by Howard Pyle
Chapter VII. CAPTAIN SCARFIELD
PREFACE
The author of this narrative cannot recall that, in any history of thefamous pirates, he has ever read a detailed and sufficient accountof the life and death of Capt. John Scarfield. Doubtless some dataconcerning his death and the destruction of his schooner might begathered from the report of Lieutenant Mainwaring, now filed in thearchives of the Navy Department, out beyond such bald and bloodlessnarrative the author knows of nothing, unless it be the little chap-bookhistory published by Isaiah Thomas in Newburyport about the year1821-22, entitled, "A True History of the Life and Death of Captain JackScarfield." This lack of particularity in the history of one so notablein his profession it is the design of the present narrative in a measureto supply, and, if the author has seen fit to cast it in the form of afictional story, it is only that it may make more easy reading for thosewho see fit to follow the tale from this to its conclusion.
I
ELEAZER COOPER, or Captain Cooper, as was his better-known title inPhiladelphia, was a prominent member of the Society of Friends. He wasan overseer of the meeting and an occasional speaker upon particularoccasions. When at home from one of his many voyages he never failed tooccupy his seat in the meeting both on First Day and Fifth Day, and hewas regarded by his fellow townsmen as a model of business integrity andof domestic responsibility.
More incidental to this history, however, it is to be narrated thatCaptain Cooper was one of those trading skippers who carried their ownmerchandise in their own vessels which they sailed themselves, and onwhose decks they did their own bartering. His vessel was a swift, largeschooner, the Eliza Cooper, of Philadelphia, named for his wife. Hiscruising grounds were the West India Islands, and his merchandisewas flour and corn meal ground at the Brandywine Mills at Wilmington,Delaware.
During the War of 1812 he had earned, as was very well known, anextraordinary fortune in this trading; for flour and corn meal sold atfabulous prices in the French, Spanish, Dutch, and Danish islands, cutoff, as they were, from the rest of the world by the British blockade.
The running of this blockade was one of the most hazardous maritimeventures possible, but Captain Cooper had met with such unvariedsuccess, and had sold his merchandise at such incredible profit that,at the end of the war, he found himself to have become one of thewealthiest merchants of his native city.
It was known at one time that his balance in the Mechanics' Bank wasgreater than that of any other individual depositor upon the books, andit was told of him that he had once deposited in the bank a chest offoreign silver coin, the exchanged value of which, when translatedinto American currency, was upward of forty-two thousand dollars--aprodigious sum of money in those days.
In person, Captain Cooper was tall and angular of frame. His face wasthin and severe, wearing continually an unsmiling, mask-like expressionof continent and unruffled sobriety. His manner was dry and taciturn,and his conduct and life were measured to the most absolute accord withthe teachings of his religious belief.
He lived in an old-fashioned house on Front Street below Spruce--aspleasant, cheerful a house as ever a trading captain could return to.At the back of the house a lawn sloped steeply down toward the river. Tothe south stood the wharf and storehouses; to the north an orchard andkitchen garden bloomed with abundant verdure. Two large chestnut treessheltered the porch and the little space of lawn, and when you sat underthem in the shade you looked down the slope between two rows of boxbushes directly across the shining river to the Jersey shore.
At the time of our story--that is, about the year 1820--this propertyhad increased very greatly in value, but it was the old home of theCoopers, as Eleazer Cooper was entirely rich enough to indulge his fancyin such matters. Accordingly, as he chose to live in the samehouse where his father and his grandfather had dwelt before him, heperemptorily, if quietly, refused all offers looking toward the purchaseof the lot of ground--though it was now worth five or six times itsformer value.
As was said, it was a cheerful, pleasant home, impressing you when youentered it with the feeling of spotless and all-pervading cleanliness--acleanliness that greeted you in the shining brass door-knocker; thatentertained you in the sitting room with its stiff, leather-coveredfurniture, the brass-headed tacks whereof sparkled like so manystars--a cleanliness that bade you farewell in the spotless stretch ofsand-sprinkled hallway, the wooden floor of which was worn into knobsaround the nail heads by the countless scourings and scrubbings to whichit had been subjected and which left behind them an all-pervading faint,fragrant odor of soap and warm water.
Eleazer Cooper and his wife were childless, but one inmate made thegreat, silent, shady house bright with life. Lucinda Fairbanks, a nieceof Captain Cooper's by his only sister, was a handsome, sprightly girlof eighteen or twenty, and a great favorite in the Quaker society of thecity.
