THE dark cloud of anxiety was lightened a trifle by the fact that Blackbeard displayed no ill temper toward the two young castaways. Having obtained such information as they chose to offer, he roughly told them to go forward and join the crew. Whether or no, Jack was impressed as a pirate and it may have amused Blackbeard to recruit by force the nephew of the honorable Secretary of the Provincial Council. For his part, Jack was grateful to be regarded no longer as a hostage under sentence of death. With Joe as an escort who knew the ropes, he went on deck and was promptly kicked off the poop by the mate.
They first found food and quenched their raging thirst with water which had a loathsome smell. Joe reported to the chief gunner and begged the chance to sleep for a dozen hours on end. This was granted amiably enough and the pirates clustered about to ask all manner of curious questions, but the weary lads dragged themselves into the bows of the ship and curled up in a stupor. There they lay as if drugged, all through thenight, even when the seamen trampled over them to haul the head-sails and tack ship.
When, at last, they blinked at the morning sky, it dismayed them to find the breeze blowing strong out of the southeast and theRevengestanding in to the coast under easy sail. They looked aft and saw Blackbeard at the rail with a long glass at his eye. The whole crew was eager with expectation and the routine work went undone. The ship had been put about several hours earlier, Joe learned, and was due soon to sight the shore unless the reckoning was all at fault.
So cleverly had Blackbeard calculated the drift of the boys' raft that a little later in the morning a lookout in the maintop called down:
"Land, ho! Two points off the starboard bow she bears."
"The maintop, ahoy!" shouted Blackbeard. "Can ye see a vessel's spars?"
"'Tis too hazy inshore. But unless my eyes play me tricks, a smudge of smoke arises."
Jack Cockrell nervously confided to Joe:
"That would be Captain Wellsby's campfire on the beach."
"Trust him to douse it," was the easy assurance. "I feel better. Blow me, but I expect to live another day."
"Answer me why," begged Jack. "I am like a palsied old man."
"Well, you know this bit o' coast, how low it setsabove the sea. Despite the haze, a man aloft could see a ship's masts and yards before he had a glimpse of land."
"Then the wreck of thePlymouth Adventurehas slid off the shoal and gone down, Joe?"
"Yes, when the wind veered and stirred a surf on the shoal. She pounded over with the flood-tide and dropped into fifteen fathom."
"Then we are saved, for now?" joyfully exclaimed Jack.
"Unless we're unlucky enough to find some o' those plaguey pirates afloat on a raft or makin' signals from the beach."
TheRevengesailed shoreward until those on board could discern the marching lines of breakers which tumbled across the shoal. The smudge of smoke had vanished from the beach. The lookout man concluded that the haze had deceived him. Blackbeard steered as close as he dared go, with a sailor heaving the lead, but there was no sign of life among the sand-dunes and the stunted trees. And thePlymouth Adventurehad disappeared leaving no trace excepting scattered bits of floating wreckage.
The pirate ship headed to follow the coast to the northward, on the chance that Ned Rackham's prize crew might have made a landing elsewhere. To Jack Cockrell the gift of life had been miraculously vouchsafed him and he felt secure for the moment. Joe'stheory seemed plausible, that the pirates had abandoned thePlymouth Adventurein time to avert drowning with her, and were driven away from the bight and the beach by Captain Wellsby's well-armed sailors.
"Do they know Blackbeard's rendezvous in the North Carolina waters, Joe?" was the natural query. "Are they likely to make their way thither, knowing that honest men will slay them at sight?"
"The swamps and the murderous Indians will take full toll of 'em, Jack. I believe we have seen the last of those rogues, but I'd rest better could I know for certain."
"Meanwhile this mad Blackbeard may be taken in one of his savage frenzies and shoot me for sport," said young Master Cockrell, for whom existence had come to be one hazard after another.
"He seems strangely tame, much like a human soul," observed Joe. "I ne'er beheld him like this. He plots some huge mischief, methinks."
And now the ship's officers drove the men to their work but they were less abusive than usual. They seemed to reflect Blackbeard's milder humor and it was manifest that they wished to avoid the crew's resentment. Joe Hawkridge was puzzled and began to ferret it out among his friends who were trustworthy. They had their own suspicions and the general opinion was that Blackbeard was in great dread of encountering Captain Stede Bonnet in theRoyal James. It seemedthat theRevengehad spoken a disabled merchant ship just after the storm and her skipper reported that he had been overhauled by Stede Bonnet a few days earlier and the best of his cargo stolen. Blackbeard had been seized with violent rage but had suffered the ship to proceed on her way because of his own short-handed condition.
