?That?s an exact description of him,? said the parson, ?for, as everybody knows, I visited the poor wretch in his prison cell at Rye, and at his desire wrote out his final and horrible confession.?
?Is that so?? said the captain. ?Oh, yes, I remember hearing of how he was visited by a parson. I thought it a bit incongruous at the time.?
73
?And so it was,? agreed the parson, ?for I have never seen a more unrepentant man go to meet his Maker.?
?Well, now,? went on the captain, his eyes glistening with excitement, ?I have it on very good authority that the real Clegg in no way answered this description: he was a weird-looking fellow; thin faced, thin legs, long arms, and, what?s more to the point, was never tattooed in his life save once by some unskilled artist who had tried to portray a man walking the plank with a shark waiting below. This picture was executed so poorly that the pirate would never let any one try again. Then I also have it on the very best evidence that Clegg?s hair was gray, and had been gray since quite a young man; so that does away with your black, close-cropped hair. And again I have it that Clegg would never permit his ears to be pierced for brass rings, affirming that they were useless lumber for a seaman to carry.?
74
?Don?t you think,? said the squire, ?that all this was a clever dodge to avoid discovery??
?A disguise?? queried the captain. ?Yes, I confess that the same thing occurred to me.?
?And might I ask how you managed to obtain your real description of Clegg?? asked the vicar.
?At first,? said the captain, ?from second or third sources; but the other day I got first-hand evidence from a man who had served aboard Clegg?s ship, the Imogene. That ugly-looking rascal who was helping Bill Spiker carry the rum barrel. The bo?sun questioned him for upward of three hours in his queer lingo, and managed to arrive, by the nodding and shaking of the man?s head, at an exact description of him tallying with mine and yours? (glancing at Doctor Syn).
?He was one of Clegg?s men?? said the vicar, amazed.
75
?Then pray, sir, what is he doing in the royal navy??
?I use him as a tracker,? replied the captain. ?You know, some of these half-caste mongrels, mixtures of all the bad blood in the Southern Seas, have remarkable gifts of tracking. It?s positively uncanny the way this rascal can smell out a trapdoor or a hiding-place. He?s invaluable to me on these smuggling trips. I suppose you?ve nothing of the sort in this house??
?There?s a staircase leading to a priest?s hole in this very chimney corner, though you would never guess at it,? returned the squire. ?And, what?s more, I bet a guinea that nobody would discover it.?
?I?ll lay you ten to one that the mulatto will; aye, and within a quarter of an hour!?
?Done!? cried the squire. ?That will be sport; we?ll have him round,? and he summoned the butler.
76
?There?s one condition I should have made,? said the captain when the butler opened the door. ?The rascal is dumb and cannot speak a word of English; but my bo?sun can speak his lingo and will make him understand what we require of him.?
?Fetch ?em both round,? cried the squire. ?Gadzooks! it?s a new sport this.?
The butler was accordingly dispatched with the captain?s orders to the bo?sun that he should step round at once to the Court House with the mulatto. Meantime, Denis was summoned from the paths of learning, and the terms of the wager having been explained to him, he awaited in high excitement the coming of the seamen.
?How is it that the fellow?s dumb?? asked the physician.
?Tongue cut out at the roots, sir,? replied the captain. ?He might well be deaf, too, for his ears are also gone, probably along with his tongue, but he?s not deaf, he understands the bo?sun all right.?
77
?Did you ever find out how he lost them?? asked the squire.
?It was Clegg,? replied the captain; ?for after having been tortured in this pleasant fashion he was marooned upon a coral reef.?
?Good God!? said the vicar, going pale with the thought of it.
?How did he get off?? asked the squire.
?God alone knows,? returned the captain.
?Can?t you get it out of him in some way?? said the squire.
?Job Mallet, the bo?sun, can?t make him understand some things,? said the captain, ?but he located the reef upon which he?d been marooned in the Admiralty chart, and it?s as Godforsaken a piece of rock as you could wish. No vegetation; far from the beat of ships; not even registered upon the mercantile maps. As well be the man in the moon as a man on that reef for all the chance you?d have to get off.?
?But he got off,? said the squire. ?How??
