Chapter X: Hostages

The watch aboard the _Royal James_ challenged us as we made fast by the larboard side-ladder, and when we climbed over the bulwarks to the deck Master Martin flashed a lanthorn in our faces with a gust of oaths in his absurdly gentle tones.

“By the ---- ---- ---- ----, but I hoped ’twas that ---- ---- Flint come a-seekin’ mischief,” he complained.

“Where is Captain Murray?” I answered.

“In his cabin.”

And in the same mild manner he continued to his men:

“To your stations. Remember cap’n’s orders. Now these two are aboard, ye’ll fire at any boat that approaches and challenge afterward.”

The negro lackeys stood aside as we came to the cabin entrance under the poop; the door was open. Down the dark tunnel of the companionway with its stateroom doors on either hand Peter and I could see my great-uncle sitting at the table in the main cabin, a glass of wine at his elbow, a chart spread out before him. He raised his head as we entered.

“You were cheated of your sport, I conclude,” he greeted us. “The watch informed me a half-hour since they had heard no shots ashore.”

I recounted briefly our conversation with Flint and the determination Peter and I had reached in consequence. He nodded agreement with it.

“You did quite right, Robert. Peter did not exaggerate the dangers inherent in the situation.”

“You appear not to feel any too safe yourself,” I answered sarcastically, “with sentinels posted on your decks ordered to shoot into any approaching boat.”

“I do not,” he assented with perfect equanimity. “’Tis true I should be surprized did our confrères of the _Walrus_ undertake to assault us, but I have had too much experience with desperate men, especially when they are under the influence of liquor, to discount the possibility of their adopting any atrocious idea which might enter their heads.”

“Do you mean that you live in perpetual fear of treachery from Flint’s crew?”

He considered the question, sipping at his wine.

“Perpetual is too strong a word for the occasion,” he decided at length. “Let us say rather that the experience to which I have previously referred has taught me that under certain circumstances--such as the license practised after the tedium of a long voyage--a band of men who recognize no authority save the strong arm may be induced to excesses they would not otherwise attempt.”

“Then we don’t shoodt no goats?” asked Peter sorrowfully.

“On the contrary, friend Peter. We most certainly shall. ’Tis not only a question of securing you the opportunity of sport which I promised you, but of varying the diet of my crew, with an eye to maintaining all hands in good health at a time when we can not afford incapacity. Tomorrow morning I shall be occupied in organizing the work of careening the ship, so that her bottom may be cleaned; but in the afternoon we will take a party of beaters to aid us and arrange a battue in the Continental fashion. By that time, I anticipate, Captain Flint will have returned to his senses--recovered from his debauch, in other words. If he has not----”

He shrugged, and I gathered that the contingency would not be a happy one for Flint.

“You will excuse me,” he went on, “if I return to my studies. I have much upon my mind.”

We bade him good night and went to our staterooms, weary enough from the unwonted exercise of rowing. As I shut my door I noted that he was measuring distances in the Caribbean with calipers and jotting figures upon the margin of the chart.

In the morning, as he had said, all hands were occupied with the task of careening the ship. In the first place she was to be hauled over to starboard to expose her larboard bottom, and all her guns and movable stores and heavy equipment were shifted to starboard to give her a list on that side. Then her yards were cockbilled to keep them clear of the water, and heavy cables were run from her masts to the shore, looped around trees and carried back aboard, and the crew by main force, a few inches or a foot at a time, canted her over. The tide, as it dropped, aided them by bedding the keel in the estuary’s soft mud floor, and gradually the _James_ came to assume a most lopsided appearance.

’Twas when the work had gone so far and was proceeding satisfactorily that my great-uncle bade Martin tell off a dozen hands who were good shots and call away the longboat.

“I marvel that you dare to leave the _James_ in this defenseless condition,” I said to him as the longboat pulled off up the anchorage past the silent bulk of the _Walrus_. “If there was danger last night----”

“--there need not necessarily be danger this afternoon,” he interrupted. “’Tis all quiet ashore, and I doubt if there is a man sufficiently sober aboard the _Walrus_ to carry a carton of powder from the magazine.”

“But by evening they’ll ha’ slept it off,” I insisted.

“True, and with it their lust for bloodshed--for the time being, at any rate. Our problem then will be to turn Flint’s mind to some undertaking which will divert his attention and occupy him until we need no longer be concerned for his whimsies.”

