JACK COCKRELL sprawled flat upon the forecastle roof and knew not what to do. He could lay hands on nothing to serve as a weapon and he bade fair to be trapped like the sailors whose cause he had joined. With a feeling of despair he let his gaze rove to the scrawny figure of Joe Hawkridge who still bestrode the nine-pounder and took no part in the fray. But Joe had no comfort for him, as a gesture conveyed. It had been Joe's wild scheme to obtain the help of Jack and Captain Wellsby, at the least, and so cast loose the gun and slew it around to rake the deck and mow the pirates down. But the men were lacking for this heavy task, and the sailors of thePlymouth Adventurewere too intent on fighting against fearful odds to pay heed to Joe Hawkridge's appeals. He had even skulked into the galley and was ready with a little iron pot filled with live coals which was hidden under a bit of tarpaulin.
Ned Rackham was a young man and powerful, with a long reach and a skilled blade. He fairly hewed his way into the ruck of the dauntless sailors who had nomore bricks to hurl. Several pirates were disabled, with broken arms or bloody crowns, but the others crowded forward, grunting as they slashed and stabbed, and well aware that Ned Rackham would cut the laggards down should he detect them.
At the moment when there seemed no chance of salvation for the crew of thePlymouth Adventure, Joe Hawkridge leaped from the gun and beckoned Jack. The grin was restored to the homely, freckled visage and the salt water gamin danced in jubilant excitement. Down from the forecastle roof tumbled Jack Cockrell and went sliding across the deck, heels over head, to fetch up in the scupper. Joe hauled him by the leg, close to the wooden carriage of the gun, and swiftly told him what was to be done.
Obediently Jack began to loose the knots which secured the rope tackles but it was a slow task. The wet had made the hemp as hard as iron and he lacked a marlinspike. Joe dodged around the gun, saw the difficulty and sawed through one rope after another, all but the last strand or two. Then the lads tailed on to the breeching hawsers, which held the carriage from sliding on its iron rollers, and eased the strain as well as they could.
The ponderous mass was almost free to plunge across the deck. Joe sweated and braced his feet against a ring-bolt while Jack Cockrell found a cleat. Ned Rackham's men were moving forward, cut and thrust, whilethe sailors grappled with them bare-handed and battled grimly like mastiffs.
"The next time she rolls!" panted Joe Hawkridge as the hawser ripped the skin from his palms.
"Aye, make ready to cut," muttered Jack.
The ship heaved herself high and then listed far down to starboard. Joe slashed at the last strands of the tackles and yelled to Jack to let go the hawser. Instead of discharging the nine-pounder, they were employing the piece itself, and the carriage of oak and iron, as a terrible missile. The moment of launching it was shrewdly chosen. The pirates, still in compact formation as led by Ned Rackham, were directly abreast of this forward gun of the main deck battery. The deck inclined at a steep and giddy pitch. With a grinding roar the gun rolled from its station. It gathered impetus and lunged across the ship as an instrument of fell destruction. It was more to be feared than an assault of armed men.
The warning rumble of the iron wheels as they furrowed the planking was heard by the pirates. They turned from their game of butchery and stood frozen in their tracks for a frightened instant. Then they tried to flee in all directions. Their tarry pigtails fairly stood on end. Well they knew what it meant to have a gun break adrift in a heavy sea. Two or three who had been badly hurt were unable to move fast enough. The gun crunched over them and then seemed to pursue a limping pirate, veering to overtake him as he fled. He was tossed against the bulwark like a bundle of bloody rags.
The gun crashed into the stout timbers of the ship's side and they were splintered like match-wood. It rebounded as the deck sloped sharply in the next wallowing roll, and now this frenzied monster of wood and iron seemed fairly to run amuck. It was inspired with a sinister intelligence, resolved to wreak all the damage possible. The pinnace, the water barrels, the coamings of the cargo hatches, were smashed to fragments as the gun turned this way and that and went plunging in search of victims.
Left to themselves, the seamen of thePlymouth Adventurewould have risked their lives to cast ropes about the gun and moor it fast. But now they were quick to see that the tide had been turned in their favor. The pirates were demoralized. Some were in the rigging, others atop the bulwarks, and only the readiest and boldest, with Ned Rackham in the lead, had an eye to the task in hand, which was to regain possession of the ship.
And now the boatswain of thePlymouth Adventure, a rosy giant of a man from South Devon, shouted to his comrades to follow him. They delayed until the runaway cannon crashed into another gun, and then they broke like sprinters from the mark and sped straight for the mainmast, seeking the rack of boarding-pikes.They ran nimbly, as men used to swaying decks, and compassed the distance in a few strides.
THE BRAWN OF THESE LADS MADE THE PIKE A MATCH FOR A PIRATE'S CUTLASSTHE BRAWN OF THESE LADS MADE THE PIKE A MATCH FOR A PIRATE'S CUTLASS
Ned Rackham perceived their purpose and tried to intercept but his few staunch followers moved warily, expecting to see that insensate monster of a gun bear down upon them. The swiftest of the merchant sailors laid hands on the pikes and whirled to cover their shipmates, until all hands could be armed. Then the gun came roaring down at them but they ducked behind the mast or stepped watchfully aside. Men condemned to death are not apt to lose their wits in the face of one more peril.
