Читать книгу Greenbeard - Richard James Bentley - Страница 11

CHAPTER THE FIFTH,

or The Captain Unclasps a Secret.

“Before I start my grim tale I must explain a couple of things,” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, “or you will be confused.”

He scratched his belly and drank some beer.

“In your readings, Peter, you may have heard of the theory of Nicolaus Copernicus.”

“From his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, or ‘On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres’,” said Blue Peter, “in which he coyly suggested that the Earth was not the centre of the Universe.”

“Indeed, and he was right, and that cove Newton, whom I saw at Cambridge but never spoke to, put the whole thing square by identifying gravity - the force that makes the apple fall and the cannonball curve in its flight - with the force which holds the moons and planets on their courses,” said the Captain. “Furthermore, you may have heard of the ideas of the Italian monk Giordano Bruno.”

“I was thinking of him only this morning, and how I was not unduly surprised that the Congregation of the Holy Office of the Inquisition tied him to a stake and burned him, by way of a critical appraisal of his work.”

“He was right,” said the Captain.

“What? That the stars of the welkin are suns alike to our own sun?”

“Yes.”

“And that planets may orbit them as our Earth orbits the sun?”

“Yes.”

“And that creatures may inhabit those distant planets?”

“Yes.”

“And that those creatures may be intelligent aware beings, such as we are?”

“Yes.”

“Ay caramba! Be you serious? You seem very certain, how can you be sure of that?”

“Because, Peter, I have met some of them,” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges.

Blue Peter was silent for some time, then he drained his glass of beer in one long swallow. The Captain stood up and looked in the sailcloth bucket.

“The last two beers,” he said, handing Blue Peter a bottle. He settled his back against the tree-trunk again. “Now you are thinking that I am bereft of my wits, or else engaged in some kind of egregious spoof, or leg-pull. I am neither insane nor jesting, I assure you. You can see why I have kept this to myself for nearly a year.”

Blue Peter poured his beer, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“Pray continue, Sylvestre. I shall reserve judgement for the meantime, although this tale is becoming a little rich to easily swallow.”

“When I rowed around the point into Nombre Dios Bay a year ago, dressed all in black, with my face blackened, in a black boat with muffled oars, I believed myself invisible. I was not. As far as those extramundane creatures were concerned I might just as well have been in a Venetian carnival-gondola, strung with coloured paper lanterns, playing a bugle. They have a device to see in the dark. It sees heat instead of light, and our bodies are always warm. So they caught me, Peter, and I was enslaved.

“The brujo who spoke to Bill’s pal spoke the truth; it was not the Spanish plate fleet, but the Martian saucer fleet. The extramundanes have ships which sail the empty voids between the stars as we sail our ships upon the oceans. They are called ‘saucers’ because they resemble a saucer if seen from below as they fly by in the air. They do not come from Mars - which is a bleak cold lifeless place of nothing but empty deserts, the air too thin to breathe - but they do use it as a base, as we use the island of Recailles. Thus the Martian saucer fleet.”

“What do they look like, these extramundane creatures?” said Blue Peter slowly.

“I did not clap eyes upon the Glaroon at all - it was he who had captured me - He cannot breathe our air, and so resides mostly in a sealed chamber filled with the noxious air of his own home-world. His minions serve him and do his bidding, some human slaves such as I became, some extramundanes of various sorts, some of them slaves, too. One sort are small grey men with slanting black eyes. Another kind is alike to a toad-man, and very strong but not very clever. Another is alike to a lizard with six limbs; the front two being arms, the rearmost legs and the middle two somewhat in between. They are excellent mechanics, those lizard things, as they can work on an engine with four hands, sitting back on their rear legs and their tail. Their speech sounds like the chirm of birdsong, but some of them can mimic our tongues well enough to converse. They are congenial company, too, unlike the little grey buggers, who are so dreich that they could make a conventicle of Methodies seem like a beano in a bawdy-house.”

“Congenial company, Sylvestre? Six-legged lizards congenial company? You stretch my credulity too far!”

“I only speak the truth. They are fond of an alcoholic drink, particularly beer; as spirits are too strong for their heads, unless watered. They enjoy a good yarn, well-told. They like to dance and cavort, although their music sounds strange to our ears. They do love a game of cards and are great gamblers. And great cheats, too! With four arms it is almost too easy for them to finesse a deck, d’you see? Actually, they are more alike to chameleons. They cannot change colour - they are a shade of greeny-blue - but they have those woogly eyes that can point in different directions, if you know what I mean.”

