The Great Mogul Part 7

"Ecod!" he cried, thumping the stout table screwed to the floor of the cabin and making the tankards dance under the blow, "Walter and I can ask no better fate than to voyage with you to the Indies. We are in quest of fortune, and folk say that the Spaniards have gold for the taking. Here's to you, Sir Thomas Roe, and here's to all of us! May we never want nowt, none of us!"

He drained his own tankard and caused a gleam of amus.e.m.e.nt to flicker on Roe's face.

"Had you lost your right hand for brawling, Master Sainton," he said, "you would now lose the left if the King heard your sentiments. Harry a Spaniard, i' faith! That is rankest heresy nowadays. Yet there is no telling what may befall when we set our course west by south of the Canaries. And now, let me see to your comfort for the night."

He called a young negro from the depths of the ship; the sudden appearance of the boy's shining black face in the cabin caused Roger Sainton to start so violently that Roe and Mowbray laughed, while the negro himself displayed all his teeth in a huge grin. Mowbray, during an earlier visit to London, had seen many a dark-skinned man; it was becoming the fashion to have one or more of these ebony-hued servitors in each household with any pretensions to grandeur. But Roger had never before set eyes on the like, and the apparition was unexpected.

"Gad," said he, reaching for the flagon again, "no wonder the sailor-man thought he saw the devil! 'Tis clear he fancied that this worthy had fallen overboard."

He stood up, to follow Roe, whereupon the negro's astonishment was even greater than Roger's, for the c.o.c.k's feathers in the Yorkshireman's hat swept the ceiling of the cabin, and his belt was nearly on a level with the other's chin.

"Where him one dam big fighting-man lie, sir?" said the black to Roe.

"Dere am no bunk in the ship will hold him half."

Indeed, this was a minor difficulty which had not been foreseen. In his own cabin, which Roe intended to place temporarily at their service, there were two bunks, but each was a full twelve inches too short for Sainton. They were stoutly built, too, of solid oak and ab.u.t.ting on strong lockers. The only way in which one of them could be made to serve his needs was to cut away the part.i.tion, and it was now a very late hour to seek the services of the ship's carpenter.

"If that is the only drawback, it is solved most readily," said Roger, and, with his clenched fist, guarded only by a leather glove, he smashed a strong oaken panel out of its dovetailed joints.

The negro's eyes nearly fell out with amazement, and, indeed, Sir Thomas Roe was not prepared for this simple yet very unusual feat of sheer strength.

"That blow would have felled an ox," he cried, and Mowbray told him how Roger once, in the market square of Richmond, had, for a wager, brought down an old bull with a straight punch between the eyes.

Now, the negro not only saw and heard, but he talked of these things to the watch, and they, in their turn, related them to others of the ship's company in the early morning. It chanced that a half-caste Spanish cook, hired because he knew the speech of the natives of Guiana, was among the auditory, and he stole to the cabin wherein the two Englishmen lay sleeping soundly. Mere idle curiosity impelled him to gaze at the man who could perform such prodigies, and, having gaped sufficiently, he went ash.o.r.e for a farewell carouse with certain cronies in Alsatia.

Not the great men of the world, but their petty myrmidons, are oft the mainspring of the events which shape the destinies not alone of individuals but of nations. Even Pedro, the half-caste, might have dispensed with the day's drinking bout had his cup been fashioned of the magic crystal which enables credulous people to see future events in its shadowy mirror! a.s.suredly, some of the sights therein would have sated his desire for stimulant.

Mowbray and Sainton were aroused by an unusual movement. At first they hardly knew where they were, and it was pa.s.sing strange that the floor should heave and the walls creak.

Mowbray sprang from his bunk quickly and looked through the open door to see if it were possible that the ship had cast off from her moorings during the night. The frowning battlements of the Tower, dimly visible through a pelting rain, showed that his first surmise was incorrect. The _Defiance_ was anch.o.r.ed securely enough, but a high wind had lashed the river into turbulence, and the storm which threatened over night had burst with fury over London.

Roger, too, awoke.

"Gad," he cried, "I dreamt I was being hanged as a cutpurse, and I felt the branch of an oak-tree swaying as I swung in the wind."

"You will have many such visions if you mix Brown Devon and Alicant with the wines of Burgundy in your midnight revels," said Walter, cheerfully.

To his ordered senses had come the memory of the garden and Nellie Roe's kiss. He hailed the bad weather with glee. Men would be loth to stir abroad, and, if Sir Thomas Roe's arrangements permitted, he could foresee another meeting with Eleanor that evening.

"At times you talk but scurvy sense," grumbled Sainton, pulling on his huge boots. "'Tis the lack of a pasty, washed down by any one of the good liquors you name, that hath disordered my stomach and sent its fasting vapors to my brain. By the cross of Osmotherly, I could eat the haunch of a horse."

