THE SEA URCHIN AND THE CARPENTER'S MATE
FOR the sake of a treasure sordid and blood-stained, it would seem shabby to overlook the fate of hapless Joe Hawkridge marooned along with the hands of the Revenge who were suspected of plotting mutiny. His behavior was courageous and unselfish, for he could have fled back into the swamp when Blackbeard's wily attack threw the camp into tumult. From a sense of duty he flung himself into the fray. What friends he had in the ship were those of the decenter sort who were tired of wanton brutalities and of a master who was no better than a lunatic.
When the sloop opened fire with her guns, it was time to surrender. Unhurt save for a few scratches and a gorgeous black eye, Joe was dragged to the beach and thrown into a boat. Promptly the armed pinnace took them in tow, as arranged beforehand. Several of the prisoners had visited this rendezvous at Cherokee Inlet during a previous cruise and had some knowledge of the lay of the coast. Five or six miles out were certain shoals of sand scarcely lifted above high tide, so desolate that nothing whatever grew upon them nor was there any means of obtaining fresh water.
"A pretty fancy,—to cast us where he can enjoy the sight of it when the ship sails out," said one of them who held a wounded comrade in his arms.
"Some trading vessel may sight us in the nick o' time," hopefully suggested Joe. "Never say die!"
"Trust most honest skippers to give the Inlet a wide berth," was the lugubrious reply. "This harbor was used by pirates afore Blackbeard's time. I was a silly 'prentice-boy, same as you, Joe, wi' Cap'n Willum Kidd when we lay in here to caulk his galley for the long voyage to Madagascar."
"A poor figger of a pirate was that same Kidd," spoke up another. "He ne'er scuttled a ship nor fought an action. An' his treasure was all in my eye. What did he swing for, at Execution Dock? For crackin' the skull of his gunner with a wooden bucket."
"They can't h'ist this Cap'n Teach to the same gibbet any too soon to please me, Sam," croaked a horse-faced rogue with two fingers chopped off. "He's gone and murdered all us men, as sure as blazes."
Joe Hawkridge held his peace and wondered what had become of his partner, Jack Cockrell, waiting alone in the pirogue. In the infernal commotion at the camp, Joe had failed to note whether Bill Saxby and Trimble Rogers had betaken themselves off or had been among those killed. There was the faint hope that these trusty messengers might find their way back to Captain Stede Bonnet's ship and so hasten his coming.
The boats crept over the burnished surface of the harbor and passed the nearest islands which were green and wooded. Beyond them shone the gently heaving sea, with the distant gleam of a patch of sandy shoal ringed about with a necklace of surf. It was remote enough from any other land to daunt the strongest swimmer. The boats kept on until they had rounded to leeward of this ghastly prison. There was no means of resistance. The captives were driven ashore by force of arms, carrying a few of their wounded with them.
With emotions beyond the power of speech, they stared at the pinnace as the oars splashed on the return journey to the Revenge. Joe Hawkridge wept a little, perplexed that men could be so cruel to their own shipmates. And yet what could be expected of pirates debased enough to be Blackbeard's loyal followers? Recovering from their first stupor, the twenty able-bodied survivors began to ransack the strip of naked sand on which they had been marooned. It was no more than an acre in extent. A few small fish were found in a pool left by the falling tide and perhaps a hundred turtle eggs were uncovered during the afternoon. This merely postponed starvation.
There was not much bickering. In the shadow of certain death, these outlaws of the sea seemed to have acquired a spirit of resignation which was akin to dignity. They had lost the game. In their own lingo, it was the black spot for all hands of 'em. With the coolness of night they revived to bathe in the surf which made their thirst less hard to bear. There was not much sleep. Men walked in restless circles, looking up at the stars, muttering to themselves, or scanning the sea which had known their crimes and follies.
THEY CAPERED AND HUGGED EACH OTHER
Joe Hawkridge scooped out a bed for himself in the sand and dropped off to sleep by spells, with dreams of ease and quiet ashore and learning to be a gentleman. It was daylight when shouts startled him. The other derelicts were in a frenzy of agitation. They capered and hugged each other, and made unearthly sounds. Joe brushed the sand from his eyes and saw a small vessel approaching the tiny island. Her rig was made out to be that of a snow, which was very like a brig, the difference being in the larger main-topsail and the absence of a spanker or after steering-sail.
Such trading craft as this snow came coasting down from Salem and other New England ports to Virginia and the Carolinas laden with molasses, rum, salt, cider, mackerel, woodenware, Muscavado sugar, and dried codfish. They bartered for return cargoes and carried no specie, wherefore pirates like Stede Bonnet seldom molested them excepting to take such stores as might be needed and sometimes actually to pay for them. They were the prey of miscreants of Blackbeard's stripe who destroyed and slew for the pleasure of it.
