CHAPTER XXV
MISSING!
"Sir,—I am directed by the Secretary of State for War to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 19th ultimo, the contents of which shall receive his attention."I am, sir,"Your obedient servant,"J. Fleetwood Cunningham."
"Sir,—I am directed by the Secretary of State for War to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 19th ultimo, the contents of which shall receive his attention.
"I am, sir,
"Your obedient servant,
"J. Fleetwood Cunningham."
The Commandant, from long disuse, had forgotten the formalities of official correspondence. His hand shook as he tore open the long envelope, expecting to read his fate, and in the revulsion, as his eyes fell on the few lines of acknowledgment, he caught at the table's edge and sank into his chair with a sudden feeling of faintness.
For a few hours, then—possibly for a few days—he was respited. He put the letter aside and walked out, to take his afternoon stroll around the fortifications and steady his nerves.
By the Keg of Butter Battery he halted for a long look across the Sound and towards Saaron. Unconsciously for a week past, he had fallen into a habit of halting just here and letting his eyes travel towards Saaron. It was just here that Vashti had seated herself the first morning, and had asked him the fatal question, "For what, then, do they pay you?" He remembered the words, the inflection of scorn in her tone. Here at his feet on a cushion of wild thyme lay the stone she had prised out absently, while she spoke, with the point of her sunshade. Just here, too, she had taken leave of him on the night of her escapade, the night when (it was bliss to remember) she had recanted her scorn, had asked his forgiveness.
For a whole week he had not seen her. Was she careless, then, of the answer?—of what resulted from the train she had fired?... But, after all (the Commandant told himself), she had no need to concern herself about it. She had but set him in the way of doing his duty; for the rest, a man must accept his own responsibility, stand by his own actions, abide his own fate.
Yet he would have given a great deal, just now, for speech with her, to tell her that, unimportant though it was, some word from the War Office had reached him.
Throughout his stroll his mind kept harking back to this letter, seeking behind the few and formal words for meanings they did not cover; and again that evening, after his frugal supper, he drew the envelope from its pigeon-hole, spread the paper on the table before him, and sat studying it.
He lifted his head, at a sound in the passage. The outer door had been burst open violently, as though by a gust of wind, and a moment later Archelaus came running in with a face of panic.
"The Lord behear us!" gasped Archelaus. "Oh, sir, here's awful, awful news! The Lord Proprietor's been murdered, and his body flung over the cliff, and Sam Leggo and Abe the gardener be running through the streets wi' the news of it!"
"Murdered! The Lord Proprietor!" echoed the Commandant, laying down his glasses and rising to his feet in blankest amaze.
"Yes, sir; shot with his own gun, and, they say, by Eli Tregarthen! The two men have pulled across from Inniscaw for help, and to fetch the constable.... I had the news from Sam Leggo hisself, as he raced off to knock up Mr. Pope."
The Commandant sank back in his chair. Dreadful though the news was, he saw in a flash that it was not incredible. Eli Tregarthen owed the Lord Proprietor a grudge, and a bitter one. Eli Tregarthen was a man capable of brooding over his wrongs and exacting wild justice for them. The Commandant's thoughts flew to Vashti.
But even as he passed a hand over his eyes, another footstep invaded the outer passage, and Mr. Pope himself rushed in, mopping his brow.
"My dear friend—" Not in his life before had Mr. Pope addressed the Commandant as "my dear friend." He glanced from one scared face to the other. "You have heard? Oh, but it is terrible!... And what on earth are we to do?"
"I beg your pardon," answered the Commandant, recovering his presence of mind. "'We,' did you say?"
"Naturally I came first to you.... You being a magistrate, and—if this dreadful news be true—the chief magistrate left on the Islands."
"True," said the Commandant, yet more quietly. He had regained his self-possession. "I had forgotten. To be sure, I had renounced the office—as I supposed—at the Lord Proprietor's own wish; but doubtless it reverts to me, and, in any case, this is no time to discuss proprieties. Will you tell me what has happened and what has already been done?"
"Done? I have done nothing except send for the constable, with word that he was to follow me here to the Barracks and take your orders."
"But where is the body?"
"The body?" Mr. Pope shivered. "God knows. That, my dear Commandant, is the cruellest part of the mystery—at least, according to Sam Leggo. It appears that Sir Cæsar, Leggo and Eli Tregarthen were at North Inniscaw this afternoon, taking stock of the farm, which Sir Cæsar was persuading Tregarthen to rent. Tregarthen was sullen—you may have heard that he resents being given notice to quit his holding on Saaron. In the end, on some chance word of Sir Cæsar's he blazed up, completely lost control of himself, and used threats of personal violence. Leggo will swear to this; but it is immaterial, for I myself have heard him indulge in similar threats, and so has Abe, the gardener. Well, Tregarthen swung off in a huff, took his way down across Pare Coppa—it was there, just under the Cam, that the outbreak occurred—apparently for the landing-quay by the school, where his boat lay. He left Sir Cæsar and Sam Leggo standing there."
"At what time?"
