space of sand that now lay between them and him. he lay there speculating as to what they were about, and meantime the storm cloud was rising higher and higher above the horizon, with louder and louder mutterings of thunder following each dull flash from out the cloudy, cavernous depths. in the silence he could hear an occasional click as of some iron implement, and he opined that the pirates were burying the chest, though just where they were at work he could neither see nor tell. still he lay there watching and listening, and by and by a puff of warm air blew across the sand, and a thumping tumble of louder thunder leaped from out the belly of the storm cloud, which every minute was coming nearer and nearer. still tom chist lay watching. suddenly, almost unexpectedly, the three figures reappeared from behind the sand hill, the pirate captain leading the way, and the negro and white man following close behind him. they had gone about halfway across the white, sandy level between the hill and the hummock behind which tom chist lay, when the white man stopped and bent over as though to tie his shoe. this brought the negro a few steps in front of his companion. that which then followed happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly, so swiftly, that tom chist had hardly time to realize what it all meant before it was over. as the negro passed him the white man arose suddenly and silently erect, and tom chist saw the white moonlight glint upon the blade of a great dirk knife which he now held in his hand. he took one, two silent, catlike steps behind the unsuspecting negro. then there was a sweeping flash of the blade in the pallid light, and a blow, the thump of which tom could distinctly hear even from where he lay stretched out upon the sand. there was an instant echoing yell from the black man, who ran stumbling forward, who stopped, who regained his footing, and then stood for an instant as though rooted to the spot. tom had distinctly seen the knife enter his back, and even thought that he had seen the glint of the point as it came out from the breast. meantime the pirate captain had stopped, and now stood with his hand resting upon his cane looking impassively on. then the black man started to run. the white man stood for a while glaring after him; then he, too, started after his victim upon the run. the black man was not very far from tom when he staggered and fell. he tried to rise, then fell forward again, and lay at length. at that instant the first edge of the cloud cut across the moon, and there was a sudden darkness; but in the silence tom heard the sound of another blow and a groan, and then presently a voice calling to the pirate captain that it was all over. he saw the dim form of the captain crossing the level sand, and then, as the moon sailed out from behind the cloud, he saw the white man standing over a black figure that lay motionless upon the sand. [illustration] then tom chist scrambled up and ran away, plunging down into the hollow of sand that lay in the shadows below. over the next rise he ran, and down again into the next black hollow, and so on over the sliding, shifting ground, panting and gasping. it seemed to him that he could hear footsteps following, and in the terror that possessed him he almost expected every instant to feel the cold knife blade slide between his own ribs in such a thrust from behind as he had seen given to the poor black man. [illustration] so he ran on like one in a nightmare. his feet grew heavy like lead, he panted and gasped, his breath came hot and dry in his throat. but still he ran and ran until at last he found himself in front of old matt abrahamson's cabin, gasping, panting, and sobbing for breath, his knees relaxed and his thighs trembling with weakness. as he opened the door and dashed into the darkened cabin (for both matt and molly were long ago asleep in bed) there was a flash of light, and even as he slammed to the door behind him there was an instant peal of thunder, heavy as though a great weight had been dropped upon the roof of the sky, so that the doors and windows of the cabin rattled. iv then tom chist crept to bed, trembling, shuddering, bathed in sweat, his heart beating like a trip hammer, and his brain dizzy from that long, terror-inspired race through the soft sand in which he had striven to outstrip he knew not what pursuing horror. for a long, long time he lay awake, trembling and chattering with nervous chills, and when he did fall asleep it was only to drop into monstrous dreams in which he once again saw ever enacted, with various grotesque variations, the tragic drama which his waking eyes had beheld the night before. then came the dawning of the broad, wet daylight, and before the rising of the sun tom was up and out of doors to find the young day dripping with the rain of overnight. his first act was to climb the nearest sand hill and to gaze out toward the offing where the pirate ship had been the day before. it was no longer there. soon afterward matt abrahamson came out of the cabin and he called to tom to go get a bite to eat, for it was time for them to be away fishing. all that morning the recollection of the night before hung over tom chist like a great cloud of boding trouble. it filled the confined area of the little boat and spread over the entire wide spaces of sky and sea that surrounded them. not for a moment was it lifted. even when he was hauling in his wet and dripping line with a struggling fish at the end of it a recurrent memory of what he had seen would suddenly come upon him, and he would groan in spirit at the recollection. he looked at matt abrahamson's leathery face, at his lantern jaws cavernously and stolidly chewing at a tobacco leaf, and it seemed monstrous to him that the old man should be so unconscious of the black cloud that wrapped them all about. when the boat reached the shore again he leaped scrambling to the beach, and as soon as his dinner was eaten he hurried away to find the dominie jones. he ran all the way from abrahamson's hut to the parson's house, hardly stopping once, and when he knocked at the door he was panting and sobbing for breath. the good man was sitting on the back-kitchen doorstep smoking his long pipe of tobacco out into the sunlight, while his wife within was rattling about among the pans and dishes in preparation of their supper, of which a strong, porky smell already filled the air. then tom chist told his story, panting, hurrying, tumbling one word over another in his haste, and parson jones listened, breaking every now and then into an ejaculation of wonder. the light in his pipe went out and the bowl turned cold. "and i don't see why they should have killed the poor black man," said tom, as he finished his narrative. "why, that is very easy enough to understand," said the good reverend man. "'twas a treasure box they buried!" in his agitation mr. jones had risen from his seat and was now stumping up and down, puffing at his empty tobacco pipe as though it were still alight. "a treasure box!" cried out tom. "aye, a treasure box! and that was why they killed the poor black man. he was the only one, d'ye see, besides they two who knew the place where 'twas hid, and now that they've killed him out of the way, there's nobody but themselves knows. the villains--tut, tut, look at that now!" in his excitement the dominie had snapped the stem of his tobacco pipe in two. "why, then," said tom, "if that is so, 'tis indeed a wicked, bloody treasure, and fit to bring a curse upon anybody who finds it!" "'tis more like to bring a curse upon the soul who buried it," said parson jones, "and it may be a blessing to him who finds it. but tell me, tom, do you think you could find the place again where 'twas hid?" "i can't tell that," said tom, "'twas all in among the sand humps, d'ye see, and it was at night into the bargain. maybe we could find the marks of their feet in the sand," he added. "'tis not likely," said the reverend gentleman, "for the storm last night would have washed all that away." "i could find the place," said tom, "where the boat was drawn up on the beach." "why, then, that's something to start from, tom," said his friend. "if we can find that, then maybe we can find whither they went from there." "if i was certain it was a treasure box," cried out tom chist, "i would rake over every foot of sand betwixt here and henlopen to find it." "'twould be like hunting for a pin in a haystack," said the rev. hilary jones. as tom walked away home, it seemed as though a ton's weight of gloom had been rolled away from his soul. the next day he and parson jones were to go treasure-hunting together; it seemed to tom as though he could hardly wait for the time to come. v the next afternoon parson jones and tom chist started off together upon the expedition that made tom's fortune forever. tom carried a spade over his shoulder and the reverend gentleman walked along beside him with his cane. as they jogged along up the beach they talked together about the only thing they could talk about--the treasure box. "and how big did you say 'twas?" quoth the good gentleman. "about so long," said tom chist, measuring off upon the spade, "and about so wide, and this deep." "and what if it should be full of money, tom?" said the reverend gentleman, swinging his cane around and around in wide circles in the excitement of the thought, as he strode along briskly. "suppose it should be full of money, what then?" "by moses!" said tom chist, hurrying to keep up with his friend, "i'd buy a ship for myself, i would, and i'd trade to injy and to chiny to my own boot, i would. suppose the chist was all full of money, sir, and suppose we should find it; would there be enough in it, d'ye suppose, to buy a ship?" "to be sure there would be enough, tom; enough and to spare, and a good big lump over." "and if i find it 'tis mine to keep, is it, and no mistake?" "why, to be sure it would be yours!" cried out the parson, in a loud voice. "to be sure it would be yours!" he knew nothing of the law, but the doubt of the question began at once to ferment in his brain, and he strode along in silence for a while. "whose else would it be but yours if you find it?" he burst out. "can you tell me that?" "if ever i have a ship of my own," said tom chist, "and if ever i sail to injy in her, i'll fetch ye back the best chist of tea, sir, that ever was fetched from cochin chiny." parson jones burst out laughing. "thankee, tom," he said; "and i'll thankee again when i get my chist of tea. but tell me, tom, didst thou ever hear of the farmer girl who counted her chickens before they were hatched?" it was thus they talked as they hurried along up the beach together, and so came to a place at last where tom stopped short and stood looking about him. "'twas just here," he said, "i saw the boat last night. i know 'twas here, for i mind me of that bit of wreck yonder, and that there was a tall stake drove in the sand just where yon stake stands." parson jones put on his spectacles and went over to the stake toward which tom pointed. as soon as he had looked at it carefully he called out: "why, tom, this hath been just drove down into the sand. 'tis a brand-new stake of wood, and the pirates must have set it here themselves as a mark, just as they drove the pegs you spoke about down into the sand." tom came over and looked at the stake. it was a stout piece of oak nearly two inches thick; it had been shaped with some care, and the top of it had been painted red. he shook the stake and tried to move it, but it had been driven or planted so deeply into the sand that he could not stir it. "aye, sir," he said, "it must have been set here for a mark, for i'm sure 'twas not here yesterday or the day before." he stood looking about him to see if there were other signs of the pirates' presence. at some little distance there was the corner of something white sticking up out of the sand. he could see that it was a scrap of paper, and he pointed to it, calling out: "yonder is a piece of paper, sir. i wonder if they left that behind them?" [illustration: extorting tribute from the citizens] it was a miraculous chance that placed that paper there. there was only an inch of it showing, and if it had not been for tom's sharp eyes, it would certainly have been overlooked and passed by. the next windstorm would have covered it up, and all that afterward happened never would have occurred. "look, sir," he said, as he struck the sand from it, "it hath writing on it." "let me see it," said parson jones. he adjusted the spectacles a little more firmly astride of his nose as he took the paper in his hand and began conning it. "what's all this?" he said; "a whole lot of figures and nothing else." and then he read aloud, "'mark--s. s. w. s. by s.' what d'ye suppose that means, tom?" "i don't know, sir," said tom. "but maybe we can understand it better if you read on." "'tis all a great lot of figures," said parson jones, "without a grain of meaning in them so far as i can see, unless they be sailing directions." and then he began reading again: "'mark--s. s. w. by s. , , , , , , , , , '--d'ye see, it must be sailing directions--' , , , , , , , , , , , '--what a lot of them there be--' , , , , , , , , , . peg. s. e. by e. foot. peg. s. s. w. by s. foot. peg. dig to the west of this six foot.'" "what's that about a peg?" exclaimed tom. "what's that about a peg? and then there's something about digging, too!" it was as though a sudden light began shining into his brain. he felt himself growing quickly very excited. "read that over again, sir," he cried. "why, sir, you remember i told you they drove a peg into the sand. and don't they say to dig close to it? read it over again, sir--read it over again!" "peg?" said the good gentleman. "to be sure it was about a peg. let's look again. yes, here it is. 'peg s. e. by e. foot.'" "aye!" cried out tom chist again, in great excitement. "don't you remember what i told you, sir, foot? sure that must be what i saw 'em measuring with the line." parson jones had now caught the flame of excitement that was blazing up so strongly in tom's breast. he felt as though some wonderful thing was about to happen to them. "to be sure, to be sure!" he called out, in a great big voice. "and then they measured out foot south-southwest by south, and they then drove another peg, and then they buried the box six foot to the west of it. why, tom--why, tom chist! if we've read this aright, thy fortune is made." tom chist stood staring straight at the old gentleman's excited face, and seeing nothing but it in all the bright infinity of sunshine. were they, indeed, about to find the treasure chest? he felt the sun very hot upon his shoulders, and he heard the harsh, insistent jarring of a tern that hovered and circled with forked tail and sharp white wings in the sunlight just above their heads; but all the time he stood staring into the good old gentleman's face. it was parson jones who first spoke. "but what do all these figures mean?" and tom observed how the paper shook and rustled in the tremor of excitement that shook his hand. he raised the paper to the focus of his spectacles and began to read again. "'mark , , --'" "mark?" cried out tom, almost screaming. "why, that must mean the stake yonder; that must be the mark." and he pointed to the oaken stick with its red tip blazing against the white shimmer of sand behind it. "and the and and ," cried the old gentleman, in a voice equally shrill--"why, that must mean the number of steps the pirate was counting when you heard him." "to be sure that's what they mean!" cried tom chist. "that is it, and it can be nothing else. oh, come, sir--come, sir; let us make haste and find it!" "stay! stay!" said the good gentleman, holding up his hand; and again tom chist noticed how it trembled and shook. his voice was steady enough, though very hoarse, but his hand shook and trembled as though with a palsy. "stay! stay! first of all, we must follow these measurements. and 'tis a marvelous thing," he croaked, after a little pause, "how this paper ever came to be here." "maybe it was blown here by the storm," suggested tom chist. "like enough; like enough," said parson jones. "like enough, after the wretches had buried the chest and killed the poor black man, they were so buffeted and bowsed about by the storm that it was shook out of the man's pocket, and thus blew away from him without his knowing aught of it." "but let us find the box!" cried out tom chist, flaming with his excitement. "aye, aye," said the good man; "only stay a little, my boy, until we make sure what we're about. i've got my pocket compass here, but we must have something to measure off the feet when we have found the peg. you run across to tom brooke's house and fetch that measuring rod he used to lay out his new byre. while you're gone i'll pace off the distance marked on the paper with my pocket compass here." vi tom chist was gone for almost an hour, though he ran nearly all the way and back, upborne as on the wings of the wind. when he returned, panting, parson jones was nowhere to be seen, but tom saw his footsteps leading away inland, and he followed the scuffling marks in the smooth surface across the sand humps and down into the hollows, and by and by found the good gentleman in a spot he at once knew as soon as he laid his eyes upon it. it was the open space where the pirates had driven their first peg, and where tom chist had afterward seen them kill the poor black man. tom chist gazed around as though expecting to see some sign of the tragedy, but the space was as smooth and as undisturbed as a floor, excepting where, midway across it, parson jones, who was now stooping over something on the ground, had trampled it all around about. when tom chist saw him he was still bending over, scraping away from something he had found. it was the first peg! inside of half an hour they had found the second and third pegs, and tom chist stripped off his coat, and began digging like mad down into the sand, parson jones standing over him watching him. the sun was sloping well toward the west when the blade of tom chist's spade struck upon something hard. if it had been his own heart that he had hit in the sand his breast could hardly have thrilled more sharply. it was the treasure box! [illustration] parson jones himself leaped down into the hole, and began scraping away the sand with his hands as though he had gone crazy. at last, with some difficulty, they tugged and hauled the chest up out of the sand to the surface, where it lay covered all over with the grit that clung to it. it was securely locked and fastened with a padlock, and it took a good many blows with the blade of the spade to burst the bolt. parson jones himself lifted the lid. tom chist leaned forward and gazed down into the open box. he would not have been surprised to have seen it filled full of yellow gold and bright jewels. it was filled half full of books and papers, and half full of canvas bags tied safely and securely around and around with cords of string. parson jones lifted out one of the bags, and it jingled as he did so. it was full of money. he cut the string, and with trembling, shaking hands handed the bag to tom, who, in an ecstasy of wonder and dizzy with delight, poured out with swimming sight upon the coat spread on the ground a cataract of shining silver money that rang and twinkled and jingled as it fell in a shining heap upon the coarse cloth. parson jones held up both hands into the air, and tom stared at what he saw, wondering whether it was all so, and whether he was really awake. it seemed to him as though he was in a dream. there were two-and-twenty bags in all in the chest: ten of them full of silver money, eight of them full of gold money, three of them full of gold dust, and one small bag with jewels wrapped up in wad cotton and paper. "'tis enough," cried out parson jones, "to make us both rich men as long as we live." the burning summer sun, though sloping in the sky, beat down upon them as hot as fire; but neither of them noticed it. neither did they notice hunger nor thirst nor fatigue, but sat there as though in a trance, with the bags of money scattered on the sand around them, a great pile of money heaped upon the coat, and the open chest beside them. it was an hour of sundown before parson jones had begun fairly to examine the books and papers in the chest. of the three books, two were evidently log books of the pirates who had been lying off the mouth of the delaware bay all this time. the other book was written in spanish, and was evidently the log book of some captured prize. it was then, sitting there upon the sand, the good old gentleman reading in his high, cracking voice, that they first learned from the bloody records in those two books who it was who had been lying inside the cape all this time, and that it was the famous captain kidd. every now and then the reverend gentleman would stop to exclaim, "oh, the bloody wretch!" or, "oh, the desperate, cruel villains!" and then would go on reading again a scrap here and a scrap there. and all the while tom chist sat and listened, every now and then reaching out furtively and touching the heap of money still lying upon the coat. one might be inclined to wonder why captain kidd had kept those bloody records. he had probably laid them away because they so incriminated many of the great people of the colony of new york that, with the books in evidence, it would have been impossible to bring the pirate to justice without dragging a dozen or more fine gentlemen into the dock along with him. if he could have kept them in his own possession they would doubtless have been a great weapon of defense to protect him from the gallows. indeed, when captain kidd was finally brought to conviction and hung, he was not accused of his piracies, but of striking a mutinous seaman upon the head with a bucket and accidentally killing him. the authorities did not dare try him for piracy. he was really hung because he was a pirate, and we know that it was the log books that tom chist brought to new york that did the business for him; he was accused and convicted of manslaughter for killing of his own ship carpenter with a bucket. so parson jones, sitting there in the slanting light, read through these terrible records of piracy, and tom, with the pile of gold and silver money beside him, sat and listened to him. what a spectacle, if anyone had come upon them! but they were alone, with the vast arch of sky empty above them and the wide white stretch of sand a desert around them. the sun sank lower and lower, until there was only time to glance through the other papers in the chest. they were nearly all goldsmiths' bills of exchange drawn in favor of certain of the most prominent merchants of new york. parson jones, as he read over the names, knew of nearly all the gentlemen by hearsay. aye, here was this gentleman; he thought that name would be among 'em. what? here is mr. so-and-so. well, if all they say is true, the villain has robbed one of his own best friends. "i wonder," he said, "why the wretch should have hidden these papers so carefully away with the other treasures, for they could do him no good?" then, answering his own question: "like enough because these will give him a hold over the gentlemen to whom they are drawn so that he can make a good bargain for his own neck before he gives the bills back to their owners. i tell you what it is, tom," he continued, "it is you yourself shall go to new york and bargain for the return of these papers. 'twill be as good as another fortune to you." the majority of the bills were drawn in favor of one richard chillingsworth, esquire. "and he is," said parson jones, "one of the richest men in the province of new york. you shall go to him with the news of what we have found." "when shall i go?" said tom chist. "you shall go upon the very first boat we can catch," said the parson. he had turned, still holding the bills in his hand, and was now fingering over the pile of money that yet lay tumbled out upon the coat. "i wonder, tom," said he, "if you could spare me a score or so of these doubloons?" "you shall have fifty score, if you choose," said tom, bursting with gratitude and with generosity in his newly found treasure. "you are as fine a lad as ever i saw, tom," said the parson, "and i'll thank you to the last day of my life." tom scooped up a double handful of silver money. "take it, sir," he said, "and you may have as much more as you want of it." he poured it into the dish that the good man made of his hands, and the parson made a motion as though to empty it into his pocket. then he stopped, as though a sudden doubt had occurred to him. "i don't know that 'tis fit for me to take this pirate money, after all," he said. "but you are welcome to it," said tom. still the parson hesitated. "nay," he burst out, "i'll not take it; 'tis blood money." and as he spoke he chucked the whole double handful into the now empty chest, then arose and dusted the sand from his breeches. then, with a great deal of bustling energy, he helped to tie the bags again and put them all back into the chest. they reburied the chest in the place whence they had taken it, and then the parson folded the precious paper of directions, placed it carefully in his wallet, and his wallet in his pocket. "tom," he said, for the twentieth time, "your fortune has been made this day." and tom chist, as he rattled in his breeches pocket the half dozen doubloons he had kept out of his treasure, felt that what his friend had said was true. * * * * * as the two went back homeward across the level space of sand tom chist suddenly stopped stock-still and stood looking about him. "'twas just here," he said, digging his heel down into the sand, "that they killed the poor black man." [illustration: "pirates used to do that to their captains now and then" _illustration from_ sea robbers of new york _by_ thomas a. janvier _originally published in_ harper's magazine, _november, _] "and here he lies buried for all time," said parson jones; and as he spoke he dug his cane down into the sand. tom chist shuddered. he would not have been surprised if the ferrule of the cane had struck something soft beneath that level surface. but it did not, nor was any sign of that tragedy ever seen again. for, whether the pirates had carried away what they had done and buried it elsewhere, or whether the storm in blowing the sand had completely leveled off and hidden all sign of that tragedy where it was enacted, certain it is that it never came to sight again--at least so far as tom chist and the rev. hilary jones ever knew. vii this is the story of the treasure box. all that remains now is to conclude the story of tom chist, and to tell of what came of him in the end. he did not go back again to live with old matt abrahamson. parson jones had now taken charge of him and his fortunes, and tom did not have to go back to the fisherman's hut. old abrahamson talked a great deal about it, and would come in his cups and harangue good parson jones, making a vast protestation of what he would do to tom--if he ever caught him--for running away. but tom on all these occasions kept carefully out of his way, and nothing came of the old man's threatenings. tom used to go over to see his foster mother now and then, but always when the old man was from home. and molly abrahamson used to warn him to keep out of her father's way. "he's in as vile a humor as ever i see, tom," she said; "he sits sulking all day long, and 'tis my belief he'd kill ye if he caught ye." of course tom said nothing, even to her, about the treasure, and he and the reverend gentleman kept the knowledge thereof to themselves. about three weeks later parson jones managed to get him shipped aboard of a vessel bound for new york town, and a few days later tom chist landed at that place. he had never been in such a town before, and he could not sufficiently wonder and marvel at the number of brick houses, at the multitude of people coming and going along the fine, hard, earthen sidewalk, at the shops and the stores where goods hung in the windows, and, most of all, the fortifications and the battery at the point, at the rows of threatening cannon, and at the scarlet-coated sentries pacing up and down the ramparts. all this was very wonderful, and so were the clustered boats riding at anchor in the harbor. it was like a new world, so different was it from the sand hills and the sedgy levels of henlopen. tom chist took up his lodgings at a coffee house near to the town hall, and thence he sent by the postboy a letter written by parson jones to master chillingsworth. in a little while the boy returned with a message, asking tom to come up to mr. chillingsworth's house that afternoon at two o'clock. tom went thither with a great deal of trepidation, and his heart fell away altogether when he found it a fine, grand brick house, three stories high, and with wrought-iron letters across the front. the counting house was in the same building; but tom, because of mr. jones's letter, was conducted directly into the parlor, where the great rich man was awaiting his coming. he was sitting in a leather-covered armchair, smoking a pipe of tobacco, and with a bottle of fine old madeira close to his elbow. tom had not had a chance to buy a new suit of clothes yet, and so he cut no very fine figure in the rough dress he had brought with him from henlopen. nor did mr. chillingsworth seem to think very highly of his appearance, for he sat looking sideways at tom as he smoked. "well, my lad," he said, "and what is this great thing you have to tell me that is so mightily wonderful? i got what's-his-name--mr. jones's--letter, and now i am ready to hear what you have to say." but if he thought but little of his visitor's appearance at first, he soon changed his sentiments toward him, for tom had not spoken twenty words when mr. chillingsworth's whole aspect changed. he straightened himself up in his seat, laid aside his pipe, pushed away his glass of madeira, and bade tom take a chair. he listened without a word as tom chist told of the buried treasure, of how he had seen the poor negro murdered, and of how he and parson jones had recovered the chest again. only once did mr. chillingsworth interrupt the narrative. "and to think," he cried, "that the villain this very day walks about new york town as though he were an honest man, ruffling it with the best of us! but if we can only get hold of these log books you speak of. go on; tell me more of this." when tom chist's narrative was ended, mr. chillingsworth's bearing was as different as daylight is from dark. he asked a thousand questions, all in the most polite and gracious tone imaginable, and not only urged a glass of his fine old madeira upon tom, but asked him to stay to supper. there was nobody to be there, he said, but his wife and daughter. tom, all in a panic at the very thought of the two ladies, sturdily refused to stay even for the dish of tea mr. chillingsworth offered him. he did not know that he was destined to stay there as long as he should live. "and now," said mr. chillingsworth, "tell me about yourself." "i have nothing to tell, your honor," said tom, "except that i was washed up out of the sea." "washed up out of the sea!" exclaimed mr. chillingsworth. "why, how was that? come, begin at the beginning, and tell me all." thereupon tom chist did as he was bidden, beginning at the very beginning and telling everything just as molly abrahamson had often told it to him. as he continued, mr. chillingsworth's interest changed into an appearance of stronger and stronger excitement. suddenly he jumped up out of his chair and began to walk up and down the room. [illustration] "stop! stop!" he cried out at last, in the midst of something tom was saying. "stop! stop! tell me; do you know the name of the vessel that was wrecked, and from which you were washed ashore?" "i've heard it said," said tom chist, "'twas the _bristol merchant_." "i knew it! i knew it!" exclaimed the great man, in a loud voice, flinging his hands up into the air. "i felt it was so the moment you began the story. but tell me this, was there nothing found with you with a mark or a name upon it?" "there was a kerchief," said tom, "marked with a t and a c." "theodosia chillingsworth!" cried out the merchant. "i knew it! i knew it! heavens! to think of anything so wonderful happening as this! boy! boy! dost thou know who thou art? thou art my own brother's son. his name was oliver chillingsworth, and he was my partner in business, and thou art his son." then he ran out into the entryway, shouting and calling for his wife and daughter to come. * * * * * so tom chist--or thomas chillingsworth, as he now was to be called--did stay to supper, after all. * * * * * this is the story, and i hope you may like it. for tom chist became rich and great, as was to be supposed, and he married his pretty cousin theodosia (who had been named for his own mother, drowned in the _bristol merchant_). he did not forget his friends, but had parson jones brought to new york to live. as to molly and matt abrahamson, they both enjoyed a pension of ten pounds a year for as long as they lived; for now that all was well with him, tom bore no grudge against the old fisherman for all the drubbings he had suffered. the treasure box was brought on to new york, and if tom chist did not get all the money there was in it (as parson jones had opined he would) he got at least a good big lump of it. and it is my belief that those log books did more to get captain kidd arrested in boston town and hanged in london than anything else that was brought up against him. [illustration] chapter v jack ballister's fortunes i we, of these times, protected as we are by the laws and by the number of people about us, can hardly comprehend such a life as that of the american colonies in the early part of the eighteenth century, when it was possible for a pirate like capt. teach, known as blackbeard, to exist, and for the governor and the secretary of the province in which he lived perhaps to share his plunder, and to shelter and to protect him against the law. at that time the american colonists were in general a rough, rugged people, knowing nothing of the finer things of life. they lived mostly in little settlements, separated by long distances from one another, so that they could neither make nor enforce laws to protect themselves. each man or little group of men had to depend upon his or their own strength to keep what belonged to them, and to prevent fierce men or groups of men from seizing what did not belong to them. it is the natural disposition of everyone to get all that he can. little children, for instance, always try to take away from others that which they want, and to keep it for their own. it is only by constant teaching that they learn that they must not do so; that they must not take by force what does not belong to them. so it is only by teaching and training that people learn to be honest and not to take what is not theirs. when this teaching is not sufficient to make a man learn to be honest, or when there is something in the man's nature that makes him not able to learn, then he only lacks the opportunity to seize upon the things he wants, just as he would do if he were a little child. in the colonies at that time, as was just said, men were too few and scattered to protect themselves against those who had made up their minds to take by force that which they wanted, and so it was that men lived an unrestrained and lawless life, such as we of these times of better government can hardly comprehend. the usual means of commerce between province and province was by water in coasting vessels. these coasting vessels were so defenseless, and the different colonial governments were so ill able to protect them, that those who chose to rob them could do it almost without danger to themselves. so it was that all the western world was, in those days, infested with armed bands of cruising freebooters or pirates, who used to stop merchant vessels and take from them what they chose. each province in those days was ruled over by a royal governor appointed by the king. each governor, at one time, was free to do almost as he pleased in his own province. he was accountable only to the king and his government, and england was so distant that he was really responsible almost to nobody but himself. the governors were naturally just as desirous to get rich quickly, just as desirous of getting all that they could for themselves, as was anybody else--only they had been taught and had been able to learn that it was not right to be an actual pirate or robber. they wanted to be rich easily and quickly, but the desire was not strong enough to lead them to dishonor themselves in their own opinion and in the opinion of others by gratifying their selfishness. they would even have stopped the pirates from doing what they did if they could, but their provincial governments were too weak to prevent the freebooters from robbing merchant vessels, or to punish them when they came ashore. the provinces had no navies, and they really had no armies; neither were there enough people living within the community to enforce the laws against those stronger and fiercer men who were not honest. after the things the pirates seized from merchant vessels were once stolen they were altogether lost. almost never did any owner apply for them, for it would be useless to do so. the stolen goods and merchandise lay in the storehouses of the pirates, seemingly without any owner excepting the pirates themselves. the governors and the secretaries of the colonies would not dishonor themselves by pirating upon merchant vessels, but it did not seem so wicked after the goods were stolen--and so altogether lost--to take a part of that which seemed to have no owner. a child is taught that it is a very wicked thing to take, for instance, by force, a lump of sugar from another child; but when a wicked child has seized the sugar from another and taken it around the corner, and that other child from whom he has seized it has gone home crying, it does not seem so wicked for the third child to take a bite of the sugar when it is offered to him, even if he thinks it has been taken from some one else. it was just so, no doubt, that it did not seem so wicked to governor eden and secretary knight of north carolina, or to governor fletcher of new york, or to other colonial governors, to take a part of the booty that the pirates, such as blackbeard, had stolen. it did not even seem very wicked to compel such pirates to give up a part of what was not theirs, and which seemed to have no owner. in governor eden's time, however, the colonies had begun to be more thickly peopled, and the laws had gradually become stronger and stronger to protect men in the possession of what was theirs. governor eden was the last of the colonial governors who had dealings with the pirates, and blackbeard was almost the last of the pirates who, with his banded men, was savage and powerful enough to come and go as he chose among the people whom he plundered. virginia, at that time, was the greatest and the richest of all the american colonies, and upon the farther side of north carolina was the province of south carolina, also strong and rich. it was these two colonies that suffered the most from blackbeard, and it began to be that the honest men that lived in them could endure no longer to be plundered. the merchants and traders and others who suffered cried out loudly for protection, so loudly that the governors of these provinces could not help hearing them. governor eden was petitioned to act against the pirates, but he would do nothing, for he felt very friendly toward blackbeard--just as a child who has had a taste of the stolen sugar feels friendly toward the child who gives it to him. at last, when blackbeard sailed up into the very heart of virginia, and seized upon and carried away the daughter of that colony's foremost people, the governor of virginia, finding that the governor of north carolina would do nothing to punish the outrage, took the matter into his own hands and issued a proclamation offering a reward of one hundred pounds for blackbeard, alive or dead, and different sums for the other pirates who were his followers. governor spottiswood had the right to issue the proclamation, but he had no right to commission lieutenant maynard, as he did, to take down an armed force into the neighboring province and to attack the pirates in the waters of the north carolina sounds. it was all a part of the rude and lawless condition of the colonies at the time that such a thing could have been done. [illustration: "jack followed the captain and the young lady up the crooked path to the house" _illustration from_ jack ballister's fortunes _by_ howard pyle _originally published by_ the century company, ] the governor's proclamation against the pirates was issued upon the eleventh day of november. it was read in the churches the sunday following and was posted upon the doors of all the government custom offices in lower virginia. lieutenant maynard, in the boats that colonel parker had already fitted out to go against the pirates, set sail upon the seventeenth of the month for ocracoke. five days later the battle was fought. * * * * * blackbeard's sloop was lying inside of ocracoke inlet among the shoals and sand bars when he first heard of governor spottiswood's proclamation. there had been a storm, and a good many vessels had run into the inlet for shelter. blackbeard knew nearly all of the captains of these vessels, and it was from them that he first heard of the proclamation. he had gone aboard one of the vessels--a coaster from boston. the wind was still blowing pretty hard from the southeast. there were maybe a dozen vessels lying within the inlet at that time, and the captain of one of them was paying the boston skipper a visit when blackbeard came aboard. the two captains had been talking together. they instantly ceased when the pirate came down into the cabin, but he had heard enough of their conversation to catch its drift. "why d'ye stop?" he said. "i heard what you said. well, what then? d'ye think i mind it at all? spottiswood is going to send his bullies down here after me. that's what you were saying. well, what then? you don't think i'm afraid of his bullies, do you?" "why, no, captain, i didn't say you was afraid," said the visiting captain. "and what right has he got to send down here against me in north carolina, i should like to ask you?" "he's got none at all," said the boston captain, soothingly. "won't you take a taste of hollands, captain?" "he's no more right to come blustering down here into governor eden's province than i have to come aboard of your schooner here, tom burley, and to carry off two or three kegs of this prime hollands for my own drinking." captain burley--the boston man--laughed a loud, forced laugh. "why, captain," he said, "as for two or three kegs of hollands, you won't find that aboard. but if you'd like to have a keg of it for your own drinking, i'll send it to you and be glad enough to do so for old acquaintance' sake." "but i tell you what 'tis, captain," said the visiting skipper to blackbeard, "they're determined and set against you this time. i tell you, captain, governor spottiswood hath issued a hot proclamation against you, and 't hath been read out in all the churches. i myself saw it posted in yorktown upon the customhouse door and read it there myself. the governor offers one hundred pounds for you, and fifty pounds for your officers, and twenty pounds each for your men." "well, then," said blackbeard, holding up his glass, "here, i wish 'em good luck, and when they get their hundred pounds for me they'll be in a poor way to spend it. as for the hollands," said he, turning to captain burley, "i know what you've got aboard here and what you haven't. d'ye suppose ye can blind me? very well, you send over two kegs, and i'll let you go without search." the two captains were very silent. "as for that lieutenant maynard you're all talking about," said blackbeard, "why, i know him very well. he was the one who was so busy with the pirates down madagascar way. i believe you'd all like to see him blow me out of the water, but he can't do it. there's nobody in his majesty's service i'd rather meet than lieutenant maynard. i'd teach him pretty briskly that north carolina isn't madagascar." * * * * * on the evening of the twenty-second the two vessels under command of lieutenant maynard came into the mouth of ocracoke inlet and there dropped anchor. meantime the weather had cleared, and all the vessels but one had gone from the inlet. the one vessel that remained was a new yorker. it had been there over a night and a day, and the captain and blackbeard had become very good friends. the same night that maynard came into the inlet a wedding was held on the shore. a number of men and women came up the beach in oxcarts and sledges; others had come in boats from more distant points and across the water. the captain of the new yorker and blackbeard went ashore together a little after dark. the new yorker had been aboard of the pirate's sloop for all the latter part of the afternoon, and he and blackbeard had been drinking together in the cabin. the new york man was now a little tipsy, and he laughed and talked foolishly as he and blackbeard were rowed ashore. the pirate sat grim and silent. it was nearly dark when they stepped ashore on the beach. the new york captain stumbled and fell headlong, rolling over and over, and the crew of the boat burst out laughing. the people had already begun to dance in an open shed fronting upon the shore. there were fires of pine knots in front of the building, lighting up the interior with a red glare. a negro was playing a fiddle somewhere inside, and the shed was filled with a crowd of grotesque dancing figures--men and women. now and then they called with loud voices as they danced, and the squeaking of the fiddle sounded incessantly through the noise of outcries and the stamp and shuffling of feet. captain teach and the new york captain stood looking on. the new york man had tilted himself against a post and stood there holding one arm around it, supporting himself. he waved the other hand foolishly in time to the music, now and then snapping his thumb and finger. the young woman who had just been married approached the two. she had been dancing, and she was warm and red, her hair blowzed about her head. "hi, captain, won't you dance with me?" she said to blackbeard. blackbeard stared at her. "who be you?" he said. she burst out laughing. "you look as if you'd eat a body," she cried. blackbeard's face gradually relaxed. "why, to be sure, you're a brazen one, for all the world," he said. "well, i'll dance with you, that i will. i'll dance the heart out of you." he pushed forward, thrusting aside with his elbow the newly made husband. the man, who saw that blackbeard had been drinking, burst out laughing, and the other men and women who had been standing around drew away, so that in a little while the floor was pretty well cleared. one could see the negro now; he sat on a barrel at the end of the room. he grinned with his white teeth and, without stopping in his fiddling, scraped his bow harshly across the strings, and then instantly changed the tune to a lively jig. blackbeard jumped up into the air and clapped his heels together, giving, as he did so, a sharp, short yell. then he began instantly dancing grotesquely and violently. the woman danced opposite to him, this way and that, with her knuckles on her hips. everybody burst out laughing at blackbeard's grotesque antics. they laughed again and again, clapping their hands, and the negro scraped away on his fiddle like fury. the woman's hair came tumbling down her back. she tucked it back, laughing and panting, and the sweat ran down her face. she danced and danced. at last she burst out laughing and stopped, panting. blackbeard again jumped up in the air and clapped his heels. again he yelled, and as he did so, he struck his heels upon the floor and spun around. once more everybody burst out laughing, clapping their hands, and the negro stopped fiddling. [illustration: "he led jack up to a man who sat upon a barrel" _illustration from_ jack ballister's fortunes _by_ howard pyle _originally published by_ the century company. ] near by was a shanty or cabin where they were selling spirits, and by and by blackbeard went there with the new york captain, and presently they began drinking again. "hi, captain!" called one of the men, "maynard's out yonder in the inlet. jack bishop's just come across from t'other side. he says mr. maynard hailed him and asked for a pilot to fetch him in." "well, here's luck to him, and he can't come in quick enough for me!" cried out blackbeard in his hoarse, husky voice. "well, captain," called a voice, "will ye fight him to-morrow?" "aye," shouted the pirate, "if he can get in to me, i'll try to give 'em what they seek, and all they want of it into the bargain. as for a pilot, i tell ye what 'tis--if any man hereabouts goes out there to pilot that villain in 'twill be the worst day's work he ever did in all of his life. 'twon't be fit for him to live in these parts of america if i am living here at the same time." there was a burst of laughter. "give us a toast, captain! give us something to drink to! aye, captain, a toast! a toast!" a half dozen voices were calling out at the same time. "well," cried out the pirate captain, "here's to a good, hot fight to-morrow, and the best dog on top! 'twill be, bang! bang!--this way!" he began pulling a pistol out of his pocket, but it stuck in the lining, and he struggled and tugged at it. the men ducked and scrambled away from before him, and then the next moment he had the pistol out of his pocket. he swung it around and around. there was perfect silence. suddenly there was a flash and a stunning report, and instantly a crash and tinkle of broken glass. one of the men cried out, and began picking and jerking at the back of his neck. "he's broken that bottle all down my neck," he called out. "that's the way 'twill be," said blackbeard. "lookee," said the owner of the place, "i won't serve out another drop if 'tis going to be like that. if there's any more trouble i'll blow out the lantern." the sound of the squeaking and scraping of the fiddle and the shouts and the scuffling feet still came from the shed where the dancing was going on. "suppose you get your dose to-morrow, captain," some one called out, "what then?" "why, if i do," said blackbeard, "i get it, and that's all there is of it." "your wife 'll be a rich widdy then, won't she?" cried one of the men; and there was a burst of laughter. "why," said the new york captain,--"why, has a--a bloody p-pirate like you a wife then--a--like any honest man?" "she'll be no richer than she is now," said blackbeard. "she knows where you've hid your money, anyways. don't she, captain?" called out a voice. "the divil knows where i've hid my money," said blackbeard, "and i know where i've hid it; and the longest liver of the twain will git it all. and that's all there is of it." the gray of early day was beginning to show in the east when blackbeard and the new york captain came down to the landing together. the new york captain swayed and toppled this way and that as he walked, now falling against blackbeard, and now staggering away from him. ii early in the morning--perhaps eight o'clock--lieutenant maynard sent a boat from the schooner over to the settlement, which lay some four or five miles distant. a number of men stood lounging on the landing, watching the approach of the boat. the men rowed close up to the wharf, and there lay upon their oars, while the boatswain of the schooner, who was in command of the boat, stood up and asked if there was any man there who could pilot them over the shoals. nobody answered, but all stared stupidly at him. after a while one of the men at last took his pipe out of his mouth. "there ben't any pilot here, master," said he; "we ben't pilots." "why, what a story you do tell!" roared the boatswain. "d'ye suppose i've never been down here before, not to know that every man about here knows the passes of the shoals?" the fellow still held his pipe in his hand. he looked at another one of the men. "do you know the passes in over the shoals, jem?" said he. the man to whom he spoke was a young fellow with long, shaggy, sunburnt hair hanging over his eyes in an unkempt mass. he shook his head, grunting, "na--i don't know naught about t' shoals." "'tis lieutenant maynard of his majesty's navy in command of them vessels out there," said the boatswain. "he'll give any man five pound to pilot him in." the men on the wharf looked at one another, but still no one spoke, and the boatswain stood looking at them. he saw that they did not choose to answer him. "why," he said, "i believe you've not got right wits--that's what i believe is the matter with you. pull me up to the landing, men, and i'll go ashore and see if i can find anybody that's willing to make five pound for such a little bit of piloting as that." after the boatswain had gone ashore the loungers still stood on the wharf, looking down into the boat, and began talking to one another for the men below to hear them. "they're coming in," said one, "to blow poor blackbeard out of the water." "aye," said another, "he's so peaceable, too, he is; he'll just lay still and let 'em blow and blow, he will." "there's a young fellow there," said another of the men; "he don't look fit to die yet, he don't. why, i wouldn't be in his place for a thousand pound." "i do suppose blackbeard's so afraid he don't know how to see," said the first speaker. at last one of the men in the boat spoke up. "maybe he don't know how to see," said he, "but maybe we'll blow some daylight into him afore we get through with him." some more of the settlers had come out from the shore to the end of the wharf, and there was now quite a crowd gathering there, all looking at the men in the boat. "what do them virginny 'baccy-eaters do down here in caroliny, anyway?" said one of the newcomers. "they've got no call to be down here in north caroliny waters." "maybe you can keep us away from coming, and maybe you can't," said a voice from the boat. "why," answered the man on the wharf, "we could keep you away easy enough, but you ben't worth the trouble, and that's the truth." there was a heavy iron bolt lying near the edge of the landing. one of the men upon the wharf slyly thrust it out with the end of his foot. it hung for a moment and then fell into the boat below with a crash. "what d'ye mean by that?" roared the man in charge of the boat. "what d'ye mean, ye villains? d'ye mean to stave a hole in us?" "why," said the man who had pushed it, "you saw 'twasn't done a purpose, didn't you?" "well, you try it again, and somebody 'll get hurt," said the man in the boat, showing the butt end of his pistol. the men on the wharf began laughing. just then the boatswain came down from the settlement again, and out along the landing. the threatened turbulence quieted as he approached, and the crowd moved sullenly aside to let him pass. he did not bring any pilot with him, and he jumped down into the stern of the boat, saying, briefly, "push off." the crowd of loungers stood looking after them as they rowed away, and when the boat was some distance from the landing they burst out into a volley of derisive yells. "the villains!" said the boatswain, "they are all in league together. they wouldn't even let me go up into the settlement to look for a pilot." * * * * * the lieutenant and his sailing master stood watching the boat as it approached. "couldn't you, then, get a pilot, baldwin?" said mr. maynard, as the boatswain scrambled aboard. "no, i couldn't, sir," said the man. "either they're all banded together, or else they're all afraid of the villains. they wouldn't even let me go up into the settlement to find one." "well, then," said mr. maynard, "we'll make shift to work in as best we may by ourselves. 'twill be high tide against one o'clock. we'll run in then with sail as far as we can, and then we'll send you ahead with the boat to sound for a pass, and we'll follow with the sweeps. you know the waters pretty well, you say." "they were saying ashore that the villain hath forty men aboard," said the boatswain.[ ] [footnote : the pirate captain had really only twenty-five men aboard of his sloop at the time of the battle.] lieutenant maynard's force consisted of thirty-five men in the schooner and twenty-five men in the sloop. he carried neither cannons nor carronades, and neither of his vessels was very well fitted for the purpose for which they were designed. the schooner, which he himself commanded, offered almost no protection to the crew. the rail was not more than a foot high in the waist, and the men on the deck were almost entirely exposed. the rail of the sloop was perhaps a little higher, but it, too, was hardly better adapted for fighting. indeed, the lieutenant depended more upon the moral force of official authority to overawe the pirates than upon any real force of arms or men. he never believed, until the very last moment, that the pirates would show any real fight. it is very possible that they might not have done so had they not thought that the lieutenant had actually no legal right supporting him in his attack upon them in north carolina waters. it was about noon when anchor was hoisted, and, with the schooner leading, both vessels ran slowly in before a light wind that had begun to blow toward midday. in each vessel a man stood in the bows, sounding continually with lead and line. as they slowly opened up the harbor within the inlet, they could see the pirate sloop lying about three miles away. there was a boat just putting off from it to the shore. the lieutenant and his sailing master stood together on the roof of the cabin deckhouse. the sailing master held a glass to his eye. "she carries a long gun, sir," he said, "and four carronades. she'll be hard to beat, sir, i do suppose, armed as we are with only light arms for close fighting." the lieutenant laughed. "why, brookes," he said, "you seem to think forever of these men showing fight. you don't know them as i know them. they have a deal of bluster and make a deal of noise, but when you seize them and hold them with a strong hand, there's naught of fight left in them. 'tis like enough there 'll not be so much as a musket fired to-day. i've had to do with 'em often enough before to know my gentlemen well by this time." nor, as was said, was it until the very last that the lieutenant could be brought to believe that the pirates had any stomach for a fight. the two vessels had reached perhaps within a mile of the pirate sloop before they found the water too shallow to venture any farther with the sail. it was then that the boat was lowered as the lieutenant had planned, and the boatswain went ahead to sound, the two vessels, with their sails still hoisted but empty of wind, pulling in after with sweeps. the pirate had also hoisted sail, but lay as though waiting for the approach of the schooner and the sloop. [illustration: "the bullets were humming and singing, clipping along the top of the water" _illustration from_ jack ballister's fortunes _by_ howard pyle _originally published by_ the century company, ] the boat in which the boatswain was sounding had run in a considerable distance ahead of the two vessels, which were gradually creeping up with the sweeps until they had reached to within less than half a mile of the pirates--the boat with the boatswain maybe a quarter of a mile closer. suddenly there was a puff of smoke from the pirate sloop, and then another and another, and the next moment there came the three reports of muskets up the wind. "by zounds!" said the lieutenant. "i do believe they're firing on the boat!" and then he saw the boat turn and begin pulling toward them. the boat with the boatswain aboard came rowing rapidly. again there were three or four puffs of smoke and three or four subsequent reports from the distant vessel. then, in a little while, the boat was alongside, and the boatswain came scrambling aboard. "never mind hoisting the boat," said the lieutenant; "we'll just take her in tow. come aboard as quick as you can." then, turning to the sailing master, "well, brookes, you'll have to do the best you can to get in over the shoals under half sail." "but, sir," said the master, "we'll be sure to run aground." "very well, sir," said the lieutenant, "you heard my orders. if we run aground we run aground, and that's all there is of it." "i sounded as far as maybe a little over a fathom," said the mate, "but the villains would let me go no nearer. i think i was in the channel, though. 'tis more open inside, as i mind me of it. there's a kind of a hole there, and if we get in over the shoals just beyond where i was we'll be all right." "very well, then, you take the wheel, baldwin," said the lieutenant, "and do the best you can for us." lieutenant maynard stood looking out forward at the pirate vessel, which they were now steadily nearing under half sail. he could see that there were signs of bustle aboard and of men running around upon the deck. then he walked aft and around the cabin. the sloop was some distance astern. it appeared to have run aground, and they were trying to push it off with the sweeps. the lieutenant looked down into the water over the stern, and saw that the schooner was already raising the mud in her wake. then he went forward along the deck. his men were crouching down along by the low rail, and there was a tense quietness of expectation about them. the lieutenant looked them over as he passed them. "johnson," he said, "do you take the lead and line and go forward and sound a bit." then to the others: "now, my men, the moment we run her aboard, you get aboard of her as quick as you can, do you understand? don't wait for the sloop or think about her, but just see that the grappling irons are fast, and then get aboard. if any man offers to resist you, shoot him down. are you ready, mr. cringle?" "aye, aye, sir," said the gunner. "very well, then, be ready, men; we'll be aboard 'em in a minute or two." "there's less than a fathom of water here, sir," sang out johnson from the bows. as he spoke there was a sudden soft jar and jerk, then the schooner was still. they were aground. "push her off to the lee there! let go your sheets!" roared the boatswain from the wheel. "push her off to the lee." he spun the wheel around as he spoke. a half a dozen men sprang up, seized the sweeps, and plunged them into the water. others ran to help them, but the sweeps only sank into the mud without moving the schooner. the sails had fallen off and they were flapping and thumping and clapping in the wind. others of the crew had scrambled to their feet and ran to help those at the sweeps. the lieutenant had walked quickly aft again. they were very close now to the pirate sloop, and suddenly some one hailed him from aboard of her. when he turned he saw that there was a man standing up on the rail of the pirate sloop, holding by the back stays. "who are you?" he called, from the distance, "and whence come you? what do you seek here? what d'ye mean, coming down on us this way?" the lieutenant heard somebody say, "that's blackbeard his-self." and he looked with great interest at the distant figure. the pirate stood out boldly against the cloudy sky. somebody seemed to speak to him from behind. he turned his head and then he turned round again. "we're only peaceful merchantmen!" he called out. "what authority have you got to come down upon us this way? if you'll come aboard i'll show you my papers and that we're only peaceful merchantmen." "the villains!" said the lieutenant to the master, who stood beside him. "they're peaceful merchantmen, are they! they look like peaceful merchantmen, with four carronades and a long gun aboard!" then he called out across the water, "i'll come aboard with my schooner as soon as i can push her off here." "if you undertake to come aboard of me," called the pirate, "i'll shoot into you. you've got no authority to board me, and i won't have you do it. if you undertake it 'twill be at your own risk, for i'll neither ask quarter of you nor give none." "very well," said the lieutenant, "if you choose to try that, you may do as you please; for i'm coming aboard of you as sure as heaven." "push off the bow there!" called the boatswain at the wheel. "look alive! why don't you push off the bow?" "she's hard aground!" answered the gunner. "we can't budge her an inch." "if they was to fire into us now," said the sailing master, "they'd smash us to pieces." "they won't fire into us," said the lieutenant. "they won't dare to." he jumped down from the cabin deckhouse as he spoke, and went forward to urge the men in pushing off the boat. it was already beginning to move. at that moment the sailing master suddenly called out, "mr. maynard! mr. maynard! they're going to give us a broadside!" almost before the words were out of his mouth, before lieutenant maynard could turn, there came a loud and deafening crash, and then instantly another, and a third, and almost as instantly a crackling and rending of broken wood. there were clean yellow splinters flying everywhere. a man fell violently against the lieutenant, nearly overturning him, but he caught at the stays and so saved himself. for one tense moment he stood holding his breath. then all about him arose a sudden outcry of groans and shouts and oaths. the man who had fallen against him was lying face down upon the deck. his thighs were quivering, and a pool of blood was spreading and running out from under him. there were other men down, all about the deck. some were rising; some were trying to rise; some only moved. there was a distant sound of yelling and cheering and shouting. it was from the pirate sloop. the pirates were rushing about upon her decks. they had pulled the cannon back, and, through the grunting sound of the groans about him, the lieutenant could distinctly hear the thud and punch of the rammers, and he knew they were going to shoot again. the low rail afforded almost no shelter against such a broadside, and there was nothing for it but to order all hands below for the time being. "get below!" roared out the lieutenant. "all hands get below and lie snug for further orders!" in obedience the men ran scrambling below into the hold, and in a little while the decks were nearly clear except for the three dead men and some three or four wounded. the boatswain, crouching down close to the wheel, and the lieutenant himself were the only others upon deck. everywhere there were smears and sprinkles of blood. "where's brookes?" the lieutenant called out. "he's hurt in the arm, sir, and he's gone below," said the boatswain. thereupon the lieutenant himself walked over to the forecastle hatch, and, hailing the gunner, ordered him to get up another ladder, so that the men could be run up on deck if the pirates should undertake to come aboard. at that moment the boatswain at the wheel called out that the villains were going to shoot again, and the lieutenant, turning, saw the gunner aboard of the pirate sloop in the act of touching the iron to the touchhole. he stooped down. there was another loud and deafening crash of cannon, one, two, three--four--the last two almost together--and almost instantly the boatswain called out, "'tis the sloop, sir! look at the sloop!" [illustration: "the combatants cut and slashed with savage fury" _illustration from_ jack ballister's fortunes _by_ howard pyle _originally published by_ the century company, ] the sloop had got afloat again, and had been coming up to the aid of the schooner, when the pirates fired their second broadside now at her. when the lieutenant looked at her she was quivering with the impact of the shot, and the next moment she began falling off to the wind, and he could see the wounded men rising and falling and struggling upon her decks. at the same moment the boatswain called out that the enemy was coming aboard, and even as he spoke the pirate sloop came drifting out from the cloud of smoke that enveloped her, looming up larger and larger as she came down upon them. the lieutenant still crouched down under the rail, looking out at them. suddenly, a little distance away, she came about, broadside on, and then drifted. she was close aboard now. something came flying through the air--another and another. they were bottles. one of them broke with a crash upon the deck. the others rolled over to the farther rail. in each of them a quick-match was smoking. almost instantly there was a flash and a terrific report, and the air was full of the whiz and singing of broken particles of glass and iron. there was another report, and then the whole air seemed full of gunpowder smoke. "they're aboard of us!" shouted the boatswain, and even as he spoke the lieutenant roared out, "all hands to repel boarders!" a second later there came the heavy, thumping bump of the vessels coming together. lieutenant maynard, as he called out the order, ran forward through the smoke, snatching one of his pistols out of his pocket and the cutlass out of its sheath as he did so. behind him the men were coming, swarming up from below. there was a sudden stunning report of a pistol, and then another and another, almost together. there was a groan and the fall of a heavy body, and then a figure came jumping over the rail, with two or three more directly following. the lieutenant was in the midst of the gunpowder smoke, when suddenly blackbeard was before him. the pirate captain had stripped himself naked to the waist. his shaggy black hair was falling over his eyes, and he looked like a demon fresh from the pit, with his frantic face. almost with the blindness of instinct the lieutenant thrust out his pistol, firing it as he did so. the pirate staggered back: he was down--no; he was up again. he had a pistol in each hand; but there was a stream of blood running down his naked ribs. suddenly, the mouth of a pistol was pointing straight at the lieutenant's head. he ducked instinctively, striking upward with his cutlass as he did so. there was a stunning, deafening report almost in his ear. he struck again blindly with his cutlass. he saw the flash of a sword and flung up his guard almost instinctively, meeting the crash of the descending blade. somebody shot from behind him, and at the same moment he saw some one else strike the pirate. blackbeard staggered again, and this time there was a great gash upon his neck. then one of maynard's own men tumbled headlong upon him. he fell with the man, but almost instantly he had scrambled to his feet again, and as he did so he saw that the pirate sloop had drifted a little away from them, and that their grappling irons had evidently parted. his hand was smarting as though struck with the lash of a whip. he looked around him; the pirate captain was nowhere to be seen--yes, there he was, lying by the rail. he raised himself upon his elbow, and the lieutenant saw that he was trying to point a pistol at him, with an arm that wavered and swayed blindly, the pistol nearly falling from his fingers. suddenly his other elbow gave way and he fell down upon his face. he tried to raise himself--he fell down again. there was a report and a cloud of smoke, and when it cleared away blackbeard had staggered up again. he was a terrible figure--his head nodding down upon his breast. somebody shot again, and then the swaying figure toppled and fell. it lay still for a moment--then rolled over--then lay still again. there was a loud splash of men jumping overboard, and then, almost instantly, the cry of "quarter! quarter!" the lieutenant ran to the edge of the vessel. it was as he had thought: the grappling irons of the pirate sloop had parted, and it had drifted away. the few pirates who had been left aboard of the schooner had jumped overboard and were now holding up their hands. "quarter!" they cried. "don't shoot!--quarter!" and the fight was over. the lieutenant looked down at his hand, and then he saw, for the first time, that there was a great cutlass gash across the back of it, and that his arm and shirt sleeve were wet with blood. he went aft, holding the wrist of his wounded hand. the boatswain was still at the wheel. "by zounds!" said the lieutenant, with a nervous, quavering laugh, "i didn't know there was such fight in the villains." his wounded and shattered sloop was again coming up toward him under sail, but the pirates had surrendered, and the fight was over. chapter vi blueskin, the pirate i cape may and cape henlopen form, as it were, the upper and lower jaws of a gigantic mouth, which disgorges from its monstrous gullet the cloudy waters of the delaware bay into the heaving, sparkling blue-green of the atlantic ocean. from cape henlopen as the lower jaw there juts out a long, curving fang of high, smooth-rolling sand dunes, cutting sharp and clean against the still, blue sky above--silent, naked, utterly deserted, excepting for the squat, white-walled lighthouse standing upon the crest of the highest hill. within this curving, sheltering hook of sand hills lie the smooth waters of lewes harbor, and, set a little back from the shore, the quaint old town, with its dingy wooden houses of clapboard and shingle, looks sleepily out through the masts of the shipping lying at anchor in the harbor, to the purple, clean-cut, level thread of the ocean horizon beyond. lewes is a queer, odd, old-fashioned little town, smelling fragrant of salt marsh and sea breeze. it is rarely visited by strangers. the people who live there are the progeny of people who have lived there for many generations, and it is the very place to nurse, and preserve, and care for old legends and traditions of bygone times, until they grow from bits of gossip and news into local history of considerable size. as in the busier world men talk of last year's elections, here these old bits, and scraps, and odds and ends of history are retailed to the listener who cares to listen--traditions of the war of , when beresford's fleet lay off the harbor threatening to bombard the town; tales of the revolution and of earl howe's warships, tarrying for a while in the quiet harbor before they sailed up the river to shake old philadelphia town with the thunders of their guns at red bank and fort mifflin. with these substantial and sober threads of real history, other and more lurid colors are interwoven into the web of local lore--legends of the dark doings of famous pirates, of their mysterious, sinister comings and goings, of treasures buried in the sand dunes and pine barrens back of the cape and along the atlantic beach to the southward. of such is the story of blueskin, the pirate. ii it was in the fall and the early winter of the year , and again in the summer of the year following, that the famous pirate, blueskin, became especially identified with lewes as a part of its traditional history. for some time--for three or four years--rumors and reports of blueskin's doings in the west indies and off the carolinas had been brought in now and then by sea captains. there was no more cruel, bloody, desperate, devilish pirate than he in all those pirate-infested waters. all kinds of wild and bloody stories were current concerning him, but it never occurred to the good folk of lewes that such stories were some time to be a part of their own history. but one day a schooner came drifting into lewes harbor--shattered, wounded, her forecastle splintered, her foremast shot half away, and three great tattered holes in her mainsail. the mate with one of the crew came ashore in the boat for help and a doctor. he reported that the captain and the cook were dead and there were three wounded men aboard. the story he told to the gathering crowd brought a very peculiar thrill to those who heard it. they had fallen in with blueskin, he said, off fenwick's island (some twenty or thirty miles below the capes), and the pirates had come aboard of them; but, finding that the cargo of the schooner consisted only of cypress shingles and lumber, had soon quitted their prize. perhaps blueskin was disappointed at not finding a more valuable capture; perhaps the spirit of deviltry was hotter in him that morning than usual; anyhow, as the pirate craft bore away she fired three broadsides at short range into the helpless coaster. the captain had been killed at the first fire, the cook had died on the way up, three of the crew were wounded, and the vessel was leaking fast, betwixt wind and water. such was the mate's story. it spread like wildfire, and in half an hour all the town was in a ferment. fenwick's island was very near home; blueskin might come sailing into the harbor at any minute and then--! in an hour sheriff jones had called together most of the able-bodied men of the town, muskets and rifles were taken down from the chimney places, and every preparation was made to defend the place against the pirates, should they come into the harbor and attempt to land. but blueskin did not come that day, nor did he come the next or the next. but on the afternoon of the third the news went suddenly flying over the town that the pirates were inside the capes. as the report spread the people came running--men, women, and children--to the green before the tavern, where a little knot of old seamen were gathered together, looking fixedly out toward the offing, talking in low voices. two vessels, one bark-rigged, the other and smaller a sloop, were slowly creeping up the bay, a couple of miles or so away and just inside the cape. there appeared nothing remarkable about the two crafts, but the little crowd that continued gathering upon the green stood looking out across the bay at them none the less anxiously for that. they were sailing close-hauled to the wind, the sloop following in the wake of her consort as the pilot fish follows in the wake of the shark. but the course they held did not lie toward the harbor, but rather bore away toward the jersey shore, and by and by it began to be apparent that blueskin did not intend visiting the town. nevertheless, those who stood looking did not draw a free breath until, after watching the two pirates for more than an hour and a half, they saw them--then about six miles away--suddenly put about and sail with a free wind out to sea again. "the bloody villains have gone!" said old captain wolfe, shutting his telescope with a click. but lewes was not yet quit of blueskin. two days later a half-breed from indian river bay came up, bringing the news that the pirates had sailed into the inlet--some fifteen miles below lewes--and had careened the bark to clean her. perhaps blueskin did not care to stir up the country people against him, for the half-breed reported that the pirates were doing no harm, and that what they took from the farmers of indian river and rehoboth they paid for with good hard money. it was while the excitement over the pirates was at its highest fever heat that levi west came home again. iii even in the middle of the last century the grist mill, a couple of miles from lewes, although it was at most but fifty or sixty years old, had all a look of weather-beaten age, for the cypress shingles, of which it was built, ripen in a few years of wind and weather to a silvery, hoary gray, and the white powdering of flour lent it a look as though the dust of ages had settled upon it, making the shadows within dim, soft, mysterious. a dozen willow trees shaded with dappling, shivering ripples of shadow the road before the mill door, and the mill itself, and the long, narrow, shingle-built, one-storied, hip-roofed dwelling house. at the time of the story the mill had descended in a direct line of succession to hiram white, the grandson of old ephraim white, who had built it, it was said, in . hiram white was only twenty-seven years old, but he was already in local repute as a "character." as a boy he was thought to be half-witted or "natural," and, as is the case with such unfortunates in small country towns where everybody knows everybody, he was made a common sport and jest for the keener, crueler wits of the neighborhood. now that he was grown to the ripeness of manhood he was still looked upon as being--to use a quaint expression--"slack," or "not jest right." he was heavy, awkward, ungainly and loose-jointed, and enormously, prodigiously strong. he had a lumpish, thick-featured face, with lips heavy and loosely hanging, that gave him an air of stupidity, half droll, half pathetic. his little eyes were set far apart and flat with his face, his eyebrows were nearly white and his hair was of a sandy, colorless kind. he was singularly taciturn, lisping thickly when he did talk, and stuttering and hesitating in his speech, as though his words moved faster than his mind could follow. it was the custom for local wags to urge, or badger, or tempt him to talk, for the sake of the ready laugh that always followed the few thick, stammering words and the stupid drooping of the jaw at the end of each short speech. perhaps squire hall was the only one in lewes hundred who mis-doubted that hiram was half-witted. he had had dealings with him and was wont to say that whoever bought hiram white for a fool made a fool's bargain. certainly, whether he had common wits or no, hiram had managed his mill to pretty good purpose and was fairly well off in the world as prosperity went in southern delaware and in those days. no doubt, had it come to the pinch, he might have bought some of his tormentors out three times over. hiram white had suffered quite a financial loss some six months before, through that very blueskin who was now lurking in indian river inlet. he had entered into a "venture" with josiah shippin, a philadelphia merchant, to the tune of seven hundred pounds sterling. the money had been invested in a cargo of flour and corn meal which had been shipped to jamaica by the bark _nancy lee_. the _nancy lee_ had been captured by the pirates off currituck sound, the crew set adrift in the longboat, and the bark herself and all her cargo burned to the water's edge. [illustration: so the treasure was divided] five hundred of the seven hundred pounds invested in the unfortunate "venture" was money bequeathed by hiram's father, seven years before, to levi west. eleazer white had been twice married, the second time to the widow west. she had brought with her to her new home a good-looking, long-legged, black-eyed, black-haired ne'er-do-well of a son, a year or so younger than hiram. he was a shrewd, quick-witted lad, idle, shiftless, willful, ill-trained perhaps, but as bright and keen as a pin. he was the very opposite to poor, dull hiram. eleazer white had never loved his son; he was ashamed of the poor, slack-witted oaf. upon the other hand, he was very fond of levi west, whom he always called "our levi," and whom he treated in every way as though he were his own son. he tried to train the lad to work in the mill, and was patient beyond what the patience of most fathers would have been with his stepson's idleness and shiftlessness. "never mind," he was used to say. "levi 'll come all right. levi's as bright as a button." it was one of the greatest blows of the old miller's life when levi ran away to sea. in his last sickness the old man's mind constantly turned to his lost stepson. "mebby he'll come back again," said he, "and if he does i want you to be good to him, hiram. i've done my duty by you and have left you the house and mill, but i want you to promise that if levi comes back again you'll give him a home and a shelter under this roof if he wants one." and hiram had promised to do as his father asked. after eleazer died it was found that he had bequeathed five hundred pounds to his "beloved stepson, levi west," and had left squire hall as trustee. levi west had been gone nearly nine years and not a word had been heard from him; there could be little or no doubt that he was dead. one day hiram came into squire hall's office with a letter in his hand. it was the time of the old french war, and flour and corn meal were fetching fabulous prices in the british west indies. the letter hiram brought with him was from a philadelphia merchant, josiah shippin, with whom he had had some dealings. mr. shippin proposed that hiram should join him in sending a "venture" of flour and corn meal to kingston, jamaica. hiram had slept upon the letter overnight and now he brought it to the old squire. squire hall read the letter, shaking his head the while. "too much risk, hiram!" said he. "mr shippin wouldn't have asked you to go into this venture if he could have got anybody else to do so. my advice is that you let it alone. i reckon you've come to me for advice?" hiram shook his head. "ye haven't? what have ye come for, then?" "seven hundred pounds," said hiram. "seven hundred pounds!" said squire hall. "i haven't got seven hundred pounds to lend you, hiram." "five hundred been left to levi--i got hundred--raise hundred more on mortgage," said hiram. "tut, tut, hiram," said squire hall, "that'll never do in the world. suppose levi west should come back again, what then? i'm responsible for that money. if you wanted to borrow it now for any reasonable venture, you should have it and welcome, but for such a wildcat scheme--" "levi never come back," said hiram--"nine years gone--levi's dead." "mebby he is," said squire hall, "but we don't know that." "i'll give bond for security," said hiram. squire hall thought for a while in silence. "very well, hiram," said he by and by, "if you'll do that. your father left the money, and i don't see that it's right for me to stay his son from using it. but if it is lost, hiram, and if levi should come back, it will go well to ruin ye." so hiram white invested seven hundred pounds in the jamaica venture and every farthing of it was burned by blueskin, off currituck sound. iv sally martin was said to be the prettiest girl in lewes hundred, and when the rumor began to leak out that hiram white was courting her the whole community took it as a monstrous joke. it was the common thing to greet hiram himself with, "hey, hiram; how's sally?" hiram never made answer to such salutation, but went his way as heavily, as impassively, as dully as ever. the joke was true. twice a week, rain or shine, hiram white never failed to scrape his feet upon billy martin's doorstep. twice a week, on sundays and thursdays, he never failed to take his customary seat by the kitchen fire. he rarely said anything by way of talk; he nodded to the farmer, to his wife, to sally and, when he chanced to be at home, to her brother, but he ventured nothing further. there he would sit from half past seven until nine o'clock, stolid, heavy, impassive, his dull eyes following now one of the family and now another, but always coming back again to sally. it sometimes happened that she had other company--some of the young men of the neighborhood. the presence of such seemed to make no difference to hiram; he bore whatever broad jokes might be cracked upon him, whatever grins, whatever giggling might follow those jokes, with the same patient impassiveness. there he would sit, silent, unresponsive; then, at the first stroke of nine o'clock, he would rise, shoulder his ungainly person into his overcoat, twist his head into his three-cornered hat, and with a "good night, sally, i be going now," would take his departure, shutting the door carefully to behind him. never, perhaps, was there a girl in the world had such a lover and such a courtship as sally martin. v it was one thursday evening in the latter part of november, about a week after blueskin's appearance off the capes, and while the one subject of talk was of the pirates being in indian river inlet. the air was still and wintry; a sudden cold snap had set in and skins of ice had formed over puddles in the road; the smoke from the chimneys rose straight in the quiet air and voices sounded loud, as they do in frosty weather. hiram white sat by the dim light of a tallow dip, poring laboriously over some account books. it was not quite seven o'clock, and he never started for billy martin's before that hour. as he ran his finger slowly and hesitatingly down the column of figures, he heard the kitchen door beyond open and shut, the noise of footsteps crossing the floor and the scraping of a chair dragged forward to the hearth. then came the sound of a basket of corncobs being emptied on the smoldering blaze and then the snapping and crackling of the reanimated fire. hiram thought nothing of all this, excepting, in a dim sort of way, that it was bob, the negro mill hand, or old black dinah, the housekeeper, and so went on with his calculations. at last he closed the books with a snap and, smoothing down his hair, arose, took up the candle, and passed out of the room into the kitchen beyond. a man was sitting in front of the corncob fire that flamed and blazed in the great, gaping, sooty fireplace. a rough overcoat was flung over the chair behind him and his hands were spread out to the roaring warmth. at the sound of the lifted latch and of hiram's entrance he turned his head, and when hiram saw his face he stood suddenly still as though turned to stone. the face, marvelously altered and changed as it was, was the face of his stepbrother, levi west. he was not dead; he had come home again. for a time not a sound broke the dead, unbroken silence excepting the crackling of the blaze in the fireplace and the sharp ticking of the tall clock in the corner. the one face, dull and stolid, with the light of the candle shining upward over its lumpy features, looked fixedly, immovably, stonily at the other, sharp, shrewd, cunning--the red wavering light of the blaze shining upon the high cheek bones, cutting sharp on the nose and twinkling in the glassy turn of the black, ratlike eyes. then suddenly that face cracked, broadened, spread to a grin. "i have come back again, hi," said levi, and at the sound of the words the speechless spell was broken. hiram answered never a word, but he walked to the fireplace, set the candle down upon the dusty mantelshelf among the boxes and bottles, and, drawing forward a chair upon the other side of the hearth, sat down. his dull little eyes never moved from his stepbrother's face. there was no curiosity in his expression, no surprise, no wonder. the heavy under lip dropped a little farther open and there was more than usual of dull, expressionless stupidity upon the lumpish face; but that was all. as was said, the face upon which he looked was strangely, marvelously changed from what it had been when he had last seen it nine years before, and, though it was still the face of levi west, it was a very different levi west than the shiftless ne'er-do-well who had run away to sea in the brazilian brig that long time ago. that levi west had been a rough, careless, happy-go-lucky fellow; thoughtless and selfish, but with nothing essentially evil or sinister in his nature. the levi west that now sat in a rush-bottom chair at the other side of the fireplace had that stamped upon his front that might be both evil and sinister. his swart complexion was tanned to an indian copper. on one side of his face was a curious discoloration in the skin and a long, crooked, cruel scar that ran diagonally across forehead and temple and cheek in a white, jagged seam. this discoloration was of a livid blue, about the tint of a tattoo mark. it made a patch the size of a man's hand, lying across the cheek and the side of the neck. hiram could not keep his eyes from this mark and the white scar cutting across it. there was an odd sort of incongruity in levi's dress; a pair of heavy gold earrings and a dirty red handkerchief knotted loosely around his neck, beneath an open collar, displaying to its full length the lean, sinewy throat with its bony "adam's apple," gave to his costume somewhat the smack of a sailor. he wore a coat that had once been of fine plum color--now stained and faded--too small for his lean length, and furbished with tarnished lace. dirty cambric cuffs hung at his wrists and on his fingers were half a dozen and more rings, set with stones that shone, and glistened, and twinkled in the light of the fire. the hair at either temple was twisted into a spanish curl, plastered flat to the cheek, and a plaited queue hung halfway down his back. hiram, speaking never a word, sat motionless, his dull little eyes traveling slowly up and down and around and around his stepbrother's person. levi did not seem to notice his scrutiny, leaning forward, now with his palms spread out to the grateful warmth, now rubbing them slowly together. but at last he suddenly whirled his chair around, rasping on the floor, and faced his stepbrother. he thrust his hand into his capacious coat pocket and brought out a pipe which he proceeded to fill from a skin of tobacco. "well, hi," said he, "d'ye see i've come back home again?" "thought you was dead," said hiram, dully. levi laughed, then he drew a red-hot coal out of the fire, put it upon the bowl of the pipe and began puffing out clouds of pungent smoke. "nay, nay," said he; "not dead--not dead by odds. but [puff] by the eternal holy, hi, i played many a close game [puff] with old davy jones, for all that." hiram's look turned inquiringly toward the jagged scar and levi caught the slow glance. "you're lookin' at this," said he, running his finger down the crooked seam. "that looks bad, but it wasn't so close as this"--laying his hand for a moment upon the livid stain. "a cooly devil off singapore gave me that cut when we fell foul of an opium junk in the china sea four years ago last september. this," touching the disfiguring blue patch again, "was a closer miss, hi. a spanish captain fired a pistol at me down off santa catharina. he was so nigh that the powder went under the skin and it'll never come out again. ---- his eyes--he had better have fired the pistol into his own head that morning. but never mind that. i reckon i'm changed, ain't i, hi?" he took his pipe out of his mouth and looked inquiringly at hiram, who nodded. levi laughed. "devil doubt it," said he, "but whether i'm changed or no, i'll take my affidavy that you are the same old half-witted hi that you used to be. i remember dad used to say that you hadn't no more than enough wits to keep you out of the rain. and, talking of dad, hi, i hearn tell he's been dead now these nine years gone. d'ye know what i've come home for?" hiram shook his head. "i've come for that five hundred pounds that dad left me when he died, for i hearn tell of that, too." hiram sat quite still for a second or two and then he said, "i put that money out to venture and lost it all." levi's face fell and he took his pipe out of his mouth, regarding hiram sharply and keenly. "what d'ye mean?" said he presently. "i thought you was dead--and i put--seven hundred pounds--into _nancy lee_--and blueskin burned her--off currituck." "burned her off currituck!" repeated levi. then suddenly a light seemed to break upon his comprehension. "burned by blueskin!" he repeated, and thereupon flung himself back in his chair and burst into a short, boisterous fit of laughter. "well, by the holy eternal, hi, if that isn't a piece of your tarnal luck. burned by blueskin, was it?" he paused for a moment, as though turning it over in his mind. then he laughed again. "all the same," said he presently, "d'ye see, i can't suffer for blueskin's doings. the money was willed to me, fair and true, and you have got to pay it, hiram white, burn or sink, blueskin or no blueskin." again he puffed for a moment or two in reflective silence. "all the same, hi," said he, once more resuming the thread of talk, "i don't reckon to be too hard on you. you be only half-witted, anyway, and i sha'n't be too hard on you. i give you a month to raise that money, and while you're doing it i'll jest hang around here. i've been in trouble, hi, d'ye see. i'm under a cloud and so i want to keep here, as quiet as may be. i'll tell ye how it came about: i had a set-to with a land pirate in philadelphia, and somebody got hurt. that's the reason i'm here now, and don't you say anything about it. do you understand?" hiram opened his lips as though it was his intent to answer, then seemed to think better of it and contented himself by nodding his head. that thursday night was the first for a six-month that hiram white did not scrape his feet clean at billy martin's doorstep. vi within a week levi west had pretty well established himself among his old friends and acquaintances, though upon a different footing from that of nine years before, for this was a very different levi from that other. nevertheless, he was none the less popular in the barroom of the tavern and at the country store, where he was always the center of a group of loungers. his nine years seemed to have been crowded full of the wildest of wild adventures and happenings, as well by land as by sea, and, given an appreciative audience, he would reel off his yarns by the hour, in a reckless, devil-may-care fashion that set agape even old sea dogs who had sailed the western ocean since boyhood. then he seemed always to have plenty of money, and he loved to spend it at the tavern taproom, with a lavishness that was at once the wonder and admiration of gossips. [illustration: colonel rhett and the pirate _illustration from_ colonies and nation _by_ woodrow wilson _originally published in_ harper's magazine, _may_, ] at that time, as was said, blueskin was the one engrossing topic of talk, and it added not a little to levi's prestige when it was found that he had actually often seen that bloody, devilish pirate with his own eyes. a great, heavy, burly fellow, levi said he was, with a beard as black as a hat--a devil with his sword and pistol afloat, but not so black as he was painted when ashore. he told of many adventures in which blueskin figured and was then always listened to with more than usual gaping interest. as for blueskin, the quiet way in which the pirates conducted themselves at indian river almost made the lewes folk forget what he could do when the occasion called. they almost ceased to remember that poor shattered schooner that had crawled with its ghastly dead and groaning wounded into the harbor a couple of weeks since. but if for a while they forgot who or what blueskin was, it was not for long. one day a bark from bristol, bound for cuba and laden with a valuable cargo of cloth stuffs and silks, put into lewes harbor to take in water. the captain himself came ashore and was at the tavern for two or three hours. it happened that levi was there and that the talk was of blueskin. the english captain, a grizzled old sea dog, listened to levi's yarns with not a little contempt. he had, he said, sailed in the china sea and the indian ocean too long to be afraid of any hog-eating yankee pirate such as this blueskin. a junk full of coolies armed with stink-pots was something to speak of, but who ever heard of the likes of blueskin falling afoul of anything more than a spanish canoe or a yankee coaster? levi grinned. "all the same, my hearty," said he, "if i was you i'd give blueskin a wide berth. i hear that he's cleaned the vessel that was careened awhile ago, and mebby he'll give you a little trouble if you come too nigh him." to this the englishman only answered that blueskin might be----, and that the next afternoon, wind and weather permitting, he intended to heave anchor and run out to sea. levi laughed again. "i wish i might be here to see what'll happen," said he, "but i'm going up the river to-night to see a gal and mebby won't be back again for three or four days." the next afternoon the english bark set sail as the captain promised, and that night lewes town was awake until almost morning, gazing at a broad red glare that lighted up the sky away toward the southeast. two days afterward a negro oysterman came up from indian river with news that the pirates were lying off the inlet, bringing ashore bales of goods from their larger vessel and piling the same upon the beach under tarpaulins. he said that it was known down at indian river that blueskin had fallen afoul of an english bark, had burned her and had murdered the captain and all but three of the crew, who had joined with the pirates. the excitement over this terrible happening had only begun to subside when another occurred to cap it. one afternoon a ship's boat, in which were five men and two women, came rowing into lewes harbor. it was the longboat of the charleston packet, bound for new york, and was commanded by the first mate. the packet had been attacked and captured by the pirates about ten leagues south by east of cape henlopen. the pirates had come aboard of them at night and no resistance had been offered. perhaps it was that circumstance that saved the lives of all, for no murder or violence had been done. nevertheless, officers, passengers and crew had been stripped of everything of value and set adrift in the boats and the ship herself had been burned. the longboat had become separated from the others during the night and had sighted henlopen a little after sunrise. it may be here said that squire hall made out a report of these two occurrences and sent it up to philadelphia by the mate of the packet. but for some reason it was nearly four weeks before a sloop of war was sent around from new york. in the meanwhile, the pirates had disposed of the booty stored under the tarpaulins on the beach at indian river inlet, shipping some of it away in two small sloops and sending the rest by wagons somewhere up the country. vii levi had told the english captain that he was going up-country to visit one of his lady friends. he was gone nearly two weeks. then once more he appeared, as suddenly, as unexpectedly, as he had done when he first returned to lewes. hiram was sitting at supper when the door opened and levi walked in, hanging up his hat behind the door as unconcernedly as though he had only been gone an hour. he was in an ugly, lowering humor and sat himself down at the table without uttering a word, resting his chin upon his clenched fist and glowering fixedly at the corn cake while dinah fetched him a plate and knife and fork. his coming seemed to have taken away all of hiram's appetite. he pushed away his plate and sat staring at his stepbrother, who presently fell to at the bacon and eggs like a famished wolf. not a word was said until levi had ended his meal and filled his pipe. "look'ee, hiram," said he, as he stooped over the fire and raked out a hot coal. "look'ee, hiram! i've been to philadelphia, d'ye see, a-settlin' up that trouble i told you about when i first come home. d'ye understand? d'ye remember? d'ye get it through your skull?" he looked around over his shoulder, waiting as though for an answer. but getting none, he continued: "i expect two gentlemen here from philadelphia to-night. they're friends of mine and are coming to talk over the business and ye needn't stay at home, hi. you can go out somewhere, d'ye understand?" and then he added with a grin, "ye can go to see sally." hiram pushed back his chair and arose. he leaned with his back against the side of the fireplace. "i'll stay at home," said he presently. "but i don't want you to stay at home, hi," said levi. "we'll have to talk business and i want you to go!" "i'll stay at home," said hiram again. levi's brow grew as black as thunder. he ground his teeth together and for a moment or two it seemed as though an explosion was coming. but he swallowed his passion with a gulp. "you're a----pig-headed, half-witted fool," said he. hiram never so much as moved his eyes. "as for you," said levi, whirling round upon dinah, who was clearing the table, and glowering balefully upon the old negress, "you put them things down and git out of here. don't you come nigh this kitchen again till i tell ye to. if i catch you pryin' around may i be ----, eyes and liver, if i don't cut your heart out." * * * * * in about half an hour levi's friends came; the first a little, thin, wizened man with a very foreign look. he was dressed in a rusty black suit and wore gray yarn stockings and shoes with brass buckles. the other was also plainly a foreigner. he was dressed in sailor fashion, with petticoat breeches of duck, a heavy pea-jacket, and thick boots, reaching to the knees. he wore a red sash tied around his waist, and once, as he pushed back his coat, hiram saw the glitter of a pistol butt. he was a powerful, thickset man, low-browed and bull-necked, his cheek, and chin, and throat closely covered with a stubble of blue-black beard. he wore a red kerchief tied around his head and over it a cocked hat, edged with tarnished gilt braid. levi himself opened the door to them. he exchanged a few words outside with his visitors, in a foreign language of which hiram understood nothing. neither of the two strangers spoke a word to hiram: the little man shot him a sharp look out of the corners of his eyes and the burly ruffian scowled blackly at him, but beyond that neither vouchsafed him any regard. levi drew to the shutters, shot the bolt in the outer door, and tilted a chair against the latch of the one that led from the kitchen into the adjoining room. then the three worthies seated themselves at the table which dinah had half cleared of the supper china, and were presently deeply engrossed over a packet of papers which the big, burly man had brought with him in the pocket of his pea-jacket. the confabulation was conducted throughout in the same foreign language which levi had used when first speaking to them--a language quite unintelligible to hiram's ears. now and then the murmur of talk would rise loud and harsh over some disputed point; now and then it would sink away to whispers. twice the tall clock in the corner whirred and sharply struck the hour, but throughout the whole long consultation hiram stood silent, motionless as a stock, his eyes fixed almost unwinkingly upon the three heads grouped close together around the dim, flickering light of the candle and the papers scattered upon the table. suddenly the talk came to an end, the three heads separated and the three chairs were pushed back, grating harshly. levi rose, went to the closet and brought thence a bottle of hiram's apple brandy, as coolly as though it belonged to himself. he set three tumblers and a crock of water upon the table and each helped himself liberally. as the two visitors departed down the road, levi stood for a while at the open door, looking after the dusky figures until they were swallowed in the darkness. then he turned, came in, shut the door, shuddered, took a final dose of the apple brandy and went to bed, without, since his first suppressed explosion, having said a single word to hiram. hiram, left alone, stood for a while, silent, motionless as ever, then he looked slowly about him, gave a shake of the shoulders as though to arouse himself, and taking the candle, left the room, shutting the door noiselessly behind him. viii this time of levi west's unwelcome visitation was indeed a time of bitter trouble and tribulation to poor hiram white. money was of very different value in those days than it is now, and five hundred pounds was in its way a good round lump--in sussex county it was almost a fortune. it was a desperate struggle for hiram to raise the amount of his father's bequest to his stepbrother. squire hall, as may have been gathered, had a very warm and friendly feeling for hiram, believing in him when all others disbelieved; nevertheless, in the matter of money the old man was as hard and as cold as adamant. he would, he said, do all he could to help hiram, but that five hundred pounds must and should be raised--hiram must release his security bond. he would loan him, he said, three hundred pounds, taking a mortgage upon the mill. he would have lent him four hundred but that there was already a first mortgage of one hundred pounds upon it, and he would not dare to put more than three hundred more atop of that. hiram had a considerable quantity of wheat which he had bought upon speculation and which was then lying idle in a philadelphia storehouse. this he had sold at public sale and at a very great sacrifice; he realized barely one hundred pounds upon it. the financial horizon looked very black to him; nevertheless, levi's five hundred pounds was raised, and paid into squire hall's hands, and squire hall released hiram's bond. the business was finally closed on one cold, gray afternoon in the early part of december. as hiram tore his bond across and then tore it across again and again, squire hall pushed back the papers upon his desk and cocked his feet upon its slanting top. "hiram," said he, abruptly, "hiram, do you know that levi west is forever hanging around billy martin's house, after that pretty daughter of his?" so long a space of silence followed the speech that the squire began to think that hiram might not have heard him. but hiram had heard. "no," said he, "i didn't know it." "well, he is," said squire hall. "it's the talk of the whole neighborhood. the talk's pretty bad, too. d'ye know that they say that she was away from home three days last week, nobody knew where? the fellow's turned her head with his sailor's yarns and his traveler's lies." hiram said not a word, but he sat looking at the other in stolid silence. "that stepbrother of yours," continued the old squire presently, "is a rascal--he is a rascal, hiram, and i mis-doubt he's something worse. i hear he's been seen in some queer places and with queer company of late." he stopped again, and still hiram said nothing. "and look'ee, hiram," the old man resumed, suddenly, "i do hear that you be courtin' the girl, too; is that so?" "yes," said hiram, "i'm courtin' her, too." "tut! tut!" said the squire, "that's a pity, hiram. i'm afraid your cakes are dough." after he had left the squire's office, hiram stood for a while in the street, bareheaded, his hat in his hand, staring unwinkingly down at the ground at his feet, with stupidly drooping lips and lackluster eyes. presently he raised his hand and began slowly smoothing down the sandy shock of hair upon his forehead. at last he aroused himself with a shake, looked dully up and down the street, and then, putting on his hat, turned and walked slowly and heavily away. the early dusk of the cloudy winter evening was settling fast, for the sky was leaden and threatening. at the outskirts of the town hiram stopped again and again stood for a while in brooding thought. then, finally, he turned slowly, not the way that led homeward, but taking the road that led between the bare and withered fields and crooked fences toward billy martin's. it would be hard to say just what it was that led hiram to seek billy martin's house at that time of day--whether it was fate or ill fortune. he could not have chosen a more opportune time to confirm his own undoing. what he saw was the very worst that his heart feared. along the road, at a little distance from the house, was a mock-orange hedge, now bare, naked, leafless. as hiram drew near he heard footsteps approaching and low voices. he drew back into the fence corner and there stood, half sheltered by the stark network of twigs. two figures passed slowly along the gray of the roadway in the gloaming. one was his stepbrother, the other was sally martin. levi's arm was around her, he was whispering into her ear, and her head rested upon his shoulder. hiram stood as still, as breathless, as cold as ice. they stopped upon the side of the road just beyond where he stood. hiram's eyes never left them. there for some time they talked together in low voices, their words now and then reaching the ears of that silent, breathless listener. suddenly there came the clattering of an opening door, and then betty martin's voice broke the silence, harshly, shrilly: "sal!--sal!