The Story of Jack Ballister's Fortunes

CHAPTER XXXII
A SCENE

THE news that the pirates had brought in a rich prize of rum and sugar flew very quickly up into the town, for the very next morning Mr. Knight came down to see the pirate captain, bringing with him a man who was a stranger to Jack. He afterward found that the stranger was a Captain Hotchkiss, master of a schooner bound for the port of Philadelphia. Captain Hotchkiss was an honest merchantman as the times went, but he was quite willing to undertake to dispose of the captured rum in the port for which he was bound.

The rain had cleared away, and soon after breakfast Jack had gone down to the wharf. One of the pirates named Bolles – a young fellow not much older than himself – had come up from Ocracock aboard the sloop. He had been wounded in the fight, and he carried his arm in a sling. He had not come up from the landing for his breakfast, and Betty Teach had sent something down to him by Jack – a big, cold roast yam, some corn bread, and a thick slice of bacon. The young pirate had spread his meal out on top of one of the piles, and was making shift to eat it with his left hand. Jack stood leaning against the other side of the pile, watching his thick-featured, heavy face as he ate.

“Ye ought to ha’ been along,” said the young pirate, munching away with his mouth full.

“Why, so I should have liked to have been,” said Jack.

“‘Twere a mighty hot fight, though, while it lasted,” said the young pirate with pride. “Like enough you mightn’t ha’ liked that so much if you’d been there. ‘Twas a main villainous chance that I should ha’ been hit the very first time I ever was really in a fight.”

“Did it hurt you when you were shot?” Jack asked, curiously.

“Hurt!” said the pirate, “I don’t know – no, not much at first. ‘Twas as if somebody had struck me in the shoulder with a club. It just knocked me around as if I’d been hit with a club. I didn’t know what ’twas at first, nor till I felt the blood a-running down my hand, all hot like. Arter that it hurt bad enough. ‘Twere a grape-shot,” he said, with some pride, “and it looked as though you’d ‘a’ scooped a bit of the meat out with a spoon, only deeper like. ‘Twas a nigh chance, and if it had ‘a’ been a little higher, ’twould ‘a’ been all up with Ned Bolles.”

“I’d have liked well to have been along,” said Jack again.

“Well,” said the young pirate, “’twas summat to stir the blood, I can tell ye. Then we lay for maybe twenty minutes or more afore t’other sloop could come up with us, and all the time that bloody French bark a-banging away at us, the bullets a-going ping! ping! and chug! chug! and every now and then boom! goes a gun – boom! boom! – and maybe a bucketful of splinters goes flying. And then, by and by, I see ‘em carrying poor Tom Swiggett down below, and a nasty sight he were, with his eyes rolled up and his face like dough. And just then, bump! and around I goes, shot in the shoulder. ’Tweren’t no skylarking now, I tell ye.”

It was just then that Mr. Knight’s boat pulled up to the wharf beyond, and Jack went out to the end of the landing to meet it. The men who were rowing were strangers to Jack. They lay waiting on their oars, looking up at him. “Tell me, young man!” called Mr. Knight. “Is Captain Teach at home?”

“Yes, he is,” said Jack, “but he’s not about yet.”

Then Mr. Knight, followed by Captain Hotchkiss, came climbing up the ladder, slippery with green slime, to the wharf above. The colonial secretary led the way directly up to the house, and Jack followed the two visitors, leaving the young pirate munching away stolidly at his food.

They all went into the kitchen together. The pirate captain had gone to bed, but Dred and Morton still lingered in front of the fire, and Betty Teach was busy putting away the remains of the breakfast that had been standing on the table since midnight.

“If you’ll come in t’other room,” said Jack, “you’ll likely find it in better trim than this one, Mr. Knight.”

“Never mind,” said the secretary, “we’d just as lief stay here. What time did the sloop get in?” he asked of Morton.

“I don’t know exactly,” said Morton, without taking his pipe out of his mouth. “‘Twas some time arter midnight.”

“Is the captain asleep yet?”

