The Pirate Story Megapack: 25 Classic and Modern Tales

by Robert E. Howard

  The forest lay hushed and dim beyond the fringe; whispering leaves and crackling twigs sounded sharp as a shower of stones in the stillness. Great trees reared their majestic heads to mingle their foliage and shut out the light; every creeping, flying, walking creature seemed awed into a vague murmuring that was deeper than silence. The Grove of Mysteries was a semicircular space of cool, mossy sward, bowered in great trees and tangled vine screens; its background was the bare rock of the cliffside itself—actually, though unknown to the rabble, the outer rocky wall of the great chamber—and against this stood the altar.

  The old woman had made use of her skinny limbs to good effect, impelled by a fear that had become terror. The altar was resplendent in silk and velvet, fashioned for an altar very different from this; but in place of the vessels usually associated with so sacred a piece of furniture, the Altar of the Grove was embellished with a mosaic of skulls and bones surrounding a complete skeleton which held its head in one grisly hand.

  In the hollow eye-sockets glowed a weird fire that darted forth at irregular intervals like glances of demoniacal hate; at the altar foot a great censer erupted a dense cloud of pungent smoke that rendered the altar and those about it still more vague and ghostly. And the glade was full of cowering, slavering blacks and half-breeds, whose superstitious terrors reached high tide with each succeeding swirl of smoke or outflash of eye-socket fires.

  Dolores went directly to the old woman, who stood in cringing subservience with a plain white garment in her hands. This she placed on the girl’s shoulders, fastening it at the bosom with a small skull of jade stone whose grinning teeth were pearls, and whose eye-sockets were empty with an awful blackness. The gold circlet was discarded, and in its place Dolores placed on her head a turban formed from a stuffed coiled snake, whose neck and head darted hither and thither on cunning springs with her every motion and gesture.

  To this awesome place came the herd that Milo drove before him; and not a man among the hardened crew was hardy enough to carry his bravado into the Grove. Blacks and whites alike, no matter what their inmost thoughts might be, yielded to the spell of the place the moment their feet trod the sward and the congregation settled into the places allotted to them.

  Dolores glided out in front of the altar, and eyes glittered, dusky throats went constricted and dry with terror when she stirred up the brazier and was hidden for a moment in the rising volume of blue smoke in which flashes of devilish light played incessantly. Milo stepped up behind and above the altar, and as the smoke reeked about him vanished seemingly into the face of the cliff. There, in an unsuspected outlet to the great chamber, was the key to much of the magic with which Dolores kept her turbulent crew on the borderline of fear. She flashed a glance holding much of anxiety after her giant servitor, and busied herself about the altar to gain time.

  She had received from his hands as he stepped up the effigy of a man in black wax, and now she advanced with hand upraised for silence. It was unnecessary: the silence of the dead prevailed in the Grove. With the image held aloft Dolores was a magnet that drew all eyes inevitably. Six inches tall, the image was a cleverly modeled composite of every type in the motley band; and every man realized this. Placing the effigy on the altar, Dolores seized from the brazier a glowing coal with her bare hands and placed it behind the figure. Then she flung both hands high and her vibrant voice pealed through the Grove.

  “Regard all men the voice of the gods! By this sacred fire shall this image be melted; and when it is gone, out of its many likenesses shall remain the shape of him who stirred ye to mutiny against me. That shape I shall show ye by the power of my will. Lest ye disbelieve that I have this power, behold! Look for proof in the smoke behind me!”

  As she spoke she stirred the incense to a dense cloud of smoke, and her blazing eyes, turned from her people, peered through the reek for a reassuring sign from the rock, for what she now demanded of Milo called for superhuman swiftness and surety. As the seconds sped, she kept the smoke swirling thickly, and her voice rang out in a weird incantation that kept the spectators trembling with the growing suspense.

  Then a triumphant note entered her speech; the smoke rose thicker for an instant, then dissolved; and as it vanished, high on the rocky cliff, framed, as it seemed, in the solid rock itself, stood the grim, cold figure of the dead Red Jabez.

  In this, her grave extremity, Milo the strong, Milo the slave, more than all, Milo the faithful, had not failed her.

  CHAPTER IV.

  THE PIRATES’ BARBECUE.

  A moment of ghastly hush prevailed, then the Grove shook from sward to tree-tops—pandemonium broke loose and all were in turmoil.

