CHAPTER XXIV
ON BOARD THE 'THREE SPIRES'
When the boat was well out from the shore its nose was turned, and it began to drop at an easy pace down the river. In cover of the bank Chippy was sculling his best. He had seen how the warehouse was robbed; he meant to see where the plunder was taken.
Beyond Elliotts' warehouse there were only two or three scattered buildings, and then the river-shore stretched away empty and deserted. For nearly a mile the men pulled steadily down, and left Chippy a long way behind. But the night was brightening fast; the moon was coming up, and he could see the dark spot upon the water which meant the gliding boat laden with plunder.
Then the boat turned and came towards the shore on the scout's side. It crossed his line of sight, and disappeared as if into the bank.
'Gone up Fuller's Creek,' said Chippy to himself, and sculled harder than ever. Fuller's Creek was a wide, deep backwater, never used nowadays for any active purpose, though occasionally an old hulk was towed there, and left to rot. Chippy supposed that his men had pulled up to the very top of the creek, where there was a deserted landing-stage, and he put all the strength of his wiry frame into driving his boat down to the creek and up it as hard as he could go.
He entered the broad, dark water-mouth, for the moon was not yet shining into the creek, and sculled into its shadow. Half-way up, a dark bulk loomed high in his path, and he swung the nose of his craft to port, to pass round the Three Spires, an old barquentine left to rot in Fuller's Creek out of the way of the river traffic.
The Three Spires, named from the three chief churches of the town, whose steeples rose high above the roofs of Bardon, was a broad, roomy old craft, and had carried many a good cargo in her time. But she was now past her work, and, her spars, rigging, and raffle all torn away, her hulk lay abandoned in Fuller's Creek, for the breakers-up did not want her.
It was mere luck that Chippy threw his skiff's nose over to port, for he was bearing straight for the Three Spires as she lay end on, and port or starboard was all one in point of distance as regarded sculling round her. But he threw his bow over to port, and thereby made a striking discovery. For beside the great bulk lay a small bulk, and the latter was a boat swinging to the shattered taffrail of the Three Spires by her painter. Chippy checked his way, and the two boats floated side by side on the quiet, dark backwater, with the hull of the deserted barquentine towering above them against the sky.
Chippy threw out a long breath of immense surprise. 'They ain't gone on to the stage,' he thought. 'They're here. They're on this old un. This is their boat.' He heard movements on board the barquentine, and he sculled a few swift strokes which sent him forward under the thick shadow of her broad stern, where he checked her way again.
The sounds were those of men who scrambled up her forward companion, and at the next moment Chippy's cars told him that they had approached the side of the Teasel, and one was swinging himself into the boat.
'This is the last,' he heard a voice say. 'We'll get it down, and have a look at what you've picked out this time.'
'One knows what's in the bundles; t'other don't,' reflected Chippy. 'They mean to open 'em. That'll keep 'em busy a bit.'
He waited until his ears assured him that the men had gone down the companion again, then sculled back to the point where their boat floated below the port taffrail. This was the only point at which the deck of the vessel could be gained. The Three Spires lay on the mud, heeled over to port, and everywhere else her sides were high, smooth, and unclimbable.
And now Chippy made a mistake—a great scouting mistake: he did too much; and the scout who does too much blunders just as surely as he who does too little. Had Chippy sculled quietly away with the ample information he had already gained, the thieves might have been taken red-handed. But he burned to put, as he thought, a finishing touch to his night's work. He wanted to see what was going on in the forepeak of the Three Spires, and he wanted to see the faces of the men; it was almost certain that he would recognise people so familiar with Quay Flat and Elliotts' warehouse. He took the painter of his tiny craft, and threw two easy half-hitches round the painter of the large boat. He could cast his rope loose in a second, and it would be ample hold to keep his craft from drifting away. He laid the sweep where it would be ready to his hand if he had to make a rush, then swung himself up to the taffrail by the rope which the thieves had fastened there for their own use.
