Chapter Fifteen.Another Escape.The excitement seemed to bring Jack more and more to the front, and those who followed read in his actions why it was that he had been successful in freeing them from their pursuers at the time of the escape.For, active as a goat, he crept from rock to rock, lowering himself down here, dropping there, and having from time to time to wait to give the rest an opportunity for keeping up. And all the while the parts of the cliff side that were the most wooded, and which offered the best shelter, were selected, and discovery by the sleeping men avoided.It was an arduous task; but the guide was equal to the emergency, and continuously and silently proceeding succeeded at length in dropping down to the sandy shore about fifty yards from where the men lay apparently asleep and sheltered by a huge mass of weed-grown stone, while the cutter swung by its anchor a hundred yards further on beyond the sailors, and she rose and fell easily as the slight tide ran softly down.Jack grasped the situation clearly, and felt how little time there was to lose. At any moment the heads of the hunting party might appear as they came down the ravine to the bay, while, supposing these to be really asleep, the first shout would bring them to their feet, and then all chance of escape would be gone.The men had laid down close up under the cliff so as to be sheltered from the sun and from an instinctive desire to be beyond the reach of any venturesome wave, so that to reach the cutter the fugitives would have to pass her guardians between them and the sea.This brought the escaping party nearer to the cutter, but placed them full in the view of those who might be coming down the ravine at the head of the bay, and also shut them off from shelter and concealment should an emergency arise.Jack had played so prominent a part hitherto that the eyes of all were directed to him for further instructions, and for a moment he hesitated and pointed to Abel.“No,” whispered the latter, “you have done so well; go on.”Jack hesitated for a moment or two more, and then said in a low voice—“All follow quickly and go to the far side of the bay, seize the boat, and we are safe.”“But there is no boat,” said Bart.Jack pointed to a mass of rock, some fifty yards away, where a few inches of the stern of a boat were visible, but which had not been seen by the others.“Lead on,” said Abel, abruptly; “and if the men wake up Bart and I will tackle them while you and Dinny here get into the boat and row out. We’ll swim to you, and you can take us in.”“And d’ye think I’m going to run away like that?” whispered Dinny. “I’ll shtay.”“Dinny!” whispered Jack, fiercely.“Ah, well, I forgot I was a soldier, my lad. I’ll obey orders.”Whereupon Abel examined the priming of his musket, and Bart tried the bayonet at the end of the bamboo shaft to see if it was firm, while Dinny whispered—“Howld her tight to yer shoulther, lad, when ye fire, for she’s a divil to kick.”Jack gave a glance round once more, and then, holding up a hand to command silence, he listened, but all was still save the lapping of the waves as the tide retired and then returned.His next proceeding was to steal out to where he could get a good look at the three sailors left in charge.One lay on his breast, with his arms folded and his brow resting upon them. The second lay upon his back, with his hands beneath him, and his cap tilted over his eyes. The third was upon his side with his back to them, and all apparently fast asleep, for neither stirred.Jack would have gladly waited till dark; but to have done this might have meant losing their means of escape, for they were not certain that the party would stay all night.So, feeling this, and that their only chance lay in a bold attempt, he glanced back once, and after seeing that his companions were quite ready to follow, he stepped out quietly on to the yielding sand and made for the spot where the small boat lay.To reach this boat the party had to pass within some fifty feet or so of the sleepers, and the crucial moments would be when they had passed within ken of the man lying upon his side with his back to them. Even if the others were awake it would be possible to pass them unseen; but it was otherwise with the third man, whose position would enable him to see whoever crossed the sands of the little bay, while, for aught they knew, he might be a faithful guardian, keeping strict watch over both boat and cutter while his companions slept.Jack walked softly on, the sand deadening his tread, so that he was soon abreast of the guardians of the boat, and another five minutes would suffice for him and his party to reach the boat and push her off, when, armed as they were, they could have laughed at pursuit.Another few yards and no one stirred. Jack gazed over his left shoulder at the dangerous reclining figure, but its position remain unchanged.Another few yards, and still there was no sign, nor likely to be, for there could be no doubt of the fact—the man was fast asleep, and the agitation and anxiety of the fugitives was apparently wasted.Jack glanced back to see that his companions were following in Indian file, walking upon the tips of their feet, and casting glances from time to time at the spot from which danger would arise.Another dozen yards and the leader of the little party felt safe, when a sharp report came from the ravine above, the shot echoing and reverberating along the sides of the cliffs till it sounded like a peal of thunder which drowned the shout that followed, a shout meant as a warning to the guardians of the boat that their party was close at hand.The man lying upon his side sprang to his feet, and the other two woke up, to stare stupidly about them before they realised the state of affairs, and that their companion had seized his musket, from where it lay with those of his fellows against the foot of the cliff which towered above their heads; for in accordance with their plans, Jack and Dinny had run on and seized the boat, while Abel and Bart had faced round with their weapons ready, retreating slowly toward the sea.For a few moments no word was spoken, and then it was the first of the three sailors who realised their position.“It’s cat or a bullet in us, mates,” he cried, desperately. “I says bullet; so come on.”The other two were Englishmen like himself, and evidently entertained their comrade’s preference for a chance bullet or a stab to being tried by court martial and sentenced to a flogging, so they also snatched up their muskets and belts, hastily threw the latter over their shoulders, and, taught by training, brought their pieces to bear, shouting to the prisoners to surrender.“Give up, you lubbers!” cried the first sailor. “It’s of no good.”For answer Abel glanced over his shoulder, and seeing that Jack and Dinny had reached the boat, slowly continued the retreat.“Will you surrender?” roared the sailor, as another shout came from the ravine.“Surrender yourselves,” cried Bart, fiercely. “Lay down them guns.”“Surrender, or we fire,” cried the sailor again, as the two men slowly backed toward the boat, watchful of a rush being made.Bart uttered a low, defiant growl, and the bamboo he held quivered in his knotted hands.“All together, then, mates,” shouted the sailor, “fire!”Jack uttered a groan as he stood knee deep in water, running the boat as near as it could be got to his friend, and a mist swam before his eyes.Click click click!—and as many tiny showers of sparks were struck in the pans of the pieces.“Why, you stupid lubbers, you didn’t load!” roared the sailor. “Now, then, ground arms—load!”A shout of derision arose from Abel and Bart, and the former took up the tone of menace now.“Throw down your muskets, or I fire,” he cried.“P’raps you’re not loaded neither, mate,” cried the sailor, laughing. “Now, lads. Bagnets: charge.”His companions hesitated for a moment, and then, lowering their pieces, they made a rush for those who barred their way to the boat.Bang!One sharp report. The right-hand sailor span round, dropped his musket, stooped down and seized his leg beneath the knee, and dropped into a sitting position upon the sand.“Hurt, mate?” cried the first sailor, halting.“Leg,” was the laconic reply.“Never mind,” cried the first sailor. “Come, on, mate.”He lowered his piece again, and the two rushed upon Bart and Abel, as brave as lions now in the excitement.These two had taken advantage of the man being wounded to back rapidly toward the boat, lying in the shallow water; but the sand was heavy, and they had to face the enemy all the time. For the latter came at them with stubborn determination, reached them while they were a good twenty yards from the water, and a fierce fight ensued.It was as brief as it was hot and determined, for, after a few moments’ fencing, the second sailor delivered a deadly thrust, at Abel; while the principal man, a sturdy, tall fellow, crossed weapons with Bart, whose slight bamboo lance was a feeble defence against the bayonet at the end of the musket. Moreover, the fugitives were fighting with the disadvantage of being seen now by the well-armed party returning from the hunt. These had received warning that something was wrong by hearing the shots, and were now running rapidly down toward the sandy shore.“Now,” said the second sailor, presenting his piece, which was opposed to one minus the bayonet blade—“now I have you. Surrender!”For answer Abel stepped back, clubbed his weapon, swung it round, and brought it down with such violence that the butt struck the other musket full upon the stock, and dashed it from its holder’s hand.Before Abel could get another blow round, the man had dashed in, closed with him, and, to Jack’s agony, capture seemed certain.Meantime the first sailor had made several fierce passes at Bart, who was scratched once upon the wrist, and had drawn blood on the other side, when his bamboo lance broke, and he seemed at the mercy of his antagonist.Heavy as he was, Bart was activity itself, and reversing the encounter going on between the other two, he avoided a thrust by striking the bayonet aside with his arm, and closed with his adversary.The two locked together in a desperate struggle directly, for the sailor abandoned his musket as soon as Bart was at close quarters, and gripped him round the waist.“I’ll have you, anyhow,” he panted, as he lifted Bart from the ground.“Let go, or I’ll crush in your ribs,” growled Bart, savagely.“Do it, mate,” retorted the sailor, swinging Bart round, and trying to throw him; but he might as well have tried to throw off his arms. Then by a desperate wrench Bart loosened the other’s grip, so that he could touch ground once more, and the struggle went on like some desperate bout in wrestling.These encounters were matters of a minute or so; but to Jack and Dinny, standing knee deep in the water holding the boat ready for the escape, and the oars where they could be seized in an instant, the minute seemed an hour. They would have gone to the help of their comrades, but it seemed to them that they would be cutting off the means of escape; and in addition, the various phases of the fight succeeded each other so rapidly that there was hardly time to think.“Give me that shtick,” cried Dinny at last; and he snatched one from where it lay upon the thwarts of the boat, just as Abel sent his adversary down half-stunned and turned to help Bart.“Quick, lad! Hold still a moment!” cried Abel, as the overseer came running down from the head of the bay, in company with the officer and half a dozen men.The words were wasted, for Bart and the first sailor were writhing and twining on the sands like two wild beasts. Bart strove hard to shake himself free; but the effort was vain, for the sailor had fastened on him like a bull-dog, and held on with a tenacity that could not be mastered.“It’s of no use,” panted Bart, as Dinny ran up. For the enemy were not two hundred yards away, and running fast. “Escape, my lads! Never mind me!”“Let me get one hit at him,” cried Dinny.“Ah, would you, Paddy!” roared the sailor, wresting Bart round as a shield. “I know you.”“Now, you!” cried Dinny to Abel.But it was like striving to hit a twining serpent upon the head, and strive how they would, Bart’s friends could do nothing till the pair had struggled together to the very edge of the water, and then went splashing in.“Get his head down, Bart, and he’ll soon let go.”Easier said than done. The sailor had his arms well about his adversary, and Bart’s effort was vain.“Surrender, there!” shouted the overseer. “Give up, or we’ll fire!”“Let go, or I’ll smash you,” growled Bart, as he caught sight of the enemy coming on.For answer the sailor clung the more tightly; and as Bart rose to his knee after a fall, the water was now well up to their middles.“Here, boat, Jack, lad!” cried Dinny. “Now, captain, lay howlt!”Abel grasped his meaning, and seized one side of the human knot, composed of two bodies and the customary complement of arms and legs, while Dinny caught the other, and together they trailed it through the shallow water to meet the boat.“Now, Master Jack,” cried Dinny, “take a howlt!”Jack seized Bart by the waist as the boat’s gunwale touched him. Abel and Dinny lifted together, and the result was that a certain amount of water went in over the side; but with it, heaving and struggling still, the knotted together bodies of Bart and his adversary, to lie in the bottom of the little craft, the sailor, fortunately for the escaping party, undermost.“Sit down and row!” roared Abel; but his order was needless, for Jack had seated himself on the thwart, thrust out the oars at once, and began to pull; while on opposite sides, Dinny and Abel ran the boat out till they were breast-high in the water, when they gave it a final thrust and began to climb in.By this time they were thirty or forty yards from the dry sand, down which the overseer and his party came running, and stopped at the edge.“Halt! Surrender!” roared the overseer, savagely.There was no reply, but the oars were plied swiftly, and the boat glided over the glassy swell.“Fire!” roared the overseer, raising his piece; and a shower of buckshot came whistling and pattering by them, several of the little bullets striking the boat.“Fire!” roared the overseer again. “Curse you! Why don’t you fire!”A scattered volley from half a dozen pieces answered his furious order, and as the little party glanced back, it was to see that those on shore were reloading rapidly, the peculiar noise made by the ramming down of the wads being plainly heard, mingled with the thudding of the ramrods as the charges were driven home.No one spoke in the boat, but Abel and Dinny rapidly got oars over the side and began to pull, the latter having the harder work from the heaving bodies of the two combatants occupying the bottom of the boat, a fact which necessitated his standing up; but all the same he helped the boat vigorously along.“Are ye going to lie down?” said Dinny, as he saw the enemy wade out as far as they could and prepare to fire.“No!” said Abel. “You can.”“Divil a bit will I, if you don’t,” said Dinny, “and good luck to ’em! They’ve only got big pellets for shooting the pigs, and they won’t kill except at close quarthers.”Another scattered volley rang echoing out, and thundered along the cliffs, the smoke hiding the enemy from the gaze of those in the boat.“Murther!” yelled Dinny, dropping his oar, but stooping to pick it up again as he shook his hand. “It’s gone right through,” he continued, as he gazed at a bead of blood oozing from the back of his hand, and another on the other side in the centre of his palm. “I wish I knew the divil who fired that. It feels like one of the overseer’s games.”“Anyone else hit?” said Abel. “Jack!”“It’s nothing—a scratch,” said Jack, rowing away with all his might, as the blood began to trickle down from a scored place upon his forehead. “Go on rowing.”“Bad luck to ’em! There’s so many shot in a charge; it gives ’em such a chance,” grumbled Dinny. “But niver mind, Masther Jack. It’ll be a bit of a shmart; but losing a dhrop o’ blood won’t hurt ye.”Jack nodded, and tugged away rapidly, reducing the distance between them and the cutter; but they could not get farther from the firing party, who kept up a furious fusillade as they followed along round the side of the little bay, the pellets whistling by the fugitives, and more than one finding a home.“Faix, and ye’ve got the best place there, Bart, me lad,” cried Dinny, merrily. “Shall I come and howlt him while you take a change?”“Look here!” growled Bart, as another volley was fired at them, and the shot came hurtling round; “it’s no good now. Are you going to give in?”The sailor looked from one to the other as he lay, with his head in the water at the bottom of the boat.“Well, this here ar’nt cheerful,” he said.“You’re beat. Why don’t you give in?”“Is it weazand slitting?” he said. “Snickersnee!”“Get out!” cried Dinny. “Did they cut mine?”“Yours, you deserter!” said the sailor, contemptuously.“As much a deserter as you are, Dick Dullock. Sure, and they tuck me prishner, wid a musket to me ear and a bagnet to my chist.”“You look like one,” said the sailor, sourly.“Will you surrender?” growled Bart.“Yes. Can’t do no more, can I? Only bear witness, all on you, as I did my dooty. Didn’t I, youngster?”“You fought like a brave man,” said Jack, gravely; “but it is of no use to struggle now, so give up.”“Ay, I’ll give in,” said the sailor; “but I’m a-going to lie here till the firing’s done. I’ll stand fire when there’s fighting o’ both sides; but I’m a prisoner now, and out of it, so here I stays.”Bart rose from where he had been kneeling on the man’s chest, and straightened himself slowly, but only to start as a fresh volley was fired and a pellet grazed his chin; but he only uttered a savage growl like an angry beast, and made way for Dinny to sit down and row with all his strength.Suddenly a shout from the bay shore took the attention of those in the boat, and the firing ceased.“What’s that mean?” cried Abel.“They’ve found our boat,” said Jack, excitedly.It was true enough; and the fugitives redoubled their efforts to reach the cutter, while the overseer continued the firing, so as to disable some of the party before they could attain the shelter the vessel would give.Abel was hit twice, and Bart received another shot, but the distance was great now, and the pellets too small to do serious mischief; but as they rowed round behind the cutter, anxiously watching to see that no one was aboard, its hull sheltering them from the firing, the noise and the buzz of voices ashore drew their attention to the fact that the overseer, the officer, and four more had entered the boat, which started with a cheer from those left behind, and pulled rapidly in pursuit.