Flashman - Flashman and the Angel of the Lord Part 2

"I'll give you sjambok, my lady!" growls I, and lifted her bodily out of the swing, but even as I cast about for galloping room, she left off gnawing at me and panted: "Wait . . . let me show you!" I set her down, and she seized my hand, hurrying me down to the garden and through a screen of shrubs to a small stone jetty beyond, and there was the smartest little steam yacht moored, all bra.s.s and varnish s.h.i.+ning in the sun, and not a soul aboard that I could see.

"For our picnic," says she, and her voice was shrill with excitement. She led the way up the swaying plank, and I followed, slavering at the plump stern bobbing under the muslin, and down into the cool shadows of a s.p.a.cious cabin. I seized her, fore and aft, but she slipped from my l.u.s.tful grasp, whispering "A moment!" and slammed a door in my face.

While I tore off my clobber, I had time to look about me, and note that J. C. Spring, M.A., did himself as well afloat as he did ash.o.r.e. There was polished walnut and brocade, velvet curtains on the ports, fine carpet and leather furniture, and even a fireplace with a painting of some Greek idiots in beards - it was a bigger craft than I'd realised, and rivalled Cohe one in which Suleiman Usman had carried us to Singapore; through an open door I could see a lavatory in marble and gla.s.s, with a patent showerbath, which for some reason made me randier than ever, and I pounded on her door, roaring endearments; it swung open under my fist, and there she was, on t'other side of the bed, posed with her back to the bulkhead. For a moment I stood staring, and Spring and old Arnold would have been proud of me, for my first thought was "Andromeda on her rock, awaiting the monster, ha-ha!" which proves the benefit of a grounding in the cla.s.sics.

She was stark naked - and yet entirely clad, for she had cinched in her long hair with a white ribbon round her neck, so that it framed her face like a cowl, while beneath the ribbon it hung in a s.h.i.+mmering black curtain that covered her almost to her ankles. Her arms were spread out, desperate-like, on the panelling, and as I goggled she pushed one knee through the silky tresses and pouted at me.

We never went near the bed, for it would have been a shame to disturb her tableau vivant, much; I just heaved her up and piled in against the panels, grunting for joy, and I'll swear the boat rocked at its moorings, for she teased no longer when it came to serious work, and I wasn't for lingering myself. It was splendid fun while it lasted, which was until she began to shudder and scream and tried to throttle me with her hair, so I romped her up and down all the way to the lavatory, where we finished the business under the patent showerbath, once I'd got the knack of the dam' thing, which ain't easy with a mad nymph clinging to your manly chest. Most refres.h.i.+ng it was, though, and brought back memories of Sonsee-Array, my Apache princess, who was partial to coupling under waterfalls - which is deuced cold, by the way, and the pebbles don't help.

Miranda Spring knew a trick worth two of that, for when we'd come to our senses and towelled each other dry, with much coy snickering on her part, she showed me to a little alcove off the main cabin where an excellent collation was laid out under covers, with bubbly in a bucket. We recruited our energies with lobster and chicken, but when I proposed that we finish off the wine on deck, she came all over languid and said we would be "ever so comfee" on the bed - and if you'd seen that exquisite young body artfully swathed in her hair, with those fine ivory poonts thrusting impudently through it, you'd have agreed.

But she must finish her dessert, too - like all chi-chis she had a pa.s.sion for sugary confections - so she brought it to bed, if you please, and gorged herself on eclairs and cream slices while I fondled her, well content to play restfully for a change. Not so madam; being a greedy little animal, she must satisfy both her appet.i.tes at once, and call me conservative if you will, I hold that a woman who gallops you while consuming a bowl of blancmange is wanting in respect. I left off nibbling her t.i.ts to rebuke her bad form, but the saucy little gannet stuck out her tongue and went on eating and cantering in a most leisurely fas.h.i.+on. Right, my la.s.s, thinks I, and waited until she'd downed the last cherry and licked the spoon, settled herself for a rousing finish, and was beginning to moan and squeal in ecstatic frenzy - at which point I gave an elaborate yawn, hoisted her gently from the saddle, and announced that I was going on deck for a swim.

She squawked like a staggered hen, eyes still rolling. "Sweem? Wha' ... now? But . . . but . . . oah, no, no, nott yett -"

"Why not? Better than all this boring frowsting in bed, what? Come along, a dip'Il do you no end of good." I gave them a playful flip. "Keep you in trim, you know." - "Boreeng?" If you can imagine Andersen's Mermaid moved from dazed bewilderment to screaming pa.s.sion in an instant, you have Miranda. "Boreeng? Me? Aieee, you .. . you -" But even as I prepared to parry a clawing attack, to my amazement her rage gave way to sudden consternation, and then her arms were round my neck and she was pleading frantically with me to stay, kissing and fondling and exerting her small strength to pull me down.

