Part 6

“Oh, I will, sir. You shall find them there, sir.”

Captain Margaret paid the cost, nodded to the shopman, walked out with Olivia. Mrs. Inigo resigned her box and followed them. They went to several other shops, made more purchases, trifled away half an hour at a pastrycook’s, and then set slowly shorewards, talking little; but looking at the shops with interest. They would see no more shops for many days. At the mercer’s shop they paused a moment, for Captain Margaret had just decided to take several rolls of holland linen, in order that his hands might make summer shirts for themselves. He left Olivia at the door for a moment, with Mrs. Inigo, while he hurried within. His friend the shopman hurried up to him.

“Well, what is it?” said Margaret.

“The goods are gone on board, sir,” said the shopman.

“Yes? Well? What is it?”

“I beg pardon, sir. Don’t wish to offend, sir. But are you the gentleman, the gentleman, the, er, sea-captain. From Salcombe, sir?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Please, sir, I took the liberty. There was Mr. Russell, the magistrate, and a gentleman from the fort, sir. They came in about you just after you’d gone. They were going to inquire about, about the Salcombe matter, sir.”

“Yes. What did you tell them?”

“I said you’d gone to Penryn, sir, about some beer, sir, for your sailors.”

“That wasn’t strictly truthful, was it?”

“No, sir. I suppose not, sir. So they went off to Penryn, sir. And I told your boatmen to take the things aboard, and then wait for you at the docks.”

“Where are the docks?”

“Nearly a mile down the harbour, sir. Further on along the road here. I beg your pardon, sir, but the landing-stage has soldiers on it.”

“Thank you. Have they sent to seize the ship?”

“No, sir. Oh no indeed, sir. I think----”

“Why haven’t they? Did you hear?”

“I think I heard them say, sir, that they had only a warrant for--if I may say so, as they call it, for you, sir.”

“How far is it to Penryn? I suppose they’ll be back soon?”

“Yes, sir. They might be back at any moment.”

“Thanks. Well. Show me where the docks are. Away to the left here?”

“Yes, sir. You can’t miss them. If I might come with you, sir.”

“To the Spanish Main?”

“No, sir. I’m afraid I can’t. But to the docks, sir.”

“Can you leave this?”

“It’s my dinner-time, sir.”

“Come on, then. I shall be very much obliged to you. Isn’t this more exciting than selling woollen shirts?”

“Yes, sir. Indeed. But shirts are useful things, sir.”

“I deny that. They are pernicious things. They are always getting dirty, and then some poor wretch with an immortal soul must scrub them in hot water. They are always losing their buttons, and then other poor wretches have to make new ones and sew them on again. They are always wearing out, and then other poor wretches have to begin the silly game again by penning up a few sheep and cutting their wool away.”

By this time they were outside the door.

“Come, Olivia,” he said carelessly. “We must walk to the docks. You will be tired to death before you get there.”

“Oh no I shan’t,” she answered. “I love walking.”

“Give me that package,” he replied.

“Now,” he continued to the shopman, “walk as though we were seeing the sights. Oh. Here’s a butcher’s shop. Now my captain would never forgive me if I came aboard without a leg of mutton.”

He bought a leg of mutton, handed it to the shopman to carry, and sauntered on.

“You must have your jest, I see, sir,” said the shopman.

“Oh yes, if I swing for it,” replied the captain, quoting from a popular broadside, which had contained the biography of a pirate.

“Hadn’t we better walk a little faster, sir?” said the shopman. He had no desire to be caught; he was not used to excitements.

“Olivia,” said Captain Margaret, paying no attention to his new acquaintance, but continuing to saunter leisurely, “when we get on board I expect you’ll find your husband up and about.”

“Yes,” she answered. “I ought not to have left him for so long. I’ve hardly seen him for days.”

He had spoken so that the shopman might make no allusions to the Salcombe affair, casting out a reference to Stukeley’s crime. She had answered with some little, half-acknowledged wish to pique him.

“To-night,” said Margaret, “in the cabin, we’ll all hold a council of war to decide our doings on the Main.”

“Yes,” she answered. “And when we get there we shall remember the council. Things will look very different there.”

“Here. You’ve been talking to Cammock.”

“He’s so amusing,” she answered.

Sauntering in this way, talking nonsense and trifling, they arrived at the boat-builder’s creek which then did duty for a dock. Their boat lay off at a little distance; the hands were lying on their oars. Captain Margaret hailed her; she put in. He handed Olivia into the sternsheets. Mrs. Inigo, well used to boats from her childhood, stepped into the bows. The stroke oar arranged the parcels and placed the leg of mutton behind the backboard. Captain Margaret turned to the shopman, and walked a few steps with him out of ear-shot of the boat. He glanced up the anchorage to see if any armed boat was putting off.

