Читать книгу Commodore Junk - Fenn George Manville - Страница 6

“You dare not deny it,” cried Mary Dell, furiously, as she stood in the doorway of the cottage, facing her brother and Bart Wrigley, who attempted to escape, but were prevented by her barring the way of exit.

Neither spoke, but they stood looking sullen and frowning like a couple of detected schoolboys.

“No,” she continued, “you dare not deny it. You cowards – lying in wait for an unarmed man!”

“Why, he’d got a sword and pistols,” cried Bart.

“There!” shrieked Mary, triumphantly; “you have betrayed yourself, Bart. Now perhaps my brave brother will confess that he lay in wait in the dark for an unarmed man, and helped to beat him nearly to death.”

“You’re a nice fellow to trust, Bart,” said Abel, looking at his companion. “Betrayed yourself directly.”

“Couldn’t help it,” grumbled Bart. “She’s so sharp upon a man.”

“You cowards!” cried Mary again.

“Well, I don’t know about being cowards,” said Abel, sullenly. “He was mounted and had his weapons, and we had only two sticks.”

“Then you confess it was you? Oh! what a villain to have for a brother!”

“Here, don’t go on like that,” cried Abel. “See how he has served you.”

“What’s that to you?” cried Mary, fiercely. “If he jilted me and I forgive him, how dare you interfere?”

“Phew!” whistled Bart to himself. “What a way she has!”

“Why, any one would think you cared for him, Polly,” said Abel, staring, while Bart whistled softly again, and wiped the heavy dew from his forehead.

“Care for him! – I hate him!” cried Mary, passionately: “but do you think I wanted my own brother to go and take counsel with his big vagabond companion – ”

“Phew!” whistled Bart again, softly, as he perspired now profusely, and wiped his forehead with his fur cap.

“And then go and beat one of the King’s officers? But you’ll both suffer for it. The constables will be here for you, and you’ll both be punished.”

“Not likely – eh, Bart?” said Abel, with a laugh.

“No, lad,” growled that worthy. “Too dark.”

“Don’t you be too sure,” cried Mary. “You cowards! and if he dies,” – there was a hysterical spasm here – “if he dies, you’ll both go to the gibbet and swing in chains!”

Bart gave his whole body a writhe, as if he already felt the chains about him as he was being made into a scare-scamp.

“Didn’t hit hard enough, and never touched his head,” he growled.

“And as for you,” cried Mary, turning upon him sharply, “never you look me in the face again. You are worse than Abel; and I believe it was your mad, insolent jealousy set you persuading my foolish brother to help in this cowardly attack.”

Bart tried to screw up his lips and whistle; but his jaw seemed to drop, and he only stared and shuffled behind his companion in misfortune.

“Never mind what she says, Bart, lad,” said the latter; “she’ll thank us some day for half-killing as big a scamp as ever stepped.”

“Thank you!” cried Mary, with her eyes flashing and her handsome face distorted, “I hope to see you both well punished, and – ”

“Who’s that coming?” said Abel, sharply, as steps were heard approaching quickly.

As Mary turned round to look, Abel caught sight of something over her shoulder in the evening light which made him catch his companion by the arm.

“Quick, Bart, lad!” he whispered; “through her room and squeeze out of the window. The constables!”

He opened the door of his sister’s little room, thrust his mate in, followed, and shut and bolted the door; but as he turned then to the window, a little strongly-made frame which had once done duty in a vessel, Mary’s voice was heard speaking loudly in conversation with the new arrivals in the outer room.

“Out with you, quickly and quietly,” whispered Abel.

“Right, lad,” replied Bart; and unfastening and opening the little window, he thrust his arms through and began to get out.

At that moment there was a loud knocking at the door.

“Open – in the king’s name!”

“Open it yourself,” muttered Abel, “when we’re gone. Quick, Bart, lad!”

This remark was addressed to the big fellow’s hind quarters, which were jerking and moving in a very peculiar way, and then Bart’s voice was heard, sounding muffled and angry, warning somebody to keep off.

