The Pirate Story Megapack: 25 Classic and Modern Tales

by Robert E. Howard

  “Whaler on the port-bow.”

  “Signal ’em to come to, and drop a shot,” cried Black rising; and then he called to the Scotsman and gave his orders—

  “Stand by the gun!” and with that we all went out to the gallery, and saw by the clear power of the moon a full-rigged ship not a mile from the shore. She was homeward bound, and seemed by her build to be a Dane.

  Upon our own deck there was already activity, some of the men getting away the launch, and others putting empty barrels into it before they swung it out over the sea. There was a method and quietness about it all which showed long habit at the same practice; and when at last the great gun before the funnel boomed out, the fine accuracy of the shooting scarcely caused comment. The shot appeared to drop into the water almost under the whaler’s bob-stay, and sent up a cloud of foam and spray, glistening in the moonlight; but the ship answered to it as to a deadly summons; and the tide and wind setting off shore, she went into the breeze easily, and lay to at the first demand. Then Black gave his orders—

  “You, John, go aboard and buy their oil up—I’m getting you notes from my chest.”

  At the word buy, the man John seemed astounded.

  “Oh, I reckon,” he said, “we’ll pay ’em hard cash with a clout on the skull, cap’n; come right along, boys, and bring your shootin’ irons. Oh, I guess we’ll pay ’em, money down, and men a-top of it.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort, you lubber!” roared Black; “but what you take you’ll pay for, d’ye hear me?—then shut your mouth up and go aboard.”

  John was not the only man who was struck by the skipper’s whim. There were mutterings on the deck below, and Dick, who had come from the conning-tower, was bold enough to make remark.

  “It’s a’most sinfu’,” he said, “to be sae free wi’ the siller; why man, ye could verra weel buy me a hundred pairs o’ breeks wi’ the same, and no be wanting it.”

  But Black was watching the launch, now speeding in the moonlight towards the rolling whaler. I watched it too, remembering how, not many weeks before, I had stood on the deck of my own yacht, and awaited the coming of the same craft with my heart in my mouth. Now the danger was not mine, but I felt for the men who had to face it, since Black’s talk about purchase could scarcely soften the native ferocity of those who served him; and I feared that the scene would end in bloodshed.

  Happily the surmise was quite incorrect. That which promised a tragedy gave us but a comedy. We saw from the platform that our men were taken aboard the ship, and we watched to see them hoist their barrels after them. But they did not, making no sign of having the oil, although there came shouts and sounds of altercation from the anchored vessel; and we saw the flash of pistols, and dark objects presently in the sea. To the surprise of us all, the launch returned after that; and when our men came aboard, they presented a shocking spectacle. “Roaring John” was covered from head to feet with a thick, black, oleaginous matter; two of the others had their faces smeared in tar; the rest were like drowned rats, and were chattering until their teeth clashed with the cold. Nor could they for some time, what with their spluttering and their anger, tell us what misfortune had overtaken them.

  “The darned empty skunks,” gasped John at last—”they haven’t got a barrel aboard, not a barrel, I guess; and when I gave ’em play with my tongue, they put me in the waste-tub—oh, I reckon, up to my eyes in it——”

  “Do you mean to say,” asked Black, “that they’ve took no whales?”

  “Except ourselves, yer honour,” said a little Englishman, who was cowering like a drowned rat, “which they throw’d overboard, like the whales in the Scriptures, never a fish.”

  “Then we’ve wasted our time!” cried the skipper, stamping his great foot; “and you’re lazy varmin to stop so long aboard parleying with ’em. I’m going on; you can settle your scores among you.”

  He gave the order “Full steam ahead!” at which the third officer showed the temper of a whipped beast.

  “You’re going ahead leaving them swimming? Then darn me if I serve,” said he. “What? They pitch me in their dirty tub, and you laugh! By thunder! I’ll teach you.”

  Captain Black watched his anger with a pitying leer; but “Dick the Ranter” and “Four-Eyes” were overcome with laughter, and roared until the ship echoed.

  “Houly Moses, it’s a fine picture ye are, my beauty,” said the mate; “and if oi’ll be scraping ye down with a shovel, it’s yer own fayther wouldn’t know ye, so clane ye’ll be.”

