They drew rein on the little patch of rugged turf before the Lame Dog, and the portly Nathaniel, without dismounting, called for a nipperkin of ale, whilst the weedy Jake — who had received some elements of education, and was never weary of parading his scholarliness — became engrossed in the contents of a bill nailed to the post that bore the sign of the inn.
It had for title the arresting phrase, ‘One Hundred Guineas Reward.’ It began with WHEREAS, and ended with GOD SAVE THE KING, all in fat letters. In between there were some twenty lines of matter in smaller type, with the name of THOMAS EVANS boldly displayed amidst it.
Ominous as was this advertisement to the rogue who, under the style of Captain Evans, had now for some months been working the Portsmouth road, it nevertheless filled Master Jake with envy. It spoke of fame and success in his own line of industry, such as seemed far indeed beyond the reach of himself and his colleague.
They were a pair of London foists — to use the term of their own thieves’ cant — a couple of sneaking pickpockets who never should have attempted to soar to higher things, and who were bitterly regretting their recourse to robbery in the grand manner. So far it had not proved profitable; at least, not commensurately with its perils. Yesterday evening, grown bold under the spur of necessity, they had attempted to demand toll from the London coach — thereby usurping the privileges of Captain Evans himself; but they had bungled the matter through inexperience, and had been ignominiously driven off by the guard’s blunderbuss. Indeed, but that the guard himself was so scared that he could not keep his limbs from shaking, they might have brought away a charge of lead apiece for their pains.
You will now understand Jake’s feelings of envy as he scanned that proclamation. He felt that it would be many a year before the justices honoured himself in like fashion, before his own unkempt head became worth a hundred pounds to any man who could come and fetch it.
In his nasal, sing-song, cockney tones, he proceeded labouredly to read the advertisement aloud for the benefit of his unlettered associate. He was interrupted by the advent of the ale. When they had paid for it, they had but fourpence left between them, and, unless fortune were singularly benign, they were very likely to starve. Sullen and downcast, they departed and rode on side by side with no word passing between them. For sixpence either would have cut the throat of the other that morning. They turned out of the highway into a pleasant, well-hedged by-road a little way beyond Liphook, and they ambled slowly forward in the dappled shade with the fragrance of hawthorn all about them. It was their unspoken hope that here they might chance upon some lonely wayfarer — preferably of the weaker sex, or at least someone who would give no trouble. And the very next turn in the road brought them face to face with one who, in the distance, looked a likely quarry. This was a slight gentleman astride of a tall, roan mare with a white blaze. He was dressed all in black, like a parson, yet with more worldliness and elegance than would have been proper in a parson. The three-cornered hat over his auburn bag-wig was pulled down to shade his eyes; for our gentleman was reading. The roan was proceeding at a walk, the reins loose upon her neck, whilst her rider, gripping her flanks easily with his knees, was deeply engrossed in the book he held, which was a translation of the diverting adventures of a Salamanca student named Gil Blas.
Our rascally twain sighted him from afar, and by common impulse drew rein, and looked at each other. Jake winked portentously. Nat nodded, and licked his lips. Then, again by common impulse, they quietly backed their screws round the corner they had just turned, and there, out of sight of that solitary and studious wayfarer, they waited. They had one pistol between them, and it was Jake — the gunner of the expedition — who had charge of this. He drew it, looked to the priming, breathed on the barrel, and rubbed it on his threadbare sleeve to increase its lustre.
Round the corner plump into that ambush rode our student, and ——
‘Stand!’ thundered Jake, levelling his weapon.
The rider looked up, checking instantly as he had been bidden, and displaying a keen, wolfish face that did not seem to tone quite well with his studious habits and demure apparel. Indeed, a certain raffishness hung about him despite his clothes. He seemed compounded of an odd blend of courtier and lackey.
He considered the rogues who challenged him, and they found his expression disconcerting.
He displayed none of the sudden terror they had hoped and expected to inspire. Instead, his glance was vaguely contemptuous in its nice mingling of amusement and surprise. Calmly he closed his book and slipped it into his pocket, whilst from under his left arm he took the heavy riding-crop that had been tucked there.
