The Admirable Lady Biddy Fane Part 31

There I must put out the lantern. But you lay hold of my shoulder and get ready for a bolt if needs be. Are you got a knife?"

"No," says I.

"Then I must manage to get you one when we are below. A couple of swords won't be an inconvenience to us, neither. You won't have another dram?"

"No," says I; "and you have had enough."

"That's as may be," says he. "I could drink a tun of it. Howsomever, I'll take it you're right, so far as our safety is concerned. Now, master, you take my knife and follow close. Keep your questions till we get a league on our way. I'll carry the lantern and this bag of victuals, and if I'd got another hand, hang me if I'd leave the jar behind. Here goes, master. Remember, if we are caught we shall be fleaed alive. Now, then--softly does it! Not a word!"

CHAPTER XLI.

A DISCOURSE WITH MY NEW-FOUND FRIEND MATTHEW PENNYFARDEN.

When we got to the foot of the stairs my comrade put out the light, and I, laying my hand on his shoulder, as he bade me, followed softly at his heels in the dark for some paces, when we came to a door that stood ajar. Here he paused and peered out carefully; then, pushing the door open, he pa.s.sed out into the open.

He gave me the bag of food to hold, lifted up his finger as a sign to me to wait there, and then entered the tower again by another door in that part where the guard lay; and so I stood, with the drawn knife in my hand and my eyes on the lookout for a foe, till he returned with a sword in each hand and a knife stuck in his belt. He seemed to have been gone an age, but I believe he was no more than ten minutes at the outside; but I was consumed with impatience.

He put one of the swords in my hand, and signed to me to follow. Then we threaded our way betwixt the tower and the huts, and coming to the end of a little alley he again peers out into the s.p.a.ce beyond, first to the right and then to the left, very carefully, and seeing no one (for the Portugals here lay within doors because there was no turf, as in the other stations, but only hard, rocky ground), he nudged me with his elbow and struck out pretty briskly to the gate he had previously set ajar, which we pa.s.sed, and so got out without discovery, to our great comfort.

Our road lay up the hills on the other side of the valley, and a rough and troublesome way it was by reason of the loose stones and deep holes which in certain parts, where the rocks shut out the light of the stars on either hand, were like so many pitfalls. Yet I was too light of heart to heed the bruising of my shins a farthing, though my comrade did curse prodigiously, spite of his saying he would not speak for a league, as I have told.

When we had gone about an hour, my comrade, as I call him, after coming nigh to break his neck over a rock, sits him down on a rock, saying we might now well afford to fetch our breath and rub our shins for a s.p.a.ce.

So now, sitting down beside him, I begged he would loose his tongue to satisfy my earnest anxiety.

"Well," says he with a sigh, "I am not used to this business, and 'tis a long story. Howsomever, as you desire it, here goes. My name is Matthew Pennyfarden, and I was born in the village of Newlyn, near Penzance, in Cornwall, in the year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and ninety-four."

"Nay," says I, "you may skip thirty-three years of your adventures, and come to what took place when, you first saw my cousin, Lady Biddy Fane."

"Lord love you, master," says he, "that simplifies the job vastly" (he was a sly rogue of some humor). "Well, then, you must know that when I came to the station yesterday afternoon with four other slaves, burdened with gold muck from that part of the valley where the mines lie, our factor tells me that the merchant Senhor de Pino would speak with me; whereupon I goes to the factor's office with him, and there De Pino asks me if I could write English and would earn a jar of wine; to which I made reply that I could do the one as readily as I would the other, seeing I was two years an attorney's clerk before I was so foolish as to quit my employ and run away to sea, and was now as dry as any limekiln.

On this he sets me down before a table, with an inkhorn and a sheet of paper for my work, and tells me in his own tongue what he would have writ in mine. When I had done this, he goes over the writing with me a dozen times, questioning as to this word and doubting as to that, scratching out here and writing in there, till we could find no further room for improvement, when he gives me a fresh sheet of paper and has it all writ out again for fair. So, having come to an end of the business, he orders the factor to give me a jar of wine, as he had promised, and send me back to the mine. Now a man can not serve the devil without learning the smell of brimstone, and I had been long enough with my attorney to get a pretty keen scent for mischief; wherefore, as I went back to my accursed mine, turning this affair over in my mind, I came to a pretty fair understanding of what lay at the bottom of this letter-writing. Yet, to make sure, I turns out of my way (being alone, for the rest had gone back with their empty baskets while I was writing the letter)--I goes about, I say, to sneak up among the rocks to where I could get a fair view of the station without being seen. There I had just posted myself when I see the Portugals bearing a man tied up neck and crop to the guardhouse, and says I to myself, 'That's Cousin Pengilly, or I'm a Dutchman.' When you were clapped up and the Portugals had come back from the guardhouse, the mules were brought out and packed, and one part of the train was sent on, while the other waited in readiness to start, which perplexed me somewhat till ten minutes later, when a female was led out by De Pino and seated on a mule, and that part of the cavalcade set out pretty briskly, as if to overtake the other.

