BY A CUNNING STRATAGEM I AM GOT OUT OF JACK GEDDES' HANDS, AND BROUGHT
ABOARD THE "SURE HAWK."
The two parties of sheriff's men were distant from each other, as I took
it by the sound of their voices, no more than a hundred yards, so that
we could not burst away in any direction without hazard of being seen;
and a foolhardy hazard it had been, for Jack Geddes and his party were
armed with muskets, and would not have scrupled to use them. Yet how to
escape did not appear until Rodrigues (as luck would have it) spied a
fairly deep hole which had served at one time for a sawpit, and to this
he hurried me, and we both leaped in, and there, in a twinkling, did he
scrape aside the loose sawdust that lay at the bottom; and in the trough
thus hastily made, I, seeing his intent, threw myself full length, and
as quickly was smothered over from top to toe with the sawdust, so that
nothing was visible of me.
By this time the two parties were joined, and there they set up a great
shouting and cursing because I was no longer bound to the tree as I had
been left. And not only did they curse me, but they cursed Rodrigues as
heartily, vowing they would pepper him with their bullets as a faithless
villain if they saw him. Whereupon this, Rodrigues, laying himself prone
upon my body, set a most dismal groaning, like one in pain, hearing
which Jack Geddes and the rest came rushing to the pit. Seeing him there
all alone and doubled up as though he had been broke, half a dozen, in
one breath, began to question him how he came there, what was amiss with
him, etc. To which he replies with a groan:
"'Tis all along of that Pengilly! I was but dozing, when I heard one cry
'Jack Geddes'" (here a groan), "and the same moment I saw Pengilly with
a mighty wrench tear himself from the tree. Up I started and after him,
when, being but half awake, I threw myself in this cursed hole, and here
have I broke my arm, I do believe. But do you leave me here (where I am
as well as elsewhere), and catch the villain. I would not for the loss
of both arms miss seeing his ears cropped."
"Ay! we will catch him: have no fear," says Geddes; "scatter yourselves,
my fine fellows, and shoot down the rascal if you do but sight him, for
we shall suffer for it if he escape us."
Whereupon the men, more concerned for themselves than for any hurt of
Rodrigues, started off like hounds unleashed, and each, in his several
direction, bent upon taking me again alive or dead. And it was none too
soon, for the sawdust entering my mouth and nostrils when I breathed, I
was pretty nigh choked--to say nothing of the oppression I suffered from
the cords that pinned my arms and Rodrigues lying upon my back.
So when they were gone and Rodrigues, standing up and peering over the
edge, said that all was clear, I lifted my head, shaking off the sawdust
and spitting out that which had got into my throat, and breathed again.
"Now," said Rodrigues; "Now may we escape, for being all scattered, our
pursuers are less likely to take us."
"Do but cut this cord," says I, "and I warrant not any two shall take
me."
"Ay," says he, "I will cut your bonds with a good heart. But first you
must swear to be secret and silent; nay, you must swear also to be
obedient to my direction without question or murmuring, else will I
leave you here to fare for yourself."
I promised him this, for I was in no position to haggle over terms; yet
my promise was not enough for him, but he, taking his dagger by the
blade, held it to my mouth, and would have me kiss the cross of it,
swearing by that sign as a Christian to obey him in every particular.
And this I did, the more readily because of the cord which Jack Geddes
had knotted so cruelly about my arms that it bit into my flesh to my
intolerable hurt.
Having thus made me take oath, he cut the cord, and I was free; yet for
some time could I not use my arms with any freedom, by reason they were
so benumbed and bruised. Nevertheless, I managed to scramble up out of
the pit after Rodrigues, and thence, I following on his heels, with the
stealth of any cats, we pushed our way by bush and briar through the
thickest part of the wood, where, at sight of an enemy, we might lie
down and be unseen. On we went, Rodrigues leading and keeping the sun
well before, for a matter of three miles or thereabouts, without
encountering any of my pursuers; and then, perceiving that if we kept on
in this direction we must shortly come to Flushing, which lies (as I
have said) on the hither side of the Fal, opposite Penny-come-quick, I
twitched Rodrigues by the skirt and gave him to understand this, adding
that there was not a fisherman there but knew me, and would have me
hanged if he could; and this was true, for I was known and feared all
round and about these parts, and held to be a wild man of the woods,
very dreadful and dangerous, and a bogey to frighten children withal.
