Chapter II: Part 2

“And as to mutiny, Mr Dawkins,” said the captain, harping on his dread aversion, “I should tell you that I do not like the word. It’s a dangerous word--an unlucky word at sea--eh?”

“I don’t value the word a penny,” says Dawkins. “Any word will do for me, Mr Shargeloes. I seen a many such”--thus did Mr Dawkins clear the sunken rock--“maroonings, knives going, and what not, but I never see much gained by it. It don’t frighten me. There’s things which frighten a man, and things which don’t, d’ye see? I reckon what scares me most,” said Mr Dawkins, simply, “is a poor old age a-drawing nigh with no money and no rations.”

Whether the captain liked it or not, there was discontent in the air. The salt pork was rotten, the stock-fish putrid, the biscuit worm-infested, and--worst of all--the beer was sour. Pomfrett cursed Gamaliel for a thief, as he was; but he might have discovered a fraud so gross and palpable before the victuals were shipped. Mr Brandon Pomfrett got his first lesson in the business of his office at the expense of the crew. For, in the cabin, we had store of hams, beef, tongues, cheese, and wine to last us nearly to the West Indies.

We had been a week at sea, when the boatswain came aft at the head of a deputation of some dozen seamen. He carried a steaming pannikin, which reeked like carrion.

“It ain’t our way,” said the boatswain, after presenting the mess to the captain, “to complain of the ship’s rations. But as to this here--well, there, we only asks you, sir, kindly to taste of it.”

The captain, holding the pannikin in his hand, continued to gaze silently at the boatswain and the uneasy, sullen mob behind that plaintive officer.

“Men,” said he, presently, “you know as well as I do that I have nothing to do with the victualling. You know that while we’re at sea we must eat what there is, good or bad, simply because there’s nothing else to be got. When we fetch up in port, I can promise you fresh provisions. Now go forward--and take this with you.” He would have returned the stinking tin to the boatswain, but the boatswain put his hands behind him and backed a step or two.

“Captain Shargeloes,” said he, “what you say is true and fair, when the whole ship’s company goes on short allowance. But now it is not so. Let the officers mess aft the same as what the seamen mess forward, is what we says, and we’ll go back to our duty, and say no more about it.”

“You’ll go back now, and smart,” says the captain, darkening. “This is a plot. I knew it. I see what you would be at, you----”

The boatswain made a rush forward, but Dawkins was too quick for him, striking him heavily on the head with a pistol-butt, so that he tumbled sideways. The rest of the mutineers hesitated a moment; the watch on deck, their wavering minds decided, probably, by the fall of the boatswain, came running aft; there was a scuffle, and the thing was over, the deputation being hustled below into irons. The captain was still holding the pannikin in his hand. He looked at it, hove it over the rail, and spat after it. Then he invited the intrepid Dawkins to drink with him, and the two, going below, stayed there a long time.

The boatswain and his following were flogged. They had six dozen apiece, and were disabled for a fortnight afterwards. When their backs were healed enough to bear their coats, they were had upon the quarterdeck, where they made humble submission; and the captain forgave them.

“I knew there was a plot brewing,” says he, “before ever we were clear of the river. You can’t hide it from me, my men--don’t hope to do it. I can smell it--smell it in the air, like a dashed thunderstorm. Now all’s clear again--I know that without your telling me. I would have every jack-rabbit of you swinging at the yard-arm else, as sure as sunrise.”

The captain’s words were bold enough; but there was something about the man that told another story. His long, lean neck, like a fowl’s, twisted uneasily at every sound as he paced the quarterdeck; his brown fingers were for ever hovering at his mouth; he was continually drinking. I believe Captain Shargeloes to have been as brave a man as ever stepped; but he was haunted by the ineradicable conviction that the world was in a conspiracy against him, and weakened by the suspicion that his wits were dull. I say that he was brave; I believe he never ceased to combat this fatal prepossession; it was the real Captain Shargeloes fighting the false. Liquor was his chief weapon--the worst he could have chosen. And, lest he should want encouragement, Mr Dawkins was ever at his elbow to suggest a tot of rum, a drop of French brandy, a glass of Schiedam. Dawkins had a head like the bitts; he was seldom the worse for liquor; but the captain grew as limp as a swab. You could see that his burden grew heavier upon him; but he stuck to it with a kind of hopeless patience.

“You young men should be happy,” he once said, addressing Pomfrett and myself. Pomfrett looked at him with his serious blue eyes. Brandon was asking himself, conscientiously, if he were happy, or not.

“You don’t command a water-logged ship,” continued Shargeloes, gloomily. “I mean,” he explained, “you have no wife and no nine children depending on you. Not that that would matter, if a man had a chance. But what chance do these owners give their captains?--saving your presence, Mr Agent. The ship stuffed with rotten provisions, the crew a set of mutinous rake-hells, nothing square, nothing aboveboard, the whole voyage a speculation, and the captain responsible for all.”

“What do you suspect, sir?”

“I? Nothing,” returned Shargeloes. “Who said I did? But I know what stuff I have to deal with, and, I tell you, I’m tired of it, tired to death. Well, I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again,” he maundered. “And mark my words, five-and-twenty years I’ve been to sea, and this voyage is all or nothing; it’s fortune or a lee-shore for life this time.”

“How did Captain Shargeloes get the command?” I asked Brandon, when we were alone.

“He put money in the venture--all his savings, so he told my uncle. He has the name of a good sailor. I can’t think what’s wrong,” said Brandon. “As to being happy, what about the owners’ agent? There’s responsibility, if you like! The skipper’s only got to sail the ship, and Dawkins does that for him. Dawkins is all taut and trim,” says the agent, who was becoming nautical in his language. “_His_ cargo doesn’t shift.”

