Commodore Junk

“One of them lovely crockidills, sergeant dear – the swate craytures, with that plisant smile they have o’ their own. Hark at him again!”

The same croaking roar arose, but more distant, as if it were the response to a challenge.

“Don’t it carry you home again sergeant, dear?”

“Silence in the – How, Dinny?” said the sergeant, good-humouredly, for the men were laughing.

“Why, my mother had a cow – a Kerry cow, the darlint – and Farmer Magee, half a mile across the bog, had a bull, and you could hear him making love to her at toimes just like that, and moighty plisant it was.”

“And used he to come across the bog,” said the sergeant, “to court her?”

“And did he come across the bog to court her!” said Dinny, with a contemptuous tone in his voice. “And could you go across the bog courting if Farmer Magee had put a ring through your nose, and tied you up to a post, sergeant dear? Oh, no! The farmer was moighty particular about that bull’s morals, and niver let him out of a night.”

“Silence in the ranks! ’Tention!” said the serjeant. “Half left!”

Tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp, and the men passed round the end of the building just as the alligator bellowed again.

Abel drew a long breath and rapidly drew himself through the hole – no easy task and Bart began follow, but only to stick before he was half-way through.

“I’m at it again,” he whispered. “Natur’ made me crooked o’ purpose to go wrong at times like this.”

Abel seized his hands, as he recalled the incident at the cottage.

“Now,” he whispered, “both together – hard!”

Bart gave himself a wrench as his companion tugged tremendously, and the resistance was overcome.

“Half my skin,” growled Bart, as he struggled to his feet and stood by his companion. “Now, lad, this way.”

“No, no; that’s the way the soldiers have gone.”

“It’s the only way, lad. The dogs are yonder, and we couldn’t get over the palisade. Now!”

They crept on in silence, seeing from time to time glints of the lantern, and in the midst of the still darkness matters seemed to be going so easily for them that Abel’s heart grew more regular in its pulsation, and he was just asking himself why he had not had invention enough to contrive this evasion, when a clear and familiar voice cried, “Shtand!” and there was the click of a musket-lock.

What followed was almost momentary.

Bart struck aside the bayonet levelled at his breast, and leaped upon the sentry before him, driving him backward and clapping his hand upon his mouth as he knelt upon his chest; while, ably seconding him, his companion wrested the musket from the man’s hand, twisted the bayonet from the end of the barrel, and, holding it daggerwise, pressed it against the man’s throat.

“Hold aside, Bart,” whispered Abel, savagely.

“No, no,” growled Bart. “No blood, lad.”

“’Tis for our lives and liberty!” whispered Abel, fiercely.

“Ay, but – ” growled Bart. “Lie still, will you!” he muttered, as fiercely as his companion, for the sentry had given a violent heave and wrested his mouth free.

“Sure, an’ ye won’t kill a poor boy that how, gintlemen,” he whispered, piteously.

“Another word, and it’s your last!” hissed Abel.

“Sure, and I’ll be as silent as Pater Mulloney’s grave, sor,” whispered the sentry; “but it’s a mother I have over in the owld country, and ye’d break her heart if ye killed me.”

“Hold your tongue!” whispered Bart.

“Sure, and I will, sor. It’s not meself as would stop a couple of gintlemen from escaping. There’s the gate, gintlemen. Ye’ve got my mushket, and I can’t stop you.”

“Yes, come along,” whispered Bart.

“What! and leave him to give the alarm?” said Abel. “We’re wasting time, man. ’Tis his life or ours.”

“Not at all, sor,” whispered the sentry, pleadingly. “I won’t give the alarm, on my hanner; and you can’t kill a boy widout letting him just say, ‘How d’ye do?’ and ‘Which is the way yander?’ to the praste.”

“Shall we trust him?” said Bart, in a low growl.

“No!”

“Then take me wid ye, gintlemen. Faix, ye might force me to go, for the divil a bit do I want to shtay here.”

“Look here,” whispered Bart; “it’s neck or nothing, my lad. If you give the alarm, it will be with that bayonet struck through you.”

“And would a Kelly give the alarm, afther he said on his hanner? Sure, you might thrust me.”

“Over with you, then, Bart,” whispered Abel; “I’ll stand over him here. Take the gun.”

Bart obeyed, and Abel stood with one hand upon the sentry’s shoulder, and the bayonet close to his throat.

“An’ is that the way you thrust a gintleman?” said Dinny, contemptuously, as Bart, with all a sailor’s and rock-climber’s activity, drew himself up, and dropped from the top of the wall at the side.

