Captains All and Others. William Wymark Jacobs

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СКАЧАТЬ carried a face in which care and exultation were strangely mingled.

      By ten o’clock that night care was in the ascendant, and by eleven, when he discerned the red glow of Mr. Travers’s pipe set as a beacon against a dark background of hedge, the boatswain was ready to curse his inventive powers. Mr. Travers greeted him cheerily and, honestly attributing the fact to good food and a couple of pints of beer he had had since the boatswain left him, said that he was ready for anything.

      Mr. Benn grunted and led the way in silence. There was no moon, but the night was clear, and Mr. Travers, after one or two light-hearted attempts at conversation, abandoned the effort and fell to whistling softly instead.

      Except for one lighted window the village slept in darkness, but the boatswain, who had been walking with the stealth of a Red Indian on the war-path, breathed more freely after they had left it behind. A renewal of his antics a little farther on apprised Mr. Travers that they were approaching their destination, and a minute or two later they came to a small inn standing just off the road. “All shut up and Mrs. Waters abed, bless her,” whispered the boatswain, after walking care-fully round the house. “How do you feel?”

      “I’m all right,” said Mr. Travers. “I feel as if I’d been burgling all my life. How do you feel?”

      “Narvous,” said Mr. Benn, pausing under a small window at the rear of the house. “This is the one.”

      Mr. Travers stepped back a few paces and gazed up at the house. All was still. For a few moments he stood listening and then re-joined the boatswain.

      “Good-bye, mate,” he said, hoisting himself on to the sill. “Death or victory.”

      The boatswain whispered and thrust a couple of sovereigns into his hand. “Take your time; there’s no hurry,” he muttered. “I want to pull myself together. Frighten ‘er enough, but not too much. When she screams I’ll come in.”

      Mr. Travers slipped inside and then thrust his head out of the window. “Won’t she think it funny you should be so handy?” he inquired.

      “No; it’s my faithful ‘art,” said the boat-swain, “keeping watch over her every night, that’s the ticket. She won’t know no better.”

      Mr. Travers grinned, and removing his boots passed them out to the other. “We don’t want her to hear me till I’m upstairs,” he whispered. “Put ‘em outside, handy for me to pick up.”

      The boatswain obeyed, and Mr. Travers—who was by no means a good hand at darning socks—shivered as he trod lightly over a stone floor. Then, following the instructions of Mr. Benn, he made his way to the stairs and mounted noiselessly.

      But for a slight stumble half-way up his progress was very creditable for an amateur. He paused and listened and, all being silent, made his way to the landing and stopped out-side a door. Despite himself his heart was beating faster than usual.

      He pushed the door open slowly and started as it creaked. Nothing happening he pushed again, and standing just inside saw, by a small ewer silhouetted against the casement, that he was in a bedroom. He listened for the sound of breathing, but in vain.

      “Quiet sleeper,” he reflected; “or perhaps it is an empty room. Now, I wonder whether—”

      The sound of an opening door made him start violently, and he stood still, scarcely breathing, with his ears on the alert. A light shone on the landing, and peeping round the door he saw a woman coming along the corridor—a younger and better-looking woman than he had expected to see. In one hand she held aloft a candle, in the other she bore a double-barrelled gun. Mr. Travers withdrew into the room and, as the light came nearer, slipped into a big cupboard by the side of the fireplace and, standing bolt upright, waited. The light came into the room.

      “Must have been my fancy,” said a pleasant voice.

      “Bless her,” smiled Mr. Travers.

      His trained ear recognized the sound of cocking triggers. The next moment a heavy body bumped against the door of the cupboard and the key turned in the lock.

      “Got you!” said the voice, triumphantly. “Keep still; if you try and break out I shall shoot you.”

      “All right,” said Mr. Travers, hastily; “I won’t move.”

      “Better not,” said the voice. “Mind, I’ve got a gun pointing straight at you.”

      “Point it downwards, there’s a good girl,” said Mr. Travers, earnestly; “and take your finger off the trigger. If anything happened to me you’d never forgive yourself.”

      “It’s all right so long as you don’t move,” said the voice; “and I’m not a girl,” it added, sternly.

      “Yes, you are,” said the prisoner. “I saw you. I thought it was an angel at first. I saw your little bare feet and—”

      A faint scream interrupted him.

      “You’ll catch cold,” urged Mr. Travers.

      “Don’t you trouble about me,” said the voice, tartly.

      “I won’t give any trouble,” said Mr. Travers, who began to think it was time for the boatswain to appear on the scene. “Why don’t you call for help? I’ll go like a lamb.”

      “I don’t want your advice,” was the reply. “I know what to do. Now, don’t you try and break out. I’m going to fire one barrel out of the window, but I’ve got the other one for you if you move.”

      “My dear girl,” protested the horrified Mr. Travers, “you’ll alarm the neighbourhood.”

      “Just what I want to do,” said the voice. “Keep still, mind.”

      Mr. Travers hesitated. The game was up, and it was clear that in any case the stratagem of the ingenious Mr. Benn would have to be disclosed.

      “Stop!” he said, earnestly. “Don’t do anything rash. I’m not a burglar; I’m doing this for a friend of yours—Mr. Benn.”

      “What?” said an amazed voice.

      “True as I stand here,” asseverated Mr. Travers. “Here, here’s my instructions. I’ll put ‘em under the door, and if you go to the back window you’ll see him in the garden waiting.”

      He rustled the paper under the door, and it was at once snatched from his fingers. He regained an upright position and stood listening to the startled and indignant exclamations of his gaoler as she read the boatswain’s permit:

      “This is to give notice that I, George Benn, being of sound mind and body, have told Ned Travers to pretend to be a burglar at Mrs. Waters’s. He ain’t a burglar, and I shall be outside all the time. It’s all above-board and ship-shape.

      “(Signed) George Benn”

      “Sound mind—above-board—ship-shape,” repeated a dazed voice. “Where is he?”

      “Out at the back,” replied Mr. Travers. “If you go to the window you can see him. Now, do put something round your shoulders, there’s a good girl.”

      There was no reply, but a board creaked. He waited for what seemed a long time, and then the board creaked again.

      “Did СКАЧАТЬ