--sally martin! you, sally martin! come in yere. where be ye?" the girl flung her arms around levi's neck and their lips met in one quick kiss. the next moment she was gone, flying swiftly, silently, down the road past where hiram stood, stooping as she ran. levi stood looking after her until she was gone; then he turned and walked away whistling. his whistling died shrilly into silence in the wintry distance, and then at last hiram came stumbling out from the hedge. his face had never looked before as it looked then. ix hiram was standing in front of the fire with his hands clasped behind his back. he had not touched the supper on the table. levi was eating with an appetite. suddenly he looked over his plate at his stepbrother. "how about that five hundred pounds, hiram?" said he. "i gave ye a month to raise it and the month ain't quite up yet, but i'm goin' to leave this here place day after to-morrow--by next day at the furd'st--and i want the money that's mine." "i paid it to squire hall to-day and he has it fer ye," said hiram, dully. levi laid down his knife and fork with a clatter. "squire hall!" said he, "what's squire hall got to do with it? squire hall didn't have the use of that money. it was you had it and you have got to pay it back to me, and if you don't do it, by g----, i'll have the law on you, sure as you're born." "squire hall's trustee--i ain't your trustee," said hiram, in the same dull voice. "i don't know nothing about trustees," said levi, "or anything about lawyer business, either. what i want to know is, are you going to pay me my money or no?" "no," said hiram, "i ain't--squire hall 'll pay ye; you go to him." levi west's face grew purple red. he pushed back, his chair grating harshly. "you--bloody land pirate!" he said, grinding his teeth together. "i see through your tricks. you're up to cheating me out of my money. you know very well that squire hall is down on me, hard and bitter--writin' his ---- reports to philadelphia and doing all he can to stir up everybody agin me and to bring the bluejackets down on me. i see through your tricks as clear as glass, but ye sha'n't trick me. i'll have my money if there's law in the land--ye bloody, unnatural thief ye, who'd go agin your dead father's will!" then--if the roof had fallen in upon him, levi west could not have been more amazed--hiram suddenly strode forward, and, leaning half across the table with his fists clenched, fairly glared into levi's eyes. his face, dull, stupid, wooden, was now fairly convulsed with passion. the great veins stood out upon his temples like knotted whipcords, and when he spoke his voice was more a breathless snarl than the voice of a christian man. "ye'll have the law, will ye?" said he. "ye'll--have the law, will ye? you're afeared to go to law--levi west--you try th' law--and see how ye like it. who 're you to call me thief--ye bloody, murderin' villain ye! you're the thief--levi west--you come here and stole my daddy from me--ye did. you make me ruin--myself to pay what oughter to been mine--then--ye--ye steal the gal i was courtin', to boot." he stopped and his lips writhed for words to say. "i know ye," said he, grinding his teeth. "i know ye! and only for what my daddy made me promise i'd a-had you up to the magistrate's before this." then, pointing with quivering finger: "there's the door--you see it! go out that there door and don't never come into it again--if ye do--or if ye ever come where i can lay eyes on ye again--by th' holy holy i'll hale ye up to the squire's office and tell all i know and all i've seen. oh, i'll give ye your belly-fill of law if--ye want th' law! git out of the house, i say!" as hiram spoke levi seemed to shrink together. his face changed from its copper color to a dull, waxy yellow. when the other ended he answered never a word. but he pushed back his chair, rose, put on his hat and, with a furtive, sidelong look, left the house, without stopping to finish the supper which he had begun. he never entered hiram white's door again. x hiram had driven out the evil spirit from his home, but the mischief that it had brewed was done and could not be undone. the next day it was known that sally martin had run away from home, and that she had run away with levi west. old billy martin had been in town in the morning with his rifle, hunting for levi and threatening if he caught him to have his life for leading his daughter astray. and, as the evil spirit had left hiram's house, so had another and a greater evil spirit quitted its harborage. it was heard from indian river in a few days more that blueskin had quitted the inlet and had sailed away to the southeast; and it was reported, by those who seemed to know, that he had finally quitted those parts. it was well for himself that blueskin left when he did, for not three days after he sailed away the _scorpion_ sloop-of-war dropped anchor in lewes harbor. the new york agent of the unfortunate packet and a government commissioner had also come aboard the _scorpion_. without loss of time, the officer in command instituted a keen and searching examination that brought to light some singularly curious facts. it was found that a very friendly understanding must have existed for some time between the pirates and the people of indian river, for, in the houses throughout that section, many things--some of considerable value--that had been taken by the pirates from the packet, were discovered and seized by the commissioner. valuables of a suspicious nature had found their way even into the houses of lewes itself. the whole neighborhood seemed to have become more or less tainted by the presence of the pirates. even poor hiram white did not escape the suspicions of having had dealings with them. of course the examiners were not slow in discovering that levi west had been deeply concerned with blueskin's doings. old dinah and black bob were examined, and not only did the story of levi's two visitors come to light, but also the fact that hiram was present and with them while they were in the house disposing of the captured goods to their agent. of all that he had endured, nothing seemed to cut poor hiram so deeply and keenly as these unjust suspicions. they seemed to bring the last bitter pang, hardest of all to bear. levi had taken from him his father's love; he had driven him, if not to ruin, at least perilously close to it. he had run away with the girl he loved, and now, through him, even hiram's good name was gone. neither did the suspicions against him remain passive; they became active. goldsmiths' bills, to the amount of several thousand pounds, had been taken in the packet and hiram was examined with an almost inquisitorial closeness and strictness as to whether he had or had not knowledge of their whereabouts. under his accumulated misfortunes, he grew not only more dull, more taciturn, than ever, but gloomy, moody, brooding as well. for hours he would sit staring straight before him into the fire, without moving so much as a hair. one night--it was a bitterly cold night in february, with three inches of dry and gritty snow upon the ground--while hiram sat thus brooding, there came, of a sudden, a soft tap upon the door. low and hesitating as it was, hiram started violently at the sound. he sat for a while, looking from right to left. then suddenly pushing back his chair, he arose, strode to the door, and flung it wide open. it was sally martin. [illustration: the pirate's christmas _originally published in_ harper's weekly, _christmas, _] hiram stood for a while staring blankly at her. it was she who first spoke. "won't you let me come in, hi?" said she. "i'm nigh starved with the cold and i'm fit to die, i'm so hungry. for god's sake, let me come in." "yes," said hiram, "i'll let you come in, but why don't you go home?" the poor girl was shivering and chattering with the cold; now she began crying, wiping her eyes with the corner of a blanket in which her head and shoulders were wrapped. "i have been home, hiram," she said, "but dad, he shut the door in my face. he cursed me just awful, hi--i wish i was dead!" "you better come in," said hiram. "it's no good standing out there in the cold." he stood aside and the girl entered, swiftly, gratefully. at hiram's bidding black dinah presently set some food before sally and she fell to eating ravenously, almost ferociously. meantime, while she ate, hiram stood with his back to the fire, looking at her face--that face once so round and rosy, now thin, pinched, haggard. "are you sick, sally?" said he presently. "no," said she, "but i've had pretty hard times since i left home, hi." the tears sprang to her eyes at the recollection of her troubles, but she only wiped them hastily away with the back of her hand, without stopping in her eating. a long pause of dead silence followed. dinah sat crouched together on a cricket at the other side of the hearth, listening with interest. hiram did not seem to see her. "did you go off with levi?" said he at last, speaking abruptly. the girl looked up furtively under her brows. "you needn't be afeared to tell," he added. "yes," said she at last, "i did go off with him, hi." "where've you been?" at the question, she suddenly laid down her knife and fork. "don't you ask me that, hi," said she, agitatedly, "i can't tell you that. you don't know levi, hiram; i darsn't tell you anything he don't want me to. if i told you where i been he'd hunt me out, no matter where i was, and kill me. if you only knew what i know about him, hiram, you wouldn't ask anything about him." hiram stood looking broodingly at her for a long time; then at last he again spoke. "i thought a sight of you onc't, sally," said he. sally did not answer immediately, but, after a while, she suddenly looked up. "hiram," said she, "if i tell ye something will you promise on your oath not to breathe a word to any living soul?" hiram nodded. "then i'll tell you, but if levi finds i've told he'll murder me as sure as you're standin' there. come nigher--i've got to whisper it." he leaned forward close to her where she sat. she looked swiftly from right to left; then raising her lips she breathed into his ear: "i'm an honest woman, hi. i was married to levi west before i run away." xi the winter had passed, spring had passed, and summer had come. whatever hiram had felt, he had made no sign of suffering. nevertheless, his lumpy face had begun to look flabby, his cheeks hollow, and his loose-jointed body shrunk more awkwardly together into its clothes. he was often awake at night, sometimes walking up and down his room until far into the small hours. it was through such a wakeful spell as this that he entered into the greatest, the most terrible, happening of his life. it was a sulphurously hot night in july. the air was like the breath of a furnace, and it was a hard matter to sleep with even the easiest mind and under the most favorable circumstances. the full moon shone in through the open window, laying a white square of light upon the floor, and hiram, as he paced up and down, up and down, walked directly through it, his gaunt figure starting out at every turn into sudden brightness as he entered the straight line of misty light. the clock in the kitchen whirred and rang out the hour of twelve, and hiram stopped in his walk to count the strokes. the last vibration died away into silence, and still he stood motionless, now listening with a new and sudden intentness, for, even as the clock rang the last stroke, he heard soft, heavy footsteps, moving slowly and cautiously along the pathway before the house and directly below the open window. a few seconds more and he heard the creaking of rusty hinges. the mysterious visitor had entered the mill. hiram crept softly to the window and looked out. the moon shone full on the dusty, shingled face of the old mill, not thirty steps away, and he saw that the door was standing wide open. a second or two of stillness followed, and then, as he still stood looking intently, he saw the figure of a man suddenly appear, sharp and vivid, from the gaping blackness of the open doorway. hiram could see his face as clear as day. it was levi west, and he carried an empty meal bag over his arm. levi west stood looking from right to left for a second or two, and then he took off his hat and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. then he softly closed the door behind him and left the mill as he had come, and with the same cautious step. hiram looked down upon him as he passed close to the house and almost directly beneath. he could have touched him with his hand. fifty or sixty yards from the house levi stopped and a second figure arose from the black shadow in the angle of the worm fence and joined him. they stood for a while talking together, levi pointing now and then toward the mill. then the two turned, and, climbing over the fence, cut across an open field and through the tall, shaggy grass toward the southeast. hiram straightened himself and drew a deep breath, and the moon, shining full upon his face, showed it twisted, convulsed, as it had been when he had fronted his stepbrother seven months before in the kitchen. great beads of sweat stood on his brow and he wiped them away with his sleeve. then, coatless, hatless as he was, he swung himself out of the window, dropped upon the grass, and, without an instant of hesitation, strode off down the road in the direction that levi west had taken. as he climbed the fence where the two men had climbed it he could see them in the pallid light, far away across the level, scrubby meadow land, walking toward a narrow strip of pine woods. a little later they entered the sharp-cut shadows beneath the trees and were swallowed in the darkness. with fixed eyes and close-shut lips, as doggedly, as inexorably as though he were a nemesis hunting his enemy down, hiram followed their footsteps across the stretch of moonlit open. then, by and by, he also was in the shadow of the pines. here, not a sound broke the midnight hush. his feet made no noise upon the resinous softness of the ground below. in that dead, pulseless silence he could distinctly hear the distant voices of levi and his companion, sounding loud and resonant in the hollow of the woods. beyond the woods was a cornfield, and presently he heard the rattling of the harsh leaves as the two plunged into the tasseled jungle. here, as in the woods, he followed them, step by step, guided by the noise of their progress through the canes. beyond the cornfield ran a road that, skirting to the south of lewes, led across a wooden bridge to the wide salt marshes that stretched between the town and the distant sand hills. coming out upon this road hiram found that he had gained upon those he followed, and that they now were not fifty paces away, and he could see that levi's companion carried over his shoulder what looked like a bundle of tools. he waited for a little while to let them gain their distance and for the second time wiped his forehead with his shirt sleeve; then, without ever once letting his eyes leave them, he climbed the fence to the roadway. for a couple of miles or more he followed the two along the white, level highway, past silent, sleeping houses, past barns, sheds, and haystacks, looming big in the moonlight, past fields, and woods, and clearings, past the dark and silent skirts of the town, and so, at last, out upon the wide, misty salt marshes, which seemed to stretch away interminably through the pallid light, yet were bounded in the far distance by the long, white line of sand hills. across the level salt marshes he followed them, through the rank sedge and past the glassy pools in which his own inverted image stalked beneath as he stalked above; on and on, until at last they had reached a belt of scrub pines, gnarled and gray, that fringed the foot of the white sand hills. here hiram kept within the black network of shadow. the two whom he followed walked more in the open, with their shadows, as black as ink, walking along in the sand beside them, and now, in the dead, breathless stillness, might be heard, dull and heavy, the distant thumping, pounding roar of the atlantic surf, beating on the beach at the other side of the sand hills, half a mile away. at last the two rounded the southern end of the white bluff, and when hiram, following, rounded it also, they were no longer to be seen. before him the sand hill rose, smooth and steep, cutting in a sharp ridge against the sky. up this steep hill trailed the footsteps of those he followed, disappearing over the crest. beyond the ridge lay a round, bowl-like hollow, perhaps fifty feet across and eighteen or twenty feet deep, scooped out by the eddying of the winds into an almost perfect circle. hiram, slowly, cautiously, stealthily, following their trailing line of footmarks, mounted to the top of the hillock and peered down into the bowl beneath. the two men were sitting upon the sand, not far from the tall, skeleton-like shaft of a dead pine tree that rose, stark and gray, from the sand in which it may once have been buried, centuries ago. xii levi had taken off his coat and waistcoat and was fanning himself with his hat. he was sitting upon the bag he had brought from the mill and which he had spread out upon the sand. his companion sat facing him. the moon shone full upon him and hiram knew him instantly--he was the same burly, foreign-looking ruffian who had come with the little man to the mill that night to see levi. he also had his hat off and was wiping his forehead and face with a red handkerchief. beside him lay the bundle of tools he had brought--a couple of shovels, a piece of rope, and a long, sharp iron rod. the two men were talking together, but hiram could not understand what they said, for they spoke in the same foreign language that they had before used. but he could see his stepbrother point with his finger, now to the dead tree and now to the steep, white face of the opposite side of the bowl-like hollow. at last, having apparently rested themselves, the conference, if conference it was, came to an end, and levi led the way, the other following, to the dead pine tree. here he stopped and began searching, as though for some mark; then, having found that which he looked for, he drew a tapeline and a large brass pocket compass from his pocket. he gave one end of the tape line to his companion, holding the other with his thumb pressed upon a particular part of the tree. taking his bearings by the compass, he gave now and then some orders to the other, who moved a little to the left or the right as he bade. at last he gave a word of command, and, thereupon, his companion drew a wooden peg from his pocket and thrust it into the sand. from this peg as a base they again measured, taking bearings by the compass, and again drove a peg. for a third time they repeated their measurements and then, at last, seemed to have reached the point which they aimed for. here levi marked a cross with his heel upon the sand. his companion brought him the pointed iron rod which lay beside the shovels, and then stood watching as levi thrust it deep into the sand, again and again, as though sounding for some object below. it was some while before he found that for which he was seeking, but at last the rod struck with a jar upon some hard object below. after making sure of success by one or two additional taps with the rod, levi left it remaining where it stood, brushing the sand from his hands. "now fetch the shovels, pedro," said he, speaking for the first time in english. the two men were busy for a long while, shoveling away the sand. the object for which they were seeking lay buried some six feet deep, and the work was heavy and laborious, the shifting sand sliding back, again and again, into the hole. but at last the blade of one of the shovels struck upon some hard substance and levi stooped and brushed away the sand with the palm of his hand. levi's companion climbed out of the hole which they had dug and tossed the rope which he had brought with the shovels down to the other. levi made it fast to some object below and then himself mounted to the level of the sand above. pulling together, the two drew up from the hole a heavy iron-bound box, nearly three feet long and a foot wide and deep. levi's companion stooped and began untying the rope which had been lashed to a ring in the lid. what next happened happened suddenly, swiftly, terribly. levi drew back a single step, and shot one quick, keen look to right and to left. he passed his hand rapidly behind his back, and the next moment hiram saw the moonlight gleam upon the long, sharp, keen blade of a knife. levi raised his arm. then, just as the other arose from bending over the chest, he struck, and struck again, two swift, powerful blows. hiram saw the blade drive, clean and sharp, into the back, and heard the hilt strike with a dull thud against the ribs--once, twice. the burly, black-bearded wretch gave a shrill, terrible cry and fell staggering back. then, in an instant, with another cry, he was up and clutched levi with a clutch of despair by the throat and by the arm. then followed a struggle, short, terrible, silent. not a sound was heard but the deep, panting breath and the scuffling of feet in the sand, upon which there now poured and dabbled a dark-purple stream. but it was a one-sided struggle and lasted only for a second or two. levi wrenched his arm loose from the wounded man's grasp, tearing his shirt sleeve from the wrist to the shoulder as he did so. again and again the cruel knife was lifted, and again and again it fell, now no longer bright, but stained with red. then, suddenly, all was over. levi's companion dropped to the sand without a sound, like a bundle of rags. for a moment he lay limp and inert; then one shuddering spasm passed over him and he lay silent and still, with his face half buried in the sand. levi, with the knife still gripped tight in his hand, stood leaning over his victim, looking down upon his body. his shirt and hand, and even his naked arm, were stained and blotched with blood. the moon lit up his face and it was the face of a devil from hell. at last he gave himself a shake, stooped and wiped his knife and hand and arm upon the loose petticoat breeches of the dead man. he thrust his knife back into its sheath, drew a key from his pocket and unlocked the chest. in the moonlight hiram could see that it was filled mostly with paper and leather bags, full, apparently of money. all through this awful struggle and its awful ending hiram lay, dumb and motionless, upon the crest of the sand hill, looking with a horrid fascination upon the death struggle in the pit below. now hiram arose. the sand slid whispering down from the crest as he did so, but levi was too intent in turning over the contents of the chest to notice the slight sound. [illustration: "he lay silent and still, with his face half buried in the sand" _illustration from_ blueskin, the pirate _by_ howard pyle _originally published in_ the northwestern miller, _december, _] hiram's face was ghastly pale and drawn. for one moment he opened his lips as though to speak, but no word came. so, white, silent, he stood for a few seconds, rather like a statue than a living man, then, suddenly, his eyes fell upon the bag, which levi had brought with him, no doubt, to carry back the treasure for which he and his companion were in search, and which still lay spread out on the sand where it had been flung. then, as though a thought had suddenly flashed upon him, his whole expression changed, his lips closed tightly together as though fearing an involuntary sound might escape, and the haggard look dissolved from his face. cautiously, slowly, he stepped over the edge of the sand hill and down the slanting face. his coming was as silent as death, for his feet made no noise as he sank ankle-deep in the yielding surface. so, stealthily, step by step, he descended, reached the bag, lifted it silently. levi, still bending over the chest and searching through the papers within, was not four feet away. hiram raised the bag in his hands. he must have made some slight rustle as he did so, for suddenly levi half turned his head. but he was one instant too late. in a flash the bag was over his head--shoulders--arms--body. then came another struggle, as fierce, as silent, as desperate as that other--and as short. wiry, tough, and strong as he was, with a lean, sinewy, nervous vigor, fighting desperately for his life as he was, levi had no chance against the ponderous strength of his stepbrother. in any case, the struggle could not have lasted long; as it was, levi stumbled backward over the body of his dead mate and fell, with hiram upon him. maybe he was stunned by the fall; maybe he felt the hopelessness of resistance, for he lay quite still while hiram, kneeling upon him, drew the rope from the ring of the chest and, without uttering a word, bound it tightly around both the bag and the captive within, knotting it again and again and drawing it tight. only once was a word spoken. "if you'll lemme go," said a muffled voice from the bag, "i'll give you five thousand pounds--it's in that there box." hiram answered never a word, but continued knotting the rope and drawing it tight. xiii the _scorpion_ sloop-of-war lay in lewes harbor all that winter and spring, probably upon the slim chance of a return of the pirates. it was about eight o'clock in the morning and lieutenant maynard was sitting in squire hall's office, fanning himself with his hat and talking in a desultory fashion. suddenly the dim and distant noise of a great crowd was heard from without, coming nearer and nearer. the squire and his visitor hurried to the door. the crowd was coming down the street shouting, jostling, struggling, some on the footway, some in the roadway. heads were at the doors and windows, looking down upon them. nearer they came, and nearer; then at last they could see that the press surrounded and accompanied one man. it was hiram white, hatless, coatless, the sweat running down his face in streams, but stolid and silent as ever. over his shoulder he carried a bag, tied round and round with a rope. it was not until the crowd and the man it surrounded had come quite near that the squire and the lieutenant saw that a pair of legs in gray-yarn stockings hung from the bag. it was a man he was carrying. hiram had lugged his burden five miles that morning without help and with scarcely a rest on the way. he came directly toward the squire's office and, still surrounded and hustled by the crowd, up the steep steps to the office within. he flung his burden heavily upon the floor without a word and wiped his streaming forehead. the squire stood with his knuckles on his desk, staring first at hiram and then at the strange burden he had brought. a sudden hush fell upon all, though the voices of those without sounded as loud and turbulent as ever. "what is it, hiram?" said squire hall at last. then for the first time hiram spoke, panting thickly. "it's a bloody murderer," said he, pointing a quivering finger at the motionless figure. "here, some of you!" called out the squire. "come! untie this man! who is he?" a dozen willing fingers quickly unknotted the rope and the bag was slipped from the head and body. hair and face and eyebrows and clothes were powdered with meal, but, in spite of all and through all the innocent whiteness, dark spots and blotches and smears of blood showed upon head and arm and shirt. levi raised himself upon his elbow and looked scowlingly around at the amazed, wonderstruck faces surrounding him. "why, it's levi west!" croaked the squire, at last finding his voice. then, suddenly, lieutenant maynard pushed forward, before the others crowded around the figure on the floor, and, clutching levi by the hair, dragged his head backward so as to better see his face. "levi west!" said he in a loud voice. "is this the levi west you've been telling me of? look at that scar and the mark on his cheek! _this is blueskin himself._" xiv in the chest which blueskin had dug up out of the sand were found not only the goldsmiths' bills taken from the packet, but also many other valuables belonging to the officers and the passengers of the unfortunate ship. the new york agents offered hiram a handsome reward for his efforts in recovering the lost bills, but hiram declined it, positively and finally. "all i want," said he, in his usual dull, stolid fashion, "is to have folks know i'm honest." nevertheless, though he did not accept what the agents of the packet offered, fate took the matter into its own hands and rewarded him not unsubstantially. blueskin was taken to england in the _scorpion_. but he never came to trial. while in newgate he hanged himself to the cell window with his own stockings. the news of his end was brought to lewes in the early autumn and squire hall took immediate measures to have the five hundred pounds of his father's legacy duly transferred to hiram. in november hiram married the pirate's widow. [illustration: "there cap'n goldsack goes, creeping, creeping, creeping, looking for his treasure down below!" _illustration from_ cap'n goldsack _by_ william sharp _originally published in_ harper's magazine, _july_, ] chapter vii captain scarfield preface [illustration: captain scarfield] _the author of this narrative cannot recall that, in any history of the famous pirates, he has ever read a detailed and sufficient account of the life and death of capt. john scarfield. doubtless some data concerning his death and the destruction of his schooner might be gathered from the report of lieutenant mainwaring, now filed in the archives of the navy department, but beyond such bald and bloodless narrative the author knows of nothing, unless it be the little chap-book history published by isaiah thomas in newburyport about the year - , entitled, "a true history of the life and death of captain jack scarfield." this lack of particularity in the history of one so notable in his profession it is the design of the present narrative in a measure to supply, and, if the author has seen fit to cast it in the form of a fictional story, it is only that it may make more easy reading for those who see fit to follow the tale from this to its conclusion._ captain scarfield i eleazer cooper, or captain cooper, as was his better-known title in philadelphia, was a prominent member of the society of friends. he was an overseer of the meeting and an occasional speaker upon particular occasions. when at home from one of his many voyages he never failed to occupy his seat in the meeting both on first day and fifth day, and he was regarded by his fellow townsmen as a model of business integrity and of domestic responsibility. more incidental to this history, however, it is to be narrated that captain cooper was one of those trading skippers who carried their own merchandise in their own vessels which they sailed themselves, and on whose decks they did their own bartering. his vessel was a swift, large schooner, the _eliza cooper_, _of philadelphia_, named for his wife. his cruising grounds were the west india islands, and his merchandise was flour and corn meal ground at the brandywine mills at wilmington, delaware. during the war of he had earned, as was very well known, an extraordinary fortune in this trading; for flour and corn meal sold at fabulous prices in the french, spanish, dutch, and danish islands, cut off, as they were, from the rest of the world by the british blockade. the running of this blockade was one of the most hazardous maritime ventures possible, but captain cooper had met with such unvaried success, and had sold his merchandise at such incredible profit that, at the end of the war, he found himself to have become one of the wealthiest merchants of his native city. it was known at one time that his balance in the mechanics' bank was greater than that of any other individual depositor upon the books, and it was told of him that he had once deposited in the bank a chest of foreign silver coin, the exchanged value of which, when translated into american currency, was upward of forty-two thousand dollars--a prodigious sum of money in those days. in person, captain cooper was tall and angular of frame. his face was thin and severe, wearing continually an unsmiling, mask-like expression of continent and unruffled sobriety. his manner was dry and taciturn, and his conduct and life were measured to the most absolute accord with the teachings of his religious belief. he lived in an old-fashioned house on front street below spruce--as pleasant, cheerful a house as ever a trading captain could return to. at the back of the house a lawn sloped steeply down toward the river. to the south stood the wharf and storehouses; to the north an orchard and kitchen garden bloomed with abundant verdure. two large chestnut trees sheltered the porch and the little space of lawn, and when you sat under them in the shade you looked down the slope between two rows of box bushes directly across the shining river to the jersey shore. at the time of our story--that is, about the year --this property had increased very greatly in value, but it was the old home of the coopers, as eleazer cooper was entirely rich enough to indulge his fancy in such matters. accordingly, as he chose to live in the same house where his father and his grandfather had dwelt before him, he peremptorily, if quietly, refused all offers looking toward the purchase of the lot of ground--though it was now worth five or six times its former value. as was said, it was a cheerful, pleasant home, impressing you when you entered it with the feeling of spotless and all-pervading cleanliness--a cleanliness that greeted you in the shining brass door-knocker; that entertained you in the sitting room with its stiff, leather-covered furniture, the brass-headed tacks whereof sparkled like so many stars--a cleanliness that bade you farewell in the spotless stretch of sand-sprinkled hallway, the wooden floor of which was worn into knobs around the nail heads by the countless scourings and scrubbings to which it had been subjected and which left behind them an all-pervading faint, fragrant odor of soap and warm water. eleazer cooper and his wife were childless, but one inmate made the great, silent, shady house bright with life. lucinda fairbanks, a niece of captain cooper's by his only sister, was a handsome, sprightly girl of eighteen or twenty, and a great favorite in the quaker society of the city. it remains only to introduce the final and, perhaps, the most important actor of the narrative--lieut. james mainwaring. during the past twelve months or so he had been a frequent visitor at the cooper house. at this time he was a broad-shouldered, red-cheeked, stalwart fellow of twenty-six or twenty-eight. he was a great social favorite, and possessed the added romantic interest of having been aboard the _constitution_ when she fought the _guerriere_, and of having, with his own hands, touched the match that fired the first gun of that great battle. mainwaring's mother and eliza cooper had always been intimate friends, and the coming and going of the young man during his leave of absence were looked upon in the house as quite a matter of course. half a dozen times a week he would drop in to execute some little commission for the ladies, or, if captain cooper was at home, to smoke a pipe of tobacco with him, to sip a dram of his famous old jamaica rum, or to play a rubber of checkers of an evening. it is not likely that either of the older people was the least aware of the real cause of his visits; still less did they suspect that any passages of sentiment had passed between the young people. [illustration: "he had found the captain agreeable and companionable" _illustration from_ sea robbers of new york _by_ thomas a. janvier _originally published in_ harper's magazine, _november_, ] the truth was that mainwaring and the young lady were very deeply in love. it was a love that they were obliged to keep a profound secret, for not only had eleazer cooper held the strictest sort of testimony against the late war--a testimony so rigorous as to render it altogether unlikely that one of so military a profession as mainwaring practiced could hope for his consent to a suit for marriage, but lucinda could not have married one not a member of the society of friends without losing her own birthright membership therein. she herself might not attach much weight to such a loss of membership in the society, but her fear of, and her respect for, her uncle led her to walk very closely in her path of duty in this respect. accordingly she and mainwaring met as they could--clandestinely--and the stolen moments were very sweet. with equal secrecy lucinda had, at the request of her lover, sat for a miniature portrait to mrs. gregory, which miniature, set in a gold medallion, mainwaring, with a mild, sentimental pleasure, wore hung around his neck and beneath his shirt frill next his heart. in the month of april of the year mainwaring received orders to report at washington. during the preceding autumn the west india pirates, and notably capt. jack scarfield, had been more than usually active, and the loss of the packet _marblehead_ (which, sailing from charleston, south carolina, was never heard of more) was attributed to them. two other coasting vessels off the coast of georgia had been looted and burned by scarfield, and the government had at last aroused itself to the necessity of active measures for repressing these pests of the west india waters. mainwaring received orders to take command of the _yankee_, a swift, light-draught, heavily armed brig of war, and to cruise about the bahama islands and to capture and destroy all the pirates' vessels he could there discover. on his way from washington to new york, where the _yankee_ was then waiting orders, mainwaring stopped in philadelphia to bid good-by to his many friends in that city. he called at the old cooper house. it was on a sunday afternoon. the spring was early and the weather extremely pleasant that day, being filled with a warmth almost as of summer. the apple trees were already in full bloom and filled all the air with their fragrance. everywhere there seemed to be the pervading hum of bees, and the drowsy, tepid sunshine was very delightful. at that time eleazer was just home from an unusually successful voyage to antigua. mainwaring found the family sitting under one of the still leafless chestnut trees, captain cooper smoking his long clay pipe and lazily perusing a copy of the _national gazette_. eleazer listened with a great deal of interest to what mainwaring had to say of his proposed cruise. he himself knew a great deal about the pirates, and, singularly unbending from his normal, stiff taciturnity, he began telling of what he knew, particularly of captain scarfield--in whom he appeared to take an extraordinary interest. vastly to mainwaring's surprise, the old quaker assumed the position of a defendant of the pirates, protesting that the wickedness of the accused was enormously exaggerated. he declared that he knew some of the freebooters very well and that at the most they were poor, misdirected wretches who had, by easy gradation, slid into their present evil ways, from having been tempted by the government authorities to enter into privateering in the days of the late war. he conceded that captain scarfield had done many cruel and wicked deeds, but he averred that he had also performed many kind and benevolent actions. the world made no note of these latter, but took care only to condemn the evil that had been done. he acknowledged that it was true that the pirate had allowed his crew to cast lots for the wife and the daughter of the skipper of the _northern rose_, but there were none of his accusers who told how, at the risk of his own life and the lives of all his crew, he had given succor to the schooner _halifax_, found adrift with all hands down with yellow fever. there was no defender of his actions to tell how he and his crew of pirates had sailed the pest-stricken vessel almost into the rescuing waters of kingston harbor. eleazer confessed that he could not deny that when scarfield had tied the skipper of the _baltimore belle_ naked to the foremast of his own brig he had permitted his crew of cutthroats (who were drunk at the time) to throw bottles at the helpless captive, who died that night of the wounds he had received. for this he was doubtless very justly condemned, but who was there to praise him when he had, at the risk of his life and in the face of the authorities, carried a cargo of provisions which he himself had purchased at tampa bay to the island of bella vista after the great hurricane of ? in this notable adventure he had barely escaped, after a two days' chase, the british frigate _ceres_, whose captain, had a capture been effected, would instantly have hung the unfortunate man to the yardarm in spite of the beneficent mission he was in the act of conducting. in all this eleazer had the air of conducting the case for the defendant. as he talked he became more and more animated and voluble. the light went out in his tobacco pipe, and a hectic spot appeared in either thin and sallow cheek. mainwaring sat wondering to hear the severely peaceful quaker preacher defending so notoriously bloody and cruel a cutthroat pirate as capt. jack scarfield. the warm and innocent surroundings, the old brick house looking down upon them, the odor of apple blossoms and the hum of bees seemed to make it all the more incongruous. and still the elderly quaker skipper talked on and on with hardly an interruption, till the warm sun slanted to the west and the day began to decline. that evening mainwaring stayed to tea and when he parted from lucinda fairbanks it was after nightfall, with a clear, round moon shining in the milky sky and a radiance pallid and unreal enveloping the old house, the blooming apple trees, the sloping lawn and the shining river beyond. he implored his sweetheart to let him tell her uncle and aunt of their acknowledged love and to ask the old man's consent to it, but she would not permit him to do so. they were so happy as they were. who knew but what her uncle might forbid their fondness? would he not wait a little longer? maybe it would all come right after a while. she was so fond, so tender, so tearful at the nearness of their parting that he had not the heart to insist. at the same time it was with a feeling almost of despair that he realized that he must now be gone--maybe for the space of two years--without in all that time possessing the right to call her his before the world. when he bade farewell to the older people it was with a choking feeling of bitter disappointment. he yet felt the pressure of her cheek against his shoulder, the touch of soft and velvet lips to his own. but what were such clandestine endearments compared to what might, perchance, be his--the right of calling her his own when he was far away and upon the distant sea? and, besides, he felt like a coward who had shirked his duty. but he was very much in love. the next morning appeared in a drizzle of rain that followed the beautiful warmth of the day before. he had the coach all to himself, and in the damp and leathery solitude he drew out the little oval picture from beneath his shirt frill and looked long and fixedly with a fond and foolish joy at the innocent face, the blue eyes, the red, smiling lips depicted upon the satinlike, ivory surface. ii for the better part of five months mainwaring cruised about in the waters surrounding the bahama islands. in that time he ran to earth and dispersed a dozen nests of pirates. he destroyed no less than fifteen piratical crafts of all sizes, from a large half-decked whaleboat to a three-hundred-ton barkentine. the name of the _yankee_ became a terror to every sea wolf in the western tropics, and the waters of the bahama islands became swept almost clean of the bloody wretches who had so lately infested it. but the one freebooter of all others whom he sought--capt. jack scarfield--seemed to evade him like a shadow, to slip through his fingers like magic. twice he came almost within touch of the famous marauder, both times in the ominous wrecks that the pirate captain had left behind him. the first of these was the water-logged remains of a burned and still smoking wreck that he found adrift in the great bahama channel. it was the _water witch_, of salem, but he did not learn her tragic story until, two weeks later, he discovered a part of her crew at port maria, on the north coast of jamaica. it was, indeed, a dreadful story to which he listened. the castaways said that they of all the vessel's crew had been spared so that they might tell the commander of the _yankee_, should they meet him, that he might keep what he found, with captain scarfield's compliments, who served it up to him hot cooked. three weeks later he rescued what remained of the crew of the shattered, bloody hulk of the _baltimore belle_, eight of whose crew, headed by the captain, had been tied hand and foot and heaved overboard. again, there was a message from captain scarfield to the commander of the _yankee_ that he might season what he found to suit his own taste. mainwaring was of a sanguine disposition, with fiery temper. he swore, with the utmost vehemence, that either he or john scarfield would have to leave the earth. he had little suspicion of how soon was to befall the ominous realization of his angry prophecy. at that time one of the chief rendezvous of the pirates was the little island of san josé, one of the southernmost of the bahama group. here, in the days before the coming of the _yankee_, they were wont to put in to careen and clean their vessels and to take in a fresh supply of provisions, gunpowder, and rum, preparatory to renewing their attacks upon the peaceful commerce circulating up and down outside the islands, or through the wide stretches of the bahama channel. mainwaring had made several descents upon this nest of freebooters. he had already made two notable captures, and it was here he hoped eventually to capture captain scarfield himself. a brief description of this one-time notorious rendezvous of freebooters might not be out of place. it consisted of a little settlement of those wattled and mud-smeared houses such as you find through the west indies. there were only three houses of a more pretentious sort, built of wood. one of these was a storehouse, another was a rum shop, and a third a house in which dwelt a mulatto woman, who was reputed to be a sort of left-handed wife of captain scarfield's. the population was almost entirely black and brown. one or two jews and a half dozen yankee traders, of hardly dubious honesty, comprised the entire white population. the rest consisted of a mongrel accumulation of negroes and mulattoes and half-caste spaniards, and of a multitude of black or yellow women and children. the settlement stood in a bight of the beach forming a small harbor and affording a fair anchorage for small vessels, excepting it were against the beating of a southeasterly gale. the houses, or cabins, were surrounded by clusters of coco palms and growths of bananas, and a long curve of white beach, sheltered from the large atlantic breakers that burst and exploded upon an outer bar, was drawn like a necklace around the semicircle of emerald-green water. such was the famous pirates' settlement of san josé--a paradise of nature and a hell of human depravity and wickedness--and it was to this spot that mainwaring paid another visit a few days after rescuing the crew of the _baltimore belle_ from her shattered and sinking wreck. [illustration: the buccaneer was a picturesque fellow] as the little bay with its fringe of palms and its cluster of wattle huts opened up to view, mainwaring discovered a vessel lying at anchor in the little harbor. it was a large and well-rigged schooner of two hundred and fifty or three hundred tons burden. as the _yankee_ rounded to under the stern of the stranger and dropped anchor in such a position as to bring her broadside battery to bear should the occasion require, mainwaring set his glass to his eye to read the name he could distinguish beneath the overhang of her stern. it is impossible to describe his infinite surprise when, the white lettering starting out in the circle of the glass, he read, _the eliza cooper, of philadelphia_. he could not believe the evidence of his senses. certainly this sink of iniquity was the last place in the world he would have expected to have fallen in with eleazer cooper. he ordered out the gig and had himself immediately rowed over to the schooner. whatever lingering doubts he might have entertained as to the identity of the vessel were quickly dispelled when he beheld captain cooper himself standing at the gangway to meet him. the impassive face of the friend showed neither surprise nor confusion at what must have been to him a most unexpected encounter. but when he stepped upon the deck of the _eliza cooper_ and looked about him, mainwaring could hardly believe the evidence of his senses at the transformation that he beheld. upon the main deck were eight twelve-pound carronade neatly covered with tarpaulin; in the bow a long tom, also snugly stowed away and covered, directed a veiled and muzzled snout out over the bowsprit. it was entirely impossible for mainwaring to conceal his astonishment at so unexpected a sight, and whether or not his own thoughts lent color to his imagination, it seemed to him that eleazer cooper concealed under the immobility of his countenance no small degree of confusion. after captain cooper had led the way into the cabin and he and the younger man were seated over a pipe of tobacco and the invariable bottle of fine old jamaica rum, mainwaring made no attempt to refrain from questioning him as to the reason for this singular and ominous transformation. "i am a man of peace, james mainwaring," eleazer replied, "but there are men of blood in these waters, and an appearance of great strength is of use to protect the innocent from the wicked. if i remained in appearance the peaceful trader i really am, how long does thee suppose i could remain unassailed in this place?" it occurred to mainwaring that the powerful armament he had beheld was rather extreme to be used merely as a preventive. he smoked for a while in silence and then he suddenly asked the other point-blank whether, if it came to blows with such a one as captain scarfield, would he make a fight of it? the quaker trading captain regarded him for a while in silence. his look, it seemed to mainwaring, appeared to be dubitative as to how far he dared to be frank. "friend james," he said at last, "i may as well acknowledge that my officers and crew are somewhat worldly. of a truth they do not hold the same testimony as i. i am inclined to think that if it came to the point of a broil with those men of iniquity, my individual voice cast for peace would not be sufficient to keep my crew from meeting violence with violence. as for myself, thee knows who i am and what is my testimony in these matters." mainwaring made no comment as to the extremely questionable manner in which the quaker proposed to beat the devil about the stump. presently he asked his second question: "and might i inquire," he said, "what you are doing here and why you find it necessary to come at all into such a wicked, dangerous place as this?" "indeed, i knew thee would ask that question of me," said the friend, "and i will be entirely frank with thee. these men of blood are, after all, but human beings, and as human beings they need food. i have at present upon this vessel upward of two hundred and fifty barrels of flour which will bring a higher price here than anywhere else in the west indies. to be entirely frank with thee, i will tell thee that i was engaged in making a bargain for the sale of the greater part of my merchandise when the news of thy approach drove away my best customer." mainwaring sat for a while in smoking silence. what the other had told him explained many things he had not before understood. it explained why captain cooper got almost as much for his flour and corn meal now that peace had been declared as he had obtained when the war and the blockade were in full swing. it explained why he had been so strong a defender of captain scarfield and the pirates that afternoon in the garden. meantime, what was to be done? eleazer confessed openly that he dealt with the pirates. what now was his--mainwaring's--duty in the case? was the cargo of the _eliza cooper_ contraband and subject to confiscation? and then another question framed itself in his mind: who was this customer whom his approach had driven away? as though he had formulated the inquiry into speech the other began directly to speak of it. "i know," he said, "that in a moment thee will ask me who was this customer of whom i have just now spoken. i have no desire to conceal his name from thee. it was the man who is known as captain jack or captain john scarfield." mainwaring fairly started from his seat. "the devil you say!" he cried. "and how long has it been," he asked, "since he left you?" the quaker skipper carefully refilled his pipe, which he had by now smoked out. "i would judge," he said, "that it is a matter of four or five hours since news was brought overland by means of swift runners of thy approach. immediately the man of wickedness disappeared." here eleazer set the bowl of his pipe to the candle flame and began puffing out voluminous clouds of smoke. "i would have thee understand, james mainwaring," he resumed, "that i am no friend of this wicked and sinful man. his safety is nothing to me. it is only a question of buying upon his part and of selling upon mine. if it is any satisfaction to thee i will heartily promise to bring thee news if i hear anything of the man of belial. i may furthermore say that i think it is likely thee will have news more or less directly of him within the space of a day. if this should happen, however, thee will have to do thy own fighting without help from me, for i am no man of combat nor of blood and will take no hand in it either way." it struck mainwaring that the words contained some meaning that did not appear upon the surface. this significance struck him as so ambiguous that when he went aboard the _yankee_ he confided as much of his suspicions as he saw fit to his second in command, lieutenant underwood. as night descended he had a double watch set and had everything prepared to repel any attack or surprise that might be attempted. iii nighttime in the tropics descends with a surprising rapidity. at one moment the earth is shining with the brightness of the twilight; the next, as it were, all things are suddenly swallowed into a gulf of darkness. the particular night of which this story treats was not entirely clear; the time of year was about the approach of the rainy season, and the tepid, tropical clouds added obscurity to the darkness of the sky, so that the night fell with even more startling quickness than usual. the blackness was very dense. now and then a group of drifting stars swam out of a rift in the vapors, but the night was curiously silent and of a velvety darkness. [illustration: then the real fight began] as the obscurity had deepened, mainwaring had ordered lanthorns to be lighted and slung to the shrouds and to the stays, and the faint yellow of their illumination lighted the level white of the snug little war vessel, gleaming here and there in a starlike spark upon the brass trimmings and causing the rows of cannons to assume curiously gigantic proportions. for some reason mainwaring was possessed by a strange, uneasy feeling. he walked restlessly up and down the deck for a time, and then, still full of anxieties for he knew not what, went into his cabin to finish writing up his log for the day. he unstrapped his cutlass and laid it upon the table, lighted his pipe at the lanthorn and was about preparing to lay aside his coat when word was brought to him that the captain of the trading schooner was come alongside and had some private information to communicate to him. mainwaring surmised in an instant that the trader's visit related somehow to news of captain scarfield, and as immediately, in the relief of something positive to face, all of his feeling of restlessness vanished like a shadow of mist. he gave orders that captain cooper should be immediately shown into the cabin, and in a few moments the tall, angular form of the quaker skipper appeared in the narrow, lanthorn-lighted space. mainwaring at once saw that his visitor was strangely agitated and disturbed. he had taken off his hat, and shining beads of perspiration had gathered and stood clustered upon his forehead. he did not reply to mainwaring's greeting; he did not, indeed, seem to hear it; but he came directly forward to the table and stood leaning with one hand upon the open log book in which the lieutenant had just been writing. mainwaring had reseated himself at the head of the table, and the tall figure of the skipper stood looking down at him as from a considerable height. "james mainwaring," he said, "i promised thee to report if i had news of the pirate. is thee ready now to hear my news?" there was something so strange in his agitation that it began to infect mainwaring with a feeling somewhat akin to that which appeared to disturb his visitor. "i know not what you mean, sir!" he cried, "by asking if i care to hear your news. at this moment i would rather have news of that scoundrel than to have anything i know of in the world." "thou would? thou would?" cried the other, with mounting agitation. "is thee in such haste to meet him as all that? very well; very well, then. suppose i could bring thee face to face with him--what then? hey? hey? face to face with him, james mainwaring!" the thought instantly flashed into mainwaring's mind that the pirate had returned to the island; that perhaps at that moment he was somewhere near at hand. "i do not understand you, sir," he cried. "do you mean to tell me that you know where the villain is? if so, lose no time in informing me, for every instant of delay may mean his chance of again escaping." "no danger of that!" the other declared, vehemently. "no danger of that! i'll tell thee where he is and i'll bring thee to him quick enough!" and as he spoke he thumped his fist against the open log book. in the vehemence of his growing excitement his eyes appeared to shine green in the lanthorn light, and the sweat that had stood in beads upon his forehead was now running in streams down his face. one drop hung like a jewel to the tip of his beaklike nose. he came a step nearer to mainwaring and bent forward toward him, and there was something so strange and ominous in his bearing that the lieutenant instinctively drew back a little where he sat. "captain scarfield sent something to you," said eleazer, almost in a raucous voice, "something that you will be surprised to see." and the lapse in his speech from the quaker "thee" to the plural "you" struck mainwaring as singularly strange. as he was speaking eleazer was fumbling in a pocket of his long-tailed drab coat, and presently he brought something forth that gleamed in the lanthorn light. the next moment mainwaring saw leveled directly in his face the round and hollow nozzle of a pistol. there was an instant of dead silence and then, "i am the man you seek!" said eleazer cooper, in a tense and breathless voice. the whole thing had happened so instantaneously and unexpectedly that for the moment mainwaring sat like one petrified. had a thunderbolt fallen from the silent sky and burst at his feet he could not have been more stunned. he was like one held in the meshes of a horrid nightmare, and he gazed as through a mist of impossibility into the lineaments of the well-known, sober face now transformed as from within into the aspect of a devil. that face, now ashy white, was distorted into a diabolical grin. the teeth glistened in the lamplight. the brows, twisted into a tense and convulsed frown, were drawn down into black shadows, through which the eyes burned a baleful green like the eyes of a wild animal driven to bay. again he spoke in the same breathless voice. "i am john scarfield! look at me, then, if you want to see a pirate!" again there was a little time of silence, through which mainwaring heard his watch ticking loudly from where it hung against the bulkhead. then once more the other began speaking. "you would chase me out of the west indies, would you? g---- ---- you! what are you come to now? you are caught in your own trap, and you'll squeal loud enough before you get out of it. speak a word or make a movement and i'll blow your brains out against the partition behind you! listen to what i say or you are a dead man. sing out an order instantly for my mate and my bos'n to come here to the cabin, and be quick about it, for my finger's on the trigger, and it's only a pull to shut your mouth forever." it was astonishing to mainwaring, in afterward thinking about it all, how quickly his mind began to recover its steadiness after that first astonishing shock. even as the other was speaking he discovered that his brain was becoming clarified to a wonderful lucidity; his thoughts were becoming rearranged, and with a marvelous activity and an alertness he had never before experienced. he knew that if he moved to escape or uttered any outcry he would be instantly a dead man, for the circle of the pistol barrel was directed full against his forehead and with the steadiness of a rock. if he could but for an instant divert that fixed and deadly attention he might still have a chance for life. with the thought an inspiration burst into his mind and he instantly put it into execution; thought, inspiration, and action, as in a flash, were one. he must make the other turn aside his deadly gaze, and instantly he roared out in a voice that stunned his own ears: "strike, bos'n! strike, quick!" taken by surprise, and thinking, doubtless, that another enemy stood behind him, the pirate swung around like a flash with his pistol leveled against the blank boarding. equally upon the instant he saw the trick that had been played upon him and in a second flash had turned again. the turn and return had occupied but a moment of time, but that moment, thanks to the readiness of his own invention, had undoubtedly saved mainwaring's life. as the other turned away his gaze for that brief instant mainwaring leaped forward and upon him. there was a flashing flame of fire as the pistol was discharged and a deafening detonation that seemed to split his brain. for a moment, with reeling senses, he supposed himself to have been shot, the next he knew he had escaped. with the energy of despair he swung his enemy around and drove him with prodigious violence against the corner of the table. the pirate emitted a grunting cry and then they fell together, mainwaring upon the top, and the pistol clattered with them to the floor in their fall. even as he fell, mainwaring roared in a voice of thunder, "all hands repel boarders!" and then again, "all hands repel boarders!" whether hurt by the table edge or not, the fallen pirate struggled as though possessed of forty devils, and in a moment or two mainwaring saw the shine of a long, keen knife that he had drawn from somewhere about his person. the lieutenant caught him by the wrist, but the other's muscles were as though made of steel. they both fought in despairing silence, the one to carry out his frustrated purposes to kill, the other to save his life. again and again mainwaring felt that the knife had been thrust against him, piercing once his arm, once his shoulder, and again his neck. he felt the warm blood streaming down his arm and body and looked about him in despair. the pistol lay near upon the deck of the cabin. still holding the other by the wrist as he could, mainwaring snatched up the empty weapon and struck once and again at the bald, narrow forehead beneath him. a third blow he delivered with all the force he could command, and then with a violent and convulsive throe the straining muscles beneath him relaxed and grew limp and the fight was won. through all the struggle he had been aware of the shouts of voices, of trampling of feet and discharge of firearms, and the thought came to him, even through his own danger, that the _yankee_ was being assaulted by the pirates. as he felt the struggling form beneath him loosen and dissolve into quietude, he leaped up, and snatching his cutlass, which still lay upon the table, rushed out upon the deck, leaving the stricken form lying twitching upon the floor behind him. it was a fortunate thing that he had set double watches and prepared himself for some attack from the pirates, otherwise the _yankee_ would certainly have been lost. as it was, the surprise was so overwhelming that the pirates, who had been concealed in the large whaleboat that had come alongside, were not only able to gain a foothold upon the deck, but for a time it seemed as though they would drive the crew of the brig below the hatches. but as mainwaring, streaming with blood, rushed out upon the deck, the pirates became immediately aware that their own captain must have been overpowered, and in an instant their desperate energy began to evaporate. one or two jumped overboard; one, who seemed to be the mate, fell dead from a pistol shot, and then, in the turn of a hand, there was a rush of a retreat and a vision of leaping forms in the dusky light of the lanthorns and a sound of splashing in the water below. the crew of the _yankee_ continued firing at the phosphorescent wakes of the swimming bodies, but whether with effect it was impossible at the time to tell. iv the pirate captain did not die immediately. he lingered for three or four days, now and then unconscious, now and then semi-conscious, but always deliriously wandering. all the while he thus lay dying, the mulatto woman, with whom he lived in this part of his extraordinary dual existence, nursed and cared for him with such rude attentions as the surroundings afforded. in the wanderings of his mind the same duality of life followed him. now and then he would appear the calm, sober, self-contained, well-ordered member of a peaceful society that his friends in his far-away home knew him to be; at other times the nether part of his nature would leap up into life like a wild beast, furious and gnashing. at the one time he talked evenly and clearly of peaceful things; at the other time he blasphemed and hooted with fury. several times mainwaring, though racked by his own wounds, sat beside the dying man through the silent watches of the tropical nights. oftentimes upon these occasions as he looked at the thin, lean face babbling and talking so aimlessly, he wondered what it all meant. could it have been madness--madness in which the separate entities of good and bad each had, in its turn, a perfect and distinct existence? he chose to think that this was the case. who, within his inner consciousness, does not feel that same ferine, savage man struggling against the stern, adamantine bonds of morality and decorum? were those bonds burst asunder, as it was with this man, might not the wild beast rush forth, as it had rushed forth in him, to rend and to tear? such were the questions that mainwaring asked himself. and how had it all come about? by what easy gradations had the respectable quaker skipper descended from the decorum of his home life, step by step, into such a gulf of iniquity? many such thoughts passed through mainwaring's mind, and he pondered them through the still reaches of the tropical nights while he sat watching the pirate captain struggle out of the world he had so long burdened. at last the poor wretch died, and the earth was well quit of one of its torments. [illustration: "he struck once and again at the bald, narrow forehead beneath him" _illustration from_ captain scarfield _by_ howard pyle _originally published in_ the northwestern miller, _december_ , ] a systematic search was made through the island for the scattered crew, but none was captured. either there were some secret hiding places upon the island (which was not very likely) or else they had escaped in boats hidden somewhere among the tropical foliage. at any rate they were gone. nor, search as he would, could mainwaring find a trace of any of the pirate treasure. after the pirate's death and under close questioning, the weeping mulatto woman so far broke down as to confess in broken english that captain scarfield had taken a quantity of silver money aboard his vessel, but either she was mistaken or else the pirates had taken it thence again and had hidden it somewhere else. nor would the treasure ever have been found but for a most fortuitous accident. mainwaring had given orders that the _eliza cooper_ was to be burned, and a party was detailed to carry the order into execution. at this the cook of the _yankee_ came petitioning for some of the wilmington and brandywine flour to make some plum duff upon the morrow, and mainwaring granted his request in so far that he ordered one of the men to knock open one of the barrels of flour and to supply the cook's demands. the crew detailed to execute this modest order in connection with the destruction of the pirate vessel had not been gone a quarter of an hour when word came back that the hidden treasure had been found. mainwaring hurried aboard the _eliza cooper_, and there in the midst of the open flour barrel he beheld a great quantity of silver coin buried in and partly covered by the white meal. a systematic search was now made. one by one the flour barrels were heaved up from below and burst open on the deck and their contents searched, and if nothing but the meal was found it was swept overboard. the breeze was whitened with clouds of flour, and the white meal covered the surface of the ocean for yards around. in all, upward of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars was found concealed beneath the innocent flour and meal. it was no wonder the pirate captain was so successful, when he could upon an instant's notice transform himself from a wolf of the ocean to a peaceful quaker trader selling flour to the hungry towns and settlements among the scattered islands of the west indies, and so carrying his bloody treasure safely into his quiet northern home. in concluding this part of the narrative it may be added that a wide strip of canvas painted black was discovered in the hold of the _eliza cooper_. upon it, in great white letters, was painted the name, "the bloodhound." undoubtedly this was used upon occasions to cover the real and peaceful title of the trading schooner, just as its captain had, in reverse, covered his sanguine and cruel life by a thin sheet of morality and respectability. this is the true story of the death of capt. jack scarfield. the newburyport chap-book, of which i have already spoken, speaks only of how the pirate disguised himself upon the ocean as a quaker trader. nor is it likely that anyone ever identified eleazer cooper with the pirate, for only mainwaring of all the crew of the _yankee_ was exactly aware of the true identity of captain scarfield. all that was ever known to the world was that eleazer cooper had been killed in a fight with the pirates. in a little less than a year mainwaring was married to lucinda fairbanks. as to eleazer cooper's fortune, which eventually came into the possession of mainwaring through his wife, it was many times a subject of speculation to the lieutenant how it had been earned. there were times when he felt well assured that a part of it at least was the fruit of piracy, but it was entirely impossible to guess how much more was the result of legitimate trading. for a little time it seemed to mainwaring that he should give it all up, but this was at once so impracticable and so quixotic that he presently abandoned it, and in time his qualms and misdoubts faded away and he settled himself down to enjoy that which had come to him through his marriage. in time the mainwarings removed to new york, and ultimately the fortune that the pirate scarfield had left behind him was used in part to found the great shipping house of mainwaring & bigot, whose famous transatlantic packet ships were in their time the admiration of the whole world. [illustration] chapter viii the ruby of kishmooor _prologue_ a very famous pirate of his day was capt. robertson keitt. before embarking upon his later career of infamy, he was, in the beginning, very well known as a reputable merchant in the island of jamaica. thence entering, first of all, upon the business of the african trade, he presently, by regular degrees, became a pirate, and finally ended his career as one of the most renowned freebooters of history. the remarkable adventure through which he at once reached the pinnacle of success, and became in his profession the most famous figure of his day, was the capture of the rajah of kishmoor's great ship, _the sun of the east_. in this vessel was the rajah's favorite queen, who, together with her attendants, was set upon a pilgrimage to mecca. the court of this great oriental potentate was, as may be readily supposed, fairly aglitter with gold and jewels, so that, what with such personal adornments that the queen and her attendants had fetched with them, besides an ample treasury for the expenses of the expedition, an incredible prize of gold and jewels rewarded the freebooters for their successful adventure. among the precious stones taken in this great purchase was the splendid ruby of kishmoor. this, as may be known to the reader, was one of the world's greatest gems, and was unique alike both for its prodigious size and the splendor of its color. this precious jewel the rajah of kishmoor had, upon a certain occasion, bestowed upon his queen, and at the time of her capture she wore it as the centerpiece of a sort of coronet which encircled her forehead and brow. the seizure by the pirate of so considerable a person as that of the queen of kishmoor, and of the enormous treasure that he found aboard her ship, would alone have been sufficient to have established his fame. but the capture of so extraordinary a prize as that of the ruby--which was, in itself, worth the value of an entire oriental kingdom--exalted him at once to the very highest pinnacle of renown. having achieved the capture of this incredible prize, our captain scuttled the great ship and left her to sink with all on board. three lascars of the crew alone escaped to bear the news of this tremendous disaster to an astounded world. as may readily be supposed, it was now no longer possible for captain keitt to hope to live in such comparative obscurity as he had before enjoyed. his was now too remarkable a figure in the eyes of the world. several expeditions from various parts were immediately fitted out against him, and it presently became no longer compatible with his safety to remain thus clearly outlined before the eyes of the world. accordingly, he immediately set about seeking such security as he might now hope to find, which he did the more readily since he had now, and at one cast, so entirely fulfilled his most sanguine expectations of good fortune and of fame. thereafter, accordingly, the adventures of our captain became of a more apocryphal sort. it was known that he reached the west indies in safety, for he was once seen at port royal and twice at spanish town, in the island of jamaica. thereafter, however, he disappeared; nor was it until several years later that the world heard anything concerning him. one day a certain nicholas duckworthy, who had once been gunner aboard the pirate captain's own ship, _the good fortune_, was arrested in the town of bristol in the very act of attempting to sell to a merchant of that place several valuable gems from a quantity which he carried with him tied up in a red bandanna handkerchief. in the confession of which duckworthy afterward delivered himself he declared that captain keitt, after his great adventure, having sailed from africa in safety, and so reached the shores of the new world, had wrecked _the good fortune_ on a coral reef off the windward islands; that he then immediately deserted the ship, and together with duckworthy himself, the sailing master (who was a portuguese), the captain of a brig, _the bloody hand_ (a consort of keitt's), and a villainous rascal named hunt (who, occupying no precise position among the pirates, was at once the instigator of and the partaker in the greatest part of captain keitt's wickednesses), made his way to the nearest port of safety. these five worthies at last fetched the island of jamaica, bringing with them all of the jewels and some of the gold that had been captured from _the sun of the east_. but, upon coming to a division of their booty, it was presently discovered that the rajah's ruby had mysteriously disappeared from the collection of jewels to be divided. the other pirates immediately suspected their captain of having secretly purloined it, and, indeed, so certain were they of his turpitude that they immediately set about taking means to force a confession from him. in this, however, they were so far unsuccessful that the captain, refusing to yield to their importunities, had suffered himself to die under their hands, and had so carried the secret of the hiding place of the great ruby--if he possessed such a secret--along with him. [illustration: captain keitt] duckworthy concluded his confession by declaring that in his opinion he himself, the portuguese sailing master, the captain of _the bloody hand_, and hunt were the only ones of captain keitt's crew who were now alive; for that _the good fortune_ must have broken up in a storm, which immediately followed their desertion of her; in which event the entire crew must inevitably have perished. it may be added that duckworthy himself was shortly hanged, so that, if his surmise was true, there were now only three left alive of all that wicked crew that had successfully carried to its completion the greatest adventure which any pirate in the world had ever, perhaps, embarked upon. i _jonathan rugg_ you may never know what romantic aspirations may lie hidden beneath the most sedate and sober demeanor. to have observed jonathan rugg, who was a tall, lean, loose-jointed young quaker of a somewhat forbidding aspect, with straight, dark hair and a bony, overhanging forehead set into a frown, a pair of small, deep-set eyes, and a square jaw, no one would for a moment have suspected that he concealed beneath so serious an exterior any appetite for romantic adventure. nevertheless, finding himself suddenly transported, as it were, from the quiet of so sober a town as that of philadelphia to the tropical enchantment of kingston, in the island of jamaica, the night brilliant with a full moon that swung in an opal sky, the warm and luminous darkness replete with the mysteries of a tropical night, and burdened with the odors of a land breeze, he suddenly discovered himself to be overtaken with so vehement a desire for some unwonted excitement that, had the opportunity presented itself, he felt himself ready to embrace any adventure with the utmost eagerness, no matter whither it would have conducted him. at home (where he was a clerk in the countinghouse of a leading merchant, by name jeremiah doolittle), should such idle fancies have come to him, he would have looked upon himself as little better than a fool, but now that he found himself for the first time in a foreign country, surrounded by such strange and unusual sights and sounds, all conducive to extravagant imaginations, the wish for some extraordinary and altogether unusual experience took possession of him with a singular vehemence to which he had heretofore been altogether a stranger. in the street where he stood, which was of a shining whiteness and which reflected the effulgence of the moonlight with an incredible distinction, he observed, stretching before him, long lines of white garden walls, overtopped by a prodigious luxuriance of tropical foliage. in these gardens, and set close to the street, stood several pretentious villas and mansions, the slatted blinds and curtains of the windows of which were raised to admit of the freer entrance of the cool and balmy air of the night. from within there issued forth bright lights, together with the exhilarating sound of merry voices laughing and talking, or perhaps a song accompanied by the tinkling music of a spinet or of a guitar. an occasional group of figures, clad in light and summerlike garments, and adorned with gay and startling colors, passed him through the moonlight; so that what with the brightness and warmth of the night, together with all these unusual sights and sounds, it appeared to jonathan rugg that he was rather the inhabitant of some extraordinary land of enchantment and unreality than a dweller upon that sober and solid world in which he had heretofore passed his entire existence. before continuing this narrative the reader may here be informed that our hero had come into this enchanted world as the supercargo of the ship _susanna hayes_, of philadelphia; that he had for several years proved himself so honest and industrious a servant to the merchant house of the worthy jeremiah doolittle that that benevolent man had given to his well-deserving clerk this opportunity at once of gratifying an inclination for foreign travel and of filling a position of trust that should redound to his individual profit. the _susanna hayes_ had entered kingston harbor that afternoon, and this was jonathan's first night spent in those tropical latitudes, whither his fancy and his imagination had so often carried him while he stood over the desk filing the accounts of invoices from foreign parts. it might be finally added that, had he at all conceived how soon and to what a degree his sudden inclination for adventure was to be gratified, his romantic aspirations might have been somewhat dashed at the prospect that lay before him. ii _the mysterious lady with the silver veil_ at that moment our hero suddenly became conscious of the fact that a small wicket in a wooden gate near which he stood had been opened, and that the eyes of an otherwise concealed countenance were observing him with the utmost closeness of scrutiny. he had hardly time to become aware of this observation of his person when the gate itself was opened, and there appeared before him, in the moonlight, the bent and crooked figure of an aged negress. she was clad in a calamanco raiment, and was further adorned with a variety of gaudily colored trimmings, vastly suggestive of the tropical world of which she was an inhabitant. her woolly head was enveloped, after the fashion of her people, in the folds of a gigantic and flaming red turban constructed of an entire pocket handkerchief. her face was pock-pitted to an incredible degree, so that what with this deformity, emphasized by the pouting of her prodigious and shapeless lips, and the rolling of a pair of eyes as yellow as saffron, jonathan rugg thought that he had never beheld a figure at once so extraordinary and so repulsive. it occurred to our hero that here, maybe, was to overtake him such an adventure as that which he had just a moment before been desiring so ardently. nor was he mistaken; for the negress, first looking this way and then that, with an extremely wary and cunning expression, and apparently having satisfied herself that the street, for the moment, was pretty empty of passers, beckoned to him to draw nearer. when he had approached close enough to her she caught him by the sleeve, and, instantly drawing him into the garden beyond, shut and bolted the gate with a quickness and a silence suggestive of the most extravagant secrecy. at the same moment a huge negro suddenly appeared from the shadow of the gatepost, and so placed himself between jonathan and the gate that any attempt to escape would inevitably have entailed a conflict, upon our hero's part, with the sable and giant guardian. says the negress, looking very intently at our hero, "be you afeared, buckra?" "why, no," quoth jonathan; "for to tell thee the truth, friend, though i am a man of peace, being of that religious order known as the society of friends, i am not so weak in person nor so timid in disposition as to warrant me in being afraid of anyone. indeed, were i of a mind to escape, i might, without boasting, declare my belief that i should be able to push my way past even a better man than thy large friend who stands so threateningly in front of yonder gate." at these words the negress broke into so prodigious a grin that, in the moonlight, it appeared as though the whole lower part of her face had been transformed into shining teeth. "you be a brave buckra," said she, in her gibbering english. "you come wid melina, and melina take you to pretty lady, who want you to eat supper wid her." thereupon, and allowing our hero no opportunity to decline this extraordinary invitation, even had he been of a mind to do so, she took him by the hand and led him toward the large and imposing house which commanded the garden. "indeed," says jonathan to himself, as he followed his sable guide--himself followed in turn by the gigantic negro--"indeed, i am like to have my fill of adventure, if anything is to be judged from such a beginning as this." nor did the interior sumptuousness of the mansion at all belie the imposing character of its exterior, for, entering by way of an illuminated veranda, and so coming into a brilliantly lighted hallway beyond, jonathan beheld himself to be surrounded by such a wealth of exquisite and well-appointed tastefulness as it had never before been his good fortune to behold. candles of clarified wax sparkled like stars in chandeliers of crystal. these in turn, catching the illumination, glittered in prismatic fragments with all the varied colors of the rainbow, so that a mellow yet brilliant radiance filled the entire apartment. polished mirrors of a spotless clearness, framed in golden frames and built into the walls, reflected the waxed floors, the rich oriental carpets, and the sumptuous paintings that hung against the ivory-tinted paneling, so that in appearance the beauties of the apartment were continued in bewildering vistas upon every side toward which the beholder directed his gaze. bidding our hero to be seated, which he did with no small degree of embarrassment and constraint, and upon the extreme edge of the gilt and satin-covered chair, the negress who had been his conductor left him for the time being to his own contemplation. almost before he had an opportunity to compose himself into anything more than a part of his ordinary sedateness of demeanor, the silken curtains at the doorway at the other end of the apartment were suddenly divided, and jonathan beheld before him a female figure displaying the most exquisite contour of mold and of proportion. she was clad entirely in white, and was enveloped from head to foot in the folds of a veil of delicate silver gauze, which, though hiding her countenance from recognition, nevertheless permitted sufficient of her beauties to be discerned to suggest the extreme elegance and loveliness of her lineaments. advancing toward our hero, and extending to him a tapering hand as white as alabaster, the fingers encircled with a multitude of jeweled rings, she addressed him thus: "sir," she said, speaking in accents of the most silvery and musical cadence, "you are no doubt vastly surprised to find yourself thus unexpectedly, and almost as by violence, introduced into the house of one who is such an entire stranger to you as myself. but though i am unknown to you, i must inform you that i am better acquainted with my visitor, for my agents have been observing you ever since you landed this afternoon at the dock, and they have followed you ever since, until a little while ago, when you stopped immediately opposite my garden gate. these agents have observed you with a closeness of scrutiny of which you are doubtless entirely unaware. they have even informed me that, owing doubtless to your extreme interest in your new surroundings, you have not as yet supped. knowing this, and that you must now be enjoying a very hearty appetite, i have to ask you if you will do me the extreme favor of sitting at table with me at a repast which you will doubtless be surprised to learn has been hastily prepared entirely in your honor." so saying, and giving jonathan no time for reply, she offered him her hand, and with the most polite insistence conducted him into an exquisitely appointed dining room adjoining. here stood a table covered with a snow-white cloth, and embellished with silver and crystal ornaments of every description. having seated herself and having indicated to jonathan to take the chair opposite to her, the two were presently served with a repast such as our hero had not thought could have existed out of the pages of certain extraordinary oriental tales which one time had fallen to his lot to read. this supper (which in itself might successfully have tempted the taste of a sybarite) was further enhanced by several wines and cordials which, filling the room with the aroma of the sunlit grapes from which they had been expressed, stimulated the appetite, which without them needed no such spur. the lady, who ate but sparingly herself, possessed herself with patience until jonathan's hunger had been appeased. when, however, she beheld that he weakened in his attacks upon the dessert of sweets with which the banquet was concluded, she addressed him upon the business which was evidently entirely occupying her mind. "sir," said she, "you are doubtless aware that everyone, whether man or woman, is possessed of an enemy. in my own case i must inform you that i have no less than three who, to compass their ends, would gladly sacrifice my life itself to their purposes. at no time am i safe from their machinations, nor have i anyone," cried she, exhibiting a great emotion, "to whom i may turn in my need. it was this that led me to hope to find in you a friend in my perils, for, having observed through my agents that you are not only honest in disposition and strong in person, but that you are possessed of a considerable degree of energy and determination, i am most desirous of imposing upon your good nature a trust of which you cannot for a moment suspect the magnitude. tell me, are you willing to assist a poor, defenseless female in her hour of trial?" "indeed, friend," quoth jonathan, with more vivacity than he usually exhibited, with a lenity to which he had heretofore in his lifetime been a stranger--being warmed into such a spirit, doubtless, by the generous wines of which he had partaken--"indeed, friend, if i could but see thy face it would doubtless make my decision in such a matter the more favorable, since i am inclined to think, from the little i can behold of it, that thy appearance must be extremely comely to the eye." "sir," said the lady, exhibiting some amusement at this unexpected sally, "i am, you must know, as god made me. sometime, perhaps, i may be very glad to satisfy your curiosity, and exhibit to you my poor countenance such as it is. but now"--and here she reverted to her more serious mood--"i must again put it to you: are you willing to help an unprotected woman in a period of very great danger to herself? should you decline the assistance which i solicit, my slaves shall conduct you to the gate through which you entered, and suffer you to depart in peace. should you, upon the other hand, accept the trust, you are to receive no reward therefor, except the gratitude of one who thus appeals to you in her helplessness." for a few moments jonathan fell silent, for here, indeed, was he entering into an adventure which infinitely surpassed any anticipation that he could have formed. he was, besides, of a cautious nature, and was entirely disinclined to embark in any affair so obscure and tangled as that in which he now found himself becoming involved. "friend," said he, at last, "i may tell thee that thy story has so far moved me as to give me every inclination to help thee in thy difficulties, but i must also inform thee that i am a man of caution, having never before entered into any business of this sort. therefore, before giving any promise that may bind my future actions, i must, in common wisdom, demand to know what are the conditions that thou hast in mind to impose upon me." "indeed, sir," cried the lady, with great vivacity and with more cheerful accents--as though her mind had been relieved of a burden of fear that her companion might at once have declined even a consideration of her request--"indeed, sir, you will find that the trust which i would impose upon you is in appearance no such great matter as my words may have led you to suppose. "you must know that i am possessed of a little trinket which, in the hands of anyone who, like yourself, is a stranger in these parts, would possess no significance, but which while in my keeping is fraught with infinite menace to me." hereupon, and having so spoken, she clapped her hands, and an attendant immediately entered, disclosing the person of the same negress who had first introduced jonathan into the strange adventure in which he now found himself involved. this creature, who appeared still more deformed and repulsive in the brilliantly lighted room than she had in the moonlight, carried in her hands a white napkin, which she handed to her mistress. this being opened, disclosed a small ivory ball of about the bigness of a lime. nodding to the negress to withdraw, the lady handed him the ivory ball, and jonathan took it with no small degree of curiosity and examined it carefully. it appeared to be of an exceeding antiquity, and of so deep a yellow as to be almost brown in color. it was covered over with strange figures and characters of an oriental sort, which appeared to our hero to be of chinese workmanship. "i must tell you, sir," said the lady, after she had permitted her guest to examine this for a while in silence, "that though this appears to you to be of little worth, it is yet of extreme value. after all, however, it is nothing but a curiosity that anyone who is interested in such matters might possess. what i have to ask you is this: will you be willing to take this into your charge, to guard it with the utmost care and fidelity--yes, even as the apple of your eye--during your continuance in these parts, and to return it to me in safety the day before your departure? by so doing you will render me a service which you may neither understand nor comprehend, but which shall make me your debtor for my entire life." by this time jonathan had pretty well composed his mind for a reply. "friend," said he, "such a matter as this is entirely out of my knowledge of business, which is, indeed, that of a clerk in the mercantile profession. nevertheless, i have every inclination to help thee, though i trust thou mayest have magnified the dangers that beset thee. this appears to me to be a little trifle for such an ado; nevertheless, i will do as thou dost request. i will keep it in safety and will return it to thee upon this day a week hence, by which time i hope to have discharged my cargo and be ready to continue my voyage to demerara." at these words the lady, who had been watching him all the time with a most unaccountable eagerness, burst forth into words of such heartfelt gratitude as to entirely overwhelm our hero. when her transports had been somewhat assuaged she permitted him to depart, and the negress conducted him back through the garden, whence she presently showed him through the gate whither he had entered and out into the street. iii _the terrific encounter with the one-eyed little gentleman in black_ finding himself once more in the open street, jonathan rugg stood for a while in the moonlight, endeavoring to compose his mind into somewhat of that sobriety that was habitual with him; for, indeed, he was not a little excited by the unexpected incidents that had just befallen him. from this effort at composure he was aroused by observing that a little gentleman clad all in black had stopped at a little distance away and was looking very intently at him. in the brightness of the moonlight our hero could see that the little gentleman possessed but a single eye, and that he carried a gold-headed cane in his hand. he had hardly time to observe these particulars, when the other approached him with every appearance of politeness and cordiality. "sir," said he, "surely i am not mistaken in recognizing in you the supercargo of the ship _susanna hayes_, which arrived this afternoon at this port?" "indeed," said jonathan, "thou art right, friend. that is my occupation, and that is whence i came." "to be sure!" said the little gentleman. "to be sure! to be sure! the _susanna hayes_, with a cargo of indian-corn meal, and from my dear good friend jeremiah doolittle, of philadelphia. i know your good master very well--very well indeed. and have you never heard him speak of his friend mr. abner greenway, of kingston, jamaica?" "why, no," replied jonathan, "i have no such recollection of the name--nor do i know that any such name hath ever appeared upon our books." "to be sure! to be sure!" repeated the little gentleman, briskly, and with exceeding good nature. "indeed, my name is not likely to have ever appeared upon your employer's books, for i am not a business correspondent, but one who, in times past, was his extremely intimate friend. there is much i would like to ask about him, and, indeed, i was in hopes that you would have been the bearer of a letter from him. but i have lodgings at a little distance from here, so that if it is not requesting too much of you maybe you will accompany me thither, so that we may talk at our leisure. i would gladly accompany you to your ship instead of urging you to come to my apartments, but i must tell you i am possessed of a devil of a fever, so that my physician hath forbidden me to be out of nights." "indeed," said jonathan, who, you may have observed, was of a very easy disposition--"indeed, i shall be very glad to accompany thee to thy lodgings. there is nothing i would like better than to serve any friend of good jeremiah doolittle's." and thereupon, and with great amity, the two walked off together, the little one-eyed gentleman in black linking his arm confidingly into that of jonathan's, and tapping the pavement continually with his cane as he trotted on at a great pace. he was very well acquainted with the town (of which he was a citizen), and so interesting was his discourse that they had gone a considerable distance before jonathan observed they were entering into a quarter darker and less frequented than that which they had quitted. tall brick houses stood upon either side, between which stretched a narrow, crooked roadway, with a kennel running down the center. in front of one of these houses--a tall and gloomy structure--our hero's conductor stopped and, opening the door with a key, beckoned for him to enter. jonathan having complied, his new-found friend led the way up a flight of steps, against which jonathan's feet beat noisily in the darkness, and at length, having ascended two stairways and having reached a landing, he opened a door at the end of the passage and ushered jonathan into an apartment, unlighted, except for the moonshine, which, coming in through a partly open shutter, lay in a brilliant patch of light upon the floor. his conductor having struck a light with a flint and steel, our hero by the illumination of a single candle presently discovered himself to be in a bedchamber furnished with no small degree of comfort, and even elegance, and having every appearance of a bachelor's chamber. "you will pardon me," said his new acquaintance, "if i shut these shutters and the window, for that devilish fever of which i spoke is of such a sort that i must keep the night air even out from my room, or else i shall be shaking the bones out of my joints and chattering the teeth out of my head by to-morrow morning." so saying he was as good as his word, and not only drew the shutters to, but shot the heavy iron bolt into its place. having accomplished this he bade our hero to be seated, and placing before him some exceedingly superior rum, together with some equally excellent tobacco, they presently fell into the friendliest discourse imaginable. in the course of their talk, which after a while became exceedingly confidential, jonathan confided to his new friend the circumstances of the adventure into which he had been led by the beautiful stranger, and to all that he said concerning his adventure his interlocutor listened with the closest and most scrupulously riveted attention. [illustration: how the buccaneers kept christmas _originally published in_ harper's weekly, _december , _] "upon my word," said he, when jonathan had concluded, "i hope that you may not have been made the victim of some foolish hoax. let me see what it is she has confided to you." "that i will," replied jonathan. and thereupon he thrust his hand into his breeches' pocket and brought forth the ivory ball. no sooner did the one eye of the little gentleman in black light upon the object than a most singular and extraordinary convulsion appeared to seize upon him. had a bullet penetrated his heart he could not have started more violently, nor have sat more rigidly and breathlessly staring. mastering his emotion with the utmost difficulty as jonathan replaced the ball in his pocket, he drew a deep and profound breath and wiped the palm of his hand across his forehead as though arousing himself from a dream. "and you," he said, of a sudden, "are, i understand it, a quaker. do you, then, never carry a weapon, even in such a place as this, where at any moment in the dark a spanish knife may be stuck betwixt your ribs?" "why, no," said jonathan, somewhat surprised that so foreign a topic should have been so suddenly introduced into the discourse. "i am a man of peace and not of blood. the people of the society of friends never carry weapons, either of offense or defense." as jonathan concluded his reply the little gentleman suddenly arose from his chair and moved briskly around to the other side of the room. our hero, watching him with some surprise, beheld him clap to the door and with a single movement shoot the bolt and turn the key therein. the next instant he turned to jonathan a visage transformed as suddenly as though he had dropped a mask from his face. the gossiping and polite little old bachelor was there no longer, but in his stead a man with a countenance convulsed with some furious and nameless passion. "that ball!" he cried, in a hoarse and raucous voice. "that ivory ball! give it to me upon the instant!" as he spoke he whipped out from his bosom a long, keen spanish knife that in its every appearance spoke without equivocation of the most murderous possibilities. the malignant passions that distorted every lineament of the countenance of the little old gentleman in black filled our hero with such astonishment that he knew not whether he were asleep or awake; but when he beheld the other advancing with the naked and shining knife in his hand his reason returned to him like a flash. leaping to his feet, he lost no time in putting the table between himself and his sudden enemy. "indeed, friend," he cried, in a voice penetrated with terror--"indeed, friend, thou hadst best keep thy distance from me, for though i am a man of peace and a shunner of bloodshed, i promise thee that i will not stand still to be murdered without outcry or without endeavoring to defend my life!" "cry as loud as you please!" exclaimed the other. "no one is near this place to hear you! cry until you are hoarse; no one in this neighborhood will stop to ask what is the matter with you. i tell you i am determined to possess myself of that ivory ball, and have it i shall, even though i am obliged to cut out your heart to get it!" as he spoke he grinned with so extraordinary and devilish a distortion of his countenance, and with such an appearance of every intention of carrying out his threat as to send the goose flesh creeping like icy fingers up and down our hero's spine with the most incredible rapidity and acuteness. nevertheless, mastering his fears, jonathan contrived to speak up with a pretty good appearance of spirit. "indeed, friend," he said, "thou appearest to forget that i am a man of twice thy bulk and half thy years, and that though thou hast a knife i am determined to defend myself to the last extremity. i am not going to give thee that which thou demandest of me, and for thy sake i advise thee to open the door and let me go free as i entered, or else harm may befall thee." "fool!" cried the other, hardly giving him time to end. "do you, then, think that i have time to chatter with you while two villains are lying in wait for me, perhaps at the very door? blame your own self for your death!" and, gnashing his teeth with an indescribable menace, and resting his hand upon the table, he vaulted with incredible agility clean across it and upon our hero, who, entirely unprepared for such an extraordinary attack, was flung back against the wall, with an arm as strong as steel clutching his throat and a knife flashing in his very eyes with dreadful portent of instant death. with an instinct to preserve his life, he caught his assailant by the wrist, and, bending it away from himself, set every fiber of his body in a superhuman effort to guard and protect himself. the other, though so much older and smaller, seemed to be composed entirely of fibers of steel, and, in his murderous endeavors, put forth a strength so extraordinary that for a moment our hero felt his heart melt within him with terror for his life. the spittle appeared to dry up within his mouth, and his hair to creep and rise upon his head. with a vehement cry of despair and anguish, he put forth one stupendous effort for defense, and, clapping his heel behind the other's leg, and throwing his whole weight forward, he fairly tripped his antagonist backward as he stood. together they fell upon the floor, locked in the most desperate embrace, and overturning a chair with a prodigious clatter in their descent--our hero upon the top and the little gentleman in black beneath him. as they struck the floor the little man in black emitted a most piercing and terrible scream, and instantly relaxing his efforts of attack, fell to beating the floor with the back of his hands and drubbing with his heels upon the rug in which he had become entangled. our hero leaped to his feet, and with dilating eyes and expanding brain and swimming sight stared down upon the other like one turned to a stone. he beheld instantly what had occurred, and that he had, without so intending, killed a fellow man. the knife, turned away from his own person, had in their fall been plunged into the bosom of the other, and he now lay quivering in the last throes of death. as jonathan gazed he beheld a thin red stream trickle out from the parted and grinning lips; he beheld the eyes turn inward; he beheld the eyelids contract; he beheld the figure stretch itself; he beheld it become still in death. iv _the momentous adventure with the stranger with the silver earrings_ so our hero stood stunned and bedazed, gazing down upon his victim, like a man turned into a stone. his brain appeared to him to expand like a bubble, the blood surged and hummed in his ears with every gigantic beat of his heart, his vision swam, and his trembling hands were bedewed with a cold and repugnant sweat. the dead figure upon the floor at his feet gazed at him with a wide, glassy stare, and in the confusion of his mind it appeared to jonathan that he was, indeed, a murderer. what monstrous thing was this that had befallen him who, but a moment before, had been so entirely innocent of the guilt of blood? what was he now to do in such an extremity as this, with his victim lying dead at his feet, a poniard in his heart? who would believe him to be guiltless of crime with such a dreadful evidence as this presented against him? how was he, a stranger in a foreign land, to totally defend himself against an accusation of mistaken justice? at these thoughts a developed terror gripped at his vitals and a sweat as cold as ice bedewed his entire body. no, he must tarry for no explanation or defense! he must immediately fly from this terrible place, or else, should he be discovered, his doom would certainly be sealed! at that moment, and in the very extremity of his apprehensions, there fell of a sudden a knock upon the door, sounding so loud and so startling upon the silence of the room that every shattered nerve in our hero's frame tingled and thrilled in answer to it. he stood petrified, scarcely so much as daring to breathe; and then, observing that his mouth was agape, he moistened his dry and parching lips, and drew his jaws together with a snap. again there fell the same loud, insistent knock upon the panel, followed by the imperative words, "open within!" the wretched jonathan flung about him a glance at once of terror and of despair, but there was for him no possible escape. he was shut tight in the room with his dead victim, like a rat in a trap. nothing remained for him but to obey the summons from without. indeed, in the very extremity of his distraction, he possessed reason enough to perceive that the longer he delayed opening the door the less innocent he might hope to appear in the eyes of whoever stood without. with the uncertain and spasmodic movements of an ill-constructed automaton, he crossed the room, and stepping very carefully over the prostrate body upon the floor, and with a hesitating reluctance that he could in no degree master, he unlocked, unbolted, and opened the door. the figure that outlined itself in the light of the candle, against the blackness of the passageway without, was of such a singular and foreign aspect as to fit extremely well into the extraordinary tragedy of which jonathan was at once the victim and the cause. it was that of a lean, tall man with a thin, yellow countenance, embellished with a long, black mustache, and having a pair of forbidding, deeply set, and extremely restless black eyes. a crimson handkerchief beneath a lace cocked hat was tied tightly around the head, and a pair of silver earrings, which caught the light of the candle, gleamed and twinkled against the inky darkness of the passageway beyond. this extraordinary being, without favoring our hero with any word of apology for his intrusion, immediately thrust himself forward into the room, and stretching his long, lean, birdlike neck so as to direct his gaze over the intervening table, fixed a gaping and concentrated stare upon the figure lying still and motionless in the center of the room. "vat you do dare," said he, with a guttural and foreign accent, and thereupon, without waiting for a reply, came forward and knelt down beside the dead man. after thrusting his hand into the silent and shrunken bosom, he presently looked up and fixed his penetrating eyes upon our hero's countenance, who, benumbed and bedazed with his despair, still stood like one enchained in the bonds of a nightmare. "he vas dead!" said the stranger, and jonathan nodded his head in reply. "vy you keel ze man?" inquired his interlocutor. "indeed," cried jonathan, finding a voice at last, but one so hoarse that he could hardly recognize it for his own, "i know not what to make of the affair! but, indeed, i do assure thee, friend, that i am entirely innocent of what thou seest." the stranger still kept his piercing gaze fixed upon our hero's countenance, and jonathan, feeling that something further was demanded of him, continued: "i am, indeed, a victim of a most extravagant and extraordinary adventure. this evening, coming an entire stranger to this country, i was introduced into the house of a beautiful female, who bestowed upon me a charge that appeared to me to be at once insignificant and absurd. behold this little ivory ball," said he, drawing the globe from his pocket, and displaying it between his thumb and finger. "it is this that appears to have brought all this disaster upon me; for, coming from the house of the young woman, the man whom thou now beholdest lying dead upon the floor induced me to come to this place. having inveigled me hither, he demanded of me to give him at once this insignificant trifle. upon my refusing to do so, he assaulted me with every appearance of a mad and furious inclination to deprive me of my life!" at the sight of the ivory ball the stranger quickly arose from his kneeling posture and fixed upon our hero a gaze the most extraordinary that he had ever encountered. his eyes dilated like those of a cat, the breath expelled itself from his bosom in so deep and profound an expiration that it appeared as though it might never return again. nor was it until jonathan had replaced the ball in his pocket that he appeared to awaken from the trance that the sight of the object had sent him into. but no sooner had the cause of this strange demeanor disappeared into our hero's breeches' pocket than he arose as with an electric shock. in an instant he became transformed as by the touch of magic. a sudden and baleful light flamed into his eyes, his face grew as red as blood, and he clapped his hand to his pocket with a sudden and violent motion. "ze ball!" he cried, in a hoarse and strident voice. "ze ball! give me ze ball!" and upon the next instant our hero beheld the round and shining nozzle of a pistol pointed directly against his forehead. for a moment he stood as though transfixed; then in the mortal peril that faced him, he uttered a roar that sounded in his own ears like the outcry of a wild beast, and thereupon flung himself bodily upon the other with the violence and the fury of a madman. the stranger drew the trigger, and the powder flashed in the pan. he dropped the weapon, clattering, and in an instant tried to draw another from his other pocket. before he could direct his aim, however, our hero had caught him by both wrists, and, bending his hand backward, prevented the chance of any shot from taking immediate effect upon his person. then followed a struggle of extraordinary ferocity and frenzy--the stranger endeavoring to free his hand, and jonathan striving with all the energy of despair to prevent him from effecting his murderous purpose. [illustration] in the struggle our hero became thrust against the edge of the table. he felt as though his back were breaking, and became conscious that in such a situation he could hope to defend himself only a few moments longer. the stranger's face was pressed close to his own. his hot breath, strong with the odor of garlic, fanned our hero's cheek, while his lips, distended into a ferocious and ferine grin, displayed his sharp teeth shining in the candlelight. "give me ze ball!" he said, in a harsh and furious whisper. at the moment there rang in jonathan's ears the sudden and astounding detonation of a pistol shot, and for a moment he wondered whether he had received a mortal wound without being aware of it. then suddenly he beheld an extraordinary and dreadful transformation take place in the countenance thrust so close to his own; the eyes winked several times with incredible rapidity, and then rolled upward and inward; the jaws gaped into a dreadful and cavernous yawn; the pistol fell with a clatter to the floor, and the next moment the muscles, so rigid but an instant before, relaxed into a limp and listless flaccidity. the joints collapsed, and the entire man fell into an indistinguishable heap upon and across the dead figure stretched out upon the floor, while at the same time a pungent and blinding cloud of gunpowder smoke filled the apartment. for a few moments the hands twitched convulsively; the neck stretched itself to an abominable length; the long, lean legs slowly and gradually relaxed, and every fiber of the body gradually collapsed into the lassitude of death. a spot of blood appeared and grew upon the collar at the throat, and in the same degree the color ebbed from the face, leaving it of a dull and leaden pallor. all these terrible and formidable changes of aspect our hero stood watching with a motionless and riveted attention, and as though they were to him matters of the utmost consequence and importance; and only when the last flicker of life had departed from his second victim did he lift his gaze from this terrible scene of dissolution to stare about him, this way and that, his eyes blinded, and his breath stifled by the thick cloud of sulphurous smoke that obscured the objects about him in a pungent cloud. v _the unexpected encounter with the sea captain with the broken nose_ if our hero had been distracted and bedazed by the first catastrophe that had befallen, this second and even more dreadful and violent occurrence appeared to take away from him, for the moment, every power of thought and of sensation. all that perturbation of emotion that had before convulsed him he discovered to have disappeared, and in its stead a benumbed and blinded intelligence alone remained to him. as he stood in the presence of this second death, of which he had been as innocent and as unwilling an instrument as he had of the first, he could observe no signs either of remorse or of horror within him. he picked up his hat, which had fallen upon the floor in the first encounter, and, brushing away the dust with the cuff of his coat sleeve with extraordinary care, adjusted the beaver upon his head with the utmost nicety. then turning, still stupefied as with the fumes of some powerful drug, he prepared to quit the scene of tragic terrors that had thus unexpectedly accumulated upon him. but ere he could put his design into execution his ears were startled by the sound of loud and hurried footsteps which, coming from below, ascended the stairs with a prodigious clatter and bustle of speed. at the landing these footsteps paused for a while, and then approached, more cautious and deliberate, toward the room where the double tragedy had been enacted, and where our hero yet stood silent and inert. all this while jonathan made no endeavor to escape, but stood passive and submissive to what might occur. he felt himself the victim of circumstances over which he himself had no control. gazing at the partly opened door, he waited for whatever adventure might next befall him. once again the footsteps paused, this time at the very threshold, and then the door was slowly pushed open from without. as our hero gazed at the aperture there presently became disclosed to his view the strong and robust figure of one who was evidently of a seafaring habit. from the gold braid upon his hat, the seals dangling from the ribbon at his fob, and a certain particularity of custom, he was evidently one of no small consideration in his profession. he was of a strong and powerful build, with a head set close to his shoulders, and upon a round, short bull neck. he wore a black cravat, loosely tied into a knot, and a red waistcoat elaborately trimmed with gold braid; a leather belt with a brass buckle and hanger, and huge sea boots completed a costume singularly suggestive of his occupation in life. his face was round and broad, like that of a cat, and a complexion stained, by constant exposure to the sun and wind, to a color of newly polished mahogany. but a countenance which otherwise might have been humorous, in this case was rendered singularly repulsive by the fact that his nose had been broken so flat to his face that all that remained to distinguish that feature were two circular orifices where the nostrils should have been. his eyes were by no means so sinister as the rest of his visage, being of a light-gray color and exceedingly vivacious--even good-natured in the merry restlessness of their glance--albeit they were well-nigh hidden beneath a black bush of overhanging eyebrows. when he spoke, his voice was so deep and resonant that it was as though it issued from a barrel rather than from the breast of a human being. "how now, my hearty!" cried he, in stentorian tones, so loud that they seemed to stun the tensely drawn drums of our hero's ears. "how now, my hearty! what's to do here? who is shooting pistols at this hour of the night?" then, catching sight of the figures lying in a huddle upon the floor, his great, thick lips parted into a gape of wonder and his gray eyes rolled in his head like two balls, so that what with his flat face and the round holes of his nostrils he presented an appearance which, under other circumstances, would have been at once ludicrous and grotesque. "by the blood!" cried he, "to be sure it is murder that has happened here." "not murder!" cried jonathan, in a shrill and panting voice. "not murder! it was all an accident, and i am as innocent as a baby." the newcomer looked at him and then at the two figures upon the floor, and then back at him again with eyes at once quizzical and cunning. then his face broke into a grin that might hardly be called of drollery. "accident!" quoth he. "by the blood! d'ye see 'tis a strange accident, indeed, that lays two men by the heels and lets the third go without a scratch!" delivering himself thus, he came forward into the room, and, taking the last victim of jonathan's adventure by the arm, with as little compunction as he would have handled a sack of grain he dragged the limp and helpless figure from where it lay to the floor beside the first victim. then, lifting the lighted candle, he bent over the two prostrate bodies, holding the illumination close to the lineaments first of one and then of the other. he looked at them very carefully for a long while, with the closest and most intent scrutiny, and in perfect silence. "they are both as dead," says he, "as davy jones, and, whoever you be, i protest that you have done your business the most completest that i ever saw in all of my life." "indeed," cried jonathan, in the same shrill and panting voice, "it was themselves who did it. first one of them attacked me and then the other, and i did but try to keep them from murdering me. this one fell on his knife, and that one shot himself in his efforts to destroy me." "that," says the seaman, "you may very well tell to a dry-lander, and maybe he will believe you; but you cannot so easily pull the wool over the eyes of captain benny willitts. and what, if i may be so bold as for to ask you, was the reason for their attacking so harmless a man as you proclaim yourself to be?" [illustration: the burning ship _originally published in_ collier's weekly, _ _] "that i know not," cried jonathan; "but i am entirely willing to tell thee all the circumstances. thou must know that i am a member of the society of friends. this day i landed here in kingston, and met a young woman of very comely appearance, who intrusted me with this little ivory ball, which she requested me to keep for her a few days. the sight of this ball--in which i can detect nothing that could be likely to arouse any feelings of violence--appears to have driven these two men entirely mad, so that they instantly made the most ferocious and murderous assault upon me. see! wouldst thou have believed that so small a thing as this would have caused so much trouble?" and as he spoke he held up to the gaze of the other the cause of the double tragedy that had befallen. but no sooner had captain willitts's eyes lighted upon the ball than the most singular change passed over his countenance. the color appeared to grow dull and yellow in his ruddy cheeks, his fat lips dropped apart, and his eyes stared with a fixed and glassy glare. he arose to his feet and, still with the expression of astonishment and wonder upon his face, gazed first at our hero and then at the ivory ball in his hands, as though he were deprived both of reason and of speech. at last, as our hero slipped the trifle back in his pocket again, the mariner slowly recovered himself, though with a prodigious effort, and drew a deep and profound breath as to the very bottom of his lungs. he wiped, with the corner of his black-silk cravat, his brow, upon which the sweat appeared to have gathered. "well, messmate," says he, at last, with a sudden change of voice, "you have, indeed, had a most wonderful adventure." then with another deep breath: "well, by the blood! i may tell you plainly that i am no poor hand at the reading of faces. well, i think you to be honest, and i am inclined to believe every word you tell me. by the blood! i am prodigiously sorry for you, and am inclined to help you out of your scrape. "the first thing to do," he continued, "is to get rid of these two dead men, and that is an affair i believe we shall have no trouble in handling. one of them we will wrap up in the carpet here, and t'other we can roll into yonder bed curtain. you shall carry the one and i the other, and, the harbor being at no great distance, we can easily bring them thither and tumble them overboard, and no one will be the wiser of what has happened. for your own safety, as you may easily see, you can hardly go away and leave these objects here to be found by the first comer, and to rise up in evidence against you." this reasoning, in our hero's present bewildered state, appeared to him to be so extremely just that he raised not the least objection to it. accordingly, each of the two silent, voiceless victims of the evening's occurrences was wrapped into a bundle that from without appeared to be neither portentous nor terrible in appearance. thereupon, jonathan shouldering the rug containing the little gentleman in black, and the sea captain doing the like for the other, they presently made their way down the stairs through the darkness, and so out into the street. here the sea captain became the conductor of the expedition, and leading the way down several alleys and along certain by-streets--now and then stopping to rest, for the burdens were both heavy and clumsy to carry--they both came out at last to the harbor front, without anyone having questioned them or having appeared to suspect them of anything wrong. at the waterside was an open wharf extending a pretty good distance out into the harbor. thither the captain led the way and jonathan followed. so they made their way out along the wharf or pier, stumbling now and then over loose boards, until they came at last to where the water was of a sufficient depth for their purpose. here the captain, bending his shoulders, shot his burden out into the dark, mysterious waters, and jonathan, following his example, did the same. each body sank with a sullen and leaden splash into the element, where, the casings which swathed them becoming loosened, the rug and the curtain rose to the surface and drifted slowly away with the tide. as jonathan stood gazing dully at the disappearance of these last evidences of his two inadvertent murders, he was suddenly and vehemently aroused by feeling a pair of arms of enormous strength flung about him from behind. in their embrace his elbows were instantly pinned tight to his side, and he stood for a moment helpless and astounded, while the voice of the sea captain, rumbling in his very ear, exclaimed, "ye bloody, murthering quaker, i'll have that ivory ball, or i'll have your life!" [illustration] these words produced the same effect upon jonathan as though a douche of cold water had suddenly been flung over him. he began instantly to struggle to free himself, and that with a frantic and vehement violence begotten at once of terror and despair. so prodigious were his efforts that more than once he had nearly torn himself free, but still the powerful arms of his captor held him as in a vise of iron. meantime, our hero's assailant made frequent though ineffectual attempts to thrust a hand into the breeches' pocket where the ivory ball was hidden, swearing the while under his breath with a terrifying and monstrous string of oaths. at last, finding himself foiled in every such attempt, and losing all patience at the struggles of his victim, he endeavored to lift jonathan off of his feet, as though to dash him bodily upon the ground. in this he would doubtless have succeeded had he not caught his heel in the crack of a loose board of the wharf. instantly they both fell, violently prostrate, the captain beneath and jonathan above him, though still encircled in his iron embrace. our hero felt the back of his head strike violently upon the flat face of the other, and he heard the captain's skull sound with a terrific crack like that of a breaking egg upon some post or billet of wood, against which he must have struck. in their frantic struggles they had approached extremely near the edge of the wharf, so that the next instant, with an enormous and thunderous splash, jonathan found himself plunged into the waters of the harbor, and the arms of his assailant loosened from about his body. the shock of the water brought him instantly to his senses, and, being a fairly good swimmer, he had not the least difficulty in reaching and clutching the crosspiece of a wooden ladder that, coated with slimy sea moss, led from the water level to the wharf above. after reaching the safety of the dry land once more, jonathan gazed about him as though to discern whence the next attack might be delivered upon him. but he stood entirely alone upon the dock--not another living soul was in sight. the surface of the water exhibited some commotion, as though disturbed by something struggling beneath; but the sea captain, who had doubtless been stunned by the tremendous crack upon his head, never arose again out of the element that had engulfed him. * * * * * the moonlight shone with a peaceful and resplendent illumination, and, excepting certain remote noises from the distant town, not a sound broke the silence and the peacefulness of the balmy, tropical night. the limpid water, illuminated by the resplendent moonlight, lapped against the wharf. all the world was calm, serene, and enveloped in a profound and entire repose. [illustration: dead men tell no tales _originally published in_ collier's weekly, _december , _] jonathan looked up at the round and brilliant globe of light floating in the sky above his head, and wondered whether it were, indeed, possible that all that had befallen him was a reality and not some tremendous hallucination. then suddenly arousing himself to a renewed realization of that which had occurred, he turned and ran like one possessed, up along the wharf, and so into the