With a prize crew lost in thePlymouth Adventure, including Sailing-Master Ned Rackham, and the two sloops of the squadron missing with all hands, the terrible Blackbeard was in poor shape to meet this Captain Bonnet who hated him beyond measure. As if this were not gloomy enough, there were men in theRevengeeager to sail under Bonnet's flag and to mutiny if ever they sighted theRoyal James. It behooved Blackbeard to press on to that lonely inlet on the North Carolina coast and avoid the open sea until he could prepare to fight this dangerous foeman.
It surprised Jack Cockrell to see how quiet a pirate ship could be. The ruffians were bone-weary, for one thing, after the struggle to bring the vessel through the storm. And the scourge of tropic fever had left its marks. Moreover, the rum was running short because some of the casks had been staved in the heavy weather and Blackbeard was doling it out as grog with an ample dilution of water. There was no more dicing and brawling and tipsy choruses. Sobered against their will, some of these bloody-minded sinners talked repentance orshed tears over wives and children deserted in distant ports.
The wind blew fair until theRevengeapproached the landmarks familiar to Blackbeard and found a channel which led to the wide mouth of Cherokee Inlet. It was a quiet roadstead sheltered from seaward by several small islands. The unpeopled swamp and forest fringed the shores but a green meadow and a margin of white sand offered a favorable place for landing. As theRevengeslowly rounded the last wooded point, the tall mast of a sloop became visible. The pirates cheered and discharged their muskets in salute as they recognized one of the consorts which had been blown away in the storm.
Blackbeard strutted on his quarter-deck, no longer biting his nails in fretful anxiety. He had donned the military coat with the glittering buttons and epaulets and the huge cocked hat with the feather in it. He noted that the sloop, which was called theTriumph, fairly buzzed with men, many more than her usual complement. No sooner had the ship let her anchor splash than a boat was sent over to her with the captain of the sloop who made haste to pay his compliments and explain his voyage. He was a portly, sallow man with a blustering manner and looked more like a bailiff or a tapster than a brine-pickled gentleman of fortune.
Blackbeard hailed him cordially and invited him into the cabin. The boat waited alongside theRevengeand the men scrambled aboard to swap yarns with the ship'screw. Jack Cockrell hovered near the group as they squatted on their heels around a tub of grog and learned that theTriumphhad rescued the crew of the other sloop just before it had foundered. There were a hundred men of them, in all, crowded together like dried herring, and part were sleeping ashore in huts of boughs and canvas. No wonder Blackbeard was in blither spirits. Here was a company to pick and choose from and so fill the depleted berth-deck of theRevenge.
Finding the poop deserted, Joe Hawkridge ventured far enough to peer in at a cabin window. Blackbeard was at table, together with his first mate, the chief gunner, the acting sailing-master, and the captain of the sloop. They were exceeding noisy, singing most discordantly and laughing at indecent jests. Suddenly Blackbeard whipped two pistols from his sash and fired them under the table, quite at random.
The first mate leaped up with a horrible yell and clapped a hand to the calf of his leg. Then he bolted out of the cabin, which was blue with smoke, and limped in search of the surgeon. Joe Hawkridge dodged aside but he heard the jovial Blackbeard shout, with a whoop of laughter:
"Discipline, damme! If I don't kill one of you now and then, you'll forget who I am."
Inasmuch as none of the other guests dared squeak after this episode, it was to be inferred that they were properly impressed.
THE FIRST MATE LEAPED UP WITH A HORRIBLE YELLTHE FIRST MATE LEAPED UP WITH A HORRIBLE YELL
In a little while the mate returned with his leg neatly bandaged, announced that it was a mere flesh wound, and sat down as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred to mar the festive occasion. Through the rest of the day, boats were passing between the ship and the sloop in a convivial reunion. Supper was to be cooked on the beach in great iron kettles and a frolic would follow the feast. The sloop had rum enough to sluice all the parched gullets aboard theRevenge.
Jack Cockrell had no desire to join this stupid revel but he was eager to get ashore to discover what opportunity there might be to escape. But the wiser Joe Hawkridge counseled patience, saying:
"Wait a bit. We'd be as helpless as any babes should we take to our heels in this ungodly wilderness. Is there a town or plantation near by?"
"I know not," ruefully confessed Jack. "Charles Town lies to the south, and Virginia to the north. There my knowledge fetches up short."
"And leagues of morass to flounder through, by the look of this coast," said Joe. "We be without weapons, or food, or——"
"I am a hot-headed fool, I grant you that," broke in Jack. "Now bestow your sage advice."
"You will not be allowed to go ashore, for one thing, Master Cockrell. Blackbeard has no notion of letting you get away from him to betray this rendezvous and stir the colonies to send an expedition after him. Steadythe helm, Jack, and watch for squalls. If I can read the signs, there is trouble afoot. And we must seek our own advantage in the nick of time."
"But these wild sots no longer think of mutiny and the like, Joe. They are content to let the morrow go hang."
"S-s-s-h, 'ware the master of the sloop," cautioned Joe. "He makes for the gangway, the big lump of tallow."
