The Pirate Prisoner Read online

  Lou felt the solid cell wall at her back shaking. “What’s happening?” she squeaked in terror.

  Red-legs Greaves gave a thin smile. “Earthquake,” he said.

  Chapter Eight

  Dust and Destruction

  Lou huddled in a corner as the courthouse began to fall. Their cell below the ground cracked and dust filled the air till it was as dark as night again. There were more great shudders like the trembling body of a dying giant. Then, slowly, all fell silent.

  Stones trickled through the twisted bars of the cell. Lou spat the thick dust from her mouth and coughed. “Master Greaves?”

  “I’m here, child.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  The man chuckled. “Takes more than a little earthquake to kill a Scot. In fact, they’ll all be a bit too busy to hang me this morning. I’ve seen it before on these islands. It’s the rich folk in their stone houses that suffer most.”

  Lou nodded. The dust was settling and she could see her master, red hair turned white with stone dust and ruddy face ghost-pale. “The slaves in the tar-paper shacks should be safe enough. Should I go and see?”

  “There’s a whole courthouse fallen on top of those stairs, lassie. You’ll never get out that way,” the man said gently.

  “No,” Lou told him. “But the bars have come away from the window. Look. I can squeeze through.”

  Red-legs Greaves walked across the cracked cell floor, ducking under the broken beams. He tugged at the row of bars and they fell with a clatter into the room. The dusty air outside was still. The way was open.

  “Looks like your prayer was answered, lassie,” the man said. “You go first and give a hand to pull me out.”

  A minute later, the two prisoners stood in the shattered street and looked around. People, bleeding and bruised, dazed and dying, lay amongst the ruins of the town. “Shall we help them?” Lou asked.

  The man shook his head slowly. “The earthquake shakes the sea, too. In an hour or so, some huge waves could wash over the island. If we patch them up, we’ll be saving them for the sea to drown.”

  “Will we drown, too?” the girl groaned.

  “There are just two safe places – on top of Nevis Peak, or out at sea.”

  “Have we time to climb the mountain?” Lou asked.

  “No, but we do have time to run to the harbour and take a ship. Come on, lassie, run! Run for your life!”

  Chapter Nine

  Luck and Louisiana

  They ran. They ran through the torn town and down to the harbour where dazed sailors were wandering in wonder at the sight all around them.

  “What about my friends, the other slaves?” Lou moaned.

  “The estate is high enough up,” Master Greaves panted as he hurried behind the girl. “They’ll be safe. There’ll be so few people left on the island, they’ll be able to find their own freedom.”

  “Freedom,” Lou repeated, and ran on.

  The captain of a sugar ship stood on deck, as still and stiff as the main mast on his ship.

  “Captain McKay!” Red-legs Greaves shouted. “Are you sailing with my sugar crop today?”

  “I… I was going to… but… but…” the man burbled.

  “Then cast off at once,” the old pirate ordered.

  “Yes, Master Greaves, but I don’t have a full crew. Just two men stayed on board. We don’t know where the rest are.”

  Red-legs grinned. “You have an old sea dog and a runaway slave to help. Now cast off before the great wave hits the island and wets my good sugar.”

  The captain stirred into life and shouted at his two sailors to make ready to leave. “Where to, Master Greaves?” one asked.

  The old pirate wrapped an arm around the thin shoulders of the girl in the tattered dress. “Where to, Lou?”

  “To freedom, Master Greaves… to freedom!”

  When they reached the safety of another shore, their adventure was over. The sugar was sold and Red-legs Greaves used the money to buy a small sugar plantation on a distant island where no one knew him.

  The plantation was popular with all the workers because Red-legs Greaves was such a good master. His manager was a young lady who called herself Miss Louisiana Le Moyne… though Greaves always called her simply Lou.

  The years passed, and master and manager shared a table on the porch of the fine house he had built for them.

  “You could be the richest man on the island, if you wanted,” Lou told him as they looked out across the bay to the sea as green as emeralds. “And if you didn’t give away so much to the poor.”

  “When you are as lucky as me, you need to share your luck around. I was a pirate once, and now I’m paying back my treasure to the people who need it the most.”

  Lou smiled. She knew he was right. “Though there are some things money can’t buy, old master.”

  “Are there, young Lou? And what in the world might they be?”

  “Miracles, master. Miracles.”

  And the old Scotsman didn’t argue.

  Epilogue

  In the story, the girl Lou is not true, but the rest of the tale is.

  Red-legs Greaves was a Scotsman, born into slavery, who escaped to become a pirate with the ruthless Captain Hawkins. He was forced to kill Hawkins when they finally fell out. He took over the pirate ship but he refused to kill or torture, and made sure his pirates harmed none of the men they fought.

  Red-legs made a fortune with his raids and retired to start a sugar plantation on Nevis Island. But an angry victim of his piracy betrayed him and he was arrested. The judge said the Scotsman should hang, but the day before the execution an earthquake destroyed his prison. Many guards and prisoners were killed, but Red-legs managed to escape and enjoy his freedom again. It was a miracle.

  He joined the crew of a whaling ship and served the captain well. He became a pirate-hunter and helped to capture a gang of pirates that had been ruining the whaling fleet.

  The King of England gave Red-legs a pardon for his good work. The old pirate settled onto a new plantation, where he was loved for his kindness.

  He died peacefully of old age… unlike most pirates of the time.

  First published 2011 by

  A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc

  50 Bedford Square

  London WC1B 3DP

  www.acblack.com

  This electronic edition published in March 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Text copyright © 2011 Terry Deary

  Illustrations copyright © 2011 Helen Flook

  The rights of Terry Deary and Helen Flook to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  eISBN 978 1 4081 8109 6

  A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.

  All rights reserved You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

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