"Oah, no, no, please, Harree, please don't go - please, I am ever so sorree! Oah, I was wicked to tease - you mustn't go up, nott yett! Please, stay . . . love me, Harree, oah please, don't go!"

"Changeable chit, ain't you? No, no, miss, I'm going topsides for a swim, and some suns.h.i.+ne -"

"No, no!" It was a squeal of real alarm. "Please, please, you must stay here!" She fairly writhed on to me, gasping. Well, I've known 'em eager, but this was flattery of the most persuasive kind. "Please, please, Harree . . . love me now, oah do!"

"Wet-11 . . . no, later! If you're a good little girl, after my swim -"

"No, now! Oah, I shall be a badd big girl!" She gave a whimper of entreaty. "Stay with me, and I will be verree badd! Don' go, and I will . . ." She put her lips to my ear, giggling, and whispered. I was so taken aback I may well have blushed.

"Good G.o.d, I never heard the like! Why, you abandoned brat! Where on earth did you hear of such . . . ? At school! I don't believe it!" She nodded gleefully, eyes s.h.i.+ning, and I was speechless. Depraved women I've known, thank heaven, but this one was barely out of dancing cla.s.s, and here she was, proposing debauchery that would have scandalised a Cairo pimp. Heavens, it was new to me, even, and I told her so. She smiled and bared her teeth.

"Oah, then you will certainlee nott go on deck just yett!" whispers she. "You will stay with wicked Miranda, yess?"

Well, a gentleman should always indulge the whims of the frail s.e.x, even if it does mean foregoing a refres.h.i.+ng swim, but I confess that if I hadn't been a degenerate swine myself, her behaviour thereafter would have shocked me. I'd have thought, at thirty-six and having enjoyed the attentions of Lola Montez, Susie Willinck, my darling Elspeth, and other inventive amorists too numerous to mention, that I'd nothing to learn about dalliance, but by the time young Miranda (seventeen, I mean to say!) had had her girlish will of me, and I was lying more dead than alive in the showerbath, I could barely gasp one of Spring's Latin tags: "Ex Africa semper aliquid novi,*(* Out of Africa there is always something new.) by gum!"

I must have managed to crawl back to the bed, for when I woke it was growing dusk, and Miranda was dressed and wearing an ap.r.o.n, humming merrily as she cooked omelettes in the galley for our supper, while I lay reflecting on the lack of supervision in colonial finis.h.i.+ng schools, and wondering if I'd be fit for more jollity before the mail tender left in the morning. I ate my omelette with a trembling hand, but when she teased me into sharing asparagus with her, nibbling towards each other along the spear until our mouths met, I began to revive, and was all for it when she said we should spend the night aboard, and her butler would see my traps taken down to the wharf in good time.

"But I shall be quite desolate at parting, for I have never knoawn anyone as jollee as you, Harmer cries she, stroking my whiskers. "You are ever so excessivelee wicked - far worse than Papa said!"

"Then we're a pair. Tell you what - let's take a turn on deck, and then we'll play picquet - and if you cheat, I'll tie you up in that Raphunzel hair of yours, and show you what wickedness is."

"But I am thee greatest cheat!" laughs she, so we went on deck, and I had to tell her the story of Raphunzel, which she'd never heard, while she nestled against me by the rail in the warm darkness, with the water chuckling against the hull and the last amber glow dying above the western rim. It was the place to linger with a girl, but presently it grew chilly, so we went down to our hand of picquet. She was no cheat at all, though, so I had to teach her, but once or twice I wondered if her mind was on the game at all, for she kept glancing at the clock, and when it struck she started, and fumbled her cards, and apologised, laughing like a schoolgirl "clumsee Clara!"

The nursery exclamation reminded me what a child she was - Lord love us, I'd been married before she was born. Aye, and a d.a.m.ned odd child, behind the vivacious chatter and mischievous smile, with her Babylonian bedroom manners. Peculiar l.u.s.ts are supposed to be a male prerogative (well, look at me), but the truth is we ain't in it with the likes of the Empress Tzu-hsi or Lola of the Hairbrush or that Russian aunt I knew who went in for flogging in steambaths . . . or Miranda Spring, not yet of age, smiling brightly to cover a little yawn. Jaded from her mattress exertions, no doubt; we'll brisk you up presently, thinks I, with a few of those Hindu gymnastics that Mrs Leslie of Meerut was so partial to .. .

There was a vague sound from somewhere outside, and then a heavy footfall on the deck over our heads. The butler from the house, was my first thought - and Miranda dropped a eard in shuffling, retrieved it; and offered me the pack to cut.

"Who is it?" says I, and she glanced at the clock. Suddenly I realised she was trembling, but it was excitement, not fear, and the smile in the black eyes was one of pure triumph.

"That will be Papa at last," says she.

