"That popinjay!"
" 'Tis a good thing he's far away when you say that. Captain."
He paid her no mind. Adam's blood was not the sort that is easily agitated by words alone; and this particular taunt he scarcely heard. For he was thoughtful, a whit sad, too. It was clear to him what he would have to do, and he didn't like it. But he could not pass a thing like this by. Kellsen would exploit the gift to the full, telling of it everywhere, trying to get Maisie to wear the thing, alerting others to watch her then, pointing, purring, pleased with himself. And on Providence, where so much depended upon prestige, if the men and even more the women fell to sniggering at you behind your back, then you might expect no favors, no leniency. On Providence, if they weren't afraid of you they despised you. It was not a matter of personal pride with Adam, though he had his pride, too, and he was angry; but it was rather a matter of getting a chance to escape.
Kellsen had taken an inch. If he wasn't pushed back, and that promptly, and with unmistakable force, he would try to take a mile. Then it would be too late.
Adam fingered the jacket. It was good velvet, expensive. He grunted. He thrust it behind his shirt, and went outside.
Resolved Forbes, as faithful as any cuckoo in a cuckoo clock, appeared at his elbow; and Adam, squinting, frowning in the sunlight, told him what he was about to do. The mate rubbered out his lips, shook his head.
"I don't like it, sir."
"I don't like it either. But it's got to be done."
"You— You ain't going to get killed now?"
"I hope not," Adam said soberly.
Nodding to acquaintances, right and left, as neighborly as all-get-out, Adam Long made his way to the marketplace; and there he came upon One-Eye.
Now this odiferous obnoxious cantankerous ugly man was disliked, but he was feared. He had standing as Kellsen's familiar. His bluster, his irascible, self-important squint, were not laughed at openly. He would carry any sort of tale, no matter how harmful, to the massive major, who, to do him justice, never failed to back this toady. Like the small fish that pilots the shark, One-Eye was nothing in himself, a great deal in what he represented.
"Where's your master?"
"We don't have masters here," said One-Eye. "We are the Brethren of the Coast. No man is the master of us."
"I can hear you. Parson. Stop singing hymns. Where's Kellsen?"
Men were gathering. It was easy to raise a crowd here.
One-Eye thrust his face close to Adam's face. It was a nasty habit he had. He grasped Adam's shirt.
"When you speak of Major Kellsen you will please give him his title, understand?"
"And when you speak to me, Mr. Skunk, you will please keep your hands to yourself," said Adam, and punched him in the mouth. "Understand?"
It was not a hard blow, scarcely more than a slap, but it brought a swift bubbling of blood to his lips. One-Eye gasped, his eye popping. His hand went for the hilt of his knife.
Then Adam stepped in and really had hit him.
One-Eye went backward, the crowd quickly parting to give him room to fall. One-Eye lay still.
Adam sighed.
"Reckon I'll have to seek the fool out myself," he said, and strolled on.
He was playacting, sure. He knew perfectly well that there was no need to hunt out Major Kellsen. The whole camp was abuzz by this time, jabbering, spitting, gesticulating, they were telling one another what had happened—and what would happen next. Kellsen was being informed, assuredly. And Kellsen would act. He'd have to.
They met in the middle of the marketplace—it seemed casually, informally, by chance—and the scene could not have been better set if they'd rehearsed it. Kellsen was all done up in what Bosun Gardner would have called his "damnation regimentals," a huge cherry-red coat with a vast amount of froggery, and trimmed with lace that was positively frivolous. He carried a gold-headed walking stick almost as tall as himself. His periwig was stupendous; it must have cost fifty pounds. Adam wondered whom he had stolen it from.
He came to a graceful halt, his right foot slightly forward, garter ribbons dangling almost to his shoes. He flipped a lace handkerchief negligently at Adam.
"You sought me?"
"It's about my wife," said Adam.
