Captain Caution

by Kenneth Roberts

  "Well," Slade said, clearing his throat, "if she's as shrewd as you claim, she might be worth it. How much would cover the profitsP"

  "Oh, call it five guineas," Vincent said carelessly.

  Again Vincent examined gold pieces in the light of the binnacle; and after that, in the lurching and swaying cockpit, he whispered busily in Slade's ear until, dead ahead, a score of blinking, wavering lights marked the tumbled rocks and the sheltered crescent beach of Whitesand Bay.

  NIII

  THE office of Admiral Sir John Duckworth, high above the dockyard at Devonport, looked out over the bewildering marine activities of the Hamoaze to the lofty wooded slopes of Mount Edgcumbe, beyond which lay Whitesand Bay; and Admiral Duckworth himself, stocky and formal in his high-collared uniform coat and spotless nankeen breeches, stared from the window at the swarming waters below, in which shore boats, bumboats, ships' boats, and lighters of every description scurried like beetles among the frigates, line-ofbattle ships, hulks, ships repairing, ships fitting and ships under sail. Behind him, the hoarse voice of Captain Slade filled the room with a ceaseless and not displeasing hum.

  Admiral Duckworth turned from the window suddenly. "As I understand it," he interrupted, "you want one-half of the sum realized from the condemnation sale, if, as and when this barque is cut out from some port unknown. I tell you at once, my good fellow, it won't do! It's too muchl"

  Slade shrugged his shoulders. "That's as you see fit, Admiral." He coughed. "I've heard there are ways in which vessels are ships when they enter your prize courts and sloops when they come out though, of course, that's none of my affair. And I know your prize money is often divided oddly. Why, I know a case, and so do you, too, sir, where a British admiral received four thousand pounds prize money from a single vessel, while the seamen on his ship were given two pounds apiece. Of course, that's none of my affair either, but it's been done, and done often, where your admirals were concerned; and what's been done can be done again."

  Admiral Duckworth stared at him coldly, but Slade only laughed.

  "It seems to me," the slaver continued, "that the circumstances should make some slight difference, too. Here's a vessel that will be fitted out as a privateer against you, under a Yankee captain that meaning no offence can sail circles around your fastest frigates and sloops-of-war. It seems to me it should be a privilege for you to nip this little enterprise in the bud, no matter how much it costs you a privilege and a patriotic duty."

  "Dear mel" the admiral said in a light voice. "Lessons in patriotism

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  to a British admiral delivered by a Yankee merchant captain whose position is let us say equivocalPInterestingl"

  Slade tilted back his head and smiled up into the red face above him. "Don't take me wrong, Admirall Don't take me wrongl It only seemed to me I ought to mention the saving to your country, seeing that you've objected to my reasonable price for the information. Why, here, Admiral; this barque and her cargo will sell for thirty thousand pounds. That's fifteen for government and fifteen for me; and if you send a schooner to cut her out, her officers and crew would consider themselves made men if they divided five thousand among 'em. There's ten thousand left for government. Or call it five thousand, and make a fast sloop-of-war out of the barque. All profit, Admirall But if you don't get her, what thenP Suppose she slips out and takes four or five of your merchantmen, as she with As she willl"

  Slade clicked his teeth together and laughed his soft laugh that sounded like quick strokes of a brush against stone. "You'll have the shipowners buzzing around the Admiralty's ears, crying for their lost money and cursing the navy for a kettle of old goats and younger sons, and that's all you will travel"

  Duckworth walked up and down the room, glancing angrily at Slade. "It's beyond met" he said at length. "I've done some fighting against your people in my time, and it was generally the other way around. Usually it was our people that went running over to yours, because of all your wild talk of freedom; but here you are, wanting to sell your own shipmates!"

  Slade seemed hurt. "No, nol You've got it hindside foremost, Admirall The barque belongs to a poor, helpless girl with no mind for business. She's fallen into the hands of two unscrupulous rascals, Admiral. If they have their way, it'll be no time at all before the girl's stripped clean and deserted in a foreign port. They'll take her barque for a privateer, and they'll take her money from her on the plea of refitting. It's that, Admiral, that's set me off on this. I do hate to see an innocent maid so fooled and misled."

