"Why did you keep it? Come, I must know."

"Oh, confound you, Cludde," I said, "why don't you let me go to sleep?"

"You had some design in keeping that coin," he said; "I want to know what it was."

"Well, if you insist," I said, "I meant to keep it until I could return it to you with interest. But Fate, you see, has found a better use for it."

"Bold," says he, after a silence, "you're a good fellow and a generous--"

"Belay there, Cludde," I said, anxious to cut him short, "we'll cry quits over all the past. Intus si recte ne labora--you remember the old school motto. We're friends, and all we have to worry about now is how to dish Cyrus Vetch; and as we shall be none the worse for a long sleep, I'll take first watch, and wake you when you've had three or four hours."

And with a grip of hands we closed the enmity of a dozen years.

Chapter 27: Some Successes And A Rebuff.

We lay all next day in the forest, maintaining an irksome silence, and continually on our guard against intrusion. Uncle Moses told me that the wagons would not leave Dry Harbor on their return journey until the heat of the day was past--a circ.u.mstance which favored our design. The spot we had determined on for the ambush was five miles from our lurking place, and we should have cover all the way save where we must needs cross the road. When the time came for our setting forth, I went myself to the edge of the woodland to spy out and see if the coast was clear. Not a soul was in sight; we were at the portion of the estate which was given over to pasture; if it had been sugar land we must have inevitably met negro laborers.

I was about to return and acquaint the others that we might safely start when I heard a trotting horse, and from my place of concealment among the trees, I soon afterwards saw a horseman appear from the direction of Spanish Town and ride by towards the big house two miles or more away. He was beyond doubt one of Vetch's gang: 'twas impossible to mistake the thick ungainly figure, and the exceedingly nautical way he had of sitting his horse. 'Twas lucky indeed that we had not already begun the crossing, for he must have seen us, the road being straight: and for that same reason I deemed it well to delay a little, lest he should chance to look back. And so 'twas a good half hour later when, nothing further having happened to give us pause, we ran in a compact body for the edge of the forest, crossed the road and a long stretch of gra.s.s land, and arrived at the clump I have before mentioned, where we stood a little while to recover breath.

And then we were amazed to hear the sound of singing--amazed, for it was not the uncouth singing of negroes (who in happy circ.u.mstances delight to uplift their voices in psalms) nor yet the boisterous untuneable roaring of rough seamen, like Vetch's buccaneers, but a most melodious and pleasing sound, which put me in mind (and Cludde also) of the madrigal singers of our good town of Shrewsbury. And as it drew nearer there seemed to be a something familiar in the tone, though being quite without ear for music, as I have confessed, I could not tell whether it was a known tune or not.

With one consent, we had waited, held, I suppose, by the same feeling of wonderment and curiosity. The sound continually approached; 'twas from the direction of Spanish Town; and from our vantage ground we should soon see the singer as he pa.s.sed along the road. But before he came within sight, the words of the song came distinctly to my ears, and though I knew not one tune from another, I started with a thrill of delight.

"What's that for?" cries out Salem d.i.c.k.

"What for, my jumping beau?

Why, to give the lubbers one more kick!"

Yo ho, with the rum below.

Thus rang the voice, and there ambled into view Joe Punchard, perched upon a mule, and on mules behind him two negroes, their countenances shining, their teeth flashing, with a happy smile.

"Joe!" I cried, in defiance of all caution.

"Ahoy ho!" he cried in return, pulling up his mule. "Who be that a-calling of Joe?"

I broke away from Cludde's detaining arm, and ran to my old friend.

"Ahoy ho!" he shouted jovially when he saw me; but when I put my fingers to my lips he dismounted clumsily, and met me with the whispered question, "What be in the wind, Master Bold?"

I could not have taken ten minutes to possess him with the necessary facts, so rapidly did I tell the gist of my story.

"Bless my b.u.t.tons!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "I reckoned there was somewhat amiss. When I heard talk of you being ill, I was most desperate uneasy, knowing you was in the lat.i.tude o' Vetch. And I said so to my captain, and begged him to let me fetch a course this way to make sure as you weren't run aground or wrecked on a sunken reef.

