It was perhaps as well that Chris had more than enough to think of.
Otherwise the wrench at leaving home might have been even more
distressing than it was. His last day passed like a flash, though from
his attitude no one, certainly not Becky, would have guessed that the
next morning he would not be there to eat his breakfast in the sunny
kitchen window. Amos, quick to sense all Chris's moods, knew something
was afoot, and when Chris and Mr. Wicker finally told him of the
sailing plan, Amos's eyes grew rounder than ever and sparkled more
brightly, but he said never a word.
At ten o'clock that night, when Becky had gone heavily to her room,
wondering perhaps why Chris had given her so hard a hug, Ned Cilley
knocked at the back door. He had brought a light cart on which there
stood a large wicker hamper. Ned and Chris lifted it into the kitchen
while Mr. Wicker drew the curtains and then held a candle high. The
candlelight flickered and flapped like a trapped bird at the corners
of the room, and sharp bird-wing shadows cut across Mr. Wicker's tall
dark figure. Yet to Chris, who was to hold the scene ever after in
his memory, the kitchen by the light of that one candle, and the
figure of his master standing in its center, moved Chris as he had
never been touched before. Amos stood near the basket, looking first
into its square depth filled with shadow, and then up enquiringly at
Mr. Wicker, but he did not speak.
[Illustration]
"Be of good heart, Amos," Mr. Wicker said to him kindly, "and look
after young Christopher as best you can."
Then, at a gesture from Mr. Wicker, Amos, agog, stepped into the
hamper where he stood uncertainly, his expression half terrified and
half delighted.
"Yessir, I will!" he piped up, shrill with excitement. "I'll keep my
eye on him!" he promised, and then curled up in the hamper. Ned Cilley
shut down the top and he and Chris lifted it to the cart. Mr. Wicker
spoke low into Ned's ear.
"All is well understood?" he queried. "This is no time for
misunderstandings!"
"Aye aye, sir! All is clear!" the good Ned replied.
"Then Godspeed to you all and bring you safely home," said Mr. Wicker.
"Be on the lookout for this lad, Ned, when you get past the bar."
[Illustration]
"We shall," Ned whispered back, "and good luck to the two of ye!"
Clucking to his horse, on wheels covered with rags, and with cloths
about the horse's hoofs to deaden their sound, Ned Cilley and his
hamper went quietly away in the direction of the wharfs. In a moment,
cart, horse, and driver were swallowed up in the denseness of the
night.
A black night it was indeed. Although there was a moon, thick clouds
scudded over it and an autumn wind bent the trees, tearing the leaves
from them. A mist rose from the river, but it was blown away from all
but the most sheltered places.
Mr. Wicker and Chris stood in the silent kitchen. Looking about him,
Chris remembered with a pang the first morning he had seen it, with
Becky in her gaudy hat standing near the fire.
"Come, Christopher," Mr. Wicker bade him, taking up his caped black
cloak and another one for Chris. "First, wind the rope about your
waist, and once on board, bind it under your shirt. Let no one, not
even Amos, know of it."
Chris did as he was told. Mr. Wicker then gave him a leather pouch
hung on a cord.
"Here are some oddments of magic that may prove their usefulness," he
remarked. "Wear them about your neck." So saying he slipped the
leather cord over Chris's head.
"What happens to the rope and pouch when I change my shape, sir?"
Chris asked.
"They will remain with you, have no fear of that," the magician
replied. "What would be the use of magic if it proved unable to adjust
itself?" A smile played over Mr. Wicker's face. "So, all is ready," he
said glancing around. "Now we must be off and lose no time, for we
have much ahead of us," said Mr. Wicker drily, blowing out the candle.
Before he knew it, Chris stood--until what far-off time?--outside Mr.
Wicker's house. His master locked the door. The wind, swooping down
like some great bird, tugged at their cloaks and chilled their faces.
Chris led the way to the creek and the marsh. This time both he and
Mr. Wicker wore high boots which kept the icy water and mud from their
feet.
"What I wouldn't give for a flashlight!" Chris muttered as they came
to the marsh.
"Yes, the twentieth century has many conveniences," Mr. Wicker
replied, and Chris could imagine, behind him, the man's sardonic smile
and amused eyes.
They came out suddenly from the blackness of the woods to the
wind-whipped river, and though the moon was still obscured, the river
held a pallid sheen of its own that gave a little light. There was not
a sound to be heard but the hurried lap of water against the shore,
the suck and pull of Chris's and Mr. Wicker's boots in the mud, and
sharp, hair-raising rustles, from time to time, in the reeds. Chris's
heart thudded in his throat at these furtive noises, for they could
only be made by rats or watersnakes, and Chris liked neither of these,
especially by night.
