CHAPTER IV.

MAROONED.

No sooner had we entered this second pool than we were startled by a loud hail. Greatly surprised we peered through the indistinct light and saw dimly the figure of a man. He was standing on a little beach at one side of the pool and was waving his arms at us.

We were so glad to see any one in that dismal place that we at once paddled ashore without caring whether the man was a pirate or not, though even if he had been we were well armed and had nothing to fear from one man.

When we reached him he fell on his knees and begged us to have pity on a poor wretch and take him away with us. Then he asked who we were; if we belonged to Blackbeard’s crew, and if we were rovers, and a dozen other questions all at once.

He was the most ragged man I had ever seen. His clothes were so tattered that he no longer wore them as clothes were worn, but merely twisted them around his body, leaving himself half-naked. His hair and beard were very long and nearly white. His eyes had a strange wild look about them, due no doubt to the long time that he had spent in the dark cave.

As soon as he found that we were not dangerous, he begged for rum and tobacco. Finding that we had none, he was very thankful for a piece of boiled ham, which he ate ravenously.

“How long have you been here?” I asked, after he had finished the ham.

“About three or four years,” he replied. “Leastways I think so, but a man can’t keep his reckoning when he’s buried alive. I remember it was the year 1718 that I shipped with Blackbeard, and I was with him two years when he marooned me here.”

“Then you’ve only been here about a year; it is 1721 now.”

“One year or four years, what’s the odds when you’re alone and starving underground?” he answered. “Seems to me I’ve been here a hundred years.”

“And there isn’t any way out of the cave except by water?” I asked.

“Not unless you was a bird or a bat and could fly out of that there scuttle up there. You can see about all there is of the cave. Here I’ve lived and slept and starved and had nothing to do but to walk up and down and catch fish. I’ve had fishin’ enough to last me the rest of my life.”

“Haven’t you had anything to eat but fish?”

“Not a blessed thing, young master,” he replied. “And raw fish at that.”

“How did you catch them?” I asked.

“I’ll show you,” he said, getting up and wading into the water till it was up to his waist. He stood perfectly still for a while, looking down into the water, for his eyes were so well used to the dim light that he could see as well as we could in bright daylight. Presently he darted his hands into the water with wonderful swiftness and brought up a good-sized fish which he showed to us and then flung back into the pool.

“It’s easy enough after you get used to it,” he said, coming ashore again; “but it was a good while, and I was precious hungry before I thought of it. You see the fish here is naturally blind—for what would be the use of wastin’ eyes on ’em?—and so they can’t see me. But never mind about fish, young master; let’s get out of here and get some decent grub.”

“Before we agree to take you with us,” said I, “we must know all about you. So go on and tell us who you are and how you came here.”

“I’ll tell you everything, faithful and true, for I know you’re too kind to desert a poor wretch here. I can see it in the handsome faces of the pair of you.

“I’ve been a pirate, young masters both, for why should I deny it? I’m an Englishman, like you, and I went a privateerin’ when I was a boy. It was just about the same thing as piratin’, but it didn’t pay as well, and wasn’t as pleasant for a lad of spirit; so I deserted at Cape Haytien and j’ined a crew of rovers—that is what you call pirates, you know.

“I was in the business for several years, and had made a lot of money and lost it mostly, when I had the bad luck to ship with Blackbeard. What did I do it for? Because he was at the very top of the profession then, and any man was proud to belong to his crew. He was the boldest and cruelest man that ever sailed. Even a Spaniard would have been too good to do some of the things he did. Blackbeard would have made his own mother walk the plank as soon as he would a merchant captain. The only thing he was afraid of was ghosts. I remember one night off the north coast of Cuba, it blowing a hurricane at the time, and there was two corposants aloft that scared most of us, but Blackbeard laughed at them, and practiced firing at them with his pistol. But all of a sudden he sung out that he was a dead man, and jumped below. I followed him, for all hands were on the quarter deck, the men being afraid to stay forrard or go below on account of the corposants. Blackbeard had locked himself in his cabin and was callin’ to me to bring him the rum. When I brought it he told me that he had seen the ghost of a woman sittin’ perched on the jaws of the main gaff pointin’ at him with her finger, and that I must tell the mate to bring the schooner up into the wind and shake the ghost off.

“Of course I didn’t tell the mate, for I didn’t want to have the schooner founder all on account of a ghost that nobody saw except the captain, so I left him in his cabin and went on deck again.

“Blackbeard didn’t care to be with other pirates, so he hunted over the river that you must have come up, and built the fort at the landin’ place. No one knew about it but him and his crew; he never let a man leave him without swearin’ him on the Bible to keep the secret. We used to careen the schooner at the landin’-place when she needed cleanin’ or calkin’, and this cave was the place where we kept our treasures.

“I don’t know when Blackbeard had the rings let into the rock and the line run through them so as to haul a boat out of this pool and back to the daylight. It was done afore my time and I remember thinkin’ that the rope was gettin’ pretty rotten and might part some day and leave a lot of us anchored here as I’ve been. It was here that the men used to leave their spare earnin’s, and you’ll find some empty chests yonder that I’ve seen pretty near full of gold and silver. It’s all gone now, for Blackbeard gave the order to take everythin’ aboard the schooner and abandon the cave. He probably suspected that the secret had got out, as it was sure to do some day.

“The men, as I was sayin’, kept their treasures here, and I’ve seen pretty near the whole ship’s company carousin’ and fightin’ here by the light of battle lanterns. But Blackbeard had a place of his own further down the cave. He had a big iron gate all across the mouth of the channel, and you can see it now if you look across the water. He always used to go to it alone, lockin’ the gate after him, but the last time he went down the channel he never came back.”

