Hurricane Williams/Chapter 21
CHAPTER XXI
THEY GO, AS SHADOWS VANISH INTO DARKNESS
SO IT was that the Heraldr gave herself up with all on board to the little flush-deck schooner, Francis Vore, F. B. Butler, captain; but conflicting reports of what followed were a long time disputed and never decided.
Captain Butler, formerly chief officer of the ill-fated Mariana, equipped for the search by a Queensland planter, had set out after pirates and came back with mutineers. The fate of the pirates was doubted and questioned, though there seemed little reason for it to have been; but that of the mutineers was settled with legal finality. They were hanged.
Their leader, Clobb, died sullenly. He would not have friend or priest near him. The hangman said he had never seen a man take the hemp with a stouter heart. The others moaned or wept or howled or fought or prayed—went out whimpering.
Four of the crew, natives and Yankee whalers, were given sentences of imprisonment; rather too mild, some people thought.
The old sailmaker would in all likelihood have been found guiltless, but he died in a jail cell while awaiting trial. He was laid in a rough gum-wood box and put in potter's field.
The Heraldr's carpenter afterward applied for the reward-money offered for Brundage “dead or alive,” as there was no doubt as to his fate; but Chips did not get it.
Captain Butler knew, or said that he did, that Williams and the red-headed fellow, McGuire, were dead; but some of the schooner's sailors vowed up and down by every Bible that could be brought them that those pirates were not dead and that many a ship would meet them when it was not expecting such a thing.
It was likely that both would have been treated with mercy if not indeed a pardon for McGuire had they been brought to the dock. Popular sympathy flared up. The public, as the public has a way of doing, suddenly took Williams for its hero. Street-hawkers sold his praise, a shilling the pamphlet.
Most important of all, it developed that Mrs. Gorvhalsen was of the same family as the British Colonial Secretary.
Even shipping-circles cocked another ear than the one usually turned toward Williams's name in hearing how he had given up the Heraldr and had been put to his wits' end to coax the little Francis Vore close enough to accept his surrender.
She had been standing off the uncharted reefs where the Mariana, eaten to scraggly bones by the vulturous breakers, while Captain Butler was ashore, looking about to see what was left of the old bark and hoping for the help of a miracle to let him find the gold-chest Williams had said was left behind.
It had been on the strength of a rumor that the schooner made for Tinakula, and by rare luck she had run upon Williams in an outrigger, three miles from shore in company with two natives. The natives were let go. He had answered questions as to what had happened to the Mariana though little else could be got out of him. The schooner then turned south, shaping her course to pick up the reef that thrust its sinister self out of mid-ocean depth.
Williams was put into a locked room, an armed guard outside the door. As there was no occasion for opening the door between supper and breakfast, none knew when he had gone through the port. They were at no time in sight of land or he would have been put into irons. A man who wanted to die—he had not been suspected of that—might jump into the sea; but a man who cared for life would not go swimming off for a distant ship that might any minute put up her helm and make off.
As they had passed the Heraldr no one had thought of Williams; afterward, no one imagined that it was then that he had gone overboard.
So while Captain Butler, poking about on the reef, was still cursing Williams for having drowned himself, up came the Heraldr and threw her main topsail to the mast almost within a hundred yards of the schooner. A well-remembered voice, hard, clear, powerful, called out:
“Francis Vore! Stand by to board us!”
Mr. Edwins, the mate then in charge of the schooner, was the most astonished man on the seven seas as he looked across at the naked black figure on the skylight and saw the decks about him swarming with men that, through the glasses, had a most villainous appearance.
Mr. Edwins was all for pulling the sails about his ears and making off as fast as he could go; but of course he could not leave his captain and six men stranded on the reef at the mercy of the pirates.
But the schooner lost no time in kicking her booms to leeward and sliding from under the bow of the ugly stranger, and, as she went, frantically tried to signal to Captain Butler to put out and meet her on the other side of the reef.
