CHAPTER V
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF PIRATES
THE weirs, to which they took their way that afternoon in theTowncrier's dory, _The Betsey_, was "the biggest fish-trap in any watersthereabouts," the old man told them. And it happened that the net heldan unusually large catch that day. Barrels and barrels of flapping squidand mackerel were emptied into the big motor boat anchored alongside ofit.
At a word from Uncle Darcy, an obliging fisherman in oilskins held outhis hand to help the children scramble over the side of _The Betsey_ toa seat on top of the cabin where they could have a better view. All thecrew were Portuguese. The man who helped them climb over was Joe Fayal,father of Manuel and Joseph and Rosa. He stood like a young brownNeptune, his white teeth flashing when he laughed, a pitchfork in hishands with which to spear the goosefish as they turned up in the net,and throw them back into the sea. If nothing else had happened thatsight alone was enough to mark it as a memorable afternoon.
Nothing else did happen, really, except that on the way out, UncleDarcy finished the story begun on the Green Stairs and on the way backtold them another. But what Richard remembered ever after as seeming tohave happened, was that _The Betsey_ suddenly turned into a Brigantine.Perched up on one of the masts, an unseen spectator, he watched a mutinyflare up among the sailors, and saw that "strutting, swaggering villain,John Quelch, throw the captain overboard and take command himself." Hesaw them hoist a flag they called "Old Roger," "having in the middle ofit an Anatomy (skeleton) with an hour-glass in one hand and a dart inthe heart with three drops of blood proceeding from it."
He heard the roar that went up from all those beardedthroats--(wonderful how Uncle Darcy's thin, quavering voice could soundthat whole chorus)----
"_Of all the lives, I ever say, A Pirate's be for I. Hap what hap may, he's allus gay An' drinks an' bungs his eye. For his work he's never loth, An' a-pleasurin' he'll go Tho' certain sure to be popt off. Yo ho, with the rum below._"
And then they made after the Portuguese vessels, nine of them, and tookthem all (What a bloody fight it was!), and sailed away with a dazzlingstore of treasure, "enough to make an honest sailorman rub his eyes andstagger in his tracks."
Richard had not been brought up on stories as Georgina had. He had hadfew of this kind, and none so breathlessly realistic. It carried him outof himself so completely that as they rowed slowly back to town he didnot see a single house in it, although every western window-pane flashedback the out-going sun like a golden mirror. His serious, brown eyeswere following the adventures of these bold sea-robbers, "marooned threetimes and wounded nine and blowed up in the air."
When all of a sudden the brigantine changed back into _The Betsey_, andhe had to climb out at the boat-landing, he had somewhat of the dazedfeeling of that honest sailor-man. He had heard enough to make him "rubhis eyes and stagger in his tracks."
Uncle Darcy, having put them ashore, rowed off with the partinginjunction to skip along home. Georgina did skip, so light of foot andquick of movement that she was in the lead all the way to the GreenStairs. There she paused and waited for Richard to join her. As he cameup he spoke for the first time since leaving the weirs.
"Wish I knew the boys in this town. Wish I knew which one would be thebest to get to go digging with me."
_They took their Way in the Betsey_]
Georgina did not need to ask, "digging for what?" She, too, had beenthinking of buried treasure.
"_I'll_ go with you," she volunteered sweetly.
He turned on her an inquiring look, as if he were taking her measure,then glanced away indifferently.
"You couldn't. You're a girl."
It was a matter-of-fact statement with no suspicion of a taunt in it,but it stung Georgina's pride. Her eyes blazed defiantly and she tossedback her curls with a proud little uplift of the chin. It must beacknowledged that her nose, too, took on the trifle of a tilt. Herchallenge was unspoken but so evident that he answered it.
"Well, you know you couldn't creep out into the night and go along alonely shore into dark caves and everything."
"_Pity_ I couldn't!" she answered with withering scorn. "I could goanywhere _you_ could, anybody descended from heroes like _I_ am. I don'twant to be braggity, but I'd have you to know they put up that bigmonument over there for one of them, and another was a Minute-man. Withall that, for you to think I'd be afraid! _Tut!_"
Not Tippy herself had ever spoken that word with finer scorn. With aflirt of her short skirts Georgina turned and started disdainfully upthe street.