He slightly stressed the word "wife" for the benefit of bystanders. In the four weeks since the taking of the Goodwill to Men he had more than once congratulated himself upon the presence of mind which prompted him to claim marriage to Maisie. He couldn't have conceived a more telling lie. The sacrament hushed the pirates. Though they professed, publicly and noisily, to hate all authority, even the authority of God, of which marriage was so clear an example, they must have had their doubts in the very presence of it. Though they jeered, they were filled with uneasy awe.
Yet they would veer the other way at any shift of wind, any mishandling of the sheets; for if there was anything that could be said with certainty of these pirates it was that their emotions and beliefs, jiggled and jogged by this and that, were unpredictable; they were never sure of themselves. On Adam Long, then, ironically, rested the responsibility of standing for an institution of which in fact he was only a false representative. He must now defend the wifely honor of a woman who wasn't his wife at all.
"Ah, the charming Mistress Maisie! Charming!"
"Aye, but it'll be enough if she charms me. She don't have to charm you, too."
Nobody breathed. Kellsen's eyebrows started to seek his wig.
"You, uh, have some specific objection, perhaps?"
"Yes," said Adam, "this!" and he threw the brown velvet jacket into Kellsen's face. "My wife," he added, "does not accept gifts from a thief."
He turned and started to walk away.
He did not know what to expect. He might be slaughtered in this instant. But he did not think that Kellsen would discharge a pistol in such a crowd, and if he drew he would probably be restrained.
What came was no more than a voice, but it brought him up.
"A moment, pray. Captain Long."
Adam turned.
"Yes?"
Kellsen had not stirred. The brown velvet jacket lay in the dust at his feet: nobody cared about it any longer, for it had served its purpose. Kellsen might have been disappointed, having hoped for craven, exploitable compliance, rather than a fight. But he did not show this. His eyes were cast down almost shyly.
"It is my thought that we might pursue this matter further, Captain, you and I."
"Any time you say."
"Would, uh, would now be too soon?"
"Now'sfine."
Kellsen nodded. He turned, leaning on his cane.
"On the beach, then, in a few minutes," he drawled over a shoulder.
He left the marketplace slowly, with his handkerchief flicking away flies.
For all the men save two the trip was a picnic. There was no touch of ceremony, and the scramble at the beach was a joyous one. Half a hundred longboats and dories and similar craft there must have been, each overfilled, overweighted, showing precious little freeboard. Everybody was laughing, splashing. All they needed was fireworks and paper streamers to make it look like the royal barges on the Thames when the court was out for a frolic.
Chattering, they rode out among the anchored vessels, virtually all of which were unmanned at the moment. They passed the Goodwill to Men, and it was then that Adam felt his chest get tight for the first time. He did not look much at the Goodwill, three-sixteenths his now, only a glance; but he did see Jeth Gardner, forearms on the taffrail, watching this mass of boats, doubtless wondering what it was all about. Jeth did not see Adam, who was looking down after his one glance. Adam had seen casks on the deck, forty or fifty of them, and he wondered what they were. Not from the hold: they were smaller than the barrels of molasses from Horace Treadway's plantation, most of which had been rolled overside during the chase anyway. But things up there had looked in good condition. Even with one leg, and the stump so raw, Jeth Gardner would keep the Goodwill shipshape. Jeth had his orders. The schooner was one of the furthest out, near the pass; and Jeth was to stand by, with everything squared away, ready at any hour of the day or night, until such time as Captain Long and Mate Forbes saw the chance to sneak aboard, axe the cables, hoist canvas, and be off. Goodwill still carried a jury boom on her fore, but even so, given any kind of start she could probably walk away from the fastest craft the pirate fleet could show. Beyond doubt it was that broken boom which kept the schooner in the bay here. Once properly equipped she would be taken outside in search of prizes. They'd pile some greasy guns aboard her first, of course. And they'd dirty her decks with their dirty feet. Meanwhile she waited, incomplete, for her master.