by Howard Pyle
“I thought I could not be mistook,” said the Reverend Jonathan, “and that ’twas indeed her. She hath a fine air of good breeding, hath she not, Madam?”
“Why, yes, she is good enough,” said Madam Parker, “but has nothing like the fine breeding of her sister, Lady Mayhurst.”
The reverend gentleman did not reply except by a deferential smile and half bow. He had picked up his hand and had begun to run it over swiftly, and then another round of the game began in silence.
Presently the young lady ceased playing and began turning over the leaves of her music-book.
It was in this pause of silence that there came suddenly a loud and violent knock upon the outside hall door. Madam Parker started. “Why, who can that be?” she said, folding her hand of cards nervously and holding it face downward, and looking around the table at the others.
The players all sat listening, and Miss Eleanor partly turned around upon her music-stool. It was very late for visitors, and the negroes had closed the house some time since. “It sounded like some one who may have come in a haste,” said Mr. Cartwright. “Maybe Colonel Parker has sent a message.”
“I don’t know why he should send a message,” said Madam Parker. “I hope he has not been ailing again. But that may hardly be, for he has not had a single touch of the gout for over three months, and no sign of its coming back again.”
They listened as the negro crossed the hall to answer the knock. Then came the sound of the rattling of the chain and the turning of the key. Then the door was opened. As the card-players listened they heard the sound of a man’s voice and then the reply of the negro. Then once more the man’s voice and then the negro’s again — this time speaking, as it seemed, rather eagerly. Then there came a sharp exclamation and then a sound as of some one pushed violently against the door — then silence. There was something unusual, something very alarming in the noise. “What was that?” said Madam Parker, sharply, and there was a tone of keen anxiety in her voice.
As in answer, there was the shuffling sound of many feet crossing the hall. Mr. Cartwright rose from his seat, and the Reverend Jonathan Jones turned half-way round upon his chair. The next instant three or four men with blackened faces were in the room. The foremost man wore the loose petticoat trousers of a sailor, a satin waistcoat, and a coat and hat trimmed with gold braid. His face was tied up in a handkerchief, but they could see that he had gold ear-rings in his ears. “Don’t you be frightened,” said he in a hoarse, husky voice, “there’ll no harm happen to you if you only be quiet and make no noise. But I won’t have any noise, d’ye hear?”
The three ladies sat staring with wide-eyed, breathless terror at the speaker. His companions stood silently at the doorway, each armed with a brace of pistols. There was something singularly dreadful in their silence, their black faces, their lips red by contrast with their sooty countenances, the whites of their eyes, which every now and then blinked into darkness and then were white again.
“What d’ye want?” said Mr. Cartwright. “Who are you? What do you want?” He had grown very pale, but his voice was strong and full, without a tremor in it.
The stranger, though he was armed, did not carry any weapon in his hand. He came out a little further into the room. “Ye see I have nothing to make you afraid of me!” he said, opening the palms of his hands. “So you may see I mean you no harm. But harkee! there’s to be no noise — no screaming, d’ye understand — no calling for help. So long as you keep still no harm shall be done to any of ye — man or woman.”
“You villain!” cried out Mr. Cartwright, with rising choler. “What do you mean by coming here this way, breaking into Coloner Parker’s house and blustering and threatening? Do you know where you are?” He pushed back the chair from which he had risen and looked around the room as though seeking for some weapon.
“Come, come, sir,” said the other sharply, and he clapped his hand to the butt of one of his pistols, “don’t you make any trouble for yourself, sir. I say there’ll be nobody harmed if you don’t make any trouble for yourself. But if you do, I tell you plain it’ll be the worse for you. I’ve got a score of men outside, and you can’t do anything at all, and if you make any trouble you’ll be shot, with no good to come of it. I’ll tell you what we came for — but first of all I want you to understand plainly that no harm is intended to the young lady and that no harm shall happen to her. And now I’ll tell you what we have come for. Young Mistress Parker yonder must go along with us.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth when Madam Parker started up out of her chair with a loud and violent scream. Then she fell back again, catching at the table, overturning one of the candles, and scattering the cards on the floor in a litter. The other ladies screamed as in instant echo, and shriek upon shriek rang violently through the house. Miss Eleanor Parker had run to her mother, burying her face in Madam Parker’s lap. “You villain!” roared Mr. Cartwright, and as he spoke he snatched up the heavy candlestick that had been overturned, and threw it with all his might at the head of the pirate. Blackbeard ducked, and the candlestick whirled past his head, striking with a crash against the wall beyond. “What d’ye mean?” roared he, as Mr. Cartwright grasped at the other candlestick; “don’t you touch that candlestick! Ha! would you?” The next instant he had flung himself upon the gentleman, clutching him around the body. Mr. Cartwright struck at his assailant again and again, trying to free himself. For one moment he had almost wrenched himself loose. The men at the door ran around to their leader’s aid. A chair was overturned with a crash, and the next moment the two had stumbled over it and fallen, and had rolled under the table.
Mr. Jones, with a face ghastly white and eyes straining with terror, thrust away his chair and rose, drawing back from the two as they struggled and kicked upon the floor beneath the table; and still the ladies screamed piercingly, shriek upon shriek. “Would you?” snarled the pirate captain, almost breathlessly, under the table— “Would you! Here — Morton — Dred — the devil’s choking me! Ach! let go there!” The men who had run to his aid strove to drag the two apart, and a dozen or more, all with faces blackened, came running into the room just as they were separated. The pirate captain scrambled to his feet disheveled and furious. Before he raised himself he tied up his face in the handkerchief again. Then he stood up, feeling at his throat and glaring around him. Mr. Cartwright lay upon the ground, held down by two or three men. His lip had been cut in the struggle, and was bleeding. His breath came thick and hoarse, and his face was strained and knotted with fury. Every now and then he made a futile effort to wrench his arm loose.
“I don’t know what you all mean, anyhow,” said the pirate captain, “squalling and fighting like that. By Zounds!” — to Mr. Cartwright, as he lay upon the floor— “I believe you’ve broke my Adam’s apple — I do. I tell you” — said he to Madam Parker, who, white and haggard, and shrunk together with terror, sat looking up at him— “I tell you, and I tell you again, that I don’t mean any harm to you or to the young lady. She’s got to go along with me, and that’s all. I tell you I’ll take good care of her, and she’ll be in the care of a woman who knows how to look after her; and just as soon as his honor the colonel chooses to pay for her coming back, then she’ll come. I’ve got a good safe boat down here at the shore, and no harm’ll come to her. She’ll only be gone for a month or so, and then she’ll be fetched back safe and sound. Now, if she wants to carry any change of her clothes along with her to wear, she’d better get ’em together. D’ye understand me, Madam?”
Madam Parker, with her daughter’s face buried in her lap, still sat looking up at the pirate captain. Her lips moved once or twice, and then she whispered breathlessly, “Yes — I understand.”
“What d’ ye say, Madam? I don’t hear ye.”
“I understand,” she repeated a little louder, as he leaned forward across the table to hear her.
“Why, then, Madam,” said he, “I’m glad you do; for I want the young mistress to be as
comfortable as she can, and if you don’t get something for her to wear and make her comfortable, I’ve got to take her off without. Now, Madam, will you get some clothes together? Maybe you’ll send one of your black women to get them.”
Madam Parker sat gazing at him without moving; the pirate captain stood looking at her. “What’s the matter with her, anyhow?” said he. One of the men stooped forward and looked into her face. “Why, captain,” said he, “the lady’s dazed like; she don’t know what you’re saying. Don’t you see she don’t understand a word you say?”
The captain looked round and his eyes fell upon Mrs. Cartwright. “D’ ye think ye could get some change of clothes for the young lady, some clothes to take away with her, mistress?” said he. “She can’t go away from home for a month or so without a change of clothes to wear. You can see that for yourself.”
“Shall I go, Edward?” said Mrs. Cartwright.
Mr. Cartwright groaned. “You’ll have to go, Polly,” he said; “there ‘s nothing else to do. But, oh, you villains, mark my words! You’ll hang for this, every mother’s son of you!”
