The storm brewed long in gray banks of cloud that hung in the west and north. It drew around the Rose of Devon from north to east with a slow, immutable force, as yet perceived rather than felt, till she sailed in the midst of a circle of haze. At night the moon was ringed. The sun rose in a bank of flaming red and the small sea-birds that by their presence, mariners say, tell of coming gales, played over the wake.
Captain Candle from the poop sniffed at the damp air: and studying the winds as they veered and rose in brisk flourishes and fell to the merest whisper of a breeze, he puckered his lips, which was his way when thoughts crowded upon him. Martin on the beakhead pursued his noisome task of cleaning it under the watchful eye of the swabber (who took unkind joy in exacting from him the utmost pains), and cast furtive glances at the gray swell that came shouldering up from the east.
"Holla, boatswain," the captain cried.
"Yea, yea!"
"Our foresail is old and hath lost its goodness. Look to thy stores and see if there be not another. Have it ready, then, to bend in haste if there be need."
"Yea, yea!"
"And lay out thy cordage, boatswain, that if sheet or halyard or tackling shall part, we may be ready to bend another in its place."
Descending thereupon into the forehold with his boatswain's mate to fetch and carry, Boatswain Marsham fell to work overhauling the bolts of sail-cloth and the hanks of cordage and the coils of rope, till he had found a new foresail and laid it under the hatch, and had placed great ropes and such cordage as headlines and marlines and sennets so that a man could lay hands on them in a time of haste and confusion. For the Rose of Devon was heavily pitching and the seas crashed on her three-inch planks with a noise like thunderclaps; and when she lifted on the swell, the water rumbled against her bilge and gurgled away past her run.
Very faintly he heard a sailor's voice, "The pump is choked." There was shouting above for a time, then the cry arose, which brought reassurance to all, "Now she sucks," and again there was quiet.
Climbing through the hatch and passing aft along the main deck, he heard for himself thesuck-suckfrom the pump well, then the rattle of tiller and creak of pintle as the helmsmen eased her off and brought her on to meet a rising sea.
"Holla, master!"
"Holla, is all laid ready below?"
"Yea! Ropes and cordage and sail are laid ready upon the main deck and secured against the storm."
"And seemeth she staunch to one in the hold?"
"Yea, master."
"Then, boatswain, call up the men to prayer and breakfast, for we shall doubtless have need of both ere the day is done. Boy, fetch my cellar of bottles, for I would drink a health to all, fore and aft, and I would have the men served out each a little sack."
By midday the veering winds had settled in the east and the overcast sky had still further darkened. The ship, labouring heavily, held her course; but as the wind blew up a fresh gale, the after sails took the wind from the sails forward, which began to beat and thresh. Swarming aloft, the younkers handed the fore-topsail-steering-sail, the fore and main topsails, and the main-topsail-staysail. But as they manned the foreyard, the ship yawed in such a manner that the full force of the wind struck the old foresail and split it under their fingers.
Philip Marsham on the weather yardarm, with the grey seas breaking in foam beneath him at one minute and with the forecastle itself seeming to rise up at him the next minute, so heavily did the old ship roll, was reaching for the sail at the moment it tore to ribands; and a billow of grey canvas striking him in the face knocked him off the yard; but as he fell, he locked his legs round the spar and got finger hold on the earing, and crawled back to the mast as the sailors stood by the ropes to strike the yard and get in the threshing tatters of the sail.
The mate, going aft, was caught in the waist when the ship gave a mighty lurch, and went tumbling to lee-ward where the scupper-holes were spouting like so many fountains all a-row. The fall might well have ended his days, had he not bumped into the capstan where he clung fast with both arms, and twice lucky he was to stay his fall thus, for a sea came roaring over the waist and drowned the fountains in the scuppers and in a trice the decks were a-wash from forecastle to poop. But the old ship shook her head and righted and Captain Francis Candle, leaning against the wind, his cloak flapping in the gale and his hat hauled hard down over his eyes, descended from the poop and braced himself in its lee.
"The wind blows frisking," the mate cried, scrambling up the ladder and joining the master.
"Yea, it is like to over-blow. She took a shrewd plunge but now. We shall further our voyage by striking every sail. Go thou, mate, and have them secure the spritsail-yard, then take thy station on the forecastle."
For an hour or two the old Rose of Devon went plunging through the seas; and there was much loosing and lowering of sails. For a while, then, the wind scanted so that there was hope the storm had passed, and during the lull they bent and set the new foresail and must needs brace and veer and haul aft. But ere long the gale blew up amain, and in the late afternoon Captain Candle, sniffing the breeze, called upon all to stand by and once more to hand both foresail and mainsail.
"Cast off the topsail sheets, clew garnets, leechlines and buntlines!" The order came thinly through the roar of the wind.
"Yea, yea!" a shrill voice piped.
"Stand by the sheet and brace—come lower the yard and furl the sail—see that your main halyards be clear and all the rest of your gear clear and cast off."
"It is all clear."
"Lower the main yard—haul down upon your down-haul." As the yard swayed down and the men belayed the halyards, one minute staggering to keep their feet, the next minute slipping and sliding across the decks, the captain's sharp voice, holding them at their work, cut through the gale, "Haul up the clew garnets, lifts, leechlines and buntlines! Come, furl the sail fast and secure the yard lest it traverse and gall!"
"'Twas a fierce gust," an old sailor cried to Phil, who had reached for the rigging and saved himself from going down to the lee scuppers. "We best look the guns be all fast. I mind, in the Grace and Mary, my second Guinea voyage, a gun burst its breechings—"
"Belay the fore down-haul!" the mate thundered, and leaving his tale untold, the old man went crawling forward.
The men heard faintly the orders to the helmsman, "Hard a-weather!—Right your helm!—Now port, port hard! More hands! He cannot put up the helm!"
Then out of the turmoil and confusion a great voice cried, "A sail! A sail!"
"Where?"
"Fair by us."
"How stands she?"
"To the north'ard."
She lay close hauled by the wind and as the Rose of Devon, scudding before the sea, bore down the wind and upon her, she hove out signs to speak; but though Captain Candle passed under her lee as near as he dared venture and learned by lusty shouting that she was an English ship from the East Indies, which begged the Rose of Devon for God's sake to spare them some provisions, since they were eighty persons on board who were ready to perish for food and water, the seas ran so high that neither the one vessel nor the other dared hoist out a boat; and parting, the men of the Rose of Devon lost sight of her in the gathering dusk.
Still more and more the storm increased. Darkness came, but there was no rest at sea that night.
Thanks to the storm, and the labour and anxiety it brought all hands, Martin, the latter part of that day, escaped the duties of ship's liar, and glad was he of the chance to slip unobserved about the deck with no reminder of his late humiliation. But by night he was blue with the cold, and drenching wet and so hungry that he gnawed at a bit of biscuit when he needed both hands to haul on a rope.
Finding Phil Marsham at his shoulder and still resenting bitterly the jest to which he had fallen victim, he shot at him an ill-tempered glance and in sullen silence turned his back.
"Belay!"
