"He bin gone out," I said, in the broadest Shropshire accent I could muster.

"The mischief he is! Who be in charge of the gate then?"

Sputtering with wrath the postilion cursed me and demanded to know what I meant by sitting a-top when travelers wished to pass through. I assumed the vacant grin that rustics wear, and said:

"The toll be tuppence, measter."

"Here it is," says the man, flinging the coins on the ground, "and be hanged to you."

I descended from my perch (the man abusing me for my slowness), picked up the money, and went into the cottage as if to get the key.

"Be quick about it," roared the postilion after me.

"Coming, measter," I replied, sitting on the table, out of his sight. In a little he cried to me again:

"What be doin' of? Stir your stumps, I say."

"Coming, measter," says I, knocking my knife against the potato pan to signify bustle. The man's language grew more and more violent as the minutes passed and still I did not reappear, until, having consumed as much time as I thought becoming, I went to the doorway, and said, in the manner of stating a simple fact of no importance,

"Key binna hangin' on nail, measter. The nail be proper plaace for it: can ya tell me where to look?"

My drawling tone seemed to incense the man to the verge of apoplexy. Hurling abuse at me, he ended with a threat to horsewhip me within an inch of my life if I did not instantly find the key and open the gate. At this I shrank back, putting up my hands to guard my head with great affectation of terror, and withdrew once more into the cottage. As I did so, I heard the shutters on the far side of the coach let down, and a voice demanding the reason of the delay.

"The pudding-headed scut cannot find the key, sir."

"Tell him," said the voice in a louder tone (and I tingled as I recognized it)—"tell him that if he keeps us waiting another minute we will break the gate down."

I laughed inwardly at this foolish threat. The gate was a stout barrier, that would do more damage than it could receive from any attempt of theirs.

"Bring out the key, rascal," roared the postilion again.

"An' you please, measter," says I, appearing in the doorway, "I be afeared the key bin lost."

Then the man on the box scrambled down, and ran into the cottage. With him I hunted in every nook and corner of the room, and there being no sign of the key we went out, and to the other side of the coach, and there I heard the coach door open, and the voice cried:

"Hold the leader, Jabez; and you, Tom, go to the wheelers' heads. I'll blow in the cursed lock with my pistol."

Slipping back so that I might not be seen, I peeped through the window and saw Cyrus Vetch, pistol in hand, moving towards the gate. Here I was in a wretched quandary. I glanced anxiously up the road: there was never a sign of Mr. Allardyce or any other pursuer. To blow in the lock would be the work of a second: then nothing I could do would prevent the coach from passing through and getting clean away.

I was ready to despair when a possible means of checkmate flashed into my mind. Vetch was within a yard of the gate; his two men were at the horses' heads, to hold them when the report of the pistol came; their eyes were fixed on their master. As lightly as I could (my boots being heavy, as the long service required of them demanded) I darted through the doorway, my right hand clasping my knife, hid behind my back. Running to the side of the horse nearest me I set to a-hacking with all my strength at the leathern trace. Thank Heaven my knife was new and unblunted! But I had not succeeded in cutting the leather through when the pistol cracked and the lock burst. The startled horses immediately began to rear and plunge, so violently that the single man at the wheelers' heads could not hold them. Vetch ran to assist him; none of them had noticed that the violence of the horses' straining had completed my unfinished work: the trace snapped in two.

Pulling itself free the horse swung round, and plunged more violently than before, keeping the man Tom employed and serving also to screen me from view. Now was my opportunity. I wrenched open the shuttered door, and saw a man leaning with his body out of the other door, watching the movements of Vetch. And between us, shrinking back on the seat, was Mistress Lucy. She turned her head as I pulled the door open, and holding on to it to preserve my balance, for the coach was being swerved this way and that by the frantic horses, I whispered:

"'Tis I, Mistress Lucy: jump out!"

And quick as thought—'tis a blessing when a woman's wits are keen—she made one spring for the roadway, by a hair's breadth eluding the grasp of Dick Cludde, who had turned about at my whisper. I caught the girl as she touched the ground, and, pulling her away from the wheel, just in time to save her foot from being crushed by it, I seized her hand, and dragged her—willing captive!—towards the doorway. I pushed her into the cottage, with a roughness for which I afterwards asked her pardon, and hastened in after her.

Before I could close and bolt the door I heard a crash and a cry of pain, and caught a glimpse of Cludde, who, in leaping from the coach, had fallen awry and lay sprawling in the dust. Then I shut him from sight and ran to the other door, by which Mistress Peabody had gone into the garden. This I slammed and barred, dashing afterwards to the window to do the like with it. Luckily it was already fastened, and I was hastily drawing the shutters over it, when Vetch, his face livid with passion, came up to it, drove his pistol through the glass, and threatened to shoot me if I did not instantly unbolt the door.

I have always had reason to thank Heaven that my brain is quickest and my resolution most cool at the moments of greatest stress. Vetch had fired his pistol through the lock of the turnpike gate; being busy with the horse he had certainly not had time to recharge it, nor to get another; so I thought that I might safely defy him. Whispering to Mistress Lucy to find some hiding place in the cottage out of view from the window, I stood with my hand on the shutter, and said:

"What will you do if I yield?"

The answer was the heavy pistol, hurled straight at my head. It struck my temple and fell with a crash to the floor. I gave back a little, half stunned by the blow, and Vetch seized that moment to smash another pane of the window, preparing to leap on the sill and into the room, But I had sufficient strength to anticipate him. Throwing my whole weight on the shutter I drove it into its place, taking a certain pleasure in the knowledge that I had at least bruised the fellow's knuckles. Then I dropped the bar into its socket, and in the half darkness called to Mistress Lucy that all was well.

Immediately there began a heavy battering on the door, but not so heavy but that through it I heard Cludde order his men to splice the broken trace. 'Twas lucky it was so, for had all four of them come with one mind to force my frail defences, the brief siege would, I fear, have had but a sorry end. The door was a stout one, and finding it resisted their blows, Vetch and Cludde soon desisted, and I supposed that they had withdrawn altogether. But after a short interval, a violent crash on the back door, which was of much slighter timber, warned me that I must still be prepared to fight against heavy odds.

I looked round for Mistress Lucy: she was standing beside an oaken clothes press, the largest article of furniture in the room.

"Help will come, I hope," I said to her; "if not, I can keep them at bay, and I will."

A moment after I had spoken, I heard a shout from the road. The blows upon the door ceased; I caught the sound of scurrying feet, and running to the window, I unbarred the shutter and opened it so that I might glance out. The coach was moving: the postilion was in the saddle, the other man was on the box. It passed through the gate: the horses were lashed to a gallop, and the equipage disappeared down the road in a cloud of dust. Flinging the shutter wide, I craned my neck out of the broken panes and looked in the other direction. Not half a mile away three horsemen were pressing a gallop towards us.

"You are safe," I said, turning to the girl.

She came eagerly to my side, and in another minute the horsemen—the innkeeper and two men whom I did not know—leapt from their saddles when I hailed them, and came to ask if all was well.



Chapter 12: I Come To Bristowe—And Leave Unwillingly.

The presence of the innkeeper and his friends—a neighboring farmer and one of his sons: another son had ridden to acquaint Mr. Allardyce at the Hall of the kidnapping—relieved me of a certain embarrassment I felt, now that the stress and excitement were over. As yet Mistress Lucy had spoken scarce a word; but she had looked at me with great kindness, and I knew that she was but waiting for an opportunity to thank me for the service I had rendered her. With the shy awkwardness of my age I wished to avoid this, and so I willingly related to the innkeeper all that had occurred, and had barely ended when Peabody came back in haste from Glazeley, where I fear he had been fuddling himself as his wife had suggested. To him the story had to be told over again, I meanwhile itching to get away before Mr. Allardyce could arrive.

When I announced my determination to proceed at once on my journey there was a great outcry from the men: would I not wait and see the Squire and be suitably rewarded? Mistress Lucy herself, who had remained in the cottage while we conversed outside, came to the door at this point of our discussion, and with bright color in her cheeks beckoned me and asked whether I would not stay until her uncle's arrival. But my mind was made up.

"You are in safe hands," I said, "and I have far to go."

"I shall not forget what you have done for me—Joe," she said, and for the second time gave me her little hand. I could say nothing, but when I was once more upon the road I thought of her kind look and manner, and glowed with a deep contentment.

I had not walked above a mile when I heard a galloping horse behind me, and Roger's clear voice calling me by name. I halted, and he sprang from the saddle and caught me by the hand.

"By George! 'twas mighty fine of you, Joe," he cried, with kindling eyes. "I'll break Dick Cludde's head for him, I will, if ever I see him again. Who was the other villain? Lucy says there were two."

"'Twas—" I began, but suddenly bit my lip; if I named Cyrus Vetch my own secret, which I had so carefully guarded, would soon be known, and I was resolved (maybe without reason) that they should not know me as Humphrey Bold until I had done somewhat to win credit for the name. "'Twas a long weasel-faced fellow," I said, after so slight a pause that it escaped Roger's perception.

"And weasels are vermin," cried Roger, "and he has killed Lucy's dog! But come, Joe, what nonsense is this! Father insists that you shall come back; he declares this trudging to Bristowe is sheer fooling, and had already got half a dozen fine schemes in his head for you. Mount behind me, man: the mare will carry you though you are a monster; come back and we'll be sworn brothers."