These pikes were ashen shafts with long steel points and the merchant seamen had been trained to use them. And the brawn of these lads made the pike a match for a pirate's cutlass. Ned Rackham bounded forward to swing at the broad, deep-chested boatswain. A wondrous pair of antagonists they were, in the prime of their youth and vigor. The pirate's cutlass bit clean through the pike shaft as the boatswain parried the blow but the apple-cheeked Devonshire man closed in and wrapped his arms around his foe. They went to the deck clutching for each other's throats and the fight trampled over them.
Meanwhile Joe Hawkridge and Jack Cockrell, unwilling to twiddle their thumbs, had rushed aft as fast as their legs could carry them. It was a mutual impulse, to release such of the men passengers as mighthave a stomach for fighting and also the ship's officers. Into the doorway which led from the waist, the two lads dived and scurried through the main cabin now clear of pirates. Locked doors they smashed with a broadaxe found in the small-arms chest and so entered all the rooms.
The women passengers were almost dead with suffering, what with the turbulence of the storm and the wild riot on deck. The lads pitied them but had no time to console. Several of the men, merchants and planters of some physical hardihood, begged for weapons and Joe Hawkridge bade them help themselves from the spare arms which the pirates had left in the great cabin. In another little room the boys found the mates, steward, surgeon, and gunner of thePlymouth Adventureand you may be sure that they came boiling out with a raging thirst for strife.
"Harkee, Jack," said Joe before they climbed to the poop deck, "if the pirates are driven aft, as I expect, they will make a last stand in this cabin house which is like a fort. These 'fenseless women must be hidden safe from harm. Do you coax 'em into the lazarette."
This was a room on the deck below, in the very stern of the ship where were kept the extra sails and coils of rope and various stores. It was the surest shelter against harm in such stress as this. Alas, Jack's persuasions were vain. The frantic women were in no humor to listen, and so the lads bundled them through the hatchas gently as possible and for company gave them such male passengers as lacked strength or courage to join the battle.
While they were thus engaged, two pirates came flying down the ladder from the poop deck into the main cabin. They revolved like windmills in a jumble of arms and legs. Close behind them, in a manner more orderly came Captain Jonathan Wellsby who had tossed the one and tremendously booted the other. They were the helmsmen whom he had replaced with his own officers at the steering tackles, while his first mate had been left in charge of handling the ship.
The skipper was now free to follow his own desires and he fell upon those two stunned pirates in the cabin and trussed them tight with bits of rope. Then he reloaded with dry powder all the pistols he could find and made a walkingarsenalof himself. The two lads who now joined him needed no word of command. At his heels they made for the main deck and the shout which arose from those British sailors, so sorely beset, was mightily heartening.
Blazing away with his pistols, the skipper cleared a path for himself, the pirates being taken aback when they were attacked in the rear. And they were leaderless, for Ned Rackham had been dragged aside with the marks of the boatswain's fingers on his throat and a sheath-knife buried in his side. He was alive but nobody paid heed to his groans.
With the skipper in the thick of it, there was no danger of being penned in the forecastle again. The pirates were crowded aft, step by step, before the play of those wicked boarding-pikes. It would be hard to match a sea fight like this, amid the spray and the washing seas, on a deck that tipsily danced and staggered, with a truant gun smashing a good ship to bits and the wounded screaming as they saw this horror thundering at them. Captain Wellsby's men were at pains to drag their helpless comrades to safety but the pirates were too callous and too hard pressed to care for aught save their own worthless skins. They fought like wolves but they lacked the gristle and endurance of the stalwart sailors. Wheezing for breath, they ceased to curse and reeled back in silence while the sailors huzzaed and seemed to wax the lustier.
As was bound to happen, the stubborn retreat broke into a rout. It was every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. The pirates fled for the after cabin-house, there to take cover behind the timbered walls and use the small port-holes for musketry fire. Thus they could find respite and it would be immensely difficult to dislodge them.
The first mate of thePlymouth Adventureand his own two helmsmen saw what was taking place and they were of no mind to be cut off at the stern of the ship. They footed it along the poop and the cabin roof as the pirates were scampering inside and so gained the waistand were with their comrades. The tiller deserted, the vessel careened into the trough of the sea with a portentous creaking of spars and rending of canvas.
The mainmast had been dealt more than one splintering blow by the fugitive gun. This sudden strain, of a ship broached to and hurled almost on her beam ends, was too much for the damaged mast. It broke short off, a few feet above the deck, and the ragged butt ripped the planks asunder as it was dragged overside by the weight of the towering fabric of yards and canvas. One merciful circumstance befell, for the tangle of shrouds and sheets and halliards ensnared the ramping monster of a cannon and overturned it. Caught in this manner, the gun was dragged to the broken bulwark and there it was held with the battered carriage in air.
