Howard Pyle's Book of pirates : fiction, fact & fancy concerning the buccaneers & marooners of the Spanish Main
name--nor do I know that any such name hath ever appeared upon our
books."
"To be sure! To be sure!" repeated the little gentleman, briskly, and
with exceeding good nature. "Indeed, my name is not likely to have
ever appeared upon your employer's books, for I am not a business
correspondent, but one who, in times past, was his extremely intimate
friend. There is much I would like to ask about him, and, indeed, I
was in hopes that you would have been the bearer of a letter from him.
But I have lodgings at a little distance from here, so that if it is
not requesting too much of you maybe you will accompany me thither, so
that we may talk at our leisure. I would gladly accompany you to your
ship instead of urging you to come to my apartments, but I must tell
you I am possessed of a devil of a fever, so that my physician hath
forbidden me to be out of nights."
"Indeed," said Jonathan, who, you may have observed, was of a very
easy disposition--"indeed, I shall be very glad to accompany thee to
thy lodgings. There is nothing I would like better than to serve any
friend of good Jeremiah Doolittle's."
And thereupon, and with great amity, the two walked off together, the
little one-eyed gentleman in black linking his arm confidingly into
that of Jonathan's, and tapping the pavement continually with his cane
as he trotted on at a great pace. He was very well acquainted with the
town (of which he was a citizen), and so interesting was his
discourse that they had gone a considerable distance before Jonathan
observed they were entering into a quarter darker and less frequented
than that which they had quitted. Tall brick houses stood upon either
side, between which stretched a narrow, crooked roadway, with a kennel
running down the center.
In front of one of these houses--a tall and gloomy structure--our
hero's conductor stopped and, opening the door with a key, beckoned
for him to enter. Jonathan having complied, his new-found friend led
the way up a flight of steps, against which Jonathan's feet beat
noisily in the darkness, and at length, having ascended two stairways
and having reached a landing, he opened a door at the end of the
passage and ushered Jonathan into an apartment, unlighted, except for
the moonshine, which, coming in through a partly open shutter, lay in
a brilliant patch of light upon the floor.
His conductor having struck a light with a flint and steel, our hero
by the illumination of a single candle presently discovered himself to
be in a bedchamber furnished with no small degree of comfort, and even
elegance, and having every appearance of a bachelor's chamber.
"You will pardon me," said his new acquaintance, "if I shut these
shutters and the window, for that devilish fever of which I spoke is
of such a sort that I must keep the night air even out from my room,
or else I shall be shaking the bones out of my joints and chattering
the teeth out of my head by to-morrow morning."
So saying he was as good as his word, and not only drew the shutters
to, but shot the heavy iron bolt into its place. Having accomplished
this he bade our hero to be seated, and placing before him some
exceedingly superior rum, together with some equally excellent
tobacco, they presently fell into the friendliest discourse
imaginable. In the course of their talk, which after a while became
exceedingly confidential, Jonathan confided to his new friend the
circumstances of the adventure into which he had been led by the
beautiful stranger, and to all that he said concerning his adventure
his interlocutor listened with the closest and most scrupulously
riveted attention.
"Upon my word," said he, when Jonathan had concluded, "I hope that you
may not have been made the victim of some foolish hoax. Let me see
what it is she has confided to you."
"That I will," replied Jonathan. And thereupon he thrust his hand into
his breeches' pocket and brought forth the ivory ball.
No sooner did the one eye of the little gentleman in black light upon
the object than a most singular and extraordinary convulsion appeared
to seize upon him. Had a bullet penetrated his heart he could not have
started more violently, nor have sat more rigidly and breathlessly
staring.
Mastering his emotion with the utmost difficulty as Jonathan replaced
the ball in his pocket, he drew a deep and profound breath and wiped
the palm of his hand across his forehead as though arousing himself
from a dream.
"And you," he said, of a sudden, "are, I understand it, a Quaker. Do
you, then, never carry a weapon, even in such a place as this, where
at any moment in the dark a Spanish knife may be stuck betwixt your
ribs?"
"Why, no," said Jonathan, somewhat surprised that so foreign a topic
should have been so suddenly introduced into the discourse. "I am a
man of peace and not of blood. The people of the Society of Friends
never carry weapons, either of offense or defense."
As Jonathan concluded his reply the little gentleman suddenly arose
from his chair and moved briskly around to the other side of the room.
Our hero, watching him with some surprise, beheld him clap to the door
and with a single movement shoot the bolt and turn the key therein.
The next instant he turned to Jonathan a visage transformed as
suddenly as though he had dropped a mask from his face. The gossiping
and polite little old bachelor was there no longer, but in his stead
a man with a countenance convulsed with some furious and nameless
passion.
"That ball!" he cried, in a hoarse and raucous voice. "That ivory
ball! Give it to me upon the instant!"
As he spoke he whipped out from his bosom a long, keen Spanish knife
that in its every appearance spoke without equivocation of the most
murderous possibilities.