“Don’t wait, sir,” said the shopman. “Lord, sir, think of the risk. Why don’t you go, sir? It’s frightfully dangerous, sir.”

“You exaggerate the risk,” he answered calmly. “Well, you’ve done me a good turn. Why did you do me a good turn?”

“Oh sir, I’m sure.”

“I shall often think of you,” said Captain Margaret. “Are you sure you won’t come with me?”

“Oh no, sir. I couldn’t really be persuaded, sir.”

“Well, think of us.”

“I shall think of you always, sir. You _are_ a real buccaneer, sir?”

“Oh yes. Real. In my ship yonder, there’s a man who knew Morgan.”

“I’ve never had anything happen to me, sir, before.”

“Does it make any difference, do you find?”

“Oh, sir.”

“Will you wear this charm of mine to remember me by?” He detached a small gold jewel, set with symbolical stones. “It is said to bring success in love. I don’t believe it.”

The man took the symbol as though it were an eggshell.

“Thank you, sir,” he said with fervour. “Thank you very much, sir.” Then he started violently. “Oh, sir,” he cried, remembering the risk, “do go, sir. It’s frightfully dangerous, sir.”

“Yes,” said Margaret, “I mustn’t keep the lady waiting. I hope you run no risk yourself; for warning me?”

“Oh no, sir. I just showed a customer to the docks.”

“And I’m very much obliged. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, sir. Oh, sir, I’m much honoured indeed, sir. I hope we shall meet again, sir.”

“Well, if we don’t, we shall think of each other, shan’t we?”

“Oh yes, sir.”

“And I shall be on the Main, and you’ll be here. Here on this spot.”

“Often, sir, I suppose I shall be.”

“Good-bye. There is your soldier friend, I think.”

He nodded carelessly towards the bend of the road; then made a half-bow to the shopman, and stepped into the boat.

“Shove off,” he said. “Back a stroke, port oars. Down starboard and shove her off.” As he placed the boat-rug over his knees, he heard the hoofs of horses trotting on the road. “Give way together,” he said coldly, as the boat swung round. He glanced over his shoulder at the shopman, half expecting to see the officers beside him. Then he turned to his boat’s crew. “Come. Shake her up. Shake her up,” he said. “Rally her out. Give way, now. Put your backs into it. Come on, now. Toss her up.”

The stroke quickened, the boat gathered way; she shot out into the harbour, spreading a ripple. She was a hundred yards out, keeping a fine steady stroke, when Captain Margaret turned again. He saw the figure of the shopman pointing towards him, while a man on horseback stood at his side looking towards the boat. Another horseman was galloping fast back to town, evidently to get a boat at the landing-stage.

“They aren’t very clever, these soldiers,” he thought; “but I’ve had a little luck to-day. Or was it luck? Who knows? It may not have been luck, after all. It may have been anything but that.”

He drew from the stern-locker a little flag nailed to a batten. He tied a knot in the flag.

“What are you doing that for?” said Olivia, as he waved the “weft” in the air.

“It’s a signal to Cammock,” he said, “to get his anchor up, and to make sail. He’ll pick us up on his way out. There goes his gun. He’s seen us.”

“Rather hurried, isn’t it?” said Olivia.

“It makes the hands smart,” he answered evasively. “I wonder if the fort will salute us as the man-of-war did.”

“I hope not,” said Olivia.

“They very likely will,” he answered. “Come. Toss her up, boys.”

“That was a funny little man from the shop,” said Olivia.

“Yes,” he said. “But he told me some interesting things. Very interesting.”

They talked no more after that till the _Broken Heart_, under a cloud of canvas, came reeling down to them, to back her mainyard within hail, and hoist them all aboard.

“Good-bye, old England,” said Olivia.

“Yes,” said Margaret. “And thank the Lord it is.”

