"MAN OVERBOARD."
Leicester had not much to complain of on the score of treatment from
the captain and crew of the smuggler.
He went about his work silently, and with a certain dignity which
repelled any advances on the part of his companions.
A year and some months passed wearily enough for Leicester, who hoped
day by day for opportunity of escape.
But none presented itself, and at last he had almost determined to
fling himself overboard, when the captain came one day to where he
stood in the forecastle, and addressed him thus, in his Yankee drawl:
"Stranger, I guess we understand each other by this time?"
"I hope we do," said Leicester, moodily. "I am hoping that this
accursed vessel will wreck some day," said Leicester, "and then----"
"And then what?" asked the captain.
"Then I may stand a chance," said Leicester, fiercely.
"So," said the Yankee, "that's the game, is it? Here!" and he called to
two or three of the crew. "Clap this chap into irons."
The men came forward reluctantly, and Leicester, after a fierce
struggle, was forced down upon the deck and heavily ironed.
Then he was hoisted and dragged to the mast, and lashed there, an
example and a warning to all others who might be inclined to be
"obstreperous," as the captain said.
All this time the schooner was making to get clear of the Channel,
which they hoped to reach before dawn on the morrow.
The crew, already favorably impressed by Leicester's conduct and his
uncomplaining capability, were much aggrieved at this treatment.
The Yankee skipper appeared to take no notice of the complaints for
some time, but when the dissatisfaction arrived at that point when the
men declared they would not work the vessel while Leicester was tied up
the captain, with an oath, drew his revolver.
"Who says I mayn't do what I like on my own vessel?" he roared. "If
there's one o' you as wants an inch o' lead let him stand out!"
One man, a weather-beaten little fellow whose face Leicester seemed to
have remembered as having seen before he was carried on board, stepped
forward and, with a savage sort of courage, stared the captain in the
face.
"Wal, Stumpy," he said, "what have you got to say?"
"Why, this 'ere," said the courageous little fellow, "that it ain't the
square thing to keep a man as does his duty and ain't shown no cheek
skewered on the masthead."
The captain lowered his revolver.
"If you've all o' ye set your minds upon having this yer tarnation
mighty gentleman a darncin' round agin, let him darnce."
Here the men set up a shout, and Stumpy leaped forward and commenced
knocking Leicester's irons off.
With a malicious spite the Yankee set Leicester--almost exhausted as he
was--and Stumpy, his advocate, to the hardest tasks.
In spite of all efforts to keep the vessel from going coastward the
schooner gradually but surely drifted toward a line of reefs, and the
strain was so great on the rudder that the Yankee issued an order for
bracing it.
Of course Stumpy and Leicester were told off, and without a moment's
hesitation they seized the necessary ropes and commenced the perilous
task.
Leicester expected every moment that he and his comrade in danger would
be blown or buffeted overboard, and so kept a keen lookout for Stumpy
and grasped a spar, upon which he knelt, with the determination of an
already drowning man.
The result showed that his fears were well grounded.
Suddenly he missed from his side the small but courageous form of his
comrade.
Stumpy had succumbed to the latest billow.
With a shout of "A man overboard!" he hung over the side and peered
into the heaving deep.
Grasping the spar in both hands Leicester rose to his full height, and,
amid a roar of warning and excitement from the crew, leaped into the
sea.
The drowning man was very nearly finished by Leicester's well meant
effort at rescue, for the spar just missed his head by a foot.
As it was, however, he seized it with a convulsive grasp, and the two
men were once more together.
For a few moments the ship was lost to them.
They were pitched up and down, backward and forward, the rain cutting
their faces, and the cold numbing their hands.
Then it was that Leicester hit upon a means of securing them to the
spar.
The rope which had been fastened to his waist still hung there, and he
managed, by dint of sheer force, to drag it up, and drop it over the
spar once or twice, at each turn passing it round the armpit of Stumpy
or himself.
