Kitabı oku: «The Story of Jack Ballister's Fortunes», sayfa 20

CHAPTER XLI
THE BOAT ADRIFT

NEARLY two months had passed in Virginia since Eleanor Parker had been abducted, and nothing yet had been definitely heard concerning her. There were many vague rumors from Ocracock, and it was known that Blackbeard the pirate had been for some time past up into Virginia waters. He had been seen at Norfolk two or three times, and it was known that he had been up into the James River. It was almost more than suspected that he had been concerned in the outrage, but there was as yet nothing definite to confirm such a suspicion.

Colonel Parker was still too ill to quit his room, though he had so far improved that he had begun to think of taking some steps for the recovery of his daughter.

One day Governor Spottiswood went up to Marlborough to see him. He was almost shocked to find the great man so weak and broken. “The villains!” said the sick man, in a weak and querulous voice, so different from his usual stately tones, “‘twas those men murdered my Ned, and now they have taken all that was left me.”

There was something very pathetic in the helplessness of the proud, great man, and in that weakened, tremulous voice. The governor did not reply, but he pressed the hand he held.

Mr. Richard Parker stood by his brother’s chair during his Excellency’s visit. The governor looked at him and wondered how he could be so calm and unmoved. He had never liked Mr. Richard Parker.

“My brother Richard,” said the invalid, putting his weak hand to his forehead, “my brother Richard seems to think it would be better to wait until we have some word from the villains who kidnapped Nelly.” He turned his eyes towards his brother as he spoke. “But I can’t wait; I must do something to find her, and I can’t wait. Just as soon as I am well enough I am going to take steps to find her. They say that villain Teach hath been seen up in the James River. Maybe ‘twas he took her away, and I am going to fit out a boat, – or two boats, if need be, – and go down to North Carolina and try to find her.”

Colonel Parker’s plan appeared singularly weak and inconsequential to the Governor, but he chose to comfort his friend by encouraging any plan that might bring hope to him.

“The Pearl and the Lyme are lying at Jamestown now,” he said. “I was talking t’other day about your dreadful misfortune to some of the officers who had come over to the palace. Lieutenant Maynard was there, and I am sure, from what he said, if you will fit out two such boats and will raise volunteers for such an expedition, he will take command of it. He is a brave and experienced officer, and hath had to do with the pirates before at Madagascar. He would make the best commander you could have, especially if it came to fighting with the villains.”

“To my mind,” said Mr. Richard Parker, cutting into the talk, “‘twould be a mistake to push against the villains. To my mind, ‘twould be better to rest for a while until we hear from them. I sha’n’t need to tell you that they can have no reason for kidnapping Nelly except for the ransom they can get for her. If that is so – and I’m sure it is so – ’twill be to their interest to treat her well, and to look after her with all tenderness, and to let us know about her as soon as possible; but if we should use violence toward them there is no telling what they might do out of revenge. Maybe, if we press them too closely, they may carry her elsewhither from place to place, or, if they find themselves driven into a corner, they may even make away with her for their own safety or out of revenge.” Colonel Parker shuddered at the words, but Mr. Richard Parker continued calmly, as before, “I should advise to wait a little while longer. We have waited so long as this, and it can do no harm to wait a while longer with patience.”

At this Colonel Parker cried out in his sick, tremulous voice, “Patience! patience! ’Tis easy enough for you to talk of patience, brother Richard, but how can I be patient who have all I hold most precious in the world taken away from me? O Nelly, Nelly!” he cried, covering his eyes with his trembling hands, “I would give all I have in the world to have thee safe back again! I would! I would!”

The Governor could not bear to look at the sick man in his grief. He turned away his face and gazed out of the window. Mr. Richard Parker said nothing, but shrugged his shoulders.

Before the Governor went, he took Mr. Richard Parker aside and said to him, “Sir, there may be truth in what you said just now about the inadvisability of driving too hard against the villains, but surely you must see that ‘twill be infinitely better for your poor brother to have something to think of – to arouse himself. He sitteth here eating his heart out, and any plan of action is better for him than none. Were I in your place, I would encourage him in thinking of such things rather than discourage him from such hopes.” But Mr. Richard Parker only shrugged his shoulders as before, without vouchsafing any reply.

