Chapter XLI

THE BOAT ADRIFT

NEARLY two months had passed in Virginia since Eleanor Parker had been abducted, and nothing yet had been definitely heard concerning her. There were many vague rumors from Ocracock, and it was known that Blackbeard the pirate had been for some time past up into Virginia waters. He had been seen at Norfolk two or three times, and it was known that he had been up into the James River. It was almost more than suspected that he had been concerned in the outrage, but there was as yet nothing definite to confirm such a suspicion.

Colonel Parker was still too ill to quit his room, though he had so far improved that he had begun to think of taking some steps for the recovery of his daughter.

One day Governor Spottiswood went up to Marlborough to see him. He was almost shocked to find the great man so weak and broken. “The villains!” said the sick man, in a weak and querulous voice, so different from his usual stately tones, “‘twas those men murdered my Ned, and now they have taken all that was left me.”

There was something very pathetic in the helplessness of the proud, great man, and in that weakened, tremulous voice. The governor did not reply, but he pressed the hand he held.

Mr. Richard Parker stood by his brother’s chair during his Excellency’s visit. The governor looked at him and wondered how he could be so calm and unmoved. He had never liked Mr. Richard Parker.

“My brother Richard,” said the invalid, putting his weak hand to his forehead, “my brother Richard seems to think it would be better to wait until we have some word from the villains who kidnapped Nelly.” He turned his eyes towards his brother as he spoke. “But I can’t wait; I must do something to find her, and I can’t wait. Just as soon as I am well enough I am going to take steps to find her. They say that villain Teach hath been seen up in the James River. Maybe ‘twas he took her away, and I am going to fit out a boat,—or two boats, if need be,—and go down to North Carolina and try to find her.”

Colonel Parker’s plan appeared singularly weak and inconsequential to the Governor, but he chose to comfort his friend by encouraging any plan that might bring hope to him.

“The Pearl and the Lyme are lying at Jamestown now,” he said. “I was talking t’other day about your dreadful misfortune to some of the officers who had come over to the palace. Lieutenant Maynard was there, and I am sure, from what he said, if you will fit out two such boats and will raise volunteers for such an expedition, he will take command of it. He is a brave and experienced officer, and hath had to do with the pirates before at Madagascar. He would make the best commander you could have, especially if it came to fighting with the villains.”

“To my mind,” said Mr. Richard Parker, cutting into the talk, “‘twould be a mistake to push against the villains. To my mind, ‘twould be better to rest for a while until we hear from them. I sha’n’t need to tell you that they can have no reason for kidnapping Nelly except for the ransom they can get for her. If that is so—and I’m sure it is so—’twill be to their interest to treat her well, and to look after her with all tenderness, and to let us know about her as soon as possible; but if we should use violence toward them there is no telling what they might do out of revenge. Maybe, if we press them too closely, they may carry her elsewhither from place to place, or, if they find themselves driven into a corner, they may even make away with her for their own safety or out of revenge.” Colonel Parker shuddered at the words, but Mr. Richard Parker continued calmly, as before, “I should advise to wait a little while longer. We have waited so long as this, and it can do no harm to wait a while longer with patience.”

At this Colonel Parker cried out in his sick, tremulous voice, “Patience! patience! ’Tis easy enough for you to talk of patience, brother Richard, but how can I be patient who have all I hold most precious in the world taken away from me? O Nelly, Nelly!” he cried, covering his eyes with his trembling hands, “I would give all I have in the world to have thee safe back again! I would! I would!”

The Governor could not bear to look at the sick man in his grief. He turned away his face and gazed out of the window. Mr. Richard Parker said nothing, but shrugged his shoulders.

Before the Governor went, he took Mr. Richard Parker aside and said to him, “Sir, there may be truth in what you said just now about the inadvisability of driving too hard against the villains, but surely you must see that ‘twill be infinitely better for your poor brother to have something to think of—to arouse himself. He sitteth here eating his heart out, and any plan of action is better for him than none. Were I in your place, I would encourage him in thinking of such things rather than discourage him from such hopes.” But Mr. Richard Parker only shrugged his shoulders as before, without vouchsafing any reply.