It remains only to introduce the final and, perhaps, the most importantactor of the narrative Lieut. James Mainwaring. During the past twelvemonths or so he had been a frequent visitor at the Cooper house. Atthis time he was a broad-shouldered, red-cheeked, stalwart fellowof twenty-six or twenty-eight. He was a great social favorite, andpossessed the added romantic interest of having been aboard theConstitution when she fought the Guerriere, and of having, with his ownhands, touched the match that fired the first gun of that great battle.
Mainwaring's mother and Eliza Cooper had always been intimate friends,and the coming and going of the young man during his leave of absencewere looked upon in the house as quite a matter of course. Half a dozentimes a week he would drop in to execute some little commission for theladies, or, if Captain Cooper was at home, to smoke a pipe of tobaccowith him, to sip a dram of his famous old Jamaica rum, or to play arubber of checkers of an evening. It is not likely that either of theolder people was the least aware of the real cause of his visits; stillless did they suspect that any passages of sentiment had passed betweenthe young people.
The truth was that Mainwaring and the young lady were very deeply inlove. It was a love that they were obliged to keep a profound secret,for not only had Eleazer Cooper held the strictest sort of testimonyagainst the late war--a testimony so rigorous as to render it altogetherunlikely that one of so military a profession as Mainwaring practicedcould hope for his consent to a suit for marriage, but Lucinda could nothave married one not a member of the Society of Friends without losingher own birthright membership therein. She herself might not attach muchweight to such a loss of membership in the Society, but her fear of, andher respect for, her uncle led her to walk very closely in her pathof duty in this respect. Accordingly she and Mainwaring met as theycould--clandestinely--and the stolen moments were very sweet. With equalsecrecy Lucinda had, at the request of her lover, sat for a miniatureportrait to Mrs. Gregory, which miniature, set in a gold medallion,Mainwaring, with a mild, sentimental pleasure, wore hung around his neckand beneath his shirt frill next his heart.
In the month of April of the year 1820 Mainwaring received ordersto report at Washington. During the preceding autumn the West Indiapirates, and notably Capt. Jack Scarfield, had been more than usuallyactive, and the loss of the packet Marblehead (which, sailing fromCharleston, South Carolina, was never heard of more) was attributedto them. Two other coasting vessels off the coast of Georgia had beenlooted and burned by Scarfield, and the government had at last arouseditself to the necessity of active measures for repressing these pests ofthe West India waters.
Mainwaring received orders to take command of the Yankee, a swift,light-draught, heavily armed brig of war, and to cruise about the BahamaIslands and to capture and destroy all the pirates' vessels he couldthere discover.
On his way from Washington to New York, where the Yankee was thenwaiting orders, Mainwaring stopped in Philadelphia to bid good-by to hismany friends in that city. He called at the old Cooper house. It wason a Sunday afternoon. The spring was early and the weather extremelypleasant that day, being filled with a warmth almost as of summer. Theapple tree
s were already in full bloom and filled all the air with theirfragrance. Everywhere there seemed to be the pervading hum of bees, andthe drowsy, tepid sunshine was very delightful.
At that time Eleazer was just home from an unusually successful voyageto Antigua. Mainwaring found the family sitting under one of the stillleafless chestnut trees, Captain Cooper smoking his long clay pipe andlazily perusing a copy of the National Gazette. Eleazer listened witha great deal of interest to what Mainwaring had to say of his proposedcruise. He himself knew a great deal about the pirates, and, singularlyunbending from his normal, stiff taciturnity, he began telling of whathe knew, particularly of Captain Scarfield--in whom he appeared to takean extraordinary interest.
Vastly to Mainwaring's surprise, the old Quaker assumed the positionof a defendant of the pirates, protesting that the wickedness of theaccused was enormously exaggerated. He declared that he knew some of thefreebooters very well and that at the most they were poor, misdirectedwretches who had, by easy gradation, slid into their present evil ways,from having been tempted by the government authorities to enter intoprivateering in the days of the late war. He conceded that CaptainScarfield had done many cruel and wicked deeds, but he averred that hehad also performed many kind and benevolent actions. The world made nonote of these latter, but took care only to condemn the evil that hadbeen done. He acknowledged that it was true that the pirate had allowedhis crew to cast lots for the wife and the daughter of the skipper ofthe Northern Rose, but there were none of his accusers who told how,at the risk of his own life and the lives of all his crew, he had givensuccor to the schooner Halifax, found adrift with all hands down withyellow fever. There was no defender of his actions to tell how he andhis crew of pirates had sailed the pest-stricken vessel almost into therescuing waters of Kingston harbor. Eleazer confessed that he could notdeny that when Scarfield had tied the skipper of the Baltimore Bellenaked to the foremast of his own brig he had permitted his crew ofcutthroats (who were drunk at the time) to throw bottles at the helplesscaptive, who died that night of the wounds he had received. For thishe was doubtless very justly condemned, but who was there to praise himwhen he had, at the risk of his life and in the face of the authorities,carried a cargo of provisions which he himself had purchased at TampaBay to the Island of Bella Vista after the great hurricane of 1818? Inthis notable adventure he had barely escaped, after a two days' chase,the British frigate Ceres, whose captain, had a capture been effected,would instantly have hung the unfortunate man to the yardarm in spite ofthe beneficent mission he was in the act of conducting.