"The time, according to Leggo, was close upon sunset. Sir Cæsar—as his habit is—carried a gun under his arm; but whether or not the gun was loaded Leggo is unable to say. After expressing surprise at Tregarthen's display of temper, Sir Cæsar turned the conversation upon an old adit which lies under the seaward face of the Cam, and leads (I am assured) down to Ogo Vean. Its existence is known to very few—and Leggo was surprised to hear him mention it; but it now appears that he had learnt of it this very afternoon, in casual talk with old Abe. He desired then and there to explore it, and—having examined the entrance—either because the adit itself is dark, or as a precaution in the gathering dusk, he sent Leggo back to the farmhouse to fetch a lantern. Leggo declares that it took him less than fifteen minutes to reach the farm, find the lantern, and return with it to the lower gate of Parc Coppa; also that he used his best speed because the dusk was gathering. As he reached the gate he heard a shot from somewhere on the edge of the cliffs. This did not perturb him, for he supposed that the Lord Proprietor was potting at a stray rabbit. As he climbed the field, however, towards the Carn, on the summit of which he had left Sir Cæsar seated, he saw three small children running along the cliffs to his left, making for the slope towards the landing-quay, and recognised them for Tregarthen's three children. He called to them to stop, for they seemed to be running in a panic. If they heard, they did not obey, but ran down the hill out of sight. By this—and because he could not see Sir Cæsar on the summit of the Carn—he began to grow alarmed, lit the candle within his lantern (for it was now nearly dark), and shouted. He received no answer. He ran to the edge of the Carn, climbed down thence to the mouth of the adit, and—finding no trace of his master—began to hunt, still shouting, along the cliffs to the left, in the direction where he had first spied the children. To cut his story short," resumed Mr. Pope, after taking breath, "his search led him to the edge of the cliffs over Piper's Hole, and there, in a tangle of brambles, his lantern shone on something bright, which proved, when at no small risk he climbed down to it, to be the barrel of Sir Cæsar's gun. Below the brambles (he says) the ground breaks away very precipitately to a sheer fall of rock over the entrance of Piper's Hole. He could not trust himself here, but declares that the earth below the brambles—so much his lantern showed him—had evidently been disturbed, and quite recently; as also that the slide was bare and smooth, with no trace of a body between it and the last ledge over which a falling body would plunge into the water; and the tide, as he says—and as, indeed, we know—was almost at full flood. Having satisfied himself of this, he ran back, down the hill and past the school to carry the alarm to the house; and from the quay beside the school he saw Tregarthen's boat crossing to Saaron, and Tregarthen in it with his three children. Sam called to him, and his call brought out the schoolmistress, who no sooner heard the story than she fell to screaming. Tregarthen, though he must have heard the noise they made, did not respond, but continued pulling calmly towards Saaron.
"Leggo could not say precisely, but admits that the boat was already nearing Saaron, and that the man, if he heard, possibly did not understand—that is, if one can suppose him innocent."
"We will suppose him innocent," said the Commandant, "until we have better evidence that he is guilty. What was Leggo's next step?"
"He ran on smoking-hot to the house, the schoolmistress after him; up through the gardens to the terrace, where they met old Abe returning home from work. The schoolmistress went on to alarm the servants, while the two men made for the private landing, unmoored the Lord Proprietor's boat, and pulled across for Garland Town to break the news to me. But on the quay and along the streets they told it to a score of people, and it is spreading through the town like wildfire."
"Naturally." The Commandant had fetched and slipped on his great-coat, and stood buttoning it. He glanced at his watch. "If the constable does not turn up in a minute or so, we must start without him. Archelaus, run you down and call up Mr. Rogers. Ask him, with my compliments, to call out the coastguard——"
"Pardon me," Mr. Pope interrupted, "but that is unnecessary. Mr. Rogers has already started for Inniscaw in the jolly-boat, taking Leggo with him. They are to search the shore around Piper's Hole."
"Thank you," said the Commandant. "That was obviously the first step to take, and I am obliged to you for having thought of it so promptly."
Mr. Pope coughed apologetically. He had grown of a sudden very red in the face. "In point of fact," he confessed, "Mr. Rogers was at my house when the news came. We were—er—indulging in a quiet rubber."
The Commandant understood. Had the occasion been less serious, he might have smiled. Not since the night which brought Vashti to the Islands had he received an invitation to Mrs. Pope's parties.
"Ah, to be sure!" said he, quietly, reaching for his forage-cap; "I had forgotten that this was your whist-evening."
Mr. Pope coughed again awkwardly, and was about to make matters worse by further apology, but a rat-tat on the door prevented this, and Archelaus, hurrying out, admitted Dr. Bonaday, the physician of Garland Town, followed by John Ward, the constable, and old Abe.
Of these three old men you would have found it difficult at first sight to decide which was the eldest: and you have not made Dr. Bonaday's acquaintance until now; because it was unnecessary. As the saying went in the Islands, "the old doctor troubled about nobody, and nobody troubled about he"—that is, unless an Islander needed to be helped into the world or out of it. He was a bachelor, a recluse, and (albeit his neighbours were ignorant of this) a European authority on lichens and mosses. A small private income allowed him to indulge a habit of forgetting to charge for his professional services; and, on the strength of it, the Islanders forgave one who never remembered a face, and who, when summoned to a sick-bed, had to be guided thither by a messenger, lest he should knock at half a dozen doors in error by the way. There was a tradition in St. Hugh's that once, running from his surgery with a hot poultice, he had clapped it on the harbour-master, who was politely intercepting him to point out that another two strides would take him over the quay's edge into deep water. In person, Dr. Bonaday was remarkable for a completely bald head, a hooked nose, and a pair of vague, impercipient eyes, as of an owl astray and blinking in the sunlight.
If Dr. Bonaday was an authority on lichens and mosses, Constable Ward was an authority on nothing at all, even in his own house, where his youngest grand-daughter attended to his wants. Amid a population which seldom broke the law and never resisted it, he had sunk of late years into a peaceful decay of all his faculties. He carried his emblem of office, a small mace, attached to his wrist by a string, and his hand shook pitiably as he fumbled for it, but less with excitement than from shock at having been aroused and dragged from his bed into the night air.
"I see no reason for taking the constable with us," the Commandant decided, after a compassionate glance at the old man.
"In case of an arrest—" began Mr. Pope.
"First let us be certain that a crime has been committed."
"To my thinking, all the circumstances point to murder, and to nothing else."
"And, if they do, we can accuse no one until we have found the body.... Constable, you can go back to bed."
