第 21 页

perhaps a long one, in my plans."

"Don't you worry yourself on that score," Captain Dave said warmly,

and then checked himself. "It will be time to talk about that when

the time comes. But you are right, lad. I like a man who steadfastly

holds on the way he has chosen, and will not turn to the right or

left. There is not much that a man cannot achieve if he keeps his aim

steadily in view. Why, Cyril, if you said you had made up your mind

to be Lord Mayor of London, I would wager that you would some day be

elected."

Cyril laughed.

"I shall never set my eyes in that direction, nor do I think the

thing I have set myself to do will ever be in my power--that is, to

buy back my father's estate; but so long as I live I shall keep that

in view."

"More unlikely things have happened, lad. You have got first to rise

to be a General; then, what with your pay and your share in the sack

of a city or two, and in other ways, you may come home with a purse

full enough even for that. But it is time for us to be going down

below. Matthew will think that we have forgotten him altogether."

Another fortnight passed. Nellie had, to a considerable extent,

recovered from the shock that she had suffered, but her manner was

still quiet and subdued, her sallies were less lively, and her father

noticed, with some surprise, that she no longer took any great

interest in the gossip he retailed of the gay doings of the Court.

"I can't think what has come over the girl," he said to his wife.

"She seems well in health again, but she is changed a good deal,

somehow. She is gentler and softer. I think she is all the better for

it, but I miss her merry laugh and her way of ordering things about,

as if her pleasure only were to be consulted."

"I think she is very much improved," Mrs. Dowsett said decidedly;

"though I can no more account for it than you can. She never used to

have any care about the household, and now she assists me in my work,

and is in all respects dutiful and obedient, and is not for ever bent

upon gadding about as she was before. I only hope it will continue

so, for, in truth, I have often sighed over the thought that she

would make but a poor wife for an honest citizen."

"Tut, tut, wife. It has never been as bad as that. Girls will be

girls, and if they are a little vain of their good looks, that will

soften down in time, when they get to have the charge of a household.

You yourself, dame, were not so staid when I first wooed you, as you

are now; and I think you had your own little share of vanity, as was

natural enough in the prettiest girl in Plymouth."

When Nellie was in the room Cyril did his best to save her from being

obliged to take part in the conversation, by inducing Captain Dave to

tell him stories of some of his adventures at sea.

"You were saying, Captain Dave, that you had had several engagements

with the Tunis Rovers," he said one evening. "Were they ever near

taking you?"

"They did take me once, lad, and that without an engagement; but,

fortunately, I was not very long a prisoner. It was not a pleasant

time though, John, was it?"

"It was not, Captain Dave. I have been in sore danger of wreck

several times, and in three big sea-fights; but never did I feel so

out of heart as when I was lying, bound hand and foot, on the ballast

in the hold of that corsair. No true sailor is afraid of being

killed; but the thought that one might be all one's life a slave

among the cruel heathen was enough to take the stiffness out of any

man's courage."

"But how was it that you were taken without an engagement, Captain

Dave? And how did you make your escape?"

"Well, lad, it was the carelessness of my first mate that did it; but

as he paid for his fault with his life let us say naught against him.

He was a handsome, merry young fellow, and had shipped as second

mate, but my first had died of fever in the Levant, and of course he

got the step, though all too young for the responsibility. We had met

with some bad weather when south of Malta, and had had a heavy gale

for three days, during which time we lost our main topmast, and badly

strained the mizzen. The weather abated when we were off Pantellaria,

which is a bare rock rising like a mountain peak out of the sea, and

with only one place where a landing can be safely effected. As the

gale had blown itself out, and it was likely we should have a spell

of settled weather, I decided to anchor close in to the Island, and

to repair damages.

"We were hard at work for two days. All hands had had a stiff time of

it, and the second night, having fairly repaired damages, I thought

to give the crew a bit of a rest, and, not dreaming of danger,

ordered that half each watch might remain below. John Wilkes was

acting as my second mate. Pettigrew took the first watch; John had

the middle watch; and then the other came up again. I turned out once

or twice, but everything was quiet--we had not seen a sail all day.

There was a light breeze blowing, but no chance of its increasing,

and as we were well sheltered in the only spot where the anchorage

was good, I own that I did not impress upon Pettigrew the necessity

for any particular vigilance. Anyhow, just as morning was breaking I

was woke by a shout. I ran out on deck, but as I did so there was a

rush of dark figures, and I was knocked down and bound before I knew

what had happened. As soon as I could think it over, it was clear

enough. The Moor had been coming into the anchorage, and, catching

sight of us in the early light, had run alongside and boarded us.

"The watch, of course, must have been asleep. There was not a shot

fired nor a drop of blood shed, for those on deck had been seized and

bound before they could spring to their feet, and the crew had all

been caught in their bunks. It was bitter enough. There was the

vessel gone, and the cargo, and with them my savings of twenty years'

hard work, and the prospect of slavery for life. The men were all

brought aft and laid down side by side. Young Pettigrew was laid next

to me.

"'I wish to heaven, captain,' he said, 'you had got a pistol and your

hand free, and would blow out my brains for me. It is all my fault,

and hanging at the yard-arm is what I deserve. I never thought there

was the slightest risk--not a shadow of it--and feeling a bit dozy,

sat down for five minutes' caulk. Seeing that, no doubt the men

thought they might do the same; and this is what has come of it. I

must have slept half an hour at least, for there was no sail in sight

when I went off, and this Moor must have come round the point and

made us out after that.'

"The corsair was lying alongside of us, her shrouds lashed to ours.

