The boy was straining to see him out of sight when a resounding bellow from Becky Boozer let him know that dinner was ready. Hastily shutting the window and running downstairs, Chris could think of only one thing.

"Becky!" he cried, bursting out at the bottom of the stairs, "Who is the blind man that just went by—the hunchback?"

Becky never even turned from the plate she was preparing. "Oh, him? That would be Simon Gosler, one of Claggett Chew's men. How he can be a sailor beats me, but Claggett Chew has hired him for years, plague take him! Now," and she came toward the sunny table with a beaming smile, "eat up, young man, or I shall think my cooking does not please you!"

Chris hurriedly set about proving his appreciation.



CHAPTER 10

The learning of magic was by no means easy. The days went by with Chris's mornings and afternoons spent in Mr. Wicker's study, reading books too heavy for him to lift, learning incantations by heart, and how to blend simple formulae over the fire. He had told his master at once about Simon Gosler, his horde of money and his hiding places for it. Mr. Wicker though interested and attentive, gave Chris the impression that what he had been told was not new to him. At times Chris was allowed to run about the large vegetable garden and climb the orchard trees, but he was told that the moment had not yet come when he could wander at will in early Georgetown.

Chris had tried it once, rebellious and bored at the now familiar ground, but it was as if an invisible wall kept him in the confines of Mr. Wicker's land, a slippery glass wall he could feel but not see, and in which he could discover no chink in which to put his toe to find the height of it. So there was nothing left to do but to work as fast and as well as he could. "There are rumors," Mr. Wicker had told him quietly, too quietly, "that Claggett Chew is preparing his ship, the Venture, for a voyage East. There is much activity about his ship, and he is laying in stores, so I am informed. We must get forward with all haste, for his ship is a fast one—faster than the Mirabelle."

Chris therefore threw himself into all the preliminaries of his task. His head swam when he laid it on his pillow at night, and Becky Boozer would stand with her hands on her barrel-sized hips, shaking her hat until its plumes and roses waved madly, over "her boy's" shadowed eyes and weary air.

For Chris was now as accepted a member of the household as Mr. Wicker himself, and had it not been for the robust guffaws of Ned Cilley, and the ministrations of the now devoted Becky, Chris's days would have been tedious indeed.

One afternoon when he returned, after a rest, to Mr. Wicker's study, he saw that there was something new in the room. A bowl with a goldfish in it stood on the table, but Mr. Wicker was not to be seen. Now, however, Chris was not the boy he had been a few weeks before. He went straight to the bowl and addressed the fish.

"Sir," he said to the goldfish, "I am here. What shall I do first?"

The goldfish might almost have been said to have changed its expression and smiled, before, brushing a drop of water from his sleeve, Mr. Wicker stood beside the table smiling.

"How you have improved, my boy!" he exclaimed. "It is now time for you to try, and this is as good a change as any."

All at once, at the imminent prospect of really changing himself into some other form, Chris became frightened and his hands grew cold.

"Oh, sir! Do you really think I know how?" he cried, gazing up into the face of his master. "Suppose I change and can't change back?"

Mr. Wicker shook his head with a smile.

"Never fear, Christopher. You know enough to start, and I feel reasonably sure that you will be quite able to change back again. If you get stuck I can help you. Come now," he said, putting out his hand to touch Chris's shoulder in a reassuring way, "here you go. Remember Incantation Seventy-three, Book One."

Chris stared at the fishbowl, empty now. He remembered Incantation 73, Book One, quite well, but his knees began to tremble and he stood as if paralyzed. Mr. Wicker waited patiently beside him for a few moments for Chris to get up his courage.

Then as nothing happened, with a voice like a whip Mr. Wicker said: "Start at once!"

Chris was so startled at his usually gentle master's tone that without further thought or effort on his part, he began intoning to himself the words and sounds of Incantation 73, Book One. As he went on, concentrating on becoming a goldfish in the bowl on the table, he became aware of a humming sensation in his head. This grew until it seemed that all his body was filled with the strange new vibration, tingling from his feet to the crown of his head. The sensation spread, faster and faster. His head swam and he felt faint and a little sick, but he persisted through the final words. Somewhere deep inside him there seemed a sudden lurch, and then a wonderfully cool, liquid sensation. He felt buoyant and rested and looked about, only to get a wavery, enlarged glimpse of Mr. Wicker, looking more like a reflection in a circus mirror than himself. With a light twist of his body Chris floated over, to see that the room looked the same, and rolling back, could see that Mr. Wicker was peering in at him from above and smiling broadly.



"Good Lord—I'm a fish!" Chris said, and he heard the words muffled as they came back to him through the water of his bowl. Well, what do you know? he thought, not without a feeling of pride, and commenced experimenting with his tail and fins with such enthusiasm and delight that some little time elapsed before Mr. Wicker's voice boomed close by.

"Better come back now. Take it slowly, son. Seventy-four, Book One: The Return."

The same strange sensations flooded Chris as he made the change back to his own shape, but when he stood once more on his own two feet on the carpet in Mr. Wicker's study, he was pleased and happy despite his weakness. Mr. Wicker took hold of his arm and helped him to a chair, and taking a small vial from the cupboard at the end of the room, he dropped a pellet into it and handed it to Chris.

"This will seem to smoke. Sniff the smoke and drink the liquid that remains," he said.



Chris did as he was told, and his momentary weakness vanished, leaving him quieted and as strong as usual.

"There now," Mr. Wicker said, rubbing his hands with immense satisfaction, "that was not so bad, was it? A peculiar feeling, but as you come to do it more often and more quickly, the change will come more rapidly and in time you will be scarcely aware of the sensations at all." He looked at his pupil with pride. "You will do famously, my boy. In another moment, when you have rested, we shall try another one."

From that time, Chris became increasingly proficient, and as his ability grew he began to find magic a wonderful game, which he and Mr. Wicker played together. They played this new and unique form of hide-and-seek, each one taking a new shape, turn by turn, as a challenge to the other's powers of imagination and detection. Soon Chris could turn himself into a limited number of things, for even Mr. Wicker's magic had a limit: a singing bird in a cage, a part of the pattern in the brocaded curtains, or a section of the design in the Indian rug. The bluebottle fly or the goldfish became as easy as saying "Eureka!" and on one occasion Chris turned himself into the chair on which Mr. Wicker was sitting, and then walked across the room on his four wooden legs carrying Mr. Wicker, who laughed more heartily than he had in years at this display on the part of his student.

One day Chris wandered alone into the dusty shop. The time had nearly come when he could walk about in early Georgetown and know that it would still be the Georgetown of the past, and not the one into which he had been born. This afternoon, a rainy one, he had tired of changing himself into and out of objects. Mr. Wicker was busy, and Becky Boozer had gone off to market accompanied by Ned Cilley. Chris felt somewhat forlorn and lonely, as any boy might, and kicked an old piece of wood ahead of him into the darkness of the shop.

Going up to the shop window, he stood with his hands thrust into his pockets staring glumly first out the window and then, idly, at the three objects he had once loved to contemplate, the Mirabelle in her bottle, the coil of heavy rope, and the carved wooden figure of the Nubian boy.

Without interest at first, Chris stared at the little Negro boy, so gaily dressed in full red trousers, gilded jacket and white turban. The figure's shoes, carved in some Eastern style, had curved up-pointing toes. Then all at once the idea came to Chris. If he was to be a magician, could he make this boy come to life?

The prospect excited him wildly, for he had no companion with whom to laugh and share jokes. Grown people, however gay and kind, were never quite the same. The more he thought of it, the more Chris knew it had to be attempted. He squatted on his haunches, examining the carved wooden figure attentively, and felt convinced that, once alive, the boy would be an ideal and happy companion.

But how did one change inanimate to animate? Chris got up and stole back to Mr. Wicker's door. He heard the magician going up the spiral staircase to his room above, and after changing himself to a mouse to slip under the door and see that the room was really empty, Chris resumed his proper shape and opened the doors of the cupboard at the far end of the room.

On its top shelf was Book Three, a book a foot thick and bound in heavy brass studded with semi-precious stones in the form of signs and symbols. With difficulty, standing on tiptoe, Chris lifted it down, and placing it on the floor, turned over page after page.

The afternoon, rainy before, increased in storm. Dusk came two hours before its time; thunder snarled in the sky.

At last Chris found it. There were the words, and there the charm. Certain elements were to be mixed and poured at the proper time. He hurried, memorizing as he closed the book, and hoisted it once more to its high shelf. Looking about, he found the ingredients that had been listed, and in an empty vial poured first two drops of this, and then seventeen of that, and ran to heat it at the fire.

Mr. Wicker began moving about upstairs; the floorboards creaked, and still Chris could not leave until the potion fumed and glowed.

After what seemed an endless time, amid a growing grind of thunder and in the almost darkened room, the phial in Chris's hand gave off an arching rosy glow. Chris, his cheeks hot from excitement and the fire, tiptoed out just as Mr. Wicker's step creaked on the topmost tread of the spiral stair. With infinite caution Chris closed the door silently behind him, and running lightly forward, reached the figure of the Negro boy.

The words came out, interrupted by peals and cracks of thunder. The shop was black except for the paler crescent of the bow window giving onto the street. With a crash of thunder all but drowning out his words, the boy shouted in the emptiness of the shop as he poured the rosy liquid on the figure made of wood.

And then, appalled at his audacity, Chris dropped the phial which splintered on the floor. Watching there in the darkness, he shook so with nerves that he had to kneel.

For in the blackness lit only by the lightning and its own eerie glow, the wood was changing as he watched.

It was as if the stiffness melted. Under his eyes the wooden folds of cloth became rich silk, embroidery gleamed in its reality upon the coat, and oh! the face! The wooden grin loosened, the large eyes turned, the hand holding the hard bouquet of carved flowers moved, and let the bouquet fall. The feet of the boy twitched and shifted in their pointed shoes.