“Why, I like your spirit, Mr. Tobacco-Planter,” said the pirate captain; “and maybe you’ll hang us, and maybe you wouldn’t, but we’ll take our chances on that.” Then with a sudden truculence, “I’ve put up with all the talk from you I’m going to bear, and if you know what’s good for you you’ll stop your ‘villains’ and your ‘hangings’ and all that. We’ve got the upper hand here, and you’re the cock that’s down, so you won’t crow any more, if you please.”
Mr. Cartwright groaned again. “You’re breaking my arm,” he said to the men who were holding him down.
When Mrs. Cartwright came back into the room, carrying a large silk traveling-bag packed with clothes, she was crying, making no attempt to wipe away the tears that ran down her cheeks. The pirate captain came and stooped over Miss Eleanor as she knelt with her face in her mother’s lap. “Come, mistress,” he said, “you must go along with us now.” He waited for a moment, but she made no reply. “You must go along with us,” he repeated in a louder tone; and he took her by the arm as he spoke. Still she made no sound of having heard him. Then he stooped over and lifted her head. Mr. Cartwright caught sight of the face, and felt a keen thrill pierce through him. “She is dead,” he thought. “Come here, Morton,” called out the pirate captain, “and lend a hand; the young lady’s swooned clean away.”
Madam Parker made some faint movement as her daughter was taken from her, but she could not have been conscious of what was passing. Mrs. Cartwright wept hysterically in her husband’s arms as they carried the young lady away, leaving behind them the room littered with the cards, the chair overturned, and the one candle burning dimly on the card-table. Outside of the house the negroes and the white servants stood looking on in helpless, interested terror from a distance, hidden by the darkness. Mr. Simms was sitting in his office, gagged and bound in his chair.
CHAPTER XXV
IN CAPTIVITY
IT SEEMED TO Jack as he sat in the darkness with the watch upon the deck of the sloop, that the time passed away very, very slowly. The vessel lay pretty close to the shore, and myriad sounds from the dark, woody wilderness seemed to fill the air — the sharp quivering rasp of multitudinous insects, the strange noise of the night birds, and now and then the snapping and cracking of a branch, and always the lapping gurgle of water. He lounged on a coil of rope, watching the twinkling flicker of the fireflies, and listening to the men as they talked among themselves about people whom he did not know. There was a strong interest in hearing what they said, and so catching, as it were, a glimpse of a world so different from his own. A lantern swung in the shrouds, shedding a dim, yellow circle of light upon the deck, in which sat and squatted the five men left in charge of the sloop.
“She never got the better of me,” one of the men was saying. “I tell you what ’tis, I ain’t the man to put up with any women’s notions. Her and I was keeping company then, and I took her down to Derrick’s P’int — that time you was speaking of, Bob. Well, Ned Salter had just come back from South Caroliny with the captain, and had a pocket full of money. I see her making eyes at him all the time, and by and by they stands up to dance together. Jem Smith, he says to me, ‘Tommy, my boy, d’ ye see what a figure Sally and Ned Salter be a-cutting together?’ ‘I do,’ says I, and I just walks across the floor and up to her, and says: ‘Sally, I fetched you here, and if you means to shake me loose you means it, and that’s all.’ She laughed, kind of like, and I saw her give Ned Salter a nudge with her elbow. She didn’t think I see it, but I see it all the same. ‘Very well,’ says I, ‘then I see how ’tis.’ So without another word I goes away. I goes right down to the P’int, and I gets in my boat and I rows back to Ocracock, leaving her to get home as she chose. The next day I see her, and she says to me: ‘Why, Tommy,’ says she, ‘where was you last night? I couldn’t find you nowheres.’ ‘Why,’ says I, ‘I was where it suited me to be,’ and I walks on and leaves her. I tell you, there be n’t a woman around that can try her tricks with me.”
They all sat in silence for a while, digesting what the speaker had said. “It must be pretty near midnight,” said another of the men irrelevantly, looking up into the starry sky as he spoke.
