The Dark Frigate

  "Yea, yea! That one there—he at the end—was our captain, and Tom Jordan his name. It was he who led us against a vast number of prizes, which yielded rich profit. It was he and Harry Malcolm—why, Harry Malcolm is not here. Huh! 'Tis passing strange! He hath so often stole beside them, I had thought he would hang beside them too. Yea, and as I was saying—Let us consider! Yea, yea, it was he and Harry Malcolm who contrived the plan for killing Captain Candle and taking the Rose of Devon. Yea, they called me apart on the forecastle and tempted me to sin and forced me with many threats. He it was—"

  Tom Jordan was on his feet. "You lie in your throat, you drunken dog! It was you who struck him down with your own hand!"

  "Nay, nay! I did him no harm! It was another—I swear it was another!"

  "It seems," said His Lordship, when they had thrust Tom Jordan back in his seat and had somewhat abated their witness's terror of his one-time chief, "it seems this fellow's words have touched a sore. Go on."

  "And there is Martin Barwick—nay, hold him! Nay, if I am to go on, I must have protection!—and there Paul Craig and there our boatswain, Philip Marsham—" And so he continued to name the men and told a tale of shameful acts and crimes for the least of which a man is hanged. Indeed, Philip Marsham himself knew enough of their history to send them one and all to the gallows, but he had not heard a tenth part of the story of piracy and robbery and murder and black crimes unfit for the printed page that this renegade pirate told to the full Court of Admiralty. The fellow made a great story of it, yet kept within a bowshot of the truth; but he was a villain of mean spirit and, though he did for the Court the work it desired, he bought his life at cost of whatever honour he may have had left.

  And then came Captain Charles Winterton, who rose, bowing in stately wise to His Lordship, and with a composed air and an assured voice very quietly drew tight the purse-strings of the net that Joe Kirk had knotted. In his grand and dignified manner he bowed now and then to His Lordship and to the proctors, who asked him questions with a deference in their bearing very different from their way with the other witnesses.

  "Yea, these pirate rogues boarded His Majesty's ship Sybil and killed three of His Majesty's men before they perceived the blunder they had made and gave themselves up.—How many lives did the boarders lose? Probably twelve or fourteen. Several bodies fell into the water and were not recovered. It was useless to hunt for them, my lord. Great sharks abound in those waters.—Yea, this Thomas Jordan led them in person. In truth, there is little distinction between them in the matter of guilt. The man Marsham, whom the previous witness named a boatswain, was the first to board the Sybil. He entered the great cabin by way of the stem, apparently to spy out the situation on board. He declared himself a forced man who had run away from the pirates. Who could say? The situation in which he was taken was such, certainly, as to incriminate him; though 'twere cause for sorrow, since he was a brave lad and had given no trouble during the voyage home."

  There was a great whispering among the people, who thought it was a shame for so likely a lad to hang with a pack of pirates. But it was plain by now to the greatest dullard among those unhappy gentlemen of fortune that hang they must; and for Philip Marsham, who sat as white as death from the shame of it, there was no slightest spark of hope. The net was woven and knotted and drawn, and the end of it all was at hand.

  When, according to the custom of the time, they called on Tom Jordan for his defense, he rose and said, "Alas, my lord, the ropes are laid that shall hang me. Already my neck aches. This, though, I will say: whatever these poor men have done, it is I that compelled them into it, and I, my lord, will stand to answer for it."

  Some gave one defense and some another; and meanwhile there was much legal talk, dry and long and hard to understand. And so at last they called on Philip Marsham to rise and speak for himself if he had anything to say in his own defense.

  He rose and stood before them, very white of face, and though his voice trembled, which was a thing to be expected since he saw before him a shameful death, he told them his true story, beginning with the day he sailed from Bideford, very much as I have told it here. But when they asked him about affairs on board the Rose of Devon that concerned the others and not him, he replied that each man must tell his own tale and that though he swung for it he must leave the others to answer those questions for themselves.

