by Neil Munro
CHAPTER IX
WHEREIN THE "SEVEN SISTERS" ACTS STRANGELY, AND I SIT WAITING FOR THEMANACLES
An air of westerly wind had risen after meridian and the haar was gone,so that when I stood at the break of the poop as the brigantine creptinto the channel and flung out billows of canvas while her drunkenseamen quarrelled and bawled high on the spars, I saw, as I imagined,the last of Scotland in a pleasant evening glow. My heart sank. It wasnot a departure like this I had many a time anticipated when I listenedto Uncle Andys tales; here was I with blood on my hands and a guinea tostart my life in a foreign country; that was not the worst of it either,for far more distress was in my mind at the reflection that I travelledwith a man who was in my secret. At first I was afraid to go near himonce our ropes were off the pawls, and I, as it were, was altogetherhis, but to my surprise there could be no pleasanter man than Risk whenhe had the wash of water under his rotten barque. He was not only abetter-mannered man to myself, but he became, in half an hour of theFirth breeze, as sober as a judge. But for the roving gleed eye, andwhat I had seen of him on shore, Captain Dan Risk might have passed fora model of all the virtues. He called me Mr. Greig and once or twice(but I stopped that) Young Hazel Den, with no irony in the appellation,and he was at pains to make his mate see that I was one to be treatedwith some respect, proffering me at our first meal together (for I wasto eat in the cuddy,) the first of everything on the table, and evenmaking some excuses for the roughness of the viands. And I could seethat whatever his qualities of heart might be, he was a good seaman, athing to be told in ten minutes by a skipper's step on a deck and hisgrip of the rail, and his word of command. Those drunken barnacles ofhis seemed to be men with the stuff of manly deeds in them, when at hisword they dashed aloft among the canvas canopy to fist the bulging sailand haul on clew or gasket, or when they clung on greasy ropes and at agesture of his hand heaved cheerily with that "yo-ho" that is the chantof all the oceans where keels run.
Murchison was a saturnine, silent man, from whom little was to be got ofedification. The crew numbered eight men, one of them a black deafmute, with the name of Antonio Ferdinando, who cooked in a galley littlelarger than the Hazel Den kennel. It was apparent that no two of themhad ever met before, such a career of flux and change is the seaman's,and except one of them, a fellow Horn, who was foremast man, a morevillainous gang I never set eyes on before or since. If Risk had rakedthe ports of Scotland with a fine bone comb for vermin, he could nothave brought together a more unpleasant-looking crew. No more than twoof them brought a bag on board, and so ragged was their appearance thatI felt ashamed to air my own good clothes on the same deck with them.
Fortunately it seemed I had nothing to do with them nor they with me;all that was ordered for the eking out of my passage, as Risk hadsaid, was to copy the manifest, and I had no sooner set to that than Idiscerned it was a gowk's job just given me to keep me in employ in thecabin. Whatever his reason, the man did not want me about his deck. Isaw that in an interlude in my writing, when I came up from his airlessden to learn what progress old rotten-beams made under all her canvas.
It had declined to a mere handful of wind, and the vessel scarcelymoved, seemed indeed steadfast among the sea-birds that swooped andwheeled and cried around her. I saw the sun just drop among blood-redclouds over Stirling, and on the shore of Fife its pleasant glow. Thesea swung flat and oily, running to its ebb, and lapping discerniblyupon a recluse promontory of land with a stronghold on it.
"What do you call yon, Horn?" I said to the seaman I have beforementioned, who leaned upon the taffrail and watched the vessel's greasywake, and I pointed to the gloomy buildings on the shore.
"Blackness Castle," said he, and he had time to tell no more, for theskipper bawled upon him for a shirking dog, and ordered the flemishingof some ropes loose upon the forward deck. Nor was I exempt fromhis zeal for the industry of other folks for he came up to me witha suspicious look, as if he feared I had been hearing news from hisforemast man, and "How goes the manifest, Mr. Greig?" says he.
