CHAPTER XXII
HOW MY UNCLE BOTOLPH LOST HIS LUCK
The tide had turned. The river had given up its dead. There was noappeal from this distorted corpse, smirched with yellow so about thethroat and breast, where my uncle's painted hands had gripped him.Wedged deep in the dead man's heart (I heard it said) a certainsignificant shred of blue silk was found that had been drawn in by theswinging blade, and torn from the murderer's sleeve.... After thatthere needed nothing more, and my uncle's luck, which a moment sincehad trembled to its apogee, shot downward like a portent star.
My pretence to write calmly of the sequel, to use the ordinary speechof every day, I support not as purposing to deceive, for it woulddeceive none, but rather as impelled thereto, lest writing as I feel(even yet after so long an interval) I should seem to set down frenzyitself in character, and illegible wild words.
But I may at least report my uncle's apology, as above the clamour Icaught the most of it; and here affirm that, lying infamous villain ashe was, yet so consummate a dignity did mark his every motion, and asit were attended upon all the situations in which he stood, as enforcedrespect of those even who knew him altogether base.
His judges had found against him to a man.
"Well, then, you have it," said he in his cold clear voice, "and arecontent enough this Malpas should have died, so you bring me in hisslayer. You little men! I found a scorpion in my path and trampled onhim; that's the sum of my offending. Or is it not? Nay, I had forgotthe chief; that I would not betray my country, as you petty thieveswould have done, and thought I did. What will you get of theSpaniards, prythee? Money, honours or what? Will those creepingJesuits bestead you? Oh, you have their pledged words! I had as much.More; for I had their secret plans of conquest; their Enterprise ofEngland forsooth! as they sat gnawing their crusts in my hall. Therewas to be an universal uprising of Papists, they told me; mutinies ofthe Queen's troops, and such; baubles of a fool!
"I have had my laugh, you scum, and I have lost. Well, then, what youshall hear may hearten you belike, and move you to laughter. If I havenot been a traitor all this while, how have I been employed? Nothaving abetted their designs, why did I entertain these strangers? Letthis example stand: there was the envoy Spurrier brought in, DonFlorida of Seville, a fine bold gentleman and apt to lead a squadron ofsuch orts as ye. He laid his plans before me openly. So, I took himby the throat and strangled him."
I make no attempt to describe the tumult of their rage who heard him;sufficient, that it passed.
"He was not singular in this business," the prisoner continued, "thoughhe was perhaps the properest man. But what a nasty sort of spies I hadin charge! I swear I think no starved lazar of Spain but was judgedfit enough to come ambassador among us, and parcel out our land; andall the while you stood by grinning: When we be altogether conquered,ran your thoughts, we shall each get his share! Eh, you joltheadhucksters, was it to be so?
"But I was your leader, and that was where I had my laugh. For nosingle one of those you gave me into my keeping did I fail to slay saveonly that poor crazed Courcy whom the soldiers robbed me of, and somethat the Council took alive. The residue you may reckon at yourleisure; they lie rotting in two fathom of Thames water, 'twixt theCustomers Quay and the Galley, ay, rotten as their cause....
"It were a pretty thought now that I should crave a favour at theQueen's hands for stout work done in her cause, though secretly; ay,and I would do it, but for two or three considerations that somethinghinder me; namely, that my life otherwise hath not been altogetherlaw-worthy. And, moreover, there is these bonds, that, being I confessvery workmanlike bound upon me, render my present access to Her Majestyless easy than I could wish; so that I doubt my defence of her realmshall go unrewarded....
"In such a company as this there is sure one clergyman. Let him shriveme, for I am not at all points ready to die.... Well, level yourpieces and be done with it. I care not how soon. Foh! but you handleyour weapons awkwardly; I should be ashamed, were I still yourleader.... How--what is that?"
I had heard it too. "It is the soldiers come," I said to myself, andstrained my ears to listen for a renewal of the sound. Within the roomall expected in a sudden silence what should ensue. It came again; adull noise as of men that rammed at the door with a heavy beam.
"I had thought they had gone," said one, in a thick voice.
"'Twas a fetch of theirs."
"The cellar door is strong," said the tapster Jocelin, but withoutconfidence. "It will last."
"Until what time?" asked my uncle, mocking them. "And then, whencewill you escape, you rats?"
One had blown out the light at the first alarm, and they conferred inthe absolute dark.
"Ha!" cried Jocelin at that taunt of the prisoner's, and with asquealing note of triumph, "there is the new door in the sea-wall toescape by," and scrambling through their midst to the cellar door, hebade his comrades follow him forth. But at the door he stayed, as ofnecessity he must; for 'twas locked, and I that had locked it waswithin the room now, in the dark, with the key in my pocket. I hadscarce time to slip aside, ere the next man had flung Jocelin by for abungler, and the third trampled him down. Over his prostrate body therest passed surging. Knives were out, for all had run distraught atthis unlooked-for prevention. Treachery by each suspected was by everyhand revenged. I heard the sobbing of stricken men, as I felt my wayalong the wall to the place where my uncle sat yet pinioned to hischair. And all this while the daunting clangour continued, as of agiant's mallet beating on the door; nay, even upon the stones of thewall, for the whole room shivered and rocked to the hideous repeatedsound.
I unloosed my uncle, cutting his thongs with a cutlass I had kickedagainst and groped after on the floor; a hand still held it, but I gotit free.