Aghast, Chris remained frozen as the boy moved slowly, and a final Boom! of thunder seemed to split the sky apart. Outside, the rain poured down as if over some skyward dam.

The boy looked down at Chris with a radiant smile and put out his hand.

"I'll help you up," he said to the kneeling boy in front of him. "I am Amos."

And as they turned, the light and the dark hands holding firm, the firelight was streaming from the distant door and Mr. Wicker waited.



CHAPTER 11

From that time on Chris and Amos were inseparable, with the exception of those times when Chris studied alone with Mr. Wicker. Amos, during these hours, soon endeared himself to Becky Boozer, to whom he became invaluable, for he took over those chores Chris had undertaken as his share. These consisted of carrying water, peeling potatoes, or watching the roasting meat in case it should burn. For Chris had less and less time for such jobs, and Amos's laughter and willing happy nature soon made Becky spoil him as much as she did Chris.

Another cot was put into Chris's room, and night after night they would hang out the two mansard windows, watching what went on below until it was too dark to see. Or else they would talk by the light of their candle until they fell asleep.

Chris now knew how lonely he had been until he set Amos free from his wooden shroud, but, warned by Mr. Wicker, he did not tell his new friend that he came from another year as yet unreached by the time they lived in.

"It is enough for a while," cautioned Mr. Wicker, "that Amos get used to being limber and alive. That is change enough from a carved wooden figure. It would only confuse and trouble him to think you do not really belong where you are. So let him be happy. And I shall seal your lips with regard to the secret of the Jewel Tree, for that must be known to no one," and so saying he rubbed a salve over Chris's lips.

"Now tell me what you are to journey after," commanded Mr. Wicker. But when Chris attempted to talk of the Jewel Tree, the words would not pass his lips but remained in his mouth like a handful of marbles.

"Good," said Mr. Wicker, rubbing his hands. "Not even to me. Excellent stuff, this," he added, turning the tiny case that contained the salve in his fingers. "I got it in India years ago, and this is the last of it. But I hardly imagine I shall need it again. Its use is somewhat drastic, but occasionally wise."

"Mr. Wicker," Chris said thoughtfully one afternoon after his lessons and memorizing were over for the day, "of the three things in your shop window that I liked best, two have been explained. Yet the third, which still interests me, seems to have had, so far, no significance. I mean, of course, the rope."

"Ah yes," Mr. Wicker agreed, nodding and stretching his feet out toward the fire, "the rope. Very well, my boy, since it has come into your mind again, that means that the time has come for you to discover its use. Go and bring it to me."

Chris ran to get the coiled rope. He experienced almost a shock when he touched it. It had looked harsh and coarse to the touch, of rough hemp fibre, but on picking it up, the coils in his hand seemed almost silky. Certainly they were more than usually pliable. Returning to the study, the boy put the rope beside Mr. Wicker's chair. The magician did not move, his feet still stretched comfortably towards the flames. His dark handsome face was dreamy and remote, and Chris wondered in what faraway place or time his teacher moved. The apprentice sat down cross-legged with his back to the fire, and presently Mr. Wicker took his gaze from the sparks and smoke to look thoughtfully at him.

"You have heard of the Indian rope trick, Christopher?"

"Yes—and no, sir," Chris replied. "I'm not sure how it works."

Mr. Wicker gave a chuckle. "Indeed? Well, let me tell you, my boy, no one else does either. The rope is made to go up in the air, so stiffly that the fakir—that is, the Eastern magician—can climb it. Some claim to have seen the fakirs climb up it and vanish from sight, and the rope disappear after them."

Mr. Wicker waved one hand as much as to say that those who had seen it could believe as they pleased.

"A good enough trick, in its way," condescended Mr. Wicker, "but this rope is capable of so much more remarkable possibilities as to throw the Indian rope trick completely in the shade."

With one of his quick gestures, Mr. Wicker reached down for the rope and was up and out of his chair, all in one movement.

"You shall learn, last of your lessons, a new way of using a lasso. Not lassoing—" Mr. Wicker held up a finger to stress his point, "that, too, you shall learn, but how to use this particular rope to make the most of its—shall we say?—qualities."

Mr. Wicker smiled his sardonic smile, though his eyes were snapping as brightly as the fire.

"Now Christopher," he began, running the rope through his long, fine hands, "just push that table and the chairs to the wall, there's a good lad, and we shall get the stiffness out of this rope." Chris cleared the room. "And pull the curtains, my boy," added his master, "for one never knows but that Amos or Becky Boozer might pass by at the crucial moment. What they do not know," murmured the magician, "is best for them."



When the room was satisfactorily arranged, and candles had been lit, Chris returned to stand by the fireplace beside his master, who was turning the rope lightly in his fingers.

"Now Christopher, your attention please," said the magician, and his tone was crisp and authoritative. "Imagine that you are in need of a boat, and there is no boat."

With several twists of his hands the rope spun out into the middle air of the room. It moved and twisted like a live thing, and Mr. Wicker, Chris thought, seemed to be drawing the outline of a boat in the air with the moving line. Even as this thought flickered in his mind, the rope formed in mid-air the skeleton of a dingy, and then, mysteriously, the rope added to itself until the bare struts and sides were filled in and there, rocking lightly from the speed of its creation, a small row-boat hovered in the air, as if it were tied up to a dock.

"Go and feel of it, Christopher," Mr. Wicker urged. "Climb in it if you like. I have left the two ends of the rope long enough to make oars, if necessary."

Chris ran over and felt the sides of the boat. It was sound and secure, no doubt of that. He went all around it, pounding its sides, and at last heaved himself over to fall into its center. The boat never stirred, and stamp as he would, the rope bottom and gunwales resisted firmly.

"Gee! Mr. Wicker!" Chris exclaimed. "This is the best yet—except for Amos. Golly Moses!" and as he sat down and took up the two loose ends of rope still remaining, he found that he held not rope ends but two oars. "Even oars!" Chris cried in delight.

Mr. Wicker stood with his hands behind his back, the firelight outlining his black clothes and neat dark head.

"Yes," he said, in a matter-of-fact voice, "Quite so. Now climb out and I will show you some of the other shapes of which it is capable. A ladder," Mr. Wicker remarked as Chris rejoined him, "is almost too simple. We can do that at any time."

Grasping the end of one oar, with movements too fast for Chris's eyes to follow, in an instant the boat was a rope again, coiled over Mr. Wicker's arm.

"Now!" said Mr. Wicker, and his eyes twinkled with mischief. The rope flew out again, but this time took a strange outline—the outline of an elephant.

"It will have to be a small elephant," murmured Mr. Wicker, his hands flying, "because of the size of the room."

The elephant, like the boat, took shape, the final ends of the rope hanging down at its trunk and tail. After the elephant came a horse, an eagle, and a dolphin, and Chris's admiration and zest to learn the secrets of the rope grew with every change of shape.

"Very well," ended Mr. Wicker, "you shall learn." And placing his hands over Chris's while the boy held the rope, he began slowly to show him the magic twists and turns.



CHAPTER 12

The time had come when Chris could go out beyond the confines of Mr. Wicker's gardens. It was a bright fall day when Amos and he stepped out the kitchen door. Becky Boozer's huge frame blocked it behind them as she stood in the sun to see them off. Each boy had been given meat and bread, some cakes and apples, for their midday meal, and Chris stood looking up and down the street for a moment before starting, savoring the promise of new sights and new adventure. The only drawback was that Amos would not, and must not, know why Chris might be surprised at certain places. Georgetown in the year 1790 might be new for Amos, but not nearly as new as it would be for Chris.

"Where-all are we going in the first place?" Amos asked.

Chris had long ago decided. "We'll take a look at the Mirabelle," he said.

While looking about him, Chris glanced more than once at Amos. The colored boy's brilliant foreign costume was very noticeable, his friend thought, but when no one paid any attention, Chris decided Amos's clothes were not unfamiliar to the seafaring men among whom they were walking.

A ship had just come in, the sailors browned and cheerful at being once more in their home port. Merchants in coats of fine but sober cloth were talking with the captain and mate, while they kept an eye on the cargo being laboriously unloaded by stevedores.

For some time Chris and Amos stood watching the men carrying out bales or kegs on their shoulders. When one part of the cargo had been assembled on the dock, an auction was held forthwith to sell it off at once to the highest bidder.

Listening and looking, Chris saw bolts of silk, hardware, china, wines and liquors, needles and pins—all manner of things auctioned and sold. The ship, American-owned, had come from England, and Chris overheard one man say to another: "See there, the thin man. That be Mr. Mason's agent. I heard he's here to buy the ballast bricks for his master's plantation on the island."

Chris, not understanding, asked, "Ballast bricks? Please sir, what's that?"

The men, astounded to be interrupted by a boy, and looking down to see two, each with an apple in his hands, turned around, and after a moment's scrutiny, answered.

"Ballast bricks? Why, anyone knows that these are the bricks brought over in the hold, my lad, should there not be sufficient cargo, both to make ballast for the vessel and to sell once here. English bricks are cheaper than those we can make ourselves. Did you not know, young man," he said, frowning with disapproval, "that our bricks for building houses have all come from British kilns?"

"No sir, thank you sir," Chris said, and moved away, not in the least abashed.

How I should have loved to have told him I didn't belong in this age anyway, and that in my time, we do make our own bricks! he chuckled to himself.

Further on, a ship being painted a dazzling white caught their eyes.

"The Mirabelle!" Chris cried, running forward, and sure enough, black and gold letters along her bow pronounced that indeed it was the Mirabelle.

"I'd know those lines anywhere!" Chris said to Amos, and the two boys stood gazing at Mr. Wicker's ship.

The Mirabelle was a three-masted schooner of more than usually trim lines. Even at the dockside, the curve of her bow gave an instant vision of how the waves would curl back as she drove forward over the sea. At the waterline, a clear light green contrasted well with the white of her sides. Above decks, the size of the masts and neatly furled sails showed at a glance that the Mirabelle was hardy enough to weather many a storm, and also that her crew were able and well trained.

