Martin of old London

by Herbert Strang

But as he pondered the matter he decided for immediate action. Convinced that the goods now being removed were stolen property, he was bent on saving it if that were possible, and the only obvious means of saving it was to inform someone in authority who would send officers of the law to arrest both goods and men. There was very little time. To win complete freedom was a matter of urgency.

“Come along,” Martin whispered when the man was once more busy at the jetty.

They crept along by the wall to the door of the warehouse. It was shut and bolted. On each side of it was a window, but the shutters were up, and heavily barred. It would be impossible even to attempt to force an entrance without making a noise that would bring the man hot-foot upon them.

Martin glanced this way and that. The quay on the landward side was entirely enclosed. It seemed that there was no exit from it except through the warehouse, and that was shut. They were trapped after all.

But there was the river. Could they escape by that? Was there, below the jetty, a wherry or any kind of row-boat in addition to the barge that was being loaded? Martin could not see one. Nor could they seize an opportunity and dive into the river, for beneath the shore end of the jetty there was nothing at low tide but liquid mud, probably deep enough to engulf them.

All at once the man’s remark about pulling the barge up recurred to Martin. An idea struck him that made his heart bound and his nerves tingle. He whispered a few words to Gundra, and anyone who could have observed them would have noticed how they braced themselves up.

The result of Martin’s inspiration showed itself when the man next left the barge and wheeled the truck back along the jetty and across the quay. As soon as his back was turned, they quitted their hiding-place and, stooping low, made a dash for the jetty, the sound of their movements being drowned by the noise of the rumbling wheels.

At the place where the jetty sprang from the quay they stopped, lowered themselves over the side, and slipped on to one of the cross-beams that supported the planking. There they crouched breathlessly. It was a perilous position, for the timber was slippery with slime, and they had to hug it closely to prevent their sliding off. There, clinging and crouching, they remained until the man had again come and gone.

As soon as the man was at a safe distance, they clambered up to the jetty, and crept along it on all fours until they came just above the barge. This was now well afloat, but it was moored stem and stern to posts on the jetty, as they saw by the light of a small oil-lamp standing on a tub amidships. Boxes were piled fore and aft.

The two boys slid down on to the barge by the rope by which the man had lowered the goods. Martin ran to the stern and tried to cast the aft mooring rope loose; but the knot was firm and the rope hard, and he had not succeeded when he heard the rumbling of the truck wheels along the quay. There was not time to complete the job before the man arrived. The urgent necessity at the moment was to hide and hope that he would not see them.