It has come to the attention of the Editor that what people want from the h2g2 Post is more serial fiction. In that spirit, we bring you this novel in serial form, with illustrations, as it originally appeared in the 1909 annual issue of Chatterbox, a very elevating young people's magazine. This is what they were reading instead of Harry Potter, so enjoy.

By John Masefield.

Aurelia

While I was fretting myself into a state of hysteria, the catch of one of the great window-doors above me was pushed back. Someone came out on the balcony just over my head. It was a woman, evidently in some great distress, for she was sobbing bitterly. I thought it mean to stand there hearing her cry, so I moved away. As I walked off, the window opened again. A big heavy-looted man came out.

'Stop crying, Aurelia,” the voice said. 'Here's the stuff. Put it in your pocket.'

'I can't,' the woman answered. 'I can't.'

I stopped moving away when I heard that voice. It was the voice of the Longshore Jack woman who had had those adventures with me. I should have known her voice anywhere, even choked as it then was with sobs. It was a good voice, of a pleasant quality, but with a quick, authoritative ring.

'I can't,' she said. 'I can't, Father.'

'Put it in your pocket,' her father said. 'No rubbish of that sort. You must.'

'It would kill me. I couldn't,' she answered. 'I should hate myself forever.'

'No more of that to me,' said the cold, hard voice with quiet passion. 'Your silly scruples aren't going to outweigh a nation's need. There it is in your pocket. Be careful you don't use too much. If you fail again, remember, you'll earn your own living. Oh, you bungler! When I think of – '

'I'm no bungler. You know it,' she answered passionately. 'I planned everything. You silly men never backed me up. Who was it guessed right this time? I suppose you think you'd have come here without my help? That's like a man.'

'Don't stand there rousing the town, Aurelia,' the man said. 'Come in out of the rain at once. Get yourself ready to start.'

As the window banged to behind them, a figure loomed up out of the night—two figures, more. I sprang to one side; but they were too quick for me. Someone flung an old flour-sack over my head. Before I was ready to struggle I was lying flat on the pavement, with a man upon my chest.

'It's him,' said a voice. 'You young rip, where are the letters?'

'What letters?' I said, struggling, choking against the folds of the sack.

'Rip up his boots,' said another. 'Dig him with a knife if he won't answer.'

'Bring him in to the Colonel,' said the first.

'I've got no letters,' I said.

'Lift him up quick,' said the man who had suggested the knife. 'In with him. Here's the watch.'

'Quick, boys,' the leader said. 'We mustn't be caught at this game.'

Steps sounded somewhere in the square. Hearing them, I squealed with all my strength, hoping that somebody would come.

'Choke him,' said one of the men.

I gave one more loud squeal before they jammed the sack on my mouth. To my joy, the feet broke into a run. They were the feet of the watch, coming to my rescue.

'Up with him,' said the leader among my captors. 'Quick, in to the Colonel with him.'

'No, no! Drop it. I'm off. Here's the watch,' cried the other hurriedly.

They let me drop on to the pavement after half lifting me. In five seconds more they were scattering to shelter. As I rose to my feet, flinging off the flour-sack, I found myself in the midst of the city watch, about a dozen men, all armed, whose leader carried a lantern. The windows of the great inn were open; people were thronging on to the balcony to see what the matter was; citizens came to their house-doors. At that moment, Mr. Jermyn appeared. The captain of the guard was asking questions in Dutch. The guardsmen were peering at my face in the lantern light.

Mr. Jermyn questioned me quickly as to what had happened. He interpreted my tale to the guard. I was his servant, he told them. I had been attacked by unknown robbers, some of whom, at least, were English. One of them had tried to stifle me with a flour-sack, which, on examination under the lantern, proved to be the sack of Robert Harling, Corn-miller, Eastry. Goodness knows how it came to be there; for ship's flour travels in cask. Mr. Jermyn gave an address, where we could be found if any of the villains were caught; but he added that it was useless to expect me to identify any of them, since the attack had been made in the dark, with the victim securely blindfolded. He gave the leader of the men some money. The guard moved away to look for the culprits (long before in hiding, one would think), while Mr. Jermyn took me away with him.