“Curse it all! too late!” cried Abel, grinding his teeth. “Here, Bart, lad, get through.”

“Can’t, lad,” growled his companion. “I’m ketched just acrost the hips, and can’t move.”

“Come back, then.”

“That’s what I’m a-trying to do, but this son of a sea-cook has got hold of me.”

“Open – in the King’s name!” came from the outer room; and then, just as Abel had seized an old sea-chest and was about to drag it before the door, there was a tremendous kick, the bolt was driven off, the door swung open, and the Dartmouth constable and a couple of men rushed forwards, and, in spite of Abel’s resistance, dragged him into the other room.

“Now, Dell, my lad,” said the head man, “I’ve got you at last.”

“So it seems,” said Abel, who stared hard at his sister as he spoke; while she stood with her hands clasped before her and a peculiarly rigid look on her face, staring wildly back.

“Smuggling and wrecking weren’t enough for you, eh?”

“What do you want here?” said Abel, giving his sister a final scowl and then facing the head constable.

“You, my lad – you,” said that individual, with a grin.

“What for?”

“Attempted murder and robbery on the king’s highway, my lad.”

“It’s a lie! Who says so?” cried Abel, setting his teeth and fixing his sister again with his dark eyes as she gave him an imploring look.

“Never mind who says so, my lad. Information’s laid all regular against you and Master Bart Wrigley. You’re both captured neatly. Here, how long are you going to be bringing forward the other?” cried the constable.

“We can’t get him out,” shouted a voice. “He’s stuck in the little window.”

“Pull him back, then, by his legs.”

“Been trying ever so long,” said another voice, “but he won’t come.”

“I’ll soon see to that,” said the constable, backing Abel into the little bed-room which was darkened by Bart’s body filling up the window. “Here, lay hold of his legs, two of you, and give a good jerk.”

Two men obeyed, but they did not give the jerk – Bart did that. Drawing in his legs like a grasshopper about to leap, he suddenly shot them out straight, when, though they did not alter his position where he was nipped in across the hips by the window-frame, they acted like catapults upon the two constables, who were driven backwards, the one into a chair, the other into a sitting position on the floor, to the great delight of those who looked on.

“Four of you,” said the head constable stolidly; “and hold on this time.”

The men obeyed, two going to each leg; and though Bart gave three or four vigorous kicks, his captors were not dislodged.

“Now,” said the head constable, as the kicking legs became quiescent, “all together!”

There was a sharp jerk, and Bart’s body was snatched out of the imprisoning frame so suddenly that five men went down on the floor together; while the first to rise was Bart, who kicked himself free, made for the door in spite of a pistol levelled by the head constable, and passed through.

“Come on, Abel!” he shouted as he went.

Abel made a dash to follow, but he only struck his face against the muzzle of a pistol, and the head constable held on.

There was a rush after Bart, but it was needless, for the great stolid fellow had seen the state of affairs, and come back.

“All right, Abel, lad,” he growled; “I won’t leave you in the lurch. What’s it mean – lock-up!”

“Yes, my lad; charge of attempted murder and robbery,” said the head constable.

“Took all the skin off my hips and ribs,” growled Bart, rubbing himself softly.

“You’ll have plenty of time to get well before your trial,” said the constable, smiling. “Are you ready!”

This last to Abel, who was gazing fiercely at his sister, who met his angry eyes with an imploring look.

“And my own sister, too, Bart,” he said, bitterly. “We fought for her, lad, and she gave information to the police.”

“No, no, no, Abel!” cried Mary, running to him to fling her arms about his neck; but he gave her a rough thrust which sent her staggering back, and her countenance changed on the instant for her eyes flashed vindictively, and she stood before him with folded arms.

“Prisoner confessed in the presence of you all that he committed the act,” said the constable; and his words were received with a mutter of assent in chorus.

“Here, I’m ready,” said Abel. “Come along, mate.”

