clung to the hull of the Intention.
Those who could swim attempted this, but when half-across both ships
used them as targets for not only pistols, but cannon. By this time the
craven Captain was brought back from below, behind a procession of
robbers heavily laden with seachests, bales, barrels and casks, which
were quickly lowered to the boats and carried to the pirate ship. Now,
it so happened that amongst those chests were Doctor Syn’s, and he
watched it being lowered as he leaned over the bulwarks of the poop.
“Careful with you, you dogs,” he cried in Spanish. “It is of the
utmost value to me, I assure you. So see to it that I find it safe when
I come over with your Captain.”
Thinking that he must be a grandee who had saved his life by offering
sufficient ransom to Black Satan, the Spaniards in the boat called back,
“Si, Senor.”
Now, so engrossed were the others at their hellish work that no one
noted Doctor Syn, or, if they did, perhaps they did not relish closer
quarters with his long steel. By this time the whimpering captain of
the illfated Intention was dragged towards the plank.
“But I can navigate,” he pleaded.
“Then navigate yourself along that plank,” snarled the Negro.
“I will do anything to please you. I will be your slave in all
things only spare my life.”
Prodded without mercy to the end, he turned and made a last appeal.
As he stood there abjectly pleading to a nigger, Doct or Syn’s gorge
rose and when a facetious pirate shook the plank and the victim fell on
hands and legs astride the plank like a child on a rocking-horse, he
drew one of his pistols from his sash and wondered how long he should
allow a white man to demean himself before a nigger. A captain of a
ship should face death bravely. this was too undignified, and Syn vowed
it should not last.
The captain had not been blindfolded, and tears of self-pity and
terror rained down his cheeks. Syn took careful aim and fired. The
body crumpled and slipped from the plank into the sea.
“And who the devil are you to put him out of his misery without my
word of command?” demanded the astonished Satan, seeing Syn for the
first time.
“Come down here, you dog.”
“Bett er not call me a dog,” replied Syn, with a smile. “I once had a
dog that killed black beetles. As to putting that man out of his
misery, I intended no such thing. I shot him because I hate a coward,
and especially a white coward who can cringe to a nigger, and more than
all a cowardly captain who betrays his ship in the hopes of saving
himself. You are a captain, too, you say, though I can hardly think
that some of these white men fighting for you would not make a change.
The question is, Mr. Satan, if t hat’s your name, are you a cowardly
captain? That I intend to prove.”
With a bellow of rage Black Satan leaped for the poop companion
stairs, swinging his cutlass. What was his astonishment, however, when
he found a calm and elegant gentleman waiting for him with a thin blade,
which somehow all his lashings could not pass.
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“Get down upon that deck, for I have a mind to drive you out upon
your plank. You won’t? Oh yes, you will. Down with you, nigger.”
Chapter 12
Syn Buys a Body and Soul
Down on the well-deck they fought; and an ill-matched fight it was.
A giant of a Negro with a heavy cutlass which he swung murderously, but
with little skill, against a lithe parson whose thin point of steel kept
the scythe-like blade confronting him doing nothing but slashing the
air, so that although the Negro tried to attack and carry it by sheer
weight, the needle-point of Syn’s sword drove him back step by step.
When they perceived that the Negro’s sword was of no avail, Syn heard
the pira tes arguing whether or not they ought to interfere. The most of
them were for keeping to Brotherhood rules, which state that a fight
between two antagonists must be fought fairly, but to the death. One
rascal, disagreeing, tried to trip up Syn as he adva nced. Syn turned
like lightning; passed his sword through the man’s neck, and drew it
back just in time to meet the Negro’s next charge. He more than
expected that they would rush him for this, but was relieved to hear
several cry out that it served the fellow right, and so the wretched man
was left to bleed away his life upon the deck.
After his incident, Syn resolved to keep such favour as he had gained
by quick action, and to terminate the fight spectacularly upon the plank
itself. So, feigning to be weary of such a clumsy swordsman as the
Negro captain, he redoubled the speed of his lunges, and everytime he
let the blade prick the flesh, driving his man before him to the plank.
Each time the tongue of his sword bit flesh the Negro slashed at it in
rage, and with such force that one blow might well have broken the more
fragile weapon. But Syn avoided every stroke with ease, and still drove
the maddened captain back. At last the gangway was behind him.
“A little to your left, now,” said Syn calmly. “Feel backwards with
your heel. Excellent fellow! Do you feel the plank? That’s right. Well,
you go along it backwards, for I have a mind to fight you upon it. You
will at least afford a novel entertainment to your jolly dogs.”
And so, inch by inch, he pressed him out, till both were on the
plank, cautiously balancing as they fought.
“Steady,” warned Syn. “If you wobble like that you will be
overboard, and we shall have to finish our fight in the water. And, my
faith, that is a good idea. A sword-fight in the sea is something new.
Hold your cutlass tightly. Back, back, back.”
Doctor Syn, to show the pirates the light regard he held for danger,
then began to sing, and the words he used were those which had come into
his brain so long ago in Romney Marsh.
“Oh, here’s to the feet what have walked the plank!”
The Negro, still driven back, could no longer swing his cutlass for
fear of falling from the plank. Instead he tried to take a lesson in
fencing from his opponent, and use the point. Bu t through he had a long
reach, it was of no avail, by reason of the dancing, darting blade of
Syn.
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And then the Negro felt the point pressing his breast-bones. His heels
were already on the edge of the plank. Quickly he turned, and jumped.
Prepared in time, Syn kept his balance wonderfully, till the board
ceased to vibrate. Then, quite calmly, he stopped, still balancing
cautiously, took off his buckled shoes, and threw them on deck. He then
peeled off his coat, rolled it into a bundle and shot it after the
shoes. His scabbard and pistols followed, which he saw the pirates
scramble for as he loosened his cravat. As he did so, he noted that the
dying man upon the deck was drinking from a rum bottle, but at that
moment his eyes glazed and his teeth bit through the neck. This
incident, and the fact that he had seen numerous corpses floating
between the two vessels, gave him the inspiration for the rest of his
chanty, and rolling up his sleeves he sang:
“Oh, here’s to the feet what have walked the plank,
Yo-ho for the dead man’s throttle.
And here’s to the corpses afloat in the tank,
And the dead man’s teeth in the bottle!”
Then, without waiting to see what effect it had upon the pirates, he