The Pirate Story Megapack: 25 Classic and Modern Tales

by Robert E. Howard

  CHAPTER XIII

  RECAPTURE

  Bob departed without protest, after one wondering look, and Mart set himself to wait as patiently as might be. His own nerves, as well as those of the men, were on edge; they were all under a tremendous strain, for none of them expected ever to see Jerry alive again, so deeply was the fear of the Pirate Shark ingrained in them all by the happening of the morning.

  Borden went on paying out the lines, and gradually the flicker of the copper helmet died away and merged with the green of the water. Even Yorke had forgotten to keep an eye out for the shark, and stood craned over the bulwarks, gazing down awesomely into the green depths below.

  To Mart it seemed that an age passed. He knew that down beneath the water old Jerry could hear the strokes of the air-pump, and he wondered if the shark were anywhere around the wreck. Both boys had been given a very thorough knowledge of diving by the old quartermaster, from a theoretical standpoint, and had it not been for the Pirate Shark, Mart would have liked nothing better than a descent.

  But just at present he had something else in mind. Down below on the gangway landing were Borden, Birch and Dailey, unarmed except for revolvers, and lined to the landing was one of the yacht’s boats, lowered that morning. A dozen feet away, with his back to Mart, stood Yorke, absolutely absorbed in the scene below.

  Mart knew exactly how big that huge elephant gun would look to four startled men, and he also knew that without Jerry’s quick brains the rest were not to be feared. Suddenly he saw Dailey point to the gauge in the front of the pump, and at the same instant Borden ceased paying out line; Jerry had reached bottom!

  “Here you are, Mart,” came a soft voice behind him, and Mart whirled, nerved up to the action on which he had decided, and took the empty elephant gun from Bob’s hands.

  Slowly he raised the huge gun until it half-rested along the rail, pointing square at the head of Yorke. Then, speaking in a tone loud enough for Yorke to hear, he addressed Bob.

  “Holly, go and take that rifle away from Yorke. He ain’t safe to hold it.”

  The men below did not hear him, but Yorke did; and as he had expected, the seaman turned his head. As he looked full into the huge muzzle, Yorke’s twisted, ever-leering face went pasty white and he submitted to Bob’s relieving him of his rifle without a word.

  “Hands up, Yorke!” commanded Mart, still softly. “Bob, get his revolver.”

  Bob obeyed, and still Yorke stared into the muzzle of the elephant gun with fear-stricken eyes and a ghastly pallor on his face, as he reached for the sky.

  “Now get down on the landing,” ordered Mart, and with that shifted his gun over the rail so that it pointed straight at the three men below. So far, they had heard nothing. Mart knew that he might be endangering Jerry’s life, but he did not hesitate, and jerked his head for Bob to follow Yorke, who had started down the ladder.

  “Get after him and take their guns, Bob.”

  The other boy obeyed, entering at once into Mart’s plan. Yorke, paralyzed with fear, kept his hands in the air as he descended, and when his shadow fell across the landing, Dailey was the first to glance up in surprise.

  “Hands up, you men!” commanded Mart sternly, though he felt a quiver in his throat. Would they call the bluff of that empty gun? “Quick about it, there!”

  Into the one-eyed face of Birch flashed an evil anger mixed with fear; Dailey promptly stuck up his hands, as did Borden, who still clung to the lines, but Birch only continued pumping, though he looked up fearfully.

  “I ain’t a-goin’ back on Jerry,” he growled.

  Mart read indecision in his tone, however. He knew that Jerry would be in no danger from a momentary cessation of pumping, just as he would be in no danger were his air hose to break, as the helmet valve would in that case close automatically and Jerry would have enough air left in his dress to last him for some minutes.

  “Up with ’em, you pirate!” cried Mart, shifting his big gun a trifle so that Birch’s glittering black eye looked full in the muzzle.

  “Don’t shoot, ye fool!” gasped Birch, flinging up his arms, and Mart knew he had won.

  The men stood looking up, evil-eyed, panting with their exertions at the pumps, while Bob swiftly emptied their revolver-belts of weapons and knives and was up the ladder to the deck again, flinging down his load.

  “You ain’t a-goin’ to murder poor old Jerry!” cried Dailey sharply. Mart winced.

  “Bob,” he returned, “you’ll have to go down and keep those pumps going. Hurry up, now!”

