[CHAPTER XXI
GUILT AND CRIME]
The reader will be anxious to know what really was the fate of Will Laud, and will not be surprised to learn that Margaret’s idea was quite in accordance with the fact. When Luff quitted the old shepherd upon Sudbourn Heath, in search of Laud, he was prepared to find him at the Compasses at Orford, and there he did find him, and he pretended to be glad to see him, and to be very friendly with him. All former animosities seemed to be extinct; and Luff quickly wormed out of him the secrets of his heart. He asked after Margaret with as much apparent indifference as if he had heard nothing of her.
“I have left her for ever,” said Laud. “I will have nothing more to do with her. Some more powerful enemy than I have ever contended with has at last prevailed over me, and pulled down the proud flag I had hoisted in her love. I heard her say, almost to my face, that she would never see another sailor, though she must have been expecting me home, for I sent her word by an old messmate that I was coming; and what could she mean, but to let me know flatly that she preferred some lubberly landsman (perhaps some powdered footman) to one of Lord Howe’s Britons? I could stand it no longer, so I just threw all my prize-money overboard; and here I am, Jack, ready to join your crew again. Have you forgotten our last rub? Come, give us your hand, Jack.”
Luff put out his blood-stained palm, and pretended all the peace of a restored friendship. Grog was ordered; and the two easily struck a bargain to go on board again in the service of Captain Bargood. But Luff was too determined a villain to forgo that opportunity, which now offered itself, of fulfilling the deadly purpose he had often sworn to his crew that he would accomplish, “to bring Laud a captive, dead or alive, on board the brig.” The treacherous fellow had left no stone unturned to bring about this plan. It was he who pursued such a system of fraud with regard to Margaret as led to her disgrace. He hired sailors to deceive her with false tales, and to learn what they could of Laud, that he might the more easily wreak his vengeance upon his victim. And now at last here was the object of his hatred, trusting to him as he would have done to the most tried friend. He was as loud and artful in his ridicule of Margaret as a determined monster of envy could be. He had heard, he said, many tales of her; and that she was at last going to marry one of the brewhouse men. Such were the inventions of this hollow-hearted villain, to inflame the irritable mind of Laud. There were two of the crew present, to whom Luff had given the wink, and made them to understand he had trapped his man.
“Let us take a bit of a cruise, and have a look at the port,” said Luff to his pretended friend; and then turning to the others, he said, “We shall be in again presently, and go on board to-night.”
“Aye, aye, master,” replied one of the men, ”all right!—I say, Sam,” observed he, when the two captains had left the room, “what a shocking fellow our captain is! I’ll wager now that he either puts a bullet through Laud’s head, or a dagger in his heart, or shoves him overboard at night!”
“Aye, Jim, I don’t mind a brush with the coastguard, but I don’t like such cold-blooded work as this any more than you do. Don’t let us wait for the captain; but, as soon as we have finished our grog, let’s be off for the boat.”
“With all my heart, Sam; and let us drink our young captain’s health, and good luck to him.”
Luff had enticed his captain to a longer walk than he expected; and no sooner had they entered the Gap Lane than he began a quarrel, and presently attacked him, sword in hand. Laud defended himself with great dexterity, until his sword was broken, and he himself disarmed. He fled towards the marshes, but was overtaken, cut down, and cast for dead into one of those deep marsh ditches which abound in the neighbourhood of Orford. After Luff had thus wreaked his vengeance, he crept stealthily towards the town; and as he went picked up Laud’s watch, which had fallen from his pocket. It made his blood, already heated with exertion, grow cold with conscious horror. He was too great a villain, however, to have much thought of mercy, pity, or repentance. He entered the Compasses and called for a strong north-wester, and inquired for his men, and learned they had been gone to their boat some time. He gave them some coarse malediction for their pains, and sat down to his strong potation.
The two men were at that time crossing a plank over the very dyke which Laud had been cast into, and were startled by his groans. On looking about them they observed a man’s head just out of the water, beside the bank; they pulled him out, and found to their horror that it was Laud. Having decided on taking him to his uncle’s, they lifted Laud up and carried him across the marshes, and laid him as carefully as they could upon some old sails at the bottom of the boat; and instead of going down the river to Hollesley Bay, they rowed directly up the river with the flood tide. They arrived at Aldborough just as the tide turned, and had the precaution or prudence, directly they landed, to send their boat adrift; which, getting into the channel, was carried down the river, and was cast upon a sand-bank, within a few yards of the smuggler’s cutter, by which means it was supposed that the two men had perished; for at daybreak, when Luff came on board, he was the first to discover the boat, keel upwards, upon the bank.