The wasp

Front matter

THEODORE GOODRlLX**.

ROBERTS

THEODORE GOODRIDGE ROBERTS

II

Burn ham's pale eyes shone and glinted. His hands trembled on the taffrail and an artery pulsed visibly in his neck.

" You have a strong crew and a stout ship," he said. " Why not wait for them and give them a drubbing ? "

" Wait for them ? " repeated the shipmaster in a horrified voice. Heaven help you, sir, but you don't know their kidney ! A strong crew, say you ! If we have forty seaman and the after-guard, that schooner carries one hundred and fifty devils — devils, sir ! "

" But we have the taller ship," persisted Burnham, " and pistols in plenty. We could shoot down upon her decks ; we could cut them down as they came over the side, one by one."

" Aye ; and ye'd soon be whistling through a slit gizzard for your five hundred guineas ! " retorted Hobkirk dryly.

He glanced at his passenger, then stared at him with round eyes. Burnham's gaze was fixed

i6 upon the schooner astern in a hard, dancing, cross-glinting glare. His white teeth gleamed between his twisted lips. His cheeks shone white. The veins stood out on his forehead and the artery pulsed in his neck. He breathed heavily.

" Lord, sir ! " exclaimed the shipmaster. " Ye look as if ye'd jump the taffr'il to be at their throats."

James Burnham swallowed hard, laughed, and turned his back on the schooner. His eyelids fluttered swiftly.

" I enjoy a fight — none better," he said. " That is the first pirate ship I've ever seen, and it excited me for a moment."

Excited you ! " said the mariner. Yes, but I'll swear it didn't fright ye. Bless my soul, sir, but ye looked as wicked as any red pirate yerself for a minute. A fighter, as I see — and I didn't suspect it before. Ye should be fightin' for yer king, that ye should. Ye'll be wasted as a merchant, sir."

Burnham laughed again and laid a hand on Hobkirk's shoulder.

" Oh, I'm no fire-eater, my friend," he said lightly ; " but I have heard stories of those gentry astern that set my teeth on edge to be at i8 them at the first sight of themi The seas should be cleaned of them. What are the king's ships doing ? "

" A very noble sentiment, sir, and one as does credit to yer heart," said the shipmaster ; " but the king's ships be all on the hunt after the French ships, and so it falls out that these spawn o' the evil one be masters o' the sea."

" Will she overhaul us, think you ? " asked Burnham.

" Not unless she follows us clear into Kingston Harbour — if this wind holds. And it'll hold, ye may swear to that. We'll slip her this v'yage. She don't sail her old clip. Foul, like as not, an' needs to be hove up an' scrope. Heaven be praised ! "

Burnham turned again and looked hungrily and viciously at the vessel far astern ; then he went below and waited for his breakfast in a fretful temper. He had hoped for a fight ; and he cursed the schooner for her slowness.

Three hours later the pirate vessel shifted her helm, hopeless of coming up with her intended prey. The ship's company cheered at that ; the cutlasses and pistols were returned to the lazaretto beneath the captain's cabin, and the brass gun was pushed forward to its usual place in the bows.

Burnham continued to stand and glower after the schooner until Mr. Boyle, the mate, came to his elbow.

" We be properly in luck," he said. " If Hellfire Hicks had sighted us a couple of hours afore he did, we'd be dead men now, every mother's son of us ! "

He was a big man with plump red cheeks and a very fine opinion of himself.

" Dead men ! " sneered Burnham. I suppose you mean you would have died of fright if the schooner had come within gunshot of you ! "

He choked down the meaningless rage that had been brewing in him all these peaceful and uneventful days, turned on his heel, and went below to the main cabin. If ever a man was spoiling for a fight it was James Burnham ; and yet he did not want to shatter his reputation aboard the Lass o' London as a man of peace at this last hour of the voyage.

Boyle entered the cabin twenty seconds later.

