Back Aa

Dark Frigate

<h2>CHAPTER XII THE PORCUPINE KETCH</h2> Looking down from the quarter-deck the Old One spied the cook, who had come up to warm his bald head and fat face in the sun and to clear the smoke from his nostrils. "Ho, cook," quoth he, "I have a task for thee. Break out from the cabin stores rice and currants and cinnamon and the finest of thy wheaten flour. Seek you also a few races of green ginger. It may chance there is even a little marchpane, for this man Candle had a gentle palate. Spare not your old cheese, and if you unearth a cask of fine wine fail not to tell of it. In a word, draw forth an abundance of the best and make us such a feast as a man may remember in his old age." The cook smiled and rubbed his round paunch (yet cringed a little), for he was of a mind, being never slow in such matters, to filch from the cabin table whatever he might desire and his heart warmed to hear the good victuals named. "Yea, master," he cried, "for thee and for Mate Malcolm?" "Nay, thou parsimonious dog! Think you that such are the manners of gentlemen mariners? Times have changed. Though I be master, there is no salt at my board. One man is as good as another and any man may rub his shoulder with mine." The Old One's own men chuckled at the cook's blank face and the boy shivered when he thought that he must wait on them all, of whom one was as likely as another to fetch him a blow on the head. But the cook went down below and they heard him bawling to his mate to come and help break out the cabin stores, and word went through the ship of what was afoot. And though Will Canty and the boatswain, meeting, glanced dubiously each at the other, as did others of the Rose of Devon's old company,—for matters are in a sad way in a ship when the master feasts the men,—all the foolish fellows were clapping one another on the back and crying that here was a proper captain, and there was none quite so mad as to dispute them in so many words. The smoke grew thick between the decks, and after a while there rose the smell of baking and roasting, and the foolish ones patted their bellies and smacked their lips. They whispered about that the boy was spreading with a linen cloth the table in the great cabin and that the cook's mate was staggering under weight of rich food; and when the cook called for men to hoist out a cask of such nectar as poor sailors know not the like of, a great cheer went up and there were more hands to haul than there was room on the rope. The Old One, leaning on the poop, smiled and Harry Malcolm, coming to join him, smiled too; for they knew well the hearts of sailormen and did nothing without a purpose. So the table was laid and the feast was spread and in came the men. Only one remained at the helm, for the wind was light, which made light his task; six remained on deck to watch and stand by, with Harry Malcolm curled against the light gun on the quarter-deck to command them; and the cook and his mate, resting from their labours far down in the hold, gorged themselves on good food and drank themselves drunk on nappy liquor from a cask they had cannily marked for their own among the cabin stores. Of the rest, all that could find room crowded into the great cabin, and all that could find no room in the cabin squatted on the deck outside the door on the very spot where Francis Candle had fallen dead. They sat with their backs against bulkheads and stanchions, where they, too, could join in the feast and the council; and the boy, when all were fed, gathered meat from under the table like old King Adoni-bezek of unhappy memory. It was a sight to remember, for very merry they were and save as they were rough, hard-featured men, a man would never have dreamed they bore blood on their hands and murder on their hearts. The Old One sat at the head of the table and took care that neither food nor wine was stinted. The carpenter, his one eye twinkling with pleasure and his beard waggling in his haste lest another should get ahead of him at trencher work, sat on the Old One's right, which was accorded him as a mark of honour since he had accomplished marvels in restoring the planking the storm had torn asunder. A stout seaman of the rescued men, Paul Craig by name—it was he who had needed two blows to kill the helmsman—sat at the Old One's left and squared his big shoulders over his meat and ate like a hog till he could hold no more, for he was an ox of great girth and short temper and little wit, who ate by custom more than did him good. Another of gaunt frame, Joseph Kirk by name, sat smiling at a man here and a man there and tippled till his head wagged; and off in a corner there sat a keen little man with a hooked nose, who was older than most of those in the cabin yet had scarcely a wrinkle to mar the smoothness of his shaven face save above and behind his eyes, where a few deep lines gave him the wild look of a hawk. When he spoke, which was seldom, thick gutturals confused his words, and always he sat in corners. Does not a man looking out of a corner, with a wall on two sides of him and no one behind him, see more than another? His Christian name was Jacob and most of them knew him by no other; but mocking him they called it "Yacob." Further than that, which he took with a wry smile, they refrained from mocking him, for though he spoke little, his silence said much. The Old One rose and very sober he was as he held high a brimming