The Pirate Story Megapack: 25 Classic and Modern Tales

by Robert E. Howard

  It would be idle for me to attempt to describe to you all I felt as the captain of the steamship Hoffnung greeted me upon his quarterdeck, and his men sent up rounds of cheers which echoed over the waters. I stood for some minutes forgetful of everything, save that I had been snatched from that prison of steel; brought from the shadow of the living death to the hope of seeing friends, and country, and home again. Now one man wrung my hand, now another brought clothes, now another hot food; but I stood as one stricken dumb, holding nervously to the taffrail as though none should drag me down again to the horrors of the dinghy, or to that terrible loneliness which had hung over my life for so many weeks. And then there came a great reaction, an overpowering weakness, a great sense of thankfulness, and tears gushed up in my eyes, and fell upon my numbed hands. The good fellows about me, whose German was for the most part unintelligible to me, appreciated well the condition in which I was; and, with many encouraging pats on the back, they forced me down their companion way to the skipper’s cabin, and so to a bunk, where I lay inanimate, and deep in sleep for many hours. But I awoke as another man, and when I had taken a great bowl of soup and some wine, my strength seemed to return to me with bounds, and I sat up to find they had taken away my clothes, but that the belt which Black had bound about me lay at the foot of the bunk, and was unopened.

  For some minutes I held this belt in my hand with a curious and inexplicable hesitation. It was not heavy, being all of linen finely sewed; but when at last I made up my mind to open it, I did so with my teeth, tearing the threads at the top of it, and so ripping it down. The action was followed by a curious result, for as I opened the seams there fell upon my bed some twenty or thirty diamonds of such size and such lustre that they lay sparkling with a thousand lights which dazzled the eyes, and made me utter a cry at once of surprise and of admiration. White stones they were, Brazilian diamonds of the first water; and when I undid the rest of the seam, and opened the belt fully, I found at least fifty more, with some superb black pearls, a fine emerald, and a little parcel of exquisite rubies. To the latter there was attached a paper with the words, “My son, for as such I regard you, take these; they are honestly come by. And let me write while I can that I have loved you before God. Remember this when you forget Captain Black.”

  That was all; and I judged that the stones were worth five thousand pounds if they were worth a penny. I could scarce realise it all as I read the note again and again, and handled the sparkling, glittering baubles, which made my bunk a cave of dazzling light; or wrapped them once more in the linen, using it as a bag, and tying it round my neck for safety. It seemed indeed that I had come to riches as I had come again to freedom; and in the strange bewilderment of it all, I dressed myself in the rough clothes which the skipper had sent to me, and bounded on deck to greet a glorious day and the fresh awakening breezes of the sun-lit Atlantic. It was difficult to believe that there was not a reckoning yet to come: that the nameless ship had gone to her doom. Had I in reality escaped the terrors of the dinghy? This question I asked myself again and again as the soft wind fanned my face; and I went to the bulwarks, looking away where soon we should sight the Scillies, while the honest fellows crowded round me, and showered every kindness upon me. Yet for days and weeks after that, even now sometimes when I am amongst my own again, I wake in my sleep with troubled cries, and the dark gives me back the life which was my long night of suffering.

  The Hoffnung was bound for Königsberg, but when the skipper and I had come to understand each other by signs and writing, he, with great consideration, offered to put into Southampton and leave me there. This took a great weight from my mind, for I was burning with anxiety to hear of my friends again; and when we entered the Channel on the third night, I found sleep far from my eyes, and paced the deck until dawn broke. We dropped anchor off Southampton at three in the afternoon, and when I had insisted on Captain Wolfram taking one of my diamonds as a souvenir for himself, and one to sell for the crew, I put off in his long-boat with a deep sense of his humanity and kindness, and with hearty cheers from his crew.

  I should have gone to the quay at once then, but crossing the roads I saw a yacht at anchor, and I recognised her as my own yacht Celsis, with Dan pacing her poop. To put to her side was the work of a moment, and I do not think that I ever gave a heartier hail than that “Ahoy, Daniel!” which then fell from my lips.