" Now look ye here, my fine cock, what was this ye said about dying of fright ? " he asked in a throaty and truculent whisper. " Henry

Boyle takes no such talk as that from no man, be he common tar or lord's son ! "

Burnham, who was seated on a locker, did not look up, but the muscles of his shoulders twitched slightly. The big mate leaned far across the table with his big hands fisted upon it.

"Ye don't look so keen for a fight yerself, just now," he sneered. " Be ye returnin' thanks to yer Maker for yer safe delivery from the pirates ? "

Burnham sprang without a sound, vaulted ' the table, gripped the mate by the windpipe, and drove him against the larboard bulkhead.

And so Captain Hobkirk found them half a minute later. Burnham loosened his grip, and the mate slid limply to the deck. Burnham smiled at the shipmaster.

" The fellow insulted me," he explained coolly. " The lout does not comprehend the nice feelings of a man of breeding."

Hobkirk dragged the half-choked and utterly cowed mate to his feet.

" Ye be too ready to pick a quarrel with yer betters, my lad," he said. "I trust this here will larn ye a lesson. A man who raises the devil in a peaceable gentleman like Mr. Burnham ought to b^' clapped into irons."

The long voyage terminated in an hour, and James Burnham parted from Hobkirk and the crew on the best of terms. Mr. Boyle did not appear to wish him Godspeed.

He found Angus McLatchy to be a Scot of the most respectable type, long-faced, bleakbrowed, dry of hand, everlastingly turning from his ledger to his Bible and back again, and finding comfort and food for thought in both.

Burnham spent two nights and two days under the worthy merchant's roof. Both men conducted themselves coolly, watchfully, politely ; but neither warmed to the other. McLatchy felt a sharp distrust of Burnham's eyes ; and Burnham found nothing that appealed to him in McLatchy's nature, sugar, or Bible.

He envied the merchant the story told by the ledger, however. He looked inward and saw that his temper would not stand a great deal of McLatchy and his ways, and that the affair might terminate in a sudden and violent death.

He was beginning to know himself for what he really was. He saw a picture of himself braining the Scot with the weighty ledger. So,

22 THE JVJSP

at the end of that brief period of two nights and two days, the decision was mutual that James Burnham, Esq., was not designed by nature for the sugar-exporting trade. James left the merchant's establishment with all his guineas intact and soon fell among gentlemen who had no dealings with either Bibles or ledgers.

Mr. Peter Queery, one of Burnham's new companions, was a man of about forty years of age, with a hard head and the most confiding manners in the world. He was a person of importance arid substance — by his own telling, at least. His dress was always as accurate and rich as the cUmate permitted with any degree of comfort ; his words were invariably polite and well-chosen ; and he shone in that company of roistering blades — they were broken gentlemen, for the most part— with an air of kindly superiority.

From the very first his manner 'toward James Burnham was markedly considerate and intimate. This was subtly flattering, as if he saw and acknowledged the difference between Burnham and himself and their jovial but worthless companions. And yet there was nothing pedantic about him. He enjoyed the society of these reckless, good-natured, useless fellows, he said

— and one instantly knew, without being told in so many words, that more respectable circles were open to him.

There is no need to picture you this society or to describe its entertainments. James lost a little money at play — he would have lost a great deal but for his menacing eye — and heard many strange stories. He heard anecdotes of the pirates, privateers, and other doubtful characters of that time and those seas — of Major Deck, who had been a respectable planter in Barbados twelve months ago ; of Duval, who was a Canadian gentleman and very polite in his methods of taking life and property. ; of Hellfire Hicks, who had once been a shopkeeper in one of the islands.

James was interested, and asked many questions.

" It's the way to make money," said one of the company. " It's a profession and a science. It calls for brains and courage. They all have their agents everywhere. Hicks keeps his books like any honest merchant, I've been told. Major Deck runs his business as a company, with a secretary, a treasurer, and goodness only knows what else. His wife drove him to it, they say, with her tantrums and her flirtations — and a

H

THE WJSP fine, high-headed, swishing creature she is, too ! A cousin of my own, by the way. Duval's methods are not so modern. He touches nothing but British shipping ; and he has been known to square up to more than one sloop-of-war and fight for the glory of it. A very gentlemanly occupation, I assure you ! "

" But there's hanging at the end of it," said Peter Queery.