“Then he must have got out of the cave some other way,” I exclaimed, “for he is alive yet.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said the man. “I’ve been a-hopin’ that he’d been cast away in some place darker than this and had starved worse than I have. That was the only cheerful thought I’ve had here.”

“You must be a pretty bad man to want to have another man suffer,” I said.

“Just so,” he answered, “I have been middlin’ bad, young masters, but you’ll see how different I’ll be when we get away from here. But I’m not gettin’ on with my story.

“I was Blackbeard’s servant the last year I was with him. He’d killed both his last two servants, and I didn’t care much for the place, but it wouldn’t have done to refuse it. Besides, he treated me pretty well, and I had an easy time waitin’ on him, and eatin’ what was left from his table, and it was a sight better than raw fish. However, he banged me over the head considerable and the last time we came up the river I made up my mind to bolt, and take my chances of reachin’ a settlement, for I knew the country hereabouts very well. One day Blackbeard looked into my bunk and saw that I had made a bundle of my clothes, for I meant to bolt at the very first chance. He must have suspected it and that is the reason he left me here.

“We had taken everythin’ out of the cave, and expected to sail as soon as the job of cleanin’ the schooner’s bottom was finished. Early one morning, Blackbeard ordered me to bring a lantern and take him into the cave. When we got to this place he ordered me to wait for him while he took the skiff and went to his own private cave. You see he always kept a little skiff, just big enough to hold two, for his own use, and the skiff you come in was the one the men used.

“He set me ashore here and then paddled to the iron gate, unlocked it, passed through, locked it again and disappeared. I’ve never set eyes on him or on another livin’ man since, till you come.

“At first I couldn’t believe that he was not comin’ back. Then I thought that he had met with bad luck and couldn’t get back, and I kept thinkin’ that by and by the men would miss him and come for him, and take me away. But nobody ever came, and that made me think that perhaps he knew another way out of the cave and had left me here to starve.

“Talk about ghosts! I saw whole shiploads of them first along while I was here. They wern’t ill disposed, and must have come just out of curiosity, for they never offered to do anythin’ except sit and look at me, and whenever I went towards them they would disappear. I was that lonesome that I would gladly have took up with any sociable ghost, and wasn’t a bit afraid of them, but I couldn’t get one of them to speak. They’re a worthless lot—them ghosts; I never could see any use on ’em, anyway.

“I was that weak from starvin’ before I found I could catch fish, that I used to fall and stave in my head against the rocks, but after that I had enough to eat, such as it was.

“If Blackbeard had marooned me on a desert island I wouldn’t have minded, provided I could see the sun, and live on the ground like a man. But he left me here, which was the same as buryin’ me alive, and it was the cruelest thing that ever he did. I’ll never rest till I bring him to the gallows. I’ll knock off piratin’; I’ll give up rum; I’ll even ship aboard a man-of-war, and some day we’ll capture him and he’ll be tried, and old Bill Catchley’ll be the chief witness against him and will swear him to the gallows and stand by and see him swing.”

I haven’t told the old man’s story in exactly his own words, for as you might expect he used pretty bad language, but I never doubted that what he said was true, for Captain Blackbeard was well known to be more of a fiend than a human being.

Tom and I told the old man that if he would help us to escape we would help him. We told him all that had happened to us, and made him promise that if we could get out of the cave he would neither join the pirates nor deliver us into their hands.

He swore most solemnly that he would do what we asked. He said that if we could get Blackbeard’s iron gate open we could escape the same way that he did. He was not surprised to learn that the rope which formerly led through the iron rings in the passage through which we had come had rotted away, and he felt sure that the iron gate must have rusted so much that we could manage to break it open. He had never tried it, for the gate was in deep water, and he could not swim a stroke. One would have thought that he would have taught himself to swim in the hope of escaping by that means, but like most people who cannot swim he thought it was the most difficult instead of being one of the easiest of arts.

When old Bill had finished his story we were as anxious to leave the cave as he was, and we got into the boat again and paddled over to the iron gate.

The gate was placed at the entrance to another arched passage precisely like the one through which we had come. It was made of stout iron bars an inch thick, and was locked by a big padlock. We found that though the padlock was rusted it was still so strong we could not break it; and the iron bars seemed as strong as if they were new.

But the old man was not in the least discouraged. Indeed he was as cheerful as if he was going to a picnic. He said he would have the gate open in a jiffy. He worked for some time forcing a bit of dry rag into the lock and pulling it out again; and when he thought it was dry enough, he asked for the powder horn, filled the lock with powder, fitted a slow match made of rag, lighted it with the lantern, and asked me to paddle the skiff a short distance away from the gate.

The explosion blew the lock to pieces, and with a little effort we were able to swing open the rusty gate and enter the passage. The swift current swept us along as before, and we noticed pieces of rotten rope hanging from rings in the side of the passage just as we had in the other one.

“One does learn a sight of useful things piratin’,” said old Bill thoughtfully; “there’s where I learned how to open a padlock without a key, and you see for yourselves, young masters, how handy it come in.”

The channel in which we now found ourselves was short compared with the other one, and in a few moments we had shot through it and had reached another open space with quiet water. There was no daylight here, but by the light of the lantern we could see a landing place on our left, where we hastened to land, hoping that we had reached the end of our underground voyage. As the skiff came up to the shore she struck on what we found to be a sunken boat which Bill immediately recognized as the boat once belonging to Blackbeard.