Chapter XXVIII

IN NORTH CAROLINA—IN VIRGINIA

THREE or four days after Mr. Knight’s interview with the pirates, Captain Jackson, of whom the colonial secretary had spoken as having gone up the river for a cargo of wood shingles, stopped at Bath Town on his way to Baltimore, and Mr. Knight sent a note to Blackbeard, telling him that he would bring the coasting captain down that same evening. Dred was just then sick in bed with the earlier stages of his fever, so that only the pirate captain himself and Hands, the master, were left to meet the secretary and the Baltimore skipper.

It was after dusk when Mr. Knight and the Baltimore man came down from the town to the pirate’s house. The boat in which they arrived was rowed by two white men of the crew of the “Eliza Boydell,” the coasting schooner. “Where’s your master, boy?” said Mr. Knight to Jack, who stood at the landing, watching their approach.

“He’s over aboard the sloop,” said Jack. “He went there an hour or more ago, and left word you were to go over there when you came.”

Mr. Knight looked displeased. “I fear he’ll be drinking,” he said to Captain Jackson, “and as like as not be in one of his devil’s humors. ’Tis so he ever appears to be when he hath some venture of especial risk in hand. I’ve a mind to go back to the town again, and come another day.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” Jack heard Captain Jackson say. “I’ve seen him often enough to know him well, and I’ve seen him in his liquor and I’ve seen him sober;” and then the boat rowed away from the landing toward the sloop.

No one met Mr. Knight and Captain Jackson as the two came aboard the pirate vessel. Even before they reached the cabin hatchway they could smell the fumes of liquor which filled the space below. It was as Mr. Knight had apprehended—the captain and his master had been drinking. The visitors found the cabin lit by the light of a single candle, and a squat bottle of rum stood on the table, from which both pirates were tippling freely. As the two visitors entered, Hands was in the act of filling his pipe with uncertain, tipsy fingers, and Captain Teach sat leaning upon the table, the lean, brown fingers of his hands locked around his glass. He glowered gloomingly at the two visitors, but he offered them no word of welcome. “Well, captain,” said Mr. Knight, “d’ye see, I fetched our friend, Captain Jackson. And I’ve fetched the letter I’ve writ to our friend in Virginia for you to see.” Captain Teach still looked gloomily from under his brows at his visitors, without vouchsafing any answer.

“I’m glad to see you, captain,” said Captain Jackson. “’Tis a long while since we met, and you be looking hale and well.”

Captain Teach turned his dull, heavy eyes upon the speaker, but still he did not say anything.

“Oh, he’s well enough, he is,” said Hands, thickly. “He’s never sick—sick, he ain’t.” He tilted the bowl of his pipe uncertainly against the candle flame, at first not quite hitting the object at which he aimed. “Well, when he dies,” said Hands, with a wink toward Mr. Knight, “the devil dies, he does, and then honest—honest men all go to h—ic—heaven.”

Captain Teach did not look at his sailing-master. “You be still,” he growled. “You don’t know what you’re saying—you don’t. You’re in liquor, you are.”

Hands winked tipsily at the visitors, as though what the other said was a great joke. Mr. Knight stood looking uncertainly from one to the other. “Perhaps we’d better come some other time,” he said; “I don’t think you choose to talk about this business now, captain.”

“What d’ye mean?” growled the pirate. “D’ye mean to say I’m drunk, ye villain?” and he turned his heavy-eyed glare at the secretary.

“Why, no,” said Mr. Knight, soothingly, “I don’t mean to say you’re drunk, captain. Far be it from me to say that. I only mean to say that maybe ’twould suit you better to have us come another time, as I see you’re in the humor of having some sport to-night, and maybe don’t choose to talk business.”

“I know what you mean to say,” said the pirate captain, moodily. “You mean to say that I’m drunk. Maybe I’m drunk, but I’m sober enough to know what I’m at yet.” He was fumbling in his coat pocket as he spoke, and as he ended, he brought out a pistol of the sort called a dag or dragon—a short, stubby weapon with a brass barrel. “I’m just as steady as a rock,” said he, “and I could snuff that candle easy enough without putting out the light.” He aimed his pistol, as he spoke, toward the candle, shutting one eye. Captain Jackson was directly in range upon the other side of the table, and he ducked down like a flash, crouching beneath the edge of the board. “Hold hard, captain,” he cried, in a muffled voice. “Take care what you’re at! You’ll do somebody a harm the next thing.”

Captain Teach still aimed the weapon for a few seconds of breathless hush. Mr. Knight waited tensely for the report of the pistol, but it did not come, and presently the captain lowered the hammer and slipped it back again in his pocket. “Come, come, captain,” said Captain Jackson, “don’t try any more jokes of that kind.” He smoothed down his hair with the palm of his hand, grinning uneasily as he did so.

“Come, captain,” said Mr. Knight, “you mustn’t act so, indeed you mustn’t. If we’re to talk business we must be serious about it and not go playing with pistols to shoot somebody dead, maybe, before we begin upon whatever we have to do. Our friend Captain Jackson here sails to-morrow morning, wind and weather permitting, and here’s the letter he’s to take up to Mr. Parker. He understands what we’re about, and he undertakes to take the letter up for five pounds.”

“Why, you black-hearted son of a sea-cook!” Captain Blackbeard roared at the other captain. “What d’ye mean by asking five pounds to take a bit of paper like that up to Virginia?” He glowered at his visitor for a moment or two, and the skipper laughed uneasily. “Ye call yourself an honest man, do ye? Ay, an honest man that’ll rob a thief and say ’twas not him took it first. Let me see the letter,” said he, reaching out his hand to Mr. Knight.

Mr. Knight handed him the letter, and the pirate captain drew the candle over toward him and read it slowly and deliberately. “Well,” he said, as he folded it, “I dare say ’tis good enough.”

“Trust the captain to tell what’s what,” said Hands, taking the pipe out of his mouth as he spoke. “He—he can read a let—ter as well as the betht o’—the best o’ ye.” He held the pipe for a while, looking uncertainly into the bowl, and then thrust his finger into it.

“You hold your noise, Hands,” said Captain Teach; “you’re in your liquor, and not fit to talk.”

“Well, captain,” said Captain Jackson, “I’ll take the letter for five pounds; but I won’t take it for a farthing less. D’ye see, I run a risk in doing it, for I’m an honest man—I am, and nobody hath yet said that black is the white of my eye. And if I’m to run the risk of losing my honesty by dealing with pirates,—if I may be so bold as for to say so,—why, five pounds is little enough to ask for it.”

Captain Teach stared at him for awhile in silence without replying. “Here, captain,” he said, “fill a glass for yourself,” and he pushed the bottle and a glass across the table toward his visitor. “Fill your glass, Mr. Secretary. You villain!”—to Captain Jackson—“you’re worse than any of us to play you’re decent and honest, and to be a thief upon pirates.”

“Why, captain,” said Mr. Knight, “I believe I don’t choose to drink anything to-night.”

“By heaven! you shall drink,” said Captain Teach, scowling at him, and then Mr. Knight reluctantly filled his glass. But he kept a keen eye upon the pirate captain, and presently, as he more than expected, he saw him begin fumbling again in the pockets in which he carried his pistols. And then, as he still watched, he was certain he saw the glint of the light upon the barrel. Whether he was right or wrong, he did not care to risk the chance; neither did he choose to say anything of what he saw, fearing lest he might precipitate some desperate drunken act, and perhaps call the pirate’s anger down upon himself.

“Wait a bit,” he said, “I want to go up on deck a minute—I’ll be down again by and by,” and he edged his way out along the bench.

Captain Teach watched him gloomily as he left the cabin, and after his legs had disappeared through the companion-way he still sat staring for a while out of the open scuttle. Then he turned and looked gloweringly at the other two. Hands was trying to explain to the skipper how he had once been an honest man himself. “Yes, sir,” he was saying, “I’d have no more to do with such bloody villains as these here be—than—than—but what was an honest man to do for hisself?”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Captain Jackson. “Where’s Mr. Knight gone?” he asked.

Hands looked about, as though observing for the first time that he was not there. “Why, I don’t know,” he said. “Mr. Knight—where be Mr. Knight?” As the sailing-master spoke, Blackbeard leaned a little forward, and suddenly blew out the light of the candle, leaving the cabin in utter darkness. The next moment there came a double dull, stunning report from beneath the table, and Hands yelled out in instant echo: “O Lord! I’m shot!”

Captain Jackson sat for a moment, dazed by the suddenness of that which had happened. Then he scrambled desperately out along the bench upon which he sat, and ran clattering up on the deck. “What’s the matter?” cried Mr. Knight, who had turned at the sound of the pistol-shots. “What’s happened?”

“Oh!” panted Captain Jackson, breathlessly, “I don’t believe that’s a man; I believe it’s a devil. He blew out the light and shot his pistols under the table. He’s shot Hands.”

The two stood listening for a moment—there was perfect silence below, only for the now regular groaning of the wounded man. “Here, fetch that lantern,” Mr. Knight called out. “There’s somebody shot down in the cabin.”

The men from the boat came scrambling over the edge of the sloop, one of them bringing the lantern with him.

Captain Jackson took the light from him and went to the open companion-way, where he held it for a while, looking down into the yawning darkness beneath. He hesitated for a long time before venturing down. “Go on,” said Mr. Knight. “Why don’t you go on? He’s shot off both his pistols and he hath no more to shoot now.”