There was a long jabbering among the Moors when they had taken off

our hatches and seen that we were pretty well full up with cargo;

then, after a bit, we were kicked, and they made signs for us to get

on our feet and to cross over into their ship. The crew were sent

down into the forward hold, and some men went down with them to tie

them up securely. John Wilkes, Pettigrew, and myself were shoved down

into a bit of a place below the stern cabin. Our legs were tied, as

well as our arms. The trap was shut, and there we were in the dark.

Of course I told Pettigrew that, though he had failed in his duty,

and it had turned out badly, he wasn't to be blamed as if he had gone

to sleep in sight of an enemy.

"'I had never given the Moors a thought myself,' I said, 'and it was

not to be expected that you would. But no sailor, still less an

officer, ought to sleep on his watch, even if his ship is anchored in

a friendly harbour, and you are to blame that you gave way to

drowsiness. Still, even if you hadn't, it might have come to the same

thing in the long run, for the corsair is a large one, and might have

taken us even if you had made her out as she rounded the point.'

"But, in spite of all I could say to cheer him, he took it to heart

badly, and was groaning and muttering to himself when they left us in

the dark, so I said to him,--

"'Look here, lad, the best way to retrieve the fault you have

committed is to try and get us out of the scrape. Set your brains to

work, and let us talk over what had best be done. There is no time to

be lost, for with a fair wind they can run from here to Tunis in

four-and-twenty hours, and once there one may give up all hope. There

are all our crew on board this ship. The Moor carried twice as many

men as we do, but we may reckon they will have put more than half of

them on board our barque; they don't understand her sails as well as

they do their own, and will therefore want a strong prize crew on

board.'

"'I am ready to do anything, captain,' the young fellow said firmly.

'If you were to give me the word, I would get into their magazine if

I could, and blow the ship into the air.'

"'Well, I don't know that I will give you that order, Pettigrew. To

be a heathen's slave is bad, but, at any rate, I would rather try

that life for a bit than strike my colours at once. Now let us think

it over. In the first place we have to get rid of these ropes; then

we have to work our way forward to the crew; and then to get on deck

and fight for it. It is a stiff job, look at it which way one will,

but at any rate it will be better to be doing something--even if we

find at last that we can't get out of this dog-kennel--than to lie

here doing nothing.'

"After some talk, we agreed that it was not likely the Moors would

come down to us for a long time, for they might reckon that we could

hold on without food or water easy enough until they got to Tunis;

having agreed as to that point, we set to work to get our ropes

loose. Wriggling wouldn't do it, though we tried until the cords cut

into our flesh.

"At last Pettigrew said,--

"'What a fool I am! I have got my knife hanging from a lanyard round

my neck. It is under my blouse, so they did not notice it when they

turned my pockets out.'

"It was a long job to get at that knife. At last I found the string

behind his neck, and, getting hold of it with my teeth, pulled till

the knife came up to his throat. Then John got it in his teeth, and

the first part of the job was done. The next was easy enough. John

held the handle of the knife in his teeth and Pettigrew got hold of

the blade in his, and between them they made a shift to open it;

then, after a good deal of trouble, Pettigrew shifted himself till he

managed to get the knife in his hands. I lay across him and worked

myself backwards and forwards till the blade cut through the rope at

my wrist; then, in two more minutes, we were free. Then we felt

about, and found that the boarding between us and the main hold was

old and shaky, and, with the aid of the knife and of our three

shoulders, we made a shift at last to wrench one of the boards from

its place.

"Pettigrew, who was slightest, crawled through, and we soon got

another plank down. The hold was half full of cargo, which, no doubt,

they had taken out of some ship or other. We made our way forward

till we got to the bulkhead, which, like the one we had got through,

was but a make-shift sort of affair, with room to put your fingers

between the planks. So we hailed the men and told them how we had got

free, and that if they didn't want to work all their lives as slaves

they had best do the same. They were ready enough, you may be sure,

and, finding a passage between the planks wider in one place than the

rest, we passed the knife through to them, and told them how to set

about cutting the rope. They were a deal quicker over it than we had

been, for in our place there had been no height where we could stand

upright, but they were able to do so. Two men, standing back to back

and one holding the knife, made quick work of cutting the rope.

"We had plenty of strength now, and were not long in getting down a

couple of planks. The first thing was to make a regular overhaul of

the cargo--as well as we could do it, without shifting things and

making a noise--to look for weapons or for anything that would come

in handy for the fight. Not a thing could we find, but we came upon a

lot of kegs that we knew, by their feel, were powder. If there had

been arms and we could have got up, we should have done it at once,

trusting to seize the ship before the other could come up to her

help. But without arms it would be madness to try in broad daylight,

and we agreed to wait till night, and to lie down again where we were

before, putting the ropes round our legs again and our hands behind

our backs, so that, if they did look in, everything should seem

secure.

"'We shall have plenty of time,' one of the sailors said, 'for they

have coiled a big hawser down on the hatch.'

"When we got back to our lazaret, we tried the hatch by which we had

been shoved down, but the three of us couldn't move it any more than

if it had been solid stone. We had a goodish talk over it, and it was

clear that the hatchway of the main hold was our only chance of

getting out; and we might find that a tough job.

"'If we can't do it in any other way,' Pettigrew said, 'I should say

we had best bring enough bales and things to fill this place up to

within a foot of the top; then on that we might put a keg of powder,

bore a hole in it, and make a slow match that would blow the cabin

overhead into splinters, while the bales underneath it would prevent

the force of the explosion blowing her bottom out.'

"We agreed that, if the worst came to the worst, we would try this,

and having settled that, went back to have a look at the main hatch.

Feeling about round it, we found the points of the staple on which

the hatchway bar worked above; they were not fastened with nuts as