I stretched one hand towards the horizon as if I could reach Ruth. The buccaneer seemed to understand my gesture for he continued:
“She’s been there a year, you say? That’s a long time to stay in Yorke. I suppose she took service up the Hudson, perhaps even as far as Albany on the great Van Rensselaer estate. Do you know any one in Yorke?”
“Not a soul,” I answered, the admission damping my spirits somewhat. “But I shall hunt up the Huguenot pastor and inquire of him.”
“I mean no offense, Monsieur Le Bourse,” continued the pirate. “But if you will take my advice you will go slow in your dealing with your countrymen in Yorke. I hear they have been on the fence since the Rebellion:—one year Leisler men; the next, Jacobites to a man. I don’t know much of the new governor either, curse him, except that he keeps us out of the port.”
He stopped talking and looked down absently at the buttons of his coat, fondling them tenderly and turning them up one by one so that he could look at the device engraved on them.
“Fine buttons, Monsieur, fine buttons. Did you ever stop to look at the workmanship and the coat of arms on the back? It goes hard with me to part with them, it does indeed.” Then he cried out more to himself than to me, as if he had made up his mind to a difficult task: “You old ungrateful dog! Off with the pair, I say, off on the instant!”
With that he drew his cutlass and slashed away clumsily at two of the buttons which he presented to me, holding them out on the flat of his hand.
“I’m an ungrateful dog to think twice about letting them go, but you must know their value. They came to me from his Excellency, Colonel Benjamin Fletcher. Ah, he was a merry soul. When he was governor of Yorke we had no trouble to land, but the present earl sets close watch upon the ports. You’ll find the city as full of brawls as tobacco is of smoke. There are Jacobites and Earl’s men and the devil knows what besides. You may be sure of one thing: whatever is at stake, Kilian Van Volkenberg will be at logger-heads with the new earl. When you get there, show these buttons to Kilian. He brought them to me from Fletcher. I’ll stake my ship and cargo he’ll do all that the love of a good fat bargain can make a Dutch merchant do.”
Soon after this conversation the buccaneer took me into his cabin where he presented me with a purse of money, a pair of pistols, and a handsomely mounted sword. All these articles put together, he assured me, were not worth the eye-hole of one of the buttons. “For,” as he said, “old Ben Fletcher was a merry dog and profitable to the jolly sea-rovers.”
An hour later we sighted land from the deck. During the rest of the afternoon our ship stood off and on, waiting for night. As soon as it grew dark enough to conceal my landing, a long-boat was lowered and they put me ashore at Gravesoon. As I went down the side of the ship, Captain Tew bade me a last farewell. He thanked me again and again for the warning I had given him, assuring me that I had saved him and his ship and all his crew.