Part 2

The ’prentice went into Mr. Slocum’s office, and, returning in a few moments, bade the visitor, not too politely, to follow him. The door of the office was closed behind him.

“What’s old Froggy want now?” said one of the ’prentices.

Martin looked at the speaker in surprise. He had not himself seen Mounseer in the shop before, but evidently this was not his first visit.

“I’d like to know,” replied his opponent of the previous day. “I wonder he dares to show himself in a respectable shop. His clothes aren’t fit for a scarecrow.”

Martin flushed. The Frenchman was his friend, a kindly, courteous, dignified gentleman, and he disliked to hear him criticised. It was true, Martin had to admit, now that his attention had been called to him, that his clothes were shabby; but they were well made, and of good quality. For the first time Martin asked himself whether the old man was very poor.

“I wonder where he lives,” the first ’prentice went on. “He’s never had anything sent home, has he?”

“Not that I know of,” was the answer. “I dare say he lives in some filthy cellar and feeds on rats and mice. He’s come a-begging, I should think; but he won’t get much out of old Slocum.”

Martin had been growing more and more indignant, and could remain silent no longer.

“Let me tell you the French gentleman is a friend of mine, and lives in my house,” he blurted out.

“Oh, indeed! A friend of yours, is he? And you and he live in the same cellar, I suppose, and share the vermin? I’m not surprised.”

“He doesn’t live in a cellar. You’d better say no more about him; I won’t stand it.”

“I’ll say what I like without asking you. He’s a miserable old scarecrow of a foreigner, and we don’t want people like him in London. He would make a good guy for the Fifth of November. I’d like to light some crackers under him and see him jump.”

This was more than Martin could stand. Dropping the salver he was polishing, he rushed at the ’prentice with such impetuosity that the boy lost his balance and fell. Up again in an instant, he closed with Martin, and, forgetting everything else, the two began to fight in the narrow space behind the counter.

“Look out!” warned the ’prentice looking on.

But the warning came too late. They lurched against one of the glass-cases containing jewellery. There was a crash. Splinters of glass fell all about the floor, the door of Mr. Slocum’s den flew open, and Mr. Slocum himself, pale with anger, dashed out, followed by the old Frenchman.

“You again, you young villain!” roared the goldsmith.

He caught Martin by the ear, lugged him to the door, and shot him into the street with a parting kick.

“Don’t you dare to show your face here again,” he cried, “or I’ll thrash you black and blue.”

CHAPTER THE FIFTH

THE NOISE IN THE NIGHT

Martin picked himself up, rubbed the mud from his clothes, and without giving another look at Mr. Slocum or the shop, set off on the way home.

“I’m glad to be out of it,” he thought; “but what shall I do now to earn some money?”

He had taken only a few steps when he heard his name called from behind. Turning, he saw Mounseer hurrying after him, and stood still until the Frenchman had caught him up.

“I see it,” said the old gentleman. “I ask, what is the matter?”

“I am dismissed, sir; that is all,” Martin replied, as they walked on.

“Dismissed! But yes; does the Englishman dismiss with violence? I do not understand.”

“Mr. Slocum was angry. I was fighting one of the ’prentices.”

“Ah, ah, fighting; what you call the box,” said the Frenchman, smiling. “That is what the English like, I think. It is not then a reason to dismiss.”

“I fought yesterday, and Mr. Slocum threatened to dismiss me if I did it again.”

“Ah! That is another thing. To fight once, yes; but to fight a second time when the master forbids, that is disobedience, also it is folly. What was the subject of the quarrel? I may ask?”

“The fellow was saying things about——”

Martin pulled himself up. He could not hurt the old gentleman’s feelings by repeating the ill-natured sneers at his appearance.

“You do not tell, eh? Well, I ask no more. You are young, Martin; as you grow older you will know that fighting is not for always; you must choose the proper time. Without doubt, Mr. Slocum is a hard man; but it is reasonable he think his place of business is not the right place, nor the hours of business the right time, for the practice of the box.”

Martin ruefully agreed that his friend was right.

“But come, then,” Mounseer went on, noticing his downcast look. “Do not be down in dumps; that is what you say, eh? To fight is no disgrace, if the cause is good. To be dismissed, that is bad, certainly; but I think you will soon find other employment.”

