We heard the old buccaneer’s great voice booming in the back premises,
and presently he returned, driving Gamaliel before him. The Jew was
loaded to the chin with victuals. A couple of chickens, a noble round
of beef, a prime tongue, two or three loaves of bread, and a round of
Gloucester cheese were piled pell-mell in his arms.
“Lookee here, here’s victuals for an admiral, and more where they come
from,” shouted Dawkins. “You thieving cur, you spawn of Moses, spread
the table, spread all the tables. There’s going to be a party.” He
deftly filched a bunch of keys from the innkeeper’s pocket, for the
little man was helpless in the buccaneer’s experienced gripe, and would
have quitted the room, but the Jew, who was biting and tearing by this
time, clung to his skirts.
Dawkins wrenched him loose and flung him on the floor. “Keep the Hebrew
stirring, mates,” says he, and went out, bellowing at the pitch of his
voice.
“Hi-yeo, messmates, hi-yeo! Any poor seaman want rations and rum?
Hi-yeo! Call--call again.”
And immediately there arose cries like the cries of famished animals,
deep-mouthed shoutings, and a beating upon doors, from all parts of
the old, rambling house, above, beneath, and behind. Mr Dawkins was
accomplishing a general gaol-delivery, letting loose the poor mariners
whom Gamaliel used to entrap. He would lodge and board the guileless
seamen until their money was out, when he would lock them up, take
their clothes in pawn, and starve them till he could sell them aboard
ship. A crimp’s is a good trade.
Gamaliel lay on the floor for a minute, then picked himself up and
went to laying out the victuals, with no apparent sign of injury.
Dawkins’s way with the persecuted race seemed effectual enough. Still
the Jew kept stopping and listening, with an eye cocked on the door.
As for Pomfrett and myself, who sat placidly thawing the salt from
our bones by the fire, he never looked at us, but hurried to and fro,
stopping and going on again, like a man in some deadly suspense. There
was something weighing on Gamaliel’s mind besides the terror of the
masterful Dawkins. He had but a few minutes’ respite. From within came
the shouts of seamen adrift in the dark house, demanding the way to the
tap-room, and the hurrying of footsteps on the boards; and then did
Hooky Gamaliel entrench himself behind the table where we were sitting,
the perspiration starting in beads upon his face and fear looking out
of his eyes.
“Gentlemen, you’ll not see a man murdered in his own house,” says he,
clutching Pomfrett’s shoulder. “You’ll stand by me--gentlemen--an old
servant of your good uncle’s, Mr Pomfrett--and I’ll stand by you, for
there’s trouble coming, Mr Pomfrett, and I know----”
“Hands off,” says Pomfrett, shaking himself free. “Who’s going to
murder you, you fool? You fill your lodgers’ bellies, Gamaliel, that’s
what you’ve got to do.”
“Oh, this is a horrible business, a dreadful business,” groaned the
Jew, clutching himself with both hands, since he could hold on to no
one else. “O Mother of Moses, here they come!”
A tall man, his shock of hair ruffled all over his head, and naked as
he was born, came rushing into the room, trailing a blanket behind him,
and stopped short, dazzled by the light. The next moment he caught
sight of the trembling Jew, and made a short rush in his direction,
dropping his blanket. Pomfrett stopped him, his open hand against the
creature’s face.
“Easy, now,” says he, gently. “Easy, easy all. I’m commander here. Sit
down, and take your rations quiet.”
“I want that man, I want that man,” says the naked one, trying to edge
past Pomfrett, with his fierce eyes fastened on the Jew.
“Well, you can’t have him, d’ye see,” returned Captain Pomfrett, in the
same tone of quiet persuasion. “Obey orders, now, and sit you down.
Rations is what you want.”
The room was filling with a little crowd of wild figures, some in shirt
and drawers, some in a kilt with a rug about their shoulders, one
or two with a filthy blanket held about their naked body. They came
crowding about us, a glare of eyes, a gallery of drawn, hungry faces,
a hubbub of oaths and clamourings for the blood of Hooky Gamaliel. I
suppose, if we had not fenced him in the chimney-corner, the Jew would
have been put on the fire straightway. Pomfrett faced the mob with
his hands in his pockets, composedly expostulating with the hungry,
furious wretches until they quieted down and suddenly turned upon the
victuals. They fell upon the meat and drink like a pack of hounds,
tearing the meat with teeth and fingers, cramming fowl and beef and
bread and tongue all at once, knocking the necks from bottles, pouring
down wine and brandy from quart pots.
