# Plunder (Dunn)

Extracted from Adventure, 30 April 1922, pp. 3–29. Title illustration may be omitted.
Spanish Main—an undefeatable buccaneer.
Plunder
A Complete Novelette by J. Allan Dunn
Author of “Barehanded Castaways,” “Forced Lack,” etc.
AVARY sucked in his breath and ran his tongue-tip about his full lips to hide his grin of self-appreciation. His fox-face, with its sharp nose and hazel eyes, the sandy hair and bristling mustachios suggesting cunning more than courage, was flushed with satisfaction rather than with wine. He had let the others do the drinking. His first glass was still half-filled.
And he had them. Oh, he had them gripped! he told himself, marking how they craned toward him from seat and transom and where they stood about the butt of the mizzen.
The conquest had been simple enough. It made him contemptuous toward them, though he took pains not to show it. Any tavern-orator, any popular ballad-writer, had the trick. Their brains inflamed by the heady Spanish wine sucked suggestion as a dry sponge takes up water.
The table was littered with bottles; every man clutched his measure firmly in one hand while the other was doubled to a clenched fist. Pulses throbbed visibly in brawny wrists or at sea-burned temples. Growing excitement glittered in the eyes that were all turned toward the mate. Smoke-wreaths fouled the air, drifting lazily out of the lifted skylight.
They gave Avary elbow room at the head of the table by virtue of his official authority, though he had deliberately broken down that barrier when he had invited them to drink and smoke with him in the after cabin while the captain was ashore. The very manner of the bidding had been calculated, suggesting to them something irregular; and from that unspoken hint the mate had subtly led them on until now he judged the time ripe to disclose his project.
With the exception of the watch below, asleep in their hammocks, the cook and his helper, a boy or so, the whole complement of The Duke was present. Horton, chief gunner from The Lion, their consort, had brought over half a score of men at Avary's invitation. Horton, broad-shouldered, broad-faced, resembling a bulldog, had known what was in the wind. Avary looked to him to lead the response to his proposition when he plumped it out.
He took his bandanna handkerchief and wiped off the wet smears of liquor from the table-top. They watched him with the minute attention of a conjuror's audience. His glib tongue had fed their imaginations, appealed to their gross appetites. Now the movement of his hand held them hypnotized, as surely as the chalk-mark down the beak and along the floor trances the stupid fowl.
“Morgan was the greatest of them all!” said Avary, putting away his handkerchief, dipping the tip of his forefinger in his wine, holding it poised, using the arts of a street-corner fakir to create suspense and maintain their attention. “There were others who made their fortunes on the Spanish Main—Pierre le Grand, L'Ollonois, Montbars, Lewis Scott, Bartelemey—but Morgan was Chief of all the Brethren of the Coast.
“Since he died the Caribbean is an empty field, raked and gleaned down to the stubble. Now the Spaniards transship across the Isthmus or come round through the Straits of Magellan, and a buccaneer has a hard time to buy powder, let alone a chance to burn it. Tortuga is deserted.
“The French are harrying the Spanish on the west coast, smuggling off Peru. That is why we are here in a Spanish harbor, part of a Spanish convoy and expedition against the French smugglers—because the dons can no longer fight their own battles but must call on us and the Dutch, under the Treaty of Ryswick, to help them.
“I like it not. I tell you frankly it goes against my grain to fight for a Spaniard. Why, look you, on the Main, Englishman, Dutchman, Frenchman, were all dogs to be hunted down by the dons, to be put to the torture, to be burned at the stake. The Spaniards robbed the Indian, enslaved him, made him dig for gold and dive for pearls, and they claimed all the Islands of the Caribbees for their own until the buccaneers began to take a share—since they were not offered one. 'Tis not so overlong since the time of the Armada for us to remember how they ached to conquer England. And now they ask our aid and we give it to them—faugh!”
HE SPAT on the floor, rinsed out his mouth with wine, redipped his forefinger and began to trace a crude chart on the mahogany.
“Here is Spain,” he said, making a cross on the coastline of his map, “and here is Corunna where we lie. This is our course in the wake of Magellan, through his perilous straits, if the wind is fair; or round the howling Cape Horn, then long leagues up the western coast, following the trail of Drake. But not as he did, harrying the Spaniards, loading the hull of his ship with gold and silver and jewels until it was indeed well named the Golden Hynde.
“We are to fight smugglers. There's no prize money. Its owners take all and give Jack a tot of rum. I've read the articles. The Bristol merchants who have found our two ships, the Dutch burghers who own the two from Holland, the Spaniards here take all the profit from the overhauled smugglers that is to pay for the output. We do the fighting.
“Now then.”
He wiped out South America, relined drying Spain and swiftly outlined the continent of Africa, the island of Madagascar, the Arabian gulf and the coast of India.
“I'll show you where the Brethren of the Coast have gone,” he went on. “Where there are bones with flesh on 'em and good marrow for the sucking.
“Here's where they rendezvous—on Madagascar. Here's where they live like kings, dressed as kings and their women dressed as queens. Slaves to wait on 'em, rare liquor to drink, rare food, rare revels. Then to sail out and swoop down upon Moor and Arab, on the Portygees, on ships from India. Gold dust, ivory, bar silver, diamonds, pearls and rubies, sequins, slaves!
“Listen. Since we were boys, in the last score of years Captain Misson took two hundred thousand pounds from a dhow off Zanzibar. Did ever Morgan equal that? There was Captain John Bowen of the Speaker who took eighty-four thousand sequins—the same as half-guineas—from one prize, and twenty-two thousand pounds from another, a Moor.
“Captain Tew, who sailed with Misson; divided three thousand pounds to each man of his crew. Captain White of Plymouth divided four thousand. There were Fly and Howard and a dozen more who went “on the account” and were rich men all—from cabin-boy to captain—in one voyage. Burgess came back to Bristol five years ago with ten thousand pounds and the price of three hundred slaves.
“That beats hardtack and salt horse, hard work and little pay. Eh? I'll warrant you. A free life and a merry one. Fill up, there's plenty of liquor yet.”
He nodded at them across his own tankard; chuckled under cover of it as he noted them gulp down the wine and set down their measures with their inflamed faces challenging him. His eyes held those of Horton for the space of a breath and mutual understanding was exchanged. The train was laid; it needed only the match set to the powder.
“There was none of these men who had such a ship, for instance, as this of ours: well found, well provisioned, with thirty guns and full magazines of powder and shot, a fast sailer. I have been in many ships, but never did I know a sweeter vessel to her helm than The Duke, nor a better on the wind. Given a good crew aboard such a ship, joining with others on the Madagascar coast, we could sweep the Persian Gulf and all the Indian Ocean and toss treasure overboard for lack of space aboard to stow it.”
Horton brought down his great fist on the table with a thwack that set the bottles jigging.
“By ——!” he cried. “'Tis worth the trying, my hearties!”
They were all with him, pounding the table, swearing, bragging—a stampede of villainy; the quickmatch fired, sputtering to an explosion.
“What to do?” demanded Horton. “Come, Avary, give us your plan. You have the brains of us.”
“Plan? There is no plan! 'Tis already set for us. Simple as taking a cake from a tray. Here we are in Corunna awaiting orders that are not expected for two days or more. We'll make it one. Here is our skipper, a good man enough at sea, I grant you, handy with his reckoning, weather-wise but a drunkard. His fortune lies drowned at the bottom of his glass.
“Tonight he is ashore as he has been ever since we came to Corunna. When he comes aboard he will be brought off in a shoreboat in the morning after he has slept off some of the fumes.
“What if he came, not tomorrow morning—for Horton has yet to sound out others on The Lion, so that we get all the men available—but the morning after that; and suppose he found that we had slipped cable in the night, drifted out on the ebb and that there was no ship of his in sight nor none to tell him she was speeding south for the Cape and Madagascar? What of that, bullies! There is no moon; the nights are dark; we are well placed for a flitting. What say you? Who is game to join the Gentry of the Sea? To go on the account?
“Equal shares to all, an extra half-share to the quartermaster who speaks for the men, an extra share for the captain. What say you, bullies? Are you game?”
Avary rose to his feet and stood at the table head with his arms outstretched. The mate was not without his good looks when he was at his best. He was tall and well built, and the wenches of Bristol were apt to look after him as he passed. To the fascinated crew he seemed every inch a leader and a prophet. The cabin echoed with huzzas while he surveyed them with glowing eyes, striving to temper them a little.
“Softly, softly,” he cried through the clamor, gesturing for order. “They may think strangely of the uproar aboard The Lion. So. 'Tis settled. We sail under the Skull. Tomorrow night Horton comes aboard with such men as he can muster. At two bells in the midwatch.”
“What if the skipper should not stay ashore?” asked Horton.
“'Twill make no difference. He will be drunk. And drunk asea or ashore he will be stupid at that hour. Row over to us with your party. You can all get shore leave without trouble. Here is the word. Call up to us as in a jest—
“'Is your drunken boatswain aboard?'
“If all is well I'll answer 'yes.' Then we'll secure hatches, weigh anchor or slip cable and so to sea without bustle or noise. Is it agreed? Then finish the wine in a bumper to our luck. We'll get more and make a night of it.”
THE symptoms experienced by the captain of The Duke when he awakened were not unknown to him, for he had a raging thirst, a splitting head and a most villainous taste of saltpeter in his mouth. But he was not usually dizzy the next morning. And now the bunk heaved under him; walls and floor and ceiling of his cabin slid and changed angle.
He had drunk heavily the night before, starting at supper with the visiting captain of his consort The Lion; and before the meal was over he had been at once too sluggish and too comfortable to shift ashore. He could not remember turning in.
Still fuddled, he watched the unfixed motion of his cabin. His seaman's instinct reasserted itself before his will achieved reason. They were at sea! And should be at anchor in the peaceful harbor of Corunna!
With an effort he rang his bell. The door opened as if swung to the bell rope. Avary backed by Horton entered, grinning at the sleepy skipper, who lifted himself on one elbow and stared at them with set, stupid eyes.
“What's wrong with the ship? Does she drive? What weather is't?”
“All's well,” answered Avary. “Fair wind and good weather. We've cleared the cape and we're making all of nine knots on a bowline. She can walk, can The Duke.”
The sleepiness and stupidity vanished from the skipper's eyes as a breath vanishes from the face of a mirror. Apprehension began to creep into them as he met the twinkling triumph in Avary's glance, saw the grinning bulldog face of Horton—Horton who belonged aboard The Lion.
“At sea?” he ventured. “How can that be?”
While he parleyed a dozen well-authenticated tales of ships taken from their lawful captains surged through his muddled brain and stayed there in ominous record. Prominent was the story of Fly, boatswain of the Elizabeth of Bristol, the skipper's own home port and that of The Duke. Fly had led a mutiny, and they had flung over Captain Green, chopping off his hand as he clung to the main sheet. True, Fly had been hanged at Boston, in New England, for other villainies only four years before, but that had not saved Captain Green.
Full accounts of the trial had been printed on both sides of the Atlantic and read avidly by every seafaring man. The Duke's captain, looking into the mocking gaze of Avary, remembered how it had been testified that Fly had asked Green whether he “would take a leap like a brave fellow or be tossed over like a sneaking rascal?”
“Short prayers are best,” Fly had sneered to his skipper. “Repeat after me, 'Lord have mercy on me.' So—no more words; and over with him, my lads!”
Avary—he had always mistrusted Avary for a man who would not share in a fair bout of drinking—Avary, the sleek devil, was just such another as Fly!
Recollection raced through the mind of the captain like waves of the sea, summoned by his fear.
