His voice was bitter.
“They called me down, said that you needed me—and clapped a tarpaulin over my head as I came. Damn me! That halfwit Winter has the strength o’ ten men! Well, here I am, and here you are.”
I was slow to speak, stunned by the realization of it. Mutiny at such a moment was madness—or so it seemed. Whom had they, except Gunner Basil, to manage the ship? And he was no navigator.
“I’d give a thousand pound,” said Ned Low, “to know what it was John Russel tried to say about that devil Winter!”
“You don’t think that it’s he who has taken the ship?” I demanded.
“No, no!”
Ned Low laughed a little.
“This is Polly Langton’s doing, George.”
CHAPTER VII
The passage of time was nothing to us as we lay in the pitch darkness amid the powder and the cabin stores. Indeed, we lay there the whole day unheeded, all hands being busy above; but the day seemed like weeks to us.
Ned Low had heard some smattering of talk while he and I were being chained in the lazaret; enough to show him that the mutiny had come about through Polly Langton. He had heard Spry swearing that they would stand by the lass and see us hanged for the pirates we were, which indeed appeared proof positive. Yet she was no navigator, though a good seaman in all else, so how could she hope to bring the ship to any port?
“Ned,” I asked during the weary wait, “d’you mind that little black box I brought aboard from Langton? You’ve never said how it was he had the chart.”
“I had left it with him to compare with a paper he had in Franklin’s writing,” said Ned Low. “Poor Langton! Little he guessed what was up this cruise!”
“Well,” I said, “for one, I’m not so sure about Polly’s being the chief mutineer. That devilish little wastrel Dickon has more infernal brain than we credited him with. I think now ’twas he tried to get me with his knife that day Humphrey Stave was killed. And Gunner Basil is a bad one for certain, though he may be holding to his pious pose. But where’s Bosun Pilcher? He’ll not turn against us.”
“He was on deck when they nabbed me,” came Low’s voice. “Aye, he’s true, and so is black Philip. But that cursed Thomas Winters! I’d like to know what John Russel had to say about the dog.”
“Ned,” I said after a long space of silence, “tell me about your chase after this Trunnel Toby. And that day Humphrey Stave was killed, you remember? You said how five years ago that night something had happened. What is it all, Ned? What reason lay behind you and the wine-dark sea?”
“Oh ho! Art quoting Homer to me, eh?”
Ned Low’s laugh rang bitter, but ended in a soft word.
“George, sometimes I think the waves are weary with weeping—but pshaw! Five years ago I had everything in life, George; university honors, a home and family, and the promise of a girl I loved.”
These words had tumbled out of him as it were; jerkily to the flitting of his thought. Now for a little he was silent and finally spoke. His voice was hoarse, whether from the thirst that we had or from the tumult of his spirit I know not.
“Why, George, that is a lengthy recital, and I am no teller of tales; but since we have a quiet watch below, shall out with the yarn and appease your curiosity—”
“It is no such thing,” I broke in. “It is interest and friendliness, and you know it!”
“Aye, and your pardon, lad,” he answered and sighed. “I have grown cynical of men, George, and belief comes hard to my lips; but my heart is sound enough and loves you. You’ve never been in the west country, by Wrexharn and Marchwiel and the Brondeg Hills, and Wat’s Dike, along the Welsh country?”
“No nearer than London town,” I responded.
“Then take my word for it, no lovelier country may be found, George! My father was a magistrate and a knight, and of latter years had grown wealthy through his shares in the Company of Hudson’s Bay. And one day he gave sentence to a poacher for killing a hare. A seaman it was, who had wandered riotously up from Bristol, spending guineas by the way. Guineas gone, the seaman headed for Bristol again, trapping the hedges for meals, and so fell foul of the law and was taken. My father sentenced him to transportation.
“Even the man’s name was not known. He was a man with long face, they say, and melancholy eyes and a voice like a roaring wind when he flung out curses; a gold ring fast in his nostrils, and over his heart was tattooed a crimson bleeding heart. That, and the name he went by, was all the picture I could gain of him.
