Chapter Ten
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SHADOWS IN THE NIGHT
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GOODE SIR:
If it please yr. Excellency I doe—”
But there the quill paused because the writer knew that what he wished to say was not going to please “yr. Excellency” at all. Justin pushed back his heavy hair with an impatient hand, balled the paper into an untidy bit which was dropped to join others on the floor, and sat staring into the candle flame until all he could see was a red and yellow curtain. All his evening’s excercise in composition was of no value at all.
For some reason, known only to himself as yet, Sir Robert Scarlett wished to keep him, Justin Blade, close under his eye so he had planned this farce of watching over Francis Hynde. For a farce it was, since Amos hardly allowed the younger boy to be alone with his supposed instructor these past two days. On the other hand the Queen’s Pardon would avail an ex-pirate nothing should the Governor change his mind. If his captive rebelled, it might be to end as a prisoner with Pye and the others, with naught to look forward to but a hempen neckcloth.
Justin rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and got up to go to the window where there might even be a breeze this stifling night. Now that his back was whole again he had no reason to lie so close. Let him out and be about his own concerns—which were none of Sir Robert’s. He had no need to be sheltered as if he were the Hynde heir.
Trees and bushes hid the wall which cut the palace grounds away from the town, but there was a night wind rising at last. And with the puffs of it in his heated face he knew that he must get out of this room where the walls pressed in upon him. He fancied that he smelled the salt of the sea and the stale wharf scent of the lower town. That decided him. It was easy to pull off the white shirt which could be sighted in the dark and drag his dark coat back over his bare shoulders. Regretfully he left his sword; climbing walls with several feet of steel at one’s belt was not brisk work for night time. Instead he borrowed that poniard which Master Ferkin kept to pry up letter seals. It was none too choice a weapon but it would serve.
Shoes and stockings followed his shirt into discard and the figure which finally dropped over the window sill and crept down the governor’s garden was no better clad than the bumboat half-breeds who lounged around the harbor.
To get over the wall was something of a scramble but he made it without arousing the guard and dropped into a dirty lane, feeling free for the first time since he had left the cliffs of Tortuga. He walked boldly down the hill then, bound for the water front which savored of the only life he had ever known.
Bridgetown seemed a sober, law-abiding place. There were few men abroad in her short streets and lanes, and those few paid him no heed. He cut carefully around the jail, having no wish to be sighted lurking near there. Then he found what he had been searching for—the harbor road.
It was like any harbor and wharfland in the Indies, the smells powerful. But to him the stench of dead fish and raw sugar, tar and filthy water was good enough. He actually stood for a long moment and sniffed it in, thinking that life in the governor’s fine house was only a dream—this was reality. To have a swinging deck under his feet once more and stars to steer by above the main—that was what he wanted most.
“Git out wi’ ye—ye’ drunken worm!”
A square of yellow light made a gaping mouth in a black hulk of building and through the light was ejected a stumbling figure to sprawl forward on the cobbles and lie there, sobbing quietly. The mouth slammed shut and only the sobbing guided Justin.
“It wos true—I tell ye, maties,” the man mumbled. “Thar wos flowers mind ye, red an’ white flowers an’ they wos a-growin’ all over. It wos true!” His voice was weakly stubborn in its monotonous repetition.
Justin dropped down on an upended barrel near by.
“Right you are, mate. There were flowers—”
The voice stopped as if a hand had been clapped across the fellow’s lips. There was a full moment of silence as a shadowy outline pulled itself up to stand unsteadily in the middle of the thoroughfare.
“Who be ye? Who, I say! Come out be ye ’onest man!”
“Oh, I’m honest right enough. I have Her Majesty’s own word to prove it.” Justin found himself enjoying this encounter. “My name is Blade.”
The wavering figure faced him squarely, shoulders hunched a little as if that would help him to see more fully through the gloom.
“Blade? I know no Blade—”
“But I know you, Danby Johns. So you are free from jail?”
