Through Russian Snows Part 6

"Well, you have plenty of pluck, young fellow, if you haven't much wisdom; but if you think that after getting in here, I shall let you go out again to bring the constables down on me you are mistaken altogether."

CHAPTER IV

THE SMUGGLER'S CAVE

Joe Markham had, as soon as he arrived, told the French smugglers that he had shot the magistrate who had for the last five or six years given them so much trouble and caused them so much loss, and who had, as the last affair showed, become more dangerous than ever, as he could only have obtained information as to the exact point of landing by having bribed someone connected with them.

"It was a case of his life or our business," he said. "If he had not been got out of the way we must have given up the trade altogether on this part of the coast; besides, he has been the cause, not only of several seizures of cargoes, but of the death of eight or ten of our comrades and of the imprisonment of many others. Now that he is out of the way we shall find things a great deal easier."

"It served him right," the leader of the party said, "and you have rendered good service; but what are you going to do? Do you think that any suspicion will fall upon you?"

"Yes; I have put myself in an awkward position, I am afraid. I thought that the job had been so well managed that it could never be traced to me, but when I got up to the top of the hill I saw a fellow just starting from the bottom. I did not think much of it at the time, but he came up so quickly after me that he must have run all the way up. He has chased me hard, and as he got nearer I could see that he had a gun too. He was not more than a quarter of a mile away when I got to the trap-door."

"Why didn't you hide yourself in the bushes and put a bullet into him, Markham?"

"For several reasons. In the first place, the gun might have been heard by some of those cussed revenue men. Then there would be an inquiry and a search. They would have seen by the direction he had been going, that he must have been shot from the bushes, and as no one would have been in sight when they ran up, the thing would have been such a puzzle to them that you may be sure they would have suspected there must be some hidden way out of the clump. Besides, they would probably have hunted every inch of the ground to see if they could find anything that would give them a clue as to who had fired the shot. That is one reason."

"And quite good enough without any others," the Frenchman said.

"Well, there was another one that went for almost as much with me. I shot down Faulkner because he was a curse to us all. He had imprisoned several of my pals, and done a lot of damage to the trade, and was likely to break it up altogether, besides which I had a big grudge against him on my own account. But I should not have liked to shoot down this fellow in cold blood. I had no feeling against him; he has done me no harm; I did not even know who he was. If he had overtaken me in the open, you may be sure that I should have made a fight of it, for it would have been my life against his. I don't pretend to be soft; there is little enough of that about me, and I have fought hard several times in the old days when we were surprised; but I could not have shot down that fellow without giving him a chance of his life. If there had not been the trap-door to escape by I should have stood up, given him fair warning, and fought it out man to man. As it was-" at this point the conversation had been arrested by the sudden entrance of Julian.

"Who is he?" the chief of the smugglers asked Joe when he had finished his conversation with the prisoner. "Is he a spy?"

"No; he is a young chap as lives down in the town. He is a pal of some of our friends there, and has been with them at the landings of goods. He was caught in that last affair, but got off because they could not prove that he was actually engaged in the business. He is an enemy of Faulkner's too; they had a row there, and Faulkner hit him in the face. You can see the mark still; and he would have thrown Faulkner on to the bonfire they had lit if he had not been prevented by some of the coast-guards. It is through what he had heard from our friends of this cavern, and there being an entrance to it somewhere, that he came to look for the trap-door. I certainly pushed the bolt forward when I came down, but I was in a hurry, so I suppose it could not have caught rightly."

"Well, what is to be done, Joe?"

"I don't know. You see he knows about my shooting Faulkner. I would trust him not to peach about this cavern or the trap-door, but I don't know as I would about the other thing. It seems to me that he is just as likely to be suspected of having a hand in it as I am. His row with Faulkner is the talk of the place, and when Faulkner is found with a bullet in him, he will be the first fellow to be suspected. Well, if that was so, and you see he would not be able to account for himself for three or four hours afterwards, he might be driven to peach on me to save his own life, and he would be obliged to give all the story about following me and coming down here. There would be an end of the best hiding-place in the country, and I should not be able to show my face on this side of the Channel again."

