Some gave a nickel, some gave a dime;But I didn't give no red cent—She was no girl of mine—Delia's gone! Delia's gone!
Some gave a nickel, some gave a dime;But I didn't give no red cent—She was no girl of mine—Delia's gone! Delia's gone!
And it did one good to hear Tom's honest laughter resounding in that beautiful haunted wilderness, as the song brought back to both of us the memories of that morning which already seemed so long ago.
"I wonder what's become of our friend of 'the wonderful works of God,'" I queried.
"Wherever he is, he's up to no good, we may be sure of that," answered Tom.
At last we decided to try a plan that was really no plan at all; that is to say, to seek more or less at random, till we consumed all our stores except just enough to take us home. Meanwhile, we would, each of us, every day, cut a sort of radiating swathe, working single-handed, from the cove entrance. Thus we would prospect as much of the country as possible in a sort of fan, both of us keeping our eyes open for a compass carved on a rock. In this way we might hope to cover no inconsiderable stretch of the country in the three weeks, and, moreover, the country most likely to give some results, as being that lying in a semi-circle from the little harbour where the ships would have lain. It wasn't much of a plan perhaps, but it seemed the most possible among impossibles.
So the next morning, bright and early, we started work, I letting Tom take Sailor with him as company and protection against the spirits of the waste; also we took a revolver apiece and cartridge belts, and it seemed to me that the old fellow showed no little courage to go alone at all, with such hair-raising beliefs as he had. We each took food and a flask of rum and water to last us the day, and we promised to halloo now and again to each other for company, as soon as we got out of sight of each other. This, however, did not happen the first day. Of course, we carried a machete and a mattock apiece, though the latter was but little use, and, if either of us should find any spot worth dynamiting, we agreed to let the other know.
Harder work than we had undertaken no men have ever set their hands to. It would have broken the back of the most able-bodied navvy; and when we reached the boat at sunset, we had scarce strength left to eat our supper and roll into our bunks. A machete is a heavy weapon that needs no little skill in handling with economy of force, and Tom, who had been brought up to it, was, in spite of his years, a better practitioner than I.
I have already hinted at the kind of devil's underbrush we had to cut our way through, but no words can do justice to the almost intelligent stubbornness with which those weird growths opposed us. It really seemed as though they were inspired by a diabolic will-force pitting itself against our wills, vegetable incarnations of evil strength and fury and cunning.
Battalions of actual serpents could scarcely have been harder to fight than these writhing, tormented shapes that shrieked and hissed and bled strangely under our strokes, and seemed to swarm with new life at each onset! And the rock was almost more terrible to grapple with than they. Jagged and pointed, it was like needles and razors to walk on; and it was brittle as it was hard. While it could sometimes resist a hammer, it would at others smash under our feet like a tea-cup. It looked like some metallic dross long since vomited up from the furnaces of hell.
Only once in a while was a softer, limestone, formation—like the pit in which we had buried the captain—with hints at honeycombing, and possibilities that invariably came to nothing. Now again we would come upon a rock of this kind that seemed for a second to hint at mysterious markings made by the hand of man, but they proved to be nothing but some decorative sea-fossilisation, making an accidental pattern, like the marking you sometimes come across on some old weathered stone on a moor. Nothing that the fondest fancy could twist into the likeness of a compass or a cross!
Day after day, Tom and I returned home dead-beat, with hardly a tired word to exchange with each other.
We had now been at it for about a fortnight, and I loved the old chap more every day for the grit and courage with which he supported our terrible labours and kept up his spirits. We had long since passed out of sight of each other, and much time was necessarily wasted by our going to and from the place where we left off each day. Many a time I hallooed to the old man to keep his heart up, and received back his cheery halloo far and far away.
Once or twice we had made fancied discoveries which we called off the other to see, and once or twice we had tried some blasting on rocks that seemed to suggest mysterious tunnellings into the earth. But it had all proved a vain thing and a weariness of the flesh. And the ghost of John P. Tobias still kept his secret.
An Unfinished Game of Cards.
One evening, as I returned to the ship unusually worn-out and disheartened, I asked Tom how the stores were holding out. He answered cheerfully that they would last another week, and leave us enough to get home.
"Well, shall we stick out the other week, or not, Tom? I don't want to kill you, and I confess I'm nearly all in myself."
"May as well stick it out, sar, now we've gone so far. Then we'll have done all we can, and there's a certain satisfaction in doing that, sar."
Good old Tom! and I believe that the wise old man had the thought behind, that, perhaps, when there was evidently nothing more to be done, I might get rid of the bee in my bonnet, and once more settle down to the business of a reasonable being.
So next morning we went at it again; and the next, and the next again, and then on the fourth day, when our week was drawing to its close, something at last happened to change the grim monotony of our days.
It was shortly after the lunch hour. Tom and I, who were now working too far apart to hear each other's halloes, had fired our revolvers once or twice to show that all was right with us. But, for no reason I can give, I suddenly got a feeling that all was not right with the old man, so I fired my revolver, and gave him time for a reply. But there was no answer. Again I fired. Still no answer. I was on the point of firing again, when I heard something coming through the brush behind me. It was Sailor racing toward me over the jagged rocks. Evidently there was something wrong.
"Something wrong with old Tom, Sailor?" I asked, as though he could answer me. And indeed he did answer as plainly as dog could do, wagging his tail and whining, and turning to go back with me in the direction whence he had come.
But I stopped to shoot off my revolver again. Still no answer.
"Off we go then, old chap," and as he ran ahead, I followed him as fast as I could over those damnable rocks.
It took me the best part of an hour to get to where Tom had been working. It was an extent of those more porous limestone rocks of which I have spoken, almost cliff-like in height, and covering a considerable area. Sailor brushed his way ahead, pushing through the scrub with canine importance. Presently, at the top of a slight elevation, I came among the bushes to a softer spot where the soil had given way, and saw that it was the mouth of a shaft like a wide chimney flue, the earth of which had evidently recently fallen in. Here Sailor stopped and whined, pawing the earth, and, at the same time, I heard a moaning underneath.
"Is that you, Tom?" I called. Thank God, the old chap was not dead at all events.
"Thank the Lord, it's you, sar," he cried. "I'm all right, but I've had a bad fall—and I can't seem able to move."
"Hold on and keep up your heart—I'll be with you in a minute," I called down to him.
"Mind yourself, sar," he called cheerily, and, indeed, it was a problem to get down to him without precipitating the loose earth and rock that were ready to make a landslide down the hole, and perhaps bury him for ever.
But, looking about, I found another natural tunnel in the side of the hill. Into this I was able to worm myself, and in the dim light found the old man, and put my flask to his lips.