IV. A CABIN COUNCIL

“Captain Chilver’s gone to sea. _Ay, boys, O, boys._ Captain Chilver’s gone to sea _In the brave_ ‘_Benjamin._’” _Captain Chilver._

The wind had gone down gradually all through the day. The morning’s rain had kept down the sea. When the _Broken Heart_ “took her departure” that evening, from the distant Lizard, Captain Cammock crossed his main royal, out of lightness of heart. He had a fair wind and clear weather. He was thankful to have escaped arrest at Falmouth. “He was within smell of Virginia,” he said; so now he would crack on and drive her, sending her lee-ports under. The three days of storm had been of use to him. They had shaken the hands into shape, and had bettered the ship’s trim. Now, he flattered himself, he knew what his ship would do, and what his men could do. He was ready for the Western Ocean. The guns were housed, their breeches down on the carriage-beds, their tompioned muzzles lashed to the upper port sills. The light brass quarter-deck guns were covered with tarpaulin. Life-lines were stretched fore and aft across the waist. Windsails were set. There were handy-billies hooked along the hammock nettings ready for use. Forward, on the fo’c’s’le-head, the hands had gathered to dry the clothes soaked in the storm. Some of the hands, lying to windward, against the forward guns, began to sing one of their sea ballads, a dreary old ballad with a chorus, about the bonny coasts of Barbary. Old Mr. Cottrill had the dogwatch. The other mate, Mr. Iles, a little “hard case” from the James River, was playing his fiddle on the booby-hatch, just abaft the main-bitts. He sang a plaintive ditty to the music; and though he did not sing well he had listeners who thought his singing beautiful. Several of the hands, as he knew very well, were skulking as far aft as they dared, to catch his linked sweetness as it fell from him. Cocking one leg over the other, he began another song with a happy ending, no particular meaning, and a certain blitheness:--

I put it up with a country word. Tradoodle.

“There,” he said. “There, steward. Gee. Hey? I can sing all right, all right. What’s that song youse was singing? You know. That one about the girl with the wig?”

“Oh, seh,” said the old negro, Mr. Iles’s chief listener. “Oh, seh. I can’t sing with music. I haven’t had the occasionals to do that, seh.”

“By gee, steward,” said Mr. Iles, turning to go below to his cabin in the ’tween-decks, “if you can’t sing to music, b’ gee I don’t think you can sing much.”

Mr. Cottrill turned to Captain Cammock.

“A smart young sailor, sir,” he said. “Mr. Iles keeps ’em going, sir.”

“Yes,” said Cammock. “He knows a lot for his age. A smart young man, Mr. Iles, as you say, mister. He fiddles pretty, too.”

“I don’t hold with fiddling in a man,” said Mr. Cottrill. “It’s not natural. But it keeps the mind employed, they say.”

“Yes,” said Cammock, “and so does making up tunes. Did you never make up tunes, when you was a boy, mister, walking the poop?”

“I come in like a head sea,” said Mr. Cottrill. “The only times I walked the poop was to relieve the helm, or to take in the mizen.”

“Well. And ain’t you glad?” said Cammock. “It’s the only way to learn.”

“It is that, sir,” said Cottrill. “I guess, sir,” he added, “if this wind holds, we’ll be out of sight of land by dawn.”

The boy reported eight bells.

“Make it,” said Cottrill.

The boy struck the bell eight times.

“You boy,” said Cammock, “when you walk the lee poop at night, you’ll not go clump, clump, the way you done last night. There’s a lady in the cabin. Let me see what boots you’re wearing. I thought so. They’re the kind of boots would wear a hole in a wall. Hold up them soles, and give us the end of the main-brace there. There, my son. I give you the end this time. You wear them boots after dark again, and you’ll get the bight, higher up.”

The watch was mustered and set. Captain Cammock went below, pleased to think that he had saved Olivia from the trouble of complaining about the boy.

He went direct to the great cabin; for he knew that there was to be a council of war. There was much to be discussed; there was much for him to tell them. He hoped very much that his sea-sick friend Tom Stukeley would be put in a watch. “And then,” he said to himself, “you shall toe the line.” In the cabin he found Perrin and Margaret playing some simple card-game with Olivia, for counters. Stukeley lay at half-length upon the window-seat, sipping brandy. He was evidently cured of his sickness; though very weak from it.

He looked up as Cammock entered, took a good pull at his drink, and called to Margaret.

“You were going to have some sort of parish meeting here. Here’s the beadle. Suppose you begin, and get it over.”

He took another pull at the brandy. “Take a seat, beadle,” he said insolently.

Perrin and Margaret bit their lips, and slowly, almost fearfully, lifted their eyes to Cammock’s face. The old pirate had turned purple beneath his copper; but Olivia’s presence bridled him. He looked at Stukeley for a moment, then spun round on one heel, in the way he had learned in some ship’s forecastle, and walked out of the cabin.

“I must get my charts,” he said thickly.

“Stukeley,” said Margaret lightly, “Captain Cammock is the captain of this ship.”

“Yes,” said Stukeley. “And I wish he knew his place as well as I know it.”

“I must ask you to remember that he commands here.”

