THE VISITOR AGAIN
IT was the next day after Jack had returned from Marlborough. The night
was still and sultry, with just a breath of hot breeze blowing. Jack
and Little Coffee were sitting together on the door-step, and Jack was
telling about Miss Eleanor Parker. The moon had risen full and round,
and bathed all the dark, hot, panting earth with a flood of shimmering
silver. The fireflies, which were now just beginning to illuminate the
night, flashed and twinkled here and there in clusters out over the
damper places. Jack’s coat lay upon the step beside him, and now he sat
in his shirt sleeves. Every now and then he slapped at the mosquitos
that sang persistently in his ears. He had been speaking of Miss
Eleanor Parker.
“I see her once myself,” said Little Coffee.
“And she spoke as kind as could be to me, and asked me all about
myself,” continued Jack, without paying any attention to Little Coffee.
“I told her how I had been kidnapped. I do believe she’ll speak to her
father about me. M—m—m—!” he groaned, stretching himself. “I’m that
sore with riding that if I’d had a beating I couldn’t be sorer. Drat
that mosquito!” and he slapped his cheek violently.
“I see her once,” said Little Coffee again. “Ai! she a beauty! Um! You
ain’t de only one in de world see her. She came down de ribber in de
big boat and stopped yan at de landing. I stand up on de bluff and I
see her with three, four fine people, all going down ribber. Dey stop
here for de ma—aster.”
They were so intent upon their talk that they did not notice the
approach of a stranger through the milky brightness of the night, until
he was close to them. Then he was there. Jack jumped up from the step
as the visitor approached, his feet rustling in the long, dry, moon-lit
grass. Jack did not know him at first; then he recognized him. It was
the man with the long black beard who had come at night three days
before to see the master. He was trigged out now with a sort of tinsel
finery that made a great show in the moonlight. He wore petticoat
canvas breeches and a short-skirted coat, trimmed, as was the hat, with
gilt braid. He wore a satin waistcoat, and across his breast a silken
sling, from which dangled a brace of pistols. A broad leathern belt,
from which hung a cutlass, was fastened at his waist by a brass buckle.
The moonlight shone upon a gold chain about his neck, and his beard,
which before had hung loose over his breast, was now plaited into three
plaits.
Jack looked at him with wonder, and Little Coffee stared with mouth
agape and shining eyes. The stranger, perfectly indifferent to them,
spoke directly to Jack. “Is your master at home, boy?” he said, in his
hoarse, husky voice.
“Yes, he is,” said Jack.
“Well, then, just tell him I’m here,” said the visitor, “for he’s
expecting me.”
The doors and windows of the house stood wide open in the warm night.
Jack led the stranger into the hall, the man’s heavy shoes clattering
loudly in the silence. Mr. Parker sat at the desk in the room beyond,
looking over some papers by the light of a candle. The warm breeze came
in at the window, and the candle flickered and wavered. The insects
flew around and around the light, and great beetles droned and tumbled
in blundering flight. The room was full of the sooty smell from the
empty fireplace. Mr. Parker sat in his shirt sleeves. He looked up as
Jack tapped upon the door, and his fine florid face glistened with
sweat. “Here’s a man wants to see your honor,” said Jack.
The stranger pushed roughly by Jack and entered. “I thought it must be
you, captain,” said Mr. Parker, coldly; “I’ve been looking for you all
the afternoon. Here; take this chair and sit down,” and he pointed to a
seat as he spoke, turning his own chair around so as to bring his back
to the candle and his face into shadow. “You may go,” said he to Jack,
“and shut the door after you.”
Mr. Parker waited, after the door closed, until he heard Jack’s
departing footsteps quitting the house. Meantime, he looked his visitor
over with perfectly cool indifference, but with a sort of dry interest
in his singular costume—his eyes lingering particularly upon the
plaited beard and the chain around the neck. “I suppose, my good man,”
said he at last, “that you’ve come for the settlement of that paper of
yours?”
“Why, yes, I have,” said the other. “Why else d’ ye suppose I’d come?”
“Well, then,” said Mr. Parker, “I’m sorry for you, for I can’t say that
I’m ready, after all, to settle it, or even a part of it. And what’s
more, I won’t be for four weeks or more yet, nor until my brother’s
agent pays me my quarterly allowance.”
“Not ready!” exclaimed the other, and he stared with bold anger at Mr.
Parker. “What d’ ye mean by that? Why should you tell me last week
that you’d pay me to-day, and then in so short a time change your mind
and blow t’other way?” Mr. Parker shrugged his shoulders coolly, but
did not condescend to explain how he had been disappointed in getting
money from his brother.
“And don’t you intend to pay me at all, then?” the stranger asked in a
loud voice.
“Why, fellow,” said Mr. Parker, “it will do you no good to lift your
voice and to bluster at me. You can’t squeeze blood out of a stone, and
you can’t squeeze money out of a man who hath none.”
“And when will you pay me, then?”
“That I cannot tell you either, except, as I said, I will settle
something upon the paper when my allowance is paid me, and that will be
four weeks from next Monday.”
“Why, then, Mr. Parker,” said the other, speaking more and more
violently, “you know very well that I can’t be here four weeks from
now. You know very well what danger I stand in here in Virginia as it
is, and that I can’t come and go as I please, or as you please for me.
You was pleased to tell me, last time I was here, that I’d broke my
pardon, and you know I come here with a halter around my neck. Come,
come, Mr. Parker, if you know what’s good for you you’ll make some
reasonable settlement with me, and by—— you must make it to-night.”
“Must? Must, Mr. Pirate?”
“Yes, must, Mr. Gambler. Lookee, wind and weather permitting, I sail
for North Carolina the day after to-morrow. If by that time you
don’t make some settlement of this paper of yours, I’ll send it to
your brother for collection, and tell him how I came by it. D’ ye
understand?”
Mr. Parker, who from the first had not seemed to be keenly alert to
the importance of the business in hand, sat fingering the papers upon
his desk, looking intently at the other, but as though he did not hear
what he was saying. After his visitor had ended speaking he still
sat gazing at him for a little space of silence. At last, as though
suddenly arousing himself, he said: “Pull your chair up here, I want to
say something in your ear.”
“What d’ ye mean?” said his visitor, suspiciously.
“I mean that I have to say something privately to you. So pull your
chair up here close to me.” And then the other obeyed, drawing his
chair close to the desk in front of which Mr. Parker sat. “I have
something in my mind,” said Mr. Parker, presently, breaking the silence
and speaking in a lower voice, “I have something in my mind that may be
of advantage to us both if you are the man to help me carry it out, and
’tis of that I want to speak to you.”
The other sat looking intently at Mr. Parker as he spoke. “D’ ye mean,”
said he, “that you and I shall go into some venture together?”
“I mean something of that sort,” said Mr. Parker, and as he spoke there
was more than the usual haughtiness in his tone and bearing.
“Well, what is it you have to propose, then?” said the visitor, in no
way overawed. Again there was a little time of silence, and then Mr.
Parker suddenly said: “I have a mind to be plain with you, Pirate, and
I will be so, for I am driven to it. The case is just this”—and then,
as with some effort—“I am a ruined and a desperate man. I am pushed
fairly to the wall, and know of nowhere to get a single farthing of
money to help me out of my pinch.” Even with his back to the candles
the other could see that his handsome, florid face had flushed to a
redder red than usual, and that he frowned a little as he spoke. “I
will tell you plain,” he said, “I am in such straits that only some
desperate chance can set me to rights again. So far as I can tell,
I owe some five or six thousand pounds to one and another here in
Virginia, besides something in Maryland, and something more in South
Carolina. ’Tis not so very much, but ’tis enough to give you and others
a chance to push me hard. The time was—that was when I was living in
England—that my father would send me that much money in a lump, and
did so two or three times. But now my brother Birchall hath everything
and I have nothing; and ten thousand pounds is more to me now than
fifty thousand pounds was to me then. If I could by some chance get
seven thousand pounds, methinks I could set myself to rights. But where
can a desperate man get seven thousand pounds except by some desperate
chance?”
