by Howard Pyle
Mr. Knight sat quite still for a long time. “Then ’tis just as I heard this morning,” he said at last, “but indeed I couldn’t believe it, nor how you would dare do such a thing as to carry off Colonel Birchall Parker’s daughter. ’Tis the maddest thing I ever heard tell of in all my life, and if I was you I’d send the young lady back just as soon as ever I could.”
“Why, then, Mr. Secretary,” said Captain Teach, “I’m much beholden to you for advice, but just you listen to me for a little, will you? and give me time to say my say before you advise me. I’m not going to send her back just now, in spite of your advice, nor until her father pays a good round sum to get her back.” And then, after a little pause, during which he filled his pipe,— “I tell you what ’tis, Mr. Secretary Knight, there be a greater one than you or me mixed up in this here business — no less a one, if you will believe me, than Mr. Dick Parker.”
“What?” exclaimed Mr. Knight, “Mr. Richard Parker? What d’ ye mean by that?”
“Why, I just mean what I say,” said Captain Teach. “Mr. Parker is the one man in this, and we manage it as his agents. So you may see for yourself we’re not so likely to come to any harm as ye might think, for if we come to any harm it drags him along with us. ’Twas his plan and by his information that the young lady was taken — and, more than that, his plan is that you shall write to him as though to give him the first information of her being here in the keep of the Pamlico Pirates. Then he’s to go to Colonel Parker and make the best bargain he can to have her redeemed.”
“Stop a bit, captain!” interrupted Mr. Knight. “You’re going all too fast in this matter. You seem to be pleased to count on me in this business without asking me anything about it. I tell you plain that this is too serious a thing for me to tamper with. Why, d’ye think I’m such a villain as to trade in such business as this at the risk of my neck?”
“Well,” said the pirate captain, “that is just as you choose, Mr. Secretary. But I don’t see that you need bring yourself into any danger at all. You won’t appear in it as a principal in any way. ’Tis I and those with me,” sweeping his hands toward Hands and Dred, “who really take all the risk; and I take it even though I know that if anything should happen you’d throw us overboard without waiting a second moment to think about it.”
Mr. Knight sat in thoughtful silence for a while. “What money is there in this for you?” said he, looking up sharply.
“That I don’t know, neither,” said the other. “Mr. Parker will manage that at t’other end, and methinks we can trust him to squeeze out all there is in it.”
“What does he expect for his share in this precious conspiracy?” the secretary asked after a while of silent thought.
“Why,” said the other, “there he drives a mightily hard bargain — he demands a half of all for his share, and he will not take a farthing less.”
Mr. Knight whistled to himself. “Well,” he said, “he does indeed drive hard at you, captain. But, after all, I do not know that I can be easier upon you; for if I go into this business it’ll be upon the same stand that Mr. Parker takes: I will have the half that is left after he has taken his half.”
Captain Teach burst out laughing. “Why, ye bloody leech!” he roared, “what d’ ye mean by saying such a thing as that to me? ’Tis one thing for Mr. Parker to make his terms, and ’tis another thing for you to do it: ye pistareen. I tell you what shall be your share of it: I shall have my third first of all, and you shall stand in for your share with Hands and Morton and Dred.”
Mr. Knight shook his head. “Very well, then,” said the pirate captain, harshly, pushing back his chair and rising as he spoke. “If you choose to throw away what may drop into your hands without any risk to yourself, you may do so and welcome. I’ll manage the business as best I can without you.”
“Stop a bit, captain,” said Mr. Knight. “You are too hasty by half. Tell me now, just what is it you want me to do in this affair?”
“Why,” said Captain Teach, “I have told you in part what I want you to do. ’Tis first of all to write a letter to Mr. Richard Parker, saying that you have certain information that the young lady, Colonel Parker’s daughter, is in the hands of certain pirates, and that they won’t give her up unless a ransom is paid for her. Ye may add also — as is the truth — that she appears to be in the way of falling sick if she isn’t taken away home pretty quick. Then, after you have writ your letter, you must hunt up a decent, respectable merchant-captain or master to take it up to Virginia and see that it is delivered into Mr. Richard Parker’s hands.”
Mr. Knight looked very serious. “But is the young lady really sick?” he asked.
