Chapter 23

Since my former kidnapping at Bristowe I had learned that 'tis mere folly to fly into a rage and rail at fate or your enemies. So, affecting a cheerful tone, I said:

"Why, sure this is scurvy treatment to deal out to a king's officer, my friends."

"No friends of yourn," replied one of the men.

Another laughed and said: "Strap me if we ha'n't caught a tolly, mates."

"Tolly," as I learned afterwards, was the cant name by which king's officers were known to the buccaneers. The fact that I was an officer, of which they had apparently been ignorant, seemed to give the men much pleasure. Some of them, no doubt, had once been king's men, and knew without any telling the gravity of their offense. I wasted no more words on them. They took me to a wooden shanty standing by itself, tied me to a staple in the wall, shut and padlocked the door, and went away.

Left to myself, I sought for some explanation of this new addition to the catalogue of my mischances. What were buccaneers doing on this estate? Had they quitted for the nonce their usual work of snapping up cargo ships? Had they made a raid upon the house and served Vetch as they had served me? I had no pity for him, but the thought of the sore straits in which Mistress Lucy might be filled me with disquiet and alarm.

And then another explanation flashed into my mind. Was it possible that the men had been hired by Vetch himself in pursuance of some villainous scheme for keeping Mistress Lucy in his power? I thought of this until it became a conviction. Mistress Lucy's friends in Spanish Town were surprised and hurt at the absence of news from her; her silence must be due to Vetch. His motive was not far to seek. Cludde had been boasting of the bride awaiting him in Jamaica; I could not doubt that Vetch was holding her in durance until Cludde should arrive, and, her minority having expired, she could be cajoled or forced into a marriage with him. It was essential to the success of this piece of villainy that she should be kept from communication with her friends, and nothing was more natural than that Vetch should hire a gang of buccaneers to assist him in accomplishing his end. I marveled at his audacity, and burned with rage at my utter helplessness.

It did not occur to me at first that Vetch would know who it was that his hirelings had entrapped. I supposed that he had established a system of ambushing, so that whoever should arrive at the place might be prevented, if need were, from having speech with Mistress Lucy and learning of the restraint in which she was held. But on considering this matter further I doubted whether even Vetch would have dared to go this length, for if people came from Spanish Town and did not return, it would certainly be suspected that something was wrong, and I could scarcely believe that no notice would have been taken of it by the authorities, civil or military. This made my capture the more surprising, for while I did not doubt that Vetch, if he had heard of my coming, would not scruple to lay by the heels one who had defeated him in his former design on Mistress Lucy. I was at a loss to understand how the identity of his visitor could have become known to him.

I lay awake all night, plagued by the heat and the multitudinous insects, but still more by my anxieties. In the morning I heard footsteps approaching, and the door being thrown open, I saw that my visitor was Vetch himself.

"So 'tis indeed Mr. Humphrey Bold," he said, with a grin of malice. "I scarce believed in my good fortune. I did not expect to be honored by a visit from Mr. Humphrey Bold."

I knew not what to say to the insolent wretch who stood smiling there; 'twas clear that he had expected me, which was very puzzling, since none but my friend Mr. Gurney in Spanish Town and Captain Vincent knew of my errand. Then all at once I remembered the seaman in the hostelry, and my guide's telling him my name, and the horseman riding by at night; 'twas clear to me now that the man was a spy of Vetch's, kept on the road for this very purpose of riding ahead of a visitor and giving intimation of his approach.

"I need not say," continued Vetch, "how charmed I am to see one who is endeared to me by many old associations."

"You villain!" I cried, finding my tongue now that I had light upon his doings. "You have had many lucky escapes, but by heaven you shall not escape this time."

"Escape!" he said, opening his eyes in feigned astonishment. "'Tis you who will not escape again!"

"You will release me," I said.

"In my own good time," he answered. "A hothead like you will benefit by a period of quiet meditation."

"You will release me at once," I said. "You dare not keep me here. There are those in Spanish Town and Port Royal who know where I have come: they will seek me if I do not return to the ship within the expected time, and then you will find a halter round your neck, Cyrus Vetch."

"Not at all," he said with a bland smile. "A messenger will leave here tomorrow with a letter saying that my old friend and schoolfellow, Humphrey Bold, is sick with a fever. He will have every attention, and a report of his condition shall be sent to his captain--Captain Vincent, is it not? I fear Mr. Bold may not have recovered before the fleet sails; it is likely that he may be very ill indeed; 'tis possible he may die! And Captain Vincent shall know how tenderly he was nursed--yes, by Mistress Lucy Cludde--"

"Don't name her name, you hound!" I cried hotly, stung at last into fury.

