“Of course you did,” said Dawkins. “And lucky you are, commander, to have an old seaman to think for you, when your head’s gone a-dancing after your heart.” He thrust forward his great fist, revealing a handful of gold and silver. Without any words, Pomfrett swiftly conveyed the money into my pocket. “Coins ain’t plunder—but never mind the rules. And I reckon there’s more stowed away somewheres,” remarked Dawkins. From which it may be surmised that Mr Dawkins had emptied Mr Gamaliel’s till.
The next moment the lady and I were out in the dark, the door bolted behind us. We began to walk forward in silence through the thick snow.
XIX
Tells the Conclusion of the Night’s Adventures
The first thing to be done was to get a lodging for the lady at some place where I was myself unknown, so I steered her towards the best inn of the city. As we went Mistress Morgan told me something of what had befallen since the Modesty bark gave the slip to the Blessed Endeavour off Barbadoes. It was easy to see that Mr March was glad at our departing, though he said little enough on the subject, beyond a curt intimation that Mr Pomfrett was welcome to go and be damned in his own way for an ungrateful young idiot. Mr Murch being immovable, Morgan submitted in silence. After selling his own ship, the Wheel of Fortune, and taking her crew aboard our original ship, the Blessed Endeavour, whose complement was disbanded, Murch set sail for Catoche Bay, as we had surmised. Not that he believed in Mr Dawkins’s glass bottle, but it was a principle of March’s never to neglect a chance. And, sure enough, he found, and lifted, a considerable booty. Then he sailed for Port of London. Meanwhile, the wily thief had painted out the name of the Blessed Endeavour and painted in the Wheel of Fortune. For, he had retained the papers of the real Wheel of Fortune; and among them was the deed of gift, by which, as the patient reader may remember, Brandon Pomfrett had assigned that ship to Mr Murch. Thus, in case he were boarded by one of Her Majesty’s ships, Mr Murch would appear as simple captain and owner of the bark Wheel of Fortune, sailing on his own account. The position was a trifle ambiguous; but, so long as a gentleman avoided open piracy, no one, in those days, was superfluous to ask questions; and Murch had, on that score, as fair a prospect of a clear run into London as any picaroon could reasonably expect. But, although he escaped the hand of justice, the same tempest that wrought so hardly with us drove him far out of his course likewise; and although the Blessed Endeavour, alias Wheel of Fortune, never fell into the same extremities as the Modesty ship, her crew went on short rations and suffered much from sickness, so that many died; and when the same storm that drove the Modesty ship ashore in Berehaven struck the Blessed Endeavour in the chops of the Channel (so near upon her heels were we) there were scarce twenty men fit to work the ship. She drove before the wind, northwestward, and in the end Murch beached her in Morte Bay, on the coast of Devon, in an inlet under the lee of the rocky headland called Baggy Point. There she lay, firm fixed by the bows, chock-a-block with plunder. Had he a full ship’s company, Murch could have repaired the leak and towed her off at high tide; but, finding himself hopelessly short-handed, Mr Murch thought best to leave the ship in charge of the boatswain, while he sailed to Bristol in the yawl, to procure a fresh crew. Upon fetching up at Bristol he went straight to his agent, who, as we know, was Mr John Gamaliel; and, for the sake of convenience, took up his quarters in the house of that useful Israelite for the few days during which he was fitting out a schooner and collecting a crew for the salvage of the Blessed Endeavour, alias Wheel of Fortune. So it was that when we brought up at the house of Gamaliel Mr Murch was on the eve of sailing, a fortunate coincidence which, the writer freely admits, has a spice of the improbable. But so things fell out—and is that the writer’s fault? And I doubt if this turn of fortune would have availed the excellent Pomfrett had not Morgan Leroux, with the instant divination that belongs to some women, prompted the owners’ agent to seize Mr Murch’s schooner and to sail in her himself. Once aboard our old ship, he would be upsides with Mr Murch. It would be a simple matter to represent to the remnant of officers and men that Murch himself had despatched the supercargo on the business; and, in any case, the ship’s company would care for nothing in the world save to be paid off with a handsome dividend, as quick as might be. Even as we talked, Pomfrett should be putting to sea. The carpenters and shipwrights were already aboard; and as for the common seamen who were yet ashore, they might be replaced with the wild crew Mr Dawkins had let loose from Gamaliel’s dungeons; and if Mr Murch appeared in the meantime, why, he was but one against a dozen drunken desperadoes.
