Part 8 (1/2)
”Gentlemen,” said I, ”I restore you your property. This is a penitent thief who desires to make a confession.”
My pistol was at his temple, the powder was round his neck, and he must have seen a certain resolution in my face. Anyhow, sweating and quaking, he blurted out his story, and when he offered to halt I made rings with the barrel on the flesh of his neck.
”It is a d.a.m.ned lie,” cried one of them, a handsome, over-dressed fellow who had been conspicuous for his public insolence towards me.
”Nay,” said I, ”our penitent's tale has the note of truth. One word to you, gentlemen. I am hospitably inclined, and if any one of you will so far honour me as to come himself instead of dispatching his servant, his welcome will be the warmer. I bid you good-night and leave you this fellow in proof of my goodwill. Keep him away from the candle, I pray you, or you will all go to h.e.l.l before your time.”
That was the end of my worst troubles, and presently my lading was finished and my store replenished. Then came the time for the return sailing, and the last enterprise of my friends was to go off without my three vessels. But I got an order from the Governor, delivered readily but with much profanity, to the commander of the frigates to delay till the convoy was complete. I breathed more freely as I saw the last hulls grow small in the estuary. For now, as I reasoned it out, the planters must begin to compare my prices with the Englishmen's, and must come to see where their advantage lay.
But I had counted my chickens too soon, and was to be woefully disappointed. At that time all the coast of America from New England to the Main was infested by pirate vessels. Some sailed under English letters of marque, and preyed only on the s.h.i.+pping of France, with whom we were at war. Some who had formed themselves into a company called the Brethren of the Coast robbed the Spanish treasure-s.h.i.+ps and merchantmen in the south waters, and rarely came north to our parts save to careen or provision. They were mostly English and Welsh, with a few Frenchmen, and though I had little to say for their doings, they left British s.h.i.+ps in the main unmolested, and were welcomed as a G.o.dsend by our coast dwellers, since they smuggled goods to them which would have been twice the cost if bought at the convoy markets. Lastly, there were one or two horrid desperadoes who ravaged the seas like tigers. Such an one was the man Cosh, and that Teach, surnamed Blackbeard, of whom we hear too much to-day. But, on the whole, we of Virginia suffered not at all from these gentlemen of fortune, and piracy, though the common peril of the seas, entered but little into the estimation of the merchants.
Judge, then, of my disgust when I got news a week later that one of my s.h.i.+ps, the Ayr brig, had straggled from the convoy, and been seized, rifled, and burned to the water by pirates almost in sight of Cape Charles. The loss was grievous, but what angered me was the mystery of such a happening. I knew the brig was a slow sailer, but how in the name of honesty could she be suffered in broad daylight to fall into such a fate? I remembered the hostility of the Englishmen, and feared she had had foul play. Just after Christmas-tide I expected two s.h.i.+ps to replenish the stock in my store. They arrived safe, but only by the skin of their teeth, for both had been chased from their first entrance into American waters, and only their big topsails and a favouring wind brought them off. I examined the captains closely on the matter, and they were positive that their a.s.sailant was not Cosh or any one of his kidney, but a s.h.i.+p of the Brethren, who ordinarily were on the best of terms with our merchantmen.
My suspicions now grew into a fever. I had long believed that there was some connivance between the pirates of the coast and the English traders, and small blame to them for it. 'Twas a sensible way to avoid trouble, and I for one would rather pay a modest blackmail every month or two than run the risk of losing a good s.h.i.+p and a twelve-month's cargo. But when it came to using this connivance for private spite, the thing was not to be endured.
In March my doubts became certainties. I had a parcel of gold coin coming to me from New York in one of the coasting vessels--no great sum, but more than I cared to lose. Presently I had news that the s.h.i.+p was aground on a sandspit on Accomac, and had been plundered by a pirate brigantine. I got a sloop and went down the river, and, sure enough, I found the vessel newly refloated, and the captain, an old New Hamps.h.i.+re fellow, in a great taking. Piracy there had been, but of a queer kind, for not a farthing's worth had been touched except my packet of gold. The skipper was honesty itself, and it was plain that the pirate who had chased the s.h.i.+p aground and then come aboard to plunder, had done it to do me hurt, and me alone.
All this made me feel pretty solemn. My uncle was a rich man, but no firm could afford these repeated losses. I was the most unpopular figure in Virginia, hated by many, despised by the genteel, whose only friends were my own servants and a few poverty-stricken landward folk.
I had found out a good way of trade, but I had set a hornet's nest buzzing about my ears, and was on the fair way to be extinguished. This alliance between my rivals and the Free Companions was the last straw to my burden. If the sea was to be shut to him, then a merchant might as well put up his shutters.
It made me solemn, but also most mightily angry. If the stars in their courses were going to fight against Andrew Garvald, they should find him ready. I went to the Governor, but he gave me no comfort. Indeed, he laughed at me, and bade me try the same weapon as my adversaries. I left him, very wrathful, and after a night's sleep I began to see reason in his words. Clearly the law of Virginia or of England would give me no redress. I was an alien from the genteel world; why should I not get the benefit of my ungentility? If my rivals went for their weapons into dark places, I could surely do likewise. A line of Virgil came into my head, which seemed to me to contain very good counsel: ”_Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo_”, which means that if you cannot get Heaven on your side, you had better try for the Devil.
But how was I to get into touch with the Devil? And then I remembered in a flash my meeting with the sea-captain on the Glasgow stairhead and his promise to help me, I had no notion who he was or how he could aid, but I had a vague memory of his power and briskness. He had looked like the kind of lad who might conduct me into the wild world of the Free Companions.
I sought Mercer's tavern by the water-side, a melancholy place grown up with weeds, with a yard of dark trees at the back of it. Old Mercer was an elder in the little wooden Presbyterian kirk, which I had taken to attending since my quarrels with the gentry. He knew me and greeted me with his doleful smile, shaking his foolish old beard.
”What's your errand this e'en, Mr. Garvald?” he said in broad Scots.
”Will you drink a rummer o' toddy, or try some fine auld usquebaugh I hae got frae my cousin in Buchan?”
I sat down on the settle outside the tavern door. ”This is my errand. I want you to bring me to a man or bring that man to me. His name is Ninian Campbell.”
Mercer looked at me dully.
”There was a lad o' that name was hanged at Inveraray i' '68 for stealin' twae hens and a wether.”
”The man I mean is long and lean, and his head is as red as fire. He gave me your name, so you must know him.”
His eyes showed no recognition. He repeated the name to himself, mumbling it toothlessly. ”It sticks i' my memory,” he said, ”but when and where I canna tell. Certes, there's no man o' the name in Virginia.”
I was beginning to think that my memory had played me false, when suddenly the whole scene in the Saltmarket leaped vividly to my brain.
Then I remembered the something else I had been enjoined to say.
”Ninian Campbell,” I went on, ”bade me ask for him here, and I was to tell you that the lymphads are on the loch and the horn of Diarmaid has sounded.”
In a twinkling his face changed from vacancy to shrewdness and from senility to purpose. He glanced uneasily round.
”For G.o.d's sake, speak soft,” he whispered. ”Come inside, man. We'll steek the door, and then I'll hear your business.”
CHAPTER VIII.