“I know what we'll do, sir. We'll sell this man as carpenter to the Dutch East India man. We'll give the two of them a sleeping draught in their drink. We'll get rid of them both together.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Jermyn, “it is cruel. But who knows what the sly man may not pick up? We're playing akes, we two. We've got many enemies. One word of what this man suspects may bring a whole pack of spies upon us. Besides, if the spies get hold of this boy we shall have some trouble.”
“The boy's done very well,” said the Duke.
“He's got a talent for overhearing,” Mr. Jermyn answered. “Well, Martin Hyde. How do you like your work?”
“Sir,” I answered, “I don't like it at all.”
“Well,” he said, “we shall be in the Canal to-night, now the wind has changed. Hold out till then, think, sir,” he said, turning to the Duke, “the boy has done really very creditably. The work is not at all the work for one of his condition.”
The Duke rewarded me with his languid beautiful smile.
“Who lives will see,” he said. “A King never forgets a faithful servant.”
The phrase seemed queer on the lips of that man's father's son; but I bowed very low, for I felt that I was already a captain of a man-of-war, with a big blazing decoration on my heart. Well, who lives, sees. I lived to see a lot of strange things in that King's service.
I will say no more about our passage except that we were three days at sea. Then, when I woke one morning, I found that we were fast moored to a gay little wharf, paved with clean white cobbles, on the north side of the canal. Strange, outlandish figures, in immense blue baggy trousers, clattered past in wooden shoes. A few Dutch galliots lay moored ahead of us, with long scarlet pennons on their mastheads. On the other side of the canal was a huge East Indiaman, with her lower yards cockbilled, loading all three hatches at once. It was a beautiful morning. The sun was so bright that all the scene had thrice its natural beauty. The clean neat trimness of the town, the water slapping past in the canal, the ships with their flags, the Sunday trim of the schooner, all filled me with delight, lit up, as they were, by the April sun. I looked about me at my ease, for the deck was deserted. Even the never-sleeping mate was resting, now that we were in port. While I looked, a man sidled along the wharf from a warehouse towards me. He looked at the schooner in a way which convinced me that he was not a sailor. Then, sheltering behind a bollard, he lighted his pipe.