Martin Hyde (15 page)

CHAPTER XIII

IT BREEZES UP

A
FTER
I had taken off my waistcoat, I went out into the 'tweendecks, then into the grand cabin, then into the space below the booms. He followed me everywhere, keeping me under observation, till I was tempted to tell him where the letters were, so as to have a little peace. At first he kept telling me stories, or making bad jokes; but very soon he grew weary of pretending; he became surly. At this point I asked him which was his cabin. He glowered at me for asking such a question, but he pointed it out to me. It was a cabin no larger than my own, on the opposite (that is the port) side of the 'tweendecks. I took the opportunity (it was a bold stroke, evidently displeasing to him) of looking in; for to tell the truth I had a suspicion that he slept in the grand cabin, on the top of the locker. I thought that the stateroom had another inmate. When I looked into it I expected to find myself in Aurelia's presence. I did not want to see her; but I wished very eagerly to know if she were in the ship or not. The stateroom was empty, but the bunk, which had been slept in, was not yet made up.

I do not know how much longer he would have dogged me about the ship. To my great joy he was called from me by the mate, who cried down the hatchway, bidding him come up at once, as there was "something in sight." Captain Barlow evidently wanted me to come on deck with him; but I was resolute. I said I would stop below to have another try at his stories. He went on deck surlily, saying something about "You wait," or "You whelp," I could not catch his exact words. He turned at the hatchway to see where I had gone. I had expected this move, so when he looked, he saw me entering the grand cabin, just as I had said. I watched him through the crack in the hinge; for I fully expected him to return suddenly. As he did not return on the instant, I darted into my own cabin, just long enough to drop the letter cartridges into an old tin slush-pot which was stowed in the locker below the bunk. I had noted it in the early morning when I had done my sewing. I pressed the cartridges into the slush, till they were all hidden. In another instant of time the pot was back in the locker among the other oddments while I was back in the cabin hard at work at my sermons. I was conscious that the captain glanced through the skylight at me. No doubt what he saw reassured him. For the moment I felt perfectly safe.

About half an hour later, I heard a great noise of hauling on deck, followed by the threshing of our sails, as though they had suddenly come aback. I knew enough
of the sea to know that if we were tacking there would be other orders, while, if the helmsman had let the ship come aback by accident I should have heard the officers rating him. I heard neither oaths nor orders; something else was happening. A glance out of the stern windows showed me that the ship was no longer under way. She was not moving through the water. It struck me that I had better go on deck to see what was the matter. When I reached the deck I found that the barquentine was hove-to (that is, held motionless by a certain arrangement of the sails) about half a mile from a small full-rigged ship which had hove-to likewise. The barquentine's boat was rapidly pulling towards this full-rigged ship, with Captain Barlow sitting in the stern-sheets. The ship was a man-of-war; for she flew the St. George's banner, as well as a pennant. Her guns were pointing through her ports, eight bright brass guns to a broadside. She was waiting there, heaving in huge stately heaves, for Captain Barlow's message.

Now I had had alarms enough since I entered the Duke's service; but I confess this sight of the man-of-war daunted me worse than any of them. I knew that Captain Barlow had stopped her, so that he might hand over my letters to her captain; that was easily guessed. The next question was, would the captain insist on taking the messenger to be examined in person. It was that which scared me worst. I had heard frightful tales about political prisoners. They were shut up in the
Tower dungeons, away below the level of the Thames. They were examined there by masked magistrates who wrung the truth from them by the "bootikins," which squeezed the feet, or by the thumbscrews, which twisted the thumbs. My feet seemed to grow red-hot when I thought of that horror. I knew only too well that my youth would not save me. James the Second was never moved by pity towards a beaten enemy. I watched the arrival of the boat at the ship's side, with the perspiration running down my face. I began to understand, now, what was meant by the words high treason. I saw all the majesty of the English Navy, all the law, all the noble polity of England, arrayed to judge a boy to death, for a five minutes' prank. They would drag me on a hurdle to Tyburn, as soon as torture had made me tell my tale.

