Menaida raised his brows.
“I do not understand you.”
“I daresay not,” said Scantlebray. “It’s the duty of all right-minded men to clear the world of rascals. I will do my duty, please the pigs. Would you mind – just another drop?”
After his glass had been refilled, Mr. Scantlebray leaned back in his chair and said:
“It’s a wicked world, and, between you and me and the sugar dissolving at the bottom of my glass, you won’t find more rascality anywhere than in my profession, and one of the biggest rascals in it is Mr. Cargreen. He’s on the side against the orphings. If you’ve the faculty of pity in you, pity them – first, because they’ve him agin’ ’em, and, secondly, because they’ve lost me as their protector. You know whom they got in place of me? I wish them joy of him. But they won’t have his wing over them long, I can tell you.”
“You think not?”
“Sure of it.”
“You think he’ll throw it up?”
“I rather suspect he won’t be at liberty to attend to it. He’ll want his full attention to his own consarns.”
Mr. Scantlebray tipped off his glass.
“It’s going to be a dirty night,” said he. “You won’t mind my spending an hour or two with you, will you?”
“I shall be delighted. Have you any business in the place?”
“Business – no. A little pleasure, maybe.” After a pause, he said, “But, old man, I don’t mind telling you what it is. You are mum, I know. It is this – the trap will shut to-night. Snap it goes, and the rats are fast. You haven’t been out on the cliffs to-day, have you?”
“No – bless me! – no, I have not.”
“The Black Prince is in the offing.”
“The Black Prince?”
“Ay, and she will run her cargo ashore to-night. Now, I’m one who knows a little more than most. I’m one o’ your straightfor’ard ’uns, always ready to give a neighbor a lift in my buggy, and a helping hand to the man that is down, and a frank, outspoken fellow am I to every one I meet – so that, knocking about as I do, I come to know and to hear more than do most, and I happen to have learnt into what cove the Black Prince will run her goods. I’ve a bone to pick with Captain Cruel, so I’ve let the Preventive men have the contents of my information-pottle, and they will be ready to-night for Coppinger and the whole party of them. The cutter will slip in between them and the sea, and a party will be prepared to give them the kindliest welcome by land. That is the long and short of it – and, old man, I shall dearly love to be there and see the sport. That is why I wish to be with you for an hour or two. Will you come as well?”
“Bless me!” exclaimed Mr. Menaida, “not I! You don’t suppose Coppinger and his men will allow themselves to be taken easily? There’ll be a fight.”
“And pistols go off,” said Scantlebray. “I shall not be surprised or sorry if Captain Cruel be washed up one of these next tides with a bullet through his head. Ebenezer Wyvill is one of the guards, and he has his brother’s death to avenge.”
“Do you really believe that Coppinger killed him?”
Mr. Scantlebray shrugged his shoulders. “It don’t matter much what I think, to-night, but what the impression is that Ebenezer Wyvill carries about with him. I imagine that if Ebenezer comes across the Captain he won’t speak to him by word of mouth, nor trouble himself to feel for a pair of handcuffs. So – fill my glass again, old man, and we’ll drink to a cold bed and an indigestible lump – somewhere – in his head or in his gizzard – to Cruel Coppinger, and the wiping off of old scores – always a satisfaction to honest men.” Scantlebray rubbed his hands. “It is a satisfaction to the conscience – to ferret out the rats sometimes.”
CHAPTER XIV
WARNING OF DANGER
Judith, lost for awhile in her dreams, had been brought to a sense of what was the subject of conversation in the adjoining room by the mention of Coppinger’s name more than once. She heard the desultory talk for awhile without giving it much attention, but Scantlebray’s voice was of that harsh and penetrating nature that to exclude it the ears must be treated as Ulysses treated the ears of his mariners as he passed the rock of the Sirens.
Presently she became alive to the danger in which Coppinger stood. Scantlebray spoke plainly, and she understood. There could be no doubt about it. The Black Prince belonged to the Captain, and his dealings with and through that vessel were betrayed. Not only was Coppinger, as the head of a gang of smugglers, an object worth capture to the Preventive men, but the belief that he had caused the death of at least one of their number had embittered them against him to such an extent that, when the opportunity presented itself to them of capturing him red-handed engaged in his smuggling transactions, they were certain to deal with him in a way much more summary than the processes of a court of a justice. The brother of the man who had been murdered was among the coast-guard, and he would not willingly let slip a chance of avenging the death of Jonas Wyvill. Coppinger was not in a condition to defend himself effectively. On that day for the first time, had he left off his bandages, and his muscles were stiff and the newly set bones still weak.
What was to be done? Could Judith go to bed and let Coppinger run into the net prepared for his feet – go to his death?
No sooner, however, had Judith realized the danger that menaced Coppinger than she resolved on doing her utmost to avert it. She, and she alone, could deliver him from the disgrace, if not the death, that menaced him.
She stole lightly from the room and got her cloak, drew the hood over her head, and sallied forth into the night. Heavy clouds rolled over the sky, driven before a strong gale. Now and then they opened and disclosed the twilight sky, in which faintly twinkled a few stars, and at such times a dim light fell over the road, but in another moment lumbering masses of vapor were carried forward, blotting out the clear tract of sky, and at the same time blurring all objects on earth with one enveloping shadow.
Judith’s heart beat furiously, and timidity came over her spirit as she left the cottage, for she was unaccustomed to be outside the house at such an hour; but the purpose she had before her eyes gave her strength and courage. It seemed to her that Providence had suddenly constituted her the guardian angel of Coppinger, and she flattered herself that, were she to be the means of delivering him from the threatened danger, she might try to exact of him a promise to discontinue so dangerous and so questionable a business. If this night she were able to give him warning in time, it would be some return made for his kindness to her, and some reparation made for the injury she had done him. When for an instant there was a rift in the clouds, and she could look up and see the pure stars, it seemed to her that they shone down on her like angels’ eyes, watching, encouraging, and promising her protection. She thought of her father – of how his mind had been set against Coppinger; now, she felt convinced, he saw that his judgment had been warped, and that he would bless her for doing that which she had set her mind to accomplish. Her father had been ever ready frankly to acknowledge himself in the wrong when he had been convinced that he was mistaken, and now in the light of eternity, with eyes undarkened by prejudice, he must know that he was in error in his condemnation of Coppinger, and be glad that his daughter was doing something to save that man from an untimely and bloody death.
Not a soul did Judith meet or pass on her way. She had determined in the first case to go to Pentyre