“Now, you over,” whispered Abel. “We shall take you with us till we’re safe; but so sure as you give warning of our escape, you lose your life!”

“Ah! ye may thrust me,” said the sentry, quickly. “Is it over wid me?”

“Yes; quick!”

The man scaled the gate as easily as Bart had done before him, and then Abel followed; but as he reached the top and shuffled sidewise to the wall, which he bestrode, there was the sound of a shot, followed by another, and another, and the fierce baying of dogs.

“Bedad, they’ve seen ye,” said the sentry, as Abel dropped down.

“They’ve been in the barrack,” whispered Bart.

“To be sure they have, sor; the sergeant was going round.”

“Quick, take his hand!” said Bart.

“No!” whispered Abel, levelling the bayonet.

“No, no; for my mother’s sake, sor!” cried the sentry, piteously. “She has only six of us, and I’m one.”

“Put away that bagnet!” said Bart, hoarsely. “Take his hand, and run!”

“That’s it, sor, at the double,” said the sentry, rising from his knees, where he had flung himself. “I’m wid ye to the end of the world. It’s a place I know, and – ”

“Silence!” hissed Abel, as there was the loud clanging of a bell with the fierce yelping of dogs, and they dashed off, hand joined in hand, for the coffee-plantation, away down by the cane-brake and the swamp.

Chapter Thirteen

The Pursuit

The hue and cry rose louder and louder as the fugitives ran laboriously toward the jungle brake. Lights could be seen; a signal-gun was fired, and the little colony was up in arms, ready to hunt down the escaped criminals, lest they should take to the forest, from whence, after a time, they would issue forth as wild beasts. But in the darkness of that tropic night there would have been little danger of recapture but for those sounds which told the evading men that their greatest enemies were now afoot – those who could hunt them down without light or sight, but would track them by scent with the greatest ease.

“Hark at that, now!” said the Irishman, as he ran on, step by step with the escaping prisoners. “D’ye hear the dogs giving tongue? They haven’t got the scent right yet, me boys; but they’ll have it soon. G’long; ye don’t half run.”

He ceased speaking for a few moments, and then continued apologetically —

“Faix, and it’s meself forgot. Ye’ve got the bilboes an, and they make it bad running. There, d’ye hear the dogs? It’s like having the hounds back at home, before I ’listed for a soger, and got sent out here. Run, ye divils, run! But, I say: if we’re tuk, and it comes to a thrial – court martial, ye know – be fair to a boy, now, won’t ye?”

“What do you mean?” said Bart, gruffly.

“Remimber that it was you made me desart. I couldn’t help meself, could I?”

Bart did not answer, but kept on with his steady, lumbering trot, which was the more laborious to him from the shortness of his fetters making it difficult to him to keep up with his companions.

“Bedad, they’re well on the scent!” said the Irishman, gazing back as he ran; “and it’ll not be long before they’re up with us. What’ll we do at all?”

“Do?” said Bart, gruffly; “leave you to tell that cursed brute that we sha’n’t want his whip any more; for – ”

“Hush!” cried Abel,

“Ay, I forgot,” said Bart, nodding his head.

“We’ll have to get up the trees before the dogs reach us, or it’ll be awkward for the whole three. They’ll forget to respect the king’s uniform in the dark. It’s no good, my lads; they’ll take us, and ye’ve had all your throuble for nothing. Faix, and I’m sorry for ye, whativer ye did, for it’s a dog’s life ye lead.”

“Silence, man,” whispered Abel. “Do you want the dogs to be on us?”

“Divil a bit, sor; but they’ll be down on us soon widout hearing us talk. Murther, but it’s a powerful shensh of shmell they have. How they are coming on!”

It was quite true. The dogs were after them with unerring scent, and but for the fact that they were in leashes so that those who held them back might be able to keep up, they would have soon overtaken the fugitives. They were at no great distance as it was, and their baying, the encouraging shouts of their holders, and the sight of the lanterns rising and falling in the darkness, helped the Irishman’s words to send despair into the fugitives’ hearts.

“Sure, and we’re in the coffee-tree gyarden!” said the sentry. “Oi know it by the little bits of bushes all in rows. Thin the wood isn’t far, and we’ll get up a tree before the bastes of dogs come up to us. Hark at the onnat’ral bastes; sure, it’s supper they think they’re going to have. Maybe they’d like to taste a Kelly.”

“Now, Bart, lad, quick! Shall we let him go?” cried Abel.

“And is it let me go?” said the sentry, excitedly. “You’d niver be such cowards. Let the dogs have fair-play.”

