On the Account/Chapter 8

ANE had guessed right as to the actions of the corvette. Captain Sawtrell, loath to give up the so nearly captured pirate held his ship off the Jumentos where the red glow of a fire seemed to proclaim Bane and his men reveling in their retreat behind the protecting reefs. Sawtrell thought it probable that there were other openings to the south and roundly cursed the faulty Government charts. The look out failed to see the brigantine creeping out through the murk at sunset and the corvette held off and on till morning.

At dawn the course was set shoreward where a column of smoke showed faintly brown against the clear sky.

“We’ll not round the Jumentos,” declared Sawtrell. “If we do he’ll come out by this entrance and at least we can keep him off the line of commerce. Hang him for a crafty dog that has a dozen kennels. But we’ll take him yet. We have the speed and range of him. Next time”

A man came aft with the news of a small shallop heading up for the corvette.

“A Carib likely,” commented the captain. “We’ll have him aboard if he comes near us. Perchance he may know the key to this front-door of Bane’s. We’ll stand as we are, Hardy, as long as the boat comes to us. No use in showing our topsails unless we have to. We were too close in last night.”

An hour later Todd stood before the captain and told his tale.

“How am I to know whether this it not a trap,” asked the king’s officer sternly. “Ye say ye piloted them in. Ye may be a renegade.”

“It is a trap,” said Todd, “but it is not set for you. My God, man, do ye not believe me? Ye run no risk more than ye did the last time.”

His eyes blazed with fierce exultation, his lean face lit with the prospect of revenge.

“That is true,” said Sawtrell. “And ye have good cause for getting even. It is bad that ye know not for certain where he went to careen but we will cruise the line between the Exumas and the eastern horn of the Jumentos. If he sailed northeast he will cross us. Nights, we’ll range closer in. Mayhap we’ll catch her within range. If not we’ll try your advice. And, if we turn the trick ye can name any fair and fit reward.”

“Loan me shears and a razor. Give me a cutlas and pistols and appoint me with the boarding party. I have a fancy to be present in person when the account is paid.”

ON THE morning of the thirteenth day Bane came on deck at a few minutes before eight bells. A crescent moon held the morning star in its em brace. The sea was motionless save for the hardly perceptible heave of the groundswell, lifting the unruffled expanse in soundless sighs.

A slight mist, which would vanish with the sun, dimmed the moon and all the stars, gradually lifting from the water, its lower edge even with the rail of the brigantine. The canvas hung limp, the Venture rolled slightly, without steerage way.

Bane cursed the calm that held him adrift ten miles from the entrance to the channel. He was anxious to get back to the islet, finish up his stockade and magazine and be off upon the Bank once more for plunder.

He did not fear the corvette. With a clean bottom the Venture sailed like a witch. The king’s men would long since have sickened of waiting and concluded that he had slipped through to the south. Perhaps they had gone in search of him.

Through the mist came the sound of a ship’s bell, smartly tapped and answered, eight ringing strokes from the fog. Scarry-Dick came up as Bane started at the sound,

“There’s something waiting for us, Denton. If only this cursed fog would lift. Some distance off, though it’s hard to guess with the mist. Get me my spyglass, will ye?”

Slowly the filmy curtain rose, the space between it and the sea clear as crystal. Bane stooped to the rail and leveled his glass, sweeping the northwestern horizon where the stars were begining [sic] to flicker. He turned to the quartermaster with a low exclamation.

“It’s that corvette. Take the glass man. Look, there where the Big Bear swings to the sea. Now for a breeze. The sun will be up in a few minutes. We are well inshore. If the wind’s easterly we’ll have the weather of him and we’ll play him the same trick over again. I’ve no fancy to get within range of those guns of his.”

A quadrant of the sun suddenly appeared above the low line of Long Island. The mist seemed to dissolve and sop up the stars as it disappeared. Suddenly it was day. The corvette Juno stood up sharply less than two miles away. The wind had come from the eye of the sun, the placid sea was ruffled with flaws that picked up the level rays with flashes of orange and crimson.

