Chapter IV: Part 4

The door was opened at once by a servant in livery, to whom Morgan spoke in Spanish. In the light of the garden we perceived that Mistress Morgan was dressed like a great gentleman, in lace and velvet and silk. Lamps of many colours gleamed and shone among the trees; within the house fiddles were going to a merry measure, and we could see the flitting figures of the dancers through the lighted windows. Many ladies and gentlemen moved in the garden, passing from shadow to shine with a gleam of finery and sparkle of jewels. There we stood, a crowd of lackeys and negroes staring upon this pair of scarecrows with matted hair, unshaven faces, tattered and miry clothes, while Morgan talked with the man who opened the door. Presently he went away, with an obeisance, and Morgan took us aside and spoke low.

“I have brought a letter for the Governor. I have told the servant you brought it to me through the forest; this will account for your state; he will bring you food. Eat and drink, and wait here by the door; if you hear me call, open the door and bring in the crew. But there is little danger. If you must speak, speak French--not a word of English, mind!”

Here, one with a silver wand came up, and Morgan went away with him--into the Governor’s presence, it was to be supposed. They brought us food and wine, and we ate and drank, sitting with our backs against the wall, hard by the door. We could hear the men on the other side talking low among themselves, while in front of us the festival went forward like a scene in a playhouse. But, before very long the music stopped, the assembly in the garden streamed within-doors, there was a great noise of talking, and presently the company began to depart in haste. They all passed close to us, as we sat by the door--fine ladies, hooded and cloaked, bearded Spanish gentlemen, some wearing swords, some without, some dressed in full uniform, some habited like merchants; the rout huddled past us in a hurry and out into the road, and before we had finished the jug of wine the garden was deserted, the house fallen silent, its lighted windows empty, and we were alone. Pomfrett was asleep by this time; and as for me, I thought I was asleep too, and dreaming. In my dream it seemed that Morgan Leroux came out of the house and called the crew within, and disposed them as sentries about the house; that two of them carried Pomfrett into the house and laid him upon a bed in a high, dark chamber smelling of cedar, while some draggled remains of one who was formerly known as Henry Winter, but who must on no account be confused with the real owner of that respectable name, staggered in to sink into a heap on the floor; that Morgan Leroux held a taper to the dazzled eyes of the said heap, which was then hove bodily upon a soft bed. Here the dream ended.

X

_DUX FEMINA FECIT_

A thundering of cannon, clanging of bells, and calling of trumpets fetched me broad awake. Pomfrett, slumbering on the great bed, never moved. I let him lie, and ran out to the verandah. There was Morgan Leroux, sound asleep in a chair. Sleep is a tell-tale; some quality of nature, hidden by day, looks stealthily forth from the unconscious face. Morgan’s beauty had in a measure departed from her. The features had relapsed into something of grossness: the nostril coarsened, the mouth relaxed, the skin flushed a dull red. The spiritual had evaporated; the animal was apparent. Yet it was no bad animal that lay supine, I thought, but an honest creature of courage and tenacity--and something more. But what that something was I could not decipher. Morgan Leroux opened her eyes, and her face changed into its living semblance, as her hands moved mechanically about the disarray of her man’s attire.

“Where’s Brandon--where’s Mr Pomfrett?” were Morgan’s first words. “Rouse him out--he must be gone before Murch comes, and you too, or there’ll be the devil to pay.” The noise of firing was so loud, I could hardly hear what she said. “I’m in charge of the Governor’s house, while he’s away directing the defence,” Morgan went on, with a pleasant smile. “Now, fetch Brandon, and I’ll get some victuals the while. Smart’s the word, Harry.”

She blew upon a whistle, and a sentry, from the other side of the house, answered the call, and began shouting to the crew, who were quartered somewhere out of sight. Brandon Pomfrett lay as I had left him. This face, at least, suffered little change in sleep; there was the same simple, stubborn honesty which ever marked the owners’ agent. Mark you now these two reflections of different souls; for the souls themselves were already in conflict one with another, and the weakest must lose the game.

A minute or two, and I had Brandon Pomfrett out on the verandah; but Mistress Morgan had found time enough to arrange her hair, and so forth, cares which were lost on Mr Pomfrett. The men brought relics of last night’s sumptuous banquet; and it was Mr Pomfrett’s glass that must be filled with wine, and his silver plate heaped with delicacies, by Morgan’s hands--hands that shook at the noise of artillery and tumult in the town below. As for Mr Winter, he was glad to shift for himself. So we crammed our victuals, standing and looking upon the empty garden, where the extinguished lamps were hanging in the trees and a few withered flowers lay upon the trodden sands of the walks.

“I don’t like this firing,” said Morgan. “But it’s a comfort to think there’ll be no one hurt--the dear Governor will care for that. You don’t understand? It’s just Mr Murch’s way, you see. We enter the town by the back door, all as you saw last night, while Mr Murch lies-to outside the harbour. We visit the Governor, introduced by the sentry--all as you saw.... His Excellency is giving a banquet. So much the better--we get the chief burgesses and soldier people, wives and all, in a bag. We secure the entrances, and there they are, prisoners of war, everyone in his best clothes. I have four pistols in my sash (only one is loaded, because I hate pistols, but how is his Excellency to know that?), and I present myself with my best bow and my whitest hand--a messenger of peace. I take his Excellency by his frill, and lead him apart from the giddy throng. ‘Sir,’ says I, ‘Admiral Jevon Murch is lying off the harbour bar, with the Black Flag at the main, and a dozen tall ships at his call----’”

“But has he?” asked Brandon, round-eyed.