“Quick, Bart, run up the jib while I cut the rope.”“Nay, haul up to it, you and Dinny,” cried Bart, as he ran forward. “It’s only a grapnel.”The firing recommenced now so viciously that every act on board the cutter was performed with great risk, the overseer and the officer taking it in turns to send a hail of buckshot at everyone who showed a head above the low side of the vessel.But in spite of this the party worked well, and the sailor having surrendered, contented himself, as soon as he was aboard, by lying down upon the deck and beginning to chew.The grapnel was hauled in, the jib hoisted, and Jack stationed at the tiller; but the sail slowly flapped to and fro, refusing to fill, and the only way on the cutter was that given by the falling tide.“She’ll be aboard of us, Bart, long before we get out of the bay,” said Abel, with a groan of despair.“Niver say die,” cried Dinny, who had just given a turn to the painter which held the cutter’s boat.“Are there any arms aboard?” growled Bart. “Cuss it! look there!”This last was consequent upon a shot ploughing a little channel along his neck. “D’yer hear what I say—you?” he said again to their prisoner. “Are there any arms aboard?”“Yes, in the cabin—muskets,” said the sailor; “but you leave ’em alone, my lad. This here as you’ve done’s piracy, and if you kill anybody it’s murder.”“Then let ’em keep off,” said Bart, with a fierce growl as he followed Abel into the cabin, both reappearing again directly with muskets and ammunition.“I tell you it’s piracy,” said the sailor from where he lay. “Isn’t it, Dennis Kelly?”“Faix, I s’pose it is,” said Dinny, smiling. “There’s so much in a name.”“Here you, Dinny, get up a musket,” cried Abel. “You can shoot.”“Don’t you, Dinny!” said the sailor. “It’s hanging business.”“But I’m a prishner,” said Dinny, grinning, “and obliged.”“It’ll be a hanging matter, Dinny,” cried the sailor, as the Irishman reappeared with a musket in his hand.“It’ll be a flogging sure if I’m took,” said Dinny, “for they’ll niver belave I’m acting against my will. Now, Captain Abel,” he continued, as he loaded his piece, and laid it so that he could command the boat, “whin you ordher me to fire, why, av coorse I shall, but you must take the credit of the shot.”“Keep off!” roared Abel, as the boat now neared them fast. “You’ll get bullets instead of buckshot: you come nearer.”“Surrender, you piratical scoundrel!” roared the overseer. “Put down that musket. Row hard, my lads!”Whatever may have been the overseer’s weakness, want of courage was not one; and this he proved by discharging his piece, and standing up in the boat to watch the effect.The distance was short, but there was a faint puff of air now which filled the sail, and there was a feeling of intense relief as the cutter rapidly left the coming boat behind.Jack’s cheeks flushed, and his eyes sparkled as, with a touch of the tiller, he seemed to send the cutter rushing through the water; while an angry yell rose from behind as the boat dropped back.But their despondency in the boat was only of a minute’s duration, for the wind dropped as suddenly as it had risen, the cutter ceased to glide onward with the water rattling and splashing beneath her bows, the jib shivered and hung motionless, and a cheer arose from the pursuers as the firing recommenced.“Be ready, Bart,” said Abel, with a lurid look in his eyes, as he once more levelled his piece. “You, Dinny, are you going to help?”“No,” said the sailor. “It’s piracy and murder if you shoot them, Dinny Kelly, and it’s fair-play if they shoot you.”“Yis, it is awkward,” said Dinny; “but Oi’m thinking I don’t want to go back and be on senthry again, and there, Oi’ll make a compromise of it. I won’t shoot, but I’m mak’ believe, and frecken ’em.”As he spoke he lay down on the deck and took aim at the occupants of the coming boat, whose position was extremely perilous, while the sides of the cutter sheltered those on board.“Keep back!” roared Abel, as the boat neared them fast. “We’re loaded with ball, not shot.”There was a momentary indecision on the part of the overseer, and it was instantly communicated to the men, for they ceased to paddle, while the two principals bent forward and spoke earnestly.“No, they will not dare,” said the overseer, loudly. “Go on, my lads! Surrender, you dogs, or you shall all be hung.”The boat was urged through the water again, and the overseer raised his fowling-piece, took aim, and was about to fire, when the officer with him laid his hand upon his arm.“Wait,” he said. “Then both fire together, close in, and board.”“We’ll do that afterwards,” cried the overseer, discharging his piece and rapidly reloading as the boat glided on till it was only about twenty yards away, and, in spite of a fierce threat or two, the repugnance to shed blood and the natural desire not to fight against the law had kept Abel and Bart from returning the fire.Their case seemed hopeless now, unless in the struggle to come they repelled the boarders, for the wind which dotted the sea a hundred yards away with ripples refused to kiss their sail, and in another minute the overseer and his party would have been alongside, when, just as he covered Jack’s arm, which could be seen lying upon the tiller, and when a shot at such short range would have been almost as bad as one from a bullet, there was a puff of smoke, a sharp report, and the overseer started up in the boat, dropped his fowling-piece, which fell into the sea with a splash, and then, before the officer could save him, he pitched head foremost over the side.“Look at that now,” said Dinny, who had risen into a sitting position on the deck, with his musket across his lap.“Yes; you’ve done it now, Dinny Kelly,” said the sailor, gruffly. “Desarted from the station, and shot the superintendent.”“Sorra a bit,” said Dinny, as the wind suddenly struck the cutter, which heeled over and began to forge rapidly through the water. “Sorra a bit, man. It was this awkward baste of a mushket. I just closed my finger for a moment on the thrigger, and whoo! off she went, kicking up her heels like a nigger’s mule. D’yer think the overseer’s hurt?”“I think you’ve killed him.”“Not I, bedad. It was me mushket,” said Dinny. “Divil a bit will I have any more to do wid it. I’ll have another with a thrigger which isn’t wake.”“You’ve saved us, Dinny,” said Jack, excitedly, as the boat was being left far behind.“Not I, my lad. Shure, it’s between the wind and this worn-out old mushket. It’s a baste of a thing. Why, it moight have killed the poor man. I say, lad; d’yer think he’s much hurt?”“A broken arm, that’s all, Dinny,” said Jack, smiling.“Ah, well!” said Dinny, reloading the piece; “that’ll do him good, and give the poor divils at the plantation a bit of a rest.”He paused in the act of reloading, drew the charge with a dry look upon his countenance, and laid the musket down upon the deck.“No, thank ye,” he said, shaking his head at the piece. “It’s a murdhering baste ye are, and ye’ll be getting some poor fellow into throuble wan of these days. Don’t you think so, Dick?”The prisoner screwed up his countenance, and then relaxed it as he looked hard at Dinny.“Well, it’s pretty nigh a hanging matter for you, Dinny,” he said.“What! for an accident, man?”“Accident! you’ve gone and committed a rank act of piracy! But, I say, what’ll they do with me?”“Hang ye, I should say,” replied Dinny, with a droll look in his eye. “Hang ye as soon as they’ve got toime to think about ye; or no: maybe they’ll save themselves the throuble, and hand ye over to thim ruffians there.”He pointed over the side, and the sailor gave a start and changed colour as he caught sight of the back-fins of a couple of huge sharks gliding along through the water a little way astern.“Oh, they’re a bad lot with their prisoners, Dick. Look at me.”“But what are they going to do?” said the sailor, eagerly. “They can’t put in anywhere, and as soon as this day’s work’s known, they’ll have a man-o’-war sent after ’em.”“Sorra a wan o’ me knows,” said Dinny; “but it’s moighty plisant out here. I’m toired o’ pipe-claying me belts and marching and being senthry, and they may make me prishner as long as they like.”“You didn’t half-kill one of them, and they don’t bear malice against you,” said the sailor, thoughtfully.“An’ is it malice? Why, didn’t I thry to run wan of ’em through wid me bagnet, and attimpt to shoot the other! Malice! I belave they liked it, for we’ve been the best o’ friends iver since. Here, Bart, me lad; Dick here wants to shake hands with yez.”“I don’t,” said the sailor, sternly; but as Bart came from where he had been taking a pull at one of the ropes, smiling and open-handed, Dick’s face relaxed.“That was a pretty good wrastle,” said Bart, running his eye approvingly over the physique of his late opponent, and gripping Dick’s hand heartily; “but I got the best of you.”Dick did not answer, but he returned the grip, and Bart went aft directly to relieve Jack at the tiller, while the darkness came on rapidly, and with it the breeze increased in force till the cutter careened over and rapidly left the island behind.“Well, Dennis Kelly,” said the sailor, as they sat together on board later, with the stars gathering overhead, and faint sounds wafted to them from time to time as they glided rapidly along a few miles from land, “you can only make one thing of it, my boy, and that’s piracy; and piracy’s yard-arm, and a swing at the end of the rope.”“Ah! get along wid ye,” said Dinny, contemptuously, “and don’t call things by bad names. They’re three very plisant fellows, and they’ve borried the boat and taken us prishners to help them in the cruise; or, if ye like it better, we’re pressed men.”“But what are they going to do next?”“Divil a bit do I know, and the divil a bit do I care. I’ve no belts to pipe-clay, and you’ve no deck to holy-stone. What there is to ate they share wid ye, and they take their turn at the watch. Sure, it’s a gintleman’s life, and what more would ye have?”“But it’s piracy—rank piracy!” said Dick, stubbornly; “and I want to know what we’re going to do next.”“Well, thin, I’ll tell ye,” said Dinny; “but it’s a saycret, moind.”“Well, what?”“It’s a saycret, moind,” said Dinny, “and ye won’t tell?”“Tell! Who is there to tell here?”“Nobody yet; but ye’ll keep the saycret?”“Yes,” said Dick, earnestly. “What are they going to do?”“Didn’t I say I’d tell ye,” said Dinny, “as soon as I know?”“Yah!” snarled Dick.“Well,” cried Dinny, “how can I tell ye till I know? Why, it’s my belief, Dick, me lad, that they don’t know themselves.”“Where do you mean to go, Abel?” said Jack at last.“Go, my lass—my lad!” he said, correcting himself. “Anywhere. We can’t touch port, but we’ve got a tidy little vessel, not too big to manage, and we must sail somewhere to be safe.”“Well, I don’t care,” came from forward, as Dick raised his voice in stubborn reiteration with Dinny. “I says it’s piracy, and if they’re ketched, they’ll all be hanged.”A dead silence fell upon the little group, and at last it was Bart who spoke, as if to himself.“If you helps yourself to a bit o’ anything that comes ashore, they says it’s wrecking; and if you want a drop o’ brandy or a bit o’ lace from a furrin boat, it’s smuggling; and now, if a man wants to get away, and fights for his liberty, he’s a pirate.”“For seizing a vessel, Bart,” said Jack.“Yes, lad, I know. Well, they may call me what they like. Here we are, and we’ve got to live.”“Where d’ye think they’ll sail?” said Dick again, raising his voice, but in ignorance that the words could reach the group by the tiller.“Where shall we sail?” said Jack, who was steering. “I don’t know, for all before us seems black; but I’ve saved my brother and his true old friend, so let fate guide us: the world is very wide.”“Yes, Dinny, I don’t mind for a change; but it’s piracy, and I hope as we sha’n’t all be hung.”“The same to you,” said Dinny, giving the sailor’s shoulder a sounding slap.“Piracy!” said Jack, softly, as the boat glided on. “Well, it was not our choice, and, at all events, we’re free.”
The excitement seemed to bring Jack more and more to the front, and those who followed read in his actions why it was that he had been successful in freeing them from their pursuers at the time of the escape.
For, active as a goat, he crept from rock to rock, lowering himself down here, dropping there, and having from time to time to wait to give the rest an opportunity for keeping up. And all the while the parts of the cliff side that were the most wooded, and which offered the best shelter, were selected, and discovery by the sleeping men avoided.
It was an arduous task; but the guide was equal to the emergency, and continuously and silently proceeding succeeded at length in dropping down to the sandy shore about fifty yards from where the men lay apparently asleep and sheltered by a huge mass of weed-grown stone, while the cutter swung by its anchor a hundred yards further on beyond the sailors, and she rose and fell easily as the slight tide ran softly down.
Jack grasped the situation clearly, and felt how little time there was to lose. At any moment the heads of the hunting party might appear as they came down the ravine to the bay, while, supposing these to be really asleep, the first shout would bring them to their feet, and then all chance of escape would be gone.
The men had laid down close up under the cliff so as to be sheltered from the sun and from an instinctive desire to be beyond the reach of any venturesome wave, so that to reach the cutter the fugitives would have to pass her guardians between them and the sea.
This brought the escaping party nearer to the cutter, but placed them full in the view of those who might be coming down the ravine at the head of the bay, and also shut them off from shelter and concealment should an emergency arise.
Jack had played so prominent a part hitherto that the eyes of all were directed to him for further instructions, and for a moment he hesitated and pointed to Abel.
“No,” whispered the latter, “you have done so well; go on.”
Jack hesitated for a moment or two more, and then said in a low voice—
“All follow quickly and go to the far side of the bay, seize the boat, and we are safe.”
“But there is no boat,” said Bart.
Jack pointed to a mass of rock, some fifty yards away, where a few inches of the stern of a boat were visible, but which had not been seen by the others.
“Lead on,” said Abel, abruptly; “and if the men wake up Bart and I will tackle them while you and Dinny here get into the boat and row out. We’ll swim to you, and you can take us in.”
“And d’ye think I’m going to run away like that?” whispered Dinny. “I’ll shtay.”
“Dinny!” whispered Jack, fiercely.
“Ah, well, I forgot I was a soldier, my lad. I’ll obey orders.”
Whereupon Abel examined the priming of his musket, and Bart tried the bayonet at the end of the bamboo shaft to see if it was firm, while Dinny whispered—
“Howld her tight to yer shoulther, lad, when ye fire, for she’s a divil to kick.”
Jack gave a glance round once more, and then, holding up a hand to command silence, he listened, but all was still save the lapping of the waves as the tide retired and then returned.
His next proceeding was to steal out to where he could get a good look at the three sailors left in charge.
One lay on his breast, with his arms folded and his brow resting upon them. The second lay upon his back, with his hands beneath him, and his cap tilted over his eyes. The third was upon his side with his back to them, and all apparently fast asleep, for neither stirred.
Jack would have gladly waited till dark; but to have done this might have meant losing their means of escape, for they were not certain that the party would stay all night.
So, feeling this, and that their only chance lay in a bold attempt, he glanced back once, and after seeing that his companions were quite ready to follow, he stepped out quietly on to the yielding sand and made for the spot where the small boat lay.
To reach this boat the party had to pass within some fifty feet or so of the sleepers, and the crucial moments would be when they had passed within ken of the man lying upon his side with his back to them. Even if the others were awake it would be possible to pass them unseen; but it was otherwise with the third man, whose position would enable him to see whoever crossed the sands of the little bay, while, for aught they knew, he might be a faithful guardian, keeping strict watch over both boat and cutter while his companions slept.
Jack walked softly on, the sand deadening his tread, so that he was soon abreast of the guardians of the boat, and another five minutes would suffice for him and his party to reach the boat and push her off, when, armed as they were, they could have laughed at pursuit.
Another few yards and no one stirred. Jack gazed over his left shoulder at the dangerous reclining figure, but its position remain unchanged.
Another few yards, and still there was no sign, nor likely to be, for there could be no doubt of the fact—the man was fast asleep, and the agitation and anxiety of the fugitives was apparently wasted.
Jack glanced back to see that his companions were following in Indian file, walking upon the tips of their feet, and casting glances from time to time at the spot from which danger would arise.
Another dozen yards and the leader of the little party felt safe, when a sharp report came from the ravine above, the shot echoing and reverberating along the sides of the cliffs till it sounded like a peal of thunder which drowned the shout that followed, a shout meant as a warning to the guardians of the boat that their party was close at hand.
The man lying upon his side sprang to his feet, and the other two woke up, to stare stupidly about them before they realised the state of affairs, and that their companion had seized his musket, from where it lay with those of his fellows against the foot of the cliff which towered above their heads; for in accordance with their plans, Jack and Dinny had run on and seized the boat, while Abel and Bart had faced round with their weapons ready, retreating slowly toward the sea.
For a few moments no word was spoken, and then it was the first of the three sailors who realised their position.
“It’s cat or a bullet in us, mates,” he cried, desperately. “I says bullet; so come on.”