"Anything broken, do you think?"
Tom didn't think so. He had evidently been stunned by his fall, and another pull at my flask set him on his feet. But, as I helped him up, and, striking a light, we began to look around the hole he had tumbled into, he gave a piercing shriek, and fell on his knees, jabbering with fear.
"The ghosts! the ghosts!" he screamed.
And the sight that met our eyes was certainly one to try the nerves. We had evidently stumbled upon a series of fairly lofty chambers hollowed out long ago first by the sea, and probably further shaped by man—caverns supported here and there by rude columns of the same rock, and dimly lit from above in one or two places by holes like mine shafts, down one of which fell masses of snake-like roots of the fig tree, a species of banyan.
Within the circle of this light two figures sat at a table—one with his hat tilted slightly, and one leaning sideways in his chair in a careless sort of attitude. They seemed to be playing cards, and they were strangely white—for they were skeletons.
I stood hushed, while Tom's teeth rattled at my side. The fantastic awe of the thing was beyond telling. And, then, not without a qualm or two, which I should be a liar to deny, I went and stood nearer to them. Nearly all their clothes had fallen away, hanging but in shreds here and there. That the hat had so jauntily kept its place was one of those grim touches Death, that terrible humorist, loves to add to his jests. The cards, which had apparently just been dealt, had suffered scarcely from decay—only a little dirt had sifted down upon them, as it had into the rum glasses that stood too at each man's side. And, as I looked at the skeleton jauntily facing me, I noticed that a bullet hole had been made as clean as if by a drill in his forehead of bone—while, turning to examine more closely his silent partner, I noticed a rusty sailor's knife hanging from the ribs where the lungs had been. Then I looked on the floor and found the key to the whole story. For there, within a few yards, stood a heavy sailor's chest, strongly bound around with iron. Its lid was thrown back, and a few coins lay scattered at the bottom, while a few lay about on the floor. I picked them up.
They were pieces of eight!
Meanwhile, Tom had stopped jabbering, and had come nearer, looking on in awed silence. I showed him the pieces of eight.
"I guess these are all we'll see of one of John P. Tobias's treasure, Tom," I said. "And it looks as if these poor fellows saw as little of it as ourselves. Can't you imagine them with it there at their feet—perhaps playing to divide it on a gamble; and, meanwhile, the other fellows stealing in through some of these rabbit runs—one with a knife, the other with a gun—and then: off with the loot and up with the sails. Poor devils! It strikes me as a very pretty tragedy—doesn't it you?"
Suddenly—perhaps with the vibration of our voices—the hat toppled off the head of the fellow facing us, in the most weird and comical fashion—and that was too much for Tom, and he screamed and made for the exit hole. But I waited a minute to replace the hat on the rakish one's head. As I was likely often to think of him in the future, I preferred to remember him as at the moment of our first strange acquaintance.
The dotted cays,With their little trees,Lie all about on the crystal floor;Nothing but beauty—Far off is duty,Far off the folk of the busy shore.The mangroves strideIn the coloured tide,With leafy crests that will soon be isles;And all is lonely—White sea-sand only,Angel-pure for untrodden miles.In sunny baysThe young shark plays,Among the ripples and nets of light;And the conch-shell crawlsThrough the glimmering hallsThe coral builds for the Infinite.And every gemIn His diadem,From flaming topaz to moon-hushed pearl,Glitters and glancesIn swaying dancesOf waters adream like the eyes of a girl.The sea and the stars,And the ghostly barsOf the shoals all bright 'neath the feet of the moon;The night that glistens,And stops and listensTo the half-heard beat of an endless tune.Here SolitudeTo itself doth brood,At the furthest verge of the reef-spilt foam;And the world's lone endsAre met as friends,And the homeless heart is at last at home.
The dotted cays,With their little trees,Lie all about on the crystal floor;Nothing but beauty—Far off is duty,Far off the folk of the busy shore.
The mangroves strideIn the coloured tide,With leafy crests that will soon be isles;And all is lonely—White sea-sand only,Angel-pure for untrodden miles.
In sunny baysThe young shark plays,Among the ripples and nets of light;And the conch-shell crawlsThrough the glimmering hallsThe coral builds for the Infinite.
And every gemIn His diadem,From flaming topaz to moon-hushed pearl,Glitters and glancesIn swaying dancesOf waters adream like the eyes of a girl.
The sea and the stars,And the ghostly barsOf the shoals all bright 'neath the feet of the moon;The night that glistens,And stops and listensTo the half-heard beat of an endless tune.
Here SolitudeTo itself doth brood,At the furthest verge of the reef-spilt foam;And the world's lone endsAre met as friends,And the homeless heart is at last at home.
Once More in John Saunders's Snuggery.
Need I say that it was a great occasion when I was once more back safe in John Saunders's snuggery, telling my story to my two friends, comfortably enfolded in a cloud of tobacco smoke, John with his old port at his elbow, and Charlie Webster and I flanked by our whiskies and soda, all just as if I had never stirred from my easy chair, instead of having spent an exciting month or so among sharks, dead men, blood-lapping ghosts, card-playing skeletons and such like?
My friends listened to my yarn in characteristic fashion, John Saunders's eyes more like mice peeping out of a cupboard than ever, and Charlie Webster's huge bulk poised almost threateningly, as it were, with the keenness of his attention. His deep-set kind brown eyes glowed like a boy's as I went on, but by their dangerous kindling at certain points of the story, those dealing with our pock-marked friend, Henry P. Tobias, Jr., I soon realised where, for him, the chief interest of the story lay.
"The —— rebel!" he roared out once or twice, using an adjective peculiarly English.
When I come to think of it, perhaps there is no one in His Britannic Majesty's dominions so wholeheartedly English as Charlie Webster. He is an Englishman of a larger mould than we are accustomed to to-day. He seems rather to belong to a former more rugged era—an Englishman say of Elizabeth's or Nelson's day; big, rough, and simple, honest to the core, slow to anger, but terrible when roused—a true heart of oak, a man with massive, slow-moving, but immensely efficient, "governing" brain. A born commander, utterly without fear, yet always cool-headed and never rash. If there are more Englishmen like him, I don't think you will find them in London or anywhere in the British Isles. You must go for them to the British colonies. There, rather than at home, the sacred faith in the British Empire is still kept passionately alive. And, at all events, Charlie Webster may truly be said to have one article of faith—the glory of the British Empire. To him, therefore, the one unforgivable sin is treason against that; as probably to die for England—after having notched a good account of her enemies on his unerring rifle—would be for him not merely a crown of glory, but the purest and completest joy that could happen to him.
Therefore it was—somewhat, I will own, to my disappointment—that for him my story had but one moral—the treason of Henry P. Tobias, Jr. The treasure might as well have had no existence, so far as he was concerned, and the grim climax in the cave drew nothing from him but a preoccupied nod. And John Saunders was little more satisfactory. Both of them allowed me to end in silence. They both seemed to be thinking deeply.
"Well?" I said, somewhat dashed, as one whose story has fallen down on an anti-climax. Still no response.
"I must say you two are a great audience," I said presently, perhaps rather childishly nettled.
"What's happened to your imagination!"
"It's a very serious matter," said John Saunders, and I realised that it was not my crony, but the Secretary to the Treasury of his Britannic Majesty's Government at Nassau that was talking. As he spoke, he looked across at Charlie Webster, almost as if forgetting me. "Something should be done about it, eh, Charlie?" he continued.
"—— traitor!" roared Charlie, once more employing that British adjective. And then he turned to me:
"Look here, old pal, I'll make a bargain with you, if you like. I suppose you're keen for that other treasure, now, eh?"
"I am," said I, rather stiffly.
"Well then, I'll go after it with you—on one condition. You can keep the treasure, if you'll give me Tobias!"
"Give you Tobias?" I laughed.
"Yes! if you go after the treasure, he'll probably keep his word, and go after you. Now it would do my heart good to get him, as you had the chance of doing that afternoon. Whatever were you doing to miss him?"
"I proposed to myself the satisfaction of making good that mistake," I said, "on our next meeting. I feel I owe it to the poor old captain."
"Never mind; hand the captain's rights over to me—and I'll help you all I know with your treasure. Besides, Tobias is a job for an Englishman—eh, John? It's a matter of 'King and Country' with me. With you it would be mere private vengeance. With me it will be an execution; with you it would be a murder. Isn't that so, John?"
"Exactly," John nodded.
"Since you were away," Charlie began again, "I've bought the prettiest yawl you ever set eyes on—theFlamingo—forty-five over all, and this time the very fastest boat in the harbour. Yes! she's faster even than theSusan B.Now, I've a holiday due me in about a fortnight. Say the word, and theFlamingo'syours for a couple of months, and her captain too. I make only that one condition."
"All right, Charlie," I agreed, "he's yours."
Whereat Charlie shot out a huge paw like a shoulder of mutton, and grabbed my hand with as much fervour as though I had saved his life, or done him some other unimaginable kindness. And, as he did so, his old broad sweet smile came back again. He was thinking of Tobias.
In Which I Learn Something.
While Charlie Webster was arranging his affairs so that he might be able to take his holiday with a free mind, I busied myself with provisioning theFlamingo,and in casually chatting with one and another along the water front, in the hope of gathering some hint that might guide us on our coming expedition. I thought it possible, too, that chance might thus bring me some information as to the recent movements of Tobias.
In this way, I made the acquaintance of several old salts, both white and black, one or two of whom time and their neighbours had invested with a legendary savour of the old "wrecking days," which, if rumour speaks true, are not entirely vanished from the remoter corners of the islands. But either their romantic haloes were entirely due to imaginative gossip, or they themselves were too shrewd to be drawn, for I got nothing out of them to my purpose. They seemed to be more interested in talking religion than the sea, and as navigators of Biblical deep seas little visited except by professional theologians they were remarkable. Generally speaking, indeed, piety would seem to have taken the place of piracy among the sea-going population of Nassau; a fact in which, no doubt, right-thinking folk will rejoice, but which I, I am ashamed to say, found disappointing.
Those who would master the art of talking to the Nassau negro should first brush up on their Bibles; for a pious salutation might almost be said to be Nassau etiquette for opening a conversation. Of course, this applies mainly to negroes or those "conchs" in whom negro blood predominates. The average white man in Nassau must not be considered as implicated in this statement, for he seems to take his religion much as the average white man takes it in any other part of the world.
One afternoon, in the course of these rather fruitless if interesting investigations among the picturesque shipyards of Bay Street, I had wandered farther along that historic water front than is customary with sight-seeing pedestrians; had left behind the white palm-shaded houses, the bazaars of the sellers of tortoise-shell, the negro grog-shops and cabins, and had come to where the road begins to be left alone with the sea, except for a few country houses here and there among the surrounding scrub—when my eye was caught by a little store that seemed to have strayed away from the others—a small timber erection painted in blue and white with a sort of sea-wildness and loneliness about it, and with large naïve lettering across its lintel announcing itself as an "Emporium" (I think that was the word) "of Marine Curiosities."
A bladder-shaped fish, set thick with spines like a hedgehog, swung in the breeze over the doorway, and the windows on each side of the doorway displayed, without any attempt at arrangement, all sorts of motley treasures of the sea: purple sea-fans; coral in every fairy shape, white as sea-foam; conches patterned like some tessellated pavement of old Rome; monster star-fish, sharks' teeth, pink pearls, and shells of every imaginable convolution and iridescence, and many a weird and lovely thing which I had not the knowledge to name; objects, indeed, familiar enough in Nassau, but here amassed and presented with this attractive difference—that they had not been absurdly polished out of recognition, or tortured into horrible "artistic" shapes of brooch, or earring, or paper-knife, or ash-tray, but had been left with all their simple sea-magic upon them—as they might have been heaped up by the sea itself in some moonlit grotto, paved with white sand.
I pushed open the door. There was no one there. The little store was evidently left to take care of itself. Inside, it was like an old curiosity shop of the sea, every available inch of space, rough tables and walls, littered and hung with the queer and lovely bric-à-brac of the sea. Presently a tiny girl came in as it seemed from nowhere, and said she would fetch her father. In a moment or two he came, a tall weathered Englishman of the sailor type, brown and lean, with lonely blue eyes.
"You don't seem afraid of thieves," I remarked.
"It ain't a jewelry store," he said, with the curious soft sing-song intonation of the Nassau "conch."
"That's just what I was thinking it was," I said.
"I know what you mean," he replied, his lonely face lighting up as faces do at unexpected understanding in a stranger. "Of course, there are some that feel that way, but they're few and far between."
"Not enough to make a fortune out of?"
"O! I do pretty well," he said; "I mustn't complain. Money's not everything, you see, in a business like this. There's going after the things, you know. One's got to count that in too."
I looked at him in some surprise. I had met something even rarer than the things he traded in. I had met a merchant of dreams, to whom the mere handling of his merchandise seemed sufficient profit: "There's going after the things, you know. One's got to count that in too."
