When London Burned Part 14

"Tell him that I agree to his price. I don't want the trouble of getting food. As he will be going so early, I will come on board at once. I will get my bundle, and will be back in half an hour."

He went with the boy to one of the sailors' shops near, bought a rough coat and a thick blanket, had them wrapped up into a parcel, and then, after paying the boy, went on board.

As he expected, he found there were no beds or accommodation for pa.s.sengers, so he stretched himself on a locker in the cabin, covered himself with his blanket, and put the coat under his head for a pillow. His real reason for choosing this craft in preference to the English ship was that he thought it probable that, when he did not return to the house, it would at once be suspected that he had recognised the visitors, and was not going to return at all. In that case, they might suspect that he would try to take pa.s.sage to England, and would, the first thing in the morning, make a search for him on board any English vessels that might be in the port.

It would be easy then for them to get him ash.o.r.e, for the diamond merchant might accuse him of theft, and so get him handed over to him. Rather than run that risk, he would have started on foot had he not been able to find a native craft sailing early in the morning.

Failing Dunkirk and Ostend, he would have taken a pa.s.sage to any other Dutch port, and run his chance of getting a ship from there.

The great point was to get away from Rotterdam.

The four men forming the crew of the scow returned late, and by their loud talk Cyril, who kept his eyes closed, judged that they were in liquor. In a short time they climbed up into their berths, and all was quiet. At daybreak they were called up by the captain. Cyril lay quiet until, by the rippling of the water against the side, he knew that the craft was under way. He waited a few minutes, and then went up on deck. The scow, clumsy as she looked, was running along fast before a brisk wind, and in an hour Rotterdam lay far behind them.

The voyage was a pleasant one. They touched at Dordrecht, at Steenbergen on the mainland, and Flushing, staying a few hours in each place to take in or discharge cargo. After this, they made out from the Islands, and ran along the coast, putting into Ostend and Nieuport, and, four days after starting, entered the port of Dunkirk.

Cyril did not go ash.o.r.e at any of the places at which they stopped.

It was possible that war might have been declared with England, and as it might be noticed that he was a foreigner he would in that case be questioned and arrested. As soon, therefore, as they neared a quay, he went down to the cabin and slept until they got under way again. The food was rough, but wholesome; it consisted entirely of fish and black bread; but the sea air gave him a good appet.i.te, and he was in high spirits at the thought that he had escaped from danger and was on his way back again. At Dunkirk he was under the French flag, and half an hour after landing had engaged a pa.s.sage to London on a brig that was to sail on the following day. The voyage was a stormy one, and he rejoiced in the possession of his great-coat, which he had only bought in order that he might have a packet to bring on board the scow, and so avoid exciting any suspicion or question as to his being entirely unprovided with luggage.

It was three days before the brig dropped anchor in the Pool. As soon as she did so, Cyril hailed a waterman, and spent almost his last remaining coin in being taken to sh.o.r.e. He was glad that it was late in the afternoon and so dark that his attire would not be noticed.

His clothes had suffered considerably from his capture and confinement on board the _Eliza_, and his great-coat was of a rough appearance that was very much out of character in the streets of London. He had, however, but a short distance to traverse before he reached the door of the house. He rang at the bell, and the door was opened by John Wilkes.

"What is it?" the latter asked. "The shop is shut for the night, and I ain't going to open for anyone. At half-past seven in the morning you can get what you want, but not before."

"Don't you know me, John?" Cyril laughed. The old sailor stepped back as if struck with a blow.

"Eh, what?" he exclaimed. "Is it you, Cyril? Why, we had all thought you dead! I did not know you in this dim light and in that big coat you have got on. Come upstairs, master. Captain Dave and the ladies will be glad indeed to see you. They have been mourning for you sadly, I can tell you."

Cyril took off his wrap and hung it on a peg, and then followed John upstairs.

"There, Captain Dave," the sailor said, as he opened the door of the sitting-room. "There is a sight for sore eyes!--a sight you never thought you would look on again."

For a moment Captain Dave, his wife, and daughter stared at Cyril as if scarce believing their eyes. Then the Captain sprang to his feet.

"It's the lad, sure enough. Why, Cyril," he went on, seizing him by the hand, and shaking it violently, "we had never thought to see you alive again; we made sure that those pirates had knocked you on the head, and that you were food for fishes by this time. There has been no comforting my good wife; and as to Nellie, if it had been a brother she had lost, she could not have taken it more hardly."

"They did knock me on the head, and very hard too, Captain Dave. If my skull hadn't been quite so thick, I should, as you say, have been food for fishes before now, for that is what they meant me for, and there is no thanks to them that I am here at present. I am sorry that you have all been made so uncomfortable about me."