“Well, I can’t truly say she is sick, but she’s not so well, neither.”
“And have you thought of what danger you’d be in if she was to die on your hands?”
“Yes, I have,” said the other, “and so you needn’t waste any more words about it. Tell me, will you take in with this business, or will you not?”
“Humph!” said Mr. Knight, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He sat for a long time looking broodingly at the flickering candle-light. “There’s Nat Jackson hath gone up the river for a cargo of wood shingles. He’s looked for back here on Friday: ’tis like enough he would be your man to take the letter if I go into this business.”
“I dare say he’ll do well enough,” said Captain Teach, impatiently. “But tell me, what is your answer, Mr. Secretary? Will you go into the business or not?”
“I’ll tell you to-morrow,” said Mr. Knight. “If I go into it I’ll send you a draft of the letter to Mr. Parker. Will that suit you?”
“Why,” said the other, sullenly, “‘twill have to suit; but methinks you might give a plain yes or no without so much beating around the bush, or taking so much time to think it over.”
Jack and the pirate’s wife sat in the kitchen. They could hear the grumble of talk from the room beyond. “I tell you what ’tis,” said Jack, breaking the silence, “to my mind the young lady don’t look anything like so well as when I saw her in Virginia.”
“I don’t know why she’d be sick,” said the woman. “We give her good enough victuals to eat and she don’t lack for company. I’m sure I sat with her nigh all afternoon, and she answered me pretty enough when I talked to her.”
By and by they heard the party in the other room break up and Mr. Knight’s parting words as he left the house. Presently Dred came into the kitchen; he looked dull and heavy-eyed. “I reckon I must ‘a’ caught the fever,” he said; “my head beats fit to split, and I’m that hot I’m all afire. D’ye have any spirits of bark here, mistress?”
The pirate’s wife got up and went to the closet and brought out a bottle of decoction of bitter bark from which she poured a large dose into a teacup. Dred drank it off at a gulp, making a hideous, wry face. Then he spat and wiped his hand across his mouth.
CHAPTER XXVIII
IN NORTH CAROLINA — IN VIRGINIA
THREE OR FOUR days after Mr. Knight’s interview with the pirates, Captain Jackson, of whom the colonial secretary had spoken as having gone up the river for a cargo of wood shingles, stopped at Bath Town on his way to Baltimore, and Mr. Knight sent a note to Blackbeard, telling him that he would bring the coasting captain down that same evening. Dred was just then sick in bed with the earlier stages of his fever, so that only the pirate captain himself and Hands, the master, were left to meet the secretary and the Baltimore skipper.
It was after dusk when Mr. Knight and the Baltimore man came down from the town to the pirate’s house. The boat in which they arrived was rowed by two white men of the crew of the “Eliza Boydell,” the coasting schooner. “Where’s your master, boy?” said Mr. Knight to Jack, who stood at the landing, watching their approach.
“He’s over aboard the sloop,” said Jack. “He went there an hour or more ago, and left word you were to go over there when you came.”
Mr. Knight looked displeased. “I fear he’ll be drinking,” h
e said to Captain Jackson, “and as like as not be in one of his devil’s humors. ’Tis so he ever appears to be when he hath some venture of especial risk in hand. I’ve a mind to go back to the town again, and come another day.”
“I’m not afraid of him,” Jack heard Captain Jackson say. “I’ve seen him often enough to know him well, and I’ve seen him in his liquor and I’ve seen him sober;” and then the boat rowed away from the landing toward the sloop.
No one met Mr. Knight and Captain Jackson as the two came aboard the pirate vessel. Even before they reached the cabin hatchway they could smell the fumes of liquor which filled the space below. It was as Mr. Knight had apprehended — the captain and his master had been drinking. The visitors found the cabin lit by the light of a single candle, and a squat bottle of rum stood on the table, from which both pirates were tippling freely. As the two visitors entered, Hands was in the act of filling his pipe with uncertain, tipsy fingers, and Captain Teach sat leaning upon the table, the lean, brown fingers of his hands locked around his glass. He glowered gloomingly at the two visitors, but he offered them no word of welcome. “Well, captain,” said Mr. Knight, “d’ye see, I fetched our friend, Captain Jackson. And I’ve fetched the letter I’ve writ to our friend in Virginia for you to see.” Captain Teach still looked gloomily from under his brows at his visitors, without vouchsafing any answer.
