Part 5

“A clean ship, and the log posted--there’s the rule for a mariner,” says he. “Now, gentlemen, I’ll tell you. I’ve had youngsters shipped to me before; their cases were clear; repentance was the thing for them, and discipline to back it. Repentance is the word. A man is blown out of his course--there’s never mortal man that isn’t--and fetches up on a lee-shore very likely. He claws off as best he may, and thinks no more about it. And when he’s shipwrecked once for all, he’s surprised. He likes to consider himself a clever man, you see--he hasn’t the heart to repent--he’s a fool. Well, now, when I came to post up the log last night, I had in my mind that Dawkins was lying, after what you told me of yourselves. I know Mr Dawkins better than he knows me. But I wasn’t sure. I took the night to think it over, and this morning I saw what to do. Yours, gentlemen, is not a common case.”

“I hope not,” said Pomfrett. “I’ve lost my ship.”

“And that’s better than losing your head, my lad,” observed Mr Murch.

“Was that the alternative?” enquired Pomfrett, apparently with ironical intention.

“Dawkins is bitter fond of money, but he must be growing strangely patient in his old age to have suffered an owners’ agent so long,” returned Mr Murch, shaking his great head. “Why, next to the captain who died, and lucky for him, you were the thorn in his pillow from the beginning. What! not content with being an agent, you must hector him on his quarterdeck, by your own account! No--it’s a miracle you came ashore, Mr Supercargo.”

Here was a new point of view. Mr Murch began to appear transfigured into the light of a saviour.

“Yes,” he went on, “you may say I bought your salvation, gentlemen. No--don’t thank me.” Mr Murch waved deprecating hands. “If I hadn’t bought you, others would. Dawkins came to me as an old shipmate, you see.”

It was like a dream to be sitting in that strange place, with the girl watching us, and the old buccaneer discussing, between mouthfuls, the question of our death or purchase as though we had been a brace of poultry.

“But what I say and maintain, is a clean ship above board and below,” said Murch, harping back. “I hope I make myself clear, gentlemen. I want you to understand me. I know what’s right and I know what’s wrong, as well as any man alive. I consider it right to buy slaves under certain conditions, wrong under others. You do right, as you think; you find it wrong; what then? Repent, as I was saying. Repent, smart and handsome, and that brings you to your course again. Take your own case--you see? Why, now, that’s all shipshape. With your leave, we’ll talk business presently. Mistress Morgan will entertain you in the meanwhile, I daresay.”

Having delivered himself of these sentiments in his weighty, sonorous manner, whose positive assurance implied negation of even the possibility of contradiction, the old gentleman clapped a palm-leaf hat on his head, called for his horse, and disappeared.

“When Mr Murch talks in this way, you may believe him. It is true what he says.” Thus abruptly did Mistress Morgan Leroux address us, with a clear foreign-accented enunciation.

“Is Mr Murch your----?” asked Pomfrett, rather at a loss.

“My guardian, yes,” said the girl. “Ever since Sir Henry Morgan went to England. He was my grandfather--Sir Henry; that is why I am called Morgan.”

She sent for cigarros, and took one herself. We sat there in the cool shadow, well filled and comfortable. Pomfrett talked with Morgan Leroux. He forgot his ship, and his owners, and his aunt, and everything--you had only to glance at his face to know that. I let them talk; women are not much in my way. After a while old Murch came back and carried us into his room.

VI

TWO CATSPAWS AND A LADY

The dusky chamber, its lattices closed against the heat, was filled with the rushing noise of the wind in the trees without. Brandon Pomfrett gazed at me with a rueful countenance; he was thinking of the _Blessed Endeavour_, our tall ship, thrashing along before the gale, main-chains under, while we were caged with the old buccaneer.

“Well,” said Mr Murch, answering our thought, “so Mr Dawkins is cracking on for Yucatan, is he? From what I saw of your ship, I should say Dawkins could knock nine knots out of her, on a wind. He’ll soon fetch up in Catoche Bay. Now, I wonder, Mr Supercargo, if your owners would entertain a claim for salvage? I mean, if Dawkins were taken, now, with the plate on board, what, sir, on behalf of your owners, would you propose, for example?”