The other two were Englishmen like himself, and evidently entertained their comrade’s preference for a chance bullet or a stab to being tried by court martial and sentenced to a flogging, so they also snatched up their muskets and belts, hastily threw the latter over their shoulders, and, taught by training, brought their pieces to bear, shouting to the prisoners to surrender.
“Give up, you lubbers!” cried the first sailor. “It’s of no good.”
For answer Abel glanced over his shoulder, and seeing that Jack and Dinny had reached the boat, slowly continued the retreat.
“Will you surrender?” roared the sailor, as another shout came from the ravine.
“Surrender yourselves,” cried Bart, fiercely. “Lay down them guns.”
“Surrender, or we fire,” cried the sailor again, as the two men slowly backed toward the boat, watchful of a rush being made.
Bart uttered a low, defiant growl, and the bamboo he held quivered in his knotted hands.
“All together, then, mates,” shouted the sailor, “fire!”
Jack uttered a groan as he stood knee deep in water, running the boat as near as it could be got to his friend, and a mist swam before his eyes.
Click click click!—and as many tiny showers of sparks were struck in the pans of the pieces.
“Why, you stupid lubbers, you didn’t load!” roared the sailor. “Now, then, ground arms—load!”
A shout of derision arose from Abel and Bart, and the former took up the tone of menace now.
“Throw down your muskets, or I fire,” he cried.
“P’raps you’re not loaded neither, mate,” cried the sailor, laughing. “Now, lads. Bagnets: charge.”
His companions hesitated for a moment, and then, lowering their pieces, they made a rush for those who barred their way to the boat.
Bang!
One sharp report. The right-hand sailor span round, dropped his musket, stooped down and seized his leg beneath the knee, and dropped into a sitting position upon the sand.
“Hurt, mate?” cried the first sailor, halting.
“Leg,” was the laconic reply.
“Never mind,” cried the first sailor. “Come, on, mate.”
He lowered his piece again, and the two rushed upon Bart and Abel, as brave as lions now in the excitement.
These two had taken advantage of the man being wounded to back rapidly toward the boat, lying in the shallow water; but the sand was heavy, and they had to face the enemy all the time. For the latter came at them with stubborn determination, reached them while they were a good twenty yards from the water, and a fierce fight ensued.
It was as brief as it was hot and determined, for, after a few moments’ fencing, the second sailor delivered a deadly thrust, at Abel; while the principal man, a sturdy, tall fellow, crossed weapons with Bart, whose slight bamboo lance was a feeble defence against the bayonet at the end of the musket. Moreover, the fugitives were fighting with the disadvantage of being seen now by the well-armed party returning from the hunt. These had received warning that something was wrong by hearing the shots, and were now running rapidly down toward the sandy shore.
“Now,” said the second sailor, presenting his piece, which was opposed to one minus the bayonet blade—“now I have you. Surrender!”
For answer Abel stepped back, clubbed his weapon, swung it round, and brought it down with such violence that the butt struck the other musket full upon the stock, and dashed it from its holder’s hand.
Before Abel could get another blow round, the man had dashed in, closed with him, and, to Jack’s agony, capture seemed certain.
Meantime the first sailor had made several fierce passes at Bart, who was scratched once upon the wrist, and had drawn blood on the other side, when his bamboo lance broke, and he seemed at the mercy of his antagonist.
Heavy as he was, Bart was activity itself, and reversing the encounter going on between the other two, he avoided a thrust by striking the bayonet aside with his arm, and closed with his adversary.
The two locked together in a desperate struggle directly, for the sailor abandoned his musket as soon as Bart was at close quarters, and gripped him round the waist.
“I’ll have you, anyhow,” he panted, as he lifted Bart from the ground.
“Let go, or I’ll crush in your ribs,” growled Bart, savagely.
“Do it, mate,” retorted the sailor, swinging Bart round, and trying to throw him; but he might as well have tried to throw off his arms. Then by a desperate wrench Bart loosened the other’s grip, so that he could touch ground once more, and the struggle went on like some desperate bout in wrestling.
These encounters were matters of a minute or so; but to Jack and Dinny, standing knee deep in the water holding the boat ready for the escape, and the oars where they could be seized in an instant, the minute seemed an hour. They would have gone to the help of their comrades, but it seemed to them that they would be cutting off the means of escape; and in addition, the various phases of the fight succeeded each other so rapidly that there was hardly time to think.
“Give me that shtick,” cried Dinny at last; and he snatched one from where it lay upon the thwarts of the boat, just as Abel sent his adversary down half-stunned and turned to help Bart.
“Quick, lad! Hold still a moment!” cried Abel, as the overseer came running down from the head of the bay, in company with the officer and half a dozen men.
The words were wasted, for Bart and the first sailor were writhing and twining on the sands like two wild beasts. Bart strove hard to shake himself free; but the effort was vain, for the sailor had fastened on him like a bull-dog, and held on with a tenacity that could not be mastered.
“It’s of no use,” panted Bart, as Dinny ran up. For the enemy were not two hundred yards away, and running fast. “Escape, my lads! Never mind me!”
“Let me get one hit at him,” cried Dinny.
“Ah, would you, Paddy!” roared the sailor, wresting Bart round as a shield. “I know you.”
“Now, you!” cried Dinny to Abel.
But it was like striving to hit a twining serpent upon the head, and strive how they would, Bart’s friends could do nothing till the pair had struggled together to the very edge of the water, and then went splashing in.
“Get his head down, Bart, and he’ll soon let go.”
Easier said than done. The sailor had his arms well about his adversary, and Bart’s effort was vain.
“Surrender, there!” shouted the overseer. “Give up, or we’ll fire!”
“Let go, or I’ll smash you,” growled Bart, as he caught sight of the enemy coming on.
For answer the sailor clung the more tightly; and as Bart rose to his knee after a fall, the water was now well up to their middles.
“Here, boat, Jack, lad!” cried Dinny. “Now, captain, lay howlt!”
Abel grasped his meaning, and seized one side of the human knot, composed of two bodies and the customary complement of arms and legs, while Dinny caught the other, and together they trailed it through the shallow water to meet the boat.
“Now, Master Jack,” cried Dinny, “take a howlt!”
Jack seized Bart by the waist as the boat’s gunwale touched him. Abel and Dinny lifted together, and the result was that a certain amount of water went in over the side; but with it, heaving and struggling still, the knotted together bodies of Bart and his adversary, to lie in the bottom of the little craft, the sailor, fortunately for the escaping party, undermost.
“Sit down and row!” roared Abel; but his order was needless, for Jack had seated himself on the thwart, thrust out the oars at once, and began to pull; while on opposite sides, Dinny and Abel ran the boat out till they were breast-high in the water, when they gave it a final thrust and began to climb in.
By this time they were thirty or forty yards from the dry sand, down which the overseer and his party came running, and stopped at the edge.
“Halt! Surrender!” roared the overseer, savagely.
There was no reply, but the oars were plied swiftly, and the boat glided over the glassy swell.
“Fire!” roared the overseer, raising his piece; and a shower of buckshot came whistling and pattering by them, several of the little bullets striking the boat.
“Fire!” roared the overseer again. “Curse you! Why don’t you fire!”
A scattered volley from half a dozen pieces answered his furious order, and as the little party glanced back, it was to see that those on shore were reloading rapidly, the peculiar noise made by the ramming down of the wads being plainly heard, mingled with the thudding of the ramrods as the charges were driven home.
No one spoke in the boat, but Abel and Dinny rapidly got oars over the side and began to pull, the latter having the harder work from the heaving bodies of the two combatants occupying the bottom of the boat, a fact which necessitated his standing up; but all the same he helped the boat vigorously along.
“Are ye going to lie down?” said Dinny, as he saw the enemy wade out as far as they could and prepare to fire.
“No!” said Abel. “You can.”
“Divil a bit will I, if you don’t,” said Dinny, “and good luck to ’em! They’ve only got big pellets for shooting the pigs, and they won’t kill except at close quarthers.”
Another scattered volley rang echoing out, and thundered along the cliffs, the smoke hiding the enemy from the gaze of those in the boat.
“Murther!” yelled Dinny, dropping his oar, but stooping to pick it up again as he shook his hand. “It’s gone right through,” he continued, as he gazed at a bead of blood oozing from the back of his hand, and another on the other side in the centre of his palm. “I wish I knew the divil who fired that. It feels like one of the overseer’s games.”
“Anyone else hit?” said Abel. “Jack!”
“It’s nothing—a scratch,” said Jack, rowing away with all his might, as the blood began to trickle down from a scored place upon his forehead. “Go on rowing.”
“Bad luck to ’em! There’s so many shot in a charge; it gives ’em such a chance,” grumbled Dinny. “But niver mind, Masther Jack. It’ll be a bit of a shmart; but losing a dhrop o’ blood won’t hurt ye.”
Jack nodded, and tugged away rapidly, reducing the distance between them and the cutter; but they could not get farther from the firing party, who kept up a furious fusillade as they followed along round the side of the little bay, the pellets whistling by the fugitives, and more than one finding a home.
“Faix, and ye’ve got the best place there, Bart, me lad,” cried Dinny, merrily. “Shall I come and howlt him while you take a change?”
“Look here!” growled Bart, as another volley was fired at them, and the shot came hurtling round; “it’s no good now. Are you going to give in?”
The sailor looked from one to the other as he lay, with his head in the water at the bottom of the boat.
“Well, this here ar’nt cheerful,” he said.
“You’re beat. Why don’t you give in?”
“Is it weazand slitting?” he said. “Snickersnee!”
“Get out!” cried Dinny. “Did they cut mine?”
“Yours, you deserter!” said the sailor, contemptuously.
“As much a deserter as you are, Dick Dullock. Sure, and they tuck me prishner, wid a musket to me ear and a bagnet to my chist.”
“You look like one,” said the sailor, sourly.
“Will you surrender?” growled Bart.
“Yes. Can’t do no more, can I? Only bear witness, all on you, as I did my dooty. Didn’t I, youngster?”
“You fought like a brave man,” said Jack, gravely; “but it is of no use to struggle now, so give up.”
“Ay, I’ll give in,” said the sailor; “but I’m a-going to lie here till the firing’s done. I’ll stand fire when there’s fighting o’ both sides; but I’m a prisoner now, and out of it, so here I stays.”
Bart rose from where he had been kneeling on the man’s chest, and straightened himself slowly, but only to start as a fresh volley was fired and a pellet grazed his chin; but he only uttered a savage growl like an angry beast, and made way for Dinny to sit down and row with all his strength.
Suddenly a shout from the bay shore took the attention of those in the boat, and the firing ceased.
“What’s that mean?” cried Abel.
“They’ve found our boat,” said Jack, excitedly.
It was true enough; and the fugitives redoubled their efforts to reach the cutter, while the overseer continued the firing, so as to disable some of the party before they could attain the shelter the vessel would give.
Abel was hit twice, and Bart received another shot, but the distance was great now, and the pellets too small to do serious mischief; but as they rowed round behind the cutter, anxiously watching to see that no one was aboard, its hull sheltering them from the firing, the noise and the buzz of voices ashore drew their attention to the fact that the overseer, the officer, and four more had entered the boat, which started with a cheer from those left behind, and pulled rapidly in pursuit.
“Quick, Bart, run up the jib while I cut the rope.”
“Nay, haul up to it, you and Dinny,” cried Bart, as he ran forward. “It’s only a grapnel.”
The firing recommenced now so viciously that every act on board the cutter was performed with great risk, the overseer and the officer taking it in turns to send a hail of buckshot at everyone who showed a head above the low side of the vessel.
But in spite of this the party worked well, and the sailor having surrendered, contented himself, as soon as he was aboard, by lying down upon the deck and beginning to chew.
The grapnel was hauled in, the jib hoisted, and Jack stationed at the tiller; but the sail slowly flapped to and fro, refusing to fill, and the only way on the cutter was that given by the falling tide.
“She’ll be aboard of us, Bart, long before we get out of the bay,” said Abel, with a groan of despair.
“Niver say die,” cried Dinny, who had just given a turn to the painter which held the cutter’s boat.
“Are there any arms aboard?” growled Bart. “Cuss it! look there!”
This last was consequent upon a shot ploughing a little channel along his neck. “D’yer hear what I say—you?” he said again to their prisoner. “Are there any arms aboard?”
“Yes, in the cabin—muskets,” said the sailor; “but you leave ’em alone, my lad. This here as you’ve done’s piracy, and if you kill anybody it’s murder.”
“Then let ’em keep off,” said Bart, with a fierce growl as he followed Abel into the cabin, both reappearing again directly with muskets and ammunition.
“I tell you it’s piracy,” said the sailor from where he lay. “Isn’t it, Dennis Kelly?”
“Faix, I s’pose it is,” said Dinny, smiling. “There’s so much in a name.”
“Here you, Dinny, get up a musket,” cried Abel. “You can shoot.”
“Don’t you, Dinny!” said the sailor. “It’s hanging business.”
“But I’m a prishner,” said Dinny, grinning, “and obliged.”
“It’ll be a hanging matter, Dinny,” cried the sailor, as the Irishman reappeared with a musket in his hand.
“It’ll be a flogging sure if I’m took,” said Dinny, “for they’ll niver belave I’m acting against my will. Now, Captain Abel,” he continued, as he loaded his piece, and laid it so that he could command the boat, “whin you ordher me to fire, why, av coorse I shall, but you must take the credit of the shot.”
“Keep off!” roared Abel, as the boat now neared them fast. “You’ll get bullets instead of buckshot: you come nearer.”
“Surrender, you piratical scoundrel!” roared the overseer. “Put down that musket. Row hard, my lads!”
Whatever may have been the overseer’s weakness, want of courage was not one; and this he proved by discharging his piece, and standing up in the boat to watch the effect.
The distance was short, but there was a faint puff of air now which filled the sail, and there was a feeling of intense relief as the cutter rapidly left the coming boat behind.
Jack’s cheeks flushed, and his eyes sparkled as, with a touch of the tiller, he seemed to send the cutter rushing through the water; while an angry yell rose from behind as the boat dropped back.
But their despondency in the boat was only of a minute’s duration, for the wind dropped as suddenly as it had risen, the cutter ceased to glide onward with the water rattling and splashing beneath her bows, the jib shivered and hung motionless, and a cheer arose from the pursuers as the firing recommenced.
“Be ready, Bart,” said Abel, with a lurid look in his eyes, as he once more levelled his piece. “You, Dinny, are you going to help?”
“No,” said the sailor. “It’s piracy and murder if you shoot them, Dinny Kelly, and it’s fair-play if they shoot you.”
“Yis, it is awkward,” said Dinny; “but Oi’m thinking I don’t want to go back and be on senthry again, and there, Oi’ll make a compromise of it. I won’t shoot, but I’m mak’ believe, and frecken ’em.”
As he spoke he lay down on the deck and took aim at the occupants of the coming boat, whose position was extremely perilous, while the sides of the cutter sheltered those on board.
“Keep back!” roared Abel, as the boat neared them fast. “We’re loaded with ball, not shot.”
There was a momentary indecision on the part of the overseer, and it was instantly communicated to the men, for they ceased to paddle, while the two principals bent forward and spoke earnestly.
“No, they will not dare,” said the overseer, loudly. “Go on, my lads! Surrender, you dogs, or you shall all be hung.”
The boat was urged through the water again, and the overseer raised his fowling-piece, took aim, and was about to fire, when the officer with him laid his hand upon his arm.
“Wait,” he said. “Then both fire together, close in, and board.”
“We’ll do that afterwards,” cried the overseer, discharging his piece and rapidly reloading as the boat glided on till it was only about twenty yards away, and, in spite of a fierce threat or two, the repugnance to shed blood and the natural desire not to fight against the law had kept Abel and Bart from returning the fire.
Their case seemed hopeless now, unless in the struggle to come they repelled the boarders, for the wind which dotted the sea a hundred yards away with ripples refused to kiss their sail, and in another minute the overseer and his party would have been alongside, when, just as he covered Jack’s arm, which could be seen lying upon the tiller, and when a shot at such short range would have been almost as bad as one from a bullet, there was a puff of smoke, a sharp report, and the overseer started up in the boat, dropped his fowling-piece, which fell into the sea with a splash, and then, before the officer could save him, he pitched head foremost over the side.