There is, as that sound chap Ecclesiastes says, a time to get, and if I've reached the age of ninety-one it's because I've always been able to recognise it. I was afoot on the word "Papa" and streaking for the bed-cabin, where I knew there was a window; I wrenched the door open and raced through - into the b.l.o.o.d.y lavatory, and by the time I was out again it was too late: the biggest Malay I've ever seen, a huge yellow villain clad only in duck trowsers and with arms like hawsers, was at the foot of the companion, making way for John Charity Spring in full war-paint - reefer jacket, pilot cap, and a face like an Old Testament prophet. He took in the scene, hands thrust into pockets, and growled to the Malay.

"On deck, Jumbo, and if he sticks his neck out, break it!" He turned his glare on Miranda, who was still seated, the pack in her hands, and barked at her: "Did this thing molest you?"

She riffled the cards, cool as you like, while my bowels dissolved. "No, Papa. He did nott."

"He tried though, I'll lay! I know the villain!" His voice rose to its accustomed roar. "Did he lay his vile hands on you? Answer me!"

Oh, Christ, I thought, it's the finish - but she simply glanced at me with infinite scorn, shrugged her slim shoulders, and made an inelegant spitting noise. Spring stood breathing like a bellows, his wild eyes moving from one to other of us; I knew better than to utter a denial - and I didn't laugh, either, like rash Michel.

"Aye, I'll swear he did, though! Didn't you, you lousy lecher!" He strode to confront me, jerking his fists from his pockets, his jaw working in fury. "Didn't you? By G.o.d -"

"Oh, Papa! Of course he tried to kiss mee! Do you think he is the first? I am nearly eighteen, you knoaw!" If ever a voice stamped its foot, hers did; she sounded like an impatient governess. "I am nott a child! What were you expecting, after oll?" She tossed her head. "But he is just a great bullee . . . and a great coward, as you said."

His breath was rasping on my face, and his eyes were like a mad dog's, but suddenly he wheeled about, stared at her, and then strode to a cupboard on the bulkhead and dragged out a large volume which I recognised in amazement as a Bible. He slammed it down on the table beside her.

"Miranda," says he, and his voice was hoa.r.s.e, either with rage or fatherly concern. "My child, it grieves me to do this, but I must! Swear to me on this Book that no . . . no unworthiness, no impropriety, pa.s.sed between you and this creature -"

"Oh, Papa, what a fuss! 011 about notheeng! This is so sillee -"

"Silly be d.a.m.ned!" bawls paterfamilias. "Put your hand on the blasted Book, girl!" He seized her wrist and slapped her palm on the Bible. "Now, make your oath - and take care . . . aye, quid de quoque viro, et cui dicas, saepe caveto,* (* Take special care what you say of any man, and to whom it is said - Horace.) mind - even with a rat like him! Swear!"

I braced myself to leap for the ladder, resolved to kick the appalling Jumbo in the crotch, G.o.d willing, for while the dear child had lied splendidly thus far, I knew she was convent-reared on all that h.e.l.lfire and mortal sin bilge, and wouldn't dare perjure - and I stopped in the nick of time, for she was giving an angry little shrug, looking Papa sulkily in the eye, and swearing by Almightee G.o.dd that she had repelled my clumsy advances with ease and it would take a better man than Flashy to drag her into the long gra.s.s, or words to that effect. Spring ground his teeth in relief, and then spoke two words I'll wager he'd never uttered in his life before.

"Forgive me, my child. I never doubted you - but I know this scoundrel, d'ye see . . . ?" He turned his dreadful face to me, and if hair and claws had sprouted from his hands, I'd not have wondered. "It would break my heart," snarls he, "if I thought . . . but there! G.o.d bless you, child." He bussed her resoundingly on the forehead, and the little trollop gave him a smile of radiant purity. "You are the bravest of girls and the dearest of daughters, quem te Deus esse jussit. *(* What G.o.d commanded you to be.) Now, go along to bed, and give thanks to Him who has guarded you this day."

"Good-night, dear Papa," says she, and kissed the brute. She walked to the companion - and G.o.d help us, as she pa.s.sed me she pursed her lips in a silent kiss, and winked. Then she was gone, and Spring hurled the Bible into its cupboard and glared at me.

"And you, if you ever pray, which I'm d.a.m.ned sure you don't, can give thanks for the innocence of a good woman! A novelty in your filthy experience, is she not?" Well, novelty was the word for Miranda, no error, if not innocence. "Aye, she's as pure as you are vile, as straight as you are warped, as brave as you are . . . bah! And she don't lie, either!" He gave his barking laugh. "So you needn't stand quaking, my hero! Sit down!"

Now, I'd stood mum and paralysed through the astonis.h.i.+ng scene I've just described, because that's what you do when J. C. Spring is on the rampage. Why the devil he wasn't in Grahamstown hadn't crossed my mind - I'd been too busy thanking G.o.d that his daughter was a complete hand, and that the old monster had swallowed her tale whole - but since he had, why, all was well, surely, and I could depart without a stain on my character. I recalled my wits and met his eye, two d.a.m.ned difficult things to do, I can tell you.

