The Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (26 page)

In this part of the ocean the bottom of the sea was an ugly muddy plain on which great boulders were scattered, some of them almost as big as a cottage. Lying on the mud the two thick cables ran north and south, and east and west. Here and there grew clumps of seaweed like low bushes—there was a growth like a little shrubbery quite close to the knot itself—but the cables had been kept clean, and no weed covered them.

Between Dan Scumbril and Inky Poops and the pirate army that stood facing them lay a vast coil of new rope that looked very clean and white against the muddy floor. Inky Poops was making a speech, and several times he pointed to this new rope, and spoke of it with pride and pleasure. They would splice it to the old cables, he said, and with it tie a new and splendid knot, a knot that he and Dan Scumbril had invented. It would be far better than the old knot, he said. It would be stronger, it would look nicer, and because they would all help to tie it, they would all feel very proud of it.

He also spoke about Davy Jones, and called him a great tyrant, and said he had no right to be so wealthy. It would be much better for everybody,
he said, if he and Dan Scumbril took possession of Davy Jones's wealth, because they, being honest pirates, would never put it to any bad use. They would buy new rope with it, he declared, and tie new knots all over the world. The pirates cheered him loudly, whenever he stopped for breath, but he never explained why the new knots would be better than the old ones, and Timothy and Hew thought he was talking a lot of nonsense. The sailors and Sam Sturgeon, however, were very worried indeed, because four tall pirates, with axes in their hands, stood on each side of the knot that Gunner Boles had kept, ready to cut the old cables when Inky Poops or Dan Scumbril gave the word.

‘And they'll spring apart!' muttered Gunner Boles. ‘We're done for if they cut them. They can't ever hold them. If the knot goes, the cables go, and they can't hold them, I tell you!'

‘But what can we do to stop them?' asked Sam. ‘There's eight of us, and three little boys, against more than three hundred of them. We can't do nothing.'

‘Nothing,' said Gunner Boles, ‘except hope that Davy Jones will come in time.'

Inky Poops was nearing the end of his speech. He was talking so quickly and so excitedly, and the pirates were cheering so often, that they could not hear what he was saying; but they could see that the four men who were to cut the cables now stood with their axes raised aloft.

‘Where's Cully? ‘asked Sam Sturgeon. ‘Was
he off duty when you got taken prisoner?'

‘I let him off for an hour or two,' said Gunner Boles, ‘because he was feeling sleepy, he said. That octopus sleeps more than anyone I've ever known. But I told him not to go far away.'

‘He ought to be here,' said Sam. ‘He ought to be at the knot.'

‘I'm going down! ‘cried Gunner Boles. ‘I can't sit here, doing nothing, and see the cables cut. I'm going down!'

‘Stay were you are,' said Sam. ‘You couldn't do any good.'

He took Gunner Boles by the arm, and two of the sailors helped to hold him. It would have been sheer folly for one man, or even eight, to attack the pirate army, but Gunner Boles could not bear to see the destruction of his knot—and now Dan Scumbril, turning to the four tall pirates who stood with axes aloft, shouted, ‘Cut!'

They hewed at the cables, and strand after strand of the stout rope parted under their blows. Gunner Boles struggled with the sailors, and shouted to them to let him go; but the pirates were cheering so loudly that there was little danger of their hearing him. Timothy and Hew could see that the cables were beginning to yield and strain and tear apart under the blows of the axe-men, and they wondered fearfully what would happen when they parted. But now, in the water above the knot, a shadow appeared and slowly spread. The water grew darker and darker, till only the heads and
arms and shoulders of the axe-men could be seen; for their legs were invisible in a black pool, and the knot was out of sight. But still they struck at the cables they could no longer see.

‘It's Cully!' cried Timothy. ‘He must be in the seaweed there!'

‘Cully's been hiding there all the time!' exclaimed Hew.

The darkness in the water grew larger, like a thundercloud rising behind a hill, and the axe-men fled from it while Inky Poops and Dan Scumbril stood perplexed, not knowing what to do, and all the pirates shouted and growled and chattered with wrath. Sam Sturgeon and Gunner Boles, and the sailors and the three boys, stood up in the window of their cave, careless now of being seen—and then Timothy cried, ‘Look! Look! They're coming!'

