Part 6

It was four o'clock, and Tuesday afternoon--the day before the _Good Intent_ was to sail from the Pool. Desmond was kicking his heels in his inn, longing for the morrow. Even now he had not seen the vessel on which he was to set forth in quest of his fortune. She lay in the Pool, but Diggle had found innumerable reasons why Desmond should not visit her until he embarked for good and all. She was loading her cargo; he would be in the way. Captain Barker was in a bad temper; better not see him in his tantrums. The pressgangs were active; they thought nothing of boarding a vessel and seizing on any active young fellow who looked a likely subject for His Majesty's navy. Such were the reasons alleged. And so Desmond had to swallow his impatience and fill in his time as best he might; reading the newspapers, going to see Mr. Garrick and Mistress Kitty Clive at Drury Lane, spending an odd evening at Ranelagh Gardens.

On this Tuesday afternoon he had nothing to do. Diggle was out; Desmond had read the newspapers and glanced at the last number of the World; he had written to his mother--the third letter since his arrival in London; he could not settle to anything. He resolved to go for a walk, as far as St. Paul's, perhaps, and take a last look at the busy streets he was not likely to see again for many a day.

Forth then he issued. The streets were muddy; a mist was creeping up from the river, promising to thicken into a London fog, and the link-boys were already preparing their tow and looking for a rich harvest of coppers ere the night was old. Desmond picked his way through the quagmires of John Street, crossed Crutched Friars, and went up Mark Lane into Fenchurch Street, intending to go by Leadenhall Street and Cornhill into Cheapside.

He had just reached the lower end of Billiter Street, the narrow thoroughfare leading into Leadenhall, when he saw Diggle's tall figure running amain towards him, with another man close behind, apparently in hot pursuit. Diggle caught sight of Desmond at the same moment, and his eyes gleamed as with relief. He quickened his pace.

"Hold this fellow behind me," he panted as he passed, and before Desmond could put a question he was gone.

There was no time for deliberation. Desmond had but just perceived that the pursuer was in the garb of a gentleman and had a broad patch of plaster stretched across his left temple, when the moment for action arrived. Stooping low, he suddenly caught at the man's knees. Down he came heavily, mouthing hearty abuse, and man and boy were on the ground together.

Desmond was up first. He now saw that a second figure was hurrying on from the other end of the street. He was not sure what Diggle demanded of him; whether it was sufficient to have tripped up the pursuer, or whether he must hold him still in play. But by this time the man was also upon his feet; his hat was off, his silk breeches and brown coat with lace ruffles were all bemired. Puffing and blowing, uttering many a round oath such as came freely to the lips of the Englishman of King George the Second's time, he shouted to his friend behind to come on, and, disregarding Desmond, made to continue his pursuit.

Desmond could but grapple with him.

"Let go, villain!" cried the man, striving to free himself. Desmond clung on; there was a brief struggle, but he was no match in size or strength for his opponent, who was thick-set and of considerable girth. He fell backwards, overborne by the man's weight. His head struck on the road; dazed by the blow he loosened his clutch, and lay for a moment in semi-unconsciousness while the man sprang away.

But he was not so far gone as not to hear a loud shout behind him and near at hand, followed by the tramp of feet.

"Avast there!" The voice was familiar: surely it was Bulger's. "Fair play! Fourteen stone against seven en't odds. Show a leg, mateys."

The big sailor with a dozen of his mates stood full in the path of the irate gentleman, who, seeing himself beset, drew his rapier and prepared to fight his way through. A moment later he was joined by his companion, who had also drawn his rapier. Together the gentlemen stood facing the sailors.

"This is check, Merriman," said the last comer as the seamen, flourishing their hangers menacingly, pressed forward past the prostrate body of Desmond. "The fellow has escaped you; best withdraw at discretion."

"Come on," shouted Bulger, waving his hook. "Bill Bulger en't the man to sheer off from a couple of landlubbers."

As with his mates in line he steadily advanced, the two gentlemen, their lips set, their eyes fixed on the assailants, their rapiers pointed, backed slowly up the street. The noise had brought clerks and merchants to the doors; some one sprang a rattle; there were cries for the watchmen; but no one actively interfered. Meanwhile Desmond had regained his senses, and, still feeling somewhat dizzy, had sat down upon a doorstep, wondering not a little at the pursuit and flight of Diggle and the opportune arrival of the sailors. Everything had happened very rapidly; scarcely two minutes had elapsed since the first onset.