moonlit town once more. vi _the conclusion of the adventure with the lady with the silver veil_ nor did he check his precipitous flight until suddenly, being led perhaps by some strange influence of which he was not at all the master, he discovered himself to be standing before the garden gate where not more than an hour before he had first entered upon the series of monstrous adventures that had led to such tremendous conclusions. people were still passing and repassing, and one of these groups--a party of young ladies and gentlemen--paused upon the opposite side of the street to observe, with no small curiosity and amusement, his dripping and bedraggled aspect. but only one thought and one intention possessed our hero--to relieve himself as quickly as possible of that trust which he had taken up so thoughtlessly, and with such monstrous results to himself and to his victims. he ran to the gate of the garden and began beating and kicking upon it with a vehemence that he could neither master nor control. he was aware that the entire neighborhood was becoming aroused, for he beheld lights moving and loud voices of inquiry; yet he gave not the least thought to the disturbance he was creating, but continued without intermission his uproarious pounding upon the gate. at length, in answer to the sound of his vehement blows, the little wicket was opened and a pair of eyes appeared thereat. the next instant the gate was cast ajar very hastily, and the pock-pitted negress appeared. she caught him by the sleeve of his coat and drew him quickly into the garden. "buckra, buckra!" she cried. "what you doing? you wake de whole town!" then, observing his dripping garments: "you been in de water. you catch de fever and shake till you die." "thy mistress!" cried jonathan, almost sobbing in the excess of his emotion; "take me to her upon the instant, or i cannot answer for my not going entirely mad!" when our hero was again introduced to the lady he found her clad in a loose and elegant negligee, infinitely becoming to her graceful figure, and still covered with the veil of silver gauze that had before enveloped her. "friend," he cried, vehemently, approaching her and holding out toward her the little ivory ball, "take again this which thou gavest me! it has brought death to three men, and i know not what terrible fate may befall me if i keep it longer in my possession." "what is it you say?" cried she, in a piercing voice. "did you say it hath caused the death of three men? quick! tell me what has happened, for i feel somehow a presage that you bring me news of safety and release from all my dangers." "i know not what thou meanest!" cried jonathan, still panting with agitation. "but this i do know: that when i went away from thee i departed an innocent man, and now i come back to thee burdened with the weight of three lives, which, though innocent, i have been instrumental in taking." "explain!" exclaimed the lady, tapping the floor with her foot. "explain! explain! explain!" "that i will," cried jonathan, "and as soon as i am able! when i left thee and went out into the street i was accosted by a little gentleman clad in black." "indeed!" cried the lady. "and had he but one eye, and did he carry a gold-headed cane?" "exactly," said jonathan; "and he claimed acquaintance with friend jeremiah doolittle." "he never knew him!" cried the lady, vehemently; "and i must tell you that he was a villain named hunt, who at one time was the intimate consort of the pirate keitt. he it was who plunged a deadly knife into his captain's bosom, and so murdered him in this very house. he himself, or his agents, must have been watching my gate when you went forth." "i know not how that may be," said jonathan, "but he took me to his apartment, and there, obtaining a knowledge of the trust thou didst burden me with, he demanded it of me, and upon my refusing to deliver it to him he presently fell to attacking me with a dagger. in my efforts to protect my life i inadvertently caused him to plunge the knife into his own bosom and to kill himself." "and what then?" cried the lady, who appeared well-nigh distracted with her emotions. "then," said jonathan, "there came a strange man--a foreigner--who upon his part assaulted me with a pistol, with every intention of murdering me and thus obtaining possession of that same little trifle." "and did he," exclaimed the lady, "have long, black mustachios, and did he have silver earrings in his ears?" "yes," said jonathan, "he did." "that," cried the lady, "could have been none other than captain keitt's portuguese sailing master, who must have been spying upon hunt! tell me what happened next!" "he would have taken my life," said jonathan, "but in the struggle that followed he shot himself accidentally with his own pistol, and died at my very feet. i do not know what would have happened to me if a sea captain had not come and proffered his assistance." "a sea captain!" she exclaimed; "and had he a flat face and a broken nose?" "indeed he had," replied jonathan. "that," said the lady, "must have been captain keitt's pirate partner--captain willitts, of _the bloody hand_. he was doubtless spying upon the portuguese." "he induced me," said jonathan, "to carry the two bodies down to the wharf. having inveigled me there--where, i suppose, he thought no one could interfere--he assaulted me, and endeavored to take the ivory ball away from me. in my efforts to escape we both fell into the water, and he, striking his head upon the edge of the wharf, was first stunned and then drowned." "thank god!" cried the lady, with a transport of fervor, and clasping her jeweled hands together. "at last i am free of those who have heretofore persecuted me and threatened my very life itself! you have asked to behold my face; i will now show it to you! heretofore i have been obliged to keep it concealed lest, recognizing me, my enemies should have slain me." as she spoke she drew aside her veil, and disclosed to the vision of our hero a countenance of the most extraordinary and striking beauty. her luminous eyes were like those of a jawa, and set beneath exquisitely arched and penciled brows. her forehead was like lustrous ivory and her lips like rose leaves. her hair, which was as soft as the finest silk, was fastened up in masses of ravishing abundance. "i am," said she, "the daughter of that unfortunate captain keitt, who, though weak and a pirate, was not so wicked, i would have you know, as he has been painted. he would, doubtless, have been an honest man had he not been led astray by the villain hunt, who so nearly compassed your destruction. he returned to this island before his death, and made me the sole heir of all that great fortune which he had gathered--perhaps not by the most honest means--in the waters of the indian ocean. but the greatest treasure of all that fortune bequeathed to me was a single jewel which you yourself have just now defended with a courage and a fidelity that i cannot sufficiently extol. it is that priceless gem known as the ruby of kishmoor. i will show it to you." [illustration: "i am the daughter of that unfortunate captain keitt"] hereupon she took the little ivory ball in her hand, and, with a turn of her beautiful wrists, unscrewed a lid so nicely and cunningly adjusted that no eye could have detected where it was joined to the parent globe. within was a fleece of raw silk containing an object which she presently displayed before the astonished gaze of our hero. it was a red stone of about the bigness of a plover's egg, and which glowed and flamed with such an exquisite and ruddy brilliancy as to dazzle even jonathan's inexperienced eyes. indeed, he did not need to be informed of the priceless value of the treasure, which he beheld in the rosy palm extended toward him. how long he gazed at this extraordinary jewel he knew not, but he was aroused from his contemplation by the sound of the lady's voice addressing him. "the three villains," said she, "who have this day met their deserts in a violent and bloody death, had by an accident obtained knowledge that this jewel was in my possession. since then my life has hung upon a thread, and every step that i have taken has been watched by these enemies, the most cruel and relentless that it was ever the lot of any unfortunate to possess. from the mortal dangers of their machinations you have saved me, exhibiting a courage and a determination that cannot be sufficiently applauded. in this you have earned my deepest admiration and regard. i would rather," she cried, "intrust my life and my happiness to you than into the keeping of any man whom i have ever known! i cannot hope to reward you in such a way as to recompense you for the perils into which my necessities have thrust you; but yet"--and here she hesitated, as though seeking for words in which to express herself--"but yet if you are willing to accept of this jewel, and all of the fortune that belongs to me, together with the person of poor evaline keitt herself, not only the stone and the wealth, but the woman also, are yours to dispose of as you see fit!" our hero was so struck aback at this unexpected turn that he knew not upon the instant what reply to make. "friend," said he, at last, "i thank thee extremely for thy offer, and, though i would not be ungracious, it is yet borne in upon me to testify to thee that as to the stone itself and the fortune--of which thou speakest, and of which i very well know the history--i have no inclination to receive either the one or the other, both the fruits of theft, rapine, and murder. the jewel i have myself beheld three times stained, as it were, with the blood of my fellow man, so that it now has so little value in my sight that i would not give a peppercorn to possess it. indeed, there is no inducement in the world that could persuade me to accept it, or even to take it again into my hand. as to the rest of thy generous offer, i have only to say that i am, four months hence, to be married to a very comely young woman of kensington, in pennsylvania, by name martha dobbs, and therefore i am not at all at liberty to consider my inclinations in any other direction." having so delivered himself, jonathan bowed with such ease as his stiff and awkward joints might command, and thereupon withdrew from the presence of the charmer, who, with cheeks suffused with blushes and with eyes averted, made no endeavor to detain him. so ended the only adventure of moment that ever happened him in all his life. for thereafter he contented himself with such excitement as his mercantile profession and his extremely peaceful existence might afford. _epilogue_ in conclusion it may be said that when the worthy jonathan rugg was married to martha dobbs, upon the following june, some mysterious friend presented to the bride a rope of pearls of such considerable value that when they were realized into money our hero was enabled to enter into partnership with his former patron the worthy jeremiah doolittle, and that, having made such a beginning, he by and by arose to become, in his day, one of the leading merchants of his native town of philadelphia. [illustration] the end * * * * * books by howard pyle howard pyle's book of pirates men of iron a modern aladdin pepper and salt the ruby of kishmoor stolen treasure the wonder clock harper & brothers publishers established * * * * * little blue book no. edited by e. haldeman-julius stories of ships and the sea jack london haldeman-julius company girard, kansas copyright, , by charmian london. reprinted by arrangement. printed in the united states of america contents page chris farrington: able seaman typhoon off the coast of japan the lost poacher the banks of the sacramento in yeddo bay stories of ships and the sea chris farrington: able seaman "if you vas in der old country ships, a liddle shaver like you vood pe only der boy, und you vood wait on der able seamen. und ven der able seaman sing out, 'boy, der water-jug!' you vood jump quick, like a shot, und bring der water-jug. und ven der able seaman sing out, 'boy, my boots!' you vood get der boots. und you vood pe politeful, und say 'yessir' und 'no sir.' but you pe in der american ship, and you t'ink you are so good as der able seamen. chris, mine boy, i haf ben a sailorman for twenty-two years, und do you t'ink you are so good as me? i vas a sailorman pefore you vas borned, und i knot und reef und splice ven you play mit topstrings und fly kites." "but you are unfair, emil!" cried chris farrington, his sensitive face flushed and hurt. he was a slender though strongly built young fellow of seventeen, with yankee ancestry writ large all over him. "dere you go vonce again!" the swedish sailor exploded. "my name is mister johansen, und a kid of a boy like you call me 'emil!' it vas insulting, und comes pecause of der american ship!" "but you call me 'chris'!" the boy expostulated, reproachfully. "but you vas a boy." "who does a man's work," chris retorted. "and because i do a man's work i have as much right to call you by your first name as you me. we are all equals in this fo'castle, and you know it. when we signed for the voyage in san francisco, we signed as sailors on the _sophie sutherland_ and there was no difference made with any of us. haven't i always done my work? did i ever shirk? did you or any other man ever have to take a wheel for me? or a lookout? or go aloft?" "chris is right," interrupted a young english sailor. "no man has had to do a tap of his work yet. he signed as good as any of us and he's shown himself as good--" "better!" broke in a novia scotia man. "better than some of us! when we struck the sealing-grounds he turned out to be next to the best boat-steerer aboard. only french louis, who'd been at it for years, could beat him. i'm only a boat-puller, and you're only a boat-puller, too, emil johansen, for all your twenty-two years at sea. why don't you become a boat-steerer?" "too clumsy," laughed the englishman, "and too slow." "little that counts, one way or the other," joined in dane jurgensen, coming to the aid of his scandinavian brother. "emil is a man grown and an able seaman; the boy is neither." and so the argument raged back and forth, the swedes, norwegians and danes, because of race kinship, taking the part of johansen, and the english, canadians and americans taking the part of chris. from an unprejudiced point of view, the right was on the side of chris. as he had truly said, he did a man's work, and the same work that any of them did. but they were prejudiced, and badly so, and out of the words which passed rose a standing quarrel which divided the forecastle into two parties. * * * * * the _sophie sutherland_ was a seal-hunter, registered out of san francisco, and engaged in hunting the furry sea-animals along the japanese coast north to bering sea. the other vessels were two-masted schooners, but she was a three-master and the largest in the fleet. in fact, she was a full-rigged, three-topmast schooner, newly built. although chris farrington knew that justice was with him, and that he performed all his work faithfully and well, many a time, in secret thought, he longed for some pressing emergency to arise whereby he could demonstrate to the scandinavian seamen that he also was an able seaman. but one stormy night, by an accident for which he was in nowise accountable, in overhauling a spare anchor-chain he had all the fingers of his left hand badly crushed. and his hopes were likewise crushed, for it was impossible for him to continue hunting with the boats, and he was forced to stay idly aboard until his fingers should heal. yet, although he little dreamed it, this very accident was to give him the long-looked-for-opportunity. one afternoon in the latter part of may the _sophie sutherland_ rolled sluggishly in a breathless calm. the seals were abundant, the hunting good, and the boats were all away and out of sight. and with them was almost every man of the crew. besides chris, there remained only the captain, the sailing-master and the chinese cook. the captain was captain only by courtesy. he was an old man, past eighty, and blissfully ignorant of the sea and its ways; but he was the owner of the vessel, and hence the honorable title. of course the sailing-master, who was really captain, was a thorough-going seaman. the mate, whose post was aboard, was out with the boats, having temporarily taken chris's place as boat-steerer. when good weather and good sport came together, the boats were accustomed to range far and wide, and often did not return to the schooner until long after dark. but for all that it was a perfect hunting day, chris noted a growing anxiety on the part of the sailing-master. he paced the deck nervously, and was constantly sweeping the horizon with his marine glasses. not a boat was in sight. as sunset arrived, he even sent chris aloft to the mizzen-topmast-head, but with no better luck. the boats could not possibly be back before midnight. since noon the barometer had been falling with startling rapidity, and all the signs were ripe for a great storm--how great, not even the sailing-master anticipated. he and chris set to work to prepare for it. they put storm gaskets on the furled topsails, lowered and stowed the foresail and spanker and took in the two inner jibs. in the one remaining jib they put a single reef, and a single reef in the mainsail. night had fallen before they finished, and with the darkness came the storm. a low moan swept over the sea, and the wind struck the _sophie sutherland_ flat. but she righted quickly, and with the sailing-master at the wheel, sheered her bow into within five points of the wind. working as well as he could with his bandaged hand, and with the feeble aid of the chinese cook, chris went forward and backed the jib over to the weather side. this with the flat mainsail, left the schooner hove to. "god help the boats! it's no gale! it's a typhoon!" the sailing-master shouted to chris at eleven o'clock. "too much canvas! got to get two more reefs into the mainsail, and got to do it right away!" he glanced at the old captain, shivering in oilskins at the binnacle and holding on for dear life. "there's only you and i, chris--and the cook; but he's next to worthless!" in order to make the reef, it was necessary to lower the mainsail, and the removal of this after pressure was bound to make the schooner fall off before the wind and sea because of the forward pressure of the jib. "take the wheel!" the sailing-master directed. "and when i give the word, hard up with it! and when she's square before it, steady her! and keep her there! we'll heave to again as soon as i get the reefs in!" gripping the kicking spokes, chris watched him and the reluctant cook go forward into the howling darkness. the _sophie sutherland_ was plunging into the huge head-seas and wallowing tremendously, the tense steel stays and taut rigging humming like harp-strings to the wind. a buffeted cry came to his ears, and he felt the schooner's bow paying off of its own accord. the mainsail was down! he ran the wheel hard-over and kept anxious track of the changing direction of the wind on his face and of the heave of the vessel. this was the crucial moment. in performing the evolution she would have to pass broadside to the surge before she could get before it. the wind was blowing directly on his right cheek, when he felt the _sophie sutherland_ lean over and begin to rise toward the sky--up--up--an infinite distance! would she clear the crest of the gigantic wave? again by the feel of it, for he could see nothing, he knew that a wall of water was rearing and curving far above him along the whole weather side. there was an instant's calm as the liquid wall intervened and shut off the wind. the schooner righted, and for that instant seemed at perfect rest. then she rolled to meet the descending rush. chris shouted to the captain to hold tight, and prepared himself for the shock. but the man did not live who could face it. an ocean of water smote chris's back and his clutch on the spokes was loosened as if it were a baby's. stunned, powerless, like a straw on the face of a torrent, he was swept onward he knew not whither. missing the corner of the cabin, he was dashed forward along the poop runway a hundred feet or more, striking violently against the foot of the foremast. a second wave, crushing inboard, hurled him back the way he had come, and left him half-drowned where the poop steps should have been. bruised and bleeding, dimly conscious, he felt for the rail and dragged himself to his feet. unless something could be done, he knew the last moment had come. as he faced the poop, the wind drove into his mouth with suffocating force. this brought him back to his senses with a start. the wind was blowing from dead aft! the schooner was out of the trough and before it! but the send of the sea was bound to breach her to again. crawling up the runway, he managed to get to the wheel just in time to prevent this. the binnacle light was still burning. they were safe! that is, he and the schooner were safe. as to the welfare of his three companions he could not say. nor did he dare leave the wheel in order to find out, for it took every second of his undivided attention to keep the vessel to her course. the least fraction of carelessness and the heave of the sea under the quarter was liable to thrust her into the trough. so, a boy of one hundred and forty pounds, he clung to his herculean task of guiding the two hundred straining tons of fabric amid the chaos of the great storm forces. half an hour later, groaning and sobbing, the captain crawled to chris's feet. all was lost, he whimpered. he was smitten unto death. the galley had gone by the board, the mainsail and running-gear, the cook, every thing! "where's the sailing-master?" chris demanded when he had caught his breath after steadying a wild lurch of the schooner. it was no child's play to steer a vessel under single reefed jib before a typhoon. "clean up for'ard," the old man replied "jammed under the fo'c'sle-head, but still breathing. both his arms are broken, he says and he doesn't know how many ribs. he's hurt bad." "well, he'll drown there the way she's shipping water through the hawse-pipes. go for'ard!" chris commanded, taking charge of things as a matter of course. "tell him not to worry; that i'm at the wheel. help him as much as you can, and make him help"--he stopped and ran the spokes to starboard as a tremendous billow rose under the stern and yawed the schooner to port--"and make him help himself for the rest. unship the fo'castle hatch and get him down into a bunk. then ship the hatch again." the captain turned his aged face forward and wavered pitifully. the waist of the ship was full of water to the bulwarks. he had just come through it, and knew death lurked every inch of the way. "go!" chris shouted, fiercely. and as the fear-stricken man started, "and take another look for the cook!" two hours later, almost dead from suffering, the captain returned. he had obeyed orders. the sailing-master was helpless, although safe in a bunk; the cook was gone. chris sent the captain below to the cabin to change his clothes. after interminable hours of toil day broke cold and gray. chris looked about him. the _sophie sutherland_ was racing before the typhoon like a thing possessed. there was no rain, but the wind whipped the spray of the sea mast-high, obscuring everything except in the immediate neighborhood. two waves only could chris see at a time--the one before and the one behind. so small and insignificant the schooner seemed on the long pacific roll! rushing up a maddening mountain, she would poise like a cockle-shell on the giddy summit, breathless and rolling, leap outward and down into the yawning chasm beneath, and bury herself in the smother of foam at the bottom. then the recovery, another mountain, another sickening upward rush, another poise, and the downward crash. abreast of him, to starboard, like a ghost of the storm, chris saw the cook dashing apace with the schooner. evidently, when washed overboard, he had grasped and become entangled in a trailing halyard. for three hours more, alone with this gruesome companion, chris held the _sophie sutherland_ before the wind and sea. he had long since forgotten his mangled fingers. the bandages had been torn away, and the cold, salt spray had eaten into the half-healed wounds until they were numb and no longer pained. but he was not cold. the terrific labor of steering forced the perspiration from every pore. yet he was faint and weak with hunger and exhaustion, and hailed with delight the advent on deck of the captain, who fed him all of a pound of cake-chocolate. it strengthened him at once. he ordered the captain to cut the halyard by which the cook's body was towing, and also to go forward and cut loose the jib-halyard and sheet. when he had done so, the jib fluttered a couple of moments like a handkerchief, then tore out of the bolt-ropes and vanished. the _sophie sutherland_ was running under bare poles. by noon the storm had spent itself, and by six in the evening the waves had died down sufficiently to let chris leave the helm. it was almost hopeless to dream of the small boats weathering the typhoon, but there is always the chance in saving human life, and chris at once applied himself to going back over the course along which he had fled. he managed to get a reef in one of the inner jibs and two reefs in the spanker, and then, with the aid of the watch-tackle, to hoist them to the stiff breeze that yet blew. and all through the night, tacking back and forth on the back track, he shook out canvas as fast as the wind would permit. the injured sailing-master had turned delirious and between tending him and lending a hand with the ship, chris kept the captain busy. "taught me more seamanship," as he afterward said, "than i'd learned on the whole voyage." but by daybreak the old man's feeble frame succumbed, and he fell off into exhausted sleep on the weather poop. chris, who could now lash the wheel, covered the tired man with blankets from below, and went fishing in the lazaretto for something to eat. but by the day following he found himself forced to give in, drowsing fitfully by the wheel and waking ever and anon to take a look at things. on the afternoon of the third day he picked up a schooner, dismasted and battered. as he approached, close-hauled on the wind, he saw her decks crowded by an unusually large crew, and on sailing in closer, made out among others the faces of his missing comrades. and he was just in the nick of time, for they were fighting a losing fight at the pumps. an hour later they, with the crew of the sinking craft were aboard the _sophie sutherland_. having wandered so far from their own vessel, they had taken refuge on the strange schooner just before the storm broke. she was a canadian sealer on her first voyage, and as was now apparent, her last. the captain of the _sophie sutherland_ had a story to tell, also, and he told it well--so well, in fact, that when all hands were gathered together on deck during the dog-watch, emil johansen strode over to chris and gripped him by the hand. "chris," he said, so loudly that all could hear, "chris, i gif in. you vas yoost so good a sailorman as i. you vas a bully boy und able seaman, und i pe proud for you! "und chris!" he turned as if he had forgotten something, and called back, "from dis time always you call me 'emil' mitout der 'mister'!" typhoon off the coast of japan _jack london's first story, published at the age of seventeen._ it was four bells in the morning watch. we had just finished breakfast when the order came forward for the watch on deck to stand by to heave her to and all hands stand by the boats. "port! hard a port!" cried our sailing-master. "clew up the topsails! let the flying jib run down! back the jib over to windward and run down the foresail!" and so was our schooner _sophie sutherland_ hove to off the japan coast, near cape jerimo, on april , . then came moments of bustle and confusion. there were eighteen men to man the six boats. some were hooking on the falls, others casting off the lashings; boat-steerers appeared with boat-compasses and water-breakers, and boat-pullers with the lunch boxes. hunters were staggering under two or three shotguns, a rifle and heavy ammunition box, all of which were soon stowed away with their oilskins and mittens in the boats. the sailing-master gave his last orders, and away we went, pulling three pairs of oars to gain our positions. we were in the weather boat, and so had a longer pull than the others. the first, second and third lee boats soon had all sail set and were running off to the southward and westward with the wind beam, while the schooner was running off to leeward of them, so that in case of accident the boats would have fair wind home. it was a glorious morning, but our boat steerer shook his head ominously as he glanced at the rising sun and prophetically muttered: "red sun in the morning, sailor take warning." the sun had an angry look, and a few light, fleecy "nigger-heads" in that quarter seemed abashed and frightened and soon disappeared. away off to the northward cape jerimo reared its black, forbidding head like some huge monster rising from the deep. the winter's snow, not yet entirely dissipated by the sun, covered it in patches of glistening white, over which the light wind swept on its way out to sea. huge gulls rose slowly, fluttering their wings in the light breeze and striking their webbed feet on the surface of the water for over half a mile before they could leave it. hardly had the patter, patter died away when a flock of sea quail rose, and with whistling wings flew away to windward, where members of a large band of whales were disporting themselves, their blowings sounding like the exhaust of steam engines. the harsh, discordant cries of a sea-parrot grated unpleasantly on the ear, and set half a dozen alert in a small band of seals that were ahead of us. away they went, breaching and jumping entirely out of water. a sea-gull with slow, deliberate flight and long, majestic curves circled round us, and as a reminder of home a little english sparrow perched impudently on the fo'castle head, and, cocking his head on one side, chirped merrily. the boats were soon among the seals, and the bang! bang! of the guns could be heard from down to leeward. the wind was slowly rising, and by three o'clock as, with a dozen seals in our boat, we were deliberating whether to go on or turn back, the recall flag was run up at the schooner's mizzen--a sure sign that with the rising wind the barometer was falling and that our sailing-master was getting anxious for the welfare of the boats. away we went before the wind with a single reef in our sail. with clenched teeth sat the boat-steerer, grasping the steering oar firmly with both hands, his restless eyes on the alert--a glance at the schooner ahead, as we rose on a sea, another at the mainsheet, and then one astern where the dark ripple of the wind on the water told him of a coming puff or a large white-cap that threatened to overwhelm us. the waves were holding high carnival, performing the strangest antics, as with wild glee they danced along in fierce pursuit--now up, now down, here, there, and everywhere, until some great sea of liquid green with its milk-white crest of foam rose from the ocean's throbbing bosom and drove the others from view. but only for a moment, for again under new forms they reappeared. in the sun's path they wandered, where every ripple, great or small, every little spit or spray looked like molten silver, where the water lost its dark green color and became a dazzling, silvery flood, only to vanish and become a wild waste of sullen turbulence, each dark foreboding sea rising and breaking, then rolling on again. the dash, the sparkle, the silvery light soon vanished with the sun, which became obscured by black clouds that were rolling swiftly in from the west, northwest; apt heralds of the coming storm. we soon reached the schooner and found ourselves the last aboard. in a few minutes the seals were skinned, boats and decks washed, and we were down below by the roaring fo'castle fire, with a wash, change of clothes, and a hot, substantial supper before us. sail had been put on the schooner, as we had a run of seventy-five miles to make to the southward before morning, so as to get in the midst of the seals, out of which we had strayed during the last two days' hunting. we had the first watch from eight to midnight. the wind was soon blowing half a gale, and our sailing-master expected little sleep that night as he paced up and down the poop. the topsails were soon clewed up and made fast, then the flying jib run down and furled. quite a sea was rolling by this time, occasionally breaking over the decks, flooding them and threatening to smash the boats. at six bells we were ordered to turn them over and put on storm lashings. this occupied us till eight bells, when we were relieved by the mid-watch. i was the last to go below, doing so just as the watch on deck was furling the spanker. below all were asleep except our green hand, the "bricklayer," who was dying of consumption. the wildly dancing movements of the sea lamp cast a pale, flickering light through the fo'castle and turned to golden honey the drops of water on the yellow oilskins. in all the corners dark shadows seemed to come and go, while up in the eyes of her, beyond the pall bits, descending from deck to deck, where they seemed to lurk like some dragon at the cavern's mouth, it was dark as erebus. now and again, the light seemed to penetrate for a moment as the schooner rolled heavier than usual, only to recede, leaving it darker and blacker than before. the roar of the wind through the rigging came to the ear muffled like the distant rumble of a train crossing a trestle or the surf on the beach, while the loud crash of the seas on her weather bow seemed almost to rend the beams and planking asunder as it resounded through the fo'castle. the creaking and groaning of the timbers, stanchions, and bulkheads, as the strain the vessel was undergoing was felt, served to drown the groans of the dying man as he tossed uneasily in his bunk. the working of the foremast against the deck beams caused a shower of flaky powder to fall, and sent another sound mingling with the tumultuous storm. small cascades of water streamed from the pall bits from the fo'castle head above, and, joining issue with the streams from the wet oilskins, ran along the floor and disappeared aft into the main hold. at two bells in the middle watch--that is, in land parlance one o'clock in the morning;--the order was roared out on the fo'castle: "all hands on deck and shorten sail!" then the sleepy sailors tumbled out of their bunk and into their clothes, oilskins and sea-boots and up on deck. 'tis when that order comes on cold, blustering nights that "jack" grimly mutters: "who would not sell a farm and go to sea?" it was on deck that the force of the wind could be fully appreciated, especially after leaving the stifling fo'castle. it seemed to stand up against you like a wall, making it almost impossible to move on the heaving decks or to breathe as the fierce gusts came dashing by. the schooner was hove to under jib, foresail and mainsail. we proceeded to lower the foresail and make it fast. the night was dark, greatly impeding our labor. still, though not a star or the moon could pierce the black masses of storm clouds that obscured the sky as they swept along before the gale, nature aided us in a measure. a soft light emanated from the movement of the ocean. each mighty sea, all phosphorescent and glowing with the tiny lights of myriads of animalculae, threatened to overwhelm us with a deluge of fire. higher and higher, thinner and thinner, the crest grew as it began to curve and overtop preparatory to breaking, until with a roar it fell over the bulwarks, a mass of soft glowing light and tons of water which sent the sailors sprawling in all directions and left in each nook and cranny little specks of light that glowed and trembled till the next sea washed them away, depositing new ones in their places. sometimes several seas following each other with great rapidity and thundering down on our decks filled them full to the bulwarks, but soon they were discharged through the lee scuppers. to reef the mainsail we were forced to run off before the gale under the single reefed jib. by the time we had finished the wind had forced up such a tremendous sea that it was impossible to heave her to. away we flew on the wings of the storm through the muck and flying spray. a wind sheer to starboard, then another to port as the enormous seas struck the schooner astern and nearly broached her to. as day broke we took in the jib, leaving not a sail unfurled. since we had begun scudding she had ceased to take the seas over her bow, but amidships they broke fast and furious. it was a dry storm in the matter of rain, but the force of the wind filled the air with fine spray, which flew as high as the crosstrees and cut the face like a knife, making it impossible to see over a hundred yards ahead. the sea was a dark lead color as with long, slow, majestic roll it was heaped up by the wind into liquid mountains of foam. the wild antics of the schooner were sickening as she forged along. she would almost stop, as though climbing a mountain, then rapidly rolling to right and left as she gained the summit of a huge sea, she steadied herself and paused for a moment as though affrighted at the yawning precipice before her. like an avalanche, she shot forward and down as the sea astern struck her with the force of a thousand battering rams, burying her bow to the cat-heads in the milky foam at the bottom that came on deck in all directions--forward, astern, to right and left, through the hawse-pipes and over the rail. the wind began to drop, and by ten o'clock we were talking of heaving her to. we passed a ship, two schooners and a four-masted barkentine under the smallest canvas, and at eleven o'clock, running up the spanker and jib, we hove her to, and in another hour we were beating back again against the aftersea under full sail to regain the sealing ground away to the westward. below, a couple of men were sewing the "bricklayer's" body in canvas preparatory to the sea burial. and so with the storm passed away the "bricklayer's" soul. the lost poacher "but they won't take excuses. you're across the line, and that's enough. they'll take you. in you go, siberia and the salt mines. and as for uncle sam, why, what's he to know about it? never a word will get back to the states. 'the _mary thomas_,' the papers will say, 'the _mary thomas_ lost with all hands. probably in a typhoon in the japanese seas.' that's what the papers will say, and people, too. in you go, siberia and the salt mines. dead to the world and kith and kin, though you live fifty years." in such manner john lewis, commonly known as the "sea-lawyer," settled the matter out of hand. it was a serious moment in the forecastle of the _mary thomas_. no sooner had the watch below begun to talk the trouble over, than the watch on deck came down and joined them. as there was no wind, every hand could be spared with the exception of the man at the wheel, and he remained only for the sake of discipline. even "bub" russell, the cabin-boy, had crept forward to hear what was going on. however, it was a serious moment, as the grave faces of the sailors bore witness. for the three preceding months the _mary thomas_ sealing schooner, had hunted the seal pack along the coast of japan and north to bering sea. here, on the asiatic side of the sea, they were forced to give over the chase, or rather, to go no farther; for beyond, the russian cruisers patrolled forbidden ground, where the seals might breed in peace. a week before she had fallen into a heavy fog accompanied by calm. since then the fog-bank had not lifted, and the only wind had been light airs and catspaws. this in itself was not so bad, for the sealing schooners are never in a hurry so long as they are in the midst of the seals; but the trouble lay in the fact that the current at this point bore heavily to the north. thus the _mary thomas_ had unwittingly drifted across the line, and every hour she was penetrating, unwillingly, farther and farther into the dangerous waters where the russian bear kept guard. how far she had drifted no man knew. the sun had not been visible for a week, nor the stars, and the captain had been unable to take observations in order to determine his position. at any moment a cruiser might swoop down and hale the crew away to siberia. the fate of other poaching seal-hunters was too well known to the men of the _mary thomas_, and there was cause for grave faces. "mine friends," spoke up a german boat-steerer, "it vas a pad piziness. shust as ve make a big catch, und all honest, somedings go wrong, und der russians nab us, dake our skins and our schooner, und send us mit der anarchists to siberia. ach! a pretty pad piziness!" "yes, that's where it hurts," the sea lawyer went on. "fifteen hundred skins in the salt piles, and all honest, a big pay-day coming to every man jack of us, and then to be captured and lose it all! it'd be different if we'd been poaching, but it's all honest work in open water." "but if we haven't done anything wrong, they can't do anything to us, can they?" bub queried. "it strikes me as 'ow it ain't the proper thing for a boy o' your age shovin' in when 'is elders is talkin'," protested an english sailor, from over the edge of his bunk. "oh, that's all right, jack," answered the sea-lawyer. "he's a perfect right to. ain't he just as liable to lose his wages as the rest of us?" "wouldn't give thruppence for them!" jack sniffed back. he had been planning to go home and see his family in chelsea when he was paid off, and he was now feeling rather blue over the highly possible loss, not only of his pay, but of his liberty. "how are they to know?" the sea-lawyer asked in answer to bub's previous question. "here we are in forbidden water. how do they know but what we came here of our own accord? here we are, fifteen hundred skins in the hold. how do they know whether we got them in open water or in the closed sea? don't you see, bub, the evidence is all against us. if you caught a man with his pockets full of apples like those which grow on your tree, and if you caught him in your tree besides, what'd you think if he told you he couldn't help it, and had just been sort of blown there, and that anyway those apples came from some other tree--what'd you think, eh?" bub saw it clearly when put in that light, and shook his head despondently. "you'd rather be dead than go to siberia," one of the boat-pullers said. "they put you into the salt-mines and work you till you die. never see daylight again. why, i've heard tell of one fellow that was chained to his mate, and that mate died. and they were both chained together! and if they send you to the quicksilver mines you get salivated. i'd rather be hung than salivated." "wot's salivated?" jack asked, suddenly sitting up in his bunk at the hint of fresh misfortunes. "why, the quicksilver gets into your blood; i think that's the way. and your gums all swell like you had the scurvy, only worse, and your teeth get loose in your jaws. and big ulcers forms, and then you die horrible. the strongest man can't last long a-mining quicksilver." "a pad piziness," the boat-steerer reiterated, dolorously, in the silence which followed. "a pad piziness. i vish i vas in yokohama. eh? vot vas dot?" the vessel had suddenly heeled over. the decks were aslant. a tin pannikin rolled down the inclined plane, rattling and banging. from above came the slapping of canvas and the quivering rat-tat-tat of the after leech of the loosely stretched foresail. then the mate's voice sang down the hatch, "all hands on deck and make sail!" never had such summons been answered with more enthusiasm. the calm had broken. the wind had come which was to carry them south into safety. with a wild cheer all sprang on deck. working with mad haste, they flung out topsails, flying jibs and staysails. as they worked, the fog-bank lifted and the black vault of heaven, bespangled with the old familiar stars, rushed into view. when all was shipshape, the _mary thomas_ was lying gallantly over on her side to a beam wind and plunging ahead due south. "steamer's lights ahead on the port bow, sir!" cried the lookout from his station on the forecastle-head. there was excitement in the man's voice. the captain sent bub below for his night-glasses. everybody crowded to the lee-rail to gaze at the suspicious stranger, which already began to loom up vague and indistinct. in those unfrequented waters the chance was one in a thousand that it could be anything else than a russian patrol. the captain was still anxiously gazing through the glasses, when a flash of flame left the stranger's side, followed by the loud report of a cannon. the worst fears were confirmed. it was a patrol, evidently firing across the bows of the _mary thomas_ in order to make her heave to. "hard down with your helm!" the captain commanded the steersman, all the life gone out of his voice. then to the crew, "back over the jib and foresail! run down the flying jib! clew up the foretopsail! and aft here and swing on to the main-sheet!" the _mary thomas_ ran into the eye of the wind, lost headway, and fell to courtesying gravely to the long seas rolling up from the west. the cruiser steamed a little nearer and lowered a boat. the sealers watched in heartbroken silence. they could see the white bulk of the boat as it was slacked away to the water, and its crew sliding aboard. they could hear the creaking of the davits and the commands of the officers. then the boat sprang away under the impulse of the oars, and came toward them. the wind had been rising, and already the sea was too rough to permit the frail craft to lie alongside the tossing schooner; but watching their chance, and taking advantage of the boarding ropes thrown to them, an officer and a couple of men clambered aboard. the boat then sheered off into safety and lay to its oars, a young midshipman, sitting in the stern and holding the yoke-lines, in charge. the officer, whose uniform disclosed his rank as that of second lieutenant in the russian navy went below with the captain of the _mary thomas_ to look at the ship's papers. a few minutes later he emerged, and upon his sailors removing the hatch-covers, passed down into the hold with a lantern to inspect the salt piles. it was a goodly heap which confronted him--fifteen hundred fresh skins, the season's catch; and under the circumstances he could have had but one conclusion. "i am very sorry," he said, in broken english to the sealing captain, when he again came on deck, "but it is my duty, in the name of the tsar, to seize your vessel as a poacher caught with fresh skins in the closed sea. the penalty, as you may know, is confiscation and imprisonment." the captain of the _mary thomas_ shrugged his shoulders in seeming indifference, and turned away. although they may restrain all outward show, strong men, under unmerited misfortune, are sometimes very close to tears. just then the vision of his little california home, and of the wife and two yellow-haired boys, was strong upon him, and there was a strange, choking sensation in his throat, which made him afraid that if he attempted to speak he would sob instead. and also there was upon him the duty he owed his men. no weakness before them, for he must be a tower of strength to sustain them in misfortune. he had already explained to the second lieutenant, and knew the hopelessness of the situation. as the sea-lawyer had said, the evidence was all against him. so he turned aft, and fell to pacing up and down the poop of the vessel over which he was no longer commander. the russian officer now took temporary charge. he ordered more of his men aboard, and had all the canvas clewed up and furled snugly away. while this was being done, the boat plied back and forth between the two vessels, passing a heavy hawser, which was made fast to the great towing-bitts on the schooner's forecastle-head. during all this work the sealers stood about in sullen groups. it was madness to think of resisting, with the guns of a man-of-war not a biscuit-toss away; but they refused to lend a hand, preferring instead to maintain a gloomy silence. having accomplished his task, the lieutenant ordered all but four of his men back into the boat. then the midshipman, a lad of sixteen, looking strangely mature and dignified in his uniform and sword, came aboard to take command of the captured sealer. just as the lieutenant prepared to depart his eye chanced to alight upon bub. without a word of warning, he seized him by the arm and dropped him over the rail into the waiting boat; and then, with a parting wave of his hand, he followed him. it was only natural that bub should be frightened at this unexpected happening. all the terrible stories he had heard of the russians served to make him fear them, and now returned to his mind with double force. to be captured by them was bad enough, but to be carried off by them, away from his comrades, was a fate of which he had not dreamed. "be a good boy, bub," the captain called to him, as the boat drew away from the _mary thomas's_ side, "and tell the truth!" "aye, aye, sir!" he answered, bravely enough by all outward appearance. he felt a certain pride of race, and was ashamed to be a coward before these strange enemies, these wild russian bears. "und be politeful!" the german boat-steerer added, his rough voice lifting across the water like a fog-horn. bub waved his hand in farewell, and his mates clustered along the rail as they answered with a cheering shout. he found room in the stern-sheets, where he fell to regarding the lieutenant. he didn't look so wild or bearish after all--very much like other men, bub concluded, and the sailors were much the same as all other man-of-war's men he had ever known. nevertheless, as his feet struck the steel deck of the cruiser, he felt as if he had entered the portals of a prison. for a few minutes he was left unheeded. the sailors hoisted the boat up, and swung it in on the davits. then great clouds of black smoke poured out of the funnels, and they were under way--to siberia, bub could not help but think. he saw the _mary thomas_ swing abruptly into line as she took the pressure from the hawser, and her side-lights, red and green, rose and fell as she was towed through the sea. bub's eyes dimmed at the melancholy sight, but--but just then the lieutenant came to take him down to the commander, and he straightened up and set his lips firmly, as if this were a very commonplace affair and he were used to being sent to siberia every day in the week. the cabin in which the commander sat was like a palace compared to the humble fittings of the _mary thomas_, and the commander himself, in gold lace and dignity, was a most august personage, quite unlike the simple man who navigated his schooner on the trail of the seal pack. bub now quickly learned why he had been brought aboard, and in the prolonged questioning which followed, told nothing but the plain truth. the truth was harmless; only a lie could have injured his cause. he did not know much, except that they had been sealing far to the south in open water, and that when the calm and fog came down upon them, being close to the line, they had drifted across. again and again he insisted that they had not lowered a boat or shot a seal in the week they had been drifting about in the forbidden sea; but the commander chose to consider all that he said to be a tissue of falsehoods, and adopted a bullying tone in an effort to frighten the boy. he threatened and cajoled by turns, but failed in the slightest to shake bub's statements, and at last ordered him out of his presence. by some oversight, bub was not put in anybody's charge, and wandered up on deck unobserved. sometimes the sailors, in passing, bent curious glances upon him, but otherwise he was left strictly alone. nor could he have attracted much attention, for he was small, the night dark, and the watch on deck intent on its own business. stumbling over the strange decks, he made his way aft where he could look upon the side-lights of the _mary thomas_, following steadily in the rear. for a long while he watched, and then lay down in the darkness close to where the hawser passed over the stern to the captured schooner. once an officer came up and examined the straining rope to see if it were chafing, but bub cowered away in the shadow undiscovered. this, however, gave him an idea which concerned the lives and liberties of twenty-two men, and which was to avert crushing sorrow from more than one happy home many thousand miles away. in the first place, he reasoned, the crew were all guiltless of any crime, and yet were being carried relentlessly away to imprisonment in siberia--a living death, he had heard, and he believed it implicitly. in the second place, he was a prisoner, hard and fast, with no chance to escape. in the third, it was possible for the twenty-two men on the _mary thomas_ to escape. the only thing which bound them was a four-inch hawser. they dared not cut it at their end, for a watch was sure to be maintained upon it by their russian captors; but at this end, ah! at his end-- bub did not stop to reason further. wriggling close to the hawser, he opened his jack-knife and went to work. the blade was not very sharp, and he sawed away, rope-yarn by rope-yarn, the awful picture of the solitary siberian exile he must endure growing clearer and more terrible at every stroke. such a fate was bad enough to undergo with one's comrades, but to face it alone seemed frightful. and besides, the very act he was performing was sure to bring greater punishment upon him. in the midst of such somber thoughts, he heard footsteps approaching. he wriggled away into the shadow. an officer stopped where he had been working, half-stooped to examine the hawser, then changed his mind and straightened up. for a few minutes he stood there, gazing at the lights of the captured schooner, and then went forward again. now was the time! bub crept back and went on sawing. now two parts were severed. now three. but one remained. the tension upon this was so great that it readily yielded. splash the freed end went overboard. he lay quietly, his heart in his mouth, listening. no one on the cruiser but himself had heard. he saw the red and green lights of the _mary thomas_ grow dimmer and dimmer. then a faint hallo came over the water from the russian prize crew. still nobody heard. the smoke continued to pour out of the cruiser's funnels, and her propellers throbbed as mightily as ever. what was happening on the _mary thomas_? bub could only surmise; but of one thing he was certain: his comrades would assert themselves and overpower the four sailors and the midshipman. a few minutes later he saw a small flash, and straining his ears heard the very faint report of a pistol. then, oh joy! both the red and green lights suddenly disappeared. the _mary thomas_ was retaken! just as an officer came aft, bub crept forward, and hid away in one of the boats. not an instant too soon. the alarm was given. loud voices rose in command. the cruiser altered her course. an electric search-light began to throw its white rays across the sea, here, there, everywhere; but in its flashing path no tossing schooner was revealed. bub went to sleep soon after that, nor did he wake till the gray of dawn. the engines were pulsing monotonously, and the water, splashing noisily, told him the decks were being washed down. one sweeping glance, and he saw that they were alone on the expanse of ocean. the _mary thomas_ had escaped. as he lifted his head, a roar of laughter went up from the sailors. even the officer, who ordered him taken below and locked up, could not quite conceal the laughter in his eyes. bub thought often in the days of confinement which followed that they were not very angry with him for what he had done. he was not far from right. there is a certain innate nobility deep down in the hearts of all men, which forces them to admire a brave act, even if it is performed by an enemy. the russians were in nowise different from other men. true, a boy had outwitted them; but they could not blame him, and they were sore puzzled as to what to do with him. it would never do to take a little mite like him in to represent all that remained of the lost poacher. so, two weeks later, a united states man-of-war, steaming out of the russian port of vladivostok, was signaled by a russian cruiser. a boat passed between the two ships, and a small boy dropped over the rail upon the deck of the american vessel. a week later he was put ashore at hakodate, and after some telegraphing, his fare was paid on the railroad to yokohama. from the depot he hurried through the quaint japanese streets to the harbor, and hired a sampan boatman to put him aboard a certain vessel whose familiar rigging had quickly caught his eye. her gaskets were off, her sails unfurled; she was just starting back to the united states. as he came closer, a crowd of sailors sprang upon the forecastle head, and the windlass-bars rose and fell as the anchor was torn from its muddy bottom. "'yankee ship come down the ribber!'" the sea-lawyer's voice rolled out as he led the anchor song. "'pull, my bully boys, pull!'" roared back the old familiar chorus, the men's bodies lifting and bending to the rhythm. bub russell paid the boatman and stepped on deck. the anchor was forgotten. a mighty cheer went up from the men, and almost before he could catch his breath he was on the shoulders of the captain, surrounded by his mates, and endeavoring to answer twenty questions to the second. the next day a schooner hove to off a japanese fishing village, sent ashore four sailors and a little midshipman, and sailed away. these men did not talk english, but they had money and quickly made their way to yokohama. from that day the japanese village folk never heard anything more about them, and they are still a much-talked-of mystery. as the russian government never said anything about the incident, the united states is still ignorant of the whereabouts of the lost poacher, nor has she ever heard, officially, of the way in which some of her citizens "shanghaied" five subjects of the tsar. even nations have secrets sometimes. the banks of the sacramento "and it's blow, ye winds, heigh-ho, for cal-i-for-ni-o; for there's plenty of gold so i've been told, on the banks of the sacramento!" it was only a little boy, singing in a shrill treble the sea chantey which seamen sing the wide world over when they man the capstan bars and break the anchors out for "frisco" port. it was only a little boy who had never seen the sea, but two hundred feet beneath him rolled the sacramento. "young" jerry he was called, after "old" jerry, his father, from whom he had learned the song, as well as received his shock of bright-red hair, his blue, dancing eyes, and his fair and inevitably freckled skin. for old jerry had been a sailor, and had followed the sea till middle life, haunted always by the words of the ringing chantey. then one day he had sung the song in earnest, in an asiatic port, swinging and thrilling round the capstan-circle with twenty others. and at san francisco he turned his back upon his ship and upon the sea, and went to behold with his own eyes the banks of the sacramento. he beheld the gold, too, for he found employment at the yellow dream mine, and proved of utmost usefulness in rigging the great ore-cables across the river and two hundred feet above its surface. after that he took charge of the cables and kept them in repair, and ran them and loved them, and became himself an indispensable fixture of the yellow dream mine. then he loved pretty margaret kelly; but she had left him and young jerry, the latter barely toddling, to take up her last long sleep in the little graveyard among the great sober pines. old jerry never went back to the sea. he remained by his cables, and lavished upon them and young jerry all the love of his nature. when evil days came to the yellow dream, he still remained in the employ of the company as watchman over the all but abandoned property. but this morning he was not visible. young jerry only was to be seen, sitting on the cabin step and singing the ancient chantey. he had cooked and eaten his breakfast all by himself, and had just come out to take a look at the world. twenty feet before him stood the steel drum round which the endless cable worked. by the drum, snug and fast, was the ore-car. following with his eyes the dizzy flight of the cables to the farther bank, he could see the other drum and the other car. the contrivance was worked by gravity, the loaded car crossing the river by virtue of its own weight, and at the same time dragging the empty car back. the loaded car being emptied, and the empty car being loaded with more ore, the performance could be repeated--a performance which had been repeated tens of thousands of times since the day old jerry became the keeper of the cables. young jerry broke off his song at the sound of approaching footsteps. a tall, blue-shirted man, a rifle across the hollow of his arm, came out from the gloom of the pine-trees. it was hall, watchman of the yellow dragon mine, the cables of which spanned the sacramento a mile farther up. "yello, younker!" was his greeting. "what you doin' here by your lonesome?" "oh, bachin'," jerry tried to answer unconcernedly, as if it were a very ordinary sort of thing. "dad's away, you see." "where's he gone?" the man asked. "san francisco. went last night. his brother's dead in the old country, and he's gone down to see the lawyers. won't be back till tomorrow night." so spoke jerry, and with pride, because of the responsibility which had fallen to him of keeping an eye on the property of the yellow dream, and the glorious adventure of living alone on the cliff above the river and of cooking his own meals. "well, take care of yourself," hall said, "and don't monkey with the cables. i'm goin' to see if i can pick up a deer in the cripple cow cañon." "it's goin' to rain, i think," jerry said, with mature deliberation. "and it's little i mind a wettin'," hall laughed, as he strode away among the trees. jerry's prediction concerning rain was more than fulfilled. by ten o'clock the pines were swaying and moaning, the cabin windows rattling, and the rain driving by in fierce squalls. at half past eleven he kindled a fire, and promptly at the stroke of twelve sat down to his dinner. no out-of-doors for him that day, he decided, when he had washed the few dishes and put them neatly away; and he wondered how wet hall was and whether he had succeeded in picking up a deer. at one o'clock there came a knock at the door, and when he opened it a man and a woman staggered in on the breast of a great gust of wind. they were mr. and mrs. spillane, ranchers, who lived in a lonely valley a dozen miles back from the river. "where's hall?" was spillane's opening speech, and he spoke sharply and quickly. jerry noted that he was nervous and abrupt in his movements, and that mrs. spillane seemed laboring under some strong anxiety. she was a thin, washed-out, worked-out woman, whose life of dreary and unending toil had stamped itself harshly upon her face. it was the same life that had bowed her husband's shoulders and gnarled his hands and turned his hair to a dry and dusty gray. "he's gone hunting up cripple cow," jerry answered. "did you want to cross?" the woman began to weep quietly, while spillane dropped a troubled exclamation and strode to the window. jerry joined him in gazing out to where the cables lost themselves in the thick downpour. it was the custom of the backwoods people in that section of country to cross the sacramento on the yellow dragon cable. for this service a small toll was charged, which tolls the yellow dragon company applied to the payment of hall's wages. "we've got to get across, jerry," spillane said, at the same time jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of his wife. "her father's hurt at the clover leaf. powder explosion. not expected to live. we just got word." jerry felt himself fluttering inwardly. he knew that spillane wanted to cross on the yellow dream cable, and in the absence of his father he felt that he dared not assume such a responsibility, for the cable had never been used for passengers; in fact, had not been used at all for a long time. "maybe hall will be back soon," he said. spillane shook his head, and demanded, "where's your father?" "san francisco," jerry answered, briefly. spillane groaned, and fiercely drove his clenched fist into the palm of the other hand. his wife was crying more audibly, and jerry could hear her murmuring, "and daddy's dyin', dyin'!" the tears welled up in his own eyes, and he stood irresolute, not knowing what he should do. but the man decided for him. "look here, kid," he said, with determination, "the wife and me are goin' over on this here cable of yours! will you run it for us?" jerry backed slightly away. he did it unconsciously, as if recoiling instinctively from something unwelcome. "better see if hall's back," he suggested. "and if he ain't?" again jerry hesitated. "i'll stand for the risk," spillane added. "don't you see, kid, we've simply got to cross!" jerry nodded his head reluctantly. "and there ain't no use waitin' for hall," spillane went on. "you know as well as me he ain't back from cripple cow this time of day! so come along and let's get started." no wonder that mrs. spillane seemed terrified as they helped her into the ore-car--so jerry thought, as he gazed into the apparently fathomless gulf beneath her. for it was so filled with rain and cloud, hurtling and curling in the fierce blast, that the other shore, seven hundred feet away, was invisible, while the cliff at their feet dropped sheer down and lost itself in the swirling vapor. by all appearances it might be a mile to bottom instead of two hundred feet. "all ready?" he asked. "let her go!" spillane shouted, to make himself heard above the roar of the wind. he had clambered in beside his wife, and was holding one of her hands in his. jerry looked upon this with disapproval. "you'll need all your hands for holdin' on, the way the wind's yowlin'." the man and the woman shifted their hands accordingly, tightly gripping the sides of the car, and jerry slowly and carefully released the brake. the drum began to revolve as the endless cable passed round it, and the car slid slowly out into the chasm, its trolley wheels rolling on the stationary cable overhead, to which it was suspended. it was not the first time jerry had worked the cable, but it was the first time he had done so away from the supervising eye of his father. by means of the brake he regulated the speed of the car. it needed regulating, for at times, caught by the stronger gusts of wind, it swayed violently back and forth; and once, just before it was swallowed up in a rain squall, it seemed about to spill out its human contents. after that jerry had no way of knowing where the car was except by means of the cable. this he watched keenly as it glided around the drum. "three hundred feet," he breathed to himself, as the cable markings went by, "three hundred and fifty, four hundred; four hundred and----" the cable had stopped. jerry threw off the brake, but it did not move. he caught the cable with his hands and tried to start it by tugging smartly. something had gone wrong. what? he could not guess; he could not see. looking up, he could vaguely make out the empty car, which had been crossing from the opposite cliff at a speed equal to that of the loaded car. it was about two hundred and fifty feet away. that meant, he knew, that somewhere in the gray obscurity, two hundred feet above the river and two hundred and fifty feet from the other bank, spillane and his wife were suspended and stationary. three times jerry shouted with all the shrill force of his lungs, but no answering cry came out of the storm. it was impossible for him to hear them or to make himself heard. as he stood for a moment, thinking rapidly, the flying clouds seemed to thin and lift. he caught a brief glimpse of the swollen sacramento beneath, and a briefer glimpse of the car and the man and woman. then the clouds descended thicker than ever. the boy examined the drum closely, and found nothing the matter with it. evidently it was the drum on the other side that had gone wrong. he was appalled at the thought of the man and woman out there in the midst of the storm, hanging over the abyss, rocking back and forth in the frail car and ignorant of what was taking place on shore. and he did not like to think of their hanging there while he went round by the yellow dragon cable to the other drum. but he remembered a block and tackle in the tool-house, and ran and brought it. they were double blocks, and he murmured aloud, "a purchase of four," as he made the tackle fast to the endless cable. then he heaved upon it, heaved until it seemed that his arms were being drawn out from their sockets and that his shoulder muscles would be ripped asunder. yet the cable did not budge. nothing remained but to cross over to the other side. he was already soaking wet, so he did not mind the rain as he ran over the trail to the yellow dragon. the storm was with him, and it was easy going, although there was no hall at the other end of it to man the brake for him and regulate the speed of the car. this he did for himself, however, by means of a stout rope, which he passed, with a turn, round the stationary cable. as the full force of the wind struck him in mid-air, swaying the cable and whistling and roaring past it, and rocking and careening the car, he appreciated more fully what must be the condition of mind of spillane and his wife. and this appreciation gave strength to him, as, safely across, he fought his way up the other bank, in the teeth of the gale, to the yellow dream cable. to his consternation, he found the drum in thorough working order. everything was running smoothly at both ends. where was the hitch? in the middle, without a doubt. from this side, the car containing spillane was only two hundred and fifty feet away. he could make out the man and woman through the whirling vapor, crouching in the bottom of the car and exposed to the pelting rain and the full fury of the wind. in a lull between the squalls he shouted to spillane to examine the trolley of the car. spillane heard, for he saw him rise up cautiously on his knees, and with his hands go over both trolley-wheels. then he turned his face toward the bank. "she's all right, kid!" jerry heard the words, faint and far, as from a remote distance. then what was the matter? nothing remained but the other and empty car, which he could not see, but which he knew to be there, somewhere in that terrible gulf two hundred feet beyond spillane's car. his mind was made up on the instant. he was only fourteen years old, slightly and wirily built; but his life had been lived among the mountains, his father had taught him no small measure of "sailoring," and he was not particularly afraid of heights. in the tool-box by the drum he found an old monkey-wrench and a short bar of iron, also a coil of fairly new manila rope. he looked in vain for a piece of board with which to rig a "boatswain's chair." there was nothing at hand but large planks, which he had no means of sawing, so he was compelled to do without the more comfortable form of saddle. the saddle he rigged was very simple. with the rope he made merely a large loop round the stationary cable, to which hung the empty car. when he sat in the loop his hands could just reach the cable conveniently, and where the rope was likely to fray against the cable he lashed his coat, in lieu of the old sack he would have used had he been able to find one. these preparations swiftly completed, he swung out over the chasm, sitting in the rope saddle and pulling himself along the cable by his hands. with him he carried the monkey-wrench and short iron bar and a few spare feet of rope. it was a slightly up-hill pull, but this he did not mind so much as the wind. when the furious gusts hurled him back and forth, sometimes half twisting him about, and he gazed down into the gray depths, he was aware that he was afraid. it was an old cable. what if it should break under his weight and the pressure of the wind? it was fear he was experiencing, honest fear, and he knew that there was a "gone" feeling in the pit of his stomach, and a trembling of the knees which he could not quell. but he held himself bravely to the task. the cable was old and worn, sharp pieces of wire projected from it, and his hands were cut and bleeding by the time he took his first rest, and held a shouted conversation with spillane. the car was directly beneath him and only a few feet away, so he was able to explain the condition of affairs and his errand. "wish i could help you," spillane shouted at him as he started on, "but the wife's gone all to pieces! anyway, kid, take care of yourself! i got myself in this fix, but it's up to you to get me out!" "oh, i'll do it!" jerry shouted back. "tell mrs. spillane that she'll be ashore now in a jiffy!" in the midst of pelting rain, which half-blinded him, swinging from side to side like a rapid and erratic pendulum, his torn hands paining him severely and his lungs panting from his exertions and panting from the very air which the wind sometimes blew into his mouth with strangling force, he finally arrived at the empty car. a single glance showed him that he had not made the dangerous journey in vain. the front trolley-wheel, loose from long wear, had jumped the cable, and the cable was now jammed tightly between the wheel and the sheave-block. one thing was clear--the wheel must be removed from the block. a second thing was equally clear--while the wheel was being removed the car would have to be fastened to the cable by the rope he had brought. at the end of a quarter of an hour, beyond making the car secure, he had accomplished nothing. the key which bound the wheel on its axle was rusted and jammed. he hammered at it with one hand and held on the best he could with the other, but the wind persisted in swinging and twisting his body, and made his blows miss more often than not. nine-tenths of the strength he expended was in trying to hold himself steady. for fear that he might drop the monkey-wrench he made it fast to his wrist with his handkerchief. at the end of half an hour jerry had hammered the key clear, but he could not draw it out. a dozen times it seemed that he must give up in despair, that all the danger and toil he had gone through were for nothing. then an idea came to him, and he went through his pockets with feverish haste, and found what he sought--a ten-penny nail. but for that nail, put in his pocket he knew not when or why, he would have had to make another trip over the cable and back. thrusting the nail through the looped head of the key, he at last had a grip, and in no time the key was out. then came punching and prying with the iron bar to get the wheel itself free from where it was jammed by the cable against the side of the block. after that jerry replaced the wheel, and by means of the rope, heaved up on the car till the trolley once more rested properly on the cable. all this took time. more than an hour and a half had elapsed since his arrival at the empty car. and now, for the first time, he dropped out of his saddle and down into the car. he removed the detaining ropes, and the trolley-wheel began slowly to revolve. the car was moving, and he knew that somewhere beyond, although he could not see, the car of spillane was likewise moving, and in the opposite direction. there was no need for a brake, for his weight sufficiently counterbalanced the weight in the other car; and soon he saw the cliff rising out of the cloud depths and the old familiar drum going round and round. jerry climbed out and made the car securely fast. he did it deliberately and carefully, and then, quite unhero-like, he sank down by the drum, regardless of the pelting storm, and burst out sobbing. there were many reasons why he sobbed--partly from the pain of his hand, which was excruciating; partly from exhaustion; partly from relief and release from the nerve-tension he had been under for so long; and in a large measure for thankfulness that the man and woman were saved. they were not there to thank him; but somewhere beyond that howling, storm-driven gulf he knew they were hurrying over the trail toward the clover leaf. jerry staggered to the cabin, and his hand left the white knob red with blood as he opened the door, but he took no notice of it. he was too proudly contented with himself, for he was certain that he had done well, and he was honest enough to admit to himself that he had done well. but a small regret arose and persisted in his thoughts--if his father had only been there to see! in yeddo bay somewhere along theater street he had lost it. he remembered being hustled somewhat roughly on the bridge over one of the canals that cross that busy thoroughfare. possibly some slant-eyed, light-fingered pickpocket was even then enjoying the fifty-odd yen his purse had contained. and then again, he thought, he might have lost it himself, just lost it carelessly. hopelessly, and for the twentieth time, he searched in all his pockets for the missing purse. it was not there. his hand lingered in his empty hip-pocket, and he woefully regarded the voluble and vociferous restaurant-keeper, who insanely clamored: "twenty-five sen! you pay now! twenty-five sen!" "but my purse!" the boy said. "i tell you i've lost it somewhere." whereupon the restaurant-keeper lifted his arms indignantly and shrieked: "twenty-five sen! twenty-five sen! you pay now!" quite a crowd had collected, and it was growing embarrassing for alf davis. it was so ridiculous and petty, alf thought. such a disturbance about nothing! and, decidedly, he must be doing something. thoughts of diving wildly through that forest of legs, and of striking out at whomsoever opposed him, flashed through his mind; but, as though divining his purpose, one of the waiters, a short and chunky chap with an evil-looking cast in one eye, seized him by the arm. "you pay now! you pay now! twenty-five sen!" yelled the proprietor, hoarse with rage. alf was red in the face, too, from mortification; but he resolutely set out on another exploration. he had given up the purse, pinning his last hope on stray coins. in the little change-pocket of his coat he found a ten-sen piece and five-copper sen; and remembering having recently missed a ten-sen piece, he cut the seam of the pocket and resurrected the coin from the depths of the lining. twenty-five sen he held in his hand, the sum required to pay for the supper he had eaten. he turned them over to the proprietor, who counted them, grew suddenly calm, and bowed obsequiously--in fact, the whole crowd bowed obsequiously and melted away. alf davis was a young sailor, just turned sixteen, on board the _annie mine_, an american sailing-schooner, which had run into yokohama to ship its season's catch of skins to london. and in this, his second trip ashore, he was beginning to snatch his first puzzling glimpses of the oriental mind. he laughed when the bowing and kotowing was over, and turned on his heel to confront another problem. how was he to get aboard ship? it was eleven o'clock at night, and there would be no ship's boats ashore, while the outlook for hiring a native boatman, with nothing but empty pockets to draw upon, was not particularly inviting. keeping a sharp lookout for shipmates, he went down to the pier. at yokohama there are no long lines of wharves. the shipping lies out at anchor, enabling a few hundred of the short-legged people to make a livelihood by carrying passengers to and from the shore. a dozen sampan men and boys hailed alf and offered their services. he selected the most favorable-looking one, an old and beneficent-appearing man with a withered leg. alf stepped into his sampan and sat down. it was quite dark and he could not see what the old fellow was doing, though he evidently was doing nothing about shoving off and getting under way. at last he limped over and peered into alf's face. "ten sen," he said. "yes, i know, ten sen," alf answered carelessly. "but hurry up. american schooner." "ten sen. you pay now," the old fellow insisted. alf felt himself grow hot all over at the hateful words "pay now." "you take me to american schooner; then i pay," he said. but the man stood up patiently before him, held out his hand, and said, "ten sen. you pay now." alf tried to explain. he had no money. he had lost his purse. but he would pay. as soon as he got aboard the american schooner, then he would pay. no; he would not even go aboard the american schooner. he would call to his shipmates, and they would give the sampan man the ten sen first. after that he would go aboard. so it was all right, of course. to all of which the beneficent-appearing old man replied: "you pay now. ten sen." and, to make matters worse, the other sampan men squatted on the pier steps, listening. alf, chagrined and angry, stood up to step ashore. but the old fellow laid a detaining hand on his sleeve. "you give shirt now. i take you 'merican schooner," he proposed. then it was that all of alf's american independence flamed up in his breast. the anglo-saxon has a born dislike of being imposed upon, and to alf this was sheer robbery! ten sen was equivalent to six american cents, while his shirt, which was of good quality and was new, had cost him two dollars. he turned his back on the man without a word, and went out to the end of the pier, the crowd, laughing with great gusto, following at his heels. the majority of them were heavy-set, muscular fellows, and the july night being one of sweltering heat, they were clad in the least possible raiment. the water-people of any race are rough and turbulent, and it struck alf that to be out at midnight on a pier-end with such a crowd of wharfmen, in a big japanese city, was not as safe as it might be. one burly fellow, with a shock of black hair and ferocious eyes, came up. the rest shoved in after him to take part in the discussion. "give me shoes," the man said. "give me shoes now. i take you 'merican schooner." alf shook his head, whereat the crowd clamored that he accept the proposal. now the anglo-saxon is so constituted that to browbeat or bully him is the last way under the sun of getting him to do any certain thing. he will dare willingly, but he will not permit himself to be driven. so this attempt of the boatmen to force alf only aroused all the dogged stubbornness of his race. the same qualities were in him that are in men who lead forlorn hopes; and there, under the stars, on the lonely pier, encircled by the jostling and shouldering gang, he resolved that he would die rather than submit to the indignity of being robbed of a single stitch of clothing. not value, but principle, was at stake. then somebody thrust roughly against him from behind. he whirled about with flashing eyes, and the circle involuntarily gave ground. but the crowd was growing more boisterous. each and every article of clothing he had on was demanded by one or another, and these demands were shouted simultaneously at the tops of very healthy lungs. alf had long since ceased to say anything, but he knew that the situation was getting dangerous, and that the only thing left to him was to get away. his face was set doggedly, his eyes glinted like points of steel, and his body was firmly and confidently poised. this air of determination sufficiently impressed the boatmen to make them give way before him when he started to walk toward the shore-end of the pier. but they trooped along beside more noisily than ever. one of the youngsters about alf's size and build, impudently snatched his cap from his head; and before he could put it on his own head, alf struck out from the shoulder, and sent the fellow rolling on the stones. the cap flew out of his hand and disappeared among the many legs. alf did some quick thinking, his sailor pride would not permit him to leave the cap in their hands. he followed in the direction it had sped, and soon found it under the bare foot of a stalwart fellow, who kept his weight stolidly upon it. alf tried to get the cap by a sudden jerk, but failed. he shoved against the man's leg, but the man only grunted. it was challenge direct, and alf accepted it. like a flash one leg was behind the man and alf had thrust strongly with his shoulder against the fellow's chest. nothing could save the man from the fierce vigorousness of the trick, and he was hurled over and backward. next, the cap was on alf's head and his fists were up before him. then he whirled about to prevent attack from behind, and all those in that quarter fled precipitately. this was what he wanted. none remained between him and the shore end. the pier was narrow. facing them and threatening with his fist those who attempted to pass him on either side, he continued his retreat. it was exciting work, walking backward and at the same time checking that surging mass of men. but the dark-skinned peoples, the world over, have learned to respect the white man's fist; and it was the battles fought by many sailors, more than his own warlike front, that gave alf the victory. where the pier adjoins the shore was the station of the harbor police, and alf backed into the electric-lighted office, very much to the amusement of the dapper lieutenant in charge. the sampan men, grown quiet and orderly, clustered like flies by the open door, through which they could see and hear what passed. alf explained his difficulty in few words, and demanded, as the privilege of a stranger in a strange land, that the lieutenant put him aboard in the police-boat. the lieutenant, in turn, who knew all the "rules and regulations" by heart, explained that the harbor police were not ferrymen, and that the police-boats had other functions to perform than that of transporting belated and penniless sailormen to their ships. he also said he knew the sampan men to be natural-born robbers, but that so long as they robbed within the law he was powerless. it was their right to collect fares in advance, and who was he to command them to take a passenger and collect fare at the journey's end? alf acknowledged the justice of his remarks, but suggested that while he could not command he might persuade. the lieutenant was willing to oblige, and went to the door, from where he delivered a speech to the crowd. but they, too, knew their rights, and, when the officer had finished, shouted in chorus their abominable "ten sen! you pay now! you pay now!" "you see, i can do nothing," said the lieutenant, who, by the way, spoke perfect english. "but i have warned them not to harm or molest you, so you will be safe, at least. the night is warm and half over. lie down somewhere and go to sleep. i would permit you to sleep here in the office, were it not against the rules and regulations." alf thanked him for his kindness and courtesy; but the sampan men had aroused all his pride of race and doggedness, and the problem could not be solved that way. to sleep out the night on the stones was an acknowledgment of defeat. "the sampan men refuse to take me out?" the lieutenant nodded. "and you refuse to take me out?" again the lieutenant nodded. "well, then, it's not in the rules and regulations that you can prevent my taking myself out?" the lieutenant was perplexed. "there is no boat," he said. "that's not the question," alf proclaimed hotly. "if i take myself out, everybody's satisfied and no harm done?" "yes; what you say is true," persisted the puzzled lieutenant. "but you cannot take yourself out." "you just watch me," was the retort. down went alf's cap on the office floor. right and left he kicked off his low-cut shoes. trousers and shirt followed. "remember," he said in ringing tones, "i, as a citizen of the united states, shall hold you, the city of yokohama, and the government of japan responsible for those clothes. good night." he plunged through the doorway, scattering the astounded boatmen to either side, and ran out on the pier. but they quickly recovered and ran after him, shouting with glee at the new phase the situation had taken on. it was a night long remembered among the water-folk of yokohama town. straight to the end alf ran, and, without pause, dived off cleanly and neatly into the water. he struck out with a lusty, single-overhand stroke till curiosity prompted him to halt for a moment. out of the darkness, from where the pier should be, voices were calling to him. he turned on his back, floated, and listened. "all right! all right!" he could distinguish from the babel. "no pay now; pay bime by! come back! come back now; pay bime by!" "no, thank you," he called back. "no pay at all. good night." then he faced about in order to locate the _annie mine_. she was fully a mile away, and in the darkness it was no easy task to get her bearings. first, he settled upon a blaze of lights which he knew nothing but a man-of-war could make. that must be the united states war-ship _lancaster_. somewhere to the left and beyond should be the _annie mine_. but to the left he made out three lights close together. that could not be the schooner. for the moment he was confused. he rolled over on his back and shut his eyes, striving to construct a mental picture of the harbor as he had seen it in daytime. with a snort of satisfaction he rolled back again. the three lights evidently belonged to the big english tramp steamer. therefore the schooner must lie somewhere between the three lights and the _lancaster_. he gazed long and steadily, and there, very dim and low, but at the point he expected, burned a single light--the anchor-light of the _annie mine_. and it was a fine swim under the starshine. the air was warm as the water, and the water as warm as tepid milk. the good salt taste of it was in his mouth, the tingling of it along his limbs; and the steady beat of his heart, heavy and strong, made him glad for living. but beyond being glorious the swim was uneventful. on the right hand he passed the many-lighted _lancaster_, on the left hand the english tramp, and ere long the _annie mine_ loomed large above him. he grasped the hanging rope-ladder and drew himself noiselessly on deck. there was no one in sight. he saw a light in the galley, and knew that the captain's son, who kept the lonely anchor-watch, was making coffee. alf went forward to the forecastle. the men were snoring in their bunks, and in that confined space the heat seemed to him insufferable. so he put on a thin cotton shirt and a pair of dungaree trousers, tucked blanket and pillow under his arm, and went up on deck and out on the forecastle-head. hardly had he begun to doze when he was roused by a boat coming alongside and hailing the anchor-watch. it was the police-boat, and to alf it was given to enjoy the excited conversation that ensued. yes, the captain's son recognized the clothes. they belonged to alf davis, one of the seamen. what had happened? no; alf davis had not come aboard. he was ashore. he was not ashore? then he must be drowned. here both the lieutenant and the captain's son talked at the same time, and alf could make out nothing. then he heard them come forward and rouse out the crew. the crew grumbled sleepily and said that alf davis was not in the forecastle; whereupon the captain's son waxed indignant at the yokohama police and their ways, and the lieutenant quoted rules and regulations in despairing accents. alf rose up from the forecastle-head and extended his hand, saying: "i guess i'll take those clothes. thank you for bringing them aboard so promptly." "i don't see why he couldn't have brought you aboard inside of them," said the captain's son. and the police lieutenant said nothing, though he turned the clothes over somewhat sheepishly to their rightful owner. the next day, when alf started to go ashore, he found himself surrounded by shouting and gesticulating, though very respectful, sampan men, all extraordinarily anxious to have him for a passenger. nor did the one he selected say, "you pay now," when he entered his boat. when alf prepared to step out on to the pier, he offered the man the customary ten sen. but the man drew himself up and shook his head. "you all right," he said. "you no pay. you never no pay. you bully boy and all right." and for the rest of the _annie mine's_ stay in port, the sampan men refused money at alf davis's hand. out of admiration for his pluck and independence, they had given him the freedom of the harbor. * * * * * transcriber's notes: obvious punctuation errors repaired. page , "spice" changed to "splice" (reef und splice) page , "undego" changed to "undergo" (undergo with one's) generously made available by the internet archive/american libraries.) transcriber's notes: italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=. small uppercase have been replaced with regular uppercase. blank pages have been eliminated. variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the original. [illustration: see page "home along the beach for the second time"] in great waters four stories by thomas a. janvier author of "the uncle of an angel" "the aztec treasure-house" "the passing of thomas" "in old new york" etc. _illustrated_ [illustration] new york and london harper & brothers publishers copyright, , by harper & brothers. _all rights reserved._ november, . to c. a. j. contents page the wrath of the zuyder zee a duluth tragedy the death-fires of les martigues a sea upcast illustrations "home along the beach for the second time" _frontispiece_ "he was a crazed man" _facing p._ "it was a stately dwelling" " old jaap " "'i have loved you with my whole heart'" " marius " "the others were upcast on the rocks" " "then i could use my eyes to look behind me" " the wrath of the zuyder zee i old jaap visser was mad. out there on the island of marken, in the zuyder zee, he was the one madman, and a curiosity. the little boys--all born web-footed, and eager as soon as they could walk to toddle off on their stout little dutch legs and take to the water--used to run after him and jeer at him. an underlying fear gave zest to this amusement. the older of them knew that he could lay a strange binding curse upon people. the younger of them, resolving this concept into simpler terms, knew that he could say something that would hurt more than a spanking; and that would keep on hurting, in some unexplained but dreadful way, beyond the sting of the worst spanking that ever they had known. therefore, while they jeered, they jeered circumspectly. out in the open--on the brick-paved pathways which traverse the low marsh-land and unite the little knolls on which are the villages: the hafenbeurt (where the harbour is), the kerkehof, and the kesbeurt--butter would not melt in their small dutch mouths when they met him. but when they had him at their mercy among the houses of one or another of the villages things went differently. then they would yell "old jaap!" "mad old jaap!" after him--and as he turned upon them would whip off their sabots, that they might run the more lightly, and would dash around corners into safety: with delightful thrills of dread running through their small scampish bodies at the thought of the curse that certainly was flying after them, and that certainly would make them no better than dead jelly-fish if they did not get around the corner in time to ward it off! and old jaap would be left free for a moment from his tormentors, brandishing his staff in angry flourishes and shouting his strange curse after them: "may you perish in the wrath of the zuyder zee!" the young men and women of marken, who never had known old jaap save as a madman, felt toward him much as the children did; though as they got older, and came to understand the cause of his madness and the effectiveness of his curse, their dread of him was apt to take on a more serious cast. even krelis kess, a notorious daredevil in all other directions, and for a long while one of old jaap's most persistent tormentors, came in the end to treat him with a very obliging civility. but then, to be sure, marretje de witt was old jaap's granddaughter--and everybody in marken knew that this gentle marretje, because of her very unlikeness to him it was supposed, had made capture of krelis kess's much too vagrant heart. one person, it is true, did dissent from this view of the matter, and that was geert thysen--who declared that krelis was too much of a man really to care for a pale-faced thing fit only to marry another oyster like herself. and geert's black eyes would snap, and her strong white teeth would show in a smile that was not a pleasant one as she added: "a live man who knows the nip of gin-and-water does not waste his time in drinking weak tea!" but then, to quote the sense of the island folk again, everybody in marken knew that to win krelis's love for herself geert thysen would have given those bold black eyes of hers, and would have said thank you, too! among the old people of marken, who had known old jaap before his madness came upon him, a very different feeling prevailed. they dreaded him, of course, because they knew what his curse could accomplish; but, also, they sorrowed for him--remembering the cruel grief which had come upon him in his youth suddenly and had driven him mad. well enough, they said, might he call down his strange curse upon those who angered him, for twice had he known the bitterness of it: when death, and again worse than death, had struck at that which was dearer than the very heart of him through the wrath of the zuyder zee. it all had happened so long back that only the old people had knowledge of it--in the great storm out of the arctic ocean which had driven into the zuyder zee the north sea waters; and there had banked them up, higher and higher, until the whole island of marken was flooded and half the dykes of the mainland were overrun. old jaap--who was young jaap, then--was afloat at his fishing when the storm came on, and his young wife and her baby were alone at home. in her fear for him she came down from the kerkehof, where their home was, to the hafenbeurt; and there, standing upon the sea-wall that shelters the little harbour, watching for him, was the last that ever was seen of her alive. when his schuyt came in she had vanished--caught away by the up-leaping sea. that was bad enough, but worse followed. a month later, when he was at his fishing again--glad to be at work, that in the stress of it he might a little forget his sorrow--his net came up heavy, and in it was his dead wife. [illustration: "he was a crazed man"] then it was that his madness fell upon him. by the time that he was come back to marken--sailing his schuyt for a long night through the dark waters with that grewsomely ghastly lading--he was a crazed man. ii the shadow that rested on jaap visser's mind was a deep melancholy that for the most part kept him silent, yet that was broken now and then by outbursts of rage in which he raved against the cruel wickedness of the sea. it did not unfit him for work. he had his living to make; and he made it, as all the men of marken made their living, by fishing. but those who sailed with him in his schuyt said that always as the net came home he hauled upon it with tight-shut eyes; that always, as it was drawn inboard, he turned away--until the thrashing of the fish and some word about the catch from his companions assured him that he might look without fear of such a sight as that which had flashed burning through his eyes and had turned his brain. when he was on land he spent little time in his own home: of which, and of the baby motherless, his mother had taken charge. usually he was to be found within or lingering near the graveyard that lies between the kerkehof and the hafenbeurt: an artificial mound, like those whereon the several villages on the island are built, raised high enough to be above the level of the waters which cover marken in times of great storm. before this strange habit of his had become a matter of notoriety, a dozen or more of the islanders, as they passed at night along the path beside the graveyard, had been frightened pretty well out of their wits by seeing his tall figure rise from among the graves suddenly and stand sharply outlined against the star-gleam of the sky. but in those days, as i have said, his madness was no more than a sombre melancholy--save for his fitful outbursts of rage against the sea. the bitterness that came into his heart came later: when his daughter was a woman grown and jan de witt married her--and presently deserted her, as was known openly, for an edam jade over on the mainland. things went worse and worse for a while: until one day when old jaap--even then they were beginning to call him old jaap--fell into a burning rage with his son-in-law and cursed him as he deserved for the scoundrel that he was. it was down at the dock that the two men came together. the schuyts were going out, and jan was aboard his own boat making ready to cast off. half the island folk were there--the fishermen about to sail, and their people come to see them get away. some one--who did not see old jaap standing on the piling near where jan's boat lay--called out: "the fishing is good off edam still, eh, jan?" and then there was a general laugh as jan answered, laughing also: "yes, there's good fishing off edam--better than there is nearer home." at this old jaap broke forth into a passionate outburst against his son-in-law: calling him by all the evil names that he could get together, crying out against his wickedness and his cruelty, and ending--as jan's boat slid away from her moorings, with jan standing at the tiller laughing at the old man's fury--by calling out with a deep grave energy, in strange contrast with his previous angry ravings: "god cannot and will not forgive. he will judge you and he will punish you. in his name i say to you: may the might of the angered waters be upon you--may you perish in the wrath of the zuyder zee!" there was such a majesty in old jaap's tone as he spoke those words, and such intense conviction, that all who heard him were thrilled strangely. some of the old men of marken, who were there that day, still will tell you that it seemed as though they heard the voice of one who truly was the very mouth-piece of god. even jan, they say, paled a little; but only for a moment--and then he was off out of the harbour with a jeer and a laugh. but that was jan's last laugh and jeer at his father-in-law, and his last sight of marken. the next day the boats came hurrying home before a storm, but jan's boat did not come with them. at first it was thought that he had put into the canal leading up to edam--it was about there that the other fishermen had lost sight of him--but a couple of days later his boat drifted ashore, bottom upward, in the bight of goudzee south of monnikendam. that left room for guess-work. certainty came at the end of a fortnight: when the two men who had been with him got back to marken--after a trip to england in the steamer that had picked them up afloat--and told how the schuyt had gone over in the gale and spilt them all out into the sea. as for jan, he never came back at all. as he and the other two men were thorough good sailors, and as the survivors themselves were quite at a loss to account for their catastrophe, there was only one way to explain the matter: old jaap's curse had taken effect! after that old jaap had a place still more apart from the other islanders. what he had done to one he could do to another, it was whispered--and thenceforward he was both shunned and dreaded because of the power for life and death that was believed to be his. the reflex of this popular conviction seemed to find a place in his own heart, and now and again he would threaten with his curse those who got at odds with him. but he never uttered it; and the fact was observed that even in the case of the teasing little boys he was careful not to curse any one of his tormentors by name. iii certainly, if ever old jaap had cursed any particular little boy it would have been krelis kess--who was quite the worst boy on the island, and who usually was the leader of the troop that hung about the old man's heels. and even when krelis got to be a big young fellow of twenty--old enough to go on escapades in amsterdam of which the rumour, coming back to marken, made all steady-going folk on the island look askance at him--he still took an ugly pleasure, as occasion offered, in stirring up old jaap's wrath. if the old man chanced to pass by while he was sitting of a sunday afternoon in jan de jong's tavern, drinking more gin-and-water than was good for him, it was one of his jokes to call out through the open window "mad old jaap!" in the shrill voice of a child; and to repeat his cry, with different inflections but always in the same shrill tones, until the old man would go off into a fury and shout his curse at the little boys who seemed to be so close about him but who could not anywhere be seen. at that krelis would fall to laughing mightily, and so would the loose young fellows his companions--who had found out that that would send his hand to his pocket and give them free drinks all around. under such conditions it is not surprising that the wonder, and also the regret, of these young scapegraces was very great when on a certain sunday afternoon in mid-spring time krelis not only did not volunteer his usual pleasantry at old jaap's expense--as the old man came shambling up the narrow street toward the tavern--but actually refused to practise it when it was suggested to him. and the wonder grew to be blank astonishment, a minute later, when he went to the window and begged herr visser to come in and have a glass of schnapps with him! to hear old jaap called "herr visser" by anybody was enough to stretch to the widest any pair of marken ears; but to hear him addressed in that stately fashion by krelis kess was enough to make any marken man believe that his ears had gone crazy! at first the young scamps in the tavern were quite sure that krelis was about to play some new trick on old jaap, and that this wonderful politeness was the beginning of it. but the marvel increased when the old man--who liked schnapps as well as anybody--joined the little company of tosspots and was treated by krelis with as much respect as though he had been a burgomaster! and more than that, when the session was ended--and old jaap, to whom such treats came rarely, was so far fuddled that he could not manage his legs easily--krelis said that nothing could be pleasanter than a walk across to the kerkehof in the cool of the evening, and so gave him a steadying arm home. as the two set off together the young fellows left behind stared at each other in sheer amazement; and such of the marken folk as chanced to meet this strangely assorted couple marching amicably arm in arm together were inclined to disbelieve in their own eyes! for a week, while they all were away at their fishing, there was a lull in the excitement; but it was aroused again the next sunday when krelis did not come as usual to the tavern--and went to a white heat when a late arrival, a young fellow who lived in the kerkehof, told that as he came past jaap visser's house he had seen krelis sitting on the bench in front of it talking away with old jaap and making eyes behind old jaap's back at marretje. at first, being so entirely incredible, this statement was scouted scornfully; but it aroused so lively a discussion that presently the whole company left the tavern and went over in a body to the kerkehof bent upon disproving or verifying it--and there, sure enough, were old jaap and krelis smoking their pipes together, and marretje along with them, on the bench in front of old jaap's door! young jan de jong--the son of the tavern-keeper--expressed the feelings of the company when he said, later, that as they stood there looking at that strange sight you might have knocked down the whole of them with the flirt of a skate's tail! but they did not stop long to look at it. krelis glared at them so savagely, and his big fists doubled up in so threatening a fashion, that they took themselves off in a hurry--and back to the tavern to talk it over, while they bathed their wonder in very lightly watered gin. iv that was the beginning of krelis kess's courting of marretje de witt--about which, in a moment, all the island blazed with talk. until then, in a light-loving way, krelis had been keeping company with geert thysen. that seemed a natural sort of match, for geert and krelis had much the same bold way with them and well enough might have paired. but geert, like krelis, had a devil of a temper, and it was supposed that an angry spat between them had sent krelis flying off in a rage from her spit-firing--and that the gentle marretje had caught his heart on the rebound. the elders, reasoning together out of their worldly wisdom, perceived that under the law of liking for unlike this bold-going young fellow very well might be drawn toward a maiden all gentleness; and that, because of her gentleness, marretje would find a thrilling pleasure in the strong love-making with which krelis would strive to take her heart by storm. all that, as they knew, was human nature. had they known books also they would have cited the case of desdemona and the moor. however, there was not much time for talking. krelis was not of the sort to let grass grow under his feet in any matter, and in a love matter least of all. nor were there any obstacles to bar his way. he had his own boat, that came to him when his father was drowned; and he had his own house in the kesbeurt, where he had lived alone since his mother had ended a notably short widowhood by marrying a second time. old jaap, moreover, was ready enough to accept as a son-in-law the only man in marken who ever had styled him herr visser, and who in addition to that unparalleled courtesy had given him in quick succession nearly a dozen bottles of the best schiedam. there was nothing to hinder the marriage, therefore, but marretje's shyness--and krelis overcame that quickly in his own masterful way. and so everybody saw that matters were like to come quickly to a climax--everybody, that is, except geert thysen, who said flatly that the marriage was both impossible and absurd. geert had her own notion that krelis was serving her out for her hard words to him, and was only waiting for a soft word to come back to her--and she bit those full red lips of hers with her strong teeth and resolved that she would keep him waiting until he was quite in despair. then, at the very last, she would whistle him back to her--with a laugh in his face first, and then such a kiss as all the marretjes in the world could not give him--and the comedy of his mock courtship would be at an end. sometimes, to be sure, the thought did cross her mind that krelis might not come to her whistle. then the color would go out of her red cheeks a little, and as she ground her big white teeth together she would have a half-formed vision of krelis lying dead somewhere with a knife in his heart. but visions of this sort came seldom, and were quickly banished--with a sharp little laugh at her own folly in fancying even for an instant that krelis could hesitate in choosing between herself and that limp pale doll. and then, one day, she found herself face to face with the fact that krelis had not been playing a comedy at all. the news was all over the island that he and marretje were to be married the next sunday; and that he meant to be married handsomely, with a great wedding-feast at jan de jong's tavern in jan de jong's best style. "so there's an end of your lover for you, geert thysen!" said jaantje de waard, who brought the news to her. at this geert's red cheeks grew a little redder, and her big black eyes had a brighter flash to them; but she only laughed as she answered: "it's one thing to lay the net--but it's another to haul it in!" and jaantje remembered afterward what a strange look was in her face as she said those strange words. v the wedding was the finest that had been known in marken for years. at the church the parson gave his "golden clasp" address, which was the most beautiful of his three wedding addresses and cost five gulden. then the company streamed away along the brick-paved pathway from the kerkehof to the hafenbeurt, with the sunshine gleaming gallantly on the white caps and white aprons of the women and on the shiny high hats of the men, while the wind fluttered the little dutch flags--and they all walked much more steadily then than they did when they took their after-breakfast walk, before the dancing began. in that second walk the men's legs wavered a good deal, and some of them had trouble in steering the stems of their long pipes to their mouths. but that is not to be wondered at when you think what a breakfast it was! jan de jong fairly excelled himself. they talk about it in marken to this day! while the wedding-party walked unsteadily abroad the big room in the tavern was cleared; and when the company was come back again, much the better for fresh air and exercise, the dancing began. and just then a very queer thing happened: krelis led off the dance with geert thysen instead of with marretje his bride! some say that geert made him promise to do this as the price of her coming to the wedding; others say that it was done on the spur of the moment--was one of geert's sudden whims that krelis, who also was given to sudden whims, fell in with. about the truth of this matter there can be only guess-work, but about what happened there is plain fact: just as the set was forming, krelis dropped marretje's hand and said lightly: "you won't mind, marretje, will you? it's for old friendship's sake, you know." and with that he took the hand of geert thysen, who was standing close beside him, and away he went with her in the dance. those who think that it had been arranged between them beforehand point out that geert had refused all offers to dance and had come close to krelis just as the set was formed. there is something in that, i think. but whether they had planned it or had not planned it, the fact remains that marretje's place at the head of the dance at her own wedding was taken by another woman; and as the set was complete without her, she did not dance at all until the first figure came to an end. they say that there were tears in her eyes as she stood alone there--and that she was very white when krelis took her hand again, at the end of the first figure, and gave her for the rest of the dance the place at the head of it that was hers. they say, too, that geert stood watching them--when krelis had left her and had taken his bride again--with a hot blaze of color coming and going in her cheeks, and with a wonderful flashing and sparkling of her great black eyes. and before the dance ended geert went home. there was a great crackling of talk, of course, about this slight that krelis had put upon marretje on her wedding-day; and people shook their heads and said that worse must come after it. some of the stories about krelis's escapades in amsterdam were raked up again and were pointed with a fresh moral. as for geert, the marken women had but one opinion of her--and the least unkindly expression of it was that she was walking in a very dangerous path. but when echoes of this talk came to geert's ears--as they did, of course--she merely curled her red lips a little and said that as she was neither a weak woman nor a foolish woman she was safe to walk where she pleased. vi it was a little disconcerting to the prophets of evil that the weeks and the months slipped away without any signs of the fulfilment of their prophecies. however keen may have been marretje's sorrow on her wedding-day, it was not lasting. indeed, her gentle nature was so filled with a worshipping love for krelis that he had only to give her a single light look of affection or a half-careless kiss to fill her whole being with happiness. he was a god to her--this gayly daring young fellow who had raised her up to be a shy little queen in a queendom, she was sure, such as never had been for any other woman in all the world. and krelis was very well pleased with her frank adoration. it was tickling to his vanity that she should be so completely and so eagerly his loving slave. next to her love for krelis--and partly because it was a part of her love for him--marretje's greatest joy was in her housekeeping. she had taken a just pride in the tidiness of her housekeeping for her grandfather; but it was a very different and far more exciting matter to furbish and polish a house that really was her own. and krelis's house, of which she was the proud mistress, was far bigger and far finer than her old home. it was a stately dwelling, for marken, standing on an out-jutting ridge of earth at the back of the kesbeurt, close upon a delightful little canal--and from the back doorway was a restful far-off outlook over the marsh-land to the level horizon of the zuyder zee. marretje loved that outlook, and she had it before her often: for down beside the canal was her scouring-shelf--where she scoured away through long sunny mornings, while krelis was away at his fishing, until her pots and kettles ranged in the sunlight shone like burnished gold. yet the fact should be added that when the old men of marken talked together about this fine house of krelis kess's they would shake their heads a little--saying that a better spending of money would have been for a smaller house founded on solid piling, instead of for this showy dwelling standing on an out-thrust earth bank which well enough might crumble away beneath it in some time of tremendous tempest when all the island should be overswept and beaten by the sea. for the most part, of course--save for little chats with her neighbours--marretje was alone in that fine house of hers. old jaap had come to live with the young people--as was only fair, since he had no one but his granddaughter to care for him--but both he and krelis spent all their week-days afloat at their fishing and only their sundays at home. yet now and then the old man, making some excuse for not going out with the fleet, would give himself a turn at shore duty; and would sit in his big chair, smoking his long pipe very contentedly, watching his granddaughter at her endless scouring and cleaning, and listening to her little bursts of song. in his unsettled old mind he sometimes fancied that the years had rolled backward and that he was watching his own young wife again; and in his old heart he would dream young love-dreams by the hour together--blessedly forgetting that the love and the happiness which had made his life beautiful had been snatched away from him and lost forever in the wrathful waters of the zuyder zee. [illustration: "it was a stately dwelling"] but marretje's love-dreams were living ones. as krelis lounged over his pipe of a sunday morning, taking life easily in his clean sunday clothes, he would say an airy word or two in praise of her housekeeping that fairly would set her to blushing with happiness--and what with the colour in her fair face and the light in her blue eyes she would be so entirely charming that krelis's own eyes would go to sparkling, and he would draw her close to him and fondle her in a genuinely loverlike fashion that would fill her with a very tender joy. krelis was quite sincere in his love-making. his little marretje's soft beauty, and her shy delight in his caresses, went down into an unsounded depth and touched an unknown strain of gentleness in his easy-going heart. but even on the first sunday after they were married krelis went off after dinner--it had been a wonder of a dinner that marretje had cooked for him: she had been planning it the week through!--to join his companions as usual at jan de jong's. this came hard on marretje. she had been counting so much on that afternoon! a dozen little tender confidences had been put aside during the morning to be made then comfortably: when the dinner things would all be cleared away, and her grandfather would have gone to take his usual sunday look at his boat, and she and krelis would be sitting at their ease--delightfully alone together for the first time in their lives! she had thought it all out, and had arranged in her own mind that they would sit on the steps above her scouring-shelf--at the back of the house and hidden away from everybody--with the canal at their feet, and in front of them the level loneliness of the marsh-land stretching away and losing itself in the level loneliness of the sea. she had a cushion all ready for krelis to sit on, and a smaller cushion for herself that was to go on the next lower step--and she blushed a little to herself as she thought how she would make a back to lean against out of krelis's big knees. and then, just as she had finished her clearing away and was getting out the cushions, krelis put on his hat and said that he thought he would step across to the tavern and have a look at the boys. the boys would laugh at him, he said, if he settled right down into being an old married man--and he tried to give a better send-off to this small pleasantry by laughing at it himself. but he did not laugh very heartily, and he almost turned back again when he got to the bridge--thinking how the light of happiness which had made marretje's face so beautiful through that sunday morning suddenly had died out of it as he came away. and then he pulled himself together with the reflection that she would be all right again when he got back to her at supper-time, and so went on. when he was come to the tavern he forgot all about marretje's unhappiness, for the boys welcomed him with a cheer. being in this way forsaken, marretje carried out what was left of her broken plan forlornly--arranging the cushions on the two steps, and sitting on the lower one with her elbow resting on the upper one, and gazing out sorrowfully across the marsh-land and the sea. that great loneliness of sedge and sea and sky made her own loneliness more bitter: and then came the hurting thought that just a week before, very nearly at that same hour, krelis still more cruelly had forsaken her while he led with geert thysen their wedding-dance. after a while old jaap came home and seated himself beside her. he was silent, as was his habit, but having him that way soothed and comforted her. as she leaned her head against his shoulder and held his big bony hands the old man went off into one of his dream-fancies that his young wife was beside him again--and perhaps, in some subtle way, that also helped to take the sting out of her pain. when krelis came home at supper-time, walking a little unsteadily, he did not miss her flow of chattering talk that had gone on through the morning; and presently it began again--for krelis returned in high good-humour, and his fire of pretty speeches and his kisses quickly brought happiness back to her sore little heart. knowing thereafter what to expect of a sunday, her pleasure was less lively--but so was her pain. vii it was a little past the turn of the half-year after the wedding that the prophets of evil pricked up their ears hopefully--as there began to go humming through marken a soft buzz of talk about the carryings on of geert thysen and krelis kess. it was only vague talk, to be sure; but then when talk of that sort is vague there is the more seaway for speculation and inference. all sorts of rumours went flashing about--and carried the more weight, perhaps, because they could not be traced to a starting-point and were disavowed by each person who passed them on. the sum of them became quite amazing before long! in the end, of course, this talk worked around to marretje. bit by bit, one kind friend after another brought her variations of the same budget of news, pleading their friendship for her as the excuse for their chattering; and all of them were a good deal disconcerted by the placid way, with scarcely a word of comment, in which she suffered them to talk on. only when they took to saying harsh things about krelis did they rouse her a little. then she would stop them shortly, and with a quiet insistence that put them in an awkward corner, by asking them to remember that it was her husband whom they were talking about, and that what they were saying was not fit for his wife to hear. this line of rejoinder was disconcerting to her interlocutors. to be put in the wrong, that way, while performing for conscience' sake a very unpleasant duty, could not but arouse resentment. presently it began to be said that marretje was a poor-spirited thing upon whom friendly sympathy was thrown away. perhaps it was because marretje was not feeling very strong just then that she took matters so quietly. certainly she had not much energy to spare, and her days went slowly and heavily. even on the sunday mornings when she had krelis at home with her--and a good many of his sundays were spent away from the island, in order, as he explained, that he might get off on the mondays earlier to his fishing--she found it hard to keep up the laughing talk and the light-hearted way with him that he seemed to think always were his due. when she flagged a little he told her not to be sulky--and that cut her sharply, for she thought that he ought to feel in his own heart how very tenderly she was loving him in those days, and how earnestly she was longing for a tender and sustaining love in return. it is uncertain how much of all this old jaap understood, but a part of it he certainly did understand. in some matters his clouded brain seemed to work with a curious clearness, and especially had he a strange faculty for getting close to troubled hearts. many there were in marken, on whom sorrow had fallen, who had been comforted by his sympathy; and who had found it the more soothing and helpful because it was given with no more than a gentle look or a few gentle words. in this same soft way, that asked for no answer and that needed none, he comforted marretje in that sad time of her loneliness. many a day, when the other fishermen kept the sea, he kept the land--letting his boat go away to the fishing without him while he made company at home for his granddaughter, and even helped her in the heavier part of her house-work with his big clumsy old hands. these awkward efforts to serve her touched marretje's heart very keenly--yet also added a pang to her sorrow because of her longing that krelis might show his love for her in the same way. but old jaap had his work to do at sea, and marretje had to make the best of many and many a weary and lonely day. being in so poor a way she could busy herself but little with her house-work--nor was there much incentive to scour and polish since krelis had ceased to commend her housekeeping; and, indeed, was at home so little that he was indifferent as to whether she kept her house well or ill. and so she spent much of her time as she had spent that first lonely sunday afternoon--sitting on the steps above her scouring-shelf, looking out sadly and dreamily across the marsh-land and the sea. or she would walk slowly to the end of the village, where rough steps went down to a little-used canal, and there would lean against the rail while she gazed steadfastly across the marshes seaward--trying to fancy that she could see the fishing fleet, and trying to build in her breast little hope-castles in which krelis again was all her own. they comforted her, these hope-castles: even though always, when the week ended and the fleet was back again, they came crashing down. sometimes krelis's boat did not return at all. sometimes it returned without him. when he did come back in it very little of his idle sunday was passed at home. the dark months of winter dragged on wearily. grey chill clouds hung over marken, and grey chill clouds rested on this poor marretje's heart. viii but one glad day in the early spring-time the sun shone again--when krelis bent down over her bed with a look of real love in his bright eyes and kissed her; and then--in a half-fearful way that made her laugh at him with a weak little laugh in which there was great happiness--kissed also his little son. "as if his father's kiss could hurt this great strong boy!" she said in a tone of vast superiority: and held the little atom close to her breast with all the strength of her feeble arms. she loved with a double love this little krelis: greatly for himself and for the strong thrilling joy of motherhood, but perhaps even more because his coming had brought the other krelis back again into the deep chambers of her heart. it was the prettiest of sights, presently, when she was up and about again, to see marretje standing in front of her own door in the spring sunshine holding this famous little krelis in her arms. then, as now, young mothers were common enough in marken; but there was a look of radiant happiness about marretje--so the old people will tell you--that made her different from any young mother whom ever they saw. "her face was as shining as the face of an angel!" one of the old women said to me--when i heard this story told in marken on a summer day. and this same old woman told me that through that time of marretje's great happiness geert thysen walked sullen: ready at any moment, without cause or reason, to fly out into what the old woman called a yellow rage. but even from the first the matrons of the island, knowing in such matters, pulled long faces when they talked about the little krelis among themselves. krelis kess's son, they said, should not have been so frail a child; and then they would account for this puny baby by casting back to the time when marretje was orphaned before she was weaned, and so was started in life without the toughness and sturdiness with which the marken folk as a rule are dowered. these worthy women had much good advice to give, and gave it freely, as to how the little krelis should be dealt with to strengthen him; but marretje paid scant attention to their suggestions, being satisfied in her own mind that this wonderful baby of hers really was--as she had said he was on the day when his father first kissed him--a great strong boy. krelis, seeing his little son only once a week, was the first to notice that he was not so strong as a healthy child should be; but when he said so to marretje she gave him such a rating that he decided he must be all wrong. and then, one day, geert thysen opened both his and marretje's eyes. it was a bright sunday afternoon, when the little krelis was between two and three months old, that marretje was sitting with him on her lap, suckling him, on the steps above her scouring-shelf; and krelis was seated on the step above her, and she really was making a back of his big knees. what with the joy of her motherhood, and her joy because her krelis was her own again, it seemed to marretje as though in all the world there was only happiness. she held the little krelis close to her, crooning a soft song sweetly over the tiny creature nestled to her heart; and as she suckled him there tingled through her breast, and thence through all her being, thrills of that strange subtle ecstasy which only mothers know. and krelis, in his own way, shared marretje's great happiness: as they sat there lonely, looking out over the marsh-land seaward, their hearts very near together because of the deep love that was in both of them for their child. presently krelis leaned a little forward, and with a touch rarely loving and tender encircled the two in his big arms and drew marretje still closer against his knees. and they sat there for a while so--in the bright silence of that sunny afternoon, fronting that still outlook over level spaces cut only by the level sky-line far away--their two hearts throbbing gently and very full. a little noise broke the deep silence suddenly, and an instant later geert thysen was almost within arm's-length of them--standing in a boat which she had poled very quietly along the canal. krelis unclasped his arms and drew back quickly; but marretje bent forward and grasped the little krelis still more closely, as though to shield him from harm. for a moment there was silence. krelis flushed and looked uneasy, almost ashamed. there was a dull burning light in geert's black eyes and her face was pale and drawn. she was the first to speak. "you're quite right to make the most of your sick baby," she said. "you won't have him long." "he's not a sick baby," marretje answered furiously. "he's as strong and well as he can be!" geert laughed. "that puny little thing strong and well!" she answered. "much it is that you know about babies, marretje! don't you see how the veins show through his skin? don't you see the marks under his eyes? don't you see how little he is, and how he don't grow? in another month you'll know more. he'll be over yonder in the graveyard by that time!" and then she flashed a look on krelis of that sort of hate which comes when love goes wrong as she added: "and it is no more than you deserve, krelis kess. you might have had a strong woman for a wife, and then you would have had a strong child!" with that she gave a sudden thrust with the pole that sent her boat flying away from them, and in an instant vanished around a turn in the canal. ix within a week the story of what had happened between them was all over marken. geert thysen herself must have told what she had done. certainly krelis did not tell; and marretje, having no one else to turn to, told only her grandfather. but various versions of the story went about the island, and the comment upon all of them by the marken folk was the same: that krelis had played the part of a coward in suffering such words to be spoken to his wife with never a word on his side of reply. old jaap, they say, blazed out into one of his mad rages against his son-in-law. some say that he then laid the curse upon him--but that never will be known certainly, for the bout between the two men took place when they were alone. what is known to be true is that krelis for a while was as a man stunned; and that when he came to himself again--this was after the little krelis was laid away in the graveyard--what love he had for marretje was turned to an angry hatred because she had let his boy die. he said this not only to his neighbours but to marretje herself--telling her that their child had died because she had borne it weakly into the world and had given it no strength with which to live. even a strong woman, being well-nigh heart-broken--as marretje was when her baby was lost to her--could not have stood up against a blow like that. and marretje, who was not a strong woman, felt the heart-breaking bitterness of what krelis said because she knew that it was true. very soon she was as feeble and as wan as the little krelis had been. happiness was no more for her, and she longed only for the forgetfulness of sorrow which would come to her when she should be as the little krelis was. and so her slight hold on life loosened quickly, and presently she and the little krelis lay in the graveyard side by side. she had a very nice funeral, so one of the old women in marken told me: the best bier and the best pall were used, and the minister gave his best address--the one called "the mourning wreath"--at the grave. and, to end with, there was a breakfast in jan de jong's tavern that was of the best too. it was only just to krelis, the old woman said, to say that in the matter of the funeral he behaved very well indeed. but one thing which he did at that breakfast showed that it was for his own pride, and not for the sake of marretje, that everything was done in so fine a style. on marken there was left no near woman relative of marretje's, and when the guests came to the table they were a good deal scandalized by finding that geert thysen was to be seated on krelis's right hand. old jaap's place was on his left, but when the old man saw who was to take the seat on the right he drew back quickly from the table and left the room. at that, for a full half-minute there was an awkward pause--until krelis, in a strong voice, bade the company be seated: and added that no one had a better right to the seat beside him than marretje's oldest friend. as he made this speech a little buzzing whisper went around among the company, and some one even snickered down at the lower end of the big room. but there was the breakfast, as good as it could be, before them. it was much too good a breakfast to lose on a mere point of etiquette. the whispering died out, and for a moment the guests looked at one another in silence--and then there was a great scraping and rattling of chairs as they all sat down. and krelis and geert presided over the funeral feast with a most proper gravity--save that now and then a glance passed between them that seemed to have more meaning than was quite decorous in the case of those two: the one being a maiden, and the other a widower whose wife had not been buried quite two hours. of course there was a good deal of talk about all this afterward; but as public opinion had been moulded under favour able conditions--while the mellowing influence of the good food and abundant drink was still operative--the talk was not by any means relentlessly harsh. the men openly smiled at the proof which krelis had given that his loss was not irreparable; and the women, with a certain primness, admitted that--after all the talk there had been--krelis owed it to geert to marry her with as little delay as the proprieties of the case would allow. but even this kindly public opinion was strained sharply by the discovery that the marriage was to take place only two months after that funeral feast at which, to all intents and purposes, it had been announced. that was going, the women said, altogether too fast. but the men only laughed again--partly at the way in which the women were standing up for the respect due to their sex, and partly at krelis's hurry to take on again the bonds from which he had been so very recently set free. here and there among the talkers a questioning word would be put in as to how old jaap would take this move on the part of his son-in-law. but even the few people who bothered their heads with this phase of the matter held that old jaap never would have a clear enough understanding of it to resent the dishonour put upon his granddaughter's memory. he had returned to his home in the kerkehof and was living there, in his own queer way, solitary. he was madder than ever, people said; and it was certain that he had gone back to his old habit of spending in the graveyard all of the days and many of the nights which he passed ashore. often those who passed by night between the hafenbeurt and the kerkehof saw him there--keeping his strange watch among the graves. x what the marken folk still speak of as "the great storm"--the worst storm of which there is record in the island's history--set in a good four-and-twenty hours before the december day on which geert thysen and krelis kess were married. from the polar ice-fields a rushing and a mighty wind thundered southward over the arctic ocean and down across the shallows of the north sea--sucking away the water from the baltic, sending a roaring tide out through the english channel into the atlantic, and piling higher and higher against the holland coast a wall of ocean: which broke at the one opening and went pouring onward into the zuyder zee. already on the morning of that wild wedding-day the waves were lapping high about marken, and here and there a dull gleam of water showed where the marshes were overflowed. just before daybreak the storm lulled a little, but came on again with a fresh force after the unseen sunrise, and grew stronger and stronger as the black day wore on. down by the little haven the fishermen were gathered in groups anxiously watching their tossing boats--in dread lest in spite of the doubled and tripled moorings they should fetch away. steadily from the black sky poured downward sheets of rain. according to marken notions, even a landsman should not have ventured to marry on a day like that; and for a fisherman to marry while such a storm was raging was a sheer tempting of all the forces which work together for evil in the tempests of the sea. every one expected that the wedding would be put off; and when word was passed around that it was not to be put off, all of the older and steadier folk refused with one voice to have anything to do with it. how krelis succeeded in inducing the minister to perform the ceremony no one ever knew--for the minister was one of the many that day on marken who never saw the rising of another sun. he was not well liked, that minister, and stories not to his credit were whispered about him; at least so one of the old women told me--and more than half hinted that what happened to him was a judgment upon him for his sins. even when the wedding-party came across from the kerkehof to the hafenbeurt, some little time before mid-day, the marshes on each side of the raised path were marshes no longer, but open water--that was whipped southward before the gale in little angry waves. there was no chance for a show of finery. the men wore their oil-skins over their sunday clothes, and the women were wrapped in cloaks and shawls. but it was a company of young dare-devils, that wedding-party, and the members of it came on through the storm laughing and shouting--with geert and krelis leading and the gayest madcaps of them all. so far from being dismayed by the roaring tempest, those two wild natures seemed only to be stirred and aroused by it to a fierce happiness. they say that geert never was so beautiful as she was that day--her face glowing with a strong rich colour, her eyes sparkling with a wonderful brilliancy, her full red lips parted and showing the gleam of those strong white teeth of hers, her lithe body erect and poised confidently against the furious wind which swept them all forward along the path. but as the party came near to the graveyard, lying midway between the kerkehof and the hafenbeurt close beside the path, some of the young men and women found their merriment oozing out of them. in that day of black storm the rain-sodden mound was inexpressibly desolate. all around it, save for the pathway leading up to its gate, the marsh was flooded. the graveyard almost was an island--would be quite an island should the water rise another foot. rushed onward by the gale, shrewd little waves were beating against its windward side so sharply that the soft soil visibly was crumbling away--a sight which recalled a dim but very grisly legend of how once a great storm had hurled such a sea upon marken that the dead bodies lying in that very spot had been torn from their resting-places by the tumultuous waves. but crueler still was the shivering thought of marretje, only two months dead, lying in that sodden ground in her storm-beaten grave. and then, as they came closer, the memory of marretje was brought home to them still more sharply and in a strangely startling way: as they saw old jaap uprise suddenly from where he had been crouched amidst the graves. bareheaded, with his long grey hair and long grey beard soaked with the falling torrent and flying out before the wind, he stood upright on the crest of the mound close above them--his tall lean figure towering commandingly against the black rain clouds, defiant as some old sea-god of the furious storm. he seemed to be speaking, but the storm noises were as a wall shutting him off from them, and not until they had passed on a little and were to leeward of him could they hear his words. then they heard him clearly: speaking slowly, with no trace of anger in his tones but with a strange solemn fervour--as though he felt himself to be out beyond the line which separates time from eternity, and from that vantage-point uttered with authority the judgments of an outraged god. it was to geert and krelis that he spoke, pointing at them with one outstretched hand while the other was raised as though in invocation toward the wild black sky: "for your sins the anger of god is loosed upon you in his tempests, and in his name i curse you with a binding curse. may the raging waters be upon you! may you perish in the wrath of the zuyder zee!" a shudder went through all the wedding company. even krelis, half stopping, suddenly paled. only geert, bolder than all of them put together, held her own. with a quick motion she drew krelis onward, and her lip curled in that way of hers as she said to him: "what has old jaap to do with you or me, krelis? he is a mad old fool!" and then she looked straight at old jaap, into the very eyes of him, and laughed scornfully--as they all together went on again through the wind and rain. but when they came to jan de jong's tavern, where the wedding-breakfast was waiting for them, krelis was the first to call for gin. he said that he was cold. xi it was the strangest wedding-feast, they say, that ever was held on marken: with the black tempest beating outside, and all the lamps in the big room lighted--although the day still was on the morning side of noon. young jan de jong--the same who is old jan de jong now, and who now keeps the tavern--remembers it all well, and tells how his mother was for bundling the whole company out of doors. such doings would bring bad luck upon the house, she said--and went up-stairs and locked herself into her room and took to praying when her husband told her that bad luck never came with good money, and that what krelis was willing to pay for krelis should have. but it was the wife who was right that time--as the husband knew a very little later on. for that night krelis's boat was one of those swept away from their moorings and foundered, and krelis's fine house was undermined by the water and went out over the zuyder zee in fragments--and so the wedding-feast never was paid for at all. and she always said that but for her prayers their son would have been lost to them too. old jan was very grave when he told me about this--and from some of the others i learned that it was because of what happened to him that night that he gave over the wild life that he had been leading and became a steady man. at first, what with the blackness of the storm and the ringing in everybody's ears of old jaap's curse, the company was a dismal one. but the plentiful hot gin-and-water that krelis ordered--and led in drinking--soon brought cheerfulness back again. as for geert, she had no need of gin-and-water: her high spirits held from first to last. seated on krelis's right--just as she had been seated only a little while before on the day of marretje's funeral--she rattled away steadily with her gay talk; and every now and then, they say, turned to krelis with a look that brought fire into his eyes! the walk after breakfast was out of the question. as the afternoon went on the storm raged more and more tumultuously. there was nothing for it but to have the room cleared of the chairs and table and go straight on to the dancing; and that they did--excepting some of the weaker-headed ones, whose legs were too badly tangled for such gay exercise and who sat limply on the benches against the wall. this time it was not by favour but by right that geert led the dance with krelis--her black eyes shining and her face all of a rich red glow. and as she took her place at the head of it she said to jaantje de waard: "who's got him now, this lover of mine you said i'd lost, jaantje? didn't i tell you that it's one thing to lay the net, but it's another to haul it in?" and away she went, caught close to krelis, with a laugh on those red lips of hers and a brighter sparkle in her black eyes. jaantje said--it was she who told me, an old woman now--that somehow this speech of geert's, and the sudden thought that it brought of dead marretje out there in the graveyard, made her feel so queasy in her stomach that she left the dance and went home bare-headed through the storm. the dancing, with plenty of drink between whiles, went on until evening; and after night-fall the company grew still merrier--partly because of the punch, but more because the feast lost much of its grewsomeness when they all knew that the darkness outside was the ordinary darkness of black night and not the strange darkness of that black day. but there was no break in the storm; and now and then, when a fierce burst of wind fairly set the house to rocking on its foundations, and sent the rain dashing in sheets against the windows, there would be anxious talk among those of the dancers who came from the kerkehof or the kesbeurt as to how they were to get home. from time to time one of the men would open the door a little and take a look outside--and would draw in again in a hurry and go straight to the punch-bowl for comforting: for none of them had seen any storm like that on marken in all their lives. and so, when at last the storm did lull a little--this was about eight o'clock in the evening, close upon the moonrise--there was a general disposition to take advantage of the break and get away. and krelis did not urge his guests to stay longer, for he was of the same mind with them--being eager to carry off homeward his geert with the flashing eyes. but when the men went out of doors together to have a look about them they were brought up suddenly with a round turn. it is only a step from jan de jong's tavern to the head of the path that dips downward and leads across the marshes to the other villages. but when they had taken that step no path was to be seen! close at their feet, and stretching away in front of them as far as their eyes could reach through the night-gloom, was to be seen only tumultuous black water flecked here and there with patches of foam. everywhere over marken, save the graveyard mound and the knolls on which stood the several villages, the ocean was in possession: right across the island were sweeping the storm-lashed waves of the zuyder zee! xii though they all were filled with punch-begotten dutch courage, not one of them but krelis--as they stood together looking out over what should have been marsh-land and what was angry sea--thought even for a moment of getting homeward before daylight should come again and the gale should break away. and even krelis would not have been for facing such danger at an ordinary time: but just then his soul and body were in commotion, and over the black stormy water he saw visions of geert beckoning him to those red lips of hers, and firing him with the sparkle of her flashing eyes. "it's a bit of sea," he said lightly, "but if one of you will lend a hand at an oar with me we'll manage it easily. just here it's baddish. but a stiff pull of a hundred yards will fetch us into smoother water under the lee of the graveyard, and beyond that we'll be a little under the lee of the kerkehof--and then another spurt of stiff pulling will fetch us home. geert will steer, and we can count on her to steer well. i wouldn't have risked it with marretje at the tiller--but i've got another sort of a wife now. which of you'll come along?" there was a dead silence at that, for every one of the young fellows standing there knew that to take a boat out into that water meant a fight for life at every inch of the way. "well, since you're all so modest," krelis went on with a laugh, "i'll pick out big jan here to pull with me--and no offence to the rest of you, for we all know that not another man on marken pulls so strong an oar." it was old jan himself who told me this, and he said that when krelis chose him that way there was nothing for him to do but to say that he'd go. but he said that he went pale at the thought of what was before him, and would have given anything in the world to get out of the job. all the others spoke up against their trying it; and that, he said, while it scared him still more--for they all, in spite of the punch that was in them, spoke very seriously--helped him to go ahead. it would be something to talk about afterward, he thought, that he had done what everybody else was afraid to do. and when the others found that he and krelis were not to be shaken, they set themselves to bringing a strong boat across from the other side of the village and getting it into the water--in a smooth place under the lee of one of the houses--and lashing a lantern fast into its bows. when krelis and jan went back to the tavern to fetch geert there was another outcry. all the women got around geert and declared that she should not go. but geert was ready always for any bit of daredeviltry, and the readier when anybody tried to hold her back from it--and then the way that krelis looked at her would have taken her with him through the very gates of hell. she only laughed at the other women, and made them help her to put on the oil-skin hat and coat that krelis fetched for her to keep her dry against the pelting rain. and she laughed still louder when she was rigged out in that queer dress--and what with her sparkling eyes and her splendid colour was so bewitching under the big hat that krelis snatched a kiss from her and swore that at last he had a wife just to his mind. all the company, muffled in shawls and cloaks, went along with them to the water-side to see them start; and because there was no commotion in the quiet nook where the boat was lying, and the darkness hid the tumbling waves beyond, most of them thought that the only danger ahead for geert and the others was a thorough drenching--and were disposed to make fun of this queer wedding-journey on which they were bound. but the young men who had launched the boat knew better, and they tried once more to make krelis give over his purpose--or, at least, to wait until the moon should rise a little and thin the clouds. and all the answer that they got was a laugh from geert and a joking invitation from krelis to come across to the kesbeurt in the morning and join him in a glass of grog. krelis was to pull stroke, and so big jan got into the boat ahead of him--with his heart fairly down in his boots, he told me--and then krelis got in; and last of all geert took her seat in the stern, and as she gripped the tiller steadily gave the order to shove off. with a strong push the young men gave the boat a start that sent it well out from the shore, and then the oars bit into the water and they were under way. one of the old women whom i talked with was of the wedding-party, and down there by the shore that night, and she told me that they all cheered and laughed for a minute as the boat with the lantern in her bows shot off from the land. the thought of danger, she said, was quite out of their minds. right in front of them, less than a quarter of a mile away, they saw the lights of the houses in the kesbeurt shining brightly, and plainly setting the course for geert to steer; and they knew that the two strongest men on marken were at the oars. what they all were laughing about, she said, was that anybody should be going from the one village to the other in a boat--and that it should be a wedding-journey, too! but it was only for a moment that their laughter lasted. the instant that the boat was out of the sheltered smooth water they all knew that not by one chance in a thousand could she live to fetch across. by the light of the lantern fixed in her bows they saw plainly the wild tumult of the sea around her--that caught her and seemed to stand her almost straight on end as geert held her strongly against the oncoming waves. the old woman said that a thrill of horror ran through them all as they realized what certainly must happen. by a common impulse down they all went on their knees on the sodden ground, with the rain pelting them--and she heard some one cry out in the darkness: "old jaap's curse is upon them! may god pity and help them and have mercy on their souls!" [illustration: old jaap] xiii old jan, who alone knew it, told me the rest of the story--but speaking slowly and unwillingly, as though it all still were fresh before him and very horribly real. he said that when the boat lifted as that first sea struck her it was plain enough what was likely to happen to them--for they could not put about to make the shore again without swamping, and with such a sea running they were pretty certain to swamp quickly if they went on. but krelis was not the sort to give in, and he shouted over his shoulder: "i've got you into a scrape, jan; but if we can pull up under the lee of the graveyard there's a chance for us still." and then he called to geert: "now you can show what stuff you're made of, geert. steer for the graveyard--and for god's sake hold her straight to the sea!" as for geert, she was as cool as the best man could have been, and she steered as well as any man could have steered. the light from the lantern shone full in her face, and old jan said that her eyes kept on sparkling and that her colour never changed. with that tremendous wind sweeping down on them, and with the waves butting against the boat, and throwing her head up every instant, even jan and krelis--and they were the best oarsmen on marken--could make only snail's way. but it heartened them to find that they made any way at all--as they could tell that they were doing by seeing the lights ashore crawling past them--and so they lashed away with their oars and found a little hope growing again. presently krelis called out: "the water's getting smoother, jan. another fifty yards and we'll be all right!" that was true. they were creeping up steadily under the lee of the graveyard, and the closer they got to it the more would it break the force of the waves. if they could reach it they would be safe. just as krelis spoke, the boat struck against something so sharply that she quivered all over and lost way. neither of the men dared to turn even for an instant; nor could their turning have done any good--all that they could do was to row on. but geert could look ahead, and the lantern in the bows cast a little circle of light upon the furious sea. as she peered over their shoulders a strange look came into her face, jan said, and then she spoke in a voice strained and strange: "it's a coffin," she said, "and i see another one a little farther on. the sea is washing away the graveyard--as it did that time long ago!" and then the coffin went past them, so close that it struck against and nearly unshipped krelis's oar. jan said that he trembled all over, and that a cold sweat broke out on him. he felt himself going sick and giddy, and fell to wondering what would happen should he be unable to keep on pulling--and how long it took a man to drown. then--but because of a ringing in his ears the voice seemed to come faintly from very far away--he heard krelis cry out cheerily: "pull, jan! if we're getting among the coffins we'll be safe in a dozen strokes more!" it was at that instant that a great wave lifted the bow of the boat high out of the water, and as she fell away into the trough of the sea she struck again--but that time with a crash that had in it the sound of breaking boards. jan knew that they must have struck the other coffin that geert had seen, and he was sure that the boat was stove in and in another moment would fill and sink from under them. for what seemed a whole age to him there was a grinding and a crunching beneath the keel; and then, as the boat swung free again, he saw geert go chalk-pale suddenly--as she stood peering eagerly forward--and heard her give a great wild cry. and then her color rushed back into her cheeks and her eyes glittered as she called out in a strong voice resolutely: "it's marretje come to take you from me, krelis--but she sha'n't, she sha'n't! you never really were her lover--and you always were and always shall be mine! and i hate her and i'll get the better of her dead just as i hated her and got the better of her alive!" and with that geert let go her hold upon the tiller and sprang forward and clasped krelis in her arms. jan could not tell clearly what happened after that. all that he was sure of was the sight for an instant, tossing beside the boat in the circle of light cast by the lantern, of a lidless coffin in which lay wrapped in her white shroud the dead golden-haired marretje--and then the boat broached to and went over, and there was nothing about him but blackness and the tumultuous waves. as he went down into a hollow of the sea he felt the ground beneath his feet, and that put courage into him to make a fight for life. struggling against the gale, and against waves which grew smaller as he battled on through them, he went forward with a heart-breaking slowness; and the strength was clean gone out of him when he won his way at last up the lee side of the little mound--and dropped down at full length there, in safe shelter amidst the graves. "and geert and krelis?" i asked. "with her arms tight about him there was no chance for either of them," he answered. and then he went on, speaking very solemnly: "the word that was truth had been spoken against them. they perished in the wrath of the zuyder zee!" a duluth tragedy i [illustration] jutting out from the rocky coast, a sand spit nearly seven miles long, minnesota point is as a strong arm stretched forth to defend the harbour of duluth against the storms which breed in the frozen north and come roaring down lake superior. wisconsin point, less than half its length, almost meets it from the other shore. between the two is the narrow inlet through which in old times came the canadian voyageurs--on their way across saint louis bay and up the windings of the saint louis river to pond du lac, twenty miles farther westward. that was in the fur-trading days of little sailing-vessels and birch-bark canoes. now, close to its shoulder, the point is cut by a canal through which the great black steamships come and go. five-and-twenty years ago--before the canal was thought of, and when the duluth of the present, with its backing of twenty thousand miles of railway, was a dream just beginning to be realized--minnesota point was believed to have a great future. close to its shoulder a town site was staked out, and little wooden houses were built at a great rate. corner lots on that sand spit were at a premium. the "boom" was on. the smash of ' knocked the bottom out of everything for a while. when good times came again the town site moved on westward a half-mile or so and settled itself on the mainland. the little houses on the point were out of the running and were taken up by swedes--who were content, as americans were not, to live a few steps away from the strenuous centre of that inchoate metropolis. that time the "boom" was a genuine one. the new city had come to stay. in course of time, to meet its growing trade requirements, the canal was cut which made the point an island--and after that the point was dead for good and all. nowadays it is only in summer that a little life, other than that of its few inhabitants, shows itself on minnesota point--when camping-parties and picnic-parties go down by three miles of shaky tramway to oatka beach. during all the rest of the year that sandy barren, with its forlorn decaying houses and its dreary growth of pines stunted by the harsh lake winds, is forgotten and desolate. now and then is heard the cry of a gull flying across it slowly; and always against its outer side--with a thunderous crash in times of storm, in times of calm with a sad soft lap-lapping--surge or ripple the deathly cold waters of lake superior: waters so cold that whoever drowns in them sinks quickly--not to rise again (as the drowned do usually), but for all time, in chill companionship with the countless dead gathered there through the ages, to be lost and hidden in those icy depths. the ghastly coldness of the water in which it is merged seems to have numbed the point and reconciled it to its bleak destiny. it has accepted its fate: recognizing with a grim indifference that its once glowing future has vanished irrevocably into what now is the hopelessness of its nearly forgotten past. ii [illustration] george maltham, wandering out on the point one sunday morning in the early spring-time--he had just come up from chicago to take charge of the duluth end of his father's line of lake steamers and was lonely in that strange place, and was the more disposed to be misanthropic because he had a headache left over from the previous wet night at the club--came promptly to the conclusion that he never had struck a place so god-forsakenly dismal. aside from his own feelings, there was even more than usual to justify this opinion. the day was grey and chill. a strong northeast wind was blowing that covered the lake with white-caps and that sent a heavy surf rolling shoreward. a little ice, left from the spring break-up, still was floating in the harbour. under these conditions the point was at its cheerless worst. maltham had crossed the canal by the row-boat ferry. having mounted the sodden steps and looked about him for a moment--in which time his conclusion was reached as to the point's god-forsaken dismalness--he was for abandoning his intended explorations and going straight-away back to the mainland. but when he turned to descend the steps the boat had received some waiting passengers--three church-bound swedish women in their sunday clothes--and had just pushed off. that little turn of chance decided him. after all, he said to himself, it did not make much difference. what he wanted was a walk to rid him of his headache; and the point offered him, as the rocky hill-sides of the mainland conspicuously did not, a good long stretch of level land. before him extended an absurdly wide street--laid out in magnificent expectation of the traffic that never came to it--flanked in far-reaching perspective by the little houses which sprang up in such a hurry when the "boom" was on. in its centre was the tramway, its road-bed laid with wooden planks. the dingy open tram-car, in which the church-bound swedish women had come up to the ferry, started away creakingly while he stood watching it. that was the only sight or sound of life. for some little time, in the stillness, he could hear the driver addressing swedish remarks of an encouraging or abusive nature to his mule. taking the planked tramway in preference to the rotten wooden sidewalks full of pitfalls, maltham walked on briskly for a mile or so--his headache leaving him in the keen air--until the last of the little houses was passed. there the vast street suddenly dribbled off into a straggling sandy road, which wound through thickets of bushy white birch and a sparse growth of stunted pines. the tramway, along which he continued, went on through the brush in a straight line. the point had narrowed to a couple of hundred yards. through rifts in the tangle about him he could see heaps of storm-piled drift-wood scattered along the lake-side beach--on which the surf was pounding heavily. on the harbour side the beach was broken by inthrusts of sedgy swamp. presently he came to a sandy open space in which, beside a weather-worn little wooden church, was a neglected graveyard that seemed to give the last touch of dreariness to that dismal solitude. the graveyard was a waste of sand, save where bushy patches of birch had sprung up in it from wind-borne seeds. swept by many storms, the sandy mounds were disappearing. still marking the graves were a few shabby wooden crosses and a dozen or so of slanting or fallen wooden slabs. once these short-lived monuments had been painted white and had borne legends in black lettering. but only a swedish word or a swedish name remained here and there legible--for the sun and the wind and the rain had been doing their erasing work steadily for years. one slab alone stood nearly upright and retained a few partly decipherable lines in english. but even on that maltham could make out only the scattered words: "sacred.... ulrica.... royal house of sweden ... ever beloved ... of major calhoun ashley," and a date that seemed to be . his headache had gone, but it had left him heavy and dejected. that fragmentary epitaph increased his sombreness. even had he been in a cheerful mood he could not have failed to perceive the pathetic irony of it all. there was more than the ordinary cruelty of death and forgetfulness, he thought, about that grave so desolate of one who had been connected--it did not matter how--with a "royal house," and who was described in those almost illegible lines as "ever beloved." that was human nature down to the hard pan, he thought; and with a half-smile and a half-sigh over the fate of that poor dead ulrica he turned away from the graveyard and walked on. half-whimsically he wondered if he had reached the climax of the melancholy which brooded over that dreary sand spit. as he stated the case to himself, short of finding a man lying murdered among the birch-bushes it was not likely that he would strike anything able to raise that graveyard's hand! the murdered man did not materialize, and the next out-of-the-way sight that he came across--when he had walked on past the dingy and forgotten-looking little church--was a big ramshackling wooden house of such pretentious absurdity that his first glimpse of it fairly made him laugh. its square centre was a wooden tower of three stories, battlemented, flanked by two battlemented wings. a veranda ran along the lower floor, and above the veranda was a gallery. some of the windows were boarded over; others had scraps of carpet stuck into their glassless gaps--and all had venetian shutters (singularly at odds with the climate of that region) hanging dubiously and with many broken slats. the paint had weathered away, and bricks had fallen from the chimney-tops--a loss which gave to the queer structure, in conjunction with lapses in its wooden battlements, a sadly broken-crested air. as a whole, it suggested a badly done caricature of an old-fashioned southern homestead--of which the essence of the caricature was finding it in that bleak northern land. iii [illustration] maltham had come to a full stop in front of this absurd dwelling, which was set a little back from the road in a dishevelled enclosure, and as he stood examining in an amused way its various eccentricities he became aware that from one of the lower windows a man was watching him. this was disconcerting, and he turned to walk on. but before he had gone a dozen steps the front door opened and the man came outside. he was dressed in shabby grey clothes with a certain suggestion of a military cut about them; but in spite of his shabbiness he had the look of a gentleman. he was sixty, or thereabouts, and seemed to have been well set up when he was younger--before the slouch had settled on his shoulders and before he had taken on a good many unnecessary inches about his waist. from where he stood on the veranda he hailed maltham cordially: "won't yo' come in, suh? i have obsehved youah smiles at my old house heah-- no, no, yo' owe me no apology, suh," he went on quickly, as maltham attempted a confused disclaimer. "yo' ah quite justified in laughing, suh, at my foolish fancy--that went wrong mainly because the yankee ca'pentah whom i employed to realize it was a hopelessly damned fool. but it was a creditable sentiment, suh, which led me to desiah to reproduce heah in godfo'saken minnesotah my ancestral home in the grand old state of south cahrolina--the house that my grandfatheh built theah and named eutaw castle, as i have named its pore successeh, because of the honorable paht he bo' in the battle of eutaw springs. the result, i admit, is a thing to laugh at, suh--but not the ideah. no, suh, not the ideah! but come in, suh, come in! the exterioh of eutaw castle may be a failuah; but within it, suh, yo' will find in this cold no'th'en region the genuine wahm hospitality of a true southe'n home!" maltham perceived that the only apology which he could offer for laughing at this absurd house--the absurdity of which became rather pathetic, he thought, in view of its genesis--was to accept its owner's invitation to enter it. acting on this conclusion, he turned into the enclosure--the gate, hanging loosely on a single hinge, was standing open--and mounted the veranda steps. as he reached the top step his host advanced and shook hands with him warmly. "yo'ah vehy welcome, suh," he said; and added, after putting his hand to a pocket in search of something that evidently was not there: "ah, i find that i have not my cahd-case about me. yo' must pehmit me to introduce myself: majoh calhoun ashley, of the confedehrate sehvice, suh--and vehy much at youahs." maltham started a little as he heard this name, and the small shock so far threw him off his balance that as he handed his card to the major he said: "then it was your name that i saw just now in--" and stopped short, inwardly cursing himself for his awkwardness. "that yo' saw in the little graveyahd, on the tomb of my eveh-beloved wife, suh," the major replied--with a quaver in his voice which compelled maltham mentally to reverse his recent generalizations. the major was silent for a moment, and then continued: "heh grave is not yet mahked fitly, suh, as no doubt yo' obsehved. cihcumstances oveh which i have had no control have prevented me from erecting as yet a suitable monument oveh heh sacred remains. she was my queen, suh"--his voice broke again--"and of a line of queens: a descendant, suh, from a collateral branch of the ancient royal house of sweden. i am hoping, i am hoping, suh, that i shall be able soon to erect oveh heh last resting-place a monument wo'thy of heh noble lineage and of hehself. i am hoping, suh, to do that vehy soon." the major again was silent for a moment; and then, pulling himself together, he looked at maltham's card--holding it a long way off from his eyes. "youah name is familiar to me, suh," he said, "though fo' the moment i do not place it, and i am most happy to make youah acquaintance. but come in, suh, come in. i am fo'getting myself--keeping you standing this way outside of my own doah." he took maltham cordially by the arm and led him through the doorway into a wide bare hall; and thence into a big room on the right, that was very scantily furnished but that was made cheerful by a rousing drift-wood fire. over the high mantel-piece was hung an officer's sword with its belt. on the buckle of the belt were the letters c. s. a. excepting this rather pregnant bit of decoration, the whitewashed walls were bare. the major bustled with hospitality--pulling the bigger and more comfortable of two arm-chairs to the fire and seating maltham in it, and then bringing out glasses and a bottle from a queer structure of unpainted white pine that stood at one end of the room and had the look of a sideboard gone wrong. "at the moment, suh," he said apologetically, "my cellah is badly fuhnished and i am unable to offeh yo' wine. but if yo' have an appreciative taste fo' bourbon," he went on with more assurance, "i am satisfied that yo' will find the ahticle in this bottle as sound as any that the noble state of kentucky eveh has produced. will yo' oblige me, suh, by saying when!" not knowing about the previous wet night, and its still lingering consequences, the promptness with which maltham said "when" seemed to disconcert the major a little--but not sufficiently to deter him from filling his own glass with a handsome liberality. holding it at a level with his lips, he turned toward his guest with the obvious intention of drinking a toast. "may i have a little water, please?" put in maltham. "i beg youah pahdon, suh. i humbly beg youah pahdon," the major answered. "i am not accustomed to dilute my own liquoh, and i most thoughtlessly assumed that yo' would not desiah to dilute youahs. i trust that yo' will excuse my seeming rudeness, suh. yo' shall have at once the bevehrage which yo' desiah." while still apologizing, the major placed his glass on the table and went to the door. opening it he called: "ulrica, my child, bring a pitcheh of fresh wateh right away." again maltham gave a little start--as he had done when the major had introduced himself. in a vague sub-conscious way he felt that there was something uncanny in thus finding living owners of names which he had seen, within that very hour, scarcely legible above an uncared-for grave. but the major, talking on volubly, did not give him much opportunity for these psychological reflections; and presently there was the sound of footsteps in the hall outside, and then the door opened and the owner of the grave-name appeared. iv [illustration] because of the odd channel in which his thoughts were running, maltham had the still odder fancy for an instant that the young girl who entered the room was the dead ulrica of whom the major had spoken--"a queen, and of a line of queens." and even when this thought had passed--so quickly that it was gone before he had risen to his feet to greet her--the impression of her queenliness remained. for this living woman bearing a dead name might have been aslauga herself: so tall and stately was she, and so fair with that cold beauty of the north of which the soul is fire. instinctively he felt the fire, and knew that it still slumbered--and knew, too, that in the fulness of time, being awakened, it would glow with a consuming splendour in her dark eyes. all this went in a flash through his mind before the major said: "pehmit me, mr. maltham, to present yo' to my daughteh, miss ulrica ashley." and added: "mr. maltham was passing, ulrica, and did me the honeh to accept my invitation to come in." she put down the pitcher of water and gave maltham her hand. "it was very kind of you, sir," she said gravely. "we do not have many visitors, and my father gets lonely with only me. it was very kind of you, sir, indeed." she spoke with a certain precision, and with a very slight accent--so slight that maltham did not immediately notice it. what he did notice, with her first words, was the curiously thrilling quality of her low-pitched and very rich voice. "and don't you get lonely too?" he asked. "why no," she answered with a little air of surprise. and speaking slowly, as though she were working the matter out in her mind, she added: "with me it is different, you see. i was born here on the point and i love it. and then i have the house to look after. and i have my boat. and i can talk with the neighbours--though i do not often care to. father cannot talk with them, because he does not know swedish as i do. when he wants company he has to go all the way up to town. you see, it is not the same with us at all." and then, as though she had explained the matter sufficiently, she turned to the major and asked: "do you want anything more, father?" "nothing mo', my child--except that an extra place is to be set at table. mr. maltham will dine with us, of co'se." at this maltham protested a little; but presently yielded to ulrica's, "you will be doing a real kindness to father if you will stay, mr. maltham," backed by the major's peremptory: "yo' ah my prisoneh, suh, and in eutaw castle we don't permit ouah prisonehs to stahve!" the matter being thus settled, ulrica made a little formal bow and left the room. "the wateh is at youah sehvice, suh," said the major as the door closed behind her. "i beg that yo' will dilute youah liquoh to youah liking. heah's to youah very good health, suh--and to ouah betteh acquaintance." he drank his whiskey appreciatively, and as he set down his empty glass continued: "may i ask, suh, if yo' ah living in duluth, oh mehly passing through? i ventuah to ask because a resident of this town sca'cely would be likely to come down on the point at this time of yeah." "i began to be a resident only day before yesterday," maltham answered. "i've come to take charge here of our steamers--the sunrise line." "the sunrise line!" repeated the major in a very eager tone. "the biggest transpo'tation line on the lakes. the line of which that great capitalist mr. john l. maltham is president. and to think, suh, that i did not recognize youah name!" "john l. maltham is my father," the young man said. "why, of co'se, of co'se! i might have had the sense to know that as soon as i looked at youah cahd. this is a most fo'tunate meeting, mr. maltham--most fo'tunate for both of us. i shall not on this occasion, when yo' ah my guest, enteh into a discussion of business mattehs. but at an eahly day i shall have the honeh to lay befo' yo' convincing reasons why youah tehminal docks should be established heah on the point--which a beneficent providence cleahly intended to be the shipping centeh of this metropolis--and prefehrably, suh, as the meahest glance at a chaht of the bay will demonstrate, heah on my land. yo' will have the first choice of the wha'ves which i have projected; and i may even say, suh, that any altehrations which will affo'd mo' convenient accommodations to youah vessels still ah possible. yes, suh, the matteh has not gone so fah but that any reasonable changes which yo' may desiah may yet be made." remembering the sedgy swamps beside which he had passed that morning, maltham was satisfied that the major's concluding statement was well within the bounds of truth. but he was not prepared to meet off-hand so radical a proposition, and while he was fumbling in his mind for some sort of non-committal answer the major went on again. "it is not fo' myself, suh," he said, "that i desiah to realize this magnificent undehtaking. living heah costs little, and what i get from renting my land to camping pahties and fo' picnics gives me all i need. and i'm an old man, anyway, and whetheh i die rich oh pore don't matteh. it's fo' my daughteh's sake that i seek wealth, suh, not fo' my own. that deah child of mine is heh sainted motheh oveh again, mr. maltham--except that heh motheh's eyes weh blue. that is the only diffehrence. and beside heh looks she has identically the same sweet natuah, suh--the same exquisite goodness and beauty of haht. when my great loss came to me," the major's voice broke badly, "it was my love fo' that deah child kept me alive. it breaks my haht, suh, to think of dying and leaving heh heah alone and pore." maltham had got to his bearings by this time and was able to frame a reasonably diplomatic reply. "well, perhaps we'd better not go into the matter to-day," he said. "you see, our line has traffic agreements with the n. p. and the northwestern that must hold for the present, anyway. and then i've only just taken charge, you know, and i must look around a little before i do anything at all. but i might write to my father to come up here when he can, and then he and you could have a talk." the major's look of eager cheerfulness faded at the beginning of this cooling rejoinder, but he brightened again at its end. "a talk with youah fatheh, suh," he answered, "would suit me down to the ground-flo'. an oppo'tunity to discuss this great matteh info'mally with a great capitalist has been what i've most desiahed fo' yeahs. but i beg youah pahdon, suh. i am fo'getting the sacred duties of hospitality. pehmit me to fill youah glass." it seemed to pain him that his guest refused this invitation; but, finding him obdurate, he kept the sacred duties of hospitality in working order by exercising them freely upon himself. "heah's to the glorious futuah of minnesotah point, suh!" he said as he raised his glass--and it was obvious that he would be off again upon the exploitation of his hopelessly impossible project as soon as he put it down. greatly to maltham's relief, the door opened at that juncture and ulrica entered to call them to dinner; and he was still more relieved, when they were seated at table, by finding that his host dropped business matters and left the glorious future of minnesota point hanging in the air. at his own table, indeed, the major was quite at his best. he told good stories of his army life, and of his adventurous wanderings which ended when he struck duluth just at the beginning of its first "boom"; and very entertaining was what he had to tell of that metropolis in its embryotic days. but good though the major's stories were, maltham found still more interesting the major's daughter--who spoke but little, and who seemed to be quite lost at times in her own thoughts. as he sat slightly turned toward her father he could feel her eyes fixed upon him; and more than once, facing about suddenly, he met her look full. when this happened she was not disconcerted, nor did she immediately look away from him--and he found himself thrilled curiously by her deeply intent gaze. yet the very frankness of it gave it a quality that was not precisely flattering. he had the feeling that she was studying him in much the same spirit that she would have studied some strange creature that she might have come across in her walks in the woods. when he tried to bring her into the talk he did not succeed; but this was mainly because the major invariably cut in before he could get beyond a direct question and a direct reply. only once--when her father made some reference to her love for sailing--was her reserve, which was not shyness, a little broken; and the few words that she spoke before the major broke in again were spoken so very eagerly that maltham resolved to bring her back to that subject when he could get the chance. knowing something of the ways of women, he knew that to set her to talking about anything in which she was profoundly interested would lower her guard at all points--and so would enable him to come in touch with her thoughts. he wanted to get at her thoughts. he was sure that they were not of a commonplace kind. v [illustration] when the dinner was ended he made a stroke for the chance that he wanted. "will you show me your boat?" he asked. "i'm a bit of a sailor myself, and i should like to see her very much indeed." "oh, would you? i am so glad!" she answered eagerly. and then added more quietly: "it is a real pleasure to show you the _nixie_. i am very fond of her and very proud of her. father gave her to me three years ago--after he sold a lot over in west superior. and it was very good of him, because he does not like sailing at all. will you come now? it is only a step down to the wharf." the major declared that he must have his after-dinner pipe in comfort, and they went off without him--going out by a side door and across a half-acre of kitchen-garden, still in winter disorder, to the wharf on the bay-side where the _nixie_ was moored. she was a half-decked twenty-foot cat-boat, clean in her lines and with the look of being able to hold her own pretty well in a blow. "is she not beautiful?" ulrica asked with great pride. and presently, when maltham came to a pause in his praises, she added hesitatingly: "would you--would you care to come out in her for a little while?" "indeed i would!" he answered instantly and earnestly. "oh, thank you, thank you!" ulrica exclaimed. "i do want you to see how wonderfully she sails!" the boat was moored with her stern close to the wharf and with her bow made fast to an outstanding stake. when they had boarded her ulrica cast off the stern mooring, ran the boat out to the stake and made fast with a short hitch, and then--as the boat swung around slowly in the slack air under the land--set about hoisting the sail. she would not permit maltham to help her. he sat aft, steadying the tiller, watching with delight her vigorous dexterity and her display of absolute strength. when she had sheeted home and made fast she cast off the bow mooring, and then stepped aft quickly and took the tiller from his hand. for a few moments they drifted slowly. then the breeze, coming over the tree-tops, caught them and she leaned forward and dropped the centreboard and brought the boat on the wind. it was a leading wind, directly off the lake, that enabled them to make a single leg of it across the bay. as the boat heeled over maltham shifted his seat to the weather side. this brought him a little in front of ulrica, and below her as she stood to steer. from under the bows came a soft hissing and bubbling as the boat slid rapidly along. "is she not wonderful?" ulrica asked with a glowing enthusiasm. "just see how we are dropping that big sloop over yonder--and the nixie not half her size! but the _nixie_ is well bred, you see, and the sloop is not. she is as heavy all over as the _nixie_ is clean and fine. father says that breeding is everything--in boats and in horses and in men. he says that a gentleman is the finest thing that god ever created. it was because the southerners all were gentlemen that they whipped the yankees, you know." "but they didn't--the yankees whipped them." "only in the last few battles, father says--and those did not count, so far as the principle is concerned," ulrica answered conclusively. maltham did not see his way to replying to this presentation of the matter and was silent. presently she went on, with a slight air of apology: "i hope you did not mind my looking at you so much while we were at dinner, mr. maltham. you see, except father, you are the only gentleman i ever have had a chance to look at close, that way, in my whole life. father will not have much to do with the people living up in town. most of them are yankees, and he does not like them. none of them ever come to see us. the only people i ever talk with are our neighbours; and they are just common people, you know--though some of them are as good as they can be. and as father always is talking about what a gentleman ought to be or ought not to be it is very interesting really to meet one. that was the reason why i stared at you so. i hope you did not mind." "i'm glad i interested you, even if it was only as a specimen of a class," maltham answered. "i hope that you found me a good specimen." her simplicity was so refreshing that he sought by a leading question to induce a farther exhibition of it. "what is your ideal of a gentleman?" he asked. "oh, just the ordinary one," she replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "a gentleman must be absolutely brave, and must kill any man who insults him--or, at least, must hurt him badly. he must be absolutely honest--though he is not bound, of course, to tell all that he knows when he is selling a horse. he must be absolutely true to the woman he loves, and must never deceive her in any way. he must not refuse to drink with another gentleman unless he is willing to fight him. he must protect women and children. he must always be courteous--though he may be excused for a little rudeness when he has been drinking and so is not quite himself. he must be hospitable--ready to share his last crust with anybody, and his last drink with anybody of his class. and he must know how to ride and shoot and play the principal games of cards. those are the main things. you are all that, are you not?" she looked straight at him as she asked this question, speaking still in the same entirely matter-of-fact tone. but maltham did not look straight back at her as he answered it. the creed that she set forth had queer articles in it, but its essentials were searching--so searching that his look was directed rather indefinitely toward the horizon as he replied, a little weakly perhaps: "why, of course." she seemed to be content with this not wholly conclusive answer; but as he was not content with it himself, and rather dreaded a cross-examination, he somewhat suddenly shifted the talk to a subject that he was sure would engross her thoughts. "how splendidly the _nixie_ goes!" he said. "she is a racer, and no mistake!" "indeed she is!" ulrica exclaimed, with the fervour upon which he had counted. "she is the very fastest boat on the bay. and then she is so weatherly! why, i can sail her into the very eye of the wind!" "yes, she has the look of being weatherly. but she wouldn't be if you didn't manage her so well. who taught you how to sail?" "it was old gustav bergmann--one of the fishermen here on the point, you know. and he said," she went on with a little touch of pride, "that he never could have made such a good sailor of me if i had not had it in my blood--because i am a swede." "but you are an american." ulrica did not answer him immediately, and when she did speak it was with the same curiously slow thoughtfulness that he had observed when she was explaining the difference between her father's life and her own life in the solitude of minnesota point. "i do not think i am," she said. "i do not know many american women, but i am not like any american woman i know. you see, i am very like my mother. father says so, and i feel it--i cannot tell you just how i feel it, but i do. for one thing, i am more than half a savage, father says--like some of the wild indians he has known. he is in fun, of course, when he says that; but he really is right, i am sure. did you ever want to kill anybody, mr. maltham?" "no," said maltham with a laugh, "i never did. did you?" ulrica remained grave. "yes," she answered, "and i almost did it, too. you see, it was this way: a man, one of the campers down on the point, was rude to me. he was drunk, i think. but i did not think about his being drunk, and that i ought to make allowances for him. somehow, i had not time to think. everything got red suddenly--and before i knew what i was doing i had out my knife. the man gave a scream--not a cry, but a real scream: he must have been a great coward, i suppose--and jumped away just as i struck at him. i cut his arm a little, i think. but i am not sure, for he ran away as hard as he could run. i was very sorry that i had not killed him. i am very sorry still whenever i think about it. now that was not like an american woman. at least, i do not know any american woman who would try to kill a man that way because she really could not help trying to. do you?" "no," maltham answered, drawing a quick breath that came close to being a gasp. ulrica's entire placidity, and her argumentative manner, had made her story rather coldly thrilling--and it was quite thrilling enough without those adjuncts, he thought. she seemed pleased that his answer confirmed her own opinion. "yes, i think i am right about myself," she went on. "i am sure that it is my swedish blood that makes me like that. we do not often get angry, you know, we swedes: but when we do, our anger is rage. we do not think nor reason. suddenly we see red, as i did that day, and we want to strike to kill. it is queer, is it not, that we should be made like that?" maltham certainly was discovering the strange thoughts that he had set himself to search for. they rather set his nerves on edge. as she uttered her calm reflection upon the oddity of the swedish temperament he shivered a little. "i am afraid that you are cold," she said anxiously. "shall we go about? father will not like it if i make you uncomfortable." "i am not at all cold," he answered. "and the sailing is delightful. don't let us go about yet." "well, if you are quite sure that you are not cold, we will not. i do want to take you down to the inlet and show you what a glorious sea is running on the lake to-day. it is only half a mile more." they sailed on for a little while in silence. the swift send of the boat through the water seemed so to fill ulrica with delight that she did not care to speak--nor did maltham, who was busied with his own confused thoughts. suddenly some new and startling concepts of manhood and of womanhood had been thrust into his mind. they puzzled him, and he was not at all sure that he liked them. but he was absolutely sure that this curious and very beautiful woman who had uttered them interested him more profoundly than any woman whom ever he had known. that fact also bothered him, and he tried to blink it. that he could not blink it was one reason why his thoughts were confused. presently, being accustomed to slide along the lines of least resistance, he gave up trying. "after all," was his conclusion, so far as he came to a conclusion, "it is only for a day." vi [illustration] as they neared the inlet the water roughened a little and the wind grew stronger. ulrica eased off the sheet, and steadied it with a turn around the pin. in a few minutes more they had opened the inlet fairly, and beyond it could see the lake--stretching away indefinitely until its cold grey surface was lost against the cold grey sky. a very heavy sea was running. in every direction was the gleam of white-caps. on the beaches to the left and right of them a high surf was booming in. they ran on, close-hauled, until they were nearly through the inlet and were come into a bubble of water that set the boat to dancing like a cork. now and then, as she fell off, a wave would take her with a thump and cover them with a cloud of spray. the helm was pulling hard, but ulrica managed it as easily and as knowingly as she had managed the setting of the sail--standing with her feet well apart, firmly braced, her tall figure yielding to the boat's motion with a superb grace. suddenly a gust of wind carried away her hat, and in another moment the great mass of her golden hair was blowing out behind her in the strong eddy from the sail. her face was radiant. every drop of her norse blood was tingling in her veins. aslauga herself never was more gloriously beautiful--and never more joyously drove her boat onward through a stormy sea. but maltham did not perceive her beauty, nor did he in the least share her glowing enthusiasm. he had passed beyond mere nervousness and was beginning to be frightened. it seemed to him that she let the boat fall off purposely--as though to give the waves a chance to buffet it, and then to show her command over them by bringing it up again sharply into the wind; and he was certain that if they carried on for another five minutes, and so got outside the inlet, they would be swamped. "don't you think that we had better go about?" he asked. it did not please him to find that he had not complete control over his voice. "but it is so glorious," she answered. "shall we not keep on just a little way?" "no!" he said sharply. "we must go about at once. we are in great danger as it is." he felt that he had turned pale. in spite of his strong effort to steady it, his voice shook badly and also was a little shrill. "oh, of course," she replied, with a queer glance at him that he did not at all fancy; "if you feel that way about it we will." the radiance died away from her face as she spoke, and with it went her intoxication of delight. and then her expression grew anxious as she looked about her, and in an anxious tone she added: "indeed you are quite right, mr. maltham. we really are in a bad place here. i ought never to have come out so far. we must try to get back at once. but it will not be easy. i am not sure that the _nixie_ will stand it. i am sure, though, that she will do her best--and i will try to wear her as soon as i see a chance." she luffed a little, that she might get more sea-room to leeward, and scanned the oncoming waves closely but without a sign of fear. "now i think i can do it," she said presently, and put up the helm. it was a ticklish move, for they were at the very mouth of the inlet, but the _nixie_ paid off steadily until she came full into the trough of the sea. there she wallowed for a bad ten seconds. a wave broke over the coaming of the cockpit and set it all aflow. maltham went still whiter, and began to take off his coat. it was with the greatest difficulty that he kept back a scream. then the boat swung around to her course--ulrica's hold upon the tiller was a very steady one--and in another minute they were sliding back safely before the wind. in five minutes more they were in the smooth water of the bay. ulrica was the first to speak, and she spoke in most contrite tones. "it was very, very wrong in me to do that, mr. maltham," she said. "and it was wicked of me, too--for i have given my solemn promise to father that i never will go out on the lake when it is rough at all. please, please forgive me for taking you into such danger in such a foolish way. it was touch and go, you know, that we pulled through. please say that you forgive me. it will make me a little less wretched if you do." the danger was all over, and maltham had got back both his color and his courage again. "why, it was nothing!" he said. "or, rather, it was a good deal--for it gave me a chance to see what a magnificent sailor you are. and--and it was splendidly exciting out there, wasn't it?" "wasn't it!" she echoed rapturously. "and oh," she went on, "i _am_ so glad that you take it that way! it is a real load off my mind! will you please take the tiller for a minute while i put up my hair?" as she arranged the shining masses of her golden hair--her full round arms uplifted, the wind pressing her draperies close about her--maltham watched her with a burning intentness. the glowing reaction following escape from mortal peril was upon him and the tide of his barely saved life was running full. in ulrica's stronger nature the same tide may have been running still more impetuously. for an instant their eyes met. she flushed and looked away. he did not speak, and the silence seemed to grow irksome to her. she broke it, but with a perceptible effort, as she took the tiller again. "do you know," she said, "i did think for a minute that you were scared." she laughed a little, and then went on more easily: "and if you really had been scared i should have known, of course, that you were not a gentleman! was it not absurd?" her words roused him, and at the same time chilled him. "yes, it was very absurd," he answered not quite easily. and then, with presence of mind added: "but i _was_ scared, and badly scared--for you. i did not see how i possibly could get you ashore if the boat filled." "you could not have done it--we should have been drowned," ulrica replied with quiet conviction. "but because you are a gentleman it was natural, i suppose, for you not to think about yourself and to worry that way about me. you could not help it, of course--but i like it, all the same." maltham reddened slightly. instead of answering her he asked: "would you mind running up along the point and landing me on the other side of the canal? i want to hurry home and get into dry things--and that will save me a lot of time, you know." "oh," she cried in a tone of deep concern, "are you not coming back with me? i shall have a dreadful time with father, and i am counting on you to help me through." maltham had foreseen that trouble with the major was impending, and wanted to keep out of it. he disliked scenes. "of course, if you want me to, i'll go back with you," he answered. and added, drawing himself together and shivering a little, "i don't believe that i shall catch much cold." "what a selfish creature i am!" ulrica exclaimed impetuously. "of course you must hurry home as fast as you can. what i shall get from father will not be the half of what i deserve. and to think of my thinking about your getting me off from a scolding at the cost of your being ill! please do not hate me for it--though you ought to, i am sure!" having carried his point, maltham could afford to be amiable again. he looked straight into her eyes, and for an instant touched her hand, as he said: "no, i shall not--hate you!" his voice was low. he drawled slightly. the break gave to his phrase a telling emphasis. it was not quite fair. he knew thoroughly the game that he was playing; while ulrica, save so far as her instinct might guide her, did not know it at all. she did not answer him--and he was silent because silence just then was the right move. and so they went on without words until they were come to the landing-place beside the canal. even then--for he did not wish to weaken a strong impression--he made the parting a short one: urging that she also must hurry home and get on dry clothes. it did not strike her, either then or later, that he would have shown a more practical solicitude in the premises had he not made her come three miles out of her way. indeed, as she sailed those three miles back again, her mind was in no condition to work clearly. in a confused way, that yet was very delightful, she went over to herself the events of that wonderful day--in which, as she vaguely realized, her girlhood had ended and her womanhood had begun. but she dwelt most upon the look that he had given her when he told her, with the break in his phrase, that he would not hate her; and upon the touch of his hand at parting, and his final speech, also with a break in it: "i shall see you to-morrow--if you care to have me come." at the club that evening maltham wrote a very entertaining letter to miss eleanor strangford, in chicago: telling her about the queer old major and his half-wild daughter, and how the daughter had taken him out sailing and had brought him back drenched through. he was a believer in frankness, and this letter--while not exhaustive--was of a sort to put him right on the record in case an account of his adventures should reach his correspondent by some other way. he would have written it promptly in any circumstances. it was the more apposite because he had promised to write every sunday to miss strangford--to whom he was engaged. vii [illustration] maltham left his office early the next afternoon and went down the point again. he had no headache, the wind had shifted to the southward, and all about him was a flood of spring sunshine. yet even under these cheerful conditions he found the point rather drearily desolate. he gave the graveyard a wide berth when he came to it, and looked away from it. his desire was strong that he might forget where he had seen ulrica's name for the first time. he was not superstitious, exactly; but his sub-consciousness that the direction in which he was sliding--along the lines of least resistance--was at least questionable, made him rather open to feelings about bad and good luck. being arrived at eutaw castle, he inferred from what the major said and from what ulrica looked that the domestic storm of the previous day had been a vigorous one--and was glad that he had kept out of it. but it had blown over pretty well, and his good-natured chaff about their adventure swept away the few remaining clouds. "it is vehy handsome of yo', suh," said the major, "to treat the matteh as yo' do. my daughteh's conduct was most inexcusable--fo' when she cahried yo' into that great dangeh she broke heh sacred wo'd to me." "but it was quite as much my fault as hers," maltham answered. "i should not have let her go. you see, the sailing was so delightfully exciting that we both lost our heads a little. luckily, i got mine back before it was too late." "yo' behaved nobly, suh, nobly! my daughteh has told me how youah only thought was of heh dangeh, and how white yo' went when yo' realized youah inability to save heh if the boat went down. those weh the feelings of a gentleman, suh, and of a vehy gallant gentleman--such as yo' suahly ah. youah conduct could not have been fineh, mr. maltham, had yo' been bo'n and bred in south cahrolina. suh, i can say no mo' than that!" ulrica took little part in the talk. her eyes were dull and she moved languidly, as though she were weary. not until her father left the room--going to fetch his maps and charts, that he might demonstrate the point's glorious future--did she speak freely. "i could not sleep last night, mr. maltham," she said hurriedly. "i lay awake the whole night--thinking about what i had done, and about what you must think about me for doing it. if i had drowned you, after breaking my word to father that way, it would have been almost murder. it was very noble of you, just now, to say that it was as much your fault as it was mine. but it was not. it was my fault all the way through." "but the danger was just as great for you as it was for me," maltham answered. "you would have been drowned too, you know." "oh, that would not have counted. it would not have counted at all. i should have got only what i deserved." maltham came close to her and took her hand. "don't you think that it would have counted for a good deal to _me_?" he asked. then he dropped her hand quickly and moved away from her as the major re-entered the room. inasmuch as he would have been drowned along with her, this speech was lacking in logic; but ulrica, who was not on the lookout for logic just then, was more than satisfied with it. suddenly she was elate again. for the dread that had kept her wakeful had vanished: his second thoughts about the peril into which she had taken him had not set him against her--he still was the same! she could not answer him with her lips, but she answered him with her eyes. maltham's feelings were complex as he saw the effect that his words had upon her. he had made several resolutions not to say anything of that sort to her again. even if she did like flirting (as he had put it in his own mind) it was not quite the thing, under the existing conditions, for him to flirt with her. he resolutely kept the word flirting well forward in his thoughts. it agreeably qualified the entire situation. as he very well knew, miss strangford was not above flirting herself. but it was not easy to classify under that head ulrica's sudden change in manner and the look that she had given him. in spite of himself, his first impression of her would come back and get in the way of the new impression that he very much wished to form. when he first had seen her--only the day before, but time does not count in the ordinary way in the case of those who have been close to the gates of death together--he had felt the fire that was in her, and had known that it slumbered. after what he had just seen in her eyes he could not conquer the conviction that the fire slumbered no longer and that he had kindled its strong flame. nor did he wholly wish to conquer this conviction. it was thrillingly delightful to think that he had gained so great a power over her, for all her queenliness, in so short a time. over miss strangford--the contrast was a natural one--he had very little power. that young lady was not queenly, but she had a notable aptitude for ruling--and came by it honestly, from a father whose hard head and hard hand made him conspicuous even among chicago men of affairs. it was her strength that had attracted him to her; and the discovery that with her strength was sweetness that had made him love her. he was satisfied that she loved him in return--but he could not fancy her giving him such a look as ulrica had just given him; still less could he fancy her whole being irradiated by a touch and a word. and so he came again to the same half-formed conclusion that he had come to in the boat on the preceding day: he would let matters drift along pleasantly a little farther before he set them as they should be with a strong hand. this chain of thought went through his mind while the major was exhibiting the maps and expounding the point's future; and his half-conclusion was a little hastened by the major's abrupt stop, and sudden facing about upon him with: "i feah, suh, that yo' do not quite follow me. if i have not made myself cleah, suh, i will present the matteh in anotheh way." maltham shot a quizzical glance at ulrica--which made her think that she knew where his thoughts had been wool-gathering, and so brought more light to her eyes--and answered with a becoming gravity: "the fact is i didn't quite catch the point that you were making, major, and i'll be very much obliged if you'll take the trouble to go over it again." "it is no trouble--it is a pleasuah, suh," the major replied with an animated affability. and with that he was off again, and ran on for an hour or more--until he had established the glorious future of minnesota point in what he believed to be convincing terms. "when the time to which i am looking fo'wa'd comes, mr. maltham, and it will come vehy soon, suh," he said in enthusiastic conclusion, "it stands to reason that the fortunes of this great metropolis of the no'thwest will be fo'eveh and unchangeably established. only i must wahn yo', suh, that we must begin to get ready fo' it right away. we must take time by the fo'lock and provide at once--i say at once, suh--fo' the needs of that magnificent futuah that is almost heah now!" he took a long breath as he finished his peroration, and then came down smiling to the level of ordinary conversation and added: "i feah, mr. maltham, that i pehmit my enthusiasm to get away with me a little. i feah i may even boah yo', suh. i promise not to say anotheh wohd on the subject this evening. and now, as it is only a little while befo' suppeh, we cannot do betteh, suh, than to take a drink." maltham had not intended to stay to supper. he even had intended not to. but he did--and on through the evening until the major had to warn him that he either must consent to sleep in eutaw castle or else hurry along up the point before the ferry-boat stopped running for the night. the major urged him warmly to stay. finding that his invitation certainly would not be accepted, he went off for a lantern--and was rather put out when maltham declined it and said that he could find his way very well by the light of the stars. actually, maltham did not find his way very well by the light of the stars. two or three times he ran against trees. once--this was while he was trying to give the graveyard a wide offing--he stumbled over a root and fell heavily. when he got up again he found that he had wrenched his leg, and that every step he took gave him intense pain. but he was glad of his flounderings against trees, and of his fall and the keen pain that followed it--for he was savage with himself. and yet it was not his fault, he grumbled. why had the major gone off that way to hunt up a lantern--and so left them alone? toward the end of his walk--his pain having quieted his excitement, and so lessened his hatred of himself--he added much more lightly: "but what does a single kiss amount to, after all?" viii [illustration] it was on a day in the early autumn that maltham at last decided definitely--making effective his half-formed resolution of the spring-time--to stop drifting and to set things as they should be with a strong hand. but he had to admit, even as he formed this resolution, that setting things quite as they should be no longer was within his power. the summer had gone quickly, most astonishingly quickly, he thought; and for the most part pleasantly--though it had been broken by certain interludes, not pleasant, during which he had been even more savage with himself than he had been during that walk homeward from eutaw castle in the dark. but, no matter how it had gone, the summer definitely was ended--and so were his amusing sessions with the major over the future of minnesota point, and his sails with ulrica on the lake and about the bay. ice already had begun to form in the sheltered parts of the harbour, and the next shift of wind into the north would close the port for the winter by freezing everything hard and fast. all the big ships had steamed away eastward. on the previous day he had despatched the last vessel of his own line. his work for the season was over, and he was ready to return to chicago. in fact, he had his berth engaged on that night's train. moreover, in another month he was to be married: in her latest letter miss strangford had fixed the day. then they were going over to the riviera, and probably to egypt. in the spring they were coming back again, but not to duluth nor even to chicago. he was to take charge of the eastern office of the line, and their home would be in new york. these various moves were so definite and so final as to justify him in saying to himself, as he did say to himself, that the duluth episode was closed. he had hesitated about going down to eutaw castle to say good-bye, but in the end had perceived that the visit was a necessity. the major and ulrica knew that he was to leave duluth when navigation was closed for the winter--indeed, of late, ulrica had referred to that fact frequently--but he had not confided to them the remainder of his rather radical programme. he meant to do that later by letter--from the riviera or from egypt. in the mean time, until he was married and across the atlantic, it was essential to keep unbroken the friendly relations which had made his summer--even with its bad interludes--so keenly delightful to him; and to go away without paying a farewell visit he knew would be to risk a rupture that very easily might lead on to a catastrophe. moreover, as he said to himself, there need not be anything final about it. even though the harbour did freeze, the railways remained open--and it was only sixteen hours from chicago to duluth by the fast train. to suggest that he might be running up again soon would be a very simple matter: and would not be straining the truth, for he knew that the pull upon him to run up in just that way would be almost irresistibly strong. in fact, the pull was of such strength that all of his not excessive will power had to be exerted to make him go away at all--at least, to go away alone. very many times he had thought of the possibility of reversing his programme completely: of making his wedding journey with ulrica, and of writing from some far-off place to miss strangford that he had happened to marry somebody else and that she was free. but each time that he had considered this alternative he had realized that its cost would come too high: a break with his own people, the loss of the good berth open to him in new york, the loss of his share of miss strangford's share of the grain-elevators and other desirable properties which would come to her when her father died. but for these practical considerations, as he frequently and sorrowingly had assured himself, he would not have hesitated for a moment--being satisfied that, aside from them, such a reversal of his plans would be better in every way. for he knew that while miss strangford had and ulrica had not his formal promise to marry her, it was ulrica who had the firmer hold upon his heart; and he also knew that while ulrica would meet his decision against her savagely--and, as he believed, feebly--with her passion, miss strangford would meet the reverse of that decision calmly and firmly with her strength. the dilemma so nearly touched the verge of his endurance that he even had contemplated evading it altogether by shooting himself. but he had not got beyond contemplation. for that sort of thing he was lacking in nerve. it was because facing what he knew was a final parting--even though ulrica would not know it--would be so bitter hard for him that he had hesitated about making his visit of good-bye. but when he had decided that it was a necessity--that the risk involved in not making it outweighed the pain that it would cost him--he came about again: adding to his argument, almost with a sob, that he could not go away like that, anyhow--that he _must_ see her once more! and so he went down the point again, knowing that he went for the last time--and on much the same sort of a day, as it happened, as that on which his first visit had been made: a grey, chill day, with a strong wind drawing down the lake that tufted it with white-caps and that sent a heavy surf booming in upon the shore. he had no headache, but he had a heartache that was still harder to bear. he had intended to take the tram-car--that he might hurry down to the castle, and get through with what he had to do there, and so away again quickly. but when he had crossed the canal he let the car go off without him--for the good reason that the meeting and the parting might not come so soon. and for this same reason he walked slowly, irresolutely. once or twice he halted and almost turned back. it all was very unlike his brisk, assured advance on that far back day--ages before, it seemed to him--when he went down the point for the first time. as he went onward, slowly, he was thinking about that day: how it had been without intention that he turned eastward instead of westward when he started on his walk; how a whim of the moment had led him to cross the canal; how the mere chance of the three church-bound women hurrying into the ferry-boat had prevented his immediate return. he fell to wondering, dully, what "chance" is, anyway--this force which with a grim humour uses our most unconsidered actions for the making or the unmaking of our lives; and the hopeless puzzle of it all kept his mind unprofitably employed until he had passed the last of the little houses, and had gone on through the stunted pines, and so was come to the desolate graveyard. he did not shun the graveyard, as he had shunned it all the summer long. the need for that was past--now that, in reality, ulrica's name had come to be to him a name upon a grave. for a while he stood with his arms resting on the broken fence, looking before him in a dull way and feeling a dull surprise because he found the dismal place still precisely as he remembered it. that in so very long a time it should not have become more ruinous seemed to him unreasonable. then he walked on past the little church, still slowly and hesitatingly, and so came at last to the castle. oddly enough, the major was standing again at the same lower window, and saw him, and came out to welcome him. for a moment he had a queer feeling that perhaps it still was that first day--that he might have been dozing in the pine woods, somewhere, and that the past summer was all a dream. the major was beaming with friendliness. "aha, masteh geo'ge, i'm glad to see yo' and to congratulate yo'!" he said heartily. and he gave maltham a cordial dig in the ribs as he added: "yo' ah a sly dog, a vehy sly dog, my boy, to keep youah secret from us! but i happened to be up in town yestehday, and by the mehest chance i met captain todd, of youah boat, and he told me why yo' ah going back to chicago in such a huhy, suh! it is a great match, a magnificent match that yo' ah making, geo'ge, and i congratulate yo' with all my haht. i should be glad of the oppo'tunity to congratulate miss strangfo'd also. fo' i am not flattehing yo', geo'ge, when i tell yo' that she could not have found a betteh husband had she gone to look fo' him in south cahrolina. suh, i can say no mo' than that!" the major's speech was long enough, fortunately, for maltham to get over the shock of its beginning before he had to answer it. but even with that breathing space his answer was so lame that the major had to invent an excuse for its lack of heartiness. "i don't doubt that afteh youah chilly walk, geo'ge, yo' ah half frozen," he said. "come right in and have a drink. it will do yo' good, suh. it will take the chill out of youah bones!" maltham was glad to accept this invitation, and the size of the drink that he took did the major's heart good. "that's right, geo'ge!" he said with great approval. "a south-cahrolinian couldn't show a betteh appreciation of good liquoh than that!" he raised his glass and continued: "i drink, suh, to miss strangfo'd's health, and to youahs. may yo' both have the long lives of happiness that yo' both desehve!" he put down his empty glass and added: "i will call ulrica. she will be glad to see yo' and to offeh yo' heh congratulations." he paused for a moment, and then went on in a less cheerful tone: "but i must wahn yo', geo'ge, that she has a bad headache and is not quite hehself to-day--and so may not manifest that wahm co'diality in regahd to youah present and futuah happiness that she suahly feels. i confess, geo'ge," the major continued anxiously, "i am not quite comfo'table about heh. she seems mo' out of so'ts than a meah headache ought to make heh. and fo' the last month and mo', as yo' may have obsehved youahself, she has not seemed to be hehself at all. i don't mind speaking this way frankly to yo', geo'ge, fo' yo' know how my haht is wrapped up in heh. as i once told yo', it was only my love fo' that deah child that kept me alive when heh motheh left me," the major's voice was very unsteady, "and it is god's own truth that if anything went wrong with heh; if--if i weh to lose heh too, geo'ge, i suahly should want to give right up and die. i could not live without heh--i don't think that i could live without heh fo' a single day!" there were tears in the major's eyes as he spoke, and his last word was almost a sob. maltham was very pale. he did not attempt an answer. "thank yo', geo'ge," the major went on presently. "i see by youah looks that i have youah sympathy. i am most grateful to yo' fo' it, most grateful indeed!" in a moment he added: "hahk! she's coming now! i heah heh step outside. hahk how heavy and slow it is--and she always as light on heh feet as a bird! to heah heh walk that way almost breaks my haht!" and then he checked himself suddenly, and tried to look rather unusually cheerful as ulrica entered the room. ix [illustration] being braced to meet some sort of a storm, maltham was rather put about by not encountering it. ulrica certainly was looking the worse for her headache--her eyes were duller than usual, and there were dark marks under them, and she was very pale; but she did not seem to be at all excited, and the greeting that she gave him was out of the ordinary only in that she did not offer him her hand. he drew a quick breath, and the tense muscles of his mind relaxed. if she were taking it in that quiet way, he thought, he had worked himself into heroics for nothing. and then, quite naturally, he felt a sharp pang of resentment because she did take it so quietly. her calmness ruffled his self-love. as she remained silent, making no reference to maltham's engagement, the major felt that the proprieties of the case were not being attended to and prompted her. "i have been wishing geo'ge joy and prospehrity, my deah," he said. "have yo' nothing to say to him youahself about his coming happiness?" "yes," she answered slowly, "i have a great deal to say to him--so much that i am going to carry him off in the _nixie_ to say it." she turned to maltham and added: "you will come with me for a last sail, will you not?" maltham hesitated, and then answered doubtfully: "isn't it a little cold for sailing to-day? your father says that you are not feeling well. i do think that it will be better not to go--unless you really insist upon it, of course." "yo' mustn't think of such a thing!" the major struck in peremptorily. "the weatheh is like ice. yo' will catch yo' death of cold!" "it is no colder, father, than that day when i took george out in the _nixie_ for the first time--and it will do my head good," ulrica answered. and added, to maltham: "i do insist. come!" against the major's active remonstrance, and against maltham's passive resistance, she carried her point. "come!" she said again--and led maltham out by the side door into the ragged garden. there she left him for a moment and returned to her father--who was standing in a very melancholy way before the fire. "do not mind, father," she said. "it is the best thing for me--it is the only thing for me." he looked at her inquiringly, puzzled by her words and by her vehement tone. suddenly she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. "remember always, father, that i have loved you with my whole heart for almost my whole life long. and remember always," she went on with a curiously savage earnestness, "that i am loving you with my whole heart--with every bit of it--to-day!" "i am suah yo' ah, my daughteh," the major answered, very huskily. she kissed him again, holding him tight in her arms. then she unclasped her arms with a sudden quick energy and swiftly left the room. she led maltham silently to the boat, and silently--when she had cast off the mooring--motioned to him to enter it. he found this silence ominous, and tried to break it. but the commonplace words which he wanted to speak would not come. and then, as he sat in the stern and mechanically steadied the tiller while she hoisted the sail, the queer feeling again came over him that it still was that wonderful first day. this feeling grew stronger as all that he remembered so well was repeated: ulrica's rapid movement aft to the tiller; his own shifting of his seat; her quick loosing of the centreboard as the wind caught them; and then the heeling over of the boat, and her steady motion, and the bubbling hiss of the water beneath the bow. it all so lulled him, so numbed his sense of time and fact, that suddenly he looked up in her face and smiled--just as he had done on that first day. [illustration: "'i have loved you with my whole heart'"] but the look in ulrica's eyes killed his smile, and brought him back with a sharp wrench to reality. her eyes no longer were dull. they were glowing--and they seemed to cut into him like knives. "well," she asked, "have you anything to say for yourself?" "no," he answered, "except that fate has been too strong for me." "fate sometimes is held accountable for a great deal," she said dryly, but with a catch in her voice. they were silent again, and for a long while. the boat was running down the bay rapidly--even more rapidly, the wind being much stronger, than on that first day. they could hear, as they had not heard then, the surf crashing upon the outer beach of the point. the silence became more than he could stand. "can you forgive me?" he asked at last. ulrica looked at him with a curious surprise. "no," she answered quite calmly. "think for a moment about what you have done and about what you intend to do. do you not see that it is impossible?" "but i love you!" he cried eagerly. "i love you more than i can tell. it is not my will that is separating us--it is fate!" her look softened for an instant as he began, but as he ended it hardened again. she did not answer him. a strong gust of wind heeled the boat farther over. they were going at a slashing rate. before them the inlet was opening. the booming of the surf was very loud. he saw that his words had taken hold upon her, and repeated them: "i do love you, ulrica--and, oh, you don't know how very wretched i have been! more than once in this past month i have been very near killing myself." she gave him a searching look, and seemed satisfied that he spoke the truth. "i am glad that you have wanted to kill yourself," she said slowly and earnestly. they were at the mouth of the inlet. as she spoke, she luffed sharply and they entered it close-hauled. "yes," she repeated, speaking still more earnestly, "i am very glad of that. it makes me feel much easier in my mind about what i am going to do." her tone startled him. he looked up at her quickly and anxiously. "what are you going to do?" he asked. "drown you," she answered simply. for an instant he did not take in the meaning of her words. then his face became very white, though he tried to smile. his voice shook as he said: "i do not think that this is a good time for joking." the boat was biting her way into the wind sharply, plunging and bucketing through the partly spent waves which came in from outside. "you know that i am not joking," ulrica answered very quietly. "i am going to drown you, and to drown myself too. i have thought it all out, and this seems the best thing to do. it is the best for father," her voice trembled, "and it is the best," she went on again, firmly, "for me. as for you, it does not matter whether it is the best for you or not--it is what you deserve. for you are a liar and a traitor--a liar and a traitor to me, and to that other woman too!" as she spoke these last words her calmness left her, and there was the ring of passionate anger in her tone. the fire that she had been smothering, at last was in full blaze. they were at the very mouth of the inlet. the white-capped surface of the lake swelled and tossed before them. the boat was wallowing heavily. maltham's paleness changed to a greenish-grey. he uttered a shrill scream--a cry of weakly helpless terror. "put about! for god's sake put about!" he gasped. "we shall be drowned!" for answer, she hauled the sheet a little and brought the boat still closer into the wind--heading straight out into the lake. "i told you once that the _nixie_ could sail into the wind's eye," she said, coolly. "now she is doing it. does she not go well?" at that, being desperate, he rallied a little. springing to his feet, but standing unsteadily, he grasped the tiller and tried to shift the helm. ulrica, standing firmly, laid her hand flat against his breast and thrust him away savagely--with such force that he reeled backward and fell, striking against the combing and barely missing going over the side. "you fool!" she exclaimed. "do you not see that it is too late?" she did not trouble herself to look at him. her gaze was fixed in a keen ecstasy on the great oncoming waves. what she said was true--it was too late. they were fairly out on the open lake, and all possibility of return was gone. to try to go about would be to throw the _nixie_ into the trough of the sea--and so send her rolling over like a log. at the best, the little boat could live in that surge and welter for only a very few minutes more. maltham did not attempt to rise. his fall had hurt him, and what little was left of his spirit was cowed. he lay in a miserable heap, uttering little whimpering moans. the complaining noise that he made annoyed her. for the last time she looked at him, burning him for an instant with her glowing eyes. "silence, you coward!" she cried, fiercely--and at her strong command he was still. then her look was fixed on the great oncoming waves again, and she cast him out from her mind. even in her rage--partly because of it--ulrica felt in every drop of her norse blood the glow and the thrill of this glorious battle with great waters. the sheer delight of it was worth dying for--and so richly worth living through to the very last tingling instant that she steered with a strong and a steady hand. and again--as she stood firmly on the tossing boat, her draperies blown close about her, her loosened hair streaming out in golden splendour--she was aslauga's very self. sorrow and life together were ending well for her--in high emotion that filled and satisfied her soul. magnificent, commanding, defiant, she sailed on in joyful triumph: glad and eager to give herself strongly to the strong death-clasp of the waves. [illustration] the death-fires of les martigues i "god keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep desire!" that is one of our old sayings here in provence. i used to laugh at it when i was young. i do not laugh at it now. when those words come into my heart, and they come often, i go by the rough hard way that leads upward to notre dame de la garde until i come to the crime cross--it is a wearying toil for me to get up that steep hill-side, i am so stiff and old now--and there i cast fresh stones upon the heap at the foot of the cross. each stone cast there, you know, is a prayer for forgiveness for some hidden crime: not a light fault, but a crime. the stones must be little stones, yet the heap is very wide and high--though every winter, when the great mistrals are blowing across the �tang de berre, the little stones are whirled away down the hill-side. i do not know how this custom began, nor when; but it is a very old custom with us here in les martigues. once in every year i go up to the crime cross by night. this is on all souls eve. first i light the lamp over magali's breast where she lies sleeping in the graveyard: going to the graveyard at dusk, as the others do, in the long procession that creeps up thither from the three parts of our town--from jonquières, and the isle, and ferrières--to light the death-fires over the dear dead ones' graves. i go with the very first, as soon as the sun is down. i like to be alone with magali while i light the little lamp that will be a guide for her soul through that night when souls are free; that will keep it safe from the devils who are free that night too. i do not like the low buzzing of voices which comes later, when the crowd is there, nor the broken cries and sobs. and when her lamp is lit, and i have lit my mother's lamp, i hurry away from the graveyard and the moaning people--threading my steps among the graves on which the lights are beginning to glimmer, and through the oncoming crowd, and then by the lonely path through the olive-orchards, and so up the stony height until i come at last to the crime cross--panting, aching--and my watch begins. [illustration: marius] up on that high hill-side, open to the west, a little of the dying daylight lingers. eastward, like a big black mirror, lies the great étang; and far away across its still waters the mountain chain above berre and rognac rises purple-grey against the darker sky. in the west still are faint crimson blotches, or dashes of dull blood-red--reflected again, and made brighter, in the �tang de caronte: that stretches away between the long downward slopes of the hills, on which stone-pines stand out in black patches, until its gleaming waters merge into the faint glow upon the waters of the mediterranean. above me is the sanctuary of notre dame de la garde, a dark mass on the height above the olive-trees: of old a refuge for sinful bodies, and still a refuge where sinful souls may seek grace in prayer from their agony. and below me, on the slope far downward, is the graveyard: where the death-fires multiply each moment, as more and more lamps are lighted, until at last it is like a little fallen heaven of tiny stars. only in its midst is an island of darkness where no lamps are. that is where the children lie together: the blessed innocents who have died sinless, and who wander not on all souls eve because when sweet death came to them their pure spirits went straight home to god. and beyond the graveyard, below it, is the black outspread of the town: its blackness deepened by a bright window here and there, and by the few street lamps, and by the bright reflections which shine up from the waters of its canals. seeing all this--yet only half seeing it, for my heart is full of other things--i sit there at the foot of the crime cross in the darkness, prayerful, sorrowful, while the night wears on. sometimes i hear footsteps coming up the rocky path, and then the shadowy figure of a man or of a woman breaks out from the gloom and suddenly is close beside me--and i hear the rattle of little stones cast upon the heap behind me, on the other side of the cross. presently, the rite ended, whoever it is fades back into the gloom again and passes away. and i know that another sinful soul has been close beside my sinful soul for a moment: seeking in penitent supplication, as i am seeking, rest in forgiveness for an undiscovered crime. but i am sure that none of them sees--as i see in the gloom there always--a man's white face on which the moonlight is shining, and beyond that white face the glint of moonlight on a raging sea; and i am sure that on none of their blackened souls rests a burden as heavy as that which rests on mine. i am very weary of my burden, and old and broken too. it is my comfort to know that i shall die soon. but, also, the thought of that comfort troubles me. for i am a lone man, and childless. when i go, none of magali's race, none of my race, will be left alive here in les martigues. our death-fires will not be lighted. we shall wander in darkness on all souls eve. ii "god keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep desire!" my old mother, god rest her, said that to me when first she began to see that my love was set on magali--and saw, too, that i was winning from magali the love that belonged to jan, who had her promise. "it is an old man's lifetime, mother," i said, "since a wolf has been seen near les martigues." and i laughed and kissed her. "worse than a wolf is a heart that covets what it may not have, marius," she answered. "magali is as good as jan's wife, and you know it. for a year she has been promised to him. she is my dead sister's child, and she is in my care--and in your care too, because you and she and i are all that is left of us, and you are the head of our house, the man. you are doing wickedness in trying to take her away from jan--and jan your own close friend, who saved your life out of the sea. the match is a good match for magali, and she was contented with it until you--living here close beside her in your own house--began to steal away her heart from him. it is rascal work, marius, that you are doing. you are playing false as a house-father and false as a friend--and god help me that i must speak such words to my own son! that is why i say, and i say it solemnly, 'god keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep desire!' that desire has no right to be in your heart, marius. drag it out of your heart and cast it away!" but i only laughed and kissed her again, and told her that i would take good care of myself if a she-wolf tried to eat me--and so i went away, still laughing, to my fishing in the gulf of fos. but i did not laugh when i was alone in my boat, slipping down the �tang de caronte seaward. what she had said had made me see things clearly which until then had been half hid in a haze. we had slipped into our love for each other, magali and i, softly and easily--just as my boat was slipping down the étang. every day of our lives we were together, in the close way that housemates are together in a little house of four rooms. before i got up in the morning i could hear her moving near me, only a thin wall between us; and her movements, again, were the last sounds that i heard at night. she waited on me at my meals. she helped my mother to mend my clothes--the very patches on my coat would bring to my mind the sight of her as she sat sewing at night beside the lamp. we were as close together as a brother and a sister could be; and in my dulness i had fancied for a long while that what i had felt for her was only what a brother would feel. what first opened my eyes a little was the way that i felt about it when she gave her promise to jan. for all our lives jan and i had been close friends: and most close since that day when the squall struck our boats, as we lay near together, and i went overboard, and jan--letting his own boat take its chances--came overboard after me because he knew that i