“So’m I,” growled Bart, laying a hand on Abel’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t ha’ thought it on you, Mary, my lass,” he said, and he gazed at her sadly as he shook his head.

Mary made no reply, but stood with her arms folded across her breast and her brow wrinkled while the party moved out of the cottage; but the next instant the scene which followed made her rush outside and gaze wildly with eyes dilated and breast heaving, and her hands now clasped as she watched the chase.

For as the little party stood outside, Bart still with his hand upon his companion’s shoulder, Abel said quickly —

“The boat. Run!”

Bart was, as a rule, rather slow of comprehension; but at that moment the same idea was filling his mind. That is to say, it was already charged, and Abel’s words were as so many sparks struck from steel to fire that charge. Consequently, as the young fellow struck the constable to the left, Bart did the same to the right, and they dashed off as one man towards where, just round the western point of rock which helped to form the little bay, they knew that their boat was lying, swinging with the tide to a grapnel lying on the sands.

As they dashed off, running swiftly over the hard sand, the head constable raised his old brass-mounted pistol and fired, when the shot might have been supposed to have struck Mary Dell, so sharp a start did she give as she clapped one hand to her side, and then peered at the rising smoke, and drew a long breath full of relief.

For, as the smoke rose, she could see the fugitives still running, and that quite a cloud of sea-birds had risen from the mew-stone, a hundred yards from shore, to fly circling round, screaming querulously, as they slowly flapped their black-tipped wings.

“They’ll escape – they’ll escape!” cried Mary, clapping her hands joyously. “The coward, to fire! And they’re afraid to run hard and catch them now they are out in the open. Yes, they’ll escape!” she cried again, as she saw the distance increasing between pursuer and pursued. “They’ll get to the boat; the sail’s in, and there’s a good breeze. Oh, if I were only with them!”

A sudden thought struck her, and she caught up a sun-bonnet from where it lay on the open window-sill.

“I’ll go,” she thought. “They’ll sail west. I could reach Mallow’s Cove across the fields, and signal to them. They’d come in and pick me up, and we could escape together far, far from here.”

All this with her cheeks flushing, her handsome eyes sparkling, and her breast rising and falling in the height of her emotion.

Then a change came over her. Her eyes looked heavy; her forehead wrinkled again.

“Escape! Where?” she said, half aloud. “I’d gladly go – away from all this torture; but they think I betrayed them, and would not come in.”

The elasticity was gone out of her step, as she slowly climbed the face of the huge scarped rocks which towered above the cottage – a risky ascent, but one to which she was, as it were, born; and, with her eyes fixed upon the pursuers and the fugitives, she trusted to her hands and feet to take her safely to the top, passing spot after spot where one unused to climbing would have stopped and turned back, so giddy was the ascent. Higher and higher, past clinging ivy, fern, and clusters of yellow ragwort, with patches of purple heath and golden gorse, till the farther side of the rocky point was opened out, with the boat lying like a speck afloat beyond the line of foam.

Mary paused there with her sun-bonnet in her hand to watch the result; but there was no exultation in her eyes, only a look of stony despondency, for from where she stood she could see now that the effort of her brother and his companion was in vain.

They were still on ignorance as they ran on, for they were on the bay side of the point yet, toiling over the loose sand and shingle, where the washed up weed lay thick; but Mary had a bird’s-eye view of what in the clear south air seemed to be close at her feet, as close almost as where the boat lay in shelter from the north and easterly wind.

The pursuers were now all together, and settled down to a steady trot, which pace they increased as Bart and Abel reached the rocks, and, instead of going right round, began to climb over some fifty yards from where the water washed the point.

“We’re too many for him this time, Bart, my lad,” cried Abel. “You weren’t hit, were you?”

“Hit? No. Shot never went within a mile o’ me.”

“Then why are you dowsing your jib like that?”

“I were a-thinking about she, mate,” said Bart, in a low growl.

“Curse her for a woman all over!” said Abel. “They take to a man, and the more he ill-uses ’em, they fight for him the more.”