Naturally we were neck-deep in talk in a moment. I wanted to hear all he cared to tell me about "going after the things"—such "things"!—and he was nothing loth, as he took up one strange or beautiful object after another, his face aglow, and he quite evidently without a thought of doing business, and told me all about them—how and where he got them, and so forth.
"But," he said presently, encouraged by my unfeigned interest, "I should like to show you a few rarer things I have in the house, and which I wouldn't sell, or even show to every one. If you'd honour me by taking a cup of tea, we might look them over."
So we left the little store, with its door unlocked as I had found it, and a few steps brought us to a little house I had not before noticed, with a neat garden in front of it, all the garden beds symmetrically bordered with conch-shells. Shells were evidently the simple-hearted fellow's mania, his revelation of the beauty of the world. Here in a neat parlour, also much decorated with shells, tea was served to us by the little girl I had first seen and an elder sister, who, I gathered, made all the lonely dreamer's family. Then, shyly pressing on me a cigar, he turned to show me the promised treasures. He also told me more of his manner of finding them, and of the long trips which he had to take in seeking them, to out-of-the-way cays and in dangerous waters.
All this I really believe the reader would find as attractive as I did; still, as I am under an implied contract to tell him a story, I am not going to palm off on him merely descriptive or informative matter, except in so far as such matter is necessary, and I have only introduced him to my dreamer in "marine curiosities" for a very pertinent reason, which will immediately appear.
He was showing me the last and rarest of his specimens. He had kept, he said, the best to the last. To me, as a layman, it was not nearly so attractive as other things he had shown me—little more to my eye than a rather commonplace though pretty shell; but he explained—and he gave me its learned name, which I confess has escaped me, owing, doubtless, to what he was next to say—that it was found, or had so far been found, only in one spot in the islands, a lovely, seldom-visited cay several miles to the north-east of Andros Island.
"What is it called?" I asked, for it was part of our plan for Charlie to do a little duck-shooting on Andros, before we tackled the business of Tobias and the treasure.
"It's called —— Cay nowadays," he answered, "but it used to be called Short Shrift Island."
"Short Shrift Island!" I cried, in spite of myself, immediately annoyed at my lack of presence of mind.
"Certainly," he rejoined, looking a little surprised, but evidently without suspicion. He was too simple, and too taken up with his shell.
"It is such an odd name," I said, trying to recover myself.
"Yes! those old pirate chaps certainly did think up some of the rummiest names."
"One of the pirate haunts, was it?" I queried with assumed indifference.
"Supposed to be. But one hears that of every other cay in the Bahamas. I take no stock in such yarns. My shells are all the treasure I expect to find."
"What did you call that shell?" I asked.
He told me the name again, but again I forgot it immediately. Of course I had asked it only for the sake of learning more precisely about Short Shrift Island. He told me innocently enough just where it lay.
"Are you going after it?" he laughed.
"After what?" I enquired in alarm.
"The ——"; (again he mentioned the name of the shell.)
"O! well," I replied, "I am going on a duck-shooting trip to Andros before long, and I thought I might drop around to your cay and pick a few of them up for you."
"It would be mighty kind of you, but they're not easy to find. I'll tell you just exactly—" He went off, dear fellow, into the minutest description of the habitats of ——, while all the time I was eager to rush off to Charlie Webster and John Saunders, and shout into their ears—as, later, I did, at the first possible moment, that evening: "I've found our missing cay! What's the matter with your old maps, John? Short Shrift Island is ——; (I mentioned the name of a cay, which, as in the case of "Dead Men's Shoes," I am unable to divulge.)
"Maybe!" said Charlie, "maybe! We can try it. But," he added, "did you find out anything about Tobias?"
In Which I am Afforded Glimpses into Futurity—Possibly Useful.
Two or three evenings before we were due to sail, at one of our snuggery conclaves, I put the question whether any one had ever tried the divining rod in hunting for treasure in the islands. Charlie took his pipe out of his mouth, the more comfortably to beam his big brotherly smile at me.
"What a kid you are!" he said. "You want the whole bag of tricks, eh?"
But I retorted that he was quite behind the times if he considered the divining rod an exploded superstition. Its efficacy in finding water, I reminded him, was now admitted by the most sceptical science, and I was able to inform him that a great American railway company paid a yearly salary to a "dowser" to guide it in the construction of new roads through a country where water was scarce and hard to find.
Old John nodded, blinking his mischievous eyes. He had more sympathy than Charlie with the foolishness of old romance. It was true enough, he said, and added that he knew the man I wanted, a half-crazy old negro back there in Grant's Town—the negro quarter spreading out into the brush behind the ridge on which the town of Nassau proper is built.
"He calls himself a 'king,'" he added, "and the natives do, I believe, regard him as the head of a certain tribe. Another tribe has its 'queen' whom they take much more seriously. You must not forget that it is not so long ago since they all came from Africa, and the oldest negroes still speak their strange African languages, and keep up their old beliefs and practices. 'Obeah,' of course, is still actively practised.
"Why," he resumed presently, "I may even be said to practise it myself; for I protect that part of my grounds here that abuts on Grant's Town by hanging up things in bottles along the fences, which frighten away at least a percentage of would-be trespassers. You should go and see the old man, if only for fun. The lads call him 'Old King Coffee'—a memory I suppose of the Ashantee War. Any one will tell you where he lives. He is something of a witch-doctor as well as 'king,' and manages to make a little out of charms, philtres and such like, I'm told—enough to keep him in rum anyway. He has a name too as a preacher—among the Holy Jumpers!—but he's getting too old to do much preaching nowadays. He may be a little off his head, but I think he's more of a shrewd old fraud. Go and see him for fun anyway."
So, next morning, I went.
I had hardly been prepared for the plunge into "Darkest Africa" which I found myself taking, as, leaving Government House behind, perched on the crest of its white ridge, I walked a few yards inland and entered a region which, for all its green palms, made a similar sudden impression of pervading blackness on the mind which one gets on suddenly entering a coal-mining district, after travelling through fields and meadows.
There were far more blacks than whites down on Bay Street, but here there were nothing but blacks on every side. The wood of the cabins—most of them neat enough and pleasantly situated in their little gardens of bananas and cocoa-nut palms—was black, as with age or coal dust; and the very foliage, in its suggestion of savage scenes in one's old picture-books, suggested "natives." The innumerable smart little pigs that seemed free of the place were black. The innumerable goats, too, were black. And everywhere, mixed in with the pigs and the goats, were the blackest of picaninnies. Everywhere black faces peered from black squares of windows, most of them cheery and round and prosperous looking, but here and there a tragically old crone with witch-like white hair.