We landed south of the first river, below where Flint’s party had held their carouse, and proceeded inland through a wooded valley, with hills rising to right and left of us and the Spyglass towering in the distance. The day was very clear, and the mountain’s summit was a gray cone against the blue of the sky. A soft wind whispered in the trees; the beat of the surf came to us faintly; the severity of the sun was tempered by the shade; and the pine-mast was springy to our feet. Even our sullen, hangdog escort of seamen became almost cheery under the influence of their changed surroundings, and with the sight of their first goat they began to whoop and shout like schoolboys. Murray, despite his age, was as spry as the youngest of us, and he never wasted a shot.

At his suggestion we turned north along the lower flanks of the Spyglass, circled the intervening hills--foot-hills they might be called--crossed the headwaters of the first river, traversed another patch of forest and forded the second river at a point where it ran shallow and clear between two of the marshy stretches which were its distinguishing characteristic. This route brought us over to the eastern side of the island some distance north of the hillock Peter and I had visited the preceding evening, and when I remarked this fact my great-uncle expressed interest and requested that we should visit the place. We had by now shot sufficient goats to load down all our bearers, whilst Peter carried half a dozen brace of various birds, to the eatable qualities of which Murray bore testimony.

We had maintained a brisk pace on our wanderings, and we reached the site of the spring well before sunset. My great-uncle surveyed the situation with a calculating eye, estimated the stand of timber on the hill’s sides, and exclaimed that there was no neighboring eminence whence an enemy could command it.

“’Tis all you have asserted it to be,” he said. “Moreover, it gives me an idea of a way in which we may occupy the energies of Captain Flint and his lambs for the ensuing weeks of our stay.”

I asked him what he intended, but he would not answer me, striding off with his head sunk on his chest after his manner when plunged in thought. The seamen, who had awaited us at the foot of the hill, fell in behind us, and we retraced our steps across the swampy river and the intervening belt of forest to the first and larger stream. This, too, we recrossed, but instead of continuing on as we had come Murray turned down the course of the stream in a south-easterly direction. A thread of smoke trickled up beside the mouth of the rivulet in the woods along the estuary, and I indicated it to him.

“There is Flint,” I said.

“Yes,” he replied absently, and kept on.

The shadows were lengthening as we stepped out of the forest into a glade on the river’s bank. Several additional fires had been kindled, and around each were huddled groups of pirates much the worse for the last night’s drinking-bout. John Silver was the only man who appeared to have any animation left in him; he hopped on his crutch from one fire to another, supervising the roasting of the haunches of goat, which were spitted in front of the flames with pieces of hardtack placed beneath to catch the dripping juices. ’Twas he first saw us, and evidently spoke to Flint, who sat with Bones and several other cronies at the smallest of the fires. He swung toward us as Flint rose unsteadily and tacked in his wake.

“Come a-visitin’, captain?” Silver inquired cheerfully. “Mighty kind o’ ye, sir, seein’ as how most o’ our lads is a bit the worse for liquor and blood-lettin’. My duty to ye, Master Ormerod. I hopes I sees you and your friend well?”

“Blood-letting?” repeated Murray, ignoring the balance of his remarks. “The old story, eh? Well, well! You’ll never learn. How many for the sailmaker’s palm and needle?”

“Three, captain. And main lucky we are as----”

Flint lurched up beside him.

“Stow that, John,” growled his captain. “I’ll do the talkin’. What’s your trouble, Murray?”

My great-uncle took a pinch of snuff with his inimitable knack of expressing acute disgust without moving a muscle of his face.

“I have been a-hunting,” he replied. “Shooting for the pot. We stopped on the way to our boat to pass the time o’ day with you, Flint.”

Flint snorted

“Time o’ day! ----! ’Tain’t like you to take the trouble.”

“I am a person of most uncertain proclivities,” replied my great-uncle. “I hear from Silver that last night’s episode was accompanied by the usual fatalities.”

“Three,” assented Flint. “Two o’ ’em could be spared--lousy dogs. The other was Toby Welsh, as stout a fellow as we had.”

“Not bad for one night’s work,” commented Murray.

Flint was obviously in no very belligerent mood; he could scarce stand. But he flamed up at this.

“Aye, and what d’ye expect? How many months did ye tell me I must bide here wi’ a crew that knows naught but how to brew the Devil’s broth? And how many men d’ye think will be alive by the end of the time? Gut me, but ’twill be like the song we sing o’ the Dead Man’s Chest!”

