Micah Clarke, Arthur Conan Doyle [different ereaders txt] 📗

much worn, and stained all over with the marks of countless glasses and pannikins. A wooden bench, screwed to the floor, completed the furniture, with the exception of a stand of muskets along one side. Above and below the berths in which we lay were rows of lockers, in which, doubtless, some of the more choice laces and silks were stowed. The vessel was rising and falling with a gentle motion, but from the flapping of canvas I judged that there was little wind. Slipping quietly from my couch, so as not to wake the mate, I stole upon deck.

We were, I found, not only becalmed, but hemmed in by a dense fog-bank which rolled in thick, choking wreaths all round us, and hid the very water beneath us. We might have been a ship of the air riding upon a white cloud-bank. Now and anon a little puff of breeze caught the foresail and bellied it out for a moment, only to let it flap back against the mast, limp and slack, once more. A sunbeam would at times break through the dense cloud, and would spangle the dead grey wall with a streak of rainbow colour, but the haze would gather in again and shut off the bright invader. Covenant was staring right and left with great questioning eyes. The crew were gathered along the bulwarks and smoking their pipes while they peered out into the dense fog.

‘God den, Captain,’ said Dicon, touching his fur cap. ‘We have had a rare run while the breeze lasted, and the mate reckoned before he turned in that we were not many miles from Bristol town.’

‘In that case, my good fellow,’ I answered, ‘ye can set me ashore, for I have not far to go.’

‘We must e’en wait till the fog lifts,’ said Long John. ‘There’s only one place along here, d’ye see, where we can land cargoes unquestioned. When it clears we shall turn her head for it, but until we can take our bearings it is anxious work wi’ the sands under our lee.’

‘Keep a lookout there, Tom Baldock!’ cried Dicon to a man in the bows. ‘We are in the track of every Bristol ship, and though there’s so little wind, a high-sparred craft might catch a breeze which we miss.’

‘Sh!’ said Long John suddenly, holding up his hand in warning. ‘Sh!’

We listened with all our ears, but there was no sound, save the gentle wash of the unseen waves against our sides.

‘Call the mate!’ whispered the seaman. ‘There’s a craft close by us. I heard the rattle of a rope upon her deck.’

Silas Bolitho was up in an instant, and we all stood straining our ears, and peering through the dense fog-bank. We had well-nigh made up our minds that it was a false alarm, and the mate was turning back in no very good humour, when a clear loud bell sounded seven times quite close to us, followed by a shrill whistle and a confused shouting and stamping.

‘It’s a King’s ship,’ growled the mate. ‘That’s seven bells, and the bo’sun is turning out the watch below.’

‘It was on our quarter,’ whispered one.

‘Nay, I think it was on our larboard bow,’ said another.

The mate held up his hand, and we all listened for some fresh sign of the whereabouts of our scurvy neighbour. The wind had freshened a little, and we were slipping through the water at four or five knots an hour. Of a sudden a hoarse voice was heard roaring at our very side. ”Bout ship!’ it shouted. ‘Bear a hand on the lee-braces, there! Stand by the halliards! Bear a hand, ye lazy rogues, or I’ll be among ye with my cane, with a wannion to ye!’

‘It is a King’s ship, sure enough, and she lies just there,’ said Long John, pointing out over the quarter. ‘Merchant adventurers have civil tongues. It’s your blue-coated, gold-braided, swivel-eyed, quarter-deckers that talk of canes. Ha! did I not tell ye!’

As he spoke, the white screen of vapour rolled up like the curtain in a playhouse, and uncovered a stately war-ship, lying so close that we could have thrown a biscuit aboard. Her long, lean, black hull rose and fell with a slow, graceful rhythm, while her beautiful spars and snow-white sails shot aloft until they were lost in the wreaths of fog which still hung around her. Nine bright brass cannons peeped out at us from her portholes. Above the line of hammocks, which hung like carded wool along her bulwarks, we could see the heads of the seamen staring down at us, and pointing us out to each other. On the high poop stood an elderly officer with cocked hat and trim white wig, who at once whipped up his glass and gazed at us through it.

‘Ahoy, there!’ he shouted, leaning over the taffrail. ‘What lugger is that?’

‘The Lucy,’ answered the mate, ‘bound from Porlock Quay to Bristol with hides and tallow. Stand ready to tack!’ he added in a lower voice, ‘the fog is coming down again.’

‘Ye have one of the hides with the horse still in it,’ cried the officer. ‘Run down under our counter. We must have a closer look at ye.’

‘Aye, aye, sir!’ said the mate, and putting his helm hard down the boom swung across, and the Maria darted off like a scared seabird into the fog. Looking back there was nothing but a dim loom to show where we had left the great vessel. We could hear, however, the hoarse shouting of orders and the bustle of men.