" Not if you retire before you are caught," said another.

Every one had an opinion to advance on the subject ; and as a number of the gentlemen were well along in their cups, much was said that was not exactly to the point. But Burnham gave attention to everything. He was thirsty for information.

Ten to one there's an agen^ of Major Deck's at this very table," remarked a thin young man with a yellow face. " And one of Hellfire Hicks's, too, like as not. Very respectableappearing men, these pirates' agents are. There was one who lived a whole year with the governor of the Bermudas as a tutor. He got away one night with Dame Murdock's pearls and diamonds, and they couldn't find hair nor hide of him ; but when Captain Blue's brig was cornered among the Bahamas, three months later, by the sloop-of-war Fox^ there was the tutor on the brig's poop, his sash full of pistols and a cutlass in his hand, the most desperate pirate of them all. He despatched five men with his own hand before he was cut down. A notorious pirate he was, and Blue's trusty — but he'd been born the son of a bishop and educated for holy orders."

James Burnham spent a month in Kingston? all the time in questionable society. His luck was good, and he paid his way with his winnings at dice and cards. Only on two occasions did any of his companions attempt to cheat him at play. On both occasions he proved himself a dangerous person to trifle with. His white rage struck terror to the hearts of the most daring of the company ; and during the rest of his stay in Kingston a tremor of apprehension went through the nerves of his companions whenever his pale eyes hardened and began to glint crosswise, as if he were trying to examine the tip of his own nose.

At the end of the month Peter Queery suggested to James that they were both wasting their time in Kingston.

" Come home with me," he said ; and he told

Burnham, at considerable length, all about his fine place in the island of Nevis.

He had a command of language, and painted the joys of a planter's life to a wish. He admitted frankly that he liked James — that he felt a warmth of the heart toward him as toward a younger brother. This being the case, he was willing to take James into partnership with him. He was unmarried and had no near relatives.

Burnham entertained no intention of devoting his future to the cultivation of cane, but he was anxious to see something of the other islands before investing his modest capital. If Queery was fool enough to pay his expenses, so much the better. They left Kingston in a shabby, stubby brigantine — Burnham and Queery and Burnham's box of guineas. They sailed at an early hour of the morning, and they sat late at their wine that night at the little round table in the cabin, with the master of the brigantine to keep them company, pledging each other's health and talking most amiably.

Queery laid a hand frequently on Burnham's shoulder.

You know my place in Nevis," he would say to the master. " Well, I'll neglect it no longer. Fve found a friend in this young gentleman— aye, and an heir, like as not. When I like a man, I like him without reservations. That's me ! You know my little place ? "

I knows it, sir," the shipmaster would reply. " The finest estate in that island, ye may lay to that, sir ! "

At midnight Queery brewed a rum punch of great potency, jarnes Burnham awoke at noon of the next day with a splitting head, a thick tongue, and a wavering, fainting stomach, and found himself drifting alone in an open^ boat. His dazed and aching mind was not able to comprehend the situation immediately.

" Poisoned ! " he muttered at last. " Drugged ! Robbed ! Cast off — adrift in an open boat ! "

There were oars, a square of sail-cloth, and a breaker of water in the boat. Burnham spread the piece of sail across the oars and lay down in the patch of shade, too sick to so much as curse Peter Queery.

The little boat rode the moderate seas gallantly, smoothly, A snow-white gull appeared, with red eyes and a red beak and wings as sharp and clean as curved knife-blades, and hung motionless high above the boat, preening the spotless feathers on its breast, riding the invisible tides of 'air with no flicker of effort. At last it slid downwards, circled on arched pinions, hung low above the boat's stern for a few seconds and stared at the man beneath the awning with round, crimson eyes.