The schooner was safe enough if she kept beyond rifle-shot. She could maneuver in circles around the heavier, sluggish square-rigger. But Mr. Edwins thought it wise to keep a long distance off. That pirate was dangerous with a ship under him and enough men around his deck to storm a frigate.
Mr. Edwins made so large a circle in getting to the other side of the reef that Captain Butler, when he at last reached his schooner, heatedly declared that his boat-crew might as well have rowed the rest of the way back to Sydney—and what in hell was the matter, anyway?
He heard and guessed at once that Williams had swum to that ship and either found the crew in mutiny or stirred them to it, and knowing where the Francis would stop, he had followed to have revenge.
Captain Butler put his schooner within hailing distance, for the Heraldr still lay hove to; but as soon as he heard that he was wanted to come on board and take charge of the ship, he became doubly suspicious. Like Mr. Edwins and the second mate, Mr. Jorgan—who had been a seaman on the Mariana and, so the story went, was badly hurt in trying to recover the ship from Williams—he thought there was a trap behind the vague shouts about mutineers, wounded owner, women, needing armed men on board.
Williams did not appear to need them, but stood with empty hands, indifferent, on the poop; and the women could be plainly seen and were not alarmed.
The Francis Vore was full of curiosity; but it was not strong enough to get her close. The parleying might have continued until evening when the schooner would have put to sea and escaped the risk of being attacked in darkness or calm; but a figure dived from the Heraldr's taffrail and with unhurried ease swam off to the schooner.
They watched him come; and the officers began to say ungodly things to themselves as he drew near so that they could clearly recognize that unmistakable red hair, wide impudent mouth, even the smile and the lazily lidded eyes. He came right to the schooner's side and, treading water under her bulwarks, coolly demanded of the faces above if they were going to stand there and let an old friend drown. That awakened them. A line was thrown over. He came scrambling up like a cat.
They refused to believe him. He seemed too much smiling over a secret, too much at ease, and too confoundedly impudent for any use but irons and rope-end.
Jorgan would like to have smashed him on the jaw.
McGuire told the story. They thought part of it might be true, but why couldn't the women and owner be sent over in a boat? Gorvhalsen could not be moved. The crew was cowed now—but Williams had to sleep some time, didn't he? And then”
“Ever hear that fable, Æsop's or somebody's, about the man with the sack of grain, the goose and the fox at the river's edge?” McGuire asked of Captain Butler. “Only had a little boat—couldn't take but one thing across with him at a time. If he took the fox, the goose would eat the grain. Took the grain, the fox would eat the goose. If he took the goose and left it on the other side, on his next trip he would have to bring either grain or fox and leave it with the goose while he went for his third load.
“Williams's in something of that fix. If he leaves the Heraldr himself, the crew'll be up an away. If he sends the crew over here, you'll have to send your crew back to work the Heraldr, an' the mutineers'll have your short-handed schooner before you can ask 'em not to do it. Why doesn't he take the Heraldr in himself? I told you he had to sleep, some time. 'Course you don't believe all those men are afraid of him—just of his eyes. But ask Jorgan here. He knows—don't you, Jorgan?”
Jorgan growled. He knew nothing of the kind.
Captain Butler was not greatly impressed, but was a little thoughtful. The thing that deeply troubled his doubt was why Williams was willing to give himself up. And McGuire, too—why?
“Oh,” said McGuire easily as if really telling him, “the earth's split itself in two an' we don't want to be left on the uninhabited part. Besides, there's too much salt in the sea now from the tears of the unhappy dead. An nothing is left in the world to drink but the blood out o' one's own heart. Bein' weary, maybe he wants a deep, sweet sleep while men with rope about their necks do the hangman's jig above his grave. As for me—I've got saints wearin' armor made o' sun-scales lookin' out for me, so I'm all right even 'mong wicked fellows like you!”
The wisdom of his nonsense was beyond them: he was crazy or thought that they were fools. Captain Butler snorted impatiently and moved his gaze meditatively to the Heraldr.
Mr. Edwins frowned upon McGuire. Mr. Jorgan regarded him with the intentness of the muscular man annoyed by a gabbler.
All were trying to imagine the trick Williams expected to play them. They could see that McGuire was amused, was half-mocking them; and being hard-headed men, they did not in the least understand.
He became not more earnest exactly, but a little more convincing as he said:
“You'll be the men ever'body'll look at when you get back to Sydney—point at—gape at—with all the papers writin' about you—the men that were too scared o' Williams to take him when he wanted to surrender.”
The words had poison in them. Captain Butler frowned grimly.
“Oh, yes, you'll be looked at—pointed—talked about”
Captain Butler demanded to know what assurance there was that no trick or trap lay behind the offer.
“Not a damn bit,” said McGuire, “'Cept this. What does a man love best? 'Is soul, honor, wife 'r neck? Here's my neck. You can break it—first flaw you find in my tale.”
As the boat shoved off from the Francis Vore, bearing Mr. Edwins on his way to investigate, McGuire called:
“I left men on the quarter-deck—Kanakas an' Yankees. Don't get nervous when you see guns in their hands. They can't shoot straight anyhow. But the crew was gettin' restless at the idea o' being hung!”
Before the sun dropped Captain Butler had boarded the Heraldr with all but five of his crew and clapped the mutineers into irons. He wasn't going to have them running around over the deck, not though he had to work the ship short-handed.
The Francis Vore carried a dozen seamen on her pirate hunt and four, with Jorgan, were left to her.
Largely because he was afraid Williams had arranged some unsuspected means of escaping from the Heraldr and partly to avoid the reproaches of the women if he and McGuire were put into irons under their eyes, Captain Butler had them chained to the foremast of the schooner, down in the hold.
McGuire was given no chance to return to the Heraldr, so all that Eve had to remember him by way of a farewell were the fleeting strange words he had spoken in the little while they were alone together in the cabin on the way to the reefs:
“—one of these days you'll be a wise old woman an have spectacles an' memories”
“I won't wear them!”
“It's the people with spectacles that are wise, my dear; not little blue-eyed girls. You'll be beautiful then, too—like Mrs. Gorvhalsen. You'll sit in firelight an' talk o' the pirate that looted your heart. He was a dashing young fellow, that pirate. Shh-hh-h—not tears now— Some day I'll tell you all about everything—when we both have spectacles an' slippers by the firelight.”
Again, and she remembered the tone as well as the words:
“You must mention Brundage once in a while, my dear. Angels are likely to overlook him, having so many people to watch out for.”
She had tried lovingly to question him, to ask about himself, but, half-jesting, he easily evaded her; and though he made her smile, even laugh, she felt fearful that something would take him from her and never let him return.
She had tried to tell her aunt of everything; but Mrs. Gorvhalsen had been so quiet and said so little that Eve was sure she did not understand, perhaps had not really listened. But she had paused in wonder and silence, puzzled, disturbed, as to why her aunt's averted eyes should be filled with tears.
As McGuire, after speaking with Williams, went to the taffrail he had called cheerfully:
“If there's any sharks around here, you'll see me comin' back.”
And that was all. Eve did not know then that he was not coming back. He did not know it himself.
It was the last they ever saw of each other; but McGuire, long an outcast from the ways of her world, would soon somehow or other have made the parting for all time. There was nothing he could have said to explain, nothing to have made her understand, so he had half-jested and said nothing of his pain. He knew that her young heart would not break—unless, perhaps, if illusions of him were destroyed, and they would never be if given into the keeping of her memory. As long as she lived, no matter what love came to her and happiness, she would be tenderly wistful at the thought of him; but for all that have none the less joy out of her life.
As for himself—he was a wanderer who followed the winds of the sea, a brother to savages, a fellow who from time to time must need drown himself in the strong liquors that keep a man from thinking of things that once were his and of those that might have been.
