The Dark Frigate

  As the night wore on, he dared hope that the reconnoitering boat had returned to her ship with news that had sent her away in haste, whereby there was a chance that his tale might yet be taken for the truth that it was; and the longer he waited the higher rose his hope, and with the better reason. But an hour or more after midnight he heard men beginning to talk as if there was something new in the wind, and the nearest gunner put his ear to a cat-hole.

  "The dogs are out; I hear oars," he whispered. "Yea, though they are rowing softly, I swear I can hear oars."

  A hush came over the ship and those below heard faintly a hail given on deck.

  Distant sounds came and went like whispers out of the sky, then somewhere outside the ship a great shouting arose and one of the men at a starboard gun cried gleefully, with a round oath, "Verily they are bent on boarding us, lads! Their foolish audacity seasons the term of all our weary waiting."

  "Hark! They are hailing!" cried another.

  "Come, strike your flag. Have an end of all this talk," a distant voice called. Whereat Philip Marsham, who knew the voice, thought that though their audacity cost him his life it was in its own mad way superb.

  The reply was inaudible below, but a boat crashed against the ship.

  There was a burst of yelling, followed by a rattle of musketry, then a voice boomed down, "Haul up your ports and run out your guns!"

  At that the men beside the guns sprang up with running and calling and the ports flew open and the sounds from without became suddenly louder and clearer. On the one hand were boys handing up filled budge-barrels; on the other were gunners with linstocks ready and powder for the priming. Then, "Ho, Master Gunner," a great voice roared, "withhold your fire! The boats are under the guns and too near for a fair shot!" It was such a moment as a man remembers always, for there was the smoke of powder in the air, with a din of splashing and cursing, and overhead a great hubbub, then silence save for the quick beat of oars.

  "See! See!" cried the men. "There go their boats, splintered and all but sunk! And see! There go ours! To your oars, lads, to your oars, ere their ship hath time to flee! See! There they go! Yea, and there go we!"

  The Old One had made his last blunder. He had come by night, thinking to board a peaceful merchantman laden with a rich cargo, and had found himself at the head of his score of men on the deck of a man-of-war.

  To all those below, but most of all to Philip Marsham chained in the gun room, it was a blind, confusing affair; but the sounds told the story; and though darkness hid the blood that was spilled, there was no mistaking the cries for quarter and the shrieks of agony.

  Nor was there need for haste to reach the Rose of Devon, since the men left as keepers of the ship were too few to make sail. Captain Charles Winterton of the King's navy himself boarded the dark frigate by starlight, and a capital lark he found it, for behind his stern mien was a lively taste for such adventure. With lusty shouting he swept the handful of men from her deck, and having put a prize crew and his lieutenant in charge of her, he brought back a few more prisoners to join company with the luckless boarders he had sent down to be locked in irons below.

  They were sad and angry gentlemen, for there are those to whom the laughter of a hundred sailors is worse than death by the sword. The first of them all to enter the gun room was Tom Jordan. His cheek was gashed and his hair was singed and blood smeared his shirt from shoulder to shoulder and one arm hung limp and broken; but though he was in great pain he smiled, and when they led him into the gun room and he saw Philip Marsham with bolts on wrists and ankles, he laughed aloud.

  The fellow was a very mark and pattern of a scoundrel, but he had the courage and spirit of a hero, and had he first gone to sea under another king than James or Charles he might in some overwhelming danger have saved England. Great admirals are made of such timber—bold, resolute, utterly dauntless—and any bold man might have fallen into the same trap that had caught Tom Jordan. (Nay, had nothing warned Captain Winterton or aroused his suspicions, there was a fighting chance for Tom Jordan to have taken his ship from him even so.) But Tom Jordan had gone to sea in the days when the navy was going to the dogs, and, like many another lad of spirit who left the King's service to join the pirates, he had adventured with the Algerians before he led the gentlemen of Bideford. And at last, hazarding a final effort to retrieve his luck, he had unwittingly thrust his head into the halter.