Pushing along the marsh edge and feeling their way, the two figures at
last came in sight of their goal. The high dark hull of the _Venture_
rose above the water, an amber lantern hanging at her stern. The wind
swung the ship, and the tide, still flowing up the Potomac, showed
that the bow, held by the anchor, was pointed somewhat downstream.
"The anchor may have dragged," Chris whispered to Mr. Wicker. "Now for
our boat!"
The rope seemed to uncoil from about his waist almost of itself, and
with the gestures he had been taught, Chris formed a very adequate
craft; a trifle lopsided, it must be admitted, as he had had small
practice, but seaworthy nevertheless.
"I shall see that the men sleep soundly," Mr. Wicker murmured. "You do
the rest."
"I shall, sir!" Chris agreed, and then the moon showed an edge for a
moment in the clouds. "Look sir--the _Mirabelle_!"
Toward sleeping Georgetown, for it was nearly midnight now, a
whiteness showed itself, close against the distant wharfs. The
_Mirabelle_ was edging out, and Chris knew that Ned, Bowie, Abner
Cloud, and others were pulling her by the ship's boats into the main
flow of the river. Once turned, she would float noiselessly down the
Potomac past the _Venture_, and once he was aboard, would hoist her
sails and set her course to sea.
"Then quick!" bade Mr. Wicker. "We took too long! It seems we are a
trifle late!"
[Illustration]
They stepped into the boat, each taking an oar, and with only a few
strong pulls came alongside the silent _Venture_. They moored their
boat to the anchor rope. Mr. Wicker touched Chris by way of wishing
him luck, and disappeared. For half a second more Chris waited. No
sound came from the ship but a light showed in the Captain's cabin.
In a twinkling, a monkey with a pouch about its neck ran up the anchor
rope and pausing on the gunwale, sniffed at the pungent flower smell
that it now knew meant sleep for all the sailors. Then it bounded
toward the light.
A window of the cabin on the lee side had been left open. Clinging to
a piece of rigging before it sprang to the sill, the monkey's eyes
caught what seemed to be a shadow darker than that of the mist or of
the night, moving away from the sailor left at night watch. The man
now lay slumped in sleep, and the same heady scent of spices and
flowers that had overcome Chris when he had first entered Mr. Wicker's
shop blew away on the gusty fall wind.
The ship tugged and strained at her anchor, wind and turning tide
making taut the line that held her close to shore. The _Venture_, her
rigging and masts scarcely visible, so sombre was the night, lay
ominously silent, excepting for a murmur of voices from the cabin.
Abruptly aware of the passing of time and the approaching white cloud
on the water that was the _Mirabelle_, the monkey sprang to the side
of the open window and peered inside.
[Illustration]
A smoking lamp hung low over a center table, dropping a dusky round
glow on the larger circle beneath it. Claggett Chew was blearily
studying a paper spread out before him, leaning his ugly bare skull on
one hand. His eyes were blood-shot, and an empty wine bottle and glass
holding only wine dregs showed he had been drinking and was now half
asleep.
Osterbridge Hawsey, in a heavy silk robe and embroidered slippers,
lounged sideways in a chair with his legs hanging over the arm. His
hand trailed an empty glass on the floor, and a silly drunken smile
played over his face.
"Claggett," he was saying, "is the place marked?" He hiccuped
delicately. "Hup! Oh dear! the hiccups!" he complained with a frown.
"Let me have more wine!"
Claggett Chew did not reply nor rise to fetch another bottle.
Osterbridge Hawsey gave a hiccup and spoke again, "Mark
it--hic!--Claggett. You may forget. All those--hup!--walls, to get
over, or--hic! under." He sighed. "Oh dear! Hic! _Think_ of those
jewels, Claggett! Hup! Devil take these hiccups!" he exclaimed in a
flurry of annoyance, but made no motion to change his comfortable
position.
"Claggett!" Osterbridge Hawsey shrilled. "Are you asleep, or angry,
or--? Hic!--Put a cross where the Tree is, I say! I want
those--hup!--jewels, Claggett, and so do you! Hic!"
Befuddled, his perceptions hopelessly blurred by excessive wine,
Claggett Chew made a mark on the map. "There!" he growled, his upper
lip drawn back over his teeth, "will that shut you up?"
A moving shadow duskier than the shadows themselves came through the
door and hovered over Osterbridge Hawsey. Claggett Chew suddenly
started up.
"I smell him!" he muttered thickly. "He's here! Hullo! Night
watchman!" he shouted drunkenly.