"I thank you, sir." Constable Ward, for the instant plainly relieved, checked himself, and stood trembling, irresolute. "You mustn't think, gentlemen, that I'd shirk doing my duty."
"No, no, Ward: I quite understand," the Commandant assured him.
"The Governor," said Mr. Pope, slipping back to the old form of address, disused for years—"The Governor rather doubts that you are equal to it."
"For God's sake, gentlemen, don't put it in that way! This affair'll get into the newspapers, over on the main, and if 'tis said that Constable Ward was too old for his duty, whatever'll become of me?"
Mr. Pope turned away with a sniff of disgust. "People of a certain class," said he half-audibly, "can see nothing but as it affects themselves. Of his duty this old dotard thinks nothing at all, nor of the scandal of his continuing to draw public pay: yet, mark you, how keenly he scents a danger of losing it!"
The Commandant winced, and shot a glance at the aged, unheroic figure. "And there," thought he, "but for God's grace and a woman's word, stands Narcisse Vigoureux! Even so, a few days since, did I consent to be incompetent and dread only to be detected."
Aloud he said: "Mr. Pope is too hasty, Ward, in suggesting that I don't mean to use you. To-morrow, after a night's rest, there may be work enough for you. Come, we are to pass your door, and will see you home. You, Doctor, will accompany us, I hope? We may need you."
They set forth down the dark road towards the quay, Abe and Archelaus walking ahead with lanterns, and guiding. Having restored Constable Ward to his youngest grand-daughter, they pushed forward more briskly, hailing the boat which (according to Mr. Pope) would be standing by for them on Mr. Rogers' instructions. Sure enough, voices answered their hail, and under the shadow of the quay steps they found the six-oared Service gig, with her crew seated ready at their oars: also on the quay itself the whole town gathered, canvassing the dreadful news.
At their approach the confused voices dropped to silence. In silence the town watched its men of authority as they stepped down to the boat and took their seats. And, amid silence, the coxswain called his order, "Give way!"
CHAPTER XXVI
THE SEARCH
Ahead of them, across the Roads, and up the narrow length of Cromwell's Sound, many lights twinkled: for already two-score boats had put out from St. Lide's Quay and were hurrying to the search, with lanterns and hurricane lamps. The windows of the Great House on Inniscaw fairly blazed with light. The upland farmsteads, too, were awake, here and in Brefar, and the cottages around Inniscaw schoolhouse and Brefar Church. Only Saaron, as they passed it, showed no sign of life, no glimmering ray from the windows of Eli Tregarthen's house, dark upon the dark hillside. Mr. Pope called the Commandant's attention to this.
"Patience," said the Commandant. "We will land and question him on our way home."
"You will admit that it looks suspicious."
The Commandant did not answer.
"If Leggo's story be true," said Dr. Bonaday, addressing the coxswain abruptly, as though awakened of a sudden from a brown study, "the accident must have happened just upon high-water; in which case Mr. Rogers will do best to start searching to westward along the north shore of Brefar, following the set of the ebb."
"I reckon he'll take that line, sir, if he finds nothing at Piper's Hole," the coxswain answered. "But his plan, as he told it to me, was to land Leggo, with two of our men, by the schoolhouse, and send them up the hill with ropes and lanterns, while he pulled round and searched Piper's Hole from seaward."
The Doctor appeared to digest this plan for a full minute. "Pope," he said, abruptly as before, "do you happen to know if the Lord Proprietor had made his will?"
"Good Lord!" answered Mr. Pope, testily, "I am not his lawyer."
"He has relatives?"
"Some distant cousins, I believe; none nearer. Why do you ask?"
"Because," answered the Doctor, imperturably, "it occurred to me as a natural question under the circumstances. Then it would appear, my friend, that Sir Cæsar's decease (if we suppose it) is a very serious affair indeed for you?"
"Man alive!" snapped Mr. Pope. "Of what else do you suppose I have been thinking, ever since I heard this news?"
Dr. Bonaday did not reply in words; but the Commandant—who happened to be gazing just then towards North Island, where the great sea-light seemed to search the outer tides with its monstrous eye—heard, or fancied that he heard, a sound as of a quiet chuckle. Suddenly he remembered Mr. Pope's scornful criticism of old Constable Ward: remembered it, and glanced at the Doctor. But the Doctor was an uncanny fellow, and inscrutable.
Though the coastguardsmen, pulling with a will, overtook and passed at least a dozen boats on their way, it cost them close upon an hour to reach the upper end of Cromwell's Sound and open the coast along the north side of Inniscaw. They had no need to search for Mr. Rogers and the jolly-boat. Flares were burning and torches waving in and around the entrance to Piper's Hole, and as the gig drew closer the Commandant discerned the figures of half-a-dozen searchers, roped and moving cautiously with lanterns from ledge to ledge of the dizzy cliff. The jolly-boat lay beached on a bank of fine shingle left by the receding tide at the entrance of the cave, and beside it stood Mr. Rogers shouting orders.
He hailed the newcomers as soon as he caught sight of them. Leggo and his two men had found Sir Cæsar's gun, and recovered it from the bushes overhanging the cave. But of Sir Cæsar himself no trace could be found. It was clear to his mind that the body had rolled down the cliff into deep water, and had been carried out to sea. His fellows up yonder had examined every foot of the descent, and were risking their necks to no purpose. He would give them another ten minutes to make a clean job of the search, and would then call them off and seek along shore to the westward.
Had the cave itself been searched? This was the Commandant's first question as he stepped out upon the shingle.
Yes; they had begun by searching the cave. They had followed it for fifty yards, and come to a ridge of rock, heaped with ore-weed, beyond which (it was certain) no ordinary tide ever penetrated. The floor of the cave shelved pretty steeply up to this ridge, and beyond it lay a pool of fresh water, about twenty yards long. It was impossible that a human body could have been swept over the ridge into this pool. Nevertheless they had explored it. But would the Commandant care to satisfy himself?