  "Come," quoth His Lordship, leaning forward and sharply tapping his table, "you have heard the question asked. Remember, young man, that you stand in a place exceeding slippery. It shall profit you nothing to hold your peace."

  "My lord," said he, "the tale hath been told in full. There is no need that I add to it, and were I to speak further I should but carry with me to the grave the thought that I had done a treacherous thing. Though I owe these men for nought save hard usage, yet have I eaten their bread and drunk their wine, and I will not, despite their sins, help to hang them."

  It was doubtless very wrong for him to reply thus, as any moralist will point out, since it is a man's duty to help enforce the laws by bringing criminals to justice. But he answered according to his own conscience; and after the craven talk of Joseph Kirk, the lad's frank and honest statement pleased perhaps even my Lord the Judge, sitting high above the court, who frowned because his position demanded frowns. Surely loyalty ranks high among the virtues and great credit is due to a keen sense of personal honour. But there then came from his talk a result that neither he nor any other had foreseen.

  Up sprang Tom Jordan. "My lord," he cried, "I pray thee for leave to speak!"

  To the frowns and chidings of the officers who forced him down again, he paid no heed. A tumult rose in the room, for they had hurled the Old One back and clapped hands over his mouth; but out of the struggle came again the cry, "My lord! My lord!" and His Lordship, calling in a loud voice for order and silence, scowled and gave him the leave he asked.

  As Martin had said long before, Tom Jordan was an ugly customer when his temper was up and hot, but no man to nurse a grudge.

  "I thank you, my lord," said he, the while smoothing his coat, which had wrinkled sadly in the scuffle. "Though I must hang I desire to see justice done. It lay in the power of this Philip Marsham to have added to the tale of our sins and the sum of our woes; wherefore, since he hath had the spirit to refrain from doing thus, why, my lord, I needs must say that he hath spoken only the truth. He was a forced man, and having a liking for him, since he is a lad of spirit, I would have had him join us heart and soul. 'Tis true likewise that he ran away from our ship and turned his hand against us, and for that I would have let him hang with these other tall fellows but for the brave spirit he hath shown. But as for yonder swine—yea, thou, Joe Kirk! Quake and stare!—he hath done more mean, filthy tricks to earn a hanging than any other gentleman of fortune, I believe, that ever sailed the seas."

  "Not so, my lord!" Joe Kirk yelled. "He fears me for my knowledge of his deeds! Help! Hold him—hold him!"

  Tom Jordan swore a great oath and Joe Kirk leaped up in his seat, white and shaking, and cried over and over that it was all a lie, and there was a merry time of it before the attendants restored peace.

  And then, to the further amazement of all in the court, Captain Charles Winterton again rose.

  "If I may add a word, my lord? Thank you, my lord. I observed that when the prisoners went below their manner toward this man Marsham was such as to lend a certain plausibility to his story. They took, in short, so vindictive a delight in his misfortunes that even then it seemed not beyond reason that his tale was true and that he had indeed left them without leave. That, of course, proves nothing with regard to his being a forced man; but it is a matter of common justice to say that, in consideration of all that I have seen before and of that which I have this day heard, I believe he hath told the truth both then and now. Thank you, my lord."

  Such a hullabaloo of talk as then burst forth among the spectators, and such learned argument as passed between the proctors and the Lieute
nant of Admiralty and His Lordship the Judge, surpass imagination. Some quoted the Latin and the Greek, while others of less learning voiced their opinions in the vulgar tongue, so that all in all there was enough disputation to fuddle the wits of a mere layman by the time they gave the case to the jury.

  Then the jury, weighing all that had been said, put together its twelve heads, while such stillness prevailed in the court that a man could hear his neighbor's breathing. It seemed to those whose lives were at stake that the deliberations took as many hours as in reality they took minutes. There are times when every grain of sand in the glass seems to loiter in falling and to drift through the air like thistledown, as if unwilling to come to rest with its fellows below. Yet the sand is falling as fast as ever, though a man whose life is weighing in the balance can scarcely believe it; so at last the jury made an end of its work, which after all had taken little enough time in consideration of the matter they must decide.

