Howard Pyle's Book of pirates : fiction, fact & fancy concerning the buccaneers & marooners of the Spanish Main
they do not hold the same testimony as I. I am inclined to think that
if it came to the point of a broil with those men of iniquity, my
individual voice cast for peace would not be sufficient to keep my
crew from meeting violence with violence. As for myself, thee knows
who I am and what is my testimony in these matters."
Mainwaring made no comment as to the extremely questionable manner in
which the Quaker proposed to beat the devil about the stump. Presently
he asked his second question:
"And might I inquire," he said, "what you are doing here and why you
find it necessary to come at all into such a wicked, dangerous place
as this?"
"Indeed, I knew thee would ask that question of me," said the Friend,
"and I will be entirely frank with thee. These men of blood are, after
all, but human beings, and as human beings they need food. I have at
present upon this vessel upward of two hundred and fifty barrels of
flour which will bring a higher price here than anywhere else in the
West Indies. To be entirely frank with thee, I will tell thee that I
was engaged in making a bargain for the sale of the greater part of my
merchandise when the news of thy approach drove away my best
customer."
Mainwaring sat for a while in smoking silence. What the other had told
him explained many things he had not before understood. It explained
why Captain Cooper got almost as much for his flour and corn meal now
that peace had been declared as he had obtained when the war and the
blockade were in full swing. It explained why he had been so strong a
defender of Captain Scarfield and the pirates that afternoon in the
garden. Meantime, what was to be done? Eleazer confessed openly that
he dealt with the pirates. What now was his--Mainwaring's--duty in the
case? Was the cargo of the _Eliza Cooper_ contraband and subject to
confiscation? And then another question framed itself in his mind: Who
was this customer whom his approach had driven away?
As though he had formulated the inquiry into speech the other began
directly to speak of it. "I know," he said, "that in a moment thee
will ask me who was this customer of whom I have just now spoken. I
have no desire to conceal his name from thee. It was the man who is
known as Captain Jack or Captain John Scarfield."
Mainwaring fairly started from his seat. "The devil you say!" he
cried. "And how long has it been," he asked, "since he left you?"
The Quaker skipper carefully refilled his pipe, which he had by now
smoked out. "I would judge," he said, "that it is a matter of four or
five hours since news was brought overland by means of swift runners
of thy approach. Immediately the man of wickedness disappeared." Here
Eleazer set the bowl of his pipe to the candle flame and began puffing
out voluminous clouds of smoke. "I would have thee understand, James
Mainwaring," he resumed, "that I am no friend of this wicked and
sinful man. His safety is nothing to me. It is only a question of
buying upon his part and of selling upon mine. If it is any
satisfaction to thee I will heartily promise to bring thee news if I
hear anything of the man of Belial. I may furthermore say that I think
it is likely thee will have news more or less directly of him within
the space of a day. If this should happen, however, thee will have to
do thy own fighting without help from me, for I am no man of combat
nor of blood and will take no hand in it either way."
It struck Mainwaring that the words contained some meaning that did
not appear upon the surface. This significance struck him as so
ambiguous that when he went aboard the _Yankee_ he confided as much of
his suspicions as he saw fit to his second in command, Lieutenant
Underwood. As night descended he had a double watch set and had
everything prepared to repel any attack or surprise that might be
attempted.
III
Nighttime in the tropics descends with a surprising rapidity. At one
moment the earth is shining with the brightness of the twilight; the
next, as it were, all things are suddenly swallowed into a gulf of
darkness. The particular night of which this story treats was not
entirely clear; the time of year was about the approach of the rainy
season, and the tepid, tropical clouds added obscurity to the darkness
of the sky, so that the night fell with even more startling quickness
than usual. The blackness was very dense. Now and then a group of
drifting stars swam out of a rift in the vapors, but the night was
curiously silent and of a velvety darkness.
As the obscurity had deepened, Mainwaring had ordered lanthorns to
be lighted and slung to the shrouds and to the stays, and the faint
yellow of their illumination lighted the level white of the snug
little war vessel, gleaming here and there in a starlike spark upon
the brass trimmings and causing the rows of cannons to assume
curiously gigantic proportions.
For some reason Mainwaring was possessed by a strange, uneasy feeling.
He walked restlessly up and down the deck for a time, and then, still
full of anxieties for he knew not what, went into his cabin to finish
writing up his log for the day. He unstrapped his cutlass and laid it
upon the table, lighted his pipe at the lanthorn and was about
preparing to lay aside his coat when word was brought to him that the
captain of the trading schooner was come alongside and had some
private information to communicate to him.
Mainwaring surmised in an instant that the trader's visit related
somehow to news of Captain Scarfield, and as immediately, in the
relief of something positive to face, all of his feeling of
restlessness vanished like a shadow of mist. He gave orders that
Captain Cooper should be immediately shown into the cabin, and in a
few moments the tall, angular form of the Quaker skipper appeared in
the narrow, lanthorn-lighted space.
