CHAPTER IX.

CAPTAIN AND MATE.

"So I hauled him off to the gallows' foot, And blinded him in his bags; 'Twas a weary job to heave him up, For a doomed man always lags; But by ten of the clock he was off his legs In the wind, and airing his rags!"

A couple of hours had passed since the occupant of the stone building had last spoken to his subordinates down at the inlet, but the interval he devoted to a minute inspection of weapons in the armory adjoining his bedroom. They were all in excellent order, of the best make, and very neatly arranged in stands and cases around the room. When he emerged again, after locking the door, he held an exquisite pair of small pistols inlaid with gold in his hand, which he gently polished with his cambric handkerchief, and then slipped them into his trowsers pockets. Then he held short dialogues with the voice at the signal-station, and, without looking out of the window, he informed himself of what was doing outside, and what progress the vessels made toward their haven. When, however, the schooner poked her slim, low black bows, with her sails down, around the point, he gave one stealthy peep, or glare rather, at her. He took all in at that glance, from the patches of sheet-lead nailed over the shot-holes in her side, to the sawed-off stump of the fore-top-mast; and then he remarked the absence of the boat which was carried amidships, and the few men moving about her deck. Ay! he took it all in with that one comprehensive glance, and when he had done, he raised his fore finger quivering with anger, and slowly and unconsciously passed it with an ominous gesture across his throat.

Soon was heard a sullen plunge as an anchor was let go, and the splashing of the warps upon the water as the stern of the "Centipede" was being moored to the rocks, to make room for her companion the felucca, now shortly expected.

"Mr. Gibbs is coming on shore, _señor_, and he seems to have a wooden leg," came through the tube. "The doctor is coming with him, and there is a little boy in the boat."

"Ho!" muttered the man in the saloon, "where was that brat picked up?"

Nothing more was said. The tall man lit a cigar, threw himself into an easy attitude on the settee, opened a richly-bound volume, and waited. Ten minutes may have gone by when the trampling of feet was heard on the smooth rocks outside the building, and the voice of Mr. Gibbs exclaimed,

"Easy, will ye? Doctor! Don't ye see it tears the narves out of me to hobble with this broomstick-handle of a leg! There! Stop a bit! How in thunder am I to climb this ladder? Oh!" Here a low howl of pain. "Another shove. Easy, old Sawbones! So--give us another push, will ye? All right! There, that'll do."

The next minute Mr. Bill Gibbs stood on the broad piazza, and, with the assistance of a crutch, he hobbled to the entrance of the apartment, and only pausing to recover his wind and compose his features, he pulled off his straw hat and entered.

"So ho! Mr. Gibbs," said the man on the settee, as the burly, lame ruffian darkened the entrance, laying the book down as he spoke, and waving his delicate handkerchief before him.

"So ho! Mr. Gibbs, you've come back at last! Delighted to see you. I am, 'pon my soul. Ah! one of those stout pins gone? Why, how's this? Some little accident? Santa Cruz rum and a tumble down the hatchway, perhaps, eh? D'ye smoke? Take a cheroot. Put that bag on the table."

All this was said in a gay, gibing tone, with an indifference and _sang froid_ that a tight-rope dancer might have been proud of; and as he ended, he threw a handful of cigars across the table, and pushed the pan of coals toward his visitor. Before, however, Gibbs had time to utter a word in reply, his companion, while lolling over the settee, caught up an opera-glass from the table, and, placing it to his eyes, went on:

"Ha! ho! the fore-top-mast of my pretty long-legged schooner is gone. Pretty stick it was! I suppose, Master Gibbs, that _you_"--he nodded fiercely without removing the glass--"cut it up for that lovely new leg you've mounted. Ay, my beauty!" again apostrophizing the vessel, which lay like a wounded bird in the calm inlet before him; "but where's my handsome barge, that used to cover the long gun? Ho! stormy weather you've seen of late."

During all this one-sided conversation Gibbs had managed to wriggle his mutilated body on to a wicker chair, where he steadied himself with his crutch, evincing manifest signs of choler the while by running his fat fingers through the reddish door-mat of hair, hitching up his trowsers, and rapping nervously his timber stump of a leg on the floor, until at last, unable, apparently, longer to control himself, he burst out, with his bad face suffused with passion,

"I say, Captain Brand, it's time to end them 'ere gibes. What's took place is unfortinate; but, howsoever, I has a bag of shiners and a wooden leg to show for it, and d----n the odds."