“I fear it will,” agreed my great-uncle. “Unless you take measures to prevent it.”

“Measures?”

Flint cursed with the fluency of the man who enjoys his work.

“There’s a deal to be done in keeping twelvescore men from fighting on this chunk o’ earth and rock!”

“There’s your ship to be cleaned,” said my great-uncle tentatively.

“I’d ha’ mutiny on my hands did I call for it! They’re all for a run ashore, and there’ll be no working them aboard-ship until they ha’ had their fill o’ woods and mountains.”

“Ah!” said my great-uncle. “Doubtless that is so. Well, if they must remain ashore a time, is it not in their own interest to erect themselves some shelter from the elements?”

Flint stared at him curiously.

“Ye’ve an idea in the back o’ your head, Murray. Out with it!”

“We have often said that some day we should build ourselves a fort on the island,” answered my great-uncle.

“We ha’.”

“I came upon the ideal spot this afternoon--a sand hillock overgrown with fine pines and oaks eastward of the swamps. It hath the airs from the ocean, a good prospect of the anchorage and the nearer waters, and there is a spring at the very top.”

“And I’m to do the work!” snarled Flint.

“Your men are to do the work,” corrected Murray. “I should gladly assist them in it but for the fact that my own crew will be occupied aboardship during the duration of our stay. We of the _Royal James_, I may point out, are laboring in the common interest no less than your people will be if they undertake the construction of the fort.”

“Blast me for a ---- ---- fool if I care two ---- ---- ---- for the common interest!” cried Flint. “But ’tis true there is need of the fort, and if the men will bide ashore they should ha’ a roof to their heads and a better place to camp than down here in the river vapors. I’ll see what’s to be done, Murray. Not tonight--there’s no man of us, except Long John, curse him! can put two thoughts together. But in the morning ’twill be different. We’ll fetch off a boatload o’ axes and shovels, and I’ll turn ’em to. I think it can be done. ---- me, it must be done! I can’t lose three men a day for the next six months!”

“You’ll not regret it,” replied my great-uncle. “I shall be glad to lend you aught I possess in the way of tools or advice.”

“---- your advice!” snapped Flint. “The tools I’ll take. Is that my hostage wi’ you?”

“’Tis my grandnephew, yes.”

“Ye may as well leave him then. We can use him on the fort. He’s not too proud to hand and haul, is he?”

Murray stepped so close to him that notwithstanding the dimness of the twilight their faces were clearly discernible to each other.

“When the time comes for it my grandnephew will be placed in your hands, Flint,” he said quietly. “And I shall hold you strictly accountable for his treatment.”

His manner chilled.

“D’ye hear, man? Strictly accountable, I said. The feckless knave that lays a finger to him, who has my own blood in his veins, shall be flayed alive and bound to the bowsprit of the _James_.”

“Oh, aye,” mumbled Flint, and faded into the shadows.

Long John Silver, who had tarried within earshot throughout their dialogue, stumped forward again.

“It grows sudden dark in these ’ere latitoods, captain!” he said. “Will ye ha’ one o’ our boats to take ye off?”

“I thank you,” replied my great-uncle. “We shall have no difficulty in finding our boat.”

He did not speak again until we were pulling across the star-flecked waters of the anchorage.

“I think,” he announced casually, “we need have no cause to worry over the defenseless condition of the _James_.”

“A dozen shot under water--” I started to say, when Peter spoke up.

“He gets them all ashore, Bob. _Ja_, dot’s it! All der time they work, andt so they don’t think about der _James_.”

“A singularly acute mind our Peter has,” commented my great-uncle.

His strategy was completely successful. The building of the hilltop fort appealed to some boyish strain submerged beneath the surface villainy of Flint’s scoundrels. They went to their task with positive enthusiasm, clearing the hillock of timber, sawing and squaring the logs and erecting a substantial house of the more massive logs and after that an open stockade or paling of sapling stakes six feet high. The house-walls were loop-holed for musketry, and Flint commenced to talk of a pair of bastions to hold six-pounders; but this was after the work had gone forward two months and his men were becoming weary of ax and saw.

Toward the end of our sojourn the _Walrus’_ crew were committed to a serious effort to exterminate the goats of the island, and since this occupation was to be preferred to the extermination of one another, which was their favorite sport when their energies were not otherwise diverted, nobody was inclined to stop them, my great-uncle least of all.

