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Cormorant Crag; A Tale of the Smuggling Days, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 35. How Some Folk Turn Smugglers |
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_ CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE. HOW SOME FOLK TURN SMUGGLERS The sea was up before the boys next morning, and in its own special way was making the _chasse-maree_ pitch and toss, now rising up one side of a wave, now gliding down the other; for the wind had risen towards morning, and was now blowing so hard that quite half the sail hoisted overnight had had to be taken down, leaving the swift vessel staggering along beneath the rest. Vince turned out feeling a bit puzzled and confused, for he did not quite grasp his position; but the full swing of thought came, with all its depressing accompaniments, and he roused up Mike to bear his part and help to condole as well. Mike, on the contrary, turned out of his bunk fully awake to their position, and began to murmur at once bitterly as he went on dressing, till at last Vince turned upon him. "I say," he said, "it's of no use to make worse of it." "No one can," cried Mike. "Oh, can't they? Why, you're doing your part." "I'm only saying that it's abominable and outrageous, and that I wish the old lugger may be wrecked. Here, I say, what have you been doing with my clothes?" "Haven't touched 'em." "But you must have touched them. I folded them up, and put them together, and they're pitched all over the place. Where are my boots?" "Servant girl's fetched 'em out to clean, perhaps," said Vince quietly. "Eh? Think so? Well, they did want it.--Get out! I don't see any need for jeering at our position here. Just as if I didn't know better! Here, you must have got them on." "Not I! Even if I wanted to, one of your great ugly boots would be big enough for both of my feet." "Do you want to quarrel, Cinder?" said Mike roughly. "Not here. Isn't room enough. There are your boots, one on each side of the door in the corners of the cabin." "Then you must have kicked them there, and--" Mike did not finish, for the lugger gave such a lurch that the boy went in a rush against the opposite bulkhead with a heavy bang. "Didn't kick you there, at all events," said Vince, who was fastening his last buttons. "Why, the sea's getting up," said Mike. "Has it been blowing up above?" "Haven't been on deck, but it has been alarming down here. I had a horrible job to find my things. They were all over the place." "How horrid! And what a miserable place to dress in!" "Better than a sandbank in a seal's hole." "Oh! don't talk about it." "Why not? It's over. Deal better off than we have been lately, for we have got an invitation to breakfast." "I wish you wouldn't do that, Cinder," said Mike querulously. "Do what? I didn't do anything." "Now you're at it again, trying to cut jokes and making the best of things at a time like this." "All right: I'm silent, then," said Vince. "Shall I go on deck?" "Go? what for?" "Leave you more room to dress." "It will be very shabby if you do go before I'm dressed. If ever two fellows were bound to stick together it's us now. Oh dear, how awkward everything is! I say, there's no danger, is there?" cried Mike, as the lugger gave a tremendous plunge and then seemed to wallow down among the waves. "No, I don't see what danger there can be. Seems a beautifully built boat, and I daresay Jacques is a capital sailor." "A scoundrel!" said Mike bitterly. "Now, _mes enfans_, get up," cried the skipper's voice; and this was followed by a smart banging at the door, which was opened and a head thrust in. "If you sall bose be ill you can stay in bed to-day; but you vill be better up. Vell, do you feel vairy seek?" "No, we're all right," said Vince; and soon after the two boys climbed on deck and had to shelter themselves from the spray, which was flying across the deck in a sharp shower. It was a black-looking morning, and the gloom of the clouds tinged the surface of the sea, whose foaming waves looked sooty and dingy to a degree, while the boys found now how much more severe the storm was than they had supposed when below. The men were all in their oilskins, very little canvas was spread, and they were right out in a heavy, chopping sea, with no sign of land on any hand. They had to stagger to the lee bulwarks and hold on, for the lugger every now and then indulged in a kick and plunge, while from time to time a wave came over the bows, deluging the deck from end to end. But before long the slight feeling of scare which had attacked the boys passed off, as they saw the matter-of-fact, composed manner in which the men stood at their various stations, while the captain was standing now beside the helmsman, and appeared to be giving him fresh directions as to the course he was to steer, with the result that, as the lugger's head paid off a trifle, the motion became less violent, while her speed increased. "Aha!" shouted the captain, as he found them--"not seek yet? Vait till ve have ze _dejeuner_, and zen ve sall see." "Oh, we've been to sea before," said Vince rather contemptuously. "And you like ze sea, _n'est-ce pas_--is it not so?" "Oh yes; we like the sea," said Vince. "It is good," said the captain, clapping him on the shoulder. "Zen you sall help me. You say no at ze beginning, but bah! a boy--two boy like you brave _garcons_--vill not cry to go home to ze muzzer. It is a fine sing to have a luggar of tree mast like zis, and you sall bose make you fortune ven I have done." He nodded and turned