“I reckon he be,” said Dred. “I hain’t seen him since he went to bed early this morning.”

“Well, he’ll have to be awakened then,” said Mr. Knight, “for I’ve just fetched Captain Hotchkiss, here, down from the town to see him, and he has to be going again as soon as may be.”

“You’d better go and wake him then, mistress,” said Dred; and Betty went, though with great reluctance, to arouse her husband. Presently they could hear her overhead talking to the pirate, who answered her evidently from his bed; then they could hear him telling her that he would be down in a little while, and presently she returned down-stairs again, leaving Blackbeard stamping his feet into his shoes and swearing to himself.

Then, after a while, they heard the door of the room open and the pirate captain go stumping along the passage. He did not come directly down-stairs, however, but went on into the room where Hands lay.

“Where’s he gone now?” said Mr. Knight. “Why don’t he come?”

“He’s stopped in to see Hands first,” said Betty Teach.

“Well, then, why should he do that?” said Mr. Knight, crossly. “Hands can wait and we can’t.”

Betty made no reply, but went on with her interrupted work. In the pause of silence that followed, those in the kitchen could hear the grumbling sound of the men’s voices talking up-stairs. Captain Hotchkiss fidgeted restlessly. “When did the fever take you?” he asked Dred.

“Why, I don’t know,” said Dred. “It appeared like I fetched it down from Virginny with me.”

Hands was talking now, and they could hear the growling of his voice – it continued for some time in a monotone, and then suddenly the captain’s voice burst out with a loud, angry excitement. There was instant silence in the kitchen: every one sat listening intently to hear what was said in the room above. “Run away!” they heard Blackbeard’s voice exclaim. “Run away!” and then came the noise of his chair grating against the bare floor. Jack and Betty Teach and Dred exchanged looks. They knew that Hands had told of the young lady’s attempted escape.

“He’s gone and told, arter all,” said Dred.

“Told what?” asked Mr. Knight, but the others were listening again, and did not reply. Again Hands was talking, but it was impossible to distinguish what he was saying. Suddenly the chair grated again, and the next moment came the sound of Blackbeard’s feet striding across the room, and then along the passage. Then he came clattering down the stairs; then the kitchen door was flung open and he burst into the room. “What’s this here Hands tells me about the young lady trying to run away yesterday?” he cried out, in a fierce, loud voice.

Captain Hotchkiss was listening with silent intentness. Mr. Knight instantly understood everything, and he shot a side look at Captain Hotchkiss’s attentive face. “Take care, captain,” he said to Blackbeard, “take care what you say. You forget there’s a stranger here.”

Blackbeard glared at him, but vouchsafed no reply. “Didn’t I tell you,” he said, turning upon his wife, “that you was to keep a sharp lookout upon the hussy while I was away? I was afeared of something of this sort, and I told you to keep a sharp lookout on her. Suppose she’d ‘a’ got up into the town! maybe she’d have had the whole province talking. ’Tis bad enough as ’tis with everybody hereabouts blabbing about her, but if she’d got up into the town maybe she’d found somebody to look after her and take up her case, and then we’d have never got her back again. There’s Parson Odell, if she’d gone to him, he’d have had to take up her case, and then we’d ‘a’ had the whole Parker crew down upon us from Virginny, like enough.”

“Well,” said Betty Teach, “’twas nobody’s fault she got away. To be sure, I did all I could to look after her, morning and night. I allus went to her door early, and I allus kept the doors of the house tight locked of a night. I don’t know how she contrived to get out, but she did get out, and that’s all there be about it. But now ’tis over and done, and she’s safe back home again and no harm done, so what’s the use of blustering about it for everybody to hear?”

Mr. Knight came up to Blackbeard and plucked him by the sleeve. “You forget,” he whispered, “that Hotchkiss is here. You don’t want everybody to know about this business, do you?”

Blackbeard shook off his touch. He would listen to nothing. “And as for you, Chris Dred,” he said, turning to the sick man, “what be ye fit for, anyhow?” Dred shrugged his shoulders without replying. “What! won’t you answer me, then? By blood! you shall answer me!”

