"Them lads is sick," answered Silver. "Bellyaches and headaches a-twistin' em in knots."
"They're soldierin' so as not to have to go aloft," returned Flint. "But if you're afraid of 'em, I'm not."
The first of the sick men he prodded with his hanger already was dead, and he hastened back to the cabin and fortified himself anew with rum. I heard him mumbling to Bones as he entered the companionway:
"It's main queer, Bill. I don't like it. Maybe my luck ain't good against sickness."
"Maybe," answered Bones. "What ha' ye done wi' the map?"'
Flint's teeth gritted together.
"If I thought ye——"
"Belay there, John. I'm only thinkin' as if ye was sick some o' them swabs for'ard might try and come by it."
"Don't ye worry about that," advised Flint grimly. "It's safe—and it will stay safe."
A second man died the next day, and there were eighteen sick instead of ten. A panic possessed the crew, and Silver mustered a fo'csle council of frightened pirates, who whispered and nudged each other as they gazed awestruck at Flint's congested visage atop of the barrel which was his official throne. Thorough scoundrels themselves, they accorded him the sincere respect which was the due of one who utterly surpassed them in wickedness. He was "a rare 'un," "a main desperate rogue"; "lead and steel was same as bread and meat to him."
"What'll ye have?" he growled.
"Well, 'tis this way, cap'n," Silver broached diplomatically. "The crew feels as the fever comes from the ship bein' foul and so long at sea——"
"We ain't been long at sea."
"Maybe not so long from the Rendeyvoo, but we ain't careened or cleaned ship this year."
"Whose fault is that?"
"It ain't nobody's fault. But it do seem as if we'd oughter run into some likely port where we could get sweet water and greens and check the fever before it runs through the crew."
"There's a many ports we could make," commented Flint sarcastically.
"We could allus head up for the island," interposed a man.
"So's ye could go for to dig up the treasure we just stowed away," snorted Flint. "Not if I know it!"
"There ain't been talk o' the island," said Silver hastily. "But what would ye say to the Bermoothes?"
"Too many reefs to pile ourselves on—and Hamilton is a port o' call for the King's ships."
"Them's the very words I said myself!" exclaimed Silver. "And what would ye say to Savannah, cap'n, which same is a quiet spot and has no garrison, seein' as Georgy is the newest o' all the colonies in Ameriky?"
Flint reached down to the deck beside him and lifted a bottle of rum to his mouth, going through the usual performance of draining it at one colossal gulp to the considerable admiration of the crew.
"Aaa-aah," he muttered, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. "Savannah, eh? That might do. But mind ye, men, I'll ha' no talk o' disbandment there or elsewhere. We'll stop by to clean up the fever and water, and when that's done we'll square off south and collect what's comin' to us on the Dead Man's Chest. I'm a man o' my word!"
Silver made quick assent.
"Fairly put. And the while we're lyin' off Savannah the frigates will be a-wearin' themselves out on false scents. It works both ways, cap'n."
"It'll work my way," rapped Flint.
He slid off the barrel, balanced dizzily for a moment and walked into the companionway under the poop.
"Darby McGraw!" he called harshly. "Ho, Darby, fetch aft the rum."
That night he had another of his fits, declaring that Andrew Murray was come aboard to slay him. He chased Bones from the cabin, hanger in hand, and was for setting upon the watch on deck when Darby restrained him with a bottle of rum, asserting it to contain Murray's heart's blood. Flint tossed it off with howls of infernal glee and retired to snore on the cabin floor, twitching and foaming at the mouth in his slumber like one possessed. The next day as we rolled in the oily swell under a torrid sun with the pitch pricking up in bubbles from the seams, the fever laid its hot hand upon him.
"Don't ye look at me that way, Gonzalez," he would scream. "Here, Bill, what kind o' shipmate are you to be lettin' old Ross in here wi' his bloody throat?"
And then he would turn pious.
"Ah, now, mother, ye'd not ha' me bide home all my days like a baby, would ye? Look at these gold jos. Ain't they pretty? I'll wager ye ain't got a friend as has a son can fetch her stuff the like o' that! No, no; don't ye ask no questions. Oh, dear Christ, what a pain I got! God, God, don't ye let me go this way. I'll build a chapel home to Tewkesbury when I find Murray's cache. A million and a half pounds, God; aye, that and more—and just you 'n' me to share it, wi' some for Bill Bones and Darby, as is a good lad and lucky."
He babbled childishly of his luck.
"Ye wouldn't break my luck, God! Oh, Ye wouldn't! There never was none like John Flint to rove the seas, John Flint as outwitted old Murray and was the end of him."
The droning voice would ramble on day and night, with intervals of exhausted sleep, punctuated by awful, explosive screams:
"Ho, Darby! Darby McGraw! Fetch aft the rum, Darby!"
And again:
"I'm a-burnin' in my guts, Darby. Ye wouldn't leave me to burn. Fetch me a noggin o' rum!"
Other times he would sing, and always the one song that had been my introduction to his company:
"Bellamy's hangin' all dried and brown—Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle o' rum!A-rattlin' his chains by Kingston town—Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle o' rum!"
But words cannot describe the horrors of the week which succeeded. For five days men died at the rate of three a day. Then the disease seemed to diminish in virulence, and although we had as many as seventy sick at once, practically all survived. As a rule, men who were stricken either perished within twenty-four hours or else made a slow recovery. Flint was one of the few exceptions, and I can only suppose that in his case the illness resolved itself into a battle betwixt a naturally sinewy frame and the weaknesses developed by the strong liquors with which it had been saturated.
