Jack stole away, staggering along the high p.o.o.p deck until he could cling to the life-line stretched along the roof of the great cabin.

There he slumped down and feigned helplessness, banged against the bulwark as a dripping heap of misery or kicked aside by the pirates of the watch as they were relieved at the steering tackles. From half-closed eyes he watched Ned Rackham, a vigilant, dominant figure in a tarred jacket and quilted breeches and long sea-boots. Now and again he cupped his hands and yelled in the ear of Captain Wellsby whose beard was gray with brine.

Jack saw that it was hopeless to get a private word with the skipper on deck. The clamor of the storm was too deafening. The one chance was to intercept him in the cabin when he went below for food and drink. Jack dragged himself to the after hatchway which was shoved open a trifle to admit air, and squeezed himself through. Before he tumbled down the steep staircase he turned to glance at Captain Wellsby. Unseen by Ned Rackham, the boy raised his hand in a furtive, beckoning gesture.

The pirates had taken the main room of the after-house for their own use, driving the pa.s.sengers and ship's officers into the small cabins or staterooms. The air was foul below, reeking of the bilges, and the main room was incredibly filthy. The pirates ate from dirty dishes, they had scattered food about, and they kicked off their boots to sleep on the floor like pigs in a sty.

Several of them were seated at the long table, bottle and mug in hand, and the gloomy place was poorly lighted by a swinging whale-oil lamp.

Jack c.o.c.krell crept unnoticed into a corner and was giddy and almost helpless with nausea. It seemed ages before Captain Wellsby's legs appeared in the hatchway and he came down into the cabin, bringing a shower of spray with him. His kindly face was haggard and sad and he tottered from sheer weariness. Pa.s.sing through to his own room, a scurvy pirate hurled refuse food at him, with a silly laugh, and others insulted him with the foulest epithets.

He paid them no heed and they returned to their own amus.e.m.e.nts. Jack c.o.c.krell aroused himself to stumble after the skipper who halted to grasp the lad by the shoulder and shove him headlong into the little room. The door was quickly bolted behind them. A lurch of the vessel flung Jack into the bunk but he managed to sit up, holding his head in his hands, while he feebly implored:

"Did you note me wave my hand, sir, when I came below?"

"Yes, and I followed as soon as I could," answered the master of the _Plymouth Adventure_. "There was the hint of secrecy in your signal, Jack. What's in the wind?"

"I am the only pa.s.senger to win the confidence of one of Blackbeard's crew," explained the lad. "This Joe Hawkridge is true to us, I'll swear it. He is a pressed man, hating his masters. He bids me tell you that Ned Rackham will seize the ship for his own as soon as ever the wind goes down."

"Um-m, is he as bold as that?" grunted the skipper, rubbing his nose with an air of rueful surprise. "No honor among thieves, Jack. I thought him loyal to Blackbeard. I have considered attempting something of my own when the weather permits but this news quickens me. This young imp o' Satan that ye call Joe,--he will side with us in a pinch?"

"Aye, sir. And he knows this Ned Rackham well. There has been talk among the pirates of rising against Blackbeard to follow the fortunes of Sailing-Master Rackham. Here is the ship, as Joe says."

"It has a plausible sound," said Captain Wellsby. "My intention was to wait, but I shall have to strike first."

"Can we fight in this storm, sir, even if we manage to release our sailors?" asked Jack, very dismally.

"Not what we can, but what we must do," growled the stubborn British mariner. "The shame of striking my colors rankles like a wound. G.o.d helping me, we shall wipe out that stain if we drown in a sinking ship.

I talk to you as a man, Master c.o.c.krell, for such you have proven yourself. And who else is there to serve me in this adventure?"

"To set our sailors free, you mean, sir?" eagerly exclaimed Jack. "I took thought of that. There is n.o.body but me, neither your mates nor the pa.s.sengers, who can pa.s.s among the pirates without suspicion. The knaves have humored me, hearing the tale of the pirate I knocked on the head and my braggart remark to Blackbeard. They have seen me about the decks with Joe Hawkridge as my boon comrade. 'Tis their fancy that I am likely to enlist."

"Well said, Jack," was the skipper's compliment. "Yes, you might make your way for'ard without interference,--but the fo'castle hatches are stoutly guarded. Again, should my brave fellows find exit, they are weaponless, unready. Moreover, they have been crammed in that dark hole, drenched by the sea, cruelly bruised by the tossing of the ship, and weakened for lack of food and air."