His personal object was already accomplished. The _Royal James_ was back upon an even keel, her bottom scraped clean, her hull fresh-painted inside and out, her rigging overhauled and canvas in order, spars tested and a weak top-mast replaced, guns varnished, stores checked and stowed, sufficient great-cartridge for three actions prepared by the gunner, ballast aboard and distributed with a careful eye for sailing trim.

“As sweet and proper as though she was just from the hands of the dockyard fitters at Portsmouth,” was Murray’s comment on an evening about the beginning of August.

The three of us sat at table in the main cabin, Peter still occupied with the fragments of a wild pigeon. Through the open stern windows drifted a tag-end of song from the _Walrus_, lying a cable’s length higher up the anchorage:

“The Frenchman took Moon’s knife in the throat--
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle o’ rum!
But all they found was a rusty groat--
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle o’ rum!”

“That is Flint’s voice,” continued my great-uncle. “I am glad he is aboardship. ’Twill save us the inconvenience of a journey ashore.”

And to the query of my raised eyebrows he replied:

“The tide ebbs on the break of dawn. I purpose sailing then.”

“And you must deliver the body of your hostage beforehand,” I answered as disagreeably as I could.

“Even so,” he acknowledged. “’Tis regrettable, Robert, yet the time will come, I venture to predict, when you will look back with pride upon the inconvenience you suffered.”

“I’ll accept the inconvenience if I may escape the rascals alive,” I retorted.

“Of that you need have no doubts,” he said earnestly. “I shall accompany you, and you may hear my parting instructions to Flint. Friend Peter, will you indulge me for the space of half an hour whilst I visit the _Walrus_ with my nephew?”

“_Neen_,” answered Peter, and pushed away from the table. “I go too.”

“No, no----”

“I go too.”

“But naught was said of two hostages----”

“If Bob goes, I go,” insisted the Dutchman. “_Ja_.”

Murray shook his head.

“For you I might not be responsible, Peter.”

“I be responsible for myself,” said Peter. “I go to der _Walrus_ or you go oudt der window.”

My great-uncle stared at him for a moment, then burst into laughter.

“By gad, you would! And after become captain in my place, no doubt. You are unmatchable, Peter. What do you say, nephew?”

“I’d not have Peter risk his throat with mine,” I answered uncomfortably, the words of Flint’s song still ringing in my memory.

“I go wit’ you, Bob,” repeated the Dutchman.

“You see!” cried Murray. “’Tis useless to object. Go with you he will. Well, you’ll have company at least--and I shall lack a companion whose presence is not the less valuable for his silence. A good friend is Peter, Robert. I would he were mine!”

Peter rose.

“We go,” he said. “_Ja_.”

On deck Murray had the longboat called away, and we embarked in silence. ’Twas a hot night, with very little air stirring, and the ribald uproar on the _Walrus_ was amazingly distinct. The _James_ was like a tomb by contrast. Not a sound came from her, and the only lights she showed were in the waist and the main cabin. The _Walrus_ was a blaze of lanthorns from poop to fo’csle, but Murray hailed the deck twice before he had an answer.

“Boat ahoy!” responded a husky voice then. “Why’n ---- don’t ye come aboard?”

“’Tis Captain Murray to see Captain Flint,” replied my great-uncle calmly.

“Aye, aye, sir,” answered the husky voice on a quaver of fear. “We’ll call him directly. Will ye come aboard, sir?”

My great-uncle turned to Peter with one foot on the side ladder.

“Are you certain you must go with Robert?” he asked. “I can assure you no harm shall come to him.”

“_Ja_, I go.”

My great-uncle’s reply was a shrug of indifference, and Peter and I climbed after him to the deck. The noise of revelry stopped dead as he appeared, but the visible evidence of it was plain to see on every hand. A cask of rum with the head knocked out stood by the foot of the mainmast. There was a pool of blood on the deck-planking by the fo’csle companionway, and a pallid-cheeked fellow was binding up his arm in a dirty headcloth and spitting oaths at another man who composedly wiped his knife clean on a frowsy coil of rope. Fore and aft men had been gaming, drinking, quarreling and singing--and all abruptly halted whatever they were doing to stare at us.

