Under Wellington's Command: A Tale of the Peninsular War by G. A. Henty (the top 100 crime novels of all time .txt) 📕

"I must see them," the Maire said. "Come with me to my house, close by."

There were several persons near, and a man in civil uniform was with the Maire. Therefore Terence gave an apparently willing assent and, followed by the functionary, they went into a house close by. A lamp was burning on the table in the hall.

"Light these candles in my office," the Maire said. "The women have gone up to bed."

The man turned a key, went in and, bringing out two candles, lighted them at the lamp; and they then went into the room. The Maire seated himself in an armchair at the table. The minor functionary placed the two suspected persons on the side facing him, and took his place standing by their side.

As they were going in, Terence whispered:

"If there is trouble, I will take this fellow, and you manage the Maire."

"Now," that functionary said, "let me see your papers.

"Why," he exclaimed, looking at the names, "you are not Frenchmen!"

"No," Terence said quietly. "We do not pretend to be but, as you see, we are sailors who have done service on board a French privateer."

"But where is this privateer?"

"I don't know, Monsieur le Maire. We were not satisfied with our treatment, so we left her at Brest."

"This is very serious," the Maire said. "You are Spaniards. You have deserted your ship at Brest. You have travelled a hundred and fifty miles through France, and now what are you doing here?"

"We are, as you say, monsieur, travelling through France. We desire to see France. We have heard that it is the greatest country in the world. Frenchmen visit Spain in large numbers. Why should not Spaniards visit France?"

The tone of sarcasm in which Terence spoke was not lost upon the Maire, who rose from his seat, purple with anger.

"You will take these men into custody," he said to his assistant. "This is a very grave business."

"Now, Dick!" Terence exclaimed and, turning to the man who stood next to him, he grasped him suddenly by the throat.

At the same moment Ryan caught up a heavy inkstand and threw it across the table at the Maire, striking that functionary in the stomach, and doubling him completely up. Then he ran round the table and bound the man--who had not yet recovered his breath--tightly in his chair, and thrust his handkerchief into his mouth.

The man whom Terence was holding had scarcely struggled. Terence, as he gripped him, had said, "Keep quiet or I will choke you!" and the prisoner felt that his assailant could do so in a moment, if he chose.

His hands were fastened tightly behind him, with his own belt, by Ryan. A short ruler was thrust between his teeth, and fastened there by a handkerchief going round the back of his head.

"So far so good, Dick. Now look round for something with which we can bind them more firmly."

Several hanks of red tape lay upon the table. With a portion of one of these, the back of the chair in which the Maire sat was lashed to the handle of a heavy bureau. Then his feet were fastened to the two legs of the chair, so that he could neither kick nor upset himself. The other man was then fastened as securely. This done they blew out the candles, left the room, locked the door behind them--taking the key--and then sallied out into the street.

"That was a good shot of yours with the inkstand," Terence said.

"I had my eye on it, all the time he was speaking," Ryan replied. "I saw that, if I were to move to get round the table at him, the little man would have time to shout; but that if I could hit him in the wind, it would be all right."

"Well, there must be no more stopping, now. I don't know whether there is a Mrs. Maire; if not, there will certainly be no alarm until morning. If there is, it depends upon what sort of woman she is as to how long a start we shall get. If she is a sleepy woman she is probably dreaming by this time, and may not discover until morning that her lord and master is not by her side. If she is a bad-tempered woman, she will probably lie for an hour or two, thinking over what she shall say to him when he comes in. If she is a nervous woman, she will get up and go downstairs.

"I left the lamp burning in the hall on purpose. Seeing it there, she will naturally think that he has not come in, and will go upstairs again for an hour or two; then she will probably call up the servants, and may send them out to look for him; finally, she may go to the police office and wake up a constable. It is not probable there are any of them on night duty, in a quiet place like this. Altogether, I calculate that it will be at least four hours before they think of breaking open the door of the office, to see if he is there; so at the worst we have got four hours' start; at the best, ten hours.

"It is only half-past nine now. We shall be at the mouth of the Sienne in three hours, or less. It does not look above nine or ten miles on the map and, directly we get fairly out of the town, we will go as quickly as we can, for every minute is of importance.

"If we can get hold of a boat at once, we ought to be at Jersey soon after daybreak; although I am not very sure of that, for I believe there are all sorts of strong currents along this coast. I remember one of the officers saying so, as we came down the Channel on the voyage out. Of course, it will make a difference whether we can get a boat with a sail, or not. If we cannot find a boat, we shall have to hide up; but you may be sure that there will be a hot search for us in the morning, and we must get off tonight, if we can. Most likely there is a fishing village somewhere near the mouth of the river."

