Part 10

The crag stood forth black upon the dim glow of the sky, and the sparkling heave of the empty sea. There might be a whole fleet behind the rock, for all we knew. This second mysterious visitation, false alarm though it might be, affected us disagreeably. Was it not enough, we complained, to be finally committed to a hazardous adventure, a voyage whose every hour brought peril, but we must have a new terror thrust upon us out of the night?

XIII

SHOWING WHAT BEFELL IN CARATASCA

The next morning we weighed anchor and sailed round Cape Gracias à Dios to the Caratasca Lagoon, and there was the _Blessed Endeavour_, high and dry on the sandy beach, having her bottom scrubbed. You would think, now, that Brandon Pomfrett was rising on the crest of fortune’s wave: his ship recovered, with her hold full of treasure, the girl he admired in his company, and fixed to remain there. And yet, one look at Dawkins’s burly figure and old, sly visage was enough to poison expectation. You could no more put your trust in him than in a wild boar of the woods. You might try to imagine yourself doing so, and you would always fail. And it was a far cry to England from Caratasca Cays. But, what choice had we? None. We must even run the gauntlet. I think Brandon Pomfrett would have given his right hand, or, at least, his left, to carry off Morgan Leroux in the _Modesty_ ship and pitch his owners’ interests overboard. Indeed, I suggested that he should do so, offering to remain aboard the _Blessed Endeavour_ in his place. But he would not have it--such is the force of early training in the service of Madam Duty.

“No, no,” says he. “Where there’s three of us, Dawkins may play fair. With one alone--why, I leave you to guess the sequel. As it is, I don’t see how we’re to sleep of nights. We three--or at least the two of us--must keep watch and watch about and pistols primed.” And so we did. So long as we were shipmates with Captain Dawkins he never caught the trio napping; two waked while one slept, that was the arrangement; and Morgan Leroux took her spell fairly. I would not have married that wild wench for a king’s ransom; such desperate adventures were not for the quiet clerk; but he gave her full meed of admiration.

“And supposing Mistress Morgan Leroux is--is _found out_?” I said. “Because, you know, it’s sure to happen, sooner or later. And what then?”

“Ay, ay,” said the unhappy agent. “I tell you, the thought rides me like a nightmare. Well, you’ll see. I’ll contrive to cheat the devil there, too.”

“It’s not one devil, it’s ninety fiends of the pit you’ve to deal with, my son. Well, we’ll hope for the best--the longest liver takes all.”

You see, our supercargo had a weighty burden for green shoulders to carry. A man may bear almost any weight of his proper work, and never be the worse of it; but when a woman comes and gaily perches herself a-top, ’tis then his sinews begin to crack.

To the general council of officers, held that evening, Captain Dawkins in these words genially introduced the agent and his clerk.

“Gentlemen, here’s Mr Pomfrett and Mr Winter returned among us after their turn ashore, which I’m sure neither you nor I begrudge them. We’ve managed to carry on, by hook or by crook, and even done a little business on our own account, in the mean time. Now, here’s the supercargo, come to overhaul the Book of Plunder, as it’s only right he should, d’ye see, and he demands a dividend.”

Mr Dawkins’s insinuation had instant effect. One of the mates arose and requested some explanation of our absence from the ship. Was it to be understood, he desired to know, that we were to come and go as we pleased, while the rest of the ship’s company kept to their job, and then we were to return at our pleasure and overhaul their takings?

“Easy, my lad, easy,” said Dawkins. “What you’re a saying is disrespectful to me”--Mr Dawkins winked shamelessly--“and don’t you forget it, my son. If I’ve consented to accept Mr Pomfrett’s explanation, why, that’s enough, I should think. So let’s hear no more of it. Let bygones----”

“Stop!” cried Pomfrett. “Mr Dawkins, you know as well as I do, that I have to account to my owners in this matter, and not to you, nor to any man aboard.--Quartermaster!”

“Sir.” The grizzled old quartermaster jumped to his feet with an expectant alacrity.

“Take notice of what I say. Now, gentlemen! I’ll fight any man aboard this ship who calls my conduct in question.” He glanced about the ring of hostile faces. There was a dead silence.