As we went, I looked up at the inn balcony, from which several heads looked down upon us. Behind them, in the lighted room, in profile, in full view, was the lady of the fierce eyes. I knew her at once, in spite of the grey Spanish (man's) hat she wore, slouched over her face. She was all swathed in a Spanish riding cloak. One took her for a handsome young man. But I knew that she was my enemy. I knew her name now, too; Aurelia. She was looking down at me, or rather at us, for she could not have made out our faces. Her face was sad. She seemed uninterested; she had, perhaps, enough sorrow of her own at that moment, without the anxieties of others. A big, burly, hulking, handsome person of the swaggering sort which used to enter the army in those days, left the balcony hurriedly. I saw him at the window, speaking earnestly to her, pointing to the square, in which, already, the darkness hid us. I saw the listlessness fall from her. She seemed to waken up into intense life in an instant. She walked with a swift decision peculiar to her away from the window, leaving the hulking fellow, an elderly, dissolute-looking man, with the wild puffy eyes of the drinker, to pick his teeth in full view of the square.

When we left watching our enemies, Mr. Jermyn bade me walk on tiptoe. We scurried away across the square diagonally, pausing twice to listen for pursuers. No one seemed to be following. There was not much sense in following; for the guard was busy searching for suspicious persons. We heard them challenging passers-by, with a rattle of their halberds on the stones, to make their answers prompt. We were safe enough from persecution for the time. We went down a dark street into a dark alley. From the alley we entered a courtyard, the sides of which were vast houses. We entered one of these houses. The door seemed to open in the mysterious way which had puzzled me so much in Fish Lane. Mr. Jermyn smiled when I asked him how this was done. 'Go on in, boy,' he said. 'There are many queer things in lives like ours.' He gave me a shove across the threshold, while the door closed itself silently behind us.

He took me into a room which was not unlike a marine store of the better sort. There were many sailor things (all of the very best quality) lying in neat heaps on long oak shelves against the walls. In the middle of the room a table was laid for dinner.

Mr. Jermyn made me eat a hearty meal before starting, which I did. As I ate, he fidgeted about among some lockers at my back. Presently, as I began to sip some wine which he had poured out for me, he put something over my shoulders.

'Here,' he said, 'this is the satchel, Martin. Keep the straps drawn tight always. Don't take it off till you give it into Mr. Blick's hands. His own hands, remember. Don't take it off even at night. When you lie down, lash it around your neck with spun-yarn.' All this I promised most faithfully to do. 'But,' I said, examining the satchel, which was like an ordinary small old weather-beaten satchel for carrying books, 'where are the letters, sir?'

'Sewn into the double,' he answered. 'You wouldn't be able to sew so neatly as that. Would you, now?'

'Oh, yes, I should, sir,' I replied. 'I am a pretty good hand with a sail-needle. The Oulton fishermen used to teach me the stitches. I can do herring-bone stitch. I can even put a cringle into a sail.'

'You're the eighth wonder of the world, I think,' Mr. Jermyn said. 'But choose, now. Choose a kit for yourself. You won't get a chance to change your clothes till you get to Mr. Blick's if you don't take some from here. So just look round the room here. Take whatever you want.'

I felt myself to have been fairly well equipped by the stranger who had made me change my clothes in the alley. But I knew how cold the Channel may be even in June; so I chose out two changes of thick underwear. Weapons I had no need for, with the armory already in my belt; but a heavy tarred jacket with an ear-flap collar was likely to be useful, so I chose that instead. It was not more than ten sizes too large for me; that did not matter; at sea one tries to keep warm; appearances are not much regarded. Last of all, when I had packed my satchel, I noticed a sailor's canvas 'housewife' very well stored with buttons, etc. I noticed that it held what is called a 'palm,' that is, the leather hand-guard used by sail-makers for pushing the needle through sail cloth. It occurred to me, vaguely, that such a 'housewife' would be useful, in case my clothes got torn, so I stuffed it into my satchel with the other things. I saw that it contained a few small sail-needles (of the kind so excellent as egg-borers) as well as some of the strong fine sail-twine, each thread of which will support a weight of fifty pounds. I put the housewife into my store with a vague feeling of being rich in the world's goods, with such a little treasury of necessaries; I had really no thought of what that chance impulse was to do for me.

'Are you ready?' Mr. Jermyn asked.

