Highway Pirates Part 14

"What's the good of beating about the bush?" growled one man. "Speak out plain, you fool!"

"Why," returned the smuggler, "what I mean is, you can't get in or out of this place with anything of a rough sea running. It's calm now, but there's no knowing how long the weather's going to hold this time of year. You can't expect to walk out of jail and get off without running risks; if you steer clear of one, you must take your chance of running into another. Here's a place where there's precious little chance of your being found, except by them who, at a word from me, would take care not to see you; but there's equal chance, if you stay here till a gale should happen to spring up, that you'll be missing till the day of judgment."

The truth of this a.s.sertion seemed to shock the group of listeners into a momentary silence. To myself the danger of our present position became at once evident, and a sense of fear chilled my heart as I listened to the lapping of the water and thought of what must be our fate if the slumbering sea awoke in fury, and the huge billows thundered through the mouth of the cave. There was little doubt but that in a storm the ledge on which we rested would be swept clean with the surges, and any living being seeking refuge there would soon be drawn into the surf and dashed to pieces against the sides of the cavern.

"What d'you propose to do, then?" inquired Rodwood.

"It's no use to stir abroad in daylight," answered Lewis; "we must wait here till to-morrow night. Then I thought I'd go alone into Rockymouth, and try and get a word with them as will help us. They'll say how soon there's a chance of our getting across the water. I'll bring back some more food; and if I see any sign of bad weather, why, we must get out of this, and find some snug hole among the bushes on the cliffs. Maybe during to-morrow all that ground will be searched, and folks won't trouble to look there again."

For a few seconds the leader of the gang remained thinking, with his chin resting on his hand; then I saw him raise his head and dart a quick glance at Lewis.

"See here!" he exclaimed; "how are we to know that when you once get among your friends you'll ever come back again? I don't suppose there's a man among us who can swim; and if the fact of our being left behind should happen to slip your memory, here we should remain, like rats in a drain-pipe, to either starve or drown."

"When my word's given I don't go back on it," replied Lewis. "If you doubt me, you can send a man along with me in the boat."

"There, there, my friend! don't get angry," replied Rodwood with a laugh. "You've served us well in the past, and there's no reason to doubt you in the future; but when a man has knocked about the world as much as I have; he gets to look at a thing from more than one point of view."

Overcome at length by the fatigues and excitements of the day, and rendered still more drowsy by the grateful warmth of the fire, I gradually sank back on the rock; the murmur of voices became fainter and more confused, my eyelids closed, and I sank gradually into a deep and dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE BRANDY KEGS.

A vague sense of pain and discomfort at length began to enter into my dreams, and soon I awoke to find that, from having lain so long in one position on the hard rock, I was aching in every limb as though I had been beaten. For a moment or so my head swam with bewilderment as I stared about me and wondered where I was. It was like the recovering of consciousness after a fall. But presently the full recollection of the previous day's adventure flooded my memory. I struggled into a sitting posture, and gazed around. The sun had risen, but the mouth of the cavern being so small and far distant, the surrounding objects were visible in a sort of gray twilight, such as might have illumined some underground dungeon with but a single small barred window high up in the wall. The other members of the party were already astir--one man mending the fire, another plucking one of the pheasants we had brought with us, and a group of two or three hauling up more of the wreck-wood out of the water on to the platform.

Looking towards the mouth of the cave from where I sat was much like surveying the interior of a modern railway tunnel which by some means had become flooded, except that the cavern was more lofty. The roof itself was lost in darkness; but as far as I could make out, exactly over our ledge was a wide hole in the rock, like the perpendicular shaft of an old-fashioned chimney. This, however, was only discernible by the s.p.a.ce of denser black amid the general gloom.

Shivering with the cold, I was glad enough to get some warmth by a.s.sisting in building up the fire. The broken spars which had been recovered the previous night were dry by this time, and made good fuel, of which there seemed a sufficient supply to more than last out our needs. There being no beach for nearly a mile on either side of us, a quant.i.ty of flotsam, as Lewis explained, was often to be found in the cavern, carried there by the current.

Our breakfast was a frugal one--a sausage and a small hunk of cheese served out to each man--Rodwood having determined to husband the food supply. Then the gang settled down to endure as best they could the long hours of waiting till it would be safe for Lewis to venture forth and bring back such information as would enable them to decide on their further movements.

From the time I awoke, the unpleasant conviction began gradually to force itself on my mind that the att.i.tude and disposition of the escaped prisoners towards George and myself was undergoing a change.

In the first glow of their grat.i.tude for the small kindnesses and services which we had shown them, they had gone to an extreme in their expression of good will, but now a reaction became evident. Any obligation to us which they might have felt on the previous evening was now forgotten. They began to resent our presence among them, and appeared to regret that they had not taken their leader's advice, and not hampered their escape by bringing us with them to the coast. As far as was possible in such a limited s.p.a.ce, they excluded us from their society, allowing us to have no share in their conversation, which, for the most part, seemed to turn on the various misdeeds for which they had suffered.

"What's to be done with 'em when we get out of here?" I heard one man remark.

"That'll be seen when the time comes," answered another. "I don't suppose they'd thank us to take 'em with us over to France."

On comparing notes with George, I found he had already remarked the same thing, but had refrained from mentioning it for fear of causing me unnecessary alarm.

"Laugh every now and again as if we were talking about something comic," he whispered as we sat together, a little apart from the rest.

"It won't do to let 'em think we suspect them or notice any change."

So with many feigned grins and chuckles we continued our talk, though Heaven knows I never in my life felt less in a laughing mood.

