Its chronicle, so far as our little voyage on the Ship of Modesty be concerned, began in a report from the cook that there were but a few days’ provisions in store. Whereupon Captain Pomfrett encouraged the watch to vigilance, promising to the man who first sighted a ship the pick of the small-arms aboard her. And the second day at sea we sighted a small snow, flying French colours. Our colours were French, too—a coincidence of which we made use. We overhauled the snow, fired a shot across her bows, summoned her to surrender, and sent a boat aboard to take possession. There was but small resistance, soon put down. These little ships speculate on the chance of running the gauntlet of pirates and privateers, rather than trust to their powers of defence. We pressed six of her crew, negroes and half-castes, took her cargo of wine, brandy, flour, and cocoa, and let her go; but not before Captain Brandon had pillaged her great cabin for dainties to grace the board of his own. Two days later we took, in like manner, another small ship, laden with marmalade, jars of gunpowder, some bar silver, muskets, and bags of bullets.
Meanwhile, there was no sign of Mr Murch. It was to be supposed that he was delayed in Porto-Bello. And, meanwhile, was no sign of Mr Dawkins, either. We were sailing north, but Dawkins might have gone south for all we knew, save that Murch was ranging to the southward, and Dawkins would have little lust to meet him. So we held on, with plans somewhat indeterminate. We could not sail after Dawkins for ever; if for no other reason, because our crew would certainly break into mutiny before long. They came out for plunder, and plunder they would have, sooner or later. Failing Dawkins, we might set a course for Bristol, and keep the crew in a good humour by picking up what ships we could on the way. What would happen when we fetched up in Bristol was a question never at this time debated. Persons in a doubtful situation often avoid a discussion, for, so long as a matter is not talked of, you may, if you like, pretend that it does not exist. But it was clear enough, without any words, that we were in a feeble case. We had but four guns and twenty-odd men, against Mr Dawkins’s eighteen guns and ninety men, or Murch’s eight guns and sixty men. Either pirate could blow us out of the water, if he had a mind.
Meanwhile, we held on steadily before the jolly trade-wind, shepherding its white cloud-flocks upon the blue illimitable fields of heaven. A great part of the captain’s day was occupied in taking the sun and working out the ship’s position; no dead reckoning or rule-of-thumb for Captain Pomfrett; the rest of his time he spent with Morgan Leroux. The skipper would have had the voyage to last for ever on these terms, I think. So we cruised warily among the group of little islands, Albuquerque Cays, Saint Andrew’s Island, Old Providence Island, and Serrana Cays, spying in every harbour, creek, and inlet for our old ship, the Blessed Endeavour, captained now by Dawkins. For we reckoned that she would need cleaning by this time, and we hoped to light upon the bark in some sequestered bay, careened and helpless. But we worked through the islands in vain, and steered north-west for Cape Gracias à Dios, at the outflow of the River Coco, where we would take in wood and water. So expert was the captain becoming at the art of navigation, that we did not miss the Cape by more than fifteen miles—a trifling error, easily amended by two or three hours’ tacking about and about, to which evolutions we owed the sight in the offing of a tall ship steering due west. Perceiving that the stranger altered her course as though to speak with us, we went about, and soon showed that, on a wind, we had the heels of her, whoever she might be. Before long she altered her course again, steering for the mainland. But when we fetched up in the shadow of Cape Gracias à Dios that evening there was no ship to be seen, and we thought no more of her for the time, being busied for the next two or three days in getting wood and water for the ship, overhauling her, and making good defects.
Upon the third night after our arrival in this snug anchorage we had been supping late, and came upon deck about midnight—the skipper, and Morgan Leroux, and the writer of these memoirs. The moon had gone down behind the rocky headland, which loomed upon the silver dimness like a huge couchant beast; fire-flies sparkled in the vast shadows of the shore, and out to seaward the smoothly rolling plains of water stretched away and away, glimmering mysterious. Save for the eternal thunder of the surf, which ran so continually in our ears that we ceased to hear it, the night was very still.
“This is a pleasant life,” said Captain Pomfrett. “It’s a pity it must end so soon.”
“Why so soon, then?” asked Morgan Leroux.
“Owners at home, and pirates abroad,” Brandon answered.
“I am so tired of your talk about owners,” said Morgan. “What have you to do with owners, when it was their ship’s company that sold you in Barbadoes? Why, they set Dawkins on to do it, very likely.”
“You wouldn’t say so if you knew my uncle, not to mention aunt,” returned the captain, lazily. “But it was I that brought Dawkins to them in the beginning, and it’s me that has to bring him back in the end—dead or alive.”
“Dead or alive, ho, ho!” came, like an echo, and with a chuckle, close beside us; and there were the head and shoulders of a man, risen above the rail of the bulwarks, black upon the moonlight.