“Come,” said Avary, “don't be in a fright, but put on your clothes and I'll put you into a secret. You must know that I am captain of this ship now, and Horton is quartermaster. This is my cabin and you must walk out. I am bound to Madagascar with a design of making my own fortune, and all the brave fellows have agreed to join with me.”
“You have turned pirates?”
“Gentlemen of Fortune is the name we prefer.”
Avary's tone crispened; his smile changed to a snarl.
“We have no time for answering impertinent questions further,” he said. “Turn out and go on deck quietly and it will save us the trouble of scraping the cabin. If not—a few buckets of water and a scraper will take the blood out of the planks. Suit yourself.”
Reaction from the liquor and his fear of death left the captain without coordination. He could only beg for mercy in a voice that mumbled of his unfitness for sudden death and judgment, that begged for time to prepare himself for the great change.
“I ask no more mercy, Avary,” he pleaded, “than justice and compassion that the law shall allow you if you be hereafter taken.”
“—— your blood,” started Avary, “don't preach to me!”
Then he broke into a laugh.
“A fighting man and yet afraid of sudden death,” he jeered. “It is as well we changed captains, upon my soul. Come, don't grovel there, man. Get up, and if you have a mind to make one of us we will receive you; if not you can take a boat and you shall be set ashore with the other faint-hearts of the crew.”
Horton grumbled something under his breath about imprudence.
“If they go we'll see they have a walk to give them appetite for breakfast,” returned Avary. “Let them know ashore how we turned the trick.”
“They may pursue us.”
“A badger might run after a hare. We have the heels of all of them, without a start.
“Call your men to the mainmast, Horton, and we'll see who wants to go ashore with the captain. What's your decision?” he asked the skipper, sitting disconsolately on the edge of his bunk, holding his head in his hands, mindful of his physical misery now he was assured of his life.
[ MAP ]
“I am an honest man. I'll go ashore.”
“Then go and be —— to you. Some day I'll toss you a shilling when you are selling ballads for a living.”
“God grant they may tell of your hanging,” flashed the skipper with a burst of temper that he instantly repented.
Avary only laughed.
“If they do, I pray you see my name is spelled right,” he said. “'Tis spelled with two 'A's', not with an 'E? On with your smallclothes now; I need the cabin.”
Fifteen minutes later the crew of The Duke, assembling at the mainmast, declared themselves for open piracy with the exception of five men. These, with the captain, were put into a boat and rowed ashore, The Duke coasting easily along, a league from land. The landing was made on a lonely strip of coast, a good sixty miles south of Corunna.
Horton had brought sixteen men with him from The Lion. The full complement of The Duke was now forty-nine men, well armed, able seamen, outlaws now by their own deliberate act and resolved upon making their fortunes without delay.
IT WAS not an easy company to control. Jack was as good as Jerry, and the rating of all was equal save for Horton, appointed quartermaster and general representative of the men, and Avary. The latter was respected on account of his skill for navigation and for his quicker wits, and was credited with the initiative of their enterprise.
Horton's ascendency was assumed and maintained by his known fighting qualities. His nose, none too large to begin with, had been mashed in—as if from the blow of a battering-ram—and heightened the bulldog likeness. His jaw was aggressive and massive, his teeth strong but irregular and his little piggish eyes, bristled by whitish lashes, could blaze with intense ferocity upon occasion. This, backed by a brawny body, muscles of steel, flesh like solid rubber, made the ex-gunner a man of mark among his fellows.
As yet the questions of rank were undetermined. No mate had been appointed to take Avary's original position; the second mate had gone with the captain. While it was the general custom with those who went on the account for the quartermaster to take the helm on going into action, it was felt that Horton should retain his position as gunner-in-chief. This the gunner of The Duke naturally resented. Sides were taken, factions began to form, discipline grew slack.
“You've got to fetch 'em up with a round turn,” grumbled Horton to Avary.
He had the right to enter the cabin at will, and at Avary's request had taken over the mate's room.
“You've got to drive 'em,” he went on. “Look you, that kind of cattle need authority and a firm hand. You'll have to drive 'em sooner or later or they'll be driving you.
“Before, let a man go slow to the order or give you a black look, and you could trice him up in the riggin' and give him a round dozen with the cat and be —— to him. If he didn't like it give him a dozen more, shove him in irons and let him be hanged for mutiny when you got home. You could shoot a man for disobedience or even swing him at the yardarm, and nothing said. But you had the backing of the law. You had the courts and the Admiralty behind you.
“Now what? The rest would be mighty slow about seeing a comrade get the lash or being put in irons. The only backing you've got is the fact that you can shoot the sun and they can't. That's all. And they wouldn't think of that if they got worked up right.
“Don't you give 'em too much latitude, Avary. Don't give 'em too much rum, either. Drive 'em. Keep 'em stiffened up. More work and less time for talk, say I.”
“You're saying too much yourself,” said Avary sourly.
Horton leaned across the table, thrusting out his dog-face aggressively.
“Am I? You're a fool if you don't listen. Half the time the watch don't turn out on time or only in half force. You give them too much rope, and they're more like to use it to hang you than themselves. When Shipton answered you back just now you should have knocked him down with a handspike. What did you do? Walked away.
“I'm a plain talker, Avary, and —— me if I don't think you afraid of him! You had your pistol; you should have slugged him with the butt.
“The men are talking and wondering what sort of a skipper we'll have when it comes to leading boarders. Shipton's swaggering round boasting he's a better man than you are. By night you'll be a joke aboard this ship.
“Were sailing with our necks in a halter, every man Jack of us, Avary, and I for one am not going to tighten up that halter by staying aboard a ship without a commander. That's flat and you can lay to it!”
Avary's face was pale and his eyes were deadly. He had taken the best of the captain's clothes and his own and was dressed in laced coat, smallclothes, a cocked hat and ruffles. One hand fumbled with the lace in his bosom, his fingers clutching a pistol-butt. But his grip was clammy with sweat.
While Horton talked Avary silently cursed himself for his own limitations, his hesitations. He had a vivid imagination, whereas Horton reacted only to his emotions. And Avary knew the quartermaster for the better man while he hated him. Half a dozen times he repressed the impulse to snatch out the weapon and kill Horton as he sat there with his ugly face and too familiar manners, calling his commander—to all intents and purposes—a coward.
But he knew what would be likely to follow—open mutiny—his own death. He knew his own inhibitions. Physically he shrank from any test of prowess. Challenge flared his imagination with a vision of himself worsted, maimed, gushing blood. Yet he could dream of himself as a dashing, valiant leader until an issue came which left him sweating, goose-fleshed, averse to any encounter.
He flattered himself that his will could lash his body into subjection. He was well-formed, his muscles were strong enough, his senses perfect; he was active, able to give a good account of himself. But when it came to the pinch he felt the qualms of physical fear as irresistibly as the seasick traveler loses control of his stomach, however he may master his affairs on land, however he may vow beforehand to subdue his nausea.
Shipton had openly sneered at him when he had rebuked the man for slackness in his work. Horton was right; he should not have let the matter pass. Shipton was his inferior in almost every way. The chances were that he could have worsted him in fight he had not dared provoke. Hitherto, backed by the authority of his office as warranted officer under the crown, Avary had avoided such affairs. For a sailor to strike an officer was death. Ashore his wits had kept him out of brawls.
Now he was alone. Supremacy was likely to be settled by physical rating alone. For all his cleverness in scheming he saw plainly that the master of a pirate crew must top the men in deviltry, in daring, in all the attributes that they considered supreme or lose their respect and obedience, which meant ultimate loss of office. Reduced to one of the crew Avary would fare miserably.
He was very far from being a fool. He realized the truth and knew he must accept it.
He withdrew his hand from his ruffles and sat with elbow on table, chewing his nails to the quick in sulky mortification. The men had power to depose and elect a captain at will. They might choose Horton, forcing Avary to furnish them with his superior knowledge with a knife at his ribs. Such a situation if it suggested itself to them might appeal to their sense of humor.
He had let loose a lot of dogs who, lacking the leash and the lash, had reverted toward wolfdom.
“What to do?” he asked, forcing the question bitterly. “I can call a 'mast' and lecture them, ordering Shipton for punishment.”
“'Twill not do. The matter was personal 'tween you and Shipton. You dodged it.
“One thing you can do. Appoint me mate. Let the men choose another quartermaster. I'll find a man for second to me within a day or two. But appoint me mate. No need for an election to that office. And they'll jump to my orders or I'll skin the hairy hides off of them. There'll be one master aboard the ship.
“You've the brains, Avary, but you're not a fighting man. A spaniel can follow the scent, but it tucks tail when teeth are shown. What to do when it comes to boarders away or repel boarders I know not. You'll have to make some showing. But we'll let that dog sleep. Make me mate and there'll be no trouble with Shipton.”
Avary covered his eyes with his hand to hide the relief he showed. In a way he still commanded the respect of Horton, and the latter was the only one who had weighed him truly. Horton would handle Shipton. It was a good way to settle matters, and their mutual understanding—obnoxious as it was to Avary's sense of dignity—had been necessary.
“You get an extra half-share as quartermaster,” he demurred. “As mate you'll share alike with the men.”
Horton showed his crooked teeth in a grin.
“I'll not lose,” he answered. “You and I are going to stand back to back. You get two shares and I one. We'll split the three between us.”
Avary checked the devil that leaped in him before it looked out of his eyes and stretched his hand across to Horton. It would be easy enough to make up his loss by holding out part of the loot secured. As captain all booty would be spread before him on maindeck or on beach and he would act as appraiser, portioning out the stuff into as many shares as there were dividers. Simple to palm some jewels and appropriate them for himself.
He smoothed all villainy from his face as their palms touched and fingers gripped.
“Done!” he cried. “Back to back, Horton. We'll make a rare partnership. Now we'll open a bottle of wine together.”
Horton was nothing loath. Avary envied him his capacity. He himself found that liquor affected him swiftly, perhaps because of his haitual abstemiousness. It was a practise established deliberately to afford him advantage over those who drank on every occasion. He took two glasses of the Oporto wine, and Horton literally poured the rest down his hairy gullet, smacking his lips in approval.
THE announcement of Horton's promotion was made at the mast at noon, after the taking of the midday observation. It pleased the gunner of The Duke, and his example spread. The crew retired to vote upon a new quartermaster, and presently the appointee came aft to where Avary sat with Horton at table.
Avary had had some fear that the choice might fall on Shipton; but they had picked the boatswain of The Duke, a good-natured fellow and capable mariner. He had the customary bottle with captain and mate in confirmation of his right to appear in the cabin, and retired forward.
Horton selected the second mate; Avary appointed him. For a while things went smoothly enough. There was license aboard in the shape of extra rum and meals for the forecastle that dipped into cabin stores; yet there was discipline. The men walked the braces and did not grumble about the short tacks that drove them fast down the African coast. The hope of all of them was Madagascar, to beat the doldrums and hold a wind until they rounded the Cape of Storms, as practical mariners styled the Cape of Good Hope.
Avary spun them yarns about the Magic Isle, about Maritan the pirate settlement, the native liquor toke, the friendly kings and the kind of loot they might expect. He abolished the formality of the poop and let them come aft in the evening watch to listen to him. So he held a shadowy ascendency over them for the time. It soothed his own vanity to see them hanging on his words, to know that he had power over them in a mass if as an individual he was less than most of them.
Almost hourly he practised with his pistols. There was one pair whose balance suited him exactly. He learned to a nicety the best charge for them, carefully cutting the wads, casting and weighing the balls, measuring the powder. With them he acquired a skill that was almost magical; and he took care that the crew should witness his targetry.
