The Old Tobacco Shop Part 23

At noon, a halt was made beside a spring for rest and food, and here Mr.

Leatherbread prepared a luncheon of fried bacon.

In the evening, as the travellers were plodding onward, Ketch walked for a time at the head of Aunt Amanda's mule. Aunt Amanda leaned forward and said to him:

"Ketch, are we going to have more bacon tonight?"

"No, ma'am," said he, in a low voice. "We'll have supper in High Dudgeon. My old mother's the cook there. You heard me mention her yesterday morning. I've an idea there'll be pigeon pies for supper. And mark what I'm saying to you, ma'am." His voice sank to a whisper. "If you get a pigeon pie for supper, look careful to see what's inside of it before you eat it."

"Mercy on us!" said Aunt Amanda. "Are they going to poison us?"

But Ketch slipped away in the gathering darkness, and said no more.

They had gone but a few hundred yards further, when, at the moment when the darkness of night was making ready to blot out everything, they suddenly emerged into a round gra.s.sy clearing enclosed by the forest, where the light was better, and over which a star or two could be seen glimmering in a pale blue sky. In the midst of this clearing rose a tower.

It was a round tower, built of stone; its top came scarcely to the top of the surrounding trees, and it was in fact not more than two stories high; it appeared, with its wide girth, low and squat. Its sides were pierced here and there with deep and narrow slits, for windows, and on one side was a heavy oaken door, with great iron hinges and an iron lock. Through two or three of the upper slits in the wall glimmered a light from within. It was otherwise dark and forbidding.

Aunt Amanda found Ketch at her mule's head again. She leaned forward and said to him:

"Is that High Dudgeon?"

"No, ma'am. That's Low Dudgeon."

"Low Dudgeon? What do you mean by Low Dudgeon?"

Ketch looked at the tower and shuddered. "I don't like to talk about it, ma'am. I don't like the place. It's the place where we used to live long ago, before we built High Dudgeon. There's none of us wants to live there now. We haven't lived there since--" Ketch paused, and shuddered again, and evidently decided not to go on.

"There's a light up there," said Aunt Amanda. "Does anybody live there?"

"No, ma'am," said Ketch. "n.o.body _lives_ there."

"But there's a light," said Aunt Amanda. "Surely there must be somebody there."

"There is, ma'am; there is; thirteen of 'em."

"Thirteen what?"

But Ketch only shuddered again, and would say no more.

Aunt Amanda noticed that instead of going straight onward past the door of Low Dudgeon, the pirates led the file in a wide course away from it, along the edge of the clearing, as if to avoid coming near to it; and when the procession had thus skirted the clearing and entered the forest again on the other side, leaving the low tower behind, a sigh, as if of relief, went up from Ketch and all the other pirates; except, however, from Captain Lingo himself, who appeared to be wholly indifferent.

"How much further?" said Aunt Amanda to Ketch.

"About a mile, ma'am," said he.

The last mile of their journey was a long mile, and it was traversed in perfect darkness. The moon had not yet risen. Not a word was spoken, and there was no sound except the pad of the mules' feet and the breaking of twigs and branches as the travellers pushed their way through. The prisoners were in a state of greater nervousness and anxiety than before, and as they neared the place where their lives were to be disposed of in one way or another, their sense of uncertainty became almost unbearable. When it seemed that they must be close to the fateful place, the procession suddenly halted, and at the same instant the screech of a parrot startled the silence and made each of the prisoners jump.

"It's only the captain," said Ketch. "It's a signal."

Immediately, as if in response, there came from a distance in advance the note of a cuckoo, three times repeated. The procession moved forward.

A moment or two later, the whole company came forth from the forest under the stars, and stood on the edge of a wide round clearing, grown high with gra.s.s and weeds. In the midst of this clearing rose a tower.

"High Dudgeon," said Ketch over his shoulder.