can, and so steady was his hand that not a drop spilled. For a space he paused and looked around at the rough company seated at the long table and crouching in the mellow shadows beyond the door, then, "To the King!" he cried. Those not knowing him well, who stared in perplexity at such a toast in such a place and time, saw his eyes twinkle and perceived he was looking at old Jacob in the corner. Then old Jacob, smiling as at a familiar jest, rose in turn and raised his can likewise, and pausing to look about him, cried back at the Old One in his thick foreign voice, "The King and his ships—be damned!" A yell of laughter and derision shook the cabin. The one-eyed carpenter leaped up first, then such of the rescued men as were not too drunk to stand, then here and there men of the Rose of Devon's company, some eagerly in all earnestness, others having a mind to keep their throats in one piece, for they perceived that like enough the unholy toast was but to try their allegiance. The Old One's eyes leaped from man to man and his cold voice cut through the noisy riot of drunken mirth. "I had said Will Canty was a man of spirit, but his can hugs the table when these tall fellows are drinking confusion to the King." "A hand-napper, a hand-napper! Have him away, my hearts, to the Halifax engine," Joe Kirk bawled with a drunken leer. "Why," said Will Canty, and his face was white, but with a red spot on either cheek, "my can, since you say what you say, was dry; and for the matter of that, I am no prating Puritan who wishes ill to the King." Over the rumble of voices the Old One's voice rose loudest: "See you, then, religious cobblers or preaching button-makers among us?" "And there are others yet besides prating Puritans, mine friend, that drink our toast!" cried Jacob. The Old One then smiled, for he was no man to drive a nail with a two-hand sledge. But although he changed his manner as fast and often as light flickers on running water, under the surface there flowed a strong, even current of liking or ill will, as sooner or later all men that had dealings with him must learn, some to their wonder and some to their sorrow. "Enough, enough!" said he. "Will's a good lad and he'll serve us well when there's powder smoke to snuff. Be you not offended, Will. In all faith our ship is a king's ship and more, for are we not thirty kings, to fight our own battles and heave out our own flag before the world and take such treasures as will buy us, each and all, a king's palace and all the wives a king could wish? Nay, God helping us, my hearts, we shall carry home to good Mother Taylor riches that will serve for a sponge to wipe the chalk from every black post in Cornwall and in Devon, and Will Canty shall drink with us there." There rose a thunder of fists beating the board and a rumble of "Yea's," and the Old One made no end of smiling, but there were some whom his smile failed to deceive. "Come, boy, with thy pitcher of sack! Pour sack for all!" he cried. "Come, ply thy task and let no man go wanting. Fill you Will Canty's pot." He gulped down a mighty draught and wiped his moustaches with thumb and forefinger. "And now, brave lads, let us have our heads together: though we lie but a hundred leagues off these banks of Newfoundland, what say you? Shall we turn our backs on them and take a fling at a braver trade? Or shall we taste of fat lobsters and great cod, and perchance pluck the feathers from some of these New England towns concerning which there hath lately been such a buzz of talk in old England—at Cape Ann, let us say at venture, or Naumkeag, or Plymouth Colony?" "Yea, yea! I am for Cape Ann," cried Joe Kirk, and his head rolled drunkenly above his great shoulders as he bolstered his opinion with curses. "Did not my brother go thither, years and years agone, for the company of Dorchester merchants? Yea, and told rare tales of succulent great fish, which are a marvelous diet." "Nay, thy brother was as great a sot as thou," a voice put in, and Joe rose in anger, but a general clamour drowned his retort and he lapsed back into a sodden lethargy. "As for me," bellowed Martin with bluster and bravado, "I say go we to Plymouth and rap the horns of these schismatic Puritans. Tell me not but that they've mines of rich gold hid away. Did'st ever see a Roundhead knave would brave the wild lions of America unless he thought there was gold in't?" "Thou thyself art fool as well as knave," quoth the Old One. "Did'st thou not once cry the whole ship's company out of sleep to see a mermaid that would entice thee to thy peril? And when sober men had come on deck there was nought there but a seal-fish at play. Lions forsooth! In Africa even I have heard a lion roar, but not in America. Much searching of tracts hath stuffed thy head." The drunken Joe roused sleepily up. "My brother saw a lion at Cape Ann plantation. My brother—" He drew a knife and wildly flourished it, but fell back in a stupor before the laughter died. Martin's bluster, as was its way when a man boldly confronted it, broke like a pricked bubble, but his sullen glare caught the Old One's eye. Leaning over the table, the Old One said in a low, taunting voice, "And did you never see a man dance on air? Ah, there's a sight to catch the breath in your throat and make an emptiness in a man's belly!" As often happens when there has been a great noise and a man speaks in a low voice, there was a quick lull