hope you’ll get on. There now! What did I say!”
Mr. Slocum had just called “Sally!” from below stairs, and his voice
certainly sounded far from good-tempered.
“Coming, sir,” the cook answered, and hurried to the head of the
staircase.
“I want you to go at once to the dairyman’s in Milk Street and complain
of the mouldy cheese he sent me. Tell him it’s not fit for pigs, and if
he can’t serve me better I’ll deal elsewhere.”
“Very good, sir,” said Sally. “I’ll just fetch my shawl.”
“Nonsense, woman; you don’t need your shawl a hot day like this. Get
away at once, and be sure you don’t mince matters.”
Martin heard Mr. Slocum’s loud angry tones distinctly. The cook hurried
downstairs, her master talking at her all the time. As soon as she had
left the house Mr. Slocum dashed up the stairs, and Martin realised that
his retreat was cut off. He had no fear of his old employer, but was not
at all eager to meet him.
By the time Mr. Slocum reached the kitchen door, Martin had stepped back
into the shelter afforded by the jutting corner of a large cupboard. Mr.
Slocum came in hurriedly, turned the key in the door, and went straight
across the room to another door that led into a passage and thence into
his private room.
Martin waited, undecided whether to go at once or to remain until he was
sure the coast was clear. Just as he was on the point of moving he heard
Mr. Slocum returning, and thought it better to stay where he was.
The goldsmith’s movements were much slower now, and when he came into
view Martin had a shock of surprise. The man was carrying a box,
brass-bound at the corners, exactly like the box which had been
delivered to Mr. Seymour the previous night. He passed across the
kitchen, unlocked the door, and began to descend the stairs.
Martin felt trapped. He was lucky in having escaped notice so far; he
could hardly hope not to be observed if Mr. Slocum returned. And hearing
Mr. Slocum enter the room on the half-landing he hurried after him on
tip-toe, hoping to slip by unseen.
Just as he reached the half-landing Mr. Slocum, empty-handed, came out
of the little room, shutting the door behind him. Martin bent, and tried
to dash by; but Mr. Slocum heard him, turned quickly, shot out his hand
and caught him by the tail of his coat.
“Who on earth are you?” cried the goldsmith. “No use wriggling; I have
you fast.” And then, as he caught sight of Martin’s face: “You! You
scoundrel! Where have you come from? What business have you here? Didn’t
I tell you never to show your face again?”
“I am working for Mr. Faryner, and have just brought your bread,” Martin
replied.
“Then what are you hanging about for? Why are you hiding in my house?”
“The cook was called away before she had time to pay me.”
“And you are skulking here, stealing for all I know. I’ll send for a
constable, and give you in charge on suspicion of loitering with the
intention of committing a felony.”
“You may do that if you please, Mr. Slocum,” said Martin with spirit.
“But you have nothing against me, and you will look rather silly.”
At this Mr. Slocum lifted his left hand to clout Martin, who took
advantage of a slight relaxing of the grip of the other hand to wrench
himself away and leap down the stairs. He picked up his basket and fled
out into the yard, leaving Mr. Slocum shouting threats and curses behind
him.
The sequel to this unlucky meeting was seen later in the day. On
returning from his afternoon round Martin found that Mr. Slocum had sent
a message to the baker, saying that if the new errand boy was sent again
to the house he would transfer his custom.
“You were impudent, I suppose,” said Mr. Faryner, “and you won’t suit
me, and that’s a pity, for I’d taken a fancy to you. It’s a lesson to me
to make inquiries before I hire a boy.”
Martin thought it was high time to give his employer a little
information. He related the morning’s incident, not mentioning the box;
some instinct prompted him to keep that to himself.
“There was nothing much to be angry about,” said the baker. “Have you
told me everything?”
“I haven’t told you that I was once in Mr. Slocum’s employment, and he
dismissed me for——”
“Impudence? Confess now.”
“No, sir; for fighting one of the apprentices.”
“Bless me, I’ve done that myself,” said Mr. Faryner, with a laugh. “But
come now, I can’t afford to lose a good customer. I daren’t send you on
that round again. Let me see.”
He stuck his hands into his belt and looked questioningly at Martin.
“Can you row a boat?” he asked.
“I’ve done it often,” said Martin. “My father was a sea-captain, and
I’ve helped my friends among the watermen more than once.”
“Capital! Then I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll put another boy on your
round, and I’ll give you the river. You’ll take supplies to the ships in
the Pool. What do you say to that?”
