In the King's Name Part 41

"Caught you, have I?" said a deep voice.

Hilary remained silent. It was of no avail to struggle, and he reserved his strength for a better opportunity to escape.

He thought of shouting aloud to the boats, which he hoped were now well on their way; but he restrained himself, as he felt that the success of their approach depended upon their secrecy, so he merely hung down his head, without offering the slightest resistance.

He had his reward.

"Get up, you lazy, skulking lubber!" cried his captor, "or I'll rope's-end you." This, by the way, was rather cool language, especially after forcing the captive down upon his knees.

"Here are we to work like plantation n.i.g.g.e.rs at the oars, rowing night and day, and you 'long-sh.o.r.e idlers leave us to do all the work."

"Why, he takes me for one of their party," thought Hilary; and, dark though it was, he felt astonished at the man's stupidity, for it did not occur to him then that he was hatless, that his hair was rough, his face and hands anything but clean, and his old uniform shrunken by his immersion, and so caked with mud and dirt, and withal so torn and ragged, that even by broad daylight anyone would have strongly doubted that he was a king's officer, while in the gloom of that ravine he could easily be taken for a rough-looking carrier belonging to their gang.

"Come on," said the man hauling him along, "I've got a nice little job for you. I don't care for your sulky looks. Go it, my lads. Got the lot?" he continued, as a line of loaded men filed past them, they having to stand back against the rock to let the burdened party pa.s.s.

"All? no; nor yet half," was the reply. "There, get on."

"All right. Take it easy," was the reply; and, trying hard to make out the surroundings, Hilary made no resistance, but let himself be hurried along down the declivity they were in, till he found himself on a platform of trampled earth, where, as far as he could make out against the skyline, a rough kind of shears was rigged up, and, by means of a block, a couple of men were hauling up packages, and another was landing them upon the platform, and unfastening and sending down the empty hooks.

"Here, one of you carry now," said Hilary's captor, "and let this joker haul. I found him trying to miche, and nipped him as he was skulking off. Lay hold, you lazy lubber, and haul."

One of the men left the rope, and a.s.suming a sulky, injured manner, Hilary took his place at the rope, and, upon the signal being given, hauled away with his new companion, who gave a grunt indicative of satisfaction, as he found how well Hilary kept time with him, bringing his strength to bear in unison with the other's, so that they worked like one man.

"Ah, that's better!" he said. "I've been doing all the work."

They had brought a keg above the cliff edge, and this being detached, Hilary's captor mounted it upon his shoulders, and the man who had been hauling in Hilary's place took up a package and they began to move off.

"Let me know if he don't work," said the rough-voiced man.

"I'll soon be back. Mind he don't slip off."

"All right," said Hilary's companion.

"Haul," said a voice, and they pulled up another keg, while the tramping of men could be plainly heard below, telling Hilary of what was going on.

"Why," he thought, as he worked steadily on, "this is where they hauled me up, the rascals; and now--"

He could not help laughing to himself at the strange trick Fate had played him in setting him, a naval officer, helping a party of smugglers to land their cargo; but all the same, he gloried in the amount of information he was picking up for some future time.

"I don't seem to know you," said the man beside him at last, after they had hauled up several packages and kegs. "Did old Allstone send you to help?"

This was a poser, and Hilary paused for a moment or two before saying frankly:

"No; he didn't want me to come."

"Ah! he's a nice 'un," growled the other. "I wish I'd my way; I'd make him work a little harder. He's always skulking up at the old manor."

Hilary uttered a low grunt, and in the intervals of hauling he strained his eyes to grasp all he could of his surroundings; but there was very little to see. He could make out that he was at the edge of a lower part of the cliff; that the rock-strewn beach was, as far as he could make out by the hauling, some forty feet below; that the platform where he stood was the sea termination of a gully, where probably in wet weather a stream ran down and over the edge in a kind of fall, while on either side the cliff towered up to a great height.

There was not much to learn, but it was enough to teach him what he wanted to know, and it quite explained the success of the smugglers in evading capture.

Hilary had strained his eyes again and again seaward; but, save that the cutter's lights were burning brightly in the darkness, there was no sign of coming help, though, for the matter of that, a fleet of small boats might have landed and been unseen from where he stood.

The man's suspicions seemed to have been lulled, and Hilary kept on hauling. The men came and went from where they were to the carts that he judged to be waiting, and those below, like dim shadows just seen now and then, toiled on over the rocks, but still no sign of the cutter's boats, and in despair now of my such capture as might have been made, Hilary was thinking that when a suitable opportunity occurred he would seize hold of the hook with one hand, retain the hauling rope in the other, and let himself rapidly down, when there was a shrill chirruping whistle from below, the scrambling of feet, and a voice from the beach said sharply:

"Quick there! Luggers ahoy! Look out!"

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

TOM TULLY ACTS AS GUIDE.

Lieutenant Lips...o...b..'s eye had grown rapidly better, and his temper rapidly worse. He had grumbled at Chips for being so long over his task of repairing the deck and hatchway, and Chips had responded by leaving off to sharpen his tools, after which he had diligently set traps to catch his superior officer, who never went near the carpenter without running risks of laming himself by treading upon nails half buried in the deck, or being knocked down by pieces of wood delicately poised upon one end so that the slightest touch would send them over with a crash.

Chips never trod upon the upright nails, cut himself against the tools, or touched the pieces of wood or planks to make them fall. He moved about slowly, like a bear, and somehow seemed to be charmed; but it was different with the lieutenant: he never went near to grumble without putting his foot straight upon the first upright clout-nail, or leaning his arm or hand upon some ticklishly-balanced piece of plank. The consequences were that he was several times a good deal hurt, and then Chips seemed exceedingly sorry, and said he was.

But the lieutenant forgot his little accidents next day, and went straight to the carpenter, bullied him again, and after bearing it for awhile Chips's adze would become so blunt that he was obliged to go off to the grindstone, where he would stop for a couple of hours, a good deal of which time was spent in oiling the spindle before he began.

At last, though he was obliged to finish his task, and after waiting for the deck to be done as the time when he would go straight into harbour and report Hilary's desertion, as he persisted in calling it, Lieutenant Lips...o...b.. concluded that he would not go, but give the young officer a chance to come back.

Meanwhile he had cruised about, chased and boarded vessels without there being the slightest necessity, put in at one or two places where he heard rumours that the Young Pretender was expected to land off the coast somewhere close at hand, heard the report contradicted at the next place he touched at, and then went cruising up and down once more.

One day he chased and boarded a lugger that bore despatches from France to certain emissaries in England; but the lieutenant did not find the despatches, only some dried fish, which he captured and had conveyed on board the cutter.

His men grumbled, and said that Master Leigh ought to be found, and there was some talk of pet.i.tioning the lieutenant to form another expedition in search of the missing man; but the lieutenant had no intention of going ash.o.r.e in the dark to get his men knocked about by invisible foes without the prospect of a grand haul of prize-money at the end; so he turned a deaf ear to all suggestions for such a proceeding, and kept on cruising up and down.

"I tell you what it is," said Tom Tully on the evening of Hilary's escape, as the men were all grouped together in the forecastle enjoying a smoke and a yarn or two, "it strikes me as we're doing a wonderful lot o' good upon this here station. What do you say, Jack Brown?"

"Wonderful!" said the boatswain, falling into the speaker's sarcastic vein.

"Ah!" said Chips, "we shall never get all our prize-money spent, boys."

"No," said the corporal of marines, "never. I say, speaking as a orsifer, oughtn't we to have another one in place of Master Leigh?"

"No," said Tom Tully. "We couldn't get another like he."

"That's a true word, Tommy," said Billy Waters, who did not often agree with the big sailor. "We couldn't get another now he's lost."

"But that's all werry well," said Chips; "but it won't do. If I lost my adze or caulking-hammer overboard, I must have another, mustn't I?" No one answered, and he continued:

"If you lost the rammer of the big gun, Billy Waters, or the corporal here hadn't got his bayonet, he'd want a new one; so why shouldn't we have a new orsifer?"

"Don't know," said Billy Waters gruffly; and as the carpenter looked at each in turn, the men all shook their heads, and then they all smoked in silence.

"I wishes as we could find him again," said Tom Tully; "and as he'd chuck the skipper overboard, or send him afloat in the dinghy, and command the cutter hisself, and I don't kear who tells the luff as I said it."

"No one ain't going to tell on you, Tommy," said Billy Waters reprovingly; for the big sailor had looked defiantly round, and ended by staring him defiantly in the face. "We all wishes as the young chap could be found, and that he was back aboard; and I think as it ought to be all reported and another expedition sent."