Governor Spottiswood had not thought that Colonel Parker’s rambling plans would result in anything, but within two weeks two boats were really fitted out – the schooner that belonged to Marlborough, and a larger sloop that was purchased for the purpose. It took a week or more to victual the boats and arm and man them, and by that time Colonel Parker was able to be up and about. He would listen to no advice, but insisted that he himself should have chief command of the expedition. Mr. Richard Parker advised him vehemently not to go, and Madam Parker besought him with tears to remain at home, while the doctor assured him that it was at the danger of his life that he went. “Sir,” said the great man to the doctor, “I have been a soldier; shall I, then, stay at home when my own daughter is in danger, and let others do the fighting for me? You shall go along, if you please, to look after my poor body, but go I shall, if God gives me life to go,” and so he did, in spite of all that his family could say against it.

At Norfolk he had another though slight attack of his malady, and by order of the doctor, who had sailed with the expedition, he rested for over a week at the home of a friend at that place.

It was while he was lying at Mr. Chorley’s house that he received the first fragment of news concerning the young lady that was at all definite.

A coasting vessel from South Carolina ran into Norfolk on Saturday night, coming direct from Ocracock, where she had put in during a storm a few days before. The captain of the coaster said that while they were lying at the inlet he had heard a good deal of talk about a strange lady whom it was said Blackbeard had brought down from Virginia to North Carolina a month or so before, and whom he had taken somewhere up into the sounds. It was a general report that she was extremely beautiful, and a lady of quality, and that she had been brought to North Carolina against her will.

It was on Sunday morning that somebody told Lieutenant Maynard about the coasting captain and his news, and he lost no time in coming to speech with the man. He took him directly to Mr. Chorley’s house, where Colonel Parker was still staying. Mr. Chorley and Mr. Chancellor Page and Dr. Young were all present when Captain Niles told his story to Colonel Parker. “It must be Nelly!” cried out the poor bereaved father. “It can be no one else than she!”

“I would not build too much upon such a rumor,” said Mr. Chorley. “Nevertheless, it does seem as though, at last, you have really news of her. And now the question is, how do you propose to act? ‘Twill never do to be too hasty in such a delicate matter.”

But Colonel Parker was so eager to set sail at once in quest of his daughter that he would listen to nothing that his friends advised to the contrary. Mr. Chorley urged again and again that the utmost caution should be used lest the pirates should carry the young lady still further away from rescue, or maybe take some violent action to protect themselves. He suggested that Governor Eden be written to and requested to take the matter in hand. “Write to Governor Eden!” Colonel Parker cried out; “why should I write to Eden? Why suffer so much delay? Have I not boats fitted out and sufficiently armed and manned with brave fellows to face all the pirates of North Carolina if need be? Nay; I will go down thither and inquire into this report myself without losing time, and without asking Governor Eden to do it for me.”

This, as was said, was on Sunday morning, and Colonel Parker determined that the expedition should set sail for North Carolina early upon the morning of the following day.

It was on this same day that the news was first brought to Virginia of the loss of the French bark. One of Colonel Parker’s two boats – the sloop, which was at that time under command of an ex-man-of-war boatswain, known at Norfolk as “Captain” Blume – one of Colonel Parker’s two boats had been beating up and down the mouth of the bay for several days past, hailing incoming or outgoing vessels in the hope of obtaining some news concerning the young lady. It was about ten o’clock that Sunday morning, when the lookout in the foretop of the schooner sighted an open boat under a scrap of sail, beating up into the bay against the wind. By and by they could make out with the glass that there were men in the boat waving their hats and something white, apparently a shirt or a shift, at the end of an oar. When the sloop ran down to the boat they found it loaded with twenty men and two women; one of the women very weak and exhausted from exposure, all of them haggard and famished.

The boat was one of those belonging to the French bark that the pirates had taken, and it had been adrift, now, for eleven days, having been parted from the others at sea during a time of heavy and foggy weather.

One of the women and three of the men were French; all the others were English – the remnant of the crew of the English bark that the Frenchman had rescued from the water-logged and nearly sinking vessel.