By this means they were completely entangled, and in a rough fashion
lashed to the long piece of wood in which all their hopes of life
rested.
Dawn broke at last, and the storm subsided; but long before then they
were half unconscious and wholly numbed.
When Leicester came to, he found himself lying on his back, and the
weather-beaten face of Stumpy over him.
He smiled, and the man groaned back in reply; but for quite an hour no
words were spoken.
At the end of that time, when they had almost recovered from the
exhaustion, Leicester struggled to his feet and approached Stumpy, who
was sitting, hugging his knees, at a little distance on the beach.
"Come," he said. "We are safe, thank Heaven! Cheer up! We must move on."
The man rose and looked at him, but although he nodded his head in
assent he made no allusion to their late peril or made any attempt to
thank his preserver.
They scrambled up the beach for some little distance, then Stumpy
stopped.
"It's no use of my going any farther, sir; I can't indeed."
Leicester, fully appreciating the "sir," by which the man addressed
him, stared in astonishment.
"Why not, man? We must go on! Why should you be afraid to go on? This
is Ireland, you say. Do you fear anything from the people on the coast?
Ah, I forgot!" he added, as the remembrance of his comrade's occupation
flashed on him. "You fear the coastguard!"
"That's it," said Stumpy. "I should be in quod in half an hour."
"But how should they know you?" asked Leicester. "You need not proclaim
yourself."
"No need for that, sir," said Stumpy, with a grin. "Look here," and
he pulled up the bottom of his trousers and showed Leicester a mark
branded upon his leg.
Leicester colored in spite of himself.
"You are a convict!" he said.
"That's it, sir; I am," said Stumpy, "and, what's more, I haven't
served my time. That's the mark of the chain-gang, and it will never
come out. The first thing the guard will ask will be 'Show us your leg,
mate,' and then where am I?"
Leicester thought for a moment deeply.
"All right," he said. "I've hit upon it. You get into that cave there,
and I'll hasten up and hunt out some people. I can get some provisions,
and will not be here until dark. We can creep away then and gain one of
the towns."
So without waiting for any more objections or refusals, he hurried up
the beach.
Stumpy crawled into the cave as he had been directed, and fell to
nursing his knees, muttering:
"And to think as a gentleman should act like this to a hinfamous rogue
like me! If I'd a known what he was like, if I wouldn't a spiked that
villainous skipper and led a mutiny!"
In a short time he heard voices, and peeping out, saw Leicester coming
down the beach accompanied by a crowd of people.
Stumpy at once concluded that Leicester had thought better of his
generous offer to stand by him, and had sold him to the coastguard.
Therefore he kept in the cave until Leicester crawled in to him, and
cried out, laughingly:
"Here's a pretty Irishman!" pointing to a peasant in a blue blouse and
with an unmistakably French countenance. "Why, man, this isn't Ireland
at all! We're on the coast of France!"
Stumpy's relief of mind at Leicester's intelligence that they were cast
ashore in France instead of Ireland was intense, and he fell to and ate
heartily of the food which Leicester had brought, but not until he had
seen Leicester himself hard at work in a similar way.
The French peasants hung round them while they ate the bread and meat,
and then were for taking them into the village to be examined by the
notary.
But Leicester, after a moment's conference with Stumpy, told the simple
people that he and his companion were very tired, and that they would
prefer to rest a while before presenting themselves for examination.
The peasants, with true French politeness, immediately left them.
"Now," said Leicester, as the blue blouse disappeared round the corner,
"we must give those good people the slip, I suppose. Do you speak
French?"
Stumpy shook his head.
"The only furrin language I knows, guv-nor, is a bit o' Spanish."
"Spanish!" said Leicester. "The very thing. I know enough of it to pass
muster in a society where it is seldom spoken. Stumpy, I see it all.
I must be a Spanish artist, a musician, and you--if you don't mind
playing second fiddle--shall be my servant."
Then he decided to tell Stumpy his story; and a wronged man never had a
more sympathetic listener.