  Yet, though they had broken his body, they had failed to touch his courage; despite his pain, he could smile and even laugh. Turning his great grief into a jest, he cried, "Holla, O bravest of boatswains! This is a joy I had not looked for. It seems that, if hang I must, I shall not hang alone." And laughing again, right merrily, he swooned away, which Captain Charles Winterton, having himself come down with the others to see them all shackled, watched with quiet interest.

  They brought down the carpenter, who was shaking like a man with an ague, and his beard waggled as he shook. They brought down Martin Barwick, whose face was drawn and haggard, and his hand rubbed his throat, for it itched in a prophetic manner. Then came Harry Malcolm, who stopped before Phil and spat at him and cursed him, and Paul Craig, who had neither eye nor thought for any one besides himself, and a dozen others of whom there was not one that failed to revile at their erstwhile boatswain. A hapless time of it Philip Marsham had among them, but it added little to his great burden of misery.

  Nor, for the matter of that, did reviling content them; for toward morning, when the others were dozing, Harry Malcolm, whom they had locked to a longer chain, crawled over to where Phil lay and very craftily tried to kill him with bare hands. The guard cried out, but instead of stopping, the man redoubled his efforts to throttle the lad whom he had seized from behind when he was asleep; whereupon the guard struck a sharp blow with the butt of his musket, and when the corporal had come running and had felt of Harry Malcolm's wrist and had listened for his heart and had turned him over on his back, he cursed the guard with fluent oaths for robbing the gallows.

  CHAPTER XXI

  ILL WORDS COME TRUE

  To the Isle of Wight, and thence to Spithead and Deptford, came in time the Sybil of forty-four guns, Captain Charles Winterton, and accompanying her, in the hands of a prize crew, the Rose of Devon frigate. There, bundling certain unhappy gentlemen of fortune out of the ship, they sent them expeditiously up to London and deposited them for safe keeping in the Marshalsea prison, a notable hostelry which has harboured great rogues before and since.

  In the fullness of time, the Lord High Admiral of England, "who holds his court of justice for trials of all sea causes for life and goods," being assisted by the Judge of Admiralty and sundry others, officers and advocates and proctors and civilians, was moved to proceed against the aforesaid gentlemen of fortune. So they heard their names cried in the High Court of Admiralty and were arraigned for piracy and robbery on the high seas and charged with seizing the frigate Rose of Devon, the property of Thomas Ball and others, and murdering her master, Francis Candle, and stealing supplies and equipment to the value of eight hundred pounds. Nor was that the whole tale of charges, for it seemed that the Lords of Admiralty laid to the discredit of those particular gentlemen of fortune numerous earlier misdeeds of great daring and wickedness and an attempt to take His Majesty's ship Sybil, which had cost the lives of certain of His Majesty's seamen and had occasioned His Majesty much grief and concern.

  He who read the indictment spoke in a loud and solemn voice, such as might of itself make a man think of his sins and fear judgment; but they were already cowed and fearful, save only the Old One, who still held his head high and very scornfully smiled. The cook bent his head and shivered and dared not look the jury in the face. The carpenter wept and Martin Barwick was like a man struck dumb and Paul Craig kept working his mouth and biting at his lips.

  There was a great concourse of people, for who would not seize upon the chance to see a band of pirates? But a very poor show the pirates made, save the Old One; for though
they had talked much and often of their valour and had represented themselves as tall fellows who feared nothing in life or death, they were now and for all time revealed as cowards to the marrow of their bones.

  Quietly and expeditiously the officers of the Court swore their first witness, who smelled of pitch and tar and bore himself in such wise that he was to be known for a sailor wherever he might turn.