The man saw it and cursed feebly. The bird veered with a tremble of its wing- tips, circled and slanted upwards,- and returned to its old position and the preening of its spotless and untroubled breast.

In a running blue slope astern that was alive with cross-fires of green and gold, a long and slender shadow wavered, grew in distinctness, and suddenly a black fin rode the sloping seas like a little sail. The fin circled the lazily riding boat, then sank gently and vanished for a time. The long shadow wavered like a ghost of darkness under the boat's counter.

The sun went down at last, and just before the sudden white stars were lit above the purpling sea, James Burnham awoke again from his heavy sleep and crawled slowly backwards from beneath the square of sail-cloth.

He stood up in the stern of the boat and scanned the fading horizon. His face was haggard from the ravages of the drug, his hard eyes smouldered, his dry lips were slanted in a grimace of rage and horror. The horizon was empty. He lowered his glance and beheld, dim against the darkling sea, that convoying fin.

There was no food in the boat. Burnham drank deep from the oaken breaker, then lay flat on his back and stared up at the stars until sleep returned to him. In his sleep he dreamed that he had Peter Queery's windpipe beneath his fingers ; and he made the most of his opportunity, you may be sure. But the dream was vastly confused and delayed in its action, for dregs of the drugged punch still moved sluggishly in his blood.

Now he and Peter were in his London lodgings, flat on the carpet, and as his fingers gripped Peter's throat he heard the laughter of Kitty Trimmer. And now they were on the brick floor of a wine-shop in Kingston, and Peter's face was like a purple bladder. Now he was in the open boat, his fingers still pinched deep in Queery's throat — and Qijeery was dead.

He laughed in that lifeless, hideous mask, then loosed his cramped fingers and raised his own face to the sky. The stars were gone, and the whole arc of heaven was awash and pulsing ^ith fearful, bright lights. Burnham rose to his feet and shouted to the flaming sky. And all around him the sea was like a sea of fire ; and clean-cut against the red and gold and orange of the waves cruised the black fin.

He stooped and grasped the body of the dead man with both hands. His strength was as a giant's strength ; and he lifted the limp clay and flung it far out into the flaming sea. The black fin veered away from the splash. The body sank, thei^i returned slowly- to the surface and floated upon that flaring field, dark, shapeless, and inertly sinister.

It drifted in upon the boat. It bumped against the boat's side, ponderously, persistently. Burnham cursed it and pushed it off with an oar. It sank beneath the flaming sea at the thrust ; it surged to the surface again, and again drifted boatward, wide-eyed, purple-faced, and thumped dully along the boat's starboard side.

Burnham cursed it again, and again attacked it ; with the oar ; but it seemed to avoid the long blade, sluggishly but certainly. It struck upon the boat's thin planking with knee and hand and head. Burnham screamed curses at it — and the sound of his own screams awakened him.

He awoke with the horror of the dream still upon him. He lay on his back in the bottom of the boat. The stars had paled and the sky was like a pearl-grey shell. The white gull drifted into his line of vision on motionless wings, hung directly over him, and looked down with its red eyes. Then he remembered where he was, how he had come there, and what his fate was likely to be.

He was hungry, for he had been two nights and a day without food. He was thirsty. He was about to sit up and take the water-breaker in his hands when the sound that had haunted his dream came to his ears — the sound of something bumping softly along the side of the boat.

He scrambled to his knees with a gasp of terror, then remembered that the dead man had been only a thing of his dreaming. He looked straight down over the starboard gunwale and saw the long, vague shape of the shark at rest close beside him, not more than a foot beneath the brightening surface of the sea. His heart shook, for here was a sinister omen indeed ; but with sudden fury he raised an oar spearwise and plunged it straight down at the great fish. The blade struck, and the shark darted away, with a swirl of water that rocked the boat, into the watery gloom beyond.

James Burnham gazed slowly around him. The sun was not yet above the horizon, but the clear flame of it shone like a tide of molten glass between sea and sky. Above this clearest radiance lay a band of tenderest pink. The sea to the eastward sparkled and glowed with silver and gold and rose.