could not swim. it was by a hair's-breadth only that we were not drowned together. after we were safe i told him that my life was his. and i meant it, then. until magali came between us i would have died for him with a right good will. after that i was ready enough that he should do the dying--and so be gone out of my way. when he got magali's promise, i say, my ugly feeling against him began. but it was not very strong at first, and i was not clear about it in my own mind. all that i felt was that, somehow, he had got between me and the sun. for one thing, i did not want to be clear about it. down in the roots of me i knew that i had no right to that sunshine, and that jan had--and i could not help thinking about how he had come overboard after me and had held me up there in the tumbling sea, and how i had told him that my life was his. but with this went a little thin thought, stirring now and then in the bottom of my mind though i would not own to it, that in giving him my life--which still was his if he wanted it--i had not given him the right to spoil my life for me while leaving me still alive. and i did my best not to think one way or the other, and was glad that it all was a blur and a haze. and all the while i was living close beside magali in that little house, with the sound of her steps always near me and the sound of her voice always in my ears. she had a very sweet voice, with a freshness and a brightness in it that seemed to me like the brightness of her eyes--and magali's great black eyes were the brightest eyes that ever i saw. even in arles, where all the women are beautiful, there would be a buzz among the people lining les lices when magali walked there of a feast-day, wearing the beautiful dress that our women wear here in provence. to look at her made you think of an easter morning sun. iii "god keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep desire!" my mother's words kept on ringing in my ears after i had left her. suddenly the haze was gone and i saw clearly--and i knew that my heart's deep desire was to have magali for my very own. and with that sudden coming of clear sight i knew, too, that i could have her. out of the past came a crowd of memories which proved it to me. in my dull way, i say, i had fancied that i loved magali as a sister, and i had tried to keep that fancy always by me in my haze. but with the haze gone--swept away by my mother's words as the mistral sweeps away our mediterranean fogs--i knew that magali never had been the fool that i had been. i remembered her looks and her ways with me from the very day when she came to us, when she was just turned of sixteen: how she used sometimes to lay her hand lightly on my shoulder, how she would bend over to look at the net that i was mending until her hair brushed against my cheek or my forehead, how she always was bringing things to show me that i could not see rightly unless she stood very close at my side, and most of all how a dozen times a day she would be flashing at me her great black eyes. and i remembered how moody and how strange in her ways she was just before jan got his promise from her; and how, when she told me that her promise was given, she gave me a look like none that ever i had from her, and said slowly: "the fisherman who will not catch any fish at all because he cannot catch the fish he wants most--is a fool, marius!" yet even then i did not understand; though, as i say, my eyes were opened a little and i had the feeling that jan had got between me and the sun. that feeling grew stronger because of the way that she treated him and treated me. jan was for hurrying the marriage, but she kept him dangling and always was putting him off. as for me, i got all sides of her moods and tempers. sometimes she scarcely would speak to me. sometimes she would give me looks from those big black eyes of hers that thrilled me through! sometimes she would hang about me in a patient sad way that made me think of a dog begging for food. and the colour so went out of her face that her big black eyes looked bigger and blacker still. then it was that i began to find in the haze that was about me a refuge--because i did not want to see clear. i let my thoughts go out to magali, and stopped them before they got to jan. it would be time enough, i reasoned--though i did not really reason it: i only felt it--to think about him when i had to. for the passing hours it was enough to have the sweetness of being near magali--and that grew to be a greater sweetness with every fresh new day. presently i noticed that her colour had come back again; and it seemed to me--though that may have been only because of my new love of her--that she had a new beauty, tender and strange. certainly there was a new brightness, a curiously glowing brightness, in her eyes. for jan, things went hardly in those days. having her promise, he had rights in her--as we say in provence. but he did not get many of his rights. half the time when he claimed her for walks on the hill-sides among the olive-orchards, she would not go with him--because she had her work to do at home, she said. and there was i, where her work was, at home! for a while jan did not see beyond the end of his nose about it. i do not think that ever it crossed his mind to think of me in the matter--not, that is, until some one with better eyes than his eyes helped him to see. for he knew that i was his friend, and i suppose that he remembered what i had told him about my life being his. and even when his eyes were helped, he would not at first fully believe what he must plainly have seen. but he soon believed enough to make him change his manner toward me, and to make him watch sharp for something that would give him the right to speak words to me which would bring matters to a fair settlement by blows. and i was ready, as i have said--though i would not fairly own it to myself--to come to blows with him. for i wanted him dead, and out of my way. and so my mother's words, which had made me at last see clearly, stayed by me as i went sailing in my boat softly seaward down the étang. and they struck deeper into me because jan's boat was just ahead of mine; and the sight of him, and the thought of how he had saved my life only to cross it, made me long to run him down and drown him, and so be quit of him for good and all. i made up my mind then that, whether i killed him or left him living, it would be i who should have magali and not he. iv "god keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep desire!" my mother said that again to me when i came home that night from my fishing; and she said it to me often as the days went on. she saw the change that had come to me, and she knew what was in my soul. it is not wonderful, when you stop to think about it, that a man's mother should know what is in his soul: for the body in which that soul is, the living home of it, is a part of her own. and she grew sad and weary-looking when she found that her words had no hold on me, and there came into her eyes the sorrowful look that comes into the eyes of old people who are soon to die. but magali's eyes were the only eyes that i cared for then, and they seemed to me to grow brighter and brighter every day. when she and i walked in the olive-orchards together in the starlight the glow of them outshone the star-glow. it seemed to light up my heart. i do not think that we talked much in those walks. i do not seem to remember our talking. but we understood each other, and we were agreed about what we were to do. i was old enough to marry as i pleased, but magali was not--she could not marry without my mother's word. we meant to force that word. some day we would go off in my boat together--over to les saintes maries, perhaps; or perhaps to marseille. it did not matter where we went. when we came back again, at the end of two or three days, my mother no longer could deny us--she would have to give in. and no one would think the worse of magali: for that is our common way of settling a tangled love-matter here in provence. but i did not take account of jan in my plans, and that was where i made a mistake. jan had just as strong a will as i had, and every bit of his will was set upon keeping magali for himself. i wanted her to break with him entirely, but that she would not do. she was a true provençale--and i never yet knew one of our women who would rest satisfied with one lover when she could have two. if she can get more than two, that is better still. while i hung back from her, magali was more than ready to come to me; but when she found me eager after her, and knew that she had a grip on me, she danced away. and so, before long, jan again had his walks with her in the olive-orchards by starlight just as i did, and likely enough her eyes glowed for him just as they did for me. when they were off that way together i would get into a wild-beast rage over it. sometimes i would follow them, fingering my knife. i suppose that he felt like that when the turn was mine. anyhow, the love-making chances which she gave him--even though in my heart i still was sure of her--kept me always watching him; and i could see that he always was watching me. very likely he felt sure of her too, and that was his reason--just as it was my reason--for not bringing our matter to a fighting end. i was ready enough to kill him, god knows. unless his eyes lied when he looked at me, he was ready to kill me. and in that way the summer slipped past and the autumn came, and neither of us gained anything. i was getting into a black rage over it all. down inside of me was a feeling like fire in my stomach that made me not want to eat, and that made what i did eat go wrong. my poor mother had given up trying to talk to me. she saw that she could not change my way--and, too, i suppose that she pretty well understood it all: for she had lived her life, and she knew the ways of our men and of our women when love stings them here in provence. only, her sadness grew upon her with her hopelessness. what i remember most clearly as i think of her in those last days is her pale old face and the dying look in her sorrowful eyes. but seeing her in that way grief-struck only made my black rage blacker and the fire in my stomach burn hotter. i had the feeling that there was a devil down there who all the time was getting bigger and stronger: and that before long he and i would take matters in hand together and settle them for good and all. as for keeping on with things as they were, it was not to be thought of. better than much more of such a hell-life would be ending everything by killing jan. what made me hang back from that was the certainty that if i did kill him--even in a fair fight, with his chance as good as mine--i would lose magali beyond all hope: for the gendarmes would have me away in a whiff to jail--and then off would go my head, or, what would be just as bad, off i would go head and all to cayenne. it was no comfort to me to know that magali would almost cry her eyes out over losing me. of course she would do that, being a provençale. but before her eyes were quite out she would stop crying; and then in a moment she would be laughing again; and in another moment she would be freshly in love once more--with some man who was not murdered and who was not gone for his lifetime over seas. and all that, also, would be because she was a provençale. v all the devils are let loose on earth on all souls eve--that is a fact known to everybody here in provence. but whether it was one of those loosed devils, or the devil that had grown big in my own inside, that made me do what i did i do not know. what i do know, certainly, is that about dusk on all saints day the thought of how i could force things to be as i wanted them to be came into my heart. my thought was not a new thought, exactly. it was only that i would do what we had planned to do to make my mother give in to us: get magali into my boat and carry her off with me for a day or two to les saintes. but it came to me with the new meaning that in that way i could make magali give in to me too. when we came back she would be ready enough to marry me, and my mother would be for hurrying our marrying along. it all was as plain and as sure as anything could be. and, as i have said, nobody would think the worse of magali afterward; because that way of cutting through such difficulties is a common way with us in provence. and all souls eve was the time of all times for doing it. the whole town is in commotion then. in the churches, when the vespers of all saints are finished, the vespers of the dead are said. then, just after sunset, the streets are crowded with our people hurrying to the graveyard with their lanterns for the graves. nothing is thought about but the death-fires. from all the church towers--in jonquières, in the isle, in ferrières--comes the sad dull tolling of bells. after that, for an hour or more, the town is almost deserted. only the very old, and the very young, and the sick with their watchers, and the bell-ringers in the towers, are left there. everybody else is in the graveyard, high up on the hill-side: first busied in setting the lights and in weeping over dead loved ones; and then, when the duty to the dead ones is done with, in walking about through the graveyard to see the show. in provence we take a great interest in every sort of show. magali and i had no death-fires to kindle, for in the graveyard were no dead of ours. our people were of les saintes maries, and there their graves were--and my father, who was drowned at his fishing, had no grave at all. but we went always to the graveyard on all souls eve, and most times together, that we might see the show with the others and enjoy the bustle of the crowd. and so there was nothing out of the common when i asked her to come with me; and off we started together--leaving my old mother weeping at home for my dead father, who could have no death-fire lit for him because his bones were lying lost to us far away in the depths of the sea. our house was in the eastern quarter of the town, in jonquières. to reach the graveyard we had to cross the isle, and go through ferrières, and then up the hill-side beyond. but i did not mean that we should do that; and when we had crossed the canal du roi i said to magali that we would turn, before we went onward, and walk down past the fish-market to the end of the isle--that from there we might see the lights glowing in the dusk on the slope rising above us black against the western sky. we had done that before--it is a pretty sight to see all those far-off glittering points of light above, and then to see their glittering reflections near by in the water below--and she willingly came with me. but i had more in view. down at the end of the isle, along with the other boats moored at the wharf there to be near the fish-market, my boat was lying; and when we were come close to her i said suddenly, as though the thought had entered my head that minute, that we would go aboard of her and run out a little way--and so see the death-fires more clearly because they would be less hidden by the shoulder of the hill. i did not have to speak twice. magali was aboard of the boat on the instant, and was clapping her hands at the notion--for she had, as all our women have, a great pleasure in following any sudden fancy which promises something amusing and also a little strange. and i was quick after her, and had the lines cast off and began to get up the sail. "oh," she said, "won't the oars do? need we bother with the sail for such a little way?" but i did not answer her, and went on with what i was doing, while the boat drifted quickly out from land before the gusts of wind which struck us harder and harder as we cleared the point of the isle. until then i had not thought about the weather--my mind had been full of the other and bigger thought. the gusts of wind waked me up a little, and as i looked at the sky i began to have doubts that i could do what i wanted to do; for it was plain that a gale was rising which would make ticklish work for me even out on the gulf of fos--and would make pretty near impossible my keeping on to les saintes over the open sea. and i had about made up my mind that we must go back, and that i must carry out my plan some other time, when there came a hail to us from the shore. "where are you going?" called a voice--and as we turned our looks shoreward there was jan. he had been following us, i suppose--just as i sometimes had followed him. before i could answer him, magali spoke. "we are going out on the water to see the death-fires, jan," she said. "we are going only a very little way." her words angered me. there was something in them that seemed to show that he had the right to question her. that settled me in my purpose. storm or no storm, on i would go. and i brought the boat up to the wind, so as to lay our course straight down the �tang de caronte, and called out to him: "we are going where you cannot follow. good-bye!" and then a gust of wind heeled us over, and we went on suddenly with a dash--as a horse goes when you spur him--and the water boiled and hissed under our bows. in another half-minute we were clear of the shelter of the point, and then the wind came down on us off the hills in a rush so strong that i had to ease off the sheet sharply--and i had a queer feeling about what was ahead of me out on the gulf of fos. "marius! marius! what are you doing?" magali cried in a shiver of fright: for she knew by that time that something was back of it all in my mind. as she spoke i could see through the dusk that jan was running up the sail of his boat, and in a minute more would be after us. "i am doing what i ought to have done long ago," i said. "i am taking you for my own. there is nothing to fear, dear magali. you shall not be in danger. i had meant to take you to les saintes. but a gale is rising and we cannot get to les saintes to-night. we will run across the gulf of fos and anchor in the grau de gloria. there is a shepherd's hut near the grau. i will make a fire in it and you can sleep there comfortably, while i watch outside. after all, it makes no difference where we go. i shall have carried you off--when we go back you must be my wife." she did not understand at first. she was too much frightened with the suddenness of it all, and with the coming of jan, and with the boat flying on through the rushing of the wind. i looked back and saw that jan had got away after us. dimly i could make out his sail through the dusk that lay thick upon the water. beyond it and above it was a broad patch of brightness where all the death-fires were burning together in the graveyard. we had come too far to see any longer those many points of light singly. in a mass, they made against the black hill-side a great bright glow. vi "god keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep desire!" my mother's words seemed to sound in my ears loudly, coming with the rush of wind that eddied around me out of the sail's belly. they gave me a queer start, as the thought came with them that here at last my heart's deep desire would be mine presently--if only i could snatch it and keep it from the she-wolf of the sea. magali was silent--half standing, half sitting, against the weather side of the boat, close in front of me as i stood at the tiller with the sheet in my hand. she had got over her fright. i could tell that by the brightness of her eyes, and by the warm colour in her cheeks that i had a glimpse of as we flashed past the break in the hills where the mas labillon stands. and in that moment while the dusk was thinned a little i could see, too, that she was breathing hard. i know what our women are, and i know what she was feeling. our women like to be fought for, and any one of them gladly would have been in magali's place--with the two strongest and handsomest men in les martigues in a fair way to come to a death-grip for her in the whirl of a rising storm. back in the dusk, against the faint glow of the death-fires, i could see the sail of jan's boat dipping and swaying with the thrusts of the wind-gusts as it came on after me. it had gained a little; and i knew that it would gain more, for jan's boat was a speedier boat than mine on the wind. close-hauled, i could walk away from him; but in running down the �tang de caronte i had no choice in my sailing. out on the gulf of fos, if i dared take that chance, and if he dared follow me, i could bear up to windward and so shake him off--making for the anse d'auguette and taking shelter there. but even my hot blood chilled a little at the thought of going out that night on the gulf of fos. when we were down near the end of the étang--close to the salines, where it is widest--the wind that pelted down on us from the hills was terribly strong. it was hard to stand against even there, where the water was smooth. outside, it would be still stronger, and the water would be all in a boil. and at the end, to get into the anse d'auguette, we should have to take the risk of a roaring sea abeam. but any risk was better than the risk of what might happen if jan overhauled me. now that i fairly had magali away from him, i did not want to fight him. what might come in a fight in rough water--where the winds and the waves would have to be reckoned with, and with the most careful reckoning might play tricks on me--was too uncertain; while if i could stand him off and get away from him, so that even for one night i could keep magali with me, the game would be won. after that, if he wanted it, i would fight him as much as he pleased. the thought that i would win--in spite of jan and in spite of the storm, too--made all my blood tingle. more by habit than anything else i sailed the boat: for my eyes were fixed on magali's eyes, shining there close to me, and my heart was full of her. we did not speak, but once she turned and looked at me--bending forward a little, so that her face was within a foot of mine. what she saw in my eyes was so easy to read that she gave all at once a half-laugh and a half-sob--and then turned away and peered through the blustering darkness toward jan's sail. somehow, the way she did that made me feel that she was holding the balance between us; that she was waiting--as the she among wild beasts waits while the males are fighting for her--for the stronger of us to win. after that i was ready to face the gulf of fos. the time for facing the gulf was close on me, too. we had run through the canal of the salines and were out in the open water of bouc--the great harbour at the mouth of the étang. the gale roared down on us, now that there was little land to break it, and we began to hear the boom of the waves pounding on the rocks outside. i luffed well into the wind and bore up for the narrows opening seaward where the fort de bouc light-house stands. the water still was not rough enough to trouble us. it would not be rough until we were at the very mouth of the narrows. then, all at once, would come the crush and fury of the wind and sea. i knew what it would be like: and again a chill shot through me at the thought of risking everything on that one great chance. but i had one thing to comfort me: the moon had risen--and while the light came brokenly, as the clouds thinned and thickened again, there was brightness enough even at the darkest for me to lay a course when i got out among the tumbling waves. yet only a man half mad with passion would have thought of fronting such a danger; and even i might have held back at the last moment had i not been stung to go on. jan had so gained on me in the run down the étang that as we came out from the canal of the salines his boat was within less than a dozen rods of mine; and as i hauled my sheet and bore up for the narrows he shot down upon us and for a moment was almost under our stern. and at that magali gave a little jump and a half-gasp, and laid her hand upon mine, crying: "marius! quick! sail faster! he will take me from you! get me away! get me away!" and then i knew that she no longer balanced us, but that her heart was for me. after that i would have faced not only the gulf of fos but the open mediterranean in the worst storm that ever blew. vii "god keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep desire!" the words were in my ears again as we went flying on toward the narrows--with the reflection of the flame in the light-house making a broad bright path for us, and the flame itself rising high before us against the cloud-rack like a ball of fire. but god was not with me then, and i gave those warning words no heed. i was drunk with the gladness that came to me when magali made her choice between us; and all that i thought was that even if we did go down together, out there in the gulf of fos, i still would be keeping her from jan and holding her for my own. that there might be any other ending for us never crossed my mind. jan did not think, i suppose, that i would dare to go outside the harbour. he was in a rage too, no doubt; but, still, he must have been a good deal cooler than i was--for a rage of hate does not boil in the very bones of a man, as a rage of love does--and so cool enough to know that it was sheer craziness to take a boat out into that sea. what i meant to do must have come to him with suddenness--as we drew so close to the light-house that the flame no longer was reflected ahead of us, and the narrows were open over my starboard bow, and i let the boat fall off from the wind and headed her into the broken water made by the inroll of half-spent waves. in my run close-hauled i had dropped him, but not so much as i thought i should, and as i came on the wind again--and hung for a moment before gathering fresh headway--he ranged up once more within hail. "where are you going? are you crazy?" he called out--and though he must have shouted with all the strength of his big lungs his voice came thin through the wind to us, and broken by the pounding of the sea. "where you won't dare to follow!" i called back to him--and we went rushing on below the big old fort, that carries the light on its tower, through the short passage between the harbour and the gulf of fos. something he answered, but what it was i do not know: for as we cleared the shelter of the fort--but while the tail of rock beyond it still was to windward, so that i could not luff--down with a crash on us came the gale. i could only let fly the sheet--but even with the sheet all out over we went until the sail was deep in the water, and over the leeward gunwale the waves came hissing in. i thought that there was the end of it; but the boat had such way on her that even on her beam ends and with the sail dragging she went on until we had cleared the rocks; and then i luffed her and she rose slowly, and for the moment was safe again with her nose in the wind. magali's face was dead white--like a dead woman's face, only for her shining eyes. she fell to leeward as the boat went over--i could not spare a hand to save her--and struck hard against the gunwale. when the boat righted and she got up again her forehead was bleeding. on her white face the blood was like a black stain. but she put her hand on mine and said: "i am not frightened, marius. i love you!" jan was close aboard again. as our way had deadened he had overhauled us; and because he saw what had happened to my boat he was able to bring his boat through the narrows without going over. "marius! marius! for god's sake, for magali's sake, put about!" he shouted. "it is the only chance to save her. put about, i say!" he was only a little way to leeward of us, but i barely made out his words. the wind was roaring past us, and the waves were banging like cannon on the rocks close by. what he said was the truth, and i knew it. i knew that the gale was only just beginning, and that no boat could live through it for another hour. and then one of the devils loose on that all souls eve, or perhaps it was my own devil inside of me, put a new evil thought into my heart: making clear to me how i might get rid of jan for good and all, and without its ending in my losing my head or in my losing magali by being sent overseas. it was a chance, to be sure, and full of danger. but just then i was ready for any danger or for any chance. [illustration: "the others were upcast on the rocks"] "lie down in the bottom of the boat, magali," i called sharply. "that is the safest place for you. we are going about." i spoke the truth to magali; but, also, i did not want her to see what happened. she did what i told her to do, and then i began to wear the boat around. how i did it without swamping, i do not know. perhaps the devils of all souls eve held up my mast through the black moments while we lay wallowing in the trough of the sea. but i did do it; and when i was come about i headed straight for jan's boat--lying dead to leeward of me, not twenty yards away. the clouds thinned suddenly and almost the full light of the moon was with us. we could see each other's faces plainly--and in mine he saw what i meant to do. "it will be all of us together, marius!" he called to me. "do you want to murder magali too?" but i did not believe that it would be all of us together: for i knew that his boat was an old one, and that mine was new and strong. and, also, the devils had me in their hold. the gale was behind me, driving me down upon him like a thunder-bolt. as i shot close to him the moon shone out full for a moment through a rift in the clouds. in that moment i saw his face clearly. the moonlight gleamed on it. it was a ghastly dead white. but i do not suppose that it was for himself that he was afraid. jan was not a coward, or he would not have jumped after me when i was drowning in the stormy sea. once more he called to me. "marius! for the sake of magali--" and then there was a crashing and a rending of planks as i shot against his boat, and a sudden upspringing of my own boat under me. and after that, for a long while, a roaring of water about me, and my own body tumbled and thrust hither and thither in it, and at last a blow which seemed to dash me down into a vast black depth that was all buzzing with little blazing stars. * * * * * but the others were upcast on the rocks dead. a sea upcast i when we east anglians be set to do a thing, we be set firm. we come at what we want by slow thinking, but when we know what we want we hold fast by it--being born stubborn, and also being born staunch. it is the same with our hating and with our loving: we fire slowly, but when at last the fire is kindled it burns so strongly in the very hearts of us--with a white glow, hotter than any flame--that there is no putting it out again short of putting out our lives. men and women alike, we are born that way; and we fishermen of the suffolk and norfolk coast likewise are bred that way: seeing that from the time we go afloat as youngsters until the time that we are drowned, or are grown so old and rusty that there is no more strength for sea-fighting left in us, our lives for the most part are spent in fighting the north sea. that is a fight that needs stubbornness to carry it through to a finish. also, it needs knowledge of the ocean's tricks and turns--because the north sea can do what we east anglians can't do: it can smile at you and lie. a man must have a deal of training before he can tell by the feel of it in his own insides that close over beyond a still sea and a sun-bright sky a storm is cooking up that will kill him if it can. and even when he feels the coming of it--if he be well to seaward, or if he be tempted by the fish being plenty and by the bareness of his own pockets to hold on in the face of it--he must have more in his head than any coast pilot has if he is to win home to yarmouth harbour or to lowestoft roads. for god in his cruelty has set more traps to kill seafarers off this easterly outjut of england, i do believe, than he has set anywhere else in all the world: there being from covehithe ness northward to the winterton overfalls nothing but a maze of deadly shoals--all cut up by channels in which there is no sea-room--that fairly makes you queazy to think about when you are coming shoreward in a northeast gale. and as if that were not enough to make sure of man-food for the fishes, the currents that swirl and play among these shoals are up to some fresh wickedness with every hour of the tide-run and with every half shift of wind. whether you make in for yarmouth by hemesby hole to the north, or by the hewett channel to the south, or split the difference by running through caister road, it is all one: twisting about the overfalls and the middle cross sand and the south scroby, there the currents are. what they will be doing with you, or how they will be doing it, you can't even make a good guess at; all that you can know for certain being that they will be doing their worst by you at the half tide. at least, though, the lowestoft men and the yarmouth men have a good harbour when once they fetch it; and by that much are better off than we southwold men, who have no harbour at all. with anything of a sea running there is no making a landing under southwold cliff--though it is safe enough when once your boat is beached and hauled up there; and so, if the storm gets ahead of us, there is nothing left but to run for lowestoft: and a nice time we often have of it, with an on-shore gale blowing, working up into the covehithe channel under the tail of the barnard bank! as for beating up to seaward of the barnard and running in through pakefield gat, anybody can try for it who has a mind to--and who has a boat that can eat the very heart out of the wind. sometimes you do fetch it. but what happens to you most times is best known to the newcome shoal. when you have cleared the barnard--if so be you do clear it--the newcome lies close under your lee for all the rest of the run. what it has done for us fishermen you can see when the spring tides bare it and show black scraps of old boats wrecked there, and sometimes a gleam of sand-whitened bones. for a good many years we had another chance, though a poor one, and that was to make a longish leg off shore and then run in before the wind and cross the barnard into covehithe channel through what we called the wreck gat--a cut in the bank that the currents made striking against a wrecked ship buried there. the wreck gat is gone now--closed by the same storm that nearly closed my life for me--and you will not find it marked nowadays on the charts. its going was a good riddance. at the best it was a desperate bad place to get through; and at its worst it was about the same as a sea pitfall: and that nobody knows better than i do, seeing that i was the last man to get through it alive. but when you happened to be to windward of it, if it served at all, it served better than running down a half mile farther and trying to round the tail of the bank. very many craft beside our own fisher-boats find their death-harbour on our east anglian sands. our coast, as it has a right to be, is the dread of every sailor man who sails the narrow seas. great ships, storm-swept on our sands, are sucked down into the depths of them, or are hammered to pieces on the top of them, as light-heartedly as though they were no more than cock-boats. and the supply of ships to be wrecked there is unending--since the half of the trade of the world, they say, sails past our shores. from every land they come: and many and many a one of them comes but never goes. down on them bangs the northeast wind with a roar and a rattle--and presently our sands have hold of them with a grip that is to keep them fast there till the last day! sometimes the dead men who were living sailors aboard those ships come ashore to us, though they are more like to find graves in the sands that murdered them or to be swept out to sea; sometimes, by a twist of chance that you may call a miracle, the sea has a fancy for casting one or two of them ashore alive. dazed and half mad creatures those live ones are, usually: their wits all jangled and shaken by the great horror that has been upon them while they tossed among the waves. and so, as you may see, we men of the suffolk and norfolk coast need the stiff backbone that we have as our birthright for the sea-fighting that is our life-work; and it is not to be wondered at that our life of sea-fighting makes us still more set and stubborn in our ways. ii my little tess came to me, a sea upcast, after one of our great northeast gales. i myself found her: lying where the waves had landed her on the shingle, and where they had left her with the fall of the tide. i was but a bit of a lad myself, then, going on to be eight years old. storms had no fright in them for me in those days. what i most was thinking about when one was blowing--while my poor mother, if my father was out in his boat, would be looking wild-eyed seaward, or in the bed-room praying for him on her knees--was what i'd be picking up on the shingle when the gale was over and the sea gone down. later on, when i came to know that at the gale's end i might be lying myself on the shingle, along with the other wreckage, i got to looking at storms in a different way. that blow that brought my tess to me had no fears in it for my poor mother, seeing that it came in the night time and my father safe at home. the noise of my father getting up wakened me; and in a sleepy way i watched him from my little bed, when he had the lamp lighted, hurrying his clothes on that he might go down to where his boat was hauled up on the shingle and heave her with the capstan still higher above the on-run of the waves. and as i lay there, very drowsy, watching my father drag his big boots on and hearing the roar of the wind and feeling the shaking that it was giving to our house-walls, there came suddenly the sharp loud bang of a gun. my father stopped as he heard it--with one leg in the air and his hands gripping the boot-straps, i can see him now. "that's from close by!" he said. "god help them--they must be ashore on the barnard bank!" then he jammed his other boot on, jumped into his sou'wester, and was gone on a run. my mother ran to the door--i know now, having myself helped to get men ashore from wrecked ships at my life's peril, what her fear was--and called after him into the darkness: "don't thou go to putting thy life in danger, george may!" what she said did no good. the wind swallowed her words before they got to him. for a minute or two she stood in the doorway, all blown about; then, putting her weight on it, she got the door shut and came back into the bed-room and knelt by the bedside praying for him. i still was very drowsy. presently i went off to sleep again, thinking--god forgive me for it!--that if a ship had stranded on the barnard i'd find some pretty pickings when morning came and the storm was over and i could get down to the shore. and that was my first thought when i wakened, and found the sun shining and the wind blowing no more than a gentle breeze. my father was home again, and safe and sound. there had been no chance for a rescue, he said--the ship being deep down in the sands, and all her people swept out of her, by the time that daylight came. and so i bolted my breakfast, and the very minute that i had it inside of me i was off down the cliff-path and along the beach northward to find what i could find. all the other southwold boys were hurrying that way too; but our house being up at the north end of the village gave me the start of all of them but john heath, who lived close by us, and he came down the cliff-path at my heels. the barnard bank lies off shore from covehithe ness, and under the ness our pickings would be most like to be. at the best they would be but little things--buckets and baskets and brooms and odd oars, and such like--the coast guard men seeing to it that we got no more; but things, all the same, that any boy would jump for: and so away john and i ran together, and we kept together until we were under the ness--and could see the broken stern-post of the wreck, all that was left to see of her, sticking up from the barnard going bare with the falling tide. there i passed him--he giving a shout and stopping to pick up a basket that i missed seeing because on my side weed covered it--and so was leading him as we rounded the ness by a dozen yards. and then it was i who gave a shout--and made a dash for a big white bundle that was lying in a nook of the shingle just above the lap of the waves. john saw the bundle almost as soon as i did, and raced me for it. but i did see it first, and i touched it first, and so it fairly was mine. a white sheet was the outside of it; and at one corner, under the sheet, a bit of a blanket showed. i would have none of john's help as i unwrapped it. he stood beside me, though, and said as i opened it that even if i had touched it first we had seen it together--which wasn't so--and that we must go share and share. i did not answer him, being full of wonder what i was like to come to when i had the bundle undone. in a good deal of a hurry i got the sheet loose, it was knotted at the corners, and then the blanket, and then still another blanket that was under the first one: and when that inner wrapping was opened there was lying--a little live baby! it looked up into my face with its big black eyes, and it blinked them for a minute--having been all shut up in the dark and the sunlight bothering it--and then it smiled at me as if i'd just waked it up not from the very edge of death in the sea but from a comfortable nap in its cradle on land! john heath burst out laughing. "you can have my share of it, george," said he; "we've got babies enough of our own at home." and with that he ran away and began to look again for brooms and buckets along the shore. but i loved my little tess from that first sight of her, and i was glad that john had said that i might have his share in her; though of course, because i first saw her and first touched her, he had no real share in her at all. so i wrapped her up again as well as i could in her blankets--leaving the wet sheet lying there--and set off for home along the shore, carrying her in my arms. tired enough i got before i had lugged my load that long way, and up the cliff, and so to our house door. in the doorway my mother was standing, and i put the bundle in her arms. "lord save us!" said my mother. "what's the boy got here?" "mother," said i, "it's a little beautiful live baby--and i found it, and it's mine!" iii that was the way that my tess came to me: and i know now how good my father and my mother were in letting me keep her for my own--they with only what my father could make by his fishing to live on, and the wolf never very far away from the door. but the look of those black eyes of hers and the smile in them won my mother's love to her, just as it had won mine; and my mother told me, too, long years afterward, that her heart was hungry for the girl baby that god had not given her--and she said that tess seemed to be her very own baby from the minute that she took her close to her breast from my tired little arms. as to where tess came from--from what port in all the wide world the ship sailed that brought her to us--we had no way of knowing. nothing but tess in her bundle came ashore from the wreck; and what was left of the ship burrowed down into the sands so fast and so far that there was to be seen of her only a broken bit of her stern-post at the storm's ending. even after the set of the currents against her sunken hull, on the next spring tide, had cut through the barnard bank and so made the wreck gat, no part of her but her broken stern-post ever showed. tess herself, though, told us what her own name was, and so gave us a notion as to what land she belonged to; but we should have been none the wiser for her telling it--she talking in words that were the same as greek to us--if the vicar had not lent us a hand. my finding the baby made a stir in the whole village, and everybody had to have a look at her. in the afternoon along came the vicar too--smiling through his gold spectacles, as he always did, and swinging his black cane. by that time, having had all the milk she could hold, and a good nap, and more milk again, tess was as bright as a new sixpence: just as though she had not passed that morning nearer to death than ever she was like to pass again and live. she was lying snug in my mother's arms before the fire, and in her own fashion was talking away at a great rate--and my mother's heart quite breaking because her pretty chatter was all in heathen words that nobody could get at the meaning of. but the vicar, being very learned, understood her in a minute. "why, it's spanish," said he. "it's spanish as sure as you're born! she's calling you 'madrecita,' mrs. may--which is the same as 'motherkin,' you know. but i can't make even a guess at the rest of it. everything ends in 'ita'--real baby-talk." "do kindly ask her, sir, what her blessed little name is," said my mother. "it'll bring her a deal closer to us to know her name." "i'll try her in latin," said the vicar--"that's the best that i can manage--and it'll be hit or miss if she understands." and then he bent over the little tot--she being then a bit over two years old, my mother thought--and asked her what her name was in latin words. for a minute there was a puzzled look in the big black eyes of her and her brow puckered. and then she smiled all over her pretty face and answered, as clear as you please: "tesita." that a baby no bigger than that understood latin always has seemed to me most like a miracle of anything that ever i have known! my mother looked bothered and chap-fallen. "it's not a real name at all," she said, and sighed over it. "it's a very good name indeed, mrs. may," said the vicar; "only she's giving you her baby way of saying it. her name is theresa. 'tesita' is the same as our 'tess' would be, you know." "theresa! tess!" cried my mother, brightening up all in a minute. "why, that was my own dear mother's name! her having that name seems to make her in real truth mine, sir!" and she hugged the baby close to the heart of her, and all in the same breath cried over it and laughed over it--thinking, i suppose, of her mother dead and buried, and thankful for the daughter that she so longed for that had come to her upcast by the sea. more than what her name was, as is not to be wondered at, tess never told us; and the only thing in the world that gave us any knowledge of her--and that no more than that her people were like to be gentlefolk--was a gold chain about her neck, under her little night gown, with a locket fast to it on which were some letters in such a jumble that even the vicar could not make head nor tail of them, though he tried hard. iv whatever part of the world tess came from, it was plain enough by the look of her--and more and more plain as she grew up into a tall and lanky girl, and then into a tall slim woman--that suffolk was a long way off from the land where she was born. our suffolk folk, for the most part, are shortish and thickset and fair and blue eyed. we men--being whipped about by the wind and weather, and the sea-salt tanned into us--lose our fairness early and go a bun-brown; but our women--having no salt spray in their faces, and only their just allowance of sunshine--have their blue eyes matched with the red and white cheeks that they were born with; and their hair, though sometimes it goes darkish, usually is a bright chestnut or a bright brown. also, our women are steady-going and sensible; though i must say that now and then they are a bit hard to get along with: being given to doing their thinking slowly, and to being mighty fast set in their own notions when once they have made their minds up--the same as we men. as for tess--with her black eyes and her black hair, and her face all a cream white with not a touch of red in it--she was like none of them; and she could think more out-of-the-way things and be more sorts of a girl in five minutes than any suffolk lass that ever i came across could think or be in a whole year! tess was unlike our girls in another matter: she had a mighty hot spit-fire temper of her own. our girls, the same as our men, are easy-going and anger slowly; but when they do anger they are glowing hot to their very finger-tips, and a long while it takes them to cool off. but tess would blaze up all in a minute--and as often as not with no real reason for it--and be for a while such an out-and-out little fury that she would send everything scudding before her; and then would pull up suddenly in the thick of it, and seem to forget all about it, and like enough laugh at the people around her looking scared! somehow, though, it was seldom that she let me have a turn of her tantrums; and when she did they'd be over in no time, and she'd have her arms around me and be begging me to kiss her and to tell her that i didn't mind. i suppose that she was that way with me because for my part--having from the very first so loved her that quarreling with her was clean impossible--i used just to stand and stare at her in her passions; and like enough be showing by the look in my eyes the puzzled sorrow that i was feeling in my inside. as to answering her anger with my anger, it never once crossed my mind. with john heath things went differently. he would go ugly when she flew out at him--and would keep his anger by him after hers long was over and done with, and would show it by putting some hurt upon her in a dirty way. a good many thrashings i gave john heath, at one time or another, for that sort of thing; and the greatest piece of unreasonableness that tess ever put on me, which is saying much for it, was on that score: she being then ten years old, or thereabouts, and john and i well turned of sixteen. some trick that he played on her--i don't know what it was--set her in a rage against him, and he made her worse by laughing at her, and she ended by throwing sand in his eyes. then his anger got up, and he caught her--being twice the size of her--and boxed her ears. i came along just then, and i can see the look of her now. she was not crying, as any ordinary child would have been--john having meant to hurt her, and hit hard. she was standing straight in front of him with her little hands gripped into fists as if she meant to fight him, that cream white face of hers gone a real dead white, a perfect blaze of passion in her big black eyes. in another second or so she'd have been flying at him if i'd given her the chance. but i didn't--i sailed right in and myself gave him what he needed; and when i had finished with him i had so well blackened the two eyes of him that he forgot about the sand. but after it all was over, so far from being obliged to me, what did tess do but fall to crying because i'd hurt him, and to saying that he'd only given her what she deserved! for a week and more she would not speak to me, and all that time she was trotting about sorrowfully at john's heels. it seemed as though all of a sudden she had got to loving him because he had played the man and the master to her; and i'm sure that his love for her had its beginning then too. john's folks and my folks, as i have said, lived up at the north end of the village, a bit apart, and that made us three keep most together while we were little; but tess never had much to do with the other children, even when she got big enough to be with them at school. they did not get along with her, being puzzled by her whims and fancies and set against her by her spit-fire ways. and she did not get along with them because she was quick about everything and all of them were slow. when she began to grow up, though, matters changed a good deal. the boys--she being like nobody else in the village--picked her out to make love to, and that set the girls by the ears. tess liked the love-making a deal more than i liked her to like it; and she didn't mind what the girls said to her because her wits were nimbler than their wits and she always could give them better than they could send. so things went while the years went till tess was turned of seventeen, and was shot up into a tall slim woman in all ways so beautiful as to be, i do believe, the most beautiful woman that god ever made. and then it was that grace gryce, damn her for it, found a whip that served to lash her; and so cruel a whip that she was near to lashing the life out of her with it at a single blow. v according to our suffolk notions, grace gryce was a beauty: being strongly set up and full built and well rounded, with cheeks as red as strawberries, and blue eyes that for any good looking man had a smile in them, and over all a head of bright-brown hair. had tess been out of the way she'd have had things all as she wanted them, not another girl in the village for looks coming near her; and so it was only human nature, i suppose, that she hated tess for crossing her--making her always go second, and a bad second, with the men. it was about john heath, though, that the heart of the matter was. all the village knew that grace fancied him, and that he half fancied her--and would have fancied her altogether had tess been out of the way. making up his mind between them--john always was a thick thinker--did not seem to come easy to him. the whims and the ways of tess--that made a dozen different sorts of girl of her in five minutes--seemed to set him off from her a-most as much as they set him on: being a sort of puzzle, i'm free to say, that other men beside john couldn't well understand. with grace it was different. she might blow hot or she might blow cold with him; or she might show her temper--she had a-plenty of it--and give him the rough side of her tongue: but what she meant and what she wanted always was plain and clear. to be sure, this is only my guess why he hung in the wind between them. maybe he set too little store on tess's love because it came to him too easily; maybe he thought that by seeming to love her lightly he best could hold her fast. hold her fast he did, and that is certain. in spite of all her whimsies, he had her love; and it was his, as i have said, from the time when he man-mastered her by boxing the little ears of her--she being only ten years old. always after that, even when she was at her sauciest and her airiest, he had only to speak short and sharp to her and she'd come to heel to him like a dog. sometimes, seeing her taking orders from him that way was close to setting me wild: i having my whole heart fixed on her, and ready to give the very hands of me to have from her the half of what she gave him. not but what she loved me too, in her own fashion, and dearly. she showed that by the way that she used to come to me in all her little hurts and troubles; and the sweetness and the comfortingness of her to me and to my mother always, but most when my poor father was drowned, was beyond any words that i have to put it in. but my pain was that the love which she had for me was of the same sort that she had for my mother--and i was not wanting from her love of that kind. and so it cut to the quick of me--i who would have kissed her shoe-soles--to see her so ready always to be meek and humble at a word from john. there were times, and a good many of them--seeing her so dog-faithful to him, and he almost as careless of her as if she had been no more than a dog to him--that i saw red as i looked at him, and got burning hot in the insides of me, and was as close to murdering him as i well could be and he still go on alive. like enough grace gryce--being of the same stock that i was, and made much as i was--had the same feeling for tess that i had for john; and grace, being a woman, had nothing to stop her from murdering tess in a woman's way. she would have done it sooner had her wits been quicker. time and again they had had their word-fights together, and tess always getting the better of her because grace's wits, like the rest of her, were heavy and slow. it was down by the boats, under the gun hill, that they fought the round out in which grace drew blood at last. a lot of the girls were together there and tess, for a wonder, happened to be with them. they all were saying to her what hard things they could think of; and she, in her quick way, was hitting back at them and scoring off them all. poor sort of stuff it was that they were giving her: calling her "miss fine-airs" and "miss maypole," and scorning the black eyes and the pale face of her, and girding at her the best they could because in no way was she like themselves. "it's a pity i'm so many kinds of ugliness!" says tess in her saucy way, and making it worse by laughing. "it's a true pity that i'm not pretty, like all the rest of you, and so am left lonely. if only i'd some of your good looks, you see, i might have, as the rest of you have, a lot of men at my heels." that was a shot that hit all of them, but it hit grace the hardest and she answered it. "it's better," said she, "to go your whole life without a man at your heels than it is to spend your whole life dog-tagging at the heels of a man." the girls laughed at that, knowing well what grace was driving at. but tess was ready with her answer and whipped back with it: "well, it's better to tag at a man's heels and he pleased with it than it is to want to tag there and he not letting you--liking a may-pole, maybe, better than a butter-tub, and caring more, maybe, for grace by nature than for grace by name." that turned the joke--only it was no joke--on grace again; and as the girls had not much more liking for her than they had for tess, seeing that she spoiled what few man-chances tess left them, they laughed at her as hard as they could laugh. grace's slow anger had been getting hotter and hotter in her. that shot of tess's, and the girls all laughing at her, brought it to a boil. "who be'st thou, to open thy ugly mouth to me?" she jerked out, with a squeak in her voice and her blue eyes blazing. "who be'st thou, anyway? who knows the father or the mother of thee? who knows what foul folk in what foul land bore thee? dog-tag thou may'st, but--mark my words--naught will come of it: because thou'rt not fit for john heath or for any other honest man to have dealings with--thou rotten upcast of the sea!" tess was holding her head high and was scornful-looking when this speech began; but the ending of it, so mary benacre told my mother, seemed like a knife in her heart. her face went a sort of a pasty white, so mary said; and she seemed to choke, somehow, and put her hand up to her throat in a fluttering kind of way as if her throat hurt her. and then she sort of staggered, and made a grab at the boat she was standing by and leaned against it--looking, so mary said, as if she was like to die. "mayhap now thou'lt keep quiet a bit," grace said, with her hands on her fat hips and her elbows out; and with that, and a flounce at her, turned away. the other girls, all except mary, went along with grace; but not talking, and most of them scared-looking: feeling, like enough, as men would feel standing by at the end of a knife-fight, when one man is down with a cut that has done for him and there is a smell of blood in the air. mary staid behind--she was a good sort, was mary benacre--and went to tess and tried to comfort her. tess didn't answer her, but just looked at her with a pitiful sort of stare out of her black eyes that mary said was like the look of some poor dumb thing that had no other way of telling how bad its hurt was. and then, rousing herself up, tess pushed mary away from her and started for home on a run. mary did not follow her, but later on she came and told my mother just what had happened and gave her grace gryce's words. it was well that mary came, that way, and told a clear story about it all. what tess told--when she came flying into the house and caught my mother around the neck and put her poor head on my mother's breast and went off into a passion of crying there--was such a muddle that my mother knew only that grace gryce had said something to her that was wickedly cruel. tess cried and cried, as if she'd cry the very life out of her; and kept sobbing out that she was a sea upcast, and a nobody's daughter, and that the sea would have done better by her had it drowned her, and that she hoped she'd die soon and be forgotten--until she drove my mother almost wild. and so it went for a long while with her, my mother petting her and crying over her, until at last--the feel, i suppose, of my mother's warm love for her getting into her poor hurt heart and comforting her--she began to quiet down. then my mother got her to bed--she was as weak as water--and made a pot of bone-set tea for her; and pretty soon after she'd drunk a cup or two of it she dropped off to sleep. she still was sleeping when mary benacre came and told the whole story; and so stirred up my mother's anger--and she was a very gentle-natured woman, my mother was--that it was all she could do, she said afterwards, not to go straight off to grace gryce and give her a beating with her own hands. vi when tess came to breakfast the next morning it gave me a real turn to look at her. somehow, at a single jump, she seemed to have changed from a girl to a woman--and to an old woman at that. suddenly she had got to be all withered like, and the airs that she used to give herself and all the pretty ways of her were gone. she just moped in a chair in a corner--she who'd never been quiet for five minutes together, any more than a bird--with a far-away look in her beautiful eyes, and the glint of tears in them. sorrow had got into the very bones of her. "dost think i really am come of such foul folk that i'm not fit for honest company?" she asked my mother--and if she asked that question once that morning she asked it a dozen times. in a way, of course, she had known what she was all her life long. "my sea-baby" was my mother's pet name for her at the first; and by that pet-name, when most tender with her, my mother called her till the last. how she had come to us, how i had found her where the waves had left her and had carried her home in my little tired arms, she had been told over and over again. sometimes she used to make up stories about herself in her light-fancied way: telling us that she was a great lady of spain, and that some fine morning the great spanish lord her father would come to southwold by some chance or other, and would know her by the chain and the locket, and would take her home with him and marry her to a duke--or to a prince, even--in her own land. we'd see that she'd be pretending to herself while she told them to us that these stories were true, and i think that she did half believe in them. but it was not real believing that she had in them; it was the sort of believing that you have in things in dreams. her love was given to my mother and to my father--and to me, too, though not in the way that i wanted it--and we were the true kinsfolk of her heart. on our side, we all so loved her, and made her feel so truly that she was our very own, that the thought of her being a nobody's child never had a chance to get into her mind. and her own fancies about herself--always that her own dream people were great people in the dream land where they lived--kept her from seeing the other chance of the matter: that they as well might be mean people, who would put shame on her should ever she come to know who they were. into her head that cruel thought never got until grace gryce put it there; and put there with it the crueller thought that her being a nobody's child was what made john stand off from her, he thinking her not fit to be his wife. tess was fearing, maybe, that even if john had not had that feeling about her he was like to have it after grace had set him in the way of it. and maybe she was thinking, too, that if she had been hurt for the sake of him, and so deserved loving pity from him, it was grace who for the sake of him had done the hurting--and that it was grace who had won. our girls are best pleased with the lover who fights to a finish some other man in love with them and well thrashes him. tess may have fancied that john would take it that way; and so end by settling that grace, having the most fire and fight in her, was the most to his mind. but what really came of it all with john, as far as i can make out, was that his getting them fairly set the one against the other cleared his thick wits up and brought him to a choice. and so, being in every way sorrowful, tess was like a dead girl that day; and my heart was just breaking for her. when dinner time came she roused up a bit and helped my mother, as she always did--though my mother wanted her to keep resting--and tried in a pitiful sort of way to talk a little and to pretend that she was not in bitter pain; but those pretty feet of hers, so light always, dragged after her in her walking, and she was all wizened-looking, and there were black marks under her beautiful sorrowing eyes. my mother helped to make talk with her, though my mother was wiping her own tears away when she got the chance; but as for me, i was tongue-tied by the hurt and the anger in me and could not say a word. what i was thinking was, how glad i'd be to wring grace gryce's neck for her if only she was a man! after dinner i went out to a bench in front of our house, but a bit away from it, and sat there trying to comfort myself with a pipe--and not finding much even in a pipe to comfort me--until the sun, all yellow, began to drop down toward the gun hill into a bad looking yellow sky. all the while i had the tail of my eye bearing on our door, and at last i saw tess come out of it. she took a quick look at the back of me, sitting quiet there; and then, i not turning toward her, off she walked along the edge of the cliff to the northward. at first i didn't know what to do--thinking that if she wanted to be alone i ought to leave her to her loneliness--and i sat on and smoked another pipe before i could make up my mind. but the longer i sat there the stronger my drawing was to go to her. what was hurting her most, as i well enough knew, was the thought of having neither kith nor kin for herself, along with the dread that even if she found her people they might only be a shame to her--and that was a hurt that having a husband would cure for her, seeing that she would get a new and a good rating in the world when she got her husband's name. and so, at last, i started after her to tell her all that was in the heart of me; and thinking more, and this is the truth, of what i could do to comfort her by taking the sting out of grace gryce's words than of how in that same way i could win my own happiness. i walked on so far--across the dip in the land where the old river was, and up on the cliffs again--that i began to think she had turned about inland and so had gone that way home. but at last i came up with her, on the very top of covehithe ness. she was sitting at the cliff-edge, bent forward a little with her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands; and as i came close to her i saw that she was crying in that quiet sort of way that people cry in when they have touched despair. i walked so softly on the grass that she did not hear my footsteps; but she was not put out when she looked up and saw me standing over her--by which i think, and am the happier for thinking it, that she had not gone there of set purpose to meet with john. "sit thee down here, george. i'm glad thou'rt come," she said, and she reached me her hand. when i was on the grass beside her--she still keeping her hand in mine, as if the touch of something that loved her was a comfort to her--she had nothing to say for a bit, but just leaned her head against my shoulder and cried softly there. the tide was out and a long stretch of the barnard bank lay bared below us, with here and there the black bones of some dead ship lying buried in them sticking up from the sands. slicing deep in the bank was the wreck gat, with the last of the ebb running out through it from the covehithe channel and the undercut sides of it falling down into the water and melting away. at the edge of it was the sunken ship that had made it: the ship that had brought tess to us from her birth-land beyond the seas. as i have said, no more of the wreck showed than her broken stern-post: a bit of black timber, all jagged with twisted iron bolts and weed-grown and barnacled, upstanding at one side of the channel from the water and not high out of it even at low tide. when the tide was in, and any sort of a sea was running, you stood a good chance of finding just where it was by having your boat stove on it: for then it did not show at all, except now and then in the hollow of the waves. tess was looking down on it, her head still resting on my shoulder, and after a while she said: "if only we could dig that ship up, george, we might find what would tell that i'm not come of foul folk, after all"--and then she began to cry again in the same silent sort of way. i couldn't get an answer for her--what she said hurt me so, and she crying on my shoulder, and i feeling the beating of her heart. "it was good of thee, george," she went on again, presently, "to save the baby life of me; but it's a true truth thou'dst have done me more of a kindness hadst thou just thrown me back into the sea. i'd be glad to be there now, george. down there under the water it would make no difference what sort of folk i come of. and i'd be resting there as i can't rest here--for down there my pain would be gone." my throat was so choked up that i had hard work to get my words out of it, and when they did come they sounded queer. "tess! tess!" i said. "thou'lt kill me dead talking that way. as if the like of thee could come of foul folk! a lord duke would be the least to be fit father to thee--and proud of thee he well might be! but what does it matter, tess, what thy folk were who owned thee at the beginning? they gave thee to the sea's keeping--and the sea gave thee to me. by right of finding, thou'rt mine. it was i who found thee, down on the shingle there, and from the first minute that ever i laid eyes on thee i loved thee--and the only change in me has been that always i've loved thee more and more. whether thy people were foul folk or fair folk is all one to me. it's thyself that i'm loving--and with every bit of the love that is in my heart. let me make thee the wife of me, tess--and then thou'lt have no need to fret about who thy forbears were for thou'lt have no more to do with them, being made a part of me and mine." i talked at such a rate, when i did get set a-going, that my own words ran away with me; and i got the feeling that they ran away with tess too. but when i had ended, and she lifted up her head from my shoulder and looked straight into the eyes of me, i knew by what her eyes had in them--before ever she said a word back to me--that what i wanted most in the whole world for myself i could not have. it seemed to me an hour before she spoke, she all the time looking straight into my eyes and her own eyes full of tears. at last she did speak. "george," said she, "if i could be wife to thee, as thou'dst have me be, i'd go down on my knees and thank god! but it can't be, george. it can't be! i've set my heart." there was no doubting what she said. in the sound of her voice there was something that seemed as much as her words to settle the matter for good and all. whenever i am at a funeral and hear the reading of the burial service it brings back to me the sound of her voice that day. only there is a promise of hope in the burial service--and that there was not for me in tess's words. "it's john that's between us?" i asked. "yes," she said, speaking slow, "it's john." she was quiet for a minute and then went on again, still speaking slow: "i don't understand it myself, george. thou'rt a better-hearted man than he is, and i truly think i love him less than i do thee. but--but i love him in another way." "damn him!" said i. that got out before i could stop it, but when it had got out i wasn't sorry. it told what i felt then--and it tells what i feel now. john's taking her from me was stealing, and nothing less. we were together when i found her, he and i; but i first saw her and i first touched her--and he gave me his share in her, though he had no real share in her, when he knew what my finding was. and so his taking her from me was stealing: and that is god's truth! tess said nothing back to me. she only looked at me sorrowful for a minute, and then looked down again at the bit of wreck on the sands. by the sigh she gave i knew pretty well what was in her mind. i'd had my answer, and that was the end of it. "i'll be going now, tess," i said; and i got up and she got up with me. i was not feeling steady on my legs, and like enough i had a queer look on me. as for tess, she was near as white as a dead woman, though some of her whiteness may have come from the yellow sunshine on her out of the western sky. up there on top of the ness we still had the sun with us, though he was almost gone among the foul weather yellow clouds. "thou'lt try to forgive me, george," she said, speaking low, and her mouth sort of twitching. "i love thee, tess," i said; "and where there's love there can be no talk of forgiveness. but john has the hate of me, and i tell thee fairly i'll hurt him if i can!" with that i left her--there on covehithe ness, over the very spot where the sea brought her to me--and went walking back along the cliff-edge: and not seeing anything clearly because i was thinking about john, and what i'd like to do to him, and there was a sort of red blur before my eyes. after a while i turned and looked back. my eyes had cleared a bit, but what i saw made them red again. tess was not alone on the ness. john was with her. the two stood out strong in the last of the yellow sunshine against a cloud-bank on the far edge of the sky. i suppose that tess being hurt that way for him brought john to his bearings--making him love her the more for sorrow's sake, and for anger's sake making him ready to throw grace gryce over. like enough he had been watching for his chance to get to her, waiting till i was gone. anyway, there he was--and i knew what he was saying to her as well as if i'd heard the words. it is no wonder that the blood got into my eyes again as i started back along the path. but i did not go far. somehow i managed to pull myself together and turn again. what i had to settle with john heath could be settled best when he and i were alone. vii when tess came home to supper that night she was all changed again: her looks gay once more, and her step light, and a sort of flutter about her lips--as if she was wanting to smile and was trying not to--and a soft look in her eyes that i never had seen there, but knew the meaning of and found the worst of all. i couldn't eat my supper; and got up presently and went out leaving it--my mother looking after me wondering--and walked up and down on the cliff-edge in the darkness with my heart all in a blaze of hate for john. for a good while i had been looking for what i knew was in the way of coming to me; but it was different, and worse, and hurt more than i had counted on, when at last it came. out there in the darkness i staid until the night was well on--not wanting for a while to hear the sound of tess's voice nor to lay eyes on her. not until i was sure, by the lights being out in the house, that she'd gone to bed, did i go in again. my mother was waiting waking for me. she came to me in the dark and put her arms around me and kissed me; by which i knew that tess had been telling her--and knew, too, she always having looked to the wedding of us, that her heart was sore along with mine. but i could not bear even her soft touch on the hurt that i had. i just kissed her back again and broke away from her and went to bed. and in the very early morning, not having slept much, i slipped out of the house before either she or tess was stirring and down to my boat and so away to sea. what i was after was to get some quiet time to myself that would steady me before i had things out with john. i was not clear in my mind how i meant to settle with him. i did know, though, that i meant to have some sort of a fair fight with him that would end in my killing him or in him killing me--and i knew that to tackle him with my head all in a buzz would be to throw too many chances his way. and so i got away in my boat, at the day-dawn, to the sea's quietness: where i could clear my head of the buzzing that was in it and put some sort of shape to my plans. had i been in my sober senses that morning i never should have gone away seaward at all. backing up the promise of the yellow sunset of the night before, pink clouds were showing in the eastern sky as i started; and as i sailed on in loneliness--standing straight out from the land on a soft leading wind from the south-west westerly--the pink turned to a pale red and then to a deep red, and at last the sun came up out of the water a great ball of fire. the look of the sea, too, all in an oily bubble, and the set of the ground-swell, told me plain enough--even without the sunrise fairly shouting it in the ears of me--that a change of wind was coming before mid-day, and that pretty soon after the wind shifted it would be blowing a gale. i will say this, though: if i'd missed seeing the red sunrise--and all the more if i'd been full of happiness and my wits gone a wool-gathering--i might have thought from the look and the feel of the water, and from the set of the high clouds, that the wind would not blow to hurt anything for a good twelve hours. that much i'll say by way of excuse for john. like enough he slept late that morning--through lying awake the night before thinking what he'd be likely to think--and so missed seeing the sun's warning. when he did get away in his boat it was well past eight o'clock; and there was no man on the beach when he started, so they told me, to counsel him. and, all being said, even a good sailor--and that john was--starting off as he was to buy a wedding-ring might not look as sharp as he ought to look at the sea and at the sky. as to my own sailing seaward--i seeing the storm-signals and knowing the meaning of them--i have no more to say than that i was hot for a fight with anything that morning, and didn't care much what i had it with or how it came. anybody who knows how to sail a boat, and to sail one well, knows what joy there is in getting the better of foul winds and rough seas for the mere fun of the thing; but there is still more joy in a tussle of that sort when you are in a towering rage. then you are ready to push the fight farther by taking more and bigger death-chances: since a man in bitter anger--at least in such bitter anger as i was in then--does not care much whether he pulls through safely or gets drowned. and so i went on my course seaward, on that soft wind blowing more and more lazily, until the coast line was lost in the water behind me: knowing well enough, and glad to have it that way, that the wind would lull and lull until it failed me, and that then i would get a blow out of the northeast that would give me all the fight i wanted, and perhaps a bit to spare! but because i meant my fight to be a good one, and meant to win it, i got myself ready for it. when the wind did fail--the sun was put out by that time, and from high up in the northeast the scud was flying over me--i took in and snugged away everything but my mainsail, and put a double reef in that with the reef-points knotted to hold. then i waited, drifting south a little--the flood having made half an hour before, and the set of the ebb taking me that way. i did not have to wait long. out of the mist, banked thick to the north-eastward, came the moaning that a strong wind makes when it's rushing down on you; then from under the mist swept out a dark riffle that broke the oily bubble of the water and put life into it; and then the wind got to me with a bang. there was more of it than i had counted on having at the first, showing that the gale behind it was a strong one and coming down fast; but i had the nose of my boat pointed up to meet it, and with no more than a bit of a rattle i got away close-hauled. there was no going back to southwold, of course. what i was heading for was the pakefield gat into the stanford channel, and so to the harbour at lowestoft; and i pretty well knew from the first that no matter how close i bit into the wind--and my boat was a weatherly one--i had my work cut out for me if i meant to keep from going to leeward of the pakefield gat in the gale that was coming on. go to leeward i did, and badly. when i raised the coast again, and a lift of the mist gave me my bearings, i saw that kessingland tower was my landfall. as to working up from there to the pakefield gat--the edge of the gale by that time being fairly on me--i knew that it was clean impossible. i still had two chances left--one being to cross the barnard by the wreck gat, and the other to round into covehithe channel across the tail of the bank. to the first of these the wind would help me; but i knew that even with the wind's help it would be ticklish work trying to squeeze through that narrow place at the half ebb--when the strong outset of the current would be meeting the inpour of the storm-driven sea. it would be better, so i settled after a minute's thinking, to pass that chance and take the other--which would be a fairly sure one, though a close one too. and so i wore around--with a bad wallow in the trough of the sea that set everything to shaking for a minute--and got on my new course pretty well on the wind. just as i was making ready for wearing, and so had my hands full, i glimpsed the sail of a boat in the mist up to windward; and when i was come about she was abeam to leeward, showing her high weather side to me, not twenty yards away. then i saw that it was john heath's boat, and that john was standing up alone in her at the helm. why the fool had not staid safe in lowestoft harbour, god only knows. but it's only fair to him, again, to say that he must have got away from lowestoft a good while before the wind shifted; and like enough he would have worked down to southwold, and got his boat safe beached there before trouble came, if the calm had not caught him sooner than it did me--he being all the time close under the land. viii some of my rage had gone out of me in my fight to windward in the gale's teeth; but when i saw john close by me there it all came back to me. for half a minute the thought was in my head to run him down and sink him--and i had the wind of him and could have done it. even in my rage, though, i could not play a coward trick like that on him; and before i could make any other plan up he set me in the way of one himself. "i'm making for the wreck gat," he sung out. "give me a lead in, george--'tis better known to thee than to me." had i stopped to think about it, his asking me to lead him in would have been a puzzle to me, he being just as good a sailor as i was and just as well knowing every twist of the sea and the sands. but i didn't stop to think about the queerness of what he wanted--why he was for making things double safe by my leading him is clear enough to me now--because my wits were at work at something else. while the words were coming out of his mouth--it all was in my head like a flash--i saw my way to settling with him, and to settling fair. he was crazy to want to try for it through the wreck gat on the half tide, with the run of the ebb meeting the onset of the breakers and a whole gale blowing. but his being crazy that way was his look out, not mine. i'd give him the lead in that he wanted--asking him to take nothing that i didn't take first myself, and giving him a better chance than i had because i'd be setting the course for him and he'd have only to follow on. that either of us would pull through would be as it might be. as to my own chance, such as it was, i was ready for it: knowing that i would be no worse off dead with him than i was living with him--and a long sight better off if i put him in the way of the drowning that would finish him, and yet myself won through alive. that was what got into my head like a flash while he was hailing me, and mighty pleased i was with it. "follow on," i sung out. "i'll give thee a lead." and to myself i was saying: "yes, a lead to hell!" "all right," he sung out back to me--and let his boat fall off a bit that i might draw ahead of him. as he dropped astern, and the uptilt of his weather rail no longer hid the inside of his boat from me, i saw that there was a biggish bunch of something covered with a tarpaulin' in the stern sheets close by his feet. but i gave no thought to it: all my thought being fixed on what was ahead of me and him in the next half hour. i was glad that we had to wait a little. every minute of waiting meant more wind, and so a bigger fight in the wreck gat between the out-running current and the in-running sea. i had a feeling in my bones that i would pull through and that he wouldn't, and i was keen to see the smash of him as his boat took the sands. after that smash came, the rest of his life could be counted in minutes and seconds--as he floundered and drowned in that wild tumble of sand-thickened waves. so i'd have done with him and be quit of him; and would have a good show--if i didn't drown along with him--for winning tess for my own. if i did drown with him, or if--not being drowned--tess would have none of me, there still would be this much to the good: i'd have served him out for crossing me in my deep heart-wish, and i'd have made certain that he and she never could come together in this world alive. all that i was thinking as i stood on ahead of him, bucketing through the waves that every minute were heavier with the churned up sand. and i also was thinking, and i remember laughing as the thought came to me, that there was a sort of rightness in the way things were working out with us--seeing that the ship that had brought me my tess, and the sea that had given her to me, together were making the death-trap for the man who had stolen away from me her love. the wind was well up to a gale as we drove on together, me leading him by a half dozen boats' lengths, and from all along to leeward of us came to us through the mist a sort of a groaning roar as the breakers went banging and grinding on the barnard bank. nothing but having the wind and the sea both with us, when we stood in for the gat, saved us from foundering; and yet that same also put us in peril of it, because we had a wide open chance of being pooped by the great following waves which came hanging over and dragging at our sterns. the mist thinned as we got closer in shoreward, showing me the sand-heavy surf waiting for its chance to scour the life out of us; but also showing me covehithe ness, and covehithe church tower off to the left of it, and so giving me the points that i wanted to steer by. as for the look of the wreck gat, when we opened it, the waves blustered over it so big, and were all in such a whirl and a fury with the current meeting them, that only a crazy man--as i have said--ever would have tried for it. just about crazy i then was, and the look of it suited me. in that sea the narrow channel was so lashed by the breakers running off from the sands to windward of it that there was no sign of a cleft anywhere. no matter how we steered, getting through it would be just hit or miss with us--and with all my heart and soul i hoped that it would be hit for me and miss for john. to make in, i had to bear up a little; and getting the wind by even that little abeam gave my boat a send to leeward that was near to doing for me. i was glad of it, though; because i knew that john would get that same send in the wake of me--and with more chance of its finishing him, his boat being a deal less weatherly than mine. and so--as i grazed the sands, and after the graze went on safe again--my heart was light with the thought that i'd got the better of him at last. [illustration: "then i could use my eyes to look behind me"] there was no looking back, though, to see what had gone with him. all my eyes were needed for my steering. everywhere about me the sand-heavy water was hugely rising in a great roar and tumble; and as for the sands under it, and there the worst danger was, it was just good luck or bad luck about striking them--and that was all that you could say. twice i felt a jar under me as the boat went deep in the sea-trough; but i did not strike hard enough to hurt me, and i lifted again so quick that i did not broach-to. and then, when i thought that i was fairly through, and had safe water right ahead of me, there came a bang on the boat's side--as the sea-trough took me down again--that near stove me: and right at the side of me, so close that i could have touched it as i lay for a second there in the deep wave-hollow, was the stern-post of tess's sand-bedded ship rising black out of the scum and foam. one foot farther to leeward and the jagged iron of it would have had me past praying for. but it did no harm to me--and as the water covered it again i shot on beyond it into what seemed to me, after the sea i'd hammered through, almost a mill-pond on the lee side of the bank. then i could use my eyes to look behind me: and what i saw will stay fixed in them till the copper pennies cover them and i see with them no more. in spite of his send to leeward at the start, john had come through after me without taking the ground; but he had gone farther to leeward than i had, and so was set--when smooth water lay close ahead of him--fairly in death's way. as i looked back i saw only the bow of his boat, with the scrap of sail above it, riding on the top of an oncoming wave. then the boat tilted forward, and came tearing down the wave-front at a slant toward me, and i saw the whole length of her: and what burned my eyes out was seeing tess there, standing brave and steady, the two hands of her gripping fast the mast. it was not much more than a second that i had to look at her. with a sharp sound of wood splintering, that i heard above the noise that the sea was making, the boat struck fair and full on that iron set timber--and then the wave that had sent her there was playing with the scattered bits of her, and the sand-heavy breakers were tumbling about the bodies of the two that she had borne. * * * * * if the sea meant to give me back my dead tess again, i knew where i should find her--and there i did find her. on the shingle under covehithe ness she was lying: come to me there at the last, as she came to me there at the first, a sea upcast. that last time she was all mine. there was no john left living to steal her away from me. and if she was not mine as i wanted her, at least she never was his at all. in that far i had my will and way over him, and for that much i am glad. and so, she being all my own, home along the beach for the second time i carried her. it was a wonder to me, as she lay in my arms, how light she was--and she so tall! the end howard pyle's book of pirates fiction, fact & fancy concerning the buccaneers & marooners of the spanish main: from the writing & pictures of howard pyle: compiled by merle johnson contents foreword by merle johnson preface i. buccaneers and marooners of the spanish main ii. the ghost of captain brand iii. with the buccaneers iv. tom chist and the treasure box v. jack ballister's fortunes vi. blueskin the pirate vii. captain scarfield foreword pirates, buccaneers, marooners, those cruel but picturesque sea wolves who once infested the spanish main, all live in present-day conceptions in great degree as drawn by the pen and pencil of howard pyle. pyle, artist-author, living in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth, had the fine faculty of transposing himself into any chosen period of history and making its people flesh and blood again--not just historical puppets. his characters were sketched with both words and picture; with both words and picture he ranks as a master, with a rich personality which makes his work individual and attractive in either medium. he was one of the founders of present-day american illustration, and his pupils and grand-pupils pervade that field to-day. while he bore no such important part in the world of letters, his stories are modern in treatment, and yet widely read. his range included historical treatises concerning his favorite pirates (quaker though he was); fiction, with the same pirates as principals; americanized version of old world fairy tales; boy stories of the middle ages, still best sellers to growing lads; stories of the occult, such as in tenebras and to the soil of the earth, which, if newly published, would be hailed as contributions to our latest cult. in all these fields pyle's work may be equaled, surpassed, save in one. it is improbable that anyone else will ever bring his combination of interest and talent to the depiction of these old-time pirates, any more than there could be a second remington to paint the now extinct indians and gun-fighters of the great west. important and interesting to the student of history, the adventure-lover, and the artist, as they are, these pirate stories and pictures have been scattered through many magazines and books. here, in this volume, they are gathered together for the first time, perhaps not just as mr. pyle would have done, but with a completeness and appreciation of the real value of the material which the author's modesty might not have permitted. merle johnson. preface why is it that a little spice of deviltry lends not an unpleasantly titillating twang to the great mass of respectable flour that goes to make up the pudding of our modern civilization? and pertinent to this question another--why is it that the pirate has, and always has had, a certain lurid glamour of the heroical enveloping him round about? is there, deep under the accumulated debris of culture, a hidden groundwork of the old-time savage? is there even in these well-regulated times an unsubdued nature in the respectable mental household of every one of us that still kicks against the pricks of law and order? to make my meaning more clear, would not every boy, for instance--that is, every boy of any account--rather be a pirate captain than a member of parliament? and we ourselves--would we not rather read such a story as that of captain avery's capture of the east indian treasure ship, with its beautiful princess and load of jewels (which gems he sold by the handful, history sayeth, to a bristol merchant), than, say, one of bishop atterbury's sermons, or the goodly master robert boyle's religious romance of "theodora and didymus"? it is to be apprehended that to the unregenerate nature of most of us there can be but one answer to such a query. in the pleasurable warmth the heart feels in answer to tales of derring-do nelson's battles are all mightily interesting, but, even in spite of their romance of splendid courage, i fancy that the majority of us would rather turn back over the leaves of history to read how drake captured the spanish treasure ship in the south sea, and of how he divided such a quantity of booty in the island of plate (so named because of the tremendous dividend there declared) that it had to be measured in quart bowls, being too considerable to be counted. courage and daring, no matter how mad and ungodly, have always a redundancy of vim and life to recommend them to the nether man that lies within us, and no doubt his desperate courage, his battle against the tremendous odds of all the civilized world of law and order, have had much to do in making a popular hero of our friend of the black flag. but it is not altogether courage and daring that endear him to our hearts. there is another and perhaps a greater kinship in that lust for wealth that makes one's fancy revel more pleasantly in the story of the division of treasure in the pirate's island retreat, the hiding of his godless gains somewhere in the sandy stretch of tropic beach, there to remain hidden until the time should come to rake the doubloons up again and to spend them like a lord in polite society, than in the most thrilling tales of his wonderful escapes from commissioned cruisers through tortuous channels between the coral reefs. and what a life of adventure is his, to be sure! a life of constant alertness, constant danger, constant escape! an ocean ishmaelite, he wanders forever aimlessly, homelessly; now unheard of for months, now careening his boat on some lonely uninhabited shore, now appearing suddenly to swoop down on some merchant vessel with rattle of musketry, shouting, yells, and a hell of unbridled passions let loose to rend and tear. what a carlislean hero! what a setting of blood and lust and flame and rapine for such a hero! piracy, such as was practiced in the flower of its days--that is, during the early eighteenth century--was no sudden growth. it was an evolution, from the semi-lawful buccaneering of the sixteenth century, just as buccaneering was upon its part, in a certain sense, an evolution from the unorganized, unauthorized warfare of the tudor period. for there was a deal of piratical smack in the anti-spanish ventures of elizabethan days. many of the adventurers--of the sir francis drake school, for instance--actually overstepped again and again the bounds of international law, entering into the realms of de facto piracy. nevertheless, while their doings were not recognized officially by the government, the perpetrators were neither punished nor reprimanded for their excursions against spanish commerce at home or in the west indies; rather were they commended, and it was considered not altogether a discreditable thing for men to get rich upon the spoils taken from spanish galleons in times of nominal peace. many of the most reputable citizens and merchants of london, when they felt that the queen failed in her duty of pushing the fight against the great catholic power, fitted out fleets upon their own account and sent them to levy good protestant war of a private nature upon the pope's anointed. some of the treasures captured in such ventures were immense, stupendous, unbelievable. for an example, one can hardly credit the truth of the "purchase" gained by drake in the famous capture of the plate ship in the south sea. one of the old buccaneer writers of a century later says: "the spaniards affirm to this day that he took at that time twelvescore tons of plate and sixteen bowls of coined money a man (his number being then forty-five men in all), insomuch that they were forced to heave much of it overboard, because his ship could not carry it all." maybe this was a very greatly exaggerated statement put by the author and his spanish authorities, nevertheless there was enough truth in it to prove very conclusively to the bold minds of the age that tremendous profits--"purchases" they called them--were to be made from piracy. the western world is filled with the names of daring mariners of those old days, who came flitting across the great trackless ocean in their little tublike boats of a few hundred tons burden, partly to explore unknown seas, partly--largely, perhaps--in pursuit of spanish treasure: frobisher, davis, drake, and a score of others. in this left-handed war against catholic spain many of the adventurers were, no doubt, stirred and incited by a grim, calvinistic, puritanical zeal for protestantism. but equally beyond doubt the gold and silver and plate of the "scarlet woman" had much to do with the persistent energy with which these hardy mariners braved the mysterious, unknown terrors of the great unknown ocean that stretched away to the sunset, there in faraway waters to attack the huge, unwieldy, treasure-laden galleons that sailed up and down the caribbean sea and through the bahama channel. of all ghastly and terrible things old-time religious war was the most ghastly and terrible. one can hardly credit nowadays the cold, callous cruelty of those times. generally death was the least penalty that capture entailed. when the spaniards made prisoners of the english, the inquisition took them in hand, and what that meant all the world knows. when the english captured a spanish vessel the prisoners were tortured, either for the sake of revenge or to compel them to disclose where treasure lay hidden. cruelty begat cruelty, and it would be hard to say whether the anglo-saxon or the latin showed himself to be most proficient in torturing his victim. when cobham, for instance, captured the spanish ship in the bay of biscay, after all resistance was over and the heat of the battle had cooled, he ordered his crew to bind the captain and all of the crew and every spaniard aboard--whether in arms or not--to sew them up in the mainsail and to fling them overboard. there were some twenty dead bodies in the sail when a few days later it was washed up on the shore. of course such acts were not likely to go unavenged, and many an innocent life was sacrificed to pay the debt of cobham's cruelty. nothing could be more piratical than all this. nevertheless, as was said, it was winked at, condoned, if not sanctioned, by the law; and it was not beneath people of family and respectability to take part in it. but by and by protestantism and catholicism began to be at somewhat less deadly enmity with each other; religious wars were still far enough from being ended, but the scabbard of the sword was no longer flung away when the blade was drawn. and so followed a time of nominal peace, and a generation arose with whom it was no longer respectable and worthy--one might say a matter of duty--to fight a country with which one's own land was not at war. nevertheless, the seed had been sown; it had been demonstrated that it was feasible to practice piracy against spain and not to suffer therefor. blood had been shed and cruelty practiced, and, once indulged, no lust seems stronger than that of shedding blood and practicing cruelty. though spain might be ever so well grounded in peace at home, in the west indies she was always at war with the whole world--english, french, dutch. it was almost a matter of life or death with her to keep her hold upon the new world. at home she was bankrupt and, upon the earthquake of the reformation, her power was already beginning to totter and to crumble to pieces. america was her treasure house, and from it alone could she hope to keep her leaking purse full of gold and silver. so it was that she strove strenuously, desperately, to keep out the world from her american possessions--a bootless task, for the old order upon which her power rested was broken and crumbled forever. but still she strove, fighting against fate, and so it was that in the tropical america it was one continual war between her and all the world. thus it came that, long after piracy ceased to be allowed at home, it continued in those far-away seas with unabated vigor, recruiting to its service all that lawless malign element which gathers together in every newly opened country where the only law is lawlessness, where might is right and where a living is to be gained with no more trouble than cutting a throat. {signature howard pyle his mark} howard pile's book of pirates chapter i. buccaneers and marooners of the spanish main just above the northwestern shore of the old island of hispaniola--the santo domingo of our day--and separated from it only by a narrow channel of some five or six miles in width, lies a queer little hunch of an island, known, because of a distant resemblance to that animal, as the tortuga de mar, or sea turtle. it is not more than twenty miles in length by perhaps seven or eight in breadth; it is only a little spot of land, and as you look at it upon the map a pin's head would almost cover it; yet from that spot, as from a center of inflammation, a burning fire of human wickedness and ruthlessness and lust overran the world, and spread terror and death throughout the spanish west indies, from st. augustine to the island of trinidad, and from panama to the coasts of peru. about the middle of the seventeenth century certain french adventurers set out from the fortified island of st. christopher in longboats and hoys, directing their course to the westward, there to discover new islands. sighting hispaniola "with abundance of joy," they landed, and went into the country, where they found great quantities of wild cattle, horses, and swine. now vessels on the return voyage to europe from the west indies needed revictualing, and food, especially flesh, was at a premium in the islands of the spanish main; wherefore a great profit was to be turned in preserving beef and pork, and selling the flesh to homeward-bound vessels. the northwestern shore of hispaniola, lying as it does at the eastern outlet of the old bahama channel, running between the island of cuba and the great bahama banks, lay almost in the very main stream of travel. the pioneer frenchmen were not slow to discover the double advantage to be reaped from the wild cattle that cost them nothing to procure, and a market for the flesh ready found for them. so down upon hispaniola they came by boatloads and shiploads, gathering like a swarm of mosquitoes, and overrunning the whole western end of the island. there they established themselves, spending the time alternately in hunting the wild cattle and buccanning( ) the meat, and squandering their hardly earned gains in wild debauchery, the opportunities for which were never lacking in the spanish west indies. ( ) buccanning, by which the "buccaneers" gained their name, was of process of curing thin strips of meat by salting, smoking, and drying in the sun. at first the spaniards thought nothing of the few travel-worn frenchmen who dragged their longboats and hoys up on the beach, and shot a wild bullock or two to keep body and soul together; but when the few grew to dozens, and the dozens to scores, and the scores to hundreds, it was a very different matter, and wrathful grumblings and mutterings began to be heard among the original settlers. but of this the careless buccaneers thought never a whit, the only thing that troubled them being the lack of a more convenient shipping point than the main island afforded them. this lack was at last filled by a party of hunters who ventured across the narrow channel that separated the main island from tortuga. here they found exactly what they needed--a good harbor, just at the junction of the windward channel with the old bahama channel--a spot where four-fifths of the spanish-indian trade would pass by their very wharves. there were a few spaniards upon the island, but they were a quiet folk, and well disposed to make friends with the strangers; but when more frenchmen and still more frenchmen crossed the narrow channel, until they overran the tortuga and turned it into one great curing house for the beef which they shot upon the neighboring island, the spaniards grew restive over the matter, just as they had done upon the larger island. accordingly, one fine day there came half a dozen great boatloads of armed spaniards, who landed upon the turtle's back and sent the frenchmen flying to the woods and fastnesses of rocks as the chaff flies before the thunder gust. that night the spaniards drank themselves mad and shouted themselves hoarse over their victory, while the beaten frenchmen sullenly paddled their canoes back to the main island again, and the sea turtle was spanish once more. but the spaniards were not contented with such a petty triumph as that of sweeping the island of tortuga free from the obnoxious strangers, down upon hispaniola they came, flushed with their easy victory, and determined to root out every frenchman, until not one single buccaneer remained. for a time they had an easy thing of it, for each french hunter roamed the woods by himself, with no better company than his half-wild dogs, so that when two or three spaniards would meet such a one, he seldom if ever came out of the woods again, for even his resting place was lost. but the very success of the spaniards brought their ruin along with it, for the buccaneers began to combine together for self-protection, and out of that combination arose a strange union of lawless man with lawless man, so near, so close, that it can scarce be compared to any other than that of husband and wife. when two entered upon this comradeship, articles were drawn up and signed by both parties, a common stock was made of all their possessions, and out into the woods they went to seek their fortunes; thenceforth they were as one man; they lived together by day, they slept together by night; what one suffered, the other suffered; what one gained, the other gained. the only separation that came betwixt them was death, and then the survivor inherited all that the other left. and now it was another thing with spanish buccaneer hunting, for two buccaneers, reckless of life, quick of eye, and true of aim, were worth any half dozen of spanish islanders. by and by, as the french became more strongly organized for mutual self-protection, they assumed the offensive. then down they came upon tortuga, and now it was the turn of the spanish to be hunted off the island like vermin, and the turn of the french to shout their victory. having firmly established themselves, a governor was sent to the french of tortuga, one m. le passeur, from the island of st. christopher; the sea turtle was fortified, and colonists, consisting of men of doubtful character and women of whose character there could be no doubt whatever, began pouring in upon the island, for it was said that the buccaneers thought no more of a doubloon than of a lima bean, so that this was the place for the brothel and the brandy shop to reap their golden harvest, and the island remained french. hitherto the tortugans had been content to gain as much as possible from the homeward-bound vessels through the orderly channels of legitimate trade. it was reserved for pierre le grand to introduce piracy as a quicker and more easy road to wealth than the semi-honest exchange they had been used to practice. gathering together eight-and-twenty other spirits as hardy and reckless as himself, he put boldly out to sea in a boat hardly large enough to hold his crew, and running down the windward channel and out into the caribbean sea, he lay in wait for such a prize as might be worth the risks of winning. for a while their luck was steadily against them; their provisions and water began to fail, and they saw nothing before them but starvation or a humiliating return. in this extremity they sighted a spanish ship belonging to a "flota" which had become separated from her consorts. the boat in which the buccaneers sailed might, perhaps, have served for the great ship's longboat; the spaniards out-numbered them three to one, and pierre and his men were armed only with pistols and cutlasses; nevertheless this was their one and their only chance, and they determined to take the spanish ship or to die in the attempt. down upon the spaniard they bore through the dusk of the night, and giving orders to the "chirurgeon" to scuttle their craft under them as they were leaving it, they swarmed up the side of the unsuspecting ship and upon its decks in a torrent--pistol in one hand and cutlass in the other. a part of them ran to the gun room and secured the arms and ammunition, pistoling or cutting down all such as stood in their way or offered opposition; the other party burst into the great cabin at the heels of pierre le grand, found the captain and a party of his friends at cards, set a pistol to his breast, and demanded him to deliver up the ship. nothing remained for the spaniard but to yield, for there was no alternative between surrender and death. and so the great prize was won. it was not long before the news of this great exploit and of the vast treasure gained reached the ears of the buccaneers of tortuga and hispaniola. then what a hubbub and an uproar and a tumult there was! hunting wild cattle and buccanning the meat was at a discount, and the one and only thing to do was to go a-pirating; for where one such prize had been won, others were to be had. in a short time freebooting assumed all of the routine of a regular business. articles were drawn up betwixt captain and crew, compacts were sealed, and agreements entered into by the one party and the other. in all professions there are those who make their mark, those who succeed only moderately well, and those who fail more or less entirely. nor did pirating differ from this general rule, for in it were men who rose to distinction, men whose names, something tarnished and rusted by the lapse of years, have come down even to us of the present day. pierre francois, who, with his boatload of six-and-twenty desperadoes, ran boldly into the midst of the pearl fleet off the coast of south america, attacked the vice admiral under the very guns of two men-of-war, captured his ship, though she was armed with eight guns and manned with threescore men, and would have got her safely away, only that having to put on sail, their mainmast went by the board, whereupon the men-of-war came up with them, and the prize was lost. but even though there were two men-of-war against all that remained of six-and-twenty buccaneers, the spaniards were glad enough to make terms with them for the surrender of the vessel, whereby pierre francois and his men came off scot-free. bartholomew portuguese was a worthy of even more note. in a boat manned with thirty fellow adventurers he fell upon a great ship off cape corrientes, manned with threescore and ten men, all told. her he assaulted again and again, beaten off with the very pressure of numbers only to renew the assault, until the spaniards who survived, some fifty in all, surrendered to twenty living pirates, who poured upon their decks like a score of blood-stained, powder-grimed devils. they lost their vessel by recapture, and bartholomew portuguese barely escaped with his life through a series of almost unbelievable adventures. but no sooner had he fairly escaped from the clutches of the spaniards than, gathering together another band of adventurers, he fell upon the very same vessel in the gloom of the night, recaptured her when she rode at anchor in the harbor of campeche under the guns of the fort, slipped the cable, and was away without the loss of a single man. he lost her in a hurricane soon afterward, just off the isle of pines; but the deed was none the less daring for all that. another notable no less famous than these two worthies was roch braziliano, the truculent dutchman who came up from the coast of brazil to the spanish main with a name ready-made for him. upon the very first adventure which he undertook he captured a plate ship of fabulous value, and brought her safely into jamaica; and when at last captured by the spaniards, he fairly frightened them into letting him go by truculent threats of vengeance from his followers. such were three of the pirate buccaneers who infested the spanish main. there were hundreds no less desperate, no less reckless, no less insatiate in their lust for plunder, than they. the effects of this freebooting soon became apparent. the risks to be assumed by the owners of vessels and the shippers of merchandise became so enormous that spanish commerce was practically swept away from these waters. no vessel dared to venture out of port excepting under escort of powerful men-of-war, and even then they were not always secure from molestation. exports from central and south america were sent to europe by way of the strait of magellan, and little or none went through the passes between the bahamas and the caribbees. so at last "buccaneering," as it had come to be generically called, ceased to pay the vast dividends that it had done at first. the cream was skimmed off, and only very thin milk was left in the dish. fabulous fortunes were no longer earned in a ten days' cruise, but what money was won hardly paid for the risks of the winning. there must be a new departure, or buccaneering would cease to exist. then arose one who showed the buccaneers a new way to squeeze money out of the spaniards. this man was an englishman--lewis scot. the stoppage of commerce on the spanish main had naturally tended to accumulate all the wealth gathered and produced into the chief fortified cities and towns of the west indies. as there no longer existed prizes upon the sea, they must be gained upon the land, if they were to be gained at all. lewis scot was the first to appreciate this fact. gathering together a large and powerful body of men as hungry for plunder and as desperate as himself, he descended upon the town of campeche, which he captured and sacked, stripping it of everything that could possibly be carried away. when the town was cleared to the bare walls scot threatened to set the torch to every house in the place if it was not ransomed by a large sum of money which he demanded. with this booty he set sail for tortuga, where he arrived safely--and the problem was solved. after him came one mansvelt, a buccaneer of lesser note, who first made a descent upon the isle of saint catharine, now old providence, which he took, and, with this as a base, made an unsuccessful descent upon neuva granada and cartagena. his name might not have been handed down to us along with others of greater fame had he not been the master of that most apt of pupils, the great captain henry morgan, most famous of all the buccaneers, one time governor of jamaica, and knighted by king charles ii. after mansvelt followed the bold john davis, native of jamaica, where he sucked in the lust of piracy with his mother's milk. with only fourscore men, he swooped down upon the great city of nicaragua in the darkness of the night, silenced the sentry with the thrust of a knife, and then fell to pillaging the churches and houses "without any respect or veneration." of course it was but a short time until the whole town was in an uproar of alarm, and there was nothing left for the little handful of men to do but to make the best of their way to their boats. they were in the town but a short time, but in that time they were able to gather together and to carry away money and jewels to the value of fifty thousand pieces of eight, besides dragging off with them a dozen or more notable prisoners, whom they held for ransom. and now one appeared upon the scene who reached a far greater height than any had arisen to before. this was francois l'olonoise, who sacked the great city of maracaibo and the town of gibraltar. cold, unimpassioned, pitiless, his sluggish blood was never moved by one single pulse of human warmth, his icy heart was never touched by one ray of mercy or one spark of pity for the hapless wretches who chanced to fall into his bloody hands. against him the governor of havana sent out a great war vessel, and with it a negro executioner, so that there might be no inconvenient delays of law after the pirates had been captured. but l'olonoise did not wait for the coming of the war vessel; he went out to meet it, and he found it where it lay riding at anchor in the mouth of the river estra. at the dawn of the morning he made his attack sharp, unexpected, decisive. in a little while the spaniards were forced below the hatches, and the vessel was taken. then came the end. one by one the poor shrieking wretches were dragged up from below, and one by one they were butchered in cold blood, while l'olonoise stood upon the poop deck and looked coldly down upon what was being done. among the rest the negro was dragged upon the deck. he begged and implored that his life might be spared, promising to tell all that might be asked of him. l'olonoise questioned him, and when he had squeezed him dry, waved his hand coldly, and the poor black went with the rest. only one man was spared; him he sent to the governor of havana with a message that henceforth he would give no quarter to any spaniard whom he might meet in arms--a message which was not an empty threat. the rise of l'olonoise was by no means rapid. he worked his way up by dint of hard labor and through much ill fortune. but by and by, after many reverses, the tide turned, and carried him with it from one success to another, without let or stay, to the bitter end. cruising off maracaibo, he captured a rich prize laden with a vast amount of plate and ready money, and there conceived the design of descending upon the powerful town of maracaibo itself. without loss of time he gathered together five hundred picked scoundrels from tortuga, and taking with him one michael de basco as land captain, and two hundred more buccaneers whom he commanded, down he came into the gulf of venezuela and upon the doomed city like a blast of the plague. leaving their vessels, the buccaneers made a land attack upon the fort that stood at the mouth of the inlet that led into lake maracaibo and guarded the city. the spaniards held out well, and fought with all the might that spaniards possess; but after a fight of three hours all was given up and the garrison fled, spreading terror and confusion before them. as many of the inhabitants of the city as could do so escaped in boats to gibraltar, which lies to the southward, on the shores of lake maracaibo, at the distance of some forty leagues or more. then the pirates marched into the town, and what followed may be conceived. it was a holocaust of lust, of passion, and of blood such as even the spanish west indies had never seen before. houses and churches were sacked until nothing was left but the bare walls; men and women were tortured to compel them to disclose where more treasure lay hidden. then, having wrenched all that they could from maracaibo, they entered the lake and descended upon gibraltar, where the rest of the panic-stricken inhabitants were huddled together in a blind terror. the governor of merida, a brave soldier who had served his king in flanders, had gathered together a troop of eight hundred men, had fortified the town, and now lay in wait for the coming of the pirates. the pirates came all in good time, and then, in spite of the brave defense, gibraltar also fell. then followed a repetition of the scenes that had been enacted in maracaibo for the past fifteen days, only here they remained for four horrible weeks, extorting money--money! ever money!