‘What’s this, you rabbit-suckers?’ he demanded.
Jake thrust his pistol a couple of inches nearer, as if to insist upon its presence.
‘It’s this,’ said he, ‘and it’s your purse we want. Come, sir, deliver!’
‘Now, here’s impudence, ecod!’ was the amusedly scornful answer. ‘Am I to be hunted on my own preserves by a couple of poaching tykes?’
He moved suddenly. Swift and abruptly as a flash of lightning his heavily loaded crop smashed down upon the dirty hand that held the barker, and knocked the weapon into the dust. Then he had plucked a pistol from his own holster, and thus in the twinkling of an eye made himself master of the situation.
Jake nursed his injured hand, grimacing with pain. Nathaniel snatched up his reins, stricken with sudden panic. But his flight was arrested as soon as conceived.
‘Stand, hog!’ our gentleman summoned him; ‘or I’ll turn you into bacon with a bullet.’
They stood at his mercy, and he surveyed them with that sardonic eye of his.
‘On my life, you’re a fine pair of tobymen!’ he admonished them. He read their true natures as easily as he had read the diverting history of the Salamanca student. ‘’Twas an ill hour in which you left your town kennels, you rats, to turn gentlemen of the pad and take toll in the heroic manner! Turn out your pockets, you cony-catchers, and let us see how you have thriven! Turn ‘em out, I say, and hand over your poachings!’
They obeyed him with a ludicrous alacrity, and revealed the miserable state of their affairs. Our gentleman in black surveyed with an eye of scorn the copper coins in Nathaniel’s dirty palm.
‘How long have ye been poaching upon my preserves?’ he demanded. Receiving no answer: ‘Speak out, you muckrakes!’ he bade them. ‘I am no sheriff’s officer. I am Captain Evans, of whom you may have heard.’
Jake needed but this confirmation of what already he had suspected. He fell to fawning upon the notorious gentleman of the pad, and proceeded to relate a moving tale of misfortune. The Bow Street runners had been on their trail in town, and they had taken to the country for a change of air and of method. So far, however, they had not prospered as highwaymen. They had robbed a parson two days ago, but his purse had held but three poor shillings, of which all that remained was the fourpence Nathaniel had displayed. Finally came the admission that they were hungry; and thus a business begun with a fiercely bellowed ‘Stand and deliver!’ ended now in a piteous whine for alms.
Captain Evans considered them. At length he addressed Nathaniel.
‘Get down, pig-face,’ he commanded, ‘and fetch me that barker!’
Obediently Nathaniel dismounted, picked up the fallen pistol, and delivered it to the captain. Evans dropped it into his pocket. Then, restoring his own weapon to its holster, he took the heavy crop, and, tucking it under his arm again, he finally addressed these rogues.
‘Ye inspire me with little confidence,’ said he. ‘Still, I have a better notion. If I were to toss you a guinea, you would be in no better case when that was eaten. I’ll do better by you, and, meanwhile, I’ll mend your emptiness. Follow me, but at a distance, for I’d not have it thought I keep such rat-bitten company!’
On that he wheeled his mare about, and rode off briskly along the road by which he had approached. The twain looked at each other. Nathaniel’s prominent eye
s asked an obvious question.
‘Ay,’ said Jake; and they set out to follow.
The captain led them a half-mile or so down that by-way, then for a short distance along a narrow, grassy lane to a cottage that stood back in a little patch of land — a little, white-washed house set in a miniature orchard, as innocent-looking a retreat as could have been conceived. Within the gate he waited for them to come up with him, and when the horses had been stabled in a lean-to, he conducted them within doors to what was at once the kitchen and the living-room. He bade them to table, and, having set meat and drink before them, took his own seat apart, and smoked thoughtfully while they noisily satisfied their hunger.
From time to time he would fling them a disdainful glance, and from time to time they would steal awed looks at him, noting his boots of fine leather and his silver spurs, the cut of his handsome black coat, and the extravagance of his ruffles — which, incidentally, were not as clean as they might have been, although that was too nice a point for our tatterdemalions.
