Jack felt a sudden rush of apprehension seize upon him at the man’s words. He had not realized, until that moment, what it meant for him to be aboard the pirate’s sloop; that, having joined himself with outlaws, he himself was now an outlaw. He stood silently for a while, staring after the receding boat. “I do suppose,” he said at last, “that the captain won’t be long ashore.”
The man shrugged his shoulders. “If he once gets ashore with his friends and a bottle of grog, maybe ’twill be the best part of the night afore he gets away again.”
Jack drew a deep breath. “Well,” he said, “’twas a mightily foolhardy thing for him to do, to be sure.”
Just then some one laid a hand upon his shoulder, and he turned around with a start. It was Dred. “The young lady’s roused up a bit,” he said; “maybe, if you’d take summat down to her now, she’d eat it.”
CHAPTER XXVI
THE PIRATE’S LAIR
IT took nearly a week to run from Norfolk to Bath Town. The sloop had run into Ocracock before the breaking of the fourth day; had discharged nearly all of its crew, with noisy hubbub, into the inscrutable gray of the dawning, and had then sailed away up the sound, with only the pirate captain, Dred, and Hands, and Jack, and two negroes left of the thirty or more who had comprised the vessel’s company. It was in the early daylight of the following day that the sloop came about and, with a short tack, sailed into the mouth of Bath Creek. On one side a swamp fringed with giant cypress-trees, their bright-green foliage standing out against the darker green of the trees behind, came close down to the point. Upon the other side were open clearings of plantations. About half a league up, at the head of the mouth of the creek, the houses of the little town clustered among the trees upon a gentle rise of open ground. The sloop was sailing smoothly nearer and nearer to the bluff shore, upon which stood a square frame house with a tall, sloping roof and two lean chimneys. The house, which appeared to be of a somewhat better quality than the ordinary wooden house of the common settler, was almost hidden by the shade of two great cypress-trees that grew up from what seemed to be a little marshy hollow. Behind it, a glimpse of a clearing showed, stretching away to the edge of the woods beyond. A skiff and a dug-out lay drawn up on the beach close to a landing-place, and Jack could see two rough-looking white men standing on the little wharf, looking out toward the sloop. He was standing by with the two negroes who now composed the crew, ready to help let go the anchor at the word of command, when Dred came up out of the cabin and across the deck to where he stood. “You come with me,” he said; “the captain wants you down in the cabin.”
As Jack went below he heard the loud splash of the anchor, and then the sound of the running of the block as Hands let the sail go to the wind. The captain was combing out his shaggy hair, and the young lady sitting leaning with her arms upon the table as he came down the companion-way. She wore an air as of dumb expectation. “Here, young man,” said the captain, “you’re to go ashore with me and the young lady. I want you to carry that bag of clothes up to the house,” nodding his head toward the table where lay the bundle. There was a long pause as the pirate continued his toilet. “You’re to wait upon the young lady, and be handy to help whenever my wife wants you,” he continued, “d’ ye understand?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jack.
Then Hands came to the companion-way to say that the boat was ready; and Blackbeard turned to the young lady. “Come, mistress,” he said, “if you’re ready now we’ll go ashore.”
The young lady rose instantly from her place, and stood resting her hand upon the table, looking about her. “D’ ye want any help?” said the pirate. She shook her head. “Well, come along, then.”
The captain led the way to the deck; Miss Eleanor Parker followed, and Jack came behind. The young lady looked around her as she came up into the open air. The faint wind stirred the hair at her temples as she gazed steadily at the little town lying seemingly so close. Jack had not noticed before how thin and pale she had grown. The bright glare of the sunlight made her look singularly wan. The boat was alongside, the negroes holding it close to the side of the sloop. They helped the young lady into it almost officiously, and then the captain took his place beside her. “You jump aboard up there in the bow,” he said to Jack; and, as Jack took his place, the negroes pushed off and began rowing away toward the shore. Jack watched the wharf as it came nearer and nearer. He could see that one of the white men who stood there looked haggard and pinched as though with illness. They did not look like sea-faring men, and he judged them to be neighboring planters from some of the places further inland. The next moment the negroes backed oars, the bow of the boat touched with a bump against the landing, and Jack jumped ashore. At the captain’s bidding he reached out his hand, and in instant response felt Miss Eleanor Parker’s grasp, soft and warm. She held tightly to him as he helped her up from the boat to the landing, and he was conscious that the two men on the wharf were staring intently at him and at her.
