Blackbeard: Buccaneer Part 9

"If my good uncle is alive I mean to commend you to his kindness,"

exclaimed Jack. "We must cleave together, and you shall have a skinful of books and school and manners."

This pleased the young sea rover beyond measure and he diverted himself with pictures of a cleaner, kindlier world than he had ever known. In the small hours of the night, the twain drowsed upon their frail platform which floated as a speck on the shrouded ocean. The waves splashed over the spars as the breeze grew livelier and the piteous voyagers were sopping wet but the water was not chill and they slept through this discomfort.

Jack c.o.c.krell dreamed of walking in a green lane of Charles Town with lovely Dorothy Stuart. A wave slapped his face and he awoke with a sputtering cry of bewilderment. The eastern sky was rosy and the sea shimmered in the eternal beauty of a new day. Joe Hawkridge sat huddled against the mast, chin and knees together, his sharp eyes scanning the horizon. With a grin he exclaimed:

"The watch ahoy! Rouse out, shipmate, and show a leg! Turn to cheerly!

Holystone decks and wash down, ye lazy lubber."

Jack groaned and scowled as he rolled over to ease his aching bones. He was in no mood for jesting. There was no land in sight nor the gleam of a sail, naught but the empty waste of the Atlantic, and the wind still held westerly.

"Let's have the beggarly morsel you miscall breakfast, Joe, and a swig from the breaker. Are we bound across the main?"

"Straight for London River, and the school you prate about, my bucko,"

replied the scamp of a pirate. "Haul away on your belt and set the buckle tighter. 'Twill ease the cursed hunger pain that gnaws like a rat."

They munched the pittance of salty food which made the thirst the harder to endure, and then watched the sun climb hot and dazzling. It was futile to hoist the sail and so they pulled the canvas over them as the heat became more intense. By noon, Jack was begging for water to lave his tongue but Joe Hawkridge laughed him to scorn and swore to hit him with an oar unless he changed his tune. Never in his life had Jack known the lack of food or drink and he therefore suffered cruelly.

Worse than this privation was the increasing roughness of the sea. It was a blithesome wind, rollicking across a sparkling carpet of blue, with the little white clouds in flocks above, like lambs at play. But the raft was more and more tossed about and the waves gushed over it like foam on a reef. Through the day the castaways might cling to it but they dreaded another night in which their weary bodies could not possibly ward off sleep. Even though they tied themselves fast, what if the raft should be capsized by the heave of the mounting swell? It was the merest makeshift, scrambled together in haste as a ferry from the wreck of the _Plymouth Adventure_.

No longer did Jack c.o.c.krell bemoan his situation. Taking pattern from his comrade in misery, he set his teeth to await the end as became a true man of gentle blood. After all, drowning was easier than the slow torments of hunger and thirst.

Every little while one of them crawled from under the canvas to look for a ship. It was the vigilant Joe Hawkridge who, at length, discovered what was very like a fleck of cloud on the ocean's rim, to the southward. Afraid that his vision tricked him, he displayed no emotion but held himself as steady as any stoic. Jack was wildly excited, blubbering and waving his arms about. His hard-won composure was broken to bits. But even though it were a ship, Joe well knew it might pa.s.s afar off and so miss sighting this bit of raft which drifted almost submerged.

Slowly the semblance of a wandering fragment of cloud climbed the curve of the watery globe until Joe Hawkridge perceived, with a mariner's eye, that it was, indeed, a vessel steering in their direction.

"Two masts!" said he, "and to'gallant-sails set to profit by this brave breeze. A brig, Jack! Had she been a ship, my heart 'ud ha' been in my throat. Blackbeard's _Revenge_ might be working up the coast, did she live through the storm."

"A brig?" joyfully cried Jack. "Ah, ha, I see her two masts plainly, with mine own eyes. And they soar too tall for a merchant trader. Her sails, too,--she spreads them like great wings. Who else will it be than Captain Stede Bonnet in the _Royal James?_"

"A shift of luck is due us, by the bones of Saint Iago," shouted Joe, in a thrill of glad antic.i.p.ation. "Watch her closely. You saw the brig in Charles Town harbor. Bless G.o.d, this may well be Cap'n Stede Bonnet yonder, an' perchance he cruises in search of Blackbeard to square accounts with that vile traitor that so misused him."

"A sworn friend of mine is Stede Bonnet," proudly declared Jack c.o.c.krell, "and pledged to bear a hand when I am in distress. He will land us safe in Charles Town, Joe,--unless,--unless we choose to go a-piratin' with him in the _Royal James_----"

Jack's voice trailed off in tones of indecision so comical that his comrade cried:

"Not cured yet, you big numbskull? 'Cause this fine Cap'n Bonnet is a gentleman pirate? His neck will stretch with the rest of 'em when the law overtakes him. Thirteen burly lads I saw swinging in a row at Wapping on the Thames."

