Story 2—Chapter VI.
A Sell for the Pirate.
Acting apparently under instructions previously given, the felucca, after transferring a large portion of her men to the merchant ship, proceeded some distance ahead of her, as if not to cause any suspicions by her propinquity should any vessel pass by them in their passage through the channel. But she still remained close enough to be signalled by her commander should her nearer presence be needed.
When the pirate chief and Captain Harding returned on deck from their visit below, Tom and Charley could see, from the fierce looks of the one and the stolidly stubborn expression of the other, that their private interview had not been of the most agreeable nature, and they soon learned the reason.
“I have been deceived, duped, despoiled of my just dues,” exclaimed the corsair frantically, as he gained the deck, speaking in English as if for the special benefit of the two lads and their unfortunate fellow-countrymen; “and had it not been for my sacred word which I never break once I have given it, overboard you should go, every one, with your throats cut!”
“But,” said Captain Harding, “we have not deceived you as to the value of the ship and cargo. If anybody is to be blamed, you must look to those agents and spies you employ who have misinformed you.”
“Silence!” shouted out the other, foaming with passion. “You are a miserable set of impostors, you English! How could I tell that a big vessel like this would only be half-loaded with a lot of trumpery stuff that’s not worth the freight; and that her captain had hardly a piastre to bless himself with? And yet you English people boast of your wonderful wealth. I call it a scandalous imposition, wasting my time in this way, and the lives of my men, for nothing.”
And he stamped his feet in his rage as he walked to and fro.
Charley could hardly refrain from laughing at the pirate chief going on in this way about being taken in. As he whispered to Tom, when he had the chance, it reminded him of the pickpocket who had stolen a watch, complaining of being hardly used because the article turned out to be pinchbeck!
“If you like to let us go, I will give you a bond for the estimated value of the ship and cargo,” said Captain Harding, wishing to pacify the man—who now appeared capable of going any lengths in his fury—for he did not place much credence in his loudly vaunted promise of saving their lives.
His suggestion, however, only seemed to add fuel to the fire.
“Yes, and a nice fool I should be to present it for payment, and have the police upon me. Do you take me for an addle-pated idiot? I tell you what I will do. I will burn your miserable old hulk of a ship, and its rotten cargo; and you and she can roast together!”
“And your pledged word as to our lives?” said the captain.
“I told you I wouldn’t take them, and my word is good, although I spared your life simply because I might want your signature. But if the ship catches fire, and you unfortunately cannot escape from her, of course it will not be my fault—don’t you see?”
And the corsair gave a malignant laugh, that
disclosed his real disposition better than words, and convinced the Englishmen of the futility of appealing to him for pity.
It was now broad daylight, and the Muscadine was working up to windward of the cluster of small islands that lie to the northward of Scarpanto, having just weathered the channel that separates it from Rhodes, when the topmasts of a ship could be seen rounding the headland nearest them.
“It’s one of our cruisers, boys,” whispered Captain Harding, whose keen eyes had distinguished a pendant flying from the main-truck of the new-comer.—“We are saved! we’re saved!”
The pirate captain, however, had ears as quick as the captain’s eyes were keen.
“Gag that babbler,” he cried to his men—in Greek of course—“and the two boys as well, and bundle them down into the cabin. Stay! take those men also, and serve them the same,” pointing to the steward and Jack Bower and the other three seamen.
All the Englishmen were hurried below without any unnecessary delay, with the exception of Mr Tompkins, whom the corsair next addressed, presenting the captain’s cocked revolver as he did so, and pressing the cold steel muzzle of the pistol against his right temple.
“You coward!” said he with a thrilling hiss on his tongue like a serpent’s; “your life trembles in the balance. If that vessel now approaching hails us, and you do not answer correctly, as I have already warned you, this bullet goes through your brain. Do you hear?”
“I hear. I—I—I—hear,” faltered out the first mate, while the perspiration stood out in great beads of fright on his forehead.
The vessel in front came nearer and nearer; and presently she rounded-to under the Muscadine’s stern, the old well-known Union Jack of Old England floating up to the masthead the while, and a hearty voice hailing the merchantman through a speaking-trumpet from her quarter-deck, not half a cable’s length away, in true nautical fashion—
“Ship ahoy! What ship is that?”
The corsair was standing by the side of Mr Tompkins, close by the taffrail. Before Captain Harding had been taken below he had removed his uniform cap and monkey-jacket, and put them on himself, so that he might pass for one of the ship’s officers, and he had likewise directed the majority of his men to lie down on the deck, lest their numbers might create suspicion.
As the stranger vessel approached nearer with the intention of speaking, as he could understand, he lowered the revolver which he had held for more than a minute pressed against the first mate’s forehead. But he had it still in his hand, as the trembling Tompkins was aware, ready for action, only that its muzzle was now touching his side instead of his temple.
“Now, answer correctly,” whispered the corsair in the mate’s ear, in a fierce thrilling whisper that penetrated through every fibre of his body, when the hail of the British man-of-war rang out in the air.—“Answer as I told you, or you are a dead man, if fifty English frigates were alongside!”