I confess the boy's generosity touched me, and the offer was tempting; but I steeled my soul against it, and, strange as it may seem, 'twas the remembrance of Mistress Lucy that put an end to all wavering. Once I had had no higher aim than to win Captain Galsworthy's praise; now I felt—but dimly—that I would endure the toils of Hercules to win a lady's favor. 'Twas the budding of young love within me—and I never knew that a lad was any the worse for it.

So I thanked Roger as warmly as I might, but held to my purpose against all his reasons. The boy was impulsive and quick tempered, and finding me obdurate after ten minutes' battery of argument, he flung away in a huff, got up into the saddle, and bidding me go hang for an obstinate mule he galloped back to the turnpike.

And so I set my face once more for the south. Missing my staff, which I had thrown away in my haste, I cut myself a large hazel switch from a copse by the roadside, promising myself a stouter weapon when I should arrive at a town.

My heart was light: had I not begun to pay Dick Cludde interest on his crown piece? I was inexpressibly glad that I had been able to defeat his outrageous scheme, and thinking of this, I wondered why he had driven southward instead of to his father's house beyond Shrewsbury. My conjecture was that, knowing what a hue and cry Mr. Allardyce would raise if he believed his niece had been conveyed thither, the Cluddes had arranged to remove her to a distance until the legal matter then pending should have been decided in their favor. I remembered hearing Dick once speak of some relatives at Worcester, and in all likelihood that had been his destination.

To have encountered me within so few miles of Shrewsbury must have mightily surprised him. He had known of my intention in setting out; 'twas common talk in Shrewsbury; and, having passed me at Harley near two months before this, must have supposed (if he thought of me at all) that I had long since reached my destination. What he would infer now I did not trouble to consider, and as he was to have rejoined his ship about this time, I did not expect any news of my adventure would be carried back to Shrewsbury. It crossed my mind that he might possibly seek to waylay me on the road and take vengeance for his discomfiture, but reflecting that he would scarcely suppose my journey, interrupted for so long, would be resumed at once, I was in nowise disquieted; only I resolved again to buy a stout cudgel, to have a weapon in case of need.

By noon I arrived at Bewdley, where, being mighty hungry, I made a good dinner of beef and cabbage at an inn. When I started again, I had the good luck to get a lift in a farmer's gig, which carried me for several miles, so that I reached Worcester without difficulty that night. After a sound sleep at the Ram's Head I sallied out, bought a fine staff of knobby oak at a shop in the High Street, and after viewing the outside of the cathedral (the doors were not yet open), a building that surpassed in beauty anything that I had before seen, I set off for Gloucester.

No mischance, nor indeed any incident of note, befell me during the remainder of my journey. I passed the next night in a wagon, swaddled in a load of fresh mown hay, the driver with rustic friendliness inviting me to keep him company on his dark journey. On the third night after my departure from the Hall I trudged, weary and footsore, into Bristowe, and sought a bed at the White Hart in Old Market Street, this tavern having been recommended to me by the friendly hay-cart man.

Next day, when I went out to view the city of which I had heard so much, I was struck with wonderment, not merely at its size, wherein it dwarfed Shrewsbury and all the towns through which I had passed, but at its noise and bustle. Shrewsbury was a sleepy old town, where life went on very placidly from day to day, and the sight of these busy, though narrow, streets with their many fine buildings and their swarms of people, the dogs drawing little carts of merchandise, the river with its bridges, the floating basin with many tall ships, the quays thronged with sailors and lightermen, filled me not only with wonder, but with a sense of loneliness and insignificance.

Among all these folk, intent upon their various occupations, what place was there for me, I wondered? I got in the way of a line of men on the quay side carrying large bales which I presumed had been unloaded from a ship there moored. One of them hustled me violently aside, another made a coarse jest upon me, and, raw and inexperienced as I was, bewildered by the strangeness of it all, I felt a sinking at the heart, and questioned for the first time whether I had been wise in forsaking the scenes I knew and venturing unbefriended into this outpost of the great world.

I was standing apart, gazing at the shipping, when an old, weather-beaten sailor, smoking a black pipe, came up and accosted me.

"Lost your bearings, matey?" he said in a very hoarse voice, which yet had a tone of friendliness.

No doubt I looked foolish, for I knew no more than the dead what he meant.

"Lor' bless you," he went on, "I knows all about it. 'Tis fifty year since I made a course for that 'ere port from Selwood way, and I stood like a stuck pig—like as you be standing now. Be you out o' Zummerzet, like me?"

I told him I came from Shrewsbury.

"Never heard tell of it," he said, "but seemingly they grow high in those parts. And what made ye steer for Bristowe, if I might ask?"

Mr. Vetch had warned me against confiding in strangers; but there was something so honest in the old seaman's look that I, who have rarely been wrong in my instinctive judgment of men, determined to trust him, and told him so much of my story as I thought necessary.

The result was that he took me under his wing, so to speak. He spent the whole morning with me, explaining to me the differences in build and rig between the vessels lying there, telling me a great deal about the duties of a seaman and the ways of life at sea. He counseled me very earnestly to give up my design and seek an employment on shore.

"Sea life bean't for the likes of you," he said. "I don't know nothing about lawyers, saving them as they call sea lawyers, and they're rogues; but you'd better be a land lawyer than go to sea. 'Tis all very well for them as begin as officers, but for the men the life bean't fit for a dog. Aboard ship you'd meet some very rough company—very rough indeed. I don't pretend to be better nor most, but there be some terrible bad ones at sea. Of course it depends mostly on the skipper, but even where the skipper's a good 'un—and there be good and bad—he can't have his eyes everywhere, and I've knowed youngsters so bad used on board that they'd sooner ha' bin dead. Not but what you mightn't stand a chance, being a big fellow of your inches."

What the old fellow said did not in the least shake my resolution. The only effect of it was to turn my inclination rather in favor of the merchant service than the king's navy, to which I had inclined hitherto. In a king's ship I might certainly share in some fighting, which has ever great attractions to a healthy boy; but then I should have little chance of seeing the world unless specially favored by circumstances, for the ship might be kept cruising about, looking for the French who never came. Whereas in a merchant ship I might see India, and even China, and my new friend told me fine stories of the fortunes to be made in those distant parts by the lucky ones, besides which I felt a longing to see strange and far-off lands and peoples for the mere pleasure of it. To take service with an East Indiaman most hit my fancy, and when the sailor told me that London and Southampton were the ports for the East India trade, I began to think of working my passage to one or the other of them.

John Woodrow, as he was named, advised me not to be in a hurry, and when I explained that my little stock of money would be exhausted in a few days by the charges at the inn where I had put up, he recommended me to a widow living towards Clifton, who would give me board and lodging for a more modest sum. My anxieties on this score being removed, I resolved to follow Woodrow's advice, and not be in too great haste to take my first plunge. He promised to let me know of any decent skipper who might be sailing to Southampton or London if, when I had had a few days to think things over, my mind remained the same.

Next day a great king's ship of three decks came into the river, and I passed the whole morning in gazing at her, watching what went on upon her deck, and the boatloads of mariners that came ashore from her, envying the officers, and wavering in my design to join a merchant vessel. The vessel was named, as I found, the Sans Pareil, and though I had little French (the dead tongues being most thought of at Shrewsbury), I knew the words meant "the matchless," and certainly she outdid all the other ships around her.

The only vessel, indeed, that any way approached her was a large brig which, as my friend Woodrow had told me the day before, was a privateer that was being fitted out by certain gentlemen and merchants of Bristowe for work against the French. The Bristowe merchants had suffered great losses from the depredations made on their ships by French corsairs. Many a vessel loaded with a rich freight of sugar, or tobacco, or other produce of the colonies, had fallen a prey to the enemy, who swooped out of St. Malo or Brest, as Woodrow said, and snapped up our barques almost within sight of their harbor. 'Twas not to be wondered at that those who had suffered in this way should make reprisals.

The Sans Pareil had such a fascination for me (never having seen a king's ship before) that I was only awakened to the passage of time by the crying out of my stomach. I had promised Mistress Perry, the widow with whom I had taken up my abode, that I would return punctually at noon for my dinner, and now the church clocks (no less than my hunger) told me it was long past that hour. She would be mightily vexed, and the joint would be burned black, and I neither wished to offend her nor to eat cinders. So I now hurried away as fast as my legs would carry me, and soon came to the footpath leading to Clifton.

As I turned the corner by Jacob's Well, I stepped hastily aside to avoid a man who was coming fast in the opposite direction. He also moved at the same moment, and, as I have often known to happen at such sudden encounters, the very movements made to prevent the collision brought it about. We both moved to the same side, and jostled each other, and I, being the more weighty of the two, gave him a tough shoulder and well nigh upset him.

"Clumsy h—" he was beginning, but he got no further, and 'twas well he did not, for if he had uttered the word "hound" that had all but come to his lips he would scarce have gone on his way without my mark upon him. But he did not say it, being indeed startled out of his self possession. No doubt he had as little expected to see me as I to see him: it was Cyrus Vetch.

We both turned after jostling each other. The impulse seized me to take him by the neck and drub him for his rascally dealing with Mistress Lucy—and to settle at the same time some little private scores of my own. But he was in truth so pitiful a creature, and looked so scared, that I let him alone; besides I felt that I might one day have a greater account to pay off, to which settlement Dick Cludde must be a party.