"I know well enough where I am going," says he.
"That may be," says I; "yet this is but a stepping out of the frying-pan
into the fire, so far as I am concerned."
Whereupon he taps the handle of his dagger as a sign to me to remember
my oath, and that is all the satisfaction I got.
So on we go again, still keeping the sun before up; and descending the
hill anon we come to the river-side, and here Rodrigues stops, looking
to the right and left, as if uncertain; then, putting his hand over his
mouth, he gives the cry of "Cuckoo!" as natural as ever I did hear, and
straight there comes an answer in the same manner from a thicket further
up the river-side. Thither we made our way, but with great care, now
being no more than a furlong or thereabouts from the village, screened
off by a jutting point of land well timbered; and soon, passing through
the said thicket, we came on a little creek, in which lay a boat,
wherein sat a couple of seamen as tawny as Rodrigues, but stouter and
better favored, albeit one lacked an eye.
All about this creek there lay an open space, from which an alley ran up
into the wood; and, lest he should be observed, Rodrigues would not
advance beyond the brush, whence he signaled his fellows to know if all
were safe. And he with the one eye, rising up and stretching himself as
if he were aweary, spied up the alley and all round and about, and then
signaled, by winking his one eye, that he could see nothing; whereupon
Rodrigues bade me cross the open quickly, get into the boat, and lie
down under the sail that was there. He came not himself, but was gone
when I got to the boat and cast my eye round for him. And here I may
tell what I afterwards learnt concerning him. He made his way back with
all speed to the sawpit, and lay there as if he had never budged when
the men came back from their search after me, still feigning to be
greatly hurt with his arm, though happily assured that it was not
broken.
Meanwhile I, following his direction without knowing what the end
thereof might be, got into the boat, and, lying down in the bottom, was
covered over with the sail-cloth by one of the mariners, while the other
loosed the boat from its moorings; and this was done none too quickly,
for as the fellow was stepping into the boat from untying of the
headline, who should come down into the open but John Geddes himself, as
I knew full well by his voice.
"Hold, there!" says he, hailing the seamen. "Have you seen a great,
sturdy fellow in a leather jerkin pass this way?"
"Not we," replies one; "and we've been on the lookout for such a man
since yesterday afternoon--and a pox to him!"
"And, pray, who set you to wait for him?" asked Geddes, and his voice
told that he was now close by the boat's side.
"Why, that's my master's business that sent us, and none of yours," said
the fellow.
"Hold your clapper, Ned, and lend a hand with your oar," cries his mate,
"for the boat is aground, and I can't shove her off. Yo, ho! all
together! yo, ho?--there we be! Now off we go, Pengilly or no Pengilly,
for, curse me," says he, "my in'ards will stand this griping no longer."
Then there sprang up a dissension between the two seamen and Geddes, who
would have them ferry him over to Penny-come-quick, and they would not;
and he, laying the stock of his musket on the gunwale to draw the boat
so that he might step in, one of them flung it off, while the other
fetched him a blow on the head with his oar that laid Master Geddes
senseless on his back. Then says the first to the other--
"Lay to, Ned, for God's sake, or mischief will come of this."
All this while I lay still under the sail-cloth, expecting, for the most
part, nothing less but to feel Geddes' foot step on to me. But his
business being so concluded, I heard nothing more but the dip of the
oars, the ripple of water under me, and the working of the rowlocks,
until one of the men said to the other, "Pull under her lee, that we be
not seen from the shore"; and the next minute the boat bumped, and the
sail-cloth being whipped off, I found that we lay under the side of a
fine, high ship.
"Up you go, comrade, quick," says Ned (he with one eye).
Then up the rope steps that hung by the ship's side I sped, and being
come on deck was as speedily hustled down into the dark hold below,
where they who had followed me down barricaded me round about with
divers barrels, bidding me lie quiet until I should be told it was safe
to venture forth.
And all this time I knew not that I had come as a runaway aboard my
uncle's ship the _Sure Hawk_; but so it was.