CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SIXTH
Martin was only partly conscious of what he passed through during the next minute, and not at all aware of the risks he ran.
The old timber house had ignited from the top; the roof had burnt through, and blazing fragments, falling on to the landings below, had set fire to the walls and the floors. Already the flames were eating away the stairs, and Martin, groping his way up through the smoke and by the aid of the banisters, was awakened to realities by a sudden sharp stinging pain as his hand touched a place that was on fire.
“Mounseer! Mounseer!” he called as he bounded up.
There was no answer.
He reached the landing at the top of the first flight. Through the Frenchman’s open doorway, a little way to the right, thick grey smoke was pouring. Moment by moment red-hot splinters crashed down upon the landing, and from above came the roar and crackle of the devouring flames.
“Mounseer!” Martin shouted; then caught his breath and coughed as the acrid smoke filled his throat.
His smarting eyes streamed with water. Half blinded, he pressed his lips firmly together and dashed across the landing into the open doorway. The room was thick with smoke: for a moment Martin was compelled to close his eyes; when he opened them again he saw flames bursting through the ceiling. Part of a blazing rafter fell at his feet, and he staggered back as innumerable sparks flew up in his face.
“Mounseer! Mounseer!” he spluttered.
There was no sound but the ever-growing roar of the flames.
Guessing from the denseness of the smoke that the windows were closed, unable to see anything clearly, Martin in desperation caught up a small stool which he had touched with his feet and hurled it in the direction of the window overlooking the waste ground at the back. There was a crash of breaking glass; the smoke began to pour out through the shattered pane, and taking advantage of the immediate lightening of the air Martin started to grope round the room in search of the Frenchman.
He stumbled against the table, knocked his shins against the edge of the bed, felt across it with his hands: there was no sign of Mounseer. Finding that he could breathe more freely near the floor he dropped on his hands and knees and began to crawl, wincing every now and then as he touched a fragment of burning wood.
He made for the cupboard in the corner, thinking that Mounseer might have been overpowered by the smoke as he stood to save some of his few possessions there. But there was no sign of him in the corner. He worked back, and had almost completed the tour of the room when, behind the door, he stumbled upon something hard. It was the sole of a shoe. In another moment he knew that the body of the Frenchman was stretched along the floor close against the wall.
Raising himself, he seized Mounseer’s feet and tried to drag him out upon the landing. But suddenly his strength failed: overcome by the smoke he fell gasping across the prostrate body, and lay for a few moments in a state of collapse.
Collecting himself with a great effort, he struggled to his feet and managed to pull the inert form as far as the doorway before once more faintness overtook him, and again he fell.
He tried to shout for help, but only a feeble croak issued from his parched lips. A terrible fear assailed him: if a few minutes’ immersion in the smoke could rob him of his strength, how must it be with the Frenchman, who had been so much longer exposed? Was he too late? Was the old gentleman past help?
The thought nerved him to one more effort. He rose, and pulled with all his might at the Frenchman’s legs. Staggering, he got him through the doorway on to the landing. Here there was a little more air, but Martin’s head swam; sick and dizzy he reeled, fell, and struck his head against the banisters. At the moment of his losing consciousness there was a noise in his ears, above the roar of the flames—a noise as of people shouting and running.
When he came to himself he was lying in the roadway. His head and chest were wet. His dazed, aching eyes saw Susan Gollop bending over him; in the background were other figures, among which he by and by recognised that of George Hopton.
“Mounseer!” he murmured.
“Mounseer is safe, my lamb,” said Susan, her tone unusually soft. “Take a drink: you’ll soon be all right again.”
He drank greedily from the cup she offered. A well-dressed elderly gentleman came forward.
“He is recovering, mistress?” he said.
“Ay, sir, thank God!” replied Susan. “But I wish Gollop would come. I don’t know what in the world we are to do now. The old house is done for: we’ve got our little bits of furniture here, but nowhere to go.”
“Don’t distress yourself, my good woman,” said the gentleman. “I will make it my charge to look after you all until something can be arranged. I would take you to my own house were it not so far away; that is impossible; but I will at once ride off to a farm I know at Islington, where I make no doubt I can arrange for your housing.”
He crossed the road to where a boy was holding a horse, mounted, and rode away.
“Who is that?” Martin murmured. George Hopton came and stood by him.
“Mr. Greatorex, to be sure,” answered Susan, “and a real kind gentleman. Brave too; ay, a man of bravery if ever there was one, and quick of his mind. He came riding up with this lad perched behind him, and the way he got off that horse—well, ’twas a wonderful spring for a man of his years. ‘Where’s Martin Leake?’ he sings out. ‘In the house,’ says I, ‘a-saving of the old gentleman on the first floor.’ ‘Isn’t there amanthat could have done that?’ says he, scornful-like, looking round on the crowd. And I must own they was an idle lot, all eyes and no sense. Well, he didn’t wait a moment, but dashed into the house—though I’ll own this lad was in front of him. My heart was in my mouth when I saw ’em vanish into that furnace and heard ’em shouting for you——”
“Mounseer! what of Mounseer?” asked Martin again, as remembrance came to his dazed mind.
