The Stolen Lake (9 page)

"Mussy," said Dido. "Will
that
thing take us up the river? It looks like a floating chicken coop."

Captain Hughes also eyed the riverboat with some disfavor; but its wooden structure was gray with age and green with waterweed, which seemed to prove that it must have battled its way up and down the Severn River a great many times without mishap. The passengers climbed down a ladder from the jetty and were shown to their quarters. Captain Hughes had a small cabin to himself on the upper foredeck. The others went down to the middle deck, which was open right through the middle of the boat from stem to stern, with a large dining table in the center, and a row of small boxlike cabins on either side. The lowest deck was for cargo, and Dido, looking down a flight of wooden steps, observed that it was packed with freight: bales, barrels, tied-up cows, and crates of poultry. The space by the rail was kept clear, and on each side twelve great wooden handles protruded through slots in the deck.

"What's those for?" Dido asked Mr. Holystone.

"I infer that is how the boat is propelled. Rowers pulling those levers cause the paddle wheel to revolve."

Indeed, the passengers being now all embarked, and the mooring cast off, twenty-four Cumbrian oarsmen, wearing nothing but black cotton trousers, took their places at the levers and, after a shouted command from a coxswain, hauled repeatedly on the handles and let go, until, with a mournful creaking and groaning, the boat was set in motion and worked out into midstream.

"It's a mite slow, ain't it?" said Dido doubtfully.

It was not slow for long. After about ten minutes, when the dim lights of Tenby had fallen away astern, Dido began to hear, above the creak of the levers and the groan of the paddle wheel, a kind of huge sigh that began far away and came closer and closer, becoming so loud at last that it drowned all other noises. At this moment a vast wave overtook the paddleboat and rolled it along the river as a leaf is bowled along by an eddy. The rowers continued to work at their levers; Dido would have liked to ask why, but could not possibly have made herself heard. But after a while she guessed that the motion of the paddle wheel helped to steer the boat and keep it on course in the middle of the stream.

The members of the
Thrush
's crew settled themselves in the after part of the boat, stretched out comfortably on canvas cots. Dido found herself a cot and placed it up in the bows, where, when day broke, she would get the best view, and also be as far as possible from Silver Taffy.

She found it difficult, however, to get back to sleep. She had slept for a few hours at The White Hart (with Mr. Holystone mounting guard over her slumbers) and now felt fresh, alert, and rested, ready to begin the next day. But the next day was slow in coming; there was no sign of dawn. Up above, huge southern stars blazed in a dark blue sky; on either side, high ramparts of tangly black forest moved endlessly past. Sometimes a pair of eyes could be seen flashing in the darkness; sometimes a menacingly large winged shape coasted overhead. For a long time these were the only signs of life in the forest of Broceliande.

The deafening thunder of the tidal bore gradually decreased until it became a low, rushing gurgle, like the sound of a distant waterfall. After an hour or so, Dido began to catch sounds in the forest: the shrill cries of night birds, the wail of a peafowl, the hiccuping cry of a screech owl; the mewling cry of a great cat, the bellow of an alligator, the bark of apes, the grunting of wild pigs.

Sure is a lot going on in those woods, thought Dido. I ain't sorry we're doing this bit by boat. Guess I wouldn't care to live in Bath Regis if the only way to the sea is through this forest. There's too many critters in there a-waiting to bite and sting and scrunch.

There were humans, too, equally fierce, as she presently discovered. After a while the moon came climbing up over the forest trees, and then, once or twice, by its light, she saw shaggy, wild-looking men, who came down to the water's edge with drawn bows and discharged long jagged arrows after the boat; fortunately the arrows, in each case, fell short, and the bowmen, dancing and gesticulating with rage, were soon left behind.

The next thing that Dido saw was so strange, terrifying, and dreamlike that, for a while afterward, she wondered if perhaps she
had
dreamed it.