{[dhr]} Back to back, bolted to rings in the foremast, McGuire and Williams lay. Jorgan went down often into the dark hold, carrying a lantern to have a look at the prisoners. He expressed his feelings to them, sometimes slapped, pushed or gave them a casual kick or two. He would hold the lantern blindingly in their faces as he scrutinized the irons and fastenings and told what he would like to do to them.
Each day he gave them the ship's run and position so they might meditate on the nearing approach to the gallows.
“The hangman's sure got hold of our tow-rope,” was his frequent greeting.
A stormy day hit the water. They were off Pentecost Island. Evening came on threateningly. The sky was black. Rain-squalls swept up one after another like an army of infantry firing and passing on. To the west vivid lightning played with fragments of the sky and thunder-drums beat up the clouds.
Jorgan came down into the hold with his lantern. He had raided the medical stores and was feeling in a mood to have pleasure. The men above heard him yell—their faces bent over the hatch combing, and they saw Williams stooping over the body of the dead mate.
The pirate had loosened the iron from the mast and with manacled wrist had smitten Jorgan and was plundering his pocket for the key.
The Heraldr was a mile or more ahead. One of the seamen ran for arms and the others tried to get the hatch on; but before it was battened down, Williams was beating against it. A fellow seized a crowbar and thrust it down at him between the unset hatch and coaming. The crowbar was jerked from the seaman's hands and with Jorgan's revolver shots were fired upward. Then a fusillade was turned down on him and for a moment there was quiet. They got the hatch on and tried to signal through the darkness to the Heraldr.
Suddenly the seamen were terrified. They smelled smoke.
Williams with the hatch battened down on him had fired the hold. They heard thumping and pounding. He was jabbing holes through the deck to give air to his fire. Soon they saw the flame bursting up through the cabin and almost at once they realized the schooner was filling with water. On fire and sinking at the same time.
They took to a boat. It was risky, lowering away in that sea; but it was death to stay. They had to get off. Flames were roaring upward through the cabin where the fire had taken hold of the upper deck around the skylight.
The Heraldr could plainly see what was going on, but short-handed, it was hard for her to go about and beat up to the schooner.
The men lay off in the boat, bobbing up and down, keeping it headed into the sea, and waiting for the Heraldr to come. They were fascinated by the glare of the burning, sinking ship.
Rain and spray smote the fire. It hissed and burned on. Ten miles away was a black mass of land over and over thrown out of the night by the lightning-strokes behind it.
They could only guess at what had happened. Williams had hoped to take over the ship and knew no time was to be lost before the Heraldr might come up. Undoubtedly, after the hatch was fastened down, he had started the fire to frighten the crew. Perhaps the fire got so far away from him that he had to have water to keep it down, and having knocked holes in the hull, there was no way to keep her from filling. He could have got air for himself and McGuire by knocking holes above the water-line—those were the haphazard guesses of the seamen.
What they knew was that two figures emerged out of the forecastle. They had knocked down the bulkheads that separated the forecastle from the hold and in that way gained the deck.
They were plainly seen against the flames that had laid hold of the cabin and were eating up around the mainmast. The two figures were not excited. They even stood in the bow, looking about them. They did not call to the boat.
The fire roared. Its dazzling glare beat flickeringly over the water. They could see one man pointing toward the mass of land that leaped out of the darkness at every streak of lightning across the westward sky. Thunder pounded. Trumpeted shouts came faintly from the Heraldr. Steam sizzled amid the crackling of fire. Waves tossed themselves at flames that went streaming up the mainmast. The schooner was going down.
One of the men, the slender fellow, walked climbingly out on the jib boom; and from there, leaped. The men in the boat had watched him; and when they looked, the other figure could not be seen. Once they thought they caught sight of a sprawling form tossed into the light by a wave's crest, lying on it easily as on a couch—and that was all.
Nothing could ever make them believe that Hurricane Williams and the red-headed pirate were dead—no more dead than the Flying Dutchman.
THE END