A line of struggling men tripped and stumbled as they secured the rope and went swaying and staggering across the deck when the ship rolled; for the weight of her towering superstructure and her cannon would set her wallowing fearfully in the merest seaway. One caught up the rope's end in loose coils; another, having fallen, got clumsily on his feet and staunched his bleeding nose; the rest shivered as the icy wind struck through their wet shirts.
Martin again turned his back on the boatswain and hugged himself, but to little profit, although his fat arms covered a goodly area. Phil laughed softly at Martin's show of spleen and was about to warm the man's temper further by a thrust well calculated to stir him to fury, when the ship rose with a queer lurch and descended into a veritable gulf.
They saw above them a sea looming like a black cloud. It mounted slowly up, hung over them, curled down a dark tongue of water and, before the Rose of Devon had righted from her plunge into the trough, broke upon the ship and overwhelmed her. The waist was flooded from the head of the forecastle to the break of the poop. Water, licking across the quarter-deck, rose in a great wave that drenched the captain to his thighs and poured into the steerage room, momentarily blinding the men at the helm,—for in those old ships they stood with their faces on a level with the quarter-deck,—and, following whipstaff and tiller, spilled into the main deck and hold.
Philip Marsham, as the water washed him off his feet, made shift to lay hands on the shrouds, and though he had no footing and was washed far out over the side, his grasp was strong and he held himself against the rush of water as the ship rose like a dog shaking its head and coming up through a wave. In very truth she seemed to shake her head and struggle up to the black night above. But as Phil saved himself he saw Martin cowering by a gun and striving to reach the breeching; and as the ship rose, the lad half felt, half saw, some great body washed past him and over the side.
There was no one beside the gun: Martin was gone.
Though a man were a knave and liar, Phil Marsham had no stomach to see him drown thus; and though he held old Martin in contempt and bedevilled him night and day, yet he had a curious liking for the fellow. Overhead there hung from the maintop a loose rope. He faintly saw it swinging against the leaden-black sky. By a nimble leap there was a fair chance a man might reach it and if it did not part, an active man might by a stroke of fortune regain the ship. All this Phil saw in the falling of a single grain of sand, then the rope swung within reach of his hand and he seized it. Spared the hazard of leaping for it, he let go the shrouds and swung with all his strength out into the night.
Swinging high over the sea he saw for an instant, while he was in mid-air, the Rose of Devon surging away from under him. The single great lanthorn was burning on her poop, and dim lights in forecastle and cabin showed that those parts of the ship, at least, had come up through the sea unflooded. He thought he saw a cloaked figure like a shadow on the quarter-deck. Then he slid down into darkness till the rope burned his hands, then he struck the water and went under, gasping at the shock, for the sea was as cold as a mountain stream. He caught a last glimpse of the great ship, now looming high above him, then clutching fast the rope with one hand and wildly kicking out, he felt with his knees what might be a man's body.
With his free hand he reached for the body. He snatched at an arm and missed it, then felt hair brushing his fingers and tangled them in it and gripped it. He went down and down; then the drag of the water, for the ship was scudding fast, raised him to the surface. The ship rolled toward him and he again went under, overshadowed by the lofty poop which leaned out so far that notwithstanding the tumble home he thought the poop would come down and crush him. The ship then rolled away from him, and the rope brought up on his arm so hard that he feared the bones would pull from their sockets; but if he died in doing it he was bound he would hold the rope and keep his man.
The ship rolled till he bumped against her side and was lifted half out of water.
"Help!" he cried. "Help or we die!"
He heard voices above and felt the rope move as if some one had seized it, then the looming bulk of the ship rolled back and drove him again down into the sea.
He had no wind left for calling when he came up as once more the ship rolled, but the man he held had come to life and was clinging like a leech to the rope, which vastly lightened the strain, and some one above was hauling on it. For a moment the two swung in air with the sea beneath them, then the ship rolled farther and their weight rested on planks, and hands from within the ship reached down and lifted them on board.
The man—and it was indeed Martin—coughed like one who is deathly sick, as well he might be, and went rolling down the deck with a boy to help him. But Phil, having kept his head and having swallowed no great quantity of salt water, was able after breathing deeply a few times to stand alone beside Will Canty whose hands had drawn him to safety, and to perceive that waist, boat, capstan, windlass and sheet anchor were washed away.
He then heard a pounding and shouting aft. "What in the fiend's name hath befallen us?" he demanded.
"'Tis even worse than doth appear," Will cried. "The sea hath a free passage into the hold between the timber heads. They are pumping with both pumps. The captain hath ordered the mizzenmast cut away, the better to keep us before the wind. Hear you not the sound of axes? And—"
Out of the darkness burst the mate. "Come, my hearts! Below there! Cram blankets and hammocks into the leak, yea, the shirts from off your backs! And then to the pumps to take your turn. And pray Almighty God to give us sight of another day."
There was running on the deck and shadows passed forward and aft.
From the quarter-deck a clear voice, so sharp that it pierced the noise of the storm, was calling, "Port the helm! Ease her, ease her! Now up! Hard up! Ease her, ease her!"
As the boatswain dropped through the hatch, he saw very dimly the captain crouching under the poop, his cloak drawn close about him.
There was wild confusion below, for as the ship rolled to starboard the sea burst in through the great gap along the timber heads and pushed through the gap and into the ship the blankets and rugs that were stuffed in place. Though the men leaped after them and came scrambling back to force them again into place between the timbers, and though they tore down hammocks and jammed them in with the blankets to fill the great opening, yet as the ship again rolled and the sea once more came surging against the barrier, they again fled before it, and again the sea cleared the gap and came flooding in upon the deck. It was a sight to fill a brave man with despair.
The more hands made faster work, and though the labour seemed spent in vain they stuffed the gap anew. But now when the ship again rolled to starboard an old seaman raised his hand and roared, "Every man to his place and hold against the sea! Stay! Hold fast your ground!—Come, bullies, hold hard!—Good fellows! See, we have won!"
They had perceived his meaning and braced themselves and with their hands they had held the stuffing in the gap until the pressure ceased, which was more of a feat than a man might think, since despite their every effort the sea had found passage in great strong streams, yet they held to the last; and when the ship rolled back, Boatswain Marsham cried out:—
"Now, Master Carpenter, quick! Bring great nails and hammer and a plank or two. Yare, yare!"
"Yea, yea," the carpenter cried, and came running down the deck.
The men held the planking and the carpenter drove home the nails and thus they made the plank fast along the timbers behind the gap, where it would serve to brace the stuffing. Between the plank and the stuffing they forced a great mass of other wadding, and though the ship rolled ever so deeply the plank held against the sea. They left it so; but all that night, which seemed as long as any night they had ever seen, no man slept in the Rose of Devon, for they still feared lest the sea should batter away the plank and work their undoing.
All night long they kept the pumps going and all night long they feared their labour would be lost. But at four in the morning one of the pumps sucked, which gave them vast comfort, and at daybreak they gave thanks to God, who had kept them safe until dawn.
The storm had passed and the sky was clear, and Phil and Martin met at sunrise.
"Since thou hast haled me out of the sea by the hair of my head," quoth Martin, after the manner of one who swallows a grievance he can ill stomach, "I must e'en give thee good morrow."
"A sail! A sail!"
The seas had somewhat abated and the Rose of Devon was standing on her course under reefed mainsail when the cry sounded.