That we three and Darby were untouched I attribute as much as anything to the measures which Peter took. He brewed a drastic purgative of rum, molasses and gunpowder, and he was insistent that Darby should procure a large earthen crock to contain boiled water which we kept in Moira's stateroom. Bones, Silver, Pew and those others of the crew who escaped the infection did so simply because of their physical vigor or perhaps because they were so accustomed to living in filth that the exaggerated conditions aboard theWalrusmight not harm them.
A week from the day we steered westward we sighted the mouth of a broad river, crossed a bar at high tide and bore upstream between low, sandy shores overgrown with pine forests. On the verge of evening we rounded a point of land and dropped our anchor opposite a little, log-built town perched on a sandy bluff.
A huddle of merchant shipping eyed askance the splintered sides and serried ports of theWalrus, and there was a general tendency to slacken anchor-cables and allow us ample room. Ashore men scurried to and fro; several small cannon were run out upon the platform of the stockade, and the British flag was displayed.
Peter and I had seized the opportunity of the semidarkness to escort Moira to the rail for a view of our new surroundings, and we were staring hungrily at this outpost of civilization when the thud-thud of Silver's crutch sounded on the deck behind us.
"Ye might think from them goin's-on ashore as there was a mighty treasure in Savannah," he observed; "but bless ye, there ain't enough worth the takin' in that town to pay for the gunpowder to blow down the stockade."
I assented, and Flint's voice came faintly through the twilight:
"Fifteen men on the Dead Man's Chest—Yo-ho-ho, and a——
"Ho, Darby! Darby McGraw! Fetch aft the rum, Darby McGraw!"
"He's main bad, Flint is."
Silver thrust a thumb over his shoulder.
"Won't hardly last till mornin', Bill says."
"Oh, poor soul!" exclaimed Moira. "And him with so much wickedness to answer for! I am thinking he will have a great need of prayers, so if you will be after taking me below, Bob——"
"Bide a moment, mistress," interrupted Silver. "Ha' ye seen aught o' the map, Master Ormerod?"
"No," I answered briefly. "And I'll not be involved in your quarrels aboard this hell-ship."
"Easy, easy," he admonished me. "Rough words won't further ye, my gentleman. Here's me as will be glad to stand your friend, and you know best whether you need a friend. Figger it out for yourselves. Flint's as good as dead. Who comes a'ter him—me or Bill Bones? Which o' us would ye plump for? Bill, he's a desp'rate villain—and has his fish-eyes on the maid here.
"Long John, he wants treasure and a clean path home. I'm none o' your rum-swiggers and tavern-brawlers, gentlemen. I ha' had eddication, and I aims to get more. Give me a million and a half pounds to divvy, and I'll sack the oldWalrusand ride to Parlyment in my coach, I will."
"What has that to do with us?" I demanded.
He winked.
"What has it to do with you, says you? Ah, what! Why, just this. I'm your friend. You stand by me and I'll stand by you. There'll be a 'lection of a cap'n, and if I knows this crew, him as has the treasure-map will come out on top. You get me the map, and I'll put you ashore."
Flint called out again suddenly in a frenzy of fear:
"Bill! Where's Bill Bones? Stand afore me, Bill. There's them here I can't face."
The guttural mutter of Bones' voice answered the plea. Silver cocked his head on one side, hand cupped to ear, listening eagerly. But the words were impossible to distinguish.
"No, no, not yet, Bill," wailed Flint. "I ain't a-goin' to die. Where's Darby? Here, lad, you come and sit by me. You're my luck, Darby. I can't die with you by me."
Bones spoke again, and with an oath Silver cuddled his crutch in his armpit and hopped over the deck to the companionway.
"We better go," said Peter. "Ja, we take der little gal to her room, Bob. I don't like this."
Silver reached the door of Flint's stateroom as we stepped inside the companionway. We could see him distinctly in the light of the fading sunset glow which came through the stern-windows. Ben Gunn was crouching by the door, with his back toward us, hugging his arms about himself and evidently eavesdropping upon what went on in the stateroom. As we watched, Silver swung his right arm and dealt Gunn a blow which knocked him head over heels into the main cabin. The steward emited one agonized howl and scuttled under the cabin table. Silver wrenched open the stateroom door and poked his head inside.
"Well, well, if this ain't a touchin' picter!" he remarked. "Bill, I see you're doin' the kind and dootiful by our lamented skipper. But anybody as knowed ye would expect it of ye. Is that the treasure-map?"
"What are ye goin' to do about it?" snarled Bones by way of answer.
Silver backed into the companionway, as if in mute obedience to a leveled weapon.
"Do?" he repeated. "That depends, Bill. We'll see what the crew has to say."
"Aye, that we will," retorted Bones, and his voice vibrated with undisguised triumph. "Who's to come a'ter ye, cap'n?" he added.
"I ain't goin' to die, Bill," came Flint's mournful wail. "Where's the rum, Darby? I'm a-burnin' wi' thirst."
"Who's to come a'ter ye, John?" pressed Bones remorselessly.
Silver indulged in a mocking laugh.
"Aye, he knows what to answer!"
And Flint echoed him gaspingly:
"Bill's mate. He—has—map."
"Satisfied?" jeered Bones.
"I be, Bill," Silver assured him. "But we'll put it to the crew first, all fair and reg'lar. And whatever they say, Bill, you remember I'll be watchin' ye. Don't try any tricks wi' that map. I'm ready for ye, and if ye start tricks we'll put the Black Spot on ye."
"To —— wi' you and your Black Spot!" roared Bones. "Get out o' here afore I take my knife to ye."
Silver stumped toward us, his face distorted with rage.
"He has it," he rasped. "—— him for the shifty scoundrel he is! Well, the next move is for ye to plot, Master Ormerod."
"I see it not," I said coldly.
"Wait till he thinks o' the maid here," replied the one-legged man and hopped out on deck.
