Commodore Junk

“Done?” he said.

“No. Surely I may spend as long as I like over my meals here.”

Bart nodded and went out, the heavy curtain falling behind him; while Humphrey slowly rose and went back to the stone altar, where he filled a silver cup from the flask and drank, and then began humming an air. After this he walked to the curtain and peered cautiously through into the dark corridor, to see the heavy figure of the buccaneer’s henchman go slowly along past the patches of dull green light streaming through the openings which occurred some thirty feet apart.

“Gone!” said Humphrey, returning quickly. “Are you there?”

“Yes. I could hear everything.”

“Listen!” said Humphrey, quickly. “You are Mistress Greenheys?”

“Yes.”

“And you love Dennis Kelly?”

There was silence.

“You need not fear me. I know your history,” continued Humphrey. “You are, like myself, a prisoner and in the power of that black-looking lieutenant.”

There was a piteous sigh here, and then came with a sob —

“I am a miserable slave, sir.”

“Yes, yes, I know. Then look here, can we not all escape together?”

“Escape, sir! How?”

“Through Dinny’s help.”

“He would not give it, sir. It would be impossible. I – I – there! I will speak out, sir – I can bear this horrible life no longer! I have asked him to take me away.”

“Well, will he not?”

“He is afraid, sir.”

“And yet he loves you?”

“He says so.”

“And you believe it, or you would not run risks by coming here?”

“Risks!” said the woman, with a sigh. “If Mazzard knew I came here he would kill me!”

“The wretch!” muttered Humphrey. Then aloud, “Dinny must help us. Woman, surely you can win him to our side! You will try!”

“Try, sir! I will do anything!”

“Work upon his feelings, and I will try and do the same.”

“He fears the risk of the escape, and also what may happen to him when he gets back to England. He has been a buccaneer, and, he tells me, a soldier. He will be charged with desertion.”

“I will answer for his safety,” said Humphrey, hastily. And then running to the curtain he made sure that Bart was not listening.

“Be cautious,” he said, as he went back and began to pace up and down, with his eyes fixed upon the ground. “Tell me, could we get a boat?”

“I don’t know, sir; I think so. Would it not be better to take to the forest?”

“That we must consider. First of all, Dinny must be won over.”

“I will try.”

“How could I communicate with you?”

“You could not, sir. I came to-day to warn Dinny to be cautious, for Mazzard suspects something. He has gone to the men’s place, or I could not be here.”

“But you can come sometimes and speak to me. You will be able to know whether anyone is here.”

“If I can come, sir,” said the woman; “but it is very difficult. The Commodore is always about; nothing escapes him.”

“A scoundrel!”

“I don’t think he is such a very bad man,” said the woman.

“Indeed! Ah, women always find an excuse for a good-looking scoundrel!”

“I don’t think a man who is faithful to the woman he loved can be very bad,” said the voice, softly.

“Faithful! why, I suppose he has a dozen wives here?”

“He! Oh, no! I don’t know, sir, exactly, but I have seen him go to the old chamber in one of these ruinous places, and he goes there to pray by the side of a coffin.”

“What!” cried Humphrey.

“Yes, a coffin; and it contains the body of the woman he loved, or else of his sister. No one here knows but Dinny and Bart, and – ”

“Hist!” whispered Humphrey, catching up a bunch of grapes and beginning to eat them.

He had heard the distant step of his guardian, and then there was silence, for Bart seemed to creep up and listen before entering, which he did at last, to find the prisoner muttering to himself and eating the grapes.

“Done?”

“Yes. You can clear away.”

Bart obeyed and turned to go, but as he reached the curtain —

“You have plenty of cigars?” he said.

“I?”

“Ah, well, I’ve got some there,” growled Bart, and he handed the prisoner half a dozen roughly-made rolls of the tobacco-leaf. “Now, you understand,” he continued, as he made to go once more, “you’re to keep here till the skipper comes back.”

“Are you afraid I shall escape?” said Humphrey, contemptuously.

“Not a bit, captain; but when one man’s life depends on another’s, it makes him careful.”

The curtain dropped behind him, and Humphrey stood listening and thinking.

Bart’s step could be faintly heard now, and, feeling safe, the prisoner went back to his couch, and gazed up in the direction from whence the voice had come.

“Are you still there?” he said, softly.

There was no reply; and a repetition of the question was followed by the same silence.

