After waiting for about an hour in the schooner, I was sent ashore with a bottle-basket, with very precise instructions in what I was to do. I was to follow the road towards Haarlem, till I came to the inn near the turning of the Egmont highway. There I was to leave my bottle-basket, asking (or, rather, handing over a written request) for it to be filled with bottles of the very best gin. After paying for this, I was to direct it to be sent aboard the schooner by the ostler (who was waiting at the door with a horse) the last of those ordered by the captain. I was then to walk the horse along the Egmont road, till I saw or heard an open carriage coming behind. Then I was to trot, keeping ahead of the carriage, but not far from it, till I was past the third tavern. After that, if I was not recalled by those in the carriage, I was free to quicken up my pace. I was then to ride straight ahead, till I got to Egmont, a twenty mile ride to the north. There I was to deliver up my horse at the Zwolle-Haus inn, before enquiring for M. Stendhal, the East India merchant. To him I was to give a letter, which for safety was rolled into a blank cartridge in my little pistol cartridge box. After that, I was to stay at M. Stendhal's house, keeping out of harm's way, till I received further orders from my masters.
You may be sure that I thought myself a fine figure of gallantry as I stepped out with my bottle-basket. I was a King's secret agent. I had a King's letter hidden about my person. I was armed with fine weapons, which I longed to be using. I had been under fire for my King's sake. I was also still tingling with my King's praise. It was a warm, sunny April day; that was another thing to fill me with gladness. Soon I should be mounted on a nag, riding out in a strange land, on a secret mission, with a pocket full of special service money. Whatever I had felt in the few days of the sea-passage was all forgotten now. I did not even worry about not knowing the language. It would keep me from loitering to chatter. My schoolboy French would probably be enough for all purposes if I vent astray. I was “to avoid chance acquaintances, particularly if they spoke English.” That was my last order. Repeating it to myself I walked on briskly.
I had not gone more than three hundred yards upon my way, when a lady, very richly dressed, cantered slowly past me on a fine bay mare. She was followed by a gentleman in scarlet, riding on a little black Arab. They had not gone a hundred yards past me when the Arab picked up a stone. The man dismounted to pick it out, while the lady rode back to hold the horse, which was a ticklish job, since he was as fresh as a colt. He went squirming about like an eel. The man had no hook to pick the stone with; nor could he get it out by his fingers. I could hear him growling under his breath in some strange language, while the horse sidled about as wicked as he could be.
As I approached, the horse grew so troublesome that the man decided to take him back to the town, to have the stone pulled there. He was just starting to lead him back when I came up with them. He asked me some question in a tongue which I did not know. He probably asked me if I had a hook. I shook my head. The lady said something to him in French, which made him laugh. Then he began to lead back the horse towards the town. The lady, after waving her hand to him, started to ride slowly forward in front of me. Like most ladies at that time she wore a little black velvet domino mask over her eyes. All people could ride in those days; but I remember it occurred to me that this lady rode beautifully. So many women look like meal-sacks in the saddle. This one rode as though she were a part of the horse.
She kept about twenty yards ahead of me till I sighted the inn, where an ostler was walking the little nag which I was to ride. She halted at the inn-door, looking back towards the town for her companion. Then, without calling to anybody, she dismounted, flinging her mare's reins over a hook in the wall. She went into the inn boldly, drawing her whip through her left hand. When I entered the inn-door a moment later, she was talking in Dutch to the landlord, who was bowing to her as though she were a great lady.
I handed over my bottle-basket, with the letter, to a woman who served the customers at the drinking bar. Then, as I was going out to take my horse, the lady spoke to me in broken English.
“Walk my horse, so he not take cold,” she said. It was in the twilight of the passage from the door, so that I could not see her very clearly, but the voice was certainly like the voice of the woman who had fired at me in the courtyard. Or was I right? That voice was on my nerves. It seemed to be the voice of all the strangers in the town. I looked up at her quickly. She was masked; yet the grey eyes seemed to gleam beyond the velvet, much as that woman's eyes had gleamed. Her mouth; her chin; the general poise of her body, all convinced me. She was the woman who had carried away the book from Longshore Jack. I was quite sure of it. I pretended not to understand her. I dropped my eyes, without stopping; she flicked me lightly with her whip to draw my attention.
“Walk my horse,” she said again, with a little petulance in her voice. I saw no way out of it. If I refused, she would guess (if she did not know already) that I was not there only for bottles of gin. “Oui, mademoiselle,” I said. “Oui. Merci.” So out I went to where the mare stood. She followed me to the door to see me take the mare. There was no escape; she was going to delay me at the door till the man returned. I patted the lovely creature's neck. I was very well used to horses, for in the Broad Country a man must ride almost as much as he must row. But I was not so taken up with this mare that I did not take good stock of the lady, who, for her part, watched me pretty narrowly, as though she meant never to forget me. I began to walk the beast in the road in front of the inn, wondering how in the world I was to get out of the difficulty before the Duke's carriage arrived. There was the woman watching me, with a satirical smile. She was evidently enjoying the sight of my crestfallen face.
Now in my misery a wild thought occurred to me. I began to time my walking of the mare so that I was walking towards Sandfoort, while the other horse-boy was walking with my nag towards Egmont on the other side of the inn. I had read that in desperate cases the desperate remedy is the only measure to be tried. While I was walking away from the inn I drew the dagger, the spoils of war. I drew it very gently as though I were merely buttoning my waistcoat. Then with one swift cut I drew it nine-tenths through the girth. I did nothing more for that turn, though I only bided my time. After a turn or two more, the other horse-boy was called up to the inn by the lady to receive a drink of beer. No doubt she was going to question him (as he drank) about the reason for his being there. He walked up leisurely, full of smiles at the beer, leaving his nag fast to a hook in the wall some dozen yards from the door. This was a better chance than I had hoped for; so drawing my dagger, I resolved to put things to the test. I ripped the reins off the mare close to the bit. Then with a loud shout followed by a whack in the flank, I frightened that lovely mare right into them, almost into the inn-door. Before they knew what had happened I was at my own horse's head swiftly casting off the reins from the hook. Before they had turned to pursue me, I was in the saddle, going at a quick trot towards Egmont, while the mare was charging down the road behind me, with her saddle under her belly, giving her the fright of her life.
