Part 10

“Your ship, was it? ’Twas this pretty little monkey was skipper just now,” growled Dawkins. “Come,” he went on, “I know when I’m beaten, I do. I had some opportunities to learn, you see. Now you got the weather-gauge of poor old Dawkins, not a doubt of it. Let’s know the worst. ’Tis Jevon Murch as put you up to this here little game--enticing a man with a invitation to dinner, and what not, and call yourselves gentlemen. I’d make better gentlemen out of a pope’s head and a slush-bucket, split _me_!” said Dawkins, his choler getting the better of him.

“No,” said Pomfrett, quietly, “Mr Murch knows nothing of the matter. It’s you and I that have to settle accounts, Mr Dawkins.”

We were seated at the table, opposite the old buccaneer, each with a couple of pistols lying under his hand, the candle-flames streaming this way and then that way, with the motion of the ship. Morgan Leroux had retired into a corner and sat in the shadow, with her chin in her hand, watching us under her level, black brows. We could hear the noise of Dawkins’s men carousing with the crew in the waist.

“Settle away, then, Mr Supercargo,” said Dawkins, who appeared a little more at ease upon learning that Murch was not at hand. “There’s no man alive what’s more open to fair discussion than me, though I say it.”

“Very well,” says Brandon. “First, then, you sold Mr Winter and myself for slaves.”

“It looks like as if I did at this present moment, don’t it?” growled Dawkins. “But I won’t quarrel over details, cap’n. Heave ahead.”

“Second, you stole the _Blessed Endeavour_.”

“Who says so?”

“Well, you did, you know,” returned Brandon, a little set back. “What’s the use of talking?”

“Not much, by the look of it,” retorted Mr Dawkins. “You say I stole the ship. I say I didn’t, nor I haven’t. I was elected captain--you helped elect me, you two, ’long of the others. I’m captain still. What are you? Deserters, I reckon. If you was to come aboard, I’d clap you in irons, and no mistake about it. Now, then! What next? You’ll tell me I stole a cargo of silver, I shouldn’t wonder, like young jackanapes in the corner there, what’s grandson to Cap’n Morgan. Grandson, says he! Ho, ho!”

At this, Brandon advised Mr Dawkins, in forcible terms, to keep a civil tongue in his head.

“Why, what now?” cried the injured Dawkins. “A man may speak, I should hope! One would think Cap’n Morgan’s grandson was a young lady what couldn’t defend herself, to hear you. But there, Mr Pomfrett, you got the weather-gauge, as I say, and you can give your orders. Go on, sir. I’ll give my best attention.”

But Pomfrett was somewhat at a loss. Perceiving, for the first time, how strong a case Dawkins could make out in his own defence, Pomfrett sat uncomfortably silent. Old Dawkins grinned at him.

“You got me here by treach’ry, Mr Pomfrett,” says he, “and I reckon ’tis no use asking for a fair hearing in full council aboard the _Blessed Endeavour_. I ain’t a fool. I know what you want--you want to see me a-drying in the sun at Execution Dock, while you takes all the cash and all the credit too. And very natural, I’m sure. On’y, how are you a-going to do it?”

Still Brandon sat silent. Morgan Leroux gazed at him intently, anxiously. He was contending with his scruples; the civilised conventions which would prevent his fighting a man like Dawkins with his own weapons. Was he, at the dictates of scrupulosity, to let the thief go free, because he was his guest, and so forfeit all his owners’ fortune, and the fortune of Morgan Leroux likewise? For a minute or two, I believe the notion presented itself to Brandon Pomfrett in the alluring light of an heroical sacrifice, such as you read of in books. But common men in common life must act as they can, not as they would, and the truth that Dawkins had taken to his heart in infancy Brandon was to recognise now--just in time.

“Dawkins,” says he, in a hard, sharp voice, that caused the old pirate to look up with a start, “I’ve just two words to say to you. Give me sixfold compensation for having sold us as slaves--that’s six hundred pieces of eight for each, you know; give me back the ship and all that’s in her, resign command in my favour in full council of officers, and you shall go free.”

Morgan Leroux, sitting silent in the corner, clapped her hands.

Dawkins’s tufted eyebrows climbed his forehead, and he looked at the young captain with a queer expression of mingled dismay and admiration.

