A TRIP BY WATER--BOAT, AHOY!--A COMPACT FOR MONEY--THE STOWAWAY
ON BOARD THE "WESTWARD HO!"--HIS VISION--IN THE HANDS OF THE
PHILISTINES.
Hunston had overheard every word uttered.
The full sense of his danger flashed across him.
He was watched, he felt sure.
"Not yet," said Hunston to himself, "not yet. Sooner than let them get
hold of me, I'd lay my bones at the bottom of the sea."
With which intention he dropped into the water.
But he did not even touch the bottom, for before he had got far under,
he struck out, and after taking a dozen strokes; under water, he came
to the surface.
"That's another narrow squeak," he said to himself, as he took in a
deep draught of air. "The last time I had to swim for it was in Cuba,
and a narrow squeak it was too."
He had been rescued on that memorable occasion by his enemy, Jack
Harkaway himself.
"Well, this squares that old account," he said, turning over on his
back to float. "He saved me last time. He's the cause this time of my
having to take this risk."
He began to look anxiously about him.
There was a boat at no great distance being rowed by two men, so
Hunston thought of signalling them.
"Suppose they are some of those wretched Greeks, and recognise me?"
He gave it up.
But he could hardly keep himself afloat now.
What if they did recognise him?
Would they give him up?
Perhaps.
Well, at the worst they could only take his life for his misdeeds, and
his life was in sore jeopardy now.
So he resolved to hail the men in the boat.
* * * * *
"Boat ahoy!"
"Hullo!"
"Man overboard!"
The signal of the sinking man caught the quick ears of the two men in
the boat, and they pulled towards him double quick.
Hunston caught hold of the side of the boat.
"This arm. Catch under my armpit. There; thanks. I've hurt the other."
Barely rescued from the jaws of death, and yet all his coolness and
presence of mind had come back to him.
In a trice he was lying at the bottom of the boat, panting and waiting
to recover his breath to renew his thanks for their service.
"Why, mounseer, you speak English," said one of the sailors.
Hunston nodded.
"I am English."
"So are we."
"I guessed as much," retorted Hunston, "by the way you pulled to help a
poor devil. It was nearly all over with me."
"Just in time. Well, that's one to us, messmate."
"Yes, and you'll find that I'm able to reward you with something more
solid than thanks."
"Get along; me and my mate here don't save lives at so much an 'ed."
"I believe you," said Hunston, "but I should be a villain if I did not
do something handsome for you if I could."
"I tell you what, mate, you shall lug me and my mate out of the water."
"When you get the chance," laughed the other.
"Jes' so."
"How came you there, though?" demanded the former sailor, suddenly.
"It's a long story," said Hunston, taking breath, and thinking up a
good plausible "whacker"; "so I'll tell you without all the details."
"Do."
"There's a very rich and powerful man in this place, who has a very
lovely wife. Well, this lady--"
"Casts sheep's eyes at you."
"Ha, ha!"
"Well, that is about it," returned Hunston, laughingly. "It's no fault
of mine. I'm sure I never encouraged her. But her husband is precious
jealous, and the consequence is that he had got me out to sea in a boat
with a gang of murderers--"
"The swabs!"
"Marlinspikes and grampuses!" cried the other.
"They were going to practise a curious trick upon me. It is an
institution of their neighbours and masters, the Turks, and they call
it the bowstring."
"D--n their fiddling," ejaculated one of the sailors; "I'd like to have
'em here just awhile. I'd bowstring 'em and show 'em what black eyes,
and good old English fisticuffs mean."
"I don't think that they would care to be instructed in that," said
Hunston.
"I'd, I'd--"
"Let the gentleman go on," said the other.
"Well, the fact is, I got out, jumped overboard and capsized the boat
in my struggling, and some of them, I dare say, have gone to the
bottom."
"Hurrah!" shouted one of the sailors.
"Hurrah!"
"I hope you finished off the lot of the swabs."
"I don't think that. But anyhow, I'd give a trifle if I could get clear
out of this place."
"I can tell you how to do it"
"You can?"
"Yes."
"That's jolly."
"Easily done."
And then the sailor suggested bringing him aboard their ship and
introducing him to the skipper.
Hunston listened and then shook his head.