They still stood dumbly staring as Jack, carrying Miss Eleanor Parker’s bundle, followed the captain and the young lady up the crooked path to the house.
From a distance the house had appeared picturesque – almost beautiful – hidden among the soft-green foliage of the cypress-trees; but it looked shabby and weather-worn and even squalid upon a nearer approach. A young woman of sixteen or seventeen years old stood in the doorway, looking at them as they came up the path. Her face was not uncomely, but was heavy and dull. Her hair was light and colorless, and was tied up under a dirty cap. She was in her bare feet; she wore a jacket without sleeves, partly pinned, partly buttoned, and under it a flaming red petticoat. She stared at them with wide eyes, but the pirate said nothing at all to her, and she stood aside as he led the way directly into the house. The floor was bare and uncarpeted. There were a table and two chairs; some tin boxes and a couple of candlesticks, caked with grease, stood upon the mantel together with a loud-ticking clock. Altogether, the room, with its bare plastered walls, was very naked and cheerless, and was filled with a rank, smoky smell. “Sit down, mistress,” said Blackbeard; and then, as Miss Eleanor Parker obeyed him, “This is my wife,” he said, “and she’ll look after you for a while. D’ ye hear, Betty? You’re to look after the young lady. Go up-stairs now, and get the spare room ready, and be as lively about it as you can. You take the young lady’s bundle up-stairs, boys; he – ” nodding toward his wife – “she’ll show you where.”
Jack followed the young woman up the rickety stairs to the sagging floor above. “Here, this is the place,” she said, opening the door upon a room directly under the roof. It looked out through two windows across the creek to the swamp on the other side, a half mile or so away. “Who is she?” said the woman to Jack, as he followed her into the room, and laid the traveling-bag upon the bed.
“The young lady down-stairs? She’s Miss Eleanor Parker,” Jack answered.
“A grand, fine lady, ben’t she?” and Jack nodded. “Well, you trig up the room a little now, won’t you? I’ll just go put on a better dress, for, d’ ye see, I didn’t look for Ned to bring such fine company. You’d better bring up a pail of water, too, for I reckon she’ll be wanting to wash herself.”
Blackbeard’s wife was gone for a long time. The pirate walked restlessly and irritably up and down the room, stopping once at the mantel-shelf to fill a pipe of tobacco. The young lady sat impassively, with her hands lying in her lap, gazing absently upon the floor. Once or twice the pirate glared with angry impatience at the door. At last there was the sound of footsteps – this time not of bare feet – clattering down the stairs, and a second later the pirate’s wife opened the door and entered the room. She had changed her slatternly dress for a medley of finery. She wore high-heeled shoes and silk stockings with red clocks. She courtesied to the young lady as Blackbeard glared at her. “If you come along with me now, madam,” she said with an air, “I’ll show you to your room.”
CHAPTER XXVII
AT BATH TOWN
“YOU and Chris Dred will have to sleep together,” the pirate’s wife had said to Jack, the first evening of his arrival. “He’s lived here ever since he came back. He sleeps in the corner room; there ain’t no bed in t’other; so, now the young lady’s come, you’ll have to sleep together, or one of you’ll have to sleep on the floor.” And so Jack was settled at the pirate’s house.
The next morning the pirate captain sent Jack in a boat up to the town with a letter to Mr. Knight, the colonial secretary.