‘Look out for squalls, lads!’ cried the mate. ‘He’ll let us have it now.’

He had scarcely spoken before there were half-a-dozen throbs of flame in the mist behind, and as many balls sung among our rigging. One cut away the end of the yard, and left it dangling; another grazed the bowsprit, and sent a puff of white splinters into the air.

‘Warm work, Captain, eh?’ said old Silas, rubbing his hands. ‘Zounds, they shoot better in the dark than ever they did in the light. There have been more shots fired at this lugger than she could carry wore she loaded with them. And yet they never so much as knocked the paint off her before. There they go again!’

A fresh discharge burst from the man-of-war, but this time they had lost all trace of us, and were firing by guess.

‘That is their last bark, sir,’ said Dicon.

‘No fear. They’ll blaze away for the rest of the day,’ growled another of the smugglers. ‘Why, Lor’ bless ye, it’s good exercise for the crew, and the ‘munition is the King’s, so it don’t cost nobody a groat.’

‘It’s well the breeze freshened,’ said Long John. ‘I heard the creak o’ davits just after the first discharge. She was lowering her boats, or I’m a Dutchman.’

‘The petter for you if you vas, you seven-foot stock-fish,’ cried my enemy the cooper, whose aspect was not improved by a great strip of plaster over his eye. ‘You might have learned something petter than to pull on a rope, or to swab decks like a vrouw all your life.’

‘I’ll set you adrift in one of your own barrels, you skin of lard,’ said the seaman. ‘How often are we to trounce you before we knock the sauce out of you?’

‘The fog lifts a little towards the land,’ Silas remarked. ‘Methinks I see the loom of St. Austin’s Point. It rises there upon the starboard bow.’

‘There it is, sure enough, sir!’ cried one of the seamen, pointing to a dark cape which cut into the mist.

‘Steer for the three-fathom creek then,’ said the mate. ‘When we are on the other side of the point, Captain Clarke, we shall be able to land your horse and yourself. You will then be within a few hours’ ride of your destination.’

I led the old seaman aside, and having thanked him for the kindness which he had shown me, I spoke to him of the gauger, and implored him to use his influence to save the man.

‘It rests with Captain Venables,’ said he gloomily. ‘If we let him go what becomes of our cave?’

‘Is there no way of insuring his silence?’ I asked. ‘Well, we might ship him to the Plantations,’ said the mate. ‘We could take him to the Texel with us, and get Captain Donders or some other to give him a lift across the western ocean.’

‘Do so,’ said I, ‘and I shall take care that King Monmouth shall hear of the help which ye have given his messenger.’

‘Well, we shall be there in a brace of shakes,’ he remarked. ‘Let us go below and load your ground tier, for there is nothing like starting well trimmed with plenty of ballast in the hold.’

Following the sailor’s advice I went down with him and enjoyed a rude but plentiful meal. By the time that we had finished, the lugger had been run into a narrow creek, with shelving sandy banks on either side. The district was wild and marshy, with few signs of any inhabitants. With much coaxing and pushing Covenant was induced to take to the water, and swam easily ashore, while I followed in the smuggler’s dinghy. A few words of rough, kindly leave-taking were shouted after me; I saw the dinghy return, and the beautiful craft glided out to sea and faded away once more into the mists which still hung over the face of the waters.

Truly Providence works in strange ways, my children, and until a man comes to the autumn of his days he can scarce say what hath been ill-luck and what hath been good. For of all the seeming misfortunes which have befallen me during my wandering life, there is not one which I have not come to look upon as a blessing. And if you once take this into your hearts, it is a mighty help in enabling you to meet all troubles with a stiff lip; for why should a man grieve when he hath not yet determined whether what hath chanced may not prove to be a cause of rejoicing? .Now here ye will perceive that I began by being dashed upon a stony road, beaten, kicked, and finally well-nigh put to death in mistake for another. Yet it ended in my being safely carried to my journey’s end, whereas, had I gone by land, it is more than likely that I should have been cut off at Weston; for, as I heard afterwards, a troop of horse were making themselves very active in those parts by blocking the roads and seizing all who came that way.

Being now alone, my first care was to bathe my face and hands in a stream which ran down to the sea, and to wipe away any trace of my adventures of the night before. My cut was but a small one, and was concealed by my hair. Having reduced myself to some sort of order I next rubbed down my horse as best I could, and rearranged his girth and his saddle. I then led him by the bridle to the top of a sandhill hard by, whence I might gain some idea as to my position.

The fog lay thick upon the Channel, but all inland was very clear and bright. Along the coast the country was dreary and marshy, but at the other side a goodly extent of fertile plain lay before me, well tilled and cared for. A range of lofty hills, which I guessed to be the Mendips, bordered the whole skyline, and further north there lay a second chain in the blue distance. The glittering Avon wound its way over the countryside like a silver snake in a flower-bed. Close