Norton, Andre - Novel 08 (21 page)

 
          
 
They went rocketing off at a good pace.

 
          
 
"As this pestilent climate would make
anyone feel." Crofts lifted the skirts of his coat and allowed the warmth
to climb his tight breeches. "But at least this is some small improvement
on our last lodging."

 
          
 
Fitz continued to shiver.
"Which
one?
The one in which I met you suits me best.
Aha—food!"
He watched the waiter and an underling bring in heavily laden trays.
"But—are we an army?" He began to be astonished at the number of
dishes they were unloading.

 
          
 
The waiter bobbed his head. "Beggin* your
pardons, gentlemen. But we be so full tonight,
th
'
other officers will dine in 'ere too."

 
          
 
Before Fitz could frame a protest there was a
hearty roar of laughter from the hall, and three men in the red coats of the
army came tramping in upon them, bringing with them the fumes of a strong rum
punch. The well-jowled leader flipped a hand in half-salute to the two by the
hearth and boomed genially:

 
          
 
"Damme, if we ain't being attack in
force, boys
! '
Tis the sea dogs we find in
possession."

 
          
 
Fitz by some miracle regained use of his
tongue.
"Not at all, sir.
We believe that by the
rights of seniority you gentlemen have first call upon the provisions."

 
          
 
Crofts moved up beside him.
"Just
so.
By your permission though, we shall join you in demolishing them.
Lieutenant Crofts of the
Neptune
.”
He bowed and Fitz echoed his movement.
"Lieutenant Lyon, also of the
Neptune
”

           
 
"I'm Major Goodwin of the
Forty-fourth," returned the leader of the invading troops. "And this
is Mr. Roberts and Captain Farrier, also of ours."

 
          
 
All three of the military had drunk, even if
they had not dined, but even so Fitz felt a chill crawl down his spine. One
mistaken word or awkward answer could bring disaster on them. He looked to
Crofts for guidance. The Captain was calmly seating himself at the table,
watching the waiter carve their beef with the proper attention of a hungry man.
For a single instant he lifted his eyes to Fitz, and then beyond him to the
door.

 
          
 
Fitz thought of the confusion in the yard
below. There was one precaution which they could still take. He dared to
believe that Crofts meant the next move to be his. He made up his mind.

 
          
 
"If you will excuse me for the nonce,
gentlemen, I find that I have dropped my snuffbox, perhaps in the chaise."
He caught up his hat and cloak.
Crofts was
intent now,
very intent, upon the beef.

 
          
 
"Lord, man, don't venture out in this
muck for it," Captain Farrier was beginning, "let one of the inn
fellows "

 
          
 
Fitz shook his head.
"
Tis
a trinket I put value on," he tried to get meaning into that.

 
          
 
The officer laughed.
"From
a fairest one, eh?
Well, young blood runs
hot "

 
          
 
Fitz ducked out of the door and fairly ran
down the

 
          
 
passage
and out into
the yard, pausing for a moment to locate the stables. A dark figure slid out
from an archway.

 
          
 
"What's to do, sir?" In that soft
whisper Fitz recognized their postilion. He remembered the recommendation of
their
Plymouth
benefactor.

 
          
 
"There may be trouble. Could you have two
horses waiting?"

 
          
 
The man betrayed no surprise. "Two horses
it is, sir.
As soon as I can make it.
And over by that
window they'll be—that looks into the Bow, sir. Take
this
"

 
          
 
Fitz's fingers closed about the chill metal of
a pistol. The postilion faded away again.

 
          
 
So that window looked into the Bow, did it? He
began to edge along the wall toward the square of light.

 
          
 
Here's to the squire who goes to parade,

            
Here's to the citizen soldier;

            
Here's to the merchant who fights
for his trade,

            
Whom danger
increasingly makes bolder.

 
          
 
—THE VOLUNTEER BOYS

 
          
 
With his fingernails, Fitz dug at the casement
until he was able to edge it open toward him. The candle-lighted table was the
center of activity within. And Crofts, with an empty place at his right, was
facing the window. The Captain was giving full attention to his plate, but,
just as the casement swung open far enough for Fitz to hear what was being
said, the Major asked loudly:

 
          
 
"
Neptune
, eh?
Then you'll be shipmates with Johnny
Cross "

 
          
 
Crofts chewed ostentatiously. But there was a
note in the Major's voice which made the Marylander very glad he had taken his
precautions. Crofts came to the last swallow of a mouthful he could mince no
finer.

