Jim Davis/Chapter IX

CHAPTER IX SIGNING ON

The inner room was much larger than the prison chamber; it was not littered with boxes, but clean and open like a frigate's lower deck. It was not, perhaps, quite so light as the other room, but there were great holes in the cliff hidden by bushes from the view of passing fishermen, and the sun streamed through these on to the floor, leaving only the ends of the room in shadow. The room had been arranged like the mess-deck of a war-ship; there were sea-chests and bags ranged trimly round the inner wall; there was a trestle table littered with tin pannikins and plates. The roof was supported by a line of wooden stanchions. There were arm racks round the stanchions, containing muskets, cutlasses, and long, double-barrelled pistols. As I expected, there were several bee-skeps hanging from nails, or lying on the floor. I was in the smugglers' roost, perhaps in the presence of Captain Sharp himself.

The drunken smuggler who had sung of Captain Glen was the only occupant of the room when we entered: he sat half asleep in his chest, still clutching his pannikin, still muttering about the boatswain. He was an Italian by birth, so Marah told me. He was known as Gateo. When he was sober he was a good seaman, but when he was drunk he would do nothing but sing of Captain Glen until he dropped off to sleep. He had served in the Navy, Marah told me, and had once been a boatswain's mate in the Victory; but he had deserted, and now he was a smuggler living in a hole in the earth.

"And now," said Marah, after he had told me all this, "you and me will have to talk. Step into the other room there, you boys," he cried to the other smugglers: "I want to have a word with master here."

One of the men—he was the big man who had raised the alarm on us; I never knew his real name, everybody always called him Extry—said glumly that he "wasn't going to oblige boys, not for dollars."

Marah turned upon him, and the two men faced each other; the others stood expectantly, eager for a fight. "Step into the other room there," repeated Marah quietly.

"I ain't no pup nor no nigger-man," said Extry. "You ain't going to order me."

Marah seemed to shrink into himself and to begin to sparkle all over—I can't describe it: that is the effect he produced—he seemed to settle down like a cat going to spring. Extry's hand travelled round for his sheath-knife, and yet it moved indecisively, as though half afraid. And then, just as I felt that Extry would die from being looked at in that way, he hung his head, turned to the door, and walked out sheepishly according to order. He was beaten.

"No listening now," said Marah, as they filed out. "Keep on your own side of the fence."

"Shall we take Gatty with us?" said one of the men.

"Let him lie," said Marah; "he's hove down for a full due, Gatty is."

The men disappeared with their prisoner. Marah looked after them for a moment. "Now," he said, "come on over here to the table, Master Jim." He watched me with a strange grin upon his face; I knew that grin; it was the look his face always bore when he was worried. "Now we will come to business. Lie back against the hammocks and rest; I'm going to talk to you like a father."

I lay back upon the lashed-up hammocks and he began.

"I suppose you know what you've done? You've just about busted yourself. D'ye know that? You thought you'd rescue the pugs"—he meant coastguards. "Well, you haven't. You have gone and shoved your head down a wasp's nest, so you'll find. How did you get here, in the first place? What gave you your clue?"

"I saw the coastguards up above here yesterday," I answered, "and I thought I heard voices speaking from below the brow of the cliff, so then I searched about till I found a hole, and so I got down here."

"Ah," said Marah, "they will be round here looking for you, then. I'll take the liberty of hiding your tracks." He went in to the other room and spoke a few words to one of the other smugglers. "Well," he said, as he came back to me, "they'll not find you now, if they search from now till glory. They'll think you fell into the sea."

"But," I exclaimed, "I must go home! Surely I can go home now? They'll be so anxious."

"Yes," said Marah, "they'll be anxious. But look you here, my son; folk who acts hasty, as you've done, they often make other people anxious—often enough. Very anxious indeed, some of 'em. That's what you have done by coming nosing around here. Now here you are, our prisoner—Captain Sharp's prisoner—and here you must stay."

"But, I must go home," I cried, the tears coming to my eyes. "I must go home."

"Well, you just can't," he answered kindly. "Think it over a minute. You've come here," he went on, "nosing round like a spy; you've found out our secret. You might let as many as fifty men in for the gallows—fifty men to be hanged, d'ye understand; or to be transported, or sent to a hulk, or drafted into a man-o'-war. I don't say you would, for I believe you have sense: still, you're only a boy, and they might get at you in all sorts of ways. Cunning lawyers might. And then you give us away and where would we be? Eh, boy? Where would we be? Suppose you gave us away, meaning no harm, not really knowing what you done. Well, I ask you, where would we be?"

"I wouldn't give you away," I said hotly. "You know I wouldn't. I never gave you away about the hut in the woods."

"No," he said, "you never; but this time there's men's necks concerned. I can't help myself—Captain Sharp's, orders. I couldn't let you go if I wanted to; the hands wouldn't let me. It'd be putting so many ropes round their necks." By this time I was crying. "Don't cry, young 'un," he said; "it won't be so bad. But you see yourself what you've done now, don't you?"

