Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (816 page)

That summer they went north as far as the Newfoundland Banks, and harried the New York traders and the whale ships from New England. It was Copley Banks who captured the Liverpool ship,
House of Hanover
, but it was Sharkey who fastened her master to the windlass and pelted him to death with empty claret-bottles.

Together they engaged the King’s ship
Royal Fortune
, which had been sent in search of them, and beat her off after a night action of five hours, the drunken, raving crews fighting naked in the light of the battle-lanterns, with a bucket of rum and a pannikin laid by the tackles of every gun. They ran to Topsail Inlet in North Carolina to refit, and then in the spring they were at the Grand Caicos, ready for a long cruise down the West Indies.

By this time Sharkey and Copley Banks had become very excellent friends, for Sharkey loved a whole-hearted villain, and he loved a man of metal, and it seemed to him that the two met in the captain of the
Ruffling Harry
. It was long before he gave his confidence to him, for cold suspicion lay deep in his character. Never once would he trust himself outside his own ship and away from his own men. But Copley Banks came often on board the
Happy Delivery
, and joined Sharkey in many of his morose debauches, so that at last any lingering misgivings of the latter were set at rest. He knew nothing of the evil that he had done to his new boon companion, for of his many victims how could he remember the woman and the two boys whom he had slain with such levity so long ago! When, therefore, he received a challenge to himself and to his quartermaster for a carouse upon the last evening of their stay at the Caicos Bank he saw no reason to refuse.

A well-found passenger ship had been rifled the week before, so their fare was of the best, and after supper five of them drank deeply together. There were the two captains, Birthmark Sweetlocks, Ned Galloway, and Israel Martin, the old buccaneers-man. To wait upon them was the dumb steward, whose head Sharkey split with a glass, because he had been too slow in the filling of it. The quarter-master has slipped Sharkey’s pistols away from him, for it was an old joke with him to fire them cross-handed under the table and see who was the luckiest man. It was a pleasantry which had cost his boatswain his leg, so now, when the table was cleared, they would coax Sharkey’s weapons away from him on the excuse of the heat, and lay them out of his reach.

The captain’s cabin of the
Ruffling Harry
was in a deck-house upon the poop, and a stern-chaser gun was mounted at the back of it. Round shot were racked round the wall, and three great hogsheads of powder made a stand for dishes and for bottles. In this grim room the five pirates sang and roared and drank, while the silent steward still filled up their glasses, and passed the box and the candle round for their tobacco-pipes. Hour after hour the talk became fouler, the voices hoarser, the curses and shoutings more incoherent, until three of the five had closed their blood-shot eyes, and dropped their swimming heads upon the table.

Copley Banks and Sharkey were left face to face, the one because he had drunk the least, the other because no amount of liquor would ever shake his iron nerve or warm his sluggish blood. Behind him stood the watchful steward, for ever filling up his waning glass. From without came the low lapping of the tide, and from over the water a sailor’s chanty from the barque. In the windless tropical night the words came clearly to their ears: —

     A trader sailed from Stepney Town,
   Wake her up! Shake her up! Try her with the mainsail!
     A trader sailed from Stepney Town
   With a keg full of gold and a velvet gown.
     Ho, the bully Rover Jack,
   Waiting with his yard aback
     Out upon the Lowland Sea.

The two boon companions sat listening in silence. Then Copley Banks glanced at the steward, and the man took a coil of rope from the shot-rack behind him.

“Captain Sharkey,” said Copley Banks, “do you remember the
Duchess of Cornwall
, hailing from London, which you took and sank three years ago off the Statira Shoal?”

“Curse me if I can bear their names in mind,” said Sharkey. “We did as many as ten ships a week about that time.”

“There were a mother and two sons among the passengers. Maybe that will bring it back to your mind.”

Captain Sharkey leant back in thought, with his huge thin beak of a nose jutting upwards. Then he burst suddenly into a high treble, neighing laugh. He remembered it, he said, and he added details to prove it. “But burn me if it had not slipped from my mind!” he cried. “How came you to think of it?”

“It was of interest to me,” said Copley Banks, “for the woman was my wife, and the lads were my only sons.”

Sharkey stared across at his companion, and saw that the smouldering fire which lurked always in his eyes had burned up into a lurid flame. He read their menace, and he clapped his hands to his empty belt. Then he turned to seize a weapon, but the bight of a rope was cast round him, and in an instant his arms were bound to his side. He fought like a wild cat, and screamed for help. “Ned!” he yelled. “Ned! Wake up! Here’s damned villainy! Help, Ned! — help!”

But the three men were far too deeply sunk in their swinish sleep for any voice to wake them. Round and round went the rope, until Sharkey was swathed like a mummy from ankle to neck. They propped him stiff and helpless against a powder barrel, and they gagged him with a handkerchief, but his filmy, red-rimmed eyes still looked curses at them. The dumb man chattered in his exultation, and Sharkey winced for the first time when he saw the empty mouth before him. He understood that vengeance, slow and patient, had dogged him long, and clutched him at last.

The two captors had their plans all arranged, and they were somewhat elaborate. First of all they stove the heads of two of the great powder barrels, and they heaped the contents out upon the table and floor. They piled it round and under the three drunken men, until each sprawled in a heap of it. Then they carried Sharkey to the gun and they triced him sitting over the port-hole, with his body about a foot from the muzzle. Wriggle as he would he could not move an inch either to the right or left, and the dumb man trussed him up with a sailor’s cunning, so that there was no chance that he should work free.

“Now, you bloody devil,” said Copley Banks, softly, “you must listen to what I have to say to you, for they are the last words that you will hear. You are my man now, and I have bought you at a price, for I have given all that a man can give here below, and I have given my soul as well.

“To reach you I have had to sink to your level. For two years I strove against it, hoping that some other way might come, but I learnt that there was no other. I’ve robbed and I have murdered — worse still, I have laughed and lived with you — and all for the one end. And now my time has come, and you will die as I would have you die, seeing the shadow creeping upon you and the devil waiting for you in the shadow.”

Sharkey could hear the hoarse voices of his rovers singing their chanty over the water.

    Where is the trader of Stepney Town?
  Wake her up! Shake her up! Every stick a-bending!
    Where is the trader of Stepney Town?
    His gold’s on the capstan, his blood’s on his gown,
      All for bully Rover Jack,
      Reaching on the weather tack
    Right across the Lowland Sea.

The words came clear to his ear, and just outside he could hear two men pacing backwards and forwards upon the deck. And yet he was helpless, staring down the mouth of the nine-pounder, unable to move an inch or to utter so much as a groan. Again there came the burst of voices from the deck of the barque.

    So it’s up and it’s over to Stornoway Bay,
  Pack it on! Crack it on! Try her with stunsails!
    It’s off on a bowline to Stornoway Bay,
    Where the liquor is good and the lasses are gay,
      Waiting for their bully Jack,
      Watching for him sailing back,
    Right across the Lowland Sea.

To the dying pirate the jovial words and rollicking tune made his own fate seem the harsher, but there was no softening in those venomous blue eyes. Copley Banks had brushed away the priming of the gun, and had sprinkled fresh powder over the touch-hole. Then he had taken up the candle and cut it to the length of about an inch. This he placed upon the loose powder at the breach of the gun. Thin he scattered powder thickly over the floor beneath, so that when the candle fell at the recoil it must explode the huge pile in which the three drunkards were wallowing.

“You’ve made others look death in the face, Sharkey,” said he; “now it has come to be your own turn. You and these swine here shall go together!” He lit the candle-end as he spoke, and blew out the other lights upon the table. Then he passed out with the dumb man, and locked the cabin door upon the outer side. But before he closed it he took an exultant look backwards, and received one last curse from those unconquerable eyes. In the single dim circle of light that ivory-white face, with the gleam of moisture upon the high, bald forehead, was the last that was ever seen of Sharkey.

There was a skiff alongside, and in it Copley Banks and the dumb steward made their way to the beach, and looked back upon the brig riding in the moon-light just outside the shadow of the palm trees. They waited and waited watching that dim light which shone through the stem port. And then at last there came the dull thud of a gun, and an instant later the shattering crash of an explosion. The long, sleek, black barque, the sweep of white sand, and the fringe of nodding feathery palm trees sprang into dazzling light and back into darkness again. Voices screamed and called upon the bay.

Then Copley Banks, his heart singing within him, touched his companion upon the shoulder, and they plunged together into the lonely jungle of the Caicos.

THE CROXLEY MASTER

Mr. Robert Montgomery was seated at his desk, his head upon his hands, in a state of the blackest despondency. Before him was the open ledger with the long columns of Dr. Oldacre’s prescriptions. At his elbow lay the wooden tray with the labels in various partitions, the cork box, the lumps of twisted sealing-wax, while in front a rank of bottles waited to be filled. But his spirits were too low for work. He sat in silence with his fine shoulders bowed and his head upon his hands.

Outside, through the grimy surgery window over a foreground of blackened brick and slate, a line of enormous chimneys like Cyclopean pillars upheld the lowering, dun-coloured cloud-bank. For six days in the week they spouted smoke, but to-day the furnace fires were banked, for it was Sunday. Sordid and polluting gloom hung over a district blighted and blasted by the greed of man. There was nothing in the surroundings to cheer a desponding soul, but it was more than his dismal environment which weighed upon the medical assistant. His trouble was deeper and more personal. The winter session was approaching. He should be back again at the University completing the last year which would give him his medical degree; but, alas! he had not the money with which to pay his class fees, nor could he imagine how he could procure it. Sixty pounds were wanted to make his career, and it might have been as many thousand for any chance there seemed to be of his obtaining it. He was roused from his black meditation by the entrance of Dr. Oldacre himself, a large, clean-shaven, respectable man, with a prim manner and an austere face. He had prospered exceedingly by the support of the local Church interest, and the rule of his life was never by word or action to run a risk of offending the sentiment which had made him. His standard of respectability and of dignity was exceedingly high, and he expected the same from his assistants. His appearance and words were always vaguely benevolent. A sudden impulse came over the despondent student. He would test the reality of this philanthropy.

“I beg your pardon, Dr. Oldacre,” said he, rising from his chair;
“I have a great favour to ask of you.”

The doctor’s appearance was not encouraging. His mouth suddenly tightened, and his eyes fell.

“Yes, Mr. Montgomery?”

“You are aware, sir, that I need only one more session to complete my course.”

“So you have told me.”

“It is very important to me, sir.”

“Naturally.”

“The fees, Dr. Oldacre, would amount to about sixty pounds.”

“I am afraid that my duties call me elsewhere, Mr. Montgomery.”

“One moment, sir! I had hoped, sir, that perhaps, if I signed a paper promising you interest upon your money, you would advance this sum to me. I will pay you back, sir, I really will. Or, if you like, I will work it off after I am qualified.”

The doctor’s lips had thinned into a narrow line. His eyes were raised again, and sparkled indignantly.

“Your request is unreasonable, Mr. Montgomery. I am surprised that you should have made it. Consider, sir, how many thousands of medical students there are in this country. No doubt there are many of them who have a difficulty in finding their fees. Am I to provide for them all? Or why should I make an exception in your favour? I am grieved and disappointed, Mr. Montgomery, that you should have put me into the painful position of having to refuse you.” He turned upon his heel, and walked with offended dignity out of the surgery.

The student smiled bitterly, and turned to his work of making up the morning prescriptions. It was poor and unworthy work — work which any weakling might have done as well, and this was a man of exceptional nerve and sinew. But, such as it was, it brought him his board and One pound a week — enough to help him during the summer months and let him save a few pounds towards his winter keep. But those class fees! Where were they to come from? He could not save them out of his scanty wage. Dr. Oldacre would not advance them. He saw no way of earning them. His brains were fairly good, but brains of that quality were a drug in the market. He only excelled in his strength, and where was he to find a customer for that? But the ways of Fate are strange, and his customer was at hand.

“Look y’ere!” said a voice at the door. Montgomery looked up, for the voice was a loud and rasping one. A young man stood at the entrance — a stocky, bull-necked young miner, in tweed Sunday clothes and an aggressive neck-tie. He was a sinister-looking figure, with dark, insolent eyes, and the jaw and throat of a bulldog.

“Look y’ere!” said he again. “Why hast thou not sent t’ medicine oop as thy master ordered?”

Montgomery had become accustomed to the brutal frankness of the northern worker. At first it had enraged him, but after a time he had grown callous to it, and accepted it as it was meant. But this was something different. It was insolence — brutal, overbearing insolence, with physical menace behind it.

“What name?” he asked coldly.

“Barton. Happen I may give thee cause to mind that name, yoong man. Mak’ oop t’ wife’s medicine this very moment, look ye, or it will be the worse for thee.”

Montgomery smiled. A pleasant sense of relief thrilled softly through him. What blessed safety-valve was this through which his jangled nerves might find some outlet. The provocation was so gross, the insult so unprovoked, that he could have none of those qualms which take the edge off a man’s mettle. He finished sealing the bottle upon which he was occupied, and he addressed it and placed it carefully in the rack. “Look here!” said he, turning round to the miner, “your medicine will be made up in its turn and sent down to you. I don’t allow folk in the surgery. Wait outside in the waiting-room if you wish to wait at all.”

“Yoong man,” said the miner, “thou’s got to mak’ t’ wife’s medicine here, and now, and quick, while I wait and watch thee, or else happen thou might need some medicine thysel’ before all is over.”

“I shouldn’t advise you to fasten a quarrel upon me.” Montgomery was speaking in the hard, staccato voice of a man who is holding himself in with difficulty. “You’ll save trouble if you’ll go quietly. If you don’t you’ll be hurt. Ah, you would? Take it, then!”

The blows were almost simultaneous — a savage swing which whistled past Montgomery’s ear, and a straight drive which took the workman on the chin. Luck was with the assistant. That single whizzing uppercut, and the way in which it was delivered, warned him that he had a formidable man to deal with. But if he had underrated his antagonist, his antagonist had also underrated him, and had laid himself open to a fatal blow.

The miner’s head had come with a crash against the corner of the surgery shelves, and he had dropped heavily on to the ground. There he lay with his bandy legs drawn up and his hands thrown abroad, the blood trickling over the surgery tiles.

“Had enough?” asked the assistant, breathing fiercely through his nose.

But no answer came. The man was insensible. And then the danger of his position came upon Montgomery, and he turned as white as his antagonist. A Sunday, the immaculate Dr. Oldacre with his pious connection, a savage brawl with a patient; he would irretrievably lose his situation if the facts came out. It was not much of a situation, but he could not get another without a reference, and Oldacre might refuse him one. Without money for his classes, and without a situation — what was to become of him? It was absolute ruin.

But perhaps he could escape exposure after all. He seized his insensible adversary, dragged him out into the centre of he room, loosened his collar, and squeezed the surgery sponge over his face. He sat up at last with a gasp and a scowl. “Domn thee, thou’s spoilt my neck-tie,” said he, mopping up the water from his breast.

“I’m sorry I hit you so hard,” said Montgomery, apologetically.

“Thou hit me hard! I could stan’ such fly-flappin’ all day. ‘Twas this here press that cracked my pate for me, and thou art a looky man to be able to boast as thou hast outed me. And now I’d be obliged to thee if thou wilt give me t’ wife’s medicine.”

Montgomery gladly made it up and handed it to the miner.

“You are weak still,” said he. “Won’t you stay awhile and rest?”

“T’ wife wants her medicine,” said the man, and lurched out at the door.

The assistant, looking after him, saw him rolling, with an uncertain step, down the street, until a friend met him, and they walked on arm in arm. The man seemed in his rough Northern fashion to bear no grudge, and so Montgomery’s fears left him. There was no reason why the doctor should know anything about it. He wiped the blood from the floor, put the surgery in order, and went on with his interrupted task, hoping that he had come scathless out of a very dangerous business.

Yet all day he was aware of a sense of vague uneasiness, which sharpened into dismay when, late in the afternoon, he was informed that three gentlemen had called and were waiting for him in the surgery. A coroner’s inquest, a descent of detectives, an invasion of angry relatives — all sorts of possibilities rose to scare him. With tense nerves and a rigid face he went to meet his visitors.

They were a very singular trio. Each was known to him by sight; but what on earth the three could be doing together, and, above all, what they could expect from
him
, was a most inexplicable problem. The first was Sorley Wilson, the son of the owner of the Nonpareil Coalpit. He was a young blood of twenty, heir to a fortune, a keen sportsman, and down for the Easter Vacation from Magdalene College. He sat now upon the edge of the surgery table, looking in thoughtful silence at Montgomery and twisting the ends of his small, black, waxed moustache. The second was Purvis, the publican, owner of the chief beer-shop, and well known as the local bookmaker. He was a coarse, clean-shaven man, whose fiery face made a singular contrast with his ivory-white bald head. He had shrewd, light-blue eyes with foxy lashes, and he also leaned forward in silence from his chair, a fat, red hand upon either knee, and stared critically at the young assistant. So did the third visitor, Fawcett, the horse-breaker, who leaned back, his long, thin legs, with their boxcloth riding-gaiters, thrust out in front of him, tapping his protruding teeth with his riding-whip, with anxious thought in every line of his rugged, bony face. Publican, exquisite, and horse-breaker were all three equally silent, equally earnest, and equally critical. Montgomery seated in the midst of them, looked from one to the other.

“Well, gentlemen?” he observed, but no answer came.

The position was embarrassing.

“No,” said the horse-breaker, at last. “No. It’s off. It’s nowt.”

“Stand oop, lad; let’s see thee standin’.” It was the publican who spoke. Montgomery obeyed. He would learn all about it, no doubt, if he were patient. He stood up and turned slowly round, as if in front of his tailor.

“It’s off! It’s off!” cried the horse-breaker. “Why, mon, the Master would break him over his knee.”

“Oh, that be hanged for a yarn!” said the young Cantab. “You can drop out if you like, Fawcett, but I’ll see this thing through, if I have to do it alone. I don’t hedge a penny. I like the cut of him a great deal better than I liked Ted Barton.”

“Look at Barton’s shoulders, Mr. Wilson.”

“Lumpiness isn’t always strength. Give me nerve and fire and breed.
That’s what wins.”

“Ay, sir, you have it theer — you have it theer!” said the fat, red-faced publican, in a thick suety voice. “It’s the same wi’ poops. Get ‘em clean-bred an’ fine, an’ they’ll yark the thick ‘uns — yark ‘em out o’ their skins.”

“He’s ten good pund on the light side,” growled the horse-breaker.

“He’s a welter weight, anyhow.”

“A hundred and thirty.”

“A hundred and fifty, if he’s an ounce.”

“Well, the Master doesn’t scale much more than that.”

“A hundred and seventy-five.”

“That was when he was hog-fat and living high. Work the grease out of him and I lay there’s no great difference between them. Have you been weighed lately, Mr. Montgomery?”

It was the first direct question which had been asked him. He had stood in the midst of them like a horse at a fair, and he was just beginning to wonder whether he was more angry or amused.

“I am just eleven stone,” said he.

“I said that he was a welter weight.”

“But suppose you was trained?” said the publican. “Wot then?”

“I am always in training.”

“In a manner of speakin’, no doubt, he
is
always in trainin’,” remarked the horse-breaker. “But trainin’ for everyday work ain’t the same as trainin’ with a trainer; and I dare bet, with all respec’ to your opinion, Mr. Wilson, that there’s half a stone of tallow on him at this minute.”