"What," exclaimed the sailor, "won't do?"
"No."
"Why?"
"I'll tell you; a blessed outcry would be raised, and the skipper would
be forced to give me up to be tried."
"Well, they would not dare to play false."
"Not while there was a British man-o'-war in the harbour; but nothing
short of that would prevent the villains doing any thing they liked
with me. They would go through the mockery of a trial with me, and I
should be condemned to death beforehand."
"The wampires."
"Wuss wuss, nor wampires, Joe," said the other sailor, wagging his head
gravely.
"There is only one way to get out of this scrape," said Hunston.
"Out with it then."
"Why, earn forty pounds apiece and stow me away on board in the hold,
anywhere, until you are out at sea," said the fugitive.
The two sailors looked hard at each other.
"Can't do it."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Unpossible."
"I'll tell you why not. Our skipper is the best commander afloat, on'y
he won't have no nonsense. We daresn't do it, we daresn't."
"Right, Joe."
"Now, harkye, messmates," said Hunston. "I'm not the man to get any man
to fail in his duty; I wouldn't insult you by mentioning it. But mark
my words, your skipper would be the first man to approve of such an
act."
They shook their heads.
"Not he."
"I know he would, if what you say of him is right; only, d'ye see, he'd
think it his duty to give me up for a fair trial. Well, and what would
be the result of that? Why, as soon as you had set sail, they'd just do
what they liked with me, and you'd never hear of me again in this
world, whereas if I was concealed unknown to the skipper, he'd only be
too glad afterwards to have such a good action done on board his ship
without his having failed in his duty."
They listened to this, and listening they were lost.
That night Hunston slept in the hold of a ship, the two sailors having
contrived to smuggle him on board with the greatest secrecy.
It had been a difficult task for them, and indeed the sailors well
earned the money which he gave them.
Not a soul on board the ship, with the exception of the two sailors,
had the least idea of his presence there.
They contrived to make him up a very snug hiding-place behind some
barrels of sugar and salt pork.
And here they brought him food turn and turn about.
And so he chuckled to himself by day and night at the way in which he
had defeated his enemies, and escaped from Greek justice.
* * * * *
For three days and three nights he lay snug and quiet.
This was the most prudent course.
But long before the third night was over, Hunston had grown weary and
heartsick of this close confinement.
He had a sharp attack of the blues.
He got drink from the sailors and drank heavily to kill dull care, and
this defeated its own end.
He fell off into a heavy sleep and dreamt all sorts of terrible things.
He thought that without knowing it he had fallen into the power of the
Harkaways again; that in flying from them he had suddenly, when he
thought himself miles away from them and from imminent danger, fallen
into their arms.
And so went his alarming dream, when his worst enemies were assembled
in judgment over him. Jack Harkaway, Harvey, and Jefferson, together,
being his judges, the latter places were suddenly taken by three
visitors from the other world.
These were Harry Girdwood, young Jack, and oh, horror! Robert Emmerson,
his murdered friend.
His three visitors.
And these three threatened and put him to tortures unimaginable, until
he raved, stormed, and wept by turns; and then, broken in body and in
spirit, he prostrated himself before them and begged them to kill him,
and in this horrible phase of his vision he groaned so loudly that he
awoke, to find the perspiration pouring off him in a regular bath.
He was quivering like one suddenly stricken with ague.
Not an inch of his body was free from this fearful palsy.
"Oh, what would I give for the light now!" he thought; "will they never
come?"
Yes.
What was that?
Merciful powers! his prayer seemed to be answered.
He saw the faint glimmering of a light
Yes, it was coming this way.
What a relief!
He drew a long, long sigh.
The light stopped suddenly.
Then it was shaded from the part of the hold in which he was hiding.
What could it mean?
Silence was around him.
He stretched forward to ascertain the cause of the light, and there he
saw that which froze the very marrow in his bones with fright.
The light was all reflected upon a young, handsome face which he knew
but too well--so real, so vivid, so lifelike.
The face, too, with the deathly hue of the grave upon it.
It was young Jack's face, but looking to Hunston's frightened eyes pale
as death.
Hunston stared; his optics dilated and appeared ready to start from
their sockets.
He gasped, made an effort to articulate, and then his senses forsook
him, and he became unconscious.