Chapter 29

'Twas not very long before Uncle Moses was back, bringing welcome blankets, in which I rolled myself while my clothes were drying at a fire Joe kindled in the wood. The old negro said that we could not expect any reinforcements before daybreak, the people being quite unwilling to march during the night so far from their homes. He had brought back with him, however, Noah and Jacob on horseback, and indeed I suspected that without them even Uncle Moses himself would not have conquered his dread of the bugaboos and faced the night journey a second time.

Some three hours after daybreak the dusky recruits came dropping in with weapons of all sorts--firelocks, knives, bludgeons--and with food, of which I for one was mighty glad, being sharp set after my swimming and a cold night. The negroes made a great clamour as their numbers increased--there were soon pretty nearly a hundred of them, all the able-bodied men on the estate and a fair sprinkling of women, too. 'Twas hopeless, the noise being so great, to expect that Vetch would not get a shrewd notion of the size of our force, and I saw no reason for attempting to conceal it; indeed, I nourished a secret hope that, being a coward at heart, he would be daunted at sight of us, and yield up Mistress Lucy on terms. But this hope soon took wing.

The tide had now left the brig high and dry on the sand. She had heeled over, but not enough to make it possible for her crew to use their brass guns against the negroes who crowded the top of the cliff. They made some attempt to train the guns, but desisted when they saw that the utmost elevation would reach no higher than halfway up. But the cliff top was well within range of their muskets, as one unfortunate negro, approaching the edge too closely found to his cost. A shot struck him on the leg, and he ran howling back, causing his companions to scuttle like rabbits into the woodland.

We had discussed during the night what course we should follow in the morning, but without arriving at any conclusion. I hoped that we should find ourselves in a state to make an organized assault on the brig and carry it by main force; but this idea was speedily dashed when I came to take stock of our forces and armament. We had but eight muskets among us; I counted more than twenty buccaneers on the sloping deck of the brig. Though we so greatly outnumbered them I saw that a direct assault could not succeed. From the vantage of the deck they would have us at their mercy; and though fifty disciplined men, even unarmed, might perhaps swarm up and overcome them by sheer weight of numbers, I believed that the negroes would have no stomach for so desperate an undertaking.

And my former gloom and trouble of mind descended upon me, when I saw the tide begin to creep up again. Unless we could do something before the flood the buccaneers would without doubt get the vessel off, for she had not sufficient way on when she struck to run her deep into the sand, and they had only to jettison a part of her cargo to float her.

I walked apart with Cludde and Punchard, all three of us at our wit's end. With only eight muskets we could not fire fast enough to keep the deck clear of men, and our store of ammunition was scanty; further, I doubted whether the negroes were sufficiently practised with firearms to make good marksmen. It seemed that we should ere long see the buccaneer vessel slipping out of our reach.

'Twas a chance act of Joe Punchard that drew me out of my heaviness, and set my wits a-jump. We were walking along the cliffs, and came to that gap I have before mentioned, where Cludde and I had nearly broke our necks the night before.

"'T'ud ha' saved a deal o' trouble if that there barrel had rolled a bit further," says Joe, and he picks up a stone and shies it out to sea, for the mere easement of his temper. My eyes followed the flight of the stone idly, but when it flopped into the water a notion came to me which I was quick to impart.

"By Jupiter, Cludde," I cried, "we'll bombard 'em!"

He stared at me as though he feared my wits were astray, but when I pointed to the innumerable stones strewing the cliff side, from boulders of great size to nuggets no bigger than an apple, and showed how easy 'twould be for our negroes to cast them on to the very deck of the brig, his face changed, and I saw a light in his eyes that reminded me of the time when he was one of the ringleaders in the prankish tricks of the Shrewsbury Mohocks. Then all at once he fell sober again.

"But what's the good," he said. "We can clear the deck, 'tis true; but be never a whit the nearer to capturing the vessel."

"I don't know that," said I. "If we clear the deck they go down below; if they go down below they will not be able to keep so good a lookout upon us; and while the niggers are stoning the deck we may get a chance to creep up and be among 'em before they know it."

