The Story of Jack Ballister's Fortunes

“Well, lad,” said Dred, in a loud, almost boisterous voice, making a pretended feint as though to strike at Jack as he spoke, “’tis time to be off again with an ash breeze, seeing as no other don’t come up for to help us. Every mile we make now, d’ye see, is worth ten furder on. As for a bite to eat, why, we’ll just have to take that as we goes along. Come, mistress, get aboard, and we’ll push off.” He helped the young lady into the boat, and then he and Jack pushed it off, Jack running through the water and jumping aboard with a soaking splash of his wet feet.

CHAPTER XXXVI
A STOP OVER NIGHT

AS THE DAY had settled toward sundown the breeze had sprung up again. There was a growing bank of haze in the west through which the sun shone fainter and fainter as it approached the horizon and then was swallowed up and lost. The wind, blowing strong and full, drove the water into ridges that caught up to the yawl as it sailed free before the breeze, ran past it swiftly, and left it behind. Dred seemed almost elated. “This be the wind for luck,” he said. “Why, I do suppose that, gin the captain the best he could have, we’ve got a fifteen-league start on him, and he’ll never overhaul that. ‘T will blow up stiff from the east’rd to-morrow, like enough, and ‘twill be a cross sea ag’in’ us beating up into the head of the Sound, but fifteen leagues of start means a deal, I can tell ye. And, besides that, the captain’ll most likely sail straight for Ocracock. It be n’t likely, d’ye see, that he’d think of running up into the sounds. He’d think that we’d trust to our lead of any chase and strike right for the open water through Ocracock, and he’ll not think we’d try to make through the shoals out Currituck way.”

Jack had no notion at all of the geography of the sounds, but he did understand that while they were going one way, Blackbeard would probably be going another.

Meantime the gray light of the failing day had softened the harsh outlines of the pine and cypress woods into a mysterious gloom of shadows. They were sailing now not over two or three furlongs from the shore as they ran yawing along before the wind. Upon one side of them were thick swamp forests, upon the other the seemingly limitless water of the sound, reaching away its restless gray without any sign of a further shore.

So they sailed for a while in silence, the gray light growing duller and still more dull. “Do you know,” said Dred, suddenly speaking, “there’s a settlement up beyond that island yonder – or leastwise there was some houses there three or four year ago. I knowed the man what lived there then, and I’m going to put in, d’ye see, and find out whether he lives there yet awhile. If he do, I’ll get him to let us stay over night. D’ye see, I can’t stand sailing forever, and the young lady can’t stand it, neither. So we’ll make a stop here, if we’re able. Like enough we’ll make another in Shallowbag Bay in Roanoke Island. Arter that we’ll make a straight stretch for Currituck.”

Jack was looking out ahead at the island of which Dred had spoken. It was separated by a little inlet from the wooded shores. Dred laid his course toward a point of land that jutted out into the water, and the shore slid swiftly away behind them as they rushed onward before the wind. “How far is it to the settlement?” asked Jack.

“Just beyond the p’int yonder,” said Dred, briefly. He was looking steadily out ahead.

As they came nearer to the point, the waters of a little bay began to open out before them. It spread wider and wider, and at last they were clear of the jutting point. Then Jack saw the settlement of which Dred had spoken.

There was a slight rise of cleared land, at the summit of which perched a group of four or five huts or cabins. They were built of logs and unpainted boards beaten gray with the weather. Two of the houses showed some signs of being inhabited; the others were plainly empty and deserted, and falling to ruin. Near the houses was a field of Indian corn dried brown with the autumn season, and there were two or three scrubby patches of sweet potatoes, but there was no other sign of cultivation.

Dred put down the tiller and drew in the sheet, and the boat, heeling over to the wind that now caught her abeam, met the waves splashing and dashing as it drove forward upon its other course. Gradually the trees shut off the rougher sea, and then the yawl sailed more smoothly and easily. Presently a dog began barking up at one of the houses, and then two or three joined in, and Jack could see the distant hounds dim in the twilight gray of the falling evening, running down from the houses toward the landing. At the continued noise of their barking several figures appeared at the door of the two cabins – first a man, then two or three half-naked children, then a woman. Then a young woman came to the door of the other cabin with a baby in her arms, and a young man. “Ay,” said Dred, “that be Bill Gosse, for certain.” Then finally the boat grated upon the shore, the sail falling off flapping and clattering in the wind, and the voyage of the day was ended.