"Wait," called Richard. He liked the sudden flare-up of her manner.There was something convincing about it. Besides, he didn't want herto go off in that independent way as if she meant never to come back. Itwas she who had brought the Towncrier, that matchless Teller of Tales,across his path.
"I didn't say you wasn't brave," he called after her.
She hesitated, then stopped, turning half-way around.
"I just said you was a girl. Most of them _are_ 'fraid cats, but if youain't I don't know as I'd mind taking you along. That is," he addedcautiously, "if I could be dead sure that you're game."
At that Georgina turned all the way around and came back a few steps.
"You can try me," she answered, anxious to prove herself worthy to betaken on such a quest, and as eager as he to begin it.
"You think of the thing you're most afraid of yourself, and tell me todo it, and then just watch me."
Richard declined to admit any fear of anything. Georgina named severalterrors at which he stoutly shook his head, but presently with uncannyinsight she touched upon his weakest point.
"Would you be afraid of coffins and spooks or to go to a graveyard inthe dead of the night the way Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn did?"
Not having read Tom Sawyer, Richard evaded the question by asking, "Howdid they do?"
"Oh, don't you know? They had the dead cat and they saw old Injun Joecome with the lantern and kill the man that was with Muff Potter."
By the time Georgina had given the bare outline of the story in herdramatic way, Richard was quite sure that no power under heaven couldentice him into a graveyard at midnight, though nothing could haveinduced him to admit this to Georgina. As far back as he could rememberhe had had an unreasoning dread of coffins. Even now, big as he was, bigenough to wear "'leven-year-old suits," nothing could tempt him into afurniture shop for fear of seeing a coffin.
One of his earliest recollections was of his nurse taking him into alittle shop, at some village where they were spending the summer, andhis cold terror when he found himself directly beside a long brown one,smelling of varnish, and with silver handles. His nurse's tales had muchto do with creating this repulsion, also her threat of shutting him upin a coffin if he wasn't a good boy. When she found that she could exactobedience by keeping that dread hanging over him, she used the threatdaily.
"I'll tell you what I'll do," he said finally. "I'll let you go diggingwith me if you're game enough to go to the graveyard and walk clearacross it all by yourself and"--dropping his voice to a hollowwhisper--"_touch--ten--tombstones_!"
Now, if Richard hadn't dropped his voice in that scary way when hesaid, "and touch ten tombstones," it would have been no test at all ofGeorgina's courage. Strange, how just his way of saying those four wordssuddenly made the act such a fearsome one.
"Do it right now," he suggested.
"But it isn't night yet," she answered, "let alone being mid-night."
"No, but it's clouding up, and the sun's down. By the time we'd get to agraveyard it would be dark enough for me to tell if you're game."
Up to this time Georgina had never gone anywhere without permission. Butthis was something one couldn't explain very well at home. It seemedbetter to do it first and explain afterward.
Fifteen minutes later, two children and a dog arrived hot and panting atthe entrance to the old burying ground. On a high sand dune, coveredwith thin patches of beach and poverty grass,
and a sparse growth ofscraggly pines, it was a desolate spot at any time, and now doubly so inthe gathering twilight. The lichen-covered slabs that marked the gravesof the early settlers leaned this way and that along the hill.
The gate was locked, but Georgina found a place where the palings wereloose, and squeezed through, leaving Richard and the dog outside. Theywatched her through the fence as she toiled up the steep hill. The sandwas so deep that she plunged in over her shoe-tops at every step. Onceon top it was easier going. The matted beach grass made a firm turf.She stopped and read the names on some of the slabs before she pluckedup courage to touch one. She would not have hesitated an instant if onlyRichard had not dared her in that scary way.
Some little, wild creature started up out of the grass ahead of her andscurried away. Her heart beat so fast she could hear the blood poundingagainst her ear-drums. She looked back. Richard was watching, and shewas to wave her hand each time she touched a stone so that he could keepcount with her. She stooped and peered at one, trying to read theinscription. The clouds had hurried the coming of twilight. It was hardto decipher the words.
