Chapter XXIII: Cap’n Bill Bones

_Clump-clump-clump_ went the heavy sea-boots up and down the echoing length of the companionway, and the mutter of voices beat an accompaniment to them.

“Aye, there he lies.”

“---- me, was there ever such a mug?”

“Ah, but ye’d oughter ha’ seed him afore Long John put the pennies to his eyes!”

“’Tain’t right to put pennies to John Flint’s eyes, him as handled onzas like other fellers does fardin’s.”

“Are ye daft, mate? Ye’d never put gold in a dead man’s shroud!”

“Mebbe not! Mebbe not! Not to be sewed up, no.”

“Ah, what’s it matter? He’s dead. The river’ll have him----”

The clumping became a measured tramp as four tall seamen carried out the canvas cylinder that had been John Flint. A babble of grief from Darby broke the silence. We could hear him even where we three were huddled in Moira’s stateroom, biding what the future held for us.

“Glory be to God, and him gone overside in all his sin! Och, St. Bridget and St. Patrick and Blessed Veronica and Holy Mark, do ye intercede for him! Let ye cry upon the Virgin to be speakin’ for him in the heavenly courts. Oh, wirra, wirra, wirra, evil he was, and good in his way, and there’s none by to give him the chance of purgatory!”

A roar from Bones.

“Stow that guff! Here, a pair o’ ye strangle the mick if he’ll not hush.”

Darby whimpered and was still.

“Down-stream,” continued Bones. “Here, to la’b’d. Ease him up. Where’s that shot? Is it fast? Let him go, mates!”

A splash.

“And now who’ll say as Bill Bones is not cap’n o’ the _Walrus_?” demanded Bones, gruffly menacing.

Peter touched my arm, pushing open Moira’s door very gently.

“Ye’ll not be leaving me?” she breathed.

“_Neen_,” he denied. “But we better hear what they do.”

Bones was talking again as we stole into the deserted companionway. He sat on the barrel which Flint had been used to occupy. A battle lanthorn hung over his head, and the pale yellow light showed him to be nigh as drunk as his dead commander.

“--and to ---- wi’ luck! He was a good pal, Flint was; but he thought too much o’ luck. I’m a seaman, I am. Give me sun and stars, and I’ll steer ye a course. Give me sight o’ tops’ls, and I’ll fetch ye ’longside o’ a prize. I’m no man for fuss, I’m not. Ye can ha’ all the rum ye want, so be ye sail the ship and fight her.

“Now, what ha’ ye to say? Speak up, any o’ you swabs as is for trouble!”

Long John Silver spoke from the shadows, his words flowing smoothly with an insinuating, oily inflection.

“We better make it all reg’lar, Bill. You’re mate, and you say as how Flint give you the treasure-map and says you was to be cap’n a’ter him; but reg’lar’s reg’lar, and it don’t do no harm to----”

Bones pulled a stiff, crackling sheet of map-paper from his breast, and waved it in the air.

“Here’s the map,” he declared. “Long John there was a’ter it, but Flint give it to me, as he says.”

“Sure I says it, Bill,” proceeded Silver, undisturbed. “But what I says, too, is as we’d oughter have a ’lection as the Articles provide.”

A murmur of assent greeted this declaration. Bones scowled.

“’Tain’t necessary,” he returned. “I’m mate, and I’m the only real navigator ye got. But go ahead and ’lect whoever ye please--only remember I got the treasure-map.”

“Yes, you got the treasure-map, Bill,” agreed Silver, and his voice somehow became more hateful than ever. “But we don’t allow as it’s yours, ye know. You’re what the lawyer sharks calls a trustee. You keeps it for the rest o’ us, and we--” he chuckled venomously--“why, we keeps our eyes on you, Bill.”

Bones swore.

“Get on wi’ the ’lection,” he adjured the crew. “Who’s to be cap’n? Speak up and name some one!”