The boat had by now arrived in a region where the forest was not so thick; wide open glades, clearings, and savannahs alternated with great spreading creeper-hung trees, whose black shadows were encircled by areas of silvery moonlit jungle grass. Sometimes the ship was in shadow, sometimes in moonlight as it swept upstream, and Dido, yawning on her canvas cot, was beginning to be lulled by the change from light to dark and from dark to light; she had been on the point of stretching out and falling asleep when her attention was caught by the sight of mounted horsemen galloping toward the right-hand bank. As they neared the river's edge, it could be seen that the riders were cloaked and hooded, all in black, and that there were hounds, galloping silently along with them. The hounds were very large, pale-colored, white perhaps, all except their ears, which seemed to be brown or black.

"Fancy—a hunt!" thought Dido drowsily. "Rummy time o' night to go tally-hoing. Wonder what they're after? There'd be plenty to choose from in that wood."

The riverboat, on the crest of the bore, overtook the riders, passed them, and drew ahead, round a bend of the stream; in a few minutes they came within sight of the hunters' quarry. Dido saw with horrid shock that this was a human being—whether male or female she could not be sure—somebody apparently carrying some heavy object, running and stumbling among the bushes close to the river's edge, blundering with the frantic speed of terror through the low-growing scrub, slipping, staggering, recovering, and floundering on again.

"The riders are going faster than that," Dido realized with horror. "Whoever it is ain't a-going to get away. Not unless they can swim out to us...." And she jumped up, and had started up the companionway toward Captain Hughes on the top deck, when the leading hounds came up with their prey. There was a lot of noise from the bank—a shrill, triumphant baying, a shriek of despair—then came a splash, as the fugitive apparently took to the water. A couple more splashes followed—several of the hounds must have plunged in likewise—but the main pack bounded along the river bank, yelling, baying, and whining with excitement and frustration.

The hunters, now evidently abandoning hope of securing their quarry, called in the hounds with shouts and short, shrill blasts on a horn, then drew away from the water's edge; but meanwhile all this commotion had alerted the members of the
Thrush
's crew, and Dido, hesitating on the companionway, heard Lieutenant Windward call, "Hey! The poor devil's in the water! Stand by to throw him a line!"

The boat's coxswain evidently objected, for Windward exclaimed, "Stuff and nonsense, man! I saw him myself! It must be done! Throw a line, I say!"

Then there were various cries and splashes.

Greatly relieved that Lieutenant Windward had the matter in hand, Dido returned to her cot; half of her wanted to go and see what was happening, but the other half still felt shocked to death by such a sight. Hunting
people?
Who could do such a thing? She would just as soon not know any more about it. Suddenly she felt very sleepy indeed, and, without intending it, she fell into a profound slumber.

When she next woke, it was full day. The middle deck of the riverboat remained just tolerable, since it was in shade, and the air could pass through from prow to stern; but Captain Hughes soon found it necessary to quit his superior quarters on the top deck, which received the full heat of the sun blazing straight overhead. He came down the companionway in a disgruntled frame of mind, and Mr. Holystone placed a cane rocking chair for him on the forward end of the deck, where he sat, occupying himself with designs for flying craft. Several times he threw chilly glances at Dido on her canvas cot nearby, as if intimating that she ought to have the politeness to withdraw and leave him in privacy, but Dido did not choose to take notice of these hints; I got here first, she thought. Let him keep hisself busy drawing pictures of skiffs with wings and let me alone!

It was Dido who first broke the silence, however.

"Cap'n Hughes," she said after a while.

"Well?" His tone was extremely rebuffing, but she went on.

"Did you hear that ruckus in the night?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why, the hunt. There was coves on horses, a-chasing some poor so-and-so who jumped in the river. What d'you reckon was going on? Who
were
they?"

"It is no affair of ours!" he said sternly.

"But I thought Lieutenant Windward had someone pulled on board? Didn't they say—"

"Miss Twite: I have said this before and I will say it again; I must beg that while we are in New Cumbria you do not meddle in matters that do not concern you."

"But—"

"Hush, child! Run along now; I hear Mr. Holystone calling you to breakfast."

Out of patience with the captain, Dido unwillingly rose up and took herself off to the long central table, where a couple of Cumbrian crewmen were serving breakfast to the passengers. The meal consisted of greasy fried eggs, lukewarm tea, and fried plantain, which, as Mr. Multiple observed, was like warm oily oak chips. Mr. Holystone, having taken the captain his breakfast on a tray, sat down with the others. He looked unlike himself, Dido noticed: pale, hollow-eyed, and slow in his movements. Probably he saw the hunt, too, Dido guessed, and she immediately asked him about it.

