CHAPTER XIV
Misfortune did not daunt Ortho for long; the promising state of the home fields put fresh heart in him. He plunged at the work chanting a pæan in praise of agriculture, tore through obstacles and swept up his tasks with a speed and thoroughness which left Eli and Bohenna standing amazed.
The Penhale brothers harvested a record crop that season—but so did everybody else. The market was glutted and prices negligible. Except that their own staple needs were provided for, they were no better off than previously. Eli did not greatly care—he had done what he had set out to do, bring a good crop home—but Ortho fell into a state of profound gloom; it was money that he wanted.
It seemed to make little difference in agriculture whether you harvested a bumper yield or none at all. He had no capital to start in the second-hand horse trade again—even did he wish to—and he had no knowledge of any other business. He was on the desperate point of enlisting in the army on the chance of being sent abroad and gathering in a little loot, when opportunity rapped loudly on his door.
He had run down towards Tol-Pedn-Penwith with Jacky’s George one afternoon in late September. It was a fine afternoon, with a smooth sea, and all the coves between Merther Point and Carn Scathe were full of whitebait. They crowded close inshore in dense shoals, hiding from the mackerel. When the mackerel charged them they stampeded in panic, frittering the surface like wind-flaws. The gig’s crew attacked the attackers and did so well that they did not notice the passage of time.
Jacky’s George came to his senses as the sun slipped under, and clapped on all sail for home. He appeared in a hurry. By the time they were abreast of the Camper, the wind, which had been backing all the afternoon, was a dead-muzzler. Jacky’s George did what he was seldom known to do; he blasphemed, ported his helm and ran on a long leg out to sea. By ten o’clock they had leveled Boscawen Point, but the wind fell away altogether and they were becalmed three miles out in the Channel. Jacky’s George blasphemed again and ordered oars out. The gig was heavy and the tide against them. It took Ortho and three young Baragwanaths an hour and a half to open Monks Cove.
Ortho could not see the reason of it, of wrenching one’s arms out, when in an hour or two the tide would carry them in. However, he knew better than to question Jacky’s George’s orders. Even when Monks Cove was reached the little man did not go in, but pointed across for Black Carn. As they paddled under the lee of the cape there came a peculiar whistle from the gloom ahead, to which the bow-oar responded, and Ortho made out a boat riding to a kedge. They pulled alongside and made fast. It was the second Baragwanath gig, with the eldest son, Anson, and the remainder of the brothers aboard.
“Who’s that you got wid ’e?” came the hushed voice of Anson.
“Ortho Penhale,” his father replied. “Hadn’t time to put en ashore—becalmed way out. Has a showed up yet?”
“Naw, a’s late.”
“Ess. Wind’s felled away. All quiet in Cove?”
“Ess, sure. Every road’s watched and Ma’s got a furze stacked up to touch off if she gets warning.”
“All right . . . well, keep your eye peeled for his signal.”
Light suddenly broke on Ortho. There was a run on and he was in it—thrilling! He leaned towards Jacky’s George and whispered, “Who’s coming? Roscoff boat?”
Jacky’s George uttered two words which sent an electric quiver through him:
“King Nick.”
King Nick. Captain Nicholas Buzza, prince of Free Traders, the man who had made more runs than all the rest put together, who owned a fleet of armed smugglers and cheated the Revenue of thousands a year. Who had fooled the riding officers times out of number and beaten off the Militia. Who had put to sea after a big privateer sent to suppress him, fought a running fight from Godrevy to Trevose and sent her diving down the deep sea. The mercurial, dare-devil King Nick who was said to be unable to sleep comfortably unless there was a price on his head; who had raided Penzance by the light of the moon and recaptured a lost cargo; who had been surprised by the gaugers off Cawsand, chopped to bits with cutlasses, left for dead—and then swam ashore; who was reported to walk through Peter Port with all the Guernsey merchants bowing low before him, was called “Duc de Roscoff” in Brittany, and commanded more deference in Schiedam than its own Burgomaster. King Nick, the romantic idol of every West Country boy, coming to Monks Cove that very night, even then moving towards them through the dark. Ortho felt as if he were about to enter the presence of Almighty God.
“Is it a big run?” he whispered to Jacky’s George, trembling with excitement.
“Naw, main run was at Porthleven last night. This is but the leavings. A few trifles for the Kiddlywink to oblige me.”
“Is King Nick a friend of yours, then?” said Ortho, wide-eyed.
“Lord save you, yes! We was privateering together years ago.”
Ortho regarded the fisherman with added veneration.
“If a don’t come soon a’ll miss tide,” Anson hissed from the other boat.
“He’ll come, tide or no tide,” snapped his father. “Hold tongue, will ’e? Dost want whole world to hear?”
Anson subsided.
There was a faint mist clouding the sea, but overhead rode a splendor of stars, an illimitable glitter of silver dust. Nothing was to be heard but the occasional scrape of sea-boots as one cramped boy or other shifted position, the wail of a disturbed sea bird from the looming rookeries above them, the everlasting beat of surf on the Twelve Apostles a mile away to the southwest and the splash and sigh of some tired ninth wave heaving itself over the ledges below Black Carn.
An hour went by. Ashore a cock crowed, and a fisherman’s donkey, tethered high up the cliff-side, roared asthmatically in reply. The boats swung round as the tide slackened and made. The night freshened. Ripples lapped the bows. The land wind was blowing. Ortho lay face-down on the stroke thwart and yawned. Adventure—if adventure there was to be—was a long time coming. He was getting cold. The rhythmic lift and droop of the gig, the lisp and chuckle of the water voices had a hypnotic effect on him. He pillowed his cheek on his forearms and drowsed, dreamt he was swaying in gloomy space, disembodied, unsubstantial, a wraith dipping and soaring over a bottomless void. Clouds rolled by him big as continents. He saw the sun and moon below him no bigger than pins’ heads and world upon glittering world strewn across the dark like grains of sand. He could not have long lain thus, could not have fallen fully asleep, for Anson’s first low call set him wide awake.
“Sail ho!”
Both boats’ crews sat up as one man.
“Where away?”
“Sou’-east.”
Ortho’s eyes bored into the hollow murk seawards, but could distinguish nothing for the moment. Then, as he stared, it seemed to him that the dark smudge that was the corner of the Carn was expanding westwards. It stretched and stretched until, finally, a piece detached itself altogether and he knew it was a big cutter creeping close inshore under full sail. Never a wink of light did the stranger show.
“Hast lantern ready?” hissed Jacky’s George.
“Aye,” from Anson.
“Cast off there, hoist killick and stand by.”
“Aye, aye!”
The blur that was the cutter crept on, silent as a shadow, almost indistinguishable against the further dark, a black moth on black velvet. All eyes watched her. Suddenly a green light glowed amidships, stabbing the inky waters with an emerald dagger, glowed steadily, blinked out, glowed again and vanished. Ortho felt his heart bound into his throat.