Looking about, Chris soon spied Ned Cilley, on deck lounging against the side of the ship and smoking his pipe. Master Cilley's eyes lit up as he saw his friends, and hurrying down the gangplank, shook them by the hand as warmly as if he had not seen them for a month, instead of just the night before when he had shared with them what Becky termed, "a taste, a mere spoonful" of supper.

"Eh well, lookee here!" he exclaimed, delighted. "Chris and Amos, by me soul!" Ned Cilley beamed on them and leaned back on his heels for a better view. "Lookin' about, lads? Eh, that's the way. Is she not the finest ship that ever ye did rest your eyes on?"

The boys were agreeing enthusiastically when a remarkable couple came into sight, pacing the decks of the Mirabelle. Soon the watchers were given a better look, for the two men came down the gangplank to examine cases that had been brought to the dock for loading, and Chris and Amos were hard put to it not to laugh out loud at the comical pair.

The first man was so round and so short he appeared to have no legs at all. Below a tight round paunch, two small feet looking rather like mice, went in and out as he walked. The roundness of his face was underlined by three folds of chin, but his small piercing blue eyes had a way of suddenly opening wide that made Chris feel the man was no fool. He constantly burbled with laughter and was in a high good humor, occasional remarks from his companion causing him now and again to chuckle with amusement.

What the other man could be saying that was so entertaining Chris could not imagine, for he was the opposite of the fat good-humored one.

This second person was twice again as tall as the plump little fellow beside him, and was as dour and thin as the other was cheery and fat. He seemed in a state of perpetual depression, and no amount of chuckles on the part of the plump gentleman could cause even a passing smile over the long sad face of the dour man.

"Who in the world are they?" Chris asked of Cilley as they drew near. Cilley looked scandalized at Chris's impertinence in finding them in any way droll.

"Them? Why, bless me cap and buttons! That-there's the captain of the Mirabelle no less, and his first mate. Captain Ezekial Blizzard, he is, and Mr. Elisha Finney," Ned Cilley told them, watching the earnest conversation of the pair with evident affection.



"Blizzard and Finney, that's them," he said. "And a better captain and first mate is not come by in the whole land, I shall warrant you. He may look too plump for his own good," Master Cilley went on, lowering his voice and bending down to be on a level with Chris and Amos, "but believe me, there's no sounder captain afloat. They all know it hereabouts, for Ezekial Blizzard knows the Chiny Seas better than the sight of his own feet, make no mistake about it. As to Elisha Finney, he's glum, I don't deny, but faithful! That's true of the two of them—whatever they can do for Mr. Wicker is law for Ezekial Blizzard and Elisha Finney. They swear by Mr. Wicker, so they do," Ned said, wagging his head with the certainty of it. "Mr. Finney's kind, too," Ned went on, "though he don't look it, bless me cap and boots! He's tenderhearted as a bird, under that gloom, is Finney."

"Could we go on board the ship?" Chris asked, when the Captain and Mr. Finney had moved off to the far end of the wharf.

"No, me lad," Cilley answered gravely. "'Tis better not. Wait till the master do present you proper to the Captain, for the Mirabelle is Captain Blizzard's castle, like. I would sooner ye were asked aboard by him."

Then, seeing Chris's crestfallen face, Cilley clapped him so heartily on the back that the boy staggered forward a pace or two.

"Come now! Cheer up!" Ned cried. "Come meet some of the crew!" he invited, and taking Chris and Amos's arms, drew them towards a group of seamen.

Chris looked quickly around at the faces of the men, for these, he secretly knew, were to be his companions on a long sea journey soon to start. With a deep sense of relief he found that he liked them all. All, perhaps, but one. Then he gave his attention to Ned Cilley, who with a flourish was making the introductions.

"Me lads!" he cried, "Here are two likely young 'uns, living at the house of Mr. Wicker. Ye've heard me speak of them. Amos, here, on me right, and Chris, that's on me other side." He beamed at both and on the men confronting him. "Now boys," he roared, "this good man here is Bowie."

A short, muscular, bowlegged man with a friendly grin, nodded his head at them and cut off a piece of black tobacco with his knife, stuffing it into his mouth, knife blade and all. Chris gave a shiver as the blade went in and came out and Bowie champed contentedly on his chew.

"This here's Elbert Jones," Cilley went on, "and that one's Abner Cloud, and that one," pointed Ned, "that one's Zachary Heigh."

Chris smiled and nodded, or shook hands, and Amos followed suit, but when they had reached Zachary, a tall young man of eighteen years or so, Zachary bent his handsome surly face and fumbled at his shoe. Chris stood there with his hand out, feeling the red blood surging angrily up his cheeks, and then he wondered who Zachary was looking at from the corner of his eye.

Chris turned his head and did not have to hear the name muttered by Cilley or by Bowie at his back. Chris found himself staring at Claggett Chew.



CHAPTER 13

Claggett Chew possessed a face and bearing not easily forgotten. A giant of a man, standing well over six feet three, he stood bareheaded in the morning sun. Contrary to the custom of the time, he wore no pigtail at his neck, nor even hair caught back, tied with a bow. Claggett Chew's head was shaved so close that the pale skin of his skull showed through the peppery stubble, making him seem bald. Below the bare skull, as if in counterbalance, his black eyebrows started out, tangled and thickly black, and under them, as out of a rocky cave, his small pale eyes blinked like cornered foxes in their dens. His nose, overlarge to start with, had at some time in his life been broken, and its crooked shape leaned to the right as if still bending beneath the blow that had battered it.



A long untrimmed mustache shadowed his mouth, and stray hairs caught inside his lips when he opened and closed them. His lips, like his eyes, were pale, and his skin sickly as that of a man who sees but little of the light. His cheeks and chin were stubbly, like his head; his beard seemed more reluctant than half grown. His whole appearance, in his sallow yellow vest, gun-gray coat and breeches and canary-colored stockings, was one of mingled power and weakness; strength joined with an unhealthy habit of never being in the sun, and a cruelty best enjoyed when he knew that he could win.

His cold eyes pinned Chris with their gaze as if the boy were a butterfly transfixed by a pin. His thin, pallid lips curled with disdain and yet, Chris thought, uneasiness perhaps, as he eyed the two lads and the little knot of men. One strong, too white hand held a whip, its long leather tail ending like a scorpion's sting, in a length of wire. He held the five feet of the whip loosely caught in his hand against the plaited leather handle, and Chris had an icy sensation as he looked at it that it was never far from the large white hand of Claggett Chew.

A little behind Claggett Chew, examining the scene through a pair of jeweled lorgnettes, stood an even weirder figure.

"Osterbridge Hawsey," whispered Ned Cilley, as if to himself, as he followed the direction of Chris's eyes.

Osterbridge Hawsey, younger than Claggett Chew by twenty years to Claggett's forty, was dressed in the height of the French mode. Anything more out of place on the dirty swarming docks of Georgetown could scarcely have been imagined. His three-cornered hat was rakishly set at an angle on his fair hair, which was meticulously rolled in curls above his ears, and the curls were caught at his neck with a black velvet ribbon. Beside Claggett Chew's offensive bare skull, the hat, in its delicate blue velvet, silver braid, and airy rim of ostrich feathers, was ludicrous. Osterbridge Hawsey's costume was of a piece with the hat, for his coat was of fine blue velvet of too pale a shade for any use outside a drawing room. It, too, was edged in silver braid, and its owner, holding a lorgnette with his right hand, with his left pushed back the velvet folds to display the delicacy of his flower-embroidered waistcoat. Satin knee breeches, a cascade of fine lace at his throat, and lace falling gracefully over his small well-kept hands made up the picture. As Chris looked at him, fascinated and repelled, he noticed that the young man wore a patch in the shape of a crescent moon, on his left cheek.

Chris, who had been not a little overawed at seeing Claggett Chew, could not restrain himself at the sight of this fop. The touch of fear he had felt, looking into the pale expressionless eyes of Mr. Wicker's enemy, found relief and release in an uncontrollable burst of laughter when from his pocket Osterbridge Hawsey drew a tiny bottle of smelling salts and held it delicately to his nose.

Chris's young laughter rose in peal after peal. Amos's warmer, quicker laugh joined in, and in a second, laughter had spread to the group of seamen who doubled up, convulsed, fell on one another's shoulders as they wiped their eyes, and slapped their hard thighs with their roughened hands.

The pair that so amused the rest, Claggett Chew and his fine friend, had stopped some ten feet away at the first sound of mirth. Then into Claggett Chew's gray-white face came astonishment, for he was used to creating many impressions—fear, hatred, or cringing obsequiousness—but never before had he or any of his friends been laughed at. Furthermore, he, the dreaded Claggett Chew, and his gaudy friend Osterbridge Hawsey, were held as being of so little account that a boy dared to laugh at them!



After a surge of deep ugly red to his head, Claggett Chew's face became whiter than before, and his eyes were murderous.

"Oh, Claggett, they seem to be laughing at me!" Osterbridge Hawsey whined in a high-pitched voice.

Unfortunately, at this moment Chris, forgetting caution in the grip of his laughter, held on to Amos shouting feebly: "He's got a patch on his cheek! What do you know—a beauty patch!"

The derision in his voice, in spite of his laughter, was unmistakable, but before he could so much as draw another breath, he heard Claggett Chew's voice for the first time.

"So—you ill-found ugly twirp! You idiot whippersnapper! Let me give you one to match!"

And quicker than the eye could follow, the whip flicked out, and with a cutting sting, lashed Chris's cheek. The cut, from the metal wire, was deep, almost to Chris's jawbone; but he did not feel the hurt as much as he realized—his laughter gone—that Claggett Chew was now his deadly enemy.

"Next time," came Claggett Chew's sneering voice, "I shall take an eye from you, my laughing boy, and see if that amuses us as well!"

