THE MASTER OF THE ISLAND.
But here, as Captain Branscome leaned back and caught feebly at the
main rigging for support, there appeared above the after companion
(like a cognisance above an escutcheon) a bent fore-arm, the hand
grasping a beaver hat. It was presently followed by the head of Miss
Belcher, who nodded cheerfully, blinking a little in the level light
of the sunset.
"Hallo!" said she, addressing Plinny, while she adjusted the hat upon
her brow. "Have you been telling the Captain about our visitor?"
"Miss Plinlimmon, ma'am, has given me a shock, and I won't deny it,"
answered the Captain, recovering himself.
Miss Belcher continued to nod like a china mandarin.
"I don't wonder," she agreed. "For my part, you might have knocked
me down with a feather. The fellow came down the creek, cool as you
please, and pulling a nice easy stroke, in Harry's cockboat.
Where is Harry, by the way?"--her eyes lit and fastened upon me--
"Good Lord! what have you been doing to the child?"
"Nothing, ma'am. He has been exploring, and lost his way; that's
all."
"H'm! he seems to have lost it pretty badly. Well, he deserved it.
But, as I was saying, along comes my gentleman, pulling with just the
easy jerk which is the way to make a boat of that sort travel.
Goodfellow was keeping watch. They say that a sailor will recognize
a boat half a mile further off than he'll recognize the man in it,
but Goodfellow isn't a sailor, so that explanation won't fit.
We'll say that he was prepared for the boat returning, but not to
find an entire stranger pulling her. At all events, he let her come
within a couple of gunshots before calling down to the cabin and
giving the alarm. I had my legs up on a locker, and was taking a
siesta over a book--'Parkinson _On The Dog_'--and, by the way, we
were a set of fools not to bring a dog; but I ran up the companion in
a jiffy, and had the sense to catch up your spyglass as I went.
Goodfellow by this time had begun to dance about the deck in a
flutter. He had the tinder-box in his hand, and wanted to know if he
should touch off a rocket. I ordered him to drop it, and fetch me a
musket, which he did. By this time I could see that the man in the
boat was unarmed, so I put up the musket at the 'present,' got the
sight on him, and called out to know his business.
"The man jerked the cockboat round with her stern to the schooner--
these boats come right-about with a single twist--and says he, very
politely lifting his hat, 'You'll pardon me, ma'am, but (as you see)
I have borrowed your young friend's boat. My own was not handy, and
this seemed the quickest way to pay my respects.' 'Indeed?' said I,
'and who may you be?' 'My name, ma'am,' said he, 'is Beauregard--Dr.
Beauregard.' 'I never heard of you,' said I. 'That, ma'am, is
entirely my misfortune,' said he, lifting his hat again; 'but allow
me to say that I am the proprietor of this island, and very much at
your service.'
"Well, this was a facer. It never occurred to any of us--eh?--that
this island might have an owner. To tell the truth, I'm a stickler
for the rights of property, at home; but somehow the notion of an
island like this belonging to any one had never entered my head.
Yet the thing is reasonable enough when you come to think it over;
and, of course, I saw that it put an entirely different complexion
upon our business here."
"My dear Lydia," put in Mr. Rogers, impatiently, "the man's claim
must be absurd. Why, the island is right in the tropics!"
"You wouldn't have thought it a bit absurd if you had heard him,"
retorted Miss Belcher. "He appeared to be quite sure of his ground.
Very pleasant about it, too, he was; said that few visitors ever
honoured his out-of-the way home, but that as soon as any arrived he
always made it a matter of--of punctilio (yes, that was the word) to
put off and bid them welcome. He spoke with the slightest possible
foreign accent, but used admirable English: and, I don't know why,"
wound up Miss Belcher, ingenuously, "but he seemed to divine from the
first that I was an Englishwoman."
"And it wasn't as if we had come here flaunting British colours,"
added Plinny.
"But what sort of man was he?" asked the Captain.
"Height, six foot two or three in his stockings; age, about sixty;
face, clean shaven and fleshy; the features extraordinarily powerful;
hair, jet black, and dyed (if at all) by a process that would make
his fortune if he sold the secret; clothes, black alpaca and well
cut, with silk stockings that would be cheap at two guineas, and
shoes with gold buckles on 'em. I couldn't take my eyes off--no
display about 'em--and yet I doubt if King Louis of France over wore
the like before they cut his head off. Complexion, pale for this
climate, with a sort of silvery shine about it. Manner charming,
voice charming, bearing fit for a grand seigneur; and that's what he
is, or something like it, unless, as I rather incline to suspect,
he's the biggest scoundrel unhung."
