CHAPTER XXII

THREE STRANDS OF A YARN

As in a council of war, the youngest spoke first. “Mates!” said he, “here be three of us, all run for the same port, and never a one sported bunting. I ain’t a chap, I ain’t, as must be brought to afore he’ll show his number. When I drinks with a man I likes to fit his name on him ship-shape, so here’s my sarvice to you messmates both! They calls me Slap-Jack. That’s about what they calls _me_ both ashore and afloat.”

It was absolutely necessary after such an exordium that more liquor should be brought in, and a generous contention immediately arose between the three occupants of the tap-room as to who should pay for it; at once producing increased familiarity, besides a display of liberality on the part of the eldest and first comer, who was indeed the only one possessing ready money. Butter-faced Bob being summoned, the jugs were replenished and Slap-Jack continued his remarks.

“I’ve been cruising about ashore,” said he, between the whiffs of his pipe, “and very bad weather I made on it standing out over them Downs, as they calls ’em, in these here latitudes. Downs, says I, the Downs is mostly smooth water and safe anchorage; but these here Ups and Downs is a long leg and a short one, a head wind and an ebb tide all the voyage through. I made my port, though, d’ye mind me, my sons, at last, and—and—well, we’ve all had our sweethearts in our day, so we’ll drink her health by your leave. Here’s to Alice, mates! and next round it shall be _your_ call, and thank ye hearty.”

So gallant a toast could not but be graciously accepted. The second comer, however, shook his head while he did it justice, and drank, so to speak, under protest, thereby in no measure abating the narrator’s enthusiasm.

“She’s a trim-built craft is my Alice,” continued the other reflectively. “On a wind or off a wind, going large or close hauled, moored in dock or standing out in blue water, there’s not many of ’em can show alongside of she. And she’s weatherly besides, uncommon weatherly she is. When I bids her good-bye at last, and gives her a bit of a squeeze, just for a reminder like, she wipes her eyes, and she smiles up in my face, and, ‘God bless you, Jack!’ says she; ‘you won’t forget me,’ says she; ‘an’ you’ll think of me sometimes, when it’s your watch on deck; and as for me, Jack, I’ll think of you every hour of the day and night till you comes back again; it won’t be so very long first.’ She’s heart of oak, is that lass, mates, and I wouldn’t be here now but that I’m about high and dry, and that made me feel a bit lubberly, d’ye see, till I got under weigh for the homeward trip; an’ you’ll never guess what it was as raised my spirits, beating to windward across them Downs, with a dry mouth and my heart shrunk up to the size of a pea.”

“A stiff glass of grog nor’-nor’-west?” suggested the oldest sailor, with a grunt. “Another craft on the same lines, with new sails bent and a lick of fresh paint on,” snarled the second, whose opinion of the fair sex, derived chiefly from seaport towns, was none of the highest.

“Neither one nor t’other,” replied Slap-Jack, triumphantly. “Scalding punch wouldn’t have warmed my heart up just then, and I wasn’t a-goin’ to clear out from Alice like that, and give chase to a fresh sail just because she cut a feather across my fore-foot. It was neither more nor less than a chap swinging in chains; a chap as had been swinging to all appearance so long he must have got used to it, though I doubt he was very wet up there in nothing but his bones. He might have been a good-looking blade enough when he began, but I can’t say much for his figure-head when I passed under it for luck. It wanted painting, mates, let alone varnish, and he grinned awful in the teeth of the wind. So I strikes my topmast as I forges ahead, and I makes him a low bow, and, says I, ‘Thank ye kindly, mate,’ says I, ‘for putting it in my mind,’ says I; ‘you’ve been “on the account,” in all likelihood, and that’s where I’ll go myself next trip, see if I won’t;’ and I ask your pardon, by sons, for you’re both older men than me by a good spell, if that isn’t the trade for a lad as looks to a short voyage and good wages, every man for himself, grab what you see, an’ keep all you can?”