"We should have been an ungrateful lot indeed if we had not, considering that in the first place you saved us from being ruined by those pirates, and that it was, as we thought, owing to the services you had done us that you had come to your end."

"But where have you been, Master Cyril?" Nellie broke in. "What has happened to you? We have been picturing all sorts of horrors, mother and I. That evil had befallen you we were sure, for we knew that you would not go away of a sudden, in this fashion, without so much as saying goodbye. We feared all the more when, two days afterwards, the wretches were so bold as to attack the constables, and to rescue Robert Ashford and another from their hands. Men who would do this in broad daylight would surely hesitate at nothing."

"Let him eat his supper without asking further questions, Nellie,"

her father said. "It is ill asking one with victuals before him to begin a tale that may, for aught I know, last an hour. Let him have his food, la.s.s, and then I will light my pipe, and John Wilkes shall light his here instead of going out for it, and we will have the yarn in peace and comfort. It spoils a good story to hurry it through.

Cyril is here, alive and well; let that content you for a few minutes."

"If I must, I must," Nellie said, with a little pout. "But you should remember, father, that, while you have been all your life having adventures of some sort, this is the very first that I have had; for though Cyril is the one to whom it befell, it is all a parcel with the robbery of the house and the capture of the thieves."

"When does the trial come off, Captain Dave?"

"It came off yesterday. Marner is to be hung at the end of the week.

He declared that he was but in the lane by accident when two lads opened the gate. He and the man with him, seeing that they were laden with goods, would have seized them, when they themselves were attacked and beaten down. But this ingenuity did not save him. Tom Frost had been admitted as King's evidence, and testified that Marner had been several times at the gate with the fellow that escaped, to receive the stolen goods. Moreover, there were many articles among those found at his place that I was able to swear to, besides the proceeds of over a score of burglaries. The two men taken in his house will have fifteen years in gaol. The women got off scot-free; there was no proof that they had taken part in the robberies, though there is little doubt they knew all about them."

"But how did they prove the men were concerned?"

"They got all the people whose property had been found there, and four of these, on seeing the men in the yard at Newgate, were able to swear to them as having been among those who came into their rooms and frightened them well-nigh to death. It was just a question whether they should be hung or not, and there was some wonder that the Judge let them escape the gallows."

"And what has become of Tom?"

"They kept Tom in the prison till last night. I saw him yesterday, and I am sure the boy is mighty sorry for having been concerned in the matter, being, as I truly believe, terrified into it. I had written down to an old friend of mine who has set up in the same way as myself at Plymouth. Of course I told him all the circ.u.mstances, but a.s.sured him, that according to my belief, the boy was not so much to blame, and that I was sure the lesson he had had, would last him for life; so I asked him to give Tom another chance, and if he did so, to keep the knowledge of this affair from everyone. I got his answer yesterday morning, telling me to send him down to him; he would give him a fair trial, and if he wasn't altogether satisfied with him, would then get him a berth as ship's boy. So, last night after dark, he was taken down by John Wilkes, and put on board a coaster bound for Plymouth. I would have taken him back here, but after your disappearance I feared that his life would not be safe; for although they had plenty of other cases they could have proved against Marner, Tom's evidence brought this business home to him."

Captain Dave would not allow Cyril to begin his story until the table had been cleared and he and John Wilkes had lighted their pipes. Then Cyril told his adventure, the earlier part of which elicited many exclamations of pity from Dame Dowsett and Mistress Nellie, and some angry e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns from the Captain when he heard that Black d.i.c.k and Robert Ashford had got safely off to Holland.

"By St. Anthony, lad," he broke out, when the story was finished, "you had a narrow escape from those villains at Rotterdam. Had it chanced that you were out at the time they came, I would not have given a groat for your life. By all accounts, that fellow Black d.i.c.k is a desperate villain. They say that they had got hold of evidence enough against him to hang a dozen men, and it seems that there is little doubt that he was concerned in several cases, where, not content with robbing, the villain had murdered the inmates of lonely houses round London. He had good cause for hating you. It was through you that he had been captured, and had lost his share in all that plunder at Marner's. Well, I trust the villain will never venture to show his face in London again; but there is never any saying. I should like to meet that captain who behaved so well to you, and I will meet him too, and shake him by the hand and tell him that any gear he may want for that ketch of his, he is free to come in here to help himself. There is another thing to be thought of. I must go round in the morning to the Guildhall and notify the authorities that you have come back. There has been a great hue and cry for you. They have searched the thieves' dens of London from attic to cellar; there have been boats out looking for your body; and on the day after you were missing they overhauled all the ships in the port. Of course the search has died out now, but I must go and tell them, and you will have to give them the story of the affair."

