Part 20 (1/2)
Not foreseeing her danger, but only transported with joy to think she was to be delivered from her captivity, Lady Biddy replied that she demanded nothing better.
”Your effects will be landed afterwards. I doubt if you would care for me to send my men into your cabin for them at the present moment.”
”But,” says Lady Biddy, thinking of me, and then she stopped.
”I understand what is in your thoughts. You are concerned for your friend; so am I. I cannot answer for his life if my men find him. They would insist upon his death in return for the injury inflicted upon Tonga. Therefore must he wait until the company is landed and gone in search of water.”
At this moment the boatswain came to say that the boat was prepared.
”You will take this lady to the sh.o.r.e, and see that no injury is offered her--not a word uttered that may offend her,” says Rodrigues; and then stepping back, that she might have freedom to pa.s.s, he takes off his hat and makes her a prodigious fine bow. Yet Lady Biddy hesitated, fearing treachery to me; and still more might she have feared it if her spirits had been quite composed, and her judgment in a condition to weigh all that Rodrigues had said.
”What have you to fear?” says he, speaking low. ”What harm could the most treacherous wretch inflict with impunity? If you have told the truth--which I do not doubt--a cry from you will insure the destruction of all you leave in this s.h.i.+p. Your cry from the sh.o.r.e would sound as clearly in this still air as from here. Think what you will of me, but believe that I am not a fool. Farewell!”
Hoping for the best, seeing no better course open to her, and yet troubled with misgivings, Lady Biddy descended the side and took her place in the barge. Then in silence the men pulled her ash.o.r.e. Yet did they look keenly one at the other, as if expecting some merry turn of this business--one thrusting his tongue in his cheek, a second winking his eye, and a third hawking as if he had a rheum.
However, they said not one word, and having set Lady Biddy on sh.o.r.e very tenderly, they shoved off and returned to the s.h.i.+p.
Now, not knowing which way to turn nor what to do, for her position being so unexpected, and feeling like one set alone in another world, Lady Biddy rested her hand on the tree by which she stood, and in a kind of maze watched the boat returning to the s.h.i.+p.
Then she began to wonder how long it would be ere the men would be dispersed and I should come to her, and what means we should find of getting to that town Rodrigues had spoken of.
The men left the boat and went up on board, and still Lady Biddy watched, as if she had but just woke from her sleep, and was dazed (as she told me); but of a sudden a great shout burst upon her ear, and as quickly it flashed upon her intelligence that a false trick had been put upon her, which she might have foreseen had she been as subtle as Rodrigues, which (thanks be to G.o.d) she was not. Then for the first time it occurred to her that while she was being carried to the sh.o.r.e Rodrigues might send part of his company below to take the powder from the armory, or to be prepared with muskets to shoot me dead the moment I lifted the trap.
And now hearing this shout she was convinced that precautions had been taken to prevent the blowing up of the s.h.i.+p, and the men were rus.h.i.+ng into the cabin to take me.
But this was not the worst. As she strained her eyes, as if to pierce the side of the s.h.i.+p and know my fate, she perceived a boat shoot from the further side of the s.h.i.+p and turn towards her. For a moment she believed that I had contrived to escape, for there was but one man in the boat; but looking more narrowly she perceived, to her horror, that the man was Tonga the negro; and coming towards her he raised a terrible yell of savage joy and triumph.
Rodrigues, true to his word, had offered the black a reward for the pain he had been put to; and now, as he came on exulting to satiate his l.u.s.t and vengeance, my poor Lady Biddy screamed aloud to me.
But it was too late; and Lady Biddy, feeling she was now most surely undone, could not even cry again for help.
CHAPTER XXVI.
HOW I GOT AWAY FROM THE VILE PIRATE AND SETTLED TONGA HIS BUSINESS.
Seeing nothing but impenetrable thickets on one hand, and the sea on the other, and no means of escape either this way or that from the raging savage, Lady Biddy, I say, did give herself up for lost; and so, falling on her knees, she prayed the Almighty to take her life there and then, that she might be saved from the loathsome pa.s.sion of the negro. Yet was her case not so bad as to call for this last remedy neither, as I shall presently show.
In great commotion of mind I stood in the little cabin with the grenade in my hand and the lamp burning steadily at my feet, prepared to play the part of the destroyer, while still cheris.h.i.+ng the faint flickering hope that my lot rather was to be that of the preserver.
Thus I waited an incredible length of time (as it seemed to me), until, my anxiety becoming no longer tolerable, I scratched again upon the wall for a signal to Lady Biddy.
Then getting no answer, I ventured again to the panel-door and peeped through. The big cabin was empty; nor could I spy through the further door any sign of her, but only the s.h.i.+p's company drawn across the deck, with Tonga lying p.r.o.ne before them.
But at a glance I perceived that most of the men were looking up towards the deck over my head, and then catching a faint sound from thence, which my eager intelligence made out to be my lady's voice, I was no longer in doubt as to her whereabouts.
At this point I heard Rodrigues call to his boatswain to man the boat, which he speedily set about to do. Now, while these fellows were thus busily occupied, I saw my chance to get out on to the gallery unperceived through the little door there, which had been set open to let a current of air through. So creeping low and nimble as any cat I crossed the s.p.a.ce that was open to observation from the deck (without being seen, thanks be to G.o.d), and that way got me on to the quarter gallery.