 CHAPTER 8 THE ROUNDHOUSE One night, about eleven o'clock, a man of Mr. Riach's watch, which was on deck, came below for his jacket, and instantly there began to go a whisper about the forecastle that Shu'an had done for him at last. There was no need of a name. We all knew who was meant, but we had scarce time to get the idea rightly in our heads, far less to speak of it, when the scuttle was again flung open, and Captain Hoseason came down the ladder. He looked sharply round the bunks in the tossing light of the lantern, and then, walking straight up to me, he addressed me, to my surprise, in tones of kindness. "'My man,' said he, "'we want you to serve in the roundhouse. You and Ransom are to change births. Run away aft with you.' Even as he spoke, two seamen appeared in the scuttle, carrying Ransom in their arms, and the ship at that moment giving a great shear into the sea, and the lantern swinging, the light fell direct on the boy's face. It was white as wax, and had a look upon it like a dreadful smile. The blood in me ran cold, and I drew in my breath as if I had been struck. "'Run away aft! Run away aft with you!' cried Hoseason. And at that I brushed by the sailors and the boy, who neither spoke nor moved, and ran up the ladder on deck. The brig was shearing swiftly and giddily through a long cresting swell. She was on the starboard tack, and on the left hand, under the arch foot of the foresail, I could see the sunset still quite bright. This at such an hour of the night surprised me greatly, but I was too ignorant to draw the true conclusion, that we were going north about round Scotland, and were now on the high sea between the Orkney and Shetland Islands, having avoided the dangerous currents of the Pentland Firth. For my part, who had been so long shut in the dark and knew nothing of headwinds, I thought we might be half way or more across the Atlantic. And indeed, beyond that I wandered a little at the lateness of the sunset light. I gave no heed to it, pushed on across the decks, running between the seas, catching at ropes, and only saved from going overboard by one of the hands on deck, who had always been kind to me. The roundhouse, for which I was bound, and where I was now to sleep and serve, stood some six feet above the decks, and considering the size of the brig, was of good dimensions. Inside was a fixed table and bench, and two berths, one for the captain, and the other for the two mates, turn and turn about. It was all fitted with lockers from top to bottom, so as to stow away the officer's belongings in a part of the ship's stores, there was a second storeroom underneath which you entered by a hatchway in the middle of the deck. Indeed all the best of the meat and drink and the whole of the powder were collected in this place, and all the firearms, except the two pieces of brass ordnance, were set in a rack in the aftermost wall of the roundhouse. The most of the cutlasses were in another place. A small window with a shutter on each side, and a skylight in the roof, gave it light by day, and after dark there was a lamp always burning. It was burning when I entered, not brightly, but enough to show Mr. Shu'an sitting at the table, with the brandy bottle and a tin panikin in front of him. He was a tall man, strongly made and very black, and he stared before him on the table like one's stupid. He took no notice of my coming in, nor did he move when the captain followed and leaned on the berth beside me, looking darkly at the mate. I stood in great fear of hoe season, and had my reasons for it, but something told me I need not be afraid of him just then, and I whispered in his ear, How is he? He shook his head like one that does not know and does not wish to think, and his face was very stern. Suddenly Mr. Riyach came in. He gave the captain a glance that meant the boy was dead, his plain as speaking, and took his place like the rest of us, so that we all three stood without a word, staring down at Mr. Shu'an, and Mr. Shu'an, on his side, sat without a word, looking hard upon the table. All of a sudden he put out his hand to take the bottle, and at that Mr. Riyach started forward and caught it away from him, rather by surprise than violence, crying out with an oath that there had been too much of this work altogether, and that a judgment would fall upon the ship. As he spoke, the weather sliding doors standing open, he tossed the bottle into the sea. Mr. Shu'an was on his feet at a trice. He still looked to daze, but he meant murder, I, and would have done it, but the second time that night had not the captain stepped in between him and his victim. Sit down, roars the captain. You're sot and swine, do you know what you've done? You've murdered the boy. Mr. Shu'an seemed to understand, for he sat down again, and put up his hand to his brow. Hell, he said, he brought me a dirty panic in. At that word, the captain and I and Mr. Riyach all looked at each other for a second with a kind of frightened look, and then Hoseason walked up to his chief officer, took him by the shoulder, led him across to his bunk, and made him lie down and go to sleep, as you might speak to a bad child. The murderer cried a little, but he took off his sea boots and obeyed. Ha! cried Mr. Riyach, with a dreadful voice. You should have interfered long since. It's too late now. Mr. Riyach, said the captain, this night's work must never be Kent and Dysart. The boy went overboard, sir. That's what the story is, and I would give five pounds out of my pocket, it was true. He turned to the table. What made you throw the good bottle away? He added. There was no sense in that, sir. Here, David, draw me another. They're in the bottom locker. And he tossed me a key. You'll need a glass yourself, sir, he added to Riyach. Yann was an ugly thing to see. So the pair sat down and habanabbed, and while they did so, the murderer, who had been lying and whimpering in his birth, raised himself upon his elbow and looked at them, and at me. That was the first night of my new duties, and in the course of the next day I had got well into the run of them. I had to serve at the meals, which the captain took at regular hours, sitting down with the officer who was off duty. All the day through I would be running with a drum to one or other of my three masters, and at night I slept on a blanket thrown on the deckboards at the aftermost end of the roundhouse, and right in the draft of the two doors. It was a hard and a cold bed, nor was I suffered to sleep without interruption. For some one would always be coming in from deck to get a nap, and when a fresh watch was to be set, two and sometimes all three would sit down and brew a bowl together. How they kept their health I know not, any more than how I kept my own. And yet in other ways it was an easy service. There was no cloth delay, the meals were either of oatmeal porridge or a salt junk, except twice a week, when there was duffen, though I was clumsy enough and not being firm on my sea-legs sometimes fell with what I was bringing them, both Mr. Riach and the captain were singularly patient. I could not but fancy they were making up leeway with their consciences, and that they would scarce have been so good with me if they had not been worse with ransom. As for Mr. Shuan, the drink or his crime, or the two together, had certainly troubled his mind. I cannot say I ever saw him in his proper wits. He never grew used to my being there, stared at me continually. Sometimes I could have thought with terror, and more than once drew back from my hand when I was serving him. I was pretty sure from the first that he had no clear mind of what he had done, and on my second day in the roundhouse I had the proof of it. We were alone, and he had been staring at me a long time, when all at once up he got his pale as death and came up close to me, to my great terror, but I had no cause to be afraid of him. "'You were not here before?' he asked. "'No, sir,' said I. "'There was another boy?' he asked again, and when I had answered him. "'Ah!' says he. "'I thought that!' and went and sat down with that another word, except to call for Brandy. You may think it's strange, but for all the horror I had I was still sorry for him. He was a married man, with a wife and leaf. But whether or no he had a family I have now forgotten. I hope not.' Altogether it was no very hard life for the time it lasted, which, as you are to hear, was not long. I was as well fed as the best of them, even their pickles, which were the great dainty I was allowed my share of, and had I liked I might have been drunk from morning to night, like Mr. Shuan. I had company to, and good company of its sort. Mr. Riyach, who had been to the college, spoke to me like a friend when he was not sulking, told me many curious things, and some that were informing, and even the captain, though he kept me at the stick's end the most part of the time, would sometimes unbuckle a bit and tell me of the fine countries he had visited. The shadow of poor Ransom, to be sure, lay on all four of us, and on me and Mr. Shuan, in particular, most heavily. And then I had another trouble of my own. Here I was, doing dirty work for three men that I looked down upon, and one of whom, at least, should have been hung upon a gallows. That was for the present, and as for the future, I could only see myself slaving alongside of negroes in the tobacco fields. Mr. Riyach, perhaps from caution, would never suffer me to say another word about my story. The captain, whom I tried to approach, rebuffed me like a dog and would not hear a word. And as the days came and went, my heart sank lower and lower, till I was even glad of the work which kept me from thinking. End of chapter 9 of Kidnapped This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Kidnapped By Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter 9 The Man with the Belt of Gold More than a week went by, in which the ill luck that had hitherto pursued the covenant upon this voyage grew yet more strongly marked. Some days she made a little way, others she was driven actually back. At last we were beaten so far to the south that we tossed intact to and fro the whole of the ninth day, within sight of Cape Wrath and the wild rocky coast on either hand of it. There followed on that a council of the officers and some decision which I did not rightly understand, seeing only the result that we had made a fair wind of a foul one and were running south. The tenth afternoon there was a falling swell and a thick, wet, white fog that hid one end of the brig from the other. All afternoon, when I went on deck, I saw men and officers listening hard over the bulwarks. For breakers, they said, and though I did not so much as understand the word, I felt danger in the air and was excited. Maybe about ten at night I was serving Mr. Riyach and the captain at their supper. When the ship struck something with a great sound and we heard voices singing out, my two masters leap to their feet. "'She's struck,' said Mr. Riyach. "'No, sir,' said the captain. "'We've only run a boat down,' and they hurried out. The captain was in the right of it. We had run down a boat in the fog and she had parted in the midst and gone to the bottom with all her crew but one. This man, as I heard afterwards, had been sitting in the stern as a passenger while the rest were on the benches rowing. At the moment of the blow the stern had been thrown into the air, and the man, having