To the south-east^ and not more than three miles away, the swelling sails of a little brig blushed like the petals of a pink rose. Her hull, transfigured by the morning gleam transfused with the shimmering of wave and air glowed upon the seas like an opal.

The whole scene was a picture fit for a child's wonder-book ; and it was hard to believe that this same sky had glowered wide with naked heat .but a few short hours before, that the fanged shark swam and waited under that marvellous glimmer and gleam, that coffee was even now being brewed in the galley of that fairy barque for the consumption of hairy-handed, foulmouthed fellows in tarry breeks.

It was hard to believe ; but the castaway knew that it was so. Best of all, to him, was the thought of the coffee and stale bread aboard the brig. He stood at gaze until his eyes convinced him that the vessel was heading his way.

Then he turned, took up the little oaken breaker, pulled the plug with his teeth, and drank deep.

All the east now was awash with gold and rose. Burnham stood on a thwart and flapped the square of canvas several times at arm's length above his head. He sat down, manned the oars, and pulled in the brig's direction with all his strength. His strokes soon lagged and faltered, for he was weak with hunger.

The sun cleared the horizon, the sails of the brig lost their tints of rose and the hull its opalescent quality. The heavens shone blue from sea-rim to sea-rim.

James Burnham was taken aboard the brig, which proved to be an honest vessel from the New England town of Boston, bound for Barbados. The castaway sank upon the deck. There piping hot coffee and coarse sea fare from the galley were brought to him. , The master of the brig, an elderly, lean person I with a goatish beard and a long, shaven upper lip, watched him eat and drink with calculating I regard, and then questioned him. Burnham told the true story of his adventure with Peter Queery.

" Yer tale sounds Hkely enough, young man,"

said the shipmaster in a curiously high, whining voice. " The devilment that goes on up an' down this Atlantic sea, from Acadia in the north to Trinidad in the south, is an offence to heaven an' a stench i' the nostrils o' the Almighty. But yer life has been spared to 'e, young man, an' ye'd do well to dedicate it to the Lord. I kin see by the cast o' yer countenance an' the slant o' yer eye that ye've bin bred in ungodliness, roistering, an' high-bellied living ; and yet yer tainted life was spared to 'e. Better men, godly men, true sarvants o' the Lord, hev not bin so fortunate. There was Cap'n Moses Smith, my own blood-brother, a constant reader an' digester o' the Good Book, set^sail a year back come January, from Jamaicy, with a cargo o' red rum an' black negroes, an' hain't never bin heerd of nor seen since. Overhauled an' scuttled by the pirates he was, ye kin lay to it. Deck or Hicks or the Frenchman got him, hull, crew, an' cargo, an' his own saintly life into the bargain. Ye're lucky, my young friend, to be a settin' here now with yer worthless life still aglow in yer belly ! "

Throughout this lengthy homily James Burnham had sprawled on the deck, with his shoulders to the bulwarks, and regarded the pious shipmaster with dancing eyes and a crooked smile.

" Thank you," he said. What suggestions have you to make as to the best way for me to begin to dedicate my Hfe to the Lord ? "

Mr. Smith pulled his goatish beard and reflected. He spat tobacco-juice into the scuppers.

" Ye'd best set to work a skowin' yer gratitude to the human instrument o' yer release from death by thirst an' starvation," he said. " Two days out o' Boston we lost a poor sinner overboard. In that I see the hand o' Providence, young man.

kin take his berth an' help us work the brig down to Barbados."

A shadow as of speculation crossed Mr. Burnham's glinting gaze. He contemplated the shipmaster with an open sneer of suspicion, for he had already gathered enough knowledge of these western waters to lead him to suspect that a penniless and friendless white man here, be he gentle or simple, need look for neither charity nor justice.

In his mind's eye he saw himself being sold by the shipmaster to some unconcerned planter in Barbados. So he stared sneeringly and questioningly at Mr. Smith until the glance of that worthy wavered and fell.