"But they would see us from the portholes," he persisted.

"True, if we are fools enough to approach 'em broadside," I said. "The bow is pointing shorewards; if we make for a point exactly opposite and go in single file in a line with the vessel's keel, they will not see us unless they put their heads clean out of the portholes and look down and aslant, and they will not do that with the chance of getting a broken skull."

"Smite my timbers," cries Joe, "'tis a pretty ploy, and would tickle my captain mightily. We'll do it, sir, and all I wish is that the niggers can aim straight."

We lost no time in putting things in trim for the venture, and indeed 'twould not be long before the tide washed the brig and rendered the attack I proposed impossible. Gathering the negroes, we set them to collect stones of a fair size (but not too big, for I did not wish to break holes in the deck with jeopardy to Mistress Lucy), and pile them up so as to be handy. And since I have ever believed that folk, whether black or white, work more willingly if they see the aim and purpose of their toil, I told them as they set about the task what our intent was. It pleased them, and they worked with a will, being indeed childishly eager to begin the bombardment before the time was ripe.

When a sufficiency of missiles had been collected, I ranged the negroes along the cliff so that, while they could see the brig, they could scarcely be seen from it. They were stupid enough to be sure; from what I saw of negroes then and since I cannot but think they are no better than children in intelligence; and in their eagerness to begin this merry sport, as they regarded it, they went a deal too near the edge of the cliff and exposed too large a portion of their bodies.

There was nothing for it but to place them in position ourselves, which I did, Cludde and Joe assisting (the latter with some roughness of handling and of speech), and we marked out a line for them beyond which we forbade them to advance. Then, all being ready I gave the word. Instantly some three score stones, none less than a pound in weight, hurtled down, many of them falling on to the sand, a dozen, maybe, finding the deck, and two or three striking the buccaneers.

There was a roar from below, which the negroes answered with a wild whoop, and then a dozen muskets flashed, and the slugs whistled over our heads or embedded themselves in the cliff. Another shower of stones fell, a greater proportion this time hitting the mark, which filled the simple negroes with such joy that they pressed forward in full view from the ship, many of them exposing the whole upper half of their bodies.

What ensued taught them a lesson. A second fusillade burst from the vessel; two of the negroes fell with howls of pain; the rest scurried back in dismay, and some few took to their heels and fled squealing into the woods. I called them back and rated them soundly for disobeying orders, and then we placed them again in a secure position and the bombardment recommenced.

I reckoned that within a minute or two five hundred stones had been hurled from the cliff, and though many more fell upon the sand than upon the deck I saw that the effect was answering my hopes. Some of the crew retreated to the lee side of the masts; others crouched under the guns, whence they fired their muskets, slowly and with difficulty, doing us no harm; others again took refuge by the break of the poop, and in the round house and the forecastle.

One man with great boldness tried to climb the rigging to the cross-trees, no doubt with intent to get a better aim. But he instantly became the target for a perfect hurricane of stones, and he dropped to the deck and crawled painfully away. In a few minutes not a man was to be seen.

Bidding the negroes continue to throw, but not so rapidly, I lay down on the cliff top and took a good look at the vessel. So far as I could discover, no one was so posted as to be able to see below the level of the deck and I deemed that the time had come to attempt the second and more hazardous part of my plan. Leaving Uncle Moses to superintend the activities of the main body of negroes, I crept down the gap with Cludde, Punchard and a score of the men who possessed arms of a sort, and came (not without some perilous stumbles) to the sea line, immediately opposite to the bow of the brig. Then those of us who had muskets lit our matches, and I set forward across the sand, bending almost double, and making straight for the figurehead, the others close behind me in single file. Stones were still falling from the cliff, and I was in fear, as we approached the vessel, lest some of the negroes should be hit and betray us with a cry. But we arrived beneath the bow without this mishap and undiscovered, and crept round to the larboard side, where we were sheltered by the intervening hull.