But enough of my state of mind. I saw Captain Barlow go up the ship's gangway, where an officer no doubt received him. Very soon afterwards he came down the gangway again, half followed by some one who seemed to be ordering him. His boat then shoved off for the barquentine. The man-of-war got under way again by swinging her great mainyard smartly about. The smother at her bows gleamed whiter at the very instant, as she gathered way. It was a blessed sight to me, after my suspense, I assure you; but I did not understand it till later. I learned later on that Captain Barlow was one of a kind of men very common in those
troublous times. He was hedging, or trimming. He was quite willing to make money by selling the Duke's plans to the king; but he had the sense to see that the Duke's party might succeed, in which case the King's favour would not be worth much. So his treason to the Duke stopped short of the betrayal of men attached in any way to the Monmouth party. He would betray letters, when he could lay his hands on them unobserved; but he was not going to become an open enemy to the Duke until he knew that the Duke's was the losing side; then he would betray men fast enough. Until then, he would receive the trust of both factions, in order to betray a portion of the confidence received from them.

The day dragged by for me somehow, uncomfortably, under the captain's eye. It was one of the longest days I have ever known. It sickened me utterly of the life of adventure to which I now seemed pledged. I vowed that if I had the chance I would write to my uncle from Mr. Blick's house, begging to be received back. That seemed to be the only way of escape possible to me. It did not seem hopeful; but it gave me some solace to think of it. I longed to be free from these terrors. You don't know what an adventurous life is. I will tell you. It is a life of sordid unquiet, pursued without plan, like the life of an animal. Have you seen a dog trying to cross a busy street? There is the adventurer. Or the rabbit on the cliff, in his state of continual panic; he, too, lives the adventurous life.
What does the world owe to the adventurer? But there. I become impatient. One patient hero in his garret is worth all these silly fireworks put together.

One thing more happened on that day. The breeze freshened all the afternoon till by bedtime it blew what is called a fresh gale. Captain Barlow drove his ship till she shook to her centre, not because he liked (like many sailors) to show his vessel's paces; but because he sat at his bottle too long after dinner. He was half drunk by supper time, too drunk to take the sail off her; so we drove on down Channel, trusting to the goodness of the gear. There would have been a pretty smash-up if we had had to alter our course hurriedly. As it was we were jumping like a young colt, in a welter of foam, with two men at the tiller, besides a gang on the tackles. I never knew any ship to bound about so wildly. I passed the evening after supper on deck, enjoying the splendour of that savage leaping rush down Channel, yet just a little nervous at the sight of our spars buckling under the strain. The captain was drunk before dark; we could hear him banging the table with his bottle. The mate, who was on the poop with me, kept glancing from the spars to the skylight; he was getting frightened at the gait we were going. "Young man," he said, "d'ye know the sailor's catechism?"

"No, sir," I answered. "Well," he said, "it's short but sweet, like a ration of rum. What is the complete duty of a sailorman? You don't know? It's this,
Obey
orders, if you break owners
. My orders are not to take off sail till Mr. drunken Barlow sees fit. You'll see a few happenings aloft just now if he don't see fit soon." Just at that instant she gave a lurch which sent one of the helmsmen flying. The mate leaped to his place with an angry exclamation. "Another man to the helm," he cried. "You, boy. Run below. Tell the captain she'll be dismasted in another five minutes." He was in the right of it. A blind man could have told that the ship was being over-driven. I ran down, as eager as the mate to put an end to the danger.

When I went below, I found the captain in my cabin, rummaging everywhere. He had flung out the contents of the lockers, my bedclothes, everything, in a jumble on the deck, which, in a drunken aimless way he was examining by the light of a couple of dip candles, stuck to the edge of the bunk. It was not a time to mind about that. "Sir," I said, "the ship is sinking. Come on deck, sir; take the sail off. The mate says the ship is sinking."

"Eh," said the captain furiously. "You young spy. I command this ship. What's the sail got to do with you?" He glared at me in drunken anger. "You young whelp," he cried, grabbing me by the collar. "Where are your letters? Eh? Where've you hid your letters?"

