“Then my course now,” says I, “must be to return to Surat and declare all my ill fortune.”
“Not so fast,” says he, “for we are but just sailed from Surat, and I must take the Boscobel to the Factory at Bengall before she can drop anchor again in Swally. You must needs come with me, Master Ned, and see those parts, for I can’t turn back, and there an’t no other way for you to journey safely to Surat. I don’t doubt but we shall speak some one of the Company’s ships on our way, and then we may put you aboard of her; but if not, then you shall go with me to Bengall, and if the factor there send me on a further voyage, perhaps even to Syam and the Eastern Islands.”
“But,” said I, “should I not hire for myself a baloon, and so leave this place and go to Surat?”
“You an’t yet out of Goa river, Master Ned,” quoth he, “and as I think, will undergo not the least of your perils in the leaving on’t. You could not take your journey in a boat, as you purpose, without awaking suspicion, and this should land you again in the clutches of the Inquisition. Come and sail with me, and go back only in an English ship.”
“So be it,” said I.
CHAPTER VIII.
OF MY SECOND VOYAGE IN THE BOSCOBEL, AND OF THE ENDING THEREOF.
Now we talking in this wise, there come on board of us the skipper of a Dutch ship that lay near at hand, and told Captain Freeman that the Morattys were beat off for the present, but that the town was in an uproar for the escape of one of the prisoners sentenced to be burnt by the Inquisition, and that a search should be made for this person throughout the city, and also among the shipping lying in the river. And the captain returning to the cabin, and telling this news to me, we consulted together what we should do. And first the captain sent his mate on shore, bearing a message to the captain of the guard of that part of the city nearest us, offering to land some of his crew for to aid in defending the wall against the Morattys, but the mate was bid also to watch and see whether the search was yet begun, and how far it was come. And he returning presently told us that the captain of the guard had sworn at him for an impudent rascal, vowing that his majesty the King of Portingale and the Brasils had soldiers enough for to defend his cities without seeking the aid of English braggarts, but with regard to the matter nearest our minds, the mate had seen naught of any search, and believed that it should not begin until the morrow. And this being confirmed by one of the crew of a country ship that came to buy bread from us, I lay in the cabin that night, and slept there peacefully.
Now in the morning, while we still lay at anchor in the river, an Englishman on board of a Venice ship that was departing, calls out to us that they had been searched already, and that the captain of the port’s boat was visiting every ship in turn, and commanding all on board to be mustered on deck. Then were Captain Freeman and I in some affright, for he desired neither to perjure himself by denying my presence on board, nor yet to yield me up to my enemies, so that he begged of me to resort to a disguise that he would show me.
“For,” says he, “my apprentice is dead since leaving Surat, so that his name is still on the ship’s books, and you must needs take his place.”
And telling this to the seamen, they did lend very willingly certain of their clothes, so that I was dressed in a sailor’s shirt and slops, the which Captain Freeman was at the pains to pad and stuff out with rags and suchlike, that I might not, said he, look so nearly like a scare-the-crows. And because my close-cropped hair should have betrayed me in a moment, he brought out a great periwig that he was wont to wear to church when on shore, and hacked and jagged with his knife at the curls thereof until it was as untidy and ragged as a ship-boy’s hair was like to be, and so put it on my head. And I dare to say that the good man has that periwig yet, laid up among his chiefest treasures, and shows it with great pride to his grandchildren for the memorial of a marvellous deliverance. And next, because my hands was white and soft from so long idleness, he bid me dip them in the tar-bucket, and with tar and other such things besmeared my face and neck. Then he bade me call myself by the name of Samuel Needham of Deptford (this was the dead apprentice), and so sent me to the galley to wash the dishes for the cook.