The man who had first appeared went into the house, the next moment coming out with a tattered hat upon his head. He came down toward the landing, the children following him scatteringly, and the woman standing in the doorway, looking down toward them. The young man was also coming slouching behind. Dred and Jack had lowered the peak and had begun to take in the boom when the man reached the shore. Jack looked at him with a good deal of curiosity, and the young lady sat in the stern thwarts also gazing at him. He was tall and lean and sallow. A straggling beard covered his thin cheeks and chin, and a mat of hair plaited behind hung down in a queue. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and he wore a pair of baggy breeches tied at the knees. “Hullo, Bill!” said Dred. “How be ye?”

“Be that you, Chris Dred?” said the man in a slow, dull voice. “Who’ve ye got there with ye?”

“This? This here is a young Virginny lady of quality,” said Dred. “She’s been took sick, and we – this lad and me – is carrying her back home again. I’ll tell ye all about that by and by. What I want to know now is, will you take us in for the night? The holy truth is, I’m just getting over the fever, and this here young lady, as I said, be sick too. We’ve been sailing all day, and so I thought maybe you’d let us make port here for the night.”

The man stood stolidly watching Dred and Jack furl and tie up the sail. He did not offer to help them. “Where did ye come from?” he asked, at last, in the same slow, heavy voice.

“Down from the Pungo,” said Dred.

“Well, you’d better come up to the house and talk to my woman,” said the man, answering Dred’s initial question. “I be willing enough for you to stay, so far as I’m concerned.”

“Very well,” said Dred, “so I will. You wait here, Jack, till I come back again.”

He stepped stiffly out of the boat, and then the two went away together. The young man who had also come down to the shore remained behind, squatted upon the ground, staring fixedly at Jack and the young lady, who looked back at him with a good deal of interest.

“I do hope the good woman’ll let us stay all night,” said the young lady, suddenly breaking the long silence. “Indeed I feel mightily tired, and if I could only rest for that long I know it would do me a vast deal of good.”

“She’ll let you stay,” said the young man. “That’ll be all right, mistress.”

Just then Dred reappeared, coming back alone from the house down through the twilight, and confirmed what the young man had said. “’Tis all right,” he said, “and they’ll give us a berth for the night. Come along, mistress, I’ll help you.”

Miss Eleanor Parker rose, stiffened with the long sitting in the boat, supporting herself with her hand upon the rail. Dred reached out a hand and helped her out over the thwarts and to the beach. Then he climbed into the boat, and taking the case-bottle of rum out of the locker, slipped it into his pocket.

The woman and the three children stood in the doorway watching the three as they approached. As Jack entered he looked back and saw that the young man was bending over the yawl, examining it curiously.

The house consisted of one large room. There was a fireplace at one end of it; two benches, and two or three rickety chairs, a table, and two beds comprised the furniture. The man was standing by the fireplace with an empty pipe between his lips. “This here is the young lady,” said Dred to the woman. “I dare say she’d like to lie down now a bit while you’re getting supper ready,” and Miss Eleanor Parker acknowledged that she was very tired.

“Wasn’t that there Captain Teach’s yawl-boat?” the man asked of Dred.

“Ay,” said Dred.

“I thought I knowed her,” the man said.

Almost as soon as she had eaten her supper, the young lady went again and lay down upon the bed. Then Dred brought out the case-bottle of rum, and he and the two men began drinking. Jack watched them with growing apprehension, for they were helping themselves very freely. He thought every moment Dred would cork the bottle again, but he did not do so, and gradually the effect of the drink began to show itself. Jack could see that Dred was taking more of it than he should. He began to talk more volubly, and the stolid silence of the men began to melt also. The older man became at times almost quarrelsome. He repeated the same thing over and over again, and the young man would laugh foolishly at everything that was said. Jack looked toward the young lady, wondering whether she was conscious of what was going on. But she lay perfectly quiet and motionless, and he thought that maybe she did not perceive it. “Won’t you come over and join us?” said Dred, waving the bottle toward Jack, and then taking a drink himself.

“No,” said Jack, “I won’t.”

“Why not?” said the man. “You be n’t too proud to drink with us, be you?”

“No, I’m not,” said Jack, shortly, “but I don’t choose to. I’m tired, and I wish you’d stop drinking yourselves.”

“You be too proud by half,” the man said, thickly; “that be the trouble with you. You be too proud.”

The young man laughed and wiped his mouth with his fingers. “Why, no, Jack hain’t proud,” said Dred; “Jack and I’ve been messmates for many a day, hain’t we, Jack? D’ye know, he was kidnapped from England. His uncle over there is a rich lord or summat of the sort. Anyways, he’s got a stack of money. Hain’t that so, Jack?”

