"How move the tides?" he finally asked, raising his head.
The Captain, with surprising briskness for so large a man, pulled some folded charts from his pocket. Without a word the three men rose and went over to the table, pushing aside the china bowl filled with flowers to spread the charts flat on the table top. Captain Blizzard leaned his knuckles on the boards.
"The tide will be high at midnight, sir," he informed them. "See"--he pointed a short forefinger at a spot on one chart--"here is the sandbar that the tide covers for but a short time, and should there be other ships crowding the river near this point, we must slip through there then or not at all."
Mr. Wicker examined the charts and nodded. "Very well," he said, "so must it be," and Chris felt that his heartbeat would stifle him, it pounded so fast and thickly in his throat. All at once, looking up at the thoughtful face of his master, Chris longed to be able to stay safe at home. The imminent journey, so far and perhaps so perilous, seemed suddenly too much for him. Mr. Wicker had taken the river charts and rolled them up, and now turned to the Captain and first mate.
"Captain Blizzard, and you, Mr. Finney," he said, "should water casks be seen going on board, the whole of Georgetown will know you mean to sail. I therefore ask you to so contrive it that the casks be hidden in bales or boxes so that they seem to be anything but what they are."
He tapped the rolled charts thoughtfully on the palm of one hand. "Our only chance to steal a march on the _Venture_ will be to sail at least a day before her." The two men listening nodded in agreement. "There is one other thing. Your orders for where you are to anchor, once near China, will be secret, and carried on the person of this boy." He laid one hand on Chris"s shoulder. "He has a task of utmost secrecy to carry out and will require your help, encouragement, and silence."
Captain Blizzard and Mr. Finney looked solemnly at Chris who looked as solemnly back.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"Not only that," Mr. Wicker went on, "but his presence on the ship must not be known until the _Mirabelle_ is well to sea." He glanced down meditatively at Chris. "I shall arrange to bring him aboard somehow, and give you your sailing orders later."
He strode over to the window looking out to his gardens and the trees where the apples showed their russet cheeks.
"Leave me these charts for yet a little while, and I shall ponder on our plans," said Mr. Wicker. He turned. "See that the water casks are taken on at once, Captain, and hidden, and make a place for Christopher, here," and at a beseeching look from Chris he added with a smile, "and Amos."
No sooner were the Captain and Mr. Finney gone than Chris spoke up in great excitement. "Mr. Wicker, sir, I have a plan! May we look at the river charts again?"
Master and pupil spread out the charts once more, and Chris pointed eagerly.
"Look, sir! Here is the sandbar, and here"--he put his finger down--"the _Venture_. Or she was, yesterday. Now sir, the sandbar being just below and ahead of the _Venture_, once the _Mirabelle_ has slipped by, wouldn"t it be too bad if something happened to make the _Venture_ drift with the tide and run aground?"
He looked eagerly up into Mr. Wicker"s face and saw in it the reflection of his own excitement.
"There are times, Christopher," said Mr. Wicker with his eyes snapping, "when you surprise even me. But how is it to be done?"
"Well, sir," began Chris, "it"s a little tricky but I think, what with the things we know, it can be worked."
He began outlining to his master the details of his plan.
CHAPTER 18
It was perhaps as well that Chris had more than enough to think of.
Otherwise the wrench at leaving home might have been even more distressing than it was. His last day pa.s.sed like a flash, though from his att.i.tude no one, certainly not Becky, would have guessed that the next morning he would not be there to eat his breakfast in the sunny kitchen window. Amos, quick to sense all Chris"s moods, knew something was afoot, and when Chris and Mr. Wicker finally told him of the sailing plan, Amos"s eyes grew rounder than ever and sparkled more brightly, but he said never a word.
At ten o"clock that night, when Becky had gone heavily to her room, wondering perhaps why Chris had given her so hard a hug, Ned Cilley knocked at the back door. He had brought a light cart on which there stood a large wicker hamper. Ned and Chris lifted it into the kitchen while Mr. Wicker drew the curtains and then held a candle high. The candlelight flickered and flapped like a trapped bird at the corners of the room, and sharp bird-wing shadows cut across Mr. Wicker"s tall dark figure. Yet to Chris, who was to hold the scene ever after in his memory, the kitchen by the light of that one candle, and the figure of his master standing in its center, moved Chris as he had never been touched before. Amos stood near the basket, looking first into its square depth filled with shadow, and then up enquiringly at Mr. Wicker, but he did not speak.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"Be of good heart, Amos," Mr. Wicker said to him kindly, "and look after young Christopher as best you can."
