Humphrey Bold: A Story of the Times of Benbow

by Herbert Strang

When we came opposite to the two riders, I gave a shrill whistle, and with Cludde at my side dashed from among the trees. So sudden and unexpected was the assault that the overseers had no time to defend themselves. Cludde and I hauled them from their saddles and held them fast while two of the negroes brought from the wagons ropes wherewith to bind them. The negro drivers let forth a yell and dropped their reins when the rest of our party sprang out from the copse. The convoy halted and Uncle Moses in a very little time made the drivers understand that they must either do what we bade them or be trussed up and left in the woods. With night approaching this latter alternative had too many terrors to make it acceptable, and the men professed themselves willing to render utter obedience, the more readily in that Vetch and his gang of desperadoes were well hated by all the hands upon the estate.

One of them, who Uncle Moses told me, was a bad character, we bound and placed with the overseers in one of the wagons, which we then drew into the copse out of sight from the road.

Cludde and I deliberated for a moment whether we should mount the overseers' horses and ride on with the wagons. But we decided not to tempt fate. Before we reached the big house we should have to pass that of the principal overseer of the estate, and though the sky was already dusking, and it would be dark before we arrived, there were many chances that we might be seen by the buccaneers or others as we came within the bounds, and being in our officers' habiliments we should be marked and the alarm given. So we resolved to get into the first wagon, and cover ourselves with the sacking it contained as soon as we came to the borders of the plantations. Uncle Moses seated himself beside the driver of the first wagon, Noah on the second, and the rest of our party got into this wagon and likewise hid under sacking.

The stables, as I had learned from Uncle Moses, lay beyond the big house, so that our driving by would awaken no suspicion. In order that we might gain the further advantage of darkness, Uncle Moses drove slowly, and there was but a glimmer of twilight when we reached the house of the overseer. He had heard the rumbling of our wheels, and was standing at his gate as we came up. Seeing only the wagons and no horsemen, he cried out to know where the rest were. The negro beside Uncle Moses (who shrank back to escape recognition) made ready answer that the third wagon had broken down, and would come on presently with the overseers. The white man rapped out an oath, declaring (with what truth I know not) that the cursed wagon was always breaking down, and we drove past. Two of the buccaneers were smoking at the gates of the big house when we came up, and they hailed us in rough sailor fashion, but showed no curiosity; the work of the estate was no concern of theirs.

Uncle Moses had told me that there would certainly be a number of the buccaneers in the kitchen of the big house, where they took their supper and often sat far into the night drinking and dicing. As we drew near, indeed, I heard through the sack that covered me ('twas very sticky and fraught with the cloying smell of sugar) loud sounds of merriment proceeding from the house. Instead of driving past in the direction of the stables, the negro, obeying his instructions, pulled up his horses when the wagons came opposite the kitchen door.

I did not need Uncle Moses' call to know that the moment had arrived. Flinging off the sack that smothered us, Cludde and I sprang from the wagon, our companions doing likewise, and we burst headlong into the kitchen.

The merry sounds that we had heard were explained, but in an unforeseen way. In the middle of the room sat Joe Punchard, tied to a chair. Around him were half a dozen of Vetch's villainous crew engaged in the pleasant sport of baiting their prisoner. At the moment of our entrance they were rubbing the dregs of molasses into his red hair. I learned afterwards from him that he had been seized on approaching the house, and, Vetch being absent at the time, had been carried into the kitchen for a preliminary inquisition. They knew, doubtless on the information of the horseman I had seen, that he was a seaman from a king's ship, and charged him with having come to spy on them, shrewdly hitting the mark, though they could hardly have believed in their accusation, seeing that he had approached quite openly with no companions but a brace of negroes. He had suffered many indignities before we arrived, and he confessed to me that, though he had endured many a buffeting in the first years of his life at sea, he had never spent so distressful a couple of hours as those when the buccaneers put him to the question.

They were, I say, rubbing a filthy black semi-fluid into his hair at the moment when Cludde and I, with our negroes behind, made a sudden irruption into the kitchen. We had our muskets with us, and seizing mine by the barrel, I brought the stock down on the head of the fellow nearest me, and he dropped heavily to the floor. Springing past him, I cut Joe's cords with my knife, and then turned to assist my companions in the fight that was raging. The five buccaneers were sturdy villains, and after the first shock of surprise they were more than a match for Cludde and the negroes. One had wrested the musket from Cludde's hand, and now had his arms about his body, endeavoring to throw him. The rest had drawn their hangers and were pressing hard upon the negroes, who made play with their knives, but were not equal to their opponents.

The entrance of Joe and myself into the fray, however, turned the tide of battle in our favor. Joe had caught up the chair to which he had been bound, and wielded it like a flail, with every swing of it breaking a head or snapping an arm. And my musket took a heavy toll. The room rang with the din of battle--the shouts of the men, the whoops of the negroes, the clashing of our weapons. For half a minute it was perfect pandemonium; then finding the odds hopelessly against them, the two buccaneers who were not by this time on the floor dashed through the open door and fled, pursued by the negroes, who had no doubt long scores to pay off against them.

In the midst of the uproar I had not lost sight for a moment of the main purpose of my errand, and as soon as I saw that the issue of the fight was decided I called Uncle Moses to my side and asked him eagerly to lead me to his mistress' sitting room. We went along a passage and up a flight of stairs to the floor above, coming then to another corridor which was in darkness.