The Frenchman’s confidence was not shared by Dick Gollop and his wife when Martin explained the reason of his early return. In applying for a new situation he would need a reference, and it would be hopeless to look for a recommendation from Mr. Slocum.

“What I say is, go straight to Mr. Greatorex,” said Susan. “That Slocum is a wicked tyrant, that’s what he is, and Mr. Greatorex ought to know about him.”

“Nonsense, Sue!” said her husband. “The boy disobeyed orders; that’s mutiny, and Mr. Greatorex wouldn’t override his manager. Martin won’t tell what he was fighting about, but says he isn’t ashamed of it. There’s a mystery somewhere, and I don’t like it. He must look for another job, and I hope he’ll get one.”

Late that night, when Dick Gollop was out on his round as constable, and Lucy had gone to bed, Susan was stitching a rent in one of Mounseer’s shirts.

“There! That’s done at last,” she said. “’Tis time Mounseer had a new shirt, I’m thinking. Deary me! I’m tired out after working all this broiling hot day, and I’m sure I don’t want to climb those stairs.”

“Let me take it up,” said Martin. “I’ll save your legs.”

“That’s kind of you. I promised the old gentleman he should have it to-night, or I wouldn’t trouble you.”

Martin took the shirt and left the room. The staircase was very dark, and he walked up slowly, feeling his way along the wall.

When he was about half-way up he heard a creaking on the landing above, opposite the Frenchman’s door. He halted, and, supposing that Mounseer himself had come out of his room to ask for his shirt, he was on the point of calling to him when he caught the sound of hurried but soft footfalls on the stairs higher up, and then of a door gently closed.

He went on again, reached Mounseer’s door, and knocked. At first there was no answer; but after knocking a second time he heard the sound of flint and steel in the room within, then a voice asking who was there, and at last a fumbling with the bolt.

“Ah! It is you, my young friend, with my shirt,” said the old gentleman, opening the door. “I had fallen asleep, and had to light my candle.”

“I thought I heard you on the stairs, sir,” said Martin.

“Oh no! I have not left my room. It is late, and time for your bed. Good-night. A thousand thanks!”

Martin returned to the basement, bade good-night to Susan, and went to bed. But he found it impossible to sleep. He lay tossing on his bed, worrying about the future, listening to the church clocks striking the hours.

It was some time after midnight when the stillness was broken by what seemed to be a low whistle from the patch of waste ground outside and a little above Martin’s window. The sound was not repeated, and Martin almost believed he was mistaken; but a few seconds later he was roused by another sound; a slight creaking, as if a window somewhere had been opened, then closed again.

On so hot a night anyone might open a window for air. It was the closing, after the whistle, that caused Martin to get up, go to his window and look out upon the waste ground. No one was in sight. There were no more sounds, and Martin went back to bed.

Just as he was at last dozing off to sleep he was roused by a slight sound in the house. In old buildings the stairs often creak without apparent cause, and Martin was not startled or disturbed. But a minute or two later he heard a louder sound, like wood breaking, and then shouts and the stamping of heavy feet.

Springing out of bed he rushed into the passage and up the stairs as quickly as he could in the dark. The noise appeared to be coming from the neighbourhood of Mounseer’s room. When he reached the landing he was hurled back against the wall by the impact of a heavy figure that seemed to have come through the open door.

Before he could recover his footing he heard someone stumbling down the stairs. He darted to the banisters and was just able to see a dark form rush along the passage and through the front door, which he banged after him.

“What is it? What ever is it?” cried Susan from the door of her room. Lucy shrieked with alarm and fear.

“Don’t worry,” Martin called. “He has gone.”

He went into the Frenchman’s room, and by the faint starlight he saw a scene that surprised him. In the middle of the floor stood the old gentleman, rapier in hand, his coat wrapped round his left arm, as duellists were accustomed to wear their cloaks. A chair was overturned, and there was broken wood near the door.

“It is you, my young friend,” said the Frenchman, dropping his point. “Be good enough to light my candle.”

While Martin did this, Mounseer stood on guard, watching the door.