A dozen sycophants shouted “Bones,” with a vim which inspired him with sweating vanity, and several called out: “Silver!” and “Long John!”

“Anybody else?” challenged Bones.

Nobody answered.

“Well, Long John,” he leered, “it seems like ’twas you ’n’ me. The Articles says them what votes for one feller goes to one side, and them what votes for t’other goes opposite. So, seein’ as you’re on the la’b’d side, I’ll say them as votes for you goes la’b’d and them as votes for me goes sta’b’d.”

“Suits me,” grunted Silver.

There was a subdued rustling and patter of feet as the men divided, and the lanthornlight revealed two unequal groups on either side of the mizzen, with Bones sitting on his barrel between them. Probably three-fifths of the crew had voted for him.

“Well, Long John,” he said without trying to repress the triumph in his tones, “d’ye want to tell over the vote?”

“No,” replied Silver briefly. “You win.”

Bones rubbed his hands gleefully.

“Ah, I win, do I?”

“I said yes.”

The opposing factions regarded each other like packs of wolves preparing to dispute the carcass of a fresh-killed moose. I suspected for an instant that they would fight, but I misjudged Silver’s self-control. Galled he might be, but he did not permit the sting to his pride to influence his policy.

“You win, Bill,” he repeated, “and I’m the first to wish ye joy o’ it. And seein’ as you’re dooly elected, s’pose you tell us what your plans are for the ship?”

“Plans?” answered Bones warily. “What plans might ye mean?”

“Are ye for liftin’ the treasure on the two islands or beatin’ up for more?”

Bones reflected. He was not nearly so clever as Silver, and I imagine he knew it. He feared a trap, but study as he might he could not detect any pitfall behind the innocent question.

“I’ll be guided by the crew,” he announced triumphantly. “You’re gentlemen adventurers, all o’ ye. Name your wishes!”

This time the crew looked instinctively to Silver for a lead.

“We got plenty o’ treasure in them island caches,” he replied tentatively. “Speakin’ for myself, I’m for collectin’ what we got, takin’ three or four ships and dividin’ up for different countries, accordin’ to what men seek. There’s enough waitin’ for our spades to make us all comf’table for life, and them lads as wants to go on the Account again can easy do it. Turn over the _Walrus_ to ’em if they fancy it. I don’t care. But some o’ us ha’ had enough o’ the sea, and we’ll try our ease ashore.”

A shout of approval capped this speech. There was not a man but was lured by the prospect of thousands of pounds to spend on the right side of the gallows. And like all sailors after a series of hard voyages, they never wanted to see a ship again--or so they thought.

Bones was enthusiastic for Silver’s plan as any.

“Aye, aye,” he applauded. “Long John has the right idea. We’ll water tomorrow, and then we’ll try for the Dead Man’s Chest.”

And he began to shout drunkenly the song that Flint had died singing:

“Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s Chest--
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle o’ rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest--
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle o’ rum!”

Other men joined in, and as if by magic pannikins of rum appeared. Bones drank several whilst we watched.

“You drink wi’ me, bullies!” he hailed his supporters. “An easy skipper is Bill Bones. Rum for all, and to ---- wi’ discipline!”

They howled joyfully over this, and what I had expected to provide a free fight seemed about to develop into nothing worse than such an orgy of intoxication as occurred almost every night aboard the _Walrus_. But it did not suit Silver’s plans to have all restraint cast off at that point. He stumped forward into the circle of lanthorn light, with Pew, Black Dog, Darby and a dozen others at his back.

“Belay, mates,” he cried. “We got a vast task to settle here. Time to carouse afterward.”

“There’s no time for drinkin’ like the time ye ha’ the liquor at your elbow,” retorted Bones.