Bane volleyed his orders and extra canvas rose smartly to the tapering spars. The Venture began to glide smooth and fast through the water. The corvette, topsails mounted, came about and stood on an inshore tack on a parallel course with the brigantine, beyond gun range and to leeward.

“We can almost make the channel on this slant,” said Bane. “ her, if we could run the corvette ashore we’d pick her clean of those guns. We’ll run in, finish our work and get through to the south. As long as she stays in these waters our sport is spoiled. She sticks like a limpet. ’Tis a good breeze. Watch us walk, the beauty.”

The two ships were evenly matched. The water creamed from the corvette’s forefoot. Through the spyglass Bane could see the men swarming on her decks, working on the sheets to get another foot of speed out of her. Mile after mile they raced toward the shore, the leeway of wind and current gradually setting the king’s ship down the cays while the brigantine, with Hampton at the wheel, clawed up into the breeze to make the tack for entrance into the channel as short as possible. Four miles off shore the corvette tacked and came toward them.

“She’ll pass two miles astern of us,” chuckled Bane. “She’s not gained a foot.” The king’s ship came on, close-hauled, surging through the blue water while the Venture held on for the shore. Then the corvette tacked once more but kept her fore and main sheeted in until she heeled perilously, losing the speed of the full drive of her canvas from the quartering wind.

Bane swore through his beard. It was a smart maneuver, calculated to bring the corvette within gun range and broadside to the brigantine when the latter made its inevitable tack at the channel entrance.

“They got the position down fine,” he muttered. “We’ll have to run the risk of a raking. Since that’s the case we’ll play the same game.” He gave his orders and the Venture swung to a course parallel with the corvette and the cays, a little less than a mile inshore of the king’s ship. They had passed from blue water to the vivid green of the shoals. The corvette could not risk approaching the land much closer. Already the leadsman was in her bows.

On the Venture the guns were loaded and run out from the open ports. The muzzles of the Juno were already peeping from her sides. Once more she smartly came about, slanting up to meet the pirate. Both broadsides roared. Clouds of white powder smoke rolled up between them. Splinters flew from the hull of the brigantine.

A round shot smote old Hampton fairly in the ribs, showering Bane with his blood, shattering the rim of the wheel and plunging through the rail. The pirate who had sailed with Kidd rolled into the scuppers, almost torn in two. Bane sprang to the shattered wheel. The rudder still answered. The helm was broken but not destroyed. The smoke cleared. White flecks on the corvette’s side showed where the pirates had scored. She was firing from her stern-chaser and Bane replied.

’Round came the corvette again and the duel continued from their fore and aft guns. A lucky shot from the Venture smashed the Juno's bowsprit, carrying away her jibs, the staysail still keeping her steady as she dropped behind. A scattering shower of partridge scoured the length of the brigantine, the bomb of the charge exploding amidships, leaving a half-score of writhing men upon her decks.

They were off the channel. The mainsheet came home, the fore-yards were hauled and the Venture squared off for the entrance, Denton in the bows, picking out the Kissing Palms. More partridge sprayed them as they sped. Bane at the wheel, holding the palms in line as they neared the reef. He scowled as he looked at the corpse of Hampton and the dead and wounded on the smeared planks.

One parting missile jarred the brigantine as the corvette put about from the danger line of shallows. The shot had struck fair on the waterline. A few more of that kind and the Venture would have been out of commission.

They entered the passage, with the Kissing Palms merged in one. Bane let them slowly open, watching for the islet palm to show. He was furious at the encounter which had plainly proved him no match for the metal or marksmanship of the Juno. He would go south to the Carribbean [sic] and leave these waters. They might go to Madagascar, the old cruising ground of Kidd. At all events he would get away, thanks to the secret of Tom the Turtler.

