The H. Bedford-Jones Pulp Fiction Megapack

by H. Bedford-Jones

  Nor was this all; for no sooner was he on deck than he staggered and collapsed into the arms of Russel with a choked cry, and I glimpsed a smear of blood across the mate’s shoulder. Ned Low saw it too, for he turned to me with a quiet word.

  “Habet! Lead in the lungs, and that’s one of us gone to hell. Crack on all sail, Mr. Roberts! I leave the deck to you. Get us out o’ this cursed water and to sea before they send a man-o’-war to stop us. This is a sad business—the poor girl!”

  What he meant by this last, I had no idea, for I was already calling all hands, and Pilcher piped the men to the weather braces and aloft on the instant. Russel and Ned Low carried the figure of Langton to the quarterdeck, and I saw nothing more of them for the time, being mighty busy alow and aloft. Gunner Basil I sent to the helm, needing a good man there if we were to race out of the river. The sails were loosed already, and the men piping down from aloft.

  “Haul aboard! Get your tack well down, bose! Tend braces, you lads—set taut! Sheet home—sheet home and hoist away, there! Lead along and man the flying-jib halyards—clear away the downhaul—hoist! All hands main braces—”

  So it went, with Pilcher’s pipe whistling shrill and the canvas fluttering out. Much to my surprise I perceived that these long-nosed dissenters forward were good enough seamen; and in no long time we were bowling away for dear life, our new canvas straining in the wind and Gunner Basil handling helm in sweet fashion.

  Then, with all clear, I turned to the quarterdeck—and stood thunderstruck.

  Russel, sitting under the weather rail, held the head of Dennis Langton in his arms, while Ned Low knelt beside and talked to Langton, who was coughing blood. The man had a bullet through the body, and it needed no surgeon to know that his hours were numbered. It was not this, however, that held me transfixed, but the person kneeling over Langton’s hand; for this was a woman!

  She had come from the after cabins obviously; a straight, slim slip of a thing all yellow golden hair and sober gray gown and long hands. Her face I could not see, but judged that she was young.

  A flutter aloft caused me to look at the helmsman. Gunner Basil was staring at the scene, and being down the wind was probably hearing their words. With an angry shout I leaped to the wheel, shoved him away and ordered him to take charge forward. He went, but with a sour snarl in his yellow parchment face.

  Indeed, standing in the wheel-box I found that the wind brought me snatches of talk from the group. The girl was sobbing, and Dennis Langton was speaking to her between his terrible coughs. The words reached to me clearly.

  Even as I listened, even as I felt the ship with the wheel and held her in the wind, even as I watched shore and opening river-mouth, I was aware of Gunner Basil and that devil-eyed little cabinboy, talking together near the foot of the main; and I wondered vaguely of what they were speaking.

  “Keep it, Polly!” came Langton’s gasping voice. “All for you—swear—promise me!”

  The girl sobbed out something. Without looking at him I was aware that Langton’s head lifted, and his eyes leaped to Ned Low.

  “Ned, Ned! You’ll not take it from her? Aye, you were always on the level—met on the level with us, parted on the square—Ho there, Tyler! Out sword, Tyler; run the knave through! Damn your eyes. Tyler, you missed him! Netting’s up and we can’t board—”

  For a moment he raved, then fell suddenly silent, gasping and sobbing for breath, coughing up the black blood. I stole a glance, and his face was white as beech-ash.

  “Call Russel, Ned!” came his voice again. “Where’s Russel; John Lopez that was, John Russel that is now?”

  “I’m here, Dennis,” said the dark mate, bending over so that Langton knew him.

  “Swear to me then,” gasped the latter. “Swear you’ll give my share to Polly—swear you’ll be true to her, not cheat her—swear!”

  “Aye,” said Russel, whose real name seemed to be Lopez. “I swear it, Dennis, and take the cap’n to witness!”

  “Swear it, Ned!” cried out Langton, looking up.

  Ned Low, his face set and mournful, inclined his head.

  “I’ll be true to you and her, Dennis, and will protect her, so help me! I swear it by the oath that you and I know—the oath of the book and compass and word!”

  “Where’s Roberts, the Virginian?”

  Langton’s head lifted.

  “Call him! Good man, Roberts; true man—stand by him, Ned! I liked that man. Call him—swear him—”

  Ned Low strode over to me.