He on his side, to judge by his pale cheeks, expected a rude handling, and when he found that I made no movement towards him, a look of relief crossed his countenance, followed by an expression which at the moment I was unable to fathom. Then, as by mutual consent, and without having exchanged a word, we turned our backs on each other and went our several ways.

As I expected, the joint of beef was done to shreds, and Widow Perry rated me soundly for being so late, asking me whether I expected her dog to keep turning the jack till doomsday. ('Twas a strange custom of the Bristowe housewives to employ dogs for turning their roasting jacks). With all humility I expressed contrition, and vowed amendment, and I kept my word. While I ate my dinner my thoughts were busy with my late encounter with Vetch, and I wondered what he was about in Bristowe, and whether Dick Cludde was still with him. I did not doubt they were in a desperate rage with me, and if they should be here together I was pretty sure they would take some means of avenging themselves; but confident of my strength and my skill of fence the prospect gave me rather a pleasant expectancy than any alarm.

So three days passed—days which I spent for the most part with Woodrow the old mariner, plying him with questions innumerable about shipping and life at sea, and learning many things by my own observation. I saw no more of Vetch, nor did anything give me cause of uneasiness. On the second day Mistress Perry, indeed, threatened a slight discomfort by wishing me to share my room with a new lodger she had just taken; but she gave in when I flatly refused to bed with a stranger, and grumblingly accommodated the man—a rough-looking sea dog—in a little closet off the stairs.

On the third afternoon, when I returned to the quay after my dinner, Woodrow told me he had found a skipper who would sail for Southampton at the end of the week, and was willing to take me as ship's boy. He assured me that I could hope for nothing better to begin with, and the voyage would be long enough for me to try my sea legs, and, as he believed, to cure me of my fancy for a sea life. I was to visit the skipper at the Angel tavern that evening, and if he liked my figurehead, as Woodrow put it, the matter could be settled there and then.

Accordingly, about seven o'clock, I met Woodrow at the corner of the Bridge, by the Leather Hall, and accompanied him to the Angel in Redcliffe Street, where he presented me to his friend, Captain Reddaway. After the usual jocose allusions to my height, to which I was now fairly inured, the skipper asked me a great many questions about navigation, feigned a vast surprise at my ignorance, and supplied the answers himself, to impress me, I suppose, with his own stores of knowledge.

Then the two mariners settled down over their pipes and beer to a conversation in which I was not expected to take a part; indeed, it consisted chiefly of reminiscences of voyages they had made together, and, though entertaining enough at first, by and by became insufferably tedious. For politeness' sake they included me in the conversation from time to time by waving their pipes at me, and I did not like to risk hurting the feelings of my new employer by showing how wearied I was, or by leaving them; so that it was not till near ten o'clock that I managed to escape, and then only because they had both fallen asleep.

The night was warm, and my lungs being filled with the reek of their strong tobacco I determined to walk down by the river before returning to my lodging, in the hope of getting a breath of fresh air blowing in from the sea. The river side was deserted and silent; the lights of the vessels at anchor increased the darkness around; and I was walking slowly along, wondering which of the lamps hung on Captain Reddaway's vessel, when suddenly I found myself surrounded by a group of men who seemed to have sprung from nowhere. Before I knew what was happening, much less make any movement of defence, I was being dragged by rough hands to the edge of the quay. I shouted lustily for help, only to receive a crack on the head from one of the men, while another clapped his hand across my mouth. I wriggled desperately, tripped up one fellow, and used my feet to some purpose on the shins of another; but there were so many of them that I was soon overpowered, and was quite helpless in their hands when they lugged me down the steps into a boat that lay moored below.

Throwing me into the bottom they pulled off; in a few minutes they came under the quarter of a large vessel in midstream; I was hauled up the side, and, more or less dazed with my rough handling, heard without understanding a loud voice giving orders. In two minutes I was lying bound hand and foot in the fore part of the vessel, and there I remained, exposed to the open sky, until morning dawned.



Chapter 13: Duguay-Trouin.

'Twas little sleep I got that night, my body smarting with the ill usage I had suffered, and my mind in a ferment of rage and dismay. This was the third and the worst mischance that had befallen me since I left Shrewsbury, and no one would blame me overmuch, perhaps, had I given way to utter despair. Old Woodrow had told me stories about such tricks of kidnapping, but, just as when we hear a parson denouncing sin we are apt to apply it to our neighbor and not ourselves, so I had never dreamed that I myself might be the victim of such an outrage. And remembering what Woodrow had said, I broke out into a sweat of apprehension, for I knew that I could not have been impressed as a mariner to serve aboard a privateer, as was often done; only tried mariners were seized with that intent, and certainly no one would wish to teach a raw landsman his duties on a vessel engaged in such a perilous and desperate business.

I could only conclude, then, that the design in kidnapping me was to ship me to the American or West Indian plantations, whither every year hundreds of poor wretches were sent to a dismal slavery. Woodrow had pointed out to me one day in the street a high magistrate of the city, who had made great wealth in the sugar trade, and did not disdain to add to it by selling flesh and blood.

My imagination racked with this fear, I lay sleepless, save for brief intervals of restless dozing. Soon after dawn I heard movements about the ship, and by and by some of the sailors came and looked at me, making all manner of jests in language fouler than I had ever heard. The features of one of them seemed familiar to me, though at first I could not recall place or time when I had seen him before. But after a while, as I watched him, I recognized him in spite of some change in his garb: it was the lodger whom Mistress Perry had wished to place in my room.

My kidnapping was then, I thought, a carefully arranged plan, and I remembered that before leaving the house I had told Mistress Perry in the man's hearing where I was going, and that I might return somewhat late. He had doubtless lodged there to spy on me, and I was sore tempted to speak to the fellow and ask him how much he had got for the dirty job.

But an hour or two afterwards I had fuller enlightenment as to my plight. The master of the vessel came aboard; he had spent the night ashore; and his foot no sooner touched the deck than he stepped to where I lay, and ordered one of the men to loose my bonds and stand me on my feet. And as I rose, staggering, I saw behind him the grinning faces of Cyrus Vetch and Dick Cludde. The meaning of it all flashed upon me; this was their revenge; and the knowledge heated me to such a fury that I leapt forward and, before I could be stopped, dealt Vetch a buffet that sent him spinning against the foremast. Cludde, ever chicken-hearted, turned pale, expecting a like handling, but he was spared, for the master cried to his men to seize me, and I was in a minute again pinioned and laid where I had been before.

"Hot as pepper," says the master, with a grin to Vetch.

"Yes," I cried, with an impetuous rage I could not check, "and 'twill be hot for you some day. You've no right to bring me here against my will, and I demand to be set free."

"Too-rol-loo-rol!" hummed the master, smirking again. "What a bantam cock have ye brought me here, Mr. Cludde?"

"He was a desperate fellow at school, Captain," said Cludde. "Why, when he was only eleven he pretty nearly murdered my friend Vetch here."

"Split my snatch block, you don't say so! We shall have to watch the weather with him aboard."

"D'you hear?" I cried, incensed beyond bearing. "Let me free, or I promise you you shall suffer for it, and those curs too."

"Didst ever see such a brimstone galley! I'll soon bring you to your bearings," and with that he gave me a cuff on the head which made me dizzy.

He left me then with the others, and soon afterwards I saw Cludde go over the side, taking farewell of the captain, and, to my surprise, of Vetch also. Still more astonished was I when, the order being given to throw off, the vessel dropped down with the tide, having Vetch still aboard. We made the mouth of the river, and stood out to sea; it was clear that my old enemy and I were to be shipmates, though I could not guess the purpose of his crossing the ocean.

During the ship's slow beating out I had had leisure to look about me, and I now knew that I was aboard the Dolphin, the privateer whose fitting out I had watched from the quayside. Despite my sorry situation I felt a stirring of interest and excitement; a privateer would scarce put to sea for nothing, and the thought that ere many days were passed I might be in the midst of a sea fight helped to drive my grievances from my mind. Withal I was puzzled: if slavery was not to be my lot, what had my enemies gained?

But I was soon, in sooth, in no state either to feed my imagination or to nurse my wrongs. The unaccustomed motion of the vessel produced on me the effect which but few escape; and we were no sooner fairly out in the Channel than I turned sick, and suffered the more severely, as I was told afterwards, because I had had no food for upwards of fifteen hours. For a whole day I lay in helpless misery: but then Captain Cawson (so he was named) himself came to me, hauled me to my feet, and with an oath bade me go and scrub the floor of the cook's galley. At the time I thought him a monster of brutality, driving me to my death; but I soon learned that nothing prolongs sea sickness, or indeed any sickness, so much as brooding on it, and the activity thus forced upon me had some part, I doubt not, in hastening my recovery.

From that time I was the ship's drudge. At everybody's beck and call, I was employed from morning till night in all kinds of menial offices. It was a hard life, and the treatment meted out to me was rough; but having got the better of my first rage and indignation, I resolved to make the best of my situation and to show no sullenness; besides I honestly wished to learn all that I could of a sailor's duty, and felt some little amusement in thinking that, if my enemies had sought this way of crushing me, they had very much mistaken their man. My activity and strength of limb stood me in good stead and won me a certain rough respect from officers and men, together with the real goodwill of a few of the better disposed among them.