They moved away while Captain Richard Spender clumsily descended into his boat, his broad face flushed, his breath asthmatic. He had a piping voice absurd for his bulk and the two lads amused themselves with mimicking him as the boat pulled in the direction of the sloop. So safe against surprise did Blackbeard regard himself in this lonely anchorage that no more than a dozen men were left aboard to keep the ship through the night. Among these was Jack Cockrell, as his comrade had foreseen. It therefore happened that they remained together, for Joe had volunteered to join the anchor watch. In a melancholy mood the two lads idled upon the after deck.
The sun dropped behind the dark and tangled forest and flights of herons came winging it home to the islets in the swamps. On the sward by the silver strand the throng of pirates had stilled their clamor while a rascal with a tenor voice held them enraptured with the haunting refrain of:
"Sweet Annie frae the sea-beach came,Where Jockey's climbed the vessel's side:Ah! wha can keep her heart at hame,When Jockey's tossed aboon the tide?"Far off 'till distant realms he gangs,But I'se be true, as he ha' been;And when ilk lass around him thrangs,He'll think on Annie's faithful een."
Forlorn Jack Cockrell had homesick thoughts and felt hopeless of loosing the snares which bound him. All that sustained his courage was the sanguine disposition of Joe Hawkridge, whose youthful soul had been so battered and toughened by dangers manifold on land and sea that he expected nothing less. Listening to the pirate's moving ballad, they sat and swung their legs from the ship's taffrail while their gaze idly roved to the green curtain of undergrowth which ran lush to the water's edge to the northward of the beach.
It was Joe who called attention to a floating object which moved inside the mouth of the small, tidal creek that wandered through the marshy lowlands. In the shadowy light it could easily be mistaken for a log drifting down on the ebb of the tide. This was what the lads assumed it to be until they both noticed a behavior curious in a log. The long, low object turned athwart the current at the entrance of the creek and shot toward the nearest bank as though strongly propelled.
Joe lifted the telescope from its case in front of the wooden binnacle-box and squinted long at the edge of the creek. Crude though the glass was, he was enabled to discern that the object was, in truth, a log, but evidently hollowed out. Rounded at the ends, it held two men whose figures so blended into the dusk that they disclosed themselves only when in motion.
"A pirogue," said Joe, "and fashioned by Indians! What is the tribe hereabouts? Have ye a guess?"
"Roving Yemassees, or men of the Hatteras tribe," answered Jack. "Yonder brace of savages will be scouts."
"Aye, but there'll be no attack 'gainst this pirates' bivouac, right under the guns of the ships. The Indians are too wise to attempt it."
"Look, Joe! Hand me the glass. Those two spies have quitted the pirogue. 'Tis quite empty. They may lay up all night to creep closer and keep watch on the camp."
"Right enough, by Crambo! If we could but gain yon cypress canoe, and steal along the coast by sail and paddle——"
"'Tis the chance we prayed for," eagerly exclaimed Jack. "Dare we swim for it?"
"Not with a boat just coming off from shore. What if we try it in the night and find the pirogue gone?"
"We are stranded for sure, and Blackbeard will kill us."
Baffled, they strained their eyes until the shore stood black in the starlight, but as long as the dusk lingered they fancied they could descry the empty pirogue. The ship's boat which presently drew alongside contained Blackbeard himself and Captain Dick Spender of theTriumphsloop, besides several officers of the two vessels. They withdrew into the cabin and there was prolonged discussion, lasting well toward midnight.
It was a secretive session, with trusted men of the boat's crew posted to keep eavesdroppers away from the hatches and windows, nor was there any loud carousing. Some business was afoot and Jack wondered whether it might concern the trouble which Joe had sworn was brewing under the surface. A circumstance even more suspicious was that three of the sailors from the boat were called into the cabin. Joe Hawkridge knew them as fellows loyal to Blackbeard through thick and thin. Drunken beasts, as a rule, they were cold sober to-night.
As quietly as they had come, the whole party dropped into the boat and returned either to the beach or to the sloop which rode at anchor two cable-lengths away. TheRevengefloated with no more activity on her darkened decks. The few men of the watch drowsed at their stations or wistfully gazed at the fires ashore and the mob of pirates who moved in the red glare. Jack Cockrell and Joe Hawkridge felt no desire for sleep. As the ship swung with the turn of the tide, they went to the side and leaned on the tall bulwark where they mightcatch the first glimpse of the shore with the break of day.
Meanwhile they busied themselves with this wild scheme and that. Sifting them out, it was resolved to swim from the ship at the first opportunity. If they could not find the Indian pirogue, Joe would try to get into the pirates' camp by night and possess himself of an axe, an adze, a musket or two, and such food as he could smuggle out. Then, at a pinch, they could hide themselves a little way inland and hew out a pirogue of their own from a dry log. After hitting upon this plan, the better it seemed the more they thrashed it over.