“Come now,” said the quartermaster, rubbing his hands, “ain’t there any gentleman anxious for to oblige? Why, we ain’t had a spell ashore with the small-arms all the v’yage.”

It is the quartermaster’s business, by pirates’ law, to stand umpire in all quarrels involving a duel, which must always be fought on shore. But our friend was not to exercise his office on this occasion. No one took up the challenge.

“Very well,” said Brandon. “Then since we are not to fight, let us be friends. Now, I’ll tell you, we’ve not quitted the ship for our own pleasure, of that you may take your oath. We’ve been about the owners’ business; and if you want proof, there’s the little _Modesty_ lying off the beach. That ship joins the expedition, gentlemen, and she’s not empty, either.”

Thus did the agent turn the tide in his favour; and everyone clamoured to hear the story of our adventures. But Dawkins, who had his own reasons for checking indiscriminate curiosity, hastily called the meeting to order. The dividend was duly declared; and, reserving the plate for the owners, there remained about an hundred pieces of eight, either in money or money’s worth, per share, the men taking a single share each, the officers more, in proportion to their rank. All Captain Dawkins’s winnings he handed to Pomfrett. This payment left him still in debt to us, on account of the compensation we demanded for the slave-dealing transaction.

“You had better remit the rest,” I said. “I would sooner have Dawkins in a good temper than the money, any day. You saw in the council how dangerous he is.”

“Ah, but I had the dog in hand,” said Pomfrett. “And I’ll pouch every penny, though Dawkins sweat blood for it.”

This had a fine sound, no doubt; but I thought it highly improbable that Mr Dawkins would indulge in any such painful exercise. And, indeed, so soon as the dividend had been declared, Mr Dawkins went about on another tack. He called another council to settle on our plan of action, and opened proceedings by roundly stating that the owners’ agent, after his secret transactions ashore--whatever they might have been--considered that enough had been done for the owners; that, as for the ship’s company, an hundred pieces of eight should surely content them; and that, in fine, we should sail for England. This was a method of stating the case which left Pomfrett nothing which he could openly challenge, since the statement was substantially true. He had to sit still under the implication, biting his nails, his face dark with passion, amid a clamour of protest. They would put to sea and cruise for the Spanish plate-ships; they would go southward, through Magellan’s Straits, and plunder the towns of the Pacific coast; they would do anything, in fact, and go anywhere; but they would never go home till they were glutted to the brim.

“Your proposition don’t seem what you might call popular, Mr Pomfrett,” says Dawkins, with a grin. “I reckon we’ll have to beat up for plunder yet, sir.”

“Lay your course, then,” says Pomfrett. “You’ll find me follow you, Mr Dawkins.”

So Dawkins laid his course, and the council agreed to follow it. Mr Dawkins would take boats up the river Coco, which flows out under Cape Gracias à Dios, and attempt the town of Cartagena. “It’s a rich town,” says he, “and never been taken before, that I know of. A virgin city, is Cartagena, and, by what I’ve heard, there’s diamonds in it, too.”

The resolution was carried by acclamation. The ship would not be ready for sea for a week; the men were tired of the beach, and here was a fine prospect of excitement, if no more. So some sixty men and officers embarked in the boats of the two ships, well furnished with small-arms and victuals, pulled out of the lagoon one morning, and vanished into the unknown. The agent, Morgan Leroux, and myself were left to finish the work of fitting the _Blessed Endeavour_ for sea, with the rest of the men, to the number of twenty-five or thirty. There was plenty to be done, for, when the ship came to be examined for defects, it was evident she had never been properly overhauled before sailing from Bristol docks--another instance of the owners’ sinful negligence.

“These damned fat burgesses,” said the agent, with great bitterness, “would sooner see the whole expedition founder in sight of land than fetch a guinea out of their bursting money-bags.”

But, we gained three weeks’ respite by reason of this last bit of parsimony. The men worked fairly, after a fit of insubordination which brought six of them to the whipping-post the very day after Dawkins left. The agent stood by with a pistol in each hand and had three dozen well laid on, and there was but little trouble with them after that salutary example.

