A noble Ship, from Deck to Peaks,
Akin to those that Homers Greeks
Sail'd east to Troy in Days of Yore,
As we sail'd now to MARYLANDS Shore.
From here it was small labor to extend the tribute to captain and crew as well, though in truth he'd met no seafaring men in his life save Burlingame and the fearsome pirate captains. Giving himself wholly to the muse, and rejecting quatrains for stanzas of a length befitting the epic, he wrote on:
Our Captain, like a briny God,
Beside the Helm did pace and plod,
And shouted Orders at the Sky,
Where doughty Seamen, Mast-top high,
Unfurl'd and furl'd our mighty Sails,
To catch the Winds but miss the Gales.
O noble, salty Tritons Race,
Who brave the wild Atlantics Face
And reckless best both Wind and Tide:
God bless thee, Lads, fair Albions Pride!
In a kind of reverie he saw himself actually aboard the Poseidon, dry-breeched and warm, his gear safely stowed below. The sky was brilliant. A fresh wind from the east raised whitecaps in the sparkling ocean, threatened to lift his hat and the hats of the cordial gentlemen with whom he stood in converse on the poop, and fanned from red to yellow the coals of good tobacco in their pipes. With what grace did the crewmen race aloft to make sail! To what a chorus did the anchor rise dripping from the bottom of the sea and the mighty ship make way! The gentlemen held their hats, peered down at the wave of foam beneath the sprit and up at the sea birds circling off the yards, squinted their eyes against sun and spray, and laughed in awe at the scrambling sailors. Anon a steward from below politely made a sign, and all the gay company retired to dinner in the Captain's quarters. Ebenezer sat at that worthy's right, and no wit was sharper than his, nor any hunger. But what a feast was laid before them! Dipping his quill again, he wrote:
Ye ask, What eat our merry Band
En Route to lovely MARYLAND?
I answer: Ne'er were such Delights
As met our Sea-sharp'd Appetites
E'er serv'd to Jove and Junos Breed
By Vulcan and by Ganymede.
There was more to be said, but no sweeter was the dream than its articulation, and so thorough his fatigue, he scarce could muster gumption to subscribe the usual E.C., Gent, Pt & Lt of Md before his eyes completely closed, his head nodded forward, and he knew no more.
It seemed but a moment that he slept; yet when roused by the noise of a groom leading a horse into the stable, he observed with alarm that the sun was well along in the western sky: the square of light from the doorway stretched almost to where he sat in the straw. He leaped up, remembered his semi-nudity, and snatched a double handful of straw to cover himself.
"The jakes is there across the yard, sir," the boy said, not visibly surprised, "though I grant 'tis little sweeter than this stable."
"Nay, you mistake me, lad — But no matter. See you those drawers and breeches on yonder line? 'Twill be a great service to me if you will feel of them, whether they be dry, and if so, fetch them hither with all haste, for I must catch a ferry to the Downs."
The young man did as instructed, and soon Ebenezer was able to leave the stable behind him at last and run with all possible speed to the wharf, searching as he ran for Burlingame or the two pirate captains into whose clutches he feared his friend had fallen. When he reached the wharf, breathless, he found to his dismay that the shallop was already gone and his trunk with it, though Burlingame's remained behind on the pier exactly where it had been placed that morning. His heart sank.
An old mariner sat nearby on a coil of rope belonging to the shallop, smoking a long clay pipe.
"I say, sir, when did the shallop sail?"
"Not half an hour past," the old man said, not troubling to turn his eyes. "Ye can spy her yet."
"Was there a short fellow among the passengers, that wore" — he was ready to describe Burlingame's port-purple coat, but remembered in time his friend's disguise — "that called himself Bertrand Burton, a servant of mine?"
"None that I saw. No servants at all, that I saw."
"But why did you leave this trunk ashore and freight its neighbor?" Ebenezer demanded. "They were to go together to the Poseidon."
" 'Twas none o' my doing," said the mariner with a shrug. "Mr. Cooke took his with him when he sailed; the other man sails tonight oh a different ship."
"Mr. Cooke!" cried Ebenezer. He was about to protest that he himself was Ebenezer Cooke, Laureate of Maryland, but thought better of it: in the first place, the pirates might still be searching for him — the old mariner, for all he knew, might be in their employ; Cooke, moreover, was a surname by no means rare, and the whole thing could well be no more than a temporary confusion.
"Yet, surely," he ended by saying, "the man was not Ebenezer Cooke, Laureate of Maryland?"
But the old man nodded. " 'Twas that same gentleman, the poetical wight."
"I'faith!"
"He wore black breeches like your own," the sailor volunteered, "and a purple coat — none o' the cleanest, for all his lofty post."
"Burlingame!" the poet gasped.
"Nay, Cooke it was. A sort of poet, crossing on the Poseidon."
Ebenezer could not fathom it.
"Then prithee," he asked, with some difficulty and no little apprehension, "who might that second gentleman be, the owner of this trunk here, that sails tonight on a different vessel?"
The old man sucked his pipe. "He'd not the dress of a gentleman," he declared at length, "nor yet a gentleman's face, but rather a brined and weathered look, like any sailor. The others call him Captain, and he them likewise."
Ebenezer paled. "Not Captain Slye?" he asked fearfully.
"Aye, now you mention it," the old man said, "there was a Captain Slye among their number."
"And Scurry too?"
"Aye, Slye and Scurry they were, as like as twins. They and the third came seeking the poetical gentleman not five full minutes after he'd sailed, as you've come seeking them. But they went no farther than the nearest house for rum, where 'tis likely you'll find 'em yet."
In spite of himself Ebenezer cried "Heav'n forfend!" and glanced with terror across the street.
The old man shrugged again and spat into the harbor. "Haply there's company more proper than sailors ashore," he allowed, "but more merry — Out on't!" he interrupted himself. "You've but to read the name from off his baggage there, where he wrote it not ten minutes past I've not the gift of letters myself, else I had thought of't ere now."
Ebenezer examined his friend's trunk at once and found on one handle a bit of lettered pasteboard: Capt Jno Coode.