Howard Pyle's Book of pirates : fiction, fact & fancy concerning the buccaneers & marooners of the Spanish Main
caught himself up again. Then, with a great bellow, ran roaring at our
hero, whirling his cane about, and I do believe would have struck him
(and God knows then what might have happened) had not his manservant
caught him and held him back.
"Keep back!" cried out our hero, still mighty hoarse. "Keep back! If
you strike me with that stick I'll fling you overboard!"
By this time, what with the sound of loud voices and the stamping of
feet, some of the crew and others aboard were hurrying up, and the
next moment Captain Manly and the first mate, Mr. Freesden, came
running out of the cabin. But Barnaby, who was by this fairly set
agoing, could not now stop himself.
"And who are you, anyhow," he cried out, "to threaten to strike me and
to insult me, who am as good as you? You dare not strike me! You may
shoot a man from behind, as you shot poor Captain Brand on the Rio
Cobra River, but you won't dare strike me face to face. I know who you
are and what you are!"
By this time Sir John Malyoe had ceased to endeavor to strike him, but
stood stock-still, his great bulging eyes staring as though they would
pop out of his head.
"What's all this?" cries Captain Manly, bustling up to them with Mr.
Freesden. "What does all this mean?"
But, as I have said, our hero was too far gone now to contain himself
until all that he had to say was out.
"The damned villain insulted me and insulted the young lady," he
cried out, panting in the extremity of his passion, "and then he
threatened to strike me with his cane. But I know who he is and what
he is. I know what he's got in his cabin in those two trunks, and
where he found it, and whom it belongs to. He found it on the shores
of the Rio Cobra River, and I have only to open my mouth and tell what
I know about it."
At this Captain Manly clapped his hand upon our hero's shoulder and
fell to shaking him so that he could scarcely stand, calling out to
him the while to be silent. "What do you mean?" he cried. "An officer
of this ship to quarrel with a passenger of mine! Go straight to your
cabin, and stay there till I give you leave to come out again."
At this Master Barnaby came somewhat back to himself and into his wits
again with a jump. "But he threatened to strike me with his cane,
Captain," he cried out, "and that I won't stand from any man!"
"No matter what he did," said Captain Manly, very sternly. "Go to your
cabin, as I bid you, and stay there till I tell you to come out again,
and when we get to New York I'll take pains to tell your stepfather of
how you have behaved. I'll have no such rioting as this aboard my
ship."
Barnaby True looked around him, but the young lady was gone. Nor, in
the blindness of his frenzy, had he seen when she had gone nor whither
she went. As for Sir John Malyoe, he stood in the light of a lantern,
his face gone as white as ashes, and I do believe if a look could
kill, the dreadful malevolent stare he fixed upon Barnaby True would
have slain him where he stood.
After Captain Manly had so shaken some wits into poor Barnaby he,
unhappy wretch, went to his cabin, as he was bidden to do, and there,
shutting the door upon himself, and flinging himself down, all dressed
as he was, upon his berth, yielded himself over to the profoundest
passion of humiliation and despair.
There he lay for I know not how long, staring into the darkness,
until by and by, in spite of his suffering and his despair, he dozed
off into a loose sleep, that was more like waking than sleep, being
possessed continually by the most vivid and distasteful dreams, from
which he would awaken only to doze off and to dream again.
It was from the midst of one of these extravagant dreams that he was
suddenly aroused by the noise of a pistol shot, and then the noise of
another and another, and then a great bump and a grinding jar, and
then the sound of many footsteps running across the deck and down into
the great cabin. Then came a tremendous uproar of voices in the great
cabin, the struggling as of men's bodies being tossed about, striking
violently against the partitions and bulkheads. At the same instant
arose a screaming of women's voices, and one voice, and that Sir John
Malyoe's, crying out as in the greatest extremity: "You villains! You
damned villains!" and with the sudden detonation of a pistol fired
into the close space of the great cabin.
Barnaby was out in the middle of his cabin in a moment, and taking
only time enough to snatch down one of the pistols that hung at the
head of his berth, flung out into the great cabin, to find it as black
as night, the lantern slung there having been either blown out or
dashed out into darkness. The prodigiously dark space was full of
uproar, the hubbub and confusion pierced through and through by that
keen sound of women's voices screaming, one in the cabin and the other
in the stateroom beyond. Almost immediately Barnaby pitched headlong
over two or three struggling men scuffling together upon the deck,
falling with a great clatter and the loss of his pistol, which,
however, he regained almost immediately.
What all the uproar meant he could not tell, but he presently heard
Captain Manly's voice from somewhere suddenly calling out, "You bloody
pirate, would you choke me to death?" wherewith some notion of what
had happened came to him like a flash, and that they had been attacked
in the night by pirates.
Looking toward the companionway, he saw, outlined against the darkness
of the night without, the blacker form of a man's figure, standing
still and motionless as a statue in the midst of all this hubbub, and
so by some instinct he knew in a moment that that must be the master
maker of all this devil's brew. Therewith, still kneeling upon the
deck, he covered the bosom of that shadowy figure point-blank, as he
thought, with his pistol, and instantly pulled the trigger.
