The Story of Jack Ballister's Fortunes

Again Jack had dropped off into a dim sleep; at the last question he awoke with a start. “What did you say, Dred?” he asked; “I didn’t hear the last part.”

Dred looked keenly at him for a moment or two; then he took the pipe out of his mouth and puffed out a cloud of smoke. “Well,” he said, “it don’t matter no way. You lay down and go to sleep.”

“No, I won’t,” said Jack. “I’ll just rest this way.” He was lying upon the thwart, his head propped upon his arm. He tried to stay awake, but presently he began again dozing off, waking every now and then to find Dred steadily at the helm, and the young lady lying motionlessly opposite to him. At last he fell fairly asleep and began dreaming.

When he awoke again he found the day had broken, although the sun had not yet risen. They were running down about a quarter of a mile from the shore. A dark, dense fringe of pine forest grew close to the water’s edge. The breeze was falling away with the coming of the day, and the boat was sailing slowly, hardly careening at all to the wind.

Jack sat up, looking about him, and then at the young lady, and there his gaze rested. She looked very white and wan, but she was sleeping deeply and peacefully, her eyelids closed, and the long, dark lashes resting softly on her cheek. Dred followed Jack’s look, and there his eyes rested also. As Jack moved, stretching his stiffened arms, Dred put his finger to his lips and Jack nodded.

About a half a league over the bow of the boat Jack could see the wide mouth of a tributary inlet to the Sound. He slid along the seat toward Dred. “What water is that over there?” he whispered.

“That’s the mouth of the Pungo,” said Dred. “I’m a-going to run ashore at the p’int, and I hope the wind’ll hold to reach it. There’s a lookout tree there, and I want to take a sight to see if there’s any sign of a chase. I don’t know as we’ll get there without oars, though,” he said, “for the wind’s dying down. I tell you what ’tis, lad, you’d better whistle your best for a breeze; for just now ’tis worth gold and silver to us, for the furder we reaches now, the safer we’ll be. By and by, about this time, they’ll be stirring at home to find we’ve gone. If we’d have to lay at the p’int yonder all day, ‘twill give ‘em a chance to man the sloop and be down on us. As like as not they’ll be getting a slant o’ wind afore we do, if it comes out from the west, as ’tis like to do.”

Jack looked over the edge of the boat and down into the brackish water, clear but brown with juniper stain. It seemed to him that the yawl barely crept along. “At this rate,” said Dred, “we’re not making two knot an hour.”

The sun rose round and red over the tops of the trees of the distant further shore, and the breeze grew lighter and lighter. Every now and then the sail, which lay almost flat, began to flutter. Presently the boom swayed inward a little, and as it did so a level shaft of light fell across the young lady’s face. She moved her hand feebly over her face; then she opened her eyes. Jack and Dred were gazing at her as she did so. First there was a blank look of newly awakened life in her face, then bewilderment, then a light of dawning consciousness. Then she sat up suddenly. “Where am I?” she said, looking about her, dazed and bewildered.

“You’re safe enough so far, Mistress,” said Dred; “and I’m glad you’re awake, for’t is high time we was taking to the oars. An ash breeze is all we’ll be like to have for a while now.” He gave the tiller a quick jerk or two. “Come, Jack,” said he; “I’ll make out well enough to do the sailing, but’t is you’ll have to take to the oars.”

“Very well,” said Jack; “that suits me well enough.”

He drew out the oars, clattering, and dropped them into the rowlocks. Then he shot a quick glance over the bow, spat on his hands, and gripped the oars. As he began rowing, the sail swung in over the boat, and Dred steadied it with one hand, holding the tiller with the other. He laid the bow of the boat for a little cypress-tree that stood out beyond the tip of the point in the water. Jack rowed and rowed, and the shore drew foot by foot nearer and nearer; and presently they went slowly around the point into a little inlet or bay sheltered by the woods that stretched out like arms on either side. Then the bow of the boat grated upon the sand, and Dred arose from where he sat. “Here we be,” he said, stretching himself.

Fronting upon the beach was a little sandy bluff three or four feet high, and beyond that stretched away the pine forest, the trees – their giant trunks silver-gray with resin – opening long, level vistas into the woods carpeted with a soft mat of brown needles. “We’ll go ashore here a bit,” said Dred; “you come along o’ me, Jack, and we’ll go down to the p’int to the lookout tree. Don’t you be afraid if we leave you a little while, mistress; we’ll be back afore long.”

