Читать книгу The Story of Francis Cludde - Weyman Stanley John - Страница 6

We had stood thus for a few moments when a harsh voice, hailing us from above, put an end to our several thoughts and forebodings. We looked up and I saw half a dozen night-capped heads thrust over the bulwarks. A rope ladder came hurtling down at our feet, and a man, nimbly descending, held it tight at the bottom. "Now, madame!" he said briskly. They all, I noticed, had the same foreign accent, yet all spoke English; a singularity I did not understand, until I learned later that the boat was the Lions Whelp, trading between London and Calais, and manned from the latter place.

Mistress Bertram ascended quickly and steadily, holding the baby in her arms. The other made some demur, lingering at the foot of the ladder and looking up as if afraid, until her companion chid her sharply. Then she too went up, but as she passed me-I was holding one side of the ladder steady-she shot at me from under her hood a look which disturbed me strangely.

It was the first time I had seen her face, and it was such a face as a man rarely forgets. Not because of its beauty; rather because it was a speaking face, a strange and expressive one, which the dark waving hair, swelling in thick clusters upon either temple, seemed to accentuate. The features were regular, but, the full red lips excepted, rather thin than shapely. The nose, too, was prominent. But the eyes! The eyes seemed to glorify the dark brilliant thinness of the face, and to print it upon the memory. They were dark flashing eyes, and their smile seemed to me perpetually to challenge, to allure and repulse, and even to goad. Sometimes they were gay, more rarely sad, sometimes soft, and again hard as steel. They changed in a moment as one or another approached her. But always at their gayest, there was a suspicion of weariness and fatigue in their depths. Or so I thought later.

Something of this flashed through my mind as I followed her up the side. But once on board I glanced round, forgetting her in the novelty of my position. The Whelp was decked fore and aft only, the blackness of the hold gaping amidships, spanned by a narrow gangway, which served to connect the two decks. We found ourselves in the forepart, amid coils of rope and windlasses and water-casks; surrounded by half a dozen wild-looking sailors wearing blue knitted frocks and carrying sheath-knives at their girdles.

The foremost and biggest of these seemed to be the captain, although, so far as outward appearances went, the only difference between him and his crew lay in a marlin-spike which he wore slung to a thong beside his knife. When I reached the deck he was telling a long story to Mistress Bertram, and telling it very slowly. But the drift of it I soon gathered. While the fog lasted he could not put to sea.

"Nonsense!" cried my masterful companion, chafing at his slowness of speech. "Why not? Would it be dangerous?"

"Well, madam, it would be dangerous," he answered, more slowly than ever. "Yes, it would be dangerous. And to put to sea in a fog? That is not seamanship. And your baggage has not arrived."

"Never mind my baggage!" she answered imperiously. "I have made other arrangements for it. Two or three things I know came on board last night. I want to start-to start at once, do you hear?"

The captain shook his head, and said sluggishly that it was impossible. Spitting on the deck he ground his heel leisurely round in a knothole. "Impossible," he repeated; "it would not be seamanship to start in a fog. When the fog lifts we will go. 'Twill be all the same to-morrow. We shall lie at Leigh to-night, whether we go now or go when the fog lifts."

"At Leigh?"

"That is it, madam."

"And when will you go from Leigh?" she cried indignantly.

"Daybreak to-morrow," he answered. "You leave it to me, mistress," he continued, in a tone of rough patronage, "and you will see your good man before you expect it."

"But, man!" she exclaimed, trembling with impotent rage. "Did not Master Bertram engage you to bring me across whenever I might be ready? Ay, and pay you handsomely for it? Did he not, sirrah?"

"To be sure, to be sure!" replied the giant unmoved. "Using seamanship, and not going to sea in a fog, if it please you."

"It does not please me!" she retorted. "And why stay at Leigh?"

He looked up at the rigging, then down at the deck. He set his heel in the knothole, and ground it round again. Then he looked at his questioner with a broad smile. "Well, mistress, for a very good reason. It is there your good man is waiting for you. Only," added this careful keeper of a secret, "he bade me not tell any one."

She uttered a low cry, which might have been an echo of her baby's cooing, and convulsively clasped the child more tightly to her. "He is at Leigh!" she murmured, flushing and trembling, another woman altogether. Even her voice was wonderfully changed. "He is really at Leigh, you say?"