“It’s strange,” he said, gazing up in the gloom overhead to where, in the midst of a good deal of rough carving, there seemed to be a small opening, though he could not be sure. “Why should he come and watch me, and take this interest in my well-being? I am not like an ordinary prisoner, and his friendly way, his submission to the rough contempt with which I treated him – it’s strange, very strange! What can it mean?”

He threw himself upon the couch, to lie for some time thinking and trying to interpret the meaning; but all was black and confused as the dark mass of carving from which the woman’s voice had seemed to come; and, giving it up at last, he rose, and without any hesitation walked straight out through the opening, and made his way along the corridor to where the sun blazed forth and made him stand and shade his eyes, as he remained considering which way he should go.

The prisoner made a bold dash in a fresh direction, going straight toward where he believed the men’s quarters to be; and, as before, the moment he had passed behind the ruins he found himself face to face with a dense wall of verdure, so matted together that, save to a bird or a small animal, farther progress was impossible.

Defeated here, he tried another and another place, till his perseverance was rewarded by the finding of one of the dark, maze-like paths formed by cutting away the smaller growth and zig-zagging through the trees.

Into this dark pathway he plunged, to find that at the end of five minutes he had lost all idea, through its abrupt turns, of the direction in which he was going; while before he had penetrated much farther the pathway forked, and, unable to decide which would lead him in the required direction, he took the path to the right.

It was plain enough that these green tunnels through the forest had been cut by the buccaneers for purposes of defence in case of an enemy carrying their outer works, so that he was in no way surprised to find the path he had taken led right to a huge crumbling stone building, whose mossy walls rose up among the trees sombre and forbidding, and completely barring his way.

It was a spot where a few resolute men might keep quite an army at bay, for the walls were of enormous extent, the windows mere stone lattices, and the doorway in front so low that a stooping attitude was necessary for him who would enter. This was consequent upon the falling of stones from above, and the blocking partially of the way.

There was a strange, mysterious aspect in the place, overgrown as it was with the redundant growth, which fascinated the explorer, and feeling impelled to go on he gave one glance sound, and was about to enter, when out of the utter stillness he heard a low sound as if someone had been watching him and given vent to a low exhalation of the breath.

Humphrey started and looked sharply round, unable to restrain a shudder: but no one was visible, and he was about to go on, feeling ashamed of his nervousness, when the sound was repeated, this time from above his head; and glancing up, he leaped back, for twenty feet above his head in the green gloom there was a curious, impish face gazing down at him; and as he made out more and more of the object, it seemed as if some strange goblin were suspended in mid-air and about to drop down upon his head.

“It’s the darkness, I suppose,” exclaimed Humphrey, angrily, as he uttered a loud hiss, whose effect was to make the strange object give itself a swing and reveal the fact that it was hanging by its tail alone from the end of a rope-like vine which depended from the vast ceiling of interlacing leaves.

With apparently not the slightest effort the goblin-like creature caught a loop of the same vine, clung there for a moment to gaze back at the intruder into this weird domain, displaying its curiously human countenance, and then sped upwards, when there was a rush as of a wave high above the visible portion of the interlacing boughs, and Humphrey knew that he had startled quite a flock of the little forest imps, who sped rapidly away.

“I must be very weak still,” he muttered as he went now right up to the entrance, and after peering cautiously in for a moment or two he entered.

It was dim outside in the forest; here, after picking his way cautiously for a stop or two, it was nearly black. The place had probably been fairly lit when it was first constructed, far back in the dim past before the forest invaded the district and hid away these works of man; but now the greatest caution was needed to avoid the fallen blocks of masonry, and the explorer took step after step with the care of one who dreaded some chasm in his way.

He stopped and listened, for suddenly from his left there was a faint echoing splash so small and fine that it must have been caused by the drip of a bead of water from the roof, but it had fallen deep down into some dark hollow half filled with water, and a shiver ran through Humphrey’s frame as he thought of the consequences of a slip into such a place, far from help, and doomed to struggle for a few minutes grasping at the dripping stony walls, seeking a means of climbing out, and then falling back into the darkness of the great unknown.

He felt as if he must turn back, but his eyes were now growing accustomed to the obscurity, and he made out that just in front there was, faintly marked out, the opening of a doorway leading into a chamber into which some faint light penetrated.