Murray returned their stares with an undisguised repugnance which I discovered myself to share. The _Walrus_ was a revelation after the ordered discipline of the _Royal James_. In a word, she was pig-dirty. Her deck was littered with all kinds of rubbish; her rigging was slack and spliced in a fashion which seemed lubberly to me, who was a lubber; her canvas was torn, poorly patched and wretchedly furled; boats, barrels, lumber, spare spars and cables lay about in entire confusion. The planks we trod on were slippery with grease. The paint was peeling from the bulwarks. There were spots of rust on the muzzle of a chase gun, which itself was hauled out of its proper position.

Flint came swaggering down to us from the poop in a condition which was in harmony with his surroundings. Like most of his men, he had discarded coat, shirt, stockings and shoes to accommodate himself to the heat of a tropical Summer. His loose canvas trousers, identical with those the seamen wore, were streaked with dirt and tar. His bare calves and forearms were covered with dried blood where they had been scratched by brambles in his shore expeditions; out of the matted hair on his chest was thrust the head of a tiger, most marvelously tattooed in black and yellow. His hair was a lank frame for his saturnine face, stubbly with a week’s growth of beard.

Sure, the contrast was as sharp betwixt him and my great-uncle, immaculate in figured black satin, hair sprucely dressed, as betwixt the two ships. He sensed it himself.

“What d’ye seek, Murray?” he growled. “Come to look us over?”

“I am come to fulfil my contract with you,” replied my great-uncle. “I am sailing with the morning ebb, and I bring you, not one hostage, but two.”

Flint stepped closer and scrutinized Peter and me.

“Two, eh? What do I want wi’ two? What good’s this fat man to me? He means nothing to you.”

“On the contrary,” denied my relative. “Master Corlaer is an old and valued enemy of mine, of whom I have hopes of making in time a friend.”

“Well, he’s no good to me; gut me if he is!”

“You will take both or none,” said my great-uncle in the voice like a dripping icicle which he knew so well how to assume.

“Nasty, are ye?” rasped Flint. “Blast ye for a ----”

A light in Murray’s tawny eyes kindled like a flame under the reflection of the battle-lanthorns which were hung from the lower spars.

“Two it is,” Flint ended hastily. “But ye’ll never see either one o’ ’em if ye don’t make good on your bargain. I ha’ supported much from ye, Murray, but ----”

“You’ll support more for sufficient gold,” rebuked my great-uncle. “Tut, man, I read you like a book. When we first encountered you were proud to be mate of a trading-brig. I have put you in the way to rank and fortune, if you know how to exploit your opportunities.”

“Rank and opportunities!” jeered Flint with an ugly laugh. “Aye, ye took me when I was an honest young man and made a pirate o’ me. And the only opportunity I’ll win through you will be to kick the air in Execution Dock.”

My great-uncle helped himself to snuff, tapping his box as Flint talked.

“Hark ye,” he broke in when the _Walrus’_ captain had got so far, “I am pressed for time. I have but two things to say to you. Guard well and cherish carefully these two persons I commit to you, and in two months I’ll hand over to you three hundred and fifty thousand pounds.”

“You said seven hundred thousand,” snapped Flint.

“I said seven hundred thousand to be divided betwixt the two ships.”

“Oh-ho! And ye’ll take captain’s share o’ the _James’_ half, eh? As well as your hundred thousand slice?”

“My terms are perfectly clear,” returned Murray. “Now for my second point. When I return it may be we shall have need of swift keels. I recommend you to get your ship in decent condition. As she stands, you could be carried by a Portuguese slaver.”

A shrewd look dawned in Flint’s face.

“And where are ye a-goin’ to pluck this million and a half o’ treasure from?” he demanded. “You ha’ said much of it, but you told me little. What course doth the treasure-ship sail? Where do you lurk for her? There’s wide seas betwixt the Main and the Atlantic, and ye can’t stop every hole, Murray.”

“You may safely entrust that portion of the task to me,” replied my great-uncle drily.

He offered me his hand, and somewhat to my own surprize I found myself inclined to accept it.

“Robert,” he said, “I regret exceedingly the necessity I am under of inflicting this unpleasantness upon you. I shall endeavor to provide you adequate reparation. You also, friend Peter. Remember, we are working for a greater cause than our personal enrichment.”

He vaulted lightly to the top of the bulwarks and dropped out of sight on the farther side. His shoes clicked on the ladder-cleats, and we heard the rattle of oars as his boat put off.

“Gut me, but there’s times I think he believes all he says,” swore Flint.