CHAPTER II

      THROUGH THE EAST PASSAGE

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      IT WAS within an hour of daybreak when the crew of the Swift Return sweating with their labor and the liquor freely served to them, had transferred themselves to the little sloop of fifty tons, carrying with them the possessions they most valued, and stores, with all the ammunition they could stow aboard.

      The guns of the Swift Return were charged with double, round and partridge and the vessel set afire. The sloop dropped slowly down towards the East Passage, the crooked, shallow channel of which could not be attempted before dawn.

      The broader harbor mouth was still blocked by the fleet though there was now sufficient water for the deepest-drafted ship to cross and it was Bane’s hope that the vice-admiral would send in some ships or boats to investigate the blaze.

      “If luck holds she will burn down to them,” he said, “and scatter a few of them to hell. Since we can not use her, we’ll sink her.”

      Faint shouts came from Nassau where the thousand pirates were celebrating the advent of the king’s pardon. The low-lying island of Providence was a blur against the skyline. A faint breeze wafted the sloop closer to the tortuous passage that formed the backdoor of the harbor, through which Bane meant to achieve his freedom.

      He had ordered lights out and silence, for fear they might be boarded, and the crew sprawled on the over-crowded decks talking in whispers, fired with excitement and Jamaica rum. Bane stood near the tiller, gazing back at the flaming Swift Return.

      A cutter put out from the Rose man-of-war and was rowed swiftly toward the land with instructions to investigate the cause of the red glow that pulsed behind the head-land fringed with palmetto that hid the Swift Return from the view of the fleet. The fire had reached the gun-deck and the starboard and larboard batteries were scattering shot across an area brilliantly illumined by the blaze.

      Bane swore through his beard at the failure of his plan. Then he saw the cutter come into the radiance, pause and swerve widely about the Swift Return in a course that would bring them close to the sloop.

      He gave a swift order and two boats bristling with men were soon in the water, making with swift, choppy, noiseless oar-strokes toward the cutter.

      “We need a messenger,” said Bane, with a chuckle. “We’ll take the king’s officer and send him back to the fleet after we clear the passage.”

      The cutter, making for the shore, was intercepted by the two boats that swept up, one on either side, from the darkness. The odds were fifty to ten. The lieutenant, seeing the gunwales gripped by twenty pairs of hands while a voice to right and left hoarsely demanded his surrender, disgustedly gave the word and the freebooters returned aboard triumphantly as the sky began to gray and showed the sullen rollers slapping on the sand spits and coral bars that guarded the passage.

      The breeze strengthened and the sloop, close-hauled, nosed her way through the winding channel. The sun rolled up, leaping clear from the rim of the sea and showing the fleet driving under half-sail across the bar into the harbor, nearly a mile away,

      “Up with the Roger and fire a gun,” shouted Bane. A black flag slipped up to the masthead and broke out its sable defiance as a twelve-pounder roared, scaring the breakfast-hunting birds. The cutter trailed at the stern.

      “Into her and back to the fleet with you,” said the buccaneer to the sulky lieutenant. “Tell your commander and Rogers, the king’s jackal, that Bane and his lads are away. If they want to test the speed of our heels or the gage of our guns, let them come after us. It is a fair wind for a race and clear weather for sighting. Cast off there, or we’ll cut you loose!”

      The king’s men were in their craft, dragged with lifting stem behind the sloop.

      “Give us our oars,” called the lieutenant.

      “Scramble for them and be —— to ye,” cried Bane.

      A cutlas-stroke severed the line as the oars were tossed into the sea and the pirates swarmed to the rail, mocking the crew of the cutter as they recovered, one at a time, their means of progress and, at last, setting a quick stroke, rowed back for the passage.

      “Now lads, it’s ho, for Hispaniola!” cried Bane. “It will be an hour before those lubbers get after us. With the wind abeam and the good start we can laugh at them. It will not be long before we’ll take a better ship and then we’ll carry out what has long been in my mind.

      “Now that those curs ashore have surrendered we’ll have the trade to ourselves. We’ll find some place among the Keys where we’ll set up a fort, some spot among the reefs that has a score of exits and but one entrance. That shall be our capital where we’ll all live as kings in our own principality and be in debt to no man.”

      CHEER after cheer went up as the course was changed and the sloop, reaching faster and faster, headed for the Spanish Main. The gage was cast. They were outlaws now beyond redemption. Bane had voiced their prime ambition, to set up a kingdom to which they could go between raids, with loot and women, forced from prizes or picked up in Puerto Rico, hoydens as reckless as themselves.

      There were plenty of towns where they would be made welcome when the coast was clear, to go swaggering, hip-booted, clad in silks and velvets, roaring out their songs, stampeding the citizens, boarding the taverns, paying freely for unlicensed privilege with broad pieces of eight, looting a quiet plantation, perhaps, and marching away to the crackling of the gutted buildings and the shrieks of women borne off across their shoulders. A gay life, a devil-may-care existence with hell for the hind-most!

      A short fife and merry one until they danced the last jig with the hangman’s knot behind their ear or went down fighting on slippery decks. There would be an end to it, of course, but, while it lasted, they would crowd it with excitement and Bane was a lucky leader and a brave one. A man of good family,