“Well, into jail he was clapped, cursing and swearing bitter vengeance upon my father, who had sentenced him. Two days later came travelers, shipmen going to Bristol, and they heard of the man and viewed him as he lay in jail. They recognized him for one Trunnel Toby, a man famed for foul deeds and piracies. Word of it came to London, and he was sent for to be hanged at Tyburn as a notable example to other pirates.
“So they took him away, chained him like a beast. How he did it I know not, but he slew both his guards and escaped clear away. And on a Sunday night he came, bringing other rogues with him, to Ravenscroft Hall where my father lived.”
Now the hoarseness gained upon Ned Low, so that for a little he sat in silence, and I could hear his dry mouth working. I had by this time caught the drift of what was afoot, and guessed whither his tale led. The telling of it would ease his heart, so I kept still and let him go his own gait. He resumed presently, speaking soft and low.
“There was a lass I loved, George, and since my parents were lonely, often she would come to the hall and spend a day or two. She was spending that Sunday so when this foul Trunnel Toby and his mates arrived. They picked their time, knowing that few of the servants would be about.
“Well, they broke in and slew like dogs gone mad in Summer’s heat! They slew and robbed, plundering Ravenscroft as they would ha’ plundered any ship on the high seas. Two of the dogs fell under my father’s steel ere they pistoled him—Toby himself fired the shot, and that same bullet slew my mother. The dear lass they murdered likewise, and fled with their booty, having horses in waiting.
“And the devils got clear away, George; clear away! They had a ship waiting by Bristol, and Trunnel Toby was captain of her.
“To this I was called home from Oxford. One of the two whom my father slew, lived long enough to tell who and why, and then died. For a fortnight I was like a man out of his wits, and then I fell to work. I raised what money I could, sold off what lands were free and went to London.
“There I bought a stout sloop, armed her and manned her with the scurviest knaves could be picked up. There was a devil in me then, lad; for all I was just turned twenty-one I made those knaves fear me most bitterly. So we put to sea, and since that day I have never lessened in the search for Trunnel Toby.
“A year, and I was captaining my own ship, a fine, fast ship that we took from a French rover off Brazil. They had little ease who sailed with me, I promise you! We were on the Account sure enough, but we molested no innocent trader, George—only hunted up and down the seas whatever ship Trunnel Toby might be in.
“He heard of it, and others heard of it, for I hanged every man that had sailed with him or shared with him. More than once, as I have told you, I came close to him, but the hound was wary. I made the seas so hot for him that men were afraid to ship under him, and he was forced to take lesser berths. Always he fled from me; for he knew why I was after him, although no one else knew the reason, and he was afraid to face me.
“Ah, but he is a man of blood past reckoning! A fiend in human form, George; I’ve heard how he has dealt with captive men and women, so that your blood would freeze to imagine it.
“And he’s no coward, either. Only last year with some small boats he boarded a Portuguese Indiaman in the very harbor o’ Funchal, slew every soul aboard her and with the remnants of his men worked her out from under the shore guns, I was there a week later and heard the tale, and tracked him to the African coast.
“Indeed,
I found the ship in the Guinea River, up a bit from the English factory at Sierra Leone, and I took her. Every man aboard her I hanged, but Trunnel Toby himself got ashore and fled among the blacks up the river. There I lost him, for I pursued with boats and discovered that he had doubled back to the coast again and escaped me in a ship bound for Virginia with slaves. And since then I have been able to obtain not the slightest trace of him.
“Most like he is in Virginia now. With my share of Franklin’s gold I’ll buy this ship and start out anew, and I think I’ll find him in Virginia, for he’s poor and without followers, and even the brethren of the coast are afraid to sail with him for fear I’ll trace them down and hang them. And that’s the reason behind me, George Roberts.”
“You’ve told it to Polly Langton?” I demanded.
“The Lord forbid!” exclaimed his voice, startled. “I’ve told it to none save you.”
“Then no wonder she deems you a common pirate,” I said thoughtfully.
“I forbid you to mention it, George.”
“Oh, I’ll not! I thank you for the confidence, Ned Low, and if it’s ever in my power to aid you, count on me. But for the present—zounds! Here we are chained up like felons, and what’s to come of it?”