Going cautiously forward, he entered, to find to his astonishment that he was in a fair sized room whose stone walls were elaborately carved, as were the dark recesses or niches all around, before each of which sat, cross-legged, a well-carved image which seemed to be richly ornamented in imitation of its old highly-decorated dress. For a moment in the obscurity it seemed as if he had penetrated into the abode of the ancient people who had built the ruined city, and that here they were seated around in solemn conclave to discuss some matter connected with the long low form lying upon the skin spread floor, while to make the scene the more incongruous, these strangely-carved figures were looking down upon the object, which was carefully draped with a large Union Jack.

Humphrey paused just inside the threshold and removed his cap, for Sarah Greenheys’ words recurred to him, and it seemed that he must have strayed into one of the many old temples of the place which had been turned by Commodore Junk into a mausoleum for the remains of the woman he was said to have loved, the draped object being without doubt the coffin which held her remains.

He stood gazing down at the coloured flag for a time; then with a glance round at the olden idols or effigies of the departed great of the place, and the dark niches at the mouths of which they sat, he went softly out, glanced to his right, and saw an opening which evidently gave, upon the chasm where he had heard the water drip, and stepped out once more into the comparative daylight of the forest.

The place might be used as a retreat, he thought, but its present use was plain enough, and he walked quickly back to where the path had branched, and took the other fork.

This narrow tunnel through the forest suddenly debouched upon another going across it at right, angles, and after a moment’s hesitation the prisoner turned to the left, and to his great delight found that he had solved one of the topographical problems of the place, for this led towards what was evidently the outer part of the buccaneers’ settlement, and of this he had proof by hearing the smothered sound of voices, which became clear as he proceeded, and at last were plainly to be made out as coming from a ruined building standing upon a terrace whose stones were lifted in all directions by the growth around.

This place had been made open by the liberal use of the axe and fire, half-burned trunks and charred roots of trees lying in all directions, the consequence being that Humphrey had to stop short at the mouth of the forest path unless he wanted to be seen. For, to judge from the eager talking, it was evident that a number of men were gathered in the great building at whose doorless opening the back of one of the buccaneers could be seen as he leaned against the stone, listening to someone who, in a hoarse voice which the listener seemed to recognise, was haranguing the rest.

Humphrey could not hear all that was said, but a word fell upon his ear from time to time, and as he pieced these words together it seemed as if the speaker were declaiming against tyranny and oppression, and calling upon his hearers to help him to put an end to the state of affairs existing.

Then came an excited outburst, as the speaker must have turned his face toward the door, for these words came plainly:

“The end of it will be that they’ll escape, and bring a man-of-war down upon us, and all through his fooling.” A murmur arose.

“He’s gone mad, I tell you all; and if you like to choose a captain for yourselves, choose one, and I’ll follow him like a man; but it’s time something was done if we want to live.” Another burst of murmurs rose here.

“He’s mad, I tell you, or he wouldn’t keep him like that. So what’s it to be, my lads, a new captain or the yard-arm?”

Chapter Twenty Seven

Dinny Consents

The time glided on, and Humphrey always knew when his captor was at sea, for the severity of his imprisonment was then most felt. The lieutenant, Mazzard, was always left in charge of the place, but Bart remained behind by the captain’s orders, and at these times Humphrey was sternly ordered to keep to his prison.

Dinny came and went, but, try him how he would, Humphrey could get nothing from him for days and days.

The tide turned at last.

“Well, sor,” said Dinny one morning, “I’ve been thinking it over a great dale. I don’t like desarting the captain, who has been like a brother to me; but there’s Misthress Greenheys, and love’s a wonderful excuse for a manny things.”

“Yes,” said Humphrey, eagerly, “go on.”

“Sure, sor, she’s compelled to be married like to a man she hates, and it hurts her falings as much as it does mine, and she wants me to get her away and make a rale marriage of it, such as a respectable woman likes; for ye see, all against her will, she’s obliged to be Misthress Mazzard now, and there hasn’t been any praste.”

“I understand,” said Humphrey. “The scoundrel!”

“Well, yes, sir, that’s what he is; but by the same token I don’t wonder at it, for if a man stood bechuckst good and avil and Misthress Greenheys was on the avil side, faix, he’d be sure to go toward the avil – at laste, he would if he was an Oirishman.”

“Then you will!”

