“I suppose we shall do better in time, Tony,” said the Buffer, “when we get more acquainted with them light and heavy horsemen that we must employ, and them lumpers that gives the information.”
“Of course. When you set up in a new business, you can’t expect to succeed directly,” returned the Resurrection Man. “The regular pirates won’t have confidence in us at first; and as yet we don’t know a single captain or mate that will trust us with the job of robbing their ship. How do they know but what we should peach, if we got into trouble, and tell their employers that it was all done with their connivance? But old Mossop begins to grow more friendly; and that, I’m sure, is a good sign that he thinks that we shall succeed.”
“So it is,” said the Buffer. “Besides, this barge is so good a blind, that business must come. What should you say to getting into the skiff presently, and taking a look out amongst the shipping for ourselves?”
“Well, I’ve no objection,” answered Tidkins. “But we’ve already a connexion with several lumpers; and they have put us on to all that we have done up to the present time. P’rhaps we should do better to wait for the information that they can give us. They begin to see that we pay well; and so they’ll only be too anxious to put things in our way.”
“True enough,” observed the Buffer.
At this period of the conversation, a woman’s head appeared above the cabin hatch-way.
“Supper’s ready,” she said.
“We’re coming, Moll,” returned the Buffer.
The two villains then descended into the cabin, where a well-spread table awaited them.
Scarcely had the trio concluded their repast, when a man, who had come from the wharf and had walked across the barges until he reached the Fairy, called to Tidkins, by the appellation of “Captain,” from the hatchway.
“Come below,” answered the Resurrection Man.
The person thus invited was the foreman in Mr. Mossop’s employment. He was short, stout, and strongly built, with a tremendous rubicundity of visage, small piercing grey eyes, no whiskers, and a very apoplectic neck. His age might be about fifty; and he was dressed in a light garb befitting the nature of his calling.
“Well, Mr. Swot,” said the Resurrection Man, as the little fat foreman descended the ladder; “this is really an unusual thing to have the honour of your company. Sit down; and you, Moll, put the lush and the pipes upon the table.”
“That’s right, Captain,” returned Mr. Swot, as he seated himself. “I came on purpose to drink a social glass and have a chat with you. In fact, my present visit is not altogether without an object.”
“I’m glad of that,” said the Resurrection Man. “We want something to do. It was only just now that I and my mate were complaining how slack business was.”
“You know that Mossop never has any thing to do with any schemes in which chaps of your business choose to embark,” continued Mr. Swot; “he receives your goods, and either keeps them in warehouse or carts them for you as you like; but he never knows where they come from.”
“Perfectly true,” observed the Resurrection Man.
“But all that’s no reason why I should be equally partickler,” proceeded Swot.
“Of course not,” said the Resurrection Man.
“Well, then—we are all friends here?” asked Swot, glancing around him.
“All,” replied Tidkins. “This is my mate’s wife; she answers to the name of Moll, and is stanch to the back-bone.”
“Well and good,” said Swot. “Now I’ve as pretty a little idea in my head as ever was born there; but it requires two or three daring—I may say desperate fellers to carry it out.”
“You couldn’t come to a better shop for them kind of chaps,” remarked the Buffer.
“And if it’s necessary, I’ll deuced soon dress myself up like a lighterman and help you,” added Moll.
“I am very much pleased with your pluck, ma’am,” said Mr. Swot; “and I drink to your excellent health—and our better acquaintance.”
Mr. Swot emptied his mug at a draught, lighted a pipe, and then continued thus:—
“But now, my fine fellers, s’pose I was to start some scheme which is about as dangerous as walking slap into a house on fire to get the iron safe that’s full of gold and silver?”
“Well—we’re the men to do it,” said Tidkins.
“That is,” observed the Buffer, “if so be the inducement is equal to the risk.”
“Of course,” returned Mr. Swot. “Now one more question:—would you sleep in the same room with a man who had the cholera or the small-pox, for instance—supposing you got a thousand pounds each to do it?”
“I would in a minute,” answered the Resurrection Man. “Nothing dare, nothing have.”
“So I say,” added the Buffer.
“And you wouldn’t find me flinch!” cried Moll.
“Now, then, we shall soon understand each other,” resumed Swot, helping himself to another supply of grog. “Please to listen to me for a few minutes. A very fine schooner, the Lady Anne of London, trades to the Gold and Slave Coasts of Guinea. She takes out woollens, cottons, linen, arms, and gunpowder, which she exchanges for gold dust, ivory, gums, and hides. A few days since, as she was beating up the Channel, homeward bound with a fine cargo, something occurs that makes it necessary for her to run for the Medway, instead of coming direct up to London. But the night before last it blew great guns, as you may recollect; and as she was but indifferently manned, she got out in her reckoning—for it was as dark as pitch—and ran ashore between the mouth of the Medway and Gravesend. Now, there she lies—and there she’s likely to lie. She got stranded during spring-tide; and she does not float now even at high water. The gold dust would be very acceptable; the gums, ivory, hides, and such like matters, may stay where they are.”
“Then the fact is the owners haven’t yet moved out the cargo?” said the Resurrection Man, interrogatively.