The vessel they sighted lay low in the water; and since she had one tall mast forward and what appeared to be a lesser mast aft they thought her a ketch. But while they debated the matter the faint sound of guns fired in distress came over the sea; and loosing the reef of their mainsail and standing directly toward the stranger, the men in the Rose of Devon soon made her out to be, instead, a ship which had lost her mainmast and mizzenmast and was wallowing like a log. While the Rose of Devon was still far off, her men saw that some of the strange crew were aloft in the rigging and that others were huddled on the quarter-deck; and when, in the late afternoon, she came up under the stranger's stern, the unknown master and his men got down on their knees on the deck and stretched their arms above their bare heads.
"Save us," they cried in a doleful voice, "for the Lord Jesus' sake! For our ship hath six-foot water in the hold and we can no longer keep her afloat."
In all the Rose of Devon there was not a heart but relented at their lamentable cry, not a man but would do his utmost to lend them aid.
"Hoist out thy boat and we will stand by to succour thee," Captain Candle called. "We can do no more, for we ha' lost our own boat in the storm."
It appeared they had but one boat, which was small, so they must needs divide the crew to leave their vessel, part at one time and part at another; and the seas still ran so high, though wind and wave had moderated, that it seemed impossible they could make the passage. With men at both her pumps the Rose of Devon lay by the wind, wallowing and plunging, and her own plight seemed a hard one. But the poor stranger, though ever and again she rose on the seas so that the water drained from her scupper-holes, lay for the most part with her waist a-wash and a greater sea than its fellows would rise high on the stumps of mainmast and mizzenmast. Her ropes dragged over the side and her sails were a snarl of canvas torn to shreds, and a very sad sight she presented.
Three times they tried to hoist out their boat and failed; but the fourth time they got clear, and with four men rowing and one steering and seven with hats and caps heaving out the water, they came in the twilight slowly down the wind past the Rose of Devon and up into her lee.
The men at the waist of the ship saw more clearly, now, the features of those in the boat, and the one in the stern who handled the great steering oar had in the eyes of Philip Marsham an oddly familiar look. Phil gazed at the man, then he turned to Martin and knew he was not mistaken, for Martin's mouth was agape and he was on the very point of crying out.
"Holla!" Martin yelled.
The man in the stern of the boat looked up and let his eyes range along the waist of the ship. Not one of all those in sight on board the Rose of Devon escaped his scrutiny, which was quick and sure; but he looked Martin coldly in the face without so much as a nod of recognition; and though his brief glance met Phil's gaze squarely and seemed for the moment to linger and search the lad's thoughts, it then passed to the one at Phil's side.
It was the thin man who had been Martin's companion on the road—it was Tom Jordan—it was the Old One.
Martin's face flamed, but he held his tongue.
A line thrown to the boat went out through the air in coils that straightened and sagged down between the foremost thwarts. A sailor in the boat, seizing the line, hauled upon it with might and main. The Old One hotly cursed him, and bellowed, "Fend off, fend off, thou slubbering clown! Thy greed to get into the ship will be the means of drowning us all."
Some thrust out oars to fend away from the side of the ship and some held back; but two or three, hungering for safety, gave him no heed and hauled on the rope and struggled to escape out of their little boat, which was already half full of water. The Old One then rose with a look of the Fiend in his eyes and casting the steering oar at the foremost of them, knocked the man over into the sea, where he sank, leaving a blotch of red on the surface, which was a terrible sight and brought the others to observe the Old One's commands.
Some cried "Save him!" but the Old One roared, "Let the mutinous dog go!"
Perhaps he was right, for there are times when it takes death to maintain the discipline that will save many lives. At all events it was then too late to save either the man or the boat, for although they strove thereafter to do as the Old One bade them, the boat had already thumped against the side of the ship and it was each man for himself and the Devil take the last. The men above threw other ropes and bent over to give a hand to the poor fellows below, and all but the man who had sunk came scrambling safe on board.
The Old One leaned out and looked down at the boat, which lay full of water, with a great hole in her side.
"I would have given my life sooner than let this happen," he said. "There are seven men left on board our ship, who trusted me to save them. Indeed, I had not come away but these feared lest without the master you should refuse to take them. What say ye, my baw-cocks, shall we venture back for our shipmates?"
Looking down at the boat and at the gaping holes the sea had stove by throwing her against the Rose of Devon, the men made no reply.
"Not one will venture back? Is there no one of ye?"
"'Twere madness," one began. "We should—"
"See! She hath gone adrift!"
And in truth, her gunwales under water, the boat was already drifting astern. At the end of the painter, which a Rose of Devon's man still held, there dangled a piece of broken board.
"Let us bring thy ship nigh under the lee of mine," the Old One cried to Captain Candle. "It may be that by passing a line we can yet save them."
"It grieves me sorely to refuse them aid, but to approach nearer, with the darkness now drawing upon us, were an act of folly that might well cost the lives of us all. Mine own ship is leaking perilously and in this sea, were the two to meet, both would most certainly go down."
The Old One looked about and nodded. "True," said he. "There is no recovering the boat and darkness is upon us. Let us go as near to the ship as we may and bid them have courage till morning, when, God willing, we shall try to get aboard and save them."
"That we will. And I myself will con the ship."
Leaning over the rail, Tom Jordan, the Old One, called out, "Holla, my hearts! The boat hath gone adrift with her sides stove; but do you make a raft and keep abroad a light until morning, when God helping us, we will endeavor to get you aboard."
Perceiving for the first time that the boat was gone and there was no recovering her, those left on board the wreck gave a cry so sad that it pierced the hearts of all in the Rose of Devon, whose men saw them through the dusk doing what they could to save themselves; and presently their light appeared.
Working the Rose of Devon to windward of the wreck, Captain Candle lay by, but all his endeavours could not avail to help them, for about ten o'clock at night, three hours after the Old One and his ten men had got on board the Rose of Devon, their ship sank and their light went out and seven men lost their lives.
The Old One, standing beside Captain Candle, had watched the light to the last. "It is a bitter grief to bear," he said, "for they were seven brave men. A master could desire no better mariners. 'Tis the end of the Blue Friggat from Virginia, bound for Portsmouth, wanting seven weeks."
"A man can go many years to sea without meeting such a storm."
"Yea! Three days ago when the wind was increasing all night we kept only our two courses abroad. At daybreak we handed our main course, but before we had secured it the storm burst upon us so violently that I ordered the foreyard lowered away; but not with all their strength could the men get it down, and of them all not one had a knife to cut away the sail, for they wore only their drawers without pockets; so the gale drove us head into the sea and stopped our way and a mighty sea pooped us and filled us and we lay with only our masts and forecastle out of the water. I myself, being fastened to the mizzenmast with a rope, had only my head out of water. Yea, we expected to go straight down to the bottom, but God of his infinite goodness was pleased to draw us from the deep and another sea lifted up our ship. We got down our foresail and stowed it and bored holes between the decks to let the water into the hold and by dint of much pumping we kept her afloat until now. In all we have lost eight lives this day and a sad day it is."
"From Virginia, wanting seven weeks," Captain Candle mused.
Captain Jordan stole a swift glance at him but saw no suspicion in his face.