  The admiral looked at him and laughed.

  Slade sighed softly and rose from his chair, smiling somewhat ruefully. "Well," he said, "it's no matterl I see you don't take to the idea." Hat in hand, he moved toward the door.

  "Half a moment," Duckworth ordered. "If we go in after this barque, are you sure she won't be tied up at a dockP Won't be unloaded? Are you sure a cutting-out expedition could get to herP"

  Slade set his grey beaver hat on the floor once more. "I saw a French official before I came away. She'll be held at anchor, and

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  won't break cargo until I return; and she'll cut out as easy as a rat hole out of cheese."

  "Well," Duckworth said reluctantly, "we might arrange it."

  Slade eyed the admiral thoughtfully, his drooping eyelid a pallid patch in his swarthy face. "You won't regret ill No: you won't regret ill And by the way, Admiral: there's one or two things I'd like to be sure of before the matter's considered settled. There'd have to be articles between us, stating clearly that I'm to receive one-half of the prize money resulting from the sale of the barque and her cargo, whose value is tentatively estimated at thirty thousand pounds; and that in case she's used for government service, I'm further to receive one-half of her value as decided by the prize court. Also an agreement that when the barque is cut out, the lady, if aboard, is to be set ashore before putting to sea. Also an agreement that the crew shall be taken for imprisonment to the hulks farthest removed from the port where the barque was captured. They're dangerous men, Admiral, and I want 'em put where there's no likelihood they'll cause the lady more trouble."

  "Dear mel Dear met" Grumbling, the admiral dropped down before his desk and scratched busily on a sheet of paper, while Slade watched him out of one black eye that seemed to glitter like a drop of ink in the sun.

  The next morning this benevolent adventurer sat at an upper window of the Swan inn, tapping impatiently with a snakewood cane at his newly varnished boots. He cocked an eye at the curving streets of ancient Bristol and the forest of masts that edged the serpentine curves of the Avon as willows rim the banks of a meadow brook.

  "Interesting, isn't ill" he said in his hoarse voice. "These English; they know how to do thingsl They put up a battery of church towers to catch your eye; and while you're busy looking at the towers, they run their slave ships right up to their own back doors."

  He laughed the laugh that had the sound of bristles passing lightly over granite; then turned his head quickly. "Look here, my lover I've got business in this town, and I want you with mel Crowd on some canvas or you'll get something you aren't looking fort"

  A small, brown-eyed, brown-haired girl came to his side, circled his head with a bare arm, rapped him lightly on the cheek with the back of a hairbrush and pressed his face to her bosom. "Now," she said, "don't teasel" She broke from him and went back to her prinking at a mirror; and Slade, watching her with a gleaming eye, was silent.

  It was an hour later that the captain swaggered proudly from the

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  narrow door of the Swan, his snakewood cane jauntily a-swing and at his side his lady, her small hand thrust demurely beneath his elbow; her eyes, sheltered by a snuff-brown bonnet, modestly cast down. It scarcely seemed that she could muster the courage to leave the side of her escort to ask even the smallest of questions of a stranger; but leave it she did; and while her apparent husband stood lost in admiration of t
he Norman tower of St. Peter's Church, she timidly begged a white-aproned wine merchant to direct them to Queens Square.

  Then the decorous couple skirted the busy Avon, passed through the odors of wine, tobacco and leather that hung over the crowded High Street, and made their way into the quiet southern quarter of the city, where the squat brown houses of opulent shipowners were sheltered on three sides by the waters of the Floating Harbor. Here, while Captain Slade again seemed stricken speechless by the cold bronze scrutiny of King William III and his horse, or possibly by the sight of either the customhouse or the jail, his gentle companion hesi- tatingly inquired of a lofty footman where the residence of Sir Austin Braymore might be found.

  It was not, indeed, until these two obviously estimable and virtuous folk had been admitted to the dim hallway of Sir Austin's home that Captain Slade regained his tongue; and the very manner of his regaining it was proof that he was pleased.

