Scarface

by Andre Norton

  “Pirate! Pirate!” someone else mouthed the chant before him. Scarface looked into the vacant eyes and slobbering jaws of Danby Johns. He who had once been the butt of this same mob was now a part of it. But as his wandering gaze met Justin’s a strange expression crossed his seamed face, and he extended a trembling hand.

  “Good ’een t’ ye, matey,” he whined. “Be ye goin’ t’ buy ol’ Danby rum?”

  On bitter impulse Scarface tossed the gold chain through the grill and Johns caught it eagerly. Incredulously he looked from the gold to Scarface until the boy nodded reassuringly.

  “Aye, take it, Danby. Drink deep and be sorry. The best rum, mind you!”

  Danby nodded solemnly as if taking an oath. “Aye, matey, th’ best rum!”

  But he was not to get his rum after all, for the guard at the gate had witnessed the transaction and now he came down upon Johns and wrested the chain out of his grasp. Scarface pulled at the gate bars in fruitless anger.

  “Give it to him!” he ordered. “That is mine to give as I please. Give it back to Johns!”

  The guard grinned. “Is it now? Well, th’ lieutenant will ’ave a word about that. Come along, you!” He kicked at Johns. “I’m after thinkin’ ’e’ll want a word wi’ you also. Drinkin’ th’ ’ealth o’ pirates, is it?”

  With the struggling Johns firmly in hand the guard pushed his way through the mob and Scarface listlessly left the gate for his old corner. All that he ever did turned out ill. Now doubtless he had made trouble for Johns—who might even be sent to join them. Surely his star was a black one and he had been damned by it from the hour of his birth.

  He wondered if Snelgrave would ever hear of the brave ending made by his star pupil. Liza would have to find another master also, and whatever secrets she kept locked in her dirty head would never be known to him now. The boy put his head back against the wall, closed his eyes, and was half sunk in a sort of sullen daze when the guards came for him—pushing through the crowd of condemned men to hunt him out.

  At first he thought the night was over and they were having him forth to march behind the silver oar down to the water’s edge. But they were taking none of the others and they took him not to the street but into the jailer’s own quarters where three men awaited him.

  Candles burned high to show him Sir Robert, Cocklyn and that same puffy-faced judge whose words had sent him to this place. And all three of them were intent upon what Sir Robert held—the chain. At his coming their attention turned to him and Sir Robert asked:

  “You gave this to Johns to spend for drink?”

  Scarface shrugged. “Why not? After the morning it will serve me not and to be drunk on good rum will give him pleasure. Let him toast me out of this life if he will.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “Cheap gave it to me. He told me that it was truly mine and that if I knew how to use it—it might be a dagger. He has a liking for such talk—”

  “Cheap!” Sir Robert’s mouth was a thin bluish line. “Ever Cheap!” He turned to the Judge. “Let us have him in—”

  “A dagger,” repeated Cocklyn slowly. “Now why did the fellow say that? You are sure that the chain is the one, Robert?” His hand rested lightly on Scarlett’s shoulder.

  “Aye. I am sure—sure of everything that marked those months. Do you think I can ever forget while still I breathe! This is the first proof—the first proof I have ever had in all these years. And if Cheap—” His eyes were alive, more alive than his set face, his close-held lips. Around the chain his fingers were curled claw-tight.

  But Cocklyn had turned again to the boy. “So Cheap did tell you that this trinket was yours—that you had full right to it?”

  “He said that it was my wages and it was a pity that I did not know the proper market in which to spend it; also that he was being generous—how generous I could not guess—” He broke off, uneasy under Cocklyn’s intent gaze.

  The major was eyeing him from head to foot, making him feel almost as if he stood stripped and shivering before them all. From that moment he was never free from Cocklyn’s eyes, no matter how he tried to escape into the obscurity beyond the candlelight. Only Sir Robert seemed no longer aware of him nor marked his withdrawal to the other side of the small room. For Scarlett was watching the door with a fierce anticipation.