He was still resting when there was a sudden change in the quality of the shouts up street. Hitherto they had been boisterous rallying cries, now they were unmistakably hearty British cheers, expressing nothing but approval and admiration. And they came not merely from the throats of the sailors, but from the now considerable crowd that filled the street. A few moments afterwards he saw the throng part, and through it Bulger marching at the head of his mates, singing lustily. They came opposite to the step on which he sat, and Bulger caught sight of him.

"Blest if it en't our supercargo!" he cried, stopping short.

A shout of laughter broke from the sailors. One of them struck up a song.

Oho! we says good-bye, But never pipes our eye, Tho' we leaves Poll, Sue, and Kitty all behind us; And if we drops our bones Down along o' Davy Jones, Why, they'll come and ax the mermaids for to find us.

"And what took ye, Mister Supercargo, to try a fall with the fourteen stoner?"

"Oh, I was helping a friend."

"Ay, an' a friend was helpin' him, an' here's a dozen of us a-helpin' of one supercargo."

"And I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Bulger. But what were you cheering for?"

"Cheerin'! Why, you wouldn't guess. 'Twas General Clive, matey."

"General Clive!"

"Ay, General Clive, him what chased the mounseers out o' Fort St. George with a marlin-spike. I didn't know him at fust, comin' up behind t'other chap; but when I seed that purple coat with the gold lace and the face of him above it I knowed him. In course there was no more fight for us then; 'twas hip-hip hurray and up with our hangers. Clive, he smiled and touched his hat. 'Bulger,' says he, 'you en't much fatter----'"

"Does he know you, then?"

"Know me! In course he does. Wasn't I bo'sun's mate on board the Indiaman as took him east twelve year ago or more? That was afore I got this here button-hook o' mine. Ay, I remember him well, a-trampin' up an' down deck with his hands in his pockets an' his mouth set tight an' his chin on his stock, never speakin' to a soul, in the doldrums if ever a lad was. Why, we all thought there was no more spirit in him than in the old wooden figure-head--leastways, all but me. 'I may be wrong,' says I to old Tinsley the bo'sun, 'I may be wrong,' says I, 'but I be main sure that young sad down-in-the-mouth have got a blazin' fire somewhere in his innards.' Ay, and time showed it. There was a lot of cadets aboard as poked fun at the quiet chap an' talked him over, awinkin' their eyes. From talkin' it got to doin'. One day, goin' to his bunk, he found it all topsy-versy, hair powder on his pillow, dubbin in his shavin' cup, salt pork wropt up in his dressin'-gown. Well, I seed him as he comed on deck, an' his face were a sight to remember, pale as death, but his eyes a-blazin' like live coals in the galley fire. Up he steps to the cadet as was ringleader; how he knowed it I can't tell you, but he was sure of it, same as I always am. 'Sir,' says he, quiet as a lamb, 'I want a word with you.' 'Dear me!' says the cadet, 'have Mr. Clive found his voice at last?' 'Yes, sir,' says Clive, 'behave, an' something else.' Cook happened to be passin' with a tray; a lady what was squeamish had been havin' her vittles on deck. Mr. Clive cotched up a basin o' pea soup what was too greasy for madam, and in a twink he sets it upside down on the cadet's head. Ay, 'twas a pretty pictur', the greasy yellow stuff runnin' down over his powdered hair an' lace collar an' fine blue coat. My eye! there was a rare old shindy, the cadet cursin' and splutterin', the others laughin' fit to bust 'emselves. The cadet out with his fists, but there, 'twas no manner o' use. Mr. Clive bowled him over like a ninepin till he lay along deck all pea-soup an' gore. There was no more baitin' o' Mr. Clive that voyage. 'Bo'sun,' says I, 'what did I tell you? I may be wrong, but that young Mr. Bob Clive 'll be a handful for the factors in Fort St. George.'"

While this narrative had been in progress, Desmond was walking with Bulger and his mates back towards the river.

"How was it you happened to be hereabouts so early?" asked Desmond. "I didn't expect to see you till to-morrow."

Bulger winked.

"You wouldn't ax if you wasn't a landlubber, meanin' no offence," he said. "'Tis last night ashore. We sailormen has had enough o' _Waterman's Rests_ an' such-like. To tell you the truth, we gave Mr. Toley the slip, and now we be goin' to have a night at the _Crown an' Anchor_."

"What about the pressgang?"

"We takes our chance. They won't press me, sartin sure, 'cos o' my tenter-hook here, and I'll keep my weather-eye open, trust me for that."

Here they parted company. Desmond watched the jolly crew as they turned into the Minories, and heard their rollicking chorus:

Ho! when the cargo's shipped, An' the anchor's neatly tripped, An' the gals are weepin' bucketfuls o' sorrer, Why, there's the decks to swab, An' we en't agoin' to sob, S'pose the sharks do make a meal of us to-morrer.

At the _Goat and Compasses_ Diggle was awaiting him.

"Ha! my friend, you did it as prettily as a man could wish. 'Solitudo aliquid adjuvat,' as Tully somewhere hath it, not foreseeing my case, when solitude would have been my undoing. I thank thee."

"Was the fellow attacking you?" asked Desmond.

"That to be sure was his intention. I was in truth in the very article of peril; I was blown; my breath was near gone, when at the critical moment up comes a gallant youth--'subvenisti homini jam perdito'--and with dexterous hand stays the enemy in his course."

"But what was it all about? Do you know the man?"

"Ods my life! 'twas a complete stranger, a man, I should guess, of hasty passions and tetchy temper. By the merest accident, at a somewhat crowded part, I unluckily elbowed the man into the kennel, and though I apologized in the handsomest way he must take offence and seek to cut off my life, to extinguish me 'in primo aevo,' as Naso would say. But Atropos was forestalled, my thread of life still falls uncut from Clotho's shuttle; still, still, my boy, I bear on the torch of life unextinguished."

Desmond felt that all this fine phrasing, this copious draught from classical sources, was intended to quench the ardour of his curiosity. Diggle's explanation was very lame; the fury depicted on the pursuer's face could scarcely be due to a mere accidental jostling in the street. And Diggle was certainly not the man to take to his heels on slight occasion. But after all Diggle's quarrels were his own concern. That his past life included secrets Desmond had long suspected, but he was not the first man of birth and education who had fallen into misfortune, and at all events he had always treated Desmond with kindness. So the boy put the matter from his thoughts.

The incident, however, left a sting of vexation behind it. In agreeing to accompany Diggle to the East, Desmond had harboured a vague hope of falling in with Clive and taking service, in however humble a capacity, with him. It vexed him sorely to think that Clive, whose memory for faces, as his recognition of Bulger after twelve years had shown, was very good, might recognize him, should they meet, as the boy who had played a part in what was almost a street brawl. Still, it could not be helped. Desmond comforted himself with the hope that Clive had taken no particular note of him, and, if they should ever encounter, would probably meet him as a stranger.

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

*In which several weeks are supposed to elapse; and our hero is discovered in the Doldrums.*

The _Good Intent_ lay becalmed in the Doldrums. There was not wind enough to puff out a candle flame. The sails hung limp and idle from the masts, yet the vessel rolled as in a storm, heaving on a tremendous swell so violently that it would seem her masts must be shaken out of her. The air was sweltering, the sky the colour of burnished copper, out of which the sun beat remorselessly in almost perpendicular beams. Pitch ran from every seam of the decks, great blisters like bubbles rose upon the woodwork; the decks were no sooner swabbed than--presto!--it was as though they had not known the touch of water for an age.

For two weeks she had lain thus. Sometimes the hot day would be succeeded by a night of terrible storm, thunder crashing around, the whole vault above lacerated by lightning, and rain pouring, as it were out of the fissures, in sheets. But in a day all traces of the storm would disappear, and if, meanwhile, a sudden breath of wind had carried the vessel a few knots on her southward course, the hopes thus raised would prove illusory, and once more she would lie on a sea of molten lead, or, still worse, would be rocked on a long swell that had all the discomforts of a gale without its compensating excitement.

