CHAPTER VI.

OLD BILL’S RAID.

“We’re out of the cave, sure enough, but what are we to do now?” asked Tom.

“We’ll find the fort, and if the pirates have gone, and haven’t taken our boat with them, we’ll start for Charleston,” I answered.

“But how on earth are we going to find the fort?”

“Young masters,” said Bill, “there’s water yonder, and what we want to do is to make for it. Whenever a man’s in trouble ashore, with constables or anything else, let him make for blue water. That’s what I’ve learned by experience, and I know it’s right.”

“Very well,” said I, “come along, then, and don’t waste any time.” And so, with Bill carrying one of the guns, while I carried the other, we started for the water.

Bill marched straight on through the woods, without turning either to one hand or the other, and we soon came to a small river.

“Now the question is,” said I, “whether this is our river, and whether we should go up or down it.”

“It’s sure to be the river that you come up when you come ashore,” said Bill. “If it isn’t then it’s some other river, and it runs into the sea, and we’re pretty near the mouth of it now.”

“How can you tell that?” I asked.

“Look at the trees,” he answered. “Don’t they all have a list up-stream? It’s the sea-breeze blowin’ up the valley that does that, and you don’t get the sea-breeze very far inland. What we want is a raft so as we can float down without breakin’ our way through the thick underbrush.”

I was convinced that the old man was right, and we all three began to search for timber with which to make a raft. Not having any tools but a pocket knife we could not cut logs, but we found a dead trunk of a tree with very few branches, and managed to launch it. Then we pulled up some young saplings and lashed them across the tree with vines, so that it would not roll over and over in the water. Our raft, when it was finished, was the most awkward and clumsy raft ever built, but it would float us, and that was all we wanted.

It must have been about five or six o’clock in the morning when we came out of the cave, and it was noon by the sun when we shoved off the raft and started down the river. We all sat with our feet drawn up on the big log, and tried to steer the raft with poles. There was not much current and the raft floated very slowly. Still we managed to keep it somewhere near the middle of the stream, and the high trees on the banks shaded us, so we did not feel the sun.

Tom took the opportunity to bathe his wounded arm and breast, and we were delighted to see that although his arm was still stiff the wounds were healing fast.

We were nearly all the afternoon on the raft, but at last we saw a column of smoke some way ahead of us, so we worked the raft to the shore and made it fast.

“That smoke’s black,” said Bill, “which means that somebody is burnin’ tar.”

“Who is it?” I asked.

“It’s the pirates,” Bill replied. “They’ve brought up the schooner and careened her and are payin’ her seams with pitch; so they’re ashore yet.”

“Shall we creep down through the woods and see if we can find the boat?”

“Not till dark, or else they’ll be middlin’ sure to catch us.”

“But,” said I, “we can’t find our way through the woods after dark.”

“That’s so,” replied Bill. “Give me a few minutes to think this thing over.”

Presently he said, “There’s two ways, young masters. One is for me to leave you here and go right among the pirates. They’ll treat one of Blackbeard’s men well, never you fear. I could let on that I meant to join them, and could get some clothes, and then after dark I could take the best boat and scuttle the others, and pull up after you.”

“What’s your other plan?” asked Tom.

“Just to leave you here,” said Bill, “while I sneak down and try to steal the boat without being seen. There’s just one reason why the first plan ain’t a tiptop one,” he continued. “You see, I might get drunk and not get back here until you had got tired of waitin’. I’ve promised to knock off rum, but they’ll give it to me, naturally; and if I don’t take it they’ll believe that I’m tellin’ them a yarn about havin’ been a pirate myself; and if I do take it then I break my word, and I won’t answer for bein’ sober again till I get to sea.”

“Then you mustn’t go among them,” I said. “You would be going straight into temptation, and now that you’ve turned over a new leaf that wouldn’t do.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that, young master,” exclaimed Bill, “so we’ll give that plan up. Now, I’ll just work my way along the bank and see what I can do toward carryin’ off a boat. No; you needn’t come along, for two would make twice as much noise as one. I’ll be back by midnight, anyway; and if I don’t, why, you’ll know that they’ve captured me, and you’ll have to try what you can do without me.”

The old man tied his rags around his waist and started on his dangerous expedition. I was astonished to see how easily he made his way through the bushes and among the thick trees with so little noise, and felt that if anybody could approach the pirates without being discovered, it was he.

It was long after midnight before Bill returned, and then he startled us by suddenly appearing in the moonlight, dressed in a new shirt and trousers, and wearing a hat. However, we knew him by his beard, and were only frightened for a moment.

He told us that he had watched the pirates for hours while he was hid in the bushes. They were busy calking the schooner, which was careened at the landing place. When they knocked off work some of them went in swimming, and he managed to steal one man’s clothes while he was in the water.

“It looks a little like piratin’, this carryin’ off another man’s clothes,” said Bill thoughtfully, “but I don’t think it ought to be counted against me. These clothes are brand-new, you see, and they’ve been stole out of some Frenchman’s chest, for they’re made of French flannel, while the chap who was good enough to leave them where I could get them when he undressed, was an Englishman.”

Bill could not get our boat because it was nowhere to be found, and from what he heard the pirates say, a party had taken her and gone down to the lagoon to fish. All the schooner’s boats were hauled up on the shore under the trees, and they were so heavy that it would have taken three or four men to launch one of them. So there was nothing to be done but for us to wait until the next night, and then make another attempt to recapture the boat.

The next morning we were very hungry, for all our provisions were gone and we had nothing for breakfast except berries. Perhaps we could have shot something, for the woods were full of game, but the pirates would have heard us if we had fired a gun, and then all chance of getting a boat would have been lost.