The Captain demonstrated ‘woogly eyes’ by putting fingers in front of his eyes and waggling them around. Blue Peter got to his feet, walked slowly down to the beach, then ran up and down on the sand, shouting ‘arrgh!’ occasionally. He walked back to the knoll and sat down again against the tree.

“There is no more beer,” said the Captain, “but here is rum.” He poured a large shot into Blue Peter’s glass. Blue Peter took a swallow, and grimaced.

“Captain, if the green of your beard did not tell me something strange had happened to you,” he said, “I would have already shot you for trying to gull me with such a ludicrous account. I shall call you ‘Captain’ now as your banyan day must be over; if you have gone mad that is serious; if you speak truly that is surely even worse. Pray continue, but perhaps tell me how it is that you were away from the barky for three hours, yet seem to have been away for much longer, having had the time to socialise with six-legged reptiles?”

“Well, I said that I must explain a couple of things, but I got distracted,” said the Captain. “The second thing is that time and distance are the same. Some extramundanes, such as the Glaroon, have found the way to travel in the void, in space, but that means also travelling in time, so they have mastered travel both in distance and time. From your point of view I was away for three hours, but from my point of view I was away for about three years. Don’t ask me to explain it, as it is not yet completely clear to me, but it has to do with the speed of light not being infinite. It is very quick, but not instantaneous, and that has consequences, apparently. Time is often a fractured mirror, reflecting a bizarre image of reality.”

Blue Peter emptied his glass in a single gulp, and refilled it from the rum-bottle.

“Now please explain about your beard, Captain,” he said, “and how it was made green.”

“It isn’t my beard, is how,” said the Captain. “Each filament of it is an extramundane creature, especially bred to replace the hairs of my beard. They draw sustenance from my body, and I can feel them as though they are strange nerves. The Glaroon had them put on me, as I was his butler. They are sensitive to certain emanations, and so could be used to call me, or to tell me things over a distance.”

“I find that very disturbing. Does it hurt?”

“No. It was agony when they were growing into my face, replacing the hairs at their roots, but they don’t hurt now. In fact, I am rather fond of them ... or It. I could not have escaped without the Beard. It talked to the library of the Glaroon’s mansion on Mars, so to speak, and I was able to learn enough about saucers to navigate my way back through space and time to Nombre Dios Bay. The sun is setting. We must go back to the barky soon enough. Ask the question which is on your lips.”

“The question on the lips of every crewman aboard the Ark de Triomphe,” said Blue Peter, “and the one asked in the awful poem; ‘whether anybody knew where he had buried his pelf ’.”

“Nowhere,” said the Captain, “and yet everywhere. As the treasure came in I converted it to financial instruments - banker’s draughts, letters of credit, stocks and shares - as fast as I ever could. You may remember that many of the prize cargoes were goods anyway - flour, wine, whale oil, saltpetre, mercury in greased goatskin bags, even a cargo of porcelain plates! - Eddie Teach would have insisted on payment in gold, if he could even be bothered to take and sell such merchandise, and would have taken a discount for so doing. I traded them instead for shares in cargoes-in-transit and the like until I could get the money safely berthed in a bank, or rather in several banks in several countries. I don’t like the idea of burying a chest of gold on an island. It seems a little foolish, especially when one can get two-and-a-half percent at Coutts and the stock-market is booming. Don’t tell the Free Brotherhood of the Coasts that I said that, mind you!”

“What are you going to do with the money?” Blue Peter said, pouring the last of the rum into his glass.

“The influential extramundanes are a mixed bunch, much like your Colonials, I suppose, Peter. There was one, Great Cthulhu, who is the ugliest bugger I ever did see. Alike to a big scaly daemon with the head of a squid, he is. Tentacles waving about like the Medusa’s snakey hair. He was a half-decent old cove in some ways, though. Lent me a book by some mad old Arab, Abdul al something-or-other. I have a great dislike of the Glaroon, though, and a grudge, too. I was the Glaroon’s butler, which was bearable for the most part, but slave-owners are all alike, d’you see? whether they be Colonials or extramundanes. When the Glaroon had parties, he’d put me out the front to greet the guests - ‘Hello, sir! and welcome to the mansion of the Glaroon!’ - dressed in a little blue sailor suit, and I intend to have my revenge for upon him that!

“I have spent much of the treasure on my plan to avenge myself, but there is plenty left. I have set up a pension fund for the crew, but don’t tell anybody yet.”

Captain Greybagges stood up, stretched, and started packing the picnic things.

“It is in my mind to tell the crew about the money soon, at a share-out meeting. I think they will be pleased with the arrangements that I have made - if I can get the wooden-headed sods to understand what I have done for them - and will consequently be easily enthused by my plan to punish the Glaroon, about which they need to know nothing just yet, not even that there is a plan. If my plan succeeds there will be more loot, more pelf, more boodle, more treasure than even Croesus himself ever dreamed of. Enough to make Morgan’s raid on Panama seem mere apple-scrumping. I’ll have to tell Izzie and Bill something of this business, too, but I think that must be slowly, as we go, lest they become ... unsettled. I welcome your advice on that; on what, how and how much to tell them and when, but sleep on it first, it’s a lot for you to comprehend. Come on, let’s go!”

Blue Peter was silent as they loaded the skiff and pushed it into the sea, small waves lapping around their bare feet.

“I’m sorry I’ve been obliged to tell you all this, Peter - ignorance is bliss, indeed! - but I need your help with this, your involved help. And who else could I tell first? I nearly told Bill once or twice, for the navigating has given him a fine head for the arithmetic and the geometry, so the time-and-space stuff might be easier for him. Izzie? He is my oldest shipmate, and before that my articled clerk when I was in chambers, but any notion of six-legged reptiles would drive him straight to the bottom of the nearest rum-bottle. You are the cleverest of us four, Peter, so it had to be you.”

The Captain pulled the oars. Blue Peter remained silent for a while. The sun was setting against a mauve sky, its orange light dappling the ocean like a fiery path to the horizon.

“Captain,” he said at last, “what are these lizard-creatures called?”

“Why, we called them ‘lizards’, or ‘the lizard people’, Peter.”

“Do they have a name for themselves?”

“I’m sure they do, but I don’t know it. Anyway, I can’t do bird impressions.”

They clambered up the side of the Ark de Triomphe in the quick-growing dark. The pirate crew had lit lanterns, casting yellow pools of light in the purple twilight. Some of the pirates were sprawled on the deck, or sitting on bollards or guns, eating their supper. They muttered ‘good evenings’ to the Captain and Blue Peter, intent on their beef-stew, bread and beer.

“Arr! Bon appetit, shipmates, wi’ a curse!” answered the Captain.

The rest of the crew would be below, eating their meals between the cannons in the gundeck messes, on boards hung from the deckheads on ropes. When the wooden bowls were scraped clean with hunks of bread and cleared away greasy packs of cards would appear, and draughts-boards made of canvas squares, and sly rum-flasks would pass from hand to hand. Captain Greybagges could smell the aroma of the stew, the smoke from the cook’s charcoal oven, tar, sweat, sawn timber; the frigate’s reassuring fragrance. He turned to Blue Peter.

“A toddy, Master Gunner?”

“No, Captain. I find that I am weary, and you’ve given me much to think about. I shall go to my cottage.”

“I shall set sail tomorrow, on the afternoon tide. We shall be away from Recailles for some months, so make arrangements for your horse. Good night, Peter.” The Captain went down below to the Great Cabin in the stern.

Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo rode the old Percheron mare up the winding road away from Porte de Recailles, the sky now inky-blue above him, the moon yet to rise. The horse seemed to know its way in the dark, so Blue Peter let it plod, and mused as he rocked gently on its back, looking up at the bright stars. There is Venus, he thought. Are there strange creatures dwelling upon it? Or upon Orion’s belt? All this is madness! Yet there is the indisputable fact of the Captain’s green beard. His account is not without points of reference, either. There are tales of fellows spirited away to the Land of Faerie, returning years later, no older. There are tales of men and women aging overnight; one day young and hale, the next morning ancient, sere and white-haired, and sometimes babbling. The myths of the Greeks, also, full of monsters, ‘tentacles waving about like the Medusa’s snakes’, as the Captain himself had said. Legends of flying chariots, too, and all kinds of supposedly-mythical beasts; daemons, hobgoblins, ogres, kobolds, fetches, lemures, dragons, wyverns, basilisks, yales, golems, bunyips and bugaboos ... The Captain’s teratological narrative provided a possible basis for these fables, an exegesis of their provenance, at least...

