The Pirate
who but he? But that is all ended now--once a pirate, and an outcast for
ever. The poor devil may go and live, shunned and despised by every one,
in some obscure seaport, with such part of his guilty earnings as
courtiers and clerks leave him--for pardons do not pass the seals for
nothing;--and, when he takes his walk along the pier, if a stranger
asks, who is the down-looking, swarthy, melancholy man, for whom all
make way, as if he brought the plague in his person, the answer shall
be, that is such a one, the pardoned pirate!--No honest man will speak
to him, no woman of repute will give him her hand."
"Your picture is too highly coloured, Jack," said Cleveland, suddenly
interrupting his friend; "there are women--there is one at least, that
would be true to her lover, even if he were what you have described."
Bunce was silent for a space, and looked fixedly at his friend. "By my
soul!" he said, at length, "I begin to think myself a conjurer. Unlikely
as it all was, I could not help suspecting from the beginning that there
was a girl in the case. Why, this is worse than Prince Volscius in love,
ha! ha! ha!"
"Laugh as you will," said Cleveland, "it is true;--there is a maiden who
is contented to love me, pirate as I am; and I will fairly own to you,
Jack, that, though I have often at times detested our roving life, and
myself for following it, yet I doubt if I could have found resolution to
make the break which I have now resolved on, but for her sake."
"Why, then, God-a-mercy!" replied Bunce, "there is no speaking sense to
a madman; and love in one of our trade, Captain, is little better than
lunacy. The girl must be a rare creature, for a wise man to risk hanging
for her. But, harkye, may she not be a little touched, as well as
yourself?--and is it not sympathy that has done it? She cannot be one of
our ordinary cockatrices, but a girl of conduct and character."
"Both are as undoubted as that she is the most beautiful and bewitching
creature whom the eye ever opened upon," answered Cleveland.
"And she loves thee, knowing thee, most noble Captain, to be a commander
among those gentlemen of fortune, whom the vulgar call pirates?"
"Even so--I am assured of it," said Cleveland.
"Why, then," answered Bunce, "she is either mad in good earnest, as I
said before, or she does not know what a pirate is."
"You are right in the last point," replied Cleveland. "She has been bred
in such remote simplicity, and utter ignorance of what is evil, that she
compares our occupation with that of the old Norsemen, who swept sea and
haven with their victorious galleys, established colonies, conquered
countries, and took the name of Sea-Kings."
"And a better one it is than that of pirate, and comes much to the same
purpose, I dare say," said Bunce. "But this must be a mettled
wench!--why did you not bring her aboard? methinks it was pity to baulk
her fancy."
"And do you think," said Cleveland, "that I could so utterly play the
part of a fallen spirit as to avail myself of her enthusiastic error,
and bring an angel of beauty and innocence acquainted with such a hell
as exists on board of yonder infernal ship of ours?--I tell you, my
friend, that, were all my former sins doubled in weight and in dye, such
a villainy would have outglared and outweighed them all."
"Why, then, Captain Cleveland," said his confident, "methinks it was but
a fool's part to come hither at all. The news must one day have gone
abroad, that the celebrated pirate Captain Cleveland, with his good
sloop the Revenge, had been lost on the Mainland of Zetland, and all
hands perished; so you would have remained hid both from friend and
enemy, and might have married your pretty Zetlander, and converted your
sash and scarf into fishing-nets, and your cutlass into a harpoon, and
swept the seas for fish instead of florins."
"And so I had determined," said the Captain; "but a Jagger, as they call
them here, like a meddling, peddling thief as he is, brought down
intelligence to Zetland of your lying here, and I was fain to set off,
to see if you were the consort of whom I had told them, long before I
thought of leaving the roving trade."
"Ay," said Bunce, "and so far you judged well. For, as you had heard of
our being at Kirkwall, so we should have soon learned that you were at
Zetland; and some of us for friendship, some for hatred, and some for
fear of your playing Harry Glasby upon us, would have come down for the
purpose of getting you into our company again."
"I suspected as much," said the Captain, "and therefore was fain to
decline the courteous offer of a friend, who proposed to bring me here
about this time. Besides, Jack, I recollected, that, as you say, my
pardon will not pass the seals without money, my own was waxing low--no
wonder, thou knowest I was never a churl of it--And so"----
"And so you came for your share of the cobs?" replied his friend--"It
was wisely done; and we shared honourably--so far Goffe has acted up to
articles, it must be allowed. But keep your purpose of leaving him close
in your breast, for I dread his playing you some dog's trick or other;
for he certainly thought himself sure of your share, and will hardly
forgive your coming alive to disappoint him."
"I fear him not," said Cleveland, "and he knows that well. I would I
were as well clear of the consequences of having been his comrade, as I
hold myself to be of all those which may attend his ill-will. Another
unhappy job I may be troubled with--I hurt a young fellow, who has been
my plague for some time, in an unhappy brawl that chanced the morning I
left Zetland."