He made no answer to this. Presently, for all my pondering on that sad story of his and the wreck which had been made of his life, I fell asleep from utter weariness.
It was after night when I wakened, for the trap to the cabin above was open, and David Spry was coming down with a lantern and food and mugs of ale. Ned Low was asleep, and Spry stirred him with his foot until he sat up, then gave us the food and ale and watched us make way with it. His dour, gloomy face was saturnine.
“Wind be falling,” he announced, “and we’re like to raise the islands tomorrow.”
Ned Low glanced up at him.
“You’ll raise nothing but the coast of hell, you mutinous dog!”
“Aye, by your guidance.”
David Spry grinned, and then sobered. He sat him down on an ale-keg and regarded us while he played with his knife in one hand.
“Harkee, masters! The ship’s ours. Mistress Polly be in command of she, and Thomas Winter the cap’n—”
“Winter!” I said, choking on my ale. “Are you mad?”
“Nay, un can navigate right well,” said David Spry, and grinned again. “Now, Master Winter bain’t a man of God, not he! Nor Gunner Basil neither, for all his pretended repentance; for did we not hear un swearing great oaths? Aye. Nor Bose Pilcher neither. And they all say to hang the two of ye and take the ship. We’ll not abide this, masters.”
We listened to him in stark amazement. He was in deadly earnest, and we realized that he was speaking for the hands forward no less than for himself. But Pilcher—
“Need not call us mutineers, masters,” he went on. “We’m be honest men. You be rogues and scoundrels belike; and for the lady up above we’ve took the ship over, and save the blood of honest men from your hands. Ye unregenerate sons o’ Belial, take shame to yourselves! We’m be honest British men and sail not wi’ murderers and pirates and suchlike.”
“Yet you’re going to murder us,” put in Ned Low.
“Not us, master. Set un ashore, maybe.”
The man rose and took our mugs.
“Think o’ your sins now, and do ’ee spend the night at prayer. It won’t hurt ye none.”
He climbed up again through the trap, which he left open, perhaps for convenience. We remained in the darkness. Presently I heard Ned Low chuckle.
“George, sink me if this isn’t the richest joke ever perpetrated! Here that lass has taken my own ship from me, Bloody Ned—and is mistress of the ship herself!”
“The joke will end as it began—with death,” I said broodingly. “These long-noses have seen through Gunner Basil at last, it appears—that’s one good thing! But what d’ye think about Thomas Winter, eh? Who dreamed that the lout could navigate—or is he lying to the others about his ability?”
A whistle broke from Ned Low.
“Damn me, George, I’d give a thousand pound to know what it was John Russel—”
“Make it five thousand,” I said, “and Russel might come back from hell to tell you.”
He laughed at that.
“I doubt it. So those devils are figuring on hanging us, eh? I’m surprised that the bosun is with ’em,”
“He’s not,” I said. “I know Pilcher, Ned, and he’s a true man. But listen! There’s a light above—”
Through the open trap we saw a light in the cabin above. It darted down, a square of radiance, and with the roll of the ship illumined our prison-chamber by flashes, now here, now there. Both Ned Low and I were ironed wrist and ankle, and chains ran from the irons to ring-bolts in the deck, so that we had freedom of movement but no liberty. Between us was a small keg of excellent port, laid aboard for cabin use; and I knew we would not die of thirst or suffer from it again.
Now a voice came to us from the cabin. The words we could not catch, although by the tone it was the voice of Gunner Basil. Right after it came the clear, high tones of Polly Langton.
“Nay, I will not! I am weary, I tell you, and shall do no talking until tomorrow. Let the two men lie in peace—look to it, gunner; and you, bosun! If harm comes to them you both hang, I swear it! Time enough tomorrow for a talk.”
Pilcher made roaring response, perhaps in order that we might hear.
“But, mistress! The men want to know if you be with ’em or no! It’s for your sake we have taken the ship—”
“You and the gunner and that man Winter can talk with me at eight bells in the morning, and not before,” came her response, and after this, nothing. Presently the light vanished from above.