  It was a year’s wait to Scarface, and mayhap half a century to Sir Robert, before they had Cheap in. He stepped just within the door, his chains clanking as he moved, and blinked once or twice at the change from the torchlight to the more concentrated illumination here. Then he coolly examined the company and stood waiting their pleasure. Only he looked more to Sir Robert.

  From Scarlett’s fingers swung the chain and to it was drawn Cheap’s attention. His jaw thrust forward and he laughed softly.

  “Greetings, brother-in-arms.” His voice held all the old arrogance. “And from whence had you that token?”

  “I might ask the same of you, Cheap.” Each word ground from between set teeth.

  “And if I were to say that I had it from the same source where you bestowed—”

  None of them were prepared for that sudden leap, for the spring which brought the pirate’s throat between Scarlett’s two hands. And those merciless hands tightened in spite of all Cheap’s frenzied writhings. Then Cocklyn was into the struggle, beating and tearing at those iron fingers, bellowing into the Governor’s ear.

  “Don’t Robert, don’t kill him! If you do—you’ll never know! Robert! Fiend take you, loose him! Acton, help me—he’s mad!”

  The Judge was with him and in the end the sheer weight of their arms broke Scarlett’s murderous grip so that Cheap sank back against the wall, his tearing gasps for life-saving air loud in the room. But Scarlett stood quiet, his hands hanging at his sides, his unmoved face like that of a dead man, even his eyes dull and listless. When Cocklyn urged him he allowed himself to be guided back to his chair, as uncomplaining as if he were a babe or stricken of his wits.

  For what seemed a long time to the boy by the wall, there was a deep silence in the room. Cheap recovered enough to drag himself erect, his manacled hands rubbing at his tortured throat. Cocklyn and Acton hovered above the Governor, and the Major’s hands were pressed down upon his friend’s shoulders to hold him in his seat. But Scarlett was able to control his rage now, his eyes were alive again, his tenseness gone. He picked up the chain from the floor where he had dropped it in his frenzied attack upon the pirate captain.

  “So all these years,” he began softly, “you knew.”

  And with all the malicious humor gone from his face, Cheap nodded heavily, still rubbing at his throat as if he could not answer aloud.

  “What happened—what happened to the Maid of Cathay?” Sir Robert asked—as if he were making an inquiry of mere acquaintance, not of a man he had just tried to kill.

  “We took her—off Jamaica,” croaked Cheap, making answer as if those eyes, that calm voice, were instruments of torture forcing the words out of him.

  Cocklyn’s hands tightened their hold on Scarlett but the Governor made no move to rise. Instead he twisted the chain about his wrist so that it served as a bracelet.

  “We—you mean that you took her, Cheap. And then what happened after?”

  “She burned.”

  “Burned” The word was a blow upon the air of the room. Cocklyn sucked in his breath sharply, but Scarlett betrayed no emotion now.

  “And her passengers?” He might have been discussing the sugar crop.

  Cheap’s chains clashed. He moved his hands in a sharp gesture and straightened to his full height, towering over all of them. But the man on the rude chair before him was still master of the situation.

  “Under the sea—”

  Cocklyn moved at that. He put forth his hand, digging fingers tightly into the cloth of Scarface’s coat. Then he pulled the boy back into their tight circle.

  “You lie, Cheap. And here stands the proof of that!”

  Ch
eap’s mouth worked as if he would laugh and yet no laughter would come to his bidding. It was Acton who asked the question for him.

  “What do you mean, man?”

  “Just this, for some purpose of his own Cheap has kept this boy by him, saying now and again that he was a weapon to be used against an ancient enemy. He gave to him that bangle, telling him that it was his by right—by right! Think—think what that could mean!”

  “I will not appeal to your mercy”—Sir Robert spoke as if he had not heard Cocklyn’s outburst—"because you do not know the meaning of that word—as you proved years since—”

  This time Cheap managed the laugh. “Right enough, Sir Robert, you were ever good at reading a man. No, I finished with mercy, even as I finished with friendship, long ago. And to prove my freedom from mawkishness I’ll tell you all the tale you want out of me—give it to you out of my pleasure in it. Because when I tell it I can see you—look into your face and watch every word burn you. Filth was I! Red-handed murderer, unfit for gentlemen such as yourself to consort with— Aye, I’ve remembered right well all those fine names you flung at me upon the occasion of our last meeting. You paid for every one of them—and now you’ll pay twice over!

