Part 9

“Why not leave him here?” said one of them. “’Twill save trouble.”

“Won’t do,” said the man with the scar. “There’ll be folk about in the morning; he’ll be found, and then—you see he knows too much.”

“Well, then, why not shut his mouth? The river’s handy. With a stone round his neck——”

“Stow your gab, Bill,” interrupted the other irritably. “We can’t drown ’em all. Besides, orders is orders, so you’d better set about it.”

Martin had risen at their entrance, and stood facing them, his heart beating rather quickly and his cheeks flushing as he listened to this frank discussion of his fate. He was not prepared for what happened. The man who had wished to save trouble made a sudden pounce, flung his arm round Martin’s neck, and deftly slipped a gag into his mouth. He was then tripped up, and as he lay on the floor his hands were roped together, and he was shoved into a sack that covered him completely.

Thus bundled up, he was carried into the yard and dumped into the handcart, which had been brought empty from the quay. The cart jolted over the cobbles; he heard the gate slammed behind him, and wondered to what destination the men had orders to convey him.

The jolting did not last long. In a minute or two the legs of the handcart were let down with a bump, and Martin was hoisted out. His head being covered, he could not see where he had been brought, but he felt himself being carried downstairs, then flung down upon boards that rocked under his weight. He was in a boat.

He judged by their voices that two of the three men got into the boat after him. It moved away, and through the sack he heard the men talking of matters he knew nothing about. After a journey that seemed much longer than it was the boat stopped; he felt its side grate against stone. He was lifted out and carried up a few steps, then for some yards on the level.

Once more he was set down. There was a knock upon a door; after an interval of waiting the bolts were drawn; some words were exchanged between his bearers and the man who had opened; then he was carried along, up a flight of stairs, and finally dropped roughly to the floor.

“Cut the sack open,” said one of the men. “Better give him some air and take the gag out,” he added. “He won’t do no harm now.”

The string was cut, and the sack pulled down to his shoulders.

“Best tie him up,” said one.

“He can’t get away.”

“Never mind that; let’s make it sure.”

A rope was tied round the middle of the sack, and knotted to a staple in the wall.

“Now all’s snug,” said a man. “We’ve lost enough time over him; let’s get back to the City; we ought to be able to prig a thing or two out of those fine shops in Cheapside.”

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH

MARTIN FINDS A WAY

By the light of the lantern carried by the man with the scar Martin had made a hasty survey of his prison. It was a large, empty room, apparently part of a disused warehouse. When the men went away they took the lantern with them, leaving the place in complete darkness.

Martin was at once aware of sounds of movement on the floor above—sounds of heavy cases or bales being dragged over the boards. At intervals also he heard a creaking that suggested the lowering of goods over a rusty pulley.

“Where am I?” he thought.

The sounds lulled, and his ears caught a slight rustle in the room itself.

“Rats!” he said to himself. “I hope they won’t attack me.”

During the next pause in the louder sounds he heard another rustle somewhat more prolonged, a faint clanking, and he had the strange feeling that some human being besides himself was in the room. Startled, he called out quickly: “Who’s there?”

From some distant corner came a thin, piping voice:

“Me, Gundra.”

“Gundra!” He felt surprise and relief; the Indian boy was at least a friend. “Come and untie me.”

“Me no can,” was the reply.

“Why not?”

“Me tied, too.”

“How?”

“To thing in the wall. No can move it.”

“Your hands tied?”

“No; a band round me, tight.”

Martin guessed that the boy, like himself, was fastened to a staple, which was out of his reach. It was clear that neither could get to the other.

But Martin was not ready to admit that the situation was hopeless. His hands, it is true, were tied, so that he could not loose the knot at the staple, and he knew that if he strained on the rope he would only tighten the knot. It might be possible to jerk the staple from the wall. He made several attempts, but finding that there was no sound of tearing wood, no yielding of the metal, he bent his mind to considering another way.