The mainmast was floating alongside the ship which it belabored with thumps that jarred the hull. It was likely to stave in the skin of the vessel and Captain Wellsby shouted to his men to hack at the trailing cordage and send the mast clear before it did a fatal injury. A dozen men risked drowning at this task while the others guarded the after cabin lest the pirates attempt a sally. These besieged rogues were given an interval in which to muster their force, organize a defense, and break into the magazine for muskets and powder and ball.
Now Captain Wellsby was no dullard and he purposed to make short work of these vile pirates. Otherwise his crippled ship might not survive the wind and weather. He conferred with his gunner who had bethought himself, by force of habit, to fetch from aft his powder-horn and several yards of match, or twisted tow, which were wrapped around his body, beneath the tarred jerkin.
"It grieves me sore to wreck yonder goodly cabin house," said the skipper in his beard, "but, by Judas, we'll blow 'em out of it. Haul and belay your pieces, Master Gunner, and let 'em have a salvo of round shot."
Reckless of the musket balls which began to fly among them, the sailors jumped for their stations at the guns. First they set aright that capsized nine-pounder which had wreaked so much mischief and found that it could be discharged, despite the broken carriage. Joe Hawkridge and Jack Cockrell blithely aided to swing and secure it with emergency tackles and Joe exclaimed, with a chuckle:
"This dose is enough to surprise Blackbeard hisself. 'Tis an ironmonger's shop I rammed down its throat."
The gun was laid on the largest cabin port-hole just as it framed the ugly face of a pirate with a musket while another peered over his shoulder. Joe shook the powder-horn into the touch-hole and the gunner was ready with the match which he had lighted with his own flint and steel. Boom, and the gun recoiled in a veil of smoke. Through the cabin port-hole flew a deadly shower of spikes and bolts while the framework aroundit was shattered to bits. It was a most unhealthy place for pirates. They forsook it instantly. And the musketry fire slackened elsewhere. It was to be inferred that there was painful consternation in the cabin.
With boisterous mirth, the sailors deftly turned other guns to bear and were careful not to let them get adrift. The muzzles had been well stopped against wetting by the sea and with a little dry powder for the priming, most of them could be served. They could not be reloaded for dearth of ammunition but Captain Wellsby felt confident that one round would suffice.
Methodically the gun-crews aimed and fired one gun after another, watching the chance between the seas that broke aboard. The solid round shot, at short range, ripped through the cabin walls and bulkheads and buried themselves in the frames and timbers of the ship's stern. A good gunner was never so happy as when he saw the white splinters fly in showers and these zealous sailormen forgot they were knocking their own ship to pieces. They were on the target, and this was good enough.
The beleaguered pirates made no more pretense of firing muskets or defying the crew to dig them out. Their fort was an untenable position. At this sport of playing bowls with round shot they were bound to lose. Captain Wellsby sighted the last gun himself. It was a bronze culverin of large bore, taken as a trophy from the stranded wreck of a Spanish galleon. With a tremendous blast this formidable cannon spat out a double-shotted load and the supports of the cabin roof were torn asunder. The tottering beams collapsed. Half the structure fell in.
It was the signal for the sailors of thePlymouth Adventureto charge aft and finish the business. They found pirates crawling from under the wreckage. It was like a demolished ant-heap. In the smaller cabins and other rooms far aft, which were more or less intact, some of the rascals showed fight but they were remorselessly prodded out with pikes and those unwounded were hustled forward to be thrown into the forecastle. It was difficult to restrain the seamen from dealing them the death they deserved but Captain Wellsby was no sea-butcher and he hoped to turn them over to the colonial authorities to be hanged with due ceremony.
The badly hurt were laid in the forecastle bunks where the ship's surgeon washed and bandaged them after he had cared for the injured men of his own crew. Ned Rackham was still alive, conscious and defiant, surviving a wound which would have been mortal in most cases. Whether he lived or died was a matter of small concern to Captain Wellsby but he ordered the surgeon to nurse him with special care.
The dead pirates were flung overboard but the bodies of seven brave British seamen were wrapped in sailcloth to be committed to the deep on the morrow, with a round shot at their feet and a prayer to speed their souls. There were men enough to work the ship but shewas in a situation indescribably forlorn. It was possible to patch and shore the cabin house and make a refuge, even to find place for the wretched women who were lifted unharmed out of the lazarette. But the stout ship, her mainmast gone by the board, the deck ravaged by that infernal catapult of an errant gun, the hull pounded by the floating wreckage of spars, would achieve a miracle should she see port again.
The combat with the pirates and their overthrow had been waged in the last hour before the gray night closed over a somber sea. God's mercy had caused the wind to fall and the waves to diminish in size else the ship would have gone to the bottom ere dawn. Much water had washed down into the hold through the broken cargo hatch and the gaps where the runaway gun had torn other fittings away. The carpenter sounded the well and solemnly stared at the wetted rod by the flicker of his horn lantern. The ship was settling. It was his doleful surmise that she leaked where the pounding spars overside had started the butts. It was man the pumps to keep the old hooker afloat and Captain Wellsby ordered his weary men to sway at the brakes, watch and watch.
