The Pirate Story Megapack: 25 Classic and Modern Tales

by Robert E. Howard

  On the following morning the melancholy task of burying our dead was performed, both vessels being hove to, with their colours’ hoisted half-mast high, during the ceremony; and I think it was a very great relief to all hands when, the poor fellows—ten in all, including O’Flaherty—having been consigned with all solemnity to their last resting-place beneath the heaving billow, we were able to fill away again and resume our course to the northward and eastward.

  Noon that day found us three miles to windward of the Anguilas, situate at the south-east extremity of the Cay Sal Bank; and an hour later the lookout on board the Foam reported a sail, apparently a large schooner, on our weather-beam, running up the Old Channel under easy canvas. The breeze was then blowing rather fresh at about east by north, the Foam thrashing along with her lee covering-board awash, her royal stowed, and her topmasts whipping about like a couple of fishing-rods; whilst the felucca was about three miles ahead of us and broad on our weather bow, going two feet to our one, and weathering on us at every plunge. We were consequently sailing at right angles to the stranger, and rather drawing away from the line of her course than otherwise; yet such was the speed with which she came along that in half an hour she was hull-up from our deck. It now became apparent that she was manifesting a certain amount of curiosity as to who and what we might happen to be; for instead of gradually revealing her starboard broadside to us, as she would have done had she held on her original course, she was gradually hauling her wind by keeping her bowsprit pointed straight for us. I was at first disposed to regard her as English, but the enormous spread of her lower and topsail-yards convinced me, upon her nearer approach, that I was mistaken. That same peculiarity of rig was a strong argument against the assumption of her being French; and, considerably puzzled what to make of her, I sent for my glass, in order to get a clearer view of her. By the time that the instrument had been brought on deck and put into my hand she was within four miles of us; and a single glance through the telescope sufficed to tell me who and what she was. Yes, there could be no doubt about it; the craft running down so rapidly toward us was none other than Merlani’s schooner, the identical craft Courtenay and I had seen hove down on the occasion of our visit to the Conconil lagoons.

  Here was a pretty kettle of fish, indeed! The fellow’s decks would, of course, be crowded with men, whilst I had not enough hands to man a single broadside, supposing even that I sent every available man to the guns, leaving the canvas to take care of itself! And as for Courtenay, he was even worse off than myself. I was puzzled what to do for the best; for I felt that a single false move at such a juncture, and in the presence of such an enemy, might involve us in absolute ruin. A hurried consultation with the boatswain and gunner, however, decided me to put a bold face upon the affair and “brazen it out;” in accordance with which resolution our ensign and pennant were hoisted, the topgallant-sail was clewed up and furled, and the gaff-topsail hauled down and stowed. Courtenay very smartly followed suit in the matter of showing his colours, tacking at the same time and edging down toward us. This evidently shook the nerves of our unwelcome neighbour somewhat; he seemed to think two to one rather long odds, for he immediately bore away far enough to show us his gaff-end clear of his topsail, when he at once ran up the stars and stripes. With this display of bunting we, of course, feigned to be perfectly satisfied, and each vessel held on her course, Merlani, doubtless, chuckling to think how smartly he had hoodwinked us, whilst we were only too pleased at having got out of the difficulty so easily. On Courtenay rounding to under our stern it appeared that he, too, believed the strange craft to be Merlani’s schooner; like me, he had been temporarily thrown off his balance; and like me, also, he had just come to the conclusion that a bold front was the proper game to play, when the sight of our colours and our shortening of sail gave him his cue, and he had forthwith put down his helm and come round to take his part in the game of braggadocio.

  This incident of our rencontre with Merlani (for we subsequently learned that it actually was he) was the last occurrence worthy of record which befell us on our somewhat eventful cruise; for after losing sight of the suspected schooner we never fell in with another sail of any description until we entered Port Royal harbour, where we arrived, after a pleasant but somewhat tardy passage, exactly one week after our fight in the Conconil lagoons. I may as well here state, parenthetically, that, under Sanderson’s skilful hands and assiduous care, all the wounded, myself included, did marvellously well; and though some of the poor fellows, on arrival, had to be removed to the hospital, every one of them eventually recovered. As for me, contrary to all expectation the excitement and exertion to which I had been unavoidably exposed did me no harm whatever; and on the morning of our arrival I was able to dispense with the cumbersome and unsightly swathing of turban-like bandages which I had up to then been compelled to wear, a liberal application of sticking-plaster being all that I thenceforward required until my wound was completely healed.