away, leaving the boys to stand looking at each other aghast, and forgetting all about the state of the sea, till a big wave came over the bows and made them seek for shelter. They saw but little of the captain that day, except at meal-times, when he was good-humoured and jocose with them in spite of the fact that the weather did not mend in the least. Then the next day passed, and the next, with the wind not so violent, but the sea continued rough, and the constant misty rain kept them for the most part below. The crew were civil enough, and chatted with them when they did not ask questions; but failing to obtain any information from them as to their destination, Vince agreed with Mike that one of them should ask the captain where they were going to first. So that evening, when they were sailing slowly in a north-easterly direction, after being driven here and there by contrary winds, they waited their opportunity, and upon the captain coming up to them Vince began at once with,-- "Where are we going to first, captain?" "Eh? you vant to know?" he said. "Vell, you sall. In zere." The boys looked sharply in the direction pointed out but could see nothing for the misty rain which drifted slowly across the sea. "Where's in there?" said Mike. "You are not good sailore yet, _mon ami_, or you vould have study our course. I vill tell you. You look over ze most left, and you vill see ze land of ze fat, heavy Dutchmans." "What, Holland?" cried Vince eagerly. "Yais: you know ze name of ze river and ports?" "Yes; Amsterdam, Rotterdam," began Vince. "Are we going to one of those places?" "Aha! ve sall see. You no ask questions. Some day, if you are good boy and can be trust, you vill know everysings. Perhaps ve go into ze Scheldt, perhaps ve make for ze Texel and ze Zuyder Zee, perhaps ve go noveres. Now you know." He gave them a peculiar look and left them, and as the rain came on in a drifting drizzle the boys made this an excuse for going below. "Mike," said Vince, as soon as they were alone, "got a pencil?" "No." "And there is neither pen nor ink." "Nor yet paper." "Then we're floored there," said Vince impatiently. "What did you want to do?" "Want to do? Why, write home of course, telling them where we were. We surely could post a letter at the port." "No: he'll never give us a chance." "Perhaps not; but we might bribe some one to take the letter." "What with? I haven't a penny, and I don't believe you have." Vince doubled his fists and rested his head upon them. "I tell you what, then: we only gave our word for one day. We must wait till we are in port, and then swim ashore. Some one would help us." "If we could speak Dutch." "Oh dear," said Vince, "how hard it is! But never mind, let's get away. We might find an English ship there." Mike shook his head, and Vince set to work inventing other ways of escaping; but they finally decided that the best way would be to wait till they were in the river or port, and then to try and get off each with an oar to help support them in what might prove to be a longer swim than they could manage. That evening the weather lifted, and after a couple of hours' sail they found themselves off a dreary, low-lying shore, upon which a cluster or two of houses was visible, and several windmills--one showing up very large and prominent at the mouth of what seemed to be a good-sized river, whose farther shore they could faintly discern in the failing evening light. "We're going up there," said Vince--"that's certain." But just as it began to grow dark there was a loud rattling, and down went an anchor, the lugger swung round, and the boys were just able to make out that they were about a couple of miles from the big windmill. "Too many sandbanks to venture in," said Vince. "No; we're waiting for a pilot." "I believe," said Vince, "he'll wait for daylight and then sail up the river; and if we don't escape somehow before we're twenty-four hours older my name isn't Burnet." Mike said nothing, but he did not seem hopeful; and soon after they were summoned to the cabin to dinner, where the captain was very friendly. "Aha! now you see Holland. It is beautiful, is it not? Flat as ze Dutchman face. Not like your Cormorant Crag, eh? But nevaire mind. It vas time, and soon ve get butter, bread and milk, ze sheecan, ze potate, for you hungry boy have eat so much ve get to ze bottom of ze store." They asked no questions, for they felt that it did not matter. Any land would do, and if they could escape it would go hard if they did not avoid recapture. They were too much excited to sleep for some time that night, lying listening for the coming of the pilot or for the hoisting of the anchor; for there was, after all, the possibility of their having anchored till the tide rose sufficiently for them to cross some bar at the mouth of the river. But sleep overcame them at last, and they lay insensible to the fact that about midnight a light was hoisted at the mast-head, which was answered about an hour after by the appearance of another light in the mouth of the river--a light which gradually crept nearer and nearer till about an hour before dawn, when the boys were awakened by a soft bumping against the lugger's side, followed by a dull creaking, and then came the hurrying to and fro of feet on the deck overhead. "Quick, Mike!" cried Vince--"into your clothes. She's sinking!" As they hurried on a few things, the passing to and fro of men grew louder; they heard the captain's voice giving orders, evidently for the lowering of a boat, and the boys tried to fling open the door and rush on deck. Tried--but