“I’ll say thank you, sir; I shall like it very much.”
“Very well, then. You see, I’ve taken a fancy to you.”
CHAPTER THE TWELFTH
THE BRASS-BOUND BOX
When Martin reached home that evening he told his friends of the
approaching change in his work that was due to Mr. Slocum. Susan
Gollop’s red cheeks grew redder as she listened to him.
“That Slocum is a monster!” she cried indignantly. “I’d like to give him
a piece of my mind, that I would!”
“Now don’t you go putting your oar in, my woman,” said the constable. “I
don’t like the man, but he was within his rights in turning out of the
house the boy he dismissed for misbehaviour——”
“Misbehaviour, indeed!” Susan interrupted. “What’s his own behaviour
like? Tell me that. Mr. Greatorex ought to know what a temper the man
has got, and if he didn’t live so far away I’d tell him myself. Martin
shall write it down for me, being no scholar myself, and we’ll send Mr.
Greatorex a letter.”
“Avast there!” said Dick. “Look at it sensible, Sue. Mr. Greatorex is
the owner of the ship, so to put it, and he’s made Slocum captain.
’Tain’t for us to question his right so to do. And d’you think he’s
going to bother his head about the ship’s boy?”
“What ship’s boy?”
“Why, Martin, of course. In a manner of speaking he was the ship’s boy
aboard that craft.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” exclaimed Susan. “You and your ship’s boy—and
Martin the son of a captain _and_ owner! Gollop, I wonder at your
ignorance.”
“Well, my dear, what you can’t help, make the best of. Let things alone,
that’s what I say, and maybe Martin’ll never meet Slocum again, and so
it won’t matter.”
Martin was not long in deciding that Mr. Slocum had really done him a
good turn. He liked his new job—to deliver bread to the ships in the
Pool. Their officers, coming into harbour after long voyages, were glad
to get a change from the hard, mouldy, and often worm-bitten biscuit
which they had to put up with at sea. Mr. Faryner’s excellent loaves
found a ready sale among them.
At least once, sometimes twice, a day Martin rowed out from the steps
below London Bridge to the vessels that lay against the wharves or at
anchor in the river. Sometimes he would send up his bread in a basket
lowered over the side; sometimes, after tying his painter to the anchor
chains, he would himself swarm up a rope ladder to the deck. Now and
then he had to scramble across the lighters surrounding a vessel that
was taking in or discharging cargo.
He found all this thoroughly interesting and enjoyable. It was much
easier to carry his basket in a boat than to carry it on his arm. He
liked to meet and chat with the jolly sailor-men and to see the insides
of the ships whose outsides he knew so well. If he could not go to sea
himself, he felt that the next best thing was to have something to do
with those who did, even if it were only supplying them with bread.
And he was well satisfied with his change of masters. Mr. Faryner, he
found, was just as quick-tempered as Mr. Slocum, but he was not mean or
spiteful or unjust.
One Saturday when Martin had made a slight mistake in accounting for the
money he had received from customers, the baker flew into a rage.
“You’re either a ninny or a rascal!” he cried. “And I don’t know which
is worse. Can’t you add two and two? You’re no good to me. Boys are the
plague of my life, none of them any good. If they’re not saucy they’re
stupid, and if they’re not stupid they’re——. Here, get out of my
sight, and don’t stare at me as if I were a fat pig at a fair!”
Martin was careful to keep out of the angry man’s way, and wondered
whether, when he received his week’s wages, he would be told to find
another job. To his surprise Mr. Faryner seemed to have forgotten the
matter that had upset him.
“Here you are, my lad,” he said, as he handed Martin his five shillings.
“And you had better take two loaves home to-night instead of one; there
are some over, and they’ll be too stale to sell by Monday.”
Like many another quick-tempered man’s, Mr. Faryner’s bark was worse
than his bite.
When Martin got home that evening he found Susan Gollop in a great state
of excitement.
“I don’t know what’s coming to us all,” she said. “Only think of it!
When Mounseer came back from his walk this afternoon he found his room
all upside-down and higgledy-piggledy, and me in the house all the time,
and never heard a sound!”
“What happened?” asked Martin, remembering the former attempts on the
Frenchman’s room.
“Why, someone got in, front or back, I don’t know how, and picked his
padlock, and rummaged the room, forced open his cupboard, slit up his
mattress, and even ripped the lining of his coat on the peg.”
“But why? What were they seeking?” Martin asked in his amazement. “He
seems to have nothing valuable except his sword.”