“And them’s true words,” assented Silver heartily. “And ’tis plain to be seen as you’re a skipper the lads’ll all be blithe for, Bill. But I was just figgerin’ as we none o’ us has ever asked the pris’ners how long ’twill take to dig up that treasure o’ Murray’s. So I makes bold to suggest we have ’em up here and put ’em through their paces. ’Tain’t no ways right as pris’ners should be as close-mouthed as Flint let ’em be. He was a good messmate, Flint was, but I allus thought them swabs pulled the wool a mite over his eyes, blow me if I didn’t.”

I could see Bones slowly run his tongue over his lips, blinking his eyes the while. He liked this idea. So did the crew. They were in the humor for baiting whoever were at their mercy.

“Have ’em out,” ruled Bones. “Long John’s right.”

“Aye, have ’em out,” yelled the crew. “Make ’em dance!”

Silver’s hard, polished-agate eyes glinted around the circle of savage faces and came to rest upon Bones’ sodden visage.

“Run aft, Darby, there’s the sweet lad,” he said, “and bring us the pris’ners.”

“Not--not--her!” answered Darby haltingly.

“Yes, _her_,” replied Silver with a slight emphasis.

And one of his hands reached out, and his strong fingers tweaked the Irish boy’s ear. Darby yelped.

“O’ course, you bring her,” Silver continued. “Why’s she too good to tell us what she knows, mates? Just because she had Andrew Murray’s favor, I wonder!”

“Not----”

Darby started to protest again, but Silver cut him off with a word that dripped chill ferocity.

“Skip!”

“Fetch up the wench, boy,” growled Bones, “or I’ll give ye a taste o’ Murray’s triangles.”

“Fetch her up!” howled the crew in rabid chorus. “Let’s ha’ a look at the wench!”

Darby started toward us with the tears running down his cheeks. We could see him picking his way slowly through the crowd. A man kicked him as we watched. Poor Darby! He had been Flint’s favorite, and there are always men in any crew to hate the captain’s pet.

I looked at Peter, and he met my gaze with dumb foreboding.

“We might take to the water,” I said.

Moira spoke behind us.

“You will do no such thing,” she answered. “Nor will I. We are not yet in such evil case.”

“You don’t know----”

“They would surely overtake us,” she argued. “No, no, Bob; we must wait and pick a better time if we can.”

“_Ja_,” approved Peter. “Dot’s right. I t’ink----”

He hesitated.

“Silver will be nursing some hidden plan,” supplemented Moira.

“_Ja_,” he said. “How didt you know?”

“I guessed,” she said. “Glory, I will have been listening behind ye this quarter-glass, for I had a feeling in me there was new wickedness astir. But here’s Darby, and for his sake we’d best be going quickly.”

Darby fronted us with a gulp.

“Silver bade me----”

Moira slipped between Peter and me and dropped her hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t ye be taking heed to what they say,” she comforted him. “Faith, ’tis you are the grand knight, Darby lad, and I am that proud o’ ye I could be giving ye a bit of a kerchief or gaudy ribbon to wear in your hat--only that ye will have no hat and me neither ribbon nor kerchief! But let’s be after trying what the rogues want with us.”

And out she marched at the boy’s side before one or the other of us could step ahead.

The ranks of pirates parted to admit our procession, and we threaded the shadows to the edge of the central pool of light where Silver leaned upon his crutch. He moved aside to make room for us, and I found myself at his right hand. Perhaps fifteen feet away Bones sat on his barrel, his coarse face flushed and shiny, his cruel eyes devouring Moira’s lissome grace. The scores of others were just so many vague blurs to me, but Moira frowned about her with a kind of high pride that turned the boldest stare. Peter looked stolidly over the heads of the throng. It was his way when he fronted danger; behind their mask of fat his little eyes were darting daggerwise from face to face, probing, guessing, estimating.

Silver spoke first.

“Well, here they be, Bill.”

Bones’ tongue traveled the circuit of his lips twice before he replied; he did not once take his gaze from Moira.

“A proper wench, ain’t ye?” he fawned.

