Black Bartlemy's Treasure Part 19

Now as I slept I dreamed that Penfeather's long rapier, standing in the dark corner close by, was stealthily endeavouring to free itself from its leathern scabbard with intent to skewer me to the floor as I lay; and, striving thus to draw itself, made soft, strange noises and rustlings insomuch that I presently woke, and staring motionless into the darkness above, knew that these sounds were real. Somewhere close by was a furtive whisper of sound that came and went, a soft-drawn breath, a sc.r.a.ping of fingers on the panelling above me in the darkness; and in that moment also I became aware that the lattice yawned wide upon a square of glimmering blackness. Suddenly a sly-creeping foot touched me unseen and then (even as the owner of this foot tripped over me) came the roaring flash of a pistol hard by, followed immediately by another and, as I lay deafened and half-dazed, the floor quivered to the soft, vicious thud of leaping, swift-trampling feet, and on the air was a confused scuffling, mingled with an awful, beast-like worrying sound. And now (though I was broad-awake and tingling for action) I constrained myself to lie still, nothing stirring, for here (as I judged) was desperate knife-play, indeed more than once I heard the faint click of steel. And now rose shouts and cries and a tramp of feet on the stair without. Someone reeled staggering across the room, came a-scrabbling at the open cas.e.m.e.nt and, as I leapt up, the door burst open and Joel Bym appeared flourishing a naked hanger and with G.o.dby behind bearing a lanthorn, whose flickering light showed Adam, knife in hand, where he leaned panting against the wall, a smear of blood across his pallid face and with shirt and doublet torn in horrid fashion.

"The window!" he gasped. "Shutters! 'Ware bullets!" I sprang forward, but Joel was before me, and crouching beneath the open lattice swung the heavy shutters into position, but even as he did so, a bullet crashed through the stout oak.

"Doors all fast, Joel?"

"Aye, Cap'n! But who's here--is't the preventive? And me wi' the cellars choke-full. My c.o.c.k! Is't the customs, Cap'n?"

"Worse, Joel!" says Penfeather, wiping sweat from him.

"Art hurt, Adam?" I questioned, eyeing his wild figure, and now I saw that the thin, steel chain was gone from his sinewy throat.

"No, shipmate. But the dagger, look ye--'tis clean disappeared, Martin."

"And good riddance," quoth I. "But, Adam--what o' your chart--gone along o' the dagger, has it?"

"Tush, man!" says he, sheathing his knife, "'Tis snug in that wallet o'

yours."

"My wallet!" I cried, clapping hand on it where it hung at my girdle.

"Aye, shipmate. I slipped it there as I bid ye good-night! But, Martin--O Martin, the dead is alive again--see how I'm all gashed with his hook."

"Hook?" quoth Joel, shooting great, hairy head forward. "Did ye--say a--hook, Cap'n?"

"Aye, Joel--Tressady's alive again."

"G.o.d love us!" gasped the giant and sank into a chair.

CHAPTER XIII

WE SET OUT FOR DEPTFORD POOL

Penfeather drew clenched hand across his brow, and coming to the table reached the half-emptied flagon and drank what remained of the wine thirstily, while Bym, his great body huddled in the chair, stared at the bullet hole in the shutter with starting eyes: as to me, I picked up Penfeather's fallen pistols and laid them on the table, where G.o.dby had set the lanthorn.

"Tressady!" says Bym at last in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, "Tressady--O Cap'n, be ye sarten sure?"

"Sure!" says Penfeather, in the same hushed manner, and reaching powder and bullets from a cupboard he began methodically to reload his pistols. "He'll be outside now where the shadows be thickest, waiting me with Abnegation and Sol and Rory, and G.o.d knoweth how many more."

"Then he aren't dead, Cap'n?" Penfeather's black brows flickered and his keen eyes glanced from his rent doublet round about the room:

"Howbeit--he was here, Joel!" said he.

"Why then, Cap'n, the dying woman's curse holds and he can't die?" says Bym, clawing at his great beard.

"He was here, Joel, in this room," says Penfeather, busy with powder-horn, "man to man, knife to knife--and I missed him. Since midnight I've waited wi' pistols c.o.c.ked and never closed eye--and yet here was he or ever I was aware; for, as I sat there i' the dark by the window above the porch, which is therefore easiest to come at, I spied Mings and him staring up at the lattice of this chamber. So here creeps I and opening the door saw him move against the open lattice yonder--a shot no man could miss."

