The Lady and the Pirate, Emerson Hough [best time to read books TXT] 📗

some sort of course. Now and then the blazing trail of the Belle Helène’s search-light swung across as we rolled, to leave us, the next instant, in blackness. As the seas permitted, we could see her, riding and rocking, sometimes, alight from stern to stern and making a gallant fight for her life, as were we all.

So long as the rollers came in oily and black, we did well, but where the top of one broke under us, we sank deep into the white foam that had no carrying power, and our cockpit filled so that we all sat in water. Only the tanks held us, log-like, and we bailed and paddled: and after they saw we did not sink, my hardy bullies, perhaps in the ignorance of youth and boy’s confidence that a boy and water are friends, began to shout aloud. We wallowed on.

No sound came to us from either of the other boats; and now, very quickly it seemed, we came at the edge of the surf.

“I’m touching bottom, boys,” I called, and cast the long punt pole adrift as I took up the short paddle I had held under my leg.

Now we had under us two feet of water or ten, as the waves might say, and any moment we might roll over; but we wallowed in, rolling, till I knew the supreme moment had come. I waited, holding her head in well as I could so unruly a hulk, and as a big roller came after us, paddled as hard as I could. The wave chased us, caught us, pushed us, carried us in. There was a lift of our loggish bows, a blinding crash of white water about us. Our boat was overturned, but in some way, since the beach was all sand and very gentle, the wave flattened so that the back-tow did not pull us down. In some way, I do not know how, I found myself standing, and dragging Jimmy by the hand. Jean already was ahead, and I heard his shout and saw his hand as he stood, knee-deep but safe. So we all made it ashore, and our boat also, which now we hauled out of the spume. And the long white row of breakers, less dangerous than I had feared, came in, white maned and bellowing.

I could still see the rocking lights of the yacht, and the shifting stroke of the search-light on the sea, but I did not hear and see aught else, at the time, and my heart sank.

It was Jimmy whose ear first got the sound which came in—the feverish phut-phut of the motor skiff. Then the ray of the great light swung and I saw the boat still outside the breakers—nor could I tell then why we had beaten her in. It seemed Peterson was hunting for us others.

“Stay back, boys!” I called to my companions. “You might get thrown down by the waves—keep back.” But now I was ready to rush in to meet the long boat, whose keel I knew would leave her to overturn if she caught bottom.

But Peterson knew about the keel as well as any, and he caught what he thought was water enough before he yelled to Williams to drive her in. She sped in like an arrow; and again the white wave reared high and broke upon its prey. By then, I was in water to my waist. I caught Helena out with one reach of my arms, just as I saw Williams and Peterson stagger in with Mrs. Daniver between them. In some miraculous way we got beyond danger, and met my pirates, dancing and shouting a welcome to our desert isle. Their advent, thereon, gave the two womenfolk a fervent wish to embrace, sob and weep extraordinarily. I had said nothing to Helena and said nothing now.

“Where’s the dingey, Peterson?” I called, as he came up, grinning.

“Coming in,” said he; and forsooth that water-rat, Willy, made a better landing of it than any of us, and calmly helped us now to haul the heavy motor skiff up the beach, a few feet at a time as the waves thrust it forward.

“Thank God!” I heard Helena exclaim. “Oh, thank God! We’re safe, we’re all safe, after all.”

I looked at my little group for a time, all soaked to the skin, all huddled now close together. Peterson, Williams, Willy—all the crew, yes. Auntie Lucinda and the woman who had called me a coward—the two captives, yes, Jean Lafitte and Henri L’Olonnois and myself, Black Bart—all the ship’s owners. What lacked? For a moment I could not tell why I had the vague feeling that something or some one was missing.

“Willy,” said I at last, “where’s John, the cook?”

“Why, I don’t know,” said Willy. “Didn’t he come with you?”

CHAPTER XXXII IN WHICH I RESCUE THE COOK

“WHAT’S that?” said Peterson sharply—“you didn’t obey orders?”

“Well, I thought he was in the other boat,” explained Willy, hanging his head.

“You’ll get your time,” said the old man quietly, “soon as we get to the railroad—and you’ll go home by rail.”

“What are you trying to do, Mr. Harry?” he demanded of me, a moment later. I was looking at the long boat.

“Well, he’s part of the boat’s company,” said I, “and we’ve got to save him, Peterson.”

“What’s that?” asked Helena now coming up—and then, “Why, John, our cook, isn’t here, is he?” She, too, looked at the long boat and at the sea. “How horrible!” she said. “Horrible!”

“What does he mean to do?” she demanded now of Peterson in turn. The old man only looked at her.

“Surely, you don’t mean to go out there again,” she said.

