Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (101 page)

As for Mr. Shuan, the drink or his crime, or the two together, had certainly troubled his mind. I cannot say I ever saw him in his proper wits. He never grew used to my being there, stared at me continually (sometimes, I could have thought, with terror), and more than once drew back from my hand when I was serving him. I was pretty sure from the first that he had no clear mind of what he had done, and on my second day in the round-house I had the proof of it. We were alone, and he had been staring at me a long time, when all at once, up he got, as pale as death, and came close up to me, to my great terror. But I had no cause to be afraid of him.

“You were not here before?” he asked.

“No, sir,” said I.”

“There was another boy?” he asked again; and when I had answered him, “Ah!” says he, “I thought that,” and went and sat down, without another word, except to call for brandy.

You may think it strange, but for all the horror I had, I was still sorry for him. He was a married man, with a wife in Leith; but whether or no he had a family, I have now forgotten; I hope not.

Altogether it was no very hard life for the time it lasted, which (as you are to hear) was not long. I was as well fed as the best of them; even their pickles, which were the great dainty, I was allowed my share of; and had I liked I might have been drunk from morning to night, like Mr. Shuan. I had company, too, and good company of its sort. Mr. Riach, who had been to the college, spoke to me like a friend when he was not sulking, and told me many curious things, and some that were informing; and even the captain, though he kept me at the stick’s end the most part of the time, would sometimes unbuckle a bit, and tell me of the fine countries he had visited.

The shadow of poor Ransome, to be sure, lay on all four of us, and on me and Mr. Shuan in particular, most heavily. And then I had another trouble of my own. Here I was, doing dirty work for three men that I looked down upon, and one of whom, at least, should have hung upon a gallows; that was for the present; and as for the future, I could only see myself slaving alongside of negroes in the tobacco fields. Mr. Riach, perhaps from caution, would never suffer me to say another word about my story; the captain, whom I tried to approach, rebuffed me like a dog and would not hear a word; and as the days came and went, my heart sank lower and lower, till I was even glad of the work which kept me from thinking.

CHAPTER IX

THE MAN WITH THE BELT OF GOLD

More than a week went by, in which the ill-luck that had hitherto pursued the Covenant upon this voyage grew yet more strongly marked. Some days she made a little way; others, she was driven actually back. At last we were beaten so far to the south that we tossed and tacked to and fro the whole of the ninth day, within sight of Cape Wrath and the wild, rocky coast on either hand of it. There followed on that a council of the officers, and some decision which I did not rightly understand, seeing only the result: that we had made a fair wind of a foul one and were running south.

The tenth afternoon there was a falling swell and a thick, wet, white fog that hid one end of the brig from the other. All afternoon, when I went on deck, I saw men and officers listening hard over the bulwarks — ”for breakers,” they said; and though I did not so much as understand the word, I felt danger in the air, and was excited.

Maybe about ten at night, I was serving Mr. Riach and the captain at their supper, when the ship struck something with a great sound, and we heard voices singing out. My two masters leaped to their feet.

“She’s struck!” said Mr. Riach.

“No, sir,” said the captain. “We’ve only run a boat down.”

And they hurried out.

The captain was in the right of it. We had run down a boat in the fog, and she had parted in the midst and gone to the bottom with all her crew but one. This man (as I heard afterwards) had been sitting in the stern as a passenger, while the rest were on the benches rowing. At the moment of the blow, the stern had been thrown into the air, and the man (having his hands free, and for all he was encumbered with a frieze overcoat that came below his knees) had leaped up and caught hold of the brig’s bowsprit. It showed he had luck and much agility and unusual strength, that he should have thus saved himself from such a pass. And yet, when the captain brought him into the round-house, and I set eyes on him for the first time, he looked as cool as I did.

He was smallish in stature, but well set and as nimble as a goat; his face was of a good open expression, but sunburnt very dark, and heavily freckled and pitted with the small-pox; his eyes were unusually light and had a kind of dancing madness in them, that was both engaging and alarming; and when he took off his great-coat, he laid a pair of fine silver-mounted pistols on the table, and I saw that he was belted with a great sword. His manners, besides, were elegant, and he pledged the captain handsomely. Altogether I thought of him, at the first sight, that here was a man I would rather call my friend than my enemy.

The captain, too, was taking his observations, but rather of the man’s clothes than his person. And to be sure, as soon as he had taken off the great-coat, he showed forth mighty fine for the round-house of a merchant brig: having a hat with feathers, a red waistcoat, breeches of black plush, and a blue coat with silver buttons and handsome silver lace; costly clothes, though somewhat spoiled with the fog and being slept in.

“I’m vexed, sir, about the boat,” says the captain.

“There are some pretty men gone to the bottom,” said the stranger, “that I would rather see on the dry land again than half a score of boats.”

“Friends of yours?” said Hoseason.

“You have none such friends in your country,” was the reply. “They would have died for me like dogs.”

“Well, sir,” said the captain, still watching him, “there are more men in the world than boats to put them in.”

“And that’s true, too,” cried the other, “and ye seem to be a gentleman of great penetration.”

“I have been in France, sir,” says the captain, so that it was plain he meant more by the words than showed upon the face of them.

“Well, sir,” says the other, “and so has many a pretty man, for the matter of that.”

“No doubt, sir” says the captain, “and fine coats.”

“Oho!” says the stranger, “is that how the wind sets?” And he laid his hand quickly on his pistols.

“Don’t be hasty,” said the captain. “Don’t do a mischief before ye see the need of it. Ye’ve a French soldier’s coat upon your back and a Scotch tongue in your head, to be sure; but so has many an honest fellow in these days, and I dare say none the worse of it.”

“So?” said the gentleman in the fine coat: “are ye of the honest party?” (meaning, Was he a Jacobite? for each side, in these sort of civil broils, takes the name of honesty for its own).

“Why, sir,” replied the captain, “I am a true-blue Protestant, and I thank God for it.” (It was the first word of any religion I had ever heard from him, but I learnt afterwards he was a great church-goer while on shore.) “But, for all that,” says he, “I can be sorry to see another man with his back to the wall.”

“Can ye so, indeed?” asked the Jacobite. “Well, sir, to be quite plain with ye, I am one of those honest gentlemen that were in trouble about the years forty-five and six; and (to be still quite plain with ye) if I got into the hands of any of the red-coated gentry, it’s like it would go hard with me. Now, sir, I was for France; and there was a French ship cruising here to pick me up; but she gave us the go-by in the fog — as I wish from the heart that ye had done yoursel’! And the best that I can say is this: If ye can set me ashore where I was going, I have that upon me will reward you highly for your trouble.”

“In France?” says the captain. “No, sir; that I cannot do. But where ye come from — we might talk of that.”

And then, unhappily, he observed me standing in my corner, and packed me off to the galley to get supper for the gentleman. I lost no time, I promise you; and when I came back into the round-house, I found the gentleman had taken a money-belt from about his waist, and poured out a guinea or two upon the table. The captain was looking at the guineas, and then at the belt, and then at the gentleman’s face; and I thought he seemed excited.

“Half of it,” he cried, “and I’m your man!”

The other swept back the guineas into the belt, and put it on again under his waistcoat. “I have told ye sir” said he, “that not one doit of it belongs to me. It belongs to my chieftain,” and here he touched his hat, “and while I would be but a silly messenger to grudge some of it that the rest might come safe, I should show myself a hound indeed if I bought my own carcase any too dear. Thirty guineas on the sea-side, or sixty if ye set me on the Linnhe Loch. Take it, if ye will; if not, ye can do your worst.”

“Ay,” said Hoseason. “And if I give ye over to the soldiers?”

“Ye would make a fool’s bargain,” said the other. “My chief, let me tell you, sir, is forfeited, like every honest man in Scotland. His estate is in the hands of the man they call King George; and it is his officers that collect the rents, or try to collect them. But for the honour of Scotland, the poor tenant bodies take a thought upon their chief lying in exile; and this money is a part of that very rent for which King George is looking. Now, sir, ye seem to me to be a man that understands things: bring this money within the reach of Government, and how much of it’ll come to you?”

“Little enough, to be sure,” said Hoseason; and then, “if they, knew” he added, drily. “But I think, if I was to try, that I could hold my tongue about it.”