“’Tis no use to answer you,” said Dred, “you’ve got in one of your humors, and there’s naught that I can say that you’ll listen to.”

Blackbeard glared balefully at him for a while, perhaps not knowing just what to say. Then suddenly he turned on his heel and flung open the door, and went noisily up-stairs again.

“Where are you going, Ned?” his wife called after him, but he did not reply.

“I do believe he’s going up to the young lady’s room,” said Dred, rising from his bench. “You’d better go up and stop him, mistress, or he’ll frighten her to death.”

They listened, and, sure enough, the pirate went straight to the girl’s room and flung open the door violently. “You’d better go up arter him,” said Dred; “he’s in one of his fits, and there’s no knowing what he’ll say or do to her.”

“Why,” said Betty Teach, “to be sure I don’t like to cross him now.”

Dred shrugged his shoulders and sat down again. They could hear the loud, violent voice of the pirate storming from the room above. “Ye’d run away, would ye? Ye’d run away, would ye? By the eternal! I’ll cure ye of that, my mistress! Ye don’t know me, to try your tricks with me. What d’ ye suppose I keep ye here for – because I love ye? Not I! ’Tis for what I can make out of ye!” – and so on, and so on. Betty Teach stood listening at the half-open door. “Well,” she said at last, “I do suppose I’ll have to go up to him. ’Tis as you say; he’ll frighten her to death, the way he’s talking to her.” Then again she listened for a moment or two, and they could all hear the sound of some one crying. “Well, I’ll go,” she said; and she went, closing the door after her.

“Who is it he’s got up there, anyhow?” asked Captain Hotchkiss. He looked around at the others, but no one replied to him. He was devoured by curiosity.

“He shouldn’t have gone up-stairs in the humor he’s in,” said the secretary. “He wasn’t fit to talk with her now.”

“But who is it?” said Captain Hotchkiss, again.

“Never you mind that, captain,” said Mr. Knight, sharply. “’Tis a matter that don’t concern you at all, and you’d better mind your own affairs.”

Betty Teach was talking, and they could hear the sound of her voice, trying to quiet her husband – then the sound of Blackbeard’s, more violent than ever. The doors were closed, so that it was impossible to distinguish what was said. Suddenly there came a cry, – then a fall, – then silence. “By heavens!” said Mr. Knight, “he hasn’t done anything to her, has he?”

“No,” said Dred, “he wouldn’t do nothing to her o’ that kind. He wouldn’t touch hand to her, if you mean that.”

The silence continued for a while; then the door opened, and Betty Teach’s voice called down the stairs: “Jack! Jack! Come here a minute!”

Jack hurried out of the room, and up-stairs. The door of the young lady’s room was standing open, and before he entered he could see Miss Eleanor Parker lying upon the floor and the pirate’s wife bending over her, rubbing and slapping her hands. Blackbeard himself sat upon the edge of the table, swinging one leg, his arms folded, lowering down at the unconscious figure. “Here, Jack,” said the pirate’s wife, looking up, “help me lift her to the bed.”

Then Jack, who stood looking, aroused himself, and came into the room. He stooped, and slipped his hands and arms under the girl’s shoulders. Her head fell back upon his arm as he raised her, and her hair flowed over it in a dark, glossy cloud. He looked down at the white face, the blue veins marking faint lines upon her forehead. Then he and the woman laid her upon the bed. “Go and fetch some water,” said Betty Teach, “and be quick about it.”

The pail was empty, and Jack ran down-stairs to fill it. “What’s the matter?” asked Mr. Knight, as he hurried through the kitchen.

“Nothing,” said Jack, “only she’s fainted away.”

When he returned to the room again he saw that the pirate’s wife had loosened the young lady’s stays, and that she had now returned, or was returning, to consciousness. “Well, then,” Betty Teach was saying, “I do suppose you’re satisfied, now that you’ve nigh frightened her to death. Are ye satisfied, now?”

