Chapter the Sixteenth A Packet for Rusco
During many hours Dick had been solely preoccupied with the problem how to recross the chasm. Penwarden, the smugglers, even the destroyer of the bridge, were all forgotten. But now all the circumstances of his recent misadventure returned with full force to his mind. A run was to be attempted. The smugglers’ hiding-place, which the revenue officers had sought in vain, must be somewhere near at hand, and the person, whosoever it was, that had flung the bridge down the shaft—for its fall could not have been accidental—had done so with the intention of forestalling interference.
Dick considered what he had better do. Should he make his way back to the well, in the hope of being able to climb it secretly and give warning to the officers? He reflected that it might be too late for that. Besides, his presence in these underground passages had been observed by some one early in the morning; that same person might still be lying in wait for him. As this idea occurred to him, he remembered that he had left his gun behind in the cave, and for an instant thought of returning for it; but a slight sound from the other direction made him hastily extinguish the candle, and advance cautiously along the passage; perhaps the bridge-destroyer was coming towards him.
In pitch darkness he stole along, scarcely conscious of the sharp edges and rough projections of the stone floor on which he trod. In a few minutes he saw a faint glimmer of reflected light ahead, the source of which was hidden from him by a bend in the passage. On reaching the bend, he descried, moving across the end of the gallery along a transverse one, a procession of men with candles in their hats, hurrying, at short intervals apart, from the direction of the well. Clinging to the wall, confident that in the black darkness he was wholly invisible, he crept forward. By the time he came within a few yards of the transverse passage, this, too, was in darkness, the last of the line having passed by.
He hastened to the corner, and peeped round to the right. The last man was entering the narrow tunnel, which he had noticed casually as he came by with Sam. The dimness of the flickering light, and the fact that the man’s back was towards him, prevented him from forming any conclusion as to the identity of the individual. The light gradually dwindled, until the opening of the tunnel was quite indistinguishable.
Waiting for a moment or two, to listen and look along the passage leading to the well, Dick ventured to creep stealthily in the same direction as the men, and to penetrate into the tunnel. He had advanced in this but a few yards, when he was made to beat a hasty retreat by a faint but growing light at the further end, and the sound of heavy footsteps approaching. As quickly as possible he tiptoed back in the darkness, and regained his former station in the side gallery, where he stood eagerly watching. In a few moments a man crossed from right to left. His face was blackened; before and behind him hung a tub, exactly similar to those which Sam had lately broken up. A second man followed at a short interval, loaded in the same way; then a third, and so on, until twenty-two had passed. They seemed by their dress to be for the most part farm-hands, but the light from their candles was too dim to reveal them clearly.
The light diminished, the sound of footsteps died away, and Dick, emerging once more into the passage, saw the end of the procession on the way to the well. From the other direction there was no sound. Dick felt an overmastering curiosity to discover how the run was being worked, and whence the tubs were brought. He hastened to the tunnel, paused for a little at the entrance, straining his ears for the slightest sound of men returning, then went on.
After a few steps he heard a slight creaking from some point ahead. A glance behind assuring him that there was no present danger in this direction, he was emboldened to proceed. There was a sudden bend in the tunnel; at the far end he saw a light; and, hugging the wall as closely as possible, he crept forward until the scene beyond was clearly in view.
He found himself near the entrance to a small oblong chamber, perhaps twenty feet by sixteen, and scarcely eight feet high. The walls were shored up by thick balks of wood: the roof was supported by rough beams. The place was dimly illuminated by two lanterns standing on the top of a pile of barrels that reached within two feet of the roof. At the far end a man was working a windlass over a hole in the floor. Two barrels, slung on ropes, emerged from the depths, were unhooked by the man, and rolled against the wall on the other side of the chamber. A whiff of cold salt air struck gratefully on Dick’s senses; the smugglers’ mysterious hiding-place was clearly very near the sea.
Dick was watching the man lower the hooks into the space beneath when he was startled by the sound of footsteps at no great distance behind him. Looking back, he saw a glimmer of light. Regress was barred; in a few moments he would be discovered unless he could find a new place of concealment. There was no time for hesitation. The back of the man at the windlass was towards him; the tackle creaked as more tubs ascended. In the corner of the chamber to the right was the stack of barrels on which the lanterns stood. There appeared to be just squeezing space between them and the wall. With his heart in his mouth Dick stole across to them on tiptoe, and had barely gained their shelter when the man released the tubs which had just ascended, and added them to those that were arranged along the opposite wall.