“He will not come back, I think,” he said. “I was disturbed by a sound outside my door; I sleep lightly, like all who have followed campaigns, and I had time to rise and seize my rapier before the bolt was forced and that wretch broke in.”

“Who was he, sir?” asked Martin.

“That I know not,” was the reply. “But he will remember me,” he added with a chuckle. “I felt my point get home, and the wretch was only saved because, as I pressed him, I stumbled over my chair. . . . But, pardon, monsieur, I did not observe you.”

In the doorway stood a tall man in a dressing-gown, his close-cropped poll and blue shaven cheeks giving him a strange appearance in the candlelight. It was Mr. Seymour, the new lodger who had recently taken the top floor.

“I would not intrude, sir,” said the newcomer politely, “but I heard the noise, and came to give neighbourly assistance if it were needed. I see that it was not.”

Mounseer bowed without saying anything.

“I am vastly relieved, sir,” Mr. Seymour went on. “Such an attack might have been dangerous to one of your years. The city is infested with rogues, but one might expect to be safe with a constable in the house.”

“The constable is not in the house at night, sir,” said the Frenchman drily. “I thank you for your benevolent intention; the danger is past, and I would not keep you from your bed.”

His bow as he said this could only be taken as a courteous dismissal, and Mr. Seymour bowed himself out. Martin guessed from the expression of Mounseer’s face that he did not like his neighbour.

“Now, my friend Martin, please me by returning to your bed,” said the old gentleman. “I will barricade my door; they will not disturb me again.”

Martin heard the clocks strike two before he fell asleep. And it was only in his last waking moment that he remembered having heard creaking stairs earlier that night near Mounseer’s room.

CHAPTER THE SIXTH

MARTIN’S PASSENGER

Martin spent all the next day in a fruitless search for work. Either no one wanted a boy, or the few that had places open would not engage a boy who had been dismissed for fighting.

In the evening, tired and dejected, Martin was walking homeward along the waterside. Glancing towards the stairs where he had seen Mr. Slocum embark on the foreigner’s boat, he noticed two small boys bending down over a boat that was moored to an iron ring. A third boy stood half-way up the stairs, evidently keeping watch.

While Martin was still some distance off, the two boys rose and ran up to their companion, smiling and pointing. Then all three climbed the remaining steps and darted away.

Martin could not help smiling at the mischievous little fellows. They had untied the painter, and set the boat adrift on the stream. It was now floating down on the swift-running tide.

By the time it came opposite Martin it was already a dozen yards from the shore. To his surprise he saw that it was not empty, as he had supposed. In the bottom lay a dark bearded man with a red cap and an orange jersey—the same man as Martin had seen at the same spot two or three days before. He was fast asleep, just as he had been then. Neither the action of the mischievous boys nor the motion of the stream had awakened him.

“Hi! hi!” shouted Martin, fearing that the man might come to grief if the boat struck against some larger vessel lower down.

But his cries did not awaken the sleeper, and Martin ran on to the stairs; there was usually a boat belonging to one of his watermen friends moored on the farther side; he would put off in her and catch up with the drifting boat before she came to harm. But there was no boat at hand.

“Well, never mind,” said Martin to himself. “I can’t help the sleepy-head. I dare say he’ll be seen from some wherry or lighter. How strange that he should be here again!”

He sat down with his back against the stone post, and idly watched the boat as it rapidly drifted downstream. In a few minutes two men came from behind the head of the stairs, and grumbled at the absence of the watermen. Then one appeared, rowing his wherry from the opposite shore. The men hailed him; he pulled in to the foot of the stairs, took on the impatient passengers, and rowed away again, towards the city.

The dusk was gathering, and Martin was about to rise and go home when he heard footsteps on the other side of him, and a voice say, angrily,

“The boat is not here!”

“I can’t wait,” said another voice, which Martin recognised at once as Mr. Slocum’s. Instinctively he drew farther back into the shadow of the post. “It would not be safe. You must hire a waterman.”

“There isn’t one to be seen,” said the first speaker. “There never is when you want one.”

“No doubt one will come in a minute or two,” said Mr. Slocum. “Good-night.”

