CHAPTER X
Jeremy's first waking sensation was the sound of a hoarse confused shoutand the rattle of oars being shipped. He struggled to his feet, staringinto the dark astern. Almost at the same instant there came a series ofbumps along the sloop's side, and as the boy rushed to the hatch to callhis ally, he heard feet pounding the deck. "Job!" he cried, "Job!" andthen a heavy hand smote him on the mouth and he lost consciousness for atime.
The period during which he stood awake and terrified had been so briefand so fraught with terror that it never seemed real to the lad inmemory. There was something of the awful hopelessness of nightmare aboutit. Always afterward he had difficulty in convincing himself that he hadnot slept steadily from the time he drowsed on watch to the minute whenhe opened his eyes to the light of morning and felt his aching headthrob against the hard deck.
As he lay staring at the sky, a footstep approached and some one stoodover him. He turned his eyes painfully to look and beheld the dark,bearded visage of George Dunkin, the bo's'n, who scowled angrily andkicked him in the ribs with a heavy toe. "Get up, ye young lubber!"roared the man and swore fiercely as the boy, unable to move, still layupon his back. A moment later the bo's'n went away. To Jeremy's numbconsciousness came the realization that the pirates had caught themagain.
The words of the Captain on his first day aboard came back to the ladand made him shudder. There had been stories current among the men thatgave a glimpse of how Stede Bonnet dealt with those who weretreacherous. Which of a dozen awful deaths was in store for him? Ah, ifonly they would spare the torture, he thought that he could die bravely,a worthy scion of dauntless stock. He thought of Job who must have beenseized in his bunk below. The poor fellow was to have short happiness inhis changed way of life, it seemed.
Jeremy tried to steel his nerves against the test he was sure mustfollow soon. Instead of going to pieces in terror, he succeeded inforcing himself to the attitude of a young stoic. He had done nothing ofwhich he was ashamed, and he felt that if he was called to face a justGod in the next twenty-four hours, he would be able to hold his head uplike a man.
Time passed, and he heard a heavy tramp coming along the deck. He washoisted roughly by hands under his arm-pits and placed upon his feet,though he was still too weak to stand without support. A dozen facessurrounded him, glaring angrily. Out of a sort of mist that partlyobscured his vision came the terrible leer of the man with the brokennose. The twisted mouth opened and the man spoke with a deliberateugliness. The very absence of oaths seemed to make his slow speech moredeadly.
"Ah, ye misbegotten young fool," he said, "so there ye stand, scaredlike the cowardly spawn ye are. We took ye, and kept ye, and fed ye.What's more, we was friends to ye, eh mates? An' how do ye treat yerfriends? Leave 'em to starve or drown on a sinkin' ship! Sneak off likea dog an' a son of a cowardly dog!" Jeremy went white with anger. "An'now"--Daggs' voice broke in a sudden snarl--"an' now, we'll show ye howwe treat such curs aboard a ten-gun buccaneer! Stand by, mates, tokeel-haul him!"
At this moment a second party of pirates poured swearing out of thefo'c's'le hatch, dragging Job Howland in their midst. He was stripped tohis shirt and under-breeches and had apparently received a few bruisesin the tussle below. Jeremy's spirits were momentarily revived by seeingthat some of the buccaneers had suffered like inconveniences, while theyoung ex-man-o'-war's-man was gingerly feeling of a shapeless blob thathad been his nose. Dave Herriot, his head tied up in a bandage, wassuperintending the preparations for punishment. "Let's have the boyfirst," he shouted.
Aboard a square-rigger, keel-hauling was practiced from the mainyardarm. The victim was dragged completely under the ship's bottom,scraping over the jagged barnacles, and drawn up on the other side, moreoften dead than living. As the sloop had only fore and aft sails, theyhad merely run a rope under the bottom, bringing both ends togetheramidships. They now dragged the boy forward, still in a half-faintingcondition and made fast his feet in a loop in one end of the rope, then,stretching his arms along the deck in the other direction, bound hiswrists in a similar way. He was practically made a part of the ring ofhemp that circled the ship's middle.
Without further ceremony other than a parting kick or two, the crew tooktheir places at the rope, ready to pull the lad to destruction. He sethis teeth and a wordless prayer went up from his heart.
The wrench of the rope at his ankles never came. As he lay with his eyesclosed, a high-pitched voice broke the quiet. "If a man starts to haulon that line, I'll shoot him dead!" Jeremy turned his head and looked.There stood Stede Bonnet, his face ashen gray and trembling, but with avenomous fire in his sunken eyes. He held a pistol in each hand and twomore were thrust into his waist-band. Not a man stirred in the crew.
"That boy," went on the clear voice, "had no hand in the business, andwell you know it. It is for me to give out punishments while I amCaptain of this sloop, and by God I shall be Captain during my life.Pharaoh Daggs, step forward and unloose the rope!" The man with thebroken nose fixed his light eyes on the Captain's for a full fiveseconds. Bonnet's pistol muzzle was as steady as a rock. Then thesailor's eyes shifted and he obeyed with a sullen reluctance. Jeremy,liberated, climbed to his knees and stood up swaying. Just then therewas a rush of feet behind. He turned in time to see Job Howland vanishhead foremost over the rail in a long clean dive. The astonished crewran cursing to the side and stared after him, but no faintest trace ofthe man appeared. At dawn a breeze had sprung up and now the littlewaves chopped along below the ports with a sound like a mocking chuckle.They had robbed the buccaneers of their cruel sport.
Mutiny might have broken out then and there, but Stede Bonnet, cool asever, stood amidships with his arms crossed and a calm-looking pistol ineach fist. "Herriot," he remarked evenly, "better set the men tocleaning decks and repairing damage. We'll start down the Jersey coastat once."
Jeremy got to his bunk as best he might and slept for the greater partof twenty-four hours. When he awoke, the crew had just finishedbreakfast and were sitting, every man by himself, counting out goldpieces. Bonnet had divided the booty found on the brig and in theirgreedy satisfaction the pirates were, for the time at least, utterlyoblivious to former discontent. When he got up and went to the galleyfor breakfast, Jeremy was ignored by his fellows or treated as ifnothing had occurred. Indeed, there had been little real ground forwishing to punish the boy aside from the ugly temper occasioned byhaving to row a night and a day in open boats. Only Pharaoh Daggs borereal malice toward Jeremy and his feelings were for the most partconcealed under a mask of contemptuous indifference.
As the day progressed the lad found that matters had resumed theiraccustomed course and that he was in no immediate danger. He missed hisbrave friend and co-partner as bitterly as if he had been a brother, butpartially consoled himself with the thought that Job's act in jumpingoverboard had probably spared him the awful torture of the keel or someworse death. The Captain would never have defended the runaway sailor ashe had done Jeremy, the boy was certain.
All day the sloop made her way south at a brisk rate, occasionallysighting low, white beaches to starboard. Sometime in the firstdog-watch her boom went over and she ran her slim nose in past Cape May,heading up the Delaware with the hurrying tide, while the brig'slong-boat, towing behind, swung into her wake astern.