The man in command of the boat had been the mate of the English bark, and the story he told when he came aboard the sloop was one of continued mishaps and misfortunes that had followed them ever since they had quitted Plymouth in England for Charleston in South Carolina. Two days out from England, he said, the smallpox had broken out aboard, and the captain had died of a confluent case. Then, while the crew was still short-handed with the sickness, a storm had struck them and driven them far out of their course to the southward. Then the vessel had sprung a leak and was actually sinking under them when the French bark had picked them up. Then the Frenchman had been attacked and captured by the pirates, and all hands had been set adrift in the open boats with only three days’ provisions. That, as was said, had been eleven days before, and since that they had been trying in vain to make the Chesapeake capes, having been again and again driven out of their course by the heavy weather.

It is strange how much misfortune will sometimes follow an ill-fated vessel, one mishap succeeding another without any apparent cause or sequence. The mate said with a sort of rueful humor that he would not trust even yet that his troubles were over, nor until he felt his feet on dry land at Norfolk. He said that the Englishwomen and six of the Englishmen were redemption servants who had been shipped from Plymouth for Charleston.

After having heard the castaways’ story, Captain Blume thought it best to put back to Norfolk with the rescued crew. He reached that town late at night and reported immediately to Lieutenant Maynard, who was aboard of the schooner at the time, making ready for the departure on the morrow. The lieutenant, together with Captain Blume and the shipwrecked mate, went ashore and to Mr. Chorley’s house, where Colonel Parker still lay.

It was then nearly midnight, and as it was too late to find the magistrate, Colonel Parker gave orders that the rescued boat’s crew should be transferred to the schooner – it being the larger vessel of the two – and so held until the morning. They could then be turned over to the proper authorities for an examination under oath, and the bond-servants deposited in some place of safekeeping until they could be duly redeemed.

Lieutenant Maynard himself went aboard the sloop with Captain Blume to see that the transfer of the shipwrecked crew was properly made. As he stood by the rail while the men were being mustered a man came across the deck and directly up to him. He was one of the castaways, and when he came near enough for the light of the lantern to fall upon him, the lieutenant could see that he was a little man with a lean, dark face, and that he had a stringy, black beard covering his cheeks. His face was peppered over with the still purple pits of recent smallpox, and he was clad in a nondescript costume made up of a medley of borrowed raiment. Mr. Maynard looked the little man over as he approached. “Well, my man,” he said, “and what can I do for you?”

“Sir,” said the little man, “I ask for nothing but justice.”

“You go forward again, Burton,” said the mate of the rescued boat; “you’ll have plenty of chance to talk to the magistrate to-morrow.”

“Not till the gentleman hears me!” cried the little man.

“What do you want?” said the lieutenant. “What is the trouble?”

“Sir, I have been foully dealt with,” said the little man. “I am a lawyer; my name is Roger Burton. I am a man of repute and was held in respect by all who knew me in Southampton, whence I came. Sir, I was struck upon the head at night and nearly killed, and while I lay unconscious I was kidnapped, and came to myself only to find myself aboard of a vessel bound for the Americas.”

“He was one of a lot of redemption servants brought aboard at Plymouth,” said the mate. “He appeared to have been hurt in a drunken brawl.”

“Sir,” the little man protested, vehemently, “I was never so drunk as that in all my life.”

“Well, I am sorry for you, my man, if what you say is true,” the lieutenant said, “but ’tis none of my business. Many men are brought hither to America as you say you have been, and your case is not any worse than theirs. I am sorry for you, but the affair is not mine to deal with.”

“What, sir!” cried the little man, “and is that all the satisfaction I am to have? Is that all you, one of his Majesty’s officers, have to say to me who hold the position of a gentleman? Sir, in the eyes of the law, I have a right to sign myself esquire, as you have the right to sign yourself lieutenant, and to go under a gentleman’s title. Am I, then, to be put off so when I do but ask for justice?”

“You may sign yourself what you choose,” said the lieutenant; “and as for justice, I tell you ’tis none of my affairs. I am not a magistrate, I am an officer of the navy. You are a lawyer, you say – well, then, you can plead your own case when you get ashore, and if you have justice on your side, why, I have no doubt but that you will obtain it.”

“Come, now, Burton, you go forward where you belong,” said the mate.

The little man gave one last earnest look at the lieutenant. He must have seen that it was of no use to plead his case further, for he turned and walked away with his head hanging down.