Nevertheless, the enterprise carried a thousand risks; March, we knew, would stick at nothing; and the lady under my arm, once so cool and undaunted, was twittering with anxiety.
“I ought to be there,” she kept saying. “I ought never to run away like this—it’s shameful. But he told me to, and I promised. And I’m sorry for Mr Murch. I cannot help it. He was never unkind to me. But what could I do? I had to sacrifice someone. And now, I don’t know what will happen.” And I had scarce settled her in her inn, than Mistress Morgan despatched me to spy out how matters were going. Pomfrett had enjoined me very strictly to stay beside his dear; but ’twas easier to disobey the commander than his lady; and back again I must trudge through the snow to that fatal tavern, the home of our misfortunes, fervently hoping that Mr Murch might not fall across the poor clerk and twist the news of the conspiracy out of him with his two hands. The streets were empty as the desert and dark as caves, save for the glimmer, here and there, of a lamp swinging in the wind. Murch might have had his will and left his victim for dead in perfect security. But I fetched up at Gamaliel’s without harm, and peered in at the open door. Murch had not arrived, that was evident, for there were Pomfrett and his faithful ally, Mr Dawkins, marshalling the crew to go down to the ship. The men were newly clothed—out of Gamaliel’s stores, it is to be supposed; and they were not so drunk but that they could obey orders. Pomfrett, catching sight of me, leaped aside and gripped me by the arm.
“What is it—is anything wrong?” says he, in great alarm. And when I told him how matters stood, he cursed me for infringing his solemn behest like a slaver captain. “But now you are here,” says he, “you can make yourself useful. There’s plenty to be done.”
There was. First, there were the men to be shepherded down to the ship, which would have been easier had we known whereabouts beside the quay she was moored. However, we started for the docks by the nearest way; it was not far, but for all the hurry we made, a sober man could have crawled there on his hands and knees in the time we took. For none of the men were sober, and two or three tumbled down at every few steps. But we were out of the house, at least, and in due time we came to the black water, lapping at the sides of the moored ships, whose masts and rigging glimmered white like a snow-wreathed forest. The men were drawn up in close order beneath the wind-blown flicker of a lamp, and while Pomfrett and Dawkins mounted guard over them, Harry Winter was trotted off in the blinding snow to pick the schooner the Willing Mind out of the maze of shipping. He might have groped till morning had it not been for Mr Murch’s habits of discipline, which kept a riding-light burning and a seaman on watch. So we got aboard, and roused the watch below; and Pomfrett took command in the potent name of Captain Murch; who, said he, having been detained by affairs, would pick up the ship from Portishead, at the mouth of the river, in the morning. The crew who were already aboard, had no reason for suspicion; and in a bitter bad temper they were driven aloft by Dawkins to unfurl the frozen sails.
Next, a pilot had to be found, to take the ship down the river; and Henry Winter must tramp on that errand also. There were pilots in plenty, lodging hard by; most of them were known to me, and a hard-bitten, hard-swearing set of autocrats they were. I had work enough to get the first man out of his bed to the window, and when he learned for what he was wanted he bade the messenger to warmer climes, and clapped-to the casement; the second did likewise; and the third yielded only to the exhibition of a double fee.
Day was breaking, in a leaden and bleak lightening of the sky, as I returned along the quays with the surly pilot at my heels. The snow had ceased; the chill wind, blowing dead up river, was crisping the grey water into little waves; the roofs of the houses and every rope and spar of the wilderness of shipping showed white upon the scowling heavens. Bulwarks were ridged with snow, ships’ sides were crusted with it to the overhang, snow powdered the still figure-heads, caked upon the carved work and lattices of the stern-galleries, and lay thick and level upon deck and hatchway. Here and there a ship’s lanthorn shone with a pallid gleam, a sign of life that set the point upon that scene of desolation. Only upon the little schooner, which carried the last forlorn hope of all our fortunes, were black figures clambering and busy, alow and aloft.