  “Give me the helm, and go to him. Quick, man, before he passes!”

  I obeyed. Although I was in the dark as to this oath, it appeared honest enough and would soothe the passing of a dying man. As I knelt before Langton, recognition came into his eyes, fighting the fear of death that was filling them.

  “Swear, Virginian!” he panted out. “Stand wi’ Polly—her share—”

  “I swear, Dennis Langton,” was my response.

  His head dropped back, and a cry came from the girl’s throat—then, with a furious and frightful effort, Dennis Langton swept Polly aside, wrenched himself to his feel, swayed there and shook his fist toward London. Laughter and blood came from his lips, and one last wild cry.

  “Cheated you, Jack Ketch—cheated you first and last, Tyburn Tree! Sink me to hell if I haven’t the laugh o’ you after all! Zounds!”

  He rattled on the word, and died, and pitched forward with a laugh terrible on his lips. Thus passed the first of our company aboard the King Sagamore; and as I watched Russel take the weeping girl to the companionway I wondered to what oath I had sworn myself, in the hand of a dying pirate.

  CHAPTER III

  While we pitched and rolled down-Channel that night I was below with Ned Low, seeing that Dennis Langton was properly sewed up for burial. Gunner Basil brought a shot for his feet and then, touching his forelock, respectfully enough addressed us; in the light of the swinging lantern his parchmenty face looked more yellow and wolfish than ever.

  “Beg pardon, masters, but who’s a-goin’ to say the prayer over him?” he asked.

  “I am.”

  Ned Low glanced up.

  “Why?”

  “It ain’t fittin’, sir,” protested the gunner with an air of earnest, stubborn conviction.

  His pale, deadly eyes were fastened upon Low.

  “He died in sin, most like, but it ain’t fittin’ for you to say no prayer, sir. It’s the spirit movin’ me to protest.”

  Ned Low straightened up.

  “Now, sink me! I’m master o’ this ship—”

  “We that has a higher hope don’t hold wi’ no blasphemy; beg pardon, master, what be you but an ungodly, unregenerate sinner? Blasphemy it is, no less. More’n one of us aboard ha’ heard tell o’ ‘Bloody Ned,’ cap’n. Tha’ ain’t here nor there; but when it comes to sayin’ prayers, I speaks up! It’s the spirit movin’ in me—”

  Bloody Ned! Well, there it was, like a slap in the face. I had heard of Bloody Ned, too, but had not connected the name with my good friend Captain Ned Low.

  For a moment I thought Ned would strike the man down. Eyes clenched with eyes, and in the obscurity behind Gunner Basil I perceived more than one dark figure lurking. Then in time I recalled the tale that Bosun Pilcher had told me, and pushed forward with a nudge in Low’s ribs.

  “What’s all this?” I demanded. “This is fine talk from you, Basil, who were on the Account with Avery and served as his gunner! And what about that French pirate you sailed with—the one who pistoled you and marooned you after the big fight, eh?”

  There was dead silence, broken only by the groan of stanchions and the creak of blocks. My knowledge of his past took Gunner Basil all aback; he gaped at me from a livid and stricken face. Ned Low uttered a soft oath of astonishment. A murmur began to rise from the listening men. I struck again while the iron was hot.

  “A prayer would come with ill grace from you, gunner—as lief from Bloody Ned as from Avery’s gunner,
if I’m the victim! Who was it nicked the lobe off that ear of yours with a pistol ball, eh?”

  Gunner Basil staggered again at that thrust. I felt a swift stab of fear as I met those pale eyes of his; then he began to shake his long head and whine.

  “When a man repenteth him of the evil and turns to godliness, the scornful make mock of him! Aye, sir, you ha’ the right of it; a sinful man I ha’ been, and taken part wi’ men o’ blood. And now that regeneration ha’ come upon me, by the works o’ the blessed Tom Deveney o’ Houndsditch—”

  “Regeneration your eye, ye damned lousy swab of a liar!” broke in a roar, and Bosun Pilcher lurched forward. “Who was it a-throwin’ oaths so free and fine but a half hour ago? You, ye scabby sojer, thinkin’ no one was by to hear! Now out knife if ye dare, and I’ll show ye summat—”

  It looked like blows and hot breath, for Pilcher had hand on knife and Gunner Basil was clutching under his arm; but Ned Low stepped forward and stood between the two men and reasserted his command.

