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

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СКАЧАТЬ a bustle and confusion. Captain Jonathan Wellsby was in haste to catch a fair wind and make his offing before nightfall. His sailors ran to and fro, jumping at the word, active and cheery. Stately and slow, the high-pooped merchant trader filled away on the larboard tack and pointed her lofty bowsprit seaward.

      The watches were set, ropes coiled down, and the tackles of the cannon overhauled. The skipper paced the after-deck, a long telescope under his arm, while the passengers lined the rail and gazed at the rude settlement that was slowly dropping below the horizon. The sea was tranquil and the breeze steady. The ship was clothed in canvas which bellied to drive her eastward with a frothing wake. Safely she left the outer bar astern and wallowed in the ocean swell.

      The afternoon sun was sinking when a sail gleamed like a bit of cloud against the southerly sky. Captain Wellsby held to his course and showed no uneasiness. Soon another sail became visible and then a third, these two smaller than the first. They might be honest merchantmen steering in company, but the skipper consulted with his mates and the spy-glass passed from hand to hand. The passengers were at supper in the cuddy and their talk and laughter came through the open skylights.

      Presently the boatswain piped the crew to quarters and the men moved quietly to their battle stations, opening the gun-ports and casting loose the lashings. The boys fetched paper cartridges of powder in buckets from the magazine and the gunners lighted the matches of tow. Cutlasses were buckled on and the pikes were scattered along the bulwarks ready to be snatched up.

      It was impossible to escape these three strange vessels by beating back to Charles Town, for the Plymouth Adventure made lubberly work of it when thrashing to windward. She was a swift ship, however, before a fair wind, and Captain Wellsby resolved to run for it, hoping to edge away from danger if his suspicions should be confirmed.

      Before sunset the largest of the strange sail shifted her course as though to set out in chase and overhaul the deep-laden merchant trader. Captain Wellsby stood near the tiller, his hands clasped behind him, a solid, dependable figure of a British mariner. The passengers were crowding around him in distressful agitation but he calmly assured them a stern chase was a long chase and he expected to slip away under cover of night. So far as he was aware, no pirates, excepting Stede Bonnet, had been recently reported in these waters.

      Here Mr. Peter Forbes broke in to say that the Plymouth Adventure had naught to fear from Captain Bonnet who had pledged his word to let her sail unmolested. Other passengers scoffed at the absurd notion of trusting a pirate's oath, but the pompous Secretary of the Council could not be cried down. He was a canny critic of human nature and he knew an honorable pirate when he met him.

      It was odd, but in a pinch like this the dapper, finicky Councilor Peter Arbuthnot Forbes displayed an unshaken courage as became a gentleman of his position, while young Jack Cockrell had suddenly changed his opinion of the fascinating trade of piracy. He had not the slightest desire to investigate it at any closer range. His knees were inclined to wobble and his stomach felt qualms. His uncle twitted him as a braggart ashore who sang a different tune afloat. The lad's grin was feeble as he retorted that he took his pirates one at a time.

      The largest vessel of the pursuit came up at a tremendous pace, reeling beneath an extraordinary spread of canvas, her spray-swept hull disclosing an armament of thirty guns, the decks swarming with men. She was no merchant ship, this was already clear, but there was still the hope that she might be a man-of-war or a privateer. Captain Wellsby looked in vain for her colors. At length he saw a flag whip from the spanker gaff. He laid down the glass with a profound sigh.

      The flag was black with a sinister device, a white blotch whose outline suggested a human skull.

      Captain Wellsby gazed again and carefully examined the two sloops which were acting in concert with the thirty-gun ship. It was a squadron, and the brave Plymouth Adventure was hopelessly outmatched. To fight meant a slaughter with never a chance of survival.

      The passengers had made no great clamor until the menacing ship drew close enough for them to descry the dreadful pennant which showed as a sable blot against the evening sky. Two women fainted and others were seized with violent hysteria. Their shrill screams were so distressing that the skipper ordered them to be lugged below and shut in their cabins. Mr. Peter Forbes had plumped himself down upon a coil of hawser, as if utterly disgusted, but he implored the captain to blaze away at the besotted scoundrels as long as two planks held together. The Honorable Secretary of the Council had been too outspoken in his opinions of pirates to expect kindness at their hands.

      The sailors also expected no quarter but they sullenly crouched at the gun-carriages, gripping the handspikes and blowing the matches while they waited for the word. The pirate ship was now reaching to windward of the Plymouth Adventure, heeling over until her decks were in full view. Upon the poop stood a man of the most singular appearance. He was squat and burly and immensely broad across the shoulders. What made him grotesque was a growth of beard which swept almost to his waist and covered his face like a hairy curtain. In it were tied bright streamers of crimson ribbon. Evidently this fantastic monster was proud of his whiskers and liked to adorn them.

      The laced hat with a feather in it, the skirted coat of buff and blue which flapped around his bow-legs, and the rows of gold buttons across his chest were in slovenly imitation of a naval uniform. But there was nothing like naval discipline on those crowded decks where half the crew appeared to be drunk and the rest of them cursing each other.

      Captain Jonathan Wellsby smothered a groan and his stern mouth twitched as he said to his chief mate:

      "God's mercy on us! 'Tis none other than the bloody Edward Teach,—that calls himself Blackbeard! My information was that he still cruised off the Spanish Main and refitted his ships in the Bay of Honduras."

      "The madman of the sea," said the stolid mate. "A bad day for us when he sailed to the north'ard. He kills for the pleasure of it. Now Stede Bonnet loots such stuff as takes his fancy and——"

      "He loves to fight a king's ship for the sport of it," broke in the skipper, "but this murderer—— An unlucky voyage for the old Plymouth Adventure and all hands, Mate."

      One of the women who had been suffered to remain on deck was close enough to overhear the direful news. Her hands to heaven, she wailed:

      "Blackbeard! Oh, my soul, we are as good as dead, or worse. Fight and sink him, dear captain. What shall I do? What shall I do? If I had only minded the dream I had the night before we sailed——"

      Jack Cockrell sat down beside his uncle, a limp and sorry youth for one who had offered to slay a six-foot pirate before breakfast to please a pretty maid. With a sickly grin he murmured:

      "This cockerel crowed too loud, Uncle Peter. Methinks I share your distaste for piracy."

      Chapter III.

       Held as Hostages to Blackbeard

       Table of Contents

      To discover the pestilent Blackbeard in Carolina waters was like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. Captain Wellsby had felt confident that he could beat off the ordinary pirate craft which was apt to be smaller than his own stout ship. And most of these unsavory gentry were mere salt-water burglars who had little taste for hard fighting. The master of the Plymouth Adventure, so pious and sedate, was a brave man to whom the thought of surrender was intolerable. From what he knew of Blackbeard, it was useless to try to parley for the lives of his passengers. Better it was to answer with double-shotted guns than to beg for mercy.

      The СКАЧАТЬ