by Howard Fast
“John—”
“John what—?”
“John—John Ridge.”
“I see. But that does not matter. Can you shoot?”
“With a rifle?”
“Yes.”
“I can.”
“Sir,” Mr. Cortlandt interposed smoothly. “Can you split a silver dollar at fifty paces?”
“Yes—sir.”
“That is good.” For a moment, Mr. Cortlandt paused; then he said:
“I am the-master. Mr. Mitchell is the first mate. Mr. Kent is second mate. Mr. Brooker is third mate. You will address each of them properly, regard them with due respect. They have divine right; I am God. Now I saw you looking at the guns.”
“I was wondering—?”
“There are six. Two carronades, two long nines for stern chasers, and a long twelve swivel mounted both at bow and poop. As the seas are in a state of war, we must protect ourselves.” Again he paused, finally saying:
“We are in English and Italian trade. England is at war with France. Dutch ships are not amiable to the British. Spanish ships are prone to be intolerant. And then, there are the pirates off the north of Africa. We must always protect ourselves, even should it prove profitable. And fear not but that it will. Do you understand?”
“I think I do,” John Preswick said slowly.
“You will receive thirty dollars a month and a change of clothes. And with each prize there is a liberal bonus. Now go to your quarters.”
The sun was bloated with the full heat of morning as John Preswick turned and walked back to the forecastle….
5
JUST one year later, off the coast of Sardinia, Mr. Kent, the second mate, was shot through the heart while Mr. Cortlandt was defending his vessel from a French sloop of three six-pound guns. Subsequently, the mast of the French ship gone, its hull riddled, its deck a tangled mass of wreckage, it was boarded, and the four seamen remaining alive cut down. Still defending his vessel, Mr. Cortlandt had the Frenchman ransacked, and then put to the torch. His loss was a second mate; two of his seamen were wounded slightly, one of them John Preswick, who, cutlass in hand, had run out along the bowsprit, hung from the jib boom, and, as it crossed the low deck of the Frenchman, leaped down in the face of a pistol (already discharged) and three muskets (already discharged), and drove the edge of his blade through one of the Frenchman’s collar-bones.
The following day, Mr. Brooker was promoted into the position of second mate, and the crew was searched for a third officer. It was not with a great deal of surprise that the twenty-nine men saw Captain Cortlandt choose John Preswick, who, in term of service, was out-ranked by twenty-two of them. Upon more than one occasion, John Preswick had distinguished himself, not only for a willingness to carry out orders, matter not what they might be, but for a ruthlessness remarkable even in that crew. And he had had opportunity enough to prove his mettle. In twelve months they had taken nineteen prizes. Not only the master and the mates, but the crew itself were wealthy beyond all expectation. Later, they rounded the Cape St. Vincent and trimmed sail for Liverpool. After that, John Preswick as third officer, they beat across to Boston. From there they swung back to Naples; then Venice; then Lisbon…. It was in the year eighteen eleven that the brig Angel sailed into the Narrows, and beat up the upper bay to the Battery. And for the first time John Preswick, standing upon the poop-deck, the genial and dark Mr. Mitchell at his side, saw New York.
Summer was over, but the air was warm and good, and the sky was wide and blue above. A breeze slunk over the bay, to stir the solid house-tops of the little city. At the Battery, a flag spilled to the wind, drooping now, now long and rippling. The flag was no longer bizarre. One was used to the weird conglomeration of design and color.
As it set itself to the anchor lines, the brig Angel flew that flag gayly.
Mr. Mitchell, a corner of his eye upon the wheel, said: “New York, Mr. Ridge.” He said it to John Preswick, who was no longer John Preswick, in that cataloguing manner of his, as though he were laying it away for future reference. He was tall, and bland, and solid, and dark as ever, was Mr. Mitchell, his long black mustache more handsome than ever. “Ever been here before, Mr. Ridge?”