In all this Eleazer had the air of conducting the case for thedefendant. As he talked he became more and more animated and voluble.The light went out in his tobacco pipe, and a hectic spot appearedin either thin and sallow cheek. Mainwaring sat wondering to hear theseverely peaceful Quaker preacher defending so notoriously bloody andcruel a cutthroat pirate as Capt. Jack Scarfield. The warm and innocentsurroundings, the old brick house looking down upon them, the odorof apple blossoms and the hum of bees seemed to make it all the moreincongruous. And still the elderly Quaker skipper talked on and on withhardly an interruption, till the warm sun slanted to the west and theday began to decline.
That evening Mainwaring stayed to tea and when he parted from LucindaFairbanks it was after nightfall, with a clear, round moon shining inthe milky sky and a radiance pallid and unreal enveloping the old house,the blooming apple trees, the sloping lawn and the shining river beyond.He implored his sweetheart to let him tell her uncle and aunt of theiracknowledged love and to ask the old man's consent to it, but she wouldnot permit him to do so. They were so happy as they were. Who knew butwhat her uncle might forbid their fondness? Would he not wait a littlelonger? Maybe it would all come right after a while. She was so fond, sotender, so tearful at the nearness of their parting that he had notthe heart to insist. At the same time it was with a feeling almost ofdespair that he realized that he must now be gone--maybe for the spaceof two years--without in all that time possessing the right to call herhis before the world.
When he bade farewell to the older people it was with a choking feelingof bitter disappointment. He yet felt the pressure of her cheek againsthis shoulder, the touch of soft and velvet lips to his own. But whatwere such clandestine endearments compared to what might, perchance, behis--the right of calling her his own when he was far away and upon thedistant sea? And, besides, he felt like a coward who had shirked hisduty.
But he was very much in love. The next morning appeared in a drizzle ofrain that followed the beautiful warmth of the day before. He had thecoach all to himself, and in the damp and leathery solitude he drew outthe little oval picture from beneath his shirt frill and looked long andfixedly with a fond and foolish joy at the innocent face, the blue eyes,the red, smiling lips depicted upon the satinlike, ivory surface.
II
For the better part of five months Mainwaring cruised about in thewaters surrounding the Bahama Islands. In that time he ran to earth anddispersed a dozen nests of pirates. He destroyed no less than fifteenpiratical crafts of all sizes, from a large half-decked whaleboat to athree-hundred-ton barkentine. The name of the Yankee became a terrorto every sea wolf in the western tropics, and the waters of the BahamaIslands became swept almost clean of the bloody wretches who had solately infested it.
But the one freebooter of all others whom he sought--Capt. JackScarfield--seemed to evade him like a shadow, to slip through hisfingers like magic. Twice he came almost within touch of the famousmarauder, both times in the ominous wrecks that the pirate captain hadleft behind him. The first of these was the water-logged remains of aburned and still smoking wreck that he found adrift in the great Bahamachannel. It was the Water Witch, of Salem, but he did not learn hertragic story until, two weeks later, he discovered a part of her crewat Port Maria, on the north coast of Jamaica. It was, indeed, a dreadfulstory to which he listened. The castaways said that they of all thevessel's crew had been spared so that they might tell the commander ofthe Yankee, should they meet him, that he might keep what he found, withCaptain Scarfield's compliments, who served it up to him hot cooked.
Three weeks later he rescued what remained of the crew of the shattered,bloody hulk of the Baltimore Belle, eight of whose crew, headed by thecaptain, had been tied hand and foot and heaved overboard. Again, therewas a message from Captain Scarfield to the commander of the Yankee thathe might season what he found to suit his own taste.
Mainwaring was of a sanguine disposition, with fiery temper. He swore,with the utmost vehemence, that either he or John Scarfield would haveto leave the earth.