An awful thought came to me. “Supposing the lady is not the English spy, what an awful thing I have done. Even if she be, what right have I to cut her horse's harness? They may put me in prison for it. Besides, what an ass I have been. If she is what I think, she will know now that I am her enemy, engaged on very special service.” Looking back at the inn-door, I saw a party of people gesticulating in the road. A man was shouting to me. Others seemed to be laughing. Then, to my great joy, round the turn of the road came an open carriage with two horses, going at a good pace. There came my masters. All was well. I chuckled to myself as I thought of the lady's face, when these two passed her, leaving her without means of following them. When we were well out of sight of the inn, I rode back to the carriage to report, wondering how they would receive my news. They received it with displeasure, saying that I had disobeyed my orders, not only in acting as I had done; but in coming back to tell them. They bade me ride on at once to Egmont, before I was arrested for cutting the lady's harness. As for their own plans, whatever they were, my action altered them. I do not know what they did. I know that I turned away with a flea in my ear from the Duke's reproof. I remember not very much of my ride to Egmont, except that I seemed to ride most of the time among sand-dunes. I glanced back anxiously to see if I was being pursued; but no one followed. I rode on at the steady lope, losing sight of the carriage, passing by dune after dune, rising windmill after windmill, to drop them behind me as I rode. In that low country, I had the gleam of the sea to my left hand, with the sails of ships passing by me. The wind freshened as I rode, till at last my left cheek felt the continual stinging of the sand grains, whirled up by the wind from the bents. Where the sea-beach broadened, I rode on the sands. The miles dropped past quickly enough, though I rode only at the lope, not daring to hurry my horse. I kept this my pace even when going through villages, where the people in their strange Dutch clothes hurried out to stare at me as I bucketed by. I passed by acre after acre of bulb-fields, mostly tulip-fields, now beginning to be full of colour. Once, for ten minutes, I rode by a broad canal, where a barge with a scarlet transom drove along under sail, spreading the ripples, keeping alongside me. The helmsman, who was smoking a pipe as he eyed the luff of his sail, waved his hand to me, as I loped along beside him. You would not believe it; but he was one of the Oulton fishermen, a man whom I had known for years. I had seen that tan-sailed barge many, many times, rushing up the Waveney from Somer Leyton, with that same quiet figure at her helm. I would have loved to have called out “Oh, Hendry. How are you? Fancy seeing you here.” But I dared not betray myself; nor did Hendry recognize me. After the road swung away from the canal, I watched that barge as long as she remained in sight, thinking that while she was there I had a little bit of Oulton by me.
At last, far away I saw the church of Egmont, rising out of a flat land (not unlike the Broad land) on which sails were passing in a misty distance. I rose in my stirrups with a holloa; for now, I thought, I was near my journey's end. I clapped my horse's neck, promising him an apple for his supper. Then, glancing back, I looked out over the land. The Oulton barge was far away now, a patch of dark sail drawing itself slowly across the sky. Out to sea a great ship seemed to stand still upon the skyline. But directly behind me, perhaps a mile away, perhaps two miles, clearly visible on the white straight ribbon of road, a clump of gallopers advanced, quartering across the road towards me. There may have been twenty of them all told; some of them seemed to ride in ranks like soldiers. I made no doubt when I caught sight of them that they were coming after me, about that matter of the lady's harness. My first impulse was to pull up, so that Old Blunderbore, as I had christened my horse, might get his breath. But I decided not to stop, as I knew how dangerous a thing it is to stop a horse in his pace after he has settled down to it, had still three miles to go to shelter. If I could manage the three miles all would be well. But could manage them? Old Blunderbore had taken the eighteen miles we had come together very easily. Now I was thankful that I had not pressed him in the early part of the ride. But Egmont seemed a long, long way from me. I dared not begin to gallop so far from shelter. I went loping on as before, with my heart in my mouth, feeling like one pursued in a nightmare.
As I looked around, to see these gallopers coming on, while I was still lollopping forward, I felt that I was tied by the legs, unable to move. Each instant made it more difficult for me to keep from shaking up my horse. Continual promptings flashed into my mind, urging me to bolt down somewhere among the dunes. These plans I set aside as worthless; for a boy would soon have been caught among those desolate sandhills. There was no real hiding among them. You could see any person among them from a mile away. I kept on ahead, longing for that wonderful minute when I could hurry my horse, in the wild rush to Egmont town, the final wild rush, on the nag's last strength, with my pursuers, now going their fastest, trailing away behind, as their beasts foundered. The air came singing past. I heard behind me the patter of the turf sent flying by Old Blunderbore's hoofs. The excitement of the ride took vigorous hold on me. I felt on glancing back that I should do it, that I should carry my message, that the Dutchman should see my mettle, before they stopped me. They were coming up fast on horses still pretty fresh. I would show them, I said to myself, what a boy can do on a spent horse.
Old Blunderbore lollopped on. I clapped him on the neck. “Come up, boy! Up!” I cried. “Egmont—Egmont! Come on, Old Blunderbore!” The good old fellow shook his head up with a whinny. He could see Egmont. He could smell the good corn perhaps. I banged him with my cap on the shoulder. “Up, boy!” I cried. I felt that even if I died, even if I was shot there, as I sailed along with my King's orders, I should have tasted life in that wild gallop.
