A mouse streaked out the door of the Captain's cabin and did not stop
until it reached the farther end of the _Vulture_, where it hid
quaking behind someone's old shoe. The little creature, quieting down
at last and feeling its heart regain a more familiar rhythm, sniffed
distastefully at the shoe. It was plain to see, it thought, that the
_Vulture_ was an untidy, ill-cared-for ship. Old shoes were never left
lying about on the _Mirabelle_.
The thought of the _Mirabelle_ brought Chris's mission on the pirate
ship into sharper focus. He glanced up at the sky; there was little
time left in which to work safely, for Claggett Chew's sharp eyes had
noticed the infinitesimal scar on his cheek and his astute brain had
put two and two together. Chris wondered, with a new start of horror,
if Claggett Chew could read his thoughts, and if this was why he had
stared at him with such intensity.
Well, he shrugged, he knew what had to be done and if he worked
quickly, and Claggett Chew's swoon lasted long enough, not even he
could stop him. Looking about to make sure he was unobserved, he took
his own shape again with a sigh of relief. It was almost like holding
one's breath for long periods of time, to be in the shape of a bird or
a mouse, but to be himself, he knew, held even greater dangers.
For the first time he opened the leather bag at his neck and felt
inside. The first thing his fingers closed on he pulled out. He turned
the object in his palm toward the starlight to see what it might be.
It was a folding knife in a case of tortoise shell inlaid with strange
signs in silver and mother-of-pearl. Chris opened it--the blade was
razor-sharp--and put it experimentally point down on the wood of the
deck. As if by itself the blade revolved with immense speed, sinking
in so fast that only just in time did Chris snatch it out and hold it
more tightly. Trying it out he found that the blade would go through
anything, sometimes so easily as to scarcely seem to cut, leaving no
trace of a mark, it was so keen. At other times when he pressed on it,
the blade whirled around, boring a hole as deep as might be necessary.
What a useful gadget! Chris thought.
This is just what I need and now is the time! he said to himself, and
sprang up the nearest of the _Vulture's_ three masts.
What he had to do would take long, and there was little time left that
night in which to do it. For he intended slitting the lines of the
rigging here and there, not so deeply that they would give way at once
and be soon repaired, but so that with the first hard blow the lines
would break.
Growing daylight should have warned him long before he was done, for
Chris wished also to slit the sails, very slightly, when they had
been unfurled and the _Vulture_ was under way. The sound of voices
broke his absorption in his task. Looking down from the top of the
mainmast where he clung, Chris saw a boatload of returning sailors and
realized with a start that it was nearly sunup. In a moment a rat ran
down the mast to disappear into the foul-smelling hold of the pirate
vessel.
How long must he wait in the hold? Chris wondered. Although he might
be in the shape of a rat, it was only his outward form that had
changed. He could not eat grain or refuse that was not suitable for a
human, and he did not relish having to hold his own in a fight with a
true rat, there in the darkness. He contemplated boring a hole in the
hull of the _Vulture_ but decided to wait until the ship was under
sail. He bitterly regretted not having brought food with him, feeling
hungry after his exertions about the ship. There was nothing else for
it but to hide as safely as he could in his own shape.
This he did, after a thorough search in his rat form to find what
seemed a safe, hidden place high at the top of a pile of the loot
stolen from the merchantman. There the exhausted boy, curled closely
against any sudden movement of the ship, fell into a sound sleep.
The dip and sway of a sailing ship cutting the seas, and a ravenous
appetite, combined to wake Chris. For the first few moments he was
confused at where he was. Little or no light seeped into the hold, and
he was further troubled by having no idea how long he might have
slept.
His first thought was to find food. Climbing down from his sleeping
place he felt his way back to the ladder leading up to the deck. The
hatch at the top of the ladder was open and through it came a long
faded shaft of light and a freshening draught of air. By the quality
of the light, Chris judged the time to be well along in the afternoon.
He was debating with himself whether or not to change his shape and
venture up to find something to eat, when on one of the lower treads
of the plank ladder he caught sight of a plate of food.
Chris stood staring at it for a moment. His mouth watered, for he had
not eaten in many hours and the sight of meat, bread, and fruit was
almost more than he could resist. But resist it he did, for he argued
in himself: If this has been put here, it must be for me. If it is for
me, it may well be poisoned. I shall not be tempted, much as Claggett
Chew would like me to be! He therefore left the plate of food where it
was, hoping the rats would find it before long and he would have
proof, through their actions, whether or not his theory was right.
Then, as a shadow fell over the hatch far above his head, Chris
hastily became a fly, soaring up to hit Simon Gosler on the nose.
Crawling in a leisurely fashion on the beggar's hump, he lingered long
enough to see what the cripple was about. Simon was looking down the
steep ladder, shading his rheumy eyes against the brilliance of the
setting sun with one filthy, crooked hand. Chris, crawling nearer,
could make out what the old man was muttering under his breath.
"The Cap'n, he say go down an' see, is the food et up, sez he. But
'tis a weary hard way for a pore ol' cripple to hop down thet steep
ladder. I'll not do it. He's a sick and fevered man. I shall say it
was et up--the rats will have got it before I get to his cabin, in any
case, an' then who's to be the wiser? Besides, there's no boy on this
ship. What a fancy!" he muttered. "He is an ill man, is Claggett
Chew. May his bones rot! I need do no more for him than what I have a
mind to, knowing as many of his misdeeds as I do. Hah!" He rubbed his
hands with anticipation. "Any day, Simon Gosler could be Cap'n of the
good _Vulture_, an he say the word to the right quarter!" His eyes, no
longer hidden behind black patches, narrowed with cunning. "And in the
meantime, who gets the best share of the spoils?"