  “Ahoy!” cried Dan in reply, “not as it oughtn’t to be Daniel, but with no disrespect to the other gent—why, blister my foretop, if it ain’t the guvnor!”

  And the old fellow began to shout and to wave his arms and to throw ropes about as though he were smitten with lunacy.

  CHAPTER XXVII.

  I FALL TO WONDERING.

  I had sprung up the ladder, which was always at the side of the Celsis, before Dan had gathered his scattered wits to remember that it was there. It was worth much to watch that honest fellow as he gripped my hand in his two great paws: and then let it go to walk away, and survey me at a distance; or drew nearer again, and seemed to wish to give me a great hug as a bear hugs its cub. But I cut him short with a gesture, and asked him if Roderick and Mary were aboard.

  “They’re down below, as I’m alive, and the hands is ashore, but they’ll come aboard for this, drunk or sober. Thunder! if I was ten years younger—but there, I ain’t, and you’ll be waking ’em; do you see, they’re resting after victuals down in the saloon. Shall I tell ’em as you’ve called in passing like? Lord, I can hardly see out of my eyes for looking at you, sir.”

  Poor old Dan did not quite know what he was doing. I left him in the midst of his strange talk, and walked softly down the companion way to the door of the saloon, and I opened it and stood, I doubt not, before them as one come from the dead. Mary, whose childish face looked very drawn, was seated before a book, open upon the table, her head resting upon her hands, and a strange expression of melancholy in her great dark eyes. But Roderick lay upon a sofa-bunk, and was fast asleep, with the novel which he had been reading lying crumpled upon the floor.

  I had opened the door so gently that neither of them moved as I entered the room. It was to me the best moment of my life to be looking again upon them, and I waited for one minute till Mary raised her head, and our eyes met. Then I bent over the cabin table and kissed her, and I felt her clinging to me, and though she never spoke, her eyes were wet with hot tears; and when she smiled through them, it was as a glimpse of bright sunlight shining through a rain-shower. In another moment there was nothing but the expression of a great childish joy on her face, and the old Mary spoke.

  “Mark, I can’t believe it,” she said, holding me close lest I might go away again, “and I always guessed you’d come.”

  But Roderick awoke with a yawn, and when he saw me he rubbed his eyes, and said as one in a dream—

  “Oh, is that you?”

  * * * *

  The tea which Mary made was very fragrant, and Roderick’s cigars had a fine rich flavour of their own, to which we did justice, as we sat long that afternoon, and I told of the days in Ice-haven. It was a long story, as you know, and I could but give them the outline of it, or, in turn, hear but a tenth part of their own anxieties and ceaseless efforts in my behalf. It appeared that when I had failed to return to the hotel on that night when I followed Paolo to the den in the Bowery, Roderick had gone at once to the yacht, and there had learnt from Dan of my intention. He did not lose an instant in seeking the aid of the police, but I was even then astern of the Labrador, and the keen search which the New York detectives had made was fruitless even in gleaning any tidings of me. Paolo was followed night and day for twenty-four hours; but he was shot in a drinking-den before the detectives laid hands on him, and only lived long enough to send Mary a message, telling her that her pretty eyes had saved the Celsis from disaster in the Atlantic. On the next day both the skipper and Roderick made public all they knew of Black and his crew, and a greater sensation was never made in any city. The news was cabled to Europe
over half-a-dozen wires, was hurried to the Pacific, to Japanese seas—it shook the navies of the world with an excitement rarely known, and for some weeks it paralysed all traffic on the Atlantic. Cruisers of many nations were sent in the course of the great ocean-going steamers; arms were carried by some of the largest of the passenger ships, and the question was asked daily before all other questions, “Is the nameless ship taken?” Yet, it was no more than a few weeks’ wonder; for we had fled to Ice-haven, and people who heard no more of the new piracy asked themselves, “Are not these the dreams of dreamers?”