"To be sure!" replied the captain, with a portentous wink and a mysterious roll of the head. "He is there safe enough! Safe enough, you may bet your handsome face to a rushlight. And we will be there to-night."

She started up with a wild gesture. For a moment she had sat down on a cask standing beside her, and forgotten our peril, and the probability that we might never see Leigh at all. Now, I have said, she started up. "No, no!" she cried, struggling for breath and utterance. "Oh, no! no! Let us go at once. We must start at once!" Her voice was hysterical in its sudden anxiety and terror, as the consciousness of our position rolled back upon her. "Captain! listen, listen!" she pleaded. "Let us start now, and my husband will give you double. I will promise you double whatever he said if you will chance the fog."

I think all who heard her were moved, save the captain only. He rubbed his head and grinned. Slow and heavy, he saw nothing in her prayer save the freak of a woman wild to get to her man. He did not weigh her promise at a groat; she was but a woman. And being a foreigner, he did not perceive a certain air of breeding which might have influenced a native. He was one of those men against whose stupidity Father Carey used to say the gods fight in vain. When he answered good-naturedly, "No, no, mistress, it is impossible. It would not be seamanship," I felt that we might as well try to stop the ebbing tide as move him from his position.

The feeling was a maddening one. The special peril which menaced my companions I did not know; but I knew they feared pursuit, and I had every reason to fear it for myself. Yet at any moment, out of the fog which encircled us so closely that we could barely see the raft below-and the shore not at all-might come the tramp of hurrying feet and the stern hail of the law. It was maddening to think of this, and to know that we had only to cast off a rope or two in order to escape; and to know also that we were absolutely helpless.

I expected that Mistress Bertram, brave as she had shown herself, would burst into a passion of rage or tears. But apparently she had one hope left. She looked at me.

I tried to think-to think hard. Alas, I seemed only able to listen. An hour had gone by since we parted from that rascal in the court, and we might expect him to appear at any moment, vengeful and exultant, with a posse at his back. Yet I tried hard to think; and the fog presently suggested a possible course. "Look here," I said suddenly, speaking for the first time, "if you do not start until the fog lifts, captain, we may as well breakfast ashore, and return presently."

"That is as you please," he answered indifferently.

"What do you think?" I said, turning to my companions with as much carelessness as I could command. "Had we not better do that?"

Mistress Bertram did not understand, but in her despair she obeyed the motion of my hand mechanically, and walked to the side. The younger woman followed more slowly, so that I had to speak to her with some curtness, bidding her make haste; for I was in a fever until we were clear of the Whelp and the Lion Wharf. It had struck me that, if the ship were not to leave at once, we were nowhere in so much danger as on board. At large in the fog we might escape detection for a time. Our pursuers might as well look for a needle in a haystack as seek us through it when once we were clear of the wharf. And this was not the end of my idea. But for the present it was enough. Therefore I took up Mistress Anne very short. "Come!" I said, "be quick! Let me help you."

She obeyed, and I was ashamed of my impatience when at the foot of the ladder she thanked me prettily. It was almost with good cheer in my voice and a rebound of spirits that I explained, as I hurried my companions across the raft, what my plan was.

The moment we were ashore I felt safer. The fog swallowed us up quick, as the Bible says. The very hull of the ship vanished from sight before we had gone half a dozen paces. I had never seen a London fog before, and to me it seemed portentous and providential; a marvel as great as the crimson hail which fell in the London gardens to mark her Majesty's accession.

Yet after all, without my happy thought, the fog would have availed us little. We had scarcely gone a score of yards before the cautious tread of several people hastening down the strand toward the wharf struck my ear. They were proceeding in silence, and we might not have noticed their approach if the foremost had not by chance tripped and fallen; whereupon one laughed and another swore. With a warning hand I grasped my companions' arms, and hurried them forward some paces until I felt sure that our figures could not be seen through the mist. Then I halted, and we stood listening, gazing into one another's strained eyes, while the steps came nearer and nearer, crossed our track and then with a noisy rush thundered on the wooden raft. My ear caught the jingle of harness and the clank of weapons.

"It is the watch," I muttered. "Come, and make no noise. What I want is a little this way. I fancy I saw it as we passed down to the wharf."

They turned with me, but we had not taken many steps before Mistress Anne, who was walking on my left side, stumbled over something. She tried to save herself, but failed and fell heavily, uttering as she did so a loud cry. I sprang to her assistance, and even before I raised her I laid my hand lightly on her mouth. "Hush!" I said softly, "for safety's sake, make no noise. What is the matter?"

