Chapter VI: Tall Ships and Lawless Men

There was a noticeable tightening of discipline after my great-uncle’s admonition to Bones, and Peter and I were let severely alone, except by Silver, who, I think, found satisfaction in annoying the mate by the effusiveness of his cordiality to us. A second lookout was sent into the foretop, and the watch on deck were continually on the alert. But nothing untoward happened that day. The brig held on her course to the southeast, and the sea surrounded us with the immensity of its restless waters. One moment the land was a faint, hazy streak in the distance; the next it was gone.

My great-uncle paced the deck with measured strides throughout the afternoon, his head bent upon his chest, not a word for anybody. He ignored me as thoroughly as the members of the crew, who treated Silver and Bones with offhand familiarity, but scurried from his path if he came near them and were quick to bob their heads and tug at forelocks. When night came he supervised the hoisting of two lanthorns, red and green, one above the other, to the main truck; and he ate very little of the excellent meal which Silver cooked in the galley and Darby served us in the cabin. Nor, contrary to his usual mood as I had read it, was he inclined for conversation.

He returned immediately to the deck, leaving Peter and me to an exchange of casual remarks with the Irish boy before we went early to our stateroom, full sleepy with the heavy sea-air. Peter was almost himself again, although he dared eat but little and suffered qualms when the brig rolled much from the perpendicular. He was asleep as soon as he lay down, but I drowsed lightly for some hours, and all that time I could hear overhead the _tap-tap-tap_ of footfalls in even cadence as my great-uncle strode from the stern railing to the cabin companionway and back again.

Yet when I went on deck in the morning it was to discover Murray already there, dressed with his customary immaculate precision, his face fresh and unfatigued. He stood astraddle close by the wheel, hands clasped behind him. his gaze fixed upon the tossing waters ahead. The wind had backed around several points during the night, so that we were making more difficult weather of it; and the easy, gliding motion of the previous day had been changed to a choppy roll.

Peter was not communicative; and as I was in no mood for Silver’s hypocrisy or Darby’s wild talk I strode up to my great-uncle.

“You seem perturbed,” I said.

“I am,” he returned frankly. “I have two problems upon my mind.”

“Unfortunately, I see no signs of pursuit,” I answered.

He smiled.

“Nor will you, Nephew Robert. No, my problems are connected with the difficult task of attaining an imaginary spot in this trackless waste and puzzlement as to whether I have correctly estimated an equation of human values. You are not, perhaps, mathematical? Ah, too bad! There is no mental exercise so restful and diverting to the mind as algebra. But figures lack the warm interest of human equations. As, for instance, the exact degree of trust to be imposed in untrustworthy persons.”

“Sail ho!” shouted the lookout in the main crosstrees.

Murray’s calm face flushed with sudden emotion, and he took a step forward.

“Where does she lie?” he trumpeted through his clasped hands.

“Maybe one, two points to larboard, sir.”

“Can you make her out?”

“Only tops’ls, sir; big ’uns.”

“Let me know as soon as you make her,” said Murray, and turned back to me.

But almost at once the other lookout in the foretop sang out--

“Second sail to larboard, sir, comin’ up arter t’other chap!”

Murray rubbed his hands together with every evidence of satisfaction.

“Ah!” he exclaimed. “It appears that my estimation of the safe degree of trust to be imposed in the given situation was within the bounds of accuracy.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“No? In plain English let us say then that my own vessel and consort are meeting me according to plan.”

“The sea is wide. How can you be sure ’tis they?”

“I can not. Yet the balance of probability is in my favor.”

“Why do you speak of trust?” I challenged. “Can not you trust your own people?”

“I trust nobody farther than I must,” he retorted.

And without another word he produced a patent folding spyglass from his pocket and clapped it to his eye. Silver, who had been an interested witness to the scene from his aerie atop of the cabin skylight, hopped across the deck to my great-uncle’s side.

“Beggin’ your pardon, captain,” he said. “But I’d make oath that tops’l is the canvas you took out o’ the Mogul’s ship off Pondicherry. Mind it, sir? ’Twas uncommon bleached and looked whiter’n our cloth.”

Murray handed him the glass.

“Stap me, Silver, but I believe you are right,” he returned. “What a hawk’s eye you must have! Here, see what you can make of it with this.”

Long John peered through the glass, steadying his crutch against the butt of the mizzen.

“Aye, ’tis----”

“_R’yal James_ to leeward!” hailed the foretop.