Governor Spottiswood had not thought that Colonel Parker’s rambling plans would result in anything, but within two weeks two boats were really fitted out—the schooner that belonged to Marlborough, and a larger sloop that was purchased for the purpose. It took a week or more to victual the boats and arm and man them, and by that time Colonel Parker was able to be up and about. He would listen to no advice, but insisted that he himself should have chief command of the expedition. Mr. Richard Parker advised him vehemently not to go, and Madam Parker besought him with tears to remain at home, while the doctor assured him that it was at the danger of his life that he went. “Sir,” said the great man to the doctor, “I have been a soldier; shall I, then, stay at home when my own daughter is in danger, and let others do the fighting for me? You shall go along, if you please, to look after my poor body, but go I shall, if God gives me life to go,” and so he did, in spite of all that his family could say against it.

At Norfolk he had another though slight attack of his malady, and by order of the doctor, who had sailed with the expedition, he rested for over a week at the home of a friend at that place.

It was while he was lying at Mr. Chorley’s house that he received the first fragment of news concerning the young lady that was at all definite.

A coasting vessel from South Carolina ran into Norfolk on Saturday night, coming direct from Ocracock, where she had put in during a storm a few days before. The captain of the coaster said that while they were lying at the inlet he had heard a good deal of talk about a strange lady whom it was said Blackbeard had brought down from Virginia to North Carolina a month or so before, and whom he had taken somewhere up into the sounds. It was a general report that she was extremely beautiful, and a lady of quality, and that she had been brought to North Carolina against her will.

It was on Sunday morning that somebody told Lieutenant Maynard about the coasting captain and his news, and he lost no time in coming to speech with the man. He took him directly to Mr. Chorley’s house, where Colonel Parker was still staying. Mr. Chorley and Mr. Chancellor Page and Dr. Young were all present when Captain Niles told his story to Colonel Parker. “It must be Nelly!” cried out the poor bereaved father. “It can be no one else than she!”

“I would not build too much upon such a rumor,” said Mr. Chorley. “Nevertheless, it does seem as though, at last, you have really news of her. And now the question is, how do you propose to act? ‘Twill never do to be too hasty in such a delicate matter.”

But Colonel Parker was so eager to set sail at once in quest of his daughter that he would listen to nothing that his friends advised to the contrary. Mr. Chorley urged again and again that the utmost caution should be used lest the pirates should carry the young lady still further away from rescue, or maybe take some violent action to protect themselves. He suggested that Governor Eden be written to and requested to take the matter in hand. “Write to Governor Eden!” Colonel Parker cried out; “why should I write to Eden? Why suffer so much delay? Have I not boats fitted out and sufficiently armed and manned with brave fellows to face all the pirates of North Carolina if need be? Nay; I will go down thither and inquire into this report myself without losing time, and without asking Governor Eden to do it for me.”

This, as was said, was on Sunday morning, and Colonel Parker determined that the expedition should set sail for North Carolina early upon the morning of the following day.

It was on this same day that the news was first brought to Virginia of the loss of the French bark. One of Colonel Parker’s two boats—the sloop, which was at that time under command of an ex-man-of-war boatswain, known at Norfolk as “Captain” Blume—one of Colonel Parker’s two boats had been beating up and down the mouth of the bay for several days past, hailing incoming or outgoing vessels in the hope of obtaining some news concerning the young lady. It was about ten o’clock that Sunday morning, when the lookout in the foretop of the schooner sighted an open boat under a scrap of sail, beating up into the bay against the wind. By and by they could make out with the glass that there were men in the boat waving their hats and something white, apparently a shirt or a shift, at the end of an oar. When the sloop ran down to the boat they found it loaded with twenty men and two women; one of the women very weak and exhausted from exposure, all of them haggard and famished.

The boat was one of those belonging to the French bark that the pirates had taken, and it had been adrift, now, for eleven days, having been parted from the others at sea during a time of heavy and foggy weather.

One of the women and three of the men were French; all the others were English—the remnant of the crew of the English bark that the Frenchman had rescued from the water-logged and nearly sinking vessel.