Down through the green sea, diving steeply, came ten, twelve, fifteen great whales of Davy Jones's fleet. Straight for the pirate army they dived, and the sailors in their howdahs rose for the attack, and the voice of Davy Jones, like a great bell tolling, resounded in the depths: ‘Out cutlasses and board!'

The charge of the finback-whales broke the pirates' array, and the sailors' sudden descent scattered them far and wide. But Dan Scumbril's men had stout hearts, and here and there, in small groups, they fought fiercely though they had small hope of winning.

‘Now you can take a hand if you like,' said Sam Sturgeon to Gunner Boles, ‘but I'm staying to look after the boys. They're not going to get mixed up in this, not if I can help it.' And with a nimble movement he sat on William Button, seized Timothy firmly in the one hand, and Hew in the other.

Gunner Boles and the sailors, diving from the cave, attacked three or four pirates who stood below. The pirates fled from this unexpected assault, and for a few minutes there was little to be seen. Most of the fighting seemed to be taking place on the far side of the knot. But then a dozen pirates swam into sight, followed by five sailors, and made a stand against the rock-face under the cave. The sailors attacked without hesitation, though the odds against them were heavy, and very quickly it became apparent that they were going to get the worse of it. Sam decided that he could not sit
quietly by and see them beaten; so he said to the boys, ‘Now, you stay here till I come back, and don't you move an inch, or I'll give each of you a clip over the ear that you won't forget in a hurry!'

Then he leapt down and clouted one of the sturdiest pirates on the head, and threw another into the mud. This broke up their defence, and the others scattered, pursued by the sailors. Sam fought with the man whose head he had punched, and the pirate whom he had thrown, rising to his knees, found his cutlass and waited for a chance to cut Sam's legs from under him.

But Hew said, ‘This is our chance!' —Timothy said, ‘Come on!' —And William Button said, ‘What are we waiting for anyway?'

Then, close together, they dived down on the kneeling pirate, and felled him, and pushed his face into the mud again. Hew sat on his head, Timothy sat on his back, and William Button sat on his legs. Sam swung a tremendous punch to the other man's jaw, and laid him flat on his back. He looked round for a new opponent, and when he saw a pirate swimming overhead, leapt up to grapple with him.

‘It's Inky Poops!' cried William Button, and leaving their former enemy in the mud, the boys followed Sam, who was now wrestling with Inky some forty feet above them. Hew and William Button seized the pirate captain by his ankles, and Timothy embraced his left leg. But suddenly, as if a whirlwind or a bull or a battering-ram had suddenly struck them, they were swept away, and
Sam, who had been kicked on the head, came drifting down in the midst of them.

‘Now who was that?' he asked. ‘Something hit me before I could get a chance to see it, and it felt like fifteen pirates all together, or else a ton of rock.'

‘I
think
it was Dan Scumbril,' said Hew. ‘He'd very hairy legs.'

‘Then he and Inky Poops have both got away,' said Timothy.

The fighting had become more and more distant, and now there were no pirates near the knot
except some twenty or thirty prisoners who stood like a herd of cattle under their guard. The darkness over the knot was growing paler. The blackness was fading, and Gunner Boles, with a score of sailors whom he had summoned to help him, was already splicing the new rope, which the pirates had brought, into the old cables. The cables seemed to be holding still, for they had not sprung apart; but they could not see what damage had been done to the knot till the water cleared, nor could they see what had become of Cully. The sailors worked hard, and spliced the new rope in on all four sides of the knot, and brought the ends together ready to be tied.

The shadow in the water was now no darker than the shadow of a cloud, and presently a little current, or eddy on the bottom of the sea, swept it away. And then, where the knot had been, they saw Cully. But Cully was pale as death, and his eyes were closed. Two of his arms were twisted firmly about the cable that ran to the north, and two about the southward cable; two held the cable to the east and two the cable to the west. Whether he was alive or dead, they did not know, but he had held the great parallels together when the knot was cut, and he held them still. For the last strokes of the axe-men had severed the cables, and the knot that had bound them lay in the mud like the core cut out of an apple.