As Jack set the pail of water upon the floor, he saw a shuddering tremor shake the half-conscious girl, and then, by and by, another. Blackbeard still sat upon the edge of the table, swinging one leg, his arms folded, and his face lowering. “Well, I’ll frighten her worse than that,” he said, at last. “I’ll frighten her worse than she was ever frightened before in all of her life if she goes trying any of her tricks of running away again!” He stopped, and glared toward the two women. Then he ground his white teeth together in a sudden spasm of rage. “I’ll frighten her so she’ll wish she was dead!”

Whether the girl heard or not, she shuddered, as though at the words. “Well, you’d better go down-stairs now,” said Betty Teach. “You’ve frightened her enough for once, and you’ve said things before Jack Hotchkiss that maybe you’ll be sorry you said, by and by.”

“I’ll go down-stairs,” growled the pirate, “when it suits me to, and not before.” He sat for a little while longer, as though to assert himself, and then presently got up and slouched out of the room, without closing the door behind him.

Jack lingered for a while, and at first the captain’s wife, busied about her patient, did not see him. Presently the young lady began to cry weakly, and then Betty Teach looked up. “You go down-stairs, too,” she said.

“Can’t I do something to help you?” said Jack, gulping at the sympathetic lump that rose in his throat.

“No, you can’t,” she said, sharply, “except to do as I bid you.” And then Jack followed the captain down into the kitchen.

“They do say,” Mr. Knight was saying, “that there was twenty casks of rum aboard. Well, if that be true, methinks I can help you to rid yourself of some of them at a fair price. Hotchkiss, here, is on his way to Philadelphia, and will take six of them to Mr. West, who’ll handle them as my agent, if you choose to have it so. I dare say he’ll get the best there is out of them for you.”

“The purchase isn’t condemned yet,” said Blackbeard, sullenly.

“Oh, well, ’twill make no difference just to take a little rum,” said Mr. Knight. “I’ll make that all right with his Excellency.”

Blackbeard sat gloomily without speaking. “Where is the rum?” said Captain Hotchkiss.

“It’s aboard the bark,” said Blackbeard, shortly. “I’ve got a keg of it aboard the sloop, if you choose to come and sample it.” His lowering mood still brooded heavily upon him, but he arose, took down his hat gloomily, and without saying anything further, stalked out of the house, leaving his two visitors to follow him as they chose.

“I’ve a great mind,” said Jack to himself, “to ask Captain Hotchkiss if he won’t take me away to Philadelphia with him.” But he did not do so.

CHAPTER XXXIII
HOW JACK RESOLVED

JACK, missing a full night of young, wholesome sleep, dozed a great deal of the afternoon, lying stretched out uncomfortably upon a bench in the kitchen. Dred and Morton talked intermittently, and the occasional growling tenor of their voices mingled ever with his half dreams; an occasional expression striking out now and then from the monotone of words, and rousing him to a fleeting consciousness. Then there would be long pauses of silent tobacco-smoking, in which he would fall to dreaming again.

Ever since the day before, his bosom had been growing more and more full of the thought of the young lady. Now his thoughts recurred to her again and again in his half-waking dozings, remembering always how he had found her in the swamp and how he had covered her cold shoulders with his own coat, how he had lifted her soft swooning body from the floor, how her black hair fell in a cloud over his arm. He seemed to sense again the singular fragrance of her presence, and at times of his half sleeping he would almost feel the touch of her damp chin upon his hand as he buttoned the coat at her throat. There was a strange, keen pleasure in thus dreaming about her, and he yielded himself entirely to it.

Equally present in this half-waking sleep was the fact of the return of the pirates. Once he fancied very vividly that he was on board of the French bark, and that he was trying to escape in her with Miss Eleanor Parker, and that the forecastle was smeared all over with blood. He saw the scene very vividly – almost as though it stood actually before his eyes. Two voices were speaking somewhere, and then he awoke to hear Dred and Morton talking together again.