The speaker had been hidden from Martin by the post. He heard Mr. Slocum hurry away; then the other man came in sight and walked down the steps. Under his arm he carried a small box.

“Old Slocum here again,” thought Martin. “It’s very strange.”

He was now so much interested that he decided to wait and see what happened. The man was tall and swarthy, with a big red nose, and a beard as black as the foreign seaman’s. As he sat on the stairs he muttered to himself.

After a while a heavily-laden wherry approached from upstream. It contained several passengers, laughing and singing noisily, and when they disembarked and mounted the stairs Martin saw that they carried baskets, and guessed that they were picknickers returning from a jaunt to Chelsea or Battersea. The waterman was Jack Boulter, a friend of his.

The waiting stranger called to Boulter, demanding to be taken to Deptford.

“Not me; not to-night,” said the waterman. “I’ve been out all day. I’m going home.”

“But you must take me, I say,” the stranger protested. He raised his voice, and Martin was surprised at a change in his accent. With Mr. Slocum he had spoken like an Englishman, but now his utterance was exactly that of a foreigner.

“What you say don’t matter,” returned Boulter, proceeding to tie up his boat. “I won’t stir out again for no man.”

The stranger began to plead and coax and threaten, but to all his excited words Boulter turned a deaf ear. Some impulse prompted Martin to rise and walk down to the bottom of the stairs.

“I say, Boulter, let me take him to Deptford,” he said.

“It’s you, young master,” said Boulter. “Well, you’ve rowed my wherry time and again, and I don’t mind if you do, so long as you promise to tie her up when you get back.”

“Ah! You are kind. You are a friend,” said the foreigner. He produced a shilling, and was handing it to Martin when Boulter reached forward and took the coin.

“Thank’ee,” he said. “Young master will take ’ee quite safe, and I’ll get along to the Pig and Whistle.”

In another minute Martin was pulling the wherry out into mid-stream. The passenger sat in silence upon the stern thwart, still grasping his box.

There was now little traffic on the river. Here and there near the banks barges were moored, and the spars of larger vessels were outlined against the glooming sky. Glancing frequently over his shoulder Martin steered a course clear of obstructions, and in no long time came within sight of the Deptford shipyards.

Presently the passenger, who had not spoken a word, motioned Martin to land him at a jetty jutting out from a quay along the wall of a house overhanging the river. It had the appearance of an empty warehouse.

Martin was pulling round when the man changed his mind.

“No, not there,” he said. “Beyond; farther: at the stairs of Deptford.”

Martin sculled on, feeling that there was something mysterious about his passenger. He seemed anxious, or excited.

The wherry was almost opposite to the Deptford stairs when a cry broke from the passenger’s lips. Martin glanced round, and saw a boat approaching swiftly. It contained a single man, pulling hard against the tide.

Martin’s passenger stood up, and shouted angrily a few words in a foreign tongue, which Martin could not understand. The man ceased rowing, and turned his head, and Martin recognised him as the foreign seaman whom he had seen a little while before asleep in the drifting craft. Next moment he swung his boat round and rowed rapidly towards the entrance of the repairing yard.

A few minutes later Martin landed his passenger at the foot of the stairs. The man seemed to be in too great a hurry even to thank him. He sped up the stairs and disappeared.

“I’ll have a little rest before I go back,” thought Martin.

He tied up the boat and strolled along by the edge of the repairing dock. Only one vessel lay there, a three-master brig without her mainmast, and it flashed into Martin’s memory that the waterman had told him of a Portugal ship that had come in for repairs.

“Is that a Portugal vessel?” he asked a man who was lounging near by.

“Ay, Portugal she is,” was the reply. “Dismasted by a Frenchman in the Channel. She’s not so foreign-looking as some Portugal ships I’ve seen, but her crew—why, bless your life, they’re as pretty a set of cut-throats as you’ve ever set eyes on.”

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH

A BLOW IN THE DARK

Martin found himself to be taking a rather unusual interest in this Portugal ship. It was impossible in the dusk to see her lines clearly; indeed, she was lying so low in the dock that even in the daylight one could not have obtained a good view of her. And the shipwrights’ work being over for the day, there was nothing going on upon her deck.