There was only a few feet of rope between him and the staple. By a series of convulsive jerks he managed to wriggle over the floor until he lay at the foot of the wall. Supporting himself against it, he got on to his knees, and was then able to touch the rope with his mouth. He asked himself whether it would be easier to cut through it with his teeth, or to rise to his feet, trace the rope to the staple, and work away until he had loosed the knot.

Before he could make up his mind he heard heavy footsteps outside, growing louder as they approached. Instantly he dropped to the floor, wriggled back to his former position, and, when the door opened, lay on his elbow as though he were incapable of rising higher.

Through a door at the farther end of the room came Sebastian, the fat cook of the _Santa Maria_. From one hand swung a horn lantern; in the other he carried a large platter holding a pitcher of water and a hunk of bread. He crossed to the corner where Gundra lay, gave him a kick, set the platter beside him, then moved along to Martin, and leered down upon him, pouring out a stream of abuse in his own language. Having examined the staple and rope, he laughed maliciously, banged Martin’s head with the lantern, and left the room, locking the door behind him.

Martin had taken advantage of the lantern light to make a careful mental note of the position of the staple. As soon as the sound of Sebastian’s footsteps had died away he wriggled again to the wall, rose upon his knees, then upon his feet, and began to tug with his teeth at the knot about the staple.

For some time he toiled in vain, trying one part of the knot after another. Despairingly he felt that his teeth would yield before the hempen rope. But presently he was aware of a slight loosening, and taking heart, he continued to bite at the same coil. To his joy the knot grew looser and looser; the second coil was easier to undo than the first; now he felt the free end of the rope slipping out, and in a few more minutes it was clear of the staple and dropped on the floor.

His lips were sore, his jaw ached intolerably; and the uneasy posture he had had to maintain had strained his muscles to the point of extreme fatigue. For a while he lay quietly resting, not even telling Gundra that he was free. The noises still continued on the upper floor.

At length he started to jerk and worm his way across the floor.

“I’m coming to untie you,” he said in a low tone.

Moving only inch by inch, with frequent pauses for rest, he was a long time in reaching the Indian boy’s corner. When at last he rolled beside him he said:

“Now, your hands are free; untie the rope round the sack.”

Gundra groped with his fingers, and found the knot, but it had been so well tied that it was some minutes before he succeeded in loosening it. Then he pulled the sack away, and made a shorter job of untying Martin’s hands.

“Now to release you,” said Martin; “but I must wait until my hands are less cramped. What is this place, Gundra?”

“A big godown by the river,” replied the boy. “Plenty goods upstairs, belong for _Santa Maria_.”

Martin suddenly remembered that on the evening when he had rowed Blackbeard down the river his passenger had directed him at first to row towards a large warehouse on the bank, but had changed his mind. No doubt this was the very warehouse which had been chosen for the safe-keeping of the boys. It was plain, too, that it had been used as a place of storage for ill-gotten goods until the time came when they might safely be transferred to the _Santa Maria_.

“If only I can get out,” Martin thought, “I’ll be in time to put a spoke in Blackbeard’s wheel.”

He felt over Gundra’s body to ascertain how he was fastened. About his middle was a steel girdle, connected by a fine chain with the staple in the wall. Martin discovered in a few moments that it was impossible to detach the chain at either end; the links, though small, were of tough metal, and gave no sign of yielding under the strongest strain he could put upon them.

“This is thirsty work,” said Martin. “I’ll take a drink from your pitcher, Gundra. They haven’t brought me any water or food; I suppose they think they’ll tame me. They don’t starve you?”

“No; give food; not much.”

“And how long have you been here?”

Gundra explained that in the dead of Saturday night someone had come into the cupboard under the stairs, gagged him, and carried him out of the house. He had struggled hard.

“That accounts for Mr. Seymour’s button,” thought Martin. “But how am I to get Gundra free?”

He sat for a while considering, with his knees up and his chin on his hands. “I’ll try it,” he exclaimed at length.