  To their questions he replied with easy assurance, for he was not one of those fellows who cope with great gales and storms at sea only to be cowed by a great person on land. "Yea, sir," quoth he, "there is among mariners common talk of a band of sea sharks that hath long resorted to His Majesty's port of Bideford. Yea, my lord.—And have I met with them? That I have, and to my sorrow. This month two years I was master in a likely snow, the Prosperous of three hundred tons, which fell afoul of that very company, as their boasting and talk discovered to us, who took our ship and set me adrift in a boat with seven of mine own men, whereby, God being merciful unto us, we succeeded after many hardships in winning to the shore of Ireland, whence the Grace of Bristol bore us home to England.—The fate of the others in our company? In faith, some, I am told, joined themselves with that same band of sea sharks. The rest were slaughtered out of hand.—Nay, my lord, the night was black and my sight of the scoundrels was brief. I much misdoubt if I should know them again."

  "Come, come," quoth His Lordship, tapping the papers spread on his great table, "look at these prisoners gathered here at the bar and tell me if there be one among them of whom you can say, 'This man was there; this man did thus and so.'"

  So the witness came, with the air of a man who is pleased to be seen of many people, and looked them over, one and all; but at the end of his looking he sadly shook his head. "Nay, my lord, the night was dark and sight was uncertain; and though I should rejoice—none more than I!—to see a pirate hanged, I am most loath to swear away the life of an innocent man. There is no man here of whom I can truly say I have seen him before."

  His Lordship frowned and the proctors shook their heads; the prisoners sighed and breathed more freely. The tale was at an end, and bearing away with him his smell of pitch and tar the fellow returned to his place.

  Four witnesses were then summoned, one after another, and told tales like the first. One had been in a ship that was seized and sunk in Bristol Channel; the second had received a gaping wound in the shoulder off St. David's Head, and had known no more until he found himself alone on the deck of a plundered flyboat; the third had fallen into evil company in Plymouth, which beat him and robbed him and left him for dead, and from the talk of his murderous companions he had learned, before they set upon him that they were certain gentry of Bideford; and the last of the four told of the murderous attack of a boarding party, which had taken a brig and tumbled him over the side into a boat. "Yea, my lord," he cried, "and I fear to think upon what befell our captain's little son, for of all our crew only three men were left alive and as they sailed away from us three we heard the boy shrieking pitifully." One by one the witnesses wove with their tales a black net of wickedness, but they could not or would not say they knew this prisoner or that.

  The Judge frowned darkly from his bench and the people in the seats opened their mouths in wonder and excitement at the stories of robbery and murder. But the net was woven loosely and without knots, for thus far there had been no one to pick out this man or that and say, "It was he who did it." So the cook and the carpenter took heart; and the colour returned to Martin Barwick's face; and the Old One, leaning back, still smiled scornfully. Yet the Judge and the advocates seemed in no way discouraged, from which the men of the Rose of Devon might have drawn certain conclusions; for as all the world knows, judges and advocates with a band of pirates under the thumb are, for the honour of the law, set upon making an example of them.

  There was long counselling in whispers, then a bustle and stir, and an officer cried loudly, "Come, make haste and lead her in."

  A murmur passed over the court and the people turned their heads to look for the meaning of the cry. Then a door opened and an officer appeared, leading by the arm a very old woman.

  Phil Marsham felt his heart leap up; he saw Martin raise his hand to his throat with a look of horror. But when he stole a glance at the Old One, he saw, to his wonder, that the Old One was smiling as calmly as before: truly the man was a marvel of unconcern and a very cool and desperate rascal.

  "Is this the woman?" quoth my Lord the Judge, who raised his head and lifted his brows to see her the better.

  "Yea, my lord."

  "Hm! Let us look into this matter!" There was silence in the room except for the sound of shuffling papers. "This woman, commonly known as Mother Taylor, is to be hanged this day sennight, I believe."

  "Yea, my lord."

  "And it hath been suggested that if she can lay before us such evidence as is needful, she will be commended to the King's mercy and doubtless reprieved from the gallows. Hath all this been made plain and clear to her?"

  "Yea, my lord."

  "Hm! It appears by these papers, woman, that keeping a house to which rogues of all descriptions have resorted is the least of your crimes."