  Meanwhile Roderick and Mary, who suffered all the anguish of suspense, returned to Europe, and to London, there to interview the First Lord of the Admiralty, and to hear the whole matter discussed in Parliament. Several warships and cruisers were despatched to the Atlantic, but returned to report the ill result of their mission, which could have had but this end, since Black was then in the shelter of the fjord at Greenland, and none thought of seeking him there. Nor was my oldest friend content with this national action and the subsequent offer of a reward of £50,000 for the capture of the nameless ship or of her crew, for he put the best private detectives in the city at the work, sending two to New York, and others to Paris and to Spezia. These fathomed something of the earlier mystery of Captain Black’s life, but the man’s after-deeds were hidden from them; and when the weeks passed and I did not come, all thought that I had died in my self-appointed mission—another of his many victims.

  It was but a few days after this sorrowful conviction that Black and I went to London, and were seen by Inspector King, who had watched night and day for the man’s coming. The detective had immediately telegraphed to the Admiralty, and to Roderick, who had reached my hotel to find that I had already left. Then he hurried back to Southampton, there to hear of the going of the warships and to wait with Mary tidings of the last great battle, which meant life or death to me.

  Long we sat discussing these things, and very bright were a pair of dark eyes that listened again to Roderick’s story, and then to more of mine. But Roderick himself had awoke from his lethargy, and his enthusiasm broke through all his old restraint.

  “Tomorrow, why, tomorrow, by George, you’ll astound London. My dear fellow, we’ll go to town together to claim the £50,000 which the Admiralty offered, and the £20,000 from the Black Anchor Line, to say nothing of American money galore. You’re made for life, old man; and we’ll take the old yacht north to Greenland, and hunt up the place and Black’s tender, which seems to have escaped the ironclads, and it’ll be the finest trip we ever knew.”

  “What does Mary say?” I asked as she still held my hand.

  “I don’t mean to leave you again,” she answered, and as she spoke there was a great sound of cheering above, and a great tramp of feet upon the deck; and as we hurried up, the hands I loved to see crowded about me, and their shouting was carried far over the water, and was taken up on other ships, which threw their search-lights upon us, so that the night was as a new day to me, and the awakening from the weeks of dreaming as the coming of spring after winter’s dark. Yet, as the child-face was all lighted with radiant smiles, and honest hands clasped mine, and the waters echoed the triumphant greeting, I could not but think again of Captain Black, or ask myself—Is the man really dead, or shall we yet hear of him, bringing terror upon the sea, and death and suffering; the master of the nations, and the child of a wanton ambition? Or is his grave in the great Atlantic that he ruled in the mighty moments of his power? Ah, I wonder.

  FORCED LUCK, by J. Allan Dunn

  The flame of the fire leaped high, rocketing sparks into the air, fighting against the cold white moonlight. It checkered the brushwood in black and scarlet and painted the lower trunks of the palms that soared up from the heavy-scented bush. The moonlight frosted their plumy crowns and, beyond the fluctuating ring of firelight, changed the highlands of Tortuga del Mar into a mystery of ebony and silver. The narrow strait between Tortuga and Hispaniola and the broader scope of the Windward Channel showed like spilled mercury. On a rocky headland gleamed the orange lights of the fort where the governor, M. le Vasseur, held the island against the Spanish.

  Over a second fire of charcoal, kept fierce by palm-leaf fans, the figures of the cooks attending to the broiling of two pigs that lay on wooden frames over the vermilion coals, were splashed by the same vivid hue as they passed to and fro. The gutted bellies of the pigs were kept open by sticks, the cavities stuffed with partridges, packed about with crushed pimientos and citrons, seasoned with salt and pepper. The savor of it broke down the fragrance of the bush, making the nostrils of the men who lounged away from the direct heat twitch with anticipation and their mouths water.

  Half a hundred dogs, pendulous-eared and long-headed, part mastiff, part bloodhound, descendants of those imported by Columbus to hunt Indians, lay with their red tongues sliding eagerly back and forth over their white teeth, too well-trained to offer at a morsel uninvited, even though they had made the kill themselves.

  The men were in three groups. The hunters, the actual boucaniers, kept apart from the engagés—their duly indentured apprentices—by right of caste and authority. The Indian guides stayed in the deep shadow between the boucans, the smokehouses where the sun-dried meat was curing on wicker frames over fires of charcoal augmented by the fat, bones and skins of the cattle. Sphinx-faced, imperturbable, puffing at their pipes, they preferred to be alone.