Joe Hawkridge and Jack Cockrell, more fit for duty than the others, put their backs into it right heartily while the sailors droned to the cadence of the pump a sentimental ditty which ran on for any number of verses and began in this wise:
"As, lately I traveled toward Gravesend,I heard a fair Damosel a Sea-man commend:And as in a Tilt-boat we passed along,In praise of brave Sea-men she sung this new Song,Come Tradesman or Marchant, whoever he be,There's none but a Sea-man shall marry with me!"
Thus they labored all the night through, men near dead with fatigue whose hard fate it was to contend now with pirates and again with the hostile ocean. The skipper managed to stay the foremast and to bend steering sails so that the ship was brought into the wind where her motion was easier. The sky cleared before daybreak and the rosy horizon proclaimed a fair sunrise. How far and in what direction thePlymouth Adventurehad been blown by the storm was largely guesswork. By means of dead reckoning and the compass and cross-staff, Captain Wellsby hoped to work out a position but meanwhile he scanned the sea with a sense of brooding anxiety.
Instead of praying for plenty of sea room, he now hoped with all his heart that the vessel had been set in toward the coast. She was sinking under his feet and would not live through the day. It was useless to toil at the pumps or to strive at mending the shattered upperworks. The men turned to the task of quitting the ship, and of saving the souls on board. It was a pitiful extremity and yet they displayed a dogged, unshaken fidelity. Only one boat had escaped destruction. Thepinnace had been staved in by the thunderbolt of a gun and the yawl, stowed upon the cabin roof, was wrecked by round shot. The small jolly-boat would hold the women passengers and the wounded sailors, with the hands required to tend oars and sail.
Nothing remained but to try to knock together one or more rafts. Captain Wellsby discussed it with his officers and it was agreed that the able-bodied pirates should be left to build a raft for themselves, taking their own wounded with them. This was more mercy than they had any right to expect. The strapping young Devonshire boatswain, with his head tied up, was for leaving the blackguards to drown in the forecastle but the shipmaster was too humane a man for that.
It was drawing toward noon when the first mate descried land to the westward, a bit of low coast almost level with the sea. In the light air the sluggish ship moved ever so slowly, with canvas spread on the fore and mizzen masts. Spirits revived and life tasted passing sweet. To drift in the open sea upon wave-washed rafts was an expedient which all mariners shuddered to contemplate. It was with feelings far different that they now assembled spars and planks and lashed and spiked them together on the chance of needing rafts to ferry them ashore from a stranded ship.
Well into the bright afternoon thePlymouth Adventurewas wafted nearer and nearer the sandy coast. Within a half mile of it a line of breakers frothed andtumbled on a shoal beyond which the water deepened again. The ship could not be steered to avoid this barrier. Her main deck was almost level with the sea which lapped her gently and sobbed through the broken bulwarks. With a slight shock she struck the shoal and rested there just before she was ready to founder.
With disciplined haste, the jolly-boat was launched and filled with its human freightage. The boatswain went in charge and four seamen tugged at the sweeps. There were trees and clumps of bushes among the hillocks of sand and a tiny bight for a landing place. The bulwark was then chopped away so that the largest raft could be shoved into the water by means of tackles, rollers and handspikes. It floated buoyantly and supported as many as fifteen men, who did not mind in the least getting their feet wet. Upon a raised platform in the centre of the raft were fastened barrels of beef and bread and casks of fresh water.
The jolly-boat could hope to make other trips between the ship and the shore but the prudent skipper took no chances with the weather. A sudden gale might pluck thePlymouth Adventurefrom the shoal or tear her to fragments where she lay. Therefore most of the men, including passengers, were embarked on the raft. Captain Wellsby remained aboard with a few of his sailors and our two lads, Joe and Jack, who had not attempted to thrust themselves upon the crowded raft.
The pirates were making a commotion in the forecastle, yammering to be freed, but the skipper had no intention of loosing them until all his people had safely abandoned ship. The jolly-boat made a landing without mishap and returned to the wreck as the sun went down. More stores were dumped into it, sacks of potatoes and onions which had been overlooked, bedding for the women, powder and ball for the muskets, and other things which it was necessary to keep dry.
Captain Wellsby got rid of the rest of his men on this trip, excepting the gunner and carpenter, and these lingered with him as a kind of body-guard pending the ticklish business of releasing the imprisoned pirates and forsaking them to their own devices. The jolly-boat was laden to the gunwales and Jack Cockrell held back, saying to Joe Hawkridge:
"Why trouble the captain to set us ashore? Let us make a raft of our own. The breeze holds fair to the beach and it will be a lark."
"It suits me well," grinned Joe. "If we wait to go off with the master, and those sinful pirates see me aboard, I'll need wings to escape 'em. They saw me serve the gun that was filled with spikes to the muzzle. Aye, Jack, I will feel happier to be elsewhere when Cap'n Wellsby unbars the fo'castle and holds 'em back with his pistols till he can cast off in the jolly-boat."