“Silence!” cried Abel, imperatively.

“Sure it’s meself that’s the most silent.”

“Abel! – Bart! This way!”

“To the left, lad,” cried Bart, for they had now reached the edge of the jungle; and just as despair was filling their breasts, for Mary made no sign, her voice proved her fidelity by its being heard some distance to their left.

“Thin it’s all right,” said Dinny, excitedly. “Ye’ve got friends waiting?”

“Silence, I say!” cried Abel.

“Sure, and I’ll hold my pace, and good luck to ye, for I heard the boy’s spache, and maybe he has a boat waiting down by the wather.”

“Will you be silent, man?” cried Abel, fiercely, as the baying of the dogs increased. “Bart, we must not go on, for it would be bringing the dogs upon someone else.”

“Not it,” said Dinny; “ye’ve plenty of time yet, maybe. Go along, me boys, and bad luck to the dogs, for they’ll be disappointed afther all!”

Abel gave a low, peculiar whistle like a sea-bird’s cry, and it was answered not twenty yards away.

“Here, quick!” came in the well-known voice; “I’m here. Jump; never mind the mud!”

They all jumped together, to find themselves in a miry place where Mary was waiting.

“This way,” she said. “I can guide you direct to the boat. Quick, or the dogs will be upon us!”

“Well done, boy!” cried Dinny. “That’s good. I knew there was a boat.”

“And now,” cried Abel, turning upon him, “off with that pouch and belt.”

“Certainly, sor,” replied Dinny, slipping off and handing his cartridge-bag.

“Now, back to your friends, and tell them we’re gone.”

“My friends!” cried Dinny. “Sure, there isn’t a friend among them.”

“Stop back, then, whoever they are.”

“But the dogs, sor!”

“Curse the dogs. Back, I say!”

“But, sor, they’re the most savage of bastes. They won’t listen to anny explanation, but pull a man down before he has time to say, Heaven presarve us!”

“Silence, and go!”

“Nay, sor, ye’ll tak’ me wid ye now? Quick! ye’re losing time.”

“Let him come, Abel,” whispered Mary.

“That’s well spoken, young sor. And if we’re to have whole shkins, let’s be getting on.”

The advice was excellent, for the sounds of pursuit were close at hand, and the dogs were baying as if they heard as well as scented their prey.

“All’s ready,” whispered Mary. “I heard the shots, and knew you were coming. Abel, your hand. Join hands all.”

Abel caught at that of his sister, at the same time extending his own, which was taken by Bart, and he in turn, almost involuntarily, held out his to Dinny.

In this order they passed rapidly through the jungle, along a beaten track formed by the animals which frequented the place, and one which during her long, patient watches had become perfectly familiar to Mary Dell, who threaded it with ease.

It was one wild excitement, for the dogs were now growing furious. The scent was hot for them, and ere the fleeing party had reached the creek the fierce brutes had gained the edge of the jungle, through which they dragged their keepers, who mingled words of encouragement with oaths and curses as they were brought into contact with the tangled growth.

But all the same the hunt was hot, and in spite of Mary’s foresight and the manner in which she guided her friends, the dogs were nearly upon them as the boat was reached.

“In first,” whispered Abel; but Mary protested and would have hung back had not Bart lifted her bodily in after wading into the mud, where he stood and held the side of the frail canoe.

“Now, Abe,” he whispered.

“I can hear them,” shouted a voice. “Loose the dogs. Seize ’em, boys, seize ’em!”

“Here, room for me?” whispered Dinny.

“No,” cried Abel, fiercely. “Keep back!”

“I’m coming wid you,” cried Dinny.

Bart caught him by the shoulder.

“No, no, my lad, we’re escaping; this is no place for you.”

“Be my sowl, this isn’t,” said Dinny, shaking himself free, and seizing the side of the boat he began to wade and thrust her from the shore. “In with you too.”

Bart said no more, but followed the Irishman’s example, and together they waded on into the muddy creek, only to get a few yards from the shore, as with a furious rush the dogs crushed through the canes and reeds, to stop, breast-deep, barking savagely.

“Purty creatures!” whispered Dinny. “Sure, and we musn’t get in yet, or, if we do, it must be together. Push her out.”

“Halt, there!” cried a loud voice, suddenly. “I have you. Down, dogs! Do you hear! Halt!”

“Kape on,” whispered Dinny.

“Make ready!” cried the same voice. “Present! Will you surrender?”

“Lie down, me darlins,” whispered Dinny. “Divil a bit can they see where to shoot.”