  “Damn me, d’ye think we’re on the Account, to settle quarrels wi’ the steel!” he cried out. “Out o’ this, bose! You, gunner, give me no more of your sanctimonious lip, d’ye hear? You’ll taste a dozen of the cat next time. Get this boy made ready, and five bells in morning watch call all hands for burial. Mr. Roberts, it’s hard on eight bells—you’d better step up and stand by to take the deck from Mr. Russel.”

  “From Portugee Lopez, ye mean,” shot a voice out of the shadows. “Lopez, the bloody pirate what scuppered three Deal craft last year!”

  “Who was that?” snapped Ned Low, hand dropping to belt. “Out of the dark, you rat! Who was it?”

  None answered him, however, and the darkness proved empty to the swing of a lantern. So I went on deck again, wondering not a little. That voice had held an odd twang, not unlike the tones of the impish cabinboy, but that was impossible. The child stood in deadly fear of us all and was seasick to boot.

  With a fair wind, ballast trimmed anew and one of our brawny dissenters at the helm, we bore down-Channel into the darkness; while I, after lighting my pipe in the lee of the pilothouse, reflected a while upon my situation. It might have been worse, what I knew of it, and it might assuredly have been bettered. Certain outstanding things looked dark.

  One certainty was that in London town I had run foul of three fine rogues, and like a blockhead had been hooked. Langton’s end spoke for itself. Russel, or Portuguese Lopez, obviously had something of a reputation as a pirate. Of Bloody Ned I had heard, and was grieved to find it was my own Ned Low, the man whom I so liked. As to the girl Polly, I had not seen or heard of her again, but she seemed to be some relation to Langton.

  Why had these three men outfitted and chartered—as they must have done—the King Sagamore? To get gold from the Cape Verde Islands, Ned Low had said.

  All very fine; but how? There was the puzzler. They had not meant to run away with her and go on the Account.

  Langdon in his capacity as a city merchant had probably given bonds for her, and he had most certainly picked the crew himself. These men were godly rogues, and I did not like them in the least—but they were honest men. Langton would never have picked such a crew to ship as pirates.

  Then again there was the question of Gunner Basil. Captain Low had been utterly astounded at learning the gunner’s record; he had known nothing of it. Ergo, Dennis Langton had known nothing of it and had shipped the gunner at face value.

  But why the hell had Gunner Basil shipped aboard us? I took no stock in his “regeneration”—one look in the man’s eyes clapped a stopper on all that. He could fool the men up forward, but he could not fool me, much less Bosun Pilcher.

  And what was that oath I had taken? It disquieted me.

  I had reached this point, and two bells had just been struck, when the tall figure of Ned Low approached. He glanced at the compass, lighted his pipe, then took my arm and led me to the lee rail, where we could speak without being overheard.

  “Roberts, I’ve been talking with John Russel, and I’m worried,” he said frankly and bluntly. “This morning, standing on the quay, you as good as told Russel you’d been on the Account yourself. Tonight you flashed some information on Gunner Basil that staggered him—and me with him. How came you to know it, lad? If you’ve lied to me, then let’s have it out sharp and quick, and reach an understanding.”

  This was a stiff jolt, and I let him know it.

  “About Russel, that was said in jest, to taunt him. As to the rest, Ned—well, I learned tonight that you are Bloody Ned. It grieved me, but I didn’t come running and whining to ask if the news was true. Zounds! If I’m such a fool that I can’t read a man’s eye for true or false, it’s a queer thing. And I’ll stick by my guns, swing me if I don’t!”

  Low caught my hand and gripped it hard.

  “Spoken like a man, George Roberts!” he said warmly. “Aye, and with a bitter back to the words that I deserve! Your pardon, lad. We’ll have a meeting in the cabin tomorrow morning after breakfast, all four of us, and you’ll know then why I’m anxious.”

  “Who’s the fourth, then?” I asked.

  “Polly Langton, niece and heir of poor Dennis. That was a stiff loss to us, George! Dennis had a head worth any two going,”

  “He’d not much when he shipped our gunner,” I said acidly.

  Ned Low whistled.

