'Twas little sleep I got that night, my body smarting with the ill usage I had suffered, and my mind in a ferment of rage and dismay. This was the third and the worst mischance that had befallen me since I left Shrewsbury, and no one would blame me overmuch, perhaps, had I given way to utter despair. Old Woodrow had told me stories about such tricks of kidnapping, but, just as when we hear a parson denouncing sin we are apt to apply it to our neighbor and not ourselves, so I had never dreamed that I myself might be the victim of such an outrage. And remembering what Woodrow had said, I broke out into a sweat of apprehension, for I knew that I could not have been impressed as a mariner to serve aboard a privateer, as was often done; only tried mariners were seized with that intent, and certainly no one would wish to teach a raw landsman his duties on a vessel engaged in such a perilous and desperate business.
I could only conclude, then, that the design in kidnapping me was to ship me to the American or West Indian plantations, whither every year hundreds of poor wretches were sent to a dismal slavery. Woodrow had pointed out to me one day in the street a high magistrate of the city, who had made great wealth in the sugar trade, and did not disdain to add to it by selling flesh and blood.
My imagination racked with this fear, I lay sleepless, save for brief intervals of restless dozing. Soon after dawn I heard movements about the ship, and by and by some of the sailors came and looked at me, making all manner of jests in language fouler than I had ever heard. The features of one of them seemed familiar to me, though at first I could not recall place or time when I had seen him before. But after a while, as I watched him, I recognized him in spite of some change in his garb: it was the lodger whom Mistress Perry had wished to place in my room.
My kidnapping was then, I thought, a carefully arranged plan, and I remembered that before leaving the house I had told Mistress Perry in the man's hearing where I was going, and that I might return somewhat late. He had doubtless lodged there to spy on me, and I was sore tempted to speak to the fellow and ask him how much he had got for the dirty job.
But an hour or two afterwards I had fuller enlightenment as to my plight. The master of the vessel came aboard; he had spent the night ashore; and his foot no sooner touched the deck than he stepped to where I lay, and ordered one of the men to loose my bonds and stand me on my feet. And as I rose, staggering, I saw behind him the grinning faces of Cyrus Vetch and Dick Cludde. The meaning of it all flashed upon me; this was their revenge; and the knowledge heated me to such a fury that I leapt forward and, before I could be stopped, dealt Vetch a buffet that sent him spinning against the foremast. Cludde, ever chicken-hearted, turned pale, expecting a like handling, but he was spared, for the master cried to his men to seize me, and I was in a minute again pinioned and laid where I had been before.
"Hot as pepper," says the master, with a grin to Vetch.
"Yes," I cried, with an impetuous rage I could not check, "and 'twill be hot for you some day. You've no right to bring me here against my will, and I demand to be set free."
"Too-rol-loo-rol!" hummed the master, smirking again. "What a bantam cock have ye brought me here, Mr. Cludde?"
"He was a desperate fellow at school, Captain," said Cludde. "Why, when he was only eleven he pretty nearly murdered my friend Vetch here."
"Split my snatch block, you don't say so! We shall have to watch the weather with him aboard."