A countryman carrying a sack put down his load to stare at me, for now, with only a mile to go, I was going a brave gait, as fast as Old Blunderbore could manage. I saw the man put up his hands in pretended terror. The next instant he was far behind, wondering no doubt why the charging squadron beyond were galloping after a boy. Now we were rushing at our full speed, with half a mile, a quarter of a mile, two hundred yards to the town gates. Carts drew to one side, hearing the clatter. I shouted to drive away the children. Poultry scattered as though the king of the foxes was abroad. After me came the thundering clatter of the pursuit. I could hear distant shouts. The nearest man there was a quarter of a mile away. A man started out to catch my rein, thinking that my horse had run away with me. I banged him in the face with my cap as I swung past him. In another second, as it seemed, I was pulled up inside the gates.
As far as I remember,—but it is all rather blurred now,—the place where I pulled up was a sort of public square. I swung myself off Old Blunderbore just outside a tavern. An ostler ran up to me at once to hold him. So I gave him a silver piece what it was worth I did not know, saying firmly “Zwolle-Haus. Go on. Zwolle-Haus.”
The ostler smiled as he repeated Zwolle-Haus, pointing to the tavern itself, which, by good luck, was the very house.
“M. Stendhal,” I said. “Where is M. Stendhal? Mynheer Stendhal? Mynheer Stendhal Haus?”
The ostler repeated, “Stendhal? Stendhal? Ah, ja. Stendhal. Da.” He pointed down a narrow street which led, as I could see, to a canal wharf.
I thanked him in English, giving him another silver piece. Then off I went, tottering on my toes with the strangeness of walking after so long a ride. I was not out of the wood yet, by a long way. At every second, as I hurried on, I expected to hear cries of my pursuers, as they charged down the narrow street after me. I tried to run, but my legs felt so funny, it was like running in a dream. I just felt that I was walking on pillows, instead of legs. Luckily that little narrow street was only fifty yards long. It was with a great gasp of relief that I got to the end of it. When I could turn to my right out of sight of the square I felt that I was saved. I had been but a minute ahead of the pursuers outside on the open. Directly after my entrance, some cart or waggon went out of the town, filling the narrow gateway full, so that my enemies were forced to pull up. This gave me a fair start, without which I could hardly have won clear. If it had not been for that lucky waggon, who knows what would have happened?
As it was, I tottered along with drawn pistol to the door of a great house (luckily for me the only house), which fronted the canal. I must have seemed a queer object, coming in from my ride like that, in a peaceful Dutch town. If I had chanced upon a magistrate I suppose I should have been locked up; but luck was with me on that day. I chanced only on Mynheer Stendhal as he sat smoking among his tulips in the front of his mansion. He jumped up with a “God bless me!” when he saw me.
“Mynheer Stendhal?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said in good English. “What is it, boy?”
“Take me in quick,” I said. “They're after me.”
In another minute, after Mr. Stendhal had read my note, I was skinning off my clothes in an upper bedroom. Within three minutes I was dressed like a Dutch boy, in huge baggy striped trousers belonging to Stendhal's son. In four minutes the swift Mr. Stendhal had walked me across the wharf in sabots to one of the galliots in the canal, which he ordered under way at once, to pick up Argyle at sea. So that when my pursuers rode up to Mr. Stendhal's door in search of me, I was a dirty little Dutch boy casting off a stern-hawser from a ring bolt. They seemed to storm at Mr. Stendhal; but I don't know what they said; he acted the part of surprised indignation to the life. When I looked my last on Mr. Stendhal he was at the door, begging a search party to enter to see for themselves that I was not hidden there. The galliot got under way, at that moment, with a good deal of crying out from her sailors. As she swung away into the canal, I saw the handsome lady idly looking on. She was waiting at the door with the other riders. She was the only woman there. To show her that I was a skilled seaman I cast off the stern-hawser nimbly, then dropped on to the deck like one bred to the trade. A moment later I was aloft, casting loose the gaff-topsail. From that fine height as the barge began to move I saw the horsemen turning away foiled. I saw the lady's leathered hat, making a little dash of green among the drab of the riding coats. Then an outhouse hid them all from sight. I was in a sea-going barge, bound out, under all sail, along a waterway lined with old reeds, all blowing down with a rattling shiver.
Now I am not going to tell you much more of my Holland experiences. I was in that barge for about one whole fortnight, during which I think I saw the greater part of the Dutch canals. We picked up Argyle at sea on the first day. After that we went to Amsterdam with a cargo of hides. Then we wandered about at the wind's will, thinking that it might puzzle people, if any one should have stumbled on the right scent. All that fortnight was a long delightful picnic to me. The barge was so like an Oulton wherry that I was at home in her. I knew what to do, it was not like being in the schooner. When we were lying up by a wharf, I used to spend my spare hours in fishing, or in flinging fiat pebbles from a cleft-stick at the water-rats. When we were under sail I used to sit aloft in the cross-trees, looking out at the distant sea. At night, after a supper of strong soup, we all turned in to our bunks in the tiny cabin, from the scuttle of which I could see a little patch of sky full of stars.
A boy lives very much in the present. I do not think that I thought much of the Duke's service, nor of our venture for the crown. If I thought at all of our adventures, I thought of the handsome woman with the grey, fierce eyes. In a way, I hoped that might have another tussle with her, not because I liked adventure, no sane creature does, but because I thought of her with liking. I felt that she would be such a brave, witty person to have for a friend. I felt sad somehow at the thought of not seeing her again. She was quite young, not more than twenty, if her looks did not belie her. I used to wonder how it was that she had come to be a secret agent. I believed that the sharp-faced horsey man had somehow driven her to it against her will. Thinking of her at night, before I fell asleep, I used to long to help her. It is curious, but I always thought tenderly of this woman, even though she had twice tried to kill me. A man's bad angel is only his good angel a little warped.
On the second of May, though I did not know it then, Argyle set sail for Scotland, to raise the clans for a foray across the Border. On the same day I was summoned from my quarters in the barge to take up my King's service. Late one evening, when it was almost dark night, Mr. Jermyn halted at the wharf-side to call me from my supper. “Mount behind me, Martin,” he said softly, peering down the hatch. “It's time, now.” I thought he must mean that it was time to invade England. You must remember that I knew little of the rights of the case, except that the Duke's cause was the one favoured by my father, dead such a little while before. Yet when I heard that sudden summons, it went through me with a shock that now this England was to be the scene of a bloody civil war, father fighting son, brother against brother. I would rather have been anywhere at that moment than where I was, hearing that order. Still, I had put my hand to the plough. There was no drawing back. I rose up with my eyes full of tears to say good-bye to the kind Dutch bargemen. I never saw them again. In a moment I was up the wharf, scrambling into the big double saddle behind Mr. Jermyn. Before my eyes were accustomed to the darkness we were trotting off into the night I knew not whither.
“Martin,” said Mr. Jermyn, half turning in his saddle, “talk in a low voice. There may be spies anywhere.”
“Yes, sir,” I answered, meekly. For a while after that we were silent; I was waiting for him to tell me more.
“Martin,” he said at length, “we're going to send you to England, with a message.”
“Yes, sir?” I answered.
“You understand that there's danger, boy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Life is full of danger. But for his King a Christian man must be content to run risks. You aren't afraid, Martin?”
“No, sir,” I answered bravely. I was afraid, all the same. I doubt if any boy my age would have felt very brave, riding in the night like that, with danger of spies all about.
“That's right, Martin,” he said kindly. “That's the kind of boy I thought you.” Again we were quiet, till at last he said:
“You're going in a barquentine to Dartmouth. Can you remember Blick of Kingswear?”
“Blick of Kingswear,” I repeated. “Yes, sir.”
“He's the man you're to go to.”
“Yes, sir. What am I to tell him?”
“Tell him this, Martin. Listen carefully. This, now. King Golden Cap. After Six One.”
“King Golden Cap. After Six One,” I repeated. “Blick of Kingswear. King Golden Cap. After Six One.”
“That's right,” he said. “Repeat it over. Don't forget a word of it. But I know you're too careful a lad to do that.” There was no fear of my forgetting it. I think that message is burned in into my brain under the skull-bones.
“There'll be cipher messages, too, Martin. They're also for Mr. Blick. You'll carry a little leather satchel, with letters sewn into the flap. You'll carry stockings in the satchel. Or school-books. You are Mr. Blick's sister's son, left an orphan in Holland. You'll be in mourning. Your mother died of low-fever, remember, coming over to collect a debt from her factor. Your mother was an Oulton fish-boat owner. Pay attention now. I'm going to cross-examine you in your past history.”
As we rode on into the gloom, in the still, flat, misty land, which gleamed out at whiles with water dykes, he cross-examined me in detail, in several different ways, just as a magistrate would have done it. I was soon letter-perfect about my mother. I knew Mr. Blick's past history as well as I knew my own.
“Martin,” said Mr. Jermyn suddenly. “Do you hear anything?”
“Yes, sir,” I answered. “I think I do, sir.”
“What is it you hear, Martin?”
“I think I hear a horse's hoofs, sir.”
“Behind us?”
“Yes, sir. A long way behind.”
“Hold on then, boy. I'm going to pull up.”
We halted for an instant in the midst of a wide fiat desert, the loneliest place on God's earth. For an instant in the stillness we heard the trot trot of a horse's hoofs. Then the unseen rider behind us halted, too, as though uncertain how to ride, with our hoofs silent.
“There,” said Mr. Jermyn. “You see. Now we'll make him go on again.” He shook the horse into his trot again, talking to him in a little low voice that shook with excitement. Sure enough, after a moment the trot sounded out behind us. It was as though our wraiths were riding behind us, following us home. “I'll make sure,” said Mr. Jermyn, pulling up again.
“You're a cunning dog,” he said gently. “You heard that?” Indeed, it sounded uncanny. The unseen rider had feared to pull up, guessing that we had guessed his intentions. Instead of pulling up he did a much more ominous thing, he slowed his pace perceptibly. We could hear the change in the beat of the horse-hoofs. “Cunning lad,” said Mr. Jermyn. “I've a good mind to shoot that man, Martin. He's following us. Pity it's so dark. One can never be sure in the dark like this. But I don't know. I'd like to see who it is.”
We trotted on again at our usual pace. Presently, something occurred to me. Mr. Jermyn, I said; “would you like me to see who it is? I could slip off as we go. I could lie down flat so that he would pass against the sky. Then you could come back for me.”
He did not like the scheme at first. He said that it would be too dark for me to see anybody; but that when we were nearer to the town it might be done. So we rode on at our quick trot for a couple of more, hearing always behind us a faint beat of upon the road, like the echo of our own hoofs. After a time they stopped suddenly, nor did we hear them again.
“D'you know what he's done, Martin?” said Mr. Jermyn.
“No, sir,” I answered.
“He's muffled his horse's hoofs with duffle shoes. A sort of thick felt slippers. He was in too great a hurry to do that before. There are the lights of the town.”
“Shall I get down, sir?”
“If you can without my pulling up. Don't speak. But lay your head on the road. You'll hear the horse, then, if I'm right.”