“Look at that now,” said Dinny, who had risen into a sitting position on the deck, with his musket across his lap.
“Yes; you’ve done it now, Dinny Kelly,” said the sailor, gruffly. “Desarted from the station, and shot the superintendent.”
“Sorra a bit,” said Dinny, as the wind suddenly struck the cutter, which heeled over and began to forge rapidly through the water. “Sorra a bit, man. It was this awkward baste of a mushket. I just closed my finger for a moment on the thrigger, and whoo! off she went, kicking up her heels like a nigger’s mule. D’yer think the overseer’s hurt?”
“I think you’ve killed him.”
“Not I, bedad. It was me mushket,” said Dinny. “Divil a bit will I have any more to do wid it. I’ll have another with a thrigger which isn’t wake.”
“You’ve saved us, Dinny,” said Jack, excitedly, as the boat was being left far behind.
“Not I, my lad. Shure, it’s between the wind and this worn-out old mushket. It’s a baste of a thing. Why, it moight have killed the poor man. I say, lad; d’yer think he’s much hurt?”
“A broken arm, that’s all, Dinny,” said Jack, smiling.
“Ah, well!” said Dinny, reloading the piece; “that’ll do him good, and give the poor divils at the plantation a bit of a rest.”
He paused in the act of reloading, drew the charge with a dry look upon his countenance, and laid the musket down upon the deck.
“No, thank ye,” he said, shaking his head at the piece. “It’s a murdhering baste ye are, and ye’ll be getting some poor fellow into throuble wan of these days. Don’t you think so, Dick?”
The prisoner screwed up his countenance, and then relaxed it as he looked hard at Dinny.
“Well, it’s pretty nigh a hanging matter for you, Dinny,” he said.
“What! for an accident, man?”
“Accident! you’ve gone and committed a rank act of piracy! But, I say, what’ll they do with me?”
“Hang ye, I should say,” replied Dinny, with a droll look in his eye. “Hang ye as soon as they’ve got toime to think about ye; or no: maybe they’ll save themselves the throuble, and hand ye over to thim ruffians there.”
He pointed over the side, and the sailor gave a start and changed colour as he caught sight of the back-fins of a couple of huge sharks gliding along through the water a little way astern.
“Oh, they’re a bad lot with their prisoners, Dick. Look at me.”
“But what are they going to do?” said the sailor, eagerly. “They can’t put in anywhere, and as soon as this day’s work’s known, they’ll have a man-o’-war sent after ’em.”
“Sorra a wan o’ me knows,” said Dinny; “but it’s moighty plisant out here. I’m toired o’ pipe-claying me belts and marching and being senthry, and they may make me prishner as long as they like.”
“You didn’t half-kill one of them, and they don’t bear malice against you,” said the sailor, thoughtfully.
“An’ is it malice? Why, didn’t I thry to run wan of ’em through wid me bagnet, and attimpt to shoot the other! Malice! I belave they liked it, for we’ve been the best o’ friends iver since. Here, Bart, me lad; Dick here wants to shake hands with yez.”
“I don’t,” said the sailor, sternly; but as Bart came from where he had been taking a pull at one of the ropes, smiling and open-handed, Dick’s face relaxed.
“That was a pretty good wrastle,” said Bart, running his eye approvingly over the physique of his late opponent, and gripping Dick’s hand heartily; “but I got the best of you.”
Dick did not answer, but he returned the grip, and Bart went aft directly to relieve Jack at the tiller, while the darkness came on rapidly, and with it the breeze increased in force till the cutter careened over and rapidly left the island behind.
“Well, Dennis Kelly,” said the sailor, as they sat together on board later, with the stars gathering overhead, and faint sounds wafted to them from time to time as they glided rapidly along a few miles from land, “you can only make one thing of it, my boy, and that’s piracy; and piracy’s yard-arm, and a swing at the end of the rope.”
“Ah! get along wid ye,” said Dinny, contemptuously, “and don’t call things by bad names. They’re three very plisant fellows, and they’ve borried the boat and taken us prishners to help them in the cruise; or, if ye like it better, we’re pressed men.”
“But what are they going to do next?”
“Divil a bit do I know, and the divil a bit do I care. I’ve no belts to pipe-clay, and you’ve no deck to holy-stone. What there is to ate they share wid ye, and they take their turn at the watch. Sure, it’s a gintleman’s life, and what more would ye have?”
“But it’s piracy—rank piracy!” said Dick, stubbornly; “and I want to know what we’re going to do next.”
“Well, thin, I’ll tell ye,” said Dinny; “but it’s a saycret, moind.”
“Well, what?”
“It’s a saycret, moind,” said Dinny, “and ye won’t tell?”
“Tell! Who is there to tell here?”
“Nobody yet; but ye’ll keep the saycret?”
“Yes,” said Dick, earnestly. “What are they going to do?”
“Didn’t I say I’d tell ye,” said Dinny, “as soon as I know?”
“Yah!” snarled Dick.
“Well,” cried Dinny, “how can I tell ye till I know? Why, it’s my belief, Dick, me lad, that they don’t know themselves.”
“Where do you mean to go, Abel?” said Jack at last.
“Go, my lass—my lad!” he said, correcting himself. “Anywhere. We can’t touch port, but we’ve got a tidy little vessel, not too big to manage, and we must sail somewhere to be safe.”
“Well, I don’t care,” came from forward, as Dick raised his voice in stubborn reiteration with Dinny. “I says it’s piracy, and if they’re ketched, they’ll all be hanged.”
A dead silence fell upon the little group, and at last it was Bart who spoke, as if to himself.
“If you helps yourself to a bit o’ anything that comes ashore, they says it’s wrecking; and if you want a drop o’ brandy or a bit o’ lace from a furrin boat, it’s smuggling; and now, if a man wants to get away, and fights for his liberty, he’s a pirate.”
“For seizing a vessel, Bart,” said Jack.
“Yes, lad, I know. Well, they may call me what they like. Here we are, and we’ve got to live.”
“Where d’ye think they’ll sail?” said Dick again, raising his voice, but in ignorance that the words could reach the group by the tiller.
“Where shall we sail?” said Jack, who was steering. “I don’t know, for all before us seems black; but I’ve saved my brother and his true old friend, so let fate guide us: the world is very wide.”
“Yes, Dinny, I don’t mind for a change; but it’s piracy, and I hope as we sha’n’t all be hung.”
“The same to you,” said Dinny, giving the sailor’s shoulder a sounding slap.
“Piracy!” said Jack, softly, as the boat glided on. “Well, it was not our choice, and, at all events, we’re free.”
Chapter Sixteen.After a Lapse.“Then we’ll die for it, Bart,” said Jack, fiercely.“If so be as you says die for it now, or to-morrow, or next day, or next week, die it is, my lad,” said Bart, despondently; “but luck’s agen us, and we’re beat. Why not give up?”“Give up?” cried Jack, whose appearance was somewhat altered by his two years of hard sea-life in the tropics since the night when the cutter sailed away into the darkness of what seemed to be their future. “Give up?”“Yes; and back out of it all. Why not take passage somewhere, not as Jack, Commodore Junk’s brother, but as bonny Mary Dell o’ Devonshire, going back home along o’ Bart Wrigley, as is Bartholomew by rights?”“Well?” said Jack, sternly.“Don’t look black at me, my lad. I’m tired o’ boarding ships and sending people adrift.”“Growing afraid, Bart?”“Yes, my lad; but not for Bart Wrigley. For someone else.”“You are preaching to-night, Bart.”“Maybe, my lad, for it’s solemn times; and something keeps a-saying to me: ‘Don’t run no more risks! There’s old Devon a-waiting for you, and there’s the old cottage and the bay, and you’ve got the money to buy a decent lugger, and there’s plenty o’ fish in the sea.’”“Go, on,” said Jack, mockingly.“Ay, lad, I will,” said Bart. “And you might settle down there, and live happy with a man there to wait on you and be your sarvent—ay, your dog if you liked; and some day, if you thought better of it, and was ready to say, ‘Bart, my lad, you’ve been a true chap to me, and I know as you’ve loved me ever since you was a boy, so now I’ll be your wife,’ why, then—”Bart stopped with his lips apart, gazing wonderingly at the angry countenance before him.“You madman! What are you saying?” was hissed into his ears. “Mary Dell died when she left her home, driven away by man’s tyranny—when she sought out her brother and his friend, to find them working like slaves in that plantation. It was John Dell who became your companion: Mary Dell’s dead.”“No,” said Bart, speaking softly and with a homely pathos, full of a poetical sentiment that could not have been expected from his rough exterior as he sat on the deck of a long, low, heavily-sparred schooner. “No, my lad, Mary Dell isn’t dead. She’s hidden here in my breast, where I can look inwards and see the bonny lass with the dark eyes and long black hair as I knowed I loved as soon as I knowed what love meant, and as long as I’ve that lass will never die.”“Hush, Bart, old friend!” said Jack, softly. “Let her live, then, there; but to me she is dead, and I live to think of her persecutions, and how for two years man has pursued us with his bitter hatred, and hunted us down as if we were savage beasts.”“Ay,” said Bart, softly; “but isn’t it time to take the other road, and get away?”“No,” said Jack, fiercely. “Bart, old friend—you are my friend.”“Friend!” said Bart, in a reproachful tone.“Yes. I know you are; but once more, if you value my friendship, never speak to me again as you have spoken now.”“You’re captain, my lad. I’ll do what you like.”“I know you will. Well, then, do you think I can forgive the treatment we have received? It has been a dog’s life, I tell you—the life of a savage dog.”“Ay, but we’ve bit pretty sharp sometimes,” said Bart, smiling. “See how we’ve growed, too. First it was the bit of a canoe thing as you came in up the creek.”Jack nodded.“Then we took the cutter.”“Yes, Bart.”“And with that cutter we took first one ship, and then with that another, always masters, and getting, bit by bit, stout, staunch men.”“And savages,” said Jack, bitterly.“Well, yes, some on ’em is savage like, specially Mazzard.”“Black Mazzard is a ruffianly wretch!”“True, lad; but we’ve gone on and got better and stronger, till we have under our feet the swiftest schooner as swims the sea, and Commodore Junk’s name’s known all along the coast.”“And hated, and a price set upon his head; and now that he is a prisoner his people turn against him, and his most faithful follower wants to go and leave him in the lurch.”“Nay, don’t say that, my lad,” cried Bart. “We was overmatched, and he was took.”“Yes, by his men’s cowardice.”“Nay; you’re cross, my lad,” said Bart, unconsciously raising one arm and drawing back the sleeve to readjust a bandage. “Month to-night and the deck was running into the scuppers with blood, half the lads was killed, and t’other half all got a wound. We was obliged to sheer off.”“Yes, you coward! you left your captain to his fate.”“But I saved the captain’s—brother,” said Bart, slowly, “or he’d have been shut up in prison along with poor Abel now.”“Better so,” said the other, fiercely; “and then there’d be an end of a persecuted life.”“Better as it is,” said Bart, quietly; “but I did save you.”“Bart, old lad, don’t take any notice of what I say,” whispered Jack.“I don’t, lad, when you’re put out. I never do.”“Don’t speak to me like that. It maddens me more.”“No, it don’t, lad. It’s only me speaking, and you may hammer me with words all night if it does you good. I don’t mind, I’m only Bart.”“My true old friend,” whispered the other, quickly; “but it’s time they were back.”“Nay, not yet,” said Bart, as the other stood gazing over the side of the schooner toward where a long, low bank of mist seemed to shut out everything beyond.“They’ve been gone two hours, and it’s now four bells.”“Ay, and it’ll be six bells before they get back, and it’s a long way to row. Do you mean to try it, then?”“Try it? Yes, if I die in the attempt. Did I hesitate when you two were on the plantation, and I was alone and—a boy?”“Not you,” said Bart.“Then, do you think I shall hesitate now that I have a ship and followers to back me up?”Bart shook his head.“Abel must be saved; and the men agree.”“Ay; they say they’ll have the skipper out of the prison or they’ll die first.”“Brave fellows!” cried Jack, enthusiastically.“But I don’t see how a schooner’s to attack forts and cannon and stone walls. My lad, it can’t be done.”“It shall be done!” cried Jack. “How’s Dinny?”“Bit weak still; but he says he can fight, and he shall go.”“Brave, true-hearted fellow! And Dick?”“Says he shall be well enough to go; but he won’t—he’s weak as a rat.”Jack drew a deep breath, and a fiercely vindictive look flashed from the dark eyes which glared at Bart.“They shall suffer for all this. Abel will pay them their due.”“Ay,” said Bart; and then to himself—“when he gets away.”“It was a cruel, cowardly fight—four to one.”“He would attack,” said Bart, heavily. “He’d had such luck that he wouldn’t believe he could be beat.”“He was right,” said the other, fiercely. “He is not beaten, for we will fetch him out, and he shall pay them bitterly for all this.”The speaker strode forward, and went below into the cabin, while Bart drew his breath hard as he rose from where he had been seated and limped, slightly bending down once to press his leg where a severe flesh-wound was received on the night of the engagement when Abel Dell—whose name had begun to be well-known for freebooting enterprise as Commodore Junk—had been taken prisoner.Bart walked to the forecastle, where, on descending, he found Dinny and Dick Dullock playing cards, the life they had led with their three companions being one to which they had settled down without a hint of change.“Well!” asked Dinny, looking up from his dirty cards; “what does he say?”Dick the sailor gazed inquiringly at both in turn.“Says he shall fetch the captain out.”Dinny whistled.“And what does Black Mazzard say?” asked Dick.“Don’t know. Hasn’t been asked.”“Look here,” said Dick, in a low voice. “There’s going to be trouble over this. Black Mazzard’s captain now, he says, and he’s got to be asked. He was down here swearing about that boat being sent off, and he’s been drunk and savage ever since.”“Hist! What’s that?” said Dinny, starting up, and then catching at Bart’s shoulder to save himself from falling. “Head swims,” he said, apologetically.“Ay, you’re weak, lad,” said Bart, helping him back to his seat. “Why, the boat’s back!”He hurried on deck, to find a boat alongside, out of which four men climbed on deck, while Jack Dell, who had just heard the hail, came hurrying up.“Well?” he said. “What news?”The one spoken to turned away and did not answer.“Do you hear?” cried Jack, catching him by the shoulder as a heavy-looking man came on deck, lurched slightly, recovered himself, and then walked fiercely and steadily up to the group.“Bad news, captain,” said another of the men, who had just come aboard.“Bad—news?” said Jack, heavily.“Bad news of the Commodore!” said the heavy-looking fellow, who was now swaying himself to and fro, evidently drunk in body but sober in mind.“Yes,” said the man who had first spoken, “bad news.”“Tell me,” cried Jack, hoarsely, as he pressed forward to gaze full in the speaker’s face, “what is it? They have not sent him away?”The man was silent; and as the rest of the crew, attracted by the return of the boat, clustered round, Jack reeled.“Stand by, my lad,” whispered Bart at his ear. “Don’t forget.”The words seemed to give nerve to the sturdy, broad-shouldered young man, who spoke hoarsely.“Tried and condemned,” he said, in a hoarse, strange voice.“They’ve hung him—”“What!”“In chains on a gibbet.”A hoarse, guttural sound escaped from Jack’s throat as he clung tightly to Bart’s arm.“The gibbet’s on the low point by the mangrove swamp,” said the man. “They’ve cut down two palms about a dozen feet and nailed another across, and the captain’s swinging there.”“A lie!” yelled Jack; “not my brother!”There was a dead pause of utter silence for a few moments, and then the man said slowly:“Yes, we all saw it and made sure;” and a murmur of acquiescence arose from his three companions, who had been in the boat in search of far different information to that which they had brought.“But not my brother?” groaned Jack.“Yes,” said the man. “It was Commodore Junk.”As a dead silence once more fell upon the poop, the dark, heavy-looking man stood swaying to and fro for a few minutes, gazing down at Jack, who had dropped into a sitting position upon a water-keg, his arms resting upon his knees, his hands hanging, and his head drooped; while Bart stood by his shoulder with his face wrinkled and a pained expression upon his brow, just illumined by the bright glint of the stars.The heavy man nodded and seemed about to speak, but remained silent for a time. Then patting Jack on the shoulder:“Brave lad! Good captain! For time of war!” he said. “But never mind, my lads. We’ll pay them for it, yet.”He lurched slightly and walked slowly toward the captain’s cabin, unnoticed by Jack and Bart; but Dinny’s eyes were sharp enough to read what all this meant, and he turned to his comrade Dick.“Look at that, now!” he whispered.“Ay, I was looking. What does it mean?”“Mane!” said Dinny, scornfully. “It manes that Black Mazzard thinks he’s captain now.”“Then if the throat-cutting scoundrel is, I’m off first chance.”“An’ I’m wid ye,” said Dinny, earnestly. “I’ll go and lade a virtuous life.”“And leave the skipper’s brother and Bart?”Dinny pulled off his cap and rubbed his head viciously.“Now, why did ye want to go and say that?” he cried. “Iverything was as aisy as could be, and you go and upset it all.”“Poor Abel!” said Jack at last, softly.“Ay, poor old Abel!” said Bart, with a groan.“You here?” said Jack, starting up and catching the rough fellow by the arm.“Here?—ay!” growled Bart, slowly. “Where did you think I was, lad?”“I didn’t think, Bart, or I shouldn’t have said that,” cried Jack, earnestly. “Where would you be but at my elbow if I was in trouble, ready to be of help?”“Ay, but there’s no helping you here, lad,” said Bart with a groan.“No helping me! But you can, Bart. Do you wonder that I hate the world?—that I see it all as one crowd of enemies fighting against me and trying to crush me down? Not help me! Oh, but you shall! My poor brother! They shall pay heavily for this!”“What’ll you do, lad?” said Bart, despondently.“Do!” cried Jack, with a savage laugh—“do what poor Abel always hung back from doing, and stopped Black Mazzard from many a time. I don’t read my Bible now, Bart; but doesn’t it say that there shall be blood for blood; and my poor brother’s cries aloud for vengeance, as they shall see!”“No, no, my lad,” whispered Bart, hoarsely; “let it stop here. It seems to me as if something said: ‘This here’s the end on it. Now get her to go back home.’”“Home!” said Jack, with a fierce laugh. “Where is home?”“Yonder,” said Bart, stolidly.“No! Here—at sea. Bart, there is no other home for me; no other hope but to have revenge!”“Revenge, lad?”“Ay, a bitter, cruel revenge. I could have been different. I was once full of love and hope before I knew what the world was like, but that’s all past and dead—yes, dead; and the dead yonder is looking toward me and asking me to remember what we have suffered.”“But think.”“Think, Bart? I have thought till my brain has seemed to burn; and everything points to revenge, and revenge I’ll have!”“It’s the end of it all now,” said Bart, solemnly. “Let’s go back.”“The way is open, Bart Wrigley. I have no hold upon you, and I can work alone. Go!”“You wouldn’t talk like that,” said Bart, huskily, “if you was cool.”“What do you mean, man?”“’Bout me going,” said Bart, in a low, husky voice. “There’s only one way for me, and that’s where you go, lad. It allus has been, and it allus will be till I’m took. What are you going to do?”The question was asked in a quick, decisive way, very different to the despondent air that had pervaded his words before, and the manner was so marked that Jack laid his hands on his companion’s shoulders.“It’s my fate to be always saying bitter things to you, Bart, and wounding you.”“Never mind about that,” said Bart, huskily. “Long as I’m the one as you trusts, that’s enough for me. What are you going to do next?”There was no answer for a few minutes, and then the words whispered were very short and decisive.“And let ’em think it’s scared us, and we’ve gone right away?” said Bart.“Yes.”Bart gave a short, quick nod of the head, walked sharply to the forecastle and yelled to the men to tumble up. The result was that in a very short time sail after sail was spread till a dusky cloud seemed to hover over the deck of the schooner, which heeled over in the light breeze and began skimming as lightly as a yacht eastward, as if to leave the scene of the Commodore’s execution far behind.