  “To the which I would add, man,” said Dick, “that if ye’d let yersel’ drip into the lubricators you’d be worth siller to us; not to say onything o’ the discoorse I micht verra weel preach on Satan from yer present appearance.”

  The banter turned the man from his more meaning purpose. He stood gibbering for a moment, while the crowd pressed on him with gibes and jeers; but he had his revenge, after all, for there was a tar-bucket at the foot of the upper-deck ladder, and with this he armed himself. The brush was well-charged and dripping, the tar yet liquid, the Scotsman’s face was all-inviting. With a fierce shout the enraged man went to the attack, and painted his lantern-jawed opponent merrily. In less time than I can tell of it, the Ranter dripped from head to foot; the black stuff poured from his hemp-like hair, from his ears; it oozed down his neck, it even ran through to his boots; and when his enemy could no longer wield the brush from fatigue, he emptied the bucket on the man’s head as a last triumphant vindication of his strength.

  “Now we’re a pair!” he said, pausing for breath, and surveying his work as an artist surveys a finished picture; “and I guess you ain’t going to take the biscuit in this beauty show.”

  “Man, I could hae weel dispensed wi’t,” spluttered the Scotsman; “but I thank ye for dyeing my breeks. They’ve been wanting colour since New Year.”

  The laughter had not yet died away when the men went to their cabins, and we posted the watches before turning in. We were at that time in Lat. 65° N. at a rough calculation, and we passed the Danish settlement of Godthaab early on the next morning, though so far out at sea that I could make nothing of it; while we lost the coast of Greenland altogether before the day had passed, a hazy shower of dust-like snow greeting our coming to the Atlantic and to a perceptibly warmer latitude. During this day, and until we sighted the Shetlands, the small screw tender kept our course, and we exchanged signals with her every morning, her purpose being explained to me by “Four-Eyes,” on the fourth morning out, in his child-like phraseology.

  “Faith, she’s Liverpool bound, and we’ll pick her up again south of the Scilly when she’s tidings of ships out. Bedad, sir, there’s fine times coming; what wi’ the say full av big ones, and we one agen ’em, I’m like to believe as we’ll step ashore with our throats cut, ivery man av us, and on the shore av me own counthry, which sorra a day I left for this job.”

  “Why did you leave it, ‘Four-Eyes’?” I asked cheerfully; and he said—

  “’Twas this way, sorr, but it’s a long yarn, and ye don’t nade more than the p’ints av it. When I was priest’s bhoy in Tipperary, me and Mike Sullivan had atween us what you gents call a vendeny, and coming out av church—’twas Sunday mornin’ five year ago—I met Mike, an’ he puts coals av fire on me head. ‘Begorra,’ says I, ‘it’s lucky for ye I’m in the grace, but plase God I’ll not be tomorrow;’ but the spalpeen went to Cork next day, and it wasn’t till a year that I run agen him, prepared to do my dooty.”

  “And you did it, I’ll be bound!”

  “Sorra a bit; I just fell in with the divil, being an aisy sort av sowl, and he made me as drunk as a gentleman—that’s why I’m here, sorr. He shipped me aboard and got five pounds from me, me that meant to thread on his head, the dirty skunk—but it’s the way av the world, sorr; help a man that’s down, an’ the moment the spalpeen’s on his fate he’ll dance on ye.”

  “Which is verra true,” said Dick the Ranter, who after two days had still tar upon h
im, and was wrapped in a woman’s shawl; “but will ye postpone your thirdly, and go below to the doctor, who’s wanting ye to see the gear?”