and the words came out as clear as the ringing of a half crown. Phil Marsham, looking across the table into the Old One's cold blue eyes, which were fixed on Martin, saw in them a flicker of calculating amusement; then he saw that Martin was swallowing as if he had a fishbone in his throat. In truth Martin wore the sickly smile that a man affects when he is cornered and wishes to appear braver than he is. He tried to speak but succeeded only in running his tongue over his lips, which needed it if they were as dry as they were blue. "Come, come, we get no place!" "Yacob! Yacob!" they cried at the sound of his voice, "Up on thy feet, Yacob!" He rose and stood in his corner. His long hair was brushed back from a forehead so high that it reached to a great lump on the crown of his head. His brows were knit with intense earnestness. His big nose and curled lips and small chin were set in what might have seemed in another place and another time scholarly intentness. They did him honour by waiting in silence for his words. "This bickering and jangling brings us no place. Shall we go on or shall we go back? Shall we go north or shall we go south? Those are questions we must answer. Now I will tell you. If we go on, we shall find little fishing ships, with fish and no chinks, and we shall get tired of eating fish. If we go back in this fine ship that God in his goodness hath given us, we shall hang. We may yet go back to Mother Taylor, but we must go back in another ship. You know why. Now, brave hearts, if we go on to New England it shall profit us nothing. For the New-English are poor. They live in little huts. The savages come down out of the woods and kill. Whether there be lions I do not know and I do not care; those savages I have seen and they are a very ugly sight. The English plantations are cold in winter like the devil. They are poor. The English, they play with poverty. "And if we go south? Ah-h-h! There are the Spains! They have sun and warmth and fruits and spices! They have mines of gold and silver and stones of great price. While the English play with poverty, the Spains play with empires! In New England we shall eat salt cods or starve—which is much the same, for salt cods are a poor diet. But in the South we shall maybe catch a galleon with a vast treasure." And with that, very serious and sure of his rightness, he sat down. "Yea, Yacob! Yea, Yacob!" they bawled and delighting in the alliteration cried it again, over and over. Paul Craig, heavy with sated gluttony, piped a shrill "Yea, Yacob," and the Old One pounded the table and grinned, for he had sailed many seas in Jacob's company. Phil Marsham—nay, and even Will Canty, too!—pricked ears at the sound of Spanish galleons; for the blue Caribbean and the blue hills of the main were fabled, as all knew, to hold such wealth as according to the tales of the old travellers was to be found in Cathay or along the banks of the first of the four rivers out of Paradise. And was not a Spanish ship fair prey for the most law-abiding of English mariners? There was a hubbub of talk as they sat there, and there was no doubt but they were of one mind to turn their backs on the bleak northern coast and seek a golden fortune in the south. But the council arrived suddenly at an end when down from the deck came the lingering call, "A sa-i-l! A sa-i-l!" Up, then, the Old One leaped, and he raised his hand. "A sail is cried. What say you?" "Let us not cast away what God hath offered us!" "Yea, Yacob!" "Up, you dogs in the steerage! A hall, a hall!" One fell over on the table in drunken torpor. Another rushed out the door and tumbled over a sleeper at the threshold. "Up, you dogs! How stands he?" They poured out of the cabin to the deck. "He stands on the lee bow!" "Bear up the helm! A fresh man at the helm!" the Old One thundered. He squinted across the sea. "Come, Harry—here on the poop—and tell me if she be not a ketch. Now she lifts—now she falls. 'Twill be a chase, I take it." The round little mate came nimbly up the ladder. "Helm a-luff!" said he in his light, quick voice, which at first the helmsman failed to hear. "Helm a-luff! A-luff, man! Art deaf? The courses hide her. There she lifts! Yea, a ketch. Let us see. It is now an hour to sunset. If we stand across her bows and bear a sharp watch we shall come up with her in early evening and a very proper moment it will be." His light, incisive speech, so unlike the boisterous ranting of the Old One, in its own way curiously influenced even the Old One himself. A man who has a trick of getting at sound reasons, unmoved by bluster or emotion, can hold his own in any company; and many a quiet voice can fire a ship's crew to action as a slow match fires a cannon. "Now, young men," Martin roared, "up aloft and loose fore and main topsails. And oh that our stout mizzenmast were standing yet!" "No, no, no!" cried Harry Malcolm and he almost raised his voice. "Thy haste, thou pop-eyed fool, would work the end of us all. Think you, if they see us fling every sail to the wind, they will abide our coming without charging their guns and stationing every gunner with linstock and lighted match? Nay, though she be but a ketch, let us go limping across her bows as lame as a pipped hen." "True, and with every man lying by the side of his gun, where they shall not see him until we haul up the ports and show the teeth of the good ship." It was Jacob who spoke thus as