"Yes, the sight of you is apt to put them in a vile temper," laughingly agreed Jack, "and 'tis awkwardfor the master to bother with us. Now about a little raft——"
"Two short spars are enough. There they lie. And the cabin hatch will do for a deck. Spikes for thole-pins, and oars from the pinnace. Unlace the bonnet of the jib for a sail."
"You are a proper sailorman, Joe. A voyage by starlight to an unknown coast. 'Tis highly romantic."
They set to work without delay. Captain Wellsby had occupations of his own and no more than glanced at them in passing. Jack insisted on carrying a water breaker and rations, he being hungry and too busy to pause for supper. They would make a picnic cruise of the adventure. Handily Joe reeved a purchase and they hauled away until their raft slid off the sloping deck to leeward. With a gay hurrah to Captain Wellsby, they paddled around the stern of the ship and through the ruffle of surf that marked the shoal.
In the soft twilight they trimmed the sail and swung at the clumsy oars, while a fire blazing on the beach was a beacon to guide their course. After a time they rested and wiped the sweat from their faces. The progress of the raft was like that of a lazy snail. In the luminous darkness they pulled with all their strength. The wind had died to a calm. The sail hung idle from its yard. They heard, faint and afar, the deep voices of the sailors in the jolly-boat as they returned to take the skipperand his two companions from the ship on which a light burned.
The lads shouted but there came no answering hail from the unseen boat. They were perplexed to understand how their courses could be so far apart. Presently the night breeze drew off the land, bringing with it the scent of green things growing. Joe Hawkridge stared at the fire on the beach and then turned to look at the spark of light on the ship. The raft had drifted considerably to the southward. Anxiously Joe said to his shipmate:
"The flood o' the tide must be setting us down the coast, in some crazy current or other. Mayhap it runs strong through this race betwixt the shoal and the beach with a slant that's bad for us."
"I noted it," glumly agreed Jack. "The jolly-boat passed too far away to please me. And this landward breeze is driving us to sea."
"No sense in breaking our backs at these oars," grumbled Joe. "We go ahead like a crab, with a sternboard. Think ye we can swing the raft to fetch the ship?"
"After Captain Wellsby turns the pirates loose and quits her?" scoffed Jack.
"I am a plaguey fool," cheerfully admitted Joe Hawkridge. "'Twould be out of the frying-pan into the fire, with a vengeance."
"And no way to signal our friends," sadly exclaimedJack. "We forgot flint and steel. It looks much like another voyage."
"Straight for the open sea, my bully boy," agreed Joe. "And I'd as soon chance it on a hen-coop."
THESE sturdy youngsters were not easily frightened, and Jack Cockrell, the landsman, was confident that wind and tide would change to send the little raft shoreward. So tranquil was the sea that they rode secure and dry upon the cabin hatch which was buoyed by the two short spars. Joe Hawkridge was silent with foreboding of a fate more bitter than the perils which they had escaped. He had seen a lone survivor of a crew of pirates picked off a raft in the Caribbean, a grisly phantom raving mad who had gnawed the flesh of his dead comrades.
They drifted quietly before the land breeze, beneath a sky all jeweled with bright stars. The fire on the beach dimmed to a red spark and then vanished from their wistful ken. They could no longer see the light on the wreck of thePlymouth Adventure. Now and then the boys struggled with the heavy oars and rowed until exhausted but they knew they could be making no headway against the current which had gripped the derelict raft. They ate sparingly of flinty biscuit and leathery beef pickled in brine and stinted themselves toa few swallows of water from the wooden breaker or tiny cask.
"Hunger and thirst are strange to ye, Jack," said young Hawkridge as they lay stretched side by side. "Hanged if I ever did get enough to eat till I boarded thePlymouth Adventure. Skin and bone I am. I'll not call this a bad cruise unless we have to chew our boot-tops. A pesky diet is leather. I've tried it."
"Truly, Joe?" cried Jack in lugubrious accents. "We may have more heart when morning comes. A piping easterly breeze, such as is wont to come up with the sun in Charles Town, and we can steer for the coast all taut and cheery."
"I dread the sun, Jack. For men adrift the blaze of it fries them like fish on a grid. A pint of water a day, no more, is the allowance. 'Twill torture you, but castaways can live on it. They have done it for weeks on end. Here's two musket balls in my pocket. I can whittle a balance from a bit of pine and we must weigh the bread and meat."
"Two musket balls' weight of food for a meal?" protested Jack.
"Not a morsel more," was the grim answer. "Granted we be not washed off this silly raft and drowned when a fresh breeze kicks up the sea, we may hold body and soul together through five or six days."
"But some vessel will sight us, Joe, even if the plightis as dark as your melancholy fancies paint it. And I thought you a light-hearted mariner in danger."
"The sea is a cruel master and she hath taught me prudence," was the reply. "A vessel sight us? I fear an empty sea so soon after the storm. And honest ships will be loth to venture out from port if the word sped that Blackbeard was cruising off Charles Town bar."