Thus appealed to, the elder seaman felt bound to give an opinion; so he cleared his throat and asked huskily—

“Have you _tried_ it, mate? You seems like a lad as has dipped both hands in the tar-bucket, though you be but young and sarcy. Look ye, now, you hoisted signals first, an’ I ain’t a-going to show a false ensign, I ain’t. You may call me Bottle-Jack; you won’t be the first by a many, and I ain’t ashamed o’ my name.”

The next in seniority then removed the pipe from his lips, and smiting the table with a heavy fist, observed, sententiously—

“And me, Smoke-Jack, young man. It’s a rum name, ain’t it, for as smart a foretopman as ever lay out upon a yard? but I’ve yarned it, that’s what I sticks to. I’ve yarned it. Here’s your health, lad; I wish ye well.”

The three having thus gone through all the forms necessary to induce a long and staunch friendship amongst men of their class, Slap-Jack made a clean breast of it, as if he had known his companions for years.

“I _have_ tried it, mates,” said he; “and a queer game it is; but I don’t care how soon I try it again. I suppose I must have been born a landsman somehow, d’ye see? though I can’t make much of that when I come to think it over. It don’t seem nat’ral like, but I suppose it was so. Well, I remember as I runned away from a old bloke wot wanted to make me a sawbones—a sawbones! and I took and shipped myself, like a young bear, aboard of the ‘Sea Swallow,’ cabin-boy to Captain Delaval. None o’ your merchantmen was the ‘Sea Swallow,’ nor yet a man-o’-war, though she carried a royal ensign at the gaff, and six brass carronades on the main-deck. She was a waspish craft as ever you’d wish to see, an’ dipped her nose in it as though she loved the taste of blue water, the jade!—wet, but weatherly, an’ such a picture as you never set eyes on, close-hauled within five points of the wind. First they gammoned me as she was a slaver, and then a sugar-merchant’s pleasure-boat, and sometimes they said she was a privateer, with letters of marque from the king; but I didn’t want to know much about that; King George or King Louis, it made no odds, bless ye; I warn’t a goin’ to turn sawbones, an’ Captain Delaval was _my_ master, that was enough for me! Such a master he was, too! No seaman—not he. His hands were as white as a lady’s, an’ I doubt if he knew truck from taffrail; but with old Blowhard, the master, to sail her, and do what the skipper called swabbing and dirty work, there wasn’t a king’s officer as ever I’ve heard of could touch him. Such a man to fight his ship was Captain Delaval. I’ve seen him run her in under a Spanish battery, with a table set on deck and a awning spread, and him sitting with a glass of wine in his hand, and give his orders as cool and comfortable as you and me is now. ‘Easy, Blowhard!’ he’d sing out, when old ‘Blow’ was sweating, and cursing, and stamping about to get the duty done. ‘Don’t ye speak so sharp to the men,’ says he; ‘spoils their ear for music,’ says he. ‘We’ll be out o’ this again afore the breeze falls, and we’ll turn the fiddles up and have a dance in the cool of the evening.’ Then he’d smile at me, and say, ‘Slap-Jack, you little blackguard, run below for another pineapple; not so rotten-ripe as the last;’ and by the time I was on deck again, he’d be wiping his sword carefully, and drawing on his gloves—that man couldn’t so much as whistle a hornpipe without his gloves; and let who would be _second_ on board the prize, be she bark, schooner, brig, galleon, or square-rigged ship, Captain Delaval he would be _first_. Look ye here, mates: I made two voyages with Captain Delaval, and when I stepped on the quay at Bristol off the second—there! I was worth a hundred doubloons, all in gold, besides as much silk as would have lined the foresail, and a pair of diamond earrings that I lost the first night I slept ashore. I thought, then, as perhaps I wasn’t to see my dandy skipper again, but I was wrong. I’ve never been in London town but once, an’ I don’t care if I never goes no more. First man I runs against in Thames Street is Captain Delaval, ridin’ in a cart with his hands tied; and old Blowhard beside him, smelling at a nosegay as big as the binnacle. I don’t think as old ‘Blow’ knowed me again, not in long togs; but the skipper he smiles, and shows his beautiful white teeth as he was never tired of swabbing and holystoning, and ‘There’s Slap-Jack!’ says he; ‘Good-bye, Slap-Jack; I’ll be first man over the gunwale in this here scrimmage, too,’ says he, ‘for they’ll hang me first, and then Blowhard, when he’s done with his nosegay.’ I wish I could find such another skipper now; what say ye, mates?”