"Yea, from Virginia."
"You shall share mine own cabin but I fear you have come only from one wreck to another."
The two captains sat late that night at the table in the great cabin, one on each side, and ate and drank. There was fine linen on the table, and bread of wheat flour with butter less than two weeks from the dairy, and a fine old cheese, and a mutton stew, and canary and sack and aqua vitæ. At midnight they were still lingering over the suckets and almonds and comfits that the boy had set before them; and the boy, nodding in uncontrollable drowsiness as he stood behind his master's chair, strove to keep awake.
The murmuring voices of the men at the helm came faintly through the bulkhead, and up from below the deck came the creak of whipstaff and tiller. The moon, shining through the cabin window, added its wan light to the yellow radiance from the swinging lanthorns, and stars were to be seen. So completely had wind and weather changed in a night and a day that, save for the long rolling swell, the great gap where waist and boat and capstan had gone, the hole stuffed with blankets and rugs and hammocks, the stump of a mizzenmast, and the rescued men on board—save for these, a man might have forgotten storms and wrecks.
"You are well found," said Captain Thomas Jordan, tilting his glass and watching the wine roll toward the brim; "yea, and we are in good fortune." His thin face, as he lifted his brows and slightly smiled at his host, settled into the furrowed wrinkles that had won him the name of the Old One.
"We can give such entertainment as is set before you," his host drily replied. Francis Candle was too shrewd a man to miss his guest's searching appraisal of the cabin and its furnishings. In his heart he already distrusted the fellow.
Through the main deck to the gun-room and up into the forecastle there drifted smoke from the cookroom in the hold, which was the way of those old ships. At times it set choking the men at the pumps; it eddied about the water cask before the mainmast and about the riding butts by the heel of the bowsprit, and went curling out of the hawse pipes. It crept insidiously into the forecastle, and the men cursed fluently when their eyes began to smart and their noses to sting.
There were seven men in the forecastle and Martin Barwick was one of the seven, although his watch was on deck and he had no right to be there. Philip Marsham, whose watch was below, had stayed because he suspected there was some strange thing in the wind and was determined to learn if possible what it was. Two of the others were younkers of the Rose of Devon, who suspected nothing, and the remaining three were of the rescued men.
There was a step above and a round head appeared in the hatch. The dim smoky light gave a strange appearance to the familiar features.
"Ho, cook!" Martin cried, and thumped on the table. "Come thou down and bring us what tidings the boy hath brought thee in the cookroom. Yea, though the cook labour in the very bowels of the ship, is it not a proverb that he alone knows all that goes on?"
Slipping through the hatch, the cook drew a great breath and sat him down by the table. "She was the Blue Friggat, I hear, and seven weeks from Virginia—God rest the souls of them who went down in her!"
"From Virginia!" quoth Martin. "Either th' art gulled, in truth, or th' art the very prince of liars. From Virginia! Ho ho!" And Martin laughed loud and long.
Now it was for such a moment that Philip Marsham was waiting, nor had he doubted the moment would come. For although Martin had gone apart with the men who had come from the foundered ship, the fellow's head, which was larger than most heads, could never keep three ideas in flourish at the same time. To learn what game was in the wind there was need only to keep close at Martin's heels until his blunders should disclose his secrets.
"The Devil take thee, thou alehouse dog!" the cook cried in a thick, wheezy voice. "Did not the boy bring me word straight when he came down for a can of boiling water with which this Captain Jordan would prepare a wondrous drink for Captain Candle?"
"And did not I part with this Captain Jordan not—Wow-ouch!" With a yell Martin tipped back in his chair and went over. Crawling on his feet, he put on a long face and rubbed his head and hurled a flood of oaths at the sailor beside him, a small man and round like an apple, who went among his fellows—for he was one of those the Rose of Devon had rescued—by the name of Harry Malcolm.
"Nay," the little round man very quietly replied, "I fear you not, for all your bluster. Put your hand on your tongue, fellow, and see if you cannot hold it. I had not intended to tip you over. It was done casually."
"And why, perdy, did'st thou jam thy foot on mine till the bones crunched? I'll have thy heart's blood."
"Nay," the man replied, so quietly, so calmly that he might have been a clerk sitting on his stool, "you have a way of talking overmuch, fellow, and I have a misliking of speech that babbles like a brook. It can make trouble."
Martin stopped as if he had lost his voice, but continued to glare at the stranger, who still regarded him with no concern.
"It is thy weakness, fellow," he said, "and—" he looked very hard at Martin—"it may yet be the occasion of thine untimely end."
For a moment Martin stood still, then, swallowing once or twice, he went out of the dimly lighted forecastle into the darkness of the deck.
"He appears," the little man said, addressing the others, "to be an excitable fellow. Alas, what trouble a brisk tongue can bring upon a man!"
The little man, Harry Malcolm, looked from one to another and longest at Phil.
Now Phil could not say there had been a hidden meaning in the hard look the little man had given Martin or in the long look the little man had given Phil himself. But he knew that whether this was so or not, there was no more to be got that night from Martin, and he in turn, further bepuzzled by the little man's words and after all not much enlightened by Martin's blunder, left the forecastle to seek the main deck.
Passing the great cannon lashed in their places, and leaving behind him the high forecastle, he came into the shadow of the towering poop on which the lantern glowed yellow in the blue moonlight, and continued aft to the hatch ladder. Already it was long past midnight.
He imagined he heard voices in the great cabin, and although he well enough knew that it was probably only imagination,—for the cabin door was closed fast,—the presence of the Old One on board the Rose of Devon was enough to make a man imagine things, who had sat in Mother Taylor's cottage and listened to talk of the gentlemen who sailed from Bideford. He paused at the head of the ladder and listened, but heard nothing more.
An hour passed. There were fewer sounds to break the silence. There is no time like the very early morning for subtle and mysterious deeds.
Boatswain Marsham was asleep below and Captain Candle was asleep aft, when Captain Jordan arose and stretched himself, and in a voice that would have been audible to Captain Candle if he had been awake but that was so low it did not disturb his sleep, vowed he must breathe fresh air ere he could bury his head in a blanket for the night.
Emerging from the great cabin, Captain Jordan climbed first to the poop, whence he looked down on the brave old ship and the wide space of sky and darkly heaving sea within the circle of the horizon. To look thus at the sea is enough to make a philosopher of a thinking man, and this Captain Thomas Jordan was by no means devoid of thought.
But whereas many a one who stands under the bright stars in the small morning hours feels himself a brother with the most trifling creatures that live and is filled with humility to consider in relation to the immeasurable powers of the universe his weakness during even his brief space of life—whereas such a one perceives himself to be, like the prophets of ancient times, in a Divine Presence, the Old One, his face strangely youthful in its repose, threw back his head and softly laughed, as if there high on the poop he were a god of the heathen, who could blot out with his thumb the ship and all the souls that sailed in her. His face had again a haunting likeness to the devils in the old wood-cuts; and indeed there is something of the devil in the very egotism of a man who can thus assert his vain notions at such an hour.
Presently descending from the poop and with a nod passing on the quarter-deck the officer of the watch, he paced for a time the maintop-deck. He pretended to absorb himself in the sea and the damage the storm had done to the waist; but he missed nothing that happened and he observed the whereabouts of every man in the watch.
