Commodore Junk

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.