“What a question!” Morgan returned. “Have you never heard of a _ruse de guerre_? You forget I was employed in saving all those poor people’s lives. Don’t interrupt--there’s no time. If Murch catches you here, my pretty gentlemen--well, I can’t help you, as I said before.” She glanced about, terror in her face. “To be brief, I told the Governor that Murch would burn the town unless it was ransomed before ten o’clock to-morrow--to-day, that is--for two hundred thousand pieces of eight. Moreover, he and his friends would be hanged on the trees of the garden at sunrise.”

As she talked, in a high voice of feverish rapidity, her eyes shone, laughter passed upon her face like light and was gone, and all the time she kept glancing about and stopping in her talk, as though to listen, amid the noise of the firing, for the tramp of the pirates’ nearing footsteps.

“You would never have done it,” said Brandon, stolidly.

“Not I,” said she, “but Murch would. I was play-acting. And the old gentleman submitted. Perhaps he remembered the visit of Sir Henry Morgan to Porto-Bello. He little knew whose granddaughter he was making submission to. But he stood on a condition that he should be allowed to set up a sham defence, to save his honour before the world. Bless the man, of course he should! He’s making it now--hark to the Governor’s cannon. And off he went to take the shot from all guns, with a guard of honour from the _Wheel of Fortune_ to attend him, in case of accidents. That’s all. Now, would you like a ship?”

She flashed the question at Pomfrett.

“A ship? what sort of a ship?” asked the slow-moving supercargo.

“A ship--don’t you hear me tell you--a ship with masts and sails. Oh, Mother of God, how dull----”

“A ship--yes, I suppose so. But what for?” Brandon lacked the time to appreciate the situation.

Morgan stamped her foot. “To carry you from here before Murch sees you. Hark!” She stared across the garden at the great wooden gate in the wall.

“There’s nothing,” said Brandon, unmoved. “And what ails us with Mr Murch, pray? It’s I that have a quarrel with him, I think. I want to ask your Mr Murch why he marooned me.”

“How long will you dilly-dally?” cried Morgan. “Come! There’s ships in the harbour for the taking. I’ll give you ten men. What’s it to be?”

“Why,” says Brandon, “the ship I want is the _Blessed Endeavour_.”

“Get another and chase her, then,” returned Morgan.

Brandon stood quietly considering the matter, undisturbed by the imminent jeopardy in which we stood. For Murch desired our removal, that was clear; probably because we knew too much of his secret affairs. For myself, I could see well enough that Morgan Leroux had much of a mind towards the amiable Pomfrett; it was scarce extravagant to suppose that Murch perceived as much, having more incentive to observation; and I wondered if the old buccaneer objected to his ward’s fancy. I had no time to pursue the speculation, for there, sure enough, was the tramping of feet coming up the lane without. Then came an imperious hammering on the garden gate, and Murch’s voice bellowing for admission.

“There! I knew it!” cried Morgan, turning white as a napkin. “Go! Get you out by the back, go down to the harbour, and I’ll send the men. Go!”

She laid hands on Brandon in her haste and fear, urging him into the house. “What’s all this?” said he, holding back. “Why should I go? I’m not afraid of Murch.”

Morgan pulled at his sleeve, the tears running down her face.

“Why, very well,” said Brandon, hastily, “let be, I’ll go. Good-bye.”

He looked at her as he spoke, but I think he never read the glance she gave him. The next moment we were retreating through the house. One of the _Wheel of Fortune’s_ crew stood sentry on a little door opening from the back of the garden; seeing who we were, he let us pass, and we went down towards the sea. The inhabitants, black, white, and brown, were tumbling out of their houses, for fear of the pirates. They passed us, singly and in groups, laden with cooking-pots and bundles, all going to camp in the woods, the children running and crying at their heels. All through the town it was the same; and all the while the bells were hammering in the steeples and the big guns were booming in the castle, and never a sign of a pirate to be seen until we came to the quays; and there was the _Wheel of Fortune_ wreathed in smoke, the great black flag flying at the main. She was firing at the moored ships about her, a dozen or more merchant bottoms, and three or four were firing in return, while puffs of smoke kept breaking from the walls of the stone forts at the harbour mouth. A sea-fight is a confused business--masts and sails appearing and disappearing in thickening volumes of smoke, tongued with red flashes, to an intermittent roar of cannon and crash of splintering wood--and the spectator can make but little of it. But, it would appear that Mr Murch, in his bargain with the Governor, had omitted to include the shipping in the harbour. Here was no mock engagement. We could hear the shot strike and see the splinters fly, and here and there a top-mast shut down sideways.

A convenient pile of timber made a shelter against the balls which came ashore now and again, and there we had a little leisure to consider the posture of affairs.

“I don’t understand this girl--this Morgan Leroux,” said Pomfrett.

“Why should you?”

“The girl worries me. Why should she want to come with us--when was it? only yesterday, so it was--and then here she is at Porto-Bello; and now she’ll get us a ship, by her way of it. But I don’t believe she can.”

“_Dux femina fecit_,” I said.

“Yes, but I don’t like it. Besides, the girl’s a pirate, and the daughter of a pirate. Why is it we can never be rid of pirates, whatever we do? All I want is to sail a straight course in the owners’ interests, and it can’t be done for this mess of pirates,” complained the agent. “All we do is to purvey ships for them.”

“Well, here’s a pirate--a female pirate--offering to purvey a ship for you in return.”

“And if she is,” says Brandon, with energy, “I’ll take it. I’ve got to get the property back somehow. I tell you what, Harry, I’ve been thinking that there’s cases where ordinary rules of morals don’t apply.”

“Do you say so? Continue, good supercargo.”

“Well, that’s all,” said Pomfrett, after a little consideration. “But don’t you agree with me?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “But the question is, what are we to do next?”