"Who is that?" asked my uncle composedly.
"Hist!" I whispered. "I am your nephew, Denis Cleeve."
"You add to my obligations, Mr. Denis," he replied, and stretchedhimself. "But how does my good brother the magistrate?"
"Enough of that," I said curtly; "how be we to get forth?"
"Why, I supposed you had provided for that," he said in some surprise,"else I were as well bound as free."
I asked whether he could lay hand on his sword, but he answered,scoffing, that his enemies had saved him the trouble of using it; andindeed that bloody unseen strife about the door saved us both for thatwhile. Presently he drew me a little apart into a corner where, hesaid, we might discourse together reasonably and without molestation.He cleared his voice once or twice ere he made known his mind to methus--
"When the soldiers shall break in, as nothing can long withstand suchengines as they have brought to bear, slip you forth, Mr. Denis, andascend immediately to a small retired chamber above the stair where myward lies, Mistress Avenon. Lay your modesty aside for this once, andenter. If she wake not, so much the better; as 'tis better she shouldknow nothing. But I am a fool! for who may sleep on such a night ofhell? Anywise enter, and I will answer for it, she will not repulseyou as she did yon Malpas, the brave lass!
"She hath in keeping a certain jar of mine, Denis, a toy, thatnevertheless I set some value on; this I would have you privily conveyto the house where the Chinese inhabited--I make no question but youknow where it stands. Do this, my dear nephew, and I shall confessmyself every way bound to serve you when I shall come to beenfranchised of this place; for I myself may not undertake the bearingoff of this jar (it stands in a little cupboard by the bed, Denis, nowI think on't), my dress being not such, as wearing it, I might hope toescape challenge of the guard, but with you, Denis, 'twill be a merefrolick adventure." He laid his mouth close to my ear. "Besides,there is the lass Idonia..."
What more he might have added, I know not, for his beastly greed in sosafeguarding his wealth, and that at my risk, who had delivered him,sickened me in such sort as I could no longer abide to hear it, butleft him, and going straightway forward into the screaming press aboutthe
door, struck out a path for myself through the midst of them. Atthe same moment the hammering without in one peal ended; the half of awall fell in, and through the breach thus made came a wavering andintermittent light.
Unspeakably astonished, I gazed about me, upon the dead and writhingbodies that lay at my feet thus uncertainly illumined, and upon myuncle, huddled up in his torn silken robe. But when I had averted myeyes with a shudder to the breach in the wall, I saw a sight I mayneither forget nor endure the remembrance of; for it seemed to me thatthere entered in by that way a figure--inhuman tall, black visaged, andof a most cruel aspect. Perhaps for the space of a man's counting ten,he leaned forward through the aperture, regarding us all in thatghostly dimness, and then, with an equal suddenness, was gone, and thelight with him....
No one word passed our trembling lips, for all felt the horror ofimpending destruction. Only the dying yet moved a little, stirring intheir blood, but even they soon lay still. Meanwhile, through thegreat rent in the wall, the wind blew exceeding strong, so thatalthough at the first we had postponed all thoughts to that one visionof the giant presence, we now perceived by the direction of the windand the saltness of it that it was the river-wall was down, and not (asin our confusion we had supposed) the inner wall, by which the soldiersmust necessarily have assaulted us.
I am not altogether sure who it was by this means solved the mystery,but I think it was Captain Spurrier; howbeit we had not endured thatsweeping gale above an half-minute, before some one cried out that theapparition was nothing else than the carven prow of the _Saracen'sHead_, that dragging at her moorings by the wharf had run against theInn wall and destroyed it; which was presently confirmed by the ship'sagain battering us, but broadside, and not head-on as before. For as Ihave (I think) already said, the Inn was jutted out to the extreme edgeof the _Fair Haven_ wharf, so that at the high tide there was adeepness of water sufficient for any ordinary ship to lie alongside anddischarge her cargo upon the quay; the tide mark running a little belowthe vault where we were, that else would have been suddenly flooded bythe inflow of water through the broken wall. Beyond measure relievedthat we were besieged by neither soldier nor devil, we could notrestrain our joy, and so by a common impulse moved to be gone, thewhole company of us that yet remained alive and able, ran forward tothe breach, and to the ship's side, having her starboard light tofurther us that had formerly so stricken us into dismay. And thus bythis way and that, grasping at whatever projection of blocks andshrouds lay to our hands, some helping and other hindering our escape,we had at length all clambered up into the ship, save only that traitorCutts, who, upon a sudden lurch of the ship, was crushed betwixt thebulwark and the wall, and so died.
I looked about for my uncle, and soon found him, leaning over the rail.
"Ha, Denis," said he coolly, "so thou art escaped. I had a notion'twas thou wert crushed against the wall."
"You mistook then," said I, and might have said more, had not CaptainSpurrier laid a hand upon my collar, the whiles he clapped his pistolto my uncle's ear, and called out--
"Lay me these men in irons, Attwood. I am master on my own good ship,if not in that fiends' compter."
We were seized upon instantly and hurried down to the hold, where,heavily shackled, we were thrown among such stuff as there lay stored.The vessel rolled horribly, and often drove against the impedimentsupon the bank with a dreadful grinding noise, but about morning, as Isupposed, they got her about, and into the stream, where, the tempestsomewhat abating, she rode pretty free, though what course she kept Icould not be certain in, and indeed soon gave over the attempt tofollow their purposes that had us so utterly in their power.