“How many of those poor people had you aboard?” the lieutenant asked.

“We had fifteen in all. I had seven with me in the boat; six men and one woman. All the others but two died of smallpox.”

CHAPTER XLII
THE NEXT DAY

JACK was awakened at the first dawn of day by the sea-gulls clamoring above him. Their outcries mingled for a little while with his dreams before he fairly awoke. He found himself standing up. The sun was shining. There was the beach and the sandy distance. Dred came walking toward him up from the boat, and a great and sudden rush of joy filled his heart. “Why, Dred,” he cried out, “I thought you were dead!” Dred burst out laughing. “I was only fooling you, lad,” he said; “I weren’t hurt much after all.” Then that terrible tragedy had not really happened. He must have dreamed it. Dred had not been shot, and he had not died. The sea-gulls flew above their heads screaming, and his soul was full of the joy of relief.

Then he opened his eyes. The sun had not yet arisen, but he was still full of the echo of joy, believing that Dred was alive, after all. He arose and stood up. The motionless figure was lying in the distance just as he had left it the night before.

But, after all, Dred might not be dead, and there might be some truth in his dream. He might have been mistaken last night. Perhaps Dred was alive, after all, and maybe better this morning.

He went over to where the silent figure lay, and looked down into the strange, still face – upon the stiff, motionless hands. Yes; Dred was dead. As Jack stood looking he choked and choked, and one hot tear and then another trickled down either cheek. They tasted very salt.

Then he began to think. What was he to do now? Something must be done, and he must do it himself, for he must not ask the young lady to help him. He went down to the boat. There was nothing there that he could use, and so he walked off some distance along the beach. At last he found a barrel, that had perhaps been cast up by a storm, and which now lay high and dry upon the warm, powdered sand which had drifted around it, nearly covering it. He kicked the barrel to pieces with his heel, and pulled up two of the staves from the deeper layer of damp sand beneath. He had walked some distance away, and now he turned and went back to where the still figure lay motionless in the distance. The young lady had not yet awakened, and he was glad of it.

He was trembling when he had ended his task. Suddenly, while he was still kneeling, the sun arose, throwing its level beams of light across the stretch of sand, now broken and trampled, where he had been at work. He smoothed over the work he had made. The damper particles stuck to his hands and clothes, and he brushed them off. Then he took down the shelter that he and the young lady had built up over Dred’s head the day before, carrying the oars and the young lady’s clothes down to the boat. Then he came back and carried down the overcoats. By that time she had arisen. Jack went straight up to her where she stood looking around her. “Where is he?” she said.

Jack did not reply, but he turned his face in the direction. She saw where the smooth surface of the sand had been broken and disturbed, and she understood. She hid her face in her hands and stood for a moment, and Jack stood silently beside her. “Oh,” she said, “I was dreaming it was not so.”

“So was I,” said Jack, brokenly, and again he felt a tear start down his cheek.

“It did not seem to me as if it could be so,” she said. “It don’t even seem now as though it were so. It was all so dreadful. It doesn’t seem as though it could have happened.”

“Well,” said Jack, heaving a convulsive sigh, “we’ll have to have something to eat, and then we’ll start on again.” The thought of eating in the very shadow of the tragedy that had happened seemed very grotesque, and he felt somehow ashamed to speak of it.

“Eat!” she said. “I do not want to eat anything.”

“We’ll have to eat something,” said Jack; “we can’t do without that.”

The task of pushing the yawl off into the water was almost more than Jack could accomplish. For a while he thought they would have to wait there till high tide in the afternoon. But at last, by digging out the sand from under the boat, he managed to get it off into the water. “I’ll have to carry you aboard, mistress,” he said.

He stooped and picked her up, and walked with her, splashing through the shallow sheet of water that ran up with each spent breaker upon the shining sand. He placed her in the boat and then pushed it off. The breakers were not high, but they gave the boat a splash as Jack pulled it through them.

He rowed out some distance from the shore, and she sat silently watching him. Then he unshipped the oars and went forward and raised the sail. By this time the morning was well advanced. The breeze had not yet arisen, but cat’s-paws began to ruffle the smooth surface of the water. Then by and by came a gentle puff of breeze that filled out the sail, and swung the boom out over the water. Jack drew in the sheet, and the boat slid forward with a gurgle of water under the bows. Then the breeze began blowing very lightly and gently.

