CHAPTER XI
JACK JOURNEYS AFOOT
IT is often said that a thing is not lost if you know where it is. Thiswas Jack Cockrell's opinion concerning that weighty sea-chest which hadsplashed to the bottom of the sluggish stream in the heart of theCherokee swamp. With young Bill Saxby and eager old Trimble Rogers hehastened from the grave of the pirate seaman whom they had buried on theknoll and fetched up at the shore where the pirogue had been left.Beside it floated Blackbeard's boat filled with water.
Having cut two or three long poles, they sounded the depth and proddedin the muddy bed to find the treasure chest. It had sunk no more thaneight feet below the surface, as the tide then stood, which was not muchover the head of a tall man. The end of a pole struck something solid,after considerable poking about. It was not rough, like a sunken log,and further investigation with the poles convinced them that they werethumping the lid of the chest.
"D'ye suppose you could muster breath to dive and bend a line to one o'the handles, Master Cockrell?" suggested Trimble Rogers. "Here's a coilof stout stuff in Cap'n Teach's boat what he used for a painter."
"The bottom of the creek is too befouled," promptly objected Jack, "andI confess it daunts me to think of meeting that drownded corpse downthere. Try it yourself, if you like."
"I be needed above water to handle the musket if Blackbeard sneaks backto bang at us with his pistols," was the evasive reply. The mention ofthe corpse had given old Trimble a distaste for the task. To hispetulant question, Bill Saxby protested that he couldn't swim a blessedstroke and he sensibly added:
"What if you did get a rope's end belayed to a handle of the chest? Evenif the strain didn't part the line, we couldn't heave away in this tipsycanoe. And I am blamed certain we can't drag the chest ashore lackin'purchase and tackles."
"The smell o' treasure warps my judgment," grumpily confessed TrimbleRogers. "We ain't properly rigged to h'ist that chest from where shelays, and that's the fact."
"Give us the gear and we'd have it out and cracked open as pretty as youplease," said Bill. "Set up a couple o' spars for shears, stay 'em fromthe bank, rig double blocks, and grapplin' irons for a diver to workwith----"
"Which is exactly what Cap'n Teach will be doin' of when he finds hisship again," lamented the buccaneer.
"He will be some time findin' his ship afoot," grimly chuckled Bill."We have naught to smash his boat with, but we'll just take it alongwith us."
"If we make haste to report to Captain Stede Bonnet," spoke up JackCockrell, "he may make sail in time to give Blackbeard other things tothink on than this treasure chest. And it is my notion that the need offitting the _Revenge_ for action is too urgent to spare a crew toattempt this errand."
"We shall have it yet," cried Trimble, much consoled. "And StedeBonnet'll blithely furnish the men and gear. For a mere babe, MasterCockrell, ye leak wisdom like a colander. Our duty is to tarry no longerat this mad business."
"The first sound word I've heard out of the old barnacle, eh, Jack?"said Bill Saxby. "We must be out of this swamp by night and layin' acourse for Cap'n Bonnet and the _Royal James_."
"Whilst you empty Blackbeard's boat of water so we can tow it, let memake a rude chart," was Jack's happy idea. "Some mishap or other mayovertake us ere we get the chance to seek the treasure again. And ourown memory of this pest-hole of a swamp may trick us."
Bill Saxby's tattered diary supplied a scrap of paper and Jack dugcharred splinters from the inside of the canoe which enabled him to drawa charcoal sketch or map. It traced the smaller stream from the forkwhere it had branched off, the stretch in which it widened like a tinylagoon or bayou, and the point of shore just beyond which the piroguehad unexpectedly rammed Blackbeard's boat. A cross designated the spotwhere the treasure chest had sunk in eight feet of water.
The knoll and the grave of Seaman Jesse Strawn were also indicated, withthe distance estimated in paces and the bearings set down by theposition of the sun.
"There," said Jack, well pleased with his handiwork, "and once we areaboard ship, I can make fair copies on parchment, one for each of us."
"Thankee, lad," gratefully exclaimed Trimble Rogers who now hadsomething to live for. "'Twas a fond dream o' mine, when I sailed wi'the great Cap'n Edward Davis in the South Sea, some day to blink at achart what showed where the gold was hid."
They were, indeed, recovered from the intoxication of treasure andrecalled to realizing the obligation that was upon them. They hadswerved from it but now they pressed forward to finish the appointedjourney. The canoe moved down to the fork of the waters with the lightcock-boat skittering in its wake and perhaps the unhappy Blackbeard,stranded in the swamp, hurled after them a volley of those curses forwhich he was renowned. Once Jack Cockrell laughed aloud, explaining tohis laboring comrades:
"Captain Teach will be combing the burrs from his grand beard when heboards his ship again. He may get hung by the chin in a thicket."