This also was a round tower, built of stone; but it was very tall, much taller than the highest trees, and from the top there must have been a view of all the surrounding country, even as far as the hill within which was the treasure cave; from the number of deep and narrow slits which served as windows it must have been six or seven stories high. The top of the tower was flat, with battlements around the rim. As a fortress, it seemed to be impregnable; as a dwelling-house, it was very dismal indeed. It was totally dark. The captives trembled at the thought of being imprisoned in such a place.

The wayfarers proceeded in their single file directly to the great iron-bound oaken door of the tower, and those who were mounted got down.

Ketch a.s.sisted Aunt Amanda and Freddie to alight, and having done so he took charge of the mules and led them away.

Captain Lingo took from his breeches pocket a small key and unlocked the door.

"Be so kind as to enter," he said, and made way for the captives and his men.

When all were within, including Ketch, who had now returned, the captain locked the door on the inside and restored the key to his pocket.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE SOCIETY FOR PIRATICAL RESEARCH

They were in a dark and narrow pa.s.sage-way. As they stood huddled there together, a candle glimmered at the end of the pa.s.sage, held in a tremulous hand, and lighting up the face of a very old woman. She advanced towards the party by the door, and holding her candle high above her head inspected the strangers with little blinking watery eyes.

She was short and bent; she hobbled as she came forward; her face was seamed with deep wrinkles, and the hand which held the candle was knotted and gnarled; wisps of dirty grey hair hung over her eyes.

"Aha! Mother Ketch," said Captain Lingo. "I wager thou didst not expect us so soon. What's in the larder? We are famished."

Old Mother Ketch looked at her son, the Pract.i.tioner, and nodded her head at him once or twice, blinking her eyes. Then she fixed her eyes on Aunt Amanda, and seemed to forget everybody else.

"Well? well?" said Captain Lingo, impatiently. "Art going to keep us here all night? Come, woman! Speak up directly! What's for supper, eh?"

Mother Ketch slowly removed her eyes from Aunt Amanda, and looked at the captain steadily.

"There's nought but pigeons and mushrooms and--" said she.

"Good!" said the captain. "Then we will have pigeon pies; one for each; and well filled, mind you. Now haste; be off."

Mother Ketch turned and hobbled slowly down the pa.s.sage, and the glimmer of her candle disappeared.

"Follow me," said Captain Lingo.

The six pirates vanished somewhere in the darkness, and the others followed Captain Lingo up a winding stair. At the top was a heavy door, which he unlocked with his key, and locked again on the inside after his guests had pa.s.sed through. He then led them down a dark pa.s.sage-way, and turning to the right unlocked a door with his key and threw it open.

They were in a large dining-room, on the table of which were numerous candles, which the captain lighted. In one wall was an opening for a dumb-waiter for sending up food from the kitchen below. The party seated themselves at the table, and after a considerable time Ketch entered, a napkin on his arm, and at the same time the dumb-waiter rose from the kitchen, and the meal commenced.

Ketch waited on the table. Besides pigeon pies there were mushrooms, a lettuce salad, hot biscuit, and excellent coffee. Ketch placed the first pigeon pie before the captain, and Aunt Amanda noticed that he examined the top of it carefully as he did so. She observed that he examined the top of each pie carefully before he placed it, until he had put one before herself, after which he put the others about without looking at them. She examined the top of her own pie herself, to see what Ketch could have been looking at. She saw in the center of it a tiny figure made of very brown dough, and as she looked closer it seemed to have the shape of a tiny key. She glanced at the other pies, and none of them bore any mark of this kind.

Everyone set to with a good will, and Aunt Amanda opened her pie. She remembered Ketch's caution, and she prodded it secretly with her fork before taking a bite. At the bottom her fork touched something hard. She immediately began to put the contents of her pie on her plate, and she did so in such a way as to leave the hard object beneath the rest. In the course of the meal, she dropped a portion of the pie to the floor, and stooped to pick it up. As she did so, she managed to take the hard object from her plate and conceal it in her lap. It was a key.