"I should say the safest plan would be to cut his throat and chuck him into the sea, and have done with it."

"No, I won't have that," the poacher said positively. "Your lugger will be in to-night, and we will take him across with us to France."

"That is all very well," one of the men said; "but what is to prevent his coming back again?"

"We could prevent it somehow or other. We could get up a tale that he was an English sailor we had picked up at sea, and hand him over to the authorities, and tell them his story was, that he had fallen overboard from an English ship of war. Then they would send him away to some place in the interior where they keep English prisoners of war, and there he might lie for years; perhaps never get back again. He does not know a word of French, as you saw when you spoke to him, so he can't contradict any story we may tell, and if by chance any questions should be asked, I can just say what suits us."

"He might ruin us all if he came back," the smuggler growled.

"It ain't likely that he will come back," the poacher said. "I have heard that they die off like flies in those prisons of yours; and, besides, I will guarantee if he does, he will never split about this place. He is a gentleman, and I will get him to swear to me, and you may be sure he will not break his oath."

"But how about yourself?"

"Well, as he won't come back for some years, I will take my chance of that. He has got no evidence against me; it would be his word against mine. He would tell his story and I should tell mine, and mine would be the most likely. I should say I met him on the hills with his gun, and, knowing who I was, and what cause I had got to hate Faulkner, he told me that he had shot him, and asked me to get him on board a smuggler craft and across the Channel, and that I had done so: and that is all I should know about it. No, I am not afraid of anything he might say when he comes back again."

Julian had watched the speakers anxiously during this conversation. He was wholly ignorant of French, but from the tone and manner of the speakers, he gathered that the poacher was speaking in his favour. He had expected no mercy; his life was nothing to these French smugglers; and he was surprised to find the man, whose life he thought he held in his hand if released, apparently pleading his cause.

"Look here, young fellow!" the poacher said, turning towards him. "In the first place, these men are afraid that you may betray the existence of this place, and their opinion is that the best thing to make us safe would be to cut your throat and throw you out of the mouth of the cave into the sea. I told them that you knew of the cave from one of our friends, and could be trusted to keep the secret; at any rate they demand, in the first place, that you shall take an oath never to split about it."

"I will do that willingly enough," Julian said, with a great feeling of relief.

Joe Markham then dictated a terrible oath, which had been always taken by all those made acquainted with the existence of the cave, and this Julian repeated after him. The poacher then told the smugglers what Julian had sworn to.

"Now, young fellow, I may tell you that we are going to take you over to France to-night. You may think I shall be asking you to take another oath, like that, not to say anything against me, but I ain't going to. I shot the man, and I don't pretend to be sorry for it. He was a hard, bad chap, and he got what he deserved. I owed him a long score, not only for myself, but for others, and if I had not shot him, someone else would have done so sooner or later. I shall do what I can to prevent you coming back here, though I don't think you will say anything against me when you do come back. In the first place, like enough I shall take to the sea again, and may be settled in France before you return. In the next place, I may be dead; and, most of all, you have got no evidence against me. If I were here, and you told the story, of course I should say that it was a lie, and that you had shot the man yourself, and I had got you out of the way by sending you across to France in a lugger, so I think you will see that it is best to keep a quiet tongue in your head; anyhow I am ready to take my chance of it."

"They will be horribly alarmed when I don't get home to-night," Julian said.

"Well, they must be alarmed," the poacher said carelessly. "You have interfered in this business, which was none of yours, and you have got to take the consequences; you may think yourself a lucky fellow that you are not by this time drifting about on the tideway."

"I feel that," Julian said; "and though I did not understand a word of what you said, I am sure that it was owing to you that I am not there. I could not have promised that I would never say a word to anyone about you, because one can never tell how one may be placed; but, after what you have done, I think that I can safely promise that I will never go out of my way to denounce you."

"I don't want any promise about it," the poacher replied. "I have made up my mind to leave Weymouth, for, after having been in jail two years, I shall always have the constables as well as the revenue men keeping their eye on me, so I had intended all along to take to the lugger again, and live on board her as I did before, and I only stayed here until I could settle accounts with Faulkner. I have no doubt that they will suspect me of this business. There are plenty of men who know that I had sworn to be even with him, and my disappearance is sure to be put down to that. Now, in the next place, will you promise not to try to escape, because if you do, I will get them to take these ropes off you? I dare say you have been thinking that if you could get free you would make a run for the mouth of the cave and dive in, for it is about high water now."