--from the poor poverty-stricken, pest-ridden souls crowded into that fever hole of a town. then they left, but before they went they demanded still more money--ten thousand pieces of eight--as a ransom for the town, which otherwise should be given to the flames. there was some hesitation on the part of the spaniards, some disposition to haggle, but there was no hesitation on the part of l'olonoise. the torch was set to the town as he had promised, whereupon the money was promptly paid, and the pirates were piteously begged to help quench the spreading flames. this they were pleased to do, but in spite of all their efforts nearly half of the town was consumed. after that they returned to maracaibo again, where they demanded a ransom of thirty thousand pieces of eight for the city. there was no haggling here, thanks to the fate of gibraltar; only it was utterly impossible to raise that much money in all of the poverty-stricken region. but at last the matter was compromised, and the town was redeemed for twenty thousand pieces of eight and five hundred head of cattle, and tortured maracaibo was quit of them. in the ile de la vache the buccaneers shared among themselves two hundred and sixty thousand pieces of eight, besides jewels and bales of silk and linen and miscellaneous plunder to a vast amount. such was the one great deed of l'olonoise; from that time his star steadily declined--for even nature seemed fighting against such a monster--until at last he died a miserable, nameless death at the hands of an unknown tribe of indians upon the isthmus of darien. and now we come to the greatest of all the buccaneers, he who stands pre-eminent among them, and whose name even to this day is a charm to call up his deeds of daring, his dauntless courage, his truculent cruelty, and his insatiate and unappeasable lust for gold--capt. henry morgan, the bold welshman, who brought buccaneering to the height and flower of its glory. having sold himself, after the manner of the times, for his passage across the seas, he worked out his time of servitude at the barbados. as soon as he had regained his liberty he entered upon the trade of piracy, wherein he soon reached a position of considerable prominence. he was associated with mansvelt at the time of the latter's descent upon saint catharine's isle, the importance of which spot, as a center of operations against the neighboring coasts, morgan never lost sight of. the first attempt that capt. henry morgan ever made against any town in the spanish indies was the bold descent upon the city of puerto del principe in the island of cuba, with a mere handful of men. it was a deed the boldness of which has never been outdone by any of a like nature--not even the famous attack upon panama itself. thence they returned to their boats in the very face of the whole island of cuba, aroused and determined upon their extermination. not only did they make good their escape, but they brought away with them a vast amount of plunder, computed at three hundred thousand pieces of eight, besides five hundred head of cattle and many prisoners held for ransom. but when the division of all this wealth came to be made, lo! there were only fifty thousand pieces of eight to be found. what had become of the rest no man could tell but capt. henry morgan himself. honesty among thieves was never an axiom with him. rude, truculent, and dishonest as captain morgan was, he seems to have had a wonderful power of persuading the wild buccaneers under him to submit everything to his judgment, and to rely entirely upon his word. in spite of the vast sum of money that he had very evidently made away with, recruits poured in upon him, until his band was larger and better equipped than ever. and now it was determined that the plunder harvest was ripe at porto bello, and that city's doom was sealed. the town was defended by two strong castles thoroughly manned, and officered by as gallant a soldier as ever carried toledo steel at his side. but strong castles and gallant soldiers weighed not a barleycorn with the buccaneers when their blood was stirred by the lust of gold. landing at puerto naso, a town some ten leagues westward of porto bello, they marched to the latter town, and coming before the castle, boldly demanded its surrender. it was refused, whereupon morgan threatened that no quarter should be given. still surrender was refused; and then the castle was attacked, and after a bitter struggle was captured. morgan was as good as his word: every man in the castle was shut in the guard room, the match was set to the powder magazine, and soldiers, castle, and all were blown into the air, while through all the smoke and the dust the buccaneers poured into the town. still the governor held out in the other castle, and might have made good his defense, but that he was betrayed by the soldiers under him. into the castle poured the howling buccaneers. but still the governor fought on, with his wife and daughter clinging to his knees and beseeching him to surrender, and the blood from his wounded forehead trickling down over his white collar, until a merciful bullet put an end to the vain struggle. here were enacted the old scenes. everything plundered that could be taken, and then a ransom set upon the town itself. this time an honest, or an apparently honest, division was made of the spoils, which amounted to two hundred and fifty thousand pieces of eight, besides merchandise and jewels. the next towns to suffer were poor maracaibo and gibraltar, now just beginning to recover from the desolation wrought by l'olonoise. once more both towns were plundered of every bale of merchandise and of every plaster, and once more both were ransomed until everything was squeezed from the wretched inhabitants. here affairs were like to have taken a turn, for when captain morgan came up from gibraltar he found three great men-of-war lying in the entrance to the lake awaiting his coming. seeing that he was hemmed in in the narrow sheet of water, captain morgan was inclined to compromise matters, even offering to relinquish all the plunder he had gained if he were allowed to depart in peace. but no; the spanish admiral would hear nothing of this. having the pirates, as he thought, securely in his grasp, he would relinquish nothing, but would sweep them from the face of the sea once and forever. that was an unlucky determination for the spaniards to reach, for instead of paralyzing the pirates with fear, as he expected it would do, it simply turned their mad courage into as mad desperation. a great vessel that they had taken with the town of maracaibo was converted into a fire ship, manned with logs of wood in montera caps and sailor jackets, and filled with brimstone, pitch, and palm leaves soaked in oil. then out of the lake the pirates sailed to meet the spaniards, the fire ship leading the way, and bearing down directly upon the admiral's vessel. at the helm stood volunteers, the most desperate and the bravest of all the pirate gang, and at the ports stood the logs of wood in montera caps. so they came up with the admiral, and grappled with his ship in spite of the thunder of all his great guns, and then the spaniard saw, all too late, what his opponent really was. he tried to swing loose, but clouds of smoke and almost instantly a mass of roaring flames enveloped both vessels, and the admiral was lost. the second vessel, not wishing to wait for the coming of the pirates, bore down upon the fort, under the guns of which the cowardly crew sank her, and made the best of their way to the shore. the third vessel, not having an opportunity to escape, was taken by the pirates without the slightest resistance, and the passage from the lake was cleared. so the buccaneers sailed away, leaving maracaibo and gibraltar prostrate a second time. and now captain morgan determined to undertake another venture, the like of which had never been equaled in all of the annals of buccaneering. this was nothing less than the descent upon and the capture of panama, which was, next to cartagena, perhaps, the most powerful and the most strongly fortified city in the west indies. in preparation for this venture he obtained letters of marque from the governor of jamaica, by virtue of which elastic commission he began immediately to gather around him all material necessary for the undertaking. when it became known abroad that the great captain morgan was about undertaking an adventure that was to eclipse all that was ever done before, great numbers came flocking to his standard, until he had gathered together an army of two thousand or more desperadoes and pirates wherewith to prosecute his adventure, albeit the venture itself was kept a total secret from everyone. port couillon, in the island of hispaniola, over against the ile de la vache, was the place of muster, and thither the motley band gathered from all quarters. provisions had been plundered from the mainland wherever they could be obtained, and by the th of october, (o. s.), everything was in readiness. the island of saint catharine, as it may be remembered, was at one time captured by mansvelt, morgan's master in his trade of piracy. it had been retaken by the spaniards, and was now thoroughly fortified by them. almost the first attempt that morgan had made as a master pirate was the retaking of saint catharine's isle. in that undertaking he had failed; but now, as there was an absolute need of some such place as a base of operations, he determined that the place must be taken. and it was taken. the spaniards, during the time of their possession, had fortified it most thoroughly and completely, and had the governor thereof been as brave as he who met his death in the castle of porto bello, there might have been a different tale to tell. as it was, he surrendered it in a most cowardly fashion, merely stipulating that there should be a sham attack by the buccaneers, whereby his credit might be saved. and so saint catharine was won. the next step to be taken was the capture of the castle of chagres, which guarded the mouth of the river of that name, up which river the buccaneers would be compelled to transport their troops and provisions for the attack upon the city of panama. this adventure was undertaken by four hundred picked men under command of captain morgan himself. the castle of chagres, known as san lorenzo by the spaniards, stood upon the top of an abrupt rock at the mouth of the river, and was one of the strongest fortresses for its size in all of the west indies. this stronghold morgan must have if he ever hoped to win panama. the attack of the castle and the defense of it were equally fierce, bloody, and desperate. again and again the buccaneers assaulted, and again and again they were beaten back. so the morning came, and it seemed as though the pirates had been baffled this time. but just at this juncture the thatch of palm leaves on the roofs of some of the buildings inside the fortifications took fire, a conflagration followed, which caused the explosion of one of the magazines, and in the paralysis of terror that followed, the pirates forced their way into the fortifications, and the castle was won. most of the spaniards flung themselves from the castle walls into the river or upon the rocks beneath, preferring death to capture and possible torture; many who were left were put to the sword, and some few were spared and held as prisoners. so fell the castle of chagres, and nothing now lay between the buccaneers and the city of panama but the intervening and trackless forests. and now the name of the town whose doom was sealed was no secret. up the river of chagres went capt. henry morgan and twelve hundred men, packed closely in their canoes; they never stopped, saving now and then to rest their stiffened legs, until they had come to a place known as cruz de san juan gallego, where they were compelled to leave their boats on account of the shallowness of the water. leaving a guard of one hundred and sixty men to protect their boats as a place of refuge in case they should be worsted before panama, they turned and plunged into the wilderness before them. there a more powerful foe awaited them than a host of spaniards with match, powder, and lead--starvation. they met but little or no opposition in their progress; but wherever they turned they found every fiber of meat, every grain of maize, every ounce of bread or meal, swept away or destroyed utterly before them. even when the buccaneers had successfully overcome an ambuscade or an attack, and had sent the spaniards flying, the fugitives took the time to strip their dead comrades of every grain of food in their leathern sacks, leaving nothing but the empty bags. says the narrator of these events, himself one of the expedition, "they afterward fell to eating those leathern bags, as affording something to the ferment of their stomachs." ten days they struggled through this bitter privation, doggedly forcing their way onward, faint with hunger and haggard with weakness and fever. then, from the high hill and over the tops of the forest trees, they saw the steeples of panama, and nothing remained between them and their goal but the fighting of four spaniards to every one of them--a simple thing which they had done over and over again. down they poured upon panama, and out came the spaniards to meet them; four hundred horse, two thousand five hundred foot, and two thousand wild bulls which had been herded together to be driven over the buccaneers so that their ranks might be disordered and broken. the buccaneers were only eight hundred strong; the others had either fallen in battle or had dropped along the dreary pathway through the wilderness; but in the space of two hours the spaniards were flying madly over the plain, minus six hundred who lay dead or dying behind them. as for the bulls, as many of them as were shot served as food there and then for the half-famished pirates, for the buccaneers were never more at home than in the slaughter of cattle. then they marched toward the city. three hours' more fighting and they were in the streets, howling, yelling, plundering, gorging, dram-drinking, and giving full vent to all the vile and nameless lusts that burned in their hearts like a hell of fire. and now followed the usual sequence of events--rapine, cruelty, and extortion; only this time there was no town to ransom, for morgan had given orders that it should be destroyed. the torch was set to it, and panama, one of the greatest cities in the new world, was swept from the face of the earth. why the deed was done, no man but morgan could tell. perhaps it was that all the secret hiding places for treasure might be brought to light; but whatever the reason was, it lay hidden in the breast of the great buccaneer himself. for three weeks morgan and his men abode in this dreadful place; and they marched away with one hundred and seventy-five beasts of burden loaded with treasures of gold and silver and jewels, besides great quantities of merchandise, and six hundred prisoners held for ransom. whatever became of all that vast wealth, and what it amounted to, no man but morgan ever knew, for when a division was made it was found that there was only two hundred pieces of eight to each man. when this dividend was declared a howl of execration went up, under which even capt. henry morgan quailed. at night he and four other commanders slipped their cables and ran out to sea, and it was said that these divided the greater part of the booty among themselves. but the wealth plundered at panama could hardly have fallen short of a million and a half of dollars. computing it at this reasonable figure, the various prizes won by henry morgan in the west indies would stand as follows: panama, $ , , ; porto bello, $ , ; puerto del principe, $ , ; maracaibo and gibraltar, $ , ; various piracies, $ , --making a grand total of $ , , as the vast harvest of plunder. with this fabulous wealth, wrenched from the spaniards by means of the rack and the cord, and pilfered from his companions by the meanest of thieving, capt. henry morgan retired from business, honored of all, rendered famous by his deeds, knighted by the good king charles ii, and finally appointed governor of the rich island of jamaica. other buccaneers followed him. campeche was taken and sacked, and even cartagena itself fell; but with henry morgan culminated the glory of the buccaneers, and from that time they declined in power and wealth and wickedness until they were finally swept away. the buccaneers became bolder and bolder. in fact, so daring were their crimes that the home governments, stirred at last by these outrageous barbarities, seriously undertook the suppression of the freebooters, lopping and trimming the main trunk until its members were scattered hither and thither, and it was thought that the organization was exterminated. but, so far from being exterminated, the individual members were merely scattered north, south, east, and west, each forming a nucleus around which gathered and clustered the very worst of the offscouring of humanity. the result was that when the seventeenth century was fairly packed away with its lavender in the store chest of the past, a score or more bands of freebooters were cruising along the atlantic seaboard in armed vessels, each with a black flag with its skull and crossbones at the fore, and with a nondescript crew made up of the tags and remnants of civilized and semicivilized humanity (white, black, red, and yellow), known generally as marooners, swarming upon the decks below. nor did these offshoots from the old buccaneer stem confine their depredations to the american seas alone; the east indies and the african coast also witnessed their doings, and suffered from them, and even the bay of biscay had good cause to remember more than one visit from them. worthy sprigs from so worthy a stem improved variously upon the parent methods; for while the buccaneers were content to prey upon the spaniards alone, the marooners reaped the harvest from the commerce of all nations. so up and down the atlantic seaboard they cruised, and for the fifty years that marooning was in the flower of its glory it was a sorrowful time for the coasters of new england, the middle provinces, and the virginias, sailing to the west indies with their cargoes of salt fish, grain, and tobacco. trading became almost as dangerous as privateering, and sea captains were chosen as much for their knowledge of the flintlock and the cutlass as for their seamanship. as by far the largest part of the trading in american waters was conducted by these yankee coasters, so by far the heaviest blows, and those most keenly felt, fell upon them. bulletin after bulletin came to port with its doleful tale of this vessel burned or that vessel scuttled, this one held by the pirates for their own use or that one stripped of its goods and sent into port as empty as an eggshell from which the yolk had been sucked. boston, new york, philadelphia, and charleston suffered alike, and worthy ship owners had to leave off counting their losses upon their fingers and take to the slate to keep the dismal record. "maroon--to put ashore on a desert isle, as a sailor, under pretense of having committed some great crime." thus our good noah webster gives us the dry bones, the anatomy, upon which the imagination may construct a specimen to suit itself. it is thence that the marooners took their name, for marooning was one of their most effective instruments of punishment or revenge. if a pirate broke one of the many rules which governed the particular band to which he belonged, he was marooned; did a captain defend his ship to such a degree as to be unpleasant to the pirates attacking it, he was marooned; even the pirate captain himself, if he displeased his followers by the severity of his rule, was in danger of having the same punishment visited upon him which he had perhaps more than once visited upon another. the process of marooning was as simple as terrible. a suitable place was chosen (generally some desert isle as far removed as possible from the pathway of commerce), and the condemned man was rowed from the ship to the beach. out he was bundled upon the sand spit; a gun, a half dozen bullets, a few pinches of powder, and a bottle of water were chucked ashore after him, and away rowed the boat's crew back to the ship, leaving the poor wretch alone to rave away his life in madness, or to sit sunken in his gloomy despair till death mercifully released him from torment. it rarely if ever happened that anything was known of him after having been marooned. a boat's crew from some vessel, sailing by chance that way, might perhaps find a few chalky bones bleaching upon the white sand in the garish glare of the sunlight, but that was all. and such were marooners. by far the largest number of pirate captains were englishmen, for, from the days of good queen bess, english sea captains seemed to have a natural turn for any species of venture that had a smack of piracy in it, and from the great admiral drake of the old, old days, to the truculent morgan of buccaneering times, the englishman did the boldest and wickedest deeds, and wrought the most damage. first of all upon the list of pirates stands the bold captain avary, one of the institutors of marooning. him we see but dimly, half hidden by the glamouring mists of legends and tradition. others who came afterward outstripped him far enough in their doings, but he stands pre-eminent as the first of marooners of whom actual history has been handed down to us of the present day. when the english, dutch, and spanish entered into an alliance to suppress buccaneering in the west indies, certain worthies of bristol, in old england, fitted out two vessels to assist in this laudable project; for doubtless bristol trade suffered smartly from the morgans and the l'olonoises of that old time. one of these vessels was named the duke, of which a certain captain gibson was the commander and avary the mate. away they sailed to the west indies, and there avary became impressed by the advantages offered by piracy, and by the amount of good things that were to be gained by very little striving. one night the captain (who was one of those fellows mightily addicted to punch), instead of going ashore to saturate himself with rum at the ordinary, had his drink in his cabin in private. while he lay snoring away the effects of his rum in the cabin, avary and a few other conspirators heaved the anchor very leisurely, and sailed out of the harbor of corunna, and through the midst of the allied fleet riding at anchor in the darkness. by and by, when the morning came, the captain was awakened by the pitching and tossing of the vessel, the rattle and clatter of the tackle overhead, and the noise of footsteps passing and repassing hither and thither across the deck. perhaps he lay for a while turning the matter over and over in his muddled head, but he presently rang the bell, and avary and another fellow answered the call. "what's the matter?" bawls the captain from his berth. "nothing," says avary, coolly. "something's the matter with the ship," says the captain. "does she drive? what weather is it?" "oh no," says avary; "we are at sea." "at sea?" "come, come!" says avary: "i'll tell you; you must know that i'm the captain of the ship now, and you must be packing from this here cabin. we are bound to madagascar, to make all of our fortunes, and if you're a mind to ship for the cruise, why, we'll be glad to have you, if you will be sober and mind your own business; if not, there is a boat alongside, and i'll have you set ashore." the poor half-tipsy captain had no relish to go a-pirating under the command of his backsliding mate, so out of the ship he bundled, and away he rowed with four or five of the crew, who, like him, refused to join with their jolly shipmates. the rest of them sailed away to the east indies, to try their fortunes in those waters, for our captain avary was of a high spirit, and had no mind to fritter away his time in the west indies squeezed dry by buccaneer morgan and others of lesser note. no, he would make a bold stroke for it at once, and make or lose at a single cast. on his way he picked up a couple of like kind with himself--two sloops off madagascar. with these he sailed away to the coast of india, and for a time his name was lost in the obscurity of uncertain history. but only for a time, for suddenly it flamed out in a blaze of glory. it was reported that a vessel belonging to the great mogul, laden with treasure and bearing the monarch's own daughter upon a holy pilgrimage to mecca (they being mohammedans), had fallen in with the pirates, and after a short resistance had been surrendered, with the damsel, her court, and all the diamonds, pearls, silk, silver, and gold aboard. it was rumored that the great mogul, raging at the insult offered to him through his own flesh and blood, had threatened to wipe out of existence the few english settlements scattered along the coast; whereat the honorable east india company was in a pretty state of fuss and feathers. rumor, growing with the telling, has it that avary is going to marry the indian princess, willy-nilly, and will turn rajah, and eschew piracy as indecent. as for the treasure itself, there was no end to the extent to which it grew as it passed from mouth to mouth. cracking the nut of romance and exaggeration, we come to the kernel of the story--that avary did fall in with an indian vessel laden with great treasure (and possibly with the mogul's daughter), which he captured, and thereby gained a vast prize. having concluded that he had earned enough money by the trade he had undertaken, he determined to retire and live decently for the rest of his life upon what he already had. as a step toward this object, he set about cheating his madagascar partners out of their share of what had been gained. he persuaded them to store all the treasure in his vessel, it being the largest of the three; and so, having it safely in hand, he altered the course of his ship one fine night, and when the morning came the madagascar sloops found themselves floating upon a wide ocean without a farthing of the treasure for which they had fought so hard, and for which they might whistle for all the good it would do them. at first avary had a great part of a mind to settle at boston, in massachusetts, and had that little town been one whit less bleak and forbidding, it might have had the honor of being the home of this famous man. as it was, he did not like the looks of it, so he sailed away to the eastward, to ireland, where he settled himself at biddeford, in hopes of an easy life of it for the rest of his days. here he found himself the possessor of a plentiful stock of jewels, such as pearls, diamonds, rubies, etc., but with hardly a score of honest farthings to jingle in his breeches pocket. he consulted with a certain merchant of bristol concerning the disposal of the stones--a fellow not much more cleanly in his habits of honesty than avary himself. this worthy undertook to act as avary's broker. off he marched with the jewels, and that was the last that the pirate saw of his indian treasure. perhaps the most famous of all the piratical names to american ears are those of capt. robert kidd and capt. edward teach, or "blackbeard." nothing will be ventured in regard to kidd at this time, nor in regard to the pros and cons as to whether he really was or was not a pirate, after all. for many years he was the very hero of heroes of piratical fame, there was hardly a creek or stream or point of land along our coast, hardly a convenient bit of good sandy beach, or hump of rock, or water-washed cave, where fabulous treasures were not said to have been hidden by this worthy marooner. now we are assured that he never was a pirate, and never did bury any treasure, excepting a certain chest, which he was compelled to hide upon gardiner's island--and perhaps even it was mythical. so poor kidd must be relegated to the dull ranks of simply respectable people, or semirespectable people at best. but with "blackbeard" it is different, for in him we have a real, ranting, raging, roaring pirate per se--one who really did bury treasure, who made more than one captain walk the plank, and who committed more private murders than he could number on the fingers of both hands; one who fills, and will continue to fill, the place to which he has been assigned for generations, and who may be depended upon to hold his place in the confidence of others for generations to come. captain teach was a bristol man born, and learned his trade on board of sundry privateers in the east indies during the old french war--that of --and a better apprenticeship could no man serve. at last, somewhere about the latter part of the year , a privateering captain, one benjamin hornigold, raised him from the ranks and put him in command of a sloop--a lately captured prize and blackbeard's fortune was made. it was a very slight step, and but the change of a few letters, to convert "privateer" into "pirate," and it was a very short time before teach made that change. not only did he make it himself, but he persuaded his old captain to join with him. and now fairly began that series of bold and lawless depredations which have made his name so justly famous, and which placed him among the very greatest of marooning freebooters. "our hero," says the old historian who sings of the arms and bravery of this great man--"our hero assumed the cognomen of blackbeard from that large quantity of hair which, like a frightful meteor, covered his whole face, and frightened america more than any comet that appeared there in a long time. he was accustomed to twist it with ribbons into small tails, after the manner of our ramillies wig, and turn them about his ears. in time of action he wore a sling over his shoulders, with three brace of pistols, hanging in holsters like bandoleers; he stuck lighted matches under his hat, which, appearing on each side of his face, and his eyes naturally looking fierce and wild, made him altogether such a figure that imagination cannot form an idea of a fury from hell to look more frightful." the night before the day of the action in which he was killed he sat up drinking with some congenial company until broad daylight. one of them asked him if his poor young wife knew where his treasure was hidden. "no," says blackbeard; "nobody but the devil and i knows where it is, and the longest liver shall have all." as for that poor young wife of his, the life that he and his rum-crazy shipmates led her was too terrible to be told. for a time blackbeard worked at his trade down on the spanish main, gathering, in the few years he was there, a very neat little fortune in the booty captured from sundry vessels; but by and by he took it into his head to try his luck along the coast of the carolinas; so off he sailed to the northward, with quite a respectable little fleet, consisting of his own vessel and two captured sloops. from that time he was actively engaged in the making of american history in his small way. he first appeared off the bar of charleston harbor, to the no small excitement of the worthy town of that ilk, and there he lay for five or six days, blockading the port, and stopping incoming and outgoing vessels at his pleasure, so that, for the time, the commerce of the province was entirely paralyzed. all the vessels so stopped he held as prizes, and all the crews and passengers (among the latter of whom was more than one provincial worthy of the day) he retained as though they were prisoners of war. and it was a mightily awkward thing for the good folk of charleston to behold day after day a black flag with its white skull and crossbones fluttering at the fore of the pirate captain's craft, over across the level stretch of green salt marshes; and it was mightily unpleasant, too, to know that this or that prominent citizen was crowded down with the other prisoners under the hatches. one morning captain blackbeard finds that his stock of medicine is low. "tut!" says he, "we'll turn no hair gray for that." so up he calls the bold captain richards, the commander of his consort the revenge sloop, and bids him take mr. marks (one of his prisoners), and go up to charleston and get the medicine. there was no task that suited our captain richards better than that. up to the town he rowed, as bold as brass. "look ye," says he to the governor, rolling his quid of tobacco from one cheek to another--"look ye, we're after this and that, and if we don't get it, why, i'll tell you plain, we'll burn them bloody crafts of yours that we've took over yonder, and cut the weasand of every clodpoll aboard of 'em." there was no answering an argument of such force as this, and the worshipful governor and the good folk of charleston knew very well that blackbeard and his crew were the men to do as they promised. so blackbeard got his medicine, and though it cost the colony two thousand dollars, it was worth that much to the town to be quit of him. they say that while captain richards was conducting his negotiations with the governor his boat's crew were stumping around the streets of the town, having a glorious time of it, while the good folk glowered wrathfully at them, but dared venture nothing in speech or act. having gained a booty of between seven and eight thousand dollars from the prizes captured, the pirates sailed away from charleston harbor to the coast of north carolina. and now blackbeard, following the plan adopted by so many others of his kind, began to cudgel his brains for means to cheat his fellows out of their share of the booty. at topsail inlet he ran his own vessel aground, as though by accident. hands, the captain of one of the consorts, pretending to come to his assistance, also grounded his sloop. nothing now remained but for those who were able to get away in the other craft, which was all that was now left of the little fleet. this did blackbeard with some forty of his favorites. the rest of the pirates were left on the sand spit to await the return of their companions--which never happened. as for blackbeard and those who were with him, they were that much richer, for there were so many the fewer pockets to fill. but even yet there were too many to share the booty, in blackbeard's opinion, and so he marooned a parcel more of them--some eighteen or twenty--upon a naked sand bank, from which they were afterward mercifully rescued by another freebooter who chanced that way--a certain major stede bonnet, of whom more will presently be said. about that time a royal proclamation had been issued offering pardon to all pirates in arms who would surrender to the king's authority before a given date. so up goes master blackbeard to the governor of north carolina and makes his neck safe by surrendering to the proclamation--albeit he kept tight clutch upon what he had already gained. and now we find our bold captain blackbeard established in the good province of north carolina, where he and his worship the governor struck up a vast deal of intimacy, as profitable as it was pleasant. there is something very pretty in the thought of the bold sea rover giving up his adventurous life (excepting now and then an excursion against a trader or two in the neighboring sound, when the need of money was pressing); settling quietly down into the routine of old colonial life, with a young wife of sixteen at his side, who made the fourteenth that he had in various ports here and there in the world. becoming tired of an inactive life, blackbeard afterward resumed his piratical career. he cruised around in the rivers and inlets and sounds of north carolina for a while, ruling the roost and with never a one to say him nay, until there was no bearing with such a pest any longer. so they sent a deputation up to the governor of virginia asking if he would be pleased to help them in their trouble. there were two men-of-war lying at kicquetan, in the james river, at the time. to them the governor of virginia applies, and plucky lieutenant maynard, of the pearl, was sent to ocracoke inlet to fight this pirate who ruled it down there so like the cock of a walk. there he found blackbeard waiting for him, and as ready for a fight as ever the lieutenant himself could be. fight they did, and while it lasted it was as pretty a piece of business of its kind as one could wish to see. blackbeard drained a glass of grog, wishing the lieutenant luck in getting aboard of him, fired a broadside, blew some twenty of the lieutenant's men out of existence, and totally crippled one of his little sloops for the balance of the fight. after that, and under cover of the smoke, the pirate and his men boarded the other sloop, and then followed a fine old-fashioned hand-to-hand conflict betwixt him and the lieutenant. first they fired their pistols, and then they took to it with cutlasses--right, left, up and down, cut and slash--until the lieutenant's cutlass broke short off at the hilt. then blackbeard would have finished him off handsomely, only up steps one of the lieutenant's men and fetches him a great slash over the neck, so that the lieutenant came off with no more hurt than a cut across the knuckles. at the very first discharge of their pistols blackbeard had been shot through the body, but he was not for giving up for that--not he. as said before, he was of the true roaring, raging breed of pirates, and stood up to it until he received twenty more cutlass cuts and five additional shots, and then fell dead while trying to fire off an empty pistol. after that the lieutenant cut off the pirate's head, and sailed away in triumph, with the bloody trophy nailed to the bow of his battered sloop. those of blackbeard's men who were not killed were carried off to virginia, and all of them tried and hanged but one or two, their names, no doubt, still standing in a row in the provincial records. but did blackbeard really bury treasures, as tradition says, along the sandy shores he haunted? master clement downing, midshipman aboard the salisbury, wrote a book after his return from the cruise to madagascar, whither the salisbury had been ordered, to put an end to the piracy with which those waters were infested. he says: "at guzarat i met with a portuguese named anthony de sylvestre; he came with two other portuguese and two dutchmen to take on in the moor's service, as many europeans do. this anthony told me he had been among the pirates, and that he belonged to one of the sloops in virginia when blackbeard was taken. he informed me that if it should be my lot ever to go to york river or maryland, near an island called mulberry island, provided we went on shore at the watering place, where the shipping used most commonly to ride, that there the pirates had buried considerable sums of money in great chests well clamped with iron plates. as to my part, i never was that way, nor much acquainted with any that ever used those parts; but i have made inquiry, and am informed that there is such a place as mulberry island. if any person who uses those parts should think it worth while to dig a little way at the upper end of a small cove, where it is convenient to land, he would soon find whether the information i had was well grounded. fronting the landing place are five trees, among which, he said, the money was hid. i cannot warrant the truth of this account; but if i was ever to go there, i should find some means or other to satisfy myself, as it could not be a great deal out of my way. if anybody should obtain the benefit of this account, if it please god that they ever come to england, 'tis hoped they will remember whence they had this information." another worthy was capt. edward low, who learned his trade of sail-making at good old boston town, and piracy at honduras. no one stood higher in the trade than he, and no one mounted to more lofty altitudes of bloodthirsty and unscrupulous wickedness. 'tis strange that so little has been written and sung of this man of might, for he was as worthy of story and of song as was blackbeard. it was under a yankee captain that he made his first cruise--down to honduras, for a cargo of logwood, which in those times was no better than stolen from the spanish folk. one day, lying off the shore, in the gulf of honduras, comes master low and the crew of the whaleboat rowing across from the beach, where they had been all morning chopping logwood. "what are you after?" says the captain, for they were coming back with nothing but themselves in the boat. "we're after our dinner," says low, as spokesman of the party. "you'll have no dinner," says the captain, "until you fetch off another load." "dinner or no dinner, we'll pay for it," says low, wherewith he up with a musket, squinted along the barrel, and pulled the trigger. luckily the gun hung fire, and the yankee captain was spared to steal logwood a while longer. all the same, that was no place for ned low to make a longer stay, so off he and his messmates rowed in a whaleboat, captured a brig out at sea, and turned pirates. he presently fell in with the notorious captain lowther, a fellow after his own kidney, who put the finishing touches to his education and taught him what wickedness he did not already know. and so he became a master pirate, and a famous hand at his craft, and thereafter forever bore an inveterate hatred of all yankees because of the dinner he had lost, and never failed to smite whatever one of them luck put within his reach. once he fell in with a ship off south carolina--the amsterdam merchant, captain williamson, commander--a yankee craft and a yankee master. he slit the nose and cropped the ears of the captain, and then sailed merrily away, feeling the better for having marred a yankee. new york and new england had more than one visit from the doughty captain, each of which visits they had good cause to remember, for he made them smart for it. along in the year thirteen vessels were riding at anchor in front of the good town of marblehead. into the harbor sailed a strange craft. "who is she?" say the townsfolk, for the coming of a new vessel was no small matter in those days. who the strangers were was not long a matter of doubt. up goes the black flag, and the skull and crossbones to the fore. "'tis the bloody low," say one and all; and straightway all was flutter and commotion, as in a duck pond when a hawk pitches and strikes in the midst. it was a glorious thing for our captain, for here were thirteen yankee crafts at one and the same time. so he took what he wanted, and then sailed away, and it was many a day before marblehead forgot that visit. some time after this he and his consort fell foul of an english sloop of war, the greyhound, whereby they were so roughly handled that low was glad enough to slip away, leaving his consort and her crew behind him, as a sop to the powers of law and order. and lucky for them if no worse fate awaited them than to walk the dreadful plank with a bandage around the blinded eyes and a rope around the elbows. so the consort was taken, and the crew tried and hanged in chains, and low sailed off in as pretty a bit of rage as ever a pirate fell into. the end of this worthy is lost in the fogs of the past: some say that he died of a yellow fever down in new orleans; it was not at the end of a hempen cord, more's the pity. here fittingly with our strictly american pirates should stand major stede bonnet along with the rest. but in truth he was only a poor half-and-half fellow of his kind, and even after his hand was fairly turned to the business he had undertaken, a qualm of conscience would now and then come across him, and he would make vast promises to forswear his evil courses. however, he jogged along in his course of piracy snugly enough until he fell foul of the gallant colonel rhett, off charleston harbor, whereupon his luck and his courage both were suddenly snuffed out with a puff of powder smoke and a good rattling broadside. down came the "black roger" with its skull and crossbones from the fore, and colonel rhett had the glory of fetching back as pretty a cargo of scoundrels and cutthroats as the town ever saw. after the next assizes they were strung up, all in a row--evil apples ready for the roasting. "ned" england was a fellow of different blood--only he snapped his whip across the back of society over in the east indies and along the hot shores of hindustan. the name of capt. howel davis stands high among his fellows. he was the ulysses of pirates, the beloved not only of mercury, but of minerva. he it was who hoodwinked the captain of a french ship of double the size and strength of his own, and fairly cheated him into the surrender of his craft without the firing of a single pistol or the striking of a single blow; he it was who sailed boldly into the port of gambia, on the coast of guinea, and under the guns of the castle, proclaiming himself as a merchant trading for slaves. the cheat was kept up until the fruit of mischief was ripe for the picking; then, when the governor and the guards of the castle were lulled into entire security, and when davis's band was scattered about wherever each man could do the most good, it was out pistol, up cutlass, and death if a finger moved. they tied the soldiers back to back, and the governor to his own armchair, and then rifled wherever it pleased them. after that they sailed away, and though they had not made the fortune they had hoped to glean, it was a good snug round sum that they shared among them. their courage growing high with success, they determined to attempt the island of del principe--a prosperous portuguese settlement on the coast. the plan for taking the place was cleverly laid, and would have succeeded, only that a portuguese negro among the pirate crew turned traitor and carried the news ashore to the governor of the fort. accordingly, the next day, when captain davis came ashore, he found there a good strong guard drawn up as though to honor his coming. but after he and those with him were fairly out of their boat, and well away from the water side, there was a sudden rattle of musketry, a cloud of smoke, and a dull groan or two. only one man ran out from under that pungent cloud, jumped into the boat, and rowed away; and when it lifted, there lay captain davis and his companions all of a heap, like a pile of old clothes. capt. bartholomew roberts was the particular and especial pupil of davis, and when that worthy met his death so suddenly and so unexpectedly in the unfortunate manner above narrated, he was chosen unanimously as the captain of the fleet, and he was a worthy pupil of a worthy master. many were the poor fluttering merchant ducks that this sea hawk swooped upon and struck; and cleanly and cleverly were they plucked before his savage clutch loosened its hold upon them. "he made a gallant figure," says the old narrator, "being dressed in a rich crimson waistcoat and breeches and red feather in his hat, a gold chain around his neck, with a diamond cross hanging to it, a sword in his hand, and two pair of pistols hanging at the end of a silk sling flung over his shoulders according to the fashion of the pyrates." thus he appeared in the last engagement which he fought--that with the swallow--a royal sloop of war. a gallant fight they made of it, those bulldog pirates, for, finding themselves caught in a trap betwixt the man-of-war and the shore, they determined to bear down upon the king's vessel, fire a slapping broadside into her, and then try to get away, trusting to luck in the doing, and hoping that their enemy might be crippled by their fire. captain roberts himself was the first to fall at the return fire of the swallow; a grapeshot struck him in the neck, and he fell forward across the gun near to which he was standing at the time. a certain fellow named stevenson, who was at the helm, saw him fall, and thought he was wounded. at the lifting of the arm the body rolled over upon the deck, and the man saw that the captain was dead. "whereupon," says the old history, "he" [stevenson] "gushed into tears, and wished that the next shot might be his portion." after their captain's death the pirate crew had no stomach for more fighting; the "black roger" was struck, and one and all surrendered to justice and the gallows. such is a brief and bald account of the most famous of these pirates. but they are only a few of a long list of notables, such as captain martel, capt. charles vane (who led the gallant colonel rhett, of south carolina, such a wild-goose chase in and out among the sluggish creeks and inlets along the coast), capt. john rackam, and captain anstis, captain worley, and evans, and philips, and others--a score or more of wild fellows whose very names made ship captains tremble in their shoes in those good old times. and such is that black chapter of history of the past--an evil chapter, lurid with cruelty and suffering, stained with blood and smoke. yet it is a written chapter, and it must be read. he who chooses may read betwixt the lines of history this great truth: evil itself is an instrument toward the shaping of good. therefore the history of evil as well as the history of good should be read, considered, and digested. chapter ii. the ghost of captain brand it is not so easy to tell why discredit should be cast upon a man because of something that his grandfather may have done amiss, but the world, which is never overnice in its discrimination as to where to lay the blame, is often pleased to make the innocent suffer in the place of the guilty. barnaby true was a good, honest, biddable lad, as boys go, but yet he was not ever allowed altogether to forget that his grandfather had been that very famous pirate, capt. william brand, who, after so many marvelous adventures (if one may believe the catchpenny stories and ballads that were written about him), was murdered in jamaica by capt. john malyoe, the commander of his own consort, the adventure galley. it has never been denied, that ever i heard, that up to the time of captain brand's being commissioned against the south sea pirates he had always been esteemed as honest, reputable a sea captain as could be. when he started out upon that adventure it was with a ship, the royal sovereign, fitted out by some of the most decent merchants of new york. the governor himself had subscribed to the adventure, and had himself signed captain brand's commission. so, if the unfortunate man went astray, he must have had great temptation to do so, many others behaving no better when the opportunity offered in those far-away seas where so many rich purchases might very easily be taken and no one the wiser. to be sure, those stories and ballads made our captain to be a most wicked, profane wretch; and if he were, why, god knows he suffered and paid for it, for he laid his bones in jamaica, and never saw his home or his wife and daughter again after he had sailed away on the royal sovereign on that long misfortunate voyage, leaving them in new york to the care of strangers. at the time when he met his fate in port royal harbor he had obtained two vessels under his command--the royal sovereign, which was the boat fitted out for him in new york, and the adventure galley, which he was said to have taken somewhere in the south seas. with these he lay in those waters of jamaica for over a month after his return from the coasts of africa, waiting for news from home, which, when it came, was of the very blackest; for the colonial authorities were at that time stirred up very hot against him to take him and hang him for a pirate, so as to clear their own skirts for having to do with such a fellow. so maybe it seemed better to our captain to hide his ill-gotten treasure there in those far-away parts, and afterward to try and bargain with it for his life when he should reach new york, rather than to sail straight for the americas with what he had earned by his piracies, and so risk losing life and money both. however that might be, the story was that captain brand and his gunner, and captain malyoe of the adventure and the sailing master of the adventure all went ashore together with a chest of money (no one of them choosing to trust the other three in so nice an affair), and buried the treasure somewhere on the beach of port royal harbor. the story then has it that they fell a-quarreling about a future division or the money, and that, as a wind-up to the affair, captain malyoe shot captain brand through the head, while the sailing master of the adventure served the gunner of the royal sovereign after the same fashion through the body, and that the murderers then went away, leaving the two stretched out in their own blood on the sand in the staring sun, with no one to know where the money was hid but they two who had served their comrades so. it is a mighty great pity that anyone should have a grandfather who ended his days in such a sort as this, but it was no fault of barnaby true's, nor could he have done anything to prevent it, seeing that he was not even born into the world at the time that his grandfather turned pirate, and was only one year old when he so met his tragical end. nevertheless, the boys with whom he went to school never tired of calling him "pirate," and would sometimes sing for his benefit that famous catchpenny song beginning thus: oh, my name was captain brand, a-sailing, and a-sailing; oh, my name was captain brand, a-sailing free. oh, my name was captain brand, and i sinned by sea and land, for i broke god's just command, a-sailing free. 'twas a vile thing to sing at the grandson of so misfortunate a man, and oftentimes little barnaby true would double up his fists and would fight his tormentors at great odds, and would sometimes go back home with a bloody nose to have his poor mother cry over him and grieve for him. not that his days were all of teasing and torment, neither; for if his comrades did treat him so, why, then, there were other times when he and they were as great friends as could be, and would go in swimming together where there was a bit of sandy strand along the east river above fort george, and that in the most amicable fashion. or, maybe the very next day after he had fought so with his fellows, he would go a-rambling with them up the bowerie road, perhaps to help them steal cherries from some old dutch farmer, forgetting in such adventure what a thief his own grandfather had been. well, when barnaby true was between sixteen and seventeen years old he was taken into employment in the countinghouse of mr. roger hartright, the well-known west india merchant, and barnaby's own stepfather. it was the kindness of this good man that not only found a place for barnaby in the countinghouse, but advanced him so fast that against our hero was twenty-one years old he had made four voyages as supercargo to the west indies in mr. hartright's ship, the belle helen, and soon after he was twenty-one undertook a fifth. nor was it in any such subordinate position as mere supercargo that he acted, but rather as the confidential agent of mr. hartright, who, having no children of his own, was very jealous to advance our hero into a position of trust and responsibility in the countinghouse, as though he were indeed a son, so that even the captain of the ship had scarcely more consideration aboard than he, young as he was in years. as for the agents and correspondents of mr. hartright throughout these parts, they also, knowing how the good man had adopted his interests, were very polite and obliging to master barnaby--especially, be it mentioned, mr. ambrose greenfield, of kingston, jamaica, who, upon the occasions of his visits to those parts, did all that he could to make barnaby's stay in that town agreeable and pleasant to him. so much for the history of our hero to the time of the beginning of this story, without which you shall hardly be able to understand the purport of those most extraordinary adventures that befell him shortly after he came of age, nor the logic of their consequence after they had occurred. for it was during his fifth voyage to the west indies that the first of those extraordinary adventures happened of which i shall have presently to tell. at that time he had been in kingston for the best part of four weeks, lodging at the house of a very decent, respectable widow, by name mrs. anne bolles, who, with three pleasant and agreeable daughters, kept a very clean and well-served lodging house in the outskirts of the town. one morning, as our hero sat sipping his coffee, clad only in loose cotton drawers, a shirt, and a jacket, and with slippers upon his feet, as is the custom in that country, where everyone endeavors to keep as cool as may be while he sat thus sipping his coffee miss eliza, the youngest of the three daughters, came and gave him a note, which, she said, a stranger had just handed in at the door, going away again without waiting for a reply. you may judge of barnaby's surprise when he opened the note and read as follows: mr. barnaby true. sir,--though you don't know me, i know you, and i tell you this: if you will be at pratt's ordinary on harbor street on friday next at eight o'clock of the evening, and will accompany the man who shall say to you, "the royal sovereign is come in," you shall learn something the most to your advantage that ever befell you. sir, keep this note, and show it to him who shall address these words to you, so to certify that you are the man he seeks. such was the wording of the note, which was without address, and without any superscription whatever. the first emotion that stirred barnaby was one of extreme and profound amazement. then the thought came into his mind that some witty fellow, of whom he knew a good many in that town--and wild, waggish pranks they were was attempting to play off some smart jest upon him. but all that miss eliza could tell him when he questioned her concerning the messenger was that the bearer of the note was a tall, stout man, with a red neckerchief around his neck and copper buckles to his shoes, and that he had the appearance of a sailorman, having a great big queue hanging down his back. but, lord! what was such a description as that in a busy seaport town, full of scores of men to fit such a likeness? accordingly, our hero put away the note into his wallet, determining to show it to his good friend mr. greenfield that evening, and to ask his advice upon it. so he did show it, and that gentleman's opinion was the same as his--that some wag was minded to play off a hoax upon him, and that the matter of the letter was all nothing but smoke. nevertheless, though barnaby was thus confirmed in his opinion as to the nature of the communication he had received, he yet determined in his own mind that he would see the business through to the end, and would be at pratt's ordinary, as the note demanded, upon the day and at the time specified therein. pratt's ordinary was at that time a very fine and well-known place of its sort, with good tobacco and the best rum that ever i tasted, and had a garden behind it that, sloping down to the harbor front, was planted pretty thick with palms and ferns grouped into clusters with flowers and plants. here were a number of little tables, some in little grottoes, like our vauxhall in new york, and with red and blue and white paper lanterns hung among the foliage, whither gentlemen and ladies used sometimes to go of an evening to sit and drink lime juice and sugar and water (and sometimes a taste of something stronger), and to look out across the water at the shipping in the cool of the night. thither, accordingly, our hero went, a little before the time appointed in the note, and passing directly through the ordinary and the garden beyond, chose a table at the lower end of the garden and close to the water's edge, where he would not be easily seen by anyone coming into the place. then, ordering some rum and water and a pipe of tobacco, he composed himself to watch for the appearance of those witty fellows whom he suspected would presently come thither to see the end of their prank and to enjoy his confusion. the spot was pleasant enough; for the land breeze, blowing strong and full, set the leaves of the palm tree above his head to rattling and clattering continually against the sky, where, the moon then being about full, they shone every now and then like blades of steel. the waves also were splashing up against the little landing place at the foot of the garden, sounding very cool in the night, and sparkling all over the harbor where the moon caught the edges of the water. a great many vessels were lying at anchor in their ridings, with the dark, prodigious form of a man-of-war looming up above them in the moonlight. there our hero sat for the best part of an hour, smoking his pipe of tobacco and sipping his grog, and seeing not so much as a single thing that might concern the note he had received. it was not far from half an hour after the time appointed in the note, when a rowboat came suddenly out of the night and pulled up to the landing place at the foot of the garden above mentioned, and three or four men came ashore in the darkness. without saying a word among themselves they chose a near-by table and, sitting down, ordered rum and water, and began drinking their grog in silence. they might have sat there about five minutes, when, by and by, barnaby true became aware that they were observing him very curiously; and then almost immediately one, who was plainly the leader of the party, called out to him: "how now, messmate! won't you come and drink a dram of rum with us?" "why, no," says barnaby, answering very civilly; "i have drunk enough already, and more would only heat my blood." "all the same," quoth the stranger, "i think you will come and drink with us; for, unless i am mistook, you are mr. barnaby true, and i am come here to tell you that the royal sovereign is come in." now i may honestly say that barnaby true was never more struck aback in all his life than he was at hearing these words uttered in so unexpected a manner. he had been looking to hear them under such different circumstances that, now that his ears heard them addressed to him, and that so seriously, by a perfect stranger, who, with others, had thus mysteriously come ashore out of the darkness, he could scarce believe that his ears heard aright. his heart suddenly began beating at a tremendous rate, and had he been an older and wiser man, i do believe he would have declined the adventure, instead of leaping blindly, as he did, into that of which he could see neither the beginning nor the ending. but being barely one-and-twenty years of age, and having an adventurous disposition that would have carried him into almost anything that possessed a smack of uncertainty or danger about it, he contrived to say, in a pretty easy tone (though god knows how it was put on for the occasion): "well, then, if that be so, and if the royal sovereign is indeed come in, why, i'll join you, since you are so kind as to ask me." and therewith he went across to the other table, carrying his pipe with him, and sat down and began smoking, with all the appearance of ease he could assume upon the occasion. "well, mr. barnaby true," said the man who had before addressed him, so soon as barnaby had settled himself, speaking in a low tone of voice, so there would be no danger of any others hearing the words--"well, mr. barnaby true--for i shall call you by your name, to show you that though i know you, you don't know me i am glad to see that you are man enough to enter thus into an affair, though you can't see to the bottom of it. for it shows me that you are a man of mettle, and are deserving of the fortune that is to befall you to-night. nevertheless, first of all, i am bid to say that you must show me a piece of paper that you have about you before we go a step farther." "very well," said barnaby; "i have it here safe and sound, and see it you shall." and thereupon and without more ado he fetched out his wallet, opened it, and handed his interlocutor the mysterious note he had received the day or two before. whereupon the other, drawing to him the candle, burning there for the convenience of those who would smoke tobacco, began immediately reading it. this gave barnaby true a moment or two to look at him. he was a tall, stout man, with a red handkerchief tied around his neck, and with copper buckles on his shoes, so that barnaby true could not but wonder whether he was not the very same man who had given the note to miss eliza bolles at the door of his lodging house. "'tis all right and straight as it should be," the other said, after he had so glanced his eyes over the note. "and now that the paper is read" (suiting his action to his words), "i'll just burn it, for safety's sake." and so he did, twisting it up and setting it to the flame of the candle. "and now," he said, continuing his address, "i'll tell you what i am here for. i was sent to ask you if you're man enough to take your life in your own hands and to go with me in that boat down there? say 'yes,' and we'll start away without wasting more time, for the devil is ashore here at jamaica--though you don't know what that means--and if he gets ahead of us, why, then we may whistle for what we are after. say 'no,' and i go away again, and i promise you you shall never be troubled again in this sort. so now speak up plain, young gentleman, and tell us what is your mind in this business, and whether you will adventure any farther or not." if our hero hesitated it was not for long. i cannot say that his courage did not waver for a moment; but if it did, it was, i say, not for long, and when he spoke up it was with a voice as steady as could be. "to be sure i'm man enough to go with you," he said; "and if you mean me any harm i can look out for myself; and if i can't, why, here is something can look out for me," and therewith he lifted up the flap of his coat pocket and showed the butt of a pistol he had fetched with him when he had set out from his lodging house that evening. at this the other burst out a-laughing. "come," says he, "you are indeed of right mettle, and i like your spirit. all the same, no one in all the world means you less ill than i, and so, if you have to use that barker, 'twill not be upon us who are your friends, but only upon one who is more wicked than the devil himself. so come, and let us get away." thereupon he and the others, who had not spoken a single word for all this time, rose from the table, and he having paid the scores of all, they all went down together to the boat that still lay at the landing place at the bottom of the garden. thus coming to it, our hero could see that it was a large yawl boat manned with half a score of black men for rowers, and there were two lanterns in the stern sheets, and three or four iron shovels. the man who had conducted the conversation with barnaby true for all this time, and who was, as has been said, plainly the captain of the party, stepped immediately down into the boat; our hero followed, and the others followed after him; and instantly they were seated the boat was shoved off and the black men began pulling straight out into the harbor, and so, at some distance away, around under the stern of the man-of-war. not a word was spoken after they had thus left the shore, and presently they might all have been ghosts, for the silence of the party. barnaby true was too full of his own thoughts to talk--and serious enough thoughts they were by this time, with crimps to trepan a man at every turn, and press gangs to carry a man off so that he might never be heard of again. as for the others, they did not seem to choose to say anything now that they had him fairly embarked upon their enterprise. and so the crew pulled on in perfect silence for the best part of an hour, the leader of the expedition directing the course of the boat straight across the harbor, as though toward the mouth of the rio cobra river. indeed, this was their destination, as barnaby could after a while see, by the low point of land with a great long row of coconut palms upon it (the appearance of which he knew very well), which by and by began to loom up out of the milky dimness of the moonlight. as they approached the river they found the tide was running strong out of it, so that some distance away from the stream it gurgled and rippled alongside the boat as the crew of black men pulled strongly against it. thus they came up under what was either a point of land or an islet covered with a thick growth of mangrove trees. but still no one spoke a single word as to their destination, or what was the business they had in hand. the night, now that they were close to the shore, was loud with the noise of running tide-water, and the air was heavy with the smell of mud and marsh, and over all the whiteness of the moonlight, with a few stars pricking out here and there in the sky; and all so strange and silent and mysterious that barnaby could not divest himself of the feeling that it was all a dream. so, the rowers bending to the oars, the boat came slowly around from under the clump of mangrove bushes and out into the open water again. instantly it did so the leader of the expedition called out in a sharp voice, and the black men instantly lay on their oars. almost at the same instant barnaby true became aware that there was another boat coming down the river toward where they lay, now drifting with the strong tide out into the harbor again, and he knew that it was because of the approach of that boat that the other had called upon his men to cease rowing. the other boat, as well as he could see in the distance, was full of men, some of whom appeared to be armed, for even in the dusk of the darkness the shine of the moonlight glimmered sharply now and then on the barrels of muskets or pistols, and in the silence that followed after their own rowing had ceased barnaby true could hear the chug! chug! of the oars sounding louder and louder through the watery stillness of the night as the boat drew nearer and nearer. but he knew nothing of what it all meant, nor whether these others were friends or enemies, or what was to happen next. the oarsmen of the approaching boat did not for a moment cease their rowing, not till they had come pretty close to barnaby and his companions. then a man who sat in the stern ordered them to cease rowing, and as they lay on their oars he stood up. as they passed by, barnaby true could see him very plain, the moonlight shining full upon him--a large, stout gentleman with a round red face, and clad in a fine laced coat of red cloth. amidship of the boat was a box or chest about the bigness of a middle-sized traveling trunk, but covered all over with cakes of sand and dirt. in the act of passing, the gentleman, still standing, pointed at it with an elegant gold-headed cane which he held in his hand. "are you come after this, abraham dawling?" says he, and thereat his countenance broke into as evil, malignant a grin as ever barnaby true saw in all of his life. the other did not immediately reply so much as a single word, but sat as still as any stone. then, at last, the other boat having gone by, he suddenly appeared to regain his wits, for he bawled out after it, "very well, jack malyoe! very well, jack malyoe! you've got ahead of us this time again, but next time is the third, and then it shall be our turn, even if william brand must come back from hell to settle with you." this he shouted out as the other boat passed farther and farther away, but to it my fine gentleman made no reply except to burst out into a great roaring fit of laughter. there was another man among the armed men in the stern of the passing boat--a villainous, lean man with lantern jaws, and the top of his head as bald as the palm of my hand. as the boat went away into the night with the tide and the headway the oars had given it, he grinned so that the moonlight shone white on his big teeth. then, flourishing a great big pistol, he said, and barnaby could hear every word he spoke, "do but give me the word, your honor, and i'll put another bullet through the son of a sea cook." but the gentleman said some words to forbid him, and therewith the boat was gone away into the night, and presently barnaby could hear that the men at the oars had begun rowing again, leaving them lying there, without a single word being said for a long time. by and by one of those in barnaby's boat spoke up. "where shall you go now?" he said. at this the leader of the expedition appeared suddenly to come back to himself, and to find his voice again. "go?" he roared out. "go to the devil! go? go where you choose! go? go back again--that's where we'll go!" and therewith he fell a-cursing and swearing until he foamed at the lips, as though he had gone clean crazy, while the black men began rowing back again across the harbor as fast as ever they could lay oars into the water. they put barnaby true ashore below the old custom house; but so bewildered and shaken was he by all that had happened, and by what he had seen, and by the names that he heard spoken, that he was scarcely conscious of any of the familiar things among which he found himself thus standing. and so he walked up the moonlit street toward his lodging like one drunk or bewildered; for "john malyoe" was the name of the captain of the adventure galley--he who had shot barnaby's own grandfather--and "abraham dawling" was the name of the gunner of the royal sovereign who had been shot at the same time with the pirate captain, and who, with him, had been left stretched out in the staring sun by the murderers. the whole business had occupied hardly two hours, but it was as though that time was no part of barnaby's life, but all a part of some other life, so dark and strange and mysterious that it in no wise belonged to him. as for that box covered all over with mud, he could only guess at that time what it contained and what the finding of it signified. but of this our hero said nothing to anyone, nor did he tell a single living soul what he had seen that night, but nursed it in his own mind, where it lay so big for a while that he could think of little or nothing else for days after. mr. greenfield, mr. hartright's correspondent and agent in these parts, lived in a fine brick house just out of the town, on the mona road, his family consisting of a wife and two daughters--brisk, lively young ladies with black hair and eyes, and very fine bright teeth that shone whenever they laughed, and with a plenty to say for themselves. thither barnaby true was often asked to a family dinner; and, indeed, it was a pleasant home to visit, and to sit upon the veranda and smoke a cigarro with the good old gentleman and look out toward the mountains, while the young ladies laughed and talked, or played upon the guitar and sang. and oftentimes so it was strongly upon barnaby's mind to speak to the good gentleman and tell him what he had beheld that night out in the harbor; but always he would think better of it and hold his peace, falling to thinking, and smoking away upon his cigarro at a great rate. a day or two before the belle helen sailed from kingston mr. greenfield stopped barnaby true as he was going through the office to bid him to come to dinner that night (for there within the tropics they breakfast at eleven o'clock and take dinner in the cool of the evening, because of the heat, and not at midday, as we do in more temperate latitudes). "i would have you meet," says mr. greenfield, "your chief passenger for new york, and his granddaughter, for whom the state cabin and the two staterooms are to be fitted as here ordered [showing a letter]--sir john malyoe and miss marjorie malyoe. did you ever hear tell of capt. jack malyoe, master barnaby?" now i do believe that mr. greenfield had no notion at all that old captain brand was barnaby true's own grandfather and capt. john malyoe his murderer, but when he so thrust at him the name of that man, what with that in itself and the late adventure through which he himself had just passed, and with his brooding upon it until it was so prodigiously big in his mind, it was like hitting him a blow to so fling the questions at him. nevertheless, he was able to reply, with a pretty straight face, that he had heard of captain malyoe and who he was. "well," says mr. greenfield, "if jack malyoe was a desperate pirate and a wild, reckless blade twenty years ago, why, he is sir john malyoe now and the owner of a fine estate in devonshire. well, master barnaby, when one is a baronet and come into the inheritance of a fine estate (though i do hear it is vastly cumbered with debts), the world will wink its eye to much that he may have done twenty years ago. i do hear say, though, that his own kin still turn the cold shoulder to him." to this address barnaby answered nothing, but sat smoking away at his cigarro at a great rate. and so that night barnaby true came face to face for the first time with the man who murdered his own grandfather--the greatest beast of a man that ever he met in all of his life. that time in the harbor he had seen sir john malyoe at a distance and in the darkness; now that he beheld him near by it seemed to him that he had never looked at a more evil face in all his life. not that the man was altogether ugly, for he had a good nose and a fine double chin; but his eyes stood out like balls and were red and watery, and he winked them continually, as though they were always smarting; and his lips were thick and purple-red, and his fat, red cheeks were mottled here and there with little clots of purple veins; and when he spoke his voice rattled so in his throat that it made one wish to clear one's own throat to listen to him. so, what with a pair of fat, white hands, and that hoarse voice, and his swollen face, and his thick lips sticking out, it seemed to barnaby true he had never seen a countenance so distasteful to him as that one into which he then looked. but if sir john malyoe was so displeasing to our hero's taste, why, the granddaughter, even this first time he beheld her, seemed to him to be the most beautiful, lovely young lady that ever he saw. she had a thin, fair skin, red lips, and yellow hair--though it was then powdered pretty white for the occasion--and the bluest eyes that barnaby beheld in all of his life. a sweet, timid creature, who seemed not to dare so much as to speak a word for herself without looking to sir john for leave to do so, and would shrink and shudder whenever he would speak of a sudden to her or direct a sudden glance upon her. when she did speak, it was in so low a voice that one had to bend his head to hear her, and even if she smiled would catch herself and look up as though to see if she had leave to be cheerful. as for sir john, he sat at dinner like a pig, and gobbled and ate and drank, smacking his lips all the while, but with hardly a word to either her or mrs. greenfield or to barnaby true; but with a sour, sullen air, as though he would say, "your damned victuals and drink are no better than they should be, but i must eat 'em or nothing." a great bloated beast of a man! only after dinner was over and the young lady and the two misses sat off in a corner together did barnaby hear her talk with any ease. then, to be sure, her tongue became loose, and she prattled away at a great rate, though hardly above her breath, until of a sudden her grandfather called out, in his hoarse, rattling voice, that it was time to go. whereupon she stopped short in what she was saying and jumped up from her chair, looking as frightened as though she had been caught in something amiss, and was to be punished for it. barnaby true and mr. greenfield both went out to see the two into their coach, where sir john's man stood holding the lantern. and who should he be, to be sure, but that same lean villain with bald head who had offered to shoot the leader of our hero's expedition out on the harbor that night! for, one of the circles of light from the lantern shining up into his face, barnaby true knew him the moment he clapped eyes upon him. though he could not have recognized our hero, he grinned at him in the most impudent, familiar fashion, and never so much as touched his hat either to him or to mr. greenfield; but as soon as his master and his young mistress had entered the coach, banged to the door and scrambled up on the seat alongside the driver, and so away without a word, but with another impudent grin, this time favoring both barnaby and the old gentleman. such were these two, master and man, and what barnaby saw of them then was only confirmed by further observation--the most hateful couple he ever knew; though, god knows, what they afterward suffered should wipe out all complaint against them. the next day sir john malyoe's belongings began to come aboard the belle helen, and in the afternoon that same lean, villainous manservant comes skipping across the gangplank as nimble as a goat, with two black men behind him lugging a great sea chest. "what!" he cried out, "and so you is the supercargo, is you? why, i thought you was more account when i saw you last night a-sitting talking with his honor like his equal. well, no matter; 'tis something to have a brisk, genteel young fellow for a supercargo. so come, my hearty, lend a hand, will you, and help me set his honor's cabin to rights." what a speech was this to endure from such a fellow, to be sure! and barnaby so high in his own esteem, and holding himself a gentleman! well, what with his distaste for the villain, and what with such odious familiarity, you can guess into what temper so impudent an address must have cast him. "you'll find the steward in yonder," he said, "and he'll show you the cabin," and therewith turned and walked away with prodigious dignity, leaving the other standing where he was. as he entered his own cabin he could not but see, out of the tail of his eye, that the fellow was still standing where he had left him, regarding him with a most evil, malevolent countenance, so that he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had made one enemy during that voyage who was not very likely to forgive or forget what he must regard as a slight put upon him. the next day sir john malyoe himself came aboard, accompanied by his granddaughter, and followed by this man, and he followed again by four black men, who carried among them two trunks, not large in size, but prodigious heavy in weight, and toward which sir john and his follower devoted the utmost solicitude and care to see that they were properly carried into the state cabin he was to occupy. barnaby true was standing in the great cabin as they passed close by him; but though sir john malyoe looked hard at him and straight in the face, he never so much as spoke a single word, or showed by a look or a sign that he knew who our hero was. at this the serving man, who saw it all with eyes as quick as a cat's, fell to grinning and chuckling to see barnaby in his turn so slighted. the young lady, who also saw it all, flushed up red, then in the instant of passing looked straight at our hero, and bowed and smiled at him with a most sweet and gracious affability, then the next moment recovering herself, as though mightily frightened at what she had done. the same day the belle helen sailed, with as beautiful, sweet weather as ever a body could wish for. there were only two other passengers aboard, the rev. simon styles, the master of a flourishing academy in spanish town, and his wife, a good, worthy old couple, but very quiet, and would sit in the great cabin by the hour together reading, so that, what with sir john malyoe staying all the time in his own cabin with those two trunks he held so precious, it fell upon barnaby true in great part to show attention to the young lady; and glad enough he was of the opportunity, as anyone may guess. for when you consider a brisk, lively young man of one-and-twenty and a sweet, beautiful miss of seventeen so thrown together day after day for two weeks, the weather being very fair, as i have said, and the ship tossing and bowling along before a fine humming breeze that sent white caps all over the sea, and with nothing to do but sit and look at that blue sea and the bright sky overhead, it is not hard to suppose what was to befall, and what pleasure it was to barnaby true to show attention to her. but, oh! those days when a man is young, and, whether wisely or no, fallen in love! how often during that voyage did our hero lie awake in his berth at night, tossing this way and that without sleep--not that he wanted to sleep if he could, but would rather lie so awake thinking about her and staring into the darkness! poor fool! he might have known that the end must come to such a fool's paradise before very long. for who was he to look up to sir john malyoe's granddaughter, he, the supercargo of a merchant ship, and she the granddaughter of a baronet. nevertheless, things went along very smooth and pleasant, until one evening, when all came of a sudden to an end. at that time he and the young lady had been standing for a long while together, leaning over the rail and looking out across the water through the dusk toward the westward, where the sky was still of a lingering brightness. she had been mightily quiet and dull all that evening, but now of a sudden she began, without any preface whatever, to tell barnaby about herself and her affairs. she said that she and her grandfather were going to new york that they might take passage thence to boston town, there to meet her cousin captain malyoe, who was stationed in garrison at that place. then she went on to say that captain malyoe was the next heir to the devonshire estate, and that she and he were to be married in the fall. but, poor barnaby! what a fool was he, to be sure! methinks when she first began to speak about captain malyoe he knew what was coming. but now that she had told him, he could say nothing, but stood there staring across the ocean, his breath coming hot and dry as ashes in his throat. she, poor thing, went on to say, in a very low voice, that she had liked him from the very first moment she had seen him, and had been very happy for these days, and would always think of him as a dear friend who had been very kind to her, who had so little pleasure in life, and so would always remember him. then they were both silent, until at last barnaby made shift to say, though in a hoarse and croaking voice, that captain malyoe must be a very happy man, and that if he were in captain malyoe's place he would be the happiest man in the world. thus, having spoken, and so found his tongue, he went on to tell her, with his head all in a whirl, that he, too, loved her, and that what she had told him struck him to the heart, and made him the most miserable, unhappy wretch in the whole world. she was not angry at what he said, nor did she turn to look at him, but only said, in a low voice, he should not talk so, for that it could only be a pain to them both to speak of such things, and that whether she would or no, she must do everything as her grandfather bade her, for that he was indeed a terrible man. to this poor barnaby could only repeat that he loved her with all his heart, that he had hoped for nothing in his love, but that he was now the most miserable man in the world. it was at this moment, so tragic for him, that some one who had been hiding nigh them all the while suddenly moved away, and barnaby true could see in the gathering darkness that it was that villain manservant of sir john malyoe's and knew that he must have overheard all that had been said. the man went straight to the great cabin, and poor barnaby, his brain all atingle, stood looking after him, feeling that now indeed the last drop of bitterness had been added to his trouble to have such a wretch overhear what he had said. the young lady could not have seen the fellow, for she continued leaning over the rail, and barnaby true, standing at her side, not moving, but in such a tumult of many passions that he was like one bewildered, and his heart beating as though to smother him. so they stood for i know not how long when, of a sudden, sir john malyoe comes running out of the cabin, without his hat, but carrying his gold-headed cane, and so straight across the deck to where barnaby and the young lady stood, that spying wretch close at his heels, grinning like an imp. "you hussy!" bawled out sir john, so soon as he had come pretty near them, and in so loud a voice that all on deck might have heard the words; and as he spoke he waved his cane back and forth as though he would have struck the young lady, who, shrinking back almost upon the deck, crouched as though to escape such a blow. "you hussy!" he bawled out with vile oaths, too horrible here to be set down. "what do you do here with this yankee supercargo, not fit for a gentlewoman to wipe her feet upon? get to your cabin, you hussy" (only it was something worse he called her this time), "before i lay this cane across your shoulders!" what with the whirling of barnaby's brains and the passion into which he was already melted, what with his despair and his love, and his anger at this address, a man gone mad could scarcely be less accountable for his actions than was he at that moment. hardly knowing what he did, he put his hand against sir john malyoe's breast and thrust him violently back, crying out upon him in a great, loud, hoarse voice for threatening a young lady, and saying that for a farthing he would wrench the stick out of his hand and throw it overboard. sir john went staggering back with the push barnaby gave him, and then caught himself up again. then, with a great bellow, ran roaring at our hero, whirling his cane about, and i do believe would have struck him (and god knows then what might have happened) had not his manservant caught him and held him back. "keep back!" cried out our hero, still mighty hoarse. "keep back! if you strike me with that stick i'll fling you overboard!" by this time, what with the sound of loud voices and the stamping of feet, some of the crew and others aboard were hurrying up, and the next moment captain manly and the first mate, mr. freesden, came running out of the cabin. but barnaby, who was by this fairly set agoing, could not now stop himself. "and who are you, anyhow," he cried out, "to threaten to strike me and to insult me, who am as good as you? you dare not strike me! you may shoot a man from behind, as you shot poor captain brand on the rio cobra river, but you won't dare strike me face to face. i know who you are and what you are!" by this time sir john malyoe had ceased to endeavor to strike him, but stood stock-still, his great bulging eyes staring as though they would pop out of his head. "what's all this?" cries captain manly, bustling up to them with mr. freesden. "what does all this mean?" but, as i have said, our hero was too far gone now to contain himself until all that he had to say was out. "the damned villain insulted me and insulted the young lady," he cried out, panting in the extremity of his passion, "and then he threatened to strike me with his cane. but i know who he is and what he is. i know what he's got in his cabin in those two trunks, and where he found it, and whom it belongs to. he found it on the shores of the rio cobra river, and i have only to open my mouth and tell what i know about it." at this captain manly clapped his hand upon our hero's shoulder and fell to shaking him so that he could scarcely stand, calling out to him the while to be silent. "what do you mean?" he cried. "an officer of this ship to quarrel with a passenger of mine! go straight to your cabin, and stay there till i give you leave to come out again." at this master barnaby came somewhat back to himself and into his wits again with a jump. "but he threatened to strike me with his cane, captain," he cried out, "and that i won't stand from any man!" "no matter what he did," said captain manly, very sternly. "go to your cabin, as i bid you, and stay there till i tell you to come out again, and when we get to new york i'll take pains to tell your stepfather of how you have behaved. i'll have no such rioting as this aboard my ship." barnaby true looked around him, but the young lady was gone. nor, in the blindness of his frenzy, had he seen when she had gone nor whither she went. as for sir john malyoe, he stood in the light of a lantern, his face gone as white as ashes, and i do believe if a look could kill, the dreadful malevolent stare he fixed upon barnaby true would have slain him where he stood. after captain manly had so shaken some wits into poor barnaby he, unhappy wretch, went to his cabin, as he was bidden to do, and there, shutting the door upon himself, and flinging himself down, all dressed as he was, upon his berth, yielded himself over to the profoundest passion of humiliation and despair. there he lay for i know not how long, staring into the darkness, until by and by, in spite of his suffering and his despair, he dozed off into a loose sleep, that was more like waking than sleep, being possessed continually by the most vivid and distasteful dreams, from which he would awaken only to doze off and to dream again. it was from the midst of one of these extravagant dreams that he was suddenly aroused by the noise of a pistol shot, and then the noise of another and another, and then a great bump and a grinding jar, and then the sound of many footsteps running across the deck and down into the great cabin. then came a tremendous uproar of voices in the great cabin, the struggling as of men's bodies being tossed about, striking violently against the partitions and bulkheads. at the same instant arose a screaming of women's voices, and one voice, and that sir john malyoe's, crying out as in the greatest extremity: "you villains! you damned villains!" and with the sudden detonation of a pistol fired into the close space of the great cabin. barnaby was out in the middle of his cabin in a moment, and taking only time enough to snatch down one of the pistols that hung at the head of his berth, flung out into the great cabin, to find it as black as night, the lantern slung there having been either blown out or dashed out into darkness. the prodigiously dark space was full of uproar, the hubbub and confusion pierced through and through by that keen sound of women's voices screaming, one in the cabin and the other in the stateroom beyond. almost immediately barnaby pitched headlong over two or three struggling men scuffling together upon the deck, falling with a great clatter and the loss of his pistol, which, however, he regained almost immediately. what all the uproar meant he could not tell, but he presently heard captain manly's voice from somewhere suddenly calling out, "you bloody pirate, would you choke me to death?" wherewith some notion of what had happened came to him like a dash, and that they had been attacked in the night by pirates. looking toward the companionway, he saw, outlined against the darkness of the night without, the blacker form of a man's figure, standing still and motionless as a statue in the midst of all this hubbub, and so by some instinct he knew in a moment that that must be the master maker of all this devil's brew. therewith, still kneeling upon the deck, he covered the bosom of that shadowy figure pointblank, as he thought, with his pistol, and instantly pulled the trigger. in the flash of red light, and in the instant stunning report of the pistol shot, barnaby saw, as stamped upon the blackness, a broad, flat face with fishy eyes, a lean, bony forehead with what appeared to be a great blotch of blood upon the side, a cocked hat trimmed with gold lace, a red scarf across the breast, and the gleam of brass buttons. then the darkness, very thick and black, swallowed everything again. but in the instant sir john malyoe called out, in a great loud voice: "my god! 'tis william brand!" therewith came the sound of some one falling heavily down. the next moment, barnaby's sight coming back to him again in the darkness, he beheld that dark and motionless figure still standing exactly where it had stood before, and so knew either that he had missed it or else that it was of so supernatural a sort that a leaden bullet might do it no harm. though if it was indeed an apparition that barnaby beheld in that moment, there is this to say, that he saw it as plain as ever he saw a living man in all of his life. this was the last our hero knew, for the next moment somebody--whether by accident or design he never knew--struck him such a terrible violent blow upon the side of the head that he saw forty thousand stars flash before his eyeballs, and then, with a great humming in his head, swooned dead away. when barnaby true came back to his senses again it was to find himself being cared for with great skill and nicety, his head bathed with cold water, and a bandage being bound about it as carefully as though a chirurgeon was attending to him. he could not immediately recall what had happened to him, nor until he had opened his eyes to find himself in a strange cabin, extremely well fitted and painted with white and gold, the light of a lantern shining in his eyes, together with the gray of the early daylight through the dead-eye. two men were bending over him--one, a negro in a striped shirt, with a yellow handkerchief around his head and silver earrings in his ears; the other, a white man, clad in a strange outlandish dress of a foreign make, and with great mustachios hanging down, and with gold earrings in his ears. it was the latter who was attending to barnaby's hurt with such extreme care and gentleness. all this barnaby saw with his first clear consciousness after his swoon. then remembering what had befallen him, and his head beating as though it would split asunder, he shut his eyes again, contriving with great effort to keep himself from groaning aloud, and wondering as to what sort of pirates these could be who would first knock a man in the head so terrible a blow as that which he had suffered, and then take such care to fetch him back to life again, and to make him easy and comfortable. nor did he open his eyes again, but lay there gathering his wits together and wondering thus until the bandage was properly tied about his head and sewed together. then once more he opened his eyes, and looked up to ask where he was. either they who were attending to him did not choose to reply, or else they could not speak english, for they made no answer, excepting by signs; for the white man, seeing that he was now able to speak, and so was come back into his senses again, nodded his head three or four times, and smiled with a grin of his white teeth, and then pointed, as though toward a saloon beyond. at the same time the negro held up our hero's coat and beckoned for him to put it on, so that barnaby, seeing that it was required of him to meet some one without, arose, though with a good deal of effort, and permitted the negro to help him on with his coat, still feeling mightily dizzy and uncertain upon his legs, his head beating fit to split, and the vessel rolling and pitching at a great rate, as though upon a heavy ground swell. so, still sick and dizzy, he went out into what was indeed a fine saloon beyond, painted in white and gilt like the cabin he had just quitted, and fitted in the nicest fashion, a mahogany table, polished very bright, extending the length of the room, and a quantity of bottles, together with glasses of clear crystal, arranged in a hanging rack above. here at the table a man was sitting with his back to our hero, clad in a rough pea-jacket, and with a red handkerchief tied around his throat, his feet stretched out before him, and he smoking a pipe of tobacco with all the ease and comfort in the world. as barnaby came in he turned round, and, to the profound astonishment of our hero, presented toward him in the light of the lantern, the dawn shining pretty strong through the skylight, the face of that very man who had conducted the mysterious expedition that night across kingston harbor to the rio cobra river. this man looked steadily at barnaby true for a moment or two, and then burst out laughing; and, indeed, barnaby, standing there with the bandage about his head, must have looked a very droll picture of that astonishment he felt so profoundly at finding who was this pirate into whose hands he had fallen. "well," says the other, "and so you be up at last, and no great harm done, i'll be bound. and how does your head feel by now, my young master?" to this barnaby made no reply, but, what with wonder and the dizziness of his head, seated himself at the table over against the speaker, who pushed a bottle of rum toward him, together with a glass from the swinging shelf above. he watched barnaby fill his glass, and so soon as he had done so began immediately by saying: "i do suppose you think you were treated mightily ill to be so handled last night. well, so you were treated ill enough--though who hit you that crack upon the head i know no more than a child unborn. well, i am sorry for the way you were handled, but there is this much to say, and of that you may believe me, that nothing was meant to you but kindness, and before you are through with us all you will believe that well enough." here he helped himself to a taste of grog, and sucking in his lips, went on again with what he had to say. "do you remember," said he, "that expedition of ours in kingston harbor, and how we were all of us balked that night?" "why, yes," said barnaby true, "nor am i likely to forget it." "and do you remember what i said to that villain, jack malyoe, that night as his boat went by us?" "as to that," said barnaby true, "i do not know that i can say yes or no, but if you will tell me, i will maybe answer you in kind." "why, i mean this," said the other. "i said that the villain had got the better of us once again, but that next time it would be our turn, even if william brand himself had to come back from hell to put the business through." "i remember something of the sort," said barnaby, "now that you speak of it, but still i am all in the dark as to what you are driving at." the other looked at him very cunningly for a little while, his head on one side, and his eyes half shut. then, as if satisfied, he suddenly burst out laughing. "look hither," said he, "and i'll show you something," and therewith, moving to one side, disclosed a couple of traveling cases or small trunks with brass studs, so exactly like those that sir john malyoe had fetched aboard at jamaica that barnaby, putting this and that together, knew that they must be the same. our hero had a strong enough suspicion as to what those two cases contained, and his suspicions had become a certainty when he saw sir john malyoe struck all white at being threatened about them, and his face lowering so malevolently as to look murder had he dared do it. but, lord! what were suspicions or even certainty to what barnaby true's two eyes beheld when that man lifted the lids of the two cases--the locks thereof having already been forced--and, flinging back first one lid and then the other, displayed to barnaby's astonished sight a great treasure of gold and silver! most of it tied up in leathern bags, to be sure, but many of the coins, big and little, yellow and white, lying loose and scattered about like so many beans, brimming the cases to the very top. barnaby sat dumb-struck at what he beheld; as to whether he breathed or no, i cannot tell; but this i know, that he sat staring at that marvelous treasure like a man in a trance, until, after a few seconds of this golden display, the other banged down the lids again and burst out laughing, whereupon he came back to himself with a jump. "well, and what do you think of that?" said the other. "is it not enough for a man to turn pirate for? but," he continued, "it is not for the sake of showing you this that i have been waiting for you here so long a while, but to tell you that you are not the only passenger aboard, but that there is another, whom i am to confide to your care and attention, according to orders i have received; so, if you are ready, master barnaby, i'll fetch her in directly." he waited for a moment, as though for barnaby to speak, but our hero not replying, he arose and, putting away the bottle of rum and the glasses, crossed the saloon to a door like that from which barnaby had come a little while before. this he opened, and after a moment's delay and a few words spoken to some one within, ushered thence a young lady, who came out very slowly into the saloon where barnaby still sat at the table. it was miss marjorie malyoe, very white, and looking as though stunned or bewildered by all that had befallen her. barnaby true could never tell whether the amazing strange voyage that followed was of long or of short duration; whether it occupied three days or ten days. for conceive, if you choose, two people of flesh and blood moving and living continually in all the circumstances and surroundings as of a nightmare dream, yet they two so happy together that all the universe beside was of no moment to them! how was anyone to tell whether in such circumstances any time appeared to be long or short? does a dream appear to be long or to be short? the vessel in which they sailed was a brigantine of good size and build, but manned by a considerable crew, the most strange and outlandish in their appearance that barnaby had ever beheld--some white, some yellow, some black, and all tricked out with gay colors, and gold earrings in their ears, and some with great long mustachios, and others with handkerchiefs tied around their heads, and all talking a language together of which barnaby true could understand not a single word, but which might have been portuguese from one or two phrases he caught. nor did this strange, mysterious crew, of god knows what sort of men, seem to pay any attention whatever to barnaby or to the young lady. they might now and then have looked at him and her out of the corners of their yellow eyes, but that was all; otherwise they were indeed like the creatures of a nightmare dream. only he who was the captain of this outlandish crew would maybe speak to barnaby a few words as to the weather or what not when he would come down into the saloon to mix a glass of grog or to light a pipe of tobacco, and then to go on deck again about his business. otherwise our hero and the young lady were left to themselves, to do as they pleased, with no one to interfere with them. as for her, she at no time showed any great sign of terror or of fear, only for a little while was singularly numb and quiet, as though dazed with what had happened to her. indeed, methinks that wild beast, her grandfather, had so crushed her spirit by his tyranny and his violence that nothing that happened to her might seem sharp and keen, as it does to others of an ordinary sort. but this was only at first, for afterward her face began to grow singularly clear, as with a white light, and she would sit quite still, permitting barnaby to gaze, i know not how long, into her eyes, her face so transfigured and her lips smiling, and they, as it were, neither of them breathing, but hearing, as in another far-distant place, the outlandish jargon of the crew talking together in the warm, bright sunlight, or the sound of creaking block and tackle as they hauled upon the sheets. is it, then, any wonder that barnaby true could never remember whether such a voyage as this was long or short? it was as though they might have sailed so upon that wonderful voyage forever. you may guess how amazed was barnaby true when, coming upon deck one morning, he found the brigantine riding upon an even keel, at anchor off staten island, a small village on the shore, and the well-known roofs and chimneys of new york town in plain sight across the water. 