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

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СКАЧАТЬ on the North Carolina coast where his sloops would meet him if they were still afloat.

      Jack Cockrell found his courage returning as he clambered up the side of the Revenge and followed Joe aft to the quarter-deck. Unless they bungled it, there was a chance that they might escape when the pirates made their landing on the coast to refresh themselves and refit the ship. The mate on watch greeted them good-humoredly enough and bade them enter the cabin where the captain awaited them. Jack was all a-flutter again but he managed to imitate Joe's careless swagger.

      Blackbeard lounged at his ease in a huge chair of carven ebony which might have been filched from some stately East Indiaman or a ship of the Grand Mogul himself. He had flung off his coat and the sleeves of a shirt of damask silk were rolled to the elbow. Instead of the great, mildewed sea-boots he wore slippers of crimson leather embroidered with threads of gold. Gorgeous cushions, pieces of plate, costly apparel strewed the cabin in barbaric confusion.

      What the two lads gazed at, however, was this bizarre figure of a despot who held the power of life and death. It was one of his quieter interludes when he laid aside the ferocious and bombastic play-acting which made it hard to discover whether he was very cunning or half-mad. The immense beard flowed down his chest instead of being tricked out in gaudy ribbons. He was idly running a comb through it when his small, rum-reddened eyes took in the two lads in dripping clothes who were shoved toward him by the sentry guarding the hatch.

      Blackbeard let a hairy hand stray to clutch one of the pistols kept on the table beside him. Jack Cockrell gulped and stole a frightened glance at Joe Hawkridge who winked and nudged him. There was some small comfort in this. Spellbound, they stared at the pistol and then at the pirate's massive forearm on which a skull and cross-bones was pricked in India ink. At this moment Jack earnestly wished himself back on the raft. The barrel of the pistol looked as big as a blunderbuss.

      With a yawn, Blackbeard reached for a silver bowl of Brazil nuts, cracked one of them with the pistol-butt and roared for the black cabin boy who came running with a flask of Canary wine and a goblet. Jack Cockrell's sigh of relief sounded like a porpoise coming up for air. He was not to be shot at once. Suddenly Blackbeard exclaimed, in that husky, growling voice of his:

      "I saw you rascals through the glass before I came below. What of the ship I left ye in? Briefly now, and no lies."

      Together the lads pieced out the narrative as they had hastily prepared it. The vital thing was to watch lest they tell a word too much. Jack stumbled once or twice but his comrade covered it adroitly, and they did not betray themselves. The sweat trickled into their eyes but the heat of the cabin was excuse for this. Blackbeard studied them intently, munching Brazil nuts and noisily sipping his wine.

      "The Plymouth Adventure stranded yester-eve?" said he. "Know ye the lay of the coast where the wreck lies? What of the shipmaster and Ned Rackham? Were they able to fix the shoal by reckoning?"

      "No, sir," readily answered Joe Hawkridge. "'Twas strange land to all hands."

      From a chest Blackbeard hauled out a dog-eared chart of parchment and unrolled it upon the table. The boys foresaw his intention and feared the worst. Presently they heard him mumble to himself:

      "A small wind setting from the west'ard,—twenty-four hours of drift for the lads' raft,—a dozen leagues, I call it."

      He looked up from the chart to ask:

      "The wreck was lodged fast in smooth water and holding together?"

      "Aye, but in peril of working off and sinking like an iron pot," answered Joe. "For this reason the people were in haste to quit her."

      "Her own crew made for the beach, I have no doubt," shrewdly pursued Blackbeard, "but my men 'ud stay by the wreck and watch the weather ere they shoved off. Trust the food and drink and plunder to hold 'em."

      He lumbered to the hatch and called up to the mate on watch. While they conferred, Joe Hawkridge whispered to his perturbed companion:

      "He will hunt for the wreck, Jack. But unless the wind changes, he can't beat in to the coast with his fore-topmast gone."

      "A merciful delay," muttered Jack. "I worry not so much for Captain Wellsby and his people. They will hide themselves well inland when they make out the Revenge, but what of you and me?"

      "'Tis a vexing life we lead. I will say that much, Master Cockrell."

      Chapter VII.

       The Mist of the Cherokee Swamp

       Table of Contents

      The dark cloud of anxiety was lightened a trifle by the fact that Blackbeard displayed no ill temper toward the two young castaways. Having obtained such information as they chose to offer, he roughly told them to go forward and join the crew. Whether or no, Jack was impressed as a pirate and it may have amused Blackbeard to recruit by force the nephew of the honorable Secretary of the Provincial Council. For his part, Jack was grateful to be regarded no longer as a hostage under sentence of death. With Joe as an escort who knew the ropes, he went on deck and was promptly kicked off the poop by the mate.

      They first found food and quenched their raging thirst with water which had a loathsome smell. Joe reported to the chief gunner and begged the chance to sleep for a dozen hours on end. This was granted amiably enough and the pirates clustered about to ask all manner of curious questions, but the weary lads dragged themselves into the bows of the ship and curled up in a stupor. There they lay as if drugged, all through the night, even when the seamen trampled over them to haul the head-sails and tack ship.

      When, at last, they blinked at the morning sky, it dismayed them to find the breeze blowing strong out of the southeast and the Revenge standing in to the coast under easy sail. They looked aft and saw Blackbeard at the rail with a long glass at his eye. The whole crew was eager with expectation and the routine work went undone. The ship had been put about several hours earlier, Joe learned, and was due soon to sight the shore unless the reckoning was all at fault.

      So cleverly had Blackbeard calculated the drift of the boys' raft that a little later in the morning a lookout in the maintop called down:

      "Land, ho! Two points off the starboard bow she bears."

      "The maintop, ahoy!" shouted Blackbeard. "Can ye see a vessel's spars?"

      "'Tis too hazy inshore. But unless my eyes play me tricks, a smudge of smoke arises."

      Jack Cockrell nervously confided to Joe:

      "That would be Captain Wellsby's campfire on the beach."

      "Trust him to douse it," was the easy assurance. "I feel better. Blow me, but I expect to live another day."

      "Answer me why," begged Jack. "I am like a palsied old man."

      "Well, you know this bit o' coast, how low it sets above the sea. Despite the haze, a man aloft could see a ship's masts and yards before he had a glimpse of land."

      "Then the wreck of the Plymouth Adventure has slid off the shoal and gone down, Joe?"

      "Yes, when the wind veered and stirred a surf on the shoal. She pounded over with the flood-tide and dropped into fifteen fathom."

      "Then СКАЧАТЬ