And turning on his heel, followed by the sauntering, giggling fop, the pair picked their way along the wharf and disappeared.

It was only then, looking around at the sobered, silent sailors, Chris remembered that Zachary Heigh was the only one who had not laughed.



CHAPTER 14

Barely were Claggett Chew and Osterbridge Hawsey out of sight, when Chris simultaneously became aware of two things. One was the deep throbbing ache of the whip cut, so painful it made him feel sick and faint, and the second was the black figure of Mr. Wicker. Mr. Wicker was threading his way in and out of the crowds and litter of the wharves, and although to most he might have seemed leisurely, Chris was able to detect in the step of his master a certain haste. He came up to the little group of men, glanced at the back of Zachary Heigh, who was moving away as if to some interrupted duty, and at Chris's white face and the reddening handkerchief which he held to his chin. Mr. Wicker looked slowly at all the faces and then raised his eyebrows as if in surprise.

"Well, lads," he said, "what has happened here? You all look angry and somewhat a-frighted. What occurred, Ned?" he asked, addressing Ned Cilley, whose kind face was puckered with sympathy for Chris and who stood pulling at the stocking cap he held in his hands. But Chris spoke up before Ned could reply.

"It was my fault, sir. I expect I got what I deserved, but it seemed to happen in spite of myself. I laughed at Osterbridge Hawsey's beauty patch—and at him—all of him, really. We all did. Claggett Chew got mad, and I guess I wouldn't blame him. It was a dreadful thing to do—to laugh at someone to their face—and he lashed out with his whip and gave me a beauty patch!"

In spite of the pain Chris managed a grin as he took the handkerchief from his chin to bare the deep, cruel cut.

"But truly sir," he ended, "I never saw anything like Osterbridge Hawsey before. He's a dilly!"

And before they knew it they had all, including even the habitually grave Mr. Wicker, burst into another shout of laughter. Mr. Wicker soon stopped, however, and reached back into the pocket in the flap of his coattails. When he drew out his hand it held a small glass box. With unhurried gestures Mr. Wicker's fine fingers took off the lid.

"What a fortunate coincidence that I happened by just at this time," he said casually, "and that I have with me such an excellent ointment." Master and pupil looked at one another for a moment, and there was the hint of a wink in Mr. Wicker's right eye, and the vestige of an answer from Chris's left.

"This will help to stop the bleeding, my boy," said Mr. Wicker, "and take away the pain. It hastens the cure," he went on, lightly applying the ointment to the wound. "In an hour you will scarcely know it happened," he concluded.

Seeing the color seep back into Chris's cheeks, the men touched their caps to Mr. Wicker and went back to their interrupted tasks. Ned Cilley, with his hand on Amos's shoulder, moved off to point out some detail of the Mirabelle, and Chris and Mr. Wicker were left alone. Mr. Wicker looked down kindly at the boy, but there was a sadness also in his face.

"Perhaps," he said as if to himself, "I have set you too great a task, my poor Christopher, for you are but a boy." He laid his hand on Chris's arm. "You are a boy, but what lies before you is a man's task, and no mistake. You cannot in the future allow yourself the luxury of such childish enjoyments as a laugh at Claggett Chew, or his friend!"



"I know that now sir," Chris replied solemnly. "I asked for trouble that time."

"Yes," agreed Mr. Wicker in a tired voice, "You did. Too bad," he added, and Chris saw fatigue for the first time in his master's face. "The laughter you could not resist has meant that you came forcibly to Claggett Chew's notice in such a way that you will never be forgotten." Mr. Wicker looked from some distant horizon back to Chris. "I saw it happening while I was in my study, but could not warn you in time," he said. "So I came down with the ointment for your poisoned wound."

"Poisoned wound, sir?" Chris whispered, suddenly feeling much worse than he had before.



Mr. Wicker sighed. "Yes. Sometimes Mr. Chew has a way of wiping poison onto the metal tip of his whip. It is a slow poison—it does not take effect for days or weeks. In fact, so long after his lash that no one attributes the whip cut to the death that finally follows. Never fear," he said smiling his reassurance, "the ointment I have put on will take care of that too, and your cut will be closed and healed before the day is over. What is unfortunately more lasting," said Mr. Wicker, "is Mr. Chew's memory. Well"—and Mr. Wicker shrugged his shoulders—"there's no help for what is done. Use caution in the future, Christopher. That is all I ask."

"I shall, sir!" Chris assured him. They turned to join Amos.

"Enjoy yourself the rest of the day, my boy," Mr. Wicker urged. "But be constantly on the alert and look in all directions. Here," he said putting his hand in his pocket, "take these few coins in case you should need them. Now find Amos, and be off with you!"

Although Chris would have liked to investigate all the wharves and see as many of the vessels as he could, he understood the warning given him by Mr. Wicker. So with Amos he moved away from the scenes he preferred, taking the first road he saw leading off Water Street.

M Street was, for Chris, completely unrecognizable. It was merely a broad unpaved road in what seemed, at best, a country town. Groves of old trees, pasture lands and orchards of large size surrounded the few houses. It was hard for Chris to realize that this was the core of the capital of the vast and teeming country into which he had been born.

With difficulty, for the streets all had different names if they existed at all, Chris looked for his own street. Going back along what he had known as M Street, not even the Pep Boys' or Iron Horse Grill was to be seen. Instead of two wide stone bridges, now there was only a rickety one crossing Rock Creek Park.

The boys walked to the bank above the park and looked down. The broad asphalt traffic lanes were gone, and so was the tidiness of the park lawns. Below him, Chris saw the tangled thick forests that had always stood there. The creek itself, in the quiet of this earlier time, could be plainly heard running over its stones.

Chris turned and led Amos to where he half expected to see his mother's house. But where his house would stand in some future year, nothing was to be seen but a dense grove of trees growing along the top of a little rise of ground. Someone had once built a fire at the corner, where his front door would one day be. Chris kicked idly at the ashes and picked up a metal button blackened by the fire.

"What you-all looking for?" patient Amos asked.

"Just something I hoped I'd find," Chris answered, filled with a sense of desolation.

Then he made himself remember that his house had yet to be built, and aware of the hollowness of his stomach, he said to Amos: "Must be lunch time. Let's go down to the creek to eat."

They scrambled down the bank near where, in his time, there was a children's playground, and weaving in and out of the thick wood, found the creek, clear and fresh. Here they ate their lunch, and then, running and leaping, followed the turns of the stream until they neared the marshes and the river.



CHAPTER 15

The two boys came out toward the mouth of Rock Creek and as the woods thinned, they saw ahead of them a sandy sloping bank on which a small boat was drawn up. Around the coals of a fire nearby, three men were crouching. Remembering Mr. Wicker's warning to be cautious, Chris put out a hand to touch Amos and the two stood still.

"Let's climb up a little above them," Chris suggested. "We're beyond the bridge—they might be—well, we'd better be careful. I want to see what they're doing before they see us."

Amos agreeing, the two boys, with extra care for rattling twigs, moved stealthily up the banks of the Potomac that rose with increasing steepness. The men, who were huddled near their fire now, came directly into their view below, and Chris and Amos could see that they were playing cards. One seemed to be losing to the other two. He had piled a heap of his small possessions in front of him on the sand, in lieu of money.



They were certainly a villainous-looking trio. The boys could hear some of their exclamations, and it was with a mingled feeling of curiosity and uneasiness that Chris recognized the losing gambler to be Simon Gosler, the humpbacked cripple.

"Come now, Gosler!" they heard one of the men cry out in annoyance, "Pay up—you've lost!"

"I've no money to pay you," complained the sly voice of the cripple. "I'm a poor man—well you know it. A cripple—just a poor old cripple!"

"Ah—none o' that!" cut in the second winner. "We know how well you do at your begging—more in a day than we get in a month's pay. Pay up now, or it won't go well with you," he rasped out, laying his hand on a dagger stuck into his belt.

"What about your glass, your spyglass, Gosler?" urged the first man. "Put that up and it will cover your losses well enough!" he sneered, but Simon Gosler hugged his coat to him and looked from side to side searching for a way of escape.

"No, no, good fellows," he moaned, "not my glass. I won that from the Captain himself three years ago, and that I never shall part from willingly."

"You'd part from it for silver quick enough!" snarled the first gambler, "and of that you must have plenty, for 'tis rare you ever lose. Come now, we'll give you a few minutes more to make up your mind, but make it up you must. Either the glass or silver, you may choose."

The two gamblers rose menacingly and moved away to put their boat into the stream. Simon Gosler was left mumbling and sniveling and fingering his coat pocket, in which he kept his glass. Chris, watching him, had a sudden inspiration and whispered to Amos. "Hide here behind those bushes and don't follow me. Don't move or show yourself. I'm going to have that glass."

So saying he moved carefully back until he was out of sight of Amos, and then, for the first time on his own, he tried a change of shape. Choosing a broad flat stone at the edge of the shrubbery and safely removed from the sight of the two winners, he changed himself into a silver coin and allowed himself to drop with a sweet metallic ring on the stone, waiting winking in the sun for Simon Gosler. The old cripple saw the coin before it had bounced twice on the stone, and with a quick sly look over his shoulder at the backs of his companions as they pushed at the boat, hoisted himself up on his crutch and began hobbling over toward his find.

But instead of a coin, he found only a resolute boy awaiting him, tossing and catching a silver piece. It was one of those Mr. Wicker had given Chris but an hour before. He looked Simon Gosler in the eye.

"I've heard what went on, Simon Gosler," said Chris, his eyes on a level with the rheumy watering eyes of the cripple, "and if you will sell your spyglass to me, I'll buy it off you with this silver piece. Otherwise you shall not have it."

Simon Gosler's eyes dripped tears of greed at the sight of the coin, and then another expression washed over them. Fast as he was and fast as was his movement, Chris was faster. As the old beggar braced himself and brought the head of his crutch down where Chris's head should have been, someone from behind dealt him a staggering blow with a sizable club, and yet when he turned around no one was there. When he faced about again, rubbing his head and whimpering with rage and frustration, he found himself once more facing the boy who was tossing and catching, tossing and catching, the round silver coin.