What interested Martin was not so much the vessel herself as the persons with whom she seemed to be connected. There was the foreign seaman whom he had twice seen waiting at the foot of the stairs. There was Mr. Slocum, who had embarked on that seaman’s boat. And now there was this third man, who had come with Mr. Slocum to the stairs, who spoke like an Englishman and also like a foreigner, and who was evidently very well known to the sleepy-headed seaman.

“There’s some mystery about all this,” Martin said to himself. “Mr. Slocum said it wasn’t safe for him to wait about at the stairs. Why? What reason can he have for coming or sending to this Portugal ship at all? Has she jewels or plate among her cargo, and he’s buying them? But why should he do it secretly?”

It was quite clear that he would not get answers to his questions by staring at the vessel. Two or three swarthy men in outlandish costumes were now moving about the deck: he heard their strange voices, so unlike the sing-song of English sailors. The lighting of a lamp reminded him that black night would soon lie upon the river.

“It’s time to be off,” he thought, and, turning about, he walked back without hurry to his boat, cast her off, and began to pull out into mid-stream.

The tide was now slack, just on the turn, and he was glad that he would not have to row against the current.

He had taken no more than half a dozen strokes when the silence was broken by loud shouts from the direction of the repairing yard. Turning his head, he saw a small figure in the act of diving into the river from a little jetty at the angle of the yard, and behind him a number of much taller forms rushing along as if in pursuit.

It was so nearly dark that all these figures were only just visible. But in a moment Martin was able to see a black head and two splashing arms on the surface of the water. The swimmer was making straight across towards the opposite bank.

He was seen also by the men on the jetty. With cries of excitement they dashed back to the shore, and ran towards a boat that was drawn up on the mud.

Martin had ceased rowing; his interest in the Portugal ship was whetted anew, for surely those excitable men were foreigners from that vessel. Who was the fugitive?

As he rested on his oars he noticed that the swimmer had suddenly changed his course, and was coming with swift over-hand strokes straight for the boat. Meanwhile, the pursuers had hauled their boat off the mud, got afloat, and were now pulling hard in the same direction.

Martin felt a throb of excitement as he watched the chase. By this time he realised that the fugitive was swimming to him for help, and he checked the motion of his boat, which had been drifting slowly on the turning tide, and edged it towards the swimmer.

Next moment a hand shot out of the water and grasped the gunwale. The second hand followed. Then a husky, spluttering voice whispered:

“Take me in, quick! They will catch me.”

Martin was thrilled when he saw that the speaker was a boy, a little younger than himself, as he guessed. Without reasoning, acting on a natural impulse, he shipped his oars, and trimming the boat as well as he could by lying across it, managed with some difficulty to help the little fellow to clamber in.

“Quick! They will catch me,” gasped the boy again as he sank exhausted into the bottom of the boat.

In a moment Martin had the oars in the rowlocks and began to pull with all his strength. He caught sight of the pursuing boat forging out of the darkness, and the shouts of the men aboard her told him that they had seen what had happened to the boy.

Spurred on by the angry menace of their voices, he bent to his oars with a will. He had seen a look of terror in the boy’s eyes as he climbed into the boat, and afterwards he remembered, what he had not consciously observed at the time, that the boy’s skin was dark, though his features were not those of a Negro.

But Martin did not look at the boy as he lay in the boat. His whole attention was concentrated on the pursuers. His heart sank; they were gaining on him. How could it be otherwise? The Thames wherry of those days was a heavy lumbering craft, and a half-grown boy could not hope to outrow the two men who were urging their boat along with strong, sweeping strokes.

He heard encouraging cries from the third man who sat in the stern, and as the pursuing boat gained on him yard by yard, he saw with a strange thrill, in spite of the darkness, that this man was the mysterious bearded passenger whom he had rowed down the river an hour before.

Without knowing why, this recognition urged him to still greater exertions. But the strain was telling upon his muscles; already they were aching almost to numbness. Yet he rowed on and on, doggedly, not dropping his sculls until the other boat sheered up alongside, and one of the men, swinging round the butt of his oar, dealt Martin a blow that sent him backward off his thwart. His head struck the thwart behind, and he lay doubled up between the two, stunned.