“I’m glad to see you, captain,” said Captain Jackson. “’Tis a long while since we met, and you be looking hale and well.”
Captain Teach turned his dull, heavy eyes upon the speaker, but still he did not say anything.
“Oh, he’s well enough, he is,” said Hands, thickly. “He’s never sick — sick, he ain’t.” He tilted the bowl of his pipe uncertainly against the candle flame, at first not quite hitting the object at which he aimed. “Well, when he dies,” said Hands, with a wink toward Mr. Knight, “the devil dies, he does, and then honest — honest men all go to h — ic — heaven.”
Captain Teach did not look at his sailing-master. “You be still,” he growled. “You don’t know what you’re saying — you don’t. You’re in liquor, you are.”
Hands winked tipsily at the visitors, as though what the other said was a great joke. Mr. Knight stood looking uncertainly from one to the other. “Perhaps we’d better come some other time,” he said; “I don’t think you choose to talk about this business now, captain.”
“What d’ye mean?” growled the pirate. “D’ye mean to say I’m drunk, ye villain?” and he turned his heavy-eyed glare at the secretary.
“Why, no,” said Mr. Knight, soothingly, “I don’t mean to say you’re drunk, captain. Far be it from me to say that. I only mean to say that maybe ’twould suit you better to have us come another time, as I see you’re in the humor of having some sport to-night, and maybe don’t choose to talk business.”
“I know what you mean to say,” said the pirate captain, moodily. “You mean to say that I’m drunk. Maybe I’m drunk, but I’m sober enough to know what I’m at yet.” He was fumbling in his coat pocket as he spoke, and as he ended, he brought out a pistol of the sort called a dag or dragon — a short, stubby weapon with a brass barrel. “I’m just as steady as a rock,” said he, “and I could snuff that candle easy enough without putting out the light.” He aimed his pistol, as he spoke, toward the candle, shutting one eye. Captain Jackson was directly in range upon the other side of the table, and he ducked down like a flash, crouching beneath the edge of the board. “Hold hard, captain,” he cried, in a muffled voice. “Take care what you’re at! You’ll do somebody a harm the next thing.”
Captain Teach still aimed the weapon for a few seconds of breathless hush. Mr. Knight waited tensely for the report of the pistol, but it did not come, and presently the captain lowered the hammer and slipped it back again in his pocket. “Come, come, captain,” said Captain Jackson, “don’t try any more jokes of that kind.” He smoothed down his hair with the palm of his hand, grinning uneasily as he did so.
“Come, captain,” said Mr. Knight, “you mustn’t act so, indeed you mustn’t. If we’re to talk business we must be serious about it and not go playing with pistols to shoot somebody dead, maybe, before we begin upon whatever we have to do. Our friend Captain Jackson here sails to-morrow morning, wind and weather permitting, and here’s the letter he’s to take up to Mr. Parker. He understands what we’re about, and he undertakes to take the letter up for five pounds.”
“Why, you black-hearted son of a sea-cook!” Captain Blackbeard roared at the other captain. “What d’ye mean by asking five pounds to take a bit of paper like that up to Virginia?” He glowered at his visitor for a moment or two, and the skipper laughed uneasily. “Ye call yourself an honest man, do ye? Ay, an honest man that’ll rob a thief and say ’twas not him took it first. Let me see the letter,” said he, reaching out his hand to Mr. Knight.
Mr. Knight handed him the letter, and the pirate captain drew the candle over toward him and read it slowly and deliberately. “Well,” he said, as he folded it, “I dare say ’tis good enough.”
“Trust the captain to tell what’s what,” said Hands, taking the pipe out of his mouth as he spoke. “He — he can read a let — ter as well as the betht o’ — the best o’ ye.” He held the pipe for a while, looking uncertainly into the bowl, and then thrust his finger into it.
“You hold your noise, Hands,” said Captain Teach; “you’re in your liquor, and not fit to talk.”