  “Perchance. But the scoundrel may ha’ told truth after all, lad; there’s a chance of that, d’ye mind! Men have reformed ere this, and will again. Why, look at me, myself!”

  He was silent for a moment, then took me across the deck again and under the weather rail, where we sat down in comfort. I think he had been much moved by my challenging answer to his doubts; at least he spoke with a refinement and feeling in his voice that I had not previously heard.

  “Roberts, y’have never seen or heard, I suppose, of a man calling himself Trunnel Toby, having a long face like a horse, and sad eyes, and a gold ring in his nostrils, and the likeness of a bleeding heart tattooed upon his breast, just above his own heart?”

  “Not I,” was my answer.

  “I have sought that man going on five years,” said Ned Low. “Once I knew that his ship lay in Carlisle Bay, and I sighted her plain; but there was a gale blowing, and we were short of men, and before we could hand the small sails and luff for the bay we were driven past, and the gale held us, and when I came back again he was gone. Oh, but I ha’ tried with heart and soul to find that man, all up and down the dark bowl of the sea!

  “And once I was within an hour of him. At Madagascar that was; aye, missed him by a scant sixty minutes, though I caught three of his men left behind, and hanged them! He had heard of Bloody Ned, and he ran for it. And off the Zanzibar coast I met a ship that had spoke him two days before, and north we ran and passed him in a hurricane, and he came over to the Brazils for fear o’ me. Now and again, and every way, I found men who had sailed with him, men who had partnered or traded with him, and I hanged them all as I came on them.

  “But I never found Trunnel Toby, and ha’ lost hope of finding the man now, so I am off to recoup my wasted fortune again, and search some more. The last o’ my guineas are in this ship, Roberts; and a big sum from poor Langton, and a share from John Russel. And I am afraid to ask Gunner Basil if he knew the man, for if he did I would hang him, and we have need of a gunner aboard. Besides the man may have reformed, as he says; I’d put it past no man to turn righteous.

  “For look you, George! There is a reason behind all of us. Aye, there’s a reason back of each man who dares this wine-dark sea and listens to the rigging as it sings the slumbering song o’ night up above! Lord knows I’ve earned the name of Bloody Ned, earned it with hangings of men alow and aloft—but all of them men who had known Trunnel Toby, d’ye mind that!

  “And I’ve naught to repent of at all, either. I’ve touched no man’s life but for this cause; I’ve touched no man’s money but mine own, honestly made.

  “
And poor Langton, to whom that gunner laid his tongue, had become an honest man. D’ye know why, George? Because of the girl down below, his niece Polly; and she’s a rare lass, I tell you! Bred of the Devon blood, she is, and can hand sail with any man or read the card or steer by the wind. So when I came and said that I was for the gold and had given up the search for Trunnel Toby until we had the guineas again, Langton knew it was an honest word and came in with me; and John Russel made up the sum we lacked, and we bought this ship, George.”

  “Bought her!” I said in some wonder, for that would have taken round money.

  “Aye, just so. A company venture for the gold. We’ll have it again soon enough, and then I’ll buy out the other shares and keep the King Sagamore and go again after Trunnel Toby. Sure y’have never heard of the man?”

  “Never,” I said. “But there’s Bosun Pilcher come to look at the helm; call him, for many a thing he has heard and seen, and an honest man to boot.”

  Ned Low lifted his voice, and the dark shadow of bose detached itself from the pilot-box and came over to us on the sloping deck. So there Ned Low asked his question again, and described the man he sought. Bose turned the quid in his mouth and chewed upon it and spat over the stern rail, and then made careful answer.

  “Why, sir, there be many a man wi’ face like a horse, and one or two aboard here, but not that man. Seems like I’ve heard tell of he, too; let’s see now—was it aboard the Merry Thought? No, ’twas not; yet ’twas not so long ago—

  “Ha! Damn me eyes, sir, if ’twas not two v’yages back, on the Pricket brigantine, wi’ Cap’n Baxter out o’ Bristol town! I mind it well enough now. We were lying at Lisbon, and a supra-cargo there was tellin’ me of such a man, bleedin’ heart and all! Mate on a London trading-brig, he was, and had got into trouble wi’ the Portugee folk, and had skipped between two days. That’s where I heard the name, and more’n that I can’t bring to mind.”

  “Then let it pass,” said Ned Low, sinking back against the rail.