Chris stood with his legs apart, his head back, his eyes full of scorn. His hand did not cease to toss and catch the silver piece. "Well, you old villain," he challenged, "will you take the coin in fair exchange, or shall I hit you again with that club you just felt?" he asked. "It doesn't feel the same when you get it back as when you give it out, does it, you old faker? Hurry up—your friends will soon be coming back, and I don't think they intend to argue," he added.



Gosler, still rubbing his head and muttering, finally spoke. "Very well, you nasty young man, I'll sell my glass. Give me the coin!" and he stretched out a dirty claw.

"Oh no!" Chris shook his head decisively. "No indeed! You put the glass down between us—carefully, mind you—and back away. I'll throw you the coin when I've seen if the glass is worth the silver!"

Mumbling to himself, Simon Gosler did as he was told. He reached back in his coat pocket to draw out a small spyglass, which he laid down on the ground. He then backed away. Chris picked up and examined the glass, tested it, and then just as the two gamblers came back up the riverbank, tossed the silver piece to the beggar. Gosler caught it in mid-air with the dexterity of years of practice. In an instant Chris had vanished into the thick shade of the wood, and going as fast but as quietly as he could, regained the place where Amos waited for him.



"Gee, Chris!" Amos exclaimed, for he had caught all Chris's expression of speech, "We got us a spyglass!"

"We sure have!" Chris agreed, "And it's a fine one—best I ever saw," he said. "Here, try it out over the river there, where that ship is anchored."

Amos pointed the glass through the shrubs toward a distant ship that swung at anchor close to the shore, and while he tried out their prize, Chris watched the departure of the three gamblers. Gosler had evidently paid up while Chris was returning to their hidden perch, for he was now hustled into the boat by the other two. Soon the three were far down the stream and their boat was moving into the main flow of the river.

"Here," Amos said passing back the glass, "you look. That's a mighty fine ship out there, black as the Mirabelle is white, but she looks fast and strong just the same."

But Chris, taking the glass, was idly following the progress of the three men. Gosler, lost in gloom, sat in the stern hugging his rags about him. The other two bent their backs to the oars and headed straight for the anchored ship.

Turning the glass to the brig Chris hunted for the name as the prow swung about. Through the glass the letters, gold on the black-painted side, leapt at his eye across the distance. Venture, Chris read, and with a beating heart he saw his adversary's ship for the first time.



CHAPTER 16

"Come along, Amos! We must get a closer look at that ship!" Chris cried, putting his glass away. Scrambling down, the two boys ran along the stream until it was shallow enough to cross. The water was icy, telling, as well as the turning leaves and cooler air, that fall had come and winter was on the way.

Hurrying forward, Chris and Amos reached the mouth of the stream where it joined the river. There on the left bank of Rock Creek, high rushes grew in rank profusion on the marshy land. They rose higher than the heads of the two boys and were too closely packed to allow for easy passage.

"We'll have to skirt the very edge," Chris said glancing about. "Barefoot would be the best. This soft ground would soon go over our shoes and maybe suck them down."

"Keep right against the rushes," Chris warned Amos, "and if a boat shows up coming from the wharves, we can't take any chances. We'll have to dive into the rushes and hide, just in case it's Claggett Chew."



"That's right," Amos nodded his head vigorously. "I don't want to meet him again, and you do less'n me!" he chuckled.

The two went on, making slow progress, for the river was deep at that point, with little foothold between the end of the jungle of reeds and deep water.

"Keep an eye out, Amos!" Chris called back over his shoulder as he went ahead. It was no time before Amos's voice came huskily up to his friend.

"Chris! Chris—hold on! There's a boat with four men in it just left the last wharf, and they're headin' this way! Get in those rushes quick—my clothes is mighty bright!"



Rushing and panting, they shoved their way into the dusty rushes, groping back until they could barely see the river through the stalks. And it was just in time, for barely were they hidden when they heard, carried over the water, the dip and splash of two pairs of oars and the creak of oarlocks. Then, in another moment, came the high-pitched voice of Osterbridge Hawsey. Chris gave a shiver as it reached him.

"Claggett," came the voice of the fop, who with Claggett Chew was sitting in the stern of the boat, "Claggett—I find myself quite, quite fatigued. A little wine, I fancy, might revive me when we reach the ship. Heated, I think, and spiced, to ward off the night chill. And Claggett," went on the voice, almost upon them now it was so clear, "what do you think of this muslin for my new shirts? Is it not delicate? Irish, cela va sans dire, as the dear French say. I feel sure it will be satisfactory."

From Claggett Chew the two boys heard not a word, and peering out, they saw the boat shoot by. Osterbridge Hawsey, wrapped in a great cloak, was admiring a bolt of muslin that he held, but Claggett Chew, his face shadowed by a hat, was holding his whip upon his knees and glowering at the water.

The boat passed, and some time after, the two boys heard from across the water the echo of wood against wood as the dinghy reached the Venture's hull. After a while, as the boys were about to move along, a heavy dropping sound, and the shuddering of the marshy ground, made the two in hiding look at one another in concern.

"What in the world?" Chris murmured.

The sound, accompanied by steps, oaths, and a rhythmical drop and shudder, continued farther along the shore. Stealthily, trying not to shake the rushes and so show where they might be, Chris and Amos pushed through the marsh.

The sun was setting as they came near the steps and voices. Pushing through the reeds towards the river, Chris found that they were nearly opposite where the Venture floated, below Mr. Mason's island, and at a desolate part of the river.

Chris gestured Amos forward, and they went on step by step until, in a pause of the thundering dropping sound, they knew themselves to be near its origin and parted the reeds enough to see.

There, within a few yards of them and at the edge of a hard-beaten track from the main shore, lay a mass of cannon balls and shot for guns of various sizes, such as are used on men-of-war. The crew of the Venture, able to carry but one at a time, kept a line going from shore to pile, and this, as they dropped the cannon balls from their shoulders, was the sound and shaking of the ground the boys had heard and felt. Seeing the red caps and kerchiefed heads of men above the rushes, the boys let the reeds fall back.

"I'm going to have a look at the ship through the glass," Chris whispered, and moved forward closer to the shore.

Parting the stalks, he trained the glass on Claggett Chew's ship. It was a fine, rich vessel, that was evident, and swarming with activity. At this hour of dusk, other boats along the river had stopped their commerce for the day and there were none to observe what Claggett Chew might be about. Chris and Amos were the only watchers.

The cannon balls and ammunition were taken out in boats and hoisted up in nets. Chris observed everything closely, and saw still other crewmen disappearing with their burdens down the hold. Then something caught his eye and he examined the name along the side through the spyglass.

Curious, thought Chris, that all the letters of the ship's name seemed exact except the second and third. Among the other letters of carved and gilded wood, the E and N were not quite as straight in line as the rest.

Oh well, Chris thought, it's doubtless a custom of the time for all I know.

Putting the glass in his pocket, he rejoined Amos, but as he did so the last two sailors put down their cannon balls and wiped the sweat off their foreheads with their arms. In the ensuing silence the rustle of the rushes as Chris and Amos moved away was plainly to be heard.



"What's that?" one man cried out. "Is a spy there? Here—take this club and beat about—we'll catch 'em!"

The two men charged into the marsh so fast that Chris barely had time to whisper to Amos: "Hurry Amos—run! I'll be all right. I'll draw them off! I'll meet you where we ford the stream!"

Amos safely out of sight, the men came only on a stray dog foraging for rats, wagging its tail and letting out a yip or two as it followed a scent along the ground.

"Give it a kick—there—it's only a stray dog," one said.

"Oh—devil take it—what do I care?" answered the other, turning back.

The dog lay panting at the river's edge. Looking past the ship as it rested, it saw what it thought was snow upon the water and the banks. But it was just thousands of ducks migrating south, and when they rose to move farther away, the sky was overcast and thunderous with their wings.



Long after dark, cold, dirty, and quite wet, the two boys reached the house on Water Street.

"Where did you go?" Becky inquired, frowning with solicitude at the bedraggled pair.

"Oh, no place much," Chris answered, yawning.



CHAPTER 17

The following morning while Chris was telling Mr. Wicker of the ammunition being loaded on the Venture, Becky Boozer announced a visit from Captain Blizzard and Elisha Finney.

"Show them in, Becky," Mr. Wicker told her. To Chris he said, "I wonder what brings them here so early? It must be a matter of some importance. Stay with me, Christopher. I shall present you to the Captain."

The extraordinary pair came in and Chris was introduced to Captain Blizzard and Mr. Finney. The Captain was all smiles except for his eyes; Chris noted that his eyes did not smile at all. Mr. Finney, true to form, cast down his eyes, sighed, and let the corners of his wide thin lips droop almost to his chin.

When a chair large enough and solid enough had been found for Captain Blizzard, and Becky had brought in a decanter of sherry and glasses to set before the visitors, Chris shut the study door and sat down on the floor where he could observe the three faces before him.

Mr. Wicker spoke first.

"Well, Captain, what brings you here so betimes? No trouble of any kind, I trust?"

Captain Blizzard set down his glass of sherry and cleared his throat. "Now, sir, needs must I come with unpleasant news, and sorry I am to bring it. I have heard that the Venture plans to sail at any time, and you well know she is a fast-sailing ship." He folded his plump hands over his paunch and twiddled his thumbs with agitation. "Sir, it has been noised about that the Venture is headed for the West Indies."

He paused and glanced at Mr. Finney who nodded forlornly, his mouth drooping.

"But 'tis not so." The Captain looked with anxious eyes at Mr. Wicker. "Early this morning Ned Cilley brought me the information that the Venture is to sail to the China seas."