Only in Horton's eyes did he see anything but respect. Horton, he fancied, knew as he did that the moment of peril would find him hesitant, with a palsied diaphragm and twitching nerves. For all his cool accuracy where the target was inanimate, facing a man who would be leaping into action against him, he needed a bridge to cover that hideous gap where the nerves refused control and the trembling body mocked the will. That bridge had to be found.
Meanwhile the men saw only that he could send the bullet smack upon a shilling at ten paces, could drive a nail-head touched with white at six, could split lead on the blade of a knife and bring down a seabird on the wing.
SHIPTON, it seemed, had been nominated for quartermaster but was easily defeated. He took it surlily, drinking more than his share of rum. The fifth day after Horton's promotion Shipton, handling a line, left it uncoiled on deck—flung it to the planks deliberately. He may or may not have noticed Horton; he had pitched the rope under the eyes of Avary. But it was Horton's bellow that ordered him to coil the halyard and place it upon a pin.
For answer Shipton spat upon the white planking, fouling Avary's pumps and stockings, spattering also Horton who was coming with a leap. Avary paled. His hand shook as he gripped a pistol in his belt. Shipton had unsheathed a long-bladed knife from which the sun reflected in a white flame. Avary could see—could feel—the steel biting into him before he could steady to aim.
Horton sprang between him and Shipton and clubbed his left fist full into Shipton's face. It was a terrible blow, and it had the mate's flying weight back of it. Shipton's nose squashed, his lips burst and blood spurted as he went staggering back to the rail, clutching backward for it, using it as support and fulcrum to fling himself forward with his gory mouth cursing and spitting teeth, his face maniacal with fury, his keen knife driving for Horton's heart.
The heavy mate had danced to the pin-rail of the main, where the new-made pirates like so many children had racked pikes and cutlases far in advance of any chance of using them. He plucked a curving blade loose with a twist of his wrist that made it sing as the point described a small circle and then a bigger one, which was barely checked as the keen edge drove through flesh and tendons and the small bones of Shipton's wrist, making no more of them than if they had been wax.
Hand and knife went thudding, tinkling to the deck; the severed wrist spouted blood while for a second Shipton gazed at it horrified, astounded. Then the point of Horton's cutlas plunged into the pit of his stomach and struck his backbone; and imbedding in the stout muscles, the tip thrust through, showing before the mutineer fell weltering to the deck in a growing puddle of blood.
Horton tugged at the weapon to free it, widening the wound, severing the writhing wretch's entrails. Shipton's shipmate, the man who had nominated him for quartermaster, came charging with a pike.
“You —— murderer!” he shrieked at Horton in a frenzy. “At him, lads. Gut him!”
There were others of Shipton's faction standing irresolute, disposed to take a hand, yet checked by the fall of Shipton. Half a minute had not passed; so swift was the drama that the bulk of the ship's company watched as if in a maze, or as at a play.
The pikeman lunged, charging blindly, sliding, twisting on a clot of blood. Horton's cutlas whirred up and down, and the pike rang on the planks with its owner's arms falling lax slashed to the bone, the bone itself nicked and red fountains jetting. Horton whirled about, breathing hard but freely as his lungs came into full play, his face lit with lust of battle.
“Who's next?”
They dissolved before him. Two he called back by name.
“Pitch the carrion over and mop deck,” he ordered. “Take Sime there to the cockpit and see if surgeon can patch him up. If he mends he can wait table on the fo'csle. He'll not lift arm again.”
What was left of Shipton went overboard, a warm and gory corpse. Horton himself picked up the severed hand and tossed it after. He turned to Avary, standing by the rail, his face pale green as he gazed fascinated at the hot, steaming pool of crimson, slowly thickening between scorching plank and hot sun.
“Get into your cabin—quick!” he snarled contemptuously.
Water rising in his gorge, and striving to restrain his qualms, Avary achieved his cabin and his own bunk. There Horton found him giddy and wretched with nausea.
“You've little stomach for a fight,” he said. “Take a swig of brandy. Here.”
Avary waved away the bottle with a limp hand.
“A —— of a pirate, you are!” said Horton as he withdrew.
Presently Avary, relieved from his spasms, essayed to take the mate's advice. The strong stuff stayed on his empty stomach to his amazement. The fumes permeated him, gave him a sense of hardihood. He drank again and again.
Half an hour later he walked out on deck with a gait that was straight enough though inclined to strut a little, with eyes that were set but could see. A man, hurrying forward with a pannikin, bumped into him awkwardly.
Out came a volley of oaths. The man turned, stung by an apt simile, anger flaming. The crew had been to the rum-barrel to wipe out the incident, and the sailor was in fractious mood. Avary whipped out a pistol, aimed it without a tremor, marked a spot between the man's eyes.
“You dog!” he said, and barely held a hiccup. “I'd as soon send your black soul to —— as look at you! Learn to keep clear, you lubber-legged swab. Frown at me, will you? By ——, I'll teach you who's master of this ship!”
The sailor scuttled off, warding with an arm as if to stay the threatened bullet, bearing news of the captain's tyranny. News that held admiration, and caused it.
Avary replaced the pistol with a smile and went to the rail. His head swam a little, his gaze misted; but he shook that off as he had the hiccup. He feared no one now, not even Horton. For he had found his bridge.
FROM then on Avary was never entirely sober, nor was he ever drunk beyond control. By experimentation he found his gage and kept his alcoholic mark as an engineer keeps water in the tube. He tippled steadily, a nip every half-hour through the day. Previous abstinence stood him in good stead. He retained his appetite and kept his stomach filled with food. The chemistry of his body responded curiously. The liquor stimulated action and etched the release of his will to hair-trigger adjustment.
Wine, he found, was a good servant to him; and he took care not to let it become his master. While its effects lasted he no longer feared any man. Sometimes in the early morning he would wake in a nervous reaction, but the handy bottle held panacea.
The liquor evoked a sort of devil within him, swift to anger, resolute. He learned that to manage his men he had but to watch them and at the first sign of insubordination let loose such a burst of fury that it would effectually smother any show of resentment they might make. And, for all the fire of his rages, he exhibited such a cold, callous spirit that the crew began to look upon him as something unhuman.
Once he turned on Horton when the latter disagreed with him and reached for his pistol, though knowing the mate for a man not to be lightly crossed. Horton's hand shot out more swiftly than his own, struck at his wrist as a snake would strike, gripped the bones crushingly, bruising the flesh, forcing Avary to his knees in sheer anguish while Horton bent his face down, his eyes boring deep into the captain's very soul.
“The next time I'll not seek to argue with you,” said the mate. “I do this for my own good, not your benefit. If I could use a sextant I'd slit you like a herring. The next time I'll ram your pistol down your throat and pull trigger. The men may fear you and your fancy shooting—but put it out of your mind that I do. You're nothing but a walking bottle. Dutch courage! Let the wine leak out of you and you're only half a man.
“'Twill serve you for a while and then leave you in the lurch to make your hand shake worse than fear ever did. 'Tis but the matter of time and you'll be a pricked bladder.”
That passage drained Avary of any feelings toward Horton, except those of hate and a desire to get even in some other manner than matching physical prowess. It left Horton scornful. But the partnership held. Avary was not man enough to do away with the mate, and the latter, figuring that the wine was a spur that Avary needed in the present undertaking—which was his own—caring not a rap where Avary might fetch ùp later when liquor dominated him—as Horton was sure it would—was satisfied with conditions that made the skipper show a better front to the crew and muster some sort of courage, if it was only pot-valor. Avary's brains for plot and stratagem, for compass-course and general navigation, he still respected.
They made their southing, the ship proving herself a sweet-lined, gracious, willing vessel. A friendly breeze helped them to drift through the dreaded doldrums, past the dreaded Bight of Benin and along the malarial coast where slaves rotted in the swamps awaiting sale and transportation.
They started to transform The Duke, taking off the carven stern-board, erasing the lettering on her bows. The carpenter made a rude job of changing her figurehead, chiseling off the curling wig and three-cornered hat that the original artist had given to the bust, painting the face black and touching up the rest of the carving in crude colors. For the present they did not rename her, lacking inspiration.
They sighted an occasional sail or two, but avoided a meeting without trouble. There were no prizes to be expected on the western coast, and they had no desire to be recognized for word to be relayed back as to their route. It was probable that one ship at least had started after them, but their speed precluded overhauling. Yet the king's arm was long, and pirates had been hauled back from Madagascar before this.
Horton, remembering his former capacities as gunner, kept the crew to battery practise. There were fourteen guns to a broadside; a Long Tom in bows and stern for fore and aft chasers. Long-range elevation, trajectory and windage he knew nothing of scientifically; his skill, as that of The Duke's gunner, was born of natural aptitude and experience.
A pirate's connonading aside from the chasers was generally short-range work. It would be sufficient if the guns were served properly and the pointers taught to see that muzzles were sufficiently depressed. The target would usually be close enough to see the register of hits. Horton and the gunner would attend to the chasers.
So the mate drilled the crew hard until powdermen, shot-handlers, swabbers and ropemen worked with rapid precision. Cutlas practise and pike-drill he taught them; and by the time they caught up with a demi-gale that swept them on the Cape and helped them round it the crew made up a fighting force the more dangerous because they were aware of their own efficiency and eager to test it.
FOR a week the ship logged two hundred sea-miles between dawn and dawn, crowding sail, handling the extra canvas Avary devised as well as they manned the guns. The work kept them from malingering. Twice a day the whistles sounded for boarders away, and the crew divided into squads, arming themselves, rushing to quarters, ready to board an imaginary enemy.
The repelling of boarders was a maneuver seldom bothered with, save to assure themselves of the readiness of boarding nettings and the assignment of stations. Pirates were wasps; they attacked first or sheered off. It was fight, or run if the quarry proved too dangerous.
Up through the Mozambique Channel they went, edging in to the mountainous coast. with the great forests clothing its flanks and the perfume of gaudy tree-flowers wafted far out to sea. Avary knew of the existence of pirate colonies and rendezvous on Madagascar itself or the adjacent islands. To be a pirate chief had long been his dream, and he had kept in touch with all the news that was spread in home ports of the successes of the noted sea-rovers. Now he fancied he was coming into his own kingdom.
They rounded the northern line of Madagascar and passed Cape Hopewell, named by the natives Ambro, reaching into a crescent bay close to Maritan, a pirate port of call where the native king was friendly. There were two sloops at anchor. Avary flew no colors; the skull and bones was reserved for a fighting flag. Discretion restrained bravado in displaying it too freely. The Duke had the lines of a merchantman rather than that of a frigate, though her gun-ports were more than the average vessel of commerce carried.
It seemed evident however that there were guilty minds aboard the sloops. No sooner had the larger vessel made the point and squared off toward the bay when both sloops slipped their cables and ran ashore on a soft beach, their hulls vomiting men who raced off into the thick woods.
“They are small fry of our own sort,” declared Avary, watching them through his glass. “They fear we are a king's ship come after them for some venture. They are posting sentinels. There are recruits for us and the beginning of our fleet.
“Look you, Horton, we'll join forces with them. We'll send a boat with a truce flag. Take arms, but do not show them. Let two or three go empty-handed up the beach; the rest can cover them with muskets.”
Horton nodded commendation of the strategy, and the boat was lowered. Avary himself, primed with a swig of brandy, appeared from below and took charge.
“I'll do the talking,” he said.
As they rowed ashore with a white flag displayed in the stern they caught the glitter of arms from the men posted on the fringe of the jungle. Avary narrowly inspected the sloops, slightly careened on the mud.
“They'll come off easily enough at the flood,” he announced.
The genial warmth of his liquor gave him confidence; he saw that his men were in accord with his judgment; there was small danger that could not be offset by the news he brought, and he handled himself as a proper leader, springing ashore with the white flag and waving it, advanced boldly toward the woods. Three men backed him, displaying their empty hands.
“What is your business? Whence come ye?” challenged the nearest outpost, his musket at the ready.
“From the seas!” cried Avary, using the passphrase of the Brethren of the Coast and all those who had gone on the account. “Our business is the collection of merchandise and the swift spending of the proceeds. Look you, we are unarmed. Come down and talk with us.”
The man lowered his musket, but did not shift his ground.
“What ship is that?” he demanded.
“It has not yet been christened,” replied Avary. “We borrowed it for our own occasions. If you would know the color of our flag, it is black. Since you think your sloops too small to oppose a ship of our metal, let us join forces and share profits. Are you blind or only timorous that you do not recognize gentlemen of fortune when you see them?”
A man pushed forward out of the woods, a swaggering figure dressed in a crimson coat with tarnished lace, his breeches thrust into bucket-topped boots, a hanger at his side, pistols in his belt. He tossed his weapons to the sand and came on boldly up to Avary.
“Curse me,” he cried, “if I did not mistake you. Your men row too well for free brethren, and your studdingsails fooled me. Your ship is handled like a man-of-war, and she is pierced for a heavy battery.”
“Men of war we are,” answered Avary. “But we fight for no king. Was ever a pirate worse off for discipline, comrade? We can work to mutual advantage. The more merry men get together the better. There is plunder enough in these seas for all of us.
“My name is Avary and I hail from Devonshire. It is my aim to reduce the taxes in these parts by a more equal division of goods. If it is in your mind to think as we do, let's talk together. Here on the beach, if you still mistrust us.”
The other broke into a great laugh.
“If you fight as well as you talk,” he said, “there should be rare pickings in your company.”
He shouted encouragingly to his comrades in the woods and squatted down on the beach, after he had slapped his great paw into Avary's open palm in token of confidence. The men came slowly out of their concealment and formed a ring about the newcomers.
“Fulke is my name,” said the bearded man. “We come from the East Indies, borrowing our sloops to go upon the account. Borrow is a good word, Captain Avary, though we were less fortunate in our opportunity than you. They are fast sailers, but we have but four cannon apiece. Set us by the board and we will show you how we can fight. The East India Company, to whom the sloops belong, is a miserly body and we thought you sent after us.
“With you for flagship and we scouting, we can hunt up rare prizes. This is the season for travel to Mecca from India. In the Arabian Sea we can take tribute from the Mogul's ships and load ourselves to the rail with treasure. I know those waters. To hang off the mouth of the Indus offers the best chance.
“But 'tis dry work for me, talking. We are out of good liquor, for we came away in somewhat of a hurry. This native toke is villainous stuff. Sink me, Avary, but I like your style. I'll go aboard with you.”
IT DID not take long to cement the partnership. Fulke's men were a hard-bitten set of rogues, and a carousal made all sworn comrades. The sloops were easily hauled off at the full; fresh water, meat and fruits were traded for with the complaisant king, whose main village was near by. The three craft made sail northward under a full moon the same evening, bowling along in company for the Arabian coast.
The sloops proved but indifferent sailors compared to The Duke, save in light airs. After dark Avary sailed accordingly in order not to be separated.
They made slanting course over the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea heading across the equator up to the angle where India merges into Baluchistan—a two-thousand-mile voyage that took them far from land across desolate, sail-less leagues, upheld by thoughts of the rich loot promised by Fulke and by Neill, captain of the second sloop.
Provisions ran low before they sighted land. Twice the sloops had to come to the ship to replenish stores. The wine and spirits were exhausted, save for a few bottles Avary had stowed away for his private consumption; the water-casks held a rapidly diminishing and evil-smelling fluid that was rationed out at the last as a miser spends gold.
They passed the Indus mouth, plain enough to tell by the brown water spreading fanlike far to sea, and made a landing close to Karachi. They careened The Duke and scrubbed the sea-growth from its hull; they scraped the sloops, refilled the water-casks, traded with natives for coconuts and goat-flesh, also for arrack. Fulke urged speed, before the Mecca season should be over.
Tales were brought them by the natives of rich vessels that had set out with pilgrims. News was confirmed by several sources that the Great Mogul himself, Ruler of All India, was outfitting a great ship in which no less a personage than one of his daughters was to embark, escorted by many principal people of the Mogul's court, bearing with them rich offerings to present at the shrine of Mohammed.
This item fired all minds as a match explodes gunpowder.
“Said I not so!” cried Fulke. “How will they travel? With all manner of equipment, with slaves and attendants, with vessels of gold and silver, with great sums of money to pay their expenses, not to speak of the gifts—gold dust and gold bars, bars of silver, elephants' teeth, pearls, rubies, emeralds as big as your fist, shawls from Kashmir worth their weight in gold, perfumes and essences, an emperor's ransom!”
The assembled pirates cheered lustily, half-drunk with arrack. Each in imagination saw himself handling vast treasure, invested in brocades, decked with jewels and loaded down with gold.
To Avary another vision came. A Mogul's daughter! A dark-eyed maharanee, brown of skin but slender and well shaped of limb, voluptuous, regal. He saw himself riding in a lacquered and gilded howdah by her side upon a great elephant, while his retinue marched all about or rode on caparisoned steeds, the men turbaned, armored, bearing quaint but effective weapons—matchlocks and yataghans—salaaming him as potentate of some rich province. Son-in-law to the Great Mogul! There was a stake that appealed to him.
The consent of the woman he barely reckoned with. By force of arms or by stress of sudden passion, it was all one. She would be in his power for ransom—and that ransom should be recognition of himself as her husband and high honors heaped upon him by the Mogul.
There was much of Malvolio in Avary. His vanity kept stride with his imagination.
But he said nothing of this plan. Instead, he examined the natives, paid for news, sent out spies in various directions and compared notes until assured that the tale was true, even finding out the approximate date of sailing. Then they set to sea again, cruising off Indus mouth twenty leagues from land—a reward of an extra quarter-share hung up for the man who first sighted their quarry—ranging off and on like hounds quartering a heath for scent.
IT WAS Fulke's sloop that flew the welcome signal and, coming up, announced the glimpse of a great ship seen dimly in the mists of dawn, a mass of canvas, a ship with a towering poop, a tall and stately vessel that looked at first to be an East Indiaman but, the fog lifting with the sun, resolved into a big dhow with all three masts lateen-rigged.
The breeze was strengthening; and the three took position, a sloop to windward, another to leeward of The Duke, bearing down to where the canvas of Fulke's discovery showed like a low-lying cloud. They sailed on transverse course, the dhow coming on rapidly, showing her three-decked stern, the raking masts and great sails, the overhung prow and the open waists crowded with pilgrims. She was fairly bristling with guns. Avary estimated a hundred or more.
“She'll carry a thousand or more aboard,” he said to Horton, focusing his glass as they gained on the chase that held its steady course, either lacking suspicion or unafraid.
“What of it? Pilgrims and Moor mariners! A poor lot for fighting.”
“Odds of ten to one.”
“Ten sheep to every wolf of us! Best get below and get a bottle inside of you.”
Horton swung away, tone and manner utterly scornful. It stung Avary, but he did not leave the deck to seek his usual buttress. In this difference of odds he saw a gap that he could not imagine bridged. Pilgrims could fight upon occasion, fight fanatically. The Mogul's subjects were Mongols, wild men of Tartary, adepts with the knife. To board the dhow would mean that, even if their full hundred achieved simultaneous footing, each man would have a mob to fight, a mob used to short-range work with blades.
His eyes dulled as the mate's began to blaze. The flattened nostrils of the mate's bashed-in nose distended, quivered with the lust of fighting and the hope of booty. Avary saw his men standing about, watching the chase, eager, every man ready, girt with weapons, standing by their guns. But that to him did not make the risk less disproportionate. His dream of the Mogul's daughter, of himself as potentate, lost all form, all desirability.
Horton bellowed an order. The ship rang with loud huzzas that were echoed back from the concavities of the sails. The black flag was being bent on a whip. It rose swift to the masthead in a confused mass, then flapped out on the wind, the skull and bones rippling to the flutter of the bunting. On both sloops the sable colors broke out. From the dhow's maintopmast a heavy pennon caught the breeze and streamed in defiance—a flag of green bearing a crescent moon in silver, the flag of the Mogul.
There were three rows of ports pierced in the dhow's high poop; a ring of guns belted her. Puffs of smoke blew out from her side with stabs of flame back of them. Over the sea came the boom of guns with round shot skipping toward Avary's vessel, falling far short. The fight was on; the followers of Mohammed meant to protect themselves, and had shown their teeth.
The gun-crews of The Duke crowded about their batteries; the gunner and his helpers were at the fore-chase. Bursts of cheering and wild yells showed the temper of the men. Other shouts came down the wind from Fulke's sloop, faintly. The sun had sucked up all the mist; the dark blue sea ran briskly with hissing crests. The horizon was clear; the four ships had the stage set and cleared for their encounter—a fair scene for drama.
To left and right the sloops raced, converging toward the apex of a V, where the dhow smashed through the water with a great show of speed, low in the water, packed with cargo and living freight beyond her proper sailing capacity. Avary's ship came on between the sloops.
There was no backing out now. He could not check his men. Horton had given orders that he must follow up to retain his position.
His crafty mind cast the chances. To let the sloops board, bear the brunt of the encounter, be most certainly beaten back, if they were not blown out of the water by the guns of the dhow? Their disaster would check the zeal of his own men; meantime he'd work ship to bring alternate batteries to bear, luffing and wearing, falling well back with each discharge yet apparently eager to fight.
If by good chance they dismasted the dhow he would get all credit for strategy. At that, he could sail about her and pour in his broadsides until she was ready to surrender. Not to the point of sinking her—it was the treasure they wanted, not the hollow victory. He might get the woman after all—long-range fighting, maneuvering with the better sea qualities of The Duke and his own seamanship helping to offset the number of guns. That was the plan.
The fore-chaser went off with a roar, enveloping the bows in woolly smoke that blew to leeward swiftly enough for Avary, on the poop, to observe the shot. The projectile plumped fairly across the bows of the dhow. The pirates cheered.
Avary saw the intention; the shot was a bid for surrender. The answer came in quick retort, belching smoke and fire from every gun aport on the dhow. Out of the vapor the tops of her masts showed with the green pennant flaunting defiance. The range was too great; but the geysering water midway showed how menacing such a discharge might be if properly placed—once.
“All hands walk the braces! Down the helm! Starboard batteries ready.”
Avary roared his order through his speaking-trumpet. Horton had actually taken the initiative, but the men did not know that. Avary was still in command.
The Duke came into the wind, began to pay off as the crew held her headsails aback. The fourteen cannon of her starboard battery crashed and the ship shivered to the recoil. The drift of burning gases swept the deck and the men sniffed it in like an elixir. There was no mistaking their temper. Imagination did not bother them—nor the very apparent odds. They responded to one primitive emotion—the instinct to fight. Like those of the dhow, the missiles fell far short. The broadside guns lacked the range of the bow chaser.
Back came an answering broadside, useless, save for intimidation and defiance, as the roar of a lion facing the tribesmen.
