‘Perhaps ye’ve chosen wisely,’ said he presently. ‘Ye make better thief-takers than tobymen. Ye’ll turn king’s evidence against me, thus save your dirty necks, and pocket the reward that Baldock covets. Ay, ’twas shrewdly thought.’ He coughed. ‘Gad, the dust is thick in my throat. Give me a drink.’
‘The ale is done,’ said Jake, who had his suspicions of the captain’s amiable philosophy.
‘Ay, plague on’t,’ growled Nathaniel, lifting the jar.
‘True,’ said Evans. ‘I had forgot. But there’s a bottle of brandy upstairs in my bedroom — in one of the drawers of my chest.’
Nathaniel’s eyes glowed sombrely.
‘Go fetch it, if ye will. Ye’ll need to break the lock, maybe; for I cannot mind me where I left the key.’
Nathaniel departed without further persuasion. They heard him at work overhead, and the smash of woodwork told of the ardour of his search. Since, as a matter of fact, there was no such bottle as the captain suggested, that search was likely to be protracted.
The captain looked at Jake.
‘Seize this chance,’ he said softly. ‘Set me free, and I’ll pay you twice the sum the Crown is offering for me. More, Jake, I’ll make your fortune ere all this is done.’
Jake scowled, displaying not the slightest sign of compliance. But then the captain had not expected any.
‘And who’s to warrant me that?’ sneered the rogue at last, when he had overcome his surprise at the impudence of the proposal.
The captain nodded his head in the direction of the table.
‘Why, there,’ he exclaimed, ‘you have a good two hundred guineas’ worth at the least. ’Tis twice as much as the reward, and more easily earned. Sweep it into your pocket, man, and let us begone while that drunken fool is busy above stairs. Make haste, man! Cut me these cords!’
He watched the slow kindling of Jake’s eye, the gradual loosening of his mouth, and he was satisfied that the rascally idea he had released was biting deep into the scoundrel’s brain. Then followed precisely what the captain had expected. Jake moved furtively towards the table, his lips twitching, his whole countenance alert and somewhat scared. He swept the two purses and the rest of the plunder into his pockets. Then he took up the pistols and examined them. One was his own weapon, of which the captain had dispossessed them on their first encounter. It was loaded and primed, and so he dropped it also into his pocket. The other one was a barker that the captain had emptied that afternoon to scare the postilion of the gentleman he had robbed. It had not since been reloaded, and it may have been due to this that Jake laid it down again.
Then, without another word or so much as another glance at the prisoner, he stepped quickly and softly to the door.
Seeing this, the captain raised his voice in protest.
‘Ye’ll never leave me, Jake!’ he cried, in simulated horror.
Jake leered at him over his shoulder in silence. Then he pulled the door open, passed out, and closed it gently after him.
The captain smiled to himself and waited. He heard Jake leading a horse into the open, while the fool above stairs continued his quest for the phantom bottle. In another moment hoofs went thudding down the lane, gathering speed as they receded. The captain laughed outright. So far things had sped excellently, and he was rid of one of his enemies. True, the thing had been achieved at considerable cost. But our tobyman was no niggard with the fruits of his ventures.
Minutes passed, then down the stairs, breathing noisily and swearing fluently, came Nathaniel.
‘Skewer my innards,’ said he, as he entered, ‘I can’t find no plaguey bottle.’ Then he stopped short and looked about him. ‘Jake!’ he called. And then, ‘Where’s Jake?’ he enquired.
‘Gone,’ said the captain.
‘Gone!’ echoed Nathaniel, uncomprehending. ‘Gone where?’ He rolled forward into the room.
‘Why, to some stuling-ken, belike, to dispose of the plunder. He went off with it what time ye were rummaging for the brandy.’ He laughed at the other’s blank face. ‘Ye’re a confiding soul — nay, a durned confiding soul.’
Nathaniel rolled his eyes to the table, and saw its emptiness of all save the pistol.
‘Ye don’t mean that he’s bubbled me!’ he cried, on a whimpering note.
‘What else?’ wondered Captain Evans.
‘That he’s not coming back?’ Nathaniel insisted, still disbelieving his senses.