"Without there!" shouted Mowbray. "Where is the black summoned by Sir Thomas Roe to wait on us?"

The negro came at the call. He told them that his master had gone ash.o.r.e at daybreak, with intent to return before noon, but that breakfast awaited their lordships' pleasure in the cabin.

The hours pa.s.sed all too slowly until Roe put in an appearance. He was ferried to the ship in some state, in a boat with six rowers. He had learnt that the city was scoured for them all night, and the rumor ran that they had escaped towards Barnet, this canard having been put about by some friendly disposed person.

"I cannot understand the rancor displayed in this matter," he said.

"King James must have been stirred most powerfully against you, yet it is idle to think that you have earned the hatred of some court favorite already. Perhaps Lord Dereham is seeking revenge for being thrown into the gla.s.s-house, though, if rumor be true, his Lordship dwells in one, being a perfect knave. In any event, you must not be seen, and I shall warn my men to forget your very existence. We sail with to-morrow morning's tide, and, if this wind holds, shall be clear of the Downs by night."

Thinking this speech augured badly for his hopes, Mowbray said nothing of his plan to visit Cave's house after dusk.

The sailors, under Roe's directions, began to warp the ship alongside a wharf, where many bales of merchandise and barrels of flour, salt beef, dried fish, preserved fruit for scurvy, wine, beer, and the mixed collection of stores needed for a long voyage, were piled in readiness to be placed in her hold.

Walter, and Roger especially, were warned to remain hidden in the after cabin, where none save the ship's officers had business, and Roe felt that he could trust his subordinates, if for no better reason than self-interest, for two such recruits were valuable additions to the ship's company.

Though the confinement was irksome it was so obviously necessary to their safety that they made the best of it.

Walter found in a cupboard a ship-master's journal of a voyage to Virginia, and entertained Roger with extracts therefrom, whilst the latter, at times, stretched his huge limbs and hummed a verse or two of that old song of Percy and Douglas, which, as Sir Philip Sydney used to say, had the power to stir the heart as a trumpet.

The rain ceased with the decline of day. The monotonous clank of the windla.s.s and the cries of stevedores and sailors gave place to the swish of water as the watch washed the deck. For convenience' sake, a supply of fresh water being the last thing to be taken aboard next morning, the vessel was tied up to the wharf. When the tide fell she was left high and dry on the mud.

Roe was much occupied ash.o.r.e with those city merchants who helped him in his venture, but he undertook privily to warn Anna Cave as to the whereabouts of the two young men to whom she was so greatly indebted, and they might leave to her contriving the transfer of their baggage to the ship at a late hour.

"You shall not see her again, then?" asked Walter, with a faint hope that her lover would strain every nerve in that direction, when he might accompany him.

"No," was the determined answer. "Such a course would be fraught with risk to you. I might be seen and followed. Her father's serving-men, coming hither by night, will pa.s.s unnoticed."

"Do not consider me in that respect, I pray you."

Roe shook his head and sighed.

"I am resolved," he said. "We may not meet until I return, if G.o.d wills it. I told her as much last night. We said 'farewell'; let it rest at that."

So Walter's heart sank into his boots, for the case between him and Nellie rested on as doubtful a basis as that between Roe and Anna.

He sat down to indite a letter to his mother, which Sir Thomas would entrust to one of his friends having affairs in the north. Roger could not write, but he sent a loving message to Mistress Sainton, with many quaint instructions as to the management of the garth and homestead.

"Tell her," quoth he, "that I be going across seas to reive the Dons, and that I shall bring back to her a gold drinking-cup worthy of her oldest brew."

"A man may catch larks if the heavens fall," commented Walter in Rabelais's phrase.

"Or if he lime a twig he may e'en obtain a sparrow. My auld mother will be pleased enough to see me if the cup be pewter. Write, man, and cheer her. I'll warrant you have vexed Mistress Mowbray with a screed about yon wench you were sparking in the garden last night."

Indeed, it was true. Walter bent to the table to hide a blush. His letter dealt, in suspicious detail, with the charms and graces of Nellie Roe.

At last the missive was addressed and sealed. It was nearly ten o'clock, and London was quieting down for the night, when the two quitted their cabin and walked to the larger saloon where Sir Thomas Roe, with Captain Davis, the commander of the _Defiance_, was busy with many doc.u.ments.

They talked there a little while. Suddenly they heard the watch hailed by a boat alongside.

"What ship is that?"

"Who hails?"

"The King's officer."

Roe sprang to his feet and rushed out, for the cabin was in the p.o.o.p, and the door was level with the main deck. The others followed. In the river, separated from the vessel by a few feet of mud, was an eight-oared barge filled with soldiers.

"'Fore G.o.d!" he whispered to Mowbray, "they have found your retreat."

They turned towards the wharf. A company of halberdiers and arquebusiers had surrounded it and already an officer was advancing towards the gangway.