Chapter XXIV

AT MARLBOROUGH

SOME time a little after noon the sloop sailed into the wide mouth of a lesser stream that opened into the broader waters of the James.

The pirate captain lounged upon the rail not far from Dred, who held the wheel, stooping as he looked out ahead under the boom of the mainsail. The gunner, a man named Morton, joined the pirate captain, with whom he stood talking for a while in low tones, Dred every now and then turning to speak to them. The sloop, close hauled to the wind, drifted slowly into the tributary river. “I reckon they’re going to bring her up back o’ the p’int yonder,” said one of the pirates to Jack, where nobody’ll be like to see us till we gets our young lady aboard.

“Isn’t that a house over on the other side of the river?” asked Jack. “Those look like chimneys over the top of the trees.”

“Why, yes,” said the other, “that’s a place they call Marlborough. They say ’tis a grand, big, fine house.”

“Marlborough!” said Jack, “and so ’tis a big, fine house, for I’ve been there myself and have seen it; ’tis as grand a house as ever you would wish to see.”

“Do you, then, know it?” said the other. “Well, ’tis there the captain’s going to-night to bring off a young lady he’s going to fetch down to North Caroliny.”

Jack listened to the man, not for a moment supposing anything else than that the young lady of whom the pirate spoke was to be a willing passenger. He only wondered vaguely why she should choose to go with Blackbeard.

The sloop lay in the creek all that afternoon. Dred was in the cabin nearly all the time, and Jack saw almost nothing of him. Meantime the crew occupied themselves variously. Six of them near Jack were playing cards intently; sometimes in silence, sometimes breaking out into loud bursts of talking and swearing. Jack lay upon the forecastle hatch watching them. Every now and then the trum-trumming of Blackbeard’s guitar sounded from the cabin. As the dealer dealt the cards around, one of the pirates snapped his fingers in time to the strumming of the music. “I tell you what ’tis, messmates,” he said, “the captain be the masterest hand at the guitar that ever I heard in all my life.”

“To be sure,” said another, “he plays well enough, but Jem Willoughby down at Ocracock can give him points how to play.”

“Did ye ever hear Jem Willoughby play the fandango?” said one of a half-dozen men who lay at a little distance under the shade of the rail.

“Never mind Jem Willoughby and the fandango now,” said the dealer, as he took up his hand of cards and, wetting his thumb, ran them over; “you play your game, messmates, and never mind Jem Willoughby.”

Again they played with silent intentness. Meantime a negro was dancing in the forecastle below. From above, Jack could see his dim form obscurely in the darker depths, and, as he watched the hands of cards that the others played, he could not but hearken to the shuffling and pat of the dancing feet sounding in rhythmical time to the clapping of hands. Then, after awhile, there was a sudden burst of talking from the card-players, and the dealer reached out and raked in the half score of silver pieces that lay upon the deck-house.

The afternoon slowly waned; the sun set, and a dim gray of twilight seemed to rise from the swampy lagoon. Then the dusk shaded darker and darker to the dimness of early nightfall. Suddenly the pirate captain came up on deck, followed by Hands and Dred. Dred spoke to the boatswain, who came forward directly and ordered the crews of the three boats to lower them and to bring them alongside. Then there followed a bustle of preparation. Presently, through the confusion, Jack saw that the men were arming themselves. They were going down below into the cabin and were coming up again, each with a pistol or a brace of pistols and a cutlass. Finally Morton, the gunner, came up on deck, and soon after the crews began scrambling over the rail and into the three boats with a good deal of noise and disorder. It was after dark when they finally pushed off from the sloop. The pirate captain sat in the stern of the yawl-boat, Hands took command of one of the others, and Dred and Morton went off in the third. Jack stood watching them pull away into the darkness, the regular chug-chug-chug of the oars in the rowlocks sounding fainter and fainter as the dim forms of the boats were lost in the obscurity of the distance.