“I would like to get out of the boat for a little while too,” she said, “for I’m mightily tired.”

“To be sure you be,” said Dred. “Come, Jack, lend a hand to help her young ladyship ashore.”

They spread out one of the overcoats upon the sand, and made her as comfortable as they could. The sun, which had now risen above the tops of the trees, shone warm and strong across the broad, level stretch of smooth water. The young lady sat gazing away into the distance. “We’ll be back again soon,” said Dred. “Come along, Jack.” She looked toward them and smiled, but made no other reply.

“Methinks she appears better already,” said Jack, as he and Dred walked away together.

“Ay,” said Dred, briefly.

They walked down along the sandy shore for some little distance, and then cut across a little narrow neck of land to the river shore upon the other side. A great, single pine-tree stood towering above the lower growth, and there were cleats nailed to the trunk, leading from the earth to the high branches above. “Here we be,” said Dred; “and now for a sight astern.” He laid aside his coat, and then began ascending the tree by means of the cleats. Jack watched him as he climbed higher and higher until he reached the roof-like spread of branches far overhead. There he flung one leg over the topmost cleat, and, holding fast to the limb, sat looking steadily out toward the westward, his shirt gleaming white among the branches against the sky of the zenith. He remained there for a long time, and then Jack saw him climbing down again. He brushed his hands smartly together as he leaped to the ground, and then put on his coat.

“Well,” said Jack, “did you see anything?”

“No,” said Dred, “I didn’t. ’Tis a trifle thick and hazy-like – d’ye see? But so far as I could make out, there ain’t no chase in sight yet awhile.”

The young girl, when they returned, was walking up and down the beach. She hesitated when she saw them, then came a lingering step or two to meet them, and then stood waiting.

“I see naught so far, mistress,” said Dred, when they had come up to her; “so far as I see we’re safe from chase.”

“You are very good to me,” she said. “I was just thinking how kind you are to me.” She looked from one to the other as she spoke, and her eyes filled with tears. Jack looked sheepish at the sight of her emotion, and Dred touched his forehead with his thumb, with rather an abashed salute. They stood for a moment as though not knowing what to say.

“Well, lad,” said Dred, in a loud, almost boisterous voice, making a pretended feint as though to strike at Jack as he spoke, “’tis time to be off again with an ash breeze, seeing as no other don’t come up for to help us. Every mile we make now, d’ye see, is worth ten furder on. As for a bite to eat, why, we’ll just have to take that as we goes along. Come, mistress, get aboard, and we’ll push off.” He helped the young lady into the boat, and then he and Jack pushed it off, Jack running through the water and jumping aboard with a soaking splash of his wet feet.

CHAPTER XXXVI

A STOP OVER NIGHT

AS THE DAY had settled toward sundown the breeze had sprung up again. There was a growing bank of haze in the west through which the sun shone fainter and fainter as it approached the horizon and then was swallowed up and lost. The wind, blowing strong and full, drove the water into ridges that caught up to the yawl as it sailed free before the breeze, ran past it swiftly, and left it behind. Dred seemed almost elated. “This be the wind for luck,” he said. “Why, I do suppose that, gin the captain the best he could have, we’ve got a fifteen-league start on him, and he’ll never overhaul that. ‘T will blow up stiff from the east’rd to-morrow, like enough, and ‘twill be a cross sea ag’in’ us beating up into the head of the Sound, but fifteen leagues of start means a deal, I can tell ye. And, besides that, the captain’ll most likely sail straight for Ocracock. It be n’t likely, d’ye see, that he’d think of running up into the sounds. He’d think that we’d trust to our lead of any chase and strike right for the open water through Ocracock, and he’ll not think we’d try to make through the shoals out Currituck way.”

Jack had no notion at all of the geography of the sounds, but he did understand that while they were going one way, Blackbeard would probably be going another.

Meantime the gray light of the failing day had softened the harsh outlines of the pine and cypress woods into a mysterious gloom of shadows. They were sailing now not over two or three furlongs from the shore as they ran yawing along before the wind. Upon one side of them were thick swamp forests, upon the other the seemingly limitless water of the sound, reaching away its restless gray without any sign of a further shore.