At that instant, there came a more violent gust in the fierceness of wind which drove us. The ship gave
a "yank;" there is no other word to express the frightful shock of her movement. She lay down on her lee beam ends with a crash of breaking crockery. Casks broke loose in the hold; gear fell from aloft; the captain was flung under me against the ship's side. The deck beneath us sloped up like a roof. In the roar of water rushing down the hatch I remember thinking that the Day of Judgment was come. Yells on deck mingled with all the uproar; I heard something thud like a sledgehammer on the ship's side. The captain picked himself up holding his head, which was all one gore of blood from the crack against the ship's side. "Beam ends" he said stupidly. "Beam ends. Yes. Yes." He was dazed; he did not know what he said; but some sort of sailor's instinct told him that he was wanted on deck. At any rate he went out, pulling himself up the steep deck with a cleverness which I had not expected. He left me clutching the ledge of the bunk, staring up at the door away above me, while the wreck of my belongings banged about at my feet. I thought it was all over with the ship; but I was not scared at the prospect of death; only a little sickish from the shock of that sudden sweeping over. I found a fascination in the horrible open door, the black oblong hole in the air through which the captain had passed. I waited for the sea to pour down it. I expected to see a clear mass of water with fish in it; something quite calm, something beautiful, not the noisy horror of the sea outside. I suppose I
waited like that for a full minute before the roar of the squall grew less. Then I told myself that I must go on deck; that the danger would be less, looking it in the face, than down there in the cabin. It was not pleasant to go on deck, any more than it is pleasant to go downstairs at two in the morning to look for burglars, but it was better to be moving than staying still. I clenched my fist upon the only dip which remained alight (the other was somewhere in the jumble under my feet). Then, catching hold of the door-hook I pulled myself up to the door, where I steadied myself for a moment. While I stood there I had a horrible feeling of the ship having died under my feet. She had been leaping so gallantly only five minutes before. Now she lay with her heart broken, while the seas beat her with great thumps.

Two battle-lanterns lit the after 'tweendecks. There was a great heap of staved in casks, slopping about in an inch or two of water, all along that side, thrown there by the smash. I could hear the men yelling on deck. Captain Barlow was swearing in loud shouts. I could hear all this in the lull of the squall. I heard more than that, as I stood listening. I heard the faint crying out of a woman's voice from the steward's pantry (next door to the captain's cabin) on the opposite side, across the steep, tipped up slippery deck. At first I thought it must be the poor cat; but as the wind passed, letting me hear more clearly, I recognized that it was a
woman's voice, crying out there in the darkness with a note of pain. I did not think of Aurelia. She never entered my head. All that I thought was "Poor creature! What a place for a woman!" The ship was jerking, you might almost call it gasping, as the seas struck her; it was no easy job to climb along that roof-slope of a deck with nothing to hold on by. I got across somehow, partly by luck, partly by finger-nails. I even managed to open the pantry door, which was another difficulty, as it opened inwards, into the cabin. As I opened it, a suck of wind blew out my light. There I was in the dark, with a hurt woman, in a ship which, for all I knew, might sink with all hands in twenty seconds. It is queer; I didn't mind the ship sinking. What I disliked was being in the dark with an unknown somebody who whimpered.

"Are you much hurt?" I asked. "Hold on a minute. I'll strike a light." I shut myself into the cabin, so as to keep out the draught. My feet kicked among the steward's crockery. It was as dark in that cubby-hole as in a grave. The unknown person, probably fearing me, thinking me some rough drunken sailor, was crying out now more in terror than in pain. She was begging me not to hurt her. I probably frightened her a good deal by not replying. The tinder box took up all my attention for a good couple of minutes. A tinder box is not a thing to get light by hurriedly. You try some day, to see how quickly you can light a candle by one. When
I got the candle lit, I thought of the battle-lanterns swinging outside all the time. I might have saved myself all that trouble by using a little common sense. Well. Wait till you stand as I stood, with your heart in your boots, down in a pit of death, you'll see how much common sense will remain in your fine brains.

When the flame took hold of the wick, so that I could look about me, I saw the lady Aurelia lying among the smashed up gear to leeward. She had been lying down, reading in a sort of bunk which had been rigged up for her on the locker-top. The shock had flung her clean out of the bunk on to the deck. At the same moment an avalanche of gear had fetched to leeward. A cask had rolled on to her left hand, pinning her down to the deck, while a box of bottles had cut the back of her head. A more complete picture of misery you could not hope to see. There was all the ill-smelling jumble of steward's gear, tumbled in a heap of smash, soaking in the oil from the fallen lamp. There was a good deal of blood about. Aurelia was lying in all the débris half covered with salted fish from one of the capsized casks. They looked like huge leaves. She seemed to have been buried under them, like a babe in the wood. She grew calm when she saw me. "There are candles under the bunk," she said. "Light two or three. Tell me what has happened."