The sloops -went racing on like wolves after a stag while The Duke gathered way on her new tack. No sooner was she fairly going than Avary wore ship and let fly with the port guns.
The men never questioned his tactics. The firing temporarily relieved their tension; the belching of the flame, the thunder of the discharge, the stagger of the deck under their feet, all matched their mood. They did not notice that they made scant headway in such maneuvering. Avary repeated it while the sloops closed in fast on the dhow, leaving their powerful consort lagging. Then Horton came bounding to the poop, brushing away all ceremony.
“What fool trick is this?” he demanded of Avary. “They hold their fire. We waste ours.”
“We are closing in,” said Avary. “We'll be in range before long.”
“Before long! What then? Lead's a dull knife for a trick like this. Steel, and that quickly, is what we need. A rush from all sides, as we agreed. She'd riddle us at this sort of play.
“What kind of a scurvy knave are you, Avary? D'you want to sacrifice the sloops? If they are beaten off with loss they'll blame you. If they make good—and those pilgrims will break once they are boarded—they'll claim the glory. Aye, and take the best of the loot before we get a look at it. Fulke and Neill will see through you, as I do, and —— you for a lousy coward!
“Head up and join 'em. They're closing now.”
FULKE'S sloop had come about and was running down for the bows of the dhow. Neill was lunging on a close-hauled tack for her quarter. The dhow was in line between them, unable to bring her guns to bear, save one carronade of small weight on poop and bows, popping spitefully. A white splinter showed on the bow of Neill's sloop.
Shouts came from Avary's crew, yelling encouragement and envy of their more daring allies. They turned expectantly toward the poop. At sight of their fellows racing on to close quarters they itched to be at it themselves.
Avary quailed before the glare of Horton flaying his yellow soul.
“Take her over and be —— to you!” he said, and went swiftly down the poop ladder to his cabin. He knocked the neck off a brandy-bottle and swigged at it, cutting his mouth with the sharp edges without, noticing, gulping down the strong stuff.
“A lousy coward! Called that on his own poop! He'd show them!”
His heart reacted to the stimulus of the alcohol, pumping the blood through his veins, flooding the vessels of his brain.
“A coward, eh?”
He set down the bottle and looked at his pistols. He poured out a silver tankard full of the brandy, almost a pint of it, and drained it. By some strange chemistry his own self was transmuted into another, primed with reckless deviltry. Sparkle came into his eyes, energy to his limbs.
The day was hot; it was sweltering in the cabin; the brandy brought his body to fever heat. Avary stripped off his laced coat and his brocaded vest, rolling up the lace ruffles of his fine linen shirt and adjusting the shoulder-sling in which he carried his spare pistols. Two brace more were in his belt, buckled over a crimson sash. He drew sword and tossed aside the scabbard, leaping out of the cabin with a shout.
The men had stripped to short drawers, belts and sashes, with gaudy cloths bound about their heads. Legs were bare; so were their bronzed, hairy bodies and brawny arms. Horton had brought the ship to a course along which she raced toward the dhow like a sprinter kept behind at scratch and off at last.
The batteries had been inhauled and the gun-tackles secured. Each man was a walking arsenal. They stood in four groups, ready for the word to send them over rail in simultaneous attack. Grappling-irons were ready to cast. Hand-grenades were piled in woven baskets. The men had chosen their weapons according to their fancy; pike or cutlas or broad-ax. To the new Avary they seemed an efficient lot of devils, and he strode forward like a master demon with his face bloodied from the bottle neck and lit up with his newly inspired ferocity.
“Pikes and pistols, bullies! There lies our fortune. Up into the tops, some of you, me the grenades. We'll give 'em a taste of —— before we board. We'll make short work of the infidels!”
He sprang to the rail and shook his fist at the dhow while his men cheered him. For all his pistolwork they had held some doubt of his mettle. They had none now. Two scuttlebutts of native rum had been broached, into which they dipped their pannikins at will. They could not distinguish between his mood and their own.
Only Horton grinned sardonically from the poop. He had little fear of the issue. By Fulke's and Neill's accounts the pilgrims would prove sorry fighters. He fancied the first estimate of a thousand far short of the actual number packed close in the waist, watching the oncoming ships.
Now the shot from the dhow were plumping all about The Duke, tearing through the canvas, severing a shroud or two, whistling by, all aimed above her hull, the guns fired irregularly. There were signs of panic aboard her.
Avary jumped down from the rail, brandished his blade, hurried back to the poop to take full command again while giving directions to the helmsman. Fulke's sloop had sheered alongside, her bowsprit entangled with that of the dhow, grapples making fast, the men clambering aboard by fore and bobstay. Neill's craft slid up to the starboard quarter as The Duke came sweeping down and up into the wind, her bows battering at. the sides of the dhow under the muzzles of the belching guns, her yards locking with those of the Mogul's ship—ike the horns of fighting stags.
Greek fire, stinking, blinding, was tossed from the dhow. A shower of grenades answered, spreading confusion among the pilgrims. Fulke's bullies hacked their way from the bows, Neill's men slashed a bloody lane through the defenders of the poop as Avary, side by side with Horton, to the hoarse shout of “Boarders away!” poured over the rail at the head of their crew, firing their pistols, swinging axes and cutlases, thrusting madly with their pikes.
Avary, keyed to a pitch that linked bravado with cold dexterity, fired four pistols with deadly aim and ran through a turbaned Moor who rushed him with raised simitar. He saw Horton smite a man with his cutlas so that the heavy steel clove through the skull to the eyes, wedging in the bone while Horton tugged at it fiercely, cursing.
A giant negro rushed at the mate with a long knife, and Horton kicked him in his groin. The black collapsed in agony, and Horton, wrenching free his cutlas, pinned him to the deck with a thrust through his heart and passed on roaring down the alley opened up by Avary.
It was a massacre—not a fight. A slaughter—as Horton had foretold—of a flock of sheep, falling back from those ravening wolves of pirates, jammed together, frightened, not a quarter of them armed, crying for mercy, praying to Allah, their supplications mocked by the imprecations of the triumphant pirates who butchered them at will. The Moorish mariners had been divided to defend the attack of the sloops and were pistoled or cut down to a man.
Only on the poop was the issue ever doubtful. There, forced down the ladders by the weight of onslaught, joining others who were ranged in front of the entrance to the main cabin, a group of men fought with desperate, effective valor.
Their mien as well as their clothes and weapons and the manner in which they handled the latter proclaimed them to be of high rank. They wore spiked helmets of light steel that had neckpieces. They wore mail and carried circular shields. Their swords were curved and each sword had drunk the lifeblood of at least one opponent.
Chief among them was an old warrior with the eyes of an eagle and a ropelike gray mustache in strong contrast with his brown skin. As he fought, covering himself with his shield, his tulwar flashing out like the strokes of a fighting panther, he shouted a warcry in his own language.
Horton made for him with bludgeon strokes that failed to beat down the guard of the ancient, whose blade licked out and brought the blood from the mate's shoulder. Horton, roaring like a bull, snatched a round shield from one of the knightly group who had just fallen, hamstrung by a pirate whom he had run through. Holding the shield—which had a sharp horn at the boss—the mate hurled himself clear of the deck and crashed full tilt and full weight upon the other, who gave ground to the onslaught, staggering back, tripping over a prone body, crashing against the wall of the cabin.
The way was clear to the door that they had guarded. Avary, rushing through to the cabin, saw Horton hold steel to the old fighter's throat and bid him surrender.
IT WAS time for quarter to be begged and granted. The dhow was a pandemonium of blasphemy, of groans, threats and prayers. The pilgrims were leaping overboard to escape the victorious pirates.
Avary's one thought was the Mogul's daughter whom this honorable and devoted guard of Rajputs had sought to save. The fight was practically over, the dhow captured. He left the handling of surrender to the mate. To slaughter more than a thousand helpless pilgrims would pall the desire of the most bloodthirsty and hold up the chief purpose of their attack—loot.
The essence of all that booty, Avary believed, lay in the person and in the personal ornaments of the Mogul's daughter—though he thought only of the woman for the time, inflamed with the afterlust of fight and brandy. The cabin was floored with magnificent rugs and hung with Oriental draperies, set about with silken divans and cushions. It was empty, save for two negro guards—giant eunuchs—who stood with drawn simitars in front of an inner door.
Their eyes rolled in the dusk as Avary came leaping in, a terrible figure enough, besmeared with blood, bringing the confidence of triumph with him through the opened door that let in the full flood of the raving, ramping noise of battle. It was dying down. Battle-cries were changing to shouts of glee as the pirates began to pillage individuals and spread through the dhow in search of booty. Horton had given quarter, and the looting had commenced.
The eunuchs were picked men and Avary was alone. Their wide blades swung up as they shifted position to let him come between them. Avary had two pistols yet unfired, retained for an emergency like this. The eunuch to the right fell with a ball between his eyes. The second Avary shot through the top of his head as the man stooped and smote sidewise, scything at Avary's knees, the pirate leaping nimbly to avoid the stroke.
Curtains of heavy silk partly veiled the door to the inside cabin. He swept these aside, broke the bolt with a kick and strode in.
There were several women crouching and kneeling about a central figure, but Avary saw only the one who stood dominant, regal, from whom emanated such a force that Avary felt his own mean spirit shriveling before the inherent majesty of the ranee who outfaced him. A veil of silver tissue covered the lower part of her face; a band of it was drawn across her crescent brows. She was supremely beautiful.
The eyes held Avary; they seemed to grow luminous, absorbing all space. In them was somewhat of horror but nothing of fear. They were deep wells of disdain and of purpose, regarding him as something to be despised, the meanest of all living things that held power to kill or to force death.
That was all he might ever do to a woman like this—daughter of the Great Mogul—reigning princess in her own right. Once he had captured a wild bird in his youth and watched it die on its perch, its eyes fearless, implacable, untamed to the end.
There was no common speech between them; neither knew the other's language. But emotion was bared, and Avary knew himself for an ugly, mean thing in her eyes while he saw her——
He drew a bloody hand across his eyes to wipe off the sense of compulsion her eyes gave him. He saw then that she grasped a jeweled knife, the point resting between her breasts. She made no gesture, but he knew that a step forward from him meant death for her rather than the smirch of his touch. No matter how he had found and captured her, she would have thought only of self destruction once he had held her.
A dull rage fought with his will's surrender to her inherent superiority. He strove to lash himself to forceful, arrogant action as became a conqueror, to meet her scorn with brutality. But his forces were at the ebb; the excitement of wine and fight were dying down. He had a most emphatic, bewildering sensation of actually dwindling in size under the serene scorn of the ranee's steady gaze. Thus taken aback he stood irresolute when Horton rushed in and caught him by the arm.
“Come away, man! Leave the women alone. The fat's i' the fire. There's a dhow been hove-to watching the whole thing. She's gone now on the wind. I but caught glimpse of her sail-tips. We'd never overhaul her. She'll have the Mogul's fleet—aye, and the East India fleet, too, scouring the seas after us. Injure any of those women—yon's the Mogul's daughter, I take it—and the hue and cry'll reach home to England. We trade in India by the Mogul's good will.
“Come on. Fulke and Neill are gathering the best of the loot. There's enough to set us up for the rest of our lives. But we want to clean up and get clear.”
He tugged at Avary's arm, and the latter shook him off. The spell of the ranee was dissolving.
“I'll take her aboard,” he muttered. “—— her for a jade; I'll take that look out of her eyes! I'll——”
“You'll do naught of the sort. A woman aboard? To bring us all the bad luck of the seas. The crew would never stand for 't. Think you Neill and Fulke would let you keep her? D'ye think to make peace with the Mogul because you ravish his daughter? Come out, you fool!”