We made for the cable to which the kedge anchor was attached, and I began to swarm up, any sound that I may have made being smothered by the clatter of stones on the planks of the deck. I gained the poop without being seen, but immediately afterwards I heard a yell from the roundhouse, and the men who had sheltered there began to pour out.

But having seen the uselessness of their fusillade against the cliff they had allowed their matches to go out, so that I was for the moment safe from musket shot. When I fired and brought down the first man, the rest hesitated, and seeing my companions clambering up behind me they scuttled back into the roundhouse again. The instant Joe Punchard reached the deck he swung round one of the brass guns to command the roundhouse. It was already loaded, as the buccaneers knew, and Joe cried out that he would send them all to Davy Jones if they showed their noses outside the door.

The shower of stones had now ceased, and the men who had gone below were swarming up to meet this unlooked-for boarding party. Cludde and I, with our negroes, were upon them before they had time to collect their wits. And then ensued as pretty a bit of close fighting as ever I was engaged in. We laid about us right lustily with our clubbed muskets, and I will say for the black men that they were not a whit less doughty than the white. Our first success had, I suppose, given them confidence; and Noah, with his firm belief in the virtue of the talisman slung about his neck, threw himself into the very forefront of the struggle, dodging the cutlasses of the buccaneers with great agility, and slipping in under their guard with shrewd thrusts of his knife.

They still outnumbered us, I think (for you may be sure I was too busy to count them); but they were disheartened, no doubt, as any men would be, at this rude and sudden onslaught on their security, and with their comrades cooped up under the menace of the guns they fought without the confidence that goes so far to win victory. Moreover, they lacked leadership. The master of the brig, as I afterwards discovered, was in the roundhouse, and Vetch (in this equal to himself) was not to be seen, having ever a tender regard for the safety of his skin. And so, after some few minutes of it, the buccaneers turned tail and fled for their lives into the forecastle, where they barricaded themselves.

Leaving Cludde to keep an eye on them, I rushed down the companion to find Vetch and to assure Mistress Lucy that her troubles were at an end. And there was Vetch, trying to batter down the door of the cabin in which she had locked herself. His design, I guessed, was to seize her and use her to extort terms from us. He had the advantage of me in that I was coming from the full daylight into the dimness of below decks, and before I had reached the ladder foot he fired his pistol at me, the bullet striking my thigh. I fell to the floor; he sprang over my body and up the steps; I cried out to Cludde to seize him, and to Mistress Lucy that the fight was over, and then all things became a blank to me.

When I came to myself, I knew by the lazy rocking of the vessel that it was once more afloat; I was lying on a bench beneath a porthole, and when I turned my head to see more particularly where I was, Mistress Lucy came towards me, her eyes shining with kindness.

"Mistress Lucy!" I cried, trying to rise, but wincing at an exquisite pain in my leg.

"Don't move," she said. "The surgeon said you were to lie quite still."

"The surgeon!" I repeated, scarce believing I had heard aright.

"Yes, you are surprised," she said with a smile; "but that is not the strangest of the many strange things that have happened of late. One of the crew of this vessel was once a surgeon; he took his degrees in Edinburgh, he told me--"

"And that's true," said a harsh voice, and there entered the cabin one of the buccaneers--a big bottle-nosed fellow, with a face of purple hue. "And how are ye the noo, Mister?"

"Mighty shaky!" I said. "What is wrong with me?"

"A bit wound in the dexter femur," he said, "within a hair's breadth like o' your femoral artery and kingdom come.

"But ye'll do fine," he added, feeling my pulse. "Man, ye've good blood in your veins, and me having a good hand at the cutting, we'll verra soon have ye on your two feet again; and the lassie will no like be fashed at that, I'm thinkin'."

"I am to thank you then for cutting out the bullet," I said, and then, remembering how I had come by it, I cried: "Have they got that villain?"

"Meanin' Vetch?" says the man. "Hoots! Ye'll no catch him; he's a slithery man, yon. He was up and awa' before he could be stoppit, with a wheen o' yelling niggers after him. Aweel, I'm no that sorry mysel', for he wasna just what ye would call a gentleman."

