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One of Clive's Heroes: A Story of the Fight for India

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Title: One of Clive's Heroes: A Story of the Fight for India

Creator: Herbert Strang


        
Release date: November 25, 2012 [eBook #41489]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONE OF CLIVE'S HEROES: A STORY OF THE FIGHT FOR INDIA ***




Produced by Al Haines.




[Illustration: Cover]



[Illustration: THE SUBAHDAR FALLS INTO THE TRAP.]




                         ONE OF CLIVE'S HEROES

                     A Story of the Fight for India


                                   By
                             HERBERT STRANG



                            HUMPHREY MILFORD
                        OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
                       LONDON, EDINBURGH, GLASGOW
                 TORONTO, MELBOURNE, CAPE TOWN, BOMBAY




           Copyright, 1906, by the Bobbs Merrill Company, in
                      the United States of America


       REPRINTED 1938 IN GREAT BRITAIN BY R. CLAY AND SONS, LTD.,
                            BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.




                                Preface


I have not attempted in this story to give a full account of the career
of Lord Clive.  That has been done by my old friend Mr. Henty in _With
Clive in India_.  It has always seemed to me that a single book provides
too narrow a canvas for the display of a life so full and varied as
Clive's; while a story is bound to suffer, structurally and in detail,
from the compression of the events of a life-time into so restricted a
space.  I have therefore chosen two outstanding events in the history of
India and of Clive--the capture of Gheria and the Battle of Plassey; and
have made them the pivot of a personal story of adventure. The whole
action of the present work is comprised in the years from 1754 to 1757.

But while this book is thus rather a romance with a background of
history than an historical biography with an admixture of fiction, the
reader may be assured that the information its pages contain is
accurate.  I have drawn freely upon the standard authorities: Orme's
_History_, Ives' _Voyage_, Grose's _Voyage_, the lives of Clive by
Malcolm and by Colonel Malleson, and many other works, in particular the
monumental volumes, by Mr. S. C. Hill recently published, _Bengal in
1756-7_, which give a very full, careful and clear account of that
notable year, with a mass of most useful and interesting documents.  The
maps of Bengal, Fort William, and Plassey in the present volume are
taken from Mr. Hill's work, by kind permission of the Secretary of State
for India.  I have to thank also Mr. T. P. Marshall, of Newport, for
some valuable notes on the history and topography of Market Drayton.
For Indian words and names the Hunterian spelling has been adopted in
the main.

For several years I myself lived within a stone's throw of the scene of
the tragedy of the Black Hole; and though at that time I had no
intention of writing a story for boys, I hope that the impressions of
Indian life, character, and scenery then gained have helped to create an
atmosphere and to give reality to my picture.  History is more than a
mere record of events; I shall be satisfied if the reader gets from
these pages an idea, however imperfect, of the conditions of life in
which our empire-builders laboured in India a hundred and fifty years
ago.

HERBERT STRANG.




                                Contents


                           CHAPTER THE FIRST

In which the Court Leet of Market Drayton entertains Colonel Robert
Clive; and our hero makes an acquaintance


                           CHAPTER THE SECOND

In which our hero overhears a conversation; and, meeting with the
expected, is none the less surprised and offended


                           CHAPTER THE THIRD

In which Mr. Marmaduke Diggle talks of the Golden East; and our hero
interrupts an interview, and dreams dreams


                           CHAPTER THE FOURTH

In which blows are exchanged; and our hero, setting forth upon his
travels, scents an adventure


                           CHAPTER THE FIFTH

In which Job Grinsell explains; and three visitors come by night to the
_Four Alls_


                           CHAPTER THE SIXTH

In which the reader becomes acquainted with William Bulger and other
sailor men; and our hero as a Squire of dames acquits himself with
credit


                          CHAPTER THE SEVENTH

In which Colonel Clive suffers a defeat hitherto unrecorded; and our
hero finds food for reflection


                           CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

In which several weeks are supposed to elapse; and our hero is
discovered in the doldrums


                           CHAPTER THE NINTH

In which the _Good Intent_ makes a running fight; and Mr. Toley makes a
suggestion


                           CHAPTER THE TENTH

In which our hero arrives in the Golden East; and Mr. Diggle presents
him to a native prince


                          CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH

In which the Babu tells the story of King Vikramaditya; and the
discerning reader may find more than appears on the surface


                          CHAPTER THE TWELFTH

In which our hero is offered freedom at the price of honour; and Mr.
Diggle finds that he has no monopoly of quotations


                         CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH

In which Mr. Diggle illustrates his argument; and there are strange
doings in Gheria Harbour


                         CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH

In which seven bold men light a big bonfire; and the Pirate finds our
hero a bad bargain


                         CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH

In which our hero weathers a storm; and prepares for squalls


                         CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH

In which a mutiny is quelled in a minute; and our Babu proves himself a
man of war


                        CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH

In which our hero finds himself among friends; and Colonel Clive
prepares to astonish Angria


                         CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH

In which Angria is astonished; and our hero begins to pay off old scores


                         CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH

In which the scene changes; the dramatis personae remaining the same


                         CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH

In which there are recognitions and explanations; and our hero meets one
Coja Solomon, of Cossimbazar


                        CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST

In which Coja Solomon finds dishonesty the worse policy; and a journey
down the Hugli little to his liking


                       CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND

In which is given a full, true, and particular account Of the Battle of
the Carts


                        CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD

In which there are many moving events; and our hero finds himself a
cadet of John Company


                       CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH

In which the danger of judging by appearance is notably exemplified


                        CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH

In which our hero embarks on a hazardous mission; and Monsieur Sinfray's
khansaman makes a confession


                        CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH

In which presence of mind is shown to be next best to absence of body


                       CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH

In which an officer of the Nawab disappears; and Bulger reappears


                       CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH

In which Captain Barker has cause to rue the day when he met Mr. Diggle;
and our hero continues to wipe off old scores


                        CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH

In which our hero does not win the Battle of Plassey; but, where all do
well, gains as much glory as the rest


                         CHAPTER THE THIRTIETH

In which Coja Solomon reappears; and gives our hero valuable information


                        CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIRST

In which friends meet, and part; and our hero hints a proposal


                       CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SECOND

In which the curtain falls, to the sound of bells; and our hero comes to
his own




                           CHAPTER THE FIRST


*In which the Court Leet of Market Drayton entertains Colonel Robert
Clive; and our hero makes an acquaintance.*


One fine autumn evening, in the year 1754, a country cart jogged
eastwards into Market Drayton at the heels of a thickset
shaggy-fetlocked and broken-winded cob. The low tilt, worn and
ill-fitting, swayed widely with the motion, scarcely avoiding the hats
of the two men who sat side by side on the front seat, and who, to any
one watching their approach, would have appeared as dark figures in a
tottering archway, against a background of crimson sky.

As the vehicle jolted through Shropshire Street, the creakings of its
unsteady wheels mingled with a deep humming, as of innumerable bees,
proceeding from the heart of the town.  Turning the corner by the
butchers' bulks into the High Street, the cart came to an abrupt stop.
In front, from the corn-market, a large wooden structure in the centre
of the street, to the _Talbot Inn_, stretched a dense mass of people,
partly townsfolk, as might be discerned by their dress, partly country
folk who, having come in from outlying villages to market, had
presumably been kept in the town by their curiosity or the fair weather.

"We'n better goo round about, measter," said the driver to the passenger
at his side.  "Summat's afoot down yander."

"You're a wise man, to be sure.  Something's afoot, as you truly say.
And being troubled from my youth up with an inquiring nose, I'll e'en
step forward and smell out the occasion.  Do you bide here, my Jehu,
till I come back."

"Why, I will then, measter, but my name binna Jehu. 'Tis plain Tummas."

"You don't say so!  Now I come to think of it, it suits you better than
Jehu, for the Son of Nimshi drove furiously.  Well, Tummas, I will not
keep you long; this troublesome nose of mine, I dare say, will soon be
satisfied."

By this time he had slipped down from his seat, and was walking towards
the throng.  Now that he was upon his feet, he showed himself to be more
than common tall, spare, and loose-jointed.  His face was lean and
swarthy, his eyes black and restless; his well-cut lips even now wore
the same smile as when he mischievously misnamed his driver.  Though he
wore the usual dress of the Englishman of his day--frock, knee-breeches,
and buckle-shoes, none of them in their first youth--there was a
something outlandish about him, in the bright yellow of his neckcloth
and the red feather stuck at a jaunty angle into the riband of his hat;
and Tummas, as he looked curiously after his strange passenger, shook
his head, and bit the straw in his mouth, and muttered:

"Ay, it binna on'y the nose, 't binna on'y the nose, with his Jehus an'
such."

Meanwhile the man strode rapidly along, reached the fringe of the crowd,
and appeared to make his way through its mass without difficulty,
perhaps by reason of his commanding height, possibly by the aforesaid
quaintness of his aspect, and the smile which forbade any one to regard
him as an aggressor.  He went steadily on until he came opposite to the
_Talbot Inn_.  At that moment a stillness fell upon the crowd; every
voice was hushed; every head was craned towards the open windows of the
inn's assembly-room.

[Sidenote: Reminiscences]

Gazing with the rest, the stranger saw a long table glittering under the
soft radiance of many candles and surrounded by a numerous company--fat
and thin, old and young, red-faced and pale, gentle and simple.  At the
end farthest from the street one figure stood erect--a short, round,
rubicund little man, wearing a gown of rusty black, one thumb stuck into
his vest, and a rosy benignity in the glance with which he scanned the
table.  He threw back his head, cleared his tight throat sonorously, and
began, in tones perhaps best described as treacly, to address the seated
company, with an intention also towards the larger audience without.

"Now, neebours all, we be trim and cosy in our insides, and 'tis time
fur me to say summat.  I be proud, that I be, as it falls to me, bein'
bailiff o' this town, to ax ya all to drink the good health of our
honoured townsman an' guest.  I ha' lived hereabout, boy an' man, fur a
matter o' fifty year, an' if so be I lived fifty more I couldna be a
prouder man than I bin this night.  Boy an' man, says I.  Ay, I knowed
our guest when he were no more'n table high.  Well I mind him, that I
do, comin' by this very street to school; ay, an' he minds me too, I
warrant.  I see him now, I do, skippin' along street fresh an'
nimble-like, his eyne chock full o' mischief, lookin' round fur to see
some poor soul to play a prank on.  It do feel strange-like to have him
a-sittin' by my elbow to-day.  Many's the tale I could tell o' his doin'
an' our sufferin'.  Why, I mind a poor lump of a prentice as I wunst
had, a loon as never could raise a keek: poor soul, he bin underground
this many year.  Well, as I were sayin', this prentice o' mine were
allers bein' baited by the boys o' the grammar-school. I done my best
for him, spoke them boys fair an' soft, but bless ya, 'twas no good;
they baited him worse'n ever. So one day I used my stick to um.  Next
mornin', I was down in my bake-hus, makin' my batch ready fur oven,
when, oothout a word o' warnin', up comes my two feet behind, down I
goes head fust into my flour barrel, and them young----hem! the clergy
be present--them youngsters dancin' round me like forty mad merryandrews
at a fair."

A roar of laughter greeted the anecdote.

"Ay, neebours," resumed the bailiff, "we can laugh now, you an' me, but
theer's many on ya could tell o your own mishappenin's if ya had a mind
to 't.  As fur me, I bided my time.  One day I cotched the leader o'
them boys nigh corn-market, an' I laid him across the badgerin' stone,
and walloped him nineteen-twenty--hee! hee!  D'ya mind that, General?"

He turned to the guest at his right hand, who sat with but the glimmer
of a smile, crumbling one of Bailiff Malkin's rolls on the table-cloth.

"But theer," continued the speaker, "that be nigh twenty year ago, an'
the shape o' my strap binna theer now, I warrant.  Three skins ha'
growed since then--hee! hee! Who'd ha' thought, neebours, as that young
limb as plagued our very lives out 'ud ha' bin here to-day, a general,
an' a great man, an' a credit to his town an' country?  Us all thought
as he'd bring his poor feyther's grey hairs in sorrow to the grave.  An'
when I heerd as he'd bin shipped off to the Injies--well, thinks I, that
bin the last we'll hear o' Bob Clive.  But bless ya! all eggs binna
addled.  General Clive here--'twere the Injun sun what hatched he, an'
binna he, I ax ya, a rare young fightin' cock?  Ay, and a good breed
too.  A hunnerd year ago theer was a Bob Clive as med all our
grandfeythers quake in mortal fear, a terrible man o' war was he.  They
wanted to put 'n into po'try an' the church sarvice.

    From Wem and from Wyche
    An' from Clive o' the Styche,
      Good Lord, deliver us.

That's what they thought o' the Bob Clive o' long ago. Well, this Bob
Clive now a-sittin' at my elbow be just as desp'rate a fighter, an'
thankful let us all be, neebours, as he does his fightin' wi' the
black-faced Injuns an' the black-hearted French, an' not the peaceful
bide-at-homes o' Market Drayton."

The little bailiff paused to moisten his lips.  From his audience arose
feeling murmurs of approval.

"Ya known what General Clive ha' done," he resumed. "'Twas all read out
o' prent by the crier in corn-market. An' the grand folks in Lun'on ha'
give him a gowd sword, an' he bin hob-a-nob wi' King Jarge hisself.  An'
us folks o' Market Drayton take it proud, we do, as he be come to see us
afore he goes back to his duty.  Theer's a' example fur you boys.  Theer
be limbs o' mischief in Market Drayton yet.  Ay, I see tha, 'Lijah
Notcutt, a-hangin' on to winder theer.  I know who wringed the neck o'
Widder Peplow's turkey.  An' I see tha too, 'Zekiel Podmore; I know who
broke the handle o' town pump.  If I cotch ya at your tricks I'll
leather ya fust an' clap ya in the stocks afterwards, sure as my name be
Randle Malkin.  But as I wan sayin', if ya foller th' example o' General
Clive, an' turn yer young sperits into the lawful way--why, mebbe there
be gowd swords an' mints o' money somewheers fur ya too.  Well now, I
bin talkin' long enough, an' to tell ya the truth I be dry as a whistle,
so I'll ax ya all to lift yer glasses, neebours, an' drink the good
health o' General Clive.  So theer!"

[Sidenote: "General Clive!"

As the worthy bailiff concluded his speech, the company primed their
glasses, rose, and drank the toast with enthusiasm.  Lusty cheers broke
from the drier throats outside; caps were waved, rattles whirled,
kettles beaten, with a vigour that could not have been exceeded if the
general loyalty had been stirred by the presence of King George himself.
Only one man in the crowd held his peace.  The stranger remained
opposite to the window, silent, motionless, looking now into the room,
now round upon the throng, with the same smile of whimsical amusement.
Only once did his manner change; the smile faded, his lips met in a
straight line, and he made a slight rearward movement, seeming at the
same moment to lose something of his height.  It was when the guest of
the evening stood up to reply: a young man, looking somewhat older than
his twenty-nine years, his powdered hair crowning a strong face, with
keen, deep-set eyes, full lips and masterful chin.  He wore a belaced
purple coat; a crimson sash crossed his embroidered vest; a diamond
flashed upon his finger.  Letting his eyes range slowly over the flushed
faces of the diners, he waited until the bailiff had waved down the
untiring applauders without; then, in a clear voice, began:

"Bailiff Malkin, my old friends----"

But his speech was broken in upon by a sudden commotion in the street.
Loud cries of a different tenor arose at various points; the boys who
had been hanging upon the window-ledge dropped to the ground; the crowd
surged this way and that, and above the mingled clamour sounded a wild
and fearful squeal that drew many of the company to their feet and
several in alarm to the window. Among these the bailiff, red now with
anger, shook his fist at the people and demanded the meaning of the
disturbance.  A small boy, his eyes round with excitement, piped up:

"An't please yer worship, 'tis a wild Injun come from nowheer an' doin'
all manner o' wickedness."

"A wild Injun!  Cotch him!  Ring the 'larum bell!  Put him in the
stocks!"

But the bailiff's commands passed unheeded.  The people were thronging
up the street, elbowing each other, treading on each other's toes,
yelling, booing, forgetful of all save the strange coincidence that, on
this evening of all others, the banquet in honour of Clive, the Indian
hero, had been interrupted by the sudden appearance of a live Indian in
their very midst.

A curious change had come over the demeanour of the stranger who
hitherto had been so silent, so detached in manner, so unmoved.  He was
now to be seen energetically forcing his way towards the outskirts of
the crowd, heaving, hurling, his long arms sweeping obstacles aside.
His eyes flashed fire upon the yokels scurrying before him, a vitriolic
stream of abuse scorched their faces as he bore them down.  At length he
stopped suddenly, caught a hulking farmer by the shoulder, and with a
violent twist and jerk flung him headlong among his fellows.  Released
from the man's grasp, a small negro boy, his eyes starting, his breast
heaving with terror, sprang to the side of his deliverer, who soothingly
patted his woolly head, and turned at bay upon the crowd, now again
pressing near.

"Back, you boobies!" he shouted.  "'Tis my boy!  If a man of you follows
me, I'll break his head for him."

He turned and, clasping the black boy's hand close in his, strode away
towards the waiting cart.  The crowd stood in hesitation, daunted by the
tall stranger's fierce mien.  But one came out from among them, a slim
boy of some fifteen years, who had followed at the heels of the stranger
and had indeed assisted his progress.  The rest, disappointed of their
Indian hunt, were now moving back towards the inn; but the boy hastened
on.  Hearing his quick footsteps the man swung round with a snarl.

"I hope the boy isn't hurt," said the lad quietly.  "Can I do anything
for you?"

The stranger looked keenly at him; then, recognizing by his mien and
voice that this at least was no booby, he smiled; the truculence of his
manner vanished, and he said:

"Your question is pat, my excellent friend, and I thank you for your
good will.  As you perceive, my withers are not wrung."  He waved his
right hand airily, and the boy noticed that it was covered from wrist to
knuckles with what appeared to be a fingerless glove of black velvet.
"The boy has taken no harm.  'Hic niger est,' as Horace somewhere hath
it; and black spells Indian to your too hasty friends yonder.  Scipio is
his praenomen, bestowed on him by me to match the cognomen his already
by nature--Africanus, to wit.  You take me, kind sir?  But I detain you;
your ears doubtless itch for the eloquence of our condescending friend
yonder; without more ado then, good night!"

[Sidenote: A Gloved Hand]

And turning on his heel, waving his gloved hand in salutation, the
stranger went his way.  The lad watched him wonderingly.  For all his
shabbiness he appeared a gentleman.  His speech was clean cut, his
accent pure; yet in his tone, as in his dress, there was something
unusual, a touch of the theatrical, strange to that old sleepy town.

He hoisted the negro into the cart, then mounted to his place beside the
driver, and the vehicle rumbled away.

Retracing his steps, the boy once more joined the crowd, and wormed his
way through its now silent ranks until he came within sight of the
assembly-room.  But if he had wished to hear Clive's speech of thanks,
he was too late. As he arrived, applause greeted the hero's final words,
and he resumed his seat.  To the speeches that followed no heed was paid
by the populace; words from the vicar and the local attorney had no
novelty for them.  But they waited, gossiping among themselves, until
the festivity was over and the party broke up.  More shouts arose as the
great man appeared at the inn door.  Horses were there in waiting; a
hundred hands were ready to hold the stirrup for Clive; but he mounted
unassisted and rode off in company with Sir Philip Chetwode, a
neighbouring squire, whose guest he was.  When the principal figure had
gone, the throng rapidly melted away, and soon the street had resumed
its normal quiet.

The boy was among the last to quit the scene.  Walking slowly down the
road, he overtook a bent old man in the smock of a farm labourer,
trudging along alone.

"Hey, measter Desmond," said the old man, "I feels for tha, that I do.
I seed yer brother theer, eatin' an' drinkin' along wi' the noble
general, an' thinks I, 'tis hard on them as ha' to look on, wi' mouths
a-waterin' fur the vittles an' drink.  But theer, I'd be afeard to set
lips to some o' them kickshawses as goes down into the nattlens o' high
folk; an', all said an' done, a man canna be more'n full, even so it bin
wi' nowt but turmuts an' Cheshire cheese.  Well, sir, 'tis fine to be a
nelder son, that's true, an' dunna ya take on about it.  You bin on'y a
lad, after all, pardon my bold way o' speakin', an' mebbe when you come
to man's estate, why, there'll be a knife an' fork fur you too, though I
doubt we'll never see General Clive in these parts no moore.  Here be my
turnin'; good night to ya, sir."

"Good-night, Dickon."

[Sidenote: To Cheswardine]

And Desmond Burke passed on alone, out of the silent town, into the now
darkening road that led to his home towards Cheswardine.




                           CHAPTER THE SECOND


*In which our hero overhears a conversation; and, meeting with the
expected, is none the less surprised and offended.*


Desmond's pace became slower when, having crossed the valley, he began
the long ascent that led past the site of Tyrley Castle.  But when he
again reached a stretch of level road he stepped out more briskly, for
the darkness of the autumn night was moment by moment contracting the
horizon, and he had still several miles to go on the unlighted road.
Even as the thought of his dark walk crossed his mind he caught sight of
the one light that served as a never-failing beacon to night travellers
along that highway.  It came from the windows of a wayside inn, a common
place of call for farmers wending to or from Drayton market, and one
whose curious sign Desmond had many times studied with a small boy's
interest.  The inn was named the _Four Alls_: its sign a crude painting
of a table and four seated figures--a king, a parson, a soldier, and a
farmer.  Beneath the group, in a rough scrawl, were the words--

    Rule all: Pray all:
    Fight all: Pay all.


As Desmond drew nearer to the inn, there came to him along the silent
road the sound of singing.  This was somewhat unusual at such an hour,
for folk went early to bed, and the inn was too far from the town to
have attracted waifs and strays from the crowd.  What was still more
unusual, the tones were not the rough, forced, vagrant tones of tipsy
farmers; it was a single voice, light, musical, and true.  Desmond's
curiosity was nicked, and he hastened his step, guessing from the
clearness of the sound that the windows were open and the singer in full
view.