“Now,” snapped Jacky’s George. “Show lantern . . . four times, remember.”
Anson stood up and did as he was bid.
The green lantern replied, the cutter rounded up in the wind and drifted towards them, tide-borne.
“Out oars and pull,” said Jacky’s George.
They swept within forty yards of the cutter.
“ ’Vast pulling,” came a voice from her bows.
“Back water, all!” Jacky’s George commanded.
“Is that George Baragwanath?” came the voice again, a high-pitched, kindly voice, marvelously clear.
“Aye, aye!”
“What’s the word then, my dear?”
“Hosannah!”
“What’s that there boat astern of ’e?”
“Mine—my second boat.”
“Well, tell him to keep off a cable’s length till I’ve seen to ’e,” the amiable voice continued. “If he closes ’fore I tell en I’ll blow him outer the water as God is my salvation. No offense meant, but we can’t take chances, you understand. Come ahead, you.”
The gig’s crew gave way and brought their craft alongside the smuggler.
“One at a time,” said the voice somewhere in the darkness above them, mild as a ringdove. “George, my dear soul, step up alone, will ’e, please?”
Jacky’s George went over the rail and out of sight.
Ortho heard the voice greet him affectionately and then attend to the helmsman.
“Back fore-sail, Zebedee; she’ll jam ’tween wind and tide. No call to anchor. We’ll have this little deck load off in ten minutes, please God, amen! There it is all before you, George—low Hollands proof, brandy, sugar, and a snatch of snuff. Tally it, will you, please. We’re late, I’m afraid. I was addressing a few earnest seekers after grace at Rosudgeon this afternoon and the word of the Lord came upon me and I spake overlong, I fear, trembling and sweating in my unworthiness—and then the wind fell very slight. I had to sweep her along till, by God’s infinite mercy, I picked up this shore draught. Whistle up your second boat and we’ll load ’em both sides to once. You haven’t been washed in the blood of the Lamb as yet, have you, George? Ah, that it might be vouchsafed this unworthy vessel to purge you with hyssop! I must have a quiet talk with you. Steady with them tubs, Harry; you’ll drop ’em through the gig.”
For the next quarter of an hour Ortho was busy stowing casks lowered by the cutter’s crew, but all the time the sweet voice went on. It seemed to be trying to persuade Jacky’s George into something he would not do. He could hear the pair tramping the deck above him side by side—one, two, three, four and roundabout, one, two, three, four and roundabout—the voice purling like a melodious brook; Jacky’s George’s gruff negatives, and the brook purling on again unruffled. Nobody else on the cutter uttered a sound; it might have been manned by a company of mutes.
Anson called from the port side that he was loaded. Jacky’s George broke off his conversation and crossed over.
“Pull in then. Soon’s you’ve got ’em stowed show a spark and I’ll follow.”
Anson’s gig disappeared shorewards, wallowing deep. Jacky’s George gripped a stay with his hook and swung over the rail into his own boat.
“I can’t do it, cap’n,” he called. “Good night and thank ’e kindly all the same. Cast off!”
They were away. It burst upon Ortho that he had not seen his hero—that he never would. In a minute the tall cutter would be fading away seawards as mysteriously as she had come and the great King Nick would be never anything to him but a voice. He could have cried out with disappointment.
“Push off,” said Jacky’s George.
Ortho leant on his oar and pushed and, as he did so, somebody sprang from the cutter’s rail, landed on the piled casks behind him as lightly as a cat, steadied himself with a hand on his shoulder and dropped into the stern-sheets beside the fisherman.
“Coming ashore wid ’e, George,” said the voice, “and by God’s grace I’ll persuade ’e yet.”
King Nick was in the boat!
“Mind what I bade ’e, Zebedee,” he hailed the cutter. “Take she round to once and I’ll be off to-morrow night by God’s providence and loving kindness.” The cutter swung slowly on her heel, drifted beam on to the lapping tide, felt her helm and was gone, blotted out, swallowed up, might never have been.
But King Nick was in the boat! Ortho could not see him—he was merely a smudged silhouette—but he was in the stern-sheets not a yard distant. Their calves were actually rubbing! Could such things be?
They paddled in and hung a couple of cables’ length off shore waiting Anson’s signal. The smuggler began his argument again, and this time Ortho heard all; he couldn’t help it.
“Think of the money in it, George. You’ve got a growing family. Think o’ your duty to them.”
“I reckon they won’t starve—why won’t the bay men do ’e?”
“ ’Cos there’s a new collector coming to Penzance and a regiment o’ dragoons, and you know what they rogues are—‘their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood’—nothing like they poor lambs the militia. Won’t be able to move a pack horse between Mousehole and Marazion wid they lawless scum about—God ha’ mercy on ’em and pardon ’em!”
“Who told ’e new collector and sojers is coming?”
“The old collector, Mr. Hawkesby. Took him a pin o’ crafty old Jamaica with my respects only last Tuesday and he showed me the letter signed and sealed. An honorable Christian gentleman is Mr. Hawkesby; many a holy discourse have I had with him. He wouldn’t deceive me. No, George, ‘Strangers are risen up against me and tyrants.’ . . . ‘Lo, the ungodly bend their bow.’ ”
“Umph! Well, why don’t ’e run it straight on north coast, handy to market?”
King Nick’s voice took on a slightly pained tone. “George, George, my dear life, ponder, will ’e? Consider where between St. Ives and SennencanI run a cargo. And how many days a week in winter can I land at Sennen—eh? Not one. Not one in a month hardly. ‘He gathereth the waters of the sea together, as it was upon a heap.’ Psalm thirty-three. And it’s in winter that the notable hard drinking’s done, as thou well knowest. What else is the poor dear souls to do in the long bitter evenings? Think o’ they poor St. Just tinners down in the damp and dark all day. ’Tis the duty of any man professing Christian love and charity to assist they poor souls to get a drop of warm liquor cheap. What saith the Book? ‘Blessed is he that considereth the poor and needy.’ Think on that, George.” There were tears in the melodious brook.
Jacky’s George grunted. “Dunno as I’ve got any turrible love for tinners. The last pair o’ they mucky toads as comed here pretty nigh clawed my house down. Why not Porgwarra or Penberth?”
“ ’Cos there aren’t a man there I’d trust, George. I wouldn’t put my trust en nobody but you—‘The faithful are minished from among the sons o’ men.’ You run a bit for yourself; why can’t ’e run a bit more and make a fortune? What’s come over ’e, my old and bold? ’Fraid, are ’e, all to once? What for? You’ve got a snug landing and a straight track over the moors, wid never a soul to see ’e pass. Riders can’t rush ’e here in this little crack o’ the rocks; they’d break their stiff necks. ‘Let their way be dark and slippery and let the angel of the Lord persecute them: and we shall wash our footsteps in the blood of the ungodly.’ What makes ’e hold back, old shipmate?”