“Then we’ll die for it, Bart,” said Jack, fiercely.
“If so be as you says die for it now, or to-morrow, or next day, or next week, die it is, my lad,” said Bart, despondently; “but luck’s agen us, and we’re beat. Why not give up?”
“Give up?” cried Jack, whose appearance was somewhat altered by his two years of hard sea-life in the tropics since the night when the cutter sailed away into the darkness of what seemed to be their future. “Give up?”
“Yes; and back out of it all. Why not take passage somewhere, not as Jack, Commodore Junk’s brother, but as bonny Mary Dell o’ Devonshire, going back home along o’ Bart Wrigley, as is Bartholomew by rights?”
“Well?” said Jack, sternly.
“Don’t look black at me, my lad. I’m tired o’ boarding ships and sending people adrift.”
“Growing afraid, Bart?”
“Yes, my lad; but not for Bart Wrigley. For someone else.”
“You are preaching to-night, Bart.”
“Maybe, my lad, for it’s solemn times; and something keeps a-saying to me: ‘Don’t run no more risks! There’s old Devon a-waiting for you, and there’s the old cottage and the bay, and you’ve got the money to buy a decent lugger, and there’s plenty o’ fish in the sea.’”
“Go, on,” said Jack, mockingly.
“Ay, lad, I will,” said Bart. “And you might settle down there, and live happy with a man there to wait on you and be your sarvent—ay, your dog if you liked; and some day, if you thought better of it, and was ready to say, ‘Bart, my lad, you’ve been a true chap to me, and I know as you’ve loved me ever since you was a boy, so now I’ll be your wife,’ why, then—”
Bart stopped with his lips apart, gazing wonderingly at the angry countenance before him.
“You madman! What are you saying?” was hissed into his ears. “Mary Dell died when she left her home, driven away by man’s tyranny—when she sought out her brother and his friend, to find them working like slaves in that plantation. It was John Dell who became your companion: Mary Dell’s dead.”
“No,” said Bart, speaking softly and with a homely pathos, full of a poetical sentiment that could not have been expected from his rough exterior as he sat on the deck of a long, low, heavily-sparred schooner. “No, my lad, Mary Dell isn’t dead. She’s hidden here in my breast, where I can look inwards and see the bonny lass with the dark eyes and long black hair as I knowed I loved as soon as I knowed what love meant, and as long as I’ve that lass will never die.”
“Hush, Bart, old friend!” said Jack, softly. “Let her live, then, there; but to me she is dead, and I live to think of her persecutions, and how for two years man has pursued us with his bitter hatred, and hunted us down as if we were savage beasts.”
“Ay,” said Bart, softly; “but isn’t it time to take the other road, and get away?”
“No,” said Jack, fiercely. “Bart, old friend—you are my friend.”
“Friend!” said Bart, in a reproachful tone.
“Yes. I know you are; but once more, if you value my friendship, never speak to me again as you have spoken now.”
“You’re captain, my lad. I’ll do what you like.”
“I know you will. Well, then, do you think I can forgive the treatment we have received? It has been a dog’s life, I tell you—the life of a savage dog.”
“Ay, but we’ve bit pretty sharp sometimes,” said Bart, smiling. “See how we’ve growed, too. First it was the bit of a canoe thing as you came in up the creek.”
Jack nodded.
“Then we took the cutter.”
“Yes, Bart.”
“And with that cutter we took first one ship, and then with that another, always masters, and getting, bit by bit, stout, staunch men.”
“And savages,” said Jack, bitterly.
“Well, yes, some on ’em is savage like, specially Mazzard.”
“Black Mazzard is a ruffianly wretch!”
“True, lad; but we’ve gone on and got better and stronger, till we have under our feet the swiftest schooner as swims the sea, and Commodore Junk’s name’s known all along the coast.”
“And hated, and a price set upon his head; and now that he is a prisoner his people turn against him, and his most faithful follower wants to go and leave him in the lurch.”
“Nay, don’t say that, my lad,” cried Bart. “We was overmatched, and he was took.”
“Yes, by his men’s cowardice.”
“Nay; you’re cross, my lad,” said Bart, unconsciously raising one arm and drawing back the sleeve to readjust a bandage. “Month to-night and the deck was running into the scuppers with blood, half the lads was killed, and t’other half all got a wound. We was obliged to sheer off.”
“Yes, you coward! you left your captain to his fate.”
“But I saved the captain’s—brother,” said Bart, slowly, “or he’d have been shut up in prison along with poor Abel now.”
“Better so,” said the other, fiercely; “and then there’d be an end of a persecuted life.”
“Better as it is,” said Bart, quietly; “but I did save you.”
“Bart, old lad, don’t take any notice of what I say,” whispered Jack.
“I don’t, lad, when you’re put out. I never do.”
“Don’t speak to me like that. It maddens me more.”
“No, it don’t, lad. It’s only me speaking, and you may hammer me with words all night if it does you good. I don’t mind, I’m only Bart.”
“My true old friend,” whispered the other, quickly; “but it’s time they were back.”
“Nay, not yet,” said Bart, as the other stood gazing over the side of the schooner toward where a long, low bank of mist seemed to shut out everything beyond.
“They’ve been gone two hours, and it’s now four bells.”
“Ay, and it’ll be six bells before they get back, and it’s a long way to row. Do you mean to try it, then?”
“Try it? Yes, if I die in the attempt. Did I hesitate when you two were on the plantation, and I was alone and—a boy?”
“Not you,” said Bart.
“Then, do you think I shall hesitate now that I have a ship and followers to back me up?”
Bart shook his head.
“Abel must be saved; and the men agree.”
“Ay; they say they’ll have the skipper out of the prison or they’ll die first.”
“Brave fellows!” cried Jack, enthusiastically.
“But I don’t see how a schooner’s to attack forts and cannon and stone walls. My lad, it can’t be done.”
“It shall be done!” cried Jack. “How’s Dinny?”
“Bit weak still; but he says he can fight, and he shall go.”
“Brave, true-hearted fellow! And Dick?”
“Says he shall be well enough to go; but he won’t—he’s weak as a rat.”
Jack drew a deep breath, and a fiercely vindictive look flashed from the dark eyes which glared at Bart.
“They shall suffer for all this. Abel will pay them their due.”
“Ay,” said Bart; and then to himself—“when he gets away.”
“It was a cruel, cowardly fight—four to one.”
“He would attack,” said Bart, heavily. “He’d had such luck that he wouldn’t believe he could be beat.”
“He was right,” said the other, fiercely. “He is not beaten, for we will fetch him out, and he shall pay them bitterly for all this.”
The speaker strode forward, and went below into the cabin, while Bart drew his breath hard as he rose from where he had been seated and limped, slightly bending down once to press his leg where a severe flesh-wound was received on the night of the engagement when Abel Dell—whose name had begun to be well-known for freebooting enterprise as Commodore Junk—had been taken prisoner.
Bart walked to the forecastle, where, on descending, he found Dinny and Dick Dullock playing cards, the life they had led with their three companions being one to which they had settled down without a hint of change.
“Well!” asked Dinny, looking up from his dirty cards; “what does he say?”
Dick the sailor gazed inquiringly at both in turn.
“Says he shall fetch the captain out.”
Dinny whistled.
“And what does Black Mazzard say?” asked Dick.
“Don’t know. Hasn’t been asked.”
“Look here,” said Dick, in a low voice. “There’s going to be trouble over this. Black Mazzard’s captain now, he says, and he’s got to be asked. He was down here swearing about that boat being sent off, and he’s been drunk and savage ever since.”
“Hist! What’s that?” said Dinny, starting up, and then catching at Bart’s shoulder to save himself from falling. “Head swims,” he said, apologetically.
“Ay, you’re weak, lad,” said Bart, helping him back to his seat. “Why, the boat’s back!”
He hurried on deck, to find a boat alongside, out of which four men climbed on deck, while Jack Dell, who had just heard the hail, came hurrying up.
“Well?” he said. “What news?”
The one spoken to turned away and did not answer.
“Do you hear?” cried Jack, catching him by the shoulder as a heavy-looking man came on deck, lurched slightly, recovered himself, and then walked fiercely and steadily up to the group.
“Bad news, captain,” said another of the men, who had just come aboard.
“Bad—news?” said Jack, heavily.
“Bad news of the Commodore!” said the heavy-looking fellow, who was now swaying himself to and fro, evidently drunk in body but sober in mind.
“Yes,” said the man who had first spoken, “bad news.”
“Tell me,” cried Jack, hoarsely, as he pressed forward to gaze full in the speaker’s face, “what is it? They have not sent him away?”
The man was silent; and as the rest of the crew, attracted by the return of the boat, clustered round, Jack reeled.
“Stand by, my lad,” whispered Bart at his ear. “Don’t forget.”
The words seemed to give nerve to the sturdy, broad-shouldered young man, who spoke hoarsely.
“Tried and condemned,” he said, in a hoarse, strange voice.
“They’ve hung him—”
“What!”
“In chains on a gibbet.”
A hoarse, guttural sound escaped from Jack’s throat as he clung tightly to Bart’s arm.
“The gibbet’s on the low point by the mangrove swamp,” said the man. “They’ve cut down two palms about a dozen feet and nailed another across, and the captain’s swinging there.”
“A lie!” yelled Jack; “not my brother!”
There was a dead pause of utter silence for a few moments, and then the man said slowly:
“Yes, we all saw it and made sure;” and a murmur of acquiescence arose from his three companions, who had been in the boat in search of far different information to that which they had brought.
“But not my brother?” groaned Jack.
“Yes,” said the man. “It was Commodore Junk.”
As a dead silence once more fell upon the poop, the dark, heavy-looking man stood swaying to and fro for a few minutes, gazing down at Jack, who had dropped into a sitting position upon a water-keg, his arms resting upon his knees, his hands hanging, and his head drooped; while Bart stood by his shoulder with his face wrinkled and a pained expression upon his brow, just illumined by the bright glint of the stars.
The heavy man nodded and seemed about to speak, but remained silent for a time. Then patting Jack on the shoulder:
“Brave lad! Good captain! For time of war!” he said. “But never mind, my lads. We’ll pay them for it, yet.”
He lurched slightly and walked slowly toward the captain’s cabin, unnoticed by Jack and Bart; but Dinny’s eyes were sharp enough to read what all this meant, and he turned to his comrade Dick.
“Look at that, now!” he whispered.
“Ay, I was looking. What does it mean?”
“Mane!” said Dinny, scornfully. “It manes that Black Mazzard thinks he’s captain now.”
“Then if the throat-cutting scoundrel is, I’m off first chance.”
“An’ I’m wid ye,” said Dinny, earnestly. “I’ll go and lade a virtuous life.”
“And leave the skipper’s brother and Bart?”
Dinny pulled off his cap and rubbed his head viciously.
“Now, why did ye want to go and say that?” he cried. “Iverything was as aisy as could be, and you go and upset it all.”
“Poor Abel!” said Jack at last, softly.
“Ay, poor old Abel!” said Bart, with a groan.
“You here?” said Jack, starting up and catching the rough fellow by the arm.
“Here?—ay!” growled Bart, slowly. “Where did you think I was, lad?”
“I didn’t think, Bart, or I shouldn’t have said that,” cried Jack, earnestly. “Where would you be but at my elbow if I was in trouble, ready to be of help?”
“Ay, but there’s no helping you here, lad,” said Bart with a groan.
“No helping me! But you can, Bart. Do you wonder that I hate the world?—that I see it all as one crowd of enemies fighting against me and trying to crush me down? Not help me! Oh, but you shall! My poor brother! They shall pay heavily for this!”
“What’ll you do, lad?” said Bart, despondently.
“Do!” cried Jack, with a savage laugh—“do what poor Abel always hung back from doing, and stopped Black Mazzard from many a time. I don’t read my Bible now, Bart; but doesn’t it say that there shall be blood for blood; and my poor brother’s cries aloud for vengeance, as they shall see!”
“No, no, my lad,” whispered Bart, hoarsely; “let it stop here. It seems to me as if something said: ‘This here’s the end on it. Now get her to go back home.’”
“Home!” said Jack, with a fierce laugh. “Where is home?”
“Yonder,” said Bart, stolidly.
“No! Here—at sea. Bart, there is no other home for me; no other hope but to have revenge!”
“Revenge, lad?”