Captain Evans was a man of ideas. It was not for nothing that he had been reading the adventures of Gil Blas that morning. He had been greatly taken with the description of the retreat of the robbers who captured the Salamanca student, and he was romantic enough to desire on a lesser scale to organize a somewhat similar band in the pleasant county of Hampshire — at least, the notion assailed him when he came to consider how he might turn these two starveling thieves to account. They were to form the nucleus of the band, which he would rule as captain absolute. Thus, you see, he was concerned with improving upon the heroic traditions of the high toby.
He unfolded his scheme to the twain, when at last they had fed. It was as yet a little vague and inchaote in its details, but the main lines it should follow were plainly indicated, and he expected it to be greeted with enthusiasm. At the conclusion he addressed himself more particularly to Nathaniel.
‘Well, pig-face,’ he questioned, ‘how does it seem to you?’
‘My name,’ said the flabby rogue, ‘is Nat.’
‘Maybe, but pig-face becomes you better. Will ye work with me?’
And he looked from one to the other.
Jake agreed with alacrity to the plan, profoundly honoured to serve under so illustrious a leader. Nathaniel, more reluctant because resentful of the lack of respect shown him by the captain, required to be persuaded by his fellow. But in the end it was settled; the twain were to be enrolled under the captain’s banner.
The nature of the active service upon which they were to adventure had yet to be considered, and the captain promised to consider it forthwith. Meanwhile, since they showed signs of slumber as a result of their gross overfeeding, he let them rest for today and recuperate their energies.
‘Ye’ll be snug and safe here, so that ye lie close,’ he assured them, rising. Then he issued an order, ‘Now that ye’ve eaten, clear the table and wash the platters clean. ‘Twill be some employment for you while I’m gone. I shall be back tonight.’
With that he left them.
They heard the hoofs of the roan go padding down the lane, then at last Nathaniel loosed his pent-up wrath.
‘I’ll be triply durned,’ said he, ‘if I turn scullion to any ruffling cove of the pad! Wash the platters!’ He snorted angrily. ‘Skewer my vitals, do I look like a scullery wench?’ He rose in his rage at the indignity. ‘And he called me pig-face, the dirty thief! And — and you, Jake, ye fool, let him beguile you with his smooth cant into promising to serve with him! Fine service, i’ faith! Us’ll risk our necks while his lordship takes the plunder. If ye’ve an ounce of sense in your ugly head, ye’ll come away with me this instant!’
Jake raised his weasel face, and looked at his fellow with shrewd, narrowing eyes.
‘’Tis the way o’ fools and drunkards,’ he moralized, ‘that they must think all the world in their own case. Sit down, you cackling Tom o’ Bedlam, and listen! I know ye’re an unscholarly, ignorant cove that can’t read for yourself. But didn’t I read ye what it said on a paper outside the Lame Dog at Liphook this morning? Didn’t ye hear that the Guvviment be offering a hundred guineas for the capture o’ this ruffling cove?’ He paused a moment to give more effect to what he was about to add. Then he closed one eye slowly. ‘Us’ll earn it,’ he said softly.
Nathaniel stared, his mouth gaping, his eyes bulging. Then he smacked his dusty breeches, and again invited someone to skewer his vitals. Thereafter they discussed the matter.
Captain Evans returned towards evening, and he came at a breakneck gallop, which in itself might have warned his newly enrolled followers that something was wrong. He was breathing heavily when he entered the kitchen, where the twain awaited him, and his face gleamed white in the gathering dusk. He dropped to a chair, and mopped his face with a handkerchief; raised a wig, and mopped his cropped head as well.
‘‘Od’s life, my lads, a near thing!’ he panted.
The sense of peril oozed from him like perspiration, and, catching the infection of it, they sat still, watching him, and awaiting his explanation.