Mr. Rogers, without waiting for an answer, picked up a lantern and led the way under the great arch. The Commandant followed, his feet at every step sinking ankle-deep in the fine shingle. He found himself in a passage nine or ten feet wide, the walls of which rose about twenty feet above him, and vaulted themselves in darkness. At first this passage appeared to him to end, some fifteen paces from the entrance, in a barrier of solid rock, but Mr. Rogers, stepping forward with the lantern, revealed a low archway to the left and a second passage, partially choked with ore-weed. Through this they squeezed themselves, crouching and stooping their heads—for the roof in places was less than five feet high—and after a couple of zig-zags drew breath at the entrance of the second chamber, at least as lofty as the first and a full twenty feet wide. Across the entrance the floor sloped up to the rocky ridge, of which Mr. Rogers had spoken; and beyond the ridge lay the pool.
"Taste it," said Mr. Rogers, and the Commandant, kneeling by the edge of the pool, scooped up a palmful of water to his lips. It was fresh water, undoubtedly; very cold, and not in the least brackish.
"Look down," said Mr. Rogers, holding his lantern so that the Commandant could peer into the depths. "You can see every stone at the bottom, and my men have searched it all." He lifted the light above his head and gazed into the mysterious darkness beyond the pool. "I must explore this place to the end, one of these days. The chief boatman waded through, and reported yet another passage beyond; but of course I wouldn't let my men waste time in exploring it. What a place for seals, hey?"
"Seals?" queried the Commandant.
"Leggo gave me a sort of description of the place on our way here. He tells me that this cave and the next are a favourite haunt of the seals when they visit the Islands. In fact, he used to hunt them here with his father. But of late years, for some reason, they have given the Islands the go-by."
"You think it possible," suggested the Commandant, "Sir Cæsar may have seen one, and taken a shot at it?"
"That's not likely; and anyway it doesn't help us. It won't account for his gun being found in the bushes, half-way down the cliff, nor for his disappearing. Among a deal that's mysterious, this much is clear: Leggo left him on the cliff above us; within twenty minutes Sir Cæsar's gun went off, whether fired by himself or by someone else; and whether wounded or not, he slid down the cliff and over the ledge above the cave. His body is not in the cave; therefore, presumably, it was sucked out to sea by the time, and presumably has been carried somewhere to the westward. Shall we turn back?"
The Commandant nodded. "You will have plenty of folk to help your search," said he, "to judge from the number of boats we passed on our way. By spreading your forces, in less than two hours you can have the whole shore examined, from here to the west of Brefar. By the way, who has possession of Sir Cæsar's gun?"
"It was passed up to Sam Leggo, on the cliff. But if you wish to take charge of it——"
"It will probably be wanted for evidence."
"Come, then." Mr. Rogers led the way back to the entrance, and called up an order to have the gun lowered by a shore-line; which was done, the coast guardsmen on the cliffs fending the line clear of the bushes, and so passing it from one to another until it dangled over the ledge within grasp. The Commandant, as the taller, reached up for the gun, took it, and examined it by the light of the lantern which Mr. Rogers held for him.
The gun was undoubtedly the Lord Proprietor's; a breechloader of curiously fine workmanship, bearing the name of a famous St. James' Street maker. Of the hammers, one was down, the other at half-cock; and, pulling open the breech, the Commandant drew forth two cartridges, the one empty, the other unused. He pocketed these and examined the barrels. Clearly, one shot—and one only—had been fired since the gun was last cleaned.
He invited Mr. Rogers to verify these simple observations; and then, turning the gun over, was aware of a trace of earth on the trigger-guard and another on the point of the butt. These were easily accounted for. The weapon, no doubt, had slid for some distance down the cliff—probably from the very top—before lodging in the bushes where Leggo had found it.
Half an hour's exploration of the cave, the cove, the cliff-face, had yielded no further clue. Mr. Rogers drew off his men, and, embarking them, started to search the shore to the westward.
By this time some thirty boats had gathered, and through the long night, in every creek and cranny of the shore, from the extreme east of Inniscaw to the extreme west of Brefar, the search went on. The wind, chopping to the north-west, rose to a stiff breeze, and not only blew bitterly cold, with squalls of rain and sleet, but raised a sea that made it dangerous to explore the rocks closely. Nevertheless, not a single boat put back, and not a few took incredible risks.
Day broke—a dull smurr of gray in an interval between two sleet-laden squalls. In the cheerless light of it the Commandant, who, albeit numb with cold, had had not yet found time to feel fatigue, caught sight of Dr. Bonaday's face, and was smitten with sudden compunction. The old Doctor had sat through six distressful hours like the stoic he was; but his face showed like that of a corpse, and the usually plump and florid cheeks of Mr. Pope hung flaccid, blue with the pinch of the cold and yellow for lack of sleep. The Commandant spoke to the coxswain, and, running up the gig alongside the jolly-boat, suggested to the indomitable Mr. Rogers that the men were almost dead-beat, to which, indeed, the faces of all bore witness in the broadening daylight.
"We must not exhaust ourselves utterly," suggested Mr. Pope. "It is already day, and the Council of Twelve ought to meet before noon."
"Indeed? Why?" asked the Commandant, absently.
"Why, to advertise the Lord Proprietor's disappearance, with a printed description of him!"
"Is that necessary? Surely by this time everyone in the Islands has heard the news; and, as for describing him——"
"It is the proper course to pursue," insisted Mr. Pope, who was something of a formalist; "in such—er—crises one should proceed regularly. Doubtless the Council, when called, will proclaim a reward."
"For what?" asked Doctor Bonaday.
Mr. Pope turned on him impatiently; but the Doctor's eyes, like the simpleton's in Scripture, were fixed on the ends of the earth. "Why, for the discovery of the body," said Mr. Pope.
