Blackbeard: Buccaneer Part 17

"That boy deserves a slant o' luck, and may the good G.o.d let him have it this once. Send the cask to the beach, and I vow to go a-piratin' never again."

CHAPTER XI

JACK JOURNEYS AFOOT

IT is often said that a thing is not lost if you know where it is. This was Jack c.o.c.krell's opinion concerning that weighty sea-chest which had splashed to the bottom of the sluggish stream in the heart of the Cherokee swamp. With young Bill Saxby and eager old Trimble Rogers he hastened from the grave of the pirate seaman whom they had buried on the knoll and fetched up at the sh.o.r.e where the pirogue had been left.

Beside it floated Blackbeard's boat filled with water.

Having cut two or three long poles, they sounded the depth and prodded in the muddy bed to find the treasure chest. It had sunk no more than eight feet below the surface, as the tide then stood, which was not much over the head of a tall man. The end of a pole struck something solid, after considerable poking about. It was not rough, like a sunken log, and further investigation with the poles convinced them that they were thumping the lid of the chest.

"D'ye suppose you could muster breath to dive and bend a line to one o'

the handles, Master c.o.c.krell?" suggested Trimble Rogers. "Here's a coil of stout stuff in Cap'n Teach's boat what he used for a painter."

"The bottom of the creek is too befouled," promptly objected Jack, "and I confess it daunts me to think of meeting that drownded corpse down there. Try it yourself, if you like."

"I be needed above water to handle the musket if Blackbeard sneaks back to bang at us with his pistols," was the evasive reply. The mention of the corpse had given old Trimble a distaste for the task. To his petulant question, Bill Saxby protested that he couldn't swim a blessed stroke and he sensibly added:

"What if you did get a rope's end belayed to a handle of the chest? Even if the strain didn't part the line, we couldn't heave away in this tipsy canoe. And I am blamed certain we can't drag the chest ash.o.r.e lackin'

purchase and tackles."

"The smell o' treasure warps my judgment," grumpily confessed Trimble Rogers. "We ain't properly rigged to h'ist that chest from where she lays, and that's the fact."

"Give us the gear and we'd have it out and cracked open as pretty as you please," said Bill. "Set up a couple o' spars for shears, stay 'em from the bank, rig double blocks, and grapplin' irons for a diver to work with----"

"Which is exactly what Cap'n Teach will be doin' of when he finds his s.h.i.+p again," lamented the buccaneer.

"He will be some time findin' his s.h.i.+p afoot," grimly chuckled Bill.

"We have naught to smash his boat with, but we'll just take it along with us."

"If we make haste to report to Captain Stede Bonnet," spoke up Jack c.o.c.krell, "he may make sail in time to give Blackbeard other things to think on than this treasure chest. And it is my notion that the need of fitting the _Revenge_ for action is too urgent to spare a crew to attempt this errand."

"We shall have it yet," cried Trimble, much consoled. "And Stede Bonnet'll blithely furnish the men and gear. For a mere babe, Master c.o.c.krell, ye leak wisdom like a colander. Our duty is to tarry no longer at this mad business."

"The first sound word I've heard out of the old barnacle, eh, Jack?"

said Bill Saxby. "We must be out of this swamp by night and layin' a course for Cap'n Bonnet and the _Royal James_."

"Whilst you empty Blackbeard's boat of water so we can tow it, let me make a rude chart," was Jack's happy idea. "Some mishap or other may overtake us ere we get the chance to seek the treasure again. And our own memory of this pest-hole of a swamp may trick us."

Bill Saxby's tattered diary supplied a sc.r.a.p of paper and Jack dug charred splinters from the inside of the canoe which enabled him to draw a charcoal sketch or map. It traced the smaller stream from the fork where it had branched off, the stretch in which it widened like a tiny lagoon or bayou, and the point of sh.o.r.e just beyond which the pirogue had unexpectedly rammed Blackbeard's boat. A cross designated the spot where the treasure chest had sunk in eight feet of water.

The knoll and the grave of Seaman Jesse Strawn were also indicated, with the distance estimated in paces and the bearings set down by the position of the sun.

"There," said Jack, well pleased with his handiwork, "and once we are aboard s.h.i.+p, I can make fair copies on parchment, one for each of us."

"Thankee, lad," gratefully exclaimed Trimble Rogers who now had something to live for. "'Twas a fond dream o' mine, when I sailed wi'

the great Cap'n Edward Davis in the South Sea, some day to blink at a chart what showed where the gold was hid."

They were, indeed, recovered from the intoxication of treasure and recalled to realizing the obligation that was upon them. They had swerved from it but now they pressed forward to finish the appointed journey. The canoe moved down to the fork of the waters with the light c.o.c.k-boat skittering in its wake and perhaps the unhappy Blackbeard, stranded in the swamp, hurled after them a volley of those curses for which he was renowned. Once Jack c.o.c.krell laughed aloud, explaining to his laboring comrades:

"Captain Teach will be combing the burrs from his grand beard when he boards his s.h.i.+p again. He may get hung by the chin in a thicket."