his hands free and for all he was encumbered with a freeze overcoat that came below his knees, had leaped up and caught hold of the brig's bow-sprit. It showed he had luck and much agility and unusual strength that he should have thus saved himself from such a pass. And yet, when the captain brought him into the roundhouse, and I set eyes on him for the first time, he looked as cool as I did. He was smallish in stature, but well-set, and as nimble as a goat. His face was of a good open expression, but sunburnt very dark, and heavily freckled and pitted with a smallpox. His eyes were unusually light and had a kind of dancing madness in him that was both engaging and alarming, and when he took off his greatcoat he laid a pair of fine silver-mounted pistols on the table, and I saw that he was belted with a great sword. His manners besides were elegant, and he pledged the captain handsomely. All together I thought of him at the first sight that here was a man I would rather call my friend than my enemy. The captain too was taking his observations but rather of the man's clothes than his person, and to be sure, as soon as he had taken off the greatcoat he showed forth mighty fine for the roundhouse of a merchant brig, having a hat with feathers, a red waistcoat, breaches of black plush, and a blue coat with silver buttons and handsome silver lace, clasely clothes, though somewhat spoiled with a fog and being slept in. I'm vexed, sir, about the boat, said the captain. There are some pretty men gone to the bottom, said the stranger, that I would rather see on the dry land again than half a score of boats. Friends of yours, said Hoseason. You have none such friends in your country, was the reply. They would have died for me like dogs. Well, sir, said the captain, still watching him, there are more men in the world than boats to put them in. And that's true, too, cried the other, and you seem to be a gentleman of great penetration. I have been in France, sir, says the captain, so that it was plain he meant more by the words than showed upon the face of them. Well, sir, says the other, and so is many a pretty man for the matter of that. No doubt, sir, says the captain, and fine coats. A whole, says the stranger, is that how the wind sets? And he laid his hand quickly on his pistols. Don't be hasty, said the captain. Don't do a mischief before you see the need of it. You have a French soldier's coat upon your back and a scotch tongue in your head, to be sure. But so has many an honest fellow these days, and I dare say none the worse of it. So, said the gentleman in the fine coat, are ye of the honest party? Meaning was he a Jacobite? For each side in these sort of civil broils takes the name of honesty for its own. Why, sir, replied the captain, I am a true blue protestant, and I thank God for it. It was the first word of any religion I had ever heard from him, but I learned afterwards he was a great church-goer while on shore. But for all that, says he, I can be sorry to see another man with his back to the wall. Can you so indeed, asked the Jacobite? Well, sir, to be quite plain with ye, I am one of those honest gentlemen that were in trouble about the years forty-five and six, and to be still quite plain with ye, if I got into the hands of any of the red-coated gentry it's like it would go hard with me. Now, sir, I was for France, and there was a French ship cruising here to pick me up, but she gave us the go-by and the fork, as I wish from the heart that ye had done yourself. And the best that I can say is this. If ye can set me ashore where I was going, I have that upon me will reward ye highly for your trouble. In France, says the captain, no, sir, that I cannot do, but where ye come from we might talk of that. And then, unhappily, he observed me standing in my corner and packed me off to the galley to get supper for the gentleman. I lost no time, I promise you, and when I came back into the roundhouse I found the gentleman had taken a money-belt from about his waist and poured out a guinea or two upon the table. The captain was looking at the guineas, and then at the belt, and then at the gentleman's face, and I thought he seemed excited. Half of it, he cried, and I'm your man. The other swept back the guineas into the belt and put it on again under his waistcoat. I have told ye, sir, said he, that not one doit of it belongs to me, it belongs to my chieftain. And here he touched his hat, and while I would be but a silly messenger to grudge some of it that the rest might come safe, I should show myself a hound indeed if I bought my own carcass any too dear. Thirty guineas on the seaside, or sixty if ye set me on the linealock. Take it, if ye will, if not ye can do ye worst. I, said Ho season, and if I give ye over to the soldiers. Ye would make a fool's bargain, said the other. My chief, let me tell you, sir, is forfeited, like every honest man in Scotland. His estates is in the hands of the man they call King George, and it is his officers that collect the rents, or try to collect them. But for the honour of Scotland the poor tenant bodies take a thought upon their chief lying in exile, and this money is a part of that very rent for which King George is looking. Now, sir, ye seem to me to be a man that understands things, bring this money within the reach of government, and how much of it'll come to ye. Little enough to be sure, said Ho season, and then, if they knew, he added dryly, but I think if I was to try that I could hold my tongue about it. Ah, but I'll be gawk ye there, cried the gentleman. Ye me false, and I'll play you cunning. If a hand is laid upon me they shall ken what money it is. Well, return the captain, that must be must. Sixty guineas, and done. Here's my hand upon it. And here's mine, said the other. And thereupon the captain went out, rather hurriedly, I thought, and left me alone in the roundhouse with the stranger. At that period, so soon after the forty-five, there were many exiled gentlemen coming back at the peril of their lives, either to see their friends or to collect a little money, and as for the Highland chiefs that had been forfeited, it was a common matter of talk how their tenants would stint themselves to send the money, and their clansmen out-faced the soldiery to get it in, and run the gauntlet of our great navy to carry it across. All this I had, of course, heard tell of, and now I had a man under my eyes whose life was forfeit on all these counts and upon one more, for he was not only a rebel and a smuggler of rents, but he had taken service with King Louis of France. And as if all this were not enough, he had a belt full of golden guineas round his loins. Whatever my opinions, I could not look on such a man without a lively interest. And so you're a Jacobite, said I, as I set meet before him. I, said he, beginning to eat, and you, by your long face, should be a wig. Betwixt in between, said I, not to annoy him, but for indeed I was as good a wig as Mr. Campbell could make me. And that's nothing, said he, but I'm saying, Mr. Betwixt in between, he added, this bottle of yours is dry, and it's hard if I'm to pay sixty guineas and be grudged a dram upon the back of it. I'll go and ask for the key, said I, and stepped on deck. The fog was as close as ever but the swell almost down. They had laid the brig, too, not knowing precisely where they were, and the wind, what little there was of it, not serving well for their true course. Some of the hands were still hearkening for breakers, but the captain and the two officers were in the waist with their heads together. It struck me, I don't know why, that they were after no good, and the first word I heard, as I drew softly near, more than confirmed me. It was Mr. Riyach crying out as if upon the sudden thought, Couldn't we wail him out of the roundhouse? He's better where he is, returned Ho's season, he hasn't room to use his sword. Well, that's true, said Riyach, but he's hard to come at. But, said Ho's season, we can get the man in talk, one upon each side, impending by the two arms, or if that'll not hold, sir, we can make a run by both the doors and get him under hand before he has the time to draw. At this hearing I was seized with both fear and anger at these treacherous, greedy, bloody men that I sailed with. My first mind was to run away, my second was bolder. Captain, said I, the gentleman is seeking a dram and the bottle's out, will you give me the key? They all started and turned about. Why, here's our chance to get the firearms, Riyach cried, and then to me, Hark you, David, he said, do you ken where the pistols are? Aye, aye, put in Ho's season, David kens, David's a good lad. You see, David, my man, young Wild Highlandman does a danger to the ship, besides being a rank foe to King George, God bless him. I had never been so bedavided since I came on board, but I said yes, as if all I heard were quite natural. The trouble is, resumed the captain, that all our firelocks, great and little, are in the roundhouse under this man's nose, likewise the powder. Now, if I or one of the officers was to go in and take them, he would fall to thinking, but a lad like you, David, might snap up a horn and a pistol or two without remark, and if you can do it cleverly, I'll bear it in mind when it'll be good for you to have friends, and that's when we come to Carolina. Here Mr. Riyach whispered him a little. He writes, sir, said the captain, and then to myself, I see here, David, young man has a belt full of gold, and I give you my word that you shall have your fingers in it. I told him I would do as he wished, though indeed I had scarce breath to speak with, and upon that he gave me the key of the spirit-locker, and I began to go slowly back to the roundhouse. What was I to do? They were dogs and thieves. They had stolen me from my own country, they had killed Port Ransom, and was I to hold the candle to another murder? But then, upon the other hand, there was the fear of death very plain before me, for what could a boy and a man, if they were as brave as lions, against a whole ship's company? I was still arguing it back and forth and getting no great clearness when I came into the roundhouse and saw the Jacobite eating his supper under the lamp, and at that my mind was made up all in a moment. I have no credit by it. It was by no choice of mine, but as if by compulsion that I walked right up to the table and put my hand on his shoulder. "'Do you want to be killed?' said I. He sprang to his feet and looked a question at me as clear as if he had spoken. "'Oh!' cried I. "'They're all murderers here. It's a ship full of them. They've murdered a boy already. Now it's you.' "'I. I,' said he, but they haven't got me yet. And then looking at me curiously, will you stand with me?' "'That will I,' said I, I am no thief nor yet murderer. I'll stand by you.' "'Why, then,' said he, what's your name?' "'David Balfour,' said I, and then thinking that a man with so fine a coat must like fine people, I added for the first time, of shawes. It never occurred to him to doubt me, for a Highlander is used to see great gentlefolk and great poverty, but as he had no estate of his own my words nettle the very childish vanity he had. "'My name is Stuart,' he said, drawing himself up. "'Alan Breck,' they call me. "'King's name is good enough for me, though I bear it plain, and have the name of no farm mitten to clap to the hind end of it.' And having administered this rebuke