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"Yea, Martin, it touches the heart of your old captain to see with what pleasure you receive him."
"Th'art a cunning devil," Martin muttered, and babbled oaths and curses.
"We must sleep. Martin -- sleep and eat, for we are spent with much labour and many hardships, and it is well for them to sail
our ship for us a while longer. But the hour eill come, and do you then stand by." The Old One went aft. The ship rolled
drowsily and the watch nodded. Surveying her aloft and alow, as a man does who is used to command, and not as a guest on
board might do, the Old One left the deck.
CHAPTER XI
Head Winds and a Rough Sea
LACKING the mitten she labours by the wind, which hath veered sadly during the night.., quoth Captain Jordan in a sleepy
voice, as with his host he came upon deck betimes.
"I like it little," the master replied.
"It would be well to lay a new course and sail on a new voyage. There is small gain to be got from these fisheries. A southern
voyage, now, promises returns worth the labour."
To this Captain Candle made no reply. He studied the sore damage done to the ship, upon which already the carpenter was at
work.
"With a breadth of canvas and hoops to batten the edges fast, and over all a coating of tar, a man might make her as tight and
dry as you please," said the Old One. He smiled when he spoke and his manner galled his host.
"It was in my own mind," Captain Candle replied, with an angry lift of his head. There are few things more grievously
harassing than the importunity and easy assurance of a guest of whom there is no riddance. it puts a man where he is
peculiarly helpless to defend himself, and already Captain Candle's patience had ebbed far. "Bid the boatswain overhaul his
canvas, mate, and the carpenter prepare such material as be needful. Aye, and bid the 'liar' stand ready to go over the side.
'Twill cool his hot pride, of which it seems he hath full measure."
"Yea, yea!"
As the master paced the deck, back and forth and back and forth, the Old One walked at his side -- for he was a shrewd
schemer and had calculated his part well -- until the master's gorge rose. "I must return to the cabin," he said at last, "and
overhaul my journal."
"I will bear you company."
"No, no!"
The Old One smiled as if in deprecation; but as the master turned away, the smile broadened to a grin.
Boatswain Marsham and the one-eyed carpenter who wore a beard like a goat's were on their way to the fore- hold. The cook
and his mate were far down in the cook- room. Ten men in the watch below were sound asleep -- but Martin Barwick, the
eleventh man in the watch, was on deck, and of the eleven rescued men not one was below. With Captain Candle safe in his
cabin and busied over his journal, there were left from the company of the Rose of Devon eight men and the mate, and one
man of the eight was at the helm. These the Old One counted as he took a rum on the quarter-deck.
The Old One and his men were refreshed by a night of sleep and restored by good food. To all appearances, without care or
thought to trouble them, they ruffled about the deck. One was standing just behind the mate; two were straying toward the
steerage.
"Thy boatswain is a brave lad," the Old One said to the mate, and stepping in front of him, he spread his legs and folded his
arms.
The mate nodded. He had less liking for their guest, if it were possible, than the captain.
"A brave lad," the Old One repeated. "I can use him."
"You? "
"Yea, I."
The mate drew back a step, as a man does when another puts his face too near. He was on the point of speaking; but before
his lips had phrased a word the Old One raised his hand and the man behind the mate drove six inches of blue steel into the
mate's back, between his ribs and through his heart.
He died in the Old One's arms, for the Old One caught him before he fell, and held him thus.
"Well done," the Old One said to his man.
"Not so well as one could wish," the man replied, wiping his knife on the mate's coat. "He perished quietly enough, but the
knife bit into a rib and the feeling of a sharp knife dragging upon bone sets my teeth on edge."
The Old One laughed. "Thy stomach is exceeding queasy," he said. "Come, let us heave him over the side." All this,
remember, had happened quickly and very quietly. There were the three men standing by the quarter-deck ladder--the Old
One and his man and the mate -- and by all appearances the Old One merely put out his hands in a friendly manner to the
other, for the knife thrust was hidden by a cloak. But now the mate's head fell forward in a queer, lackadaisical way and four
of the Old One's men, perceiving what they looked for, slipped past him through the door to the steerage room, where they
clapped down the hatch to the main deck. One stood on the hatch; two stood by the door of the great cabin; and the fourth,
stepping up to the man at the helm, flashed a knife from his sleeve and cut the fellow down.
It was a deft blow, but not so sure as the thrust that had killed the mate. The helmsman dropped the whip- staff and, falling,
gave forth a yell and struck at his assailant, who again let drive at him with the knife and finished the work, so that the fellow
lay with bloody froth at his lips and with fingers that twitched a little and then were still.
The man who had killed him took the whip staff and called softly, "Holla, master! We hold the helm!" then from his place he
heard a sailor cry out, "The mate is falling! Lend him aid!"
Then the Old One's voice, rising to a yell, called, "Stand back! Stand off! Now, my hearts!"
There came a quick tempest of voices, a shrill cry, the pounding of many feet, then a splash, then a cry wilder and more shrill
than any before, "Nay, I yield -- quarter! Quarter, I say! Mercy! God's mercy, I beg of you! Help -O God!"
There was at the same time a rumble of hoarse voices and a sound of great struggling, then a shriek and a second splash.
The man at the helm kicked the dead helmsman to one side and listened. In the great cabin, behind the bulk- head at his back,
he heard a sudden stir. As between the mainmast and the forecastle the veils rose louder, the great cabin door burst open and
out rushed Captain Francis Candle in a rich waist with broad cuffs at his wrists, his hair new oiled with jessamine butter, and
gallant bows at his knees, for he was a fine gentleman who had first gone to sea as a lieutenant in the King's service. As he
rushed out the door the man lying in wait on the left struck a fierce blow to stab him, but the knife point broke on a steel plate
which it seemed Captain Candle wore concealed to foil just such dastardly work.
Thereupon, turning like a flash, Captain Candle spitted the scoundrel with his sword. But the man lying in wait on the right of
the door saw his fellow's blow fail and perceived the reason, and leaping on the captain from behind, he seized his oiled hair
with one hand and hauled back his head, and reaching forward with the other hand, drove a knife into the captain's bare
throat.
Dark blood from a severed vein streamed out over Captain Candle's collar and his gay waist. He coughed and his eyes grew
dull. He let go his sword, which remained stuck through the body of the man who had first struck at him, clapped his hand to
his neck, and went down in a heap.
The yells on deck had ceased and the man who had killed Francis Candle, after glancing into the great cabin where the
captain's cloak lay spread over the chair from which he rose to step out of his door and die -- where the captain's pen lay
across the pages of the open journal and a bottle of the captain's wine, which he had that morning shared with his guest,
Captain Thomas Jordan, stood beside the unstoppered bottle of ink--walked forth upon the deck and nodded to the Old One,
who stood with his hand on the after swivel gun.
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