  His chum, rather pale-faced and flurried, hastened down again and began turning the double handle of the pumps, while the four men crowded beyond the ladder.

  “Drop those lines, Borden,” ordered Mart sternly, and the old seaman obeyed without demur. “Now unfasten that boat and get into her! Pile in, the whole crowd of you! Do it lively now! That’s right. Get busy with those oars and row over to that island. When you get there, shove out that boat and let her float off, or I’ll pepper you with a load o’ buckshot.”

  “You ain’t goin’ for to maroon us there?”

  “You’re pirates and mutineers and I’m an officer o’ this ship,” replied Mart fiercely. “You step lively there or I’ll send you where Jerry is, without any diving suit but with some buckshot in your back. Jump, now!”

  Plainly, the men did not doubt either his intentions or his ability to fulfill his ferocious threat. While Bob continued his mechanical pumping, the four tumbled into the boat and pulled away without another word. Mart knew that once they were on the island, with the boat floated away, they were practically in prison. None of them would ever attempt swimming away to the mainland while the Pirate Shark was in the lagoon.

  Mart stood at the gangway and kept the boat covered with his empty elephant gun, though now that the tension was relaxed and the victory his, everything blurred before his eyes and he felt weak with the reaction. The island was only a few hundred feet away, and the men pulled to the sandy beach without hesitation, tumbled out, and shoved the boat out again. Then they fled for the cover of the trees and bushes and were gone.

  “By juniper!” breathed Bob from the landing below, as Mart flung the gun to the deck and leaned on the bulwark. “You look like a ghost, Mart! Trot down here and give me a hand at this job.”

  “Well, we licked ’em!” exclaimed Mart, a surge of exultation rising within him as he slowly descended the ladder. “We licked ’em with an empty gun, old scout! Say, can you beat it? Think of us standin’ off a gang o’ pirates with your dad’s old elephant gun! Did you see how white Yorke was?”

  As he spoke, he relieved Bob at the pump wheel, and the latter leaned back and mopped his dripping brow.

  “Well, I’d hate to have you come after me in earnest!” declared Bob with a laugh. “Say, you can sure talk like a bad man, Mart! You had me dead sure you’d land those pirates with a bullet!”

  “I was scared!” admitted Mart with a grin. “I was so blamed scared, Holly, that I had to make ’em think I meant it. Here, get to work and quit talking.”

  “No sign o’ Jerry, eh?”

  Bob fell to work at the opposite handle, but mindful of the old quartermaster’s lessons, they kept up a steady pumping, not too fast, but enough to maintain a good air pressure below.

  Watching the lines as they worked, there appeared to be little motion; the two diving suits were not equipped with telephones or speaking tubes, but the boys knew the signals.

  “Watch out!” cried Bob suddenly, as he caught at the lines that were slipping off at a jerk from below. “Keep turnin’—I’ll ’tend to the ropes!”

  He barely caught the lines and coils of air hose in time to save them, and Mart, watching as he pumped, saw four distinct jerks—the signal to pull up. In reply, Bob jerked the lifelines once, meaning “Are you all right?”

  One pull came back, assenting to the query, and without more delay Bob began to pull up Jerry. Mart cautioned him as to speed, and Bob nodded. Jer
ry had not gone down by the usual “shot-rope,” often used by divers, because the gangway landing was nearly exactly over the wreck.

  It was no task to pull up the quartermaster until the heavy copper helmet rose to the landing. Then Mart came and lent his assistance, and between them they got Jerry up and over the side. He did not have the kris with him, and he lay stretched out, unable to rise because of his heavy clothes and weights.

  This bothered the boys not at all. Mart sent Bob to get all the rifles safely locked up in the cabins, while he set to work unscrewing Jerry’s helmet. At first he felt some fear lest the old man had come to some harm, so motionless did he lie; but as he got the helmet unscrewed he heard Jerry’s voice proceeding from within, and no sooner had he helped the quartermaster to sit up, gasping and blinking, than his fears were quite allayed.

  “Ho!” cried Jerry, with wild triumph on his face as he flung back his white hair. “She’s there, mates, she’s there! Eight fathom down she is, and no Pirate Shark neither! Old Jerry found her, he did—eh? What—”

  In his first transports the quartermaster had not observed that his mates were not around him, evidently. Then his eyes fell on Bob, coming down the ladder, and he gazed about blankly. Mart grinned.

  “Is the wreck there, Jerry?”

  For a moment Jerry made no reply, but stared around helplessly, and his jaw dropped. His head went up, and he searched the ladder and bulwarks above, until both Bob and Mart gave a shout of laughter.

  “No use, Jerry,” cried Bob cheerfully. “Your friends are gone, and there’s a set of irons waiting for you up for’ard. Come, get out o’ that suit and step lively, now.”

  Jerry gasped, then cried feebly:

  “Gone? My mates gone? Hey, Dailey! Birch! Yorke! Where are you, mates?”

  The terror and consternation on his face sobered the boys instantly. He tried to get up, the veins standing out on his forehead, his eyes straining frantically, but Mart swiftly pushed him back and faced him. Helpless though the old man was in his heavily-weighted diving suit, there was something terrible in his aspect that made both boys feel a sudden fear of his unleashed fury.

  “Sit back there,” ordered Mart peremptorily. “No use calling for your mates, Jerry. They can’t help you now, and you’re in for it.”

  “Eh?” Jerry stared up, his face working horribly, his fingers twining and untwining. “You—you’ve killed ’em? You’ve killed poor old Borden, lad, and Dailey—and Birch—”

  Mart could stand it no longer.

  “No, nobody’s killed, Jerry,” he said kindly, sympathizing with the old man’s terrible agitation. “We’ve marooned your men on the island, and they’re helpless and unarmed. The Seamew belongs to us now, and I think it’ll be best for all concerned that you go in irons. We can’t trust you, Jerry, and that’s flat.”

  Slowly the old quartermaster comprehended his defeat. A look of anguish flitted across his face, his eyes lost their keen sharpness and became old and bleared once more, and with a groan he lowered his head on his breast and his white hair fell around his features in the sunlight.

  Mart caught a pitying glance from Bob, but he knew too well that Jerry was not to be trusted, and drew his chum aside to the ladder.

  “Look here, Holly,” he whispered earnestly, “we can’t get soft-hearted now. Jerry ain’t half as simple as he looks, take it from me. We got our work cut out for us, too. Your dad’s over there in the jungle, remember, and them Malays have got ’most all the crew pris’ners. That’s goin’ to be a mighty hard nut for us to crack. We’ve got to put Jerry in irons, that’s all.”

  Bob nodded, his eyes roving over the water.

  “Look there, Mart,” he said, pointing to the island. “The boat’s gone back to the shore.”

  Mart glanced across to the island, and saw that the boat had indeed drifted back to the beach and lay slowly stranding as the tide dropped. However, he forgot about the matter instantly, as Jerry’s voice came to them.

  “Look here, lads,” and the old man’s voice came softly, appealingly. “I got a proposition to make. You’ve got me fair and square, lads, fair and square—but I want to get down to that there wreck again.”

  Mart eyed him keenly, but the old man was evidently in earnest.

  “Let’s hear your proposition,” he said curtly.

  CHAPTER XIV

  A TRUCE

  Jerry collected himself with an effort. It must indeed have been a bitter pill for him to swallow, reflected Mart as he watched the old quartermaster, while Bob stood at his elbow. Jerry had gone down leaving his gang in full possession of the yacht; he had evidently found the wreck untenanted by the Pirate Shark; and he had returned to the surface to find all his fine schemes shattered by the two boys.

  Undoubtedly the old man was a villain, and he had showed that morning that he cared nothing for human life so that his plans were carried out; but now he looked so helpless, sitting there in the blazing sun with his white hair falling over his neck, that the boys could not help feeling a touch of sympathy for him.

  “Lads,” he said slowly, gazing up at them with his gentle blue eyes, “I found that there wreck, and she’s split apart so’s her cargo can be got at easy. There’s gold a-lyin’ there for the pickin’ up, lads!” His voice grew hoarse with eagerness.

  “Eight fathom down she lies, lads, eight fathom down! I got to go down again, lads—I been waitin’ too long for this chance! I just want to get my hands on that there gold, I do. The Pirate Shark ain’t around, lads—don’t be hard on old Jerry! You’ve got me, lads, you’ve got me. Don’t put me in irons yet, lads. Let me go down once more, just to get my hands on that there gold—”

  “Calm down, Jerry,” broke in Bob, as the quartermaster’s voice grew hoarser still, his old face working almost hysterically. “We’re not going to hurt you. I tell you what. Wait till dad gets back with Swanson and the crew, then we’ll get up that treasure for you—”

  “No!” Jerry’s voice rang out clear and strong, a feverish anxiety in his face. “I want to do it myself, lads! If the Pirate Shark’s there I want to get at him with that there kris!”

  “Where is the kris, by the way?” interjected Mart.

  “Stickin’ in the side o’ the wreck,” replied Jerry in a calmer voice. “She’s layin’ over on her side, hard and fast in the coral. I felt around a bit, lads, and I seen a box there—it’s rotten, it is, and it’s full o’ gold! The mystery o’ the sea, lads, the mystery o’ the sea! The gold’s down below, and us up here above—and fish tell no tales, lads! Let me go down once more, lads, and I’ll not say another word, or cause any more trouble, that I won’t!”

  The boys looked at each other irresolutely. After all, reflected Mart, there could be no risk to themselves in letting Jerry go down again. He was plainly in a high state of excitement at having found the wreck and possibly the treasure, and it would possibly be more injurious to restrain him than it would be to let him continue his work.

  Of course, there was danger from the Pirate Shark, and a terrible danger it was. But as Jerry had said, once he stood with his back against the wreck and the kris in his hand, he would be able to hold his own. The great danger came from the chance that the shark might catch him going down or coming up, overturn him in the water, and snap him off.

  “I don’t know,” said Bob slowly. “Of course, if that shark wasn’t there—”

  “I can take care o’ him,” broke in Jerry eagerly, clutching at his helmet. “He allus snaps off the lifelines first, they say, lads. If the lines or the hose breaks, why, haul up on whichever’s left. But he ain’t there, lads, he ain’t there! You’ll let old Jerry go down again! Come an’ help me up, lads.”

  “Hold on,” exclaimed Mart as Bob impulsively started forward. “We don’t aim to let you start any rough-house with us, Jerry. I don’t trust you a little bit. Bob, you stand by while I help Jerry get his helmet on, then get the pump goin’ while I slide him over the edge of the platform.”

 
; The quartermaster broke into a flood of eager words, which Bob abruptly cut short.

  “Look here, Jerry! What about dad? Are they holdin’ him prisoner on shore, like you said, or—or—”

  He paused, and Jerry chuckled as he glanced up, his head on one side like that of a bird, his blue eyes suddenly bright again.

  “No, no, lad! He’s just taken care of, that’s all. Mebbe we’ll make a compromise yet, lads—you holdin’ me and the yacht, and me holdin’ your father, eh! Well, we’ll see. Birch can get him off, lads. Birch talks the lingo, he does, and if anythin’ happens to me, you talk to him.”

  This speech relieved the minds of both boys immensely. Half their fears had been for the men who had gone so trustingly into the jungle, to be held prisoners by the Malays, and now that they were sure no harm was being done Captain Hollinger, they felt much more inclined to deal gently with old Jerry.

  “So when you promised dad that you’d have gold on board when he came back,” said Bob with a slow grin, “you meant the treasure, eh?”

  Jerry chuckled and nodded.

  “Aye, lads, just that. But you’ll mind the pumps, eh? You’ll not let old Jerry go without air?”

  “Sure not,” Mart reassured him. “We’ll take care of you fine, Jerry.”

  The quartermaster reached out for his big helmet, and Bob sprang forward to assist him. At the same instant, however, they were startled by a hail from the shore, and looked up to see Birch standing beside the stranded boat.

  “Seamew ahoy!” he called again.

  “Well, what do you want?” returned Mart.

  “Let me row out alone? I want to talk.”

  Mart glanced at Bob. “How about it, Holly? I s’pose he wants some grub and water.”

  “Let him come out, lads,” spoke up Jerry before Bob could reply. “You’ve got us, you have; let him come out, lads, and talk it over.”

  “All right,” shouted Mart to the seaman, then turned to Bob. “Holly, you get up on deck with one o’ them rifles. If there’s any trouble, you shoot Jerry, see?”

  Bob grimaced behind the quartermaster’s back, and ascended the ladder. Watching the shore, Mart saw Birch turn and say something; the forms of the other men came from among the bushes and they helped shove out the boat. The one-eyed seaman leaped into her and settled down at the oars.