He did not say all this sequentially, but with many breaks and pauses,
and it was so he continued, pausing every now and then, and then
speaking suddenly again as though with an effort. Now he had stopped
in his speech and was playing, fiddling with a pen. Then he began his
broken talk again: “Well, I’d as leave say this to a rascal like you as
to any other man—I am a ruined, desperate man. Day before yesterday
I sent a letter to my brother Birchall asking for an immediate loan
of five hundred pounds, and offering any sort of security that he
might demand, and that I could give, if he would loan me five thousand
pounds. I set forth to him how desperate were my circumstances, but no,
he would not consider or think of anything, but sent me a letter—“ He
ceased and sat frowning at the other. “You see,” he said, resuming,
“when I came back from England four years ago I came a ruined man. My
father had given me all that I had asked for while I was living in
England, but when he died he left everything to my brother Birchall,
and nothing to me except this plantation, which is not a tenth part, I
may say, of what had been the estate. He said that he had given me my
share, and more than that, while he lived, and so he gave the estate to
my brother, who had married a great heiress and needed it not. I had
to run away from England to escape my debts, and still they followed me
up. Then I was forced into asking my brother for help. I spoke pretty
roundly to him, telling him what I thought of such injustice, that gave
him everything and me nothing, and so in the end he paid my debts for
me. But he talked to me in such a way as showed plainly enough that he
thought, in paying my debts, he had bought me body and soul, and might
treat me as he chose, and say things to me as he pleased. I bore from
him what I would not have borne from any other man in all the world.
Well, this letter which he hath sent me in answer to my request for a
loan of money, is such as hath driven me clean to the wall, and with no
help left to me, and I am a desperate man. He comes as near to calling
me a rogue as he dares to do, and tells me in so many words that I am
a disgrace and a dishonor to him. Well, then, if he thinks that I am a
dishonor to him, I may as well be so.”
All this time the stranger had been sitting motionlessly listening to
what the other said, his eyes fixed intently upon the shadowed face of
the master of the Roost. Presently Mr. Parker resumed:
“His letter is of the kind that makes me feel easy to do what I can to
get from him what he will not give me, and what, if my father had but
been just to me, would have been mine by rights. ‘Twould have cost him
nothing to have spared me five hundred pounds, or five thousand pounds,
either; but now I will get it from him if I can, let him suffer from it
ever so much.” He checked himself suddenly, and then said, “Why, do you
suppose, am I telling you all this that I would not tell to any other
man in all the world.”
“Why, that is the very thing I’m waiting for you to let me know,” said
the other.
Mr. Parker hesitated for a moment, and then he said, “Will you have
something to drink?”
“Why, yes,” said the other. “If you have it handy here, I would like
right well to have a glass of grog.”
Mr. Parker turned as though to summon Jack, then, as if thinking
better of it, he himself arose, went to the closet at the side of the
fireplace, and brought thence a bottle of rum and a glass. “Can you do
without water?” said he.
“Yes, I can if I must,” said the other.
Mr. Parker pushed the papers aside on the desk and set the bottle
and glass within reach of his visitor, who poured out nearly half a
tumblerful of the liquor.
Mr. Parker looked coldly on as he filled his glass. “Well, then, my
plan is, as I said, to get from my brother Birchall by force what he
would not give me of his own free will. Are you listening?” The other
nodded briefly, raised the glass to his lips, and drank off the rum he
had poured out. “You know perhaps that my brother has only one living
child?”
The visitor seemed struck by Mr. Parker’s sudden question. He looked at
him for a second or two in an almost startled silence, and then again
nodded briefly.
“His child is a daughter,” said Mr. Parker, “and a very beautiful and
charming young lady, and one of whom I am very fond. Now, if some
desperate pirate—one, for example, like yourself”—and he looked his
visitor steadily almost scornfully in the face as he spoke—“should
kidnap this young lady, and carry her away, say to somewhere in North
Carolina, I know very well that my brother would give ten, yes, maybe
twenty thousand pounds by way of ransom to have her safe back again.”
A pause of perfect and unbroken silence followed. “I never did anything
of that kind before,” said Mr. Parker’s visitor at last, “and I
wouldn’t know how to manage it.”
“Why, as for managing it,” said Mr. Parker, “it could be managed
easily enough. You would only have to go up the river some time when
my brother was away from home and when nobody was there, and carry off
the young lady. You live down in North Carolina, and you could take her
home until her father could ransom her.” Then, after a moment or two of
brooding silence, he continued almost with a flash: “But, understand,
she is my niece, and if anything of the kind is done she is to be
treated in every way as befits a lady of such rank and quality in the
world. There shall be no needless roughness, nor anything said or done
after she is taken away from home that may be unfit for her to hear or
to see. I have naught against my niece. I am very fond of her. If her
father suffers, ’tis his own fault, but I will not have her suffer. D’
ye understand?”