"Gently, Mr. Bold," said he; "you will but aggravate your distemper. Mistress Lucy Cludde will nurse you--in my letter; and your captain will think it most natural and commendable seeing that you are her guest, and that it may be regarded there is some slight relationship between you. And if you should happily recover, why, she may herself accompany you to port and restore you to your comrades. But that will not be till I please."

I cried out on him as a scoundrel, though vexed with myself for such mere windiness of utterance. The truth is, want of sleep and the discomforts of the night were like to throw me into a real fever, and the dismay I felt at this possibility helped me to pull myself together. When I spoke again 'twas calmly, without heat.

"You are playing a fool's game," I said. "You are exceeding your rights as representative of Sir Richard Cludde, and you may be sure you will be called to a heavy account if you deal wrongfully with the estate or its owner. Pull up before it is too late; there are sundry things against you in England that will not dispose the courts to show you mercy."

"Hark to him!" cries Vetch with an evil sneer. "He turns preacher! You fool! Who are you to foist yourself into the concerns of your betters--a fellow only saved from the gutter by charity! While the girl is a minor I will deal with this estate as I please; and when she comes of age, then--"

He paused, an inscrutable look upon his face.

"Then Humphrey Bold may go hang," he said, and with a smile that made me feel wondrous uneasy he shut the door upon me and departed.

Of all the mischances I had suffered, this was, I thought, the most afflicting. In the others it was only myself that was concerned, and a man who sets out to conquer fortune must expect his share of buffets by the way. But my own ill hap was as nothing compared with the dangers I felt to be hovering about Mistress Lucy, and to know myself helpless when she was in sore need was as a crushing weight upon my heart.

I was not left long to my reflections. Presently Vetch returned with two villainous-looking ruffians, seamen by their build, who at his orders bound my hands behind me and then conveyed me across a stretch of pasture land to a wooden house that stood in the angle of a field. They took me up a flight of steps on to a veranda, through one room into another, furnished with a table, a chair, and a bed, and there left me.

"I warn you once more," I said to Vetch before he went. "You are dealing with a king's officer, and if you think this outrage will go unpunished you are mistaken, and very grievously. And I tell you, Vetch, that if Mistress Lucy suffer a jot at your hands, either in herself, or in her property, you shall hang for it, as sure as my name is Humphrey Bold."

He smiled, swept me a bow and was gone.

The chamber in which I was left was an inner apartment, such as are common in the houses in Jamaica, enclosed by other rooms, to defend it from the heat. It had but one door, and was illuminated by a little window high up in the partition wall. Escape was impossible save through the door, and I knew by the sound of voices from without that the two men had been stationed there to keep guard over me. They brought me some food by and by, one of them carrying it into the room, the other standing at the door with a musket in his hand, and I perceived that he had a hanger at his belt. To attempt to overpower them and escape would be madness; but I thought it might not be impossible to prevail on them by means of a bribe to help me, and with that ultimate design I resolved to open friendly communications with them.

"What house is this?" I said.

"Look 'ee, master, drink your bumbo and say nought," he growled.

"Come, come," I said pleasantly, "you are a tar, as any one can see, and as good a seaman, I doubt not, as ever slept upon foc's'le. Two years ago I was a swab myself--"

"Splutter and oons!" cried the man, interrupting me, "who be you a-calling swab, I'd like to know!"

"No offense," I said, "I was just going to tell you of the fun we had, my mates and I, when we were prisoners in France, and how we escaped and had a running fight with Duguay-Trouin--"

"That's a good un!" he cried.

"Hark to him, Jack: says he had a fight with Doggy Trang."

"Let's hear about it," cries the man he had called Jack.

Whereupon I launched out into the story of our escape, made them laugh heartily by my description of our dealings with the French captain, and so brought them, as I thought, to a more reasonable temper.

"And now, seeing that we're in a manner shipmates, you won't refuse to answer a simple question, I'm sure," I said. "What house is this?"

"No harm in that, Bill," says Jack. "'Tis the house of the second overseer of this 'ere plantation, and much good may it do you to know it."