The roads ran in every direction, and along them everywhere were figures of black women shuffling with burdens on their heads, or groups of girls, audaciously merry, most of them bonny, here and there almost a beauty. There were churches, and dance-halls, and saloons—all radiating, so to say, a prosperous blackness. It was from these dance-halls that there came at night that droning and braying of barbaric music, as from some mysterious "heart of darkness," as one turned to sleep in one's civilised Nassau beds—a music that kept on and on into the inner blackness of the night.
At first the effect of the whole scene was a little sinister, even a little frightening. The strangeness of Africa, the African jungle, was here, and one was a white man in it all alone among grinning savage faces. But for the figures about one being clothed, the illusion had been complete; but for that and the kind-hearted salutations from comely white-turbaned mammies which soon sprang up about me, and the groups of elfish children that laughingly blocked one's progress with requests—not in any weird African dialect but in excellent national-school English—for "a copper please."
This request was not above the maidenly dignity of quite big and buxom lasses. One of these, a really superb young creature, not too liberally clothed to rob one's eyes of her noble contours, caught my attention by the singularity of something she carried. It was an enormous axe, the shining blade balanced easily on her head, and the handle jutting out horizontally like some savage head-dress. She looked like a beautiful young headswoman. Even she asked for "a copper, please," but with a saucy coquetry befitting her adolescence.
"A big girl like you too!" I ventured. She gave a fine savage laugh, without in the least jeopardising the balance of the axe.
"I'll give you one if you'll tell me where the 'King' lives," said I.
"Ole King Coffee?" she asked, and then fell into a very agony of negro laughter. The poor old king was evidently the best of all possible jokes to this irreverent young beauty. Then, recovering, she put her finger to her lips, suggesting silence, and said:
"Come along, I'll show you!"
And, walking by my side, lithe as a young animal, evidently without giving a thought to her gleaming headdress, she had soon brought me to a cabin much like the rest, though perhaps a little poorer looking. Stopping a little short of it, she once more put her finger to her lips.
"Shh! There he is!" and she shook all over again with suppressed giggles.
I gave her a sixpence and told her to be a good girl. Then I advanced up a little strip of garden to where I had caught a glimpse of a venerable white-haired negro seated at the window, as if for exhibition, with a great open book in his hands. This he appeared to be reading with great solemnity, through enormous goggles, though I thought I caught a side-glint of his eye, as though he had taken a swift reconnoitring glance in my direction—a glance which apparently had but deepened his attention and increased the dignity of his demeanour. That dignity indeed was magnificent, and was evidently meant to convey to the passers-by and the world at large that they were in the presence of royalty.
As I approached the doorway, my eye was caught by a massive decoration glittering immediately above it. It was a design of large gilt wooden letters which I couldn't make out at first, as it had been turned upside down. I didn't realise its meaning till afterward, but I may as well tell the reader now.
Shortly before, King Coffee, feeling in need of some insignia to blazon forth his rank, had appealed to a friend of his, a kindly American visitor, who practically kept the old fellow alive with his bounty. This kind friend was a wag too, and couldn't resist the idea that had come to him. The old man wanted something that glittered. So the American had bethought him of those big lettered signs which on the face of saloons brighten the American landscape—signs announcing somebody or other's "extra." This it was that now glittered in front of me as—the royal arms!
That it was upside down merely added to its mysterious impressiveness for the passer-by, and in no way afflicted the old king since, in spite of that imposing book at the window, he was quite unable to read. That book, a huge, much-gilded family Bible, was merely another portion of the insignia—presented by the same kind friend; as also was the magnificent frock coat, three sizes too big for the shrunken old figure, in which I found him—installed, shall I say?—as I presently stood before him in response to a dignified inclination of his head, welcoming me, at the window.
Remembering that he was not merely royal, but pious also, I made my salutation at once courtier-like and sanctimonious.
"Good day to Your Majesty," I said; "God's good, God looks after his servants."
"De Lord is merciful," he answered gravely; "God takes care of his children. Be seated, sar, and please excuse my not rising, my rheumatism is a sore affliction to me. But de Lord is good, de Lord giveth and de Lord He taketh away—and de holy text includes rheumatism too—as I have told my poor wandering flock many a Sabbath evening."
And he smiled in a sly self-satisfied way at his pious pun. "The old fellow is far from being crazy," I said to myself.
I was not long in getting to the subject of my visit. The old man listened to me with great composure, but with a marked accession of mysterious importance in his manner. So mediæval astrologers drew down their brows with a solemn assumption of supernatural wisdom when consulted by some noble client—noble, but pitiably mortal in the presence of their hidden knowledge. He had put his book down as I talked. I noticed that he had been holding it—like his royal arms—upside down.
"It's true, sar," he said, when I had finished, "I could find it for you. I could find it for you, sure enough; and I'm de only man in all de islands dat could. But I should have to go wid you, and it's de Lord's will to keep me here in dis chair wid rheumatics. O! I don't murmur. It is de Lord's doing and it is marvellous in our eyes. De rods has turned in dese old hands many a time, and I have faith in de Lord dey would turn again—yes. I'd find it for you; sure enough. I'd find it if any man could—and it was de Lord's will. But mebbe I can see it for you widout moving from dis chair. For when de Lord takes away one gift from his servants, he gives dem another. It is His will dat dese 'ere old legs are stiff and can carry me round no more. So wot does de good Lord do? He says: 'Nebber mind dem ole legs; nebber mind dem ole weary eyes; sit jus' whar yuh are,' says de Lord, 'nebber min' no movin' round.' De Lord do wondrous things to his faithful followers; He opens de eyes of de spirit, so, having no eyes, dey shall see. Hallelujah! Glory be to de Lord!—see down into de bowels of de earth, see thousands of miles away just as plain as dis room—"
He had worked himself up to a sort of religious ecstasy, as I had seen the revivalist sect he belonged to, known as the Holy Jumpers, do at their curious services.
"Do you mean, brother, that the Lord has given you second sight?"
"Dat am it! Glory to His name, Hallelujah!" he answered. "I look in a glass ball—so; and if de spirit helps me I can see clear as a picture far under de ground, far, far away over de sea. It's de Lord's truth, sar—Blessed be His Name!"
I asked him whether he would look into his crystal for me. With a burst of profanity, as unexpected as it was vivid, he cursed "dem boys" that had stolen from him a priceless crystal which once had belonged to his old royal mother, who, before him, had had the same gift of the spirit. But, he added—turning to a table by his side, and lifting from it a large cut-glass decanter of considerable capacity, though at present void of contents—that he had found that gazing into the large glass ball of its stopper produced almost equally good results at times.
