Part 27 (2/2)
”By James!” said Kettle, ”the man's mad. What did he think I should be doing whilst one of my mates was scoffing cargo under my blessed nose?”
”Ah, you see,” said the foggy voice, with sly malice, ”he did not know you so well then, sir. That was before he persuaded you to come into his house to stay with him.”
It is probable that Captain Kettle would have found occasion to make acid comment on this repartee from his inferior officer, but at that moment another voice addressed him from the slit at the other side of his prison, and he turned sharply round. To his surprise this new person spoke in very tolerable English.
”Capt'n, I want t'make contrack wid you.”
”The deuce you do. And who might you be, anyway?”
”I cullud gen'lem'n, sar. Born _Zanzibar_. Used to be fireman on P. and O. I want arsk you--”
”Is this the Arabian Nights? How the mischief did you get here, anyway?”
”Went on burst in Aden, sar. Th'ole Chief fired me out. Went Yemen.
Caught for slave. Taken caravan. Brought here. But I'm very clever gen'lem'n, sar, an' soon bought myself free. Got slave of my own now.
An' three wives. Bought 'nother wife yesterday.”
”You nasty beast!” said Kettle.
”Sar, you insult me. Not bally Christian any longer. Hard-sh.e.l.l Mohammedan now, sar, and can marry as many wives as I can buy.”
”I'm sure the Prophet's welcome to you. Look here, my man. Pa.s.s down a rope's end from aloft there, and let me get on deck, and I'll give you a sovereign cash down, and a berth in my steamboat's stoke-hold if you want one. I'm not asking you to help me more. I guess I'm quite competent to find my way on board, and to wipe this house tolerably clean before it's quit of me.”
”Nothing of the kind, sar,” said the man behind the slit. ”You insult me, sar. I very big gen'lem'n here, sar, an' a sovereign's no use to me.
Besides, I partner to ole man Rad, an' he say he want dem rifles you got on your ole tramp.”
”Does he, indeed? Then you can tell him, Mr. n.i.g.g.e.r runaway-drunken-fireman, that I'll see you and him in somewhere a big sight hotter than Arabia before he gets them. I didn't know they were rifles; if I had known before this, I'd not have put them ash.o.r.e; but as things are now, I'll land them into the hands of those that ordered them, and I hope they come round to this town of yours and give you fits. And see here, you talk more respectful about my steamboat, or you'll get your s.h.i.+ns kicked, daddy.”
”An ole tramp,” said the man relis.h.i.+ngly. ”I served on P. an' O., sar, an' on P. an' O. we don't care 'sociate wid tramps' sailors.”
”You impudent black cannibal. You'll be one of the animals those pa.s.senger lines carry along to eat the dead babies, to save the trouble of heaving them overboard.”
The ex-fireman spluttered. But he did not continue the contest. He recognized that he had to deal with a master in the cheerful art of insult, and so he came back sulkily to business.
”Will you give Rad dem rifles, you low white fellow?”
”No, I won't.”
”Very well. Den we shall spiflicate you till you do,” said the man, and after that Kettle heard his slippers shuffling away.
”I wonder what spiflicating is?” mused Kettle, but he did not remain cudgelling his brain over this for long. It occurred to him that if this negro could come and go so handily to the outside of this underground prison, there must be a stairway somewhere near, and though he could not enlarge the slit to get at it that way, it might be possible to burrow a pa.s.sage under the wall itself. For a tool, he had spied a broken crock lying on the floor, and with the idea once in his head, he was not long in putting it to practical effect. He squatted just underneath the slit, and began to quarry the earth at the foot of the wall with skill and determination.
But if Kettle was prompt, his captors were by no means dilatory. Between Kettle's prison and the mate's was another of those bottle-shaped _oubliettes_, and in that there was presently a bustle of movement.
There came the noises of some one lighting a fire, and coughing as he fanned smouldering embers into a glow with his breath, and then more coughing and some curses as the fire-lighter took his departure. The door above clapped down into place, and then there was the sound of someone dragging over that and over the doors of the other two prisons what seemed to be carpets, or heavy rugs.
There was something mysterious in this manoeuvre at first, but the secret of it was not kept for long. An acrid smell stole out into the air, which thickened every minute in intensity. Kettle seemed dimly to recognize it, but could not put a name to it definitely. Besides, he was working with all his might at sc.r.a.ping away the earth from the foot of the wall, and had little leisure to think of other things.
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