“Ay, a bitter, cruel revenge. I could have been different. I was once full of love and hope before I knew what the world was like, but that’s all past and dead—yes, dead; and the dead yonder is looking toward me and asking me to remember what we have suffered.”
“But think.”
“Think, Bart? I have thought till my brain has seemed to burn; and everything points to revenge, and revenge I’ll have!”
“It’s the end of it all now,” said Bart, solemnly. “Let’s go back.”
“The way is open, Bart Wrigley. I have no hold upon you, and I can work alone. Go!”
“You wouldn’t talk like that,” said Bart, huskily, “if you was cool.”
“What do you mean, man?”
“’Bout me going,” said Bart, in a low, husky voice. “There’s only one way for me, and that’s where you go, lad. It allus has been, and it allus will be till I’m took. What are you going to do?”
The question was asked in a quick, decisive way, very different to the despondent air that had pervaded his words before, and the manner was so marked that Jack laid his hands on his companion’s shoulders.
“It’s my fate to be always saying bitter things to you, Bart, and wounding you.”
“Never mind about that,” said Bart, huskily. “Long as I’m the one as you trusts, that’s enough for me. What are you going to do next?”
There was no answer for a few minutes, and then the words whispered were very short and decisive.
“And let ’em think it’s scared us, and we’ve gone right away?” said Bart.
“Yes.”
Bart gave a short, quick nod of the head, walked sharply to the forecastle and yelled to the men to tumble up. The result was that in a very short time sail after sail was spread till a dusky cloud seemed to hover over the deck of the schooner, which heeled over in the light breeze and began skimming as lightly as a yacht eastward, as if to leave the scene of the Commodore’s execution far behind.
Chapter Seventeen.The Gibbet Spit.It had been a baking day in the town of Saint George, British Honduras, and the only lively things about the place had been the lizards. The sky had seemed to be of burnished brass, and the sea of molten silver, so dazzling that the eye was pained which fell upon its sheen. The natives were not troubled by the heat, for they sought out shady places, and went to sleep, but the British occupants of the port kept about their houses, and looked as if they wished they were dogs, and could hang out their tongues and pant.Saint George, always a dead-and-alive tropic town, now seemed to be the dead alone; and as if to prove that it was so, the last inhabitant seemed to have gone to the end of the spit by the marsh beyond the port, where every one who landed or left could see, and there hung himself up as a sign of the desolation and want of animation in the place.For there, pendent from the palm-tree gibbet, alone in the most desolate spot near the port, was the buccaneering captain, whose name had become a by-word all along the coast, whose swift-sailing schooner had captured vessels by the score, and robbed and burnt till Commodore Junk’s was a name to speak of with bated breath; and the captains of ships, whether British or visitors from foreign lands, made cautious inquiries as to whether he had been heard of in the neighbourhood before they ventured to sea, and then generally found that they had been misled. For that swift schooner was pretty certain to appear right in their path, with the result that their vessels would be boarded, the captain and crew sent afloat in their boat not far from land, and the ship would be plundered, and then scuttled after all that attracted the buccaneers had been secured.There had been rejoicings when the king’s ship, sent over expressly to put an end to piracy, found and had an engagement with the schooner—one of so successful a nature that after the bloody fight was over, and the furious attack by boarding baffled, three prisoners remained in the hands of the naval captain, two of whom were wounded unto death, and the other uninjured, and who proved to be the captain who had headed the boarders.Abel Dell’s shrift had been a short one. Fortune had been against him, after a long career of success. He saw his ship escape crippled, and he ground his teeth as he called her occupants cowards for leaving him in the lurch, being, of course, unaware that the retreat was due to his lieutenant, Abram Mazzard, while when she returned through the determined action of Jack, it came too late, for Abel Dell, otherwise Commodore Junk, was acting as warning to pirates, his last voyage being over.The heat seemed to increase on that torrid day till nightfall, when clouds gathered, and the flickering lightning flashed out and illumined the long banks of vapour, displaying their fantastic shapes, to be directly after reflected from the surface of the barely rippled sea.“Hadn’t we better give up for a bit? Storm may pass before morning,” whispered the thick-set figure standing close by the wheel.“No, Bart; we must go to-night,” was the reply. “Is all ready?”“Ay, ready enough; but I don’t like the job.”“Give up, then, and let Dinny come.”“Did you ever know me give up?” growled Bart.“’Tain’t that: it’s leaving the ship. Black Mazzard ar’n’t to be trusted.”“What! Pish! he dare do nothing.”“Not while you’re here, my lad. It’s when you’re gone that I feel scared.”“You think—”“I think he’s trying to get the men over to his side, and some on ’em hold with him.”Jack remained thoughtful for a few minutes.“It is only lightning, Bart. There’ll be no storm. We can get what we want done in six hours at the longest, and he can do nothing in that time—he will do nothing in that time if you put a couple of bottles of rum within his reach.”Bart uttered a low, chuckling laugh.“That’s what I have done,” he said.“Then we’re safe enough. Where’s Dinny?”“Forward, along of Dick.”“Tell them to keep a sharp look-out while we’re gone, and to be on the watch for the boat.”Half an hour later, when the schooner was deemed to be near enough for the purpose, an anchor was lowered down, to take fast hold directly in the shallow bottom, a boat was lowered, into which Jack and Bart stepped, the former shipping the little rudder, and Bart stepping a short mast and hauling up a big sail, when the soft sea-breeze sent them gliding swiftly along.“He was asleep in the cabin,” said Bart. “Soon be yonder if it holds like this. Do you feel up to it, my lad, as if you could venter?”“Yes,” said Jack, sternly.“But it’s a wicked job, my lad, and more fit for men.”“I’ve thought all that out, Bart,” was the reply. “I know. It is my duty, and I shall do it. Are the pistols loaded?”“Trust me for that,” growled Bart. “They’re loaded enough, and the cutlashes has edges like razors. So has my axe.”“Have you the tools?”“Everything, my lad. Trust me for that.”“I do trust you, Bart, always.”“And how are we to find our way back to the schooner in the dark?”“We shall not find our way back in the dark, Bart, but sail right out here as near as we can guess, and then lie-to till daybreak.”Bart kept his eyes fixed upon one particular light, and tried to calculate their bearings from its relation to another behind; but all the same, he felt in doubt, and shook his head again and again, when some blinding flash of lightning gave him a momentary glance of the shore.But Jack did not hesitate for a moment, keeping the boat’s head in one direction with unerring instinct, till the waves were close upon their left, and it seemed that in another minute they must be swamped.Bart half rose, ready to swim for his life, as the boat leapt high, then seemed to dive down headlong, rose again, dived, and then danced lightly up and down for a few minutes before gliding slowly on again.“Was that the bar?” he whispered eagerly.“Yes. It is rough at this time of the tide,” was the answer, given in the calmest manner, for Jack had not stirred.Bart drew a breath full of relief.“Be ready.”“Ready it is.”“Down sail.”The little yard struck, the sail collapsed, and, acting by the impetus already given, the boat glided forward some distance and then grated upon a bed of sand.Bart shuddered slightly, but he was busy all the while arranging the sail ready for rapid hoisting; and this done, he carried the grapnel out some fifteen or twenty yards from the bows and fixed it cautiously in the shore.—He was about to return when a hand was laid upon his shoulder—a hand which seemed to come out of the black darkness.Bart snatched a pistol from his belt, and put it back with a grunt.“I didn’t know it was you,” he said, in a hoarse whisper. “Lightning seems to make it darker. Where away?”“Fifty yards south,” said Jack, quietly.“Then look here, my lad. I don’t want to disobey orders; but I’m a man and you’re only a—”“Man,” said Jack, quietly.“Then you stop by the boat and—”“Bart!”“Nay, nay, let me speak, my lad. Let me say all I want. You can trust me. If Bart Wrigley says he’ll do a thing for you, he’ll do it if he’s got the strength and life in him. So let me do this, while you wait for me. Come, now, you will!”“No! Come with me. I must be there.”Bart drew in a deep breath, and muttered to himself as he listened to the peculiarly changed voice in which his companion spoke.“You’re master,” he said; “and I’m ready.”“Yes. Take my hand, and speak lower. There may be watchers about.”For answer Bart gripped his companion’s hand, and together they walked for some distance along the hard sand, where the spray from the rollers swept up. Then turning inland suddenly, they had taken about twenty steps to the west when a vivid flash of lightning showed them that their calculations had been exact, for there before them in all its horror, and not a dozen yards away, stood the rough gibbet with the body of a man pendent from the cross-beam, the ghastly object having stood out for a moment like a huge cameo cut in bold relief upon some mass of marble of a solid black.“Abel! Brother!” moaned Jack, running forward to sink kneeling in the sand, and for a few moments, as Bart stood there in the black darkness with his head instinctively uncovered, there arose from before him the wild hysterical sobbings of a woman, at first in piteous appeal to the dead, then in fierce denunciation of his murderers; but as the last cry rang out there was a flickering in the sky, as if theavant gardeof another vivid flash—the half-blinding sheet of flame which lit up the gibbet once again; and it seemed strange to Bart that no woman was there, only the figure of a short, well-built man, who stood looking toward him, and said in a hoarse, firm voice—“We are not likely to be interrupted; but to work, quick!”“Right!” said Bart, hoarsely; and directly after, a rustling sound, accompanied by a heavy breathing, was heard in the black darkness, followed soon after by the clinking of iron against iron.There was a faint flicker in the sky again, but no following flash, and the darkness seemed to have grown more intense, as the panting of some one engaged in a work requiring great exertion came from high up out of the ebon darkness.“The file, man, the file.”“Nay, I’ll wrench it off,” came from where the panting was heard. Then there was more grating of iron against iron, repeated again and again, when, just as an impatient ejaculation was heard, there was a loud snap, as if a link had been broken, a dull thud of a bar falling, and the panting noise increased.“Now, lad, quick! Can you reach? That’s right. Steady! I can lower a little more. Easy. A little more away. You have all the weight now. May I let go?”“Yes.”There was the clank of a chain. Then a heavy thud as if someone had dropped to the ground, and then the chain clanked again.“No, no; wait a moment, my lad. Lower down. That’s it. Let’s leave these cursed irons behind.”The rough grating of iron sounded again, the heavy panting was resumed, and another sharp crack or two arose, followed by the fall of pieces on the sand.“That’s it!” muttered Bart, as a dull clang arose from the earth. “We needn’t have been afraid of any one watching here.”“I’ll help.”“Nay; I want no help,” panted Bart, as he seemed to be lifting some weight. “You lead on, my lad. Pity we couldn’t have landed here.”The reason was obvious; for seaward the waves could be heard rushing in and out of a reef with many a strange whisper and gasping sound, giving plain intimation that a boat would have been broken up by the heavy waves.“Shall I go first?”“Ay; go first, lad. Keep close to the water’s edge; and you must kick against the rope.”There proved to be no need to trust to this, for, as they reached the water’s edge, where the sand, instead of being ankle deep, was once more smooth and hard, a phosphorescent gleam rose from the breaking waves, and the wet shore glistened with tiny points of light, which were eclipsed from time to time as the two dark, shadowy figures passed slowly along, the first accommodating its pace to that of the heavily-burdened second, till the first stopped short, close to where the boat was moored.It was plain to see, for the rope shone through the shallow water, as if gilded with pale, lambent gold; while, when it was seized and drawn rapidly, the boat came skimming in, driving from each side of its bows a film as of liquid moonlight spread thinly over the water beyond, where the waves broke upon the sand.There was the sound of a voice as the figures waded in, one holding the boat, and the other depositing his burden there.“What’s that?” whispered Bart. “Did you speak?”“No.”“Quick! Get hold of the grapnel. No. On board, lad, quick!”“Halt! Who goes there?” cried a voice close by from where the darkness was thickest.For answer Bart cut the grapnel line, made sure that his companion was in the boat, and then, exerting his great strength, he ran out with it through the shallow water, just as there was a vivid flash of lightning, revealing, about twenty yards away, a group of soldiers standing on the rough shore, just beyond the reach of the tide.“Halt!” was shouted again, followed by a warning. And then followed a series of rapid orders; four bright flashes darted from as many muskets, and the bullets whistled overhead, the intense darkness which had followed the lightning disturbing the soldiers’ aim.Orders to re-load were heard; but the boat was well afloat by now, and Bart had crawled in, the tiller had been seized, and the sail was rapidly hoisted, the wind caught it at once, and by the time another flash of lightning enabled the patrol to make out where the boat lay, it was a hundred yards from shore, and running rapidly along the coast.A volley was fired as vainly as the first, and as the bullets splashed up the water, Bart laughed.“They may fire now,” he said. “We shall be a hundred yards farther before they’re ready again.”They sailed on into the darkness for quite two hours, during which the lightning ceased, and the mutterings of the thunder were heard no more. But though a careful look-out was kept—and Bart felt that they had pretty well calculated the position of the schooner—they could not find her, and the sail was lowered down.“We’ve gone quite far enough,” growled Bart. “Where’s that light that Dinny was to show?”There was no answer, and no light visible from where they lay for the next three hours, waiting patiently till the first faint streak of dawn should show them the waiting vessel, and their ghastly burden could be carried aboard ready for a sailor’s grave.“It is a trick, Bart,” said Jack at last, as he glanced at their freight lying forward beneath a spare sail.“Ay, I felt it, my lad,” said Bart, frowning. “I felt it last night. Black Mazzard hain’t the man to leave alone; and what’s a couple o’ bottles o’ rum to such as he?”“The villain—the coward!” cried Jack, bitterly. “At a time like this!”“Ay, it’s a bad time, my lad,” said Bart, “but we’ve done our work, poor chap; and the sea’s the sea, whether it’s off a boat or a schooner. You mean that, don’t you, now?”“No,” said Jack, fiercely, as he pointed to the back-fins of a couple of sharks.“Ugh!” ejaculated Bart. “What, then, my lad?”“To find the schooner first, and if not, to make for one of the little islands, where we’ll land.”“Little more to the west, my lad,” said Bart, after they had been sailing in silence for some time. “You’ll land at the Sandy Key, won’t you?”“Yes,” said Jack, shortly, as he sat there with eyes fixed and frowning brow.“Poor old Abe!” said Bart to himself, as he gazed in turn at the ghastly object in the bottom of the boat. “One never used to think much of dying in the old days; but if one did, it was of being drowned at sea, washed ashore, and buried decently in the old church-yard atop of the hill. And now, old mate, after being a captain out here, we’re a-going to lie you over yonder in the warm, dry sand, where the sun always shines and the cocoa-nuts grow; but you’ll have no tombstone, lad, and no words writ, only such as is writ in her heart, for she loved you, Abe, old mate, more than she’ll ever love me.”A sharp look-out was kept for the schooner; but though the horizon was swept again and again, she was not in sight.“It’s one o’ Black Mazzard’s games, lad,” Bart said at last, as a faint, cloudy appearance was visible on their bow; “but we shall find him yonder.”Jack bowed his head in acquiescence, and the boat skimmed rapidly on, till the cloudy appearance began to take the form of a low island, from whose sandy shore cocoa-nut palms waved their great pinnate leaves, looking lace-like against the clear blue sky.In a couple of hours they were close in, and the boat was run up in a sandy cove sheltered by a point, with the result that, instead of the tide setting in heavy rollers, there was just a soft curl over the waves, and a sparkling foam to wash the fine pebble sand.“No,” said Bart, speaking as if in answer to his companion.“Never mind,” said Jack, quietly. “We shall find the schooner by-and-by. Let’s land.”Bart assisted to draw the boat well ashore, waiting till a good-sized wave came, and then running the boat on its crest some yards farther up the sand.He looked up then at Jack, who nodded his head, and the canvas-draped figure was lifted out and borne up to where the sand lay soft and thick, as it had been drifted by the gales of the stormy season.As Bart bent beneath his burden he nearly trod upon one of the great land-crabs, with which the place seemed to swarm, the hideous creatures scuffling awkwardly out of his way, snapping their claws menacingly, and rolling their horrible eyes, which stood out on foot-stalks far from their shelly orbits, and gave them a weird look as they seemed to be inspecting the canvas-wrapped bag.