‘’Twas that sleuth from Bow Street, Baldock — the shrewdest catchpoll in the country. He’s been on my heels this month past and more. I fooled him once out o’ sheer wantonness, and it is an unforgiving dog, without humour. But I’ll fool him again ere all is done. He has never seen my face save once, and then it was so disguised that he’d never recognize it. Yet this evening he was within an ace of laying me by the heels. There was a trap set for me. I had taken a fat purse ‘twixt this and Petersfield, and I was returning, when I stopped for a pint of claret at a roadside inn. But for a friendly ostler who gave me a hint, I’d have had more than my pint of claret, and ’tis odds ye’d never again have seen Captain Evans, unless ye went to his hanging.’ He stretched his legs, and breathed more easily. ‘Give me to drink, one o’ ye. There should be ale in the cupboard there.’
It was Jake who did him the service he asked, and fetched a jar from the cupboard. There was little left in it, no more than a cupful, but the captain drained it gratefully. Then he fished out of his pocket a green silk purse with a glint of gold showing through the meshes — a purse which he had taken that afternoon.
‘And now, my lads, we must part company,’ he informed them. ‘The sleuths are too hot upon the scent, and the moment were ill-chosen for the association we had thought of. If we stick together you will but increase my danger, whilst I shall bring danger upon you, too. I am for the West Country for a season, until the Portsmouth Road is clear of Baldock and his runners. ’Twas but to warn you that I returned tonight. You must fend for yourselves, my lads: and here’s to help you on your way.’
On the word he flung the silk purse on to the table, where it fell with a mellow clink.
His generosity, both in this and in having taken risks to return to warn them, must have touched hearts less vile. Them, however, it left unmoved, save by greed and the sense of the need for urgent action. Jake fastened a lean claw upon the purse, and his eyes were two glistening beads.
‘’Tis very generous of you, captain,’ said he; and it almost seemed that he sneered.
Captain Evans rose.
‘And now, fare you well,’ he said.
As he spoke the pair of them leapt at him. Taking him utterly by surprise, they bore him struggling to the ground under their combined weight. He was strong and agile, and almost a match for the pair of them — almost, but not quite. The fight that ensued was fierce and long-drawn. The captain writhed and twisted, grappled, kicked, and smote at them, and before he was overpowered that savage, silent scrimmage had swept across the length of the kitchen floor, raising a cloud of dust, knocking over chairs and table in its furious course. But in the end they had him helpless, bound hand and foot; sweating and panting from his exertions, wigless, dusty, and with disordered garments, glaring at them with furious eyes.
Nathaniel righted one of the chairs that had been knocked over. They forced the captain into it, and bound him fi
rmly to it with cords which they had prepared. Thus powerless, his white face writhing with anger and contempt, he cursed them fiercely for a moment.
‘What are ye at all?’ he asked them thereafter. ‘Could I be mistook? Are ye a couple of dirty catchpolls who have tricked me into believing ye are upright men?’
The flabby Nathaniel, who, winded by his labours, had dropped wearily to a chair, had a miserable pretext ready.
‘Ye called me pig-face!’ he said, with a show of being offended.
‘I see,’ said the captain. ‘And it was that led you to remember that I am worth a hundred guineas to any that can take me.’
He was on the point of adding something more, but it occurred to him that invective was not likely to help him here, that never had he been in more desperate plight since once when the constables had actually fastened their talons on him. What saved him then was his presence of mind, his ready wit. And that was the only weapon that remained him now. He took their measure accurately. He saw that they would no more be loyal to each other than they had been to him did they perceive a course of profitable disloyalty. His first aim must be to separate them so that he might deal with each in turn. He threw back his head, and laughed — a thing so unexpected that it set them staring at him in alarm.
‘Faith,’ he said, ‘the situation has its humour! I’ve been a fool, and I’m no such curmudgeon, after all, as not to know that a fool must blame only himself, and pay the reckoning.’
‘’Tis the proper spirit,’ said Jake. And he proceeded diligently to empty the captain’s pockets.
They yielded him another purse, a gold snuff-box with a jewelled crest, a watch, a couple of valuable rings, and, finally, a brace of barkers. He piled the plunder on the table, and Nathaniel fell to inspecting it, chuckling.
The captain watched them, his wits busy.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 525