“Then I'll lie still,” I said, “to see if I can see who it is.”
“Yes. But make no sign. He may shoot. He may take you for a footpad. I'll ride back to you in a minute.”
He slowed down the horse so that I could slip off unheard on to the turf by the roadside. When he had gone a little distance, I laid my ear to the road. Sure enough, the noise of the other horse was faint but plain in the distance, coming along on the road, avoiding the turf. The turf vas trenched in many drains, so as to make dangerous riding at night. I lay down flat on the turf, with my pistol in my hand. I was excited; but I remember that I enjoyed it. I felt so like an ancient Briton lying in wait for his enemy. I tried to guess the distance of this strange horse from me. It is always difficult to judge either distance or location by sound, when the wind is blowing. The horse hoofs sounded about a quarter of a mile away. I know not how far they really were. Very soon I could see the black moving mass coming quietly along the road. The duffle hoof-wraps made a dull plodding noise near at hand. Nearer the unknown rider came, suspecting nothing. I could see him bent forward, peering out ahead. I could even take stock of him, dark though it was. He was a not very tall man, wearing a full Spanish riding cloak. It seemed to me that he checked his horse's speed somewhere in the thirty yards before he passed me. Then, just as he passed, just as I had a full view of him, blackly outlined against the stars, his horse shied violently at me, on to the other side of the road. The rider swung him about on the instant to make him face the danger. I could see him staring down at me, as he bent forward to pat his horse's neck. I bent my head down so that my face was hidden in the grass.
The stranger did not see me. I am quite sure that he did not see me. He turned his horse back along the road for a few snorting paces. Then with a sounding slap on his shoulder he drove him at a fast pace along the turf towards me. I heard the brute whinny. He was uneasy; he was trying to shy; he was twisting away, trying to avoid the strange thing which lay there. I hid my head no longer. I saw the horse above me. I saw the rider glaring down. He was going to ride over me. I saw his face, a grey blur under his hat. The horse seemed to be right on top of me. I started up to my feet with a cry. The horse shied into the road, with a violence which made the rider rock. Then, throwing up his head, he bolted towards the town, half mad with the scare. Fifty yards down the road he tore past Mr. Jermyn, who was trotting back to pick me up. We heard the frantic hoofs pass away into the night, growing louder as the duffle wraps were kicked off. Perhaps you have noticed how the very sound of the gallop of a scared horse conveys fear. That is what we felt, we two conspirators, as we talked together, hearing that clattering alarm-note die away.
“Martin,” said Mr. Jermyn. “That was a woman. She chuckled as she galloped past me.”
“Are you sure, sir?” I asked, half-hoping that he might be right. I felt my heart leap at the thought of being in another adventure with the lady.
“Yes,” he said, “I'm quite sure. Now we must be quick, so as to give her no time in the town.” When I had mounted, we forced the horse to a gallop till we were within a quarter of a mile of the walls, where we pulled up at a cross-roads.
“Get down, Martin,” he said. “We must enter the town by different roads. Turn off here to the right. Then take the next two turns to the left, which will bring you into the square. I shall meet you there. Take your time. There's no hurry.”
About ten minutes later, I was stopped in a dark quiet alley by a hand on the back of my neck. I saw no one. I heard no noise of breathing. In the pitch blackness of the night the hand arrested me. It was like my spine suddenly stiffening to a rod of ice. “Quiet,” said a strange voice before I could scream. “Off with those Dutch clothes. Put on these. Off with those sabots.” I was in a suit of English clothes in less than a minute. “Boots,” the voice said in my ear. “Pull them on.” They were long leather knee-boots, supple from careful greasing. In one of them I felt something hard. My heart leapt as I felt it.
It was a long Italian stiletto. I felt myself a seaman indeed, nay, more than a seaman, a secret agent, with a pair of such boots upon me, “heeled,” as the sailors call it, with such a weapon. “Go straight on,” said the voice.
As I started to go straight on, there was a sort of rustling behind me. Some black figure seemed to vanish from me. Whoever the man was that had brought me the clothes, he had vanished, just as an Indian will vanish into grass six inches high. Thinking over my strange adventures, I think that that changing of my clothes in the night was almost the most strange of all. It was so eerie, that he should be there at all, a part of Mr. Jermyn's plan, fitting into it exactly, though undreamed of by me. Would indeed that all Mr. Jermyn's plans had carried through so well. But it was not to be. One ought not to grumble.
A few steps farther on, I came to a public square, on one side of which (quite close to where I stood) was a wharf, crowded with shipping. I had hardly expected the sea to be so near, somehow, but seeing it like that I naturally stopped to look for the ship which was to carry me. The only barquentine among the ships lay apart from the others, pointing towards the harbour entrance. She seemed to be a fine big vessel, as far as I could judge in that light. I lingered there for some few minutes, looking at the ships, wondering why it was that Mr. Jermyn had not met me. I was nervous about it. My nerves were tense from all the excitement of the night. One cannot stand much excitement for long. I had had enough excitement that night to last me through the week. As I stood looking at the ships, I began to feel a horror of the wharf-side. I felt as though the very stones of the place were my enemies, lying in wait for me. I cannot explain the feeling more clearly than that. It was due probably to the loneliness of the great empty square, dark as a tomb. Then, expecting Mr. Jermyn, but failing to meet with him, was another cause for dread. I thought, in my nervousness, that I should be in a fine pickle if any enemies made away with Mr. Jermyn, leaving me alone, in a strange land, with only a few silver pieces in my pocket. Still, Mr. Jermyn was long in coming. My anxiety was almost more than I could bear.