Mr Supercargo, excited but cautious, was understood to propose full and adequate compensation. Mr Murch appeared to reflect upon the proposition.

“Now,” he resumed, presently, “you know my rule,--a clean ship alow and aloft, nothing to hide, nothing hidden. Plain, open dealing. I tell you, candidly, I should find it hard to get a ship. I was one of Morgan’s men, you see. I’m earmarked. Every governor in these islands is bound to put down piracy. That is, if he hears of it. He’s not forced to ask questions. But Jevon Murch--no, they couldn’t allow Jevon Murch. That were too undisguised. But you, my lads,” says the old gentleman, stroking his beard and surveying us with narrowed eyes, “you could take your pick of every clipper bottom in the Indies.”

“There’s a trifling obstacle--we’ve no money,” said Pomfrett.

“There’s money to be had, perhaps,” said Murch. “I’ll be plain with you. I’ve a notion to end my days in England--I want to see Mistress Morgan settled there before I die. But England is no place for a poor man. I should have to sell the plantation, you see. To leave the estate to an agent is as good as to lose it--no reflection intended, Mr Pomfrett, I assure you. The sale would bring something, but not enough. How am I to get more? I’ll tell you, and here’s my offer. You get the ship, I’ll find the money. Fit her out as a privateer, and make sail after Dawkins. If we catch him, there’s your ship for you and salvage for me. If we don’t, why, with two stout ships I’ll engage to cut the guts out of Frenchman and Spaniard from the River Plate to California. It would be worth my while, you see. The question is, do you take it to be worth yours, Mr Agent?”

Mr Agent sat gazing upon the old pirate out of troubled blue eyes. The noise of the wind filled the room, thundering about the house, and beating with muffled blows upon the windows. Before the same gale Dawkins was slipping northward.

“Isn’t it too late?” said Brandon, dubiously.

“For Dawkins? No,” returned Murch. “No, I think not. I’ll tell you why. Dawkins will require another-guess crew to what he shipped with. There’s old seamen who’ve sailed on the account scattered in every port from here to Tortuga. Dawkins will shed his green stuff on the beach and fill up with the preserved ginger, if I know him. Let him, I say. All the better for us.”

Another pause, the hurry and the tumult of the wind mixed with the hurry and tumult of our minds. The new prospect was so unexpected, so suddenly opened, we were confounded. Mr Murch sat looking placidly down his nose.

“I’ll wager,” said he, presently, “you are wondering how I can trust two strange gentlemen so instantly. Simple enough. At my age, I can tell a man when I see him. At yours, now--why, you’re thinking even now that you put your heads in the lion’s mouth when you ship with me; deny it if you can,” says the old gentleman, creasing his face into a grin that curved his mouth upward, revealing his strong white teeth.

It was true. For me, I could conceive of no more desperate enterprise. But, our case was desperate. And Brandon, who would have given his body to be burned to get his ship back, asked for a day to consider the matter.

“A day!” cried Mr Murch. “Why, I would undertake to think the sun out of the heavens in a day. Better spin a ducat and be done. But take your time, gentlemen, take your time. Meanwhile, I’ll take a walk to the harbour. No sense in losing time, and I might fall across something which would come in useful. Remember, gentlemen, you are to use this house as your own.”

With that, he was gone. There seemed in us, upon discussion, some fatal attraction to piracy. Dawkins comes to Bristol, and chance, which might have led us twenty other ways, takes us straight into his company. He has us safe in that accursed bottle of his the same day, and there we are fitting out a fine ship for him to steal. We come to Barbadoes, are cast straightway into Mr Murch’s clutches, and in a trice we are getting a ship for Mr Murch--for him to steal, for all we knew. A fate was upon us: we were born to be catspaws for pirates.