From Flint's stateroom Darby's voice rose in protest.
"Take your hand off me, ye— Ah, if he wants the rum do be lettin' him have it! Sure, what will it matther——"
"'Tain't no use wastin' good rum on a dead man," said Bones, chuckling thickly.
There was a gurgle of liquor, and Flint moaned:
"Where's my rum? Fetch aft the rum, Darby McGraw!"
"Ah, ye black-hearted wretch!" shrilled Darby. "May the banshees whistle for ye, and— I'll not! Beware do ye touch me, I say, or I'll——"
The door of the stateroom crashed open again, and Darby was bundled out into the companionway.
"'Tis bad luck, and not good, I'll wish on ye!" he screamed.
Bones' ugly face was projected from the doorway long enough to squirt a stream of tobacco-juice at the boy.
"Be off with ye, ye red-haired rat," he growled. "You and your luck! Aye, 'tis fine luck ye brought to John Flint, wi' the rattles in his throat."
"Darby McGraw!" wailed Flint. "Ho, Darby! Fetch aft the rum, Darby McGraw!"
The stateroom door slammed shut on the dying man's plaint, and Darby stood for an instant shaking his fist at its panels.
"May the priest fall dead that would be sayin' mass for your soul!" he cursed. "May him that offers ye bite or sup put the bitter poison in it! May ye never know sleep that will rest ye or kindness that— Ah, but what will be the use of it all? For there will be nothing but just the fires of hell to punish one that's as bad as you."
He turned wearily and saw me, and the tears trickled down his freckled cheeks.
"Oh, Master Bob, I doubt me the cap'n dead or close to it, and Bones he—he—drove me forth, for—for fear I'd spy on him, says he—and him wi' the treasure-map he blan-handered from Flint in his weakness! By the Rock o' Cashel, I'm finished wi' pirates. They're a poor lot. Leave us go home."
"If we only could, Darby!" I said.
He dashed a grimy paw across his eyes and gave me one of his shrewd looks.
"Troth, Master Bob, I'm thinkin' we're none of us like to live else," he answered.
Clump-clump-clumpwent the heavy sea-boots up and down the echoing length of the companionway, and the mutter of voices beat an accompaniment to them.
"Aye, there he lies."
"—— me, was there ever such a mug?"
"Ah, but ye'd oughter ha' seed him afore Long John put the pennies to his eyes!"
"'Tain't right to put pennies to John Flint's eyes, him as handled onzas like other fellers does fardin's."
"Are ye daft, mate? Ye'd never put gold in a dead man's shroud!"
"Mebbe not! Mebbe not! Not to be sewed up, no."
"Ah, what's it matter? He's dead. The river'll have him——"
The clumping became a measured tramp as four tall seamen carried out the canvas cylinder that had been John Flint. A babble of grief from Darby broke the silence. We could hear him even where we three were huddled in Moira's stateroom, biding what the future held for us.
"Glory be to God, and him gone overside in all his sin! Och, St. Bridget and St. Patrick and Blessed Veronica and Holy Mark, do ye intercede for him! Let ye cry upon the Virgin to be speakin' for him in the heavenly courts. Oh, wirra, wirra, wirra, evil he was, and good in his way, and there's none by to give him the chance of purgatory!"
A roar from Bones.
"Stow that guff! Here, a pair o' ye strangle the mick if he'll not hush."
Darby whimpered and was still.
"Down-stream," continued Bones. "Here, to la'b'd. Ease him up. Where's that shot? Is it fast? Let him go, mates!"
A splash.
"And now who'll say as Bill Bones is not cap'n o' theWalrus?" demanded Bones, gruffly menacing.
Peter touched my arm, pushing open Moira's door very gently.
"Ye'll not be leaving me?" she breathed.
"Neen," he denied. "But we better hear what they do."
Bones was talking again as we stole into the deserted companionway. He sat on the barrel which Flint had been used to occupy. A battle lanthorn hung over his head, and the pale yellow light showed him to be nigh as drunk as his dead commander.
"—and to —— wi' luck! He was a good pal, Flint was; but he thought too much o' luck. I'm a seaman, I am. Give me sun and stars, and I'll steer ye a course. Give me sight o' tops'ls, and I'll fetch ye 'longside o' a prize. I'm no man for fuss, I'm not. Ye can ha' all the rum ye want, so be ye sail the ship and fight her.
"Now, what ha' ye to say? Speak up, any o' you swabs as is for trouble!"
Long John Silver spoke from the shadows, his words flowing smoothly with an insinuating, oily inflection.
"We better make it all reg'lar, Bill. You're mate, and you say as how Flint give you the treasure-map and says you was to be cap'n a'ter him; but reg'lar's reg'lar, and it don't do no harm to——"
Bones pulled a stiff, crackling sheet of map-paper from his breast, and waved it in the air.
"Here's the map," he declared. "Long John there was a'ter it, but Flint give it to me, as he says."
"Sure I says it, Bill," proceeded Silver, undisturbed. "But what I says, too, is as we'd oughter have a 'lection as the Articles provide."
A murmur of assent greeted this declaration. Bones scowled.
"'Tain't necessary," he returned. "I'm mate, and I'm the only real navigator ye got. But go ahead and 'lect whoever ye please—only remember I got the treasure-map."
"Yes, you got the treasure-map, Bill," agreed Silver, and his voice somehow became more hateful than ever. "But we don't allow as it's yours, ye know. You're what the lawyer sharks calls a trustee. You keeps it for the rest o' us, and we—" he chuckled venomously—"why, we keeps our eyes on you, Bill."
Bones swore.
"Get on wi' the 'lection," he adjured the crew. "Who's to be cap'n? Speak up and name some one!"