The old horse, sensing Blue Peter’s unease, skittered sideways a trifle. Blue Peter muttered soothingly and patted its neck.

His account squares with the things he muttered whilst comatose during the flight of the Ark de Triomphe from Nombre Dios Bay, thought Blue Peter, but that is no confirmation. If his wits were addled from his experience, as they undoubtedly were, then he may have entered a state of delusion, or fugue, and his memories would be false, experienced as in a dream yet recalled as though real ... I am a pirate, thought Blue Peter, yet I cannot find a curse-word strong enough to express my frustration and dismay with this. My instincts are at odds with my reason. Still worse, my reason is at odds with my reason, and my instincts at war with my instincts. He rode on up the hill in the darkness, towards his cottage, deep in thought, the bright stars twinkling above him.

Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges sat at his desk in the Great Cabin, an oil lamp spilling yellow light onto his ledgers and account-books. The abacus went click-clack and his goose-quill pen went scritch-scratch as he worked, a tankard of hot punch and a dish of sweet biscuits at his elbow. When he had finished the accounting and the letter-writing that he had interrupted earlier that day he closed the books and locked them away, rubbed his face with his hands, drained the tankard, changed into a black nightshirt and nightcap and went to bed in the hanging bunk, falling instantly into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Blue Peter’s slumbers were racked by nightmares. A six-legged reptile with chameleon eyes cheated him at cards. A daemon with the head of a squid danced a quadrille with the Medusa. Saucers, cups, teapots, plates, chafing-dishes, tureens and porringers whizzed around his head, trailing sparks like thrown grenadoes. In the quiet of the small cottage he twisted and turned, sweating and moaning, the woven ropes of his charpoy-bed creaking.

He awoke late the following morning, the sun already high, feeling surprisingly clear-headed. He put sticks on the banked-in fire in the kitchen stove, blew on it carefully, and added charcoal when it sputtered back into flame. He filled a copper kettle from the well in the yard, set it upon the stove, then drew another bucket of cold water and washed, shaving with a Spanish blued-steel razor, a small mirror of polished silver placed upon the well-hoist. The kettle whistled in the cottage kitchen and he made coffee, setting the pot on the side of the stove to brew as he dressed. To his very slight surprise, he found that he had dressed himself for battle; loose red cotton shirt, brown moleskin breeches, a green coat with japanned buttons, a sash of multicoloured silk, grey hose and comfortable well-worn buckled shoes with hob-nailed soles. He found that his decision was made; whatever scheme Captain Greybagges was planning he must support it. If the Captain was right, then he would need all the help he could get, but if the Captain was deluded then only as a confederate, as a close confidante and as a friend would he be able to prevent disaster for the Captain, for himself and for the ship and crew. His way lay clear before him, if not exactly obstacle-free. He drank a mug of coffee, then slid the cutlass with the knuckle-duster grip into his sash, and then the cannon-barrelled horse-pistol and the elegant Kentucky pistol. He packed his things into a rectangular wooden sea-chest and a canvas sack, tied them together with rope and slung them over the horse’s hind-quarters. He shuttered and locked the cottage and hid the key in the outhouse, clapped a brown tricorne hat on his head and mounted the old Percheron mare, using the stone horse-trough as a step, and rode away from his cottage without a backward glance.

At a neighbour’s farm he stopped and, after a little negotiation and the passing of a silver thaler, obtained an agreement that a weather-eye would be kept upon his cottage and that the Percheron mare would be collected from the yard of Ye Halfe-Cannonballe tavern and looked after until his return. Blue Peter considered his neighbour a shifty fellow, but reckoned that the generous payment, his size, his profession and a second or so of eye-contact accompanied by a grin of his filed teeth would be sufficient to prevent curiosity about the contents of his dwelling-place or mistreatment of his horse, unless it became apparent that he would not be returning.

“Ay-oop! The Blue Boy cometh!” said Jemmy Ducks, “and he has girded himself for war!” He swung himself from the mainmast top onto the rat-lines by the futtock-shrouds. His friend Jack Nastyface followed through the lubber-hole.

“War? What?” he said, as they clambered down.

“He be wearing the old green coat,” said Jemmy Ducks.

“Now you are an authority on gentlemen’s attire,” said Jack Nastyface. “Why are you yourself such a ragamuffin, then?”

“Green coat he wears so’s he don’t get powder-burns on his finery,” explained Jemmy Ducks, patiently, “thou mutt. ‘Tis on the cards that we be sailin’ on t’afternoon ebb.”

