Chapter XXXIV

THE ESCAPE

JACK did not—he could not—immediately realize that he was now actually, so suddenly, and so unexpectedly, to undertake that which he had dreamed of and vaguely planned that day. It was not until he saw Dred in the act of lacing his shoes, not until he saw him in the act of putting on his coat and taking his hat down from the peg behind the door, that it really came upon him to thrill with that keen pang that sometimes heralds the immediate performance of some pregnant act of life. Then he did thrill, stretching himself with that sudden nervous tension that perhaps all of us have sometimes felt. There was something about the fact of Dred lacing his shoes, and putting on his coat and hat, that made the certainty of what he was embarked upon very present and very real. In one little hour, now, he might be upon his way back to Virginia again, and once more he thrilled keenly and poignantly at the thought.

Dred opened the stair door and stood listening for a while, but all was perfectly still and hushed above. The pirate’s wife had evidently gone to sleep with the instant sleep of a tired woman. Then Dred closed the door again, and, nodding to Jack, led the way out into the darkness of the night. Here again they stood for a while, the night air breathing chilly about them, while Dred listened. But there was not a breath of sound, not a glimmer of light. Then together they walked around to the end of the house where Jack had before stopped to speak to the young lady that evening. Jack went over beneath the open window, and called to her in the same whispering voice he had used before, Dred waiting the while at the corner of the house, keeping a sharp lookout. Jack had to call again and again; for, whether she failed to hear him, or whether she did not choose to immediately reply, it was some time before the young lady showed her face. When she did appear at the window, she stood for a while as though dazed, and listened to what he had to tell her as though not understanding what he said. He had to repeat to her that he and Dred had come to do what he had promised to do that evening—to take her away back home again to Virginia if she were willing to go with them. “To take me away?” she said, vaguely; and then, as the meaning of it all broke upon her, she cried out, “Oh, do! Oh, do take me away! For heaven’s sake, take me away from here!”

“We will, we will! That is what we have come for,” said Jack. But she did not seem to hear him, but cried out again and vehemently, “If you only will take me away, I’ll do anything in the world for you; and my father will do anything for you. Oh, please, kind, good men, do take me away!”

She was perhaps hysterical from the dreadful fright she must have suffered in the morning, and, as the understanding of a possible escape came upon her, she appeared to forget all caution. Jack was so struck by her sudden passion that he did not know what to say to check her; but Dred came hurrying up, and warned her in a whisper to be still: “We mean to help you to get away, mistress,” he said, in a breathing whisper; “but if ye takes on so as to disturb everybody in the house and wake ‘em up, why, we can’t do anything to help you.”

They could see that she put a great restraint upon herself, trying to stifle her crying, clinging to the frame of the lifted window-sash. Then she seemed to suddenly remember that her clothes had been taken away, and that the pirate’s wife had locked the door upon her. “But my clothes!” she cried. “I had forgot them, and then the door is locked, too. I can’t get away, after all. Oh, I know I never shall get away from here!”

“Yes, you will, mistress,” said Dred; “don’t you fret about that, now. Jack, here, shall fetch you your clothes, for they’re only just inside, and I’ll go bring the ladder from the shed over yonder, and so you can get down as quick as a wink. Don’t you fret and cry any more; you get yourself dressed as quick as you can after Jack fetches your clothes, and we two’ll go down and get the boat ready. Then we’ll come back for you. Just you get ready, and we’ll be ready for you.”

Jack hurried off, glad to do something for her that might soothe her. He entered the house very quietly, and had no difficulty in finding the clothes that Betty had thrown into the hutch. When he returned with them he found that Dred had already brought the ladder, and set it up against the side of the house. He climbed part way up the ladder, and reached the bundle silently up to her as she reached down for it.

His heart was very full of her as he and Dred walked down to the boat together. “Pore young thing!” said Dred. “‘Twas as if the thought of going had nigh broke her heart,” and Jack nodded his head without speaking.

As they approached the waterside the broad mouth of the creek stretched out dim and misty before them into the night. The trees of the further shore stood out obscurely in the darkness, and the pallid, rippling surface of the water seemed to stretch away to dim, infinite distance. The little waves beat with a recurrent and pulsing plash and slide upon the beach, and the chill air was full of the smell of brackish water and of marshy ooze.

The yawl, a big, clumsy, broad-beamed, open boat, lay drawn up on the beach near to the landing. The mast, with the sails furled close and snug, the gaff, and the long oars lay along the thwarts. Jack helped Dred step the mast, and together they partly loosened the reef-points so that the sail hung limp and ready to be spread at a moment’s notice. There was a small barraca nearly half-full of water in the bow of the boat. Dred lifted it out, drew the plug, smelled briefly at the water, and then turned it out upon the sand. Then he sat down upon the rail for a talk, while the water glugged and gurgled out of the keg upon the beach. “D’ye see,” he began, “I look at this here affair this way. ’Tis not as though I was playing the captain false, d’ye see? for I was dead set against this here venture from the very first, and he went into it in spite of me. I didn’t want the girl fetched here, and I told him he would be getting hisself into bitter trouble if he did fetch her. Well, he would do it, and now ’tis just as I said. Now, d’ye see, ’tis either to take this young lady away, or else to sit by and see her die, as she’s bound to do if she lives here much longer; and ’tis as bad for the captain one way as ’tis another. If she dies on his hands he’ll be hung for sure, and if she gets away, the whole province of Virginny’ll be down here to roast him out; and either way ’tis as bad as can be, and nothing gained if she dies. Well, then, I don’t choose to sit by, and let her die, and no good come of it. My neck’s mightily precious to me, for ’tis all I’ve got; and if I can save it from being stretched by taking her back home again, why not do it—can ye tell me that?”

“What you say’s true enough, Dred,” said Jack.

But Dred appeared to be speaking more for himself than for Jack, and he sat for a while in silence. The water had all run out from the keg, but still he did not move. Then he suddenly began speaking again. “There’s summat as I don’t know as I ever told ye about, lad. D’ye remember my telling you once how I shot a young gentleman aboard an English bark the captain took some two years or more ago?”

“Yes, I do,” said Jack. And then an instant light flashed upon him. Dennis had several times told how young Mr. Edward Parker had been killed by the pirates, but the coincidence had never before struck him. It had never before occurred to him to parallel the tragedy of young Mr. Parker with the story Dred had told him about shooting a young gentleman aboard the Duchess Mary; nor is it likely that he would have thought of it now, only for the very meaning tone in which Dred spoke. “Why, then, was it you shot Mr. Edward Parker?” he cried out, and he could see in the gloom that Dred nodded his head. It was only after quite a while that Dred said, “Ay, ‘twas I shot him, and now you knows it.” Jack sat looking intently at him through the glimmering darkness. “Now, what I mean to say is this,” he continued; “when we gets back to Virginny, don’t you go telling to anybody that I was ever mixed up in that there business, for ‘twould mean hanging for me if you did. What’s done can’t be cured, and ‘twould only get me into a peck of trouble if you was to talk about it. D’ye see, if I’m going to take the trouble and risk of carrying this young lady back to her father, why, I ought to get paid for it, and not get hung at the end of all my trouble.”

“I’ll not say anything about it,” said Jack. “I never thought of it being you who shot the young gentleman. So far as I’m concerned, I sha’n’t say a word about it; but how about the captain? Won’t he be likely to tell about it for the sake of getting even with you?”

“That for the captain!” said Dred, with a gesture. “Who’ll mind what he says? If Colonel Parker’s going to give me anything for bringing his gell back he’ll give it, and then away I goes out of harm’s way. By the time the captain’s had time to talk, why, I may be as far away as Indjy or Cochin Chiny.”

Then he arose and picked up the empty barraca and led the way up to the house.

It was maybe half an hour before everything was ready for the departure. Beside a barraca of fresh water, they brought down and stowed away in the boat a ham, a flitch of bacon, a bag and a half of biscuit, and a lemon net full of yams. Everything was done so silently that the pirate captain and his wife and the wounded Hands slept on undisturbed by their preparations. Then, all being ready, they shoved the yawl off from the shore, and drew it around to the end of the wharf, where they lashed it with stern-lines and bow-lines to the piles. “Now, lad,” said Dred, “we’re ready to start; and if you’ll go up and fetch the young lady, I’ll go up to the house and bring down the two storm-coats. Like enough we’ll need ‘em afore we gets to the end of our cruise.”

Jack found Miss Eleanor Parker ready, and waiting for him. He climbed the ladder to the window, and she handed him out her traveling-bag. Then he noiselessly assisted her to the ladder, and thence to the ground. He did not say anything to her nor she to him, as they walked rapidly away together in the silence down toward the boat. Before they had gone very far they caught up with Dred, carrying the two storm-coats. He opened one of the pockets, and showed Jack that he had brought Captain Teach’s case-bottle, which had been newly filled with rum, and he burst out into a soundless laugh as he dropped the bottle back into the pocket again. “A cruise with a girl and a boy,” he said, “and a yawl-boat for to cruise in! What d’ye think of that for a bloody salt like I be?” and he fetched Jack a slap on the back. Jack could smell the fumes of rum upon his breath, and he knew that Dred must have been taking a drink before he left the house. He did not reply, and after that they walked on in silence down to the little wharf and out to where the yawl lay at the end of the landing.

“I tell ye what ’tis, mistress,” said Dred; “if your father don’t stand to me for this here, there’s no such thing as thankfulness in the world. I tell you, he ought to pay me well for doing this, and trying to get you back home again.”

“Indeed—indeed, my father’ll never forget what you’re doing for me!” she cried. “Nor shall I ever forget it either, but will be grateful to you both for as long as ever I live.” Then Jack and Dred helped her down into the boat. As Dred stepped forward to spread the sail, Jack pushed the yawl off with one of the oars, and it drifted slowly away from the end of the little wharf into the broad, dim, night-lit waters of the creek. Then he turned to help Dred loose the sail, the boat drifting slowly further and further away into the pallid night, and the young lady sitting silent and motionless in the stern thwarts.