The islet palm seemed slow to appear, the surf was dangerously near his larboard quarter. It showed at last, shifting slowly to the middle of the two trunks and he breathed a sigh of relief as the Venture answered his hands.

There was a slurring, grinding jar. The bows of the brigantine lifted as she slid forward and upward. The deck planks lifted, her timbers creaked and the foremast broke off at the deck, yards and canvas falling with swinging blocks and stays torn loose from their boltings in confusion, smothering part of the startled crew who fought their way free or lay pinned and groaning under the ruin.

Bane, clinging to the wheel, stared in amazement. The islet palm was still fair between the two other stems, as he had watched it when they had passed through under Tom the Turtler’s pilotage. They were hard and fast, seas were breaking above the wreck of the foremast. Denton came to him, his head bloody from a falling spar.

“’Tis some trick,” he gasped. “Some trick of that cursed, shark-eyed turtler.”

“Hell’s furies,” cried Bane. “Up the mainmast, one of ye! If they’ve seen us strike they’ll be after us with boarding crews. Up!”

A man sprang into the main rigging and mounted.

“They are putting off from the corvette,” he shouted. “Three boats—four!”

Bane jumped into action.

“Up with the boarding-nettings,” he yelled. “Clear away some of that mess for’ard. Serve out pikes and cutlases. Train the stern-chaser on the channel. Do they seem to know the passage, aloft there?”

“Making straight for it.”

Bane dived below and chose his sidearms and his sword, an Arabian weapon, curved like a scimitar, of matchless steel. On deck again he brought a semblance of order out of confusion. The Venture had swung sideways with the tide, blocking the channel. The stern-chaser had burst its tackles and broken through the taffrail.

A group of pirates worked to get it into position before the king’s men appeared. One trunnion had slipped its socket and the gun lay athwart its carriage. A heavy net ting of rope was raised above the rail. Muskets were piled with stacks of boarding pikes and the cornered crew prepared to resist.

THE leading cutter appeared, spray flying from the spurting blades. Another followed it, the men huzzaing as they caught sight of the trapped pirate. Haul and heave as they might, Bane’s men could not get the stern gun into position. All four of the king’s boats, crowded with men, were now racing down the lane that was pitted with musket balls. Here and there a rower slumped but the boarding was a matter of only a hundred yards dash from the turn in the channel.

With a cheer, the cutters swept under the counter and alongside, jumping for the low freeboard, clinging to the netting while they slashed at it with cutlas and knife, tearing it loose with a grappling iron and swarming across the rail, parrying pike and blade, leaping to the decks and breaking up into a series of hand-to-hand combats, little swirls of men that engaged and broke apart leaving here and there one prone, sliced with a keen edge or shot by a pistol that singed the flesh at close quarters.

The hot sun shone down on the mêlée. There was the stamp of feet, the sound of oaths, of shots, the smell of blood that stained the decks, lay in sluggish puddles or joined the dark stream in the scuppers; the taste and scent of powder gas, films of smoke above the struggling masses as the men from the Juno drove the pirates forward to where the fallen foremast partly blocked the deck; man to man, cursing as bullet or blade went home, gasping their diminishing breath as the others trampled upon them, sliding on the canted deck, soon slippery with gore.

Todd was the second man aboard. Captain Sawtrell beat him by a split-second. A pirate thrust at him with a pike as he stood on the rail but the point wavered and fell as Todd fired full in the man’s face and leaped to the deck. He had caught sight of Bane, his sword flashing as it rose and fell, his voice rising above the general uproar in defiant curses.

Sawtrell pressed toward him and Todd followed, eager to reach the buccaneer captain and settle his score. Two men closed in upon them and Sawtrell turned to engage one of them, dexterously parrying the forceful but clumsy swing of the cutlas and running his opponent through with his sword as a cook would spit a joint.

Todd broke through the other’s guard and sliced the man’s upper arm. His strength seemed doubled and he strode over the fallen man in exultant fury, pressing ahead of the Juno’s commander to where Bane’s sword, red now, whistled above his head as he charged through the knot of sailors who surrounded him, and led a group of pirates to the rescue of Scarry-Dick, hard-pressed by the rail.