Indeed, the master was a popular man aboard. The men said, openly, that Mr Dawkins was the only officer who had spoken for them at the council, advising the captain to put into port (at Hispaniola or elsewhere) for fresh victuals. He was free with his tongue, and very brisk with a handspike; but that was all in the way of business. The captain might swear as he pleased; the crew had small respect for their commander. “Dawkins, he’s a good bit o’ stuff. He oughter been captain, Dawkins ought. As for Charley-goes, he’s no better than bilge.” So went the talk in the forecastle.

When we reached the latitude of thirty-nine degrees and forty minutes, the customary dreary and ridiculous baptismal ceremonies were observed. The captain had fallen sick of a fever and taken to his bed. The master’s mate had blackened his face with soot from the galley, attired himself in a white gown made of an old sail patched upon with scarlet blotches, and a tall red cap. With a sword of lath in his hand and a pannikin of ink at his side, he called before him the green hands, one by one. They kneeled before him, while he made the sign of the cross upon their foreheads in ink, and struck them smartly over the shoulders with his wooden sword. A bucket of water was then flung over them, and the baptism was done. The regenerate must each give a bottle of brandy--or the price of one--for the benefit of the old seamen, standing the bottles round the mainmast. The rout was in full swing--the red cap of the executioner burning like a flame in the strong glare of the sun, amid the mob of glistening, grinning faces; the decks awash, cries, oaths, and laughter sounding out upon the empty sea--when, from my station on the poop, leaning on the rail, I saw a figure stealthily emerge from the cabin doors immediately beneath. It was the captain. Stripped to the waist, a naked cutlass in his hand, he stood for a moment in the shadow of the poop, staring at the tumult. Then he stole to the side, and before I could cry out to Dawkins, who was standing by the wheel, he had sprung upon the rail, dropping his cutlass, and dived overboard. The alarm was given, but in the disorder it was several minutes before a boat was lowered. They pulled about for an hour; but the captain was never seen again.

IV

A LETTER OF INTRODUCTION

It is to be supposed that poor Captain Shargeloes mistook, in his fever, the noise and tumult of the merrymaking for the explosion of that conspiracy which had haunted him so grievously; and rushing on deck, intent to die sword in hand, the sight of the great cool plain of heaving waters allured his heated senses beyond resistance. He slipped over the side like a fish, and was gone in a moment. There was no more fooling. A death aboard, to the seaman’s mind, is very likely to bring ill luck; and the men, gathered forward, set quietly to drink themselves full, in accordance with immemorial privilege. Had a storm overtaken us, the whole ship’s company might have gone to join their captain that night--wherever he was. But the sailor concludes a kind of informal treaty with Providence. “I take my chance with your storms and foul weather when I’m sober; I pay my respects morning and evening; but I must be let to drink in peace on the days appointed.” On the whole, the agreement seems to be reasonably well observed on both sides. We ran all night before the favouring trade, beneath the velvet hollow of the heavens and the million million flashing stars; and the seamen lay snoring in heaps upon the deck.

At the council of officers held next day, Mr Dawkins was elected captain, amid universal approval. Someone then opened again the question of touching at Hispaniola instead of Barbadoes; for--it was most unfortunate--there was no doubt but that the men were half-starved.

“If you’ll give a look at the ship’s books, you’ll observe that p’int was settled once before,” said Dawkins. “And settled, in a council, is settled, I reckon.”

It was remarked that Dawkins had himself suggested Hispaniola on the former occasion.

“Yes, I did so. And for why? Because I reckoned it might save a mutiny. Well, you knew better than me--what have sailed the South Seas for twenty year--most on you, by your account of it, and a mutiny we had. Now it’s over, and the course is set to Barbadoes, and to Barbadoes this ship goes,” says Dawkins, stubbornly.

“Put it to the vote, captain,” said one.

Captain Dawkins arose from his seat, leaned forward on the table, supporting himself on his hands, and glared upon us.

“Another word like that,” says he, “and I’ll clap you in the bilboes! You elected me captain, all on you. I didn’t ask you for to do it, I didn’t want it, nor I don’t; but you done it free and spontaneous. Now, I reckon I know my duty, and, what’s more, I know your duty. Enough said. Gentlemen, this council is dis--solved!”

There was an end of opposition; it was not worth risking a quarrel on the point, with our formidable commander. At this time, Hispaniola lay some six hundred miles out of our course; but neither Brandon nor I understood at the time why Mr Dawkins put himself in such a heat. We were presently to discover the reason.

Meanwhile, Captain Dawkins served double rations to the crew, and crowded sail most extravagantly. As long as the trade-wind held we walked along at full seven knots, day and night, in safety. But when it dropped, we spread every stitch of canvas to catch the light airs; and then a blot no bigger than a man’s hand would rise on the sky-line to windward; the watch would be sent rushing aloft to shorten sail; and before they had done, the squall would burst shrieking upon us with a solid weight of wind and a blinding smother of water. Sails would be torn from the bolt-ropes with a noise of cannon, and a man or two, very likely, carried overboard. Then the storm would sweep away to leeward and the sun shine out; and out would go the sails again, the ship staggering and heeling through the surge. Those were dispiriting days for the landsman. There was never an hour when he could lie down to sleep without the dismal possibility of awaking in the next world. As for Dawkins, he scarcely quitted the deck. “You ever seen a ship sailed the way she ought?” he would say. “Well, I’ll show you, my son.”

