Roving Jack, The Pirate Hunter — page 195: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ROVING JACK, THE PIRATE HUNTER. 215, Ula ei Ae ee ee I awoke in this fearful place. Tell me, I entreat, how I came here?” | “I found you faint—almost dying on the banks of de. river, some two miles from de place vhere you had escaped. To prevent discovery, I have brought you hither,” ee | “ Why you have done so I do not yet quite under- stand.” “There be two reasons why Roving Jack should be fon boad der ‘ Vanderdecken,’ ” said the Dutch- Witte y . “The first ?”” | “Tt is safety.” ~“ The second?) 7 “Meio own advantage, Act fairly with me,” continued Wolfgang, and, perchance, the fiend who ha my destiny may allow me to act fairly by Ouse | “What are your conditions ?”’ “ Those which are in your power to grant.” “Name them.” ‘““T require the’ papers which reinstates Violét Tremaine in——” “It is impossible for me to ratify our compact, since those papers are fallen into the hands of those’ by whom I was so murderously attacked. Jack Sheppard and Tom King Ht “ Very goot, they will not long remain here, for Jack Sheppard vill mount the ladder, ere he isa month older.” The voice that had startled Roving Jack in bis delirium, and dispersed the phantoms, was now again heard resounding through the cavities of the sunken vessel. | Roving Jack had no difficulty in recognising the voice as if came near to, him, and rose clear and distinct above the din of the ebbing waters and creaking chains around him, “There it comes. Put your helm hard aport! Down with it, man! Luff, and shake the wind out of her sails, or over she goes clean and for ever !” The words had hardly escaped the lips of Paul Peyeril (who owned the voice heard in the first instance) than that individual appeared at the open hatchway, and looked down into the hold, taking a somewhat lengthened observation of its several occupants. tt One of the pirates, more venturesome than the rest, attempted to ascend the steps, bolt through the scuttle, and thereby gain the deck. | Paul Peveril, with his shoulder of mutton fist, gave him a very unceremonious rebuff, and down he dropped again, , | “You don’t seem to be in a very snug berth, skipper,’”’ said the sailor, to the astonished Wirth Wolfgang, whose head of hair he described as long enough for the coxswain of old Admiral Benbow’s barge. oe: & ‘Are you hard up on a clench here,” he con- tinued, “and never a knife to cut the seizings? Just out with your top-lights and look ahead.” Recovering from his surprise, the Dutchman answered drily, “De sentinel never leave his’ post ontil he is _reliefed,’’ ‘Right, mynheer; that’s king’s ship discipline all the world over; so we'll pass signals from our own timbers.” : “What ship?” k WO IBID Ys | ‘You have heard of Vanderdecken?”’’ “What the ©Plying Dutchman,’ who fires hot shot, and gives no quarter? I met him in latitude 13°. latitude N. I forget the longitude. You might as well try to eat peas with a pitchfork as weather him. You don’t mean to say you sail in that devil’s craft? If you.do, you are hooked to a man, flounder as you will.” . semat ‘‘Messmates,” said the foremost of the pirates, ‘““T haye no wish to steer for execution dock, ,or dangle in chains on the Thames margin at St., Clement’s reach, This intruder is a spy, and. to Saye our.own necks, we must slit his weasand.”” “ Belay, belay. “I’m here on no privateering commission, but bear a flag of truce at my fore,” “Why have you sought us?” P “To save you from a dance upon nothing at the yard-arm. JI have a proposition to make ‘you, though you are'such @ lubberly, infarnal, damned. set of swabs.” . | poke alae At the words, twenty knives gleamed in the air. And the buccaneers prepared to take summary vengeance on the intrepid seaman, = ,_— 3 “Haul taut, and heave to,” he cried, waving his enemies back, “till I haye given orders to clear decks for action.” ne , ‘Firstly, skipper, to you I must address my, WOrdsi > SLES Wolfgang advanced to the speaker, “ You have a prisoner on board.” ‘What tongue has disclosed this?” “Your own,” “Where?” ‘In the grave-yard, near St. Albans,” An “Ah, seaman, you have betrayed yourself, not, me.” an “What do you mean?” “You should have kept your secret,” “ How so?” iss = “By revealing it you have sealed the doom of, him you came to save.” i Paul tried to-speak, but could not. ‘You know too much for my safety. You and he must both perish.” | eee hee Scarcely had these words been uttered, when the; rattling of musketry ran through every, crevice of the hold of the hulk, ! = oe ‘ Nota single pirate, save one, lived to tell the, mysterious death they had met with, a This one was the skipper. H Wirth Wolfgang was nowhere to be seen. The fate of the crew, and, how they fell, is re- served for the following chapter, ; —— —— | 3 , CHAPTER, XCVE oy nino SHOWS! HOW DICK TURPIN ROBBED’ ‘A “LEARNED! DIVINE, AND HOW HE. CAME OFF SECOND-BEST IN THE ADVENTURE. : | THAT night the bosom of the Thames received: thirty dead bodies. ae They were those of the. pirates of, the, haunted hulk, | eu. t | Hulk no longer, for, gunpowder, placed. between. the crumbling decks had :worked a final destruc- tion. , | iF i Her heavy iron guns vanished away, her beams , and timbers, separated in air, then slowly sank in water. aes Nite) The remnants of the hull that floated on the surface of the river being the only emblem,of. the once dreaded pirate ship, the ‘‘ Vanderdecken.” The stratagem that destroyed the crew may, be, toldvinia Tew, lines: “cmnioe o1omrt | Paul. Peveril, aware; of the, imprisonment, and, prison-house of Roving Jack, had, solicited from government the aid of a. body, of marines, to .assist him in the daring enterprise of sabduingnt ie pirate; band in their own citadel—the haunted, hulk, rer ee ee EL OTT TCO.