“Ah! That’s what puzzles me. And what’s more, Mounseer didn’t seem very
upset when he came in and found everything topsy-turvy. He just looked
round the room, and then he smiled—fancy that; smiled!—as if it was
just a muddle made by children.
“‘You take it easy, sir,’ says I, and he gave his shoulders a shrug—you
know his way—and said, ‘Be so good, madam’—he called me madam—‘to
help me arrange.’ And when we were in the middle of putting things
straight, who should come in but Mr. Seymour.
“‘Dear me!’ says he, all astonished like, ‘what in the world is the
matter?’ And just as I was opening my mouth, Mounseer took me up short.
‘Nothing in the world, sir,’ says he, ‘I thank you!’ And he goes
straight to the door and shuts it in Mr. Seymour’s face.
“I was fair took aback; where were his French manners? Always so polite
to me, calling me madam and all, and yet almost rude to Mr. Seymour!
“Mounseer must have took a dislike to him, that’s all I can say, and
very queer it is, for Mr. Seymour is a nice, pleasant-spoken gentleman,
with always a ‘Good-day, Mrs. Gollop!’ or ‘Very warm, Mrs. Gollop!’
whenever I meet him on the stairs.”
Martin said nothing to this, though recent incidents had made him
uncomfortable, and inclined to share in Mounseer’s evident distrust of
the mysterious lodger on the top floor. His doubts were deepened by
something that happened that very night.
He was disturbed from a sound sleep by slight noises from the waste land
at the rear of the house. They were louder than they had been on the
previous occasion, and he guessed that the man below had had more
difficulty in attracting Mr. Seymour’s attention.
But things happened as before. There was a short, murmured exchange of
words between the two men; the speaker below went away, Mr. Seymour came
with scarcely a sound down the stairs. Martin reached his post near the
top of the basement staircase in time to hear the same husky voice
outside the front door say: “The sloop is back in the river.”
Again Mr. Seymour opened the door wide, and the other man brought in a
brass-bound box.
“It’s heavier this time,” said Mr. Seymour. “You must give me a hand
with it upstairs.”
“It’s not safe. You’ve got slippers; my sea-boots make too much noise.”
“Take them off, and walk in your stockings!” said Mr. Seymour,
impatiently.
The other man growled, but came forward, set the box on the floor, and
sat on it while he removed his boots. His features were still concealed
from Martin by Mr. Seymour’s figure between him and the candle half-way
down the hall. He stood up.
“Heave ho,” he muttered.
And then Martin started, and instinctively shrank back a little. When he
looked out again the two men, carrying the box between them, were full
in the light of the guttering candle, and in the larger of them he
recognised the black-bearded stranger whom he had first seen at the
river stairs in the company of Mr. Slocum, and whom he had rowed down to
Deptford in Jack Boulter’s wherry.
CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH
BLACKBEARD VISITS THE BAKER
The astonishing discovery that Mr. Seymour and Blackbeard, as he called
the stranger to himself, had dealings in common kept Martin awake for a
good many hours.
He acknowledged that there was no reason why they should not have
business relations, but there seemed to be something underhand in these
stealthy visits by night.
When he got up in the morning he went straight into Dick Gollop’s room,
and roused him.
“What do you want?” asked the constable, sleepily. “It’s not my watch
yet.”
“Wake up and listen!” replied Martin.
“Been fighting again, eh?”
“No. Do wake up; it’s something you ought to know.”
“Well, spin your yarn, and don’t be long about it, or my eyes’ll shut,
and then my ears won’t be no manner of good.”
Martin wasted no words in recounting the story of Blackbeard’s two
midnight visits and the conveying up to Mr. Seymour’s room of the two
brass-bound boxes. Gollop began to snore in the middle of it, but was
roused again by a vigorous shake.
“And you spoil a man’s sleep for that!” the constable grumbled. “I
wouldn’t have thought it of you!”
“But surely——”
“Now, look here, my lad!” said Gollop, raising himself on one elbow,
“don’t you go for to teach me anything about the law.”
“I wasn’t going——”
“Stow your gab and hark to me! Ain’t I a constable, and therefore a man
of law? Well, then, I tell you there’s nothing in the law to prevent a
man, two men, forty men, bringing a box, two boxes, forty boxes, into a
house at any watch o’ the night, dog-watch included.”