He said this with perfect solemnity, though, as he placed the decanter on top of his Bible in front of him, I observed, with an inner smile, that he tilted it slightly on one side, as though remarking, strictly to himself, that, save for a drain of dark-coloured liquid in one corner, it was painfully empty.
Then, with a sigh, he applied himself to his business of seer. First, he asked me to be kind enough to shut the door.
We had to be very quiet, he declared; the spirit could work only in deep silence. And he asked me to be kind enough to close my eyes. Then I heard his voice muttering, in a strange tongue, a queer dark gobbling kind of words, which may have been ancient African spell-words, or sheer gibberish such as magicians in all times and places have employed to mystify their consultants.
I looked at him through the corner of my eye—as, doubtless, he had anticipated, for he was glaring with an air of inspired abstraction into the ball of the decanter stopper. So we sat silent for, I suppose, some ten minutes. Then I heard him give another deep sigh. Opening my eyes, I saw him slowly shaking his head.
"De spirits don't seem communicable dis afternoon," he muttered, once more tilting the decanter slightly on one side and observing it drearily as before.
I had been rather slow, indeed, in taking the hint, but I determined to take it, and see what would happen.
"Do you think, Your Majesty," I asked, with as serious a face as I could assume, "the spirits might work better—if the decanter were to be filled?"
The old man looked at me a little cautiously, as though wondering how to take me. I tried to keep grave, but I couldn't quite suppress a twinkle; catching it, he took courage—seemed to feel that he could trust me. Slapping his knee, he let himself go in a rush of that deep, chuckling, gurgling, child-like negro laughter which is one of the most appealing gifts of his pathetic race.
"Mebbe, sar; mebbe. Spirits is curious things; dey need inspiration sometimes, just like ourselves."
"What kind of inspiration, do you think, gets the best results, Your Majesty?"
"Well, sar, I can't say as dey is very particular, but I'se noticed dey do seem powerful 'tached to just plain good old Jamaica rum."
"They shall have it," I said.
I had noticed that there was a saloon a few yards away, so before many more minutes had passed, I had been there and come back again, and the decanter stood ruddily filled, ready for the resumption of ourséance.But before we began, I of course accepted the seer's invitation to join him and the spirits in a friendly libation.
Then—I having closed my eyes—we began again, and it was astonishing with what rapidity the thick-coming pictures began to crowd upon that inner vision with which the Lord had endowed his faithful follower!
Of course, I was inclined now to take the whole thing as an amusing imposture; but presently, watching his face and the curious "seeing" expression of his eyes, and noting the exactitude of one or two of his pictures, I began to feel that, however much he might be inventing or elaborating, there was some substratum of truth in what he was telling me. I had had sufficient experience of mediums and clairvoyants to know that, except in cases of absolute fraud, there was usually—beneath a certain amount of conscious "imaginativeness"—a mysterious gift at work, independent of their volition; something they did see, for which they themselves could not account, and over which they had no control. And as he proceeded I became more and more convinced that this was the case also with Old King Coffee.
The first pictures that came to him were merely pictures, though astonishingly clear ones, of Webster's boat, theFlamingo,of Webster himself, and of the men and the old dog Sailor; but in all this he might have been visualising from actual knowledge. Yet the details were curiously exact. We were all bathed in moonlight, he said—very bright moonlight, moonlight you could read by. Pictures of us out at sea, passing coral islands and so forth followed, all general in character. But presently, his gaze becoming more fixed:
"I see you anchored under a little settlement. You are rowing ashore. Dere are little pathways running up among de coral rock, and a few white houses. And, yes! Dere is a man in overalls, on de roof of a building, seeming like a little schoolhouse. He waves to you; he is getting down from de roof to meet you. But his face is in a mist, I can't see him right. Now he is gone."
He stopped and waited awhile. Then he resumed:
"Seems to be a forest; big, big trees—not like Nassau trees—and thick brush everywhere; all choked up so thick and dark, can't see nut'n. Wait a minute, dough. Dere seems to be old houses all sunk in and los', like old ruins. Can't see dem right for de brush. And wait—Lord love you, sar, but I'se afraid—I seem to see a big light coming up trough de brush from far under de ground—just like you see old rotten wood shining in de dark—deep, deep down. Didn't I tell you de Lord gave me eyes to see into de bowels of de earth?—it's de bowels of de earth for sure—all lit up and shining. Praise de Lord!—it am de gold, for certain, all hidden away and shining dere under de ground—"
"Can't you see it closer, clearer?" I exclaimed involuntarily; "get some idea of the place it's in?"
The old man gazed with a renewed intensity.
"No," he said presently, and his disappointed tone seemed to me the best evidence yet of his truth, "I only see a little golden mist deep, deep down under de ground; now it is fading away. It's gone; I can only see de woods and de ruins again."
This brought his visions to an end. The spirits obstinately refused to make any more pictures, though the old man continued to gaze on in the decanter stopper for fully five minutes.
"De wind of de spirit bloweth as it listeth," said he at length, with the note of a more genuine piety in his voice than at the beginning; and there was a certain hushed gravity in his manner as we said good-bye, which made me feel that there had been something in his visions that had even surprised and solemnised himself.
In Which We Take Ship Once More.
The discovery which—through my friend the dealer in "marine curiosities"—I had made, or believed myself to have made, of the situation of Henry P. Tobias's second "pod" of treasure, fitted in exactly with Charlie Webster's wishes for our trip, small stock as he affected to take in it at the moment.
As the reader may recall, "Short Shrift Island" lay a few miles to the northwest of Andros Island. Now Andros is a great haunt of wild duck, not to speak of that more august bird, the flamingo. Attraction number one for the good Charlie. Then, though it is some hundred and fifty miles long and some fifty miles broad at its broadest, it has never yet, it is said, been entirely explored.
Its centre is still a mystery. The natives declare it to be haunted, or at all events inhabited by some strange people no one has yet approached close enough to see. You can see their houses, they say, from a distance, but as you approach them, they disappear. Here, therefore, seemed an excellent place for Tobias to take cover in. Charlie's duck-shooting preserves, endless marl lakes islanded with mangrove copses, lay on the fringe of this mysterious region. So Andros was plainly marked out for our destination.
But, when Charlie was ready for the start, the wind, which is of the essence of any such contract in the Bahamas, was contrary. It had been blowing stormily from the southwest, the direction we were bound for, for several days, and nothing with sails had, for a week, felt like venturing out across the surf-swept bar. It is but forty miles across the Tongue of Ocean which divides the shores of New Providence and Andros, but you need to pick your weather for that, if you don't want to join the numerous craft that have vanished in that brief but fateful strip of water. However, the wind was liable to change any minute now, Charlie said, so he warned me to hold myself in readiness to jump aboard at an hour's notice.