John Preswick shook his head. He was inclined towards taciturnity, becoming closer to himself as the years went by. His whole face had hardened; his mouth was narrower; and his shock of yellow hair had been clipped to his ears. To a dark, even shade of brown, the sun had burnt him; it had hardened him; he stood upon the shifting deck with unconcern, ease. His white shirt was open above his jacket; his neck was a bulging column of linked flesh. You would have known that it was over two years. Perhaps he had himself forgotten that he was one John Preswick, and not John Ridge. If he thought of himself, it was as John Ridge; of late he had come to forget what had been in the few days after he awoke in the vermin-ridden hold of the Angel. In a way he was content—except for those not frequent intervals when, leaving the ship at some port, he let himself into the curiously ever-welcoming arms of a harlot, he was not happy. If he was happy then. Sometimes, he wondered.
But he was not unhappy. He had no friends, nor did he desire any. (There was the sea at dawn, and there had been any number of dawns, and there would be more. There was the whimpering hum of the wind through rigging. There was the brute in the storm, and the struggle for the prizes they took….) Some day the brig Angel would dock at Charleston, and then a certain desire implanted deep in his heart would be satisfied; but for the moment he was content to wait. Things might take their own course, for all of him. He had gone far, and he had learnt much; he would go further. The Angel was a vessel of a few guns; with a ship of a dozen or two dozen guns a veritable fortune would wait him. That was by no means impossible, for the raising of the embargo had not marked the end of things. A day would come when America would join in the dogfight of nations, and then the old letters of marque would be revived, and the privateer—call it pirate, if you would have things out in the flesh—would come into its right. He was content to wait and to watch.
Well they treated him, and respectfully, Cortlandt and Mitchell and Brooker; they realized his worth; nor did he any longer hold it against them that they had starved and beaten him into submission. His, for a person so solid, was a remarkable ability to acclimatize.
He was older, harder, and if no less of a fool, a more bitter one, as he stood, an officer, upon the deck of the Angel in New York bay. To Mr. Mitchell’s question, he shook his head briefly.
Mr. Mitchell was in a reflective mood. “A fine city,” he mused, “a growing city, a city of progress. A fine location. A fine harbor. Mark that barque port side.”
John Preswick said nothing; he was gazing at the banner where it flew over the fort. His lips were drawn; his pale eyes gleamed; his light, straw-colored hair lifted and fell against the tops of his ears.
“Been here before, in seven, and before that in ninety-nine. Progress. Not like your southern cities.”
“Yes,” John Preswick agreed mechanically.
A boat had been lowered, and they saw Mr. Cortlandt step into it and slide away across the narrow stretch of water that separated them from the ship-lined shore. A while after that, Mr. Mitchell left the poop to John Preswick, who stood alone by the wheel, moving himself to the easy surges of the vessel against its anchors. One hand he rested upon the spokes; the other hung at his side; he looked across to the city, and he did not stir. Even his hair was still, as the wind dropped. Then he glanced up to where they were furling the sails closer and neater. Slightly he shrugged his shoulders.
For more than an hour he stood there, and he was there when Captain Cortlandt returned, a tall, well-dressed stranger in a beaver hat and a dark coat sitting by his side. Together they boarded the ship and went into the captain’s cabin.
Some time later, a seaman approached him and told him that the captain desired his presence in the cabin. There he found a stranger seated across the table from Mr. Cortlandt, a bottle of rum between them. Mr. Cortlandt
waved him to a chair. “Sit down,” he said.
Pouring a glass of rum, he set it before John Preswick. “Mr. Lennox,” he explained, nodding at the stranger. “And this is Mr. Ridge, my third officer, the man for you, if there is one.”
“Delighted to meet you,” said Mr. Lennox, inclining his head, sipping his rum, and studying John Preswick from beneath half-closed lids.
The man was handsome—handsome in a large way, with gray eyes set not too far apart, bushy eyebrows, side whiskers, and a full red mouth. He had a quick smile, and a good set of teeth beneath. His hands were chubby, the left having three gold rings, the right a diamond solitaire. Now he looked into John Preswick’s eyes, the one pair as cold and level as the other, and the fire flickered from the blue into the gray.
