Mr. McTavish, she told me, had gone back to her estate as steward, she heard from him every week, and he gave excellent reports of the plantations. I asked her whether anything had been heard of Vetch, and whether any vessel conveying her produce from Dry Harbor had been molested by the buccaneers. She said she had no news of either the one or the other, and I inclined to believe that Vetch had accepted his defeat and vanished out of her life for ever. When I told her of the commission intrusted to me by Mr. Benbow she looked a little troubled, and besought me to have a care of myself--a departure from her former indifference that surprised me. I could only answer that I would not court danger, and that as for taking care of myself I must do my duty and leave the rest to Providence.
Long afterwards I learned that she sent privately for Joe Punchard, and extorted from him a solemn promise that he would watch over me day and night, see that I did not take a chill or expose myself to danger, and bring me back unscathed, on pain of her lasting displeasure.
"I had to promise," said Joe when I taxed him with it. "I couldn't help it. I would ha' sworn black was white, the mistress have got that way with her. Thinks I to myself, 'Mr. Bold beant a baby, nor I beant a nurse; but I'll commit black perjury to make her happy,' and so I would, sir."
And having taken my leave of her, and of Mr. Benbow, and Cludde, and other my friends, I left the harbor in a boat at sunset on October twelfth and joined the brig off Bull Bay, where she had lain awaiting me.
Chapter [31]: The Cockpit.
The brig, whose name was the Tartar (a very fitting name for one that had been a privateer) was manned with thirty able seamen whom I had myself been permitted to pick from the man-of-war's men in the harbor. As lieutenant I had a quartermaster named Fincham, a very excellent officer. We sailed with a fair wind until we reached Port Antonio on the northeast side of the island, but then the wind fell contrary, and we had to beat up along the north coast at a creeping pace that vexed me sorely.
We did not expect to have any news of the buccaneers until we had fetched past Orange Bay, but from thence onwards I knew that we should have to search every inlet save those that had an anchorage for large vessels; and our slow progress was the more vexing because I feared that the buccaneers might get wind of Mr. Benbow's return and sheer off. I hoped they would not do this, for I was burning to justify the admiral's confidence in me by bringing the pirate craft into harbor.
One morning, when we had been a week at sea, we sighted a wreck on a small island off Blowing Point; the islet has since totally disappeared in one of the volcanic disturbances that afflict those latitudes. We drew in towards the derelict, and then spied a man on deck waving his shirt very energetically to attract our notice. I sent Fincham with a boat's crew to bring him off, and learned from him when he came aboard that he was the sole survivor of the barque Susan Maria, which was set upon a week before by a buccaneer vessel and carried to this islet, where she had been plundered and burned, many of her crew being killed, the rest taken away to be sold to the Spanish planters in Hispaniola. The man had been left for dead on the deck, but he had come out of his swoon, and had since supported himself on some moldy cheese and biscuits which the buccaneers had not deemed worth taking when they stripped the vessel.
He told me that the buccaneer vessel was a light brig carrying six guns and a crew of at least sixty men of all nations, her captain being a Frenchman. She had sailed away to the westward. I had little doubt that this was the very vessel I had been sent in search of, and though she was stronger than I supposed, I was hot set to find her and see for myself whether we might not attempt to put a stop to her mischievous career.
We lay becalmed for the rest of that day, but a light easterly breeze springing up towards morning, we clapped on all sail and worked steadily along the coast. I examined the chart very carefully for likely anchorages, and used my perspective glass constantly; but we saw no sign of the pirate, nor indeed of any vessel, all that day.