When London Burned : a Story of Restoration Times and the Great Fire. Henty George Alfred
when the boat again came alongside, this time with four men on board. Scarcely a word was spoken as the goods were transferred to the boat.
"You will be going to-morrow?" one of the men in the boat asked.
"Yes, I shall get up to Ipswich on the top of the tide—that is, if I don't stick fast in this crooked channel. My cargo is all either for Ipswich or Aldborough. Now let us turn in," as the boatmen made their way up the river. "We must be under way before daylight, or else we shall not save the tide down to-morrow evening. I am glad we have got that lot safely off. I always feel uncomfortable until we get rid of that part of the cargo. If it wasn't that it paid better than all the rest together I would not have anything to do with it."
Cyril was very glad to lie down on the locker, while the men turned into their berths overhead. He had not yet fully recovered from the effects of the blow he had received, but in spite of the aching of his head he was soon sound asleep. It seemed to him that he had scarcely closed his eyes when he was roused by the captain's voice,—
"Tumble up, lads. The light is beginning to show."
Ten minutes later they were under way. The breeze had almost died out, and after sailing for some two miles in nearly a straight course, the boat was thrown over, two men got into it, and, fastening a rope to the ketch's bow, proceeded to tow her along, the captain taking the helm.
To Cyril's surprise, they turned off almost at right angles to the course they had before been following, and made straight for the opposite shore. They approached it so closely that Cyril expected that in another moment the craft would take ground, when, at a shout from the captain, the men in the boat started off parallel with the shore, taking the craft's head round. For the next three-quarters of an hour they pursued a serpentine course, the boy standing in the chains and heaving the lead continually. At last the captain shouted,—"You can come on board now, lads. We are in the straight channel at last." Twenty minutes later they again dropped their anchor opposite a town of considerable size.
"That is Ipswich, lad," the captain said. "It is as nasty a place to get into as there is in England, unless you have got the wind due aft."
The work of unloading began at once, and was carried on until after dark.
"That is the last of them," the captain said, to Cyril's satisfaction. "We can be off now when the tide turns, and if we hadn't got clear to-night we might have lost hours, for there is no getting these people on shore to understand that the loss of a tide means the loss of a day, and that it is no harder to get up and do your work at one hour than it is at another. I shall have a clean up, now, and go ashore. I have got your promise, lad, that you won't try to escape?"
Cyril assented. Standing on the deck there, with the river bank but twenty yards away, it seemed hard that he should not be able to escape. But, as he told himself, he would not have been standing there if it had not been for that promise, but would have been lying, tightly bound, down in the hold.
Cyril and the men were asleep when the captain came aboard, the boy alone remaining up to fetch him off in the boat when he hailed.
"There is no wind, captain," Cyril said, as the anchor was got up.
"No, lad, I am glad there is not. We can drop down with the tide and the boat towing us, but if there was a head wind we might have to stop here till it either dropped or shifted. I have been here three weeks at a spell. I got some news ashore," he went on, as he took his place at the helm, while the three men rowed the boat ahead. "A man I sometimes bring things to told me that he heard there had been an attempt to rescue the men concerned in that robbery. I heard, before I left London, it was likely that it would be attempted."
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