Unluckily it occurred to them so late in the night that they feared to attempt it then lest the dawn might overtake them while they were swimming. 'Twas a great pity, said Joe, that their wits had hung fire, like a damp flint-lock, for this was the night when the pirates would be the most slack and befuddled and it would be precious hard waiting through another day. Jack glumly agreed with this point of view.
It was so near morning, however, that they lingered to scan the shore. Then it was observed that a pearly mist was rising from the swamp lands and spreading out over the water. It was almost like a fog which the morning breeze would dispel after a while. Rolling like smoke it hung so low that the topmast of the sloop rose above it although her hull was like the gray ghost of a vessel.
"No sign of wind as yet," said Joe, holding up a wetted finger, "and that red sunset bespoke a calm, hot day. This odd smother o' mist may stay a couple of hours. Will ye venture it with me, Jack?"
"Gladly! Over we go, before the watch is flogged awake by the bos'n's mate."
They crept aft to the high stern and paid out a coil of rope until it trailed in the water beneath the railed gallery which overhung the huge rudder. Joe belayed his end securely and slid over like a flash, twisting the rope around one leg and letting himself down as agile as a monkey. Without a splash he cast himself loose and Jack followed but not so adroitly. When he plopped into the water the commotion was like tossing a barrel overboard, but nobody sounded an alarm.
They clung to the rusty rudder chains and listened. The ship was all quiet. Then out into the mist they launched themselves, swimming almost submerged, dreading to hear an outcry and the spatter of musket balls. But the veiling mist and the uncertain light of dawn soon protected the fugitives. It was slow, exhausting progress, hampered as they were by their breeches and shoes which could not be discarded. They tried to keep a sense of direction, striking out for the mouth of the creek in which the pirogue had been moored, but the tide set them off the course and the only visible marks were the spars of the ship behind them and the sloop's topmast off to one side.
Jack swam more strongly and showed greater endurance because he had the beef and had been better nourished all his life than the scrawny young powder boy who was more like a lath. Now and then Jack paused to tread water while his shipmate clung to his shoulder and husbanded his waning strength, with that indomitable grin on his freckled phiz. Of one thing they were thankful, that the tide was bearing them farther away from the pirates' camp, which was now as still as though the sleepers were dead men.
"Blood and bones, but I have swum a league a'ready," gurgled Joe during one of the halts.
"Shut your mouth or you'll fill up to the hatch and founder," scolded Jack. "I see trees in the mist. The shore is scarce a pistol shot away."
"I pray my keel scrapes soon," spluttered the waterlogged Hawkridge as he kicked himself along in a final effort.
Huzza, their feet touched the soft ooze and they fell over stumps and rotted trunks buried under the surface. Scratched and beplastered with mud, they crawled out in muck which gripped them to the knees, and roosted like buzzards upon the butt of a prostrate live-oak.
"Marooned," quoth Joe, "to be eaten by snakes and alligators."
"Nonsense," snapped Master Cockrell, who had hunted deer and wild-fowl on the Carolina coast. "Wecan pick our way with care. I have seen pleasanter landscapes than this, but I like it better than Blackbeard's company."
JACK ALMOST BUMPED INTO THE DUGOUT CANOEJACK ALMOST BUMPED INTO THE DUGOUT CANOE
There was no disputing this statement and Joe plucked up spirit, as was his habit when another arduous task confronted him. Cautiously they made their way from one quaking patch of sedge to another or scrambled to their middles. There came a ridge of higher ground thick with brambles and knotted vines and they traversed this with less misery. A gleam of water among the trees and they took it to be the creek which they sought to find. Wary of lurking Indians, they wormed along on their stomachs and so came to the high swamp grass of the bank.
They swam the creek and crept toward its mouth. Jack was rooting along like a bear when he almost bumped into the dugout canoe which had looked so very like a stranded log. It was tied to a tree by a line of twisted fibre and the rising tide had borne it well up into the marsh. Here it was invisible from the ship and only a miracle of good fortune had revealed it to the lads in that glimpse from the deck at sundown.
They crawled over the gunwale and slumped in the bottom of the pirogue, which was larger than they expected, a clumsy yet seaworthy craft with a wide floor and space to crowd a dozen men. Fire had helped to hollow it from a giant of a cypress log, for the inner skin was charred black. Three roughly made paddleswere discovered. This was tremendously important, and all they lacked was a mast and sail to be true navigators.
Something else they presently found which was so unlooked for, so incredible, that they could only gape and stare at each other. Tucked in the bow was a seaman's jacket of tarred canvas, of the kind used in wet weather. Sewed to the inside of it was a pocket of leather with a buttoned flap. This Jack Cockrell proceeded to explore, recovering from his stupefaction, and fished out a wallet bound in sharkskin as was the habit of sailors to make for themselves in tropic waters. It contained nothing of value, a few scraps of paper stitched together, a bit of coral, a lock of yellow hair, a Spanish coin, some shreds of dried tobacco leaf.