"Is he dead?" asked Bunce: "It is a more serious question here, than it
would be on the Grand Caimains or the Bahama Isles, where a brace or two
of fellows may be shot in a morning, and no more heard of, or asked
about them, than if they were so many wood-pigeons. But here it may be
otherwise; so I hope you have not made your friend immortal."
"I hope not," said the Captain, "though my anger has been fatal to those
who have given me less provocation. To say the truth, I was sorry for
the lad notwithstanding, and especially as I was forced to leave him in
mad keeping."
"In mad keeping?" said Bunce; "why, what means that?"
"You shall hear," replied his friend. "In the first place, you are to
know, this young man came suddenly on me while I was trying to gain
Minna's ear for a private interview before I set sail, that I might
explain my purpose to her. Now, to be broken in on by the accursed
rudeness of this young fellow at such a moment"----
"The interruption deserved death," said Bunce, "by all the laws of love
and honour!"
"A truce with your ends of plays, Jack, and listen one moment.--The
brisk youth thought proper to retort, when I commanded him to be gone. I
am not, thou knowest, very patient, and enforced my commands with a
blow, which he returned as roundly. We struggled, till I became desirous
that we should part at any rate, which I could only effect by a stroke
of my poniard, which, according to old use, I have, thou knowest, always
about me. I had scarce done this when I repented; but there was no time
to think of any thing save escape and concealment, for, if the house
rose on me, I was lost; as the fiery old man, who is head of the family,
would have done justice on me had I been his brother. I took the body
hastily on my shoulders to carry it down to the sea-shore, with the
purpose of throwing it into a _riva_, as they call them, or chasm of
great depth, where it would have been long enough in being discovered.
This done, I intended to jump into the boat which I had lying ready, and
set sail for Kirkwall. But, as I was walking hastily towards the beach
with my burden, the poor young fellow groaned, and so apprized me that
the wound had not been instantly fatal. I was by this time well
concealed amongst the rocks, and, far from desiring to complete my
crime, I laid the young man on the ground, and was doing what I could to
stanch the blood, when suddenly an old woman stood before me. She was a
person whom I had frequently seen while in Zetland, and to whom they
ascribe the character of a sorceress, or, as the negroes say, an Obi
woman. She demanded the wounded man of me, and I was too much pressed
for time to hesitate in complying with her request. More she was about
to say to me, when we heard the voice of a silly old man, belonging to
the family, singing at some distance. She then pressed her finger on her
lip as a sign of secrecy, whistled very low, and a shapeless, deformed
brute of a dwarf coming to her assistance, they carried the wounded man
into one of the caverns with which the place abounds, and I got to my
boat and to sea with all expedition. If that old hag be, as they say,
connected with the King of the Air, she favoured me that morning with a
turn of her calling; for not even the West Indian tornadoes, which we
have weathered together, made a wilder racket than the squall that drove
me so far out of our course, that, without a pocket-compass, which I
chanced to have about me, I should never have recovered the Fair Isle,
for which we run, and where I found a brig which brought me to this
place. But, whether the old woman meant me weal or woe, here we came at
length in safety from the sea, and here I remain in doubts and
difficulties of more kinds than one."
"O, the devil take the Sumburgh-head," said Bunce, "or whatever they
call the rock that you knocked our clever little Revenge against!"
"Do not say _I_ knocked her on the rock," said Cleveland; "have I not
told you fifty times, if the cowards had not taken to their boat, though
I showed them the danger, and told them they would all be swamped, which
happened the instant they cast off the painter, she would have been
afloat at this moment? Had they stood by me and the ship, their lives
would have been saved; had I gone with them, mine would have been lost;
who can say which is for the best?"
"Well," replied his friend, "I know your case now, and can the better
help and advise. I will be true to you, Clement, as the blade to the
hilt; but I cannot think that you should leave us. As the old Scottish
song says, 'Wae's my heart that we should sunder!'--But come, you will
aboard with us to-day, at any rate?"
"I have no other place of refuge," said Cleveland, with a sigh.
He then once more ran his eyes over the bay, directing his spy-glass
upon several of the vessels which traversed its surface, in hopes,
doubtless, of discerning the vessel of Magnus Troil, and then followed
his companion down the hill in silence.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] It is very curious that the grouse, plenty in Orkney as the text
declares, should be totally unknown in the neighbouring archipelago of
Zetland, which is only about sixty miles distance, with the Fair Isle as
a step between.
[30] The pirates gave this name to the black flag, which, with many
horrible devices to enhance its terrors, was their favourite ensign.
CHAPTER XII
I strive like to the vessel in the tide-way,
Which, lacking favouring breeze, hath not the power
To stem the powerful current.--Even so,
Resolving daily to forsake my vices,
Habits, strong circumstance, renew'd temptation,
Sweep me to sea again.--O heavenly breath,
Fill thou my sails, and aid the feeble vessel,
Which ne'er can reach the blessed port without thee!
_'Tis Odds when Evens meet._
Cleveland, with his friend Bunce, descended the hill for a time in
silence, until at length the latter renewed their conversation.
"You have taken this fellow's wound more on your conscience than you
need, Captain--I have known you do more, and think less on't."