Commodore Junk

“Commodore Junk,” he whispered hoarsely as he lay in the semi-darkness, “you have saved my life.”

“As you saved mine.”

Those two lay there in the gloomy passage listening to the solemn whisperings and lappings of the water, which seemed to be continued for an almost interminable time before they died out, and once more all was silent. But the expectancy remained. It seemed to both that at any moment the miserable would-be assassin might rise to the surface and shriek for help, or that perhaps he was still above water, clinging to the side of the cenote, paralysed with fear, and that as soon as he recovered himself he would make the hideous gulf echo with his appeals.

By degrees, though, as the heavy laboured panting of their breasts ceased, and their hearts ceased beating so tumultuously, a more matter-of-fact way of looking at their position came over them.

“Try if you can walk now,” said the buccaneer in a low voice. “You will be better in your own place.”

“Yes – soon,” replied Humphrey, abruptly; and once more there was silence, a silence broken at last by the buccaneer.

“Captain Armstrong,” he said softly, at last, “surely we can now be friends!”

“Friends? No! Why can we?” cried Humphrey, angrily.

“Because I claim your life, the life that I saved, as mine – because I owe you mine!”

“No, no! I tell you it is impossible! Enemies, sir, enemies to the bitter end. You forget why I came out here!”

“No,” said the buccaneer, sadly. “You came to take my life – to destroy my people – but Fate said otherwise, and you became my prisoner – your life forfeited to me!”

“A life you dare not take!” cried Humphrey, sternly. “I am one of the king’s officers – your king’s men.”

“I have no king!”

“Nonsense, man! You are a subject of His Majesty King George.”

“No!” cried the buccaneer. “When that monarch ceased to give his people the protection they asked, and cruelly and unjustly banished them across the seas for no greater crime than defending a sister’s honour from a villain, that king deserved no more obedience from those he wronged.”

“The king – did this?” said Humphrey, wonderingly, as he gazed full in the speaker’s face, struggling the while to grasp the clues of something misty in his mind – a something which he felt he ought to know, and which escaped him all the while.

“The king! Well, no; but his people whom he entrusts with the care of his laws.”

“Stop!” cried Humphrey, raising himself upon one arm and gazing eagerly in the buccaneer’s face; “a sister’s honour – defended – punished – sent away for that! No; it is impossible! Yes – ah! I know you now! Abel Dell!”

The buccaneer shrank back, gazing at him wildly.

“That is what always seemed struggling in my brain,” cried Humphrey, excitedly. “Of course, I know you now. And you were sent over here – a convict, and escaped.”

The buccaneer hesitated for a few moments, with the deep colour going and coming in his face.

“Yes,” he said, at last. “Abel Dell escaped from the dreary plantation where he laboured.”

“And his sister!”

“You remember her story!”

“Remember! Yes,” cried Humphrey. “She disappeared from near Dartmouth years ago.”

“Yes.”

“What became of her – poor girl?” said Humphrey, earnestly; and the buccaneer’s cheeks coloured as the words of pity fell.

“She joined her brother out here.”

“But he was a convict.”

“She helped him to escape.”

“I see it all,” cried Humphrey, eagerly; “and he became the pirate – and you became the pirate – the buccaneer, Commodore Junk.”

“Yes.”

“Good heavens!” ejaculated Humphrey. “And the sister – your sister, man the handsome, dark girl whom my cousin – Oh, hang cousin James! What a scoundrel he could be!”

It was the sturdy, outspoken exclamation of an honest English gentleman, and as the buccaneer heard it, Humphrey felt his hand seized in a firm grip, to be held for a few moments and then dropped.

“But he’s dead,” continued Humphrey. “Let him rest. But tell me – the sister – Oh!”

A long look of apology and pity followed the ejaculation, as Humphrey recalled the scene in the temple, where the long coffin lay draped with the Union Jack – the anguish of the figure on its knees, and the passionate words of adjuration and prayer. It was as if a veil which hid his companion’s character from him had been suddenly torn aside, and a look of sympathy beamed from his eyes as he stretched out his hand in a frank, manly fashion.

“I beg your pardon,” he cried, softly. “I did not know all this. I am sorry I have been so abrupt in what I said.”

“I have nothing to forgive,” said the buccaneer, warmly, and his swarthy cheeks glowed as Humphrey gazed earnestly in his eyes.

“And for the sake of brave old Devon and home you spared my life and treated me as you have?”

“Not for the sake of brave old Devon,” said the buccaneer, gravely, “but for your own. Now, Captain Humphrey Armstrong, can we be friends?”

“Yes!” exclaimed Humphrey, eagerly, as he stretched out his hand. “No!” he cried, letting it fall. “It is impossible, sir. I have my duty to do to my king and those I’ve left at home. I am your prisoner; do with me as you please, for, as a gentleman, I tell you that what you ask is impossible. We are enemies, and I must escape. When I do escape my task begins again – to root out your nest of hornets. So for heaven’s sake, for the sake of what is past, the day I escape provide for your own safety; for my duty I must do!”

“Then you refuse me your friendship?”

“Yes. I am your enemy, sworn to do a certain duty; but I shall escape when the time has come, I can say no more.”

Chapter Thirty

Dinny’s History

“No, sor,” said Dinny, one morning, “the captain thought that as two of ’em had got their doses there ought to be no more killing. Faix, he behaved like a lion when he came up that day. There was Black Mazzard and five-and-twenty more of ’em as had been over-persuaded by him, all shut up with plenty of firearms in the powder magazine. ‘Don’t go nigh ’em – it’s madness,’ says the captain; but he goes into his place and comes out again with a couple of pishtles shtuck in his belt, and his best sword on – the one wid an edge as you could show to your beard and it would all come off at wanst, knowing as it was no use to make a foight of it again’ such a blade, as a strong beard will against a bad rashier. And then he sings out: ‘Now, my lads, who’s for me?’”

“And they all rushed to his aid!” said Humphrey.

“Well, you see, sor,” said Dinny, “it wasn’t quite a rush. Lads don’t go rushing into a powdher-magazine when there’s an ugly black divil aside as swears if annybody comes anigh, he’ll blow the whole place up into smithereens.”

“They never let him go alone?” cried Humphrey.

“Well, no, sor,” said Dinny; “it wasn’t exackly alone, bekase old Bart run up, and then two more walked up, and another one wint up to him in a slow crawl that made me want to take him by the scruff o’ the neck and the sate of his breeches, and pitch him down into that great hole yander, where that blagguard was drowned. ‘Oh, ye cowardly cur!’ I says to him, quite red-hot like, sor – ‘Oh, ye cowardly cur! I says, you as was always boasting and bragging about and playing at Hector an’ Archillus, and bouncing as if ye were a big ancient foighting man, and ye goo crawling up to yer captain that way!’ And then he whispers to me confidential-like, he does: ‘Och, Dinny, owld lad!’ he says, ‘it isn’t the foighting I mind; but I’m thinking of my poor mother,’ he says. ‘Ah, get out, ye coward!’ I says; ‘ye’re thinking of yerself.’ ‘Divil a bit!’ he says; ‘it’s the powdher I’m thinking of. I’d foight anny man, or anny two men in the camp; but I can’t fale to care about an encounter wid tin tons o’ divil’s dust!’ Oh, I did give it him, sor!”