Edging slowly forward, he stood at last beside a big man who was leaning in the shadow of the forecastle.
"We meet sooner than you thought," he said in a low voice.
"Yea, for we were long on the road and entangled ourselves wonderfully among those byways and high-ways which cross the country in a manner perplexing beyond belief."
"Saw you your brother?"
"In all truth I saw him—and the Devil take him!"
The Old One laughed softly.
"It is plain thy brother hath little love for a shipwrecked mariner," quoth he, "yet there is a most memorable antiquity about the use of ships, and even greater gluttons than thy brother have supped light that worthy seamen might not go hungry to bed. We will speak of him another time. What think you of this pretty pup we have met by the way?—Ah, thine eye darkens! Methinks thou hast more than once felt the rough side of his tongue."
"He bears himself somewhat struttingly—" Martin hesitated, but added perforce, since he had received a friendly turn he could not soon forget, "yet he hath his good points."
"He was one too many for thee! Nay, confess it!"
"Th' art a filthy rascal!" Martin's face burned with anger.
"I knew he would be too cunning for thy wool-gathering wits. Truly I believe he is a lad after my own heart. I have marked him well."
"But hast thou plumbed his inclination with thy sounding lead?"
"Why, no. At worst, he can disappear. It has happened to taller men than he, and in a land where there are men at arms to come asking questions."
"Hgh!"
"This for thy whining, though: we shall play upon him lightly. Some are not worth troubling over, but this lad is a cunning rogue and hath book learning."
"Came you in search of this ship?"
"It was chance alone that brought us across her course. Chance alone, Martin, that brought your old captain back to you."
Watching Martin, as he spoke, the Old One again laughed softly.
"Yea, Martin, it touches the heart of your old captain to see with what pleasure you receive him."
"Th' art a cunning devil," Martin muttered, and babbled oaths and curses.
"We must sleep, Martin—sleep and eat, for we are spent with much labour and many hardships, and it is well for them to sail our ship for us a while longer. But the hour will come, and do you then stand by."
The Old One went aft. The ship rolled drowsily and the watch nodded. Surveying her aloft and alow, as a man does who is used to command, and not as a guest on board might do, the Old One left the deck.
"Lacking the mizzen she labours by the wind, which hath veered sadly during the night," quoth Captain Jordan in a sleepy voice, as with his host he came upon deck betimes.
"I like it little," the master replied.
"It would be well to lay a new course and sail on a new voyage. There is small gain to be got from these fisheries. A southern voyage, now, promises returns worth the labour."
To this Captain Candle made no reply. He studied the sore damage done to the ship, upon which already the carpenter was at work.
"With a breadth of canvas and hoops to batten the edges fast, and over all a coating of tar, a man might make her as tight and dry as you please," said the Old One. He smiled when he spoke and his manner galled his host.
"It was in my own mind," Captain Candle replied, with an angry lift of his head. There are few things more grievously harassing than the importunity and easy assurance of a guest of whom there is no riddance. It puts a man where he is peculiarly helpless to defend himself, and already Captain Candle's patience had ebbed far. "Bid the boatswain overhaul his canvas, mate, and the carpenter prepare such material as be needful. Aye, and bid the 'liar' stand ready to go over the side. 'Twill cool his hot pride, of which it seems he hath full measure."
"Yea, yea!"
As the master paced the deck, back and forth and back and forth, the Old One walked at his side—for he was a shrewd schemer and had calculated his part well—until the master's gorge rose. "I must return to the cabin," he said at last, "and overhaul my journal."
"I will bear you company."
"No, no!"
The Old One smiled as if in deprecation; but as the master turned away, the smile broadened to a grin.
Boatswain Marsham and the one-eyed carpenter who wore a beard like a goat's were on their way to the forehold. The cook and his mate were far down in the cookroom. Ten men in the watch below were sound asleep—but Martin Barwick, the eleventh man in the watch, was on deck,and of the eleven rescued men not one was below. With Captain Candle safe in his cabin and busied over his journal, there were left from the company of the Rose of Devon eight men and the mate, and one man of the eight was at the helm. These the Old One counted as he took a turn on the quarter-deck.
The Old One and his men were refreshed by a night of sleep and restored by good food. To all appearances, without care or thought to trouble them, they ruffled about the deck. One was standing just behind the mate; two were straying toward the steerage.
"Thy boatswain is a brave lad," the Old One said to the mate, and stepping in front of him, he spread his legs and folded his arms.
The mate nodded. He had less liking for their guest, if it were possible, than the captain.
"A brave lad," the Old One repeated. "I can use him."
"You?"
"Yea, I."
The mate drew back a step, as a man does when another puts his face too near. He was on the point of speaking; but before his lips had phrased a word the Old One raised his hand and the man behind the mate drove six inches of blue steel into the mate's back, between his ribs and through his heart.
He died in the Old One's arms, for the Old One caught him before he fell, and held him thus.
"Well done," the Old One said to his man.
"Not so well as one could wish," the man replied, wiping his knife on the mate's coat. "He perished quietly enough, but the knife bit into a rib and the feeling of a sharp knife dragging upon bone sets my teeth on edge."
The Old One laughed. "Thy stomach is exceeding queasy," he said. "Come, let us heave him over the side."
All this, remember, had happened quickly and very quietly. There were the three men standing by the quarter-deck ladder—the Old One and his man and the mate—and by all appearances the Old One merely put out his hands in a friendly manner to the other, for the knife thrust was hidden by a cloak. But now the mate's head fell forward in a queer, lackadaisical way and four of the Old One's men, perceiving what they looked for, slipped past him through the door to the steerage room, where they clapped down the hatch to the main deck. One stood on the hatch; two stood by the door of the great cabin; and the fourth, stepping up to the man at the helm, flashed a knife from his sleeve and cut the fellow down.
It was a deft blow, but not so sure as the thrust that had killed the mate. The helmsman dropped the whipstaff and, falling, gave forth a yell and struck at his assailant, who again let drive at him with the knife and finished the work, so that the fellow lay with bloody froth at his lips and with fingers that twitched a little and then were still.
The man who had killed him took the whipstaff and called softly, "Holla, master! We hold the helm!" then from his place he heard a sailor cry out, "The mate is falling! Lend him aid!"
Then the Old One's voice, rising to a yell, called, "Stand back! Stand off! Now, my hearts!"
There came a quick tempest of voices, a shrill cry, the pounding of many feet, then a splash, then a cry wilder and more shrill than any before, "Nay, I yield—quarter! Quarter, I say! Mercy! God's mercy, I beg of you! Help—O God!"
There was at the same time a rumble of hoarse voices and a sound of great struggling, then a shriek and a second splash.
The man at the helm kicked the dead helmsman to one side and listened. In the great cabin, behind the bulkhead at his back, he heard a sudden stir. As between the mainmast and the forecastle the yells rose louder, the great cabin door burst open and out rushed Captain Francis Candle in a rich waist with broad cuffs at his wrists, his hair new oiled with jessamine butter, and gallant bows at his knees, for he was a fine gentleman who had first gone to sea as a lieutenant in the King's service. As he rushed out the door the man lying in wait on the left struck a fierce blow to stab him, but the knife point broke on a steel plate which it seemed Captain Candle wore concealed to foil just such dastardly work.
