This book you hold in your hand belonged once to a
very celebrated Pirate.
He was so celebrated that the newspapers—of that
time—always said nice things about him, and always knew what he was doing
before he did himself. As he was a very truthful man, he did the things, so
that the editors might not get into trouble.
Which was kind.
By which I do not mean that he was always kind.
Nobody knew how old he was. Some
said that he was so old that he had never been born.
Some said that he must be young or he could not be so
wicked.
So you see there were two opinions about him.
There are always two opinions about a celebrated man.
If you look at him you will see that he dressed to
please himself.
He wore a nice hat—but you have
noticed that; and he had a roving eye.
By which I do not mean his eye walked about like this,
but that he looked around him a good deal.
If you
are thinking of becoming a Pirate—and there is plenty of room at the top of
every profession—you will have to look about a good deal, because you will have
enemies.
Tom
Tomb—that was not his name, but it was the way he signed other people's
cheques, and your father and mother will tell you that this is a very mean
trick—lived partly on an island, and partly on board the Inky Murk.
You
will understand that I mean not with one foot on the island and one on the
boat, but sometimes on one and sometimes on the other.
Now T.
T. never robbed the poor.
Because
it was not worth his while.
But
any person who looked rich[22][21] suffered accordingly.
The Inky Murk was the name of his boat. You can make one curiously
like it with two chairs and a rug.
One day Tomb captured a young
fellow—a very handsome lad too.
It was off a certain island where Tom Tomb had a neat
cottage, in the garden of which he grew flowers for a pastime.
Because,
of course, he needed a little time to himself in between his tremendous fights.
The young fellow was stealing
flowers.
He was surprised to see Captain Tomb.
When I say he was surprised, you will see what I mean
by the picture.
"What cinderadustmat do you
mean," yelled Tomb, in a voice like a railway accident, "by stealing
my flowers?"
"I thought they were wild," said the young
fellow, taking his pipe from his mouth.
"Wild!" shrieked Tomb.
"Wild!!" he bawled.
This last yell was so powerful that three of his
buttons flew off his coat.
The young fellow caught them neatly in his left hand,
and presented them to the Captain on bended knee.
The neat act saved the lad's life.
"An honour to serve you, Captain Thomas
Tomb," said he.
"You
know me?" asked Tomb, smiling upon the boy.
"I thought it must be your
face," said the lad boldly.
He was about to speak again, had not Tomb silenced him
with a gesture. He liked the lad.
Had he spoken again, Tomb would have silenced him for
ever.
He was about to say that any other man with a face
like that would have died long ago, from wounded vanity.
"Would
you care to be a Pirate, my youthful fellow?" said Tomb.
The lad hesitated. "My father
. . ." he began.
"Dead," said Tomb, in a hollow voice.
"My mother . . ."
"Dead," Tomb replied, in a monotonous
whisper.
"My brother and sister . . ."
Tomb raised a sorrowful hand: his heart was touched.
"My family . . ." said the young
man in despair.
"My poor boy," said Tomb, with tears in his
eyes, "my poor, dear fellow, I killed them all not an hour ago."
"Then my sweetheart would
object to my becoming a Pirate," said the lad, weeping.
"Enough," said Tomb; "you are called
from henceforth Dingy David. Now to sea!"
For
ten years they plundered upon the Spanish Main, until they acquired so much
money that Bilge Island, Tomb's business address, smelt of hoarded gold, and
the beach glittered with jewels.
Then both Tomb and David—I am
keeping the secret of his real name to the end—became tired of so much adventure.
They had sailed in many seas: the Spanish
Main—commonly known as the Dining-room Carpetwaters—the Kitchen Archipelago,
the Drawing-room Inland Sea, the Creek of Conservatory, and the Lake of
Passages. They had roamed the Wilderness of the High Street, the terrors of the
Gardens they knew, and the Gulf of Front Hall was common water.
So they retired for a breathing space and a wash to
that Island where the neat cottage stood and the geraniums grew.
They moored the Inky Murk to
a low-growing pom-pom tree, and then, stepping carefully, like those
unaccustomed to dry land (or wet land either, for the matter of that), they
gazed upon each other in silence.
No one, not even the most careful
observer, would have recognised in the two dusty figures, the once spruce forms
of Captain Thomas Tomb and Dingy David.
"Home!" said the young
fellow, throwing a diamond at a wave-crest. (When I say
"diamond"—they were always finding them in corners of their pockets.)
"Home once more!"
"Cinderadustmat!" exclaimed Tomb. "Let
me hear you, oh! let me hear you say the word again!"
"Home," said the young fellow, gazing at the
ripe ockapillies hanging overhead.
Mastering his ill-concealed
emotion, T. T. rose and strode—(when I say strode—T. T. never walked: he
strolled, strutted, strode, or stepped, invariably)—towards the house.