Mr. Wicker's face was grave but showed no surprise. "I knew some trouble was ahead," he said slowly, "but did not know what form it was to take." He paused. "News of sailings and destinations get about so rapidly, it is more than likely that someone overheard the destination of the Mirabelle, and sold his knowledge to Captain Chew. Although," he added thoughtfully, "I think Claggett Chew guessed it. Well," and Mr. Wicker looked alertly at the two men, "what advice do you give me?"

Captain Blizzard wagged his head. "Nay sir, 'tis for orders that I came to you. It is for you to say."

"How soon can the Mirabelle put to sea?" Mr. Wicker asked, and Chris's heart skipped a beat.

"At any time, sir," the Captain at once replied. "We have nearly water enough, and quite sufficient stores. The men are all assembled."

The Captain fell silent and no one spoke for several minutes. Mr. Wicker leaning his chin on his folded hands was lost in thought.

"How move the tides?" he finally asked, raising his head.

The Captain, with surprising briskness for so large a man, pulled some folded charts from his pocket. Without a word the three men rose and went over to the table, pushing aside the china bowl filled with flowers to spread the charts flat on the table top. Captain Blizzard leaned his knuckles on the boards.

"The tide will be high at midnight, sir," he informed them. "See"—he pointed a short forefinger at a spot on one chart—"here is the sandbar that the tide covers for but a short time, and should there be other ships crowding the river near this point, we must slip through there then or not at all."

Mr. Wicker examined the charts and nodded. "Very well," he said, "so must it be," and Chris felt that his heartbeat would stifle him, it pounded so fast and thickly in his throat. All at once, looking up at the thoughtful face of his master, Chris longed to be able to stay safe at home. The imminent journey, so far and perhaps so perilous, seemed suddenly too much for him. Mr. Wicker had taken the river charts and rolled them up, and now turned to the Captain and first mate.

"Captain Blizzard, and you, Mr. Finney," he said, "should water casks be seen going on board, the whole of Georgetown will know you mean to sail. I therefore ask you to so contrive it that the casks be hidden in bales or boxes so that they seem to be anything but what they are." He tapped the rolled charts thoughtfully on the palm of one hand. "Our only chance to steal a march on the Venture will be to sail at least a day before her." The two men listening nodded in agreement. "There is one other thing. Your orders for where you are to anchor, once near China, will be secret, and carried on the person of this boy." He laid one hand on Chris's shoulder. "He has a task of utmost secrecy to carry out and will require your help, encouragement, and silence."

Captain Blizzard and Mr. Finney looked solemnly at Chris who looked as solemnly back.



"Not only that," Mr. Wicker went on, "but his presence on the ship must not be known until the Mirabelle is well to sea." He glanced down meditatively at Chris. "I shall arrange to bring him aboard somehow, and give you your sailing orders later."

He strode over to the window looking out to his gardens and the trees where the apples showed their russet cheeks.

"Leave me these charts for yet a little while, and I shall ponder on our plans," said Mr. Wicker. He turned. "See that the water casks are taken on at once, Captain, and hidden, and make a place for Christopher, here," and at a beseeching look from Chris he added with a smile, "and Amos."

No sooner were the Captain and Mr. Finney gone than Chris spoke up in great excitement. "Mr. Wicker, sir, I have a plan! May we look at the river charts again?"

Master and pupil spread out the charts once more, and Chris pointed eagerly.

"Look, sir! Here is the sandbar, and here"—he put his finger down—"the Venture. Or she was, yesterday. Now sir, the sandbar being just below and ahead of the Venture, once the Mirabelle has slipped by, wouldn't it be too bad if something happened to make the Venture drift with the tide and run aground?"

He looked eagerly up into Mr. Wicker's face and saw in it the reflection of his own excitement.

"There are times, Christopher," said Mr. Wicker with his eyes snapping, "when you surprise even me. But how is it to be done?"

"Well, sir," began Chris, "it's a little tricky but I think, what with the things we know, it can be worked."

He began outlining to his master the details of his plan.



CHAPTER 18

It was perhaps as well that Chris had more than enough to think of. Otherwise the wrench at leaving home might have been even more distressing than it was. His last day passed like a flash, though from his attitude no one, certainly not Becky, would have guessed that the next morning he would not be there to eat his breakfast in the sunny kitchen window. Amos, quick to sense all Chris's moods, knew something was afoot, and when Chris and Mr. Wicker finally told him of the sailing plan, Amos's eyes grew rounder than ever and sparkled more brightly, but he said never a word.

At ten o'clock that night, when Becky had gone heavily to her room, wondering perhaps why Chris had given her so hard a hug, Ned Cilley knocked at the back door. He had brought a light cart on which there stood a large wicker hamper. Ned and Chris lifted it into the kitchen while Mr. Wicker drew the curtains and then held a candle high. The candlelight flickered and flapped like a trapped bird at the corners of the room, and sharp bird-wing shadows cut across Mr. Wicker's tall dark figure. Yet to Chris, who was to hold the scene ever after in his memory, the kitchen by the light of that one candle, and the figure of his master standing in its center, moved Chris as he had never been touched before. Amos stood near the basket, looking first into its square depth filled with shadow, and then up enquiringly at Mr. Wicker, but he did not speak.



"Be of good heart, Amos," Mr. Wicker said to him kindly, "and look after young Christopher as best you can."

Then, at a gesture from Mr. Wicker, Amos, agog, stepped into the hamper where he stood uncertainly, his expression half terrified and half delighted.

"Yessir, I will!" he piped up, shrill with excitement. "I'll keep my eye on him!" he promised, and then curled up in the hamper. Ned Cilley shut down the top and he and Chris lifted it to the cart. Mr. Wicker spoke low into Ned's ear.

"All is well understood?" he queried. "This is no time for misunderstandings!"

"Aye aye, sir! All is clear!" the good Ned replied.

"Then Godspeed to you all and bring you safely home," said Mr. Wicker. "Be on the lookout for this lad, Ned, when you get past the bar."



"We shall," Ned whispered back, "and good luck to the two of ye!"

Clucking to his horse, on wheels covered with rags, and with cloths about the horse's hoofs to deaden their sound, Ned Cilley and his hamper went quietly away in the direction of the wharfs. In a moment, cart, horse, and driver were swallowed up in the denseness of the night.

A black night it was indeed. Although there was a moon, thick clouds scudded over it and an autumn wind bent the trees, tearing the leaves from them. A mist rose from the river, but it was blown away from all but the most sheltered places.

Mr. Wicker and Chris stood in the silent kitchen. Looking about him, Chris remembered with a pang the first morning he had seen it, with Becky in her gaudy hat standing near the fire.

"Come, Christopher," Mr. Wicker bade him, taking up his caped black cloak and another one for Chris. "First, wind the rope about your waist, and once on board, bind it under your shirt. Let no one, not even Amos, know of it."

Chris did as he was told. Mr. Wicker then gave him a leather pouch hung on a cord.

"Here are some oddments of magic that may prove their usefulness," he remarked. "Wear them about your neck." So saying he slipped the leather cord over Chris's head.

"What happens to the rope and pouch when I change my shape, sir?" Chris asked.

"They will remain with you, have no fear of that," the magician replied. "What would be the use of magic if it proved unable to adjust itself?" A smile played over Mr. Wicker's face. "So, all is ready," he said glancing around. "Now we must be off and lose no time, for we have much ahead of us," said Mr. Wicker drily, blowing out the candle.

Before he knew it, Chris stood—until what far-off time?—outside Mr. Wicker's house. His master locked the door. The wind, swooping down like some great bird, tugged at their cloaks and chilled their faces.

Chris led the way to the creek and the marsh. This time both he and Mr. Wicker wore high boots which kept the icy water and mud from their feet.

"What I wouldn't give for a flashlight!" Chris muttered as they came to the marsh.

"Yes, the twentieth century has many conveniences," Mr. Wicker replied, and Chris could imagine, behind him, the man's sardonic smile and amused eyes.

They came out suddenly from the blackness of the woods to the wind-whipped river, and though the moon was still obscured, the river held a pallid sheen of its own that gave a little light. There was not a sound to be heard but the hurried lap of water against the shore, the suck and pull of Chris's and Mr. Wicker's boots in the mud, and sharp, hair-raising rustles, from time to time, in the reeds. Chris's heart thudded in his throat at these furtive noises, for they could only be made by rats or watersnakes, and Chris liked neither of these, especially by night.

Pushing along the marsh edge and feeling their way, the two figures at last came in sight of their goal. The high dark hull of the Venture rose above the water, an amber lantern hanging at her stern. The wind swung the ship, and the tide, still flowing up the Potomac, showed that the bow, held by the anchor, was pointed somewhat downstream.

"The anchor may have dragged," Chris whispered to Mr. Wicker. "Now for our boat!"

The rope seemed to uncoil from about his waist almost of itself, and with the gestures he had been taught, Chris formed a very adequate craft; a trifle lopsided, it must be admitted, as he had had small practice, but seaworthy nevertheless.

"I shall see that the men sleep soundly," Mr. Wicker murmured. "You do the rest."

"I shall, sir!" Chris agreed, and then the moon showed an edge for a moment in the clouds. "Look sir—the Mirabelle!"

Toward sleeping Georgetown, for it was nearly midnight now, a whiteness showed itself, close against the distant wharfs. The Mirabelle was edging out, and Chris knew that Ned, Bowie, Abner Cloud, and others were pulling her by the ship's boats into the main flow of the river. Once turned, she would float noiselessly down the Potomac past the Venture, and once he was aboard, would hoist her sails and set her course to sea.

"Then quick!" bade Mr. Wicker. "We took too long! It seems we are a trifle late!"



They stepped into the boat, each taking an oar, and with only a few strong pulls came alongside the silent Venture. They moored their boat to the anchor rope. Mr. Wicker touched Chris by way of wishing him luck, and disappeared. For half a second more Chris waited. No sound came from the ship but a light showed in the Captain's cabin.

