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

a pirut ship, a week, like the chance you got, an’ beshrew me, but any heartless jade would be mine!”

“Oh, maybe not, Jimmy.”

“—Or else she’d walk the plank.”

“There isn’t any plank to walk here, Jimmy,” said I, pointing to our boat, which lay in the shoals far out. “I rather wish there were.”

“You’ll have to carry my Auntie Helen out on yore strong right arm, Black Bart.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort, Jimmy.”

“Don’t you like her no more? An’ if you don’t, what’re we here for?”

I could foresee embarrassments in further conversation with Jimmy in his present truculent mood, so sought out others less mutinous, and gave orders for the striking of the camp and the embarkment of all in the small boats. I left Peterson and Willy to take the ladies and most of the duffel in the large boat, assigned John the dingey for his cook boat, and decided to pole the light draft duck boat over the shallows direct to the yacht, taking my two associates with me. It was necessary, of course, to carry our fair passengers out to the long boat, which was some distance out on the flat beach. Peterson and I made a cradle for Mrs. Daniver, with our locked hands, and so got her substantial weight aboard. Helena mutely waited, but seeing her so, and unwilling myself to be so near to her any more, I motioned her to step into the flat duck boat, dry shod, and so poled her out to the long boat; but I did so in silence, nor did she look up or speak to me.

Our new pilot sat in his own boat, and was towed back, after rendering some assistance with the cargoes; so now, at last, I was ready to leave a spot which, in any other circumstances, would have offered much charm for a man fond of the out-of-doors. As for my young friends, they were almost in tears as they sat, looking back longingly at the great flights of all manner of wild fowl continuously streaming in and out of the lagoon. At any other time, I would have been unwilling as any to depart, but, now, the whole taste and flavor of life had left me, and no interest remained in any of my old occupations or enjoyments. All that remained was the action necessary to deliver Helena and her aunt back to the usual scenes of their lives, to make their losses as light as possible, to take my own losses, and so close the books of my life.

“There they come!” said Jean Lafitte, pointing to a vast gaggle of clamoring wild geese coming in from the bay. “Right over our point, Jimmy! Gee! I wisht I was under them fellers right now. Pow! Pow!”

“Aw, shut up!” was Jimmy’s reply. “We won’t never get no chance like this again. Why, looky here, we was reg’lar castaways on a real desert island, an’ we had a abandoned ship, an’ we c’d ’a’ lived chiefly by huntin’ an’ fishin’; and we had evaded all pursuit an’ run off with the fair captive to a place o’ hidin’—why, it’s all just like in the book. An’ what do we do? Why, we go home! Wouldn’t it frost you? An’ what’s worse, we let the heartless jade get away with it, too! Ain’t that so?”

“Yes, that’s true, Jimmy,” I replied.

“Well, I was talkin’ to Jean Lafitte—but it’s so. We started out all right as pirates, but now we let a girl bluff us.”

“What would you do, Jimmy, in a case like that?” I inquired.

“I would wring the wench’s slender neck, beshrew me! She couldn’t put over none o’ that coarse work on me. No, curses on her fair face!”

“That will do, Jimmy!” said I, and pushed on in silence, Jean Lafitte very grave, and Jimmy snuffling, now, in his grief at leaving the enchanted island. So, all much about the same time, we reached the Belle Helène and went aboard. The ladies went at once to their cabin, and I saw neither again that day, although I sent down duck, terrapin and ninety-three for their dinner that night.

In half an hour we were under way; and in an hour and a half, having circumvented our long desert island, we were passing through the cut-off which led us back into Côte Blanche, some fifty miles, I presume, from what was to be our voyage’s end. We still were in the vast marsh country, an inaccessible region teeming with wild life. The sky now was clear, the air once more warm, the breeze gentle, and all the country roundabout us had a charm quite its own. A thousand side channels led back into the fortresses of the great sea-marsh, to this or that of the many lakes, lagoons and pond holes where the wild fowl found their feeding beds. Here was this refuge, where they fled to escape persecution, the spot most remote, secluded, secret, inaccessible. Here nature conspired to balk pursuit. The wide shallows made a bar now to the average sailing craft, and as for a motor-yacht like ours, the presence of a local pilot, acquainted with all the oyster reefs and shallows, all the channels and cut-offs, made us feel more easy, for we knew we could no longer sail merely by compass and chart. A great sense of remoteness from all the world came over me. I scarce could realize that yonder, so lately left behind, roared the mad tumult of the northern cities. This wide expanse was broken by no structure dedicated to commerce, not even the quiet spire of some rural church arose among the lesser edifices of any village—not even the blue smoke of some farmhouse marked the dwelling-place of man. It was the wilderness, fit only for the nomad, fit only for the man resentful of restraint and custom, longing only for the freedom of adventure and romance. The cycles of Cathay lay here in these gray silences, the leaf of the lotus pulsed on this lazy sea. Ah! here, here indeed were surcease and calm.