"Thank'ee, but I think I'll take my leave, if -"

"You'll do no such thing!" bawls he. "Now that you're here, you'll stay awhile, and give me the pleasure of your blasted company! Sit, d.a.m.n you!"

I sat, believe me, and he gave a great white-whiskered grin, chuckling, and poured two stiff tots from the decanter on the buffet. "No orange this time, I think," sneers he. "Ye'll want it straight, if I'm a judge. Cigar? Or cheroot? You Far Easters like 'em black, I believe . . . go on, man utrum horum mavis accipe,*(* Take whichever you prefer.) and take your ease! Your health - while you've got it!"

I downed the brandy as if it was water, for I'd seen Spring jovial before, and knew what could come of it. He seated himself opposite me at the table, sipped and wiped his whiskers, and eyed me with genial malevolence. I'd as soon be smiled at by a cobra.

"So ye didn't heed me," says he. "Well, ye've more bottom than ever I gave you credit for. And if you were half the man you look, instead of the toad I know you to be .. . I'd not blame you. Miranda is a maid to bewitch any man. I'm proud o' that girl, Flashman, with good cause . . . and if I thought ye'd laid a finger on her ..." suddenly the h.e.l.lish glare was back in his eyes, and his scar was pulsing "- I'd serve you as I served another reptile that tried to defile her, by G.o.d, I would!" He smashed his fist on the table. "I found her fighting for her chast.i.ty - aye, in her own chamber, by heaven - with a foul seducing frog-eating son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h who sought to have his vile way with her when my back was turned! My daughter, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" There was spittle on his beard. "What d'ye say to that, hey?"

When a maniac inquires - answer. "d.a.m.nable! French, was he? Well, there you are -"

"D'ye know what I did to him?" His voice was soft now, but the empty eyes weren't. "I stripped him stark, and cut the life out of him - sixty-one strokes, and you wouldn't have known he was human. Murder, you'll say -"

"No, no, not at all - quite the -"

"- but the fact is, Flashman, I was beside myself!" cries this raving ogre. "Aye, h.o.m.o extra est corpus suum c.u.m irascitur,*(*An angry man is beside himself.) you remember . . .

"Absolutely! May I trouble you for the brandy, captain -"

"There were those suspected me - d'ye think I gave a dam? It was just, I tell you! Condign punishment, as the articles say . . . and that la.s.s of mine, that young heroine - I'll never forget it, never! Fighting like a tigress against that beast's base pa.s.sion . . . but not a tear or a tremor .. . thank G.o.d I came in time!"

You should have seen her base pa.s.sion a few hours ago, thinks I, and quailed at the memory . . . G.o.d, if ever he found out! He sipped brandy, growling, came out of his reverie of Miranda-wors.h.i.+p, and realised he'd been confiding in the sc.u.m of the earth.

"But you were no threat to her!" He curled his lip. "No, not you - ye see, Flashman, I could trust her virtue to be stronger even than your depravity, else I'd never ha' let you within a mile of her, let alone permit her to beguile you here! Aye, that jars you! Oh, you've been had, my son!" For an instant the pale eyes were alight with triumph, then he was scowling again. "But I've been through h.e.l.l this day, knowing she was within your reach; my skin crawls yet at the thought of it . . . but she's my daughter, steel true, blade straight, and too much for you or a dozen like you!"

It hit me like a blow. I'd known there was something horribly amiss when he'd arrived unexpected, but then Miranda had quieted him, and he'd been civil (for him), and only now was it plain that I'd been trapped, most artfully and d.a.m.nably, by this murderous pirate and his s.l.u.t of a daughter - but why? It made no sense; he had no quarrel with me - he'd said so, in those very words.

"What d'ye mean? What d'ye want of me? I've done nothing, you heard her -"

"Nothing, you say? Oh, you've done nothing today, I know that - or you'd not be alive this moment! But think back ten years, Flashman, to the night when you and your conniving wh.o.r.e Willinck crimped me out of Orleans -"

"I'd no hand in that, I swear! And you told me -"

"- that I bore no grudge?" His laugh was a jeering snarl. "More fool you for believing me - but your wit's all in your loins and belly, isn't it? You can't conceive what it meant for a man of my breeding - my eminence, d.a.m.n your eyes! a scholar, a philosopher, honoured and respected, a man of refinement, a master and commander even in the degraded depths of a slave-s.h.i.+p - a man born to have rule - aye, better to reign in h.e.l.l than serve in heaven!" roars he, spraying me with his incoherent rage, so consumed by it that for once Latin quotation failed him. "To be hounded before the mast by sc.u.m who wouldn't have pulley-haulied on my s.h.i.+p, herded with filthy packet rats, fed on slop and glad to get ii, threatened with the cat, by Jesus - aye, stare, rot you! I, John Charity Spring, Fellow of Oriel . . . d.a.m.n them all to h.e.l.l, thieves, trimmers and academic vermin . . ." His voice sank to a hoa.r.s.e whisper, for he was back on the Oxford Coack again, contemplating his ruined career, his berserk fit over, thank G.o.d, for I'd never seen him worse. He took a huge breath, filled his gla.s.s, and brooded at me.