In a twinkling, a monkey with a pouch about its neck ran up the anchor rope and pausing on the gunwale, sniffed at the pungent flower smell that it now knew meant sleep for all the sailors. Then it bounded toward the light.

A window of the cabin on the lee side had been left open. Clinging to a piece of rigging before it sprang to the sill, the monkey's eyes caught what seemed to be a shadow darker than that of the mist or of the night, moving away from the sailor left at night watch. The man now lay slumped in sleep, and the same heady scent of spices and flowers that had overcome Chris when he had first entered Mr. Wicker's shop blew away on the gusty fall wind.

The ship tugged and strained at her anchor, wind and turning tide making taut the line that held her close to shore. The Venture, her rigging and masts scarcely visible, so sombre was the night, lay ominously silent, excepting for a murmur of voices from the cabin. Abruptly aware of the passing of time and the approaching white cloud on the water that was the Mirabelle, the monkey sprang to the side of the open window and peered inside.



A smoking lamp hung low over a center table, dropping a dusky round glow on the larger circle beneath it. Claggett Chew was blearily studying a paper spread out before him, leaning his ugly bare skull on one hand. His eyes were blood-shot, and an empty wine bottle and glass holding only wine dregs showed he had been drinking and was now half asleep.

Osterbridge Hawsey, in a heavy silk robe and embroidered slippers, lounged sideways in a chair with his legs hanging over the arm. His hand trailed an empty glass on the floor, and a silly drunken smile played over his face.

"Claggett," he was saying, "is the place marked?" He hiccuped delicately. "Hup! Oh dear! the hiccups!" he complained with a frown. "Let me have more wine!"

Claggett Chew did not reply nor rise to fetch another bottle. Osterbridge Hawsey gave a hiccup and spoke again, "Mark it—hic!—Claggett. You may forget. All those—hup!—walls, to get over, or—hic! under." He sighed. "Oh dear! Hic! Think of those jewels, Claggett! Hup! Devil take these hiccups!" he exclaimed in a flurry of annoyance, but made no motion to change his comfortable position.

"Claggett!" Osterbridge Hawsey shrilled. "Are you asleep, or angry, or—? Hic!—Put a cross where the Tree is, I say! I want those—hup!—jewels, Claggett, and so do you! Hic!"

Befuddled, his perceptions hopelessly blurred by excessive wine, Claggett Chew made a mark on the map. "There!" he growled, his upper lip drawn back over his teeth, "will that shut you up?"

A moving shadow duskier than the shadows themselves came through the door and hovered over Osterbridge Hawsey. Claggett Chew suddenly started up.

"I smell him!" he muttered thickly. "He's here! Hullo! Night watchman!" he shouted drunkenly.

As he got up, stumbling and thrashing about in the uncertainty of his movements, his chair crashed to the floor and the monkey made a leap, cuffing the lantern from its hook. The light was dashed out, and in the dark as he jumped, the monkey seized the creased, well-thumbed paper as he leaped back toward the pale square that was the window. Behind it Claggett Chew's oaths and exclamations became fainter as the spicy scent grew stronger, and at last his mutterings trailed off into snorts and, finally, snores. The monkey, clutching the paper to itself, sat on the window ledge stuffing it into the pouch about its neck, and a monkey smile flitted across its face as it heard a final dreaming sound from Osterbridge Hawsey.

"Hm-mm. Hic! Jewels! Hup!" came from Osterbridge Hawsey.

Down the anchor rope scrambled the monkey with the agility and speed for which monkeys are famous. Mr. Wicker was already in the boat.

"How shall it be, sir?" came the low voice of Chris. "Shall I become a beaver and go down and gnaw the rope off at the anchor?"

"No," said Mr. Wicker. "It can be more easily done than that and nothing to trace it. Get in the boat. Here comes the Mirabelle."

Taking his own shape once more, Chris saw the white ghost-like sides of the Mirabelle soundlessly passing down stream. Not a creak nor a splash of water came from her as she passed, but from the stern a tiny light, struck by a flint perhaps, blinked once, and twice, and then a third time.

"Now!" came Mr. Wicker's low voice. "Let me have my hand upon that rope!"

He only seemed to hold the anchor rope a moment and give it an easy pull. The tugging strain was suddenly gone and the Venture veered away like a frightened waterfowl.

"Will she go where she should, sir?" Chris wanted to know, leaning forward.

"That she will, Christopher!" came the familiar voice in the dark. "And we must get out of her way, for here she comes down at us. The wind and the tide and—hm-m—other forces will drive her solidly upon the bar. If I mistake not, it will be several days before they get her off," and on the night air Chris heard a faint short chuckle.

"Pull, boy!" his master told him sharply. "Here she comes!"

Chris grasped his oar and spun the boat only in time, for the down-flowing tide and rising wind combined to drive the Venture forward at increasing speed. The tide being still high, the ship was carried well upon the sandbar before it grounded, lolling over to one side much like the sleeping sailors.



"Quick, lad! Now we must catch the Mirabelle, and you and I must part."

"Oh, sir!" Chris cried, holding his oar above the water and turning his head toward the man beside him. Mr. Wicker clapped Chris on the shoulder and a glint of moonlight showed him to be smiling.

"I shall miss you too, my lad," he said. "Now, let us send this boat over the river as fast as she can go. And bear in mind—keep your own shape at all times unless you can change it out of sight of prying eyes." They pulled at the oars. "Oh yes, I nearly forgot. Among the effects placed in your sea chest you will find a conch shell. Hold it to your ear, Christopher, as children do to hear the sea. You will be able to hear my voice, if ever you should need to."

"Oh—like a walkie-talkie?" Chris asked, pulling at his oar.

"Somewhat." And Chris knew his master smiled at him.

"What about getting you to shore, sir?" Chris enquired, pulling in rhythm so that the rope boat flew down the black and silver river.

"Have you forgotten who I am, my boy?" he was asked in return.

"No sir," said Chris, feeling a little small.

"Then undo the dinghy and clamber up the side, for here we are," said Mr. Wicker, and the towering hull of the Mirabelle rose above them.

Chris grasped a rope ladder that hung down beside them to the water's edge and turned for a last word.

"I'll do my best, sir, but I hope you'll stay with me!" he cried.

"All that I can, Christopher," came the distant voice. "Godspeed!"

And looking about, Chris made out, coasting on the air, a sea gull, balancing upon its black-tipped wings. Swallowing a lump in his throat that proved bothersome, Chris jerked at one oar and deftly coiled the magic rope over his arm, holding to the ship's ladder with the other.

A signal flashed, a lantern swung in an arc, and dim figures waiting in their places hauled on the lines. As Chris stepped to the deck over the side, the great white sails rose, spread, and bellied out from the three masts. Chris looked in wonder as the Mirabelle, proud as a woman, lifted up her head.

Soon on the silent river only a dwindling sight of lonely sails was to be seen, heading toward Chesapeake Bay and then to sea. But anyone with eyesight good enough might have seen a solitary sea gull, following.



CHAPTER 19

The long days passed on board the Mirabelle. The hours rolled majestically past as did the waves through which the Mirabelle cut her way.

Amos and Christopher were kept out of sight until Mr. Wicker's ship was several days out to sea, for the crew, not knowing that the success of their voyage depended on Chris, would have been surly at the presence of two such young boys on board, useless cargo, in their opinion, who knew nothing of seafaring. But when Chris and Amos appeared under the banner of "stowaways," the sailors considered them full of spunk, and welcomed them warmly.

Both Chris and Amos found life on a sailing vessel strange and fascinating but difficult to get used to. Ned Cilley as their best friend on board was the one to whom they turned whenever his duties gave him free time. However, to Chris's surprise, it was the first mate, sad-looking Mr. Finney, who would patiently instruct them in sea terms and answer their endless questions.

As the days passed and the Mirabelle pursued her long course through tropical water, Chris, with many free hours to occupy, at last understood how the model of the Mirabelle had been so painstakingly arranged inside a bottle. For the time seemed long between glimpses of shore and shore, or until they sailed for a time along some wild and beautiful tropic coast. Then Chris would lean on the side of the ship looking at the mountainous or jungled shore. A scent such as comes from the opened door of a hothouse would drift out to sea to the sailors, who looked yearningly toward the land and the greenness. A warm breath of flowers, damp moss, and leaves in the sun would mingle with the rough salt smell of the sea. Chris and Amos imagined to themselves what the forest or the mountainsides would be like if they could only land and investigate them.



Now and again small flocks of birds, migrating perhaps or blown out to sea, would land on the Mirabelle, and Ned Cilley made a large cage for some of the sweet-singing gaily feathered creatures for Chris and Amos. And on one occasion when the Mirabelle was sailing past Brazil, a flock of butterflies was carried out on a breeze from shore and hung on the rigging until the boys imagined themselves in a blossoming wood.

Chris had found, his first day at sea, the conch shell Mr. Wicker had mentioned, and he alone of all the Mirabelle's crew knew how the Venture had fared.



That first evening, in the little cabin Captain Blizzard had given Chris and Amos, Chris had waited impatiently for Amos to sleep. The two boys each had a hammock swung across the cabin by night which they rolled up and put away to give more room by day. But that first night poor Chris had begun to despair that he would ever hear Mr. Wicker's voice from the shell, for Amos was excited and had no wish to go to sleep. He swung back and forth, happy as a dark bird in his hammock, his round eyes looking toward the porthole where there was a faint gleam of night sea.

"Chris," Amos said, "we're sure going on a mighty far trip! That Mister Finney, he showed me on a map, but I never heard of any of the places we pass by. The Bahamas, he say to me, then the West Indies, Cuba, Barbadoes"—he was ticking them off on his fingers as he named them—"an' on to South America. Away down at the tippy end around—what's the name of that loud-named place?"

"Cape Horn?" Chris said. He was scarcely listening.

Amos tried to prop himself up on his elbow and promptly fell out of the hammock in a flurry of arms and legs and a heavy landing thump that brought a shout of laughter from Chris. After an attempt at making his bed again in the hammock, and some little difficulty in clambering safely back in again, Amos composed himself with the least possible movement in his swinging bed and yawned.