"I'll not argue it," sheepishly mumbled Jack. "However, we'll find a safe deliverance aboard this _Royal James_."

They clung to the swaying raft while the water washed over their knees and watched the two masts disclose themselves until they fancied they could not be mistaken. No other brig as powerful as this had been reported cruising in the waters of Virginia and the Carolinas. By a stroke of fortune almost incredible they had been saved at the very brink of death. The brig was steering straight toward them, hauled to take the wind abeam, and she would be up before sunset.

Shading his eyes with his hand, Joe Hawkridge suddenly uttered a curse so fierce and wicked that it was enough to freeze the blood. He clutched Jack's shoulder for support as though shorn of all his strength and hoa.r.s.ely gasped:

"Not two masts but three! See it? She lifts high enough to show the stump of the foremast with head-sails jury rigged. 'Twas the storm made a brig of her!"

"Then she may be Blackbeard's ship?" faltered Jack, in a whisper.

"Remember when the gale first broke and we parted company?" was the reply. "The _Revenge_ lost her fore-topmast ere the swine could find their wits."

"Aye, Joe, but this may be some other vessel."

"She looks most d.a.m.nably familiar," was the reluctant admission. "A great press of sail,--it fooled me into thinking her Stede Bonnet's brig."

Gloomily they waited until the black line of the hull was visible whenever the raft lifted on the back of a wave. This was enough for Joe.

He recognized the graceful shear of the flush deck which had been extended fore and aft to make room for a heavier main battery. Even at a distance, a sailor's eye could read other signs that marked this ship as the _Revenge_.

"The devil looks after his own," angrily exclaimed Joe. "I'd ha' wagered my last ducat that she was whirled away to founder. Blackbeard boasts of his compact with Satan. I believe it's true."

"Shall we pull down our mast and pray that he pa.s.ses the raft as a piece of wreckage?" implored Jack.

Mustering his wits to meet this new crisis, Joe Hawkridge cried impatiently:

"No, no, boy! This way death is sure, and most discomfortin'. If it suits Blackbeard's whim to pick us up, there is a chance,--a chance, I say, but make one slip and he will run us through with his own hand."

"We must arrange our tale of the wreck, Joe, to match without flaw.

Quick! What have we to say?"

"A task for a scholar, this," grinned the sea urchin. "If it's not well learned, we'll taste worse'n a flogging. Where be his prize crew of pirates, asketh Blackbeard. Answer me that, Jack."

"The _Plymouth Adventure_ was driven upon a shoal and lost," glibly affirmed the other lad who had rallied to play at this hazardous game.

"Her boats were stove up. We left the pirates building a raft for themselves and trusted ourselves to this poor contrivance, hoping to gain the coast."

"Good, as far as it goes," observed the critical Joe.

"And it veers close to the truth. About the ship's company? What say you?"

"There I hang in the wind," confessed Jack. "Blackbeard would have flung 'em overboard, I trow. Have a shot at it yourself."

"Well, leave me to answer that when the time comes. That we may agree, suppose we say Ned Rackham needed the sailors to work the ship and so spared 'em. Hanged if we can make it all true as Gospel."

"But if Blackbeard searches for the wreck, or if some of those pirates rejoin him, Joe----"

"But me no more buts," snapped the sea rover. "We be jammed in a clove-hitch, as the seaman's lingo hath it. Take trouble as it comes and, ware ye, don't weaken."

They stared at the oncoming ship, dreading to be rescued and even more fearful of being pa.s.sed by. Disfigured though she was by a shattered foremast, the _Revenge_ made a gallant picture as she leaned to show the copper sheathing which flashed like gold. Her bow flung the crested seas aside and Joe Hawkridge muttered admiringly:

"A swift vessel! She carries a bone in her teeth. A telescope can sight us soon. Steady the raft, Jack, whilst I wriggle up this mast of ours and wave my shirt."

"A hard choice," sighed Jack. "Now we well know what it means to be betwixt the devil and the deep sea."

They saw the _Revenge_ shift her course a couple of points as the sheets were eased off. A little way to windward of the raft, she hove to while a small boat was hoisted out. Curiosity prompted Blackbeard to find out who these castaways were and from what ship they had drifted. It occurred to Joe Hawkridge that he might be in quest of tidings of the two sloops of his squadron which no longer kept him company. Jack c.o.c.krell's teeth chattered but not with cold as the boat bobbed away from the side of the _Revenge_. Presently Joe recognized the pirate at the steering oar as a petty officer who had often befriended him.

This fellow's swarthy, pockmarked face crinkled in a smile as he flourished his broad hat and yelled:

"Stab my gizzard, but here's the London 'prentice-boy a-cruisin' on his own adventure."

"Right-o, Jesse Strawn," Joe called back. "My bark is short-handed. I need lively recruits. Will ye enlist?"