“Fire!” cried the same voice, and a dozen flashes of light blazed out of the cane-brake. There was a roar that seemed deafening, and the darkness was once more opaque.

“Anybody hit?” whispered Dinny. “Silence gives consint,” he added to himself. “Push along, and as soon as it’s deep enough we’ll get in. Ugh! bedad, it’s up to me chin all at wanst,” he muttered. “Can you give a boy a hand?”

A hand caught his wrist, and he was helped over the stern of the boat, dripping and panting, as Bart scrambled in simultaneously, and though the little vessel threatened to overset, it held firm.

Then another volley was fired, for the bullets to go bursting through the canes, but over the fugitives’ heads, and once more darkness reigned over the hurried buzz of voices and the furious baying of the dogs.

Order after order came from the soft marshy land at the edge of the creek, mingled with shouts at the dogs, which were now loose, and barking and yelping as they ran here and there at the side of the water, where their splashing could be heard by those in the boat, which was being propelled slowly and cautiously by Mary, who knelt in the prow and thrust a pole she carried down in the mud.

The baying of the dogs as they kept making rushes through the canes gave the pursuers some clue as to where the fugitives would be; and from time to time, after a command given to the escaping men to surrender, a volley was fired, the bright flashes from the muskets cutting the darkness, and showing where their danger lay.

It was slow work for both parties, the pursuers having to force their way painfully through the tangled growth, while the heavily-laden boat had to be propelled through what was in places little more than liquid mud full of fibrous vegetation, and what had been but a light task to Mary when she was alone, proved to be almost beyond her strength with so heavy a load.

“Are you going right?” whispered Abel at last, for they were hardly moving, and it seemed to him that they were running right in among the growth that whispered and creaked against the boat.

“Yes; be patient,” was the stern reply.

“I can see them. They’re wading yonder in the mud up to their waists.”

“There they are,” came from apparently close at hand, and the dogs burst out more furiously than ever. “Now, then, you scoundrels, we can see you. Give up.”

“Faith, and it’s a cat he is,” whispered Dinny. “What a foine senthry he’d make for night duty!”

“Surrender!” shouted the same voice, “or we’ll blow you out of the water.”

“The ugly, yellow-faced divil!” muttered Dinny.

“Now, then, come ashore, and I will not be so severe with you.”

“Hark at that, now,” whispered Dinny to Bart. “It’s a baby he thinks ye, afther all.”

“Curse them! Fire then, sergeant,” cried the overseer. “No mercy now.”

“Down, dogs!” roared the man again. “Quick, there – fire!”

A rattling volley from close at hand rang out, and it was followed by utter silence, as if those ashore were listening.

“Curse your stupid fellows, sergeant! Why don’t you make them fire lower?”

“If they fired lower, we should have hit the dogs, sir.”

“Hang the dogs! I wanted you to hit the men. Now, then, fire again.”

There was the rattling noise of the ramrods in the barrels as the men loaded, and once more silence. The sinuous nature of the muddy creek had brought the fugitives terribly near to the dense brake; but Mary’s pole remained perfectly motionless, and there was nothing to be done but wait till the party moved on, when there would be a chance to get lower down towards the open sea; while, after the next quarter of a mile, the creek opened out into quite a little estuary dotted by sandbanks and islets of bamboos and palms.

“Now I have them!” cried the overseer, suddenly. “Bring a gun, sergeant. I can pick off that fellow easily.”

“Faith, and what a foine liar he would make wid a little training,” whispered Dinny. “Why, I can’t even see my hand before me face.”

“Hush,” whispered Bart, and then he half started up in the boat, for there was a sudden splashing, a shout, and the piteous yelping and baying of a dog, which was taken up in chorus by the others present.

Yelp – bark – howl, accompanied by the splashing and beating of water, and rustling of reeds and canes, and then a choking, suffocating sound, as of some animal being dragged under water, after which the dogs whined and seemed to be scuffling away.

“What’s the matter with the dogs?” said the overseer.

“One of those beasts of alligators dragged the poor brute down,” said the sergeant. “It struck me with its tail.”

There was a rushing, scuffling noise here, and the heavy trampling of people among the tangled growth, growing more distant moment by moment, in the midst of which Mary began to use her pole, and the boat glided on through the thick, half-liquid mud.

“Sure, an’ it’s plisant,” said Dinny, coolly; “the dogs on one side, and the crockidills on the other. It isn’t at all a tempting spot for a bathe; but I’ve got to have a dip as soon as we get out of this into the sea.”

“What for?” whispered Bart.

