CHAPTER XVIII.

RUSE CONTRE RUSE.

"If it could be done," Granger heard Bufton say, those being the first words he caught, "it would ease me for ever. He is a weight upon my existence, and I would pay you well. Have you thought of it since we met two days ago across the water at Charlton?"

"Across the water! At Charlton! So," muttered Granger, "that is it. While I supposed my friend was in London, he has been on the other side planning his own schemes. And who is the man who is a weight upon his existence? Who? Can I guess? Perhaps!"

"Yes, I have thought of it," he heard the voice of the mate reply, and he knew at once that the owner of that voice was neither Englishman nor English colonist, in spite of his speaking the tongue well. Perhaps, instead, a Swede or Salzburger, such as the colony of Georgia was much peopled with. "Yes, I have thought of it. Very much I have. But it is hard. You see he is a friend of the master's. He sells him many men and women. The master knows him well."

"So do I," Granger whispered. "So do I know him well. I know the man who is a weight on your existence, Bufton!" And, even as he thus mused, his hand dropped into the pocket by his side and touched the butt of a pistol in it. Though at the same time he muttered between his teeth, "Not yet. Let me hear more.

"That would not matter," Bufton said now, his voice low, but still distinct enough to be heard by the listener in the next room. "Would not matter much. He would lie in the 'tween decks during the voyage--is't not so? And if he did not, what matter--when once you are at sea?"

"He would come back," the mate said, "in two--three--four--months. What good that?"

"He might," said Bufton, "_throw himself overboard_ in despair. I have--heard--of such--things--happening--on dark nights. Such things are done--will--perhaps be done by others; by one of the women you will take to-night. If--he--did do so--if you brought me the news when you visit England again, there would be a purse for you."

"Devil," whispered Granger on the other side of the door. "Devil incarnate, you have learnt your lesson well." And again he felt for the pistol, withdrawing, however, his hand quickly, in fear that his passion would overmaster him and cause him to precipitate matters.

"Oh yes! he might," the mate replied, with a deep gurgling laugh. "He might. Such things are done----"

"Have happened," interposed Bufton.

"Yes. Oh yes! Have happened. It could be done--could 'happen.' But that is not all. The master will see him brought on board. He sees all before they go below."

"He will be masked. We have provided ourselves with them, so that the women shall not know us. He will be masked as well as I. And, in the fog and the darkness of the night, how can the skipper recognise him? Turn him face downwards, too, and say that he is drunk. None will know that he has been stunned instead."

The white-faced listener on the other side of the door--white-faced not from fear, but from passion--muttered nothing now. Instead, he nodded his head reflectively, as though conning weighty matters; but still he never took his ear from the door.

"That might pass," the mate said, "that might pass. Only how to get him?"

"This way. Listen. The women come first----"

"_Do they?_ thought Granger.

"Then, when they are secured and sent to the boat (the sailors who go with them saying that a man is also being brought from the spot two or three hundred yards away), I will start to follow, bidding him come after me when he has discharged the carriage. Therefore, your men will know whom to take. It will be the second man."

"The second man," repeated the mate.

And Granger also repeated (but to himself), "The second man."

"Ay, the second man. Both being masked."

"We can attempt it," the sailor said now. "But though we shall doubtless get him on board and down below, I would be sworn the master will discover all when we are at sea. He will inspect his live-stock, and then----"

"Then," said Bufton, "there will be the accident which will follow--the casting of himself into the sea in despair. Will there not, my friend?"

"Perhaps," the other answered, in a voice that sounded like a dubious one. "But--but--these things----"

"Are worth money. True. Yet listen. He will have a bag of fifty guineas on him which I shall have handed over to him for another purpose."

"Fifty guineas!"

"Ay. And when you return to England another fifty for you, if he--has--fallen overboard. Also still another fifty----"

"Another fifty! Making a hundred!"

"Making a hundred, if a woman on board that ship has also--by accident--or through despair--fallen over. A woman calling herself Anne Bufton."

"Why! That is your name!"

"Calling herself by my name. You understand?"

"Yes. I understand. And about the money too. Fifty guineas in the man's pocket; a hundred more when I return if--if--these accidents, or suicides, have happened. And it will be the second man."

"The second man. Masked."

"Shake hands," said the mate, and Granger heard a smart clasp given, or rather the contact of their hands when brought together. The compact was made.

"And I had faltered in my purpose," Granger whispered to himself, "had resolved to spare this man. To bury the past!"

He drew on his shoes again now, feeling sure that the interview in the next room was concluded, or almost concluded; and knowing that he must be gone either before the mate came forth or wait until he had departed. Yet, while he was doing so he still heard the others talking--his ears having grown accustomed by now (as well as quickened) to catch their words easily. He heard Bufton ask--

"How long--if they, the woman calling herself by my name, and this man who is my evil genius, do not kill themselves at sea--how long are they bound for in the colonies?"

"Four years," the mate replied. "Four years. The planters will not have them for longer now. They say they are worn out by then. And so indeed they are. By the climate, by labour, and by hard usage."

"Do they use them hardly, then?"

"Often, though not always. Yet they do not spare them much. I have seen a redemptioner at death's-point digging the grave he was soon to fill, so that his owner should get the last piece of work out of him that he would ever obtain. But now people begin to talk, to curse the King here for letting such things be. There is a man out there who says King George should have nests of rattlesnakes sent him in return for the convicts and 'kids' that are sent over to the colonies."

Bufton muttered something in reply to this which Granger could not catch, but a moment later he did hear him say, "Well, one more sup before you go. The bottle is not empty," and his words were followed a moment later by the sound of glasses clinking.

"This is my time," the latter thought. "I must go. There is much to do ere night." Whereon, unlocking the door gently, he stole out into the damp and reeking corridor, and through the fog that had penetrated into all the house, and so away downstairs and out into the Marshes.

He knew the road and could have found it blindfolded in spite of all the gloom that was around him, and he sped along it as fast as he could go without running. For now it was all-important, vital, that he should see Anne; that he should get her to help him, as he had helped her in the scheme of vengeance which had formed the first and least important part of his own plot. To help him in what, this morning, he had decided to abandon. But now--now--he swore to himself--he would never abandon it; to-night it should be brought to completion.

"The second man," he muttered as he went along, and once or twice he laughed aloud even as he so muttered "the second man." But beyond those words he said little else.

Arrived at the Brunswick Stairs, he scribbled a note to Anne, which he sent off to the _Mignonne_ by a waterman, and then retreated from the raw fog and damp into a tavern where he was well known, when, ordering a private room, to which he gave orders she should be shown at once, he sat awaiting her coming.

"She will do it," he told himself again and again. "She will do it, I know. And thus we win at last."

Presently Anne arrived, anxious to hear what had happened, and if anything had arisen to, in any way, circumvent their doing that which they had decided on. Though, if she had been nervous as to whether some impediment might have cropped up to prevent the fulfilment of their schemes, that nervousness vanished as Granger told her almost in a whisper--for even in this private room he was cautious as to how he used his voice--of the conversation he had overheard at the "Red Rover." And, when he came to the description of how "the second man"--who was himself--was to be betrayed into an ambuscade, and, whispering even lower still, said something else to her, her bright eyes glistened, and she laughed wickedly.

"Oh! Granger," she said, "I protest you are a schemer, a plotter. Next, you must try the theatre----"

"Mock not," he said; "be serious. To-night ends all our woes. And, as to theatres, where are your clothes? That apparel in which you figured when you played----"

"Alas!" she said, "all are at Fanshawe Manor, locked up by my mother in her old sea-chest. She would have burnt them in her rage, had I not begged them off."

He thought a moment, evidently pondering deeply, then she saw his face brighten, and he said he could contrive very well, only she must come to his house with him.

"You are a fine, upstanding girl," he said, "and as tall as I am, I being none too lofty myself. Come with me at once, will you, Anne?"

"Ay," she answered, "or go to--well--no matter where--to do this thing. For God's sake, let us not fail. I think ever of my little murdered sister, not of myself."

"Nor I of myself. But of others slain through his cursed machinations. And to-day, this very day, when I would have let all sink into oblivion, when I would have buried the past, he was again scheming to ruin me once and for all. My girl, we will not fail. Come, Anne."

As they went along she told him, however, that what they had to do must be accomplished as early in the evening as possible, so that she should get back to the frigate to be with Ariadne.

"For," she said, "I do think--nay, am very positive, that my mistress will be alone this night. Granger," she continued, "Sir Geoffrey means to take a boarding-party down to that schooner and capture some of her live cargo. The sailors heard him say that it would be at midnight."

"That," Granger answered, "would ruin all. Yet I doubt his being in time. The boat will be ashore for the 'victims'--for you, Anne, and for your mistress, and for the 'man'--for me, it seems now"--and he smiled wanly--"as soon after nightfall as may be. Yet," he asked, "why this sudden determination?"

"A tender came from the Admiralty this morning. The fleet is to sail almost at once, in a few days, for Minorca, and Sir Edward Hawke requires more men. If Sir Geoffrey boards the schooner, or catches her, he will take all the able-bodied men he can obtain."

"Some--_I_, for instance, if I get knocked on the head--will not be very able-bodied," he said, with a quick glance at the girl.

"_Not if the blow should kill_," she replied, with another glance equally as significant.

They reached the house now, and, since time was pressing, he took her into a room, and, when there, bade her cast her eyes around and see if she could find that which was necessary. While the girl, glancing into the cupboards and at pegs on which hung various garments, put her hand first on a long cloak--a boat-cloak, much frayed and worn--and then on a slouching, sombrero hat, that would, hang well over the features of the wearer; a hat vastly different from the stiff, felt, three-cornered ones of the day.

"I have seen you wear these," she said, looking at him.

"Ay, you have. And so have others, too." Whereon, with a hurried reiteration of some directions which he had already given her, he went away, telling the old woman that the lady above was not to be disturbed, and was to be provided with a meal when she required it.

Two or three hours later, he burst into the room where Bufton sat--he having passed the interval in a visit to the _Nederland_, and in warning the captain that he was to be ready to depart the moment his victim was on board, and in telling him, too, that there would be no female captives since his plot had fallen through--burst in, and, without any premeditation, said--

"Bufton, we are undone. I doubt much if the women can come. The _Mignonne_ is back, she has passed up the river in this accursed fog."

"Not come!" Bufton exclaimed. "Not come. What, then, is to be done?"

"Hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst. How can they come, if Sir Geoffrey is back? They will know the letter was a lie, a concoction."

"What to do? What to do now?" almost whined Bufton, his hand to chin.

"There is but one thing to do! They might have got away before he moored--have been on their road. The frigate could not be seen till she was close to her anchorage. We must go to the spot where they were to be attacked, and wait their coming."

"Ah!" exclaimed Bufton, and, try as he might, could not prevent a look of exultation from appearing on his face. "Yes, we must do that."

While Granger, seeing that look--what was there he would not have seen on the features of the man he had watched like a lynx for so long?--said--

"Yet, 'tis a pity, too. Not to have one victim--not one!"

"Ay, not one," Bufton repeated aloud, though to himself he said, "All the same, there will be one. And one that must be made sure of!"