“Horses,” said Jacky’s George. “Lookee, Cap’n Nick, the money’s good and I do respect it as much as the next man. I aren’t ’fraid of riders nor anything else—save tumors—and if it were only a matter of landing, why, I’d land ’s much stuff as you’ve a mind to. But carry goods to St. Just for ’e, I won’t, for that means horses, and horses means farmers. I’m bred to the sea myself and I can’t abide farmers. I’ve tried it before and there’s always trouble. It do take a week walking round the earth collecting ’em, and then some do show up and some don’t, and where are we then? Why, where the cat was—in the tar-barrel. Paul farmers won’t mix wid Gwithian, and Sancreed can’t stomach neither. And, what is more, they do eat up all your profits—five shillings here, ten shillings there—and that ain’t the end of it. When you think you’ve done paying a farmer, slit me, you’ve only just begun. I won’t be plagued wid ’em, so that’s the finish.”
“Listen to me a minute,” King Nick purled on, quite undeterred. “I’ll tell ’e. . . .”
“T’eddn no manner of use, cap’n,” said Jacky’s George, standing up. “There’s the light showing. Way all! Bend to it!”
The gig shot shorewards for the slip.
The manner in which the Baragwanath family disposed of a run contained the elements of magic. It was a conjuring trick, no less—“now you see it, now you don’t.” At one moment the slip-head was chockablock with bales and barrels; at the next it was bare. They swooped purposefully out of nowhere, fell upon the goods and—hey, presto!—spirited themselves back into nowhere, leaving the slip wiped clean.
Including one son and two daughters-in-law, the tribe mustered fourteen in all, and in the handling of illicit merchandise the ladies were as gifted as the gentlemen. Ortho was laboriously trundling a cask up the slip when he encountered one of the Misses Baragwanath, who gave him a push and took the matter out of his hands. By the time he had recovered his balance she had gone and so had the cask. It was too dark to see which way she went. Not that he was interested; on the contrary, he wanted to think. He had a plan forming in his head, a money-making plan.
He strode up and down the bare strip by the boat capstan getting the details clear. It did not take him long, being simplicity itself. He hitched his belt and marched up the little hamlet hot with inspiration.
Subdued mysterious sounds came from the surrounding darkness, whispering thuds, shovel scrapings, sighs as of men heaving heavy weights. A shed suddenly exploded with the clamour of startled hens. In another a sow protested vocally against the disturbance of her bed. There was a big bank running beside the stream in front of “The Admiral Anson.” As Ortho passed by the great mass of earth and bowlders became articulate. A voice deep within its core said softly, “Shift en a bit further up, Zack; there’s three more to come.”
Ortho saw a thin chink of light between two of the bowlders, grinned and strode into the kitchen of the Kiddlywink. There was a chill burning on the table and a kettle humming on the hearth. Jacky’s George sat before the fire, stirring a mug of grog which he held between his knees. Opposite him sat a tall old man dressed in unrelieved black from neck to toe. A wreath of snowy hair circled his bald pate like a halo. A pair of tortoise-shell spectacles jockeyed the extreme tip of his nose, he regarded Jacky’s George over their rims with an expression benign but pained.
Jacky’s George looked up at Ortho’s entrance.
“Hallo, what is it?”
“Where’s King Nick? I want to see him.”
The tortoise-shell spectacles turned slowly in his direction.
“There is but one King, my son, omnipotent and all-merciful. One King—on High . . . but my name is certainly Nicholas.”
Ortho staggered. This the master-smuggler, the swashbuckling, devil-may-care hero of song and story! This rook-coated, bespectacled, white-headed old Canorum [Methodist] local preacher, King Nick! His senses reeled. It could never be, and yet he knew it was. It was the same voice, the voice that had blandly informed Anson he would blow him out of the water if he pulled another stroke. He felt for the door post and leaned against it goggling.
“Well?”
Ortho licked his lips.
“Well? I eddn no fiery dragon to eat ’e, boy. Say thy say.”
Ortho drew a long breath, hesitated and let it out with a rush.
“I can find the horses you’re wanting. I can find thirty horses a night any time after Twelfth Night, and land your goods in St. Just under four hours.”
King Nick screwed round in his chair, turning the other side of his face to the light, and Ortho saw, with a shock of revulsion, that the ear had been sheared off and his face furrowed across and across with two terrible scars—relics of the Cawsand affair. It was as though the old man was revealing the other side of him, spiritual as well as physical.
“Come nearer, lad. How do ’e knaw I want horses?”
“I heard you. I was pulling stroke in boat.”
“Son o’ yourn, George? He don’t favor ’e, seem me.”
“Naw. Young Squire Penhale from Bosula up-valley.”
“You knaw en?”
“Since he were weaned.”
“Ah, ha! Ah, ha!” The smuggler’s blue eyes rested on Ortho, benevolent yet probing. “And where can you find thirty horses, my son? ’Tis a brear passell.”
“Gypsy Herne rests on my land over winter; he has plenty.”
“An Egyptian! An idolater! A worshiper after false gods! Put not thy trust in such, boy—though I do hear many of the young ones is baptized and coming to the way of Light. Hum! Ha! . . . But how do ’e knaw he’ll do it!”
“ ’Cos he wants the money bad. He lost three parts of his stock in Wales this summer. I was with en.”
“Oh, wid en, were ’e? So you knawn en well. And horse leaders?”
“There’s seven Romanies and three of us up to farm.”
“You knaw the country, s’pose?”
“Day or night like my own yard.”
King Nick turned on Jacky’s George, a faint smile curling the corners of his mouth. “What do ’e say now, George? Can this young man find the horses, think you?”
“Ess, s’pose.”
“Do ’e trust en?”
A nod.
“Then what more ’ave ’e got to say, my dear?”
The fisherman scratched his beard, breathed heavily through his nostrils and said, “All right.”
King Nick rose to his feet, rubbing his hands together.
“ ‘Now let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad.’ That’s settled. Welcome back to the fold, George, my old soul. ‘This is my brother that was dead but is alive again.’ Soon’s you give me word the Romany is agreeable I’ll slip ’e the cargoes, so shall the poor tinner be comforted at a reasonable price and the Lord be praised with cymbals—‘yea, with trumpets also and shawms.’ Gather in all the young men and maidens, George, that we may ask a blessing on our labors! Fetch ’em in to once, for I can feel the word of the Lord descending upon me!”
Dawn peering through the bottle-panes of Jacky’s George’s Kiddlywink saw the entire Baragwanath family packed shoulder to shoulder singing lustily, while before them, on a chair, stood a benevolent old gentleman in black beating time with one of John Wesley’s hymnals, white hair wreathing his head like a silver glory.
“Chant, my dear beauties!” he cried. “Oh, be cheerful! Be jubilant! Lift up your voices unto the Lord! ‘Awake up, my glory, Awake lute and harp!’ Now all together!”
“When passing through the watery deepI ask in faith His promised aid;The waves an awful distance keepAnd shrink from my devoted head.”
“When passing through the watery deepI ask in faith His promised aid;The waves an awful distance keepAnd shrink from my devoted head.”
“When passing through the watery deepI ask in faith His promised aid;The waves an awful distance keepAnd shrink from my devoted head.”
“When passing through the watery deep
I ask in faith His promised aid;
The waves an awful distance keep
And shrink from my devoted head.”
CHAPTER XV
Pyramus came down earlier than usual that year. The tenth of December saw his smoke-grimed wigwams erected in the little wood, the cloaks and scarves of the Romany women making bright blots of color among the somber trees, bronze babies rolling among bronze leaves.
Ortho was right; the gypsy chief had been hard hit and was open to any scheme for recouping his fortunes. After considerable haggling he consented to a fee of six shillings per horse per run—leaders thrown in—which was a shilling more than Ortho had intended to give him and two shillings more than he would have taken if pressed. The cavalry had not arrived as yet, and Ortho did not think it politic to inform Pyramus they were expected; there were the makings in him of a good business man.
The first run was dated for the night of January the third, but the heavy ground swell was rolling in and the lugger lay off until the evening of the fifth. King Nick arrived on the morning of the third, stepped quietly into the kitchen of the “Admiral Anson” as the Baragwanath family were sitting down to breakfast, having walked by night from Germoe. The meal finished, he gave melodious thanks to Heaven, sent for Ortho, asked what arrangements had been made for the landing, condemned them root and branch and substituted an entirely fresh lot. That done, he rode off to St. Just to survey the proposed pack route, taking Ortho with him.
He was back again by eight o’clock at night and immediately held a prayer-meeting in the Kiddlywink, preaching on “Lo, he thirsteth even as a hart thirsteth after the water brooks”—a vindication of the gin traffic—and passing on to describe the pains of hell with such graphic detail that one Cove woman fainted and another had hysterics.
The run came off without a hitch two nights later. Ortho had his horses loaded up and away by nine o’clock. At one-thirty a crowd of enthusiastic diggers (all armed with clubs) were stripping his load and secreting it in an old mine working on the outskirts of St. Just. He was home in bed before dawn. Fifty-six casks of mixed gin, claret and brandy they carried that night, not to mention five hundredweight of tea.
On January 17th he carried forty-three casks, a bale of silk and a hundredweight of tea to Pendeen, dumping some odds and ends outside Gwithian as he passed by. And so it went on.
The consumption of cheap spirits among the miners was enormous. John Wesley, to whose credit can be placed almost the whole moral regeneration of the Cornish tinner, describes them as “those who feared not God nor regarded man,” accuses them of wrecking ships and murdering the survivors and of taking their pleasure in “hurling, at which limbs are often broken, fighting, drinking, and all other manner of wickedness.”
In winter their pastimes were restricted to fighting and drinking—principally drinking—in furtherance of which Ortho did a roaring trade. Between the beginning of January and the end of March he ran an average of five landings a month without any one so much as wagging a finger at him. The dragoons arrived at Christmas, but instead of a regiment two troops only appeared and they speedily declared a policy of “live and let live.” Their commanding officer, Captain Hambro, had not returned to his native land after years of hard campaigning to spend his nights galloping down blind byways at the behest of a civilian riding officer.
He had some regard for his horses’ legs and more for his own comfort. He preferred playing whist with the local gentry, who had fair daughters and who were the soul of hospitality. He temporized good-humoredly with the collector, danced quadrilles with the fair daughters at the “Ship and Castle,” and toasted their bright eyes in excellent port and claret, the knowledge that it had not paid a penny of duty in nowise detracting from its flavor. Occasionally—when he had no other appointment and the weather was passable—he mounted his stalwarts and made a spectacular drive—this as a sop to the collector. But he never came westwards; the going was too rough, and, besides, St. Just was but small potatoes compared with big mining districts to the east.
For every cask landed at Monks Cove, King Nick and his merry men landed twenty either at Prussia Cove, Porthleven, Hayle or Portreath—sometimes at all four places simultaneously. Whenever Capt. Hambro’s troopers climbed into their saddles and took the road to Long Rock, a simple but effective system of signals flashed ahead of them so that they found very little.
There was one nasty affair on Marazion Beach. Owing to a misunderstanding the cavalry came upon a swarm of tinners in process of making a landing. The tinners (who had broached a cask and were full of spirit in more senses than one) foolishly opened hostilities. The result was two troopers wounded, six miners killed—bearing out King Nick’s warning that the soldiers might easily be fooled, but they were by no means so easily frightened. The trade absorbed this lesson and there were no more regrettable incidents that season.
Ortho was satisfied with his winter’s work beyond all expectations. It was a common tenet among Free Traders of those days that one cargo saved would pay for two lost, and Ortho, so far from losing a single cargo, had only lost five tubs in all—three stove in transshipping and two when the mule carrying them fell into a pit. Everybody was satisfied. The district was flooded with cheap liquor. All the Covers in turn assisted in the boat-work and so picked up money in the off-season, when they needed it most. Pyramus, with his animals in constant employment, did so well that he delayed his northern trip for a month.
The only person (with the exception of His Majesty’s Collector of Customs) who was not entirely pleased was Eli. In defrauding the Revenue he had no scruples whatever, but it interfered with his farming. This smuggling was all very fine and remunerative, but it was a mere side line. Bosula was his lifework, his being. If he and Bohenna had to be up all night horse leading they could not be awake all day. The bracken was creeping in again. However, they were making money, heaps of it; there was no denying that.
With the instinctive dislike of a seaman for a landsman, and vice versa, neither Jacky’s George nor Pyramus would trust each other. The amphibious Ortho was the necessary link between them and, as such, paid out more or less what he thought fit—as has been the way with middlemen since the birthday of the world. He paid Jacky’s George one and six per cask for landing and Pyramus three shillings for packing (they went two to a horse), making a profit of ten shillings clear himself. Eli, the only person in the valley who could read, write or handle figures, kept the accounts and knew that at the end of March they were three hundred and forty pounds to the good. He asked Ortho where the money was.
“Hid up the valley,” said his brother. “Put away where the devil himself wouldn’t find it.”
“What are you hiding it like that for?” Eli asked.
“Mother,” said Ortho. “That last rip-roar she had must have nigh baled her bank dry and now she’s looking for more. I think she’ve got a notion who bubbled her last year and she’s aiming to get a bit of her own back. She knows I’ve got money and she’s spying on me all the time. I’d tell you where it is only I’m afeard you’d let it out without meaning to. I’m too sly for her—but you, you’re like a pane of glass.”
Wholesale smuggling finished with the advent of spring. The shortening nights did not provide sufficient cover for big enterprises; dragoons and preventive men had not the same objections to being out of their beds in summer as in winter, and, moreover, the demand for liquor had fallen to a minimum.
This was an immense relief to Eli, who now gave himself heart and soul to the farm, haling Bohenna with him; but two disastrous seasons had impaired Ortho’s vaunted enthusiasm for “the good old soil,” and he was absent most of the week, working up connections for next winter’s cargo-running—so he told Eli—but it was noticeable that his business appointments usually coincided with any sporting events held in the Hundred, and at hurling matches, bull-baitings, cock-fights and pony-races he became almost as familiar a figure as his mother had been, backing his fancy freely and with not infallible judgment. However, he paid his debts scrupulously and with good grace, and, though he drank but little himself, was most generous in providing, gratis, refreshment for others. He achieved strong local popularity, a priceless asset to a man who lives by flouting the law.
The money was not all misspent.
He developed in other ways, began to be particular about his person in imitation of the better-class squires, visited a Penzance tailor of fashion and was henceforth to be seen on public occasions in a wide-skirted suit of black broadcloth frogged with silver lace, high stockings to match and silver-buckled shoes, very handsome altogether.
He had his mother’s blue-black hair, curling, bull-like, all over his head, sparkling eyes and strong white teeth. When he was fifteen she had put small gold rings in his ears—to improve his sight, so she said. At twenty he was six feet tall, slim and springy, moving among the boorish crowds like a rapier among bludgeons. His laugh was ready and he had a princely way with his money. Women turned their eyes his way, sighing—and he was not insensible.
Rumors of his brother’s amorous affairs drifted home to Eli from time to time. He had cast off the parish clerk’s daughter, Tamsin Eva, and was after a farmer’s young widow in St. Levan. Now he had quarreled with the widow and was to be seen in Trewellard courting a mine captain’s daughter. Again he had put the miner’s daughter by, and St. Ives gossips were coupling his name with that of the wife of a local preacher and making a great hoity-toity about it—and so on. It was impossible to keep track of Ortho’s activities in the game of hearts.
He came home one morning limping from a slight gunshot wound in the thigh, and on another occasion brought his horse in nearly galloped to death, but he made no mention of how either of these things came about. Though his work on the farm was negligible, he spent a busy summer one way and another.
Pyramus was down by the eighth of November, and on the night of the fourteenth the ball was opened with a heavy run of goods, all of which were safely delivered. From then on till Christmas cargo after cargo was slipped through without mishap, but on St. Stephen’s day the weather broke up, the wind bustled round to the southeast and blew great guns, sending the big seas piling into Monks Cove in foaming hills. The Cove men drew their boats well up, took down snares and antique blunderbusses and staggered inland rabbiting.
Eli turned back to his farm-work with delight, but prosaic hard labor had no further attraction for Ortho. He put in a couple of days sawing up windfalls, a couple more ferreting with Bohenna, then he went up to Church-town and saw Tamsin Eva again.
It was at a dance in the long room of the “Lamb and Flag” tavern and she was looking her best, dressed in blue flounced out at the hips, with a close-fitting bodice. She was what is known in West Cornwall as a “red Dane,” masses of bright auburn hair she had and a soft white skin. Ortho, whose last three little affairs had been pronounced brunettes, turned to her with a refreshened eye, wondering what had made him leave her. She was dancing a square dance with her faithful swain, Tom Trevaskis, when Ortho entered, circling and curtseying happily to the music of four fiddles led by Jiggy Dan.
The mine captain’s daughter glowed as rosy as a pippin, too rosy; the preacher’s spouse was an olive lady, almost swarthy. Tamsin Eva’s slender neck might have been carved from milk-ivory and she was tinted like a camellia. Ortho’s dark eyes glittered. But it was her hair that fascinated him most. The room was lit by dips lashed to decorated barrel hoops suspended from the rafters, and as Tamsin in her billowy blue dress swept and sidled under these the candlelight played tricks with her burnished copper head, flicked red and amber lights over and into it, crowned her with living gold. The black Penhale felt his heart leap; she was most lovely! Why on earth had he ever dropped her? Why?
Deep down he knew; it was because, for all her physical attraction, she wearied him utterly, seemed numbed in his presence, had not a word to say. That Trewellard wench at least had a tongue in her head and the widow had spirit; he could still almost feel his cheek tingle where she had hit him. But that queenly crown of hair! He had an over-mastering desire to pull it down and bury his face in the shining golden torrent. He would too, ecod! Dull she might have been, but that was two years ago. She’d grown since then, and so had he, and learnt a thing or two; a score of women had been at pains to teach him. He hadn’t gone far with Tamsin previously—she’d been too damned soft—but he would now. He’d stir her up. Apparently shallow women were often deep as the sea, deep enough to drown one. He’d take the risk of drowning; he fed on risks. That the girl was formally betrothed to Trevaskis did not deter him in the slightest. There was no point in the game in which he could not out-maneuver the slovenly yokel.
He waited till the heated boy went to get himself a drink, and then shouldered through the press and claimed Tamsin for the next dance, claiming her smilingly, inevitably, as though she was his private property and there had not been a moment’s break between them. The girl’s eyes went blank with dismay, she tried to decline. He didn’t seem to hear, but took her hand. She hung back weakly. There was no weakness in Ortho’s grip; he led her out in spite of herself. She couldn’t resist him, she never had been able to resist him. Fortunately for her he had never demanded much. Poor Tamsin! Two years had not matured her mentally. She had no mind to mature; she was merely a pretty chattel, the property of the strongest claimant. Ortho was stronger than Trevaskis, so he got her.
When the boy returned she was dancing with the tall Free Trader; the golden head drooped, the life had gone out of her movements, but she was dancing with him. Trevaskis tried to get to her at every pause, but always Ortho’s back interposed. The farmer went outside and strode up and down the yard, glaring from time to time through the window; always Tamsin was dancing with Penhale. Trevaskis ground his teeth. Two years ago he had been jockeyed in the same way. Was this swart gypsy’s whelp, whose amorous philanderings were common talk, to have first call on his bright girl whenever he deigned to want her? Trevaskis swore he should not, but how to frustrate him he did not know. Plainly Tamsin was bewitched, was incapable of resistance; she had admitted as much, weeping. Thrash Ortho to a standstill he could not; he was not a brave man and he dared not risk a maul with the smuggler. Had Penhale been a “foreigner” he could have roused local feeling against him, but Penhale was no stranger; he was the squire of Bosula and, moreover, most popular, far more popular than he was himself. He had a wild idea of trying a shot over a bank in the dark—and abandoned it, shuddering. Supposing he missed! What would Penhale do to him? What wouldn’t he do to him? Trevaskis hadn’t courage enough even for that. He strode up and down, oblivious of the rain gusts, trying to discover a chink in the interloper’s armor.
As for Ortho, he went on dancing with Tamsin, and when it was over took her home; he buried his face in that golden torrent. He was up at Church-town the very next night and the next night and every night till the gale blew out.
Trevaskis, abandoning a hopeless struggle, followed in the footsteps of many unlucky lovers and drowned his woes in drink. It was at the Kiddlywink in Monks Cove that he did his drowning and not at the “Lamb and Flag,” but as his farm lay about halfway between the two there was nothing remarkable in that.
What did cause amusement among the Covers, however, was the extraordinary small amount of liquor it required to lay him under the bench and the volume of his snores when he was there.
CHAPTER XVI
The southeasterly gale blown out, Ortho’s business went forward with a rush. In the second week in January they landed a cargo a night to make up for lost time, and met with a minor accident—Jacky’s George breaking a leg in saving a gig from being stove. This handicapped them somewhat. Anson was a capable boatsman, but haphazard in organization, and Ortho found he had to oversee the landings as well as lead the pack-train. Despite his efforts there were hitches and bungles here and there; the cogs of the machinery did not mate as smoothly as they had under the cock-sparrow. Nevertheless they got the cargoes through somehow and there was not much to fear in the way of outside interruptions; the dragoons seemed to have settled to almost domestic felicity in Penzance and the revenue cutter had holed her garboard strake taking a short cut round the Manacles and was docked at Falmouth. Ortho got so confident that he actually brought his horses home in plain daylight.
Then on the fourteenth of February, when all seemed so secure, the roof fell in.
Mr. William Carmichael was the person who pulled the props away. Mr. William Carmichael, despite his name, was an Irishman, seventeen years of age, and, as a newly-joined cornet of dragoons, drawing eight shillings a day, occupied a position slightly less elevated than an earth-worm. However, he was very far from this opinion. Mr. Carmichael, being young and innocent, yearned to let blood, and he wasn’t in the least particular whose. Captain Hambro and his two somewhat elderly lieutenants, on the other hand, were experienced warriors, and consequently the most pacific of creatures. Nothing but a direct order from a superior would induce them to draw the sword except to poke the fire. Mr. Carmichael’s martial spirit was in a constant state of effervescence; he hungered and thirsted for gore—but without avail. Hambro positively refused to let him run out and chop anybody. The captain was a kindly man; his cornet’s agitation distressed him and he persuaded one of the dimpled Miss Jagos to initiate his subordinate in the gentler game of love (the boy would come into some sort of Kerry baronetcy when his sire finally bowed down to delirium tremens, and it was worth her while). But Mr. Carmichael was built of sterner stuff. He was proof against her woman’s wiles. Line of attack! At ’em! The lieutenants, Messrs. Pilkington and Jope, were also gentle souls, Pilkington was a devotee of chess, Jope of sea-fishing. Both sought to engage the fire-eater in their particular pastimes. It was useless; he disdained such trivialities. Death! Glory!
But Hambro, whose battle record was unimpeachable, knew that in civil police work, such as he was supposed to be doing, there is precious little transient glory to be picked up and much adhesive mud. He knew that with the whole population against him he stood small chance of laying the smugglers by the heels, and if he did the county families (who were as deeply implicated as any) would never rest until they had got him broken. He sat tight.
This did not suit the martial Carmichael at all. He fumed and fretted, did sword exercise in the privacy of his bedroom till his arm ached, and then gushed his heart out in letters to his mother, which had the sole effect of eliciting bottles of soothing syrup by return, the poor lady thinking his blood must be out of order.
But his time was to come.
On the eighth of February Pilkington was called away to Axminster to the bedside of his mother (at least that is what he called her) and Carmichael was given his troop to annoy. On the morning of the fourteenth Hambro left on three days’ leave to shoot partridges at Tehidy, Jope and Carmichael only remaining. Jope blundered in at five o’clock on the same afternoon sneezing fit to split himself. He had been off Low Lee after pollack and all he had succeeded in catching was a cold. He growled about the weather, which his boatman said was working up for a blow, drank a pint of hot rum bumbo and sneezed himself up to bed, giving strict orders that he was not to be roused on any account.
Carmichael was left all alone.
To him, at seven of the clock, came Mr. Richard Curral, riding officer, a conscientious but blighted man.
He asked for Hambro, Pilkington and Jope in turn, and groaned resignedly when he heard they were unavailable.
“Anything I can do for you?” Carmichael inquired.
Curral considered, tapping his rabbit teeth with his whip handle. Mr. Carmichael was terribly young, the merest babe.
“N-o. I don’t think so; thank you, sir. No, never mind. Pity they’re away, though . . . seems a chance,” he murmured, talking to himself. “Lot of stuff been run that way of late . . . ought to be stopped by rights . . . pity!” he sighed.
“What’s a pity? What are you talking about?” said Mr. Carmichael, his ears pricking. “Take that whip out of your mouth!”
Mr. Curral withdrew the whip; he was used to being hectored by military officers.
“Er—oh! . . . er, the Monks Cove men are going to make a run to-night.”
Mr. Carmichael sat upright. “Are they, b’God! How d’you know?”
“An informer has just come in. Gives no name, of course, but says he’s from Gwithian parish; looks like a farmer. Wants no reward.”
“Then what’s his motive?”
Mr. Curral shrugged his shoulders. “Some petty jealousy, I presume; it usually is among these people. I’ve known a man give his brother away because he got bested over some crab-pots. This fellow says he overheard them making their plans in the inn there—lay under the table pretending to be drunk. Says that tall Penhale is the ringleader; I’ve suspected as much for some time. Of course it may only be a false scent after all, but the informer seems genuine. What are you doing, sir?”
Mr. Carmichael had danced across the room, opened the door and was howling for his servant. His chance had come. Gore!
“Doing! . . . Why, going to turn a troop out and skewer the lot of ’em of course. What d’you think?” shouted that gentleman, returning. “I’d turn out the squadron, only half the nags are streaming with strangles. Toss me that map there. Now where is this Monks Cove?”
Mr. Curral’s eyes opened wide. He was not used to this keenness on the part of the military. One horse coughing slightly would have been sufficient excuse for Hambro to refuse to move—leave alone half a squadron sick with strangles. It promised to be a dirty night too. He had expected to meet with a diplomatic but nevertheless definite refusal. It was merely his three-cornered conscience that had driven him round to the billet at all—yet here was an officer so impatient to be off that he was attempting the impossible feat of pulling on his boots and buckling on his sword at the same time. Curral’s eyes opened wider and wider.
“Ahem!—er—do you mean . . . er . . . are you in earnest, sir?”
“Earnest!” The cornet snorted, his face radiant. “Damn my blood but I am in very proper earnest, Mr. What’syourname—as these dastardly scoundrels shall discover ere we’re many hours older. Earnest, b’gob!”
“But Mr. Jope, sir . . . hadn’t you better consult Mr. Jope? . . . He . . .”
“Mr. Jope be dam . . . Mr. Jope has given orders that he’s not to be disturbed on any account, onanyaccount, sir.Iam in command here at the moment, and if you will have the civility to show me where this plaguy Monks Cove hides itself instead of standing there sucking your whip you will greatly assist me in forming my plan of action.”
Curral bent over the map and pointed with his finger.
“Here you are, sir, the merest gully.”
“Then I shall charge down the gully,” said Carmichael with that quick grasp of a situation displayed by all great commanders. The riding officer coughed: “Then you’ll have to charge at a walk, sir, and in single file; there’s only a rough pack-track. Further, the track is picketed at the head; as soon as you pass a gun will be fired and when you reach the cove there won’t be a cat stirring.”
Carmichael, like all great commanders, had his alternative. “Then I shall charge ’em from the flank. Can I get up speed down this slope?”
Curral nodded. “Yes, sir. You can ride from top to bottom in a moment of time.”
“How d’you mean?”
“It is practically a precipice, sir.”
“Humph!—and this flank?”
“The same, sir.”
Carmichael scratched his ear and for the first time took thought. “Lookee,” he said presently. “If I stop the pack track here and there are precipices on either side how can they get their horses out? I’ve got ’em bottled.”
Curral shook his head. “I saidpracticallyprecipices, sir. Precipices to godown, but not to comeup. As you yourself have probably observed, sir, a horse can scramble up anything, but he is a fool going down. A horse falling uphill doesn’t fall far, but a horse falling down a slope like that rolls to the bottom. A horse . . .”
“Man,” snapped the cornet, “don’t talk to me about horses. My father keeps twenty. I know.”
Curral coughed. “I beg your pardon, sir. The informer tells me there are a dozen places on either side by which these fellows can get their beasts to the level. Remember it is their own valley; they’re at home there, while we are strangers and in the dark.”
“I wish you could get out of this habit of propounding the obvious,” said Carmichael. He dabbed his finger down on the map. “Look—supposing we wait for them out here across their line of march?”
“They’d scatter all over the moor, sir. We’d be lucky if we caught a couple on a thick night like this.”
Carmichael plumped down on a chair and savagely rubbed his curls.
“Well, Mr. Riding Officer, I presume that in the face of these insurmountable difficulties you propose to sit down and do nothing—as usual. Let these damned ruffians run their gin, flout the law, do exactly as they like. Now let me tell you I’m of a different kidney, I . . .”
“You will pardon me, sir,” said Curral quietly, “but I haven’t as yet been given the opportunity of proposing anything.”
“What’s your plan then?”
“How many men can you mount, sir?”
“Forty with luck. I’ll have to beat the taverns for ’em.”
“Very good, sir. Send a small detachment to stop the head of the track; not to be there before ten o’clock. The rest, under yourself, with me for guide, will ride to the top of the cliff which overhangs the village from the east and there leave the horses. The informer tells me there is a sheep-track leading down from there and they picket the top of it—an old man with a gun to fire if he hears anything. That picket will have to be silenced.”
“Who’s going to do that?” the cornet inquired.
“I’ve got a man of my own I think can do it. He was a great poacher before he got religion.”
“And then?”
“Then we’ll creep, single file, down the sheep-track, muster behind the pilchard sheds and rush the landing—the goods should be ashore by then. I trust that meets with your approval, sir?”
The cornet nodded, sobered. “It does—you seem to be something of a tactician, Mr. . . . er . . . Curral.”
“I served foreign with Lord Mark Kerr’s Regiment of Horse Guards, sir,” said the riding officer, picking up his whip.
Carmichael’s jaw dropped. “Horse Guards! . . . Abroad! . . . One ofus! Dash my guts, man, why didn’t you say so before?”
“You didn’t ask me, sir,” said Curral and sucked his whip.
Uncle Billy Clemo sat behind a rock at the top of the sheep-path and wished to Heaven the signal would go up. A lantern run three times to the truck of the flag-pole was the signal that the horses were away and the pickets could come in. Then he would be rewarded with two shillings and a drop of hot toddy at the Kiddlywink—and so to bed.
He concentrated his thoughts on the hot toddy, imagined it tickling bewitchingly against his palate, wafting delicious fumes up his nostrils, gripping him by the throat, trickling, drop by drop, through his chilled system, warm and comforting, trickling down to his very toes. He would be happy then. He had been on duty since seven-thirty; it was now after ten and perishing cold. The wind had gone round suddenly to the northeast and was gaining violence every minute. Before dawn it would be blowing a full gale. Uncle Billy was profoundly thankful he was not a horse leader. While Penhale and Company were buffeting their way over the moors he would be in bed, praise God, full of toddy. In the meanwhile it was bitter cold. He shifted his position somewhat so as to get more under the lee of the rock and peered downwards to see how they were getting on. He could not see much. The valley was a pit of darkness. A few points of light marked the position of the hamlet, window lights only. The fisher-folk knew their own place as rats know their holes and made no unnecessary show of lanterns. A stranger would have imagined the hamlet slept; in reality it was humming like a hive.
A dim half-moon of foam marked the in-curve of the Cove; seaward was blank darkness again. Uncle Billy, knowing what to look for and where to look, made out a slightly darker blur against the outer murk—the lugger riding to moorings, main and mizzen set. She was plunging a goodish bit, even down there under shelter of the cliffs. Uncle Billy reckoned the boat’s crews must be earning their money pulling in against wind and ebb, and once more gave thanks he was not as other men.
The wind came whimpering over the high land, bending the gorse plumes before it, rattling the dead brambles, rustling the grass. Something stirred among the brambles, something living. He picked up his old Brown Bess. A whiff of scent crossed his nostrils, pungent, clinging. He put the Bess down again. Fox. He was bitter cold, especially as to the feet. He was a widower and his daughter-in-law kept him short in the matter of socks. He stood up—which was against orders—and stamped the turf till he got some warmth back in his toes, sat down again and thought about the hot toddy. The lugger was still there, lunging at her moorings. They were a plaguy time landing a few kegs! Jacky’s George would have finished long before—these boys! Whew! it was cold up there!
The gale’s voice was rising to a steady scream; it broke against Uncle Billy’s rock as though it had been a wave. Shreds of dead bracken and grass whirled overhead. The outer darkness, which was the sea, showed momentary winks of gray—breakers. When the wind lulled for a second, a deep melancholy bay, like that of some huge beast growling for meat, came rolling in from the southwest—the surf on the Twelve Apostles.
There were stirrings and snappings in the brambles. That plaguy fox again, thought Uncle Billy—or else rabbits. His fingers were numb now. He put the Bess down beside him, blew on his hands, thrust them well down in his pockets and snuggled back against the rock. The lugger would slip moorings soon whether she had unloaded or not, and then toddy, scalding his throat, trickling down to his . . .
Something heavy dropped on him from the top of the rock, knocking him sideways, away from the gun, pinning him to the ground; hands, big and strong as brass, took him round the throat, drove cruel thumbs into his jugular, strangling him.
“Got him, Joe,” said a voice. “Bring rope and gag quick!” He got no hot toddy that night.
“That the lot?” the lugger captain bellowed.
“Aye,” answered his mate.
“Cast off that shore boat then and let go forward soon’s she’m clear.”
“Aye, aye. Pull clear, you; look lively!”
TheGamecock’screw jerked their oars into the pins and dragged the gig out of harm’s way.
The moorings buoy splashed overboard, the lugger, her mainsail backed, came round before the wind and was gone.
“Give way,” said Anson; “the wind’s getting up a fright.” He turned to Ortho. “You’ll have a trip to-night . . . rather you nor me.”
Ortho spat clear of the gunwale. “Have to go, I reckon; the stuff’s wanted, blast it! Has that boat ahead unloaded yet?”
“She haven’t signaled,” the bowman answered.
“No matter, pull in,” said Anson. “We haven’t no more than the leavings here; we can land this li’l’ lot ourselves. Give way, all.”
Four blades bit the water with a will, but the rowers had to bend their backs to wrench the gig in against the wind and tide. It was a quarter of an hour before they grounded her nose on the base of the slip.
“Drag her up a bit, boys,” said Anson. “Hell!—what’s that?”
From among the dark huddle of houses came a woman’s scream, two—three—and then pandemonium, shouts, oaths, crashes, horses stamping, the noise of people rushing and struggling, and, above all, a boy’s voice hysterically shouting, “Fire! Curse you! Fire!”
“Christ!” said Ortho. “The Riders! Hey, push her off! For God’s sake, push!”
The two bowmen, standing in the water, put their backs to the boat and hove; Ortho and Anson in the stern used their oars pole-wise.
“All together, he-ave!”
Slowly the gig began to make stern-way.
“Heave!”
The gig made another foot. Feet clattered on the slip-head and a voice cried, “Here’s a boat escaping! Halt or I fire!”
“Hea-ve!” Ortho yelled. The gig made another foot and was afloat. There was a spurt of fire from the slip and a bullet went droning overhead. The bowman turned and dodged for safety among the rocks.
“Back water, back!” Anson exhorted.
There were more shouts from the shore, the boy’s voice crowing shrill as a cockerel, a quick succession of flashes and more bullets went wailing by. The pair in the boat dragged at their oars, teeth locked, terrified.
Wind and tide swept them up, darkness engulfed them. In a couple of minutes the shots ceased and they knew they were invisible. They lay on their oars, panting.
“What now?” said Ortho. “Go after the lugger? We can’t go back.”
“Lugger’s miles away, going like a stag,” said Anson. “Best chance it across the bay to Porthleven.”
“Porthleven?”
“Where else? Wind’s dead nor’east. Lucky if we make that. Throw this stuff out; she’s riding deep as a log.”
They lightened the gig of its entire load and stepped the mast. Anson was at the halliards hoisting the close-reefed mainsail. Ortho kept at the tiller until there was a spit of riven air across his cheek and down came the sail on the run.
He called out, “What’s the matter?”
There was no answer for a minute, and then Anson said calmly from under the sail, “Shot, I b’lieve.”
“What is—halliards?”
“Me, b’lieve.”
“You! Shot! What d’you mean? Where?”
“In chest. Stray shot, I reckon; they can’t hit nawthing when they aim. Thee’ll have to take her thyself now. . . . O-ooh. . . .” He made a sudden, surprised exclamation as if the pain had only just dawned on him and began to cough.
“Hoist sail . . . thou . . . fool. . . A-ah!”
Ortho sprang forward and hoisted the sail; the gig leapt seawards. The coughing began again mingled with groans. They stabbed Ortho to the heart. Instead of running away they should be putting back; it was a doctor they wanted. He would put back at once and get Anson attended to. That he himself would be arrested as the ringleader, tried and either hung or transported did not occur to him. Half his happy boyhood had been spent with Anson; the one thing was to ease his agony.
“Going to put back,” he yelled to the prostrate man under the bow thwart. “Put back!”
“You can’t,” came the reply . . . and more coughing.
Of course he couldn’t. If he had thought for a moment he would have known it. Wind and tide would not let him put back. There was nothing for it but the twelve-mile thrash across the open bay to Porthleven; he prayed there might be a doctor there.
He luffed, sheeted home, rounded the great mass of Black Carn, braced as sharp as he dared and met a thunder clap of wind and sea. It might have been waiting for him round the corner, so surely did it pounce. It launched itself at him roaring, a ridge of crumbling white high overhead, a hill of water toppling over.
The loom and bellow of it stunned his senses, but habit is a strong master. His mind went blank, but his hand acted, automatically jamming the helm hard over. The gig had good way on; she spun as a horse spins on its hocks and met the monster just in time. Stood on her stern; rose, seesawed on the crest, three quarters of her keel bare, white tatters flying over her; walloped down into the trough as though on a direct dive to the bottom, recovered and rose to meet the next. The wild soar of the bows sent Anson slithering aft. Ortho heard him coughing under the stroke thwart.
“She’ll never do it,” he managed to articulate. “Veer an’ let . . . let . . . her drive.”
“Where for?” Ortho shouted. “Where for? D’you hear me?”
“Scilly,” came the answer, broken by dreadful liquid chokings.
The waves broke with less violence for a minute or two and Ortho managed to get theGamecockaway before the wind, though she took a couple of heavy dollops going about.
Scilly! A handful of rocks thirty miles away in the open Atlantic, pitch dark, no stars, no compass, the Runnelstone to pass, then the Wolf! At the pace they were going they would be on the Islands long before dawn and then it would be a case of exactly hitting either Crow Sound or St. Mary’s Sound or being smashed to splinters. Still it was the only chance. He would hug the coast as near as he dared till past the Runnelstone—if he ever passed the Runnelstone—and then steer by the wind; it was all there was to steer by.
It was dead northeast at present, but if it shifted where would he be then? It did not bear thinking on and he put it from his mind. He must get past the Runnelstone first; after that . . .
He screwed up every nerve as tight as it would go, forced his senses to their acutest, set his teeth—swore to drive the boat to Scilly—but he had no hope of getting there, no hope at all.
TheGamecock, under her rag of canvas, ran like a hunted thing. It was as though all the crazy elements were pouring southwest, out to the open sea, and she went with them, a chip swept headlong in a torrent of clamorous wind and waters. On his right Ortho could just discern the loom of the coast. Breaker-tops broke, hissing, astern, abeam, ahead. Spindrift blew in flat clouds, stinging like hail. Flurries of snow fell from time to time.
He was wet through, had lost all feeling in his feet, while his hands on the sheet and tiller were so numbed he doubted if he could loosen them.
On and on they drove into the blind turmoil. Anson lay in the water at the bottom, groaning and choking at every pitch.