“No—nor don’t intend to, neither—for the present,” answered Swot. “And what’s more, there’s a police-boat pulling about in that part of the river all day and all night; but I can assure you that it gives the schooner a precious wide berth.”
“Well, I can’t understand it, yet,” said the Buffer.
“The fact is,” continued Swot, “the Lady Anne was on its way to Standgate Creek in the Medway, when it got ashore on the bank of the Thames. Do you begin to take?”
“Can’t say I do,” answered the Resurrection Man. “Is the crew on board still?”
“The crew consisted this morning, when I heard about it last, of three men and a boy,” returned Swot; “and one of them men is a surgeon. But the Lady Anne has got the yellow flag flying;—and now do you comprehend me?”
“The plague!” ejaculated the Resurrection Man and the Buffer in the same breath.
“The plague!” repeated Moll Wicks, with a shudder.
“Neither more or less,” said Swot, coolly emptying his second mug of grog.
There was a dead silence for some moments.
It seemed as if the spirits of those who had listened with deep attention to the foreman’s narrative, were suddenly damped by the explanation that closed it.
“Well—are you afraid?” asked Swot, at length breaking silence.
“No,” returned the Resurrection Man, throwing off the depression which had fallen upon him. “But there is something awful in boarding a plague-ship.”
“Are you sure the gold dust is on board?” demanded the Buffer.
“Certain. My information is quite correct. Besides, you may get the newspapers and read all about it for yourselves.”
“The thing is tempting,” said Moll.
“Then, by God, if a woman will dare it, we mustn’t show the white feather, Jack,” exclaimed the Resurr
ection Man.
“That’s speaking to the point,” observed the foreman. “You see there’s a guard on land, to prevent any one from going near the vessel on that side; and the police-boat rows about on the river. The plan would be, to get down to Gravesend to-morrow; then to-morrow night, to drop down with the tide close under the bank, and get alongside the vessel.”
“All that can be done easy enough,” said the Resurrection Man. “But we want more hands. Of course you’ll go with us?”
“Yes—I’ll risk it,” answered Mr. Swot. “It’s too good a thing to let slip between one’s fingers. If you’ll leave it to me I’ll get two or three more hands; because we must be prepared to master all that we may meet on the deck of the schooner, the very moment we board it, so as not to give ’em time even to cry out, or they’d alarm the police-boat.”
“Well and good,” said the Resurrection Man. “But you don’t mean to go in the lighter?”
“No—no: we must have a good boat with two sculls,” answered Swot. “Leave that also to me. At day-break every thing shall be ready for you; and I shall join you in the evening at Gravesend.”
“Agreed!” cried Tidkins.
Mr. Swot then took his departure; and the three persons whom he left behind in the lighter, continued their carouse.
In this way the Resurrection Man, the Buffer, and Moll Wicks amused themselves until nearly eleven o’clock, when, just as they were thinking of retiring for the night;—Tidkins to his bed in the after cabin where they were then seated, and the other two to their berth in the cuddy forward,—the lighter was suddenly shaken from one end to the other by some heavy object which bumped violently against it.
CHAPTER CLXVII.
AN ARRIVAL AT THE WHARF.
The collision was so powerful that the Buffer’s wife was thrown from her seat; and every plank in the Fairy oscillated with a crashing sound.
The Buffer and the Resurrection Man rushed upon the deck.
A single glance enabled them to ascertain the cause of the sudden alarm.
A lighter, nearly as large as the Fairy, and heavily laden, had been so clumsily brought in against the barges moored off the wharf, that it came with the whole weight of its broad-side upon the Fairy.
“Now then, stupids!” ejaculated the Buffer applying this complimentary epithet to the two men who were on the deck of the lighter which was putting in.
“Hope we haven’t hurt you, friends,” exclaimed one of the individuals thus addressed.
“More harm might have been done,” answered the Buffer. “Who are you?”
“The Blossom,” was the reply.
“Where d’ye come from?” demanded Wicks.
“Oh! up above bridge,” cried the man, speaking in a surly and evasive manner. “Here—just catch hold of this rope, will you—and let us lay alongside of you.”
“No—no,” shouted the Buffer. “You’d better drop astern of us, and moor alongside that chalk barge.”
“Well, so we will,” said the man.
While the Blossom was executing this manœuvre, which it did in a most clumsy manner, as if the two men that worked her had never been entrusted with the care of a lighter before, the Buffer turned towards the Resurrection Man, and said in a whisper, “We must remain outside all the barges, ’cause of having room to run our boat alongside the Fairy and get the things on board easy, when we come back from the expedition down to the Lady Anne.”
“To be sure,” answered the Resurrection Man. “You did quite right to make those lubbers get lower down. I’m pleased with you, Jack; and now I see that I can let you be spokesman on all such occasions without any fear that you’ll commit yourself.”
“Why, if you want to keep in the back-ground as much as possible, Tony,” replied the Buffer, “it’s much better to trust these little things to me. But, I say—I think there’s something queer about them chaps that have just put in here.”
