The calm held. A sky of brass, an oily sea, heat and heat, and now more sickness, and now an uneasy whisper as to the store of water! The whisper grew, for the ship lay still, day after day, as though she had never moved nor ever would do so. Panic terror came and hovered near the Silver Queen. Captain Bard fell ill, lay in fever and delirium.... The mate took command—no second Captain Bard, but a frightened man himself. There was aboard a half-crazed fellow who began to talk of Ill-Luck. “The ship hath Ill-Luck. Who brought it aboard? Seek it out and tie it to the mast and shoot it with your arquebuse! Then, mayhap, the wind will blow.” He laughed and mouthed of Ill-Luck, until crew and passengers all but saw a shadowy figure. Time crawled by, and the calm held and the panic grew.
There came an hour when the bolt fell, foreseen by Aderhold. Before it ran a whisper; then there fell a pause and an ominous quiet; then burst the voices, fast and thick. It was afternoon, the sun not far from the horizon, the sea red glass. Aderhold came up on deck from the captain’s cabin. He looked about him and saw a crowd drawn together. Out of it issued a loud voice. “Ill-Luck? What marvel there is ill-luck?” Noise mounted. The half-crazed fellow suddenly began to shrill out, “Ill-Luck! Ill-Luck! There she sits!” He burst from the throng and pointed with his finger. Away from the stir, on a great coil of rope near a slung boat, there sat, looking out to sea, John Allen.
The mate, with him several of the more authoritative adventurers and also Master Evans, came out of the state cabin. “What’s all this? What has happened?”
A man of the wilder sort aboard, a ruffler and gamester, was pushed forward by the swarm. “My masters, there’s one aboard named George Dragon who, being somewhat drunk, hath let drop news that we hold hath a bearing upon this ship’s poor fortune! He saith that we carry escaped prisoners—runaways from the King’s justice—rebels, too, to religion—”
“Ill Luck! Ill Luck! There sits Ill Luck!” cried the half-crazed one, and pointed again.
The swarm began to speak with a general voice. “And we say that we won’t get a wind, but will lie here until water is gone and we die of thirst and rot and sink.... If we’ve got men aboard who are bringing misfortune on us.... Twelve days lying here and not a breath! The captain ill and twenty men besides, and the water low.... There’s Scripture for it.... What’s the good of praying for a wind, if all the time we’re harbouring his foes?... Held here, as though we were nailed to the sea floor, and the water low! The ship’s cursed.... We want George Dragon made to tell their names—”
Suddenly George Dragon himself was among them—red-faced and wry-mouthed, but to-day thick-tongued also and stumbling. He looked about him wildly. “What’s all this chattering? Talking like monkeys!—Waked me up—but I won and he paid—good stuff—” He saw Aderhold and lurched toward him. When he was near he spoke and imagined that none else could hear him. “Don’t look so grimly upon me, Master Aderhold!” he said. “I’ve dropped not a word, as I told you I wouldn’t. ’Zooks! I’m not one to peach—”
Aderhold! With one sharp sound the name ran through the swarm. “Not Allen!—Aderhold....” There were those here from that port town and the surrounding country,—those who had heard that name before. A man cried out, “Aderhold! That was the sorcerer who was to be burned!” Another: “They escaped—The sorcerer and apostate and the witch Joan Heron—”
“Ill Luck! Ill Luck!” cried the Bedlamite. “There she stands!”