he climbed to Harry Malcolm's side. The Old One, looking down at the deck below, touched his mate's arm. "Yea, I see them. What do you want?" "It seems," said the Old One, "that our boatswain hath a liking for the fellow." "And that the fellow hath a liking for our boatswain, think you?" "Well?" Jacob thrust his long nose between them. "'Well,' you say, by which you mean 'not well.' It proves nothing that a man will not drink damnation to a king." The three heads met, high on the poop, and now and again they glanced down at the two lads who stood by the waist and watched the distant sail, which grew black as the sun set behind it. The sun set and the sea darkened and a light flamed up on board the chase, which appeared to show her good faith by standing toward the Rose of Devon. There was a rumble of laughter among the men when they perceived she had changed her course. The sober wrung oaths from the drunk by dashing bucketfuls of cold water in their faces. The gunners moved like shadows among the guns. And high on the poop, three shadows again merged into one. "Master Boatswain," the Old One called, but softly, "do thou take it upon thyself, although it lies outside thine own province, to make sure that powder and balls and sponges and ladles and rammers are laid ready." Hunching his bent shoulders, Mate Malcolm came nimbly down the ladder and from the chest of arms drew forth muskets and pistols. "Come, my bullies below there, knock open your ports!" It was the Old One's voice, but so softly and briskly did he speak that it might have been Harry Malcolm. As the dim figures on deck moved cautiously about, the subdued voice again floated down to them:— "Let all the guns be loose in tackles and stand by to run them out when the word is given. Port your helm! Every man to his quarters. Now, my hearts, be ready to show your courage and we'll have this wandering ketch for a consort to our good Rose of Devon." Then Harry Malcolm came in haste along the deck. "Who's to this gun? And who to this? Nay, you've a man too many there. Here, fellow, come hither! Here a man is lacking. You there, who are playing the part of gunner, have you ever heard these bulldogs bark? And understand you the business? Good, good!" And he passed on up the deck. Nought escaped him. In the silence they heard the sound of his voice and the quick pattering of his feet when they could see no more than that he was still moving among the guns. They had come so near the stranger that they must soon hail or be hailed, when a figure emerging from the steerage room in the darkness came upon Phil Marsham by the quarter-deck ladder and gave a great start. As Phil turned, the fellow whispered, "God be thanked it is thou! I thought it was another. Come with me to the side—here by the shrouds." The two stepped lightly under the shadow of the quarter-deck to the waist, where the carpenter had nailed in place new planks not twelve hours since, and together they raised a bundle. It was on the larboard side, and since all had gathered for the moment to starboard to watch the strange ketch, there was no man to observe them. Some one moved above them and they hesitated, then they heard slow steps receding and thick undertones that they recognized as Jacob's. When he had gone, the one who had brought the bundle whispered, "Heave it far out," and together they hove it. Still in the shadow of the quarter-deck, the two slipped silently back, unseen, and when Harry Malcolm came hurrying from one side, and Jacob from the other, to see what had made the splash, there was no one there nor could any man answer their questions. "Have you done as you said?" Phil asked in a breathless whisper. "That I have." And it was Will Canty who spoke. "Then we shall like enough be hanged; but thou art a tall fellow and I love thee for it." There came over the water a voice distinctly calling, "Whence your ship?" "Back to your guns, ye dogs!" cried Mate Malcolm in a voice that could be heard the length of the deck, yet that was not loud enough to be heard on board the stranger. "Of England," the Old One called from the quarter-deck. "And whence is yours?" There was a space of silence, in which the two vessels came nearer each other, and I would have you know that hearts ever so courageous were thumping at a lively pace. "And yours?" the Old One cried the second time. There came voices and a hoarse laugh from the stranger, then, "Are you merchants or men of war?" "Of the sea," cried the Old One in a voice so like thunder that a man would not think it could have come from his lean throat. "Run out your guns, O my hearts! Let him have the chase guns first. The chase guns—the chase guns!" Now one bawled down the main hatch, and another below echoed his cry, then there sounded the quick boom-boom from the bows. The guns had spoken and the fight was on. "Up your helm—up your helm! Hold your fire now, my hearts, and have at them!" the Old One cried. And now the voice came again over the restless sea. "Our ship is the Porcupine ketch and our quills are set." The dark sea tossed and rolled between the vessels and little that happened on board either was visible to the other, so black was the night; but the light of the sky, which the water reflected, made of each a black shape clear-cut as of jet but finer than the most cunning hand could carve, in which a man might trace every line and rope. And now from on board the ketch jets