This trim little snow was making to the southward in fancied security, having picked up a landfall, as the marooned pirates conjectured. No doubt her master had failed to receive warning that Blackbeard was in these waters and he was running his risk of encountering other marauders. He must have seen that there were people in distress on the tide-washed strip of sand. The snow shifted her helm and fired a gun. The marooned wretches could scarce credit their amazing good fortune but a grave, slow-spoken fellow who had been a carpenter's mate in the Revenge thought the rejoicing premature.
"When that God-fearin' skipper takes a look at us, he will sheer off and clap on sail, lads. For shipwrecked sailors you are a pizen lot o' mugs. The only blighted one of ye what's the leastwise respectable is me."
Here was a terrible misgiving which clouded the bright anticipations. They were, indeed, an unlovely cargo for the little trading vessel to take on board. One of them whipped out a pair of scissors and hastily sawed at his unkempt whiskers while his comrades stood in line and waited their turn. Others discarded gaudy kerchiefs and pistol-belts, or kicked off Spanish jack-boots. Scraps of gold lace were also unpopular. But they could not get rid of scarred faces and rum-reddened noses and the other hall-marks of their trade.
To their immense relief, the snow displayed no signs of alarm but sailed as close as the shoaling water permitted and dipped her colors. The pirates flattered themselves that they were not as frightful as the carpenter's mate had painted them. And this New England shipmaster was a merciful man who would not leave his fellow mortals to perish. They saw a boat lowered from the snow and into it jumped half a dozen sailors, soberly clad in dungaree, with round straw hats on their heads. With a gush of gratitude, the pirates swore to deal courteously by these noble merchant mariners and to repay them in whatever manner possible.
Out into the murmuring surf rushed the mild-mannered rascals, eager to grasp the boat and haul it up. It was Joe Hawkridge, hovering in the background, who raised the first cry of astonishment. His voice was so affrighted that it quavered. Before the boat was half-way from the vessel, he perceived that these were no sedate seamen from the Massachusetts Colony, even though they were in dungaree and round straw hats. He was gazing at some of Ned Rackham's evil pirates whom he had last beheld on the shattered deck of the Plymouth Adventure where they had been left to build a raft for themselves!
The devil had looked after his own. They had floated away from the stranded ship and instead of landing on the beach had been rescued by this unfortunate snow whose crew had been disposed of in some violent manner. This much Joe Hawkridge comprehended, although his mind was awhirl. He was better off marooned. He had helped to turn the guns of the Plymouth Adventure against these very same men when they had been blown out of the after cabin and the ship retaken by Captain Jonathan Wellsby.
Whatever other plans they had in store, the first business would be to kill Joe Hawkridge. This was painfully obvious. He retreated still farther behind his companions and had a confused idea of digging into the sand and burying himself from view. The discovery that these were Blackbeard's pirates in the boat created general confusion but there was no fear of instant death. It was a situation excessively awkward for the marooned company but nevertheless open to parley and argument.
By hurried agreement, the carpenter's mate, Peter Tobey by name, was chosen as spokesman. Before he began to talk with the men in the boat, Joe Hawkridge called to him in piteous accents and begged him to step back in rear of the crowd for a moment. Tobey shouted to the boat to wait outside the surf and not attempt a landing.
"What's the row, Joe?" he asked, with a kindly smile. "'Tis a disappointment for all of us,—this tangle with Rackham's crew,—but why any worse for you?"
"I can't tell it all, Peter, but my life is forfeit once they lay hands on me."
"What tarradiddle is this? As I remember it in the Revenge, when all hands of us were cruisin' together, ye had no mortal enemies."
"It happened in the Plymouth Adventure," answered Joe. "There be men in yon boat that 'ud delight in flayin' me alive. I swear it, Peter, by my mother's name. Give me up, and my blood is on your head."
The boy's words carried conviction. The stolid carpenter's mate pondered and knitted his bushy brows.
"I never did a wilful murder yet," said he. "Mallet and chisel come readier to my fist than a cutlass. Bide here, Joe. Let me get my bearings. This has the look of a ticklish matter for the lot of us. I shall be keepin' a weather eye lifted for squalls."