A bowl or porringer in which some food had been fetched, remained with us. I took this and set it under the spigot of the keg and drew some port. After drinking I passed it along to Ned Low.
“I have a pipe but no tobacco, Ned—”
“Here’s ’bacca and a tinder-box.”
Neither of us spoke until I had managed, with some trouble, to get the good brown weed alight and had passed the pipe to Ned Low.
“Did you get the catch in her voice, Ned?” I asked. “And she’s sparring for time, d’ye mind! Come, Ned, things are not quite so obvious as we thought. The lass is having hard work of it somehow,”
“Bah! Nothing of the sort,” growled he. “The jade has come to realize that neither she nor Winter can navigate, that’s all. She’s afraid. By morning, George, they’ll make us an offer if we’ll navigate for ’em. Wait and see!”
I was not so sure about this, and events proved my doubts well founded.
“Who keeps the keys of these irons, Ned?” I asked suddenly.
He laughed harshly.
“The gunner. There’s a spare set o’ keys in the chart locker, but small use they are to us here.”
By the movements of the ship we soon perceived that the sea was going down, but the night wore away intolerably for us, and the thought of being thus chained like slaves for any longer time was past endurance.
We had worse than thoughts to torment us, however—worse even than the rats which scurried about and over us until movement frightened them. It was, I think, with the midnight change of watches when the filtered rays of a tiny iron lantern came about the ladder, and then a sound of maudlin cursing and swearing. Down the ladder tumbled the boy Dickon, by some miracle preserving the lantern unhurt as he fell, and picked himself up with more oaths. He was, to put it bluntly, drunk as a lord.
He set the lantern on the ladder and turned to us, cursing and reviling us with the tongue of an arrant pirate. A vast change had come about in him; he had knotted a red kerchief about his head, wore a shirt looted from my bag and had donned my sea-boots which came nearly to his knees. About his waist were belted pistols, though unloaded, and in his hand he held a deadly little gimlet dirk—a round handled weapon, the blade protruding from the fingers of his clen
ched fist.
“Pirates, is it?” he maundered, coming toward us. “Sink me, but I ha’ been cabinboy to Avery, and this is a poor pack o’ thieves and woolsack rogues—there, ye lousy dogs! Wake up and give tongue. An I had my way ye’d walk the plank come sunup; aye, and if the old gunner had his way too!”
With this he fetched me a kick and stood regarding us drunkenly, the devil in his face. Cabinboy with Avery indeed! Avery had died before the young rascal was breeched.
“Stare at me, dogs!” He leered at us as he spoke. “Aye, damn ye for cowardly curs! Silly old Langton never dreamed ’twas all cut and dried, eh? Nor you, called Bloody Ned—I’ll blood ye, and a pox take ye—” With this he leaned forward and jabbed that little dirk of his into the calf of Ned’s leg. The same instant my foot took him in the waist, all my weight back of it.
“Woof!”
The air burst out of him; he went back head first among the boxes, dropping the dirk as he fell. Groaning, holding his hands to his middle, he rose up; then Ned flung the pewter porringer at him and caught him across the eyes. A howl broke from the imp. Catching up the lantern, he scrambled back whence he had come, and his groans died out overhead.
“Sickened him, and well done too!” said Ned, laughing.
He leaned forward, and with his foot raked in the dirk.
“Here’s the first symptom of hope we’ve had, George—aye, I have it. A good little weapon.”
“Did the pup hurt you?”
“A scratch. He’d have murdered us if he’d been let alone. Did ye mark what he said about Langton, George? ‘All cut and dried,’ quoth he!”
I recalled now how Dickon and Gunner Basil had been thick from the very start. It was clear enough that they had fooled Dennis Langton into shipping them; yet we vainly sought a reason until I recalled the tale Pilcher had told me and laid it before Ned Low with some further details that I had forgotten when I first confronted Basil.
“That must be the right of it, Ned!” I concluded, “Gunner Basil served under Avery, d’ye mind? And this talk about knowing where Avery’s gold was hid—d’you think it’s the same gold we’re after?”
The H. Bedford-Jones Pulp Fiction Megapack Page 46