Heralds of Empire Part 9

"'Tis early yet for the Grand Banks, Jack. Ben Gillam's s.h.i.+p keeled mast over hull from being ice-logged last spring. The spars were solid with frozen sleet from the crosstrees to the crow's nest. Your dories would be ice-logged for a month yet."

"It--it--it aren't the Grand Banks no more," stammered Jack.

His manner arrested me. The honest blue eyes were s.h.i.+fting and his toes at work in the sand.

"There be gold on the high seas for the taking," vouched Jack. "An your fine gentlemen grow rich that way, why mayn't I?"

"Jack," I warned, thinking of Ben Gillam's craft rigged with sails of as many colours as Joseph's coat, "Jack--is it a pirate-s.h.i.+p?"

"No," laughed the sailor lad sheepishly, "'tis a pirateer," meaning thereby a privateer, which was the same thing in those days.

"Have a care of your pirateers--privateers, Jack," said I, speaking plain. "A gentleman would be run through the gullet with a clean rapier, but you--you--would be strangled by sentence of court or sold to the Barbadoes."

"Not if the warden o' the court owns half the s.h.i.+p," protested Jack, smiling queerly under his s.h.a.ggy brows.

"Oh--ho!" said I, thinking of Rebecca's father, and beginning to understand who supplied money for Ben Gillam's ventures.

"I'm tired o' being a kick-a-toe and fisticuff to everybody. Now, if I'd been rich and had a s.h.i.+p, I might 'a' sailed for M. Picot."

"Or Mistress Hortense," I added, which brought red spots to the sailor lad's cheeks.

Off he went unanswering, leaving me at gaze across an unbroken sea with a heart heavy as lead.

"Poor fellow! He will get over it," said I.

"Another hath need o' the same medicine," came a voice.

I wheeled, expecting arrest.

A tall, wiry man, with coal-black hair and deep-set eyes and a scar across his swarth skin, smiled pleasantly down at me.

"Now that you have them safely off," said he, still smiling, "better begone yourself."

"I'll thank you for your advice when I ask it, sir," said I, suspicious of the press-gang infesting that port. Involuntarily I caught at my empty sword-belt.

"Permit me," proffered the gentleman, with a broader smile, handing out his own rapier.

"Sir," said I, "your pardon, but the press-gang have been busy of late."

"And the sheriffs may be busy to-day," he laughed. "Black arts don't open stone walls, Ramsay."

And he sent the blade clanking home to its scabbard. His surtout falling open revealed a waistcoat of buckskin. I searched his face.

"M. de Radisson!"

"My hero of rescues," and he offered his hand. "And my quondam nephew," he added, laughing; for his wife was a Kirke of the English branch, and my aunt was married to Eli.

"Eli Kirke cannot know you are here, sir--"

"Eli Kirke _need_ not know," emphasized Radisson dryly.

And remembering bits of rumour about M. Radisson deserting the English Fur Company, I hastened to add: "Eli Kirke _shall_ not know!"

"Your wits jump quick enough sometimes," said he. "Now tell me, whose is she, and what value do you set on her?"

I was speechless with surprise. However wild a life M. Radisson led, his t.i.tle of n.o.bility was from a king who awarded patents to gentlemen only.

"We neither call our women '_she_' nor give them market value," I retorted.

Thereupon M. de Radisson falls in such fits of laughter, I had thought he must split his baldrick.

"Pardieu!" he laughed, wiping the tears away with a tangled lace thing fit for a dandy, "Pardieu! 'Tis not your girl-page? 'Tis the s.h.i.+p o'

that hangdog of a New England captain!"

The thing came in a jiffy. Sieur Radisson, having deserted the English Fur Company, was setting up for himself. He was spying the strength of his rivals for the north sea.

"You praised my wit. I have but given you a sample."

Then I told him all I knew of the s.h.i.+p, and M. de Radisson laughed again till he was like to weep.

"How is she called?" he asked.

"The Prince Rupert," said I.

"Ha! Then the same crew of gentlemen's scullions and courtiers' valets stuffing the lockers full o' trash to trade on their master's account.

A pretty cheat for the Company!"

The end of it was, M. Radisson invited me to join his s.h.i.+ps. "A beaver-skin for a needle, Ramsay! Twenty otter for an awl! Wealth for a merchant prince," he urged.

But no sooner had I grasped at this easy way out of difficulty than the Frenchman interrupts: "Hold back, man! Do you know the risk?"

"No--nor care one rus.h.!.+"

"Governor Frontenac demands half of the furs for a license to trade, but M. de la Barre, who comes to take his place, is a friend of La Chesnaye's, and La Chesnaye owns our s.h.i.+ps----"

"And you go without a license?"

"And the galleys for life----"

"If you're caught," said I.

"Pardieu!" he laughed, "yes--if we're caught!"

"I'd as lief go to the galleys for fur-trading as the scaffold for witchcraft," said I.

With that our bargain was sealed.