The Black Buccaneer

  CHAPTER VI

  A rough hand shook him awake. He was lying in a dingy bunk somewhere inthe gloom of the cramped forecastle. "Come, young'un," growled a voice,strange to Jeremy, "you've slept the clock around! Cap'n wants you aft."

  The lad ached in all his bones as he rolled over toward the light. As hecame to a sitting position on the edge of the bunk, he gave a start, forthe face scowling down at him looked utterly fiendish to his sleepyeyes. Its ugliness fairly shocked him awake. The man had a grim, bristlyjaw and a twisted mouth. His eyes were small and cruel, so light incolor that they looked unspeakably cold. The livid gray line of asword-cut ran from his left eyebrow to his right cheek, and his nose wascrushed inward where the scar crossed its bridge, giving him more thelook of an animal than of a man. A greasy red cloth bound his head andproduced a final touch of barbarity. To the half-dazed Jeremy thereseemed something strangely familiar about his pose, but as he stillstared he was jerked to his feet by the collar. "Don't stand there, youlubber!" shouted the man with the broken nose. "Get aft, an' lively!" Ahard shove sent the boy spinning to the foot of the ladder. He climbeddizzily and stumbled on deck, looking about him, uncertain where to go.It must have been past noon, for the sun was on the starboard bow.

  The _Revenge_ was close-hauled and running southwest on a fresh westwind. Dave Herriot leaned against the weather rail, a short clay pipe inone fist and his bushy brown beard in the other. At the wheel was aswarthy man with earrings, who looked like a Portuguese or a Spaniard.Glancing over his shoulder, Jeremy saw most of the crew lolled aboutforward of the fo'c's'le hatch. Herriot looked up and called him grufflybut not unkindly, the boy thought. He advanced close to thesailing-master, staggering a little on the uneven footing.

  "Now look sharp, lad," said the pirate in a stern voice, "and mind whatI tell 'ee. There's nought to fear aboard this sloop for them as doeswhat they're told. We run square an' fair, an' while Major Stede Bonnetand David Herriot gives the orders, no man'll harm ye. _But_"--and ahard look came into the tanned face--"if there's any runnin' for shore'twixt now and come time to _set_ ye there, or if ever ye takes it inyer head to disobey orders, we'll keel-haul ye straight and think nomore about it. You're big and strong, an' may make a foremast hand. Forthe first on it, until ye get your sea legs, ye can be a sort o' cabinboy. Cap'n wants ye below now. Quick!"

  Jeremy scrambled down the companionway indicated by a gesture ofHerriot's pipe. There was a door on each side and one at the end of thesmall passage. He advanced and knocked at this last one, and was told,in the Captain's clear voice, to open.

  Major Bonnet sat at a good mahogany table in the middle of the cabin.Behind him were a bunk, two chairs and a rack of small arms, containinghalf a dozen guns, four brace of pistols, and several swords. He hadbeen reading a book, evidently one of the score or more which stood in acase on the right. Jeremy gasped, for he had never seen so many books inall his life. As the Captain looked up, a stern frown came over hisface, never a particularly merry one. The boy, ignorant as he was ofpirates, could not help feeling that this man's quietly gentleappearance fitted but ill with the blood-thirsty reputation he bore. Hisclothes were of good quality and cut, his grayish hair neatly tiedbehind with a black bow and worn unpowdered. His clean-shaven face waslong and austere--like a Boston preacher's, thought Jeremy--and althoughthe forehead above the intelligent eyes was high and broad, there was astrange lack of humor in its vertical wrinkles.

  "Well, my lad," said the cool voice at last, "you're aboard the_Revenge_ and a long way from your settlement, so you might as well makethe best of it. How long you _stay_ aboard depends on your behavior. Wemight put into the Chesapeake, and if there are no cutters about, I'dconsider setting you ashore. But if you like the sea and take to it,there's room for a hand in the fo'c's'le. Then again, if you try anytricks, you'll leave us--feet first, over the rail." He leaned forwardand hissed slightly as he pronounced the last words. Something in theeyes under his knotted gray brows struck deeper terror into the boy'sheart than either Herriot's threat or the cruel face of the man with thebroken nose. For that instant Bonnet seemed deadly as a snake.

  Stede Bonnet]

  Jeremy was much relieved when he was bidden to go. The sailing-masterstood by the companionway as he ascended. "You'll bunk for'ard," heremarked curtly. "Go up with the crew now." The boy slipped into thecrowd that lay around the windlass as unobstrusively as he could. Athick-set, bearded man with a great hairy chest, bare to the yellow sashat his waist, was speaking. "Ay," he said, "a hundred Indians was deadin the town before ever we landed. They didn't know where to run exceptinto the huts, an' those our round-shot plowed through like so muchgrass--which was what they was, mostly. Then old Johnny Buck piped thelongboat overside and on shore we went, firin' all the time. Cap'n Vanehimself, with a dirk in his teeth and sword an' pistol out, goesswearin' up the roadway an' we behind him, our feet stickin' in blood. Afew come out shootin' their little arrers at us, but we herded 'em an'drove 'em, yellin' all the time. At close quarters their knives was nomatch for cutlasses. So we went slashin' through the town, burnin' 'emout an' stickin' 'em when they ran. Our sword arms was red to shoulderthat day, but we was like men far gone in rum an' never stayed while anIndian held up head. Then we dropped and slept where we fell, across acorp', like as not, clean tuckered, every man of us. Come mornin', thesight and smell of the place made us sober enough and not a man in thecrew wanted to go further into the island. There was no gold in thetown, neither. All we got was a few hogs and sheep. We left the sameday, for it come on hot an' we had no way to clean up the mess. Thatisland must ha' been a nuisance to the whole Caribbean for weeks."