He had little suspicion of how soon was to befall the ominousrealization of his angry prophecy.
At that time one of the chief rendezvous of the pirates was the littleisland of San Jose, one of the southernmost of the Bahama group. Here,in the days before the coming of the Yankee, they were wont to put into careen and clean their vessels and to take in a fresh supply ofprovisions, gunpowder, and rum, preparatory to renewing their attacksupon the peaceful commerce circulating up and down outside the islands,or through the wide stretches of the Bahama channel.
Mainwaring had made several descents upon this nest of freebooters.He had already made two notable captures, and it was here he hopedeventually to capture Captain Scarfield himself.
A brief description of this one-time notorious rendezvous of freebootersmight not be out of place. It consisted of a little settlement of thosewattled and mud-smeared houses such as you find through the West Indies.There were only three houses of a more pretentious sort, built of wood.One of these was a storehouse, another was a rum shop, and a third ahouse in which dwelt a mulatto woman, who was reputed to be a sortof left-handed wife of Captain Scarfield's. The population was almostentirely black and brown. One or two Jews and a half dozen Yankeetraders, of hardly dubious honesty, comprised the entire whitepopulation. The rest consisted of a mongrel accumulation of negroesand mulattoes and half-caste Spaniards, and of a multitude of blac
k oryellow women and children. The settlement stood in a bight of the beachforming a small harbor and affording a fair anchorage for small vessels,excepting it were against the beating of a southeasterly gale. Thehouses, or cabins, were surrounded by clusters of coco palms and growthsof bananas, and a long curve of white beach, sheltered from the largeAtlantic breakers that burst and exploded upon an outer bar, was drawnlike a necklace around the semi-circle of emerald-green water.
Such was the famous pirates' settlement of San Jose--a paradise ofnature and a hell of human depravity and wickedness--and it was to thisspot that Mainwaring paid another visit a few days after rescuing thecrew of the Baltimore Belle from her shattered and sinking wreck.
As the little bay with its fringe of palms and its cluster of wattlehuts opened up to view, Mainwaring discovered a vessel lying at anchorin the little harbor. It was a large and well-rigged schooner of twohundred and fifty or three hundred tons burden. As the Yankee rounded tounder the stern of the stranger and dropped anchor in such a positionas to bring her broadside battery to bear should the occasionrequire, Mainwaring set his glass to his eye to read the name he coulddistinguish beneath the overhang of her stern. It is impossible todescribe his infinite surprise when, the white lettering starting out inthe circle of the glass, he read, The Eliza Cooper, of Philadelphia.
He could not believe the evidence of his senses. Certainly this sink ofiniquity was the last place in the world he would have expected to havefallen in with Eleazer Cooper.
He ordered out the gig and had himself immediately rowed over to theschooner. Whatever lingering doubts he might have entertained as to theidentity of the vessel were quickly dispelled when he beheld CaptainCooper himself standing at the gangway to meet him. The impassive faceof the friend showed neither surprise nor confusion at what must havebeen to him a most unexpected encounter.
But when he stepped upon the deck of the Eliza Cooper and looked abouthim, Mainwaring could hardly believe the evidence of his senses atthe transformation that he beheld. Upon the main deck were eighttwelve-pound carronade neatly covered with tarpaulin; in the bow a LongTom, also snugly stowed away and covered, directed a veiled and muzzledsnout out over the bowsprit.
It was entirely impossible for Mainwaring to conceal his astonishment atso unexpected a sight, and whether or not his own thoughts lent colorto his imagination, it seemed to him that Eleazer Cooper concealed underthe immobility of his countenance no small degree of confusion.
After Captain Cooper had led the way into the cabin and he and theyounger man were seated over a pipe of tobacco and the invariable bottleof fine old Jamaica rum, Mainwaring made no attempt to refrainfrom questioning him as to the reason for this singular and ominoustransformation.
"I am a man of peace, James Mainwaring," Eleazer replied, "but there aremen of blood in these waters, and an appearance of great strength is ofuse to protect the innocent from the wicked. If I remained in appearancethe peaceful trader I really am, how long does thee suppose I couldremain unassailed in this place?"
It occurred to Mainwaring that the powerful armament he had beheld wasrather extreme to be used merely as a preventive. He smoked for a whilein silence and then he suddenly asked the other point-blank whether, ifit came to blows with such a one as Captain Scarfield, would he make afight of it?
The Quaker trading captain regarded him for a while in silence. Hislook, it seemed to Mainwaring, appeared to be dubitative as to how farhe dared to be frank. "Friend James," he said at last, "I may as wellacknowledge that my officers and crew are somewhat worldly. Of a truththey do not hold the same testimony as I. I am inclined to think thatif it came to the point of a broil with those men of iniquity, myindividual voice cast for peace would not be sufficient to keep my crewfrom meeting violence with violence. As for myself, thee knows who I amand what is my testimony in these matters."
Mainwaring made no comment as to the extremely questionable manner inwhich the Quaker proposed to beat the devil about the stump. Presentlyhe asked his second question:
"And might I inquire," he said, "what you are doing here and why youfind it necessary to come at all into such a wicked, dangerous place asthis?"
"Indeed, I knew thee would ask that question of me," said the Friend,"and I will be entirely frank with thee. These men of blood are, afterall, but human beings, and as human beings they need food. I have atpresent upon this vessel upward of two hundred and fifty barrels offlour which will bring a higher price here than anywhere else in theWest Indies. To be entirely frank with thee, I will tell thee that Iwas engaged in making a bargain for the sale of the greater part of mymerchandise when the news of thy approach drove away my best customer."
Mainwaring sat for a while in smoking silence. What the other had toldhim explained many things he had not before understood. It explained whyCaptain Cooper got almost as much for his flour and corn meal now thatpeace had been declared as he had obtained when the war and the blockadewere in full swing. It explained why he had been so strong a defenderof Captain Scarfield and the pirates that afternoon in the garden.Meantime, what was to be done? Eleazer confessed openly that he dealtwith the pirates. What now was his--Mainwaring's--duty in the case? Wasthe cargo of the Eliza Cooper contraband and subject to confiscation?And then another question framed itself in his mind: Who was thiscustomer whom his approach had driven away?
As though he had formulated the inquiry into speech the other begandirectly to speak of it. "I know," he said, "that in a moment thee willask me who was this customer of whom I have just now spoken. I have nodesire to conceal his name from thee. It was the man who is known asCaptain Jack or Captain John Scarfield."
Mainwaring fairly started from his seat. "The devil you say!" he cried."And how long has it been," he asked, "since he left you?"
The Quaker skipper carefully refilled his pipe, which he had by nowsmoked out. "I would judge," he said, "that it is a matter of four orfive hours since news was brought overland by means of swift runnersof thy approach. Immediately the man of wickedness disappeared." HereEleazer set the bowl of his pipe to the candle flame and began puffingout voluminous clouds of smoke. "I would have thee understand, JamesMainwaring," he resumed, "that I am no friend of this wicked and sinfulman. His safety is nothing to me. It is only a question of buying uponhis part and of selling upon mine. If it is any satisfaction to thee Iwill heartily promise to bring thee news if I hear anything of the manof Belial. I may furthermore say that I think it is likely thee willhave news more or less directly of him within the space of a day. Ifthis should happen, however, thee will have to do thy own fightingwithout help from me, for I am no man of combat nor of blood and willtake no hand in it either way."
It struck Mainwaring that the words contained some meaning that did notappear upon the surface. This significance struck him as so ambiguousthat when he went aboard the Yankee he confided as much of hissuspicions as he saw fit to his second in command, Lieutenant Underwood.As night descended he had a double watch set and had everything preparedto repel any attack or surprise that might be attempted.
III
Nighttime in the tropics descends with a surprising rapidity. At onemoment the earth is shining with the brightness of the twilight; thenext, as it were, all things are suddenly swallowed into a gulf ofdarkness. The particular night of which this story treats was notentirely clear; the time of year was about the approach of the rainyseason, and the tepid, tropical clouds added obscurity to the darknessof the sky, so that the night fell with even more startling quicknessthan usual. The blackness was very dense. Now and then a group ofdrifting stars swam out of a rift in the vapors, but the night wascuriously silent and of a velvety darkness.
As the obscurity had deepened, Mainwaring had ordered lanthorns to belighted and slung to the shrouds and to the stays, and the faint yellowof their illumination lighted the level white of the snug little warvessel, gleaming here and there in a starlike spark upon the brasstrimmings and causing the rows of cannons to assume curiously giganticproportions.<
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For some reason Mainwaring was possessed by a strange, uneasy feeling.He walked restlessly up and down the deck for a time, and then, stillfull of anxieties for he knew not what, went into his cabin to finishwriting up his log for the day. He unstrapped his cutlass and laid itupon the table, lighted his pipe at the lanthorn and was about preparingto lay aside his coat when word was brought to him that the captain ofthe trading schooner was come alongside and had some private informationto communicate to him.
