Monmouth, James Scott, Duke of, 1649-1685 -- Fiction
I came to, very sick, some time in the night. I was in the bunk in the
pantry; but far too helpless in my misery to rise, or to take an account
of time. I lay half-conscious till the morning, when I fell into a deep
sleep, which lasted, I may say, till the evening; for I did not feel
sufficiently awake to get up until about half-past five. When I did
get up, I felt so tottery that I could hardly keep my feet. Someone, I
supposed that it was Aurelia, had placed a metal brandy flask, with a
paper roll containing hard-boiled eggs, on my wash-hand-stand. I took a
gulp of the brandy. In the midst of my sickness I remember the shame of
it; the shame of being drugged by those two; for I knew that I had been
drugged; the shame of having given up like that, at the moment when I
had the cards in my hand; all the cards. I was locked into the
pantry; all my clothes were gone. I found myself dressed in a sailor's
serge-shirt. All my other property had vanished. I remember crying as
I shook at the door to open it; it was too strong for me, in my weak
state. As I wrestled with the door, I heard the dry rattling out of the
cable. We had come to anchor; we were in Dartmouth; perhaps in a few
minutes I should be going ashore. Looking through the port-hole, I saw
a great steep hill rising up from the water, with houses clinging to its
side, like barnacles on the side of a rock. I could see people walking
on the wharf. I could see a banner blowing out from a flagstaff.
A few more gulps of brandy brought me to myself I was safe anyhow;
my cartridges had not been found. I dropped them one by one into the
metal-flask. Whatever happened, no one would look for them there. Then
I banged at the door again, trying to make people hear. Nobody paid
any attention to me; I might have spared myself the trouble. Long
afterwards, I learned that I was detained while Captain Barlow spoke to
a magistrate about me, asking if I might be “questioned,” that is, put
to the thumbscrews, till it could be learned whether I carried a verbal
message to my uncle, Mr. Blick. The magistrate to whom he first applied
was one of the Monmouth faction as it happened, so my thumbs escaped;
but I had a narrow escape later, as you shall hear. About an hour after
the ship came to anchor, the cabin-door was opened by a sailor, who
flung in an armful of clothes to me, without speaking a word. They were
mostly not my own clothes; the boots were not mine; my own boots, I
guessed, had been cut to pieces in the letter-hunt. All the clothes
which were mine had had the seams ripped up. All my cartridges had been
taken. About half of my money was gone. The only things untouched were
the weapons in the belt. I laughed to myself to think how little reward
they had had for all their baseness. They had stooped to the methods of
the lowest kind of thieves, yet they had failed. They had not found my
letters. My joy was not very real; I was too wretched for that. Looking
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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