We debated the question of appealing to the Governor of Barbadoes. What little we knew of governors did not incline us to this course. If he sent a ship-of-war after Mr Dawkins--which was highly improbable--any booty there might be would be confiscate to the government. The ship might be confiscate, too, for all we knew to the contrary. Besides, Dawkins would assuredly fight, and the ship would be knocked to pieces, or sunk, very likely. And if she were taken without damage, what should we be doing with a shipload of pirates, in strange waters, without captain, pilot, or sailing-master? The enterprise did not promise much. True, it seemed the legal, proper procedure; but were we not bound to do the best for the owners, irrespective of legal considerations?

“Very well,” says Pomfrett, “shall we ship with Murch? He’s----”

The door opened, and there was Mistress Morgan.

“He’s our only chance,” Brandon ended, hastily.

“And pray, sir, who is your only chance?” asked Mistress Morgan, familiarly. She seated herself in Mr Murch’s chair. This lady did not at all resemble our English ladies at home. She looked you in the face; she spoke to you as to an equal; she had no tricks of attitude or manner; but walked or reclined with the graceful, languorous freedom of an animal. In England, they would have said she lacked breeding.

Pomfrett had a notion that it was improper to discuss affairs with ladies, as his countenance plainly showed. “We were talking of some business, madam,” said he.

“Oh, I know your story,” said Mistress Morgan. “Mr Murch told me. I begged him, when,” says she, without the faintest reticence, “he bought you, to give you to me. I seldom see gentlemen fresh from England. I hoped you would amuse me.”

I do not know if it amused Mistress Morgan to see at least one gentleman fresh from England, sitting in a dumb agony of embarrassment before her.

“Tell me,” repeated Morgan Leroux, “who is your only chance? You are my lawful prey, you know. Would you escape my bondage?”

“On the contrary,” says Brandon, with sudden courage, “we would embrace it?”

“Embrace! Fie, Mr Pomfrett, what a word to use to a lady!” says Mistress Leroux, and Brandon flushed to his ears.

“Never mind,” she went on, “you meant no harm, I can see. Now, are we to sail to England together? Before you came, I was pestering Mr Murch night and day to take me to England, and he kept fobbing me off with this and that. And this morning he tells me it all depends on your consent to a proposal of his. Why, now, can you hesitate? Will you condemn poor Morgan Leroux to a lifetime on a plantation? Oh, if you knew how I hate the everlasting dulness of the days, everyone alike--and the smell of the black people!”

Pomfrett looked furtively at me. We had not taken the lady into consideration hitherto. Here was a new inducement; to Pomfrett, perilously attractive. I could see that he was trying to square his impulse with his duty to his owners. Morgan Leroux turned to me.

“Mr Winter, how mum you sit in your corner. Why, I’m ready to swear I’ve not yet heard the sound of your voice. What do you say, now?”

I said I was but an humble clerk, whose duty it was to follow whither he was led.

“A very proper answer, Mr Winter,” said Morgan, bluntly. She meant nothing contemptuous; she said what she thought.

“Mistress Leroux,” said Brandon, “you know our story. You know what we are. We’re marooned by a pirate; we’ve lost our ship; we’ve not a guinea in the world; we’re ruined. Mr Murch makes us an offer. Had we only ourselves to consider, we would accept it without question. But we are answerable to the owners. Now, Mr Murch may mean very honestly by us; or--if you will pardon me--he may not. We don’t know Mr Murch. You do. I put myself in your hands. I appeal to you. What do you say?”

Thus Brandon, with a strong flush and very earnestly. Morgan Leroux considered him for a moment.

“You say I know him,” she answered, slowly. “I doubt if I do, though I’ve lived in his house for several years. All I can tell you is, he is just and kind to me, and he has the name of a just man. What he thinks right, that he does, and nothing stops him.”

“There it is!” said Brandon, eagerly--“what he thinks right! The question is, what _does_ he think right? You see, we’re new to this buccaneering business--it seems to have laws of its own, quite different from the Ten Commandments. We haven’t quite got the drift of the thing.”

Morgan looked at him with real concern in her vivid face.

