Mr. Wicker's Window Part 15

"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!"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 sh.o.r.e. 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 pa.s.sing 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 pa.s.sing down stream. Not a creak nor a splash of water came from her as she pa.s.sed, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"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 sh.e.l.l. 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 sh.o.r.e, 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. "G.o.dspeed!"

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