Everything seemed strangely silent after the boats were gone. Only five men besides Jack remained aboard the sloop, and the solitude of the darkness that seemed to envelop them all around about was only emphasized by the tide that gurgled and lapped alongside. “Who is it they’re going to fetch from Marlborough?” Jack asked of one of the men who stood beside him leaning over the rail, smoking his pipe and looking after his companions.

“Who?” said he, without looking around. “Why, they’re going to fetch a young lady”; and that was all Jack knew until she was actually aboard the pirate sloop.

Colonel Parker was away from home. He had gone to Williamsburgh, but there was some company at Marlborough—Mr. Cartwright (a cousin of Madam Parker’s), his wife, and the Reverend Jonathan Jones, minister of Marlborough parish church—a rather sleek, round-faced man, dressed in sober clerical black, with a very white wig and a smooth, clean, starched band of fine, semi-transparent linen. Madam Parker and her guests sat at a game of ruff. Miss Eleanor Parker was trying a piece of music at the spinet, playing smoothly but with an effort at certain points, and then stumbling at the more difficult passages, to which she sometimes returned, repeating them. The four played their game out without speaking, and then, as the last trick was taken, released the restraint of attentive silence to a sudden return of ease. “‘Twas two by honors this time, I think,” said Mr. Cartwright to Madam Parker, who was his partner.

“Yes,” she said, “I held the queen and ace myself, and you the knave.”

“Then that makes four points for us,” said Mr. Cartwright, as he marked them.

“’Tis strange how ill the hands run with me to-night,” said the reverend gentleman; “that makes the third hand running without a single court card.” He opened his snuff-box and offered it to Madam Parker, and then to the others, taking finally a profound and vigorous pinch himself, and then shutting the lid of the box with a snap. Madam Parker and her partner smiled with the amused good-nature of winners at the game.

“Upon my word, Eleanor,” said Madam Parker, “I wish you would not play so loud; my nerves are all of a jingle to-day; as ’tis, I can’t fix my mind on the game.” The young lady made no answer; she did not even turn round, but she continued her playing in a more subdued key.

“Was not that Lady Betty Arkwright in your pew last Sunday, Madam?” asked the rector of Madam Parker, as he shuffled the cards.

“Yes, ’twas,” said the lady. “She came up from Williamsburgh last week, and Colonel Parker went back with her yesterday.”

“I thought I could not be mistook,” said the Reverend Jonathan, “and that ’twas indeed her. She hath a fine air of good breeding, hath she not, Madam?”

“Why, yes, she is good enough,” said Madam Parker, “but has nothing like the fine breeding of her sister, Lady Mayhurst.”

The reverend gentleman did not reply except by a deferential smile and half bow. He had picked up his hand and had begun to run it over swiftly, and then another round of the game began in silence.

Presently the young lady ceased playing and began turning over the leaves of her music-book.

It was in this pause of silence that there came suddenly a loud and violent knock upon the outside hall door. Madam Parker started. “Why, who can that be?” she said, folding her hand of cards nervously and holding it face downward, and looking around the table at the others.

The players all sat listening, and Miss Eleanor partly turned around upon her music-stool. It was very late for visitors, and the negroes had closed the house some time since. “It sounded like some one who may have come in a haste,” said Mr. Cartwright. “Maybe Colonel Parker has sent a message.”

“I don’t know why he should send a message,” said Madam Parker. “I hope he has not been ailing again. But that may hardly be, for he has not had a single touch of the gout for over three months, and no sign of its coming back again.”

They listened as the negro crossed the hall to answer the knock. Then came the sound of the rattling of the chain and the turning of the key. Then the door was opened. As the card-players listened they heard the sound of a man’s voice and then the reply of the negro. Then once more the man’s voice and then the negro’s again—this time speaking, as it seemed, rather eagerly. Then there came a sharp exclamation and then a sound as of some one pushed violently against the door—then silence. There was something unusual, something very alarming in the noise. “What was that?” said Madam Parker, sharply, and there was a tone of keen anxiety in her voice.

