MARTIN FINDS A WAY
By the light of the lantern carried by the man with the scar Martin had made a hasty survey of his prison. It was a large, empty room, apparently part of a disused warehouse. When the men went away they took the lantern with them, leaving the place in complete darkness.
Martin was at once aware of sounds of movement on the floor above—sounds of heavy cases or bales being dragged over the boards. At intervals also he heard a creaking that suggested the lowering of goods over a rusty pulley.
“Where am I?” he thought.
The sounds lulled, and his ears caught a slight rustle in the room itself.
“Rats!” he said to himself. “I hope they won’t attack me.”
During the next pause in the louder sounds he heard another rustle somewhat more prolonged, a faint clanking, and he had the strange feeling that some human being besides himself was in the room. Startled, he called out quickly: “Who’s there?”
From some distant corner came a thin, piping voice:
“Me, Gundra.”
“Gundra!” He felt surprise and relief; the Indian boy was at least a friend. “Come and untie me.”
“Me no can,” was the reply.
“Why not?”
“Me tied, too.”
“How?”
“To thing in the wall. No can move it.”
“Your hands tied?”
“No; a band round me, tight.”
Martin guessed that the boy, like himself, was fastened to a staple, which was out of his reach. It was clear that neither could get to the other.
But Martin was not ready to admit that the situation was hopeless. His hands, it is true, were tied, so that he could not loose the knot at the staple, and he knew that if he strained on the rope he would only tighten the knot. It might be possible to jerk the staple from the wall. He made several attempts, but finding that there was no sound of tearing wood, no yielding of the metal, he bent his mind to considering another way.
There was only a few feet of rope between him and the staple. By a series of convulsive jerks he managed to wriggle over the floor until he lay at the foot of the wall. Supporting himself against it, he got on to his knees, and was then able to touch the rope with his mouth. He asked himself whether it would be easier to cut through it with his teeth, or to rise to his feet, trace the rope to the staple, and work away until he had loosed the knot.
Before he could make up his mind he heard heavy footsteps outside, growing louder as they approached. Instantly he dropped to the floor, wriggled back to his former position, and, when the door opened, lay on his elbow as though he were incapable of rising higher.
Through a door at the farther end of the room came Sebastian, the fat cook of the Santa Maria. From one hand swung a horn lantern; in the other he carried a large platter holding a pitcher of water and a hunk of bread. He crossed to the corner where Gundra lay, gave him a kick, set the platter beside him, then moved along to Martin, and leered down upon him, pouring out a stream of abuse in his own language. Having examined the staple and rope, he laughed maliciously, banged Martin’s head with the lantern, and left the room, locking the door behind him.
Martin had taken advantage of the lantern light to make a careful mental note of the position of the staple. As soon as the sound of Sebastian’s footsteps had died away he wriggled again to the wall, rose upon his knees, then upon his feet, and began to tug with his teeth at the knot about the staple.
For some time he toiled in vain, trying one part of the knot after another. Despairingly he felt that his teeth would yield before the hempen rope. But presently he was aware of a slight loosening, and taking heart, he continued to bite at the same coil. To his joy the knot grew looser and looser; the second coil was easier to undo than the first; now he felt the free end of the rope slipping out, and in a few more minutes it was clear of the staple and dropped on the floor.
His lips were sore, his jaw ached intolerably; and the uneasy posture he had had to maintain had strained his muscles to the point of extreme fatigue. For a while he lay quietly resting, not even telling Gundra that he was free. The noises still continued on the upper floor.
At length he started to jerk and worm his way across the floor.
“I’m coming to untie you,” he said in a low tone.
Moving only inch by inch, with frequent pauses for rest, he was a long time in reaching the Indian boy’s corner. When at last he rolled beside him he said:
“Now, your hands are free; untie the rope round the sack.”
Gundra groped with his fingers, and found the knot, but it had been so well tied that it was some minutes before he succeeded in loosening it. Then he pulled the sack away, and made a shorter job of untying Martin’s hands.
“Now to release you,” said Martin; “but I must wait until my hands are less cramped. What is this place, Gundra?”
“A big godown by the river,” replied the boy. “Plenty goods upstairs, belong for Santa Maria.”
Martin suddenly remembered that on the evening when he had rowed Blackbeard down the river his passenger had directed him at first to row towards a large warehouse on the bank, but had changed his mind. No doubt this was the very warehouse which had been chosen for the safe-keeping of the boys. It was plain, too, that it had been used as a place of storage for ill-gotten goods until the time came when they might safely be transferred to the Santa Maria.
“If only I can get out,” Martin thought, “I’ll be in time to put a spoke in Blackbeard’s wheel.”
He felt over Gundra’s body to ascertain how he was fastened. About his middle was a steel girdle, connected by a fine chain with the staple in the wall. Martin discovered in a few moments that it was impossible to detach the chain at either end; the links, though small, were of tough metal, and gave no sign of yielding under the strongest strain he could put upon them.
“This is thirsty work,” said Martin. “I’ll take a drink from your pitcher, Gundra. They haven’t brought me any water or food; I suppose they think they’ll tame me. They don’t starve you?”
“No; give food; not much.”
“And how long have you been here?”
Gundra explained that in the dead of Saturday night someone had come into the cupboard under the stairs, gagged him, and carried him out of the house. He had struggled hard.
“That accounts for Mr. Seymour’s button,” thought Martin. “But how am I to get Gundra free?”
He sat for a while considering, with his knees up and his chin on his hands. “I’ll try it,” he exclaimed at length.
The staple was driven deep into the wall, but Martin’s idea was that its setting might be loosened by picking at the wood around it, and that then a tug would wrench it away. Opening his clasp knife he began to scrape and chip at the wood, which being oak offered a considerable resistance to his rather blunt blade. More than once he pulled at the staple without detecting any sign of its yielding.
“What about a violent jerk?” he thought.
He explained to Gundra what he proposed to do. They both stood close to the wall. Martin got his hands firmly between Gundra’s body and the steel girdle; then at the same moment both he and the Indian made a sudden leap into the room. The staple was torn from its setting; the boys fell in a heap on the floor, and the metal rattled and clanged. Clasping each other, they listened breathlessly. Had the sounds been heard by the men above?
There were no cries, no sudden movement, no footsteps. Every now and then came the creaking of the pulley-block which had been going on at intervals ever since Martin had been brought into the room, and the exchange of a few words between the men who were presumably attending to the lowering of the goods. They were too much occupied with their task to notice the sounds in the room.
“Now to get out!” said Martin in a whisper. “I think I can find my way to the door.”
“Me come; no let go,” said Gundra, clinging to him.
They moved together in the direction of the door. The chain on the Indian boy’s girdle clanked.
“This won’t do,” said Martin. “Tuck it up inside the belt.”
When this was done they started again. Martin had taken his bearings by the light of the fat cook’s lantern, but in the pitch darkness he was at fault, and it was only by feeling round the wall that they at last reached the door. It was locked. There was no escape that way.
“Any windows?” asked Martin.
“No, sahib. But another door; oh, yes, over there.”
“You have seen it open?”
“No, but see light in crack.”
“Then we’ll make for that. Keep close to me.”