Chapter XXXVI

A STOP OVER NIGHT

AS THE DAY had settled toward sundown the breeze had sprung up again. There was a growing bank of haze in the west through which the sun shone fainter and fainter as it approached the horizon and then was swallowed up and lost. The wind, blowing strong and full, drove the water into ridges that caught up to the yawl as it sailed free before the breeze, ran past it swiftly, and left it behind. Dred seemed almost elated. “This be the wind for luck,” he said. “Why, I do suppose that, gin the captain the best he could have, we’ve got a fifteen-league start on him, and he’ll never overhaul that. ‘T will blow up stiff from the east’rd to-morrow, like enough, and ‘twill be a cross sea ag’in’ us beating up into the head of the Sound, but fifteen leagues of start means a deal, I can tell ye. And, besides that, the captain’ll most likely sail straight for Ocracock. It be n’t likely, d’ye see, that he’d think of running up into the sounds. He’d think that we’d trust to our lead of any chase and strike right for the open water through Ocracock, and he’ll not think we’d try to make through the shoals out Currituck way.”

Jack had no notion at all of the geography of the sounds, but he did understand that while they were going one way, Blackbeard would probably be going another.

Meantime the gray light of the failing day had softened the harsh outlines of the pine and cypress woods into a mysterious gloom of shadows. They were sailing now not over two or three furlongs from the shore as they ran yawing along before the wind. Upon one side of them were thick swamp forests, upon the other the seemingly limitless water of the sound, reaching away its restless gray without any sign of a further shore.

So they sailed for a while in silence, the gray light growing duller and still more dull. “Do you know,” said Dred, suddenly speaking, “there’s a settlement up beyond that island yonder—or leastwise there was some houses there three or four year ago. I knowed the man what lived there then, and I’m going to put in, d’ye see, and find out whether he lives there yet awhile. If he do, I’ll get him to let us stay over night. D’ye see, I can’t stand sailing forever, and the young lady can’t stand it, neither. So we’ll make a stop here, if we’re able. Like enough we’ll make another in Shallowbag Bay in Roanoke Island. Arter that we’ll make a straight stretch for Currituck.”

Jack was looking out ahead at the island of which Dred had spoken. It was separated by a little inlet from the wooded shores. Dred laid his course toward a point of land that jutted out into the water, and the shore slid swiftly away behind them as they rushed onward before the wind. “How far is it to the settlement?” asked Jack.

“Just beyond the p’int yonder,” said Dred, briefly. He was looking steadily out ahead.

As they came nearer to the point, the waters of a little bay began to open out before them. It spread wider and wider, and at last they were clear of the jutting point. Then Jack saw the settlement of which Dred had spoken.

There was a slight rise of cleared land, at the summit of which perched a group of four or five huts or cabins. They were built of logs and unpainted boards beaten gray with the weather. Two of the houses showed some signs of being inhabited; the others were plainly empty and deserted, and falling to ruin. Near the houses was a field of Indian corn dried brown with the autumn season, and there were two or three scrubby patches of sweet potatoes, but there was no other sign of cultivation.

Dred put down the tiller and drew in the sheet, and the boat, heeling over to the wind that now caught her abeam, met the waves splashing and dashing as it drove forward upon its other course. Gradually the trees shut off the rougher sea, and then the yawl sailed more smoothly and easily. Presently a dog began barking up at one of the houses, and then two or three joined in, and Jack could see the distant hounds dim in the twilight gray of the falling evening, running down from the houses toward the landing. At the continued noise of their barking several figures appeared at the door of the two cabins—first a man, then two or three half-naked children, then a woman. Then a young woman came to the door of the other cabin with a baby in her arms, and a young man. “Ay,” said Dred, “that be Bill Gosse, for certain.” Then finally the boat grated upon the shore, the sail falling off flapping and clattering in the wind, and the voyage of the day was ended.

The man who had first appeared went into the house, the next moment coming out with a tattered hat upon his head. He came down toward the landing, the children following him scatteringly, and the woman standing in the doorway, looking down toward them. The young man was also coming slouching behind. Dred and Jack had lowered the peak and had begun to take in the boom when the man reached the shore. Jack looked at him with a good deal of curiosity, and the young lady sat in the stern thwarts also gazing at him. He was tall and lean and sallow. A straggling beard covered his thin cheeks and chin, and a mat of hair plaited behind hung down in a queue. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and he wore a pair of baggy breeches tied at the knees. “Hullo, Bill!” said Dred. “How be ye?”

“Be that you, Chris Dred?” said the man in a slow, dull voice. “Who’ve ye got there with ye?”

“This? This here is a young Virginny lady of quality,” said Dred. “She’s been took sick, and we—this lad and me—is carrying her back home again. I’ll tell ye all about that by and by. What I want to know now is, will you take us in for the night? The holy truth is, I’m just getting over the fever, and this here young lady, as I said, be sick too. We’ve been sailing all day, and so I thought maybe you’d let us make port here for the night.”

The man stood stolidly watching Dred and Jack furl and tie up the sail. He did not offer to help them. “Where did ye come from?” he asked, at last, in the same slow, heavy voice.

“Down from the Pungo,” said Dred.

“Well, you’d better come up to the house and talk to my woman,” said the man, answering Dred’s initial question. “I be willing enough for you to stay, so far as I’m concerned.”

“Very well,” said Dred, “so I will. You wait here, Jack, till I come back again.”

He stepped stiffly out of the boat, and then the two went away together. The young man who had also come down to the shore remained behind, squatted upon the ground, staring fixedly at Jack and the young lady, who looked back at him with a good deal of interest.

“I do hope the good woman’ll let us stay all night,” said the young lady, suddenly breaking the long silence. “Indeed I feel mightily tired, and if I could only rest for that long I know it would do me a vast deal of good.”

“She’ll let you stay,” said the young man. “That’ll be all right, mistress.”

Just then Dred reappeared, coming back alone from the house down through the twilight, and confirmed what the young man had said. “’Tis all right,” he said, “and they’ll give us a berth for the night. Come along, mistress, I’ll help you.”

Miss Eleanor Parker rose, stiffened with the long sitting in the boat, supporting herself with her hand upon the rail. Dred reached out a hand and helped her out over the thwarts and to the beach. Then he climbed into the boat, and taking the case-bottle of rum out of the locker, slipped it into his pocket.

The woman and the three children stood in the doorway watching the three as they approached. As Jack entered he looked back and saw that the young man was bending over the yawl, examining it curiously.

The house consisted of one large room. There was a fireplace at one end of it; two benches, and two or three rickety chairs, a table, and two beds comprised the furniture. The man was standing by the fireplace with an empty pipe between his lips. “This here is the young lady,” said Dred to the woman. “I dare say she’d like to lie down now a bit while you’re getting supper ready,” and Miss Eleanor Parker acknowledged that she was very tired.

“Wasn’t that there Captain Teach’s yawl-boat?” the man asked of Dred.

“Ay,” said Dred.

“I thought I knowed her,” the man said.

Almost as soon as she had eaten her supper, the young lady went again and lay down upon the bed. Then Dred brought out the case-bottle of rum, and he and the two men began drinking. Jack watched them with growing apprehension, for they were helping themselves very freely. He thought every moment Dred would cork the bottle again, but he did not do so, and gradually the effect of the drink began to show itself. Jack could see that Dred was taking more of it than he should. He began to talk more volubly, and the stolid silence of the men began to melt also. The older man became at times almost quarrelsome. He repeated the same thing over and over again, and the young man would laugh foolishly at everything that was said. Jack looked toward the young lady, wondering whether she was conscious of what was going on. But she lay perfectly quiet and motionless, and he thought that maybe she did not perceive it. “Won’t you come over and join us?” said Dred, waving the bottle toward Jack, and then taking a drink himself.

“No,” said Jack, “I won’t.”

“Why not?” said the man. “You be n’t too proud to drink with us, be you?”

“No, I’m not,” said Jack, shortly, “but I don’t choose to. I’m tired, and I wish you’d stop drinking yourselves.”

“You be too proud by half,” the man said, thickly; “that be the trouble with you. You be too proud.”

The young man laughed and wiped his mouth with his fingers. “Why, no, Jack hain’t proud,” said Dred; “Jack and I’ve been messmates for many a day, hain’t we, Jack? D’ye know, he was kidnapped from England. His uncle over there is a rich lord or summat of the sort. Anyways, he’s got a stack of money. Hain’t that so, Jack?”

“I don’t care,” said the man, “who he be. The trouble with him is he be too proud—that’s what’s the trouble with him. When a man axes me to come and drink with him, I don’t care who he be, I goes. I wouldn’t be too proud to drink—no, not if I was a lord instead of a beggarly runaway.”

“He be n’t no runaway,” said Dred. “He and me was two of Blackbeard’s men. Now we be our own men. We be taking that there young lady back to Virginny.” Then he leaned across the table and whispered hoarsely, “She’s a beauty—she is.”

His hoarse whisper sounded very loud through the cabin. Jack shot a look at the young lady, but she did not move or seem to notice what was said. “I wish you’d be still, Dred,” he said; “you’re drinking more than you ought, and you don’t know what you’re saying.”

Dred looked gloomily at him for a while. “You mind your business, lad,” he said, “and I’ll mind mine. I know what I’m doing and what I’m saying well enough.”

Jack made no reply. He curled himself up on the bench and shut his eyes. Dred sat still, looking moodily at him for a little while. “You think I be drinking more than I ought, do you?” But still Jack did not reply nor open his eyes. “I’ll drink as much as I choose, and no man shall stop me.”

“You’ll make yourself sick again, that’s what you’ll do,” Jack said, shortly.

He lay there with his eyes closed, and presently, in spite of himself, the events of the day before and the sleepless nights he had passed began to press upon him, and he drifted off into broken fragments of sleep, through which he heard the men still talking and laughing. At last, after a while, he opened his eyes to silence. The fire had burned low, and the men lay sleeping on the floor with their feet turned toward the blaze. Jack arose, took up the bottle upon the table, and shook it beside his ear. There was still a little liquor in it, and he corked it and laid it behind him on the bench so as to make sure it should not be touched again.