That evening after supper he rowed Morton up to the town. He himself had made many acquaintances at Bath Town during the two months or more of his life at the pirate’s house. Everybody grew to know him very well – his history, of his family, of his prospects. They used to call him “Gentleman Jack,” and showed him a sort of consideration they would not have done had he not had such advantages of birth and breeding. He used often to go up in the skiff of an evening, to sit and talk at some gathering-place of the planters and the town’s people, returning perhaps late at night through the hollow solitude of the watery silence.

This evening he went with Morton from place to place, watching him as he drank rum, listening to his talk, and sometimes joining in what was said. The town, as has been said, was full of the news of the pirates’ return and of the rich prize they had made, and Morton was welcomed everywhere. He was drinking very freely, and, as he went from house to house, he talked ever more and more openly about the circumstances of the capture of the prize. It almost seemed to Jack as though he himself had part and parcel in it all by virtue of being a member of the pirate’s household. Ordinarily he would have taken great delight in listening to what was said and in saying his say concerning it, but now a strong desire for her presence hung continually over him, urging him almost uncomfortably to get back home again.

So it was that he did not stay very long up in the town, but returned before the night had altogether fallen, and while a pallid light still lingered in the western sky, making it faintly luminous. As he rowed slowly down the smooth stretch of water, solitary and alone, the joy of that strong yearning to be near her again seemed to fill everything, and, as he listened absently to the rhythmic chugging jerk of the oars in the rowlocks, and as he looked out astern at the long, trailing, oily wake that the boat left behind it along the glassy smoothness of the water, he thought of her, bearing strongly upon the thought, and holding it close to him.

He built up incoherent plans for comforting her, for helping her. He had thought a score of times that day about the possibility of helping her to escape, and now in the dusk and the solitude the disjointed thoughts began to assume almost the vividness of reality, and once or twice he thrilled with a quick, keen, nervous pang as though he were upon the eve of actually fulfilling some such determination. These vague plans did not take any definite shape excepting that he said to himself that he might carry her back home as she had been brought thither, and maybe that he might take the big yawl-boat that the pirates had brought back with them in the tow of the sloop, and which now again lay drawn up on the beach near to the landing wharf. Beyond this he had not thought of any plan for taking her away, but only dwelt upon the delight of being with her for such a long time and of taking care of her.

His mind was full of such thoughts as he ran the skiff upon the half sandy, half muddy strip of beach beside the landing wharf, driving the bow of the boat far up on the shore with two or three quick pulls of the oar, and the desire for her presence was so strong upon him that when he reached the house he leaned the oars against the side of the wooden wall, and went around to the further end of the building, where the window of her room opened out to the westward.

Excepting for this window, that side of the house was not inhabited, the lower windows of the bleak and naked parlor being nearly always closed. He had been there before, and as he went thither now, he remembered, with a kind of sudden joy, how he had brought to her one evening two or three peaches that he had gathered at Trivett’s plantation, and how he had thrown them up to her as she leaned out of the window to catch them, and of how he had lingered a little while to talk with her.

The window of her room was open, but there was no light within, and all was very silent. After a moment’s hesitation he called softly, in a tone that was rather a loud whisper than a voice, “Young lady! Mistress! Miss Eleanor!” and then presently again, “Young lady, are you there? ’Tis I, Jack – Jack Ballister.” He waited, looking up, but still there was no reply. By and by he was about to go away, but at the moment he thought he saw a movement at the window. Then her face appeared, shadow-like, above the ledge. “Who is it?” she whispered. “Is that Jack Ballister?”

“Yes,” said Jack, “’tis I. Tell me, mistress, how do you do by now? Do you feel better?”

“Ay,” she answered. “I’m better now than I was. I’ve been ill all afternoon, but I’m feeling better now. But why did you call me?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Jack. “I’ve been up to the town, and I was thinking about you. I’ve been thinking about you all day. I felt mightily sorry for you, and I was wondering how you did. I’m glad you’re better now than you were.”

She did not speak immediately; then she said: “Yes, I’m better now than I was.”

