A High Wind in Jamaica (8 page)

(Meanwhile his men had the hatches off, and were preparing to help themselves to everything in the ship.) Marpole looked him up and down. It was barely conceivable that even the Columbian navy should have such a figure of an officer. Then his eye wandered back to the skylight:

“If you call yourself a man-of-war, sir, who in Heaven's name are
those
?” As he pointed, the smirking faces hastily retreated.

The stranger blushed.

“They are rather difficult to explain,” he admitted ingenuously.

“If you had said
Turkish
navy, that would have been more reasonable-sounding!” said Marpole.

But the stranger did not seem to take the joke. He stood, silent, in a characteristic attitude: rocking himself from foot to foot, and rubbing his cheek on his shoulder.

Suddenly Marpole's ear caught the muffled racketing forward. Almost at the same time a bump that shivered the whole barque told that the schooner had been laid alongside.

“What's that?” he exclaimed. “Is there some one in my hold?”

“Stores...” mumbled the stranger.

Marpole up to now had lain growling in his bunk like a dog in its kennel. Now for the first time realizing that something serious was afoot he flung himself out and made for the companion-way. The little silent fair man tripped him up, and he fell against the table.

“You had much better stay here, yes?” said the big man. “My fellows shall keep a tally, you shall be paid in full for everything we take.”

The eyes of the marine coal-merchant gleamed momentarily:

“You'll have to pay for this outrage to a pretty tune!” he growled.

“I will pay you,” said the stranger, with a sudden magnificence in his voice, “at the very least five thousand pounds!”

Marpole stared in astonishment.

“I will write you an order on the Columbian government for that amount,” the other went on.

Marpole thumped the table, almost speechless:

“D'you think I believe that cock-and-bull story?” he thundered.

Captain Jonsen made no protest.

“Do you realize that you are technically guilty of
piracy
, making a forced requisition on a British ship like this, even if you pay every farthing?”

Still Jonsen made no reply: though the bored expression of his mate was lit up for a moment by a smile.

“You'll pay me in
cash
!” Marpole concluded. Then he went off on a fresh tack: “Though how the devil you got on board without being called beats me!—Where's my mate?”

Jonsen began in a toneless voice, as if by rote: “I will write you an order for five thousand pounds: three thousand for the stores, and two thousand you will give me in money.”

“We know you've got specie on board,” interjected the little fair mate, speaking for the first time.

“Our information is certain!” declared Jonsen.

Marpole at last went white and began to sweat. It took even Fear an extraordinarily long time to penetrate his thick skull. But he denied that he had any treasure on board.

“Is that your answer?” said Jonsen. He drew a heavy pistol from his side pocket. “If you do not tell us the truth, your life shall pay the forfeit.” His voice was peculiarly gentle, and mechanical, as if he did not attach much meaning to what he said. “Do not expect mercy, for this is my profession, and in it I am inured to blood.”

A frightful squawking from the deck above told Marpole that his chickens were being moved to new quarters.

In an agony of feeling Marpole told him that he had a wife and children, who would be left destitute if his life was taken.

Jonsen, with rather a perplexed look on his face, put the gun back in his pocket, and the two of them began to search for themselves, at the same time stripping the saloon and cabins of everything they contained: firearms, wearing apparel, the bedclothes, and even (as Marpole with a rare touch of accuracy mentioned in his report) the bell-pulls.

Overhead there was a continuous bumping: the rolling of casks, cases, etc.

“Remember,” Jonsen went on over his shoulder while he searched, “money cannot recall life, nor in the least avail you when you are dead. If you regard your life in the least, at once acquaint me with the hiding-place, and your life shall be safe.”

Marpole's only reply was again to invoke the thought of his wife and children (he was, as a matter of fact, a widower: and his only relative, a niece, would be the better off by his death to the tune of some ten thousand pounds).

But this reiteration seemed to give the mate an idea: and he began to talk to his chief rapidly in a language Marpole had never even heard. For a moment a curious glint came into Jonsen's eye: but soon he was chuckling in the sentimentalest manner, and rubbing his hands.

The mate went on deck to prepare things.

Marpole had no inkling of what was afoot. The mate went on deck to prepare his plan, whatever it was: and Jonsen busied himself with a last futile search for the hiding-place, in silence.

Presently the mate shouted down to him, and he ordered Marpole on deck.

Poor Marpole groaned. Unloading cargo is inclined to be a messy business any way: but these visitors had been none too careful. There is no smell in the world worse than when molasses and bilge-water marry: now it was let loose like ten thousand devils. His heart was almost broken when he saw the havoc that had been made with the cargo: broken cases, casks, bottles, all about the deck: everything in the greatest confusion: tarpaulins cut to pieces: hatches broken.

From the deck-house came the piercing voice of Laura:

“
I want to come out!
”

The Spanish ladies seemed to have returned to the schooner. His own men were shut up in the fo'c'sle. It was obvious where all the children were, for Laura was not the only vociferator. But the only persons to be seen were six members of the visiting crew, who stood in a line, facing the deck-house, a musket apiece.

It was the little mate who now took charge of the situation:

“Where is your specie hid, Captain?”

The musketeers having their backs to him, “Go to the Devil!” replied Marpole.

A startling volley rang out: six neat holes were punctured in the top of the deck-house.

“Hi! Steady there, what are you doing?” John cried out indignantly from within.

“If you refuse to tell us, next time their aim will be a foot lower.”

“You fiends!” cried Marpole.

“Will you tell me?”

“
No!
”

“
Fire!
”

The second row of holes can only have missed the taller children by a few inches.

There was a moment's silence: then a sudden wild shriek from within the deck-house. It was so terrified a sound not their own mothers could have told which throat it came from. One only, though.