as though it were something of a chief importance, he turned to examine our defences. The roundhouse was built very strong to support the breaching of the seas. Of its five apertures only the skylight and the two doors were large enough for the passage of a man. The doors besides could be drawn close. They were of stout oak, and ran in grooves, and were fitted with hooks to keep them either shut or open as the need arose. The one that was already shut I secured in this fashion, but when I was proceeding to slide to the other, Alan stopped me. "'David,' said he, "'for I cannot bring to mind the name of your landed estate, and so will make so bold as to call you, David. That door being open is the best part of my defences.' "'It would be yet better shut,' says I. "'Not so, David,' says he, "'you see, I have but one face, but so long as that door is open in my face to it, the best part of my enemies will be in front of me, where I would wish to find them.' Then he gave me from the rack a cutlass, of which there were a few besides the firearms, choosing it with great care, shaking his head and saying he had never in all his life seen poorer weapons, and next he set me down to the table with a powder horn, a bag of bullets, and all the pistols which he bade me charge. "'And that will be better work, let me tell you,' said he, for a gentleman of decent berth, then scraping plates and raxing drums to a wing-terry sailor's. Thereupon he stood up in the midst with his face to the door, drawing his great sword, made trial of the room he had de-wielded in. "'I must stick to the point,' he said, shaking his head, "'and that's a pity, too. It doesn't set my genius, which is all for the upper guard. And now,' said he, "'do you keep on charging the pistols and give heed to me?' I told him I would listen closely. My chest was tight, my mouth dry, the light dark to my eyes, and the thought of the numbers that were soon to leap in upon us kept my heart in a flutter, and the sea which I heard washing round the brig, and where I thought my dead body would be cast air-morning, ran in my mind strangely. "'First of all,' said he, "'how many are against us?' I reckoned them up, and such was the hurry of my mind I had to cast the numbers twice. "'Fifteen,' said I. Then whistled. "'Well,' said he, "'that can't be cured. And now follow me. It is my part to keep this door where I look for the main battle. In that you have no hand, and mind and dine a fire to this side unless they get me down, for I would rather have ten foes in front of me than one friend like you crackin' pistols at my back.' I told him indeed I was no great shot. "'And that's very bravely said,' he cried, and a great admiration of my candor. There's many a pretty gentleman that wouldn't dare to say it.' "'But then, sir,' said I, "'there is the door behind you, which they may perhaps break in.' "'I,' said he, "'and that is the part of your work. No sooner the pistols charge, then you must climb up into yon bed where you handy at the window, and if they lift hand against the door, you're to shoot. But that's not all. Let's make a bit of a soldier of you, David. What else have you to guard?' "'There's the skylight,' said I. But indeed, Mr. Steward, I would need to have eyes upon both sides to keep the two of them, for when my face is at the one, my back is to the other.' "'And that's very true,' said Alan. "'But have you no ears to your head?' "'To be sure,' cried I, "'I must hear the bursting of the glass.' "'You have some rudiments of sense,' said Alan grimly.' End of CHAPTER 10 THE SEAGE OF THE ROUND HOUSE Now our time of truce was come to an end. Those on deck had waited for my coming till they grew impatient, and scarce had Alan spoken when the captain showed face in the open door. "'Stand,' cried Alan, and pointed his sword at him. The captain stood, indeed, but he neither winced nor drew back a foot. "'Unnaked sword,' said he, "'this is a strange return for hospitality.' "'Do you see me?' said Alan. "'I am come of kings. I bear a king's name. My badge is the oak. Do you see my sword? It has slashed the heads off myrrh, wiggumours, than you have toes upon your feet. Call up your vermin to your back, sir, and fall on. The sooner the clash begins, the sooner you'll taste this steel through your vitals.' The captain said nothing to Alan, but he looked over at me with an ugly look. "'David,' said he, "'I'll mine this.' And the sound of his voice went through me with a jar. Next moment he was gone. "'And now,' said Alan, "'let your hand keep your head, for the grip is coming.' Alan drew a dirk, which he held in his left hand in case they should run in under his sword. I, on my part, clambered up into the berth with an armful of pistols and something of a heavy heart, and set open the window where I was to watch. It was a small part of the deck that I could overlook, but enough for our purpose. The sea had gone down, and the wind was steady, and kept the sails quiet, so that there was a great stillness in the ship, in which I made sure I heard the sound of muttering voices. A little after, and there came a clash of steel upon the deck, by which I knew they were dealing out the cutlisses and wanted been let fall. And after that, silence again.' I do not know if I was what you call afraid, but my heart beat like a bird's, both quick and little, and there was a dimness come before my eyes which I continually rubbed away, and which continually returned. As for hope, I had none, but only a darkness of despair and a sort of anger against all the world that may be long to sell my life as dear as I was able. I tried to pray, I remember. But that same hurry of my mind, like a man running, would not suffer me to think upon the words, and my chief wish was to have the thing begin and be done with it. It came all of a sudden, when it did, with a rush of feet and a roar, and then a shout from Alan, and a sound of blows and someone crying out as if hurt. I looked back over my shoulder and saw Mr. Shuan in the doorway, crossing blades with Alan. "'That's him that killed the boy,' I cried. "'Look to your window,' said Alan. And as I turned back to my place, I saw him pass his sword through the mate's body. It was none too soon for me to look to my own part, for my head was scarce back at the window before five men carrying a spare yard for a battering-ram ran past me and took pose to drive the door in. I had never fired with a pistol in my life and not often with a gun, far less against a fellow creature, but it was now or never, and just as they swang the yard I cried out, "'Take that!' and shot into their midst. I must have hit one of them, for he sang out and gave back a step, and the rest stopped as if a little disconcerted. Before they had time to recover I sent another ball over their heads, and at my third shot, which went as wide as the second, the whole party threw down the yard and ran for it. Then I looked round again into the deck-house. The whole place was full of the smoke of my own firing, just as my ears seemed to be burst with the noise of the shots. But there was Alan, standing as before, only now his sword was running blood to the hilt, and himself so swelled with triumph and fallen into so fine an attitude that he looked to be invincible. Right before him on the floor was Mr. Shuan on his hands and knees, the blood was pouring from his mouth, and he was sinking slowly lower, with a terrible white face. And just as I looked, some of those from behind caught hold of him by the heels and dragged him bodily out of the roundhouse. I believe he died as they were doing it. "'There's one of your wigs for you!' cried Alan, and then turning to me he asked if I had done much execution. I told him I had winged one, and thought it was the captain. "'And I have settled too,' says he. "'No, there's not enough blood let. There'll be back again. Till you watch, David, this was but a dram before meat.' I settled back to my place, recharging the three pistols I had fired, and keeping watch with both eye and ear. Our enemies were disputing not far off upon the deck, and that so loudly that I could hear a word or two above the washing of the seas. It was sure and buckled, I heard one say, and another one answered him with a reached man, he's paid the piper. And after that the voices fell again into the same muttering as before. Only now one person spoke most of the time, as though laying down a plan, and first one and then another answered him briefly like men taking orders. By this I made sure they were coming on again, and told Alan. "'It's what we have to pray for,' said he. "'Unless we can give them a good distaste of us and done with it, there'll be no sleep for either you or me. But this time, mind, they'll be in earnest.' By this my pistols were ready, and there was nothing to do but listen and wait. While the brush lasted I had not the time to think if I was frightened, but now, when all was still again, my mind ran upon nothing else. The thought of the sharp swords and the cold steel was strong in me, and presently when I began to hear stealthy steps and a brushing of men's clothes against the roundhouse wall, and knew they were taking their places in the dark, I could have found it in my mind to cry out aloud. All this was upon Alan's side, and I had begun to think my share of the fight was at an end, when I heard someone drop softly on the roof above me. Then there came a single call on the sea-pipe, and that was the signal. A knot of them made one rush of it, cutless in hand, against the door, and at the same moment the glass of the skylight was dashed in a thousand pieces, and a man leaped through and landed on the floor. Before he got his feet I had clapped a pistol to his back, and I might have shot him, too. Only at the touch of him and him alive my whole flesh misgave me, and I could no more pull the trigger than I could have flown. He had dropped his cutlass as he jumped, and when he felt the pistol, whipped straight around it laid hold of me, roaring out an oath, and at that either my courage came again, or I grew so much afraid as came to the same thing, for I gave a shriek and shot him in the midst of the body. He gave the most horrible, ugly groan and fell to the floor. The foot of a second fellow, whose legs were dangling through the skylight, struck me at the same time upon the head, and at that I snatched another pistol and shot this one through the thigh, so that he slipped through and tumbled in a lump on his companion's body. There was no talk of missing any more than there was time to aim. I clapped the muzzle to the very place, and fired. I might have stood and stared at them for long, but I heard Alan shout as if for help, and that brought me to my senses. He had kept the door so long, but one of the seamen, while he was engaged with others, had run in under his guard and caught him about the body. Alan was dirking him with his left hand, but the fellow clung like a leech. Another had broken in and had his cutlass raised. The door was thronged with their faces. I thought we were lost, and catching up my cutlass fell on them in flank. But I had not time to be of help. The wrestler dropped at last, and Alan, leaping back to get his distance, ran upon the others like a bull, roaring as he went. They broke before him like water, turning and running and falling one against another in their haste. The sword in his hands flashed like quicksilver into the huddle of our fleeing