“Let us look the situation fairly in the face,” said Pomfrett. “I wish there was less noise, but it can’t be helped. First, there’s Dawkins, sailing away with our ship, the _Blessed Endeavour_.”

“And Mr Murch’s silver. Or, rather, Mistress Morgan Leroux’s silver.”

“There again,” said the agent, wrinkling his brow. “How do I know whose silver it is? It may be the very silver I set out to get. You can’t believe these pirate people. Anyway, it’s aboard my ship.”

“Call it yours, then. What next?”

“Next, there’s Murch in his ship, the _Wheel of Fortune_, which he owes to me, engaged in taking Porto-Bello. And next, there’s our ship which we haven’t got, but which Morgan Leroux says she will get for us.”

“And next, there’s ourselves, the Two Gentlemen of Porto-Bello, or the Virtuous Pirates,” I remarked.

“We’re not pirates yet,” said Pomfrett, cocking an eye over the baulks of timber, and diving down again at the report of a gun.

“How about getting Murch a ship under false pretences?”

“That was necessary in the owners’ interests. Besides, we never knew he was going to play this game.” Brandon regarded me with great solemnity. “I see nothing to laugh at,” he added. “I tell you, I’ll stick at nothing to get my ship back. I’m not afraid of words. Call me a pirate, if it amuses you.”

“There’s nothing amusing about Execution Dock,” I said, “and that’s the course you’re shaping, as sure as you’re alive, my buccaneer.”

“I can’t help it,” said the valiant agent. “But there’s no reason why you should run the risk because I do. You’ve no responsibility, and I hold you free to go where you like,” he added, magnanimously.

I thanked him. But--the rules of morality having been stretched all ready for action--the question still remained, what to do next? We sat and contemplated the problem, while the fight went merrily forward in the harbour. Boats had been lowered from the _Wheel of Fortune_ by this time, and a couple of ships had been boarded and, apparently, taken. Presently the firing ceased; the cannonading from the castle, too, had slackened, and the bells had stopped their clamour. We were reflecting that, if the Governor had by any chance discovered how small was Murch’s force, there was still time for him to reverse the fortunes of that astute general, when Morgan Leroux, wrapped in a fine cloak of crimson velvet, appeared upon the quay. Behind her marched William Crowby, the boatswain, and a party of seamen, none too steady on their feet. Neither Murch, nor the devil his master, could keep pirates ashore from liquor.

Morgan beckoning to us, we followed her into a shore-boat; the boatswain took the tiller and steered towards a fine French sloop lying out in the harbour. Not a man appeared on deck; she swung to her moorings, to all appearance deserted.

“Better jam the rudder, all the same,” said Crowby, and put the boat under the counter, where, above our heads, ran the legend, in gold letters, _La Modeste_.

They wedged up the rudder with thwarts and an oar or two; a precaution usually taken on these occasions, to render the ship unmanageable, supposing the crew tried to run. Then we climbed aboard, Morgan Leroux going first, as superior officer. There was never a soul of her crew aboard _La Modeste_. You are to consider us all this time as following meekly the current of events, with scarce a word spoken. The hand of Destiny was on our necks, and with an Oriental composure we beheld the anchors hoisted to the cat-heads, the sails set, and the quays of Porto-Bello sliding past us. And, as in a dream, we saw Morgan Leroux signal to the officer in command of the _Wheel of Fortune_ as we passed her, heard her explain through the speaking-trumpet that she had Murch’s orders to carry the sloop outside; ducked our heads as the forts on either horn of the harbour fired at us, the balls moaning overhead between the masts; and felt the lift of the open sea.

Then Brandon Pomfrett found his voice. “Surely you’re not coming with us?” he said to Captain Morgan.

Morgan turned and looked at him. Even Brandon might have understood her glance. She turned away again without a word, and _La Modeste_, with every stitch of canvas set and drawing, sprang forward, heading north.

XI

THE LITTLE CRUISE OF _LA MODESTE_

The situation was sufficiently delicate. Pomfrett drew me to the port side of the little quarterdeck. Morgan Leroux leaned on the starboard rail, having her back towards us.

“Look here,” said the owners’ agent, “this isn’t what I meant at all. This will never do. It’s impossible. Why did she come?”

“Well, for one thing, you would never have passed Murch’s ship going out of harbour, if it hadn’t been for Morgan Leroux,” I answered.

“Who commands this ship, do you suppose?” returned the supercargo.

“You must ask the lady.”

“But how can she sail with us--or we with her?”

“Too late to enquire, is it not?”

“We can put back.”

“Can we?”

“I’ll soon see,” said the agent, and marched across to Morgan Leroux.

“Well,” said she, “have you done discussing poor Morgan?”

“Will you tell us,” returned Brandon, wisely disregarding the question, “what you--what we are to do?”

“It’s me that should ask you, I think,” said Morgan, placidly. “Here’s your ship. What are you going to do with her?”

“My ship?”

“I said I was going to get you a ship; well, now I’ve done it, haven’t I? You don’t seem weighed down with gratitude.”

“But I am grateful,” cried Pomfrett, eagerly. “I think you’re wonderful. But what troubles me,” he added, in a burst, “is what--where--how I can serve you,” he ended, lamely.

“Will you take me to England?”

“I would gladly,” said the harassed agent. “Only, how can I? Come, Mistress Morgan, I put it to you fairly, can it be done?”

“Don’t speak so loud,” said Morgan, glancing aside at old Crowby, who was handling the wheel. “I’ll answer you fairly. Yes, it can. What are you afraid of? Don’t you know I can take care of myself? Now, then. What’s the alternative?”