  “I took the Maid of Cathay— just as you have tried to discover these seventeen years and more, with all your agents combing the islands for news of her. I took the Maid of Cathay and sank her with all on board save one—save one—Robert Scarlett!

  “And that one I took into Tortuga with me. Remember Tortuga as it then was—thieves’ den for the whole Main. That’s where I took your lady—she who was too nice, too fine for me to meet on that night we both hold memories of. Aye, she came to Tortuga right enough. Only there I lost a piece of my luck. Because she died, you see, was gone between two days. But she left me a memory token which I have been careful of, precious careful of, since I saw that she had left in my hand a weapon which would break you in the end, bring you to those stiff knees of yours, just as you brought me to mine once on a time. She left me—your son!”

  It took a full long minute for them to understand that, for their attention to swing from Cheap to the boy under Cocklyn’s hand—while he looked dumbly not at the others but at Cheap who now stood dominating them all.

  “Aye, your son! Look well upon my handiwork, Robert Scarlett! Potboy, scarface, renegade pirate, thief and murderer, condemned to hang with the dawn—there is your only son. And so at long last are we two quits at this world’s gaming table. Because all your days you will have a sweet memory to hold by you—you helped to hang your only son!”

  “This is true?” The Governor’s voice was very controlled and yet it cut through the other’s fine ranting like a ship’s prow through the waves.

  “True? Aye, have up Creagh or Peter; they’ll answer you straight enough. You know them both of old. But you know that I speak the truth, Robert Scarlett, you know that very well.”

  Scarlett bowed his head. “You do—God help me—you do!”

  Cheap’s smile was that of a victor. “You will excuse me now,” he said to them all. “I have only a few hours left to me and I am fain to sleep since I would go fresh to my hanging. You give me leave to go?”

  “Not yet, Captain Cheap,” Scarlett returned almost briskly. He made a sign and Cocklyn produced from a pocket a package wrapped in a bit of stained cloth. He pulled off the cloth and gave to the Governor a small gourd which still contained a sticky black paste.

  “As you perceive by this we have already had speech with Ghost Peter. In fact it was upon that affair that we had come hither. I believe you know of this—a sovereign remedy for the coast fever, is it not?” He paused courteously for the answer which Cheap did not make. The wild elation was gone out of the Captain; he was wary now, on guard against a new danger.

  “Only it is a remedy which no sane doctor will use—because it plays strange tricks with men’s minds. However, being no doctor, you were willing to take that risk, weren’t you, Jonathan? Why—? Because you did not want to lose your weapon against me? Was that it, Cheap? And would it have been even more amusing if the drug had worked as it sometimes does and you could have shown me a drooling idiot as my son—would it?”

  Cheap’s mouth was a beast’s snarl of rage.

  “How you must hate me, Jonathan Cheap. Almost as much as I hate you!”

  “Only I’ve won,” spat the Captain. “Your pirate son will swing with me.”

  “Will he? You underrate our justice, Cheap. You see, I thought his bearing at the trial was odd and there were points in Francis Hynde’s story which gave me to think so strongly that I came here tonight with witnesses. Peter talked, he had no reason not to, because he looks upon his drug as an honest one and his cure something to boast of. He talked very well, did Peter. And now you yourself have supplied the missing evidence. No, Jonathan Cheap, I do not think that my son will hang tomorrow. But I know that you will!”

  “Do not think that you shall keep him from the gallows because he bears your name!” shouted the Captain. “Even a governor cannot do that!”

  Justice Acton spoke then. “On fresh evidence the prisoner has been remanded. I assure you it is very legal, Captain Cheap. Even Her Majesty will find no fault with the Courts of Barbados.”