After a day or two one old salt, named John Dilly, took me in a manner under his wing, and I made shift with his guidance to bear my part in shortening and letting out sail. Fortunately the weather was mild, and the early days of my apprenticeship were not so terrible as they might have been had the vessel encountered the storms that are commonly experienced in those seas, and especially in the Bay of Biscay, in which we beat about for nigh a week in the hope of sighting a Frenchman.

From John Dilly I learned that Vetch's position on board was that of purser, he having been introduced to the captain by Dick Cludde. Vetch attempted no active measures of hostility against me; indeed, he kept religiously out of my way, fearing maybe that I might seize an opportunity to settle accounts with him. Sometimes I saw him grin with malicious pleasure when he caught sight of me tarring ropes or engaged in some other arduous or unsavory task; but I never gratified him by giving sign of resentment or humiliation.

I had to take my watch with the rest of the crew. One morning, some ten days after leaving Bristowe, the captain came on deck at two bells and ordered me to the mizzen cross-trees to keep a sharp lookout, at the same time sending Dilly to the fore cross-trees. It was his practice, I had learned, to give a money bounty to the first man who sighted an enemy if the discovery resulted in a capture, and I was eager to win the prize, not more for its own sake than as a means of standing well with the captain.

The sun rose over the hills of France as I sat at my post. For a time I was entranced with the beauty of the sight, watching the changing hues of the sky, as pink turned to gold, and gold merged into the heavenly blue. But the morning air was chilly, and what with the cold and my cramped position I was longing for release when my eye was suddenly caught by what resembled the wing of a bird on the horizon about west-southwest. Was it the sail of a ship, I wondered, roused to excitement, or merely a cloud? Had old Dilly observed it?

I durst not cry out lest I were mistaken; but, straining my eyes, in the course of a few minutes I made out the speck to be beyond doubt the royals of a distant ship.

"Sail ho!" I cried with all my might.

"Where away?" shouts the captain, and when I answered "About west-sou'-west," he went to the companion way, reached for his perspective glass, and, mounting the rigging, climbed as high as the royal yard.

He took a long look through the glass, and then, shutting it up with a snap, he cries:

"You're right, my lad, smite my taffrail if you're not. She's a Frenchman, sure enough, and the bounty's yours if it comes to a battering and grappling. I'm a man of my word, I am."

The stranger was yet a good way off, and the captain, instead of altering the brig's course and standing in pursuit, shouted to the men to brace the yards round, and, the wind being due north, headed straight for Bordeaux, whither the vessel was to all appearance making. At the same time he hoisted French colors at the mizzen, and then ordered one of the anchors to be dropped over the stern and about fifty fathom of cable to be paid out, the meaning of which I did not understand till Dilly explained that 'twas to check the way on the brig and allow the stranger to overhaul us. Then he cried to us to lie flat on the deck and keep out of sight, and he sent one of the best hands to the wheel, wearing a red cap, which was, Dilly told me, to make him look like a Frencher.

There was only a light six-knot breeze, and Dilly said that the anchor dragging astern took quite two knots off our speed, so that in the course of an hour the stranger came clearly into view. She was a big barque, deep in the water, and the men chuckled as they peeped at her, for 'twas clear she was full of cargo. Every sail was set, alow and aloft, and she came on steadily at a good rate, not altering her course a point, from which 'twas plain she had as yet no suspicions of us.

I noticed that a buoy had been fixed to the end of the cable inboard.

"What's that for?" I asked Dilly, who lay at my side.

"'Tis ready to be flung over," he replied, "so as to mark the position of our cable when it is sent by the board. We'll come back for it anon."

When the vessel was about a mile distant, our captain gave the order to fling the cable overboard, then shouted:

"Hard up, wear ship."

We sprang to the braces, the ship spun round, and there we were on the starboard tack heading straight for the stranger. 'Twas clear then that she thought something was amiss, for she tried to put about and run for it; but being greatly hampered by her stern sails and the press of canvas she was carrying, by the time she had come round we had gained a good quarter mile upon her. The wind had freshened, and in some ten minutes our captain gave the order to haul the tarpaulin off Long Tom, the biggest of eight guns we carried, and give the Frenchman a pill. The gun was already loaded, and Bill Garland, the best shot aboard, of whose skill I had heard not a little from his messmates, laid it carefully and took aim, and then for a minute I could see nothing for the cloud of smoke. I sprang up in my excitement; 'twas the first shot I had ever seen fired, and the roar of it made me tingle and throb. But old Dilly pulled me down.

"Not so fast, long shanks," he said. "Our turn's a-coming."

"Did he hit her?" I asked, dropping down beside him.

"Clean through the mizzen topsail," he replied, "but done no more harm than blowing your nose."

The gun was reloaded, and Bill was about to fire again when the captain sang out to him to wait a little, for we were sailing two feet to the Frenchman's one, and drawing rapidly within point-blank range.

"He's loaded with chain shot this time," said Dilly, "and that's a terrible creature for clearing a deck or cutting up rigging. If Bill have got his eye we'll see summat according."

The gun spoke, and when the smoke had cleared we saw that the shot had cut through the Frenchman's mizzen and main weather rigging, bringing down the top masts with all their hamper of sails. Even to my inexperienced eye it was clear that the barque was crippled and lay at our mercy. She still kept her flag flying, however, and as we drew nearer we could see a throng of soldiers upon her decks, she being without doubt a transport returning from the French possessions in the West Indies. She fired a shot or two at us, but they fell short, her ordnance plainly being no match for ours, so we had nothing to do but heave to and rake her at our pleasure. After a couple of broadsides that made havoc on her decks, she suddenly struck her flag, and of our crew I was perhaps the only one who did not cheer, for it seemed to me that none but a craven would have yielded so easily, and I was longing for the excitement of boarding. We ran up to windward of her, and Captain Cawson, keeping the port broadside trained on her in case of treachery, sent an armed boat's crew in charge of the first mate to take possession of her.

I was not among those who were told off for this duty, but the fever of adventure had got such a hold upon me that I was hungry to take a share in what was toward. So I contrived to slip into the boat at the last moment, at some peril of a ducking, and mounted the Frenchman's deck with the rest. Then I wished that I had not been so impetuous, for the sight that met my eye was more terrible than anything I had ever imagined, and explained the surrender. Scores of wounded and dying men were strewn over the decks; their groans and piteous looks turned my heart sick. But such sights were no new thing to the rest of the crew. They set to work with amazing coolness to clear the decks, and get the vessel into trim, our captain having ordered the mate to rig jury masts, under which he hoped to sail the prize to England.

This seemed to me, I own, an enterprise of much danger, for we were near the French coast, and might easily fall in with a French frigate, or even a squadron of the enemy's vessels. But the prize was exceedingly valuable, and Captain Cawson was no more unwilling than any other English seaman to run a certain risk. Accordingly the soldiers and passengers on board the Frenchman were sent below and battened under hatches, and the crew was made to assist our men in cutting away the rigging and splicing and setting up the weather shrouds. The lighter sails were stripped off the foremast, the mate thinking to bring her into port under mizzen and main sail, together with all the fore and aft canvas that could be safely set.

'Twas the work of several hours to get things shipshape, the Dolphin meanwhile lying by to give us countenance and protection. When all was trim and taut we set a course for our own shores, following the Dolphin about three cables' lengths astern.

'Twas drawing towards sunset when she signalled to us that a sail was in sight. This news caused much commotion among us, still more when our own lookout cried that the vessel bearing towards us under press of sail out of the west was beyond doubt a frigate, and in all likelihood a Frenchman. I knew our case would be parlous if indeed it was so, for neither the privateer nor the merchant barque we had captured was armed in any wise to match a line-of-battle ship. Moreover 'twas unlikely that in our partly crippled condition we could out-sail the vessel: and when the mate, taking a look at the stranger through his perspective glass, declared that she was certainly French, our only hope was that darkness might shroud us before she came within striking distance—a slender chance at the best, for, though 'twas drawing towards dusk, the sky was wonderfully clear.

We held on our course, there being nothing else for us to do. The frigate loomed ever larger, and my heartbeats quickened as I wondered what the event would be. I did not dream that we should strike our flag as the Frenchman had done, and thought that we, having two vessels against one, would at least make a fight of it. But I was struck with mingled indignation and dismay when I saw the Dolphin crowd on all sail and bear away northwards, leaving us to our fate. I thought it a scurvy action on the part of Captain Cawson, and Dilly could not persuade me that he could have done us no good by remaining.

But the mate was not a whit discomposed. He swore a little, as did the men, yet without any heat: indeed they joked among themselves about the prison fare they would soon be starving on; and when a shot from the frigate fell across our bows, the mate merely spat out the quid he was chewing, and ordered the flag to be hauled down. Ten minutes after, the frigate was on our weather quarter, and dropping a boat, sent a crew aboard.

I was bitterly chagrined at this reversal of our fortunes, and when the Frenchmen who had been our prisoners were released, I went very sullenly with the rest into the boat that conveyed us to the frigate. We were clapped under hatches, and confined in the hold, a noisome close place, lit by a single oil lamp that stunk horribly.

"Smite me if it bean't Doggy Trang!" said the mate when the squat towsy-headed seaman who had conducted us below had left us. "I seed him at Plymouth a year or two ago."