“I would put back into Porto-Bello, and give you to your guardian,” answered Brandon, sturdily.

“You’re a brave young man, by your way of it,” said Morgan. “But it would be quicker for you to clap a pistol to your head this minute, and ask Mr Winter to pull the trigger for you. We shall be lucky to escape Mr Murch, as it is. But put back if you want to--only, what about Mr Dawkins and your owners?”

It was true. Behold the incorruptible agent torn in twain.

“I know you mean mighty well,” Morgan went on, with a sudden change of manner, “but you don’t think of me. You think only of yourself; and yet you credit me with pure unselfishness. I had an eye for poor Morgan Leroux, let me tell you, on this little enterprise. You would have left me to sail on the private account with that bloody pirate, Mr Murch, without a thought. You never scrupled to leave me to defend my own good name then--not you. No, no. But when I take the last chance of liberty and honour, and come aboard here, on the same quarterdeck with your worships, oh, then it’s a different tale! It’s ‘Is it right to sail with a woman?’ And ‘Can we endanger our spotless reputation?’ And ‘Put back to your guardian.’ God give you joy of your virtue, gentlemen. I thank Him, mine is of a different kind.” She spoke low, a spot of red on either cheek, an angry spark in her eye, and when she had done she turned her back upon us and walked away.

Brandon looked after the graceful figure with a tightening of the jaw. “Very well,” says he, “if that’s what she wants, by God! she shall have it.” It was not, exactly, what Morgan Leroux wanted, although, no doubt, she desired that too; but Brandon was to know more of the ways of women before he had done. Meanwhile, he went to her, and they talked together.

The prime point was settled, at any rate. Brandon Pomfrett was commander of _La Modeste_. And a modest ship she was--for a pirate--if ever there was one. Captain Pomfrett laid to his duties with a will. Prayers were read on the quarterdeck morning and evening; profane language was punished by stoppage of grog; flogging was the penalty for dicing or drunkenness; for striking an officer, or attempted mutiny, the offender would be incontinently hanged at the yard-arm. The nine men of Murch’s ship, the _Wheel of Fortune’s_ crew, whom we had brought aboard, were divided into port and starboard watches, with double spells to keep, since we had but half the complement required to work the ship. Crowby, the boatswain, was made pilot and sailing-master; I, Harry Winter, was promoted to owners’ agent. The men had no thought but that we were sailing under Murch’s orders, as tender to the _Wheel of Fortune_, and the terror of his name helped to keep them within these strait bounds. They supposed he had appointed Pomfrett to the command of the stolen ship, and expected the _Wheel of Fortune_ to rejoin us very soon. We, too, expected her appearance, and we kept a sharp lookout for her top-masts rising on the sky-line. As for Morgan Leroux, the crew still regarded her as the pretty young gentleman-adventurer, in which character she had shipped at first. It seems strange that her disguise should have availed her for so long, but I can only record the fact. That there are cases upon record of women serving for years in the guise of men, both as soldiers and sailors, is notorious.

Captain Brandon Pomfrett is now, you see, committed to chivalric action. He is rescuing the lady from all sorts of perils, so she declared, and she ought to have known; he is appointed the guardian and trustee of her maiden honour. The position restored his self-respect, something damaged hitherto by the contemplation of his obligation to Morgan Leroux. She had saved him from being bought and sold as a slave, at first; she came to our aid in Porto-Bello; and, for my part, I believe that she persuaded Murch to attack that town, and took her share in the business, in the hope of finding Brandon Pomfrett again--Brandon, who would have none of her, sending her back to the ship when she would have marooned herself along with the supercargo. Then she stole the ship in which we were now all sailing together, and gave it to Pomfrett. And for all these benefits he had returned nothing until now, when the lady cast herself upon his protection. Until now, the more she did for him the less he had liked her. The obligation had galled him; besides, Brandon Pomfrett had no notion of dangling about a petticoat; he had other ends in view. Do you think Morgan Leroux had no perception of these things, when they are plain to common persons like you and me? At any rate, affairs took on another complexion aboard _La Modeste_.

From the moment Captain Pomfrett assumed command, Mistress Morgan found herself waited on hand and foot. The captain, you see, considered it his duty to pay the extreme of nice attention to one in his protection. Morgan, too, became less aggressively masculine in appearance; she wore doublet and hose, indeed, but over these she disposed the fine cloak of crimson damask which came from the house of the Governor of Porto-Bello, so that she really went clad in a loose gown. Moreover, her talk insensibly changed its note. She was less loud and downright, no longer boisterous, but falling into placid silences, in which her dark eyes, shining beneath the straight brows, like lights in still water overhung by cliffs, met Brandon’s glance and held it, and dropped away again. These little signs served to indicate the course and rising of that invisible stream that makes the real history of life. As for the other, the procession of shows, that passes with a great noise and clamour: the life of eating and drinking, fighting and folly, getting and losing; kept its indifferent way with even pace.

Its chronicle, so far as our little voyage on the Ship of Modesty be concerned, began in a report from the cook that there were but a few days’ provisions in store. Whereupon Captain Pomfrett encouraged the watch to vigilance, promising to the man who first sighted a ship the pick of the small-arms aboard her. And the second day at sea we sighted a small snow, flying French colours. Our colours were French, too--a coincidence of which we made use. We overhauled the snow, fired a shot across her bows, summoned her to surrender, and sent a boat aboard to take possession. There was but small resistance, soon put down. These little ships speculate on the chance of running the gauntlet of pirates and privateers, rather than trust to their powers of defence. We pressed six of her crew, negroes and half-castes, took her cargo of wine, brandy, flour, and cocoa, and let her go; but not before Captain Brandon had pillaged her great cabin for dainties to grace the board of his own. Two days later we took, in like manner, another small ship, laden with marmalade, jars of gunpowder, some bar silver, muskets, and bags of bullets.