“Do ye tell me so!” she exclaimed.

And the pirates screeched with laughter.

“Lusty, ye are,” sneered Bones. “Ye need tamin’, and I ha’ a hankerin’ to take ye in hand.”

“’Twould take ten of your like,” retorted Moira, nose in air.

Silver interposed in the midst of a second burst of laughter. I had to admire the scoundrel’s deftness. He contrived to appear to be coming to the rescue of Bones in such a way as to rouse all the man’s resentment against the cause of the implied humiliation.

“Sure, mistress,” said Long John very respectfully, “what the cap’n would know is how long it should take to shift the treasure Cap’n Murray had ye bury on the Dead Man’s Chest?”

Moira’s nose remained in air.

“If ye were not afraid of the hard work it would maybe take ye as much as the half of a watch,” she answered.

He addressed me with equal respect, requiring confirmation of what she had said. I gave it, as did Peter.

“And is it far from the shore?” he asked her then.

“Some would say yes, and some might call it over near,” she flashed.

At that Bones slid off his barrel.

“Tamin’ is what I said ye needed, and tamin’ is what ye’ll get, my girl,” he announced. “Leave the rest to me, Silver. I’ll take her aft and soon find out all she knows.”

“There’s Rule Four, Bill,” said Silver quickly.

“Blow Rule Four! Murray and Flint wrote them blasted Articles, and they’re both dead. Why should we, as are free gentlemen adventurers, have any tomfool rules like we was a King’s ship? I’ll take the lass and chuck five hundred pounds o’ my share o’ the treasure into the common fund in pay for her. ---- me, lads, d’ye grudge your cap’n a little fun?”

Men shouted, “Yes,” and, “No,” but nobody was inclined to interfere.

“Come on, my pretty,” he invited Moira.

She met his hot eyes with level scorn.

“Do ye put your finger on me, I’ll either be the death of you or myself,” she warned him.

He laughed uncertainly and started toward her, and as I lifted my foot to step between them the hilt of a knife was thrust into my right hand.

“Go to it,” Silver’s voice bade me. “Tell him ye’ll fight for her.”

I finished my step automatically and found myself a pace inside the pool of light surrounding Bones’ barrel. Bones himself had come to a halt and was examining me with some evidence of disconcertion.

“He says he’ll fight ye for her, Bill,” Silver called officiously over my shoulder, and as Bones discharged a streak of curses, he muttered in my ear:

“Put your mark on her. That’s old buccaneer law.”

And as I still hesitated, scarce understanding him and unwilling to remove my eyes from Bones, who was drawing his own knife:

“Go on, ye fool! Anywhere! A cross on her hand’ll do--wi’ your knife!”

Moira heard him and grasped his meaning. She shot her left hand under my arm.

“God be good to ye, Bob,” she whispered. “Sure, I’m yours.”

And with the point of Silver’s knife I traced a crimson cross upon her palm, certes, the oddest betrothal any couple ever had.

“Mistress O’Donnell is pledged to me,” I called as loudly as I could. “Further, we had the word of Captain Flint that no harm should be done to her or any of us.”

“Flint’s word was no better’n mine,” grinned Bones. “’Twas only as Flint had no use for women, but I’m different, and first, I’m goin’ to ha’ ye caught and flogged, Buckskin, and then I’ll cut your ears off for a keepsake like.”

He waved his arm carelessly.

“Pull him down, mates. I can’t be bothered fightin’ a pris’ner.”

Several of his cronies made to obey this command; but Silver, Black Dog and a number of others set up a protest.

“Give the Buckskin a fair show,” they shouted. “He’s put his mark on her. Took her himself, he did, when Murray carried the _Santissima Trinidad_.”

Bones’ friends hung back. From the rear ranks of the circle came advice and opinions of all shades. But Silver’s faction must have been primed for the incident, for they worked up such a furor in my support that they swayed the general opinion by sheer volume of noise. Silver even raised Moira’s hand with the bloody cross upon it and held it up for those behind to see.