When it grew dark the two stole along the beach, and entered a village
some miles farther along the coast than that against which they had
been cast up.
Leicester had a little money with him sewn in his canvas belt, and
Stumpy, having received his wages on the day of the storm, was
similarly supplied.
By dint of great economy and carefulness they reached Paris
uninterfered with, and here Leicester, without loss of time, commenced
to put his plans into execution.
At a broker's shop he purchased a capital wig of white, or rather
iron-gray hair, invested in a pair of broad-rimmed spectacles at an
optician's, and purchased at a ready-made tailor's a suit befitting an
elderly foreigner of modest means.
Stumpy was accommodated with decent clothes, his long black locks well
oiled and combed, and a small pair of gold rings set in his ears.
After waiting about a week in Paris to accustom themselves to their
disguises the two sham Spaniards crossed to England.
Leicester took tickets, second class, for himself and Stumpy to
Penruddie.
They arrived at night, and boldly determined to put their disguises to
the test.
Leicester marched slowly down to the "Blue Lion", Stumpy walking at his
side and carrying a small valise.
"Can we have something to eat and to drink?" asked Stumpy, in broken
English.
Martha nodded irritably and waved her hand toward the parlor.
The two entered.
Leicester looked round the room and seated himself in a distant corner.
A thrill of indignation ran through him as the door opened and Job
entered, and he could scarcely refrain from springing at the wily
little rogue and securing him at once.
But he was slightly mollified by observing on Job's face, as on that of
all the others, a peculiar look of dissatisfaction and discontent.
Job eyed him and Stumpy with suspicious glances, and nodding to the
others, took his old seat, calling as he did so for some ale.
Presently Job rose to light his pipe, and instead of reseating himself
in his old place dropped into a chair near Leicester.
"Come far, sir?" he said, opening up a conversation.
Leicester raised his eyebrows and shook his head, waving his hand
toward Stumpy, who interpreted the sentence, and replied, in broken
English:
"No, not far; from London."
Then he commenced to talk of fine houses and big fees, and somehow drew
from Job the story of the murder of Starling and the fact that most of
the people concerned in the tragedy had gone away.
"It is very strange," he said, "very! A murder is not what you would
call common in England? What did you do with ze Mastro Leicester; hang
him up by ze neck?"
"No," said the man, shaking his head. "He died without that. He fell
over the cliff with the chap he'd done for, and so the country was
saved the trouble of that."
Leicester sat like a man in a dream, but gave no outward sign that the
story had affected him.
Stumpy, thinking that he had pumped quite enough for the present
requested Polly to bring cigars for himself and his master, and leaned
back with an air of enjoyment.
After a few words with Leicester, who was known as Signor Edgardo,
Stumpy asked if they could have a bed.
Martha answered shortly and decisively:
"No! I haven't got any beds to spare."
Stumpy inquired where he could get one.
"Here, Will," said the talkative fisherman, shaking Willie Sanderson,
who had been asleep. "Can't you let this gentleman and his man have a
couple of beds?"
Willie rubbed his eyes and nodded.
"I dare say," he said, staring about him.
Then the signor rose, bowed all round, and took his leave, followed by
Stumpy, with Willie Sanderson to lead the way.
Slowly they tramped down to the Sandersons' cottage.
Willie opened the door and beckoned to the visitors to enter.
As they entered the small sanded room a lad rose from a chair and
hobbled forward on a crutch.
He was a frail boy with a pale, intellectual, and mournful face.
Willie nodded to him.
"Jamie, these gentlemen want a bed; show 'em upstairs to the best room."
The lad took the candle and hobbled up the stairs.
At the stairhead he stopped and looked hard at Leicester, who turned
his face slightly and adjusted his spectacles.
Stumpy, who had been warned to be careful, took the candle and thanked
the lad.
Then the two Spaniards entered the room.
Leicester lay on the bed for an hour, without moving--plotting,
planning; and Stumpy, after a prolonged entreaty that he would undress
and get some rest, desisted and sat down patiently to wait until his
master and preserver, and hero--for Stumpy considered Leicester to be
everything that was courageous and noble and good--should choose to
move.
Leicester rose at last full of self-reproach.
"I had forgotten you," he said. "You should have got to bed. Come, let
us get some sleep. You want it badly enough."
As he spoke, and commenced undressing, their candle sputtered and went
out.
Leicester took no notice, and Stumpy, after a moment's grumbling
at having to undress in the dark, was just getting into one of the
beds--there were two in the room--when Leicester said:
"Hush! Listen!"
Stumpy listened, and heard a noise of crying and sobbing in the next
room.
He stared at Leicester and shook his head.
"It's that young lad we saw downstairs," he said. "Listen! Some one's
giving him a beating."
"No," said Leicester, in the same low voice, "there's no other voice or
noise in the room. What can be the matter?"
Stumpy looked up at the ceiling.
It was an old cottage, and the partition between the rooms was in some
places worn through; light came between these chinks, and supplied
Stumpy with an idea.
Without a word he bent down close against the wall and, in silence,
motioned Leicester to get on his back.
This Leicester for some time declined to do; but as the sobbing broke
out again his curiosity overcame him, and he stepped lightly on to
Stumpy's back and then supported himself by clinging to one of the
rough beams.
Having gained a position, he peered through one of the holes.
He was looking down into a small room, poorly furnished.
On the bed, in an attitude of abandon, sat the boy, Jamie. His face
was hidden in his hands, but his whole figure shook and quivered as he
murmured, loud enough for Leicester to hear:
"This is the night he died! The very night! What makes me think of him
so? It must be 'cause he was good to me--and he was good to me! He was
like no one else! And now he's dead--shamefully murdered and slandered.
Oh, Mr. Leicester, Mr. Leicester, if you could only come to life again
and prove your innocence! It is false! You did not murder him--you
couldn't; and yet----"
Then he stopped suddenly, shuddered, and looked round the room
fearfully.
Then he drew himself painfully from the bed and to a box lying in
the corner of the room, opened it, and, with another shudder, took
something from it.
This something he held in his hand and stared at with an evident horror
of fascination.
In his anxiety to see what the article was, Leicester nearly lost his
balance, and made a slight noise.
The lad started, and the something dropped with a clash to the floor,
revealing itself to be a large clasp-knife.
Leicester could scarcely believe his eyes.
Was the lad mad? or had he committed murder? Why did he sit and shudder
over a clasp-knife which he kept hidden in his bedroom?
He got down and motioned Stumpy to his place.
Stumpy was just in time to see the knife hidden away, and on receiving
a full account of all Leicester had seen was equally puzzled about it.
"It's very rum!" he said, shaking his head. "There's been some foul
work somewhere, sir, take my word for it. What's that youngster got
that knife for? It's no common one, or he wouldn't carry on like that
over it. All the more reason, all this is, that we should keep dark and
play a waiting game."
Then, with respectful earnestness, he implored Leicester to take some
rest, and Leicester, to humor the man, who, however much a convict, had
served him honestly, yielded.
On the morrow both men were up at sunrise.
Stumpy went down to the beach, and smoked a cigarette Spanish fashion
among the fishermen, to whom he chatted and listened with the greatest
liveliness.
He could not, however, learn anything and returned rather disappointed.
Not so Leicester, who entered the room looking as white and stern as a
ghost, and who laid a soiled sheet of paper upon the table.
"Look at that!" he said. "Stumpy, look at it!"
"Where did you get it, sir?"
"I took it from an old wall at the end of the village," said Leicester,
pacing up and down.
Stumpy read it.
It was the handbill offering a hundred pounds reward for the
apprehension of Leicester Dodson, charged with the willful murder of
James Starling.
No sooner had Stumpy read it than he grew alarmed.