A dozen sycophants shouted "Bones," with a vim which inspired him with sweating vanity, and several called out: "Silver!" and "Long John!"
"Anybody else?" challenged Bones.
Nobody answered.
"Well, Long John," he leered, "it seems like 'twas you 'n' me. The Articles says them what votes for one feller goes to one side, and them what votes for t'other goes opposite. So, seein' as you're on the la'b'd side, I'll say them as votes for you goes la'b'd and them as votes for me goes sta'b'd."
"Suits me," grunted Silver.
There was a subdued rustling and patter of feet as the men divided, and the lanthornlight revealed two unequal groups on either side of the mizzen, with Bones sitting on his barrel between them. Probably three-fifths of the crew had voted for him.
"Well, Long John," he said without trying to repress the triumph in his tones, "d'ye want to tell over the vote?"
"No," replied Silver briefly. "You win."
Bones rubbed his hands gleefully.
"Ah, I win, do I?"
"I said yes."
The opposing factions regarded each other like packs of wolves preparing to dispute the carcass of a fresh-killed moose. I suspected for an instant that they would fight, but I misjudged Silver's self-control. Galled he might be, but he did not permit the sting to his pride to influence his policy.
"You win, Bill," he repeated, "and I'm the first to wish ye joy o' it. And seein' as you're dooly elected, s'pose you tell us what your plans are for the ship?"
"Plans?" answered Bones warily. "What plans might ye mean?"
"Are ye for liftin' the treasure on the two islands or beatin' up for more?"
Bones reflected. He was not nearly so clever as Silver, and I imagine he knew it. He feared a trap, but study as he might he could not detect any pitfall behind the innocent question.
"I'll be guided by the crew," he announced triumphantly. "You're gentlemen adventurers, all o' ye. Name your wishes!"
This time the crew looked instinctively to Silver for a lead.
"We got plenty o' treasure in them island caches," he replied tentatively. "Speakin' for myself, I'm for collectin' what we got, takin' three or four ships and dividin' up for different countries, accordin' to what men seek. There's enough waitin' for our spades to make us all comf'table for life, and them lads as wants to go on the Account again can easy do it. Turn over theWalrusto 'em if they fancy it. I don't care. But some o' us ha' had enough o' the sea, and we'll try our ease ashore."
A shout of approval capped this speech. There was not a man but was lured by the prospect of thousands of pounds to spend on the right side of the gallows. And like all sailors after a series of hard voyages, they never wanted to see a ship again—or so they thought.
Bones was enthusiastic for Silver's plan as any.
"Aye, aye," he applauded. "Long John has the right idea. We'll water tomorrow, and then we'll try for the Dead Man's Chest."
And he began to shout drunkenly the song that Flint had died singing:
"Fifteen men on the Dead Man's Chest—Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle o' rum!Drink and the devil had done for the rest—Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle o' rum!"
Other men joined in, and as if by magic pannikins of rum appeared. Bones drank several whilst we watched.
"You drink wi' me, bullies!" he hailed his supporters. "An easy skipper is Bill Bones. Rum for all, and to —— wi' discipline!"
They howled joyfully over this, and what I had expected to provide a free fight seemed about to develop into nothing worse than such an orgy of intoxication as occurred almost every night aboard theWalrus. But it did not suit Silver's plans to have all restraint cast off at that point. He stumped forward into the circle of lanthorn light, with Pew, Black Dog, Darby and a dozen others at his back.
"Belay, mates," he cried. "We got a vast task to settle here. Time to carouse afterward."
"There's no time for drinkin' like the time ye ha' the liquor at your elbow," retorted Bones.
"And them's true words," assented Silver heartily. "And 'tis plain to be seen as you're a skipper the lads'll all be blithe for, Bill. But I was just figgerin' as we none o' us has ever asked the pris'ners how long 'twill take to dig up that treasure o' Murray's. So I makes bold to suggest we have 'em up here and put 'em through their paces. 'Tain't no ways right as pris'ners should be as close-mouthed as Flint let 'em be. He was a good messmate, Flint was, but I allus thought them swabs pulled the wool a mite over his eyes, blow me if I didn't."
I could see Bones slowly run his tongue over his lips, blinking his eyes the while. He liked this idea. So did the crew. They were in the humor for baiting whoever were at their mercy.
"Have 'em out," ruled Bones. "Long John's right."
"Aye, have 'em out," yelled the crew. "Make 'em dance!"
Silver's hard, polished-agate eyes glinted around the circle of savage faces and came to rest upon Bones' sodden visage.
"Run aft, Darby, there's the sweet lad," he said, "and bring us the pris'ners."
"Not—not—her!" answered Darby haltingly.
"Yes,her," replied Silver with a slight emphasis.
And one of his hands reached out, and his strong fingers tweaked the Irish boy's ear. Darby yelped.
"O' course, you bring her," Silver continued. "Why's she too good to tell us what she knows, mates? Just because she had Andrew Murray's favor, I wonder!"
"Not——"
Darby started to protest again, but Silver cut him off with a word that dripped chill ferocity.
"Skip!"
"Fetch up the wench, boy," growled Bones, "or I'll give ye a taste o' Murray's triangles."
"Fetch her up!" howled the crew in rabid chorus. "Let's ha' a look at the wench!"
Darby started toward us with the tears running down his cheeks. We could see him picking his way slowly through the crowd. A man kicked him as we watched. Poor Darby! He had been Flint's favorite, and there are always men in any crew to hate the captain's pet.
I looked at Peter, and he met my gaze with dumb foreboding.
"We might take to the water," I said.
Moira spoke behind us.
"You will do no such thing," she answered. "Nor will I. We are not yet in such evil case."