“But——”
“Don’t interrupt. If so be I was to run athwart the course of a man
conveying a box in the middle watches it ’ud be my bounden duty to hail
him and ask where he was bound for—if ’twas in the street, mind you,
and I was on my rounds. But when a man has got across his own
threshold—set his foot on his own deck in a manner of speaking—then I
question him at my peril.”
“Couldn’t you search the house?”
“Not being an inward-bound ship, nor me a customs officer, I couldn’t,
not without a warrant.”
“Why not get a warrant?” asked Martin.
“Why not? Because there’s no reason to think there’s anything contraband
in them boxes; and, what’s more, because I’m dead sleepy. So just you
set a course for your baker’s shop, my lad; what you can’t help, make
the best of.”
Martin was by no means satisfied that the constable’s exposition of the
law was sound, but it was clearly impossible to do anything more with
him until he had finished his sleep.
That morning, Martin, in the course of his duty, boarded a vessel moored
near Wapping which he had already visited several times, and where he
had established friendly relations with the cook.
“Two quarterns to-day, and mind they’re not stale,” said the cook.
“We never have any stale; our bread sells like hot cakes,” said Martin.
“Well, there’s a new customer for you astern there.”
The cook pointed to a vessel at anchor a few cables’ lengths down the
river.
“Why, isn’t that the Portugal ship that was repairing at Deptford?”
Martin asked.
“Ay, that’s her. She came up out of the yard on the tide yesterday.”
“I saw her in the yard not long ago. She’s had her mainmast shot away by
the French, they said.”
“True, that was the yarn. She’s a queer sort of vessel, by all accounts.
The crew are all black-haired men, but that you’d expect, being
Portugals or Levantines, or summat outlandish. What’s queer is that
they’re never allowed leave on shore. Even in Deptford, when the ship
was being overhauled, they had to sling their hammocks in an old
warehouse on the riverside. They was marched about like a lot of
prisoners—conveyed there and back by the officers—and a dark-looking
lot they are too.
“The captain’s a white man—white, says I, meaning he’s not a nigger,
for his face is the colour of beer, and his hair as black as coal, and
his beard like a horse’s mane. And it’s well his crew are foreigners,
for true-born Englishmen wouldn’t stand that sort of treatment; there’d
be mutiny aboard, trust me. But there’s no proper spirit in those
Portugals; I don’t call ’em men.”
“They’re men enough to eat English bread, I expect,” said Martin.
“See that you get English money. I wouldn’t trust ’em far,” declared the
cook.
Martin laughed as he went down the side. He had already got one or two
new customers for his master, and he was so much interested in this
Portugal vessel that he felt rather excited at the prospect of boarding
her.
But as he rowed towards her he began to have qualms. It was members of
her crew that had chased him that night when he had rowed Boulter’s
wherry down to Deptford and picked up the fugitive boy. He remembered
their wild looks and savage cries; above all, he remembered the face of
the man who had urged them on—the man who had been his
passenger—Blackbeard himself. What if he were recognised when he ran
alongside the vessel?
This idea daunted him, and swinging the boat round, he headed up the
river. But before he was half-way back to London Bridge he wished he had
taken the risk. After all, what had he to fear? Blackbeard might not be
aboard the ship; the crew had seen him only indistinctly in the dusk,
and they had been more intent on the boy he had taken into the boat than
on himself.
Further, suppose Blackbeard did recognise him, what then? He would know
him only as the rower of the wherry, who had allowed a boy swimming in
the river to climb into his boat for safety. There was nothing in that;
anyone else might have done the same. Blackbeard could not know that he
lived in the same house as Mr. Seymour, and was aware of his mysterious
visits to that gentleman.
But though he repented his timidity, he felt that he had come too far to
return now. As it turned out, he was glad of his decision, for in the
evening, just before closing time at the shop, when he was sweeping up
the flour and breadcrumbs that littered the floor, and had his back to
the door, he was startled to hear behind him the husky voice of the man
he had been thinking about.
“Pardon, sir,” said the voice; and Martin noticed that it had a foreign
accent, not at all like that in which Blackbeard had spoken to Mr.
Seymour.
He glanced over his shoulder, thinking he might be mistaken; but no, he
could not mistake that swarthy face and strangely-trimmed beard.
“Pardon, sir, are you the baker as send bread to the ships on the
river?”
“I am, to be sure,” said Mr. Faryner.
“Then I beg you send three breads regular all the days to the _Santa
Maria_ what lie by Wapping.”
“Are you the captain?”
“I am so.”
“Very well, I will send the bread, and you will pay on the spot?”
