The Splendid Spur<br />Being Memoirs of the Adventures of Mr. John Marvel, a Servant of His Late Maj, Arthur Quiller-Couch [books suggested by elon musk TXT] 📗

We turn'd into the lane and rac'd down it. For my part, I swore to drown myself in Avon rather than let those troopers retake me. I heard their outcries about the house behind us, as we stumbled over the frozen rubbish heaps with which the lane was bestrewn.

“What's our direction?” panted I, catching Delia's hand to help her along.

“To the left now—for the river.”

We struck into a narrow side street; and with that heard a watchman bawl—-

“Past nine o' the night, an' a—!”

The shock of our collision sent him to finish his say in the gutter.

“Thieves!” he yell'd.

But already we were twenty yards away, and now in a broader street, whereof one side was wholly lin'd with warehouses. And here, to our dismay, we heard shouts behind, and the noise of feet running.

About halfway down the street I spied a gateway standing ajar, and pull'd Delia aside, into a courtyard litter'd with barrels and timbers, and across it to a black empty barn of a place, where a flight of wooden steps glimmer'd, that led to an upper story. We climb'd these stairs at a run.

“Faugh! What a vile smell!”

The loft was pil'd high with great bales of wool, as I found by the touch, and their odor enough to satisfy an army. Nevertheless, I was groping about for a place to hide, when Delia touch'd me by the arm, and pointed.

Looking, I descried in the gloom a tall quadrilateral of purple, not five steps away, with a speck of light shining near the top of it, and three dark streaks running down the middle, whereof one was much thicker than the rest. 'Twas an open doorway; the speck, a star fram'd within it; the broad streak, a ship's mast reaching up; and the lesser ones two ends of a rope, working over a pulley above my head, and used for lowering the bales of wool on shipboard.

Advancing, I stood on the sill and look'd down. On the black water, twenty feet below, lay a three-masted trader, close against the warehouse. My toes stuck out over her deck, almost.

At first glance I could see no sign of life on board: but presently was aware of a dark figure leaning over the bulwarks, near the bows. He was quite motionless. His back was toward us, blotted against the black shadow; and the man engag'd only, it seem'd, in watching the bright splash of light flung by the ship's lantern on the water beneath him.

I resolv'd to throw myself on the mercy of this silent figure; and put out a hand to test the rope. One end of it was fix'd to a bale of wool that lay, as it had been lower'd, on the deck. Flinging myself on the other, I found it sink gently from the pulley, as the weight below moved slowly upward: and sinking with it, I held on till my feet touch'd the deck.

Still the figure in the bows was motionless.

I paid out my end of the rope softly, lowering back the bale of wool: and, as soon as it rested again on deck, signalled to Delia to let herself down.

She did so. As she alighted, and stood beside me, our hands bungled. The rope slipp'd up quickly, letting down the bale with a run.

We caught at the rope, and stopp'd it just in time: but the pulley above creak'd vociferously. I turn'd my head.

The man in the bows had not mov'd.