"He's sure to spend this night in the swamp, blast him," earnestlyobserved Bill, "and the mosquitoes'll riddle his hide."
"And may Jesse Strawn lose no time in hauntin' him," said TrimbleRogers.
There was an hour of daylight to spare when they had ascended the largercreek as far as the canoe could be paddled. There they disembarked andhid the dugout and the cock-boat in the overhanging bushes where theycould be found again in case of a forced retreat. Bill and Jack burdenedthemselves with the sack of food and the water jug while the oldbuccaneer set out in the lead as a guide. It was irksome progress for atime, but gradually the ground became drier and the foliage was moreopen. Dusk found them safely emerged from the great Cherokee swamp andin a pleasant forest of long-leaf pine with a carpet of brown needles.
In fear of Indians, they dared not kindle a fire and so stretchedthemselves in their wet and muddy rags and slept like dead men. Whatawakened Jack Cockrell before sunrise was a series of groans fromTrimble Rogers who sat with his back against a tree while he rubbed hislegs. Ashamed at being heard, he grumpily explained:
"Cord and faggot 'ud torment me no worse than this hell-begottenrheumatism. I be free of it in a ship but the land reeks with foulvapors. It hurt me cruel at Cartagena in the year of----"
"But can you walk all day, in such misery as that?" anxiouslyinterrupted Jack.
"If not, I'll make shift to crawl," said the old sea dog.
It was apparent to Jack and also to Bill Saxby that the ordeal of theswamp had crippled their companion whose bodily strength had beenovertaxed. They debated whether to try to return to the coast and risk avoyage in the canoe but Trimble Rogers swore by all the saints in thecalendar that he was done with the pestilent swamp. He would push on inspite of the rheumatism. His hardy spirit was unbroken. And so theyresumed the march, the suffering buccaneer hobbling with the musket as astaff or with a strong arm supporting him.
Halts were frequent and progress very slow. Now and then they hadglimpses of the blue sea and so knew that they held the course true. Ithad been reckoned that two days would suffice to bring them to the bayin which Stede Bonnet's ship was anchored. By noon of this first day,however, it was plainly evident that Trimble Rogers was done for. Heuttered no complaints, and withheld the groans behind his set teeth, buthis lank body was a-tremble with pain and fatigue. Whenever he sank downto rest they had to raise him up and set him on his legs again before hecould totter a little way farther.
"What say, Jack, to slingin' him on a pole, neck and heels?" suggestedBill Saxby. "Can we make him fast with our belts?"
"And choke him to death? In Charles Town I saw Captain Bonnet's piratescarry their wounded in litters woven of boughs."
The suffering Trimble put a stop to this by shouting:
"Avast wi' the maunderin' nonsense! Push on, lads, and leave this oldhulk be. Many a goodly man have I seen drop in the jungle. What mattersit? Speed ye to Cap'n Bonnet."
"Here is one pirate that won't desert a shipmate," declared Bill Saxby."And how can we push on without you, old True-Penny, to
lay your nose tothe trail? I took no heed o' the marks and landfalls."
"Like a sailor ashore, mouth open and eyes shut," rasped the buccaneerof Hispaniola.
"Methinks I might find my way in this Carolina country," ventured JackCockrell. "It would be easier for a landsman like myself than for Billwho is city-bred and a seaman besides."
"More wisdom from the stripling," said Trimble. "Willing as I be to diesooner than delay ye and so vex Stede Bonnet, it 'ud please me to liveto overhaul that sea chest of Blackbeard's."
"I'll stand by this condemned old relic," amiably agreed Bill Saxby. "Doyou request Cap'n Bonnet to send a party to salvage us, Jack."
"He will take pleasure in it, Bill. Before I go let me help you findshelter,--dry limbs for props and a thatch of palmetto leaves."
"Take no thought of us," urged Trimble. "Trust me to set this lazy oafto work. Now listen, Jack, and carefully. Cap'n Bonnet's ship waits inthe Cape Fear River, twelve leagues to the north'ard of us. You willfind her betwixt a bay of the mainland and a big-sized island where theriver makes in from the sea. There will be a lookout kept and I can tellye where to meet a boat."
With a memory as retentive as a printed page, the keen-eyed old wandererdescribed the landscape league by league, the streams and theirdirection, the hills which were prominent, the broad stretches ofsavannah or grassy meadow, the belts of pine forest, the tongues ofswamp which had to be avoided. Jack was compelled to repeat the detailedinstructions over and over, and he was a far more studious pupil thanwhen snuffy Parson Throckmorton had rapped his knuckles and fired himwith rebellious dreams of piracy. At length, the buccaneer was willingto acknowledge:
"Unless an Indian drive an arrow through the lad's brisket, Bill, I cantrust him to find our ship. Best give him the musket."
