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What place?" The tears again made rivulets on her cheeks. He shook his head. "I dunno." Mrs. Brenner would not give up. "You saw your pa this afternoon, Tobey?" she coached him softly. He nodded. "Where'd you see him?" she breathed. He frowned. "I I saw pa " he began, straining to pierce the cloud that covered him. "Blood! Blood!" shrieked old Mrs. Brenner.
"No more than them I could name who planned to go a-cruisin' in the Plymouth Adventure," doggedly replied Peter Tobey who resented the tone of sneering patronage. "Fie, fie! You talk boldly for a man in your situation. Never mind! Why the honor of this visit?" "To make terms, Master Rackham. If us twenty men consent to serve you " "You babble of terms?" was the biting interruption.
"You got the ways of the deer in your walk, the song o' the birds in your voice; and you're going North with me, Nance, for I bin talkin' to you stiddy four years. It's a long time to wait on the chance, for there's always women to be got, same as others have done men like Dingan with Injun girls, and men like Tobey with half-breeds. But I ain't bin lookin' that way.
Her teeth were chattering now; she laid her hand on his other shoulder. "Try to remember, Tobey. Try to remember. Where'd you get the watch, the pretty watch that was in your box?" He blinked at her. "The pretty bright thing? Where did you get it?" His eyes brightened. His lips trembled into a smile. "I found it some place," he said. Eagerness to please her shone on his face. "But where?
Tobey ain't done nothing. What you tryin' to do to him?" "There is blood on this box, Mrs. Brenner." "Mebbe he cut himself." Mrs. Brenner was fighting. Her face was chalky white. "In the box, Mrs. Brenner, is a gold watch and chain. The man who was killed, Mrs. Brenner, had a piece of gold chain to match this in his buttonhole. The rest of it had been torn off" Olga made no sound.
By watchin' the tides I reckoned I might drift to another island and so work to the coast, taking my provisions with me. There was some small line in the cask that Peter Tobey had wrapped the stores in, and I knotted a harness about the cask that I could slip an arm in, and off I goes when the tide sets right.
"I ain't going to be such a fool as to keep it on me!" Mart crowed with venomous mirth. "You nor the sheriff nor any one won't find it where I'm going to put it!" The broken woman leaned forward, baiting him. The strange look of exaltation and sacrifice burned in her faded eyes. "I've got you, Mart!" she jeered. "You're going to swing yet! I'll even up with you for Tobey!
Then Brenner lurched toward her, his face black with fury, his arm upraised. She stood still, looking at him with wide eyes in which a gleam of light showed. "You devil!" she said, in a little, whispering voice. "You killed that man! You gave Tobey the watch and the ax! You changed shoes with him! You devil! You devil!" He drew back for a blow. She did not move.
"A hard man to kill," said Peter Tobey. "Take me aboard. 'Tis best I have speech with him. Let the people wait here on the cay. They can stand another hour of it." There was fierce protest among the marooned pirates but the carpenter's mate gruffly demanded to know if they wished to be carried into the harbor and turned over to Blackbeard.
Knuckles growled, but waited until the girl was seated near the window. Then Dan'l drew his bow and struck up a spirited march. Patsy took the arm of Knuckles and paraded down the long room. Beth followed with Tobey, and behind them tramped the remittance men in files of two.
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