Then I hit upon it that De Pino had practiced this stratagem to make your cousin believe you had gone on first, and hasten her departure from the station. But I pray you, master," says he, breaking off and opening the bag of victuals, "do pick a bit, for I warrant you have had nothing betwixt your lips since you was clapped up--have you, now?"

"You are right," says I, falling to with a relish; "but go on."

"Ay," says he, "I guessed as much. They served me that same way when I first came into captivity, starving me till I was too weak to make resistance, and glad enough to accept the work of a slave that I might fill my belly. And surely that was the fate they intended for you. And this did put me in mind not to touch a drop of the wine, lest a taste might tempt me to drink all, but to leave it hid up in that rock and go back to my work dry, and also to set aside my supper when it was served out to us at sunset."

"Good Heavens!" I exclaimed, "no wonder you drank so heartily when we were in the tower."

"Ay," says he, "I overcame the flesh as long as I could, but I could hold out no longer."

"And you have fasted full as long as I have, by the same token," says I.

"You've hit it again," says he; "but that did not call for such courage as t'other, for I would rather fast a whole day than go dry an hour."

This fellow's generosity touched my heart, and I would not eat another morsel, nor let him speak, till he had eaten his fair share of the food.

And now I saw why he had been so loth to begin a long history with the bag of victuals untouched.

When we had come to the end of our meal, my comrade proposed we should move on; "for," says he, "I care not how I knock my ribs against the rock now that I have something within me to resist the shock."

When we had got on our way again, and were come to a fairly level part of the road where we could converse without inconvenience, I asked my comrade if there was any truth in that letter concerning soldiery being sent by Dom Sebastian to recover us.

"Lord love you!" says he, "not a word; 'twas all a plan of De Pino's invention. But tell me, master, how you came to fall into the hands of such a villain."

When I told him briefly my history, he considers awhile, and then says he:

"You have naught to fear from Sebastian; for though he is as treacherous as any other Portugal, and not one of them is a true man, yet have these rogues a certain kind of fair dealing amongst themselves, and having sold you to De Pino he would not go back on his bargain, though Rodrigues should offer twice as much to get you back as Dom Sebastian received for parting with you."

"Then," says I, "you believe Dom Sebastian sold us to De Pino?"

"I am as certain of that as I am that De Pino sold you to our factor."

"And how are you certain of that, my friend?" says I.

"Because he did not stick his dagger into you when you were asleep. But for his avarice, you would not be alive now, you may be sure. A pretty taking our factor will be in when we find you flown; 'tis as good as twenty pieces of eight out of his pocket. We must look to it, master, that he doesn't catch us, for certain it is he will hunt us."

"What would he do if he caught us?"

"You might get off with a flogging and a pretty long spell of starvation; but he'd flea me, as he has before; and once is enough for a lifetime, as you would agree if you knew what it was like."

"You have spoken before of this fleaing," says I; "what do you mean?"

"If there was light I would show you my back for a sign. I've had a piece of skin stripped off my body an ell long and an inch wide."

"Good G.o.d!" says I, "is such barbarity possible?"

"Ay," says he, "and worse. I'll be fleaed rather than have the soles of my feet roasted if he gives me my choice."

Only to hear of this wickedness made me sick, and I could say nothing for some minutes.

"Tell me, Matthew," says I, when I had got over my qualm, "why you risked such a fearful punishment to liberate a man you had never seen?"

"Because you was an Englishman," says he stoutly. "Lord love you, master, I knew I should find you a true man and a kind friend."

"But," says I, "couldn't you as well have made your escape without me as with me?"

"No," says he, "for I'd as leave hang myself on a tree ere I started as be brought to that end by the misery of wandering alone in the woods.

Look you, master, afore you go any further," stopping me, "there's time to get back to the station, and return to the guardhouse, while the Portugals are still in a log-sleep, and I would have you understand what escape means. It means hardships, and suffering, and solitude. We daren't go near a town, for fear of the Portugals; and we daren't go near the Indian villages, for every white man is hated by them, with a very good reason. There's fleaing on one hand, and death on the other; and we've got to live betwixt 'em as best we may. Take time for reflection and choose without concern for me."

"Nay," says I, "it needs no reflection to choose between freedom and slavery"; and taking him by the hand, I drew him onwards.

"You are an Englishman, master, and I love you," says he, "and I shall love you still more when your hair grows a bit, and you look less like a Portugal; for I do loathe the very resemblance of those accursed men."

"Surely," says I, "there must be some good men amongst them?"

"Not to my knowledge," says he. "There was one that I thought a decent sort of a fellow; and he grumbling every day to me of his estate, which was little better than a slave's, I opened to him a design for escaping together. He betrayed me; for he was naught but a spy set to that purpose by our factor, who would test me. And so I got fleaed for trusting a Portugal; but I trust none henceforth. As for that," adds he, "we shall have no need to trust 'em, for we two shall be company enough for each other, I warrant."