[Illustration]
The beggar broke off in a cackle of glee, rubbing his dirty gnarled
hands with satisfaction, and turned away to go back to the Captain's
cabin with his message.
Chris flew away in the direction of the cook's galley, where as a fly
he found it easy enough to eat his fill of meat and what few good
things the _Vulture_ afforded.
Refreshed, he flew hard against the wind in order not to be blown off
the ship entirely, up to the safety of a part of the rigging from
where he could ponder on what he had heard, and see whatever there was
to be seen.
Tahiti seemed to have been left far behind, for the _Vulture_ was well
out to sea, and no smallest cloud on the horizon gave any hint of
distant land. The sailors had set the sails and a good breeze filled
the black canvas of the pirate ship. The pirates themselves, still
surly from having eaten and drunk too well after the fight of the day
before, were quarrelsome and tired and lay about in sprawling groups
on the deck far below. Looking aft, Chris saw Simon Gosler hobbling
from the Captain's cabin, and Osterbridge Hawsey's graceful,
overdressed figure outlined in the doorway. On an impulse, Chris flew
down to hear what they were saving.
"I thank you, Gosler, for your message," Osterbridge was saying, "for
Captain Chew seems much relieved to have heard it, and I think will
now rest quietly and sleep. Who is it, you say, who has some knowledge
of medicine--the ship's carpenter?"
Here Osterbridge Hawsey rolled his eyes upward and shrugged his
expressive shoulders.
"Dear me! At least to be a sawbones, he has the saw!" he said
disdainfully.
"And knows how to drive a nail into a coffin too, master," whined the
beggar.
"Enough!" cried Osterbridge in sudden anger. "Fetch him at once, and
tell the cook, as you pass the galley, to bring the Captain some plain
hot broth! He is much fevered."
The atmosphere seemed right to Chris for all he had to do. Without
Claggett Chew's commanding and forbidding presence, the pirates would
be in a turmoil. Chris returned to the higher rigging to wait until
darkness should be more profound.
It was not long before the tropic night fell, deeply blue in the first
hours until the stars should give off their high clear light. As the
_Vulture_ rolled and pitched over the sea far down beneath him, Chris
clung to the rigging and took the chance of changing himself into his
own shape. Then, with all the haste he could, he moved a hundred feet
above the hard decks, up the masts and along the sails, setting the
new knife gently here and there to part the fibers of the cloth. As he
went the lines were touched occasionally in vital spots.
It took long, for it had to be done with care. Chris scarcely made a
move without looking down to see whether the sailors might not have
glanced up at the dusky full-bellied sails, but they were weary after
two such hard-filled days and soon fell asleep on the planks of the
open deck. Only Simon Gosler hobbled in and out, watching a sailor
here, stealing from another there, lifting his head slowly above the
window of the Captain's cabin to spy on what went on inside. Like a
dark malevolent spirit, Simon Gosler, crippled in thought and body,
moved restlessly about the pirate ship.
Chris completed his task on the sails and rigging and slipped down to
hide behind the third mast as he looked out to see where Simon Gosler
might be. He could see him nowhere, and holding his breath, stepped
over two sleeping pirates sprawled on their backs on the deck to reach
the hatch of the hold. He had one last task to perform before leaving
the _Vulture_.
The hatch top was open, laid back as before, and Chris, feeling some
danger, changed to a mouse as he crouched on the top rung.
Hesitating, sniffing the fetid air of the hold, he finally ran down
the ladder edge. There he sensed imminent death at its foot in time to
leap as far as he could as he reached the last few rungs of the
ladder. For Simon Gosler stood waiting at the bottom armed with a
club, which he brought down with a splintering crash on the wooden
crossbars as the mouse ran past and leapt out of sight. Curses
instantly filled the hot air like so many wasps. Simon Gosler thrashed
around with the club laying it about him on the floor, narrowly
missing several times, and yelling at the top of his raucous lungs for
companions to help him. In no time figures carrying flaming torches
clattered down into the hold and Chris, his own shape regained, knew
he would have to be quick as he had never been quick before.
[Illustration]
With a flick the new knife was open in his hand and the blade pressed
with all his strength against the hull of the _Vulture_. He was
crowded into a corner as far as possible from the advancing row of
torches and shouting men. Frantic rats, terrified by the flames of the
torches and the reverberating noise, scampered over Chris's feet or
ran up over his bending back and shoulders, but he did not move. The
blade whirled in the stout wooden side of the _Vulture_, but it seemed
no time before the flicker and wavering red of the nearest torches
sent their flares over him from a distance. Chris could make out the
silhouette of hunting figures as the first black trickle of sea water
pierced through the side of the ship and stained the dry planks. Still
the boy pushed the knife on a moment more until the water was a steady
spurt, wetting his hand with its coolness. Then, as the torches sent
their flames moving into the obscure corner where he had been, a fly
soared up and out, over an empty metal plate and four dead rats, over
the stooped screaming figure of a humpback, and a scattered line of
searching men, out to the freshness of the night and the open sea.
Only Osterbridge Hawsey, curious at the torches and the shouting,
looked out the cabin door in time to see a tiny boat scud past, back
toward Tahiti. And only in his befuddled dreams did he puzzle over how
the small craft could sail against the wind, or wonder how it could
sail so well, when it seemed to be made of rope.