Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader. Robert Michael Ballantyne
for the sandal-wood trade between these islands and Calcutta, Manilla, and Australia. One of them, the Avenger, was seized on her first voyage, by this Durward, then mate of the schooner, and has ever since scoured the South Seas as a pirate; the other, named the Foam, which I have the misfortune to command, still continues the traffic for which she was originally built.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Montague, turning suddenly round with an inquiring gaze at the stalwart figure of the sandal-wood trader; “it is most fortunate that I have met with you, Mr Gascoyne. I doubt not that you can conduct me to this vessel of yours, so that I may know the pirate when I fall in with him. If the two vessels resemble each other so closely, a sight of the Foam will be of great service to me in my search after the Avenger.”
“You are most welcome to a sight of my craft,” replied Gascoyne. “The only difference between the two is, that the figurehead of the pirate is a griffin’s head, painted scarlet, that of my schooner is a female, painted white. There is also a red streak round the sides of the pirate; the hull of the Foam is entirely black.”
“Will you come on board my vessel, and accompany me in one of my boats to yours?” inquired Montague.
“That is impossible,” replied Gascoyne; “I came here on urgent business which will not brook delay; but my schooner lies on the other side of the island; if you pull round, my mate will receive you. You will find him a most intelligent and hospitable man. He will conduct you over the vessel, and give you all the information you may desire. Meanwhile,” added the captain of the Foam, rising and putting on his cap, “I must bid you adieu.”
“Nay, but you have not yet told me when or where you last saw or heard of this remarkable pirate, who is so clever at representing other people, perhaps I should rather say misrepresenting them,” said Montague, with a meaning smile.
“I saw him no longer ago than this morning,” replied Gascoyne gravely. “He is now in these waters, with what intent I know not, unless from his unnatural delight in persecuting me, or, perhaps, because fate has led him into the very jaws of the lion.”
“Humph! he will find that I bite before I roar, if he does get between my teeth,” said the young officer.
“Surely you are mistaken, Gascoyne,” interposed Henry Stuart, who, along with John Bumpus, had hitherto been silent listeners to the foregoing conversation. “Several of our people have been out fishing among the islands, and have neither seen nor heard of this redoubted pirate.”
“That is possible enough, boy, but I have seen him, nevertheless, and I shall be much surprised if you do not see and hear more of him than you desire before many days are out. That villain does not sail the seas for pastime, you may depend on it.”
As Gascoyne said this, the outer door of the house was burst violently open, and the loud voice of a boy was heard in the porch or short passage that intervened between it and the principal apartment of the cottage, shouting wildly—“Ho! hallo! hurrah! I say, Widow Stuart! Henry! here’s a business—sich fun! only think, the pirate’s turned up at last, and murdered half the niggers in—”
There was an abrupt stoppage both of the voice and the muscular action of this juvenile tornado as he threw open the door with a crash, and, instead of the widow or her son, met the gaze of so many strangers. The boy stood for a few seconds on the threshold, with his curly brown hair dishevelled, and his dark eyes staring in surprise, first at one, then at another of the party, until at length they alighted on John Bumpus. The mouth, which up to that moment had formed a round O of astonishment, relaxed into a broad grin, and, with sudden energy, exclaimed—
“What a grampus!”
Having uttered this complimentary remark, the urchin was about to retreat, when Henry made a sudden dart at him, and caught him by the collar.
“Where got you the news, Will Corrie?” said Henry, giving the boy a squeeze with his strong hand.
“Oh, please, be merciful, Henry, and I’ll tell you all about it. But, pray, don’t give me over to that grampus,” cried the lad, pretending to whimper. “I got the news from a feller, that said he’d got it from a feller, that saw a feller, who said he’d heard a feller tell another feller, that he saw a black feller in the bush, somewhere or other ’tween this and the other end o’ the island, with a shot hole in his right arm, running like a cogolampus, with ten pirates in full chase. Ah! oh! have mercy, Henry; really my constitution will break down if you—”
“Silence, you chatter-box, and give me a reasonable account of what you have heard or seen, if you can.”
The volatile urchin, who might have been about thirteen years of age, became preternaturally grave all of a sudden, and, looking up earnestly in his questioner’s face, said, “Really, Henry, you are becoming unreasonable in your old age, to ask me to give you a reasonable account of a thing, and at the same time to be silent!”
“I’ll tell you what, Corrie, I’ll throttle you if you don’t speak,” said Henry.
“Ah! you couldn’t,” pleaded Corrie in a tone of deep pathos.
“P’raps,” observed John Bumpus, “p’raps if you hand over the young gen’l’m’n to the ‘grampus,’ he’ll make him speak.”
On hearing this, the boy set up a howl of affected despair, and suffered Henry to lead him unresistingly to within a few feet of Bumpus, but, just as he was within an inch of the huge fist of that nautical monster, he suddenly wrenched his collar out of his captor’s grasp, darted to the door, turned round on the threshold, hit the side of his own nose a sounding slap with the forefinger of his right hand, uttered an inexpressively savage yell, vanished from the scene, and,—
“Like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Left not a wreck behind.”
Except the wreck of the milk-saucer of the household cat, which sagacious creature had wisely taken to flight at the first symptom of war.
The boy was instantly followed by Henry, but so light was his foot, that the fastest runner in the settlement had to penetrate the woods immediately behind his mother’s house for a quarter of a mile before he succeeded in again laying hold of the refractory lad’s collar.
“What do you mean, Corrie, by such conduct?” said his captor, shaking him vigorously. “I have half a mind to give you a wallopping.”
“Never do anything by halves, Henry,” said the boy mildly. “I never do. It’s a bad habit; always go the whole length or none. Now that we are alone, I’ll give you a reasonable account of what I know, if you’ll remove your hand from my collar. You forget that I’m growing, and that, when I am big enough, the day of reckoning between us will surely come!”
“But why would you not give me the information I want in the house. The people you saw there are as much interested in it as I am.”
“Oh! are they?” returned Corrie with a glance of peculiar meaning; “perhaps they are more interested than you are.”
“How so?”
“Why, how do I know, and how do you know, that these fellows are not pirates in disguise?”
“Because,” said Henry, “one of them is an old friend—that is, an acquaintance—at least a sort of intimate, who has been many and many a time at our house before, and my mother knows him well. I can’t say I like him—that is to say, I don’t exactly like some of his ways—though I don’t dislike the man himself.”
“A most unsatisfactory style of reply, Henry, for a man—ah, beg pardon, a boy—of your straightforward character. Which o’ the three are you speaking of—the grampus?”
“No, the other big handsome-looking fellow.”
“And you’re sure you’ve known him long?” continued the boy, while an expression of perplexity flitted over his face.
“Quite sure; why?”
“Because I