 
          
 
"Cross—Cross," he repeated with a
slight frown. "Cross?"

 
          
 
The Major put plump hands on the table edge
and worked himself forward on his chair.

 
          
 
" 'Tis
odd that
you are not more knowing of your Captain's name, Lieutenant."

 
          
 
Crofts laid down his fork and Fitz jerked open
the window to its fullest extent. The curtain caught the breeze and billowed
out into the room. One of the officers cried out, pointing to the fluttering
strip of muslin. But Crofts gained his feet in one supple motion as Fitz
reached in his arm to pull the curtain away. Then he took a chance at the
greatest shot of his life, aiming with the postilion's pistol at the shaft of
the candelabra which lit the room.

 
          
 
The explosion of the shot was echoed by shouts
as the flaming candles snuffed out on the cloth. Fitz jumped back as the window
square framed a squirming shadow. But he was able to give the last tug which
brought Crofts through safely.

 
          
 
"This way, sir!"
The postilion called from behind the coach. He was holding the reins of two
horses. "And for God's sake, sir, keep t' th' road, if ye can. Th' moor be
a death trap fer 'em as knows it not!"

 
          
 
Crofts scrambled awkwardly onto his chosen
mount, and Fitz swung onto his, jamming the pistol into the empty holster on
the saddle. Behind them the shouting was louder and a circle of lanterns burst
out of the inn door.

 
          
 
"Come on!" Fitz dug his spurless
heels into his mount and headed through the courtyard arch onto the post road.
Crofts pounded just behind him.

 
          
 
The fog seemed to deaden all sound so that
they rode in a kind of muffled, feather-shrouded world—rode hard, holding to
the road as their only guide. It wasn't until that road split into two that
Fitz reined up and looked back for the Captain. But Crofts was not there.
Nowhere in the dense curtain of fog did there appear to be another moving
creature.

 
          
 
Fitz shivered with a chill which was not born
of the dank mist about him. He was alone—on a moor road! Some of the accidents
which might have overtaken Crofts ran through his mind. There was the chance of
straying from the track into one of the death-bogs, a bad fall into a ditch,
recapture . . .

 
          
 
He pulled rein and turned back along the way
he had come. And a pace or two away from the crossroad he was rewarded by a
glimpse of a dark shape fading into the mist. Fitz began to whistle—that shrill
pipe which had marked the time for Ninnes' recruiting song so long ago in
Baltimore
. Since a shout might betray them to the
hunters, that tune might identify him to his companion. He followed the shape
into the dark and—off the post road.

 
          
 
Twice more he caught sight of the flying
shadow, but even when he ventured to call there was no slackening of pace. Then
he believed that he had heard a cry for help from some distance ahead. He sent
his mount plunging on.

 
          
 
Straight out of the murk
loomed a black prickly wall of hedge.
There was no time to search for a
break. And with the eye of a horseman used to riding over rough land, he gauged
it not too high. He might not be mounted on a hunter from the Fairleigh
stables, but he guessed that the postilion had given them the best possible
horses available. So he booted the brute into a jump.

 
          
 
There was a single sickening moment of
awareness of his folly as together they plunged over and down —down into a gulf
which had no end. Then Fitz struck bottom with a blow which flattened the air
out of his lungs. He lay still in utter blackness.

 
          
 
Gravel dug painfully into his face and his head
was one blinding pain. He dragged himself up to his elbows and rested before he
could pull himself to his knees. Then he was instantly and thoroughly sick,
with a retching which left him empty and weak. But his will would not let him
rest. He clawed about in the dark until his fingers closed on a spiky bush
which gave him some support to gain his unsteady feet.

 
          
 
He fell again twice before he had moved six
feet, and only a semiconscious will kept him going.
All the
world was a black pocket through which he had to pull himself with his two
palm-raw T hands.

 
          
 
The last time he fell it was onto a patch of
waterlogged stuff which gave some ease to his scraped face and hands. He
allowed himself some precious rest there before he got doggedly to his feet again.

 
          
 
His head was throbbing with a regular
rhythm—it was almost like the tolling of a bell, sonorous and deep. He held his
head in his torn hands for a long moment before he realized dimly that there
was a bell sounding somewhere, ringing with steady chime. Instinctively he
started on toward the source of that tolling.

