"No, no!" yelled the brute. "No, no! Signor Capitan. No, Signor Phips, no slay me!" and he clutched, said the bos'un, at Phips' legs and tried to seize his pistol hand.
"Ay, but I will, though," said Phips.--"No man betrays me twice;" whereupon he drew back from the howling wretch, and seizing his wool by one hand blew out his brains with the other, so that the deck was all bespattered with them.
"Fling him over," said Phips, "and swab up the mess, and now bring forth the other. Meanwhile, where is Crafer with the tender? She should be round the point by now."
Then they brought forth that other poor crazed traitor--weeping and sobbing with despair, and shrieking as he saw the great negro's dead body--and to him strides Phips, his sword in hand.
"You dog," says he, "you have betrayed us too. So must you die also. They say you drank with the Coromantee and slept on your watch. Therefore, to the yard-arm with him."
'Midst his shrieks and howls they dragged him away, calling on his mother's name, which softened Phips so much that, the bos'un said, he seemed at one time like to spare him, only he remembered all he had been robbed of. And then, ere the man was executed, the boat was lowered that was to bring them to us in the galliot, and so they came away.
"And," said Phips to the bos'un, "tell Mr. Crafer that so long as his galliot will swim, so long as there is a man left alive in it, so long as he can sail, fight, or move, he is to follow those buccaneers--even though it be into their stronghold. And while there is one of you left alive, that one is to attempt it, and is to get back the stolen treasure. And then, when that is done, the rendezvous shall be Portsmouth town, to which those of you who live must find your way back somehow. Now go; do your duty, commend me to Nicholas Crafer and tell him to do his. And more, say that at the sign of the 'Navy Tavern' I will leave word for him or he for me--whoever by God's grace reaches there first. And reach it I pray we all may do."
Such was the message brought to me, this the duty I had to perform, this the errand on which now we sped. Ahead of us, and still gaining on us, went the Snow, Etoyle, with the buccaneering thieves on board, and with them a fourth of our treasure; behind us slowly faded into dimness the reef and the Furie moored fast to it. That Phips himself would have given chase had he been able, was certain--only, before he could have got under weigh the buccaneers would have been out of sight. For nought was ready, the plate was not bestowed away, the sails were unbent and all in disorder.
So, instead, 'twas I got the commission to chase those thieves, to follow them to their lair, and to wrench back from them the stolen goods. And as the galliot danced along, following the course they had betaken--which was now set due east, so that I could not but think they did mean to 'bout ship shortly and run for Porto Rico, or, perhaps, one of the Virgin Isles--I took a solemn and a fervent oath that never would I fail in my endeavour while life lasted to me. If I could catch and defeat those thieves, I swore to do it, and so upon that I set myself to see to the arrangements necessary in our small craft, and to make all ready for what might be before us.