Carefully Jack examined the ragged sheets of paper which seemed to be a carelessly jotted diary of dates and events. Upon the last leaf was scrawled, "Bill Saxby, His Share," and beneath this entry such items as these:
"Aprl. ye 17—A Spanish shippe rich laden. 1 sack Vanilla. 2 Rolls Blue Cloth of Peru. 1 Packet Bezoar Stones.
"May ye 24—A Poor Shippe. 3 Bars of Silver. 1 Case Cordial Waters. A Golden Candle-stick. My share by Lot afore ye Mast."
Joe Hawkridge could neither read nor write but hehad ready knowledge of the meaning of these entries and he cried excitedly:
"Say the name again, Jack. Bill Saxby, His Share. Strike me blind, but I was chums with Bill when we lay off Honduras. As decent a lad as ever went a-piratin'! A heart of oak is Bill, hailin' from London town."
"But what of the riddle?" impatiently demanded Jack. "Whence this Indian pirogue? And where is Bill Saxby?"
"He sailed with Stede Bonnet, bless ye," answered Joe. "These two men we spied in the canoe last night were no Indians.They were Cap'n Bonnet's men.Indians would ha' hid the pirogue more craftily."
"But they came not along the coast. Did they drop down this creek from somewhere inland?"
"There you put me in stays," confessed Joe. "One thing I can swear. They were sent to look for Blackbeard's ships. And I sore mistrust they were caught whilst prowling near the camp. Else they would ha' come back to the canoe before day."
THE singular discovery of Bill Saxby's jacket was like a shock to drive all else out of their minds. Now they found that it had been thrown over a jug of water and a bag of beef and biscuit stowed in the bow. This solved one pressing problem, and they nibbled the hard ration while debating the situation. It was agreed that they could not honorably run away with the pirogue if it really belonged to Stede Bonnet's men, who must have come on foot along the higher ground back of the coast and descended the creek in the canoe stolen or purchased from Indians met by chance.
Granted this much, it was fair to conjecture that Captain Bonnet's ship was in some harbor not many leagues distant and that he knew where to find Blackbeard's rendezvous, at Cherokee Inlet.
"'Tis your job to stand by the pirogue, Jack," suggested Hawkridge, "and I will make a sally toward the pirates' camp afore they rouse out."
"Go softly, Joe, and don't be reckless. Why not lie up till night before you reconnoitre?"
"'Cause the mist still hangs heavy and I'm blowed if I dilly-dally if good Bill Saxby has come to grief."
"Supposing he has, you cannot wrest him single-handed from Blackbeard's crew."
"Well, if I can but slip a word of comfort in his ear, it'll cheer him mightily, unless his throat be cut by now," was the stubborn response. "Sit thee taut, Jack, oldcamarada, and chuck the worry. Care killed a cat. These rogues yonder in the camp won'tmolest meif I walk boldly amongst 'em."
"What if you don't return?" persisted Jack. "How long shall I wait here with the pirogue?"
"Now what the deuce can I say to such foolish queries? If things go wrong with me and Bill and his mate, you will have to cruise alone or hop back to theRevenge."
With a laugh and a wave of the hand, the dauntless adventurer leaped from the nose of the canoe, nimbly hauled himself into a tree, and then plunged into the gloomy swamp where he was speedily lost to view. Jack Cockrell settled himself to wait for he knew not what. Clouds of midges and mosquitoes tormented him and he ached with fatigue. Soon after sunrise the mist began to burn away and the mouth of the creek was no longer obscured by shadows. In the glare of day Jack thought it likely that the canoe might be detected by some pair of keen eyes aboard theRevenge.
To move it far might imperil Joe Hawkridge andBonnet's two seamen should they come in haste with a hue-and-cry behind them. Jack paddled the pirogue up the creek and soon found a safe ambuscade, a stagnant cove in among the dense growth, where he tied up to a gnarled root. Then he climbed a wide-branching oak and propped himself in a crotch from which he could see the open water and the two vessels at anchor. Clumps of taller trees cut off any view of the beach and the camp but he dared stray no farther from the pirogue.
Tediously an hour passed and there was no sign of Joe Hawkridge. He had a journey of only a few hundred yards to make, and Jack began to imagine all kinds of misfortune that might have befallen him, such as being mired beyond his depth in the swamp and perishing miserably. The sensible conclusion was, however, that he had tarried among his shipmates in the camp with some shrewd purpose in mind.