  "You have reached with due and faithful care a verdict in this matter?" quoth His Lordship.

  "We have, my lord."

  "You will then declare your verdict to the Court."

  "Of these fourteen prisoners at the bar of justice, my lord, we find one and all guilty of the felonies and piracies that are charged against them, save only one man." In the deathly silence that fell upon the room the name sounded forth like the stroke of a bell. "We acquit, my lord, Philip Marsham."

  * * *

  There and then Philip Marsham parted company with the men of the Rose of Devon. His hands shook when he rose a free man, and when many spoke to him in all friendliness he could find no voice to reply.

  Never again did he see their faces, but he heard long afterward of how, a week from the day of their trial, they went down the river to Wapping in wherries, with the bright sun shining on the ships and on the shore where a great throng had assembled to see them march together up the stairs to Execution Dock.

  Though they had always made themselves out to appear great and fierce men, yet on that last day they again showed themselves cravens at heart—except Tom Jordan. The Old One, stern, cold, shrewd, smiled at his fellows and said, "It is to be. May God have mercy on me!" And though he stood with the black cap over his eyes and the noose round his neck, he never flinched.

  As for Martin Barwick, his face grey with fear, he strove to break away, and cried out in English and in Spanish, and called on the Virgin. Sadly, though, had he fallen from the teachings of the Church, and little did his cries avail him! He came at the last to the end he had feared from the first; and his much talk of hanging was thus revealed to have been in a manner prophecy, although it sprang from no higher oracle than his own cowardly heart.

  One told Philip Marsham that Mother Taylor was hanged; another said they let her go, to die a natural death in the shadow of the gallows that stood by the crossroads in her native town of Barnstable. Either tale is likely enough, and Phil never learned which was true.

  For aught I know to the contrary, she may have found an elixir of life as good as the one discovered by the famous Count de Saint-Germain, and so be living still.

  Whatever the end she came to, Phil Marsham was far away when they determined her fate. For the day he stepped out in the streets of London, a free man once more and a loyal subject of the King, he took the road to the distant inn where he was of a mind to claim fulfillment of Nell Entick's promise.

  CHAPTER XXII

  BACK TO THE INN

  If this were a mere story to while away an idle hour, I, the scribe, would tie neatly every knot and leave no Irish pennants hanging from my work. But life, alas, is no pattern drawn to scale. The many interweaving threads are caught up in strange tangles, and over them, darkly and inscrutably, Atropos presides. Who cannot recall to mind names and faces still alive with the friendship of a few weeks or months,—a friendship pleasant in memory,—a friendship that promised fruitful years, but that was lost for ever when a boy or man drifted out of sight for one reason or another, and on one tide or another of the projects that go to make up life? To Philip Marsham, tramping again the high roads of England, there came, mingled with many other desires, a longing to see once more the Scottish smith who had wrought the dirk that had tasted blood for his protection in those dark adventures at sea. But when he came to the smithy beside the heath he found it open and empty. The wind blew the door on rusty hinges; brown leaves had drifted in and lay about the cold forge; the coals were dead, the bellows were broken, and the lonely man who had wrought iron on the now rusty anvil had taken his tools and gone.

  The day was still young, for the wayfarer, starting early and in the fullness of his strength, had this day covered three miles in the time that one had taken him when he walked that road before. So he left the smithy and pushed on across the heath and far beyond it, marking each familiar farm and village and country house, until night had fallen and the stars had come out, when he laid him down under a hedge and slept.

  He was thinking, when he fell asleep, of Nell Entick. He remembered very well her handsome face, her head held so high, her white throat and bare arms. He was going back to the inn to claim fulfillment of her promise and he pictured her as waiting for him there. In most ways he was a bold, resolute youth who had seen much of life; but in some ways, nevertheless, he was a lad of small experience, and if he thought at all that she had been a little overbold, a little overwilling, he thought only that she was as honestly frank as he.

