Текст книги "Doctor Syn on the High Seas"

Автор книги: Russell Thorndike

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Chapter 18

Mutiny

During the twelve years or so that the Imogene kept the seas and

ruled them, there were few Government interested in shipping who had not

posted large rewards for her captain. But Clegg and his loyal rascals

went on plundering and outwitting all her enemies. All those years he

had counted upon the good faith of his crew. Believing in each man, who,

to his profit, had sailed so long with him, he had only once been

troubled with mutiny. On that occasion, off , he ran the ringleader

through the neck in a fair fight. He heard no more of it after that. The

only other case of treachery was the Negro who stole his Virgil,

thinking it a book of magic, and deserted. Against this, he had twelve

years of faithful service, until a mysterious discontent arose, and he

demanded explanation.

“This ship is haunted by a devil,” faltered a spokesman. “He speaks

to us in the night watches, warning us against you for our safety. He

says you once blew up your own ship, sacrificing all to steal their

treasure. He says you will do it again to us.”

Mipps answere d this: “Clegg never blew up his own ship in this life.

You might as well accuse me of such a thing. Who is this funny croaker?”

“He comes at night from the hold, like a stowaway, and we fear him,”

replied the man nervously. “He says we must maroon the c aptain or die.”

– 106 -

‘I’ll have neither ghost, devil nor stowaway aboard my ship unless he

signs our articles,” cried Syn. “Down to the hold, you dog, and rout him

out. I have a wish to see this devil face to face.”

“Here, and you remeber me. I speak now.”

Syn turned at the dreadful voice behind him, and face the mulatto. He

recognized him at once as the sole survivor of the Sulphur Pit.

Immediately the rascal began to prophesy dreadful things against the

ship and crew unless they disposed of their captain by making him walk

the plank or by marooning.

“Seize him and lash him to the mast,” cried Syn.

Shuhshuhgah and Mipps were on him in a second, and Syn helped them

bind him to the mast.

“Give me your scalping-knife, and I’ll cut the mulatto’s mouth open.”

“I’ll do my own dirty work,” said Syn.

“I am so skilled at it,” answered the Redskin.

To the astonished and terrified crew, there seemed to be three quick

movements of the Indian’s ar ms, and three things fell behind him on the

deck. A tongue was cut out at the root, and two severed ears. “No talk.

No hear,” said the Indian grimly.

Mipps picked up the grisly objects and threw them overboard.

“Make for that coral reef. We’ll put him ashore there,” said Syn.

He cut the man’s bonds, and ordered a boat to be lowered. It was

Mipps and the Indian who went with him, while Syn kept the ship, facing

his coward crew.

“That’s the uncharted reef where the tide rises fathoms deep,” said

one of them.

“It will be the more merciful,” said Syn. “Water and sharks.”

They watched the marooning in silence, every man aboard. when the

boat was once more hoisted, and Mipps and Shuhshuhgah were aboard, the

crew pushed forward Pete, the Chinese cook, to be their spokesman. He

stammered out that they wished to put the ship back, so that they could

rescue the marooned man. In a blind rage, Clegg snatched a marine-spike

from Mipps, and broke the yellow dog’s back with it. Pete fell dead upon

the deck , and as Mipps and Shuhshuhgah tossed him overboard, the mad

captain, with drawn sword, drove the men to the rigging as he roared:

“Get up aloft, you dogs. Cram on the canvas. Every stitch. I’ll have no

muiny aboard my ship. NO, nor devils neither, other than myself.”

The ship leapt on through the lashing foam, while the sinister

wailing of the marooned man’s tongueless voice echoed the rigging, and

long after he had disappeared below the skyline, they all seemed to see

his tall, weird figure rising up into the sky and following the ship.

But Syn saw more. Whenever he looked into the waters, he had to shut his

eyes against the grinning face of yellow Pete.

Chapter 19

The Mulatto

From the South Seas and the coral reef, they sailed for weeks on end

towards their harbourage. Not only the crew, but Clegg kept to himself,

thought of nothing but the horror of that marooning. Safe on duty, clegg

kept to his cabin. He seemed dazed. On one occasion, he called Mipps and

whispered: “Look at my forearm, here above the writst. I was never

tattooed in all my life, and yet, there is the picture of a man walking

the plank with a shark beneath. How cam this symbol here?”

