After the first two days, the trade began. The seamen rigged up trading-booths ashore, with some old sails, stretched upon poles. Planks were laid upon casks to serve as trade tables. The goods were arranged at the back of each booth, in the care of trusty hands. Clothing was more in demand than any other kind of goods; but the only clothes bought were those of fine quality and beautiful colour. It puzzled Captain Margaret to see a small planter, owning perhaps only one white apprenticed servant, or redemptioner, buying clothes of great price, putting them on in the booth, and riding off, like an earl, on his little Virginian horse, to his little clearing in the wilderness. A few planters, especially those who were newly come to the colony from the islands, where they had been privateering, paid for their purchases in ounces of silver. It was easy to recognize these planters. They had not lost their sea-walk, nor that steadfast anxiety of gaze which marks the sailor. They all carried arms; though the richer sort of them wore only pistols and a knife, leaving the carriage of the musket, the bag containing lead, a mould, and some bullets, and the heavy leather-covered powder-bottle, to a redemptioner, a Moskito Indian, or, more rarely, to a negro slave. Cammock had known some of these men in the past. Often, as he sat in the shade, watching the beauty of the scene, now so glorious with coming autumn, Captain Margaret would see one of these strangers approaching, followed by his man. He was always impressed by them, sometimes by their physical splendour, sometimes by the sense that they were full of a rather terrible exuberance. As he watched such a man approaching the booths, puffing at his pipe, dressed in elaborate clothes, hung about with silver at all points, with silver buttons, silver brooches, silver discs, buckles of heavy silver, links and stars of silver, silver chains and necklets, so that the man’s whole wealth was on his body at one time, Captain Margaret was conscious of a feeling of envy. His own training, his own beautifully ordered life in an English college, had shut him off from such a life as this man’s. This clashing, tinkling pirate—he was nothing more, although he often looked so fine—was master of his world. Captain Margaret was the slave of his; the unhappy slave. The pirate could leave his plantation when he wished, letting the wild bines choke his tobacco. He could ship himself in any ship in the harbour, and go to any part of the world which pleased his fancy. If chance flung him down in a tropical forest, on an island in the sea, in a battle, in a shipwreck, at a wedding, he would know what to do, what to say, what to propose. The world had no terrors for such a man. Captain Margaret forgot, when he thought thus enviously, that he himself was one of the few who had escaped from the world, escaped from that necessity for tooth and claw which is nature; and that by being no longer “natural,” instinctive, common, he had risen to something higher, to a point from which he could regard the pirate as an interesting work of art. He never pursued his fancy far enough to ask himself if he would willingly imitate or possess that work; because the pirate, passing him by with a hard, shrewd glance, would stride into the booth, taking off his hat to thrust back his long hair. He would listen then to the conversation. If the man was known to Cammock, the talk began promptly.
“Any Don Peraltoes, this trip?”
“What? Peraltoes? You weren’t there?”
“Ain’t you Ned?”
“And you’re Lion. I’d never have known you. Any of ’em with you?”
“No, I quit the trade. Come and have something.”
Then they would mix some rum and sugar, and sprinkle the mixture with a squeeze of a scrap of lemon-peel. They would drink together, calling their curious toasts of “Salue,” “Here’s How,” “Happy Days,” and “Plenty Dollars.” Then, over the trade as the men haggled—
“Got any powder, Lion?”
“I can only sell powder if you’ve a license from the Governor.”
“Any small arms?”