"I disremember," he said, "where else we're going. Wise Man islands, or Solemn Islands—"

"You mean, Solomon Islands?" Chris asked him. Amos gave another mighty yawn.

"That's what I said. Miss Becky, she read to me from the Bible about Solemn, how wise he was." There was a pause. "On that way—" Amos's voice was becoming indistinct.

"We go past the West Indian Islands next," Chris murmured, almost to himself. "I remember that."

"And the Cell-Bees Sea," Amos said in a whisper.

"Celebes," Chris corrected softly.

"What I said," came Amos's voice, and then at last there was silence in the cabin.

He almost got as far as the China Sea! Chris thought to himself, and holding to the hammock, eased himself out and on bare feet went quietly to his sea chest.

Its square bulk stood in the shadow of the wall, but fragments of light from the night sky caught the brass nailheads and bands upon it so that it appeared to wink cheerfully at Chris in the gloom.

Slowly, to avoid any creaks that might awake Amos, Chris lifted the lid, thrust in one hand and found the shell. He held it near the small port for a moment, its rosy interior faded of color in the gray light. Then he turned it in his hand and put it to his ear.

At first he heard only the rushing sound of surf on a beach. Then the sea sound became fainter and a voice so familiar that it meant home to him came to Chris's ear as if from a long way off.

"Christopher? Christopher, here I am," came Mr. Wicker's voice. "How are you? All going well I hope. Please do me the favor to tell the Captain not to put ashore at his usual place in Tahiti, but to go by night to a cove he will find twelve leagues farther along the coast. I will tell you what to do nearer that time. He will find ample fresh water near that cove, but the Venture is up to mischief. You must escape it, and all on board the Mirabelle shall be witnesses to what Claggett Chew plans to do."

The voice faded out and then returned.

"You would probably like to know how far behind the Venture is. She ran aground—most unfortunately and most surprisingly—and is three full days behind you. But she is a fast ship and will soon lessen the distance. Please to tell the Captain so; he is the only one to know of my gifts and that it is possible for me to communicate with you. Tell him not to stop for water or food until his stores are running low. You must not waste time. Have you heard me? Tap the edge of the shell three times for 'Yes.'"

Chris tapped three times, feeling much happier and all at once not quite so much alone. The voice came back to his ear.

"I am following your progress from this room in the manner you know. Practise your magic alone, or you will lose the knack. And now good night. Oh yes—Becky Boozer has been crying into her apron all day. Partly for Ned Cilley but I fancy—" Chris heard a chuckle from a well-remembered room—"but I fancy, largely for two boys! Good night, Christopher. Sleep well."



CHAPTER 20

As the Mirabelle sailed farther into tropical seas, Chris and Amos worked out a pattern for their days. Before sunup, while the air was still cool from the night, the two boys were awakened by Ned Cilley or Abner Cloud. They joined the sailors on deck to do their share of chores—mending rigging, patching sails, scrubbing decks, or polishing brass. When the sun rose the boys breakfasted.

The men of the Mirabelle then went on with their various tasks, but Amos went up to the Captain's bridge where he listened to Mr. Finney and Captain Blizzard, and Chris went down to their cabin for an hour or more.

Supposedly, Chris was studying lessons. This was only partially true, for instead of sums, he was practising magic, in which he soon attained a high degree of proficiency.

What he most enjoyed was turning himself into some small commonplace creature to plague his friends on board—a mouse, one day, a flea the next, a fly on the third. Quite naturally, no one suspected his ability to adopt such fantastic disguises. So little did they guess—he had one or two narrow escapes from being swatted or stamped on.

It was Zachary Heigh whom Chris wanted to watch, and as a flea or a fly he often rode about on Zachary's jacket listening and observing. But it was not until the Mirabelle had rounded Cape Horn one morning that Chris, in the disguise of a fly, rode unnoticed on Zachary's jacket when that sulky young man, after looking around to make sure the others were all at work, slipped down to the sailor's quarters below decks.

There he dragged out his sea chest, and from under his belongings pulled out a second chest. Fitting a key to the lock, he lifted up the lid. Chris, perched on his shoulder, peered over to see the contents. They were disappointing—merely a gray powder carefully packed in a piece of tarpaulin.

Wonder why it has to be kept so dry? Chris pondered, but Zachary was already refolding the tarpaulin and locking the lid. In the next moment, Zachary had uncovered a length of white coils. Then Chris understood.

By golly! he exclaimed to himself, dynamite! Or gunpowder! And so much! What's it for?

Zachary made no other disclosures of interest that day, but after that Chris spent all the time he could, both day and night, watching the young sailor. He was determined to discover if he could what Zachary intended to do with the gunpowder.

It was hard for Chris not to be able to ask Mr. Wicker's advice and not to have his master's superior knowledge to lean on. Yet had he known it, it was just this lack which was making him quick witted and more resourceful.

One night a short time after Zachary's uncovering of the gunpowder, Chris noticed that Zachary remained on deck after the others had gone to bed, and continued to sit with his back to a stanchion dreamily gazing at the starry sky. Chris was in a fever for Amos to sleep, which his good friend soon did. Then a gray mouse scuttered along the wainscot of the ship's passageways until it reached a good vantage point from which to see the young sailor on deck. Chris had chosen well; a mouse is used to the dark.

For several hours Zachary remained still and the mouse dozed, woke with a start, twitched its ears, and waited. Then, long after midnight when, alone of the entire ship's company, only the helmsman and night watch were awake, Zachary very slowly slid his way to the ladder leading to the hold. The mouse, scurrying forward, was able to follow by means of a dangling rope and a leap into pitch-blackness at the rope's end. The poor mouse hit something and ricocheted off. It lay stunned for a moment or two a few inches from Zachary's feet as the sailor stood at the foot of the ladder in the black heavy air of the hold. Then Zachary lit a candle end he had brought in his pocket, and lifted it up above his head to give the maximum amount of radiance.

The glow of the candle stub, like a yellow daisy in a cavern, spread petals of light for only a short distance. By its sputtering, the mouse looked up to the towering figure Zachary now made above it, and hearing the sharp squeakings and furtive scratches that signaled rats, the mouse thought it more prudent to adopt the shape of a fly. This Chris did, and on Zachary's shoulder the fly's many-faceted eyes could not only see everything, but see them several times over.

Zachary then put the candle on the corner of a packing case and from under his shirt pulled out the coils of the fuse Chris had seen a few days before. He took up the candle stub and began a long and patient search, measuring with the length of fuse, and hunting for a secure hiding place for the gunpowder. In the end he found a cramped space, just big enough for him to slide into, made by the shifting of the cargo which had seemingly rewedged itself firmly, forming a curious little cave of barrel sides, crates, and heavy bales of cotton overhead. Dangerous, thought Chris, should anything rock the Mirabelle in such a way that the cargo shifted back suddenly to its original tight formation. The hold of the Mirabelle was large, the packing case cave was surrounded by hundreds of pounds of solid cargo. It gave Chris a trapped feeling that he did not like, and he was relieved when Zachary edged and squeezed himself out again into a freer part of the hold.



Zachary measured with his fuse from the crate cave, where he evidently intended hiding the gunpowder, to the farthest point away from it and nearest the ladder, for the treacherous young man wanted all the time he could get to escape from the doomed Mirabelle. Time to climb the ladder, reach the ship's side, and perhaps row away to a safe distance.

The fuse proved to be rather shorter than Zachary Heigh wished. His candle stub, set on a crate, was burning very low and he had only a few more moments in which—that night at any rate—to decide where he would hide the lighting end of the fuse. Just before the candle went out, Zachary's fuse coil reached a group of molasses barrels, and here the young man decided that the fuse, when the time came, would be hidden and lit. He made a mark in white chalk behind one of the barrels and then hurriedly began coiling up the fuse as he turned toward the ladder.



At that moment the candle end, drowned in a pool of its own melted tallow, guttered, blinked, and went out. The utter blackness of the hold rushed over Zachary and the fly who clutched at the threads of the sailor's coarse shirt. Zachary was only a young boy, scarcely older than Chris himself, and the fly could almost feel the quickening of Zachary's heartbeat at the sudden flood of dark, the sense of the late hour, and the rat-infested hold. Zachary moved quickly in the pitch-black, his hands outstretched to feel the ladder, his breath coming and going rapidly through his parted lips. The heat of the airless place, the heavy smells of the cargo itself, oppressed and weighed on both Zachary and his unsuspected companion. The Mirabelle was moving slowly forward in calm tropic seas, scarcely making headway on an almost breathless night. Down in the hold the ladder eluded Zachary's reaching fingers, and the creaking of the ship was all that was to be heard except for the faint sound of Zachary's breathing.

Then all at once, as sometimes happens in a roomful of talking people, there came a moment of total silence. For a second there was a space in the creaking of the ship, the pad of rats, or the slight shift and reshift of boxes. And in that second, just as Zachary's fingers touched the ladder, to Zachary and to Chris on his shoulder, came the distinct sound of another man's breathing.



CHAPTER 21

Exhausted as he was by his long vigil and the effort needed to change his shape, it was another hour or more before Chris could sleep that night. The sound of that heavy but held-back breathing, so close to Zachary and himself in the black hold, frightened Chris almost more, once he was safe in his cabin and hammock, than it had at the time. Zachary had bolted up the ladder like a frightened squirrel, with Chris, as a fly, holding on for dear life. Even so, Zachary moved none too fast to suit Chris, who flew off toward his own cabin in a chattering fright. The lumpy form of Amos, asleep in his hammock, was reassuring, but Chris lay shivering and puzzling for a long time before he finally fell asleep.

The next day, lying on his stomach in the hot sun, he dozed with his cheek on his folded hands, his mind going over and over the details of the night before. Try as he would, Chris could not remember having seen any member of the crew even near the hatch leading to the hold.