I muttered that I would see him by-and-by, when he was better. That I would lie down a little, and----
"Oh! I have got a bunk for you in his cabin," the master answered briskly. "I thought you would want to talk State secrets. Follow me, if you please, and look to your sea-legs, sir."
He led the way to a hatch or trap-door, and raising it began to descend. Not daring to refuse I followed him, down a steep ladder into the dark bowels of the ship, the reek of tar and bilge-water, cheese and old rum, growing stronger with every foot we descended. At the bottom of the ladder he pushed aside a sliding panel, and signed me to pass through the opening. I obeyed, and found myself in a sort of dog-hole--as it seemed to me who knew nothing of ships' cabins--lighted only by a span-wide round window, so dark, therefore, that I stood a moment groping, and so close and foul-smelling that my gorge rose.
Out of the gloom came a groan as of a sick sheep. "Here is Sir John, safe and sound!" cried the master in his sea tones. "There is good medicine for you, Mr. Birkenhead." And he peered into the darkness.
The only answer was a second groan. "Do you hear, sir?" the captain repeated. "Sir John is here."
A voice feebly yet unmistakably d----d Sir John and the captain.
The master chuckled hoarsely. "Set a frigate behind us with a noose flying at the yard-arm, and there is no man like him!" he said. "None, Sir John; and I have carried him across seventy times and over, sick and well, he should know the road from the Marsh to Southwark if any man does. But let him be for the present, and do you lie down in the bunk above him, and I will bring you some Nantz and a crust. When he is better, he will be as glad to see you as if you were his brother."
I obeyed, and fortified by the strong waters he brought me, was glad to lie down, and under cover of darkness consider my position and what chance I had of extricating myself from it. For the time, and probably until we reached Dunquerque, I was safe; but what would happen when Birkenhead--the man whom the Jacobites called the Royal Post, and who doubtless knew Sir John Fenwick by sight--what would happen, I say, when he roused himself, and found that he had not only taken off the wrong man but left Sir John to his fate? Would he not be certain to visit the mischance on my head? Or if I escaped his hands, what must I expect, a stranger, ashore in a foreign land with little money, and no language at my command? I shuddered at the prospect; yet shuddered more at the thought of Birkenhead's anger; so that presently all my fore-looking resolved itself into a strenuous effort to put off the evil day, and prolong by lying still and quiet the sleep into which he appeared to have fallen.