“And what do you suppose they’re seeing? Filthy beasts, in their hundreds, dancing around great fires. What do you suppose they’re hearing? Howls of laughter and song. These are no soldiers; they’re madmen. They want gold, and for the love of it they followed me up that stinking river. They want it, and tomorrow they’ll follow me to get it, over the bodies of the slain. Musket-balls won’t stop them. Toledo steel won’t stop them. Would you stand in their way?”
“I reckon I wouldn’t, sir,” said John.
“I dare say that army won’t, either. Not after a few hours’ sober reflection,” said Morgan. He grinned. The firelight gleamed on his eyes, and his teeth.
There was a clatter of hooves, and a trumpet-call, clear and long and loud, from out in the dark; but the voice that followed was shaking badly.
“Dogs! English Dogs! We will meet you!”
And the Brethren catcalled back, and fired into the night, and danced obscenely by the fires; sure invitation, John would have thought, for Spanish snipers, but none fired upon them. Instead, the sound of hoofbeats retreated away into the dark, and not long afterward came the thunder of cannon from the city walls. The which was so stupid (the enemy being so far out of range) that the privateers were cheered even more.
Near to where John stood with Morgan, three or four men got up a morris-dance, and sang:
That was the only time a shadow fell across Morgan’s face. He looked out on the prancing demons he’d charmed so far through desolation, and said:
“God send she has the sense to keep well clear of these.”
“She’s done it so far, sir,” said John. Morgan looked at him thoughtfully.
“I may get my death tomorrow,” he said.
“Never say it, sir! You got the Devil’s own luck,” said John.
“Oh, yes, no question of that; but luck plays a man false, now and again. I think your luck will hold, John James. These poor sots and cutthroats will rush into the cannon’s mouth heedless, but you will think twice about wasting your life. Should I fall, find my girl. Take her away with you, to Jamaica or even to England, and treat her well.”
“Sir, I swear it!” said John. “But I ain’t got your luck, all the same.”
Morgan sighed.
“Then I will give you half my luck,” he said, and reaching out with the heel of his hand struck John between the eyes, a sharp blow that made him see stars. “There. Do you feel fortunate now?”
“I think so, sir,” said John, blinking and wanting to laugh, except it hurt.
“Christ Jesus, what I wouldn’t give for a glass of rum,” said Morgan, looking out at the fires.
John made himself a sort of tent that night, draping his coat over a green bush and stretching out underneath. He lay there a while, thinking on the morrow. He remembered that there’d been an alehouse in London called the Green Bush, and he thought how funny it was that here he lay now, in a green bush, only he wished it was the other one.
Whereupon he heard his mother’s voice in his ear again, pleading-like, telling him how he might open a nice little tavern of his own someday. It was a fine living, for a sober man; why, he could set up at a crossroads, with a painted sign to hang out front, and a clean little brew-house out back, and three snug rooms upstairs with clean linen, so as to attract gentle guests. He would wash the windows often, so as to let in a lot of light, which would shine on the copper pans… and in his own chamber there’d be a grand big bed, just the place for a neat, little wife… a sea-coal fire all cheery in the grate…
But the sea-coal sent up green flames, and the hanging sign was a hanging man. John heard Morgan’s voice then, smoothly arguing down his mother.
A tavern at a crossroads! Aye, and there he’d dream of jungles, and battles, and blood and gold. The gentle guests would shout for him, and order him to take away the chamber-pots and make the beds. His hand would grope for a cutlass to change their tune, but he’d not find one, never again. Gray England would send her winters over him, not the stink and glare and salt sea-haze of Port Royal. And every seventh day, he’d sit in a pew and drone hymns, and mutter Amen, like to die of boredom. What kind of life was that, demanded Morgan.
Well, but there’d be the neat, little wife. She’d be a pink-faced country girl, pious, in yards of white cambric to be groped through before he could get proper hold of her a’nights, and that only when there wasn’t babies coming, which there would be most of the time… lying mouth to mouth with her he’d be dreaming all the while anyway of a girl with flaming eyes, slender and terrible, white as mist, with long, wet hair and the smell of the sea on her…
She began to do things, lying on him, and he was panicked lest his mother see or, worse yet, Morgan, but he couldn’t stop the girl. He didn’t want to stop her.
John woke, gasping, to find that she had her white arms around his neck and was smiling down at him, not an inch away from his face in the darkness. They wrestled close, for five or six minutes, and it was like going to Heaven.
When John could draw breath to speak at last, all he could tell her was how he loved her. She stroked back his hair from his face, still smiling.
“And I love thee,” she said. “You’re my own man, John. I will be your right bride all the days and nights of your life, and never leave you. Wherever you may sail, I’ll be at your side. Let the world quake for fear of us!”
John said something half-witted back in reply, about all the things he’d do for her, like pile the riches of the world at her feet. Then, enough of his conscience woke for him to croak something about how Morgan was worried for her, and only wanted what was best for her.
“Oh, he’d keep me close,” said the girl, laughing. “I know him. But there’s none like Morgan for burning, and plundering, and living free; and am I not his daughter? I must be free too, John.”
Now this news terrified John, as he recollected all that had happened and all Morgan had said, and finally understood the truth. He felt a dull ox not to have guessed it before now; but he loved her all the more, and told her so.
Three times more before the night was out, they struggled together again, in bliss and joy. John drifted off at last, asleep in her arms, so happy. He dreamed of a fair ship, sweet-steering and swift, laden to the decks with loot.
But when he started awake, in an hour when the stars had dropped far down into the west, the girl had slipped away from him once more.
Morning came chill and pale, with cocks crowing indeed. The Brethren woke beside the ashes of their fires, under a pall of blowing smoke, and formed up, and marched off to do battle. Before they had gone two miles, they saw it was even as Morgan had told them: the Spanish forces had fled in the night, leaving their empty tents and gear. There was only a fat, old man riding sadly away, with his priests running after him. It was the viceroy himself, deserted, riding back to pray for his city.
And the Brethren looked at Morgan with wide eyes, remembering that he had prophesied it would happen so, and some among them crossed themselves. John didn’t, but he reached up and touched the place Morgan had struck him, and smiled sheepishly to think of the luck he’d have from now on.
He looked about him for the girl as he marched, bearing Morgan’s standard; but if she followed the army, she was keeping herself well hid. That pleased him. Safer, he thought, for her to stay unseen, and shoot from afar off. Jacques was already in tears, his little, red eyes like rubies, because Jago was in the vanguard with him, and it was no use to march in front and try to shield him with his body. Jago towered over him by a head.