The Happy Mariners Page 6

  Nobody did see what she meant. Perhaps she herself didn’t quite know. And anyhow, the discussion having worn itself out, they said no more, but went in a body to worry Phineas with questions. They found him standing amidships staring at distance. He had deserted the helm, and the ship was lazily drifting on.

  ‘I say,’ said Rex, ‘you know we want to go to our island, don’t you?’

  ‘We told you about the buried treasure, didn’t we?’ added Guy.

  ‘Have you seen the map we drew of it?’ asked Elizabeth.

  ‘It’s a jolly good map, I can tell you!’ declared Martin.

  But Phineas wasn’t saying anything. It was impossible, as always, to tell whether he was smiling or not. His face was creased in its usual multitudinous folds, and his bright penetrating eyes were perhaps a little brighter, a little more intent than ever. Certainly his mouth was not smiling. It was a large square mouth, set a long way from the blunt puggy nose, a long upper lip intervening; it was a mouth that gave nothing away.

  ‘Elizabeth drew some footprints on it.’ Martin was in no mood to drop the subject of the map, for it interested him greatly.

  Still no reply.

  ‘They were green footprints,’ added Martin, less confidently.

  Phineas raised one hand to shade his eyes from the sunlight. He appeared to have heard nothing.

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Martin crossly, ‘if you don’t want to see the map you needn’t, that’s all. But it’s a jolly good map all the same.’

  Then, quite unexpectedly, Phineas spoke. ‘Sail on the starb’d bow,’ he announced. ‘One of you lads must get up into the crow’s-nest with the spy-glass.’

  ‘That’s me!’ cried Guy, and ran for it.

  Rex was first at the mizzen, but it was Guy who had the spy-glass.

  ‘The eldest!’ called Phineas. His tone was commanding, and there could be no thought of disobedience. Guy yielded the spy-glass to his brother without a word, and stood aside. Rex climbed quickly up the mast.

  ‘What dost see, lad?’ roared Phineas.

  Coming after Phineas’s deep bass, Rex’s voice sounded very boyish and shrill: ‘A ship on the starb’d bow. Three-masted. A fine ship.’

  ‘Ay, and what flag does she fly?’

  There was a pause. Rex stood with the spy-glass to his eye. Then he began waving his arms excitedly: ‘A black flag, a black flag!’

  ‘Pirates, by Saint Rumbo!’ cried Phineas. His voice became sharp as a whip. ‘Down with ’ee, sirrah! Take the helm, girl! Wind be rising. The rest of ye, man the guns!’

  Phineas looked so hard and stern that Elizabeth was at the moment more afraid of him than of the pirates. She at once ran to do his bidding. Rex meanwhile was clambering down from his dizzy perch, and Guy and Phineas were getting the big gun into position and loading it with ball. Martin stood by, dancing and clapping his hands and shouting at intervals: ‘Down with the pirates!’ He was in a terrible state of agitation because there was nothing he could do; he had been sternly told to keep out of harm’s way. But Phineas at last made him happy by sending him to the cook’s galley to get a lighted torch.

  The pirate craft, her deck crowded with ragged and gesticulating ruffians, was now bearing down with all speed upon the little Resmiranda.

  ‘East about!’ commanded Phineas. ‘Larboard thy helm, lass!’

  Martin snatched up the spy-glass, which Rex had put down, and gazed through it at the oncoming pirates. They were a fierce and hideous and dirty-looking crew, with cruel eyes and savage whiskers; their mouths were open so wide in their gloating triumph that Martin could almost see down their throats. Their cutlasses glittered in the sunlight; their pistols bulged at their belts; their brazen yells floated across the water and struck terror to the children’s hearts. They all wore red kerchiefs knotted round their heads, except the one who appeared to be their leader, who was taller and brawnier than the others, and had a long crooked nose and black teeth; this terrible fellow wore a black three-cornered hat with a skull-and-crossbones device worked on the brim in scarlet wool. They were, in fact, just Martin’s idea of what pirates should be; and, frightened though he was, he couldn’t help being thrilled by the sight of them.

  Suddenly there came a flash of fire on the pirates’ deck, a cloud of black smoke, and a loud explosion; and something whizzed past high over the topmost sail of the Resmiranda.

  ‘The brutes!’ shouted Rex indignantly. ‘Shall we fire, Phineas?’

  ‘Wait orders!’ growled Phineas. ‘Starboard a little, starboard a little!’ he called to Elizabeth.

  Another flash, another cloud of smoke, another roar of the pirates’ cannonry. At that very moment, by good chance, a great wave rolled along which the Resmiranda crested gracefully. The ball fell into the water five yards from her stern.

  ‘Let’s have a bang at ’em, Phineas!’ Rex implored. ‘Oh, do let’s!’

  Phineas was busy making ready a second gun. ‘Cease thy bibble-babble, manikin. Loose fire at ’em? Nay, if we answer them not, maybe they’ll think we have no gunner aboard and venture too near. We’ll bide our good time…’

  Already the pirate ship was very near, and Elizabeth, standing at the helm with her wits busy on the task of doing quickly whatever Phineas told her, had scarcely time to entertain the dreadful thought that if the pirates fired again they might hit their mark. Not till the distance between the two ships had dwindled to less than thirty yards did Phineas give the word.

  ‘They be trying to ram us, lad,’ he said. ‘Stand back.’

  He took the torch from Martin’s hand, waved him back, and then put it to the touch-hole of the gun. The deck shook with the thunder; the air filled with the acrid taste of gunpowder. When the smoke cleared away they saw that the main mast of the pirate ship was shot down. The pirates were running backwards and forwards yelling like devils.

  ‘Very pretty!’ said Phineas. ‘Very pretty, i’ faith! There’s discipline for ’ee!’ he added. ‘A trifle of disaster, a little surprise, and they all run hither and thither like a company of rats.’ But while he murmured these words, more than half to himself, he was keenly watching his chance. The pirate ship was drifting steadily nearer, and woe would betide any one, man or child, that came within reach of those cutlasses with which the bloodthirsty pirates were hacking the air.

  Then Phineas fired the second gun. ‘Aha!’ said he, when the smoke had cleared. ‘How’s that, my hearties!’

  In the side of the pirate was a huge hole, into which the water was pouring fast.

  ‘Well aimed, sir!’ cried Rex. ‘Oh, jolly well played! That’ll teach ’em, won’t it?’

  The pirates were in a frenzy of rage and fear. All their hopes of tearing the children to pieces were now lost; so what did they do but turn upon each other, cursing and fighting, fighting and cursing, and jumping overboard with cutlasses between their teeth. Their language was dreadful—’and before a lady, too!’ said young Martin. For the ships were so near together and the pirates yelled so loud that every wicked word could be clearly heard.

  ‘Blood and botheration, we’re struck!’ cried the pirates. ‘Help, we’re sinking! Oh, dear, oh, dear, we shall all be drowned!’

  Their ship, with broken mast and torn sails, was listing heavily to one side. The more sensible of the pirates, instead of quarrelling among themselves, set to work to lower two boats; jumped into them; and rowed away as fast as they could from the sinking ship. The sillier ones, panic-stricken, threw themselves into the sea and were drowned; or climbed up into the rigging in the vain hope of not having to take the first cold bath of their lives. Presently the ship righted herself for a moment; then her stern slowly rose out of the water; rose high and higher and then…

  All this time, watching the strange scene with mingled horror and relief, Elizabeth had been fascinated by the spectacle of the pirate chief, who stood proudly, with arms folded, on his bridge, his hat at a jaunty angle, his eyes flashing. It is true that he had to unfold his arms, now and the
n, in order to cling to something and prevent himself falling; but Elizabeth could see that he was doing his best, and she couldn’t help feeling a pang of pity and admiration for him.

  ‘Oh, Guy!’ she said, clutching her brother’s arm. ‘It’s sinking! That poor man!’

  The doomed ship had reached an almost perpendicular position; she remained so, poised on end, for as long as a man might quickly count ten; and then swiftly, with a gliding grace and an ever-increasing speed, she slid prow-foremost to the bottom of the sea, leaving a great whirlpool raging above her. Into that whirlpool, as into a dustbin, the few pirates that had climbed into the rigging were violently flung. They disappeared at once and were seen no more, but at a little distance the sea was dotted with men, little specks, desperately struggling to reach the boats.

  ‘Oh!’ cried Elizabeth, ‘can’t we do something to help, Phineas?’

  Phineas laughed. ‘Ay, and have our throats cut for payment.’

  ‘Look!’ cried Rex. ‘What’s that over there?’

