STOP, THIEF!
It was a strange scene—had anyone witnessed it. But Martin was careful to keep out of the course of passing wherries, and so far from the ships at anchor that the bottom of his boat was not visible from their decks. The rim of the basket rested on the boy’s neck, and his dusky face, with its large pleading eyes upturned towards Martin, looked as though it projected from the planking.
“Me run away,” said the boy in a strange, high-pitched sing-song. “No takee me back. No let catchee me. I pray sahib very much.”
“Where do you come from?” said Martin. “What are you?”
“Me India boy, come long way over black water. They beat me. See!”
He moved the basket a little, disclosing his thin, bare arms and legs, on which were old scars and the long livid weals of recent lashes.
“Cover yourself,” said Martin hastily. “Go on. Tell me more.”
The boy went on to relate, in his halting broken English, a story that Martin heard with indignation and pity. His name was Gundra, and his parents were servants of an English merchant at Surat. He had been allowed to run in and out of the merchant’s godowns, and had thus picked up the little English he knew.
One day, when he was straying some little distance from the factory, he was kidnapped by two big men, who carried him aboard their ship. There he had been kept as a slave, half-starved, and cruelly used. He had not one real friend among the crew, though the captain now and then interposed when the fat cook was thrashing him.
So wretched was his life that he had long wished he might die, and if he were taken back to the ship he would throw himself overboard and let himself drown, though he could swim, as the sahib had seen. More than once he had been tempted to destroy himself, but had been restrained by the hope that some day he might be rescued and restored to his home.
“Keep me to be your slave, sahib,” he pleaded. “Me do all you tell.”
The boy’s woebegone look, and the sight of the wounds on his limbs, moved Martin so deeply that he had already determined to do what he could to save him from his oppressors. But he foresaw great difficulties. What could he do with the boy? There was no room in Dick Gollop’s apartments; besides, he felt sure the constable, as a man of law, would hold strong views about the offence of harbouring runaways.
Yet he could not land the boy and leave him to his own devices. He would be taken up as a vagrant, and what would become of him then? His lot could hardly be worse than it had been on board the Santa Maria; but Martin felt that by giving the boy shelter he had shouldered a certain responsibility, and that he must not throw the little fellow into the uncertain hands of chance.
While he was thinking over the problem so suddenly thrust upon him, he had been paddling gently, but the swift-flowing tide had already borne the boat a good distance up the river. It was clear that he must come to a decision within a few minutes.
He had no friends but the Gollops and some of the watermen, and he could not place the boy with them until he had consulted them. The idea of running up as far as Battersea or Chelsea, and leaving Gundra there until later, occurred to him; but he was due to return to the shop, and he shrank from incurring Mr. Faryner’s displeasure. If it had been evening, as on the former occasion, he might have left the boy in the boat until after dark, but there were still many hours of daylight to run, and the boat would be a very insecure shelter, even if the boy were hidden under sacking.
After much thought he decided that the simplest course was the best. He would land at the stairs nearest his home, take the boy there as quickly as possible, hand him over to good-hearted Susan Gollop, and go back to his work. What was ultimately to be done with Gundra must be left for discussion with the constable and his wife after the day’s work was done.
There were two or three boats at the foot of the stairs as Martin approached, intending to land on the up-river side. But as he pulled in towards them he suddenly noticed that one of the boats on that side was the ship’s boat of the Santa Maria, which he had passed when rowing down. The foreign seaman was in his usual attitude when waiting, half doubled up in the stern, and apparently asleep.
Martin at once altered his course, bearing hard on his right oar so as to bring the boat to the nearer side of the stairs. At the same time he gave Gundra an urgent warning to keep himself well covered by the basket.
He pulled easily in to the landing-place. The other boats were unoccupied, the watermen, their owners, being out of sight, though no doubt within hail.