  They had not yet shown me the engines of the nameless ship, and I welcomed the opportunity, grown weary with watching the dull green of the sea, and the monotony of the sky-laden clouds. Dick led the way quickly from the gallery to the lower deck, and thence down an iron ladder to the great engine-room. Here truly was a wondrous sight; the sight of three sets of the most powerful engines that have yet been placed in a battle-ship. Each of them had four cylinders, eighty inches in diameter; and all were driven by the hydrogen from the huge gasometers which our holds formed. The gas itself was made by passing the steam from a comparatively small boiler through a coke and anthracite furnace, the coke combining with the oxygen and leaving pure hydrogen. The huge cylinders drove upwards with a double crank to carry their motion to the screw; and I found that the difficulty of starting and reversing was overcome by an intermediate bevel-wheel gearing and friction clutch, which could throw the motion off the shaft, and allow that instantaneous going astern otherwise impossible in a gas-engine. That day there was a huge fire in the furnace, emitting terrific heat and crackling sparks, for the men were making gas, in view of a run or two off the coast of Ireland. It was more pleasant than I can tell you to watch the entire absorption of the gifted engineer, in the maze of machinery which surrounded him, to paint the paternal pathos of his look as he watched every motion and eyed every bearing. The maker of an empire certainly he was; the man of mind who, for the time, had given these ruffians the kingship of the sea; had made mockery of the opposition of the nations; and, I could not help but reflect as I turned away sick at heart at the sight of so much power, had caused me to be a prisoner, perhaps for life, in that citadel of metal. Yet, he was a genius; and to the end of my days I shall think, as I thought then, of the superb gifts so wasted in their channel, of the masterful intellect devoted only to pillage and plunder.

  In such a frame of mind I left the engine-room and mounted to the upper deck, to hear the cry, “Land on the port-bow.”

  It was the coast of Ireland, they told me; and I know not if I have ever had a greater pleasure than that distant view of my own country gave to me. For it was as though I had passed from a dead land to the land of man, from the silent ways of night to the first breaking of the God-sent day.

  CHAPTER XXII.

  THE ROBBERY OF THE “BELLONIC.”

  Our view of the distant shore of Ireland was a fleeting one; and we passed thence almost immediately to the open sea, steaming due S.W. for some hours, but at no great pace. It was not until daybreak on the following morning that we reached the track of ocean-bound ships; but our voyage was altogether in favour of Black, for the sun had scarce risen when Doctor Osbart got me from my bed to see what he called my first introduction to business.

  “There’s the Red Cross Line’s Bellonic not a mile off on the starboard quarter,” cried he exultingly, “and we’re going to clear her. Come out, man, and get the finest breakfast you ever tasted.”

  I dressed anyhow, almost as excited as he was, and stepped on to the gallery, to see a rolling waste of dull-green breakers, and a sky washed with broken thunder-clouds, through which the risen sun was struggling. The wind was keen from the south, and drove a fine rain, which lashed the face as with a whip; while much spray broke upon us and there was moaning of the cowls and the shrouds, and many signs of more wind to come. These atmospheric difficulties troubled no one, however, for all eyes were turned to the north, where, now almost abreast of us, at a distance of half a mile or less, there was the long and magnificent hull of the great liner. She was then in the full sunlight, a fine spectacle; and I could see her bare decks, trodden only by the watch, while a solitary officer paced the bridge. The contrast between her sleepy inactivity and our keen alertness was very marked, for all hands trod our decks, and there was a restlessness and an evident ferocity amongst the little group upon the bridge which marked a purpose brooking no delay.

  I had begun to ask myself when the work would be done, for the liner went at a tremendous pace and was rapidly leaving us, when I got my answer with the crash of the great gun forward, and the sight of a shell ploughing the sea fifty yards ahead of the Bellonic. The cries of “Well shot, Swearing Dick!” had not died away before the effect of the call was seen upon the great vessel, whose decks were soon dotted with black objects, while three more men appeared on the bridge, and the signal flags ran up, and were answered by us. “Four-Eyes” was at our mast, and interpreted the message to Black, who followed all that was done without betrayal of emotion, but only with the savage anticipation of the predatory instinct.

  “Signal to ’em to lie to, if they don’t want to go to hell,” he said between his teeth, and “Four-Eyes” answered:

  “Ay, ay, sorr”; then, as the signal came, “He sez uz he’ll say us at blazes afore he bates a knot.”

  “Give it him for’ard then, and teach him,” roared Black; and the shot that answered his command struck the quivering hull not twenty feet from the windlass, and you could see the splinters carried fifty feet in the air, while the shrieks of terror came over the sea to us, and were piercing then.

