entirely safe until we set foot on American land.
“My place is with you, Barnabas. Do you think it is only men who wish to see new
land? I, too, want to see those shores again. I, too, want to see what is beyond
them.”
I was silent, for I knew what she said was true, and I did not want to persuade
her otherwise. In that I was selfish. I wanted her with me always.
“It’s no land for a gentle, lovely woman,” I protested feebly.
She looked at me, laughing. “Barnabas, when I was not yet fourteen and off the
coast of India, I used a pistol repelling boarders off my father’s ship.”
Later I spoke of my worries again to Captain Tempany.
“All we can do is what we can,” I began, “and when we have done that it rests
with God. I do not want you to risk a shelling of this boat by refusing a
command to lay-to. If they take me, go on about your business. I’ll find a way
to come to America.”
He shook his head. “Lad, lad! You do not know what you risk! I visited a friend
in Newgate for debt. A foul and ugly place it is, and every privilege you get
you pay for!”
Then we talked long of trade, of Indians and goods, of the buying and selling,
for we had much planned.
“It is the new lands for you, my boy,” said Captain Tempany, “and for my
daughter, too, I hope.”
Suddenly there was a dull boom. For a moment my heart seemed to stop.
“We had better go on deck,” Tempany said. “I fear for you, lad.”
We opened the door and stepped out on the deck, and at once we could see her,
not two miles off, clearly visible ahead, a Queen’s ship and a big one, holding
a course that would take her across our bows.
Jeremy Ring came toward us. “She fired a warning gun, Cap’n, shall we heave-to?”
“We must, I fear.”
Abigail came quickly to my side and took my hand. Her cheeks were pale, as mine
must have been. We stood there, shoulder to shoulder, seeing the ship come down
upon us.
“Forty-two guns,” Ring said grimly. “We couldn’t fight her, Cap’n.”
“I’ll fight no Queen’s ship,” he said.
A boat was already bobbing upon the waves, and Sakim stood amidships with a
ladder. It seemed only a moment until the emissary was aboard. For such he was,
I knew.
“I have orders to search you,” he said. He was a handsome young man, obviously
impressed by Abigail. “I hope I shall offer no inconvenience, but I must seize
the man Barnabas Sackett, if he be aboard.”
“I am aboard, Lieutenant,” I said quietly, “and there is no need for a search.”
“I must search,” he said. “It is said there is treasure aboard.”
He was thorough, I grant him that, and he gave us such a search as few ships
have been subjected to, but he found no royal treasure.
At last I stood by the ladder. “Abby,” I said, “Abby, I—”
“Go,” she said, “but come to America when you can. I shall be waiting.”
They stood about, Brian Tempany, Jeremy, Tom Watkins, Jublain, Pim, Sakim, and
the others.
I looked around at their faces, spoke my thanks to them, and then went over the
rail and down to the boat.
From the deck of the Queen’s ship, I watched the other one sail away, her canvas
drawing well.
“She’s a fine craft,” the lieutenant said, beside me.
“The best,” I said, choking from the sadness in me. “They are good folk, loyal
and strong.”
“Come!” he took my arm. “You must go below. I regret the necessity but you must
be held in irons for the Queen’s officers.”
“Wait,” I pleaded, “let me see her out of sight.”
He took his hand from my arm and left. And so I stood, alone upon the deck of
the ship that would take me to prison, watching all that I loved sail away into
the misty distance of a wind-blown sea.
Soon there was no topm’st to be seen, only the gray line where sea and sky met,
and an emptiness in my heart.
They took me below then, and they clamped irons upon my wrists and ankles. They
chained me to a bulkhead, and they left me there.
I was fed a little. I was given water. And I was visited by no one.
7
Of Newgate prison I’d heard a great deal of talk, but it in no way prepared me
for what it was. To a free man living in the fens, with fresh air to breathe and
going about when he chose, where he chose, it was a frightful thing to be
confined, and worse to be confined amid filth and the filthy.
No sooner was I brought into the prison than I was loaded with irons, shoved
about, and abused. Then the prisoners came to me with demands for garnish, which
I provided, having hidden money about me.
One lingered. He was a bold-faced rascal, a thief, he added, and occasionally a
highwayman.
“You can have the irons off,” he told me, “for a bit of something to the jailer,
and for a bit more you can live well, but never let them think there’s an end to
what you have, for then you will be thrown into the worst hole they have and
left to rot. There’s no bit of human feeling in them. Many a man has died here.”
His name was Hyatt. I found myself liking the man. I was in sore need of
somebody with a knowing way about Newgate.
“It is Croppie you must see,” he advised with a knowing wink. “Henry Croppie is
the one, and he’s a brute, mate, a bloody brute who’d kill you with his bare
hands.”
“I also have two hands,” I said.
“Aye, but there’s a sinister power in his, and delighted he is to put it to use
on some poor soul. If he kills you it is no loss to him, but if you kill him
it’s Tyburn or Execution Dock.”
A wicked gleam lit up his face. “It is said you know where there’s treasure …
gold, mayhap, and gems. Is it true then?”
Now a man who has nothing is of no use to anyone, but if there is a chance of
gain even the best of men are sometimes swayed, so I merely shrugged. “Let them
believe what they want,” I said. “I admit nothing, deny nothing.”
With a bit of coin placed in the proper hand I had my irons removed, was changed
to better quarters, and found choicer food available. It was not in my mind,
however, to remain long where I was.
The questioning would begin. “It is like so,” Hyatt said. “They will speak
gently at first, try to get what they want without effort, and if they do not
get it, they will bear down.”
For a week I went about the prison, my nostrils repelled by the vile stench, yet
taking in all that went on, and all who were about, for help may come from
strange quarters and I was in no position to hold back from the roughest hand.
Men and women mixed together, some children ran about, all in the filthiest
rags, faces and hands dirty, with the worst of criminals mingled with debtors
and those thrown into gaol for heresy, which was an easy thing if one talked but
loosely of Queen or Church.
One day I was called to a private room where two men sat. One was a slender man
with a tight, cruel mouth and a tightly curled wig. He looked at me with an
aloof and distant expression.
The other man was square and solid-looking, a man of the Army, I would have
guessed, or perhaps the captain of a warship.
“You are Barnabas Sackett?” this one asked.
“I am, and a loyal yeoman of England,” I added. “I am also an admirer of Her
Majesty.”
“There be many such,” he replied shortly. “Now to the matter at hand. You have
traded certain gold coins to Coveney Hasling and others?”
“I have.”
“Where did you obtain these coins?”
Relating the events of the day on which I found such coins was simple, and then
I followed by relating that once I knew antiquities might have value, I went to
another place and found more.
“So quickly? So easily?”
“It was chance. One in a thousand, I suppose, although there are many places in
England where old coins are found.”
“Your home is in the fens?”
“It is.”
“You live near the Wash?”
“Some distance from it, actually.”
“But you know it? You’ve sailed on it?”
“Many times.”
“You know the story of the loss of the royal treasure?”
For hours they questioned me. The man with the wig had a cold, fierce eye and