enemies, and at every flash there came the scream of a man hurt. I was still thinking we were lost when, lo, they were all gone, and Alan was driving them along the deck as a sheepdog chases sheep. He was no sooner out than he was back again, being as cautious as he was brave, and meanwhile the seamen continued running and crying out as if he was still behind them, and we heard them tumble one upon another into the forecastle, and clapped to the hatch upon the top. The roundhouse was like a shambles. Three were dead inside, another lay in his death agony across the threshold, and there were Alan and I, victorious and unhurt. He came up to me with open arms. Come to my arms! He cried, and embraced and kissed me hard upon both cheeks. David, said he, I love you like a brother, and oh, man! He cried in a kind of ecstasy. Am I no a boney-fighter? Thereupon he turned to the four enemies, passed his sword clean through each of them, and tumbled them out of doors one after the other. As he did so he kept humming and singing and whistling to himself, like a man trying to recall an air. Only what he was trying was to make one. All the while the flush was in his face, and his eyes were as bright as a five-year-old child's with a new toy. And presently he sat down upon the table, sword in hand, the air that he was making all the time began to run a little clearer, and then clearer still, and then out he burst with a great voice into a Gaelic song. I have translated it here, not in verse, of which I have no skill, but at least in the King's English. He sang it often afterwards, and the thing became popular, so that I have heard it, and had explained to me, many's the time. This is the song of the sword of Alan. The smith made it, the fire set it, now it shines in the hand of Alan Breck. Their eyes were many and bright. Swift were they to behold. Many the hands they guided. The sword was alone. The done-deer troop over the hill. They are many. The hill is one. The done-deer vanish. The hill remains. Come to me from the hills of Heather. Come from the aisles of the sea. O far-beholding eagles, hear is your meat. Now this song which he made, both words and music, in the hour of our victory, is something less than just to me, who stood beside him in the tussle. Mr. Shuan and five more were either killed outright or thoroughly disabled, but of these two fell by my hand, the two that came by the skylight. Four more were hurt, and of that number, one, and he not the least important, got his hurt from me. So that all together I did my fair share, both of the killing and the wounding, it might have claimed a place in Allen's verses. But poets have to think upon their rhymes, and in good prose talk, Allen always did me more than justice. In the meanwhile I was innocent of any wrong being done me, for not only I knew no word of the Gaelic, but what were the long suspense of the waiting, and the scurry and strain of our two spurts of fighting, had more than all the horror I had of some of my own sharing it, the thing was no sooner over than I was glad to stagger to a seat. There was that tightness on my chest that I could hardly breathe, the thought of the two men I had shot sat upon me like a nightmare, and all upon a sudden, and before I had a guess of what was coming, I began to sob and cry like any child. Allen clapped my shoulder, and said I was a brave lad, and wanted nothing but a sleep. I'll take the first watch, said he. You've done well by me, David, first and last, and I wouldn't lose you for all, Appan. No, nor for Brittlebane. So I made up my bed on the floor, and he took the first spell, pistol in hand and sword on knee, three hours by the captain's watch upon the wall. Then he roused me up, and I took my turn of three hours, before the end of which it was broad day, and a very quiet morning, under the smooth rolling sea that tossed the ship and made the blood run to and fro on the roundhouse floor, and a heavy rain that drummed upon the roof. All my watch there was nothing stirring, and by the banging of the helm I knew they had even no one at the tiller. Indeed, as I learned afterwards, there were so many of them hurt or dead, and the rest in so ill a temper, that Mr. Riyach and the captain had to take turn and turn, like Alan and me, or the brig might have gone ashore, and nobody the wiser. It was a mercy the night had fallen so still, for the wind had gone down as soon as the rain began. Even as it was, I judged by the wailing of a great number of gulls that went crying and fishing round the ship, that she must have drifted pretty near the coast, or one of the islands of the Hebrides, and at last, looking out of the door of the roundhouse, I saw the great stone hills of sky on the right hand, and a little more astern, the strange isle of room, and of chapter 11 of Kidnapped. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. Chapter 11 The Captain Knuckles Under Alan and I sat down to breakfast about six o'clock. The floor was covered with broken glass, and in a horrid mess of blood, which took away my hunger. In all other ways we were in a situation not only agreeable, but merry, having ousted the officers from their own cabin, and having at command all the drink in the ship, both wine and spirits, and all the dainty part of what was eatable, such as the pickles and the fine sort of bread. This of itself was enough to set us in good humour, but the richest part of it was this, that the two thirstiest men that ever came out of Scotland, Mr. Shuan being dead, were now shut in the four part of the ship and condemned to what they hated most, cold water. And depend upon it, Alan said, we shall hear more of them ere long. You may keep a man from the fighting, but never from his bottle. We made good cup-me for each other. Alan, indeed, expressed himself most lovingly, and taking a knife from the table, cut me off one of the silver buttons from his coat. I had them, says he, from my father, Duncan Stewart, and I'll give you one of them to be a keepsake for last night's work. And wherever you go and show that button, the friends of Alan Breck will come around you. He said this as if he had been Charlemagne, and commanded armies, and indeed, much as I admired his courage, I was always in danger of smiling at his vanity. In danger, I say, for had I not kept my countenance, I would be afraid to think what a quarrel might have followed. As soon as we were through with our meal he rummaged in the captain's locker till he found a clothes-brush, and then taking off his coat began to visit his suit and brush away the stains, with such care and labour as I suppose to have been only usual with women. To be sure he had no other, and, besides, as he said, it belonged to a king and so behooved to be royally looked after. For all that, when I saw what care he took to pluck out the threads where the button had been cut away, I put a higher value on his gift. He was still so engaged when we were hailed by Mr. Riyach from the deck, asking for a parley, and I, climbing through the skylight and sitting on the edge of it, pistol in hand and with a bold front, though inwardly in fear of broken glass, hailed him back again and made him speak out. He came to the edge of the round-house and stood on a coil of rope so that his chin was on a level with a roof, and we looked at each other a while in silence. Mr. Riyach, as I do not think he had been very forward in the battle, so he had got off with nothing worse than a blow upon the cheek, but he looked out of heart and very weary, having been all night afoot, either standing watch or doctoring the wounded. This is a bad job, said he at last, shaking his head. It was none of our choosing, said I. A captain, says he, would like to speak with your friend. They might speak at the window. And how do we know what treachery he means, cried I? He means none, David, returned Mr. Riyach, and if he did, I'll tell you the honest truth we couldn't get the men to follow. Is that so, said I? I'll tell you more than that, said he. It's not only the men, it's me. I'm Fritchand, David, and he smiled across at me. No, he continued, what we want is to be shot of him. Thereupon I consulted with Alan, and the parlay was agreed to and parole given upon either side. But this was not the whole of Mr. Riyach's business, and he now begged me for a dram with such instancy and such reminders of his former kindness that at last I handed him a panic in with about half a gill of brandy. He drank apart and then carried the rest down upon the deck, to share it, I suppose, with his superior. A little after the captain came, as was agreed, to one of the windows, and stood there in the rain with his arm in a sling, and looking stern and pale, and so old that my heart smote me for having fired upon him. Alan at once held a pistol in his face. Put that thing up, said the captain. Have I not passed my word, sir, or do you seek to affront me? Captain, says Alan, I doubt your word is a breakable. Last night you haggled and argle-bargled like an apple-wife, and then passed me your word, and gave me your hand to back it, and you can very well what was the upshot. Be damned to your word, says he. Well, well, sir, said the captain. You'll get little good by swearing. And truly that was a fault of which the captain was quite free. But we have other things to speak, he continued bitterly. You've made a sore hash of my brig. I haven't hands enough left to work her, and my first officer, whom I could ill spare, has got your swords throughout his vitals and passed without speech. There is nothing left, me, sir, but to put back into the port of Glasgow after hands, and there, by your leave, you shall find them that are better able to talk to you. I, said Alan, and Faith, I'll have a talk with them myself. Unless there's nobody speaks English in that town, I have a bunny-tail for them, fifteen tarry-sailors upon the one side, and a man and a halfling-boy upon the other. Oh, man, it's beautiful! Hoseason flushed red. No, continued Alan, that'll no do. You'll just have to set me ashore as we agreed. I, said Hoseason, but my first officer is dead. You can best how. There's none of the rest of us acquainted with this coast, sir, and it's one very dangerous to ships. I give you your choice, says Alan. Set me on dry ground in Apen, or Ardgur, or in Moirvin, or Eriseg, or Morar, or in brief where you please, within thirty miles of my own country, except in a country of the Campbells. That's a broad target. If you miss that, you must be as feckless at the sailoring as I have found you at the fighting. Why, my poor country-people in their bit-cobbles pass from island to island in all weathers, I am by night, too, for the matter of that. A cobble's not a ship, sir, said the captain. It is no draft of water. Well, then, to Glasgow, if you list, says Alan, we'll have the laugh of you at the least. My mind runs little upon laughing, said the captain. But all this will cost money, sir. Well, sir, says Alan, I am no weather-cock, thirty guineas if you lad me on the seaside, and sixty if you put me in the lineilock. But see, sir, where we lie, we are but a few hours sail from Arden American, says Hoseason, give me sixty and I'll set you there. And I'm to wear my brogues and run jeopardy of the redcoats to please you, cries Alan, no, sir, if you want sixty guineas, earn them, and set me in my own country. It's to risk the brig, sir, said the captain, and your own lives along with her. Take it, or want it, says Alan. Could you pilot us at all? asked the captain, who was frowning to himself. Well, it's doubtful, said Alan, I'm more of a fighting man as you have seen for yourself than a sailor man, but I have been often enough picked up and set down upon this coast and should ken something of the lie of it. The captain shook his head, still frowning. If I had lost less money on this unchancey cruise, says he, I would see you in a rope's end before I risk my brig, sir, but be it as you will. As soon as I get a slant of wind, and there's some coming, or I'm the more mistaken, I'll put it in hand. But there's one thing more. We may meet in with the king's ship, and she may lay us aboard, but, sir, with no blame of mine, they keep the cruisers thick upon this coast, you ken who for. Now, sir, if that was to befall, you might leave the money. Captain, says Alan, if you see a pennant, it shall be your part to run away. And now, as I hear your little short of brandy in the forepart, I'll offer you a change, a bottle of brandy against two buckets of water. That was the last clause of the treaty, and was duly executed on both sides, so that Alan and I could at last wash out the roundhouse and bequit of the memorials of those whom we enslane, and the captain and Mr. Riyach could be happy again in their own way, the name of which was Drink. CHAPTER XII of Kidnapped This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. CHAPTER XII I HEAR OF THE RED FOX Before we had done cleaning out the roundhouse, a breeze sprang up from a little to the east of north. This blew off the rain and brought out the sun. But here I must explain, and the reader would do well to look at a map. On the day when the fog fell and we ran down Alan's boat, we had been running through the little minch. At dawn after the battle, we lay becalmed to the east of the Isle of Canna, or between that and Isle of Irosca in the chain of the long island. Now to get from there to the Linney Lock. The straight course was through the narrows of the sound of mull. But the captain had no chart. He was afraid to trust his brig so deep among the islands, and the winds serving well he preferred to go by west of Tyree and come up under the southern coast of the Great Isle of Mull. All day the breeze held in the same point, and rather freshened than died down, and towards afternoon a swell began to set in from round the outer Hebrides. Our course to go round about the inner Isles was to the west of south, so that at first we had the swell upon our beam and were much rolled about. But after nightfall, when we had turned the end of Tyree and began to head more to the east, the sea came right astern. Meanwhile, the early part of the day, before the swell came up, was very pleasant, sailing as we were in a bright sunshine and with many mountainous islands upon different sides. Alan and I sat in the roundhouse with the doors open on each side, the wind being straight astern, and smoked a pipe or two of the captain's fine tobacco. It was at this time we heard each other's stories, which was the more important to me, as I gained some knowledge of that wild highland country on which I was so soon to land. In those days, so close on the back of the Great Rebellion, it was needful a man should know what he was doing when he went upon the heather. It was I that showed the example, telling him all my misfortune, which he heard with great good nature. Only when I came to mention that good friend of mine, Mr. Campbell, the minister, Alan fired up and cried out that he hated all that were of that name. Why, said I, he is a man you should be proud to give your hand to. I know nothing I would help a Campbell to, says he, unless it was a leaden bullet. I would hunt all of that name like black cocks. If I laid dying I would crawl upon my knees to my chamber window for a shot at one. Why, Alan, I cried, what ails you at the Campbell's? Well, says he, you can very well that I am an appen steward, and the Campbell's have long harried and wasted those of my name. I, and got lands of us by treachery, but never with the sword, he cried loudly, and with the word brought down his fist upon the table. But I paid the less attention to this, for I knew it was usually said by those who have the underhand. There's more than that, he continued, in all in the same story, lying words, lying papers, tricks fit for a peddler, and a show of what's legal overall to make a man no more angry. You are so wasteful of your buttons, said I, I can hardly think you would be a good judge of business. Ha, ha, ha, says he, falling again to smiling. I got my wastefulness from the same man I got the buttons from, and that was my poor father, Duncan Stewart, grace be to him. He was the prettiest man of his kindred, and the best swordsman in the Highlands, David, and that is the same as to say, in all the world I should ken, for it was him that taught me. He was in the black watch, when first it was mustered, and like other gentlemen privates had a gillie at his back to carry his firelock for him on the march. Well, the king, it appears, was wishful to see Highland swordsmanship, and my father and three more were chosen out and sent to London town, to let him see it at the best. So they were had into the palace and showed the whole art of the sword for two hours at a stretch, before King George and Queen Carlyne, and the Butcher Cumberland, and many more of whom I have no mind. And when they were through, the king, for all he was a rank usurper, spoke them fair and gave each man three guineas in his hand. Now as they were going out of the palace they had a porters lodge to go by, and it came in on my father as he was perhaps the first private Highland gentleman that had ever gone by that door. It was right he should give the poor porter a proper notion of their quality. So he gives the king's three guineas into the man's hand, as if it was his common custom. The three others that came behind him did the same, and there they were on the street, never a penny the better for their pains. Some say it was one that was the first to feed the king's porter, and some say it was another. But the truth of it is that it was Duncan Stewart, as I am willing to prove with either sword or pistol, and that was the father I had. God rest him. I think he was not the man to leave you rich, said I. And that's true, said Dallon. He left me my breeks to cover me, and little besides. And that was how I came to enlist, which was a black spot upon my character at the best of times, and would still be a sword job for me if I fell among the redcoats. What, cried I, were you in the English army? That was I, said Dallon, but I deserted to the right side it pressed in pants, and that's some comfort. I could scarcely share this view, holding desertion under arms for an unpardonable fault in honour. But for all I was so young, I was wiser than say my thought. Dear, dear, says I, the punishment is death. I, said he, if they got the hands on me, it would be a short drift and a long tow for Alan. But I have the King of France's commission in my pocket, which would I be some protection. I missed out it much, said I. I have doubts myself, said Alan dryly. And good-heaven man, cried I, you that are a condemned rebel, and a deserter, and a man of the French kings, what tempts you back into this country? It's a braving of providence. Tots, says Alan, I have been back every year since 46. And what brings you, man? cried I. Well, you see, I weary for my friends in country, said he. France is a broad place, no doubt. But I weary for the heather and the deer. And then I have bit things that I attend to. Whilst I pick up a few lads to serve the King of France, recruits you, say, and that's I a little money. But the heart of the matter is the business of my chief, Ardschild. I thought they called your chief, Appen, said I. I, but Ardschild is the captain of the clan, said he, which scarcely cleared my mind. You see, David, he that was all his life so great a man, and come of the blood in bearing the name of kings, is now brought down to live in a French town like a poor and private person. He that had four hundred swords at his whistle, I have seen, with these eyes of mine, buying butter in the market place, and taking it home in a kale leaf. This is not only a pain but a disgrace to us of his family and clan. There are the barns far by, the children and the hope of Appen, that must be learned their letters and how to hold a sword in that far country. Now, the tenants of Appen have to pay a rent to King George, but their hearts are staunch, they are true to their chief, and what with love and a bit of pressure, and maybe a threat or two. The poor folk scrape up a second rent for Ardschild. Well, David, I am the hand that carries it, and he struck the belt about his body so that the guineas rang. Do they pay both? cried I. I, David, both, says he. What, two rents? I repeated. I, David, said he. I told a different tale to the uncaptain man, but this is the truth of it, and it's wonderful to me how little pressure is needed. But that's the handiwork of my good kinsman and my father's friend, James of the Glens, James Stewart, that is, Ardschild's half-brother. He it is that gets the money in and does the management. This was the first time I heard the name of that James Stewart, who was afterwards so famous at the time of his hanging. But I took little heed at the moment, for all my mind was occupied with the generosity of these poor Highlanders. I call it noble, I cried. I'm a wig, or little better, but I call it noble. I, said he, you're a wig, but you're a gentleman, and that's what does it. Now, if you were one of the cursed race of Campbell, you had nashed your teeth to hear tell of it. If you were the red fox, and at that name his teeth shut together, and he ceased speaking, I've seen many a grim face, but never a grimmer than Allen's when he had named the red fox. And who is the red fox? I asked, daunted, but still curious. Who is he? cried Allen. Well, and I tell you that. When the men of the clans were broken at Culloden, and a good cause went down, and the horses rode over the Fetlocks and the best blood of the North, Ardschild had to flee like a poor deer upon the mountains, he and his lady and his barns. A sad job we had of it before we got him shipped, and while he still lay in the heather, the English rogues, that couldn't come at his life, were striking at his rites. They stripped him of his powers, they stripped him of his lands, they plucked the weapons from the hands of his clansmen, that had borne arms for thirty centuries, I, and the very clothes off their backs, so that it's now a sin to wear a tarte and plaid, and a man may be cast into a jail if he has but a kilt about his legs. One thing they couldn't kill. That was the love the clansmen bore their chief. These guineas are the proof of it. And now, in their steps a man, a Campbell, redheaded Cullen of Glenure. Is that him you called the red fox? said I. Will you bring me his brush? cried Alan fiercely. I, that's the man. In he steps and gets papers from King George to be so called King's Factor on the lands of Appen. And at first he sings small, in his hail fell a well met with Seamus. That's James of the Glen's, my chieftain's agent. But by the by, that came to his ears that I have just told you, how the poor commons of Appen, the farmers and the crofters and the bowmen, were wringing the very plads to get a second rent and send it overseas for Ardschild and his poor barns. What was it you called it, when I told you? I called it noble, Alan, said I. I knew little better than a common wig, cries Alan. And when it came to Cullen Roy, the black Campbell blood in him ran wild. He sat gnashing his teeth at the wine-table. What, should a steward get a bite of bread and him not be able to prevent it? Ha! Red Fox, if ever I hold you at a gunsend, the Lord have pity upon you. Alan stopped to swallow down his anger. Well, David, what does he do? He declares all the farms to let, and thinks he and his black heart, I'll soon get other tenants that are overbid these stewards and McCalls and McCrubs, for these are all names in my clan, David, and then thinks he, Ardschild will have to hold his bonnet on the French roadside. Well, said I, what followed? Alan laid down his pipe, which he had long since suffered to go out, and set his two hands upon his knees. I, said he, you'll never guess that, for these same stewards and McCalls and McCrubs that had two rents to pay, one to King George by stark force, and one to Ardschild by natural kindness, offered him a better price than any camel in all broad Scotland, and far he sent seeking them, as far as to the sides of Clyde and the cross of Edinburgh, seeking and fleeting, and begging them to come, where there was a steward to be starved and a red-headed hound of a camel to be pleasured. Well, Alan, said I, that is a strange story, and a fine one, too, and wig as I may be, I am glad the man was beaten. Him beaten, echoed Alan, it's little you can of cambels, and less of the red fox, him beaten, nor will be, till his bloods on the hillside. But if the day comes, David-man, that I can find time and leisure for a bit of hunting, that grows not enough heather in all Scotland to hide him from my vegance. Man, Alan, said I, you're neither very wise nor very Christian to blow off so many words of anger. They will do the man you call the fox no harm, and yourself no good. Tell me your tale plainly out. What did he next? And that's a good observe, David, said Alan. Tothin' indeed, they will do him no harm, the more's the pity, and barring that about Christianity, of which my opinion is quite otherwise, or I would be no Christian, I have much of your mind. Opinion here or opinion there, said I, it's a kent thing that Christianity forbids revenge. I, said he, it's well seen it was a Campbell-Tochia. It would be a convenient world for them and their sort if there were no such thing as a lad and a gun behind a heather bush, but that's nothing to the point. This is what he did. I, said I, come to that. Well, David, said he, since he couldn't be rid of the loyal commons by fair means, he swore he would be rid of them by foul. Archill was to starve, that was the thing he aimed at, and since them that fed him in his exile wouldn't be brought out, right or wrong, he would drive them out. Therefore he sent for lawyers and papers and redcoats to stand at his back, and the kindly folk of that country must all pack and trap every father's son out of his father's house and out of the place where he was bred and fed and played when he was a calent. And who are to succeed them? Bare-legged beggars. King George is to whistle for his rents. He won't do with less. He can spread his butter thinner. What cares, red-collon? If he can herd Archill, he has his wish. If he can pluck the meat from my chieftain's table and the bit toys out of his children's hands, he will gang home singing to Glenure. Let me have a word, said I. Be sure, if they take less rents, be sure government has a finger in the pie. It's not this Campbell's fault, man. It's his orders. And if he killed this colon to-morrow, what better would you be? There would be another factor in Ian's shoes, as fast as spur can drive. Here, a good land at a fight, said Alan. But man, you have wig-blood in you! He spoke kindly enough, but there was so much anger under his contempt that I thought it was wise to change the conversation. I expressed my wonder how, with the highlands covered with troops and guarded like a city in a siege, a man in his situation could come and go without a rest. It's easier than you would think, said Alan. A bare hillside, you see, is like all one road. If there's a sentry at one place, you'd just go by another. And then the heather's a great help. But everywhere there are friends' houses and friends' buyers and haystacks, and besides, when folk talk of a country covered with troops, it's but a kind of a byword at the best. A soldier covers near more of it than his boot-soles. I have fished the water with a sentry on the other side of the bray, and killed a fine trout, and I have sat in a heather-bush within six feet of another, and learned a real bunny-tune from his whistling. This was it, said he, and whistled me the air. And then besides, he continued, is no say bad now as it was in 46. The highlands are what they call pacified, small wonder with never a gun or a sword left from kentire to Cape Wrath, but what tenty folk have hidden in the thatch. But what I would like to can, David, is just how long. Not long, you would think, with men like Hardsheel in exile, and men like the red fox sitting burling the wine and oppressing the poor at home, but it's a kiddler thing to decide what folks will bear, and what they will not, and why would red Colin be riding his horse all over my poor country of Appan, and never a pretty lad to put a bullet in him. And with this Alan fell into amuse, and for a long time sat very sad and silent. I will add the rest of what I have to say about my friend, that he was skilled in all kinds of music, but principally pipe of music, was a well-considered poet in its own tongue, had read several books both in French and English, was a dead shot, a good angler, and an excellent fencer with a small sword as well as with his own particular weapon. For his faults they were on his face, and I now knew them all. But the worst of them, his childish propensity to take a fence and to pick quarrels, he greatly laid aside, in my case, out of regard for the battle of the roundhouse. But whether it was because I had done well myself, or because I had been a witness of his own much greater prowess, is more than I can tell. For though he had a great taste for courage in other men, yet he admired it most in Alan Brick. CHAPTER XIII THE LOSS OF THE BRIG It was already late at night, and as dark as ever would be at that season of the year, and that is to say it was still pretty bright, when Hoseason clapped his head into the roundhouse door. Here, said he, come out and see if you can pile it. Is this one of your tricks? asked Alan. Do I look like tricks? Cries the captain. I have other things to think of, my brig's in danger. By the concerned look of his face, and above all by the sharp tones in which he spoke of his brig, it was plain to both of us he was in deadly earnest, and so Alan and I, with no great fear of treachery, stepped on deck. The sky was clear, it blew hard, and it was bitter cold. A great deal of daylight lingered, and the moon which was nearly full, shone brightly. The brig was close hauled, so as to round the southwest corner of the island of Mull, the hills of which, and Bendmore, above them all, with a wisp of mist upon the top of it, lay full upon the larbor bow. Though it was no good point of sailing for the covenant, she tore through the seas at a great rate, pitching and straining, and pursued by the westerly swell. Altogether it was no such ill night to keep the seas in, and I had begun to wonder what it was that sat so heavily upon the captain, when the brig, rising suddenly on the top of a high swell, he pointed and cried to us to look. Away on the lee-bow, a thing like a fountain rose out of the moonlit sea, and immediately after we heard a low sound of roaring. "'What do you call that?' asked the captain, gloomily. "'The sea breaking on a reef,' said Alan, and now you can where it is, and what better would you have?' "'I,' said Hoseason, if it was the only one.' And sure enough, just as he spoke, there came a second fountain farther to the south. "'There,' said Hoseason, you see for yourself, if I had kent of these reefs, if I had had a chart or if Shu'an had been spared, it's not sixty guineas known, or six hundred would have made me risk my brig in such a stone-yard, and you, sir, that was to pilot us, have you never a word?' "'I'm thinkin,' said Alan, that these would be what they call the Torrin rocks.' "'Are there many of them?' says the captain. "'Truly, sir, I am no pilot,' said Alan. But it sticks in my mind there are ten miles of them.' Mr. Riach and the captain looked at each other. "'There's a way through them, I suppose,' said the captain. "'Doubtless,' said Alan. "'But where? But it somehow runs in my mind once more that it is clearer under the land.' "'So,' said Hoseason, we'll have to haul our wind then, Mr. Riach. We'll have to come as near in about the end of Maul as we can take her, sir, and even then we'll have the land to keep the wind off us, and that stone-yard on our lee. Well, we're in for it now, and may as well crack on.' After that he gave an order to the steersmen and sent Riach to the foretop. There were only five men on deck counting the officers, these being all that were fit, or at least both fit and willing for the work. So as I said it fell to Mr. Riach to go aloft, and he sat there looking out and hailing the deck with news of all he saw. "'The sea to the south is thick,' he cried, and then after a while. "'It does seem clearer in by the land.' "'Well, sir,' said Hoseason down, we'll try your way of it, but I think I might as well trust to a blind fiddler. Pray God you're right.' "'Pray God I am,' said Allen to me, but where did I hear it? Well, well, it will be as it must.' As we got nearer to the turn of the land the reefs began to be sewn here and there on our very path. Mr. Riach sometimes cried down to us to change the course. Sometimes indeed none too soon, for one reef was so close on the brig's weather-board that when a sea burst upon it the lighter sprays fell upon her deck and wedded us like rain. The brightness of the night showed us these perils as clearly as by day, which was perhaps the more alarming. It showed me too the face of the captain as he stood by the steersman, now on one foot, now on the other, and sometimes blowing in his hands, but still listening and looking and as steady as steel. Neither he nor Mr. Riach had shown well in the fighting, but I saw they were brave in their own trade, and admired them all the more because I found Allen very white. "'Achon, David,' says he, "'this is nor the kind of death I fancy.' "'What, Allen?' I cried, "'You're not afraid.' "'No,' said he, wetting his lips, "'but you'll allow yourself. It's a cold ending.' By this time, now and then shearing to one side or the other to avoid a reef, but still hugging the wind and the land, we had got round Iona and begun to come alongside Mole. The tide at the tail of the land ran very strong and threw the brig about. Two hands were put to the helm, and Hoseism himself would sometimes lend a help, and it was strange to see three strong men throw their weight upon the tiller, and it, like a living thing, struggle against and drive them back. This would have been the greater danger had not the sea been for some while free of obstacles. Mr. Riach, besides, announced from the top that he saw clear water ahead. "'You are right,' said Hoseism to Allen. "'You have saved the brig, sir.' "'I'll mind that when we come to clear accounts.' And I believe he not only meant what he said, but he would have done it, so high a place did the Covenant hold in his affections. But this is matter only for conjecture, things having gone otherwise than he forecast. "'Keep her away, a point,' sings out Mr. Riach, "'and just at the same time the tide caught the brig and threw the wind out of her sails. She came to round into the wind like a top, and the next moment struck the reef with such a crunch as threw us all flat upon the deck, and came near to shake Mr. Riach from his place upon the mast. I was on my feet in a minute. The reef on which we had struck was close in under the south-west end of Mole, off a little isle they call Aired, which lay low and black upon the larbord. Sometimes the swell broke clean over us, sometimes it only ground the poor brig upon the reef, so that we could hear her beat herself to pieces. And what was the great noise of the sails, and the singing of the wind, and the flying of the spray and the moonlight, and the sense of danger? I think my head must have been partly turned, for I could scarcely understand the things I saw.' Finally I observed Mr. Riach and the seamen busy round the skiff, and still in the same blank ran over to assist them, and as soon as I set my hand to work, my mind came clear again. It was no very easy task for the skiff lay amid ships, and was full of hamper, and the breaking of the heavier seas continually forced us to give over and hold on, but we all wrought like horses while we could. Meanwhile such a the wounded as could move came clambering out of the force-scuttle and began to help, while the rest that lay helpless in their bunks harrowed me with screaming and begging to be saved. The captain took no part. It seemed he was struck stupid. He stood holding by the shrouds, talking to himself and groaning out aloud whenever the ship hammered on the rock. His brig was like wife and child to him. He had looked on day by day at the mishandling of poor ransom, but when it came to the brig he seemed to suffer along with her. All the time of our working at the boat I remember only one other thing that I asked Alan, looking across at the shore, what country it was, and he answered, it was the worst possible for him. It was the land of the cambels. We had one of the wounded men told off to keep a watch upon the seas in cryos' warning. Well, we had the boat about ready to be launched when this man sang out pretty shrill, what God's sake, hold on! We knew by his tone that it was something more than ordinary, and sure enough there followed a sea so huge that it lifted the brig right up and candid her over on her beam. Whether the cry came too late or my hold was too weak, I know not, but at the sudden tilting of the ship I was cast clean over the bulwarks into the sea. I went down and drank my fill, and then came up and got a blink of the moon, and then down again. The say a man sinks a third time for good. I cannot be made like other folk then, for I would not like to write how often I went down, or how often I came up again. All the while I was being hurled along, and beaten upon and choked, and then swallowed whole, and the thing was so distracting to my wits that I was neither sorry nor afraid. Presently I found I was holding to a spar which helped me somewhat, and then all of a sudden I was in quiet water, and began to come to myself. It was the spare yard I had got hold of, and I was amazed to see how far I had traveled from the brig. I hailed her, indeed, but it was plain she was already out of cry. She was still holding together, but whether or not they had yet launched the boat it was too far off and too low down to sea. While I was hailing the brig I spied a tract of water lying between us where no great waves came, but which yet boiled white all over and bristled in the moon with rings and bubbles. Sometimes the whole tract swung to one side like the tail of a live serpent. Sometimes for a glimpse it would all disappear and then boil up again. But it was I had no guess, which for the time increased my fear of it, but I now know it must have been the roost or tide race which had carried me away so fast and tumbled me about so cruelly, and at last, as if tired of that play, had flung out me in the spare yard upon its landward margin. I now lay quite becalmed and began to feel that a man can die of cold as well of drowning. The shores of Herod were close in. I could see in the moonlight the dots of heather and the sparkling of the mica and the rocks. Well, thought I to myself, if I cannot get as far as that it's strange. I had no skill of swimming, S. and Water being small in our neighborhood, but when I laid hold upon the yard with both arms and kicked out with both feet I soon begun to find that I was moving. Hard work it was, and mortally slow, but in about an hour of kicking and splashing I had got well in between the points of a sandy bay surrounded by low hills. The sea was here quite quiet. There was no sound of any surf. The moon shone clear, and I thought in my heart I'd never seen a place so desert and desolate. But it was dry land, and when it last it grew so shallow that I could leave the yard and wade ashore upon my feet. I could not tell if I was more tired or more grateful. Both at least I was, tired as I never was before that night, and grateful to God as I trust I have been often, though never with more cause. CHAPTER XIV. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. KIDNAPPED. By Robert Louis Stevenson. CHAPTER XIV. THE ISLOT. With my stepping ashore I began the most unhappy part of my adventures. It was half-past twelve in the morning, and though the wind was broken by the land it was a cold night. I dared not sit down, for I thought I should have frozen, but I took off my shoes and walked to and fro upon the sand, barefoot, and beating my breast with infinite weariness. There was no sound of man or cattle, not a cock-crew, though it was about the hour of their first waking. Only the surf broke outside in the distance, which put me in mind of my perils and those of my friend. To walk by the sea at that hour of the morning, and in a place so desert-like and lonesome, struck me with a kind of fear. As soon as the day began to break I put on my shoes and climbed a hill, the ruggedest scramble I ever undertook, falling the whole way between big blocks of granite, or leaping from one to another. When I got to the top the dawn was come. There was no sign of the brig which must have lifted from the reef and sunk. The boat too was nowhere to be seen. There was never a sail upon the ocean, and in what I could see of the land was neither house nor man. I was afraid to think what had befallen my shipmates, and afraid to look longer at so empty a scene. But with my wet clothes and weariness, and my belly that now began to ache with hunger, I had enough to trouble me without that. So I set off eastward along the south coast, hoping to find a house where I might warm myself, and perhaps get news of those I had lost. And at the worst I considered the sun would soon rise and dry my clothes. After a little my way was stopped by a creek or inlet of the sea, which seemed to run pretty deep into the land, and as I had no means to get across I must needs changed my direction to go around the end of it. It was still the roughest kind of walking, indeed the whole, not only of Herod, but of the neighboring part of Mole, which they call the Ross, is nothing but a jumble of granite rocks with heather in among. At first the creek kept narrowing as I had looked to see, but presently to my surprise it began to widen out again. At this I scratched my head, but had still no notion of the truth. Until at last I came to a rising ground, and it perched upon me all in a moment that I was cast upon a little barren isle and cut off on every side by the salt seas. Indeed as instead of the sun rising to dry me it came on to rain with a thick mist so that my case was lamentable. I stood in the rain and shivered and wondered what to do, till it occurred to me that perhaps the creek was fortable. Back I went to the narrowest point and waded in, but not three yards from shore I plumped in head over ears, and if ever I was heard of more it was rather by God's grace than my own prudence. I was no wetter, for that could hardly be, but I was all the colder for this mishap, and having lost another hope was the more unhappy. And now all at once the yard came in my head. What it carried me through the roost would surely serve me to cross this little quiet creek in safety. With that I set off undaunted across the top of the isle to fetch and carry it back. It was a weary trap in all ways, and if hope had not buoyed me up I must have cast myself down and given up. Whether with the sea salt or because I was growing fevered I was distressed with thirst and had to stop as I went and drink the peaty water out of the hags. I came to the bay at last, more dead than alive, and at the first glance I thought the yard was something farther out than when I left it. Then I went for the third time into the sea. The sand was smooth and firm and shelved gradually down so that I could wade out till the water was almost to my neck and little waves splashed into my face, but at that depth my feet began to leave me, and I durst venture in no farther. As for the yard I saw it bobbing very quietly some twenty feet beyond. I had borne up well until this last disappointment, but at that I came ashore and flung myself down upon the sands and wept. The time I spent upon the island is still so horrible a thought to me that I must pass it lightly over. In all the books I have read of people cast away they had either their pockets full of tools or a chest of things which would be thrown upon the beach along with them as if on purpose. My case was very different. I had nothing in my pockets but money and Alan's silver button, and being inland bred I was as much short of knowledge as of means. I knew indeed that shellfish were counted good to eat, and among the rocks of the isle I found a great plenty of limpets, which at first I could hardly strike from their places, not knowing quickness to be needful. There were besides some of the little shells that we call buckies. I think parawinkle is the English name. Of these two I made my whole diet devouring them cold and raw as I found them, and so hungry was I that at first they seemed to me delicious. Perhaps they were out of season, or perhaps there was something wrong in the sea about my island. But at least I had no sooner eaten my first meal than I was seized with giddiness and retching, and lay for a long time no better than dead. A second trial of the same food, indeed I had no other, did better with me, and revived my strength. But as long as I was on the island I never knew what to expect when I had eaten. Sometimes all was well, and sometimes I was thrown into a miserable sickness, nor could I ever distinguish what particular fish it was that hurt me. All day at streamed rain, the island ran like a sop, there was no dry spot to be found, and when I lay down that night between two boulders that made a kind of roof, my feet were in a bog. The second day I crossed the island to all sides. There was no one part of it better than another. It was