"Granted, sir," sighed Jack. "But if some message could be smuggled in to forewarn them of the enterprise,--would that brace 'em to the a.s.sault?"

"Will ye try it, Jack?" asked the skipper, with a note of appeal in his hearty voice. "I know not where else to turn. You take your life in your hands but----"

The shipmaster broke off with a grim smile. It was absurd to prate of life or death in such a strait as this. The boy reflected before he said:

"If--if I fail, sir, Joe Hawkridge will try to pa.s.s a message in to the men. You can depend on 't."

"A last resort, Jack. You vouch for him but I trust you far sooner. He has kept sorry company."

"When is the best hour, Captain Wellsby?"

"Just before nightfall when the watches will be changing. I dare not delay it longer than that. In darkness, my lads will be unable to find the foe and strike hard and quick. Nor can they rush to lay hold of the only weapons in their reach,--the pikes in the racks beside the masts.

Not a pistol or cutla.s.s amongst 'em, and they must fight with these wicked dogs of pirates who think naught of killing men."

"Let your l.u.s.ty sailors once get clear, sir," stoutly declared Jack c.o.c.krell, "and they will play a merry game with those long pikes. Then I am to slip the message written by your hand on a bit of paper?"

"That's it! I will command them to pound against the scuttle, three raps, for a signal of response, and you must listen for it. Then it is for them to stand ready, on the chance that you can slip the bar of the hatch or the bolts on the door."

"But if they have to come out singly, sir, and the sentries are ready-witted, why, your men may be cut down or pistoled in their tracks."

"I am so aware," said Captain Wellsby, his honest features glum, "but we cannot change the odds."

He found an ink-horn and quill and laboriously wrote a few lines on a leaf torn from the back of a sea-stained log-book. Jack tucked it carefully away and thus they parted company, perhaps to meet no more in life. Through the waning afternoon, Jack stowed himself on deck and held long converse with Joe Hawkridge when they met between the keel-chocks of the jolly-boat. Because he shared not the skipper's feeling of distrust, Jack sought the active aid of his chum of a pirate lad. It was agreed that they should endeavor to reach the forecastle together when the ship's bell tolled the hour of beginning the first night watch.

Joe hoped he might decoy or divert the sentries. If not, he had another scheme or two. A gunner's mate of the prize crew had sent him to overhaul the lashings of the battery of nine-pounders which were ranged along the waist. With several other hands Joe had made all secure, because the guns were apt to get adrift in such weather as this and plunge to and fro across the deck like maddened beasts. Now Joe Hawkridge had lingered, on pretext of making sure that one forward gun could be fired, if needs be, as a distress signal should the ship open her seams or strike upon a shoal.

He had satisfied himself that the tompion, or wooden plug which sealed the muzzle was tight, and that no water had leaked through the wrapping of tarred canvas which protected the touch-hole. Before replacing them, he had made two or three trips to the deck-house amidships in which was the carpenter's room. Each time he tucked inside his shirt as many forged iron spikes, bolts, and what not as he could safely carry.

Un.o.bserved, he shoved this junk down the throat of the nine-pounder and wadded it fast with handfuls of oak.u.m. He worked coolly, without haste, as agile as a monkey when the ship careened and the sea spurted through the cracks of the gun-ports. Well pleased with his task, he said to himself, with that grin which no peril could obliterate:

"G.o.d alone knows how I can strike fire to a match and keep it alight, but the sky shows signs of easier weather."

The fury of the storm had, indeed, diminished. It might be a respite before the wind hauled into another quarter and renewed its ferocious violence, but the air was no longer thick with the whirling smother of foam and spray and the straining topmasts had ceased to bend like whips.

The ship was gallantly easing herself of the waves which broke aboard and the rearing billows astern were not threatening to stamp her under.

It lacked almost an hour of nightfall when Jack c.o.c.krell crept along the p.o.o.p and halted to lean against the timbered railing by the mizzen shrouds. All he could think of was that Ned Rackham might seize upon this sudden abatement of the gale to hasten his own wicked conspiracy and so ruin the plan to restore the _Plymouth Adventure_ to her own lawful company. This menace had occurred to Captain Jonathan Wellsby who stood tense and rigid at the sailing-master's elbow, watching him from the tail of his eye.

