Blackbeard: Buccaneer Part 11

And now the s.h.i.+p's officers drove the men to their work but they were less abusive than usual. They seemed to reflect Blackbeard's milder humor and it was manifest that they wished to avoid the crew's resentment. Joe Hawkridge was puzzled and began to ferret it out among his friends who were trustworthy. They had their own suspicions and the general opinion was that Blackbeard was in great dread of encountering Captain Stede Bonnet in the _Royal James_. It seemed that the _Revenge_ had spoken a disabled merchant s.h.i.+p just after the storm and her skipper reported that he had been overhauled by Stede Bonnet a few days earlier and the best of his cargo stolen. Blackbeard had been seized with violent rage but had suffered the s.h.i.+p to proceed on her way because of his own short-handed condition.

With a prize crew lost in the _Plymouth Adventure_, including Sailing-Master Ned Rackham, and the two sloops of the squadron missing with all hands, the terrible Blackbeard was in poor shape to meet this Captain Bonnet who hated him beyond measure. As if this were not gloomy enough, there were men in the _Revenge_ eager to sail under Bonnet's flag and to mutiny if ever they sighted the _Royal James_. It behooved Blackbeard to press on to that lonely inlet on the North Carolina coast and avoid the open sea until he could prepare to fight this dangerous foeman.

It surprised Jack c.o.c.krell to see how quiet a pirate s.h.i.+p could be. The ruffians were bone-weary, for one thing, after the struggle to bring the vessel through the storm. And the scourge of tropic fever had left its marks. Moreover, the rum was running short because some of the casks had been staved in the heavy weather and Blackbeard was doling it out as grog with an ample dilution of water. There was no more dicing and brawling and tipsy choruses. Sobered against their will, some of these b.l.o.o.d.y-minded sinners talked repentance or shed tears over wives and children deserted in distant ports.

The wind blew fair until the _Revenge_ approached the landmarks familiar to Blackbeard and found a channel which led to the wide mouth of Cherokee Inlet. It was a quiet roadstead sheltered from seaward by several small islands. The unpeopled swamp and forest fringed the sh.o.r.es but a green meadow and a margin of white sand offered a favorable place for landing. As the _Revenge_ slowly rounded the last wooded point, the tall mast of a sloop became visible. The pirates cheered and discharged their muskets in salute as they recognized one of the consorts which had been blown away in the storm.

Blackbeard strutted on his quarter-deck, no longer biting his nails in fretful anxiety. He had donned the military coat with the glittering b.u.t.tons and epaulets and the huge c.o.c.ked hat with the feather in it. He noted that the sloop, which was called the _Triumph_, fairly buzzed with men, many more than her usual complement. No sooner had the s.h.i.+p let her anchor splash than a boat was sent over to her with the captain of the sloop who made haste to pay his compliments and explain his voyage. He was a portly, sallow man with a bl.u.s.tering manner and looked more like a bailiff or a tapster than a brine-pickled gentleman of fortune.

Blackbeard hailed him cordially and invited him into the cabin. The boat waited alongside the _Revenge_ and the men scrambled aboard to swap yarns with the s.h.i.+p's crew. Jack c.o.c.krell hovered near the group as they squatted on their heels around a tub of grog and learned that the _Triumph_ had rescued the crew of the other sloop just before it had foundered. There were a hundred men of them, in all, crowded together like dried herring, and part were sleeping ash.o.r.e in huts of boughs and canvas. No wonder Blackbeard was in blither spirits. Here was a company to pick and choose from and so fill the depleted berth-deck of the _Revenge_.

Finding the p.o.o.p deserted, Joe Hawkridge ventured far enough to peer in at a cabin window. Blackbeard was at table, together with his first mate, the chief gunner, the acting sailing-master, and the captain of the sloop. They were exceeding noisy, singing most discordantly and laughing at indecent jests. Suddenly Blackbeard whipped two pistols from his sash and fired them under the table, quite at random.

The first mate leaped up with a horrible yell and clapped a hand to the calf of his leg. Then he bolted out of the cabin, which was blue with smoke, and limped in search of the surgeon. Joe Hawkridge dodged aside but he heard the jovial Blackbeard shout, with a whoop of laughter:

"Discipline, damme! If I don't kill one of you now and then, you'll forget who I am."