The stranger-captain had been slouching about in an agitated way: but at that shriek he turned on Marpole, his face purple with a sudden fury:

“
Now
will you say?”

But Marpole was now completely master of himself. He did not hesitate:

“NO!”

“Next time he gives the order it will be to shoot right through their little bodies!”

So that was what Marpole had meant in his letter by “
every possible threat which villainy could devise
”! But even by this he was not to be daunted:

“No, I tell you!”

Heroic obstinacy! But instead of giving the fatal order, Jonsen lifted a paw like a bear's, and banged Marpole's jaw with it. The latter fell to the deck, stunned.

It was then they took the children out of the deck-house.

They were not really much frightened; except Margaret, who did seem to be taking it all to heart rather. Being shot at is so unlike what one expects it to be that one can hardly connect the two ideas enough to have the appropriate emotions, the first few times. It is not half so startling as some one jumping out on you with a “
Boo!
” in the dark, for instance. The boys were crying a little: the girls were hot and cross and hungry.

“What were you doing?” Rachel asked brightly of one of the firing-party.

But only the captain and the mate could speak English. The latter, ignoring Rachel's question explained that they were all to go on board the schooner—“to have some supper,” he said.

He had all a sailor's reassuring charm of manner. So under the charge of two Spanish seamen they were helped over the bulwarks onto the smaller vessel, which was just casting off.

There the strange sailors broke open a whole case of crystallized fruits, on which they might turn the edge of their long appetites as much as they would.

When poor stunned Captain Marpole came to his senses, it was to find himself tied to the mainmast. Several handfuls of shavings and splintered wood were piled round his feet, and Jonsen was sprinkling them plentifully with gun-powder—though not perhaps enough, it is true, to “blow up the ship and all in it.”

The small fair mate stood at hand in the gathering dusk with a lighted torch, ready to fire the pyre. ”What could a man do in such straits? At that dreadful moment the gallant old fellow had to admit that he was beaten at last. He told them where his freight-money—some £900—was hidden: and they let him go.

Just as the darkness closed in, the last of the pirates returned to their ship. Not a sound was to be heard of the children: but Marpole guessed that they had been taken there too.

Before releasing his crew he lit a lantern and began a sort of inventory of what was gone. It was heart-breaking enough: besides the cargo, all his spare sails, cordage, provisions, guns, paint, powder: all his wearing apparel, and that of his mate: all nautical instruments gone, cabin stores—the saloon in fact gutted of everything, not even a knife or spoon left, tea or sugar, nor a second shirt to his back left. Only the children's luggage was left untouched: and the turtles. Their melancholy sighing was the sole sound to be heard.

But it was almost as heart-breaking to see what the pirates had
left
: anything damaged, such worn-out and useless gear as he had been only waiting for some “storm” to wash overboard—not one of these eyesores was missing.

What, in Heaven's name, was the use of an insurance policy? He began to collect the rubbish himself and dump it over the side.

But Captain Jonsen saw him:

“Hi!” he shouted: “You dirty svindler! I will write to Lloyds and expose you! I will write myself!” He was horribly shocked at the other's dishonesty.

”So Marpole had to give it up, for the time at any rate: took a spike and broke open the fo'c'sle: and as well as the sailors found Margaret's brown nurse. She had hidden there the whole day: probably from motives of fright.

III

You would have thought that supper on the schooner that night would have been a hilarious affair. But, somehow, it was manqué.

A prize of such value had naturally put the crew in the best of humors: and a meal which consisted mainly of crystallized fruit, followed as an afterthought by bread and chopped onions served in one enormous communal bowl, eaten on the open deck under the stars, after bed-time, should have done the same by the children. But nevertheless both parties were seized by a sudden, overpowering, and most unexpected fit of shyness. Consequently no state banquet was ever so formal, or so boring.

I suppose it was the lack of a common language which first generated the infection. The Spanish sailors, used enough to this difficulty, grinned, pointed, and bobbed: but the children retired into a display of good manners which it would certainly have surprised their parents to see. Whereon the sailors became equally formal: and one poor monkeyfied little fellow who by nature belched continually was so be-nudged and be-winked by his companions, and so covered in confusion of his own accord, that presently he went away to eat by himself. Even then, so silent was this revel, he could still be heard faintly belching, half the ship's length away.

Perhaps it would have gone better if the captain and mate had been there, with their English. But they were too busy, looking over the personal belongings they had brought from the barque, sorting out by the light of a lantern anything too easily identifiable and reluctantly committing it to the sea.

It was at the loud splashes made by a couple of empty trunks, stamped in large letters JAS. MARPOLE, that a roar of unassumed indignation arose from the neighboring barque. The two paused in their work, astonished: why should a crew already spoiled of all they possessed take it so hardly when one heaved a couple of old worthless trunks in the sea?

It was inexplicable.

They continued their task, taking no further notice of the
Clorinda
.

Once supper was over, the social situation became even more awkward. The children stood about, not knowing what to do with their hands, or even their legs: unable to talk to their hosts, and feeling it would be rude to talk to each other, wishing badly that it was time to leave. If only it had been light they could have been happy enough exploring: but in the darkness there was nothing to do, nothing whatever.

The sailors soon found occupations of their own: and the captain and mate, as I have said, were already busy.

Once the sorting was over, however, there was nothing for Jonsen to do except return the children to the barque, and get well clear while the breeze and the darkness lasted.

But on hearing those splashes, Marpole's lively imagination had interpreted them in his own way. They suggested that there was now no reason to wait: indeed, every reason to be gone.

I think he was quite honestly misled.

It was after all but a small slip to say he had “seen with his own eyes” what he had heard with his own ears: and the intention was pious.

He set his men feverishly to work: and when Captain Jonsen looked his way again, the
Clorinda
, with every stitch spread in the starlight, was already half a mile to leeward.