“Do you know, Mr Pomfrett,” said she, gravely, “I think both you and I must take our chance. And for your business, I can tell you that it is of no use appealing to the Governor,” she added, significantly.

This, chiming with our own desires, clinched the matter.

“It seems,” said Brandon, as soon as we were alone, “that we are appointed to serve as pirates’ catspaws. Well, we’ll see which will pull the most from the fire, the thieves or the honest men.”

“Did you never feel,” I asked him, “when we started the business with Dawkins, that there was something behind--that it came too easy to be natural?”

“No,” said Brandon. “Did you?”

I told him that I did; and, what was more, that I had the same feeling at that moment. I told him Murch was too prodigal of his assurances of plain dealing; that, so far as my experience served, honest men did not indulge in these protestations; that I believed them (as I do still) to be the infallible mark of insincerity.

“Why the devil, then,” said Pomfrett, “didn’t you say so before? It’s too late to begin croaking now.”

At which I showed him we had no choice; and, therefore, needed all the more to be wary.

“Well,” said Pomfrett, assuming a light and careless manner, “I believe the girl is honest. She’s on our side.”

I hoped so; but to Master Pomfrett, at that time of his ingenuous life, every wench was an angel of honesty and virtue.

Mr Murch received our decision without changing a line of his cobwebbed countenance or a note in his deep voice. “Very well. We must sail within the week,” was all he said.

VII

THE _WHEEL OF FORTUNE_ MAKES A QUICK RUN

To man, arm, and victual a ship of some sixty men and eight guns, though the ship herself were ready for sea, takes ordinarily three months or more; and so to fit out a privateer, in the guise of a merchant vessel, in six days would seem an incredible performance. Yet we did it in a week--and it took a week to create the world, with unlimited facilities. Mr Murch must have been secretly preparing for some such enterprise for a long time. True, he never said so; but how else should a fine snow (a two-masted, square-sailed vessel), new rigged and cleaned, be waiting at the quay-side for a purchaser? How else should sundry merchants have the indents of stores ready made out in the back office, and the ammunition packed? And how else should the men of the crew present themselves in batches with such remarkable celerity? And what a crew! ’Twas the rout of Comus putting to sea. Scarred, dangerous, foul-mouthed ruffians; little, bustling Frenchmen; thick, mahogany-faced English; oily, sullen Portuguese; huge brutes of negroes and half-castes, most villanous of all. Some came shaking with drink, from the crimps’ houses; some, lean and lusty from their last ship; some, fat with soft living ashore; and some, dreadful tallow-faced creatures, with unkempt hair falling over snakes’ eyes, and hands like claws, from I know not what dark places of iniquity. And they all knew Mr Jevon Murch. I was certain of this. Not a day passed, while they were signing-on in the little office on the quay at Bridgetown, but Murch’s name would recur in their mongrel dialect as they stood talking and waiting their turn. And, of course, the merchants we dealt with had a private understanding with Mr Murch. Sometimes they forgot the pretence, and, a point arising for settlement, it was, “Well, sir, Mr Murch will tell you;” or, “As Mr Murch pleases.” But all business documents were made out in the name of Brandon Pomfrett. And no one asked awkward questions; it was no one’s business to ask questions, unless it were the Governor’s. And, after all, what was it to that high official that a cock-a-hoop young gentleman from England should choose to sail in the snow _Wheel of Fortune_ on a private trading venture?

All that week we worked day and night, ate when we could, and slept where we sat. Heat, dust, smell, cockroaches, a fever of hurry, a nightmare jumble of black people and white; the long road to Murch’s house, hastily traversed at all times of the day and night; Murch sitting at his table, with his unchangeable iron face, steadily transacting business and directing affairs, the week through; mounted men riding up at all hours, sitting awhile with the unchangeable iron face, and riding away; Brandon Pomfrett snatching five bitter-sweet minutes of Mistress Morgan’s company, coming away and pretending he hadn’t; the ship in a dreadful confusion of packages and bales; and always heat, dust, smell, cockroaches, a fever of hurry, and the nightmare jumble of faces black and white--these are the remembrances of that strenuous week. A beastly climate and a beastly place, though curious to see.