"Oh, Miss Belcher!" protested Plinny. "When you agreed with me that
he might have sat for a portrait of a gentleman of the old school!"
"Tut, my dear! When I saw that you had lost your heart to him as
soon as he set foot on deck! Did I say 'of the old school'?
Yes, indeed, and of the very oldest; and, in fact, quite possibly the
Old Gentleman himself."
Now, either I had spoiled Captain Branscome's temper for the day, or
something in this speech of Miss Belcher's especially rasped it.
"But who is this man?" he demanded, in a sharp, authoritative voice.
Miss Belcher stepped back half a pace. I saw her chin go up, and it
seemed to grow square as she answered him with a dangerous coldness.
"I beg your pardon. I thought I told you that he gave his name as
Dr. Beauregard."
"You had no business, ma'am, to allow him on board the ship."
"No business?"
"No business, ma'am. I have just been having words with young Harry,
here, over his disobedience this afternoon; but this is infinitely
more serious. We are here to search for treasure. We no sooner drop
anchor than a man visits us, who claims that the island is his.
This at once presupposes his claim upon any treasure that may be
hidden upon it, and consequently that, as soon as he discovers our
purpose, he will be our enemy. It follows, I should imagine, that of
all steps the most fatal was to admit him on board to discover our
weakness."
"Our weakness, sir?" asked Miss Belcher, carelessly, as though but
half attending.
"Our weakness, ma'am; as it was doubtless to discover our weakness
that he came."
"Now, I rather thought," murmured Miss Belcher, "that Miss Plinlimmon
and I had spent a great part of this afternoon in impressing him with
our strength."
"To be sure," pursued Captain Branscome, "with such a company as he
found on board, he can scarcely have suspected a treasure hunt.
Still, when he does suspect it--as sooner or later he must--he will
know our weakness."
"He could scarcely have dealt with us more frankly than he did, at
any rate," said Miss Belcher, with an air of simplicity; "for he
assured us he was alone on the island."
"And you believed him, ma'am?"
"I forget, sir, if I believed him; but he certainly knows that we are
here in search of treasure, for I told him so myself."
Captain Branscome gasped. "You--you told him so?" he echoed.
"I did, and he replied that it scarcely surprised him to hear it,
that of the few vessels which found their way to Mortallone, quite an
appreciable proportion came with some idea of discovering treasure.
The proportion, he added, had fallen off of late years, and the
most of them nowadays put in to water, but there was a time when
the treasure-seekers threatened to become a positive nuisance.
He said this with a smile which disarmed all suspicion. In fact, it
was impossible to take offence with the man."
But at this point Plinny, frightened perhaps at the warnings of
apoplexy in Captain Branscome's face, laid a hand gently on Miss
Belcher's arm.
"Are we treating our good friend quite fairly?" she asked.
Miss Belcher glanced at her and broke into a ringing laugh.
"You dear creature! No, to be sure, we are not; but from a child I
always turned mischievous under correction. Captain Branscome, I beg
your pardon."
"It is granted, ma'am."
"And--for I take you to be on the point of resigning, here and now--"
"Ma'am, you have guessed correctly."
"I am going to beg you to do nothing of the sort. No, I am not
going to ask it only as a favour, but to appeal to your reason.
You think it extremely rash of me to have entertained this man and
talked with him so frankly? Well, but consider. To begin with, if
I had not told him that we were after the treasure, he would probably
have guessed it; nay, I make bold to say that he guessed it already,
for--I forgot to mention it--he knows Harry Brooks."
"Knows _me_, ma'am?" I cried out, as all the company turned and
stared at me.
"He says so, and that he recognized you as you were sculling up the
creek."
"Knows _me_?" I echoed. "But who on earth can he be, then? Not--not
the man Aaron Glass, surely?"
"I was wondering," said Miss Belcher.
"But--but Aaron Glass wasn't a bit like this man, as you make him
out; a thin, foxy-looking fellow, with sandy hair and a face full of
wrinkles, about the middling height, with sloping shoulders--"
"Then he can't be Aaron Glass. But whoever he is, he knows you--
that's the important point--and pretty certainly connects you with
the treasure. He didn't seem to have met Goodfellow before.
Well, now, if he lives alone here--which, I admit, is not likely--we
ought to be more than a match for him. If, on the other hand, he has
men at his call--and I ask your particular attention here, Captain--
it was surely no folly at all, but the plainest common sense, to
admit him on board. He will go off and report that our ship's
company consists of two middle-aged maiden ladies (I occupied myself
with tatting a chair-cover while he conversed); a boy; Mr. Goodfellow
(whatever he may have made of Goodfellow); and two gentlemen ashore
to whose mental and physical powers I was careful to do some
injustice. You will pardon me, Captain, but I laid more than
warrantable stress on your lameness; and us for you, Jack, I depicted
you as a mere country booby"--here Mr. Rogers bowed amiably--"and
added by way of confirmation that I had known you from childhood.