Meanwhile, there was no sign of Mr Murch. It was to be supposed that he was delayed in Porto-Bello. And, meanwhile, was no sign of Mr Dawkins, either. We were sailing north, but Dawkins might have gone south for all we knew, save that Murch was ranging to the southward, and Dawkins would have little lust to meet him. So we held on, with plans somewhat indeterminate. We could not sail after Dawkins for ever; if for no other reason, because our crew would certainly break into mutiny before long. They came out for plunder, and plunder they would have, sooner or later. Failing Dawkins, we might set a course for Bristol, and keep the crew in a good humour by picking up what ships we could on the way. What would happen when we fetched up in Bristol was a question never at this time debated. Persons in a doubtful situation often avoid a discussion, for, so long as a matter is not talked of, you may, if you like, pretend that it does not exist. But it was clear enough, without any words, that we were in a feeble case. We had but four guns and twenty-odd men, against Mr Dawkins’s eighteen guns and ninety men, or Murch’s eight guns and sixty men. Either pirate could blow us out of the water, if he had a mind.

Meanwhile, we held on steadily before the jolly trade-wind, shepherding its white cloud-flocks upon the blue illimitable fields of heaven. A great part of the captain’s day was occupied in taking the sun and working out the ship’s position; no dead reckoning or rule-of-thumb for Captain Pomfrett; the rest of his time he spent with Morgan Leroux. The skipper would have had the voyage to last for ever on these terms, I think. So we cruised warily among the group of little islands, Albuquerque Cays, Saint Andrew’s Island, Old Providence Island, and Serrana Cays, spying in every harbour, creek, and inlet for our old ship, the _Blessed Endeavour_, captained now by Dawkins. For we reckoned that she would need cleaning by this time, and we hoped to light upon the bark in some sequestered bay, careened and helpless. But we worked through the islands in vain, and steered north-west for Cape Gracias à Dios, at the outflow of the River Coco, where we would take in wood and water. So expert was the captain becoming at the art of navigation, that we did not miss the Cape by more than fifteen miles--a trifling error, easily amended by two or three hours’ tacking about and about, to which evolutions we owed the sight in the offing of a tall ship steering due west. Perceiving that the stranger altered her course as though to speak with us, we went about, and soon showed that, on a wind, we had the heels of her, whoever she might be. Before long she altered her course again, steering for the mainland. But when we fetched up in the shadow of Cape Gracias à Dios that evening there was no ship to be seen, and we thought no more of her for the time, being busied for the next two or three days in getting wood and water for the ship, overhauling her, and making good defects.

Upon the third night after our arrival in this snug anchorage we had been supping late, and came upon deck about midnight--the skipper, and Morgan Leroux, and the writer of these memoirs. The moon had gone down behind the rocky headland, which loomed upon the silver dimness like a huge couchant beast; fire-flies sparkled in the vast shadows of the shore, and out to seaward the smoothly rolling plains of water stretched away and away, glimmering mysterious. Save for the eternal thunder of the surf, which ran so continually in our ears that we ceased to hear it, the night was very still.

“This is a pleasant life,” said Captain Pomfrett. “It’s a pity it must end so soon.”

“Why so soon, then?” asked Morgan Leroux.

“Owners at home, and pirates abroad,” Brandon answered.

“I am so tired of your talk about owners,” said Morgan. “What have you to do with owners, when it was their ship’s company that sold you in Barbadoes? Why, they set Dawkins on to do it, very likely.”

“You wouldn’t say so if you knew my uncle, not to mention aunt,” returned the captain, lazily. “But it was I that brought Dawkins to them in the beginning, and it’s me that has to bring him back in the end--dead or alive.”

“Dead or alive, ho, ho!” came, like an echo, and with a chuckle, close beside us; and there were the head and shoulders of a man, risen above the rail of the bulwarks, black upon the moonlight.

As we turned, he dropped below the rail. Pomfrett cried out “Who’s that?” and we all ran to the side to see a boat, manned by eight or ten men, shoving off from under the counter. Pomfrett challenged, and the same voice answered across the swiftly widening space of water, “Dead or alive, shipmate, dead or alive--ho, ho, ha!”

Pomfrett roared for the watch below, and, the men tumbling up in a hurry, he had a boat lowered and went himself in pursuit. But lowering boats and such evolutions are not performed in a ship of the private account as they are in Her Majesty’s navy. By the time our boat struck the water the stranger had a fair start, and Pomfrett must needs return before very long, having lost all trace of her in the dark.

“That’s Dawkins, for a ducat,” says Morgan; and we supposed that she was right, and that the ship which had chased us three days since was the _Blessed Endeavour_ at last. The watch on deck had no information to give; it was clear the man had been asleep, and he was duly sentenced to a flogging. Then we held a council. If Dawkins were near by, we should hear from him again before long. In that case, were we to fight? Run away we could not, for the wind had dropped. Now, buccaneers do not risk their skins in fighting unless there is a distinct advantage to be gained thereby, and Dawkins stood in very little danger from us. We were too small a force to harm him. All things considered, the captain (whose decision is final in all questions of fighting, chasing, or being chased) decided to clear for action and sit still. It was true that the boat might not have come from Dawkins, but from a strange ship, or even from Murch himself; but, even so, we had no alternative.