A little later in the morning, Jack's anxious cogitations were diverted by the frequent passage of boats between theRevengeand the sloop which was anchored nearer the beach. One of these small craft was Blackbeard's own cock-boat, or captain's gig, which he used for errands in smooth water, with a couple of men to pull it. Jack was reminded of that secret conference in the cabin and Joe's conviction that some uncommon devilment was afoot. It appeared as though "Tallow Dick" Spender, that unwholesome master of theTriumphsloop, had been chosen as the right bower.
And now there arose a sudden and riotous noise in the camp. It was not the mirth and song of jolly pirates a-pleasuring ashore but the ferocious tumult of men in conflict and taken unawares. Perched in the tree, Jack Cockrell listened all agog as the sounds rose and fell with the breeze which swayed the long gray moss that draped the branches. He heard a few pistol shots and then was startled to see a spurt of flame dart from a gun-port of the sloop. The dull report reached him an instant later. He could see that the gun had been fired from the vessel's shoreward battery. It meant that Blackbeard was making a target of some part of the camp. Another gun belched its cloud of smoke.
The noise died down, save for intermittent shouts and one long wail of anguish. Presently a boat moved out past the sloop. A dozen men tugged at the oars and others stood crowded in the stern-sheets. Jack caught the gleam of weapons and thought he recognized the squat, broad figure of Blackbeard himself beside the man at the steering oar. Behind this pinnace from theRevengetrailed two other boats in tow. They passed in slow procession, out between the vessels. The boats which the pinnace towed were not empty. Instead of sitting upon the thwarts, men seemed to be strewn about in them as if they had been tossed over the gunwales like so much dunnage.
Jack rubbed his eyes in amazement and watched the line of boats turn to follow the channel which led out ofthe sheltered roadstead to the sea beyond. When they vanished beyond a sandy island, the lad in the live-oak tree said to himself:
"My guess is that Blackbeard has put a stopper on all talk of mutiny by one bold stroke. A bloody weeding-out, and in those two boats are the poor wretches who were taken alive. Alas, one of 'em may be Joe Hawkridge unless he be dead already. He talked too much of Stede Bonnet aboard the ship. And there were sneaking dogs in the crew who spied on their comrades. We saw them enter the cabin last night."
There was no getting around the evidence. It fitted together all too well. Jack sadly reflected that, beyond a doubt, he had seen the last of gallant, loyal Joe Hawkridge. Left alone with the pirogue, which he could not paddle single-handed, it was folly to think of trying to escape along the coast. And to wander inland, ignorant of the country, was to court almost certain death. Nor could he now expect mercy from Blackbeard, having deserted the ship against orders and known to be a true friend of Captain Stede Bonnet.
The most unhappy lad could no longer hold his cramped station in the tree and he decided to seek the canoe and find the meagre solace of a little food and water. He was half-way to the ground when he clutched a limb and halted to peer into the swamp. Something was splashing through the mud and grass and making a prodigious fuss about it. Then Jack heard two voicesin grunts and maledictions. Fearing the enemy might have tracked him, he stood as still as a mouse in the leafage of the oak.
Out of the swamp emerged a young man with a musket on his shoulder. Behind him came one very much older, gaunt and wrinkled, his hair as gray as the Spanish moss that overhung his path. They reached the edge of the creek and then turned down to halt where the pirogue had been left. At failing to find it there, they argued hotly and were much distressed. Jack Cockrell's fears were calmed. These were no men of Blackbeard's company, but good Bill Saxby and his mate. He called to them from his perch and they stood wondering at this voice from heaven.
In a jiffy Jack had slid down and was beckoning them. They hurried as fast as they could pull their feet out of the muck, and were overjoyed to jump into the hidden canoe. There they sat and thumped Jack Cockrell on the head by way of affectionate greeting. The younger man had a chubby cheek, a dimple in his chin, and blue eyes as big and round as a babe's.
"Bill Saxby is me," said his pleasant voice, "and a precious job had I to get here. Joe Hawkridge told me of you, Master Cockrell."
"Where is Joe?" cried Jack, dreading to hear his own opinion confirmed.
"Marooned, along with two dozen luckless lads that were trapped like pigeons——"
"'Twas more like turtles all a-sleepin' in the sand," the old man croaked in rusty accents. "A few was sharp awake and they fought pretty whilst the rest rallied, but they got drove with their backs to the swamp and a deep slough. Then the sloop turned her guns on 'em and they struck their colors."
"And Joe Hawkridge sided with his friends, of course," said Jack.
"Would ye expect aught else of him?" proudly answered Bill Saxby. "He searched us out where we lay trussed like fowls, all bound with ropes. We blundered fair into the camp last night, and old Trimble Rogers here, his legs knotted with cramps, couldn't make a run for it. They saved us for Blackbeard's pleasure but he had other fish to fry."
"What then?" demanded Jack.
"'Twas Joe Hawkridge that ran to cut our bonds when the fight began. And he bade us leg it for the pirogue and carry word to you. A pledge of honor, he called it, to stand by his dear friend Jack, and he made us swear it."