"Oh!" she moaned, making no effort to rise, "my ankle! my ankle! I am sure I have broken it."

I muttered my dismay, while Mistress Bertram, stooping anxiously, examined the injured limb. "Can you stand?" she asked.

But it was no time for questioning, and I put her aside. The troop which had passed were within easy hearing, and if there should be one among them familiar with the girl's voice, we might be pounced upon, fog or no fog. I felt that it was no time for ceremony, and picked Mistress Anne up in my arms, whispering to the elder woman: "Go on ahead! I think I see the boat. It is straight before you."

Luckily I was right, it was the boat; and so far well. But at the moment I spoke I heard a sudden outcry behind us, and knew the hunt was up. I plunged forward with my burden, recklessly and blindly, through mud and over obstacles. The wherry for which I was making was moored in the water a few feet from the edge. I had remarked it idly and without purpose as we came down to the wharf, and had even noticed that the oars were lying in it. Now, if we could reach it and start down the river for Leigh, we might by possibility gain that place, and meet Mistress Bertram's husband.

At any late, nothing in the world seemed so desirable to me at the moment as the shelter of that boat. I plunged through the mud, and waded desperately through the water to it, Mistress Bertram scarce a whit behind me. I reached it, but reached it only as the foremost pursuer caught sight of us. I heard his shout of triumph, and somehow I bundled my burden into the boat-I remember that she clung about my neck in fear, and I had to loosen her hands roughly. But I did loosen them-in time. With one stroke of my hunting-knife, I severed the rope, and pushing off the boat with all my strength, sprang into it as it floated away-and was in time. But one second's delay would have undone us. Two men were already in the water up to their knees, and their very breath was hot on my face as we swung out into the stream.

Fortunately, I had had experience of boats on the Avon, at Bidford and Stratford, and could pull a good oar. For a moment indeed the wherry rolled and dipped as I snatched up the sculls; but I quickly got her in hand, and, bending to my work, sent her spinning through the mist, every stroke I pulled increasing the distance between us and our now unseen foes. Happily we were below London Bridge, and had not that dangerous passage to make. The river, too, was nearly clear of craft, and though once and again in the Pool a huge hulk loomed suddenly across our bows, and then faded behind us into the mist like some monstrous phantom, and so told of a danger narrowly escaped, I thought it best to run all risks, and go ahead as long as the tide should ebb.

It was strange how suddenly we had passed from storm into calm. Mistress Anne had bound her ankle with a handkerchief, and bravely made light of the hurt; and now the two women sat crouching in the stern watching me, their heads together, their faces pale. The mist had closed round us, and we were alone again, gliding over the bosom of the great river that runs down to the sea. I was oddly struck by the strange current of life which for a week had tossed me from one adventure to another, only to bring me into contact at length with these two, and sweep me into the unknown whirlpool of their fortunes.

Who were they? A merchant's wife and her sister flying from Bishop Bonner's inquisition? I thought it likely. Their cloaks and hoods indeed, and all that I could see of their clothes, fell below such a condition; but probably they were worn as a disguise. Their speech rose as much above it, but I knew that of late many merchant's wives had become scholars, and might pass in noblemen's houses; even as in those days when London waxed fat, and set up and threw down governments, every alderman had come to ride in mail.

No doubt the women, watching me in anxious silence, were as curious about me. I still bore the stains of country travel. I was unwashen, unkempt, my doublet was torn, the cloak I had cast at my feet was the very wreck of a cloak. Yet I read no distrust in their looks. The elder's brave eyes seemed ever thanking me. I never saw her lips move silently that they did not shape "Well done!" And though I caught Mistress Anne scanning me once or twice with an expression I could ill interpret, a smile took its place the moment her gaze met mine.

We had passed, but were still in sight of, Greenwich Palace-as they told me-when the mist rose suddenly like a curtain rolled away, and the cold, bright February sun, shining out, disclosed the sparkling river with the green hills rising on our right hand. Here and there on its surface a small boat such as our own moved to and fro, and in the distant Pool from which we had come rose a little forest of masts. I hung on the oars a moment, and my eyes were drawn to a two-masted vessel which, nearly half a mile below us, was drifting down, gently heeling over with the current as the crew got up the sails. "I wonder whither she is bound," I said thoughtfully, "and whether they would take us on board by any chance."