  No need now to wait for the verdict of the wax image; no further shifting of brazen glances, or winking of knowing eyes. Shrill voices of terrified blacks, hoarse bellowings of the hardiest rascals who had ever kissed a dripping cutlas, the throaty roar of men who had played willing lieutenants to the ringleader: all pealed up to high heaven for the culprit to come forth and taste of the queen’s justice rather than wait for her vengeance.

  “Rufe! Yellow Rufe!” they howled. They howled it until the forest echoed with the word.

  “Peace, Devilspawn!” cried Dolores, covering the crowd with an all-embracing smile of utter scorn. “Think ye I need to hear the name? Go, all of ye! Fill your swinish skins with liquor, and trouble me no more this day. When I will that Yellow Rufe appear, here he shall be drawn, whether he will or not. And in your carousal let this thought be with ye: Ye are dogs and slaves of dogs; by my will ye live, at my word ye die. The Red Chief is dead; I am your law, your queen, owner of your bodies and souls! Let any of ye seek to imitate Yellow Rufe, and Milo shall pick your limbs apart as if ye were flies. Go now; there is rum broached, and wine; make a barbecue, and fill yourselves to bursting like the vultures ye are!”

  “Hello, lads, that’s your sort!” roared a purple-faced ruffian with a hang-lip. “A right proper gal is that. Give her a huzza and crack yer pipes, lads!”

  “Bravo, Hanglip!” bellowed another of the same kidney. Spotted Dog had lost part of an ear, and the same knife had seamed his flabby jowl into the likeness of a bloodhound’s cheek; his deeply-pitted visage completed the ensemble, and no other name would have fitted him as well. “Bravo, old cutthroat! Let her play queens an’ fairies, if she wants to. Here’s for th’ jolly grog, lads. Hey, Stumpy, start a cheer for th’ pretty wench!”

  So had the spell of the Grove left them immediately they smelled the fleshpots. But Dolores still held the altar; and Stumpy, having a keener memory perhaps than most of his fellows, took the warning that flashed from her angry eyes. He shivered slightly as his gaze met hers, then, hopping forward on his one good leg and club-foot, he swung a knotty fist against Spotted Dog’s creased jowl and growled:

  “A turn wi’ that poison tongue, Spotted Dog. All hands, too, hear me talkin’. Here’s a royal feast spread for us, an’ th’ spreader’s queen o’ th’ pirates! Don’t ever ferget that, lads. I ain’t hankerin’ fer what Rufe’ll get. Away wi’ you, now, an’ I’ll slit th’ winepipe o’ th’ dog as says disrespect to th’ queen.”

  And so the rascals trooped down to their hut-village. Noisily, profanely, full of horseplay and ear-burning jests; but never a voice spoke any word that failed in its homage when Dolores was the theme.

  Snugly settled around the great rock door, the pirates’ village looked out from a broad level platform over the darkening evening sea. In the center, its rear abutting on the rock itself, stood the great council hall and the dwelling of Dolores. In front of this black slaves busily heaped a great bonfire; torches were thrust into iron rings on doorpost and tree-trunk; noisy ruffians tramped into a cool cave in the rock and trundled forth casks and horn cups; while Sancho, the Spaniard, bent over a whetstone, giving his knife a final edge against the arrival of the meat.

  A venomous devil was this Sancho, and his contorted face, with the missing eye covered by a black patch, worked demoniacally in the
gathering darkness with each leaping flame of the ignited torches. The hand that clutched the knife was a thing of horror; two fingers and half the thumb remained from some drunken brawl to serve the Spaniard in future play for work or debauch; and the man, crouching low over his stone, made a picture of incarnate hate that had no humor in it.

  “Where’s th’ flesh?” screamed Sancho, looking up, his mutilated thumb running creepily along the knife-edge.

  “Whet your tusks, lads, here’s the blessed manna!” squealed Caliban, a hunchbacked terror, who kept his maimed carcass secure by virtue of his viperish temper, coupled with an uncanny skill of the cutlas. “Milo’s our man! Huzza for Milo!”

  Out from the trees stalked the giant Abyssinian, and the shadows and torchlight distorted him to grotesque proportions. He walked as if his weight was nothing; yet on his great shoulders he bore a half-grown ox, its feet hobbled, its tongue hanging from its panting mouth. Straight to the fire he stepped and cast his burden down, turning again without a word and going back to the rock portals.