  Our black pilot berthed us, at my request, close under the guns of the flag-ship; and our anchor had scarcely taken a fair grip of the ground before I found myself seated in the stern-sheets of my gig, with my carefully written report in my hand, en route for an interview with the admiral I found the old gentleman on the quarter-deck of the Mars, up and down which he was stumping in evidently no very amiable mood. Something or other, I forget what, had put his temper out of joint; and he was expressing himself with a freedom, vigour, and fluency of language which I have seldom heard equalled, certainly never surpassed. He was inclined to be ironical, too; for on my presenting myself before him he brought up abruptly, and, surveying me fiercely for a moment, exclaimed:

  “Well, young gentleman, pray, who may you be, and what do you want, if I may venture so far as to make the inquiry?”

  “I am Mr Lascelles, sir, of the schooner Foam, just arrived; and I have come on board to make my report,” I replied.

  “Oh!” said he, somewhat less sternly, “you are Mr Lascelles, of the schooner Foam, are you? And pray, sir, where is Mr O’Flaherty, that you should find it necessary to discharge his functions? He is not wounded, I hope?”

  “I regret to say, sir, that he is dead,” said I.

  “Dead!” he repeated; “tut, tut; that is bad news, indeed. Here, come into my cabin with me, and sit down; you look as pale as a ghost, and have been wounded yourself, if that fag-end of sticking-plaster which I see projecting beneath the rim of your hat has any significance. There, take a chair, help yourself to a glass of wine, and make yourself comfortable,” he continued, as we reached his cool, roomy cabin. “Give me your report, and let me have a short verbal account of how you got on and what has befallen you. You brought in a prize with you, I see, and a very fine craft of her class she seems to be. There, now, fire away with your yarn.”

  I refreshed myself with a sip of the old gentleman’s very excellent Madeira, and then proceeded to give him an outline of the principal events of our cruise, my narrative being frequently broken in upon by him with questions of a decidedly searching character in reference to such matters as seemed to him to require further elucidation.

  At the close of my narrative the old gentleman rose from his seat and shook me warmly by the hand, exclaiming:

  “Well done, my dear boy; well done! You have behaved admirably, and with a discretion far beyond your years. Had I known as much at the outset as I do now I need not have sent Mr O’Flaherty at all. Poor fellow! he was a good officer and a brave man, none braver, but he was rash. He had seen a great deal of boat service, and I thought—well, well! never mind. It is a pity he gave the alarm to those feluccas so prematurely, though. I am very pleased with you, young gentleman, and with your shipmate too—very pleased indeed. You got out of two bad scrapes very cleverly, to say nothing of the way in which you afterwards weathered upon the arch-pirate himself. Ha! ha! that was neatly done, upon my word. You did quite right, my boy, not to turn your stern to him. Never turn tail to an enemy, even though he be big enoug
h to eat you, until the very last moment, nor then, if you think you have the ghost of a chance of thrashing him. Which does not mean, however, that, when retreat is necessary, you are to stay until it is too late and be eaten. I should have liked to see the fellow chuckling to himself as he thought how cleverly he had hoodwinked you. Poor chap! he little dreamed that you were walking off with all his hard-earned savings snugly stowed away beneath your cabin-floor. And it shall not be so very long, please God, before we will have him also and his crew safe in irons. Well, well! Now, be off aboard your hooker again, and see all ready for turning over the prisoners and the plunder; and, harkye, youngster, come and dine with me at the Penn tonight. Seven, sharp! and give my compliments to your shipmate, and say I shall be glad to see him too.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A Dinner Party at the Admiral’s Penn