But the exhibition roused no admiration in the conscientious breast of the owners’ agent. Pomfrett had been deeply mortified by the failure of the stores, for which he was responsible. He had put an innocent confidence in the honesty of Mr Gamaliel; and I have little doubt that the owners winked at the amiable Jew’s transactions, or they would never have set a green hand like Brandon to overlook the business. Gamaliel supplied the stores cheaper than anyone else, and that was all the pious merchants of Bristol cared for. The crew might starve to the bone and rot with scurvy,--crews did, as a rule--but the investors got their percentage, and the ship would come into port somehow. Meanwhile, the owners’ agent took upon himself to suffer along with the men. After the mutiny, and the boatswain’s challenge, Brandon would have no more of the cabin provisions. He had his rations brought from the forward galley; what was fit for the crew, said he, was fit for him. The officers called him a fool for his pains; they told him he was for currying favour with the mariners, and that he would die. But he kept his health by a miracle, for a dog would have turned from the putrid concoctions he fed on. As for the men, they merely added contempt to the dislike and suspicion in which they held the unfortunate agent. And now, on the top of his miseries, came the persuasion that Captain Dawkins was in danger of throwing away the ship by his reckless conduct of her. It is probable that, in his ignorance of the sea, Pomfrett saw more peril than there really was; and so I told him.

“Very likely,” said he. “I care nothing about that. I’m responsible, and I won’t have this foolish risk. I shall speak to Dawkins.”

“He’ll put you in irons. He’s a born pirate, you know as well as I.”

“He will not,” said Brandon. “I would run him through if he gave the order. It’s his business to sail the ship to the owners’ satisfaction.”

Mr Dawkins was pacing up and down the poop. Besides the pistol he always carried stuck in his belt, he had worn a sword since his election to the captaincy, and a double brace of pistols in a crimson silk scarf. Saluting the quarterdeck, Pomfrett went up to this formidable commander.

“I should be glad of a talk with you, sir,” said Brandon. “I have a word to say to you that won’t keep.”

“All the samey the provisions?” says Dawkins.

“And as unsavoury, I fear,” said Brandon, unmoved.

“And what may it be, now, Mr Supercargo? Give it mouth. What’s the complaints? I wouldn’t,” said Mr Dawkins, playfully, “give a fig for a super what hadn’t a cargo of complaints.”

“I have to say, sir, on behalf of the owners, that I am dissatisfied with your conduct of the ship, in one particular,” said Brandon, roundly.

“Was you, indeed?” said Dawkins, with unexpected mildness. “Dear me! And if I might make so bold, in what one particular, sir, do the cap’n dis--satisfy Mr Supercargo?”

Brandon explained.

“Well, now, you surprise me, you do, indeed,” said Mr Dawkins, with somewhat ominous levity. “I wasn’t aware of it, I do assure you. Why, I must take a reef on the main-s’l, I see that. I been all wrong. I reckoned the owners was wishful to get their ship into port as soon as might be; that was my mistake, d’ye see. And I take it very kind of you, Mr Pomfrett, to p’int it out. And on my own quarterdeck, too, by the bones of the deep!”

“Mr Dawkins,” said Brandon, stiffly, “I must request you to take this matter seriously. You will be good enough to understand that I am here to see that the owners’ interests are properly served. I have no wish to summon a council; but unless I find my wishes complied with, I shall have no choice but to do so.”

“Very well, Mr Supercargo. Depose me, is it? Well, if it must be, it must, I reckon. On’y, who’s to sail the ship?”

“Navigate her, do you mean? I will!” And Captain Dawkins looked a little blank at the retort. “Come,” Brandon added, “don’t let us quarrel, Mr Dawkins.”

“Quarrel!” said Dawkins, cheerily. “Not a mite of it. And I tell you what, Mr Pomfrett, there’s very few agents, as I’ve ever seen, as would have the marrow to do what you done. Why, they’d be afraid! But you--you don’t give a penny piece for the captain, not you. Duty is duty, says you, and you ups on the quarterdeck like a Queen’s admiral. I admire you, sir, I do, indeed. And I’ll bear your words in mind, don’t you fear. I shan’t forget, I shan’t.”

“You see,” said Brandon, afterwards, to me. “I told you so. Tackle a man face to face, and he listens. I believe Dawkins is a good man enough, only uneducated and a bit reckless. I thought I’d tell him I could navigate the ship, because he presumes on his being the only man aboard who can. I don’t think,” said the owners’ agent, “I shall have much more trouble with Dawkins.”

I was not so sure. I had seen Mr Dawkins’s blue-red visage darken to plum-colour, and his little eyes contract to pin-points, while his teeth showed as he grinned--and I was not so sure. But I thought it a pity further to harass the conscientious agent with my doubts. And a few days of quiet sailing brought us in sight of the low green island of Barbadoes. We dropped anchor in Carlisle Bay, and Pomfrett went ashore to obtain, as the custom is, the Governor’s permission to purchase provisions, leaving me on board, occupied with business. He returned in the evening, having made all arrangements for the supplies to be had aboard upon the following day.

“May I never ship with a worser supercargo than yourself, Mr Pomfrett,” said Dawkins. “I never see a agent so smart with his duty, so help me! But it never does to drive a clipper bark too hard--why, you taught me that, so you did, Mr Pomfrett, now I come to think of it--and if you and Mr Winter would care to take a run ashore, these parts being new to you gentlemen, we would try to make out for a few hours without you.”