They reached the deck and went below as Blue Peter strode up the gangplank.

“Now, listen, shipmates!” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges in a strong clear voice.

The pirate crew of the Ark de Triomphe were assembled in the waist of the frigate, or seated on the convenient lower yard of the mainmast. Captain Greybagges paced the quarterdeck, dressed in his full pirate-captain’s rig; black tricorne hat upon a black scarf, black justaucorps coat with jet buttons and turned-back cuffs, black breeches, black sea-boots and a thick black leather belt with an assortment of weapons thrust into it. His long grass-green beard was resplendent in the rays of the low sun.

“You may be a-wonderin’ why I have dropped anchor here, we havin’ only just sailed from port two hours since,” the Captain said, “but this anchorage do seem to me to be a fine spot, har-har! It be sheltered. It be quiet. It be a fine spot for a share-out meeting, be it not, shipmates?”

A ripple of interest stirred the buccaneers. Conversations stopped. Jack Nastyface desisted from poking Jemmy Ducks in the ribs. Jemmy Ducks ceased kicking Jack Nastyface in the shins. The cook’s head emerged from the starboard companionway, where he could hear and yet watch his pots.

“The rules for a share-out according to the Free Brotherhood of the Coasts sez that it must be in gold, silver, coinage or articles o’ rare worth, an’ nought else besides,” bellowed the Captain, “an’ also that oppurtoonity - reasonable oppurtoonity - be allowed for the crew to bury their shares on a island or upon a remote shore. I am not going to abide by them rules, curse ‘em!”

A rumble of discontent came from the crew. Oaths were muttered.

“You old robber! Trying to do us up very brown!” came a voice from the back of the crew.

“’Pon my soul, Jack Nastyface, I shall do thyself up browner than a Manx kipper iffen thou wilst not shut up! Now listen to me, shipmates!” The Captain pounded on the quarterdeck rail with his fist. “This will not be a share-out under the damn’ rules, but a share-out it still will be! Listen to me, and you may find yourselves damn’ pleased with your portions! Firstly, damn’ yez, you must listen to how I have arranged things. Iffen it bain’t be to your likings, then you may scrag me and feed me to the sharks, an’ damn’ yez all to hell! Wi’ a wannion! But firstly yez-all must listen!”

He is mad, thought Blue Peter, standing behind Captain Greybagges on the quarterdeck. The crew had not actually been grumbling, as they had already gotten some of the treasure, at least. Now he offers them more, and then takes it away again. Is he stark mad? He stole a glance at Bulbous Bill Bucephalus, who looked impassive. The crew of angry pirates were talking, shouting, jostling. Blue Peter noticed his own gun-crews looking at him, not at the Captain. I must look fully confident, he thought, they must not think that I am not with him in this. He squared his massive shoulders, smiled a small confident smile and fixed his gaze on the Captain’s lips. He found that he could not understand what the Captain was saying. The effort of seeming serene set off his own doubts about the Captain, and his inner conflict prevented him from following a single word. You chose your path this morning, he thought, and now your resolution is tested. The hubbub amongst the crew lessened slightly, and Blue Peter caught a snatch of the Captain’s speech:

“... the Stock Market bain’t be any wise differing from a fish market, which you all do know of. Shut up and listen, you cursed lubbers! The one be sellin’ shares in ventures an’ the other be sellin’ fish, but they be the same in their principles, look’ee! The price o’ fish depends upon the supply an’ the supply o’ fish depends upon the price, d’yez see? Not many fish, up goes the cost o’ a fish supper, har-har! Iffen the price o’ fish is high, then more cobles, smacks and busses goes to sea and more fish be caught, an’ the price do come down. Shut up, yez scurvy dogs! Fish be a commodity, d’yez see? ‘Tis the same with shares in ventures, ‘cept yez cannot see, smell or touch what yez be buying or selling. O’ course, that may seem addled ‘til I tells yez that ... “

The crew of furacious matelots were becoming less restive, and hanging onto the Captain’s words. Blue Peter felt a slight sense of reprieve. The pirates were no longer jostling and calling out. They were listening, some with expressions of knot-browed concentration and open mouths, it was true, but listening nevertheless. The Captain was still talking:

“... coz I was buying into cargoes-in-transit, d’yez see, I was bettin’ on a race that was already run! I am a captain o’ buccaneers, so’s I knows which cargoes were most likely to get safe to port! So’s I was gamblin’ the loot, surely enough, but gamblin’ with loaded dice! Any of yez think perhaps that I should not have done such a terrible wicked thing? Har-har! I did not think yez would! And that’s not all, shipmates ...”