"Stop, stop, my bull-dog! Don't be profane in my presence, if you please. We are both Christians, you know, and friends too, I hope."

This was said in a very precise, emphatic, and clear enunciation, and without apparent heat; and Captain Brand smiled too--but such a smile, as his wide mouth came down with a twitch at the corners, and left a sort of hole, where the cigar was habitually stuck, to see his teeth through.

"And now, my friend, suppose you give me some little account of your cruise, and fill up, if you can, any chinks that I haven't seen through already," he concluded, throwing his legs again over the back of the settee, and elevating his eyebrows as the cigar smoke curled in spiral wreaths around his face.

Mr. Gibbs hereupon settled himself more at ease in his chair, laid his crutch across his knees, and began:

"I s'pose, sir, you got the news I sent in a letter from Matanzas, after we'd been chased out of the Nicholas Channel by that Yankee corvette?"

Captain Brand nodded at the eye-bolt which held the green silk rope from the ceiling, as if calculating mentally the strain it would bear, merely as a matter of philosophical speculation, perhaps.

"Well, arter that--and a very tight race it was--we ran down to the Behamey Banks. There we picked up a Yankee schooner loaded with shingles and lumber; and as the skipper was sarsy, I just made him and his crew walk one of his own planks, and then bored a couple of holes through his vessel, arter taking out some water which we stood in need of. You hasn't a drop of summut to drink, has you, Captain Brand? becase it makes my jaw-tackle dry to talk much."

The captain merely motioned with a wave of his cambric handkerchief to an open liquor-case which stood on a cabinet near, and to which Mr. Gibbs hobbled; when, seizing a square flask of crystal incased in a network of frosted silver, he returned with it to the table. Had Mr. Gibbs chosen he might have brought with the flask a small, thimble-shaped liqueur glass; but he did not, and contented himself with a china coffee-cup which stood on the tray before him. He seemed a little near-sighted too; and as he inverted the flask, gave no heed to the quantity of fluid he poured into the cup. But he took care, however, that it did not run over; and then, raising it with a trembling hand to his lips, he said, "My sarvice to you, Captain Brand," and tossed it down his capacious throat. The captain gave no response to this compliment, but as Mr. Gibbs put down the coffee-cup he said blandly,

"Thank you; but suppose you put that flask back in the case. I am rather choice with that brandy; it was a--given to me by a--person who was a--unfortunately hanged, and a--I rarely offer it a--the second time."

Puffing his cigar as he spoke in an easy manner, he then turned round to listen to Mr. Gibbs's narrative. Becoming more genial as the brandy loosened his tongue, Mr. Gibbs continued:

"Well, sir, from the Behameys we ran to leeward, nearly to the Spanish Main, in hopes, perhaps, of finding some stray fellow as was bound to Europe; but we see nothing for days and days, and weeks and weeks, till finally the water fell short again, and we beats up and runs into Santa Cruz. There, as luck would have it, Eboe Pete and French Tom got into a bit of a scrimmage up on a gentleman's plantation arter sunset, and was werry roughly handled by a patrol of sogers as happened to be near. I believe as how Eboe Pete died that night; and I heerd, too, that French Tom had his skull cracked; and what does he go for to do but make a confession to the authorities that the 'Centipede' was a pirate!

"Well, captain, the moment that information reached me, and seein' a sogers' boat gettin' ready, and the sogers running about the water-battery of the fort, than I just slips the cable, and runs out to sea like a bird; and, Lord love ye, sir! the way they pitched round shot arter us was--was--" Here Master Gibbs paused for a simile, and the captain observed with a hacking, cough-like laugh,

"You saved the water-casks, though?"

"Why no, sir; and we was forced to go upon a 'lowance of a pint a water a man!"

"Ho!" rejoined the listener. "Capital! Didn't suffer, I hope? Go on."

