Blackbeard: Buccaneer

  CHAPTER XIV

  BLACKBEARD APPEARS IN FIRE AND BRIMSTONE

  HERE was a tragic predicament from which there was no release. JackCockrell was firmly convinced that Blackbeard must have recognized himthat day in the swamp while Joe felt no less certain that he was markedfor death because he had been one of the party of marooned mutineers.The hope of prolonging their existence by means of raiding the storeroomhad ebbed after Joe's investigation. Such provisions as had been brokenout of bulk were kept in lockers and pantries on deck where they wereconvenient to the galley and forecastle. It was realized also that theirtwittering nerves could not long withstand the darkness and suspenseonce the brig had put out to sea. Joe Hawkridge had nothing more to sayabout enduring it a month o' Sundays.

  While the brig remained at anchor they clung to the thought that CaptainStede Bonnet might intervene in their behalf. It did bring them a gleamof solace to imagine him hoisting sail on the _Revenge_ and crowding outto rake the brig with his formidable broadsides. And yet they were indoubt whether the _Revenge_ was fit to proceed at once, what with allthe work there had been to do, rigging a new foremast, caulking leakyseams, repairing the other ravages of the storm.

  These pitiable stowaways had no means of telling one hour from anotheruntil, at length, they heard over their heads the faint, musical strokesof the ship's bell on the forecastle head. This led them to believe thatthe fog had cleared else Blackbeard would not have revealed the vessel'sposition. And lifting fog meant a breeze to sweep it away from theharbor.

  "Eight bells she strikes, the first o' the forenoon watch," said Joe."We have been cooped in this black pit a matter of three hours a'ready."

  "No more than that?" groaned Jack. "It seems at least a week. We mustdivert ourselves in some wise. What say if I learn you a bit o' Latin?And you can say over such sea songs as come to mind, for me to tuck inmy memory."

  "Well said, my worthy scholar. 'Tis high time we bowled ahead with myeddication as a proper gentleman."

  Jack began to conjugate _amo_, _amas_, _amat_, and the pupil droned itafter him but the verb _to love_ recalled a black-eyed lass who hadstolen his heart in the Azores and he veered from the Latin lesson toconfide that sentimental passage. So Jack hammered nouns of the firstdeclension into him until they grew tired of that, and then the sea waifplayed his part by reciting such fo'castle ballads as "_Neptune's RagingFury_; _or The Gallant Seaman's Sufferings_," and "_Sir Walter RaleighSailing in the Lowlands_."

  This was better than the slow agony of waiting in silence, but Joespoiled it by turning lovelorn and Jack bemourned fair Dorothy Stuart ofCharles Town whom he would never greet again, and they sang very softlytogether a verse of "_The Maid's Lamentation_" which went like this:

  "There shall be no Scarf go on my Head, No Comb into my Hair, No Fire burn, no Candle light To shew my Beauty fair, For never will I married be Until the Day I die, Since the Seas and the Winds Has parted my Love and me."

  This left them really in worse spirits than before, and they drowsed offto sleep, and no wonder, after such a night as they had passed.Accustomed to broken watches, Joe Hawkridge slept uneasily with one earopen. Once or twice he sat up, heard Jack's steady snores, and lay downagain. It was the ship's bell which finally brought him to, and hecounted the strokes.

  "Five bells, but what watch is it?" he muttered anxiously. "How long wasI napping? Lost track o' the time, so I have, and can't say if it'snight or day."

  He sat blinking into the darkness and then had an inspiration. Sostaunch and well-kept was the brig that the deck seams were tight and nolight filtered through. Joe left his hiding-place and groped along towhere he thought the main hatch ought to be. Gazing upward he saw agleam like a silvered line between the coaming and the edge of thecanvas cover which was battened with iron bars. This persuaded him thatthe day had not yet faded, and he concluded that he had heard the bellstrike either in the afternoon watch or the second dog watch of earlyevening.

  This he imparted to Jack, after prodding him awake. They mulled it overand agreed that Captain Bonnet must have found the _Revenge_ unready toweigh anchor or he would have engaged the brig ere this. Perhaps therewas not breeze enough for either vessel to move. Another hour of thisstressful tedium and they heard a sound of sharp significance. It wasthe lap-lap of water against the vessel's side. No more than thethickness of the planking was between them and this tinkling sea, andJoe exclaimed, in an agitated whisper:

  "A breeze o' wind! Gentle it draws, but steady, like it comes off theland at sundown."