None who has not been to sea can comprehend the delight of getting ashore, though the voyage has been never so pleasant. The smell of the land, the firm earth underfoot, the sight of women-folk, and, above all, the taste of fresh food--these common sensations become extraordinary pleasures. We accepted the captain’s kindly offer with joy. Mr Dawkins gave us a letter of introduction addressed to one Mr Jevon Murch, who, said the captain, was a friend of his, and who lived on his plantation some few miles inland.

The moment we set foot on the quay we were surrounded by a mob of negroes, clamouring to be taken as guides.

“Take me, massa, take me,” shouted a huge buck negro, forcing his way through the crowd. “Me white man; don’t hab dese dirty black men, massa. Dirty black men, git ’way wid yer!”

The gentleman was as black as a boot; but I suppose he had a drop of white blood somewhere in his ancestry. We took him on that valuation. He brought us through the streets of white houses with green shutters, where noisy crews of black men were haling sugar-barrels as big as cottages down to the wharves, and out into the sugar-cane plantations. We walked along the narrow lanes, cut through the green groves, and on either side the slaves were hard at work in the fainting heat, the men extinguished beneath wide, shallow hats as big as a cart-wheel, with a little red button in the centre; the women clad in blue stuff, with gaudy handkerchiefs bound about their heads.

Here were Christian serfs as well as heathen: white men brought from England and sold like any black stuff from the Guinea coast, sweating under the eye and the whip of the overseer.

“It’s a crime and a disgrace,” said Pomfrett, whose simple soul was quickly aroused to indignation. “How can they bear it? Why don’t they mutiny? Why don’t they kill the planter? Why don’t they kill themselves? And what sort of persons are these planters, to make slaves of white men?”

“The same sort of persons as the citizens at home, who make slaves of black men,” I said. “The same as your respected relative, Mrs A., for example.”

“Not at all--not in the least,” cried the ardent Pomfrett. “The blacks are born to it. They’re never so happy as when they’re slaves.”

“Cap’n Morgan, he was slave on plantation,” put in the negro, cheerfully. “Then he buccaneer. Afterwards he Governor Jamaica.”

“And afterwards he died in prison,” said Pomfrett.

“Po’ man,” said the black. “Massa Murch, he one of Morgan’s men,” he added.

We were naturally eager, upon this information, to see one who had sailed under that renowned admiral of the old buccaneers; who had taken part, very likely, in the sack of Panama, and seen the cities of Maracaibo and Gibraltar put to ransom in the teeth of the whole Spanish fleet.

“Morgan was a Bristol man, too,” says Pomfrett. “That’s a coincidence. But Murch must be an oldish man; it’s over thirty years since Morgan took to honest courses. I wonder how Dawkins came to know him.”

“Dawkins is a pirate,” I said. “I always told you so.”

“Dawkins,” retorted Brandon, stoutly, “is a good man.”

We were come by this time to the entrance of an avenue of cedars, whose lofty aisle of dark green foliage framed, in a diminishing perspective, a squat white house with a wide verandah, crouched beneath a little hill of tropical foliage. Our negro stopped; his errand, he said, was done,--that was Mr Murch’s house. He stood shifting from one leg to the other, his white eyeballs glancing on every side, holding out his dingy paw for his fee, in a terrible hurry to be gone. As the money touched his palm he was off like an arrow.

“He doesn’t seem to relish the neighbourhood,” Pomfrett observed, staring after the fleeing figure. “It seems quiet enough.”

It was quiet, indeed. The breeze hummed in the vast, feathery tree-tops, the grasshoppers chirped, and the droning of the flies was like the turning of a wheel; but these monotonous sounds made but an undercurrent in the deep stillness. Not a soul was in sight. The low, secret-looking house with the green shutters stood to all appearance wholly deserted, as we approached. The whole place was noiseless as a dream. I had a fancy, indeed, that I was walking in a dream, as we came to the neatly raked sand in front of the verandah, upon which our footsteps made no sound, and noted the shuttered windows, and spied in vain for any sign of habitation. But Pomfrett had no such fancies.

“I suppose these people sleep in the day-time. We’ll make ’em rouse and bitt,” said he, and rapped smartly on the door.

It was opened with unexpected promptness by an old, white-haired negro. We asked him if Mr Jevon Murch were within. Instead of answering, the black opened his mouth and, gaping at us horribly, pointed down that red cavern. Our eyes following his gesture, we saw that his tongue had been cut out. Pomfrett had the letter of introduction in his hand. Still fearfully staring, he offered it mechanically to this nightmare of a negro, who took it, nodded, flashed a grin upon us, and shut the door in our faces.

We looked at one another, not without dismay.

“Oh, dear me!” said Pomfrett, with great gravity. “What next, I wonder?”

The hot silence settled thick about us, as we waited on the threshold.

V

MR MURCH’S REPENTANCE

Presently the negro reappeared, motioned us within, and led us into a cool, gloomy room with a matted floor, sparely furnished with a table, a great carved settle, and a red earthenware water-jar, oozing a cold perspiration. The walls, of baked earth, or adobe, were two or three feet thick in the embrasure of the small window, which was fitted with an iron grille, curiously wrought. The square of the window framed a space of blinding sunshine, continually crossed and recrossed by darting, many-coloured flies. We had a few minutes in which to remark these things, before the heavy door opened, and there entered a tall old man, dressed in loose clothes of white linen. His complexion was of the colour of old mahogany, so that his eyes glinted light like steel, and his thick white hair and beard were as snow. With his strong projection of chin, line of forehead running sharply backward and upward, and upward slant of tufted eyebrow and long, narrow eye, there was at the first glance a certain viperine aspect about Mr Jevon Murch. The skin of his face was wrought into a net-work of fine lines, not only about the eyes, where the net was closest, but covering cheek and forehead.