I thought he was referring to the seaman, but it turned out that he meant the captain of the vessel, a young Frenchman named Duguay-Trouin, who was known to our men as a daring and courageous corsair. Two years before this, they told me, when commanding the royal frigate La Diligente of thirty-six guns, he had run among a squadron of six English vessels in a fog, and after a stout resistance was forced to yield, not before a ball from the Monk had laid him low. He was carried prisoner to Plymouth, whence he had cleverly escaped one night by scaling a wall and putting off in a little boat.

My companions soon accommodated themselves to their surroundings and fell asleep; but I was in too great a ferment to take matters so equably. I had no love for the buccaneers who had kidnapped me at Bristowe, to be sure: but my English pride was hurt at our capture by the French, and I quailed at the prospect of a long imprisonment in France. Surely, thought I, I must have been born under an unlucky star, for misfortune has dogged me ever since I left my native town.

The old seaman brought us some food by and by. He knew a little English, and in answer to a question from the mate explained that his captain was now hotly chasing the vessel which had run away, and if he caught it, the dogs of English would be sorry they ever showed their noses off the French coast. The captain being Duguay-Trouin, we knew that if it came to an action his ship would be well handled, and we had noticed that she carried far heavier metal than our own vessel. But the Dolphin had got a good start of her, and we did not suppose it possible that she could be overtaken.

I had never spent a more uncomfortable night than those hours in the hold. I could not sleep; the light went out; and in the darkness rats scurried hither and thither, and I had to keep my legs and arms in motion to ward them off. There was no glimmer of light from the outside, and it was only when the seaman again appeared with food that we knew morning had dawned. He told us with a grin that our vessel was fast being overhauled, and assured us that she had certainly made her last privateering voyage under the English flag. The mate cursed him vigorously, rather from habit than from ill temper, and the seaman shut us in, leaving us once more in total darkness.

My fellow prisoners talked among themselves, using language that made me shudder. I rested my head on my hands, stopping my ears and giving myself up to a dismal reverie. From this I was suddenly startled by a dull report overhead, and a slight trembling of the vessel.

"Ads my life!" cried the mate: "they've caught her."

"Maybe 'tis another vessel," said one of the men.

"Shut your mouth!" was the reply, "and list for an answer."

In a few moments there came a muffled report through the timbers.

"There's to be a fight, sure enough," said the mate, "though what the captain can be a-thinkin' of beats me altogether."

"I would do the same," I said, "and so would any Englishman worth his salt."

"Then you'd be as big a fool as he is," was the blunt retort.

It was a tantalizing position to be in. Here we were, boxed up in the darkness, condemned to listen to a duel of firing at long range, without any means of knowing what its effects were, hoping that our countrymen would win, yet aware that if the vessels came to close quarters a shot might plunge among us and send us all into eternity. We could tell that the vessel was racing through the water at a great rate, but, to judge by the reports that reached our ears, the distance between the combatants was not diminishing. The alternation of shots continued for some time; then suddenly the ship swung round with a violence that threw us all in a heap, and caused me to bump my head hard against the wall.

"Helm's hard up," said the mate, "she's going to try a broadside."

And in a few seconds there was a thunderous roar above, and a shock that made the vessel stagger. There was no reply save a single shock, from which I judged that the Dolphin was holding her course; and it was clear that the broadside had done little or no damage, for the ship again swung round, and the duel of single shots began again. But we could tell that the vessels were now nearer to each other, and after a time we heard a series of dull reports, followed by a thud or two and the sound of rending and tearing woodwork above and around. 'Twas a broadside from the Dolphin. But before we had time to rejoice at the success of our comrades, or to hope that their shots had brought down enough of the French ship's spars to disable her, the vessel shook again under a terrific discharge of her ordnance, and we, knowing how vastly superior was her armament to that of our own ship, were in no little anxiety as to the effect of this second broadside at shorter range. Another and another broadside followed from each combatant: and then came to our ears from the deck above a great yell of triumph. My heart sank within me; the mate let out a volley of oaths; 'twas impossible to mistake the meaning of that shrill cry.

The cannonading ceased. For a time that seemed endless there was silence, save for a shout now and then, and a thud that might be caused by the work of replacing or repairing an injured spar. Suddenly the hatch above was lifted, raised, and when our eyes became accustomed to the light we saw men swarming down the ladder into the hold. A French seaman among them relit the lamp, and we recognized the faces of some of our comrades on the Dolphin. Among the first I saw old Dilly, and behind him came Cyrus Vetch, his countenance black with rage. As soon as he was among us he launched out into bitter complaints at being herded with common seamen—he who by right and courtesy ought to have been classed with the officers and allowed the hospitality of a cabin.

"'Tis infamous," he cried; "'tis a scandal to treat a gentleman with such indignity. Duguay-Trouin was not so served when he was brought prisoner to Plymouth."

"Stow your jab!" cried the mate angrily. "Ain't we good enough for you? What's a land lubber like you doing here at all? We ain't aboard the Dolphin now, I'll let ye know, and here we're all equal, and smite my eye, if you complains of your company, and gives honest seamen any more of your paw-wawing, 'ware timbers is what I say to you, my gemman, or I'll rake you fore and aft."

From which it may be concluded that Vetch was by no means a favorite with the crew of the Dolphin.



Chapter 14: Harmony And Some Discord.

From Dilly I learned that the Dolphin had suffered severely in the engagement. A third of the crew had been killed or wounded: Captain Cawson himself was dead. The survivors had been divided, some being left in the Dolphin, the remainder being brought to the Francois; among these were the more severely wounded, who were tended with much humanity in the sick bay.

Now that the chase and the fight were over, we were allowed on deck a few at a time, a boon for which I was very grateful. I was surprised at the youth of our captor, the renowned Duguay-Trouin. He looked little older than myself, and was in fact, as I afterwards discovered, but twenty-three years of age.

His youthful appearance somewhat heartened me. Here was a man (so ran my thought) but little my senior, yet he had already won a great name for daring and courage; he had been captured and imprisoned, but had escaped, and was now again active in his vocation. Other men as well as I had their mischances and surmounted them: why should not I? Thus it happened that when, a few days later, we arrived at the French port of St. Malo, and were handed over to the authorities of the prison there, I was not so depressed in spirits as I had expected to be.

This was fortunate, for the lot to which we were condemned was miserable in the extreme. We had wretched quarters, foul and unhealthy; some five hundred prisoners, most of them captured in merchant vessels, were herded in a space not large enough for the comfortable habitation of half that number. In my heart I fully sympathized with Vetch's objection to being classed among the seamen, for they were in the main a sorry lot, filthy in their habits and base minded. Some, like old Dilly, were of a higher type, and these consorted together as much as possible.

The conditions at St. Malo were so had that I was not sorry when, after some few weeks there, a great number of us were marched out under an armed guard to a castle about fifteen miles to the southeast. A very woebegone battalion we must have looked as we tramped to our new quarters—many of us suffering from prison fever, all more or less in rags, and half starved. The change was due to no compassion on the part of the authorities, but to an alarm in the town. A sloop had come in, it appeared, with news that an attack was intended against the port by no other than Benbow, and it was feared that the prisoners might seize this opportunity for a mutiny. I did not learn this until after we had reached our new prison; it came out through one of our jailers, a talkative fellow who liked to air his little English, otherwise I should not have felt so much pleased at the change of quarters; though even if Benbow had assaulted the town and we prisoners had risen, it was improbable that we could have found a means of escaping to him.

The new prison was, as I have said, a castle, or to speak more precisely, the ruins of one. It had once been a place of considerable dimensions and of great strength; but it was now far gone towards demolition. The outer walls still stood, completely encircled by a moat, the only entrance being by way of the drawbridge which, to judge by its moss-grown edges, had not been raised for many a day. Marching over it, and through an archway, we found ourselves in the courtyard, a large area roughly square in shape, and open to the sky.

At the farther end, built against the wall in the intervals between three round towers, a kind of wooden barracks had been erected for our accommodation, the only habitable portion of the castle being the keep, flanking the entrance, and this was devoted to our guardians. Our barracks was in two stories, the lower being intended for use by day, the upper, which was reached by a ladder, containing our sleeping apartments. The rooms on the ground were lit by windows opening into the courtyard; the sleeping rooms only by narrow gratings in the wooden wall. I did not learn all this at once, of course; but I have set it down here for convenience sake.

On arriving at the castle we were marshaled in the courtyard, and taken into the keep one by one. There, with the aid of the loquacious sergeant as interpreter, we gave our names, ages, and descriptions to the commandant, a sour-visaged fellow, who entered the particulars in a book. Then we were severally assigned our sleeping quarters, and I found myself one of a squad of ten, none of whom was known to me with the exception of Vetch and Dilly. Vetch once more protested against being ranked with common seamen, and demanded to be released on parole; but the commandant ordered him gruffly to be silent, and he went away very sullen and wrathful.

Our sleeping apartment, I found, was a small room at the right-hand corner of the barracks—so small that I foresaw our nights would not be comfortable. There were five truckle beds ranged against the wall; 'twas clear that each of us would have a bedfellow. The bedding consisted of a hard straw mattress and a single woollen coverlet which, judging by its tenuity, had already seen service with generations of sleepers. Luckily it was early autumn; we should not need to dread the winter cold for some time to come; and I was young and lighthearted enough to flatter myself with the fancy that we should either be released as the sequel to some terrible defeat of the French, or that we should find some way of escape.