'Yes, sir. Quite ready.'

'Take this blank drawing-book,' he said, handing me a small pocket-book, in which a pencil was stuck. 'Make a practice of drawing what you see. Draw the ships. Make sketches of the coast. You will find that such drawings will give you great pleasure when you come to be old. They will help you, too, in impressing an object on your mind. Drawing thus will give you a sense of the extraordinary wonder of the universe. It will teach you a lot of things. Now let's be off. It's time we were on board.'

When we went out of the house we were joined by three or four seamen who carried cases of bottles (probably gin bottles). We struck off towards the ship together at a brisk pace, singing one of those quick-time songs with choruses to which the sailors sometimes work. The song they sang was that very jolly one called 'Leave her, Johnny.' They made such a noise with the chorus of this ditty that Mr. Jermyn was able to refresh my memory in the message to be given to Mr. Blick.

The rain had ceased before we started. When we came into the square, we saw that cressets, or big flaming port-fires, had been placed along the wharf, to give light to some seamen who were rolling casks to the barquentine. A little crowd of idlers had gathered about the workers to watch them at their job; there may have been so many as twenty people there. They stood in a pretty strong, but very unsteady light, by which I could take stock of them. I looked carefully among them for the figure of a young man in a grey Spanish hat; but he was certainly not there. The barquentine had her sails loosed, but not hoisted. Some boats were in the canal ahead, ready to tow her out. She had also laid out a hawser, by which to heave herself out with her capstan. I could see at a glance that she was at the point of sailing. As we came up the plank-gangway which led to her deck we were delayed for a moment by a seaman who was getting a cask aboard.

'Beg pardon, sir,' he said to Mr. Jermyn. 'I won't keep you waiting long. This cask's about as heavy as nitre.'

'What 'a' you got in that cask, Dick?' said the boatswain, who kept a tally at the gangway.

'Nitre or bullets, I guess,' said Dick, struggling to get the cask on to the gang plank. 'It's as heavy as it knows how.'

'Give Dick a hand there,' the boatswain ordered. A seaman who was standing somewhere behind me came forward, jogging my elbow as he passed. In a minute or two they had the cask aboard.

'It's red lead,' said the boatswain, examining the marks upon it. 'Sling it down into the 'tweendecks.'

After this little diversion, I was free to go down the gangway with Mr. Jermyn. The captain received us in the cabin. He seemed to know my 'uncle Blick,' as he called him, very well indeed. I somehow didn't like the looks of the man; he had a bluff air; but it seemed to sit ill upon him. He reminded me of the sort of farmer who stands well with his parson or squire, while he tyrannizes over his labourers with all the calculating cowardly cruelty of the mean mind. I did not take to Captain Barlow, for all his affected joviality.

However, the ship was sailing. They showed me the little trim cabin which was to be mine for the voyage. Mr. Jermyn ran ashore up the gangway, after shaking me by the hand. He called to me over his shoulder to remember him very kindly to my uncle. A moment later, as the hawsers were cast off, the little crowd on the wharf called out 'Three cheers for the Gara barquentine,' which the Gara's crew acknowledged with three cheers for Pierhead, in the sailor fashion. We were moving slowly under the influence of the oared boats ahead of us, when a seaman at the forward capstan began to sing the solo part of an old capstan chanty. The men broke in upon him with the chorus, which rang out, in its sweet clearness, making echoes in the city. I ran to the capstan to heave with them, so that I, too, might sing. I was at the capstan there, heaving round with the best of them, until we were standing out to sea, beyond the last of the fairway lights, with our sails trimmed to the strong northerly wind. After that, being tired with so many crowded excitements, which had given me a life's adventures since supper-time, I went below to my bunk, to turn in.

