John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

The men were indeed in mutinous spirits, ready to make trouble at the slightest excuse. Grudgingly they released the two terrified sailors from the Poseidon, whom they had tormented throughout the captains' private conversation; their faces darkened as Meech's longboat, under the barrels of their pistols, struck out for its mother ship on the north horizon.

Ebenezer slipped through the fo'c'sle to his cell — which customarily remained unlocked — and told Bertrand the story of Meech's treachery, Coode's latest intrigues, and the valuable document in the Captain's quarters.

"I must lay hands on those papers!" he exclaimed. "How Coode came by them I can't imagine, but Baltimore shall have them!"

Bertrand shook his head. "Marry, sir, 'tis not thy fight. A poet hath no part in these things."

"Not so," Ebenezer replied. "I vowed to fling myself into the arms of Life, and what is life but the taking of sides? Besides, I've private reasons for wanting that Journal." How pleased would Burlingame be, he reflected happily, to learn that Captain John Smith had a secret diary! Who knew but what these very papers were the key poor Henry so long had sought to unlock the mystery of his parentage?

"I see those reasons plain enough," the valet declared. "The book would fetch a pretty price if ye put it up for bids. But 'twill do ye small good to steal it when we've no more than a fortnight left on earth. Marry, did ye see what spirits the Moor is in? If this Coode doth not kill us, the pirates will."

But the Laureate did not agree. "This faction may be our salvation, not our doom." He described the delicate atmosphere on deck. " 'Tis Pound that holds us prisoner, not the crew," he said. "They've naught to gain by killing us if they mutiny, but they may well kill him. What's more, they know naught of the Journal. Belike they'll make us members of the crew, and once the turmoil hath subsided I'll find a way to steal the book. Then we can watch our chance to slip ashore. Or better, once we're pirates like the rest we can hide aboard some ship we're sent to plunder; they'd never miss us. Let 'em mutiny, I say; we'll join them!"

As if the last were a command, an instant later a shout went up on deck, followed at once by a brace of pistol-shots. Ebenezer and Bertrand hurried up to declare their allegiance to the mutineers, who they readily assumed had taken charge of the shallop, and indeed they found Boabdil at the helm, grinning at the men assembled in the waist. But instead of lying dead on the deck, Captain Pound stood beside him, arms crossed, a smoking pistol in each hand and a grim smile upon his face, and it was one of the crew, a one-eyed Carolina boy named Patch, who sprawled, face-down and bleeding on the poop companionway.

"We'll put into port when I say so," Pound declared, and returned the pistols to his sash. Two men stepped forward to retrieve their wounded shipmate.

"Over the side with him," the Captain ordered, and despite the fact that he was not yet dead, the Carolinian was tumbled into the ocean.

"The next man I shan't waste a ball on," Pound threatened, and did not even look back to see his victim flounder in the wake.

"Why is the Moor so happy?" Bertrand whispered to Ebenezer. "Ye said he was the wrathfulest of all."

The poet, stunned by his first sight of death, shook his head and swallowed furiously to keep from being ill.

Just then the lookout cried "Sail, ho! Sail to eastward!" The pirates looked to see a three-master heading in their direction, but were too chastened to display any great interest.

"There, now!" laughed Captain Pound, after examining the stranger through his glass. "If Patch had held his peace ten minutes more, he'd not be feeding sea-crabs! D'ye know what ship stands yonder, men?"

They did not, nor did the prospect of robbing it fill them with enthusiasm.

" 'Tis the London ship I've laid for these two weeks," Pound declared, "whilst you wretches were conspiring in the fo'c'sle! Did ye ne'er hear tell of a brigantine called the Cyprian?"

On hearing this name the crew cheered lustily, again and again. They slapped one another's backs, leaped and danced about the deck, and at the Captain's orders sprang as if possessed to ratlines, sheets, halyards, and brace. Topsails and forestaysail were broken out, the helm was put hard over, and the shallop raced to meet her newest prey head-on.

"What is this Cyprian, that changed their minds so lightly?" Bertrand whispered.

"I do not know," his master answered, sorry to see the mutiny come to nothing. "But she hath sprung from the sea like her namesake, and haply we'll have cause to love her. Look sharp for your chance to slip aboard; I hope to steal the Journal if I can."

In less than a quarter of an hour the shallop and the brigantine, sailing smartly on opposite reaches, were within cannon-range of each other. Dozens of the brigantine's passengers were crowded forward to see the shallop, possibly the first vessel they'd met in weeks; they waved hands and kerchiefs in innocent salute. The pirates, every idle hand of whom was similarly occupied, responded with a fearsome cry and fired a round into the water dead ahead of their quarry. It was not until then, when the others screamed and ran for cover, that Ebenezer began to guess in a general way what was afoot: every one of the passengers he could see was female.

"Dear Heav'n!" he breathed.

The captain of the brigantine realized the shallop's intention and came about to run north before the wind, at the same time firing on the attacker; but his defense came too late. Anticipating exactly such a maneuver, Captain Pound had his crew already stationed to follow suit, and the shallop was under way on the new course before the brigantine finished setting her sails. Moreover, although the several square-rigged sails of the brigantine were better for running before the wind than the fore-and-aft rig of her pursuer, the shallop's smaller size and lighter weight more than compensated for the difference. Captain Pound ordered his men not to return the musket- and pistol-fire; instead, taking the helm himself, he cut so close under the brigantine's stern that the name Cyprian, on a banner held by carved oak cupids, was plainly legible on her transom. At the very moment when the shallop's bowsprit seemed about to pierce the victim's stern, he veered a few degrees to starboard; the cannoneer in the bow fired a ball point-blank into the brigantine's rudder, and the chase was over. The Cyprian's crew scrambled to take in sail before the helpless vessel capsized. By the time the shallop came about and retraced her course the brigantine was rolling under bare poles in the swell; the crew stood with upraised arms, the first mate ran a white flag up the main halyards, and the captain, hands clasped behind him, waited on the poop for the worst.

The pirates were beside themselves. They thronged to the rail, shouting obscenities and making lewd gestures. It was all Boabdil could do to bring the shallop alongside, so preoccupied were they all with their joy: the Moor himself had stripped off all but his tall red headgear and stood like a nightmare at the helm. At length the grapples were made fast, the sails struck, and the ships lashed together along their beams, so that they rode like mated seabirds on the waves. Then with howls the pirates swarmed over the rails, cursing and stumbling in their haste. The Cyprian's crew backed off in fright, but no one paid them the slightest attention: indeed, Captain Pound had finally to force three of his men at pistol-point to tie them to the masts. The rest had no thought for anything but breaking open the companionway and cabin doors, which the terrified passengers had bolted from inside.