– 107 -

“I done it for you,” said Mipps—”that night at Santiago, after we’d

sacked the town. You and me was drinking, and I never see you drunk

before. You ordered me to do it with the help of Yellow Pete, the cook.”

“I can see Pete’s face looking up at me dead from the sea, always,”

whispered Syn. “It was a fault, this tattooing. A man can be identified

so easily by that, and I have suddenly no wish to be known as Clegg.

Nicholas is tattooed from head to foot. I have driven him round and

round the world, and he has fled because he could be so easily

identified. Now I am in like case, for I am followed by the dead hulk

of that mulatto. So long as I sail ships, so long will he be following

in the wake. If I give up my chase for Nicholas, perhaps that haunting

will give up chasing me. I always feel him f ollowing the ship, just as I

alwys see Yellow Pete’s face in the waters. ‘Tis bad enough to be

shadowed by a living man, as Nicholas has been; but to be followed by a

corpse is too much to endure. Where can I hide from it?”

“Dymchurch-under-the-Wall,” w hispered Mipps. “Go back there as parson

and thank God for a whole skin. Maybe I will go there one day too, but

now for your sake, sir, it’s beter if we separate. Shuhshuhgah and

myself have spoke of it. We can hide up your tracks. I take your sea chest an d stow it safe in Boston, where you can book passage for

England. You must get to Boston by way of the Redkins’ country. You and

the long -missing Shuhshuhgah, returning like the prodigals, after years

of preaching the ‘Oly Gospel to the savages.”

“And give up my vengeance?” asked Syn.

“You may as easily catch Black Nick there as on the high seas of the

world,” said Mipps. “Besides, he may be dead, same as he said his wife

was when he wrote and pleaded with you for mercy.”

“I’ll not believe she’s dead,” said Syn. “He is a proved liar. When

he sent me that leter some years ago, I knew it in my heart that he

lied. I think even yet, I’ll reckon with them both. Aye, perhaps at

Dymchurch.”

Many months later, Doctor Syn, with the Redskins’ help, rejoined

Mipps in Boston. By this time he had begun to think that Nicholas must

be dead.

“So, all that is left to me,” he said, “is Romney Marsh and quiet

years. But will the past rise up against me even there?”

“Not so far as the pirates is concerned,” rep lied Mipps. “And let me

tell you, sir, the Imogene ain’t the first ship to have gone to Davy

Jones’ Locker through of piece of carelessness in the powder magazine.”

“Have you done that again?” demanded Syn.

Mipps looked offended, “I’m a one -man servant, I am, sir, and dead

pirates tell no tales.”

“All of them?” asked Syn.

Mipps nodded. “Every man aboard. And no deaf mute this time swimming

about neither. A thorough job I made of it, believe me, sir.”

“God rest their souls!” said the parson piously.

“Amen,” replied Mipps with equal piety.

Doctor Syn sadly shook his head.

Mipps winked.

Chapter 20

The Return

Mervyn Ransom, master and owner of the brig City of London, trading

between New England and the Port of London, had a great liking for his

passenger, Doctor Syn. He respected this quiet scholar who had given up

so many years, in the service of Christianity amongst the Indian tribes.

The voyage was uneventful till they reached at last, the Channel. There

they ran into the greatest storm the south coast had seen for many a

year, and as they drove along towards the Kent coast, the captain of the

ship began to give up hope. This parson was first aloft to trim sails,

and had it not been for some uncanny knowledge of the coast, which came

back to him across the years, they would have run foul of Dungeness. And

then the fire broke out in the hold. The heat was unbearable, the waves

terrific. The ship was being driven on to Dymchurch Wall.

“‘Tis a short cut to my destination,” cried the parson. “There’s

nothing left but to jump for it.”

With a long cord lashed to his precious seachest and tied to his

wrist, Syn toppled his worldly belongings over the ship’s side, just as

the brig was heading for destruction. The chest landed on the sand

beneath the driving waves, and then Syn and the captain jumped after the

crew, and as they battled with the monster waves, the wind and waters

sang in Syn’s ear:

“Here’s to the feet what have walked the plank,

Yo-ho, for the dead man’s trottle,

And here’s to the corpses afloat in the tank,

And the dead man’s teeth in the bottle.”

THE END