Julian had, in fact, been thinking so, but as he saw that unless he gave his promise he would have to remain in the cords that were cutting into his wrists, he at once took the required oath. Joe told the Frenchmen, and they then unfastened Julian's cords.

"We may as well carry up the bales at once," their leader said, "before it gets dark. It is no use giving anyone at sea a chance of seeing a light. Tell him to take one and come up with us. I am not going to leave him here by himself, promise or no promise."

The poacher translated the order to Julian. Some bales were taken out from beneath a tarpaulin at the end of the cave, and, each shouldering one, they proceeded up the pa.s.sage until they reached the foot of the ladder. Here they laid the bales down, and then returned to the cave.

"Is that all?" Julian asked.

"Yes, those bales are worth a lot of money. There is fifteen hundred pounds worth of lace in one of them. The others are silks and satins, and worth another five hundred. To-night, when we hear the signal, I and three of the Frenchmen will go up. We shall find two men there, and shall carry the bales to a place a mile and a half away, where they will be hidden until it is convenient to send them up to London, or wherever they are going to dispose of them-that is their business; ours is finished when they hand us over the money for them. They will come at eight o'clock, and at ten the lugger will be off the coast here and send a boat ash.o.r.e for us. So you have got five or six hours yet, and I should say the best thing you can do is to turn in and sleep till then. There are plenty of blankets in that corner and a pile of sheep-skins that you can sleep on."

Julian nodded, threw two or three of the sheep-skins down in a corner, rolled another up for a pillow, drew a blanket over him, and for the first time looked round the cave. It was lighted only by a small hole used as a look-out; at present a blanket hung before this. There was a door similar to that by which he had entered from above leading to the lower cave. How far that lower entrance might be below them Julian had no means of knowing, but from the view he had obtained of the sea through a large loop-hole he had pa.s.sed in his descent, he did not think that the cavern he was in could be less than seventy or eighty feet above the water. The sole ventilation, as far as he could see, was the current of air that found its way in through the door from below, and pa.s.sed up through that above, and what could come in through the loop-hole seawards. Doubtless in warmer weather both the doors stood open, but were now closed more for warmth than for any other purpose, although he had noticed that the lower one had been bolted and locked after he had been first captured.

As he lay down he wondered how it was all going to end. His position was at once perilous and uncertain. He had, so far, escaped better than he could have expected, for from the looks the Frenchmen had given him, he had no doubt what his fate would have been had not the man he had been chasing spoken in his favour. His life therefore seemed for the present safe, but the future was very dark. The poacher had spoken as if he was not likely to return for some years. They surely could not intend to keep him on board ship all that time. Could they mean to put him upon some vessel sailing abroad? What a way Frank and his aunt would be in! They would learn that he had started for home early in the afternoon, and it would be absolutely certain that he could not have strayed from the road nor met with any accident coming along the valley. It would certainly be awkward his being missed on the same day Faulkner had been shot, especially as, according to the time he had started for home, he would have come along the road somewhere about the time the magistrate was shot.

It was a horrible thought that suspicion might fall upon him. Those who knew him would be sure that he could have had nothing whatever to do with the murder; still, the more he thought of it the more he felt that suspicions were certain to rise, and that he would find it extremely difficult to explain matters on his return. The memory of his quarrel with the magistrate was fresh in everybody's mind, and even his friends might well consider it singular that his words to Faulkner should so soon have been carried into effect. It is true that Joe Markham would be missing too, and that the man's own acquaintances would have no great difficulty in guessing that he had carried out his threats against Faulkner, but they would certainly not communicate their opinion to the constables, and the latter might not think of the man in connection with the murder, nor notice that he was no longer to be seen about the town.

