The Pirate Story Megapack: 25 Classic and Modern Tales

by Robert E. Howard

  “Then, by the fiend, I dare!” shouted the pirate. Something in the tang of the gale sweeping in from the unseen entrance reassured him of the existence of the outer world; persuaded him that by taking a desperate chance he might yet throw dust in the eyes of this terrible woman and go hence with the secret of the great chamber. “I dare, Dolores! Blood, d’ ye say? What fitter drink for a pirate?”

  He lifted the flagon, took a deep draft in great gulps, so that his determination might carry him; then his eye sparkled, he took the flagon from his lips, and grinned at Milo. “By the great Red Chief!” he cried. “This is justice indeed! I drink to ye, Sultana, and to Milo, ye big jester!” and finished the drink with a greedy swallow.

  Then the flagon clattered to the ground, Sancho’s face went livid, and his mouth opened wide and loosely, as his body and limbs were seized with subtle pains. His brain, too, felt an awful numbness creeping upon it; for the draft had done its work. The rarest of wine from her store, Dolores had mingled with it a devilish powder that first sapped the strength, then attacked the brain, and eventually snapped the cord of intelligence, leaving the victim a driveling imbecile. But that point had not yet been reached. It would come perhaps in one hour, two, three, perhaps six—but inevitably it must come. For the present the pirate was simply in the grip of the unknown, yet having full power to realize, but not resist, the tangible terrors at hand.

  “Milo, hasten the rest. I shall await thee at the gate. Put forth this traitor by the Grove outlet, and see to it that he takes with him neither power to see beauty, to utter treason, or to ever feel again the scalding touch of coveted gold. Make speed, I command thee, for I hear my stout trusty ones clamoring for the chase!”

  Dolores disappeared through the secret outlet, sprang down behind the altar, and ran through the Grove. Beside the cliff were huddled Hanglip and Stumpy, Caliban, and Spotted Dog, drenched with the teeming rain, restless with impatience, peering ever to seaward in the lightning flashes that continually illumined the scene.

  Among them Dolores appeared, suddenly, mysteriously, as coming from the skies, and after a choke of amazement Stumpy flung a hand seaward, and shouted above the turmoil of wind and rain:

  “Queen o’ Night, thou’lt need thy magic now! See, there flies the villain!”

  Dolores looked, and smiled disdainfully. The torrential rain beat upon her bare head and shoulders, causing her to glisten and shine like a golden goddess; but she heeded it not at all; her eyes sought out what Stumpy had indicated. And there, in the next lightning-flash, flying seaward, was the sloop. Rufe had taken alarm, and had foregone his plan of looting the schooner.

  “Let him go; he’ll fly not far,” she said calmly. “Come with me to the great rock, my bold fellows; daylight shall show thee Rufe where I would have him—paying the price, as Sancho has paid!”

  She glided around the rock, followed by her silent faithfuls, while from the Grove rang a shriek of mortal agony that sent fierce hearts aquiver with terror.

  CHAPTER XIII.

  DOLORES FLOATS THE FEU FOLLETTE.

  “Hell’s breath!” screamed Caliban, as the cry rang out. “Have ye devils in the Grove, mistress?” Hanglip and Spotted Dog, too, cringed back in fright. Stumpy concealed his uneasiness, yet his eyes searched Dolores’s face questingly. None truly believed in the queen’s magic powers; yet none was bold enough to openly avow his unbelief; and the added grimness of the storm, assisted by the unearthliness of that howl of anguish, brought the four godless pirates to the verge of superstitious terror.

  “Yes, I keep my devils there,” replied Dolores; “and that is the traitor Sancho answering to them for his perfidy. So watch, and obey me, lest thy cries, too, go up from my altar!”

  She stood apart at the great stone, listening, and presently Milo rolled up the rock barrier, and appeared in the gloom, calm and cool as if he had no association with devils, imaginary or otherwise. A livid lightning-flash played on his features, and the pirates drew back, muttering at his black eyes which glowed with red points like rubies in the heart of twin coals.

  “Milo, there flies Rufe,” said Dolores, flinging an arm seaward. Beyond the false point, in the midst of black seas dappled with rushing white-horses, under a lowering black sky that seemed to lean down to the verge of the ocean itself, Rufe’s sloop was pictured in the next flash of electric radiance a thing of desolation and panic. Fully a mile away, the craft vanished in the pervading blackness between every flash. “I need thy condor’s vision now as never before. Take the swift, small sailboat, and flares; follow the sloop as long as thy eyes can pick her out; we shall follow thy flares in the schooner until we overtake thee. Haste now; Rufe has grace enough!”