78
?That?s just it,? said the captain, ?how? If you can find that out you?re smarter than Job Mallet, who seems the only man who can get things out of him.?
?By Gad! I?m quite eager to look at the poor devil!? cried the squire. ?So am I,? agreed the physician. ?And I?d give a lot to know how he got off that reef,? said Doctor Syn. But at that instant the butler opened the door, and Job Mallet shuffled into
the room, looking troubled. ?Where?s the mulatto?? said the captain sharply, for the bo?sun was alone. ?I don?t know, sir,? answered the bo?sun sheepishly; ?he?s gone!? ?Gone? Where to?? said the captain. ?Don?t know, sir,? answered the bo?sun. ?I see him curled up in the barn
along of the others just afore I stepped outside to stand watch, and when I went to wake him to bring him along of me, why, blest if he hadn?t disappeared.?
79
?Did you look for him?? said the captain.
?Well, sir, I was alookin? for him as far down as to the end of the field where one of them ditches run,? said the bo?sun, ?when I see something wot fair beat anything I ever seed afore: it was a regiment of horse, some twenty of ?em maybe, but if them riders weren?t devils, well, I ain?t a seaman.?
?What were they like?? screamed Sennacherib.
?Wild-looking fellows on horses wot seemed to snort out fire, and the faces of the riders and horses were all moonlight sort of colour, but before I?d shouted, ?Belay there!? they?d all disappeared in the mist.?
?How far away were these riders?? said the captain.
?Why, right on top of me, as it seemed,? stammered the bo?sun.
?Job Mallet,? said the captain, shaking his large finger at him, ?I?ll tell you what it is, my man: you?ve been drinking rum.?
80
?Well, sir,? admitted the seaman, ?it did seem extra good to-night, and perhaps I did take more than I could manage; though come to think of it, sir, I?ve often drunk more than I?ve swallowed to-night and not seen a thing, sir.?
?You get back to the barn and go to sleep,? said the captain, ?and lock the door from the inside; there?s no need to stand watches to-night, and it won?t do that foreign rascal any harm to find himself on the wrong side of the door for once.? Job Mallet saluted and left the room.
?You see what it comes to, Sennacherib,? laughed the squire: ?drink too much and you?re bound to see devils!?
?I don?t believe that fellow has drunk too much,? said the physician, getting up. ?But I?m walking home, and it?s late; time I made a start.?
?Mind the devils!? laughed the vicar as he shook hands.
?They?ll mind me, sir,? said Sennacherib as he grasped his thick stick. And so the supper party broke up: the squire lighting the captain to his room; Doctor
81
Syn returning to the vicarage; and Sennacherib Pepper setting out for his lonely walk across the devil-ridden Marsh.
The window of the captain?s room looked out upon the courtyard; he could see nothing of the sea, nothing of the Marsh. Now, as these were the two things he intended to see?aye, and on that very night?he waited patiently till the house was still; for he considered that there was more truth in Sennacherib Pepper?s stories than the squire allowed. Indeed, it was more than likely that the squire disallowed them for reasons of his own. This he determined to find out. So half an hour after the squire had bade him good-night he softly crossed the room to open the door.
But the door was locked on the outside!
82
83
to young Jerk and not at all a nightmare, but unfortunately there were things chasing Jerry as well, and the nearer he seemed to get to the flying schoolmaster the nearer got the things behind him. There was no doubt at all in the dreamer?s mind as to what they were, for they were the Marsh devils that he had heard about from infancy, the very demon riders that old Sennacherib Pepper was credited with having seen. He glanced over his shoulder and saw them pounding after him, grim riders on most ghastly steeds. The noise of the hoofs got nearer and nearer, and run as he would, he felt that he would never reach the schoolmaster before he himself was caught by the demons. Then in the dream the schoolmaster turned round, and Jerk with a scream saw that what he had been chasing was no longer the schoolmaster but the devil himself. So there he was between the demon riders and the very old gentleman that Doctor Syn preached about on Sundays. Now, although Jerry was no coward, he was not quite proof against such a shock as this, so he just uttered the most
84
appalling scream and fell into a ditch that had suddenly appeared before him. The fall into the ditch was very hard, so hard, indeed, that the sleeper awoke to find that he was sitting on the floor with the bedclothes on top of him. But he was still uncertain whether or no he was awake, for although he rubbed his eyes exceedingly hard he could still hear the pounding hoofs of the demon horses, and they were coming nearer. He rubbed his eyes again, twisted his fingers into his ears, and listened. Yes, there was really no mistaking it, there were horses coming along the road before the house, and he was certain in his mind that they were the phantoms of his dream. So he went to the casement and looked out. Prepared for a surprise he certainly was, but not such a terrible one as he got. Along the road at a gallop went a score or so of horsemen: that they were not of this world was very easy to see, for there was moonlight shining from their faces and from the faces of the horses as well.