"I shan't say a word that will give them a clue that will help them to lay hands on the captain. He saved my life, and no one could have been kinder than he was. I would rather go away for a time altogether, for I don't see how I am to tell the story without injuring him."

"No; it is awkward, lad. I see that, even if you would not give them the name of the craft, they might find out what vessels went into Ipswich on that morning, and also the names of those that sailed from Rotterdam on the day she left."

"It seems to me, Captain, that the only way will be for me to say the exact truth, namely, that I gave my word to the captain that I would say naught of the matter. I could tell how I was struck down, and how I did not recover consciousness until I found myself in a boat, and was lifted on board a vessel and put down into the hold, and was there kept until morning. I could say that when I was let out I found we were far down the river, that the captain expressed great regret when he found that I had been hurt so badly, that he did everything in his power for me, and that after I had been some days on board the ship he offered to land me in Holland, and to give me money to pay my fare back here if I would give him my word of honour not to divulge his name or the name of the ship, or that of the port at which he landed me. Of course, they can imprison me for a time if I refuse to tell, but I would rather stay in gaol for a year than say aught that might set them upon the track of Captain Madden. It was not until the day he left me in Holland that I knew his name, for of course the men always called him captain, and so did I."

"That is the only way I can see out of it, lad. I don't think they will imprison you after the service you have done in enabling them to break up this gang, bring the head of it to justice, and recover a large amount of property."

So indeed, on their going to the Guildhall next morning, it turned out. The sitting Alderman threatened Cyril with committal to prison unless he gave a full account of all that had happened to him, but Captain Dowsett spoke up for him, and said boldly that instead of punishment he deserved honour for the great service he had done to justice, and that, moreover, if he were punished for refusing to keep the promise of secrecy he had made, there was little chance in the future of desperate men sparing the lives of those who fell into their hands. They would a.s.suredly murder them in self-defence if they knew that the law would force them to break any promise of silence they might have made. The Magistrate, after a consultation with the Chief Constable, finally came round to this view, and permitted Cyril to leave the Court, after praising him warmly for the vigilance he had shown in the protection of his employer's interests. He regretted that he had not been able to furnish them with the name of a man who had certainly been, to some extent, an accomplice of those who had a.s.saulted him, but this was not, however, so much to be regretted, since the man had done all in his power to atone for his actions.

"There is no further information you can give us, Master Cyril?"

"Only this, your worship: that on the day before I left Holland, I caught sight of the two persons who had escaped from the constables.

They had just landed."

"I am sorry to hear it," the Alderman said. "I had hoped that they were still in hiding somewhere in the City, and that the constables might yet be able to lay hands on them. However, I expect they will be back again erelong. Your ill-doer is sure to return here sooner or later, either with the hope of further gain, or because he cannot keep away from his old haunts and companions. If they fall into the hands of the City Constables, I will warrant they won't escape again."

He nodded to Cyril, who understood that his business was over and left the Court with Captain Dave.

"I am not so anxious as the Alderman seemed to be that Black d.i.c.k and Robert Ashford should return to London, Captain Dave."

"No; I can understand that, Cyril. And even now that you know they are abroad, it would be well to take every precaution, for the others whose business has been sorely interrupted by the capture of that villain Marner may again try to do you harm. No doubt other receivers will fill his place in time, but the loss of a ready market must incommode them much. Plate they can melt down themselves, and I reckon they would have but little difficulty in finding knaves ready to purchase the products of the melting-pot; but it is only a man with premises specially prepared for it who will buy goods of all kinds, however bulky, without asking questions about them."

Cyril was now in high favour with Mistress Nellie, and whenever he was not engaged when she went out he was invited to escort her.

One day he went with her to hear a famous preacher hold forth at St.

Paul's. Only a portion of the cathedral was used for religious services; the rest was utilised as a sort of public promenade, and here people of all cla.s.ses met--gallants of the Court, citizens, their wives and daughters, idlers and loungers, thieves and mendicants.

As Nellie walked forward to join the throng gathered near the pulpit, Cyril noticed a young man in a Court suit, standing among a group who were talking and laughing much louder than was seemly, take off his plumed hat, and make a deep bow, to which she replied by a slight inclination of the head, and pa.s.sed on with somewhat heightened colour.

Cyril waited until the service was over, when, as he left the cathedral with her, he asked,--

"Who was that ruffler in gay clothes, who bowed so deeply to you, Mistress Nellie?--that is, if there is no indiscretion in my asking."

"I met him in a throng while you were away," she said, with an attempt at carelessness which he at once detected. "There was a great press, and I well-nigh fainted, but he very courteously came to my a.s.sistance, and brought me safely out of the crowd."

"And doubtless you have seen him since, Mistress?"