Jim Davis Part 7

I couldn't say more, for I burst out crying again.

Marah sat still, watching me. "Well, well," he said, "I always thought you had spirit. Still, no sense in drowning you, no sense at all."

He walked to the door and called out to some of the smugglers, "Here, Extry, Hankin, you fellows, just come in here, I want you a moment."

The men came in quickly, and ranged themselves about the room, grinning cheerfully.

"'Low me to introduce you," said Marah. "Our new apprentice, Mr Jim Davis."

The men bowed to me sheepishly.

"Glad to meet Mr Davis," said one of them.

"Quite a pleasure," said another.

"I s'pose you just volunteered, Mr Jim?" said the third.

"Yes," said Marah; "he just volunteered. I want you to witness his name on the articles." He produced a sheet of paper which was scrawled all over with names. "Now, Mr Jim," he said, "your name, please. There's ink and pen in the chest here."

"What d'ye want my name for?" I asked.

"Signing on," he said, winking at me. "It's only a game."

"I won't set my name to the paper." I cried. "I'll have nothing to do with you. I'd sooner die--far sooner."

"That's a pity," said Marah, taking up the pen. "Well, if you won't, you won't."

He bent over the chest and wrote "Jim Davis" in a round, unformed, boyish hand, not unlike my own.

"Now, boys," he said, "you have seen the signature. Witness it, please."

The men witnessed the signature and made their clumsy crosses; none of them could write.

"You see?" asked Marah. "We were bound to get you, Jim. You've signed our articles." "I've done nothing of the kind," I said. "Oh! but you have," he said calmly. "Here's your witnessed signature. You're one of us now."

"It's a forgery!" I cried.

"Forgery?" he said in pretended amazement. "But here are witnesses to swear to it. Now don't take on, son"--he saw that I was on the point of breaking down again at seeing myself thus trapped. "You can't get away. You're ours. Make the best of a bad job. We will tell your friends you are safe. They'll know within an hour that you will not be home till the end of June. After that you will be enough one of us to keep your tongue shut for your own sake. I'm sorry you don't like it. Well, 'The sooner the quicker' is a good proverb. The sooner you dry your tears, the quicker we can begin to work together. Here, Smokewell, get dinner along; it's pretty near two o'clock. Now, Jim, my son, I'll just send a note to your people." He sat down on a chest and began to write. "No," he added; "_you_ had better write. Say this: 'I am safe. I shall be back in three weeks' time. Say I have gone to stay in Somersetshire with Captain Sharp. Do not worry about me. Do not look for me. I am safe.' There; that's enough. Give it here. Hankin, deliver this letter at once to Mrs Cottier, at the Snail's Castle. Don't show your beautiful face to more'n you can help. Be off."

Hankin took the letter and shambled out of the cave. Long afterwards I heard that he shot it through the dining-room window on a dart of hazelwood while my aunt and Mrs Cottier were at lunch. That was the last letter I wrote for many a long day. That was my farewell to boyhood, that letter.

After a time Smokewell brought in dinner, and we all fell-to at the table. For my own part, I was too sick at heart to eat much, though the food was good enough. There was a cold fowl, a ham, and a great apple-pasty.

After dinner, the men cut up tobacco, and played cards, and smoked, and threw dice; but Marah made them do this in the outer room. He was very kind to me in my wretchedness. He slung one of the hammocks for me, and made me turn in for a sleep. After a time I cried myself into a sort of uneasy doze. I woke up from time to time, and whenever I woke up I would see Marah smoking, with his face turned to the window, watching the sea. Then I would hear the flicker of the cards in the next room, and the voices of the players. "You go that? Do you? Well, and I'll raise you." And then I would hear the money being paid to the winners, and wonder where I was, and so doze off again into all manner of dreams.

CHAPTER X

ABOARD THE LUGGER

When I woke up, it was still bright day, but the sun was off the cliffs, and the caves seemed dark and uncanny.

"Well," said Marah, "have you had a good sleep?"

"Yes," I said, full of wretchedness; "I must have slept for hours."

"You'll need a good sleep," said Marah, "for it's likely you'll have none to-night. We night-riders, the like of you and me, why, we know what the owls do, don't we? We sleep like cats in the daytime. They'll be getting supper along in about half-an-hour. What d'you say to a wash and that down in the sea--a plunge in the cove and then out and dry yourself? Why, it'd be half your life. Do you all the good in the world. Can't offer you fresh water; there's next to none down below here. But you come down and have a dip in the salt."

He led the way into the next room, and down the stairs to the water. The tide was pretty full, so that I could dive off one ledge and climb out by the ledge at the other side. So I dived in and then climbed back, and dried myself with a piece of an old sail, feeling wonderfully refreshed. Then we went upstairs to the cave again, and supped off the remains of the dinner; and then the men sat about the table talking, telling each other stories of the sea. It was dusk before we finished supper, and the caves were dark, but no lights were allowed. The smugglers always went into the pa.s.sages to light their pipes. I don't know how they managed in the winter: probably they lived in the pa.s.sages, where a fire could not be seen from the sea. In summer they could manage very well.

Towards sunset the sky clouded over, and it began to rain. I sat at the cave window, listlessly looking out upon it, feeling very sick at heart. The talk of the smugglers rang in my ears in little s.n.a.t.c.hes.