Threw open the door!! xxxxxx! o! z!
What a sight met his eyes!!
Dust, dust, dust—everywhere.
Dust met his eye. (When I say that,
I mean that he saw dust—over all the simple cottage furniture he loved.)
He groaned three times.
The young man, who was idly chewing the stone of a
cringet, turned and saw, through the open door, dust, dust, dust.
Leaping to his feet, he rushed
to the Captain's side.
"Captain," said he, "we must have a
Charwoman."
(I say charwoman, meaning a woman who is paid to do
work that other servants are hired to do, but will not.)
In less time than it takes to skin
an acquadatoric, Dingy David was in the rowing-boat making for the shore of the
mainland.
Sixty-eight hours of hard rowing,
without a rest, brought the strong young fellow to the coast.
It was night.
A light burned in the window of the
lonely cottage that stood upon the shore.
It was the work of a moment for
Dingy David to seize upon the beautiful maiden who was writing jam labels, by
the light of a solitary candle.
Such are the lives of the humble.
Without a glance at her face, he
carried her at breakneck speed to the boat—pushed off, and rowed like Hercules
for the island.
Exactly one hundred and thirty-six
hours—which is five days sixteen hours from the time he started—David brought
the captive beauty and laid her, senseless with fatigue, at the feet of Tom
Tomb.
"What have we here?"
asked Tomb, pronouncing the H very clearly.
"A charwoman, sire," responded David; and,
smiling, the lad fell asleep.
When he awoke the sun was shining
and the day was warm.
One glance showed him that the cottage was a model of
cleanliness.
(Pirates are sharp glancers.)
A smell of breakfast smote his
nostrils pleasantly.
It was the work of a moment to dash into the house,
wash, shave, and—there, upon a snowy bed, were laid the very clothes in
which—long years ago—he had been captured.
In another moment he was in them and dashing
downstairs, doing up the buttons as he went.
He flung himself, panting, into the breakfast-room.
The glorious girl looked up from
her bacon with a cry.
Tomb started to his feet.
The young man opened his mouth.
"Ermyntrude!" he called.
"Wencheslaus!" she exclaimed.
For once Tomb's cool courage failed him.—He started
back.
The sweethearts were in each other's arms.
"Listen," said Tomb, when
he regained his breath; and they, gazing into each other's eyes, listened.
"Gaze elsewhere," said Tomb, "and I
will unfold a tale."
In the heat of the moment he put his sleeve into the
butter.
Ermyntrude sprang to his assistance. Tomb enfolded her
in his embrace.
"This lady is my
daughter," he said, turning to Wencheslaus, who stood amazed.
"I will not bother you with the story," said
Tomb, "but five and forty years ago I wooed and wed her lovely mother.
Twenty-one years ago to-day Ermyntrude was born, and her mother, after
lingering two years, died. Leaving the girl in the care of an honest fishwife
(when I say honest, I mean, as honest as her profession allowed), I roamed the
seas as a Pirate: sorrow made me merciless. Then, when I wished to return to my
daughter, I found that I had lost her address."
"Father!" said Ermyntrude.
"My daughter," he exclaimed, "I am a
careless man!"
"And I?" said Wencheslaus—"what is the
secret of my birth?"
Going up to him, Tomb, with one superb movement, bared
the youth's arm. Upon it was tattooed, in gold and purple, the crest of a noble
family.
"As I thought!" exclaimed Tomb; then he
removed his hat. "Lord Wencheslaus of When-cheeselawn!"
"Then my father was . . ."
the youth began.
"The Duke of Thingamaroo," said Tomb, bowing
low.
A cry sounded from the cellars of
the cottage.
Tomb again started.
"I had forgotten," said he. Then he put his
hand into his pocket, and drew forth this very book.
"Ten years ago," said he, consulting his
notes, "I told you that I had killed your family. It was not true."
"Not true?" said Lord Wencheslaus—for so we
must now call him.
"Not strictly accurate," Tomb replied.
"I immured them in these cellars, with ten years' provisions."
With a noble gesture, he flung the key of the cellars
upon the table.
"Release them, my Lord," he said.
We draw a veil over the rapturous meeting.
When the boat was loaded with the
noble family, Lord Wencheslaus (erstwhile Dingy David) and Ermyntrude Tomb
stood hand in hand in front of Captain Thomas Tomb.
"You must often come and see us, father,"
she said.
"My little Ermyntrude," he said, "you
can bet your back hair your poor old father will often come."
Lord W. wrung Tomb's hand: his emotion was too great
for words.
They stepped into the boat and sailed away.
As they touched the mainland they
started.
Boom! boom!! came the sound of guns across the water.
Tom Tomb was at his old game.