The crew were paying attention now, and Captain Greybagges shouted down the companionway:

“Bring it up, Chips!”

The ship’s carpenter, Jesus-is-my-saviour Chippendale, and the First Mate, Israel Feet, carried an easel and a chalkboard up onto the quarterdeck and set it by the Captain.

“I must be yez schoolmaster! A pedagogue! Har-har! My old black hat shall be my mortar-board, ‘pon my soul! Now listen yez to where I hid the treasure, har-har! Yez’ll have heard o’ banks, shipmates, but here’s a few notions about banks that may not have struck yez, look’ee ...”

The Captain spoke on, scrawling diagrams on the chalkboard, tapping them with the chalk to emphasize this or that. The crew were now looking slightly stunned. He is talking for his life, Blue Peter thought, if they think he is doing them down they will feed him to the sharks. Why is he risking that? He could have kept them quiet with an occasional handful of moidores or columnarios, and a few vague promises. That is what Morgan or Teach would have done. Indeed, it is accepted that captains of buccaneers are venal and slippery, that’s why they have the crew’s respect ... The Captain was scribbling on the chalkboard again:

“Har! Fungible! I do loves that word, shipmates!” he tapped the chalk on the board, “for, d’yez sees, fungible means transferrable, and that do mean that it can go anywhere, like the angel of the Lord that girdled the Earth, hah-har! Consider the fish-market. Iffen yez has a ton o’ fish here, then it be the same as a ton o’ fish there, providin’ all else be equal, so yez don’t needs to send a ton of fish if yer can transfer ownership, and then it be fungible, d’ye see? Iffen the one ton of fish there were old and stinky, then it would not be fungible, would it? Not being the same for purposes o’ trade, d’yez sees? That be the problem with fish, o’ course, it do stink arter a few short days, then it be not fungible, it be olfactible, har-har-har! But there be things that do not stink arter a few short days. ‘Like what?’ sez ye. I could say iron, but then iron do rust, not in days, mebbe, but surely with years. Copper? Copper do not rust, so it do stay fungible, but it ain’t worth a vast amount. Now yez sees where I be headed! Gold! Gold be the most fungible of all things. Iffen yer takes an ounce o’ gold and puts it in a bank, then yez goes back later an’ takes it out again it do not matter if it is not the same ounce of gold, only if it be the same weight and the same fineness, and yez can test gold easily with yer teeth, as yez all knows, or on a touchstone. Ah! Gold! Yez all loves gold, but yez forgets that it is fungible, so yez do! A chest o’ gold buried on a distant isle has not lost its value, but it has lost its fungibility as ye cannot spend it. The only way to return the fungibility is to have a treasure map - har-har-har, that perked summa yez up! - but that be just a piece o’ paper, an’ who knows iffen it tells the truth? A note upon a bank, d’yez see, to be paid in gold, is better than a treasure map. It still be a piece o’ paper, but the gold is more likely to be real. And the chest is not buried on an island, no, shipmates, it is as though that chest o’ gold was buried right under yer feet and followed yez around, always right under yer feet, fungible d’ye see? Nice and handy when yer needs it, but nicely out of sight when yez do not.”

Blue Peter observed that roughly one third of the crew were intent upon the Captain’s words, brows furrowed. Another third were paying attention, but looked a little bewildered. The final third seemed to be in a waking coma, their mouths open, their eyes wandering.

“So when I gives each o’ yez a letter such as this,” Captain Greybagges held up a square of paper, “yez must regard it as a treasure map! And it is a treasure map, for it will take yez to the offices o’ the Bank o’ International Export - my bank, your bank, our bank, which we all owns - where yez will find two hundred and fifty golden guineas held there in yer very own personal account. Yer very own little treasure chest under yer very own feet at all times. Now what does yez think of that?”

There was a rumble of approval from the crew. A low rumble of qualified approval, but nevertheless a rumble.

“Now iffen yez is daft when ye does that, yer will draw out the whole nut and get robbed in the first tavern or bawdy-house that yer sees, and my wise words to yez this day will have been wasted. If yez is smart yer will take out enough for a shant and some fun, enough to buy yer missus or yer tart a new dress, enough to put shoes on yer sister’s weans, even, but leave the rest under yer feet for the next day, an’ the day arter that. That’d be the sharp way, shipmates.”

The Captain folded his arms and beamed at them for a few seconds.

“Now, shipmates, I’ll be giving yez these papers in the Port o’ London, and any of yuz that wishes to shake hands and bid goodbye to the buccaneering life may do so then, an’ I will buys yer a drink afore yer goes an’ no hard feelin’s. Some of yez will wish to sign up for another cruise, an’ yer may do that, too, but until then we are finished with freebooting. From now on we are a innocent Dutch armed merchantman, so’s we can travel incognito, and we will disguise the good old Ark de Triomphe tomorrow, whilst in this pleasant anchorage. Then we shall leave, firstly for the port o’ Gabes, and then on to London. Now gets yer rations and fills yer bellies, for yez will have heard enough o’ my yammerin’s, and there is hard work to do on the morrow!”

“Well, they took that better than I thought they would,” said Blue Peter quietly. He, Bulbous Bill Bucephalus and Israel Feet were sitting in the wardroom, eating ham-and-egg pie and drinking small beer.

“T’were a fine speech, it were,” said Bulbous Bill in his high squeaky voice. “When Cap’n spoke a’ compound interest an’ leveraging - why! - I ain’t never reely thought-a it like that afore, I have’nt. It do make a person ponder...”

“Yer can rip out me liver iffen I follered even the one word, dammee, yer can,” said Israel Hands, munching on pie, crumbs spraying. “The Cap’n do speechify nice as kiss-yer-hand, mind yez, and damn me for a lubber, else! An’ two hunnert an’ fifty guineas be even nicer, har-har!”

“If yer’d bin a-listening,” said Bill, “then yer’d know yer be gettin’ eight shares. That be two fahsand guineas. Same as me an’ Peter, you bein’ First Mate, an’ all.”

The First Mate continued chewing for a second, then his face went red and he choked. Blue Peter reached across and slapped him on the back. His huge hand nearly knocked the scrawny First Mate from his chair, and lumps of pork, egg and pastry were expelled from his mouth like buckshot. Blue Peter went to to slap Israel Feet on the back once more, but he raised his hand and shook his head, coughing and spluttering, his thin face red. He recovered somewhat and took a drink of ale.

“Two thousand guineas!” he whispered, the piratical slang leached from his language by sheer surprise, leaving a soft Dorset accent. “Why, that be enough to buy a baronetcy!” He continued coughing.

“Ho-ho! Or a bishop’s mitre, belike to ole Lance, eh? D’yuz recall the cully? Archbishop o’ York he now be, don’t ‘ee,” chuckled Bulbous Bill, his chins and jowls wobbling.

“You jest!” spluttered Israel Feet.

“No, Izzie, he speaks the truth, perhaps,” rumbled Blue Peter, smiling. “Lancelot Blackburne - the very reverend Lancelot Blackburne - was the chaplain to a small fleet of privateering ships in the Caribbean, and some say that he himself turned pirate in a discreet way, but I don’t know the truth of that. He is, however, presently the Archbishop of York, and there is talk that he bought his mitre from debonair King Charles with looted gold. We met him once or twice down in Jamaica. He can be pleasant company, but he has a wicked sharp tongue when he is in drink. He is a learned cove, too. Fond of quoting Waller.”

Blue Peter took a draught of ale to clear his throat, and declaimed:

“Such game, while yet the world was new,

The mighty Nimrod did pursue;

What huntsman of our feeble race

Or dogs dare such a monster chase?”

The last lines reminded Blue Peter of the Captain’s tale. He is chasing a monster, he thought, one way or another. Is he sufficiently a mighty Nimrod, though? Another thought struck him; if he is mad, then he is mad like a fox. He bored the crew into acquiescence, and I believe he meant to. He dared them to mutiny, then he stunned them with words, then he gave them a bag of gold, and a bag of gold dependent upon his goodwill, at that. The cleverer members of the crew will be too busy trying to explain the meanings of negotiable instrument and assignat to the slower crewmen to stir up any discontent. That is what they are doing right now, I am sure.

“Two thousand guineas! Archbishop o’ York, wi’ a curse!” muttered Israel Feet, becoming piratical again as he mastered his surprise.