"He's sure to spend this night in the swamp, blast him," earnestly observed Bill, "and the mosquitoes'll riddle his hide."

"And may Jesse Strawn lose no time in hauntin' him," said Trimble Rogers.

There was an hour of daylight to spare when they had ascended the larger creek as far as the canoe could be paddled. There they disembarked and hid the dugout and the c.o.c.k-boat in the overhanging bushes where they could be found again in case of a forced retreat. Bill and Jack burdened themselves with the sack of food and the water jug while the old buccaneer set out in the lead as a guide. It was irksome progress for a time, but gradually the ground became drier and the foliage was more open. Dusk found them safely emerged from the great Cherokee swamp and in a pleasant forest of long-leaf pine with a carpet of brown needles.

In fear of Indians, they dared not kindle a fire and so stretched themselves in their wet and muddy rags and slept like dead men. What awakened Jack c.o.c.krell before sunrise was a series of groans from Trimble Rogers who sat with his back against a tree while he rubbed his legs. Ashamed at being heard, he grumpily explained:

"Cord and f.a.ggot 'ud torment me no worse than this h.e.l.l-begotten rheumatism. I be free of it in a s.h.i.+p but the land reeks with foul vapors. It hurt me cruel at Cartagena in the year of----"

"But can you walk all day, in such misery as that?" anxiously interrupted Jack.

"If not, I'll make s.h.i.+ft to crawl," said the old sea dog.

It was apparent to Jack and also to Bill Saxby that the ordeal of the swamp had crippled their companion whose bodily strength had been overtaxed. They debated whether to try to return to the coast and risk a voyage in the canoe but Trimble Rogers swore by all the saints in the calendar that he was done with the pestilent swamp. He would push on in spite of the rheumatism. His hardy spirit was unbroken. And so they resumed the march, the suffering buccaneer hobbling with the musket as a staff or with a strong arm supporting him.

Halts were frequent and progress very slow. Now and then they had glimpses of the blue sea and so knew that they held the course true. It had been reckoned that two days would suffice to bring them to the bay in which Stede Bonnet's s.h.i.+p was anch.o.r.ed. By noon of this first day, however, it was plainly evident that Trimble Rogers was done for. He uttered no complaints, and withheld the groans behind his set teeth, but his lank body was a-tremble with pain and fatigue. Whenever he sank down to rest they had to raise him up and set him on his legs again before he could totter a little way farther.

"What say, Jack, to slingin' him on a pole, neck and heels?" suggested Bill Saxby. "Can we make him fast with our belts?"

"And choke him to death? In Charles Town I saw Captain Bonnet's pirates carry their wounded in litters woven of boughs."

The suffering Trimble put a stop to this by shouting:

"Avast wi' the maunderin' nonsense! Push on, lads, and leave this old hulk be. Many a goodly man have I seen drop in the jungle. What matters it? Speed ye to Cap'n Bonnet."

"Here is one pirate that won't desert a s.h.i.+pmate," declared Bill Saxby.

"And how can we push on without you, old True-Penny, to lay your nose to the trail? I took no heed o' the marks and landfalls."

"Like a sailor ash.o.r.e, mouth open and eyes shut," rasped the buccaneer of Hispaniola.

"Methinks I might find my way in this Carolina country," ventured Jack c.o.c.krell. "It would be easier for a landsman like myself than for Bill who is city-bred and a seaman besides."

"More wisdom from the stripling," said Trimble. "Willing as I be to die sooner than delay ye and so vex Stede Bonnet, it 'ud please me to live to overhaul that sea chest of Blackbeard's."

"I'll stand by this condemned old relic," amiably agreed Bill Saxby. "Do you request Cap'n Bonnet to send a party to salvage us, Jack."

"He will take pleasure in it, Bill. Before I go let me help you find shelter,--dry limbs for props and a thatch of palmetto leaves."

"Take no thought of us," urged Trimble. "Trust me to set this lazy oaf to work. Now listen, Jack, and carefully. Cap'n Bonnet's s.h.i.+p waits in the Cape Fear River, twelve leagues to the north'ard of us. You will find her betwixt a bay of the mainland and a big-sized island where the river makes in from the sea. There will be a lookout kept and I can tell ye where to meet a boat."

With a memory as retentive as a printed page, the keen-eyed old wanderer described the landscape league by league, the streams and their direction, the hills which were prominent, the broad stretches of savannah or gra.s.sy meadow, the belts of pine forest, the tongues of swamp which had to be avoided. Jack was compelled to repeat the detailed instructions over and over, and he was a far more studious pupil than when snuffy Parson Throckmorton had rapped his knuckles and fired him with rebellious dreams of piracy. At length, the buccaneer was willing to acknowledge: