There was a sound of crashing and bumping. Even wilder shrieks filled the air, and we heard a curious chattering and mumbling. Something fell against the stateroom door and cracked a panel, the door flew open, and in toppled Willie with Pedro's monkey grasping him firmly by the throat from its perch on the little fellow's shoulders.
"Help, help!" Willie shrieked. "Lord save me! It's the devil! Help! I repent! I repent!" And he tripped and fell with a crash.
As he fell, the coin flew out of his hand, and the monkey, seeing the flash of silver, leaped after it, picked it up, fled like a lean brown shadow through the door, and was gone we knew not where.
To this day I am not able to make up my mind whether the child's anger or his fear was the greater. Turning like a flash, he saw what it was that had attacked him; yet he made no move to pursue the beast, and from that time on he regarded it with exceedingly great caution and nimbly and prudently betook himself out of its way. Canny, scheming, selfish Willie MacDougald!
At peep of dawn we got up our anchors and set sail and put out to sea, carrying with us heavy knowledge of perils and dangers that encompassed us, and sad memories of our old home in Topham, of our old friends in trouble, of high hopes that had fallen into ruin.
It comforted me to see Abraham Guptil working with the crew. He stood in good repute with every man on board, from Matterson and Gleazen to little Willie MacDougald, who now was in the steerage watching with great, round eyes all that went on about him. Good Abe Guptil! He, at least, concealed no diabolical craft beneath an innocent exterior.
I thought of Sim Muzzy. Poor Sim! Since he had disappeared that night in the clutches of the press-gang, nothing that we had been able to do had called forth a single word of his whereabouts. He had vanished utterly, and though neither Arnold nor I had ever felt any great affection for the garrulous fellow, we both were sincerely grieved to lose an old companion thus unhappily.
Now, as our sails filled, we swept past the Merry Jack and Eleanor, and the sight came to me like a shock of ill omen. The black disgrace of her lawless trade, the brutal men who manned her, the sinister experience that had followed so closely our call upon her captain, all combined to make me feel that the shadow she had cast upon us was not easily to be evaded.
It was good to turn back once more to solid, substantial Gideon North, firm, wise Arnold Lamont, and kindly, trustworthy Abe Guptil. On them and on me Uncle Seth's fortunes and my own depended, if not indeed our very lives.