"Some of 'em don't think you're dead," he said; "and this here's a
dangerous place. That wig might blow off in the wind, and then where
would you be? No, no, London's the place for us! We shan't get any
more out of this yet a while, and if we stop here somebody will get
suspicious. That bill's enough to make the dullest chap in England
sharp. A hundred pounds!"
Leicester was not loth to leave Penruddie.
The place was hateful to him now that all he loved were in London, so
the next morning they paid their bill and went up to the great city.
Very changed did Leicester seem as he passed familiar places, and
remembered that he must not enter them. Stranger still, he saw some
familiar faces, and they passed him and did not recognize him.
In a political paper he read news which astounded him.
The city article was nearly full of one name, and that--Howard
Murpoint, Esq., M. P.
Leicester could not believe his eyes, and it was some time before he
could realize that the villain who had entrapped and betrayed him was a
man of great wealth, influence and power.
He determined to see him in his triumph and set about a way of doing it.
There was at that time a club in London to which foreigners were
admitted who could give a reference.
Leicester went there and gave the name of his father, who was well
known as a merchant.
At this club, in the smoking-room, he in a feigned voice conversed with
several men and learned enough to astound him.
Carefully he led up to the great name, and inquired if Howard Murpoint
lived in London.
"Oh, yes," said his informant, "he has two large houses, and
another place down in the south--a wonderful man. There is a dinner
_conversazione_ on at his place to-night."
"Indeed!" said Leicester, who felt that he would give all he possessed
to be a guest.
"Yes," said the gentleman. "A sort of gathering of the lions, you
know. Open house. I have a card--two in fact, one for a friend who has
discovered a new slab in Assyria. He ought to be here by now."
Just then a servant brought a letter for the gentleman.
"Hem!--can't come; just like that sort of man! I don't know whether you
care for this sort of thing, but if you do there is his card."
Leicester thanked his generous acquaintance gratefully, and they dined
together on the understanding that they should drop in at Howard
Murpoint's house afterward.
Leicester could scarcely eat or restrain his excitement, but by
an effort he managed to conceal it and assume a certain amount of
indifference.
About nine o'clock they started for their _conversazione_.
Howard Murpoint's house was magnificently lighted up and a crowd of
servants were massed in the hall to receive the guests.
"Heaps of people here to-night," said Leicester's useful friend. "I'm
afraid you won't thank me."
"I am anxious to see the great man," said Leicester, "and would go
through a greater crush than this."
"Well, he's a great man and worth seeing," said the friend, as they
entered the grand _salon_.
Leicester looked around in astonishment at the assembled crowd of
people of the very best sort, the guests of Howard Murpoint.
Where had the money come from?
He left his friend a few minutes after they had entered, and made his
way toward the orchestra, where a splendid band was playing.
There, in the midst of a group of lords and ladies, he heard a smooth,
serene voice he remembered only too well.
He turned suddenly and came face to face with Howard Murpoint.
For a moment he forgot that he was disguised, for the moment his face
flushed, his hand clinched, his lip curled with scorn and contempt,
but the next, as Howard Murpoint's eyes met his smilingly and
unconsciously, he remembered all, and stepped aside.
In doing so he pressed rather heavily against a lady. With a low and
hurried "Pardon me!" he turned and looked upon Violet Mildmay!
This time it was the blood left his cheek, and he staggered.
Violet thought that her long train had inconvenienced the tall old
gentleman.
"I am very sorry; but the rooms are so crowded," she said, in her
sweet, gentle voice.
The tears sprang into Leicester's eye, his heart leaped as if it would
spring from his body, his arms were half extended; but, with another
smile, Violet had passed on.
Then a great and terrible feeling of loneliness and desertion came upon
him, and he crept back into a corridor all dazed and dreamy.
Round him were the promenaders, about him the exquisite music floating
through the perfumed air, the voices of the guests; about all the
serene, soft, falsely sweet tones of the villainous schemer; and within
him the consciousness that Violet--the woman he loved best in all the
world--was near him!