Jack Cockrell forsook the attempt to wring comfort out of his hardy companion who refused to delude himself with vain imaginings. However, it is the blessed gift of youth to keep the torch of hope unquenched and presently they diverted themselves with chatting of their earlier adventures. Jack was minded of his pompous, stout-hearted uncle, Mr. Peter Arbuthnot Forbes, and wondered how he had fared, whether he had set out to return to Blackbeard's ship with the store of medicines from Charles Town when the great storm swooped down. Forgotten were Jack's hot grievances against the worthy Secretary of the Council who had sought to take a father's place. Piracy had lost its charm for young Master Cockrell and meekly would he have obeyed the mandate to go to school in merry England among sober, Christian folk.
"Tremendous odd, I call it," exclaimed Joe Hawkridge. "Here I was a pirate and hating the dirty business. And my dreams were all of learnin' to be a gentleman ashore, to know how to read books and such. Blow me, Jack, we should ha' swapped berths."
"If my good uncle is alive I mean to commend you to his kindness," exclaimed Jack. "We must cleave together, and you shall have a skinful of books and school and manners."
This pleased the young sea rover beyond measure and he diverted himself with pictures of a cleaner, kindlier world than he had ever known. In the small hours of the night, the twain drowsed upon their frail platform which floated as a speck on the shrouded ocean. The waves splashed over the spars as the breeze grew livelier and the piteous voyagers were sopping wet but the water was not chill and they slept through this discomfort.
Jack Cockrell dreamed of walking in a green lane of Charles Town with lovely Dorothy Stuart. A wave slapped his face and he awoke with a sputtering cry of bewilderment. The eastern sky was rosy and the sea shimmered in the eternal beauty of a new day. Joe Hawkridge sat huddled against the mast, chin and knees together, his sharp eyes scanning the horizon. With a grin he exclaimed:
"The watch ahoy! Rouse out, shipmate, and show a leg! Turn to cheerly! Holystone decks and wash down, ye lazy lubber."
Jack groaned and scowled as he rolled over to ease his aching bones. He was in no mood for jesting. There was no land in sight nor the gleam of a sail, naught but the empty waste of the Atlantic, and the wind still held westerly.
"Let's have the beggarly morsel you miscall breakfast, Joe, and a swig from the breaker. Are we bound across the main?"
"Straight for London River, and the school you prate about, my bucko," replied the scamp of a pirate. "Haul away on your belt and set the buckle tighter. 'Twill ease the cursed hunger pain that gnaws like a rat."
They munched the pittance of salty food which made the thirst the harder to endure, and then watched the sun climb hot and dazzling. It was futile to hoist the sail and so they pulled the canvas over them as the heat became more intense. By noon, Jack was begging for water to lave his tongue but Joe Hawkridge laughed him to scorn and swore to hit him with an oar unless he changed his tune. Never in his life had Jack known the lack of food or drink and he therefore suffered cruelly.
Worse than this privation was the increasing roughness of the sea. It was a blithesome wind, rollicking across a sparkling carpet of blue, with the little white clouds in flocks above, like lambs at play. But the raft was more and more tossed about and the waves gushed over it like foam on a reef. Through the day the castaways might cling to it but they dreaded another night in which their weary bodies could not possibly ward off sleep. Even though they tied themselves fast, what if the raft should be capsized by the heave of the mounting swell? It was the merest makeshift, scrambled together in haste as a ferry from the wreck of thePlymouth Adventure.
No longer did Jack Cockrell bemoan his situation. Taking pattern from his comrade in misery, he set his teeth to await the end as became a true man of gentle blood. After all, drowning was easier than the slow torments of hunger and thirst.
Every little while one of them crawled from under the canvas to look for a ship. It was the vigilant Joe Hawkridge who, at length, discovered what was very like a fleck of cloud on the ocean's rim, to the southward. Afraid that his vision tricked him, he displayed no emotion but held himself as steady as any stoic. Jack was wildly excited, blubbering and waving his arms about. His hard-won composure was broken to bits. But even though it were a ship, Joe well knew it might pass afar off and so miss sighting this bit of raft which drifted almost submerged.
Slowly the semblance of a wandering fragment of cloud climbed the curve of the watery globe until Joe Hawkridge perceived, with a mariner's eye, that it was, indeed, a vessel steering in their direction.
"Two masts!" said he, "and to'gallant-sails set to profit by this brave breeze. A brig, Jack! Had she been a ship, my heart 'ud ha' been in my throat. Blackbeard'sRevengemight be working up the coast, did she live through the storm."
"A brig?" joyfully cried Jack. "Ah, ha, I see hertwo masts plainly, with mine own eyes. And they soar too tall for a merchant trader. Her sails, too,—she spreads them like great wings. Who else will it be than Captain Stede Bonnet in theRoyal James?"
"A shift of luck is due us, by the bones of Saint Iago," shouted Joe, in a thrill of glad anticipation. "Watch her closely. You saw the brig in Charles Town harbor. Bless God, this may well be Cap'n Stede Bonnet yonder, an' perchance he cruises in search of Blackbeard to square accounts with that vile traitor that so misused him."