Through the door came some of the crew, their booty tucked in the fold of one arm, seeking more. Horton drove them back.
“Out—out! The women are to be left alone.”
He forced Avary along with him. The captain looked over his shoulder once at the ranee standing like a statue, save for her glowing eyes, the knife still threatening her bosom. He shook his shoulders, shrugging away a situation he could not control.
“Who first saw this dhow?” he asked Horton as the mate pointed out two tiny flecks that faded away into the horizon haze.
“The quartermaster soon after we boarded. Then forgot about it. She was standing up then. They've seen the whole affair. 'Tis for us to gut this fat fish we have caught and clear south.”
Avary nodded. Horton spoke sooth. The Mogul would be likely to appeal to the East India Company, threaten to repeal its charter and privileges if such an outrage were not redressed. To spoil the ship was enough; to offer violence to the Emperor's daughter would make things too hot for them altogether.
Pursuit was inevitable. They had captured a great prize. At one stroke they had done as much as many men of their calling had achieved in all their career. Avary saw himself going home a rich man—to America perhaps—settling where he was unknown.
Horton was right. —— fly away with the woman; it was time to be sure of his own shares. There had been an agreement that it was every crew for itself, to be divided later according to the rule of each ship, in shares apportioned by the captains, approved by the quartermasters, diced for by the men. The bullies from the sloops were wasting no time gathering their harvest.
Some one touched Avary on the elbow. He turned to see one of the women of the ranee's train, her face veiled, offering him a casket of ebony inlaid with pearl, the lid of which she held open. Inside was a dazzling iridescence of jewels. Avary took it and the woman fled. Horton had gone off on his own collecting.
Avary poured the gems into his palm and stowed them in his breeches pockets, tossing the casket aside. He motioned to the surrendered rajas to take guard across the cabin door. For whatever reason the gems had reached him, he took them as a salve to his pride. In his heart he knew himself glad not to have forced an issue with the ranee.
TO SUCH crude appraisers the wealth of the Mogul's ship was incalculable. Diamonds, rubies and other gems, bar-gold and silver, besides those metals wondrously wrought in the offerings for the shrine of Mohammed. Ivory, rich silks woven, raw silks, carpets, valuable spices—most of which they left or threw wantonly overboard—it made a goodly showing. Roughly it might bring. five thousand pounds sterling a share.
The loot was brought to the foot of the mainmast of each vessel and there stowed in chests under the eyes of the crews' representatives. Flight was the main thing before an irresistible force should assemble against them.
They left the dhow winging back toward India, bereft of all its precious merchandise, bearing some killed and many wounded in its defense. The pirates would soon be identified with the crews that had landed at Karachi and made inquiries. The hue and cry would be up. There was no. sense in staying to await trouble.
When the dhow was hull down Fulke and Neill came aboard The Duke for a captains' carouse of celebration. Before the limits of sobriety were reached Avary set forth the plan his cheating, greedy brain devised.
Every man was supposed, without fail and on grievous penalty, to bestow in the mutual treasure-heap all his gleanings. Without doubt there were many who held out small trinkets. Avary had disclosed nothing of the gems from the casket. But he could not keep the thought out of his mind that if the present shares were worth five thousand pounds they would have been three times that amount if the sloops had not been with them.
In his specious way he flattered the sloops' commanders and complimented them on their bearing, their bravery, their resource and their worth as companions so that they vowed him—their wits diluted by wine—the prince of good fellows. They even complimented him on the tactics he had shown in the fight, swearing them worthy of the great Morgan—since they had turned out so well. Worse for themselves, they believed what they said. His was the “master mind.” Avary, using his own liquor wisely, baited them along.
“Now, look you,” he said at last, judging the moment ripe. “There is instant necessity for securing all this property that we have acquired in some safe place—ashore—where it can not be sunk nor easily overhauled and where it may be more easily guarded. And the greatest difficulty lies in getting it ashore; for if either of your sloops should be attacked alone you could make but slight resistance, you must either be sunk or taken with all your booty aboard.
“For my part, I think my ship so strong, so well manned and so swift sailing that I do not deem it possible for any other to take or overcome us. Let us seal up this treasure of ours, you keeping your keys, placing it all upon my ship. Then if we are forced by stress or storm to quit company we will appoint a rendezvous.
“Let us make it the bay where I found you on the beach. The king is friendly—we will make him more so. There we will build us a fort and leave always a guard chosen from all of us, making the place our headquarters until such time as we may wish to leave these seas, after the cry dies down that this exploit will surely rouse.”
Horton, half-seas over, gazed first at Avary, then at Neill and Fulke with his mouth open. He closed it as he sucked down a goblet full of wine, blinking his eyes at his commander.
“'Tis a rare plan,” he said. “We have the heels of anything in these seas. If your sloops are overhauled you can claim to be peaceful traders; and, finding no booty aboard, they must clear you. Nor can you sail fast enough to avoid chance of being caught up before we reach Madagascar. 'Tis a long stretch, and we may all be held in the equator drift long enough for the pursuit to sight us.”
“But we'll all keep company and close consort for as long as we may,” capped Avary. “If we run, we'll draw them away from you and they'll never catch us, you can lay to that. So we'll meet and give them the laugh at last.”
“That's what comes of having a skipper with brains,” put in Horton. “One who looks ahead. Curse me, I'd never have thought of that.”
Avary looked at the mate and the latter winked at him slyly. Fulke and Neill approved the scheme, and the chests from the sloops were set aboard the next day.
Avary called a general mast at noon. The sloops were only showing their topsails above the horizon, far to leeward. The Duke, bowling along in the fine breeze, was under shortened sail, not to drop them entirely.
“Bullies all,” said Avary, “we've made a rare haul. There's enough treasure aboard us now to make us all happy. If 'twas all ours now, what should hinder us from going to some country where we are not known and living ashore the rest of our days in plenty? But we have done well for a first strike. Doubtless we shall never achieve such another. We must be content if we are let cruise this side of Africa.
“There's booty worth close to fifteen thousand golden pounds apiece in those three chests. That is, if it were all ours. Should anything happen to the sloops, should we part company and not rejoin, why 'twould be all our gain and their loss. But they should have thought of that before they brought the stuff aboard.
“For my part, I confess to temptation. The more I think on 't—how much better is fifteen thousand pounds than five, of what a great fortune that would be in America—the weaker grows my resolution.”
They had caught the irony of his talk and they were laughing. Avary said little more, but left his leaven to work itself out and went aft while the crew broached a cask of liquor they had taken from the dhow and toasted the distant topsails of the consorts with jeers.
WITH nightfall the breeze strengthened, and Avary ordered the reefs shaken out. Daybreak showed only empty horizon. The mask was openly tossed away, and The Duke rang with laughter as the men discussed the new names they would adopt in America where they would live in affluence and honor all the rest of their days.
Their admiration for Avary increased as he disclosed his ideas for their safe dispersal. He suggested Nassau or New Providence in the Bahamas, being newly settled, as their best port of call.
“It is none so long since we left Corunna,” he argued. “It may be just time enough for a description of The Duke to have reached the New World. So let us sell this ship at New Providence to the merchants there. I will pretend she was equipped for privateering, and since she has not been a lucky ship the owners have empowered me to dispose of her to the best advantage. Then we can buy a sloop and so to America—to Charlestown, belike, or to Boston as you will. So we will wipe out all traces and laugh at the world while we take our ease.”
The sailors preferred the golden bars and coins to the gems, complaining that they were like to be bilked of the true value of the latter. Avary purchased a lot of them with his own share and a half of gold, flattering himself he could dispose of them more easily and to better advantage than his men.
They sailed their way across to the Caribbean, gambling and drinking, some half stripped of their shares by the time Hispaniola was sighted. At New Providence The Duke, renamed The Good Adventure for the sale, was disposed of and the sloop secured.
It was late in August when Avary stepped on the dock at Boston with a dozen of his men, all that remained of the original crew—the rest had scattered adown the coast at their fancy—and made his way to a waterfront tavern. By his advice the party was dressed quietly, with no display of wealth. Avary appeared the ordinary skipper and Horton his commonplace mate. They bore no arms; they comported themselves in seemly fashion. Skipper and mate went to the private room reserved for such as them; the crew thronged into the taproom.
Avary ordered sack, but Horton insisted upon ale.
“I've swilled wine and spirits till I'm sick of the taste of 'em,” he declared. “Many's the time I'd have given all we had aboard for a short keg of ale, skipper.”
Avary merely nodded. He had lit a long clay pipe and was puffing at it, his eyes fixed on the wall back of Horton.
He stared so fixedly that Horton screwed his head around to see the attraction, which was a great placard tacked to the partition. Horton's bulldog face paled, then flushed again. He lowered his voice as he spoke hoarsely across the table.
“I know a king's proclamation when I see one,” he said, “though I am no hand for reading. What is it, Avary?”
“'Tis a pardon. 'The King's Pardon, to be given to all pirates assembling upon the island of New Providence within the time specified, when the said pardon shall be brought from England by Mr. Woods Rogers, Governor and Vice-Admiral of the Bahama Islands, providing that the said pirates and malefactors do assemble peaceably and prepare to give inventories of their ships and several ladings.
“'That all ships and cargoes so assembled, or now assembled within the harbor of Nassau, are to be secured for the use of the king and company, till such time as a court of admiralty shall be called, that they may be lawfully cleared or condemned by the provings of the said court which vessels belong to pirates and which, to fair traders.
“'To such pirates as do obey this covenant and engage to become loyal subjects of his sovereign Majesty William the Third, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc., full amnesty and pardon shall be given—save and excepting:
“'The notorious rogues Captain Thomas Tew, Captain Robert—or William—Kidd and Captain Avary, whom all officers, mariners and others under the king's command or that of the colonial appointments are authorized to apprehend, seize and take into custody to the end that they be proceeded against according to the law in such cases.'
“There's a lot more to it,” said Avary, “but 'tis tiresome reading and you've the gist of it. It would seem our fame has crossed ocean at last. Zounds, man, what ails you? You are not even mentioned. You can go to Providence and become a lick-spittle, an you will.
“I fear me the merchant that bought The Duke will repent his bargain. They'll likely suspect him of being our accomplice. Serves him well for being stingy with his price.”
Horton, his hand still shaking a trifle, looked at Avary with something akin to genuine admiration.
“You take it coolly enough,” he said. “You with your neck as good as in a halter.”
“It won't be long. Who knows me for Avary, for aught but an honest trader? My name is Pruden and yours Rogers. Warned is saved to the man with wits. Hist, here comes the liquor.”
It was the landlord himself who served the sack and ale, a garrulous type of Boniface.
“I see they're granting amnesty to the pirates,” said Avary. “Had I my way they should be hanged, all of them.”
“Aye, the rogues. They deal easier with them than with honest men. They are too strong. I hear there are three hundred already at Providence and more arriving by scores. So the news was brought from Virginia last night. They will give privateer commissions to some of them. A lot of rascally villains and cutthroats, say I. Hornigold, Davis, Carter, Burgess, Vane, to say nothing of Tew and Kidd and Avary.”
“Who is this Avary?”
“A great rogue. Oh, a mighty villain! He lives like a king, they say, off Madagascar. 'Twas he who stole the ship out of Corunna and captured a vessel of the Great Mogul. He married the Mogul's daughter. He eats and drinks from gold dishes. He grants commissions to his captains to plunder and rob at will.
“'Tis said he is so powerful that King William may treat with him and let him ransom himself to pardon, for all the Mogul threatened to despoil the East India Company. 'Tis said also a fleet has been despatched against him.
“Other wives he hath—and all his men—with slaves to fan him and hand him pipe and bowl. A rare rogue, and richer than Midas. He'll not come to Providence, I'll warrant you. Life is too fat for him in Madagascar. They have writ ballads about him and published a chap-book, here in Boston. My tapster hath one.”
“I must get one of them. What is he like, this rogue?”
“A fathom and a half in height, with arms that swing low and hands that can scratch the back of his knees without stooping. His hair is black but his beard red. One eye is hazel and the other blue. He eats glass and fire, they say; and with his own hand he despatched fifty of the Mogul's warriors.”
“That is worth more sack, landlord, and another stoup of ale. I must surely get me that chap-book.”
Avary's face glowed when the man went out. Here was danger that needed sharp wits rather than a keen blade. His vanity was tickled.
“It would seem I am famous, Rogers,” he said, puffing at his pipe. “We have not lived in vain.”
But Horton—as Rogers—lacked the other's poise. At sea the gunner-mate was at liberty, a freeman, ready to fight for his range. On shore, with the engines of the law conniving, he felt beset by enemies he could not encounter, by mysterious processes, whispering informers. He set down his empty tankard and wiped the sweat off his forehead.
“This is no place for us,” he said. “Some of those fools may blab or boast in their cups.”
“There is some sense in what you say.”
Avary started thinking that a display of gems in Boston at such a time might make it hard to explain how he came by them. He did not much believe in his ability to buy a pardon, nor was he anxious to strip himself of what he had worked so hard to gain.
“We'll put off tomorrow,” he said. “We need but little provisioning. Go in and stay with the men. Pass the word to them to come aboard by midnight. They'll be willing enough after you slip them news of that poster.”
The mate took his second tankard and went out. Avary smoked on and sipped his sack.
His brain told him he was not in much danger of apprehension so long as he made no attempt to sell his jewels. That vexed him. He had reckoned on staying in America. But his fame offset that for the time.
Ballads and a chap-book! He sucked up his glory as a cloth absorbs water. Proscribed when such villains as Hornigold and Vane were to be pardoned. The pity of it was that he could not swagger as they could. He must lay low a while. He suffered a twinge of depreciation when he thought of the ranee he was said to have married. A daughter of the devil!
He made up his mind speedily what to do. He would sail the sloop to the north coast of Ireland and there find means to communicate with a friend of his in Bristol, whom he fancied he might trust. There were jewelers, none too scrupulous in a bargain, who might treat with him, robbing him, of course; but he had plenty to stand trimming. And there seemed no other way, with the world stirred up about pirates in general and him in particular.
Kidd and Tew might stay at sea, but Avary was done with piracy. He would turn his gems into hard coin and live a life of ease—not as pictured in Madagascar by the chap-book, but a rounded life that would assume the virtues while it satisfied his secret vices. Later—a good marriage perhaps. Then——
The landlord came scurrying in again with a copy of the famous chap-book, a pamphlet with its cover printed in red and black ink and set off with a villainous woodcut that purported to be a portrait of himself. The work was entitled:
   The Piracies and Cruelties of Captain Avary
   Who Married the Daughter of the Great Mogul, Capturing her after Great Slaughter by His Own Hand and the Gain of Much Merchandise, Gold, Gems and Ivory.
Avary gave the man a crown and told him to keep the change. He would have given twenty guineas for that badly printed brochure he tucked into his pocket. He passed through the taproom with a meaning look at Horton.
At two in the morning the sloop slipped out of Boston Harbor on the flood, Horton at the helm, Avary in his little cabin, devouring what was to him the gem of all literature.
IN THE meanest room of a mean, tumbledown house in Bideford, seaport of Devon, famed as the home and holding of the sea-roving Grenvilles, Avary, known now as Saxby—his name changed for the third time—sat awaiting the visit of his friend from Bristol, together with certain jewelers of that town.
He had sold the sloop. In his pocket was the change from the last of the gold pieces he had received from the deal. His men had dispersed. Horton had declared his intention of seeking the king's pardon. The rest were to follow suit.
Over in Providence a thousand pirates had assembled and obtained amnesty. Vane had sailed out under the guns of the king's frigate. Kidd was still at large.
“But,” said Horton wisely, “this was no time for a man to go against the law.”
All round the world, from the East India Company—their gains restricted by the sulkiness of the Great Mogul, waiting for the hanging of Avary and for reimbursement for the loss of his dhow—to the colonies of the New World, tired of having their infant shipping industry throttled by the descendants of the buccaneers, the hunt was up. Europe was making pact for peace, countries were combining in a league of nations, and robbers on sea and land were being frowned on, fired at, hanged, tarred, hung in chains and made examples of.
The exploits of Avary were still fresh. A reward was out for his apprehension. Avary was uncertain when some of his own followers might find themselves stripped of cash and anxious to make the easy Judas-money. Especially since they sought pardoning.
He cut a far different figure from the Avary who had walked the poop of The Duke in velvet and brocade, the Avary, drunk with brandy and ambition, who had pistoled his way through the pilgrim-mob of the dhow and shot the eunuchs in the cabin. There his luck had been at zenith. Since then it had suddenly declined. Sometimes he thought the ranee had bewitched him; that the jewels he had taken from the woman, the jewels he had hid out from the rest, had given her malign power over him by his acceptance.
There were a cot-bed, two broken chairs and a rude table in the room. No carpet; a rag across the window to shut out the sun. A low chest in one corner; a bottle or two, half empty. There was no fireplace, nothing to mitigate the chill of the late Autumn that bit into his marrow and made the sun a mockery
He took his meals at the inn ordinary. His clothes were snuff-colored, with cotton stockings, a plain fall and stock, a three-cornered hat untrimmed with lace or cockade. He looked like a clerk out of employment. He gave out that he had come to Devon for his failing health, having been left a legacy.
He walked the room impatiently. From the window he could get a glimpse of the bridge over the Torridge, across which his guests must come. A crown, a florin and some small silver made up his purse. He was sick of living in burrows like a hunted rabbit, sick of indifferent food and wine, of poor-mouth talk. He ached for the fleshpots.
In the false bottom of his chest was freedom. He would get a thousand guineas advance from these jewel merchants and then—to London Town, where a man might live!
He stood at the window biting his nails. It was a fortnight since the appointment had been arranged for and he had come to Bideford. It had taken tremendous time and patience. His friend—with a big commission in view for his own share—would not play him false; but there had been the necessity of getting a lodging, of sending the address to Bristol, waiting for reply. They should have been on hand two days before.
But the merchants were cautious. The affair was to be secret. There was altogether too much of mystery about the thing, Avary told himself.
Meanwhile his gems were of no more use to him than seashore pebbles. In so small a place as Bideford, if he displayed one of them; tried to use it for barter or to sell it, the news would be taken straight to the Big House where the Grenvilles lorded it. The mayor, the aldermen and burgesses, the recorder, the town clerks, the sergeants-at-mace, a pack of inquisitive fools eying him askance as a stranger whenever he walked the streets, would all gossip. Grenville would hold inquisition. The gems would be kept, recognized as Oriental in cut and setting.
Avary saw the loom of the gibbet too plainly. He should have gone to London where there were many rogues to deal with. Still, London was filled with thief-takers who had their spies everywhere looking for their chance for blood-money.
His eyes brightened. He saw a little troop of three horsemen coming across the bridge of twenty-four arches that spanned the turbid Torridge and united the two parts of Bideford Town. One he recognized for certain as his friend—the others were the jewelers from Bristol.
The tables were about to turn. Soon he would be off to London by stage or post—better, by hoy to Plymouth and the stage from there. No need to show too much wealth at first. Ah!
He took a long drink of the cheap liquor, pulled away the cloth from the window and used it as a cover for the gems, which he took from their hiding-place and set on the table. A sunbeam struck the cloth fairly—a good omen! Another drink and then to listen for the footsteps climbing up the steep stairs. A knock, and he flung open the door inviting them in—his friend, important, sly, mysterious as a conspirator; the merchants, one a goldsmith, the other a dealer in jewels, guild members both with shops on Broad Street, Bristol; gravely clad in black, their warm cloaks lined and collared with mink.
One, Hutton, was a bald man with a vulture's nose, a hump between his shoulders—a grasping, cozening sort. The other, Lindsay, was dour and thin with a face as cold and hard as granite. They brought the Winter with them from Bristol, thought Avary.
Lindsay went to the window and glanced out. Avary's friend went to the stair-heading and looked down, coming back to stand against the door after he had shot a bolt. The eyes of all of them were greedy.
Avary whipped the cloth from the gems. Under the sunbeam a rainbow leaped to life. The jewels lay in a coruscating heap with flashes of vivid crimson and green combining with the iridescent shimmer.
“There, gentlemen,” he said. “There is an emperor's ransom for you!”
A FILM seemed to come over the eyes of the buyers. The go-between edged closer. For fifteen minutes they examined the gems minutely. Then Hutton spoke.
“It will be hard to dispose of these, Master Saxby. They are jewels of the Orient, where they choose by color rather than by clarity. Look you, most are badly flawed.
“Their cutting must be done again or inquiry may follow. We have our reputations to guard. Such inquiry would stop all sales lest worse might follow. To recut takes time, means much waste, outlay for skilled workmen. Nor is the time propitious for the sale of jewels. The market is low, very low. Eh, Lindsay?”
“Had I known what they were I would not have come here,” said Lindsay. “The risk is too great. I had supposed we should find jewels of good water. Take out the flaws and you have left nothing but chips after they are cut to suit the modern taste. To my mind the thing is not worth the bother.”
He turned away to the window indifferently, started to put on his cloak. Avary looked at them in amaze. The sun had passed behind a cloud. The gleaming mass had dulled. They looked only like colored pebbles or glass.
The friendly go-between pulled a long face. Avary gulped. Then he braced himself. They were gulling him. Hutton picked up a ruby.
“You see,” he said, “the streak runs clear through. Almost worthless. Most of these Oriental jewels are sadly overrated. Is there a good tavern here, Master Saxby? We shall not start back without a night's rest and sleep; and, faith, the sooner I find a bed the better I shall be pleased. This has been a tiresome venture.”
They were going. It was incredible. These jewels that he had bought with his own good gold, thinking himself so clever—these jewels of little value?
Yet the merchants were going. They had their cloaks on. And he had only a crown—a florin—a groat or two. He had hard work to find his voice.
“You mean—you mean you will not buy these? That they have no worth?”
Hutton paused at the door. Lindsay was outside with the go-between.
“I do not say that. We would not be disposed to advance you anything on them. We should have to put out the moneys for recutting and setting to the workmen. It will take time to get rid of them. Months—years before the right opportunity offers. We are willing to remit to you one-half of what they ultimately bring—less the expense of craftsmanship and the commission of your friend. But only as the money reaches our hands.”
Out of despair Avary struck a spark of resentment.
“And meantime you would take all these, without surety, without advance, knowing I have nothing, working on my unfortunate condition?”
Hutton held up a warning finger.
“You speak too loudly, Saxby. We have taken risk by coming here. This is a hazardous matter, compounding with felony. We have our own necks to look to. Lindsay, a moment.”
They affected to confer together.
“We will advance you twenty guineas,” said Hutton finally. “From time to time we will make remittance as we have said.
“As for surety—there are two sides to that matter. On your side I see little. You can give us no bill of sale, I take it. On our side—we are well known as men of honor and integrity. We stretch a point in your favor.
