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

are robbers, pirates, what you like, and suppose a price is put on our heads—a price which means a jolly nice libel suit for each paper printing it, by the way, or a jolly nice apology—none the less, we are a strong band and without fear either of the law or of you. Here you are alone, and not a sail is in sight. If any boat did come here, we could—well, we could blow her out of the water, couldn’t we, Peterson? We could blow you out of the water, too, couldn’t we, we and these ruffians of our crew?”—and I pointed at the two low-browed pictures of Lafitte and L’Olonnois.

A shudder was my only answer. I think the two portraits of my young bullies did the business.

“Very well, then,” I resumed, “it is plain, Messieurs, that there is many a slip between the reward and the pocket, voyez vous? Bien! But here—” and I thrust a hand into my pocket—“is a reward much closer home, and far easier to attain.”

Their eyes bulged as they saw two or three thousand dollars in big bills smoothed out.

“Ecoutez, Messieurs!” said I. “Behold here not enemies, but men of like mind. I speak of men who live by the sea, men of the old home of Jean Lafitte, that great merchant, that bold soldier, who did so much to save his country at the Battle. Even now he has thousands of friends and hundreds of relatives in this land. You yourself, I doubt not, Messieurs, are distant cousins of Jean Lafitte? N’est-ce pas?”

They crossed themselves, but murmured “Ba-oui!” “Est ees the trut’! How did Monsieur know?” asked the tender.

“I know many things. I know that any cousin descended from those brave days loves the sea and its ways more than he loves the law. And if money has come easy—as this did—what harm if a cousin should take the price of a rat-skin or two and carry out a letter or so to the railway, and keep a close mouth about it as well? To the good old days, and Messieurs, my friends!” I had seen the neck of a flask in Peterson’s pocket, and now I took it forth, unscrewed the top, and passed it, with two bills of one hundred dollars each.

They poured, grinned. I stood, waiting for their slow brains to act, but there was only a foregone answer. The keeper drank first, as ranking his tender; the other followed; and they handed the flask—not the bills—back to Peterson and me.

“Merci, mes amis!” said I. “And I drink to Jean Lafitte and the old days! Perhaps, you may buy a mass for your cousin’s soul?”

“Ah non!” answered the keeper. “Hees soul she’s hout of Purgatoire long hago eef she’ll goin’ get hout. Me, I buy me some net for s’rimp.”

“An’ me, two harpent more lan’ for my farm,” quoth the tender.

“Alas! poor Jean!” said I. “But he was so virtuous a man that he needs no masses after a hundred years, perhaps. As you like. You will take the letters; and this for the telegraph?”

“Certain’! I’ll took it those,” answered the tender. “You’ll stayed for dish coffee, yass?” inquired the keeper, with Cajun hospitality.

“No, I fear it is not possible, thank you,” I replied. “We must be going soon.”

“An’ where you’ll goin’, Monsieur?”

“Around the island, up the channel, up the old oyster-boat channel of Monsieur Edouard. The letters are some of them for Monsieur Edouard himself. And you know well, mes amis, that once we lie at the wharf of Monsieur Edouard, not the government even of the state will touch us yonder?”

“My faith, non! I should say it—certain’ not! No man he’ll mawnkey wit’ Monsieur Edouard, heem! You’ll was know him, Monsieur?”

“We went to school together. We smoked the same pipe.”

“My faith! You’ll know Monsieur Edouard!” The keeper shook my hand. “H’I’ll was work for Monsieur Edouard manny tam hon hees boat, hon hees plantation, hon hees ’ouse. When I’ll want some leetle money, s’pose those hrat he’ll wasn’t been prime yet, hall H’I’ll need was to go non Monsieur Edouard, hask for those leetle monny. He’ll han’ it on me, yass, heem, ten dollar, jus’ like as heasy Monsieur has gave it me hondred dollar now, yas, heem!”

“Yes? Well, I know that a cousin of Jean Lafitte—who no doubt has dug for treasure all over the dooryard of Monsieur Edouard——”

“But not behin’ the smoke-house—nevair on dose place yet, I’ll swear it!”

“—Very well, suppose you have not yet included the smoke-house of Monsieur Edouard, at least you are his friend. And what Acadian lives who is not a friend of the ladies?”

“Certain’, Monsieur.”

“Very well again. What you see in the paper is all false. The two ladies whose pictures you see here, and here, are yonder at our camp. You shall come and see that they are well and happy, both of them. Moreover, if you like another fifty for the mass for Jean Lafitte’s soul, you, yourself, my friend, shall pilot us into the channel of Monsieur Edouard. We’ll tow your boat behind us across the bay. Is it not?”

“Certain’! oui!” answered the tender. “But you’ll had leetle dish coffee quite plain?” once more demanded the lonesome keeper; and for sake of his hospitable soul we now said yes; and very good coffee it was, too: and the better since I knew it meant we now were friends. Ah! pirate blood is far thicker than any water you may find.

“But if we take you on as pilot, my friend,” said I to the pilot as at length we arose, “how shall we get out our letters after all?”

“Thass hall right,” replied he, “my cousin, Richard Barrière—she’s cousin of Jean Lafitte too, heem—she’ll was my partner on the s’rimp, an’ she’ll was come hon the light, here, heem, to-mor’, yas, heem.”