Mainwaring surmised in an instant that the trader's visit relatedsomehow to news of Captain Scarfield, and as immediately, in the reliefof something positive to face, all of his feeling of restlessnessvanished like a shadow of mist. He gave orders that Captain Coopershould be immediately shown into the cabin, and in a few momentsthe tall, angular form of the Quaker skipper appeared in the narrow,lanthorn-lighted space.
Mainwaring at once saw that his visitor was strangely agitated anddisturbed. He had taken off his hat, and shining beads of perspirationhad gathered and stood clustered upon his forehead. He did not reply toMainwaring's greeting; he did not, indeed, seem to hear it; but he camedirectly forward to the table and stood leaning with one hand upon theopen log book in which the lieutenant had just been writing. Mainwaringhad reseated himself at the head of the table, and the tall figure ofthe skipper stood looking down at him as from a considerable height.
"James Mainwaring," he said, "I promised thee to report if I had news ofthe pirate. Is thee ready now to hear my news?"
There was something so strange in his agitation that it began to infectMainwaring with a feeling somewhat akin to that which appeared todisturb his visitor. "I know not what you mean, sir!" he cried, "byasking if I care to hear your news. At this moment I would rather havenews of that scoundrel than to have anything I know of in the world."
"Thou would? Thou would?" cried the other, with mounting agitation. "Isthee in such haste to meet him as all that? Very well; very well, then.Suppose I could bring thee face to face with him--what then? Hey? Hey?Face to face with him, James Mainwaring!"
The thought instantly flashed into Mainwaring's mind that the piratehad returned to the island; that perhaps at that moment he was somewherenear at hand.
"I do not understand you, sir," he cried. "Do you mean to tell me thatyou know where the villain is? If so, lose no time in informing me, forevery instant of delay may mean his chance of again escaping."
"No danger of that!" the other declared, vehemently. "No danger of that!I'll tell thee where he is and I'll bring thee to him quick enough!"And as he spoke he thumped his fist against the open log book. In thevehemence of his growing excitement his eyes appeared to shine greenin the lanthorn light, and the sweat that had stood in beads upon hisforehead was now running in streams down his face. One drop hung likea jewel to the tip of his beaklike nose. He came a step nearer toMainwaring and bent forward toward him, and there was something sostrange and ominous in his bearing that the lieutenant instinctivelydrew back a little where he sat.
"Captain Scarfield sent something to you," said Eleazer, almost in araucous voice, "something that you will be surprised to see." And thelapse in his speech from the Quaker "thee" to the plural "you" struckMainwaring as singularly strange.
As he was speaking Eleazer was fumbling in a pocket of his long-taileddrab coat, and presently he brought something forth that gleamed in thelanthorn light.
The next moment Mainwaring saw leveled directly in his face the roundand hollow nozzle of a pistol.
There was an instant of dead silence and then, "I am the man you seek!"said Eleazer Cooper, in a tense and breathless voice.
The whole thing had happened so instantaneously and unexpectedly thatfor the moment Mainwaring sat like one petrified. Had a thunderboltfallen from the silent sky and burst at his feet he could not have beenmore stunned. He was like one held in the meshes of a horrid nightmare,and he gazed as through a mist of impossibility into the lineamentsof the well-known, sober face now transformed as from within into theaspect of a devil. That face, now ashy white, was distorted into adiabolical grin. The teeth glistened in the lamplight. The brows,twisted into a tense and convulsed frown, were drawn down into blackshadows, through which the eyes burned a baleful green like the eyesof a wild animal driven to bay. Again he spoke in the same breathlessvoice. "I am John Scarfield! Look at me, then, if you want to seea pirate!" Again there was a little time of silence, through whichMainwaring heard his watch ticking loudly from where it hung against thebulkhead. Then once more the other began speaking. "You would chase meout of the West Indies, would you? G------ --you! What are you cometo now? You are caught in your own trap, and you'll squeal loud enoughbefore you get out of it. Speak a word or make a movement and I'll blowyour brains out against the partition behind you! Listen to what I sayor you are a dead man. Sing out an order instantly for my mate and mybos'n to come here to the cabin, and be quick about it, for my finger'son the trigger, and it's only a pull to shut your mouth forever."