“So do I, Jack,” said Tidkins. “They certainly know no more about managing a lighter than you and I did when we first took to it.”
“Yes—but we had a regular man to help us at the beginning,” observed the Buffer.
“So we had. And I precious soon sent him about his business when he had taught us our own.”
“Well—p’rhaps them fellows have got a reg’lar man too,” said Wicks. “But let ’em be what and who they will, my idea is, that they’ve taken to the same line as ourselves.”
“We must find that out, Jack,” observed the Resurrection Man. “If they’re what you think, they will of course be respected: if they don’t belong to the same class, we must ascertain what they’ve got on board, and then make up our minds whether any of their cargo will suit us.”
“Well said,” returned the Buffer.
“But in any case you must be the person to learn all this,” continued the Resurrection Man. “You see, I’m so well known to a lot of different people that would show me no mercy if they got hold of me, that I’m compelled to keep myself as quiet as possible. There’s Markham—there’s Crankey Jem—there’s the gipsies—and there’s the Rattlesnake: why—if I was only to be twigged by one of them I should have to make myself scarce in a minute.”
“I know all this, Tony,” cried the Buffer, impatiently; “and therefore the less you’re seen about, the better. In the day time always keep below, as you have been doing; but at night, when one can’t distinguish particular faces, you can take the air;—or on such occasions as to-morrow will be, for instance,—when we run down the river, and get away from London——”
“Yes, yes,” interrupted Tidkins: “don’t think that I shall throw away a chance. Those lubbers have managed to make their lighter fast to the chalk barge now: just step across and try and find out what you can about them.”
The Buffer immediately proceeded to obey this order. He walked across the barges, which, as we before stated, were so closely moored together that they formed one vast floating pier; and approaching as close as possible to the Blossom, without setting foot upon it, he said, “Holloa, friend, there! You mustn’t think that we meant any thing by telling you not to lay alongside of us: ’t was only ’cause we expect to be off to-morrow or next day.”
“No offence is taken where none’s intended,” answered the man who had before spoken.
The Buffer now perceived that the other individual on board the Blossom, and who had charge of the helm, was a Black, of tall form, and dressed in the rough garb of a sailor.
“You seem well laden,” said the Buffer, after a pause.
“Yes—pretty deep,” answered the first speaker.
“Do you discharge here, at Mossop’s?”
“Don’t know yet,” was the laconic reply.
“And what may be your freight?”
“Bales of cotton,” returned the man.
“Then I suppose you’re the master of that lighter?” continued the Buffer.
“Yes,” was the brief answer.
“Well, it’s a pleasant life,” observed Wicks. “Have you been at it long?”
“I’ve only just begun it,” replied the master.
“And that sable gentleman there,” said the Buffer, with a laugh,—“I should think he’s not a Johnny Raw on the water?”
“Not quite,” returned the master. “Poor fellow! he’s deaf and dumb!”
“Deaf and dumb, eh?” repeated the Buffer. “Well,—p’rhaps that’s convenient in more ways than one.”
“I believe you,” said the master, significantly.
“Ah! I thought so,” cried Wicks, who now felt convinced that the Blossom was not a whit better than the Fairy. “Ain’t there no one on board but you and Blackee?”
“What the devil should we want any more hands for?” said the master, gruffly.
“Oh! I unders
tand,” observed the Buffer. “Capital! you’re the master—to do as you like; Blackee’s deaf and dumb, and can’t blab; and you and him are alone on board. I’ve hit it, you see.”
“You’re uncommon sharp, my fine feller,” said the master. “Step on board and wash your mouth out.”
The Buffer did not hesitate to accept this invitation. The Black had lighted his pipe, and was lounging on the deck over the after cabin. The master disappeared down the hatchway of the small cabin, or cuddy, forward; and in a few moments he returned with a bottle and two tin panikins.
“What’s the name of your craft?” he said, as he poured out the liquor, which exhaled the strong and saccharine flavour of rum.
“The Fairy,” replied the Buffer.
“Then here’s a health to the Fairy.”
“And here’s to the Blossom.”
The master and the Buffer each took draughts of the raw spirit.
“Now let us drink to our better acquaintance,” said the master. “You seem an honest, open-hearted kind of a feller——”
“And to be trusted, too,” interrupted Wicks.
“Well—I’m inclined to think you are,” said the master, speaking deliberately, as if he were meditating upon some particular idea, which then occupied his mind; “and it’s very probable—it may be, I mean—that I shall want a little of your advice; for which, remember, I should be happy to pay you well.”
“You couldn’t apply to a better man,” returned the Buffer.
“And here’s to you,” said the master. “What sort of a fellow is Mossop, that keeps this wharf?”
“He has no eyes, no ears, and no tongue for things that don’t consarn him,” answered Wicks.
“Just the kind of agent I want,” returned the master. “But I shall also require two or three good fellers in a few days,—chaps that ain’t over partickler, you understand, how they earn a ten-pound note, so long as it’s sure.”
“And you want two or three chaps of that kind?” asked the Buffer.
The Mysteries of London, Vol. II [Unabridged & Illustrated] (Valancourt Classics) Page 28