Having thus broken the ice, I succeeded, before I had finished my meal, in drawing sundry other information out of them. I learned that the place of my imprisonment was some two miles from Mistress Lucy's house, being situate at the extreme verge of the sugar plantation. The men knew nothing about Mistress Lucy, or of what went on at the house, having recently been brought up by Vetch, along with a dozen or more shipmates, from a brig belonging to their employer that now lay in a cove on the north of the island some ten miles away. They made no bones about acknowledging that they had formed part of the crew of a buccaneer vessel and had been hired by Vetch for a month's service on shore, which suited them very well, since they had nothing to do, good pay, and were given a liberal allowance of bumbo, which was, I discovered, a concoction of rum and water, sugar and nutmeg.

"Well, now," says I, thinking the time had come for my proposal, "I don't ask you what pay you are getting, but whatever it is, I will double it if you'll let me loose, and help me to get down to Spanish Town."

"Come up, now!" says Bill, "d'ye think to gammon us? We know what a lieutenant's wages is, we do, and 'twould take a dozen of you together to pay us enough for that there job."

"And you shall have it," I said.

"Ay, and a dose of irons into the bargain," said the man. "No, no; we don't want no lobsters up from Spanish Town; not if we know it.

"Besides, we knows what king's officers be, don't we, Jack?

"We've bin on king's ships, Lord love you, and we knows where the pay goes to. Once you get to Spanish Town you'd forget all about us; we've bin done like that afore."

And then what must I do but produce a handful of silver and show it them as earnest of my promise. I could not have done a stupider thing. At the sight of the money the men fell upon me, and emptied my pocket (despite my resistance) of every stiver it contained; so that I was now, as once before in my life, bare of everything save my clothes and Cludde's crown piece, which was hidden under my shirt. Then, with many a chuckle, the scoundrels left me, to meditate on the exceeding folly of trying to make terms with buccaneers.

So three days passed. I was never allowed to quit my room; Jack and Bill guarded it by day, two other men by night. I became more and more miserable and anxious. I could get no news from my jailers, nor did I ever see the overseer in whose house I was; and I suffered from a constant dread that Vetch's plans, whatever they were, were maturing, and that it would soon be too late for any intervention.

On the third night of my imprisonment in the overseer's house (the fourth since my arrival) I was very restless. My enforced inactivity, and the lack of fresh air, were producing the natural effect; every night I slept less, waking frequently, to toss and heave until I sank again into a troubled slumber.

In one of these intervals, I heard a scratching sound--just such a sound as a mouse makes behind the wainscot. I had not noticed it before, and it caused me nothing but irritation now, for when a man is wakeful, such sounds, however slight they may be, become magnified to his overstrung nerves. I endured the sound for a time; then shooed to scare the gnawing animal away. But it did not desist for an instant, and at last, vexed beyond measure, I got out of bed, groped my way to the spot whence I thought the sound proceeded (it seemed to come from the floor) and stamped heavily on the boards.

My action was heard by the men outside the door, and one of them cried out angrily to know what I was about.

"'Tis a wretched mouse will not let me sleep," I replied.

"And what can you expect, you fool, when your room's over an empty stable?" he said. "Curse me! what a fresh-water fair-weather fowl you be!"

The scratching having ceased, I went back to bed. But in a few moments it recommenced, at what seemed to be a spot nearer to me, and, marveling somewhat at the persistence of the beast (for a mouse is easily scared), I covered my head, and so endeavored to shut out the annoyance.

I think I must have dozed again, for suddenly I found myself sitting bolt upright, straining my ears as a man does when he is suddenly wakened from sleep and is not sure whether 'twas by an actual sound or by a sound heard in dream. And in a moment my doubt was resolved; assuredly I heard a sound, and 'twas like a human voice, but muffled. I listened intently; it appeared to come from beneath me. While I was wondering who could have chosen the stable as a place for conversation in the dead of night I could have sworn (though half-believing it must be an hallucination) that I beard my own name. In a trice I was out of bed, and groping my way under it, my hand struck against something projecting from the floor, and at the same moment I heard distinctly, and as it were in my very ear, a low whisper, "Massa Bold, Massa Bold!"

"Who is there?" I whispered in return, and, clutching the thing my hand had touched, I felt it move.

I tightened my grasp upon it; it was round, and as I discovered by laying my other hand upon its top, hollow. Struck by a sudden thought I bent my face down, and whispered again into the hole, "Who is there?" afterwards turning my ear upon it.

"Massa Bold, lill Missy sends a letter."

The words came clearly up the tube.

"Me poke it up," said the voice again.

I withdrew my ear, and waited in a tense breathlessness of amazement. Then I heard a slight rustling, and placing my hand on the tube, I felt a small piece of paper thrust against it. Grasping this, all my frame thrilling with excitement, I whispered again:

"Who are you?"

"Me Uncle Moses," said the voice. "Good night, sah; come again tomorrow."

And then all was silent.

Picture if you can my state of mind as I crept back into my bed and lay down again, the precious note in my hand. I was trembling with happiness: Lucy knew of my presence, and had written to me. And yet I was doomed to lie in a tantalizing impatience until the dawn should give me leave to read her message. I had no more sleep that night, wonderment, conjecture, pleasure, hope, setting up a whirl in my brain.

As soon as there was the faintest tremor in the darkness I sat up and, unfolding the paper, sought vainly to decipher it. Never had time seemed so long to me as I waited for the oncoming of the beneficent light of day. And at last, lifting the paper almost to my eyes, I was able to make out the words.

'Twas in French, and I blessed the chance which enabled me to understand it, and the woman's wit that had prompted Lucy to choose this disguise. She said she had learned of what had happened through the gossip of the servants; the man who had heard my name in the rest house had mentioned it. She told me that she was virtually a prisoner. She knew not what Vetch intended (she did not name him, but wrote of him as cet homme mechant), but she was kept under strict surveillance; her movements were dogged; and though she had three times endeavored to make her escape along with the old nurse who had accompanied her from England, she had always been prevented, and those who had assisted her had been terribly punished. Uncle Moses, her father's bodyservant, who was devoted to her, had been whipped almost to death, and she dared make no further attempt, for the sake of the poor black people.

Dick Cludde had come up from Spanish Town, she told me, and crushing down her repugnance to meet him, she had besought him to interpose. He had seemed troubled, and had gone away, as she thought, to plead with Vetch, but she had not seen him again. It was after that that she had heard of my imprisonment. She thanked me for coming to help her; she knew that was my purpose; had I not helped her before? and she prayed that I might find some means of escaping, so that I might take her away and save her from the wicked man who had her in his power.

I ground my teeth as I read all this, and vowed that if I could but get free I would wreak a vengeance on Vetch that he would not easily forget. But the knowledge of my impotence wrought me to a pitch of fury that for a time almost bereft me of my senses, and I could only rage and fume in desperate misery. My guardians, when they came in to attend to my wants, seemed to be conscious of my state of mind; they eyed me with suspicion, and the man at the door took up his musket ostentatiously, though neither said a word to me.

After a time my passion subsided, and with recovered calmness I saw that my only chance of doing anything for Lucy depended on my patience and self restraint. I waited eagerly for night. The negro had said that he would come again, and this could only mean that Lucy had some hope of our being able between us to devise some means of escape. The man ran a great risk; if the buccaneers heard us speaking they would discover him, and then all hope would be lost. Fervently as I longed to hear his voice again, I was consumed with anxiety lest he should come too soon, or that by some accident, some incautious movement, he might reveal his presence.

The day passed and when I went to bed I lay in restless impatience, straining my ears to catch the slightest whisper, and starting up several times in the belief that I heard him. At last, when all was silent save for the heavy breathing of the men outside the door, I caught the faint sound made by the pushing of the tube (a length of sugar cane, as I afterwards learned) through the hole he had bored in the double floor. I stole noiselessly out of bed, and crept cautiously to the place beneath it.

"Is that you, Moses?" I whispered.

"Yes, massa, me's here."

"Is Mistress Lucy well?"

"Welly miserable, sah. Missy say Massa Bold take care; she say 'God bless Massa.'"

Inwardly I blessed her for her thought of me; then I said:

"We must both be careful, Moses. Now, I must escape from this, and you must help me."

"Yes, Massa, me want to help, but dere is no way for po' Uncle Moses."

"We must find a way; we must," I said in a fierce whisper. "Could you come up and help me if I burst open the door? Are you strong? Could you knock a man down?"

"Me plenty strong, sah, but what good dat? Massa might get away, but what den?"

"Why, we could get among the trees in the darkness, and you could lead me to the road, and perhaps find me a horse, so that I could ride to Spanish Town."

"No, no, sah, me berry much 'fraid in dark, sah. Me shake like leaf now, sah; but in forest, wiv de bugaboos, me melt all away to water."

I had heard of the dread with which the negroes regarded the bugaboos, the evil spirits of the woods, and knew that there was but a poor chance of escaping if my guide were in a state of panic terror. Moses had shown unusual courage in coming alone in the darkness to the stable beneath me, and there was a tremor in his voice which showed that even now but little was wanted to make him go howling away. I thought it best not to risk so inopportune and fatal a calamity, so I bade him go away and come again next night, by which time I hoped to have been able to think out a plan that offered reasonable prospects of success.