"Though he be never so mad a callant, I misdoubt he will put his head into a noose," said Jacob in his thick, serious voice.
"Be he the one we think or not the one we think, I will set him such a trap," said the Old One, "as will take the cunningest fox that ever doubled on the hounds." And the thin face smiled in a way that was not pleasant to see.
[CHAPTER XIV]
A WONDERFUL EXCELLENT COOK
If an astrologer or an Arabian enchanter could say to a man, "Beware of this or that, for it is a thing conceived of the Devil to work thy ruin," there would be reason for studying the stars or smiting the sand. And this, indeed, they do, according to the old tales. But if a sailor seek out an astrologer to learn things that shall profit him, he is more likely to find a man grown foolish by much study, who will stroke his chin sagely and say, "Come, let us look into this matter. Under Capricorn are all diseases in the knees and hams, leprosies, itch and scales and schirrous tumors, fallow grounds and barren fields, ox-houses and cow-houses, low dark places near the ground, and places where sails and materials for ships be laid." And while he talks of fixed angles and of the Lord of the Ascendant being in the fourth week, some small unsuspected thing may be the very egg on which the Devil is sitting like an old black hen to hatch forth a general calamity.
Thus certain incidents that shortly thereafter happened are to the point, for although they appeared of little moment at the time, they turned the tide of men's lives and made a stir that has to do with the current of my tale.
Now the men of the Rose of Devon sighted a sail at high noon when they were a week on their way south, and though she showed her heels and ran, and though the Rose of Devon lacked her mizzenmast, the strange vessel was but a small pink and so slow that they laid her aboard two hours before dark. In her crew she had only a dozen men, and sorely frightened they were, as they tossed in the lee of the dark frigate. So to save themselves from a more cruel fate there was scarcely one of them but leaped at the chance to join the Rose of Devon's crew. They tumbled up their small cargo of salt fish for Bilbao and hoisted it on board the ship, together with their shallop, and casting their pink adrift, they forbore from complaining when their new master and his men stole whatever pleased them, from the new men's rings and knives to the very clothes on their backs. So, with her plunder and her recruits, the Rose of Devon again squared her yards and continued on her course.
There was, to be sure, one fellow of mean spirit who whined dolefully, upon conceiving his present extremity to be distasteful. But another got comfort by knocking him on the head when no one was looking; and finding him dead, the Old One hove him over-board and there was no further trouble from the fishermen.
Yet it was no secret that there was grumbling and complaining forward among the gentlemen of the Rose of Devon, so the Old One sent the boatswain to summon them aft when the watches were changing.
He leaned against the swivel gun on the quarter-deck, and looking down into their faces, smiled disagreeably. "It hath come to my ears," said he, "that one hath a sad tale to tell because we failed to take the Porcupine, which, though a mere ketch, outnumbered us in guns and men. And another hath a sad tale to tell because this pink that late became our prize is small and of little worth, though we got from her eleven brave fellows who shall be worth a store of fine gold." He looked from one of his men to another, for they were all there,—Martin and the cook, and Philip Marsham and Will Canty, and Paul Craig and Joe Kirk, the one-eyed carpenter and the rest,—and his thin face settled into the many wrinkles that had got him his name. There was none of them, unless it might be Harry Malcolm or Old Jacob, who could say surely at one time or another what thoughts were uppermost in Tom Jordan's shrewd head.