“Yis, sor, for the lady’s sake; but I shall have to give up my share of the good things here, and behave very badly to the captain.”

“My good fellow, I will provide you for life.”

“That’s moighty kind of you, sor, and I thank ye. Yis, I’ll do it, for, ye see, though I don’t want to behave badly to the captain, Black Mazzard’s too much for me; and besides, I kape thinking that if, some day or another, I do mate wid an accident and get dancing on the toight-rope, I sha’n’t have a chance of wedding the widdy Greenheys, and that would be a terrible disappointment to the poor darlin’.”

“Yes, yes,” cried Humphrey, impatiently. “Then tell me. You will help me by getting a boat ready, and we can all go down together and put to sea!”

“Hark at him!” said Dinny, with a laugh, after going to the great curtain and peering into the corridor. “Ye spake, sor, like a gintleman coming out of his house and calling for a kyar. Lave that all to me.”

“I will, Dinny; but what do you propose doing, and when!”

“What do I propose doing, sor? Oh! it’s all settled. The darlin’ put an idee in my head, and it’s tuk root like a seed.”

“Trust a woman for ingenuity!” cried Humphrey, speaking with the authority of one who knew, though as to women’s ways he was a child.

“Ah, an’ she’s a cliver one, sor!”

“Well, what is it, Dinny?” cried Humphrey, excitedly.

“Be aisy, sor, and lave it to us. The darlin’ has set her moind on getting away from Black Mazzard, and she’s too gintle a crature to go to extremities and tuk his head off some night like the lady did in the tint, or to handle a hammer and a nail and fix his head to the ground. She don’t like to be too hard upon him, sor, so she proposed a plan to me, and it will be all right.”

“But, Dinny – ”

“Be aisy, sor, or ye’ll spoil all. Jist wait quite riddy, like, till some avening I shall come to ye all in a hurry, hold up me little finger to ye, which will mane come, and ye’ll foind it all cut and dhried for ye.”

“But, my good fellow – ”

“Faix, sor, don’t go on like that before I’ve done. I want to say that ye must be at home here riddy. If the skipper asks ye to dinner, don’t go; and if ye hear a big, powerful noise, don’t git running out to see what it is, but go on aisy like, saying to yerself, ‘Dinny’s getting riddy for me, and he may come at anny time.’”

“And are you going to keep me in the dark?”

“An’ he calls it kaping him in the dark! Ah, well, sor, I won’t do that! I’ll jist tell ye, thin. Ye know the owld chapel place?”

“Chapel!”

“Well, church, thin, sor. That’s what they say it was. The little wan wid the stone picture of the owld gintleman sitting over the door.”

“That square temple?”

“Yis, sor. It’s all the same. The haythens who lived out here didn’t know any betther, and the prastes were a bad lot, so they used to worship the owld gintleman, and give him a prisoner ivery now and then cut up aloive.”

“Nonsense! How do you know that?”

“Faix, it’s written on the stones so; and we found them althers wid places for the blood to run, and knives made out of flint-glass. It’s thrue enough.”

“But what about the temple?”

“Sure, it is the divil’s temple, sor,” said Dinny, with a twinkle of the eye; “and the skipper said it was just the place for it, so he fills it full of our divil’s dust.”

“Money?”

“An’ is it money? That’s all safe in another place, wid silver and gowld bars from the mines, as we tuk in ships, and gowld cups, sor. That’s put away safe, for it’s no use here, where there isn’t a whisky-shop to go and spend it. No, sor; divil’s dust, the black gunpowther.”

“Oh, the magazine! Well, what of that?”

“Sure, sor, the darlin’ put her pretty little lips close to my ear. ‘Och, darlin’, and loight of my ois,’ I says. ‘Sure, it’s so dark in the wood here that ye’ve made a mistake. That’s me ear, darlin’, and not me mouth. Let me show ye’ – ”

“‘No, Dinny,’ she says, ‘I’m like being another man’s wife now, and I can foind me way to yer lips whether it’s dark or light when it’s proper and dacent to do so, and we’ve been to church.’”

“Dinny, you’ll drive me mad!” cried Humphrey, impatiently.

“An’ is it dhrive ye mad, when I’m thrying to set ye right? Then I’d better not tell ye, sor.”

“Yes, yes! For goodness’ sake, man, go on.”