“Safe and sound, bless you,” replied Susan; “that is, he will be, when he’s come to proper. He’s over yonder, with a doctor looking after him. It seemed an age before Mr. Greatorex came out again, though I suppose ’twas no more than a minute or two. He had you in his arms, and my heart went pit-a-pat that dreadful when I saw your pale face and your poor burnt hands. And behind him was this lad with Mounseer on his back: a strong lad, and a good lad too. And you hadn’t been out of the house two ticks when the floors fell in with a terrible crash, and sparks flying all across the street. ’Twas a merciful Providence that sent Mr. Greatorex in the very nick of time to save you from being burnt alive.”
“But I don’t understand—Mr. Greatorex—how—why did he want me?”
“I can tell you that,” said Hopton. “I went up to the shop to see if there was anything left of it. My word! the ground did scorch my feet. Of course it’s nothing but a black ruin: all Cheapside is burnt. I was just coming away when Mr. Greatorex rode up. He’d come up from the country; only think: the smoke and bits of black paper and stuff have been carried forty or fifty miles away. He asked me about Slocum, and whether the goods had been saved in time; and then I told him all I knew, and said that the goods were safe on board the ship, and ’twas all owing to you. ‘Take me at once to that Martin Leake,’ says he, and he was in such a hurry that he made me get up on the saddle behind him: first time in my life I’ve ever been on a horse, and don’t I ache with the jolting! Then it happened as Mrs. Gollop said: we found you and the old Frenchman in a heap on the landing, and we weren’t long bringing you out, I can tell you.”
“And such foolishness of Mounseer!” said Susan. “Nearly lost his life, and yours too, and what for? Just for a bit of a box.”
“A brass-bound box?” said Martin.
“No, there’s no brass about it, so far as I could see, though he kept it so tight in his arms that no one could see it proper. He’d quite lost his senses when the lad brought him out, but d’you think he’d let go of that box? Not for ever so. He clung to it as if it was the most vallyble thing in the whole world—just a bit of a box, leather I fancy, but so old and worn that—there, you never can tell what queer things some folks take a fancy to.”
“But what’s in the box?”
“Ah, who’s to say? He’s got it in his arms still, and there it’ll be until he’s rightly come to himself. Are you feeling better now, my dear?”
“Yes, though I’m rather chokey, and my hands smart.”
“To be sure they do, and I’ve no oil to put on ’em. But I’ll get some soon, and if Mr. Greatorex is a man of his word—and I don’t say he isn’t—we’ll soon have you in a comfortable bed in a farm-house, and milk and cream, and—why, it’ll be a holiday in the country, what I’ve wanted for years. You’ll like that, won’t you, Lucy?” she asked, as the child ran up.
“Mounseer’s opened his eyes,” said Lucy. “I’m so glad. He smiled at me. And then he asked for Martin. And then he said some funny wordsIcouldn’t understand. And then he told me to come and say ‘Thank you’ a thousand times to Martin. That was just his fun, of course, for I couldn’t say it so many times as that, could I?”
“That’s just his foreign way, my dear,” said Susan. “Once is enough with English people. Run back and tell him that Martin is all right, and we’re all going to a farm in the country. I do wish Gollop would come home.”
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SEVENTH
Not many hours later, in one of the comfortable rooms of a large farm-house near the village of Islington, Dick Gollop and his wife, Martin and Lucy and Gundra, and Mounseer—whose name was Monsieur Raoul Marie de Caudebec—had just finished the best meal they had had for many a day.
Mr. Greatorex—proving himself to be a man of his word—had sent them from the City in a hired coach, and arranged that their furniture should follow in a wagon. He himself had promised to come and see them as soon as he had had an interview with one of the sheriffs.
The burns of Martin and the Frenchman had been treated with oil and flour, and it was Susan Gollop’s opinion that, except for a scar or two, they would show no permanent marks of their recent terrible experience.
“And I daresay Martin won’t show none at all,” she said. “He’s young, and young skin has time to change itself over and over again. And as to Mounseer—well, he’s old, and I don’t suppose he’ll mind if he do bear a blemish or two.”
“That is philosophy, madam,” said the Frenchman with a smile.
“Your box is marked worse than you,” Susan went on, eyeing with simple curiosity the small leather casket that lay on the table at Mounseer’s right hand. “You can’t make a new thing of a bit of old leather, specially when it’s had a thorough good scorching.”
“That is true, madam.” Mounseer laid his hand on the casket. “It is old, older than I am; it was to my grandfather.”
“Gracious me! Then it must be very ancient, for you ain’t a chicken yourself. I don’t mean no offence, Mounseer.”