Yet I think we had made up our minds that it was Dawkins who had found us out--I hardly know why. Morning dawned in a windless calm, and I went ashore with a perspective glass and Morgan Leroux, who insisted on accompanying me, to climb the headland. We came to a bare place in the ridge, where the trees fell away, and there, looking northward, stretched a big lagoon, and on the shore a tall ship lay careened. Tents were pitched, the smoke of fires lifted light against the dark woods, and men were clustering like ants about the ship. That was the _Blessed Endeavour_, sure enough; I could tell her lines among a thousand.

“So there’s the long-lost bark,” says Morgan, staring through the glass. “She’s not far off, and yet she might as well be an ocean away, for all the use she is. I’ve a month’s mind to pay this Dawkins of yours a visit, Harry. Shall I ask him to dinner?”

In vain I adjured this obstinate girl to return. She laughed me to scorn.

“Your Dawkins does not know me,” said she. “Why should he harm me? I’m a brother skipper, d’ye see, out on the account, like himself. Oh, I’ll spin the man a yarn, never fear. Take your long face back to the captain with my compliments, Harry, and bid him prepare a dinner for Mr Dawkins by six o’clock. Adieu, my friend.” And she plunged into the wood.

Here was a quandary. It was my business to return to the ship and make report; yet how could I let this wild quean go alone into Dawkins’s camp? But supposing I went with her, what could I do against near a hundred pirates? Moreover, I had no longer any doubt but that our visitor of last night was sent by Dawkins, who must therefore be aware of our neighbourhood; and I reflected that Morgan could go on her errand alone with a much better face than if I were to accompany her. Besides, she was not running any great risk.

On the whole, it was better I should go back to the ship; and back I went, but ill at ease.

Captain Brandon Pomfrett fell into a violent passion when I gave him Morgan’s message.

“God do so to me, and more also, but you shall answer for every hair of her head that’s injured. Why did you let her go? Why didn’t you stop her? Why didn’t you go with her?”

Thus Pomfrett, and much more to the same effect. I never saw him in so deplorable a condition of rage and distress. But, after a while, he consented to wait until six o’clock before setting out with the whole ship’s company to rescue the damsel.

“I know,” he said, at last, “it’s her doing. You couldn’t help it--I couldn’t myself. And perhaps she’ll come back safe--she’s very clever, Harry,” says the captain, wistfully.

And, meantime, as you shall hear, Morgan Leroux stood in no danger at all, save in the captain’s excited imagination. The occurrence marks a stage in the relations of these two.

XII

THE OLD BUCCANEER AND THE NEW

So our quest of the stolen ship promised to issue, in no tragical adventure but, a simple dinner-party. When there’s a lady in the case, the schemes of men are commonly disposed quite otherwise than they had planned.

Pacing the quarterdeck, sitting down, getting up again, trying to smoke and forgetting to keep the tobacco alight, now neglecting all oversight of the men, and again turning upon some luckless seaman like a tiger--who now so uneasy as the captain, deprived of his gentleman-adventurer?

“And what in the wide world am I to do with Dawkins, should he come aboard?” says he.

“Put him in irons, take over the _Blessed Endeavour_, then maroon him; simple as you stand there.”

“Don’t you see, you fool, I can’t touch the man so long as he’s aboard? He’s my guest.”

“Morgan’s, you mean.”

“Well, the scoundrel’s _a_ guest, at any rate,” says the skipper, angrily.

“All’s fair in love and piracy. But, of course, if you’re going to stand on scruples with a pirate----”

“And pray what would you do yourself, Harry?”

“I should do what Mistress Morgan bid me,” I answered, promptly.

Brandon had nothing to say to that. “The question is,” he began again, “does he know we’re aboard? If that was his boat came sneaking in the dark, why, he does. If it wasn’t, he doesn’t know, but someone else does. And who may that be? Can it be Murch?”

“If you’ll take a humble clerk’s advice,” I said, “you’ll sit quiet instead of asking riddles; you’ll say your prayers, and keep your powder dry. This is Morgan Leroux’s affair. We have only to look on. If Dawkins doesn’t know we’re aboard, it were a pity to enlighten him. So keep dark, _I_ say.”

The captain condescended to approve this counsel, and we made arrangements accordingly. The dinner--the notion of the dinner struck the skipper as so monstrous absurd, he could not bring himself to instruct the cook, and I had to do so--the dinner was to be served in the captain’s cabin. Next to the captain’s cabin was the great cabin, occupied by Morgan Leroux. We bored spy-holes in the bulkhead between the two, and then, there was no more to be done but to wait. The ship rolled at her moorings, blocks banging and clattering, cordage creaking; the brazen sunlight lapped ship and sea and shore in a blinding glare; the everlasting rumour of the breaking surf, unheeded in the ordinary course of occupation, began to wear upon the mind. All day long the shadows crept or receded upon the white beach, the rocks, piled or scattered, the lofty barrier of forest; all day long the far sea-line, joining the horns of the wide bay, lay vacant of the smallest blur; all day long the sea-birds screamed and dived about the ship, and rode on the heaving water. The shadows lengthened, and the heat lessened sensibly; the men had finished their work, and lay and lounged about the waist and forecastle, smoking and talking, while a savoury smell of cooking meats was diffused from the galley.

If we were but cruising for pleasure, now, with hearts at ease, what a good hour would this be: the day’s work done, the aromatic breath of the woods blown off-shore by the cool land-breeze, the stars beginning to shine in the quiet sky, the great peace of the night descending upon us; whereas, under the prick of hidden circumstance, the tightening cord of suspense, we could neither stand nor lie, and the shining calm about us served but to increase discomfort. But time must go, drag his feet as he may; and there came at last a little sound of music, as of drums and fifes, and the white triangle of a sail came round the point. It was a yawl, filled with people, and drummers and fifers making melody. We stayed until we distinguished Morgan Leroux sitting in the stern-sheets, alongside Mr Dawkins, then dived below, while the boatswain piped all hands to the side. We heard the familiar voice of Dawkins roaring out the stave of a nonsensical sea ditty, as his boat drew near, and from the sound, we took that eminent commander to be half-seas over.