"You might offer twenty rewards," said the Commandant. "You cannot make men work harder than they have worked to-night. Still, if you desire to summon the Council——"
"I am suggesting that you should do so."
"But I am no longer a member."
"On the contrary, as Governor, you are now its President."
The Commandant reflected for a moment. "True," he murmured, "I keep forgetting." Pulling himself together, with a shake of the shoulders, he turned again to Mr. Rogers.
"Mr. Rogers," said he, "you know better than I of how much fatigue your men are capable. For my part, I am returning to summon the Council of the Islands to meet me in the Court House at twelve o'clock noon, to summon volunteers and organize a general search. Your presence and advice will be of the greatest service to us; and as I see some fresh boats coming up the Sound, I submit that you leave them your instructions and draw off your tired crews to take what rest they need"
Mr. Rogers looked up sharply, surprised by the new ring of authority in the Commandant's voice. "Very well, sir," he answered, after a pause. "I shall be happy to attend the Council and concert measures with you. It occurs to me that the body may just possibly have been carried towards North Island on a back eddy, and with your leave I will tell the new-coming boats to seek in that direction."
"I thank you," said the Commandant, and at once gave the word to his own crew to pull for home. "And on our way," he added, "you shall land me for ten minutes at the East Porth, under Saaron Farm."
At the East Porth, where they found Eli Tregarthen's boat at her moorings off the grass-grown landing-quay, the Commandant stepped ashore. Mr. Pope offered to accompany him, but he declined, and went up the hill alone.
At the yard-gate he caught sight of Jan Nanjulian, faring forth with his pails to milk the cows; and, hailing him, demanded where he might find the farmer. Jan directed him to a line of furze-stacks at the back of the byres, and, turning the corner of these, he came face to face with Eli Tregarthen, who had loaded himself with a couple of faggots for the kitchen fire.
"Good morning!" said the Commandant.
"Ah? Good morning to you, sir," answered Tregarthen, clearly surprised, but showing no sign of guilt or confusion.
"You have heard the news?"
"No, sir."
"The Lord Proprietor is missing."
"Missing?" Tregarthen set down his faggots and stared at the Commandant.
"He has been missing since yesterday at dusk. I understand that you were in his company shortly before then, on Carn Coppa?"
"That is so, sir. I left him and Sam Leggo standing together there at the top of the field."
"A few minutes later he sent Leggo to the farmhouse to fetch a lantern. Leggo declares that on his way back he heard a gun fired."
Tregarthen nodded. "That's right. I heard the shot, too, and reckoned that the man had let fly at a rabbit. He carried a gun."
"You don't speak too respectfully of the Lord Proprietor, my friend."
"I speak as I think," answered Tregarthen, his brow darkening. "He was no friend to me or mine."
"I advise you very strongly to keep that sort of talk to yourself, at any rate for the present. To begin with, Sir Cæsar is missing, and we have grave fear he will not be found again alive: so that it is not seemly. But, further, I must caution you that you parted from him using threats, and your threats have been reported."
"Turn me out of Saaron, he would—" began Tregarthen, but checked himself at the moment when passion seemed on the point of over-mastering him. "Well, sir, I didn't shoot him, if that's what they are telling," he added, quietly.
"I should be sorry, indeed, to suspect any such thing. But let me tell you the rest. Hearing the shot, Leggo made good speed back to Carn Coppa. His master had disappeared; but away to the left, near the edge of the cliffs, he saw three children running down the hill, and he declares that those children were yours."
Tregarthen put up a hand and rubbed the side of his head.
"Mychildren?" he repeated. "I can't make this out at all, sir. What could my children be doing anywhere near Carn Coppa?"
"You had best ask them."
"No," said Tregarthen, picking up his faggots, "I never brought them up to be afraid of the truth. Come with me to the house, sir, and they shall tell what they know."
He led the way, and the Commandant followed him indoors to the kitchen, where they found Ruth stooping over the great hearth, already busy with the morning fire. Across the planching overhead sounded the patter of the children's bare feet.
In a couple of minutes they came running down together, laughing on their way, and the Commandant had to wonder again—as he had wondered before, on the afternoon when he had sailed them home from Merryman's Head—at their beautiful manners. They were neither shy, nor embarrassed. Indeed, it was the Commandant who felt embarrassment (and showed it) as he asked them to tell what had taken them to Piper's Hole, and what they had seen there.
"We saw a mermaid," answered Annet. "She was sitting on the rock outside the cove; and first she was singing to a kind of harp, and afterwards she sang as she combed her hair. And then someone fired a gun at her from the cliffs, and she disappeared, and we were frightened and ran away. We did not see who fired the gun, nor if she was wounded. It was not brave of us to run away so quickly, and we have been sorry ever since."
"What nonsense is this?" growled their father. "Annet, my child, we tell the truth—all of us—here on Saaron."
"It may have been a seal," hazarded the Commandant. "I am told that Piper's Hole used to be a famous spot for seals."
But Annet lifted her chin and answered, her eyes steadily raised to her father's face. "No, it was not a seal; it was a mermaid. She sang and combed her hair just as I told you. It was beginning to grow dark, but we could see her quite plainly." She turned for confirmation to Linnet and Matthew Henry, and they both nodded.
Their father growled again that this was nonsense; but the Commandant, lifting a hand, asked what had taken them to the cliffs above Piper's Hole. It could not (he suggested) have been that they expected to catch sight of a mermaid.
"Yes," answered Annet again; "that was just the reason." She was speaking frankly, as a child can speak; but children have their own code of honour, and it forbids them to give away a friend. "Jan was telling us, only the other day," she explained with careful lucidity, "how his father had once caught a mermaid in a pool there. We wanted very much to see one, and so we planned to go. But afterwards, when father rowed us home, we did not like to tell him about it. We were afraid he would laugh at us; and we were frightened, too; afraid that the mermaid had been hurt; and—and we were upset because father had brought the boat for us instead of Jan Nanjulian——"
"But most of all," put in Linnet, "I was upset because I had been saying that there were no such things."
"You silly children, of course there are no such things," said their mother.
But Matthew Henry, ignoring her, and more in pity than in anger, turned on the Commandant. "Are you come," he asked, "because she is hurt?"
"She? Who?"
"The mermaid. We didn't mean to bring ill-luck to her. Jan said there was no good luck ever in spying on a mermaid, but Aunt Vazzy said that was nonsense, and of course we believed Aunt Vazzy——"
But here the child came to a full stop, startled by a swift change in the Commandant's look, and by a sudden sharp exclamation.
"Your Aunt Vazzy?" The Commandant's hand went up to his forehead. It seemed that, under the shadow of it his face grew pale and gray as he gazed from Matthew Henry to the two girls, and from them again to their mother.
"Ma'am," said he, in a shaking voice, "is your sister in the house?"
With his question, it seemed that in turn he had passed on his pallor to Ruth, who, however, drew herself up and answered him with spirit. "Sir," said Ruth Tregarthen, "you are asking too much. Must we be accountable to you for my sister's doings?"
"For God's sake," cried the Commandant, "let us waste no time in misunderstandings! Can you not see that your children are telling only the truth?—that she—your sister—was the mermaid? And if she did not venture home last night——"
"She took her own boat," quavered poor Ruth. "She started yesterday afternoon soon after the children had left for school—and she told me not to worry if she came home late.... My sister, sir, has queer ways of her own.... Maybe she heard the news on her way back, and has been searching all night with the others."
The Commandant had fallen to pacing the room. "She was not among the searchers," he said, impatiently. "And, moreover, she has not returned: her boat is not at the landing-quay."
"A moment, sir!" interposed Tregarthen. "I see what you fear, and it is terrible. But one thing is not plain to me at all. Vashti took her own boat, we hear. Now, suppose that the shot wounded her, or worse, still we have the boat to account for: and the boat, you say, is not to be found."
"Was ever a more hopeless mystery!" cried the Commandant, flinging out his hands.
But Eli Tregarthen turned to his wife, who had dropped into a chair by the fire and lay back, gripping the arms of it.
"Courage, wife!" said he, laying a strong palm over one of her trembling hands. "And you, sir, take my thanks; go you home, and leave the search to me."
CHAPTER XXVII
ENTER THE COMMISSIONER
It was noon, and in the Court House all the Councillors rose as the Commandant entered and took his seat.
In the fewest possible words he opened the business, and leaned back in his chair of state, waiting for the talk to begin. He scarcely knew what he had said, and yet he had spoken well. With his restored authority had come back the old easy habit of it.
At such a moment the Councillors would not have allowed, even to themselves, that they breathed more easily and fell to business almost with a sigh of relief, under the presidency of their old chairman. Yet so it was. The Lord Proprietor had been autocratic in council, impatient of opinions that crossed his own, apt to treat discussion as a tedious preliminary to enforcing his will.
After five years, then, the Councillors enjoyed, without confessing it, a sense of liberty regained; and it was the more to the Commandant's credit that in spite of it he kept a firm rein on the debate, cutting short all prolixities of speculation, and briefly ruling Mr. Pope's theory of foul play to be, for the present, out of order. They were met, he reminded them, for two practical purposes; in the first place, to organise a thorough search for the Lord Proprietor, and, secondly, to determine, as briefly as possible, how the government of the Islands should be continued and carried on during his absence. He would take these two questions only.
Mr. Rogers attended, and was cross-examined at length. With a chart before him, and with the help of Reuben Hicks, the St. Ann's pilot, he traced and described the currents to the northward of Inniscaw, the Chairman meanwhile, with pencil and paper, assigning the search-parties to the various rocks and groups of islets in or around which it was deemed possible for a floating body to be carried—so many boats to North Island, so many to seek along Brefar to W. and S. W. of Merryman's Head, so many to explore the difficult passage between the Outer Dogs. A sheet of foolscap had been pinned on the outside of the Court House door inviting volunteers; and while the Councillors deliberated they could hear the murmur of the crowd surrounding the notice and the scratching of pencils as one man after another painfully wrote his name. At intervals—time being precious—Constable Ward would step out, unpin the paper, replace it with a new one, and bring it indoors to the Commandant who was thus enabled to form his crews with despatch.
It was during one of these intervals (the Court House door being open for a moment) that Councillor Tregaskis, happening to glance out at the crowd from his raised chair, and over the heads of the crowd at the line of distant blue water sparkling in the afternoon sunshine, jumped up from his seat with an exclamation:
"A yacht, by Gorm!"
"Eh? What?" Fully half the Councillors turned towards him, and craned their necks for a view through the doorway. "A yacht?" The Commandant laid down his pen and stood up, raising himself a-tip-toe on his dais in the endeavour to gain a glimpse of the horizon from the window high on his right.
"A steam yacht!"
The Councillors stared one at another, wondering if this new arrival could have any possible connection with the Lord Proprietor's disappearance.
"What's her flag?" demanded Mr. Rogers.
"She carries no ensign," reported Mr. Tregaskis; "but a reddish-coloured square flag—a house-flag, belike. And yet, seemin' to me, she don't look like a private-owned craft."
"She's the Admiralty yacht from Plymouth," announced Mr. Rogers, confidently. He had set a chair close to the window and climbed upon it. "Yes, yes—the oldCirce; I could tell her in a thousand.... She's slowing down to anchor; and see, there's the gold anchor on her flag! Listen, now ... there goes!..." Through the open doorway, across the clear water, their ears caught the splash of a dropped anchor, and the music of its chain running through the hawse-pipe.