So they sailed for a while in silence, the gray light growing duller and still more dull. “Do you know,” said Dred, suddenly speaking, “there’s a settlement up beyond that island yonder – or leastwise there was some houses there three or four year ago. I knowed the man what lived there then, and I’m going to put in, d’ye see, and find out whether he lives there yet awhile. If he do, I’ll get him to let us stay over night. D’ye see, I can’t stand sailing forever, and the young lady can’t stand it, neither. So we’ll make a stop here, if we’re able. Like enough we’ll make another in Shallowbag Bay in Roanoke Island. Arter that we’ll make a straight stretch for Currituck.”

Jack was looking out ahead at the island of which Dred had spoken. It was separated by a little inlet from the wooded shores. Dred laid his course toward a point of land that jutted out into the water, and the shore slid swiftly away behind them as they rushed onward before the wind. “How far is it to the settlement?” asked Jack.

“Just beyond the p’int yonder,” said Dred, briefly. He was looking steadily out ahead.

As they came nearer to the point, the waters of a little bay began to open out before them. It spread wider and wider, and at last they were clear of the jutting point. Then Jack saw the settlement of which Dred had spoken.

There was a slight rise of cleared land, at the summit of which perched a group of four or five huts or cabins. They were built of logs and unpainted boards beaten gray with the weather. Two of the houses showed some signs of being inhabited; the others were plainly empty and deserted, and falling to ruin. Near the houses was a field of Indian corn dried brown with the autumn season, and there were two or three scrubby patches of sweet potatoes, but there was no other sign of cultivation.

Dred put down the tiller and drew in the sheet, and the boat, heeling over to the wind that now caught her abeam, met the waves splashing and dashing as it drove forward upon its other course. Gradually the trees shut off the rougher sea, and then the yawl sailed more smoothly and easily. Presently a dog began barking up at one of the houses, and then two or three joined in, and Jack could see the distant hounds dim in the twilight gray of the falling evening, running down from the houses toward the landing. At the continued noise of their barking several figures appeared at the door of the two cabins – first a man, then two or three half-naked children, then a woman. Then a young woman came to the door of the other cabin with a baby in her arms, and a young man. “Ay,” said Dred, “that be Bill Gosse, for certain.” Then finally the boat grated upon the shore, the sail falling off flapping and clattering in the wind, and the voyage of the day was ended.

The man who had first appeared went into the house, the next moment coming out with a tattered hat upon his head. He came down toward the landing, the children following him scatteringly, and the woman standing in the doorway, looking down toward them. The young man was also coming slouching behind. Dred and Jack had lowered the peak and had begun to take in the boom when the man reached the shore. Jack looked at him with a good deal of curiosity, and the young lady sat in the stern thwarts also gazing at him. He was tall and lean and sallow. A straggling beard covered his thin cheeks and chin, and a mat of hair plaited behind hung down in a queue. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and he wore a pair of baggy breeches tied at the knees. “Hullo, Bill!” said Dred. “How be ye?”

“Be that you, Chris Dred?” said the man in a slow, dull voice. “Who’ve ye got there with ye?”

“This? This here is a young Virginny lady of quality,” said Dred. “She’s been took sick, and we – this lad and me – is carrying her back home again. I’ll tell ye all about that by and by. What I want to know now is, will you take us in for the night? The holy truth is, I’m just getting over the fever, and this here young lady, as I said, be sick too. We’ve been sailing all day, and so I thought maybe you’d let us make port here for the night.”

The man stood stolidly watching Dred and Jack furl and tie up the sail. He did not offer to help them. “Where did ye come from?” he asked, at last, in the same slow, heavy voice.

“Down from the Pungo,” said Dred.

“Well, you’d better come up to the house and talk to my woman,” said the man, answering Dred’s initial question. “I be willing enough for you to stay, so far as I’m concerned.”

“Very well,” said Dred, “so I will. You wait here, Jack, till I come back again.”

He stepped stiffly out of the boat, and then the two went away together. The young man who had also come down to the shore remained behind, squatted upon the ground, staring fixedly at Jack and the young lady, who looked back at him with a good deal of interest.

“I do hope the good woman’ll let us stay all night,” said the young lady, suddenly breaking the long silence. “Indeed I feel mightily tired, and if I could only rest for that long I know it would do me a vast deal of good.”

“She’ll let you stay,” said the young man. “That’ll be all right, mistress.”