Inasmuch as none of the other guests dared squeak after this episode, it was to be inferred that they were properly impressed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIRST MATE LEAPED UP WITH A HORRIBLE YELL]

In a little while the mate returned with his leg neatly bandaged, announced that it was a mere flesh wound, and sat down as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred to mar the festive occasion. Through the rest of the day, boats were pa.s.sing between the s.h.i.+p and the sloop in a convivial reunion. Supper was to be cooked on the beach in great iron kettles and a frolic would follow the feast. The sloop had rum enough to sluice all the parched gullets aboard the _Revenge_.

Jack c.o.c.krell had no desire to join this stupid revel but he was eager to get ash.o.r.e to discover what opportunity there might be to escape. But the wiser Joe Hawkridge counseled patience, saying:

"Wait a bit. We'd be as helpless as any babes should we take to our heels in this unG.o.dly wilderness. Is there a town or plantation near by?"

"I know not," ruefully confessed Jack. "Charles Town lies to the south, and Virginia to the north. There my knowledge fetches up short."

"And leagues of mora.s.s to flounder through, by the look of this coast,"

said Joe. "We be without weapons, or food, or----"

"I am a hot-headed fool, I grant you that," broke in Jack. "Now bestow your sage advice."

"You will not be allowed to go ash.o.r.e, for one thing, Master c.o.c.krell.

Blackbeard has no notion of letting you get away from him to betray this rendezvous and stir the colonies to send an expedition after him.

Steady the helm, Jack, and watch for squalls. If I can read the signs, there is trouble afoot. And we must seek our own advantage in the nick of time."

"But these wild sots no longer think of mutiny and the like, Joe. They are content to let the morrow go hang."

"S-s-s-h, 'ware the master of the sloop," cautioned Joe. "He makes for the gangway, the big lump of tallow."

They moved away while Captain Richard Spender clumsily descended into his boat, his broad face flushed, his breath asthmatic. He had a piping voice absurd for his bulk and the two lads amused themselves with mimicking him as the boat pulled in the direction of the sloop. So safe against surprise did Blackbeard regard himself in this lonely anchorage that no more than a dozen men were left aboard to keep the s.h.i.+p through the night. Among these was Jack c.o.c.krell, as his comrade had foreseen.

It therefore happened that they remained together, for Joe had volunteered to join the anchor watch. In a melancholy mood the two lads idled upon the after deck.

The sun dropped behind the dark and tangled forest and flights of herons came winging it home to the islets in the swamps. On the sward by the silver strand the throng of pirates had stilled their clamor while a rascal with a tenor voice held them enraptured with the haunting refrain of:

"Sweet Annie frae the sea-beach came, Where Jockey's climbed the vessel's side: Ah! wha can keep her heart at hame, When Jockey's tossed aboon the tide?

"Far off 'till distant realms he gangs, But I'se be true, as he ha' been; And when ilk la.s.s around him thrangs, He'll think on Annie's faithful een."

Forlorn Jack c.o.c.krell had homesick thoughts and felt hopeless of loosing the snares which bound him. All that sustained his courage was the sanguine disposition of Joe Hawkridge, whose youthful soul had been so battered and toughened by dangers manifold on land and sea that he expected nothing less. Listening to the pirate's moving ballad, they sat and swung their legs from the s.h.i.+p's taffrail while their gaze idly roved to the green curtain of undergrowth which ran lush to the water's edge to the northward of the beach.

It was Joe who called attention to a floating object which moved inside the mouth of the small, tidal creek that wandered through the marshy lowlands. In the shadowy light it could easily be mistaken for a log drifting down on the ebb of the tide. This was what the lads a.s.sumed it to be until they both noticed a behavior curious in a log. The long, low object turned athwart the current at the entrance of the creek and shot toward the nearest bank as though strongly propelled.

Joe lifted the telescope from its case in front of the wooden binnacle-box and squinted long at the edge of the creek. Crude though the gla.s.s was, he was enabled to discern that the object was, in truth, a log, but evidently hollowed out. Rounded at the ends, it held two men whose figures so blended into the dusk that they disclosed themselves only when in motion.

"A pirogue," said Joe, "and fas.h.i.+oned by Indians! What is the tribe hereabouts? Have ye a guess?"

"Roving Yema.s.sees, or men of the Hatteras tribe," answered Jack. "Yonder brace of savages will be scouts."

"Aye, but there'll be no attack 'gainst this pirates' bivouac, right under the guns of the s.h.i.+ps. The Indians are too wise to attempt it."