“Here?” said Bart, as they reached a smooth spot, where a clump of palms made a slight shade.“Yes,” was the laconic reply.“No tools,” said Bart, half to himself; “but it don’t matter, Abe, old lad. I can scratch a grave for you, and cut your name arter with my knife on one o’ them trees.”He laid his load tenderly down upon the sand, in the shadiest spot, and then, stripping off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves over his muscle-knotted arms, he began to scrape the sand away rapidly, and soon made a long, narrow trench, though it was not easy work, for the soft, fine, dry sand flowed slowly, as if it were a liquid, back into the trench.“That will do,” said Jack, suddenly rising from where he had been kneeling by Abel’s side.Bart ceased his task without another word, and at a sign from his companion reverently went to the foot of the canvas-covered figure, while Jack went to the head, and they lifted it into the shallow trench.“And never said so much as a prayer over it!” muttered Bart to himself, as he rapidly scooped back the sand with his hands, till the lower part of his old mate’s body was covered, leaving the head instinctively to the last.He was then about to heap the sand over gravewise, but Jack stopped him, and, taking a piece of wreck wood, drew it along the place so as to leave the sand level.“What are you going to do?” he said, sternly, as Bart drew his knife.“Cut a hay and a dee on that there tree,” said the man, shortly.“No.”“Not cut his letters there?” cried Bart, in a wondering tone.“No, man, no. Do you suppose I am going to leave him here?”Bart closed his knife with a click, and screwed up his face.“You’re captain,” he said, quietly; “what next?”“Back to the boat.”Bart obeyed without another word, and as they walked down over the hot sand, it was to pass several of the land-crabs, which rolled their eyes and leered at them in a goblin way till the boat was launched, the sail hoisted, and they coasted the side of the island to get round to its back, and make sure that the schooner had not cast anchor off this—one of the rendezvous for boats which had missed the schooner after being sent away upon some expedition.But their sail availed them nothing. The schooner was not off the island, and Bart looked at his companion for orders.“It would take three days to reach the shelter,” he said at last.“With this wind—yes,” replied Bart. “No food, no water. Shall us get some nuts?”There was no reply. Jack sat with his arms resting upon his knees, holding the tiller and gazing right before him, seeing nothing, but trying to pierce the future.“A-wondering what to do next,” muttered Bart, watching his companion furtively. “If the poor thing could see the old cottage now, and the bay, and a decent lugger lying off the point with her sails shivering, would it still be no?”“Still be no,” he said to himself softly; “and yet I wouldn’t ask to be different to what I am.”“Mazzard has taken command, Bart,” said Jack at last, “and we must make a fresh start, my lad.”“Ay, ay, sir,” cried Bart, sharply.“We must get sufficient provisions somehow, and run across to the shelter. If the schooner is not there we must wait till she comes in.”“And you won’t give up without a struggle?”“Give up?”“Hurrah!” cried Bart, joyously. “Let’s run up the Usa river to one of the Indian places, and get some food and nuts, and then be off. Hard down!”Instead of obeying and changing the boat’s direction, Jack suddenly pointed right away into the distance.“What’s that?”Bart stood up and sheltered his eyes with his hand, so as to get a good view of a triangular piece of sail glistening white in the sunshine, far away, about the horizon line.“There ain’t another vessel with a raking sail like that!” he cried. “I shaped that sail. Why, it is she!”“Yes,” said Jack, after a long look across the dazzling blue sea, “it’s the schooner, Bart; and she’s coming here.”The boat danced over the sparkling waves, and three hours after she was alongside the schooner, which was hove to—the wind being contrary—as soon as the boat was descried by those on board. Dinny was the foremost in the group waiting to lower down the falls, and in a few minutes the boat hung from the davits, and Jack gave a sharp look round as he stepped upon the deck.“Why was the schooner not waiting?”“Faix, the captain gave orders for sail to be made,” said Dinny, in a meaning tone; “and away we wint.”“The captain!” said Jack, with a angry look in his eyes. “Where is the captain, then?”“Sure,” cried Dinny, as a murmur ran through the group gathered on the deck; “sure, he’s in his cabin, having a slape.”“It’s all over, Bart, my lad,” said Jack, bitterly. “What will you do—stop and serve under Captain Mazzard, or shall we go?”“Do!” cried Bart, angrily, as he turned toward the men, who seemed to be divided into two parties. “Look here; I can’t parley; but is it going to be fair-play or no?”“Yes!” rose with a shout; but it was met by a menacing growl; and one man ran to the cabin, to return directly, half dragging, half leading Mazzard, who stared round wildly in a drink-stupefied manner, and faltered out, as if in answer to a question—“No more, now! Who’s altered her course?”There was a few moments’ silence, during which the self-elected captain stared about him, and tried to comprehend what was going on, for he had just been roused suddenly from a rum-engendered sleep, and seemed like one in a dream.“What, isn’t annybody going to spake?” cried Dinny; “thin I will. Who althered the ship’s course! Why, I did. D’yer think I was going to stand by and see a messmate left in the lurch? Look here, my lads; I am not going to make a spache, but the captain’s dead, and you’ve got to choose a new one.”“Hurrah for Dinny Kelly; he’s the man!” shouted one of the sailors.“If I didn’t know ye can’t help it, Sam Marlow, I’d say don’t be a fool!” cried Dinny, scornfully. “Now, do I look like a captain! Bad luck to ye for an omadhaun. I’m a foighting man, and not a sailor at all; but ye’ve got to choose bechuckst two. Who is it to be—Black Mazzard there, or the old captain’s brave little brother, Master Jack here, the best sailor, steersman, and bravest little chap that ever stepped on a plank? What do you say, Dick?”“Three cheers for Captain Jack!” cried Dick Dullock.“Nay, nay, Commodore Junk!” cried Dinny; “that name’s a power, me boys. Now, then, who among ye says it isn’t to be the captain’s brother?”“I do!” cried Mazzard, who was growing sobered by the excitement of the scene. “I do. I’m captain of the schooner now; and if any man dares—”He dragged a pistol from his belt and cocked it.“Do you hear?” cried Mazzard again. “I’m captain now, and if any man dares to say I’m not, let him—Well, no, I won’t give him time to say his prayers!”He stared round the ring of people, of which he now formed the centre, the pistol barrel pointing all round, as if its holder were in search of a mark.Just then Bart stepped forward, but Jack drew him aside.“No; let me speak,” he said.“Oh, it’s you, is it, my whipper-snapper!” cried Mazzard, scornfully. “There, we had enough of your little baby of a brother, and he’s dead; so now, if you want to keep your skin whole, go back to your place, and if you behave yourself I’ll make you my cabin-boy.”Jack continued to advance, looking round at the crew, who, some fifty strong, had now hurried upon deck.“D’yer hear?” roared Mazzard, who seemed brutally sober now. “Go back, or—”He took aim at Jack with the pistol, and a murmur ran round the crew once more—a murmur which was turned to a shout of applause, for, gazing full at the drink inflamed countenance before him, Jack stepped right up to Mazzard and seized the pistol, which exploded in the air.The next moment it was wrenched out of the ruffian’s hand, and sent flying over the side, to fall with a splash in the sea.“Look here, my lads,” cried Jack, turning his back to Mazzard, and ignoring the threatening gesture he made with a knife; “look here, my lads; it is not for any man to say he will be your captain. My brave brother is dead—”“God rest him!” cried Dinny.“And it is for you to choose someone in his place. Do you select Black Mazzard?”“No,” roared Dinny, “the divil a bit! Three cheers, me boys, for the bowld little Commodore Junk!”The crew burst into a roar, even those who had favoured Mazzard being carried away.“A lad who was niver afraid of anny man’s pishtle,” cried Dinny, leaping on a cask and waving his cap.“Hurrah!” shouted the men, enthusiastically.“A lad who has only wan failing in him.”“Hurrah!” came in chorus, and a voice cried: “What’s that, Dinny?”“Faix, his mother made a mistake and let him be born out of Oireland.”There was another roar, and the crew pressed round Jack, whose face flushed as he hold up his hand.“Stop a minute, my lads!” he cried. “Don’t decide in haste, for I shall be a hard officer.”“And a brave one,” shouted Dinny.“Hurrah!”“Am I to understand,” continued Jack, “that you select me for your captain?”“Yes, yes,” came in a roar.“Then I have a request to make,” cried Jack; “and that is, that you support and obey my first lieutenant.”“Hurrah for owld Bart Wrigley!” roared Dinny.“No, no; stop!” cried Jack. “I choose my own lieutenant. Mazzard, will you serve under me faithfully as a man?”Black Mazzard stood scowling for a few moments, and then held out his hand.“I will,” he said. “There’s no jealousy in me.”“Hurrah!” shouted the crew again; and directly after the new captain gave orders for the schooner’s head to be laid for Sandy Key, towards which she was soon tacking to and fro.
It had been a baking day in the town of Saint George, British Honduras, and the only lively things about the place had been the lizards. The sky had seemed to be of burnished brass, and the sea of molten silver, so dazzling that the eye was pained which fell upon its sheen. The natives were not troubled by the heat, for they sought out shady places, and went to sleep, but the British occupants of the port kept about their houses, and looked as if they wished they were dogs, and could hang out their tongues and pant.
Saint George, always a dead-and-alive tropic town, now seemed to be the dead alone; and as if to prove that it was so, the last inhabitant seemed to have gone to the end of the spit by the marsh beyond the port, where every one who landed or left could see, and there hung himself up as a sign of the desolation and want of animation in the place.
For there, pendent from the palm-tree gibbet, alone in the most desolate spot near the port, was the buccaneering captain, whose name had become a by-word all along the coast, whose swift-sailing schooner had captured vessels by the score, and robbed and burnt till Commodore Junk’s was a name to speak of with bated breath; and the captains of ships, whether British or visitors from foreign lands, made cautious inquiries as to whether he had been heard of in the neighbourhood before they ventured to sea, and then generally found that they had been misled. For that swift schooner was pretty certain to appear right in their path, with the result that their vessels would be boarded, the captain and crew sent afloat in their boat not far from land, and the ship would be plundered, and then scuttled after all that attracted the buccaneers had been secured.
There had been rejoicings when the king’s ship, sent over expressly to put an end to piracy, found and had an engagement with the schooner—one of so successful a nature that after the bloody fight was over, and the furious attack by boarding baffled, three prisoners remained in the hands of the naval captain, two of whom were wounded unto death, and the other uninjured, and who proved to be the captain who had headed the boarders.
Abel Dell’s shrift had been a short one. Fortune had been against him, after a long career of success. He saw his ship escape crippled, and he ground his teeth as he called her occupants cowards for leaving him in the lurch, being, of course, unaware that the retreat was due to his lieutenant, Abram Mazzard, while when she returned through the determined action of Jack, it came too late, for Abel Dell, otherwise Commodore Junk, was acting as warning to pirates, his last voyage being over.
The heat seemed to increase on that torrid day till nightfall, when clouds gathered, and the flickering lightning flashed out and illumined the long banks of vapour, displaying their fantastic shapes, to be directly after reflected from the surface of the barely rippled sea.
“Hadn’t we better give up for a bit? Storm may pass before morning,” whispered the thick-set figure standing close by the wheel.
“No, Bart; we must go to-night,” was the reply. “Is all ready?”
“Ay, ready enough; but I don’t like the job.”
“Give up, then, and let Dinny come.”
“Did you ever know me give up?” growled Bart.
“’Tain’t that: it’s leaving the ship. Black Mazzard ar’n’t to be trusted.”
“What! Pish! he dare do nothing.”
“Not while you’re here, my lad. It’s when you’re gone that I feel scared.”
“You think—”
“I think he’s trying to get the men over to his side, and some on ’em hold with him.”
Jack remained thoughtful for a few minutes.
“It is only lightning, Bart. There’ll be no storm. We can get what we want done in six hours at the longest, and he can do nothing in that time—he will do nothing in that time if you put a couple of bottles of rum within his reach.”
Bart uttered a low, chuckling laugh.
“That’s what I have done,” he said.
“Then we’re safe enough. Where’s Dinny?”
“Forward, along of Dick.”
“Tell them to keep a sharp look-out while we’re gone, and to be on the watch for the boat.”
Half an hour later, when the schooner was deemed to be near enough for the purpose, an anchor was lowered down, to take fast hold directly in the shallow bottom, a boat was lowered, into which Jack and Bart stepped, the former shipping the little rudder, and Bart stepping a short mast and hauling up a big sail, when the soft sea-breeze sent them gliding swiftly along.
“He was asleep in the cabin,” said Bart. “Soon be yonder if it holds like this. Do you feel up to it, my lad, as if you could venter?”
“Yes,” said Jack, sternly.
“But it’s a wicked job, my lad, and more fit for men.”
“I’ve thought all that out, Bart,” was the reply. “I know. It is my duty, and I shall do it. Are the pistols loaded?”
“Trust me for that,” growled Bart. “They’re loaded enough, and the cutlashes has edges like razors. So has my axe.”
“Have you the tools?”
“Everything, my lad. Trust me for that.”
“I do trust you, Bart, always.”
“And how are we to find our way back to the schooner in the dark?”
“We shall not find our way back in the dark, Bart, but sail right out here as near as we can guess, and then lie-to till daybreak.”
Bart kept his eyes fixed upon one particular light, and tried to calculate their bearings from its relation to another behind; but all the same, he felt in doubt, and shook his head again and again, when some blinding flash of lightning gave him a momentary glance of the shore.
But Jack did not hesitate for a moment, keeping the boat’s head in one direction with unerring instinct, till the waves were close upon their left, and it seemed that in another minute they must be swamped.
Bart half rose, ready to swim for his life, as the boat leapt high, then seemed to dive down headlong, rose again, dived, and then danced lightly up and down for a few minutes before gliding slowly on again.
“Was that the bar?” he whispered eagerly.
“Yes. It is rough at this time of the tide,” was the answer, given in the calmest manner, for Jack had not stirred.
Bart drew a breath full of relief.
“Be ready.”
“Ready it is.”
“Down sail.”
The little yard struck, the sail collapsed, and, acting by the impetus already given, the boat glided forward some distance and then grated upon a bed of sand.
Bart shuddered slightly, but he was busy all the while arranging the sail ready for rapid hoisting; and this done, he carried the grapnel out some fifteen or twenty yards from the bows and fixed it cautiously in the shore.—He was about to return when a hand was laid upon his shoulder—a hand which seemed to come out of the black darkness.
Bart snatched a pistol from his belt, and put it back with a grunt.
“I didn’t know it was you,” he said, in a hoarse whisper. “Lightning seems to make it darker. Where away?”
“Fifty yards south,” said Jack, quietly.
“Then look here, my lad. I don’t want to disobey orders; but I’m a man and you’re only a—”
“Man,” said Jack, quietly.
“Then you stop by the boat and—”
“Bart!”
“Nay, nay, let me speak, my lad. Let me say all I want. You can trust me. If Bart Wrigley says he’ll do a thing for you, he’ll do it if he’s got the strength and life in him. So let me do this, while you wait for me. Come, now, you will!”
“No! Come with me. I must be there.”
Bart drew in a deep breath, and muttered to himself as he listened to the peculiarly changed voice in which his companion spoke.
“You’re master,” he said; “and I’m ready.”
“Yes. Take my hand, and speak lower. There may be watchers about.”
For answer Bart gripped his companion’s hand, and together they walked for some distance along the hard sand, where the spray from the rollers swept up. Then turning inland suddenly, they had taken about twenty steps to the west when a vivid flash of lightning showed them that their calculations had been exact, for there before them in all its horror, and not a dozen yards away, stood the rough gibbet with the body of a man pendent from the cross-beam, the ghastly object having stood out for a moment like a huge cameo cut in bold relief upon some mass of marble of a solid black.
“Abel! Brother!” moaned Jack, running forward to sink kneeling in the sand, and for a few moments, as Bart stood there in the black darkness with his head instinctively uncovered, there arose from before him the wild hysterical sobbings of a woman, at first in piteous appeal to the dead, then in fierce denunciation of his murderers; but as the last cry rang out there was a flickering in the sky, as if theavant gardeof another vivid flash—the half-blinding sheet of flame which lit up the gibbet once again; and it seemed strange to Bart that no woman was there, only the figure of a short, well-built man, who stood looking toward him, and said in a hoarse, firm voice—
“We are not likely to be interrupted; but to work, quick!”