Just then Dred reappeared, coming back alone from the house down through the twilight, and confirmed what the young man had said. “’Tis all right,” he said, “and they’ll give us a berth for the night. Come along, mistress, I’ll help you.”

Miss Eleanor Parker rose, stiffened with the long sitting in the boat, supporting herself with her hand upon the rail. Dred reached out a hand and helped her out over the thwarts and to the beach. Then he climbed into the boat, and taking the case-bottle of rum out of the locker, slipped it into his pocket.

The woman and the three children stood in the doorway watching the three as they approached. As Jack entered he looked back and saw that the young man was bending over the yawl, examining it curiously.

The house consisted of one large room. There was a fireplace at one end of it; two benches, and two or three rickety chairs, a table, and two beds comprised the furniture. The man was standing by the fireplace with an empty pipe between his lips. “This here is the young lady,” said Dred to the woman. “I dare say she’d like to lie down now a bit while you’re getting supper ready,” and Miss Eleanor Parker acknowledged that she was very tired.

“Wasn’t that there Captain Teach’s yawl-boat?” the man asked of Dred.

“Ay,” said Dred.

“I thought I knowed her,” the man said.

Almost as soon as she had eaten her supper, the young lady went again and lay down upon the bed. Then Dred brought out the case-bottle of rum, and he and the two men began drinking. Jack watched them with growing apprehension, for they were helping themselves very freely. He thought every moment Dred would cork the bottle again, but he did not do so, and gradually the effect of the drink began to show itself. Jack could see that Dred was taking more of it than he should. He began to talk more volubly, and the stolid silence of the men began to melt also. The older man became at times almost quarrelsome. He repeated the same thing over and over again, and the young man would laugh foolishly at everything that was said. Jack looked toward the young lady, wondering whether she was conscious of what was going on. But she lay perfectly quiet and motionless, and he thought that maybe she did not perceive it. “Won’t you come over and join us?” said Dred, waving the bottle toward Jack, and then taking a drink himself.

“No,” said Jack, “I won’t.”

“Why not?” said the man. “You be n’t too proud to drink with us, be you?”

“No, I’m not,” said Jack, shortly, “but I don’t choose to. I’m tired, and I wish you’d stop drinking yourselves.”

“You be too proud by half,” the man said, thickly; “that be the trouble with you. You be too proud.”

The young man laughed and wiped his mouth with his fingers. “Why, no, Jack hain’t proud,” said Dred; “Jack and I’ve been messmates for many a day, hain’t we, Jack? D’ye know, he was kidnapped from England. His uncle over there is a rich lord or summat of the sort. Anyways, he’s got a stack of money. Hain’t that so, Jack?”

“I don’t care,” said the man, “who he be. The trouble with him is he be too proud – that’s what’s the trouble with him. When a man axes me to come and drink with him, I don’t care who he be, I goes. I wouldn’t be too proud to drink – no, not if I was a lord instead of a beggarly runaway.”

“He be n’t no runaway,” said Dred. “He and me was two of Blackbeard’s men. Now we be our own men. We be taking that there young lady back to Virginny.” Then he leaned across the table and whispered hoarsely, “She’s a beauty – she is.”

His hoarse whisper sounded very loud through the cabin. Jack shot a look at the young lady, but she did not move or seem to notice what was said. “I wish you’d be still, Dred,” he said; “you’re drinking more than you ought, and you don’t know what you’re saying.”

Dred looked gloomily at him for a while. “You mind your business, lad,” he said, “and I’ll mind mine. I know what I’m doing and what I’m saying well enough.”

Jack made no reply. He curled himself up on the bench and shut his eyes. Dred sat still, looking moodily at him for a little while. “You think I be drinking more than I ought, do you?” But still Jack did not reply nor open his eyes. “I’ll drink as much as I choose, and no man shall stop me.”

“You’ll make yourself sick again, that’s what you’ll do,” Jack said, shortly.