"Bless him for a Christian knight of a pirate," said Jack, with tears in his eyes. "Was he hurt, did ye happen to note?"
"We hid ourselves till the prisoners were flung into the boats. I marked Joe as one of 'em, and he was sprightly, barring a bloody face."
"Marooned, Bill Saxby?" asked Jack. "What'syour judgment on that score? It cannot be many leagues from here, or the ship would have transported them instead of the boats."
"These barren islands lie strung well out from the coast, Master Cockrell. Waterless they be, and without shelter. Blackbeard's fancy is to let the men die there——"
"An ancient custom of buccaneers and pirates," put in old Trimble Rogers, with an air of grave authority. "I mind me in the year of 1687 when I sailed in the South Sea with that great captain, Edward Davis,—'twas after the sack of Guayaquil when every man had a greater weight of gold and silver than he could lug on his back——"
Bill Saxby interrupted, in a petulant manner:
"Stow it, grandsire! At a better time ye can please the lad with your long-winded yarns,—of marching on Panama with Henry Morgan when the mother's milk was scarce dry on your lips."
"I cruised with the best of 'em," boasted the last of the storied race of true buccaneers of the Spanish Main, "and now I be in this cheap trade of piratin'. The fortunes I gamed away, and the plate ships I boarded! Take warnin', boy, and salt your treasure down."
"This Trimble Rogers will talk you deaf," said Bill Saxby, "but there's pith in his old bones and wisdom under yon hoary thatch. Cap'n Bonnet sent him along with me as a rare old hound to trail the swamps."
In a vivid flash of remembrance, Jack Cockrell saw this salty relic of the Spanish Main among the crew which had disported itself on the tavern green at Charles Town,—the old man sitting aside with a couple of stray children upon his knees while his head nodded to the lilt of the fiddle. And again there had been a glimpse of him trudging in the column which had followed Stede Bonnet, with trumpet and drum, to attack the hostile Indians. Jack's heart warmed to Trimble Rogers and also to young Bill Saxby. They would find some way out of all this tribulation.
"Whither lies Captain Bonnet's stout ship?" eagerly demanded Jack.
"On this side the Western Ocean," smiled Saxby. "We shall waste no time in finding her. We had better bide where we are a few hours, eh, Trimble?"
"Aye, and double back up the stream in the canoe to spend the night on dry land and push on afoot at dawn. If we wait to sight Blackbeard's boats come in from sea, 'twill aid us to reckon how far out they went and what the bearings are."
"So Captain Bonnet may sail to pick off those poor seamen marooned," exclaimed Jack.
"He is not apt to leave 'em to bleach their bones," said Bill Saxby. "And when it comes to closing in with Blackbeard, they will have a grudge of their own."
They made themselves as comfortable as possible on the bottom of the pirogue. Now and then Jack climbedthe live-oak to look for the return of the boats. There was no more leisure for the pirates left in the ship and the sloop. Evidently Blackbeard had been alarmed by the tidings that two of Stede Bonnet's men had been caught spying him out and had made their escape in the confusion. The sloop was now listed over in shoal water and Bill Saxby ventured the opinion that they intended to take the mast out of her and put it in theRevenge.
"Along with most of her guns, I take it," said Trimble Rogers. "What with losing all those men, in one way or another, this Blackbeard, as Cap'n Ed'ard Teach miscalls hisself, must needs abandon the sloop. The more the merrier, says I, when we come at close quarters."
Jack asked many curious questions, by way of passing the time. The old man was easy to read. He had been a lawless sea rover in the days when there was both gold and glory in harrying Spanish towns and galleons, from Mexico to Peru. The real buccaneers had vanished but he was too old a dog to learn new tricks and he faithfully served Stede Bonnet, who had a spark of the chivalry and manliness which had burned so brightly in that idolized master, Captain Edward Davis.
As for this blue-eyed smiling young Bill Saxby, he had been a small tradesman in London. Through no fault of his own, he was cruelly imprisoned for debt and, after two years, shipped to the Carolina plantations as no better than a slave. For all he knew, the girl wifeand child in London had been suffered to starve. He had never heard any word of them. As a fugitive he had been taken aboard a pirate vessel. There he found kindlier treatment than honest men had ever offered him, and so grew somewhat reconciled to this wicked calling.
On one of the occasions when Jack left these entertaining companions to visit his high sentry post in the tree, he surmised that all hands had been summoned on the vessel and lifting out her mast. He could see two boats plying back and forth and filled with men. He lingered because something else caught his interest. A little boat was putting out from the seaward side of theRevengeand it fetched a wide circuit of the harbor. This brought the ship between it and the sloop so that its departure would be unobserved by the toiling crew.