Relief o'erspread the skipper's worn features when he espied Jack c.o.c.krell who stood as if waiting for orders. A nod, a meaning glance, and they understood each other. Striving to appear unconcerned, Jack moved toward the forward part of the ship. He was aquiver with excitement, and his breath was quick and small, but the sense of fear had left him. Captain Wellsby had called him a man and, by G.o.d's sweet grace, he would so acquit himself.

The pirates were swarming out of the cabin to taste the clean air and limber their cramped muscles. The ship still wallowed as she ran before the wind and it was breakneck work to clamber about. From the topsail yards fluttered mere ribbons of canvas where the reefed sails had bellied. Ned Rackham shouted for the watch to lay aloft and cut the remnants clear and bend new cloths to keep her from broaching to.

Jack c.o.c.krell's heart leaped for joy. At least a dozen of the most active pirates would have to obey this order. This would remove them from the deck for a precious interval of time. He slouched aimlessly nearer the forecastle, stretching his neck to gaze up at the pirates as they footed the ratlines and squirmed over the clumsy tops. Joe Hawkridge joined him, as if by chance, and they wandered to the lee side of the forecastle. There they were screened from the sight of the sentries.

The wooden shutters of the little windows had been spiked fast on the outside and Jack was at his wits' end to find by what means he might slip the fateful message to the captive seamen. He dared not climb upon the roof and seek for a crack in a hatchway. This would make him too conspicuous.

Cautiously he stole around the ma.s.sive structure and was all but washed overboard when he gained the windward side where the water broke in hissing cataracts. So great had been its force during the height of the storm, that one of the shutters had been splintered and almost crushed in. Clutching the bit of paper which was tightly rolled and wrapped in a square of oiled linen, Jack pushed it through a ragged crevice in the shutter.

It was gravely doubtful whether the men would discover the message in the gloom of their prison. It might fall to the floor and be trampled unperceived. And yet Jack c.o.c.krell could not make himself believe that deliverance would be thwarted. He said a prayer and waited with his ear against the wall of the forecastle. There he leaned through an agonized eternity as the slow moments pa.s.sed. It was like the ordeal of a condemned man who hopes that a blessed reprieve may save him, in the last hour, from the black cap and the noose.

Up aloft the pirate seamen were slashing the torn canvas with their dirks and casting loose the gaskets. Presently they began to come down to the deck, one by one. Some whispered word must have pa.s.sed amongst them, because they drifted aft as by a common impulse although it was not yet the hour to change the watch. Their gunner's mate, a gigantic mulatto with a broken nose, went to the p.o.o.p when Ned Rackham crooked his finger and these two stood aside, beyond earshot of Captain Wellsby, while they conferred with heads together.

"They will strike first," Jack whispered to himself.

The misty daylight had not darkened. The decks were not yet dusky with the shadows which Jack had hoped might enable him to approach the forecastle door in his brave endeavor to unbar it. The plans were all awry. Tears filled his eyes. And then there came to his ear a m.u.f.fled knock against the other side of the forecastle planking.

Once, twice, thrice! The signal was unmistakable. A little interval and it was repeated.

Softly the trembling lad tiptoed to the corner of the forecastle house and peered around it to look for the sentries. Two of them had moved a few yards away to join a group which gazed aft as if expecting a summons from Ned Rackham on the p.o.o.p. The third sentry leaned against the forecastle door, a cutla.s.s at his belt. He was a long, bony man with a face as yellow as parchment from the Spanish fever and it was plain to read that there was no great strength in him.

Faithful Joe Hawkridge sat astride the breech of the nine-pounder at which he had been so busily engaged earlier in the afternoon. He appeared to be an idler who merely looked on but he was watching every motion, and that hard, canny face of his had, for once, forgot to grin.

Releasing a three-foot handspike from its lashing beside the gun-carriage, he awaited the next roll of the deck and deftly kicked this handy weapon. It slid toward the forecastle and Jack c.o.c.krell stopped it with his foot.

There was no time for hesitation. s.n.a.t.c.hing up the iron-shod handspike, Jack rushed straight at the forecastle door. Just then the ship lurched far down and he was shot headlong, like falling off the roof of a house.

He had the momentum of a battering-ram. The sentry yelled and drew his cutla.s.s with a swiftness amazing in a sick man. His footing was unsteady or Jack would have spitted himself on the point of the blade. As he went crashing full-tilt into the man the impact was terrific. They went to the deck together and the handspike spun out of Jack's grasp. There was no need to swing it on this luckless pirate for his bald head smote a plank with a thump which must have cracked it like an egg.