The singing ceased abruptly just as he reached the inn. But the windows
stood indeed wide open, and from the safe darkness of the road he could
see clearly, by the light of four candles on the high mantelshelf, the
whole interior of the inn parlour.  It held four persons.  One lay back
in a chair near the fire, his legs outstretched, his chin on his breast,
his open lips shaking as he snored.  It was Tummas Biles the tranter,
who had driven a tall stranger from Chester to the present spot, and
whose indignation at being miscalled Jehu had only been appeased by a
quart of strong ale.  On the other side of the fireplace, curled up on a
settle, and also asleep, lay the black boy Scipio Africanus.  Desmond
noted these two figures in passing; his gaze fastened upon the remaining
two, who sat at a corner of the table, a tankard in front of each.

One of the two was Job Grinsell, landlord of the inn, a man with a red
nose, loose mouth, and shifty eyes--not a pleasant fellow to look at,
and regarded vaguely as a bad character.  He had once been head
gamekeeper to Sir Willoughby Stokes, the squire, whose service he had
left suddenly and in manifest disgrace.  His companion was the stranger,
the negro boy's master, the man whose odd appearance and manner of talk
had already set Desmond's curiosity abuzzing.  It was clear that he must
be the singer, for Job Grinsell had a voice like a saw, and Tummas Biles
knew no music save the squeak of his cart-wheels.  It surprised Desmond
to find the stranger already on the most friendly, to all appearance
indeed confidential, terms with the landlord.

"Hale, did you say?" he heard Grinsell ask.  "Ay, hale as you an' me,
an' like to last another twenty year, rot him."

"But the gout takes him, you said--nodosa podagra, as my friend Ovid
would say?"

"Ay, but I've knowed a man live forty year win the gout.  And he dunna
believe in doctor's dosin'; he goes to Buxton to drink the weeters when
he bin madded wi' the pain, an' comes back sound fur six month."

"Restored to his dear neighbours and friends--caris propinquis----"

"Hang me, but I wish you'd speak plain English an' not pepper yer talk
win outlandish jabber."

"Patience, Job; why, man, you belie your name.  Come, you must humour an
old friend; that's what comes of education, you see; my head is stuffed
with odds and ends that annoy my friends, while you can't read, nor
write, nor cipher beyond keeping your score.  Lucky Job!"

Desmond turned away.  The two men's conversation was none of his
business; and he suspected from the stranger's manner that he had been
drinking freely.  He had stepped barely a dozen paces when he heard the
voice again break into song.  He halted and wheeled about; the tune was
catching, and now he distinguished some of the words--

    Says Billy Morris, Masulipatam,
    To Governor Pitt: "D'ye know who I am.
    D'ye know who I am, I AM, I AM?
    Sir William Norris, Masulipatam."

    Says Governor Pitt, Fort George Madras;
    "I know what you are----"


Again the song broke off; the singer addressed a question to Grinsell.
Desmond waited a moment; he felt an odd eagerness to know what Governor
Pitt was; but hearing now only the drone of talking, he once more turned
his face homewards.  His curiosity was livelier than ever as to the
identity of this newcomer, who addressed the landlord as he might his
own familiar friend.  And what had the stranger to do with Sir
Willoughby Stokes?  For it was Sir Willoughby that suffered from the
gout; he it was that went every autumn and spring to Buxton; he was away
at this present time, but would shortly return to receive his Michaelmas
rents.  The stranger had not the air of a husbandman; but there was a
vacant farm on the estate; perhaps he had come to offer himself as a
tenant.  And why did he wear that half-glove upon his right hand?
Finger-stalls, wrist-straps, even mittens were common enough, useful,
and necessary at times; but the stranger's glove was not a mitten, and
it had no fellow for the left hand.  Perhaps, thought Desmond, it was a
freak of the wearer's, like his red feather and his vivid neckcloth.
Desmond, as he walked on, found himself hoping that the visitor at the
_Four Alls_ would remain for a day or two.

After passing through the sleeping hamlet of Woods-eaves, he struck into
a road on his left hand.  Twenty minutes' steady plodding uphill brought
him in sight of his home, a large, ancient, rambling grange house lying
back from the road.  It was now nearly ten o'clock, an hour when the
household was usually abed; but the door of Wilcote Grange stood open,
and a guarded candle in the hall threw a faint yellow light upon the
path.  The gravel crunched under Desmond's boots, and, as if summoned by
the sound, a tall figure crossed the hall and stood in the entrance.  At
the sight Desmond's mouth set hard; his hands clenched, his breath came
more quickly as he went forward.

"Where have you been, sirrah?" were the angry words that greeted him.

"Into the town, sir."

He had perforce to halt, the doorway being barred by the man's broad
form.

"Into the town!  You defy me, do you?  Did I not bid you remain at home
and make up the stock-book?"

"I did that before I left."

"You did, did you?  I lay my life 'tis ill done.  What did you in the
town at this time o' night?"

"I went to see General Clive."

"Indeed!  You!  Hang me, what's Clive to you?  Was you invited to the
regale?  You was one of that stinking crowd, I suppose, that bawled in
the street.  You go and herd with knaves and yokels, do you? and bring
shame upon me, and set the countryside a-chattering of Richard Burke and
his idle young oaf of a brother!  By gad, sir, I'll whip you for this;
I'll give you something to remember General Clive by!"

He caught up a riding-whip that stood in the angle of the doorway, and
took Desmond by the shoulder.  The boy did not flinch.

"Whip me if you must," he said quietly, "but don't you think we'd better
go outside?"

The elder, with an imprecation, thrust Desmond into the open, hauled him
some distance down the path, and then beat him heavily about the
shoulders.  He stood a foot higher, his arm was strong, his grip firm as
a vice; resistance would have been vain; but Desmond knew better than to
resist.  He bent to the cruel blows without a wince or a murmur.  Only,
his face was very pale when, the bully's arm being tired and his breath
spent, he was flung away and permitted to stagger to the house.  He
crawled painfully up the wainscoted staircase and into the dark corridor
leading to his bedroom.  Halfway down this he paused, felt with his hand
along the wall, and discovering by this means that a door was ajar,
stood listening.

"Is that you, Desmond?" said a low voice within.

"Yes, mother," he replied, commanding his voice, and quietly entering.
"I hoped you were asleep."

"I could not sleep until you came in, dear.  I heard Dick's voice.  What
is the matter?  Your hand is trembling, Desmond."

"Nothing, mother, as usual."

A mother's ears are quick; and Mrs. Burke detected the quiver that
Desmond tried to still.  She tightened her clasp on his hot hand.

"Did he strike you, dear?"

"It was nothing, mother.  I am used to that."

"My poor boy!  But what angered him?  Why do you offend your brother?"

"Offend him!" exclaimed the boy passionately, but still in a low tone.
"Everything I do offends him.  I went to see General Clive; I wished to;
that is enough for Dick. Mother, I am sick of it all."

"Never mind, dear.  A little patience.  Dick doesn't understand you.
You should humour him, Desmond."

"Haven't I tried, mother?  Haven't I?  But what is the use?  He treats
me worse than any carter on the farm. I drudge for him, and he bullies
me, miscalls me before the men, thrashes me--oh, mother!  I can't endure
it any longer.  Let me go away, anywhere; anything would be better than
this!"

Desmond was quivering with pain and indignation; only with difficulty
did he keep back the tears.

"Hush, Desmond!" said his mother.  "Dick will hear you.  You are tired
out, dear boy; go to bed; things will look brighter in the morning.
Only have patience. Good-night, my son."

Desmond kissed his mother and went to his room.  But it was long before
he slept.  His bruised body found no comfort; his head throbbed; his
soul was filled with resentment and the passionate longing for release.
His life had not been very happy.  He barely remembered his father--a
big, keen-eyed, loud-voiced old man--who died when his younger son was
four years old.  Richard Burke had run away from his Irish home to sea.
He served on Admiral Rooke's flagship at the battle of La Hogue, and,
rising in the navy to the rank of warrant-officer, bought a ship with
the savings of twenty years and fitted it out for unauthorized trade
with the East Indies.  His daring, skill, and success attracted the
attention of the officers of the Company.  He was invited to enter the
Company's service.  As captain of an Indiaman he sailed backwards and
forwards for ten years; then at the age of fifty retired with a
considerable fortune and married the daughter of a Shropshire farmer.
The death of his wife's relatives led him to settle on the farm their
family had tenanted for generations, and it was at Wilcote Grange that
his three children were born.

Fifteen years separated the elder son from the younger; between them
came a daughter, who married early and left the neighbourhood.  Four
years after Desmond's birth the old man died, leaving the boy to the
guardianship of his brother.

There lay the seed of trouble.  No brothers could have been more unlike
than the two sons of Captain Burke. Richard was made on a large and
powerful scale; he was hard-working, methodical, grasping, wholly
unimaginative, and in temper violent and domineering.  Slighter and less
robust, though not less healthy, Desmond was a boy of vivid imagination,
high-strung, high-spirited, his feelings easily moved, his pride easily
wounded.  His brother was too dull and stolid to understand him, taking
for deliberate malice what was but boyish mischief, and regarding him as
sullen when he was only dreamily thoughtful.

As a young boy Desmond kept as much as possible out of his brother's
way.  But as he grew older he came more directly under Richard's
control, with the result that they were now in a constant state of feud.
Their mother, a woman of sweet temper but weak will, favoured her
younger son in secret; she learnt by experience that open intervention
on his behalf did more harm than good.

Desmond had two habits which especially moved his brother to anger.  He
was fond of roaming the country alone for hours together; he was fond of
reading.  To Richard each was a waste of time.  He never opened a book,
save a manual of husbandry, or a ready reckoner; he could conceive of no
reason for walking, unless it were the business of the farm.  Nothing
irritated him more than to see Desmond stretched at length with his nose
in Mr. Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_, or a volume of Hakluyt's _Voyages_, or
perhaps Mr. Oldys's _Life of Sir Walter Raleigh_. And as he himself
never dreamed by day or by night, there was no chance of his divining
the fact that Desmond, on those long solitary walks of his, was engaged
chiefly in dreaming, not idly, for in his dreams he was always the
centre of activity, greedy for doing.

These day-dreams constituted almost the sole joy of Desmond's life.
When he was quite a little fellow he would sprawl on the bank near
Tyrley Castle and weave romances about the Norman barons whose home it
had been--romances in which he bore a strenuous part.  He knew every
interesting spot in the neighbourhood: Salisbury Hill, where the Yorkist
leader pitched his camp before the battle of Blore Heath; Audley Brow,
where Audley the Lancastrian lay watching his foe; above all Styche
Hall, whence a former Clive had ridden forth to battle against the king,
and where his namesake, the present Robert Clive, had been born.  He
imagined himself each of those bold warriors in turn, and saw himself,
now a knight in mail, now a gay cavalier of Rupert's, now a bewigged
Georgian gentleman in frock and pantaloons, but always with sword in
hand.

No name sang a merrier tune in Desmond's imagination than the name of
Robert Clive.  Three years before, when he was imbibing Latin, Greek,
and Hebrew under Mr. Burslem at the grammar school on the hill, the
amazing news came one day that Bob Clive, the wild boy who had
terrorized the tradespeople, plagued his master, led the school in
tremendous fights with the town boys, and suffered more birchings than
any scholar of his time--Bob Clive, the scapegrace who had been packed
off to India as a last resource, had turned out, as his father said,
"not such a booby after all,"--had indeed proved himself to be a
military genius.  How Desmond thrilled when the old schoolmaster read
out the glorious news of Clive's defence of Arcot with a handful of men
against an overwhelming host!  How he glowed when the schoolroom rang
with the cheers of the boys, and when, a half-holiday being granted, he
rushed forth with the rest to do battle in the churchyard with the town
boys, and helped to lick them thoroughly in honour of Clive!

From that moment there was for Desmond but one man in the world, and
that man was Robert Clive.  In the twinkling of an eye he became the
devoutest of hero-worshippers.  He coaxed Mr. Burslem to let him occupy
Clive's old desk, and with his fists maintained the privilege against
all comers.  The initials "R.C." roughly cut in the oak never lost their
fascination for him.  He walked out day after day to Styche Hall, two
miles away, and pleased himself with the thought that his feet trod the
very spots once trodden by Bob Clive. Not an inch of the route from Hall
to school--the meadow-path into Longslow, the lane from Longslow to
Shropshire Street, Little Street, Church Street, the churchyard--was
unknown to him: Bob Clive had known them all.  He feasted on the
oft-told stories of Clive's boyish escapades: how he had bundled a
watchman into the bulks and made him prisoner there by closing down and
fastening the shutters; how he had thrown himself across the current of
a torrential gutter to divert the stream into the cellar shop of a
tradesman who had offended him; above all, that feat of his when,
ascending the spiral turret-stair of the church, he had lowered himself
down from the parapet, and, astride upon a gargoyle, had worked his way
along it until he could secure a stone that lay in its mouth, the
perilous and dizzy adventure watched by a breathless throng in the
churchyard below. The Bob Clive who had done these things was now doing
greater deeds in India; and Desmond Burke sat day after day at his desk,
gazing at the entrancing "R.C." and doing over again in his own person
the exploits of which all Market Drayton was proud, and he the proudest.

But at the age of fourteen his brother took him from school, though Mr.
Burslem had pleaded that he might remain longer and afterwards proceed
to the university. He was set to do odd jobs about the farm.  To farming
itself he had no objection; he was fond of animals and would willingly
have spent his life with them.  But he did object to drudging for a hard
and inconsiderate taskmaster such as his brother was, and the work he
was compelled to do became loathsome to him, and bred a spirit of
discontent and rebellion.  The further news of Clive's exploits in
India, coming at long intervals, set wild notions beating in Desmond's
head, and made him long passionately for a change.  At times he thought
of running away: his father had run away and carved out a successful
career, why should not he do the same? But he had never quite made up
his mind to cut the knot.

Meanwhile it became known in Market Drayton that Clive had returned to
England.  Rumour credited him with fabulous wealth.  It was said that he
drove through London in a gold coach, and outshone the King himself in
the splendour of his attire.  No report was too highly coloured to find
easy credence among the simple country folk.  Clive was indeed rich: he
had a taste for ornate dress, and though neither so wealthy nor so gaily
apparelled as rumour said, he was for a season the lion of London
society.  The directors of the East India Company toasted him as
"General" Clive, and presented him with a jewelled sword as a token of
their sense of his services on the Coromandel coast.  No one suspected
at the time that his work was of more than local importance and would
have more far-reaching consequences than the success of a trading
company.  Clive had, in fact, without knowing it, laid the foundations
of a vast empire.

At intervals during two years scraps of news about Clive filtered
through to his birthplace.  His father had left the neighbourhood, and
Styche Hall was now in the hands of a stranger, so that Desmond hardly
dared to hope that he would have an opportunity of seeing his idol.
But, information having reached the court of directors that all was not
going well in India, their eyes turned at once to Clive as the man to
set things right. They requested him to return to India as Governor of
Fort St. David, and, since a good deal of the trouble was caused by
quarrels as to precedence between the King's and the Company's officers,
they strengthened his hands by obtaining for him a lieutenant-colonel's
commission from King George.  Clive was nothing loth to take up his work
again.  He had been somewhat extravagant since his arrival in England;
great holes had been made in the fortune he had brought back; and he was
still a young man, full of energy and ambition. What was Desmond's
ecstasy, then, to learn that his hero, on the eve of his departure, had
accepted an invitation to the town of his birth, there to be entertained
by the court leet.  From the bailiff and the steward of the manor down
to the javelin men and the ale-taster, official Market Drayton was all
agog to do him honour. Desmond looked forward eagerly to this red-letter
day. His brother, as a yeoman of standing, was invited to the banquet,
and it seemed to Desmond that Richard took a delight in taunting him,
throwing cold water on his young enthusiasm, ironically commenting on
the mistake some one had made in not including him among the guests.
His crowning stroke of cruelty was to forbid the boy to leave the house
on the great evening, so that he might not even obtain a glimpse of
Clive.  But this was too much: Desmond for the first time deliberately
defied his guardian, and though he suffered the inevitable penalty, he
had seen and heard his hero, and was content.




                           CHAPTER THE THIRD


*In which Mr. Marmaduke Diggle talks of the Golden East; and our hero
interrupts an interview, and dreams dreams.*


Sore from his flogging, Desmond, when he slept at last, slept heavily.
Richard Burke was a stickler for early rising, and admitted no excuses.
When his brother did not appear at the usual hour Richard went to his
room, and, smiting with his rough hand the boy's bruised shoulders,
startled him to wakefulness and pain.

"Now, slug-a-bed," he said, "you have ten minutes for your breakfast,
then you will foot it to the Hall and see whether Sir Willoughby has
returned or is expected."

Turning on his heel he went out to harry his labourers.

Desmond, when he came downstairs, felt too sick to eat.  He gulped a
pitcher of milk, then set off for his two-mile walk to the Hall.  He was
glad of the errand. Sir Willoughby Stokes, the lord of the manor, was an
old gentleman of near seventy years, a good landlord, a persistent
Jacobite, and a confirmed bachelor.  By nature genial, he was subject to
periodical attacks of the gout, which made him terrible.  At these times
he betook himself to Buxton, or Bath, or some other spa, and so timed
his return that he was always good-tempered on rent-day, much to the
relief of his tenants.  He disliked Richard Burke as a man as much as he
admired him as a tenant; but he had taken a fancy to Desmond, lent him
books from his library, took him out shooting when the weather and
Richard permitted, and played chess with him sometimes of a rainy
afternoon.  His housekeeper said that Master Desmond was the only human
being whose presence the squire could endure when the gout was on him.
In short, Sir Willoughby and Desmond were very good friends.

Desmond had almost reached the gate of the Hall when, at a sudden turn
of the road, he came upon a man seated upon a low hillock by the
roadside, idly swishing at the long ripe grass with a cane.  At the
first glance Desmond noticed the strangely-clad right hand of his
overnight acquaintance, the shabby clothes, the red feather, the flaming
neckcloth.  The man looked up at his approach; the winning smile settled
upon his swarthy face, which daylight now revealed as seamed and
scarred; and, without stirring from his seat or desisting from his
occupation, he looked in the boy's face and said softly:

"You are early afoot, like the son of Anchises, my young friend.  If I
mistake not, when Aeneas met the son of Evander they joined their right
hands.  We have met--let us also join hands and bid each other a very
good morning."

Desmond shook hands; he did not know what to make of this remarkable
fellow who must always be quoting from his school-books; but there was
no harm in shaking hands.  He could not in politeness ask the question
that rose to his lips--why the stranger wore a mitten on one hand; and
if the man observed his curiosity he let it pass.

"You are on business bent, I wot," continued the stranger.  "Not for the
world would I delay you.  But since the hand-clasp is but a part of the
ceremony of introduction, might we not complete it by exchanging names?"

"My name is Desmond Burke," said the boy.

"A good name, a pleasant name, a name that I know." Desmond was
conscious that the man was looking keenly at him.  "There is a gentleman
of the same name--I chanced to meet him in London--cultivating
literature in the Temple; his praenomen, I bethink me, is Edmund. And I
bethink me, too, that in the course of my peregrinations on this planet
I have more than once heard the name of one Captain Richard Burke, a
notable seaman, in the service of our great Company.  I repeat, my young
friend, your name is a good one; may you live to add lustre to it!"

"Captain Burke was my father."

"My prophetic soul!" exclaimed the stranger.  "But surely you are
somewhat late in following the craft paternal; you do not learn
seamanship in this sylvan sphere?"

"True," responded Desmond with a smile.  "My father turned farmer; he
died when I was a little fellow, and I live with my mother.  But you
will excuse me, sir; I have an errand to the Hall beyond us there."

"I am rebuked.  'Nam garrulus idem est,' as our friend Horace would say.
Yet one moment.  Ere we part let us complete our interrupted ceremony.
Marmaduke Diggle, sir--plain Marmaduke Diggle, at your service."

He swept off his hat with a smile.  But as soon as Desmond had passed on
the smile faded.  Marmaduke Diggle's mouth became hard, and he looked
after the retreating form with a gaze in which curiosity, suspicion, and
dislike were blended.

He was still seated by the roadside when Desmond returned some minutes
later.

"A pleasant surprise, Mr. Burke," he said.  "Your business is most
briefly, and let us hope happily, despatched."

"Briefly, at any rate.  I only went up to the Hall to see if the Squire
was returned; it is near rent-day, and he is not usually so late in
returning."

"Ah, your squires!" said Diggle with a sigh.  "A fine thing to have
lands--oliveyards and vineyards, as the Scripture saith.--You are
returning?  The Squire is not at home?  Permit me to accompany you some
steps on your road.--Yes, it is a fine thing to be a landlord. It is a
state of life much to be envied by poor landless men like me.  I confess
I am poor--none the pleasanter because 'tis my own fault.  You behold in
me, Mr. Burke, one of the luckless.  I sought fame and fortune years ago
in the fabulous East Indies----"

"The Indies, sir?"

"You are interested?  In me also, when I was your age, the name stirred
my blood and haunted my imagination. Yes, 'tis nigh ten years since I
first sailed from these shores for the marvellous East.  'Multum et
terris jactatus et alto.'  Twice have I made my fortune--got me enough
of the wealth of Ormus and of Ind to buy up half your county.  Twice,
alas! has an unkind Fate robbed me of my all!  But, as I said, 'tis my
own fault. 'Nemo contentus,' sir--you know the passage?  I was not
satisfied: I must have a little more; and yet a little more.  I put my
wealth forth in hazardous enterprises--presto! it is swept away. But I
was born, sir, after all, under a merry star.  Nothing discourages me.
After a brief sojourn for recuperation in this salubrious spot I shall
return; and this time, mark you, I shall run no risks.  Five years to
make my fortune; then I shall come home, content with a round ten
lakhs."

"What is a lakh?"