Toward the end of the afternoon Bill set out a second time for the pirate’s fort, but this time I insisted on going with him, and I took my gun. He would not take a gun, for he said it would be of no use unless he meant to fight, and he wasn’t fool enough to fight a whole crew of pirates. However, I felt easier in consequence of having a gun with me, though, as it turned out, I did not have to use it.

We hid ourselves in a place where we could see everything the pirates did and hear most that they said. Our boat was lying at the landing, but it was directly in sight of the pirates, and it was impossible to make any attempt to get it until after they should be asleep. Bill said that they never set a watch at night except when at sea, and they would all be sound asleep by midnight.

And so it happened. Long before midnight they all went into the fort, with the exception of two young fellows, and were soon asleep. The two pirates who remained outside walked up and down talking together in a low tone for an hour or two, and then they fetched their blankets from the fort and lay down in the shade of one of the schooner’s boats—for there was nearly a full moon, and every one knows that in tropical countries it is dangerous to sleep in the moonlight.

We waited until we thought they were asleep, and then Bill cautiously crept out from our hiding-place, telling me to remain concealed until he could cast the boat loose and bring it around a bend in the river.

One of the two men who were lying on the ground was wide awake, and when he saw Bill walking toward the landing he called out, “Who’s that?”

I was sure now that Bill would be captured and I grasped my gun and cocked it.

“None of your business,” replied Bill. “Who are you, anyway?”

“I’m Sandy Burns,” replied the man. “You needn’t be so uppish if you are a bos’n.”

It was plain that the pirate thought that Bill was the boatswain of the schooner, and I began to hope that he might escape, after all.

“Who’s uppish?” exclaimed Bill. “Can’t a man leave the blazin’ hot fort and come down here for a swim without being hailed as if he was a constable?”

The man said no more, and Bill going straight to his boat undressed and threw his clothes into her.

Instead of trying at once to carry off the boat, he dropped into the water, clinging to the boat so that he could not be seen from the shore. He remained a long time in the water before he climbed into the boat, and then he leisurely cut her loose and rowed quietly up-stream.

The man who had hailed him was evidently sound asleep, but if he had been awake, Bill told me that he should have pretended that he had taken the boat so that he could dive from her in deep water.

As soon as Bill started with the boat I followed along the bank until I reached the bend of the river, where I found the boat waiting for me. Bill was already dressed, and in high glee, and each of us taking an oar sent the boat along at a fine rate. We soon came to where Tom was sleeping, and rousing him up took him into the boat.

“We’ve got to make the best of our time to-night,” old Bill told us, “and hide the boat in the bushes to-morrow, so that if the pirates chase us they won’t find us. But I don’t believe they’ll chase us. They won’t ever suspect that any one has carried off their boat.”

“Why, they’ll see that the boat is gone in the morning; they can’t help but see it,” I said.

“Of course they’ll see it, but they’ll lay it to the bos’n. That fellow that hailed me will say that he saw the bos’n come down for a bath and saw him put his clothes in the boat. Most likely he’ll say too that he saw the bos’n pull about the river in the boat so as to find a good divin’ place. Then everybody will b’lieve that when the bos’n come ashore he didn’t make the boat properly fast and so she drifted away. Naturally they’ll think she drifted down-stream, so they’ll send down-stream for her, and when they can’t find her they’ll think she has drifted out to sea, and they’ll take it out of the bos’n.”

“What will they do to him, do you think?” I asked.

“Oh! they’ll shoot him, or maroon him, or give him three or four dozen. It depends on how much the captain wanted this boat. I wouldn’t be in that bos’n’s skin to-morrow, not for a good bit of money.”

Not only had we got back our own boat, but there were a quantity of useful things in her. There were half a dozen fishing lines, a hatchet, a breaker of fresh water, and a big knife, that had been used to clean fish. Then there was a bag of biscuit, and a small grapnel, and a mast and sail. Tom and I were in excellent spirits, and old Bill seemed to be perfectly happy, especially whenever he thought of the unfortunate boatswain.

“I don’t understand,” said Tom, “why we are pulling up-stream. We can’t get to Charleston this way, and we shall only get further and further away into the wilderness.”

I left Bill to answer this question, for I didn’t understand either why we had continued up-stream after we had taken Tom into the boat.

“Them pirates,” replied Bill, “will be sure to search for the boat down-stream, and if we had gone that way they would have caught us sure. Now, supposin’ they do suspect us and follow us, we shall have a whole day’s start of them, and they’ll give up the chase before they can find us.”

“But how are we to get out of this river?” I asked.

“Don’t you fear about that,” he answered; “I know all this country and have cruised on this very river. We follow it up till we come to a big fresh-water lake, then we turn to the south’ard and coast along for a couple of days till we come to another river and we follow it down to the sea. We shall then be only a matter of fifty or a hundred miles to the south’ard of where we are now, and we can then shape a course for Charleston.”

“And shall we find plenty to eat?” asked Tom.

“We’ll find all the fish we want, but we’ll have to be sparin’ of the powder, for you haven’t got more than a dozen charges in that horn, and we may want them for somethin’ better than shootin’ game.”

“But we sha’n’t meet any more pirates,” said I.

“No, I don’t expect we will; but we may meet savages—Injins and such—and they’re not much better than pirates. But you leave it to me; I know the channel, and I’ll take you through safe.”

I was rather cast down to find that after escaping from pirates we were in danger of falling into the hands of savages, but we had been preserved from so many dangers that I could not help believing that we should be brought safely to Charleston at last. So I gave up thinking about it and bent my back to the oar, and pulled so strong that Bill, who was pulling the bow oar, had hard work to keep the boat straight.