" Barbados will suit me to a wish," he said, " for I doubt not that my friend, Mr. Angus McLatchy of Kingston, has an agent or correspondent in that island."

Smith fingered his beard and treated the castaway to a sharp but fleeting glance.

"Like enough," he said, "like enough; but what proof caA ye show that same agent or correspondent that ye're a friend o' Mr. Angus McLatchy ? I'm thinkin', young man, he'll want more than yer word for it."

" I have the proof," replied James Burnham easily ; but in his heart he knew that the mark on his shoulder would count for nothing among strangers.

During the remaining hours of that day Burnham was permitted to idle about the. brig's^ main-deck and sit or lie in such patches of shade as happened to take his fancy. When he was thirsty he went to the open water-butt which lay lashed to the bulwarks, amidships on the starboard side, and drank his fill. At mealtimes, receiving no invitatiom to the cabin, he went to the galley and ate whatever coarse fare was passed out to him by the cook.

At such times he exchanged a few words with two or three of the members of the crew. He asked no questions, however, and none was asked of him. The rough and dejected-looking fellows eyed him curiously, even suspiciously.

Ill

When night fell James Burnham felt sufficiently revived in body and spirit to assert himself. He ascended the short ladder which led to the circumscribed poop-deck and accosted the shipmaster, who was lounging against the larboard rail with a pipe between his teeth.

I find you remiss in hospitality, and must ask you for tobacco, a pipe in which to smoke it, and some definite information as to the whereabouts of my berth," he said coolly.

A string of rattling oaths flew from the shipmaster, and he sprang from the support of the low rail straight at Burnham's throat. The castaway stepped nimbly aside and shot out his right foot, and the New Englander stumbled across the narrow deck and came in sharp contact with the starboard rail.

He turned, however, quick as a cat, and sprang again at the friendless castaway. Again Burnham stepped aside a fraction of a second before

the instant of collision, and again he used his artful foot to advantage. This time Smith measured his full length upon the planking. Burnham laughed dangerously, and decided in a flash that he would meet the next attack with his fist instead of his foot.

Smith scrambled up with a splutter of oaths, and at that moment Mr. Winch, the mate who had left the cabin by way of the after-companion, smote Burnham on the back of the head with a belaying-pin.

When Burnham recovered consciousness it was to find himself in the brig's forecastle, alone, ironed, and sprawled in a corner. His head, neck, and shoulders ached dully, and the back of his skull was as tender as a boil. His stomach was heavy and his mouth was dry.

The stagnant air of the forecastle stank of dead tobacco-smoke, of bilge, of soiled garments and humanity. This dismal apartment was below the level of the deck and slam in the brig's bows, and such light and ventilation as it could boast were supplied by one small hatch. Now the sunshine flooded straight down the open hatch.

Burnham stared fixedly at the bolt of sunshine and remembered everything that had happened to him up to the time of the blow on the head.

He surmised, correctly enough, that the blow had been delivered by one of the brig's , officers.

He looked around for some means of quenching his thirst, but could see nothing in the forecastle that promised relief. He turned his attention to his irons. He was shackled at the ankles only, and was not chained to the deck or frame of the brig.

He crawled to the foot of the ladder which led up to the open hatch and was about to ascend it when a shadow fell upon the rounds above him. He looked up, at the same time shrinking aside from the foot of the ladder, and saw a small, ragged figure slip over the coaming of the hatch and commence a slow and halting descent.

The visitor was Henry Todd, the ship's boy. Burnham had noticed him about the deck the day before — a skulking, frightened lad of fifteen or sixteen years, thin and colourless, and bruised about the face and naked shins. He had been interested in this forlorn creature, but had felt no pity. Suffering never inspired pity in James Burnham's breast. He had seen the lad flinch at a word from the black cook, cringe at a glance from the shipmaster, and start in terror at a curse from one of the mates ; and so, in a spirit of contrariness, he had spoken cheerily to the terrified youngster.