My captain he laughs and says you'd steered clear so often that he'd no fears of you not coming safe to port; but seeing I was set on it, he give me leave, and to make things reg'lar, as he said, he told me being in these parts to keep an eye lifting for the buccaneers as are said to be somewheres on this coast. And sink my timbers, it do seem as how I'm on a rare voyage of discovery!"

I told him quickly of the purpose I had in view, and he at once volunteered to join our party. But this I could not allow. I had no doubt that the horseman whom I had previously seen riding to the house was carrying thither news of his approach, as my own arrival had been heralded. He would be expected, and if he did not appear Vetch would be suspicious, and might despatch men in search of him, and the footprints of his mule would bring them upon our track. I urged him to go forward with his guides to the house, where it was possible, if they left him free, that he might prove a useful auxiliary if our ruse succeeded. To this he readily agreed, declaring he would anchor at Vetch's door, and would not slip his cable until I came up on his quarter. And he clambered to the saddle again, called to the negroes to come on astern, and set forth again towards the house, and as I rejoined my party among the trees I heard his jolly voice ringing out:

"I 'llow this crazy hull o' mine At sea has had its share; Marooned three times an' wounded nine, An' blowed up in the air."

We had wasted some eight or ten minutes on this interview, and 'twas high time to speed on our journey if we were to reach the place of ambush before the convoy. As we marched, I told Cludde the purport of my talk with Joe, and he agreed that the course I had insisted on was the right one, though he feared Punchard would have a sorry time when he came within the clutches of the man who bore a long-standing grudge against him. I confess that I had clean forgotten the matter of the barrel rolling, and being now reminded of it, felt greatly concerned at having sent poor Joe into the very jaws of danger, but 'tis idle to repent, and I could only hope that we should get to the house in time to prevent any irremediable harm.

'Twas nigh five o'clock when we came to the copse fringing the road (a rough cart track) from the coast.

Noah went out stealthily to inspect the road for traces of the convoy, and told us that we were in time; the wagons had not yet come up. We waited patiently, and I took advantage of the interval to repeat the instructions I had previously given to the negroes.

About half an hour after our arrival we heard a creaking in the distance, and soon the convoy came in sight--three six-horsed wagons, with two negroes in each, and two overseers on horseback, carrying long whips, and riding side by side in the rear. These two Cludde and I marked for our own, leaving the negroes to deal with the men of their color. We two separated from the rest of the party, so that the attack might be made on the whole line at the same moment.

When we came opposite to the two riders, I gave a shrill whistle, and with Cludde at my side dashed from among the trees. So sudden and unexpected was the a.s.sault that the overseers had no time to defend themselves. Cludde and I hauled them from their saddles and held them fast while two of the negroes brought from the wagons ropes wherewith to bind them. The negro drivers let forth a yell and dropped their reins when the rest of our party sprang out from the copse. The convoy halted and Uncle Moses in a very little time made the drivers understand that they must either do what we bade them or be trussed up and left in the woods. With night approaching this latter alternative had too many terrors to make it acceptable, and the men professed themselves willing to render utter obedience, the more readily in that Vetch and his gang of desperadoes were well hated by all the hands upon the estate.

One of them, who Uncle Moses told me, was a bad character, we bound and placed with the overseers in one of the wagons, which we then drew into the copse out of sight from the road.

Cludde and I deliberated for a moment whether we should mount the overseers' horses and ride on with the wagons. But we decided not to tempt fate. Before we reached the big house we should have to pa.s.s that of the princ.i.p.al overseer of the estate, and though the sky was already dusking, and it would be dark before we arrived, there were many chances that we might be seen by the buccaneers or others as we came within the bounds, and being in our officers'

habiliments we should be marked and the alarm given. So we resolved to get into the first wagon, and cover ourselves with the sacking it contained as soon as we came to the borders of the plantations.

Uncle Moses seated himself beside the driver of the first wagon, Noah on the second, and the rest of our party got into this wagon and likewise hid under sacking.

The stables, as I had learned from Uncle Moses, lay beyond the big house, so that our driving by would awaken no suspicion. In order that we might gain the further advantage of darkness, Uncle Moses drove slowly, and there was but a glimmer of twilight when we reached the house of the overseer. He had heard the rumbling of our wheels, and was standing at his gate as we came up. Seeing only the wagons and no hors.e.m.e.n, he cried out to know where the rest were.