"You don't know——"
"They would surely overtake us," she argued. "No, no, Bob; we must wait and pick a better time if we can."
"Ja," approved Peter. "Dot's right. I t'ink——"
He hesitated.
"Silver will be nursing some hidden plan," supplemented Moira.
"Ja," he said. "How didt you know?"
"I guessed," she said. "Glory, I will have been listening behind ye this quarter-glass, for I had a feeling in me there was new wickedness astir. But here's Darby, and for his sake we'd best be going quickly."
Darby fronted us with a gulp.
"Silver bade me——"
Moira slipped between Peter and me and dropped her hand on his shoulder.
"Don't ye be taking heed to what they say," she comforted him. "Faith, 'tis you are the grand knight, Darby lad, and I am that proud o' ye I could be giving ye a bit of a kerchief or gaudy ribbon to wear in your hat—only that ye will have no hat and me neither ribbon nor kerchief! But let's be after trying what the rogues want with us."
And out she marched at the boy's side before one or the other of us could step ahead.
The ranks of pirates parted to admit our procession, and we threaded the shadows to the edge of the central pool of light where Silver leaned upon his crutch. He moved aside to make room for us, and I found myself at his right hand. Perhaps fifteen feet away Bones sat on his barrel, his coarse face flushed and shiny, his cruel eyes devouring Moira's lissome grace. The scores of others were just so many vague blurs to me, but Moira frowned about her with a kind of high pride that turned the boldest stare. Peter looked stolidly over the heads of the throng. It was his way when he fronted danger; behind their mask of fat his little eyes were darting daggerwise from face to face, probing, guessing, estimating.
Silver spoke first.
"Well, here they be, Bill."
Bones' tongue traveled the circuit of his lips twice before he replied; he did not once take his gaze from Moira.
"A proper wench, ain't ye?" he fawned.
"Do ye tell me so!" she exclaimed.
And the pirates screeched with laughter.
"Lusty, ye are," sneered Bones. "Ye need tamin', and I ha' a hankerin' to take ye in hand."
"'Twould take ten of your like," retorted Moira, nose in air.
Silver interposed in the midst of a second burst of laughter. I had to admire the scoundrel's deftness. He contrived to appear to be coming to the rescue of Bones in such a way as to rouse all the man's resentment against the cause of the implied humiliation.
"Sure, mistress," said Long John very respectfully, "what the cap'n would know is how long it should take to shift the treasure Cap'n Murray had ye bury on the Dead Man's Chest?"
Moira's nose remained in air.
"If ye were not afraid of the hard work it would maybe take ye as much as the half of a watch," she answered.
He addressed me with equal respect, requiring confirmation of what she had said. I gave it, as did Peter.
"And is it far from the shore?" he asked her then.
"Some would say yes, and some might call it over near," she flashed.
At that Bones slid off his barrel.
"Tamin' is what I said ye needed, and tamin' is what ye'll get, my girl," he announced. "Leave the rest to me, Silver. I'll take her aft and soon find out all she knows."
"There's Rule Four, Bill," said Silver quickly.
"Blow Rule Four! Murray and Flint wrote them blasted Articles, and they're both dead. Why should we, as are free gentlemen adventurers, have any tomfool rules like we was a King's ship? I'll take the lass and chuck five hundred pounds o' my share o' the treasure into the common fund in pay for her. —— me, lads, d'ye grudge your cap'n a little fun?"
Men shouted, "Yes," and, "No," but nobody was inclined to interfere.
"Come on, my pretty," he invited Moira.
She met his hot eyes with level scorn.
"Do ye put your finger on me, I'll either be the death of you or myself," she warned him.
He laughed uncertainly and started toward her, and as I lifted my foot to step between them the hilt of a knife was thrust into my right hand.
"Go to it," Silver's voice bade me. "Tell him ye'll fight for her."
I finished my step automatically and found myself a pace inside the pool of light surrounding Bones' barrel. Bones himself had come to a halt and was examining me with some evidence of disconcertion.
"He says he'll fight ye for her, Bill," Silver called officiously over my shoulder, and as Bones discharged a streak of curses, he muttered in my ear:
"Put your mark on her. That's old buccaneer law."
And as I still hesitated, scarce understanding him and unwilling to remove my eyes from Bones, who was drawing his own knife:
"Go on, ye fool! Anywhere! A cross on her hand'll do—wi' your knife!"
Moira heard him and grasped his meaning. She shot her left hand under my arm.
"God be good to ye, Bob," she whispered. "Sure, I'm yours."
And with the point of Silver's knife I traced a crimson cross upon her palm, certes, the oddest betrothal any couple ever had.
"Mistress O'Donnell is pledged to me," I called as loudly as I could. "Further, we had the word of Captain Flint that no harm should be done to her or any of us."
"Flint's word was no better'n mine," grinned Bones. "'Twas only as Flint had no use for women, but I'm different, and first, I'm goin' to ha' ye caught and flogged, Buckskin, and then I'll cut your ears off for a keepsake like."
He waved his arm carelessly.
"Pull him down, mates. I can't be bothered fightin' a pris'ner."
Several of his cronies made to obey this command; but Silver, Black Dog and a number of others set up a protest.
"Give the Buckskin a fair show," they shouted. "He's put his mark on her. Took her himself, he did, when Murray carried theSantissima Trinidad."
Bones' friends hung back. From the rear ranks of the circle came advice and opinions of all shades. But Silver's faction must have been primed for the incident, for they worked up such a furor in my support that they swayed the general opinion by sheer volume of noise. Silver even raised Moira's hand with the bloody cross upon it and held it up for those behind to see.
"Fair play for all," proclaimed his stentorian voice. "The Buckskin was one o' Murray's crew, and he took the girl in fair fight. He's put his mark on her, and if he wants to fight for her he can, pris'ner or no pris'ner."