"Howsomever, I says to myself, the captain wants a good valy'ble cargo, and so we beats up again and stretches away back along the coast of Jamaiky, on the look-out for any think that might be comin' that 'ere way. Well, sir, d'ye see, airly one morning, as we was a lying as close as wax under the land, we spies a big brig becalmed off to seaward; but we diskivered at the same time that same Yankee cruiser as was in chase of us off Matanzas. I know'd as how you would be displeased at any risks being run, so we keeps clean and snug inshore, under a pint o' land, till set of sun, and until arter the moon went down. Then the breeze sprung up fresh from the old trade quarter, and says I, now we'll make a dash at that 'ere drogher, and squeeze him as dry as bone-dust; more pertikerly, ye see, captain, since the corvette, arter dodgin' about him all day, had yawed off, and, with his port-tacks aboard, was beatin' to wind'ard."

Here Mr. Gibbs's auditor took the cigar from his mouth and rolled his light blue eyes at him, puffed a thick volume of smoke through the corner of his mouth, but said never a syllable.

The narrator gave a wistful look at the brandy-flask, drained the last few drops from the coffee-cup, pushed out his timber leg, and resumed:

"So you see, sir, as I was a sayin', I says to myself, I'll get the boat in the water with the lads, and, to make sure of all being conducted shipshape, I'll go myself."

"Oh!" said the captain, as his eyebrows went up and the corners of his mouth came down, with the faintest breath of a sardonic smile, while he lit a fresh cigar, "oh! you did!"

"Ay, sir! So we let the old drogher go bouncing on past us, at about the rate of five mile in four hours, when we crossed his wake under the jib, and then we ups with the fore and main-sail, got a pull of the sheets, and--"

Captain Brand shook the point of his curved nose at the speaker, who checked himself, and, giving an emphatic rap with his crutch on the floor, went on with--

"Beg parding, sir; but, Lord love ye! we just walked up under his lee, and afore he know'd where he wos, we boarded him, knocked over two or three chaps, and had the skipper lashed down in his cabin as quick as winkin' and as quiet as could be. Ay, sir, we had it all our own way; but during the scrimmage wot should I see (here he inclined his head out like a loggerhead turtle) but the lovelyest young 'oman as ever I clapped eyes on!" Here his timber stump grated nervously on the floor. "Says I, that's just the craft, with such a clean run and full bows, as would please Captain Brand"--at which that individual rolled round on his elbow and brought his eye to the opera-glass in the direction of the schooner.

"She isn't there, captain!" parenthesized the narrator, following the motion with his head. "So I just fisted hold of her to hand her tenderly into the boat, with a bag of shiners as wos found on board, when, so help me---- --beg parding, sir--if a dwarfed giant of a nigger didn't take an overhand lick at me with an iron pump-break, and nearly cut this 'ere larboard pin in two pieces; and, smash my brains!" he continued, shaking his broad paw aloft with rage, "but what does I do, with all the pain from the clip that da--(beg parding, sir) give me, I slams away with a pistol bullet through the nigger's head--"

"Didn't I see a little boy on board the 'Centipede?' Perhaps I was mistaken, the sun blazes so fiercely, eh?" broke in Captain Brand, though the sun didn't blaze with a fiercer light than shot out of his deadly cold blue eyes.

"Ho, ay, sir! that young imp was a bitin' at my t'other leg like a bull terrier pup, while the nigger was attackin' me, and then he goes and crawls out of the cabin winders, and was fished out of the water by the chaps as wos towin' astarn in the boat."

"Oh, really! how very fortunate!" muttered the captain; "go on; don't stop, I pray you, Master Gibbs."

"Well, sir, I knows very little what happened arter this, for the young 'oman was a screamin' and our chaps a cursin' about the decks, when all of a sudden I fell off into a faint like, and the same time a heavy gun came slamming into our very ears; and there was that infarnal corvette agen bowlin' down within five cables' length of the brig, her battery all alight and the whistles a callin' away the boats, in as violent a haste as any think I can remember," said Gibbs, as he paused to catch his breath.

"You must have kept a sharp look-out, though?" But, without heeding this remark, the burly scoundrel went on--

"Well, Captain Brand, the boys tumbled me over the side--"

"Not forgetting the little bag of shiners!" sneered his auditor.