of flame burst out and after them came smartly the crack of muskets. "Now, lads," the Old One thundered, "give fire and make an end of this petty galling. Give fire!" A gun on the maintop-deck boomed and another followed; but there was confusion and stumbling and all were slow for want of practice together, and there was time lost ere the third gun spoke. Then, while Mate Malcolm was storming up the deck and the Old One was storming down, they heard the strange master calling to his gunners; then, to the vast amazement of the men of the Rose of Devon, who had cherished the delusion that their chase was a weak craft and an easy prize, on board the ketch as many as a dozen guns belched flame. Their thunder shook the sea and their balls sang through the rigging, and a lucky shot struck the Rose of Devon in the forecastle and went crashing through the bulkhead. The ketch then tacked as if to give fire with her other broadside but deftly swung back again and before the Old One or Harry Malcolm had fathomed the meaning of it there rose from on board her, the cries of "Bear up and close with him!"—"Board him on his quarter!" "Have ready your graplins!" "Sheer off, sheer off!" old Jacob roared. "Our powder is good for nought. Yea, she is in all truth a prickly porcupine." "If we foul, cut anything to get clear!" cried the Old One. "Put down your helm! Veer out your sheets! Cast off weather sheets and braces! Aloft, there, and clear the main yard where the cut tacklings foul it! Good lad, boatswain, good lad!" For on the yardarm Phil had drawn dirk and cut at the snarl of ropes, where a chance ball had wrought much mischief. Then, as the two vessels swung side by side he looked squarely into the eyes of a bearded man in the rigging of the ketch. The Old One—give the Devil his due!—was handling his ship in a proper manner and by luffing he had kept abreast of those guns in the ketch which had spent their charges. But it was plain that the Rose of Devon had caught a tartar. In all truth, she had run upon a porcupine with quills set, for though a smaller vessel, the ketch, it now appeared, carried as many men or more, and every man knew his place and duty. Looking down on her deck, Phil saw her gun crews toiling with sponges and rammers to load anew. She was herself, it seemed, a sea rover athirst for blood and in those wild, remote seas there was no fraternity among thieves. As the main yardarm of the Rose of Devon swung toward her rigging when the ship rolled, the bearded man ran a rope about the spar and in a moment the vessels were locked abeam and were drifting together till their sides should touch. Philip Marsham again drew the dirk that Colin Samson had wrought for him and leaning far out struck at the fellow's breast, who swung back to avoid the thrust, which pricked him but did no more. Then the fellow sprang to the attack with his own knife in hand, for he had thrown a knot in the rope, which creaked and tightened; and with a yell of triumph he struck at the lad, who swung to one side and struck back. It was a brave fight in the empty air, and the two were like warring spiders as they circled and swung in the darkness and thrust each at the other. But the lad was many years the younger, and by so much the more nimble, and his dirk—for which all thanks to Colin Samson!—smote the fellow a slashing blow in the thigh. And while the fellow clung to the shrouds, weak with pain, a second Rose-of-Devon's man came crawling over Phil who hung below from the yard, and slashed the rope. "We are clear! We are clear! God be thanked!" the Old One yelled. Meanwhile the men of the Rose of Devon had succeeded in firing three guns of the larboard broadside, which by the grace of Divine Providence wrought such ruin in the stranger's running gear that the one crew of rascals was enabled to escape fit retribution at the hands of the other. The peak of her great foresail fell and in a moment her cut halyards were swept into a snarl that needed time and daylight for untangling. So the Rose of Devon slipped past the ketch, whose men were striving to clear the rigging and come about in pursuit, and having once evaded her erstwhile chase, the old ship ran away in the night. With her lights out and all the sail spread that she could carry, and favoured by clouds and fog, she made good her escape; but there was grumbling forward and grumbling aft, and there was a dead man to heave over the side. It served Philip Marsham better than he knew that he had fought a duel on the yardarm; for dark though the night had been, there had happened little that escaped the Old One's eye; and bitter though Tom Jordan's temper and angry his mood, he was always one to give credit where he believed it due. When he wiped the blood from the dirk, Phil remembered with gratitude the good smith, Colin Samson. Then he thought of the old lady and gentleman at the inn, and of Nell Entick, and bluff Sir John. He would have been glad enough to be out of the Rose of Devon and away, but for better or worse he had cast his lot in the ship, and though he little liked the lawless turn her affairs had taken, a man cannot run away by night from a ship on the high seas. All hands stood watch till dawn as a tribute to the war of one pirate upon another, and not until the sun had risen and shown no sail in sight did the Old One himself go into the great cabin. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.