“Spoken like a gentleman o’ fortune, by the bones of the deep!” says he. “Blest if I thought you had it in you, Mr Supercargo. Very good, commander. And what if I refuse this here modest proposal?”

“You’ll hang at the yard-arm at sunrise.”

“Dear me! At sunrise, too--quite poetical, ain’t it?” said Dawkins; but for all his bold front, he was visibly shaken. “But just a moment, commander, just one little question. What would you gain, now, by hanging poor old Dawkins--at sunrise?”

“Well, you see, it’s not so much what I should gain as what you would lose, Mr Dawkins,” says Pomfrett.

“Ah, I reckon you’re too clever for me, too deep altogether,” retorted Dawkins. “But I ain’t scared, not me, so don’t think it. I’ve lived cheek by jowl with goodman death for a matter of fifty year, you see. What do I lose, says you? Why now, I’ll tell you. I’ll lose a little cottage by the water-side, with a bit of a flagstaff in the garden, and flowers and a seat in it, and what not. I’ll lose a few quiet years of steady rations, which enables a man to fix his attention on repentance, ready for kingdom come, with a Holy Joe a-taking his Sunday tea in the parlour, very likely. Not much by the sound of it, is it? But it’s all poor old Dawkins has in store, for fifty year of hard service--just enough to make the difference of hell on the one side of the great gulf, and a golden crown and harps and such on t’other, for a poor old seaman.”

“Accept my terms, and I’ll give you a chance of the cottage and heaven and all,” said Brandon.

“Would you, now?” cried Dawkins, with a cunning leer. “Why, that’s mortal kind of you, commander, to be sure! You’re a man to be trusted--we all knows that--and I’ll take your word on it, Mr Pomfrett. I know when I’m beaten, I reckon. How much now, would you----”

“All in good time,” said Brandon. “We’ll have the dividend declared before the _Blessed Endeavour_ sails.”

“Now that’s what I call talking!” says Dawkins. “The dividend declared--that’s real business. And then she sails for England, does she? That’s good news, too. And who’ll command the barky, cap’n, if I might ask?”

“I will,” said Brandon.

“Ho!” said Dawkins, with an appearance of deep thought. “Yes, of course. I might a knowed that much, says you. But now you and me is friends again, commander, you’ll not take a friendly hint amiss, I’m sure. The crew I got together, Mr Pomfrett, ain’t exactly Mary’s little lambs, as you might say--eh?”

He cocked his eye at Pomfrett with an expression of extraordinary significance.

“I’ll take my chance of that,” says the valiant skipper.

“Now you listen to me for a brace of shakes,” returned Dawkins, with a sudden change of manner. “This is straight talk, this is. I know where I stand. I’m a-going to play the square game. You can see for yourself I’ve naught to gain by telling you. But as sure as sunrise, if anyone but Dawkins--or Cap’n Murch, maybe, but he ain’t about, you say?--as sure as death, I say, if you takes command of that there ship, there’ll be mutiny, hot mutiny, damned hot. By the bones of the deep, Mr Pomfrett, there’ll be a bloody throat-cutting, gospel truth there will.”

Pomfrett glanced uneasily at Morgan Leroux. The probability of the statement was undeniable. Love and war are excellent pursuits, but they should be carried on separately. Dawkins dropped the lids over his little, twinkling eyes, and seemed to study the table.

“Under favour, commander,” he resumed, presently, “I would humbly suggest another way--me what has a rope round his neck and feels the hemp rough on his skin a’ready.”

“Well?”

“Declare the dividend as you say, all well and good. The officers, they don’t know--any more than you do, come to that, Mr Pomfrett--they don’t know, not being told, d’ye see, that the ship ain’t being sailed on the private account for the owners’ satisfaction, all the samey as we started, so there won’t be no trouble about the dividend of the plunder. You and me can settle that, private. Then there’s pickings for the crew, for we ain’t been altogether idle while you was a holiday-making in Barbadoes, so there won’t be no trouble about _that_, neither. And then--well, I hardly like to mention it, commander, I don’t indeed.”

“Speak up,” says Brandon.

