"You will not be rash, Bernard,—for my sake," pleaded the girl.
He assured her that he would be discreet.
It was dark when they got back to the little cove in which the boats were beached. About midnight, with no light save the vague illumination of the scattered stars, they rowed out with muffled oars. They moved with such caution that it took them two hours to reach Wigwam Harbour. They passed the outer ships unchallenged. Then Beatrix was transferred from the Pelican to Black Feather's boat, and Tom Bent joined the commander. A veil of drifting cloud shut out even such feeble light as had disclosed the course to the voyagers. Before them the Heart of the West loomed dark, a thing of massed shadows and a few yellow lights.
The new-built boats lay about thirty yards aft and seaward of the ship. The Pelican stole in under the looming stern, with no more noise than a fish makes when he breaches in shallow water. The crew steadied her beside the groaning rudder with their hands. Kingswell stood on a thwart and peered in at the cabin window, as Ouenwa had peered on a night of the preceding season. The low, oak-ceiled room was empty. A lantern hung from the starboard bulkhead, and two candles, in silver sticks that bore the Kingswell crest, burned, with bending flames, on the table. On the locker under the lantern lay a cutlass in its sheath, and a boat-cloak in an untidy heap. The edge of the table was within two feet of the square stern-window.
For a little while Kingswell listened with guarded breath. Then, swiftly and lightly, he pulled himself across the ledge of the window, scrambled through, and crouched behind the table. Very cautiously he drew his rapier with his right hand and his dagger with his left. For a minute or two he squatted in the narrow quarters, breathing regularly and deeply, and harkening to the innumerable creaking voices of the decks and bulkheads, and the muffled voices and laughter from forward. For the occasion he had donned the hat, coat, breeches, and boots—all now stained and faded—in which Master Trowley had last seen him.
Suddenly a heavy, uncertain step sounded on the companion ladder just forward of the cabin door. A volley of stout Devonshire oaths boomed above the lesser sounds. The door flew open, smote the bulkhead with a resounding crack, and swung, trembling. The bulky figure of Trowley entered, and the heady voice of the old sea-dog cursed the door, and big, red hands slammed it shut again. Kingswell drew a deep breath, and composed his dancing nerves and galloping blood as best he could. His emotions were disconcertingly mixed.
The masterful old pirate (for such he surely was, deny the charge if you like) seemed to fill the cabin to overflowing with his lurching, great body. He tossed boat-cloak and cutlass on the deck, and yanked up the top of the locker. With muttered revilings at the excessive cost of West Indies rum, he produced a bottle of no mean capacity from its hiding-place, and a fine glass sparkled in the candle-light like diamonds. Kingswell recognized the glass as one from which he had often drunk his grog—a rare piece from his house in Bristol. Those articles the mariner placed on the table, scarcely a foot from the watcher's head. Next he loaded himself a china pipe with black tobacco, and lit it at one of the candles. In doing so, Master Bernard heard the puffings and gruntings with which the deed was accomplished, like half a gale in his ear. At last the fellow sat down with a thud, squared his elbows on the table, gazed for a second at the square window that opened on to the mysterious gloom of the night, and tipped the bottle. The liquor gulped and gurgled in its passage to the glass. The reek of it permeated the air.
"Dang it," grumbled the mariner, "d'ye call this rum! Sink me, but it be half water!"
However, he swallowed the dose with gusto, and smacked his lips at the end of it as he never would have after a draught of water.