The Indians of those parts, a brown and peaceable folk, came out of the woods and trafficked fresh meat, hog’s flesh and turtle, yams and green stuff, for knives and beads and such toys. They made an encampment near by, and with their huts of branches and palm-leaves and our tents of sailcloth, and the camp-fires burning night and day, we made quite a settled little colony by the still waters of the great lagoon. As for Brandon Pomfrett, he followed Morgan Leroux like her shadow, greedily snatching a certain feverish pleasure in her society, though it is likely that the suspense in which we lived--except when we forgot all in the present, which happened oftener than you might suppose--infused a deal of discomfort into those tantalising relations. Soon or late, the inevitable Dawkins would come merrily back to us, with all his crew; ever the shadow of Murch menaced us from afar; there was the mysterious visitation at night of the strange boat, with its answering challenge, “_Dead or alive_,” still unexplained; and, looming ahead of us, the problem of the return voyage, sure to be long, hazardous, difficult, and very likely fatal. True, there was one solution, one way of escape, that Morgan Leroux urged us to follow--to set sail there and then in the _Blessed Endeavour_, with the crew we had, for the nearest port in English possession, fill up the complement, and away to England. But Pomfrett would not have it. He was bound, he said, to respect his compact with Dawkins.

“And do you suppose,” said Morgan, “that he won’t break faith with you, as soon as he gets a chance? I thought you had more sense.”

But the agent was firm. “Very well,” said Morgan, “you must even stay and be damned, if you’re so squeamish. But it’s hard on me, I’m bound to say, it’s hard on me. I never swore a silly oath to a treacherous old dog that couldn’t keep his word if he tried.”

“And what, in God’s name, does it matter _who_ you swore to, if you did swear,” cried the wretched Pomfrett. And then they began to wrangle, and I left them to settle it between themselves. Be warned, ye bachelors, by this example; and when you ride with fortune, do not take a lady on the crupper. I think it likely that, if Morgan had persisted in her expostulations, Brandon would have yielded at last. Had she made a direct issue of the matter, and challenged him to choose between herself and Dawkins, between Morgan Leroux and his plighted word, I am sure he would have whistled his pledges down the wind and taken the lady; and I, for one, would not blame him. But Morgan never went so far; it was a temptation that must have allured her constantly, yet she never yielded. She had a good heart, this Morgan, as I always said. So we stayed, and in good time we were damned, even as Morgan had prophesied.

Dawkins and his party had been absent for three weeks; the _Blessed Endeavour_, all sound and seaworthy once more, had been warped off at high water, and lay out in the lagoon, moored fore and aft; and we were hoisting her heavy cargo in against Dawkins’s return, which we were hourly expecting. There was no watch kept; we were all extremely busy; and so, when there came the sudden boom of a heavy gun, fired somewhere close at hand, the echoes ringing from rock to rock, we were properly alarmed.

There, lying off the lagoon, was a great ship, the sun shining on her tower of canvas, turning her to a full-sailed ship of pearl. As we looked, the little black ball of a flag ran up the main halliards, broke free, and flew broad and black at the mast-head, flaunting its white device of the figure of death. It was the _Wheel of Fortune_. Murch had come at last.

XIV

CAPTAIN MURCH TAKES COMMAND

Those of Mr Murch’s men who were of our party set up a cheer for the _Wheel of Fortune_, but we ourselves were far from any such demonstration. Mr Murch was a dangerous enigma; we lay at his mercy; there was not a gunner left aboard, and there was no question of resistance. But pirates never fight for fun, and we did not anticipate bloodshed. We ran up English colours in response to their salute, and we saw them lowering a boat, which glided towards us across the intolerable glitter of the water, silent, save for the splash of oars, with Murch’s great figure sitting immobile in the stern-sheets. Morgan Leroux clasped Pomfrett’s arm. It was the first sign of dependence I had remarked in that courageous lady. The boatswain piped all hands to the side as she drew near, and Murch stepped aboard between the files of saluting men, as stately as an admiral. He greeted us with his customary solemn courtesy; his large and solemn countenance, netted all over with fine lines, betrayed no more emotion than a bronze mask; and, though he must have known of Morgan’s escape in _La Modeste_, yet, for all we knew to the contrary, he had supposed that the agent and his clerk were still ranging the woods by Porto-Bello. And here we were, a little family party on the quarterdeck of the _Blessed Endeavour;_ and I leave you to imagine which of us felt the less at ease on that occasion.

“I am glad, Mr Pomfrett, to perceive you have found your ship again,” said Mr Murch, politely.

“I think,” retorted Pomfrett, “I can scarce thank you for carrying out that part of your agreement, Mr Murch.”

“You think not?” says Murch. “Well, well, I would not be too hasty, neither, sir. Youth is prone to be hasty. But we’ll talk of that, too, among other matters. I’ll have no knots in the cable--all shall be clear before we’ve done, Mr Pomfrett, be sure of that.”

I own that, for my part, my heart sank to hear the old spider closing upon us once more with his web of fine speeches, that seemed, as I fancied, to answer in some mysterious way to the net-work of hieroglyphics on his sombre countenance. We went down, then, to finish our talk in the privacy of the great cabin, which Mr Dawkins had left in a wretched disorder: books, charts, and instruments tossed pell-mell on the lockers, empty bottles rolling on the floor, and a heavy reek of tobacco.

“Mr Dawkins keeps a dirty ship, it seems,” quoth Murch. “But you and I will soon alter that, Mr Pomfrett.”

The owners’ agent fixed his blue eyes on the speaker. His glance had lost its look of mild and innocent enquiry of late; it was hard, even menacing, the eyelids drawn obliquely at their outer corners. Mr Pomfrett was beginning to know his own mind, you see.

“I stop not to enquire how you came hither,” continued Murch, returning look for look. “I make it a rule to deal with a situation as I find it; and I may tell you, we have no time at present to be swapping stories of adventure. They will serve for our amusement when we are fairly on the high seas, with Mr Dawkins hull-down on the lee. It’s with Dawkins we are first concerned, Mr Pomfrett--dead or alive, you know, dead or alive,” says Murch, with a peculiar intonation.

“Then it was your boat paid us a visit by night, under Cape Gracias?” said Pomfrett.

“Did you take us for ghosts, sir? Well, I may tell you, I have a singular belief that the grave would not hold me--no, nor the deep sea--had I a duty left undone. I have the highest opinion of your integrity, Mr Pomfrett; as a guardian of youth, your qualifications are, I doubt not, superior to my own; but even that belief cannot absolve me from my trust to a dead friend; nor can a similar confidence pretermit the obligations of my ward.”

He glanced sternly at Morgan Leroux, who was seated in her usual attitude, chin on hand, regarding him composedly, though she had gone, I thought, a little pale.

“But I accuse no one of such ingratitude,” Murch went on, “for, had you desired to escape me indeed, you would surely not have left two or three plundered ships to mark your way, broad as sign-posts, when it were so easy to scuttle them. No, no. I prefer to believe that you did but anticipate my plans a little, and to save time, the while I was engaged in Porto-Bello, you went to find Mr Dawkins for me. I thank you. You have found him. And so have I--in Cartagena. Of course, all the inhabitants had taken to the woods, with their possessions; it is singular how a man of Dawkins’s experience will never learn to close the earths before he bolts the prey; but there it is, and I was able to save him the trouble of collecting their dues from them. I have a bag or two of diamonds aboard the _Wheel of Fortune_, Mr Pomfrett, as to which I should like your opinion.”

He paused, thrusting his lower jaw a little forward, so that the semicircular wrinkles curving from nostril to chin deepened; his narrow eyes roved from face to face with a sort of stealthy derision, highly disagreeable to his audience. The old beast of prey had tracked us leisurely across the trackless sea, kept his ship out of sight while we lay under Cape Gracias à Dios, where he spied upon us with boats, and waited until we had settled with Dawkins for peace or war, as we were bound to settle soon or late. Had we fought with Dawkins, both sides would have been weakened, to Mr Murch’s advantage; but, as we concluded a treaty together, Mr Murch bided his time a little longer, until we were separated from Dawkins. Then, having us safely on the beach, Murch followed Dawkins up the River Coco and swept up the plunder of Cartagena while Dawkins did the fighting. Evidently, it were better to have Murch on our side than against us.

“Is Dawkins returning?” Pomfrett asked, curtly.

“I reckon Mr Dawkins is on the road,” answered Murch. “That is, unless the Spaniards have cut off his retreat, which they might have done, for Dawkins mislaid his boats. It was a pity they should be lost, so I even brought them down-stream myself; you can’t have too many boats, as a general rule.”