“Of course,” said Olivia, rather nettled.

“I hope, Stukeley,” said Perrin, “I hope you won’t quarrel with him. We’re going a long voyage together.”

“Lord,” said Stukeley. “What a stew you two make. You might be two old women.”

“Tom dear,” said Olivia, “is that open window too much for you?”

In the diversion caused by the shutting of the window, Captain Cammock took his seat, laying a book of charts on the table before him. “Now, Captain Margaret, sir. Will you begin? I don’t rightly know what it is you want discussed.”

“Very well,” said Margaret. “I’ll begin.”

He leaned back in his chair, and looked first at Olivia, then at Stukeley, then at Cammock, who, he thought, looked very splendid, with his long black hair falling over his shoulders, and his grim beauty, like a bronze, thrusting from his scarlet scarf.

“I don’t think you know,” he said, “at any rate, not perfectly, what it is I intend doing. This ship is mine, as I think you all know. But her cargo--it’s a general cargo, worth a good deal of money where we are going to--is the property of several London merchants, who expect me to make a profit for them. I want you to get it out of your heads that I’m doing this for love, either of adventure, or of my fellow-men. I believe I shall get adventure, and help my fellow-men. But the venture is, primarily, a business venture. If the business part fails, the whole thing will come to nothing. As you know, a part of the cargo is consigned to Virginia, and we go to Virginia direct. But we shall only stay there long enough to buy up the pick of the tobacco crop with our goods, and take in fresh water. Our real destination is the Isthmus of Darien.”

“What part of the Isthmus, sir?” said Cammock.

“You’ll have to tell us that. Fill Captain Cammock’s glass, Perrin.”

“Thank you, Mr. Perrin,” said Cammock. He bowed to Olivia and drank. “Go on, sir.”

“You see,” continued Margaret. “Well I must apologize, captain. It was part of my arrangement with Captain Cammock that he should not be told about our destination, nor about our plans, till we had left England. I need hardly say, captain, that that was not, well, not my desire. The merchants who consigned the cargo insisted on it. To tell the truth, it was only on the pledge of secrecy that the Board of Trade and Plantations gave me my commission.”

“Then you’ve got a commission, sir?” said Cammock.

“Yes. A limited one. But still. Had our plans been bruited abroad, we should have had a lot of opposition.”

“Who’d have taken the sweat to lift a finger to stop you?” said Stukeley.

“The West Indian merchants,” replied Margaret. “And the Chartered Brazil Wood Company, and the Spanish ambassador, among others, would have given us a lot of opposition. In fact, had the Spaniards known of it, we might have spared ourselves the trouble of sailing.”

“Hear, hear, sir,” said Cammock quietly.

“Our friend the beadle knows his job,” said Stukeley.

“Fill Captain Cammock’s glass, Edward.”

“Fill mine, too, please, waiter,” said Stukeley.

“To continue,” said Margaret. “Had the Spaniards known, we should have found the place of our intended settlement in the hands of Spanish troops.”

“Settlement?” said Stukeley.

“Yes. A settlement. To be short, my plan is to land on the Isthmus, found an English colony, and open up a trade, a real trade, mind you, with the Indians of Darien. Now that is the rough outline of the scheme. Now, Captain Cammock. Now comes your part. I’m going to cross-examine you. You know the Isthmus thoroughly. Have you landed on the Main? I know you have, of course. But we must begin at the beginning.”

“I been there a many times, right along. Mostly looking for food,” said Cammock.

“Did you ever meet the Indians?”

“I’ve been up agin all kinds of Indians.”

“Are there many kinds?”

“There’s three kinds.”

“Three? What are the three?”

“I don’t mind telling you, sir. There’s one kind comes and says, ‘O Sieur,’ and brings you these great bananas and spears fish for you. There’s some sense in them ones. Give ’em a handful of beads and they’ll fill you a pannikin of gold dust. They’re getting spoiled, of course, like everything else. But where they ain’t been got at they’re good still. That’s one kind.”

“And the others?”

“There’s another kind no one seen. They say they’re white, this second kind. They live in the woods; in stone houses, too, for the matter of that. And they wear gold masks. No one ever seen ’em, mind you. But you lay out in the woods near ’em, and the first night you’ll hear like singing all round you.”

“Singing?”

“Like little birds. I never like singing like what that is. You only get it the first night.”

“Oh. That’s very curious. What happens then?”

“The second night, if you lay out in the woods, you get your ’ed cut off. You find your corp in the morning, that’s what you find.”

“Why do they cut your head off?” said Perrin.

