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The Lady and the Pirate, a novel by Emerson Hough |
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Chapter 2. In Which I Hold A Parley |
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_ CHAPTER II. IN WHICH I HOLD A PARLEY The two pirates turned to each other for consultation, irresolute, but evidently impressed by the fact that their prize did not purpose to hoist sail and make a run for it. "What ho! mates?" demanded the captain, in as gruff a voice as he could compass: "Ye've heard his speech, and he has struck his flag." "Suppose the villain plays us false," rejoined the "mates" or rather, the mate, in a voice so high or quavering that for a moment it was difficult for me to repress a smile; although these three years past I rarely had smiled at all. The captain turned to one side, so that now I could see both him and his crew. The leader was as fine a specimen of boy as you could have asked, sturdy of bare legs, brown of face, red of hair, ragged and tumbled of garb. His crew was active though slightly less robust, a fair-haired, light-skinned chap, blue-eyed, and somewhat better clad than his companion. There was something winning about his face. At a glance I knew his soul. He was a dreamer, an idealist, an artist, in the bud. My heart leaped out to him instinctively in a great impulse of sympathy and understanding. Indeed, suddenly, I felt the blood tingle through my hair. I looked upon life as I had not these three years. The imagination of Youth, the glamour of Adventure, lay here before me; things I cruelly had missed these last few years, it seemed to me. "How, now, shipmates?" I remarked mildly. "Wouldst doubt the faith of one who himself hath flown the Jolly Rover? Cease your fears and come aboard--that is to say, come ashore." "Git out, Jimmy," I heard the captain say in a low voice, after a moment of indecision. "Keep him covered till I tie her up." Jimmy, the fair-haired pirate, hauled in on the alders and flung a grappling iron aboard my bank, which presently he ascended. As he stood free from the screening fringe of bushes, I saw that he was slender, and not very tall, one not wholly suited by nature to his stern calling. His once white jacket now was soiled, and one leg of his knickers was loose, from his scramble up the bank. He was belted beyond all earl-like need; wore indeed two belts, which supported two long hunting knives and a Malay kris, such as we now get from the Philippines; as well as a revolver large beyond all proportion to his own size. A second revolver of like dimensions now trembled in his hand, and even though its direction toward me was no more than general, I resumed the goose-flesh underneath my waistcoat, for no man could tell what might happen. In none of my works with dangerous big game have I felt a similar uneasiness; no, nor even in the little affair in China where the Boxers held us up, did I ever really consider the issue more in doubt. It pleased me, however, to make no movement of offense or defense; and luckily the revolver was not discharged. When the two had topped the bank, and had approached me--taking cover behind trees in a way which made me suspect Boy Scout training, mingled with bandit literature--to a point where we could see each other's features plainly, I moved over to one side of my bank, and motioned them to approach. "Come alongside, brothers," said I, pushing my fly-rod to one side; "make fast and come aboard. And tell me, what cheer?" They drew up to me, stern of mien, bold of bearing, dauntless of purpose. At least, so I was convinced, each wished and imagined himself to seem; and since they wished so to be seen thus, seized by some sudden whim, I resolved to see them. How I envied them! Theirs all the splendor of youth, of daring, of adventure, of romance; things gone by from me, or for the most part, never known. Frowning sternly, they seated themselves reluctantly on the grassy bank beside me, and gazed out in the dignity of an imagined manhood across my river, which now was lighted bravely by the retiring sun. Had I not felt with them, longed with them, they could never so splendidly have maintained their pretense. But between us, there in the evening on my stream with only the birds and the sun to see, it was not pretense. Upon the contrary, all cloaks were off, all masks removed, and we were face to face in the strong light of reality. As clearly as though I always had known them, I saw into the hearts of these; and what I saw made my own heart ache and yearn for something it had ever missed. "What cheer, comrades?" I repeated at length. "Whither away, and upon what errand?" Now a strange thing happened, which I do not explain, for that I can not. In plain fact, these two were obviously runaway boys, not the first, nor perhaps the last of runaway