“Mr Pomfrett,” said Mr Murch, bending his keen glance upon each of us in turn. He had a beautiful deep voice, like a bell.

Pomfrett signified that he was the person addressed.

“Ah! You are Brandon Pomfrett? And you, sir, are Henry Winter? Precisely. Well, gentlemen,” said Mr Murch, with stern deliberation, “I am sorry to see you here. But I have my duty to do, as you have yours.”

At this unexpected address, we stared in amazement.

“I surprise you,” said Mr Murch. “Or, rather, God surprises you. You shall never escape Him. He is ever in ambuscade. Did you think to avoid His arm by fleeing across the seas? Why, you witless boys, all the while ’twas His wind was blowing you to the place of repentance.”

We had no notion of what this extraordinary man might mean; but it seemed clear enough that the sooner we were out of his house the better.

“I fear,” said Brandon, politely, “there has been some mistake, sir. We have the honour to wish you good-day.” He made as if to go, but Mr Murch stood against the door, his hand upon the lock.

“As to a mistake, be sure, Mr Pomfrett, I will ascertain the rights of the business. Sir,” said Mr Murch, with great dignity, “I keep a clean ship here--no slaver. Meanwhile, sirs, I must ask you to accept my hospitality.” He slipped from the room, and we heard the bolt click. We were prisoners.

Of course, we tried to get out; and, of course, we failed. The door was of some dark, hard, foreign wood, inches thick; the window-bars were immovable. We discussed the situation. At first we were ready to conclude that Mr Jevon Murch was mad, since he was evidently sober; but the explanation seemed inadequate. Such were the hurry and disorder of our spirits, that it took us a long time to arrive at the conclusion which, to the reader, must appear fairly obvious. Mr Dawkins had sold us to his friend, Mr Murch, who would either keep us captive until the ship had sailed, or, what in those days was the more likely supposition, would enslave us to work on his plantation. Either way, the prospect did not smile. Either way, as the supercargo remarked, we were in a clove hitch. But, why should Mr Dawkins desire to be rid of the owners’ agent and, by consequence, his assistant? Here, again, we were long in debate before we came to a plausible theory. The owners’ representatives out of the way, Mr Dawkins would lift the plate and skip with the profits--this was our brilliant solution.

“Why, the man’s a common pirate,” cried Brandon. “However could we have engaged him? But it was the bottle did it; we had to, you see. It was all my fault, but it seemed such plain sailing at the time. I can never go back to England now, whatever this Murch does with us. We’re done--the game’s up. And I’ve dragged you into it, too, Harry,” says Brandon, with a very proper expression of remorse.

But regrets were unavailing, as I told him; this world is unsusceptible of refinements. It was to be supposed that Dawkins’s letter to Murch had described us as two young gallows-birds whose ingenuous faces our relatives were not anxious to behold again. Everyone is aware that the plantations used to relieve of their failures who knows how many excellent families? There was nothing strange in that. Dawkins had probably garlanded our necks for the sacrifice with the fragments of all the Ten Commandments; or, rather, it was to be supposed, Gamaliel’s fertile wit had done so for him, since Dawkins was no hand with a pen. Mr Murch, in all likelihood, was even now gone to see Captain Dawkins on our account; Dawkins would confirm his letter with damning detail; the bonds would be signed, and Mr Dawkins would pouch two hundred pieces of eight, or so. He would be at no loss to explain to the officers the continued absence of two dissolute young men; would make great pretence of delaying his departure; and would finally cut sail, swearing that he declined to lose another half-hour for the Angel Gabriel himself. We could see him at it. As for Mr Jevon Murch, he would return with Dawkins’s sign-manual for value received in his pocket, and--what then? We should be his property, as much as his ass, or his ox, or anything that was his. We should have lost everything in the world, and ourselves into the bargain. And yet, Mr Murch seemed possessed of piety, a strange quality in a friend of Mr Dawkins’s and one of Captain Morgan’s men.

“If there’s anything I hate,” says Brandon, with great energy, “’tis hypocrisy.”

I was beginning to explain to him how rare was this vice, so fluently imputed, so difficult to learn, when there came a knock at the door, a little barred wicket opened in the panel, and the face of the dumb negro appeared in the opening. He handed in a bottle of wine, a couple of cold roasted fowls, a branch of bananas, some good white bread, and various small delicacies. These I received and set out on the table, for Pomfrett refused to touch them.

“I will not break bread in the house of this canting scoundrel of a crimp and buccaneer,” said he, nobly, with a ravenous eye on the victuals, the like of which he had not smelt for weeks.

And all hungry and thirsty as I was, I had to persuade the virtuous supercargo that here were no hospitalities of an equal, but rations for prisoners, before I could begin.

“Do you really think so?” said Brandon.

I understood him. “My dear man,” said I, “do you take my feelings to be less delicate than your own?”

This was all he wanted; and, honour being satisfied, we made a heavenly meal. The negro kept in attendance and brought us cigarros, and we lay on the floor and smoked. We were not nearly so sad as we thought we were. I think, secretly, we began to conceive a sneaking kindness towards Mr Jevon Murch.

The twilight was gathering, when the bolts shot back, the door swung wide, and the great figure of Mr Murch appeared in the dark of the doorway.

“If you will have the kindness to come into my room, gentlemen, we will have a talk,” said he.

