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Updated: September 3, 2025
"You've slept, Mart'n, a full thirty hours." "Thirty hours, Godby?" "Split me crosswise else, pal!" "Mighty strange!" says I, reaching for the flask he had brought, for I felt my mouth bitterly parched and dry, while, added to the consuming thirst, my head throbbed miserably. "Well, here we be, pal, clear o' the river this twelve hours and more. And, Mart'n, this is a ship aye, by hokey, a sailer!
Says I to you, because these lousy catchpolls being set on poor Godby by this black dog Gregory, and him my lady's man, my lady's stables is the last place catchpolls would come a-seeking Godby. Well now, as I lie there I fall asleep. Now I'm a light sleeper and presently I'm roused by the sound o' your name, master." "Mine?" says Penfeather, softly. "Aye.
Ever and anon the moon peeped through wrack of flying cloud, by whose pale beam I caught glimpses of bellying sails towering aloft with their indefinable mass of gear and rigging, and the heel and lift of her looming forecastle as the stately vessel rose to the heaving seas or plunged in a white smother of foam. "She rides well, Mart'n!" roared Godby in my ear. "Aha, here's duck of a ship, pal!"
"'Twas when we went to fetch the boy, my little page, Marjorie and I. He lay hurt and crying on the deck; so we ran out to him and took him up betwixt us, and then I heard shouts and rush of feet, and they were all about us drunken men singing and dancing. And they struggled with us till came Master Penfeather, with Godby and others, and after much bitter fighting brought us away.
And nigh upon this fort I beheld the stealthy forms of men, toilworn and ragged, whose battered, rusty armour glinted ever and anon as they crept in two companies advancing to right and left. Behind these, masked in the brush on the edge of the forest, four demi-cannon with gunners to serve them, foremost of whom was a short, squat fellow who crept from gun to gun, and him I knew for Godby.
"Pal," said Godby, as I stared about me, "you'd never guess as there be nigh three hundred kegs stowed hereabouts besides bales and the like, choke me else! Ha, many's the good cargo I've helped Jo and the lads to run eh, Joel?" "So you're a smuggler, Godby," says I.
"Adam," says I, unstrapping my wallet as Bym and Godby descended the stair, "if we are to have our throats cut to-night, 'twere as well I handed back your chart first"; and I laid it on the table. "Why 'tis as safe with you, comrade but as you will!" says he, slipping the chain about his neck. "As for any throat-slitting, Martin, you'll find that with danger my inborn caution groweth to timidity "
And with my mind's eyes I seemed to espy Adam firing from his loopholes to sweep the decks forward, the while Godby and his few gunners served the great basilisks aft, aiming them at a tall, black ship that stood hard in their wake, yawing now and then to bring her fore-chase to bear on them in answer.
I'm sorry, pal, burn me but I've repented my suspecting o' you ever since, though to be sure you was mighty strange aboard the 'Faithful Friend' and small wonder. But here's me full o' repentance, Martin, so if you can forgive poor Godby ?" "Full and freely!" says I, whereupon he hugs me and the tears running down his sunburned cheeks. "Then we'm pals again, Martin, and all's bowmon!"
"Nary a blink, Mart'n why?" "I'm wondering what came of that same bundle " "Hove overboard belike, pal there's many a strange thing goes a-floating out to sea from hereabouts, Mart'n drownd me!" "Belike you're right!" says I. "Mart'n, Sir Rupert's ashore to meet her ladyship, so you'm free to come 'bove deck if so minded?" "Nay, I'll bide where I am, Godby."
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