  The dinner that evening at the Penn was a very pleasant affair indeed, at all events for Courtenay and myself; for on that occasion we reaped the first-fruits of all the toil and peril which we had recently encountered in the shape of that ungrudging and unstinted praise and commendation which is so welcome and so encouraging to the young aspirant for fame. The party consisted of three post-captains, a commander, four lieutenants, and half a dozen mids, ourselves included; which, with the jolly old admiral our host, made up a nice compact party. The guests, it appeared, had all been invited expressly to meet us and do us honour; we consequently found ourselves to be the lions of the evening. We were, of course, invited to tell our story all over again from its commencement, which we did, beginning with the mutiny on board the Hermione, the narrative being frequently broken in upon by questions from one or another of the guests, all of whom, I am bound to record, manifested the utmost interest in what we had to say. These questions, on more than one occasion, took quite the form of a severe cross-examination, the post-captains in particular seeming determined to arrive at a clear and distinct understanding as to the motives which prompted us in many of our actions and decisions. I was somewhat at a loss at first to comprehend the meaning of all this cross-questioning; but it became apparent later on in the evening when the three captains and the commander each formally offered to receive us on board their ships, one of which happened to be a seventy-four, whilst the other three were fine dashing frigates. These offers were all, of course, of a most advantageous character, and had we accepted them I feel sure that, joining either ship with the reputations which we had honestly won for ourselves, our advancement in the service would have been certain and rapid. But something in the admiral’s manner caused me to hesitate, so, with hearty thanks to each for his kind offer, I begged the favour of a few hours for consideration; and Courtenay, taking his cue from me, did the same. When at length we all rose to take leave of our host and return to our respective ships the admiral drew Courtenay and me aside, and said, as he shook hands with us:

  “Before you decide to accept or to refuse either of the offers which have been made to you tonight come and see me. I shall be on board the flag-ship tomorrow at noon.”

  We promised that we would do so, and shortly afterwards got under weigh in company with our fellow guests, the whole party being on horseback, for Kingston; our road, or rather the bush path along which we travelled for the greater part of the way, being brilliantly lighted by the rays of a glorious full moon.

  The “autocrats of the quarter-deck” with whom we thus found ourselves privileged to ride cheek by jowl all proved to be splendid fellows, very gentlemanly in their manner, yet—having evidently sunk the quarter-deck for the nonce—frank and hearty as I believe only sailors can be. They permitted, or rather they invited us by their cordial manner, to join freely in the conversation, instead of relegating us to the rear, as some captains would undoubtedly have done in like circumstances, and held out so many inducements for us to join that I at length got the idea into my head that they actually wanted us. This frank and friendly treatment served one good purpose at least; it gave us a clearer insight into their characters and dispositions than we had been able to obtain at the admiral’s dinner-table, and helped us to definitely make up our minds under which leader, if either of them, we would serve.

  Punctual to the moment Courtenay and I presented ourselves on the quarter-deck of the Mars next day and sent in our names to the admiral, who was in his cabin, just as the ship’s bell was striking eight. We were at once invited to step into the cabin, which we did, finding the old gentleman busy with his secretary writing letters. He had evidently just completed the dictation of one as we entered, for he remarked to the thin pale young man who was seated with him at the table:

  “There, Purkis, that will do for the present. Just transcribe the documents you have already taken down whilst I have a chat with these young gentlemen; and I daresay that by the time you have finished I shall be ready to go on again. Well, young gentlemen,” he continued, “good morning. Find a couple of chairs and bring yourselves to an anchor,” waving his hand toward some of the articles of furniture in question as he spoke.

  When we had seated ourselves he resumed:

  “Well, now that you have slept over the offers you received last night, what do you think of them?”

  As he looked straight at me during the propounding of this question I took the initiative in replying, and said:

  “So far as I am concerned, sir, unless you have something else in view for me, I should like to join the Alecto and serve under Captain Fanshawe.”

  “And you?” inquired the old gentleman, turning to Courtenay.

  “I should like to accompany my friend Lascelles wherever he goes, if you have no objection, sir,” was Courtenay’s reply.

  “Well,” said the admiral, rubbing his bald head in a manner which seemed to denote that he was somewhat perplexed, “I think you have chosen very well. The Alecto is a noble frigate and a very comfortable ship, whilst Fanshawe is one of the very best men on the station, or indeed I may say in the entire service. He will be very glad to have you both, I know, if you elect to join, him. But you,” he continued, addressing me more particularly, “qualified the expression of your choice by adding the words, ‘unless you have something else in view for me,’ upon which words you laid some stress. Now, I do not wish to influence either of you in any way; but do I understand you to mean by that expression that you are willing to place yourselves in my hands?”

  “Most assuredly yes, sir,” I replied. “In any case it would be our duty to do so, but you have been pleased to express such very high approval of our conduct during our recent cruise, and have exhibited such a flattering interest in us and our welfare, that duty in this case becomes a positive pleasure; and for my part, I ask nothing better than permission to leave myself entirely in your hands.”