Mistress Bertram shook her head. "I have no money," she answered sadly. "I fear we must go on to Leigh, if it be any way possible. You are tired, and no wonder. But what is it?" with a sudden change of voice. "What is the matter?"

I had flashed out the oars with a single touch, and begun to pull as fast as I could down the stream. No doubt my face, too, proclaimed my discovery and awoke her fears. "Look behind!" I muttered between my set teeth.

She turned, and on the instant uttered a low cry. A wherry like our own, but even lighter-in my first glance up the river I had not noticed it-had stolen nearer to us, and yet nearer, and now throwing aside disguise was in hot pursuit of us. There were three men on board, two rowing and one steering. When they saw that we had discovered them they hailed us in a loud voice, and I heard the steersman's feet rattle on the boards, as he cried to his men to give way, and stamped in very eagerness. My only reply was to take a longer stroke, and, pulling hard, to sweep away from them.

But presently my first strength died away, and the work began to tell upon me, and little by little they overhauled us. Not that I gave up at once for that. They were still some sixty yards behind, and for a few minutes at any rate I might put off capture. In that time something might happen. At the worst they were only three to one, and their boat looked light and cranky and easy to upset.

So I pulled on, savagely straining at the oars. But my chest heaved and my arms ached more and more with each stroke. The banks slid by us; we turned one bend, then another, though I saw nothing of them. I saw only the pursuing boat, on which my eyes were fixed, heard only the measured rattle of the oars in the rowlocks. A minute, two minutes, three minutes passed. They had not gained on us, but the water was beginning to waver before my eyes, their boat seemed floating in the air, there was a pulsation in my ears louder than that of the oars, I struggled and yet I flagged. My knees trembled. Their boat shot nearer now, nearer and nearer, so that I could read the smile of triumph on the steersman's dark face and hear his cry of exultation. Nearer! and then with a cry I dropped the oars.

"Quick!" I panted to my companions. "Change places with me! So!" Trembling and out of breath as I was, I crawled between the women and gained the stern sheets of the boat. As I passed Mistress Bertram she clutched my arm. Her eyes, as they met mine, flashed fire, her lips were white. "The man steering!" she hissed between her teeth. "Leave the others. He is Clarence, and I fear him!"

I nodded; but still, as the hostile boat bore swiftly down upon us, I cast a glance round to see if there were any help at hand. I saw no sign of any. I saw only the pale blue sky overhead, and the stream flowing swiftly under the boat. I drew my sword. The case was one rather for despair than courage. The women were in my charge, and if I did not acquit myself like a man now, when should I do so? Bah! it would soon be over.

There was an instant's confusion in the other boat, as the crew ceased rowing, and, seeing my attitude and not liking it, changed their seats. To my joy the man, who had hitherto been steering, flung a curse at the others and came forward to bear the brunt of the encounter. He was a tall, sinewy man, past middle age, with a clean-shaven face, a dark complexion, and cruel eyes. So he was Master Clarence! Well, he had the air of a swordsman and a soldier. I trembled for the women.

"Surrender, you fool!" he cried to me harshly. "In the Queen's name-do you hear? What do you in this company?"

I answered nothing, for I was out of breath. But softly, my eyes on his, I drew out with my left hand my hunting-knife. If I could beat aside his sword, I would spring upon him and drive the knife home with that hand. So, standing erect in bow and stern we faced one another, the man and the boy, the flush of rage and exertion on my cheek, a dark shade on his. And silently the boats drew together.

Thought is quick, quicker than anything else in the world I suppose, for in some drawn-out second before the boats came together I had time to wonder where I had seen his face before, and to rack my memory. I knew no Master Clarence, yet I had seen this man somewhere. Another second, and away with thought! He was crouching for a spring. I drew back a little, then lunged-lunged with heart and hand. Our swords crossed and whistled-just crossed-and even as I saw his eyes gleam behind his point, the shock of the two boats coming together flung us both backward and apart. A moment we reeled, staggering and throwing out wild hands. I strove hard to recover myself, nay, I almost did so; then I caught my foot in Mistress Anne's cloak, which she had left in her place, and fell heavily back into the boat.

I was up in a moment-on my knees at least-and unhurt. But another was before me. As I stooped half-risen, I saw one moment a dark shadow above me, and the next a sheet of flame shone before my eyes, and a tremendous shock swept all away. I fell senseless into the bottom of the boat, knowing nothing of what had happened to me.