CHAPTER XITHE REVENGE
The position that Captain Conyngham and his crew found themselves in was peculiar. But few of his men had actually been placed under arrest. The Frenchmen who had shipped in the Surprise, though well known to the authorities, had been unmolested, nor could the imprisonment of the few others be considered in the light of a great hardship. The men occupied roomy quarters facing on the main courtyard, were allowed to purchase extra supplies, and in squads of five or six they were permitted to exercise in the open air of the court. Captain Conyngham was in a different wing of the jail, but was treated more as a guest than as a prisoner; still, until almost a week had gone by he had found it impossible to communicate with any friends in the outside world. One day, to his surprise, however, he heard a cheery voice calling to him from the doorway of his large cell, for, being in a prison, every room was supposed to hold prisoners. Looking up, Conyngham saw his friend Allan standing laughing at him cheerfully. He had a long apron hanging from his shoulders and a baker’s basket on his arm.
“Any bread this morning, sir?” he asked in French. “I have some good Yankee bread with raisins and sweetening.”
“Ah, but it’s good to have a sight of you, friend Allan!” exclaimed Conyngham, rushing up and grasping the imitation baker by both hands, that, to carry out the illusion, Allan had daubed with flour. “Aren’t you running great risks?” he asked.
“Risks?” laughed Allan. “Why, if the Frenchmen found out that I was bringing in food to their starving prisoners, I would be hung, drawn, and quartered.”
“So you donned this disguise,” laughed Conyngham in reply, “and they never suspected you of such a thing. But news! news! my friend; that’s what I am starving for—it’s the heart and the soul of me that’s crying and not my stomach, for that the head jailer has looked after well. Are they going to hand us over to the Britishers?—that’s the first question.”
“They are and they aren’t,” replied Allan, “but this news I got this morning from Paris: ‘Tell Conyngham to sit tight and not worry. All is apparently going well.’ But the French are great people—they must do everything like a play or a spectacle. Here I was told that I should be allowed to see you if I applied to the commandant, and he informs me that I certainly can do so, but requests that I shall put on a disguise. I tried on three uniforms, but there were none that would button or allow me to sit down.”
“Which by the same token I haven’t asked you to do myself yet,” was Conyngham’s reply.
Allan seated himself in the big rush-bottom chair and placed his basket on the floor.
“The English expect that you are to be handed over for a certainty,” Allan continued. “They have prepared the sloop of war to receive you, and I understand thatanother is on its way. Instructions, too, have been sent to Portsmouth or Southampton, but we will disappoint them. The French Government is playing its little game of ‘wait a bit longer,’ and never letting their right hand see what their left hand is doing.”
“I knew that Dr. Franklin would take care of that,” returned Conyngham, “but how long is it going to last?”
“Have patience!” replied Allan, “it certainly will not be long. I am expecting Mr. Hodge to-morrow or the day after from Paris.”
“Have the crew been informed?”
“All but four of them escaped last night,” answered Allan.—“How careless these Frenchmen are!—There will be another row when the English hear of it; but I must be going, as they have spies by day watching the entrance to the prison and overlooking the yard, from the tall house next to the church.”
With that he picked up his basket, and after shaking hands went out into the yard, where the sentry, evidently under orders, allowed him to proceed to another part in an endeavor to dispose of his wares.
The next day Conyngham had another unexpected visitor, but it was not Mr. Hodge, and happened thus: He was out in the inclosure amusing himself and at the same time taking exercise by bounding a rubber ball back and forth against the high brick sides of the building, when one of the under jailers called to him from the entrance. At the same time a red-faced man who accompanied the jailer stepped forward, and telling the jailer to go, stood as if waiting for Conyngham to approach, but the latter paid no attention and went on with his game. At last the man drew near and spoke.
“I am Captain Cuthbertson of his Majesty’s sloop-of-war Alert. Your name is Conyngham,” he said.
“Now, somebody must have told you that,” returned Conyngham. “But it is my name, and I am captain of the armed cruiser the Surprise.”
“Which has been turned over to his Majesty’s Government with the other vessels that you piratically took off the coast of Holland,” replied the officer.
“Indeed?” was the reply, “That must be gratifying to his Majesty. But now, captain, won’t you take off your coat and have a game with me? It is a pleasant little occupation that two can play at better than one. I have little with me to wager but my shoe-buckles. I will play mine against yours. Or we’ll put up our wigs,” he continued.
“You’ve played for a larger stake than that and you’ve lost,” replied Captain Cuthbertson. “How can you, knowing that your very life is in jeopardy, indulge in such pastimes?”
“If my life was in jeopardy, I am sure it would be in a good cause. I ask for no favors except a little more elbow room, for you’re standing just where I wish to begin playing.”
“Listen to me first,” spoke the officer, not noticing that a dangerous flash had come into Conyngham’s eyes. “His Majesty might be disposed to be lenient—aye, more than that—if you will listen to reason. Perhaps it might be possible to arrange a pardon for you—and more. You have once been a British subject. Return to your allegiance and loyalty. I doubt not that it might be so arranged that a good place could be found for you in the naval establishment, andthat with your talents a sure advancement would follow.”
Conyngham threw the ball into the air and caught it. “You may tell those who sent you,” he replied, “that his Majesty might offer me the position of an admiral of the blue, and I would tell him that I would rather spend my days in the hold of a prison-hulk than accept it. As you will not play with me, I shall have to ask you to stand aside again. Some day we may meet where the game will be played for larger stakes and there will be harder missiles flying. Good morning, sir.”
The officer stamped his foot and started to reply, then he changed his mind quickly and left the jail-yard without a word.
Conyngham stopped playing and went to his cell. Before an hour had passed another visitor was announced. It was Mr. Hodge. He was not disguised, but dressed in his usual habit, that of a merchant in prosperous circumstances.
“I expected to see you as a cat’s-meat man or a turbaned Turk, my dear sir,” was Conyngham’s greeting, “and yet here you come as if you were dropping into the tavern of our friend on the hill.”
Hodge smiled. “There is very little more trouble. I bore some instructions from Paris that have made the commandant of the prison a very subservient individual.”
“Then you have brought me my release!”
“No, not that, but it will follow in due time. In some way the commissioners have got the French ministry between the grindstones, or—a better simile perhaps—Dr. Franklin is about to checkmate de Vergennes and the latter is apparently glad to call the game a draw.Good news also has come from America, though no great victory has yet been won. Grand, our banker in Paris, has now another hundred thousand livres at the disposal of the commissioners. What we must do is to spend it in such a manner as will best benefit the cause.”
“Then force the hand of the French Government,” replied Conyngham. “Everything that you do to make them sever relations formed on any friendly basis with England, will lend more assistance than the capture of a dozen packets.”
“And how is it best to do that?” asked Mr. Hodge.
“I will answer that with a question first,” replied Conyngham. “How much longer shall I be detained in this ‘durance vile’? By the Powers, I’m tired of it.”
“Four or five days, perhaps a week.”
“That is right and will do well. You’re supposed by many to be an English merchant here, Mr. Hodge. I am, and will be for a little time, a prisoner. You did not figure in the purchase of the Surprise, but there is a fine two-masted craft of something over a hundred tons lying moored at the end of the long wharf. She is for sale. Buy her at once.”
“And then what?”
“Fit her out with stores for a two months’ cruise. I will secure her armament and crew upon my release.”
“We shall surely be in trouble again.”
“Not much this time. To my thinking, the French Government will be glad to be rid of us. To the south of us lies Spain with its open market, to the west of England lies Ireland with many a well-provisioned port and friendly hand, and there is always our own country. Had my last vessel been big enough to have crossed safely andhad we not taken those unlucky mails, it was for home that I would have headed the Surprise.”
“She lived up to the definition of her name; what would you call this one?”
“I would be after calling her,” replied Conyngham slyly and in the softest of brogues, “I’d be after calling her the Revenge.”