“Bekase I’m wet with fresh wather and mud, and I’m a man who likes a little salt outside as well at in. It kapes off the ugly fayvers of the place. Do you want me to catch a cowld?”

“Silence, there!” said Mary, gruffly, from her place in the prow; and for quite an hour she toiled on through the intense darkness, guiding the boat from the tangle of weedy growth and cane into winding canal-like portions of the lagoon, where every now and then they disturbed some great reptile, which plunged into deeper water with a loud splash, or wallowed farther among the half-liquid mud.

The sounds ashore grew distant, the firing had ceased; and, feeling safer, the little party began to converse in a low tone, all save Dinny, whose deep, regular breathing told that he had fallen fast asleep in happy carelessness of any risk that he might run.

“How came you out here?” said Bart from his seat, after another vain effort to take Mary’s place.

“Ship,” she said laconically, and with a hoarse laugh.

“But who gave you a passage?” said Abel.

“Gave? No one,” she said, speaking in quite a rough tone of voice. “How could I find friends who would give! I worked my way out.”

“Oh,” said Bart; and he sat back, thinking and listening as the pole kept falling in the water with a rhythmic splash, and the brother and sister carried on a conversation in a low tone.

“I suppose we are safe now,” said Mary. “They never saw the boat, and they would think you are hiding somewhere in the woods.”

“Yes; and because they don’t find us, they’ll think the alligators have pulled us down,” replied Abel. “Where are we going?”

“To get right down to the mouth of this creek, and round the shore. There are plenty of hiding-places along the coast. Inlets and islands, with the trees growing to the edge of the sea.”

“And what then?” said Abel.

“What then?” said Mary, in a half wondering tone.

“Yes; where shall we go?”

There was an interval of silence, during which the boat glided on in the darkness, which seemed to be quite opaque.

“I had not thought of that,” said Mary, in the same short, rough voice which she seemed to have adopted. “I only thought of finding you, Abel, and when I had found you, of helping you to escape.”

“She never thought of me,” muttered Bart, with a sigh.

“Good girl,” said Abel, tenderly.

“Hush! Don’t say that,” she cried shortly. “Who is this man with you?” she whispered then.

“One of the sentries.”

“Why did you bring him?”

“We were obliged to bring him, or – ”

“Kill him?” said Mary, hoarsely, for her brother did not end his sentence.

“Yes.”

“You must set him ashore, of course.”

“Yes, of course. And then?”

“I don’t know, Abel. I wanted to help you to escape, and you have escaped. You must do the rest.”

“You’re a brave, true girl,” said Abel, enthusiastically; but he was again checked shortly.

“Don’t say that,” cried Mary, in an angry tone.

“What’s she mean?” thought Bart; and he lay back wondering, while the boat glided on, and there was a long pause, for Abel ceased speaking, and when his deep breathing took Bart’s attention and he leaned forward and touched him there was no response.

“Why, he’s fallen asleep, Mary!” said Bart, in a whisper.

“Hush, Bart don’t call me that!” came from the prow.

“All right, my lass!” said the rough fellow. “I’ll do anything you tells me.”

“Then don’t say ‘my lass’ to me.”

“I won’t if you don’t wish it,” growled Bart. “Here, let me pole her along now.”

“No; sit still. Is that man asleep?”

“Yes; can’t you hear? He’s fagged out like poor old Abel. But let me pole the boat.”

“No; she’ll drift now with the current and we shall be carried out to sea. If the people yonder saw us then they would not know who was in the boat. You have escaped, Bart?”

“Ay, we’ve escaped, my – ”

“Hush, I say!” cried Mary, imperiously; and Bart, feeling puzzled, rubbed one ear and sat gazing straight before him into the darkness where he knew the girl to be, his imagination filing up the blanks, till he seemed to see her standing up in the boat, with a red worsted cap perched jauntily upon her raven-black hair, and a tight blue-knitted jacket above her linsey-woolsey skirt, just as he had seen her hundreds of times in her father’s, and then in Abel’s boat at home on the Devon shore.

All at once Bart Wrigley opened his eyes and stared. Had he been asleep and dreamed that he and Abel had escaped, and then that he was in the Dell’s boat, with Mary poling it along?

What could it all mean? He was in a boat, and behind him lay back the soldier with his mouth open, sleeping heavily. On his left was Abel Dell, also sleeping as a man sleeps who is utterly exhausted by some terrible exertion. But that was not the Devon coast upon which the sun was shedding its early morning rays. Dense belts of mangrove did not spread their muddy roots like intricate rustic scaffoldings on southern English shores, and there were no clusters of alligators lying here and there among the mud and ooze.