The negro beside Uncle Moses (who shrank back to escape recognition) made ready answer that the third wagon had broken down, and would come on presently with the overseers. The white man rapped out an oath, declaring (with what truth I know not) that the cursed wagon was always breaking down, and we drove past. Two of the buccaneers were smoking at the gates of the big house when we came up, and they hailed us in rough sailor fashion, but showed no curiosity; the work of the estate was no concern of theirs.

Uncle Moses had told me that there would certainly be a number of the buccaneers in the kitchen of the big house, where they took their supper and often sat far into the night drinking and dicing.

As we drew near, indeed, I heard through the sack that covered me ('twas very sticky and fraught with the cloying smell of sugar) loud sounds of merriment proceeding from the house. Instead of driving past in the direction of the stables, the negro, obeying his instructions, pulled up his horses when the wagons came opposite the kitchen door.

I did not need Uncle Moses' call to know that the moment had arrived. Flinging off the sack that smothered us, Cludde and I sprang from the wagon, our companions doing likewise, and we burst headlong into the kitchen.

The merry sounds that we had heard were explained, but in an unforeseen way. In the middle of the room sat Joe Punchard, tied to a chair. Around him were half a dozen of Vetch's villainous crew engaged in the pleasant sport of baiting their prisoner. At the moment of our entrance they were rubbing the dregs of mola.s.ses into his red hair. I learned afterwards from him that he had been seized on approaching the house, and, Vetch being absent at the time, had been carried into the kitchen for a preliminary inquisition. They knew, doubtless on the information of the horseman I had seen, that he was a seaman from a king's ship, and charged him with having come to spy on them, shrewdly hitting the mark, though they could hardly have believed in their accusation, seeing that he had approached quite openly with no companions but a brace of negroes.

He had suffered many indignities before we arrived, and he confessed to me that, though he had endured many a buffeting in the first years of his life at sea, he had never spent so distressful a couple of hours as those when the buccaneers put him to the question.

They were, I say, rubbing a filthy black semi-fluid into his hair at the moment when Cludde and I, with our negroes behind, made a sudden irruption into the kitchen. We had our muskets with us, and seizing mine by the barrel, I brought the stock down on the head of the fellow nearest me, and he dropped heavily to the floor.

Springing past him, I cut Joe's cords with my knife, and then turned to a.s.sist my companions in the fight that was raging. The five buccaneers were st.u.r.dy villains, and after the first shock of surprise they were more than a match for Cludde and the negroes.

One had wrested the musket from Cludde's hand, and now had his arms about his body, endeavoring to throw him. The rest had drawn their hangers and were pressing hard upon the negroes, who made play with their knives, but were not equal to their opponents.

The entrance of Joe and myself into the fray, however, turned the tide of battle in our favor. Joe had caught up the chair to which he had been bound, and wielded it like a flail, with every swing of it breaking a head or snapping an arm. And my musket took a heavy toll. The room rang with the din of battle--the shouts of the men, the whoops of the negroes, the clashing of our weapons. For half a minute it was perfect pandemonium; then finding the odds hopelessly against them, the two buccaneers who were not by this time on the floor dashed through the open door and fled, pursued by the negroes, who had no doubt long scores to pay off against them.

In the midst of the uproar I had not lost sight for a moment of the main purpose of my errand, and as soon as I saw that the issue of the fight was decided I called Uncle Moses to my side and asked him eagerly to lead me to his mistress' sitting room. We went along a pa.s.sage and up a flight of stairs to the floor above, coming then to another corridor which was in darkness.

"Missy's room at de end," said the negro.

With beating heart I hurried along behind him, and we came to an open door. I knocked upon it, and entered. The room was dark, but the window was open, and the jalousies not having been closed it was possible to see that no one was there.

"Missy gone to bed," said Moses; "de bedroom is just dar."

He pointed to a closed door in the wall. Loath as I was to disturb Mistress Lucy, I was still more anxious that she should know of my presence; so I went to the door and rapped briskly upon it. There was no answer. I rapped again, more loudly, but still without result. She was either fast asleep or--and the thought struck me with a chill--she was no longer there.

"Where is Mr. Vetch's room ?" I asked, beset by a great anxiety.

"I show Ma.s.sa," replied Uncle Moses.

He led me from the room, and along a pa.s.sage that branched from the other. There was a thread of light beneath a door at the end.