  He pointed at something black that bobbed up and down on the water and was coming every moment nearer. It was a three-cornered hat on the brim of which was embroidered, in scarlet wool, the device of the skull and crossbones.

  ‘Hurrah!’ cried Guy. ‘The pirate chief is dead! That’s his hat.’

  But as the hat came nearer still it rose a few inches above the surface of the waves, and below it appeared two wicked winking eyes, a long crooked nose, and some whiskers. It was the pirate chief himself, swimming steadily, with a cutlass held between his black teeth.

  Chapter 9

  Captain Blackheart

  They all crowded to the side of the Resmiranda to watch the approach of the pirate chief. Phineas, looking very grim, held him covered with a pistol. In the other hand he carried a cutlass.

  ‘Don’t shoot,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I’m sure he’s not really quite a bad man. P’rhaps he was what they call led away when he was little.’

  Nobody paid any attention to her, but Rex asked: ‘Are we going to let him come aboard? I think we must, don’t you?’

  ‘’Tis poor civility to save him for the gallows,’ remarked Phineas grimly.

  ‘Still, you know, we can’t shoot a chap that’s in the water,’ said Guy. In his heart he felt very indignant with Phineas, but he was wise enough to know that persuasion was better than quarrelling. And Phineas, after all, had the loaded pistol, and could do what he liked.

  ‘Let’s take a vote,’ suggested Rex. ‘Youngest first. What do you say, Martin?’

  ‘Belay there,’ said Phineas. ‘Such a commotion ye’re making about naught. Do ye think Phineas Dyke would shoot a drowning man? Nay, I do but keep him in mind who’s master.’

  ‘But he’s not drowning,’ Elizabeth objected. ‘At least, I hope not.’

  ‘I hope not, too,’ said Martin. ‘I’ve never seen a pirate close to before. Will he tell us all about walking the plank, do you think, Elizabeth? Do you think he’s ever walked it himself?’

  ‘We’ll ask him,’ Elizabeth answered. ‘Here he comes!’

  Rex flung over the side a rope, the end of which he had made fast to a bollard. ‘See if you can climb that, Mr Pirate,’ said he.

  ‘Thank ye kindly,’ answered the pirate chief, and climbed up as lithe as a monkey.

  As he stepped on to the deck, Guy shot out an arm and snatched away the cutlass from between the villain’s teeth.

  ‘Welcome aboard, master!’ said Phineas. ‘Seems thy cake be dough, my bawcock. Wilt be pleased to have thy hands and feet manacled? Or shall I broach ’ee with this curtle-axe?’ He swung his cutlass threateningly.

  At that the pirate drew himself up to his full height, stuck out his chest till he seemed in danger of breaking his own spine, and with long, thin, claw-like fingers began vigorously twirling the ends of his moustache. From under bushy black brows his eyes blazed; his nostrils dilated like those of a restive horse; his lips trembled with rage. But the general effect of dignity was rather spoilt by his crooked nose, and by two large pieces of black sticking-plaster, one on the point of his chin (for a sharp shaven chin thrust itself through the thicket of his copious whiskers), and the other above his right eye.

  ‘You’d better be quick and answer,’ Rex advised him. ‘If you don’t he’ll chop your head off or pull the trigger, or something.’

  The pirate slowly turned, and finding himself confronted by a boy, his demeanour suddenly changed. He gave a hollow and villainous cackle. ‘Aha, me pretty dimple! Another word from you and I’ll cut you into dice!’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ said Elizabeth indulgently. ‘Don’t you know you’re a prisoner, silly?’

  ‘Is it an angel’s voice I hear?’ exclaimed the pirate, hand on heart. He wheeled quickly round towards Elizabeth. ‘I crave pardon, madam. ’Twas never Captain Blackheart’s way to be uncivil to a lady.’ He leered at her; and, bowing low, he did his best, poor man, to take off his hat with a ceremonious sweep, but it was fastened under his chin with elastic, so once again his performance was not quite what it might have been.

  ‘So that’s how you managed to keep it on in the water,’ said Elizabeth. ‘It’s been puzzling me very much, Captain Blackheart. Wouldn’t you like to dry yourself now?’

  Captain Blackheart, hatless, and with a head as bald as an egg, still contrived to cut a very sinister figure. No doubt his black teeth helped him, and the suspicion of a squint in one eye did the rest. His leer, too, was a great help; and his crooked nose, though it may have impaired his dignity a little, undoubtedly heightened that air of ferocity, of cunning, of double-dyed black-hearted villainy, which is so important to a man in his profession.