"Oh, brawly, brawly!" said I, determined to begin with Captain DanielRisk as I meant to end.
He grew purple, but restrained himself with an effort. "This is notan Ayr sloop, Mr. Greig," said he; "and when orders go on the _SevenSisters_ I like to see them implemented. You must understand thatthere's a pressing need for your clerking, or I would not be so soonputting you at it."
"At this rate of sailing," says I, "I'll have time to copy some hundredmanifests between here and Nova Scotia."
"Perhaps you'll permit me to be the best judge of that," he replied inthe English he ever assumed with his dignity, and seeing there was nomore for it, I went back to my quill.
It was little wonder, in all the circumstances, that I fell asleep overmy task with my head upon the cabin table whereon I wrote, and it wasstill early in the night when I crawled into the narrow bunk that theskipper had earlier indicated as mine.
Weariness mastered my body, but my mind still roamed; the bunk becamea coffin quicklimed, and the murderer of David Borland lying in it; thelaverock cried across Earn Water and the moors of Renfrew with the voiceof Daniel Risk. And yet the strange thing was that I knew I slept anddreamed, and more than once I made effort, and dragged myself intowakefulness from the horrors of my nightmare. At these times there wasnothing to hear but the plop of little waves against the side of theship, a tread on deck, and the call of the watch.
I had fallen into a sleep more profound than any that had yet blessed myhard couch, when I was suddenly wakened by a busy clatter on the deck,the shriek of ill-greased davits, the squeak of blocks, and the fall ofa small-boat into the water. Another odd sound puzzled me: but for theprobability that we were out over Bass I could have sworn it was themurmur of a stream running upon a gravelled shore. A stream--heavens!There could be no doubt about it now; we were somewhere close in shore,and the _Seven Sisters_ was lying to. The brigantine stopped in hervoyage where no stoppage should be; a small boat plying to land inthe middle of the night; come! here was something out of the ordinary,surely, on a vessel seaward bound. I had dreamt of the gallows and ofDan Risk as an informer. Was it a wonder that there should flash into mymind the conviction of my betrayal? What was more likely than that theskipper, secure of my brace of guineas, was selling me to the garrisonof Blackness?
I clad myself hurriedly and crept cautiously up the companion ladder,and found myself in overwhelming darkness, only made the more appallingand strange because the vessel's lights were all extinguished. Silencelarge and brooding lay upon the _Seven Sisters_ as she lay in thatobscuring haar that had fallen again; she might be Charon's craftpausing mid-way on the cursed stream, and waiting for the ferry cry uponthe shore of Time. We were still in the estuary or firth, to judgeby the bickering burn and the odors off-shore, above all the odour ofrotting brake; and we rode at anchor, for her bows were up-water tothe wind and tide, and above me, in the darkness, I could hear theidle sails faintly flapping in the breeze and the reef-points alltap-tapping. I seemed to have the deck alone, but for one figure at thestern; I went back, and found that it was Horn.
"Where are we?" I asked, relieved to find there the only man I couldtrust on board the ship.
"A little below Blackness," said he shortly with a dissatisfied tone.
"I did not know we were to stop here," said I, wondering if he knew thatI was doomed.
"Neither did I," said he, peering into the void of night. "And whit'smair, I wish I could guess the reason o' oor stopping. The skipper'sbeen ashore mair nor ance wi' the lang-boat forward there, and I'm sentback here to keep an e'e on lord kens what except it be yersel'."
"Are ye indeed?" said I, exceedingly vexed. "Then I ken too well, Horn,the reason for the stoppage. You are to keep your eye on a man who'sbeing bargained for with the hangman."
"I would rather ken naithin' about that," said he, "and onyway I thinkye're mistaken. Here they're comin' back again."
Two or three small boats were coming down on us out
of the darkness; notthat I could see them, but that I heard their oars in muffled rowlocks.
"If they want me," said I sorrowfully, "they can find me down below,"and back I went and sat me in the cabin, prepared for the manacles.