“Their idea of fun, I s’pose,” said Cammock, with a grin. “Come to that, a corp is a funny thing with no ’ed. They take the ’eds and pickle them after: I’ve seen ’em.”

“What do they do with the heads?” asked Perrin, “when they’ve pickled them?”

“They wear ’em round their necks, for ornament,” said Cammock. “If one of them ducks gets a reglar necklace, like a dozen ’eds, he thinks he’s old Sir Henry.”

“Sir Henry?”

“Like a Admiral,” explained the buccaneer.

“Ah. And what’s the third kind?”

“I don’t mind telling you. I was cruising one time. I was with an English crew, too. And four of our men went ashore there, near Cape Codera. They didn’t come back, so we went to look for them. We found ashes, where a fire’d been. And we found hands, lying in the ashes.”

“Hands?” said Perrin.

“With fingers on them, some of them,” said the pirate calmly. “Some of them was ate all off. And there was a skull lying. And bits of one man tied to a tree. I’ve never liked Indians from that day, not what you might call love them.”

“So that’s the third kind,” said Captain Margaret. “I take it that these two last kinds don’t suffer much from the Spaniards?”

“Not unless sometimes they get a tough one,” said the pirate, “they don’t.”

“And the other kind, the first kind?”

“They’re melancholy ducks. No use at all,” said Cammock. “Of course they suffer. It’s a wonder to me they don’t get it worse. They’d ought to. If it rained soup they’d be going out with forks. They ain’t got the sense we have, or something. ‘O Sieur,’ they say. The French taught ’em that. ‘O Sieur.’ ‘Come and kick us,’ that’s what it really amounts to.” He looked at Olivia, half fearing that she would be shocked.

“Could they do anything, under a capable man, do you think?” said Perrin.

“We’d one with us in the _Trinity_,” said Cammock. “William his name was. Yes, William, after my poor brother. Captain Sharp was capable, all right, in his limits; William was capable too, I guess; I don’t remember him gettin’ it. Yes. I think they’d do. Ah, but they ain’t got the sense. No, I don’t know as they’d ever do very much.”

“Was your brother with you in town?” asked Captain Margaret. “Why isn’t he here with you?”

“Who? Bill? No, sir. He died. Off of La Serena. Rum did _him_. He’d no sense to drink rum the way he drank it. I was sorry to lose Bill. I’d my fair share of trouble that passage.”

“Have some more drink, your glass is empty,” said Perrin.

“It’s thirsty work talking, as the parson said,” answered the pirate, holding out his glass. He looked at Perrin not unfavourably. Perrin mixed him another punch, and brought out a clean clay pipe from a little locker to the left of the fireplace.

“You’re a thoughtful young fellow to me,” said Captain Cammock, regarding him with favour. His thought was, “You’d make a steward, perhaps, boiled down a bit”; but this he kept to himself. “Was you ever at sea before, sir?” he asked politely.

“Only across the Channel,” said Perrin.

“Well, it’s a hard life,” said the pirate. “Salue. Salue.” He jerked his head towards his hosts, and gulped the liquor. “It’s a hard life. Ah. You don’t know how hard it is, sitting here by the fire.” He looked moodily into the little bogey stove, which had been lighted to air the cabin.

“What made you take to it, Captain Cammock?” said Perrin.

“Just a girl,” said the captain. “I thought I’d make money that way, so’s we could marry.”

“Are you married, might I ask?” said Captain Margaret.

“No,” he answered surlily. “No. A single man.”

He seemed upset by the question, for he became moody. He glared at the fire, and drummed with one foot against the leg of his chair.

“Tell me,” said Captain Margaret. “You don’t think that I could do much among the Indians, do you?”

“You mean, if you settled there?”

“Yes, if I landed, built a fort, and opened a trading station. And got the Indian chiefs to bring in gold, and cocoa, or whatever else there is.”

“You could only do that in among the Samballoes.”

“The islands along the Isthmus?”

“Yes. That’s your only place.”

“Would it be possible?”

“I dunno as it would. No, I reckon it wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“You couldn’t. The Dagoes are too strong. They’d send from Porto Bello, or they’d send overland perhaps, from Panama. They’d get yer. Then you’d have ginger, working on the forts in Portobel. Lots of ’em end that way on the Main. Yes, sir, the Main’s a queer place.”

“Queer?”

“We lost a boat’s crew once, east there, by Tolu or that. A handsome fellow her bow oar was. Bigger’n you he was. Handsome Jim Sanders, that was him. _He_ worked on the forts in Portobel. We rescued him a year later, quite by accident. There was red cuts all over him; and all he could do was sing.”

“Sing?”