‘Oh, he may be coming back. But if I were you, I should pray that he may not, or at least I shouldn’t stay for him.’
‘What d’ye mean?’
‘Gad!’ said the captain. ‘I vow ye’re the flabbiest fool that ever cut a purse. What do I mean? Why, isn’t it plain? If he comes back at all, he’ll come back with Baldock, and take you together with myself, turning king’s evidence against the pair of us, and thus making sure of the hundred guineas reward in addition to all the rest.’
It was a blow that winded Nathaniel. His face turned first purple, then pale. To express his amazement, his realization, and his poisonous rage, he swore with a most disgusting fluency. Then he paused.
‘I’ll not believe it!’ he cried. ‘He’ll never be so dirty a tyke as that.’
‘You’ve but to stay if you desire to ascertain precisely how far his villainy will go.’
‘But, man — —’ Nathaniel checked. His eyes alighted on the pistol lying on the table. ‘Nay, now. He’d never have left his barker if he meant such business as that.’
‘The barker! Ha!’ said the captain, with an odd inflection; and he added sharply, ‘Look at it!’
Nathaniel snatched it up.
‘Unloaded!’ said he; and with that his last, lingering, hopeful doubt was dissipated.
Utter consternation invaded his soul, and overspread his face. To linger here now was to await certain capture, as the captain so shrewdly had warned him.
‘Odds rot the plaguey thief!’ he snarled. ‘If ever I meet him ag’in, I’ll — —’
He stopped. He had no words in which to express the horrors he would perpetrate upon the person of his treacherous associate. Then, abruptly, he snatched up his ragged hat, pressed it upon his no less ragged head, and made for the door.
Now, this was not at all as the captain desired it. He did not himself believe for a moment that Jake would undertake any such desperate adventure as to fetch Baldock. He was convinced, in fact, that Jake would be perfectly and wisely satisfied with the result of his treachery to his comrade as it stood, and would avoid a risk in which he might well lose all, and find his way to the gallows in addition.
Nevertheless, he had no desire to be left pinioned there as he was. He had rid himself of one of his captors, and was about to rid himself of the other, and he flattered himself that he had contrived the thing with a rare thoroughness; but, before Nathaniel abandoned him, he must see to it that he was set at liberty.
‘Hold!’ he shouted. ‘Are ye going to leave me here to fall into his hands?’
Nathaniel shrugged, and lifted the latch.
‘Is this how you repay me for warning you? For you’ll admit that but for my warning you ‘ld never ha’ smoked his full intentions. You’d ha’ lain in Petersfield Gaol with me this night. And would ye desert me now?’
‘Each for himself,’ said Nathaniel callously, and opened the door.
Then the captain played his trump-card.
‘Are ye going to put another hundred guineas in that weasel’s dirty pockets?’ he cried.
Nathaniel checked at that. He turned, his face grimly resolute.
‘No, by gad! No, sink me!’ he declared.
‘Come, now, that is better. Besides, my friend, I can show you how to overtake him yet, and turn the tables on him.’
‘How?’ quoth Nathaniel, with fresh eagerness.
‘How?’ said the captain; and he smiled. ‘Gad! There’s not a drawer or ostler in an inn on all the Portsmouth Road but is my friend. They’ll set me on his track, and when we’ve got him —— But
bestir, man; we’ll talk of that as we go!’
Nathaniel produced a knife, and slashed away at the prisoner’s bonds. Evans rose, and stretched himself, a little numb from the pressure of the cords upon his arms and legs. He straightened his disordered garments, and bent down to dust his breeches.
‘Give me my wig, Nat,’ he said, pointing to it where it lay in a corner of the room.
Nathaniel, unsuspecting, stooped to do his bidding, nor rose again. For, swift as a cat, the captain leapt upon him from behind, and bore him to the ground, wielding in his right hand the empty pistol which he had snatched up from the table.
Pinned there, prone, with the captain’s knee in the small of his back, Nathaniel squealed like a stricken rabbit, what time the captain mocked him.
‘You pig-faced foist!’ he said. ‘You to play the tobyman! You to rob in the grand manner! You to ruffle it on the pad! Odds my life, you dirty thieving dawcock, I hope this will cure you of all such vanity. And you thought you could hold Captain Evans — you! Bah!’