  “Meat for men!” screamed Sancho, crouching again, knife in hand.

  “For men!” echoed Caliban ferociously, and whipped his cutlas out. “Stand clear!” he howled, and Sancho dodged aside. The little terror’s blade sang through the air with a wicked whistle; it curved high over Sancho, then flashed down and plunged through the throat of the ox, pinning the beast to the earth. And when he recovered his breath the Spaniard swooped upon the prize, and his knife completed what the dwarf had well begun.

  Then began an orgy that must render description bald and colorless. Casks were broached by knocking out the heads; long horns of cattle were filled to slopping over with rare wine or powerful rum; and then up leaped Hanglip on to an unbroached cask, cup in hand, and bellowed a toast that set the trees, the sea, the skies clamoring with rasping applause.

  “The next vessel as heaves in sight, lads! May her sails be silk, her masts be gold, and her great cabin full o’ rum, with a pretty wench sittin’ atop o’ every keg!”

  From the fire came the odor of roasting meat, and the black night came down outside, making of the small circle where the pirates sprawled a blotch of infernal light, peopled with infernal shapes. But a sprinkling of faces a shade less evil leavened the mass; for to the feast came trooping the women of the camp: of a kidney with the men—yet women, with women’s beguilements and softnesses.

  Dolores sat alone in the great chamber, careless of the noise outside, her beautiful face dark with somber passion. Beside her chair Milo had placed her treasure chests; hers now, through the death of the terrible old corsair who had amassed them. Idly she had heaped the table with a glittering collection of gems that an empress might well have found interest in; but Dolores frowned as at so much dross, for her thoughts were far away. The filmiest of lace and silken shawls, jeweled slippers, gossamer-gold head dresses, pearls and rubies from India and Persia—all lay in confusion at her hand, and aroused no spark of joy in her breast. From time to time her brooding eyes flashed and fastened upon a priceless Rembrandt “Laughing Cavalier” on the wall opposite; they flashed again when her gaze shifted to a colossal Rubens “Rape of the Sabines”; her face lighted for an instant when her fingers in groping closed upon a cobwebby golden net, scintillating with cunningly wrought jeweled insects caught in the meshes, which had once graced the all-powerful head of Pompadour.

  “Where such things are, are better!” she whispered vehemently, clenching her strong, slender hands fiercely. “Where such are fashioned and worn there are people worthy my power. My people! Pah!” she burst out passionately. “My people? Dogs! Cattle! Brutes without souls! There—”she flung a hand impetuously toward the “Laughing Cavalier”—”there is the pirate who should call me queen! There”—with a gesture toward Rubens’s great canvas—”are men that I would command. Here, I must stay, why? Because a dead man willed it so. May I wither eternally if I make not my own laws. Milo!”

  She clapped her hands, and in a moment the giant was before her, reverent awe in every line of his huge body.

  “Sultana?”

  “Are my beasts well fed?”

  “They eat like crocodiles, guzzle like swine, Sultana.”

  “See that the liquor flows freely, Milo. And a word in thy ear. We shall go from here as quickly as the fates will send a ship. Let no sail pass henceforth.”

  “Lady, that may not be—”

  “Silence! Give me no may not! When I, Dolores, will to go, who shall stay me?”

  “Death lies beyond the horizon for thee as for all of us, Sultana. Pirate the Red Chief was last of the band; every man who calls thee queen is under sentence of death; the pillage of a hundred ships lies here. Here is safety. The Red Chief’s law—”

  “Peace! I am the law! Seek me that ship—and quickly. Shall I live among such carrion, when the world is peopled with such as those?” she cried with a sweeping gesture toward a life-size “Three Graces,” by Correggio, epitomizing feminine grace indeed.

  “Thou art fairer, Sultana,” replied the giant simply; and the girl flushed warmly for all her moody dissatisfaction. She smiled kindly upon the slave, and said more softly: “Thy devotion pleases me, Milo. Yet is my will unchanged. Seek me that ship. I will go from here. Stay, if thou wilt, or art afraid.”

  “Lady,” returned the giant, “when the Red Chief, thy father, took me from the slave ship he gave me liberty—liberty to serve him. He has gone; my care is now the queen, his daughter. Going or staying, Milo remains thy bodyguard. Pardon if I offended thee; thy father desired what I have told thee. But the ship. This evening, at sundown, a sail leaped in sight beyond the Tongue.”