As in answer, there was the shuffling sound of many feet crossing the hall. Mr. Cartwright rose from his seat, and the Reverend Jonathan Jones turned half-way round upon his chair. The next instant three or four men with blackened faces were in the room. The foremost man wore the loose petticoat trousers of a sailor, a satin waistcoat, and a coat and hat trimmed with gold braid. His face was tied up in a handkerchief, but they could see that he had gold ear-rings in his ears. “Don’t you be frightened,” said he in a hoarse, husky voice, “there’ll no harm happen to you if you only be quiet and make no noise. But I won’t have any noise, d’ye hear?”

The three ladies sat staring with wide-eyed, breathless terror at the speaker. His companions stood silently at the doorway, each armed with a brace of pistols. There was something singularly dreadful in their silence, their black faces, their lips red by contrast with their sooty countenances, the whites of their eyes, which every now and then blinked into darkness and then were white again.

“What d’ye want?” said Mr. Cartwright. “Who are you? What do you want?” He had grown very pale, but his voice was strong and full, without a tremor in it.

The stranger, though he was armed, did not carry any weapon in his hand. He came out a little further into the room. “Ye see I have nothing to make you afraid of me!” he said, opening the palms of his hands. “So you may see I mean you no harm. But harkee! there’s to be no noise—no screaming, d’ye understand—no calling for help. So long as you keep still no harm shall be done to any of ye—man or woman.”

“You villain!” cried out Mr. Cartwright, with rising choler. “What do you mean by coming here this way, breaking into Coloner Parker’s house and blustering and threatening? Do you know where you are?” He pushed back the chair from which he had risen and looked around the room as though seeking for some weapon.

“Come, come, sir,” said the other sharply, and he clapped his hand to the butt of one of his pistols, “don’t you make any trouble for yourself, sir. I say there’ll be nobody harmed if you don’t make any trouble for yourself. But if you do, I tell you plain it’ll be the worse for you. I’ve got a score of men outside, and you can’t do anything at all, and if you make any trouble you’ll be shot, with no good to come of it. I’ll tell you what we came for—but first of all I want you to understand plainly that no harm is intended to the young lady and that no harm shall happen to her. And now I’ll tell you what we have come for. Young Mistress Parker yonder must go along with us.”

The words were hardly out of his mouth when Madam Parker started up out of her chair with a loud and violent scream. Then she fell back again, catching at the table, overturning one of the candles, and scattering the cards on the floor in a litter. The other ladies screamed as in instant echo, and shriek upon shriek rang violently through the house. Miss Eleanor Parker had run to her mother, burying her face in Madam Parker’s lap. “You villain!” roared Mr. Cartwright, and as he spoke he snatched up the heavy candlestick that had been overturned, and threw it with all his might at the head of the pirate. Blackbeard ducked, and the candlestick whirled past his head, striking with a crash against the wall beyond. “What d’ye mean?” roared he, as Mr. Cartwright grasped at the other candlestick; “don’t you touch that candlestick! Ha! would you?” The next instant he had flung himself upon the gentleman, clutching him around the body. Mr. Cartwright struck at his assailant again and again, trying to free himself. For one moment he had almost wrenched himself loose. The men at the door ran around to their leader’s aid. A chair was overturned with a crash, and the next moment the two had stumbled over it and fallen, and had rolled under the table.

Mr. Jones, with a face ghastly white and eyes straining with terror, thrust away his chair and rose, drawing back from the two as they struggled and kicked upon the floor beneath the table; and still the ladies screamed piercingly, shriek upon shriek. “Would you?” snarled the pirate captain, almost breathlessly, under the table—“Would you! Here—Morton—Dred—the devil’s choking me! Ach! let go there!” The men who had run to his aid strove to drag the two apart, and a dozen or more, all with faces blackened, came running into the room just as they were separated. The pirate captain scrambled to his feet disheveled and furious. Before he raised himself he tied up his face in the handkerchief again. Then he stood up, feeling at his throat and glaring around him. Mr. Cartwright lay upon the ground, held down by two or three men. His lip had been cut in the struggle, and was bleeding. His breath came thick and hoarse, and his face was strained and knotted with fury. Every now and then he made a futile effort to wrench his arm loose.