“Harkee, I hear summat,” said another, holding up his finger. “Like enough it be the boats a-coming back.”
They all listened intently, but only the ceaseless murmurings of the night filled the air, and always the lapping gurgle of the water. “Then, there was Hetty Jackson,” said the man who had just told of his adventure. “D’ ye remember her, Bill? She’d just come down from Maryland way—”
Suddenly one of the men — he who had spoken before — scrambled up to his feet. “There they are,” he said, cutting sharply into the narrative that the other was beginning. “I knowed I heard ’em.”
A breath of air had sprung up from the river and had brought down with it the distant sound of measured chug-chug of the oars in rowlocks.
“Yes, that’s them for certain,” said another of the watch, and every one scrambled to his feet. They all stood looking out toward the river. It was a great while before the distant boats gradually shaped themselves into forms out of the pale watery darkness beyond. “There they are; I see them,” said one of the men. And then, in a minute, Jack also saw the dim, formless dark blots upon the face of the water. As the boats drew slowly nearer and nearer to the sloop, Jack climbed up into the shrouds, whence he might obtain a better view of the men when they should come aboard. He did not know at all what the business was that had taken the pirates to Marlborough, nor did he suspect that it was anything startlingly unusual; he was merely curious to see the return of the boats. Presently they were alongside — the yawl-boat first of all — the men unshipping their oars with a noisy rattle and clatter. Some of them caught the chains just below Jack as the boat slid under the side of the sloop, and the other boats came alongside almost at the same time. Jack could see by the light of the lantern that those in the stern of the yawl were assisting a dark figure to arise, and that a sort of hushed attention was directed toward it. He wondered what was the matter, and his first thought was that some one had been hurt; then he saw that they were helping somebody up to the deck, and then, as the light fell upon the face, recognition came with a sudden keen shock, — it was Miss Eleanor Parker, — and even in the dim light he could see that her face was as white as death. Then he saw that the faces of all that had come in the boats were blackened as though with soot. The pirate captain had come aboard the sloop. “Easy, now,” he said, as they lifted the young lady up to the deck. Jack still clung to the ratlines, looking after them as they partly supported, partly carried the fainting figure across the deck. The next moment they had assisted her down into the cabin. Then Jack, who had been lost in wonder, returned sharply to the consciousness of other things. He became aware of the confusion of the boats’ crews coming aboard, the rattling and clatter and movement and
bustle all around him on the deck. “Look alive, now, Gibbons!” he heard Hand’s voice say to the boatswain. “Get her under way as quick as you can,” and he knew that the sloop was about to quit its anchorage.
Dred, who had gone down into the cabin, had by and by returned upon deck, his face still sooty black. He stood by while the men hoisted the boats aboard. Jack came over to where he stood. “Why, Dred,” said he, “wasn’t that Mistress Eleanor Parker you brought aboard just now?” for even yet he thought he might possibly have been mistaken.
“You mind your own business, lad,” said Dred, turning upon him and speaking more sharply than he had ever spoken to Jack before. “You mind your own business and go for’ard where you belong.” Then he turned on his heel and walked away as though in a hurry, and the next moment Jack saw him go down into the cabin again.
The next morning Jack came on deck to find the sloop beating down the river in the face of a stiff breeze. They had been sailing all night and had made a long reach. He recognized where they were. The shore toward which they were now heading was the high, sandy bluff that overlooked the oyster banks, where he had once gone fishing with Dennis and the negro. He could see in the distance the shed standing upon the summit of the high, sandy bank. It looked very strange and new to him, and, at the same time, curiously familiar. It was as though a piece of his past life had been broken out and placed oddly into the setting that was so strangely new and different.
“Where’s Jack Ballister?” he heard Dred’s voice say, and then he turned around sharply.
“Here I am!” he said.
Dred came forward a little distance, then he beckoned and Jack went over to him. “The young lady down in the cabin seems very queer like,” said Dred. “She won’t say nothing and she won’t eat nothing. Didn’t you say as you knowed her at one time and that she knowed you, or summat of the sort?”