“Why,” Dawkins went on, with a sort of deprecating suggestion that he was laying himself open to a painful misunderstanding, and knew it, and could bear it--“why, it come into my mind that bygones being bygones, and you and Mr Winter aboard again, all shipshape and comfortable, and the dividend being declared, and all, d’ye see,”--Mr Dawkins’s laborious insinuation of extraordinary sincerity was a thing to behold--“I thought to myself, d’ye see, why not let things be as they was afore, commander?”

“You mean, you propose to retain the command of the _Blessed Endeavour_ yourself--is that it?”

“Well, you see, commander, I was elected in full council. There’s no getting away from that. And the officers, they wouldn’t understand a new arrangement, d’ye see; they’d want a explanation. And then, d’ye see, if you was to give ’em what you might call _your_ explanation, they mightn’t--I don’t say they wouldn’t--but they _mightn’t_ believe you, captain. It ain’t,” said Mr Dawkins, piously, “that I want to put myself forward--you see that, don’t you, commander?--it’s on’y what’s best to be done for all parties consarned.”

We looked at each other in silence. There was no doubt about it--Dawkins dead was more dangerous than Dawkins living; since, if he lived, we had but to reckon with himself alone; but if he were removed, perils multiplied at every step. The old rascal had the weather-gauge of us, after all. We looked at each other. It was Morgan Leroux who broke into a peal of laughter, and suddenly we were all laughing; we laughed until the tears came, all except Mr Dawkins, who sat with his big, scarred hands loosely clasped on the table in front of him, gazing at us with a face of wood. His gravity was like a reproof. We turned serious again as suddenly as we had broken into mirth.

“Well, gentlemen, what’s it to be?” said Dawkins. “Hang me and put your heads in a hornets’ nest, or call me Captain Dawkins and sail to England as safe and easy as the Lord High Admiral in a blessed ship-o’-the-line?”

“Why, really, Mr Dawkins,” began Pomfrett, “I think you should offer some sort of security, just as a matter of form, you know, that we shan’t be hove overboard, or marooned on the next island.”

“Security? Why, I’ll do what I can. I’ll give you what I got. I can’t do no more,” said Dawkins. “Gratitude, now, gratitude for saving me a hanging, what d’ye say to that, commander, for a sheet-anchor to wind’ard?”

“No; won’t do,” said Brandon. “I’ve got to set twice six hundred pieces of eight, a cargo of silver, and a tall ship against that item. Try again.”

“Fear of committing sin?” suggested Dawkins.

“No.”

“Fear of the law, then?”

“No; there’s not enough of that commodity south of the Line, Mr Dawkins.”

“Fear of the ship’s company? There’s some of ’em would be almost called honest.”

“Pass again,” said Brandon.

“Well, you’re hard to please, commander, so help me. What,” said Mr Dawkins, “if I were to swear a oath on the Book, now?”

“That’s better,” said Brandon, “and the least you can do.”

“Oh, that’s better, is it?” said Dawkins, evidently discomfited. “Well what must be, must, I reckon. Fetch aft the Book, commander.”

Brandon took a Testament from the locker where his kit was stowed, and there and then administered a terrific oath to Mr Dawkins, binding him, under the most blasting penalties in this world and the next, to perform his share of our mutual agreement. A pirate has a certain respect for an oath taken on the Bible; and although it is always doubtful how far it will bind him when the pinch comes, this thin strand of superstitious faith was all we had to trust in.

“Well an’ good,” said Dawkins, drawing the back of his hand across his lips. “Now it’s my turn, commander. Take the Book in your right hand and say after me.”

And he launched into an apocalyptic imprecation beside which Brandon’s attempt at a sacrament paled its ineffectual fire. To Morgan Leroux, and to me, did Mr Dawkins, not sparing us a single jot, then administer this tremendous compact.

“And now,” said Mr Dawkins, filling his glass for the first time since we had entered the cabin, “a glass all round to wet the agreement, shipmates, and then--as there ain’t to be no hanging at sunrise--why, I’ll turn in for a stretch off-shore on this here locker, commander, by your kind leave.”

He lay down, wrapped in his boat-cloak, and slept instantly. A sentry was stationed at the door of the cabin, and we three went on deck. As we emerged into the dusky glimmer of moonlight shining diffused behind clouds, the watch challenged loudly. “Boat ahoy!” But there was no boat to be seen. “I could ’a’ sworn there was a boat, too,” said the man. “Yonder, out by the headland.”

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.”