 
          
 
Once he came up against a great block of what
was rough stone under his questing fingers. And he clung there for some time,
panting and listening to the bell. But at last he forced his tired body on.

 
          
 
He reached the wall which lay beyond, and
tumbled over its low barrier. The bell was very close now—its clamor adding to
the pain behind his half-closed eyes. Yet he must get up and find it—that was
somehow important.

 
          
 
There were tall gray stones standing upright
in the space behind the wall, stones he stumbled against before he sighted them
or could fend himself away from their hardness. But at last he reeled into the
place of the bell and fell, for the last time, into a yellow circle of lantern
light.

 
          
 
"Godfrey! Godfrey!" Fitz could
barely hear the voice or feel the hands tugging at him. "Godfrey-come here
at once, man!"

 
          
 
Fitz gave up fighting and slipped down into
the darkness, leaving even pain behind him.

 
          
 
He awoke—to be faced with the round furry
countenance of a cat watching him with unblinking yellow eyes. The face split
in a wide yawn, a pink, pointed tongue curled up. Then
came
a soft, comfortable rumble of sound which was somewhat soothing to the faint
ache behind his eyes. His hands explored the surface on which he lay. He was in
a bed true enough, a soft, well-made bed, and there was a hot wrapped brick
between his two feet.

 
          
 
The cat, curled in comfort at the foot of the
bed, again opened its sleepy eyes and looked beyond Fitz at someone outside the
range of his vision. Fitz was too lazy to turn his head to see the disturber of
the peace they shared.

 
          
 
"Noll!" the whisper was an
exasperated one. "So this is where you disappeared to, you son of dark
powers!"

 
          
 
Noll yawned for the second time and paid
delicate attention with the tip of a pink tongue to the toes of his right front
paw. He did not deign to notice the whisper. A small man in a spruce black coat
and freshly laundered lawn bands came to the foot of the bed and was about to
pick up the cat when he noticed Fitz's eyes fixed dreamily upon him. He
straightway forgot his errand and came to the head of the bed, a smile of real
pleasure creasing the tight wrinkles of his gentle face.

 
          
 
"So, my boy, you are awake ..."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir . . ." Fitz found it
something of an effort to pull those words out to use. It was so much easier to
lie there drowsily and let
himself
slip off again into
the warm darkness.

 
          
 
The little man's dry hand touched his
forehead, and then slipped lightly down to rest on the pulse which beat in his
throat. He nodded twice as if pleased and was gone, almost before Fitz noticed
his going. Fitz blinked at Noll and closed his eyes. Noll had the proper
idea—now was the time for sleep.

 
          
 
But when he aroused for the second time there
was no thin shaft of sunlight across his bed. Instead candlelight made bright
the pattern of the cover under which he lay. And now he pulled himself up a
little and looked around with real curiosity.

 
          
 
The room was a comfortable one, although small
and with old-fashioned furnishings. And from somewhere a delightful odor was
seeping in. He recognized the emptiness of hunger and was impatient for food.
Then out of nowhere Noll came, a black and white shadow, to leap up on the bed
and prowl the length of Fitz's body, seating himself with his tail curled over
his paws to watch the American with cold interest.

 
          
 
But a moment later Noll's master came in with
a second candle, followed by a large young man in the leather breeches of a
groom who carefully carried before him a tray bearing a covered bowl. Noll so
far forgot himself as to greet them with a soft meow.

 
          
 
"Get down!" the little man made
brushing motions.
"Away with you, sir.
Your
supper is on your plate.
Just where it always is.
Begone and get it!"

 
          
 
Noll moved down the bed, leaped from the foot
and disappeared. The young man put down the tray and stepped to the bed.
Without saying a word he deftly raised Fitz against the pillows and so widened
the boundaries of the American's world. The host nodded.

 
          
 
"Well done, Godfrey. I shall ring when
you are needed. And now, my boy, I think perhaps a bit of soup?"

 
          
 
He whisked the cover off the bowl, and with a
silver spoon set about feeding Fitz some capital chicken broth with a dexterity
which Fitz admired. When the scraping of silver against china announced the end
of the course, the little man brought from by the fire a small pan, the
contents of which he poured into a cup and held to Fitz's lips.

 
          
 
"Down this, my boy, you'll be the better
for it tomorrow. You have had a most merciful escape from lung fever—a most
merciful escape!"