"Tumbled me into the boat, sir, and then pulled like mad for the schooner. I know'd, d'ye mind, captain, or leastways I felt sartain we could show any think afloat our heels, and so away we scrambles aboard, and off we splits. But ye must see by this time, sir, the corvette had come down and rounded to on the weather beam of the drogher, acting like a screen for the schooner close under his lee. It wos only a minnit, though, while he was holding some jaw with those lubbers aboard the brig, before he filled away again, and wearing sharp round her bows, he diskivered us sartain. I don't think, as matters stood by this time, that our boat was a boat-hook's length from the schooner when I jist see a burst of red flashes from the man-o'-war's starboard ports, and heerd an officer roar out, 'Give him the whole three divisions of grape!' when I'm da--your parding agin, sir; I'm blest if ever I heerd sich a rain of cold iron in all my sea-goin' experience. Ay, sir, by G--gracious, sir, if about two bushels of them grape didn't riddle the barge like the nozzle to a watering-pot, and same time tore seven of our noble fellows all to rags--"

"You saved the boat, of course?" suggested his companion, in a kind voice, but with a frightful sneer.

"Why, captain, we unfortinately lost her; for ye see, arter tumbling me aboard the schooner, and arter bailing nigh as much blood as water--"

"Capital! excellent! best joke I ever heard," broke in Captain Brand, with a hollow laugh of much enjoyment.

"Arter bailin' as much blood as water, and finding the man-o'-war was heaving in stays to slam another broadside into us, we cut the boat adrift, and then got the sheets flat aft, the gaff-top-sails up, and away we drove with a crackin' breeze right up to wind'ard, like a swordfish. Lord love ye, sir! we walked away from the cruiser, a eatin' the wind out of him like a knife, and notwithstandin' he hove more nor forty round shot at us, he only knocked away the fore-top-mast and some other triflin' little damage about the hull, and"--he hesitated--"Lascar Joe's head."

"That counts off about half your crew, eh?" said Captain Brand, smiling in his peculiar manner. "Well, what next?"

"Why, sir, the next mornin' Belize Paul--as is part doctor, you know--said as how my leg was to come off below the knee, and arter givin' me a sip or two o' rum--"

"Bottle," interjected the captain, twisting the beak of his nose in a puff of smoke.

"--Rum, why, smash my brains, sir, if he didn't hack it off with a wood-saw!"

"Well, what next?"

"Then, sir, ye see, we run the schooner down Cape Cruz, where we kept werry snug and quiet till sich times as the old one-eyed Diego judged the coast clear to return to head-quarters."

"Well, what then?"

"That's all, Captain Brand!" concluded the narrator his garbled yarn, as he again had recourse to scratching the door-mat on his head, and cast a thirsty look at the brandy-flask.

"That's all, is it?" hissed the man with the iron jaws, in a tone of concentrated passion, as he sprang with a single bound from the settee, and clutched Master Gibbs with both hands around his hairy throat until his face turned livid purple and his eyes started from the sockets. "That's all, is it, you drunken beast? That's all you have to tell after idling away the summer, losing anchors and boats, and more than half my crew, and bringing a hornet's nest down about our ears! That's all, is it? And what would you say, now, if I should order the doctor to cut off your other leg close behind your ears, you beast?"

In the last stages of suffocation, the man was hurled on his back to the floor, and there lay, bleeding a torrent from his mouth and nose. His superior stood over him for a moment and put his hand in his trowsers pocket for a pistol, and then he glanced rapidly at the green rope squirming from the beams above; but, changing his purpose apparently, he strode back to the settee and shouted "Babette!"

Presently the door opened from the passage leading to the kitchen, and there appeared a large, powerfully-made negro-woman, with her arms akimbo, and a pair of bloodshot eyes gleaming from beneath a striped Madras turban wound round her head.

"Babette!" repeated the captain, resuming his seat and his habitual polite air and voice, "serve out a barrel of Bordeaux and a beaker of old Antigua rum to the 'Centipede's' crew to drink my health; and I say, my beauty! have a pig or two killed; tell the boatswain to haul the seine, and have a good supper for all hands to-night. And, Baba"--he went on as if he had just thought of something--"there's my friend Gibbs lying there--I believe he has fallen down in a fit--be very careful of him--a bed in the vault--a little biscuit and water--he may be feverish when he wakes up, you know. And, Babette, old girl, if you are in want of kindling wood, you may as well use that timber leg of our friend Gibbs! I don't think he'll want it again. There! _doucement_, Baba!"

The negress gave a deep grunt of assent, and, seizing the senseless body lying on the floor, she dragged it out of the room. Returning a few moments after, she wiped up the blood with a cloth dipped in hot water, and finally disappeared.