Smoke-Jack, who was sitting next him, did not immediately reply. He was obviously of a logical and argumentative turn of mind, with a cavilling disposition, somewhat inclined to speculative philosophy; such a character, in short, as naval officers protest against under the title of a lawyer. He turned the matter over deliberately ere he replied, with a voluminous puff of smoke between each sentence—

“Some likes a barky, and some wouldn’t touch a rope in any craft but a schooner; and there’s others, again, swears a king’s cutter will show her heels to the liveliest of ’em, with a stiffish breeze and a bobble of sea on. I ain’t a-goin’ to dispute it. Square-rigged, or fore-and-aft, if so be she’s well-found and answers her helm, I ain’t a-goin’ to say but what she’ll make good weather of it the whole voyage through. Men thinks different, young chap; that’s where it is. Now you asks me _my_ opinion, and I’ll give it you, free. I’m a old man-of-war’s man, I am. I’ve eat the king’s biscuit and drank the king’s allowance ever since I were able to eat and drink at all. Now I’ll tell you, young man, a-cause you’ve asked me, free. The king’s sarvice is a good sarvice; I ain’t a-goin’ to say as it isn’t, but for two things: there’s too much of one, and too little of the other. The fuss is the work, and the second is the pay. If they’d halve the duty, and double the allowance, and send all the officers before the mast, I ain’t goin’ to dispute but the king’s sarvice would be more to my fancy than I’ve ever found it yet. You see the difference atwixt one of our lads when he gits ashore and the Dutch! I won’t say as the Dutchman is the better seaman, far from it; though as long as he’s got a plank as’ll catch a nail, an’ a rag as’ll hold a breeze, he’ll weather it _somehow_; nor I won’t say but what Mynheer is as ugly a customer as a king’s ship can get alongside of, yard-arm to yard-arm, and let the best man win! But you see him ashore! Spree, young man? Why, a Dutchman _never_ has his spree out! You take and hail a man before the mast, able seaman or what not, when he’s paid off of a cruise—and mind ye, he doesn’t engage for a long spell, doesn’t Mynheer—and he’ll tow you into dry dock, and set you down to your grub, and blow you out with _schnaps_ as if he was a admiral. Such a berth as he keeps ashore! Pots and pans as bright as the Eddystone; deck scoured and holystoned, till you’d like to eat your rations off of it. Why, Black Sam, him as was boatswain’s mate on board of the ‘Mary Rose,’ sitting with me in the tap of the Golden Lion, at Amsterdam, he gets uneasy, and he looks here and there an’ everywhere, first at the white floor, then at the bright stove, turning his quid about and about, till at last he ups and spits right in the landlord’s face. There _was_ a breeze then! I’m not a-goin’ to deny it, but Sam he asks pardon quite gentle and humble-like, ‘for what could I do?’ says he; ‘it was the only dirty place I could find in the house,’ says he. Young chap, I’m not a-goin’ to say as you should take and ship yourself on board a Dutchman; ’cause why—maybe if he struck his colours and you was found atween decks, you’d swing at the yard-arm, but if you be thinking of the king’s sarvice, and you asks my advice, says I, think about it a little longer, says I. Young chap, I gives you _my_ opinion, free. What say you, messmate? Bear a hand and lower away, for I’ve been payin’ of it out till my mouth’s dry.”

Bottle-Jack, who did not give his mouth a chance of becoming dry, took a long pull at the beer before he answered; but as his style was somewhat involved, and obscured besides by the free use of professional metaphors, applied in a sense none but himself could thoroughly appreciate, I will not venture to detail in his own words the copious and illustrative exposition on which he embarked.