“Oh, lay the helm a-starboard, and round on t’other tack!
There’s many a seaman on this cruise what never will go back.
So crowd every stitch upon her, and the devil care for the spars!
And cry good-bye to earth and sky, for we’re sailing to the stars.

“All a-sailing to the stars,
Ye gentlemen Jack-tars;
We’ll meet again at Fiddler’s Green,
All up among the stars.”

The boat’s crew joined in the chorus, very much out of time, and ceased; we could hear the sea-birds, disturbed from their nesting-places among the rocks, crying and calling overhead, as the party came aboard; then Dawkins struck up again, as he came stumbling down the companion-ladder.

“Oh, up with the Jolly Roger to mizen and peak and main!
There’s many a mess of swabs afloat what’s spoiling to be slain--
So double-shot the guns, my lads, and ram ’em very tight,
And heave a kiss to Bet and Sis, for we’re out on the chase to-night.”

“Chorus! Cap’n Morgan Leroux, hey? Why, your namesake, my old commander, God bless him, would a loved that song like his very own. I mind one day, he--why, now, split _me_,” said Mr Dawkins, sitting down with a drunken chuckle, “if I rec’lect what in the deep sea I _do_ rec’lect.”

Ensconced in the adjoining cabin, we had our eyes glued to the spy-holes, you may be sure. Morgan Leroux fetched out bottle and glasses from the locker.

“A tot of rum, Mr Dawkins, now, to set you fair for dinner?”

“Spoken like your namesake,” said Dawkins, approvingly. “And you’ll surely join me this time, so I shan’t be ashamed. No? Well, strike me blind if ever I see a thing like this here. A gentleman of fortune, and not drink--why, it ain’t in nature. Well, here’s plate and plunder, full cargoes for every gentleman of fortune!”

Morgan Leroux opened the door between the cabins, and at sight of us her eyes lighted and her cheeks flushed. Brandon caught her hand, as she swiftly slipped the bolt.

“Lass,” he whispered, “I never thought to see you again.”

“All’s well,” said she, giving him both her hands. “I’ve caught the thief for you; he’s properly trepanned. Leave him to me; he’ll drink himself drunk hand to fist before the liquor’s done. Then you can lay him by the heels. But listen,” she added, whispering very low, “_Dawkins never sent that boat_. I found that out for certain. There’s trouble in the wind; never a ship in sight outside; where could the boat come from? Do you think it was Obeah work? Were they ghosts in the boat, that called out ‘Dead or alive?’”

Morgan had been nurtured, you see, among the black people; she believed in the Obeah magic, and hoodoo, and devils and spirits, quite naturally. But, white or black, Eastern or Western, there are few, indeed, who are not secretly credulous of the supernatural; and for a moment we three stared upon one another in a foolish silence; while Dawkins, in the next cabin, happily oblivious, began singing to himself again.

“Ho, we’re out on the chase to-night,
Cracking-on for a bloody fight--
Ye fancy men now turn again,
And follow the prey to-night.”

“What ho, shipmate!”

“Have you pistols?--very well. Come when I call, but not a moment before. Wait till you hear me say--what shall I say?--O, ‘Dead or alive,’” whispered Morgan, and slipped from the cabin.

So the old buccaneer and the young decoy-duck, dressed in the drake’s finery, set to at their victuals, Dawkins talking noisily the while.

“Now, I don’t ask--nor I haven’t never asked--for anything better than this here,” says Dawkins. “Plenty of rations and plenty of rum and a smart shipmate to keep the bottle rolling. Not that you shines in that last, cap’n, much as I admire your parts and person--no, you don’t, and it’s a sad pity. But there, I seen many a stout seaman gone to the devil by way of this same liquor, and every man to his taste, says I.”

“It’s the sober man that gets the booty, Mr Dawkins,” Morgan put in, to keep the old ruffian talking.

“But the drunk ones is the happiest,” retorted Mr Dawkins. “Look at me! I’m happy--let no one deny it. Leastways, till the liquor’s out, I wouldn’t change with kings on their golden thrones. Why, now, what a thing it is, as a man what wants so little, like me, should have so hard a job to get it--like I have. All my life it’s been the blessed same, ever since I shipped as cabin-boy out o’ Bristol city, me starving at the time. All the dirty work to do, a kick here, a clout with a marlinspike there, the cat going, knives out, provisions running short, and every man-jack with his little bit o’ luck except Dawkins, poor old Dawkins, what only wanted to sit quiet on his beam-ends and consume his victuals in due season.”

“What made you join the Brotherhood, Mr Dawkins?”

“It’s plain to see you’ve never sailed in a merchant bottom, nor yet in the Royal Navy,” replied the buccaneer, with great meaning, “or you wouldn’t ask the question. No, by the bones of the deep, you wouldn’t! What’s the merchant service? Worms in the pork, weevils in the biscuit, no wages, and what there is you’re robbed of. Set a litter of pigs afloat in a coffin, and they’d make better weather of it. Ah, my David, they would so! And talk of the Queen’s Navy--why, there,” said Mr Dawkins, pausing to spit on the floor, “that’s what I think o’ that degraded mess o’ swabs. Lord save you, Cap’n Morgan, you are but young, and the world’s changed since my time; but when I was your age there was but one way of going to sea, any sense, and that was the way of Brotherhood of the Sea, as they called it. Now your namesake, good old Harry Morgan--there was a man!”

“Oh, you sailed under Morgan, did you?”