The Commandant rapped the table.
"Gentlemen," said he, "oblige me by returning to your places and resuming our business. We shall not advance it just now by catching at hopes which may be baseless, though I admit the temptation. That these visitors bring us any news of the Lord Proprietor or any that bears, even remotely, upon his disappearance is—to say the least of it—highly improbable. On the other hand, it is certain that by detaining Mr. Rogers here we hinder him in the discharge of those courtesies which, as Inspecting Commander, he will be eager to pay to the newcomers. I suggest, then, that we briefly conclude the inquiry, in which he has given us so much help, and allow him to put off to the yacht, while we, restraining our curiosity, take further counsel for the interim government of the Islands. If"—he turned to Mr. Rogers—"if, sir, our visitors can throw any light on the mystery, I may trust you to bring them to us with all despatch."
Accordingly Mr. Rogers, having briefly completed his evidence, was allowed to depart, and the councillors fell again to the business of distributing the crews of the searchboats.
Meanwhile, in the Court House, it was agreed that supreme control of the executive reverted naturally to the Commandant, subject only to such power of criticism or restraint as the Council claimed over the action of the Lord Proprietor himself. The twelve shouted "Aye" to this with one voice.
The Commandant, however, reminded them that he had not yet put the resolution, and that it was doubtful—he spoke as one who, some years ago, had made a study of these constitutional niceties—"if the Council of Twelve had really any say in the matter. They could, of course, elect their own President——"
But at this point a noise of women's voices on the quay, followed by a knocking on the door of the Council Chamber, put a period to the impatience of his auditors.
The door was opened, and Mr. Rogers appeared on the threshold with a tall officer, gaunt and white-haired, in military undress—at first glance indisputably a person of distinction—standing close behind his shoulder.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. President, if we interrupt the Council," began Mr. Rogers; "but I have brought a visitor here, Sir Ommaney Ward, who has business with you so soon as the sitting is over."
"—But who has no desire at all to interrupt it," added Sir Ommaney courteously, stepping forward and bowing to the Council. "Good afternoon, gentlemen! Good afternoon, sir!" He stepped forward to the dais holding out his hand. "Hey? my old friend Vigoureux, have you quite forgotten me, in all these years?"
"Ward!" exclaimed the Commandant, his face brightening with sudden recognition. A moment later, even more suddenly, it grew gray and haggard, almost (you might say) with terror. But the visitor did not perceive this.
"My dear fellow, why not give me the name as it rose to your lips? 'Tubby' Ward it used to be in the trenches, eh? Gentlemen"—Sir Ommaney turned to the Council—"your President and I have interrupted each other's work before now—as gunner and sapper—under Sebastopol. But I have no desire to interrupt yours, knowing how serious it is. Mr. Rogers brought off the news—this disquieting, not to say dumbfounding, news—to the yacht just now; and I hardly need to tell you that it puts my own errand into the background. Sir,"—he turned to the Commandant again—"I allowed Mr. Rogers to bring me here only on his surmise that your business would be over. If you will give me, having announced myself, your leave to withdraw——"
"We shall have done in a very few minutes," answered the Commandant. His lips were dry, and he marvelled at the careless sound of his own voice. He had not a doubt of the true meaning of Sir Ommaney's visit. Nay, the very swiftness with which it followed upon his letter of confession proved how serious a view the War Office must take of his case. He pulled himself together desperately. "If you will take a chair, sir, here on my right, I promise that twenty minutes will see us at an end."
So the business of the Council was resumed, and the Commandant, still wondering at his own coolness, took up the thread of his discourse.
It was, on the whole, an admirable discourse. He had the constitutional system of the Islands at his fingers' ends, and to-day, with despair in his heart, but thinking nothing of them nor recking at all, he expounded them lucidly. His words, too, had a real effect upon his hearers; an emotional effect which Sir Ommaney, sitting and listening seriously, could not but note.
At the conclusion, Mr. Pope rose again, and proposed, and Mr. Fossell again seconded, that the supreme government of the islands reverted naturally, for the time being, to the Commandant: so that, for practical purposes, it may be contended he had spoken superfluously. But, to one who looked beneath the surface, this did not matter.
The Court rose, with its ancient formalities. "Reginæ et insulis ejus sit Deus propitius," said the President, closing the Bible, which at all meetings of the Council lay open on the table before him. "Ita et laboribus nostris, Amen," duly responded the twelve Councillors, standing in their places while he walked with his guest to the door. On the threshold he faced about, and made them a bow, which they as ceremoniously returned.
Out of doors the afternoon sun shone with a brightness almost dazzling after the shade of the Court House; but the tonic north-west wind, blowing across the Roads from Cromwell's Sound, held an autumnal chill, and the Commandant shivered as he halted a moment to con theCircein the offing.
"I travel in state," said Sir Ommaney, with a laugh, as he followed this glance; "and with the cabins of half-a-dozen Sea Lords to choose between. In point of fact, our department has no boat at Plymouth capable of performing the passage comfortably: so, my business being partly theirs, I applied to the Admiralty, and the Admiralty placed their yacht at my disposal."
The Commandant did not understand; or perhaps he had not been listening intently. By tacit consent, the pair bent their steps towards the slope of Garrison Hill.
"Also," Sir Ommaney resumed, "the Admiral at Plymouth added a word of advice, to take advantage of this spell of weather and make the passage at once. No doubt he had a professional distrust of a soldier's stomach. Still, he meant it kindly. And that accounts for my arriving some days ahead of scheduled time, and dropping into the midst of this disquieting business. What's the meaning of it, think you?"
"The meaning of it?" echoed the Commandant.
"You don't doubt the man fell over the cliffs and killed himself?"
The Commandant shook his head. "I don't doubt his having met with an accident," he answered. "But I have some hope of finding him yet, and of finding him alive."
