CHAPTER XII.

VENGEANCE IS SWEET.

During the passage of those eight months from the time when Bufton had fallen into the snare set for him by Anne Pottle and Lewis Granger (who had recognised the former as the singing girl of half the gardens round London the instant he set eyes on her at Tunbridge Wells, they having met before), the latter had more than once encountered his old enemy; that enemy with whom--in a manner which would quite have suited with the ethics of more modern, of present, days--he had lived on an apparent footing of friendship while planning a scheme of vengeance for a cruel wrong done to him earlier. He had visited Bufton in the southern suburb of the town, where the man once known as "Beau Bufton" now lived a miserable kind of life upon money sent to him by his mother from Devonshire, and also upon anything which he could pick up at cock-fights, racecourses, and similar places, he being always careful to avoid the West End. For, like many others who imagine that they are masters of the art of ridicule, he dreaded, winced under ridicule himself, especially when that ridicule had a very substantial base from which to operate, as any that might be hurled against him must have had at this present moment.

Bufton had also himself paid a visit to Stepney more than once to see his quondam confederate--a visit which, although made under the garb of friendship, had really for its object the desire of finding out what Lewis Granger was doing, how he was living, and (which was the principal thing), whether there was any likelihood of his being able to obtain a share in such prosperity as might have fallen in Granger's way.

Now, it happened--as so often it will happen in real life, in spite of the jeers of imbeciles who regard, or profess to regard, coincidences as things which occur only in the more or less hard-bound brains of dramatists and romancists--that on the evening previous to the rencounter between Sir Geoffrey Barry and Granger, Bufton had written to the latter that he intended to be in Stepney on that night. And he informed him that, from an unexpected source, he had gotten some little money together, and, if Lewis pleased, he might possibly be able to join him in his "affairs."

Wherefore, at eight o'clock on this boisterous March night, the two men who had once been friends were again seated together; this time in Granger's house in the East End instead of in Bufton's fashionable lodgings of the days of his prosperity.

"And so," said the host--as he passed over to his guest some spirits and water, he having stated, without apology and with a fine sneer on his lip, that tokay and champagne, such as had once flowed freely (on credit) in the old apartments of the Haymarket, were beyond his means--"and so you have found some money, eh? How have you done it? _Trickeries des Grecs_--'packing,' 'marking,' 'substitution,' or what not? Or has Madame la mère been kind? Has she consented to a little more blood-letting? Eh!"

"Nay, nay," Bufton replied. He looked more like his old self now than when Granger had seen him last, since, doubtless owing to the welcome advent of a little ready money, he was adorned in a manner better corresponding with the old style than he had been lately.

To wit, he wore now a neat brown frock, a brown silk waistcoat, and black velvet breeches, while upon the table by his side lay a brand-new three-cornered hat, neatly fringed.

"Nay, but sometimes fortune befriends us. I have been a-racing at Drayton, and--and--well, I have won a few score guineas!"

"Wherefore, I presume," said Lewis Granger, "you have come here to pay me some of them. I should be rich--that is, rich for me--if I had all you owe me. All," he added emphatically, "that I hold your acknowledgment for."

"Oh! I protest, my friend----" exclaimed the other.

"Protest nothing. But, instead, remember. Recall two years ago. There is a sum of two thousand pounds for Glastonbury's bill; two thousand pounds, and my ruined life; for which latter I do not hold any acknowledgment, though, also, I do not forget."

And he regarded Bufton with so strange a glance that the visitor looked uneasy.

"Lewis," he said, "I have repented of that. You--you--know I have. And at my mother's death it will be paid. I can do no more," and he rubbed his chin as he spoke, which action, for some reason that Granger could not have explained, irritated him as much as ever. Perhaps it did so because it recalled other instances when he had sat and watched him doing the same thing.

"Then," continued Granger, he repeating with emphasis, "there is the bond for five thousand guineas--the marriage bond--the marriage bond. I worked hard in that matter----"

"Curse the marriage bond!" cried Bufton. "Curse it, and the marriage, and all concerned with it. That has sunk me, ruined me for ever. Oh! Lewis," he went on, "do you know what I live for now? Now! now!"

