The Smugglers Read Online Free PDF

setting forth the particulars of the cargo, including details of from where and from whom it is to be obtained. You will answer to Captain Crowe in all matters pertaining to the sailing of the boat, but as to the welfare of the cargo and its expediency in delivery–matters of safety notwithstanding–he shall be subservient to yourself I have spelled this out to him, and trust there will be no difficulties.
    You will sail as soon as the cargo is loaded, and you will come directly to London. Considering the vagaries of wind and weather, I will not worry unduly until a fortnight had passed from this date.
    I am, in closing, your most loving and respectful
    Father
    I moved aboard the
Dragon
that very day, and though it shames me to say it, I frolicked like a child in a ship that was all my own. I ran shouting through the cabins and the hold; I skylarked in the rigging. I clattered pots and juggled with belaying pins. I climbed to the mainmast head and cut away the broom that marked her as a ship for sale. Iclimbed to the foremast, and I inched along the footropes of the long and slender topsail yard. I was hanging upside down from the ratlines, singing the only chantey I knew, when I heard a shout below me and saw Captain Crowe staring up from the afterdeck.
    “When ye're through wi' that,” he said, “I should like a word wi' ye, Mr. Spencer.”
    No man had ever called me that, and I blushed as red as roses. The one-armed man, just sculling off toward the shore, gave me a cheeky grin. “Box his ears, Cap'n,” he told Turner Crowe. “It's what I would do, the scallywag. And box 'em for me while you're at it.”
    Captain Crowe had a great heap of things piled beside the rail: two chests, a duffel, a pair of boots stuffed to their tops with rolled-up signal flags. Across his shoulders was the same cloak of salt-stained cloth, and tucked inside it, below his arm, he carried a bulky roll of charts. And with these, as I came up to him, he struck me lightly on the head.
    “Dignity,” said he, and smiled. “Ye should a'ways act as if there's someone there to watch ye.”
    “Yes, sir,” I said.
    His face was ruddy and all aglow, the eyes lost within their wrinkles. He said, “Have ye seen to the cargo?”
    “No, sir,” I said.
    “Have ye seen to a berth?”
    “No,” said I.
    He shook his head. “Then we'd best get started. There's muckle work to be done.”

Chapter 5
T HE C REW C OMES A BOARD
    C aptain Crowe might have been a different man from the one I had found at the Baskerville Inn. Sober as a rock, cheerful to a fault, he went to work with a fever that shamed me for ever doubting him. Before a day had passed, the
Dragon
was moored alongside a jetty and the cargo of wool was coming aboard. Enormous bales arrived, and a swarm of men carried them up, each bent under his awkward load. They staggered up one plank and scampered down another, a long line going round and round, making me think of ants at a sugar bowl. Slowly the holds came full.
    I stood with my lists, now and then taking them into my mouth to haul on a line and help a barrel or box aboard. I worked from sunup to sundown, until my head reeled with figures; I dreamt of numbers in my sleep that night.
    Captain Crowe was here, there, and everywhere. He did a great deal of fussing down in the holds, a great deal ofshouting up on the deck. At one point he took me aside and asked me to sit by the starboard rail.
    He'd cast off his cloak, replacing it with a big cravat that hid his neck from shoulders to ears. His face, so reddened by the wind, seemed to bulge from it, as though he'd tied the cloth too tightly.
    “Ye're doing well, Mr. Spencer,” he said. “Your father would be proud to see ye.”
    “Thank you,” said I.
    “But there's the matter of–” He started, then stopped, and finally just laid it out. “Och, we havena got a crew.”
    So I had failed after all. I had somehow assumed that the crew would simply be there–though how or why, I