The tempers of officers and crew had gone from bad to worse. The officers snapped and snarled at one another, and treated the men with even more than the customary brutality of the merchant marine of those days. The crew, lounging about half-naked on the decks, seeking what shelter they could get from the pitiless sun, with little to do and no spirit to do anything, quarrelled among themselves, growling at the unnecessary tasks set them merely to keep them from flying at each others' throats.

The _Good Intent_ was a fine three-masted vessel of nearly 400 tons, large for those days, though the new East Indiamen approached 500 tons. When her keel was laid for the Honourable East India Company some twenty years earlier, she had been looked on as one of the finest merchant vessels afloat; but the buffeting of wind and wave in a dozen voyages to the eastern seas, and the more insidious and equally destructive attacks of worms and dry-rot, had told upon her timbers. She had been sold off and purchased by Captain Barker, who was one of the class known as "interlopers," men who made trading voyages to the East Indies on their own account, running the risk of their vessels being seized and themselves penalized for infringing the Company's monopoly. She was now filled with a miscellaneous cargo: wine in chests, beer and cider in bottles, hats, worsted stockings, wigs, small shot, lead, iron, knives, glass, hubble-bubbles, cochineal, sword-blades, toys, coarse cloth, woollen goods--anything that would find a market among the European merchants, the native princes, or the trading classes of India. There was also a large consignment of muskets and ammunition. When Desmond asked the second mate where they were going, the reply was that if he asked no questions he would be told no lies.

On this sultry afternoon a group of seamen, clad in nothing but shirt and breeches, were lolling, lying, crouching on the deck forward, circled around Bulger. Seated on an upturned tub, he was busily engaged in baiting a hook. Tired of the "Irish horse" and salt pork that formed the staple of the sailors' food, he was taking advantage of the calm to fish for bonitos, a large fish over two feet long, the deadly enemy of the beautiful flying-fish that every now and then fell panting upon the deck in their mad flight from marine foes. The bait was made to resemble the flying-fish itself, the hook being hidden by white rag-stuffing, with feathers pricked-in to counterfeit spiked fins.

As the big seaman deftly worked with iron hook and right hand, he spun yarns for the delectation of his mates. They chewed tobacco, listened, laughed, sneered, as their temper inclined them. Only one of the group gave him rapt and undivided attention--a slim youth, with hollow sunburnt cheeks, long bleached hair, and large gleaming eyes. His neck and arms were bare, and the colour of boiled lobsters; but, unlike the rest, he had no tattoo-marks pricked into his skin. His breeches were tatters, his striped shirt was covered with parti-coloured darns.

"Ay, as I was saying," said Bulger, "'twas in these latitudes, on my last voyage but three. I was in a Bristol ship a-carryin' of slaves from Guinea to the plantations. Storms!--I never seed such storms nowhere; and, contrairywise, calms enough to make a Quaker sick. In course the water was short, an' scurvy come aboard, an' 'twas a hammock an' a round shot for one or other of us every livin' day. As reg'lar as the mornin' watch the sharks came for their breakfast; we could see 'em comin' from all p'ints o' the compass; an' sure as seven bells struck there they was, ten deep, with jaws wide open, like Parmiter's there when there's a go of grog to be sarved out. We was all like the livin' skellington at Bartlemy Fair, and our teeth droppin' out that fast, they pattered like hailstones on the deck."

"How did you stick 'em in again?" interrupted Parmiter, anxious to get even with Bulger for the allusion to his gaping jaw. He was a thick-set, ugly fellow, his face seamed with scars, his mouth twisted, his ears dragged at the lobes by heavy brass rings.

"With glue made out of albicores we caught, to be sure. Well, as I was saying, we was so weak there wasn't a man aboard could reach the maintop, an' the man at the wheel had two men to hold him up. Things was so, thus, an' in such case, when, about eight bells one arternoon, the look-out at the mast-head----"

"Thought you couldn't climb? How'd he get there?" said the same sceptic.