  "Little devill" he said, drawing his lady to him. "Every inch the bridel We came here as neatly as though we'd been brought up on the smell of fried eelsl"

  He peered past her at the elaborately carved love seat in the hall; then raised his chin, as if in haughty appraisal, to eye the cabinet in the near-by reception room a cabinet of mahogany, carved delicately to represent a bamboo pagoda, rising to eaves that swept upward to still higher eaves, and thence to a stork at the top; a stork so graceful and so lifelike that it seemed poised above the cabinet, rather than mounted on it. Inside the cabinet were silver bowls and jars and milky plates, their centers blazing with heraldic designs in gold and blue and scarlet.

  He bent his head to whisper close to the snuff-brown bonnet: "Make an excuse and stay out here. I'll see this gentleman alone; and after that, my love, I'll set you to playing the dear, fresh-wed little spouse once more."

  A portly gentleman with a triple row of chins came heavily down the staircase, wrinkling his forehead at the couple below him. "Captain Slade and ma'am," he said politely. "The name is not is not - "

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  Captain Slade seemed almost to stand on tiptoe, so far back did he throw his head to see Sir Austin clearly. "I came direct from Admiral Duckworth," he explained.

  "So, sol So, sol" Sir Austin murmured. "From Sir Johnl So, so! Pray step back here, Captain."

  He turned toward the far end of the hall, but before Captain Slade could follow him, his lady had swayed and gasped a little, and to the distress of Sir Austin and the captain, declared timidly and sweetly that the journey had been a thought too much for her: that she would sit alone, here in the hall, if only Sir Austin would have the kindness to send a servant to her with a thimble of Madeira.

  "Of Bristol milk, ma'am! Not Madeira, but Bristol milkl ThaYs the wine to bring the color back to those soft cheeks!"

  He hurried to the bell pull, hastened for the smelling salts and bustled about for a cushion to slip beneath the feet of this delicate little lady; so that when he was finally alone with Captain Slade in the small white-walled room at the rear of the house, he was short of breath from his hospitable exertions, and wheezed a little as he sat wide-legged before his visitor in a large wing chair.

  "So, sol" he panted. "From Sir Johnl Ha-hal Difficult postl Happy to think he thought of met"

  The quick rasp of Captain Slade's laugh brought a look of puzzlement to Sir Austin's face. "It just happened," Slade murmured, "that your name didn't come up. No, your name wasn't even mentioned."

  Sir Austin clapped his fat hands on his knees and stared m amazement. "Not even not even Then to what, if I may ask, am I indebted "

  Slade turned his head and looked hard at Sir Austin from his one good eye. "Some little time before I saw Sir John, I ran into Fernando Po." He nodded brightly and added, "On business."

  Sir Austin cleared his throat softly. "On business m Fernando Po? That is in Africa, is it not?"

  Slade laughed a little harshly. "Seeing that the Narcissus was in the river when I was there, and that the Venus had cleared with six hundred and nine blacks three weeks before, you ought to know where Fernando Po isl"

  He looked coolly about the small white room; got up, even, to scrutinize more closely the lady in the gown of shimmering brown whose portrait hung above a mantel of yellow marble a mantel with a medallion chiseled by a master hand to show a dog, bone in mouth, staring at his reflection in a stream.

  "H'ml" Slade said. "'Lady, by Kneller' best man you've got when

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  it comes to white shoulders above a silk dresst" He sat down again and grinned into Sir Austin's still face.

  "What happened," he continued, "was that Chater wouldn't close his ports at night. ThaPs what you get for taking a man off the Channel and putting him on the Middle Passage. They know it all, they do, just because they've been able to run a few ankers of brandy past a handful of paid Preventive officers. Won't take advicel That was Chaterl Wouldn't take advicel I told him what would happen if he didn't keep his ports shut, but he laughed, and it occurred!" Slade hissed jovially through his clenched white teeth, "He died of the fever."

  Sir Austin drew a key from his pocket and fumbled, with helpless hands, at the lock of a mahogany cellarette that stood by his elbow. Slade leaned forward to take the key from the trembling fingers of his host. With a deferential smile he thrust it into place and raised the lid.

  "Permit me," Slade said. He glanced mournfully at Sir Austin. "Your health, I fear, is not what it should be. It's the rich food, perhaps. Yes, it must be the rich food! A man your age can't be too careful about avoiding exertion or excitement. What can I give you,

  . a,, slrr

  "Brandy!" Sir Austin whispered. "A little of the brandy!"