A jumble of men, cutting and thrusting, swept Todd aside for the moment. He dropped a burly giant with the bullet from his second pistol and felled another with the butt. The fighting mob divided and he sprang through the opening. Scarry-Dick seemed to spring up through the deck before him, cutlas aloft. As the blades grated for a second he saw Denton’s puzzled eyes staring at him in amazement. The quartermaster had recognized the turtler from Green Key, though, shaven clean and clipped, he did not know him for the pilot they had recruited at San Domingo until Todd shouted as he lunged.

“Ah, Shark-eyes,” answered the pirate. “Have at ye, trickster!”

His arm shot up as he avoided the lunge but never descended. A shot from Hardy, first officer of the corvette, pierced his neck and he fell, grasping futilely at Todd’s legs as the turtler passed over him.

The sailor in front of Bane dropped to his knees, his skull gaping, and Todd jumped in, parrying the smashing blow the pirate swung at him. The tempered Arabian blade shore through the coarser steel and Todd found himself with a shattered weapon clutching a hilt that held only a few inches of jagged blade. Bane laughed, swinging his sword in a hissing circle.

“Come on, bullies,” he cried. “Drive ’em, the dogs. Drive”

The word died in his throat as Todd leaped, heedless of the keen edge that bit into his shoulder, sending his broken spike of steel into Bane’s face, full into the bush of black beard, smashing the grinning teeth and, as Bane staggered, clutching the throat his fingers had so long itched to reach.

The pirate’s eyes rolled upward, projecting from their sockets as his sword clattered to the deck and he strove to tear loose the iron claws that were compressing his windpipe. Back to the rail Todd bore him, back until he bent Bane’s spine across the edge and the buccaneer’s tongue protruded from his cut and swollen lips.

Todd’s strength was rapidly ebbing with the stream of blood that poured from his shoulder but he knew nothing but the glut of his revenge, the sight of Bane’s protruding eyes, the purpling of his face, the laxness of the body that sagged, dragging Todd with it, his fingers still sunk into the flesh and muscles about the throttled gullet.

The cheering of the king’s men as they drove the pirates below, overboard, or begging quarter in herded groups, sounded to Todd like the roaring of deep seas as he sank beneath them to unconsciousness.

THE Honorable William Dummer, Esq.,Lieutenant-Governor and commander-in-chief of the province of Massachusetts Bay, President of the Special Court of the Admiralty, at the court house of Boston, assisted by eighteen gentlemen of the council, found Bane and the survivors of his crew guilty of murder and piracy.

“Before I sentence ye to be executed and hung in chains in Boston Harbor, regretting that such a villain has but one life to make atonement for the barbarity of which you have been found guilty,” said the governor, “you are permitted to speak and say why sentence should not be passed upon ye.”

“Hang me and be to ye all,” said Bane. “I will meet many of ye sleek gentlemen in hell where I shall have the advantage of my quicker turning off. Yet I would ask one question of this witness.”

He turned his baleful eyes upon Tom Todd, who had testified in secret session to the death of Mary Todd and his own adventures aboard the Venture, for which he had received full remission from the court and the promise of a substantial reward.

“Before I swing,” said Bane, as the governor nodded and Todd, his eyes still holding hatred, stepped forward, “tell me the trick ye played on us in the Jumentos passage.”

Todd’s eyes gleamed.

“’Twas easy to gull ye,” he said. “Ye left me tools and a shallop. Before I put off to the Juno I shifted the palm on the islet five paces to the west.”

The bailiffs stopped the curses of the hoodwinked pirate and Todd turned to the presiding officer.

“My lord,” he said. “Ye have made mention of some reward. I ask for one favor that shall cancel all the rest.”

“’Tis granted, within reason.”

“There is wide reason in the request, my lord. Grant me the hangman’s office.”