  “This evening! And ye said no word of it?” cried Dolores, blazing with fresh anger. She leaned forward in her chair as if crouching for a spring.

  “It passed as swiftly as it appeared, Sultana. No other eye save mine saw it; the men know nothing—”

  “It is well, Milo. I had forgotten thy eyes were twice as keen as any other man’s. Keep that condor’s vision of thine bent to seaward, and tell no man of what comes into view. Bring me the news; I shall know how to keep my rascals in hand. Now go and send to me a woman to serve me: a young woman, nimble and deft; give the old woman to the cooks for scullery drudge.”

  “A woman here, Sultana?”

  “Here! What bee buzzes in thy great head now?” The giant again looked grave; the girl’s impatience surged anew.

  “Sultana, don’t forget that, save thee and me, servant of the great chamber, none may enter here and go alive?”

  “Now by the fiend, enough!” blazed the girl. “Again, I am the law! Wilt have it imprinted on thy great body with my whip?”

  Milo made a low obeisance, departed without further speech, and in a few moments ushered in from the bacchanalian revels a maid for his mistress.

  “Pascherette will serve thee well, Sultana,” he said, leading the girl forward. He saw approval in Dolores’s face and departed, his luminous black eyes unwontedly soft and limpid.

  CHAPTER V.

  MILO SIGHTS A SAIL.

  Day broke through a silver haze, and as the blue sea unrolled to view, far down to the southeast, flashed a pearly sliver of sail lazily drawing in to the coast. It was the merest streak of white against the sky, and none but Milo’s sharp eyes could have seen it. Even at that distance, and indistinct though it was in the mist, the giant detected the three masts crossed with yards that proclaimed the vessel a full-rigged ship. He gazed long and earnestly, to assure himself of the ship’s progress, then hurried along the mountain toward the village.

  He strode with the free stride of a perfect creature, swinging from the hip and covering the ground at a common man’s running pace. His vast chest heaved and fell easily and rhythmically, the golden-hued skin rippling and flashing in the rising sunlight; every line of limbs and torso was the outward and visible sign of abounding health; the straight black hair falling to his shoulders framed a keen, powerful face of Semitic mol
d, in which the high brow and calm, fearless eyes belonged rather to one of the blood-royal than to a slave. And rightly, too, for Milo, the giant, was of princely line in his own land, and his present servitude was an accident that had yet failed to rob him of his birthright of dignity.

  He came abreast of and above the haven where lay the stout sloop and boats of the community, and the sounds of noisy industry about the craft brought a frown and a sneer to his face. It reminded him too vividly of his actual station, and violently dragged him back from the realm of visions he had allowed himself to indulge in. The pirates were busily overhauling their gear, filling water casks, calking dried-out seams, and sluicing opening decks with copious streams of water, just as they were used to do in the palmy days when Red Jabez kept them gorged with pillage.

  Milo hurried faster, for he feared they too had sighted his ship, and sprang down to the shore to accost surly Caliban.

  “Here, Milo old buck, stick yer beak into this, lad!” screamed Caliban, thrusting forward a brimming horn of wine. The giant declined impatiently, waving a hand toward the activity afoot.

  “What, won’t drink luck, hey?” cried the dwarf, emptying the horn himself. “Ain’t got the news yet, hey?”

  “News? What news can such as thee have that I am not told?” demanded Milo contemptuously. Caliban scowled viciously at his tone, but the giant’s hands were strong, and the little ruffian loved his warped life. He flung down his horn and retorted: “We’re to windward o’ ye this time, Milo me lad. Th’ queen bade us be ready for a lamb headed this way, an’, sure enough, there comes a craft now, a’most in sight from here. Small fish, true, but sweet after so long a spell o’ famine.”

  Milo knew that the ship he had seen could not possibly have been detected from the village. It must be yet another craft, and, without a word, he bounded back up the cliff and scanned the waters closer inshore. There, sure enough, lay a beautiful white schooner, her paint dazzling to the eye, her decks flashing with metal, her canvas faultless in fit and set and whiteness. She was still five miles distant and slowly edging along the coast, as if indifferent to her tardy progress. The giant noted her exact position, then presented himself to Dolores.