“Yes,” said the other with a sort of sullen acquiescence, “I
understand.”
“You have a home down in Bath and you have a wife there, I understand.
The young lady shall be taken to your wife and waited upon by her.”
The other nodded his head, but made no reply. Presently he asked: “But
how is the rest to be managed? How is your brother to be approached,
and how is the money to be handled that is to redeem the young lady?”
“I am about to tell you that,” said Mr. Parker, curtly. “I understand
that Mr. Knight, the Colonial Secretary in North Carolina, is a friend
of yours. Now it shall be arranged that Mr. Knight shall send, by
some decent, respectable merchant-captain, a letter addressed to me.
The letter will be of a kind to tell me that my niece hath been taken
by some of the Pamlico pirates, who hold her for ransom. Then I will
approach my brother, and the matter will be arranged—I acting as my
brother’s agent and Mr. Knight as the agent of the pirates.”
The other listened closely and attentively. “And what share of the
money might you expect when the matter is settled?” he asked.
“I shall expect,” said Mr. Parker, “to have the half of it. You and Mr.
Knight can settle the balance betwixt yourselves.”
The other whistled and then arose, pushing back the chair noisily.
“Why, Mr. Parker,” said he, “I am not used to doing business that way.
If the thing is done at all, I take it, it is done at the risk of my
neck and not at the risk of your neck. The danger falls all upon me and
none of it upon you, and yet you expect the half of all the gain for
yourself. My terms are these: I shall have half of what comes of the
venture, and not you; and you and Mr. Knight, as agents, shall share
the balance betwixt you.”
Mr. Parker also pushed back his chair and rose. “Then, sir,” said
he, “if you choose to quibble so, the business is all over between
us, for I tell you plainly that I shall not abate one single jot or
tittle. I shall have the half of what is made of this venture for my
share, or there shall be no venture and nothing to share at all. As
for that paper of mine you hold, you will get not a farthing upon it
as it stands, and you may send it to my brother if you choose, for,
after all, I can’t be worse ruined than I am now,” and he shrugged his
shoulders.
The other looked into his face for a moment or two, but there was not
a shade or sign of yielding in it. Then he burst out laughing. “Well,
Mr. Tobacco-Planter-Gambler,” said he, “you do drive a mightily hard
bargain, to be sure. Well, as you won’t come to me I must come to you.
I tell you what it is, I will think over all that you have said, and
then let you know your answer.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Parker, “and when will that be?”
“Well, I will let you know it on Wednesday next.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Parker, “I will be down at Parrott’s on Wednesday
next, and then we can settle the matter one way or the other.”
“At Parrott’s, on Wednesday next,” repeated the other. “That will suit
me very well indeed.”
“And now, is there anything more?”
“Why, yes, there is,” said the other. “How about this note of hand that
you was to settle this evening?” and he tapped the breast of his coat.
“That,” said Mr. Parker, “must go without settlement. You shall keep it
for the present as an assurance of good faith upon my part. But when
Mr. Knight sends the letter to me, as I have planned for him to do, the
paper must be inclosed in it and sent to me.”
“And how about settlement upon it?”
“It must,” said Mr. Parker, “go, as I told you, without settlement,
for I tell you plainly that I won’t conclude this business with you if
you hold any paper with my name signed to it. I don’t choose so to put
myself into the hands of any man, much less into your hands.”
Then once more the other burst out laughing. He clapped Mr. Parker upon
the shoulder. Mr. Parker drew himself a little back, though he chose
to show no resentment at his visitor’s familiarity. “Methinks you had
better go now,” said he.
“Very well,” said the other, “very well, I’ll go.”
He stopped only long enough to pour for himself another half-glass of
rum while Mr. Parker stood by watching him; then he opened the door and
walked across the hall and out of the house. Mr. Parker followed him
and stood upon the door-step watching him as he stalked away through
the white moonlight toward the bluff overlooking the misty distance of
the river beyond.