“He is soft,” John Preswick thought; “otherwise I should like him. His eyes—”
“I think,” Mr. Cortlandt said, “you had better explain.” In his voice there was something disturbing and caustic.
Lennox spread his hands. “Yes. It is all very simple to explain. Mr. Cortlandt has described you to me, and from what he has said, I believe I can speak openly, without hedging. The matter is a small one. Three days from now, I am sailing upon this ship. I desire that a certain woman accompany me.”
John Preswick waited for more; when he saw that the other considered himself to have said enough, he shook his head. “I am afraid I do not understand.”
Mr. Lennox smiled agreeably. “Of course, one does not understand those things at first. Let me make myself clear. There is a certain woman in this city—a person of no great prominence, but of large fortune, towards whom I cherish affection of a sort. Her mother, who is a Jewess, favors me, but I cannot seem to make the desired impression upon the girl. The father, long since dead, was the son of a merchant of incredible wealth—wealth which has increased by its own power and quite undeservedly since that day. Now they are very rich and very haughty, for New York is a place where a Jewess may be both rich and haughty. As for myself, I am a poor man of accomplishments. I have all of the graces; but I desire wealth—wealth which is surely serving no good end in the hands of a Jewess and her daughter. And I desire the daughter, who is beautiful in the manner of a Jewess, and who rightly should have been married several years ago. Now understand this—the run of the house is mine. Though I cannot penetrate the daughter’s coat of ice—the like of which I have never before seen in a Jewess—I do, with all modesty, fascinate the mother, who is a person living in an age that is past. At least three times a week, I am a guest at dinner, and I am in the trust of the household—through a maid; but that is neither here nor there. They keep their gold in the house, some part of it, anyway, for they have a quite unfounded mistrust of banks. It is in an old-fashioned iron and wooden safe, which a few blows of a mallet will quickly demolish, and I have heard from reliable sources that the sum kept therein, unbelievable though it may seem, is hardly short of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Now, that I could manage very well myself, but I desire the girl, and have so entered into an agreement with Mr. Cortlandt. Do you grasp it now?”
“I think that I do,” John Preswick said slowly.
“You will need two men: one to help you with the girl, and one to help me with the gold—two men you can trust, and who will go as “far as you yourself without scruples. The place is in Cherry Street. I do not anticipate trouble, but if it does crop up, there is the knife, which I understand you know how to use.”
“Yes,” said John Preswick.
“You will have a chair there waiting for her and the gold. It may be necessary to shut her up—gag and bind her. Can I trust that to you?”
“You can,” said John Preswick.
“My hand, then.”
John Preswick took the hand with the solitaire.
As he was leaving, Mr. Lennox said: “One more thing. I’d like to have you over there to find the lay of land. It is a house of three stories, with a flat, red front. You cannot miss it. Yes, the name is Preswick.”
And with that, the door closed behind him. John Preswick had not stirred. Something there was about all of it that seemed strangely familiar—as though he had heard all before, as though it were a puzzle, each part fitting cleverly into the other. It was melodrama of the rankest sort, but to John Preswick it rang with a truth that was all but lifelike. What lacked, he could not say. But he knew, oh, so surely, that some day he would have the explanation. Some day. But there was a wistfulness to that, for he realized that the day was far, very far, off, and that perhaps, even with the day, he would not know. In a way, he was a fool, and that would matter. “Perhaps,” he thought to himself, “it has to do with the names, for Preswick is a common and yet an uncommon name….”
Mr. Cortlandt said: “Can’t say as I care for that, mixing up with a woman. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t touch it; but this pays too well to let slip. I am leaving the details to you, Mr. Ridge. I will have sail up at nine and beat down for the Narrows. You will follow in the long-boat. The trust is yours.”
“You can rest—in it.”
“I’ll count on that. And there will be more than enough for all.” He gave John Preswick his hand.