that was all. "Mike, we're locked in!" cried Vince frantically; and he began to kick at the door, shouting with Mike for help. Their appeal was so vigorous that they did not have to wait for long. There was the sound of the captain's heavy boots as he blundered down the ladder, and he gave a tremendous kick at the door. "Yah!" he roared: "vat for you make zat row?" "The lugger! She's sinking," cried the boys together. "I com in and sink you," roared the captain. "Go to sleep, bose of you." "But the door's locked." "Yais, I lock him myself. _Silence_!" Then the lugger was not sinking; but the faint creaking and grinding went on after the captain had gone back on deck, and the boys stood listening to the orders given and the hurrying to and fro of men. "She must be on a rock, Cinder," said Mike, in a half-stifled voice. "No rocks here. On a sandbank, and they're trying to get her off." Then there was a rattling and banging noise, which came through the bulkhead. "Why, they're taking up the hatches over the hold." "Yes," said Vince bitterly; "they're thinking more of saving the bales than of us." "Down vis you, and pass 'em up," cried the captain; and, for what seemed to be quite a couple of hours, they could hear the crew through the bulkhead busy in the hold fetching out and passing up the bales on to the deck in the most orderly way, and without a bit of excitement. "Can't be much danger," said Vince at last, "or they wouldn't go on so quietly as this." "I don't know," said Mike bitterly; "it must be bad, and they will forget us at last, and we shall be drowned, shut up here." "Don't make much difference," said Vince, with a laugh. "Better off here. Fishes won't be able to get at us and eat us afterwards." "Ugh! how can you talk in that horrid way at a time like this!" "To keep up our spirits," said Vince. "Perhaps it isn't so bad. She's on a bank, I'm sure, and perhaps--yes, that's it--they're trying to lighten her and make her float." "They're not," said Mike excitedly. "Why, they're bringing other things down. You listen here." Vince clapped his ear to the bulkhead and listened, and made out plainly enough that for every bale passed up a box seemed to be handed down, and these were being stacked up against the partition which separated them from the hold. "I say, what does it mean?" whispered Mike at last. "I don't know," replied Vince; "but for certain they're bringing in things as well as taking them away. Then we must be in port, and they're landing and loading up again." "Oh, Cinder! and we can't get ashore and run for it." "No; he's too artful for us this time. That's why he has locked us up. Never mind; our turn will come. He can't always have his eyes open." "Is there any way of getting out?" "Not now," said Vince thoughtfully; "but we might get one of those boards out ready for another time. They're wide enough to let us through." The soft creaking and grinding sounds went on, but were attributed to the lugger being close up to some pier or wharf, and the boys stood with their ears close to the bulkhead, trying to pick up a word now and then, as the men who were below, stowing the fresh cargo, went on talking together. But it was weary work, and led to nothing definite. They knew that the loading was going on--nothing more. "Well, we are clever ones," said Vince at last; and he laid hold of the wooden shutter which let in light and air to the narrow place, but only let his arm fall to his side again, for it was firmly secured. "Never mind," he added; "we'll make it all straight yet." Hours had gone by, and from the bright streaks of light which stole in beneath and over the door they knew that it was a fine morning; and, as the dread had all passed away, they finished dressing, and sat in an awkward position against the edge of the bottom bunk, listening to the bustle on deck, till all at once it ceased and the men began to clap on the hatches once again. Then, as they listened, there came the sound of ropes being cast off, the creaking and grinding ceased, the captain shouted something, and was answered from a distance, and again from a greater distance, just as the lugger heeled over a little, and there came the rattle and clanging of the capstan, with the heave-ho singing of the men. "We're under way again, Mike," said Vince; "and there's no chance of a run for the shore this time." He had hardly spoken when the heavy tread of the captain was heard once more, and he stopped at the door to shoot a couple of bolts. "_Bon jour, mes amis_. You feel youselfs ready for ze brearkfas?" Vince did not reply, and the captain did not seem to expect it, for he walked into the cabin, while the boys went on deck, to find that the men were hoisting sail, while a three-masted lugger, of about the same build as the one they were on, was a short distance off, making for the mouth of the muddy river astern. They were about in the same place as they were in when anchor was cast overnight, and it became evident to the boys that the noise and grinding they had heard must have been caused by the two vessels having been made fast one to the other while an exchange of cargo took place. "Where next?" thought Vince, as their sails filled in the light, pleasant breeze of the sunny morning. He was not long in doubt, for upon walking round by the steersman the compass answered the question--their course was due south. "Aha! you take a lesson in box ze compais," said a voice behind them. "Good: now come and take one, and eat and drink. It is brearkfas time." _ |
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