“Sir,” began Pomfrett, “what----”

But Murch had turned his back. Following him, we stepped into the passage, glancing left and right for a chance of escape. The passage opened at either end to the cool of the evening air; and in the doorways lounged two or three white men in great hats, holding long guns in the hollow of their arms, whom I took to be overseers. We followed Mr Murch into the room opposite our prison. He sat beside a tall scrutoire, a pair of lighted candles in silver candlesticks at his elbow.

“Now, gentlemen,” said he. “I have heard your captain’s account of you. I should be glad to hear your own.”

“By what right----” Brandon began.

“By right of purchase,” Mr Murch broke in. “You are as much mine”--he spread his broad hand upon the desk--“to keep, burn, or destroy, as this piece of furniture. Do you require documentary evidence? Here it is.”

He took a folded paper from his vest and laid it beside him. It was as we thought. We were indentured slaves for five years.

But Brandon declined to look at the document, declined to accept Mr Murch’s explanation, declined to have anything to do with him. He demanded, as a free British subject, to be liberated instantly, and so forth, with a fine indignation; to all of which Mr Murch hearkened with more patience than I should have expected him to manifest, on the whole. As he reclined in his chair, his great size and mass half in light and half in shadow, his narrow eyes, the upper lids drawn close, like the lids of a hawk’s eye, fixed upon the speaker’s simple countenance, the old buccaneer disengaged a strong expression of latent force; of sleeping fires that a touch might kindle into a highly disagreeable conflagration.

“I should tell you, Mr Pomfrett,” said he, in his sounding, deliberate tones, “that all this is nothing. Barbadoes is not England. Once for all, I am master here. There’s no admiral that sails the seas commands the obedience I command. Now, as to my request, again. Your story, gentlemen, is of no moment to me. You, Mr Pomfrett, may have misapplied your uncle’s money; you, Mr Winter, may have stolen a virtuous young woman from her parents”--here, then, were some of Mr Dawkins’s rather clumsy inventions--“it is nothing to me. It was rather for your own sakes that I made my request. I make it again.”

Every line upon his swarthy face, every hair of his strong white beard, every vibration of his deep voice cried “Beware!” We complied. We told Mr Jevon Murch all that had befallen, from the meeting in Gamaliel’s tavern to our landing in this accursed island. Pomfrett ended by a fervent adjuration, imploring Mr Murch, if he could not give or sell his liberty, at least to let him go down to the ship, on his parole, and challenge Captain Dawkins to mortal combat.

Mr Murch, who had listened without a word, good or bad, treated the proposition very airily.

“My lad,” said he, “don’t you know Dawkins better than that? He does not fight except for gain. Moreover, he sails to-night--has already cut sail, in all likelihood.”

I thought Brandon would have sprung at his throat, and then I thought he would break into weeping. He glanced at the iron face of his master, and then he stood looking down, with a bitten lip. Before he had time to give way to his feelings, Murch struck a silver gong, and a brown servant appeared, by whom preceded, and followed by Mr Murch, we were conducted into a sleeping-chamber. Murch commended to us the food and wine set out on a side-table, bade us good-night, and left us, bolting the door after him.

These emergencies of life are worse in either anticipation or retrospect than in experience. We thought little, and said little, ate and drank, and slept soundly, chiefly conscious of the pleasure of being ashore, in a clean house, with fresh food. That we were sold into slavery was certainly a disaster; we were aware of it, in the abstract; but, at present, we felt it not. As for Mr Murch, he puzzled us.

But, somehow or other, during the night-watches the shadow of servitude descended upon us. We awoke at first to a vague consciousness of a nameless taint, then to a clear perception of that infamy. In the good hour of the dawn, when the world is all still, and the air scented with the smoke of wood-fires, we stood sullen at the window, gazing at the clear glory of the sky with the eyes of chained dogs. It was so Mr Murch found us, when he came briskly in, at the heels of a thundering knock, cat-footed, for all his bulk, and massively alert.

“Gentlemen, what cheer? I have brought you a little present,” quoth he, tapping a folded paper with his thick fingers. “Do me the favour to glance at this document.”

Pomfrett received the paper, and together we ran our eyes over it. It was the same I had perused the night before, signed with Dawkins’s great sprawling signature, and purporting to be the indenture delivering us to Mr Jevon Murch for a term of five years. The sum paid was one hundred and fifteen pieces of eight for Brandon Pomfrett, aged twenty-two; one hundred for Henry Winter, aged twenty-five; both being “notorious profligate evil-livers.” The schoolmaster, it appeared, was the cheaper article--why?

“You have us in a trap--we knew that last night,” said Brandon, returning the paper. “But let me tell you, that’s a shameful document,” he added, hardily.

Mr Murch, with those narrow-lidded eyes of his on Brandon, slowly tore the paper across and across. We stared at the pieces as they dropped, and up at the bronze countenance with its inscrutable hieroglyphic of fine lines.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Pomfrett, stupidly.

“I desire your company, gentlemen, at breakfast--and my servants do not sit at table with me,” said Mr Murch. “I beg you will so favour me.” With his customary abrupt action, he turned about and padded from the room. What should we do but follow? Mr Murch led us out into the verandah. A lady wearing a black lace mantilla, as the Spanish ladies use, came to him and kissed him.

We were presented in due form to Mistress Morgan Leroux. What shall I say of her? She had the blackest eyes I ever beheld (but no eyes are truly black), beneath level brows, and a mouth the colour of bruised poppies. In the shadow of her hood and her dark hair she glowed like a rose, a refreshing vision to eyes tired with the eternal waste of sea. Mistress Morgan looked curiously at these two gentlemen, who were slaves (the taint was upon us still) no later than this morning, and it was their glance that dropped.

