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.

A Drink of Sherbet

I took what handkerchiefs I could find into the pantry with me. 'There's no danger,' I said. 'The ship's all right. How are you now? Let me give you some more brandy.' I gave her a little more brandy; then I helped her on to the top of the locker. Pouring out some water into the basin I bathed the cut on her head. It was a clean long cut which would probably have gone through the bone had not her hair been so thick. I dressed it as well as I could with balsam, then bound it tightly up with a white handkerchief. The hand was a good deal more, difficult to manage; it was nastily crushed; though no bones were broken. The wrist was so much swollen that I had to cut open the sleeve of her man's riding jacket. Then I bathed the hand with cold water mixed with vinegar (which I had heard was cooling) till I felt that the time had come to bandage it, so that the patient might lie down to rest. She had been much shaken by her fall. I don't think it ever once occurred to me to think of her as my enemy. I felt too much pity for her, being hurt, like that. 'Look here,' I said. 'You'll have to wear that arm in a sling. I'll bandage it up for you nicely.' She bore my surgery like the hero she was; it didn't look very wonderful when it was done; but she said that the pain was a good deal soothed. That was not the end though. I had to change cabins with her, since I could not let a hurt woman sleep in that bunk in the pantry; she might so easily be flung from it a second time. So I shifted her things into my cabin, where I made all tidy for her. As for the precious slush can, I stowed that carefully away, at the back of some lumber in one of the pantry lockers, where it would not be found. Altogether, it took me about twenty minutes to make everything ready, by which time the little accident on deck had been forgotten, except by those who had to do the work of sending up a new topmast; a job which kept all hands busy all night. The ship was making a steady three knots. under her reduced sail when I helped Aurelia across to her new room. There was no more thought of danger.

As I paused at the cabin door, to ask if there was anything more which I could do for her, the lady turned to me.

'What is your name?' she asked. I am ashamed to say that I hesitated, being half inclined to give her a false name; for my time of secret service had given me a thorough distrust of pretty nearly everybody. She noticed my hesitation. 'As a friend to another friend,' she added. 'Life isn't all the King's service.'

'My name is Martin Hyde,' I said.

'Mine is Aurelia,' she replied, 'Aurelia Carew. Will you remember that?' I told her that I should certainly remember that. 'We seem to have met before,' she said, 'more than once.'

'Yes,' I answered, smiling. She, too, smiled, but she quickly became grave again.

'Mr. Martin Hyde,' she said, with a little catch in her voice, 'we two are in opposite camps. But I don't know. After this, it's difficult. I warn you.' Here she stopped, quite unable to go on. 'I can't,' she continued, more to herself than to me, 'I can't. They oughtn't to have put this on me. They oughtn't. They oughtn't.' She laid her unhurt hand on my shoulder for a moment. 'Let me warn you,' she said earnestly, 'that you're in danger.'

'In danger from you?' I asked.

'Don't ask me more,' she said, 'I hate myself for telling you even that. Oh, it's terrible to have to do it. Go now. Don't ask me more. But I had to warn you. But I can't do it myself.' I did not know what to make of this; but I gathered that her task (whatever it was) from which she had shrunk so bitterly in the Dutch town only the night before, was now to be deputed to another, probably to the captain, perhaps to the Dartmouth justices. I did not like the thought; but I thanked her for warning me, it was generous of her to warn me. I took out the dagger with which she had tried to stab me. 'You said we were in opposite camps, Miss Carew,' I said. 'But I wouldn't like to keep this. I mean I wouldn't like to think that we were enemies, really.' I daresay I said other foolish things as well, at the same time.

'Yes, keep it,' she said. 'I couldn't bear to have it again. But be warned. Don't trust me. While we're in opposite camps you be warned. For I'm your enemy, then, when you least expect it.'

Nothing much happened the next day until the evening, by which time we were off the Isle of Wight. With the aid of the mate, I doctored Aurelia's hand again; that was the only memorable event of the day. In the evening, the captain (who had been moody from his drunkenness of the night before) asked me to sing to him in the great cabin. I was surprised at the request; but I knew a few ballads, so I sang them to him. While I was singing, Aurelia entered the cabin; she sat down on one of the lockers below the great window. She looked very white, in the gloom there. She did not speak to me; but sat there restlessly, coughing in a dry hacking way, as though one of her ribs had been broken in the fall. I lowered my voice when I noticed this, as I was afraid that my singing might annoy her; I thought that she was suffering from her wound. The captain told me to pipe up; as he couldn't hear what my words were. I asked Aurelia if my singing worried her; but instead of answering she left the cabin for a few minutes. When she came back, she sat with her face in her hand, seemingly in great pain. I sang all the ballads known to me. When I had finished, the captain grunted a note of approval. 'Well,' he said, 'so there's your ballads. That's your treat. Now you shall have mine.' A little gong hung in the cabin. He banged upon it to summon his boy, who came in trembling, as he always did, expecting to be beaten before he went out. 'Bring in a jug of cool water,' he said. 'Then fetch them limes I bought.' As the boy went out, the captain turned to me with a grin. 'Did you ever drink Turk's sherbet?' he said.

'No,' I answered. 'I've never even heard of it. What is it?'

'Why,' he said, 'it's a drink the heathen Turks make out of citron. A powder which fizzes. I got some of it last autumn when I made a voyage to Scanderoon. It's been too cold ever since to want to drink any, as it's a summer drink mostly. Now you shall have some.' He took down some tumblers from the rack in which they stood. 'Here's glasses,' he said. 'Now the sherbet is in this bottle here.' He produced a pint glass bottle from one of the lockers. It was stopped with a wooden plug, carved in the likeness of a Turk's head. It was about three parts full of a whitish powder. A label on the side of the bottle gave directions for its preparation.

