And Shard on his island offered the Queen of the South the choicest of
the old wines of Provence, and for adornment gave her Indian jewels
looted from galleons with treasure for Madrid, and spread a table
where she dined in the sun, while in some cabin below he bade the
least coarse of his mariners sing; yet always she was morose and moody
towards him, and often at evening he was heard to say that he wished
he knew more about the ways of Queens. So they lived for years, the
pirates mostly gambling and drinking below, Captain Shard trying to
please the Queen of the South, and she never wholly forgetting
Bombasharna. When they needed new provisions they hoisted sails on the
trees, and as long as no ship came in sight they scudded before the
wind, with the water rippling over the beach of the island; but as
soon as they sighted a ship the sails came down, and they became an
ordinary uncharted rock.
They mostly moved by night; sometimes they hovered off sea-coast towns
as of old, sometimes they boldly entered river-mouths, and even
attached themselves for a while to the mainland, whence they would
plunder the neighbourhood and escape again to sea. And if a ship was
wrecked on their island of a night they said it was all to the good.
They grew very crafty in seamanship, and cunning in what they did, for
they knew that any news of the _Desperate Lark_'s old crew would bring
hangmen from the interior running down to every port.
Pages:
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47