Mr Murch ate enough for three, and talked in a proportion.

“A clean ship, and the log posted--there’s the rule for a mariner,” says he. “Now, gentlemen, I’ll tell you. I’ve had youngsters shipped to me before; their cases were clear; repentance was the thing for them, and discipline to back it. Repentance is the word. A man is blown out of his course--there’s never mortal man that isn’t--and fetches up on a lee-shore very likely. He claws off as best he may, and thinks no more about it. And when he’s shipwrecked once for all, he’s surprised. He likes to consider himself a clever man, you see--he hasn’t the heart to repent--he’s a fool. Well, now, when I came to post up the log last night, I had in my mind that Dawkins was lying, after what you told me of yourselves. I know Mr Dawkins better than he knows me. But I wasn’t sure. I took the night to think it over, and this morning I saw what to do. Yours, gentlemen, is not a common case.”

“I hope not,” said Pomfrett. “I’ve lost my ship.”

“And that’s better than losing your head, my lad,” observed Mr Murch.

“Was that the alternative?” enquired Pomfrett, apparently with ironical intention.

“Dawkins is bitter fond of money, but he must be growing strangely patient in his old age to have suffered an owners’ agent so long,” returned Mr Murch, shaking his great head. “Why, next to the captain who died, and lucky for him, you were the thorn in his pillow from the beginning. What! not content with being an agent, you must hector him on his quarterdeck, by your own account! No--it’s a miracle you came ashore, Mr Supercargo.”

Here was a new point of view. Mr Murch began to appear transfigured into the light of a saviour.

“Yes,” he went on, “you may say I bought your salvation, gentlemen. No--don’t thank me.” Mr Murch waved deprecating hands. “If I hadn’t bought you, others would. Dawkins came to me as an old shipmate, you see.”

It was like a dream to be sitting in that strange place, with the girl watching us, and the old buccaneer discussing, between mouthfuls, the question of our death or purchase as though we had been a brace of poultry.

“But what I say and maintain, is a clean ship above board and below,” said Murch, harping back. “I hope I make myself clear, gentlemen. I want you to understand me. I know what’s right and I know what’s wrong, as well as any man alive. I consider it right to buy slaves under certain conditions, wrong under others. You do right, as you think; you find it wrong; what then? Repent, as I was saying. Repent, smart and handsome, and that brings you to your course again. Take your own case--you see? Why, now, that’s all shipshape. With your leave, we’ll talk business presently. Mistress Morgan will entertain you in the meanwhile, I daresay.”

Having delivered himself of these sentiments in his weighty, sonorous manner, whose positive assurance implied negation of even the possibility of contradiction, the old gentleman clapped a palm-leaf hat on his head, called for his horse, and disappeared.

“When Mr Murch talks in this way, you may believe him. It is true what he says.” Thus abruptly did Mistress Morgan Leroux address us, with a clear foreign-accented enunciation.

“Is Mr Murch your----?” asked Pomfrett, rather at a loss.

“My guardian, yes,” said the girl. “Ever since Sir Henry Morgan went to England. He was my grandfather--Sir Henry; that is why I am called Morgan.”

She sent for cigarros, and took one herself. We sat there in the cool shadow, well filled and comfortable. Pomfrett talked with Morgan Leroux. He forgot his ship, and his owners, and his aunt, and everything--you had only to glance at his face to know that. I let them talk; women are not much in my way. After a while old Murch came back and carried us into his room.

VI

TWO CATSPAWS AND A LADY

The dusky chamber, its lattices closed against the heat, was filled with the rushing noise of the wind in the trees without. Brandon Pomfrett gazed at me with a rueful countenance; he was thinking of the _Blessed Endeavour_, our tall ship, thrashing along before the gale, main-chains under, while we were caged with the old buccaneer.

“Well,” said Mr Murch, answering our thought, “so Mr Dawkins is cracking on for Yucatan, is he? From what I saw of your ship, I should say Dawkins could knock nine knots out of her, on a wind. He’ll soon fetch up in Catoche Bay. Now, I wonder, Mr Supercargo, if your owners would entertain a claim for salvage? I mean, if Dawkins were taken, now, with the plate on board, what, sir, on behalf of your owners, would you propose, for example?”

Mr Supercargo, excited but cautious, was understood to propose full and adequate compensation. Mr Murch appeared to reflect upon the proposition.

“Now,” he resumed, presently, “you know my rule,--a clean ship alow and aloft, nothing to hide, nothing hidden. Plain, open dealing. I tell you, candidly, I should find it hard to get a ship. I was one of Morgan’s men, you see. I’m earmarked. Every governor in these islands is bound to put down piracy. That is, if he hears of it. He’s not forced to ask questions. But Jevon Murch--no, they couldn’t allow Jevon Murch. That were too undisguised. But you, my lads,” says the old gentleman, stroking his beard and surveying us with narrowed eyes, “you could take your pick of every clipper bottom in the Indies.”

“There’s a trifling obstacle--we’ve no money,” said Pomfrett.

