Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader, Robert Michael Ballantyne [english novels to improve english .TXT] 📗

of the pirate is a griffin's head, painted scarlet, that of my schooner is a female, painted white. There is also a red streak round the sides of the pirate; the hull of the _Foam_ is entirely black."

"Will you come on board my vessel, and accompany me in one of my boats to yours?" inquired Montague.

"That is impossible," replied Gascoyne; "I came here on urgent business which will not brook delay; but my schooner lies on the other side of the island; if you pull round, my mate will receive you. You will find him a most intelligent and hospitable man. He will conduct you over the vessel, and give you all the information you may desire. Meanwhile," added the captain of the _Foam_, rising and putting on his cap, "I must bid you adieu."

"Nay, but you have not yet told me when or where you last saw or heard of this remarkable pirate, who is so clever at representing other people, perhaps I should rather say misrepresenting them," said Montague, with a meaning smile.

"I saw him no longer ago than this morning," replied Gascoyne gravely. "He is now in these waters, with what intent I know not, unless from his unnatural delight in persecuting me, or, perhaps, because fate has led him into the very jaws of the lion."

"Humph! he will find that I bite before I roar, if he does get between my teeth," said the young officer.

"Surely you are mistaken, Gascoyne," interposed Henry Stuart, who, along with John Bumpus, had hitherto been silent listeners to the foregoing conversation. "Several of our people have been out fishing among the islands, and have neither seen nor heard of this redoubted pirate."

"That is possible enough, boy, but I have seen him, nevertheless, and I shall be much surprised if you do not see and hear more of him than you desire before many days are out. That villain does not sail the seas for pastime, you may depend on it."

As Gascoyne said this, the outer door of the house was burst violently open, and the loud voice of a boy was heard in the porch or short passage that intervened between it and the principal apartment of the cottage, shouting wildly--"Ho! hallo! hurrah! I say, Widow Stuart! Henry! here's a business--sich fun! only think, the pirate's turned up at last, and murdered half the niggers in--"

There was an abrupt stoppage both of the voice and the muscular action of this juvenile tornado as he threw open the door with a crash, and, instead of the widow or her son, met the gaze of so many strangers. The boy stood for a few seconds on the threshold, with his curly brown hair dishevelled, and his dark eyes staring in surprise, first at one, then at another of the party, until at length they alighted on John Bumpus. The mouth, which up to that moment had formed a round O of astonishment, relaxed into a broad grin, and, with sudden energy, exclaimed--

"_What_ a grampus!"

Having uttered this complimentary remark, the urchin was about to retreat, when Henry made a sudden dart at him, and caught him by the collar.

"Where got you the news, Will Corrie?" said Henry, giving the boy a squeeze with his strong hand.

"Oh, please, be merciful, Henry, and I'll tell you all about it. But, pray, don't give me over to that grampus," cried the lad, pretending to whimper. "I got the news from a feller, that said he'd got it from a feller, that saw a feller, who said he'd heard a feller tell another feller, that he saw a _black_ feller in the bush, somewhere or other 'tween this and the other end o' the island, with a shot hole in his right arm, running like a cogolampus, with ten pirates in full chase. Ah! oh! have mercy, Henry; really my constitution will break down if you--"

"Silence, you chatter-box, and give me a reasonable account of what you have heard or seen, if you can."

The volatile urchin, who might have been about thirteen years of age, became preternaturally grave all of a sudden, and, looking up earnestly in his questioner's face, said, "Really, Henry, you are becoming unreasonable in your old age, to ask me to give you a reasonable account of a thing, and at the same time to be silent!"

"I'll tell you what, Corrie, I'll throttle you if you don't speak," said Henry.

"Ah! you _couldn't_," pleaded Corrie in a tone of deep pathos.

"P'raps," observed John Bumpus, "p'raps if you hand over the young gen'l'm'n to the `grampus,' _he'll_ make him speak."

On hearing this, the boy set up a howl of affected despair, and suffered Henry to lead him unresistingly to within a few feet of Bumpus, but, just as he was within an inch of the huge fist of that nautical monster, he suddenly wrenched his collar out of his captor's grasp, darted to the door, turned round on the threshold, hit the side of his own nose a sounding slap with the forefinger of his right hand, uttered an inexpressively savage yell, vanished from the scene, and,--


"Like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Left not a wreck behind."


Except the wreck of the milk-saucer of the household cat, which sagacious creature had wisely taken to flight at the first symptom of war.

The boy was instantly followed by Henry, but so light was his foot, that the fastest runner in the settlement had to penetrate the woods immediately behind his mother's house for a quarter of a mile before he succeeded in again laying hold of the refractory lad's collar.