We were to sail with the morning tide, keep the offing until dark, then stand in, with two lights in the foremast, to pick up Mr Murch and Mistress Morgan Leroux, off a point below the plantation. All their effects were already aboard, and a cabin fitted up for the lady with every luxury Pomfrett could improvise. Mr Murch had not only got his ship during the week, but had sold his plantation--slaves, house, and all. It was sink or swim, then, for Mr Murch and his ward, as for our two selves, on this venture.

Mr Murch was to act both as captain and master when he came aboard; meanwhile, Pomfrett, who was nominal captain and master as well as nominal owner, was in command. We came aboard the evening before; and Brandon sat for a long time studying a Manual of Seamanship, which he had borrowed from Murch. He read and read, the sweat dropping upon the open page.

“I shall have to take the cursed ship out to-morrow,” said he. “I don’t know how to do it, any more than the dead. And I can’t understand the book. I may have to sail close-hauled, large, quartering, or afore the wind, and how am I to know where the blessed wind will be to-morrow? I can’t remember the directions for each. And the least thing you do wrong, she broaches-to.”

“I thought you told Dawkins you could sail a ship.”

“I can _navigate_ her,” said Pomfrett. “At least, I could if I tried. I’ve learnt the theory. But that’s not _sailing_ her, you fool.”

“Can’t you find a kind of general direction, that will serve for any emergency--a sort of common denominator?”

“You’ll never make a sailor,” says Brandon. “Now listen: _When the wind is on the quarter, the fore-tack is brought to the cat-head, and, the main-tack being cast off, the weather-clue of the main-sail is hoisted up to the yard, and the yards are so disposed as to make an angle of twenty-two degrees with the keel_.”

“Very well. ‘Bring fore-tack to cat-head, cast off main-tack’ (“But supposing it is cast off already?” said Brandon), ‘hoist main-sail, go on rounding yards till I tell you to stop.’ Nothing could be simpler.”

“Ah, but,” says the hopeful mariner, “_when the wind is one point on the quarter, the angle which the yards and sails make with the keel is somewhat less than a point_. See what a delicate business it is! And again, when the wind is right aft, they’re at right angles with the keel, the stay-s’ls hauled down, the main-s’l brailed up, but you mustn’t furl the main-top-s’l and main-t’gallant-s’l, for fear of broaching-to! And supposing the winds fall to light and baffling airs, now a point this way, now the other--what then?”

“I’ll tell you what,” I said, “you’d better keep below and let the boatswain take charge.”

“No,” said Brandon, firmly. “One doesn’t command a ship every day. Keep below?--not I. Besides, I should forfeit the respect of the crew if I did.”

“And it would be better to forfeit the ship than that, wouldn’t it?”

“Of course,” says Captain Pomfrett, with perfect seriousness.

I had a premonitory vision of the _Wheel of Fortune_, staggering to and fro in the harbour, running down a boat here, carrying away bow-sprits and jib-booms there, the derision of Bridgetown; and I privately sought the boatswain. Since it was that officer’s duty to repeat the captain’s orders to the crew, he might yet save us. Our boatswain was a fat, good-humoured person, with a very long body, very short legs, and a tiny grey eye shining in the crease of his red cheek. I approached him with delicacy--so much delicacy that the worthy man, who was three parts drunk, had a difficulty in apprehending my drift.

“Ho,” says he, expostulating, “you’re a pleasant gentleman, Mr Winter, and no mistake. What harm have I ever done to you, Mr Winter, that you should wish to see me triced up to the gratings, a-biting on a cork, and the corporal a-laying on his twelve dozen for mutiny? And before we’re out o’ harbour too!”

I explained laboriously that my meaning was quite otherwise. I put it, that the captain’s long spell of work, combined with unusual potations, might cause him to give somewhat uncertain directions; that, in fact, the boatswain was to be responsible for taking out the ship.