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Dark Frigate

<h2>CHAPTER XVII WILL CANTY</h2> They saw a boat coming a long way off, with her men rowing furiously, but by that time there were all manner of sounds on the shore whence the boat had launched forth. Shouts and yells in English and Spanish, with ever the booming of guns, echoed across the harbour. Beacons flamed up and for a while danced fitfully, only to die away when those who tended the fires left them unwatched and with flaming brands joined in the cry; and in the wake of the furiously rowing boat came others that strove with a great thresh of oars to overhaul the fugitive. The activity and tumult were very small and faint under the bright stars in that harbour girdled about with palms. Though the rugged slopes of wild mountains, rising like escarpments above the harbour, by day completely dwarfed it, yet the stars made the mountains seem by night mere pigmy hills, and even the many sounds, which a great echoing redoubled, seemed smaller and fainter in the presence of the vast spaces that such a night suggests. Although the men in the foremost boat rowed out of time and clumsily, their fierce efforts kept them their lead, and they were still far in advance of their pursuers when they tossed up their oars and crouched panting on the thwarts in the shadow of the ship. "Ropes, you fools!" the Old One called. "Cast us ropes! Ropes! Bind fast this bird we've caught and trice him up! Now, my hearts, swing him aloft—there he swings and up he goes! Well done! I'll keep him though I risk my neck in doing it. Make fast a rope at bow and at stern! Good! Every man for himself! Up, thou! And thou! Up go we all! Come, tally on and hoist the boat on board! And the men are aloft? Well done, Jacob! Haul up the anchor and let fall the courses!" It was plain from their manner that those who came swarming up the sides had a story to tell, but there was little time then for story-telling. The pursuing boats lifted their oars and swung at a distance with the tide, since it was plain for all to see that they were too late to overhaul the fugitives. Although on board the stranger ship there were signs and sounds of warlike activity, she too refrained from aggression; and the Old One, having no mind to traffic with them further, paced the deck with a rumble of oaths and drove the men alow and aloft to make sail and be gone. It was "Haul, you swine!" And "Heave, you drunken dogs!" And "Slacken off the weather braces! Leap for your lives!" And "Haul, there, haul! A touch of the rope's end, boatswain, to stir their spirits!" And "Come, clear the main topsail! Up aloft to the topsail yard, young men! A knife, you dog, a knife! Slash the gaskets clear! A touch of the helm, there! Harder! Harder! There she holds! Steady!" Then Harry Malcolm called from the quarter-deck in his quiet, quick voice, "The swivel gun is loaden, Tom. I'll chance a shot upon the advantage." "Good, say I!" quoth the Old One. "And if the first shot prove ill, amend it with a second." They saw moving on the forecastle the light of a match, and after such brief space of time as a spark takes to go from brace-ring to touchhole the gun, which was charged with small shot for sweeping the deck if an enemy should board the ship, showered the distant boats with metal. They saw by the splashing that the charge had carried well and that Malcolm's aim was true, and a yell and a volley of curses told them as well as did the splash, which was dimly seen by starlight, that the shot had scored a hit. While a sailor sponged the gun, Harry Malcolm gave a shog to the full ladle of powder, and keeping his body clear of the muzzle, put the ladle home to the chamber, where he turned it till his thumb on the ladle-staff was down, and gave it a shake to clear out the powder, and haled it forth again. Then with the rammer he put the powder home and drove after it a good wad and in anger and haste called for a shot. Then the Old One laughed through his teeth. "Go thou down, Jacob," cried he, "and give them a ball from the stern chaser. To sink one of those water snakes, now, would be a message worthy of our parting. Jacob! Jacob, I say!" There was no answer from old Jacob. It was Boatswain Marsham who cried back, "He hath gone." "Gone?" quoth the Old One. His face, as the starlight revealed it, was not for the reading, but despite him there was something in his voice that caught the attention of the men. "Gone?" the Old One repeated, and leaned down in the darkness. The shadows quite concealed his face when he was bent over so far that no light from above could fall on it, but he raised his hand and beckoned to the boatswain in a way there was no mistaking. In response to the summons of the long forefinger, Phil climbed the ladder to his side. "You say he hath gone," the Old One quietly repeated. "When did