  "The same as it did when we were blown offshore on the little raft,after we quitted the _Plymouth Adventure_," replied Jack.

  "Blackbeard will take advantage of it to make for the open sea. There bethree things offered us, Master Cockrell, to starve or go mad in thisblighted hold, to sally on deck and beg mercy, which means a shortshift, or to climb out softly in the night and try to swim for it."

  "Swim to what, Joe?"

  "Swim to the bottom, most likely. But we might fetch one o' them cays orthe coast itself if he steers close in to find smooth water. 'Tis theworst odds yet but I'd sooner drown than tarry in this vessel. Onemiracle was wrought when the cask came driftin' to the beach to save me,and who knows but the Lord can spare another one for the salvation of uspoor lads that mean to do right and forsake piratin'."

  As they expected, there came soon the familiar racket of making sail andtrimming yards and the clank of the capstan pawls. Then the anchorflukes scraped and banged against the bow timbers. The vessel heeled alittle and the lapping water changed its tune to a swash-swash as thehull pushed it aside. The brig was alive and in motion.

  "She makes no more than two or three knots," observed Joe, after alittle while. "Ye can tell by the feel of her. The wind is steady butsmall."

  "Then he can't go clear of the islands till long after night,"thankfully returned Jack.

  Joe made another trip to crane his neck at the main hatch. The brightthread of daylight had dimmed. He could scarce discern it. The ladsoccupied themselves with reckoning the distance, the hour, and thevessel's speed. Now that Joe had satisfied himself that the end of theday was near, he knew what the ship's bell meant when it was struckevery half-hour. They would await the passing of another hour, until twobells of the first watch, by which time they calculated the brig shouldbe in the wide, outer channel between the seaward islands.

  The plan was to emerge through the forepeak in the very bows of the shipwhere a scuttle was let into the deck. There they might hope to lowerthemselves to the chain stays under the bowsprit and so drop into thesea. They would be washed past the ship, close to her side, and into thewake, and there was little chance of drawing attention. True it was thatin this hard choice they preferred to swim to the bottom if so it had tobe.

  They crouched where they were hid, waiting to hear the fateful signal oftwo bells. It struck, mellow, clear, and they were about to creep in thedirection of the forepeak. But Joe Hawkridge gripped his comrade's armand held him fast. A whispered warning and they ceased to move. Behindthem, in the after part of the ship, gleamed a lantern. It illumined theopen door of the bulkhead which walled off the storeroom. And in thisdoorway, like a life-sized portrait, grotesque and sinister, set in aframe, was the figure of Blackbeard.

  He advanced into the hold and the cowering stowaways assumed that he hadcome to search them out. The impulse was to dash into the forepeak andso plunge overboard, flinging away all caution, but before theirpalsied muscles could respond, the behavior of Blackbeard held themirresolute and curious. He had turned his back to them and was shoutingboisterously to others to follow him. Seven men came through thedoorway, one after the other, hanging back with evident reluctance. Itwas impossible to discern who they were, whether officers or seamen.Every one carried in his arms what looked to be a tub or an iron pot.These they set upon the dunnage boards which covered the ballast andmade a flooring in the hold.
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  Blackbeard bellowed at them to squat in a circle, which they meekly did.He was in one of his fiendishly mirthful humors, rumpling his beard,strutting to and fro, laughing in senseless outbursts. At such times hismen were most fearful for their lives. What sort of an infernal pastimehe had now concocted was beyond the imagination of the lads who wereconcealed a dozen yards away. He was not hunting them, this much wasplain, and it seemed wise to be quiet and avoid drawing attention tothemselves.

  They saw Blackbeard ignite a torch at the lantern and poke it into onepot after another. Flames began to burn, blue and green and yellow, andlurid smoke rolled to the deck-beams overhead. Amid this glare and reekof combustibles, Blackbeard waved his torch and tremendously proclaimed:

  "Come, lads, we be all devils together, with a hell of ourown,--brimstone fires and pitch. Now, braggarts, see how long ye canbear it. 'Tis a foretaste of what's in store for all hands. At this gameI'll outlast ye, for, harkee, I sold my soul to the Old Scratch as iswell known."