I turned to them both, half cold with anger. “Do you think I’d leave him out there to die, perhaps? It was my own fault, not to see him in the boat.”

“It wasn’t,” reiterated Peterson. “It was Willy’s fault—or mine.”

“In either case it’s likely to be equally serious for him. We can’t leave the poor devil helpless, that way.”

“Mr. Harry,” began Peterson again, “he’s only a Chinaman.”

“Take shame to yourself for that, Peterson,” said I. “He’s a part of the boat’s company—a good cook—yes, but more than a good cook——”

“Well, why didn’t he come up with the rest of us?”

“Because he was at his place of duty, below, until ordered up,” said I.

Peterson pondered for a moment. “That’s right,” said he at length; “I’ll go out with you.”

I felt Helena’s hand on my arm. “It’s awful out there,” said she. But I only turned to look at her in the half-darkness and shook off her hand.

“You can’t launch the big boat,” said Peterson. “You’d only swamp her, if you tried.”

“That may be,” said I, “but the real thing is to try.”

“We might wait till the wind lulls,” he argued.

“Yes, and if the wind should change she might drag her anchor and go out to sea. Which boat is best to take, Peterson?”

A strange feeling of calm came over me, an odd feeling not easy to explain, that I was not a young man of leisure, but some one else, one of my ancestors of earlier days, used to encounters with adversity or risk. Calmly and much to my own surprise, I stood and estimated the chances as though I had been used to such things all my life.

“Which is the best boat, Peterson?” I repeated. “Hardly the duck boat, I think—and you say not the big boat.”

“The dingey is the safest,” replied Peterson. “That little tub would ride better; but no man could handle her out there.”

“Very well,” said I; “she’ll get her second wetting, anyhow. Lend a hand.”

“She’ll carry us both,” commented the old man, stepping to the side of the stubby little craft.

“But she’ll be lighter and ride easier with but one,” was my reply. “A chip is dry on top only as long as it’s a chip.”

“Let me go along,” said Jean Lafitte, stepping up at this time.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort, my son,” said I. “Go back to the ladies and make a fire, and make a shelter,” said I. “I’ll be here again before long.”

The news of the new adventure now spread among our little party. Mrs. Daniver began sniffling. “Helena,” I heard her say, “this is terrible.” But meantime I was pulling off my sweater and fastening on a life belt. Nodding to Peterson, we both picked up the dingey, and when the next sea favored, made a swift run in the endeavor to break through the surf.

“Let go!” I cried to him, as the water swirled about our waist. “Go back!” And so I sprang in alone and left him.

For the time I could make small headway, indeed, had not time to get at the oars, but pushing as I might with the first thing that came to hand, I felt the bottom under me, felt again the lift of the sea carry me out of touch. Then an incoming wave carried me back almost to the point whence I had started. In such way as I could not explain, none the less at length the little boat won through, no more than half filled by the breaking comber. I worked first as best I might, paddling, and so keeping her off the best I could. Then when I got the oars, the stubby yawing little tub at first seemed scarce more than to hold her own. I pulled hard—hard as I could. Slowly, the line of white breakers passed astern. After that, saving my strength a trifle, I edged out, now angling into the wind, now pulling full into the teeth of the gale. Even my purpose was almost forgotten in the intensity of the task of merely keeping away from the surf. Dully I pulled, reasoning no more than that that was the thing for me to do.

It had seemed a mile, that short half-mile between the yacht and the beach. It seemed a hundred miles now going back to the boat. I did not dare ask myself how I could go aboard if even I won across so far as the yacht. It was enough that I did not slip backward to the beach once more. Yawing and jibbing in the wind which caught her stubby freeboard, the little boat, none the less, held up under me, and once she was bailed of the surf, rode fairly dry in spite of all, being far more buoyant than either of the other craft. Once in the dark, I saw something thrust up beside me and fancied it to be a stake, marking the channel which pierced the key hereabout. This was confirmed in my mind when, presently, as rain began to fall and the fog lessened for the time, I saw the blurred yellow lighthouse eye answering the wavering search-light of the Belle Helène, which swept from side to side across the bay as she rolled heavily at her anchor. In spite of the hard fight it had given me, I was glad the wind still held inshore. I knew the point of the little island lay not far beyond the light. Once adrift beyond that, not the Belle Helène herself would be safe, in this offshore wind, but must be carried out into the gulf beyond.

Not reasoning much about this, however, and content with mere pulling, I kept on until at length I saw the nodding lights of the Belle Helène lighting the gloom more definitely about me. Presently, I made under her lee, so that the dingey was more manageable, and at last, I edged up almost to her rail, planning how, perhaps, I might cast a line and so make fast. But, first, I tried calling.

“Ahoy, there