  “What’s he say now?” asked the Captain, cooler than even at the beginning of the work.

  “Says as he’ll make it warm for ye at New York, and if ye come aboard, it’s on yer own head, an’ ye swing fer it—he’ll not stop till ye disable him.”

  “The thick-headed vermin,” hissed Black; “give him another, amidships this time.”

  The second shot made us reel and shiver as she left us; but there was no hit, for we rolled much, and saw the shell burst on the far side of the liner. At this, and at the failure of a second attempt, the Captain lost patience, and gave the order—

  “Full steam ahead, and clear the machine-guns.”

  It was almost superb, I admit now, and the excitement of it was then upon me, to feel our great ship quiver at the touch of the bell, and bound forward with waves of foam and spray running from her decks, and each plate on her straining as though the mighty force of the engines below would rend it from its fellows.

  I had not before known the limit of her speed, or what she could do when driven as she then was; and the truth amazed me, while it filled me with a strange exultation. For we, who had dallied heretofore behind the other, sped beyond her as an express train passes the droning goods; and coming about, in a great circle, we descended upon her as a goshawk upon the quarry.

  The machine-guns upon our decks were already cleared; the men were stripped, ready for the fray, as tigers for their food. Indeed, before I quite understood the purport of the manœuvre, we were passing the Bellonic at a distance of not more than fifty yards; and at that moment it seemed as if all the furies of hell were let loose upon our decks.

  Screaming like wild beasts, the men turned the handles of the Maxim guns; the balls rained upon the defenceless liner as hail upon a sheepfold. I heard fierce curses and dull groans; I saw strong men reel and fall their length as death took them; the breeze bore to me the wailing of women and the sobs of children.

  But we had done the foul work in the one passage, for the flag dropped at once upon the liner, and the signal was made to us to come aboard. We had gained a horrid triumph, if such you could call the murders, and it remained but to divide the spoil.

  “Lower away the launch, you John!” cried Black, “and take every shilling you can lay hands on. You hear me?—and hang up that skipper for a thin-skinned fool.”

  “By thunder, I’m yours all along,” replied “Roaring John “; and then he sang out, “Hands for the launch!”

  “You’d better go as cox,” said Osbart to me, “you’ll be amused”; and suggested it to Black, who turned upon me a look almost of hate.

  “Yes, he shall go,” he cried; “if we swing, he shall swing, the preaching lubber! Let him get aboard, or I’ll kick him there.”

  I had loat
hing at the thought of it, but might as well have put a pistol to my head there and then as to have refused. They bundled me into the launch, and I sat shivering at the prospect of the terrors on the deck; but they would not leave me when they came alongside, and “Roaring John” himself drove me up the ladder which was put out amidships. Seven of us at last stood on the bridge, and were face to face with the captain of the Bellonic, and four of his officers.

  I have said that I feared the terrors of that deck, but the reality surpassed the conception.

  It was a very babel of sounds, of groans, of weeping. The ship’s surgeon himself seemed paralysed before the sight of the carnage around him. You looked along the length of the vessel, and it was as though you looked upon the scene of a bloody battle, for there were dead almost in heaps, and wounded screaming, and streams of blood, and fragments of wreckage as though the ship had been under fire for many hours. But above all this terror, I know of nothing which struck me with such fearful sorrow as the sight of a fair young English girl lying by the door of the great saloon, her arms extended, her nut-brown hair soaked in her own blood, while a man knelt over her, and you could see his tears falling upon her dead face, and his ravings were incoherent and almost those of a maniac. At the sight of us he jumped to his feet, and shrieked “Murderers!” so continuously that the echo of his cry rang in my ears that day and for many days.

  Meanwhile another scene was passing on the bridge between the man John and the captain of the Bellonic.

  “What do you want aboard of my ship?” cried the latter; and “Roaring John” answered him with a mocking leer:

  “We’ve come aboard to hang you, to begin on!”

  The men with the young officer cocked their revolvers at this, and I said in a mad frenzy which would not brook silence—

  “You scoundrel, if you touch another soul here I’ll shoot you myself!” for I had my revolver on me. “Do you make a business of killing children?” I cried again, and pointed to the dead body of the girl-child.