“I don’t know what you all mean, anyhow,” said the pirate captain, “squalling and fighting like that. By Zounds!”—to Mr. Cartwright, as he lay upon the floor—“I believe you’ve broke my Adam’s apple—I do. I tell you”—said he to Madam Parker, who, white and haggard, and shrunk together with terror, sat looking up at him—“I tell you, and I tell you again, that I don’t mean any harm to you or to the young lady. She’s got to go along with me, and that’s all. I tell you I’ll take good care of her, and she’ll be in the care of a woman who knows how to look after her; and just as soon as his honor the colonel chooses to pay for her coming back, then she’ll come. I’ve got a good safe boat down here at the shore, and no harm’ll come to her. She’ll only be gone for a month or so, and then she’ll be fetched back safe and sound. Now, if she wants to carry any change of her clothes along with her to wear, she’d better get ‘em together. D’ye understand me, Madam?”

Madam Parker, with her daughter’s face buried in her lap, still sat looking up at the pirate captain. Her lips moved once or twice, and then she whispered breathlessly, “Yes—I understand.”

“What d’ ye say, Madam? I don’t hear ye.”

“I understand,” she repeated a little louder, as he leaned forward across the table to hear her.

“Why, then, Madam,” said he, “I’m glad you do; for I want the young mistress to be as comfortable as she can, and if you don’t get something for her to wear and make her comfortable, I’ve got to take her off without. Now, Madam, will you get some clothes together? Maybe you’ll send one of your black women to get them.”

Madam Parker sat gazing at him without moving; the pirate captain stood looking at her. “What’s the matter with her, anyhow?” said he. One of the men stooped forward and looked into her face. “Why, captain,” said he, “the lady’s dazed like; she don’t know what you’re saying. Don’t you see she don’t understand a word you say?”

The captain looked round and his eyes fell upon Mrs. Cartwright. “D’ ye think ye could get some change of clothes for the young lady, some clothes to take away with her, mistress?” said he. “She can’t go away from home for a month or so without a change of clothes to wear. You can see that for yourself.”

“Shall I go, Edward?” said Mrs. Cartwright.

Mr. Cartwright groaned. “You’ll have to go, Polly,” he said; “there ‘s nothing else to do. But, oh, you villains, mark my words! You’ll hang for this, every mother’s son of you!”

“Why, I like your spirit, Mr. Tobacco-Planter,” said the pirate captain; “and maybe you’ll hang us, and maybe you wouldn’t, but we’ll take our chances on that.” Then with a sudden truculence, “I’ve put up with all the talk from you I’m going to bear, and if you know what’s good for you you’ll stop your ‘villains’ and your ‘hangings’ and all that. We’ve got the upper hand here, and you’re the cock that’s down, so you won’t crow any more, if you please.”

Mr. Cartwright groaned again. “You’re breaking my arm,” he said to the men who were holding him down.

When Mrs. Cartwright came back into the room, carrying a large silk traveling-bag packed with clothes, she was crying, making no attempt to wipe away the tears that ran down her cheeks. The pirate captain came and stooped over Miss Eleanor as she knelt with her face in her mother’s lap. “Come, mistress,” he said, “you must go along with us now.” He waited for a moment, but she made no reply. “You must go along with us,” he repeated in a louder tone; and he took her by the arm as he spoke. Still she made no sound of having heard him. Then he stooped over and lifted her head. Mr. Cartwright caught sight of the face, and felt a keen thrill pierce through him. “She is dead,” he thought. “Come here, Morton,” called out the pirate captain, “and lend a hand; the young lady’s swooned clean away.”

Madam Parker made some faint movement as her daughter was taken from her, but she could not have been conscious of what was passing. Mrs. Cartwright wept hysterically in her husband’s arms as they carried the young lady away, leaving behind them the room littered with the cards, the chair overturned, and the one candle burning dimly on the card-table. Outside of the house the negroes and the white servants stood looking on in helpless, interested terror from a distance, hidden by the darkness. Mr. Simms was sitting in his office, gagged and bound in his chair.