“I don’t care,” said the man, “who he be. The trouble with him is he be too proud – that’s what’s the trouble with him. When a man axes me to come and drink with him, I don’t care who he be, I goes. I wouldn’t be too proud to drink – no, not if I was a lord instead of a beggarly runaway.”

“He be n’t no runaway,” said Dred. “He and me was two of Blackbeard’s men. Now we be our own men. We be taking that there young lady back to Virginny.” Then he leaned across the table and whispered hoarsely, “She’s a beauty – she is.”

His hoarse whisper sounded very loud through the cabin. Jack shot a look at the young lady, but she did not move or seem to notice what was said. “I wish you’d be still, Dred,” he said; “you’re drinking more than you ought, and you don’t know what you’re saying.”

Dred looked gloomily at him for a while. “You mind your business, lad,” he said, “and I’ll mind mine. I know what I’m doing and what I’m saying well enough.”

Jack made no reply. He curled himself up on the bench and shut his eyes. Dred sat still, looking moodily at him for a little while. “You think I be drinking more than I ought, do you?” But still Jack did not reply nor open his eyes. “I’ll drink as much as I choose, and no man shall stop me.”

“You’ll make yourself sick again, that’s what you’ll do,” Jack said, shortly.

He lay there with his eyes closed, and presently, in spite of himself, the events of the day before and the sleepless nights he had passed began to press upon him, and he drifted off into broken fragments of sleep, through which he heard the men still talking and laughing. At last, after a while, he opened his eyes to silence. The fire had burned low, and the men lay sleeping on the floor with their feet turned toward the blaze. Jack arose, took up the bottle upon the table, and shook it beside his ear. There was still a little liquor in it, and he corked it and laid it behind him on the bench so as to make sure it should not be touched again.

CHAPTER XXXVII
THE SECOND DAY

THE woman was stirring early in the morning, and Jack awoke with a start. Dred was moving uneasily in his sleep, with signs of near waking as Jack went to the door and looked out. It was still hardly more than the dawn of day. It had clouded over during the night, and had been raining, as Dred had predicted. The wind was now blowing swiftly from the east, sending low, drifting clouds hurrying across the sky. From where he stood he could see, through the twilight gray, the white caps, churning every now and then to a sudden flash of foam out across the dim stretch of the sound, and he thought to himself that their voyage was likely to prove very rough. Presently Dred stood beside him. He stood for a while gazing out into the gray daylight, as Jack had done, looking across the sound; then he went out into the open air. He stared up into the wet sky above, and then all around him. “’Tis likely we’ll have a stiffish day of it,” he said, “but we’ll have to make the most of it, let us get ever so wet. ’Tis lucky I thought of fetching the overcoats.” He said nothing about the night before, and did not seem to remember that he had been drinking more than he should have done. The woman of the house emerged from the outshed, carrying an armful of sticks. “Hullo, mistress!” Dred called to her, “I wish you’d wake the young lady and tell her we’ve got to be starting again. Why, it must be well on toward six o’clock by now, allowing for this here thick day.”

The woman was smoking a short, black pipe. She took it out of her mouth with one hand. “Won’t you stay and take a bite to eat first?” said she.

“Why, no, we won’t,” said Dred. “We’ll eat what we want aboard the boat. We’ve got a good rest, and we’re beholden to ye for it.” He opened his hand, and then Jack saw he had a sixpenny-piece in it. “I want you to take this here,” he said, “for to pay you for your trouble.”

The woman stretched out her lean, bony hand, took the coin eagerly enough, and slipped it in her pocket. “I’ll tell her young ladyship that you be waiting,” said she with a sudden access of deference, and then went back into the house.

“Did you see anything of that there bottle o’ rum?” said Dred.

“Yes, I did,” said Jack. “I put it away in the overcoat pocket.”

“That’s all well, then. I thought maybe Bill or Ned Gosse had stole it. Was there anything left in it?”

“A little,” answered Jack.

Beside this Dred made no present reference to the drinking bout of the night before.

When they went back into the house again the young lady was sitting on the edge of the bed, smoothing her hair. “’Tis time we was starting now, mistress,” said Dred, “and the sooner the better.”

They all went down to the boat together, the two Gosse men accompanying them. This time they helped Jack and Dred unfurl the sail, and set the boom and the gaff, and they pushed the boat off into the water when all were aboard. “You’ll have a windy day outside, like enough,” Bill Gosse said, in his slow, dull voice.

“I reckon we will,” Dred replied briefly.

There was a fine spit of rain-like mist drifting before the wind, and the water lapped and splashed chilly, beating in little breakers upon the beach. “You’d better put on this overcoat, mistress,” said Dred, and he held it for the young lady as he spoke.

