The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson: The Dream Of X & Other Fantastic Visions (22 page)

From the direction of the strong-room, rose a loud incoherent outcry—a dozen men speaking at once. And then an instantaneous silence, and the flash of a bull’s-eye lamp, along the drift.

“They’re there, lads!” shouted a deep commanding voice. “After them! Follow me.”

Sandy Mech’s head and shoulders were half through from the cellar side now; and he saw their instant need.

“The roof, Parson!” he shouted. “Bring the roof down on ’em. Catch!”

He shot a short, heavy digging-spud, or flat ended bar, into the Parson’s hand. Then he made another swift sweep with his shovel.

“There’s room, John,” he said. “Come on! Come on! Get clear out o’ the Parson’s road.”

He literally hauled Vardon over the mound, by his head and shoulders, slithering him down on the cellar side, in a cloud of dust. Then back over the mound, to help the Parson; but the Parson needed no help. He was heaving mightily at the roof, with the spud. A big, bearded face had just loomed at him, over the mound that lay between him and the strong-room. And he had met it with all the weight of his body and fist. . . . The face had gone backwards, half-stunned; and he had attacked the roof ferociously again. Two other faces loomed, with lamps, and an automatic pistol was thrust at him.

The Parson gave a final heave; there was a roar of falling earth, and the reiterated explosion of a pistol, smothered. Then he was being hauled back by Sandy, half suffocated, over the mound on the cellar side. Between them and the strong-room, lay a barrier that would take, maybe, an hour to dig away.

“Sandy, lad,” were the Parson’s first words, as the three of them stood breathless and grimy in the cellar, “I owe ye apology for doubting ye. I told John, here, ye’d never ha’ power to resist the temptation o’ the moment. I ask pardon of ye, laddie. I’ll no forget how ye proved ye’rsel’ this night.”

“Aw!” said Sandy Mech, “I ain’t no tin god! I did think of it; but you an’ me’s been through some jobs together, Parson; an’ I’d a’ hated you to get copped. And I’d a’ had a job to shunt this stuff by me lonesome.”

“Now, we got to move smartly,” said Parson Guyles. “They’ll maybe stay diggin’ in the drift awhile; but they’ll sure have men into all these basements, inside ten minutes. Pick up the gold. I’ll take a bag and this sack o’ bonds and notes. I regret sair we’re leaving one in yonder. Now follow me. . . . Whist! Hear that now! Not a sound!”

A thunderous knocking rose from the entrance door.

“The police! They’re on our track a’ready!” whispered Parson Guyles.

“. . . his ’ands were all earthy!” they heard a heavy voice explaining excitedly. “I thought I’d keep an eye on ’im. . . . Nothing to be suspicious about then, or I’d ‘ave watched him closer. . . .”

“I was right!” whispered the Parson. “Yon fat policeman must ha’ noticed things; and he’s brought ’em right on our heels. Come on!”

As he spoke, there came a heavy blow on the door, that made the whole basement boom and echo.

“Quick, after me,” said the Parson. “That door’ll be doon in a minute.”

He went swiftly through the darkness towards the rear of the basement, and the two others followed, stumbling in the gloom, with the weight of precious metal each carried.

There came the click of a lock. Then, faintly, they could see the outline of an open doorway, with the loom of the night beyond.

“Smartly now!” said Parson Guyles. “Move quiet an’ noiseless as the de’il himsel. . . . Pause a wee, while I lock this door against them. . . . Hark to that!” as a crash resounded through the basement behind them. “They’re in!”

He closed the door, quietly, and locked it, methodically withdrawing and pocketing the key.

“This is no’ a proper way out, ye’ll understan’!” he whispered. “There’s no back entrances to this block; only this was a convenience that the last tenant of this basement arranged with the proprietor of the stable yard we’re in now; and where I gave John the hint to keep his car. Step quiet, laddies. This way. To the left. . . . Now right. Here we are. Put the bags in, smart. I bid yon Williams lad ha’ the lamps lit an’ a’ ready by two o’clock, an’ I’m glad he’s done as I told him. I explained that ma friend an’ I were away to Edinboro’ toon for the week end. . . . That you, Williams?” as a sleepy eyed yard-man appeared. “Here’s half-a-crown, my man. Open the gates, an’ let us away on oor holiday.”