"Ah, I forgot, you are not acquainted with these phrases of the Orient.
A lakh, my friend, is a hundred thousand rupees, say twelve thousand
pounds.  And I warrant you I will not squander it as a certain gentleman
we know squandered his."

"You mean General Clive?"

"Colonel Clive, my friend.  Yes, I say Colonel Clive has squandered his
fortune.  Why, he came home with thirty lakhs at the least: and what
does he do?  He must ruffle it in purple and fine linen, and feed the
fat in royal entertainments; then, forsooth, he stands for a seat in
Parliament, pours out his gold like water--to what end?  A petition is
presented against his return: the House holds an inquiry; and the end of
the sorry farce is, that Mr. Robert Clive's services are dispensed with.
When I think of the good money he has wasted----  But then, sir, I am no
politician.  Colonel Clive and I are two ruined men; 'tis a somewhat
strange coincidence that he and I are almost of an age, and that we
both, before many weeks are past, shall be crossing the ocean once more
to retrieve our fallen fortunes."

Walking side by side during this conversation they had now come into the
road leading past Desmond's home.  In the distance, approaching them,
appeared a post-chaise, drawn by four galloping horses.  The sight broke
the thread of the conversation.

"'Tis the Squire at last!" cried Desmond.  "Sure he must have put up at
Newcastle overnight."

But that he was intently watching the rapid progress of the chaise, he
might have noticed a curious change of expression on his companion's
face.  The smile faded, the lips became set with a kind of grim
determination. But Diggle's pleasant tone had not altered when he said:

"Our ways part here, my friend--for the present.  I doubt not we shall
meet again; and if you care to hear of my adventures by field and
flood--why, 'I will a round unvarnished tale deliver,' as the Moor of
Venice says in the play.  For the present, then, farewell!"

He turned down a leafy lane, and had disappeared from view before the
chaise reached the spot.  As it ran by, its only occupant, a big,
red-faced, white-wigged old gentleman, caught sight of the boy and
hailed him in a rich, jolly voice.

"Ha, Desmond!  Home again, you see!  Scotched the enemy once more!  Come
and see me!"

The chaise was past before Desmond could reply.  He watched it until it
vanished from sight; then, feeling somewhat cheered, went on to report
to his brother that the Squire had at last returned.

He felt no little curiosity about his new acquaintance. What had brought
him to so retired a spot as Market Drayton?  He could have no friends in
the neighbourhood, or he would surely not have chosen for his lodging a
place of ill repute like the _Four Alls_.  Yet he had seemed to have
some acquaintance with Grinsell the innkeeper.  He did not answer to
Desmond's idea of an adventurer.  He was not rough of tongue or
boisterous in manner; his accent, indeed, was refined; his speech
somewhat studied, and, to judge by his allusions and his Latin, he had
some share of polite learning.  Desmond was puzzled to fit these
apparent incongruities, and looked forward with interest to further
meetings with Marmaduke Diggle.

During the next few days they met more than once.  It was always late in
the evening, always in quiet places, and Diggle was always alone.
Apparently he desired to make no acquaintances.  The gossips of the
neighbourhood seized upon the presence of a stranger at the _Four Alls_,
but they caught the barest glimpses of him; Grinsell was as a stone wall
in unresponsiveness to their inquiries; and the black boy, if perchance
a countryman met him on the road and questioned him, shook his head and
made meaningless noises in his throat, and the countryman would assure
his cronies that the boy was as dumb as a platter.

But whenever Desmond encountered the stranger, strolling by himself in
the fields or some quiet lane, Diggle always seemed pleased to see him,
and talked to him with the same ease and freedom, ever ready with a tag
from his school-books.  Desmond did not like his Latin, but he found
compensation in the traveller's tales of which Diggle had an
inexhaustible store--tales of shipwreck and mutiny, of wild animals and
wild men, of Dutch traders and Portuguese adventurers, of Indian nawabs
and French buccaneers.  Above all was Desmond interested in stories of
India: he heard of the immense wealth of the Indian princes; the
rivalries of the English, French, and Dutch trading companies; the keen
struggle between France and England for the preponderating influence
with the natives. Desmond was eager to hear of Clive's doings; but he
found Diggle, for an Englishman who had been in India, strangely
ignorant of Clive's career; he seemed impatient of Clive's name, and was
always more ready to talk of his French rivals, Dupleix and Bussy.  The
boy was impressed by the mystery, the colour, the romance of the East;
and after these talks with Diggle he went home with his mind afire, and
dreamed of elephants and tigers, treasures of gold and diamonds, and
fierce battles in which English, French, and Indians weltered in seas of
blood.

One morning Desmond set out for a long walk in the direction of Newport.
It was holiday on the farm; Richard Burke allowed his men a day off once
every half year when he paid his rent.  They would almost rather not
have had it, for he made himself particularly unpleasant both before and
after.  On this morning he had got up in a bad temper, and managed to
find half a dozen occasions for grumbling at Desmond before breakfast,
so that the boy was glad to get away and walk off his resentment and
soreness of heart.

As he passed the end of the lane leading towards the Hall, he saw two
men in conversation some distance down it.  One was on horseback, the
other on foot.  At a second glance he saw with surprise that the mounted
man was his brother, the other Diggle.  A well-filled money-bag hung at
Richard Burke's saddle-bow; he was on his way to the Hall to pay his
rent.  His back was towards Desmond; but, as the latter paused, Richard
threw a rapid glance over his shoulder, and with a word to the man at
his side cantered away.

Diggle gave Desmond a hail and came slowly up the lane, his face wearing
its usual pleasant smile.  His manner was always very friendly, and had
the effect of making Desmond feel on good terms with himself.

"Well met, my friend," said Diggle cordially.  "I was longing for a
chat.  Beshrew me if I have spoken more than a dozen words to-day, and
that, to a man of my sociable temper, not to speak of my swift and
practised tongue--'lingua celer et exercitata': you remember the phrase
of Tully's--is a sore trial."

"You seemed to be having a conversation a moment ago," said Desmond.

"Seemed!--that is the very word.  That excellent farmer--sure he hath a
prosperous look--had mistaken me. 'Tis not the apparel makes the man; my
attire is not of the best, I admit; but, I beg you tell me frankly,
would you have taken me for a husbandman, one who with relentless
ploughshare turns the stubborn soil, as friend Horace somewhere puts it?
Would you, now?"

"Decidedly not.  But did my brother so mistake you?"

"Your brother!  Was that prosperous and well-mounted gentleman your
brother?"

"Certainly.  He is Richard Burke, and leases the Wilcote Farm."

"Noble pair of brothers!" exclaimed Diggle, seizing Desmond's reluctant
hand.  "I congratulate you, my friend. What a brother!  I stopped him to
ask the time of day. But permit me to say, friend Desmond, you appear
somewhat downcast; your countenance hath not that serenity one looks for
in a lad of your years.  What is the trouble?"

"Oh, nothing to speak of," said Desmond curtly; he was vexed that his
face still betrayed the irritation of the morning.

"Very well," said Diggle with a shrug.  "Far be it from me to probe your
sorrows.  They are nothing to me, but sure a simple question from a
friend----"

"Pardon me, Mr. Diggle," said Desmond impulsively, "I did not mean to
offend you."

"My dear boy, a tough-hided traveller does not easily take
offence.--Shall we walk?--D'you know, Master Desmond, I fancy I could
make a shrewd guess at your trouble. Your brother--Richard, I think you
said?--is a farmer, he was born a farmer, he has the air of a farmer,
and a well-doing farmer to boot.  But we are not all born with a love
for mother-earth, and you, meseems, have dreamed of a larger life than
lies within the pinfolds of a farm.  To tell the truth, my lad, I have
been studying you."  They were walking now side by side along the
Newport road. Desmond felt that the stranger was becoming personal; but
his manner was so suave and sympathetic that he could not take offence.
"Yes, I have been studying you," continued Diggle.  "And what is the sum
of my discovery? You are wasting your life here.  A country village is
no place for a boy of ideas and imagination, of warm blood and springing
fancy.  The world is wide, my friend: why not adventure forth?"

"I have indeed thought of it, Mr. Diggle, but----"

"But me no buts," interrupted Diggle with a smile. "Your age is----"

"Near sixteen."

"Ah, still a boy; you have a year ere you reach the bourn of young
manhood, as the Romans held it!  But what matters that?  Was not Scipio
Africanus--namesake of the ingenuous youth that serves me--styled boy at
twenty?  Yet you are old enough to walk alone, and not in leading
strings,--or waiting maybe for dead men's shoes."

"What do you mean, sir?" Desmond flashed out, reddening with
indignation.

"Do I offend?" said Diggle innocently.  "I make my apology.  But I had
heard, I own, that Master Desmond Burke was in high favour with your
squire; 'tis even whispered that Master Desmond cherishes, cultivates,
cossets the old man--a bachelor, I understand, and wealthy, and lacking
kith or kin.  Sure I should never have believed 'twas with any
dishonourable motive."

"'Tis not, sir.  I never thought of such a thing."

"I was sure of it.  But to come back to my starting-point. 'Tis time you
broke these narrow bounds.  India, now--what better sphere for a young
man bent on making his way?  Look at Clive, whom you admire--as stupid a
boy as you could meet in a day's march.  Why, I can remember----"  He
caught himself up, but after the slightest pause resumed: "'Forsan et
haec olim meminisse juvabit.'  Look at Clive, I was saying; a lout, a
bear, a booby--as a boy, mark you; yet now----!  Is there a man whose
name rings more loudly in the world's ear?  And what Robert Clive is,
that Desmond Burke might be if he had the mind and the will.--You are
going farther?  Ah, I have not your love of ambulation.  I will bid you
farewell for this time; sure it will profit you to ponder my words."

Desmond did ponder his words.  He walked for three or four hours,
thinking all the time.  Who had said that he was waiting for the
squire's shoes?  He glowed with indignation at the idea of such a
construction being placed upon his friendship for Sir Willoughby.  "If
they think that," he said to himself, "the sooner I go away the better."
And the seed planted by Diggle took root and began to germinate with
wonderful rapidity.  To emulate Clive!--what would he not give for the
chance?  But how was it possible?  Clive had begun as a writer in the
service of the East India Company; but how could Desmond procure a
nomination?  Perhaps Sir Willoughby could help him; he might have
influence with the Company's directors. But, supposing he obtained a
nomination, how could he purchase his outfit?  He had but a few guineas,
and after what Diggle had said he would starve rather than ask the
squire for a penny.  True, under his father's will he was to receive
five thousand pounds at the age of twenty-one. Would Richard advance
part of the sum?  Knowing Richard, he hardly dared to hope for such a
departure from the letter of the law.  But it was at least worth
attempting.




                           CHAPTER THE FOURTH


*In which blows are exchanged; and our hero, setting forth upon his
travels, scents an adventure*


That same day, at supper, seeing that Richard was apparently in a good
temper, Desmond ventured to make a suggestion.

"Dick," he said frankly, "don't you think it would be better for all of
us if I went away?  You and I don't get along very well, and perhaps I
was not cut out for a farmer."

Richard grunted, and Mrs. Burke looked apprehensively from one to the
other.

"What's your idea?" asked Richard.

"Well, I had thought of a writership in the East India Company's
service, or better still, a cadetship in the Company's forces."

"Hark to him!" exclaimed Richard, with a scornful laugh.  "A second
Clive, sink me!  And where do you suppose the money is to come from?"

"Couldn't you advance a part of what is to come to me when I am
twenty-one?"

"Not a penny, I tell you at once, not a penny.  'Tis enough to be
saddled with you all these years.  You may think yourself lucky if I can
scrape together a tenth of the money that'll be due to you when you're
twenty-one. That's the dead hand, if you like; why father put that
provision in his will it passes common sense to understand. No, you'll
have to stay and earn part of it, though in truth you'll never be worth
your keep."

"That depends on the keeper," retorted Desmond, rather warmly.

"No insolence, now.  I repeat, I will not advance one penny.  Go and get
some money out of the Squire, that is so precious fond of you."

"Richard, Richard!" said his mother anxiously.

"Mother, I'm the boy's guardian.  I know what it is. He has been crammed
with nonsense by that idle knave at the _Four Alls_.  Look 'ee, my man,
if I catch you speaking to him again, I'll flay your skin for you."

"Why shouldn't I?  I saw you speaking to him."

"Hold your tongue, sir.  The dog accosted me.  I answered his question
and passed on.  Heed what I say: I'm a man of my word."

Desmond said no more.  But before he fell asleep that night he had
advanced one step further towards freedom. His request had met with the
refusal he had anticipated. He could hope for no pecuniary assistance;
it remained to see what could be done without money; and he resolved to
take the first opportunity of consulting Diggle.  It was Diggle who had
suggested India as the field for his ambition; and the suggestion would
hardly have been made if there were great obstacles in the way of its
being acted on.  Desmond made light of his brother's command that he
should cut Diggle's acquaintance; it seemed to him only another act of
tyranny, and his relations with Richard were such that to forbid a thing
was to provoke him to do it.

His opportunity came next day.  Late in the afternoon he met Diggle, as
he had done many times before, walking in the fields, remote from
houses.  When Desmond caught sight of him, he was sauntering along, his
eyes bent upon the ground, his face troubled.  But he smiled on seeing
Desmond.

"Well met, friend," he said; "'leni perfruor otio'--which is as much as
to say--I bask in idleness.  Well now, I perceive in your eye that you
have been meditating my counsel.  'Tis well, friend Desmond.  And
whereto has your meditation arrived?"

"I have thought over what you said.  I do wish to get away from here; I
should like to go to India; indeed, I asked my brother to advance a part
of some money that is to come to me, so that I might obtain service with
the Company; but he refused."

"And you come to me for counsel.  'Tis well done, though I trow your
brother would scarce be pleased to hear of it."

"He forbade me to speak to you."

"Egad he did!  'Haec summa est!'  What has he against me?--a question to
be asked.  I am a stranger in these parts: that is ill; and buffeted by
fortune: that is worse; and somewhat versed in humane letters: that, to
the rustic intelligence, is a crime.  Well, my lad, you have come to the
right man at the right time.  You are acquainted with my design shortly
to return to the Indies--a rare field for a lad of mettle.  You shall
come with me."

"But are you connected with the Company?  None other, I believed, have a
right to trade."

"The Company!  Sure, my lad, I am no friend to the Company, a set of
stiff-necked, ignorant, grasping, paunchy peddlers who fatten at home on
the toil of better men. No, I am an adventurer, I own it; I am an
interloper; and we interlopers, despite the Company's monopoly, yet
contrive to keep body and soul together."

"Then I should not sail to India on a Company's ship?"

"Far from it, indeed.  But let not that disturb you, there are other
vessels.  And for the passage--why, sure I could find you a place as
supercargo or some such thing; you would thus keep the little money you
have and add to it, forming a nest-egg which, I say it without boasting,
I could help you to hatch into a fine brood.  I am not without friends
in the Indies, my dear boy; there are princes in that land whom I have
assisted to their thrones; and if, on behalf of a friend, I ask of them
some slight thing, provided it be honest--'tis the first law of
friendship, says Tully, as you will remember, to seek honest things for
our friends--if, I say, on your behalf, I proffer some slight request,
sure the nawabs will vie to pleasure me, and the foundation of your
fortune will be laid."

Desmond had not observed that, during this eloquent passage, Diggle had
more than once glanced beyond him, as though his mind were not wholly
occupied with his oratorical efforts.  It was therefore with something
of a shock that he heard him say in the same level tone:

"But I perceive your brother approaching.  I am not the man to cause
differences between persons near akin; I will therefore leave you; we
will have further speech on the subject of our discourse."

He moved away.  A moment after, Richard Burke came up in a towering
passion.

"You brave me, do you?" he cried.  "Did I not forbid you to converse
with that vagabond?"

"You have no right to dictate to me on such matters," said Desmond
hotly, facing his brother.

"I've no right, haven't I?" shouted Richard.  "I've a guardian's right
to thrash you if you disobey me, and by George!  I'll keep my promise."

He lifted the riding whip, without which he seldom went abroad, and
struck at Desmond.  But the boy's blood was up.  He sprang aside as the
thong fell; it missed him, and before the whip could be raised again he
had leapt towards his brother.  Wrenching the stock from his grasp,
Desmond flung the whip over the hedge into a green-mantled pool, and
stood, his cheeks pale, his fists clenched, his eyes flaming, before the
astonished man.

"Coward!" he cried, "'tis the last time you lay hands on me."

Recovered from his amazement at Desmond's resistance, Richard, purple
with wrath, advanced to seize the boy. But Desmond, nimbly evading his
clutch, slipped his foot within his brother's, and with a dexterous
movement tripped him up, so that he fell sprawling, with many an oath,
on the miry road.  Before he could regain his feet, Desmond had vaulted
the hedge and set off at a run towards home.  Diggle was nowhere in
sight.

The die was now cast.  Never before had Desmond actively retaliated upon
his brother, and he knew him well enough to be sure that such an affront
was unforgivable. The farm would no longer be safe for him.  With
startling suddenness his vague notions of leaving home were crystallized
into a resolve.  No definite plan formed itself in his mind as he raced
over the fields.  He only knew that the moment for departure had come,
and he was hastening now to secure the little money he possessed and to
make a bundle of his clothes and the few things he valued before Richard
could return.  Reaching the Grange, he slipped quietly upstairs, not
daring to face his mother lest her grief should weaken his resolution,
and in five minutes he returned with his bundle.  He stole out through
the garden, skirted the copse that bounded the farm enclosure, and ran
for half a mile up the lane until he felt that he was out of reach.
Then, breathless with haste, quivering with the shock of this sudden
plunge into independence, he sat down on the grassy bank to reflect.

What had he done?  It was no light thing for a boy of his years,
ignorant of life and the world, to cut himself adrift from old ties and
voyage into the unknown.  Had he been wise?  He had no trade as a
stand-by; his whole endowment was his youth and his wits.  Would they
suffice?  Diggle's talk had opened up an immense prospect, full of
colour and mystery and romance, chiming well with his day-dreams.  Was
it possible that, sailing to India, he might find some of his dreams
come true? Could he trust Diggle, a stranger, by his own admission an
adventurer, a man who had run through two fortunes already?  He had no
reason for distrust; Diggle was well educated, a gentleman, frank,
amiable.  What motive could he have for leading a boy astray?

Mingled with Desmond's Irish impulsiveness there was a strain of caution
derived from the stolid English yeomen his forebears on the maternal
side.  He felt the need, before crossing his Rubicon, of taking counsel
with some one older and wiser--with a tried friend.  Sir Willoughby
Stokes, the squire, had always been kind to him.  Would it not be well
to put his case to the Squire and follow his advice? But he durst not
venture to the Hall yet.  His brother might suspect his errand and seize
him there, or intercept him on the way.  He would wait.  It was the
Squire's custom to spend a quiet hour in his own room long after the
time when other folk in that rural neighbourhood were abed.  Desmond
sometimes sat with him there, reading or playing chess.  If he went up
to the Hall at nine o'clock he would be sure of a welcome.

The evening passed slowly for Desmond in his enforced idleness.  At nine
o'clock, leaving his bundle in a hollow tree, he set off toward the
Hall, taking a short cut across the fields.  It was a dark night, and he
stopped with a start as, on descending a stile overhung by a spreading
sycamore, he almost struck against a person who had just preceded him.

"Who's that?" he asked quickly, stepping back a little: it was unusual
to meet any one in the fields at so late an hour.

"Be that you, Measter Desmond?"

"Oh, 'tis you, Dickon.  What are you doing this way at such an hour?
You ought to have been abed long ago."

"Ay, sure, Measter Desmond; but I be goin' to see Squire," said the old
man, apparently with some hesitation.

"That's odd.  So am I.  We may as well walk together, then--for fear of
the ghosts, eh, Dickon?"

"I binna afeard o' ghosts, not I.  True, 'tis odd I be goin' to see
Squire.  I feel it so.  Squire be a high man, and I ha' never dared lift
up my voice to him oothout axen.  But 'tis to be.  I ha' summat to tell
him, low-born as I be; ay, I mun tell him, cost what it may."

"Well, he's not a dragon.  I have something to tell him too--cost what
it may."

There was silence for a space.  Then Dickon said, tremulously:

"Bin it a great matter, yourn, sir, I make bold to ax?"

"That's as it turns out, Dickon.  But what is it with you, old man?  Is
aught amiss?"

"Not wi' me, sir, not wi' me, thank the Lord above. But I seed ya,
Measter Desmond, t'other day, in speech win that--that Diggle as he do
call hisself, and--and, I tell ya true, sir, I dunna like the looks on
him; no, he binna a right man; an' I were afeard as he med ha' bin
fillin' yer head wi' fine tales about the wonders o' the world an' all."

"Is that all, Dickon?  You fear my head may be turned, eh?  Don't worry
about me."

"Why, sir, ya may think me bold, but I do say this: If so be ya gets
notions in yer head--notions o' goin' out alone an' seein' the world an'
all, go up an' ax Squire about it.  Squire he done have a wise head;
he'll advise ya fur the best; an' sure I bin he'd warn ya not to have no
dealin's win that Diggle, as he do call hisself."

"Why, does the Squire know him, then?"

"'Tis my belief Squire do know everything an' every body.  Diggle he med
not know, to be sure, but if so be ya say 'tis a lean man, wi' sharp
nose, an' black eyes like live coals, an' a smilin' mouth--why, Squire
knows them sort, he done, and wouldna trust him not a' ell.  But maybe
ya'd better go on, sir: my old shanks be slow fur one so young an'
nimble."

"No hurry, Dickon.  Lucky the Squire was used to London hours in his
youth, or we'd find him abed.  See, there's a light in the Hall; 'tis in
the strong-room next to the library; Sir Willoughby is reckoning up his
rents maybe, though 'tis late for that."

"Ay, ya knows the Hall, true.  Theer be a terrible deal o' gowd an'
silver up in that room, fur sure, more'n a aged man like me could tell
in a week."

"The light is moving; it seems Sir Willoughby is finishing up for the
night.  I hope we shall not be too late."

But at this moment a winding of the path brought another face of the
Hall into view.

"Why, Dickon," exclaimed Desmond, "there's another light; 'tis the
Squire's own room.  He cannot be in two places at once; 'tis odd at this
time of night.  Come, stir your stumps, old man."

They hurried along, scrambling through the hedge that bounded the field,
Desmond leaping, Dickon wading, the brook that ran alongside the road.
Turning to the left, they came to the front entrance to the Hall, and
passed through the wicket-gate into the grounds.  They could see the
Squire's shadow on the blind of the parlour; but the lighted window of
the strong-room was now hidden from them.  Stepping in that direction,
to satisfy a strange curiosity he felt, Desmond halted in amazement as
he saw, faintly silhouetted against the sky, a ladder placed against the
wall, resting on the sill of the strong-room.  His surprise at seeing
lights in two rooms, in different wings of the house, so late at night,
changed to misgiving and suspicion.  He hastened back to Dickon.

"I fear some mischief is afoot," he said.  Drawing the old man into the
shade of a shrubbery, he added: "Remain here; do not stir until I come
for you, or unless you hear me call."

Leaving Dickon in trembling perplexity and alarm, he stole forward on
tip-toe towards the house.




                           CHAPTER THE FIFTH


*In which Job Grinsell explains; and three visitors come by night to the
"Four Alls."*


At the foot of the wall lay a flower-bed, now bare and black, separated
by a gravel path from a low shrubbery of laurel.  Behind this latter
Desmond stole, screened from observation by the bushes.  Coming to a
spot exactly opposite the ladder, he saw that it rested on the sill of
the library window, which was open.  The library itself was dark, but
there was still a dull glow in the next room.  At the foot of the ladder
stood a man.  The meaning of it all was plain.  The large sum of money
recently received by Sir Willoughby as rents had tempted some one to rob
him. The robber must have learnt that the money was kept in the
strong-room; and it argued either considerable daring or great ignorance
to have timed his visit for an hour when any one familiar with the
Squire's habits would have known that he would not yet have retired to
rest.

Desmond was about to run round to the other side of the house and rouse
the Squire when the dim light in the strong-room was suddenly
extinguished.  Apparently the confederate of the man below had secured
his booty and was preparing to return.  Desmond remained fixed to the
spot, in some doubt what to do.  He might call to Dickon and make a rush
on the man before him; but the labourer was old and feeble, and the
criminal was no doubt armed. A disturber would probably be shot, and
though the report would alarm the household, the burglars would have
time to escape in the darkness.  Save Sir Willoughby himself, doubtless
every person in the house was by this time abed asleep.

It seemed best to Desmond to send Dickon for help while he himself still
mounted guard.  Creeping silently as a cat along the shrubbery, he
hastened back to the labourer, told him in a hurried whisper of his
discovery, and bade him steal round to the servants' quarters, rouse
them quietly, and bring one or two to trap the man at the foot of the
ladder while others made a dash through the library upon the marauder in
the strong-room.  Dickon, whose wits were nimbler than his legs,
understood what he was to do and slipped away, Desmond returning to his
coign of vantage as noiselessly as he came.

He was just in time to see that a heavy object, apparently a box, was
being lowered from the library window on to the ladder.  Sliding slowly
down, it came to the hands of the waiting man; immediately afterwards
the rope by which it had been suspended was dropped from above, and the
dark figure of a man mounted the sill.

He already had one leg over, preparing to descend, when Desmond, with a
sudden rush, dashed through the shrubs and sprang across the path.  The
confederate was stooping over the booty; his back was towards the
shrubbery; at the snapping of twigs and the crunching of the gravel he
straightened himself and turned.  Before he was aware of what was
happening, Desmond caught at the ladder by the lowest rung, and jerked
it violently outwards so that its top fell several feet below the
window-sill, resting on the wall out of reach of the man above.  Desmond
heard a smothered exclamation break from the fellow, but he could pay no
further attention to him, for, as he rose from stooping over the ladder,
he was set upon by a burly form.  He dodged behind the ladder.  The man
sprang after him, blindly, clumsily, and tripped over the box.  But he
was up in a moment, and, reckless of the consequences of raising an
alarm, was fumbling for a pistol, when there fell upon his ears a shout,
the tramp of hurrying feet, and the sound of another window being thrown
open.

With a muffled curse he swung on his heel, and made to cross the gravel
path and plunge into the shrubbery.  But Desmond was too quick for him.
Springing upon his back, he caught his arms, thus preventing him from
using his pistol.  He was a powerful man, and Desmond alone would have
been no match for him; but before he could wriggle himself entirely
free, three half-clad men-servants came up with a rush, and in a trice
he was secured.

In the excitement of these close-packed moments Desmond had forgotten
the other man, whom he had last seen with his leg dangling over the
window-sill.  He looked up now; the window was still open; the ladder
lay exactly where he had jerked it; evidently the robber had not
descended.

"Quick!" cried Desmond.  "Round to the door!  The other fellow will
escape!"

He himself sprinted round the front of the house to the door by which
the servants had issued, and met the Squire hobbling along on his stick,
pistol in hand.

"We have got one, sir!" cried Desmond.  "Have you seen the other?"

"What--why--how many villains are there?" replied the Squire, who
between amazement and wrath was scarcely able to appreciate the
situation.

"There was a man in the library; he did not come down the ladder; he may
be still in the house."

"The deuce he is!  Desmond, take the pistol, and shoot the knave like a
dog if you meet him."

"I'll guard the door, Sir Willoughby.  They are bringing the other man
round.  Then we'll all go into the house and search.  He can't get out
without being seen if the other doors are locked."

"Locked and barred.  I did it myself an hour ago. I'll hang the
villain."

In a few moments the servants came up with their captive and the box,
old Dickon following.  Only their figures could be seen: it was too dark
to distinguish features.

"You scoundrel!" cried the Squire, brandishing his stick.  "You'll hang
for this.  Take him into the house. In with you all.  You scoundrel!"

"An you please, Sir Willoughby, 'tis----" began one of the servants.

"In with you, I say," roared the Squire.  "I'll know how to deal with
the villain."

The culprit was hustled into the house, and the group followed, Sir
Willoughby bringing up the rear.  Inside he barred and locked the door,
and bade the men carry their prisoner to the library.  The corridors and
staircase were dark; but by the time the Squire had mounted on his gouty
legs candles had been lighted, and the face of the housebreaker was for
the first time visible.  Two servants held the man; the others, with
Desmond and Dickon, looked on in amazement.

"Job Grinsell, on my soul and body!" cried the Squire. "You villain!
You ungrateful knave!  Is this how you repay me?  I might have hanged
you, you scoundrel, when you poached my game; a word from me and Sir
Philip would have seen you whipped before he let his inn to you; but I
was too kind; I am a fool; and you---- by gad, you shall hang this
time."

The Squire's face was purple with anger, and he shook his stick as
though then and there he would have wrought chastisement on the
offender.  Grinsell's flabby face, however, expressed amusement rather
than fear.

"Bless my soul!" cried the Squire, suddenly turning to his men, "I'd
forgotten the other villain.  Off with you; search for him; bring him
here."

Desmond had already set off to look for Grinsell's accomplice.  Taper in
hand he went quickly from room to room; joined by the Squire's servants,
he searched every nook and cranny of the house, examining doors and
windows, opening cupboards, poking at curtains--all in vain.  At last,
at the end of a dark corridor, he came upon an open window some ten feet
above the ground.  It was so narrow that a man of ordinary size must
have had some difficulty in squeezing his shoulders through; but Desmond
was forced to the conclusion that the housebreaker had sprung out here,
and by this time had made good his escape.  Disappointed at his failure,
he returned with the servants to the library.

"We can't find him, Sir Willoughby," said Desmond, as he opened the
door.  To his surprise, Grinsell and Dickon were gone; no one but the
Squire was in the room, and he was sitting in a big chair, limp and
listless, his eyes fixed upon the floor.

"We can't find him," repeated Desmond.

The Squire looked up.

"What did you say?" he asked, as though the events of the past half-hour
were a blank.  "Oh, 'tis you, Desmond, yes; what can I do for you?"

Desmond was embarrassed.

"I--we have--we have looked for the other villain, Sir Willoughby," he
stammered.  "We can't find him."

"Ah!  'Twas you gave the alarm.  Good boy; zeal; excellent; but a little
mistake; yes, Grinsell explained; a mistake, Desmond."

The Squire spoke hurriedly, disconnectedly, with an embarrassment even
greater than Desmond's.

"But, sir," the boy began, "I saw----"

"Yes, yes," interrupted the old man.  "I know all about it.  But
Grinsell's explanation--yes, I know all about it.  I am obliged to you,
Desmond; but I am satisfied with Grinsell's explanation; I shall go no
further in the matter."

He groaned and put his hand to his head.

"Are you ill, Sir Willoughby?" asked Desmond anxiously.

The Squire looked up; his face was an image of distress. He was silent
for a moment; then said slowly:

"Sick at heart, Desmond, sick at heart.  I am an old man--an old man."

Desmond was uncomfortable.  He had never seen the Squire in such a mood,
and had a healthy boy's natural uneasiness at any display of feeling.

"You see that portrait?" the Squire went on, pointing wearily with his
stick at the head of a young man done in oils.  "The son of my oldest
friend--my dear old friend Merriman.  I never told you of him.  Nine
years ago, Desmond--nine years ago, my old friend was as hale and hearty
a man as I myself, and George was the apple of his eye.  They were for
the King--God save him!--and when word came that Prince Charles was
marching south from Scotland they arranged secretly with a party of
loyal gentlemen to join him.  But I hung back, I had not their courage:
I am alive, and I lost my friend."

His voice sank, and, leaning heavily upon his stick, he gazed vacantly
into space.  Desmond was perplexed, and still more ill at ease.  What
had this to do with the incidents of the night?  He shrank from asking
the question.

"Yes, I lost my friend," the Squire continued.  "We had news of the
Prince; he had left Carlisle; he was moving southwards, about to strike
a blow for his father's throne.  He was approaching Derby.  George
Merriman sent a message to his friends, appointing a rendezvous: gallant
gentlemen, they would join the Stuart flag!  The day came, they met, and
the minions of the Hanoverian surrounded them.  Betrayed!--poor loyal
gentlemen!--betrayed by one who had their confidence and abused it--one
of my own blood, Desmond--the shame of it!  They were tried,
hanged--hanged!  It broke my old friend's heart; he died; 'twas one of
my blood that killed him."

Again speech failed him.  Then, with a sudden change of manner, he said:

"But 'tis late, boy; your brother keeps early hours.  I am not myself
to-night, the memory of the past unnerves me.  Bid me good-night, boy."

Desmond hesitated, biting his lips.  What of the motive of his visit?
He had come to ask advice: could he go without having mentioned the
subject that troubled him? The old man had sunk into a reverie, his lips
moved as though he communed with himself.  Desmond had not the heart to
intrude his concerns on one so bowed with grief.

"Good-night, Sir Willoughby!" he said.

The Squire paid no heed, and Desmond, vexed, bewildered, went slowly
from the room.

At the outer door he found Dickon awaiting him.

"The Squire has let Grinsell go, Dickon," he said; "he says 'twas all a
mistake."

"If Squire says it, then 't must be," said Dickon slowly, nodding his
head.  "We'n better be goin' home, sir."

"But you had something to tell Sir Willoughby?"

"Ay sure, but he knows it--knows it better'n me."

"Come, Dickon, what is this mystery?  I am in a maze: what is it, man?"

"Binna fur a' aged poor feller like me to say.  We'n better go home,
sir."

Nothing that Desmond said prevailed upon Dickon to tell more, and the
two started homewards across the fields.  Some minutes afterwards they
heard the sound of a horse's hoofs clattering on the road to their left,
and going in the same direction.  It was an unusual sound at that late
hour, and both stopped instinctively and looked at each other.

"A late traveller, Dickon," said Desmond.

"Ay, maybe a king's post, Measter Desmond," replied the old man.
Without more words they went on till they came to a lane leading to the
labourer's cottage.

"We part here," said Desmond.  "Dickon, good-night!"

"Good-night to you, sir!" said the old man.  He paused: then in a grave,
earnest, quavering voice, he added: "The Lord Almighty have you in His
keeping, Measter Desmond, watch over you night and day, now and
evermore."

And with that he hobbled down the lane.


At nine o'clock that night Richard Burke left the Grange--an unusual
thing for him--and walked quickly to the _Four Alls_.  The inn was
closed, and shutters darkened the windows; but, seeing a chink of light
between the folds, the farmer knocked at the door.  There was no answer.
He knocked again and again, grumbling under his breath; at length, when
his patience was almost exhausted, a window above opened, and, looking
up, Mr. Burke dimly saw a head.

"Is that you, Grinsell?" he asked.

"No, massa."

"Oh, you're the black boy, Mr. Diggle's servant.  Is your master in?"

"No, massa."

"Well, come down and open the door.  I'll wait for him."

"Massa said no open door for nuffin."

"Confound you, open at once!  He knows me, I'm a friend of his; open the
door!"

"Massa said no open door for nobody."

The farmer pleaded, stormed, cursed, but Scipio Africanus was
inflexible.  His master had given him orders, and the boy had learnt, at
no little cost, that it was the wisest and safest policy to obey.
Finding that neither threats nor persuasion availed, Burke took a stride
or two in the direction of home; then he halted, pondered for a moment,
changed his mind, and began to pace up and down the road.

His restless movements were by and by checked by the sound of footsteps
approaching.  He crossed the road, stood in the shadow of an elm, and
waited.  The footsteps drew nearer; he heard low voices, and now
discerned two dark figures against the lighter road.  They came to the
inn and stopped.  One of them took a key from his pocket and inserted it
in the lock.

"'Tis you at last," said Burke, stepping out from his place of
concealment.  "That boy of yours would not let me in, hang him!"

At the first words Diggle started and swung round, his right hand flying
to his pocket; but recognizing the voice almost immediately, he laughed.

"'Tis you, my friend," he said.  "'Multa de nocte profectus es.'  But
you've forgot all your Latin, Dick. What is the news, man?  Come in."

"The bird is flitting, Sim, that's all.  He has not been home.  His
mother was in a rare to-do.  I pacified her, told her I'd sent him to
Chester to sell oats--haw, haw! He has taken some clothes and gone.  But
he won't go far, I trow, without seeing you, and I look to you to carry
out the bargain."

"Egad, Dick, I need no persuasion.  He won't go without me, I promise
you that.  I've a bone to pick with him myself--eh, friend Job?"

Grinsell swore a hearty oath.  At this moment the silence without was
broken by the sound of a trotting horse.

"Is the door bolted?" whispered Burke.  "I mustn't be seen here."

"Trust me fur that," said Grinsell.  "But no one will stop here at this
time o' night."

But the three men stood silent, listening.  The sound steadily grew
louder; the horse was almost abreast of the inn; it was passing--but no,
it came to a halt; they heard a man's footsteps, and the sound of the
bridle being hitched to a hook in the wall.  Then there was a sharp rap
at the door.

"Who's there?" cried Grinsell gruffly.

"Open the door instantly," said a loud, masterful voice.

Burke looked aghast.

"You can't let him in," he whispered.

The others exchanged glances.

"Open the door," cried the voice again.  "D'you hear, Grinsell?  At
once!--or I ride to Drayton for the constables!"

Grinsell gave Diggle a meaning look.

"Slip out by the back door, Mr. Burke," said the innkeeper.  "I'll make
a noise with the bolts so that he cannot hear you."

Burke hastily departed, and Grinsell, after long, loud fumbling with the
bolts, threw open the door and gave admittance to the Squire.

"Ah, you are here both," said Sir Willoughby, standing in the middle of
the floor, his riding-whip in his hand. "Now, Mr.--Diggle, I think you
call yourself.  I'm a man of few words, as you know.  I have to say
this. I give you till eight o'clock to-morrow morning; if you are not
gone, bag and baggage, by that time, I will issue a warrant.  Is that
clear?"

"Perfectly," said Diggle with his enigmatical smile.

"And one word more.  Show your face again in these parts and I will have
you arrested.  I have spared you twice for your mother's sake.  This is
my last warning. Grinsell, you hear that too?"

"I hear 't," growled the man.

"Remember it, for, mark my words, you'll share his fate."

The Squire was gone.

Grinsell scowled with malignant spite; Diggle laughed softly.

"'Quanta de spe decidi!'" he said, "which in plain English, friend Job,
means that we are dished--utterly, absolutely.  I must go on my travels
again; well, such was my intention; the only difference is, that I go
with an empty purse instead of a full one.  Who'd have thought the old
dog would ha' been such an unconscionable time dying!"

"Gout or no gout, he's good for another ten year," growled the
innkeeper.

"Well, I'll give him five.  And with the boy out of the way, maybe I'll
come to my own even yet.  The young puppy!"  At this moment Diggle's
face was by no means pleasant to look upon.  "Fate has always had a
grudge against me, Job.  In the old days, I bethink me, 'twas I that was
always found out.  You had many an escape."

"Till the last.  But I've come out of this well."  He chuckled.  "To
think what a fool blood makes of a man! Squire winna touch me, 'cause of
you.  But it must gall him; ay, it must gall him."

"Hist!" said Diggle suddenly.  "There are footsteps again.  Is it Burke
coming back?  The door's open, Job."

The innkeeper went to the door and peered into the dark.  A slight
figure came up at that moment--a boy, with a bundle in his hand.

"Is that you, Grinsell?  Is Mr. Diggle in?"

"Come in, my friend," said Diggle, hastening to the door.  "We were just
talking of you.  Come in; 'tis a late hour; 'si vespertinus subito'--you
remember old Horace?  True, we haven't a hen to baste with Falernian for
you, but sure friend Job can find a wedge of Cheshire and a mug of ale.
Come in."

And Desmond went into the inn.




                           CHAPTER THE SIXTH


*In which the reader becomes acquainted with William Bulger and other
sailor men; and our hero as a squire of dames acquits himself with
credit.*


One warm October afternoon, some ten days after the night of his visit
to the _Four Alls_, Desmond was walking along the tow-path of the
Thames, somewhat north of Kingston. As he came to the spot where the
river bends round towards Teddington, he met a man plodding along with a
rope over his shoulder, hauling a laden hoy.

"Can you tell me the way to the _Waterman's Rest_?" asked Desmond.

"Ay, that can I," replied the man without stopping. "'Tis about a
quarter-mile behind me, right on waterside. And the best beer this side
o' Greenwich."

Thanking him, Desmond walked on.  He had not gone many yards further
before there fell upon his ear, from some point ahead, the sound of
several rough voices raised in chorus, trolling a tune that seemed
familiar to him.  As he came nearer to the singers, he distinguished the
words of the song, and remembered the occasion on which he had heard
them before: the evening of Clive's banquet at Market Drayton--the open
window of the _Four Alls_, the voice of Marmaduke Diggle.

    Sir William Norris, Masulipatam--

these were the first words he caught; and immediately afterwards the
voices broke into the second verse:

    Says Governor Pitt, Fort George, Madras,
    "I know what you are: an ass, an ass,
    An ass, an ass, an ASS, an ASS,"
    Signed "Governor Pitt, Fort George, Madras."

And at the conclusion there was a clatter of metal upon wood, and then
one voice, loud and rotund, struck up the first verse once more--

    Says Billy Norris, Masulipatam--


The singer was in the middle of the stave when Desmond, rounding a
privet hedge, came upon the scene.  A patch of greensward, sloping up
from a slipway on the riverside; a low, cosy-looking inn of red brick
covered with a crimson creeper; in front of it a long deal table, and
seated at the table a group of some eight or ten seamen, each with a
pewter tankard before him.  To the left, and somewhat in the rear of the
long table, was a smaller one, at which two seamen, by their garb a cut
above the others, sat opposite each other, intent on some game.

Desmond's attention was drawn towards the larger table. Rough as was the
common seaman of George the Second's time, the group here collected
would have been hard to match for villainous looks.  One had half his
teeth knocked out, another a broken nose; all bore scars and other marks
of battery.

Among them, however, there was one man marked out by his general
appearance and facial expression as superior to the rest.  In dress he
was no different from his mates; he wore the loose blouse, the
pantaloons, the turned-up cloth hat of the period.  But he towered above
them in height; he had a very large head, with a very small squab nose,
merry eyes, and a fringe of jet-black hair round cheeks and chin.  When
he removed his hat presently he revealed a shiny pink skull, rising from
short wiry hair as black as his whiskers.  Alone of the group, he wore
no love-locks or greased pigtail.  In his right hand, when Desmond first
caught sight of him, he held a tankard, waving it to and fro in time
with his song.  He had lost his left hand and forearm, which were
replaced by an iron hook projecting from a wooden socket, just visible
in his loose sleeve.

He was half-way through the second stanza when he noticed Desmond
standing at the angle of the hedge a few yards away.  He fixed his merry
eyes on the boy, and, beating time with his hook, went on with the song
in stentorian tones--

    An ass, an ass, an ASS, an ASS,
    Signed "Governor Pitt, Fort George, Madras."

The others took up the chorus, and finally brought their tankards down
upon the deal with a resounding whack.

"Ahoy, Mother Wiggs, more beer!" shouted the big man.

Desmond went forward.

"Is this the _Waterman's Rest_?"

"Ay, ay, young gen'leman, and a blamed restful place it is, too, fit for
watermen what en't naught but landlubbers, speaking by the book, but not
for the likes of us jack tars.  Eh, mateys?"

His companions grunted acquiescence.

"I have a message for Mr. Toley; is he here?"

"Ay, that he is.  That's him at the table yonder. Mr. Toley, sir, a
young gen'leman to see you."

Desmond advanced to the smaller table.  The two men looked up from their
game of dominoes.  One was a tall, lean fellow, with lined and sunken
cheeks covered with iron-gray stubble, a very sharp nose, and colourless
eyes; the expression of his features was melancholy in the extreme. The
other was a shorter man, snub-nosed, big-mouthed; one eye was blue, the
other green, and they looked in contrary directions.  His hat was tilted
forward, resting on two bony prominences above his eyebrows.

"Well?" said Mr. Toley, the man of melancholy countenance.

"I have a message from Captain Barker," said Desmond. "I am to say that
he expects you and the men at Custom House Quay next Wednesday morning,
high tide at five o'clock."

Mr. Toley lifted the tankard at his left hand, drained it, smacked his
lips, then said in a hollow voice:

"Bulger, Custom House Quay, Wednesday morning, five o'clock."

A grunt of satisfaction and relief rolled round the company, and in
response to repeated cries for more beer a stout woman in a mob cap and
dirty apron came from the inn with a huge copper can, from which she
proceeded to fill the empty tankards.

"Is the press still hot, sir?" asked Mr. Toley.

"Yes.  Four men, I was told, were hauled out of the _Good Intent_
yesterday."

"And four bad bargains for the King," put in the second man, whose cross
glances caused Desmond no little discomfort.

At this moment Joshua Wiggs the innkeeper came up, carrying three
fowling-pieces.

"There be plenty o' ducks to-day, mister," he said.

"Then we'll try our luck," said Mr. Toley, rising. "Thank 'ee, my lad,"
he added to Desmond.  "You'll take a sup with the men afore you go?
Bulger, see to the gentleman."

"Ay, ay, sir.  Come aboard, matey."

He made a place for Desmond at his side on the bench, and called to
Mother Wiggs to bring a mug for the gentleman.  Meanwhile, Mr. Toley and
his companion had each taken a fowling-piece and gone away with the
landlord. Bulger winked at his companions, and when the sportsmen were
out of earshot he broke into a guffaw.

"Rare sport they'll have!  I wouldn't be in Mr. Toley's shoes for
something.  What's a cock-eyed man want with a gun in his hand, eh,
mateys?"

Desmond felt somewhat out of his element in his present company; but
having reasons of his own for making himself pleasant, he said, by way
of opening a conversation:

"You seem pleased at the idea of going to sea again, Mr. Bulger."

"Well, we are and we en't, eh, mateys?  The _Waterman's Rest_ en't
exactly the kind of place to spend shore leave; it en't a patch on
Wapping or Rotherhithe.  And to tell 'ee true, we're dead sick of it.
But there's reasons; there mostly is; and the whys and wherefores,
therefores and becauses, I dessay you know, young gen'leman, a-comin'
from Captain Barker."

"The press-gang?"

"Ay, the press is hot in these days.  Cap'n sent us here to be out o'
the way, and the orficers to look arter us. Not but what 'tis safer for
them too; for if Mr. Sunman showed his cock-eyes anywhere near the Pool,
he'd be nabbed by the bailiffs, sure as he's second mate o' the _Good
Intent_.  Goin' to sea's bad enough, but the _Waterman's Rest_ and
holdin' on the slack here's worse, eh, mateys?"

"Ay, you're right there, Bulger."

"But why don't you like going to sea?" asked Desmond.

"Why?  You're a landlubber, sir--meanin' no offence--or you wouldn't ax
sich a foolish question.  At sea 'tis all rope's end and salt pork, with
Irish horse for a tit-bit."

"Irish horse?"

"Ay.  That's our name for it.  'Cos why?  Explain to the gen'leman,
mateys."

With a laugh the men began to chant--

    Salt horse, salt horse, what brought you here?
    You've carried turf for many a year.
    From Dublin quay to Ballyack
    You've carried turf upon your back.


"That's the why and wherefore of it," added Bulger. "Cooks call it salt
beef, same as French mounseers don't like the sound of taters an' calls
'em pummy detair; but we calls it Irish horse, which we know the
flavour. Accordingly, notwithstandin' an' for that reason, if you axes
the advice of an old salt, never you go to sea, matey."

"That's unfortunate," said Desmond with a smile, "because I expect to
sail next Wednesday morning, high tide at five o'clock."

"Binks and barnacles!  Be you agoin' to sail with us?"

"I hope so."

"Billy come up!  You've got business out East then?"

"Not yet, but I hope to have.  I'm going out as supercargo."

"Oh!  As supercargo!"

Bulger winked at his companions, and a hoarse titter went the round of
the table.

"Well," continued Bulger, "the supercargo do have a better time of it
than us poor chaps.  And what do Cap'n Barker say to you as supercargo,
which you are very young, sir?"

"I don't know Captain Barker."

"Oho!  But I thought as how you brought a message from the captain?"

"Yes, but it came through Mr. Diggle."

"Ah!  Mr. Diggle?"

"A friend of mine--a friend of the captain.  He has arranged
everything."

"I believe you, matey.  He's arranged everything. Supercargo!  Well, to
be sure!  Never a supercargo as I ever knowed but wanted a man to look
arter him, fetch and carry for him, so to say.  How would I do, if I
might make so bold?"

"Thanks," said Desmond, smiling as he surveyed the man's huge form.
"But I think Captain Barker might object to that.  You'd be of more use
on deck, in spite of----"

He paused, but his glance at the iron hook had not escaped Bulger's
observant eye.

"Spite of the curlin' tongs, you'd say.  Bless you, spit 't out, I en't
tender in my feelin's."

"Besides," added Desmond, "I shall probably make use of the boy who has
been attending on me at the _Goat and Compasses_--a clever little black
boy of Mr. Diggle's."

"Black boys be hanged!  I never knowed a Sambo as was any use on board
ship.  They howls when they're sick, and they're allers sick, and never
larns to tell a marlin-spike from a belayin' pin."

"But Scipio isn't one of that sort.  He's never sick, Mr. Diggle says;
they've been several voyages together, and Scipio knows a ship from stem
to stern."

"Scipio, which his name is?  Oncommon name, that."

There was a new tone in Bulger's voice, and he gave Desmond a keen and,
as it seemed, a troubled look.

"Yes, it is strange," replied the boy, vaguely aware of the change of
manner.  "But Mr. Diggle has ways of his own."

"This Mr. Diggle, now; I may be wrong, but I should say--yes, he's
short, with bow legs and a wart on his cheek?"

"No, no; you must be thinking of some one else.  He is tall, rather a
well-looking man; he hasn't a wart, but there is a scar on his brow,
something like yours."

"Ah!  I know they sort; a fightin' sort o' feller, with a voice
like--which I say, like a nine-pounder?"

"Well, not exactly; he speaks rather quietly; he is well educated, too,
to judge by the Latin he quotes."

"Sure now, a scholard.  Myself, I never had no book larnin' to speak of;
never got no further than pothooks an' hangers!"

He laughed as he lifted his hook.  But he seemed to be disinclined for
further conversation.  He buried his face in his tankard, and when he
had taken a long pull set the vessel on the table and stared at it with
a preoccupied air. He seemed to have forgotten the presence of Desmond.
The other men were talking among themselves, and Desmond, having by this
time finished his mug of beer, rose to go on his way.

"Good-bye, Mr. Bulger," he said; "we shall meet again next Wednesday."

"Ay, ay, sir," returned the man.

He looked long after the boy as he walked away.

"Supercargo!" he muttered.  "Diggle!  I may be wrong, but----"

Desmond had come through Southwark and across Clapham and Wimbledon
Common, thus approaching the _Waterman's Rest_ from the direction of
Kingston. Accustomed as he was to long tramps, he felt no fatigue, and
with a boy's natural curiosity he decided to return to the city by a
different route, following the river bank.  He had not walked far before
he came to the ferry at Twickenham. The view on the other side of the
river attracted him: meadows dotted with cows and sheep, a verdant hill
with pleasant villas here and there; and seeing the ferryman resting on
his oars, he accosted him.

"Can I get to London if I cross here?" he asked.

"Sure you can, sir.  Up the hill past Mr. Walpole his house; then you
comes to Isleworth and Brentford, and a straight road through
Hammersmith village--a fine walk, sir, and only a penny for the
ferryman."

Desmond paid his penny and crossed.  He sauntered along up Strawberry
Hill, taking a good look at the snug little house upon which Mr. Horace
Walpole was spending much money and pains.  Wandering on, and preferring
by-lanes to the high road, he lost his bearings, and at length, fearing
that he was going in the wrong direction, he stopped at a wayside
cottage to inquire the way.  He was further out than he knew.  The woman
who came to the door in answer to his knock said that, having come so
far, he had better proceed in the same direction until he reached
Hounslow, and then strike into the London road and keep to it.  Desmond
was nothing loth.  He had heard of Hounslow and those notorious "Diana's
foresters" Plunket and James Maclean--highwaymen who a few years before
had been the terror of night travellers across the lonely Heath.  There
was a fascination about the scene of their exploits.  So he trudged on,
feeling now a little tired, and hoping to get a lift in some farmer's
cart that might be going towards London.

More than once as he walked his thoughts recurred to the scene at the
_Waterman's Rest_.  They were a rough, villainous-looking set, these
members of the crew of the _Good Intent_!  Of course, as supercargo he
would not come into close contact with them; and Mr. Diggle had warned
him that he would find seafaring men somewhat different from the country
folk among whom all his life hitherto had been passed.  Diggle's
frankness had pleased him. They had left the _Four Alls_ early on the
morning after that strange incident at the Squire's.  Desmond had told
his friend what had happened, and Diggle, apparently surprised to learn
of Grinsell's villainy, had declared that the sooner they were out of
his company the better.  They had come by easy stages to London, and
were now lodging at a small inn near the Tower: not a very savoury
neighbourhood, Diggle admitted, but convenient.  Diggle had soon
obtained for Desmond a berth on board the _Good Intent_ bound for the
East Indies, and from what he let drop the boy understood that he was to
sail as supercargo.  He had not yet seen the vessel; she was painting,
and would shortly be coming up to the Pool.  Nor had he seen Captain
Barker, who was very much occupied, said Diggle, and had a great deal of
trouble in keeping his crew out of the clutches of the pressgang.  Some
of the best of them had been sent to the _Waterman's Rest_ in charge of
the chief and second mates.  It was at Diggle's suggestion that he had
been deputed to convey the captain's message to the men.

It was drawing towards evening when Desmond reached Hounslow Heath, a
wide bare expanse of scrubby land intersected by a muddy road.  A light
mist lay over the ground, and he was thankful that the road to London
was perfectly direct, so that there was no further risk of his losing
his way.  The solitude and the dismal appearance of the country,
together with its ill-repute, made him quicken his pace, though he had
no fear of molestation; having nothing to lose he would be but poor prey
for a highwayman, and he trusted to his cudgel to protect him from the
attentions of any single footpad or tramp.

Striding along, in the gathering dusk he came suddenly upon a curious
scene.  A heavy travelling carriage was drawn half across the road, its
forewheels perilously near the ditch.  Near by was a lady, standing with
arms stiff and hands clenched, stamping her foot as she addressed, in no
measured terms, two men who were rolling over one another in a desperate
tussle a few yards away on the heath.  As Desmond drew nearer he
perceived that a second and a younger lady stood at the horses' heads,
grasping the bridles firmly with both hands.

His footsteps were unheard on the heavy road, and the elder lady's back
being towards him he came up to her unawares.  She started with a little
cry when she saw a stranger move towards her out of the gloom.  But
perceiving at a second glance that he was only a boy, with nothing
villainous about his appearance, she turned to him impulsively and,
taking him by the sleeve, said:

"There!  You see them!  The wretches!  They are drunk and pay no heed to
me!  Can you part them?  I do not wish to be benighted on this heath.
The wretch uppermost is the coachman."

"I might part them, perhaps," said Desmond dubiously. "Of course I will
try, ma'am."

"Sure I wouldn't trust 'em, mamma," called the younger lady from the
horses' heads.  "The man is too drunk to drive."

"I fear 'tis so.  'Tis not our own man, sir.  As we returned to-day from
a visit to Taplow our coachman was trampled by a horse at Slough, and my
husband stayed with him--an old and trusty servant--till he could
consult a surgeon.  We found a substitute at the inn to drive us home.
But the wretch brought a bottle; he drank with the footman all along the
road; and now, as you see, they are at each other's throats in their
drunken fury.  Sure we shall never get home in time for the rout we are
bid to."

"Shall I drive you to London, ma'am?" said Desmond. "'Twere best to
leave the men to settle their differences."

"But can you drive?"

"Oh yes," replied Desmond with a smile.  "I am used to horses."

"Then I beg you to oblige us.  Yes, let the wretches fight themselves
sober.  Phyllis, this gentleman will drive us; come."

The girl--a fair, rosy-cheeked, merry-eyed damsel of fifteen or
thereabouts--left the horses' heads and entered the carriage with her
mother.  Desmond made a rapid examination of the harness to see that all
was right; then he mounted the box and drove off.  The noise of the
rumbling wheels penetrated the besotted intelligence of the struggling
men; they scrambled to their feet, looked wildly about them, and set off
in pursuit.  But they had no command of their limbs; they staggered
clumsily this way and that, and finally found their level in the slimy
ditch that flanked the road.

Desmond whipped up the horses in the highest spirits. He had hoped for a
hit in a farmer's cart; fortune had favoured him in giving him four
roadsters to drive himself. And no boy, certainly not one of his
romantic impulses, but would feel elated at the idea of helping ladies
in distress, and on a spot known far and wide as the scene of perilous
adventure.

The carriage was heavy; the road, though level, was thick with autumn
mud; and the horses made no great speed.  Desmond, indeed, durst not
urge them too much, for the mist was thickening, making the air even
darker than the hour warranted; and as the roadway had neither hedge nor
wall to define it, but was bounded on each side by a ditch, it behoved
him to go warily.  He had just come to a particularly heavy part of the
road where the horses were compelled to walk, when he heard the thud of
hoofs some distance behind him.  The sound made him vaguely uneasy.  It
ceased for a moment or two; then he heard it again, and realized that a
horse was coming at full gallop.  Instinctively he whipped up the
horses.  The ladies had also heard the sound; and, putting her head out
of the window, the elder implored him to drive faster.

Could the two besotted knaves have put the horseman on his track, he
wondered.  They must believe that the carriage had been run away with,
and in their tipsy rage they would seize any means of overtaking him
that offered. The horseman might be an inoffensive traveller; on the
other hand, he might not.  It was best to leave nothing to chance.  With
a cheery word, to give the ladies confidence, he lashed at the horses
and forced the carriage on at a pace that put its clumsy springs to a
severe test.

Fortunately the road was straight, and the horses instinctively kept to
the middle of the track.  But fast as they were now going, Desmond felt
that if the horseman was indeed pursuing he would soon be overtaken. He
must be prepared for the worst.  Gripping the reins hard with his left
hand, he dropped the whip for a moment and felt in the box below the
seat in the hope of finding a pistol; but it was empty.  He whistled
under his breath at the discovery: if the pursuer was a "gentleman of
the road" his predicament was indeed awkward.  The carriage was rumbling
and rattling so noisily that he had long since lost the sound of the
horse's hoofs behind.  He could not pause to learn if the pursuit had
ceased; his only course was to drive on.  Surely he would soon reach the
edge of the heath; there would be houses; every few yards must bring him
nearer to the possibility of obtaining help. Thus thinking, he clenched
his teeth and lashed the reeking flanks of the horses, which plunged
along now at a mad gallop.

Suddenly, above the noise of their hoofs and the rattling of the coach
he heard an angry shout.  A scream came from the ladies.  Heeding
neither, Desmond quickly reversed his whip, holding it half-way down the
long handle, with the heavy iron-tipped stock outward.  The horseman
came galloping up on the off side, shouted to Desmond to stop, and
without waiting drew level with the box and fired point-blank.  But the
rapid movement of his horse and the swaying of the carriage forbade him
to take careful aim.  Desmond felt the wind of the bullet as it whizzed
past him.  Next moment he leaned slightly sideways, and, never loosening
his hold on the reins with his left hand, he brought the weighty butt of
his whip with a rapid cut, half sideways, half downwards, upon the
horseman's head.  The man with a cry swerved in the saddle; almost
before Desmond could recover his balance he was amazed to see the horse
dash suddenly to the right, spring across the ditch, and gallop at full
speed across the heath.

But he had no time at the moment to speculate on this very easy victory.
The horses, alarmed by the pistol shot, were plunging madly, dragging
the vehicle perilously near to the ditch on the left hand.  Then
Desmond's familiarity with animals, gained at so much cost to himself on
his brother's farm, bore good fruit.  He spoke to the horses soothingly,
managed them with infinite tact, and coaxed them into submission.  Then
he let them have their heads, and they galloped on at speed, pausing
only when they reached the turnpike going into Brentford.  They were
then in a bath of foam, their flanks heaving like to burst. Learning
from the turnpike-man that he could obtain a change of horses at the
_Bull_ inn, Desmond drove there, and was soon upon his way again.

While the change was being made, he obtained from the lady the address
in Soho Square where she was staying.  The new horses were fresh; the
carriage rattled through Gunnersbury, past the turnpike at Hammersmith
and through Kensington, and soon after nine o'clock Desmond had the
satisfaction of pulling up at the door of Sheriff Soames' mansion in
Soho Square.

The door was already open, the rattle of wheels having brought lacqueys
with lighted torches to welcome the belated travellers.  Torches flamed
in the cressets on both sides of the entrance.  The hall was filled with
servants and members of the household, and in the bustle that ensued
when the ladies in their brocades and hoops had entered the house,
Desmond saw an opportunity of slipping away.  He felt that it was
perhaps a little ungracious to go without a word with the ladies; but he
was tired; he was unaccustomed to town society; and the service he had
been able to render seemed to him so slight that he was modestly eager
to efface himself.  Leaving the carriage in the hands of one of the
lacqueys, with a few words of explanation, he hastened on towards
Holborn and the city.




                          CHAPTER THE SEVENTH


*In which Colonel Clive suffers a defeat hitherto unrecorded; and our
hero finds food for reflection.*


It was four o'clock, and Tuesday afternoon--the day before the _Good
Intent_ was to sail from the Pool. Desmond was kicking his heels in his
inn, longing for the morrow.  Even now he had not seen the vessel on
which he was to set forth in quest of his fortune.  She lay in the Pool,
but Diggle had found innumerable reasons why Desmond should not visit
her until he embarked for good and all.  She was loading her cargo; he
would be in the way.  Captain Barker was in a bad temper; better not see
him in his tantrums.  The pressgangs were active; they thought nothing
of boarding a vessel and seizing on any active young fellow who looked a
likely subject for His Majesty's navy.  Such were the reasons alleged.
And so Desmond had to swallow his impatience and fill in his time as
best he might; reading the newspapers, going to see Mr. Garrick and
Mistress Kitty Clive at Drury Lane, spending an odd evening at Ranelagh
Gardens.

On this Tuesday afternoon he had nothing to do.  Diggle was out; Desmond
had read the newspapers and glanced at the last number of the World; he
had written to his mother--the third letter since his arrival in London;
he could not settle to anything.  He resolved to go for a walk, as far
as St. Paul's, perhaps, and take a last look at the busy streets he was
not likely to see again for many a day.

Forth then he issued.  The streets were muddy; a mist was creeping up
from the river, promising to thicken into a London fog, and the
link-boys were already preparing their tow and looking for a rich
harvest of coppers ere the night was old.  Desmond picked his way
through the quagmires of John Street, crossed Crutched Friars, and went
up Mark Lane into Fenchurch Street, intending to go by Leadenhall Street
and Cornhill into Cheapside.

He had just reached the lower end of Billiter Street, the narrow
thoroughfare leading into Leadenhall, when he saw Diggle's tall figure
running amain towards him, with another man close behind, apparently in
hot pursuit. Diggle caught sight of Desmond at the same moment, and his
eyes gleamed as with relief.  He quickened his pace.

"Hold this fellow behind me," he panted as he passed, and before Desmond
could put a question he was gone.

There was no time for deliberation.  Desmond had but just perceived that
the pursuer was in the garb of a gentleman and had a broad patch of
plaster stretched across his left temple, when the moment for action
arrived.  Stooping low, he suddenly caught at the man's knees.  Down he
came heavily, mouthing hearty abuse, and man and boy were on the ground
together.

Desmond was up first.  He now saw that a second figure was hurrying on
from the other end of the street. He was not sure what Diggle demanded
of him; whether it was sufficient to have tripped up the pursuer, or
whether he must hold him still in play.  But by this time the man was
also upon his feet; his hat was off, his silk breeches and brown coat
with lace ruffles were all bemired.  Puffing and blowing, uttering many
a round oath such as came freely to the lips of the Englishman of King
George the Second's time, he shouted to his friend behind to come on,
and, disregarding Desmond, made to continue his pursuit.

Desmond could but grapple with him.

"Let go, villain!" cried the man, striving to free himself.  Desmond
clung on; there was a brief struggle, but he was no match in size or
strength for his opponent, who was thick-set and of considerable girth.
He fell backwards, overborne by the man's weight.  His head struck on
the road; dazed by the blow he loosened his clutch, and lay for a moment
in semi-unconsciousness while the man sprang away.

But he was not so far gone as not to hear a loud shout behind him and
near at hand, followed by the tramp of feet.

"Avast there!"  The voice was familiar: surely it was Bulger's.  "Fair
play!  Fourteen stone against seven en't odds.  Show a leg, mateys."

The big sailor with a dozen of his mates stood full in the path of the
irate gentleman, who, seeing himself beset, drew his rapier and prepared
to fight his way through. A moment later he was joined by his companion,
who had also drawn his rapier.  Together the gentlemen stood facing the
sailors.

"This is check, Merriman," said the last comer as the seamen,
flourishing their hangers menacingly, pressed forward past the prostrate
body of Desmond.  "The fellow has escaped you; best withdraw at
discretion."

"Come on," shouted Bulger, waving his hook.  "Bill Bulger en't the man
to sheer off from a couple of landlubbers."

As with his mates in line he steadily advanced, the two gentlemen, their
lips set, their eyes fixed on the assailants, their rapiers pointed,
backed slowly up the street.  The noise had brought clerks and merchants
to the doors; some one sprang a rattle; there were cries for the
watchmen; but no one actively interfered.  Meanwhile Desmond had
regained his senses, and, still feeling somewhat dizzy, had sat down
upon a doorstep, wondering not a little at the pursuit and flight of
Diggle and the opportune arrival of the sailors.  Everything had
happened very rapidly; scarcely two minutes had elapsed since the first
onset.

He was still resting when there was a sudden change in the quality of
the shouts up street.  Hitherto they had been boisterous rallying cries,
now they were unmistakably hearty British cheers, expressing nothing but
approval and admiration.  And they came not merely from the throats of
the sailors, but from the now considerable crowd that filled the street.
A few moments afterwards he saw the throng part, and through it Bulger
marching at the head of his mates, singing lustily.  They came opposite
to the step on which he sat, and Bulger caught sight of him.

"Blest if it en't our supercargo!" he cried, stopping short.

A shout of laughter broke from the sailors.  One of them struck up a
song.

      Oho! we says good-bye,
      But never pipes our eye,
    Tho' we leaves Poll, Sue, and Kitty all behind us;
      And if we drops our bones
      Down along o' Davy Jones,
    Why, they'll come and ax the mermaids for to find us.


"And what took ye, Mister Supercargo, to try a fall with the fourteen
stoner?"

"Oh, I was helping a friend."

"Ay, an' a friend was helpin' him, an' here's a dozen of us a-helpin' of
one supercargo."

"And I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Bulger.  But what were you cheering
for?"

"Cheerin'!  Why, you wouldn't guess.  'Twas General Clive, matey."

"General Clive!"

"Ay, General Clive, him what chased the mounseers out o' Fort St. George
with a marlin-spike.  I didn't know him at fust, comin' up behind
t'other chap; but when I seed that purple coat with the gold lace and
the face of him above it I knowed him.  In course there was no more
fight for us then; 'twas hip-hip hurray and up with our hangers.  Clive,
he smiled and touched his hat. 'Bulger,' says he, 'you en't much
fatter----'"

"Does he know you, then?"

"Know me!  In course he does.  Wasn't I bo'sun's mate on board the
Indiaman as took him east twelve year ago or more?  That was afore I got
this here button-hook o' mine.  Ay, I remember him well, a-trampin' up
an' down deck with his hands in his pockets an' his mouth set tight an'
his chin on his stock, never speakin' to a soul, in the doldrums if ever
a lad was.  Why, we all thought there was no more spirit in him than in
the old wooden figure-head--leastways, all but me.  'I may be wrong,'
says I to old Tinsley the bo'sun, 'I may be wrong,' says I, 'but I be
main sure that young sad down-in-the-mouth have got a blazin' fire
somewhere in his innards.'  Ay, and time showed it.  There was a lot of
cadets aboard as poked fun at the quiet chap an' talked him over,
awinkin' their eyes.  From talkin' it got to doin'.  One day, goin' to
his bunk, he found it all topsy-versy, hair powder on his pillow, dubbin
in his shavin' cup, salt pork wropt up in his dressin'-gown.  Well, I
seed him as he comed on deck, an' his face were a sight to remember,
pale as death, but his eyes a-blazin' like live coals in the galley
fire.  Up he steps to the cadet as was ringleader; how he knowed it I
can't tell you, but he was sure of it, same as I always am.  'Sir,' says
he, quiet as a lamb, 'I want a word with you.'  'Dear me!' says the
cadet, 'have Mr. Clive found his voice at last?'  'Yes, sir,' says
Clive, 'behave, an' something else.'  Cook happened to be passin' with a
tray; a lady what was squeamish had been havin' her vittles on deck.
Mr. Clive cotched up a basin o' pea soup what was too greasy for madam,
and in a twink he sets it upside down on the cadet's head.  Ay, 'twas a
pretty pictur', the greasy yellow stuff runnin' down over his powdered
hair an' lace collar an' fine blue coat. My eye! there was a rare old
shindy, the cadet cursin' and splutterin', the others laughin' fit to
bust 'emselves.  The cadet out with his fists, but there, 'twas no
manner o' use. Mr. Clive bowled him over like a ninepin till he lay
along deck all pea-soup an' gore.  There was no more baitin' o' Mr.
Clive that voyage.  'Bo'sun,' says I, 'what did I tell you?  I may be
wrong, but that young Mr. Bob Clive 'll be a handful for the factors in
Fort St. George.'"

While this narrative had been in progress, Desmond was walking with
Bulger and his mates back towards the river.

"How was it you happened to be hereabouts so early?" asked Desmond.  "I
didn't expect to see you till to-morrow."

Bulger winked.

"You wouldn't ax if you wasn't a landlubber, meanin' no offence," he
said.  "'Tis last night ashore.  We sailormen has had enough o'
_Waterman's Rests_ an' such-like. To tell you the truth, we gave Mr.
Toley the slip, and now we be goin' to have a night at the _Crown an'
Anchor_."

"What about the pressgang?"

"We takes our chance.  They won't press me, sartin sure, 'cos o' my
tenter-hook here, and I'll keep my weather-eye open, trust me for that."

Here they parted company.  Desmond watched the jolly crew as they turned
into the Minories, and heard their rollicking chorus:

      Ho! when the cargo's shipped,
      An' the anchor's neatly tripped,
    An' the gals are weepin' bucketfuls o' sorrer,
      Why, there's the decks to swab,
      An' we en't agoin' to sob,
    S'pose the sharks do make a meal of us to-morrer.


At the _Goat and Compasses_ Diggle was awaiting him.

"Ha! my friend, you did it as prettily as a man could wish.  'Solitudo
aliquid adjuvat,' as Tully somewhere hath it, not foreseeing my case,
when solitude would have been my undoing.  I thank thee."

"Was the fellow attacking you?" asked Desmond.

"That to be sure was his intention.  I was in truth in the very article
of peril; I was blown; my breath was near gone, when at the critical
moment up comes a gallant youth--'subvenisti homini jam perdito'--and
with dexterous hand stays the enemy in his course."

"But what was it all about?  Do you know the man?"

"Ods my life! 'twas a complete stranger, a man, I should guess, of hasty
passions and tetchy temper.  By the merest accident, at a somewhat
crowded part, I unluckily elbowed the man into the kennel, and though I
apologized in the handsomest way he must take offence and seek to cut
off my life, to extinguish me 'in primo aevo,' as Naso would say.  But
Atropos was forestalled, my thread of life still falls uncut from
Clotho's shuttle; still, still, my boy, I bear on the torch of life
unextinguished."

Desmond felt that all this fine phrasing, this copious draught from
classical sources, was intended to quench the ardour of his curiosity.
Diggle's explanation was very lame; the fury depicted on the pursuer's
face could scarcely be due to a mere accidental jostling in the street.
And Diggle was certainly not the man to take to his heels on slight
occasion.  But after all Diggle's quarrels were his own concern.  That
his past life included secrets Desmond had long suspected, but he was
not the first man of birth and education who had fallen into misfortune,
and at all events he had always treated Desmond with kindness. So the
boy put the matter from his thoughts.

The incident, however, left a sting of vexation behind it. In agreeing
to accompany Diggle to the East, Desmond had harboured a vague hope of
falling in with Clive and taking service, in however humble a capacity,
with him. It vexed him sorely to think that Clive, whose memory for
faces, as his recognition of Bulger after twelve years had shown, was
very good, might recognize him, should they meet, as the boy who had
played a part in what was almost a street brawl.  Still, it could not be
helped. Desmond comforted himself with the hope that Clive had taken no
particular note of him, and, if they should ever encounter, would
probably meet him as a stranger.




                           CHAPTER THE EIGHTH


*In which several weeks are supposed to elapse; and our hero is
discovered in the Doldrums.*


The _Good Intent_ lay becalmed in the Doldrums.  There was not wind
enough to puff out a candle flame.  The sails hung limp and idle from
the masts, yet the vessel rolled as in a storm, heaving on a tremendous
swell so violently that it would seem her masts must be shaken out of
her.  The air was sweltering, the sky the colour of burnished copper,
out of which the sun beat remorselessly in almost perpendicular beams.
Pitch ran from every seam of the decks, great blisters like bubbles rose
upon the woodwork; the decks were no sooner swabbed than--presto!--it
was as though they had not known the touch of water for an age.

For two weeks she had lain thus.  Sometimes the hot day would be
succeeded by a night of terrible storm, thunder crashing around, the
whole vault above lacerated by lightning, and rain pouring, as it were
out of the fissures, in sheets.  But in a day all traces of the storm
would disappear, and if, meanwhile, a sudden breath of wind had carried
the vessel a few knots on her southward course, the hopes thus raised
would prove illusory, and once more she would lie on a sea of molten
lead, or, still worse, would be rocked on a long swell that had all the
discomforts of a gale without its compensating excitement.

The tempers of officers and crew had gone from bad to worse.  The
officers snapped and snarled at one another, and treated the men with
even more than the customary brutality of the merchant marine of those
days.  The crew, lounging about half-naked on the decks, seeking what
shelter they could get from the pitiless sun, with little to do and no
spirit to do anything, quarrelled among themselves, growling at the
unnecessary tasks set them merely to keep them from flying at each
others' throats.

The _Good Intent_ was a fine three-masted vessel of nearly 400 tons,
large for those days, though the new East Indiamen approached 500 tons.
When her keel was laid for the Honourable East India Company some twenty
years earlier, she had been looked on as one of the finest merchant
vessels afloat; but the buffeting of wind and wave in a dozen voyages to
the eastern seas, and the more insidious and equally destructive attacks
of worms and dry-rot, had told upon her timbers.  She had been sold off
and purchased by Captain Barker, who was one of the class known as
"interlopers," men who made trading voyages to the East Indies on their
own account, running the risk of their vessels being seized and
themselves penalized for infringing the Company's monopoly.  She was now
filled with a miscellaneous cargo: wine in chests, beer and cider in
bottles, hats, worsted stockings, wigs, small shot, lead, iron, knives,
glass, hubble-bubbles, cochineal, sword-blades, toys, coarse cloth,
woollen goods--anything that would find a market among the European
merchants, the native princes, or the trading classes of India.  There
was also a large consignment of muskets and ammunition.  When Desmond
asked the second mate where they were going, the reply was that if he
asked no questions he would be told no lies.

On this sultry afternoon a group of seamen, clad in nothing but shirt
and breeches, were lolling, lying, crouching on the deck forward,
circled around Bulger.  Seated on an upturned tub, he was busily engaged
in baiting a hook.  Tired of the "Irish horse" and salt pork that formed
the staple of the sailors' food, he was taking advantage of the calm to
fish for bonitos, a large fish over two feet long, the deadly enemy of
the beautiful flying-fish that every now and then fell panting upon the
deck in their mad flight from marine foes.  The bait was made to
resemble the flying-fish itself, the hook being hidden by white
rag-stuffing, with feathers pricked-in to counterfeit spiked fins.

As the big seaman deftly worked with iron hook and right hand, he spun
yarns for the delectation of his mates.  They chewed tobacco, listened,
laughed, sneered, as their temper inclined them.  Only one of the group
gave him rapt and undivided attention--a slim youth, with hollow
sunburnt cheeks, long bleached hair, and large gleaming eyes.  His neck
and arms were bare, and the colour of boiled lobsters; but, unlike the
rest, he had no tattoo-marks pricked into his skin.  His breeches were
tatters, his striped shirt was covered with parti-coloured darns.

"Ay, as I was saying," said Bulger, "'twas in these latitudes, on my
last voyage but three.  I was in a Bristol ship a-carryin' of slaves
from Guinea to the plantations.  Storms!--I never seed such storms
nowhere; and, contrairywise, calms enough to make a Quaker sick. In
course the water was short, an' scurvy come aboard, an' 'twas a hammock
an' a round shot for one or other of us every livin' day.  As reg'lar as
the mornin' watch the sharks came for their breakfast; we could see 'em
comin' from all p'ints o' the compass; an' sure as seven bells struck
there they was, ten deep, with jaws wide open, like Parmiter's there
when there's a go of grog to be sarved out.  We was all like the livin'
skellington at Bartlemy Fair, and our teeth droppin' out that fast, they
pattered like hailstones on the deck."

"How did you stick 'em in again?" interrupted Parmiter, anxious to get
even with Bulger for the allusion to his gaping jaw.  He was a
thick-set, ugly fellow, his face seamed with scars, his mouth twisted,
his ears dragged at the lobes by heavy brass rings.

"With glue made out of albicores we caught, to be sure.  Well, as I was
saying, we was so weak there wasn't a man aboard could reach the
maintop, an' the man at the wheel had two men to hold him up.  Things
was so, thus, an' in such case, when, about eight bells one arternoon,
the look-out at the mast-head----"

"Thought you couldn't climb?  How'd he get there?" said the same
sceptic.

"Give me time, Parmiter, and you'll know all about the hows an' whys,
notwithstanding and sobeits.  He'd been there for a week, for why? 'cos
he couldn't get down. We passed him up a quarter-pint o' water and a
biscuit or two every day by a halyard.  Well, as I was sayin', all at
once the look-out calls down, 'Land ho!'--leastways he croaked it, 'cos
what with weakness and little water our throats was as dry as last
year's biscuit.  'Where away?' croaks first mate, which I remember his
name was Tonking.  And there, sure enough, we seed a small island, which
it might be a quarter-mile long.  Now, mind you, we hadn't made a knot
for three weeks.  How did that island come there so sudden like?  In
course, it must ha' come up from the bottom o' the sea.  And as we was
a-lookin' at it we seed it grow, mateys--long spits o' land shootin' out
this side, that side, and t'other side--and the whole concarn begins to
move towards us, comin' on, hand over hand, slow, dead slow, but sure
and steady.  Our jaws were just a-droppin' arter our teeth when fust
mate busts out in a laugh; by thunder, I remember that there laugh
to-day!  'twas like--well, I don't know what 'twas like, if not the
scrapin' of a handsaw; an' says he, 'By Neptune, 'tis a darned monstrous
squid!'  And, sure enough, that was what it was, a squid as big round as
the Isle o' Wight, with arms that ud reach from Wapping Stairs to Bugsby
Marshes, and just that curly shape.  An' what was more, 'twas steerin'
straight for us.  Ay, mateys, 'twas a horrible moment!"

The seamen, even Parmiter the scoffer, were listening open-mouthed when
a hoarse voice broke the spell, cutting short Bulger's story and
dispersing the group.

"Here you, Burke you, up aloft and pay the topmast with grease.  I'll
have no lazy lubbers aboard my ship, I tell you.  I've got no use for
nobody too good for his berth.  No Jimmy Duffs for me!  Show a leg, or,
by heavens, I'll show you a rope's end and make my mark--mind that, my
lad!"

Captain Barker turned to the man at his side.

"'Twas an ill turn you did me and the ship's company, Mr. Diggle,
bringing this useless lubber aboard."

"It does appear so, captain," said Diggle sorrowfully. "But 'tis his
first voyage, sir: discipline--a little discipline!"

Meanwhile Desmond, without a word, had moved away to obey orders.  He
had long since found the uselessness of protest.  Diggle had taken him
on board the _Good Intent_ an hour before sailing.  He left him to
himself until the vessel was well out in the mouth of the Thames, and
then came with a rueful countenance and explained that, after all his
endeavours, the owners had absolutely refused to accept so youthful a
fellow as supercargo. Desmond felt his cheeks go pale.

"What am I to be, then?" he asked quietly.

"Well, my dear boy, Captain Barker is rather short of apprentices, and
he has no objection to taking you in place of one if you will make
yourself useful.  He is a first-rate seaman.  You will imbibe a vast
deal of useful knowledge and gain a free passage, and when we reach the
Indies I shall be able, I doubt not, by means of my connexions, to
assist you in the first steps of what, I trust, will prove a successful
career."

"Then who is supercargo?"

"Unluckily that greatness has been thrust upon me. Unluckily, I say; for
the office is not one that befits a former fellow of King's College at
Cambridge.  Yet there is an element of good luck in it, too; for, as you
know, my fortunes were at a desperately low ebb, and the emoluments of
this office, while not great, will stand me in good stead when we reach
our destination, and enable me to set you, my dear boy--to borrow from
the vernacular--on your legs."

"You have deceived me, then!"

"Nay, nay, you do bear me hard, young man.  To be disappointed is not
the same thing as to be deceived. True, you are not, as I hoped,
supercargo, but the conditions are not otherwise altered.  You wished to
go to India--well, Zephyr's jocund breezes, as Catullus hath it, will
waft you thither: we are flying to the bright cities of the East.  No
fragile bark is this, carving a dubious course through the main, as
Seneca, I think, puts it.  No, 'tis an excellent vessel, with an
excellent captain, who will steer a certain course, who fears not the
African blast nor the grisly Hyades nor the fury of Notus----"

Desmond did not wait the end of Diggle's peroration. It was too late to
repine.  The vessel was already rounding the Foreland, and though he was
more than half convinced that he had been decoyed on board on false
pretences, he could not divine any motive on Diggle's part, and hoped
that his voyage would be not much less pleasant than he had anticipated.

But even before the _Good Intent_ made the Channel he was woefully
undeceived.  His first interview with the captain opened his eyes.
Captain Barker was a small, thin, sandy man, with a large upper lip that
met the lower in a straight line, a lean nose, and eyes perpetually
bloodshot.  His manner was that of a bully of the most brutal kind.  He
browbeat his officers, cuffed and kicked his men, in his best days a
martinet, in his worst a madman. The only good point about him was that
he never used the cat, which, as Bulger said, was a mercy.

"Humph!" he said when Desmond was presented to him.  "You're him, are
you?  Well, let me tell you this, my lad: the ship's boy on board this
'ere ship have got to do what he's bid, and no mistake about it.  If he
don't, I'll make him.  Now you go for'ard into the galley and scrape the
slush off the cook's pans; quick's the word."

From that day Desmond led a dog's life.  He found that as ship's boy he
was at the beck and call of the whole company.  The officers, with the
exception of Mr. Toley, the melancholy first mate, took their cue from
the captain; and Mr. Toley, as a matter of policy, never sided with him
openly.  The men resented his superior manners and the fact that he was
socially above them.  The majority of the seamen were even more
ruffianly than the specimens he had seen at the _Waterman's Rest_--the
scum of Wapping and Rotherhithe.  His only real friend on board was
Bulger, who helped him to master the many details of a sailor's work,
and often protected him against the ill-treatment of his mates; and, in
spite of his one arm, Bulger was a power to be reckoned with.

At the best of times the life of a sailor was hard, and Desmond found it
at first almost intolerable.  Irregular sleep on an uncomfortable
hammock, wedged in with the other members of the crew, bad food, and
over-exertion told upon his frame.  From the moment when all hands were
piped to lash hammocks to the moment when the signal was given for
turning in, it was one long round of thankless drudgery.  But he proved
himself to be very quick and nimble.  Before long, no one could lash his
hammock with the seven turns in a shorter time than he. After learning
the work on the mainsails and try-sails he was sent to practise the more
acrobatic duties in the tops, and when two months had passed, no one
excelled him in quickness aloft.  If his work had been confined to the
ordinary seaman's duties he would have been fairly content, for there is
always a certain pleasure in accomplishment, and the consciousness of
growing skill and power was some compensation for the hardships he had
to undergo.  But he had to do dirty work for the cook, clean out the
styes of the captain's pigs, swab the lower deck, sometimes descend on
errands for one or other to the nauseous hold.

Perhaps the badness of the food was the worst evil to a boy accustomed
to plain but good country fare.  The burgoo or oatmeal gruel served at
breakfast made him sick; he knew how it had been made in the cook's
dirty pans.  The "Irish horse" and salt pork for dinner soon became
distasteful; it was not in the best condition when brought aboard, and
before long it became putrid.  The strong cheese for supper was even
more horrible.  He lived for the most part on the tough sea-biscuit of
mixed wheat and pea-flour, and on the occasional duffs of flour boiled
with fat, which did duty as pudding.  For drink he had nothing but small
beer; the water in the wooden casks was full of green, grassy, slimy
things.  But the fresh sea-air seemed to be a food itself; and though
Desmond became lean and hollow-cheeked, his muscles developed and
hardened.  Little deserving Captain Barker's ill-tempered abuse, he
became handy in many ways on board, and proved to be the possessor of a
remarkably keen pair of eyes.

When, in obedience to the captain's orders, he was greasing the mast,
his attention was caught by three or four specks on the horizon.

"Sail ho!" he called to the officer of the watch.

"Where away?" was the reply.

"On the larboard quarter, sir; three or four sail, I think."

The officer at once mounted the shrouds and took a long look at the
specks Desmond pointed out, while the crew below crowded to the bulwarks
and eagerly strained their eyes in the same direction.

"What do you make of 'em, Mr. Sunman?" asked the captain.

"Three or four sail, sir, sure enough.  They are hull down; there's not
a doubt but they're bringing the wind with 'em."

"Hurray!" shouted the men, overjoyed at the prospect of moving at last.

In a couple of hours the strangers had become distinctly visible, and
the first faint puffs of the approaching breeze caused the sails to flap
lazily against the yards.  Then the canvas filled out, and at last,
after a fortnight's delay, the _Good Intent_ began to slip through the
water at three or four knots.

The wind freshened during the night, and next morning the _Good Intent_
was bowling along under single-reefed topsails.  The ships sighted the
night before had disappeared, to the evident relief of Captain Barker.
Whether they were Company's vessels or privateers he had no wish to come
to close quarters with them.

After breakfast, when the watch on deck were busy about the rigging or
the guns, or the hundred and one details of a sailor's work, the rest of
the crew had the interval till dinner pretty much to themselves.  Some
slept, some reeled out yarns to their messmates, others mended their
clothes.  It happened one day that Desmond, sitting in the forecastle
among the men of his mess, was occupied in darning a pair of breeches
for Parmiter. Darning was the one thing he could not do satisfactorily;
and one of the men, quizzically observing his well-meant but really
ludicrous attempts, at last caught up the garment and held it aloft,
calling his mates' attention to it with a shout of laughter.

Parmiter chanced to be coming along at the moment. Hearing the laugh,
and seeing the pitiable object of it, he flew into a rage, sprang at
Desmond, and knocked him down.

"What do you mean, you clumsy young lubber you," he cried, "by treating
my smalls like that?  I'll brain you, sure as my name's Parmiter!"

Desmond had already suffered not a little at Parmiter's hands.  His
endurance was at an end.  Springing up with flaming cheeks he leapt
towards the bully, and putting in practice the methods he had learnt in
many a hard-fought mill at Mr. Burslem's school, he began to punish the
offender.  His muscles were in good condition; Parmiter was too much
addicted to grog to make a steady pugilist; and though he was naturally
much the stronger man, he was totally unable to cope with his agile
antagonist. A few rounds settled the matter; Parmiter had to confess
that he had had enough, and Desmond, flinging his breeches to him, sat
down tingling among his mates, who greeted the close of the fight with
spontaneous and unrestrained applause.

Next day Parmiter was in the foretop splicing the forestay.  Desmond was
walking along the deck when suddenly he felt his arm clutched from
behind, and he was pulled aside so violently by Bulger's hook that he
stumbled and fell at full length.  At the same moment something struck
the deck with a heavy thud.

"By thunder! 'twas a narrow shave," said Bulger. "See that, matey?"

Looking in the direction Bulger pointed, he saw that the foretopsail
sheet block had fallen on deck, within an inch of where he would have
been but for the intervention of Bulger's hook.  Glancing aloft, he saw
Parmiter grinning down at him.

"Hitch that block to a halyard, youngster," said the man.

Desmond was on the point of refusing; the man, he thought, might at
least have apologised: but reflecting that a refusal would entail a
complaint to the captain, and subsequent punishment, he bit his lips,
fastened the block, and went on his way.

"'Tis my belief 'twas no accident," said Bulger afterwards.  "I may be
wrong, but Parmiter bears a grudge against you.  And he and that there
Mr. Diggle is too thick by half.  I never could make out why Diggle
diddled you about that supercargo business; he don't mean you no
kindness, you may be sure; and when you see two villains like him and
Parmiter puttin' their heads together, look out for squalls, that's what
I say."

Desmond was inclined to laugh; the idea seemed preposterous.

"Why are you so suspicious of Mr. Diggle?" he said. "He has not kept his
promise, that's true, and I am sorry enough I ever listened to him.  But
that doesn't prove him to be an out-and-out villain.  I've noticed that
you keep out of his way.  Do you know anything of him?  Speak out
plainly, man."

"Well, I'll tell you what I knows about him."  He settled himself
against the mast, gave a final polish to his hook with holy-stone, and,
using the hook every now and then to punctuate his narrative, began:
"Let me see, 'twas a matter o' three years ago.  I was bosun on the
_Swallow_, a spanker she was, chartered by the Company, London to
Calcutta.  There was none of the doldrums that trip, dodged 'em fair an'
square; a topsail breeze to the Cape, and then the fust of the monsoon
to the Hugli.  We lay maybe a couple of months at Calcutta, when what
should I do but take aboard a full dose of the cramp, just as the
_Swallow_ was in a manner of speakin' on the wing.  Not but what it
sarved me right, for what business had I at my time of life to be
wastin' shore-leave by poppin' at little dicky birds in the dirty slimy
jheels, as they call 'em, round about Calcutta!  Well, I was put ashore,
as was on'y natural, and 'twas a marvel I pulled through--for it en't
many as take the cramp in Bengal and live to tell of it.  The Company,
I'll say that for 'em, was very kind; I had the best o' nussin' and
vittles; but when I found my legs again there I was, as one might say,
high and dry, for there was no Company's ship ready to sail.  So I got
leave to sign on a country ship, bound for Canton; and we dropped down
the Hugli with enough opium on board to buy up the lord mayor and a
baker's dozen of aldermen.

"Nearly half a mile astern was three small country ships, such as might
creep round the coast to Chittagong, dodgin' the pirates o' the
Sandarbands if they was lucky, and gettin' their weazands slit if they
wasn't.  They drew less water than us, and was generally handier in the
river, which is uncommon full o' shoals and sandbanks; but for all that
I remember they was still maybe half a mile astern when we dropped
anchor--anchors I should say--for the night, some way below Diamond
Harbour.  But to us white men the ways o' these Moors[#] is always a bag
o' mystery, and as seamen they en't anyhow of much account. Well, it
might be about seven bells, and my watch below, when I was woke by a
most tremenjous bangin' and hullabaloo.  We tumbles up mighty sharp, and
well we did, for there was one of these country fellows board and board
with us, and another foulin' our hawser.  Their grapnels came whizzin'
aboard; but the first lot couldn't take a hold nohow, and she dropped
down stream.  That gave us a chance to be ready for the other.  She got
a grip of us and held on like a shark what grabs you by the legs. But
pistols and pikes had been sarved out, and when they came bundlin' over
into the foc'sle, we bundled 'em back into the Hugli, and you may be
sure they wasn't exactly seaworthy when they got there.  They was a
mixed lot; that we soon found out by their manner o' swearin' as they
slipped by the board, for although there was Moors among 'em most of 'em
was Frenchies or Dutchmen, and considerin' they wasn't Englishmen they
made a good fight of it.  But over they went, until only a few was left;
and we was just about to finish 'em off, when another country ship
dropped alongside, and before we knew where we was a score of yellin'
ruffians was into the waist and rushin' us in the stern-sheets, as you
might say.  We had to fight then, by thunder! we did.


[#] The natives of India were thus called by Englishmen in the 18th
century.


"The odds was against us now, and we was catchin' it from two sides.
But our blood was up, and we knew what to expect if they beat us.  'Twas
the Hugli for every man Jack of us, and no mistake.  There was no
orders, every man for himself, with just enough room and no more to see
the mounseer in front of him.  Some of us--I was one of 'em--fixed the
flints of the pirates for'ard, while the rest faced round and kept the
others off.  Then we went at 'em, and as they couldn't all get at us at
the same time owing to the deck being narrow, the odds was not so bad
arter all.  'Twas now hand to hand, fist to fist, one for you and one
for me; you found a Frenchman and stuck to him till you finished him
off, or he finished you, as the case might be, in a manner of speakin'.
Well, I found one lanky chap--he was number four that night, and all in
ten minutes as it were; I jabbed a pike at him, and missed, for it was
hard to keep footin' on the wet deck, though the wet was not Hugli
water; thick as it is, this was thicker--and he fired a pistol at me by
way of thank you.  I saw his figure-head in the flash, and I shan't
forget it either, for he left me this to remember him by, though I
didn't know it at the time."

Here Bulger held up the iron hook that did duty for his left forearm.
Then, glancing cautiously round, he added in a whisper:

"'Twas Diggle--or I'm a Dutchman.  That was my fust meetin' with him.
Of course, I'm in a way helpless now, being on the ship's books, and he
in a manner of speakin' an officer; but one of these days there'll be a
reckonin', or my name en't Bulger."

The sailor brought down his fist with a resounding whack on the scuttle
butt, threatening to stave in the top of the barrel.

"And how did the fight end?" asked Desmond.

"We drove 'em back bit by bit, and fairly wore 'em down.  They warn't
all sailormen, or we couldn't have done it, for they had the numbers;
but an Englishman on his own ship is worth any two furriners--aye, half
a dozen some do say, though I wouldn't go so far as that myself--and at
the last some of them turned tail an' bolted back.  The ship's boy, what
was in the shrouds, saw 'em on the run and set up a screech: 'Hooray!
hooray!'  That was all we wanted.  We hoorayed too; and went at 'em in
such a slap-bang go-to-glory way that in a brace of shakes there warn't
a Frenchman, a Dutchman, nor a Moor on board.  They cut the grapnels and
floated clear, and next mornin' we saw 'em on their beam ends on a
sandbank a mile down the river.  That's how I fust come acrost Mr.
Diggle; I may be wrong, but I says it again: look out for squalls."

For some days the wind held fair, and the ship being now in the main
track of the trades, all promised well for a quick run to the Cape.  But
suddenly there was a change; a squall struck the vessel from the
south-west. Captain Barker, catching sight of Desmond and a seaman near
at hand, shouted:

"Furl the top-gallant sail, you two.  Now show a leg, or, by thunder,
the masts will go by the board."

Springing up the shrouds on the weather side, Desmond was quickest
aloft.  He crawled out on the yard, the wind threatening every moment to
tear him from his dizzy rocking perch, and began with desperate energy
to furl the straining canvas.  It was hard work, and but for the
development of his muscles during the past few months, and a naturally
cool head, the task would have been beyond his powers.  But setting his
teeth and exerting his utmost strength, he accomplished his share of it
as quickly as the able seaman on the lee yard.

The sail was half furled when all at once the mast swung through a huge
arc; the canvas came with tremendous force against the cross-trees; and
Desmond, flung violently outwards, found himself swinging in mid-air,
clinging desperately to the leech of the sail.  With a convulsive
movement he grasped at a loose gasket above him, and catching a grip
wound it twice or thrice round his arm.  The strain was intense; the
gasket was thin and cut deeply into the flesh; he knew that should it
give way nothing could save him.  So he hung, the wind howling around
him, the yards rattling, the boisterous sea below heaving as if to
clutch him and drag him to destruction. A few seconds passed, every one
of which seemed an eternity.  Then through the noise he heard shouts on
deck.  The vessel suddenly swung over, and Desmond's body inclined
towards instead of from the mast.  Shooting out his hand he caught at
the yard, seized it, and held on, though it seemed that his arm must be
wrenched from the socket.  In a few moments he succeeded in clambering
on to the yard, where he clung, endeavouring to regain his breath and
his senses.

Then he completed his job, and with a sense of unutterable relief slid
down to the deck.  A strange sight met his eyes.  Bulger and Parmiter
were lying side by side; there was blood on the deck; and Captain Barker
stood over them with a martin spike, his eyes blazing, his face
distorted with passion.  In consternation Desmond slipped out of the
way, and asked the first man he met for an explanation.

It appeared that Parmiter, who was at the wheel when the squall struck
the ship, had put her in stays before the sail was furled, with the
result that she heeled over and Desmond narrowly escaped being flung
into the sea. Seeing the boy's plight Bulger had sprung forward and,
knocking Parmiter from the wheel, had put the vessel on the other tack,
thus giving Desmond the one chance of escape which, fortunately, he had
been able to seize.  The captain had been incensed to a blind fury,
first with Parmiter for acting without orders and then with Bulger for
interfering with the man at the wheel.  In a paroxysm of madness he
attacked both men with a spike; the ship was left without a helmsman,
and nothing but the promptitude of the melancholy mate, who had rushed
forward and taken the abandoned wheel himself, had saved the vessel from
the imminent risk of carrying away her masts.

Later in the day, when the squall and the captain's rage had subsided,
the incident was talked over by a knot of seamen in the foc's'le.

"You may say what you like," said one, "but I hold to it that Parmiter
meant to knock young Burke into the sea.  For why else did he put the
ship in stays?  He en't a fool, en't Parmiter."

"Ay," said another, "and arter that there business with the block, eh?
One and one make two; that's twice the youngster has nigh gone to Davy
Jones through Parmiter, and it en't in reason that sich-like things
should allers happen to the same party."

"But what's the reason?" asked a third.  "What call has Parmiter to have
such a desperate spite against Burke? He got a lickin', in course, but
what's a lickin' to a Englishman?  Rot it all, the youngster en't a bad
matey.  He've led a dog's life, that he have, and I've never heard a
grumble, nary one; have you?"

"True," said the first.  "And I tell you what it is.  I believe Bulger's
in the right of it, and 'tis all along o' that there Diggle, hang him!
He's too perlite by half, with his smile and his fine lingo and all.
And what's he keep his hand wropt up in that there velvet mitten thing
for? I'd like to know that.  There's summat mortal queer about Diggle,
mark my words, and we'll find it out if we live long enough."

"Wasn't it Diggle brought Burke aboard?"

"Course it was; that's what proves it, don't you see? He stuffs him up
as he's to be supercargo; call that number one.  He brings him aboard
and makes him ship's boy: that's number two.  He looks us all up and
down with those rat's eyes of his, and thinks we're a pretty ugly lot,
and Parmiter the ugliest; how's that for number three? Then he makes
hisself sweet to Parmiter; I've seed him more'n once; that's number
four.  Then there's that there block: five; and to-day's hanky-panky:
six; and it wants one more to make seven, and that's the perfect number,
I've heard tell, 'cos o' the Seven Champions o' Christendom."

"I guess you've reasoned that out mighty well," drawled the melancholy
voice of Mr. Toley, who had come up unseen and heard the last speech.
"Well, I'll give you number seven."

"Thunder and blazes, sir, he en't bin and gone and done it already!"

"No, he en't.  Number seven is, be kind o' tender with young Burke.
Count them words.  He's had enough kicks.  That's all."

And the melancholy man went away as silently as he had come.




                           CHAPTER THE NINTH


*In which the *_*Good Intent*_* makes a running fight; and Mr. Toley
makes a suggestion.*


Making good sailing, the _Good Intent_ reached Saldanhas Bay, where she
put in for a few necessary repairs, then safely rounded the Cape, and
after a short stay at Johanna, one of the Comoro Islands, taking in
fresh provisions there, set sail for the Malabar coast.  The wind blew
steadily from the south-west, and she ran merrily before it.

During this part of the voyage Desmond found his position somewhat
improved.  His pluck had won the rough admiration of the men; Captain
Barker was not so constantly chevying him; and Mr. Toley showed a more
active interest in him, teaching him the use of the sextant and
quadrant, how to take the altitude of the sun, and many other matters
important in navigation.

It was the third week of April, and the monsoon having begun, Captain
Barker expected before long to sight the Indian coast.  One morning,
about two bells, the look-out reported a small vessel on the larboard
bow, labouring heavily.  The captain took a long look at it through his
perspective glass, anc made out that it was a two-masted grab; the
mainmast was gone.

"Odds bobs," he said to Mr. Toley, "'tis strange to meet a grab so far
out at sea.  We'll run down to it."

"What is a grab?" asked Desmond of Bulger, when the news had circulated
through the ship's company.

"Why, that's a grab, sure enough.  I en't a good hand at pictur'
paintin'; we're runnin' square for the critter, and then you'll see for
yourself.  This I'll say, that you don't see 'em anywheres in partickler
but off the Malabar coast."

Desmond was soon able to take stock of the vessel.  It was broad in
proportion to its length, narrowing from the middle to the end, and
having a projecting prow like the old-fashioned galleys of which he had
seen pictures.  The prow was covered with a deck, level with the main
deck of the vessel, but with a bulkhead between this and the forecastle.

"En't she pitchin'!" remarked Bulger, standing by Desmond's side.  "You
couldn't expect nothing else of a craft built that shape.  Look at the
water pourin' off her; why, I may be wrong, but I'll lay my best
breeches she's a-founderin'."

As usual, Bulger was right.  When the grab was overhauled, the men on
board, dark-skinned Marathas with very scanty clothing, made signs that
they were in distress.

"Throw her into the wind," shouted the captain.

Mr. Toley at the wheel put the helm down, the longboat was lowered, and
with some difficulty, owing to the heavy sea, the thirty men on the grab
were taken off.  As they came aboard the _Good Intent_, Diggle, who was
leaning over the bulwarks, suddenly straightened himself, smiled, and
moved towards the taffrail.  One of the newcomers, a fine muscular
fellow, seeing Diggle approaching, stood for a moment in surprise, then
salaamed. The Englishman said something in the stranger's tongue, and
grasped his hand with the familiarity of old friendship.

"You know the man, Mr. Diggle?" said the captain.

"Yes, truly.  The Gentoos and I are in a sense comrades in arms.  His
name is Hybati; he's a Maratha."

"What's he jabbering about?"

The man was talking rapidly and earnestly.

"He says, captain," returned Diggle with a smile, "that he hopes you
will send and fetch the crew's rice on board.  They won't eat our
food--afraid of losing caste."

"I'll be hanged if I launch the long-boat again.  The grab won't live
another five minutes in this sea, and I wouldn't risk two of my crew
against a hundred of these dirty Moors."

"They'll starve otherwise, captain."

"Well, let 'em starve.  I won't have any nonsense aboard my ship.
Beggars mustn't be choosers, and if the heathen can't eat good honest
English vittles they don't deserve to eat at all."

Diggle smiled and explained to Hybati that his provisions must be left
to their fate.  Even as he spoke a heavy sea struck the vessel athwart,
and amid cries from the Marathas she heeled over and sank.

When the strangers had dried themselves, Diggle inquired of Hybati how
he came to be in his present predicament. The Maratha explained that he
had been in command of Angria's fortress of Suvarndrug, which was so
strong that he had believed it able to withstand all attacks.  But one
day a number of vessels of the East India Company's fleet had appeared
between the mainland and the island on which the fortress was situated,
and had begun a bombardment which soon reduced the parapets to ruins.
The chief damage had been done by an English ship. Hybati and his men
had made the best defence they could, but the gunners were shot down by
musket fire from the round-tops of the enemy, and when a shell set fire
to a thatched house within the fort, the garrison were too much alarmed
to attempt to extinguish the flames; the blaze spread, a powder magazine
blew up, and the inhabitants, with the greater part of the soldiers,
fled to the shore, and tried to make their escape in eight large boats.
Hybati had kept up the fight for some time longer, hoping to receive
succour; but under cover of the fire of the ships the English commodore
landed half his seamen, who rushed up to the gate, and, cutting down the
sally-port with their axes, forced their way in.

Seeing that the game was up, Hybati fled with thirty of his men, and was
lucky in pushing off in the grab unobserved by the enemy.  The winds,
however, proving contrary, the vessel had been blown northward along the
coast and then driven far out to sea.  With the breaking of the monsoon
a violent squall had dismasted the grab and shattered her bulkhead; she
was continually shipping water, and, as the sahib saw, was at the point
of sinking when the English ship came up.

Such was the Maratha's story, as by and by it became common property on
board the _Good Intent_.  Of all the crew Desmond was perhaps the most
interested.  To the others there was nothing novel in the sight of the
Indians; but to him they stood for romance, the embodiment of all the
tales he had heard and all the dreams he had dreamed of this wonderful
country in the East.  He was now assured that he was actually within
reach of his desired haven; and he hoped shortly to see an end of the
disappointments and hardships, the toils and distresses, of the long
voyage.

He was eager to learn more of these Marathas, and their fortress, and
the circumstances of the recent fight.  Bulger was willing to tell all
he knew; but his information was not very exact, and Desmond did not
hear the full story till long after.

The Malabar coast had long been the haunt of Maratha pirates, who
interfered greatly with the native trade between India and Arabia and
Persia.  In defence of the interests of his Mohammedan subjects the
Mogul emperor at length, in the early part of the eighteenth century,
fitted out a fleet, under the command of an admiral known as the Sidi.
But there happened to be among the Marathas at that time a warrior of
great daring and resource, one Kunaji Angria.  This man first defeated
the Sidi, then, in the insolence of victory, revolted against his own
sovereign, and set up as an independent ruler.  By means of a
well-equipped fleet of grabs and gallivats he made himself master of
place after place along the coast, including the Maratha fortress at
Suvarndrug and the Portuguese fort of Gheria.  His successors, who
adopted in turn the dynastic name of Angria, followed up Kunaji's
conquest, until by the year 1750 the ruling Angria was in possession of
a strip of territory on the mainland a hundred and eighty miles long and
about forty broad, together with many small adjacent islands.

For the defence of this little piratical state Angria's Marathas
constructed a number of forts, choosing admirable positions and
displaying no small measure of engineering skill.  From these
strongholds they made depredations by sea and land, not only upon their
native neighbours, but also upon the European traders, English, Dutch,
and Portuguese; swooping down on unprotected merchant vessels and even
presuming to attack warships.  Several expeditions had been directed
against them, but always in vain; and when in 1754 the chief of that
date, Tulaji Angria, known to Europeans as the Pirate, burnt two large
Dutch vessels of fifty and thirty-six guns respectively, and captured a
smaller one of eighteen guns, he boasted in his elation that he would
soon be master of the Indian seas.

But a term was about to be put to his insolence and his depredations.
On March 22, 1755, Commodore William James, commander of the East India
Company's marine force, set sail from Bombay in the _Protector_ of
forty-four guns, with the _Swallow_ of sixteen guns, and two bomb
vessels.  With the assistance of a Maratha fleet he had attacked the
island fortress of Suvarndrug, and captured it, as Hybati had related.
A few days afterwards another of the Pirate's fortresses, the island of
Bancoote, six miles north of Suvarndrug, surrendered.  The Maratha
rajah, Ramaji Punt, delighted with these successes against fortified
places which had for nearly fifty years been deemed impregnable, offered
the English commodore an immense sum of money to proceed against others
of Angria's forts; but the monsoon approaching, the commodore was
recalled to Bombay.

The spot at which the _Good Intent_ had fallen in with the sinking grab
was about eighty miles from the Indian coast, and Captain Barker
expected to sight land next day.  No one was more delighted at the
prospect than Desmond. Leaving out of account the miseries of the long
voyage, he felt that he was now within reach of the goal of his hopes.
The future was all uncertain; he was no longer inclined to trust his
fortunes to Diggle, for though he could not believe that the man had
deliberately practised against his life, he had with good reason lost
confidence in him, and what he had learnt from Bulger threw a new light
on his past career.

One thing puzzled him.  If the Pirate was such a terror to unprotected
ships, and strong enough to attack several armed vessels at once, why
was Captain Barker running into the very jaws of the enemy?  In her
palmy days as an East Indiaman the _Good Intent_ had carried a dozen
nine pounders on her upper deck and six on the quarter-deck; and Bulger
had said that under a stout captain she had once beaten off near Surat
half a dozen three-masted grabs and a score of gallivats from the pirate
stronghold at Gheria.  But now she had only half a dozen guns all told,
and even had she possessed the full armament there were not men enough
to work them, for her complement of forty men was only half what it had
been when she sailed under the Company's flag.

Desmond confided his puzzlement to Bulger.  The seaman laughed.

"Why, bless 'ee, we en't a-goin' to run into no danger. Trust Cap'n
Barker for that.  You en't supercargo, to be sure; but who do you think
them guns and round shots in the hold be for?  Why, the Pirate himself.
And he'll pay a good price for 'em too."

"Do you mean to say that English merchants supply Angria with weapons to
fight against their own countrymen?"

"Well, blest if you en't a' innocent.  In course they do.  The guns en't
always fust-class metal, to be sure; but what's the odds?  The
interlopers ha' got to live."

"I don't call that right.  It's not patriotic."

"Patry what?"

"Patriotic--a right way of thinking of one's own country.  An Englishman
isn't worth the name who helps England's enemies."

Bulger looked at him in amazement.  The idea of patriotism was evidently
new to him.

"I'll have to put that there notion in my pipe and smoke it," he said.
"I'd fight any mounseer, or Dutchman, or Portuguee as soon as look at
him, 'tis on'y natural; but if a mounseer likes to give me twopence for
a thing what's worth a penny--why, I'll say thank 'ee and ax
him--leastways if there's any matey by as knows the lingo--to buy
another."

Shortly after dawn next morning the look-out reported four vessels to
windward.  From their appearance Captain Barker at once concluded that
two were Company's ships, with an escort of a couple of grabs.  As he
was still scanning them he was joined by Diggle, with whom he entered
into conversation.

"They're making for Bombay, I reckon," said the captain.

"I take it we don't wish to come to close quarters with them, Barker?"

"By thunder, no!  But if we hold our present course we're bound to pass
within hailing distance.  Better put 'em off the scent."

He altered the vessel's course a point or two with the object of passing
to windward of the strangers, as if steering for the Portuguese port of
Goa.

"They're running up their colours," remarked Diggle half an hour later.

"British, as I thought.  We'll hoist Portuguese."

A minute or two later a puff of smoke was observed to sally from the
larger of the two grabs, followed in a few seconds by the boom of the
gun.

"A call to us to heave-to," said Bulger in answer to Desmond's inquiry.
"The unbelievin' critters thinks that Portuguee rag is all my eye."

But the _Good Intent_ was by this time to windward of the vessels, and
Captain Barker, standing on the quarter-deck, paid no heed to the
signal.  After a short interval another puff came from the deck of the
grab, and a round shot plunged into the sea a cable's length from the
_Good Intent's_ bows, the grab at the same time hauling her wind and
preparing to alter her course in pursuit.  This movement was at once
copied by the other three vessels, but being at least half a mile ahead
of the grab that had fired, they were a long distance astern when the
chase--for chase it was to be--began.

Captain Barker watched the grab with the eyes of a lynx.  The _Good
Intent_ had run out of range while the grab was being put about; but the
captain knew very well that the pursuer could sail much closer to the
wind than his own vessel, and that his only chance was to beat off the
leading boat before the others had time to come up.

It required very little at any time to put Captain Barker into a rage,
and his demeanour was watched now with different feelings by different
members of his crew.  Diggle alone appeared unconcerned; he was smiling
as he lolled against the mast.

"They'll fire at me, will they?" growled the captain with a curse.  "And
chase me, will they?  By jiminy, they shall sink me before I surrender!"

"'Degeneres animos timor arguit,'" quoted Diggle, smiling.

"Argue it?  I'll be hanged if I argue it!  They're not King's ships to
take it on 'emselves to stop me on the high seas!  If the Company wants
to prevent me from honest trading in these waters let 'em go to law, and
be hanged to 'em!  Talk of arguing!  Lawyer's work.  Humph!"

"You mistake, Barker.  The Roman fellow whose words slipped out of my
mouth almost unawares said nothing of arguing.  'Fear is the mark only
of base minds:' so it runs in English, captain; which is as much as to
say that Captain Ben Barker is not the man to haul down his colours in a
hurry."

"You're right there.  Another shot!  That's their argument: well, Ben
Barker can talk that way as well as another."

He called up the boatswain.  Shortly afterwards the order was piped, "Up
all hammocks!"  The men quickly stowed their bedding, secured it with
lashings, and carried it to the appointed places on the quarter-deck,
poop, or forecastle.  Meanwhile the boatswain and his mates secured the
yards; the ship's carpenter brought up shot plugs for repairing any
breaches made under the water-line; and the gunners looked to the cannon
and prepared charges for them and the small arms.

Bulger was in charge of the 12-pounder aft, and Mr. Toley had told off
Desmond to assist him.  They stood side by side watching the progress of
the grab, which gained steadily in spite of the plunging due to its
curious build.  Presently another shot came from her; it shattered the
belfry on the forecastle of the _Good Intent_, and splashed into the sea
a hundred yards ahead.

"They make good practice, for sartin," remarked Bulger.  "I may be
wrong, but I'll lay my life there be old man-o'-war's men aboard.  I
mind me when I was with Captain Golightly on the _Minotaur_----"

But Bulger's yarn was intercepted.  At that moment the boatswain piped,
"All hands to quarters!"  In a surprisingly short time all timber was
cleared away, the galley fire was extinguished, the yards slung, the
deck strewn with wet sand, and sails, booms, and boats liberally
drenched with water.  The gun-captains, each with his crew, cast loose
the lashings of their weapons and struck open the ports.  The tompions
were taken out, the sponge, rammer, crows and handspikes placed in
readiness, and all awaited eagerly the word for the action to begin.

"'Tis about time we opened our mouths at 'em," said Bulger.  "The next
bolus they send us as like as not will bring the spars a-rattlin' about
our ears.  To be sure it goes against my stummick to fire on old
messmates; but it en't in Englishmen to hold their noses and swaller
pills o' that there size.  We'll load up all ready, mateys."

He stripped to the waist, and tied a handkerchief over his ears.
Desmond and the men followed his example. Then one of them sponged the
bore, another inserted the cartridge, containing three pounds of powder,
by means of a long ladle, a third shoved in a wad of rope yarn.  This
having been driven home by the rammer, the round shot was inserted, and
covered like the cartridge with a wad. Then Bulger took his
priming-iron, an instrument like a long thin corkscrew, and thrust it
into the touch-hole to clear the vent and make an incision in the
cartridge. Removing the priming-iron, he replaced it by the
priming-tube--a thin tapering tube with very narrow bore.  Into this he
poured a quantity of fine mealed powder; then he laid a train of the
same powder in the little groove cut in the gun from the touch-hole
towards the breech.  With the end of his powder-horn he slightly bruised
the train, and the gun only awaited a spark from the match.

Everything was done very quickly, and Desmond watched the seamen with
admiration.  He himself had charge of the linstock, about which were
wound several matches, consisting of lengths of twisted cotton wick
steeped in lye.  They had already been lighted, for they burnt so slowly
that they would last for several hours.

"Now we're ship-shape," said Bulger.  "Mind you, Burke, don't come too
far for'ard with your linstock.  I don't want the train fired with no
sparks afore I'm ready. And 'ware o' the breech; she'll kick like a
jumpin' jackass when the shot flies out of her, an'll knock your teeth
out afore you can say Jack Robinson.--Ah! there's the word at last; now,
mateys, here goes!"

He laid the gun, waited for the ship to rise from a roll, then took one
of the matches, gently blew its smouldering end, and applied the glowing
wick to the bruised part of the priming.  There was a flash, a roar, and
before Desmond could see the effect of the shot Bulger had closed the
vent, the gun was run in, and the sponger was at work cleaning the
chamber.  As the black smoke cleared away it was apparent that the
seaman had not forgotten his cunning.  The shot had struck the grab on
the deck of the prow and smashed into the forecastle.  But the
bow-chasers were apparently uninjured, for they replied a few seconds
later.

"Ah!  There's a wunner!" said Bulger admiringly.

A shot had carried away a yard of the gunwale of the _Good Intent_,
scattering splinters far and wide, which inflicted nasty wounds on the
second mate and a seaman on the quarter-deck.  A jagged end of wood
flying high struck Diggle on the left cheek.  He wiped away the blood
imperturbably; it was evident that lack of courage was not among his
defects.

Captain Barker's ire was now at white heat.  Shouting an order to Bulger
and the next man to make rapid practice with the two stern-chasers, he
prepared to fall off and bring the _Good Intent's_ broadside to bear on
the enemy.  But the next shot was decisive.  Diggle had quietly strolled
down to the gun next to Bulger's.  It had just been reloaded.  He bade
the gun-captain, in a low tone, to move aside.  Then, with a glance to
see that the priming was in order, he took careful sight, and waiting
until the grab's main, mizzen, and foremasts opened to view all
together, he applied the match.  The shot sped true, and a second later
the grab's mainmast, with sails and rigging, went by the board.

A wild cheer from the crew of the _Good Intent_ acclaimed the excellent
shot.

"By thunder!" said Bulger to Desmond, "Diggle may be a rogue, but he
knows how to train a gun."

Captain Barker signified his approval by a tremendous mouth-filling
oath.  But he was not yet safe.  The second grab was following hard in
the wake of the first; and it was plain that the two Indiamen were both
somewhat faster than the _Good Intent_; for during the running fight
that had just ended so disastrously for the grab, they had considerably
lessened the gap between them and their quarry.  Captain Barker watched
them with an expression of fierce determination; but not without
anxiety.  If they should come within striking distance it was impossible
to withstand successfully their heavier armament and larger crews.  The
firing had ceased: each vessel had crowded on all sail; and the brisk
breeze must soon bring pursuer and pursued to a close engagement which
could have only one result.

"I may be wrong, but seems to me we'd better say our prayers," Bulger
remarked grimly to his gun crew.

But Desmond, gazing up at the shrouds, said suddenly:

"The wind's dropping.  Look!"

It was true.  Before the monsoon sets in in earnest it not unfrequently
happens that the wind veers fitfully; a squall is succeeded almost
instantaneously by a calm. So it was now.  In less than an hour all five
vessels were becalmed; and when night fell, three miles separated the
_Good Intent_ from the second grab; the Indiamen lay a mile further
astern; and the damaged vessel was out of sight.

Captain Barker took counsel with his officers.  He expected to be
attacked during the night by the united boats of the pursuing fleet.
Under cover of darkness they would be able to creep up close and board
the vessel; and the captain knew well that if taken he would be treated
as a pirate.  His papers were made out for Philadelphia; he had hoisted
Portuguese colours, but the enemy at close quarters could easily see
that the _Good Intent_ was British built; he had disabled one of the
Company's vessels; there would be no mercy for him.  He saw no chance of
beating off the enemy; they would outnumber him by at least five to one.
Even if the wind sprang up again there was small likelihood of escape.
One or other of the pursuing vessels would almost certainly overhaul
him, and hold him till the others came up.

"'Tis a 'tarnal fix," he said.

"Methinks 'tis a case of 'actum est de nobis'," re marked Diggle,
pleasantly.

"Confound you!" said the captain with a burst of anger.  "What could I
expect with a gallows-bird like you aboard?  'Tis enough to sink a
vessel without shot."

Diggle's face darkened.  But in a moment his smile returned.

"You are overwrought, captain," he said; "you are unstrung.  'Twould be
ridiculous to take amiss words said in haste.  In cool blood--well, you
know me, Captain Barker.  I will leave you to recover from your brief
madness."

He went below.  The captain was left with Mr. Toley and the other
officers.  Barker and Toley always got on well together, for the simple
reason that the mate never thwarted his superior, never resented his
abuse, but went quietly his own way.  He listened now for a quarter of
an hour, with fixed sadness of expression, while Captain Barker poured
the vials of his wrath upon everything under the sun.  When the captain
had come to an end, and sunk into a state of lowering dudgeon, Mr. Toley
said quietly:

"'Tis all you say, sir, and more.  I guess I've never seen a harder
case.  But while you was speaking, something you said struck a sort of
idea into my brain."

"That don't happen often.  What is it?"

"Why, the sort of idea that came to me out o' what you was saying was
just this.  How would it be to take soundings?"

"So that's your notion, is it?  Hang me, are you a fool like the rest of
'em!  You're always taking soundings! What in the name of thunder do you
want to take soundings for?"

"Nothing particular, cap'n.  That was the kind o' notion that come of
what you was saying.  Of course it depends on the depth hereabouts."

"Deep enough to sink you and your notions and all that's like to come of
'em.  Darned if I han't got the most lubberly ship's company ever mortal
man was plagued with.  Officers and men, there en't one of you as is
worth your salt, and you with your long face and your notions--why, hang
me, you're no more good than the dirtiest waister afloat."

Mr. Toley smiled sadly, and ventured on no rejoinder. After the
captain's outburst none of the group dared to utter a word.  This
pleased him no better; he cursed them all for standing mum, and spent
ten minutes in reviling them in turn.  Then his passion appeared to have
burnt itself out.  Turning suddenly to the melancholy mate, he said
roughly:

"Go and heave your lead, then, and be hanged to it."

Mr. Toley walked away aft and ordered one of the men to heave the
deep-sea lead.  The plummet, shaped like the frustum of a cone, and
weighing thirty pounds, was thrown out from the side in the line of the
vessel's drift.

"By the mark sixty, less five," sang out the man when the lead touched
the bottom.

"I guess that'll do," said the first mate, returning to the
quarter-deck.

"Well, what about your notion?" said the captain scornfully.  But he
listened quietly and with an intent look upon his weather-beaten face as
Mr. Toley explained.

"You see, sir," he said, "while you was talking just now, I sort o' saw
that if they attack us, 'twon't be for at least two hours after dark.
The boats won't put off while there's light enough to see 'em; and won't
hurry anyhow, 'cos if they did the men 'ud have nary much strength left
to 'em.  Well, they'll take our bearings, of course.  Thinks I, owing to
what you said, sir, what if we could shift 'em by half a mile or so?
The boats 'ud miss us in the darkness."

"That's so," ejaculated the captain; "and what then?"

"Well, sir, 'tis there my idea of taking soundings comes in.  The _Good
Intent_ can't be towed, not with our handful of men; but why shouldn't
she be kedged?  That's the notion, sir; and I guess you'll think it
over."

"By jimmy, Mr. Toley, you en't come out o' Salem Massachusetts for
nothing.  'Tis a notion, a rare one; Ben Barker en't the man to bear a
grudge, and I take back them words o' mine--leastways some on 'em.
Bo'sun, get ready to lower the long-boat."

The long-boat was lowered, out of sight of the enemy. A kedge anchor,
fastened to a stout hawser, was put on board, and as soon as it was
sufficiently dark to make so comparatively small an object as a boat
invisible to the hostile craft, she put off at right angles to the _Good
Intent's_ previous course, the hawser attached to the kedge being paid
out as the boat drew away.  When it had gone about a fifth of a mile
from the vessel the kedge was dropped, and a signal was given by hauling
on the rope.

"Clap on, men!" cried Captain Barker.  "Get a good purchase, and none of
your sing-song; avast all jabber."

The crew manned the windlass and began with a will to haul on the cable
in dead silence.  The vessel was slowly warped ahead.  Meanwhile the
long-boat was returning; when she reached the side of the _Good Intent_,
a second kedge was lowered into her, and again she put off, to drop the
anchor two cables' length beyond the first, so that when the ship had
tripped that, the second was ready to be hauled on.

When the _Good Intent_ had been thus warped a mile from her position at
nightfall, Captain Barker ordered the operation to be stopped.  To avoid
noise the boat was not hoisted in.  No lights were shown, and the sky
being somewhat overcast, the boat's crew found that the ship was
invisible at the distance of a fourth of a cable's length.

"I may be wrong," said Bulger to Desmond, "but I don't believe kedgin'
was ever done so far from harbour afore.  I allers thought there was
something in that long head of Mr. Toley, though, to be sure, there en't
no call for him to pull a long face too."

An hour passed after the kedging had been stopped. All on board the
_Good Intent_ remained silent, or spoke in whispers, if they spoke at
all.  There had been no signs of the expected attack.  Desmond was
leaning on the gunwale, straining his eyes for a glimpse of the enemy.
But his ears gave him the first intimation of their approach.  He heard
a faint creaking, as of oars in rowlocks, and stepped back to where
Bulger was leaning against the mast.

"There they come," he said.

The sound had already reached Captain Barker's ears. It was faint;
doubtless the oars were muffled.  The ship was rolling lazily; save for
the creaking nothing was heard but the lapping of the ripples against
the hull. So still was the night that the slightest sound must travel
far, and the captain remarked in a whisper to Mr. Toley that he guessed
the approaching boats to be at least six cable-lengths distant.
Officers and men listened intently. The creaking grew no louder; on the
contrary, it gradually became fainter, and at last died away.  There was
a long silence, broken only by what sounded like a low hail some
considerable distance astern.

"They're musterin' the boats," said Bulger, with a chuckle.  "I may be
wrong, but I'll bet my breeches they find they've overshot the mark.
Now they'll scatter and try to nose us out."

Another hour of anxious suspense slowly passed, and still nothing had
happened.  Then suddenly a blue light flashed for a few moments on the
blackness of the sea, answered almost instantaneously by a rocket from
another quarter.  It was clear that the boats, having signalled that the
search had failed, had been recalled by the rocket to the fleet.

"By thunder, Mr. Toley, you've done the trick!" said the captain.

"I guess we don't get our living by making mistakes--not in Salem,
Massachusetts," returned the first mate with his sad smile.

Through the night the watch was kept with more than ordinary vigilance,
but nothing occurred to give Captain Barker anxiety.  With morning light
the enemy could be seen far astern.




                           CHAPTER THE TENTH


*In which our hero arrives in the Golden East; and Mr. Diggle presents
him to a native prince.*


About midday a light breeze sprang up from the north-west. The two
Indiamen and the uninjured grab, being the first to catch it, gained a
full mile before the _Good Intent_, under topgallant sails, studding
sails, royal and driver, began to slip through the water at her best
speed. But, as the previous day's experience had proved, she was no
match in sailing capacity for the pursuers.  They gained on her
steadily, and the grab had come almost within cannon-range when the man
at the mast-head shouted:

"Sail ho!  About a dozen sail ahead, sir!"

The captain spluttered out a round dozen oaths, and his dark face grew
still darker.  So many vessels in company must surely mean the King's
ships with a convoy.  The French, so far as Captain Barker knew, had no
such fleet in Indian waters, nor had the Dutch or Portuguese.  If they
were indeed British men-o'-war he would be caught between two fires, for
there was not a doubt that they would support the Company's vessels.

"We ought to be within twenty miles o' the coast, Mr. Toley," said
Captain Barker.

"Ay, sir, and somewhere in the latitude of Gheria."

"Odds bobs, and now I come to think of it, those there vessels may be
sailing to attack Gheria, seeing as how, as these niggers told us,
they've bust up Suvarndrug."

"Guess I'll get to the foretop myself and take a look, sir," said Mr.
Toley.

He mounted, carrying the only perspective glass the vessel possessed.
The captain watched him anxiously as he took a long look.

"What do you make of 'em?" he shouted.

The mate shut up the telescope and came leisurely down.

"I count fifteen in all, sir."

"I don't care how many.  What are they?"

"I calculate they're grabs and gallivats, sir."

The captain gave a hoarse chuckle.

"By thunder, then, we'll soon turn the tables!  Angria's gallivats--eh,
Mr. Toley?  We'll make a haul yet."

But Captain Barker was to be disappointed.  The fleet had been descried
also by the pursuers.  A few minutes later the grab threw out a signal,
hauled her wind and stood away to the northward, followed closely by the
two larger vessels.  The captain growled his disappointment. Nearly a
dozen of the coast craft, as they were now clearly seen to be, went in
pursuit, but with little chance of coming up with the chase.  The
remaining vessels of the newly-arrived fleet stood out to meet the _Good
Intent_.

"Fetch up that Maratha fellow," cried the captain, "and hoist a white
flag."

When the Maratha appeared, a pitiable object, emaciated from want of
food, Captain Barker bade him shout as soon as the newcomers came within
hailing distance. The white flag at the mast-head, and a loud long-drawn
hail from Hybati, apprised the grab that the _Good Intent_ was no enemy,
and averted hostilities.  And thus it was, amid a convoy of Angria's own
fleet, that Captain Barker's vessel, a few hours later, sailed
peacefully into the harbour of Gheria.

Desmond looked with curious eyes on the famous fort and harbour.  On the
right, as the _Good Intent_ entered, he saw a long narrow promontory, at
the end of which was a fortress, constructed, as it appeared, of solid
rock. The promontory was joined to the mainland by a narrow isthmus of
sand, beyond which lay an open town of some size.  The shore was fringed
with palmyras, mangoes and other tropical trees, and behind the straw
huts and stone buildings of the town leafy groves clothed the sides of a
gentle hill.  The harbour, which formed the mouth of a river, was
studded with Angria's vessels, large and small, and from the docks
situated on the sandy isthmus came the busy sound of shipwrights at
work.  The rocky walls of the fort were fifty feet high, with round
towers, long curtains, and some fifty embrasures.  The left shore of the
harbour was flat, but to the south of the fort rose a hill of the same
height as the walls of rock.  Such was the headquarters of the notorious
pirate Tulaji Angria, the last of the line which had for fifty years
been the terror of the Malabar coast.

The _Good Intent_ dropped anchor off the jetty running out from the
docks north of the fort.  Captain Barker had already given orders that
no shore leave was to be allowed to the crew, and as soon as he had
stepped into the long-boat, accompanied by Diggle, the men's discontent
broke forth in angry imprecations, which Mr. Toley wisely affected not
to hear.

No time was lost in unloading the portion of the cargo intended for
Angria.  The goods were carried along the jetty by stalwart Marathas
clad only in loin-cloths, to be stored in rude cabins with penthouse
roofs.  As Desmond knew, the heavy chests that taxed the strength of the
bearers contained for the most part muskets and ammunition.  The work
went on for the greater part of the day, and at nightfall neither the
captain nor Diggle had returned to the vessel.

Next day a large quantity of Indian produce was taken on board.  Desmond
noticed that as the bales and casks reached the deck, some

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