She looked steadily at him for a moment, and it seemed to Jack, with some intuitive knowledge, that she was thinking of the way Dred had been drinking with the two men the night before. Jack himself took the coat from Dred and held it for her while she slipped her arms into the sleeves. Then he helped her settle herself in the stern. “You’d better put on the other overcoat, Dred,” he said. “I can do very well without it.”

The boat was already dancing and bobbing with the short, lumpy swell that came in from the sound around the point, and gave promise of rough weather outside. The sail flapped and beat noisily in the wind; Jack hoisted the peak, and Dred, drawing the sheet with one hand and holding the tiller with the other, brought her around to the wind. The people on the shore stood watching them as the boat heeled over and then, with gathering headway, swept swiftly away. There were no farewells spoken. Jack, looking behind, saw the people still standing upon the shore as it rapidly fell away astern, dimming in the gray of the misty rain.

“About!” called Dred, sharply, and then the boat, sweeping a curve, came around upon the other tack. Once more they came about, and then presently they were out in the open sound. There was a heavy, lumpy sea running, and the boat began to lift and plunge to the greater swell with every now and then a loud, thunderous splash of water at the bow, and a cloud of spray dashed up into the air. A wave sent a sheet of water into the boat. “I reckon we’ll have to drop the peak a bit, Jack,” Dred said; “she drives too hard.”

The young lady, in the first roughness of the rolling sea, was holding tight to the rail. Jack stumbled forward across the thwarts and lowered the peak. The water was rushing noisily past the boat. “’Tis a head wind we’ve got for to-day,” said Dred, when he had come back into the stern again. “I’m glad we’ve had a bit of rest afore we started, for we’ll hardly make Roanoke afore nine or ten o’clock to-night if the wind holds as ’tis.”

And it was after nightfall when they ran in back of Roanoke Island. The wind had ceased blowing from the east, and was rapidly falling away. Just at sundown, the sun had shot a level glory of light under the gray clouds, bathing all the world with a crimson glow, and then had set, the clouds overhead shutting in an early night. The water still heaved, troubled with the memory of the wind that had been churning it all day. The young lady had been feeling ill, and she now lay motionless upon the bench, where Jack had covered her with everything obtainable, and where she lay with her head upon her bundle of clothes, her face, resting upon the palm of her hand, just showing beneath the wraps that covered her. In the afternoon Dred had handed the tiller over to Jack, who still held it. Now, wrapped in one of the overcoats, he lay upon the other bench, perhaps sleeping. The night had fallen more and more, and soon it was really dark. Jack held steadily to the course that Dred had directed, and by and by he was more and more certain that he was near the land. At last, he really did see the dim outline of the shore, and in the lulls of the breeze he could presently hear the loud splashing of the water upon the beach.

“Dred,” he called, “you’d better come and take the helm.” Dred roused himself instantly, shuddering with the chill of the night air as he did so. He looked about him, peering into the darkness.

“Ay,” he said, after a while. “’Tis Roanoke, and that must be Duck Island over yonder, t’other way. That’s Broad Creek, yonder,” pointing off through the night. “We might run into it, and maybe find some shelter; but what I wants to do, is to make Shallowbag Bay. There’s a lookout tree on the sand-hills there, and I wants to take a sight behind us, to-morrow. D’ye see, ’tis Roanoke Sound we’re running into. If the sloop follys us at all, ‘twill run up the ship-channel Croatan way.”

Jack did not at all understand what Dred meant, but he gave up the tiller to him very readily. He went across to where the young lady lay. “How d’ye feel now, mistress?” he said.

“I feel better than I did,” she said, faintly, opening her eyes as she spoke.

“Would you like to have a bite to eat now?” She shook her head, and once more Jack took his place in the stern.

“There’s another reason why I wants to make Shallowbag Bay,” said Dred. “D’ye see, there’s a house there, – or, leastwise, there used to be, – and I thought if we could get there it might make a shelter for the young lady, for she’s had a rough day of it to-day, for sartin.”

“How far is it?” Jack asked.

“Why,” said Dred, “no more’n a matter of eight mile, I reckon. Here; you hold the tiller, lad, while I light my pipe.”