Mainwaring at once saw that his visitor was strangely agitated and
disturbed. He had taken off his hat, and shining beads of perspiration
had gathered and stood clustered upon his forehead. He did not reply
to Mainwaring's greeting; he did not, indeed, seem to hear it; but he
came directly forward to the table and stood leaning with one hand
upon the open log book in which the lieutenant had just been writing.
Mainwaring had reseated himself at the head of the table, and the tall
figure of the skipper stood looking down at him as from a considerable
height.
"James Mainwaring," he said, "I promised thee to report if I had news
of the pirate. Is thee ready now to hear my news?"
There was something so strange in his agitation that it began to
infect Mainwaring with a feeling somewhat akin to that which appeared
to disturb his visitor. "I know not what you mean, sir!" he cried, "by
asking if I care to hear your news. At this moment I would rather have
news of that scoundrel than to have anything I know of in the world."
"Thou would? Thou would?" cried the other, with mounting agitation.
"Is thee in such haste to meet him as all that? Very well; very well,
then. Suppose I could bring thee face to face with him--what then?
Hey? Hey? Face to face with him, James Mainwaring!"
The thought instantly flashed into Mainwaring's mind that the pirate
had returned to the island; that perhaps at that moment he was
somewhere near at hand.
"I do not understand you, sir," he cried. "Do you mean to tell me that
you know where the villain is? If so, lose no time in informing me,
for every instant of delay may mean his chance of again escaping."
"No danger of that!" the other declared, vehemently. "No danger of
that! I'll tell thee where he is and I'll bring thee to him quick
enough!" And as he spoke he thumped his fist against the open log
book. In the vehemence of his growing excitement his eyes appeared to
shine green in the lanthorn light, and the sweat that had stood in
beads upon his forehead was now running in streams down his face. One
drop hung like a jewel to the tip of his beaklike nose. He came a step
nearer to Mainwaring and bent forward toward him, and there was
something so strange and ominous in his bearing that the lieutenant
instinctively drew back a little where he sat.
"Captain Scarfield sent something to you," said Eleazer, almost in a
raucous voice, "something that you will be surprised to see." And the
lapse in his speech from the Quaker "thee" to the plural "you" struck
Mainwaring as singularly strange.
As he was speaking Eleazer was fumbling in a pocket of his
long-tailed drab coat, and presently he brought something forth that
gleamed in the lanthorn light.
The next moment Mainwaring saw leveled directly in his face the round
and hollow nozzle of a pistol.
There was an instant of dead silence and then, "I am the man you
seek!" said Eleazer Cooper, in a tense and breathless voice.
The whole thing had happened so instantaneously and unexpectedly that
for the moment Mainwaring sat like one petrified. Had a thunderbolt
fallen from the silent sky and burst at his feet he could not have
been more stunned. He was like one held in the meshes of a horrid
nightmare, and he gazed as through a mist of impossibility into the
lineaments of the well-known, sober face now transformed as from
within into the aspect of a devil. That face, now ashy white, was
distorted into a diabolical grin. The teeth glistened in the
lamplight. The brows, twisted into a tense and convulsed frown, were
drawn down into black shadows, through which the eyes burned a baleful
green like the eyes of a wild animal driven to bay. Again he spoke in
the same breathless voice. "I am John Scarfield! Look at me, then, if
you want to see a pirate!" Again there was a little time of silence,
through which Mainwaring heard his watch ticking loudly from where it
hung against the bulkhead. Then once more the other began speaking.
"You would chase me out of the West Indies, would you? G---- ---- you!
What are you come to now? You are caught in your own trap, and you'll
squeal loud enough before you get out of it. Speak a word or make a
movement and I'll blow your brains out against the partition behind
you! Listen to what I say or you are a dead man. Sing out an order
instantly for my mate and my bos'n to come here to the cabin, and be
quick about it, for my finger's on the trigger, and it's only a pull
to shut your mouth forever."
It was astonishing to Mainwaring, in afterward thinking about it all,
how quickly his mind began to recover its steadiness after that first
astonishing shock. Even as the other was speaking he discovered that
his brain was becoming clarified to a wonderful lucidity; his thoughts
were becoming rearranged, and with a marvelous activity and an
alertness he had never before experienced. He knew that if he moved to
escape or uttered any outcry he would be instantly a dead man, for the
circle of the pistol barrel was directed full against his forehead and
with the steadiness of a rock. If he could but for an instant divert
that fixed and deadly attention he might still have a chance for life.
With the thought an inspiration burst into his mind and he instantly
put it into execution; thought, inspiration, and action, as in a
flash, were one. He must make the other turn aside his deadly gaze,
and instantly he roared out in a voice that stunned his own ears:
"Strike, bos'n! Strike, quick!"
Taken by surprise, and thinking, doubtless, that another enemy stood
behind him, the pirate swung around like a flash with his pistol
leveled against the blank boarding. Equally upon the instant he saw
the trick that had been played upon him and in a second flash had
turned again. The turn and return had occupied but a moment of time,
but that moment, thanks to the readiness of his own invention, had