"Me shoulder that carronade and trudge a dozen leagues?" objected Jack."I travel light and leave the ordnance with you."
They insisted on his taking more than a third of the food but herefused to deprive them of the water jug. There would be streams enoughto slake his thirst. It was an affectionate parting. Bill Saxby'sinnocent blue eyes were suffused and his chubby face sorrowful at thethought that they might not meet again. Trimble Rogers fished out hisbattered little Bible and quoted a few verses, as appeared to be hishabit on all solemn occasions. Jack Cockrell knew him well enough by nowto find it not incongruous. Among this vanishing race of sea fightershad been many a hero of the most fervent piety. Their spirit was akin tothat of Francis Drake who summoned his crew to prayers before he clearedfor action.
And in this wise did Master Jack Cockrell set out to bear a message fromcomrades in dire distress. Moreover, in his hands were the lives of JoeHawkridge and those other marooned seamen, as he had every reason tobelieve. It was a grave responsibility to be thrust upon a raw lad inhis teens who had been so carefully nurtured by his fretful guardian ofan uncle, Mr. Peter Arbuthnot Forbes. Jack thought of this and said tohimself, with a smile:
"A few weeks gone, and I was locked in my room without any dinner forloitering with Stede Bonnet's pirates at the Charles Town tavern. Myeducation has been swift since then."
He was expectant of meeting no end of peril and hardship and he foughtdown a sense of dread that was not to his discredit. But it was sodecreed that he should pass secure and unmolested. At first he went toofast, without husbanding his strength, and loped along like a houndwhenever the country was clear of brushwood. This wore him down and hefailed to watch carefully enough for his landmarks. Toward the end ofthe day he became confused because he could not discern the sea even byclimbing a tree. But he tried to keep bearing to the northeast until thesun went down. Afraid of losing himself entirely and ignorant of the layof the land by night, he made his bivouac in a grove of sycamoresaplings and imagined Indians were creeping up whenever the leavesrustled.
This fear of roaming savages troubled him next day as he wearily trudgedthrough this primeval wilderness unknown to white settlers. It spurredhim on despite his foot-sore fatigue and he was making the journey morerapidly than old Trimble Rogers, for all his cunning woodcraft, had beenable to accomplish it. Almost at the end of his endurance, the pluckylad discerned the sheen of a broad water in the twilight and so came tothe Cape Fear River.
He had worried greatly lest he might have veered too far inland butthere was the wooded bay and the fore-land crowned with dead pines whichhad been swept by forest fire. And out beyond it was the island, of thesize and shape described by Trimble Rogers, making a harbor from the seawhich rolled to the horizon rim.
But no tall brig, nor any other vessel rode at anchor in this silent andlonely haven. Jack had been told precisely where to look for it. He hadmade no mistake. Some emergency had caused Captain Stede Bonnet to makesail and away.
A king's ship or some other hostile force might have compelled him toslip his cable in haste, reflected Jack as he descended to the shore ofthe bay. It was most unlike the chivalrous Stede Bonnet to abandon twoof his faithful seamen without an effort to succor them. Endeavoring tocomfort himself with this surmise, the sorely disappointed boy paced thesand far into the night and gazed in vain for the glimmer of a fire orthe spark of a signal lantern in a ship's rigging. He could not bear tothink of the dark prospect should no help betide him.
Some time before day he was between waking and sleeping when a queerdelusion distracted him. Humming in his ears was the refrain of a songwhich was both familiar and hauntingly pleasant. It seemed to charm awayhis poignant anxieties, to lull him with a feeling of safety. Hewondered if his troublesome adventures had made him light-headed. Hemoved not a muscle but listened to this phantom music and noted that itsounded louder and clearer instead of fading away. And still he refusedto believe that it was anything more than a drowsy mockery.
At length a vagrant breeze brought him a snatch of this enjoyablechorus in deeper, stronger volume and he leaped to his feet with ashout. It was no hallucination. Lusty seamen were singing in time to thebeat of their oars, and Jack Cockrell knew it for the favorite song ofStede Bonnet's crew. He could distinguish the words as they rolled themout in buoyant, stentorian harmony:
"An' when my precious leg was lopt, Just for a bit of fun I picks it up, on t'other hopt, An' rammed it in a gun. 'What's that for?' cries out Ginger Dick, 'What for? my jumpin' beau? Why, to give the lubbers one more kick,' _Yo, ho, with the rum below!_"
Blackbeard: Buccaneer Page 11