“Thank’ee, Sir,” said the man. “I’ve had the lights lit this half hour.”

He shambled to the gates, and began slowly to open them; while Vardon got into the driver’s seat, and the Parson set the engine going.

“Throttle her, man,” he said. “Not a sound more than need be. . . . What’s yon man so long for!”

The man had the gates half open; but had apparently been spoken to by someone. As the car circled to approach the gates, the lamps showed something that sickened the three men in the car. Standing at the gate, questioning the man, whose replies sounded frightened and bewildered, were four big policemen, and the foremost one was the burly officer whose voice they had heard a few minutes earlier, explaining about the Parson’s hands.

Abruptly, as the light showed them, the four officers barred the way.

“Pardon me, gentlemen!” said the fat policeman, raising his bull’s-eye, “we shall not keep you a moment, if all is right; but— It’s him!” he ended in a shout. “Collar him! A good thing I thought to try round the back here! Shut the gates!”

The four men, in a clump, turned to do so. In that instant, the Parson stooped swiftly, and pulled a large paper bag from under the seat. He sprang upright, and dashed it at the heads of the policemen. It burst against one of their helmets, and the car’s head-lights shone on a grey cloud of dust that filled the air around the police. The men in the car gasped for breath, and began to sneeze violently; but the policemen, caught literally in the thick of the cloud of pungent dust, reeled and staggered in all directions, gasping and sneezing hopelessly; for the Parson had burst a great paper bag of snuff and pepper right among them.

The Parson leaped right out among the stupefied men, hitting right and left with his fists, and clearing a path for the car in half a dozen seconds. He seized the doors, and dashed them wide open.

“Through wi’ her, John!” he shouted, sneezing fiercely. “Through wi’ her!”

Vardon obeyed, and the car leapt through. The Parson sprang on the foot-board, as the car swung out into the road; and as he did so, there came a thunder of blows on a door somewhere up the yard.

“To the left, John!” gasped the Parson. “Let her go!”

Ten minutes later, at a reasonable speed, the car was traversing one of the bridges over the river. Here, where they could see no one was about, they stopped the car, and John Vardon jumped out. He slipped off the number-plates, and disclosed fresh ones underneath.

“A good notion that, John,” said Parson Guyles, as Vardon climbed back into his seat and re-started the car. “I flatter myself that notion o’ the snuff-mixture was good, too, laddies. I’ve tried that trick before; and it always comes off, and no one the worse for it, either. Also, I’m thinkin’ it’s as well I made ye both up sae careful, too. I wonder now how ye’re photos will turn out.”

“What?” asked both men.

“Why!” said the Parson. “Yon box o’ tricks we’ve just been emptyin’, had a deal o’ notions about it. Did ye not see yon flash, after the alarm rang? Well, I guess, laddies, that’s a photograph apparatus, that one, Jamie MacAllister (they’re a’ Scots men, ye notice) invented; and it’s to photograph any act o’ irregularity that may occur. Ye micht ca’ oor’s some, how irregular, maybe.” The two men laughed.

“The Lord forgie me,” said Parson Guyles, growing more and more Scottish; “but I feel that licht hearted, I must crack a joke on ma ain sins!”

“I’m that way, always, Parson, after a job,” said Sandy Mech, nodding in the darkness. “I don’t reckon much of conscience when you’ve got the oof safe away. That’s my way o’ lookin’ at it.”

But John Vardon said nothing.

X

It was a week later, and Parson Guyles and John Vardon were walking up and down the platform of a provincial railway station.

“John Vardon,” said the Parson, quietly, as the train steamed in, “I hold ye to ye’re given word.”

“I’ll keep it, Parson,” said Vardon, looking squarely at Parson Guyles. “You’re a fine man, Parson—”

“Na! Na ! Man! Oh dinna shame me mair! Dinna shame me mair!” cried out the Parson, in very distress. “God go with ye an’ guide ye.

“An’ God help me,” he muttered, as they turned, each his own way.