  Waking that night upon his bed of leaves, he saw far away on a hill the dancing flames of a campfire, concerning which he greatly wondered. For, having been long out of England, he had small knowledge of the ups and downs of parliaments and kings; and in the brief time since his return, of which he had spent nearly all in prison, he had heard nothing of the tumultuous state of the kingdom, save a few words dropped here or there while he was passing through hamlets and villages, and seen nothing thereof save such show of arms as in one place or another had caught his eye but not his thought. Although he knew it not, since he was a plain lad with no gift of second-sight, he lay in a country poised on the brink of war and his bed was made in the field where a great battle was to be fought.

  He went on at daylight, and going through a village at high noon saw a preacher in clipped hair and sober garb, who was calling on the people to be valiant and of good courage against those wicked men who had incited riot and rebellion among the Roman Catholics in Ireland, whereby the King might find pretext for raising a vast army to devastate and enslave England. Sorely perplexed by this talk, of which he understood little, Phil besought a sneering young fellow, who stood at no great distance, for an explanation; to which the fellow replied that it was talk for them that wore short hair and long ears, and that unless a man kept watch upon his wits his own ears would grow as long from hearing it as those of any Roundhead ass in the country. At this Phil took umbrage; but the fellow cried Nay, that he would fight no such keen blade, who was, it seemed, a better man than he looked. And with a laugh he waved the matter off and strolled away.

  So to the inn Phil came in due time, having meditated much, meanwhile, on the talk of the King and war and the rights of Parliament, which was in the mouths and ears of all men. But he put such things out of his mind when at last he saw the inn, for the moment was at hand when his dreams should come true and he should find waiting for him the Nell Entick he remembered from long ago.

  Surely a lad of enterprise, who had ventured the world over with pirates, could find in any English village something to which he could turn his hand. Indeed, who knew but some day he might keep the inn himself—or do better? Who knew? He remembered Little Grimsby and drew a long breath. Caught in a whirl of excitement that set the blood drumming in his ears, he strode into the house and, boldly stepping up to the public bar, called loudly, "Holla, I say! I would have speech of Mistress Nell Entick."

  From a tall settle in the corner, where he sat taking tobacco, there rose a huge man with red and angry face.

  "Who
in the Devil's name art thou," he roared, "that comes ranting into an honest house and bawls out thus the name of Mistress Nell Entick?"

  There were as usual a couple of countrymen sitting with pots of ale, who reared their heads in vast amazement, and in the noisy kitchen down the passage a perceptible hush followed the loud words. The house seemed to pause and listen; the countrymen set down their pots; there was a sound of creaking hinges and of lightly falling feet.

  Very coolly, smiling slightly, Philip Marsham met the eyes of the big, red-faced man. "It seems," said he, "thou art riding for another fall."

  A look of recognition, at first incredulous, then profoundly displeased, dawned on the red face and even greater anger followed.

  "Thou banging, basting, broiling brogger!" he thundered. "Thou ill-contrived, filthy villain! Out the door! Begone!"

  "It seems, Jamie Barwick, that thy wits are struck with years. Have care. Thy brother is already on the road to Wapping—they have signed and sealed his passage."

  The fat man came to Phil with the slow gait and the low-hung head of a surly dog. He thrust his red face close to Phil's own.

  "Yea, it is thou," he sneered. "I am minded to beat thee and bang thee till thou goest skulking under the hedges for cover. But it seems thou hast good news. What is this talk of the hangman's budget?"

  "It is true. By now thine excellent brother hath in all likelihood donned the black cap and danced on air. As for beating and banging—scratch thy head and agitate thy memory and consider if I have given thee reason to hope for quietness and submission."

  There was a flicker of doubt in the man's small eyes, whereby it seemed his memory served him well.

  "And what meanest thou by saying thou would'st have speech of Mistress Nell Entick?" he asked suspiciously.

  "That concerns thee not."