“I came from the town, Tolu town, in one of the sloops, sir,” the man answered. “The Lively, as they called her. When we come here, Captain Pain got all the men you left, all the guard like, to sign on with him. Then he set the town on fire, and scoffed all your gear, the guns and powder and that. So I got away and hid in the wood. I was afraid they want me to join ’em, or put a knife into me. Then I saw ’em flog that Don Toro, and two other Indians. He flog ’em on the beach, and sent ’em back to the Main, sir. He said that would put all them Indians off giving you a hand in the future.”
“What a devil the man must be,” Margaret said.
“So I stayed hidden, sir, ever since, hoping no Indians would come over and find me.”
“So that’s the end,” said Margaret to himself. He would not go ashore there. He could see the ruins of his city, a mass of fallen earth, a heap of ashes, a sprouting crop blasted. He would never set foot there again. That dream had ended like the other, in savagery, in waste, in cruelty. He would let it end. The fallen gabions of the fort would soon be tangled with grasses. In three months there would be shrubs on the city site. The key would be jungle again, the Indians would be savage again, the privateers would be plundering vagabonds again. The dream was over. All that he could do now was to proceed to Jamaica, to sell his goods there, before sailing for England, a beaten man, threatened by the law.
Tucket’s men helped his crew to fill fresh water. Tucket offered to take seven of the slightly wounded men in his ship in exchange for five unhurt men from his own crew. As the men were willing to exchange, this brought the Broken Heart’s complement to twenty men; enough, at a strain, for the passage to Jamaica, if no enemy threatened and no storm arose. When the water had been filled, and the manger stacked with wood, the men gathered stores of fruit. They were ready to sail then. Margaret gave the Indian Robin enough goods to make him a chief in his own land. He made gifts to all of Tucket’s crew. To Tucket himself he gave a pair of pistols, choice weapons, made by the best artist in Paris. Tucket asked for his address, in writing.
“I shall come and look you up, one day,” he said, as he put the paper in his pocket. “I shall be coming home to set up dyer. We’ll have a great yarn, that day.”
“I shall expect you,” Margaret said. “You shall dye for me. But won’t you come home now, captain? With me?”
“No, sir,” he answered. “I want to get that green the Indians get. Then I’ll come home.”
“I’m sorry,” Margaret said. “Good-bye, then, Captain Tucket. I wonder if we shall ever meet again.”
“Well. We met. Haven’t we? We neither of us expected to.”