THE BOX OF JEWELS.
"I'll have an end of this," said Thrasher, as he went into the cabin
restless and anxious. Throwing himself on the locker, he began muttering
to himself. "As for keeping this child to hang around my neck like a
millstone, I never will. He's old enough to remember every thing; and if
the negro tells tales he'll be sure to cherish them. What possesses Rice
to rise up against me in this way? If he'd been quiet, I'd have had 'em
both under water before half the voyage was over."
Thrasher lay awhile revolving these thoughts in his mind, without
arriving at any satisfactory conclusion. At last, a new anxiety seized
upon him; he started up, and went to the closet set into the wall, in
which he had seen Captain Mason secure the box of jewels that Jube had
placed in his keeping.
"It's fortunate I secured this," he muttered, taking a key from his vest
pocket, and fitting it into the lock. "He didn't know I was on the
watch, careful as he was. Ha, it's all here! and that nigger knows it as
well as I do. He'll tell, and then Rice'll take another hitch in the
eternal rope that's being knotted around me. I would give any thing to
know exactly what the fellow is at, but I won't ask questions, that's
against my principles; they let out too much."
As he spoke, Thrasher sat down, placed the bronze box on his knee, and
forced the lid open. Just as we have seen them before, the jewels lay
huddled together, without cushions or caskets; but, here and there, a
fragment of crimson or white satin clung to them as if they had been
torn away from their cases in wild haste.
"Now, I dare say, this is worth lots of money, if one only knew about
it," he said, taking up a necklace, formed in links of large, oblong
opals, with rainbows breaking in fragments from their hearts, and
rivulets of diamonds running around them. "How it glitters! This would
be pretty for _her_. I wonder if she'd take it from me now? or warn me
off as she did that evening? Well, I don't know about that--a poor
wretch, with nothing but his good looks, and so on, to recommend him, is
another thing from a fellow that can come to a woman with both hands
full of yellow gold and such things as this. Wouldn't they blaze on that
white neck!--such a neck, with shoulders that dimple like a baby's hand!
I saw them once when she was dressed to go out with him. She little
thought I was under the window, and that a corner of the paper curtain
was turned up, just leaving a peep-hole. How softly the white dress was
folded over her bosom. Lord, how my heart went down as she put on that
lace cape, and fastened it with a wild rose that he had given her before
my very face! No wonder I hated him! there isn't a man on earth that
could have helped it. Handsome--was he really handsomer than I? did she
love him so very much? Oh, how it blazes! These are real diamonds, no
mistake about that. How the light rains from them! Oh, how I'd like to
see it flashing on her neck, just as it was then, with two or three of
these things in her yellow curls. Women like these gew-gaws; and she's
fond of pretty things--like a child about them; besides, she'll be poor
enough before I get home, she and the child--his child."
He crushed the necklace in his hand, as the image of a pretty, fair
haired baby girl rose before him, and crowded it fiercely down into the
box. "She'd be wanting some of them for her, I dare say. Well, perhaps
that woman could do any thing with me; in fact, when I first knew her,
any kind woman, from my mother down, would mould me as she liked, I was
wax then; but after she married him--well, it's no use thinking what one
has been, or how much better things might have turned out; there's iron
enough in me now. Still, I loved her then well enough to go mad and run
away from all that ever cared for me. I might have been a gentleman; the
old folks educated me well enough for that or any thing else, but she
drove me out before the mast. Storms and hardships was what I wanted; I
got enough of it in the end. It made me tough and hard as the rocks we
sometimes narrowly escaped. Cruel, too--every one says that--but I could
be kind to her and the little girl, perhaps, if the mother loved me. If
not, oh, how I should hate the blue-eyed imp."
These thoughts seemed to excite the man beyond anything that persons
knowing his stern character would have believed. His hands clutched and
unclutched themselves in the jewels, his lips quivered, and alternate
gleams of fire and clouds of mist chased each other in his eyes. He
started up, thrust the box back to its closet, forgetting the fears that
had urged him to seek for it, and putting the key back into his pocket
went on deck. The first sharp gust of wind that swept his face carried
off these feverish thoughts and he grew hard as rock again.
Paul was on deck, crouching down among the barrels and bales of
merchandise that offered him friendly concealment. Wretched and
heart-broken, the child watched for Rice. When he saw Thrasher, fear
made him shrink together and hold his breath as if some wild beast were
creeping along his path. After a little, the mate went down again and
Rice appeared.
The boy crept from his hiding-place and came up to the sailor.
"What have you done with him? please tell me."
"Oh, here you are, as large as life," said Rice, who had missed Paul
from the deck, and felt some relief at finding him alone and so quiet.
"Done with him? why cleared out a snug harbor in the hold, and anchored
him safe and sound. Come along, if you want to see."
"Oh, yes, yes, I want it so much. Is it dark?"
"Rayther, I should think."
"May I hold your hand?"
"Aye, aye, come along afore the captain knocks us all aback."
"Who goes there," cried out a voice from the cabin stairs.
"Nobody but Rice and this 'ere little shaver," answered Rice, facing
round to meet Thrasher.
"Where are you taking him?"
"Nowhere just now--he wants to take a look out."
"Very well--pass on."
Thrasher went down to the cabin again; he had seen Rice as he led the
boy across the deck, and understood the opposition which was going on to
his wishes. The train of thought that had seized him while examining the
jewels had not entirely passed away, but with it came others appealing
to his worst passions, and mingling themselves, as evil things sometimes
will, with much that was tender and pure in the man's nature. He was
not all bad--what human being is?--but he was a strong man, and used his
evil strength without scruple to secure the love, which was, in truth,
wounding him daily with its hungry cries.
Thrasher was afraid of Rice, and with him fear was an incentive to
action. Jube and the boy Paul were also sources of great anxiety. They
might interfere with his one great hope, and utterly destroy the
brilliant future that lay so temptingly before him. All this was food
for thought, and made him more than usually morose.
The sensitive nature of the boy Paul had suffered acutely by the
indignity that had been put upon him, and still more by the awful scene
of Jube's punishment. But there was a noble spirit in that little frame,
and though he shrank from encountering his enemy, it was not from a
cowardly feeling, but as a brave man may evade a wild beast that
possesses a hundred-fold of his own physical powers. No amount of
punishment would have induced the child to submit meanly; but he was a
creature of exquisite refinement, and had, all his little life, been
shielded from the first approach of sorrow. Within the last few weeks,
he had been cast headlong into the boiling vortex of the most terrible
scenes that ever disgraced humanity--scenes that drove many a stout man
insane, and left a whole population at the mercy of savage, maddened
slaves. He, a young, sensitive child, brought up in luxury, shielded
from the very breath of a flower if it was not grateful to his fine
sense--loved by his parents--idolized by a host of servants--had
struggled through death, and horrors sharper than death, to find himself
worse off a thousand times on board that brig, than any of his father's
slaves had ever been.
And now his only friend was torn away, and cast into the black depths of
the hold, smarting with pain, writhing under the ignominy of a first
blow, and chained hand and foot like a mad dog. If little Paul had known
that the captain would kill him, I think he might have found his way to
that poor friend.
At last they were together, down in the black hollows of the ship, with
scarcely a breath of air, and surrounded by a host of uncouth objects,
which appalled them like the walls of a prison. They had no light, and
the rush and gurgle of the waves sounded horribly distinct. Jube held up
bravely after his little master came to bear him company. No groan
escaped his lips, but he insisted on sitting up, and made Paul nestle
close to him, striving to soothe and comfort the child, spite of his own
keen suffering.