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

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СКАЧАТЬ sack of food and the water jug while the old buccaneer set out in the lead as a guide. It was irksome progress for a time, but gradually the ground became drier and the foliage was more open. Dusk found them safely emerged from the great Cherokee swamp and in a pleasant forest of long-leaf pine with a carpet of brown needles.

      In fear of Indians, they dared not kindle a fire and so stretched themselves in their wet and muddy rags and slept like dead men. What awakened Jack Cockrell before sunrise was a series of groans from Trimble Rogers who sat with his back against a tree while he rubbed his legs. Ashamed at being heard, he grumpily explained:

      "Cord and faggot 'ud torment me no worse than this hell-begotten rheumatism. I be free of it in a ship but the land reeks with foul vapors. It hurt me cruel at Cartagena in the year of——"

      "But can you walk all day, in such misery as that?" anxiously interrupted Jack.

      "If not, I'll make shift to crawl," said the old sea dog.

      It was apparent to Jack and also to Bill Saxby that the ordeal of the swamp had crippled their companion whose bodily strength had been overtaxed. They debated whether to try to return to the coast and risk a voyage in the canoe but Trimble Rogers swore by all the saints in the calendar that he was done with the pestilent swamp. He would push on in spite of the rheumatism. His hardy spirit was unbroken. And so they resumed the march, the suffering buccaneer hobbling with the musket as a staff or with a strong arm supporting him.

      Halts were frequent and progress very slow. Now and then they had glimpses of the blue sea and so knew that they held the course true. It had been reckoned that two days would suffice to bring them to the bay in which Stede Bonnet's ship was anchored. By noon of this first day, however, it was plainly evident that Trimble Rogers was done for. He uttered no complaints, and withheld the groans behind his set teeth, but his lank body was a-tremble with pain and fatigue. Whenever he sank down to rest they had to raise him up and set him on his legs again before he could totter a little way farther.

      "What say, Jack, to slingin' him on a pole, neck and heels?" suggested Bill Saxby. "Can we make him fast with our belts?"

      "And choke him to death? In Charles Town I saw Captain Bonnet's pirates carry their wounded in litters woven of boughs."

      The suffering Trimble put a stop to this by shouting:

      "Avast wi' the maunderin' nonsense! Push on, lads, and leave this old hulk be. Many a goodly man have I seen drop in the jungle. What matters it? Speed ye to Cap'n Bonnet."

      "Here is one pirate that won't desert a shipmate," declared Bill Saxby. "And how can we push on without you, old True-Penny, to lay your nose to the trail? I took no heed o' the marks and landfalls."

      "Like a sailor ashore, mouth open and eyes shut," rasped the buccaneer of Hispaniola.

      "Methinks I might find my way in this Carolina country," ventured Jack Cockrell. "It would be easier for a landsman like myself than for Bill who is city-bred and a seaman besides."

      "More wisdom from the stripling," said Trimble. "Willing as I be to die sooner than delay ye and so vex Stede Bonnet, it 'ud please me to live to overhaul that sea chest of Blackbeard's."

      "I'll stand by this condemned old relic," amiably agreed Bill Saxby. "Do you request Cap'n Bonnet to send a party to salvage us, Jack."

      "He will take pleasure in it, Bill. Before I go let me help you find shelter,—dry limbs for props and a thatch of palmetto leaves."

      "Take no thought of us," urged Trimble. "Trust me to set this lazy oaf to work. Now listen, Jack, and carefully. Cap'n Bonnet's ship waits in the Cape Fear River, twelve leagues to the north'ard of us. You will find her betwixt a bay of the mainland and a big-sized island where the river makes in from the sea. There will be a lookout kept and I can tell ye where to meet a boat."

      With a memory as retentive as a printed page, the keen-eyed old wanderer described the landscape league by league, the streams and their direction, the hills which were prominent, the broad stretches of savannah or grassy meadow, the belts of pine forest, the tongues of swamp which had to be avoided. Jack was compelled to repeat the detailed instructions over and over, and he was a far more studious pupil than when snuffy Parson Throckmorton had rapped his knuckles and fired him with rebellious dreams of piracy. At length, the buccaneer was willing to acknowledge:

      "Unless an Indian drive an arrow through the lad's brisket, Bill, I can trust him to find our ship. Best give him the musket."

      "Me shoulder that carronade and trudge a dozen leagues?" objected Jack. "I travel light and leave the ordnance with you."

      They insisted on his taking more than a third of the food but he refused to deprive them of the water jug. There would be streams enough to slake his thirst. It was an affectionate parting. Bill Saxby's innocent blue eyes were suffused and his chubby face sorrowful at the thought that they might not meet again. Trimble Rogers fished out his battered little Bible and quoted a few verses, as appeared to be his habit on all solemn occasions. Jack Cockrell knew him well enough by now to find it not incongruous. Among this vanishing race of sea fighters had been many a hero of the most fervent piety. Their spirit was akin to that of Francis Drake who summoned his crew to prayers before he cleared for action.

      And in this wise did Master Jack Cockrell set out to bear a message from comrades in dire distress. Moreover, in his hands were the lives of Joe Hawkridge and those other marooned seamen, as he had every reason to believe. It was a grave responsibility to be thrust upon a raw lad in his teens who had been so carefully nurtured by his fretful guardian of an uncle, Mr. Peter Arbuthnot Forbes. Jack thought of this and said to himself, with a smile:

      "A few weeks gone, and I was locked in my room without any dinner for loitering with Stede Bonnet's pirates at the Charles Town tavern. My education has been swift since then."

      He was expectant of meeting no end of peril and hardship and he fought down a sense of dread that was not to his discredit. But it was so decreed that he should pass secure and unmolested. At first he went too fast, without husbanding his strength, and loped along like a hound whenever the country was clear of brushwood. This wore him down and he failed to watch carefully enough for his landmarks. Toward the end of the day he became confused because he could not discern the sea even by climbing a tree. But he tried to keep bearing to the northeast until the sun went down. Afraid of losing himself entirely and ignorant of the lay of the land by night, he made his bivouac in a grove of sycamore saplings and imagined Indians were creeping up whenever the leaves rustled.

      This fear of roaming savages troubled him next day as he wearily trudged through this primeval wilderness unknown to white settlers. It spurred him on despite his foot-sore fatigue and he was making the journey more rapidly than old Trimble Rogers, for all his cunning woodcraft, had been able to accomplish it. Almost at the end of his endurance, the plucky lad discerned the sheen of a broad water in the twilight and so came to the Cape Fear River.

      He had worried greatly lest he might have veered too far inland but there was the wooded bay and the fore-land crowned with dead pines which had been swept by forest fire. And out beyond it was the island, of the size and shape described by Trimble Rogers, making a harbor from the sea which rolled to the horizon rim.

      But no tall brig, nor any other vessel rode at anchor in this silent and lonely haven. Jack had been told precisely where to look for it. He had made no mistake. Some emergency had caused Captain Stede Bonnet to make sail and away.

      A king's ship or some other hostile force might have compelled him to slip his cable in haste, reflected Jack as he descended to the shore of the bay. It was most СКАЧАТЬ