'twas the last place in the world he had expected to see. and, indeed, it did seem strange to lie there alongside staten island all that day, with new york town so nigh at hand and yet so impossible to reach. for whether he desired to escape or no, barnaby true could not but observe that both he and the young lady were so closely watched that they might as well have been prisoners, tied hand and foot and laid in the hold, so far as any hope of getting away was concerned. all that day there was a deal of mysterious coming and going aboard the brigantine, and in the afternoon a sailboat went up to the town, carrying the captain, and a great load covered over with a tarpaulin in the stern. what was so taken up to the town barnaby did not then guess, but the boat did not return again till about sundown. for the sun was just dropping below the water when the captain came aboard once more and, finding barnaby on deck, bade him come down into the saloon, where they found the young lady sitting, the broad light of the evening shining in through the skylight, and making it all pretty bright within. the captain commanded barnaby to be seated, for he had something of moment to say to him; whereupon, as soon as barnaby had taken his place alongside the young lady, he began very seriously, with a preface somewhat thus: "though you may think me the captain of this brigantine, young gentleman, i am not really so, but am under orders, and so have only carried out those orders of a superior in all these things that i have done." having so begun, he went on to say that there was one thing yet remaining for him to do, and that the greatest thing of all. he said that barnaby and the young lady had not been fetched away from the belle helen as they were by any mere chance of accident, but that 'twas all a plan laid by a head wiser than his, and carried out by one whom he must obey in all things. he said that he hoped that both barnaby and the young lady would perform willingly what they would be now called upon to do, but that whether they did it willingly or no, they must, for that those were the orders of one who was not to be disobeyed. you may guess how our hero held his breath at all this; but whatever might have been his expectations, the very wildest of them all did not reach to that which was demanded of him. "my orders are these," said the other, continuing: "i am to take you and the young lady ashore, and to see that you are married before i quit you; and to that end a very good, decent, honest minister who lives ashore yonder in the village was chosen and hath been spoken to and is now, no doubt, waiting for you to come. such are my orders, and this is the last thing i am set to do; so now i will leave you alone together for five minutes to talk it over, but be quick about it, for whether willing or not, this thing must be done." thereupon he went away, as he had promised, leaving those two alone together, barnaby like one turned into stone, and the young lady, her face turned away, flaming as red as fire in the fading light. nor can i tell what barnaby said to her, nor what words he used, but only, all in a tumult, with neither beginning nor end he told her that god knew he loved her, and that with all his heart and soul, and that there was nothing in all the world for him but her; but, nevertheless, if she would not have it as had been ordered, and if she were not willing to marry him as she was bidden to do, he would rather die than lend himself to forcing her to do such a thing against her will. nevertheless, he told her she must speak up and tell him yes or no, and that god knew he would give all the world if she would say "yes." all this and more he said in such a tumult of words that there was no order in their speaking, and she sitting there, her bosom rising and falling as though her breath stifled her. nor may i tell what she replied to him, only this, that she said she would marry him. at this he took her into his arms and set his lips to hers, his heart all melting away in his bosom. so presently came the captain back into the saloon again, to find barnaby sitting there holding her hand, she with her face turned away, and his heart beating like a trip hammer, and so saw that all was settled as he would have it. wherewith he wished them both joy, and gave barnaby his hand. the yawlboat belonging to the brigantine was ready and waiting alongside when they came upon deck, and immediately they descended to it and took their seats. so they landed, and in a little while were walking up the village street in the darkness, she clinging to his arm as though she would swoon, and the captain of the brigantine and two other men from aboard following after them. and so to the minister's house, finding him waiting for them, smoking his pipe in the warm evening, and walking up and down in front of his own door. he immediately conducted them into the house, where, his wife having fetched a candle, and two others of the village folk being present, the good man having asked several questions as to their names and their age and where they were from, the ceremony was performed, and the certificate duly signed by those present--excepting the men who had come ashore from the brigantine, and who refused to set their hands to any paper. the same sailboat that had taken the captain up to the town in the afternoon was waiting for them at the landing place, whence, the captain, having wished them godspeed, and having shaken barnaby very heartily by the hand, they pushed off, and, coming about, ran away with the slant of the wind, dropping the shore and those strange beings alike behind them into the night. as they sped away through the darkness they could hear the creaking of the sails being hoisted aboard of the brigantine, and so knew that she was about to put to sea once more. nor did barnaby true ever set eyes upon those beings again, nor did anyone else that i ever heard tell of. it was nigh midnight when they made mr. hartright's wharf at the foot of wall street, and so the streets were all dark and silent and deserted as they walked up to barnaby's home. you may conceive of the wonder and amazement of barnaby's dear stepfather when, clad in a dressing gown and carrying a lighted candle in his hand, he unlocked and unbarred the door, and so saw who it was had aroused him at such an hour of the night, and the young and beautiful lady whom barnaby had fetched with him. the first thought of the good man was that the belle helen had come into port; nor did barnaby undeceive him as he led the way into the house, but waited until they were all safe and sound in privily together before he should unfold his strange and wonderful story. "this was left for you by two foreign sailors this afternoon, barnaby," the good old man said, as he led the way through the hall, holding up the candle at the same time, so that barnaby might see an object that stood against the wainscoting by the door of the dining room. nor could barnaby refrain from crying out with amazement when he saw that it was one of the two chests of treasure that sir john malyoe had fetched from jamaica, and which the pirates had taken from the belle helen. as for mr. hartright, he guessed no more what was in it than the man in the moon. the next day but one brought the belle helen herself into port, with the terrible news not only of having been attacked at night by pirates, but also that sir john malyoe was dead. for whether it was the sudden shock of the sight of his old captain's face--whom he himself had murdered and thought dead and buried--flashing so out against the darkness, or whether it was the strain of passion that overset his brains, certain it is that when the pirates left the belle helen, carrying with them the young lady and barnaby and the traveling trunks, those left aboard the belle helen found sir john malyoe lying in a fit upon the floor, frothing at the mouth and black in the face, as though he had been choked, and so took him away to his berth, where, the next morning about ten o'clock, he died, without once having opened his eyes or spoken a single word. as for the villain manservant, no one ever saw him afterward; though whether he jumped overboard, or whether the pirates who so attacked the ship had carried him away bodily, who shall say? mr. hartright, after he had heard barnaby's story, had been very uncertain as to the ownership of the chest of treasure that had been left by those men for barnaby, but the news of the death of sir john malyoe made the matter very easy for him to decide. for surely if that treasure did not belong to barnaby, there could be no doubt that it must belong to his wife, she being sir john malyoe's legal heir. and so it was that that great fortune (in actual computation amounting to upward of sixty-three thousand pounds) came to barnaby true, the grandson of that famous pirate, william brand; the english estate in devonshire, in default of male issue of sir john malyoe, descended to captain malyoe, whom the young lady was to have married. as for the other case of treasure, it was never heard of again, nor could barnaby ever guess whether it was divided as booty among the pirates, or whether they had carried it away with them to some strange and foreign land, there to share it among themselves. and so the ending of the story, with only this to observe, that whether that strange appearance of captain brand's face by the light of the pistol was a ghostly and spiritual appearance, or whether he was present in flesh and blood, there is only to say that he was never heard of again; nor had he ever been heard of till that time since the day he was so shot from behind by capt. john malyoe on the banks of the rio cobra river in the year . chapter iii. with the buccaneers being an account of certain adventures that befell henry mostyn under capt. h. morgan in the year - i. although this narration has more particularly to do with the taking of the spanish vice admiral in the harbor of porto bello, and of the rescue therefrom of le sieur simon, his wife and daughter (the adventure of which was successfully achieved by captain morgan, the famous buccaneer), we shall, nevertheless, premise something of the earlier history of master harry mostyn, whom you may, if you please, consider as the hero of the several circumstances recounted in these pages. in the year our hero's father embarked from portsmouth, in england, for the barbados, where he owned a considerable sugar plantation. thither to those parts of america he transported with himself his whole family, of whom our master harry was the fifth of eight children--a great lusty fellow as little fitted for the church (for which he was designed) as could be. at the time of this story, though not above sixteen years old, master harry mostyn was as big and well-grown as many a man of twenty, and of such a reckless and dare-devil spirit that no adventure was too dangerous or too mischievous for him to embark upon. at this time there was a deal of talk in those parts of the americas concerning captain morgan, and the prodigious successes he was having pirating against the spaniards. this man had once been an indentured servant with mr. rolls, a sugar factor at the barbados. having served out his time, and being of lawless disposition, possessing also a prodigious appetite for adventure, he joined with others of his kidney, and, purchasing a caravel of three guns, embarked fairly upon that career of piracy the most successful that ever was heard of in the world. master harry had known this man very well while he was still with mr. rolls, serving as a clerk at that gentleman's sugar wharf, a tall, broad-shouldered, strapping fellow, with red cheeks, and thick red lips, and rolling blue eyes, and hair as red as any chestnut. many knew him for a bold, gruff-spoken man, but no one at that time suspected that he had it in him to become so famous and renowned as he afterward grew to be. the fame of his exploits had been the talk of those parts for above a twelvemonth, when, in the latter part of the year , captain morgan, having made a very successful expedition against the spaniards into the gulf of campeche--where he took several important purchases from the plate fleet--came to the barbados, there to fit out another such venture, and to enlist recruits. he and certain other adventurers had purchased a vessel of some five hundred tons, which they proposed to convert into a pirate by cutting portholes for cannon, and running three or four carronades across her main deck. the name of this ship, be it mentioned, was the good samaritan, as ill-fitting a name as could be for such a craft, which, instead of being designed for the healing of wounds, was intended to inflict such devastation as those wicked men proposed. here was a piece of mischief exactly fitted to our hero's tastes; wherefore, having made up a bundle of clothes, and with not above a shilling in his pocket, he made an excursion into the town to seek for captain morgan. there he found the great pirate established at an ordinary, with a little court of ragamuffins and swashbucklers gathered about him, all talking very loud, and drinking healths in raw rum as though it were sugared water. and what a fine figure our buccaneer had grown, to be sure! how different from the poor, humble clerk upon the sugar wharf! what a deal of gold braid! what a fine, silver-hilled spanish sword! what a gay velvet sling, hung with three silver-mounted pistols! if master harry's mind had not been made up before, to be sure such a spectacle of glory would have determined it. this figure of war our hero asked to step aside with him, and when they had come into a corner, proposed to the other what he intended, and that he had a mind to enlist as a gentleman adventurer upon this expedition. upon this our rogue of a buccaneer captain burst out a-laughing, and fetching master harry a great thump upon the back, swore roundly that he would make a man of him, and that it was a pity to make a parson out of so good a piece of stuff. nor was captain morgan less good than his word, for when the good samaritan set sail with a favoring wind for the island of jamaica, master harry found himself established as one of the adventurers aboard. ii could you but have seen the town of port royal as it appeared in the year you would have beheld a sight very well worth while looking upon. there were no fine houses at that time, and no great counting houses built of brick, such as you may find nowadays, but a crowd of board and wattled huts huddled along the streets, and all so gay with flags and bits of color that vanity fair itself could not have been gayer. to this place came all the pirates and buccaneers that infested those parts, and men shouted and swore and gambled, and poured out money like water, and then maybe wound up their merrymaking by dying of fever. for the sky in these torrid latitudes is all full of clouds overhead, and as hot as any blanket, and when the sun shone forth it streamed down upon the smoking sands so that the houses were ovens and the streets were furnaces; so it was little wonder that men died like rats in a hole. but little they appeared to care for that; so that everywhere you might behold a multitude of painted women and jews and merchants and pirates, gaudy with red scarfs and gold braid and all sorts of odds and ends of foolish finery, all fighting and gambling and bartering for that ill-gotten treasure of the be-robbed spaniard. here, arriving, captain morgan found a hearty welcome, and a message from the governor awaiting him, the message bidding him attend his excellency upon the earliest occasion that offered. whereupon, taking our hero (of whom he had grown prodigiously fond) along with him, our pirate went, without any loss of time, to visit sir thomas modiford, who was then the royal governor of all this devil's brew of wickedness. they found his excellency seated in a great easy-chair, under the shadow of a slatted veranda, the floor whereof was paved with brick. he was clad, for the sake of coolness, only in his shirt, breeches, and stockings, and he wore slippers on his feet. he was smoking a great cigarro of tobacco, and a goblet of lime juice and water and rum stood at his elbow on a table. here, out of the glare of the heat, it was all very cool and pleasant, with a sea breeze blowing violently in through the slats, setting them a-rattling now and then, and stirring sir thomas's long hair, which he had pushed back for the sake of coolness. the purport of this interview, i may tell you, concerned the rescue of one le sieur simon, who, together with his wife and daughter, was held captive by the spaniards. this gentleman adventurer (le sieur simon) had, a few years before, been set up by the buccaneers as governor of the island of santa catharina. this place, though well fortified by the spaniards, the buccaneers had seized upon, establishing themselves thereon, and so infesting the commerce of those seas that no spanish fleet was safe from them. at last the spaniards, no longer able to endure these assaults against their commerce, sent a great force against the freebooters to drive them out of their island stronghold. this they did, retaking santa catharina, together with its governor, his wife, and daughter, as well as the whole garrison of buccaneers. this garrison was sent by their conquerors, some to the galleys, some to the mines, some to no man knows where. the governor himself--le sieur simon--was to be sent to spain, there to stand his trial for piracy. the news of all this, i may tell you, had only just been received in jamaica, having been brought thither by a spanish captain, one don roderiguez sylvia, who was, besides, the bearer of dispatches to the spanish authorities relating the whole affair. such, in fine, was the purport of this interview, and as our hero and his captain walked back together from the governor's house to the ordinary where they had taken up their inn, the buccaneer assured his companion that he purposed to obtain those dispatches from the spanish captain that very afternoon, even if he had to use force to seize them. all this, you are to understand, was undertaken only because of the friendship that the governor and captain morgan entertained for le sieur simon. and, indeed, it was wonderful how honest and how faithful were these wicked men in their dealings with one another. for you must know that governor modiford and le sieur simon and the buccaneers were all of one kidney--all taking a share in the piracies of those times, and all holding by one another as though they were the honestest men in the world. hence it was they were all so determined to rescue le sieur simon from the spaniards. iii having reached his ordinary after his interview with the governor, captain morgan found there a number of his companions, such as usually gathered at that place to be in attendance upon him--some, those belonging to the good samaritan; others, those who hoped to obtain benefits from him; others, those ragamuffins who gathered around him because he was famous, and because it pleased them to be of his court and to be called his followers. for nearly always your successful pirate had such a little court surrounding him. finding a dozen or more of these rascals gathered there, captain morgan informed them of his present purpose that he was going to find the spanish captain to demand his papers of him, and calling upon them to accompany him. with this following at his heels, our buccaneer started off down the street, his lieutenant, a cornishman named bartholomew davis, upon one hand and our hero upon the other. so they paraded the streets for the best part of an hour before they found the spanish captain. for whether he had got wind that captain morgan was searching for him, or whether, finding himself in a place so full of his enemies, he had buried himself in some place of hiding, it is certain that the buccaneers had traversed pretty nearly the whole town before they discovered that he was lying at a certain auberge kept by a portuguese jew. thither they went, and thither captain morgan entered with the utmost coolness and composure of demeanor, his followers crowding noisily in at his heels. the space within was very dark, being lighted only by the doorway and by two large slatted windows or openings in the front. in this dark, hot place not over-roomy at the best--were gathered twelve or fifteen villainous-appearing men, sitting at tables and drinking together, waited upon by the jew and his wife. our hero had no trouble in discovering which of this lot of men was captain sylvia, for not only did captain morgan direct his glance full of war upon him, but the spaniard was clad with more particularity and with more show of finery than any of the others who were there. him captain morgan approached and demanded his papers, whereunto the other replied with such a jabber of spanish and english that no man could have understood what he said. to this captain morgan in turn replied that he must have those papers, no matter what it might cost him to obtain them, and thereupon drew a pistol from his sling and presented it at the other's head. at this threatening action the innkeeper's wife fell a-screaming, and the jew, as in a frenzy, besought them not to tear the house down about his ears. our hero could hardly tell what followed, only that all of a sudden there was a prodigious uproar of combat. knives flashed everywhere, and then a pistol was fired so close to his head that he stood like one stunned, hearing some one crying out in a loud voice, but not knowing whether it was a friend or a foe who had been shot. then another pistol shot so deafened what was left of master harry's hearing that his ears rang for above an hour afterward. by this time the whole place was full of gunpowder smoke, and there was the sound of blows and oaths and outcrying and the clashing of knives. as master harry, who had no great stomach for such a combat, and no very particular interest in the quarrel, was making for the door, a little portuguese, as withered and as nimble as an ape, came ducking under the table and plunged at his stomach with a great long knife, which, had it effected its object, would surely have ended his adventures then and there. finding himself in such danger, master harry snatched up a heavy chair, and, flinging it at his enemy, who was preparing for another attack, he fairly ran for it out of the door, expecting every instant to feel the thrust of the blade betwixt his ribs. a considerable crowd had gathered outside, and others, hearing the uproar, were coming running to join them. with these our hero stood, trembling like a leaf, and with cold chills running up and down his back like water at the narrow escape from the danger that had threatened him. nor shall you think him a coward, for you must remember he was hardly sixteen years old at the time, and that this was the first affair of the sort he had encountered. afterward, as you shall learn, he showed that he could exhibit courage enough at a pinch. while he stood there, endeavoring to recover his composure, the while the tumult continued within, suddenly two men came running almost together out of the door, a crowd of the combatants at their heels. the first of these men was captain sylvia; the other, who was pursuing him, was captain morgan. as the crowd about the door parted before the sudden appearing of these, the spanish captain, perceiving, as he supposed, a way of escape opened to him, darted across the street with incredible swiftness toward an alleyway upon the other side. upon this, seeing his prey like to get away from him, captain morgan snatched a pistol out of his sling, and resting it for an instant across his arm, fired at the flying spaniard, and that with so true an aim that, though the street was now full of people, the other went tumbling over and over all of a heap in the kennel, where he lay, after a twitch or two, as still as a log. at the sound of the shot and the fall of the man the crowd scattered upon all sides, yelling and screaming, and the street being thus pretty clear, captain morgan ran across the way to where his victim lay, his smoking pistol still in his hand, and our hero following close at his heels. our poor harry had never before beheld a man killed thus in an instant who a moment before had been so full of life and activity, for when captain morgan turned the body over upon its back he could perceive at a glance, little as he knew of such matters, that the man was stone-dead. and, indeed, it was a dreadful sight for him who was hardly more than a child. he stood rooted for he knew not how long, staring down at the dead face with twitching fingers and shuddering limbs. meantime a great crowd was gathering about them again. as for captain morgan, he went about his work with the utmost coolness and deliberation imaginable, unbuttoning the waistcoat and the shirt of the man he had murdered with fingers that neither twitched nor shook. there were a gold cross and a bunch of silver medals hung by a whipcord about the neck of the dead man. this captain morgan broke away with a snap, reaching the jingling baubles to harry, who took them in his nerveless hand and fingers that he could hardly close upon what they held. the papers captain morgan found in a wallet in an inner breast pocket of the spaniard's waistcoat. these he examined one by one, and finding them to his satisfaction, tied them up again, and slipped the wallet and its contents into his own pocket. then for the first time he appeared to observe master harry, who, indeed, must have been standing, the perfect picture of horror and dismay. whereupon, bursting out a-laughing, and slipping the pistol he had used back into its sling again, he fetched poor harry a great slap upon the back, bidding him be a man, for that he would see many such sights as this. but indeed, it was no laughing matter for poor master harry, for it was many a day before his imagination could rid itself of the image of the dead spaniard's face; and as he walked away down the street with his companions, leaving the crowd behind them, and the dead body where it lay for its friends to look after, his ears humming and ringing from the deafening noise of the pistol shots fired in the close room, and the sweat trickling down his face in drops, he knew not whether all that had passed had been real, or whether it was a dream from which he might presently awaken. iv the papers captain morgan had thus seized upon as the fruit of the murder he had committed must have been as perfectly satisfactory to him as could be, for having paid a second visit that evening to governor modiford, the pirate lifted anchor the next morning and made sail toward the gulf of darien. there, after cruising about in those waters for about a fortnight without falling in with a vessel of any sort, at the end of that time they overhauled a caravel bound from porto bello to cartagena, which vessel they took, and finding her loaded with nothing better than raw hides, scuttled and sank her, being then about twenty leagues from the main of cartagena. from the captain of this vessel they learned that the plate fleet was then lying in the harbor of porto bello, not yet having set sail thence, but waiting for the change of the winds before embarking for spain. besides this, which was a good deal more to their purpose, the spaniards told the pirates that the sieur simon, his wife, and daughter were confined aboard the vice admiral of that fleet, and that the name of the vice admiral was the santa maria y valladolid. so soon as captain morgan had obtained the information he desired he directed his course straight for the bay of santo blaso, where he might lie safely within the cape of that name without any danger of discovery (that part of the mainland being entirely uninhabited) and yet be within twenty or twenty-five leagues of porto bello. having come safely to this anchorage, he at once declared his intentions to his companions, which were as follows: that it was entirely impossible for them to hope to sail their vessel into the harbor of porto bello, and to attack the spanish vice admiral where he lay in the midst of the armed flota; wherefore, if anything was to be accomplished, it must be undertaken by some subtle design rather than by open-handed boldness. having so prefaced what he had to say, he now declared that it was his purpose to take one of the ship's boats and to go in that to porto bello, trusting for some opportunity to occur to aid him either in the accomplishment of his aims or in the gaining of some further information. having thus delivered himself, he invited any who dared to do so to volunteer for the expedition, telling them plainly that he would constrain no man to go against his will, for that at best it was a desperate enterprise, possessing only the recommendation that in its achievement the few who undertook it would gain great renown, and perhaps a very considerable booty. and such was the incredible influence of this bold man over his companions, and such was their confidence in his skill and cunning, that not above a dozen of all those aboard hung back from the undertaking, but nearly every man desired to be taken. of these volunteers captain morgan chose twenty--among others our master harry--and having arranged with his lieutenant that if nothing was heard from the expedition at the end of three days he should sail for jamaica to await news, he embarked upon that enterprise, which, though never heretofore published, was perhaps the boldest and the most desperate of all those that have since made his name so famous. for what could be a more unparalleled undertaking than for a little open boat, containing but twenty men, to enter the harbor of the third strongest fortress of the spanish mainland with the intention of cutting out the spanish vice admiral from the midst of a whole fleet of powerfully armed vessels, and how many men in all the world do you suppose would venture such a thing? but there is this to be said of that great buccaneer: that if he undertook enterprises so desperate as this, he yet laid his plans so well that they never went altogether amiss. moreover, the very desperation of his successes was of such a nature that no man could suspect that he would dare to undertake such things, and accordingly his enemies were never prepared to guard against his attacks. aye, had he but worn the king's colors and served under the rules of honest war, he might have become as great and as renowned as admiral blake himself. but all that is neither here nor there; what i have to tell you now is that captain morgan in this open boat with his twenty mates reached the cape of salmedina toward the fall of day. arriving within view of the harbor they discovered the plate fleet at anchor, with two men-of-war and an armed galley riding as a guard at the mouth of the harbor, scarce half a league distant from the other ships. having spied the fleet in this posture, the pirates presently pulled down their sails and rowed along the coast, feigning to be a spanish vessel from nombre de dios. so hugging the shore, they came boldly within the harbor, upon the opposite side of which you might see the fortress a considerable distance away. being now come so near to the consummation of their adventure, captain morgan required every man to make an oath to stand by him to the last, whereunto our hero swore as heartily as any man aboard, although his heart, i must needs confess, was beating at a great rate at the approach of what was to happen. having thus received the oaths of all his followers, captain morgan commanded the surgeon of the expedition that, when the order was given, he, the medico, was to bore six holes in the boat, so that, it sinking under them, they might all be compelled to push forward, with no chance of retreat. and such was the ascendancy of this man over his followers, and such was their awe of him, that not one of them uttered even so much as a murmur, though what he had commanded the surgeon to do pledged them either to victory or to death, with no chance to choose between. nor did the surgeon question the orders he had received, much less did he dream of disobeying them. by now it had fallen pretty dusk, whereupon, spying two fishermen in a canoe at a little distance, captain morgan demanded of them in spanish which vessel of those at anchor in the harbor was the vice admiral, for that he had dispatches for the captain thereof. whereupon the fishermen, suspecting nothing, pointed to them a galleon of great size riding at anchor not half a league distant. toward this vessel accordingly the pirates directed their course, and when they had come pretty nigh, captain morgan called upon the surgeon that now it was time for him to perform the duty that had been laid upon him. whereupon the other did as he was ordered, and that so thoroughly that the water presently came gushing into the boat in great streams, whereat all hands pulled for the galleon as though every next moment was to be their last. and what do you suppose were our hero's emotions at this time? like all in the boat, his awe of captain morgan was so great that i do believe he would rather have gone to the bottom than have questioned his command, even when it was to scuttle the boat. nevertheless, when he felt the cold water gushing about his feet (for he had taken off his shoes and stockings) he became possessed with such a fear of being drowned that even the spanish galleon had no terrors for him if he could only feel the solid planks thereof beneath his feet. indeed, all the crew appeared to be possessed of a like dismay, for they pulled at the oars with such an incredible force that they were under the quarter of the galleon before the boat was half filled with water. here, as they approached, it then being pretty dark and the moon not yet having risen, the watch upon the deck hailed them, whereupon captain morgan called out in spanish that he was capt. alvarez mendazo, and that he brought dispatches for the vice admiral. but at that moment, the boat being now so full of water as to be logged, it suddenly tilted upon one side as though to sink beneath them, whereupon all hands, without further orders, went scrambling up the side, as nimble as so many monkeys, each armed with a pistol in one hand and a cutlass in the other, and so were upon deck before the watch could collect his wits to utter any outcry or to give any other alarm than to cry out, "jesu bless us! who are these?" at which words somebody knocked him down with the butt of a pistol, though who it was our hero could not tell in the darkness and the hurry. before any of those upon deck could recover from their alarm or those from below come up upon deck, a part of the pirates, under the carpenter and the surgeon, had run to the gun room and had taken possession of the arms, while captain morgan, with master harry and a portuguese called murillo braziliano, had flown with the speed of the wind into the great cabin. here they found the captain of the vice admiral playing at cards with the sieur simon and a friend, madam simon and her daughter being present. captain morgan instantly set his pistol at the breast of the spanish captain, swearing with a most horrible fierce countenance that if he spake a word or made any outcry he was a dead man. as for our hero, having now got his hand into the game, he performed the same service for the spaniard's friend, declaring he would shoot him dead if he opened his lips or lifted so much as a single finger. all this while the ladies, not comprehending what had occurred, had sat as mute as stones; but now having so far recovered themselves as to find a voice, the younger of the two fell to screaming, at which the sieur simon called out to her to be still, for these were friends who had come to help them, and not enemies who had come to harm them. all this, you are to understand, occupied only a little while, for in less than a minute three or four of the pirates had come into the cabin, who, together with the portuguese, proceeded at once to bind the two spaniards hand and foot, and to gag them. this being done to our buccaneer's satisfaction, and the spanish captain being stretched out in the corner of the cabin, he instantly cleared his countenance of its terrors, and bursting forth into a great loud laugh, clapped his hand to the sieur simon's, which he wrung with the best will in the world. having done this, and being in a fine humor after this his first success, he turned to the two ladies. "and this, ladies," said he, taking our hero by the hand and presenting him, "is a young gentleman who has embarked with me to learn the trade of piracy. i recommend him to your politeness." think what a confusion this threw our master harry into, to be sure, who at his best was never easy in the company of strange ladies! you may suppose what must have been his emotions to find himself thus introduced to the attention of madam simon and her daughter, being at the time in his bare feet, clad only in his shirt and breeches, and with no hat upon his head, a pistol in one hand and a cutlass in the other. however, he was not left for long to his embarrassments, for almost immediately after he had thus far relaxed, captain morgan fell of a sudden serious again, and bidding the sieur simon to get his ladies away into some place of safety, for the most hazardous part of this adventure was yet to occur, he quitted the cabin with master harry and the other pirates (for you may call him a pirate now) at his heels. having come upon deck, our hero beheld that a part of the spanish crew were huddled forward in a flock like so many sheep (the others being crowded below with the hatches fastened upon them), and such was the terror of the pirates, and so dreadful the name of henry morgan, that not one of those poor wretches dared to lift up his voice to give any alarm, nor even to attempt an escape by jumping overboard. at captain morgan's orders, these men, together with certain of his own company, ran nimbly aloft and began setting the sails, which, the night now having fallen pretty thick, was not for a good while observed by any of the vessels riding at anchor about them. indeed, the pirates might have made good their escape, with at most only a shot or two from the men-of-war, had it not then been about the full of the moon, which, having arisen, presently discovered to those of the fleet that lay closest about them what was being done aboard the vice admiral. at this one of the vessels hailed them, and then after a while, having no reply, hailed them again. even then the spaniards might not immediately have suspected anything was amiss but only that the vice admiral for some reason best known to himself was shifting his anchorage, had not one of the spaniards aloft--but who it was captain morgan was never able to discover--answered the hail by crying out that the vice admiral had been seized by the pirates. at this the alarm was instantly given and the mischief done, for presently there was a tremendous bustle through that part of the fleet lying nighest the vice admiral--a deal of shouting of orders, a beating of drums, and the running hither and thither of the crews. but by this time the sails of the vice admiral had filled with a strong land breeze that was blowing up the harbor, whereupon the carpenter, at captain morgan's orders, having cut away both anchors, the galleon presently bore away up the harbor, gathering headway every moment with the wind nearly dead astern. the nearest vessel was the only one that for the moment was able to offer any hindrance. this ship, having by this time cleared away one of its guns, was able to fire a parting shot against the vice-admiral, striking her somewhere forward, as our hero could see by a great shower of splinters that flew up in the moonlight. at the sound of the shot all the vessels of the flota not yet disturbed by the alarm were aroused at once, so that the pirates had the satisfaction of knowing that they would have to run the gantlet of all the ships between them and the open sea before they could reckon themselves escaped. and, indeed, to our hero's mind it seemed that the battle which followed must have been the most terrific cannonade that was ever heard in the world. it was not so ill at first, for it was some while before the spaniards could get their guns clear for action, they being not the least in the world prepared for such an occasion as this. but by and by first one and then another ship opened fire upon the galleon, until it seemed to our hero that all the thunders of heaven let loose upon them could not have created a more prodigious uproar, and that it was not possible that they could any of them escape destruction. by now the moon had risen full and round, so that the clouds of smoke that rose in the air appeared as white as snow. the air seemed full of the hiss and screaming of shot, each one of which, when it struck the galleon, was magnified by our hero's imagination into ten times its magnitude from the crash which it delivered and from the cloud of splinters it would cast up into the moonlight. at last he suddenly beheld one poor man knocked sprawling across the deck, who, as he raised his arm from behind the mast, disclosed that the hand was gone from it, and that the shirt sleeve was red with blood in the moonlight. at this sight all the strength fell away from poor harry, and he felt sure that a like fate or even a worse must be in store for him. but, after all, this was nothing to what it might have been in broad daylight, for what with the darkness of night, and the little preparation the spaniards could make for such a business, and the extreme haste with which they discharged their guns (many not understanding what was the occasion of all this uproar), nearly all the shot flew so wide of the mark that not above one in twenty struck that at which it was aimed. meantime captain morgan, with the sieur simon, who had followed him upon deck, stood just above where our hero lay behind the shelter of the bulwark. the captain had lit a pipe of tobacco, and he stood now in the bright moonlight close to the rail, with his hands behind him, looking out ahead with the utmost coolness imaginable, and paying no more attention to the din of battle than though it were twenty leagues away. now and then he would take his pipe from his lips to utter an order to the man at the wheel. excepting this he stood there hardly moving at all, the wind blowing his long red hair over his shoulders. had it not been for the armed galley the pirates might have got the galleon away with no great harm done in spite of all this cannonading, for the man-of-war which rode at anchor nighest to them at the mouth of the harbor was still so far away that they might have passed it by hugging pretty close to the shore, and that without any great harm being done to them in the darkness. but just at this moment, when the open water lay in sight, came this galley pulling out from behind the point of the shore in such a manner as either to head our pirates off entirely or else to compel them to approach so near to the man-of-war that that latter vessel could bring its guns to bear with more effect. this galley, i must tell you, was like others of its kind such as you may find in these waters, the hull being long and cut low to the water so as to allow the oars to dip freely. the bow was sharp and projected far out ahead, mounting a swivel upon it, while at the stern a number of galleries built one above another into a castle gave shelter to several companies of musketeers as well as the officers commanding them. our hero could behold the approach of this galley from above the starboard bulwarks, and it appeared to him impossible for them to hope to escape either it or the man-of-war. but still captain morgan maintained the same composure that he had exhibited all the while, only now and then delivering an order to the man at the wheel, who, putting the helm over, threw the bows of the galleon around more to the larboard, as though to escape the bow of the galley and get into the open water beyond. this course brought the pirates ever closer and closer to the man-of-war, which now began to add its thunder to the din of the battle, and with so much more effect that at every discharge you might hear the crashing and crackling of splintered wood, and now and then the outcry or groaning of some man who was hurt. indeed, had it been daylight, they must at this juncture all have perished, though, as was said, what with the night and the confusion and the hurry, they escaped entire destruction, though more by a miracle than through any policy upon their own part. meantime the galley, steering as though to come aboard of them, had now come so near that it, too, presently began to open its musketry fire upon them, so that the humming and rattling of bullets were presently added to the din of cannonading. in two minutes more it would have been aboard of them, when in a moment captain morgan roared out of a sudden to the man at the helm to put it hard a starboard. in response the man ran the wheel over with the utmost quickness, and the galleon, obeying her helm very readily, came around upon a course which, if continued, would certainly bring them into collision with their enemy. it is possible at first the spaniards imagined the pirates intended to escape past their stern, for they instantly began backing oars to keep them from getting past, so that the water was all of a foam about them, at the same time they did this they poured in such a fire of musketry that it was a miracle that no more execution was accomplished than happened. as for our hero, methinks for the moment he forgot all about everything else than as to whether or no his captain's maneuver would succeed, for in the very first moment he divined, as by some instinct, what captain morgan purposed doing. at this moment, so particular in the execution of this nice design, a bullet suddenly struck down the man at the wheel. hearing the sharp outcry, our harry turned to see him fall forward, and then to his hands and knees upon the deck, the blood running in a black pool beneath him, while the wheel, escaping from his hands, spun over until the spokes were all of a mist. in a moment the ship would have fallen off before the wind had not our hero, leaping to the wheel (even as captain morgan shouted an order for some one to do so), seized the flying spokes, whirling them back again, and so bringing the bow of the galleon up to its former course. in the first moment of this effort he had reckoned of nothing but of carrying out his captain's designs. he neither thought of cannon balls nor of bullets. but now that his task was accomplished, he came suddenly back to himself to find the galleries of the galley aflame with musket shots, and to become aware with a most horrible sinking of the spirits that all the shots therefrom were intended for him. he cast his eyes about him with despair, but no one came to ease him of his task, which, having undertaken, he had too much spirit to resign from carrying through to the end, though he was well aware that the very next instant might mean his sudden and violent death. his ears hummed and rang, and his brain swam as light as a feather. i know not whether he breathed, but he shut his eyes tight as though that might save him from the bullets that were raining about him. at this moment the spaniards must have discovered for the first time the pirates' design, for of a sudden they ceased firing, and began to shout out a multitude of orders, while the oars lashed the water all about with a foam. but it was too late then for them to escape, for within a couple of seconds the galleon struck her enemy a blow so violent upon the larboard quarter as nearly to hurl our harry upon the deck, and then with a dreadful, horrible crackling of wood, commingled with a yelling of men's voices, the galley was swung around upon her side, and the galleon, sailing into the open sea, left nothing of her immediate enemy but a sinking wreck, and the water dotted all over with bobbing heads and waving hands in the moonlight. and now, indeed, that all danger was past and gone, there were plenty to come running to help our hero at the wheel. as for captain morgan, having come down upon the main deck, he fetches the young helmsman a clap upon the back. "well, master harry," says he, "and did i not tell you i would make a man of you?" whereat our poor harry fell a-laughing, but with a sad catch in his voice, for his hands trembled as with an ague, and were as cold as ice. as for his emotions, god knows he was nearer crying than laughing, if captain morgan had but known it. nevertheless, though undertaken under the spur of the moment, i protest it was indeed a brave deed, and i cannot but wonder how many young gentlemen of sixteen there are to-day who, upon a like occasion, would act as well as our harry. v the balance of our hero's adventures were of a lighter sort than those already recounted, for the next morning the spanish captain (a very polite and well-bred gentleman) having fitted him out with a shift of his own clothes, master harry was presented in a proper form to the ladies. for captain morgan, if he had felt a liking for the young man before, could not now show sufficient regard for him. he ate in the great cabin and was petted by all. madam simon, who was a fat and red-faced lady, was forever praising him, and the young miss, who was extremely well-looking, was as continually making eyes at him. she and master harry, i must tell you, would spend hours together, she making pretense of teaching him french, although he was so possessed with a passion of love that he was nigh suffocated with it. she, upon her part, perceiving his emotions, responded with extreme good nature and complacency, so that had our hero been older, and the voyage proved longer, he might have become entirely enmeshed in the toils of his fair siren. for all this while, you are to understand, the pirates were making sail straight for jamaica, which they reached upon the third day in perfect safety. in that time, however, the pirates had well-nigh gone crazy for joy; for when they came to examine their purchase they discovered her cargo to consist of plate to the prodigious sum of l , in value. 'twas a wonder they did not all make themselves drunk for joy. no doubt they would have done so had not captain morgan, knowing they were still in the exact track of the spanish fleets, threatened them that the first man among them who touched a drop of rum without his permission he would shoot him dead upon the deck. this threat had such effect that they all remained entirely sober until they had reached port royal harbor, which they did about nine o'clock in the morning. and now it was that our hero's romance came all tumbling down about his ears with a run. for they had hardly come to anchor in the harbor when a boat came from a man-of-war, and who should come stepping aboard but lieutenant grantley (a particular friend of our hero's father) and his own eldest brother thomas, who, putting on a very stern face, informed master harry that he was a desperate and hardened villain who was sure to end at the gallows, and that he was to go immediately back to his home again. he told our embryo pirate that his family had nigh gone distracted because of his wicked and ungrateful conduct. nor could our hero move him from his inflexible purpose. "what," says our harry, "and will you not then let me wait until our prize is divided and i get my share?" "prize, indeed!" says his brother. "and do you then really think that your father would consent to your having a share in this terrible bloody and murthering business?" and so, after a good deal of argument, our hero was constrained to go; nor did he even have an opportunity to bid adieu to his inamorata. nor did he see her any more, except from a distance, she standing on the poop deck as he was rowed away from her, her face all stained with crying. for himself, he felt that there was no more joy in life; nevertheless, standing up in the stern of the boat, he made shift, though with an aching heart, to deliver her a fine bow with the hat he had borrowed from the spanish captain, before his brother bade him sit down again. and so to the ending of this story, with only this to relate, that our master harry, so far from going to the gallows, became in good time a respectable and wealthy sugar merchant with an english wife and a fine family of children, whereunto, when the mood was upon him, he has sometimes told these adventures (and sundry others not here recounted), as i have told them unto you. chapter iv. tom chist and the treasure box an old-time story of the days of captain kidd i to tell about tom chist, and how he got his name, and how he came to be living at the little settlement of henlopen, just inside the mouth of the delaware bay, the story must begin as far back as , when a great storm swept the atlantic coast from end to end. during the heaviest part of the hurricane a bark went ashore on the hen-and-chicken shoals, just below cape henlopen and at the mouth of the delaware bay, and tom chist was the only soul of all those on board the ill-fated vessel who escaped alive. this story must first be told, because it was on account of the strange and miraculous escape that happened to him at that time that he gained the name that was given to him. even as late as that time of the american colonies, the little scattered settlement at henlopen, made up of english, with a few dutch and swedish people, was still only a spot upon the face of the great american wilderness that spread away, with swamp and forest, no man knew how far to the westward. that wilderness was not only full of wild beasts, but of indian savages, who every fall would come in wandering tribes to spend the winter along the shores of the fresh-water lakes below henlopen. there for four or five months they would live upon fish and clams and wild ducks and geese, chipping their arrowheads, and making their earthenware pots and pans under the lee of the sand hills and pine woods below the capes. sometimes on sundays, when the rev. hillary jones would be preaching in the little log church back in the woods, these half-clad red savages would come in from the cold, and sit squatting in the back part of the church, listening stolidly to the words that had no meaning for them. but about the wreck of the bark in . such a wreck as that which then went ashore on the hen-and-chicken shoals was a godsend to the poor and needy settlers in the wilderness where so few good things ever came. for the vessel went to pieces during the night, and the next morning the beach was strewn with wreckage--boxes and barrels, chests and spars, timbers and planks, a plentiful and bountiful harvest, to be gathered up by the settlers as they chose, with no one to forbid or prevent them. the name of the bark, as found painted on some of the water barrels and sea chests, was the bristol merchant, and she no doubt hailed from england. as was said, the only soul who escaped alive off the wreck was tom chist. a settler, a fisherman named matt abrahamson, and his daughter molly, found tom. he was washed up on the beach among the wreckage, in a great wooden box which had been securely tied around with a rope and lashed between two spars--apparently for better protection in beating through the surf. matt abrahamson thought he had found something of more than usual value when he came upon this chest; but when he cut the cords and broke open the box with his broadax, he could not have been more astonished had he beheld a salamander instead of a baby of nine or ten months old lying half smothered in the blankets that covered the bottom of the chest. matt abrahamson's daughter molly had had a baby who had died a month or so before. so when she saw the little one lying there in the bottom of the chest, she cried out in a great loud voice that the good man had sent her another baby in place of her own. the rain was driving before the hurricane storm in dim, slanting sheets, and so she wrapped up the baby in the man's coat she wore and ran off home without waiting to gather up any more of the wreckage. it was parson jones who gave the foundling his name. when the news came to his ears of what matt abrahamson had found he went over to the fisherman's cabin to see the child. he examined the clothes in which the baby was dressed. they were of fine linen and handsomely stitched, and the reverend gentleman opined that the foundling's parents must have been of quality. a kerchief had been wrapped around the baby's neck and under its arms and tied behind, and in the corner, marked with very fine needlework, were the initials t. c. "what d'ye call him, molly?" said parson jones. he was standing, as he spoke, with his back to the fire, warming his palms before the blaze. the pocket of the greatcoat he wore bulged out with a big case bottle of spirits which he had gathered up out of the wreck that afternoon. "what d'ye call him, molly?" "i'll call him tom, after my own baby." "that goes very well with the initial on the kerchief," said parson jones. "but what other name d'ye give him? let it be something to go with the c." "i don't know," said molly. "why not call him 'chist,' since he was born in a chist out of the sea? 'tom chist'--the name goes off like a flash in the pan." and so "tom chist" he was called and "tom chist" he was christened. so much for the beginning of the history of tom chist. the story of captain kidd's treasure box does not begin until the late spring of . that was the year that the famous pirate captain, coming up from the west indies, sailed his sloop into the delaware bay, where he lay for over a month waiting for news from his friends in new york. for he had sent word to that town asking if the coast was clear for him to return home with the rich prize he had brought from the indian seas and the coast of africa, and meantime he lay there in the delaware bay waiting for a reply. before he left he turned the whole of tom chist's life topsy-turvy with something that he brought ashore. by that time tom chist had grown into a strong-limbed, thick-jointed boy of fourteen or fifteen years of age. it was a miserable dog's life he lived with old matt abrahamson, for the old fisherman was in his cups more than half the time, and when he was so there was hardly a day passed that he did not give tom a curse or a buffet or, as like as not, an actual beating. one would have thought that such treatment would have broken the spirit of the poor little foundling, but it had just the opposite effect upon tom chist, who was one of your stubborn, sturdy, stiff-willed fellows who only grow harder and more tough the more they are ill-treated. it had been a long time now since he had made any outcry or complaint at the hard usage he suffered from old matt. at such times he would shut his teeth and bear whatever came to him, until sometimes the half-drunken old man would be driven almost mad by his stubborn silence. maybe he would stop in the midst of the beating he was administering, and, grinding his teeth, would cry out: "won't ye say naught? won't ye say naught? well, then, i'll see if i can't make ye say naught." when things had reached such a pass as this molly would generally interfere to protect her foster son, and then she and tom would together fight the old man until they had wrenched the stick or the strap out of his hand. then old matt would chase them out of doors and around and around the house for maybe half an hour, until his anger was cool, when he would go back again, and for a time the storm would be over. besides his foster mother, tom chist had a very good friend in parson jones, who used to come over every now and then to abrahamson's hut upon the chance of getting a half dozen fish for breakfast. he always had a kind word or two for tom, who during the winter evenings would go over to the good man's house to learn his letters, and to read and write and cipher a little, so that by now he was able to spell the words out of the bible and the almanac, and knew enough to change tuppence into four ha'pennies. this is the sort of boy tom chist was, and this is the sort of life he led. in the late spring or early summer of captain kidd's sloop sailed into the mouth of the delaware bay and changed the whole fortune of his life. and this is how you come to the story of captain kidd's treasure box. ii old matt abrahamson kept the flat-bottomed boat in which he went fishing some distance down the shore, and in the neighborhood of the old wreck that had been sunk on the shoals. this was the usual fishing ground of the settlers, and here old matt's boat generally lay drawn up on the sand. there had been a thunderstorm that afternoon, and tom had gone down the beach to bale out the boat in readiness for the morning's fishing. it was full moonlight now, as he was returning, and the night sky was full of floating clouds. now and then there was a dull flash to the westward, and once a muttering growl of thunder, promising another storm to come. all that day the pirate sloop had been lying just off the shore back of the capes, and now tom chist could see the sails glimmering pallidly in the moonlight, spread for drying after the storm. he was walking up the shore homeward when he became aware that at some distance ahead of him there was a ship's boat drawn up on the little narrow beach, and a group of men clustered about it. he hurried forward with a good deal of curiosity to see who had landed, but it was not until he had come close to them that he could distinguish who and what they were. then he knew that it must be a party who had come off the pirate sloop. they had evidently just landed, and two men were lifting out a chest from the boat. one of them was a negro, naked to the waist, and the other was a white man in his shirt sleeves, wearing petticoat breeches, a monterey cap upon his head, a red bandanna handkerchief around his neck, and gold earrings in his ears. he had a long, plaited queue hanging down his back, and a great sheath knife dangling from his side. another man, evidently the captain of the party, stood at a little distance as they lifted the chest out of the boat. he had a cane in one hand and a lighted lantern in the other, although the moon was shining as bright as day. he wore jack boots and a handsome laced coat, and he had a long, drooping mustache that curled down below his chin. he wore a fine, feathered hat, and his long black hair hung down upon his shoulders. all this tom chist could see in the moonlight that glinted and twinkled upon the gilt buttons of his coat. they were so busy lifting the chest from the boat that at first they did not observe that tom chist had come up and was standing there. it was the white man with the long, plaited queue and the gold earrings that spoke to him. "boy, what do you want here, boy?" he said, in a rough, hoarse voice. "where d'ye come from?" and then dropping his end of the chest, and without giving tom time to answer, he pointed off down the beach, and said, "you'd better be going about your own business, if you know what's good for you; and don't you come back, or you'll find what you don't want waiting for you." tom saw in a glance that the pirates were all looking at him, and then, without saying a word, he turned and walked away. the man who had spoken to him followed him threateningly for some little distance, as though to see that he had gone away as he was bidden to do. but presently he stopped, and tom hurried on alone, until the boat and the crew and all were dropped away behind and lost in the moonlight night. then he himself stopped also, turned, and looked back whence he had come. there had been something very strange in the appearance of the men he had just seen, something very mysterious in their actions, and he wondered what it all meant, and what they were going to do. he stood for a little while thus looking and listening. he could see nothing, and could hear only the sound of distant talking. what were they doing on the lonely shore thus at night? then, following a sudden impulse, he turned and cut off across the sand hummocks, skirting around inland, but keeping pretty close to the shore, his object being to spy upon them, and to watch what they were about from the back of the low sand hills that fronted the beach. he had gone along some distance in his circuitous return when he became aware of the sound of voices that seemed to be drawing closer to him as he came toward the speakers. he stopped and stood listening, and instantly, as he stopped, the voices stopped also. he crouched there silently in the bright, glimmering moonlight, surrounded by the silent stretches of sand, and the stillness seemed to press upon him like a heavy hand. then suddenly the sound of a man's voice began again, and as tom listened he could hear some one slowly counting. "ninety-one," the voice began, "ninety-two, ninety-three, ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred, one hundred and one"--the slow, monotonous count coming nearer and nearer; "one hundred and two, one hundred and three, one hundred and four," and so on in its monotonous reckoning. suddenly he saw three heads appear above the sand hill, so close to him that he crouched down quickly with a keen thrill, close beside the hummock near which he stood. his first fear was that they might have seen him in the moonlight; but they had not, and his heart rose again as the counting voice went steadily on. "one hundred and twenty," it was saying--"and twenty-one, and twenty-two, and twenty-three, and twenty-four," and then he who was counting came out from behind the little sandy rise into the white and open level of shimmering brightness. it was the man with the cane whom tom had seen some time before the captain of the party who had landed. he carried his cane under his arm now, and was holding his lantern close to something that he held in his hand, and upon which he looked narrowly as he walked with a slow and measured tread in a perfectly straight line across the sand, counting each step as he took it. "and twenty-five, and twenty-six, and twenty-seven, and twenty-eight, and twenty-nine, and thirty." behind him walked two other figures; one was the half-naked negro, the other the man with the plaited queue and the earrings, whom tom had seen lifting the chest out of the boat. now they were carrying the heavy box between them, laboring through the sand with shuffling tread as they bore it onward. as he who was counting pronounced the word "thirty," the two men set the chest down on the sand with a grunt, the white man panting and blowing and wiping his sleeve across his forehead. and immediately he who counted took out a slip of paper and marked something down upon it. they stood there for a long time, during which tom lay behind the sand hummock watching them, and for a while the silence was uninterrupted. in the perfect stillness tom could hear the washing of the little waves beating upon the distant beach, and once the far-away sound of a laugh from one of those who stood by the ship's boat. one, two, three minutes passed, and then the men picked up the chest and started on again; and then again the other man began his counting. "thirty and one, and thirty and two, and thirty and three, and thirty and four"--he walked straight across the level open, still looking intently at that which he held in his hand--"and thirty and five, and thirty and six, and thirty and seven," and so on, until the three figures disappeared in the little hollow between the two sand hills on the opposite side of the open, and still tom could hear the sound of the counting voice in the distance. just as they disappeared behind the hill there was a sudden faint flash of light; and by and by, as tom lay still listening to the counting, he heard, after a long interval, a far-away muffled rumble of distant thunder. he waited for a while, and then arose and stepped to the top of the sand hummock behind which he had been lying. he looked all about him, but there was no one else to be seen. then he stepped down from the hummock and followed in the direction which the pirate captain and the two men carrying the chest had gone. he crept along cautiously, stopping now and then to make sure that he still heard the counting voice, and when it ceased he lay down upon the sand and waited until it began again. presently, so following the pirates, he saw the three figures again in the distance, and, skirting around back of a hill of sand covered with coarse sedge grass, he came to where he overlooked a little open level space gleaming white in the moonlight. the three had been crossing the level of sand, and were now not more than twenty-five paces from him. they had again set down the chest, upon which the white man with the long queue and the gold earrings had seated to rest himself, the negro standing close beside him. the moon shone as bright as day and full upon his face. it was looking directly at tom chist, every line as keen cut with white lights and black shadows as though it had been carved in ivory and jet. he sat perfectly motionless, and tom drew back with a start, almost thinking he had been discovered. he lay silent, his heart beating heavily in his throat; but there was no alarm, and presently he heard the counting begin again, and when he looked once more he saw they were going away straight across the little open. a soft, sliding hillock of sand lay directly in front of them. they did not turn aside, but went straight over it, the leader helping himself up the sandy slope with his cane, still counting and still keeping his eyes fixed upon that which he held in his hand. then they disappeared again behind the white crest on the other side. so tom followed them cautiously until they had gone almost half a mile inland. when next he saw them clearly it was from a little sandy rise which looked down like the crest of a bowl upon the floor of sand below. upon this smooth, white floor the moon beat with almost dazzling brightness. the white man who had helped to carry the chest was now kneeling, busied at some work, though what it was tom at first could not see. he was whittling the point of a stick into a long wooden peg, and when, by and by, he had finished what he was about, he arose and stepped to where he who seemed to be the captain had stuck his cane upright into the ground as though to mark some particular spot. he drew the cane out of the sand, thrusting the stick down in its stead. then he drove the long peg down with a wooden mallet which the negro handed to him. the sharp rapping of the mallet upon the top of the peg sounded loud the perfect stillness, and tom lay watching and wondering what it all meant. the man, with quick-repeated blows, drove the peg farther and farther down into the sand until it showed only two or three inches above the surface. as he finished his work there was another faint flash of light, and by and by another smothered rumble of thunder, and tom, as he looked out toward the westward, saw the silver rim of the round and sharply outlined thundercloud rising slowly up into the sky and pushing the other and broken drifting clouds before it. the two white men were now stooping over the peg, the negro man watching them. then presently the man with the cane started straight away from the peg, carrying the end of a measuring line with him, the other end of which the man with the plaited queue held against the top of the peg. when the pirate captain had reached the end of the measuring line he marked a cross upon the sand, and then again they measured out another stretch of space. so they measured a distance five times over, and then, from where tom lay, he could see the man with the queue drive another peg just at the foot of a sloping rise of sand that swept up beyond into a tall white dune marked sharp and clear against the night sky behind. as soon as the man with the plaited queue had driven the second peg into the ground they began measuring again, and so, still measuring, disappeared in another direction which took them in behind the sand dune where tom no longer could see what they were doing. the negro still sat by the chest where the two had left him, and so bright was the moonlight that from where he lay tom could see the glint of it twinkling in the whites of his eyeballs. presently from behind the hill there came, for the third time, the sharp rapping sound of the mallet driving still another peg, and then after a while the two pirates emerged from behind the sloping whiteness into the space of moonlight again. they came direct to where the chest lay, and the white man and the black man lifting it once more, they walked away across the level of open sand, and so on behind the edge of the hill and out of tom's sight. iii tom chist could no longer see what the pirates were doing, neither did he dare to cross over the open space of sand that now lay between them and him. he lay there speculating as to what they were about, and meantime the storm cloud was rising higher and higher above the horizon, with louder and louder mutterings of thunder following each dull flash from out the cloudy, cavernous depths. in the silence he could hear an occasional click as of some iron implement, and he opined that the pirates were burying the chest, though just where they were at work he could neither see nor tell. still he lay there watching and listening, and by and by a puff of warm air blew across the sand, and a thumping tumble of louder thunder leaped from out the belly of the storm cloud, which every minute was coming nearer and nearer. still tom chist lay watching. suddenly, almost unexpectedly, the three figures reappeared from behind the sand hill, the pirate captain leading the way, and the negro and white man following close behind him. they had gone about halfway across the white, sandy level between the hill and the hummock behind which tom chist lay, when the white man stopped and bent over as though to tie his shoe. this brought the negro a few steps in front of his companion. that which then followed happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly, so swiftly, that tom chist had hardly time to realize what it all meant before it was over. as the negro passed him the white man arose suddenly and silently erect, and tom chist saw the white moonlight glint upon the blade of a great dirk knife which he now held in his hand. he took one, two silent, catlike steps behind the unsuspecting negro. then there was a sweeping flash of the blade in the pallid light, and a blow, the thump of which tom could distinctly hear even from where he lay stretched out upon the sand. there was an instant echoing yell from the black man, who ran stumbling forward, who stopped, who regained his footing, and then stood for an instant as though rooted to the spot. tom had distinctly seen the knife enter his back, and even thought that he had seen the glint of the point as it came out from the breast. meantime the pirate captain had stopped, and now stood with his hand resting upon his cane looking impassively on. then the black man started to run. the white man stood for a while glaring after him; then he, too, started after his victim upon the run. the black man was not very far from tom when he staggered and fell. he tried to rise, then fell forward again, and lay at length. at that instant the first edge of the cloud cut across the moon, and there was a sudden darkness; but in the silence tom heard the sound of another blow and a groan, and then presently a voice calling to the pirate captain that it was all over. he saw the dim form of the captain crossing the level sand, and then, as the moon sailed out from behind the cloud, he saw the white man standing over a black figure that lay motionless upon the sand. then tom chist scrambled up and ran away, plunging down into the hollow of sand that lay in the shadows below. over the next rise he ran, and down again into the next black hollow, and so on over the sliding, shifting ground, panting and gasping. it seemed to him that he could hear footsteps following, and in the terror that possessed him he almost expected every instant to feel the cold knife blade slide between his own ribs in such a thrust from behind as he had seen given to the poor black man. so he ran on like one in a nightmare. his feet grew heavy like lead, he panted and gasped, his breath came hot and dry in his throat. but still he ran and ran until at last he found himself in front of old matt abrahamson's cabin, gasping, panting, and sobbing for breath, his knees relaxed and his thighs trembling with weakness. as he opened the door and dashed into the darkened cabin (for both matt and molly were long ago asleep in bed) there was a flash of light, and even as he slammed to the door behind him there was an instant peal of thunder, heavy as though a great weight had been dropped upon the roof of the sky, so that the doors and windows of the cabin rattled. iv then tom chist crept to bed, trembling, shuddering, bathed in sweat, his heart beating like a trip hammer, and his brain dizzy from that long, terror-inspired race through the soft sand in which he had striven to outstrip he knew not what pursuing horror. for a long, long time he lay awake, trembling and chattering with nervous chills, and when he did fall asleep it was only to drop into monstrous dreams in which he once again saw ever enacted, with various grotesque variations, the tragic drama which his waking eyes had beheld the night before. then came the dawning of the broad, wet daylight, and before the rising of the sun tom was up and out of doors to find the young day dripping with the rain of overnight. his first act was to climb the nearest sand hill and to gaze out toward the offing where the pirate ship had been the day before. it was no longer there. soon afterward matt abrahamson came out of the cabin and he called to tom to go get a bite to eat, for it was time for them to be away fishing. all that morning the recollection of the night before hung over tom chist like a great cloud of boding trouble. it filled the confined area of the little boat and spread over the entire wide spaces of sky and sea that surrounded them. not for a moment was it lifted. even when he was hauling in his wet and dripping line with a struggling fish at the end of it a recurrent memory of what he had seen would suddenly come upon him, and he would groan in spirit at the recollection. he looked at matt abrahamson's leathery face, at his lantern jaws cavernously and stolidly chewing at a tobacco leaf, and it seemed monstrous to him that the old man should be so unconscious of the black cloud that wrapped them all about. when the boat reached the shore again he leaped scrambling to the beach, and as soon as his dinner was eaten he hurried away to find the dominie jones. he ran all the way from abrahamson's hut to the parson's house, hardly stopping once, and when he knocked at the door he was panting and sobbing for breath. the good man was sitting on the back-kitchen doorstep smoking his long pipe of tobacco out into the sunlight, while his wife within was rattling about among the pans and dishes in preparation of their supper, of which a strong, porky smell already filled the air. then tom chist told his story, panting, hurrying, tumbling one word over another in his haste, and parson jones listened, breaking every now and then into an ejaculation of wonder. the light in his pipe went out and the bowl turned cold. "and i don't see why they should have killed the poor black man," said tom, as he finished his narrative. "why, that is very easy enough to understand," said the good reverend man. "'twas a treasure box they buried!" in his agitation mr. jones had risen from his seat and was now stumping up and down, puffing at his empty tobacco pipe as though it were still alight. "a treasure box!" cried out tom. "aye, a treasure box! and that was why they killed the poor black man. he was the only one, d'ye see, besides they two who knew the place where 'twas hid, and now that they've killed him out of the way, there's nobody but themselves knows. the villains--tut, tut, look at that now!" in his excitement the dominie had snapped the stem of his tobacco pipe in two. "why, then," said tom, "if that is so, 'tis indeed a wicked, bloody treasure, and fit to bring a curse upon anybody who finds it!" "'tis more like to bring a curse upon the soul who buried it," said parson jones, "and it may be a blessing to him who finds it. but tell me, tom, do you think you could find the place again where 'twas hid?" "i can't tell that," said tom, "'twas all in among the sand humps, d'ye see, and it was at night into the bargain. maybe we could find the marks of their feet in the sand," he added. "'tis not likely," said the reverend gentleman, "for the storm last night would have washed all that away." "i could find the place," said tom, "where the boat was drawn up on the beach." "why, then, that's something to start from, tom," said his friend. "if we can find that, then maybe we can find whither they went from there." "if i was certain it was a treasure box," cried out tom chist, "i would rake over every foot of sand betwixt here and henlopen to find it." "'twould be like hunting for a pin in a haystack," said the rev. hilary jones. as tom walked away home, it seemed as though a ton's weight of gloom had been rolled away from his soul. the next day he and parson jones were to go treasure-hunting together; it seemed to tom as though he could hardly wait for the time to come. v the next afternoon parson jones and tom chist started off together upon the expedition that made tom's fortune forever. tom carried a spade over his shoulder and the reverend gentleman walked along beside him with his cane. as they jogged along up the beach they talked together about the only thing they could talk about--the treasure box. "and how big did you say 'twas?" quoth the good gentleman. "about so long," said tom chist, measuring off upon the spade, "and about so wide, and this deep." "and what if it should be full of money, tom?" said the reverend gentleman, swinging his cane around and around in wide circles in the excitement of the thought, as he strode along briskly. "suppose it should be full of money, what then?" "by moses!" said tom chist, hurrying to keep up with his friend, "i'd buy a ship for myself, i would, and i'd trade to injyy and to chiny to my own boot, i would. suppose the chist was all full of money, sir, and suppose we should find it; would there be enough in it, d'ye suppose, to buy a ship?" "to be sure there would be enough, tom, enough and to spare, and a good big lump over." "and if i find it 'tis mine to keep, is it, and no mistake?" "why, to be sure it would be yours!" cried out the parson, in a loud voice. "to be sure it would be yours!" he knew nothing of the law, but the doubt of the question began at once to ferment in his brain, and he strode along in silence for a while. "whose else would it be but yours if you find it?" he burst out. "can you tell me that?" "if ever i have a ship of my own," said tom chist, "and if ever i sail to injy in her, i'll fetch ye back the best chist of tea, sir, that ever was fetched from cochin chiny." parson jones burst out laughing. "thankee, tom," he said; "and i'll thankee again when i get my chist of tea. but tell me, tom, didst thou ever hear of the farmer girl who counted her chickens before they were hatched?" it was thus they talked as they hurried along up the beach together, and so came to a place at last where tom stopped short and stood looking about him. "'twas just here," he said, "i saw the boat last night. i know 'twas here, for i mind me of that bit of wreck yonder, and that there was a tall stake drove in the sand just where yon stake stands." parson jones put on his barnacles and went over to the stake toward which tom pointed. as soon as he had looked at it carefully he called out: "why, tom, this hath been just drove down into the sand. 'tis a brand-new stake of wood, and the pirates must have set it here themselves as a mark, just as they drove the pegs you spoke about down into the sand." tom came over and looked at the stake. it was a stout piece of oak nearly two inches thick; it had been shaped with some care, and the top of it had been painted red. he shook the stake and tried to move it, but it had been driven or planted so deeply into the sand that he could not stir it. "aye, sir," he said, "it must have been set here for a mark, for i'm sure 'twas not here yesterday or the day before." he stood looking about him to see if there were other signs of the pirates' presence. at some little distance there was the corner of something white sticking up out of the sand. he could see that it was a scrap of paper, and he pointed to it, calling out: "yonder is a piece of paper, sir. i wonder if they left that behind them?" it was a miraculous chance that placed that paper there. there was only an inch of it showing, and if it had not been for tom's sharp eyes, it would certainly have been overlooked and passed by. the next windstorm would have covered it up, and all that afterward happened never would have occurred. "look, sir," he said, as he struck the sand from it, "it hath writing on it." "let me see it," said parson jones. he adjusted the spectacles a little more firmly astride of his nose as he took the paper in his hand and began conning it. "what's all this?" he said; "a whole lot of figures and nothing else." and then he read aloud, "'mark--s. s. w. s. by s.' what d'ye suppose that means, tom?" "i don't know, sir," said tom. "but maybe we can understand it better if you read on." "'tis all a great lot of figures," said parson jones, "without a grain of meaning in them so far as i can see, unless they be sailing directions." and then he began reading again: "'mark--s. s. w. by s. , , , , , , , , , '--d'ye see, it must be sailing directions--' , , , , , , , , , , , '--what a lot of them there be ' , , , , , , , , , . peg. s. e. by e. foot. peg. s. s. w. by s. foot. peg. dig to the west of this six foot.'" "what's that about a peg?" exclaimed tom. "what's that about a peg? and then there's something about digging, too!" it was as though a sudden light began shining into his brain. he felt himself growing quickly very excited. "read that over again, sir," he cried. "why, sir, you remember i told you they drove a peg into the sand. and don't they say to dig close to it? read it over again, sir--read it over again!" "peg?" said the good gentleman. "to be sure it was about a peg. let's look again. yes, here it is. 'peg s. e. by e. foot.'" "aye!" cried out tom chist again, in great excitement. "don't you remember what i told you, sir, foot? sure that must be what i saw 'em measuring with the line." parson jones had now caught the flame of excitement that was blazing up so strongly in tom's breast. he felt as though some wonderful thing was about to happen to them. "to be sure, to be sure!" he called out, in a great big voice. "and then they measured out foot south-southwest by south, and they then drove another peg, and then they buried the box six foot to the west of it. why, tom--why, tom chist! if we've read this aright, thy fortune is made." tom chist stood staring straight at the old gentleman's excited face, and seeing nothing but it in all the bright infinity of sunshine. were they, indeed, about to find the treasure chest? he felt the sun very hot upon his shoulders, and he heard the harsh, insistent jarring of a tern that hovered and circled with forked tail and sharp white wings in the sunlight just above their heads; but all the time he stood staring into the good old gentleman's face. it was parson jones who first spoke. "but what do all these figures mean?" and tom observed how the paper shook and rustled in the tremor of excitement that shook his hand. he raised the paper to the focus of his spectacles and began to read again. "'mark , , --'" "mark?" cried out tom, almost screaming. "why, that must mean the stake yonder; that must be the mark." and he pointed to the oaken stick with its red tip blazing against the white shimmer of sand behind it. "and the and and ," cried the old gentleman, in a voice equally shrill--"why, that must mean the number of steps the pirate was counting when you heard him." "to be sure that's what they mean!" cried tom chist. "that is it, and it can be nothing else. oh, come, sir--come, sir; let us make haste and find it!" "stay! stay!" said the good gentleman, holding up his hand; and again tom chist noticed how it trembled and shook. his voice was steady enough, though very hoarse, but his hand shook and trembled as though with a palsy. "stay! stay! first of all, we must follow these measurements. and 'tis a marvelous thing," he croaked, after a little pause, "how this paper ever came to be here." "maybe it was blown here by the storm," suggested tom chist. "like enough; like enough," said parson jones. "like enough, after the wretches had buried the chest and killed the poor black man, they were so buffeted and bowsed about by the storm that it was shook out of the man's pocket, and thus blew away from him without his knowing aught of it." "but let us find the box!" cried out tom chist, flaming with his excitement. "aye, aye," said the good man; "only stay a little, my boy, until we make sure what we're about. i've got my pocket compass here, but we must have something to measure off the feet when we have found the peg. you run across to tom brooke's house and fetch that measuring rod he used to lay out his new byre. while you're gone i'll pace off the distance marked on the paper with my pocket compass here." vi tom chist was gone for almost an hour, though he ran nearly all the way and back, upborne as on the wings of the wind. when he returned, panting, parson jones was nowhere to be seen, but tom saw his footsteps leading away inland, and he followed the scuffling marks in the smooth surface across the sand humps and down into the hollows, and by and by found the good gentleman in a spot he at once knew as soon as he laid his eyes upon it. it was the open space where the pirates had driven their first peg, and where tom chist had afterward seen them kill the poor black man. tom chist gazed around as though expecting to see some sign of the tragedy, but the space was as smooth and as undisturbed as a floor, excepting where, midway across it, parson jones, who was now stooping over something on the ground, had trampled it all around about. when tom chist saw him he was still bending over, scraping away from something he had found. it was the first peg! inside of half an hour they had found the second and third pegs, and tom chist stripped off his coat, and began digging like mad down into the sand, parson jones standing over him watching him. the sun was sloping well toward the west when the blade of tom chist's spade struck upon something hard. if it had been his own heart that he had hit in the sand his breast could hardly have thrilled more sharply. it was the treasure box! parson jones himself leaped down into the hole, and began scraping away the sand with his hands as though he had gone crazy. at last, with some difficulty, they tugged and hauled the chest up out of the sand to the surface, where it lay covered all over with the grit that clung to it. it was securely locked and fastened with a padlock, and it took a good many blows with the blade of the spade to burst the bolt. parson jones himself lifted the lid. tom chist leaned forward and gazed down into the open box. he would not have been surprised to have seen it filled full of yellow gold and bright jewels. it was filled half full of books and papers, and half full of canvas bags tied safely and securely around and around with cords of string. parson jones lifted out one of the bags, and it jingled as he did so. it was full of money. he cut the string, and with trembling, shaking hands handed the bag to tom, who, in an ecstasy of wonder and dizzy with delight, poured out with swimming sight upon the coat spread on the ground a cataract of shining silver money that rang and twinkled and jingled as it fell in a shining heap upon the coarse cloth. parson jones held up both hands into the air, and tom stared at what he saw, wondering whether it was all so, and whether he was really awake. it seemed to him as though he was in a dream. there were two-and-twenty bags in all in the chest: ten of them full of silver money, eight of them full of gold money, three of them full of gold dust, and one small bag with jewels wrapped up in wad cotton and paper. "'tis enough," cried out parson jones, "to make us both rich men as long as we live." the burning summer sun, though sloping in the sky, beat down upon them as hot as fire; but neither of them noticed it. neither did they notice hunger nor thirst nor fatigue, but sat there as though in a trance, with the bags of money scattered on the sand around them, a great pile of money heaped upon the coat, and the open chest beside them. it was an hour of sundown before parson jones had begun fairly to examine the books and papers in the chest. of the three books, two were evidently log books of the pirates who had been lying off the mouth of the delaware bay all this time. the other book was written in spanish, and was evidently the log book of some captured prize. it was then, sitting there upon the sand, the good old gentleman reading in his high, cracking voice, that they first learned from the bloody records in those two books who it was who had been lying inside the cape all this time, and that it was the famous captain kidd. every now and then the reverend gentleman would stop to exclaim, "oh, the bloody wretch!" or, "oh, the desperate, cruel villains!" and then would go on reading again a scrap here and a scrap there. and all the while tom chist sat and listened, every now and then reaching out furtively and touching the heap of money still lying upon the coat. one might be inclined to wonder why captain kidd had kept those bloody records. he had probably laid them away because they so incriminated many of the great people of the colony of new york that, with the books in evidence, it would have been impossible to bring the pirate to justice without dragging a dozen or more fine gentlemen into the dock along with him. if he could have kept them in his own possession they would doubtless have been a great weapon of defense to protect him from the gallows. indeed, when captain kidd was finally brought to conviction and hung, he was not accused of his piracies, but of striking a mutinous seaman upon the head with a bucket and accidentally killing him. the authorities did not dare try him for piracy. he was really hung because he was a pirate, and we know that it was the log books that tom chist brought to new york that did the business for him; he was accused and convicted of manslaughter for killing of his own ship carpenter with a bucket. so parson jones, sitting there in the slanting light, read through these terrible records of piracy, and tom, with the pile of gold and silver money beside him, sat and listened to him. what a spectacle, if anyone had come upon them! but they were alone, with the vast arch of sky empty above them and the wide white stretch of sand a desert around them. the sun sank lower and lower, until there was only time to glance through the other papers in the chest. they were nearly all goldsmiths' bills of exchange drawn in favor of certain of the most prominent merchants of new york. parson jones, as he read over the names, knew of nearly all the gentlemen by hearsay. aye, here was this gentleman; he thought that name would be among 'em. what? here is mr. so-and-so. well, if all they say is true, the villain has robbed one of his own best friends. "i wonder," he said, "why the wretch should have hidden these papers so carefully away with the other treasures, for they could do him no good?" then, answering his own question: "like enough because these will give him a hold over the gentlemen to whom they are drawn so that he can make a good bargain for his own neck before he gives the bills back to their owners. i tell you what it is, tom," he continued, "it is you yourself shall go to new york and bargain for the return of these papers. 'twill be as good as another fortune to you." the majority of the bills were drawn in favor of one richard chillingsworth, esquire. "and he is," said parson jones, "one of the richest men in the province of new york. you shall go to him with the news of what we have found." "when shall i go?" said tom chist. "you shall go upon the very first boat we can catch," said the parson. he had turned, still holding the bills in his hand, and was now fingering over the pile of money that yet lay tumbled out upon the coat. "i wonder, tom," said he, "if you could spare me a score or so of these doubloons?" "you shall have fifty score, if you choose," said tom, bursting with gratitude and with generosity in his newly found treasure. "you are as fine a lad as ever i saw, tom," said the parson, "and i'll thank you to the last day of my life." tom scooped up a double handful of silver money. "take it sir," he said, "and you may have as much more as you want of it." he poured it into the dish that the good man made of his hands, and the parson made a motion as though to empty it into his pocket. then he stopped, as though a sudden doubt had occurred to him. "i don't know that 'tis fit for me to take this pirate money, after all," he said. "but you are welcome to it," said tom. still the parson hesitated. "nay," he burst out, "i'll not take it; 'tis blood money." and as he spoke he chucked the whole double handful into the now empty chest, then arose and dusted the sand from his breeches. then, with a great deal of bustling energy, he helped to tie the bags again and put them all back into the chest. they reburied the chest in the place whence they had taken it, and then the parson folded the precious paper of directions, placed it carefully in his wallet, and his wallet in his pocket. "tom," he said, for the twentieth time, "your fortune has been made this day." and tom chist, as he rattled in his breeches pocket the half dozen doubloons he had kept out of his treasure, felt that what his friend had said was true. as the two went back homeward across the level space of sand tom chist suddenly stopped stock-still and stood looking about him. "'twas just here," he said, digging his heel down into the sand, "that they killed the poor black man." "and here he lies buried for all time," said parson jones; and as he spoke he dug his cane down into the sand. tom chist shuddered. he would not have been surprised if the ferrule of the cane had struck something soft beneath that level surface. but it did not, nor was any sign of that tragedy ever seen again. for, whether the pirates had carried away what they had done and buried it elsewhere, or whether the storm in blowing the sand had completely leveled off and hidden all sign of that tragedy where it was enacted, certain it is that it never came to sight again--at least so far as tom chist and the rev. hilary jones ever knew. vii this is the story of the treasure box. all that remains now is to conclude the story of tom chist, and to tell of what came of him in the end. he did not go back again to live with old matt abrahamson. parson jones had now taken charge of him and his fortunes, and tom did not have to go back to the fisherman's hut. old abrahamson talked a great deal about it, and would come in his cups and harangue good parson jones, making a vast protestation of what he would do to tom--if he ever caught him--for running away. but tom on all these occasions kept carefully out of his way, and nothing came of the old man's threatenings. tom used to go over to see his foster mother now and then, but always when the old man was from home. and molly abrahamson used to warn him to keep out of her father's way. "he's in as vile a humor as ever i see, tom," she said; "he sits sulking all day long, and 'tis my belief he'd kill ye if he caught ye." of course tom said nothing, even to her, about the treasure, and he and the reverend gentleman kept the knowledge thereof to themselves. about three weeks later parson jones managed to get him shipped aboard of a vessel bound for new york town, and a few days later tom chist landed at that place. he had never been in such a town before, and he could not sufficiently wonder and marvel at the number of brick houses, at the multitude of people coming and going along the fine, hard, earthen sidewalk, at the shops and the stores where goods hung in the windows, and, most of all, the fortifications and the battery at the point, at the rows of threatening cannon, and at the scarlet-coated sentries pacing up and down the ramparts. all this was very wonderful, and so were the clustered boats riding at anchor in the harbor. it was like a new world, so different was it from the sand hills and the sedgy levels of henlopen. tom chist took up his lodgings at a coffee house near to the town hall, and thence he sent by the postboy a letter written by parson jones to master chillingsworth. in a little while the boy returned with a message, asking tom to come up to mr. chillingsworth's house that afternoon at two o'clock. tom went thither with a great deal of trepidation, and his heart fell away altogether when he found it a fine, grand brick house, three stories high, and with wrought-iron letters across the front. the counting house was in the same building; but tom, because of mr. jones's letter, was conducted directly into the parlor, where the great rich man was awaiting his coming. he was sitting in a leather-covered armchair, smoking a pipe of tobacco, and with a bottle of fine old madeira close to his elbow. tom had not had a chance to buy a new suit of clothes yet, and so he cut no very fine figure in the rough dress he had brought with him from henlopen. nor did mr. chillingsworth seem to think very highly of his appearance, for he sat looking sideways at tom as he smoked. "well, my lad," he said, "and what is this great thing you have to tell me that is so mightily wonderful? i got what's-his-name--mr. jones's--letter, and now i am ready to hear what you have to say." but if he thought but little of his visitor's appearance at first, he soon changed his sentiments toward him, for tom had not spoken twenty words when mr. chillingsworth's whole aspect changed. he straightened himself up in his seat, laid aside his pipe, pushed away his glass of madeira, and bade tom take a chair. he listened without a word as tom chist told of the buried treasure, of how he had seen the poor negro murdered, and of how he and parson jones had recovered the chest again. only once did mr. chillingsworth interrupt the narrative. "and to think," he cried, "that the villain this very day walks about new york town as though he were an honest man, ruffling it with the best of us! but if we can only get hold of these log books you speak of. go on; tell me more of this." when tom chist's narrative was ended, mr. chillingsworth's bearing was as different as daylight is from dark. he asked a thousand questions, all in the most polite and gracious tone imaginable, and not only urged a glass of his fine old madeira upon tom, but asked him to stay to supper. there was nobody to be there, he said, but his wife and daughter. tom, all in a panic at the very thought of the two ladies, sturdily refused to stay even for the dish of tea mr. chillingsworth offered him. he did not know that he was destined to stay there as long as he should live. "and now," said mr. chillingsworth, "tell me about yourself." "i have nothing to tell, your honor," said tom, "except that i was washed up out of the sea." "washed up out of the sea!" exclaimed mr. chillingsworth. "why, how was that? come, begin at the beginning, and tell me all." thereupon tom chist did as he was bidden, beginning at the very beginning and telling everything just as molly abrahamson had often told it to him. as he continued, mr. chillingsworth's interest changed into an appearance of stronger and stronger excitement. suddenly he jumped up out of his chair and began to walk up and down the room. "stop! stop!" he cried out at last, in the midst of something tom was saying. "stop! stop! tell me; do you know the name of the vessel that was wrecked, and from which you were washed ashore?" "i've heard it said," said tom chist, "'twas the bristol merchant." "i knew it! i knew it!" exclaimed the great man, in a loud voice, flinging his hands up into the air. "i felt it was so the moment you began the story. but tell me this, was there nothing found with you with a mark or a name upon it?" "there was a kerchief," said tom, "marked with a t and a c." "theodosia chillingsworth!" cried out the merchant. "i knew it! i knew it! heavens! to think of anything so wonderful happening as this! boy! boy! dost thou know who thou art? thou art my own brother's son. his name was oliver chillingsworth, and he was my partner in business, and thou art his son." then he ran out into the entryway, shouting and calling for his wife and daughter to come. so tom chist--or thomas chillingsworth, as he now was to be called--did stay to supper, after all. this is the story, and i hope you may like it. for tom chist became rich and great, as was to be supposed, and he married his pretty cousin theodosia (who had been named for his own mother, drowned in the bristol merchant). he did not forget his friends, but had parson jones brought to new york to live. as to molly and matt abrahamson, they both enjoyed a pension of ten pounds a year for as long as they lived; for now that all was well with him, tom bore no grudge against the old fisherman for all the drubbings he had suffered. the treasure box was brought on to new york, and if tom chist did not get all the money there was in it (as parson jones had opined he would) he got at least a good big lump of it. and it is my belief that those log books did more to get captain kidd arrested in boston town and hanged in london than anything else that was brought up against him. chapter v. jack ballister's fortunes i we, of these times, protected as we are by the laws and by the number of people about us, can hardly comprehend such a life as that of the american colonies in the early part of the eighteenth century, when it was possible for a pirate like capt. teach, known as blackbeard, to exist, and for the governor and the secretary of the province in which he lived perhaps to share his plunder, and to shelter and to protect him against the law. at that time the american colonists were in general a rough, rugged people, knowing nothing of the finer things of life. they lived mostly in little settlements, separated by long distances from one another, so that they could neither make nor enforce laws to protect themselves. each man or little group of men had to depend upon his or their own strength to keep what belonged to them, and to prevent fierce men or groups of men from seizing what did not belong to them. it is the natural disposition of everyone to get all that he can. little children, for instance, always try to take away from others that which they want, and to keep it for their own. it is only by constant teaching that they learn that they must not do so; that they must not take by force what does not belong to them. so it is only by teaching and training that people learn to be honest and not to take what is not theirs. when this teaching is not sufficient to make a man learn to be honest, or when there is something in the man's nature that makes him not able to learn, then he only lacks the opportunity to seize upon the things he wants, just as he would do if he were a little child. in the colonies at that time, as was just said, men were too few and scattered to protect themselves against those who had made up their minds to take by force that which they wanted, and so it was that men lived an unrestrained and lawless life, such as we of these times of better government can hardly comprehend. the usual means of commerce between province and province was by water in coasting vessels. these coasting vessels were so defenseless, and the different colonial governments were so ill able to protect them, that those who chose to rob them could do it almost without danger to themselves. so it was that all the western world was, in those days, infested with armed bands of cruising freebooters or pirates, who used to stop merchant vessels and take from them what they chose. each province in those days was ruled over by a royal governor appointed by the king. each governor, at one time, was free to do almost as he pleased in his own province. he was accountable only to the king and his government, and england was so distant that he was really responsible almost to nobody but himself. the governors were naturally just as desirous to get rich quickly, just as desirous of getting all that they could for themselves, as was anybody else only they had been taught and had been able to learn that it was not right to be an actual pirate or robber. they wanted to be rich easily and quickly, but the desire was not strong enough to lead them to dishonor themselves in their own opinion and in the opinion of others by gratifying their selfishness. they would even have stopped the pirates from doing what they did if they could, but their provincial governments were too weak to prevent the freebooters from robbing merchant vessels, or to punish them when they came ashore. the provinces had no navies, and they really had no armies; neither were there enough people living within the community to enforce the laws against those stronger and fiercer men who were not honest. after the things the pirates seized from merchant vessels were once stolen they were altogether lost. almost never did any owner apply for them, for it would be useless to do so. the stolen goods and merchandise lay in the storehouses of the pirates, seemingly without any owner excepting the pirates themselves. the governors and the secretaries of the colonies would not dishonor themselves by pirating upon merchant vessels, but it did not seem so wicked after the goods were stolen--and so altogether lost--to take a part of that which seemed to have no owner. a child is taught that it is a very wicked thing to take, for instance, by force, a lump of sugar from another child; but when a wicked child has seized the sugar from another and taken it around the corner, and that other child from whom he has seized it has gone home crying, it does not seem so wicked for the third child to take a bite of the sugar when it is offered to him, even if he thinks it has been taken from some one else. it was just so, no doubt, that it did not seem so wicked to governor eden and secretary knight of north carolina, or to governor fletcher of new york, or to other colonial governors, to take a part of the booty that the pirates, such as blackbeard, had stolen. it did not even seem very wicked to compel such pirates to give up a part of what was not theirs, and which seemed to have no owner. in governor eden's time, however, the colonies had begun to be more thickly peopled, and the laws had gradually become stronger and stronger to protect men in the possession of what was theirs. governor eden was the last of the colonial governors who had dealings with the pirates, and blackbeard was almost the last of the pirates who, with his banded men, was savage and powerful enough to come and go as he chose among the people whom he plundered. virginia, at that time, was the greatest and the richest of all the american colonies, and upon the farther side of north carolina was the province of south carolina, also strong and rich. it was these two colonies that suffered the most from blackbeard, and it began to be that the honest men that lived in them could endure no longer to be plundered. the merchants and traders and others who suffered cried out loudly for protection, so loudly that the governors of these provinces could not help hearing them. governor eden was petitioned to act against the pirates, but he would do nothing, for he felt very friendly toward blackbeard--just as a child who has had a taste of the stolen sugar feels friendly toward the child who gives it to him. at last, when blackbeard sailed up into the very heart of virginia, and seized upon and carried away the daughter of that colony's foremost people, the governor of virginia, finding that the governor of north carolina would do nothing to punish the outrage, took the matter into his own hands and issued a proclamation offering a reward of one hundred pounds for blackbeard, alive or dead, and different sums for the other pirates who were his followers. governor spottiswood had the right to issue the proclamation, but he had no right to commission lieutenant maynard, as he did, to take down an armed force into the neighboring province and to attack the pirates in the waters of the north carolina sounds. it was all a part of the rude and lawless condition of the colonies at the time that such a thing could have been done. the governor's proclamation against the pirates was issued upon the eleventh day of november. it was read in the churches the sunday following and was posted upon the doors of all the government custom offices in lower virginia. lieutenant maynard, in the boats that colonel parker had already fitted out to go against the pirates, set sail upon the seventeenth of the month for ocracoke. five days later the battle was fought. blackbeard's sloop was lying inside of ocracoke inlet among the shoals and sand bars when he first heard of governor spottiswood's proclamation. there had been a storm, and a good many vessels had run into the inlet for shelter. blackbeard knew nearly all of the captains of these vessels, and it was from them that he first heard of the proclamation. he had gone aboard one of the vessels--a coaster from boston. the wind was still blowing pretty hard from the southeast. there were maybe a dozen vessels lying within the inlet at that time, and the captain of one of them was paying the boston skipper a visit when blackbeard came aboard. the two captains had been talking together. they instantly ceased when the pirate came down into the cabin, but he had heard enough of their conversation to catch its drift. "why d'ye stop?" he said. "i heard what you said. well, what then? d'ye think i mind it at all? spottiswood is going to send his bullies down here after me. that's what you were saying. well, what then? you don't think i'm afraid of his bullies, do you?" "why, no, captain, i didn't say you was afraid," said the visiting captain. "and what right has he got to send down here against me in north carolina, i should like to ask you?" "he's got none at all," said the boston captain, soothingly. "won't you take a taste of hollands, captain?" "he's no more right to come blustering down here into governor eden's province than i have to come aboard of your schooner here, tom burley, and to carry off two or three kegs of this prime hollands for my own drinking." captain burley--the boston man--laughed a loud, forced laugh. "why, captain," he said, "as for two or three kegs of hollands, you won't find that aboard. but if you'd like to have a keg of it for your own drinking, i'll send it to you and be glad enough to do so for old acquaintance' sake." "but i tell you what 'tis, captain," said the visiting skipper to blackbeard, "they're determined and set against you this time. i tell you, captain, governor spottiswood hath issued a hot proclamation against you, and 't hath been read out in all the churches. i myself saw it posted in yorktown upon the customhouse door and read it there myself. the governor offers one hundred pounds for you, and fifty pounds for your officers, and twenty pounds each for your men." "well, then," said blackbeard, holding up his glass, "here, i wish 'em good luck, and when they get their hundred pounds for me they'll be in a poor way to spend it. as for the hollands," said he, turning to captain burley, "i know what you've got aboard here and what you haven't. d'ye suppose ye can blind me? very well, you send over two kegs, and i'll let you go without search." the two captains were very silent. "as for that lieutenant maynard you're all talking about," said blackbeard, "why, i know him very well. he was the one who was so busy with the pirates down madagascar way. i believe you'd all like to see him blow me out of the water, but he can't do it. there's nobody in his majesty's service i'd rather meet than lieutenant maynard. i'd teach him pretty briskly that north carolina isn't madagascar." on the evening of the twenty-second the two vessels under command of lieutenant maynard came into the mouth of ocracoke inlet and there dropped anchor. meantime the weather had cleared, and all the vessels but one had gone from the inlet. the one vessel that remained was a new yorker. it had been there over a night and a day, and the captain and blackbeard had become very good friends. the same night that maynard came into the inlet a wedding was held on the shore. a number of men and women came up the beach in oxcarts and sledges; others had come in boats from more distant points and across the water. the captain of the new yorker and blackbeard went ashore together a little after dark. the new yorker had been aboard of the pirate's sloop for all the latter part of the afternoon, and he and blackbeard had been drinking together in the cabin. the new york man was now a little tipsy, and he laughed and talked foolishly as he and blackbeard were rowed ashore. the pirate sat grim and silent. it was nearly dark when they stepped ashore on the beach. the new york captain stumbled and fell headlong, rolling over and over, and the crew of the boat burst out laughing. the people had already begun to dance in an open shed fronting upon the shore. there were fires of pine knots in front of the building, lighting up the interior with a red glare. a negro was playing a fiddle somewhere inside, and the shed was filled with a crowd of grotesque dancing figures--men and women. now and then they called with loud voices as they danced, and the squeaking of the fiddle sounded incessantly through the noise of outcries and the stamp and shuffling of feet. captain teach and the new york captain stood looking on. the new york man had tilted himself against a post and stood there holding one arm around it, supporting himself. he waved the other hand foolishly in time to the music, now and then snapping his thumb and finger. the young woman who had just been married approached the two. she had been dancing, and she was warm and red, her hair blowzed about her head. "hi, captain, won't you dance with me?" she said to blackbeard. blackbeard stared at her. "who be you?" he said. she burst out laughing. "you look as if you'd eat a body," she cried. blackbeard's face gradually relaxed. "why, to be sure, you're a brazen one, for all the world," he said. "well, i'll dance with you, that i will. i'll dance the heart out of you." he pushed forward, thrusting aside with his elbow the newly made husband. the man, who saw that blackbeard had been drinking, burst out laughing, and the other men and women who had been standing around drew away, so that in a little while the floor was pretty well cleared. one could see the negro now; he sat on a barrel at the end of the room. he grinned with his white teeth and, without stopping in his fiddling, scraped his bow harshly across the strings, and then instantly changed the tune to a lively jig. blackbeard jumped up into the air and clapped his heels together, giving, as he did so, a sharp, short yell. then he began instantly dancing grotesquely and violently. the woman danced opposite to him, this way and that, with her knuckles on her hips. everybody burst out laughing at blackbeard's grotesque antics. they laughed again and again, clapping their hands, and the negro scraped away on his fiddle like fury. the woman's hair came tumbling down her back. she tucked it back, laughing and panting, and the sweat ran down her face. she danced and danced. at last she burst out laughing and stopped, panting. blackbeard again jumped up in the air and clapped his heels. again he yelled, and as he did so, he struck his heels upon the floor and spun around. once more everybody burst out laughing, clapping their hands, and the negro stopped fiddling. near by was a shanty or cabin where they were selling spirits, and by and by blackbeard went there with the new york captain, and presently they began drinking again. "hi, captain!" called one of the men, "maynard's out yonder in the inlet. jack bishop's just come across from t'other side. he says mr. maynard hailed him and asked for a pilot to fetch him in." "well, here's luck to him, and he can't come in quick enough for me!" cried out blackbeard in his hoarse, husky voice. "well, captain," called a voice, "will ye fight him to-morrow?" "aye," shouted the pirate, "if he can get in to me, i'll try to give 'em what they seek, and all they want of it into the bargain. as for a pilot, i tell ye what 'tis--if any man hereabouts goes out there to pilot that villain in 'twill be the worst day's work he ever did in all of his life. 'twon't be fit for him to live in these parts of america if i am living here at the same time." there was a burst of laughter. "give us a toast, captain! give us something to drink to! aye, captain, a toast! a toast!" a half dozen voices were calling out at the same time. "well," cried out the pirate captain, "here's to a good, hot fight to-morrow, and the best dog on top! 'twill be, bang! bang!--this way!" he began pulling a pistol out of his pocket, but it stuck in the lining, and he struggled and tugged at it. the men ducked and scrambled away from before him, and then the next moment he had the pistol out of his pocket. he swung it around and around. there was perfect silence. suddenly there was a flash and a stunning report, and instantly a crash and tinkle of broken glass. one of the men cried out, and began picking and jerking at the back of his neck. "he's broken that bottle all down my neck," he called out. "that's the way 'twill be," said blackbeard. "lookee," said the owner of the place, "i won't serve out another drop if 'tis going to be like that. if there's any more trouble i'll blow out the lantern." the sound of the squeaking and scraping of the fiddle and the shouts and the scuffling feet still came from the shed where the dancing was going on. "suppose you get your dose to-morrow, captain," some one called out, "what then?" "why, if i do," said blackbeard, "i get it, and that's all there is of it." "your wife'll be a rich widdy then, won't she?" cried one of the men; and there was a burst of laughter. "why," said the new york captain,--"why, has a--a bloody p-pirate like you a wife then--a--like any honest man?" "she'll be no richer than she is now," said blackbeard. "she knows where you've hid your money, anyways. don't she, captain?" called out a voice. "the civil knows where i've hid my money," said blackbeard, "and i know where i've hid it; and the longest liver of the twain will git it all. and that's all there is of it." the gray of early day was beginning to show in the east when blackbeard and the new york captain came down to the landing together. the new york captain swayed and toppled this way and that as he walked, now falling against blackbeard, and now staggering away from him. ii early in the morning--perhaps eight o'clock--lieutenant maynard sent a boat from the schooner over to the settlement, which lay some four or five miles distant. a number of men stood lounging on the landing, watching the approach of the boat. the men rowed close up to the wharf, and there lay upon their oars, while the boatswain of the schooner, who was in command of the boat, stood up and asked if there was any man there who could pilot them over the shoals. nobody answered, but all stared stupidly at him. after a while one of the men at last took his pipe out of his mouth. "there ben't any pilot here, master," said he; "we ben't pilots." "why, what a story you do tell!" roared the boatswain. "d'ye suppose i've never been down here before, not to know that every man about here knows the passes of the shoals?" the fellow still held his pipe in his hand. he looked at another one of the men. "do you know the passes in over the shoals, jem?" said he. the man to whom he spoke was a young fellow with long, shaggy, sunburnt hair hanging over his eyes in an unkempt mass. he shook his head, grunting, "na--i don't know naught about t' shoals." "'tis lieutenant maynard of his majesty's navy in command of them vessels out there," said the boatswain. "he'll give any man five pound to pilot him in." the men on the wharf looked at one another, but still no one spoke, and the boatswain stood looking at them. he saw that they did not choose to answer him. "why," he said, "i believe you've not got right wits--that's what i believe is the matter with you. pull me up to the landing, men, and i'll go ashore and see if i can find anybody that's willing to make five pound for such a little bit of piloting as that." after the boatswain had gone ashore the loungers still stood on the wharf, looking down into the boat, and began talking to one another for the men below to hear them. "they're coming in," said one, "to blow poor blackbeard out of the water." "aye," said another, "he's so peaceable, too, he is; he'll just lay still and let 'em blow and blow, he will." "there's a young fellow there," said another of the men; "he don't look fit to die yet, he don't. why, i wouldn't be in his place for a thousand pound." "i do suppose blackbeard's so afraid he don't know how to see," said the first speaker. at last one of the men in the boat spoke up. "maybe he don't know how to see," said he, "but maybe we'll blow some daylight into him afore we get through with him." some more of the settlers had come out from the shore to the end of the wharf, and there was now quite a crowd gathering there, all looking at the men in the boat. "what do them virginny 'baccy-eaters do down here in caroliny, anyway?" said one of the newcomers. "they've got no call to be down here in north caroliny waters." "maybe you can keep us away from coming, and maybe you can't," said a voice from the boat. "why," answered the man on the wharf, "we could keep you away easy enough, but you ben't worth the trouble, and that's the truth." there was a heavy iron bolt lying near the edge of the landing. one of the men upon the wharf slyly thrust it out with the end of his foot. it hung for a moment and then fell into the boat below with a crash. "what d'ye mean by that?" roared the man in charge of the boat. "what d'ye mean, ye villains? d'ye mean to stave a hole in us?" "why," said the man who had pushed it, "you saw 'twasn't done a purpose, didn't you?" "well, you try it again, and somebody'll get hurt," said the man in the boat, showing the butt end of his pistol. the men on the wharf began laughing. just then the boatswain came down from the settlement again, and out along the landing. the threatened turbulence quieted as he approached, and the crowd moved sullenly aside to let him pass. he did not bring any pilot with him, and he jumped down into the stern of the boat, saying, briefly, "push off." the crowd of loungers stood looking after them as they rowed away, and when the boat was some distance from the landing they burst out into a volley of derisive yells. "the villains!" said the boatswain, "they are all in league together. they wouldn't even let me go up into the settlement to look for a pilot." the lieutenant and his sailing master stood watching the boat as it approached. "couldn't you, then, get a pilot, baldwin?" said mr. maynard, as the boatswain scrambled aboard. "no, i couldn't, sir," said the man. "either they're all banded together, or else they're all afraid of the villains. they wouldn't even let me go up into the settlement to find one." "well, then," said mr. maynard, "we'll make shift to work in as best we may by ourselves. 'twill be high tide against one o'clock. we'll run in then with sail as far as we can, and then we'll send you ahead with the boat to sound for a pass, and we'll follow with the sweeps. you know the waters pretty well, you say." "they were saying ashore that the villain hath forty men aboard," said the boatswain.( ) ( ) the pirate captain had really only twenty-five men aboard of his ship at the time of the battle. lieutenant maynard's force consisted of thirty-five men in the schooner and twenty-five men in the sloop. he carried neither cannons nor carronades, and neither of his vessels was very well fitted for the purpose for which they were designed. the schooner, which he himself commanded, offered almost no protection to the crew. the rail was not more than a foot high in the waist, and the men on the deck were almost entirely exposed. the rail of the sloop was perhaps a little higher, but it, too, was hardly better adapted for fighting. indeed, the lieutenant depended more upon the moral force of official authority to overawe the pirates than upon any real force of arms or men. he never believed, until the very last moment, that the pirates would show any real fight. it is very possible that they might not have done so had they not thought that the lieutenant had actually no legal right supporting him in his attack upon them in north carolina waters. it was about noon when anchor was hoisted, and, with the schooner leading, both vessels ran slowly in before a light wind that had begun to blow toward midday. in each vessel a man stood in the bows, sounding continually with lead and line. as they slowly opened up the harbor within the inlet, they could see the pirate sloop lying about three miles away. there was a boat just putting off from it to the shore. the lieutenant and his sailing master stood together on the roof of the cabin deckhouse. the sailing master held a glass to his eye. "she carries a long gun, sir," he said, "and four carronades. she'll be hard to beat, sir, i do suppose, armed as we are with only light arms for close fighting." the lieutenant laughed. "why, brookes," he said, "you seem to think forever of these men showing fight. you don't know them as i know them. they have a deal of bluster and make a deal of noise, but when you seize them and hold them with a strong hand, there's naught of fight left in them. 'tis like enough there'll not be so much as a musket fired to-day. i've had to do with 'em often enough before to know my gentlemen well by this time." nor, as was said, was it until the very last that the lieutenant could be brought to believe that the pirates had any stomach for a fight. the two vessels had reached perhaps within a mile of the pirate sloop before they found the water too shoal to venture any farther with the sail. it was then that the boat was lowered as the lieutenant had planned, and the boatswain went ahead to sound, the two vessels, with their sails still hoisted but empty of wind, pulling in after with sweeps. the pirate had also hoisted sail, but lay as though waiting for the approach of the schooner and the sloop. the boat in which the boatswain was sounding had run in a considerable distance ahead of the two vessels, which were gradually creeping up with the sweeps until they had reached to within less than half a mile of the pirates--the boat with the boatswain maybe a quarter of a mile closer. suddenly there was a puff of smoke from the pirate sloop, and then another and another, and the next moment there came the three reports of muskets up the wind. "by zounds!" said the lieutenant. "i do believe they're firing on the boat!" and then he saw the boat turn and begin pulling toward them. the boat with the boatswain aboard came rowing rapidly. again there were three or four puffs of smoke and three or four subsequent reports from the distant vessel. then, in a little while, the boat was alongside, and the boatswain came scrambling aboard. "never mind hoisting the boat," said the lieutenant; "we'll just take her in tow. come aboard as quick as you can." then, turning to the sailing master, "well, brookes, you'll have to do the best you can to get in over the shoals under half sail." "but, sir," said the master, "we'll be sure to run aground." "very well, sir," said the lieutenant, "you heard my orders. if we run aground we run aground, and that's all there is of it." "i sounded as far as maybe a little over a fathom," said the mate, "but the villains would let me go no nearer. i think i was in the channel, though. 