He walked away from me a turn or two to let me have my cry out. When my sobs ceased, he came back and sat close to me, waiting for me to speak.

"What will you do to me?" I asked him.

"Why," he answered, "there's only one thing to be done; either you've got to become one of us, so as if you give us away you'll be in the same boat—I don't say you need be one of us for long; only a trip or two—or, you'll have to walk through the window there, and that's a long fall and a mighty wet splash at the bottom."

I thought of Mims waiting at home for me, and of the jolly tea-table, with Hoolie begging for toast and Hugh's face bent over his plate. The thought that I should never see them again set me crying passionately—I cried as if my heart would break.

"Why—come, come," said Marah; "I thought you were a sailor. Take a brace, boy. We're not going to kill you. You'll make a trip or two. What's that? Why it's only a matter of a week or two, and it'll make a man of you. A very jolly holiday. I'll be able to make a man of you just as I said I would. You'll see life and you'll see the sea, and then you'll come home and forget all about us. But go home you'll not, understand that, till we got a hold on you the same as you on us."

There was something in his voice which gave me the fury of despair. I sprang to my feet, almost beside myself. "Very well, then," I cried. "You can drown me. I'm not going to be one of you. And if I ever get away I'll see you all hanged, every one of you—you first."

I couldn't say more, for I burst out crying again.

Marah sat still, watching me. "Well, well," he said, "I always thought you had spirit. Still, no sense in drowning you, no sense at all."

He walked to the door and called out to some of the smugglers, "Here, Extry, Hankin, you fellows, just come in here, I want you a moment."

The men came in quickly, and ranged themselves about the room, grinning cheerfully.

"'Low me to introduce you," said Marah. "Our new apprentice, Mr Jim Davis."

The men bowed to me sheepishly.

"Glad to meet Mr Davis," said one of them.

"Quite a pleasure," said another.

"I s'pose you just volunteered, Mr Jim?" said the third.

"Yes," said Marah; "he just volunteered. I want you to witness his name on the articles." He produced a sheet of paper which was scrawled all over with names. "Now, Mr Jim," he said, "your name, please. There's ink and pen in the chest here."

"What d'ye want my name for?" I asked.

"Signing on," he said, winking at me. It's only a game."

"I won't set my name to the paper." I cried. "I'll have nothing to do with you. I'd sooner die—far sooner."

"That's a pity," said Marah, taking up the pen. "Well, if you won't, you won't."

He bent over the chest and wrote "Jim Davis" in a round, unformed, boyish hand, not unlike my own.

"Now, boys," he said, "you have seen the signature. Witness it, please."

The men witnessed the signature and made their clumsy crosses; none of them could write.

"You see?" asked Marah. "We were bound to get you, Jim. You've signed our articles." "I've done nothing of the kind," I said. "Oh! but you have," he said calmly. "Here's your witnessed signature. You're one of us now."

"It's a forgery!" I cried.

"Forgery?" he said in pretended amazement. "But here are witnesses to swear to it. Now don't take on, son"—he saw that I was on the point of breaking down again at seeing myself thus trapped. "You can't get away. You're ours. Make the best of a bad job. We will tell your friends you are safe. They'll know within an hour that you will not be home till the end of June. After that you will be enough one of us to keep your tongue shut for your own sake. I'm sorry you don't like it. Well, 'The sooner the quicker' is a good proverb. The sooner you dry your tears, the quicker we can begin to work together. Here, Smokewell, get dinner along; it's pretty near two o'clock. Now, Jim, my son, I'll just send a note to your people." He sat down on a chest and began to write. "No," he added; "you had better write. Say this: 'I am safe. I shall be back in three weeks' time. Say I have gone to stay in Somersetshire with Captain Sharp. Do not worry about me. Do not look for me. I am safe.' There; that's enough. Give it here. Hankin, deliver this letter at once to Mrs Cottier, at the Snail's Castle. Don't show your beautiful face to more'n you can help. Be off."

Hankin took the letter and shambled out of the cave. Long afterwards I heard that he shot it through the dining-room window on a dart of hazelwood while my aunt and Mrs Cottier were at lunch. That was the last letter I wrote for many a long day. That was my farewell to boyhood, that letter.

After a time Smokewell brought in dinner, and we all fell-to at the table. For my own part, I was too sick at heart to eat much, though the food was good enough. There was a cold fowl, a ham, and a great apple-pasty.

After dinner, the men cut up tobacco, and played cards, and smoked, and threw dice; but Marah made them do this in the outer room. He was very kind to me in my wretchedness. He slung one of the hammocks for me, and made me turn in for a sleep. After a time I cried myself into a sort of uneasy doze. I woke up from time to time, and whenever I woke up I would see Marah smoking, with his face turned to the window, watching the sea. Then I would hear the flicker of the cards in the next room, and the voices of the players. "You go that? Do you? Well, and I'll raise you." And then I would hear the money being paid to the winners, and wonder where I was, and so doze off again into all manner of dreams.