Bones observed the mounting turmoil with an obvious mingling of emotions. He realized he had been tricked, but he did not yet see how it had been done or comprehend the ulterior purpose of Silver's strategy. To do him justice, I do not believe that he feared me or doubted his ability to kill me in a knife-fight, for I had never had occasion to exhibit my skill with the knife before the pirates. He simply knew that he had been lured into a position where he must fight personally to maintain his authority over the crew, and the initial flare of his hatred was naturally directed against me. But he did not forget Silver.
"I'll mind this," he flung at the one-legged man as he crouched forward to meet me, knife poised across his chest and left arm extended to clutch at my knife-wrist or parry a stab from the side.
"'Tain't my doin's, Bill, if ye will ha' the girl," remonstrated Silver. "I warned ye o' Rule Four. And the cap'n's all the same as any other in a question o' honor."
"That's right," shouted a score of throats. "Cap'n's got to meet anybody."
"I'll meet some others a'ter I finish this swab," gritted Bones.
I circled away from him, gaging the effect of the swaying lanthorn-light upon the deck shadows and the feel of the pitchy planks underfoot.
"Stand to it, —— ye," he snarled. "Don't let him break from the ring, mates. I want his heart for that wench to chew on—and mind the fat Dutchman doesn't jump on my back. He's a bad 'un, he is."
Silver was prompt to summon half a dozen men to block off Peter, who, having seen me use the scalping-knife of the frontier since childhood, was not in any way concerned as to what I should be able to do against a half-drunken sailor whose one idea of knife-fighting was to grab his opponent's wrist at the same time the opponent grabbed his, and then strain and heave until one of the pair tore loose and struck.
"Don't ye worry, Bill," counseled the one-legged man soothingly. "We won't let the Dutchman nor nobody else harm ye. Just you hop in and gut the Buckskin—if ye can."
"If I can!" hissed Bones. "Watch me!"
He dropped to all fours and bounded into the air in a clumsy fashion—not at all as an Iroquois warrior would have done it, hurtling like a projectile, with his whole body behind the knife. I stepped to the left and stabbed down, aiming to drive inside the collar-bone. But the light or something fooled me, and my blade slashed his cheek from eye to mouth, a great searing cut that laid open the whole side of his face.
He bellowed with surprize, and I was put out myself, for I had thought to finish him. Not a man moved for two or three breaths in the circle around us, for none had expected to see the fight terminated so quickly. Moira told me afterward that it was comical to see how Silver's jaw gaped.
Bones staggered back, the spurting blood blinding him so that he had to feel his way. I followed him slowly, half-prepared for a ruse, and he must have heard me, for he called out:
"Don't let him slay me, mates! I can't see, and he's a-comin' a'ter me!"
At this a dozen pirates jolted in between us, cursing and threatening me, and I gave ground toward where my friends were standing with Silver. The one-legged man hopped out to meet me. But I had scant satisfaction from him. He snatched the knife from my hand and, bending low, spat at me with a scorn words can not possibly convey:
"Ye bungler! As good as blind, and ye didn't do for him!"
And he swung by me on his crutch, hallooing to his friends:
"They're after Black Dog yon! Lay into the dirty swabs, mates!"
Knives were out all over the deck, and men were slashing and stabbing at one another. Bones was swallowed up in the mass of frantic humanity that milled around the restricted space between the butt of the mizzen and the rise of the poop.
A man plucked at my sleeve, and I spun about defensively to confront Peter.
"Where's Moira?" I panted.
"Darby took her. He has a plan for us to get free. Hurry, Bob! We got a goodt chance,ja. This is what Silver worked for, to hafe you kill Bones or set der crew against him."
I noticed that Peter steered me for'ard where the deck was deserted; but I asked no questions, for Silver's voice spurred me on.
"Lay aft, lads," he was shouting. "We'll show 'em what! We won't let no perishin' fool like Bill Bones go for to hold out that treasure-map on us. Couldn't even handle the Buckskin, he couldn't!"
Moira hailed us from the shelter of the capstan.
"Will it be you, Bob? Oh, thank God, thank God!"
"And your hand?" I stammered.
She pressed it to my lips.
"There!" said she. "If you will be so chary of other places."
I strove to redress my fault, and she lay for one precious moment in my arms.
"Are you sure ye will have meant it?" she asked shyly.
"Meant it! Since the morning I heard the lilt of your voice in——"
A low whistle came from over the side to larboard.
"'Tis Darby!" she cried. "He slid down the anchor-cable to get at one of the boats they will have lowered by the side ladder for the water-party was going ashore, and didn't."
Peter beckoned urgently from the rail.
"We don't talk," he ordered grimly. "We go."
There was a coil of spare cable handy, and we dropped it overside, sliding one by one into the jolly-boat which Darby held steady beneath the heft of the bowsprit. TheWalrushad swung with the tide until her stern was toward the town, and Darby and I took the oars and rowed quietly along the mass of the pirate's hull in the direction of the scattered lights that represented Savannah. How beautiful they seemed to us, those tiny glimmers of rush-lights and lanthorns in a clearing in the wilderness! They spelled safety, perhaps home.
But we were none too sure of ourselves yet. The big vessel loomed over us, her gunports like a row of gouging tusks, her spars and rigging a monstrous net poised for casting. Her decks seethed with lawless men, fighting and running, with harsh outcries and the clashing of steel and an occasional pistol-shot.
We passed the cluster of boats moored by the side ladder, unwilling to risk the time it would take to cut them adrift. We passed the poop, where a particularly savage fray was going on. Men were battering at the door to the cabin companionway and one called to "roll up a chase-gun, and give the —— —— a round-shot in his belly."