Thereupon, turning like a flash, Captain Candle spitted the scoundrel with his sword. But the man lying in wait on the right of the door saw his fellow's blow fail and perceived the reason, and leaping on the captain from behind, he seized his oiled hair with one hand and hauled back his head, and reaching forward with the other hand, drove a knife into the captain's bare throat.
Dark blood from a severed vein streamed out over Captain Candle's collar and his gay waist. He coughed and his eyes grew dull. He let go his sword, which remained stuck through the body of the man who had first struck at him, clapped his hand to his neck, and went down in a heap.
The yells on deck had ceased and the man who had killed Francis Candle, after glancing into the great cabin where the captain's cloak lay spread over the chair from which he rose to step out of his door and die,—where the captain's pen lay across the pages of the open journal and a bottle of the captain's wine, which he had that morning shared with his guest, Captain Thomas Jordan, stood beside the unstoppered bottle of ink,—walked forth upon the deck and nodded to the Old One, who stood with his hand on the after swivel gun.
There were a few splotches of blood on the deck and three men of the Rose of Devon's crew lay huddled in a heap; there were left standing three other men of the Rose of Devon, and sick enough they looked; Martin Barwick was stationed by the ladder to the forecastle, where he stood like a pigeon cock with his head haughtily in the air and his chest thrust out; and the little round apple of a man, Harry Malcolm, who had broken in upon Martin the night before, bearing now a new and bloody gash across his forehead, was prowling among the guns and tapping the breech rings with a knowing air.
The Old One from the quarter-deck looked down at the new comer.
"Rab took the steel," the fellow said.
"Rab!" the Old One cried. "Not Rab, you say?"
"Yea, he struck first but the master wore an iron shirt which turned the point and he was then at him with his sword."
"We have lost nine good men by this devil-begotten storm, but of them all Rab is the one I am most loath to see go to the sharks." The Old One paced the deck a while and the others talked in undertones. "Yea, Martin," he called at last, "nine good men. But we have got us a ship and I have great hopes of our boatswain, who may yet make us two of Rab. At all events, my bullies, we must lay us a new course, for I have no liking of these northern fisheries. Hark! They are pounding on the hatch."
The sound of knocking and a muffled calling came from the main hatch, whereat the men on deck looked at one another and some of them smiled.
"It were well—" the little round man began. He glanced at the huddled bodies and shrugged.
"True, true!" the Old One replied, for he needed no words to complete the meaning. "You men of the Rose of Devon, heave them into the sea."
The three looked at one another and hesitated, and the youngest of the three turned away his face and put his hand on his belly, and sick enough he looked, at which a great laugh went up.
"Go, Harry," the Old One cried to the little round man, "and tell them at the hatch to be still, for that we shall presently have them on deck. We must learn our brave recruits a lesson."
Again a roar of laughter rose, and as the little man went in to the hatch, the others drew about the three who cowered against the forecastle ladder, as well they might.
"Come, silly dogs," said the Old One, "in faith, you must earn your foolish lives. Lay hands on those carcasses and heave them to the fishes."
They looked into the faces of the men about them, but got small comfort as they edged toward their unwelcome task.
"It is hard to use thus a shipmate of three voyages," the oldest of them muttered.
"True," replied the Old One, "but so shall you buy your way into a goodlier company of shipmates, who traffic in richer cargoes than pickled codfish and New England herrings."
The three picked up the bodies, one at a time, each with its arms and legs dragging, and carried them to the waist and pushed them over. But the youngest of the three was trembling like a dead weed in November when they had finished, and the Old One chuckled to see the fellow's white face.
"Have courage, bawcock," the Old One cried; "there shall soon be a round of aqua vitæ to warm thy shaking limbs and send the blood coursing through thy veins. Now, Mate Harry, lift off the hatch and summon our good boatswain and carpenter."
"As you please, as you please," came the quick, gentle voice of the little round man. "But there are two of 'em left still—Rab and the captain—and there's a deal of blood hereabouts."
They heard the hatch creak as the little man pried it off. They heard his quick sentences pattering out one after another: "Hasten out on deck—nay, linger not. The master would have speech of thee. Nay, linger not. Ask me no questions! There's no time for lingering."
Then out burst Phil Marsham with the older carpenter puffing at his heels.
"What's afoot?" cried Phil. "Where's the master?—what—where—"
So speedily had they hurried from the hatch (and so cleverly had the little round man interposed himself between the hatch and the two bodies at the cabin door) that in the dim light of the steerage room the two had perceived nothing amiss. But now, looking about for the source of the fierce cries and yells they had heard, they saw red stains on the deck, and men with scared white faces.
All looked toward the Old One as if awaiting his reply; and when Phil Marsham, too, looked toward him, he met such another quizzing, searching, understanding gaze as he had long ago met when he had taken the words from Martin's lips on the little hill beside the road.
"Why, I am master now, good boatswain."
"But Captain Candle—"
"His flame is out."
The lad glanced about him at the circle of hard old sea dogs—for they were all of them that, were their years few or many—and drew away till he stood with the waist at his back. Laying hands on his dirk, he said in a voice that slightly trembled, "And now?"
"Why," quoth the Old One, "you have sat in Mother Taylor's kitchen and heard talk of the gentlemen. You know too many secrets. Unless you are one of us—" He finished with a shrug.
"You ask me, then, to join you?"
"Yea."
"I refuse." He looked the Old One in the eye.
"Why, then," said the Old One, "you are the greater fool."
The circle drew closer.
"What then?"
"'Tis but another candle to be snuffed."
With hand on dirk and with back against the waist, the boatswain looked one and another and then another in the eye. "Why, then," said he, "I must even join you, as you say. But I call upon you all to witness I am a forced man." And he looked longest and hardest at the three men from the old crew of the Rose of Devon.
The Old One looked back at the lad and there was, for the first time, doubt in his glance. He stood for a while pondering in silence all that had taken place and studying the face of his boatswain; but his liking of the lad's spirit outweighed his doubts, for such bold independence, whether in friend or foe, was the one sure key to Tom Jordan's heart. "So be it," he said at last. "But remember, my fine young fellow, that many a cockerel hath got his neck wrung by crowing out of season." He turned to the carpenter. "And what say you? We can use a man of your craft."
"I am thy man!" the fellow cried. The stains on the deck had made him surpassingly eager, and his one eye winked and his beard wagged, so eager was he to declare his allegiance.
"Well said!" the Old One responded. "And now, Master Harry, have them up from below—the sleepers, and the cook and his mate, and all! We have taken a fine ship—a fine ship she will be, at all events, once our good carpenter has done his work—and well found. We needs must sign a crew to sail and fight her."
They heard the little round man calling down the hatch and at a great distance in the ship they heard the voices of men grumbling at being summoned out of sleep. But the grumbling was stilled when one by one the men came out on deck; and of them all, not a man refused to cast his lot with the Old One and the rest. The mere sight of a little blood and of the hard faces that greeted them was enough for most. And two or three, of whom Will Canty was one, must fain perceive how futile would be present resistance. Indeed, in the years since the old Queen had died, and the navy had gone to the dogs, and merchantmen had come to sail from the Downs knowing they were likely enough to meet a squadron of galleys lying in wait fifty leagues off the Lizard, many a sailor had taken his fling at buccaneering; and those that had not, had heard such great tales of galleons laden with treasures of the Indies and with beautiful dames of Spain that their palates were whetted for a taste of the life.