‘Make haste now, make haste,' cried Gunner Boles, ‘and take the strain off him! Come over
with that end and under with this, then over again and under in a Carrick bend, and a couple of stops will hold it it till we can make a proper job of it. And hurry, hurry!'

So they tied the knot anew, and carefully and tenderly released Cully's hold on the cables which had been cut. His long arms lay limp and useless, but when they no longer felt the strain a tremor went through them, and his body moved a little, as if in relief. He began to breathe again, and in a minute or two he opened his eyes. He saw Gunner Boles leaning over him, and Timothy and Hew.

‘Oh dear, oh dear!' he said, in a voice so faint they could scarcely hear him. ‘What a very horrible experience, to be sure! But I held on, didn't I? —I told you that was my job,' he said to Timothy and Hew, ‘and a most important job it is—and very, very painful.'

Then he closed his eyes again, and Gunner Boles, with the most mournful expression on his face, said, ‘He's saved us all, poor Cully has, and whether we'll save him there's no one can tell. He looks mortal bad now, doesn't he? —You'd better take him ashore, lads,' he told the sailors. ‘There's a little island called the Hen over there, and a pool in the rocks below it where he used to lie whenever he had the chance. Take him there and let him rest. —But he'll never be the same octopus again, Sam. He's stretched himself too much.'

Four of the sailors swam with Cully towards the Hen, and Sam Sturgeon and the boys went with
them to show them Cully's pool. But Gunner Boles stayed by the knot to put more stops on the new rope and make sure it would stand the strain.

The battle was over, and Davy Jones, sitting on the poop of Aaron Spens's old ship with Aaron Spens and two of his Councillors beside him, was counting his prisoners. All the pirates who had been captured were being carried or driven to the wreck, and thrown into the hold; which Dan Scumbril, with a great deal of labour, had cleared for his own purposes. Nearly two hundred prisoners had already been brought in, and many more, who had fled north and south and beyond Popinsay to the east, were in the hands of the sailors who had lain far out in a broad ring to watch for runaways. But neither Dan Scumbril nor Inky Poops had been caught, and the frown on Davy Jones's forehead deepened as he waited for them to be brought before him, and waited in vain.

On the surface of the sea, above the wreck, the
Endeavour
lay; and Old Mattoo and James William Cordiall were drinking a cup of tea and eating some bread and cheese.

‘The boys have been gone for a long time,' said Old Mattoo.

‘And Sam Sturgeon has been away for much longer than that,' said James William.

‘They told us to wait for them,' said Old Mattoo, ‘but how long have we got to wait? That is what I should like to know.'

‘There are many things that I want to know,'
said James William. ‘I want to know what has been going on, here in Popinsay, for the last two weeks or more. But I do not suppose they will ever tell me.'

‘Perhaps you would not understand them if they did.'

‘Then they needn't bother, if that is the sort of things they are. For it is just a nuisance listening to what you cannot understand. —Is there any more tea in the pot?'

‘Not very much,' said Old Mattoo, ‘but listen, James William! Do you hear anything?'

‘Is it someone shouting, do you think?'

‘It may be. But he has a very weak voice, or else he is very far away.'

‘I'll take a look,' said James William, and coming out of the little wheel-house he stared north and east and west before he thought of looking south. And then, on the cliffs of the Hen, he saw Sam Sturgeon waving, and the boys beside him.

‘It is Sam,' he said, ‘and the boys are with him. They have all gone ashore.'

‘Then we need not wait any longer, so start up your engine, and I will see to the anchor.'

Old Mattoo put his cup on the deck, and the last of the bread and cheese in his mouth, and went slowly forward while James William went down into the little engine-room. And a few minutes later the
Endeavour
was peacefully on her way home.

Among the disadvantages of Popinsay House—such as doors that did not fit and windows that leaked, dry rot in the floors and bees in the roof—there were also mice and rats. Every night rats could be heard running over the ceilings, and in every room mice would come out from the wainscot and scamper across the carpet. In the attics and the cellars the mice used to stroll about as boldly as people walk in the park on a Saturday afternoon.