The malignant passions that distorted every lineament of the
countenance of the little old gentleman in black filled our hero with
such astonishment that he knew not whether he were asleep or awake;
but when he beheld the other advancing with the naked and shining
knife in his hand his reason returned to him like a flash. Leaping to
his feet, he lost no time in putting the table between himself and his
sudden enemy.
"Indeed, friend," he cried, in a voice penetrated with
terror--"indeed, friend, thou hadst best keep thy distance from me,
for though I am a man of peace and a shunner of bloodshed, I promise
thee that I will not stand still to be murdered without outcry or
without endeavoring to defend my life!"
"Cry as loud as you please!" exclaimed the other. "No one is near this
place to hear you! Cry until you are hoarse; no one in this
neighborhood will stop to ask what is the matter with you. I tell you
I am determined to possess myself of that ivory ball, and have it I
shall, even though I am obliged to cut out your heart to get it!" As
he spoke he grinned with so extraordinary and devilish a distortion of
his countenance, and with such an appearance of every intention of
carrying out his threat as to send the goose flesh creeping like icy
fingers up and down our hero's spine with the most incredible rapidity
and acuteness.
Nevertheless, mastering his fears, Jonathan contrived to speak up with
a pretty good appearance of spirit. "Indeed, friend," he said, "thou
appearest to forget that I am a man of twice thy bulk and half thy
years, and that though thou hast a knife I am determined to defend
myself to the last extremity. I am not going to give thee that which
thou demandest of me, and for thy sake I advise thee to open the door
and let me go free as I entered, or else harm may befall thee."
"Fool!" cried the other, hardly giving him time to end. "Do you, then,
think that I have time to chatter with you while two villains are
lying in wait for me, perhaps at the very door? Blame your own self
for your death!" And, gnashing his teeth with an indescribable menace,
and resting his hand upon the table, he vaulted with incredible
agility clean across it and upon our hero, who, entirely unprepared
for such an extraordinary attack, was flung back against the wall,
with an arm as strong as steel clutching his throat and a knife
flashing in his very eyes with dreadful portent of instant death.
With an instinct to preserve his life, he caught his assailant by the
wrist, and, bending it away from himself, set every fiber of his body
in a superhuman effort to guard and protect himself. The other, though
so much older and smaller, seemed to be composed entirely of fibers of
steel, and, in his murderous endeavors, put forth a strength so
extraordinary that for a moment our hero felt his heart melt within
him with terror for his life. The spittle appeared to dry up within
his mouth, and his hair to creep and rise upon his head. With a
vehement cry of despair and anguish, he put forth one stupendous
effort for defense, and, clapping his heel behind the other's leg, and
throwing his whole weight forward, he fairly tripped his antagonist
backward as he stood. Together they fell upon the floor, locked in the
most desperate embrace, and overturning a chair with a prodigious
clatter in their descent--our hero upon the top and the little
gentleman in black beneath him.
As they struck the floor the little man in black emitted a most
piercing and terrible scream, and instantly relaxing his efforts of
attack, fell to beating the floor with the back of his hands and
drubbing with his heels upon the rug in which he had become entangled.
Our hero leaped to his feet, and with dilating eyes and expanding
brain and swimming sight stared down upon the other like one turned to
a stone.
He beheld instantly what had occurred, and that he had, without so
intending, killed a fellow man. The knife, turned away from his own
person, had in their fall been plunged into the bosom of the other,
and he now lay quivering in the last throes of death. As Jonathan
gazed he beheld a thin red stream trickle out from the parted and
grinning lips; he beheld the eyes turn inward; he beheld the eyelids
contract; he beheld the figure stretch itself; he beheld it become
still in death.
IV
_The Momentous Adventure with the Stranger with the Silver Earrings_
So our hero stood stunned and bedazed, gazing down upon his victim,
like a man turned into a stone. His brain appeared to him to expand
like a bubble, the blood surged and hummed in his ears with every
gigantic beat of his heart, his vision swam, and his trembling hands
were bedewed with a cold and repugnant sweat. The dead figure upon the
floor at his feet gazed at him with a wide, glassy stare, and in the
confusion of his mind it appeared to Jonathan that he was, indeed, a
murderer.
What monstrous thing was this that had befallen him who, but a moment
before, had been so entirely innocent of the guilt of blood? What was
he now to do in such an extremity as this, with his victim lying dead
at his feet, a poniard in his heart? Who would believe him to be
guiltless of crime with such a dreadful evidence as this presented
against him? How was he, a stranger in a foreign land, to totally
defend himself against an accusation of mistaken justice? At these
thoughts a developed terror gripped at his vitals and a sweat as cold
as ice bedewed his entire body. No, he must tarry for no explanation
or defense! He must immediately fly from this terrible place, or else,
should he be discovered, his doom would certainly be sealed!
At that moment, and in the very extremity of his apprehensions, there
fell of a sudden a knock upon the door, sounding so loud and so
startling upon the silence of the room that every shattered nerve in
our hero's frame tingled and thrilled in answer to it. He stood