Commodore Junk Part 39

"Not tell a soul," said Bart. "We're friends, and it's our secret, lad.

You'll hold your tongue?"

"Howlt my whisht? Yes," said Dinny, "I will. Bart, lad, d'ye feel freckened now?"

"No."

"Nor I, nayther. It was the thought that there was something else that freckened me. Phew, lad! it's very hot."

He wiped the great drops of sweat from his brow, and then, as Bart ended his task--

"Ye were scared, though, Bart," he said.

"Yes, I never felt so scared in my life."

"I shake hands, thin, lad, on that. Thin I needn't fale ashamed o'

running away. Faix, but it's an ugly job! Oh! the divils. Sure, and whin I die I won't be buried here."

Dinny's observations were cut short by Bart placing the lantern on the deal case; and then together the two men bore their eerie load down to the boat and laid it across the bows, the lantern being hidden once more beneath the folds of the great cloak with which the rough coffin was solemnly draped.

"You'll be silent, Dinny," said Bart.

"Niver fear, my lad," said the Irishman.

Then the boat was run out as far as they could wade, the sail hoisted, and long before dawn they reached the schooner, over whose side hung a signal light.

As they reached the vessel, the captain's face appeared in the glow shed by the light. The coffin was lifted on board, and then down into the captain's cabin, after which the schooner's wide wings were spread, and she was speeding on over the calm waters to the shelter, far away, that formed the buccaneers' retreat and impregnable home, while Commodore Junk went down to his cabin, to kneel by the coffin side, and pray for strength to complete his vengeance against the world and those who had robbed him of the only one he loved.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

THE PEST OF THE WEST.

The merchants of Bristol sent in a pet.i.tion to His Majesty the King, saying that the trade of the port was being ruined, that their ships were taken, that the supplies of sugar and tobacco must run short, and that, while the ladies would suffer as to their coffee, there would soon be no snuff ground up for the t.i.tillation of the noses of the king's liege subjects.

Always the same story--Commodore Junk, in command of a long, low, fast-sailing schooner, was here, there, and everywhere. This sugar and coffee-laden ship was plundered and burnt off Kingston port, so near that the glow of the fire was seen. That brig, full of choice mahogany logs, was taken near Belize. A fine Bristol bark, just out of the great port of South Carolina, full of the choicest tobacco-leaf, was taken the next week. And so on, and so on. Ships from Caracas, from the Spanish, French, and Dutch settlements, heavily-laden, or from England outward bound, were seized. All was fish that came to the pirate's net, and if the vessels were foreign, so much the worse for them, the buccaneer captain dealing out his favours with fairly balanced hand till the sh.o.r.es of the great gulf and the islands that formed the eastern barrier rang with the news of his deeds.

Government heard what was said, and replied that five years before they had sent out a ship to capture Commodore Junk, that there was a severe engagement, and the captain was taken and hung, and afterwards gibbeted off the port where his deeds obtained most fame.

To which the Bristol merchants replied in a further pet.i.tion that though it was as the Government stated, Commodore Junk's body had been taken down from the gibbet soon after it was hung up, that he had come to life again, and that his deeds were now ten times worse than before.

Moreover, that somewhere or another on the western sh.o.r.es of the great Mexican Gulf, he had a retreat where he lived in great luxury when ash.o.r.e; that maidens, wives, and widows had been captured and taken there to live a life of terrible captivity; that many b.l.o.o.d.y deeds had been done after desperate fighting, men being compelled to walk the plank or sent adrift in small boats far from land; and that, though spies had been sent out, no one had been able to discover the mysterious retreat, even the Indians who had been bribed to go returning with their heads minus their ears, or else with strange tales that the buccaneer was under the protection of the great thunder G.o.ds, whose home was in the burning mountains, and that it was useless to try to destroy him and his crew.

Moreover, the men of Bristol said that it was a crying shame that their ships and cargoes should not have adequate protection, seeing what a deal they paid to the revenue for the goods they imported, and that one of His Majesty's ships ought to be more than a match for all the thunder G.o.ds in Central America, and His Majesty's pet.i.tioners would ever pray.

The king's minister of the time said that the men of Bristol were a set of old women, and that it was all nonsense about Commodore Junk; and for some months longer nothing was done. Then came such an angry clamour and such lengthy accounts of the crimes the buccaneer had committed that the Government concluded that they must do something, and gave their orders accordingly.

The result was that one day Captain Humphrey Armstrong walked along the Mall in his big boots, which creaked loudly over the gravel. The gold lace on his uniform glittered in the sunshine; and as he wore his c.o.c.ked hat all on one side, and rested his left hand upon the hilt of his sword, which hung awkwardly across him, mixed up with the broad skirts of his coat, he looked as fine and gallant a specimen of humanity as was to be found in the king's service.

The officers of the king's guards, horse and foot, stared at him, and more than one pair of bright eyes rested with satisfaction on the handsome, manly face, as the captain went along smiling with satisfaction and apparently conceit.

It was with the former, not the latter, for the captain was on his way to Saint James's Square, to keep an appointment at Lord Loganstone's, and before long he was in earnest converse with Lady Jenny Wildersey, his lordship's youngest daughter, one of the most fashionable beauties of her day.

"Yes," said the captain, after nearly half an hour's preliminary conversation. "It is in the course of duty, and I must go."

"La!" said her ladyship, with a very sweet smile. "But couldn't you send someone else!"

"At the call of duty!" cried the captain. "No. Besides, you would not wish me to stay under such circ.u.mstances as those."

"La!" said her ladyship, as, after a show of resistance, she surrendered her lily-white hand, and suffered it to be kissed.

"And how long will it take you to capture this terrible buccaneer?"

"I shall be away for months," said the captain.

"La!" said the lady.

"But I shall fight like some knight-errant of old, and fly back."

"La!" said the lady.

"With the wings of my good ship," said the captain, "and hasten to lay the trophies of my victory at my darling's feet."

"You will be sure to bring him?" said the lady.

"I hope he will fall in the fight," said the captain.

"Then you are going to fight?"

"Yes, I am going out in command of a splendid ship with a crew of brave men, to attack and exterminate this horde of wasps, and I hope to do it like a man."

"But will anybody bleed?"

"I fear so."

"La! Will you be hurt?"

"I hope not. But I must run the risk; and if I come back wounded, it will be in your service, dearest, and then I shall claim my reward."

"No," said the lady, with one of her most winning looks. "I don't believe you. Sailors are worse than soldiers, and you will fall in love with one of the lovely Spanish ladies out there, and forget all about poor little me."

"Forget you!" cried the captain, pa.s.sionately; "never! My love for you grows stronger every day; and as to beauty, was there ever a woman so beautiful as you?"

"La!"

Captain Humphrey was about to throw himself on his knees as well as his big boots would allow; but just then the door opened, and fresh visitors were announced, and though the topic of the captain's appointment to the sloop of war _Queen Jane_, for the extermination of the West Indian buccaneers, formed the staple of the conversation, he had to leave at last with nothing warmer than a smile, but full of a great deal of hope.

For love had blinded the eyes of the stout captain lately introduced to the fashionable beauty, and welcomed on account of the fact that he had lately succeeded to the Devonshire estates of the Armstrongs, consequent upon the death of his cousin James, who had been killed in a duel arising out of some affair of gallantry, the husband of the lady in question objecting to Captain James Armstrong's advances, and running him through the body.