“Aye.” There was a sort of pitiful pride in the answer. “Th’ Governor, ’e ’ad me out. ’E knew I wos ’onest, ’e did! An’ ’e’ll not be th’ loser fer it. I knows o’ treasure, mark ye, mate. I knows whar be treasure—”
“I’m not Master Shrimpton, Johns, to be cozened with your tales. Look ye for a simple wit if you would tell that story.”
“Shrimpton!” Johns spat audibly. “ ’E be a ’ard man, be Marster Shrimpton. Thar be those who’ll deal wi’ ’im right enough—those from th’ sea—”
Justin froze. That expression “from the sea” was the catch word of the Brethren when hailed by any ship marked down by them for prey.
“Who in Bridgetown is ‘from the sea,’ Danby Johns?” he asked as casually as he could. But the fellow turned shy at such questioning.
“Danby Johns be no crack-crown,” he twittered. “ ’E knows more’n men think, Danby Johns does. ’E listens, mark ye, when others talk an’ ’e can tell tales iffen ’e would —’e can!”
Justin slid off the barrel. “I’m sure you can, Johns. What say you now to a noggin of the right stuff—a noggin all for your own?”
“Prime, matey, jus’ prime! But I ain’t got nary a penny t’ pay—”
“Oh, but I have, Johns. Let’s make us a good night of it.”
“Not thar—” Even in the dark it was easy to see the sharp gesture Johns made toward the door he had just been booted through. “At th’ ’Arp an’ Bottle belike.” There was a note of cunning in his voice as if he were trying to tempt this man who said he had money to spend to a better tavern than Johns could hope to enter alone.
“The Harp and Bottle it is. Which way, mate?”
“Don’t ye know th’ Harp?” Johns demanded suspiciously. “Whar be ye from that ye don’t know th’ Harp?”
“I’m new to this island, mate. You needs must show me the Harp.”
“Be ye one o’ them?” Johns pulled back from Justin’s hand as if it were a branding iron.
“ ‘One of them’? What mean you, mate? I’m off a Dutch brig. Will you have a noggin with me or no?” Justin pretended heat. Now more than ever he was determined to have out of Johns the root of this mystery—even if it was only a crazy dream of the old man’s rum-preserved mind.
“No offense, no offense, matey,” Johns sputtered hastily. “Turn ye’ere and th’ Harp be just under that lantern thar—”
The Harp and Bottle was just what Justin had expected it would be—a waterside boozing den, with a sickening stench about it to catch at a man’s throat and pull at his stomach when he shouldered his way in, and bad rum to offer for the highest price the slattern who ran the place dared to ask. She opened her mouth wide to screech at Johns when her pig-eyes caught sight of him, but she also closed it again with a snap when she saw the glint of the silver piece between Justin’s fingers.
Blade steered his companion across the room to two stools by a stained table deep scarred by knives and thick with grease. A dirty-faced half-breed with a rag of towel tied about his naked middle to proclaim his office slapped down two leathern jacks before them with force enough to send even the scant measure of rum served slopping over their rims. Johns seized his at once and all but his watery blue eyes was hid behind it. Justin only tasted the mixture to find it just as vile as he thought it would be. He held and turned the jack in his hand but he did not drink again.
“How was that, mate???
?
Johns set down the empty jack with a sigh. “Prime, jus’ prime. I ain’t tasted that since afore I sailed wi’ Marster Shrimpton. Ye be interested in treasure, marster?”
Justin grinned. “Who isn’t, Johns? But they say that your treasure is lost and will never be found.”
“Lies! Liars, all o’ ’em! I could ’ave found it right enough ’ad ’e given me the’ time. But ’e wos an impatient man— Marster Shrimpton wos.” Johns sat gazing wistfully into the depths of the empty jack until Justin took the hint and clicked his fingers at the half-breed who came quickly enough when he saw the ready coin.
“Danby Johns”—Justin waited until the old man set down his rum, only half consumed this time—“you’re a knowledgeable man, Danby Johns.”
The faded eyes half closed in sly agreement as Johns nodded.