  HE LOOMED LIKE THE BELIAL WHOM HE WAS SO FOND OF CLAIMINGAS HIS MENTOR]

  He stirred his infernal pots and the greasy smoke rolled upward inchoking volume. The brimstone fumes were so vile and noxious that thevictims of this outlandish revel soon gasped and wheezed. But they darednot object nor move from their places among the villainous pots.Blackbeard enjoyed their sufferings, taunting them as milksops andpoltroons who could not endure even this taste of Gehenna. He himselfappeared to be unaffected by it, lurching from one man to another,whacking them with the burning torch or playfully upsetting them. In thegaseous pall of smoke he loomed like the Belial whom he was so fond ofclaiming as his mentor.

  Finally one of his involuntary guests toppled over in a faint.Blackbeard was kind enough to haul him to the door and boot him throughit. A second man dragged himself thither. A third found voice tosupplicate. The witch-fires still smoked and stewed in the pots andBlackbeard had proved that he was the toughest demon of them all.

  The two stowaways watched this demented exploit in sheer wonderment. Thefumes were not dense in their part of the hold and they could breathe,but they well-nigh strangled in trying to refrain from coughing. Thefires of tar and brimstone and what not cast so much light that theydared not betray themselves by crawling toward the forepeak. The uprightbeams between the keelson and the deck threw black shadows over them andthey were in no great peril of detection so long as they stayedmotionless.

  Joe Hawkridge had heard gossip of this extraordinary amusement as a kindof initiation for hands newly joining Blackbeard's ship. He thereforeread it that these unfortunates were some of Stede Bonnet's men who hadbeen captured with the brig. They had been allowed to enlist and werebeing taught to respect their new master.

  Jack Cockrell had hugely admired young Joe for his ready wit andcoolness in other crises of their mutual fortunes but now came a momentin which the astute sea urchin surpassed himself. It was not too much tosay that he displayed absolute genius with the sturdy Master Cockrell toaid and abet him. Joe clawed in the dark until he found the sack with afew pounds of wheat flour in it. A quick whisper and his comrade graspedthe great idea. They took no thought of a sequel. They would trust toopportunity. Hastily they rubbed the flour into their shirts andbreeches. They covered their faces with it and lavishly sprinkled theirhair. They looked at each other in the shadow of the beams and werepleased with their handiwork.

  Another whispered consultation and Joe possessed himself of thecannon-ball of a cheese while Jack grasped the side of salt-fish by thetail. They resembled two whitened clowns of a pantomime but in spiritthey were as grimly serious as the menace of death could make them.

  Blackbeard was dancing clumsily, like a drunken bear, and deriding withlewd oaths the two or three tortured survivors of his brimstonecarnival. In a high, wailing voice which rose to a shriek there wasborne to him the words:

  "Ye dirked poor Jesse Strawn and left him rotting in the swamp. I was atrue and faithful seaman, Cap'n Teach."

  A deeper voice boomed out, filling the hold with unearthly echoes:

  "I am the shade of the master mariner whom ye did foully murder offMatanzas and there is no rest for me ten fathom down."

  The apparitions flitted out of the shadow and were vaguely disclosed inthe flickering glare from the brimstone pots. The smoke gave them awavering aspect as though their shapes were unsubstantial. Blackbeardstood beholding them in a trance of horror. With an aimless finger hetraced the sign of the cross and his pallid lips moved in the murmur:

  "_The ghost o' Jesse Strawn! For the love of God, forbear._"

  It was a petition as pious as ever Christian uttered. Forgotten was hiswicked counterfeit of the nether region. Again the shrill voice wailed:

  "Pity poor Jesse Strawn. I'll haunt ye by land and sea, Cap'n Teach.Swear by the Book to let that treasure chest lie at the bottom of thecreek else I tear your sinful soul from your body."

  The terrible Blackbeard was incapable of motion. Huskily he muttered:

  "I'll ne'er seek the chest, good Jesse Strawn, an' it please you to passme by."

  The two spectres moved forward as the one of the deeper voice declaimed:

  "Doomed I was to find no rest till I overtook your ship, Ed'ard Teach.Each night you'll see me walk the plank from your quarter-deck."

  The unhappy Blackbeard gibbered something and would have fled as thespirits approached him. But those bandy legs tottered and before hecould turn the awful visitants were upon him. One raised a round shotabove his head, or so it appeared to be, and smote him full upon thecrown. The other whirled a flat bludgeon and hit him on the jaw. Withthe smell of brimstone was mingled the pungent flavor of ripe cheese andsalt-fish. Blackbeard measured his length, and the ghost of Jesse Strawndelayed an instant to dump a pot of sizzling combustibles over him.