"None knew him but to love him," she read slowly. Instantly her dread ofthe place vanished. She laid her hand on the stone and then waved toRichard. Then she ran on and read and touched another. "Lost at sea,"that one said, and under the next slabs slept "Deliverance" and"Experience," "Mercy," and "Thankful." What queer names people had inthose early days! And what strange pictures they etched in the stone ofthose old gray slabs--urns and angels and weeping willows!
She signaled the tenth and last. Richard wondered why she did not turnand come back. At the highest point of the hill she stood as iftransfixed, a slim little silhouette against the darkening sky, herhands clasped in amazement. Suddenly she turned and came tearing downthe hill, floundering through sand, falling and picking herself up, onlyto flounder and fall again, finally rolling down the last few yards ofthe embankment.
"What scared you?" asked Richard, his eyes big with excitement as hewatched what seemed to be her terrified exit. "What did you see?" Butshe would not speak until she had squeezed between the palings and stoodbeside him. Then she told him in an impressive whisper, glancingfurtively over her shoulder:
"There's a whole row of tombstones up there with _skulls and cross-boneson them! They must be pirate graves!_"
Her mysterious air was so contagious that he answered in a whisper, andin a moment each was convinced by the other's mere manner that theirsuspicion was true. Presently Georgina spoke in her natural voice.
"You go up and look at them."
"Naw, I'll take your word for it," he answered in a patronizing tone."Besides, there isn't time now. It's getting too dark. They'll beexpecting me home to supper."
Georgina glanced about her. The clouds settling heavily made it seemlater than it really was. She had a guilty feeling that Barby wasworrying about her long absence, maybe imagining that something hadhappened to _The Betsey_. She started homeward, half running, but herpace slackened as Richard, hurrying along beside her, began to plan whatthey would do with their treasure when they found it.
"There's sure to be piles of buried gold around here," he said. "Thosepirate graves prove that a lot of 'em lived here once. Let's buy amoving picture show first."
Georgina's face grew radiant at this tacit admission of herself intopartnership.
"Oh, yes," she assented joyfully. "And then we can have moving picturesmade of _us_ doing all sorts of things. Won't it be fun to sit back andwatch ourselves and see how we look doing 'em?"
"Say! that's great," he exclaimed. "All the kids in town will want to bein the pictures, too, but we'll have the say-so, and only those who doexactly to suit us can have a chance of getting in."
"But the more we let in the more money we'd make in the show," wasGeorgina's shrewd answer. "Everybody will want to see what their childlooks like in the movies, so, of course, that'll make people come to ourshow instead of the other ones."
"Say," was the admiring reply. "You're a partner worth having. You'vegot a _head_."
Such praise was the sweetest incense to Georgina. She burned to callforth more.
"Oh, I can think of lots of things when once I get started," she assuredhim with a grand air.
As they ran along Richard glanced several times at the head from whichhad come such valuable suggestions. There was a gleam of gold in thebrown curls which bobbed over her shoulders. He liked it. He hadn'tnoticed before that her hair was pretty.
There was a gleam of gold, also, in the thoughts of each. They couldfairly see the nuggets they were soon to unearth, and theirimaginations, each fired by the other, shoveled out the coin which thepicture show was to yield them, in the same way that the fisherman hadshoveled the shining mackerel into the boat. They had not attempted tocount them, simply measured them by the barrelful.
"Don't tell anybody," Richard counseled her as they parted at the GreenStairs. "Cross your heart and body you won't tell a soul. We want tosurprise 'em."
Georgina gave the required sign and promise, as gravely as if it were anoath.
From the front porch Richard's father and cousin, James Milford, watchedhim climb slowly up the Green Stairs.
"Dicky looks as if the affairs of the nation were on his shoulders,"observed Cousin James. "Pity he doesn't realize these are his care-freedays."
"They're not," answered the elder Richard. "They're the most deadlyserious ones he'll ever have. I don't know what he's got on his mindnow, but whatever it is I'll wager it is more important business thanthat deal you're trying to pull off with the Cold Storage people."
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