"Yes, lad, I know. Well, they may call me what they like. Here we are, and we've got to live."
"Where d'ye think they'll sail?" said Dick again, raising his voice, but in ignorance that the words could reach the group by the tiller.
"Where shall we sail?" said Jack, who was steering. "I don't know, for all before us seems black; but I've saved my brother and his true old friend, so let fate guide us: the world is very wide."
"Yes, Dinny, I don't mind for a change; but it's piracy, and I hope as we sha'n't all be hung."
"The same to you," said Dinny, giving the sailor's shoulder a sounding slap.
"Piracy!" said Jack, softly, as the boat glided on. "Well, it was not our choice, and, at all events, we're free."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
AFTER A LAPSE.
"Then we'll die for it, Bart," said Jack, fiercely.
"If so be as you says die for it now, or to-morrow, or next day, or next week, die it is, my lad," said Bart, despondently; "but luck's agen us, and we're beat. Why not give up?"
"Give up?" cried Jack, whose appearance was somewhat altered by his two years of hard sea-life in the tropics since the night when the cutter sailed away into the darkness of what seemed to be their future. "Give up?"
"Yes; and back out of it all. Why not take passage somewhere, not as Jack, Commodore Junk's brother, but as bonny Mary Dell o' Devonshire, going back home along o' Bart Wrigley, as is Bartholomew by rights?"
"Well?" said Jack, sternly.
"Don't look black at me, my lad. I'm tired o' boarding ships and sending people adrift."
"Growing afraid, Bart?"
"Yes, my lad; but not for Bart Wrigley. For someone else."
"You are preaching to-night, Bart."
"Maybe, my lad, for it's solemn times; and something keeps a-saying to me: 'Don't run no more risks! There's old Devon a-waiting for you, and there's the old cottage and the bay, and you've got the money to buy a decent lugger, and there's plenty o' fish in the sea.'"
"Go, on," said Jack, mockingly.
"Ay, lad, I will," said Bart. "And you might settle down there, and live happy with a man there to wait on you and be your sarvent--ay, your dog if you liked; and some day, if you thought better of it, and was ready to say, 'Bart, my lad, you've been a true chap to me, and I know as you've loved me ever since you was a boy, so now I'll be your wife,'
why, then--"
Bart stopped with his lips apart, gazing wonderingly at the angry countenance before him.
"You madman! What are you saying?" was hissed into his ears. "Mary Dell died when she left her home, driven away by man's tyranny--when she sought out her brother and his friend, to find them working like slaves in that plantation. It was John Dell who became your companion: Mary Dell's dead."
"No," said Bart, speaking softly and with a homely pathos, full of a poetical sentiment that could not have been expected from his rough exterior as he sat on the deck of a long, low, heavily-sparred schooner.
"No, my lad, Mary Dell isn't dead. She's hidden here in my breast, where I can look inwards and see the bonny lass with the dark eyes and long black hair as I knowed I loved as soon as I knowed what love meant, and as long as I've that lass will never die."
"Hush, Bart, old friend!" said Jack, softly. "Let her live, then, there; but to me she is dead, and I live to think of her persecutions, and how for two years man has pursued us with his bitter hatred, and hunted us down as if we were savage beasts."
"Ay," said Bart, softly; "but isn't it time to take the other road, and get away?"
"No," said Jack, fiercely. "Bart, old friend--you are my friend."
"Friend!" said Bart, in a reproachful tone.
"Yes. I know you are; but once more, if you value my friendship, never speak to me again as you have spoken now."
"You're captain, my lad. I'll do what you like."
"I know you will. Well, then, do you think I can forgive the treatment we have received? It has been a dog's life, I tell you--the life of a savage dog."
"Ay, but we've bit pretty sharp sometimes," said Bart, smiling. "See how we've growed, too. First it was the bit of a canoe thing as you came in up the creek."
Jack nodded.
"Then we took the cutter."
"Yes, Bart."
"And with that cutter we took first one ship, and then with that another, always masters, and getting, bit by bit, stout, staunch men."
"And savages," said Jack, bitterly.
"Well, yes, some on 'em is savage like, specially Mazzard."
"Black Mazzard is a ruffianly wretch!"
"True, lad; but we've gone on and got better and stronger, till we have under our feet the swiftest schooner as swims the sea, and Commodore Junk's name's known all along the coast."
"And hated, and a price set upon his head; and now that he is a prisoner his people turn against him, and his most faithful follower wants to go and leave him in the lurch."
"Nay, don't say that, my lad," cried Bart. "We was overmatched, and he was took."
"Yes, by his men's cowardice."
"Nay; you're cross, my lad," said Bart, unconsciously raising one arm and drawing back the sleeve to readjust a bandage. "Month to-night and the deck was running into the scuppers with blood, half the lads was killed, and t'other half all got a wound. We was obliged to sheer off."
"Yes, you coward! you left your captain to his fate."
"But I saved the captain's--brother," said Bart, slowly, "or he'd have been shut up in prison along with poor Abel now."
"Better so," said the other, fiercely; "and then there'd be an end of a persecuted life."
"Better as it is," said Bart, quietly; "but I did save you."
"Bart, old lad, don't take any notice of what I say," whispered Jack.