In the comparative silence that ensued there came the sounds of
battering upon a door somewhere upstairs. The Jew, hearkening with an
agonised countenance, again took Pomfrett by the sleeve. “Take him
away, Mr Pomfrett, take the bloody scoundrel away from that door; don’t
let him get in, or there’ll be worsh than murder in a minute. O, this
is worsh than all!” In his agitation his accents suddenly thickened to
the Hebrew pronunciation.
“What’s in the room, then?” says Pomfrett, freeing himself from the
Jew’s hold with his former action.
“Hush, speak lower. Bend down.” As Gamaliel whispered in his ear there
came the loud noise of a pistol shot, a momentary silence, then renewed
bellowings and hammerings.
“Stay here,” said Pomfrett to me, and ran from the room. The clamour
ceased, and the Jew wiped his brow with the back of his shaking hand.
All this passed totally unheeded by the gorging crew of released
mariners; they scarce looked up from their victuals when, a few minutes
after Pomfrett had quitted the room, Mr Dawkins entered it.
That robustious buccaneer came softly in and sat down heavily beside
me. The frightened, furtive look had passed from Gamaliel’s face to
his own; indeed, by some unexplained process, the two seemed to have
changed places. Now that the worst, apparently, had come upon him, the
Jew was settling into a stolid resignation, the indispensable attribute
of his race, while Dawkins sat uneasily listening, his eyes upon the
door.
“And I might ’a’ known it,” he said, presently, without shifting his
glance. “I surely might ’a’ known it all along.” He bent a savage look
on Gamaliel for a moment. “I’ll pay you for this, Hooky. Lord strike
and blast me to ashes where I sit, but I’ll pay you for this.”
“Mother of Moshesh, how could I help it? You know better than that, Mr
Dawkins,” said the Jew, sullenly.
“I know this,” says Dawkins, “that the minute Mr Murch sets foot
inside this here door I’ll shoot you like a blessed dog, Hooky.”
The name of Murch struck me with a horrid shock of amazement. But the
Jew was unmoved.
“You’d better let me go and stop him, then,” was all he said. Dawkins,
unheeding, addressed himself to me, still keeping a watchful eye on the
door while he talked.
“I reckon you’re surprised, Mr Winter, at what I said. And I was
surprised, upstairs, and no mistake. Now I ain’t surprised at anything
any more. Dawkins is ready, ay, and willing, to believe everything,
like the man in the Bible. Now, here we sit, you and me and Hooky,
and Mr Murch within a cable of us, very likely. He’s a-coming to
supper, is Murch. Which there won’t be much of it left, seemingly.”
Dawkins shot a glance upon the revelling seamen, under cover of whose
increasing clatter and clamour his own talk went forward, unheard by
any save the Jew and myself. “A nice little family party, ain’t it?” Mr
Dawkins looked anything but cheerful at the prospect. “You rec’lect, I
daresay, Mr Winter,” Dawkins went on, in a kind of despairing calm,
“a--a person, calling himself--I should say herself--no, itself,
dash _me_--Morgan Leroux? Well, it’s upstairs, Mr Winter. As sure as
sunrise, Morgan Leroux was behind that there door I were knocking at so
politeful, and he--she or it, curse me for a poor blind, but she’s like
a lady to look at, now, at any rate--she up and fired through the door.
But she missed her aim. Then Mr Pomfrett come up, and--well, it’s all
right now, I reckon. As for poor old Dawkins, he wasn’t wanted no more.
So he come down. And when Cap’n Murch comes aboard, why, look out for
squalls.”
He poured out a glass of brandy and sat with his hand on the glass,
sipping his liquor now and again, but never turning his watchful gaze
from the door. Journeys end in lovers’ meetings, every wise man’s son
doth know. All was well with Brandon Pomfrett, doubtless; for the
time, at any rate, there were two happy persons in Gamaliel’s house
to-night. But old Dawkins and myself had scanty consolation; we had
nothing to occupy our minds save the vision of the formidable Murch,
approaching steadily, inevitably, through the white, silent streets and
the darkness. Presently Dawkins began to sing to himself a melancholy
chanty, in a rough, low voice that rose and fell like the wind.
“I’m a-drifting with the tide, messmates, a-drifting with the tide.
So let me drift, and let me drift, away to the sea outside,
Along the stream what flows so fast, and murmurs as it goes,
‘Ho, never lift your hand again, nor turn to face your foes,
For----’”
“What’s that?” There came a muffled knocking on the door. Mr Dawkins
lugged a pistol from his pocket. But the knocking ceased, and an
uncertain footstep passed by the window.
“Saved again,” said Dawkins. “When Murch knocks, he knocks, and
similarly, when he walks, he marches, damn him! Another drunken seaman,
I reckon.” He laid the pistol on the table, and went on crooning to
himself.
“‘For work is done, and thoughts is vain, you’re tired to the bones;
Rest easy now, I’ll carry you slow, and the end for all atones;
I’ll carry you far, and I’ll carry you light, and drop you in your
place,
And there shall you rest, and sleep your fill, and forget----’
“Blest if the commander don’t look as if he’d found a golden fortune,”
cried the singer, breaking off, as Pomfrett stood beside us. The
commander’s face was red and pale, his eyes shining, his whole figure
quick with some extraordinary emotion. Curious to compare his vivacious
entrance, after seeing Mistress Morgan Leroux, with the depression of
Mr Dawkins’s return from the presence of the charmer. But, we are all
like crystals, changing and brightening and dimmed again with every
chance juxtaposition. The humble chronicler presents this philosophical
reflection to the reader for what it is worth; he is aware it has
naught to do with the story.
“Gamaliel, there’s a little business in hand, and we’re in a hurry. We
won’t hurt you,” says Pomfrett.
No man knew better how to bind and gag than Mr Dawkins; two or three
table-cloths, a drawer’s apron, and a curtain will serve as well as
ropes upon occasion, and we had poor Hooky trussed like a fowl before
he had time to open his mouth.
“Put him away in a safe place,” said Pomfrett, and Dawkins hove the
Jew over his shoulder and carried him out.
Pomfrett caught me by the sleeve and hurried me upstairs, and there was
Mistress Morgan Leroux, as staidly drest and as demure as any cit’s
daughter in Bristol, and a thousand times prettier, though she was pale
and thin.
And would Harry Winter, cried Pomfrett, in a wonderful stress of
excitement, do him one last service? The said Harry Winter could not
have refused had he desired to do so, and he assured the commander of
his fidelity. Then was he, it appeared, to take charge of the lady, to
carry her away to some secret place, and there keep her safe until Mr
Pomfrett’s return. For there were news of the lost ship, the _Blessed
Endeavour_; Pomfrett must put to sea again that very night. There was
not a moment to spare; and if Mr Murch, whose return to the house was
imminent, were to come upon us, all would be lost. The explanation
was clear enough, so far as it went; there would be time enough for
questions when we were forth of that dangerous house. We were in the
passage leading to the back door when Dawkins came up.
“What! the pretty bird’s on the wing, is she?” says he. “You wouldn’t
care to be took care of by old Dawkins, would you, now, my pretty dove?
Not you, and very natural, I’m sure. Ah, well, twenty years ago Dawkins
would ’a’ had another tune to call, I reckon. But--make so humbly bold,
commander--was your convoy provisioned for the cruise?”
“Money! I clean forgot,” cried Pomfrett.
“Of course you did,” said Dawkins. “And lucky you are, commander, to
have an old seaman to think for you, when your head’s gone a-dancing
after your heart.” He thrust forward his great fist, revealing a
handful of gold and silver. Without any words, Pomfrett swiftly
conveyed the money into my pocket. “Coins ain’t plunder--but never mind
the rules. And I reckon there’s more stowed away somewheres,” remarked
Dawkins. From which it may be surmised that Mr Dawkins had emptied Mr
Gamaliel’s till.
The next moment the lady and I were out in the dark, the door bolted
behind us. We began to walk forward in silence through the thick snow.
XIX
TELLS THE CONCLUSION OF THE NIGHT’S ADVENTURES
The first thing to be done was to get a lodging for the lady at some
place where I was myself unknown, so I steered her towards the best
inn of the city. As we went Mistress Morgan told me something of what
had befallen since the _Modesty_ bark gave the slip to the _Blessed
Endeavour_ off Barbadoes. It was easy to see that Mr March was glad
at our departing, though he said little enough on the subject, beyond
a curt intimation that Mr Pomfrett was welcome to go and be damned in
his own way for an ungrateful young idiot. Mr Murch being immovable,
Morgan submitted in silence. After selling his own ship, the _Wheel of
Fortune_, and taking her crew aboard our original ship, the _Blessed
Endeavour_, whose complement was disbanded, Murch set sail for Catoche
Bay, as we had surmised. Not that he believed in Mr Dawkins’s glass
bottle, but it was a principle of March’s never to neglect a chance.
