Part 13 (1/2)

It was in the tenth year of our captivity, and in the twenty-sixth ofus to work, they handed us over to a party ofwhips I knew that ere going to leave Y joined us, and howthem! It o years or , for I worked outside the fortress and he on the great tower inside, and I took note his hair hiter and a sadder look upon his face And as for the cross-pall on his cheek, I never thought of it at all, for ere all so well used to the mark, that if one bore it not stamped upon his face we should have stared at hih his look was sad, yet Elzevir had a kind s for me as he passed, and on the ot a chance to speak a word or two together Yet how could we find roo was marred because ere forced thus to take note, as it were, of each other's e but to break in prison, and the other nothing but the prison to eat away the strength of his pri, all knehither ere bound, for it leaked out ere to en, to take shi+p to the settlear far hopes and lofty aims-to live and die a slave in the Dutch plantations? Hopes of Grace, hopes of seeing Moonfleet again, were dead long long ago; and noas there to be no hope of liberty, or even wholeso swamps, and the crack of the slave-driver's whip till the end came? Could it be so? Could it be so? And yet what help was there, or what release? Had I not watched ten years for any gleam or loophole of relief, and never found it? If ere shut in cells or dungeons in the deepest rock we ht have schemed escape, but here in the open, fettered up in-droves, what could we do? They were bitter thoughts enough that filled h roads, fettered byElzevir's white hair and bowed shoulders trudging in front of rizzle on it, and the back was straight as the massive stubborn pillars in old Moonfleet church What was it had brought us to this pitch? And then I called to ht surave voice that said, 'Have a care how you touch the treasure: it was evilly co a curse with it' Ay, 'twas the diaht upon ht I spent in Moonfleet vault; and I cursed the stone, and Blackbeard and his lost Mohunes, and trudged on bearing their cognizance branded on h that very street where Aldobrand dwelt, only the house was shut, and the board that bore his name taken away; so it seemed that he had left the place or else was dead Thus we reached the quays at last, and though I knew that I was leaving Europe and leaving all hope behind, yet 'twas a delight to sain, and fill my nostrils with the keen salt air

CHAPTER 18

IN THE BAY

Let broad leagues dissever Him from yonder foam, O God! to think man ever Comes too near his ho at the buoy a quarter of ato take us to her She was a brig of some 120 tons burthen, and as we cazebe

'Tith regret unspeakable I tookainst the darkening sky; yet knew that neither smoke nor sky was half as black as was the prospect of my life

They sent us down to the orlop or lowest deck, a foul place where was no air nor light, and shut the hatches down on top of us There were thirty of us all told, hustled and driven like pigs into this deck, which was to be our pigsty for six h, when they had the hatches off, to shohat sort of place it was, namely, as foul as it shest planks and balks; and there they changed our bonds, taking away the bar, and putting a tight bracelet round one wrist, with a padlocked chain running through a loop on it Thus ere still ironed, six together, but had a greater freedom and more scope to move And more than this, the h caprice, or perhaps because he really wished to shohat pity he , ere English swine and ether Then the hatches were put on, and there they left us in the dark to think or sleep or curse the tiuen was bad indeed, and yet it was a heaven to this night of hell, where all we had to look for ice a day the limmer of a shi+p's lantern, while they served us out the broken victuals that the Dutch creould not eat

I shall say nothing of the foulness of this place, because 'twas too foul to be written on paper; and if 'twas foul at starting, 'twas ten times worse e reached open sea, for of all the prisoners only Elzevir and I were sailors, and the rest took the motion unkindly

Froh ere below and could see nothing, yet 'twas easy enough to tell there was a heavy head-sea running, alh Elzevir and I had not had any chance of talking freely for so long, and were now able to speak as we liked, being linked so close together, we said but little And this, not because we did not value very greatly one another's co to talk of except memories of the past, and those were too bitter, and came too readily to our minds, to need any to summon them There was, too, the banish we loved, and the awful certainty of slavery that lay continuously on us like a weight of lead Thus we said little

We had been out a week, I think-for tih to measure where there is neither clock nor sun nor stars-when the weather, which had row ed and laboured heavily, and this addedto hold on by, and unless we lay flat on the filthy deck, we ran a risk of being flung to the side whenever there cah ere so deep down, yet the roaring of wind and as loud enough to reach us, and there was such a noise when the shi+p went about, such grinding of ropes, with creaking and groaning of ti to pieces And this so, or kneeling chained together as they were upon the sloping deck, while they tried to reotten prayers For my own part, I wondered why these poor wretches should pray to be delivered fro slavery; but I was perhaps able to lookbeen at sea, and not thinking that the vessel was going to founder because of the noise Yet the stor sea, and the streas of the hatch showed that water had got below

'I have known better shi+ps go under for less than this,' Elzevir said to ht craft, and stout hands to work her, there will soon be two score slaves the less to cut the canes in Java I cannot guess where we are now-may be off Ushant, may be not so far, for this sea is too short for the Bay; but the saints send us sea-roo these three hours'

'Twas true enough that we had gone to wearing, as oneent round, instead of the plunging of a tack; but there was no chance of getting at our whereabouts The only thing we had to reckon ti off of the hatch twice a day for food; and even this poor clock kept not the hour too well, for often there were such gaps and intervals as made our bellies pine, and at this present we had waited so long that I craved even that filthy broken h to hear a noise at the hatch just as Elzevir had done speaking, and the cover was flung off, letting in a splash of salt water and a little diuard with their muskets and lanterns and the tubs of broken victuals, there was only one s at the beginning of the voyage

He bent down for ato steady hi a key on a chain down into the orlop, right a us 'Take it,' he shouted in Dutch, 'and make the most of it God helps the brave, and the devil takes the hindmost'

That said, he stayed not one one For an instant none knehat this play portended, and there was the key lying on the deck, and the hatch left open Then Elzevir sahat it allto iving us a chance to save our lives, and not drown like rats in a trap' With that he tried the key on the padlock which held our chain, and it fitted so well that in a trice our gang was free Off fell the chain clanking on the floor, and nothing left of our bonds but an iron bracelet clamped round the left wrist You h to make use of the key when they knehat 'twas, but aited not to seeused to the sea, were first through the hatchway above, and oh, the strength and sweet coolness of the sea air, instead of the warood deal of water sousing about on the , yet none of the creas to be seen We stayed there not a second, but moved to the co of the shi+p, and so ca in, yet with a I perceived was that the deck was e was broached to, with her bows against the heaviest sea I ever saw, and the waves swept her fore and aft; so we made for the tail of the deck-house, and there took stock But before we got there I knehy 'twas the creere gone, and why they let us loose, for Elzevir pointed to so, and shouted inof the te head to sea, and never a bit of canvas left except one stor on the yards to shohere the sails had been bloay, and every now and then the staysail would flap like a gun going off, to shoanted to follow the backwards, and each great wave as it passed carried us on stern first with a leap and swirling lift 'Twas over the stern that Elzevir pointed, in the course that ere going, and there was such a mist, ith the wind and rain and spindrift, that one could see but a little way And yet I saw too far, for in thea sternboard, I sahite line like a fringe or valance to the sea; and then I looked to starboard, and there was the sae was there too Only those who know the sea kno terrible were Elzevir's words uttered in such a place A moment before I was exalted with, the keen salt wind, and with a hope and freedo; but noas all dashed, and death, that is so far off to the young, hada year nearer every minute

'We are on a lee shore,' Elzevir shouted; and I looked and knehat the white fringe was, and that we should be in the breakers in half an hour What a whirl of wind and wave and sea, what a whirl of thought and wild conjecture! What was that land to which ere drifting? Was it cliff, with deep water and iron face, where a good shi+p is shattered at a blow, and death co sand, where there is stranding, and the pound, pound, pound of the waves for howls, before she goes to pieces and all is over?

We were in a bay, for there was the long white crescent of surf reaching far away on either side, till it was lost in the dusk, and the brig helpless in the ripped it hard as he looked to larboard I followed his eyes, and where one horn of the white crescent faded into the h land loo rain lifted ever so little, and as it were only for that purpose; andahead of a basking alligator poised upon the water, and stared into each other's eyes, and cried together, 'The Snout!'

It had vanished almost before it was seen, and yet we knew there was nobehind therack, and ere in Moonfleet Bay Oh, what a rush of thought then ca me with its sweet bitterness, to think that after all these weary years of prison and exile we had come back to Moonfleet! We were so near to all we loved, so near-only a mile of broken water-and yet so far, for death lay between, and we had coe came over Elzevir's features when he saw the Snout; his face had lost its sadness and wore a look of sober happiness He put hishand has brought us home at last, and I had rather drown on Moonfleet Beach than live in prison any more, and droe ht for life' And then, as if gathering together all his force: 'We have weathered bad tiether, and who knows but we shall weather this?'

The other prisoners were on deck now, and had found their way aft They ith fear, being landsry sea, and indeed that seadrenched with the waves, and clustered round Elzevir, for they looked on him as a leader, because he knew the ways of the sea and was the only one left calm in this dreadful strait

It was plain that when the Dutch crew found they were embayed, and that the shi+p must drift into the breakers, they had taken to the boats, for gig and jolly-boat were gone and only the pinnace left amidshi+ps 'Twas too heavy a boat perhaps for theot out in such a fearful sea; but there it lay, and it was to that the prisoners turned their eyes Some had hold of Elzevir's arht hiet the pinnace out

Then he spoke out, shouting to make them hear: 'Friends, any man that takes to boat is lost I know this bay and know this beach, and was indeed born hereabouts, but never knew a boat come to land in such a sea, save bottom uppermost So if you want my counsel, there you have it, namely, to stick by the shi+p In half an hour we shall be in the breakers; and I will put the hel bows on to the beach; so every ht for his own life, and God have mercy on those that drown'

I knehat he said was the truth, and there was nothing for it but to stick to the shi+p, though that was sh; but those poor, fear-deiven, and o for the boat Then some came up from beloho had been in the spirit-rooe, and heartened on the rest, saying they would have the pinnace out, and every soul should be saved Indeed, Fate seemed to point them that road, for a heavier sea than any careat piece of larboard bulwarks that had been working loose, and ain did Elzevir try to prevail with them to stand by the shi+p, but they turned away and all made for the pinnace It lay ah, but with so ot it to the broken bulwarks Then Elzevir, seeing they would have it out at any price, showed thee of the sea, and shi+fted the helzebe fell off to larboard, and put the gap in the bulwarks on the lee So in a few minutes there it lay at a rope's-end on the sheltered side, deep laden with thirty men, ere ill found with oars, and much worse found with skill to use them There were one or two, before they left, shouted to Elzevir and me to try to make us follow them; partly, I think, because they really liked Elzevir, and partly that they ht have a sailor in the boat to direct the that we lish, which kept drifting backwards slowly; but the pinnace was soon lost to sight, thoughthat they were roild as soon as she passed out of the shelter of the shi+p, and that they had much ado to keep her head to the sea