"I cleaned the heads on that s.h.i.+p, Flashman - all the way to the Cape." His tone was almost normal now. "Thanks to you. And d'ye think a day has pa.s.sed in ten years when I haven't remembered what I owe you? And now . . . here you are, at last. We may agree with Horace, I think - Raro antecedentem scelestum deseruit pede poena claudo. I see from your vacant gape that you're no better acquainted with his works than you were on the College, d.a.m.n your ignorance! - so I'll tell you it means that Justice, though moving slowly, seldom fails to overhaul the fleeing villain." He shoved the bottle at me. "Have some more brandy, why don't you? Your flight's over, bucko!"

This was desperate - but terrified as I was, I could see something that he had overlooked, and it spurred me now to unwonted defiance, though I came to my feet and backed away before I voiced it.

"Keep your b.l.o.o.d.y brandy - and your threats, 'cos they don't scare me, Spring! I don't know what your game is, but you'd best take care - because you've forgotten something! I'm not a friendless n.o.body nowadays - and, I ain't some poor French pimp, neither! You think you draw water? Well, you ain't the only one!" A heaven-sent thought struck me. "Your governor, Grey, has charged me - Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., K.B., and be d.a.m.ned to you! with a personal message to Lord Palmerston, d'ye hear? So you can come off your blasted quarter-deck, because you daren't touch me!" I cast a quick glance at the companion, ready to run like h.e.l.l.

The pale hypnotic eyes never blinked, but his mouth twisted in a grin. "My, what a dunghill rooster we've grown, to be sure! Vox et praeterea nihil!* (* [You are] a voice and nothing more.) But you've forgotten something, too. No one saw you come aboard here. It was a hired rig that brought you to my house - and my servants are safe folk. So if the distinguished Flashman, with all his trumpery t.i.tles, were to disappear . . . why, he sailed on the mail for home! And if, by chance, word came months from now that you never boarded the mail . . . a mystery! And who more baffled than your old s.h.i.+pmate, John Charity Spring? What, silent, are we? Stricken speechless?"

He pushed back his chair and reached a flask from the buffet. "You'd better try some schnapps, I think. There .. . don't bite the gla.s.s, you fool! Drink it! Christ, what a craven thing you are! Sit down, man, before you fall - vitiant artus aegrae contagia mentis,*(*When the mind is ill at ease, the body is somewhat affected.) as Ovid would say if he could see you. And rest easy - I'm not going to harm a hair of your precious head!"

That was no comfort at all, from him; I knew that diseased mind too well - he meant me some hideous mischief, but I could only wait shuddering until he told me what it was, which he was preparing to do with s.a.d.i.s.tic relish, br.i.m.m.i.n.g my gla.s.s and resuming his seat before he spoke.

"When I heard you'd landed, it was a prayer answered. But I couldn't see how to come at you, until Miranda showed the way - oh, she has all my confidence, the only creature on earth in whom I put trust. 'Let me beckon him,' says she - and didn't she just, on that first night at Government House! It was gall to my soul to see it - my girl . . . and you, you dirty satyr! A dozen times I would ha' cried it off, for fear of what harm might come to her, but she laughed away my doubts. 'Trust me, Papa!' My girl! D'ye wonder I wors.h.i.+p the earth she treads on? Would you believe," he leaned forward, gloating, "'twas she advised I should warn you off ! 'He'll come all the faster, to spite you . . . if he thinks it safe', says she. She knew you, d'ye hear - oh, yes, Flashman, she knows all my story, from Oxford to the Middle Pa.s.sage - and she's as bent on settling her father's scores as he is himself ! We have no secrets, you see, my girl and I.'

I could think of one. Oh, she'd tricked me into his clutches, right enough - but she'd humbugged him, too, whoring away like a demented succubus while he was biting his nails over her supposed virtue. And the doting old lunatic believed her. G.o.d knew how many she'd been in the bushes with, his stainless virgin . . . if only I'd dared to tell him! Suddenly I felt sick, and not only with fear; something was wrong with my innards .. .

"And you came to the bait, like the l.u.s.tful swine you are," says Spring. "And it's time to cast our accounts and pay, eh, Flashman?"

You know me. With any other of the monsters I'd known, I'd have pleaded and whined and tried to buy off - but he was mad, and my mind seemed to be growing numb. Another wave of nausea came over me, my head swam, and I took a stiff gulp of schnapps to steady myself.