“But that is our offer—against my own advice. You may take it or leave it.”
He turned cold and fishy eyes upon Avary which held such present indifference, such possibilities of malice, that it suddenly stirred within the wretched pirate the conviction that he was in the hands of these men. Fall out with them and they might denounce him to the authorities. Instead of paying out money they would gain a hundred guineas. He must perforce trust them and keep their tempers sweet to savor their generosity withal.
Yet—twenty guineas! He had not the heart to ask for a valuation of the lot.
“I will accept,” he said. “You will send me remittance from time to time, as you dispose of the jewels?”
“Assuredly.”
Lindsay fished up the guineas, one at a time, dispensing them grudgingly from a leather poke. Hutton did up the jewels in the cloth, and stowed them in an inside pocket. Avary's friend patted him on the shoulder.
“You did wisely,” he said. “They will deal fairly with you.”
Not until they had gone, until he saw them cross the bridge, did Avary consider that he had not even taken inventory of the stones. He cursed himself for a fool and a weakling. He swigged at the remnant of his thin, sour wine, then flung out of his house to Bideford's main tavern, where he threw down a guinea, demanding the best. Night found him staggering up the hill to his lodging, drunk and maudlin.
He lit a candle and sat on his cot, reading the chap-book that set forth the exploits of “AVARY THE PIRATE,” the thumbed and worn pamphlet flattened on the coarse bedding, gesturing wildly as he went over the words he knew by heart, his gaunt shadow semaphoring on the wall—a ghost of the old Avary, leading on his men to loot and victory.
THE twenty guineas lasted him four months. Then he received three. At the end of a twelvemonth he had obtained flimsy excuses, indifferently veiled from carelessness, paltry promises, the entire sum of thirty-one guineas.
His clothes were worn of nap, his linen and leather a disgrace, his hat a ruin. Most of his money had gone for wine; his account was chalked up to its uttermost limit at the tavern. He was lean to emaciation, hollow of cheek and eye, scrawny of limb.
These little moneys came through his so-styled friend. By this time Avary esteemed him little better than a cutpurse and told him so.
“You are in no position to make enemies of your best wishers,” said the man, with a smirk that roused the devil within Avary—already stirred by ale into which Oporto wine had been poured, and the product mulled. “One who is looking through a halter must accommodate himself to the view.”
“If one is to be hanged,” retorted Avary, rejoicing as he felt a swift surge of blood that bore the strength of anger with it, such as he used to find in the old days when he built his bridges for such occasions—“if one is to be hanged for piracy, it can only be done once. They may thank me for ridding the world of such a rogue as you. If they call it murder it will not add to my penalty. I have stood enough thievery and treachery from you, you dog!”
The smirk on the man's face held for a while. Avary was apt to be boastful in his cups, living on bygone glories. Then the “friend” saw the laughing devil that looked out of Avary's eyes and transformed his face to a demoniacal semblance. He was fat and clumsy.
Avary brushed aside the table and had him by the throat as he still sat in his chair. The bony fingers sank into the flabby gullet. Avary knelt in his victim's lap, rejoicing in the deed. The tongue of his quondam friend protruded; his eyes projected; he breathed like a dying horse, arms hanging limp.
Avary would have choked him had it not been for the fatness of the man's neck and the sudden dying out of Avary's burst of strength.
Avary had him unconscious. As he stepped back, leaning against the table, shaking with reaction, Avary determined to deal no more with this go-between. He was tired of being gulled. He would go to Bristol and see the jeweler and the goldsmith. Close they might be, but not like this traitor.
He rifled the pockets and found seven guineas. His friend had brought him two. Avary had small doubt but that the original payment had been ten and that eighty per cent. had been taken for commission.
He was cooling off by now. He could not leave the man where he was for others to find and to tell his tale to whom he would. Bideford was a quiet abiding-place, one to be preserved. He flung some water on the other's face and set to work to revive him. When he came to the fear of Avary was stamped upon him.
“I have taken the money you robbed me of this time,” said Avary. “I did not finish killing you because your fat body might be hard to dispose of and I am not yet inclined to die after all while there are guineas to clink. But you are out of this deal. Interfere again—” Avery showed another brief flash of hellish heat and temper—“and as sure as there is a God in heaven you will stand before him swiftly! I'll slit you as a cook prepares a rabbit.”
He kept the frightened commissioner with him until dawn, when they set out together. Five miles along the coast Avary dismissed him.
“I go to Bristol,” he said. “You go t'other way; and keep going!”
The other started off between the gorse and the heather. His throat was still sore, his little eyes were filled with tears of rage that blended with those of self-pity. But after a bit, mounting the slope of a combe, he looked back to the white ribbon of road where Avary awaited the coach and chuckled.
“Go to Bristol, will you?” he wheezed. “I would I was there to see you when you meet with Hutton or Lindsay. And after they are through with you I'll have my turn, you ——, murdering pirate!”
For Hutton and Lindsay, traveling incognito on hired steeds, to come to Bideford, where they were unknown, and deal with a man named Saxby, was one matter. For that same Saxby, looking like a desperate rogue of the road, a most conspicuous figure in the decorous trade-center in Bristol—for such a one to come claiming acquaintance with those honest and approved burgesses Hutton and Lindsay, men of parts, men of family, the one a churchwarden, the other an alderman—that was quite another thing.
Avary had drunk just enough for boldness. The margin oozed out of him as he cooled his heels in the outer room of Hutton's shop, calmly overlooked by the apprentices who passed in and out, ignored by the clerk in charge. An hour passed and he saw Lindsay coming across the street, entering by a private door that led to Hutton's house, under which his shop was built.
Presently he was ushered to an inner office where the two sat comfortably, dressed as became their station, very much at ease.
“Is this the man?” asked Hutton of the clerk, and looked at Avary with a gathering frown. “What business have you with us, you rogue?”
The calm assurance took breath from Avary.
“Rogue?” he cried. “You call me rogue?”
“You look like one,” said Hutton calmly. “You now act like one. Without doubt you are one, though I know nothing of you.”
He passed his snuff-box to Lindsay, who took a pinch leisurely, surveying Avary as if he were a scarecrow, the snuff an antidote to any disease he might carry on his person.
“I doubt not,” went on Hutton, “that you have a record to suit your hangdog look. I doubt not but that the police runners would know all about you. Gad, I should be little surprized if there was not a price set upon your head for some villainy.
“We do not allow fellows of your kidney in Bristol back of the water-front or off the heath,” he added in a tone suddenly brisk with authority. “Nor do we do business with such as you. I'll warrant you have stolen goods for barter. Off with you, you scurvy rascal, before we hale you before the justice on suspicion. We deal not with highwaymen—or with water pirates,” he concluded meaningly.
Lindsay was still thumbing his nostrils delicately with the snuff, looking at Avary in the same half-tolerant manner. Hutton pulled a cord, and a bell jangled,
“Send me the porter,” he told the answering clerk. “You put a bold front on, my man. It is lucky for you you have not told me your affairs, or my oath of office might constrain me to detain you and look into your record. I should advise you, for your own good and that of Bristol, to leave this city with all dispatch. Overseas—that is the place for you.'
The porter in his leather jacket, formidable, aggressive, appeared, touching his forelock.
“See this fellow off the premises, Peter,” ordered Hutton.
Avary in extremity found his voice.
“You—you order me to leave?” he choked. “You and your partner there?”
“This gentleman is not my partner,” answered Hutton composedly. “And I give you very excellent advice. Peter.”
The husky porter laid a compelling hand on Avary's shoulder.
“Best be easy,” he whispered. “One of them's a magistrate. Now out with you, like a wise man.”
AVARY emerged on the street panting and with his eyes wild as those of a hunted, homeless, hungry dog. He had his guineas, but these were his last. Murder welled up within him, sank again. His spirit was broken. Fear held him.
These cold-blooded merchants had outpirated him. They could send him to the gallows, accuse him of having offered gems, even show some of his as evidence, claiming to have told him to return while they set the machinery of justice in motion.
And there was the false friend he had choked. He too was a treacherous hound. There had been something in his face at parting that meant retaliation. Avary had been cozened, undone.
Terror mounted to panic. Every man who looked at him he thought a tipstaff. His cunning prevailed enough to deny himself liquor for the present.
Dread hounded him to the water-front, where he took passage on a trading-hoy to Dublin. From economy he herded in a crowded cabin forward and reached Ireland stricken with typhus.
He came to himself in an attic, lying on a heap of rags, an old hag leaning over him, holding a mirror to his lips. His money was gone. He had a dim recollection of stumbling through the streets and gaining this place. Now they had robbed him without redress.
He begged harborage of the crone. Barely able to stand, he begged in the streets. Now he was all the scarecrow that Lindsay had seemed to fancy him.
One last resolve, faintly colored with hope, remained—to go back to Bristol humbly. He had done amiss in boldly bracing Hutton at his shop. This time he would try to gain audience more covertly. He could surely wring some drop of mercy from them who had made a fortune out of him.
To gain England he was forced to work his passage on a vessel bound for Plymouth. He who had lorded it over a fine ship of thirty guns with a crew of fifty jumping to his word, cringed at the curses of the bullying skipper of a leaking coaster, dismissed at Plymouth sick and weak, without his wage, for a lazy, useless dog.
To make Bristol was impossible. He dragged his way afoot to Bideford. His old lodging was vacant. He summoned the remnants of his cunning and spun a tale of robbery and sickness that his person attested, declaring that a remittance was due, gaining grudging shelter for a night or two.
The next morning a bailiff and two tipstaffs pounded on the door of the house for admission in the king's name. There was a man with them who had been there before—the go-between. The scared landlord fawned upon the officers.
“Avary—the pirate—in my house? It can not be. It is true this man Saxby returned. But he is no pirate. He has not a shilling on him to buy linen for a shroud.”
“A shroud!”
“He died an hour ago, gentlemen. My wife is with him to lay him out.”
“To rob the body, rogue,” said the bailiff, and pushed past the man.
Avary lay on his cot, shrunk to a skeleton, his jaw dropped, his eyes staring at the ceiling. The landlord's ancient wife drew away from the bed as they entered, and one of the tipstaffs caught her by the wrists.
“Show what you found on him, woman,” demanded the bailiff.
He had noted the rifled chest, scattered papers and old rags, the disordered clothes belonging to the corpse.
“Nothing—upon my soul—nothing! He owes us for lodgings.”
“What did you just take from him? Those papers. Open her fist, Tim.”
Trembling, she showed them.
“But a scrap of printed matter, gentlemen,” she whined. “My man is fond of reading. I can not read nor write myself.”
It was a tattered, dog-eared pamphlet she had taken from the dead man's shirt, wrapped in a dirty cloth as if it were something precious. The bailiff read the title.
“It was Avary,” he said. “But you lose the reward. The law does not pay for a dead pirate.”
Avary's treacherous friend gloomily surveyed the cover of the chap-book:
   The Piracies and Cruelties of Captain Avary
   Who Married the Daughter of the Great Mogul, Capturing her after Great Slaughter by His Own Hand and the Gain of Much Merchandise, Gold, Gems and Ivory.
“Avary?” said the old woman. “Him Avary the pirate? Him, what married the king's daughter?”
She laughed shrilly.
“Him, what had millions and now without a shilling to buy a shroud! And owing us his rent. The dirty villain!”
“Get down, woman!” said the bailiff. “He needs no shroud. Quicklime is the winding-sheet for pirates.”
Copyright, 1922, by The Ridgway Company in the United States and Great Britain. All rights reserved
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1941, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 82 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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