'tis more open inside, as i mind me of it. there's a kind of a hole there, and if we get in over the shoals just beyond where i was we'll be all right." "very well, then, you take the wheel, baldwin," said the lieutenant, "and do the best you can for us." lieutenant maynard stood looking out forward at the pirate vessel, which they were now steadily nearing under half sail. he could see that there were signs of bustle aboard and of men running around upon the deck. then he walked aft and around the cabin. the sloop was some distance astern. it appeared to have run aground, and they were trying to push it off with the sweeps. the lieutenant looked down into the water over the stern, and saw that the schooner was already raising the mud in her wane. then he went forward along the deck. his men were crouching down along by the low rail, and there was a tense quietness of expectation about them. the lieutenant looked them over as he passed them. "johnson," he said, "do you take the lead and line and go forward and sound a bit." then to the others: "now, my men, the moment we run her aboard, you get aboard of her as quick as you can, do you understand? don't wait for the sloop or think about her, but just see that the grappling irons are fast, and then get aboard. if any man offers to resist you, shoot him down. are you ready, mr. cringle?" "aye, aye, sir," said the gunner. "very well, then, be ready, men; we'll be aboard 'em in a minute or two." "there's less than a fathom of water here, sir," sang out johnson from the bows. as he spoke there was a sudden soft jar and jerk, then the schooner was still. they were aground. "push her off to the lee there! let go your sheets!" roared the boatswain from the wheel. "push her off to the lee." he spun the wheel around as he spoke. a half a dozen men sprang up, seized the sweeps, and plunged them into the water. others ran to help them, but the sweeps only sank into the mud without moving the schooner. the sails had fallen off and they were flapping and thumping and clapping in the wind. others of the crew had scrambled to their feet and ran to help those at the sweeps. the lieutenant had walked quickly aft again. they were very close now to the pirate sloop, and suddenly some one hailed him from aboard of her. when he turned he saw that there was a man standing up on the rail of the pirate sloop, holding by the back stays. "who are you?" he called, from the distance, "and whence come you? what do you seek here? what d'ye mean, coming down on us this way?" the lieutenant heard somebody say, "that's blackbeard hisself." and he looked with great interest at the distant figure. the pirate stood out boldly against the cloudy sky. somebody seemed to speak to him from behind. he turned his head and then he turned round again. "we're only peaceful merchantmen!" he called out. "what authority have you got to come down upon us this way? if you'll come aboard i'll show you my papers and that we're only peaceful merchantmen." "the villains!" said the lieutenant to the master, who stood beside him. "they're peaceful merchantmen, are they! they look like peaceful merchantmen, with four carronades and a long gun aboard!" then he called out across the water, "i'll come aboard with my schooner as soon as i can push her off here." "if you undertake to come aboard of me," called the pirate, "i'll shoot into you. you've got no authority to board me, and i won't have you do it. if you undertake it 'twill be at your own risk, for i'll neither ask quarter of you nor give none." "very well," said the lieutenant, "if you choose to try that, you may do as you please; for i'm coming aboard of you as sure as heaven." "push off the bow there!" called the boatswain at the wheel. "look alive! why don't you push off the bow?" "she's hard aground!" answered the gunner. "we can't budge her an inch." "if they was to fire into us now," said the sailing master, "they'd smash us to pieces." "they won't fire into us," said the lieutenant. "they won't dare to." he jumped down from the cabin deckhouse as he spoke, and went forward to urge the men in pushing off the boat. it was already beginning to move. at that moment the sailing master suddenly called out, "mr. maynard! mr. maynard! they're going to give us a broadside!" almost before the words were out of his mouth, before lieutenant maynard could turn, there came a loud and deafening crash, and then instantly another, and a third, and almost as instantly a crackling and rending of broken wood. there were clean yellow splinters flying everywhere. a man fell violently against the lieutenant, nearly overturning him, but he caught at the stays and so saved himself. for one tense moment he stood holding his breath. then all about him arose a sudden outcry of groans and shouts and oaths. the man who had fallen against him was lying face down upon the deck. his thighs were quivering, and a pool of blood was spreading and running out from under him. there were other men down, all about the deck. some were rising; some were trying to rise; some only moved. there was a distant sound of yelling and cheering and shouting. it was from the pirate sloop. the pirates were rushing about upon her decks. they had pulled the cannon back, and, through the grunting sound of the groans about him, the lieutenant could distinctly hear the thud and punch of the rammers, and he knew they were going to shoot again. the low rail afforded almost no shelter against such a broadside, and there was nothing for it but to order all hands below for the time being. "get below!" roared out the lieutenant. "all hands get below and lie snug for further orders!" in obedience the men ran scrambling below into the hold, and in a little while the decks were nearly clear except for the three dead men and some three or four wounded. the boatswain, crouching down close to the wheel, and the lieutenant himself were the only others upon deck. everywhere there were smears and sprinkles of blood. "where's brookes?" the lieutenant called out. "he's hurt in the arm, sir, and he's gone below," said the boatswain. thereupon the lieutenant himself walked over to the forecastle hatch, and, hailing the gunner, ordered him to get up another ladder, so that the men could be run up on deck if the pirates should undertake to come aboard. at that moment the boatswain at the wheel called out that the villains were going to shoot again, and the lieutenant, turning, saw the gunner aboard of the pirate sloop in the act of touching the iron to the touchhole. he stooped down. there was another loud and deafening crash of cannon, one, two, three--four--the last two almost together--and almost instantly the boatswain called out, "'tis the sloop, sir! look at the sloop!" the sloop had got afloat again, and had been coming up to the aid of the schooner, when the pirates fired their second broadside now at her. when the lieutenant looked at her she was quivering with the impact of the shot, and the next moment she began falling off to the wind, and he could see the wounded men rising and falling and struggling upon her decks. at the same moment the boatswain called out that the enemy was coming aboard, and even as he spoke the pirate sloop came drifting out from the cloud of smoke that enveloped her, looming up larger and larger as she came down upon them. the lieutenant still crouched down under the rail, looking out at them. suddenly, a little distance away, she came about, broadside on, and then drifted. she was close aboard now. something came flying through the air--another and another. they were bottles. one of them broke with a crash upon the deck. the others rolled over to the farther rail. in each of them a quick-match was smoking. almost instantly there was a flash and a terrific report, and the air was full of the whiz and singing of broken particles of glass and iron. there was another report, and then the whole air seemed full of gunpowder smoke. "they're aboard of us!" shouted the boatswain, and even as he spoke the lieutenant roared out, "all hands to repel boarders!" a second later there came the heavy, thumping bump of the vessels coming together. lieutenant maynard, as he called out the order, ran forward through the smoke, snatching one of his pistols out of his pocket and the cutlass out of its sheath as he did so. behind him the men were coming, swarming up from below. there was a sudden stunning report of a pistol, and then another and another, almost together. there was a groan and the fall of a heavy body, and then a figure came jumping over the rail, with two or three more directly following. the lieutenant was in the midst of the gun powder smoke, when suddenly blackbeard was before him. the pirate captain had stripped himself naked to the waist. his shaggy black hair was falling over his eyes, and he looked like a demon fresh from the pit, with his frantic face. almost with the blindness of instinct the lieutenant thrust out his pistol, firing it as he did so. the pirate staggered back: he was down--no; he was up again. he had a pistol in each hand; but there was a stream of blood running down his naked ribs. suddenly, the mouth of a pistol was pointing straight at the lieutenant's head. he ducked instinctively, striking upward with his cutlass as he did so. there was a stunning, deafening report almost in his ear. he struck again blindly with his cutlass. he saw the flash of a sword and flung up his guard almost instinctively, meeting the crash of the descending blade. somebody shot from behind him, and at the same moment he saw some one else strike the pirate. blackbeard staggered again, and this time there was a great gash upon his neck. then one of maynard's own men tumbled headlong upon him. he fell with the man, but almost instantly he had scrambled to his feet again, and as he did so he saw that the pirate sloop had drifted a little away from them, and that their grappling irons had evidently parted. his hand was smarting as though struck with the lash of a whip. he looked around him; the pirate captain was nowhere to be seen--yes, there he was, lying by the rail. he raised himself upon his elbow, and the lieutenant saw that he was trying to point a pistol at him, with an arm that wavered and swayed blindly, the pistol nearly falling from his fingers. suddenly his other elbow gave way and he fell down upon his face. he tried to raise himself--he fell down again. there was a report and a cloud of smoke, and when it cleared away blackbeard had staggered up again. he was a terrible figure his head nodding down upon his breast. somebody shot again, and then the swaying figure toppled and fell. it lay still for a moment--then rolled over--then lay still again. there was a loud splash of men jumping overboard, and then, almost instantly, the cry of "quarter! quarter!" the lieutenant ran to the edge of the vessel. it was as he had thought: the grappling irons of the pirate sloop had parted, and it had drifted away. the few pirates who had been left aboard of the schooner had jumped overboard and were now holding up their hands. "quarter!" they cried. "don't shoot!--quarter!" and the fight was over. the lieutenant looked down at his hand, and then he saw, for the first time, that there was a great cutlass gash across the back of it, and that his arm and shirt sleeve were wet with blood. he went aft, holding the wrist of his wounded hand. the boatswain was still at the wheel. "by zounds!" said the lieutenant, with a nervous, quavering laugh, "i didn't know there was such fight in the villains." his wounded and shattered sloop was again coming up toward him under sail, but the pirates had surrendered, and the fight was over. chapter vi. blueskin the pirate i cape may and cape henlopen form, as it were, the upper and lower jaws of a gigantic mouth, which disgorges from its monstrous gullet the cloudy waters of the delaware bay into the heaving, sparkling blue-green of the atlantic ocean. from cape henlopen as the lower jaw there juts out a long, curving fang of high, smooth-rolling sand dunes, cutting sharp and clean against the still, blue sky above silent, naked, utterly deserted, excepting for the squat, white-walled lighthouse standing upon the crest of the highest hill. within this curving, sheltering hook of sand hills lie the smooth waters of lewes harbor, and, set a little back from the shore, the quaint old town, with its dingy wooden houses of clapboard and shingle, looks sleepily out through the masts of the shipping lying at anchor in the harbor, to the purple, clean-cut, level thread of the ocean horizon beyond. lewes is a queer, odd, old-fashioned little town, smelling fragrant of salt marsh and sea breeze. it is rarely visited by strangers. the people who live there are the progeny of people who have lived there for many generations, and it is the very place to nurse, and preserve, and care for old legends and traditions of bygone times, until they grow from bits of gossip and news into local history of considerable size. as in the busier world men talk of last year's elections, here these old bits, and scraps, and odds and ends of history are retailed to the listener who cares to listen--traditions of the war of , when beresford's fleet lay off the harbor threatening to bombard the town; tales of the revolution and of earl howe's warships, tarrying for a while in the quiet harbor before they sailed up the river to shake old philadelphia town with the thunders of their guns at red bank and fort mifflin. with these substantial and sober threads of real history, other and more lurid colors are interwoven into the web of local lore--legends of the dark doings of famous pirates, of their mysterious, sinister comings and goings, of treasures buried in the sand dunes and pine barrens back of the cape and along the atlantic beach to the southward. of such is the story of blueskin, the pirate. ii it was in the fall and the early winter of the year , and again in the summer of the year following, that the famous pirate, blueskin, became especially identified with lewes as a part of its traditional history. for some time--for three or four years--rumors and reports of blueskin's doings in the west indies and off the carolinas had been brought in now and then by sea captains. there was no more cruel, bloody, desperate, devilish pirate than he in all those pirate-infested waters. all kinds of wild and bloody stories were current concerning him, but it never occurred to the good folk of lewes that such stories were some time to be a part of their own history. but one day a schooner came drifting into lewes harbor--shattered, wounded, her forecastle splintered, her foremast shot half away, and three great tattered holes in her mainsail. the mate with one of the crew came ashore in the boat for help and a doctor. he reported that the captain and the cook were dead and there were three wounded men aboard. the story he told to the gathering crowd brought a very peculiar thrill to those who heard it. they had fallen in with blueskin, he said, off fenwick's island (some twenty or thirty miles below the capes), and the pirates had come aboard of them; but, finding that the cargo of the schooner consisted only of cypress shingles and lumber, had soon quitted their prize. perhaps blueskin was disappointed at not finding a more valuable capture; perhaps the spirit of deviltry was hotter in him that morning than usual; anyhow, as the pirate craft bore away she fired three broadsides at short range into the helpless coaster. the captain had been killed at the first fire, the cook had died on the way up, three of the crew were wounded, and the vessel was leaking fast, betwixt wind and water. such was the mate's story. it spread like wildfire, and in half an hour all the town was in a ferment. fenwick's island was very near home; blueskin might come sailing into the harbor at any minute and then--! in an hour sheriff jones had called together most of the able-bodied men of the town, muskets and rifles were taken down from the chimney places, and every preparation was made to defend the place against the pirates, should they come into the harbor and attempt to land. but blueskin did not come that day, nor did he come the next or the next. but on the afternoon of the third the news went suddenly flying over the town that the pirates were inside the capes. as the report spread the people came running--men, women, and children--to the green before the tavern, where a little knot of old seamen were gathered together, looking fixedly out toward the offing, talking in low voices. two vessels, one bark-rigged, the other and smaller a sloop, were slowly creeping up the bay, a couple of miles or so away and just inside the cape. there appeared nothing remarkable about the two crafts, but the little crowd that continued gathering upon the green stood looking out across the bay at them none the less anxiously for that. they were sailing close-hauled to the wind, the sloop following in the wake of her consort as the pilot fish follows in the wake of the shark. but the course they held did not lie toward the harbor, but rather bore away toward the jersey shore, and by and by it began to be apparent that blueskin did not intend visiting the town. nevertheless, those who stood looking did not draw a free breath until, after watching the two pirates for more than an hour and a half, they saw them--then about six miles away--suddenly put about and sail with a free wind out to sea again. "the bloody villains have gone!" said old captain wolfe, shutting his telescope with a click. but lewes was not yet quit of blueskin. two days later a half-breed from indian river bay came up, bringing the news that the pirates had sailed into the inlet--some fifteen miles below lewes--and had careened the bark to clean her. perhaps blueskin did not care to stir up the country people against him, for the half-breed reported that the pirates were doing no harm, and that what they took from the farmers of indian river and rehoboth they paid for with good hard money. it was while the excitement over the pirates was at its highest fever heat that levi west came home again. iii even in the middle of the last century the grist mill, a couple of miles from lewes, although it was at most but fifty or sixty years old, had all a look of weather-beaten age, for the cypress shingles, of which it was built, ripen in a few years of wind and weather to a silvery, hoary gray, and the white powdering of flour lent it a look as though the dust of ages had settled upon it, making the shadows within dim, soft, mysterious. a dozen willow trees shaded with dappling, shivering ripples of shadow the road before the mill door, and the mill itself, and the long, narrow, shingle-built, one-storied, hip-roofed dwelling house. at the time of the story the mill had descended in a direct line of succession to hiram white, the grandson of old ephraim white, who had built it, it was said, in . hiram white was only twenty-seven years old, but he was already in local repute as a "character." as a boy he was thought to be half-witted or "natural," and, as is the case with such unfortunates in small country towns where everybody knows everybody, he was made a common sport and jest for the keener, crueler wits of the neighborhood. now that he was grown to the ripeness of manhood he was still looked upon as being--to use a quaint expression--"slack," or "not jest right." he was heavy, awkward, ungainly and loose-jointed, and enormously, prodigiously strong. he had a lumpish, thick-featured face, with lips heavy and loosely hanging, that gave him an air of stupidity, half droll, half pathetic. his little eyes were set far apart and flat with his face, his eyebrows were nearly white and his hair was of a sandy, colorless kind. he was singularly taciturn, lisping thickly when he did talk, and stuttering and hesitating in his speech, as though his words moved faster than his mind could follow. it was the custom for local wags to urge, or badger, or tempt him to talk, for the sake of the ready laugh that always followed the few thick, stammering words and the stupid drooping of the jaw at the end of each short speech. perhaps squire hall was the only one in lewes hundred who misdoubted that hiram was half-witted. he had had dealings with him and was wont to say that whoever bought hiram white for a fool made a fool's bargain. certainly, whether he had common wits or no, hiram had managed his mill to pretty good purpose and was fairly well off in the world as prosperity went in southern delaware and in those days. no doubt, had it come to the pinch, he might have bought some of his tormentors out three times over. hiram white had suffered quite a financial loss some six months before, through that very blueskin who was now lurking in indian river inlet. he had entered into a "venture" with josiah shippin, a philadelphia merchant, to the tune of seven hundred pounds sterling. the money had been invested in a cargo of flour and corn meal which had been shipped to jamaica by the bark nancy lee. the nancy lee had been captured by the pirates off currituck sound, the crew set adrift in the longboat, and the bark herself and all her cargo burned to the water's edge. five hundred of the seven hundred pounds invested in the unfortunate "venture" was money bequeathed by hiram's father, seven years before, to levi west. eleazer white had been twice married, the second time to the widow west. she had brought with her to her new home a good-looking, long-legged, black-eyed, black-haired ne'er-do-well of a son, a year or so younger than hiram. he was a shrewd, quick-witted lad, idle, shiftless, willful, ill-trained perhaps, but as bright and keen as a pin. he was the very opposite to poor, dull hiram. eleazer white had never loved his son; he was ashamed of the poor, slack-witted oaf. upon the other hand, he was very fond of levi west, whom he always called "our levi," and whom he treated in every way as though he were his own son. he tried to train the lad to work in the mill, and was patient beyond what the patience of most fathers would have been with his stepson's idleness and shiftlessness. "never mind," he was used to say. "levi'll come all right. levi's as bright as a button." it was one of the greatest blows of the old miller's life when levi ran away to sea. in his last sickness the old man's mind constantly turned to his lost stepson. "mebby he'll come back again," said he, "and if he does i want you to be good to him, hiram. i've done my duty by you and have left you the house and mill, but i want you to promise that if levi comes back again you'll give him a home and a shelter under this roof if he wants one." and hiram had promised to do as his father asked. after eleazer died it was found that he had bequeathed five hundred pounds to his "beloved stepson, levi west," and had left squire hall as trustee. levi west had been gone nearly nine years and not a word had been heard from him; there could be little or no doubt that he was dead. one day hiram came into squire hall's office with a letter in his hand. it was the time of the old french war, and flour and corn meal were fetching fabulous prices in the british west indies. the letter hiram brought with him was from a philadelphia merchant, josiah shippin, with whom he had had some dealings. mr. shippin proposed that hiram should join him in sending a "venture" of flour and corn meal to kingston, jamaica. hiram had slept upon the letter overnight and now he brought it to the old squire. squire hall read the letter, shaking his head the while. "too much risk, hiram!" said he. "mr shippin wouldn't have asked you to go into this venture if he could have got anybody else to do so. my advice is that you let it alone. i reckon you've come to me for advice?" hiram shook his head. "ye haven't? what have ye come for, then?" "seven hundred pounds," said hiram. "seven hundred pounds!" said squire hall. "i haven't got seven hundred pounds to lend you, hiram." "five hundred been left to levi--i got hundred--raise hundred more on mortgage," said hiram. "tut, tut, hiram," said squire hall, "that'll never do in the world. suppose levi west should come back again, what then? i'm responsible for that money. if you wanted to borrow it now for any reasonable venture, you should have it and welcome, but for such a wildcat scheme--" "levi never come back," said hiram--"nine years gone levi's dead." "mebby he is," said squire hall, "but we don't know that." "i'll give bond for security," said hiram. squire hall thought for a while in silence. "very well, hiram," said he by and by, "if you'll do that. your father left the money, and i don't see that it's right for me to stay his son from using it. but if it is lost, hiram, and if levi should come back, it will go well to ruin ye." so hiram white invested seven hundred pounds in the jamaica venture and every farthing of it was burned by blueskin, off currituck sound. iv sally martin was said to be the prettiest girl in lewes hundred, and when the rumor began to leak out that hiram white was courting her the whole community took it as a monstrous joke. it was the common thing to greet hiram himself with, "hey, hiram; how's sally?" hiram never made answer to such salutation, but went his way as heavily, as impassively, as dully as ever. the joke was true. twice a week, rain or shine, hiram white never failed to scrape his feet upon billy martin's doorstep. twice a week, on sundays and thursdays, he never failed to take his customary seat by the kitchen fire. he rarely said anything by way of talk; he nodded to the farmer, to his wife, to sally and, when he chanced to be at home, to her brother, but he ventured nothing further. there he would sit from half past seven until nine o'clock, stolid, heavy, impassive, his dull eyes following now one of the family and now another, but always coming back again to sally. it sometimes happened that she had other company--some of the young men of the neighborhood. the presence of such seemed to make no difference to hiram; he bore whatever broad jokes might be cracked upon him, whatever grins, whatever giggling might follow those jokes, with the same patient impassiveness. there he would sit, silent, unresponsive; then, at the first stroke of nine o'clock, he would rise, shoulder his ungainly person into his overcoat, twist his head into his three-cornered hat, and with a "good night, sally, i be going now," would take his departure, shutting the door carefully to behind him. never, perhaps, was there a girl in the world had such a lover and such a courtship as sally martin. v it was one thursday evening in the latter part of november, about a week after blueskin's appearance off the capes, and while the one subject of talk was of the pirates being in indian river inlet. the air was still and wintry; a sudden cold snap had set in and skims of ice had formed over puddles in the road; the smoke from the chimneys rose straight in the quiet air and voices sounded loud, as they do in frosty weather. hiram white sat by the dim light of a tallow dip, poring laboriously over some account books. it was not quite seven o'clock, and he never started for billy martin's before that hour. as he ran his finger slowly and hesitatingly down the column of figures, he heard the kitchen door beyond open and shut, the noise of footsteps crossing the floor and the scraping of a chair dragged forward to the hearth. then came the sound of a basket of corncobs being emptied on the smoldering blaze and then the snapping and crackling of the reanimated fire. hiram thought nothing of all this, excepting, in a dim sort of way, that it was bob, the negro mill hand, or old black dinah, the housekeeper, and so went on with his calculations. at last he closed the books with a snap and, smoothing down his hair, arose, took up the candle, and passed out of the room into the kitchen beyond. a man was sitting in front of the corncob fire that flamed and blazed in the great, gaping, sooty fireplace. a rough overcoat was flung over the chair behind him and his hands were spread out to the roaring warmth. at the sound of the lifted latch and of hiram's entrance he turned his head, and when hiram saw his face he stood suddenly still as though turned to stone. the face, marvelously altered and changed as it was, was the face of his stepbrother, levi west. he was not dead; he had come home again. for a time not a sound broke the dead, unbroken silence excepting the crackling of the blaze in the fireplace and the sharp ticking of the tall clock in the corner. the one face, dull and stolid, with the light of the candle shining upward over its lumpy features, looked fixedly, immovably, stonily at the other, sharp, shrewd, cunning--the red wavering light of the blaze shining upon the high cheek bones, cutting sharp on the nose and twinkling in the glassy turn of the black, ratlike eyes. then suddenly that face cracked, broadened, spread to a grin. "i have come back again, hi," said levi, and at the sound of the words the speechless spell was broken. hiram answered never a word, but he walked to the fireplace, set the candle down upon the dusty mantelshelf among the boxes and bottles, and, drawing forward a chair upon the other side of the hearth, sat down. his dull little eyes never moved from his stepbrother's face. there was no curiosity in his expression, no surprise, no wonder. the heavy under lip dropped a little farther open and there was more than usual of dull, expressionless stupidity upon the lumpish face; but that was all. as was said, the face upon which he looked was strangely, marvelously changed from what it had been when he had last seen it nine years before, and, though it was still the face of levi west, it was a very different levi west than the shiftless ne'er-do-well who had run away to sea in the brazilian brig that long time ago. that levi west had been a rough, careless, happy-go-lucky fellow; thoughtless and selfish, but with nothing essentially evil or sinister in his nature. the levi west that now sat in a rush-bottom chair at the other side of the fireplace had that stamped upon his front that might be both evil and sinister. his swart complexion was tanned to an indian copper. on one side of his face was a curious discoloration in the skin and a long, crooked, cruel scar that ran diagonally across forehead and temple and cheek in a white, jagged seam. this discoloration was of a livid blue, about the tint of a tattoo mark. it made a patch the size of a man's hand, lying across the cheek and the side of the neck. hiram could not keep his eyes from this mark and the white scar cutting across it. there was an odd sort of incongruity in levi's dress; a pair of heavy gold earrings and a dirty red handkerchief knotted loosely around his neck, beneath an open collar, displaying to its full length the lean, sinewy throat with its bony "adam's apple," gave to his costume somewhat the smack of a sailor. he wore a coat that had once been of fine plum color--now stained and faded--too small for his lean length, and furbished with tarnished lace. dirty cambric cuffs hung at his wrists and on his fingers were half a dozen and more rings, set with stones that shone, and glistened, and twinkled in the light of the fire. the hair at either temple was twisted into a spanish curl, plastered flat to the cheek, and a plaited queue hung halfway down his back. hiram, speaking never a word, sat motionless, his dull little eyes traveling slowly up and down and around and around his stepbrother's person. levi did not seem to notice his scrutiny, leaning forward, now with his palms spread out to the grateful warmth, now rubbing them slowly together. but at last he suddenly whirled his chair around, rasping on the floor, and faced his stepbrother. he thrust his hand into his capacious coat pocket and brought out a pipe which he proceeded to fill from a skin of tobacco. "well, hi," said he, "d'ye see i've come back home again?" "thought you was dead," said hiram, dully. levi laughed, then he drew a red-hot coal out of the fire, put it upon the bowl of the pipe and began puffing out clouds of pungent smoke. "nay, nay," said he; "not dead--not dead by odds. but [puff] by the eternal holy, hi, i played many a close game [puff] with old davy jones, for all that." hiram's look turned inquiringly toward the jagged scar and levi caught the slow glance. "you're lookin' at this," said he, running his finger down the crooked seam. "that looks bad, but it wasn't so close as this"--laying his hand for a moment upon the livid stain. "a cooly devil off singapore gave me that cut when we fell foul of an opium junk in the china sea four years ago last september. this," touching the disfiguring blue patch again, "was a closer miss, hi. a spanish captain fired a pistol at me down off santa catharina. he was so nigh that the powder went under the skin and it'll never come out again. ---- his eyes--he had better have fired the pistol into his own head that morning. but never mind that. i reckon i'm changed, ain't i, hi?" he took his pipe out of his mouth and looked inquiringly at hiram, who nodded. levi laughed. "devil doubt it," said he, "but whether i'm changed or no, i'll take my affidavy that you are the same old half-witted hi that you used to be. i remember dad used to say that you hadn't no more than enough wits to keep you out of the rain. and, talking of dad, hi, i hearn tell he's been dead now these nine years gone. d'ye know what i've come home for?" hiram shook his head. "i've come for that five hundred pounds that dad left me when he died, for i hearn tell of that, too." hiram sat quite still for a second or two and then he said, "i put that money out to venture and lost it all." levi's face fell and he took his pipe out of his mouth, regarding hiram sharply and keenly. "what d'ye mean?" said he presently. "i thought you was dead--and i put--seven hundred pounds--into nancy lee--and blueskin burned her--off currituck." "burned her off currituck!" repeated levi. then suddenly a light seemed to break upon his comprehension. "burned by blueskin!" he repeated, and thereupon flung himself back in his chair and burst into a short, boisterous fit of laughter. "well, by the holy eternal, hi, if that isn't a piece of your tarnal luck. burned by blueskin, was it?" he paused for a moment, as though turning it over in his mind. then he laughed again. "all the same," said he presently, "d'ye see, i can't suffer for blueskin's doings. the money was willed to me, fair and true, and you have got to pay it, hiram white, burn or sink, blueskin or no blueskin." again he puffed for a moment or two in reflective silence. "all the same, hi," said he, once more resuming the thread of talk, "i don't reckon to be too hard on you. you be only half-witted, anyway, and i sha'n't be too hard on you. i give you a month to raise that money, and while you're doing it i'll jest hang around here. i've been in trouble, hi, d'ye see. i'm under a cloud and so i want to keep here, as quiet as may be. i'll tell ye how it came about: i had a set-to with a land pirate in philadelphia, and somebody got hurt. that's the reason i'm here now, and don't you say anything about it. do you understand?" hiram opened his lips as though it was his intent to answer, then seemed to think better of it and contented himself by nodding his head. that thursday night was the first for a six-month that hiram white did not scrape his feet clean at billy martin's doorstep. vi within a week levi west had pretty well established himself among his old friends and acquaintances, though upon a different footing from that of nine years before, for this was a very different levi from that other. nevertheless, he was none the less popular in the barroom of the tavern and at the country store, where he was always the center of a group of loungers. his nine years seemed to have been crowded full of the wildest of wild adventures and happenings, as well by land as by sea, and, given an appreciative audience, he would reel off his yarns by the hour, in a reckless, devil-may-care fashion that set agape even old sea dogs who had sailed the western ocean since boyhood. then he seemed always to have plenty of money, and he loved to spend it at the tavern tap-room, with a lavishness that was at once the wonder and admiration of gossips. at that time, as was said, blueskin was the one engrossing topic of talk, and it added not a little to levi's prestige when it was found that he had actually often seen that bloody, devilish pirate with his own eyes. a great, heavy, burly fellow, levi said he was, with a beard as black as a hat--a devil with his sword and pistol afloat, but not so black as he was painted when ashore. he told of many adventures in which blueskin figured and was then always listened to with more than usual gaping interest. as for blueskin, the quiet way in which the pirates conducted themselves at indian river almost made the lewes folk forget what he could do when the occasion called. they almost ceased to remember that poor shattered schooner that had crawled with its ghastly dead and groaning wounded into the harbor a couple of weeks since. but if for a while they forgot who or what blueskin was, it was not for long. one day a bark from bristol, bound for cuba and laden with a valuable cargo of cloth stuffs and silks, put into lewes harbor to take in water. the captain himself came ashore and was at the tavern for two or three hours. it happened that levi was there and that the talk was of blueskin. the english captain, a grizzled old sea dog, listened to levi's yarns with not a little contempt. he had, he said, sailed in the china sea and the indian ocean too long to be afraid of any hog-eating yankee pirate such as this blueskin. a junk full of coolies armed with stink-pots was something to speak of, but who ever heard of the likes of blueskin falling afoul of anything more than a spanish canoe or a yankee coaster? levi grinned. "all the same, my hearty," said he, "if i was you i'd give blueskin a wide berth. i hear that he's cleaned the vessel that was careened awhile ago, and mebby he'll give you a little trouble if you come too nigh him." to this the englishman only answered that blueskin might be----, and that the next afternoon, wind and weather permitting, he intended to heave anchor and run out to sea. levi laughed again. "i wish i might be here to see what'll happen," said he, "but i'm going up the river to-night to see a gal and mebby won't be back again for three or four days." the next afternoon the english bark set sail as the captain promised, and that night lewes town was awake until almost morning, gazing at a broad red glare that lighted up the sky away toward the southeast. two days afterward a negro oysterman came up from indian river with news that the pirates were lying off the inlet, bringing ashore bales of goods from their larger vessel and piling the same upon the beach under tarpaulins. he said that it was known down at indian river that blueskin had fallen afoul of an english bark, had burned her and had murdered the captain and all but three of the crew, who had joined with the pirates. the excitement over this terrible happening had only begun to subside when another occurred to cap it. one afternoon a ship's boat, in which were five men and two women, came rowing into lewes harbor. it was the longboat of the charleston packet, bound for new york, and was commanded by the first mate. the packet had been attacked and captured by the pirates about ten leagues south by east of cape henlopen. the pirates had come aboard of them at night and no resistance had been offered. perhaps it was that circumstance that saved the lives of all, for no murder or violence had been done. nevertheless, officers, passengers and crew had been stripped of everything of value and set adrift in the boats and the ship herself had been burned. the longboat had become separated from the others during the night and had sighted henlopen a little after sunrise. it may be here said that squire hall made out a report of these two occurrences and sent it up to philadelphia by the mate of the packet. but for some reason it was nearly four weeks before a sloop of war was sent around from new york. in the meanwhile, the pirates had disposed of the booty stored under the tarpaulins on the beach at indian river inlet, shipping some of it away in two small sloops and sending the rest by wagons somewhere up the country. vii levi had told the english captain that he was going up-country to visit one of his lady friends. he was gone nearly two weeks. then once more he appeared, as suddenly, as unexpectedly, as he had done when he first returned to lewes. hiram was sitting at supper when the door opened and levi walked in, hanging up his hat behind the door as unconcernedly as though he had only been gone an hour. he was in an ugly, lowering humor and sat himself down at the table without uttering a word, resting his chin upon his clenched fist and glowering fixedly at the corn cake while dinah fetched him a plate and knife and fork. his coming seemed to have taken away all of hiram's appetite. he pushed away his plate and sat staring at his stepbrother, who presently fell to at the bacon and eggs like a famished wolf. not a word was said until levi had ended his meal and filled his pipe. "look'ee, hiram," said he, as he stooped over the fire and raked out a hot coal. "look'ee, hiram! i've been to philadelphia, d'ye see, a-settlin' up that trouble i told you about when i first come home. d'ye understand? d'ye remember? d'ye get it through your skull?" he looked around over his shoulder, waiting as though for an answer. but getting none, he continued: "i expect two gentlemen here from philadelphia to-night. they're friends of mine and are coming to talk over the business and ye needn't stay at home, hi. you can go out somewhere, d'ye understand?" and then he added with a grin, "ye can go to see sally." hiram pushed back his chair and arose. he leaned with his back against the side of the fireplace. "i'll stay at home," said he presently. "but i don't want you to stay at home, hi," said levi. "we'll have to talk business and i want you to go!" "i'll stay at home," said hiram again. levi's brow grew as black as thunder. he ground his teeth together and for a moment or two it seemed as though an explosion was coming. but he swallowed his passion with a gulp. "you're a----pig-headed, half-witted fool," said he. hiram never so much as moved his eyes. "as for you," said levi, whirling round upon dinah, who was clearing the table, and glowering balefully upon the old negress, "you put them things down and git out of here. don't you come nigh this kitchen again till i tell ye to. if i catch you pryin' around may i be----, eyes and liver, if i don't cut your heart out." in about half an hour levi's friends came; the first a little, thin, wizened man with a very foreign look. he was dressed in a rusty black suit and wore gray yarn stockings and shoes with brass buckles. the other was also plainly a foreigner. he was dressed in sailor fashion, with petticoat breeches of duck, a heavy pea-jacket, and thick boots, reaching to the knees. he wore a red sash tied around his waist, and once, as he pushed back his coat, hiram saw the glitter of a pistol butt. he was a powerful, thickset man, low-browed and bull-necked, his cheek, and chin, and throat closely covered with a stubble of blue-black beard. he wore a red kerchief tied around his head and over it a cocked hat, edged with tarnished gilt braid. levi himself opened the door to them. he exchanged a few words outside with his visitors, in a foreign language of which hiram understood nothing. neither of the two strangers spoke a word to hiram: the little man shot him a sharp look out of the corners of his eyes and the burly ruffian scowled blackly at him, but beyond that neither vouchsafed him any regard. levi drew to the shutters, shot the bolt in the outer door, and tilted a chair against the latch of the one that led from the kitchen into the adjoining room. then the three worthies seated themselves at the table which dinah had half cleared of the supper china, and were presently deeply engrossed over a packet of papers which the big, burly man had brought with him in the pocket of his pea-jacket. the confabulation was conducted throughout in the same foreign language which levi had used when first speaking to them--a language quite unintelligible to hiram's ears. now and then the murmur of talk would rise loud and harsh over some disputed point; now and then it would sink away to whispers. twice the tall clock in the corner whirred and sharply struck the hour, but throughout the whole long consultation hiram stood silent, motionless as a stock, his eyes fixed almost unwinkingly upon the three heads grouped close together around the dim, flickering light of the candle and the papers scattered upon the table. suddenly the talk came to an end, the three heads separated and the three chairs were pushed back, grating harshly. levi rose, went to the closet and brought thence a bottle of hiram's apple brandy, as coolly as though it belonged to himself. he set three tumblers and a crock of water upon the table and each helped himself liberally. as the two visitors departed down the road, levi stood for a while at the open door, looking after the dusky figures until they were swallowed in the darkness. then he turned, came in, shut the door, shuddered, took a final dose of the apple brandy and went to bed, without, since his first suppressed explosion, having said a single word to hiram. hiram, left alone, stood for a while, silent, motionless as ever, then he looked slowly about him, gave a shake of the shoulders as though to arouse himself, and taking the candle, left the room, shutting the door noiselessly behind him. viii this time of levi west's unwelcome visitation was indeed a time of bitter trouble and tribulation to poor hiram white. money was of very different value in those days than it is now, and five hundred pounds was in its way a good round lump--in sussex county it was almost a fortune. it was a desperate struggle for hiram to raise the amount of his father's bequest to his stepbrother. squire hall, as may have been gathered, had a very warm and friendly feeling for hiram, believing in him when all others disbelieved; nevertheless, in the matter of money the old man was as hard and as cold as adamant. he would, he said, do all he could to help hiram, but that five hundred pounds must and should be raised--hiram must release his security bond. he would loan him, he said, three hundred pounds, taking a mortgage upon the mill. he would have lent him four hundred but that there was already a first mortgage of one hundred pounds upon it, and he would not dare to put more than three hundred more atop of that. hiram had a considerable quantity of wheat which he had bought upon speculation and which was then lying idle in a philadelphia storehouse. this he had sold at public sale and at a very great sacrifice; he realized barely one hundred pounds upon it. the financial horizon looked very black to him; nevertheless, levi's five hundred pounds was raised, and paid into squire hall's hands, and squire hall released hiram's bond. the business was finally closed on one cold, gray afternoon in the early part of december. as hiram tore his bond across and then tore it across again and again, squire hall pushed back the papers upon his desk and cocked his feet upon its slanting top. "hiram," said he, abruptly, "hiram, do you know that levi west is forever hanging around billy martin's house, after that pretty daughter of his?" so long a space of silence followed the speech that the squire began to think that hiram might not have heard him. but hiram had heard. "no," said he, "i didn't know it." "well, he is," said squire hall. "it's the talk of the whole neighborhood. the talk's pretty bad, too. d'ye know that they say that she was away from home three days last week, nobody knew where? the fellow's turned her head with his sailor's yarns and his traveler's lies." hiram said not a word, but he sat looking at the other in stolid silence. "that stepbrother of yours," continued the old squire presently, "is a rascal--he is a rascal, hiram, and i mis-doubt he's something worse. i hear he's been seen in some queer places and with queer company of late." he stopped again, and still hiram said nothing. "and look'ee, hiram," the old man resumed, suddenly, "i do hear that you be courtin' the girl, too; is that so?" "yes," said hiram, "i'm courtin' her, too." "tut! tut!" said the squire, "that's a pity, hiram. i'm afraid your cakes are dough." after he had left the squire's office, hiram stood for a while in the street, bareheaded, his hat in his hand, staring unwinkingly down at the ground at his feet, with stupidly drooping lips and lackluster eyes. presently he raised his hand and began slowly smoothing down the sandy shock of hair upon his forehead. at last he aroused himself with a shake, looked dully up and down the street, and then, putting on his hat, turned and walked slowly and heavily away. the early dusk of the cloudy winter evening was settling fast, for the sky was leaden and threatening. at the outskirts of the town hiram stopped again and again stood for a while in brooding thought. then, finally, he turned slowly, not the way that led homeward, but taking the road that led between the bare and withered fields and crooked fences toward billy martin's. it would be hard to say just what it was that led hiram to seek billy martin's house at that time of day--whether it was fate or ill fortune. he could not have chosen a more opportune time to confirm his own undoing. what he saw was the very worst that his heart feared. along the road, at a little distance from the house, was a mock-orange hedge, now bare, naked, leafless. as hiram drew near he heard footsteps approaching and low voices. he drew back into the fence corner and there stood, half sheltered by the stark network of twigs. two figures passed slowly along the gray of the roadway in the gloaming. one was his stepbrother, the other was sally martin. levi's arm was around her, he was whispering into her ear, and her head rested upon his shoulder. hiram stood as still, as breathless, as cold as ice. they stopped upon the side of the road just beyond where he stood. hiram's eyes never left them. there for some time they talked together in low voices, their words now and then reaching the ears of that silent, breathless listener. suddenly there came the clattering of an opening door, and then betty martin's voice broke the silence, harshly, shrilly: "sal!--sal!--sally martin! you, sally martin! come in yere. where be ye?" the girl flung her arms around levi's neck and their lips met in one quick kiss. the next moment she was gone, flying swiftly, silently, down the road past where hiram stood, stooping as she ran. levi stood looking after her until she was gone; then he turned and walked away whistling. his whistling died shrilly into silence in the wintry distance, and then at last hiram came stumbling out from the hedge. his face had never looked before as it looked then. ix hiram was standing in front of the fire with his hands clasped behind his back. he had not touched the supper on the table. levi was eating with an appetite. suddenly he looked over his plate at his stepbrother. "how about that five hundred pounds, hiram?" said he. "i gave ye a month to raise it and the month ain't quite up yet, but i'm goin' to leave this here place day after to-morrow--by next day at the furd'st--and i want the money that's mine." "i paid it to squire hall to-day and he has it fer ye," said hiram, dully. levi laid down his knife and fork with a clatter. "squire hall!" said he, "what's squire hall got to do with it? squire hall didn't have the use of that money. it was you had it and you have got to pay it back to me, and if you don't do it, by g----, i'll have the law on you, sure as you're born." "squire hall's trustee--i ain't your trustee," said hiram, in the same dull voice. "i don't know nothing about trustees," said levi, "or anything about lawyer business, either. what i want to know is, are you going to pay me my money or no?" "no," said hiram, "i ain't--squire hall'll pay ye; you go to him." levi west's face grew purple red. he pushed back, his chair grating harshly. "you--bloody land pirate!" he said, grinding his teeth together. "i see through your tricks. you're up to cheating me out of my money. you know very well that squire hall is down on me, hard and bitter--writin' his----reports to philadelphia and doing all he can to stir up everybody agin me and to bring the bluejackets down on me. i see through your tricks as clear as glass, but ye shatn't trick me. i'll have my money if there's law in the land--ye bloody, unnatural thief ye, who'd go agin our dead father's will!" then--if the roof had fallen in upon him, levi west could not have been more amazed--hiram suddenly strode forward, and, leaning half across the table with his fists clenched, fairly glared into levi's eyes. his face, dull, stupid, wooden, was now fairly convulsed with passion. the great veins stood out upon his temples like knotted whipcords, and when he spoke his voice was more a breathless snarl than the voice of a christian man. "ye'll have the law, will ye?" said he. "ye'll--have the law, will ye? you're afeared to go to law--levi west--you try th' law--and see how ye like it. who 're you to call me thief--ye bloody, murderin' villain ye! you're the thief--levi west--you come here and stole my daddy from me ye did. you make me ruin--myself to pay what oughter to been mine then--ye ye steal the gal i was courtin', to boot." he stopped and his lips rithed for words to say. "i know ye," said he, grinding his teeth. "i know ye! and only for what my daddy made me promise i'd a-had you up to the magistrate's before this." then, pointing with quivering finger: "there's the door--you see it! go out that there door and don't never come into it again--if ye do--or if ye ever come where i can lay eyes on ye again--by th' holy holy i'll hale ye up to the squire's office and tell all i know and all i've seen. oh, i'll give ye your belly-fill of law if--ye want th' law! git out of the house, i say!" as hiram spoke levi seemed to shrink together. his face changed from its copper color to a dull, waxy yellow. when the other ended he answered never a word. but he pushed back his chair, rose, put on his hat and, with a furtive, sidelong look, left the house, without stopping to finish the supper which he had begun. he never entered hiram white's door again. x hiram had driven out the evil spirit from his home, but the mischief that it had brewed was done and could not be undone. the next day it was known that sally martin had run away from home, and that she had run away with levi west. old billy martin had been in town in the morning with his rifle, hunting for levi and threatening if he caught him to have his life for leading his daughter astray. and, as the evil spirit had left hiram's house, so had another and a greater evil spirit quitted its harborage. it was heard from indian river in a few days more that blueskin had quitted the inlet and had sailed away to the southeast; and it was reported, by those who seemed to know, that he had finally quitted those parts. it was well for himself that blueskin left when he did, for not three days after he sailed away the scorpion sloop-of-war dropped anchor in lewes harbor. the new york agent of the unfortunate packet and a government commissioner had also come aboard the scorpion. without loss of time, the officer in command instituted a keen and searching examination that brought to light some singularly curious facts. it was found that a very friendly understanding must have existed for some time between the pirates and the people of indian river, for, in the houses throughout that section, many things--some of considerable value--that had been taken by the pirates from the packet, were discovered and seized by the commissioner. valuables of a suspicious nature had found their way even into the houses of lewes itself. the whole neighborhood seemed to have become more or less tainted by the presence of the pirates. even poor hiram white did not escape the suspicions of having had dealings with them. of course the examiners were not slow in discovering that levi west had been deeply concerned with blueskin's doings. old dinah and black bob were examined, and not only did the story of levi's two visitors come to light, but also the fact that hiram was present and with them while they were in the house disposing of the captured goods to their agent. of all that he had endured, nothing seemed to cut poor hiram so deeply and keenly as these unjust suspicions. they seemed to bring the last bitter pang, hardest of all to bear. levi had taken from him his father's love; he had driven him, if not to ruin, at least perilously close to it. he had run away with the girl he loved, and now, through him, even hiram's good name was gone. neither did the suspicions against him remain passive; they became active. goldsmiths' bills, to the amount of several thousand pounds, had been taken in the packet and hiram was examined with an almost inquisitorial closeness and strictness as to whether he had or had not knowledge of their whereabouts. under his accumulated misfortunes, he grew not only more dull, more taciturn, than ever, but gloomy, moody, brooding as well. for hours he would sit staring straight before him into the fire, without moving so much as a hair. one night--it was a bitterly cold night in february, with three inches of dry and gritty snow upon the ground--while hiram sat thus brooding, there came, of a sudden, a soft tap upon the door. low and hesitating as it was, hiram started violently at the sound. he sat for a while, looking from right to left. then suddenly pushing back his chair, he arose, strode to the door, and flung it wide open. it was sally martin. hiram stood for a while staring blankly at her. it was she who first spoke. "won't you let me come in, hi?" said she. "i'm nigh starved with the cold and i'm fit to die, i'm so hungry. for god's sake, let me come in." "yes," said hiram, "i'll let you come in, but why don't you go home?" the poor girl was shivering and chattering with the cold; now she began crying, wiping her eyes with the corner of a blanket in which her head and shoulders were wrapped. "i have been home, hiram," she said, "but dad, he shut the door in my face. he cursed me just awful, hi--i wish i was dead!" "you better come in," said hiram. "it's no good standing out there in the cold." he stood aside and the girl entered, swiftly, gratefully. at hiram's bidding black dinah presently set some food before sally and she fell to eating ravenously, almost ferociously. meantime, while she ate, hiram stood with his back to the fire, looking at her face that face once so round and rosy, now thin, pinched, haggard. "are you sick, sally?" said he presently. "no," said she, "but i've had pretty hard times since i left home, hi." the tears sprang to her eyes at the recollection of her troubles, but she only wiped them hastily away with the back of her hand, without stopping in her eating. a long pause of dead silence followed. dinah sat crouched together on a cricket at the other side of the hearth, listening with interest. hiram did not seem to see her. "did you go off with levi?" said he at last, speaking abruptly. the girl looked up furtively under her brows. "you needn't be afeared to tell," he added. "yes," said she at last, "i did go off with him, hi." "where've you been?" at the question, she suddenly laid down her knife and fork. "don't you ask me that, hi," said she, agitatedly, "i can't tell you that. you don't know levi, hiram; i darsn't tell you anything he don't want me to. if i told you where i been he'd hunt me out, no matter where i was, and kill me. if you only knew what i know about him, hiram, you wouldn't ask anything about him." hiram stood looking broodingly at her for a long time; then at last he again spoke. "i thought a sight of you onc't, sally," said he. sally did not answer immediately, but, after a while, she suddenly looked up. "hiram," said she, "if i tell ye something will you promise on your oath not to breathe a word to any living soul?" hiram nodded. "then i'll tell you, but if levi finds i've told he'll murder me as sure as you're standin' there. come nigher--i've got to whisper it." he leaned forward close to her where she sat. she looked swiftly from right to left; then raising her lips she breathed into his ear: "i'm an honest woman, hi. i was married to levi west before i run away." xi the winter had passed, spring had passed, and summer had come. whatever hiram had felt, he had made no sign of suffering. nevertheless, his lumpy face had begun to look flabby, his cheeks hollow, and his loose-jointed body shrunk more awkwardly together into its clothes. he was often awake at night, sometimes walking up and down his room until far into the small hours. it was through such a wakeful spell as this that he entered into the greatest, the most terrible, happening of his life. it was a sulphurously hot night in july. the air was like the breath of a furnace, and it was a hard matter to sleep with even the easiest mind and under the most favorable circumstances. the full moon shone in through the open window, laying a white square of light upon the floor, and hiram, as he paced up and down, up and down, walked directly through it, his gaunt figure starting out at every turn into sudden brightness as he entered the straight line of misty light. the clock in the kitchen whirred and rang out the hour of twelve, and hiram stopped in his walk to count the strokes. the last vibration died away into silence, and still he stood motionless, now listening with a new and sudden intentness, for, even as the clock rang the last stroke, he heard soft, heavy footsteps, moving slowly and cautiously along the pathway before the house and directly below the open window. a few seconds more and he heard the creaking of rusty hinges. the mysterious visitor had entered the mill. hiram crept softly to the window and looked out. the moon shone full on the dusty, shingled face of the old mill, not thirty steps away, and he saw that the door was standing wide open. a second or two of stillness followed, and then, as he still stood looking intently, he saw the figure of a man suddenly appear, sharp and vivid, from the gaping blackness of the open doorway. hiram could see his face as clear as day. it was levi west, and he carried an empty meal bag over his arm. levi west stood looking from right to left for a second or two, and then he took off his hat and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. then he softly closed the door behind him and left the mill as he had come, and with the same cautious step. hiram looked down upon him as he passed close to the house and almost directly beneath. he could have touched him with his hand. fifty or sixty yards from the house levi stopped and a second figure arose from the black shadow in the angle of the worm fence and joined him. they stood for a while talking together, levi pointing now and then toward the mill. then the two turned, and, climbing over the fence, cut across an open field and through the tall, shaggy grass toward the southeast. hiram straightened himself and drew a deep breath, and the moon, shining full upon his face, snowed it twisted, convulsed, as it had been when he had fronted his stepbrother seven months before in the kitchen. great beads of sweat stood on his brow and he wiped them away with his sleeve. then, coatless, hatless as he was, he swung himself out of the window, dropped upon the grass, and, without an instant of hesitation, strode off down the road in the direction that levi west had taken. as he climbed the fence where the two men had climbed it he could see them in the pallid light, far away across the level, scrubby meadow land, walking toward a narrow strip of pine woods. a little later they entered the sharp-cut shadows beneath the trees and were swallowed in the darkness. with fixed eyes and close-shut lips, as doggedly, as inexorably as though he were a nemesis hunting his enemy down, hiram followed their footsteps across the stretch of moonlit open. then, by and by, he also was in the shadow of the pines. here, not a sound broke the midnight hush. his feet made no noise upon the resinous softness of the ground below. in that dead, pulseless silence he could distinctly hear the distant voices of levi and his companion, sounding loud and resonant in the hollow of the woods. beyond the woods was a cornfield, and presently he heard the rattling of the harsh leaves as the two plunged into the tasseled jungle. here, as in the woods, he followed them, step by step, guided by the noise of their progress through the canes. beyond the cornfield ran a road that, skirting to the south of lewes, led across a wooden bridge to the wide salt marshes that stretched between the town and the distant sand hills. coming out upon this road hiram found that he had gained upon those he followed, and that they now were not fifty paces away, and he could see that levi's companion carried over his shoulder what looked like a bundle of tools. he waited for a little while to let them gain their distance and for the second time wiped his forehead with his shirt sleeve; then, without ever once letting his eyes leave them, he climbed the fence to the roadway. for a couple of miles or more he followed the two along the white, level highway, past silent, sleeping houses, past barns, sheds, and haystacks, looming big in the moonlight, past fields, and woods, and clearings, past the dark and silent skirts of the town, and so, at last, out upon the wide, misty salt marshes, which seemed to stretch away interminably through the pallid light, yet were bounded in the far distance by the long, white line of sand hills. across the level salt marshes he followed them, through the rank sedge and past the glassy pools in which his own inverted image stalked beneath as he stalked above; on and on, until at last they had reached a belt of scrub pines, gnarled and gray, that fringed the foot of the white sand hills. here hiram kept within the black network of shadow. the two whom he followed walked more in the open, with their shadows, as black as ink, walking along in the sand beside them, and now, in the dead, breathless stillness, might be heard, dull and heavy, the distant thumping, pounding roar of the atlantic surf, beating on the beach at the other side of the sand hills, half a mile away. at last the two rounded the southern end of the white bluff, and when hiram, following, rounded it also, they were no longer to be seen. before him the sand hill rose, smooth and steep, cutting in a sharp ridge against the sky. up this steep hill trailed the footsteps of those he followed, disappearing over the crest. beyond the ridge lay a round, bowl-like hollow, perhaps fifty feet across and eighteen or twenty feet deep, scooped out by the eddying of the winds into an almost perfect circle. hiram, slowly, cautiously, stealthily, following their trailing line of footmarks, mounted to the top of the hillock and peered down into the bowl beneath. the two men were sitting upon the sand, not far from the tall, skeleton-like shaft of a dead pine tree that rose, stark and gray, from the sand in which it may once have been buried, centuries ago. xii levi had taken off his coat and waistcoat and was fanning himself with his hat. he was sitting upon the bag he had brought from the mill and which he had spread out upon the sand. his companion sat facing him. the moon shone full upon him and hiram knew him instantly--he was the same burly, foreign-looking ruffian who had come with the little man to the mill that night to see levi. he also had his hat off and was wiping his forehead and face with a red handkerchief. beside him lay the bundle of tools he had brought--a couple of shovels, a piece of rope, and a long, sharp iron rod. the two men were talking together, but hiram could not understand what they said, for they spoke in the same foreign language that they had before used. but he could see his stepbrother point with his finger, now to the dead tree and now to the steep, white face of the opposite side of the bowl-like hollow. at last, having apparently rested themselves, the conference, if conference it was, came to an end, and levi led the way, the other following, to the dead pine tree. here he stopped and began searching, as though for some mark; then, having found that which he looked for, he drew a tapeline and a large brass pocket compass from his pocket. he gave one end of the tape line to his companion, holding the other with his thumb pressed upon a particular part of the tree. taking his bearings by the compass, he gave now and then some orders to the other, who moved a little to the left or the right as he bade. at last he gave a word of command, and, thereupon, his companion drew a wooden peg from his pocket and thrust it into the sand. from this peg as a base they again measured, taking bearings by the compass, and again drove a peg. for a third time they repeated their measurements and then, at last, seemed to have reached the point which they aimed for. here levi marked a cross with his heel upon the sand. his companion brought him the pointed iron rod which lay beside the shovels, and then stood watching as levi thrust it deep into the sand, again and again, as though sounding for some object below. it was some while before he found that for which he was seeking, but at last the rod struck with a jar upon some hard object below. after making sure of success by one or two additional taps with the rod, levi left it remaining where it stood, brushing the sand from his hands. "now fetch the shovels, pedro," said he, speaking for the first time in english. the two men were busy for a long while, shoveling away the sand. the object for which they were seeking lay buried some six feet deep, and the work was heavy and laborious, the shifting sand sliding back, again and again, into the hole. but at last the blade of one of the shovels struck upon some hard substance and levi stooped and brushed away the sand with the palm of his hand. levi's companion climbed out of the hole which they had dug and tossed the rope which he had brought with the shovels down to the other. levi made it fast to some object below and then himself mounted to the level of the sand above. pulling together, the two drew up from the hole a heavy iron-bound box, nearly three feet long and a foot wide and deep. levi's companion stooped and began untying the rope which had been lashed to a ring in the lid. what next happened happened suddenly, swiftly, terribly. levi drew back a single step, and shot one quick, keen look to right and to left. he passed his hand rapidly behind his back, and the next moment hiram saw the moonlight gleam upon the long, sharp, keen blade of a knife. levi raised his arm. then, just as the other arose from bending over the chest, he struck, and struck again, two swift, powerful blows. hiram saw the blade drive, clean and sharp, into the back, and heard the hilt strike with a dull thud against the ribs--once, twice. the burly, black-bearded wretch gave a shrill, terrible cry and fell staggering back. then, in an instant, with another cry, he was up and clutched levi with a clutch of despair by the throat and by the arm. then followed a struggle, short, terrible, silent. not a sound was heard but the deep, panting breath and the scuffling of feet in the sand, upon which there now poured and dabbled a dark-purple stream. but it was a one-sided struggle and lasted only for a second or two. levi wrenched his arm loose from the wounded man's grasp, tearing his shirt sleeve from the wrist to the shoulder as he did so. again and again the cruel knife was lifted, and again and again it fell, now no longer bright, but stained with red. then, suddenly, all was over. levi's companion dropped to the sand without a sound, like a bundle of rags. for a moment he lay limp and inert; then one shuddering spasm passed over him and he lay silent and still, with his face half buried in the sand. levi, with the knife still gripped tight in his hand, stood leaning over his victim, looking down upon his body. his shirt and hand, and even his naked arm, were stained and blotched with blood. the moon lit up his face and it was the face of a devil from hell. at last he gave himself a shake, stooped and wiped his knife and hand and arm upon the loose petticoat breeches of the dead man. he thrust his knife back into its sheath, drew a key from his pocket and unlocked the chest. in the moonlight hiram could see that it was filled mostly with paper and leather bags, full, apparently of money. all through this awful struggle and its awful ending hiram lay, dumb and motionless, upon the crest of the sand hill, looking with a horrid fascination upon the death struggle in the pit below. now hiram arose. the sand slid whispering down from the crest as he did so, but levi was too intent in turning over the contents of the chest to notice the slight sound. hiram's face was ghastly pale and drawn. for one moment he opened his lips as though to speak, but no word came. so, white, silent, he stood for a few seconds, rather like a statue than a living man, then, suddenly, his eyes fell upon the bag, which levi had brought with him, no doubt, to carry back the treasure for which he and his companion were in search, and which still lay spread out on the sand where it had been flung. then, as though a thought had suddenly flashed upon him, his whole expression changed, his lips closed tightly together as though fearing an involuntary sound might escape, and the haggard look dissolved from his face. cautiously, slowly, he stepped over the edge of the sand hill and down the slanting face. his coming was as silent as death, for his feet made no noise as he sank ankle-deep in the yielding surface. so, stealthily, step by step, he descended, reached the bag, lifted it silently. levi, still bending over the chest and searching through the papers within, was not four feet away. hiram raised the bag in his hands. he must have made some slight rustle as he did so, for suddenly levi half turned his head. but he was one instant too late. in a flash the bag was over his head--shoulders--arms--body. then came another struggle, as fierce, as silent, as desperate as that other--and as short. wiry, tough, and strong as he was, with a lean, sinewy, nervous vigor, fighting desperately for his life as he was, levi had no chance against the ponderous strength of his stepbrother. in any case, the struggle could not have lasted long; as it was, levi stumbled backward over the body of his dead mate and fell, with hiram upon him. maybe he was stunned by the fall; maybe he felt the hopelessness of resistance, for he lay quite still while hiram, kneeling upon him, drew the rope from the ring of the chest and, without uttering a word, bound it tightly around both the bag and the captive within, knotting it again and again and drawing it tight. only once was a word spoken. "if you'll lemme go," said a muffled voice from the bag, "i'll give you five thousand pounds--it's in that there box." hiram answered never a word, but continued knotting the rope and drawing it tight. xiii the scorpion sloop-of-war lay in lewes harbor all that winter and spring, probably upon the slim chance of a return of the pirates. it was about eight o'clock in the morning and lieutenant maynard was sitting in squire hall's office, fanning himself with his hat and talking in a desultory fashion. suddenly the dim and distant noise of a great crowd was heard from without, coming nearer and nearer. the squire and his visitor hurried to the door. the crowd was coming down the street shouting, jostling, struggling, some on the footway, some in the roadway. heads were at the doors and windows, looking down upon them. nearer they came, and nearer; then at last they could see that the press surrounded and accompanied one man. it was hiram white, hatless, coatless, the sweat running down his face in streams, but stolid and silent as ever. over his shoulder he carried a bag, tied round and round with a rope. it was not until the crowd and the man it surrounded had come quite near that the squire and the lieutenant saw that a pair of legs in gray-yarn stockings hung from the bag. it was a man he was carrying. hiram had lugged his burden five miles that morning without help and with scarcely a rest on the way. he came directly toward the squire's office and, still sun rounded and hustled by the crowd, up the steep steps to the office within. he flung his burden heavily upon the floor without a word and wiped his streaming forehead. the squire stood with his knuckles on his desk, staring first at hiram and then at the strange burden he had brought. a sudden hush fell upon all, though the voices of those without sounded as loud and turbulent as ever. "what is it, hiram?" said squire hall at last. then for the first time hiram spoke, panting thickly. "it's a bloody murderer," said he, pointing a quivering finger at the motionless figure. "here, some of you!" called out the squire. "come! untie this man! who is he?" a dozen willing fingers quickly unknotted the rope and the bag was slipped from the head and body. hair and face and eyebrows and clothes were powdered with meal, but, in spite of all and through all the innocent whiteness, dark spots and blotches and smears of blood showed upon head and arm and shirt. levi raised himself upon his elbow and looked scowlingly around at the amazed, wonderstruck faces surrounding him. "why, it's levi west!" croaked the squire, at last finding his voice. then, suddenly, lieutenant maynard pushed forward, before the others crowded around the figure on the floor, and, clutching levi by the hair, dragged his head backward so as to better see his face. "levi west!" said he in a loud voice. "is this the levi west you've been telling me of? look at that scar and the mark on his cheek! this is blueskin himself." xiv in the chest which blueskin had dug up out of the sand were found not only the goldsmiths' bills taken from the packet, but also many other valuables belonging to the officers and the passengers of the unfortunate ship. the new york agents offered hiram a handsome reward for his efforts in recovering the lost bills, but hiram declined it, positively and finally. "all i want," said he, in his usual dull, stolid fashion, "is to have folks know i'm honest." nevertheless, though he did not accept what the agents of the packet offered, fate took the matter into its own hands and rewarded him not unsubstantially. blueskin was taken to england in the scorpion. but he never came to trial. while in newgate he hanged himself to the cell window with his own stockings. the news of his end was brought to lewes in the early autumn and squire hall took immediate measures to have the five hundred pounds of his father's legacy duly transferred to hiram. in november hiram married the pirate's widow. chapter vii. captain scarfield preface the author of this narrative cannot recall that, in any history of the famous pirates, he has ever read a detailed and sufficient account of the life and death of capt. john scarfield. doubtless some data concerning his death and the destruction of his schooner might be gathered from the report of lieutenant mainwaring, now filed in the archives of the navy department, out beyond such bald and bloodless narrative the author knows of nothing, unless it be the little chap-book history published by isaiah thomas in newburyport about the year - , entitled, "a true history of the life and death of captain jack scarfield." this lack of particularity in the history of one so notable in his profession it is the design of the present narrative in a measure to supply, and, if the author has seen fit to cast it in the form of a fictional story, it is only that it may make more easy reading for those who see fit to follow the tale from this to its conclusion. i eleazer cooper, or captain cooper, as was his better-known title in philadelphia, was a prominent member of the society of friends. he was an overseer of the meeting and an occasional speaker upon particular occasions. when at home from one of his many voyages he never failed to occupy his seat in the meeting both on first day and fifth day, and he was regarded by his fellow townsmen as a model of business integrity and of domestic responsibility. more incidental to this history, however, it is to be narrated that captain cooper was one of those trading skippers who carried their own merchandise in their own vessels which they sailed themselves, and on whose decks they did their own bartering. his vessel was a swift, large schooner, the eliza cooper, of philadelphia, named for his wife. his cruising grounds were the west india islands, and his merchandise was flour and corn meal ground at the brandywine mills at wilmington, delaware. during the war of he had earned, as was very well known, an extraordinary fortune in this trading; for flour and corn meal sold at fabulous prices in the french, spanish, dutch, and danish islands, cut off, as they were, from the rest of the world by the british blockade. the running of this blockade was one of the most hazardous maritime ventures possible, but captain cooper had met with such unvaried success, and had sold his merchandise at such incredible profit that, at the end of the war, he found himself to have become one of the wealthiest merchants of his native city. it was known at one time that his balance in the mechanics' bank was greater than that of any other individual depositor upon the books, and it was told of him that he had once deposited in the bank a chest of foreign silver coin, the exchanged value of which, when translated into american currency, was upward of forty-two thousand dollars--a prodigious sum of money in those days. in person, captain cooper was tall and angular of frame. his face was thin and severe, wearing continually an unsmiling, mask-like expression of continent and unruffled sobriety. his manner was dry and taciturn, and his conduct and life were measured to the most absolute accord with the teachings of his religious belief. he lived in an old-fashioned house on front street below spruce--as pleasant, cheerful a house as ever a trading captain could return to. at the back of the house a lawn sloped steeply down toward the river. to the south stood the wharf and storehouses; to the north an orchard and kitchen garden bloomed with abundant verdure. two large chestnut trees sheltered the porch and the little space of lawn, and when you sat under them in the shade you looked down the slope between two rows of box bushes directly across the shining river to the jersey shore. at the time of our story--that is, about the year --this property had increased very greatly in value, but it was the old home of the coopers, as eleazer cooper was entirely rich enough to indulge his fancy in such matters. accordingly, as he chose to live in the same house where his father and his grandfather had dwelt before him, he peremptorily, if quietly, refused all offers looking toward the purchase of the lot of ground--though it was now worth five or six times its former value. as was said, it was a cheerful, pleasant home, impressing you when you entered it with the feeling of spotless and all-pervading cleanliness--a cleanliness that greeted you in the shining brass door-knocker; that entertained you in the sitting room with its stiff, leather-covered furniture, the brass-headed tacks whereof sparkled like so many stars--a cleanliness that bade you farewell in the spotless stretch of sand-sprinkled hallway, the wooden floor of which was worn into knobs around the nail heads by the countless scourings and scrubbings to which it had been subjected and which left behind them an all-pervading faint, fragrant odor of soap and warm water. eleazer cooper and his wife were childless, but one inmate made the great, silent, shady house bright with life. lucinda fairbanks, a niece of captain cooper's by his only sister, was a handsome, sprightly girl of eighteen or twenty, and a great favorite in the quaker society of the city. it remains only to introduce the final and, perhaps, the most important actor of the narrative lieut. james mainwaring. during the past twelve months or so he had been a frequent visitor at the cooper house. at this time he was a broad-shouldered, red-cheeked, stalwart fellow of twenty-six or twenty-eight. he was a great social favorite, and possessed the added romantic interest of having been aboard the constitution when she fought the guerriere, and of having, with his own hands, touched the match that fired the first gun of that great battle. mainwaring's mother and eliza cooper had always been intimate friends, and the coming and going of the young man during his leave of absence were looked upon in the house as quite a matter of course. half a dozen times a week he would drop in to execute some little commission for the ladies, or, if captain cooper was at home, to smoke a pipe of tobacco with him, to sip a dram of his famous old jamaica rum, or to play a rubber of checkers of an evening. it is not likely that either of the older people was the least aware of the real cause of his visits; still less did they suspect that any passages of sentiment had passed between the young people. the truth was that mainwaring and the young lady were very deeply in love. it was a love that they were obliged to keep a profound secret, for not only had eleazer cooper held the strictest sort of testimony against the late war--a testimony so rigorous as to render it altogether unlikely that one of so military a profession as mainwaring practiced could hope for his consent to a suit for marriage, but lucinda could not have married one not a member of the society of friends without losing her own birthright membership therein. she herself might not attach much weight to such a loss of membership in the society, but her fear of, and her respect for, her uncle led her to walk very closely in her path of duty in this respect. accordingly she and mainwaring met as they could--clandestinely--and the stolen moments were very sweet. with equal secrecy lucinda had, at the request of her lover, sat for a miniature portrait to mrs. gregory, which miniature, set in a gold medallion, mainwaring, with a mild, sentimental pleasure, wore hung around his neck and beneath his shirt frill next his heart. in the month of april of the year mainwaring received orders to report at washington. during the preceding autumn the west india pirates, and notably capt. jack scarfield, had been more than usually active, and the loss of the packet marblehead (which, sailing from charleston, south carolina, was never heard of more) was attributed to them. two other coasting vessels off the coast of georgia had been looted and burned by scarfield, and the government had at last aroused itself to the necessity of active measures for repressing these pests of the west india waters. mainwaring received orders to take command of the yankee, a swift, light-draught, heavily armed brig of war, and to cruise about the bahama islands and to capture and destroy all the pirates' vessels he could there discover. on his way from washington to new york, where the yankee was then waiting orders, mainwaring stopped in philadelphia to bid good-by to his many friends in that city. he called at the old cooper house. it was on a sunday afternoon. the spring was early and the weather extremely pleasant that day, being filled with a warmth almost as of summer. the apple trees were already in full bloom and filled all the air with their fragrance. everywhere there seemed to be the pervading hum of bees, and the drowsy, tepid sunshine was very delightful. at that time eleazer was just home from an unusually successful voyage to antigua. mainwaring found the family sitting under one of the still leafless chestnut trees, captain cooper smoking his long clay pipe and lazily perusing a copy of the national gazette. eleazer listened with a great deal of interest to what mainwaring had to say of his proposed cruise. he himself knew a great deal about the pirates, and, singularly unbending from his normal, stiff taciturnity, he began telling of what he knew, particularly of captain scarfield--in whom he appeared to take an extraordinary interest. vastly to mainwaring's surprise, the old quaker assumed the position of a defendant of the pirates, protesting that the wickedness of the accused was enormously exaggerated. he declared that he knew some of the freebooters very well and that at the most they were poor, misdirected wretches who had, by easy gradation, slid into their present evil ways, from having been tempted by the government authorities to enter into privateering in the days of the late war. he conceded that captain scarfield had done many cruel and wicked deeds, but he averred that he had also performed many kind and benevolent actions. the world made no note of these latter, but took care only to condemn the evil that had been done. he acknowledged that it was true that the pirate had allowed his crew to cast lots for the wife and the daughter of the skipper of the northern rose, but there were none of his accusers who told how, at the risk of his own life and the lives of all his crew, he had given succor to the schooner halifax, found adrift with all hands down with yellow fever. there was no defender of his actions to tell how he and his crew of pirates had sailed the pest-stricken vessel almost into the rescuing waters of kingston harbor. eleazer confessed that he could not deny that when scarfield had tied the skipper of the baltimore belle naked to the foremast of his own brig he had permitted his crew of cutthroats (who were drunk at the time) to throw bottles at the helpless captive, who died that night of the wounds he had received. for this he was doubtless very justly condemned, but who was there to praise him when he had, at the risk of his life and in the face of the authorities, carried a cargo of provisions which he himself had purchased at tampa bay to the island of bella vista after the great hurricane of ? in this notable adventure he had barely escaped, after a two days' chase, the british frigate ceres, whose captain, had a capture been effected, would instantly have hung the unfortunate man to the yardarm in spite of the beneficent mission he was in the act of conducting. in all this eleazer had the air of conducting the case for the defendant. as he talked he became more and more animated and voluble. the light went out in his tobacco pipe, and a hectic spot appeared in either thin and sallow cheek. mainwaring sat wondering to hear the severely peaceful quaker preacher defending so notoriously bloody and cruel a cutthroat pirate as capt. jack scarfield. the warm and innocent surroundings, the old brick house looking down upon them, the odor of apple blossoms and the hum of bees seemed to make it all the more incongruous. and still the elderly quaker skipper talked on and on with hardly an interruption, till the warm sun slanted to the west and the day began to decline. that evening mainwaring stayed to tea and when he parted from lucinda fairbanks it was after nightfall, with a clear, round moon shining in the milky sky and a radiance pallid and unreal enveloping the old house, the blooming apple trees, the sloping lawn and the shining river beyond. he implored his sweetheart to let him tell her uncle and aunt of their acknowledged love and to ask the old man's consent to it, but she would not permit him to do so. they were so happy as they were. who knew but what her uncle might forbid their fondness? would he not wait a little longer? maybe it would all come right after a while. she was so fond, so tender, so tearful at the nearness of their parting that he had not the heart to insist. at the same time it was with a feeling almost of despair that he realized that he must now be gone--maybe for the space of two years--without in all that time possessing the right to call her his before the world. when he bade farewell to the older people it was with a choking feeling of bitter disappointment. he yet felt the pressure of her cheek against his shoulder, the touch of soft and velvet lips to his own. but what were such clandestine endearments compared to what might, perchance, be his--the right of calling her his own when he was far away and upon the distant sea? and, besides, he felt like a coward who had shirked his duty. but he was very much in love. the next morning appeared in a drizzle of rain that followed the beautiful warmth of the day before. he had the coach all to himself, and in the damp and leathery solitude he drew out the little oval picture from beneath his shirt frill and looked long and fixedly with a fond and foolish joy at the innocent face, the blue eyes, the red, smiling lips depicted upon the satinlike, ivory surface. ii for the better part of five months mainwaring cruised about in the waters surrounding the bahama islands. in that time he ran to earth and dispersed a dozen nests of pirates. he destroyed no less than fifteen piratical crafts of all sizes, from a large half-decked whaleboat to a three-hundred-ton barkentine. the name of the yankee became a terror to every sea wolf in the western tropics, and the waters of the bahama islands became swept almost clean of the bloody wretches who had so lately infested it. but the one freebooter of all others whom he sought--capt. jack scarfield--seemed to evade him like a shadow, to slip through his fingers like magic. twice he came almost within touch of the famous marauder, both times in the ominous wrecks that the pirate captain had left behind him. the first of these was the water-logged remains of a burned and still smoking wreck that he found adrift in the great bahama channel. it was the water witch, of salem, but he did not learn her tragic story until, two weeks later, he discovered a part of her crew at port maria, on the north coast of jamaica. it was, indeed, a dreadful story to which he listened. the castaways said that they of all the vessel's crew had been spared so that they might tell the commander of the yankee, should they meet him, that he might keep what he found, with captain scarfield's compliments, who served it up to him hot cooked. three weeks later he rescued what remained of the crew of the shattered, bloody hulk of the baltimore belle, eight of whose crew, headed by the captain, had been tied hand and foot and heaved overboard. again, there was a message from captain scarfield to the commander of the yankee that he might season what he found to suit his own taste. mainwaring was of a sanguine disposition, with fiery temper. he swore, with the utmost vehemence, that either he or john scarfield would have to leave the earth. he had little suspicion of how soon was to befall the ominous realization of his angry prophecy. at that time one of the chief rendezvous of the pirates was the little island of san jose, one of the southernmost of the bahama group. here, in the days before the coming of the yankee, they were wont to put in to careen and clean their vessels and to take in a fresh supply of provisions, gunpowder, and rum, preparatory to renewing their attacks upon the peaceful commerce circulating up and down outside the islands, or through the wide stretches of the bahama channel. mainwaring had made several descents upon this nest of freebooters. he had already made two notable captures, and it was here he hoped eventually to capture captain scarfield himself. a brief description of this one-time notorious rendezvous of freebooters might not be out of place. it consisted of a little settlement of those wattled and mud-smeared houses such as you find through the west indies. there were only three houses of a more pretentious sort, built of wood. one of these was a storehouse, another was a rum shop, and a third a house in which dwelt a mulatto woman, who was reputed to be a sort of left-handed wife of captain scarfield's. the population was almost entirely black and brown. one or two jews and a half dozen yankee traders, of hardly dubious honesty, comprised the entire white population. the rest consisted of a mongrel accumulation of negroes and mulattoes and half-caste spaniards, and of a multitude of black or yellow women and children. the settlement stood in a bight of the beach forming a small harbor and affording a fair anchorage for small vessels, excepting it were against the beating of a southeasterly gale. the houses, or cabins, were surrounded by clusters of coco palms and growths of bananas, and a long curve of white beach, sheltered from the large atlantic breakers that burst and exploded upon an outer bar, was drawn like a necklace around the semi-circle of emerald-green water. such was the famous pirates' settlement of san jose--a paradise of nature and a hell of human depravity and wickedness--and it was to this spot that mainwaring paid another visit a few days after rescuing the crew of the baltimore belle from her shattered and sinking wreck. as the little bay with its fringe of palms and its cluster of wattle huts opened up to view, mainwaring discovered a vessel lying at anchor in the little harbor. it was a large and well-rigged schooner of two hundred and fifty or three hundred tons burden. as the yankee rounded to under the stern of the stranger and dropped anchor in such a position as to bring her broadside battery to bear should the occasion require, mainwaring set his glass to his eye to read the name he could distinguish beneath the overhang of her stern. it is impossible to describe his infinite surprise when, the white lettering starting out in the circle of the glass, he read, the eliza cooper, of philadelphia. he could not believe the evidence of his senses. certainly this sink of iniquity was the last place in the world he would have expected to have fallen in with eleazer cooper. he ordered out the gig and had himself immediately rowed over to the schooner. whatever lingering doubts he might have entertained as to the identity of the vessel were quickly dispelled when he beheld captain cooper himself standing at the gangway to meet him. the impassive face of the friend showed neither surprise nor confusion at what must have been to him a most unexpected encounter. but when he stepped upon the deck of the eliza cooper and looked about him, mainwaring could hardly believe the evidence of his senses at the transformation that he beheld. upon the main deck were eight twelve-pound carronade neatly covered with tarpaulin; in the bow a long tom, also snugly stowed away and covered, directed a veiled and muzzled snout out over the bowsprit. it was entirely impossible for mainwaring to conceal his astonishment at so unexpected a sight, and whether or not his own thoughts lent color to his imagination, it seemed to him that eleazer cooper concealed under the immobility of his countenance no small degree of confusion. after captain cooper had led the way into the cabin and he and the younger man were seated over a pipe of tobacco and the invariable bottle of fine old jamaica rum, mainwaring made no attempt to refrain from questioning him as to the reason for this singular and ominous transformation. "i am a man of peace, james mainwaring," eleazer replied, "but there are men of blood in these waters, and an appearance of great strength is of use to protect the innocent from the wicked. if i remained in appearance the peaceful trader i really am, how long does thee suppose i could remain unassailed in this place?" it occurred to mainwaring that the powerful armament he had beheld was rather extreme to be used merely as a preventive. he smoked for a while in silence and then he suddenly asked the other point-blank whether, if it came to blows with such a one as captain scarfield, would he make a fight of it? the quaker trading captain regarded him for a while in silence. his look, it seemed to mainwaring, appeared to be dubitative as to how far he dared to be frank. "friend james," he said at last, "i may as well acknowledge that my officers and crew are somewhat worldly. of a truth they do not hold the same testimony as i. i am inclined to think that if it came to the point of a broil with those men of iniquity, my individual voice cast for peace would not be sufficient to keep my crew from meeting violence with violence. as for myself, thee knows who i am and what is my testimony in these matters." mainwaring made no comment as to the extremely questionable manner in which the quaker proposed to beat the devil about the stump. presently he asked his second question: "and might i inquire," he said, "what you are doing here and why you find it necessary to come at all into such a wicked, dangerous place as this?" "indeed, i knew thee would ask that question of me," said the friend, "and i will be entirely frank with thee. these men of blood are, after all, but human beings, and as human beings they need food. i have at present upon this vessel upward of two hundred and fifty barrels of flour which will bring a higher price here than anywhere else in the west indies. to be entirely frank with thee, i will tell thee that i was engaged in making a bargain for the sale of the greater part of my merchandise when the news of thy approach drove away my best customer." mainwaring sat for a while in smoking silence. what the other had told him explained many things he had not before understood. it explained why captain cooper got almost as much for his flour and corn meal now that peace had been declared as he had obtained when the war and the blockade were in full swing. it explained why he had been so strong a defender of captain scarfield and the pirates that afternoon in the garden. meantime, what was to be done? eleazer confessed openly that he dealt with the pirates. what now was his--mainwaring's--duty in the case? was the cargo of the eliza cooper contraband and subject to confiscation? and then another question framed itself in his mind: who was this customer whom his approach had driven away? as though he had formulated the inquiry into speech the other began directly to speak of it. "i know," he said, "that in a moment thee will ask me who was this customer of whom i have just now spoken. i have no desire to conceal his name from thee. it was the man who is known as captain jack or captain john scarfield." mainwaring fairly started from his seat. "the devil you say!" he cried. "and how long has it been," he asked, "since he left you?" the quaker skipper carefully refilled his pipe, which he had by now smoked out. "i would judge," he said, "that it is a matter of four or five hours since news was brought overland by means of swift runners of thy approach. immediately the man of wickedness disappeared." here eleazer set the bowl of his pipe to the candle flame and began puffing out voluminous clouds of smoke. "i would have thee understand, james mainwaring," he resumed, "that i am no friend of this wicked and sinful man. his safety is nothing to me. it is only a question of buying upon his part and of selling upon mine. if it is any satisfaction to thee i will heartily promise to bring thee news if i hear anything of the man of belial. i may furthermore say that i think it is likely thee will have news more or less directly of him within the space of a day. if this should happen, however, thee will have to do thy own fighting without help from me, for i am no man of combat nor of blood and will take no hand in it either way." it struck mainwaring that the words contained some meaning that did not appear upon the surface. this significance struck him as so ambiguous that when he went aboard the yankee he confided as much of his suspicions as he saw fit to his second in command, lieutenant underwood. as night descended he had a double watch set and had everything prepared to repel any attack or surprise that might be attempted. iii nighttime in the tropics descends with a surprising rapidity. at one moment the earth is shining with the brightness of the twilight; the next, as it were, all things are suddenly swallowed into a gulf of darkness. the particular night of which this story treats was not entirely clear; the time of year was about the approach of the rainy season, and the tepid, tropical clouds added obscurity to the darkness of the sky, so that the night fell with even more startling quickness than usual. the blackness was very dense. now and then a group of drifting stars swam out of a rift in the vapors, but the night was curiously silent and of a velvety darkness. as the obscurity had deepened, mainwaring had ordered lanthorns to be lighted and slung to the shrouds and to the stays, and the faint yellow of their illumination lighted the level white of the snug little war vessel, gleaming here and there in a starlike spark upon the brass trimmings and causing the rows of cannons to assume curiously gigantic proportions. for some reason mainwaring was possessed by a strange, uneasy feeling. he walked restlessly up and down the deck for a time, and then, still full of anxieties for he knew not what, went into his cabin to finish writing up his log for the day. he unstrapped his cutlass and laid it upon the table, lighted his pipe at the lanthorn and was about preparing to lay aside his coat when word was brought to him that the captain of the trading schooner was come alongside and had some private information to communicate to him. mainwaring surmised in an instant that the trader's visit related somehow to news of captain scarfield, and as immediately, in the relief of something positive to face, all of his feeling of restlessness vanished like a shadow of mist. he gave orders that captain cooper should be immediately shown into the cabin, and in a few moments the tall, angular form of the quaker skipper appeared in the narrow, lanthorn-lighted space. mainwaring at once saw that his visitor was strangely agitated and disturbed. he had taken off his hat, and shining beads of perspiration had gathered and stood clustered upon his forehead. he did not reply to mainwaring's greeting; he did not, indeed, seem to hear it; but he came directly forward to the table and stood leaning with one hand upon the open log book in which the lieutenant had just been writing. mainwaring had reseated himself at the head of the table, and the tall figure of the skipper stood looking down at him as from a considerable height. "james mainwaring," he said, "i promised thee to report if i had news of the pirate. is thee ready now to hear my news?" there was something so strange in his agitation that it began to infect mainwaring with a feeling somewhat akin to that which appeared to disturb his visitor. "i know not what you mean, sir!" he cried, "by asking if i care to hear your news. at this moment i would rather have news of that scoundrel than to have anything i know of in the world." "thou would? thou would?" cried the other, with mounting agitation. "is thee in such haste to meet him as all that? very well; very well, then. suppose i could bring thee face to face with him--what then? hey? hey? face to face with him, james mainwaring!" the thought instantly flashed into mainwaring's mind that the pirate had returned to the island; that perhaps at that moment he was somewhere near at hand. "i do not understand you, sir," he cried. "do you mean to tell me that you know where the villain is? if so, lose no time in informing me, for every instant of delay may mean his chance of again escaping." "no danger of that!" the other declared, vehemently. "no danger of that! i'll tell thee where he is and i'll bring thee to him quick enough!" and as he spoke he thumped his fist against the open log book. in the vehemence of his growing excitement his eyes appeared to shine green in the lanthorn light, and the sweat that had stood in beads upon his forehead was now running in streams down his face. one drop hung like a jewel to the tip of his beaklike nose. he came a step nearer to mainwaring and bent forward toward him, and there was something so strange and ominous in his bearing that the lieutenant instinctively drew back a little where he sat. "captain scarfield sent something to you," said eleazer, almost in a raucous voice, "something that you will be surprised to see." and the lapse in his speech from the quaker "thee" to the plural "you" struck mainwaring as singularly strange. as he was speaking eleazer was fumbling in a pocket of his long-tailed drab coat, and presently he brought something forth that gleamed in the lanthorn light. the next moment mainwaring saw leveled directly in his face the round and hollow nozzle of a pistol. there was an instant of dead silence and then, "i am the man you seek!" said eleazer cooper, in a tense and breathless voice. the whole thing had happened so instantaneously and unexpectedly that for the moment mainwaring sat like one petrified. had a thunderbolt fallen from the silent sky and burst at his feet he could not have been more stunned. he was like one held in the meshes of a horrid nightmare, and he gazed as through a mist of impossibility into the lineaments of the well-known, sober face now transformed as from within into the aspect of a devil. that face, now ashy white, was distorted into a diabolical grin. the teeth glistened in the lamplight. the brows, twisted into a tense and convulsed frown, were drawn down into black shadows, through which the eyes burned a baleful green like the eyes of a wild animal driven to bay. again he spoke in the same breathless voice. "i am john scarfield! look at me, then, if you want to see a pirate!" again there was a little time of silence, through which mainwaring heard his watch ticking loudly from where it hung against the bulkhead. then once more the other began speaking. "you would chase me out of the west indies, would you? g------ --you! what are you come to now? you are caught in your own trap, and you'll squeal loud enough before you get out of it. speak a word or make a movement and i'll blow your brains out against the partition behind you! listen to what i say or you are a dead man. sing out an order instantly for my mate and my bos'n to come here to the cabin, and be quick about it, for my finger's on the trigger, and it's only a pull to shut your mouth forever." it was astonishing to mainwaring, in afterward thinking about it all, how quickly his mind began to recover its steadiness after that first astonishing shock. even as the other was speaking he discovered that his brain was becoming clarified to a wonderful lucidity; his thoughts were becoming rearranged, and with a marvelous activity and an alertness he had never before experienced. he knew that if he moved to escape or uttered any outcry he would be instantly a dead man, for the circle of the pistol barrel was directed full against his forehead and with the steadiness of a rock. if he could but for an instant divert that fixed and deadly attention he might still have a chance for life. with the thought an inspiration burst into his mind and he instantly put it into execution; thought, inspiration, and action, as in a flash, were one. he must make the other turn aside his deadly gaze, and instantly he roared out in a voice that stunned his own ears: "strike, bos'n! strike, quick!" taken by surprise, and thinking, doubtless, that another enemy stood behind him, the pirate swung around like a flash with his pistol leveled against the blank boarding. equally upon the instant he saw the trick that had been played upon him and in a second flash had turned again. the turn and return had occupied but a moment of time, but that moment, thanks to the readiness of his own invention, had undoubtedly saved mainwaring's life. as the other turned away his gaze for that brief instant mainwaring leaped forward and upon him. there was a flashing flame of fire as the pistol was discharged and a deafening detonation that seemed to split his brain. for a moment, with reeling senses, he supposed himself to have been shot, the next he knew he had escaped. with the energy of despair he swung his enemy around and drove him with prodigious violence against the corner of the table. the pirate emitted a grunting cry and then they fell together, mainwaring upon the top, and the pistol clattered with them to the floor in their fall. even as he fell, mainwaring roared in a voice of thunder, "all hands repel boarders!" and then again, "all hands repel boarders!" whether hurt by the table edge or not, the fallen pirate struggled as though possessed of forty devils, and in a moment or two mainwaring saw the shine of a long, keen knife that he had drawn from somewhere about his person. the lieutenant caught him by the wrist, but the other's muscles were as though made of steel. they both fought in despairing silence, the one to carry out his frustrated purposes to kill, the other to save his life. again and again mainwaring felt that the knife had been thrust against him, piercing once his arm, once his shoulder, and again his neck. he felt the warm blood streaming down his arm and body and looked about him in despair. the pistol lay near upon the deck of the cabin. still holding the other by the wrist as he could, mainwaring snatched up the empty weapon and struck once and again at the bald, narrow forehead beneath him. a third blow he delivered with all the force he could command, and then with a violent and convulsive throe the straining muscles beneath him relaxed and grew limp and the fight was won. through all the struggle he had been aware of the shouts of voices, of trampling of feet and discharge of firearms, and the thought came to him, even through his own danger, that the yankee was being assaulted by the pirates. as he felt the struggling form beneath him loosen and dissolve into quietude, he leaped up, and snatching his cutlass, which still lay upon the table, rushed out upon the deck, leaving the stricken form lying twitching upon the floor behind him. it was a fortunate thing that he had set double watches and prepared himself for some attack from the pirates, otherwise the yankee would certainly have been lost. as it was, the surprise was so overwhelming that the pirates, who had been concealed in the large whaleboat that had come alongside, were not only able to gain a foothold upon the deck, but for a time it seemed as though they would drive the crew of the brig below the hatches. but as mainwaring, streaming with blood, rushed out upon the deck, the pirates became immediately aware that their own captain must have been overpowered, and in an instant their desperate energy began to evaporate. one or two jumped overboard; one, who seemed to be the mate, fell dead from a pistol shot, and then, in the turn of a hand, there was a rush of a retreat and a vision of leaping forms in the dusky light of the lanthorns and a sound of splashing in the water below. the crew of the yankee continued firing at the phosphorescent wakes of the swimming bodies, but whether with effect it was impossible at the time to tell. iv the pirate captain did not die immediately. he lingered for three or four days, now and then unconscious, now and then semi-conscious, but always deliriously wandering. all the while he thus lay dying, the mulatto woman, with whom he lived in this part of his extraordinary dual existence, nursed and cared for him with such rude attentions as the surroundings afforded. in the wanderings of his mind the same duality of life followed him. now and then he would appear the calm, sober, self-contained, well-ordered member of a peaceful society that his friends in his faraway home knew him to be; at other times the nether part of his nature would leap up into life like a wild beast, furious and gnashing. at the one time he talked evenly and clearly of peaceful things; at the other time he blasphemed and hooted with fury. several times mainwaring, though racked by his own wounds, sat beside the dying man through the silent watches of the tropical nights. oftentimes upon these occasions as he looked at the thin, lean face babbling and talking so aimlessly, he wondered what it all meant. could it have been madness--madness in which the separate entities of good and bad each had, in its turn, a perfect and distinct existence? he chose to think that this was the case. who, within his inner consciousness, does not feel that same ferine, savage man struggling against the stern, adamantine bonds of morality and decorum? were those bonds burst asunder, as it was with this man, might not the wild beast rush forth, as it had rushed forth in him, to rend and to tear? such were the questions that mainwaring asked himself. and how had it all come about? by what easy gradations had the respectable quaker skipper descended from the decorum of his home life, step by step, into such a gulf of iniquity? many such thoughts passed through mainwaring's mind, and he pondered them through the still reaches of the tropical nights while he sat watching the pirate captain struggle out of the world he had so long burdened. at last the poor wretch died, and the earth was well quit of one of its torments. a systematic search was made through the island for the scattered crew, but none was captured. either there were some secret hiding places upon the island (which was not very likely) or else they had escaped in boats hidden somewhere among the tropical foliage. at any rate they were gone. nor, search as he would, could mainwaring find a trace of any of the pirate treasure. after the pirate's death and under close questioning, the weeping mulatto woman so far broke down as to confess in broken english that captain scarfield had taken a quantity of silver money aboard his vessel, but either she was mistaken or else the pirates had taken it thence again and had hidden it somewhere else. nor would the treasure ever have been found but for a most fortuitous accident. mainwaring had given orders that the eliza cooper was to be burned, and a party was detailed to carry the order into execution. at this the cook of the yankee came petitioning for some of the wilmington and brandywine flour to make some plum duff upon the morrow, and mainwaring granted his request in so far that he ordered one of the men to knock open one of the barrels of flour and to supply the cook's demands. the crew detailed to execute this modest order in connection with the destruction of the pirate vessel had not been gone a quarter of an hour when word came back that the hidden treasure had been found. mainwaring hurried aboard the eliza cooper, and there in the midst of the open flour barrel he beheld a great quantity of silver coin buried in and partly covered by the white meal. a systematic search was now made. one by one the flour barrels were heaved up from below and burst open on the deck and their contents searched, and if nothing but the meal was found it was swept overboard. the breeze was whitened with clouds of flour, and the white meal covered the surface of the ocean for yards around. in all, upward of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars was found concealed beneath the innocent flour and meal. it was no wonder the pirate captain was so successful, when he could upon an instant's notice transform himself from a wolf of the ocean to a peaceful quaker trader selling flour to the hungry towns and settlements among the scattered islands of the west indies, and so carrying his bloody treasure safely into his quiet northern home. in concluding this part of the narrative it may be added that a wide strip of canvas painted black was discovered in the hold of the eliza cooper. upon it, in great white letters, was painted the name, "the bloodhound." undoubtedly this was used upon occasions to cover the real and peaceful title of the trading schooner, just as its captain had, in reverse, covered his sanguine and cruel life by a thin sheet of morality and respectability. this is the true story of the death of capt. jack scarfield. the newburyport chap-book, of which i have already spoken, speaks only of how the pirate disguised himself upon the ocean as a quaker trader. nor is it likely that anyone ever identified eleazer cooper with the pirate, for only mainwaring of all the crew of the yankee was exactly aware of the true identity of captain scarfield. all that was ever known to the world was that eleazer cooper had been killed in a fight with the pirates. in a little less than a year mainwaring was married to lucinda fairbanks. as to eleazer cooper's fortune, which eventually came into the possession of mainwaring through his wife, it was many times a subject of speculation to the lieutenant how it had been earned. there were times when he felt well assured that a part of it at least was the fruit of piracy, but it was entirely impossible to guess how much more was the result of legitimate trading. for a little time it seemed to mainwaring that he should give it all up, but this was at once so impracticable and so quixotic that he presently abandoned it, and in time his qualms and misdoubts faded away and he settled himself down to enjoy that which had come to him through his marriage. in time the mainwarings removed to new york, and ultimately the fortune that the pirate scarfield had left behind him was used in part to found the great shipping house of mainwaring & bigot, whose famous transatlantic packet ships were in their time the admiration of the whole world.