And the main crosstrees echoed, not to be outdone--

“_Walrus_ comin’ up astarn o’ her!”

“’Tis they, never a doubt,” assented Silver as he lowered the glass. “Diggin’ into it they are, too, and a lusty show o’ canvas to both o’ them. If you was to ask me now, captain, I’d say Flint isn’t willing to plow your wake.”

If there was a hint of an indicated threat in this remark Murray ignored it.

“Master Martin knows his ship,” he answered, “as doth Captain Flint his. You lads are forever pondering why certain men rise to command. There lies the answer, Silver. ’Tis knowledge of how to handle your ship; aye, and to fight her, and to plan at need how not to fight her.”

Silver knuckled his forehead, handing back the glass.

“Sure, sir, they all says a good captain is born and never made, and we be main fortunate as has two that can’t be beat or took or harried from their ways.”

My great-uncle indulged in a pinch of snuff, a mildly cynical smile upon his handsome features.

“I thank you,” he acknowledged. “And now I would have the men tumble up their gear from below and make ready the boats. I shall also leave it to you, Silver, to lay the powder-train. How much have you?”

“Three casks, sir.”

“Excellent. But allow us ample time to get free.”

“Why do you give your orders to Silver and not to Bones?” I inquired curiously after the one-legged man had gone for’ard.

My great-uncle lowered his glass with a benevolent smile.

“I rejoice to perceive that you have an observant tendency,” he commented. “Why do I single out Silver for orders? Ah! The reasons are quite obvious. To begin with, he is gifted with a personality which enables him to secure the accomplishment of tasks; but perhaps as important as that consideration is the parallel fact that it lies to my interest to develop the seed of dissension in the _Walrus’_ crew. The future contains infinite possibilities. Who knows what trifling factor may influence the dictates of fate?”

“They must be a strange crowd aboard the _Walrus_,” I said.

“They are,” assented my great-uncle. “In piracy, Robert, as in politics and business, he wins who plays the opposing factions against each other. I am, you may say, in a minority of one among some hundreds of headstrong, wilful, intemperate men. United, they would crush me like a fly on the wall. Divided, and kept divided, they are so many instruments for the fulfilling of my desires.”

“How if I handed on your precept to them?” I gibed.

“They would not believe you. Their vanity would prohibit it. And even though they did, I would divide them upon the very point you raised.”

The amazing ingenuity and fertility of resource of this heartless old rogue who was my relative began to compel me to a reluctant admiration of him. Perhaps some trace of this was revealed in my face, for his own eyes brightened and he dropped one hand lightly upon my coat sleeve.

“We shall yet come to an understanding, Robert. All is not so black as is painted. But my design is to induct you into the scope of my plans at one sitting, seeing that in such a manner I can most clearly present to you my reasons for requiring your assistance and the importance of the stake I play for.”

“I know not of the blackness,” I answered; “but I require no clearer understanding. Here on these decks have been murder and robbery, and in your ranks, if I mistake not, breed treachery and hate. ’Tis a sorry outlook. I would gladly be gone from it.”

His face fell a little.

“Tut,” he said. “We disposed of that before. Wait until we are aboard the _Royal James_, Robert. Then you will realize what I offer you.”

“I have heard much of it already,” I agreed dryly.

“Anon you shall hear all,” he answered. “Let us get Flint across-table from us in the _James’_ state cabin with a beaker of rum at his elbow. Then you shall hear me talk.”

Bones came up to speak to him; and I rejoined Peter, who was glumly watching the unlashing of the small boats and the rigging of the falls by which they were slung overside.

“Now I get more sick again,” he grunted.

“Cheer up,” I told him. “You shall soon have a more substantial craft beneath you.”

And I pointed to the two strange ships which had risen over the horizon line until the towering piles of their bellying sails were clearly visible. Like us, they rather quartered the wind; but they were of far heavier build, and they seemed to crash through seas that we were tossed over. While we watched, their upper works came into view, and I descried a long band of painted gunports on the leader’s starboard side.

“She’s a thirty-six, no less!” I exclaimed. “Can she be Murray’s ship?”

“Whatefer she is, I be sick,” rejoined Peter unhappily.

John Silver stumped up to where we leaned upon the larboard bulwarks.

“Sightly, ain’t they?” he said. “Nothin’ like a fine ship wi’ canvas drawin’ for a picture, is there?”

His face shone with what, I am persuaded, was entirely honest emotion.