"A sworn friend of mine is Stede Bonnet," proudly declared Jack Cockrell, "and pledged to bear a hand when I am in distress. He will land us safe in Charles Town, Joe,—unless,—unless we choose to go a-piratin' with him in theRoyal James——"
Jack's voice trailed off in tones of indecision so comical that his comrade cried:
"Not cured yet, you big numbskull? 'Cause this fine Cap'n Bonnet is a gentleman pirate? His neck will stretch with the rest of 'em when the law overtakes him. Thirteen burly lads I saw swinging in a row at Wapping on the Thames."
"I'll not argue it," sheepishly mumbled Jack. "However, we'll find a safe deliverance aboard thisRoyal James."
They clung to the swaying raft while the water washed over their knees and watched the two masts disclose themselves until they fancied they could not be mistaken. No other brig as powerful as this had been reported cruising in the waters of Virginia and the Carolinas. By a stroke of fortune almost incredible they had been saved at the very brink of death. The brig was steering straight toward them, hauled to take the wind abeam, and she would be up before sunset.
Shading his eyes with his hand, Joe Hawkridge suddenly uttered a curse so fierce and wicked that it was enough to freeze the blood. He clutched Jack's shoulder for support as though shorn of all his strength and hoarsely gasped:
"Not two masts but three! See it? She lifts high enough to show the stump of the foremast with head-sails jury rigged. 'Twas the storm made a brig of her!"
"Then she may be Blackbeard's ship?" faltered Jack, in a whisper.
"Remember when the gale first broke and we parted company?" was the reply. "TheRevengelost her fore-topmast ere the swine could find their wits."
"Aye, Joe, but this may be some other vessel."
"She looks most damnably familiar," was the reluctant admission. "A great press of sail,—it fooled me into thinking her Stede Bonnet's brig."
Gloomily they waited until the black line of the hull was visible whenever the raft lifted on the back of a wave. This was enough for Joe. He recognized the graceful shear of the flush deck which had been extended fore and aft to make room for a heavier main battery. Even at a distance, a sailor's eye could read other signs that marked this ship as theRevenge.
"The devil looks after his own," angrily exclaimed Joe. "I'd ha' wagered my last ducat that she was whirled away to founder. Blackbeard boasts of his compact with Satan. I believe it's true."
"Shall we pull down our mast and pray that he passes the raft as a piece of wreckage?" implored Jack.
Mustering his wits to meet this new crisis, Joe Hawkridge cried impatiently:
"No, no, boy! This way death is sure, and most discomfortin'. If it suits Blackbeard's whim to pick us up, there is a chance,—a chance, I say, but make one slip and he will run us through with his own hand."
"We must arrange our tale of the wreck, Joe, to match without flaw. Quick! What have we to say?"
"A task for a scholar, this," grinned the sea urchin. "If it's not well learned, we'll taste worse'n a flogging. Where be his prize crew of pirates, asketh Blackbeard. Answer me that, Jack."
"ThePlymouth Adventurewas driven upon a shoal and lost," glibly affirmed the other lad who had rallied to play at this hazardous game. "Her boats were stove up. We left the pirates building a raft for themselves and trusted ourselves to this poor contrivance, hoping to gain the coast."
"Good, as far as it goes," observed the critical Joe.
"And it veers close to the truth. About the ship's company? What say you?"
"There I hang in the wind," confessed Jack. "Blackbeard would have flung 'em overboard, I trow. Have a shot at it yourself."
"Well, leave me to answer that when the time comes. That we may agree, suppose we say Ned Rackham needed the sailors to work the ship and so spared 'em. Hanged if we can make it all true as Gospel."
"But if Blackbeard searches for the wreck, or if some of those pirates rejoin him, Joe——"
"But me no more buts," snapped the sea rover. "We be jammed in a clove-hitch, as the seaman's lingo hath it. Take trouble as it comes and, ware ye, don't weaken."
They stared at the oncoming ship, dreading to be rescued and even more fearful of being passed by. Disfigured though she was by a shattered foremast, theRevengemade a gallant picture as she leaned to show the copper sheathing which flashed like gold. Her bow flung the crested seas aside and Joe Hawkridge muttered admiringly:
"A swift vessel! She carries a bone in her teeth. A telescope can sight us soon. Steady the raft, Jack, whilst I wriggle up this mast of ours and wave my shirt."
"A hard choice," sighed Jack. "Now we well know what it means to be betwixt the devil and the deep sea."
They saw theRevengeshift her course a couple of points as the sheets were eased off. A little way to windward of the raft, she hove to while a small boat was hoisted out. Curiosity prompted Blackbeard to find out who these castaways were and from what ship they had drifted. It occurred to Joe Hawkridge that he might be in quest of tidings of the two sloops of his squadron which no longer kept him company. Jack Cockrell's teeth chattered but not with cold as the boat bobbed away from the side of theRevenge. Presently Joe recognized the pirate at the steering oar as a petty officer who had often befriended him.
This fellow's swarthy, pockmarked face crinkled in a smile as he flourished his broad hat and yelled:
"Stab my gizzard, but here's the London 'prentice-boy a-cruisin' on his own adventure."
"Right-o, Jesse Strawn," Joe called back. "My bark is short-handed. I need lively recruits. Will ye enlist?"