As Dick was creeping between the barrels and the wall, his foot touched an obstacle, over which he almost stumbled. Fortunately, having no boots on, he made no sound. He stood still, panting, in desperate anxiety. In the urgency of the moment he had made for the first hiding-place that offered itself, without reflecting that the carriers were no doubt returning for these very barrels, and their removal must reveal him without a possibility of escape. A thrill shot through him as he felt a slight movement in the object at his feet, and he edged instinctively away from it, wondering what it could be. The light from the lanterns did not reach the floor; indeed, scarcely illuminated the space behind, they being closed in that direction.
He heard the footsteps drawing nearer, and, peeping through a chink between two barrels, saw, not one, but the whole twenty-two carriers file into the chamber, which they nearly filled. He suspected that they had deposited their burdens at the foot of St. Cuby’s Well, whence, in all probability, these were being hoisted to the surface by means of the windlass, which he remembered having seen near the door when he first approached it from the seal cave.
The man at the windlass had raised only a few barrels during their absence, and these having been slung on the shoulders of the men who had first entered, they returned to the entrance of the tunnel, waiting for their comrades in turn to receive their loads.
“Bean’t this lot to go, Maister?” said one of the latter, jerking his head towards the stack behind which Dick was concealed. Dick shivered, and prepared to dash forth and force his way through the men grouped at the tunnel, in the hope that their surprise and alarm, and their being encumbered, would give him time at least to escape instant seizure. To his relief the man at the windlass replied sharply:
“No, they bean’t. They be for the higher powers; let ’em alone. And you come and hoist; I be tired.”
The voice was Doubledick’s.
While the tubs were being hoisted, and the waiting men talked quietly among themselves, Dick had leisure to turn his thoughts towards the object at his feet. It could hardly be an animal; otherwise it would long since have betrayed him. He gently moved a foot towards it, and touched it. Again he detected a slight movement. Passing his stockinged toes over a few inches of the obstruction, Dick gave a start as he recognised by the touch a man’s boot. It did not move when he pressed it: clearly it was attached to a leg, the leg to a body—and the conviction flashed upon him that, bound and gagged at his feet, lay the lost Joe Penwarden. To assure himself he bent down quickly, and felt his way upward to the face. His hand encountered the shade over the old man’s sightless eye: it was Joe indeed.
Penwarden was lying on his back, and Dick very soon discovered that he was bound hand and foot to a plank, so tightly that only the slightest movement was possible. His mouth was heavily gagged, but there was no bandage over his single sound eye. Dick could not see him, and durst not speak even in the lowest whisper, so near was he to the smugglers. But if Penwarden was to be liberated he must be definitely assured in some way that a friend was at work who was himself in danger; otherwise, on being freed, he might make some sound or movement that would betray them both. Then it occurred to Dick that, while he was unable to see Penwarden’s features, Penwarden had probably seen his, for the lanterns shed a faint illumination on the upper part of the space behind the barrels, to which his head almost reached. This suggested a means of giving the old man a warning. Raising himself to his full height he looked downwards and pressed his forefinger to his lips. The sign, if observed, would, he knew, be effectual.
Once more he stooped. He drew his knife from his pocket, opened it without clicking, and silently cut the rope binding the prisoner’s feet. Then, working upward, always with the same slow care, he severed in turn the ropes that strapped his knees and elbows to the plank, those binding his wrists, and finally the gag over his mouth. This last probably gave the old man the most discomfort, and might have been removed first, but the use of his limbs was of more urgent importance just now than his voice.
By the time that this was done the last of the carriers had received his load, and the creaking or the windlass had ceased.
“That’s all,” said Doubledick. “Now get ’ee up-along to well, and lend a hand in the hoisting.”
“Be we to wait for ’ee, Maister, when the tubs be all up?” asked a man.
“No, no. You’ll do best to carr’ the tubs off as quick as may be. I’ll go straight home-along. To-morrer mornin’, after church, if ye like ye can come down-along to inn, where there’ll be a nibleykin of rum-hot ready for every man of ’ee.”
The carriers tramped into the tunnel, and the sound of their footsteps died away.
A voice came up into the chamber from below.
“Iss,” said Doubledick in reply. “Stand by while I let down the passel. Belike ye know enough English to understand that.”
Dick fancied that he heard a low chuckle from below, and a foreign voice say, “All right.”