“I am sure of that: it is just the English way. Eh well, my friends, you have been so good to me that I owe you to explain. One does not talk of the private affairs until the time comes. This is the time.”
And then he proceeded to relate a story that held the rapt attention of his hearers. Escaping from persecution in France, he had brought with him nothing but his rapier and the casket that contained a number of valuable jewels, heirlooms in his family. These were his only means of support. One by one, as he needed money, he had sold them to Mr. Slocum. His wants being simple, he had made the money go a long way, and he hoped that the contents of the casket would last for the rest of his life.
“There now!” exclaimed Susan. “And youwouldbuy lollipops for Lucy! You didn’t ought to, Mounseer, and I wouldn’t have allowed it if I’d known.”
“And so you would have robbed me of a great pleasure,” said the old gentleman.
“I see it now,” said Martin. “You sold your jewels from time to time to Slocum, and he knew how valuable they were, though I don’t suppose he paid you anything like what they were worth. And then he had planned to rob Mr. Greatorex, and being greedy, wanted the rest of your jewels as well. That explains the attacks on your room.”
Mounseer assented, adding that he had of course never suspected Mr. Slocum of any part in those attacks. Determined to protect his property, he had removed a length of the wainscoting of the wall of his room, and hidden the casket in the cavity behind. When his room was ransacked, this hiding-place remained undiscovered. He had only just removed the casket when he was overcome by the smoke.
“And it is to you, my friend,” he said, turning to Martin, “that I owe that I have still the means to live; and when I die, if any of my jewels are left, they shall be to you: I will so ordain it in my testament.”
“That’s handsome said,” cried Dick Gollop.
“But I hope there will be none left,” said Martin, flushing.
“Meaning that you’ll live as long as Methusalem, Mounseer,” said Susan. “And we all agree: of that I’m very sure.”
“I do not covet so long a life,” said Mounseer, “but it must be as the good God pleases.”
“Ay, and what you can’t help, make the best of,” said Gollop. “That Slocum and his crowd, now—their course is set for the gallows, and I hope as they’ll put a cheerful face on it. Nothing upsets me more than to see a man draw down his chops when he’s on his way to be hanged. He can’t get out of it, so his looks might just as well be sweet as sour.”
Next day, when Mr. Greatorex paid his promised visit to the farm, he brought some interesting news. The man who called himself Seymour, but whose real name was Smith, had purchased his freedom by volunteering to turn King’s evidence, and had already made a long statement. It appeared that the man whom Martin had called Blackbeard was a brother of Slocum, and had spent a good many years in piracy on the eastern seas. He had captured Captain Leake’s vessel theMerry Maid, made some few alterations in her cut—not skilfully enough to deceive the sharp eyes of Dick Gollop—changed her name to theSanta Maria, and brought her into dock after a brush with the French. He himself pretended to be a foreigner and had assumed a foreign accent at times.
Meeting his brother after many years’ absence, he had suggested that the most valuable articles in Mr. Greatorex’s stock of plate and jewellery should be gradually transferred to his vessel, carried to Portugal and sold. Seymour had been admitted as a partner, and had taken a lodging in the same house as the Frenchman, partly because his room would be convenient as a temporary storing place, and partly that he might assist in the robbery of Mounseer’s valuables. The outbreak of the Fire had enabled Slocum to carry off the whole of the stock openly.
Mr. Greatorex was loud in praise of Martin for the large share he had had in saving the goods. He offered to take him as a regular apprentice, but learning that Martin had a passion for the sea, he agreed to place him on a King’s ship, and promised to take charge of Lucy. And being in want of a gardener for his country house, he asked Gollop whether he would like to exchange his constable’s staff for a spade.
“Well, sir, I take it kind of you,” said Dick. “I don’t mind if I do. I knows nothing about gardening, but then I knowed nothing about the law till I took up with it, and as a man of law I reckon I’ve a pretty good name in London town. I’ll do my best, and if I ain’t very good at it just at first, well, whatIcan’t help,you'll make the best of, I’ll be bound.”
It only remained to dispose of Gundra. Susan Gollop undertook to give him a home until Martin should sail on his first voyage to the East. Some two years later Martin had the pleasure of restoring the boy to his own family in Surat.
Slocum and his confederates were not destined to be hanged after all. It was discovered one day that they had broken prison, and they were never captured. Years afterwards, when Martin was a captain in the King’s Navy, he was accosted one day in Portsmouth by a wretched-looking beggar, who suddenly stopped in the midst of his whining plea for help and slunk off rapidly round the first corner.
“I could swear that was Slocum,” Martin said to himself. “I suppose he recognised me and was afraid I should give him up to justice. How it all comes back to me—that night of the Fire!”
The End
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been corrected or standardised.
Inconsistency in accents has been corrected or standardised.
Illustrations have been relocated due to using a non-page layout.