It was astonishing to Mainwaring, in afterward thinking about it all,how quickly his mind began to recover its steadiness after that firstastonishing shock. Even as the other was speaking he discovered that hisbrain was becoming clarified to a wonderful lucidity; his thoughts werebecoming rearranged, and with a marvelous activity and an alertnesshe had never before experienced. He knew that if he moved to escape oruttered any outcry he would be instantly a dead man, for the circle ofthe pistol barrel was directed full against his forehead and with thesteadiness of a rock. If he could but for an instant divert that fixedand deadly attention he might still have a chance for life. With thethought an inspiration burst into his mind and he instantly put it intoexecution; thought, inspiration, and action, as in a flash, were one. Hemust make the other turn aside his deadly gaze, and instantly he roaredout in a voice that stunned his own ears: "Strike, bos'n! Strike,quick!"
Taken by surprise, and thinking, doubtless, that another enemy stoodbehind him, the pirate swung around like a flash with his pistol leveledagainst the blank boarding. Equally upon the instant he saw the trickthat had been played upon him and in a second flash had turned again.The turn and return had occupied but a moment of time, but that moment,thanks to the readiness of his own invention, had undoubtedly savedMainwaring's life. As the other turned away his gaze for that briefinstant Mainwaring leaped forward and upon him. There was a flashingflame of fire as the pistol was discharged and a deafening detonationthat seemed to split his brain. For a moment, with reeling senses, hesupposed himself to have been shot, the next he knew he had escaped.With the energy of despair he swung his enemy around and drove him withprodigious violence against the corner of the table. The pirate emitteda grunting cry and then they fell together, Mainwaring upon the top, andthe pistol clattered with them to the floor in their fall. Even ashe fell, Mainwaring roared in a voice of thunder, "All hands repelboarders!" And then again, "All hands repel boarders!"
Whether hurt by the table edge or not, the fallen pirate struggled asthough possessed of forty devils, and in a moment or two Mainwaring sawthe shine of a long, keen knife that he had drawn from somewhere abouthis person. The lieutenant caught him by the wrist, but the other'smuscles were as though made of steel. They both fought in despairingsilence, the one to carry out his frustrated purposes to kill, the otherto save his life. Again and again Mainwaring felt that the knife hadbeen thrust against him, piercing once his arm, once his shoulder, andagain his neck. He felt the warm blood streaming down his arm and bodyand looked about him in despair. The pistol lay near upon the deck ofthe cabin. Still holding the other by the wrist as he could, Mainwaringsnatched up the empty weapon and struck once and again at the bald,narrow forehead beneath him. A third blow he delivered with all theforce he could command, and then with a violent and convulsive throe thestraining muscles beneath him relaxed and grew limp and the fight waswon.
Through all the struggle he had been aware of the shouts of voices, oftrampling of feet and discharge of firearms, and the thoug
ht came tohim, even through his own danger, that the Yankee was being assaultedby the pirates. As he felt the struggling form beneath him loosen anddissolve into quietude, he leaped up, and snatching his cutlass, whichstill lay upon the table, rushed out upon the deck, leaving the strickenform lying twitching upon the floor behind him.
It was a fortunate thing that he had set double watches and preparedhimself for some attack from the pirates, otherwise the Yankee wouldcertainly have been lost. As it was, the surprise was so overwhelmingthat the pirates, who had been concealed in the large whaleboat that hadcome alongside, were not only able to gain a foothold upon the deck,but for a time it seemed as though they would drive the crew of the brigbelow the hatches.
But as Mainwaring, streaming with blood, rushed out upon the deck, thepirates became immediately aware that their own captain must havebeen overpowered, and in an instant their desperate energy began toevaporate. One or two jumped overboard; one, who seemed to be the mate,fell dead from a pistol shot, and then, in the turn of a hand, there wasa rush of a retreat and a vision of leaping forms in the dusky light ofthe lanthorns and a sound of splashing in the water below.
The crew of the Yankee continued firing at the phosphorescent wakes ofthe swimming bodies, but whether with effect it was impossible at thetime to tell.
IV
The pirate captain did not die immediately. He lingered for three orfour days, now and then unconscious, now and then semi-conscious, butalways deliriously wandering. All the while he thus lay dying, themulatto woman, with whom he lived in this part of his extraordinary dualexistence, nursed and cared for him with such rude attentions as thesurroundings afforded. In the wanderings of his mind the same dualityof life followed him. Now and then he would appear the calm, sober,self-contained, well-ordered member of a peaceful society that hisfriends in his faraway home knew him to be; at other times the netherpart of his nature would leap up into life like a wild beast, furiousand gnashing. At the one time he talked evenly and clearly of peacefulthings; at the other time he blasphemed and hooted with fury.