  But now, at a sign from Phineas, he held out his two wrists meek as a lamb. Snap!—he was handcuffed. Snap, snap!—his feet were chained together, so that he couldn’t move except at a slow walking pace. For Guy, wasting no time in words, had dragged on to the deck an ugly-looking collection of instruments, from simple handcuffs and gentle manacles to complicated things, twisted and hideous, at the use of which he could only make a shuddering guess. His first impulse, when he saw these rusty contrivances of evil in the clear light of day, had been to hurl them all overboard; but he had the sense to see that the pirate might well be a dangerous customer, and that to put him under some sort of restraint was only common prudence.

  ‘I hope you’re quite comfortable,’ said Elizabeth to the pirate.

  Captain Blackheart shot a fierce glance at her, thinking perhaps that she had spoken in mockery. When he realized his mistake he bowed again, and his leer this time was not quite so sinister.

  ‘Phineas, don’t you think Captain Blackheart ought to go and take his things off and have them dried?’ asked Elizabeth.

  ‘Oh, rats to that!’ Rex wasn’t always polite. ‘Let him steam off in the cook’s galley.’

  Elizabeth reluctantly agreed. It was not that she was so fond of the pirate: not at all. It was simply that it shocked her to see any one standing about in wet clothes. But there was no help for it this time, so far as she could see. Captain Blackheart, being handcuffed, was no longer in a position to undress himself; and as for removing the handcuffs—no, even Elizabeth was not prepared for that.

  So Captain Blackheart was marched off between Rex and Guy to the cook’s galley, and there planted in front of the fire to dry. Elizabeth and Martin came in a moment later.

  ‘I say,’ said Martin, ‘you did bring that map, didn’t you, Rex?’

  ‘You bet,’ said Rex. ‘Catch me leaving that behind on an important cruise like this.’

  ‘Ho, ho, ho!’ remarked Captain Blackheart. ‘So you have a map, have you, child?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rex proudly, ‘but you needn’t think you’re going to see it. I expect you’d jolly well like to see where the treasure’s buried. That’d just about suit you. But … but … but …’ Rex tried to think of a satisfactory ending to his speech, but no inspiration came—’but you’re not going to,
’ he finished lamely.

  ‘Do not taunt me!’ pleaded the pirate. He made taunt rhyme with aunt, which somehow gave it an extremely pathetic sound; and from his pocket he fished—with his two hands—a large yellow pocket-handkerchief that had the picture of a skull in the middle and a decorative frieze of crossbones round the border. Upon the skull he wiped his glistening squint, and then, sniffing with melancholy emphasis, he said: ‘Ah me, ah me! To think that Gory Jake Blackheart, the terror of the Sunday Schools, should come to this! To think that I, the proudest pirate that ever slit a throat, should be forced to eat humble pie at the hands of so slim and slight a brat!’

  Rex was very indignant to hear himself described as a brat, but he couldn’t offer to fight a man whose hands were tied. Moreover, he remembered just then that Phineas might be needing him, so he said to Guy: ‘Come on, Guy! We’d better be getting back.’

  ‘But there’s nothing to do, is there?’ asked Guy. ‘Phineas says there may not be any more wind for hours, and the ship’s hardly moving at all.’

  ‘But the map,’ Elizabeth reminded him. ‘Hadn’t you better show him the map? It’s very important.’

  The two boys went off to show Phineas the map; but Elizabeth lingered behind, and Martin with her.

  ‘You’ve dropped your hat,’ said Elizabeth politely. She picked up the three-cornered hat and handed it to the pirate; for she liked the look of him better when his baldness was hidden, and she guessed, too, that he was sensitive about it. ‘And I believe you’re done that side now,’ she added.

  Captain Blackheart, who had been standing with his face towards the fire, wheeled round. ‘You have a kind heart, madam,’ said he. ‘And that,’ he added, with the air of one addressing a public meeting, ‘is just the difference between you and me. I have not a kind heart. I have a hard and cruel heart. I take delight in murder and looting and bad language. These things, which to you are not quite nice, are to me meat and drink, wife and family. They are my profession, and I am proud of it. I wonder if you could oblige me with a glass of water?’