He lay there with his eyes closed, and presently, in spite of himself, the events of the day before and the sleepless nights he had passed began to press upon him, and he drifted off into broken fragments of sleep, through which he heard the men still talking and laughing. At last, after a while, he opened his eyes to silence. The fire had burned low, and the men lay sleeping on the floor with their feet turned toward the blaze. Jack arose, took up the bottle upon the table, and shook it beside his ear. There was still a little liquor in it, and he corked it and laid it behind him on the bench so as to make sure it should not be touched again.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE SECOND DAY

THE woman was stirring early in the morning, and Jack awoke with a start. Dred was moving uneasily in his sleep, with signs of near waking as Jack went to the door and looked out. It was still hardly more than the dawn of day. It had clouded over during the night, and had been raining, as Dred had predicted. The wind was now blowing swiftly from the east, sending low, drifting clouds hurrying across the sky. From where he stood he could see, through the twilight gray, the white caps, churning every now and then to a sudden flash of foam out across the dim stretch of the sound, and he thought to himself that their voyage was likely to prove very rough. Presently Dred stood beside him. He stood for a while gazing out into the gray daylight, as Jack had done, looking across the sound; then he went out into the open air. He stared up into the wet sky above, and then all around him. “’Tis likely we’ll have a stiffish day of it,” he said, “but we’ll have to make the most of it, let us get ever so wet. ’Tis lucky I thought of fetching the overcoats.” He said nothing about the night before, and did not seem to remember that he had been drinking more than he should have done. The woman of the house emerged from the outshed, carrying an armful of sticks. “Hullo, mistress!” Dred called to her, “I wish you’d wake the young lady and tell her we’ve got to be starting again. Why, it must be well on toward six o’clock by now, allowing for this here thick day.”

The woman was smoking a short, black pipe. She took it out of her mouth with one hand. “Won’t you stay and take a bite to eat first?” said she.

“Why, no, we won’t,” said Dred. “We’ll eat what we want aboard the boat. We’ve got a good rest, and we’re beholden to ye for it.” He opened his hand, and then Jack saw he had a sixpenny-piece in it. “I want you to take this here,” he said, “for to pay you for your trouble.”

The woman stretched out her lean, bony hand, took the coin eagerly enough, and slipped it in her pocket. “I’ll tell her young ladyship that you be waiting,” said she with a sudden access of deference, and then went back into the house.

“Did you see anything of that there bottle o’ rum?” said Dred.

“Yes, I did,” said Jack. “I put it away in the overcoat pocket.”

“That’s all well, then. I thought maybe Bill or Ned Gosse had stole it. Was there anything left in it?”

“A little,” answered Jack.

Beside this Dred made no present reference to the drinking bout of the night before.

When they went back into the house again the young lady was sitting on the edge of the bed, smoothing her hair. “’Tis time we was starting now, mistress,” said Dred, “and the sooner the better.”

They all went down to the boat together, the two Gosse men accompanying them. This time they helped Jack and Dred unfurl the sail, and set the boom and the gaff, and they pushed the boat off into the water when all were aboard. “You’ll have a windy day outside, like enough,” Bill Gosse said, in his slow, dull voice.

“I reckon we will,” Dred replied briefly.

There was a fine spit of rain-like mist drifting before the wind, and the water lapped and splashed chilly, beating in little breakers upon the beach. “You’d better put on this overcoat, mistress,” said Dred, and he held it for the young lady as he spoke.

She looked steadily at him for a moment, and it seemed to Jack, with some intuitive knowledge, that she was thinking of the way Dred had been drinking with the two men the night before. Jack himself took the coat from Dred and held it for her while she slipped her arms into the sleeves. Then he helped her settle herself in the stern. “You’d better put on the other overcoat, Dred,” he said. “I can do very well without it.”

The boat was already dancing and bobbing with the short, lumpy swell that came in from the sound around the point, and gave promise of rough weather outside. The sail flapped and beat noisily in the wind; Jack hoisted the peak, and Dred, drawing the sheet with one hand and holding the tiller with the other, brought her around to the wind. The people on the shore stood watching them as the boat heeled over and then, with gathering headway, swept swiftly away. There were no farewells spoken. Jack, looking behind, saw the people still standing upon the shore as it rapidly fell away astern, dimming in the gray of the misty rain.

“About!” called Dred, sharply, and then the boat, sweeping a curve, came around upon the other tack. Once more they came about, and then presently they were out in the open sound. There was a heavy, lumpy sea running, and the boat began to lift and plunge to the greater swell with every now and then a loud, thunderous splash of water at the bow, and a cloud of spray dashed up into the air. A wave sent a sheet of water into the boat. “I reckon we’ll have to drop the peak a bit, Jack,” Dred said; “she drives too hard.”