At last, growing fearful that I had somehow missed him at the mouth of the dark alley, I walked slowly back in my tracks, wishing that I had a thicker jacket, since it was beginning to rain rather smartly. There was a great sort of inn on the side of the square to which I walked. It had lights on the second floor. The great windows of that story opened on to balconies, in what is, I believe, the Spanish way of building. I remember feeling bitterly how cheery the warm lights looked, inside there, where the people were. I stood underneath the balcony out of the rain, looking out sharply towards the alley, expecting at each instant to see Mr. Jermyn. Still he did not come. I dared not move from where I was lest I should miss him. I racked my brains to try to remember if I had obeyed orders exactly. I wondered whether I had come to the right square. I began to imagine all kinds of evil things which might have happened to him. Perhaps that secret fiend of a woman had been too many for him. Perhaps some other secret service people had waylaid him as he entered the town. Perhaps he was even then in bonds in some cellar, being examined for letters by some of the usurper's men.
While I was fretting myself into a state of hysteria, the catch of one of the great window-doors above me was pushed back. Someone came out on the balcony just over my head. It was a woman, evidently in some great distress, for she was sobbing bitterly. I thought it mean to stand there hearing her cry, so I moved away. As I walked off, the window opened again. A big heavy-looted man came out.
“Stop crying, Aurelia,” the voice said. “Here's the stuff. Put it in your pocket.”
“I can't,” the woman answered. “I can't.”
I stopped moving away when I heard that voice. It was the voice of the Longshore Jack woman who had had those adventures with me. I should have known her voice anywhere, even choked as it then was with sobs. It was a good voice, of a pleasant quality, but with a quick, authoritative ring.
“I can't,” she said. “I can't, Father.”
“Put it in your pocket,” her father said. “No rubbish of that sort. You must.”
“It would kill me. I couldn't,” she answered. “I should hate myself forever.”
“No more of that to me,” said the cold, hard voice with quiet passion. “Your silly scruples aren't going to outweigh a nation's need. There it is in your pocket. Be careful you don't use too much. If you fail again, remember, you'll earn your own living. Oh, you bungler! When I think of—”
“I'm no bungler. You know it,” she answered passionately. “I planned everything. You silly men never backed me up. Who was it guessed right this time? I suppose you think you'd have come here without my help? That's like a man.”
“Don't stand there rousing the town, Aurelia,” the man said. “Come in out of the rain at once. Get yourself ready to start.”
As the window banged to behind them, a figure loomed up out of the night—two figures, more. I sprang to one side; but they were too quick for me. Someone flung an old flour-sack over my head. Before I was ready to struggle I was lying flat on the pavement, with a man upon my chest.
“It's him,” said a voice. “You young rip, where are the letters?”
“What letters?” I said, struggling, choking against the folds of the sack.
“Rip up his boots,” said another. “Dig him with a knife if he won't answer.”
“Bring him in to the Colonel,” said the first.
“I've got no letters,” I said.
“Lift him up quick,” said the man who had suggested the knife. “In with him. Here's the watch.”
“Quick, boys,” the leader said. “We mustn't be caught at this game.”
Steps sounded somewhere in the square. Hearing them, I squealed with all my strength, hoping that somebody would come.
“Choke him,” said one of the men.
I gave one more loud squeal before they jammed the sack on my mouth. To my joy, the feet broke into a run. They were the feet of the watch, coming to my rescue.
“Up with him,” said the leader among my captors. “Quick, in to the Colonel with him.”
“No, no! Drop it. I'm off. Here's the watch,” cried the other hurriedly.
They let me drop on to the pavement after half lifting me. In five seconds more they were scattering to shelter. As I rose to my feet, flinging off the flour-sack, I found myself in the midst of the city watch, about a dozen men, all armed, whose leader carried a lantern. The windows of the great inn were open; people were thronging on to the balcony to see what the matter was; citizens came to their house-doors. At that moment, Mr. Jermyn appeared. The captain of the guard was asking questions in Dutch. The guardsmen were peering at my face in the lantern light.
Mr. Jermyn questioned me quickly as to what had happened. He interpreted my tale to the guard. I was his servant, he told them. I had been attacked by unknown robbers, some of whom, at least, were English. One of them had tried to stifle me with a flour-sack, which, on examination under the lantern, proved to be the sack of Robert Harling, Corn-miller, Eastry. Goodness knows how it came to be there; for ship's flour travels in cask. Mr. Jermyn gave an address, where we could be found if any of the villains were caught; but he added that it was useless to expect me to identify any of them, since the attack had been made in the dark, with the victim securely blindfolded. He gave the leader of the men some money. The guard moved away to look for the culprits (long before in hiding, one would think), while Mr. Jermyn took me away with him.
As we went, I looked up at the inn balcony, from which several heads looked down upon us. Behind them, in the lighted room, in profile, in full view, was the lady of the fierce eyes. I knew her at once, in spite of the grey Spanish (man's) hat she wore, slouched over her face. She was all swathed in a Spanish riding cloak. One took her for a handsome young man. But I knew that she was my enemy. I knew her name now, too; Aurelia. She was looking down at me, or rather at us, for she could not have made out our faces. Her face was sad. She seemed uninterested; she had, perhaps, enough sorrow of her own at that moment, without the anxieties of others. A big, burly, hulking, handsome person of the swaggering sort which used to enter the army in those days, left the balcony hurriedly. I saw him at the window, speaking earnestly to her, pointing to the square, in which, already, the darkness hid us. I saw the listlessness fall from her. She seemed to waken up into intense life in an instant. She walked with a swift decision peculiar to her away from the window, leaving the hulking fellow, an elderly, dissolute-looking man, with the wild puffy eyes of the drinker, to pick his teeth in full view of the square.