"Belay that!" growls Spring, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the gla.s.s from me. "I don't want you dead to the world before I've done." He seized my wrist. "Sit still, d.a.m.n you . . . ha! pulse sluggish. Very good." He dropped my hand and sat back, and as the sick fit shook me again, I saw that he was smiling.

"Now you know what a crimped sailorman feels like," says he. "Yes, the schnapps is loaded - just like the mixture that fat tart slipped to me in Orleans. I believe in eye for eye, you see - no more, no less. You s.h.i.+pped me out, drugged and helpless, and now you're going the same way - you can live on skilly and hard-tack, you can try your V.C. and K.B. on a bucko mate, you can have your a.r.s.e kicked from here to Baltimore, and see how you like it, d.a.m.n your blood!" His voice was rising again, but he checked himself and leaned forward to thumb up my eyelid - and I couldn't raise a hand to stop him.

"That's right," says he. "Baltimore, with a skipper of my acquaintance. If I were a vindictive man, it would ha' been Orleans, but I'm giving you an even chance, d'ye see? Baltimore's about right, I reckon. You've been there before - so you know what's waiting for you, eh?"

He stood up, and I tried to follow, but my legs wouldn't answer. I heaved - and couldn't move a muscle, but the horror of it was that I could see and hear and feel the sweat pouring over my skin. G.o.d knows what poison he'd fed me, but it had gripped me all in an instant; I tried to speak, but only a croak came out. Spring laughed aloud, and stooped to me, the demonic pale eyes gleaming, and began to shout at me.

"Hear this, d.a.m.n you! You'll go ash.o.r.e, derelict and penniless - as I did! And word will go ahead of you, to the police, and the federal people, not only in Baltimore, but in Was.h.i.+ngton and Orleans! You'll find they have fine long memories, Flashman - they'll remember Beauchamp Mill-ward Comber! The U.S. Navy have their file on him, I dare-say - perjury, impersonation, and slave-trading . . . but that's nothing, is it? You're wanted for slave-stealing, too, as I recall, which is a capital offence - and they're a dam' sight hotter on it now than they were ten years ago, even! And then there's the small matter of complicity in the murder of one Peter Omohundro - oh, it's quite a score, and I don't doubt there's more that I don't know about!"

He stood straight, and now he seemed to have swollen into a ghastly giant, white-bearded and hideous, who struck at me, but I couldn't feel the slaps, although they were jar-ring my head right and left.

"See how much good your medals and honours and the brave name of Sir Harry Flashman does you when the Yankee law has you by the neck! Aye, olim meminisse juvahit, rot you ... !" His bellowings were growing fainter. "Crawl or run or worm your way out of that! If you can - good luck to you! Bon voyage, you son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h ... !"

The pounding in my ears blotted out all other sounds, and my sight was going, for I could no longer make out his form, and the cabin lights were dwindling to pin-points. The nausea had pa.s.sed, my senses were going - but I remember clear as day my last thought before I went under, and 'twasn't about Spring or Miranda or the h.e.l.lish pickle awaiting me. No; for once I'd recognised his quotation - it had been framed on the wall of the hospital at Rugby, where I'd sobered up on that distant day when Arnold kicked me out ... "Olim meminisse juvabit",*(*It will be pleasant to remember former troubles - Virgil (not Seneca).) and dooced appropriate, too. Seneca, if memory serves.

Three times in my life I've been shanghaied, and each time there was a woman in the case - Miranda Spring, Phoebe Carpenter, and f.a.n.n.y Duberly, although I acquit pretty little Fan of any ill intent, and the occasion in which she was concerned saw me trepanned with my eyes open; on the two others it was Flashy outward bound with a bellyful of puggle from which I didn't awake until we were well out to sea, and there's no worse place to come to than below deck on a windjammer when the skip-per's in a hurry.

This one was an American with a broken nose and a beard like a scarf beneath his rock of a chin; my heart sank at the sight of him, for he had Down-easter12 written all over him. I'd hoped, when I crawled out of the stuffy hole in which I found myself and puked my heart out on a deck that seemed to be near perpendicular, that I'd find a good corruptible Frog or Dago on the p.o.o.p, but Spring had chosen his man well, d.a.m.n him. This one had eyes like flint and whined through his nose.

"Spew over the side, cain't ye!" was his greeting as I staggered up out of the scuppers and held on for my life; he stood braced without support in a gale that was bringing green sea over the rail in icy showers, soaking me in an instant, but at least it washed my tiffin and supper away. "Do that in a calm an' ye'll swab it up yourself, mister! Now, git back below till ye can stand straight, an' keep out o' the way, d'ye hear?"

It's not easy to conduct negotiations on a spray-lashed deck during a howling tempest, but I was wasting no time. "A hundred pounds if you'll take me to Port Nolloth or Walfish Bay!" I'd no notion where we were in the South Atlantic, but I doubted if we were far out as yet, and any port would do so long as it wasn't Baltimore - or the Cape, with Spring infesting the place. "Five hundred if you'll carry me to England!"