There was something in the undertone of her voice that seemed to him to bespeak that she had been crying, and was near crying again. The thought that she had been crying struck him very sharply. He stood silent for a moment or two, and then, as though for confirmation, he asked: “What is it, mistress? Has anything – have they been troubling you again? Tell me, have you been crying?” She did not reply. “I know something hath happened,” he whispered. “Tell me what it is,” and then he knew that she was crying now.

“’Tis not much,” she said after a while, during which he stood there not knowing just what to say or do. “’Tis only a little thing. They have taken my clothes away from me, and locked the door so that I sha’n’t run away again. That is all,” and as she spoke he could see, but darkly, the flicker of her handkerchief as she wiped her eyes.

“Taken your clothes!” cried Jack. “Who has taken your clothes?”

“Mistress Teach has just been in and taken them away. Captain Teach went to bed a long while ago, and he sent her to take them away. There, go away, please; you make me cry again, and I am a fool to cry so and for such a little thing.” And then, breaking down, she burst out, almost passionately, “I don’t know why they treat me so!”

Jack stood silent in the presence of her sudden emotion, but still he did not know how to go away and leave her. “There, there, mistress!” he said, awkwardly, “don’t you take it so bitterly; it will all come right in the end, I know that, so don’t cry any more.” Then, feeling the barren inconsequence of his words, he continued, “Do you know what I was thinking as I rowed down from the town just now? I was thinking that I would try to help you to get away from here and back home again, so don’t cry any more.” Then he added, “If you’ll bid me, I’d take you away to-night – I would, and carry you back to Virginia again.”

“No,” she said, in a voice stifled with the restraint she was putting upon herself. “’Tis no use to try to escape. I tried, and I couldn’t get away. I know I’ll never be able to get away from here. I feel that I never shall.” Then she suddenly gave way, and her crying became so vehement that Jack began to be afraid that some one would hear it. “Hush!” he whispered sibilantly, “they’ll hear you.”

“I can’t help it,” she gasped. “Go away, please.”

At that moment some one opened the door at the further end of the house, and a light shone out from the kitchen. Jack instantly slipped away into the darkness around the corner of the building. He waited for a time, but no one came. After a while he peeped around the further corner, but whoever it was that had opened the door had gone back into the house. Then he went around and into the kitchen without trying again to speak to the young lady; but his heart was full of and heavy with pity for her.

Betty Teach and Dred were both in the kitchen when Jack came in – Dred smoking his pipe, the pirate’s wife busied about her work. There was a bundle of clothes lying upon the table, and Jack, as he stood with his back to the fireplace, knew that it belonged to the young lady.

“Did Morton come back with you?” asked Dred.

“No,” said Jack, shortly; and then he added, “He said he’d stay up there all night to-night and be back to-morrow.”

Betty Teach picked up the bundle of clothes and, lifting the lid of the hutch, flung it in, banged down the lid and turned the key, all in the same moment. “I’m going to bed,” she said. “I’ve been up and on my feet ever since midnight, and I’m tired to the marrow.”

A sudden anger flamed up within Jack. “’Tis a bleeding shame,” he cried out, “for you to treat the young lady so and take her clothes from her that way, and to lock her in her room besides.”

Betty Teach turned quickly on him. “Who told you I’d took her clothes away from her and locked her in her room?” she asked, sharply.

Jack hesitated for a moment. “Can’t I see for myself?” he said. “Ain’t those her clothes you’ve locked up in the chest?”

“But who told you I’d locked her in her room?” Betty Teach insisted. “Come, tell me, who told you?”

Then Jack answered, almost sullenly, “Well, if you must know, I stopped on my way up from the boat to ask the young lady how she did, and she told me you’d locked her up and taken her clothes away from her.”

“And so you’ve been around back of the house speaking to her, have you? I thought I heard some one talking outside. And so ’twas you, was it?”

“Well,” said Jack, “and what if it was? What harm was there in my talking to her?”