“Fair play for all,” proclaimed his stentorian voice. “The Buckskin was one o’ Murray’s crew, and he took the girl in fair fight. He’s put his mark on her, and if he wants to fight for her he can, pris’ner or no pris’ner.”

Bones observed the mounting turmoil with an obvious mingling of emotions. He realized he had been tricked, but he did not yet see how it had been done or comprehend the ulterior purpose of Silver’s strategy. To do him justice, I do not believe that he feared me or doubted his ability to kill me in a knife-fight, for I had never had occasion to exhibit my skill with the knife before the pirates. He simply knew that he had been lured into a position where he must fight personally to maintain his authority over the crew, and the initial flare of his hatred was naturally directed against me. But he did not forget Silver.

“I’ll mind this,” he flung at the one-legged man as he crouched forward to meet me, knife poised across his chest and left arm extended to clutch at my knife-wrist or parry a stab from the side.

“’Tain’t my doin’s, Bill, if ye will ha’ the girl,” remonstrated Silver. “I warned ye o’ Rule Four. And the cap’n’s all the same as any other in a question o’ honor.”

“That’s right,” shouted a score of throats. “Cap’n’s got to meet anybody.”

“I’ll meet some others a’ter I finish this swab,” gritted Bones.

I circled away from him, gaging the effect of the swaying lanthorn-light upon the deck shadows and the feel of the pitchy planks underfoot.

“Stand to it, ---- ye,” he snarled. “Don’t let him break from the ring, mates. I want his heart for that wench to chew on--and mind the fat Dutchman doesn’t jump on my back. He’s a bad ’un, he is.”

Silver was prompt to summon half a dozen men to block off Peter, who, having seen me use the scalping-knife of the frontier since childhood, was not in any way concerned as to what I should be able to do against a half-drunken sailor whose one idea of knife-fighting was to grab his opponent’s wrist at the same time the opponent grabbed his, and then strain and heave until one of the pair tore loose and struck.

“Don’t ye worry, Bill,” counseled the one-legged man soothingly. “We won’t let the Dutchman nor nobody else harm ye. Just you hop in and gut the Buckskin--if ye can.”

“If I can!” hissed Bones. “Watch me!”

He dropped to all fours and bounded into the air in a clumsy fashion--not at all as an Iroquois warrior would have done it, hurtling like a projectile, with his whole body behind the knife. I stepped to the left and stabbed down, aiming to drive inside the collar-bone. But the light or something fooled me, and my blade slashed his cheek from eye to mouth, a great searing cut that laid open the whole side of his face.

He bellowed with surprize, and I was put out myself, for I had thought to finish him. Not a man moved for two or three breaths in the circle around us, for none had expected to see the fight terminated so quickly. Moira told me afterward that it was comical to see how Silver’s jaw gaped.

Bones staggered back, the spurting blood blinding him so that he had to feel his way. I followed him slowly, half-prepared for a ruse, and he must have heard me, for he called out:

“Don’t let him slay me, mates! I can’t see, and he’s a-comin’ a’ter me!”

At this a dozen pirates jolted in between us, cursing and threatening me, and I gave ground toward where my friends were standing with Silver. The one-legged man hopped out to meet me. But I had scant satisfaction from him. He snatched the knife from my hand and, bending low, spat at me with a scorn words can not possibly convey:

“Ye bungler! As good as blind, and ye didn’t do for him!”

And he swung by me on his crutch, hallooing to his friends:

“They’re after Black Dog yon! Lay into the dirty swabs, mates!”

Knives were out all over the deck, and men were slashing and stabbing at one another. Bones was swallowed up in the mass of frantic humanity that milled around the restricted space between the butt of the mizzen and the rise of the poop.

A man plucked at my sleeve, and I spun about defensively to confront Peter.

“Where’s Moira?” I panted.