As soon as they were out of the town they broke into a trot; which they continued, with scarcely any intermission, until they approached a small village.

"I expect this stands on the bank of the river," Terence said. "There is no chance of anyone being up, so we can go through fearlessly."

A couple of hundred yards farther they reached the river. A large ferry boat was moored here. Keeping along the bank to the left, they were not long before they came upon several boats hauled up on the shore; while three or four others lay at their moorings, a short distance out.

"Thank goodness," Terence exclaimed. "We shall have no difficulty, now!"

They selected the boat lying nearest the water's edge. The moon was half full, but was now sinking towards the west. Its light, however, was of some assistance to them. There was a mast and sail in the boat, as well as a pair of oars.

At first they were unable to move her down to the water but, getting some oars out of the other boats, they laid them down as rollers and, with these, managed after great exertions to get her afloat.

After pushing the boat out into the stream, Terence and his companion allowed it to drift quietly for some distance; and then, getting out the oars, rowed hard until they were beyond the mouth of the river. The tide was, they thought, by the level of the water where they had embarked, within an hour or two of flood. They therefore determined to shape their course to the north of the point where they believed Jersey to lie, so that when tide turned, it would sweep them down upon it. The wind was too light to be of any assistance, but the stars were bright, and the position of the north star served as a guide to the direction they should take.

It had taken them some considerable time to launch the boat, and they calculated that it was nearly midnight when they left the mouth of the river. There was no occasion to row hard for, until it became daylight and they could see the island of Jersey, they could not shape their course with any certainty; and could only hope that by keeping to the north of it they would not find, in the morning, that the tide had taken them too far to the south.

"We are very lucky in our weather," Terence said as, after labouring at the heavy oars for a couple of hours, they paused for a few minutes' rest. "If it had been a strong wind, it would never have done for us to have started. I believe in bad weather there are tremendous currents about the islands, and desperately rough water. A fog would have been even worse for us. As it is, it seems to me we cannot go very far wrong. I suppose the tide is about turning now; but if by daylight we find that we have been carried a long way past the island, we shall soon have the tide turning again, which will take us back to it.

"I am more afraid of falling in with a French privateer than I am of missing the island. There are sure to be some of them at Granville, to say nothing of Saint Malo. I don't suppose any of those at Granville will put out in search of us, merely to please the Maire; but if any were going to sea, they would be sure to keep a lookout for us."

"If they did see us, we should have no chance of getting away, Terence. This boat is not so big as the one we stole at Bayonne, but it rows much heavier."

"There is one thing--even a privateer could not sail very fast in this light wind and, if it freshens in the morning, we can get up the sail."

"Then I hope it will get up a bit," Ryan said, "for after another five or six hours' rowing, with these beastly oars, my hands will be raw; and I am sure my back and arms will be nearly broken."

"We must risk that, Dick. We calculated fifteen miles in a straight line across to Jersey, so that we must jog along at the rate of a couple of miles an hour to get far enough to the west. Now then, let us be moving again."

The night seemed interminable to them; and they felt relieved, indeed, when morning began to break. In another half hour it would be light enough for them to see for a considerable distance. Unshipping their oars, they stood up and looked round.

"That must be Jersey," Terence exclaimed, pointing to the north. "The current must have taken us past it, as I was afraid it would. What time is it, Dick?"

"Nearly eight."

"Then tide must be turning already. The island must be six miles away now. If we row hard we shall know, in half an hour, whether we are being carried north or south."

"But we must be going north if tide has turned, Terence?"

"I don't know--I remember that the mate of the Sea Horse said that, in the Channel, the course of the current did not change at high and low water; so there is no saying what way we are going, at present. Well, there is a little more wind, and I suppose we had better get up our sail. There is Jersey, and whether we get there a little sooner or a little later cannot make much difference. I am sure we are both too tired to row her much faster than we can sail."

Terence agreed, and they accordingly stepped the mast and hoisted the sail. At first the boat moved but slowly through the water, but the wind was freshening and, in half an hour, she was foaming along.

"Tide is against us, still," Terence said presently. "I don't think we are any nearer Jersey that when we first saw it."

"Look there!" Ryan exclaimed, a few minutes later, "there is a lugger coming out from the direction of Granville."

"So there is, Dick, and with the wind behind her, she won't be very long before she is here. I should say that she is about six or seven miles off, and an hour will bring her up to us."

"I will get out an oar, Terence. That will help us a bit. We can change about, occasionally."

Terence was steering with the other oar, while he held the sheet. The boat was travelling at a good rate, but the lugger was fast running down towards