Martin was beginning to tie his boat to the post when footsteps on the stairs above caused him to look up. It was with a feeling almost of dismay that he saw Mr. Seymour coming down, carrying a large square object wrapped in sacking—no doubt a box, perhaps one of the brass-bound boxes that Blackboard had brought to the house. Behind him came a man laden with a similar burden.
“Next oars, sir?” called a hoarse, loud voice, and a waterman appeared at the head of the steps. “Next oars” was the phrase commonly used by watermen plying for hire.
“Not to-day,” replied Mr. Seymour over his shoulder. “I have my own boat.”
The waterman growled about people who did honest men out of a living, and walked away.
Martin was desperately anxious that Mr. Seymour should not observe him. He dared not go up the stairs and meet him face to face; not that he had any dread of a meeting for himself, but because of his knowledge of the runaway boy and his new-born suspicions of Mr. Seymour’s relations with Blackbeard and Mr. Slocum.
Turning his back to the stairs, he fumbled with his painter, as if he found a difficulty in tying up the boat. He had, in fact, tied, untied, and tied again before Mr. Seymour and his companion had stowed their burdens on board, and his back was still towards them when he knew by the thudding of the oars in the rowlocks that their boat had put off.
It was some little time before he allowed himself to face about, hoping that the danger of recognition was past. But he had not reckoned with the strength of the current. The seaman, pulling the heavily-weighted boat against the stream, had made only a few yards. Mr. Seymour’s face was turned towards the shore. He caught sight of Martin, waved his hand in recognition, and smiled in his usual pleasant way.
“He doesn’t guess what I’ve got under my basket,” Martin thought, at the same time feeling unreasonably annoyed at having been recognised at all.
Now that the coast was clear he paddled round to the side of the stairs, and tied up his wherry at the place vacated by the ship’s boat, wasting time until that craft was well out of sight. Then, after a look all round, he lifted the basket.
“Come with me,” he said to the Indian boy, taking him by the hand, and slinging the basket over his other arm.
Hand in hand they ascended the stairs. Lolling against a rail was the waterman who had offered his wherry to Mr. Seymour—a man whom he knew.
“Ahoy, young master! What have you got there?” said the man, looking quizzingly at the dark-faced boy, who, at the sound of his rough voice, shrank timidly to Martin’s side and clasped his hand more tightly.
“An Indian boy come ashore to see London,” Martin replied. “There’s no need to mention it if questions are asked.”
“Mum’s the word, eh? Ay, ay, I’ll keep my tongue under hatches, never fear.”
The two boys had walked only a few yards when they came upon the man who had accompanied Mr. Seymour. He was seated on a tree-stump, smoking, idly watching the river. As the boys passed him he turned and looked at them, but Martin could not gather from his expression whether he had paid them any special attention or not. A few minutes afterwards, however, when they were going up the gentle hill that would presently bring them to Bishopsgate, Martin chanced to turn his head, and saw, with a feeling of alarm, that the man was following.
In a flash he realised that while he had been watching Mr. Seymour the other man must have been watching him. No doubt he had noticed how he was acting for the purpose of consuming time. Martin had never seen the man before, and felt sure that he knew nothing about him, but had guessed that he had something to conceal from Mr. Seymour. What could be done to shake him off?
Martin knew every inch of this part of London, lying between the river and his home. A minute or two after he had assured himself that the man was indeed dogging him, he turned suddenly into a narrow court, dropped Gundra’s hand, and telling the boy to keep pace with him, started to run.
But he was hindered by his basket. The man must have started to run also, for before the boys had gained the end of the court the pursuer was hard on their heels. To make matters worse, he shouted. “ ’Ware! ’ware! Stop, thief!”
No one was at the moment passing in the court, but windows flew open, heads looked out, and Martin knew that it was only a matter of minutes before the chase would be in full cry.
Dashing out of the court with the Indian, he ran a few yards along the street, then darted into a narrow alley on the other side. In a moment he realised the mistake into which his haste had led him. The place was a cul-de-sac; there was no opening at the farther end. He was trapped.