"Therefore," nodded Adam, "the sooner he is here, the better. Now where must I be housed?"
"Yonder, 'twixt this cabin and my own. Well, shall I go fetch your plaguey brother?"
"Half-brother, Absalom. And I'll go myself, as promised."
"Why then, Adam, take heed ye don't pitch down the companion and break neck along o' head."
So, very carefully though with many slides and stumbles, Adam made his way below and after some desperate groping, found and opened the door he sought—to have his own pistol thrust into his face and hear a voice of extraordinary harshness bid him 'Stand Back!' Then the weapon was tossed upon cushioned locker and he was clasped in eager arms while a voice now trembling between laughter and sobbing, cried:
"Oh, Adam ... you've been so long away ... and I frighted out o' my poor wits by sounds like dreadful, creeping footsteps beyond the door ... and then a great, horrid rat very monstrous and so bold he sat up and looked at me so fierce I should have screamed but for my promise to you,—so instead I pulled out sword and poked at him, very manlike though a little wild, but he fled."
Adam chuckled (to his own surprise), then gently loosing those too-feminine arms, grasped Antonia's hand and shook it, saying:
"Well done, brother Anthony! God love thee! Now shalt be lodged as valiant gentleman should be, ay—and sleep right sailorly in a hammock!"
"Nay but, Adam, what manner of thing is that?"
"Follow and see for thyself, my bold Anthony."
Together they stumbled and clutched their way out and up the companion ladder and thus at last to that passage-way where Absalom met them.
"Aha, Master Anthony," quoth he, raising hand in smiling salute, "hast come armed to the teeth, I perceive—sword and pistol now, is it?"
"Indeed, Master Troy," she answered, head aloft and shoulders squared, "also, brother Adam hath promised to show me their proper manage."
Then she turned to survey her little cabin, to exclaim in wondering surprise at the hammock, and with pleasure because of the many lockers,—but espying the mirror, she clasped her hands and uttered a sigh of such truly feminine joy that Absalom chuckled, whereat she instantly scowled on him and clapping to the door, bolted it violently.
"Faith now," he laughed, "'tis fine-spirited wen—youth!"
"And," sighed Adam, hand to aching head, "I would have you regard him, whiles on this ship, as my brother Anthony."
"Why so I must—and will, be sure, for I've seen many a boy more maid-like, or damme! Now come and sit ye, for I've divers matters to discuss."
"Nay, not—ah, not now," sighed Adam, "for I feel a marvellous discomfort within me, Absalom."
"'Tis Nature, messmate, 'tis curst frail Nature,—and none so wonderful neither, since these narrow seas, breaking short, are apt to prove troublesome at first, making the mere thought of ripe, rich, fat pork extreme disquieting, ha? Come aloft into the good wind."
So up they went into a blusterous evening shot by fiery sunset that crested every rolling billow with glory.
And thus for the first time Adam Penfeather beheld the wonder of a stout ship cleaving her trackless course through a riotous sea, rising graciously to the surge and onrush of mounting waves, to plunge forward and down in smother of hissing foam; and he felt such profound awe of these wide, ever-moving waters and this noble ship with her towering masts, mazy rigging and great spread of sail that, for the moment, he clean forgot aching head and bodily discomfort.
"A right joyous prospect, eh, messmate?" cried Absalom, glancing aloft at taut canvas and away to windward with sailorly eye.
"Glorious!" Adam answered breathlessly. "Surely 'tis a very great ship, this?"
"Middling, Adam. She's pierced for forty pieces and carries poor twenty. But she's stout and trim and sweet on her helm. Hast ever been aboardship afore?"
"Never."
"Why then, this is the quarter-deck,—below there is the waist, forrard o' that the forecastle. Aft there is the round-house or coach and above it the poop. Ha, and there ye may see Sir Benjamin, with Dodd the Master and William Sharp, our sharp-nosed, sharper-tongued, curse and damn ye fool of a captain."
"I perceive you love him not, Absalom, and wherefore?"
"For that he's no sailor,—a portentous ass too fond of himself, his own cursed importance and the bottle. He'll run foul o' trouble anon, or I'm a flounder! The only true sailormen aft here are Smy and myself. And we're due for a blusterous night by the look o' things, there's weather i' the offing. How's thy stomach, Adam?"
"So queasy I would to heaven I had not eaten."
"Better so, 'twill be the easier for thee by and by, 'tis Nature, Adam, yet once over 'tis soon forgot. And now the better to forget, come and watch me bait our Captain Numbskull Arrogance. Shalt see him very presently foam with prideful rage."
"Nay, why quarrel with the man?"
"First, for pure joy of it, and second—to very good purpose anon and hereafter. Go with me."
"No, Absalom. The unhappiness within me waxeth.... I'll to my cabin."
"Wouldst be better i' the clean air, Adam. Howbeit go thy ways and luck with thee, brother."
Adam merely groaned and went staggering and clutching his way below to shut himself into his berth and be alone with his misery.
And now ensued for him long hours he was not soon to forget; for as his trouble grew, so, as it seemed to him, the movements of the ship became ever the more violent until came one dizzy heave and sickening plunge that rolled and tumbled him to the sloping floor where he lay, a mere huddle of wretchedness, faint with nausea and racked by pain of his wounded head, outsprawled in a coma deepening at last to a merciful unconsciousness.
CHAPTER VIII
GIVES PARTICULARS OF A COUNCIL MUTINOUS
"Penfeather, ahoy! Ho, Adam Penfeather!" A loud, harsh voice, with powerful fist that smote and thundered on the door, troubling him greatly.
"Adam Penfeather, ho there! Rouse out and open! Penfeather ahoy!"
Distressed by this insistent clamour, he stirred, groaned and sat up.
"Who calls me?"
"Myself—thy friend Captain Smy. Open the door!"
"No ... no.... Begone.... Go away!"
But now, being thus drowsily awake and finding the ship much steadier, Adam clambered back upon the cushioned locker and there outstretched, presently fell into a refreshing slumber—until once again came a knocking with a voice crying his name. And knowing this voice, he rose up, though feebly, and answered:
"Yes, Anthony. What is it?"
"Come you out to me, Adam. Come out."
So when he had bathed hands and face and ordered rumpled garments, he opened the door and was seized by two hands that drew him forth of foetid gloom into a life-giving air made glorious by a fugitive sunbeam that showed him Antonia's face, a pale though radiant vision.
"Oh, Adam," she cried, leading him towards the sunshine, "I feared you had died in this dreadful night!"
"And indeed," he answered, "I thought so, too."
"Such terrible storm, Adam, it broke some of the riggings and washed men overboard to die in the horror of black waters. And they've taken him away to prison and in fetters ... and he did but smile!"
"But," sighed Adam, "the tempest hath abated, thank God! And now, Anthony, pray tell me who is prisoned and in fetters?"
"Why—him,—Master Troy."
"Absalom ... in fetters! Art sure?"
"Adam, I saw him led away ... and he smiled at me."
"But ... Absalom prisoned? Why so?"
"Nay, Adam, see yonder ... a great, fierce sailorman beckons us!"
"Ay. I see him!" nodded Adam, and coming to the quarter-railing looked down on this man, a tall, young, though very hairy fellow who, standing on the deck below, knuckled an eyebrow, saying in lowered tones: