The Jolly Roger Tales: 60+ Pirate Novels, Treasure-Hunt Tales & Sea Adventures. Лаймен Фрэнк Баум

coat with the glittering buttons and epaulets and the huge cocked hat with the feather in it. He noted that the sloop, which was called the Triumph, fairly buzzed with men, many more than her usual complement. No sooner had the ship let her anchor splash than a boat was sent over to her with the captain of the sloop who made haste to pay his compliments and explain his voyage. He was a portly, sallow man with a blustering manner and looked more like a bailiff or a tapster than a brine-pickled gentleman of fortune.

      Blackbeard hailed him cordially and invited him into the cabin. The boat waited alongside the Revenge and the men scrambled aboard to swap yarns with the ship's crew. Jack Cockrell hovered near the group as they squatted on their heels around a tub of grog and learned that the Triumph had rescued the crew of the other sloop just before it had foundered. There were a hundred men of them, in all, crowded together like dried herring, and part were sleeping ashore in huts of boughs and canvas. No wonder Blackbeard was in blither spirits. Here was a company to pick and choose from and so fill the depleted berth-deck of the Revenge.

      Finding the poop deserted, Joe Hawkridge ventured far enough to peer in at a cabin window. Blackbeard was at table, together with his first mate, the chief gunner, the acting sailing-master, and the captain of the sloop. They were exceeding noisy, singing most discordantly and laughing at indecent jests. Suddenly Blackbeard whipped two pistols from his sash and fired them under the table, quite at random.

      The first mate leaped up with a horrible yell and clapped a hand to the calf of his leg. Then he bolted out of the cabin, which was blue with smoke, and limped in search of the surgeon. Joe Hawkridge dodged aside but he heard the jovial Blackbeard shout, with a whoop of laughter:

      "Discipline, damme! If I don't kill one of you now and then, you'll forget who I am."

      Inasmuch as none of the other guests dared squeak after this episode, it was to be inferred that they were properly impressed.

      In a little while the mate returned with his leg neatly bandaged, announced that it was a mere flesh wound, and sat down as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred to mar the festive occasion. Through the rest of the day, boats were passing between the ship and the sloop in a convivial reunion. Supper was to be cooked on the beach in great iron kettles and a frolic would follow the feast. The sloop had rum enough to sluice all the parched gullets aboard the Revenge.

      Jack Cockrell had no desire to join this stupid revel but he was eager to get ashore to discover what opportunity there might be to escape. But the wiser Joe Hawkridge counseled patience, saying:

      "Wait a bit. We'd be as helpless as any babes should we take to our heels in this ungodly wilderness. Is there a town or plantation near by?"

      "I know not," ruefully confessed Jack. "Charles Town lies to the south, and Virginia to the north. There my knowledge fetches up short."

      "And leagues of morass to flounder through, by the look of this coast," said Joe. "We be without weapons, or food, or——"

      "I am a hot-headed fool, I grant you that," broke in Jack. "Now bestow your sage advice."

      "You will not be allowed to go ashore, for one thing, Master Cockrell. Blackbeard has no notion of letting you get away from him to betray this rendezvous and stir the colonies to send an expedition after him. Steady the helm, Jack, and watch for squalls. If I can read the signs, there is trouble afoot. And we must seek our own advantage in the nick of time."

      "But these wild sots no longer think of mutiny and the like, Joe. They are content to let the morrow go hang."

      "S-s-s-h, 'ware the master of the sloop," cautioned Joe. "He makes for the gangway, the big lump of tallow."

      They moved away while Captain Richard Spender clumsily descended into his boat, his broad face flushed, his breath asthmatic. He had a piping voice absurd for his bulk and the two lads amused themselves with mimicking him as the boat pulled in the direction of the sloop. So safe against surprise did Blackbeard regard himself in this lonely anchorage that no more than a dozen men were left aboard to keep the ship through the night. Among these was Jack Cockrell, as his comrade had foreseen. It therefore happened that they remained together, for Joe had volunteered to join the anchor watch. In a melancholy mood the two lads idled upon the after deck.

      The sun dropped behind the dark and tangled forest and flights of herons came winging it home to the islets in the swamps. On the sward by the silver strand the throng of pirates had stilled their clamor while a rascal with a tenor voice held them enraptured with the haunting refrain of:

      "Sweet Annie frae the sea-beach came,

       Where Jockey's climbed the vessel's side:

       Ah! wha can keep her heart at hame,

       When Jockey's tossed aboon the tide?

       "Far off 'till distant realms he gangs,

       But I'se be true, as he ha' been;

       And when ilk lass around him thrangs,

       He'll think on Annie's faithful een."

      Forlorn Jack Cockrell had homesick thoughts and felt hopeless of loosing the snares which bound him. All that sustained his courage was the sanguine disposition of Joe Hawkridge, whose youthful soul had been so battered and toughened by dangers manifold on land and sea that he expected nothing less. Listening to the pirate's moving ballad, they sat and swung their legs from the ship's taffrail while their gaze idly roved to the green curtain of undergrowth which ran lush to the water's edge to the northward of the beach.

      It was Joe who called attention to a floating object which moved inside the mouth of the small, tidal creek that wandered through the marshy lowlands. In the shadowy light it could easily be mistaken for a log drifting down on the ebb of the tide. This was what the lads assumed it to be until they both noticed a behavior curious in a log. The long, low object turned athwart the current at the entrance of the creek and shot toward the nearest bank as though strongly propelled.

      Joe lifted the telescope from its case in front of the wooden binnacle-box and squinted long at the edge of the creek. Crude though the glass was, he was enabled to discern that the object was, in truth, a log, but evidently hollowed out. Rounded at the ends, it held two men whose figures so blended into the dusk that they disclosed themselves only when in motion.

      "A pirogue," said Joe, "and fashioned by Indians! What is the tribe hereabouts? Have ye a guess?"

      "Roving Yemassees, or men of the Hatteras tribe," answered Jack. "Yonder brace of savages will be scouts."

      "Aye, but there'll be no attack 'gainst this pirates' bivouac, right under the guns of the ships. The Indians are too wise to attempt it."

      "Look, Joe! Hand me the glass. Those two spies have quitted the pirogue. 'Tis quite empty. They may lay up all night to creep closer and keep watch on the camp."

      "Right enough, by Crambo! If we could but gain yon cypress canoe, and steal along the coast by sail and paddle——"

      "'Tis the chance we prayed for," eagerly exclaimed Jack. "Dare we swim for it?"

      "Not with a boat just coming off from shore. What if we try it in the night and find the pirogue gone?"

      "We are stranded for sure, and Blackbeard will kill us."

      Baffled, they strained their eyes until the shore stood black in the starlight, but as long as the dusk lingered they fancied they could descry the empty pirogue. The ship's boat which presently drew alongside contained Blackbeard himself and Captain Dick Spender of the Triumph sloop, besides several officers of the two vessels. They withdrew into the cabin and there was prolonged discussion, lasting well toward midnight.

      It was a secretive session, with trusted men of the boat's crew posted to keep eavesdroppers away from the hatches and windows, nor was there any loud carousing. Some business was afoot and Jack wondered whether it might concern the trouble which Joe had sworn was brewing under the surface. A circumstance even more suspicious was that three of the sailors