The Jolly Roger Tales: 60+ Pirate Novels, Treasure-Hunt Tales & Sea Adventures. Лаймен Фрэнк БаумЧитать онлайн книгу.
lad, every hasty punishment inflicted, hurt him grievously.
It was a solace to talk with winsome Dorothy Stuart because hers was the bright optimism of youth and she held so exalted an opinion of Jack's strength and courage that she refused to abandon hope. And the fact that he had confided to her his rash intention of running away and signing as a pirate sooner than be transported to school in England, persuaded her that he might be alive.
"From what you saw yourself, Mr. Forbes," said she, "when Blackbeard boarded the Plymouth Adventure with his dreadful men, our Jack won his fancy."
"So it appeared, Dorothy. The boy boasted of knocking a tall pirate on the head, and he read this monster of a pirate more shrewdly than I. Yes, Blackbeard took it with rough good humor. But Jack would ne'er consent to sail with him. 'Twas that confounded Stede Bonnet with his gallant air that turned the lad's head. He cast a glamor over this trade of murder and pillage."
"Be that as it may," returned Dorothy, with a sigh and a smile, "I confess to a romantic admiration for this bold Captain Bonnet. He wears an air of mystery which is most becoming. We must not blame poor Jack."
"No, no, I am done with all that," hastily exclaimed Uncle Peter. "All I dare hope is that when Blackbeard is captured, we may learn what fate befell the boy. It makes the torture worse to have him vanish without trace."
"And yet I have faith the sea will give him back to us, Mr. Forbes. He will find you a chastened guardian, not so apt to box his ears."
Uncle Peter was so distressed by this gentle raillery that the girl begged pardon and vowed that she would never again offend. It so happened that they were sitting together in Parson Throckmorton's garden a day or so after this when a friend came running in with tidings the most unexpected and incredible. A negro slave had come from a plantation a few miles inland and he bore a letter written by none other than Captain Jonathan Wellsby of the Plymouth Adventure. It narrated how he and the survivors of his ship had journeyed that far after weeks of suffering and frequent skirmishes with Indians. They were compelled to rest and take shelter before undertaking the last stage of the journey.
Councilor Peter Forbes was magically changed. He shed his dignity and threw his hat in air. Clasping Miss Dorothy's slender waist, he planted a kiss on her damask cheek. Parson Throckmorton was ramming snuff into his nostrils, his wig all awry, while he sneezed trumpet blasts of rejoicing.
"Survivors? Kerchooh! God bless me, that lusty stripling will be amongst them,—kerchooh,—he can survive anything but Greek and Latin,—kerchooh,—I will spare the rod in future."
"I told you so, Uncle Peter Forbes," laughed Dorothy.
"Not so fast," quoth he, in a mood suddenly sobered. "Captain Wellsby includes no list of those in his party."
"But, of course, one of them is sure to be Master Jack," she insisted.
"I am a selfish man and a laggard officer of the Crown," he exclaimed with air of great self-reproach. "There are women in that company and wounded men, no doubt. We must take them clothing, horses, food, a surgeon."
He bustled off to the Governor's house to find that energetic gentleman absent at Sullivan's Island. Acting for him, the Secretary of the Council sent the town crier to summon all good citizens to the tavern green. In the space of an hour the men and supplies were assembled and with Mr. Forbes in command the band of mercy made haste to reach the plantation. During the march there was a buzz of anxious surmise. Was this one and that alive or dead? Had the hostages been slain and were these the sailormen of the Plymouth Adventure who had been set adrift by Blackbeard? Councilor Forbes winced at hearing such talk as this, but his heart beat high nevertheless, so confident was he that he was about to behold his manly nephew.
There was loud cheering when they came to the cleared land of the indigo fields and saw a tattered British ensign fluttering from the log stockade which enclosed the huts of the overseer and his laborers. In the gateway appeared the stalwart figure of Captain Wellsby in ragged garments and with a limping gait. Other men crowded behind him and responded with huzzas which were like a feeble echo. The friends from Charles Town rushed forward to embrace them, loudly demanding to know where the rest were.
"We fetched the women safe through," answered Captain Wellsby whose eyes were sunken and the brown beard streaked with gray. "Twelve good men of my crew are dead, and three of the gentlemen passengers. The swamps took toll of some and the Indians slew the others. We were besieged a fortnight by the Yemassees,—a hard experience all of it, and wondrous luck to have escaped——"
Councilor Forbes delayed while his companions entered the huts to attend the invalids. He struggled to ask a question but his voice was beyond control.
"I understand," kindly spoke the shipmaster. "Your lad is not with us, nor can I say if he be dead or alive."
"The Indians carried him off?" weakly inquired the uncle.
"No, he was never seen after we abandoned ship. Your Jack and a chum of his from Blackbeard's crew were for making the beach on a small raft of their own contrivance. This was after nightfall, Councilor, and what with a land'ard breeze and a crotchety set of the tide amongst the shoals, they floated out to sea."
"On a small raft," muttered Mr. Forbes, "and a vast ocean. I know of no ship voyaging to or from these ports which might have found them."
"I was in hopes of hearing news of the lads from you," sorrowfully said the shipmaster. "There is the chance, tiny though it be, that they were sighted by some vessel bound to foreign parts, across the Western Ocean."
The uncle shook his head in a manner profoundly dejected. There were duties which summoned him and he choked down his own grief, turning from the sympathetic mariner to minister to those in distress. Horse litters were soon ready for the exhausted but heroic women who had been kept alive by the devotion of the noble British seamen in accordance with the traditions of the merchant service. Those unable to walk farther were placed in carts. Clothed and fed, the sailors were in blithe spirits and talked of going to sea again as soon as they could find a ship.
In the crowd which met them on the outskirts of the Charles Town settlement was Dorothy Stuart. She scanned the straggling column and then ran from one cart to another. It was impossible to convince her that Jack Cockrell was not there. But when she heard from Uncle Peter the news that Jack was missing but not surely dead, her faith burned anew, triumphant over fact and reason.
"See how the great storm came to save him from Blackbeard," she cried, her hand nestling in Uncle Peter's arm. "And look how he came unscathed through that bloody battle with the pirates in the Plymouth Adventure. Why, a cruise on a raft is merely a frolic after all that."
"I would not discourage your dear dreams, sweet maid," was the gentle response. "And may they be truer than my own forebodings."
Charles Town was more than ever resentful when it learned from these poor people how the pirate sailing-master, Ned Rackham, had plotted to get rid of them and how mournful had been their sufferings after the shipwreck. The one boat left to them had been too rotten to send along the coast and they had plunged into a wilderness almost impassable.
Meanwhile Governor Johnson, stirred by this episode, had received word that the province of Virginia was both ready and anxious to join in an expedition against Blackbeard. Governor Spottswood of Virginia would be outfitting such craft as he could get together in the James River while he awaited a reinforcement from Charles Town.
The best vessel available for immediate use was a small brigantine, the King George. There was no lack of eager seamen when Councilor Forbes and Colonel Stuart proclaimed the muster on the tavern green. Among those selected were several of Captain Jonathan Wellsby's sailors who were primed to fight even though there was not much flesh on their bones. He himself was a forlorn mariner who had lost his good ship and found no joy in life. With a grim smile of gratitude he accepted the invitation to go as master of the King George, with Colonel Stuart as a sea soldier to drill the men and lead them in action.
It was while they were slinging guns aboard the brigantine that some of the men happened to