“Aye. Thar ain’t much about th’ ’arbors as I don’t know—”
“So they say, Johns. Yet Master Shrimpton had you set in prison—”
The long head stopped nodding and there appeared a vindictive wrinkle between the pale eyes.
“Aye. An’ sorry will ’e be fer that! Thar be those wot’ll be watchin’ fer Marster Shrimpton an’ ’is fine brig!”
“Friends of yours belike, Johns?”
Johns seemed to shrivel in his seat and with one gulp sent the rest of the rum down his corded throat.
“No friends t’ me,” he croaked. “They be from th’ sea—” He glanced over his bent shoulder but no one seemed interested in him. “Not all pirates be in jail. I ’ave seed ’em asittin’ right in this very room betimes, adrinkin’ rum jus’ loike ye an’ I be. Mighty free ’anded wi’ the’ shillin’s they be too. Mighty foine gentlemen—”
“How long has it been since you have seen them, Danby?”
“ ’Ow long? Oh, a long, long time, marster.” He kept his eyes on the table top as he answered. “A grand long time it war. Thank ye fer th’ treat, marster. It wos right ’andsome o’ ye—” He got to his feet before Justin could move and made determinedly for the door.
The boy had to linger to pay their score and when he was free to go the lane outside was empty. Danby Johns had vanished into the night itself.
“War ye alookin’ fer somebody, marster?” The half-breed waiter stood just within the door.
“Aye. Johns? He did not wait—”
“Danby Johns? Ye’ll find ’im at that ’ole o’ ’issen—up Petticoat Lane—thataway. ’E’s gone t’ sleep it off. Danby ’as no ’ead fer strong drink, ’e ain’t.”
Petticoat Lane was a narrow, evil-smelling cut between blank walls with puddles of slime slopping its length. Having twice trod in such, to his disgust, Justin leaned against one of the walls and swore softly. If he had the wit of a goony bird, he thought, he would hie himself back to the palace, but some stubborn streak kept him to the business in hand. Danby Johns’ fine gentlemen pirates must be investigated—especially since they were supposed to take their ease in the very back yard—as it were—of the greatest pirate hunter on the Main. Either Danby Johns was lying— which Justin did not believe—or there were queer things lying beneath the sleepy shell of Bridgetown.
So the boy kept on until he came to a blank warehouse wall set clean across his path. He smacked his hand against it. This was the end of Petticoat Lane and yet there had been no openings in the walls, no doorways into which Johns might have gone. Mystified, he turned and so caught sight of the shadow which lay within the embrace of a creeper curtaining the wall on the other side of the alley. It was an archway through which one passed into a covered walk between two buildings. Justin went slowly, one hand sliding along the rough surface of the wall at his left. His right hand rested on the hilt of the knife in his sash. The passage led straight through to another and better traveled street, but before it gave upon that Justin’s hand was on the worn wood of an old door. He felt for the latch cord, but it was gone, pulled inside to guard the inmates against intrusion, and to his push there was the firm resistance of a barred door. If this was Danby Johns’ home he took a timid man’s precautions against night prowlers. There was nothing for Justin to do now but return home.
Back up the hill he trudged, once making a swift detour to avoid the watch which Sir Robert had established for the patrolling of the capital. It was easy enough after that to find the wall where he had come over, but, as he speedily discovered, it was not so easy to go back.
On the garden side he had had some assistance from a tree. On this side not even a bush existed to give him a leg up. He considered the situation, beginning to realize how much of a fool he had been to come out without taking thought of the return journey. His only hope was the sash which belted him.
He made a bundle of his coat and tossed it over the wall where, unless his memory of the place was faulty, he could remember no bush or tree to impede its fall to the turf. Then it was but a moment’s work to loop a running noose in the sash and, weighted with the poniard, throw it at a tree limb overhanging the wall.
With that to steady him he was able to squirm up and over, the trick being easy for one used to wild climbs in unsteady rigging. Sash loosed and in his hand, his coat flung over his shoulders, he started towards the dark bulk of the house. It must be late indeed for even the candles in the governor’s chambers were out and Sir Robert was notoriously a late sitter.