  Milo stayed only to get his flare-powder and tinder-box, then disappeared down the cliff.

  Dolores despatched her four attendants to the schooner, prepared to follow, then, with an afterthought, halted two of them.

  “Here, Hanglip, Spotted Dog, wait!” She swiftly entered the council hall, went to the three small chambers, and released her captives from the ring-bolts. Driving them before her, bewildered by the sudden emergence from tranquillity to the turmoil of the storm, she gave the two pirates each a chain, held the other herself, and led the way down to the stranded schooner. Her motive was not only uncertainty about the people left at the camp, who might prove susceptible to bribery if not pity; she also felt a sort of whimsical desire to impress these strangers with the utter inevitability of her power.

  The Feu Follette lay on the edge of the bar, as she had lain since stranding, except that with tide after tide her keel had worn itself a place in the sand, and she was less closely held than before. Of her rightful crew but five survived the fight; one was the sailing-master, Peters, and all were imprisoned under jailers in the forecastle. On the schooner’s sloping decks, when Dolores and her party climbed aboard, were a score of nondescript pirates, besides the crew’s custodians, at a loss to account for the escape of the sloop, and worked up to a pitch of nervousness where they were only fit for sudden, strenuous action with a merciless taskmaster. And such they speedily had.

  Dolores ordered her three captives to be taken to the great cabin, and their chains were fastened to the ornately paneled mainmast which ran down through both decks and formed the support of a gorgeously furnished sideboard. Then the companionway was locked on them, and the girl sprang to tremendous life.

  “Aloft with thee, Stumpy!” she cried, selecting him because after Milo his eyes were keenest of them all. “Keep thy eyes open for Milo’s flares, and mark well the direction. Hanglip, thou surly dog! Take ten men and lay me out a good anchor astern, with a stout hawser. Be brisk! Come aboard in ten minutes, or thy back shall smart.”

  Sancho’s boat had remained at the port quarter, and into this Hanglip drove his crew while Spotted Dog with the rest of the men got ready an anchor to lower to them.

  “Caliban, cast off the gaskets from fore and main!” cried Dolores next. “Where are thy rascals? Plague take thee, hunchback! Couldst not say there were not men enough? Below with ye, and bring up the schooner’s people. Have sail on this vessel before that anchor takes hold, or I’ll flay thy hump!”

  Cursing venomously, the deformed little demon sprang into the forecastle and drove up Peters and his four men with kicks and blows. They, too, were bewildered by the tremendous uproar of sea and wind, and went like sheep to the fore and main masts at Caliban’s bidding.

  “Ready for the anchor—lower away!” roared Hanglip in the boat, where already was piled coil on coil a great hemp hawser.

  “Handsomely, ye dogs, handsomely!” shrieked Spotted Dog in turn. The anchor sank into the boat to the screeching of tackles and the groaning of boat-timbers, and was carried out astern.

  “Carry the end aft!” Dolores commanded; the hawser was taken along and the end passed around the quarter-deck capstan. “Up with those sails!” cried the girl now, and Caliban’s gang sweated at the halyards, while slackened sheets permitted th
e booms to swing and present the luffs to the screaming gale, bearing no resistance. While the boat pulled away into the darkness astern, carrying the anchor to the full scope of the cable, Dolores kept her eyes ever aloft, and over the sea, and upon every detail of the work. Her eyes fell upon Peters, standing in sullen mood at the belaying-pin which held a turn of the main-throat halyards. And as the croaking cry of Caliban ordered “Belay!” she called Peters to her.

  “Thou’rt sailing-master, hey?”

  “I was.”

  “Art still, if thy heart is as stubborn as thy face!” cried Dolores, laughing at his scowl. “Canst sail thy ship now?”

  “I can sail any ship that floats, but neither I nor your sharks can sail this schooner now,” he replied surlily. “Your false marks did their work well.”

  “Then thou’d rather pull a rope than hold a wheel, hey? ’Tis but a wooden sailor, after all. I hoped such a ship would boast a seaman as master. I’ll show thee seamanship, sheep-heart!”