he go?" "I do not know. He kept the deck when I went below for supper." "How did he go?" "Nor do I know that. But three men came into the cabin by way of the gallery while I was there—" "Three men, say you? Speak on." The Old One leaned back and folded his arms, and though he smiled, he listened very carefully to the story the boatswain told. "And when you came on deck he was gone." The Old One tapped the rail. "You have booklearning. Can you navigate a ship?" "I can." "Yea, it may well be that now we shall have need of such learning. It was an odd day when you and I met beside the road. I shall not soon forget that ranting fool with the book, who was as good as a bear-baiting to while away an afternoon when time hung heavy. Oft ha' we left him fallen at the crest, in the old days when he dwelt in Bideford, but Jacob saw no sport in it, nor could he abide the fellow." The Old One looked Phil frankly in the eye and smiled. "In faith, I had a rare game that day with Martin, whose wits are but a slubbering matter at best. But that's all done and away with. And Jacob hath gone! Let him go. Betide it what may, there is one score I shall settle before my hour comes. Go forward, boatswain, and bear a sharp watch at sea, and mind you come not abaft the mainmast until I give you leave." The Old One spoke again when Phil was on the ladder. "Mind you, boatswain: come not abaft the mainmast until I give you leave. I bear you nought but love, but I will have you know that in what I have to do I will brook no interruption." Though Tom Jordan had spoken him kindly, the lad was not so blunt of wit that he failed to detect suspicion in the man's manner. He stopped by the forecastle, and looking back saw that the Old One was giving the helmsman orders, for the ship had cleared the harbour, to all appearances unpursued, and was again bearing up the coast. The Old One then came down from the quarter-deck, and, having spoken to several of the men in turn, called, "Come, Martin; come, Paul, bring the fellow in." And with that, he went into the great cabin, where they heard him speaking to Harry Malcolm. As for Martin Barwick and Paul Craig, they went over to where the one had all this time been lying whom they had trussed up in ropes and hoisted on board. All the time he had been in the ship he had neither moved nor spoken, nor did he speak now as they picked him up, one at his head and one at his feet, and carried him into the cabin. The door shut and for a long time there was silence. There were some to whom the matter was a mystery, and the boatswain was among them; but the whispering and nodding showed that more knew the secret than were ignorant of it. The ship thrust her nose into a heavy swell and pitched until her yards knocked on the masts; the breeze blew up and whipped the tops off the waves and showered the decks with spray; the sky darkened with clouds and threatened rain. But in the ship there was such a deep silence as stifles a man, which endured and seemed—were it possible—to grow minute by minute more intense until a low cry burst from the cabin. The men sitting here and there on deck stirred and looked at one another; but Philip Marsham leaped to his feet. "Sit down, lad," said the carpenter. "Drop your hand!" "Nay, it is better that I keep my hand on your arm." "Drop your hand! Hinder me not!" "Nay, I am obeying orders." There came a second cry from the cabin, and Phil laid his free hand on his dirk. "Have care, boatswain, lest thy folly cost thee dear. There are others set to watch the deck as well as I." And now three men who had been sitting by the mainmast rose. They were looking toward Phil and the carpenter, and one of them slowly walked thither. Though Philip Marsham had no fear of hard fighting, neither was he an arrant fool, and instantly he perceived that he was one man against many under circumstances that doubled the odds. His heart beat fast and a cold sweat sprang out on his forehead. "What are they doing to him?" he demanded. "Nothing that he hath not richly earned," said the man who had come near the two. Scarcely conscious of his own thought, Phil glanced toward the dark and distant shore; but, slight though his motion, the carpenter's one eye saw it and his none too nimble wit understood it. "Nay," said he, "it is a mad conceit." The carpenter thrust his fingers through his beard, and, being a kindly soul in his own way and having a liking for the boatswain, he wished himself rid of his responsibilities. But since there was no escape from the situation he drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders to make the best of it. "I heard of a man once, when I was a little lad," he said, "who was cast ashore on the main, in Mexico or some such place. Miles Philips was his name and the manner of his suffering at the hands of the Indians and the Spaniards may serve as a