“Without doubt, yes, I will pay. Good-night.”
CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH
ON BOARD THE _SANTA MARIA_
Before Martin started on his river journey next morning, Mr. Faryner
impressed upon him that he must not leave bread upon the _Santa Maria_
without payment.
“I’ve been done before now,” said the baker. “I’ve given credit to
foreign captains and they’ve sailed away without settling. Once bit,
twice shy.”
Martin visited his regular customers as usual, then rowed on to the
Portugal vessel, which lay some distance from the other ships, and was
the last for that morning’s delivery.
His fears of the previous evening had left him, but he was conscious of
a rather quickening pulse as he brought his boat under the side.
Dark-browed men, leaning on the bulwarks, peered curiously at him, and
he could not help wondering whether one or another of them might
recognise his features.
A rope ladder hung from the waist. Catching hold of this, he looked up
and called:
“Bread for the _Santa Maria_.”
To his surprise none of the men answered. They continued to stare at him
but did not change their positions. Even if they did not understand
English, he thought they might guess his errand from the sight of the
loaves in his basket.
“Bread,” he called again, “ordered by the captain.”
Then someone repeated the word _capitano_, and Martin inferred from the
way they talked among themselves that the captain was not on board.
Emboldened by this discovery, Martin pointed to the loaves, and made
signs that they were intended for the ship.
“Ha, Sebastian,” cried one of the men.
A few moments later a very fat man came from behind and pushed his way
through to the side. His swarthy cheeks hung like dewlaps over his thick
neck, his shirt was open, revealing a massive chest almost as dark as
his face.
“What want?” he said.
“The captain ordered these loaves from the King’s baker,” Martin
replied.
“Up, up,” said the man, whose English appeared to be limited to
monosyllables.
Martin began to do as he had been instructed: to place the loaves in a
small sack, sling this on his back, and swarm up the ladder. But when
Sebastian, whom he supposed to be the cook, saw his intention, he cried
“No, no,” waved him back, and let down a rope, indicating that Martin
was to tie the sack to that.
There seemed to be nothing else to be done, though Martin was
disappointed: he had hoped for an opportunity of seeing something of
this mysterious vessel. The sack was drawn up; the man took it in his
huge dirty hands, and was turning away when Martin detained him by
calling out the word “money,” at the same time jingling the bag that
contained his morning’s takings.
“No money; captain not here,” said the man. “Come again other time.”
“I can’t do that,” said Martin. “My master’s orders were not to go
without the money.”
“Basta!” exclaimed the cook; then he turned on his heel and disappeared.
Without an instant’s hesitation, Martin hitched his painter to the rope
ladder, and, swarming up, sprang on to the deck. The seamen made way for
him, and looked on impassively as he darted across the deck.
[Illustration]
The cook was on the point of entering the galley, carrying the sack
slung loosely across his shoulders. He turned as he heard quick
footsteps, but was too late to prevent Martin from snatching the sack
away.
The man snarled an ejaculation in his own tongue, and lurched heavily
forward with arms outstretched as if to recapture the sack. But Martin
skipped back, held the sack behind him, and said firmly:
“I must have two shillings, or I cannot leave the bread.”
Before the cook could reply, one of the crew made a remark which drew a
roar of laughter from his mates, and brought a fierce scowl upon
Sebastian’s face, and a torrent of angry words from his lips. Martin
noticed how his multiple chin shook as he denounced the men who were
chaffing him.
He came on, threateningly, and Martin edged back, intending to toss the
sack into the boat and at least save his bread. But at this moment there
appeared round the side of the galley a slight, thin, dusky-faced boy,
in whom Martin at once recognised the child he had vainly tried to save
from his pursuers a few nights before. The boy’s manner suggested that
curiosity had drawn him to see what was going on.
His appearance served to divert the cook’s wrath. Turning aside,
Sebastian dealt the boy a heavy blow that struck him sprawling upon the
deck, and lifted his foot to kick him as he lay. With a sudden spring
Martin thrust himself between the bully and his victim.
For a moment there was dead silence; then a jesting remark from the
seaman who had spoken before evoked loud guffaws from the rest of the
crew. Purple with rage, Sebastian aimed a kick at Martin, who evaded it
by a quick sidelong movement, at the same time swinging his sack and
banging the man on the side of the head.
The sudden blow upset his balance. He toppled sideways, and with a
resounding thump measured his huge bulk on the deck. The boy, meanwhile,
had picked himself up and darted into the galley.