  Out of the darkness astern came a roar:

  “Anchor’s down! Heave away!”

  And from the darkness aloft Stumpy bawled:

  “There she flares! Mother o’ me!” The prayer, curse, whatever the last words might be, were called forth by a paralyzing flash of lightning that shone over the raging sea like a gigantic calcium-light. The schooner’s deck resounded with superstitious howls, which rose to awed cries from the weakest as from trucks and gaff-ends glowed and flickered the blue brush of St. Elmo’s fire.

  “Heave away, heave away!” Dolores’s voice rang out on the hubbub, forcing obedience even in face of terror. The capstan went round to the urge of a dozen pair of fear-stimulated arms; and fathom by fathom the great cable came in dripping and glistening; fathom after fathom was heaped on the deck, and still the schooner remained fast. And ever from aloft came Stumpy’s hail, reporting Milo’s flare fast fading in the distance.

  “You can’t do it! I knew it!” shouted Peters defiantly.

  “Peace, sheep!” answered Dolores, slapping him upon the mouth. She stood at the wheel, and no part of the vessel’s situation escaped her. She had yet a trump to play: a hazardous one, truly, but the big one. The big fore and main sails swung and crashed idly at their sheets, filling the air with the thunder of their flinging blocks. At each boom a seaman stood, and each held the double block of a boom-tackle, waiting the word that now came.

  “Clap on those boom-tackles!” Dolores commanded, and four men flew to each as it was hooked to the rigging. “Haul away! Boom the sails square out!” The great sails filled with a crash as the gale took them on the fore side, flinging them violently aback.

  “You’ll pluck the spars out of her!” screamed Peters, in a frenzy now as his cherished masts whipped and cracked to the tremendous backward strain. Dolores ignored the crazed man, but a scornful smile wreathed about her lips, and her dark eyes gleamed. “Out with them!” she cried. “More hands there! And heave, ho, heave away on the capstan! Burst thy arms, bullies! Here comes Hanglip and his bold lads to help ye! Round with her! Out with them! Heave, good bullies!”

  The girl stood by the wheel, a splendid figure of matchless energy and courage. Aloft the topmasts bent like whips; Stumpy’s voice came down in ever-increasing fear as his perch grew shakier; the great expanse of canvas, which should have been treble-reefed even in a floating ship going forward, tore at boom-tackles and earrings, tacks, and mast-hoops, shaking the vessel to the keel and filling her with cataclysmic thunder.

  “By the bones of Red Jabez, she comes!” roared Spotted Dog, peering over the side. “Heave, lads, and never doubt the girl again! Fiends o’ Topheth! See her slide!”

  The schooner shuddered from forefoot to sternpost; the big hawser slipped in through the lead with gathering speed; the groaning masts imparted an impulse to her that drove her astern like an arrow, and now, triumphantly, Dolores cried:

  “An ax! Quickly—cut the hawser! Caliban, get a jib loosed! Hanglip, open the companionway, and bring up my prisoners. I would have them enjoy the sail.”

  A curling sea poured over the taffrail, sweeping Dolores from her feet; she met it with a ringing laugh, gripping the wheel as her safeguard, and the moment the ax severed the hawser she gave the vessel a sheer with the helm, and again her orders rang out:

  “Let go both boom-tackles! Hoist away the jib! Haul the jib-sheet to starboard, and stand by fore and main sheets!”

  Out of the darkness ahead came the fluttering of canvas, and soon Caliban’s hoarse croak rang aft: “Hoist away th’ jib!” The great booms swung amidships again when the tackles were cast off, and now the headsail flew up the stay, the restrained sheet to starboard causing the canvas to fill aback as had the greater sails before. The pressure was ahead and to one side; the schooner’s head began to fall off, then faster as she gained momentum, and the fore and main sails again began to thunder at their blocks.

  “Let draw the jib! Bring in the fore sheet; bear a hand aft here, main sheet, lads, smartly!” cried Dolores, twirling the wheel to meet the vessel’s swift leeward leap. And as the liberated Feu Follette heeled dizzily to the gale, under full spread of sail, and her owner and his guests appeared into the storm, Stumpy’s cry rang out:

  “There’s the flare—and she’s burnin’ steady!”

  CHAPTER XIV

  YELLOW RUFE’S FINISH

  “How bears the flare?” Dolores demanded, steadying the helm.