"So I said, 'You're a liar. There's no man alive ever came away, not ever. They were all drowned, every man Jack.' That's what I said."

"Yes," said another; "so they was. I saw the wreck myself. The lower masts was standing."

I didn't understand half of what they said; but it all seemed to be full of terrible meaning, like the words heard in dreams. Marah was very kind in his rough sailor's way, but I was homesick, achingly homesick, and his jokes only made me more wretched than I was. At last he told me to turn in again and get some sleep, and, after I had tucked myself up, the men were quieter. I slept in a dazed, light-headed fashion (as I had slept in the afternoon) till some time early in the morning (at about one o'clock), when a hand shook my hammock, and Marah's voice bade me rise.

It was dark in the cave, almost pitch-dark. Marah took my arm and led me downstairs to the lower cave, where one or two battle-lanterns made it somewhat lighter. There were nearly twenty men gathered together in the cave, and I could see that the lugger had been half filled with stores, all securely stowed, ready for the sea. A little, brightly-dressed mannikin, in a white, caped overcoat, was directing matters, talking sometimes in English, sometimes in French, but always with a refined accent and in picked phrases. He was clean shaven, as far as I could see, and his eyes glittered in the lantern-light. The English smugglers addressed him as Captain Sharp, but I learnt afterwards that "Captain Sharp" was the name by which all their officers were known, and that there were at least twenty other Captain Sharps scattered along the coast. At the time, I thought that this man was the supreme head, the man who had sent Mrs Cottier her present, the man who had spoken to me that night of the snow-storm.

"Here, Marah," he said, when he saw that I was taking too much notice of him, "stow that lad away in the bows; he will be recognising me by-and-by."

"Come on, Jim," said Marah; "jump into the boat, my son."

"But where are we going?" I asked, dismayed.

"Going?" he answered. "Going? Going to make a man of you. Going to France, my son."

I hung back, frightened and wretched. He swung me lightly off the ledge into the lugger's bows.

"Now, come," he said; "you're not going to cry. I'm going to make a man of you. Here, you must put on this suit of wrap-rascal, and these here knee-boots, or you'll be cold to the bone,'specially if you're sick. Put 'em on, son, before we sail." He didn't give me time to think or to refuse, but forced the clothes upon me; they were a world too big. "There," he said; "now you're quite the sailor." He gave a hail to the little dapper man above him. "We're all ready, Captain Sharp," he cried, "so soon as you like."

"Right," said the Captain. "You know what you got to do. Shove off, boys!"

A dozen more smugglers leaped down upon the lugger; the gaskets were cast off the sails, a few ropes were flung clear. I saw one or two men coiling away the lines which had lashed us to the rocks. The dapper man waved his hands and skipped up the staircase.

"Good-bye, Jim," said some one. "So long--so long," cried the smugglers to their friends. Half-a-dozen strong hands walked along the ledge with the sternfast, helping to drag us from the cave. "Quietly now," said Marah, as the lugger moved out into the night. "Heave, oh, heave," said the seamen, as they thrust her forward to the sea. The sea air beat freshly upon me, a drop or two of rain fell, wetting my skin, the water talked under the keel and along the cliff-edge--we were out of the cave, we were at sea; the cave and the cliff were a few yards from us, we were moving out into the unknown.

"Aft with the boy, out of the way," said some one; a hand led me aft to the stern sheets, and there was Marah at the tiller. "Get sail on her," he said in a low voice.

The men ran to the yards and masts, the masts were stepped and the yards hoisted quietly. There was a little rattle of sheets and blocks, the sails slatted once or twice. Then the lugger pa.s.sed from the last shelter of the cliff; the wind caught us, and made us heel a little; the men went to the weather side; the noise of talking water deepened. Soon the water creamed into brightness as we drove through it. They set the little main topsail--luggers were never very strictly rigged in those days.

"There's the Start Light, Jim," said Marah. "Bid it good-bye. You'll see it no more for a week."

They were very quiet in the lugger; no one spoke, except when the steersman was relieved, or when the master wished something done among the rigging. The men settled down on the weather side with their pipes and quids, and all through the short summer night we lay there, huddled half asleep together, running to the south like a stag. At dawn the wind breezed up, and the lugger leaped and bounded till I felt giddy; but they shortened no sail, only let her drive and stagger, wasting no ounce of the fair wind. The sun came up, the waves sparkled, and the lugger drove on for France, lashing the sea into foam and lying along on her side. I didn't take much notice of things for I felt giddy and stunned; but the change in my circ.u.mstances had been so great--the life in the lugger was so new and strange to me--that I really did not feel keen sorrow for being away from my friends. I just felt stunned and crushed.

Marah was at the taffrail looking out over the water with one hand on the rail. He grinned at me whenever the sprays rose up and crashed down upon us. "Ha," he would say, "there she sprays; that beats your shower-baths," and he would laugh to see me duck whenever a very heavy spray flung itself into the boat. We were tearing along at a great pace and there were two men at the tiller: Marah was driving his boat in order to "make a pa.s.sage." We leaped and shook, and lay down and rushed, like a thing possessed; our sails were dark with the spray; nearly every man on board was wet through.