The reception on the quarter-deck left nothing out; even the awning was drawn across so that for a little while it seemed to some of the men that the past few weeks were all a dream, good or bad as the individual viewpoint dictated.
The boat had had orders, after bringing out the governor’s party, to go back to town and fetch provisions. Now, whether the idea was to pay for the goods or to just take them with a thank-ye-marm is not a matter of recorded history; historical it is, however, that the boat came back empty, which Gow, out of the corner of his eye, noticed, and, excusing his absence, stepped down the companion ladder in anxious questioning. Somehow there was always drumming through his head old Paterson’s ancient chant, “As we eat, so shall we work.”
“They won’t give us the grub,” bellowed the boatswain, balancing himself in the stern of the bobbing boat.
Gow went back and lodged a courteous complaint with His Excellency. Excellency called an attendant and battered him about the ears with swift Portuguese. Attendant went back with the boat.
Back came the boat in a little while, with the boatswain holding aloft a sadly small meal bag in signals that needed no aid from the boatswain’s disgusted expression. More complaints to the governor—and complaints rather acrid; more rapid fire at the attendant; another departure for shore—the boat’s crew were beginning to grumble at their oars—another return. Nothing at all with them, this time. The boatswain wigwagged Gow to do something violent with the governor.
Which Gow proceeded to do. He unbuttoned his coat and revealed himself attired to play “Arsenal” in a charade, with a belt full of sudden death in several varieties. As calmly as if he were taking out a toothpick, he drew a long, convincing pistol and laid it cozily—nose on—into the deepest crease of the governor’s brocaded waistcoat.
In this manner the Revenge was amply provisioned at Porta Santa.
V
The larder stuffed, the next question before the House was whither now. “Before the House” is a calculated phrase, for, by approved piratical procedure, equal franchise prevailed on the Revenge; a majority decided all general propositions; only in the particular ones of fighting, chasing or being chased was the captain’s power absolute. With their odd turn for the comic, the jolly sea robbers would often describe their conferences as sessions of the “House of Lords” or the “House of Commons”, just as they enjoyed, when carousing ashore, under the mangrove trees of the West Indies, holding mock courts for the mimic trial of one of the number for piracy, when the “Judge” would throw a tarpaulin around his shoulders for the judicial robes, and a turban on his head for the ponderous judicial wig, and the whole affair would be carried off in a quite striking parody of that judicial process which many of their fellows had already suffered under, and for most of whom the actual fact was but a question of time. Such jollities revealed an intimate knowledge of forms and manner and curiously reflected the contemporaneous severity of prosecutors and judges.
The lawless business still had its laws; for instance, sea courtesy between passing pirates required salutes with loaded guns, as against the usual blanks, and in their burial rites the maritime rovers often followed their own peculiar but very particular ritual.