When we left watching our enemies, Mr. Jermyn bade me walk on tiptoe. We scurried away across the square diagonally, pausing twice to listen for pursuers. No one seemed to be following. There was not much sense in following; for the guard was busy searching for suspicious persons. We heard them challenging passers-by, with a rattle of their halberds on the stones, to make their answers prompt. We were safe enough from persecution for the time. We went down a dark street into a dark alley. From the alley we entered a courtyard, the sides of which were vast houses. We entered one of these houses. The door seemed to open in the mysterious way which had puzzled me so much in Fish Lane. Mr. Jermyn smiled when I asked him how this was done. “Go on in, boy,” he said. “There are many queer things in lives like ours.” He gave me a shove across the threshold, while the door closed itself silently behind us.
He took me into a room which was not unlike a marine store of the better sort. There were many sailor things (all of the very best quality) lying in neat heaps on long oak shelves against the walls. In the middle of the room a table was laid for dinner.
Mr. Jermyn made me eat a hearty meal before starting, which I did. As I ate, he fidgeted about among some lockers at my back. Presently, as I began to sip some wine which he had poured out for me, he put something over my shoulders.
“Here,” he said, “this is the satchel, Martin. Keep the straps drawn tight always. Don't take it off till you give it into Mr. Blick's hands. His own hands, remember. Don't take it off even at night. When you lie down, lash it around your neck with spun-yarn.” All this I promised most faithfully to do. “But,” I said, examining the satchel, which was like an ordinary small old weather-beaten satchel for carrying books, “where are the letters, sir?”
“Sewn into the double,” he answered. “You wouldn't be able to sew so neatly as that. Would you, now?”
“Oh, yes, I should, sir,” I replied. “I am a pretty good hand with a sail-needle. The Oulton fishermen used to teach me the stitches. I can do herring-bone stitch. I can even put a cringle into a sail.”
“You're the eighth wonder of the world, I think,” Mr. Jermyn said. “But choose, now. Choose a kit for yourself. You won't get a chance to change your clothes till you get to Mr. Blick's if you don't take some from here. So just look round the room here. Take whatever you want.”
I felt myself to have been fairly well equipped by the stranger who had made me change my clothes in the alley. But I knew how cold the Channel may be even in June; so I chose out two changes of thick underwear. Weapons I had no need for, with the armory already in my belt; but a heavy tarred jacket with an ear-flap collar was likely to be useful, so I chose that instead. It was not more than ten sizes too large for me; that did not matter; at sea one tries to keep warm; appearances are not much regarded. Last of all, when I had packed my satchel, I noticed a sailor's canvas “housewife” very well stored with buttons, etc. I noticed that it held what is called a “palm,” that is, the leather hand-guard used by sail-makers for pushing the needle through sail cloth. It occurred to me, vaguely, that such a “housewife” would be useful, in case my clothes got torn, so I stuffed it into my satchel with the other things. I saw that it contained a few small sail-needles (of the kind so excellent as egg-borers) as well as some of the strong fine sail-twine, each thread of which will support a weight of fifty pounds. I put the housewife into my store with a vague feeling of being rich in the world's goods, with such a little treasury of necessaries; I had really no thought of what that chance impulse was to do for me.
“Are you ready?” Mr. Jermyn asked.
“Yes, sir. Quite ready.”
“Take this blank drawing-book,” he said, handing me a small pocket-book, in which a pencil was stuck. “Make a practice of drawing what you see. Draw the ships. Make sketches of the coast. You will find that such drawings will give you great pleasure when you come to be old. They will help you, too, in impressing an object on your mind. Drawing thus will give you a sense of the extraordinary wonder of the universe. It will teach you a lot of things. Now let's be off. It's time we were on board.”
When we went out of the house we were joined by three or four seamen who carried cases of bottles (probably gin bottles). We struck off towards the ship together at a brisk pace, singing one of those quick-time songs with choruses to which the sailors sometimes work. The song they sang was that very jolly one called “Leave her, Johnny.” They made such a noise with the chorus of this ditty that Mr. Jermyn was able to refresh my memory in the message to be given to Mr. Blick.
The rain had ceased before we started. When we came into the square, we saw that cressets, or big flaming port-fires, had been placed along the wharf, to give light to some seamen who were rolling casks to the barquentine. A little crowd of idlers had gathered about the workers to watch them at their job; there may have been so many as twenty people there. They stood in a pretty strong, but very unsteady light, by which I could take stock of them. I looked carefully among them for the figure of a young man in a grey Spanish hat; but he was certainly not there. The barquentine had her sails loosed, but not hoisted. Some boats were in the canal ahead, ready to tow her out. She had also laid out a hawser, by which to heave herself out with her capstan. I could see at a glance that she was at the point of sailing. As we came up the plank-gangway which led to her deck we were delayed for a moment by a seaman who was getting a cask aboard.
“Beg pardon, sir,” he said to Mr. Jermyn. “I won't keep you waiting long. This cask's about as heavy as nitre.”
“What 'a' you got in that cask, Dick?” said the boatswain, who kept a tally at the gangway.
“Nitre or bullets, I guess,” said Dick, struggling to get the cask on to the gang plank. “It's as heavy as it knows how.”
“Give Dick a hand there,” the boatswain ordered. A seaman who was standing somewhere behind me came forward, jogging my elbow as he passed. In a minute or two they had the cask aboard.
“It's red lead,” said the boatswain, examining the marks upon it. “Sling it down into the 'tweendecks.”
After this little diversion, I was free to go down the gangway with Mr. Jermyn. The captain received us in the cabin. He seemed to know my “uncle Blick,” as he called him, very well indeed. I somehow didn't like the looks of the man; he had a bluff air; but it seemed to sit ill upon him. He reminded me of the sort of farmer who stands well with his parson or squire, while he tyrannizes over his labourers with all the calculating cowardly cruelty of the mean mind. I did not take to Captain Barlow, for all his affected joviality.
