Captain in Calico. George Fraser MacDonald

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       3. SEA TRAP

      The Lady of Holland enjoyed the doubtful distinction of being the least noisome drinking-shop on the waterfront. Rackham had chosen it because the proprietor was trustworthy – his confidence having been obtained by substantial payment backed by coldly delivered threats – and because it was convenient to the cove where the boat was hidden. Furthermore, the approach of any search party would be heralded by swift warnings running through the alleys like tremors through a web.

      He strode through the lanes with elation mounting in his thoughts. He was nearer now to his ambition than he had been at any time in the past two years, and even the knowledge that a hazardous and highly dangerous twenty-four hours lay ahead could not depress him. He had set out for the Governor’s house that night with only a vague hope, but now the way seemed clear at last, and barring accidents he could count himself a free and pardoned man. He had no doubt that the Governor’s scheme would succeed – he knew something of men and Rogers had impressed him as one who did not permit his plans to go awry.

      And then – Kate Sampson: the thought of her could send a thrilling urgency through Rackham’s veins. It had been a long time: two years, two ugly, hard years in which he had given her up and come near to forgetting her altogether until that chance meeting with Hedley Archer when he had learned that she was still unmarried. Then, in a few moments, all the old fire had been renewed, all the old memories reawakened, and with them the sudden determination to bridge the years of separation and take up again the course that had been so abruptly broken.

      He did not for a moment doubt that he could win her back again, for he chose to see in the fact that she was still unwed an indication that she had found no one to replace him. He was ready to concede that appearances were against him – on the face of it he had deserted her almost on the eve of their marriage – but he was confident that when she realised that he had been forced to leave her against his will and had thereafter supposed himself cut off from her irrevocably, she would understand and forgive him. Nor was this pure egotism on his part: he had truly loved her and knew that his love had been returned. Had it been otherwise their courtship would never have endured as it had done.

      Her father, Jonah Sampson, had risen from the poorest beginnings to the control of broad plantations not only in the Bahamas but in Jamaica as well. His wealth was enormous, and in the circumstances it was to have been expected that he would use it to purchase for his only child a brilliant marriage to some nobleman of long pedigree and short purse. But Jonah Sampson was out of the common run of West Indian nabobs; he had spent his early life in the American colonies where ability was preferable to Norman blood, and had learned to put a low value on inherited nobility. Nor was he bound by any sentimental ties to his homeland; his life’s work lay in the New World, and it was his dream that the dynasty of commerce which he had founded should continue and expand long after his lifetime.

      His first concern was that Kate’s husband should be what Master Sampson called a man; and Rackham had passed the test, despite his pirate trade. The second point was that Kate obviously adored him, and Sampson respected her judgement, child of seventeen though she was then.

      To a civilised world his decision would have seemed monstrous, but the Bahamas of those days were only half-civilised, and no hard and fast line could be drawn between those who lived within the law and those who lived beyond it. More than one notable fortune had been founded with a cutlass edge wielded within the loose limits of legality in the days of the buccaneers, and because those limits had been tightened of recent years did not, in Master Sampson’s view, make those who now lived by plunder one whit worse than their predecessors. At any rate, buccaneer or pirate, Jack Rackham was a likely lad and good enough for him.

      So the wooing had prospered until that night of blood and fire when the King’s ships had sailed on Providence, and the next dawn had seen Rackham at sea with Vane, a hunted fugitive. But now Vane was dead, and Rackham felt that he was within an ace of completing a circle and coming back to Kate and the life they had planned together.

      Three members of his crew awaited him at the Lady of Holland: Bull, the huge, yellow-bearded Yorkshireman, whose strength and courage matched his name; Malloy, a wrinkled old sea-rover, a little simple these days, but of such great experience that his voice was listened to in the Kingston’s councils; and Ben, Rackham’s lieutenant, steady, dependable, merchantman turned pirate. When Rackham had crossed the darkened common-room of the inn, picking his way among its snoring occupants, and tapped softly on the inner room door, he was admitted with a speed and smoothness that bespoke his comrades’ long practice in conspiracy and secret business.

      A rush-light flickered, and he saw Ben and Bull on either side of the door and Malloy beyond the table with a taper in his hand. He pushed the latch to behind him.

      ‘What’s the word, cap’n?’ Malloy came round the table.

      Rackham leaned his shoulders on the door and looked round at the three faces. He shook his head, and speaking softly so as not to be overheard in the outer room, told them what had befallen at the Governor’s house – told them, that is, all but the plan that Woodes Rogers had concerted. He embroidered, for their benefit, the account of his own СКАЧАТЬ