When I had seen him well upon his way I skipped into my clothes, having as yet stood unclad at the window, and made haste to find old Toutain the tailor, whom I knew very well, and who had his shop on one of the quays abutting on what they call the avant port. He broke out into ecstasies of delight on seeing me, but I cut him short, and told him in one brief minute what I required of him, which was that within five hours he should rig me in the full apparel of a student of medicine. He protested with great volubility and play of hands that it could not be done, whereupon I told him brutally of our English saying, that "a tailor is but the ninth part of a man," and so stung him into a better mind. In a trice I had chosen the stuff, and Toutain took my measurements, the while he put me through a stiff interrogatory as to my new profession, where I purposed to study, and what not. I leave you to guess what a rack I put my invention upon to satisfy him. Within a bare quarter of an hour afterwards I was back at the Belle Etoile, breaking my fast upon a savoury omelet and other comestibles that suit with the French palate better than with ours.
Toutain himself brought me my new raiment half-an-hour before the term, by the which time I had made Stubbs shave off my infant beard and the mustachio that graced my lip. The stout little tailor preened himself like a cock robin when he beheld how becomingly his handiwork sat upon me, and departed gaily clinking the sound English nobles wherewith I paid him.
I had kept close all day, so as the metamorphosis the razor had wrought upon my lineaments should not excite an idle curiosity. At the proper time I sallied forth with Stubbs, he carrying my baggage and the great tome of Ambrose Parey, and made towards the harbour, composing my countenance to that grave solemnity which the disciples of Æsculapius commonly affect. I was taken aback for a moment when I saw Jean Prévost standing in wait at the quay, having come to bid me God-speed. I checked his cry of amazement, and bade him, as he loved me, say nought to a soul of my affairs, whereof I told him no more than that I was sailing to Antwerp, as he had himself advised. Then I went on board, announcing myself as Monsieur Armand de Sarney, and was taken with obsequious respect to the place allotted to me. Stubbs went forward among the crew, and I had no fear of any mischance through him, for a seaman amongst seamen, whatever their nation, is a bird of their own feather.
I observed after a little that the skipper was in a fret, continually pacing the deck and casting troubled glances at the tide. Presently I made bold to accost him, and asked why he tarried. His answer was an unwitting stab to the proper pride of an Englishman, but yet a comfortable testimony to the perfectness of my disguise.
I MADE BOLD TO ACCOST HIM
"We wait for a pestilent Englishman, monsieur," he said raspingly, "a sluggard eater of beef, that will come up when the tide fails and expect us to sail against wind and weather to please his almightiness. And he must needs fill the boat with meat enough for a regiment: our provision is not good enough for him."
"I would delay for no Englishman alive," I said, "and as for his creature comforts, divide them among your mariners: I will see to it that you suffer nought."
Very soon thereafter he did indeed cast off. I responded with a grave salutation to Jean's wafture of his bonnet, and sat me down on a coil of rope to digest as well as I might Ambrose Parey his Latin.
We made good passage to Antwerp, where I did not delay to visit the goldsmith upon whom the Count de Sarney's bill of exchange was drawn. He held me in no suspicion, and was vastly serviceable in negotiating with the skipper of a vessel bound for Cadiz, as well as in conducting the other necessary parts of my business. I was some little troubled in my mind what course to pursue with my mariner. I proposed to him that, seeing the risks of my adventure, he should take ship for London, carrying a letter from me to Sir Walter Raleigh, who I made no doubt would find him employment. But he begged me so earnestly to permit him to accompany me that I yielded, though not without misgiving. I showed him that for a runagate slave to venture himself in Cadiz would be a mere running into the lion's jaws, to which he answered that, whereas on the galley his head and face were shaved, he was now as shaggy as a bear, and so would not easily be known of any man, slave or free. Furthermore I showed him how in Spain he could not hope to pass either for a Spaniard or a Frenchman, whereupon, with a readiness that raised him in my estimation, he said that he would pass very well for a Muscovite, and invented a fable of his having escaped fifteen years before from the clutches of Ivan the Terrible, and conveyed himself aboard a vessel of Sweden. To this he gave countenance by venting a torrent of outlandish phrases, assuring me 'twas a mingle-mangle of sea terms employed by the Muscovites and the Swedes; whereat I laughed very heartily, and declared that he at least would have been at no loss among the builders of Babel. The matter being thus settled to our mutual contentment, we tarried a few days in Antwerp until the time of our vessel's sailing, and then embarked together on an adventure whereof neither of us foresaw the end.