Two men were at the oars and a third sat in the stern. At a distance, Jack guessed they were bound to one of the nearest islands, perhaps in search of oysters or crabs, but after making a long sweep which carried the boat out of vision of the sloop and the beach, it swung toward the shore, a little to the northward of the mouth of the creek. The errand had a stealthy air. Jack Cockrell started and almost fell out of the tree. He had been mistaken in his fancy that Blackbeard was in the pinnace which had towed the prisoners out to be marooned. This was none other than the grotesque fiend of a piratehimself, furtively steering his cock-boat on some private errand of his own.
As soon as he was certain of this, Jack fairly scurried down the tree, digging his toes in the bark like a squirrel, and tumbling head over heels into the pirogue. Breathing rapidly, he stuttered:
"The—the devil himself,—in that little w-wherry of his,—c-coming inshore. He must ha' seen the canoe. He is in chase of me."
"Go take a look, Bill," coolly remarked old Trimble Rogers, who was busy slapping at mosquitoes. "A touch o' the sun has bred a nightmare in the lad."
Bill Saxby swarmed up the live-oak like a limber seaman with fish-hooks for fingers and he, too, almost lost his balance at what he saw. He waved a warning hand at the canoe and then put his fingers to his lips. Down he came in breakneck haste and urged the others to haul their craft farther up into the sedge. He was plucking green bushes and armfuls of dried grass to fling across the gunwales.
Satisfied that the canoe was entirely concealed, they crouched low. The old man was more concerned with the pest of insects and he reached out to claw up the sticky mud with which he plastered his face and neck like a mask. This seemed to give him some relief and his comrades were glad to do the same. Bill Saxby was attentive to the priming of the musket, which he passed over to Trimble Rogers, saying:
"You are the chief gunner, old hawk. But hold your fire. I'm itching to know what trick this Don Whiskerando is up to."
"Fair enough," muttered the old man. "Cap'n Bonnet 'ud clap me in irons if I slew this filthy Ed'ard Teach and robbed him of that enjoyment. I'll pull no trigger save in our own defense."
They heard the faint splash of oars. Soon the little cock-boat came gliding around the bend of the shore and floated into the mouth of the creek. Bill Saxby raised himself for a moment and ducked swiftly as he whispered:
"He is not lookin' about but motions 'em to row on up the stream."
"Then our canoe is not what he's after?" murmured Jack.
"'Tis some queer game. Were he hunting us, he'd fetch along more hands than them two. Hush! Let him pass."
The little boat came steadily on, the tide helping the oars. It sat very low in the water, oddly so for the weight of three men. Blackbeard, hunched in the stern, held a pistol in one hand while the other gripped the tiller. This was not in fear of danger from the shore because he kept his eyes on the two seamen at the oars and it was plain to see that the pistol was meant to menace them.
The boat passed abreast of the pirogue so artfullyconcealed in the pocket of a tiny cove. The intervening distance was no more than a dozen yards. Old Trimble Rogers wistfully fingered the musket and lifted it to squint along the barrel. Never was temptation more sturdily resisted. Then his face, hard as iron and puckered like dried leather, broke into a smile. The idea pleased him immensely. They would follow Blackbeard and watch the chance to take him alive. He who had trapped his own men in camp was now neatly trapped himself, his retreat cut off. Tie a couple of fathom of stout cord to his whiskers and tow him along by land, all the way to Stede Bonnet's ship. There the worthy captain could bargain with him at his own terms, silently chuckled the old buccaneer.
They held their breath and gazed at the fantastic scoundrel who had made himself the ogre among pirates. He had discarded the great hat as cumbersome and his tousled head was bound around with a wide strip of the red calico from India. Still and solid he sat, like a heathen idol, staring in front of him and intent on his mysterious errand. The unseen spectators in the pirogue scanned also the two seamen at the oars and felt a vague pity for them. Unmistakably they were sick with fear. It was conveyed by their dejected aspect, by the tinge of pallor, by the fixity with which they regarded the cocked pistol in Blackbeard's fist. Jack Cockrell knew them as abandoned villains who had boasted of many a bloody deed but the swarthy, pockmarked fellow had been in the boat which had saved the two lads from the drifting raft. This was enough to awaken a lively sympathy.
Trimble Rogers gripped Jack's shoulder with a strength which made him wince and pointed a skinny finger at the boat. The fate of the two seamen did not trouble him greatly. Those who lived by violence should rightly expect to die by it. The sea was their gaming table and it was their ill luck if the dice were cogged. Just then Bill Saxby stifled an ejaculation. He, too, had discovered the freightage in the cock-boat, the heavy burden which made it swim so low.
It rested in front of Blackbeard's knees, the top showing above the curve of the gunwales. It was a sea-chest, uncommonly large, built of some dark tropical wood and strapped with iron. Old Trimble Rogers' fierce eyes glittered and he licked his lips. He leaned over to whisper in Bill Saxby's ear the one word:
"Treasure!"