“They are big as frigates,” I answered. “How did your company come by such craft?”

He chuckled.

“I ha’ heard tell the captain had the _James_ from the Frenchies in some funny way. A Injyman she was--the _Esperance_. But Flint and a few o’ us took the _Walrus_ with our own hands on the Smyrna v’yage. She’s better nor she was then, but she can’t sail wi’ the _James_ yet.”

“Is she as heavy armed as the _James_?” I asked, for the leading ship partly blanketed her from our view.

“Pierced the same, she is, Master Ormerod, and both has eighteen-pounder carronades below, but where the _Walrus_ carries long twelves on the main deck, the _James_ has long eighteens.”

As Murray nodded dismissal to Bones, Silver left us and hopped up to him.

“All set and ready below, captain,” he announced.

My great-uncle cast his eye at the approaching ships, now so near that we could make out quite distinctly the contour of their hulls, painted yellow, with a white band delimiting the ports, man-o’-war fashion. The _James_ was already beginning to take in some of her top canvas.

“Very good, Silver,” he answered. “Master Bones! You will bring the ship to and put over the boats.”

There was a great flapping and banging as the brig rounded to, and with much yo-ho-hoing the boats were lowered into the water.

“You will go off first, Master Bones,” ordered Murray. “Kindly present my compliments to Captain Flint and say that I should like to have a word with him aboard the _James_ at his early convenience.”

Bones sullenly touched his cap and led better than half the crew into one of the two longboats the brig had carried. Murray nodded to Silver as they cast off.

“Start your train,” he said shortly. “Nephew Robert, I wish you and Peter to go into the second boat. At once, please!”

“Plenty o’ time, captain,” said Silver with a grin. “You can lay to it I’m a-goin’ to give myself a chance to hop up from below.”

The suspicion of a smile dawned in my great-uncle’s eyes.

“It is barely possible that your disability is a factor in my arrangements,” he answered.

Peter and I climbed clumsily down the ladder of cleats nailed to the brig’s hull and dropped into the bobbing longboat. Peter groaned as we crawled over the thwarts.

“Like der waves is my stomach--oop--andt down. Now I be sick, _ja_!”

And he was.

Presently Murray descended the brig’s side with an agility which put me to shame and took his seat in the stern sheets. Darby swarmed down like a monkey and ensconced himself beside us in the bow. Silver was slung over in the bight of a rope, and the last of the crew tumbled after him, one upon the other’s heels. Oars were thrust out, and we pulled rapidly toward the _Royal James_, wallowing in the trough of the sea, a quarter-mile away. The _Walrus_, foaming up under a cloud of canvas, was almost as near, and on our weather board.

Darby crouched at my knees, drinking in the spectacle.

“Oh, the tall ships, Master Bob! Look to the water dripping from their bows, and the lordly way they stand up like the towers of churches or maybe a castle. Did ye ever see the beat of it? And the guns that are like to the grinning teeth in an ogre’s head!”

_Boom_! The roar of an explosion behind us was as sharp as the smack of an open hand. I turned my head. So did the others. Murray was looking back, too, and the rowers rested on their oars.

A cloud of smoke jetted up from the brig’s hatches. She heeled over to starboard as we watched, gave a quivering lurch and commenced to slide under by the head. We could hear the slap of the sails as they struck the waves. In two minutes she was gone.

“That was well-contrived, Silver,” remarked my great-uncle. “’Sdeath, but you are a man of parts. Give way, lads!”

He nodded the length of the boat to me.

“I trust you perceive the significance of that, Nephew Robert. A certain young man, we will say, disappears from New York. A certain brig disappears simultaneously. Some might go so far as to associate the two disappearances. Frigates put to sea in search of a certain brig--but the brig is no more.”

The men at the oars laughed loudly, and I made no answer. What could I say? I felt very hopeless.

The bulwarks of the _James_ were lined with heads and faces as we pulled under her counter and made fast, and even at that distance the complexity of her crew was apparent. I saw Portuguese, Finns, Scandinavians, French and English cheek by jowl with negroes, Moors, Indians and slant-eyed yellow men. But what impressed me most was the absolute silence which greeted us, a silence all the more impressive because the wind carried to our ears the bedlam of shouts, cheers, oaths and imprecations with which the _Walrus_ was receiving Bones’ boat several hundred yards away.

Murray waved me to the ladder as he set foot on the first cleat.

“Up with you, Nephew! Peter, also. The rest go to the _Walrus_.”

