Black Bartlemys Treasure

Penfeather drew clenched hand across his brow, and coming to the table reached the half-emptied flagon and drank what remained of the wine thirstily, while Bym, his great body huddled in the chair, stared at the bullet hole in the shutter with starting eyes: as to me, I picked up Penfeather's fallen pistols and laid them on the table, where Godby had set the lanthorn.

"Tressady!" says Bym at last in a hoarse whisper, "Tressady--O Cap'n, be ye sarten sure?"

"Sure!" says Penfeather, in the same hushed manner, and reaching powder and bullets from a cupboard he began methodically to reload his pistols. "He'll be outside now where the shadows be thickest, waiting me with Abnegation and Sol and Rory, and God knoweth how many more."

"Then he aren't dead, Cap'n?" Penfeather's black brows flickered and his keen eyes glanced from his rent doublet round about the room: "Howbeit--he was here, Joel!" said he.

"Why then, Cap'n, the dying woman's curse holds and he can't die?" says Bym, clawing at his great beard.

"He was here, Joel, in this room," says Penfeather, busy with powder-horn, "man to man, knife to knife--and I missed him. Since midnight I've waited wi' pistols cocked and never closed eye--and yet here was he or ever I was aware; for, as I sat there i' the dark by the window above the porch, which is therefore easiest to come at, I spied Mings and him staring up at the lattice of this chamber. So here creeps I and opening the door saw him move against the open lattice yonder--a shot no man could miss."

"Aye, Cap'n--aye?"

"And I--missed him, Joel--with both weapons and I within three yards of him, aye, I missed him with both pistols."

"Which is small wonder," says I, "for as you fired he tripped over me, Adam--"

"And why should he trip just then--at the one and only moment, Martin? Chance, says you? Why, when he came leaping on me in the black dark should his hook meet and turn my knife from his throat? Chance again, says you? Why, when he flung me off and made for the window--why must I catch my foot 'gainst that staff o' yours and bring up against the wall with all the strength and breath knocked out o' me, and no chance for one thrust as he clambered through the lattice? By the Lord, Martin, here's more than chance, says I."

"Aye, by cock!" muttered Joel, shaking his head. "'Tis 'witched he be! You'll mind what I told ye, Cap'n--the poor lady as died raving mad aboard the 'Delight,' how she died cursing him wi' life. And him standing by a-polishing o' that hook o' his--ah, Cap'n, I'll never forget the work o' that same hook ... many's the time ... Bartlemy's prisoners ... men and women ... aboard that cursed 'Ladies' Delight!' By cock, I dream on't sometimes and wake all of a sweat--"