Being myself long and broad, I made matters even by choosing as my bedfellow a little fellow named Joseph Runnles, lean as a rake, and of a quiet and melancholy countenance, thinking that such an one would not discommode me in either body or mind. My choice was justified; he neither kicked nor snored, and was so reserved and silent that I believe I did not exchange with him a dozen words a week.

Our new quarters proved a deal less dreary than those we had left at St. Malo. The weather was fine; there was ample elbow room in the courtyard, and though we were closely watched by the guard constantly set at the gate, we had our liberty during the day. At night, when we repaired to our dormitories, the doors opening on the courtyard were locked, and we could dully hear the tramping of the sentry along the battlements above our heads.

In a few days we had settled down in our new life. Some of the men passed all the daylight hours in throwing dice or playing games of chance, not without frequent quarrels, which our guardians ignored so long as they remained short of fighting. Others, more industriously inclined, occupied themselves in fashioning toys from wood supplied them, which were afterwards sold in neighboring villages, the proceeds (after a very liberal commission had been subtracted) being devoted to the purchase of additions to their meagre fare.

As for me, the idea of escape was already beating in my mind, and as a first step I resolved to pick up a knowledge of the French tongue, of which I was almost wholly ignorant. Accordingly I lost no opportunity of conversing with soldiers of the guard, with whom I ingratiated myself by showing them some of the tricks of fence taught me by Captain Galsworthy. The only work which all the prisoners had to perform in turn was the drawing of water from a well in the keep. The water of the moat, as I had seen when we crossed it on entering, was covered with a green scum, the rivulet which fed it not being of sufficient volume to keep it in circulation.

A few days after our arrival I was laid low by a mild attack of jail fever, of which I had doubtless brought the seeds from St. Malo. I kept my bed for a couple of days, being tended with much kindliness by a little old surgeon attached to the garrison. I should not have mentioned this trifling sickness but that it prevented me from witnessing the arrival of a fresh batch of prisoners; so that when I descended on the third day into the courtyard I was mightily surprised to see, at that very instant carrying a bucket of water across from the keep, no other than my old friend Joe Punchard.

"Joe!" I cried, beyond measure delighted at seeing a familiar face.

Down went the bucket with a clatter upon the stones, and Joe looked around as though scarce trusting his ears. Then seeing me he waddled across, seized my hand, and shook it with a hearty goodwill that was somewhat over vigorous for my enfeebled condition.

"Ods firkins, sir!" he cried, "my head spins like a whirligig. How dost come here among these heathen Frenchies, and all the way from Shrewsbury, too?"

Before I was halfway through my story, one of the soldiers ran up and ordered Joe to fill his bucket again and wash out the lower rooms.

"Ay, I'm a swab again, sure enough," says poor Joe, going off ruefully to his task.

He was soon back, and when he had heard me through my account of what had befallen me since I saw him last, he broke out into vehement denunciation of Cyrus Vetch and all the race of Cluddes. Vetch himself happening to pass at that moment, wearing the hangdog look habitual to him since fate had made him a prisoner, Joe bursts out:

"Ay, you may well look ashamed of yourself, you villain! Where's that will, rogue? What have you done wi' 't?"

Vetch turned a shade paler, I thought. I had never said a word to him about the loss of my father's will, and had no intention of doing so, biding my time, and I was a little vexed that Joe in his impetuous espousal of my cause had let the fellow know of our suspicions. He halted a moment, then with a "What are you prating about, turnip head?" he turned on his heel and walked away.

Joe, in a great rage, was for springing after him, but I caught him by the arm and begged him to let the matter rest.

"Snatch my bowlines!" he cried, in a tone reminding me of Captain Cawson; "he'd better 'ware of running across my course. If I come athwart his hawser I'll turn him keel upwards, I will."

I diverted the current of his anger by asking him how he had become a prisoner of the French.

"Why, in a deuced unlucky way," says he. "Captain Benbow—he's now rear admiral, but will always be captain to me—he had a mind to draw alongside that there place they call St. Malo, and cut out a frigate of Doggy Trang he believed to be there, and he sent me and some more by night to take the bearings of the harbor. We was in a skiff, and a gale came on and beat us about all night and split our sails and drove us ashore in the very teeth of a crew o' Frenchies. There was a tight little scrimmage, I promise you, but they were two to one, and grappled us close, and clapped a stopper on our cable, hang 'em. They chained us together, the dogs, and marched us into St. Malo with scarce a rag to our backs, and yesterday they sent me and some more here."

"And right glad I am they did, Joe. But surely Captain Benbow did not send you in charge of the party?"

"Well, no, if you put it so, he didn't. We was in command of Lieutenant Curtis."

"And is he here, too?"

"No. He happened to have a pocketful o' money, and so they let him sling his hammock in the town, where he could spend it. When it is gone, belike they will send him to join us."

"And let us hope that we'll be gone as soon as his money, Joe. I am mighty glad you are here; for if we put our heads together we can surely find some way of getting free."

"Bless your eyes, don't I wish we may. Maybe there's a fate in it, sir. Fate jined you and me when it made me set Vetch a-rolling in the barrel, and 'tis fate has jined us all three here. Ay, please God, sir, one day we'll slip our cables, clap on all canvas, and steer for the north, though how, whereby, and by what means we can do it beats Joe Punchard."

The companionship of Joe, at a time when I was weak from my sickness, mightily cheered me, and we spent much of each day together. Our longing to be free did but increase as the days passed. The monotony of prison life fretted us, Joe perhaps less than me, for his life had been harder than mine, and as the days grew shorter, and the nipping cold of winter by degrees overtook us, we began to know what real wretchedness is. By day we could warm ourselves with exercise and active sports in the courtyard, but at night we shivered under our thin coverlets, and I found myself by and by wishing that my bedfellow Runnles had a little more flesh on his bones, for a lean man is no comfort in bed on a bitter night. Joe was not in my dormitory, or I should certainly have bedded with him.

Above everything else, I think, the wretched food made us unhappy. If a man be but well fed he can endure much hardship and trouble, and I had never wanted in this respect. The prison food was bad, ill cooked, and meagre; and though Joe, for one, might have procured better if he had chosen to employ himself in his old trade of coopering, he refused to do so after making one barrel, the price of which, after the soldiers' commission had been deducted, was something less than a fourth of what it would have been in England.

"'Noint my block!" he cried, when the pitiful sum was placed in his hand. "Dost think a Shrewsbury man 'll be done out of his dues by a codger of a Frenchman what he don't vally no more than pork slush or a stinking dogfish? Split my binnacle if I be!"

And he flung the money at the amazed Frenchman, and kept his word to work at his old trade no more.

I think this sturdiness of his raised him somewhat in the estimation of our jailers, and in spite of the opprobrious epithets he applied to them (which to be sure they did not understand) he was soon as popular with them as Vetch was the reverse. Joe was blessed with a great fund of good humor, which withstood all privation and restraint. He growled and groaned at being compelled to take his turn in scouring the floors and other menial tasks, but after emitting a stream of hot language, which ever appears to flow very freely from the lips of sailor men, he went his way with great cheerfulness. He joked with his fellow prisoners, and being of a loquacious turn, had many things to tell them of the doings of his hero, Captain Benbow.

Vetch, on the contrary, was what the Scriptures call a "continual dropping." He kept himself apart, sulking the livelong day, scarce ever speaking, and when he did speak using a tone which the Grand Turk might employ towards a beggar. It was true enough that the prisoners were inferior to him in quality, but, their lot and circumstances being the same, it was decidedly a mistake to make the others feel their inferiority, and, as I think, a mark of ill breeding to boot. His few words were sneers, and he had a contemptuous way of looking at a man that made one itch to thrash him. At length he was thrashed, and very smartly, by a man in our dormitory, and after that he was utterly ignored, by general consent. It happened in this wise.

One bleak day of mud and rain, when we were driven by the weather out of the courtyard into the lower rooms of the barracks, and were sitting in doleful dumps, at a loss how to pass the time, Joe Punchard cried out of a sudden:

"Come, souls, what's a spell of foul weather to men that have sailed the salt seas! Haul forward your stools, mates, and we'll have a concert and make all snug. I warrant some of you can troll a ditty, though ye be too modest to own it; and not being plagued wi' modesty myself, I'll heave anchor first."

I knew, nothing of Joe's musical powers, and it was with no little surprise I discovered that he had an excellent voice of the pitch they call barytone. He began:

Of all the lives, I ever say, A pirate's be for I; Hap what hap may he's allus gay And drinks an' bungs his eye. For his work he's never loath; An' a-pleasurin' he will go; Tho' sartin sure to be popt off, Yo ho, with the rum below.

At the conclusion of the stanza his audience broke into loud applause. And then, with a sheepish air that set me a-smiling, Joseph Runnles, my bedfellow, the little silent man of whom I have spoken, drew out of his pocket the parts of a flute, and putting them together, set it to his lips and accompanied Joe through the next stanza, picking up the tune with a facility that spoke well for his musical ear.

In Bristowe I left Poll ashore, Well stored wi' togs and gold; An' off I goes to sea for more, A-piratin' so bold. An' wounded in the arm I got, An' then a pretty blow; Comes home I finds Poll flowed away. Yo ho, with the rum below.

"Adad, brother," cries Joe, clapping the little man on the shoulder, "why have you stowed away your noble talents so long under hatches? I've sailed the seas for many a year; east, west, north and south, as the saying is; Blacks, Indians, Moors, Morattos, and Sepoys; but smite my timbers, never such a man of music have I drawn alongside of before."