"Who
were
they? And what happened to the one they were after? Did you save him, Mr. Windward?"

Both men appeared reluctant to answer. But Silver Taffy had no such scruples, and struck in jeeringly from farther up the table.

"Miss Long Nose wants to know, eh? It'd serve your quisitiveness right if the same thing was to happen to
you!
" He laughed in a very disagreeable manner. "Swimming in the Severn River ain't too healthy for the complexion—as you'll see if you go look in that cabin!" He nodded sideways toward one of the little boxlike cubicles which nobody had wished to occupy because they were too stuffy.

"Now, Taffy!" broke in Noah Gusset. "Let the young 'un be! You didn't oughta tell her that."

"
No,
child! Do
not
look in the cabin!" exclaimed Windward and Mr. Holystone at the same moment. But Dido, abandoning her unwanted breakfast, had crossed the deck and looked through the half-open door. At the sight of what lay inside she gasped, half in fright, half in almost disbelieving astonishment. For the inmate of the cabin, reclining on its canvas cot, was a shining white skeleton, with its grinning face turned to the door, as if expecting someone to bring it breakfast on a tray. Only one hand was still intact—the left, on the third finger of which gleamed a gold ring.

Determined not to let Silver Taffy see her shock and distaste, Dido stepped away from the door. She felt rather cold and queasy; the dancing reflections thrown up by the water on the bamboo ceiling swam and jiggled in front of her eyes. Mr. Holystone had moved toward her anxiously. He looked pale and troubled. She asked him in a low voice, "Taffy ain't gammoning me, is he? How can—how can
that
there be the one they was after? How
can
it?"

"I am afraid Taffy is speaking the truth," Mr. Holystone answered gravely. "The small fish that swim in these waters—they are called piscadores—have such a rapacious appetite that three or four minutes in the water is enough to reduce any red-blooded creature to what you see there. The hounds that jumped in suffered the same fate."

"Murder," muttered Dido. She thought of the poor fugitive jumping into the water, knowing full well what would be the result. What had he—or she—been carrying? What fate could have been worse, to make death in the river better than capture?

"This is a right dreadsome country," she said, and shivered.

"Best not go paddling in the river, Madam Nose in Air!" shouted Silver Taffy, and stumped away to the stern, spitting over the side.

Dido did not trouble Captain Hughes with any further questions. She spent the rest of the day playing cat's cradle with Mr. Holystone, who was also unusually silent, and seemed languid and drowsy. Once or twice he pressed his temples with all his fingertips, as if he had a headache, glancing about him in a bewildered manner.

"What's up, Mr. Holy? Ain't you feeling quite the thing? It is perishing hot in this nook-shotten forest. Like sailing along inside of a baker's oven."

"I do not think it is the heat. I am used to heat. Where I come from, in Hy Brasil..." His voice trailed off absently. He said, as if to himself, "
Is
that where I come from?" And then to Dido, simply, "I keep forgetting who I am."

Oh, mussy, thought Dido. Supposing he's sunstrook? What'll we do then? He's the only one with any sense in this lot.

"You better put a wet cloth on your noddle and lay down for a bit, Mr. Holy," she suggested anxiously.

But then he smiled, and seemed more like himself, and even taught her a couple of unfamiliar varieties of cat's cradle. And she taught him one invented by herself and christened the Battersea Basket.

During that day the pace of the riverboat gradually slowed down, as the momentum of the bore decreased, and the rowers had to work harder at their levers. Now flies and mosquitoes came on board—all kinds of terrible little buzzing, biting creatures hummed and clustered and plagued the passengers, stinging and piercing every inch of exposed skin, creeping cunningly under the folds of clothes to jab in unexpected and tender spots. Fortunately Mr. Holystone's dark green cactus lotion for repelling cockroaches also proved a useful defense against jungle insects, but there was only just enough to go round. Poor Noah Gusset, a big, pink-faced, towheaded boy, was bitten so badly that he could hardly see out of his eyes. Dido, small and wiry, did not suffer so much, but by the day's end she was heartily weary of the river.