He will go back and report all this, with the certain consequence
that he and his confederates will mistake us for a crew of
crack-brained eccentrics."
When she had done, the Captain stood considering for a moment,
rubbing his chin.
"Yes," he admitted slowly, "there seems reason in that, ma'am;
reason and method. But 'tis a kind of reason and method outside all
my experience, and you must excuse me if I get the grip of it slowly.
I should like a good look at the man before saying more."
"As to that," answered Miss Belcher, "you won't have long to wait
for it. He has invited us all ashore to-morrow, for a picnic.
He charged me to say--if he did not happen to run against you as he
was returning the cockboat--that he would be at the creek-head
punctually at nine-thirty to await us."
Two hours later Captain Branscome sent word for me to attend him in
his cabin.
"I want to tell you, Harry Brooks," said the old man, turning away
from me while he lit his pipe, "that I have been thinking over what
happened this afternoon."
"I was in the wrong, sir."
"You were; and I am glad to hear you acknowledge it. Now, what I
want to say is this. Had affairs gone in the least as I expected, I
should have held you to 'strict service,' as we used to say on the
old packets. I never tolerated a favourite on board, and never
shall. But these ladies don't make a favourite of you; that's not
the trouble. The trouble--no, I won't call it even that--is that you
and they all cannot help taking the bit between your teeth. It don't
appear to be your fault; you wasn't bred to the sea, and can't tumble
to sea-fashions. 'So much the worse,' a man might say. The plague
of it is, I can't be sure; and after casting it up and down, I've
determined to let you have your way."
"You don't mean, sir, that you're going to resign!" said I,
confounded.
"No, I don't. Saving your objections, boy, I was elected captain,
and it don't do away with my responsibility that I choose to let
discipline go to the winds. If mischief comes I shall be to blame,
because I might have stopped it but didn't."
I was silent. This should have been the time for me to tell what I
had discovered that afternoon; of the graveyard and the two strange
women. But shame tied my tongue. I saw that this noble gentleman,
in imparting his thoughts to me, was really condescending to ask my
pardon; and the injustice of it was so monstrous that I felt a
delicacy in letting him know the extent of my unworthiness.
I temporized, and promised myself a better occasion.
"But are you quite sure, sir, that yours was not the wisest plan,
after all?"
"The question is not worth considering," he answered. "My policy--
you would hardly call it a plan, for it wholly depended on
circumstances--no longer exists. The ladies, you see, have forced my
hand."
I forbore to tell him that if the ladies had forced his hand his
accepting full responsibility was simply quixotic.
"She's a wonderful woman," said I, by way of filling up the pause.
"And so womanly!" assented Captain Branscome, to my entire surprise.
"Indeed, sir," I stammered. "Well, I _have_ heard people say--Mr.
Rogers for one--that Miss Belcher ought to have been born a man."
"Miss Belcher? Why, heavens alive, boy, I was referring to Miss
Plinlimmon!"
He dismissed me with a wave of the hand, but called me back as I
turned to the door.
"Oh, by the way," said he, "I had almost forgotten the reason why I
sent for you. This man--have you any notion who he can be?"
"None, sir."
"You've thought over every possible person of your acquaintance?
Well"--as I nodded--"we shall know to-morrow morning, if he keeps his
word. Mr. Rogers has kindly undertaken to stay and look after the
schooner. He has a sense of discipline, by the way, has Mr. Rogers."
"If you wish me, sir, to stay with him-"
"Thank you," he interrupted dryly, "but we shall need you ashore; in
the first place to indentify this mysterious stranger, and also to
help protect the ladies. Their escort, Heaven knows, is not
excessive. We take the gig, and if the man fails to appear, or
brings even so much as one companion, I give the word to return."
But these apprehensions proved to be groundless. As we rowed around
the bend next morning into view of the creek-head the man stood there
alone, awaiting us. He saw us at once, and lifted his hat in
welcome.
"Do you know him, Harry?" asked Miss Belcher.
"No," said I, pretty confidently, and then--"But, yes--in the garden,
that evening--the day you went up to Plymouth for the sale!"
"Eh? The garden at Minden Cottage? What on earth was he doing
there?"
"Nothing, ma'am--at least, I don't know. He seemed to be taking
measurements, and he gave me a guinea. I rather think, ma'am, he was
the man that attended the auction."
"You never saw him until that evening?"
"No."
"Nor afterwards?"
"Only that once, ma'am."
"Oh!" said Miss Belcher.