“Ah, but I’ll begowk* ye there!” cried the gentleman. “Play me false, and I’ll play you cunning. If a hand is laid upon me, they shall ken what money it is.”

     *Befool.

“Well,” returned the captain, “what must be must. Sixty guineas, and done. Here’s my hand upon it.”

“And here’s mine,” said the other.

And thereupon the captain went out (rather hurriedly, I thought), and left me alone in the round-house with the stranger.

At that period (so soon after the forty-five) there were many exiled gentlemen coming back at the peril of their lives, either to see their friends or to collect a little money; and as for the Highland chiefs that had been forfeited, it was a common matter of talk how their tenants would stint themselves to send them money, and their clansmen outface the soldiery to get it in, and run the gauntlet of our great navy to carry it across. All this I had, of course, heard tell of; and now I had a man under my eyes whose life was forfeit on all these counts and upon one more, for he was not only a rebel and a smuggler of rents, but had taken service with King Louis of France. And as if all this were not enough, he had a belt full of golden guineas round his loins. Whatever my opinions, I could not look on such a man without a lively interest.

“And so you’re a Jacobite?” said I, as I set meat before him.

“Ay,” said he, beginning to eat. “And you, by your long face, should be a Whig?”*

     * Whig or Whigamore was the cant name for those who were

     loyal to King George.

“Betwixt and between,” said I, not to annoy him; for indeed I was as good a Whig as Mr. Campbell could make me.

“And that’s naething,” said he. “But I’m saying, Mr. Betwixt-and-Between,” he added, “this bottle of yours is dry; and it’s hard if I’m to pay sixty guineas and be grudged a dram upon the back of it.”

“I’ll go and ask for the key,” said I, and stepped on deck.

The fog was as close as ever, but the swell almost down. They had laid the brig to, not knowing precisely where they were, and the wind (what little there was of it) not serving well for their true course. Some of the hands were still hearkening for breakers; but the captain and the two officers were in the waist with their heads together. It struck me (I don’t know why) that they were after no good; and the first word I heard, as I drew softly near, more than confirmed me.

It was Mr. Riach, crying out as if upon a sudden thought: “Couldn’t we wile him out of the round-house?”

“He’s better where he is,” returned Hoseason; “he hasn’t room to use his sword.”

“Well, that’s true,” said Riach; “but he’s hard to come at.”

“Hut!” said Hoseason. “We can get the man in talk, one upon each side, and pin him by the two arms; or if that’ll not hold, sir, we can make a run by both the doors and get him under hand before he has the time to draw.”

At this hearing, I was seized with both fear and anger at these treacherous, greedy, bloody men that I sailed with. My first mind was to run away; my second was bolder.

“Captain,” said I, “the gentleman is seeking a dram, and the bottle’s out. Will you give me the key?”

They all started and turned about.

“Why, here’s our chance to get the firearms!”

Riach cried; and then to me: “Hark ye, David,” he said, “do ye ken where the pistols are?”

“Ay, ay,” put in Hoseason. “David kens; David’s a good lad. Ye see, David my man, yon wild Hielandman is a danger to the ship, besides being a rank foe to King George, God bless him!”

I had never been so be-Davided since I came on board: but I said Yes, as if all I heard were quite natural.

“The trouble is,” resumed the captain, “that all our firelocks, great and little, are in the round-house under this man’s nose; likewise the powder. Now, if I, or one of the officers, was to go in and take them, he would fall to thinking. But a lad like you, David, might snap up a horn and a pistol or two without remark. And if ye can do it cleverly, I’ll bear it in mind when it’ll be good for you to have friends; and that’s when we come to Carolina.”

Here Mr. Riach whispered him a little.

“Very right, sir,” said the captain; and then to myself: “And see here, David, yon man has a beltful of gold, and I give you my word that you shall have your fingers in it.”

I told him I would do as he wished, though indeed I had scarce breath to speak with; and upon that he gave me the key of the spirit locker, and I began to go slowly back to the round-house. What was I to do? They were dogs and thieves; they had stolen me from my own country; they had killed poor Ransome; and was I to hold the candle to another murder? But then, upon the other hand, there was the fear of death very plain before me; for what could a boy and a man, if they were as brave as lions, against a whole ship’s company?