  “Keep the whelp then! And I wish you the full joy of him! Since I have had the fashioning of him from his birthing he will bring no pride to you. And the day will come, Robert Scarlett, when you shall wish that you had let well enough alone and left him to dance on air. You see, I know well my Scarface.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  * * *

  OUT OF THE SEA, INTO THE SEA

  * * *

  “DO YOU?” mused Sir Robert. “I wonder. I mind me of many times in the past when you were wrong. You have ever been plagued by too great estimate of your own powers.” He yawned. “Now it’s a little late to settle these matters and, since we all have an important engagement on the morrow—” He arose with the air of one speeding parting guests.

  “May the Devil blast you—Robert Scarlett,” breathed Cheap and his face was a gargoyle mask of red hate.

  Scarlett laughed and that jeering answer seemed to bring Cheap to his senses again, so that he was his own man once more as he made a sketchy bow to the company.

  “Laugh while you may, Your Excellency, but he who enjoys the jest most, laughs last. You may find that the dog still has some fangs in his jaws.”

  With that he was gone, shouldering aside the guard at the door so that the fellow needs must haste to catch up with his prisoner.

  “That is Cheap for you,” observed Sir Robert. “He must ever have the last word or he deems himself robbed by fate.”

  “You do not think that there is aught in what he said?” ventured Cocklyn.

  “He has said many things here tonight, and most of them surprising. Which statement do you question now, Humphrey? The one that Blade is my son? No, in that Cheap speaks the truth.”

  “How do you know?” Scarface got it out at last, that protest against this last trick Cheap had played him.

  They all turned to him. Acton was frowning, Cocklyn surprised, but a quirk of a smile lifted Sir Robert’s long upper lip. And of the three, Scarface liked that smile the least.

  “Is it so hard a fate to face?” asked the Governor with all his old biting mockery. “Faith, my reputation as a man-hunter must be a grim one. But at the cost of setting all your worst fears alert I must say that, aye, you are my son. I will accept Cheap’s word in this matter because I know the man, and such a trick is well like his contriving. Then too, were it not for that scar, you might be thought twin to Godfrey Chalmers of Jamaica who was my lady’s younger brother. ’Twas that likeness which I noted from my first meeting with you. You are, in spite of all your hopes, Justin Scarlett.”

  “Your Excellency,” Acton protested, “the law must have better proof before accepting such a wild tale—the word of a condemned rogue—”

  Sir Robert’s eyebrows rose. “M
ust it? Then we shall contrive to give it some. But let us adjourn this discussion, gentlemen. As I observed before, the hour grows late and I have a fatiguing task awaiting me tomorrow. You will excuse us? Come, Justin—”

  Unwilling, but not daring to disobey that order, Scarface followed the Governor out of the room at a pace which he tried to make as slow as possible. But only too soon were they out in the street where a detachment of the guard waited them with the coach and so rode in state back up the hill.

  Once inside the palace, Justin would have crept away to what had been his own quarters, but the hoped-for dismissal from Sir Robert’s presence did not come. Instead he was ushered into the Governor’s own chamber where a waiting slave hurriedly set candles ablaze and then was waved out of the room. The boy moved his feet and glanced longingly at the door but Scarlett had no pity on him.

  “Here’s a pretty to-do.” Sir Robert threw himself into a wing chair. He might either have been addressing Justin or thinking aloud. “What am I going to do with you now?”

  “If it please you, sir,” Justin broke in eagerly, “I’d as leave go—I make no claim on you—truly, Your Excellency—”

  “So Cheap hit near the truth after all. D’you hate me as much as all that, lad?”

  “Hate you?” Justin was honestly bewildered. “I have no reason to hate you, sir. This night you saved my life—”

  “Having first thrust your neck well into the noose. Aye. But then by just naming a man ‘son’ you cannot fully win him. However, we’ve all time before us to know each other better. Faith, by the look of you now, the fever’s still in your bones. Take the far chamber there and get you to bed. On the morrow we’ll have the doctor in to you. But there’ll be no more devil’s potions down your throat—that I promise.”