The cook smiled broadly and clapped the boy on the back and cried out that as a little lad he had sailed with John Jennings what time John Jennings's wench had turned his luck, and that having begun life in such brave company, he would gladly end it in a proper voyage if it was written that his time was near. They all laughed to see the boy turn white and tremble, and they huzzaed the cook for his gallant words. But Will Canty met Phil's eyes and there passed between them a look that made the Old One frown, for he was a man who saw everything.
The Rose of Devon, although close-hauled by the wind, rolled heavily, which was the way of those old tall ships; but the adverse winds and high seas she had encountered were of fancy as well as of fact. The sun was shining brightly and sky and sea were a clear blue; but despite sun and sky and sea no weatherwise man could have believed the dark days of the Rose of Devon were at an end. Like so many iron bars the shadows of the ropes fell blue on the sails, and the red blotches on the deck matched the dull red paint of the stanchions and the waist. The carpenter, who had come up with his plane in his hand, fingered the steel blade. The boy turned his back on the bloody deck and looked away at the sea, for he was a little fellow and not hardened by experience of the world.
"Come, my hearts," cried the Old One, and gaily enough he spoke. "We are banded together for the good of all. There is no company of merchants to profit by our labour and our blood. God hath placed in our keeping this brave ship, which will be staunch and sea-worthy when our carpenter hath done his work. Harry Malcolm is our mate and master gunner as of old, and Phil Marsham shall continue as our boatswain—nay, grumble not! He came with Martin Barwick and he hath sat in Mother Taylor's kitchen, where may we all sit soon and raise our cans and drink thanks for a rich voyage. There is work to be done, for all must be made clean and tight—yea, and Rab is to be buried."
The little round man was still wandering from gun to gun and smiling because the guns pleased him. They were demiculverins of brass, bored for a twelve-pound ball and fit to fight the King's battles; but alas! they had shown themselves powerless against a foe from within the ship. And as the Rose of Devon rolled along in the bright sun, alone in a blue sea, the body of Francis Candle lay forgotten in the steerage room.
Looking down from the quarter-deck the Old One spied the cook, who had come up to warm his bald head and fat face in the sun and to clear the smoke from his nostrils. "Ho, cook," quoth he, "I have a task for thee. Break out from the cabin stores rice and currants and cinnamon and the finest of thy wheaten flour. Seek you also a few races of green ginger. It may chance there is even a little marchpane, for this man Candle had a gentle palate. Spare not your old cheese, and if you unearth a cask of fine wine fail not to tell of it. In a word, draw forth an abundance of the best and make us such a feast as a man may remember in his old age."
The cook smiled and rubbed his round paunch (yet cringed a little), for he was of a mind, being never slow in such matters, to filch from the cabin table whatever he might desire and his heart warmed to hear the good victuals named. "Yea, master," he cried, "for thee and for Mate Malcolm?"
"Nay, thou parsimonious dog! Think you that such are the manners of gentlemen mariners? Times have changed. Though I be master, there is no salt at my board. One man is as good as another and any man may rub his shoulder with mine."
The Old One's own men chuckled at the cook's blank face and the boy shivered when he thought that he must wait on them all, of whom one was as likely as another to fetch him a blow on the head. But the cook went down below and they heard him bawling to his mate to come and help break out the cabin stores, and word went through the ship of what was afoot. And though Will Canty and the boatswain, meeting, glanced dubiously each at the other, as did others of the Rose of Devon's old company,—for matters are in a sad way in a ship when the master feasts the men,—all the foolish fellows were clapping one another on the back and crying that here was a proper captain, and there was none quite so mad as to dispute them in so many words.
The smoke grew thick between the decks, and after a while there rose the smell of baking and roasting, and the foolish ones patted their bellies and smacked their lips. They whispered about that the boy was spreading with a linen cloth the table in the great cabin and that the cook's mate was staggering under weight of rich food; and when the cook called for men to hoist out a cask of such nectar as poor sailors know not the like of, a great cheer went up and there were more hands to haul than there was room on the rope.
The Old One, leaning on the poop, smiled and Harry Malcolm, coming to join him, smiled too; for they knew well the hearts of sailormen and did nothing without a purpose.
So the table was laid and the feast was spread and in came the men. Only one remained at the helm, for the wind was light, which made light his task; six remained on deck to watch and stand by, with Harry Malcolm curled against the light gun on the quarter-deck to command them; and the cook and his mate, resting from their labours far down in the hold, gorged themselves on good food and drank themselves drunk on nappy liquor from a cask they had cannily marked for their own among the cabin stores. Of the rest, all that could find room crowded into the great cabin, and all that could find no room in the cabin squatted on the deck outside the door on the very spot where Francis Candle had fallen dead. They sat with their backs against bulkheads and stanchions, where they, too, could join in the feast and the council; and the boy, when all were fed, gathered meat from under the table like old King Adoni-bezek of unhappy memory.
It was a sight to remember, for very merry they were and save as they were rough, hard-featured men, a man would never have dreamed they bore blood on their hands and murder on their hearts. The Old One sat at the head of the table and took care that neither food nor wine was stinted. The carpenter, his one eye twinkling with pleasure and his beard waggling in his haste lest another should get ahead of him at trencher work, sat on the Old One's right, which was accorded him as a mark of honour since he had accomplished marvels in restoring the planking the storm had torn asunder. A stout seaman of the rescued men, Paul Craig by name—it was he who had needed two blows to kill the helmsman—sat at the Old One's left and squared his big shoulders over his meat and ate like a hog till he could hold no more, for he was an ox of great girth and short temper and little wit, who ate by custom more than did him good. Another of gaunt frame, Joseph Kirk by name, sat smiling at a man here and a man there and tippled till his head wagged; and off in a corner there sat a keen little man with a hooked nose, who was older than most of those in the cabin yet had scarcely a wrinkle to mar the smoothness of his shaven face save above and behind his eyes, where a few deep lines gave him the wild look of a hawk.
When he spoke, which was seldom, thick gutturals confused his words, and always he sat in corners. Does not a man looking out of a corner, with a wall on two sides of him and no one behind him, see more than another? His Christian name was Jacob and most of them knew him by no other; but mocking him they called it "Yacob." Further than that, which he took with a wry smile, they refrained from mocking him, for though he spoke little, his silence said much.
The Old One rose and very sober he was as he held high a brimming can, and so steady was his hand that not a drop spilled. For a space he paused and looked around at the rough company seated at the long table and crouching in the mellow shadows beyond the door, then, "To the King!" he cried.
Those not knowing him well, who stared in perplexity at such a toast in such a place and time, saw his eyes twinkle and perceived he was looking at old Jacob in the corner. Then old Jacob, smiling as at a familiar jest, rose in turn and raised his can likewise, and pausing to look about him, cried back at the Old One in his thick foreign voice, "The King and his ships—be damned!"