I took off my satchel, intending to tie it round my neck after I had undressed. Some inequality in the strap against my fingers made me hold it to the cabin lamp to examine it more closely. To my horror, I saw that the strap had been nearly cut through in five places. If it had not been of double leather with an inner lining of flexible wire, any one of those cuts would have cut the thong clean in two. Then a brisk twitch would have left the satchel at the cutter's mercy. It gave me a lively sense of the craft of our enemies, to see those cuts in the leather. I had felt nothing. I had suspected nothing. Only once, for that instant on the wharf, when we stopped to let Dick get his barrel aboard, had they had a chance to come about me. Yet in that instant of time they had suspected that that satchel contained letters. They had made their bold attempt to make away with it. They had slashed this leather in five places with a knife as sharp as a razor. But had it been on the wharf, that this was done? I began to wonder if it could have been on the wharf. Might it not have been done when I was at the capstan, heaving round on the bar? I thought not. I must have noticed a seaman doing such a thing. It would have been impossible for any one to have cut the strap there; for the capstan was always revolving. The man next to me on the bar never took his hands from the lever, of that I was certain. The men on the bar behind me could not have reached me. Even if they had reached me the mate must have noticed it. I knew that sailors were often clever thieves; but I did not believe that they could have been so clever under the mate's eye. If it had not been done at the capstan it could not have been done since I came aboard; for there had been no other opportunity. I was quite convinced, after a moment's thought, that it had been done on the wharf before I came aboard. Then I wondered if it had been done by common shore thieves, or 'nickers,' who are always present in our big seaport towns, ready to steal whenever they get a chance. But I was rather against this possibility; for my mind just then was much too full of Aurelia's party. I saw their hands in it. It would have needed very strong evidence to convince me that they were not at the bottom of this last attack, as they had doubtless been in the attack under the inn balcony.

Thinking of their cunning with some dismay, I went to my door to secure it. I was in my stockinged feet at the moment, as I had kicked my boots off on coming into the cabin. My step, therefore, must have been noiseless. Opening the door smartly, half-conscious of some slight noise on the far side, I almost ran into Captain Barlow, who was standing without. He showed a momentary confusion, I thought, at seeing me thus suddenly. It was a bad sign. To me, in my excited nervous state, it was a very bad sign. It convinced me that he had been standing there, trying to spy upon me through the keyhole, with what purpose I could guess only too well. His face changed to a jovial grin in an instant; but I felt that he was searching my face narrowly for some sign of suspicion.

'I was just coming in to see if you wanted anything,' he said.

'No. Nothing, thanks,' I answered. 'But what time's breakfast, sir?'

'Oh, the boy'll call you,' he answered. 'Is that your school satchel? Hey? What you carry your books in? Let's see it?'

'Oh,' I said, as lightly as I could, feeling that he was getting on ticklish ground. 'I've not unpacked it yet. It's got all my things in it.'

By this time he was well within my cabin. 'Why,' he said, 'this strap's almost cut in two. Does your master let you bring your satchel to school in that state? How did it come to be cut like that? Hey?'

I made some confused remark about its having always been in that state; as it was an old satchel which my father used for a shooting-bag. I had never known boys to carry books in a satchel. That kind of school was unknown to me.

'Well,' he said, fingering the strap affectionately, as though he was going to lift it off my head, 'you let me take it away with me. I've got men in this ship, who can mend a cut leather strap as neat as you've no idea of. They'd sew up a cut like them so as you'd hardly know it had been cut.'

I really feared that he would have the bag away from me by main force. But I rallied all my forces to save it. 'I'm lagged now,' I said. 'I haven't undone my things. I'll give it to you in the morning.'

It seemed to me that he looked at me rather hard when I said this; but he evidently thought 'What can it matter? Tomorrow will serve just as well.' So he just gave a little laugh. 'Right,' he said. 'You turn in now. Give it to me in the morning. Good night, boy.'

'Good night,' I said, as he left the cabin, adding, under my breath, 'Good riddance, too. You won't find quite so much when you come to examine this bag by daylight.' After he had gone—but not at once, as I wished not to make him suspicious,—I locked my cabin-door. Then I hung my tarred sea-coat on the door-hook, so that the flap entirely covered the keyhole. There were bolts on the door, but the upper one alone could be pushed home. With this in its place felt secure from spies. Yet not too secure. I was not certain that the bulkheads were without crannies from which I could be watched. The crack by the door-hinge might, for all I knew, give a very good view of the inside of the cabin. Thinking that I might still be under observation I decided to put off what I had to do until the very early morning, so I undressed myself for bed. I took care to put out the light before turning in, so that I might not be seen lashing the satchel round my neck with a length of spunyarn. I slept with my head upon it.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

29.03.21 Front Page

Back Issue Page