We rowed on under theWalrus'stern, and there we came upon an amazing spectacle.
A longboat was always towed astern for the greater convenience in case there was a sudden necessity for its use at sea. This boat had been drawn beneath the stern windows, from which a man was lowering a heavy box or chest, which a second man was receiving into its bow. The man in the longboat heard the rattle of our oars and gave us one lightning glance before he slashed at the mooring-rope and leaped to his own oars. The tide carried him immediately behind us, and I had a vision of a bloody face wrapped in an old shirt. If he knew who we were he gave no sign. He huddled on to a thwart and pulled downstream with the tide.
But the man in the stern windows was not so reticent. He leaned far out, wringing his hands and clamoring to be saved:
"Oh, Master Bones, ye wouldn't go for to leave poor Ben Gunn as stood by ye stanch to the end, and held the cabin door the while ye shot the bolt. Ah, and them —— villains are a-hammerin' it this moment. Don't 'ee go, and leave me like this! They'll keelhaul me, they will. They'll trice me to the cat."
"Back oars, Darby," I said. "We can't leave the poor fellow."
"And him with Bones!" protested Darby.
"'Twas not his fault."
We rowed under the stern, and I called up to the steward—
"Jump into the water and we'll pick you up, Ben."
"Who're you?" he answered shakily.
"'Tis Master Ormerod."
I could hear the blows on the door at the end of the companionway.
"Hasten, man! We can't wait for ever."
"And ye won't put me in a livery-shuit?" he pressed
"Not I."
He jumped without a word, and we hauled him, dripping, into our midst.
A chorus of yelping certified to the invasion of the main cabin, but its note of triumph was changed to consternation as Silver's bloodhounds discovered that their bird had flown.
"Gone!"
"The —— knave's scooped us!"
"Boats, lads; boats!"
And presently the dick-dock of oars behind us caused Darby and me to redouble our labors. We drove ashore several rods down-stream from the town on the shallow bluff, and we dared not wait to seek shelter within its log walls. Truth to tell, we doubted now that the town itself spelled safety for us. TheWalrus'carronades would make short work of such defenses as Savannah had to boast.
So we pelted up the bluff by a sandy path that debouched upon the cleared fields outside the stockade, urged on by that persistent oar-rattle and the shouts the pirates exchanged betwixt their several boats. Whether they were following us we could not discover, for the night was black as a cellar-vault; but we left nothing to chance, and ran hot-foot through the plantations of the citizens, overhearing, as we passed, the excited comments of the men on the firing-platforms of the stockade, who evidently anticipated an attack from their ugly visitor in the river. We never tarried for breath until we had gained the verge of the forest.
Peter was now in his element. He could find his way about a strange countryside by day or night as easily as a sailor could navigate the trackless wastes of the sea, and he led us in a beeline north and east in the general direction of the outlying settlements which intervened betwixt Savannah and the Carolinas. An hour or so after dawn we emerged upon a village in a clearing, whose inhabitants eyed us dubiously until Darby produced one of the golden doubloons from the store he had acquired during his reign as Flint's favorite.
These people had never before seen gold, and for a doubloon and an onza they sold us an old but serviceable musket with bullet-pouch, powder-horn and store of ammunition, and deerskin garments for all of us save Ben Gunn, who stoutly refused to don what he regarded as only another kind of a "livery-shuit." They also sold us a small quantity of salt and flour, and put us on the trail to Charleston in the Carolinas.
Of our journey thither I can say only that it was such an Odyssey as the frontier-dwellers of our provinces have long been accustomed to. To Peter and me its perils of forest and stream, red savages, and wild beasts, were far less formidable than those of the sea, and Moira and Darby thrived upon the experience—so much so that when at last, brier-torn and footsore, we entered Charleston's sedate streets and found awaiting us an ample choice of packet-ships to the north we four were unanimous for continuing our journey by land.
"Neen," said Peter. "I don't ever go to der sea again, Bob."
"Ah, who would be fool enough in his ignorance to be wandherin' wet and bedraggled on the salt waves of the sea when he might venture the forests and be shootin' at the red deer and the bears and the catamounts and it may be an Injun, if he was in the full tide o' his luck?" snorted Darby.
"I seem to remember one was all for the sea, and would wave the skull and crossbones in anybody's face," I jeered.
"Troth, and I knew less then than I do now," he replied unblushingly. "Them pirates was enough to break the heart of Pontius Pilate. Barrin' Flint, there wasn't a one of them would be able to hold his own against such as us."
"Silver might——"
"He was a clever one, Long John; but he'll be in throuble, you see if he's not," insisted Darby. "Too graspin' he is by half."
"I care not how much trouble he is in," I said. "I want never to see him or any of his crew again."
Moira, sitting beside me on the settle of the tavern-porch, twined her arm in mine with a slight shudder.
"Never again!" she cried. "And if it will be the same to you, Bob, we'll stay off of the sea. I like fine the clutch of the earth on my feet and the whispering of the trees. Men may be cruel on the land, but faith, they're never so cruel as the cruelest of the seafarers. And all my days when I hear the rumble of the surf and the suck of the tide running out I'll be thinking of himself that lies so far and lone under the Spyglass—and of Master Murray, God rest his poor bones, and many another. The sea had them all! Ah, Holy Virgin, what a hunger it has for men!"
But Peter shook his head solemnly.
"Neen," he said. "Der sea did not take them all. They died from der greed dot cankered in their hearts. I do not like der sea, but der sea is der same as der landt. It works Gott's will."
We were silent for a space, looking out upon the busy life about us, the negroes in their bright bandanna headdresses, the planters passing on half-thoroughbreds, the decent townsfolk in hodden-gray.