Then, at a gesture from Mr. Wicker, Amos, agog, stepped into the hamper where he stood uncertainly, his expression half terrified and half delighted.
"Yessir, I will!" he piped up, shrill with excitement. "I"ll keep my eye on him!" he promised, and then curled up in the hamper. Ned Cilley shut down the top and he and Chris lifted it to the cart. Mr. Wicker spoke low into Ned"s ear.
"All is well understood?" he queried. "This is no time for misunderstandings!"
"Aye aye, sir! All is clear!" the good Ned replied.
"Then G.o.dspeed to you all and bring you safely home," said Mr. Wicker.
"Be on the lookout for this lad, Ned, when you get past the bar."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"We shall," Ned whispered back, "and good luck to the two of ye!"
Clucking to his horse, on wheels covered with rags, and with cloths about the horse"s hoofs to deaden their sound, Ned Cilley and his hamper went quietly away in the direction of the wharfs. In a moment, cart, horse, and driver were swallowed up in the denseness of the night.
A black night it was indeed. Although there was a moon, thick clouds scudded over it and an autumn wind bent the trees, tearing the leaves from them. A mist rose from the river, but it was blown away from all but the most sheltered places.
Mr. Wicker and Chris stood in the silent kitchen. Looking about him, Chris remembered with a pang the first morning he had seen it, with Becky in her gaudy hat standing near the fire.
"Come, Christopher," Mr. Wicker bade him, taking up his caped black cloak and another one for Chris. "First, wind the rope about your waist, and once on board, bind it under your shirt. Let no one, not even Amos, know of it."
Chris did as he was told. Mr. Wicker then gave him a leather pouch hung on a cord.
"Here are some oddments of magic that may prove their usefulness," he remarked. "Wear them about your neck." So saying he slipped the leather cord over Chris"s head.
"What happens to the rope and pouch when I change my shape, sir?"
Chris asked.
"They will remain with you, have no fear of that," the magician replied. "What would be the use of magic if it proved unable to adjust itself?" A smile played over Mr. Wicker"s face. "So, all is ready," he said glancing around. "Now we must be off and lose no time, for we have much ahead of us," said Mr. Wicker drily, blowing out the candle.
Before he knew it, Chris stood--until what far-off time?--outside Mr.
Wicker"s house. His master locked the door. The wind, swooping down like some great bird, tugged at their cloaks and chilled their faces.
Chris led the way to the creek and the marsh. This time both he and Mr. Wicker wore high boots which kept the icy water and mud from their feet.
"What I wouldn"t give for a flashlight!" Chris muttered as they came to the marsh.
"Yes, the twentieth century has many conveniences," Mr. Wicker replied, and Chris could imagine, behind him, the man"s sardonic smile and amused eyes.
They came out suddenly from the blackness of the woods to the wind-whipped river, and though the moon was still obscured, the river held a pallid sheen of its own that gave a little light. There was not a sound to be heard but the hurried lap of water against the sh.o.r.e, the suck and pull of Chris"s and Mr. Wicker"s boots in the mud, and sharp, hair-raising rustles, from time to time, in the reeds. Chris"s heart thudded in his throat at these furtive noises, for they could only be made by rats or watersnakes, and Chris liked neither of these, especially by night.
Pushing along the marsh edge and feeling their way, the two figures at last came in sight of their goal. The high dark hull of the _Venture_ rose above the water, an amber lantern hanging at her stern. The wind swung the ship, and the tide, still flowing up the Potomac, showed that the bow, held by the anchor, was pointed somewhat downstream.
"The anchor may have dragged," Chris whispered to Mr. Wicker. "Now for our boat!"
The rope seemed to uncoil from about his waist almost of itself, and with the gestures he had been taught, Chris formed a very adequate craft; a trifle lopsided, it must be admitted, as he had had small practice, but seaworthy nevertheless.
"I shall see that the men sleep soundly," Mr. Wicker murmured. "You do the rest."