When the boy returned with his tray, the captain squeezed the juice of half a lime into each of the three tumblers. 'That's the first thing,' he said. 'Lime juice. Now the water.' He poured water into each glass, till they were nearly full. 'White of egg is said to make it better,' he said to me. 'But at sea I guess we must do without that. Now then. You're the singer, so you drink first. Be ready to drink it while it fizzes; for then it's at its best. Are you ready?' I was quite ready, so the captain filled his spoon with the soft white powder. Glancing round at Aurelia I saw that she had covered her eyes with her hand. 'Won't Miss Carew drink first?' I asked.

'I don't want any,' she said in a low voice. Before I could speak another word the captain had poured his heaped spoonful of powder into my glass. 'Stir it up, boy,' he cried. 'Down with it while it fizzes.' Aurelia rose to her feet, catching her breath sharply.

I remember a pleasant taste, as though all of the fruits of the world had been crushed together into a syrup; then a mist surged all about me, the cabin became darker, the captain seemed to grow vast, till his body filled the room. My legs melted from me. I was one little wavering flame blowing about on great waves. Something was hard upon my head. The captain's hand (I could feel) was lifting my eyelid. I heard him say 'That's got him.' Instantly a choir of voices began to chant 'That's got him,' in roaring, tumultuous bursts of music. Then the music became, as it were, present, but inaudible; there were waves of sound all round me, but my ears were deafened to them. I had been put out of action by some very powerful drug, I remember no more of that evening's entertainment. I was utterly unconscious.

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 back at it all long after, I think that the hardest thing to bear was Aurelia's share in the work. I had not thought that Aurelia would join in tricking me in that way. But while I thought bitterly of her deceit, I thought of her tears on the balcony in the Dutch city. After all, she had been driven into it by that big bully of a man. I forgave her when I thought of him; he was the cause of it all. A brute he must have been to force her into such an action. Presently the mate came down with orders to me to leave the ship at once. I asked him for my own clothes; but he told me sharply to be thankful for what I had, since I'd done no work to earn them; by work he meant the brainless manual work done by people like himself. So going on deck I called a boatman, who for twopence put me ashore on the Kingswear side of the river. He gave me full directions for finding Mr. Blick's house, telling me that in another five minutes I should come to it, if I followed my nose. As I started from the landing place I looked back at the barquentine, where I had had so many adventures. She was lying at anchor at a little distance from the Dartmouth landing place, making a fair show, under her flag, in spite of her jury foretopmast. As I looked, the boatman jogged my elbow, pointing across the river to the strip of road which edges the stream. 'A young lady waving to you,' he said. Sure enough a lady was waving to me. I supposed that it was Aurelia, asking pardon, trying to show me that we parted friends. I would not wave at first; I was surly; but after about a minute I waved my hat to her. Then I set off up the road to Mr. Blick's. Ten minutes later, I was in Mr. Blick's house, telling him all that I have now told you.

Mr. Blick kept me in his house for a day or two less than four weeks, when business took him to Exeter. I went with him; for he gave out that he was taking me to school there, as his dead sister had wished. His real reason was to pass the word through the country that King Monmouth was coming. He was one of the few men in full knowledge of the Duke's plans; but as we went about from town to town, spreading the word among the faithful, I saw that the Duke was expected by vast numbers of the country folk. Our clients were not much among the gentry; they hung by themselves, as, in this country, they always will, in times of popular stir. But among the poorer people, such as small farmers, or common labouring men, we were looked for as men sent from on high. At more than one little quiet village, when we went into the inn-parlour, we saw the men looking at us, half frightened, half expectant, as though we, being strangers, must needs have news of the King for whom they longed. Often some publican or maltster would tell us that Gyle (their name for the unfortunate Argyle, then a defeated man in Scotland, if not already put to death for his rebellion) was taken, looking at us carefully as he spoke, for fear lest we should be of the wrong side. Then, if we seemed sympathetic, he would tell us how perhaps another would have better luck elsewhere. After that, we would tell our news. It was dangerous work, though, carrying that message across the country. In many of the towns we found guards of the Devon red regiment of militia. I am quite sure that if Mr. Blick had not had me by his side, as an excellent excuse for travelling to Exeter, he would have been lodged in gaol as a suspicious character. The soldiers had arrested many travellers already; the gaols were full. King James's great man in those parts, the Earl of Albemarle, knew very well that something was in the air; but as he was a great lord the hearts of the poor were hidden from him. He had no guess of what was planning. In a way, the Duke's affairs were very well planned. The eastern end of Devon, all Somerset, with the western end of Dorset, were all ripe to rise, directly he appeared. They knew that he was coming; they were prepared to join him; they knew at about what time he would come, at about a fortnight from hay-harvest. Already, quite unknown to the authorities, we had men picked out to carry the news of the landing to different parts of the country. So far, I think, the Duke's affairs were well planned. But though we had all this enthusiasm in three counties, besides promises of similar risings in London, we were in no real case to take the field. Our adherents, however numerous, however brave, were only a mob, when all is said; they were not an army. The Duke thought that the regular army, or at least some regiments of it, would desert to him, as happened some years later, when the great Prince William did what my master attempted. But my master forgot that he had neither the arms nor the officers to make his faction a likely body for regular troops to join.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

19.04.21 Front Page

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