"I'm glad to hear that, Jo; it's what has been on my own mind all the morning. But Dick Price, he is not convinced that he deserves to escape. Now you tell him all you know about Gascoyne, and I'll tell him all I know; and if he don't believe us, Alice and Poopy will tell him all they know; and if that won't do, you and I will take him up by the legs and pitch him into the sea!"
"That bein' how the case stands, fire away," said Dick Price, with a grin, sitting down on the grass and busily filling his pipe.
Dick was not so hard to be convinced as Corrie had feared. The glowing eulogiums of Bumpus, and the earnest pleadings of Alice, won him over very soon. He finally agreed to become one of the conspirators.
"But how is the thing to be done?" asked Corrie, in some perplexity.
"Ah! that's the p'int," observed Dick, looking profoundly wise.
"Nothing easier," said Bumpus, whose pipe was by this time keeping pace with that of his new friend. "The case is as clear as mud. Here's how it is. Gascoyne is in limbo; well, we are out of limbo. Good. Then, all we've got for to do is to break into limbo and shove Gascoyne out of limbo, and help him to escape. It's all square, you see, lads."
"Not so square as you seem to think," said Henry Stuart, who at that moment stepped from behind the stem of the tree, which had prevented the party from observing his approach.
"Why not?" said Bumpus, making room for the young man to sit beside Alice on the grass.
"Because," said Henry, "Gascoyne won't agree to escape."
"Not agree for to escape!"
"No. If the prison doors were opened at this moment, he would not walk out."
Bumpus became very grave, and shook his head. "Are ye sartin sure o' this?" said he.
"Quite sure," replied Henry, who now detailed part of his recent conversation with the pirate captain.
"Then it's all up with him!" said Bumpus; "and the pirate will meet his doom, as I once heard a feller say in a play—though I little thought to see it acted in reality."
"So he will," added Dick Price.
Corrie's countenance fell, and Alice grew pale, Even Poopy and Toozle looked a little depressed.
"No; it is not all up with him," cried Henry Stuart, energetically. "I have a plan in my head which I think will succeed, but I must have assistance. It won't do, however, to discuss this before our young friends. I must beg of Alice and Poopy to leave us. I do not mean to say I could not trust you, Alice, but the plan must be made known only to those who have to act in this matter. Rest assured, dear child, that I shall do my best to make it successful."
Alice sprang up at once. "My father told me to follow him some time ago," said she. "I have been too long of doing so already. I do hope you will succeed."
So saying, and with a cheerful "Good-by!" the little girl ran down the mountain-side, closely followed by Toozle and Poopy.
As soon as she was gone, Henry turned to his companions and unfolded to them his plan,—the details and carrying out of which, however, we must reserve for another chapter.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Bumpus Is Perplexed—Mysterious Communings, and a Curious Leave-Taking
"It's a puzzler," said Jo Bumpus to himself,—for Jo was much in the habit of conversing with himself; and a very good habit it is, one that is often attended with much profit to the individual, when the conversation is held upon right topics and in a proper spirit,—"it's a puzzler, it is; that's a fact."
Having relieved his mind of this observation, the seaman proceeded to cut down some tobacco, and looked remarkably grave and solemn as if "it" were not only a puzzler, but an alarmingly serious puzzler.
"Yes, it's the biggest puzzler as ever I comed across," said he, filling his pipe; for John, when not roused, got on both mentally and physically by slow stages.
"Niver know'd its equal," he continued, beginning to smoke, which operation, as the pipe did not "draw" well at first, prevented him from saying anything more.
It was early morning when Bumpus said all this, and the mariner was enjoying his morning pipe in a reclining attitude on the grass beneath Alice Mason's favorite tree, from which commanding position he gazed approvingly on the magnificent prospect of land and sea which lay before him, bathed in the light of the rising sun.
"It is wery koorious," continued John, taking his pipe out of his mouth and addressing himself to it with much gravity—"wery koorious. Things always seems wot they isn't, and turns out to be wot they didn't appear as if they wasn't; werry odd indeed, it is! Only to think that this here sandal-wood trader should turn out for to be Henry's father and the widow's mother,—or, I mean, the widow's husband,—an' a pirate an' a deliverer o' little boys and girls out o' pirate's hands,—his own hands, so to speak,—not to mention captings in the Royal Navy, an' not sich a bad feller after all, as won't have his liberty on no account wotiver, even if it was gived to him for nothin', and yet wot can't get it if he wanted it iver so much; and to think that Jo Bumpus should come for to lend hisself to—Hallo! Jo, back yer tops'ls! Didn't Henry tell ye that ye wasn't to convarse upon that there last matter even with yerself, for fear o' bein' overheard and sp'ilin' the whole affair? Come, I'll refresh myself."
The refreshment in which Jo proposed to indulge was of a peculiar kind which never failed him,—it was the perusal of Susan's love-letter.
He now sat up, drew forth the precious and much-soiled epistle, unfolded and spread it out carefully on his knees, placed his pipe very much on one side of his mouth, in order that the smoke might not interfere with his vision, and began to read.
"'Peeler's Farm,'—ah! Susan, darlin', it's Jo Bumpus as would give all he has in the world, includin' his Sunday clo's, to be anchored alongside o' ye at that same farm!—'Sanfransko.' I misdoubt the spellin' o' that word, Susan, dear; it seems to me raither short, as if ye'd docked off its tail. Howsomdever—'For John bumpuss'—O Susan, Susan! if ye'd only remember the big B, and there ain't two esses. I'm sure it's not for want o'tellin' ye, but ye was never great in the way ov memry or spellin'. Pr'aps it's as well. Ye'd ha' bin too perfect, an' that's not desirable by no means,—'my darlin' Jo,'—ay, them's the words. It's that as sets my 'art a b'ilin' over like."
Here Jo raised his eyes from the letter, and revelled silently in the thought for at least two minutes, during which his pipe did double duty in half its usual time. Then he recurred to his theme; but some parts he read in silence, and without audible comment.
"Aye," said he, "'sandle-wood skooners, the Haf ov thems pirits'—so they is, Susan. It's yer powers o' prophesy as amazes me; 'an' The other hafs no beter;' a deal wus, Susan, if ye only know'd it. Ah! my sweet gal, if ye knew wot a grief that word 'beter' was to me before I diskivered wot it wos, ye'd try to improve yer hand o' write, an' make fewer blots!"
At this point Jo was arrested by the sound of footsteps behind him. He folded up his letter precipitately, thrust it into his left breast-pocket, and jumped up with a guilty air about him.
"Why, Bumpus! we have startled you out of a morning nap, I fear," said Henry Stuart, who, accompanied by his mother, came up at that moment. "We are on our way to say good-by to Mr. Mason. As we passed this knoll I caught sight of you, and came up to ask about the boat."
"It's all right," said Bumpus, who quickly recovered his composure,—indeed, he had never lost much of it. "I've bin down to Saunder's store and got the ropes for your—"
"Hush, man I there is no need of telling what they are for," said Henry, with a mysterious look at his mother.
"Why not tell me all,