The Stolen Lake by Joan Aiken Page B

realized that Mrs. Vavasour had tied her hands behind her with a tape measure, while Mrs. Morgan opened the lid of the chest. Surprisingly, this proved to cover and surround a kind of stairhead; a flight of narrow steps led down steeply from it into blackness.
    "Now, us'll jist help the liddle dear over the side..."
    "I'll not! I'll not go! Cap'n Hughes'll have your guts for garters when he hears of this!" gasped Dido, doing her best to fight the two women, who were half lifting, half dragging her over the side of the chest.
    "Ah, but he won't hear, lovie, not till you're as lost as Lucy's pocket. You step down, Nynevie, hold her legs—lucky she's sich a skinny one, her 'on't be no trouble to fetch to the boat...."
    Dido was rolled down the steps; Mrs. Vavasour made no attempt to break her fall, and she lay half-stunned at the bottom of the fairly long flight. A moment later she felt a thick, blanketlike sack pulled over her legs and body; a string was drawn tight at the top, catching some of her hair painfully, and tied in a knot. Then she felt herself being dragged along the ground over rough, uneven planks full of splinters, many of which pierced through the fabric of the bag, and also through Dido's skin. Her head and limbs were banged and thumped against the edges of boards; she was shaken and scraped and jounced and battered.
    One good result of this unpleasant exercise, however, was that, after a few minutes of it, Dido, who had been at the start almost unconscious from the fumes of the pincushion, was jolted back into full, angry, and wary intelligence. Blister them, the old bags, she thought; I'll not yammer to let them know I'm awake—but what a gull I was! How could I be sich a nodcock as not to twig their lay from the first minute? Any addlepate could see they was a pair of downy ones. Guess I'd best look out for myself in New Cumbria; Cap'n Hughes ain't used to sich goings-on. He'll be no more use here than a thread-paper parasol in a thunderstorm.
    She had to bite her lip several times not to cry out. As she was ruthlessly dragged along, she wrestled against the tape that bound her wrists until it cut into them. She thought she felt it give a little, and so persisted in spite of the pain.
    "Lay aholt with me, Ma, and pull her down here," said Mrs. Vavasour's voice.
    The bag was given a sudden vigorous jerk. Again, Dido felt herself rolling helplessly, over and over down a long bumpy slope. By the time she came to a stop she was too dazed and bruised to do anything but lie motionless. To her joy, though, the tape round her wrists had finally broken. She was able to move her hands.
    "Where'll we lay her?" came Mrs. Vavasour's voice.
    "There, on the dried fish."
    "What about rats, Ma? Wouldn't do if her was to turn up gnawed.
She
'on't have em if they ain't complete."
    Something in the woman's voice made Dido's skin crawl; also, she did not care for the reference to rats.
    "Oh, very well. On the ax heads, then."
    The sack was hoisted up, and dropped heavily on to a pile of sharp edges and hard corners.
    "When's the boat leave, Ma?"
    "Midnight. Best you stay and keep an eye on the kinchin. Do she stir, give her another whiff of guayala."
    "I stay here? Not on your oliphant! She'll not stir. Give her another whiff now, to make certing."
    "Not too much, then!
She
don't like 'em if they're droopy."
    The camphor fumes came close again. Dido tried to hold her breath; she pressed her lips together, wrinkled up her nose, and squeezed her eyes tight shut.
    Then, suddenly, she heard a man's voice raised in song, not far away; the sound was muffled, as if heard through a thin partition or a pile of objects.
    "
My heart goes pink!
" he sang:
"
My heart goes pink, the very minute I see her!

My heart goes rose pink, like the rrrrrrising sun!

When she is nigh, this unmistakable feeling

Tingles in all my senses, every one!

I feel she is close, I know she is nigh,

If I were in Paris, Geneva, or Rye,

I'd quickly perceive