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The Friendship of Monsieur Jeynois

C
aptain Drool and the two mates sat in the cabin and argued, gross and uncouth; but Monsieur Jeynois said nothing. Only smoked his long pipe and listened, while the bo’sun held the poop-deck! I had grown to like Monsieur Jeynois, for the brave, quiet way of him, and the calm speech that seemed so strong and wise against the rude blusterings and oathings of the captain and the mates.

The Saucy Lady was a private venture ship—in other words, an English privateer—at the time of the French war. She had been a French brig, named La Gavotte, and had been sold at Portsmouth for prize money.

Monsieur Jeynois and Captain Drool had bought her, and fitted her out against the French, with six twenty-four-pounder cannonades a side, and two long eighteen-pounders—the one mounted aft and the other for’ard, for chasers.

The brig was a matter of three hundred and fifty tons burthen, and sailed very fast, and made good weather of it.

We had ninety-six able-bodied sailors for’ard in a fine, great, new fo’cas’le, that was fitted up when Monsieur Jeynois and Captain Drool had the vessel altered. There were also six gunners, that we had helped to run free of the Royal Navy, and good men they were, but mighty opinionated, and nothing would serve them but to sneer and jeer at all and aught because we were not so fine as a King’s ship. And, indeed, why they troubled to sail in us was a thing to make a man wonder!

There were, also, twelve boys in the ship. Six of these were named midshipmen, and were from rich tradesmen’s families of Portsmouth Town, and paid some sort of premium to walk the lee side of the after-deck and play lob-lolly to the captain and the two mates.

I was one of the other six—just common lads off the water front at Portsmouth, though I was no Portsmouth lad, but Lancashire bred and born, but part reared on the Welsh coast and afterwards in the south, for my father had been a shipwright in Liverpool, and then went to Cardiff, and came in the end to Portsmouth, where he worked in the Royal Dockyards till the day he died, which was two years before this story. And a poor and ignorant lad I was, as I do mind me, and talked a strange mixture of dialects and rough words. But this by the way.

We wanted to fight the French, and make good prize money at brave work. And there you have the crew of us, with added thereto the bo’sun and the two carpenters.

Now, if you have never heard tell of Monsieur Jeynois, you might wonder to hear that he helped fit out a ship against the French. But, indeed, in Portsmouth Town, we had no trouble on this score, for a better hater of Frenchmen, and a greater fighter, never put a pegged boot to good deck-planks.

There were some that said he had been a great man the other side; and this I can well believe, for he was a great man, as all in that ship knew in their inwards. He had a steady, brown eye, that looked down into a man; and you knew that he feared nothing, save it might be God, which I do believe.

As for his hatred of the French, there were many tales to account for it; but none of them to the mark, as I must suppose. Yet, because he was a Frenchman, despite the many times that he had proved himself upon them, there were a thousand to hate him for no more than his name or his blood, both or either, as suited their poor brute minds. Also, while many had a deep respect for him, few loved him, because he was too quiet and aloof. And, indeed, I doubt not that, because there was something great of heart within him, there were many of the poorer souled that hated him for no other cause than that he waked in them—though scarce they knew it—a knowledge of their own inward weeviliness.

And this was the man that sat in the cabin with Captain Drool and the two mates—Hankson and Abbott—and would listen to their rude arguing, that even I, the cabin lad, could oft see the gross folly of. And then, maybe, by a dozen quiet words, he would show them their own poor selves, in a mirror of brief speech that made them and their thoughts and child’s plans of no more account than they were; so that I have seen the three of them stare at him out of eyes of dumb hatred.

And then he would show them the way that the thing should be done, and they would be forced to admit the rightness of his reasoning; yet hating him the more for his constant rightness, and the way that he seemed to know all and to fear naught.

Only one thing he did not know, and that was the science to navigate; else I venture he had never sailed with any captain other than himself.

And there, in this little that I have told, you have the causes that led to the greatest fight that ever a single man put up against a multitude.

It came about in this wise. After dinner the captain and the mate that was not in charge of the deck would sit awhile and drink a sort of spiced rum-toddy. But Monsieur Jeynois drank only plain water, flavoured with molasses, and often left the table with a quiet excuse, that he would see the weather.