“Ay, lad; but to think of her putting them on to us! It don’t seem like she.”

“Curse them!” cried Abel, as he reached the other side of the point, and saw that which his sister had seen from the cliff behind the cottage.

“What for now?” said Bart, stolidly, as he reached his companion’s side. “Hum, that’s it, is it?”

He looked round him for a fresh way of escape.

There was the sea, if they liked to leap in and swim; but they could be easily overtaken. The rocks above them were too overhanging to climb, and there was no other way, unless they returned, and tried to rush through their pursuers; for beyond the point the tide beat upon the cliff.

“No good, Bart; we’re trapped,” said Abel, stolidly. “I’ll never forgive her – never!”

“Yes, you will,” said Bart, sitting down on a rock, and carefully taking off his fur cap to wipe his heated brow. “You will some day. Why, I could forgive her anything – I could. She’s a wonderful gell; but, I say, my hips is werry sore.”

He sat staring down at the boat beyond the point, the anchor having been taken on board, and the oars being out to keep her off the rocks, as she rose and fell with the coming tide.

“No!” said Abel, bitterly. “I’ll never forgive her – never!”

“Nay, lad, don’t say that,” said Bart, rubbing one side. “Hey, lass! There she is. Top o’ the cliff. Look at her, mate.”

“No,” said Abel; “let her look – at her cowardly work.”

“Now, then!” shouted the head constable, as he came panting up. “Is it surrender, or fight?”

For answer, Abel climbed slowly down to the sands, followed by Bart; and the next minute they were surrounded, and stood with gyves upon their wrists.

“Warm work,” said the constable, cheerfully; “but we’ve got you safe now.”

“Ay, you’ve got us safe,” growled Bart; “but it wouldn’t ha’ been easy if Abel here had showed fight.”

“Been no use,” said the constable. “I said to Billy Niggs here: ‘Niggs,’ I said, ‘them two’ll make for their boat, and get away.’ ‘Ay, zhure, that they ’ool,’ he said. Didn’t you, Billy?”

“Ay, zhure, sir, that’s just what I did say,” cried a constable, with a face like a fox-whelp cyder apple.

“So I sent on two men to be ready in the boat. Come on, my lads.”

The boat was pulled ashore. The two constables in charge leaped out with the grapnel, and dropped it on the sand; and then in silence the party with their prisoners walked slowly back, and beneath the spot where Mary stood like a figure carved out of the rock, far above their heads, till they had gone out of sight, without once looking up or making a sign.

Then the poor girl sank down in the rocky niche where she had climbed first, and burst into an agonised fit of weeping.

“Father – mother – brother – all gone! Lover false! Alone – alone – alone!” she sobbed. “What have I done to deserve it all? Nothing!” she cried, fiercely, as she sprang to her feet and turned and shook her clenched fists landward. “Nothing but love a cold, cruel wretch. Yes, love; and now – oh, how I hate him – and all the world!”

She sank down again in the niche all of a heap, and sat there with the sun slowly sinking lower, and the sea-birds wheeling round and round above her head, and watching her with inquisitive eyes, as they each now and then uttered a mournful wail, which sounded sympathetic though probably it was the gullish expression of wonder whether the crouching object was good to eat.

And there she sat, hour after hour, till it was quite dark, when she began slowly to descend, asking herself what she should do to save her brother and his friend, both under a misconception, but suffering for her sake.

“And I stay here!” she said, passionately. “Let them think what they will, I’ll try and save them, for they must be a prison now.”

Mary was quite right; for as night fell Abel Dell and Bart his companion were partaking of a very frugal meal, and made uncomfortable by the fact that it was not good, and that they – men free to come and go on sea and land – were now safely caged behind a massive iron grill.

“Well,” said Bart at last, “I’m only sorry for one thing now.”

“What’s that – Mary being so base?”

“Nay, I’m sorry for that,” replied Bart; “but what I meant was that I didn’t give the captain one hard un on the head.”