"Aye, Cap'n--aye?"

"And I--missed him, Joel--with both weapons and I within three yards of him, aye, I missed him with both pistols."

"Which is small wonder," says I, "for as you fired he tripped over me, Adam--"

"And why should he trip just then--at the one and only moment, Martin?

Chance, says you? Why, when he came leaping on me in the black dark should his hook meet and turn my knife from his throat? Chance again, says you? Why, when he flung me off and made for the window--why must I catch my foot 'gainst that staff o' yours and bring up against the wall with all the strength and breath knocked out o' me, and no chance for one thrust as he clambered through the lattice? By the Lord, Martin, here's more than chance, says I."

"Aye, by c.o.c.k!" muttered Joel, shaking his head. "'Tis 'witched he be!

You'll mind what I told ye, Cap'n--the poor lady as died raving mad aboard the 'Delight,' how she died cursing him wi' life. And him standing by a-polishing o' that hook o' his--ah, Cap'n, I'll never forget the work o' that same hook ... many's the time ... Bartlemy's prisoners ... men and women ... aboard that cursed 'Ladies' Delight!'

By c.o.c.k, I dream on't sometimes and wake all of a sweat--"

"Here's no time for dreams!" says Penfeather, ramming home the charge of his second pistol, "Is the pa.s.sage clear?"

"Save for the matter of a few kegs, Cap'n, but 'twill serve."

"We start in half an hour, Joel."

"The three o' you, Cap'n?"

"Aye, we must be aboard as soon as maybe now."

"Captain," says G.o.dby, "speaking as a master-gunner, a mariner and a peddler, I'm bold to say as there's nought like bite and sup to hasten a man for a journey or aught beside--flog me else! And there's nought more heartening than ham or neat's tongue, or brisket o' beef, the which I chanced to spy i' the kitchen--"

"Why then, master-gunner," says Penfeather, "go you and engage those same in close action and I'll join ye as soon as I've shifted these rags o' mine."

"Adam," says I, unstrapping my wallet as Bym and G.o.dby descended the stair, "if we are to have our throats cut to-night, 'twere as well I handed back your chart first"; and I laid it on the table.

"Why 'tis as safe with you, comrade--but as you will!" says he, slipping the chain about his neck. "As for any throat-slitting, Martin, you'll find that with danger my inborn caution groweth to timidity--"

"Ha, yes!" I nodded. "Such timidity as walks under the very noses of desperate, well-armed rogues of a moonlight night."

"Why, the moon is down--or nearly so, Martin. And then, besides, this trim little inn hath divers exits discreetly non-apparent. 'Twas a monastery once, I've heard."

"And now a smuggling-ken it seems, Adam."

"Even so, comrade, and no place better suited! And there's the Bo's'n hailing!" says he, as a hoa.r.s.e roar of "Supper O!" reached us. "Go down, Martin, I stay but to make things ship-shape!" and he nodded towards the books and papers that littered the table. Upon the stairs I met G.o.dby, who brought me to a kitchen, very s.p.a.cious and lofty, paved with great flagstones and with groined arches supporting the roof, and what with this and the wide fireplace flanked with fluted columns and enriched by carvings, I did not doubt that here had once stood a n.o.ble abbey or the like.

"Pal," said G.o.dby, as I stared about me, "you'd never guess as there be nigh three hundred kegs stowed hereabouts besides bales and the like, choke me else! Ha, many's the good cargo I've helped Jo and the lads to run--eh, Joel?"

"So you're a smuggler, G.o.dby," says I.

"c.o.c.k," says Bym reproachfully, and setting a goodly cheese on the table with a bang, "say free-trader, c.o.c.k--t'other 'un's a cackling word and I don't like cackle--"

"Aye," nodded G.o.dby, "that's the word, 'free-trader,' Mart'n. So I am and what then? 'Twas summat o' the sort as got me suspicioned by Gregory and his catchpolls, rot 'em." But here Adam entered, very soberly dressed in sad-coloured clothes, and we sat down to sup forthwith.

"Do we sail soon, Captain?" questioned G.o.dby in a while.

"I hope to be clear o' the Downs a few days hence," says Adam.