Cutlass and Cudgel

by George Manville Fenn

It died off though as he lay, still trying hard to think, failing—trying in a half dreamy way, and finally thrilling all over, for he remembered everything now—the smugglers—the scene in the darkness of the room where he was imprisoned—the coming of that boy who jeered at him till they engaged in a fierce struggle, with the result all plainly pictured, till he was stunned or had swooned away.

These thoughts were almost enough to stun him again, and he lay there with a hot sensation of rage against the treacherous young scoundrel who had lured him on to that struggle, and held him so thoroughly fixed against the bars till he was secured and bound. Yes, and his eyes were bandaged. He could recall it now.

“Oh, only wait till I get my chance!” he muttered, and he involuntarily clenched his fists.

He lay perfectly quiet again though, for he found that any exertion brought on mental confusion as well as pain, and he wanted to think about his position.

It came by degrees more and more, and as he was able to think with greater clearness, he found an explanation of the fancy he had felt, that he must be ill and sea-sick again, and that somebody had been giving him brandy.

Part was fevered imagination, part was reality, for there could be no doubt about that faint odour of spirits. It was brandy, but brandy in smuggled kegs, and the scoundrels of smugglers had shut him up in the vault with their kegs.

“Well, they have not killed me,” he said to himself with a little laugh. “They dared not try that, and all I have to do now is to escape, if Mr Brough does not send the lads to fetch me out.”

He went through the whole time now since his landing; thought of what a disgraceful thing it was for a titled gentleman to mix himself up with smuggling, and what a revelation he would have for the lieutenant and the master who had been so easily deluded by Sir Risdon’s bearing.

Then he thought of Celia, and how bright and innocent she had seemed; putting away all thoughts of her, however, directly as his angry feeling increased against Ram and this treacherous girl.

He must have been for hours thinking, often in a drowsy, half-confused way, but rousing up from time to time to feel his resentment growing against Ram, who seemed to him now to be the personification of the whole smuggling gang.