"Got it on ye?" shouts he. I hadn't; I'd been stripped clean of cash, papers, even my cheroot-case.

"You'll have it the moment we drop anchor! Look, a thousand if you set me down anywhere between Brest and London - it don't have to be English waters, even!"

That was when he knocked me down, grabbed me by the belt, and heaved me aft; I'm over thirteen stone, but I might have been his gunny-sack. He threw me into his cabin, kicked the door to, and watched me crawl to my feet.

"That's the short way of tellin' you I ain't for sale," says he. "Least of all to a lousy Limey slave-stealer."

Even in my distempered state, that sounded d.a.m.ned odd. "You ain't a Southerner! You're a Yankee, dammit!"

"That I am," says he. "An' I make my livin' 'tween Benin an' Brazil, mostly - that satisfy ye?" A slaver, in other words, if not this voyage. Trust Spring. So I tried another tack.

"You'll hang for this, d'ye know that? You're a kidnapper, and I'm Sir Harry Flashman, colonel in the British Army, and -"

"Spring told me that's what ye'd say, but you're a liar an' he ain't. Your name's Comber, an' in the States they've got warrants out for you for everythin' 'cept p.i.s.sin' in the street - Spring told me that, too! So any hangin' there is, you'll do it."

"You're wrong, you fool! I'm telling the truth, you Yankee idiot - don't hit me -"

He stood over me, rubbing his knuckles. "Now, you listen, mister, 'cos I'm runnin' out o' patience. John C. Spring is my friend. An' when he pays an' trusts me for a job, I do it. An' you're goin' to Baltimore. An' we'll lay off Sparrow's Point a couple o' days while the letters he give me goes ash.o.r.e, to let the taps know you're comin'. An' then you go. An' till then you'll work your pa.s.sage, an' I don't give two cents' worth of a Port Mahon sea-horse's droppings if you're Comber or Lord Harry Flasher or President Buchanan! Savvy? Now you git up, and walk along easy to the focsle - it's that way - an' give your callin' card to Mr Fitzgibbon, who's the mate, an' he'll show you to your stateroom. Now - skat!"

Having felt his fist twice, I skatted, and so began several weeks of vile hard work and viler food, but if you've been a slave to the Malaga.s.sies, or lain in a bottle-dungeon in India, or been toasted on a gridiron, or f.a.gged for Bully Dawson - well, you know things could be worse. I'd been a deckhand before, but I didn't let on, so I was never sent aloft; Fitzgibbon, and the skipper, whose name was Lynch, were first-rate seamen, so far as I'm a judge, and the last thing they wanted was some handless farmer hindering work, so I was tailing on and hauling and holystoning and greasing and painting and tarring and doing any of the count-less unskilled menial tasks of s.h.i.+pboard - oh, I cleaned the heads, too - and because I knew better than to s.h.i.+rk, I rubbed along well enough, bar sea-sickness which wore off after a week, and inedible tack, and being played out with fatigue, and driven half-crazy by that h.e.l.lish creaking and groaning din that never ceases on a sailing packet; you get used to that, too, though. The focsle gang were a hard-bitten crowd, Scowegians and Germans, mostly, but I was big and strong enough to be let alone, and I didn't encourage conversation.

You may think I make light of it - being kidnapped and pressed into sea-slavery, but if I've learned anything it's that when you have no choice, you must just buckle down to misfortune . . . and wait. It was all sufficiently beastly, to be sure, but d'ye know, I reckon Spring was cheated of that part of his vengeance; as I've said, I'd been through h.e.l.l and back before in my chequered life, far worse than Spring had, and being a packet-rat was that much less of an ordeal to me than it must have been to him. He thought he was G.o.dalmighty, you see, lording it over riff-raff by virtue of his "eminence" as he'd called it, by which I guess he meant his master's ticket and his M.A. and simply being the great John Charity Spring, cla.s.sical don and Fellow of Oriel, d.a.m.n your ryes. Now, I am riff-raff, when I have to be, and so long as I can see a glimmer at the end of the pa.s.sage, well, dum spiro spero,*(*While I breathe I hope.) as we scholars say. Having his high-table a.r.s.e kicked must have had Spring gnawing the rigging; I took care not to be kicked. His haughty spirit rebelled; I ain't got one.

Another thing that cheered me up was my belief that Spring, being mad as a weaver to start with, had let his harboured spite get the better of his few remaining wits; if he thought he was dooming me to death or the chain-gang by packing me off to the States, he was well out of reckoning. What he had said about my American embarra.s.sments was true enough, but that had been a long time ago; it's a painful story, but in case you haven't read it in my earlier memoirs, I'll give you the heads of it here.