boys; and I was a man of means, a retired man, supposedly somewhat of a hermit, although really nothing of the sort; lately a lawyer, hard-headed and disillusioned, always a man of calm reason, as I prided myself; subject to no fancies, a student and a lover of science, a mocker at all superstition and all weak-mindedness. (Pardon me, that I must say all these things of myself.) Yet, let me be believed who say it, some spell, whether of this presence of Youth, whether of the evening and the sun, or whether of the inner and struggling soul of Man, so fell upon us all then and there, that we were not man and boys, but bold adventurers, all three of like kidney! This was not a modern land that lay about us. Yonder was not the copse beyond the birches, where my woodcock sometimes found cover. This was not my trout-stream. Those yonder were not my elms and larches moving in the evening air. No, before us lay the picture of the rolling deep, its long green swells breaking high in white spindrift. The keen wind of other days sounded in our ears, and yonder pressed the galleons of Spain! Youth, Youth and Adventure, were ours. We smiled not at all, therefore, as, with some thoughtful effort, it is true, we held to fitting manner of speech. "We seek for treasure," piped the thin voice of him I had heard called Jimmy. "Let none dare lift hand against us!" "And whither away, my hearties?" "Spang! to the Spanish Main." This also from the blue-eyed boy; who, now, with some difficulty, managed to let down the hammer of his six-shooter without damage to himself or others. "We didn't know but youse would try to stop us," exclaimed the red-haired leader. "We come around the bend and seen you settin' there; an' we was resolved--to--to----" "To sell our lives dearly!" supplemented Jimmy. "He who would seek to stop us does so at his peril." And Jimmy made so fell a movement toward his side-arms that I hastened to restrain him. "Yes," said I; "you are quite right, my hearties." "But, gee!" ventured the red-haired pirate, "what was you thinkin' about?" "You ask me to tell truth, good Sire," I made reply, "and I shall do no less. At the very moment you trained your bow-chaser on me, I was thinking of two things." "Speak on, caitiff!" demanded Jimmy fiercely. "Nay, call me not so, good Sir," I rejoined, "for such, in good-sooth, I am not, but honest faithful man. Ye have but now asked what I pondered, and I fain would speak truth, an' it please ye, my hearties." "What's he givin' us, Jimmy?" whispered the pirate captain dubiously, aside. "Speak on!" again commanded he of the blue eyes. "But your life blood dyes the deck if you seek to deceive Jean Lafitte, or Henry L'Olonnois!" (So then, thought I, at last I knew their names.) In reply I reached to my belt and drew out quickly--so quickly that they both flinched away--the long handled knife which, usually, I carried with me for cutting down alders or other growth which sometimes entangled my flies as I fished along the stream. "Listen," said I, "I swear the pirates' oath. On the point of my blade," and I touched it with my right forefinger, "I swear that I pondered on two things when you surprised me." "Name them!" demanded Jimmy L'Olonnois fiercely. "First, then," I answered, "I was wondering what I could use as a cork to my phial, when once I had yonder Anopheles in it----" "Who's he?" demanded Jean Lafitte. "Anopheles? A friend of mine," I replied; "a mosquito, in short." "Jimmy, he's crazy!" ejaculated Jean Lafitte uneasily. "Say on, caitiff!" commanded L'Olonnois, ignoring him; "what else?" "In the second place," said I--and again I placed my right forefinger on the point of my blade, "I was thinking of Helena." "Is she your little girl," hesitatingly inquired Jimmy L'Olonnois, for the instant forgetting his part. "No," said I sadly, "she is not my little girl." "Where is she?" vaguely. "Regarding the whereabouts of either Anopheles or Helena, at this moment," said I still sadly, "I am indeed all at sea, as any good pirate should be." I tried to jest, but fared ill at it. I felt my face flush at hearing her name spoken aloud. And sadly true was it that, on that afternoon and many another, I had found myself, time and again, adream with Helena's face before me. I saw it now--a face I had not seen these three years, since the time when first I had come hither with the purpose of forgetting. Jimmy was back in his part again, and doing nobly. "Ha!" said he. "So, fellow, pondering on a fair one, didst not hear the approach of our good ship, the Sea Rover?" "In good sooth, I did not," I answered; "and as for these other matters, I swear on my blade's point I have spoken the truth." Our conversation languished for the moment. Illusion lay in the balance. The old melancholy impended above me ominously. _ |
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