“I got summat that might be just the thing for a night-cap,” said Bill, getting up from his settle. While he was away from the wardroom Blue Peter and Israel Feet sat in silence, thinking of two thousand guineas. From the galley came the sound of voices, Bulbous Bill’s squeaky tones among them, then the sound of a slap, and a shriek. Bill returned to the wardroom with a tray.

“Cap’n ‘as decreed that all shall get at least a single share, even the young ‘uns. Jack Nastyface were overcome by the thought o’ that gold, got so giddy I had to give him a slap,” said Bulbous Bill complacently. “He be alright now, mind.” He passed out porcelain mugs. They drank.

“What on earth is this?” said Blue Peter, his eyebrows raised. “I have never tasted the like, yet it is exceedingly good!”

“Denzil got it from one o’ his indian pals,” said Bill. “Them’s little beans. Yer a-roasts ‘em, then yer grinds ‘em to powder, then yer chucks ‘em into boiling water and stirs like buggery. Bit o’ sugar. Bit o’ cream. It be called chocolatl, in the indian lingo.”

They sipped from their mugs.

“This has been a day of wonders, it has, an yer may skewer me with a marlinspike, else!” said the First Mate.

The Ark de Triomphe cut cleanly through the ocean. The wind was brisk, slightly gusting, on the larboard beam, and the sea was choppy. The frigate was making eight knots on the log, and the sun was shining.

“It itches a trifle, is the only thing,” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, pacing the quarter deck.

“Even in the bright day it is impossible to tell,” said Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo. “Even where the boot-polish has been rubbed off slightly. The glint of green just looks like a trick of the light.” He examined the captain’s newly-brown beard critically. “No, it is very convincing. Fine rig, too!”

Captain Greybagges was dressed in the powder-blue uniform of a kapitein van schip in the Dutch East India Company, with gold epaulettes and frogging, and a bicorne hat with gilt edging. Blue Peter was wearing the more-sober blue uniform of a luitenant, Bulbous Bill the black-and-tan broadcloth of a bootsman as he stood at the wheel. The crew were in VOC matrozenpak slops, the red and grey wijde jurk en broek.

“Where did you obtain such an abundance of apparel?” asked Blue Peter.

“From the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie itself,” said the Captain. “Slight seconds and part-worn. Bid on them at auction in Rotterdam, through an agent.”

“You speak the language well. I have no Dutch myself.”

“I was a year in Den Haag as a lawyer. The Dutch are the great masters of the law. The French think that they are, but they are just Creation’s greatest wranglers, which is why they have so many skilled in the arithmetic, the geometry and the algebra. The Dutch realise that the law is the work of men, and so can be challenged and altered, which is how the the Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Provinciën - the United Provinces - can function perfectly well without a king. The French have le Roi Soleil, who believes that he is king by the grace of God, so there the law is perceived as an illuminating light shining from Louis’ bumhole. If anybody challenges the law in France then soldiers are billeted upon them until they recant of their heresy, such a punishment is called a dragonnade.”

“Because it is alike to having a dragon in one’s house, I presume?”

“It may well be, but it is so-named because the soldiers are dragoons.”

“They are indeed a rough bunch of fellows, by reputation.”

“They are. Louis is not worried about the peasants rebelling - they are too starved to fight - nor the aristocrats - they are too few - but the middle people, the bourgeois, could be trouble, the merchants, artisans, tradespeople. If he billeted the common soldiery on such a fellow that would be seen as terrible, and the aristos might think ‘will it next be us?’. If he billeted cavalry they would not gleefully hump the fellow’s wife and daughters, having a dozen mistresses already, and they would not drink his cellar dry because it would not contain a single bottle of vintage Montrachet, probably they would instead contract the fellow to make them a suite of dining-room furniture. So it is the dragoons he sends; the townspeople can pretend they are civilised like the cavalry, and turn their faces away, yet they behave as cruelly as reivers.”

“Stupid men will often believe that their spite is cleverness,” said Blue Peter.

“Louis is indeed a stupid man. Soon his idiot’s pride will bring all Europe to war.”

They stood against the taffrail in silence for a while, watching the sails snap and vibrate in the wind, and the red-and-grey-clad foremast jacks in the rigging trimming them.

“Tell me, Captain,” said Blue Peter, “when did you buy the Dutch clothes?”

“Oh, about four months ago,” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, smiling.

Insane, deluded, or not, thought Blue Peter, his plan has been deeply laid. Where is he taking us, on his monster-chase?