Runnles blushed like a girl, and said never a word, but blew the moisture out of his flute, ready for the next stanza.

An' when my precious leg was lopt. Just for a bit of fun, I picks it up, on t'other hopt, An' rammed it in a gun. "What's that for?" cries out Salem Dick. "What for, my jumpin' beau? Why, to give the lubbers one more kick!" Yo ho with the rum below.

By this time the other men had got the hang of the song, and when Joe started the next stanza they joined in, trolling the tune (they knew not the words as yet) in voices high and low, rough and coarse for the most part, and with more heartiness than melody. This happy thought of Joe's cured our dumps and put us all in a good temper, and for the rest of that morning we sat singing songs, and listening to the tootling of Runnles' flute, when the little man could be prevailed on to treat us to a solo.

"You be mighty bashful for a sailor man," said Joe at the end of the concert, "partickler as your name be Joe like mine, but we won't let 'ee hide your talents any more, split my braces if we will."

It was on the night of that day that Vetch got his thrashing. We had gone early to our dormitory because of the rain, and being unable to sleep for the cold, one of the men suggested that Runnles should give us a tune.

"'Tis comfortin' to the spirits," said the man, a big fellow known to us as the bosun: his name was Peter Wiggett.

Runnles, evidently gratified at this mark of appreciation, put his flute together and began to pipe the tune of Mr. Ackroyd's famous song of the fight in '92 when Admiral Russell beat the French. This, to be sure, was rather inspiriting than soothing, and thus perhaps there was a shadow of excuse for Vetch when he called out from under his coverlet (he lay in the next bed):

"Cease that squealing, hang you, and let a man get to sleep."

"Belay there!" shouted the bosun.

"Pipe away, Runnles, and we'll love you, my hearty."

Runnles struck up again, but he had not gone far (it was to the line, "To meet the gallant Russell in combat on the deep") when the fluting suddenly ceased, and we heard a cry that was certainly a squeal. Vetch had got out of bed in the dark and, snatching the flute from Runnles' hand, caught him by the throat. I sprang up from Runnles' side, but the bosun from the bed beyond was before me.

"Avast, you lubber!" he cries, flinging himself on Vetch; "I thought we should grapple one day: now I'll bring you up by the head, you swine."

And with that he took Vetch with the left hand, and belabored him with the right until the poor wretch fairly howled for mercy. Then he threw him on to his bed (with some damage, I fear, to Dilly, who shared it), and bade Runnles play up: but the little man was so much upset at the turn affairs had taken that he declared his lips were too dry to blow a note, and indeed it was several days before he could be prevailed on to flute again.



Chapter 15: The Bass Viol.

Where one leads, others are sure to follow. It was wonderful how many of the prisoners discovered a talent for music after Punchard and Runnles had thus led the way. Our jailers encouraged this pastime; it was not merely harmless in itself, but it had a quietening effect on the temper of the men, and the squabbles and brawls among them notably diminished. One of the Frenchmen unearthed an old fiddle, and though one of its strings was wanting, a man named Ben Tolliday contrived to scrape very passable melody out of it. Old John Dilly announced that he had played the cornet in his youth, and before very long an instrument was found for him, and after a few days' practice (during which we had to suffer a variety of discordant and ear-splitting noises) he recovered something of his former skill. An old drum with a very loose membrane was found in the lumber room of the keep, and this the bosun appropriated, though being quite destitute of a sense of rhythm he made but an indifferent performer. Some of the men fashioned original instruments for themselves, one of these, a mouth organ, being a real triumph of ingenuity.

I, alas, had no singing voice, and was totally ignorant of music; but Joe kindly informed me that any fool could play the bones, and made two pairs of castanets for me out of beef bones supplied by the soldiers (we had no joints ourselves, but only a bullock's cheek now and then) so that I too was able to bear my part in the concerts which now became of daily occurrence.

The soldiers of the guard often came and listened to our performances, and even the sour-faced commandant once condescended to form part of our audience, and smiled broadly when Dilly, who was a Devon man, sang with much expressive pantomime the pleasant ditty of Widdicombe Fair, though the Frenchman did not understand a word of it.

This condescension on the part of the commandant emboldened me to proffer a request which I had been meditating for some days. I had by no means given up the hope of escaping from the castle, but the more I thought of it, the less likely it appeared that I could succeed without assistance. Of course, Joe Punchard should accompany me, and when I talked the matter over with him, neither of us had the heart to scheme for our own freedom without regard to those of our fellow prisoners with whom we had become more closely connected through our musical interests.

"There is old John Dilly," I said one day, when we were discussing the subject, "he was good to me aboard the Dolphin; I shouldn't like to leave him behind."

"True," says Punchard, "and Runnles is a quiet, good soul; besides his name is Joe."

"And the bosun, he's as strong as an ox, and might be a useful man."

"And Tolliday, he's for ever sighing about Molly, his sweetheart; 'twould make two folks happy (maybe) if he got away among us."

Thus we ran over the list of our friends very seriously, though it tickled my sense of humor when I remembered that we had not as yet the ghost of a notion how this escape we talked of was to be contrived. But having thus selected our partners in the attempt we were resolved to make some day, we decided that it would be a step in the right direction if we all shared the same dormitory. We might then talk over the matter without the danger of it being blabbed among the whole body of prisoners.

Accordingly I took advantage of the commandant's gracious appearance among our audience to ask him (having now picked up enough French to make myself understood) to allow all the members of the band to sleep together, explaining that we should attain to greater efficiency if, after the lower doors were locked for the night, we could practice for an hour or so together before the sun went down. His grim face relaxed into a smile at the serious manner in which we took our diversion, and he readily granted the permission we desired. By this change we got rid of Vetch, who was glad enough to leave us, I doubt not.

The first step having thus been gained, I began to devote myself earnestly to the problem of escape. I did not make light of the difficulties. The only entrance to the castle precincts was, as I have said, the gateway at the end of the drawbridge, and this was so stoutly guarded that escape in daylight was impossible. At night we were locked in the dormitory nearly thirty feet above ground, with a thick stone wall between us and freedom, and supposing we could make a hole in the wall, which seemed unlikely, there was still the moat to be reckoned with. It was not only too far below for any one to dive into it with safety, but it was, as I had learned from the soldiers, choked with mud to within a very little of the surface, so that I could not but doubt whether it were possible even to swim across. But I did not despair of crossing it if we could only get down: that was the difficulty, and for long tedious weeks it seemed to me insuperable.

Before we had hit upon a plan, we were thrown into a great excitement by the disappearance of Vetch. I had missed him for a day or two from the courtyard, but thought little of it, supposing that he was confined to his dormitory by a touch of fever, as happened not infrequently among the prisoners. But on Punchard's remarking one day that he believed Vetch was malingering, it came out that he had not been seen by his roommates for nearly a week.

Was it possible that while we had been merely thinking of escape, Vetch had found a means of escaping? It seemed impossible, and when I was having my daily conversation with the soldiers of the guard, I asked point blank what had become of him. They laughed and chuckled, and amused themselves for some time by giving all manner of fantastic explanations, which improved my knowledge of French, but were mightily vexatious. At last I made out, from hints and half statements, that the commandant had been discreetly inquiring among some of the prisoners for a man who was well acquainted with the river Avon. Since these inquiries ceased and Vetch disappeared about the same time, I was free to conclude that in Vetch the commandant had found his man. Had he purchased his freedom at the price of treason to his country? Were the French meditating an attack on Bristowe? These were questions I could not answer; but you may be sure the knowledge that Vetch was gone acted as a whip to my determination, and I was more than ever resolved to find some way of leaving these walls behind.

We had concluded, Punchard and I, that our only course must be to pierce the castle wall and let ourselves down to the moat by means of a rope. The latter portion of this scheme being manifestly the more likely, we decided to secure our rope first. This was easier said than done. Our coverlets were of such thin and rotten material, we should need to tear up several of them before, even carefully knotted, they would serve our purpose, and we could not risk the detection that would surely follow if any of them were missed by our guards. When I went next to take my turn at drawing water from the well I carefully examined the rope by which the bucket was let down, thinking it might be possible to cut this one night at an hour when its loss would not be discovered till next day and the birds had flown. But a close inspection showed that it was very rotten; evidently it had seen long service; and while it was still strong enough to stand the strain of a bucketful of water, I could not flatter myself it would safely bear my weight, to say nothing of the bosun, who was a deal heavier.

But since a rope we must have, I pleased myself with the fancy that if I should succeed in procuring that it might be taken as a good augury for success in the more difficult feat, the piercing of the wall. Could we make a rope, I wondered? We had a fair quantity of bast, in the mats that formed the only covering of the floor of our barracks, but not near enough to form a rope sufficiently stout to bear the weight of even the lightest of us; besides the tearing up of the mats could not fail to be discovered.

Racking my brains for some means of overcoming the difficulty, I suddenly bethought myself of trying a ruse. I said nothing of my intention to Punchard (to the others I had as yet not breathed a word of our purpose) but the next time I went to the well I took a knife with me, and, choosing a portion of the rope where it was much frayed, I carefully sawed through one or two of the strands with the blunt edge. The result was that when I was drawing the full bucket up, the rope snapped, the bucket fell to the bottom with a clatter, and I (to make the accident more convincing) toppled over on my back. Up came one of the guard, and rated me soundly for my clumsiness, employing a succession of abusive terms which I stored in my memory for use in case of need.

