Kitabı oku: «Billy Topsail & Company: A Story for Boys», sayfa 6

CHAPTER XVI

In Which Archie Armstrong Joins a Piratical Expedition and Sails Crested Seas to Cut Out the Schooner “Heavenly Home”

It was quite true that Archie Armstrong could speak French; it was just as true, as Bill o’ Burnt Bay observed, that he could jabber it like a native. There was no detecting a false accent. There was no hint of an awkward Anglo-Saxon tongue in his speech. There was no telling that he was not French born and Paris bred. Archie’s French nurse and cosmopolitan-English tutor had taken care of that. The boy had pattered French with the former since he had first begun to prattle at all.

And this was why Bill o’ Burnt Bay proposed a piratical expedition to the French islands of Miquelon which lie off the south coast of Newfoundland.

“Won’t ye go, b’y?” he pleaded.

Archie laughed until his sides ached.

“Come, now!” Bill urged; “there’s like t’ be a bit of a shindy that Sir Archibald hisself would be glad t’ have a hand in.”

“’Tis sheer piracy!” Archie chuckled.

“’Tis nothin’ of the sort!” the indignant Skipper William protested. “’Tis but a poor man takin’ his own from thieves an’ robbers.”

“Have you ever been to Saint Pierre?” Archie asked.

“That I has!” Skipper Bill ejaculated; “an’ much t’ the grief o’ Saint Pierre.”

“They’ve a jail there, I’m told.”

“Sure ’tis like home t’ me,” said Skipper Bill. “I’ve been in it; an’ I’m told they’ve an eye open t’ clap me in once more.”

Archie laughed again.

“Jus’ t’ help a poor man take back his own without troublin’ the judges,” Bill urged.

The lad hesitated.

“Sure, I’ve sore need o’ your limber French tongue,” said Bill. “Sure, b’y, you’ll go along with me, will you not?”

“Why don’t you go to law for your own?” Archie asked, with a little grin.

“Law!” Bill o’ Burnt Bay burst out. “’Tis a poor show I’d have in a court at Saint Pierre. Hut!” he snorted. “Law!–for a Newfoundlander in Saint Pierre!”

“My father–” Archie began.

“I’ll have the help o’ no man’s money nor brains nor influence in a business so simple,” Bill protested.

The situation was this: Bill o’ Burnt Bay had chartered a schooner–his antique schooner–the schooner that was forever on the point of sinking with all hands–Bill had chartered the schooner Heavenly Home to Luke Foremast of Boney Arm to run a cargo from Saint Pierre. But no sooner had the schooner appeared in French waters than she was impounded for a debt that Luke Foremast unhappily owed Garnot & Cie, of Saint Pierre. It was a high-handed proceeding, of course; and it was perhaps undertaken without scruple because of the unpopularity of all Newfoundlanders.

Luke Foremast protested in an Anglo-Saxon roar; but roar and bellow and bark and growl as he would, it made no difference: the Heavenly Home was seized, condemned and offered for sale, as Bill o’ Burnt Bay had but now learned.

“’Tis a hard thing to do,” Archie objected.

“Hut!” Bill exclaimed. “’Tis nothin’ but goin’ aboard in the dark an’ puttin’ quietly out t’ sea.”

“Anyhow,” Archie laughed, “I’ll go.”

Sir Archibald Armstrong liked to have his son stand upon his own feet. He did not wish to be unduly troubled with requests for permission; he fancied it a babyish habit for a well-grown boy to fall into. The boy should decide for himself, said he, where decision was reasonably possible for him; and if he made mistakes he would surely pay for them and learn caution and wisdom. For this reason Archie had no hesitation in coming to his own decision and immediately setting out with Bill o’ Burnt Bay upon an expedition which promised a good deal of highly diverting and wholly unusual experience.

Billy Topsail and Jimmie Grimm wished the expedition luck when it boarded the mail-boat that night.

Archie Armstrong did not know until they were well started that Bill o’ Burnt Bay was a marked man in Saint Pierre. There was no price on his head, to be sure, but he was answerable for several offenses which would pass current in St. John’s for assault and battery, if not for assault with intent to maim or kill (which Bill had never tried to do)–all committed in those old days when he was young and wild and loved a ruction better than a prayer-meeting.