warning. For they flung him into prison where he was like to have starved; and they tortured him in the Inquisition where he was like to have perished miserably; and many of his companions they beat and killed or sent to the galleys; and himself and certain others they sold for slaves. So grievous was his suffering, he was nigh death when he heard news of Sir Francis Drake being in those seas and ran away to join him. Yet again they caught him—caught this Miles Philips and clapped him into prison with a great pair of bolts on his legs; and yet once more did he escape, for God willed it, and filed off his irons and got him away and so betook him back to England after such further suffering from the Indians and the mosquitoes and the Spaniards and the dogs of the Inquisition as few men have lived to tell the tale of. All this, I have heard from an old man who knew him, is told in Master Hakluyt's book, where any scholar of reading may find it for himself. Though not a man of reading, yet have I taken it to heart to beware of straying from a ship into a strange land." Of all the fellow had said Philip Marsham had heard no more than half, for the cry that had twice sounded still rang in his ears, although since it had died away the second time there was only silence on the deck save for the carpenter's rambling talk. The lad's mind leaped nimbly from one occurrence to another in search for an explanation of the cry. "Tell me," said he, "what happened on shore?" At this the carpenter laughed, pleased with believing he had got the boatswain's thoughts off the affair of the moment. "Why, little enough. They would have persuaded us to leave our weapons at the door, but the Old One was too wise a horse to be caught by the rattle of oats. And whilst he was ducking and smiling and waving hands with the Spaniards, I myself, my ears being keen, heard one cry in Spanish, for I have a proper understanding of Spanish which I got by many pains and much listening—as I was saying, I heard one cry in Spanish, 'Yea, that is he.' And said I to myself, 'Now Heaven keep us! Where have I heard that voice?' And then it came upon me and I cried in English, 'Who of us knew the dog, Will Canty, could talk Spanish?' Whereat the Old One, hearing me, turned and caught a glimpse of Will in the darkness. You know his way—a shrewd blade, but hot-tempered. 'There,' cries he, 'is my man! Seize him!' And with that I, being nearest, made a leap. And they, being at the moment all oil to soothe our feelings and hood our eyes, were off their guard. So the Old One, who likely enough had heard for himself Will Canty's saying, since he too hath a curious knowledge of Spanish, cries, 'Back to the boat, my lads!' For seest thou, if Will Canty was pointing out this one or that, there was treacherous work in the wind. So down through them we rushed, all together, bearing Will with us by the suddenness and audacity of our act, and so away in a boat before they knew our thought." "And who were the other Englishmen?" The carpenter gave the lad a blank look. "Why, there were none." Rising, Phil paced the deck while the carpenter and the others watched him. Some scowled and whispered suspicions, and others denied them, until Phil himself heard one crying, "Nay, nay, he's a true lad. 'Tis only he hath a liking for the fellow." The carpenter neither smiled nor frowned, for though he knew no loyalty deeper than his selfish interests, and though he felt no qualm regarding that which was going on in the cabin (since he had little love for the poor wretch who was the victim), he had a very kindly feeling toward those who got his liking; and it sorely troubled him that Philip Marsham should suffer thus, though it were at second hand. "Come, lad," said he, "sit down here and take comfort in the fine night." Laying his elbows on the rail, Phil thrust his hands through his hair and bit his two lips and stared at the distant shore of Cuba. He feared neither Indians nor insects nor the Inquisition. There were other things, to his mind, more fearful than these. The gasping sound that then came from the cabin was one thing more than he could abide. He turned with the drawn dirk in his hand, but the carpenter was on him from behind, whispering, "Come, lad, come!" And because he could not but be aware of the carpenter's honest good will, he could not bring himself to use the dirk, yet only by using the dirk could he have got out of the long arms that held him fast. For a moment they swayed back and forth; then, when others were hurrying to aid the carpenter, the door of the great cabin opened. A rumble of laughter issued, then the Old One's voice, "Lay him here in the steerage and shackle him fast to the mizzen. He may well be thankful that I am a merciful man." <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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