The town appeared singularly interesting to Jack as, leaving the skiff at a little landing, under the care of the negro who had rowed him up to the place, he walked up a straggling lane between some fishing huts, and so to the main street, which, with its dirt sidewalk, was shaded with trees, through which filtered uncertain, wavering spots of sunlight. The day was hot, a dry wind rustled the leaves overhead, and a belated cicada trilled its shrill note that, rising for a while, pulsed whirring away into silence. The houses, mostly built of wood, were small and not very clean. They nearly all stood close to the street. A sort of indolent life stirred in the place, and further down the street a lot of men were lounging in front of a building that looked as if it might be a store of some sort. They stared at Jack as he drew near, and when he asked where he should find Mr. Knight, they did not immediately reply.
“Mr. Knight?” said one of the group. “Why, I reckon Mr. Knight be n’t in town; he went off across the country the day afore yesterday, and I reckon he be n’t back yet.”
“Yes, he be back,” said another; “anyways, his horse be back again, for I saw Jem a-rubbing it down as I came by the stable a while ago.”
Then one of the men got slowly up from where he sat, and led Jack out into the middle of the street. “D’ ye see that open place yonder? Well, that’s where the church stands. Just beyond that – you can see it from here – is the house. ’Tis the very next house to the church. Well, that’s Mr. Knight’s house.”
Mr. Knight’s residence was built of brick and was very much better looking than the houses that surrounded it. Jack found that the secretary was at home, and was shown into his office. He was smoking a pipe of tobacco and looking over some papers which littered the writing-desk at which he sat. He was a rather thin, dark man, not ill-looking, but nervous and jerky in his movements. He wore a black cloth skull-cap upon his head, and Jack saw a fine wig of black hair hanging behind the door.
He turned his head and looked over his shoulder at Jack as he came into the room. “Well,” he said in a sharp, quick voice, “what d’ ye want?”
“Why, master,” said Jack, “Captain Teach hath sent me up with this note for you, sir.”
“O! he did, did he? Well, let me have it.” He leaned back in his chair and reached out for the note, which Jack handed to him and which he tore open quickly and sharply. Jack noticed how the letter trembled in his nervous hand as he held it. He watched his eyes as they traveled down the page until they reached the bottom, and then as he turned over the paper to make sure that there was nothing upon the other side. “Very well,” he said when he had ended; “tell the captain I’ll be there to-morrow.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jack, lingering for a moment. “Is that all?”
“That’s all. I’ll be down to-morrow night.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jack again.
Mr. Knight came down to the pirate’s house at the appointed time, and Captain Teach stood at the door watching him as he came up the crooked path. The pirate had been playing upon his guitar, and he now stood holding it under his arm as Mr. Knight approached, limping slightly and walking with a cane. The evening was warm, and he carried his hat under his arm. Jack stood around the end of the house, also looking at the colonial secretary as he approached. “How d’ ye do, captain?” said Mr. Knight, as soon as he had come near enough.
“Why, I’m well enough,” said Blackbeard, surlily, taking his pipe out of his mouth to reply. “Hands and Dred are both here, and we’ve been waiting for you for some time now. Come in.”
He led the way into the room, where the two of whom he had spoken were sitting smoking and drinking rum and water in the dusk. Mr. Knight nodded to the others. “Well, captain,” he said as he took his seat and laid his hat and cane upon the table, “what’s this business you want to see me about? What’s this I hear about a young lady you’ve brought down from Virginia?”
“Why,” said Captain Teach, “I reckon ’tis just about as you’ve heard it.” He had laid aside his guitar, and had gone to the mantel-shelf and was striking a flint and steel to light the candle. “I brought a young lady down with me from Virginia – she’s staying here with my wife.”
“Well, what’s the business you have with me?”
“I’ll tell you that in a minute as soon as I get this bloody candle lighted. I’ll murder that woman some day. This is the third time she’s left the punk out to get wet. There it comes!” He blew the spark into blaze and lit the candle. “Now, Mr. Secretary Knight,” he said, “I’ll tell you just exactly what the business is we want of you and just what we’ve been doing. Do you know of Colonel Birchall Parker?”
“Why, to be sure I do,” said Mr. Knight. “Why do you ask such a thing as that?”
“Well, I’ve carried his daughter off from Virginia; we’ve got her here in this house.”
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.