"What d'you think they'll do with us?" I asked.

"How can I tell?" he answered. "But any one could see that there's rocks ahead for you and me. Put yourself in their place, and leave everything out of the question but your own safety, and think what's to be done. Once give us our freedom, and how are they to know that we shan't loose the dogs on their heels the very next minute? Another thing: if they take us with them, we shall be able to identify the men who help them in their escape--the crew of some smuggling craft, I expect--and it's not likely, with that knowledge in our heads, we shall be left to walk straight off to the nearest justice of the peace."

"Then what will they do with us? They can't leave us here; that would be worse than downright murder."

"There's no knowing what they'll do," answered George evasively.

"Old Lewis will remain our friend," I replied. "I'm sure he'll not stand by and allow us to come to harm."

"But what's he to do by himself, one to nine?" was the reply. "These are desperate men, and prepared for desperate measures. We're about as safe here, Master Eden, as if we were in a den of tigers."

"But Lewis can say, as he did before, that he won't help them if harm comes to us," I persisted, unwilling to abandon this sheet anchor of hope.

"He may say that once too often," muttered George. "You must remember, too, that the man's walking the greasy pole himself, so to speak, and one slip sends him down into transportation for life; for I don't doubt but what they'd all get that after this attempted escape and making away with the coach."

As one or two of the convicts seemed to be eyeing us, we ceased our conversation with a forced laugh; and rising, I strolled over towards Lewis, who stood at the edge of the platform with arms folded, gazing towards the mouth of the cave. If not then low water, the tide could not long have turned, and the ledge seemed considerably higher above the sea than it had done when we had first landed from the boat.

"What's the matter?" I asked, seeing how the old sailor's heavy brows were contracted in thought.

"There's a good bit may be the matter, Master Eden, before this gang of lubbers steps ash.o.r.e in France," he answered. "I've been as far as the mouth of the cave this morning in the boat, and I don't altogether like the look of the sea: there's a swell getting up which may mean wind behind it. If so, these blokes may find this cave as difficult a place to get out of as Welmington Jail."

Now that he called my attention to it, I noticed that there was certainly a constant ripple whispering down the length of the cave.

The boat rocked gently at her mooring, and at the sight of her a sudden foreboding of evil entered my mind.

"You don't think it's going to be rough enough to wash us off this rock?" I asked anxiously.

"I doubt if that would happen unless it came on to blow a regular gale," he answered. "You see, the mouth of the cave is only a narrow opening, and, especially at high water, the seas would spend most of their force outside; still, as I've warned these men here, if once a big storm did get up, not a mother's son of them is ever likely to be heard of again. No," continued the speaker, "it's not being drowned I'm so much afraid of now as there being just enough sea running to prevent us getting out. These fools don't realize what a ticklish job it is except in still water. Let them try it in a stiff sou'-easterly breeze, and see how far they get! I'll wager my neck not one of them would ever set foot on sh.o.r.e again."

I stood gazing anxiously at that distant semicircle of light beyond which the sea was sparkling in the wintry sunshine. As I did so a fresh salt breeze swept through the cavern, and a miniature wave rolled up and spent itself against the ma.s.s of rock on which we stood. I was on the point of making some further remark to Lewis, when, in a sharp, peremptory manner, a voice behind us exclaimed,--

"Hark!"

The hum of conversation going on round the fire instantly ceased, while Lewis and I involuntarily turned sharp round to see who had spoken.

"Hist! D'ye hear anything?"

It was the blind man who spoke. His name was Mogger, and he sat a little apart from his companions, with his back against the rock wall of the cavern. From chance remarks let drop by the others, I gathered that he had been accustomed to beg for his bread with a dog, leading-string, and tin can. a.s.sociating with a set of rogues and vagabonds, he had at length become concerned in a robbery, and had been found guilty of receiving and concealing stolen goods. His loss of sight appeared to have been in a measure made up to him by an abnormally keen sense of hearing; in fact, the fellow's ears were as sensitive to sound as a dog's. Walking down the middle of a road, he declared that he could tell whenever he pa.s.sed a house, or when he emerged from between two rows of buildings into the open country, and this simply by the change in the sound of his own footsteps. I mention this as giving additional interest to the incident which I am about to describe.

There was a moment of dead silence. The picture of that scene rises in my mind now as I write--the blind man sitting bolt upright against the rock with closed eyes, and his pale, expressionless face raised at an unusual angle, as though an unseen hand had gripped him beneath the chin; the group round the fire, for the instant rigid and alert, with heads half turned and mouths opened in the att.i.tude of listening; while Rodwood's hand closed instinctively on a pistol which he had been cleaning, and had laid beside him on the rock. Thus, in the gloomy twilight of the cave we all remained motionless as the rock itself, until one of the men broke the spell with speech.

"What's the matter now?--more sheep?" he demanded gruffly, referring to the false alarm of the previous evening, at which several of his companions laughed.

The blind man made no reply, but remained in exactly the same att.i.tude, like a person in a trance. On any occasion his conduct would have been disquieting and uncanny, but for hunted men there was something in it especially disturbing.

"Can't you answer, you dumb post?" cried Rodwood angrily. "If you hear anything, tell us what it is."

"It was a voice," answered Mogger. "I heard it, I'll swear; my ears never play me false."

"You heard a good many voices, I suppose, seeing that we was most of us talking," retorted one of his companions, with an uneasy catch in the bl.u.s.tering tone which he tried to a.s.sume.

"I know all your voices," was the reply. "This was strange, and seemed to come from a distance. Hark!"