  Then the spirits twain made for the cabin at top speed. Several of thecrew had rushed down to harken to the strange disturbance. Theyscattered wildly at the first glimpse of these phantoms, beingsuperstitious sailormen with many a wicked deed to answer for. Itflashed into Joe Hawkridge's mind that all the men of the watch might bechased below, the hatches clapped on them, and the mastery of the brigsecured. Blackbeard was absent for reasons best known to himself and hispirates lacked leadership. A brace of ghosts could put them to panicrout. And, no doubt, that wailing message of dead Jesse Strawn hadcarried like the cry of a banshee.

  The poop was deserted in the twinkling of an eye, even to the pair ofhelmsmen and the officer of the watch. Against the sky of night theunwelcome phantoms were wan and luminous while the groans which issuedfrom them were enough to curdle the blood of the brawniest pirate. Hewho had been Jack Cockrell in mortal guise was quick to slide the cabinhatch closed and fasten it. For the moment they had captured the armedbrig _Royal James_ and as ferocious a crew of rascals as ever scuttled amerchantman.

  Joe Hawkridge glided to the taffrail and peered over the stern. A boatwas towing behind the ship. It had been left there for taking soundingsor pulling the brig's head around while she was still in the shoalerwaters near the coast. This was better than Joe had dared anticipate.Feeling his way along the rail, he found the end of the rope which wasbelayed around a wooden pin. Heaven be praised, they would not have toswim for it! He beckoned his comrade to say in his ear:

  "They will soon find their wits. It 'ud be foolish to try scaring 'emunder hatches now that the jolly-boat floats so handy. There's hardcases amongst 'em that will begin shooting at us presently. Down therope ye go, Jack. I'll stand by and give 'em another dose of poor JesseStrawn."

  Over the rail flew the stouter phantom of the two and slid like a whitestreak, fetching up in the boat with a most earthly and substantialthump. With a farewell wail the other ghost flung a limber leg over andshot down so fast that his hands were scorched. To such pirates asbeheld this instant vanishment, these disturbing spirits floated offinto space. Jack cut the rope with his knife and the boat dropped backin the shining wake. They shoved out two heavy oars and fairly
broketheir hearts in pulling dead into the wind where the brig would have totack to pursue them.

  The rattle of the oars and the discovery of the shorn rope's end musthave convinced the pirates who ran aft that they had been tricked bymortal beings like themselves. A musket spat a red streak of fire.Blocks whined as the braces were hauled to change the brig's course. Inthe light breeze she responded awkwardly and soon hung in stays.Meanwhile the jolly-boat was slowly working to windward while twofrightened lads tugged and swung until the flour turned to paste ontheir dripping faces.

  Before the brig began to forge ahead, the boat was invisible from herdecks. This was evident because the spatter of musket-fire ceased. Soonthe fugitives heard Blackbeard's harsh voice damning all hands. Thatthick skull of his had not been cracked by the impact of the solidcheese and he had been released from his brimstone inferno. The ghostsrested on their oars. They could watch the glimmering canvas of the brigand see what her procedure might be. Soon she filled away and forsookthe attempt to find the boat. Blackbeard had wisdom enough to avoidblundering about and putting the brig aground in a chase so elusive asthis.

  "Farewell, ye hairy son of Tophet," said Joe Hawkridge, waving his handat the disappearing vessel. "And here's hoping I set your whiskersablaze when I turned the pot over 'em."

  "Did you hear him swear not to touch the treasure chest, Joe? That was amaster stroke of yours."

  "Aye, it was bright of me. But he thinks different now. He knows we madea booby of him."

  "But we learned one thing,--he hasn't recovered the treasure yet,"suggested Jack.

  "He is such a powerful liar that I don't know as the ghost o' JesseStrawn could budge the truth out of him. However, it was comfortin' tohear him swear it on his marrow-bones. I fetched away the navigationchart, the one I poached from the cabin table. It gives us the lay o'the coast."

  "What ho and whither bound?" was Jack's question. "Here is a sail woundround a sprit beneath the thwarts."

  "The wrong wind to head for Cap'n Bonnet and the _Revenge_. Thisswag-bellied jolly-boat handles like a firkin. We had best wait for dayand then decide the voyage."

  "Nothing to eat and no water, Joe. All I can find is an empty pannikin."

  "You're a glutton," severely exclaimed young Hawkridge. "After thebanquet I served in the hold!"

  What Master Cockrell said in reply sounds as familiar and as wistfulto-day as when he spoke it two hundred years ago.

  "I have had enough of wandering and strange adventures, Joe. I want togo home."