“There’s money to be had, perhaps,” said Murch. “I’ll be plain with you. I’ve a notion to end my days in England--I want to see Mistress Morgan settled there before I die. But England is no place for a poor man. I should have to sell the plantation, you see. To leave the estate to an agent is as good as to lose it--no reflection intended, Mr Pomfrett, I assure you. The sale would bring something, but not enough. How am I to get more? I’ll tell you, and here’s my offer. You get the ship, I’ll find the money. Fit her out as a privateer, and make sail after Dawkins. If we catch him, there’s your ship for you and salvage for me. If we don’t, why, with two stout ships I’ll engage to cut the guts out of Frenchman and Spaniard from the River Plate to California. It would be worth my while, you see. The question is, do you take it to be worth yours, Mr Agent?”

Mr Agent sat gazing upon the old pirate out of troubled blue eyes. The noise of the wind filled the room, thundering about the house, and beating with muffled blows upon the windows. Before the same gale Dawkins was slipping northward.

“Isn’t it too late?” said Brandon, dubiously.

“For Dawkins? No,” returned Murch. “No, I think not. I’ll tell you why. Dawkins will require another-guess crew to what he shipped with. There’s old seamen who’ve sailed on the account scattered in every port from here to Tortuga. Dawkins will shed his green stuff on the beach and fill up with the preserved ginger, if I know him. Let him, I say. All the better for us.”

Another pause, the hurry and the tumult of the wind mixed with the hurry and tumult of our minds. The new prospect was so unexpected, so suddenly opened, we were confounded. Mr Murch sat looking placidly down his nose.

“I’ll wager,” said he, presently, “you are wondering how I can trust two strange gentlemen so instantly. Simple enough. At my age, I can tell a man when I see him. At yours, now--why, you’re thinking even now that you put your heads in the lion’s mouth when you ship with me; deny it if you can,” says the old gentleman, creasing his face into a grin that curved his mouth upward, revealing his strong white teeth.

It was true. For me, I could conceive of no more desperate enterprise. But, our case was desperate. And Brandon, who would have given his body to be burned to get his ship back, asked for a day to consider the matter.

“A day!” cried Mr Murch. “Why, I would undertake to think the sun out of the heavens in a day. Better spin a ducat and be done. But take your time, gentlemen, take your time. Meanwhile, I’ll take a walk to the harbour. No sense in losing time, and I might fall across something which would come in useful. Remember, gentlemen, you are to use this house as your own.”

With that, he was gone. There seemed in us, upon discussion, some fatal attraction to piracy. Dawkins comes to Bristol, and chance, which might have led us twenty other ways, takes us straight into his company. He has us safe in that accursed bottle of his the same day, and there we are fitting out a fine ship for him to steal. We come to Barbadoes, are cast straightway into Mr Murch’s clutches, and in a trice we are getting a ship for Mr Murch--for him to steal, for all we knew. A fate was upon us: we were born to be catspaws for pirates.

We debated the question of appealing to the Governor of Barbadoes. What little we knew of governors did not incline us to this course. If he sent a ship-of-war after Mr Dawkins--which was highly improbable--any booty there might be would be confiscate to the government. The ship might be confiscate, too, for all we knew to the contrary. Besides, Dawkins would assuredly fight, and the ship would be knocked to pieces, or sunk, very likely. And if she were taken without damage, what should we be doing with a shipload of pirates, in strange waters, without captain, pilot, or sailing-master? The enterprise did not promise much. True, it seemed the legal, proper procedure; but were we not bound to do the best for the owners, irrespective of legal considerations?

“Very well,” says Pomfrett, “shall we ship with Murch? He’s----”

The door opened, and there was Mistress Morgan.

“He’s our only chance,” Brandon ended, hastily.

“And pray, sir, who is your only chance?” asked Mistress Morgan, familiarly. She seated herself in Mr Murch’s chair. This lady did not at all resemble our English ladies at home. She looked you in the face; she spoke to you as to an equal; she had no tricks of attitude or manner; but walked or reclined with the graceful, languorous freedom of an animal. In England, they would have said she lacked breeding.

Pomfrett had a notion that it was improper to discuss affairs with ladies, as his countenance plainly showed. “We were talking of some business, madam,” said he.

“Oh, I know your story,” said Mistress Morgan. “Mr Murch told me. I begged him, when,” says she, without the faintest reticence, “he bought you, to give you to me. I seldom see gentlemen fresh from England. I hoped you would amuse me.”

I do not know if it amused Mistress Morgan to see at least one gentleman fresh from England, sitting in a dumb agony of embarrassment before her.

“Tell me,” repeated Morgan Leroux, “who is your only chance? You are my lawful prey, you know. Would you escape my bondage?”

“On the contrary,” says Brandon, with sudden courage, “we would embrace it?”

“Embrace! Fie, Mr Pomfrett, what a word to use to a lady!” says Mistress Leroux, and Brandon flushed to his ears.

“Never mind,” she went on, “you meant no harm, I can see. Now, are we to sail to England together? Before you came, I was pestering Mr Murch night and day to take me to England, and he kept fobbing me off with this and that. And this morning he tells me it all depends on your consent to a proposal of his. Why, now, can you hesitate? Will you condemn poor Morgan Leroux to a lifetime on a plantation? Oh, if you knew how I hate the everlasting dulness of the days, everyone alike--and the smell of the black people!”

Pomfrett looked furtively at me. We had not taken the lady into consideration hitherto. Here was a new inducement; to Pomfrett, perilously attractive. I could see that he was trying to square his impulse with his duty to his owners. Morgan Leroux turned to me.

“Mr Winter, how mum you sit in your corner. Why, I’m ready to swear I’ve not yet heard the sound of your voice. What do you say, now?”

I said I was but an humble clerk, whose duty it was to follow whither he was led.

“A very proper answer, Mr Winter,” said Morgan, bluntly. She meant nothing contemptuous; she said what she thought.