  The central fire was burning for light rather than heat. The tropic night was warm, and the buccaneers were almost as thinly clad as the Indians. They were all to leeward of the smudge that discouraged the attacks of mosquitoes. Some smoked, some drank as the bottles passed.

  “The moon’s overhead and no sign of him. If he’s stayed to eat at the tavern, hang me if I don’t carve it out of him. My belly’s wedded to my ribs.” The voice was half-surly, half-jocular.

  “The pork’ll give you an easy divorce. I’d be careful how I tackled ‘Lucky’ Bart. He’s a rare hand with knife and cutlass. As for pistols, he can split the lead on a knife blade at ten paces. He’ll be here, and in good time, never fear. He sent the same word to all of us. He was boucanier before he became filibustier.

  “What of it?”

  “So he knows by instinct when the pigs will be done and he still likes pore boucané better than any other meat. He’ll be coming upwind, mind you, and he’ll march in on us just as the crackling is ripe. He’s a knack of arriving at the right minute, has Lucky Bart.”

  “Aye, he’s been lucky enough, so far.”

  “He’s not the only one. Did you hear what King Louis did to Pierre le Grand when he reached France with the galleon he took off Cape Beata? The word came last week by the captain of the Celestine.”

  “Took the gold away from him, like enough. It would serve him right for not spending it on Tortuga. We were not good enough for him to drink with, it seems.”

  “Peste! You are jealous as well as surly, Pierre. The king made a knight of him. Aye, and they rang the bells for him at Notre Dame de Bon Secours in Dieppe and held a high mass in honor of his victory over the Spaniards. Pierre is no outlaw. When he won from Spain he fought for France and the winnings were his. Bars of gold to the tune of a hundred thousand pistoles, to say naught of the value of the ship. But twenty-nine to divide it.

  “There was a bold stroke for you, to sink his own boat and climb aboard the vice-admiral’s ship! Better than sweating in the bush and sweltering in the boucans for a few pieces of eight. So Lucky Bart comes in from sea with his pockets so full of gold it rolls out on the floor when he sits down. The women will not look at a boucanier while Bart and his men are in port. They say he chases men while we hunt cattle.”

  “There are getting mighty few cattle left to hunt of late. And it takes three years for a calf to grow to meat.”

  A sudden clamor rose as every hound gave tongue, baying in bell notes, racing forward toward an opening in the bush and standing reluctant as their mast
ers shouted at them.

  A band of men came swaggering into the clearing. They were gaudily dressed with silken sashes beneath their broad leather belts, with silken kerchiefs binding their heads beneath the wide-brimmed, feather-decked hats. Each wore high boots of Spanish leather with the bucket-tops turned down to show hairy legs or silk hose beneath the wide, short breeches of striped patterns.

  All carried pistols in belts and slings, all had cutlasses, naked or in sheaths, according to the fancy of the owner. Earrings gleamed golden. Rings twinkled and a gem or two flashed in the firelight. They ignored the dogs which slunk back again, recognizing folk who understood them, if not actual friends.

  “Am I late, bullies all? I trust, at least, the pigs are not overdone. I like to see my stomach well-filled, as well as my purse.”

  A shout of laughing greeting went up from the buccaneers who crowded round the newcomers.

  “There are two hampers of wine close behind us,” said Lucky Bart. “As an aid to digestion. Tell me, are the pigs cooked? They smell like a breath of heaven.”

  “Done to a turn.”

  The cook came up.

  “A dozen partridges to each porker. The gravy has oozed through the skin and the crackling is crisp and sweet as a palm-cabbage.”

  “Good! Here comes the wine. Let’s fall to before we talk.”

  He was easily the dominant figure among his followers and the beef-smokers. Not over-tall but big without being clumsy. His gay raiment somehow became the man, though the others of his party looked like masquerading swashbucklers. Every gesture, every word, the flash of his black eyes and the gleam of his white teeth in his black beard, showed confidence, vitality, leadership. From nail-joints upward to where the stoutly supple wrists disappeared under lace ruffles, black hair curled crisply.