“Here’s his health, and may you grow to his likeness,” cried Dawkins, filling his glass to the brim and spilling a good deal as he raised it to his lips. “Ah, I sailed under Morgan, and Captain Hansel and Captain Bartholomew Sharp afterwards. Why, I was with Morgan when he took and burned Panama, and that’s a thing not many has lived to brag of--not many, no, no, not many, shipmate.”

Mr Dawkins had reached that stage of intoxication when the patient keeps smiling to himself and repeating the same words over and over.

“Yes,” continued Dawkins, “I was with Cap’n Henry Morgan at the taking of Panama. Ah, the cap’n had all the luck there was on that v’yage, by all accounts.”

“I’ve heard,” said Morgan Leroux, “that Captain Morgan was accused of embezzling the plunder.”

“I never see the end of the exp’dition,” Dawkins answered, shortly. “So I can’t say as to that, you see.” And Brandon nudged me.

“You don’t know, then, what became of the bar silver?” said Morgan. “The cache of bar silver, eh, Mr Dawkins?”

Dawkins stared at the speaker with an expression of amazement that changed to suspicion. His shaggy, rusty brows shut down over his little eyes, his nostrils dilated, he glanced swiftly to left and right, and back again to Morgan’s placid countenance. She was not even looking at him, but was gazing at the lighted candle that stood between them on the table. So they rested a minute or more, the little yellow flame of the candle swaying gently back and forth with the motion of the vessel, lighting Morgan’s high-coloured, straight-browed face of abstraction, and the hairy, lined, mahogany visage, with the little glinting eyes, opposite. Dawkins was labouring with his muddled intelligence, trying hard to think.

“Now, I wonder, just as a matter of curiosity, what made you ask that there question, shipmate,” said Mr Dawkins, with an elaborate show of indifference, evidently desiring to gain time. Mr Dawkins’s interval of reflection had perhaps suggested to him that Morgan’s question might be merely an innocent enquiry suggested by some old, vague story. There were plenty of wild yarns afloat concerning buried treasure and the like.

“Because,” Morgan replied, with a reckless audacity that made us jump, “that silver belongs to me.”

“Ho, it does, does it,” said Dawkins, after a little uneasy silence. “And how might that be, shipmate, make so humbly bold?” he added, with the ominous politeness we knew.

“Ah, well, you know the saying, Mr Dawkins, ‘the longest liver takes all.’”

“Seems to me, shipmate,” said Dawkins, with laboured sweetness, “you’re a-talking in riddles. Now, I was never no hand at riddles.”

Without removing his eyes from Morgan, he was stealthily fingering one of the pistols he wore in his cross-belt of silk, after the manner of the pirates. The persuasion that he had been trepanned was working itself clear in his mind.

“No riddle at all, Mr Dawkins,” said Morgan, pleasantly. “Your old commander, Sir Henry Morgan, was my grandfather----”

Dawkins, in his amazement, dropped his hands upon the table and leaned forward with fallen jaw.

“----And he left his wealth to me. You’ll find it hard to bam your old commander, Mr Dawkins, _dead or alive_!”

We were in the room on the instant, covering Mr Dawkins with our pistols, like a scene in a playhouse. He gave up his arms quite peaceably, in a dazed, helpless way; and sat all shrunken together and staring upon us. Then he turned upon Morgan Leroux, and delivered himself of some pungent observations. Pomfrett stopped him sharply.

“Avast there, Mr Dawkins. I’ll have no swearing aboard my ship.”

“Your ship, was it? ’Twas this pretty little monkey was skipper just now,” growled Dawkins. “Come,” he went on, “I know when I’m beaten, I do. I had some opportunities to learn, you see. Now you got the weather-gauge of poor old Dawkins, not a doubt of it. Let’s know the worst. ’Tis Jevon Murch as put you up to this here little game--enticing a man with a invitation to dinner, and what not, and call yourselves gentlemen. I’d make better gentlemen out of a pope’s head and a slush-bucket, split _me_!” said Dawkins, his choler getting the better of him.

“No,” said Pomfrett, quietly, “Mr Murch knows nothing of the matter. It’s you and I that have to settle accounts, Mr Dawkins.”

We were seated at the table, opposite the old buccaneer, each with a couple of pistols lying under his hand, the candle-flames streaming this way and then that way, with the motion of the ship. Morgan Leroux had retired into a corner and sat in the shadow, with her chin in her hand, watching us under her level, black brows. We could hear the noise of Dawkins’s men carousing with the crew in the waist.

“Settle away, then, Mr Supercargo,” said Dawkins, who appeared a little more at ease upon learning that Murch was not at hand. “There’s no man alive what’s more open to fair discussion than me, though I say it.”

“Very well,” says Brandon. “First, then, you sold Mr Winter and myself for slaves.”

“It looks like as if I did at this present moment, don’t it?” growled Dawkins. “But I won’t quarrel over details, cap’n. Heave ahead.”

“Second, you stole the _Blessed Endeavour_.”

“Who says so?”

“Well, you did, you know,” returned Brandon, a little set back. “What’s the use of talking?”

“Not much, by the look of it,” retorted Mr Dawkins. “You say I stole the ship. I say I didn’t, nor I haven’t. I was elected captain--you helped elect me, you two, ’long of the others. I’m captain still. What are you? Deserters, I reckon. If you was to come aboard, I’d clap you in irons, and no mistake about it. Now, then! What next? You’ll tell me I stole a cargo of silver, I shouldn’t wonder, like young jackanapes in the corner there, what’s grandson to Cap’n Morgan. Grandson, says he! Ho, ho!”

At this, Brandon advised Mr Dawkins, in forcible terms, to keep a civil tongue in his head.