Justin scuttled across the garden, keeping to the shadows and trying to avoid those open glades which held the choicest of the flower beds. He was glad that he was well away from the strange bird cage Francis had shown him. Even as he was congratulating himself on escaping that pitfall a piercing shriek brought him into the center of a lily bed.
And that shriek was only the opening voice in a chorus of cries—it was the birds! Something had disturbed them and it would be only a matter of seconds before the sentries would call out the guard. He must reach the house before then!
A sprint straight across the open of a Dutch bulb bed was the only answer and he made it, expecting with every leap to be challenged or even shot at by some nervous sentry. The birds weren’t quieting any—in fact their noise was growing. Someone had just lit a candle in the second of the windows facing him.
Justin slammed himself across the window sill of his own room with force enough to leave him gasping. But even as he struggled to gain a full breath again, his hands tore at his breeches. An honest man would be aroused by the clamor from his bed and he would not be wearing breeches in bed!
He kicked his clothes under the bed and snatching up the nearest bit of cloth—one of his best neckerchiefs as he discovered later—he wiped the traces of his night’s journeying from his feet. Then he just had time to rumple the bed before he drew on the light banyan hanging over its foot and started for the hall. The birds were still in an insane frenzy and now there was also a certain amount of shouting in the garden.
People filled the hall outside too. Master Ferkin, his shaven skull wrapped in a very dashing red silk handkerchief, marched purposefully ahead of a scantily clad crowd of those white retainers who lived in the back quarters of the palace. Justin joined this group as unobtrusively as possible.
“What’s to do?” he asked his neighbor.
“An intruder in the garden,” Ferkin answered. He might have put off his wig and shed his sober coat in favor of a moderately gaudy banyan, but he had lost none of his competence. “He must have blundered into the aviary and so roused the birds to betray him—”
For the first time, now that his own position was no longer a dangerous one, Justin began to wonder just what had aroused the birds. The closest he had been to the aviary was half the garden away. Maybe a snake had managed to win through the nets—or one of the town cats had come hunting. He suggested as much to Ferkin who agreed reluctantly.
But the secretary brightened again when they came into the main corridor and found the young lieutenant of the guard panting out a strange tale to no other than Sir Robert himself.
“—tappe
d Wilkins on the head, sir, and laid him under the bushes where he wouldn’t have been found until morning if Sergeant Runewall hadn’t fallen over the lad. We got to the aviary as soon as the alarm had been given but there were no signs—”
“Naturally not! Did you expect him to wait patiently for you to appear and snap him up? Use what little sense the good Lord gave you, man. Whoever roused those birds was off and over the wall before your muttonheads were on their feet. Oh, aye, search the place if you will—but I’ll wager a plate ship’s ransom you’ll find nothing. Can Wilkins tell aught of the man who dropped him?”
“Not yet, sir. He hasn’t come to himself.”
“Well, keep good watch on him till he does and then bring him here to me. I’m not minded to hear his tale after it has passed through the lips of half a dozen of you. All right, all right, get on with this search!”
Thus encouraged the Lieutenant disappeared and Sir Robert took time to fasten his thin silk robe more tightly about his straight body. Having done this to his full satisfaction he rounded upon the aroused household and stared at them disdainfully.
“Ah, so you’re all up and about now that the business is well over. Ferkin, man, put down that pistol— Would you blow my head off my shoulders?”
Ferkin looked down at the oversized weapon he cradled across his arm and colored. Quickly he laid it on the nearest table.
“And you, my young swordsman—out without any steel to hand? Well, what is your opinion of this night’s work?”
Justin saw that Sir Robert was smiling that unpleasant mirthless smile of his. And for one horrible instant he wondered if the Governor knew every detail of the midnight expedition. But Sir Robert couldn’t—that manner of his was only a weapon he used against a man’s own uneasy conscience.
“I have none, Your Excellency,” he replied quietly and as evenly as he could.