Even were he himself free to leave the cave now and return to Weymouth, he would find himself in a most awkward position. There was, of course, no shadow of evidence against him save that he was known to have quarrelled with Faulkner, and must have been very near the spot the moment he was killed, but how could he explain six or seven hours' absence? He could but say that he had caught sight of a man in the plantation and followed him for miles among the hills, and had lost sight of him at last. He had not a shadow of evidence to produce in confirmation of his story; in fact there was no direct evidence either way. There could be no doubt he would have to remain under a cloud of suspicion. It was bad enough before, but this would be altogether intolerable, and it was perhaps best, after all, that he was to be taken away, and his future decided for him.

He should have gone anyhow, and no doubt he would be able to get some opportunity of writing to Frank and setting his mind at rest as to his safety, and telling him something about what had happened, and that he had been kidnapped and carried over to France. He had acted like a fool, no doubt, but Frank would understand why he had followed his first impulse and gone alone after the man who committed the murder, instead of going to the constables and telling them that some unknown man had killed the magistrate. One thing seemed certain, he should never be able to go back to Weymouth again unless the affair was cleared up, and he did not see how that ever could be.

At this point Julian's thoughts became confused. The voices of the men talking at the table seemed to get further and further away, and then he was conscious of nothing more until he heard a bell tinkle faintly somewhere overhead. There was a movement in the cave, and he sat up. All the men went out by the upper door. When they had left he got up and went to see if the lower door was so fastened that he could not open it. He had no idea of breaking his word, but did so out of curiosity rather than from any other feeling. He found that the bolts could be pulled back, but that the lock was a very strong one, and the jamb was, at the point where the bolt shot into it, covered with a piece of iron, so that no instrument could be used for forcing back the bolt.

"It may be," he thought, "that some other prisoner has been confined here at some time or other, or possibly this has been done in order that if the trap-door above should be found, and the revenue men come down that way, the smugglers in their flight might lock the door behind them and so have time to get away in a boat or along at the foot of the cliffs before their pursuers could get down to the lower entrance and open fire upon them."

Then he lay down again. He wondered whether the pull of the bell he had heard could be hidden in the gra.s.s like the handle of the trap. It might only be a very small k.n.o.b, but he had looked so closely among the bushes that he wondered it had escaped him. In three or four minutes the French captain came down again, and walked across to where he was lying:

"Pauvre diable!" he muttered, and then went back to the table, filled himself a gla.s.s of spirits and water, and lit his pipe. A moment later a thought seemed to strike him, and he came across to Julian again and touched him. He at once sat up. The Frenchman motioned him to come to the table, went to a cupboard, brought out a wooden platter with a large lump of cold beef and a loaf of bread and some cheese, poured him out a horn of brandy and water, and motioned him to eat. Julian attacked the food vigorously. He had had some lunch with his friends before starting for his walk back to Weymouth, but that had been nearly seven hours before, and his run across the hills in the keen air had given him a sharp appet.i.te, so he did full justice to the food.

"This is not a bad fellow after all," he said to himself, as the smuggler, when he had finished, brought out a box of cigars and placed it before him. "He would have knocked me on the head without compunction, in the way of business; but now when he has concluded that I am not dangerous, he comes out as a good fellow." He nodded pleasantly to the Frenchman as he lit the cigar, which was an excellent one, and far better than any Julian had been accustomed to smoke with his a.s.sociates in the billiard room.

The Frenchman's thoughts were not dissimilar to his own. "He is a brave garcon," he said to himself, "and makes the best of things. He is a fine-looking fellow, too, and will be a big man in another year or two. It is a misfortune that we have got to take him and shut him up in prison. Why did he mix himself up in this affair of Markham? That is the way with boys. Instead of being grateful to the man that had killed his enemy, he must needs run after him as if he had done him an injury. Well, it can't be helped now; but, at least, I will make him as comfortable as I can as long as he is on board the lugger."

In another half hour Joe Markham returned with the French sailors. "There is a big stir down in Weymouth," he said to Julian. "I heard from our friend that the place is like a hive of bees. I tell you, Mr. Wyatt, that it is a lucky thing for you that you found the trap-door and came down here. You mayn't like being our prisoner; but it is a lot better than being in a cell down in Weymouth with a charge of murder hanging over you, which you would have been if you had gone straight back again."