Jeffery Farnol
ADAM PENFEATHER, BUCCANEER:
His Early Exploits
BOOK ONE
CHAPTER I
TELLS SOMEWHAT OF A FATHER—AND A SON
The executioner adjusted his noose and spoke hoarsely in the doomed man's ear; but the eyes of this man, staring widely, gazed very wistfully at one small, pallid face low down amid the jostling, murmurous throng, an eager, yearning look wherein his every faculty was centred so that he seemed blind and deaf to all else,—therefore the executioner (a busy soul) pushed him suddenly.... The man fell, the deadly rope jerked violently, tightened, quivered....
Then from the awed and silenced crowd rose a voice in shrill, agonized scream:
"Father!"
A frantic, small figure pushed and strove desperately to win nearer that awful, quivering rope, but, finding all efforts vain, screamed once more, cast hands wildly heavenward, sank and was like to have been trampled by the gaping concourse but that a strong hand clutched and dragged him up, a powerful shoulder drove through the press, out into a corner of the market-place, along a narrow street, across a pleasant green and so to a rustic bench set about the massive bole of a shady tree. Here they paused and upon this bench the so dreadfully bereaved son cast himself face down while his rescuer, a tall, bronzed fellow with gold rings in his ears, tilted his be-feathered though somewhat shabby hat to scratch curly head, rasped fingers across jut of blue-shaven chin and finally spoke in voice unexpectedly rich and musicaclass="underline"
"Your father, eh, my lad,—your very own dad!"
The slim shape on the bench writhed as in agonized convulsion yet made no sound.
"Well, now, my poor orphan, I says you can scupper, sink and burn me if this an't a recious sorry business for any dutiful son, and mighty heart-breaking! So, my lad, your present need is rum forthwith—rum and plenty on't. So bowse up, lad, stand away wi' me and rum it shall be." Reaching forth powerful arm, the speaker lifted this quivering shape of horror to its feet and thus saw how this youth was something older than he had deemed, for, though small-made and slender, the face of him showed strangely arresting,—a smooth oval, pale as death, lit by wide-spaced eyes very keenly bright, with pallid lips, close-set to stay their quivering, and long, pointed chin.
"Rum's the word, messmate, with an R a U and an M writ large,—rum!"
"No, 'twould choke me."
"Ay, but 'twill hearten thee ... or stoup of ale, for, next to rum, there's nought for trouble o' mind or body, like nappy ale, 'tis a true Englishman's panacea. Ay, and there's a right classical word for ye, my lad, for though a tarry mariner something inclined for the nonce to be out at elbow, I was and am and shall be very much beside. Rouse up, messmate, and bear away along o' me."
So this tall, strange sailorman sought to comfort his small companion whose frail body was shaken violently ever and anon by violent shudderings and once, faltering in his stride, a groaning outcry broke from him:
"They've killed ... my father ... the world's an emptiness! Oh God ... the rope ... that murderous, cruel rope!"
"Courage, lad! What's done is done, and grief shall not better it. Whereof I'll now make a rhyme and pipe it to thy comfort,—hearkee!" And forthwith, setting long arm about his companion's slim, trembling form, this mariner began to sing these words in voice richly mellow:
"For thee, m'lad, I pipe this lay,
So mark and stint thy sorrow,
For since they've hanged thy dad to-day,
He can't be hanged to-morrow.
And, messmate, there's comfort, too, in this, to wit,—when a man's dead and gone aloft, he's risen 'bove all cares o' mind or plagues o' body—we hope! And now, what might your name be?"
"Adam."
"Why I've heard worse name,—though Father Adam proved snivelling tell-tale on Mother Eve anent that apple business,—howbeit Adam is goodish name, being Biblical, like mine own—mine's Absalom by reason, as I've heard tell, that I was born with uncommon long hair. Absalom Troy am I. And what name hast beside, messmate?"
Instead of answering, Adam lifted clenched hands towards heaven and said between shut teeth:
"It was ... murder! My father wrought 'gainst Papistry and cried down this Spanish marriage ... and for this ... for this they murdered him! And he was so gently kind ... so good a man ... ah God, would I had been a better son. To-day he hangs dead yonder ... his innocent blood is on me, crying for vengeance. Oh God, make me strong, a man's strength. Oh Lord!" Breathless and shaken by the wild passion of his grief, Adam would have fallen but for his companion's clutching hand.
"Avast, messmate!" quoth Absalom, with friendly shake. "Such grief's a shoal for shipwreck. So haul your wind and bear away afore it, large and free, until I can physic ye wi' rum, for hearkee:
"When sorrow and black troubles come,
Then souse 'em—drown 'em—deep in rum;
And if so be as rum do fail,
Then drown 'em deeper yet in ale.
So here's yet another song as I've contrived to thy comfort, boy! I've made the words to many a chorus and chanty, as you shall hear sung lustily all along the Spanish Main from Tortuga to Santa Catarina. Ah, many's the song I've made and sung and wrote down likewise, especially two as be now chanted right hearty aboard ships o' the Coast Brotherhood, true songs, my lad, and of real men—Black Bartlemy for one and Roger Tressady for t'other and hell-fire roarers both or strike me dumb! And there lieth our haven—in the lee o' yon trees. 'The Mariner's Joy,' kept by an old shipmate, and a snug berth for any poor sailorman."
So came they to a sequestered tavern bowered amid the green and into a small, pleasant chamber, its wide lattice open upon a sunny garden fragrant with herb and flower.
"Ho, Ben,—Ben Purdy ahoy!" cried Absalom, sitting down upon roomy settle and beckoning Adam beside him. "Ahoy, Ben, show a leg—and rum, Ben, rum and ale—and lively ho!"
"Ay, ay, sir!" came an answering hail. "Rum it is, wi' ale as ever, sir." And presently to them came a squat, trim, merry-eyed fellow who rolled in his gait yet bore well laden tray very deftly none the less.
"Where be the lads, Ben—Abnegation and lubberly Abner?"
"Abroad, sir."
"Ha. And Captain Smy?"
"He be aloft, sir, wi' his Book. Shall I pass him the word?"
"Nay leave him to his meditations, and see to it we are nowise interrupted, Ben, off with ye! And now," said Absalom, so soon as they were alone, "here's to thy consolation, my poor boy. Sluice the ivories, drink deep and drink oft—come!"
Adam drank and choked, but at earnest solicitation of his new friend, drank again; he sipped rum, he gulped ale, he quaffed both together until at last he nodded drowsily, sank back upon the settle and forgot awhile his sick horror, his grief and heartbreak in the blessedness of sleep.