Ten years back, when Spring's slaver, the Balliol College, with Flashy aboard as reluctant supercargo, had been captured off Cuba by an American patrol, I'd deemed it prudent to a.s.sume the ident.i.ty of Beauchamp Millward Comber (don't laugh, it was his name), our late third mate, who'd told me on his deathbed that he was an Admiralty agent who was only sailing with Spring to spy on his slaving activities. If you think I'm stretching, the U.S. Navy didn't; Comber's papers saw me through, but it was touch and go, so I'd slipped my cable and looked for a way home. I thought I'd found one when the Underground Railroad, a clandestine troupe of lunatics who ran escaped slaves to Canada, got their hands on me - they had ears everywhere, even in the U.S. Navy Department - and offered to help me North if I'd take an important runaway n.i.g.g.e.r with me to freedom.

That enterprise had ended with me going over one rail of a Mississippi steamboat while the darkie, with a slave-catcher's bullet in him, had gone over t'other. Subsequently I'd been overseer on a plantation, lost my situation for rogering the lady of the house, escaped North with a female octoroon slave who'd killed two men en route, been shot in the backside by pursuers while crossing the Ohio River, found refuge with Congressman Abraham Lincoln who'd dragooned me into testifying at the adjudication on Spring's slave-s.h.i.+p in New Orleans, been unwillingly reunited with my dear old commander who had then murdered one Omohundro in a pub, fled with him to seek shelter with a wh.o.r.e of my acquaintance who'd obligingly had old J.C. shanghaied . . . and had at last won back to England, home, and beauty via the Great Plains, an Apache village, and San Francisco, slightly out of breath. Honestly, I'd have been better going into the Church, or banking, or politics, even.

In any event, that's how the sparks flew upward on my first visit to America - and you can see Spring's point. In my brief sojourn I'd been an impostor and perjurer (as Comber), stolen slaves (under the names of Prescott, Arnold, and, I rather think, Fitzroy Howard or something like that), and was wanted for murders I hadn't committed in Mississippi, or it may have been Tennessee for all I know, as well as for aiding and abetting (which I hadn't done, either) Spring's stabbing of Omohundro. An impressive tally, I concede, and none the better for being all entirely against my will.

However, I doubted if the U.S. Navy was much concerned with the fugitive Comber at this late date, and I'd no intention of going near the Mississippi. I wasn't wanted in Mary-land, where Baltimore is; let me present myself to a British consul there, or in Was.h.i.+ngton, which was only forty miles away, and I was on easy street. The great thing, you see, was that I wasn't Comber (or Prescott or those other chaps), but I was Sir Harry Flashman, not unknown by name and fame, and once I was under our emba.s.sy's13 wing, warrants from far-flung states for the arrest of non-existent Combers, etc. would matter not at all. Not in Was.h.i.+ngton or the North, at least; if I were fool enough-to venture South, where there might be witnesses to identify me, that would be a different and d.a.m.ned unpleasant kettle of fish; as Spring had pointed out, my rank and heroic stature at home wouldn't weigh much with a Louisiana jury.

So you can see why I wasn't over-troubled about what lay ahead; indeed, my preoccupation was how to pay Spring out when I was safe home in England. The evil-eyed b.a.s.t.a.r.d had terrified, drugged, and kidnapped me, subjected me to the gruelling misery of packet-ratting, and done his d.a.m.nedest to deliver me to an American gallows; well, he was going to rue the day. Straight prosecution was out of the question: it would take too long, likely uncover past history which I'd i at her keep dark, and almost certainly fail in the end - the whole business was too wild, and the thought of returning to testify at the Cape, with Spring frothing at me across the court . . . no, I'd prefer not. Especially since the most artistic revenge had already occurred to me: a detailed account, to the address of J. C. Spring, M.A., of the contortions which his saintly Miranda and I had performed aboard dear Papa's yacht - that would bring a blush to his cheek. It would destroy him, wound him to the depths of his rotten soul, probably drive him crazy altogether. He might even murder her, and swing for it - well, the b.i.t.c.h deserved it. No .. . she'd swear blind that I was lying out of spite, and he'd believe her, or pretend to . . . but in his heart he'd always know it was the truth. Aye, that would teach him that Flashy's a critter best left alone because, as Thomas Hughes pointed out, he can find ways of striking home that you ain't even thought of.

Now I'll not weary you with any further relation of Life at Sea when Uncle Harry was a Lad, but hasten on to Chesapeake Bay, which I reckon we reached in about eight weeks, but it may have been more.14 I made two further attempts to suborn Captain Lynch, promising him Golconda if he would put me down at New York or Boston, but I might as well have talked to the mast; I believe my speech and bearing, and my conduct aboard, had sown some doubt in his mind, for he didn't hit me on either occasion, but perhaps because he was a man of his word, as some of these half-wit sh.e.l.lbacks are, or more likely because Spring had a hold on him, he wasn't to be budged. "You're goin' to Baltimore even if the Chesapeake's afire, so ye can save your wind!" says he, and that was that.