"To me, that doesn't seem likely.... But I want to tell you at once that my business can wait. I repeat, I am ahead of time. I can employ myself on board, or get out the steam-launch and explore the Islands; or again (if you will use me), I will gladly make one of a search party."
The Commandant thanked him. "But I have no particular business, at any rate for an hour or two. The boats have gone, and I leave it to Mr. Rogers to direct the search, now that we have laid down the plan of it. On these occasions, one captain is always better than two." Sir Ommaney might talk easily of postponing this or that; but the Commandant, poor man, craved to get the worst over and learn his fate.
"By the bye, Vigoureux—if you'll not mind my saying so—you handled that Council of yours admirably."
The Commandant flushed. "They are old friends of mine, Sir Ommaney."
"Why, and so am I an old friend; at least, as I supposed. Cannot you manage to drop the prefix?... Very well.... And now, if you have nothing better to do, take me over the old fortifications."
They climbed the hill together to the Garrison gate, and thence, bearing away to the left, started to make the round of the batteries. He flinched as they came to the first—the King George's Battery—and stood by the deserted platform. The bitter humiliation to be here, master of a fortress without one single gun! Almost he dreaded to hear his guest break forth with a contemptuous laugh.
Sir Ommaney, however, surveyed the ruin in silence, and when he spoke it was only to ask a question concerning the trajectory of the guns which had once furnished it. The Commandant walked by his side, a man torn by many emotions. For the first time in fifteen years he, an enthusiast in gunnery, had an opportunity to talk with one who really cared for gunnery and understood it. On the other hand, and eagerly as he jumped at every question, he could not help perceiving that these batteries—of which he had been so proud—of which in recollection he was yet so proud—were to Sir Ommaney but obsolete toys. This visitor of his, this friend of his gallant youth, had moved with the times, and the times had carried him to an infinite distance, beyond all understanding. Thus, as he moved on from battery to battery, at times our Commandant talked earnestly, wistfully, and at times fell to a despondent silence; and still between his eagerness and his despondency the personal question awoke—"He is kind, but he is here to pass judgment on me. What can the sentence be but disgrace?" Arrived at the Keg of Butter Battery, Sir Ommaney seated himself on the low wall, hard by the spot where Vashti had dug at the stones with her sunshade.
"My dear Vigoureux," said Sir Ommaney, after a long look seaward, "I haven't a doubt you regret your guns, obsolete though you know that they were. For that matter, your batteries—their build and their very positions—are quite as hopelessly out of date."
"Man," exclaimed the Commandant, with a sudden rush of blood to the face, "do you suppose I cannot guess why you are here? Oh, for God's sake let me hear the worst! If for five years I have been an enforced idler here, do me at least the justice to believe that I know the range of modern artillery and something of what a modern battleship can do. Fifteen years ago when I came to take over the command of the Islands, the oldBlack Princewas the last word in ships and gunnery. Think of it! Yet, the basis of defence, the simple principle, lies here, and has always lain here. If you had come to discuss this——"
Sir Ommaney lifted a hand. "But that is partly—even chiefly—what I am come to consider."
"Ah!"
"And I have seen a letter about you, addressed to the War Office by the Lord Proprietor: an unfriendly letter, I may say."
The Commandant's cheeks were already warm with excitement, but at this their colour deepened.
"I beg you to believe," said he, heartily, "that if Sir Cæsar has written about me, my letter was sent without knowledge of it, and in no desire to anticipate——"
"My dear fellow," Sir Ommaney interrupted; "I have some little sense left in my head, I hope. But will you put constraint upon yourself for a moment to forget these letters, to dismiss the personal question, and simply to resume our talk."
"I will try," agreed the Commandant, after a painful pause. "But it will be hard; harder perhaps than you can understand. Honours have come to you—deservedly, I admit——"
"And too late," Sir Ommaney again took him up. "My dear Vigoureux, when we knew one another in the old days, honours seemed to both of us the most desirable thing in the world. Believe me, they always come too late."
The Commandant looked at him for a moment. "Yes," said he at length, "we have talked enough of ourselves. And what do we matter, after all?"
They walked back to the Barracks together, side by side, discussing, as one soldier with another, the problem which the one had opened, on which the other had brooded in silence for years.
Arrived at his quarters, the Commandant applied the poker to his fire, motioned Sir Ommaney to the worn armchair, excused himself, and hurried off to seek Archelaus and discuss the chances of a cup of tea.
Sir Ommaney, left to himself, took a glance round the poverty-stricken room, and stretched out his long legs to the blaze. The evening air without had been chilly. The sea-coal in the grate, stirred by the Commandant's poker, woke to a warm glow with a small dancing flame on top. Sir Ommaney stared into the glow, lost in thought.... A tapping on the pane awoke him out of his brown study. He sat upright, but almost with the same motion he sprang to his feet as a hand pushed open the window behind him.
There was no light in the room save that afforded by the dancing, uncertain flame. It wavered, as he turned about, upon the figure of a woman entering confidently across the sill, and upon a face at sight of which he drew back almost in terror.
"Pass, friend, and all's well!" said Vashti, with a light laugh, as she effected her entrance. Then, catching sight of the man confronting her, she caught at the curtain, and said, simply, "O-oh!"
"Lord, bless my soul!" exclaimed Sir Ommaney, in a low voice, but fervently.
"I—I thought you were the Commandant," stammered Vashti, for once in this history taken thoroughly aback.
"Mademoiselle Cara!... You? And here, of all places in the world!"
But upon this they both turned, as the door opened and the Commandant stood on the threshold.
"Miss Vashti!" The Commandant stared from one to the other.
Vashti broke the silence with her ready laugh.
"Sir Ommaney Ward and I have met before. He does not know that this is my native home; but"—she dropped them both a curtsey—"the point is that you are both to come with me, and at once."