The boat's crew laughed at this as they reached out to lay hold of the raft while the two lads leaped aboard. Joe Hawkridge carried it off with rough bravado as though glad to be among his pals again. They eyed Jack Cockrell with quizzical interest and he did his best to be at ease, permitting Joe to vouch for him as a young gentleman with a taste for piracy who had won Blackbeard's favor in thePlymouth Adventure. They were plied with eager questions regarding the fate of themerchant ship and Ned Rackham's prize crew. It was a chance to rehearse the tale as they had concocted it, and it seemed to hang together well enough to satisfy these simple rogues.
In his turn, Joe Hawkridge demanded to know the gossip of theRevenge. The storm had sobered Blackbeard, it seemed, and he had displayed the skill of a masterly seaman in bringing them safely through. In toiling for their own lives, the men had forgotten their brawls and plots and guzzling. And the great wind had blown the ship clear of Spanish fever. There were no new cases and the invalids were gaining strength. Fresh food and sweet water were needed and the opinion was that Blackbeard now steered for an old rendezvous of his on the North Carolina coast where his sloops would meet him if they were still afloat.
Jack Cockrell found his courage returning as he clambered up the side of theRevengeand followed Joe aft to the quarter-deck. Unless they bungled it, there was a chance that they might escape when the pirates made their landing on the coast to refresh themselves and refit the ship. The mate on watch greeted them good-humoredly enough and bade them enter the cabin where the captain awaited them. Jack was all a-flutter again but he managed to imitate Joe's careless swagger.
Blackbeard lounged at his ease in a huge chair of carven ebony which might have been filched from some stately East Indiaman or a ship of the Grand Mogulhimself. He had flung off his coat and the sleeves of a shirt of damask silk were rolled to the elbow. Instead of the great, mildewed sea-boots he wore slippers of crimson leather embroidered with threads of gold. Gorgeous cushions, pieces of plate, costly apparel strewed the cabin in barbaric confusion.
What the two lads gazed at, however, was this bizarre figure of a despot who held the power of life and death. It was one of his quieter interludes when he laid aside the ferocious and bombastic play-acting which made it hard to discover whether he was very cunning or half-mad. The immense beard flowed down his chest instead of being tricked out in gaudy ribbons. He was idly running a comb through it when his small, rum-reddened eyes took in the two lads in dripping clothes who were shoved toward him by the sentry guarding the hatch.
Blackbeard let a hairy hand stray to clutch one of the pistols kept on the table beside him. Jack Cockrell gulped and stole a frightened glance at Joe Hawkridge who winked and nudged him. There was some small comfort in this. Spellbound, they stared at the pistol and then at the pirate's massive forearm on which a skull and cross-bones was pricked in India ink. At this moment Jack earnestly wished himself back on the raft. The barrel of the pistol looked as big as a blunderbuss.
With a yawn, Blackbeard reached for a silver bowl of Brazil nuts, cracked one of them with the pistol-butt and roared for the black cabin boy who came running with a flask of Canary wine and a goblet. Jack Cockrell's sigh of relief sounded like a porpoise coming up for air. He was not to be shot at once. Suddenly Blackbeard exclaimed, in that husky, growling voice of his:
"I saw you rascals through the glass before I came below. What of the ship I left ye in? Briefly now, and no lies."
Together the lads pieced out the narrative as they had hastily prepared it. The vital thing was to watch lest they tell a word too much. Jack stumbled once or twice but his comrade covered it adroitly, and they did not betray themselves. The sweat trickled into their eyes but the heat of the cabin was excuse for this. Blackbeard studied them intently, munching Brazil nuts and noisily sipping his wine.
"ThePlymouth Adventurestranded yester-eve?" said he. "Know ye the lay of the coast where the wreck lies? What of the shipmaster and Ned Rackham? Were they able to fix the shoal by reckoning?"
"No, sir," readily answered Joe Hawkridge. "'Twas strange land to all hands."
From a chest Blackbeard hauled out a dog-eared chart of parchment and unrolled it upon the table. The boys foresaw his intention and feared the worst. Presently they heard him mumble to himself:
"A small wind setting from the west'ard,—twenty-fourhours of drift for the lads' raft,—a dozen leagues, I call it."
He looked up from the chart to ask:
"The wreck was lodged fast in smooth water and holding together?"
"Aye, but in peril of working off and sinking like an iron pot," answered Joe. "For this reason the people were in haste to quit her."
"Her own crew made for the beach, I have no doubt," shrewdly pursued Blackbeard, "but my men 'ud stay by the wreck and watch the weather ere they shoved off. Trust the food and drink and plunder to hold 'em."
He lumbered to the hatch and called up to the mate on watch. While they conferred, Joe Hawkridge whispered to his perturbed companion:
"He will hunt for the wreck, Jack. But unless the wind changes, he can't beat in to the coast with his fore-topmast gone."
"A merciful delay," muttered Jack. "I worry not so much for Captain Wellsby and his people. They will hide themselves well inland when they make out theRevenge, but what of you and me?"
"'Tis a vexing life we lead. I will say that much, Master Cockrell."