This was Sunday morning.

They sailed on for a long, long distance without speaking. Both sat in silence, he sunk in his thoughts, and she in hers. He was trying to realize all that had happened the day before, but he could hardly do so. It did not seem possible that such things could have actually happened to him. He wondered what she was thinking about – Virginia, perhaps. Yes; that must be it. And he was going back to Virginia, too. How strange that he should be really going back there – the very place from which he had escaped two months before! Was there ever anybody who had had so many adventures happen to him in six months as he? Then something caused him suddenly to remember how he had reached out the evening before, and had touched Dred’s senseless hand. There seemed to him something singularly pathetic in the stillness and inertness of that unfeeling hand. Then came the memory of the silent face, of those cold lips that one day before had been full of life, and it was profoundly dreadful. He shuddered darkly. Was this always the end of everything? – of the rushing breeze, the dazzling sunlight, the beautiful world in which men lived? Death is terrible, terrible to the eyes of youth.

“Do you know,” said the young lady, suddenly, breaking upon the silence, “it does not seem possible that I am really to see my father again, and maybe so soon. I’m trying to feel that it is so, but I can’t. I wonder what they will all say and do! Oh, it seems as though I couldn’t wait! I wonder how much further ’tis to Virginia?”

“I don’t know,” said Jack; “but it can’t be much further. I’ve been thinking that those sand-hills on ahead must be at Cape Henry. I only saw it in the evening when I was on Blackbeard’s sloop, the time we were bringing you down to Bath Town; but the hills look to me like Cape Henry. And, do you see, the coast runs inward there. I can’t tell, though, whether ’tis only a bend in the shore, or whether ’tis the bay.”

“My father will never forget what you’ve done,” she said, looking straight at him.

“Will he not?” said Jack.

“He will never forget it.”

Her words brought a quick spasm of pleasure to Jack. He had not thought before of the reward he should receive. Of course there would be some reward – some great reward. It was perhaps then that he first realized what a thing it was he had done – that he had brought Colonel Parker’s daughter safe away from the pirates, through the very jaws of death! Yes; it was a great thing to have done; and again there came that spasm of delight. The future had suddenly become very bright. It seemed now to throw back a different light upon all those dreadful things that had passed, and they became transformed into something else. They were no longer gloomy terrors – they were great events leading to a great success.

It was late afternoon when they slid before the wind around the high sand-hills of the cape. As the bay slowly opened before them they saw that there were three sails in sight. One of them, far away, apparently a schooner, was coming down the bay as though to run out around the cape to the southward.

“See that boat!” cried out the young lady. “’Tis coming this way. Don’t you believe we could stop it, and get the captain to take us back to Virginia?”

“I don’t know,” said Jack; “’tis like she won’t stop for me, but I’ll try it if you’d like me to.”

He put down the helm of the yawl so as to run up across the course upon which the distant vessel seemed to be sailing. They watched her in silence as slowly, little by little, she came nearer and nearer. “I ought to have something to wave,” said Jack, “to make her see us. I don’t believe she’ll stop for us unless we signal her in some such way.”

“Why not my red scarf!” said the young lady. “Stop, I’ll get it for you.”

She handed the bright red scarf to Jack, who tied it to the end of an oar. The schooner was now some three quarters of a mile away. Jack stood up in the boat, and began waving the scarf at the end of the blade, hallooing as he did so. As the course of the schooner was laid, she would run past them about half a mile distant. “I don’t believe she’s going to stop for us, after all,” said Jack. “Bear the tiller a little to the left. That’s as it should be. Now hold it steady, and I’ll wave again.” Then, even as he spoke, he saw that those aboard the schooner were hauling in the foresail and mainsail, and that she was coming about. “She is going to stop for us!” he cried.