Pomfrett considered this intelligence; then he turned sharply upon Murch.

“Come, Mr Murch,” says he, “let us be clear, and no misunderstanding at all, as you might say yourself. You took Dawkins’s boats, you say. Was there any fighting?”

“I’m always charmed to answer questions when they bear to the point,” says Murch. “If you mean, was there any collision betwixt Dawkins and myself, I may tell you that the two parties never saw each other, with the exception of a trifling few men Mr Dawkins left to guard the boats.”

“Then I may take it that Dawkins, having captured the town and driven the inhabitants into the woods”--Pomfrett was conscientiously mastering the situation, as usual--“you robbed them and then came away in Dawkins’s boats, leaving him----”

“To pad the hoof, sir, like the old cut-purse he is,” Murch concluded, with a grave nod. “Now, are you satisfied, Mr Pomfrett? Very well. Then I have a proposal to make to you two gentlemen, to which I beg your serious attention.”

He leaned forward, rapping the table once or twice with the knuckles of his clenched fist, and glowering upon us like a thunderstorm.

“You and me have got to square accounts, Mr Pomfrett,” says he. “Now, I’m not a man that wastes two words where one will serve, and so I’ll ask but this question: Are you prepared to take my ward here, Morgan Leroux, in lawful and honourable marriage? Yes or no?”

“Yes.” Pomfrett answered prompt as an echo.

Mr Murch, his arm outstretched, the great corded hand resting on the table, stared at Pomfrett, quiet as a man of stone, for perhaps five seconds. Then, without moving any other part of him, he turned his eyes on Morgan Leroux.

“And what do you say, wench?”

Morgan’s wide black eyes blinked swiftly once or twice. “Yes,” said she, and closed her mouth and sat composedly watching, as before.

Murch’s whole figure relaxed, and he slowly drew himself upright. Then he nodded again, two or three times, very solemnly.

“I notice, Mr Pomfrett,” said he, “that you have not, at present, made any reference to myself in this matter.”

“Do you wonder at that, Mr Murch?” said Brandon.

“Ah,” said Mr Murch. “Hasty, hasty--hot and hasty, Mr Pomfrett, never got to church. If I am willing to forget the past, sir, surely you should be. I would have marooned you for reasons of my own, which figure well enough in the account betwixt my Maker and myself, let me tell you. But you have stolen away my ward, Mr Pomfrett--you took advantage of the ignorance and credulity of an innocent girl, unused to the world’s ways.”

“Let it go at that, uncle,” Morgan put in. “You’ll not better it. Cry quits, now.”

Murch was just a hair taken aback. “Here’s too much talk altogether,” he cried roughly. “Come. Yea or nay, and be done. Will you sail to-night for England, Mr Pomfrett?”

“With you?”

“Under me,” Mr Murch corrected him.

Pomfrett glanced at Morgan Leroux. There was no mistaking the look in her eyes.

“See, now, how simple stands the matter,” Murch went on, with his weighty deliberation. “We sail in this ship, this very _Blessed Endeavour_, that has cost us so much endeavour, blessed or not; transfer the cargo from the _Wheel of Fortune_, take her to Barbadoes, and sell her there; the Governor will be glad to have her back again, for I may tell you, Mr Pomfrett, to show how fenced by the law is an enterprise, that his Excellency hath a share in the adventure. We will take your little bark as a tender, and sell her or not, as we find convenient. After Barbadoes, we cut sail for England, sir.”

Pomfrett sat silent, with his eyes on the floor. Morgan was steadfastly regarding him, with a distressed, appealing look that I could never have withstood for a moment, myself.

“Perhaps you think it strange in me to propose this arrangement,” continued Murch. “But if you will so consider the matter, ’tis entirely natural. My motive is pure self-interest--the mainspring of man’s actions here below. There is no other worth mentioning that influences any one; therefore, why deny it? I want to see my ward settled in marriage; the single estate is dangerous for females. I want to settle myself, in a manner which shall enable me to move in the society of my equals--a society,” says Murch, with dignity, “from which I have been too long estranged. I see in you, Mr Pomfrett, a respectable gentleman who shall serve me to both these ends. I need not, I think, say more.”