"What do you mean, Corrie, by such conduct?" said his captor, shaking him vigorously. "I have half a mind to give you a wallopping."

"Never do anything by halves, Henry," said the boy mildly. "_I_ never do. It's a bad habit; always go the whole length or none. Now that we are alone, I'll give you a reasonable account of what I know, if you'll remove your hand from my collar. You forget that I'm growing, and that, when I am big enough, the day of reckoning between us will surely come!"

"But why would you not give me the information I want in the house. The people you saw there are as much interested in it as I am."

"Oh! are they?" returned Corrie with a glance of peculiar meaning; "perhaps they are _more_ interested than you are."

"How so?"

"Why, how do I know, and how do you know, that these fellows are not pirates in disguise?"

"Because," said Henry, "one of them is an old friend--that is, an acquaintance--at least a sort of intimate, who has been many and many a time at our house before, and my mother knows him well. I can't say I like him--that is to say, I don't exactly like some of his ways--though I don't dislike the man himself."

"A most unsatisfactory style of reply, Henry, for a man--ah, beg pardon, a boy--of your straightforward character. Which o' the three are you speaking of--the grampus?"

"No, the other big handsome-looking fellow."

"And you're sure you've known him long?" continued the boy, while an expression of perplexity flitted over his face.

"Quite sure; why?"

"Because _I_ have seen you often enough, and your house and your mother, not to mention your cat and your pigs, and hens; but I've never seen _him_ before to-day."

"That's because he usually comes at night, and seldom stays more than an hour or two."

"A most uncomfortable style of acquaintance," said Corrie, trying to look wise, which was an utterly futile effort, seeing that his countenance was fat and round, and rosy, and very much the reverse of philosophical. "But how do you know that the grampus is not the pirate?"

"Because he is one of Gascoyne's men."

"Oh! his name is Gascoyne, is it?--a most piratical name it is. However, since he is your friend, Henry, it's all right; what's tother's name?"

"Bumpus--John Bumpus."

On hearing this, the boy clapped both hands to his sides, expanded his eyes and mouth, shewed his teeth, and finally gave vent to roars of uncontrollable laughter, swaying his body about the while as if in agony.

"Oh, clear!" he cried, after a time, "John Bumpus, ha! ha! ha! what a name!--John Bumpus, ha! ha! the grampus--why, it's magnificent, ha! ha!" and again the boy gave free vent to his merriment, while his companion looked on with a quiet grin of amusement.

Presently, Corrie became grave, and said, "But what of the third, the little chap, all over gold lace? P'r'aps he's the pirate. He looked bold enough a'most for anything."

"Why, you goose, that's the commander of his Britannic Majesty's frigate _Talisman_."

"Indeed? I hope his Britannic Majesty has many more like him."

"Plenty more like him. But come, boy; what have you heard of this pirate, and what do you mean about a wounded nigger?"

"I just mean this," answered the lad, suddenly becoming serious, "that when I was out on the mountain this morning, I thought I would cross the ridge, and when I did so, the first thing I saw was a schooner lying in the bay at the foot of the hill, where you and I have so often gone chasing pigs together; well, being curious to know what sort of a craft she was, I went down the hill, intendin' to go aboard; but before I'd got half way through the cocoanut grove, I heard a horrible yell of a savage; so, thinks I, here comes them blackguard pagans again, to attack the settlement; and before I could hide out of the way, a naked savage almost ran into my arms. He was sea-green in the face with fright, and blood was running over his right arm.

"The moment he saw me, instead of splitting me up with his knife and eating me alive, as these fellers are so fond of doin', he gave a start, and another great cry, and doubled on his track like a hare. His cry was answered by a shout from half a dozen sailors, who burst out of the thicket at that moment, and I saw they were in pursuit of him. Down I went at once behind a thick bush, and the whole lot o' the blind bats passed right on in full cry, within half an inch of my nose. And I never saw sich a set o' piratical-looking villains since I was born. I felt quite sure that yon schooner is the pirate that has been doing so much mischief hereabouts, so I came back as fast as my legs could carry me, to tell you what I had seen. There, you have got all that I know of the matter now."

"You are wrong, boy--the schooner you saw is not the pirate, it is the _Foam_. Strange, very strange!" muttered Henry.

"What's strange," inquired the lad.

"Not the appearance of the wounded nigger," answered the other; "I can explain all about him, but the sailors--that puzzles me."

Henry then related the morning's adventure to his young companion.

"But," continued he, after detailing all that the reader already knows, "I cannot comprehend how the pirates you speak of could have landed without their vessel being in sight; and that nothing is to be