As he got up, stumbling and thrashing about in the uncertainty of his
movements, his chair crashed to the floor and the monkey made a leap,
cuffing the lantern from its hook. The light was dashed out, and in
the dark as he jumped, the monkey seized the creased, well-thumbed
paper as he leaped back toward the pale square that was the window.
Behind it Claggett Chew's oaths and exclamations became fainter as
the spicy scent grew stronger, and at last his mutterings trailed off
into snorts and, finally, snores. The monkey, clutching the paper to
itself, sat on the window ledge stuffing it into the pouch about its
neck, and a monkey smile flitted across its face as it heard a final
dreaming sound from Osterbridge Hawsey.
"Hm-mm. Hic! Jewels! Hup!" came from Osterbridge Hawsey.
Down the anchor rope scrambled the monkey with the agility and speed
for which monkeys are famous. Mr. Wicker was already in the boat.
"How shall it be, sir?" came the low voice of Chris. "Shall I become a
beaver and go down and gnaw the rope off at the anchor?"
"No," said Mr. Wicker. "It can be more easily done than that and
nothing to trace it. Get in the boat. Here comes the _Mirabelle_."
Taking his own shape once more, Chris saw the white ghost-like sides
of the _Mirabelle_ soundlessly passing down stream. Not a creak nor a
splash of water came from her as she passed, but from the stern a tiny
light, struck by a flint perhaps, blinked once, and twice, and then a
third time.
"Now!" came Mr. Wicker's low voice. "Let me have my hand upon that
rope!"
He only seemed to hold the anchor rope a moment and give it an easy
pull. The tugging strain was suddenly gone and the _Venture_ veered
away like a frightened waterfowl.
"Will she go where she should, sir?" Chris wanted to know, leaning
forward.
"That she will, Christopher!" came the familiar voice in the dark.
"And we must get out of her way, for here she comes down at us. The
wind and the tide and--hm-m--other forces will drive her solidly upon
the bar. If I mistake not, it will be several days before they get her
off," and on the night air Chris heard a faint short chuckle.
"Pull, boy!" his master told him sharply. "Here she comes!"
Chris grasped his oar and spun the boat only in time, for the
down-flowing tide and rising wind combined to drive the _Venture_
forward at increasing speed. The tide being still high, the ship was
carried well upon the sandbar before it grounded, lolling over to one
side much like the sleeping sailors.
[Illustration]
"Quick, lad! Now we must catch the _Mirabelle_, and you and I must
part."
"Oh, sir!" Chris cried, holding his oar above the water and turning
his head toward the man beside him. Mr. Wicker clapped Chris on the
shoulder and a glint of moonlight showed him to be smiling.
"I shall miss you too, my lad," he said. "Now, let us send this boat
over the river as fast as she can go. And bear in mind--keep your own
shape at all times unless you can change it out of sight of prying
eyes." They pulled at the oars. "Oh yes, I nearly forgot. Among the
effects placed in your sea chest you will find a conch shell. Hold it
to your ear, Christopher, as children do to hear the sea. You will be
able to hear my voice, if ever you should need to."
"Oh--like a walkie-talkie?" Chris asked, pulling at his oar.
"Somewhat." And Chris knew his master smiled at him.
"What about getting you to shore, sir?" Chris enquired, pulling in
rhythm so that the rope boat flew down the black and silver river.
"Have you forgotten who I am, my boy?" he was asked in return.
"No sir," said Chris, feeling a little small.
"Then undo the dinghy and clamber up the side, for here we are," said
Mr. Wicker, and the towering hull of the _Mirabelle_ rose above them.
Chris grasped a rope ladder that hung down beside them to the water's
edge and turned for a last word.
"I'll do my best, sir, but I hope you'll stay with me!" he cried.
"All that I can, Christopher," came the distant voice. "Godspeed!"
And looking about, Chris made out, coasting on the air, a sea gull,
balancing upon its black-tipped wings. Swallowing a lump in his throat
that proved bothersome, Chris jerked at one oar and deftly coiled the
magic rope over his arm, holding to the ship's ladder with the other.
A signal flashed, a lantern swung in an arc, and dim figures waiting
in their places hauled on the lines. As Chris stepped to the deck over
the side, the great white sails rose, spread, and bellied out from the
three masts. Chris looked in wonder as the _Mirabelle_, proud as a
woman, lifted up her head.
Soon on the silent river only a dwindling sight of lonely sails was to
be seen, heading toward Chesapeake Bay and then to sea. But anyone
with eyesight good enough might have seen a solitary sea gull,
following.