However, the ship was sailing. They showed me the little trim cabin which was to be mine for the voyage. Mr. Jermyn ran ashore up the gangway, after shaking me by the hand. He called to me over his shoulder to remember him very kindly to my uncle. A moment later, as the hawsers were cast off, the little crowd on the wharf called out “Three cheers for the Gara barquentine,” which the Gara's crew acknowledged with three cheers for Pierhead, in the sailor fashion. We were moving slowly under the influence of the oared boats ahead of us, when a seaman at the forward capstan began to sing the solo part of an old capstan chanty. The men broke in upon him with the chorus, which rang out, in its sweet clearness, making echoes in the city. I ran to the capstan to heave with them, so that I, too, might sing. I was at the capstan there, heaving round with the best of them, until we were standing out to sea, beyond the last of the fairway lights, with our sails trimmed to the strong northerly wind. After that, being tired with so many crowded excitements, which had given me a life's adventures since supper-time, I went below to my bunk, to turn in.
I took off my satchel, intending to tie it round my neck after I had undressed. Some inequality in the strap against my fingers made me hold it to the cabin lamp to examine it more closely. To my horror, I saw that the strap had been nearly cut through in five places. If it had not been of double leather with an inner lining of flexible wire, any one of those cuts would have cut the thong clean in two. Then a brisk twitch would have left the satchel at the cutter's mercy. It gave me a lively sense of the craft of our enemies, to see those cuts in the leather. I had felt nothing. I had suspected nothing. Only once, for that instant on the wharf, when we stopped to let Dick get his barrel aboard, had they had a chance to come about me. Yet in that instant of time they had suspected that that satchel contained letters. They had made their bold attempt to make away with it. They had slashed this leather in five places with a knife as sharp as a razor. But had it been on the wharf, that this was done? I began to wonder if it could have been on the wharf. Might it not have been done when I was at the capstan, heaving round on the bar? I thought not. I must have noticed a seaman doing such a thing. It would have been impossible for any one to have cut the strap there; for the capstan was always revolving. The man next to me on the bar never took his hands from the lever, of that I was certain. The men on the bar behind me could not have reached me. Even if they had reached me the mate must have noticed it. I knew that sailors were often clever thieves; but I did not believe that they could have been so clever under the mate's eye. If it had not been done at the capstan it could not have been done since I came aboard; for there had been no other opportunity. I was quite convinced, after a moment's thought, that it had been done on the wharf before I came aboard. Then I wondered if it had been done by common shore thieves, or “nickers,” who are always present in our big seaport towns, ready to steal whenever they get a chance. But I was rather against this possibility; for my mind just then was much too full of Aurelia's party. I saw their hands in it. It would have needed very strong evidence to convince me that they were not at the bottom of this last attack, as they had doubtless been in the attack under the inn balcony.
Thinking of their cunning with some dismay, I went to my door to secure it. I was in my stockinged feet at the moment, as I had kicked my boots off on coming into the cabin. My step, therefore, must have been noiseless. Opening the door smartly, half-conscious of some slight noise on the far side, I almost ran into Captain Barlow, who was standing without. He showed a momentary confusion, I thought, at seeing me thus suddenly. It was a bad sign. To me, in my excited nervous state, it was a very bad sign. It convinced me that he had been standing there, trying to spy upon me through the keyhole, with what purpose I could guess only too well. His face changed to a jovial grin in an instant; but I felt that he was searching my face narrowly for some sign of suspicion.
“I was just coming in to see if you wanted anything,” he said.
“No. Nothing, thanks,” I answered. “But what time's breakfast, sir?”
“Oh, the boy'll call you,” he answered. “Is that your school satchel? Hey? What you carry your books in? Let's see it?”
“Oh,” I said, as lightly as I could, feeling that he was getting on ticklish ground. “I've not unpacked it yet. It's got all my things in it.”
By this time he was well within my cabin. “Why,” he said, “this strap's almost cut in two. Does your master let you bring your satchel to school in that state? How did it come to be cut like that? Hey?”
I made some confused remark about its having always been in that state; as it was an old satchel which my father used for a shooting-bag. I had never known boys to carry books in a satchel. That kind of school was unknown to me.
“Well,” he said, fingering the strap affectionately, as though he was going to lift it off my head, “you let me take it away with me. I've got men in this ship, who can mend a cut leather strap as neat as you've no idea of. They'd sew up a cut like them so as you'd hardly know it had been cut.”
I really feared that he would have the bag away from me by main force. But I rallied all my forces to save it. “I'm lagged now,” I said. “I haven't undone my things. I'll give it to you in the morning.”
It seemed to me that he looked at me rather hard when I said this; but he evidently thought “What can it matter? Tomorrow will serve just as well.” So he just gave a little laugh. “Right,” he said. “You turn in now. Give it to me in the morning. Good night, boy.”
“Good night,” I said, as he left the cabin, adding, under my breath, “Good riddance, too. You won't find quite so much when you come to examine this bag by daylight.” After he had gone—but not at once, as I wished not to make him suspicious,—I locked my cabin-door. Then I hung my tarred sea-coat on the door-hook, so that the flap entirely covered the keyhole. There were bolts on the door, but the upper one alone could be pushed home. With this in its place felt secure from spies. Yet not too secure. I was not certain that the bulkheads were without crannies from which I could be watched. The crack by the door-hinge might, for all I knew, give a very good view of the inside of the cabin. Thinking that I might still be under observation I decided to put off what I had to do until the very early morning, so I undressed myself for bed. I took care to put out the light before turning in, so that I might not be seen lashing the satchel round my neck with a length of spunyarn. I slept with my head upon it.