all desolate and rocky, nothing living on it but game-birds which I lacked the means to kill, and gulls which haunted the outlying rocks in a prodigious number. But the creek, or straight, the cut-off the isle from the mainland of the Ross, opened out on the north into a bay, and the bay again opened into the sound of Iona, and it was the neighborhood of this place that I chose to be my home, though if I had thought upon the very name of home in such a spot I must have burst out weeping. I had good reasons for my choice. There was in this part of the isle a little hut of a house like a pig's hut, where fishers used to sleep when they came there upon their business, but the turf roof of it had fallen entirely in, so that the hut was of no use to me, and gave me less shelter than my rocks. What was more important, the shellfish on which I lived grew there in great plenty. When the tide was out I could gather a peck at a time, and this was doubtless a convenience. But the other reason went deeper. I had become in no way used to the horrid solitude of the isle, but still looked round me on all sides, like a man that was hunted, between fear and hope that I might see some human creature coming. Now from a little up the hillside over the bay, I could catch a sight of the great ancient church and the roofs of the people's houses in Iona. And on the other hand, over the low country of the Ross, I saw smoke go up morning and evening, as if from a homestead in the hollow of the land. I used to watch this smoke when I was wet and cold, and had my head half turned with loneliness, and I think of the fireside and the company till my heart burned. It was the same with the roofs of Iona. All together this sight I had of men's homes and comfortable lives, although I put a point on my own sufferings, yet it kept hope alive, and helped me to eat my raw shellfish, which had soon grown to be a disgust, and saved me from the sense of horror I had whenever I was quite alone with dead rocks, and fowls, and the rain, and the cold sea. I say it kept hope alive, and indeed it seemed impossible that I should be left to die on the shores of my own country, and within view of a church-tower and the smoke of men's houses. But the second day passed. And though as long as the light lasted I kept the bright look out for boats on the sound, or men passing on the Ross. No help came near me. It still rained, and I turned into sleep as wet as ever, and with a cruel sore throat, but a little comforted perhaps by having said good night to my next neighbors, the people of Iona. Charles II declared a man could stay outdoors more days in the year in the climate of England than in any other. This was very like a king, where the palace had his back and changes of dry clothes, but he must have had better luck on his flight from Worcester than I had in that miserable isle. It was the height of the summer, yet it rained for more than twenty-four hours. It did not clear until the afternoon of the third day. This was the day of incidents. In the morning I saw a red deer, a buck with a fine spread of antlers, standing in the rain on the top of the island, but he had scarce seen me rise from my rock before he trotted off upon the other side. I supposed he must have swum the straight, though what should bring any creature to arid was more than I could fancy. A little after, as I was jumping about after my limpets, I was startled by a guinea-piece, which fell upon a rock in front of me and glanced off into the sea. When the sailors gave me my money again, they kept back not only about a third of the whole sum, but my father's leather purse, so that from that day out I carried my gold loose in a pocket with a button. I now saw there must be a hole and clapped my hand to the place in a great hurry, but this was to lock the stable door after the steed was stolen. I had left the shore at Queensferry with near on fifty pounds. Now I found no more than two guinea-pieces and a silver shilling. It is true I picked up a third guinea a little after, where it lay shining on a piece of turf. That made a fortune of three pounds and four shillings, English money, for a lad the rightful heir of an estate now starving on an aisle at the extreme end of the wild highlands. The state of my affairs dashed me still further, and indeed my plight on that third morning was truly pitiful. My clothes were beginning to rot, my stockings in particular were quite worn through, so that my shanks went naked. My hands had grown quite soft with a continual soaking, my throat was very sore, my strength had much abated, and my heart so turned against the hard stuff I was condemned to eat that the very sight of it came near to sicken me. And yet the worse was not yet come. There was a pretty high rock on the northwest of Herod, which, because it had a flat top and overlooked the sound, I was much in the habit of frequenting, not that ever I stayed in one place, save when asleep, my misery giving me no rest. Indeed I wore myself down with continual and aimless goings and comings in the rain. As soon, however, as the sun came out, I lay down on the top of that rock to dry myself. The comfort of the sunshine is a thing I cannot tell. It set me thinking hopefully of my deliverance, of which I had begun to despair, and I scanned the sea and the Ross with a fresh interest. On the south of my rock a part of the island shut it out and hid the open ocean, so that a boat could thus come quite near me upon that side and I'd be none the wiser. Well, all of a sudden a cobble with a brown sail and a pair of fishers aboard of it came flying round that corner of the isle, bound for Iona. I shouted out, and then fell on my knees on the rock and reached up my hands and prayed to them. They were near enough to hear. I could even see the color of their hair, and there was no doubt but they observed me, for they cried out in the Gaelic tongue and laughed. But the boat never turned to side and flew on, right before my eyes, for Iona. I could not believe such wickedness, and ran along the shore from rock to rock, crying on them piteously even after they were out of reach of my voice. I still cried and waved to them, and when they were quite gone I thought my heart would have burst. All the time of my troubles I wept only twice, once when I could not reach the yard, and now, the second time, when these fishers turned a deaf ear to my cries. But this time I wept and roared like a wicked child, tearing up the turf with my nails, and grinding my face in the earth. If a wish would kill men, those two fishers would never have seen mourning and I should likely have died upon my island. When I was a little over my anger I must eat again, but with such loathing of a mess as I could now scarce control. Sure enough I should have done as well to fast, for my fishers poisoned me again. I had all my first pains, my throat was so sore I could scarce swallow. I had a fit of strong shuddering, which clucked my teeth together, and there came on me that dreadful sense of illness which we have no name for either in Scotch or English. I thought I should have died, and made my peace with God, forgiving all men, even my uncle and the fishers, and as soon as I had thus made up my mind to the worst, clearness came upon me. I observed the night was falling dry, my clothes were dried a good deal, truly I was in a better case than ever before, since I had landed on the isle, and so I got to sleep at last with a thought of gratitude. The next day, which was the fourth of this horrible life of mine, I found my bodily strength run very low, but the sun shone, the air was sweet, and what I managed to eat of the shellfish agreed well with me and revived my courage. I was scarce back on my rock, where I went always the first thing after I had eaten, before I observed a boat coming down the sound and with her head as I thought in my direction. I began at once to hope and fear, exceedingly, for I thought these men might have thought better of their cruelty in becoming back to my assistance. But another disappointment, such as yesterday's, was more than I could bear. I turned my back accordingly upon the sea, and did not look again till I had counted many hundreds. The boat was still heading for the island. The next time I counted the full thousand, as slowly as I could, my heart beating so as to hurt me, and then it was out of all question she was coming straight to Arred. I could no longer hold myself back, but ran to the seaside and out from one rock to another as far as I could go. It is a marvel I was not drowned, for when I was brought to a stand at last, my legs shook under me and my mouth was so dry I must wet it with the sea water before I was able to shout. All this time the boat was coming on, and now I was able to perceive it was the same boat and the same two men as yesterday. This I knew by their hair, which the one had of a bright yellow and the other black, but now there was a third man along with them who looked to be of a better class. As soon as they were come within easy speech, they let down their sail and lay quiet. In spite of my supplications they drew no nearer in, and what frightened me most of all, the new man teed with laughter as he talked and looked at me. Then he stood up in the boat and addressed me a long while, speaking fast and with many wavings of his hand. I told him I had no Gaelic, and at this he became very angry, and I began to suspect he thought he was talking English. Listening very close, I caught the word, what heifer. Several times, but all the rest was Gaelic and might have been Greek and Hebrew for me. Whatever said I to show him I had caught a word. Yes, yes, yes, yes, says he, and then he looked at the other man as much as to say, I told you I spoke English, and began again as hard as ever in the Gaelic. This time I picked out another word, tide. Then I had a flash of hope. I remembered he was always waving his hand towards the mainland of the Ross. Do you mean when the tide is out? I cried and could not finish. Yes, yes, said he, tide. At that I turned tail upon their boat, where my advisor had once more begun to tea he with laughter, leaped back the way I had come from one stone to another, and set off running across the isle as I had never run before. In about half an hour I came out upon the shores of the creek, and sure enough it was shrunk into a little trickle of water, through which I dashed, not above my knees, and landed with a shout on the main island. A sea-bred boy would not have stayed a day on Arid, which is only what they call a tidal islet, and except in the bottom of the neeps can be entered and left twice in every twenty-four hours, either dry shod or at the most by waiting. Even I, who had the tide going out and in before me in the bay, and even watched for the ebbs the better to get my shellfish, even I, I say, if I had sat down to think, instead of raging at my fate, must have soon guessed the secret and got free. It was no wonder the fishers had not understood me. The wonder was whether they had ever guessed my pitiful illusion and taken the trouble to come back. I had starved with cold and hunger on that island for close upon one hundred hours. But for the fishers I might have left my bones there and pure folly. And even as it was I had paid for it pretty dear, not only in past sufferings but in my present case, being clothed like a beggar-man, scarce able to walk and in great pain of my suffering.