  A strange, cracked old voice burst shrilly upon the still court. "'Tis a lie, my lord! Alas, my lord, that wicked lies should take away my good name, and I tottering on the edge of the grave!"

  There were cries of "Silence!" And the officer at the old woman's side shook her by the arm.

  "And to continue from the least to the greatest, you have disposed of all manner of stolen goods, and have prepared slow poisons to be sold at a great price and have stained your hands with murder."

  "Alas, my lord, it is a wicked lie—!"

  They shook her into silence, but her lips continued to move, and as she stood between the officers her sharp little eyes ranged about the court.

  There was further counselling among the proctors, then one cried sharply, "Come, old woman, remember that the hangman is ready to don his gown, and answer me truly before it is too late: on such and such a day you were at your house in Bideford, were you not?"

  "Nay, sir, I am old and my wits are not all they were once and I cannot remember as I ought."

  "Come, now, on such a day, did not a certain man come to your house in Bideford and abide there the night?"

  "It may be—it may be—for one who keepeth a tavern hath many guests."

  "Look about you, old woman, and tell us if you see the man."

  "Nay, good sir, my wits wander and I do not remember as I used."

  As Philip Marsham watched her hard face, so very old and crafty, he paid little heed to the low voices of the proctors and the Judge. But the sharp command, "Look this man in the face and tell us if you have ever seen him before," came to the erstwhile boatswain of the Rose of Devon like the shock of cold water to a man lying asleep.

  They led her before Tom Jordan—before the Old One himself—and the two looked each other full in the face, yet neither fluttered an eye. In all truth they were a cool pair; it had taken a Solomon to say which of them was now the subtler.

  "Nay, my lord, how should I know this man? He hath the look of an honest fellow, my lord, but I never saw him ere this."

  Thereupon the officers exchanged glances and the proctors whispered together.

  They led her before Martin Barwick and again she shook her old white head. "Nay, my lord, I know him not." But Martin was swallowing hard, as if some kind of pip had beset him, and this did not escape the notice of the Court.

  Down the line of accused men she came and, though she walked in the shadow of the gallows, she said of each, in her shrill, quavering old voice, "Nay, my lord, I know him not."

  Of some she spoke thus in all truth; of others, though she knew it would cost her life, she craftily and stoutly lied. And at last she came to Philip Marsham, whose heart chilled when he met the sharp eyes that had looked so hard into his own in Bideford long before. "Nay, my lord, he is a handsome blade, but I neve
r saw him ere this." Some smiled and sniggered; but the old woman shrugged, and lifted her brows, and stood before the Court, wrinkled and bent by years of wickedness. Say what you will of her sins, her courage and loyalty were worthy of a better cause.

  In despair of pinning her down, they led her away at last to a bench and there she sat with officers to guard her. Now she watched one man and now she watched another. Often Philip Marsham felt a tremor, almost of fear, at seeing her eyes looking hard into his own. But though of the old woman the Court had made nothing, the exultation that showed in the faces of some of the prisoners was premature, for the Lords of Admiralty had other shafts to their bow, as any gentleman of fortune might have known they would.

  Again there was a stir among the ushers, and in the door appeared one at whose coming Tom Jordan ceased to smile.

  The fellow's chin sagged and his eyes were wild and he ducked to His Lordship as if some one had pulled a string; and when they called on him to give the Court his name he cried very tremulously, "Yea, yea! Joseph Kirk, an it please you, my lord!"

  "Come now, look about you at these men who are arraigned for piracy. Are there any there whom you have seen elsewhere?"

  "Yea, yea, that there be! There! And there! And there!"

  "Ah! Hm! Men you have seen elsewhere! Tell us who they are." And His Lordship smiled dryly.

  "It is not to count against me, my lord? I have repented—yea, I have repented! 'Twill not undo the King's pardon?"

  The very Judge on the bench gave a grunt as in disgust of the abject terror the fellow showed, and a murmur of impatience went through the room; but though he afforded a spectacle for contempt, they reassured him and urged him on.