The captain tapped him sharply over the head with the butt of the empty pistol, and rose, leaving him stunned where he lay. Then he adjusted his wig, took up his hat and riding-crop, and left the cottage.
But in the lean-to an unpleasant surprise awaited him. The horses stabled there were the two screws upon which Nat and Jake had ridden. His own roan mare with the white blaze was gone, and he realized that it was Jake who had taken her. In an exceeding ill-humour, and breathing redoubled vengeance now that his chances of overtaking Jake to effect it were considerably diminished, the captain rode off on the better of those two sorry nags.
He made straight for Liphook and the Lame Dog, hoping there to pick up news that should set him on the track of the renegade. The news he found was of another kind.
‘It is well for you, captain, that ye didn’t come a half-hour ago,’ was the greeting he received from Tom, the drawer.
And thereupon the fellow told his tale:
‘There was a gentleman here who swore he had been robbed this very afternoon twixt this and Petersfield. With him was Baldock, the thief-taker, who swore ’twas yourself had robbed the gentleman, and likewise swore to lay you by the heels. And then, whilst they were in the taproom, up rides a down-at-heel scarecrow of a fellow on your own roan mare, captain. The gentleman who had been robbed was sitting by the window, and no sooner does his eye light on this traveller than up he jumps in a great heat, swearing that this was the man who had robbed him.
‘“Are ye sure?” cried Baldock, all of a shake in his eagerness.
‘“Certain sure,” says the gentleman. “I couldn’t be mistook; though the rascal’s face was masked there was no mask on the nag, and I ‘ld recognize that white blaze anywhere.”
‘That was enough for Baldock. He whistled, and in the twinkling of an eye they had that scarecrow off the mare, and they was going through his pockets. And there, sure enough, it seems, they found some rings and other things of which the gentleman had been robbed this very day.
‘The rogue swore that he was not Captain Evans. He told a wild tale of how he had come by those trinkets. He protested that he had himself captured Captain Evans, and that he had him bound fast in a place to which he offered to lead Baldock. But the Bow Street runner laughed at him.
‘“Ye’ve bubbled me afore, Captain Evans,” says he, “and I’ll be blistered if ye bubble me again! I have ye safe this time.” And they carried the poor devil off to London.’
The captain’s laughter pealed forth.
‘I was sorry for the poor rogue,’ said the drawer, ‘and I might ha’ helped him. But, o’ course, it weren’t for me to be doing that at your expense, captain.’
‘Small need for sorrow on his account, Tom,’ the captain assured him. ‘The rogue is well served for his impudence in setting up for a ruffler of the pad. The high toby is a place for gentlemen, egad, and he was no better than a poacher. What of the mare, Tom?’
‘They took her along.’
The captain sighed.
‘I’ve paid dear for my folly. Still, when all is said —— Bah! Give me a pint of claret, Tom, and lace it well with brandy. I am somewhat shaken by this adventure.’
THE SENTIMENTALIST
Captain Evans — to give him the rank he had assumed for decorative purposes and without having any real claim to it — rode out of Godalming alone and early one fragrant summer morning, leaving his younger brother, Will — in conjunction with whom he was in the habit of ‘working’, as the term was, the Portsmouth Road — snugly abed at the Black Boar Inn. He was bound for Petersfield, or, rather, for the Fox and Hounds, which invites custom a mile or so to the north of that prosperous little township, and he rode in answer to an urgent message from Tim, the ostler, whom he subsidized to keep him informed of such movements upon the road as it imported him to know in the way of business. Tim had bidden him to be at the Fox and Hounds not later than noon, intimating that he would then have an important communication for our captain. But the captain, having risen early, found himself breasting the slopes in the neighbourhood of Thursley by nine o’clock — as recorded by a watch which a week ago had been the property of the Bishop of Salisbury, and which could not, therefore, be suspected of inaccuracy.