Doubledick had already begun to clear away the barrels at the end of the stack nearest to the windlass. It was plain that what he had got to do was a secret between himself and the men below; the tub-carriers were ignorant of it. Dick moved silently to the other end of the stack, the place where he had entered, and gazed round to watch the innkeeper’s proceedings. Even now, though there appeared to be no danger of detection, the upper part of his face remained covered with a mask. He had removed the lanterns, and placed them on the floor; several of the top row of barrels had been lifted down. His object, without doubt, was to drag Penwarden forth, and lower him by means of the windlass to the men waiting beneath. Dick felt sure that these were the French crew of the lugger that had brought the cargo, and that the “parcel” they were expecting was the old exciseman, whom they were to carry to France.
The innkeeper’s pre-occupation was Dick’s opportunity. In another second or two the cutting of the prisoner’s bonds must be discovered. As Doubledick was rolling a barrel towards the wall, Dick, moving silently on his almost bare feet, rushed like a whirlwind on the man. Doubledick at that moment made a half-turn, as if some instinct warned him of danger, but he was too late to prevent Dick from getting a suffocating grip round his neck. He gasped, groaned, struggled frantically to free himself. Both fell to the floor, knocking over one of the lanterns, and rolling perilously near the open trapdoor. Dick never let go his grip on the inn-keeper’s throat, for it was necessary to prevent the men below from suspecting that anything was amiss.
Meanwhile Penwarden had scrambled painfully to his feet, and limped towards the scene of the struggle. His limbs, cramped and numbed by his bonds, were as yet almost powerless. But seeing Doubledick’s legs for an instant disentangled from those of his assailant, the old man suddenly threw himself across them, pinning Doubledick to the floor, and so putting an end to his struggles. Dick raised himself, keeping his hands on the man’s throat. The heaving and writhing ceased.
While Dick still held him down, Penwarden hobbled behind the barrels, carrying a lantern, found the gag that had been used on himself, and brought it back to turn it to account with Doubledick. His own hands were still too much numbed to tie an effective knot, but he held the gag between Doubledick’s teeth while Dick made it fast.
All this time there had come through the hole in the floor the murmur of voices. Without relaxing his grip, Dick leant over and peered down. He was just able to see that a boat lay beneath; the hole was vertically above the sea.
“Ah, mon Dieu!” cried one of the boat’s crew, perceiving Dick’s head, “ven come ze—ze packet?”
Dick withdrew.
“Answer,” he said to Penwarden.
The old man tried to speak, but could give utterance only to a hoarse whisper. Whereupon Dick, in a voice intended to be an imitation of Doubledick’s, replied:
“In a minute.”
His imitation was so entirely unsuccessful that he durst not say more.
The Frenchman’s question had suggested a means of dealing with Doubledick. In attacking him, Dick had no definite plan in his mind for subsequent action. He was concerned only to prevent Penwarden from being lowered through the trapdoor. But now that Doubledick was in his power, it struck him that it would be simple justice to serve him as he had intended to serve Penwarden. He whispered the suggestion to the old man, who received it with a low chuckle.
“But they fellers down below will know un,” he murmured.
“Will they? They are French; Doubledick has never been to France. They won’t remove the gag, probably, until they are well out to sea, and if I know them, they won’t put back and run the risk of meeting the cutter, even if they do discover their mistake.”
“Ze packet, ze packet!” came the impatient cry from below.
No more time was lost. The cords that had bound Penwarden were useless, but there was plenty of sling-stuff on the tubs, and in a few seconds enough was slipped off for the purpose. Both Dick and the exciseman were used to handling rope, and though the latter’s fingers were still somewhat numb, he was able to lend some feeble assistance to Dick in securing Doubledick to the plank. At the end of this there was a hook. They attached this to the rope over the windlass, and prepared to lower the innkeeper to the hands waiting below.
At the last moment Penwarden slipped off the crepe mask that still covered Doubledick’s face.
“Look ’ee, Maister Dick,” he said hoarsely. “You can swear to the feller, so can I. You be goin’ to Rusco, you miserable sinner, and if so be you ever come back, I’ll swear an information against ’ee for unlawful detainin’ of one o’ the King’s lieges, and Maister Dick will kiss the Book and bear testimony. Good-bye to ’ee, and may the Lord ha’ mercy on yer soul.”