Maybe an hour or more passed, and then Dred began, every now and then, to take a lookout ahead, standing up and peering away into the darkness. The clouds had now entirely blown away, and the great vault of sky sparkled all over with stars. All around them the water spread out, dim and restless. They were running free close to the shore. A point of sand jutted out pallidly into the water, and through the darkness Jack could dimly see the recurrent gleam of breaking waves upon it. Again Dred was standing up in the boat, looking out ahead. “We’re all right, now,” he said, after a long time of observation, finally taking his seat. “I’ve got my bearings now, and know where I be. The only thing now is, that we sha’n’t run aground, for here and there there’s not enough water to float a chip.” As he ended speaking he put down the tiller, and the yawl ran in close around the edge of the point. He sailed for some little distance before he spoke again. “We’ll have to take to the oars for the rest of the way,” he said, at last; and as he spoke he brought the bow of the boat up to the wind. “We’re done our sailing for to-night. The shanty’s not more’n a mile furder on from here across the bay. We’d better put up the sail here, I reckon. ‘Twill be swinging all around in your way when ye row.”

He arose and went forward, Jack following him, and together they loosened the boom and began reefing the sail still wet with the rain and spray of the day’s storm. The young lady did not move; perhaps she was asleep. Then Dred returned to the tiller, and Jack took to the oars.

In somewhat less than half an hour Jack had rowed the heavy boat across the open water. As he looked over his shoulder, he could see a strip of beach just ahead, drawing nearer and nearer to them through the night. A minute more, and the bow of the boat ran grating upon a sandy shoal and there stuck fast. Dred arose, and he and Jack stepped into the shallow water. The young lady stirred and roused herself as they did so. “Sit still, mistress,” said Dred, “and we’ll drag the boat up to the beach. It seems like there’s a bank made out here since I was here afore.” They drew the boat across the shoal and up the little strip of beach. Beyond, a level, sedgy stretch reached away into the night. “You wait here,” said Dred, “and I’ll go up and see if the shanty be there yet. I know ‘twas there three year ago.”

He went away, leaving Jack and the young lady sitting in the boat.

“Do you think he’ll take us to such a place as he did last night?” she presently asked of Jack.

“No, I know he won’t,” Jack said. “’Tis an empty hut he’s going to take us to this time.”

“I’d rather sleep out in the boat,” she said, “than go to such a house again. ‘Twas dreadful last night when those three men sat drinking as they did.”

“Well,” said Jack, “this is no such a place as that. ’Tis an empty hut; and he only comes here to find shelter for you for the night, and to take an observation to-morrow.”

She had not said anything before as to what she had felt during the previous night, and Jack had thought until now that perhaps it had made little or no impression upon her. “You needn’t be afraid of Dred, mistress,” he said, presently. “He’s rough, but he’s not a bad man, and you needn’t be afraid of him.”

She did not reply; and Jack could read in her silence how entirely she had lost confidence in Dred. Presently he appeared, coming through the darkness. “’Tis all right,” he said; “I have found the cabin. We’ll just pull the yawl a trifle furder up on the beach, and then I’ll take ye up to it. Now, mistress, if you’ll step ashore.”

Jack and Dred helped the young lady out of the boat. She stood upon the damp beach wrapped in the overcoat she had worn all day as Jack drove the anchor down into the sandy soil and made fast the bow-line. Dred opened the locker and brought out the biscuit and the ham.

He led the way for some distance through the darkness, his feet rustling harshly through the wiry, sedgy grass, and by and by Jack made out the dim outline of the wooden hut looming blackly against the starry sky. It was quite deserted, and the doorway gaped darkly. It stood as though toppling to fall; but the roof was sound, and the floor within was tolerably dry. At any rate, it was a protection from the night. As Dred struck the flint and steel, Jack stripped some planks from the wall, breaking them into shorter pieces with his heel, and presently a fire blazed and crackled upon the ground before the open doorway of the hut, lighting up the sedgy, sandy space of the night for some distance around.

After they had eaten their rude meal, they made the young lady as comfortable as possible; then they sat down side by side to dry their damp clothes by the fire. It burned down to a heap of hot, glowing coals, and Jack threw on another armful of sticks; they blazed up with renewed brightness, lighting up the interior of the hut with a red glow.

“Like enough this is the last stop we can make,” said Dred, “betwixt here and the inlet.”

“How far is the inlet from here, d’ye suppose?” Jack asked.

“Perhaps a matter of twenty league or so,” said Dred. “We can’t expect the wind to favor us as it has done. We’ve got along mightily well so far, I can tell ye. We’ve got a lead far away ahead of any chase the captain can make arter us. I do believe we be safe enough now; all the same I’m going over to the sand-hills to-morrow to take a look astern. Over in that direction – ” and he pointed with his pipe – “there’s a lookout tree we used to use three or four year ago when we was cruising around here in the sounds.”

“Do you know, Dred,” said Jack, “I believe you’re vastly the better in health for coming off with us? You don’t seem near as sick as you did before we left Bath Town.”

“Ay,” said Dred; “that’s allus the way with a sick body. I hain’t time now to think how sick I be.”