The Dark Frigate

by Charles Boardman Hawes

So the table was laid and the feast was spread and in came the men. Only one remained at the helm, for the wind was light, which made light his task; six remained on deck to watch and stand by, with Harry Malcolm curled against the light gun on the quarter-deck to command them; and the cook and his mate, resting from their labours far down in the hold, gorged themselves on good food and drank themselves drunk on nappy liquor from a cask they had cannily marked for their own among the cabin stores. Of the rest, all that could find room crowded into the great cabin, and all that could find no room in the cabin squatted on the deck outside the door on the very spot where Francis Candle had fallen dead. They sat with their backs against bulkheads and stanchions, where they, too, could join in the feast and the council; and the boy, when all were fed, gathered meat from under the table like old King Adoni-bezek of unhappy memory.

It was a sight to remember, for very merry they were and save as they were rough, hard-featured men, a man would never have dreamed they bore blood on their hands and murder on their hearts. The Old One sat at the head of the table and took care that neither food nor wine was stinted. The carpenter, his one eye twinkling with pleasure and his beard waggling in his haste lest another should get ahead of him at trencher work, sat on the Old One's right, which was accorded him as a mark of honour since he had accomplished marvels in restoring the planking the storm had torn asunder. A stout seaman of the rescued men, Paul Craig by name—it was he who had needed two blows to kill the helmsman—sat at the Old One's left and squared his big shoulders over his meat and ate like a hog till he could hold no more, for he was an ox of great girth and short temper and little wit, who ate by custom more than did him good. Another of gaunt frame, Joseph Kirk by name, sat smiling at a man here and a man there and tippled till his head wagged; and off in a corner there sat a keen little man with a hooked nose, who was older than most of those in the cabin yet had scarcely a wrinkle to mar the smoothness of his shaven face save above and behind his eyes, where a few deep lines gave him the wild look of a hawk.

When he spoke, which was seldom, thick gutturals confused his words, and always he sat in corners. Does not a man looking out of a corner, with a wall on two sides of him and no one behind him, see more than another? His Christian name was Jacob and most of them knew him by no other; but mocking him they called it "Yacob." Further than that, which he took with a wry smile, they refrained from mocking him, for though he spoke little, his silence said much.

The Old One rose and very sober he was as he held high a brimming can, and so steady was his hand that not a drop spilled. For a space he paused and looked around at the rough company seated at the long table and crouching in the mellow shadows beyond the door, then, "To the King!" he cried.

Those not knowing him well, who stared in perplexity at such a toast in such a place and time, saw his eyes twinkle and perceived he was looking at old Jacob in the corner. Then old Jacob, smiling as at a familiar jest, rose in turn and raised his can likewise, and pausing to look about him, cried back at the Old One in his thick foreign voice, "The King and his ships—be damned!"

A yell of laughter and derision shook the cabin. The one-eyed carpenter leaped up first, then such of the rescued men as were not too drunk to stand, then here and there men of the Rose of Devon's company, some eagerly in all earnestness, others having a mind to keep their throats in one piece, for they perceived that like enough the unholy toast was but to try their allegiance.

The Old One's eyes leaped from man to man and his cold voice cut through the noisy riot of drunken mirth. "I had said Will Canty was a man of spirit, but his can hugs the table when these tall fellows are drinking confusion to the King."

"A hand-napper, a hand-napper! Have him away, my hearts, to the Halifax engine," Joe Kirk bawled with a drunken leer.

"Why," said Will Canty, and his face was white, but with a red spot on either cheek, "my can, since you say what you say, was dry; and for the matter of that, I am no prating Puritan who wishes ill to the King."

Over the rumble of voices the Old One's voice rose loudest: "See you, then, religious cobblers or preaching button-makers among us?"