I suppose that something of what I was thinking showed in my face, for the Scotchman continued:

"I had naething against him as an employer, ye ken; he was sound wi' the siller; but his dealin' wi' sic a bonny lassie kind o' affrontit me, and I'm well enough pleased ye got the better of him in that regard. I mind o' the time when I had a wee-bit lassie mysel'."

And then the besotted fellow began to weep, and comforted himself with a long pull from a flask he took from his pocket. 'Twas plain that the drink had been his undoing, and indeed, before I parted company with him in Port Royal some days later, he told me with maudlin tears the story of his declension from surgeon on a king's ship to buccaneer, and preached me many an impressive sermon on the text of the bottle.

Mistress Lucy had withdrawn while we were talking, and Sandy MacLeod, as he was named, dressed my wound again with a hand as tender as a woman's. And then Joe Punchard came down to see me, Cludde remaining on deck to keep an eye on the crew. Vetch had sprung overboard, and run fleetly as a deer to the shore, and though the negroes on the cliff sped after him with yells, they had a round of half a mile to go over rough ground, and could not catch him. I would fain have him in my power, so that he might receive his desserts at the hands of a jury, and be deprived at least of further opportunities of mischief, but my vexation at his escape was solaced by the knowledge that Mistress Lucy's safety was secure.

I talked things over with Joe, and we decided to sail the brig round the coast to Port Royal, and hand Mistress Lucy over to her friends in Spanish Town. The management of her estate gave us some concern. It could not be left without a responsible head, and the overseers, being, as I learned from her, men whom Vetch had put in when he dismissed McTavish and the other white men whom he had found there on his arrival, were scarcely to be trusted.

As the result of a consultation with Mistress Lucy, she asked Cludde (who had begged and received her forgiveness) to return to Penolver and take charge until we should have had time to reengage McTavish and send him up from Spanish Town. Mistress Lucy being now of age, Vetch's brief authority had come to an end, and I supposed that he would make his way to Dry Harbor and take ship to England. I could imagine the rage of Sir Richard when his emissary should return and report the total failure of his scheme. 'Twould sort with his violent and overbearing character to make Vetch a scapegoat (a man in the wrong must ever have someone to kick); and I wondered to what new villainy Cyrus would turn for his livelihood.

We had some trouble with the buccaneers when I told them they would be required to work the brig to Port Royal. They felt a very natural reluctance to come within reach of the merchants and shipmen who had suffered from their depredations. But I took it upon myself to promise them good pay and immunity from arrest, provided they joined a king's ship forthwith, and being seconded by Sandy MacLeod the surgeon, who had much influence with his comrades, I brought them to acquiesce. And so, having bade farewell to Cludde and the friendly negroes, Uncle Moses and Noah (Jacob would accompany me), we waited a few hours until the old nurse Patty had been sent up from the house and then we unfurled our sails to a favoring wind, and in the course of three days made the harbor of Port Royal.

During the voyage I saw almost nothing of Mistress Lucy. My wound kept me to my cabin; she did not often stir from hers, and 'twas Patty who bestowed on me the ministrations that are so pleasant to a sick man. I own I was somewhat disappointed in this matter. 'Twas nothing that Mistress Lucy had not uttered a word of thanks to me for what I had done for her (she was much more affable with Joe Punchard); her refraining spared me embarrassment, for a man of my nature is ill at ease under any demonstration of gratitude; but there were many other things we might have talked about, and the mere sight of her would have been a comfort. But, as I say, she saw me but seldom, and spoke very little, and I felt a spasm of jealousy when I learned that she spent hours on deck chatting with Punchard, who for his part, when he came to see me, spoke of her with all the adoration of a worshipper.

And when, on arriving at Port Royal, I was carried ashore, and Mistress Lucy came and took leave of me, she said nothing but a mere "Goodby, Mr. Bold," though to be sure she looked on me with wondrous kindness.

And when she was gone I could not forbear heaving a monstrous sigh at the thought that she was now a lady of great property, whereas I was but a second lieutenant, poor on eighty pounds a year.