The Lady and the Pirate by Emerson Hough (best new books to read txt) 📕

the older of the two at length.

“Nay, fear not,” said I. “I do but seek to prove my fitness to join the jolly brotherhood, good mates.”

“Aw, honest!” rejoined Jimmy; “you got to tell us how you knew.”

“Well, then, let me go on. In your book, here, I saw your father’s name, Jimmy. I know your father. He is Judge Willard Henderson of the Appellate Court in the city. I was admitted to the bar under him. He has a summer place at the lake above here, as I know, although I have never visited him there. I know your mother, too, Jimmy,—so well I should not like to cause her even a moment’s uneasiness about you.”

“Do you know my auntie, Helena Emory?” demanded Jimmy suddenly. I felt the blood surge into my face.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” I rejoined, “I only have some gift of the second sight, as I shall now prove to you. For instance, Jean Lafitte, I know your earlier name was John Saunders, although I never saw or heard of you before.”

“Well, now, how’d you know that?” demanded the elder boy.

“I did not promise to tell the secrets of my art,” I smiled. I did not tell him that I had seen the name of Saunders on the tag of a shirt somewhat soiled.

“Your father’s name was John before you,” I added at a venture. He assented, half-frightened, although I had only guessed at this, supposing John Saunders to be a somewhat continuous family name in a family of auburn Highlanders.

“He sells farm stuff at the hotel above,” I ventured. And again my guess was truth.

“You take the wagon there, sometimes, with vegetables and milk and eggs; and so you met Jimmy, here, and you went fishing together; and he told you stories out of his book. I fear, John, that your father licks you because you go fishing on Sunday. That was why you resolved to run away. You led Jimmy into that with you. Yesterday you took a boat from the lake near the hotel, and you painted her up and rigged her for a pirate ship. You rowed across the lake to the marsh where the little stream makes out—my trout-stream here. You followed that stream down, with no more trouble than ducking under a wire fence once in a while, until you came to my land, and until you saw me. You were afraid I might tell on you; and besides, you were pirates now; and so you took me prisoner. Marry, good Sirs, ’tis not the first time a prisoner has joined a pirate band!”

“That’s wonderful!” gasped Jean T. Lafitte Saunders. “And you say you have never been up to our lake!”

“No,” said I, “but I have a map, and I know my river heads in your lake, and that very probably it runs out of the low marshy side. Besides, being a boy myself, I know precisely what boys would do. Tell me, do you think I would betray two of the brotherhood?”

“You won’t give us away?” The elder pirate’s face was eager.

“On the contrary, I’ll see that you don’t get into any trouble.”

“That’s a good scout!” ejaculated he fervently, his freckled face flushing.

“We wasn’t—that is, we hadn’t—well, you see?” began Jimmy. “Maybe we’d just have camped down here and gone back to-morrow. I was afraid about taking the boat. Besides, I’ve only got about six dollars, anyhow.” He spread his wealth out upon the table before me frankly.

“Have no fear,” said I. “To-night I shall write a few letters that will clear up every trouble back home, and allow us to continue our journey to the Spanish Main.”

“Oh, will you?” cried Jimmy, much relieved. “That’ll be a good scout,” he added.

Suddenly I found myself smiling at him, I who had smiled so rarely these years, whether in the Selkirks or the Himalayas, in Uganda or here in my own little wilderness—because Helena had left me so sad.

“But if I promise, you, also, must promise in turn.”

Used as I was, already, to the astounding changes in Jimmy from boy to buccaneer and back again, I was now interested at the fell scowl which he summoned to his features, as soon as he felt relieved as to the domestic situation. “Speak, fellow!” he demanded; and folding his arms, presented so threatening a front that I saw my man Hiroshimi covertly lay hold upon a carving knife.

“Why, then, my hearties,” said I, “’tis thus. I’ll sign on as sea-lawyer and scrivener, as well as purser for the ship. Yes, I’ll sign articles and voyage with you for a week or a month, or two months, or three. I’ll provender the ship and pay all bills of libel or demurrage in any port of call; and by my fateful gift of second sight, which ye have seen well proven here to-night, not only will I see ye safe for what ye already have done, but will keep ye safe against any enemy we may meet, be he whom he may!”

“’Tis well,” said L’Olonnois. “Say on!”

“And in return I ask a boon.”

“Name it, fellow!”

“Already I have named it—that I, too, shall be accepted as one of the brotherhood. Oh, listen”—I broke out impulsively—“I have never been a pirate, and I have never been a boy. I have had everything in the world I wanted and it made me awfully lonesome, because when you have everything you have nothing. I have nothing to do but eat and sleep, and hunt and fish, and read and write, and study and think, and play my music, here. I do not want to do these things any more. Especially I do not want to think. Boys do not think, and I want to be a boy. I want to be a pirate with you. I want to seek my fortune with you.”

