The COURAGEOUS EXPLOITS OF DOCTOR SYN - Thorndike Russell (книги онлайн полные TXT) 📗

Bone dressed as the Scarecrow is seen by Captain Blain riding the Marsh while we’re away. We must be in the

mouth of the Somme by daybreak, and for that the wind sets fair. Name ten men for the lugger, with you and I to

navigate. We will not waste time and tide, but come back with a run of good cargo. I’ll instruct Jimmie Bone in the

hidden stable tonight before we set out for France.”

That night a lugger went out with the tide from Littlestone Beach. Five of the ten Nightriders aboard took the

first watch while their fellows rested in the fo’c’sle. The Scarecrow himself set the course, and kept the helm till

three in the morning when he called Mipps from the aft cabin.

“Hellspite, you will wake me at dawn,” he ordered, “when we shall be within the mouth of the Somme.”

“Aye, aye, Scarecrow,” replied Mipps beneath the hideous devil’s mask, which every Nightrider wore when on

the Scarecrow’s business.

The night was pitch dark, and the lugger showed no lights, so that she was hailed neither by ship not boat until

just as dawn was breaking in the river-mouth a throaty tenor voice echoed across the calm water with the cry of

“L’Epouvantail.”

Although the water on the shelter of the river-mouth was smooth, there was a breeze stirring which rapidly

brought the two vessels closer, the lugger and a fishing boat carrying a lug sail.

Through his mask, which looked more than ever hideous in the fair growing light, Mipps hailed back, and then

gave orders for heaving to so that the smaller boat could fetch up alongside. He then went to the cabin and roused

Doctor Syn.

“If I know Duloge, he will be in this boat that’s hailed us,” said the doctor, adjusting his Scarecrow mask. “And

what is more, I know why he is there. In all the years I’ve worked with him I find I can admire him more and more.

Perhaps this is conceit, but his brain always works in accord with mine own. What he does under certain

emergencies, why, so do I, and vice versa. We think along the same courses. Duloge is in that boat because he

wants to head us off before we enter our harbour. He has evidently something important to tell us, and he has timed

our arrival with his usual skill. Help him aboard and bring him here, where we can talk in private, for we must

know the situation before we land.”

Duloge was a colossal creature, who on rare occasions of necessity looked magnificent in rough clothes, when he

would shame his servants’ manhood by lifting casks and stowing them, while four men working on one cask at a

time took longer.

His appearance in more normal times, however, was marred by his love of effeminate finery. Descended from a

long line of ancestors who owed their name to the sea fortress which they had held for centuries, the present master

of castle and harbour liked to dress in the latest mode from Court, which, as Doctor Syn told Mipps, ill-became the

grand old bull. Even his booming voice he trained to a languid tenor in order to show his fellows an aristocratic

superiority. He was rich, because his ancestors had been sea rovers, which was a gentlemanly term for pirates, and

since casting in his valuable lot with the Scarecrow, he had become much richer. His vanity in clothes had

persuaded him to spend most of the night in an open boat dressed as thought he might have been attending a Royal

levee. A contrast indeed to the fantastic rags of the Scarecrow who received him in the dirty aft cabin of the lugger.

Their meeting was cordial, and while Mipps served them with brandy their conversation was carried out in

French, Doctor Syn explaining in English the vital points to his lieutenant.

The Frenchman concluded with: “My dear L’epouvantail, although the situation is annoying and the rascals think

they have the whip hand, this is not so. True they hold the stores of liquor and food, and with the weapons from the

armoury could sustain a siege, but against that they are also houses with the powder magazine, and if I chose to

jeopardize the safety of my chateau, I can blow them to their Kingdom Come whenever I feel disposed. As you

know, the store-house was at one time the kitchen of the old castle, before the present chateau was built. In the roof

there is a secret door which opens into the great chimney. The disused hearth is stacked with powder down, which

they would think surely to drop loose powder down, which they would think but soot, and at our convenience lay a

train across the roof and through the door. I think the chateau walls would bear the shock somewhat easier than they

could. Since the rascals watch the windows I thought of letting myself down into the fireplace and surprising the

vermin from the back. With my back to the powder barrels they would dread to fire, and my long sword would have

been a match against their cutlasses. That was an alternative against the powder train.”

“I should have thought of that myself,” replied Doctor Syn.

“But I couldn’t put it into practice,” explained the Frenchman, “by reason of my cursed girth. I found I should

need more powder than I had to blow me through the secret door. It’s small, quite small.”

“But Mipps and I could do it,” said Doctor Syn, “and when we spring our surprise, you could attack them from

the front with my ten Nightriders.”

Duloge nodded. “I envy you your part in it. Surprises are enchanting, but fat men find them difficult. With a

rope a thin man could be lowered without noise.”

Duloge then explained that his chief reason for meeting the lugger was to prevent them from steering into the

harbour, which would have put them under the direct fire of the mutineers, and he now proposed that they should

stand in as near as possible and then land the crew from his own boat upon a beach protected from the store-house

by the harbour wall, adding that this could be done the quicker by using another fishing boat which was beached

close to the spot where he proposed to land them

Since time was important in order that if all went well Doctor Syn and his men could make their return voyage

that night, both vessels were headed towards the distant harbour of Duloge. While Mipps looked after this, the two

leaders remained in the cabin and elaborated their plan of attack.

As it was broad daylight when the first boat-load touched the beach, it was useless to attempt concealment, since

the windows of the row of white cottages set aside for the prisoners’ married quarters faced the sea, and despite the

early hour a crowd of women and children were discussing the arrival of the Kent lugger. This fact, however,

Doctor Syn turned to his own advantage, and only waited till all his men were landed before putting it into

execution. The landing took longer than Duloge had hoped because the other fishing boat he had counted on was

nowhere t o be seen. He conjectured that his own servants must have taken her out to catch fish for his table.

At the head of his men the Scarecrow strode up the beach and confronted the women, while Duloge went to the

chateau to find a rope. In a stern voice he addressed them. “I am sorry you have allowed your men to mutiny, when

I have treated them with mercy. Well, my punishment will be as sudden as their revolt. You may think I have

brought my Nightriders here for the purpose of attack. That would be foolish, since we have but to show ourselves

upon the quay to be fired at from the cover of the store-house. I am too fond of my faithful followers for that. No.

They are here to remove you all, women and children, from your comfortable cottages. You will be taken aboard

the lugger to a destination unknown to you menfolk. It is a fitting punishment that they shall never set eyes on you