85
The riders were fantastically dressed in black, and wore queer tall hats the like of which Jerry had only seen in ghost books. They were fine riders, too, for they seemed to the terrified boy actually to grow out of their horses. Jerry noticed, too, that there were long streamers of black flying from the harness. The curious light that shone upon the riders made it possible for Jerry to see their faces, which were entirely diabolical, for one and all were laughing as they rode. They were going at a good pace, so that as soon as they appeared, just so sudden did they go, and although Jerk opened the casement and hung out of the window, the mist had entirely swallowed the riders up, although he could still hear the distant noise of their horses. It sounded as if one of them was coming back. Yes, he was sure of it! So he very quickly shut the window again. The clatter of hoofs got louder, and presently Jerk, through the pane, caught sight of a rider trotting out of the mist. Now there seemed something familiar about this figure and the peculiar jogging of the steed; but the rider
86
was well under the window before Jerk discovered that this was no demon, but the hated schoolmaster. What was he doing riding out at this hour, thought the youngster? Was he in league with the spirits of the Marsh, and could he pass through them without being scared? For there was no other turning along the road, and the schoolmaster, although very repulsive to behold, was not looking in any way concerned; so Jerry came to the rapid conclusion that his deadly enemy was in some way or other connected with that mysterious band of horse. ?So,? he thought, ?if he?s up to mischief, I must find out what that mischief is, and if it?s a hanging business, all the better.? So quickly and silently Jerk pulled on his breeches and coat, and with his boots in his hand crept out upon the stairs. Everything was very still, and the creaks and cracks of the old oak were horrible, and then his grandfather did snore so very loud, and once just as he was entering the kitchen he heard his grandmother cry out: ?Jerry, come here!? That nearly made him jump out of his skin, but he heard immediately
87
afterward her wheezing snore mingled with those of her better half, so he concluded that she had only cried out in her sleep. In the kitchen he put on his boots, and just as he was opening the back door he heard the tall clock in the front room striking eleven. He left the door on the latch and, climbing through a hedge, struck out across the Marsh. He knew well enough that by running he could pick up the road again so as to be ahead of the rider; but it was difficult going at night, and by the time he had scrambled through the hedge again he saw the schoolmaster passing round at the back of Mipps?s shop. There was still a light burning in the front window, and after tying up his bonny horse the schoolmaster entered the shop. ?What?s he wanting at a coffin shop at this hour?? thought Jerk. ?I wish he was ordering his own, I do!? And with this uncharitable thought he crept along the road and approached the house. A coffin shop isn?t a pleasant thing to behold at night. Rows of coffin planks leaned up against the provision shelves, for Mipps supplied the village with
88
bread and small eatables. A half-finished coffin reposed on trestles in the centre of the floor, and around the room hung every conceivable article that had to do with coffins. The atmosphere of coffins spread over everything in the store, and whether young jerk looked at the bottles of preserves on this shelf or the loaves of dark bread on that, to him they meant but one thing: Death! And he was quite satisfied that any one bold enough to eat of the food in that grizzly shop well deserved to be knocked up solid in one of Mipps?s boxes. of the floor, and around the room hung every conceivable article that had to do with coffins. The atmosphere of coffins spread over everything in the store, and whether young jerk looked at the bottles of preserves on this shelf or the loaves of dark bread on that, to him they meant but one thing: Death! And he was quite satisfied that any one bold enough to eat of the food in that grizzly shop well deserved to be knocked up solid in one of Mipps?s boxes.