They let the frenzied man down through the trapdoor, and heard guffaws of laughter from the Frenchmen as they received their expected packet. The boat pulled off towards a lugger that lay a few cables’ lengths from the cliff. The prisoner was hauled up the side; the men climbed on board and hoisted the boat in; and in a few minutes the lugger disappeared into the darkness.
It was not the time to enter upon explanations on either side. Penwarden was eager to follow up the tub-carriers, Dick to release Sam. When the exciseman heard of the boy’s situation, he yielded with a sigh, and considered with Dick a means of bringing Sam across the shaft. They were not long in deciding that the best plan would be to make use of the quantities of rope at hand, and form a running tackle by which the boy might be drawn over. This was soon done, and taking one of the lanterns, they hastened back to the scene.
“Hoy, Maister, be that thee?” cried Sam out of the darkness when he saw the approaching light.
“Yes, and Mr. Penwarden is with me. We are coming to bring you away.”
“Praise and glory be! I did think I’d never see daylight again. Have ’ee got a true and proper bridge?”
“You’ll see. Run back to the cave and bring two staves and our guns.”
They waited at the brink of the shaft until Sam reappeared.
“Now drive the staves into the floor,” cried Dick.
“I can’t. It be hard stone.”
“Well then, go back to the cave again and bring some of those big pieces of rock on the floor.”
Sam went obediently. Instructed by Dick, he arranged a number of the rocks, four or five feet deep, to form a sort of platform.
“Now knot this rope to the staves,” said Dick, flinging it across. “Put it behind the rocks, and pile more rocks on top to hold it down.”
While this was being done, he made the other end of the double rope fast to a large boulder near the head of the shaft.
“Now, Sam, all you have to do is to clasp the rope and let yourself down. We will do the rest.”
“Be it firm and steady?” asked the boy anxiously.
Dick hauled on the rope; it was held firm by the rocks.
“There, you see ’tis quite safe. All you want is a little courage; it will not take half a minute to get you across.”
“I’ll send summat fust to prove it,” said Sam.
He withdrew a few paces into the passage, and returned, carrying a long, flat box. This he hitched to the rope.
“Haul away, Maister Dick, and let me see wi’ my own eyes.”
The box was drawn to the further side in a few moments.
“Now are you satisfied?” asked Dick.
“Iss, fay; and I’ve some more boxes that had better go fust.”
Four boxes and the two guns were hauled across before Sam consented to venture himself, and then only because he feared he could carry no more when he got to the other side.
“‘T’ud be a sin,” he said, “to leave all these silks and satins behind.”
“How do you know the boxes contain silks and satins?”
“‘Cos I opened ’em and felt ’em in the dark. ’Twas like strokin’ a cat’s back, wi’out no fear o’ scratches. You’ll be sure and not let me drop into the pit, Maister?”
“Yes. Come along; I want my supper.”
“Be-jowned, and so do I. Here I come.”
He grasped the rope, let himself gently down, and was hauled to the other side.
“Oh, Maister Penwarden,” he cried as he landed, “I be ’nation glad to see ’ee safe and sound. Wheer have ’ee been all this time? You have gied us all a terrible deal o’ trouble.”
Penwarden growled.
“Never mind about that, Sam,” said Dick. “Our trouble is well repaid, and we had better get home as soon as we can.”
“True. If you go first and turn the lantern so’s it do gie me a light, I’ll be able to carr’ these boxes wi’out tumblin’ and breakin’ my head. So for home-along.”
On the homeward way Dick related his adventure. The old man said nothing until he heard of the discovery of lace and silks.
“Ah!” said he, “and these boxes that young Sam be carr’in’ on his head are filled with silks and laces, I s’pose.”
“Iss, fay,” cried Sam exultantly, “and noble gowns and pinnies they will make, to be sure.”
“Well,” said Penwarden, “then I seize ’em in the King’s name.”
“Rake it all!” exclaimed Sam. “Did the King buy ’em? Did he bury ’em? Did he find ’em? No, the King be a good man, but ’a never did no free-tradin’ in his life, I reckon, and we won’t part with ’em, will we, Maister Dick?”
“I know my duty,” said Penwarden, “and seized they be. Resist at yer peril.”
“Daze me if I don’t wish ye’d been carr’d to France,” cried Sam. “Arter what we’ve been through for ’ee, too!”
A wordy war ensued that lasted until they reached the door of the Towers, where the boxes were deposited for the night. It required a peremptory command from Mr. Polwhele next day to induce Penwarden to relinquish his claim on them, the old man then being more than ever convinced that the world was a strange mix-up.