The schooner had gone a little past them before her sails swung over; then, sweeping around in a great semi-circle, she bore down upon them, bow on. Jack laid down the oar, and, taking the tiller again, brought the yawl up into the wind, and so lay waiting for the schooner to reach them. She ran to within maybe thirty or forty yards of them, and then, coming up into the wind, lay rising and falling, swinging slowly back and forth with the regular heave of the ground-swell. She looked very near. There was a group of faces clustered forward, looking out at them across the restless water, and another little group of three men and a woman stood at the open gangway. A large, rough man, with a red face prickled over with a stubby beard, hailed them. He wore baggy breeches tied at the knees, and a greasy red waistcoat. “Boat ahoy!” he called out. “What boat is that?”

Jack was standing up in the yawl. “We’ve come up from North Carolina!” he called back in answer. “We’ve just escaped from the pirates.”

“Is that Miss Eleanor Parker?” the other called out instantly.

“Ay!” said Jack.

There was an instant commotion aboard the schooner, and the captain called out: “Bring your boat over here!”

Jack seated himself and set the oars into the rowlocks. He pulled the bow of the boat around with a few quick strokes, and then rowed toward the schooner. In a minute or so he was close alongside. The men and the woman were standing on the deck just above, looking down at him. The six or eight men of the crew were also standing at the rail, gazing at them. Jack could see that the schooner carried as a cargo three or four hogsheads of tobacco and a great load of lumber.

“Was it you brought the young lady away?” said the captain to Jack. “You’re a mightily young fellow to do that, if you did do it.”

“I didn’t bring her off my own self,” said Jack. “One of the pirates helped us get away. But Blackbeard came up with us at Currituck Inlet, and before we could get away the man who helped us was shot. He died last night.”

“So, then!” said the captain. “Then it was Blackbeard, arter all, who carried off the young lady, was it?” Then he added, “Colonel Parker’s at Norfolk now. I’ll run back with you, and tow the yawl into the bargain, if the young lady’ll guarantee me that her father’ll pay me five pounds for doing it.”

“Five pounds!” cried Jack. “Why, that is a deal of money, master, for such a little thing.”

“Well, ’tis the best I’ll do. It may lose me three days or more, and I won’t do it for less.”

“Oh, it does not matter,” said the young lady to Jack, in a low voice. “I’ll promise him that papa will pay him five pounds.”

Jack felt that the captain was taking advantage of her probable eagerness to return, but he also saw that she would not allow him to bargain at such a time. “She says her father will pay it, master,” he said; “but ’tis a great deal of money to make her promise.”

The captain of the schooner did not reply to this latter part of Jack’s speech. “Here, Kitchen,” he said to the mate, “help her ladyship aboard. Look alive, now!”

The mate jumped down into the boat (he was in his bare feet), and he and Jack helped the young lady to the deck above. Jack followed immediately after her, and the mate remained, busying himself in making the yawl-boat fast.

“Here, Molly,” said the captain to the woman, who was his wife, “take her young ladyship into my cabin and make her comfortable.”

Jack was standing, looking around him like one in a dream. The crew and the man whom the captain afterward called Mr. Jackson (whom Jack took to be a passenger) stood staring at him. The schooner was a common coaster. The decks were littered and dirty; the captain and the crew rough and ordinary.

“This way, master,” said the captain; and then he, too, went down into the cabin. It was close and hot, and smelled musty and stuffy. The young lady was sitting at the table, while the woman, the captain’s wife, was busy in the inner cabin beyond. She had left the door open, and Jack, from where he sat, could see her making up a tumbled bed in the berth. He could also see a sea-chest, some hanging clothes, a map, and a clock through the open door. The schooner was getting under way again, and he could hear the pat of bare footsteps passing across the deck overhead, the creaking of the yards, and then the ripple and gurgle of the water alongside.

“When did you leave Bath Town?” said the captain.

“On Wednesday morning early,” said Jack. Now that all was over, he was feeling very dull and heavily oppressed in the reaction from the excitement that had kept him keyed up to endure. His hands, from which the skin had been rubbed by rowing, had begun again to throb and burn painfully; he had not noticed before how great was the smart. He looked at them, picking at the loose skin. Nobody cared how much his hands hurt him, now that Dred was gone, and his throat began choking at the foolish thought.

“Wednesday! Why, ’tis only Sunday now. D’ ye mean to say that ye’ve sailed all the way from Bath Town in five days in that there yawl-boat?”

“Is this Sunday?” said Jack. “Why, so ’tis.”