“Darby took her. He has a plan for us to get free. Hurry, Bob! We got a goodt chance, _ja_. This is what Silver worked for, to hafe you kill Bones or set der crew against him.”

I noticed that Peter steered me for’ard where the deck was deserted; but I asked no questions, for Silver’s voice spurred me on.

“Lay aft, lads,” he was shouting. “We’ll show ’em what! We won’t let no perishin’ fool like Bill Bones go for to hold out that treasure-map on us. Couldn’t even handle the Buckskin, he couldn’t!”

Moira hailed us from the shelter of the capstan.

“Will it be you, Bob? Oh, thank God, thank God!”

“And your hand?” I stammered.

She pressed it to my lips.

“There!” said she. “If you will be so chary of other places.”

I strove to redress my fault, and she lay for one precious moment in my arms.

“Are you sure ye will have meant it?” she asked shyly.

“Meant it! Since the morning I heard the lilt of your voice in----”

A low whistle came from over the side to larboard.

“’Tis Darby!” she cried. “He slid down the anchor-cable to get at one of the boats they will have lowered by the side ladder for the water-party was going ashore, and didn’t.”

Peter beckoned urgently from the rail.

“We don’t talk,” he ordered grimly. “We go.”

There was a coil of spare cable handy, and we dropped it overside, sliding one by one into the jolly-boat which Darby held steady beneath the heft of the bowsprit. The _Walrus_ had swung with the tide until her stern was toward the town, and Darby and I took the oars and rowed quietly along the mass of the pirate’s hull in the direction of the scattered lights that represented Savannah. How beautiful they seemed to us, those tiny glimmers of rush-lights and lanthorns in a clearing in the wilderness! They spelled safety, perhaps home.

But we were none too sure of ourselves yet. The big vessel loomed over us, her gunports like a row of gouging tusks, her spars and rigging a monstrous net poised for casting. Her decks seethed with lawless men, fighting and running, with harsh outcries and the clashing of steel and an occasional pistol-shot.

We passed the cluster of boats moored by the side ladder, unwilling to risk the time it would take to cut them adrift. We passed the poop, where a particularly savage fray was going on. Men were battering at the door to the cabin companionway and one called to “roll up a chase-gun, and give the ---- ---- a round-shot in his belly.”

We rowed on under the _Walrus’_ stern, and there we came upon an amazing spectacle.

A longboat was always towed astern for the greater convenience in case there was a sudden necessity for its use at sea. This boat had been drawn beneath the stern windows, from which a man was lowering a heavy box or chest, which a second man was receiving into its bow. The man in the longboat heard the rattle of our oars and gave us one lightning glance before he slashed at the mooring-rope and leaped to his own oars. The tide carried him immediately behind us, and I had a vision of a bloody face wrapped in an old shirt. If he knew who we were he gave no sign. He huddled on to a thwart and pulled downstream with the tide.

But the man in the stern windows was not so reticent. He leaned far out, wringing his hands and clamoring to be saved:

“Oh, Master Bones, ye wouldn’t go for to leave poor Ben Gunn as stood by ye stanch to the end, and held the cabin door the while ye shot the bolt. Ah, and them ---- villains are a-hammerin’ it this moment. Don’t ’ee go, and leave me like this! They’ll keelhaul me, they will. They’ll trice me to the cat.”

“Back oars, Darby,” I said. “We can’t leave the poor fellow.”

“And him with Bones!” protested Darby.

“’Twas not his fault.”

We rowed under the stern, and I called up to the steward--

“Jump into the water and we’ll pick you up, Ben.”

“Who’re you?” he answered shakily.

“’Tis Master Ormerod.”

I could hear the blows on the door at the end of the companionway.

“Hasten, man! We can’t wait for ever.”

“And ye won’t put me in a livery-shuit?” he pressed

“Not I.”

He jumped without a word, and we hauled him, dripping, into our midst.