  Slade brought up a bottle with a Hy-specked label, turned his head sidewise to examine it; then, puckering his lips in a tuneless whistle, he plucked two glasses from the rack. When he had filled one for Sir Austin, he sipped from his own, sighing gently as he rolled the liquor over his tongue.

  "You'll be relieved to know," he at length continued, seeing that Sir Austin seemed content to sit silently, staring into his empty glass, "that I saved her for you. Yes, sir; I saved the Narcissus! When Chater was dying, the blacks rose, and if I hadn't been handy with a long knife, you wouldn't have any Narcissus. You'd have lost her, and everything with her men, sails, spars, coppers and leg irons."

  He shook his head reproachfully at Sir Austin. "You ought to give your riggers more spacer There were ninety packed into the boys' room, and it was only thirteen feet, nine inches long. That's not enough not for vessels as slow as your English tubs. Fifty days they take for the Middle Passagel You're bound to lose half of 'em when you peck 'em in like thatl Sometimes it seems as though you English didn't have any sense at alll It's a wonder to me you're able to lay up a pennyl Instead of suffocating so many, why don't you carry forty-five instead of ninety in your boys' room? They'd cost half

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  as much, and you'd have next to no losses unless you struck bad weather."

  "You don't know " Sir Austin's voice failed him, so that he was forced to try again: "You don't know what you're saying!" He worked his lips from side to side, as if to free them of stiffness. "I won't listen to such thingsl I don't know what you're talking aboutl"

  "No," Slade said, "I suppose notl" He brusquely drew a bottle from the cellarette and poured himself another brandy. As an afterthought he offered the bottle to Sir Austin, who seemed not to see it. "I suppose," Slade continued, "you also don't know what I'm talking about when I mention the Narcissus or the Venus or the Delight or the Apollol Since you merely happen to own 'em, you naturally wouldn't have heard of 'em, or of what they're doing. That being so, I'll be glad to furnish you with something authentic. You'll doubtless be happy to hear the Delight landed four hundred and eighty blacks at St. Thomas on her last voyage, along with three tons of gum copal and twenty-two hundred double pawn cloths. That ought to mean fifteen thousand pounds in your pocket fifteen
thousand in addition to your profits in ah black ivory from the other threel Why, I doubt there's another slave trader in Bristol who can hold a candle to your fortune!"

  He smiled in friendly admiration at Sir Austin, whose fat white cheeks seemed to be afflicted with spasms of trembling, as jelly shudders at a weighty footstep; and for a time they sat in silence, these two; Sir Austin clutching at his knees with plump white hands that shook and sweated, and Slade grinning up at the white shoulders of the girl in the portrait above the mantel.

  Sir Austin, when he stirred, moved with the stiffness of a wooden man. His eyes were dull as those of a dead haddock. "Never!" he gasped. "It's not sod I deny ill"

  Slade stroked his long black hair with the palm of his hand. "Before Chater died," he said, "I thought it might ease his mind to sign a writing for his family showing he wasn't in that business for himself. It mentioned he was working for you; and then blast my absentmindednesst if I didn't go and forget to give that paper to the widowI" His eye glittered. "But to remedy that, and to fix up poor old Chater's reputation, I've arranged that the writing shall be presented to Admiral Sir John Duckworth and other responsible officials on a certain date unless unless - "

  Sir Austin rolled almost drunkenly in his huge wing chair. "By God, sirl You must have Why, damn you, sirl Chater wouldn't have done any such thing unless you held a knife to his throatl I

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  mean to say I beg your pardon! Yes, yesl He might have been crazed by the feverl Crazed; yes, yesl Crazedl This damned calumny why, my daughter but there's no one would believe such a slander What? Of a man that put a window in St. Margaret's and that bishops are damned glad to dine with?"

  "Dear, dearl" Slade said carelessly. "I fear the bishops may be upset when they learn they've been dining with the owner of slave shipsl" He rose to scan again the portrait of the girl in brown. "This your daughter? She's in society, I take it; but probably her position wouldn't be affected by anything that happened to you ah would it, Sir Austin?"