It was obvious, however, that Bottle-Jack’s inclinations were adverse to the regular service, and although he would have scouted such a notion, and probably made himself extremely disagreeable to the man who broached it, there was no question the old sailor had been a pirate, and deserved hanging as richly as any ghastly skeleton now bleaching in its chains and waving to the gusts of a sou’-wester on the exposed sky-line of the Downs. By his own account he had sailed with the notorious Captain Kidd, in the ‘Adventure’ galley, originally fitted out by merchants and traders of London as a scourge for those sea-robbers who infested the Indian Ocean, and whose enormities made honest men shudder at their bare recital. The ‘Adventure,’ manned by some of the most audacious spirits to be procured from the banks of the Thames and the Hudson, seemed, like her stout commander, especially qualified for such a purpose. She carried heavy guns, was well found in every respect, and possessed the reputation of a fast sailer and capital sea boat. Kidd himself was an experienced officer, and had served with distinction. He was intimately acquainted with the eastern seas, and seemed in all respects adapted for an expedition in which coolness, daring, and unswerving honesty of purpose were indispensable qualifications.

Accordingly, Captain Kidd sailed for the Indian coast, and Bottle-Jack, by his own account, was boatswain’s mate on board the ‘Adventure.’

There is an old proverb, recommending the selection of a “thief to catch a thief,” which in this instance received a new and singular interpretation. Kidd was probably a thief, or at least a pirate, at heart. No sooner had he reached his destination off the coast of Malabar, than he threw off his sheep’s clothing, and appeared at once the master-wolf in the predatory pack he was sent to destroy. Probably the temptation proved too much for him. With his seamanship, his weight of metal, and his crew, he could outsail, out-manœuvre, and outfight friends and foes alike. It soon occurred to him that the former were easy and lucrative prizes, the latter, bad to capture, and often not worth the trouble when subdued. It was quicker work to gain possession at first hand of silk and spices, cinnamon and sandal-wood, gold, silver, rum, coffee, and tobacco, than to wait till the plunder had been actually seized by another, and then, after fighting hard to retake it, obtain but a jackal’s share from the Home Government. In a short space of time there was but one pirate dreaded from the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Malacca, and his name was Kidd.

From Surat down to the mouth of the Tap-tee, Captain Kidd ruled like a petty sovereign; Bottle-Jack, if he was to be believed, like a grand vizier. Not only did they take tax and toll from every craft that swam, but they robbed, murdered, and lorded it as unmercifully on dry land. Native merchants, even men of rank and position, were put to torture, for purposes of extortion, by day; peasants burned alive in their huts to illuminate a seaman’s frolic by night. Her crew behaved like devils broke loose ashore, and the ‘Adventure,’ notwithstanding a certain discipline exacted by her commander, was, doubtless, a hell afloat. Money, however, came in rapidly. Kidd, with all his crimes, possessed the elements of success in method, organisation, and power of command. His sailors forgot the horrors they had inflicted and their own degradation when they counted the pile of doubloons that constituted their share of plunder. Amongst the swarm of rovers who then swept the seas, Captain Kidd was considered the most successful, and even in a certain sense, notwithstanding his enormities, the most _respectable_ of all.

Bottle-Jack did not appear to think the relation of his adventures in any way derogatory to his own credit. He concluded with the following peroration, establishing his position in the confident tone of a man who is himself convinced of its justice:—

“Wot I says, is this here. The sea was made for them as sails upon it, and you ain’t a-goin’ to tell me as it can be portioned out into gardens an’ orchards, and tobacco plantations, like the dirt we calls land. Werry well, if the sea be free, them as sails upon it can make free with wot it offers them. If in case now, as I’m look-out man, we’ll say, in the maintop, and I makes a galleon of her, for instance, deep in the water under easy sail, you’re not to tell me as because she shows Spanish colours I’m not to take what I want out of her. Stow that, mates, for it’s clean nonsense! The way old Kidd acted was this here—First, he got her weather-gage; then he brought her to with a gun, civil and reasonable; arter that, whether she showed fight, or whether she showed friendly, he boarded her, and when he’d taken all he wanted, captain, crew, and passengers just walked the plank, easy and quiet, and no words about it.”

“And the craft?” asked Slap-Jack, breathless with interest in the old pirate’s reminiscences.

“Scuttled her!” answered the other, conclusively. “Talking’s dry work. Let’s have some more beer.”