The summons came at last. I had been out for dinner, and returned home about ten to find the message: "Be ready to sail at midnight."
There was a thrilling suddenness about it that appealed to one's imagination. Here I had been expecting a landsman's bed, with a book and a reading-lamp, surrounded by the friendly security of houses; instead, I was to go faring with the night wind into the mystery of the sea.
It was a night of fitful moonlight, and Nassau, with its white houses and white streets, seemed very hushed and spectral as I made my way down to the wharf, vivid in black and silver.
There is always something mysterious about starting a journey at night, even though it be nothing more out-of-the-way than catching a midnight train out of the city; and the simple business of our embarkation breathed an air of romantic secrecy. The moon seemed to have her finger on her lip, and we talked in lowered voices as though we were bound on some midnight raid. The night seemed to be charged with the expectancy of the unknown, and Sailor, who, of course, was to be a fellow-voyager, whined restlessly from the wharf side at the little yawl that awaited us in the whispering, lapping water.
Sailor had watched his master getting his guns ready for some days, and, doubtless, memories stirred in him of Scotch moors they had shot over together. He raised his head to the night wind, and sniffed impatiently, as though he already scented the wild duck on Andros Island. He was impatient, like the rest of us, because, though it was an hour past sailing-time, we had still to collect two of the crew. The same old story! I marvelled at the good humour with which Charlie—who is really a sleeping volcano of berserker rage—took it. But he reminded me of his old advice as I started for my first trip: "No use getting mad with niggers—till you positively have to!"
Well, the two loiterers turned up at last, and, all preliminaries being at length disposed of, we threw off the mooring ropes, and presently there was heard that most exhilarating of sounds, to any one who loves sea-faring, the rippling of the ropes through the blocks as our mainsail began to rise up high against the moon which was beginning to look out over the huge block of the Colonial Hotel, the sea-wall of which ran along as far as our mooring. A few lights in its windows here and there broke the blank darkness of its facade, glimmering through the avenues of royal palms. I am thus explicit because of something that presently happened, and which stayed the mainsail in its rippling ascent.
A tall figure was running along the sea-wall from the direction of the hotel, calling out, a little breathlessly, in a rich young voice as it ran:
"Wait a minute there, you fellows! Wait a minute!"
We were already moving, parallel with the wall, and at least twelve feet away from it, by the time the figure—that of a tall boy, cow-boy hatted, and picturesquely outlined in the half light—stopped just ahead of us. "Like the herald Mercury," I said to myself. He raised something that looked like a bag in his right hand, calling out "catch" as he did so; and, a moment after, before a word could be spoken, he took a flying leap and landed amongst us, plump in the cock-pit, and was clutching first one of us and then the other, to keep his balance.
"Did it, by Jove!" he exclaimed in a beautiful English accent, and then started laughing as only absurd dare-devil youngsters can.
"Forgive me!" he said, as soon as he could get his breath, "but I had to do it. Heaven knows what the old man will say!"
He seemed to take it all for granted in a delightful, nonchalant way, so that the angry protest which had already started from Charlie's lips stopped in the middle. That fearless leap had taken his heart.
"You're something of a long jump!" said Charlie.
"O! I have done my twenty-two and an eighth on a broad running jump, but I had no chance for a run there," answered the lad, carelessly.
"But suppose you'd hit the water instead of the deck?"
"What of it? Can't one swim?"
"I guess you're all right, young man," said Charlie, softened; "but ... well, we're not taking passengers."
The words had a familiar sound. They were the very ones I had used to Tobias, as he stood with his hand on the gunwale of theMaggie Darling.I rapidly conveyed the coincidence—and the difference—to Charlie. It struck me as odd, I'll admit, that our second start, in this respect, should be so like the first. Meanwhile, the young man was answering, or rather pleading, in a boyish way.
"Don't call me a passenger; I'll help work the boat. I'm strong, you'll see—not afraid of hard work; and anyway, won't you help a chap to an adventure?... I'll tell the truth. I heard—never mindhow—about your trip, and I'm just nutty about buried treasure. Come, be a sport; I've been watching for you all day. Pretty late starting, aren't you?... We can let the old guv'nor know, somehow ... and it won't kill him to tear his hair for a day or two. He knows I can take care of myself."
"Well!" said Charlie, after thinking awhile in his slow way, "we'll think it over. You can come along till the morning. Then I can get a good look at you. If I don't like your looks, we'll still be able to put you off at West End; and if I do—well—right-ho!"
"My looks!" exclaimed our young stranger, with a peculiar mellow laugh.
"What's the joke?" demanded Charlie.
"O! I only wondered what my looks had to do with it!"
"Well," laughed Charlie, entering into the spirit of the lad, "you might be pock-marked for all I know in this light—and I have a peculiar prejudice against pock-marked gentlemen."
"Unfeeling of you!" retorted the boy. "Anyhow," he added, with the same curiously attractive laugh, "I'm not pock-marked."
"We'll see at sunrise," said Charlie. "Now, boys," he shouted, "go ahead with the sails."
Once more there was that rippling of the ropes through the blocks, as our mainsail rose up high against the moon and filled proudly with the steady northeast breeze we had been waiting for. The water began to talk along our sides, and the immense freshness of the nocturnal sea took us in its huge embrace. The spray began to fly over our bows as we nosed into the glassy rollers, one of which, on the starboard side, admonished us, by half swallowing us, that only the mighty-limbed immortals might dance with safety on the bar that night, and that it were wise for even 45-foot yawls to hug the land till daylight. So, reluctantly, we kept the shadowy coast-line for our companion, as we steered for the southwestern end of the island; to our right, companions more of our mood, parallel ridges of savage whiteness, where the surf boiled and gleamed along the coral shoals.
How good it seemed to all of us to be out thus in the freedom of the night and the sea—not least to the great noble-headed hound sitting up on his haunches, keen and watchful by the steersman's side. What a strange waste of a life so short to be sleeping there on the land, when one might be out and away on such business as ours!
So two or three hours went by, as we plunged on, to the seething sound of the water, and the singing of our sails, and all the various rumour of wind and sea. After all, it was a good music to sleep to, and, for all my scorn of sleeping landsmen, an irresistible drowsiness stretched me out on the roof of the little cabin, wonderfully rocked into forgetfulness.
My nap came to an end suddenly, as though some one had flung me out through a door of blue and gold into a new-born world. There was the sun rising, the moon still on duty, and the morning star divinely naked in the heaven. And, with these glories, there rushed in again upon my ears the lovely zest and turmoil of the sea, heaving huge and tumultuous about us in gleaming hills and foam-flecked valleys.