And all this I was leaving. I was going back now to the vast tumult of the roaring towns, to the lip of mockery, the eye of insincerity, the hand of hypocrisy, where none may trust a neighbor. And moreover, I was going back without one look, face to face, into the eyes and the heart of the woman I had loved, and who, by force of these extraordinary circumstances had, for a miraculous moment, been thus set down with me, her lover, in the very surroundings built of Providence for secrecy and love! Yonder, speeding to her summons, no doubt hastened, ready to meet her, the man whom she had preferred above me. And like a beast of burden, driven in the service of these two, I was plodding on, in the work of leaving paradise and opportunity, and delivering safe into the hands of another man the woman whom I loved far more than all else in all the world.

CHAPTER XXXVII IN WHICH IS PHILOSOPHY; WHICH, HOWEVER, SHOULD NOT BE SKIPPED

WE passed on steadily to the northward until mid-afternoon, making no great headway with one propellor missing, but leaving the main gulf steadily, and at length, raising, a faint blue loom on the sky, the long oak-crowned heights of those singular geological formations, the heights known as “islands”, that bound the head of this great bay. Here the land, springing out of the level marshes and alluvial wet prairies, thrusts up in long reefs, hundreds of feet above the sea level. On the eminences grow ancient and mossy forest trees, as well as much half-tropic brake in the lower levels. Here are wide and rich acres also, owned as hereditary fees by old proud families, part of whose wealth comes from their plantations, part from their bay fisheries, and much from the ancient salt mines which lie under these singular uplifts above the great alluvial plain. As of right, here grow mansion homes, and here is lived life as nearly feudal and as wholly dignified and cultured as any in any land. Ignorant of the banal word “aristocracy,” here, uncounting wealth, unsearching of self and uncritical of others, simple and fine, folk live as the best ambition of America might make one long to live, so far above the vulgar northern scramble for money and display as might make angels weep for the latter in the comparison.

Perhaps it was Edouard Manning, planter, miner, sportsman, gentleman, traveler, scholar and host, who first taught me what wealth might mean, may mean, ought to mean. Always, before now, I had approached his home with joy, as that of an old friend. There, I knew, I would find horses, guns, dogs, good sport and a simple welcome; and I could read or ride as I preferred. A king among all the cousins of Jean Lafitte, Monsieur Edouard. Hereabouts ran the old causeway by which the wagon reached the “importations” of Jean’s barges, brought inland from his schooners hid in the marshes far below. Here, too, as is well known in all the state, was the burying-ground of Jean Lafitte’s treasure-chests: for, though the old adventurer sold silks and tobaccos and sugars very cheap to the planters and traders, he secreted, as is well known, great store of plate, bullion and minted coins, at divers points about the several miles of forest covered heights; so that the very atmosphere thereabout—till custom stales it for the visitor who comes often there—reeks with the flavor of pieces of eight, Spanish doubloons, and rare gems of the Orient. Laughingly, many a time Monsieur Edouard had agreed to go a-treasure hunting with me, even had showed me several of the curious old treasure-keys, maps and cabalistic characters which tell the place where Lafitte and his men buried their gold—such maps as are kept as secret heirlooms in many a Cajun family.

But now, as I saw myself once more approaching this pleasant spot so well known to me, I felt little of the old thrill of eagerness come over me. True, Edouard would be there, and the dogs, and the birds, and the horses, and the quiet welcome. True, also, I could, either in truth or by evasion, establish a pleasant and conventional footing for all my party—it would be easy to explain so natural and pleasant an incident as a visit during a yacht cruise, and to laugh at all that silly newspaper sensation which by now must fully have blown over. True, Monsieur Edouard would be charmed to meet the woman whose influence on my life he knew so well. Yes, I could tell him everything easily, nicely, except the truth; which was, that I was bringing to another man’s arms the woman whom he knew I loved. No, the blue loom of Manning’s Island gave me no joy now. I wished it three thousand miles away instead of thirty. I wished that almost anything might prevent my arrival—accident, delay.

And then, in the most natural way in the world, there were both! Without much warning, the pulse of our engine slackened, the throb of our single screw slowed down and ceased. Williams stuck his head up out of his engine-room and shouted something to Peterson, who methodically drew out his pipe and made ready for a smoke.

“It’s no use going any farther,” explained Williams when I came up. “That intake’s gone wrong again, and she’s got sand all through her. It’s a crime to see her cut herself all to pieces this way. We’ve just got to stop and clean her up, that’s all, and fix the job