“Harm!” said Betty Teach. “You’ll see what harm there’s in it if Ned catches you at it, after what happened yesterday. He’ll harm you, I promise you that. ’Tis good for you he’s so dead asleep as not to hear you. He’d harm you with a bullet in your head if he caught you or anybody else hanging around her window out there at night after her trying to run away.”

“No he wouldn’t, neither,” said Jack, stoutly.

“Wouldn’t he?” said Betty. “Well, you just try it again some fine day when he’s about, and you’ll see quicker than you like,” and then she went out of the room and up-stairs to bed.

Jack still stood, and Dred still smoked his pipe in silence for a long while after the pirate’s wife had gone. At last Dred spoke. “It be true enough what she said, lad,” he said. “If you go meddling in this matter you’ll be getting yourself into sore trouble, as sure as you’re born. ’Tis none of your business to be meddling in it.”

“Who said I was meddling?” said Jack. “What have I been doing to meddle?”

Dred shrugged his shoulders and then smoked on for a long time in silence, during which Jack still stood sullenly in front of the fireplace. “Not that I blame you,” Dred suddenly said, as though following out some train of his own thoughts. “If I was a young lad like you be, I wouldn’t sit still to see a pretty young creature like this here young lady put upon as she’s put upon, neither. It ben’t my business no more than it’s yours – except I went up to Marlborough to help fetch her away. But sometimes I can’t abide it to see her sit there moping for day after day, getting sicker and sicker all the while, until some fine day she’ll just fall away and die under our very noses.”

“Die!” cried out Jack with a start, and then, after a moment’s pause, “What do you mean by that, Dred?”

“You’d better not talk so loud,” said Dred, “unless you want ‘em to hear you up-stairs.”

“But what did you mean by saying she was going to die?” said Jack, in a lowered voice.

“I didn’t say she was going to die,” said Dred. “I said she was getting sicker all the time, and anybody as is that way stands a chance to die unless they gets better. And how’s she to get any better if she’s kept penned up here, moping for her own home? That’s what I meant when I said I didn’t blame you for making it your business.” Then, after a long while of silence, in which he puffed at his pipe, he continued, abruptly, “Ay, she’s growin’ more and more peaked all the time. She lies abed half the day, nowadays, and afore long, ’tis my belief, she’ll lie in bed all the time and never get up out of it again.”

Jack stood perfectly still, his hands thrust deep into his breeches pockets. He could not trust himself to speak. He did not know how long he stood there, but it must have been for a great while. Then Dred began again: “To my mind, ’twas an ill day when the captain undertook this business of kidnapping. Here he is now, with this young gell on his hands. He’s afraid to let her go, and if he keeps her cooped up she’s as like as not to die on his hands. He don’t know how to treat her, and he can’t contain hisself when she crosses him. Look at the way he talked to her to-day. A few more talks o’ that kind, and, he’ll kill her for sartin’. By blood! I wish I was well out of it all – I do. If she dies on our hands down here ’twill be the worst day’s happening that ever fell on Bath Town. I’ve been thinking a deal about it lately, and sometimes ’twouldn’t take much to make me cut it all and get away from here.” And then presently he added, “I don’t see as there’s over much profit in staying, as ’tis.” Again he smoked away at his pipe, puffing quickly to get it alight once more. Then by and by he began once more: “’Tis my belief the captain feels he’s being tricked by Mr. Parker, and that for some reason or other our gentleman hath no notion of ever having her fetched back again. Well, if he thinks that, ’tis my belief, too. Hotchkiss was saying this morning that there be news about that Colonel Parker’s fallen sick and’ll maybe die. And if he dies, and this young lady dies, your Mr. Parker’ll be a mightily rich man. Now you put two and two together, and how many does it make? If she dies, and her father dies, Mr. Parker’ll deny all blame in this matter, and more’n likely’ll come down and roast out the whole lot on us, just to show that he had naught to do in the business. Well, well, ’tis none of my business, but I only hope and pray that we sha’n’t all hang for doing what’ll profit him everything and won’t profit us anything. The captain might ha’ knowed he’d get naught out o’ this business to play ag’in such a sharp blade as Mr. Parker.”