6
IT was upon the third evening after that that a sedan chair stopped before the tall brick house on Cherry Street. A man in a fawn-colored jacket and a gray beaver stepped out, shook loose his lace cuffs, tilted his stick under his arm at an angle; and walked to the door. The two men who had borne the chair looked about, and then, seeing that the street was empty, followed after him. However, they stood to one side in the shadow, while he lifted and let fall the cast-iron knocker. As the door opened, he walked in, and the two men darted up the stairs and slipped in after him.
A negro had opened the door to John Preswick, and now the startled black looked down at a pistol the man in the fawn-colored jacket held to his stomach. In a matter-of-fact way, John Preswick said:
“If you make so much as the slightest sound, I shall cheerfully put this ball into your groin. It will not be pleasant, so be wise and silent. You are William, are you not?”
“Yes, sir,” answered the negro. “I do not know how you know, but you are right. No, sir, I shan’t make the least sound—no, sir.”
Pointing with the pistol, John Preswick said to the man behind him: “Gag him. Truss him up and roll him under the portieres.” And to the negro: “If you make any sound, if you tap with your feet, if you get loose, I shall return and give you that ball—where I said.” With that, he left him, the two men following after.
Beyond the foyer, there was a large chamber, paneled in dark wood, a hooded staircase climbing up one side of it. The floor was spread with a huge, incongruous Chinese rug of green and black. As they entered, John Preswick placed his beaver over the pistol, holding the hat in the same hand that gripped his stick. At that moment, a maid came down the steps, only seeing them when she was at the stairs’ foot.
“Who are you?” she asked, not quite knowing whether to be alarmed or not. “Are you looking for something? William should—”
Her mouth open, she broke off from her words, as John Preswick took the pistol from beneath his hat and placed it at her breast, which, he noticed, was round and ripe. All in all, Lennox was a man of taste, he thought.
“Don’t scream,” he begged of her. “Don’t make a sound of any sort. It is much more desirable to live, really it is.”
“I will not scream,” she stammered.
John Preswick motioned with his stick. “Strap her up. Put her under the staircase—or any place where she will not be seen. Then wait outside this door until I call you. If any one comes, do the same.” Then he crossed the chamber, and, the pistol still in his hand, stepped through the double doors into the dining-hall, closing the doors behind him.
There were three about the table, and, as he entered, they looked up; they might have been expecting another, for at first they were not even startled; no, it was he who was startled. Never before had he se
en two such beautiful women as were these in the flickering, bending light of the candles.
One, the older, gray-haired, sat at the end of the table facing to him; and upon either side of the table, across from each other, were seated Lennox and the girl of whom he had been told. The woman was old; the girl was young with fire.
As he stood there, pistol in hand, long, heavy, gilded and gleaming beneath the light, the three of them came to their feet, Lennox abruptly, the older woman with less haste, and the younger last of all. She, the youngest, said: “What is the meaning of this? Who are you?” And then, with her words, John Preswick knew that she was as terribly familiar as Lennox, that she was part of it; that there was to her a humor, something he could not understand, but which, nevertheless, provoked him to laugh. He also realized what Lennox had meant when he described her as coated with ice.
He attempted to match their calm with his, but the incredible loveliness of the scene had already unnerved him. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced, unlike anything he had expected—this broad, high-ceilinged room, the corners lost in lilting, dancing, yet staid, shadows; this table, black, brown and white, the service already cleared; the chandelier hanging from directly above and sparkling with the reflected light of the candles beneath it; and the two women, exquisitely gowned and beautiful in a manner he had never before seen upon women, hot and cold, sensuous, their skin like soft cream, their eyes dark almost to ebony and with scarce a sparkle in all the light.… It unnerved him, but not apparently. With just a trace of a smile upon his lips, he stood there, the pistol steady, eyes aloof.
Then the older woman gasped—gasped and sank back into her chair. “I thought—” she whispered—“I thought it was you,’ Johnny—come back.” Staring with broad, bewildered eyes, she gazed at him.
Then he said, directing the gun at Lennox: “You come here.”
And as Lennox came close to him: “They are outside.” Still holding Lennox at the point of his gun, he moved in a circle, motioning him to the doors. Just before he opened them, the girl cried:
