John Drake - Skull and Bones

"Who are you, my lad?" said Silver.

"My lord!" corrected Allardyce. "He is the McLonarch of McLonarch!"

"Very likely," said Silver. "But I'll hear it from him, not you!"

The tall man stirred, fastened his eyes on Silver, drew himself upright and spoke with the soft, Irish-sounding accent of the Scottish Highlands.

"I am Andrew Charles Louis Laurent McLonarch-Flaubert – ninth Earl of McLonarch, and First Minister of His Most Catholic Majesty King Charles III, who is known to men as Bonnie Prince Charlie." He was bedraggled and in chains, and spouting utter nonsense. But nobody laughed. Nobody laughed at the McLonarch.

"Are you now?" said Silver. "And what does King George say to that?"

"George of Hanover is a pretender and a heretic," said McLonarch calmly. "He faces the block in this world and damnation in the next."

"I see," said Silver. "So what're you doing in chains? What with you being prime minister, an' all?"

McLonarch looked around until he spotted the group huddled against the lee rail, menaced by pistols. He pointed at Norton.

"Ask him," said McLonarch, and nodded grimly. "He is one whom I have marked for future attention, for he is deep in the service of the Hanoverians."

Everyone looked at Norton, who shrugged his shoulders.

"I serve my king!" he said, afraid to say more.

"And what might that mean?" said Long John.

Norton thought before he spoke. He was a brave man but he was nervous, and with good reason. He couldn't guess whose side these pirates might take, and he knew McLonarch's power with words.

"McLonarch is a leader of Jacobites," he said. "He would raise rebellion – civil war – to soak England in blood. He is under arrest by the Lord Chancellor's warrant, and I am charged with escorting him home for trial." Norton looked round to see how this was received.

"Bah!" sneered McLonarch. "The man is a catchpole, a thief-taker, an agent sent to return me to England for judicial murder. He used bribery and deceit to capture me, and to steal the treasure lawfully gathered by my master the king."

"Treasure?" said Silver, just when the politics was getting dull.

"Treasure?" said a dozen voices.

"A war chest of three thousand pounds in Spanish gold, which -"

"THREE THOUSAND POUNDS?" they cried.

"Which I was delivering to my master's loyal followers in London."

"Where is it?" said Silver.

"WHERE IS IT?" roared his crew.

"In the hold, in strong boxes," said McLonarch, and pointed again at Norton: "He has the keys. He stole them from me."

There followed half an hour of the most delightful and congenial work. Having been told exactly what would happen to him if he didn't co-operate, Norton swiftly produced a heavy ring of keys from his cabin. Meanwhile the main hatchway was broken open, a heavy block rigged to the mainstay, with lifting tackles, and the crew of Venture's Fortune set to the heavy labour of burrowing through the cargo – rum, sugar and molasses – to get to the heavy strongboxes which were on the ground tier down below.

Then the captured crew were made to haul up the boxes, one at a time, for opening on the quarterdeck at Silver's feet, to thundering cheers, the fiddler playing, hornpipes being danced, and joy unbounded as rivers of Spanish coin poured out all over the decks, such that it was a tribute to Long John's leadership that all hands did not get roaring drunk and lose the ship.

The only thing that puzzled Silver in that merry moment was why McLonarch had given up his treasure so easily. Silver pondered on that. Of course, the gelt was lost to McLonarch as soon as his ship was taken… but why speak up quite so helpful: saying how much there was, and who'd got the keys, an' all? It wasn't right. No man behaved like that. So what was going on?

He got his answer later, when Tom Allardyce brought McLonarch down to the stern cabin, where Silver was sitting at Captain Fitch's desk, going through the ship's papers for anything that might be useful.

"Cap'n!" said Allardyce. Silver looked up. Allardyce stood with his hat in his hands, bent double in respect for the man beside him, and whom he kept glancing at, in awestruck respect. McLonarch, free of chains and even more imposing than he'd been before, stood beside Allardyce with his nose in the air, and gazing down upon Silver as if he were a lackey with a chamber pot. Silver frowned.

"Who took his irons off, Mr Bosun?"

"Er… me, Cap'n."

"On whose orders?"

"Seemed the right thing, Cap'n," said Allardyce, torn between two loyalties.

"'The right thing, you say? Now see here, my lad, I'll not -"

"Captain Silver!" said McLonarch. "That is your name, is it not?"

Silver stared at McLonarch, whom he did not like – not one little bit – having taken against him on sight, for McLonarch was a man who expected doors to open in front of him and close behind him, and who sat down without looking… such was his confidence that a minion would be ready with a chair! Silver forgave him that, for it was the way of all aristocrats. What made him uneasy was McLonarch's belief that he was the right hand of Almighty God, and his uncanny gift of convincing others of it: which gift now bore down upon John Silver.

"Aye, milord! Silver's my name," said Long John. "Cap'n Silver, at your service."

Silver couldn't believe he'd just said that. He disowned the words on the instant. But he'd said them all right, and worse still, he felt an overpowering urge to stand up and take off his hat! A lesser man would have been up like a shot, and even Silver was half out of his seat before he realised what was happening and slumped back, scowling fiercely. But McLonarch nodded in satisfaction, and waved a gracious hand.

"Captain," he said, "I welcome you into my service. There is much work for you to do, and you will begin by locking His Majesty's monies into their strongboxes once again and replacing the boxes in the hold."

One bell of the afternoon watch 18th March 1753 Aboard Oraclaesus The Atlantic

Flint's leg-irons were secured by the curled-over end of an iron bar. Billy Bones got the bar nicely on to the small anvil he'd brought below for purposes of liberation, took up the four-pound hammer, frowned mightily for precision… and struck a great blow.

Clang! said the irons.

"Another," said Flint.

"Aye-aye, Cap'n!"

Clang!

"Ahhh!" said Flint, and pulled the straightened bar through the holes in the loops that had encircled his ankles before hurling the irons with passionate hatred into the dark depths of the hold, where they rattled and clattered and terrified the ship's rats as they went about their honest business.

"Dear me," said Flint, not unkindly, "I do apologise, Lieutenant!" For the hurtling iron had knocked off the hat, and nearly smashed in the brow, of the goggle-eyed young officer of marines – he looked to be about seventeen – who knelt holding a lantern beside Billy Bones.

"You do give your parole?" said the lieutenant. "Your parole not to escape?"

"Of course," said Flint, ignoring the nonsensical implication that there might be some place to escape to, aboard a ship at sea. He sighed, and stood, and stretched his limbs, then turned to the lad as if puzzled: "But has not Mr Bones already made clear," he said, "that Captain Baggot was about to order my release?"

"Was he?" said the lieutenant, weighed down by responsibility and peering at Billy Bones as they got to their feet. Billy, for his part, was bathed in the warm smile of a man entirely free of responsibility, since all future decisions were now in the hands of his master.

In fact, Billy Bones was so happy that he was quite taken by surprise: "About to release Cap'n Flint?" he said doubtfully. But a glimpse of Flint frowning nastily was sufficient to restore his memory. "Ah!" said Billy Bones. "'Course he was, Mr Lennox!" And recalling his manners, he jabbed a thumb at the red-coated officer. "This here's Mr Lennox, Cap'n, sir… the senior officer surviving."