  “And I, also,” chimed in Courtenay.

  “Very well spoken, young sirs; very well spoken, indeed!” exclaimed the admiral, evidently much gratified at our reply. “Well,” he continued, “I have other views for you both; views which presented themselves as I sat listening to what you had to tell me yesterday morning, and which were strengthened by what I afterwards found in your capitally written report. It is not my practice to flatter or unduly praise officers—especially youngsters like you—for a proper performance of their duty; such a practice is apt to make them conceited—to think too much of themselves, to consider that there is nobody like them, and that they cannot be done without. But you both appear to be modest and thoroughly sensible lads; you have exhibited an amount of tact and judgment quite beyond your years, in circumstances where much older men might have been puzzled how to act; I therefore do not hesitate to say that I am exceedingly pleased with you both, that I am thoroughly satisfied with your conduct in every respect; and that I think, considering how very short-handed we are at present on the station in the matter of officers, you might be better employed than in the mere doing of midshipman’s duty even on board a smart frigate. You have, both of you, interested me very much; I should like to see you
getting on in your profession and mounting the ratlines as speedily as may be; and if you like to trust yourselves to me, are willing to work hard and behave well, I’ll see to it that you have every chance given you to make your mark. But I am afraid I shall have to separate you. Now, what do you say?”

  As the question was again put pointedly to me I replied that, whilst I should greatly regret being separated from so stanch a shipmate and so true a friend as my companion had proved himself to be in many a situation of difficulty and peril, I would not allow the feeling to interfere in any way with the plans of a kind and generous patron; and I felt sure that, in saying this on my own behalf, I might also say as much for my friend. To which speech Courtenay bowed his acquiescence, looking rather glum at the same time, I must say.

  “Very well,” said the admiral, “I must separate you for the present; but I promise you that you shall become shipmates again at the earliest convenient opportunity. Now, listen to me. There have been numerous complaints from the merchants here, during the last two or three months, that cargoes consigned to them have never arrived; and the only conclusion possible is that the ships carrying these cargoes have been snapped up by privateers. I have already sent out all the men-of-war available to cruise about the spots most likely to be haunted by these pests; but there are a couple of cruising grounds which are still less effectively watched than I should like, and I have been thinking I would send you two lads away to them, just to see what you can do. You, Courtenay, I intend to put in charge of that large felucca you brought in from the lagoons; she is just the craft for the work you will have to do—a good powerful vessel, but of light draught of water. Your cruising ground will be from Cape Maysi northward as far as Long Island, giving the Kays in Austral Bay an overhaul now and then, thence to windward of the Windward Passages, down as far south as, say, the Silver Kay Passage, then to the westward as far as Cape Maysi again. But you will have to be very careful, young gentleman, in your navigation of Austral Bay, or you may find yourself cast away on one or another of the shoals. You, Lascelles, I intend to put in command of that schooner, the Dauphin, which was brought in by the Minerva a few days ago; she is a really formidable vessel of her class, and I think it quite likely I shall be very severely blamed—behind my back—for intrusting her to a mere boy, as you are; but you must look upon this command as an indication of the confidence I have in your gallantry and discretion, and I shall look to you to justify me by your conduct in the choice I have made. Your cruising ground will be round Saint Domingo and as far east as the Virgin Islands, and the duty of you both will be, firstly, to protect commerce, and next to beat up the enemy’s quarters everywhere within your bounds, and capture, sink, burn, and destroy everything you can lay hands on which is not too big for you to tackle. The whole coast of Saint Domingo is swarming with French privateers, really pirates under a rather more respectable name; and it is to these fellows I want you to more particularly direct your attention. The Foam I shall pay off at once, and I think it will be a good plan if you, Mr Courtenay, will try to secure the hands you now have on board the felucca for your next cruise. If you, Mr Lascelles, have any particularly good men on board the Foam that you would like to keep, you had better endeavour to get them to enter for the Dauphin, which, by the way, we will re-christen and call the Dolphin for the future. And now, good morning both of you; if you want a few days’ leave, take it, sending Mr Purkis here your addresses, so that I may know where to communicate with you. Do not leave your ships, however, until the Foam is paid off, which will be tomorrow.”