The staple was driven deep into the wall, but Martin’s idea was that its setting might be loosened by picking at the wood around it, and that then a tug would wrench it away. Opening his clasp knife he began to scrape and chip at the wood, which being oak offered a considerable resistance to his rather blunt blade. More than once he pulled at the staple without detecting any sign of its yielding.

“What about a violent jerk?” he thought.

He explained to Gundra what he proposed to do. They both stood close to the wall. Martin got his hands firmly between Gundra’s body and the steel girdle; then at the same moment both he and the Indian made a sudden leap into the room. The staple was torn from its setting; the boys fell in a heap on the floor, and the metal rattled and clanged. Clasping each other, they listened breathlessly. Had the sounds been heard by the men above?

There were no cries, no sudden movement, no footsteps. Every now and then came the creaking of the pulley-block which had been going on at intervals ever since Martin had been brought into the room, and the exchange of a few words between the men who were presumably attending to the lowering of the goods. They were too much occupied with their task to notice the sounds in the room.

“Now to get out!” said Martin in a whisper. “I think I can find my way to the door.”

“Me come; no let go,” said Gundra, clinging to him.

They moved together in the direction of the door. The chain on the Indian boy’s girdle clanked.

“This won’t do,” said Martin. “Tuck it up inside the belt.”

When this was done they started again. Martin had taken his bearings by the light of the fat cook’s lantern, but in the pitch darkness he was at fault, and it was only by feeling round the wall that they at last reached the door. It was locked. There was no escape that way.

“Any windows?” asked Martin.

“No, sahib. But another door; oh, yes, over there.”

“You have seen it open?”

“No, but see light in crack.”

“Then we’ll make for that. Keep close to me.”

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH

THE BOYS ESCAPE

The two boys groped across the room to find the second door. Suddenly Martin tripped and almost fell; he had stepped into a hole where the floor-boards were rotted away.

“Take care, Gundra,” he said, recovering himself.

He felt on the floor to ascertain the size of the gap, then led the Indian boy cautiously across it, and almost immediately touched a wall. Passing his hand along it, he came upon an iron bar.

“I think this is it,” he said.

Feeling along the bar and the wall behind it, he discovered a vertical crack.

“A folding door,” he thought. “Now to lift the bar and see if we can open the door and find out where it leads to.”

The bar was thick and heavy, and so well settled down into its sockets that it had evidently not been used for some time. Martin’s efforts to lift it at first had no success, but after much pulling and pushing it shifted upward suddenly with a loud squeaking noise.

The boys held their breath, wondering whether the sound had been heard in the room above. But the slow creaking still went on, and Martin ventured to raise the bar from its place and lay it gently on the floor.

There was an iron ring in one of the panels of the double door. Inserting his finger in this Martin pulled, and the panel, sticking at first, presently came inward with a squeak; clearly its hinges needed oiling. Inch by inch he drew it towards him. A strong breeze blew into the room, carrying with it a salt tang. The clear sky eastward was studded with stars, which kindled reflections in the river. Nearer at hand a reddish glow suffused the sky.

While they were gazing out there was a creak above them, much louder than they had heard before, and a large object dangling at the end of a rope passed slowly downward within a yard of their faces. It was plain that goods were being let down from the store-room above with some care to avoid noise, for there was no shouting, no giving and receiving directions, no cries of “Are you ready?” “Lower away!” such as were usual in operations of the kind.

Holding on by the door, Martin bent down and peered over the edge, careful to keep out of sight. The package that had been lowered rested on a sort of quay between the wall of the warehouse and the shored-up bank of the river. A man was disengaging it from the rope. When it was free he shook the rope as a signal that it might be drawn up, then hoisted the package on to a truck and wheeled it along the quay until he came to a short jetty. There he halted and lowered it over the side; evidently a boat was moored below. Apparently the tide was too low to allow of the boat’s drawing in nearer to the bank.