We sat silent, almost solemn for a moment, so sincere was my speech and so startling to them. But thanks to L’Olonnois and his saving book, illusion came to us once more in time.

“Will ye be good brother and true pirate?” demanded L’Olonnois. “And will ye take the oath of blood?”

“That I will!” said I.

“Brothers and good shipmates all”—broke in Jean Lafitte in a deep voice—“what say ye? Shall we put him to the oath?”

“Aye, aye, Sir!” responded the deep chorus of scores of full-chested voices. Or, at least, so it seemed to us, though, mayhap, ’twas no more than Jimmy who spoke.

“Swear him, then!” commanded Jean Lafitte. “Swear him by the oath of blood.”

“We—we haven’t any blood!” whispered L’Olonnois, aside, somewhat troubled.

“That have we, mates,” said I, “and the ceremony shall have full solemnity.”

I took up my keen hunting knife and deliberately and slowly opened the side of my thumb, more to the pain of Jimmy, I fancy, than to myself, as I could see by the twitch of his features.

“By this blood I swear!” said I: “and on the point of my blade I swear to be a true pirate; to fight the fight of all; to divulge no plans of the company; and to share with my brothers share and share alike of all booty we may take.”

“’Tis well!” said L’Olonnois, much impressed and delighted, as also was his mate, very evidently.

“And now, my brothers,” said I, “you, also, must swear to divulge no secret of mine that you may learn, to tell nothing of my plans, or my name, or the name of the port where I signed on the rolls.”

“We don’t know your name,” said Jimmy, “but neither of us will give you away.”

Jean Lafitte was all for opening up his own thumb for blood, but I stopped him. “This will do,” said I, and stained his fingers and those of L’Olonnois—who grew pale at sight of it to his evident disgust.

So, thus, I became a pirate, and we three were brother rovers of the deep. I fancied my associates would be loyal. I was thinking of a certain cousin of the younger pirate. Not for worlds would I seek to pursue her now; but there had arisen in my soul, already, a sort of strange wonder whether some intent of fate had sent this youngster here to remind me once more of her, whom I would forget.

“Now,” said I at last, “let us seek what fare the castle offers for the night.” I could see they were tired and sleepy, and so found for them bath and clean pajamas—somewhat too large to be sure—and good beds in the wing of my log house. And never, as I be a true pirate, never have I seen so many and so various single-fire and revolving short arms, in my life, as these two buccaneers disclosed when they unbelted and laid aside their jackets! Even thus equipped, I found them looking enviously at my walls, where hung weapons of many lands. I sent them to bed happier by telling them that, in the morning, they should select such as they chose for the equipment of our vessel. “Gee!” said Jean Lafitte again. “Gee! Gee!” He was so happy that I, too, was happy. It was L’Olonnois who changed that.

“Methinks,” said he, regarding me sternly, “that in yonder ivy-clad halls might dwell some lady fair! Tell me, is it not so?”

He stretched a thin arm out, in the sleeve of my smallest pajamas, and pointed a slender finger at the interior of my castle of dreams. Alas, after all it was empty! My old melancholy came back to me.

“No, my brothers,” said I, “no maid has ever passed yon door. No, nor ever will.”

L’Olonnois bent his flaxen head in dignified and manly sympathy. “I see,” said he, “our brother in his youth has, perhaps, been deceived by some fair one!”

Upon which I left them for my own room.

If two buccaneers in my castle slept well that night, a third did not. Anopheles might go hang. I did not fancy my new microscope. I doubted if my last violin were a real Strad. I did not like the last music my dealers had sent out to me. My studies of Confucius and Buddha might go hang, and my new book as well. For now, before me, came the face of a certain pirate’s aunt, and she was indeed a lady fair. And I knew full well—as I had known all these years, although I had tried to deceive myself into believing otherwise—that gladly as I had exchanged the city for the wilderness, with equal gladness would I exchange my leisure, all my wealth, all my belongings, for a moment’s touch of her hand, a half-hour of talk heart-to-heart with her, so that, indeed, I might know the truth; so that, at least, I might have it direct from her, bitter though the truth might be.

CHAPTER V IN WHICH WE SAIL FOR THE SPANISH MAIN

WHEN, in the morning, I passed from my quarters toward the main room which served me both as living-room and dining hall, I found that my pirate guests were also early risers. I could hear them arguing over some matter, which proved to be no more serious than the question of a cold bath of mornings, Jimmy maintaining that everybody had a cold bath every morning, whereas John insisted with equal heat that nobody ever bathed (“washed,” I think he called it), oftener than once a week, to wit, on Saturdays only. They engaged in a pillow fight to settle it, and as Jimmy had John fairly well smothered by his rapid fire, I voted that the ayes appeared to have it when they referred the point to me.

As we are very remote and never visited in my wilderness home, it is not infrequent that I take my