'They're forward,' murmured Chippy to himself, and crept without a sound along the slanting deck. His stockings were still in his pockets; his boots he had left in the skiff.
The companion-hatch was broken, and the men had gone up and down through the hole which yawned above the steps. To this gap Chippy crept, and thrust his head forward inch by inch until he was looking into the deserted forecastle. He saw the men at once. They were almost directly beneath him, kneeling on the floor, while one was deftly slipping the cord which bound one of the stolen bales.
Chippy scarcely dared to breathe when he saw how close he was to the thieves. 'If I could only get a look at 'em, I'd 'ook it,' he thought to himself, and waited for their faces to be shown in the shine of the lantern, whose slide was partly turned to give them light. But one held the lantern while the other opened the bale, and the light showed no more of them than the worker's hands, the latter tattooed like those of a seaman.
Suddenly the scene changed with magic swiftness, and the pursuer became the pursued. It happened simply enough. The man unfolding the bale asked his companion a question. His voice was pitched in so low a murmur that Chippy did not catch what was said, but he heard the second man's reply. 'No, I 'ain't got it,' said he who held the lantern.
'Then we've left it in the boat,' rejoined the first speaker in louder tones; and he sprang to his feet and shot up the crazy steps of the companion as nimbly as a cat.
It was so swift, so sudden, that the man was out on the deck before the scout, stretched at full length beside the companion-hatch, could get to his feet. The man slipped along the deck as smartly as he had swarmed up the companion, and Chippy was clean cut on from his boat.
What could he do? Nothing but sit tight and hope that his boat would not be discovered in the gloom of the barquentine's shadow. Vain hope. Scarce had it been formed than a savage growl of anger and surprise broke the silence. His boat was discovered.
The man below heard his companion's cry. The dullest would have read warning in it. He leapt to his feet, and bounded up the companion in turn.
'Anything wrong?' he called in low tones.
'Here's another boat,' said the other.
'Another boat!' murmured the second thief, and scrambled swiftly along the deck, and thrust his head over the side.
The two men were thunderstruck. A second boat! That meant someone abroad of whose presence they had not dreamed.
'Was it there when we came?' asked the second man.
'Not it,' replied the discoverer; 'the painter's made fast round ours.'
'Then, whoever came in that boat is aboard now,' went on his companion, 'an' we've been spied on an' followed.'
'It's a little boat. There can only be one,' said the other.
'Stand by the boat,' said the man aboard. 'I'll settle the spy.' And he clinched his words with a dreadful oath.
'Don't go too far,' said the man in the boat, who was a more timorous fellow.
'Too far!' growled the other. 'It's sink or swim with us now. There's somebody on this old barky as is fly to our little game, an' his mouth has got to be stopped. Wait; stave his boat in, and you keep in ours. Stave it in now while I'm here. He won't run away.' And again the desperate thief broke into a volley of savage imprecations.
Chippy had heard all this, and recognised how true was the last assertion of the infuriated rogue. There was no running away from the barquentine. No prison surer while his boat was in their hands. And at the next moment there was a crash of boat-hook on wooden plank. Three blows were struck. The little boat was not new, and its timbers gave easily. Three planks were staved in; it filled and sank.
'It's gone,' said the man in the boat; and his companion turned to search for him who had approached the barquentine in it.
Chippy had left the companion and darted forward while they talked. The sounds of the planks going in his boat told him that his case was desperate; his retreat was cut off. He found the stump of the foremast, and crouched behind it, and lay still. Twice the man in search of him crept round the vessel in the darkness, and Chippy shifted noiselessly from side to side as he passed.
There were movements aft, and suddenly a flood of light streamed along the deck. The searcher had fetched up the lantern, regardless of the chances of the light being seen ashore, and flung its full blaze forward.
The slide was turned at the lucky moment for the rogue who held it. Chippy stood beside the foremast, one hand laid on it, his head bent and listening for any sound. The ring of light fell full upon him, and the desperate ruffian gave a growl of satisfaction when he saw his prey.