Meanwhile a second load came slowly down over the pulley, and reached the ground with a slight jolt. The man had not yet returned from the jetty with the truck. Martin wondered whether it would be possible to slide down the rope without attracting attention. The stars gave very little light, and the glow from the Fire was intercepted by the angle of the warehouse. The distance from the door to the ground was less than twenty feet.

Leaning out he cautiously tried the rope. It gave under a slight pull, showing that the man above was no longer holding it firmly. But he must have noticed the movement, for Martin heard a hoarse voice whisper, “Don’t pull the rope through the block, you fool!”

He shrank back into the room.

“Are you there?” whispered the voice again.

At this moment the man below reached the package on the ground.

“What’s the matter?” he growled.

“I said, don’t pull on the rope!” repeated the man above.

“Didn’t touch it!” responded the other gruffly.

There was an inaudible reply from the upper storey. The second load was discharged and trundled away, the rope again wound up, and by the time the man returned from the jetty a third package had been lowered.

By this time Martin had arrived at a conclusion. If he and Gundra were to escape by the rope, they must cling to it while it was descending weighted with a load, and while the man below was still absent at the jetty. There was the risk of their being discovered through the man at the pulley feeling the extra drag on the rope, or through the return of the other man while they were still suspended in the air. Even should they reach the ground safely, there was the further risk of their being intercepted, for they would have to pass the jetty on their left, and go through the lower floor of the warehouse, the quay on the right apparently ending at a high blank wall.

But it was clear that they must either face these risks, with a chance, however slight, of escaping, or remain as prisoners in the room, with the certainty that the breaking of their bonds would be discovered as soon as fat Sebastian paid them his next visit.

In rapid whispers Martin explained his plan to the Indian boy. Timid as Gundra had hitherto appeared, it was plain that ill-usage had not utterly broken his spirit, for he agreed eagerly to make the attempt, and promised to follow Martin’s instructions faithfully.

“I will go first,” said Martin, with the idea of giving Gundra confidence. “We can’t both go down with the same load. You must wait for the next, but don’t come down till you see I am safe.”

They waited, tingling with impatience and excitement, until once more a heavy package came swaying past the open door. As soon as it had descended below the sill, Martin took a firm hold of the rope and swung off. There was a louder creaking of the pulley above, a more violent oscillation of the load, a sudden quickening of the rate of descent; then the slow, even movement was resumed.

Martin glanced up. The pulley block hung from the wall above a similar door some twelve feet above. The man who operated the machine was not visible.

Martin slid down until his feet touched the package. The moment this reached the ground he slipped off and glided along the wall until he came to a shaded corner beyond the shore end of the jetty. There he drew back as far as possible into the shadow and waited.

“Are you there?” he heard the man in the upper room whisper huskily, and saw him lean over, holding on to the rope.

There was no answer. His mate was at that moment half-way back from the jetty, pushing the truck before him. A minute or so later, when he began to loose the package, the man above noticed the movement of the rope, and said:

“You there, Bob?”

“Ay! What’s up? In a hurry, ain’t you? You’ve got the easy job.”

“No call to be nasty! Have a care to stand from under when the loads are coming down. These old blocks are sticking. There was a mighty bad jolt just now. I don’t trust ’em.”

“All right; be there much more?”

“Half a dozen boxes or so.”

“I’m not sorry. The tide is making. I might as well wait a few minutes, then I can pull the barge up a bit and save all this hiking with the truck.”

Martin’s heart sank. If the man did as he suggested, Gundra would have no opportunity of escaping. But next moment he was reassured.

“’Tain’t safe,” said the man above. “Barge might stick in the mud, and tide take an hour or more to lift her. The sooner we get these things on board the better.”

While the men were talking the rope had been drawn up, and another load was fastened to it almost as soon as the man below had started to wheel the previous one away.