Several times Mainwaring, though racked by his own wounds, sat besidethe dying man through the silent watches of the tropical nights.Oftentimes upon these occasions as he looked at the thin, lean facebabbling and talking so aimlessly, he wondered what it all meant. Couldit have been madness--madness in which the separate entities of good andbad each had, in its turn, a perfect and distinct existence? He chose tothink that this was the case. Who, within his inner consciousness, doesnot feel that same ferine, savage man struggling against the stern,adamantine bonds of morality and decorum? Were those bonds burstasunder, as it was with this man, might not the wild beast rush forth,as it had rushed forth in him, to rend and to tear? Such were thequestions that Mainwaring asked himself. And how had it all come about?By what easy gradations had the respectable Quaker skipper descendedfrom the decorum of his home life, step by step, into such a gulf ofiniquity? Many such thoughts passed through Mainwaring's mind, and hepondered them through the still reaches of the tropical nights while hesat watching the pirate captain struggle out of the world he had so longburdened. At last the poor wretch died, and the earth was well quit ofone of its torments.
A systematic search was made through the island for the scattered crew,but none was captured. Either there were some secret hiding places uponthe island (which was not very likely) or else they had escaped in boatshidden somewhere among the tropical foliage. At any rate they were gone.
Nor, search as he would, could Mainwaring find a trace of any of thepirate treasure. After the pirate's death and under close questioning,the weeping mulatto woman so far broke down as to confess in brokenEnglish that Captain Scarfield had taken a quantity of silver moneyaboard his vessel, but either she was mistaken or else the pirates hadtaken it thence again and had hidden it somewhere else.
Nor would the treasure ever have been found but for a most fortuitousaccident. Mainwaring had given orders that the Eliza Cooper was to beburned, and a party was detailed to carry the order into execution. Atthis the cook of the Yankee came petitioning for some of the Wilmingtonand Brandywine flour to make some plum duff upon the morrow, andMainwaring granted his request in so far that he ordered one of themen to knock open one of the barrels of flour and to supply the cook'sdemands.
The crew detailed to execute this modest order in connection with thedestruction of the pirate vessel had not been gone a quarter of an hourwhen word came back that the hidden treasure had been found.
Mainwaring hurried aboard the Eliza Cooper, and there in the midst ofthe open flour barrel he beheld a great quantity of silver coin buriedin and partly covered by the white meal. A systematic search was nowmade. One by one the flour barrels were heaved up from below and burstopen on the deck and their contents searched, and if nothing but themeal was found it was swept overboard. The breeze was whitened withclouds of flour, and the white meal covered the surface of the ocean foryards around.
In all, upward of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars was foundconcealed beneath the innocent flour and meal. It was no wonder thepirate captain was so successful, when he could upon an instant's noticetransform himself from a wolf of the ocean to a peaceful Quaker traderselling flour to the hungry towns and settlements among the scatteredislands of the West Indies, and so carrying his bloody treasure safelyinto his quiet Northern home.
In concluding this part of the narrative it may be added that a widestrip of canvas painted black was discovered in the hold of the ElizaCooper. Upon it, in great white letters, was painted the name, "TheBloodhound." Undoubtedly this was used upon occasions to cover the realand peaceful title of the trading schooner, just as its captain had, inreverse, covered his sanguine and cruel life by a thin sheet of moralityand respectability.
This is the true story of the death of Capt. Jack Scarfield.
The Newburyport chap-book, of which I have already spoken, speaks onlyof how the pirate disguised himself upon the ocean as a Quaker trader.
Nor is it likely that anyone ever identified Eleazer Cooper with thepirate, for only Mainwaring of all the crew of the Yankee was exactlyaware of the true identity of Captain Scarfield. All that was ever knownto the world was that Eleazer Cooper had been killed in a fight with thepirates.
In a little less than a year Mainwaring was married to LucindaFairbanks. As to Eleazer Cooper's fortune, which eventually came intothe possession of Mainwaring through his wife, it was many times asubject of speculation to the lieutenant how it had been earned. Therewere times when he felt well assured that a part of it at least was thefruit of piracy, but it was entirely impossible to guess how much morewas the result of legitimate trading.
For a little time it seemed to Mainwaring that he should give it all up,but this was at once so impracticable and so quixotic that he presentlyabandoned it, and in time his qualms and misdoubts faded away and hesettled himself down to enjoy that which had come to him through hismarriage.
In time the Mainwarings removed to New York, and ultimately the fortunethat the pirate Scarfield had left behind him was used in part tofound the great shipping house of Mainwaring & Bigot, whose famoustransatlantic packet ships were in their time the admiration of thewhole world.