  “Three points on lee-bow!” came from aloft.

  “Sing out when we point for it!” Dolores gave the wheel a few spokes, and at her command the main-sheet was rendered until the schooner fell off from the wind, and Stumpy hailed: “Steady! She heads fair for it!”

  “Does it still burn?”

  “Aye, blazing bright! And low down, too, for the seas hide it every moment!”

  “Keep thy eyes skinned, and seek for the sloop, too.”

  The schooner came to a more even keel as she squared away from the gale, and the splendid speed of the craft sent a thrill through Dolores, as through the less impressionable pirate of the gang. Fast as Rufe’s sloop was, this dainty plaything of wealth and leisure sped over the snarling seas at a gait that promised to overhaul the smaller vessel two fathoms to one.

  Even Rupert Venner and his friends, shivering with the wet and sudden change from the cabin to the deck though they were, found much to soothe them in the glorious sweep and swing of the Feu Follette; much to admire and envy in the perfect poise and sang froid of the magnificent creature at the wheel.

  Dolores stood on feet as steady as the great, deep eyes that were fixed on the compass-card before her. Her heavy, lustrous hair streamed about her from under the golden circlet; in each lightning flash she stood out, a thing of wild, awful beauty; the rain glistened on her bare shoulders and arms, rendering her golden skin a gleaming, fairylike armor. And the blustering wind caught her wet tunic and wrapped it about her closely and tightly, revealing every grace and glory of her perfect body.

  “Saints! Was there ever such a creature?” said Tomlin hoarsely.

  Pearse’s face was set and grim; he made no rejoinder. Venner, too, kept silent; but his eyes held venom as he glared at the speaker. Dolores suddenly raised her eyes from the binnacle, looked toward them as they crouched shivering in the lee of the deck-house-companion, and she, warm and glowing in a flimsy, wet garment, laughed mockingly, and called to them.

  “I am forgetting what is due to my guests. Do ye feel cold? Will ye go below?”

  And they, shivering and uneasy as they were, were content to shiver if only they might not lose sight of her. Their reply was unintelligible; neither would look at the others; yet their mumbled response was understood, and the girl laughed again, loud, ringing, and full of allure.

  “Such courage comes only of true sea stock, my friends! I shall not forget this fortitude when I have done with the schooner.”

  “Flare close aboard!” roared Stumpy; then: “Seize my soul if I see the boat, th
ough, mistress. Satan! Now the flare’s gone out!”

  “Whereaway?” cried Dolores shrilly. Big Milo was out there in the blackness.

  “Right under the bows!” bellowed the lookout. “Luff, or bear away; ye’ll run him down!”

  And from the raging seas off the lee-bow came the deep, calm voice of Milo, unperturbed as if on dry land, though no boat was to be seen in the murk. “Hold the course, Sultana, I am here!”

  And on the heels of the words came a flash from the skies, blazing full upon the dripping figure of the giant as he reached a great arm up, gripped the lee-rail, and swung himself on board with the unconscious ease of a perfect athlete.

  “Thy boat, Milo?” inquired Dolores.

  “Sailed under, Sultana. I have held the flare aloft in my hand while swimming until a moment ago, when the powder burned out.”

  “And Rufe?”

  “The sloop is close by. Thou art sailing fair at his stern if thy course was not changed to avoid me. His topmast is gone; he sails slowly.”

  Then without more ado the splendid human animal clutched a backstay and swarmed aloft with the agility of an ape, showing not a whit of strain after his battle with the roaring seas. He reached Stumpy, sent that numbed mariner down, and searched the waters with his keen vision, waiting for another lightning flash. And when it came, fainter now as the thunderstorm receded, his resonant voice boomed down:

  “Broad abeam the sloop lies! She runs before the wind!”

  “Slack away the main-sheet!” cried Dolores, heaving the helm up. “Hail every minute, Milo!”

  “Shall I send him a shot immediately, lady?” roared Hanglip, at the schooner’s foremost gun.

  “Hold with thy shots, villain! Does Rufe deserve no sport? Stand by with the grappling-hooks. I’ll run him down!”

  “The sloop is dead ahead!” hailed Milo, though none on deck could detect anything of her in the blackness. Dolores listened intently; then twirled the wheel, and cried: “I hear her! Ready the grapnels?”