They determined to make a landing by stealth–a wise precaution, as it appeared to Archie. So in three days they were at La Maline, a small fishing harbour on the south coast of Newfoundland, and a port of call for the Placentia Bay mail-boat. The Iles Saint Pierre et Miquelon, the remnant of the western empire of the French, lay some twenty miles to the southwest, across a channel which at best is of uncertain mood, and on this day was as forbidding a waste of waves and gray clouds as it had been Archie’s lot to venture out upon.

Bill o’ Burnt Bay had picked up his ideal of a craft for the passage–a skiff so cheap and rotten that “’twould be small loss, sir, if she sank under us.” And the skipper was in a roaring good humour as with all sail set he drove the old hulk through that wilderness of crested seas; and big Josiah Cove, who had been taken along to help sail the Heavenly Home, as he swung the bail bucket, was not a whit behind in glowing expectation–in particular, that expectation which 148 concerned an encounter with a gendarme with whom he had had the misfortune to exchange nothing but words upon a former occasion.

As for Archie, at times he felt like a smuggler, and capped himself in fancy with a red turban, at times like a pirate.

They made Saint Pierre at dusk–dusk of a thick night, with the wind blowing half a gale from the east. They had no mind to subject themselves to those formalities which might precipitate embarrassing disclosures; so they ran up the harbour as inconspicuously as might be, all the while keeping a covert lookout for the skinny old craft which they had come to cut out. The fog, drifting in as they proceeded, added its shelter to that of the night; and they dared to make a search.

They found her at last, lying at anchor in the isolation of government waters–a most advantageous circumstance.

“Take the skiff ’longside, skipper,” said Josiah.

“’Tis a bit risky, Josiah, b’y,” said Skipper Bill. “But ’twould be good–now, really, ’twould–’twould be good t’ tread her old deck for a spell.”

“An’ lay a hand to her wheel,” said Josiah, with a side wink so broad that the darkening mist could not hide it.

“An’ lay a hand to her wheel,” repeated the skipper. “An’ lay a hand to her wheel!”

They ran in–full into the lee of her–and rounded to under the stern. The sails of the skiff flapped noisily and the water slapped her sides. They rested breathless–waiting an event which might warn them to be off into hiding in the fog. But no disquieting sound came from the schooner–no startled exclamation, no hail, no footfall: nothing but the creaking of the anchor chain and the rattle of the blocks aloft. A schooner loomed up and shot past like a shadow; then silence.

Archie gave a low hail in French. There was no response from the Heavenly Home; nor did a second hail, in a raised voice, bring forth an answering sound. It was all silent and dark aboard. So Skipper Bill reached out with the gaff and drew the boat up the lee side. He chuckled a bit and shook himself. It seemed to Archie that he freed his arms and loosened his great muscles as for a fight. With a second chuckle he caught the rail, leaped from the skiff like a cat and rolled over on the deck of his own schooner.

They heard the thud of his fall–a muttered word or two, mixed up with laughter–then the soft fall of his feet departing aft. For a long time nothing occurred to inform them of what the skipper was about. They strained their ears. In the end they heard a muffled cry, which seemed to come out of the shoreward cloud of fog–a thud, as though coming from a great distance–and nothing more.

“What’s that?” Archie whispered.

“’Tis a row aboard a Frenchman t’ win’ard, sir,” said Josiah. “’Tis a skipper beatin’ a ’prentice. They does it a wonderful lot.”

Five minutes passed without a sign of the skipper. Then he came forward on a run. His feet rang on the deck. There was no concealment.

“I’ve trussed up the watchman!” he chortled.

Archie and Josiah clambered aboard.

CHAPTER XVII

In Which Bill o’ Burnt Bay Finds Himself in Jail and Archie Armstrong Discovers That Reality is Not as Diverting as Romance

To be sure, Bill o’ Burnt Bay had overcome the watchman! He had blundered upon him in the cabin. Being observed before he could withdraw, he had leaped upon this functionary with resistless impetuosity–had overpowered him, gagged him, trussed him like a turkey cock and rolled him into his bunk. The waters roundabout gave no sign of having been apprised of the capture. No cry of surprise rang out–no call for help–no hullabaloo of pursuit. The lights of the old town twinkled in the foggy night in undisturbed serenity.