Darby snatched at my hand as I rose.

“Whirra, whirra, but there’s an ache in my heart to be parted from ye, Master Bob!” he cried. “And if we was to be pirates it do seem we might be together on the same ship!”

He made to follow me, indeed, but Silver pulled him back.

“You stays wi’ us, Darby,” growled the one-legged man. “Blast ye, lad, you’re our good luck. Flint’ll douse the ship in rum after one look at ye.”

“We’ll meet again, Darby,” I said. “Never you fear.”

He dashed the tears from his eyes.

“Sure, there’s never a fear in me heart,” he denied. “But I’m all broke up from the parting with ye. God be good to us, and the blessed saints spread their wings over your head! I’m thinking you’re like to need it more than me. Yes, yes, John, I’ll be settin’; but----”

He was still jabbering in a mixture of grief and joy when I climbed over the bulwarks and dropped beside my great-uncle into the midst of another world.

Fore and aft from poop to fo’csle stretched the wide deck from which the lofty spars rose like forest giants. The massive bulwarks were shoulder-high, and inboard everything was painted red exactly as in a King’s ship. The deck was remarkably clean and in order, ropes coiled, spare spars stowed and lashed, boats in their chocks, crates and other gear secured. A few cannon were lashed to their ringbolts, but the greater part of the battery was mounted on the lower deck under cover. The hundreds of men who had watched us from the bulwarks had all sifted for’ard. We stood in the midst of an open space, with only three others.

One of these three was a very small old man with wispy gray hair and deeply bronzed face, from which his eyes peered intensely blue and childishly simple. He had gold rings in his ears, and his dress was neat and plain.

“My sarvice, captain,” he greeted Murray. “Ship’s in order, I hope. ---- my eyes if we’ve had so much as a ---- o’ genuine wind since the ---- hussy bore away from ye off the Hook.”

The effect of the unspeakable blasphemies which poured with mild intonation from his lips was ridiculous, but nobody appeared to notice it, and I learned afterward that his habit of swearing by the anatomy of the twelve apostles and various saints and sacred figures was the quaintest of several quaint characteristics of an unusual personality.

“We won’t complain about that, Master Martin,” replied my great-uncle. “I have brought back my grandnephew to be the mainstay of my old age. Here he is--Master Ormerod, Martin. Ah, and this is a friend of his and an old enemy of mine, Peter Corlaer,” as Peter rolled over the top of the bulwarks. “He is more to be reckoned with than you might suppose, is Peter.

“Master Martin, Nephew Robert, is my mate, and as such, my right hand and arm.”

Martin stepped back, and the second of the three men confronting us touched his cap. This was a square, heavy-built fellow with a dour glint to his eye, who wore a decent blue cloth coat and small clothes.

“And here is Saunders, Master Martin’s second,” continued my great-uncle. “A Scot like myself. My nephew should make a fine Scotsman; eh, Saunders?”

“He’s a braw-lookin’ laddie in seemin’,” Saunders agreed cautiously.

“Your meaning is that we must prove him?” responded Murray. “Quite true. We shall. Hola, Coupeau!”

And he rattled into a string of French which I could not follow as the third man met him with a bow and a scrape of one foot. Coupeau was as brutal in looks and manner as Black Dog or Bill Bones, but without the sinister implications of speech and action that made me shudder whenever the blind man Pew approached me or spoke in my hearing. He had been branded on the cheek, and an attempt to obliterate the brand--or perhaps ’twas the superimposed scar of a wound--had made that side of his face a very nightmare. His wrists and forearms showed gouges that wound upward like snakes and suggested what other torments his gaudy clothing concealed.

“Coupeau,” remarked my great-uncle, turning again to me, “is our gunner. I saved him from the French galleys, and he is not without devotion to me, that quality of devotion tinged by self-interest which is to be preferred above all.

“And now we will go aft and prepare to receive Captain Flint. Master Martin, we shall probably lie here for several hours. Have all the tops manned and a vigilant watch maintained. I have every reason to suppose we need fear no intruders, but we must be on the edge of the cruising-course of the King’s ships, and I’ll take no risks.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” assented Martin. “We ha’ not sighted a sail this twenty-four hours gone.”

“And before?”

“A Philadelphia packet. Captain Flint made signal to chase; but I held off as you directed, and he turned back.”

“You did well, Martin. I’ll not forget. Conduct Captain Flint to us when he comes aboard.”