And, sure enough, he found, and lifted, a considerable booty. Then
he sailed for Port of London. Meanwhile, the wily thief had painted
out the name of the _Blessed Endeavour_ and painted in the _Wheel
of Fortune_. For, he had retained the papers of the real _Wheel of
Fortune_; and among them was the deed of gift, by which, as the
patient reader may remember, Brandon Pomfrett had assigned that ship
to Mr Murch. Thus, in case he were boarded by one of Her Majesty’s
ships, Mr Murch would appear as simple captain and owner of the bark
_Wheel of Fortune_, sailing on his own account. The position was a
trifle ambiguous; but, so long as a gentleman avoided open piracy, no
one, in those days, was superfluous to ask questions; and Murch had,
on that score, as fair a prospect of a clear run into London as any
picaroon could reasonably expect. But, although he escaped the hand
of justice, the same tempest that wrought so hardly with us drove him
far out of his course likewise; and although the _Blessed Endeavour_,
_alias_ _Wheel of Fortune_, never fell into the same extremities as the
_Modesty_ ship, her crew went on short rations and suffered much from
sickness, so that many died; and when the same storm that drove the
_Modesty_ ship ashore in Berehaven struck the _Blessed Endeavour_ in
the chops of the Channel (so near upon her heels were we) there were
scarce twenty men fit to work the ship. She drove before the wind,
northwestward, and in the end Murch beached her in Morte Bay, on the
coast of Devon, in an inlet under the lee of the rocky headland called
Baggy Point. There she lay, firm fixed by the bows, chock-a-block with
plunder. Had he a full ship’s company, Murch could have repaired the
leak and towed her off at high tide; but, finding himself hopelessly
short-handed, Mr Murch thought best to leave the ship in charge of the
boatswain, while he sailed to Bristol in the yawl, to procure a fresh
crew. Upon fetching up at Bristol he went straight to his agent, who,
as we know, was Mr John Gamaliel; and, for the sake of convenience,
took up his quarters in the house of that useful Israelite for the
few days during which he was fitting out a schooner and collecting a
crew for the salvage of the _Blessed Endeavour_, _alias_ _Wheel of
Fortune_. So it was that when we brought up at the house of Gamaliel
Mr Murch was on the eve of sailing, a fortunate coincidence which,
the writer freely admits, has a spice of the improbable. But so things
fell out--and is that the writer’s fault? And I doubt if this turn
of fortune would have availed the excellent Pomfrett had not Morgan
Leroux, with the instant divination that belongs to some women,
prompted the owners’ agent to seize Mr Murch’s schooner and to sail
in her himself. Once aboard our old ship, he would be upsides with
Mr Murch. It would be a simple matter to represent to the remnant of
officers and men that Murch himself had despatched the supercargo on
the business; and, in any case, the ship’s company would care for
nothing in the world save to be paid off with a handsome dividend, as
quick as might be. Even as we talked, Pomfrett should be putting to
sea. The carpenters and shipwrights were already aboard; and as for the
common seamen who were yet ashore, they might be replaced with the wild
crew Mr Dawkins had let loose from Gamaliel’s dungeons; and if Mr Murch
appeared in the meantime, why, he was but one against a dozen drunken
desperadoes.
Nevertheless, the enterprise carried a thousand risks; March, we knew,
would stick at nothing; and the lady under my arm, once so cool and
undaunted, was twittering with anxiety.
“I ought to be there,” she kept saying. “I ought never to run away like
this--it’s shameful. But he told me to, and I promised. And I’m sorry
for Mr Murch. I cannot help it. He was never unkind to me. But what
could I do? I had to sacrifice someone. And now, I don’t know what will
happen.” And I had scarce settled her in her inn, than Mistress Morgan
despatched me to spy out how matters were going. Pomfrett had enjoined
me very strictly to stay beside his dear; but ’twas easier to disobey
the commander than his lady; and back again I must trudge through the
snow to that fatal tavern, the home of our misfortunes, fervently
hoping that Mr Murch might not fall across the poor clerk and twist the
news of the conspiracy out of him with his two hands. The streets were
empty as the desert and dark as caves, save for the glimmer, here and
there, of a lamp swinging in the wind. Murch might have had his will
and left his victim for dead in perfect security. But I fetched up at
Gamaliel’s without harm, and peered in at the open door. Murch had not
arrived, that was evident, for there were Pomfrett and his faithful
ally, Mr Dawkins, marshalling the crew to go down to the ship. The men
were newly clothed--out of Gamaliel’s stores, it is to be supposed;
and they were not so drunk but that they could obey orders. Pomfrett,
catching sight of me, leaped aside and gripped me by the arm.
