Captain in Calico Read Online Free Page A

– not to-morrow, or the day after, but now, and take my chance of finding your brig.’ He paused deliberately. ‘So choose. A pardon or a rope.’
    Rackham stared at him and suddenly exploded in an exclamation of impatience.
    â€˜There’s no way it can be done,’ he protested. ‘Ye cannot have me go back and tell them you’ve agreed to grant them pardons and they can keep their silver, and then cheat them at the last. Your own credit would be dead for ever, with honest men as well as rogues. And if I was to be the betrayer, and gave you the ship’s position now, and ye took them and the treasure, what use would your pardon be to me? It would be a death warrant, for when it was known I’d sold them they’d have a knife in my back before I could wink.’
    Rogers was contemptuous. ‘It would not be known. What I propose would be among the three of us.’ He gestured to include Master Dickey. ‘Well?’
    Rackham considered him through narrowed lids. ‘What becomes of my crew?’
    â€˜Unless they are extremely rash, no harm at all. Provided, that is, that the plan I have in mind is carried through precisely as I shall direct.’ Rogers rose, a lean, commanding figure. ‘That will depend on you as much as on any.’ He moved round the table, halting face to face with Rackham. ‘Can you hesitate?’ He laughed shortly. ‘If so, you are a greater fool than I take you for, or else you carry scruples to an odd length. Farther than I should carry them myself. For I’d not hang for the sake of a pack of brigands.’
    He knew, of course, that there could be only one answer for Rackham, or for anyone in the same position. The pirate hooked his thumbs into his belt and considered the Governor. ‘Let me hear,’ he said.
    It was tantamount to an acceptance, and Rogers propounded his plan as a commander issues instructions.
    â€˜It will be very simple. You will return to these men of yours in the town. Tell them my terms were unconditional surrender of themselves and the treasure; tell them that when you refused I would have tortured and hanged you and taken the
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by force. But you escaped, and now nothing remains but to fly to sea. This should satisfy them. Now, listen. You and your men in town will then return to the
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this evening, so giving me the day in which to make my preparations, for which I’ll need the exact position at which the brig is to take you aboard. I take it you came ashore in a small boat, and the
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is to stand inshore to take you off.’ Without pausing for a reply he swept on.‘When she does, I shall be ready for her. I shall have a cutting-out force at hand – a ship and longboats. It will be so strong that there can be no question of resistance on your part. If perchance there are some hotheads ready to fight you will dissuade them. But I doubt there will be. Then you will surrender, and the terms will be a pardon for those who lay down their arms. In the circumstances your crew should be too relieved to fret over the loss of their plunder.’
    He had been pacing up and down as he spoke. Now he stopped and went back to his seat. ‘Of course, it will not do for you to leave here to-night as easily as you came. You will escape, and, as I say, take back to your friends a tale of a bloody-minded Governor who would have hanged you and swore to hunt them down. You may think that such a tale will be at variance with the offer of pardon that I shall make you when the
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is at my mercy to-night. On the contrary it will be seen then that I serve the King’s interests by such an offer, since it assures me of the treasure, a ship, and a hundred excellent seamen. They may think me an infernally clever fellow to have found them out, but I enjoy some such reputation already. Certainly they will not suspect you.’
    His calm confidence left Rackham in no doubt that he