And there was Charlie, his broad face beaming with boyish happiness, and something like a fatherly gentleness in his eyes, as he watched his companion at the tiller, whom, for a half-asleep moment of waking, I couldn't account for, till our start all came back to me, when I realised that it was our young scapegrace of over-night. Charlie and he evidently were on the best of terms already.
"Nice sailor you are!" Charlie laughed, as I sat up rubbing my eyes. "Falling asleep on watch! Our young friend here is worth ten of you."
I smiled good morning to our young passenger.
"How about the court-martial on his looks you spoke of last night, Charlie?" I asked.
"Well, he's not pock-marked, at all events, is he?—he told the truth so far. But I've still a question or two to ask him before we leave West End. We'll have breakfast first—to give him courage."
The lad made a humorous face to suggest his fear of the ordeal; as he did so, I took a good look at him. Charlie might easily have said a little more about his looks, had it been in his line, for, so far from being only "not pock-marked," he was something more like a young Apollo: some six feet in height, upstanding like the statue of a Greek athlete; a rich olive skin, through which the pink of youth came and went; and splendid blue-green eyes, fearless, and yet shy as a lad's eyes often are—at that moment of development when a good-looking lad, in spite of his height and muscles, has something of the bloom and purity of a girl, without in the least suggesting effeminacy. So, many tall athletic girls, for a brief period, suggest boys—without there being the least danger of mistake as to their real sex.
He was evidently very young—scarcely more than eighteen—and had a great tendency to blush, for all his attempt at nonchalant grown-up airs. He was the very embodiment of youth, in its sun-tipped morning flower. What Charlie could have to "question" this artless young being—as incapable of plotting, it seemed to me, as a young faun—passed my conjecture; but, as Charlie had given me a quiet wink, as he spoke of the after-breakfast examination, I suspected that it was one of those jokes of his which are apt to have something of the simplicity and roughness of seafaring tradition.
Meanwhile, old Tom had been busy with breakfast, and soon the smells of coffee and freshly made "johnny-cake" and frying bacon competed not unsuccessfully with the various fragrances of the morning. Is there anything to match for zest a breakfast like that of ours at dawn on the open sea?
Breakfast over, Charlie filled his pipe, assuming, as he did so, a judicial aspect. I filled mine, and our young friend followed suit by taking a silver cigarette-case from his pocket, and striking a match on the leg of his khaki knickerbockers with a professional air.
"All set?" asked Charlie, and, after a slight pause, he went on:
"Now, young man, you can see we are nearing the end of the island. Another half-mile will bring us to West End. Whether we put you ashore there, or take you along, depends on your answers to my questions."
"Fire away," answered the youth, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke in a delicate spiral up into the morning sky; "but I've really told you all I have to tell."
"No; you haven't told us how you came to know of our trip, what we were supposed to be after, and when we were starting."
"That's true!" flushed the lad, momentarily losing his composure. Then, partly regaining it: "Is it necessary to answer that question?"
"Absolutely," answered Charlie, beginning to look really serious.
"Because, if you don't mind ... well, I'd just as soon not."
The boy's cheeks were burning with confusion, and he looked more than ever like a girl.
"For that very reason, I want to know. We are out on a more serious business than perhaps you realise, and your answer may mean more to us than you think."
"I'm sure it cannot be of such importance to you. Really it's nothing—a mere accident; and, besides, it's hardly fair for me to tell. I should have to give away a friend, and that, I'm sure you'll agree, is not cricket."
The boy had such a true innocent air, not to speak of his taking ways which had already quite won my heart, that I protested with Charlie on his behalf. But Charlie was adamant. He'd got Tobias so on the brain that there was no reasoning with him, and the very innocent air of the lad seemed to have deepened his suspicions.
"I'm sorry, but I shall have to insist," replied Charlie, looking very grim, and more and more like an Elizabethan sea-rover.
"All right, then," answered the youth, looking him straight in the eyes, "put me ashore."
"No; I won't do that now, either," declared Charlie, sternly setting his jaw. "I'll put you in irons, rather—and keep you on bread and water—till you answer my questions."
"You will, eh?" retorted the youth, flashing fire from his fine eyes. And as he spoke, quick as thought, he leaped up on to the gunwale, and, without hesitation, dived into the great glassy rollers.
But Charlie was quick too. Like a flash, he grabbed one of the boy's ankles, so that the beautiful dive was spoiled; and there was the boy, hanging by an imprisoned leg over the ship's side, a helpless captive—his arms in the water and his leg struggling vainly to get free. But he might as well have struggled against the grip of Hercules. In another moment Charlie had him hauled aboard again, his eyes full of tears of boyish rage and humiliation.
"You young fool!" exclaimed Charlie. "The water round here is thick with sharks; you wouldn't have gone fifty yards without one of them getting you." ...
"Sharks!" gasped out the boy, contemptuously. "I know more about sharks than you do."
"You seem to know a good many things I don't," said Charlie, whose grimness had evidently relaxed a little at the lad's display of mettle. Meanwhile, my temper was beginning to rise on behalf of our young passenger.
"I tell you what, Charlie," I interposed; "if you are going to keep this up, you'd better count me out on this trip and set us both ashore at West End. You're making a fool of yourself. The lad's all right. Any one can see with half an eye there's no harm in him."
The boy shot me a warm glance of gratitude.
"All right," agreed Charlie, beginning to lose his temper too, "I'm damned if I don't." And, his hand on the tiller, he made as if to turn the boat about and tack for the shore.
"No! no!" cried the boy, springing between us, and appealingly laying one hand on Charlie's shoulder, the other on mine. "You mustn't let me spoil your trip. I'll compromise. And, skipper, I'll tell your friend here all there is to tell—everything—I swear—if you will leave it to his judgment."
Charlie gloomed for a moment or two, thinking it over, while I stood aloof with an injured air.
"Right-O," agreed Charlie at last; so our passenger and I thereupon withdrew for our conference.
It was soon over, and I couldn't help laughing aloud at the simplicity of it all.
"Just as I told you, Charlie," I exclaimed; "it's innocence itself." Turning to the lad, I said: "Dear boy, there is really no need to keep such a small secret as that from the skipper here. You'll really have to let me tell him."
The boy nodded acquiescence.
"All the same, I gave my word," he said
When I told Charlie the innocent secret, he laughed as I had done, and his usual good humour instantly returned.
"But to think, you young scapegrace," he exclaimed, "that you might either have been eaten by a shark, or have broken up an old friendship, for such nonsense as that." And, turning to me, and stretching out his huge paw, "My hand, old man; forgive my bad temper."