“Well, captain,” said Captain Jackson, “I’ll take the letter for five pounds; but I won’t take it for a farthing less. D’ye see, I run a risk in doing it, for I’m an honest man — I am, and nobody hath yet said that black is the white of my eye. And if I’m to run the risk of losing my honesty by dealing with pirates, — if I may be so bold as for to say so, — why, five pounds is little enough to ask for it.”
Captain Teach stared at him for awhile in silence without replying. “Here, captain,” he said, “fill a glass for yourself,” and he pushed the bottle and a glass across the table toward his visitor. “Fill your glass, Mr. Secretary. You villain!” — to Captain Jackson— “you’re worse than any of us to play you’re decent and honest, and to be a thief upon pirates.”
“Why, captain,” said Mr. Knight, “I believe I don’t choose to drink anything to-night.”
“By heaven! you shall drink,” said Captain Teach, scowling at him, and then Mr. Knight reluctantly filled his glass. But he kept a keen eye upon the pirate captain, and presently, as he more than expected, he saw him begin fumbling again in the pockets in which he carried his pistols. And then, as he still watched, he was certain he saw the glint of the light upon the barrel. Whether he was right or wrong, he did not care to risk the chance; neither did he choose to say anything of what he saw, fearing lest he might precipitate some desperate drunken act, and perhaps call the pirate’s anger down upon himself.
“Wait a bit,” he said, “I want to go up on deck a minute — I’ll be down again by and by,” and he edged his way out along the bench.
Captain Teach watched him gloomily as he left the cabin, and after his legs had disappeared through the companion-way he still sat staring for a while out of the open scuttle. Then he turned and looked gloweringly at the other two. Hands was trying to explain to the skipper how he had once been an honest man himself. “Yes, sir,” he was saying, “I’d have no more to do with such bloody villains as these here be — than — than — but what was an honest man to do for hisself?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Captain Jackson. “Where’s Mr. Knight gone?” he asked.
Hands looked about, as though observing for the first time that he was not there. “Why, I don’t know,” he said. “Mr. Knight — where be Mr. Knight?” As the sailing-master spoke, Blackbeard leaned a little forward, and suddenly blew out the light of the candle, leaving the cabin in utter darkness. The next moment there came a double dull, stunning report from beneath the table, and Hands yelled out in instant echo: “O Lord! I
’m shot!”
Captain Jackson sat for a moment, dazed by the suddenness of that which had happened. Then he scrambled desperately out along the bench upon which he sat, and ran clattering up on the deck. “What’s the matter?” cried Mr. Knight, who had turned at the sound of the pistol-shots. “What’s happened?”
“Oh!” panted Captain Jackson, breathlessly, “I don’t believe that’s a man; I believe it’s a devil. He blew out the light and shot his pistols under the table. He’s shot Hands.”
The two stood listening for a moment — there was perfect silence below, only for the now regular groaning of the wounded man. “Here, fetch that lantern,” Mr. Knight called out. “There’s somebody shot down in the cabin.”
The men from the boat came scrambling over the edge of the sloop, one of them bringing the lantern with him.
Captain Jackson took the light from him and went to the open companion-way, where he held it for a while, looking down into the yawning darkness beneath. He hesitated for a long time before venturing down. “Go on,” said Mr. Knight. “Why don’t you go on? He’s shot off both his pistols and he hath no more to shoot now.”
“Why, to be sure,” said Captain Jackson, “I don’t like to venture down into a pit with such a man as that. There’s no knowing what he’ll do.”
“He can’t do any more harm,” urged Mr. Knight. “He hath shot his pistols now, and that’s all there is of it.”
“Oh! oh!” groaned the wounded man from out of the darkness.
Finally, after a great deal of hesitation, Captain Jackson went slowly and reluctantly down below. Mr. Knight waited for a moment, and, as nothing happened, he followed after, and the two sailors who had come aboard followed after him. The close space was filled with the pungent mist of gunpowder smoke. By the light of the lantern they saw that Captain Teach was sitting just where he had sat all the evening, gloomy and moody. One of the empty pistols lay upon the table beside him, and the other he must have thrust back again into his pocket. Hands was leaning over with his face lying upon the table; it was ghastly white, and there were drops of sweat upon his forehead. “Oh!” he groaned, “O — h!” He was holding one of his legs with both his hands under the table.