«I thought that Pike would prove a minnow in the jaws of Easterling. It but remains for Easterling to swallow him, and faith, it's what he'll be doing.»
«Ye've said it, Captain. It's plaguey little o' that treasure me and my mates o' the Valiant or Captain Pike himself 'll ever see. The thirty that's left of us 'll be lucky if they gets away alive. That's my faith, Captain.»
«And mine, bedad,» said Captain Blood. But his mouth was grim.
«Can ye do nothing for the honour of the Brethren of the Coast and for the sake o' justice, Captain?»
«It's thinking of it, I am. If the fleet were with me I'd sail in this minute and take a hand. But with just this one ship…» He broke off and shrugged. «The odds are a trifle heavy. But I'll watch, and I'll consider.»
Cunley's opinion that it was a black day for the Valiant when she joined Easterling's fleet was now being shared by every survivor of her crew, and by none more fully than by Captain Pike himself. He had become. apprehensive of the final issue of the adventure, and his apprehensions received the fullest confirmation on the morrow of their sailing from the Chagres, when they came to anchorage in that lagoon of Gallows Key to which I have alluded.
Easterling's Avenger led the way into that diminutive circular harbour, and anchored nearest to the shore. Next came the Hermes. The Valiant, now bringing up the rear, was compelled, for lack of room within, to anchor in the narrow roadstead. Thus again Pike was given the most vulnerable station in the event of attack — a station in which his ship must act as a shield for the others.
Trenam, Pike's sturdy young Cornish lieutenant, who from the outset had been against association with Easterling, perceiving the object of this disposition, was not ashamed to urge Pike to take up anchor and be off in the night, abandoning Easterling and the treasure before worse befell them. But Pike, as obstinate as he was courageous, repudiated this for a coward counsel.
«By God!» he swore. «It's what Easterling desires! We've earned our share of that treasure, and we're not sailing without it.»
But the practical Trenam, shook his fair head. «That will be as Easterling chooses. He's got the strength to enforce his will, and the will to play the rogue, or I'm a fool else.»
Pike silenced him by making oath that he was not afraid of twenty Easterlings.
And his air was as truculent when next morning, in response to a signal from the flagship, he went aboard the Avenger.
He was awaited in the cabin not only by Easterling, arrayed in tawdry splendour, but by Galloway, who favoured the loose leather breeches and cotton shirt that made up the habitual garb of a boucan–hunter. Easterling was massively built and swarthy — a man still young, with fine eyes and a full black beard, behind which, when he laughed, there was a flash of strong white teeth. Galloway, squat and broad, was not apelike in build, with his long arms and short powerful legs, but oddly apelike in countenance, out of which two bright little wicked eyes sparkled under a shallow wrinkled brow.
They received Captain Pike with every show of friendliness, sate him down at the greasy table, poured rum for him and pledged him, whereafter Easterling came promptly to business.
«We've sent for ye, Captain Pike, because at present we're carrying, as it were, all our eggs in one basket. This treasure,» and he waved a hand in the direction of the chests containing it, «is best divided without more ado, so that each of us can go about his business.»
Pike took heart at this promising beginning. «Ye mean to break up the fleet, then?» said he indifferently.
«Why not, since the job's done? Roger here and me has decided to quit piracy. We're for home with the fortune we've made. I'll belike turn farmer somewhere in Devon.» He laughed.
Pike smiled, but offered no comment. He was not at any time a man of many words, as his long, dour, weatherbeaten face announced.
Easterling cleared his throat and resumed. «Me and Roger's been considering that some change in the provisions o' the articles would be only fair. They do run that one–third of what's left over after I've taken my fifth goes to each of the three ships.»
«Ay, that's how they run, and that's fair enough for me,» said Pike.
«That's not our opinion, Roger's and mine, now that we comes to think it over.»
Pike opened his mouth to answer, but Easterling, giving him no time, ran on:
«Roger and me don't see as you should take a third to share among thirty men, while we share each of us the same among a hundred and fifty.»
Captain Pike was swept by sudden passion. «Was, that why ye saw to it that my men were always put where the Spaniards could kill them until we're reduced to less than a quarter of our strength at the outset?»
Easterling's black brows met above eyes that were suddenly malevolent.
«Now what the devil do you mean by that, Captain Pike, if you please?»
«It's an imputation,» said Galloway dryly. «A nasty imputation.»
«No imputation at all,» said Pike. «It's a fact.»
«A fact, eh?» Easterling was smiling, and the lean, tough, resolute Pike grew uneasy under that smile. Galloway's bright little ape's eyes were considering him oddly. The very air of that untidy, evil–smelling cabin became charged with menace. Pike had a vision of brutalities witnessed in the course of his association with Easterling, wanton, unnecessary brutalities springing from the sheer lust of cruelty. He recalled words in which Captain Blood had warned him against association with a man whom he described as treacherous and foul by nature. If he had hugged a doubt of the deliberate calculation by which is own men had been sacrificed on Darien, that doubt was now dispelled.
He was as a sleepwalker who awakens suddenly to find himself on the edge of a precipice into which another step must have projected him. The instinct of self–preservation made him recoil from an attitude of truculence which might lead to his being pistolled on the spot. He pushed back the hair from his moist brow and commanded himself to answer in level tones.
«What I mean is that if my men have been reduced, they've suffered this in the common cause. They will consider it unfair to break the articles on any such grounds.»
He argued on. He reminded Easterling of the practice of matelotage among buccaneers, whereby every man enters into a partnership with another in which the two make common cause and under which each is the other's heir. In this alone lay reason why many of his men who were to inherit should feel defrauded by any change in the articles.
Easterling's evil grin gave way again to a scowl. «What's it to me what any of your mangy followers may feel? I'm admiral of this fleet, and my word is law.»
«So it is,» said Pike. «And your word is in the articles under which we sailed with you.»
«To hell with the articles!» roared Captain Easterling.
He rose and stood over Pike, towering and menacing, his head almost touching the ceiling of the cabin. He spoke deliberately. «I'm telling you things is changed since we signed them articles. What I says is more nor any articles, and what I says is that the Valiant can have a tenth share of the plunder. Ye'd be wise to take it, remembering the saying that who tries to grasp too much ends by holding nothing.»
Pike stared up at him with fallen jaw. He had turned pale from the stress of the conflict within him between rage and prudence.
«By God, Easterling…» He broke off abruptly.
Easterling scowled down upon him. «Continue,» he commanded. «Finish what ye has to say.»
Pike shrugged despondently. «Ye know I dursn't accept your offer. Ye know my men would tear me in pieces if I did so without consulting them.»
«Then away with you to consult them. I've a mind to slit your pimpish ears so that they may see what happens to them as gets pert with Captain Easterling. You may tell your scum that if they has the impudence to refuse my offer they needn't trouble to send you here again. They can up anchor and be off to Hell. Remind 'em of what I says: that who tries to grasp too much ends by holding nothing. Away with you, Captain Pike, with that message.»