“Right!” said Bart, hoarsely; and directly after, a rustling sound, accompanied by a heavy breathing, was heard in the black darkness, followed soon after by the clinking of iron against iron.
There was a faint flicker in the sky again, but no following flash, and the darkness seemed to have grown more intense, as the panting of some one engaged in a work requiring great exertion came from high up out of the ebon darkness.
“The file, man, the file.”
“Nay, I’ll wrench it off,” came from where the panting was heard. Then there was more grating of iron against iron, repeated again and again, when, just as an impatient ejaculation was heard, there was a loud snap, as if a link had been broken, a dull thud of a bar falling, and the panting noise increased.
“Now, lad, quick! Can you reach? That’s right. Steady! I can lower a little more. Easy. A little more away. You have all the weight now. May I let go?”
“Yes.”
There was the clank of a chain. Then a heavy thud as if someone had dropped to the ground, and then the chain clanked again.
“No, no; wait a moment, my lad. Lower down. That’s it. Let’s leave these cursed irons behind.”
The rough grating of iron sounded again, the heavy panting was resumed, and another sharp crack or two arose, followed by the fall of pieces on the sand.
“That’s it!” muttered Bart, as a dull clang arose from the earth. “We needn’t have been afraid of any one watching here.”
“I’ll help.”
“Nay; I want no help,” panted Bart, as he seemed to be lifting some weight. “You lead on, my lad. Pity we couldn’t have landed here.”
The reason was obvious; for seaward the waves could be heard rushing in and out of a reef with many a strange whisper and gasping sound, giving plain intimation that a boat would have been broken up by the heavy waves.
“Shall I go first?”
“Ay; go first, lad. Keep close to the water’s edge; and you must kick against the rope.”
There proved to be no need to trust to this, for, as they reached the water’s edge, where the sand, instead of being ankle deep, was once more smooth and hard, a phosphorescent gleam rose from the breaking waves, and the wet shore glistened with tiny points of light, which were eclipsed from time to time as the two dark, shadowy figures passed slowly along, the first accommodating its pace to that of the heavily-burdened second, till the first stopped short, close to where the boat was moored.
It was plain to see, for the rope shone through the shallow water, as if gilded with pale, lambent gold; while, when it was seized and drawn rapidly, the boat came skimming in, driving from each side of its bows a film as of liquid moonlight spread thinly over the water beyond, where the waves broke upon the sand.
There was the sound of a voice as the figures waded in, one holding the boat, and the other depositing his burden there.
“What’s that?” whispered Bart. “Did you speak?”
“No.”
“Quick! Get hold of the grapnel. No. On board, lad, quick!”
“Halt! Who goes there?” cried a voice close by from where the darkness was thickest.
For answer Bart cut the grapnel line, made sure that his companion was in the boat, and then, exerting his great strength, he ran out with it through the shallow water, just as there was a vivid flash of lightning, revealing, about twenty yards away, a group of soldiers standing on the rough shore, just beyond the reach of the tide.
“Halt!” was shouted again, followed by a warning. And then followed a series of rapid orders; four bright flashes darted from as many muskets, and the bullets whistled overhead, the intense darkness which had followed the lightning disturbing the soldiers’ aim.
Orders to re-load were heard; but the boat was well afloat by now, and Bart had crawled in, the tiller had been seized, and the sail was rapidly hoisted, the wind caught it at once, and by the time another flash of lightning enabled the patrol to make out where the boat lay, it was a hundred yards from shore, and running rapidly along the coast.
A volley was fired as vainly as the first, and as the bullets splashed up the water, Bart laughed.
“They may fire now,” he said. “We shall be a hundred yards farther before they’re ready again.”
They sailed on into the darkness for quite two hours, during which the lightning ceased, and the mutterings of the thunder were heard no more. But though a careful look-out was kept—and Bart felt that they had pretty well calculated the position of the schooner—they could not find her, and the sail was lowered down.
“We’ve gone quite far enough,” growled Bart. “Where’s that light that Dinny was to show?”
There was no answer, and no light visible from where they lay for the next three hours, waiting patiently till the first faint streak of dawn should show them the waiting vessel, and their ghastly burden could be carried aboard ready for a sailor’s grave.
“It is a trick, Bart,” said Jack at last, as he glanced at their freight lying forward beneath a spare sail.
“Ay, I felt it, my lad,” said Bart, frowning. “I felt it last night. Black Mazzard hain’t the man to leave alone; and what’s a couple o’ bottles o’ rum to such as he?”
“The villain—the coward!” cried Jack, bitterly. “At a time like this!”
“Ay, it’s a bad time, my lad,” said Bart, “but we’ve done our work, poor chap; and the sea’s the sea, whether it’s off a boat or a schooner. You mean that, don’t you, now?”
“No,” said Jack, fiercely, as he pointed to the back-fins of a couple of sharks.
“Ugh!” ejaculated Bart. “What, then, my lad?”
“To find the schooner first, and if not, to make for one of the little islands, where we’ll land.”
“Little more to the west, my lad,” said Bart, after they had been sailing in silence for some time. “You’ll land at the Sandy Key, won’t you?”
“Yes,” said Jack, shortly, as he sat there with eyes fixed and frowning brow.
“Poor old Abe!” said Bart to himself, as he gazed in turn at the ghastly object in the bottom of the boat. “One never used to think much of dying in the old days; but if one did, it was of being drowned at sea, washed ashore, and buried decently in the old church-yard atop of the hill. And now, old mate, after being a captain out here, we’re a-going to lie you over yonder in the warm, dry sand, where the sun always shines and the cocoa-nuts grow; but you’ll have no tombstone, lad, and no words writ, only such as is writ in her heart, for she loved you, Abe, old mate, more than she’ll ever love me.”
A sharp look-out was kept for the schooner; but though the horizon was swept again and again, she was not in sight.
“It’s one o’ Black Mazzard’s games, lad,” Bart said at last, as a faint, cloudy appearance was visible on their bow; “but we shall find him yonder.”
Jack bowed his head in acquiescence, and the boat skimmed rapidly on, till the cloudy appearance began to take the form of a low island, from whose sandy shore cocoa-nut palms waved their great pinnate leaves, looking lace-like against the clear blue sky.
In a couple of hours they were close in, and the boat was run up in a sandy cove sheltered by a point, with the result that, instead of the tide setting in heavy rollers, there was just a soft curl over the waves, and a sparkling foam to wash the fine pebble sand.
“No,” said Bart, speaking as if in answer to his companion.
“Never mind,” said Jack, quietly. “We shall find the schooner by-and-by. Let’s land.”
Bart assisted to draw the boat well ashore, waiting till a good-sized wave came, and then running the boat on its crest some yards farther up the sand.
He looked up then at Jack, who nodded his head, and the canvas-draped figure was lifted out and borne up to where the sand lay soft and thick, as it had been drifted by the gales of the stormy season.
As Bart bent beneath his burden he nearly trod upon one of the great land-crabs, with which the place seemed to swarm, the hideous creatures scuffling awkwardly out of his way, snapping their claws menacingly, and rolling their horrible eyes, which stood out on foot-stalks far from their shelly orbits, and gave them a weird look as they seemed to be inspecting the canvas-wrapped bag.
“Here?” said Bart, as they reached a smooth spot, where a clump of palms made a slight shade.
“Yes,” was the laconic reply.
“No tools,” said Bart, half to himself; “but it don’t matter, Abe, old lad. I can scratch a grave for you, and cut your name arter with my knife on one o’ them trees.”
He laid his load tenderly down upon the sand, in the shadiest spot, and then, stripping off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves over his muscle-knotted arms, he began to scrape the sand away rapidly, and soon made a long, narrow trench, though it was not easy work, for the soft, fine, dry sand flowed slowly, as if it were a liquid, back into the trench.
“That will do,” said Jack, suddenly rising from where he had been kneeling by Abel’s side.
Bart ceased his task without another word, and at a sign from his companion reverently went to the foot of the canvas-covered figure, while Jack went to the head, and they lifted it into the shallow trench.
“And never said so much as a prayer over it!” muttered Bart to himself, as he rapidly scooped back the sand with his hands, till the lower part of his old mate’s body was covered, leaving the head instinctively to the last.
He was then about to heap the sand over gravewise, but Jack stopped him, and, taking a piece of wreck wood, drew it along the place so as to leave the sand level.
“What are you going to do?” he said, sternly, as Bart drew his knife.
“Cut a hay and a dee on that there tree,” said the man, shortly.
“No.”
“Not cut his letters there?” cried Bart, in a wondering tone.
“No, man, no. Do you suppose I am going to leave him here?”
Bart closed his knife with a click, and screwed up his face.
“You’re captain,” he said, quietly; “what next?”
“Back to the boat.”
Bart obeyed without another word, and as they walked down over the hot sand, it was to pass several of the land-crabs, which rolled their eyes and leered at them in a goblin way till the boat was launched, the sail hoisted, and they coasted the side of the island to get round to its back, and make sure that the schooner had not cast anchor off this—one of the rendezvous for boats which had missed the schooner after being sent away upon some expedition.
But their sail availed them nothing. The schooner was not off the island, and Bart looked at his companion for orders.
“It would take three days to reach the shelter,” he said at last.
“With this wind—yes,” replied Bart. “No food, no water. Shall us get some nuts?”
There was no reply. Jack sat with his arms resting upon his knees, holding the tiller and gazing right before him, seeing nothing, but trying to pierce the future.
“A-wondering what to do next,” muttered Bart, watching his companion furtively. “If the poor thing could see the old cottage now, and the bay, and a decent lugger lying off the point with her sails shivering, would it still be no?”
“Still be no,” he said to himself softly; “and yet I wouldn’t ask to be different to what I am.”
“Mazzard has taken command, Bart,” said Jack at last, “and we must make a fresh start, my lad.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” cried Bart, sharply.
“We must get sufficient provisions somehow, and run across to the shelter. If the schooner is not there we must wait till she comes in.”
“And you won’t give up without a struggle?”
“Give up?”
“Hurrah!” cried Bart, joyously. “Let’s run up the Usa river to one of the Indian places, and get some food and nuts, and then be off. Hard down!”
Instead of obeying and changing the boat’s direction, Jack suddenly pointed right away into the distance.
“What’s that?”
Bart stood up and sheltered his eyes with his hand, so as to get a good view of a triangular piece of sail glistening white in the sunshine, far away, about the horizon line.
“There ain’t another vessel with a raking sail like that!” he cried. “I shaped that sail. Why, it is she!”
“Yes,” said Jack, after a long look across the dazzling blue sea, “it’s the schooner, Bart; and she’s coming here.”
The boat danced over the sparkling waves, and three hours after she was alongside the schooner, which was hove to—the wind being contrary—as soon as the boat was descried by those on board. Dinny was the foremost in the group waiting to lower down the falls, and in a few minutes the boat hung from the davits, and Jack gave a sharp look round as he stepped upon the deck.
“Why was the schooner not waiting?”
“Faix, the captain gave orders for sail to be made,” said Dinny, in a meaning tone; “and away we wint.”
“The captain!” said Jack, with a angry look in his eyes. “Where is the captain, then?”
“Sure,” cried Dinny, as a murmur ran through the group gathered on the deck; “sure, he’s in his cabin, having a slape.”
“It’s all over, Bart, my lad,” said Jack, bitterly. “What will you do—stop and serve under Captain Mazzard, or shall we go?”
“Do!” cried Bart, angrily, as he turned toward the men, who seemed to be divided into two parties. “Look here; I can’t parley; but is it going to be fair-play or no?”
“Yes!” rose with a shout; but it was met by a menacing growl; and one man ran to the cabin, to return directly, half dragging, half leading Mazzard, who stared round wildly in a drink-stupefied manner, and faltered out, as if in answer to a question—
“No more, now! Who’s altered her course?”
There was a few moments’ silence, during which the self-elected captain stared about him, and tried to comprehend what was going on, for he had just been roused suddenly from a rum-engendered sleep, and seemed like one in a dream.
“What, isn’t annybody going to spake?” cried Dinny; “thin I will. Who althered the ship’s course! Why, I did. D’yer think I was going to stand by and see a messmate left in the lurch? Look here, my lads; I am not going to make a spache, but the captain’s dead, and you’ve got to choose a new one.”
“Hurrah for Dinny Kelly; he’s the man!” shouted one of the sailors.
“If I didn’t know ye can’t help it, Sam Marlow, I’d say don’t be a fool!” cried Dinny, scornfully. “Now, do I look like a captain! Bad luck to ye for an omadhaun. I’m a foighting man, and not a sailor at all; but ye’ve got to choose bechuckst two. Who is it to be—Black Mazzard there, or the old captain’s brave little brother, Master Jack here, the best sailor, steersman, and bravest little chap that ever stepped on a plank? What do you say, Dick?”
“Three cheers for Captain Jack!” cried Dick Dullock.
“Nay, nay, Commodore Junk!” cried Dinny; “that name’s a power, me boys. Now, then, who among ye says it isn’t to be the captain’s brother?”
“I do!” cried Mazzard, who was growing sobered by the excitement of the scene. “I do. I’m captain of the schooner now; and if any man dares—”
He dragged a pistol from his belt and cocked it.
“Do you hear?” cried Mazzard again. “I’m captain now, and if any man dares to say I’m not, let him—Well, no, I won’t give him time to say his prayers!”
He stared round the ring of people, of which he now formed the centre, the pistol barrel pointing all round, as if its holder were in search of a mark.
Just then Bart stepped forward, but Jack drew him aside.
“No; let me speak,” he said.
“Oh, it’s you, is it, my whipper-snapper!” cried Mazzard, scornfully. “There, we had enough of your little baby of a brother, and he’s dead; so now, if you want to keep your skin whole, go back to your place, and if you behave yourself I’ll make you my cabin-boy.”
Jack continued to advance, looking round at the crew, who, some fifty strong, had now hurried upon deck.
“D’yer hear?” roared Mazzard, who seemed brutally sober now. “Go back, or—”
He took aim at Jack with the pistol, and a murmur ran round the crew once more—a murmur which was turned to a shout of applause, for, gazing full at the drink inflamed countenance before him, Jack stepped right up to Mazzard and seized the pistol, which exploded in the air.
The next moment it was wrenched out of the ruffian’s hand, and sent flying over the side, to fall with a splash in the sea.
“Look here, my lads,” cried Jack, turning his back to Mazzard, and ignoring the threatening gesture he made with a knife; “look here, my lads; it is not for any man to say he will be your captain. My brave brother is dead—”
“God rest him!” cried Dinny.
“And it is for you to choose someone in his place. Do you select Black Mazzard?”
“No,” roared Dinny, “the divil a bit! Three cheers, me boys, for the bowld little Commodore Junk!”
The crew burst into a roar, even those who had favoured Mazzard being carried away.
“A lad who was niver afraid of anny man’s pishtle,” cried Dinny, leaping on a cask and waving his cap.
“Hurrah!” shouted the men, enthusiastically.
“A lad who has only wan failing in him.”
“Hurrah!” came in chorus, and a voice cried: “What’s that, Dinny?”
“Faix, his mother made a mistake and let him be born out of Oireland.”
There was another roar, and the crew pressed round Jack, whose face flushed as he hold up his hand.
“Stop a minute, my lads!” he cried. “Don’t decide in haste, for I shall be a hard officer.”
“And a brave one,” shouted Dinny.
“Hurrah!”
“Am I to understand,” continued Jack, “that you select me for your captain?”
“Yes, yes,” came in a roar.
“Then I have a request to make,” cried Jack; “and that is, that you support and obey my first lieutenant.”
“Hurrah for owld Bart Wrigley!” roared Dinny.
“No, no; stop!” cried Jack. “I choose my own lieutenant. Mazzard, will you serve under me faithfully as a man?”
Black Mazzard stood scowling for a few moments, and then held out his hand.
“I will,” he said. “There’s no jealousy in me.”
“Hurrah!” shouted the crew again; and directly after the new captain gave orders for the schooner’s head to be laid for Sandy Key, towards which she was soon tacking to and fro.