"Give me time, Parmiter, and you'll know all about the hows an' whys, notwithstanding and sobeits. He'd been there for a week, for why? 'cos he couldn't get down. We passed him up a quarter-pint o' water and a biscuit or two every day by a halyard. Well, as I was sayin', all at once the look-out calls down, 'Land ho!'--leastways he croaked it, 'cos what with weakness and little water our throats was as dry as last year's biscuit. 'Where away?' croaks first mate, which I remember his name was Tonking. And there, sure enough, we seed a small island, which it might be a quarter-mile long. Now, mind you, we hadn't made a knot for three weeks. How did that island come there so sudden like? In course, it must ha' come up from the bottom o' the sea. And as we was a-lookin' at it we seed it grow, mateys--long spits o' land shootin' out this side, that side, and t'other side--and the whole concarn begins to move towards us, comin' on, hand over hand, slow, dead slow, but sure and steady. Our jaws were just a-droppin' arter our teeth when fust mate busts out in a laugh; by thunder, I remember that there laugh to-day! 'twas like--well, I don't know what 'twas like, if not the scrapin' of a handsaw; an' says he, 'By Neptune, 'tis a darned monstrous squid!' And, sure enough, that was what it was, a squid as big round as the Isle o' Wight, with arms that ud reach from Wapping Stairs to Bugsby Marshes, and just that curly shape. An' what was more, 'twas steerin' straight for us. Ay, mateys, 'twas a horrible moment!"

The seamen, even Parmiter the scoffer, were listening open-mouthed when a hoarse voice broke the spell, cutting short Bulger's story and dispersing the group.

"Here you, Burke you, up aloft and pay the topmast with grease. I'll have no lazy lubbers aboard my ship, I tell you. I've got no use for nobody too good for his berth. No Jimmy Duffs for me! Show a leg, or, by heavens, I'll show you a rope's end and make my mark--mind that, my lad!"

Captain Barker turned to the man at his side.

"'Twas an ill turn you did me and the ship's company, Mr. Diggle, bringing this useless lubber aboard."

"It does appear so, captain," said Diggle sorrowfully. "But 'tis his first voyage, sir: discipline--a little discipline!"

Meanwhile Desmond, without a word, had moved away to obey orders. He had long since found the uselessness of protest. Diggle had taken him on board the _Good Intent_ an hour before sailing. He left him to himself until the vessel was well out in the mouth of the Thames, and then came with a rueful countenance and explained that, after all his endeavours, the owners had absolutely refused to accept so youthful a fellow as supercargo. Desmond felt his cheeks go pale.

"What am I to be, then?" he asked quietly.

"Well, my dear boy, Captain Barker is rather short of apprentices, and he has no objection to taking you in place of one if you will make yourself useful. He is a first-rate seaman. You will imbibe a vast deal of useful knowledge and gain a free passage, and when we reach the Indies I shall be able, I doubt not, by means of my connexions, to assist you in the first steps of what, I trust, will prove a successful career."

"Then who is supercargo?"

"Unluckily that greatness has been thrust upon me. Unluckily, I say; for the office is not one that befits a former fellow of King's College at Cambridge. Yet there is an element of good luck in it, too; for, as you know, my fortunes were at a desperately low ebb, and the emoluments of this office, while not great, will stand me in good stead when we reach our destination, and enable me to set you, my dear boy--to borrow from the vernacular--on your legs."

"You have deceived me, then!"

"Nay, nay, you do bear me hard, young man. To be disappointed is not the same thing as to be deceived. True, you are not, as I hoped, supercargo, but the conditions are not otherwise altered. You wished to go to India--well, Zephyr's jocund breezes, as Catullus hath it, will waft you thither: we are flying to the bright cities of the East. No fragile bark is this, carving a dubious course through the main, as Seneca, I think, puts it. No, 'tis an excellent vessel, with an excellent captain, who will steer a certain course, who fears not the African blast nor the grisly Hyades nor the fury of Notus----"

Desmond did not wait the end of Diggle's peroration. It was too late to repine. The vessel was already rounding the Foreland, and though he was more than half convinced that he had been decoyed on board on false pretences, he could not divine any motive on Diggle's part, and hoped that his voyage would be not much less pleasant than he had anticipated.

But even before the _Good Intent_ made the Channel he was woefully undeceived. His first interview with the captain opened his eyes. Captain Barker was a small, thin, sandy man, with a large upper lip that met the lower in a straight line, a lean nose, and eyes perpetually bloodshot. His manner was that of a bully of the most brutal kind. He browbeat his officers, cuffed and kicked his men, in his best days a martinet, in his worst a madman. The only good point about him was that he never used the cat, which, as Bulger said, was a mercy.