The Jolly Roger Tales: 60+ Pirate Novels, Treasure-Hunt Tales & Sea Adventures. Лаймен Фрэнк Баум

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СКАЧАТЬ drunken yells. Jack was not disturbed although Mistress Dorothy moved closer and laid a hand on his arm. Presently the tumult ceased, abruptly, and now Jack was perplexed. It might mean a sudden recall to the ship. Something was in the wind. The youth and the maid stood listening. Jack was about to scramble to the roof of the house in order to gaze toward the harbor but Dorothy bade him stay with her. Her fair cheek had paled and she shivered with a vague apprehension.

      This sudden stillness was uncanny, threatening. Soon, however, a trumpet blew a long, shrill call to arms, and they heard one hoarse, jubilant huzza after another.

      "Have Stede Bonnet's pirates mustered to sack the town?" implored Dorothy.

      "I can speedily find out," replied her protector.

      "Oh, I pray you not to leave me," she tremulously besought him.

      "Captain Bonnet will wreak no harm on Charles Town," Jack assured her. "I know him too well for that. You saw what he did to the base varlet who annoyed you at the wharf,—felled him like an ox."

      "If only my father were here, to call out the troops and rout this rabble of sea rogues, Jack dear," was her fluttering prayer.

      A little after this, the tumult increased and it was drawing nearer. It was a martial clamor of men on the march, with the rattle of drums and a loud fanfare of trumpets. Mr. Peter Arbuthnot Forbes came running out of the house, all flustered and waving his hands, and ordered the two young people indoors. The servants were closing the heavy wooden shutters and sliding the bars across the doors.

      Jack slipped out into the lane and hailed a neighbor who dashed past. The news was babbled in fragments and Jack scurried back to blurt to his uncle:

      "An Indian raid,—the savages are within a dozen miles of Charles Town, laying waste the plantations,—slaying the laborers. The militia is called to arms but they lack a leader. Colonel Stuart is sorely missed. Captain Bonnet called another boat-load of his pirates ashore, and they march in the van to assail the Indians. May I go with them, Uncle Peter? Must I play the coward and the laggard?"

      "Nonsense, John Cockrell. These mad pirates have addled your wits. Shall I let you be scalped by these painted fiends of Yemassees?"

      "Then you will volunteer in my stead," shrewdly ventured Jack, with a glance at Dorothy.

      "Um-m. Duty and my official cares prevent," quoth the worshipful Secretary of the Colony, frowning and pursing his lips. Dorothy smiled at this and winked at Jack. Uncle Peter was rated a better lawyer than a valiant man of war.

      "Let us stand at a window," exclaimed the girl. "Ah, they come! My faith, but this is a brave array. And Captain Bonnet leads them well."

      She had never expected to praise a pirate but there was no denying that this lean, straight rover in the scarlet coat and great cocked hat looked the part of a competent and intrepid soldier. He was superbly fit for the task in hand. Catching sight of Jack Cockrell and Dorothy Stuart in the window, he saluted by raising the hilt of his cutlass and his melancholy visage brightened in a smile.

      Behind him tramped his men in column of fours, matchlocks across their shoulders, bright weapons swinging against their thighs as they sang all together and kept step to the beat of the drums.

      "But ere to Execution Bay,

       The wind these bones do blow,

       I'll drink an' fight what's left away,

       Yo, ho, with the rum below."

      Behind these hardy volunteers straggled as many of the militia company as had been able to answer the sudden call, merchants, clerks, artisans, and vagabonds who seemed none too eager to meet the bloodthirsty Yemassees. Their wives and children trailed after them to the edge of the town, amidst tears and loud lamentations. The contrast did not escape the eye of Mr. Peter Arbuthnot Forbes who reluctantly admitted:

      "Give the devil his due, say I. These wicked brethren of the coast go swaggering off of their own free will, as though it were to a frolic. I will remember it in their favor when they come to hang."

      A long roll of the drums and a lilting flourish by the pirate trumpeter as a farewell to Charles Town and its tavern and its girls, and the company passed from view. The lane was again deserted and silent and Jack offered to escort Dorothy Stuart to her own home. As they loitered across an open field, he cried in a fierce flare of rebellion:

      "My good uncle will drive me too far. Let him sail for old England and leave me to find my own career. Upon my soul, I may run away to join a pirate ship."

      Dorothy tried to look grave at this dreadful announcement but a dimple showed in her cheek as she replied:

      "My dear Jack, you can never be braver but you will be wiser some day. Banish such silly thoughts. You must obey your lawful guardian."

      "But did you see the lads in the militia company? Two or three of them I have whipped in fair fight. And Uncle Peter wants to keep me tucked in a cradle."

      "Softly, Jack," said she, with pretty solicitude. "Stede Bonnet has bewitched you utterly."

      The stubborn youth shook his head. This day of humiliation had been the last straw. He was ripe for desperate adventure. It would have made him happy and contented to be marching against the Indians with Stede Bonnet and his cut-throats, in peril of tomahawks and ambuscades.

      Small wonder that poor Jack Cockrell's notions of right and wrong were rather confused, for he lived in an age when might ruled blue water, when every ship was armed and merchant seamen fought to save their skins as well as their cargoes. English, French, Spanish, and Dutch, they plundered each other on the flimsiest pretexts and the pirates harried them all.

      Still sulky, Jack betook himself to the rectory next morning for his daily bout with his studies. Parson Throckmorton was puttering in the garden, a shrunken little man who wore black small-clothes, lace at his wrists, and a powdered wig. Opening the silver snuff-box he almost sneezed the wig off before he chirruped:

      "Ye mind me of Will Shakespeare's whining schoolboy, Master John,—creeping like snail unwillingly to school. A treat is in store for us to-day, a signal treat! We begin our Virgil. 'Arma virumque cano.'"

      "Arms and a man? I like that much of it," glowered the mutinous scholar, "but my uncle makes me sing a different tune."

      "He accepted my advice,—that you be educated in England," said the parson.

      "Then I may hold you responsible for this hellish thing?" angrily declaimed Jack. "Were it not for your white hairs——"

      He subsided and had the grace to apologize as they entered the library. The tutor was an impatient old gentleman and the pupil was so inattentive that his knuckles were sharply rapped with a ruler. A blunder more glaring and the ruler came down with another whack. This was too much for Jack who jumped up, rubbed his knuckles, and shouted:

      "Enough, sir. I would have you know that I all but killed a big, ugly pirate yesterday."

      "So rumor informs me," rasped Parson Throckmorton, "but you will give yourself no grand airs with me. Construe this passage properly or I must tan those leather breeches with a limber rod."

      This was too much for the insulted Jack who slammed down the book, clapped on his hat, and tramped from the room in high dudgeon. Such scurvy treatment as this was fairly urging СКАЧАТЬ