"Annulling it; breaking it, I imagine."

"No!" the other almost shrieked, "no! it cannot be broken; they say I am bound, tied for ever! No! it is not that, but vengeance on the cat who snared me, and--and--vengeance on the man who has married the true heiress. He insulted me in her park, he defeated me; me--I who knew every trick of fence; and he drove me forth. And I do believe he was aware of that scheme while, if he did not aid in it, he at least did not prevent it."

"You ruined Anne's sister, drove her to her death. You have much to answer for," Granger said, his voice hard and stern; so hard and stern that almost it would seem as if he were egging the man on to frenzy for a purpose.

"Bah!" cried Bufton, "I would have provided well for the girl--have done all except marry her. That was impossible. I needed an heiress, and I got that other. That thing; that dancing, singing thing; fit only to be the wife of her mistress's coachman, or some porter."

"Wherefore you desire vengeance?"

"Vengeance! Oh, my God! if I could but have that on her and him--this insolent, supercilious sailor. If I could. If I could."

"Yet you were always an admirer of superciliousness yourself."

"Bah!" he cried again, "amongst wits and men of fashion, yes! There it is suitable. But this fellow, this broken-down, impoverished man of birth, who can do no better than go a-sailing. And to be supercilious to me!"

"Vengeance, eh?" said Lewis Granger, meditating--pretending to meditate. "Vengeance."

"Ay, vengeance on both; but I know not how to obtain it."

"Do you know," said Granger quietly--softly, indeed--"that both are in this neighbourhood? Not two miles away from where we now sit."

"What!" cried Bufton, full of astonishment. "What! Both here; two miles away! It is impossible."

"Nevertheless it is true. Sir Geoffrey is in command of a French prize called the _Mignonne_, which lies off Bugsby's Hole. Anne--Bufton," with his eyes full on the man before him, "is in attendance on her mistress, Lady Barry."

"Oh! And Anne--Bufton. Damn you! Why call her that? Why----"

"You say your wedding is unbreakable. Therefore she is--Anne Bufton."

"How do you know all this? Do not play with me. Answer me truthfully, in God's name!"

"I know it well. Barry has been with me, trying to get men for the fleets. But," and now the clear tones in which he always spoke became, if possible, more distinct than ordinary, more--if the term may be used--metallic, "I have a better market than supplying the fleets with men. There is a Dutch schooner--the _Nederland_--lying further down the river, whose skipper pays me higher. She is in truth a--well! a kidnapper. Those who get on board of her, men and--and--yes!--and women--she takes women too!--think that they are going out to become planters, farmers, people to whom land is granted. That is, the men think so, while the women--oh! it is in truth cruel----"

"The women. Yes, the women! What of them?"

"They think they will find husbands. But they, too, are sold. All are sold to the plantations, or as good as sold; they are indented for a term of years. They are, in solemn fact, slaves--slaves herding with those whose death-warrants have been commuted, with the scum and offal of the old world. The women die fast, the labour is terrible. Their hearts are broken."

"But how do you, how does the Dutch skipper get such?" Bufton asked, his eyes glistening. Already there was a hideous idea dawning in his mind, accompanied by a horrible vision of "women dying fast, their hearts broken," in the slavery of the colonies.

"It is not hard to do," Granger said, still speaking slowly and very calmly. "Some are enticed with flowery promises, some are made drunk, while some--poor rustics these--going along lonely ways near the river, have been set upon and carried, gagged, to a boat, and sent off to the _Nederland_. You scorn me," he said, with an appearance of frankness as well as of self-depreciation, "for being concerned in such a trade as this! Yet, remember, I am a ruined, degraded man. Remember also by whom, and so forgive and pity me."

"I do! I do!" Bufton exclaimed with heartiness, thinking, even as he did thus exclaim, what a fool this old tool and creature of his was to so expose his method of business. Yet he had something else to think about now besides Granger's simplicity--something of far more vital importance than that to meditate upon.

"How," he asked, "did you tell me it was done? How? With, let us say, the women. Will the master of this ship receive any taken to him? And--and--is he not in danger of being overhauled? How can he slip away to sea past the guns of Woolwich and Tilbury?"

"They let him come up the river," said Granger, "why not, therefore, let him go down and out to sea? For his papers are examined when he _comes_, when he is empty of such stuff as he departs with. And till he is at sea, they--his cattle--are under hatches."

"Under hatches," Bufton muttered, his long chin stuck out before him, "under hatches. So that screams--the screams of women--oh! yes--they could not be heard. Of women wrenched away from----"

"Loving husbands, eh?" said Granger while controlling his features, which he feared would betray him.

"Bah! Loving husbands. No! Who cares for loving husbands? None! none, you fool!" and now there came upon the man's face that hateful sneer which always made Granger's blood boil, and, as of old, a desire to strike him on those curling lips arose. "No, dolt! I am thinking of the screams of women wrenched from those whom they have snared into a noose, those whom they have tricked and hoodwinked. My friend, you are but a simpleton."

"Oh!" exclaimed Granger coldly, with a well-assumed air of indifference, "oh! that's it, is it? It is only Anne--Bufton--you seek vengeance on?"

"Only Anne! Only Anne Bufton, as you elect to term her. Who else, in God's name, should I seek to vent vengeance on--in such a way?"

"I know not," Granger said, with an inimitable shrug of his shoulders, while at the same time he turned up the backs of his fingers and appeared to be regarding his nails with interest, "if you do not know yourself."

"What do you mean? Speak. There is something in your mind. What is it?"

"I thought," Granger replied, "that you sought revenge on Barry, too."

"On Barry! What can I do with him? Damme! The Dutchman would not take him, the captain of a King's ship, would he? Even if we could get him there."

"Perhaps he would, if he did not know who he was: if he were disguised and did not appear as a naval officer. Such things have been. Yet it was not of him I thought."

"In Heaven's name, who then?"

"I fear 'tis you, Algernon, who are the dolt, the idiot, not I; or perhaps your own marriage made you forget that he too has lately entered into the holy bonds. He, too, has a wife, on board the _Mignonne_."

"My God!" Bufton exclaimed. "My God! You have thought of that! You--you whom but a moment ago I derided. Ay! ay! you are right, 'tis I who am the fool. Oh! what a vengeance. Oh! oh! On him, this haughty bully, this blustering sailor. But--oh no! no! no!" he cried, "it is impossible; it could never be. Get her out of an armed vessel and sell her into slavery in the colonies. It is impossible! Impossible!"

"Doubtless it is impossible," Granger agreed. "'Tis true. It is not to be thought on. I am a fool. Yet," he continued, again speaking very slowly and incisively, "she will get herself out of it, out of the _Mignonne_, ere long. He sails in a day or so, and then she, Ariadne--the heiress whom you by rights should have had--comes ashore with Anne and her mother, the woman Pottle. They cannot go in his craft."

"How do you know this?"

"Partly from what Barry said to-day, after he had got men from me; partly from encountering his wife by Stepney Church a day or so ago. She speaks kindly of you now, Bufton; protests she thinks often of you--and--would pass her life by your side if you would have her."

One must not write down the horrible exclamations that issued from Bufton's lips as he heard these words--the execrations on the woman who had entrapped and ruined him. Yet even when he was calmer, he continued wildly--

"'Thinks kindly of me!' 'Would pass her life by my side!' Ay! she shall think kindly of me--in the colonies. In the fields, where she shall toil till her heart bursts, till she drops dead. Lewis! Lewis! Can it be done? Can it? Can it? And you have power here; have men at your call. I will pay. I have two hundred guineas. Help me, and we will ensnare them both. Oh! what a vengeance on that wanton and on Barry! Help me, Lewis!"

"I will help you," the other said; "vengeance _is_ sweet."