Commodore Junk Part 55

"Yis, sor, for the lady's sake; but I shall have to give up my share of the good things here, and behave very badly to the captain."

"My good fellow, I will provide you for life."

"That's moighty kind of you, sor, and I thank ye. Yis, I'll do it, for, ye see, though I don't want to behave badly to the captain, Black Mazzard's too much for me; and besides, I kape thinking that if, some day or another, I do mate wid an accident and get dancing on the toight-rope, I sha'n't have a chance of wedding the widdy Greenheys, and that would be a terrible disappointment to the poor darlin'."

"Yes, yes," cried Humphrey, impatiently. "Then tell me. You will help me by getting a boat ready, and we can all go down together and put to sea!"

"Hark at him!" said Dinny, with a laugh, after going to the great curtain and peering into the corridor. "Ye spake, sor, like a gintleman coming out of his house and calling for a kyar. Lave that all to me."

"I will, Dinny; but what do you propose doing, and when!"

"What do I propose doing, sor? Oh! it's all settled. The darlin' put an idee in my head, and it's tuk root like a seed."

"Trust a woman for ingenuity!" cried Humphrey, speaking with the authority of one who knew, though as to women's ways he was a child.

"Ah, an' she's a cliver one, sor!"

"Well, what is it, Dinny?" cried Humphrey, excitedly.

"Be aisy, sor, and lave it to us. The darlin' has set her moind on getting away from Black Mazzard, and she's too gintle a crature to go to extremities and tuk his head off some night like the lady did in the tint, or to handle a hammer and a nail and fix his head to the ground.

She don't like to be too hard upon him, sor, so she proposed a plan to me, and it will be all right."

"But, Dinny--"

"Be aisy, sor, or ye'll spoil all. Jist wait quite riddy, like, till some avening I shall come to ye all in a hurry, hold up me little finger to ye, which will mane come, and ye'll foind it all cut and dhried for ye."

"But, my good fellow--"

"Faix, sor, don't go on like that before I've done. I want to say that ye must be at home here riddy. If the skipper asks ye to dinner, don't go; and if ye hear a big, powerful noise, don't git running out to see what it is, but go on aisy like, saying to yerself, 'Dinny's getting riddy for me, and he may come at anny time.'"

"And are you going to keep me in the dark?"

"An' he calls it kaping him in the dark! Ah, well, sor, I won't do that! I'll jist tell ye, thin. Ye know the owld chapel place?"

"Chapel!"

"Well, church, thin, sor. That's what they say it was. The little wan wid the stone picture of the owld gintleman sitting over the door."

"That square temple?"

"Yis, sor. It's all the same. The haythens who lived out here didn't know any betther, and the prastes were a bad lot, so they used to wors.h.i.+p the owld gintleman, and give him a prisoner ivery now and then cut up aloive."

"Nonsense! How do you know that?"

"Faix, it's written on the stones so; and we found them althers wid places for the blood to run, and knives made out of flint-gla.s.s. It's thrue enough."

"But what about the temple?"

"Sure, it is the divil's temple, sor," said Dinny, with a twinkle of the eye; "and the skipper said it was just the place for it, so he fills it full of our divil's dust."

"Money?"

"An' is it money? That's all safe in another place, wid silver and gowld bars from the mines, as we tuk in s.h.i.+ps, and gowld cups, sor.

That's put away safe, for it's no use here, where there isn't a whisky-shop to go and spend it. No, sor; divil's dust, the black gunpowther."

"Oh, the magazine! Well, what of that?"

"Sure, sor, the darlin' put her pretty little lips close to my ear.

'Och, darlin', and loight of my ois,' I says. 'Sure, it's so dark in the wood here that ye've made a mistake. That's me ear, darlin', and not me mouth. Let me show ye'--"

"'No, Dinny,' she says, 'I'm like being another man's wife now, and I can foind me way to yer lips whether it's dark or light when it's proper and dacent to do so, and we've been to church.'"

"Dinny, you'll drive me mad!" cried Humphrey, impatiently.

"An' is it dhrive ye mad, when I'm thrying to set ye right? Then I'd better not tell ye, sor."

"Yes, yes! For goodness' sake, man, go on."

"Ah, well, thin, an' I will! She jist puts her lips to my ear and she says, 'Dinny, if ye lay a thrain from the powdher-magazine'--think of that now, the darlin'!--'lay a thrain,' she says, Dinny, 'and put a slow-match, same as ye have riddy for firing the big guns, and then be sure,' she says, 'and get out of the way'--as if I'd want to shtay, sor, and be sent to hiven in a hurry--'thin,' she says, 'the whole place will be blown up, and iverybody will be running to see what's the matther and put out the fire, and they'll be so busy wid that, they'll forget all about the prishner, and we can go down to the say and get away.'"

"Yes," said Humphrey, thoughtfully. "Is there much powder stored there!"

"Yis, sor, a dale. Ivery time a s.h.i.+p's been tuk all the powdher has been brought ash.o.r.e and put there. It's a foin plan, sor, and all made out of the darlin's own head."

"Yes, Dinny, we ought to get away then."

"Sure, an' we will, sor. I'll have a boat wid plenty of wather and sun-dhried mate in her, and some fruit and fis.h.i.+ng-lines. We shall do; but the plan isn't perfect yet."

"Why?"

"Sure, an' there's no arrangement for getting Black Mazzard to come that time to count over the powdher-barrels."

"What! and blow the scoundrel up!"

"Sure, sor, and it would be a kindness to him. He's the wickedest divil that ever breathed, and he gets worse ivery day, so wouldn't it be a kindness to try and send him to heaven before he gets too bad to go!

But whist! I've stopped too long, sor. Ye understand?"

"Dinny, get me away from here, and you're a made man!"

"Faix, I dunno, sor. Mebbe there'll be one lot'll want to shoot me for a desarter--though I desarted by force--and another lot'll want to hang me for a pirate. I don't fale at all safe; but I know I shall be tuk and done for some day if I shtop, and as the darlin' says she'll niver make a mistake the right way wid her lips till I've taken her from Black Mazzard, why, I'll do the thrick."

More days pa.s.sed, and every stroll outside his prison had to be taken by Humphrey with Bart as close to him as his shadow.

Dinny kept away again, and the plan to escape might as well have never been uttered.

Bart always went well-armed with his prisoner, and seemed unusually suspicious, as if fearing an attempt at escape.

Dinny's little widow came no more, and the hours grew so irksome with the confinement consequent upon the captains absence that Humphrey longed for his return.