It followed that the captain had an hour or so to spare over and above the necessary time in which to complete the journey without undue exertion, and no sooner had he realized this than he caught sight of a yellow chaise coming into view on the brow of the hill above him. A man of quick decision — which, after all, is the first essential of success in his difficult calling — the captain swung his mare to the right, and vanished down a narrow lane that opportunely offered itself. Fifty yards down this lane he halted, swung aside again, and, putting the roan at a low fence on his left, landed in a meadow. He rode gently back towards the road, took up a position behind a clump of trees, and waited, vigilant and invisible.
The carriage came lumbering down the hill, a two-horse post-chaise, yellow as a buttercup in the morning sun, betraying nothing of its contents. More pressed for time, the captain might have allowed the hired vehicle to go unmolested. It was not his way in these days to take risks where he was not sure of profit; but with an hour or so on his hands, and the very freshness of the morning stimulating his young blood to high adventure, he resolved to investigate at closer quarters.
Back he went by the way he had come, and along the lane out into the open road, there to turn and trot in the wake of the coach, which was heading for Godalming. At a pace that, without being hot enough to alarm the travellers, yet steadily lessened the distance between himself and the chaise, Captain Evans drew alongside. It was his intent — and in accordance with his usual practice — first to reconnoitre, and then, if satisfied, to ride ahead and turn to deliver the attack.
He was the last man to shirk a hazard, but he had long since realized that for success on the high-toby, as on the field of battle, prudence and the elimination of the unnecessary risk is as essential as courage. He had, you see, an orderly mind even in disorderliness, probably resulting from the fact — to be read in Mr Whitehead’s ‘Life’ of him — that he had been bred up for the law by his father, a prosperous Welsh farmer. For the rest, he had found the law more amusing in the breach than in the practice, and the open road more attractive than a musty attorney’s office.
He drew, then, alongside of the coach, and looked boldly in, as any other traveller might have done. Nor was there anything of the ruffian in his appearance to alarm those who might come under his inspection. He was dressed with sedate elegance in a riding-suit of grey, with silver lace, and the lustrous brown hair under his three-cornered hat was neatly clubbed.
To his vexation, he found that the curtains of the chaise were drawn, which would make his projected adventure more of a leap in the dark than ever. But even as he looked one of the curtains was whipped aside, and straining through the window came the head and shoulders of as delicious a piece of young womanhoo
d as ever the captain — something of a dilettante in these matters — had contemplated with satisfaction. She seemed a part of that sweet, fragrant summer morning; at least, she found in it a very proper setting. Her complexion, now somewhat pale, was as delicate as a dog-rose; her eyes, which were very wide, were as blue as the flawless sky overhead; her hair was an aureole of sunbeams; and, to complete the lovely appeal of her, from parted lips came a cry for assistance. On her shoulder he observed, in his swift, comprehensive glance, a man’s lean brown hand endeavouring to force her back into the chaise.
‘Help!’ she cried to him. ‘Help! Oh, sir, deliver me!’
‘Deliver you?’ says the captain, taken aback. ‘To be sure I will.’ And then he added, ‘I am the very angel of deliverance, so I am!’ which was neat and quick of him, although the humour of it must of necessity escape her.
Another moment — time to pluck a barker from his holster — and he was roaring ‘Stand!’ in his grandest manner to the postboy.
The chaise rattled and creaked to a standstill, and the captain swung down from the saddle and threw open the door with an air. Here was romance, and it was for him to play his part in it. Out of the chaise came a fiery buck, in fine clothes and a mighty temper, using language that left no doubt that he must be either a great gentleman or a pickpocket. Considering a certain raffishness that hung about him and the deep-bitten lines in his face, which advertised an age beyond the first seeming, the captain placed him without hesitation outside the former class, and came promptly to the conclusion that he could have no business on so fine a morning in a chaise with that gracious little lady.
The froth of foulness being blown off, we come to the ale of his opening interjection.
‘Who the devil are you, sir, and what the devil d’ye mean interfering between a gentleman and his wife?’
‘I’m not his wife, sir!’ cried the lady. ‘Don’t believe him.’
‘I shouldn’t dream of doing so, indeed,’ says Captain Evans. ‘Be good enough to honour me with your commands, ma’am, and depend upon their instant execution. I take it you want to be rid of this gentleman’s company?’
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 526