The night was thick, and the wind swept furiously up from the sea. It would be a dead beat to windward to make the open–a sharp beat through a rock-strewn channel in a rising gale.

“Now we got her,” Skipper Bill laughed, “what’ll we do with her?”

Archie and Josiah laughed, too: a hearty explosion.

“We can never beat out in this wind,” said Bill; “an’ we couldn’t handle her if we did–not in a gale o’ wind like this. All along,” he chuckled, “I been ’lowin’ for a fair wind an’ good weather.”

They heard the rattle and creak of oars approaching; to which, in a few minutes, the voices of two men added a poignant interest. The rowers rested on their oars, as though looking about; then the oars splashed the water again, and the dory shot towards the Heavenly Home. Bill o’ Burnt Bay and his fellow pirates lay flat on the deck. The boat hung off the stern of the schooner.

“Jean!”

The hail was in French. It was not answered, you may be sure, from the Heavenly Home.

“Jean!”

“He’s not aboard,” spoke up the other man.

“He must be aboard. His dory’s tied to the rail. Jean! Jean Morot!”

“Come–let’s be off to the Voyageur. He’s asleep.” A pair of oars fell in the water.

“Come–take your oars. It’s too rough to lie here. And it’s late enough.”

“But–”

“Take your oars!” with an oath.

The Newfoundlanders breathed easier when they heard the splash and creak and rattle receding; but they did not rise until the sounds were out of hearing, presumably in the direction of the Voyageur.

Bill o’ Burnt Bay began to laugh again. Archie joined him. But Josiah Cove pointed out the necessity of doing something–anything–and doing it quickly. It was all very well to laugh, said he; and although it might seem a comical thing to be standing on the deck of a captured schooner, the comedy would be the Frenchman’s if they were caught in the act. But Archie still chuckled away; the situation was quite too ridiculous to be taken seriously. Archie had never been a pirate before; he didn’t feel like one now–but he rather liked the feeling he had.

“We can’t stay aboard,” said he, presently.

“Blest if I want t’ go ashore,” said Bill.

“We got t’ go ashore,” Josiah put in.

Before they left the deck of the Heavenly Home (the watchman having then been made more comfortable), it was agreed that the schooner could not make the open sea in the teeth of the wind. That was obvious; and it was just as obvious that the Newfoundlander could not stay aboard. The discovery of the watchman in the cabin must be chanced until such a time as a fair wind came in the night. On their way to the obscure wharf at which they landed it was determined that Josiah should board the schooner at nine o’clock, noon, and six o’clock of the next day to feed the captured watchman and to set the galley fire going for half an hour to allay suspicion.

“An’ Skipper Bill,” said Josiah, seriously, “you lie low. If you don’t you’re liable to be took up.”

“Take your advice t’ yourself,” the skipper retorted. “Your reputation’s none o’ the best in this harbour.”

“We’ll sail to-morrow night,” said Archie.

“Given a dark night an’ a fair wind,” the skipper qualified.

Skipper Bill made his way to a quiet café of his acquaintance; and Josiah vanished in the fog to lie hidden with a shipmate of other days. Archie–depending upon his youth and air and accent and well-tailored dress to avert suspicion–went boldly to the Hotel Joinville and sat down to dinner. The dinner was good; he enjoyed it, and was presently delighting in the romance in which he had a part. It all seemed too good to be true. How glad he was he had come! To be here–in the French Islands of Miquelon–to have captured a schooner–to have a prisoner in the cabin–to be about to run off with the Heavenly Home. For the life of him, Archie could not take the thing seriously. He chuckled–and chuckled–and chuckled again.

Presently he walked abroad; and in the quaint streets and old customs of the little town, here remote from all the things of the present and of the new world as we know it in this day, he found that which soon lifted him into a dream of times long past and of doughty deeds for honour and a lady. Soft voices in the streets, forms flitting from shadow to shadow, priest and strutting gendarme and veiled lady, gabled roofs, barred windows, low doorways, the clatter of sabots, the pendant street lights, the rumble of the ten o’clock drums. These things, seen in a mist, were all of the days when bold ventures were made–of those days when a brave man would recover his own, come what might, if it had been wrongfully wrested from him. It was a rare dream–and not broken until he turned into the Quai de la Ronciere.

As he rounded the corner he was almost knocked from his feet by a burly fellow in a Basque cap who was breathless with haste.

“Monsieur–if he will pardon–it was not–” this fellow stammered, apologetically.

Men were hurrying past toward the Café d’Espoir, appearing everywhere from the mist and running with the speed of deep excitement. There was a clamorous crowd about the door–pushing, scuffling, shouting.

“What has happened?” Archie asked in French.

“An American has killed a gendarme, monsieur. A ter-rible fellow! Oh, fear-r-rful!”

“And why–what–”

“He was a ter-rible fellow, monsieur. The gendarmes have been on the lookout for him for three years. And when they laid hands on him he fought, monsieur–fought with the strength of a savage. It took five gendarmes to bind him–five, monsieur. Poor Louis Arnot! He is dead–killed, monsieur, by a pig of an American with his fist. They are to take the murderer to the jail. I am just now running to warn Deschamps to make ready the dungeon cell. If monsieur will but excuse me, I will–”

He was off; so Archie joined the crowd at the door of the café, which was that place to which Skipper Bill had repaired to hide. He hung on the outskirts of the crowd, unable to push his way further. The wrath of these folk was so noisy that he could catch no word of what went on within. He devoutly hoped that Skipper Bill had kept to his hiding-place despite the suspicious sounds in the café. Then he wormed his way to the door and entered. A moment later he had climbed on a barrel and was overlooking the squirming crowd and eagerly listening to the clamour. Above every sound–above the cries and clatter and gabble–rang the fighting English of Bill o’ Burnt Bay.

It was no American; it was Skipper Bill whom the gendarmes had taken, and he was now so seriously involved, apparently, that his worst enemies could wish him no deeper in the mesh. They had him bound hand and foot and guarded with drawn swords, fearing, probably, that somewhere he had a crew of wild fellows at his back to make a rescue. To attempt a rescue was not to be thought of. It did not enter the boy’s head. He was overcome by grief and terror. He withdrew into a shadow until they had carried Skipper Bill out with a crowd yelping at his heels. Then, white and shaking, he went to a group in the corner where Louis Arnot, the gendarme, was stretched out on the floor.

Archie touched the surgeon on the shoulder. “Is he dead?” the boy asked, in French, his voice trembling.

“No, monsieur; he is alive.”

“Will he live?”

“To be sure, monsieur!”

“Is there any doubt about it?” asked Archie.

“Doubt?” exclaimed the surgeon. “With my skill, monsieur? It is impossible–he cannot die! He will be restored in three days. I–I– I will accomplish it!”

“Thank God for that!” thought Archie.

The boy went gravely home to bed; and as he lay down the adventure seemed less romantic than it had.

CHAPTER XVIII

In Which Archie Inspects an Opera Bouffe Dungeon Jail, Where He Makes the Acquaintance of Dust, Dry Rot and Deschamps. In Which, Also, Skipper Bill o’ Burnt Bay Is Advised to Howl Until His Throat Cracks

In the morning Archie went as a tourist to the jail where Bill o’ Burnt Bay was confined. The wind was blowing fresh from the west and promised to hold true for the day. It was a fair, strong wind for the outward bound craft; but Archie Armstrong had no longer any interest in the wind or in the Heavenly Home. He was interested in captives and cells. To his astonishment he found that the Saint Pierre jail had been designed chiefly with the idea of impressing the beholder, and was builded long, long ago.

It was a low-walled structure situate in a quiet quarter of the town. The outer walls were exceeding thick. One might work with a pick and shovel for a week and never tunnel them.

“But,” thought Archie, “why tunnel them when it is possible to leap over them?”

They were jagged on top and strewn with bits of broken bottle imbedded in the mortar.

“But,” thought Archie, “why cut one’s hands when it is so easy to throw a jacket over the glass and save the pain?”

The walls apparently served no good purpose except to frighten the populace with their frowns.

As big Deschamps, the jailer, led Archie through the musty corridors and cells the boy perceived that the old building had long ago gone to wrack. It was a place of rust and dust and dry rot, of crumbling masonry, of rotted casements, of rust-eaten bars, of creaking hinges and broken locks. He had the impression that a strong man could break in the doors with his fist and tumble the walls about his ears with a push.

“This way, monsieur,” said Deschamps, at last. “Come! I will show you the pig of a Newfoundlander who half killed a gendarme. He is a terrible fellow.”

He had Skipper Bill safe enough–thrown into a foul-aired, windowless cell with an iron-bound door, from which there was no escape. To release him was impossible, whatever the condition of the jail in other parts. Archie had hoped to find a way; but when he saw the cell in which Skipper Bill was confined he gave up all idea of a rescue. And at that moment the skipper came to the narrow grating in the door. He scowled at the jailer and looked the boy over blankly.

“Pah!” exclaimed Deschamps, screwing his face into a look of disgust.

“You wait ’til I cotches you!” the skipper growled.

“What does the pig say, monsieur?” Deschamps asked.

“He has not yet repented,” Archie replied, evasively.

“Pah!” said Deschamps again. “Come, monsieur; we shall continue the inspection.”

Archie was taken to the furthermost cell of the corridor. It was isolated from that part of the building where the jailer had his living quarters, and it was a light, roomy place on the ground floor. The window bars were rusted thin and the masonry in which they were sunk was falling away. It seemed to Archie that he himself could wrench the bars away with his hands; but he found that he could not when he tried them. He looked out; and what he saw made him regret that Skipper Bill had not been confined in that particular cell.

“This cell, monsieur,” said Deschamps, importantly, “is where I confine the drunken Newfoundland sailors when–”

Archie looked up with interest.

“When they make a great noise, monsieur,” Deschamps concluded. “I have the headache,” he explained. “So bad and so often I have the headache, monsieur. I cannot bear the great noise they make. It is fearful. So I put them here, and I go to sleep, and they do not trouble me at all.”

“Is monsieur in earnest?” Archie asked.

Deschamps was flattered by this form of address from a young gentleman. “It is true,” he replied. “Compelled. That is the word. I am compelled to confine them here.”

“Let us return to the Newfoundlander,” said Archie.

“He is a pig,” Deschamps agreed, “and well worth looking at.”

When they came to the door of Skipper Bill’s cell, Archie was endeavouring to evolve a plan for having a word with him without exciting Deschamps’ suspicion. The jailer saved him the trouble.

“Monsieur is an American,” said Deschamps. “Will he not tell the pig of a Newfoundlander that he shall have no breakfast?”

“Skipper Bill,” said Archie, in English, “when I leave here you howl until your throat cracks.”

Bill o’ Burnt Bay nodded. “How’s the wind?” he asked.

“What does the pig of a Newfoundlander say?” Deschamps inquired.

“It is of no importance,” Archie replied.

When Archie had inspected the guillotine in the garret, which Deschamps exhibited to every visitor with great pride, the jailer led him to the open air.

“Do the prisoners never escape?” Archie asked.

“Escape!” Deschamps cried, with reproach and indignation. “Monsieur, how could you suggest it? Escape! From me–from me, monsieur!” He struck his breast and extended his arms. “Ah, no–they could not! My bravery, monsieur–my strength–all the world knows of them. I am famous, monsieur. Deschamps, the wrestler! Escape! From me! Ah, no–it is impossible!”

When Archie had more closely observed his gigantic form, his broad, muscular chest, his mighty arms and thick neck, his large, lowering face–when he had observed all this he fancied that a man might as well wrestle with a grizzly as oppose him, for it would come to the same thing in the end.

“You are a strong man,” Archie admitted.

“Thanks–thanks–monsieur!” the delighted Deschamps responded.

At that moment, a long, dismal howl broke the quiet. It was repeated even more excruciatingly.

“The pig of a Newfoundlander!” groaned Deschamps. “My head! It is fearful. He will give me the headache.”

Archie departed. He was angry with Deschamps for having called Newfoundlanders pigs. After all, he determined, angrily, the jailer was deserving of small sympathy.