“What is it--is anything wrong?” says he, in great alarm. And when I
told him how matters stood, he cursed me for infringing his solemn
behest like a slaver captain. “But now you are here,” says he, “you can
make yourself useful. There’s plenty to be done.”
There was. First, there were the men to be shepherded down to the ship,
which would have been easier had we known whereabouts beside the quay
she was moored. However, we started for the docks by the nearest way;
it was not far, but for all the hurry we made, a sober man could have
crawled there on his hands and knees in the time we took. For none of
the men were sober, and two or three tumbled down at every few steps.
But we were out of the house, at least, and in due time we came to the
black water, lapping at the sides of the moored ships, whose masts and
rigging glimmered white like a snow-wreathed forest. The men were drawn
up in close order beneath the wind-blown flicker of a lamp, and while
Pomfrett and Dawkins mounted guard over them, Harry Winter was trotted
off in the blinding snow to pick the schooner the _Willing Mind_ out of
the maze of shipping. He might have groped till morning had it not been
for Mr Murch’s habits of discipline, which kept a riding-light burning
and a seaman on watch. So we got aboard, and roused the watch below;
and Pomfrett took command in the potent name of Captain Murch; who,
said he, having been detained by affairs, would pick up the ship from
Portishead, at the mouth of the river, in the morning. The crew who
were already aboard, had no reason for suspicion; and in a bitter bad
temper they were driven aloft by Dawkins to unfurl the frozen sails.
Next, a pilot had to be found, to take the ship down the river;
and Henry Winter must tramp on that errand also. There were pilots
in plenty, lodging hard by; most of them were known to me, and a
hard-bitten, hard-swearing set of autocrats they were. I had work
enough to get the first man out of his bed to the window, and when he
learned for what he was wanted he bade the messenger to warmer climes,
and clapped-to the casement; the second did likewise; and the third
yielded only to the exhibition of a double fee.
Day was breaking, in a leaden and bleak lightening of the sky, as I
returned along the quays with the surly pilot at my heels. The snow
had ceased; the chill wind, blowing dead up river, was crisping the
grey water into little waves; the roofs of the houses and every rope
and spar of the wilderness of shipping showed white upon the scowling
heavens. Bulwarks were ridged with snow, ships’ sides were crusted with
it to the overhang, snow powdered the still figure-heads, caked upon
the carved work and lattices of the stern-galleries, and lay thick and
level upon deck and hatchway. Here and there a ship’s lanthorn shone
with a pallid gleam, a sign of life that set the point upon that scene
of desolation. Only upon the little schooner, which carried the last
forlorn hope of all our fortunes, were black figures clambering and
busy, alow and aloft.
Brandon Pomfrett, captain once more, met us at the gangway and shook
hands with the pilot, who rolled stolidly forward to his place.
Pomfrett stayed but to hand me more money--more of Gamaliel’s usury,
I suppose--and to bid me go directly back to my post, before he gave
the order to cast off. So far, then, we had succeeded; Murch, for some
inexplicable reason, had not appeared, and a part of the intolerable
load under which we had been labouring was lifted.
But, as I entered a side street leading from the quay, I had near
brushed against a big man, who stood in the shelter of a bow-window,
gazing across the snowy breadth of the quay to where the _Willing Mind_
was shaking out her sails. I caught the gleam of a little eye beneath
a tufted eyebrow, white as the snow that powdered the great figure
from head to foot, a patch of bronzed skin netted with fine lines, the
bridge of a big nose--there was no mistake. Murch neither spoke nor
moved, and you may guess that Henry Winter had no desire to tarry.
The recognition passed in a moment; the next, I was ploughing up the
street as fast as I could walk, and wishing that a foolish scruple did
not forbid a headlong flight. I glanced about as I turned the corner.
The figure was gone.