In mortal fear of discovery by the men in the boat, Joe flattened himself behind a palmetto log which had drifted to the other side of the island. Here he was hidden unless the boat should make a landing. The carpenter's mate waded out to join his companions who were amiably conversing with Ned Rackham's pirates. They had all been shipmates either in the Revenge or the Triumph sloop and there was boisterous curiosity concerning the divers adventures while they had been apart. Rackham's crew had been reduced to eighteen men when they were lucky enough to capture the snow, it was learned. With this small company he dared not go pirating on his own account and so had decided to rejoin Blackbeard.
"Is Ned Rackham aboard the snow?" asked Peter Tobey of the boat's coxswain.
"He is all o' that, matey, though the big bos'n of the Plymouth Adventure shoved a knife in his ribs to the hilt. He is flat in a bunk but he gives the orders an' it's jump at the word."
"A hard man to kill," said Peter Tobey. "Take me aboard. 'Tis best I have speech with him. Let the people wait here on the cay. They can stand another hour of it."
There was fierce protest among the marooned pirates but the carpenter's mate gruffly demanded to know if they wished to be carried into the harbor and turned over to Blackbeard. This gave the mob something to think about and they permitted the boat to pull away from them without much objection.
"A rough joke on you lads, I call it, to be dumped on this bit o' purgatory," said the coxswain to Peter Tobey. "The great Cap'n Teach must ha' been in one of his tantrums."
"It had been long brewing, as ye know," answered the carpenter's mate. "These men with you in the snow 'ud sooner follow Ned Rackham, flint-hearted though he be, than to rejoin the Revenge."
"Not so loud," cautioned the coxswain. "We'll see which way the cat is going to jump. Us poor devils is sore uneasy at findin' how you were dealt with."
"What of the master and crew of the snow?" asked Tobey. "Were they snuffed out? That 'ud be Rackham's way."
"No, we set 'em off in a boat, within sight of the coast. Ned Rackham was too shrewd to bloody his hands, bein' helpless in this tub of a snow which could neither fight nor show her heels if she was chased."
Few men as there were aboard the snow, they were smartly disciplined and kept things shipshape, as Peter Tobey noted when he climbed on deck. A few minutes later he was summoned into the small cabin. Propped up in the skipper's berth, Sailing-Master Ned Rackham had a pinched and ghastly look. He was a young man, with clean-cut, handsome features, and a certain refinement of manner when he cared to assume it. The rumor was that he was the black sheep of an English house of some distinction and that he had enlisted in the Royal Navy under a false name.
"What is this mare's-nest, my good Tobey?" said he as the carpenter's mate stood diffidently fumbling with his cap. "Marooned? Twenty men of you on a reef of sand? Were ye naughty boys whilst I was absent?"
"No more than them I could name who planned to go a-cruisin' in the Plymouth Adventure," doggedly replied Peter Tobey who resented the tone of sneering patronage.
"Fie, fie! You talk boldly for a man in your situation. Never mind! Why the honor of this visit?"
"To make terms, Master Rackham. If us twenty men consent to serve you——"
"You babble of terms?" was the biting interruption. "I can leave you to perish on the sand, as ye no doubt deserve, or I can carry you in with me, when I report to Captain Teach."
"But there's another choice, which hasn't escaped you," persisted the intrepid carpenter's mate. "Enlist us in your service and you'll have nigh on forty men. This snow mounts a few old swivels and you must ha' found muskets in her. With forty men, Master Rackham, there's no occasion to bow to Blackbeard's whimsies. You can h'ist the Jolly Roger for yourself and lay 'longside a bigger ship to take and cruise in. I've heard tell of a great buccaneer that started for himself in a pinnace and captured a galleon as tall as a church."
Ned Rackham's eyes flashed. Indeed, this was what he had in mind. This score of recruits would make the venture worth undertaking. Men were essential. Given enough of them to handle the snow and a boarding party besides, and he would not hesitate to shift helm and bear away to sea again.
"You will sign articles, then?" he demanded.
"Aye, I can speak for all, Master Rackham. What else is there for us? Hold fast, I would except one man. He must be granted safe conduct, on your sacred honor."
"His name, Tobey?"
"That matters not. Pledge me first. He has no more stomach for piracy and will be set ashore at some port."
"A pig in a poke?" cried Rackham, with an ugly smile. "If I refuse, what?"
"You will have sulky men that may turn against you some day."
"And I can leave you to rot where you are, with your nonsense of 'making terms,'" was the harsh rejoinder.
"But you won't do that," argued Peter Tobey. "Your own fortune hangs on enlisting us twenty lads. You bear Blackbeard no more love than we do."
Ned Rackham was making no great headway with this stubborn carpenter's mate who was playing strong cards of his own.