“Why, to be sure,” said Captain Jackson, “I don’t like to venture down into a pit with such a man as that. There’s no knowing what he’ll do.”

“He can’t do any more harm,” urged Mr. Knight. “He hath shot his pistols now, and that’s all there is of it.”

“Oh! oh!” groaned the wounded man from out of the darkness.

Finally, after a great deal of hesitation, Captain Jackson went slowly and reluctantly down below. Mr. Knight waited for a moment, and, as nothing happened, he followed after, and the two sailors who had come aboard followed after him. The close space was filled with the pungent mist of gunpowder smoke. By the light of the lantern they saw that Captain Teach was sitting just where he had sat all the evening, gloomy and moody. One of the empty pistols lay upon the table beside him, and the other he must have thrust back again into his pocket. Hands was leaning over with his face lying upon the table; it was ghastly white, and there were drops of sweat upon his forehead. “Oh!” he groaned, “O—h!” He was holding one of his legs with both his hands under the table.

“Where are you hurt?” said Mr. Knight.

“Oh!” groaned Hands, “I’m shot through the knee.”

“Lookee, captain,” said Mr. Knight, “you’ve done enough harm for to-night. D’ye mean any more mischief, or do you not?”

Captain Blackbeard looked heavily at him, swaying his head from side to side like an angry bull. “Why, how can I do any more mischief?” he said. “Don’t you see that both pistols are empty? If I had another I wouldn’t swear that I wouldn’t blow both your lives out.”

“Let’s see where you’re hurt,” said Captain Jackson to Hands. “Can you walk any?”

“No,” groaned Hands. “Ah—h!” he cried more shrilly and quaveringly as Captain Jackson took him by the arm and tried to move him. “Let me alone—let me alone!”

“You’ve got to get out of here somehow,” said Captain Jackson. “Come here, Jake—Ned!” he called out to the two sailors who stood close to the foot of the companion-ladder. “Here, help me get this man out!”

With a great deal of groaning and dragging and shuffling of feet they finally dragged Hands out from behind the table. The blood was flowing down from his knee, and his stocking was soaked with it. Captain Teach sat gloomily looking on, without moving from his place or saying anything.

“What did ye shoot the man for, anyhow?” said Mr. Knight, as he stood over the wounded Hands, who now sat on the floor holding his shattered leg with both hands, swaying back and forth and groaning.

Captain Blackbeard looked at him for a moment or two without replying. “If I don’t shoot one of them now and then,” said he, thickly, “they’ll forget who I be.”

The letter reached Mr. Richard Parker some two weeks later at Marlborough, where he was then staying. The great house was full of that subdued bustle that speaks so plainly of illness. It was Colonel Parker. In the shock and despair that followed the abduction of his daughter, the gout had seized him again, and since then the doctor had been in the house all the time. “How is my brother this morning?” Mr. Richard Parker had asked of him.

“Why, sir, I see but very little change,” said the doctor.

“Yes, I know that; but can’t you tell me whether the little change is for the better or worse?”

“Why, Mr. Parker, sir, ’tis not for the worse.”

“Then it is for the better?”

“No, I do not say that, either, sir.”

“Well, what do you say, then?” said Mr. Parker, his handsome face frowning.

“Why, sir, I can only say that there is little change. His honor does not suffer so much, but the gout still clings to his stomach, and is not to be driven out.”

It was some little time after the doctor had so spoken that Mr. Knight’s letter was given to Mr. Parker. He had eaten his breakfast alone, and the plate and broken pieces of food still lay spread before him as he read and re-read the note. He sat perfectly still, without a shade of change passing over his handsome face. “’Tis indeed true,” said part of the letter, “that the young lady appears to be really ill, and if her father does not presently redeem her out of their hands she may, indeed, fall into a decline;” and then was added, in a postscript to the passage, “This is, I assure you, indeed the truth;” and the words were underscored.

There was no change upon his face when he read the passage, but he sat thinking, thinking, thinking, holding the open letter in his hand, his gaze turned, as it were, inward upon himself. Should she die, what then? There could be no doubt as to how it would affect him if father and daughter should both die. By his father’s will, the Parker estate that had been left to his brother would come to him in the event of the other’s dying without heirs. One of the servants came into the room with a dish of tea. Mr. Parker looked heavily and coldly at him, his handsome face still impassive and expressionless. “I can do nothing with my brother now,” he was saying to himself as he looked at the servant; “he is too ill to be troubled with such matters. Yes, Nelly will have to take her chances until Birchall is well enough for me to talk to him. I meant her no harm, and if she falls sick and dies, ’tis a chance that may happen to any of us.”