"Look, Joe! Hand me the gla.s.s. Those two spies have quitted the pirogue.

'Tis quite empty. They may lay up all night to creep closer and keep watch on the camp."

"Right enough, by Crambo! If we could but gain yon cypress canoe, and steal along the coast by sail and paddle----"

"'Tis the chance we prayed for," eagerly exclaimed Jack. "Dare we swim for it?"

"Not with a boat just coming off from sh.o.r.e. What if we try it in the night and find the pirogue gone?"

"We are stranded for sure, and Blackbeard will kill us."

Baffled, they strained their eyes until the sh.o.r.e stood black in the starlight, but as long as the dusk lingered they fancied they could descry the empty pirogue. The s.h.i.+p's boat which presently drew alongside contained Blackbeard himself and Captain d.i.c.k Spender of the _Triumph_ sloop, besides several officers of the two vessels. They withdrew into the cabin and there was prolonged discussion, lasting well toward midnight.

It was a secretive session, with trusted men of the boat's crew posted to keep eavesdroppers away from the hatches and windows, nor was there any loud carousing. Some business was afoot and Jack wondered whether it might concern the trouble which Joe had sworn was brewing under the surface. A circ.u.mstance even more suspicious was that three of the sailors from the boat were called into the cabin. Joe Hawkridge knew them as fellows loyal to Blackbeard through thick and thin. Drunken beasts, as a rule, they were cold sober to-night.

As quietly as they had come, the whole party dropped into the boat and returned either to the beach or to the sloop which rode at anchor two cable-lengths away. The _Revenge_ floated with no more activity on her darkened decks. The few men of the watch drowsed at their stations or wistfully gazed at the fires ash.o.r.e and the mob of pirates who moved in the red glare. Jack c.o.c.krell and Joe Hawkridge felt no desire for sleep.

As the s.h.i.+p swung with the turn of the tide, they went to the side and leaned on the tall bulwark where they might catch the first glimpse of the sh.o.r.e with the break of day.

Meanwhile they busied themselves with this wild scheme and that. Sifting them out, it was resolved to swim from the s.h.i.+p at the first opportunity. If they could not find the Indian pirogue, Joe would try to get into the pirates' camp by night and possess himself of an axe, an adze, a musket or two, and such food as he could smuggle out. Then, at a pinch, they could hide themselves a little way inland and hew out a pirogue of their own from a dry log. After hitting upon this plan, the better it seemed the more they thrashed it over.

Unluckily it occurred to them so late in the night that they feared to attempt it then lest the dawn might overtake them while they were swimming. 'Twas a great pity, said Joe, that their wits had hung fire, like a damp flint-lock, for this was the night when the pirates would be the most slack and befuddled and it would be precious hard waiting through another day. Jack glumly agreed with this point of view.

It was so near morning, however, that they lingered to scan the sh.o.r.e.

Then it was observed that a pearly mist was rising from the swamp lands and spreading out over the water. It was almost like a fog which the morning breeze would dispel after a while. Rolling like smoke it hung so low that the topmast of the sloop rose above it although her hull was like the gray ghost of a vessel.

"No sign of wind as yet," said Joe, holding up a wetted finger, "and that red sunset bespoke a calm, hot day. This odd smother o' mist may stay a couple of hours. Will ye venture it with me, Jack?"

"Gladly! Over we go, before the watch is flogged awake by the bos'n's mate."

They crept aft to the high stern and paid out a coil of rope until it trailed in the water beneath the railed gallery which overhung the huge rudder. Joe belayed his end securely and slid over like a flash, twisting the rope around one leg and letting himself down as agile as a monkey. Without a splash he cast himself loose and Jack followed but not so adroitly. When he plopped into the water the commotion was like tossing a barrel overboard, but n.o.body sounded an alarm.

They clung to the rusty rudder chains and listened. The s.h.i.+p was all quiet. Then out into the mist they launched themselves, swimming almost submerged, dreading to hear an outcry and the spatter of musket b.a.l.l.s.

But the veiling mist and the uncertain light of dawn soon protected the fugitives. It was slow, exhausting progress, hampered as they were by their breeches and shoes which could not be discarded. They tried to keep a sense of direction, striking out for the mouth of the creek in which the pirogue had been moored, but the tide set them off the course and the only visible marks were the spars of the s.h.i.+p behind them and the sloop's topmast off to one side.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JACK ALMOST b.u.mPED INTO THE DUGOUT CANOE]