"And you, Ben Gunn?" I said to the steward who sat across the porch from us. "Will you come north with us? My father——"
He jumped up, writhing and twisting in an excess of embarrassment, aye, and with something of fear in his face.
"'Twas yourself was promisin' me I'd not ha' to wear a livery-shuit," he protested. "And before that ye said as how ye'd find me a berth as a real, tarry sailor-man, a-pullin' on ropes and standin' tricks at the wheel. Yes, ye did, Master Ormerod; and I believed ye, I did—though there's a many think naught o' foolin' poor Ben Gunn."
"I'll not fool you, Ben," I answered. "If you would go to sea, to sea shall you go."
And on the morrow I found him a berth upon a Barbados packet, cautioning him to employ discretion in discussing his past life, lest he be handed over to the Admiralty officials as a former pirate. He was our last link with the infamous company that had owned the joint rule of my great-uncle and John Flint, and what became of him or of the remnants of Flint's crew aboard theWalrusI do not know to this day. But from the fact that theWalruswas never reported again I have suspected that she must either have been wrecked or voluntarily abandoned by her people. She left Savannah within twenty-four hours of our landing there—so much I discovered by correspondence with a merchant of that town.
Did she put back to the Rendezvous and ransack the island's surface for the treasure Flint had buried? Or did she try for the gold we concealed on the Dead Man's Chest? Hopeless ventures, either of the two! As well search for a certain grain of corn in a heaping bin.
And what happened to Bill Bones? Did he elude the pursuit of his deserted comrades and seek an opportunity to lift Flint's treasure for himself? I'll swear that was his intent from the first—precisely as I'll take oath that had Silver been first to get his hands upon Flint's map he would have plotted so that only he and a small circle of his immediate familiars should have shared in the prize. Ruthless scoundrels, one and all! But perhaps Bones never won clear. Perhaps Silver fastened upon his trail and pursued him with that fantastic vengeance they called the Black Spot. I have often wondered what it might be.
As to the treasure, they are welcome to it or any part of it if they can find it. Moira and I talked over the desirability of notifying her Jacobite friends of the hoard that was buried on the Dead Man's Chest, and for a time she leaned toward this course; but after she had dwelt a while in the Hanoverian prosperity of New York she revolted against the idea of taking any step which would embroil the peace of the realm, and any lingering doubts in her mind were dissipated by the titanic conflict of the Seven Years' War, with its world-wide convulsion of nations that set armies marching to battle all the way from the parched plains of India to the forests of our wilderness country.
"Here is no time to think of Hanoverian or Jacobite," said she. "We will all be English together."
"Der Irish, too?" asked Peter gravely.
"Troth, the Irish will be the best English!" she cried. "Unless it be the Dutch."
But I am galloping ahead of my story. Drop back across the years—'tis no more of an effort than it was for us to slide down the cable over the bow of theWalrusthat night off Savannah—to the settle on the porch of the tavern in Charleston. Ben Gunn was disposed of; our plans were made for the northward journey along the seaboard. All that remained to be done was to come by a priest to wed Moira and me; and that, it seemed, was impossible short of Baltimore, in Maryland. Yet at the last our luck held, for the day we were to start turned stormy and we delayed our departure; and that afternoon a French West Indiaman put into the harbor under stress of the weather. Among her company was a kindly Franciscan, and he readily agreed to perform the ceremony.
For the rest, we rode into New York about four of the clock on the afternoon of April the 24th, in the year 1755. My father was in the counting-room of our house in Pearl Street, and he came to the door at the sound of the horses' hoofs on the cobbles. The sun was sloping out of the west full into his eyes; and for the time that it took me to dismount and swing Moira down from her saddle he stood dazed, fearful lest the dazzling light was playing tricks with him.
"Is it truly you, Robert?" he cried. "But it must be, for there are Peter and Darby."
"Yes, father," I answered. "And I have brought home another."
He opened his arms with an eager smile.
"There's room here for two of you, boy. Certes, you have but followed in my footsteps and fetched home a wife from your adventures."
"She is the little Irish maid I——"
"Whoever she is, she's more than welcome. But come in, come in, the pair of you. Safe and well—and with a wife! Robert, I can scarce credit it. After a whole year! Peter, God bless you! I knew with you he'd come to no harm. Ah, Darby, you have more sense in that red noddle of yours than when you left here; and if you stuck by Master Robert y'are forgiven. What a tale you'll all have to tell!"
That night as I lay in the upper room I had occupied since childhood I was aroused by a distant clatter and jangling which became louder and louder. At the corner it broke off with a heavy clang, and a pompous voice proclaimed:
"Past twelve o'clock of a fine, bright night, and Master Robert Ormerod is home from his captivity amongst the West Injin pirates. God save the King and the worshipful magistrates of New York!"
'Twas Diggory the watchman; and, listening to him, I recalled how Silver had cozened him the night I was kidnaped, and thereat I fell a-chuckling until Moira stirred sleepily and complained—
"'Tis an ill thing if ye'll not sleep the first night we will be in your own home, Bob."
"No, no, sweetheart," I said. "I was but thinking what an odd bundle of accident is this life we live. For if that fellow braying upon the corner had not been a stupid fool I should never have seen you after I took you to the Whale's Head."
"Do you think so!" she retorted. "Then 'tis you will be the fool, for if Captain Murray had not carried you after me I should have contrived to return to New York though it kept me treading the highways and byways of the world come fifty years. Now get you to sleep! I am none of your wives to encourage a husband in loose fancies and romantical longings. Your wandering days are by and done with, and the sooner you square your back on them the better will I be pleased. I'll not let you forth again, and of that you may be prime confident!"
So I turned over and went to sleep.