  Job Howland nodded and spat as the story ended. "Ye're right, GeorgeDunkin," he said. "That was a day's work. Vane's a hard man, I'm told,an' that crew in the _Chance_ was one of his worst." He was interruptedby a villainous old sea-dog with a sparse fringe of white beard, whosprawled by the hatchway. He cleared his throat hoarsely and spoke witha deep wheeze between sentences.

  "All that was nowt to our fight off Panama in the spring of 'eighty," hegrowled. "We weren't slaughterin' Indians, but Spaniards that couldfight, an' did. What's more, they were three good barks and nigh threehundred men to our sixty-eight men paddlin' in canoes. Ah, that was aday's work, if you will! I saw Peter Harris, as brave a commander asever flew the black whiff, shot through both legs, but he was a-swingin'his cutlass and tryin' to climb the Spaniard's side with the rest whenour canoe boarded. Through most of that battle we was standin' inbottoms leakin' full of bullet holes, a-firin' into the Biscayner'sgun-ports, an' cheerin' the bloody lungs out of us! When we got aboard,their hold was full of dead men an' their scuppers washin' red. Theyasked no quarter an' on we went, up an' down decks, give an' take. Atthe last, six men o' them surrendered. The rest--eighty from the oneship--we fed to the sharks before we could swab decks next day. Eh, butthat was a v'yage, an' it cost the seas more good buccaneers than everwas hanged. Harris an' Sawkins an' half o' their best men we left on theIsthmus. But out of one galleon we took fifty thousand pieces-of-eight,besides silver bars in cord piles. Think o' that, lads!"

  A fair, stocky, young deserter from a British man-of-war--his forearmbore the tattooed service anchor--broke in, his eyes gleaming greedilyat the thought of the treasure.

  "That was in New Panama," he cried. "Do you mind old Ben Gasket we tookoff Silver Key last summer! Eighty years old he was, and marooned therefor half his life. He was with Morgan at the great sack of Old Panamabefore most on us was born. An' Old Ben, he said there was nigh twohundred horse-loads o' gold an' pearls, rubies, emeralds and diamondstook out o' that there town, an' it a-burnin' still, after they'd beenthere a month. Talk o' wealth!"

  The man with the broken nose raised himself from his place by thecapstan and stretched his hairy arms with an evil, leering yawn. Everyeye turned to him and there was silence on the deck as he began tospeak.

  "Dollars--louis d'ors--doubloons?" said he. "There was one man got 'em.Solomon Brig got 'em.
All the rest was babes to him--babes an' beggars.Billy Kidd was thought a great devil in his day, but when he met Brig'ssix-gun sloop off Malabar, he turned tail, him an' his two greatgalleons, an' ran in under the forts. Even then we'd ha' had him out an'fought him, only that the old man had an Indian princess aboard he wastakin' in to Calicut for ransom. That was where Sol Brig got his broadgold--kidnappin'. Twenty times we worked it--a dash in an' a fight out,quick an' bloody--then to sea in the old red sloop, all her sails fairpullin' the sticks out of her, an' maybe a man-o'-war blazin' away atour quarter. Weeks after, we'd slip into some port bold as brass an'there, sure enough, Brig would set the prisoner ashore an' load maybe ahundred weight of little canvas bags or a stack of pig-silver half aman's height. The very name of him made him safe. I'd take oath he couldhave stole the Lord Mayor o' London and then put in for his ransom atExecution Dock.

  "We got good lays, us before the mast, but there never was a fairsharin' aboard that ship. One night I crawled aft an' looked in thestern-port. 'Twas just after we'd got our lays for kidnappin' theGovernor o' Santiago--a rich town as you know. In the cabin sat ol'Brig, a bare cutlass acrost his lap, countin' piles o' moidores thatfilled the whole table. When a rope creaked the old fox saw me an' letdrive with his hanger. Where I was I couldn't dodge quick, an' theblade took me here, acrost the face. Why he never knifed me, after, Idon't know."

  The scarred man stopped with the same abruptness that had marked hisbeginning. His fierce, light eyes, like those of a sea-hawk, sweptslowly around the audience and lit on Jeremy. He reached forward,clutched the boy's shirt, and with an ugly laugh jerked him to his feet."'Twas havin' boys aboard as killed Sol Brig," he rasped.

  Pharaoh Daggs]

  "They hear too much! Look at this young lubber"--giving him ashake--"pale as a mouldy biscuit! No use aboard here an' poverty-poor inthe bargain! Why Stede don't walk him over the side, I don't see. Here,get out, you swab!" and he emphasized the name with a stiff cuff on theear. Job Howland interposed his long Yankee body. His lean face bentwith a scowl to the level of the other's eyes. "Pharaoh Daggs," hedrawled evenly, "next time you touch that lad, there'll be steel betweenyour short ribs. Remember!"

  He turned to Jeremy who, poor boy, was utterly and forlornly seasick."Here, young 'un," he said kindly, "--the _lee_ rail!"