I picked myself up slowly, rubbing my back, and, putting on the most innocent air in the world, I pointed to the frayed rope and asked whether my corrector could expect such a thing as that to last for ever. The man grumbled a good deal, but the condition of the rope admitted no answer to my question, and I had the satisfaction next day of seeing a brand new rope attached to a brand new bucket. I even had the pleasure of using it for the first time, for the old rope having broken when I was on duty, I was condemned to the punishment of drawing water for a week afterwards, an extension of my task which I bore with wonderful cheerfulness.

When I told Punchard of what I had done he laughed with great delight, but immediately became very sober.

"'Tis all no use, sir," says he gloomily. "For why? I can't swim."

This was a difficulty I had not foreseen. How is it, I wonder, that so many men who go down to the sea in ships do not master that most useful art—the very first, one would think, that should engage their attention? 'Twas true, the depth of water above the mud in the moat was so little that even the best swimmer would be at a bad pass; but I hoped that with the coming of the spring rains this would be remedied. Yet if Punchard and any of the others were unable to swim, the moat would be impassable were it dredged to the bottom; and since we must descend the rope singly, and the water came right up to the wall, I could not see for the life of me how this disability could be got over.

Finding our purpose thus stopped in this direction (though but for a time, for my resolution was in nowise weakened), I began to devote myself earnestly to what I had felt all along was the crux—the breaking through the wall. So deeply was I preoccupied with this baffling problem that I fear I clattered my bones but half heartedly in our musical concerts. Yet it was during one of these concerts that some good genie flashed upon my invention a plan which promised (if it could be carried out) to solve the very difficulty I had almost given up as insoluble. I say it was a good genie that suggested the idea to me, for, looking back upon it, I can account for it in no other way.

I was watching Tolliday sawing away at his fiddle, and marveling (being ignorant of music) at the loud tones which he produced from so small an instrument. 'Twas clear that the hollow belly of the fiddle had some part in the effect, and then I remembered the big bass viols I had seen used in the church at home, and reflected that the larger the instrument the deeper and more powerful the tones.

And here came in the genie to supply the link which led to the formation of my plan. In my mind's eye I saw a big hollow vessel shaped like a bass viol floating on the water of the moat, and Joe Punchard clinging to it, and I wished with all my heart that one of our jailers would discover such an instrument, and hand it to us for the use of our band. 'Twas but a step from wishing to devising. We had no bass viol; could we not make one? No one would oppose us; the band was highly popular with the garrison, and I was sure that they would willingly provide us with material for the construction of yet another instrument.

Accordingly, next morning I suggested that we should ask the commandant to give us some planks of wood with which to make an instrument of a new model. The men were amused at the notion, never suspecting that I had any other design than to enrich the harmony of our ensemble. 'Twould be good fun, they agreed, though they had great doubt (as I had myself) whether our unskilled workmanship would produce anything but a useless monstrosity so far as music was concerned. They were willing to try, however, the attempt would help us to kill time; and the commandant proving perfectly agreeable to humor us, we gut the planks, borrowed some tools from the soldiers, and set to work.

The next following days saw half a dozen of us busily employed in the courtyard in knocking together a long shallow box, in the upper side of which we pierced S-shaped holes like those of the fiddle, with a notched bridge at about one-third of its length for holding four strings, and wooden screws at the other end for stretching them taut. Joe Punchard, good fellow, was the most ardent of the artificers, plying the tools with a dexterity born of his work for master cooper Matthew Mark years before. We got from the soldiers, who showed a great interest in our task, cords of different thickness, and several lengths of iron wire which we twisted together somewhat after the manner of the thickest string of the fiddle. We then stretched this and three cords over the bridge on the top of the box, screwed them to a high tension, and plucked them to see if they emitted notes that could be called musical.

The result surpassed my expectations. Tolliday, our fiddler, declared that the notes were true music, though to be sure not very resonant, and he undertook to tune the strings in fifths, so that it might be able to take a proper part in our next symphony. Having no bow with which to scrape the strings, he said that they could only be strummed with the finger and thumb, and when he offered to teach one of us thus to handle it, there were many candidates for the place, which in the end fell to a man named Winslow. The men were all mightily pleased with the success of our work, and I was secretly delighted, not with the instrument as a producer of music, but at knowing that we had a box which might serve those of us who could not swim as a raft.

We had now at command (if we could secretly purloin it) a rope to let us down, and a raft to ferry us over the moat, but we had still to find a means of getting beyond the wall, and to this I bent all my energy of mind. In this, too, I took Joe Punchard into consultation, and we discussed all kinds of plans. With the sentry on guard throughout the night in the courtyard there was no hope of escape by the gate and drawbridge. There was no opening in the wall. The only possible means of exit was to cut a hole in it, and this would be a matter of great toil, the wall being, as some one had told us, ten feet thick. It consisted, so far as we could tell from the inside, of solid blocks of stone cemented together, and when, at an odd moment when no one was looking, I tried to scrape away some of the cement between two of the stones, I found that it was almost as hard as the stone itself.

To cut through ten feet of such solid material was a task that might have caused any one to despair. Still, it was the only course open to us, and I have never known any task too hard for patience and determination. Joe and I decided that we must gradually scrape away the cement around one of the blocks until we could remove this altogether, and then work at the next one, and the next, until we had pierced right through to the open air.

Apart from the toilsomeness of the task, there were risks to be feared and provided against. First; one or another of the soldiers inspected our dormitory every day. This inspection, 'tis true, had become somewhat perfunctory, the man being content, as a rule, to mount the ladder until his head was a foot or two above the level of the floor, throw a hasty glance around, and descend again. The second risk was more serious. Since we could hear at night the tramp of the sentry going his round of the battlements, it was probable that, however quietly we might work, the sentry would hear the sound of scraping as he passed above. If the wall had been wainscotted, he might suppose such sounds to be caused by the gnawing of mice; but there was no likelihood of mice making their habitat in a thick stone wall. Further, even if we should so contrive that our task of scraping was interrupted when the sentry passed, there was still the danger that the sound might attract the attention of the men in the adjoining dormitory. If they should get any suspicion of what was toward, it would soon be common talk among the whole body of prisoners, and some whisper of it would certainly reach the ears of the guard.

In order to lessen this risk, Joe and I decided to begin our work at a stone measuring three feet by two, in the right-hand corner of the dormitory, farthest removed from the partition dividing us from the next, and a foot or two above the floor, so that a bed could be pushed against the wall and hide all signs of our operations in case a sudden visit of inspection was made.

These preliminaries having been settled by Joe and myself, the time was come for taking our roommates into our confidence. I did not disguise from myself that we were staking a great deal on their loyalty, and even more on their silence, for the slightest whisper of the plot outside our own little company would be fatal. There were ten of us bandsmen altogether. At first I thought of speaking to the men individually, and thus testing their courage and enterprise. But on reflection I decided that what was most requisite to our success was a corporate spirit, which could be best engendered by opening the matter to them as a body. Accordingly, one evening, when we were assembled in the dormitory for a practice, I took the fateful plunge.

I am not an orator, and I shall not set down here the words in which I addressed them. Suffice it to say that they listened very attentively, not at first perceiving the full drift of my meaning, so careful was I to feel my way with them. They held me in some special consideration, which I no doubt owed partly to Joe Punchard, who had told them something of my story, and when at length I declared plainly our intention to escape, asked them if they would join hands with us, and impressed on them the necessity of maintaining silence about it, they one and all promised that never a word should pass their lips.

As to the scheme itself, when I unfolded its details, they were somewhat dubious, and, strangely enough, the most enthusiastic in its favor was little Runnles, the melancholy flute player, and the most doubtful was the bosun, whose physical courage was equal to anything, but who was daunted by what appealed more particularly to the moral qualities of patience and endurance. He dwelt lugubriously on the difficulties I have already mentioned, and shook his head when I combated his objections; but he agreed to throw in his lot with the rest of us, and said that if we once got clear of the walls, and there was any fighting to do, he would break any Frenchman's head as soon as look at him.

Nothing remained now but to begin operations, and I soon found that the demands upon our patience would be even more exacting than I had supposed. We divided our company of ten into five watches, each to take a spell of two hours' work. One night, as soon as all was quiet, Joe and I set to work, he with a chisel which he had used in making our new instrument, I with my clasp knife. Very gently, so as to avoid noise, we began to scrape away at the mortar between the block of stone we had selected for removal and the one below it.

Runnles hit upon a capital way of warning us of the approach of the sentry within earshot. He tied a string to Joe's leg, and gave it a tug when he heard the tramp of footsteps above. Then we desisted for a minute or two, resuming our work when the footsteps had died away.

At the end of our two hours' spell we were disappointed at the little we had been able to do. Two small heaps of dust lay at the foot of the wall, but the impression on the hard mortar or cement had been but slight, and I was appalled to think of the weeks that must elapse before we had cut completely round the stone. But I professed myself well satisfied with the start we had made, and we handed over our tools to Dilly and Tolliday, the next couple, with encouraging words.



Chapter 16: Across The Moat.

It would be tedious to chronicle the stages of our progress, the hopes and fears, the anxieties and suspense, which in turn laid hold of me. Night by night for a week, in pitch darkness and bitter cold, we scraped away the cement, carrying away in the morning in our pockets the dust that fell, and disposing of it in the sweepings of the courtyard.