“Ah, well, thin, an’ I will! She jist puts her lips to my ear and she says, ‘Dinny, if ye lay a thrain from the powdher-magazine’ – think of that now, the darlin’! – ‘lay a thrain,’ she says, Dinny, ‘and put a slow-match, same as ye have riddy for firing the big guns, and then be sure,’ she says, ‘and get out of the way’ – as if I’d want to shtay, sor, and be sent to hiven in a hurry – ‘thin,’ she says, ‘the whole place will be blown up, and iverybody will be running to see what’s the matther and put out the fire, and they’ll be so busy wid that, they’ll forget all about the prishner, and we can go down to the say and get away.’”

“Yes,” said Humphrey, thoughtfully. “Is there much powder stored there!”

“Yis, sor, a dale. Ivery time a ship’s been tuk all the powdher has been brought ashore and put there. It’s a foin plan, sor, and all made out of the darlin’s own head.”

“Yes, Dinny, we ought to get away then.”

“Sure, an’ we will, sor. I’ll have a boat wid plenty of wather and sun-dhried mate in her, and some fruit and fishing-lines. We shall do; but the plan isn’t perfect yet.”

“Why?”

“Sure, an’ there’s no arrangement for getting Black Mazzard to come that time to count over the powdher-barrels.”

“What! and blow the scoundrel up!”

“Sure, sor, and it would be a kindness to him. He’s the wickedest divil that ever breathed, and he gets worse ivery day, so wouldn’t it be a kindness to try and send him to heaven before he gets too bad to go! But whist! I’ve stopped too long, sor. Ye understand?”

“Dinny, get me away from here, and you’re a made man!”

“Faix, I dunno, sor. Mebbe there’ll be one lot’ll want to shoot me for a desarter – though I desarted by force – and another lot’ll want to hang me for a pirate. I don’t fale at all safe; but I know I shall be tuk and done for some day if I shtop, and as the darlin’ says she’ll niver make a mistake the right way wid her lips till I’ve taken her from Black Mazzard, why, I’ll do the thrick.”

More days passed, and every stroll outside his prison had to be taken by Humphrey with Bart as close to him as his shadow.

Dinny kept away again, and the plan to escape might as well have never been uttered.

Bart always went well-armed with his prisoner, and seemed unusually suspicious, as if fearing an attempt at escape.

Dinny’s little widow came no more, and the hours grew so irksome with the confinement consequent upon the captains absence that Humphrey longed for his return.

He debated again and again all he had heard, and came to the conclusion that if he said anything it must be to the captain himself.

One morning Bart’s manner showed that something had occurred. His sour face wore a smile, and he was evidently greatly relieved of his responsibility as he said to the prisoner:

“There, you can go out.”

“Has the captain returned?”

Bart delivered himself of a short nod.

“Tell him I wish to see him. Bid him come here.”

“What! the skipper? You mean, ask him if I may take you to him, and he’ll see you.”

“I said, Tell your skipper to come here!” said Humphrey, drawing himself up and speaking as if he were on the quarterdeck. “Tell him I wish to see him at once.”

Bart drew a long breath, and wrinkled up his forehead so that it seemed as if he had an enormous weight upon his head. Then, smiling grimly, he slowly left the place.

The buccaneer, who looked anxious and dispirited, was listening to some complaint made by his lieutenant, and angry words were passing which made Bart as he heard them hasten his steps, and look sharply from one to the other as he entered.

Black Mazzard did what was a work of supererogation as he encountered Bart’s eye – he scowled, his face being villainous enough without.

“Well,” he said aloud, “I’ve warned you!” and he strode out of the old temple-chamber which formed the captain’s quarters, his heavy boots thrust down about his ankles sounding dull on the thick rugs spread over the worn stones, and then clattering loudly as he stepped outside.

“You two been quarrelling?” said Bart, sharply.

“The dog’s insolence is worse than ever!” cried the captain with flashing eyes. “Bart, I don’t want to shed the blood of the man who has been my officer, but – ”

“Let someone else bleed him,” growled Bart. “Dick would; Dinny would give anything to do it. We’re ’bout tired of him. I should like the job myself.”

“Silence!” said the captain, sternly. “No, speak: tell me, what has been going on since I’ve been away?”

“Black Mazzard?”

The captain nodded.

“Half the time – well, no: say three-quarters – he’s been drunk, t’other quarter he’s spent in the south ruins preaching to the men.”