A yell of laughter and derision shook the cabin. The one-eyed carpenter leaped up first, then such of the rescued men as were not too drunk to stand, then here and there men of the Rose of Devon's company, some eagerly in all earnestness, others having a mind to keep their throats in one piece, for they perceived that like enough the unholy toast was but to try their allegiance.
The Old One's eyes leaped from man to man and his cold voice cut through the noisy riot of drunken mirth. "I had said Will Canty was a man of spirit, but his can hugs the table when these tall fellows are drinking confusion to the King."
"A hand-napper, a hand-napper! Have him away, my hearts, to the Halifax engine," Joe Kirk bawled with a drunken leer.
"Why," said Will Canty, and his face was white, but with a red spot on either cheek, "my can, since you say what you say, was dry; and for the matter of that, I am no prating Puritan who wishes ill to the King."
Over the rumble of voices the Old One's voice rose loudest: "See you, then, religious cobblers or preaching button-makers among us?"
"And there are others yet besides prating Puritans, mine friend, that drink our toast!" cried Jacob.
The Old One then smiled, for he was no man to drive a nail with a two-hand sledge. But although he changed his manner as fast and often as light flickers on running water, under the surface there flowed a strong, even current of liking or ill will, as sooner or later all men that had dealings with him must learn, some to their wonder and some to their sorrow. "Enough, enough!" said he. "Will's a good lad and he'll serve us well when there's powder smoke to snuff. Be you not offended, Will. In all faith our ship is a king's ship and more, for are we not thirty kings, to fight our own battles and heave out our own flag before the world and take such treasures as will buy us, each and all, a king's palace and all the wives a king could wish? Nay, God helping us, my hearts, we shall carry home to good Mother Taylor riches that will serve for a sponge to wipe the chalk from every black post in Cornwall and in Devon, and Will Canty shall drink with us there."
There rose a thunder of fists beating the board and a rumble of "Yea's," and the Old One made no end of smiling, but there were some whom his smile failed to deceive.
"Come, boy, with thy pitcher of sack! Pour sack for all!" he cried. "Come, ply thy task and let no man go wanting. Fill you Will Canty's pot." He gulped down a mighty draught and wiped his moustaches with thumb and forefinger. "And now, brave lads, let us have our heads together: though we lie but a hundred leagues off these banks of Newfoundland, what say you? Shall we turn our backs on them and take a fling at a braver trade? Or shall we taste of fat lobsters and great cod, and perchance pluck the feathers from some of these New England towns concerning which there hath lately been such a buzz of talk in old England—at Cape Ann, let us say at venture, or Naumkeag, or Plymouth Colony?"
"Yea, yea! I am for Cape Ann," cried Joe Kirk, and his head rolled drunkenly above his great shoulders as he bolstered his opinion with curses. "Did not my brother go thither, years and years agone, for the company of Dorchester merchants? Yea, and told rare tales of succulent great fish, which are a marvelous diet."
"Nay, thy brother was as great a sot as thou," a voice put in, and Joe rose in anger, but a general clamour drowned his retort and he lapsed back into a sodden lethargy.
"As for me," bellowed Martin with bluster and bravado, "I say go we to Plymouth and rap the horns of these schismatic Puritans. Tell me not but that they've mines of rich gold hid away. Did'st ever see a Roundhead knave would brave the wild lions of America unless he thought there was gold in't?"
"Thou thyself art fool as well as knave," quoth the Old One. "Did'st thou not once cry the whole ship's company out of sleep to see a mermaid that would entice thee to thy peril? And when sober men had come on deck there was nought there but a seal-fish at play. Lions forsooth! In Africa even I have heard a lion roar, but not in America. Much searching of tracts hath stuffed thy head."
The drunken Joe roused sleepily up. "My brother saw a lion at Cape Ann plantation. My brother—" He drew a knife and wildly flourished it, but fell back in a stupor before the laughter died.
Martin's bluster, as was its way when a man boldly confronted it, broke like a pricked bubble, but his sullen glare caught the Old One's eye.
Leaning over the table, the Old One said in a low, taunting voice, "And did you never see a man dance on air? Ah, there's a sight to catch the breath in your throat and make an emptiness in a man's belly!"
As often happens when there has been a great noise and a man speaks in a low voice, there was a quick lull and the words came out as clear as the ringing of a half crown. Phil Marsham, looking across the table into the Old One's cold blue eyes, which were fixed on Martin, saw in them a flicker of calculating amusement; then he saw that Martin was swallowing as if he had a fishbone in his throat.
In truth Martin wore the sickly smile that a man affects when he is cornered and wishes to appear braver than he is. He tried to speak but succeeded only in running his tongue over his lips, which needed it if they were as dry as they were blue.
"Come, come, we get no place!"
"Yacob! Yacob!" they cried at the sound of his voice, "Up on thy feet, Yacob!"
He rose and stood in his corner. His long hair was brushed back from a forehead so high that it reached to a great lump on the crown of his head. His brows were knit with intense earnestness. His big nose and curled lips and small chin were set in what might have seemed in another place and another time scholarly intentness. They did him honour by waiting in silence for his words.
"This bickering and jangling brings us no place. Shall we go on or shall we go back? Shall we go north or shall we go south? Those are questions we must answer. Now I will tell you. If we go on, we shall find little fishing ships, with fish and no chinks, and we shall get tired of eating fish. If we go back in this fine ship that God in his goodness hath given us, we shall hang. We may yet go back to Mother Taylor, but we must go back in another ship. You know why. Now, brave hearts, if we go on to New England it shall profit us nothing. For the New-English are poor. They live in little huts. The savages come down out of the woods and kill. Whether there be lions I do not know and I do not care; those savages I have seen and they are a very ugly sight. The English plantations are cold in winter like the devil. They are poor. The English, they play with poverty.
"And if we go south? Ah-h-h! There are the Spains! They have sun and warmth and fruits and spices! They have mines of gold and silver and stones of great price. While the English play with poverty, the Spains play with empires! In New England we shall eat salt cods or starve—which is much the same, for salt cods are a poor diet. But in the South we shall maybe catch a galleon with a vast treasure." And with that, very serious and sure of his rightness, he sat down.
"Yea, Yacob! Yea, Yacob!" they bawled and delighting in the alliteration cried it again, over and over.
Paul Craig, heavy with sated gluttony, piped a shrill "Yea, Yacob," and the Old One pounded the table and grinned, for he had sailed many seas in Jacob's company. Phil Marsham—nay, and even Will Canty, too!—pricked ears at the sound of Spanish galleons; for the blue Caribbean and the blue hills of the main were fabled, as all knew, to hold such wealth as according to the tales of the old travellers was to be found in Cathay or along the banks of the first of the four rivers out of Paradise. And was not a Spanish ship fair prey for the most law-abiding of English mariners?
There was a hubbub of talk as they sat there, and there was no doubt but they were of one mind to turn their backs on the bleak northern coast and seek a golden fortune in the south. But the council arrived suddenly at an end when down from the deck came the lingering call, "A sa-i-l! A sa-i-l!"
Up, then, the Old One leaped, and he raised his hand. "A sail is cried. What say you?"
"Let us not cast away what God hath offered us!"