In the flash of red light, and in the instant stunning report of the
pistol shot, Barnaby saw, as stamped upon the blackness, a broad, flat
face with fishy eyes, a lean, bony forehead with what appeared to be a
great blotch of blood upon the side, a cocked hat trimmed with gold
lace, a red scarf across the breast, and the gleam of brass buttons.
Then the darkness, very thick and black, swallowed everything again.
But in the instant Sir John Malyoe called out, in a great loud voice:
"My God! 'Tis William Brand!" Therewith came the sound of some one
falling heavily down.
The next moment, Barnaby's sight coming back to him again in the
darkness, he beheld that dark and motionless figure still standing
exactly where it had stood before, and so knew either that he had
missed it or else that it was of so supernatural a sort that a leaden
bullet might do it no harm. Though if it was indeed an apparition that
Barnaby beheld in that moment, there is this to say, that he saw it as
plain as ever he saw a living man in all of his life.
This was the last our hero knew, for the next moment somebody--whether
by accident or design he never knew--struck him such a terrible
violent blow upon the side of the head that he saw forty thousand
stars flash before his eyeballs, and then, with a great humming in his
head, swooned dead away.
When Barnaby True came back to his senses again it was to find himself
being cared for with great skill and nicety, his head bathed with
cold water, and a bandage being bound about it as carefully as though
a chirurgeon was attending to him.
He could not immediately recall what had happened to him, nor until he
had opened his eyes to find himself in a strange cabin, extremely well
fitted and painted with white and gold, the light of a lantern shining
in his eyes, together with the gray of the early daylight through the
dead-eye. Two men were bending over him--one, a negro in a striped
shirt, with a yellow handkerchief around his head and silver earrings
in his ears; the other, a white man, clad in a strange outlandish
dress of a foreign make, and with great mustachios hanging down, and
with gold earrings in his ears.
It was the latter who was attending to Barnaby's hurt with such
extreme care and gentleness.
All this Barnaby saw with his first clear consciousness after his
swoon. Then remembering what had befallen him, and his head beating as
though it would split asunder, he shut his eyes again, contriving with
great effort to keep himself from groaning aloud, and wondering as to
what sort of pirates these could be who would first knock a man in the
head so terrible a blow as that which he had suffered, and then take
such care to fetch him back to life again, and to make him easy and
comfortable.
Nor did he open his eyes again, but lay there gathering his wits
together and wondering thus until the bandage was properly tied about
his head and sewed together. Then once more he opened his eyes, and
looked up to ask where he was.
Either they who were attending to him did not choose to reply, or else
they could not speak English, for they made no answer, excepting by
signs; for the white man, seeing that he was now able to speak, and so
was come back into his senses again, nodded his head three or four
times, and smiled with a grin of his white teeth, and then pointed, as
though toward a saloon beyond. At the same time the negro held up our
hero's coat and beckoned for him to put it on, so that Barnaby,
seeing that it was required of him to meet some one without, arose,
though with a good deal of effort, and permitted the negro to help him
on with his coat, still feeling mightily dizzy and uncertain upon his
legs, his head beating fit to split, and the vessel rolling and
pitching at a great rate, as though upon a heavy ground swell.
So, still sick and dizzy, he went out into what was indeed a fine
saloon beyond, painted in white and gilt like the cabin he had just
quitted, and fitted in the nicest fashion, a mahogany table, polished
very bright, extending the length of the room, and a quantity of
bottles, together with glasses of clear crystal, arranged in a hanging
rack above.
Here at the table a man was sitting with his back to our hero, clad in
a rough pea-jacket, and with a red handkerchief tied around his
throat, his feet stretched out before him, and he smoking a pipe of
tobacco with all the ease and comfort in the world.
As Barnaby came in he turned round, and, to the profound astonishment
of our hero, presented toward him in the light of the lantern, the
dawn shining pretty strong through the skylight, the face of that very
man who had conducted the mysterious expedition that night across
Kingston Harbor to the Rio Cobra River.
This man looked steadily at Barnaby True for a moment or two, and then
burst out laughing; and, indeed, Barnaby, standing there with the
bandage about his head, must have looked a very droll picture of that
astonishment he felt so profoundly at finding who was this pirate into
whose hands he had fallen.
"Well," says the other, "and so you be up at last, and no great harm
done, I'll be bound. And how does your head feel by now, my young
master?"
To this Barnaby made no reply, but, what with wonder and the dizziness
of his head, seated himself at the table over against the speaker, who
pushed a bottle of rum toward him, together with a glass from the
swinging shelf above.
He watched Barnaby fill his glass, and so soon as he had done so began
immediately by saying: "I do suppose you think you were treated
mightily ill to be so handled last night. Well, so you were treated
ill enough--though who hit you that crack upon the head I know no more
than a child unborn. Well, I am sorry for the way you were handled,
but there is this much to say, and of that you may believe me, that
nothing was meant to you but kindness, and before you are through with