“And would you give the letters to Mr. Richard Barrière to-morrow?” I inquired of the lighthouse keeper.

“Oui, oui, certain’, assurement, wit’ plaisir, Monsieur,” he replied. So I handed him the little packet.

It chanced that my eye caught sight of one of the two letters Mrs. Daniver had handed me. The address was not in Mrs. Daniver’s handwriting, but one that I knew very well. And the letter, in this handwriting that I knew very well, was addressed to Calvin Horace Davidson, Esquire, The Boston Club, New Orleans, Louisiana: all written out in full in Helena’s own scrupulous fashion.

I gave the letter over to the messenger, but for a time I stood silent, thinking. I knew now very well what that letter contained. But yesterday, Helena Emory had finally decided, there on the beach, alone with me, the salt air on her cheek, the salt tears in her eyes. She had gone far as woman might to tell me that she was grieved over a hasty word—she had given me a chance, my first chance, my only chance, my last chance. And, I, pig-headed fool, had slighted her at the very moment of moments of all my life—I who had prided myself on my “psychology”—I who had thought myself wise—I had allowed that woman to go away with her head drooping when at last she—oh, I saw it all plainly enough now! And now indeed small psychology and small wit were requisite to know the whole process of a woman’s soul, thus chilled. She had been hesitant, had been a little resentful of this runaway situation, had not liked my domineering ways; but at last she had relented and had asked my pardon. Then I had spurned her. And then her mind swung to the other man. She had not yet given that man his answer, but when I chilled her, rejected her timid little desire to “make up” with me—why, then, her mind was made up for that other man at once. She had written his answer. And now—oh! fiendlike cruelty of woman’s heart—she had chosen me as her messenger to carry out that word which would cost me herself forever! She had done that exquisitely well, as she did everything, not even advising me that I was to be her errand boy on such an errand, trusting me to find out by accident, as I had, that I was to be my own executioner, was to spring my own guillotine. She knew that, none the less, though I understood what the letter meant thus addressed, I sacredly must execute her silent trust. Oh! Helena, yours was indeed an exquisite revenge for that one hour of a dour man’s hurt pride.

CHAPTER XXXVI IN WHICH WE FOLD OUR TENTS

BY consent of the lighthouse keeper, we left the Belle Helène moored at the wharf in the channel, with Williams in charge, while Peterson and I, towing the tender’s sailing skiff, its piratical lateen sail lowered, started back for our encampment in our long boat. It was only a half mile or so alongshore around the head of the island, although we had to keep out a bit to avoid going aground on the flats where the Belle Helène had come to grief—and had, moreover, to wade ashore some fifty yards or so, now that the sea was calm, since the keel of the motor-boat would not admit a closer approach in the shallows.

We found our party all assembled, John having but now issued his luncheon call; and, such had proved the swift spell of this care-free life, none expressed much delight at the announcement of my decision to strike camp and move toward civilization. Helena only looked up swiftly, but made no comment; and Mrs. Daniver, to my surprise, openly rebelled at leaving these flesh-pots, where canvasback and terrapin might be had by shaking the bushes, and where the supply of ninety-three seemed, after all, not exhausted. Of course, my men had nothing to say about it, but when it came to my partners and associates, Lafitte and L’Olonnois, there was open mutiny.

“Why, now,” protested L’Olonnois, his lip quivering, “O’ course we don’t want to go home. Ain’t our desert island all right? Where you goin’ to find any better place ’n this, like to know? Besides”—and here he drew me to one side—“they’s a good reason for not goin’ just yet, Black Bart!”

“What, Jimmy?” I inquired.

“Well, I know somethin’.”

“And what is it?”

“Well, Jean Lafitte knows it, too.”

“What is it then?”

“Well, it ain’t happened yet, but it’s goin’ to—or anyhow maybe.”

“You interest me! Is it a matter of importance?”

“—Say it was!”

“To whom?”

“Why, to you—an’ besides, to my Auntie Helena. ’N’ you can’t pull off things like that just anywheres. Jean Lafitte an’ me, we frame up how to handle yon heartless jade, the fair captive, ’n’ here you butt in ’n’ spoil the whole works. It ain’t right.”

I bethought me now of the conversation I had unwillingly overheard—and my heart was grateful to these my friends—but the next instant I remembered the note to Cal Davidson.

“I thank you, Jimmy, my friend,” said I, “and I believe I know what you mean, but it can’t be done.”

“What can’t, an’ why can’t it?”

“Why, the—the frame-up that you have just mentioned. In short—but, Jimmy, go on and roll up the blankets.”

“But why can’t it, and what do you know about it? Tell me,” he demanded with sudden inspiration, “is yon varlet a suitor, too, for yon heartless jade?”

“I decline to answer, Jimmy. Don’t let’s get into too deep water. Go on and get your bundles ready.”

“You’re a fine pirate, ain’t you, Black Bart!” he broke out. “Do you hold yerself fit to head a band o’ bold an’ desprit men, when you let yerself be bluffed by yon varlet, an’ him a thousand miles away? You try me, just you gimme a desert island, or even