The man in command of the boat had been the mate of the English bark, and the story he told when he came aboard the sloop was one of continued mishaps and misfortunes that had followed them ever since they had quitted Plymouth in England for Charleston in South Carolina. Two days out from England, he said, the smallpox had broken out aboard, and the captain had died of a confluent case. Then, while the crew was still short-handed with the sickness, a storm had struck them and driven them far out of their course to the southward. Then the vessel had sprung a leak and was actually sinking under them when the French bark had picked them up. Then the Frenchman had been attacked and captured by the pirates, and all hands had been set adrift in the open boats with only three days’ provisions. That, as was said, had been eleven days before, and since that they had been trying in vain to make the Chesapeake capes, having been again and again driven out of their course by the heavy weather.

It is strange how much misfortune will sometimes follow an ill-fated vessel, one mishap succeeding another without any apparent cause or sequence. The mate said with a sort of rueful humor that he would not trust even yet that his troubles were over, nor until he felt his feet on dry land at Norfolk. He said that the Englishwomen and six of the Englishmen were redemption servants who had been shipped from Plymouth for Charleston.

After having heard the castaways’ story, Captain Blume thought it best to put back to Norfolk with the rescued crew. He reached that town late at night and reported immediately to Lieutenant Maynard, who was aboard of the schooner at the time, making ready for the departure on the morrow. The lieutenant, together with Captain Blume and the shipwrecked mate, went ashore and to Mr. Chorley’s house, where Colonel Parker still lay.

It was then nearly midnight, and as it was too late to find the magistrate, Colonel Parker gave orders that the rescued boat’s crew should be transferred to the schooner—it being the larger vessel of the two—and so held until the morning. They could then be turned over to the proper authorities for an examination under oath, and the bond-servants deposited in some place of safekeeping until they could be duly redeemed.

Lieutenant Maynard himself went aboard the sloop with Captain Blume to see that the transfer of the shipwrecked crew was properly made. As he stood by the rail while the men were being mustered a man came across the deck and directly up to him. He was one of the castaways, and when he came near enough for the light of the lantern to fall upon him, the lieutenant could see that he was a little man with a lean, dark face, and that he had a stringy, black beard covering his cheeks. His face was peppered over with the still purple pits of recent smallpox, and he was clad in a nondescript costume made up of a medley of borrowed raiment. Mr. Maynard looked the little man over as he approached. “Well, my man,” he said, “and what can I do for you?”

“Sir,” said the little man, “I ask for nothing but justice.”

“You go forward again, Burton,” said the mate of the rescued boat; “you’ll have plenty of chance to talk to the magistrate to-morrow.”

“Not till the gentleman hears me!” cried the little man.

“What do you want?” said the lieutenant. “What is the trouble?”

“Sir, I have been foully dealt with,” said the little man. “I am a lawyer; my name is Roger Burton. I am a man of repute and was held in respect by all who knew me in Southampton, whence I came. Sir, I was struck upon the head at night and nearly killed, and while I lay unconscious I was kidnapped, and came to myself only to find myself aboard of a vessel bound for the Americas.”

“He was one of a lot of redemption servants brought aboard at Plymouth,” said the mate. “He appeared to have been hurt in a drunken brawl.”

“Sir,” the little man protested, vehemently, “I was never so drunk as that in all my life.”

“Well, I am sorry for you, my man, if what you say is true,” the lieutenant said, “but ’tis none of my business. Many men are brought hither to America as you say you have been, and your case is not any worse than theirs. I am sorry for you, but the affair is not mine to deal with.”

“What, sir!” cried the little man, “and is that all the satisfaction I am to have? Is that all you, one of his Majesty’s officers, have to say to me who hold the position of a gentleman? Sir, in the eyes of the law, I have a right to sign myself esquire, as you have the right to sign yourself lieutenant, and to go under a gentleman’s title. Am I, then, to be put off so when I do but ask for justice?”

“You may sign yourself what you choose,” said the lieutenant; “and as for justice, I tell you ’tis none of my affairs. I am not a magistrate, I am an officer of the navy. You are a lawyer, you say—well, then, you can plead your own case when you get ashore, and if you have justice on your side, why, I have no doubt but that you will obtain it.”

“Come, now, Burton, you go forward where you belong,” said the mate.

The little man gave one last earnest look at the lieutenant. He must have seen that it was of no use to plead his case further, for he turned and walked away with his head hanging down.

“How many of those poor people had you aboard?” the lieutenant asked.

“We had fifteen in all. I had seven with me in the boat; six men and one woman. All the others but two died of smallpox.”