"A drawn bout, Tobey," said he, with a change of front. "No more backing and filling. You ask a small favor. Fetch your man along, whoever he may be. He shall be done no harm by me."
"Even though he made a mortal enemy of you, Master Rackham?"
"Enough, Peter. I have many enemies and scores to settle. You have my assurance but I demand the lad's name."
"Not without his permission," declared Tobey. "Set me ashore and I will confer with him."
Grudgingly Rackham consented, unwilling to have a hitch in the negotiations. In a somber humor, the carpenter's mate returned to his impatient comrades on the island. They crowded about him and he briefly delivered the message, that they were desired to cruise under Ned Rackham's flag. This delighted them, as the only way out of a fatal dilemma. Then Tobey went over to sit down upon the palmetto log behind which Joe Hawkridge still sprawled like a turtle. The anxious boy poked up his head to say:
"What cheer, Peter? A plaguey muddle you found it, I'll bet."
"Worse'n that, Joe. Rackham wouldn't clinch it with his oath unless I told him your name. I plead with him for safe conduct."
"I'd not trust his oath on a stack o' Bibles, once he set eyes on me," exclaimed Joe. "As soon put my fist to my own death warrant as go aboard with him."
"That may be," said Peter Tobey, "but you will have friends. You can't expect us to refuse to sail on account o' you."
"Leave me here, then," cried the boy. "I'll not call it deserting me. Take your men aboard the snow. Tell Ned Rackham you have the fellow amongst 'em who implored the safe conduct. Pick out some harmless lad that was saucy to Rackham in the Revenge, a half-wit like that Robinson younker that was the sailing-master's own cabin boy. He was allus blubberin' that Rackham 'ud kill him some day."
"No half-wit about you," admiringly quoth the carpenter's mate. "But, harkee, Joe, you will die in slow misery. Better a quick bullet from Rackham's pistol."
"Find some way to send off a little food and water, Peter, and I will set tight on this desert island. And mayhap you will dance at the end of a rope afore I shuffle off."
"A hard request, Joe," replied the puzzled Tobey. "Unless I can come off again with some of our own men, how can it be done? Let Rackham's crew suspect I am leaving a man behind and they will rout you out."
"And they all love me, like a parson loves a pirate," grinned Joe. "I shot 'em full of spikes and bolts from a nine-pounder in the Plymouth Adventure."
"I shall use my best endeavor, so help me," sighed Peter Tobey. "What for did I ever quit carpenterin' to go a-piratin'? 'Tis the worst basket of chips that ever was."
"No sooner do I crawl out of one hole than I tumble into another," very truthfully observed Joe Hawkridge. "Insomuch as I've allus crawled out, you and me'll shed no more tears, Peter. There's a kick in me yet."
The disconsolate carpenter's mate returned to his fellow pirates and bade them go off to the snow. First, however, he extracted from every man the solemn promise that he would not divulge the secret of Joe Hawkridge's presence nor reveal the fact that he had remained behind. They were eager to promise anything. Several of them stole over to tell him furtive farewells. They displayed no great emotion. The trade they followed was not apt to make them turn soft over such a tragic episode as this.
When the snow was ready to take her departure, with almost forty seasoned pirates to seek their fortunes anew, the wind died to a calm and the little vessel drifted within easy vision of the sandy island through a long afternoon. Peter Tobey tormented himself to find some pretext for smuggling food and water ashore. He invented a tale of a precious gold snuff-box which must have fallen out of his pocket and begged permission to go and search for it. But Ned Rackham sent up word that he had no notion of being delayed by a fool's errand, should a breeze spring up. He was not at all anxious to linger so close to Cherokee Inlet whence Blackbeard might sight the spars of the snow and perhaps weigh anchor in the Revenge.
Soon after dark the sails filled with a soft wind which drew the snow clear of the coast. Peter Tobey had been mightily busy with an empty cask. In it he stowed meat and biscuit and a bag of onions, stealthily abstracted from the storeroom while his own companions stood guard against surprise. This stuff was packed around two jugs of water tightly stoppered. Then Peter headed up the cask with professional skill and watched the opportunity to lower it from the vessel's bow where he was unseen.
The wind and tide were favorable to carrying the cask in the direction of the little patch of sea-washed sand upon which was marooned the solitary young mariner, Joe Hawkridge. The carpenter's mate saw the cask drift past the side of the snow and roll in the silvery wake. Slowly it vanished in the darkness and he said to himself, in a prayer devoutly earnest:
"That boy deserves a slant o' luck, and may the good God let him have it this once. Send the cask to the beach, and I vow to go a-piratin' never again."