The pulley creaked, the package descended. Martin watched anxiously, wondering whether Gundra’s nerve would fail, whether the addition of his weight to the rope would cause the man this time to look over. He saw the slight form issue from the doorway and clutch the rope. Gundra was much lighter than Martin; the extra weight made scarcely any difference to the rate at which the rope descended. But Martin did not feel secure until the load bumped on the ground, and the Indian boy, running as lightly as a wild animal, reached his side.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH

MARTIN USES HIS WITS

Both the boys were panting a little, as much from excitement as from exertion. For a few moments they remained, silent and still, in the shadowy recess. Martin’s thoughts were busy with the new problem, how to make good their escape. They were free, but they were not at large.

“Shall we wait until the loading is finished?” Martin asked himself. “There are only a few more loads to come down, then the barge will put off. No doubt these men will leave, too, and we shall be able to get away at leisure.”

But as he pondered the matter he decided for immediate action. Convinced that the goods now being removed were stolen property, he was bent on saving it if that were possible, and the only obvious means of saving it was to inform someone in authority who would send officers of the law to arrest both goods and men. There was very little time. To win complete freedom was a matter of urgency.

“Come along,” Martin whispered when the man was once more busy at the jetty.

They crept along by the wall to the door of the warehouse. It was shut and bolted. On each side of it was a window, but the shutters were up, and heavily barred. It would be impossible even to attempt to force an entrance without making a noise that would bring the man hot-foot upon them.

Martin glanced this way and that. The quay on the landward side was entirely enclosed. It seemed that there was no exit from it except through the warehouse, and that was shut. They were trapped after all.

But there was the river. Could they escape by that? Was there, below the jetty, a wherry or any kind of row-boat in addition to the barge that was being loaded? Martin could not see one. Nor could they seize an opportunity and dive into the river, for beneath the shore end of the jetty there was nothing at low tide but liquid mud, probably deep enough to engulf them.

All at once the man’s remark about pulling the barge up recurred to Martin. An idea struck him that made his heart bound and his nerves tingle. He whispered a few words to Gundra, and anyone who could have observed them would have noticed how they braced themselves up.

The result of Martin’s inspiration showed itself when the man next left the barge and wheeled the truck back along the jetty and across the quay. As soon as his back was turned, they quitted their hiding-place and, stooping low, made a dash for the jetty, the sound of their movements being drowned by the noise of the rumbling wheels.

At the place where the jetty sprang from the quay they stopped, lowered themselves over the side, and slipped on to one of the cross-beams that supported the planking. There they crouched breathlessly. It was a perilous position, for the timber was slippery with slime, and they had to hug it closely to prevent their sliding off. There, clinging and crouching, they remained until the man had again come and gone.

As soon as the man was at a safe distance, they clambered up to the jetty, and crept along it on all fours until they came just above the barge. This was now well afloat, but it was moored stem and stern to posts on the jetty, as they saw by the light of a small oil-lamp standing on a tub amidships. Boxes were piled fore and aft.

The two boys slid down on to the barge by the rope by which the man had lowered the goods. Martin ran to the stern and tried to cast the aft mooring rope loose; but the knot was firm and the rope hard, and he had not succeeded when he heard the rumbling of the truck wheels along the quay. There was not time to complete the job before the man arrived. The urgent necessity at the moment was to hide and hope that he would not see them.

Together they crouched down in the narrow space between the piled boxes and the gunwale. With beating hearts they heard the rumbling draw nearer; the heavy tramp of the man; his mutterings as he heaved his load from the truck and lowered it to the deck of the barge. They held their breath. Would the man follow it? No; he swung it almost over their heads, and it settled with a bump a few feet short of them.

The moment the man retreated, Martin dashed back to the aft rope, struggled with the knot until he managed to cast it off, hastened forward and cast off the rope there likewise. The barge swung free. Against its gunwale lay the long heavy sweeps with which it was propelled. Martin attempted to lift one of these, but found it impossible to do so without Gundra’s help.

The barge was already lurching shoreward on the tide. In a few moments, unless its motion was checked, it would strike the mud, and then all hope of escape was lost. Holding the sweep between them, the boys drove it against the beams that supported the jetty, and tried to push off.