AT POINT SEBASTIAN.
Now the great rambling, wooden hotel in which Miss Elsie Kildare was
staying under care of her friends, the Van Liews, though on the end
of a telegraph-wire, and within easy day’s steam of a railroad, was
not particularly far in crow’s-flight from that uncharted river where
the _Port Edes_ lay stranded on a sand-bar. The hotel, in fact, backed
upon the Everglades, and faced the blue, crisping waters of the Mexican
Gulf. At one side of it was a plantation of sisal hemp, and beyond that
thickets of saw-grass, and beyond again cypress-trees and cabbage-palms
sprouting from an undergrowth which was bound into an impenetrable
_cheveux de frise_ with wait-a-bit thorn. At the other side were newly
planted umbrella-trees, two decrepit orange-bushes without fruit, twenty
luxuriant chumps of elephants’ ears, and then straggles of palmetto-scrub
right down to the soft white banks of Gulf sand. Beyond was clear blue
water, with a rickety wooden wharf straddling a mile out into it, like
some uncouth, gray-legged centipede. And beneath the water, dented rusty
food-cans grew intimate with the coral polyp.
In winter time, Point Sebastian was a resting-place for nabobs of the
north, and a congregation spot for those delightful American women who
leave a convenient husband at work elsewhere on the dollar-mill. But,
in the warmer months, these worthy people did their pleasure-living at
the sea beaches of the north, or the hotels of the Alleghanies; and the
rest-house at Point Sebastian locked and covered most of its glories. The
Floridan who stays in Florida all summer does so usually because of a
tightness in the exchequer; and for the few of him who came to dissipate
a small but hardly scraped-up hoard in a spell of semi-civilization, a
tenth of the available rooms made ample lodging place.
Still there was a summer season of sorts at Point Sebastian, which
was merry enough in its way. Most nights, on the parquet of the hall,
a cheery score danced under the glare of electric lights to the lilt
of Teuton fiddles; and in the cool gloom of the piazzas outside, if
straitened means did prevent the actual drafting of marriage contracts,
even penury undisguised could enjoy the dallyings of the week’s
flirtation. Mr. Kent-Williams and his tribe were entertaining fellows
enough to meet for a limited time, and maidens, come into the hotel for
an annual outing, basked in the odor of their pretty sayings, and frankly
prepared themselves for nothing beyond temporary amusement.
Patrick Onslow met at least five men there he knew, which shows the
great advantage of being a University man; because, since at Oxford
and Cambridge they most successfully refrain from teaching anything
that is of commercial use to any one except a parson or a doctor or a
school-master, it naturally follows that many men from those seats of
learning fail to make a living at home, and drift across the seas.
He did not make the smallest secret about his advent. As the newspapers
had told them already, he had been on the unlucky _Port Edes_ when she
came to grief, but had managed to get ashore by a marvelous streak of
luck, and found himself at a spot where, less than a year ago, he had
been wandering about on a shooting expedition. Thence he had made his way
in a dug-out, bought from a Seminole, to the hotel on Point Sebastian.
_V’la tout_. There was nothing surprising about it. He had had several
opportunities for drowning before that, but none of them had ever come
off. So he supposed that the _Parcæ_ marked him out to live. And—what
would they have? His shout.
At that period Mr. Patrick Onslow was feeling extremely pleased with
himself. He hated the work at which he had been engaged, as any man must
hate being mixed with a swindle, be it great or small. And the end seemed
near—the end, conjoined to full success.
He had had a struggle for it, because once more Captain Kettle had felt
inclined to fight for his own hand rather than do all things for mere
employers, who only paid him a small salary. It was when Onslow woke from
that dead sleep on the wheel grating of the upper bridge, and came down
to learn of the tragedy of the plume-hunters which had taken place during
his unconsciousness, that he got the first hint of this. The little
captain received him with cold stiffness, was wooden when asked for any
suggestion, and snarled when Onslow inquired what ailed him. It was the
donkeyman who put the difficulty into words.
“And, captain, now,” said he, “how much might yez be getting out of all
this for yerself?”
“£500.”
“Begor it’s a mighty lot of money, and little enough too. I wish I’d it
meself, an’ more. I’d like a house ashore, an’ a wife, an’ an ass-cart
that I might dhrive her out in like a gentleman, besides other things.”
“Oh, stop that. Don’t tell me what a man might do if he’d his pick
of the money in this ship. I can figure that out for myself without
suggestions from any blasted Irishman. Have been doing in fact.”
“Ah, now, captain dear, don’t be cross wid me, because I was going on to
say that in case of trouble—in case there was, we’ll say, a thrifling
argument, I’d be on your side. Mr. Onslow, you’re a gentleman, an’ I like
ye well, but the captain here’s me officer—an’—well, sor, a boy must look
after himself sometimes, ’specially when there’s a chance like this ready
to his fingers. ’Twon’t come again in a lifetime.”
“Probably not,” said Onslow. He lay back in his chair with linked fingers
behind his head. “Look here, Kettle, if you want to shoot me, pull out
your gun and get it over. Then you and Sullivan can run the cargo where
you please, and share it how you like. But that’s the only way you’ll
make me consent to your taking what’s beyond your due. Shelf trusted me,
and, by Jove, I’m going to act fairly by Shelf if he were a ten times
bigger thief than I know him to be already. Now then, jump quick; let’s
have it over.”
They were in the chart-house. Captain Kettle puckered his head for a
minute’s thought, and then, getting up, shut and locked the starboard
door. He took that key, and the key also of the other door, which gave
upon the head of the companion-way, and handed them both to Onslow.
“Now, sir,” said he, “you lock me and the donkeyman in here, and go and
do as you like. But I advise you to take your infernal gold somewhere out
of this ship, because as sure as it’s there when I next come out of this
room, so sure do I go and loot it. That’s my bunk there, bang above the
place where it’s stowed, and I’ve sat on top of those sovereigns like a
hen every watch below I’ve had this voyage, and heard ’em chinkle, and
wondered what they’d hatch out into. You perhaps, understand what I mean?”
Onslow nodded.
“Then take the synch from me, sir, and cart your boxes away as quick
as you can. Poor men like me shouldn’t have big temptations. It isn’t
healthy—for their neighbors. No, by James! Here, get out of this, Mr.
Onslow, or I shall be doing you a violence yet; and mind you lock the
door. Donkey-man, you hound, there’s whisky in that bottom locker. Take
the clean glass yourself, and give me the dirty one.”
Onslow read the little man’s mind to a comma, and bowed gravely without
speaking. Then he did as he was bidden with the door and key, and went
below, and began the Herculean task of bringing up the iron-bound specie
boxes one by one out of the cabin where they had ridden from the Mersey
dock. He placed them in the port quarter boat, which he had lowered from
its davits flush with the bridge deck rail; and when she was loaded he
put the boat into the river. He rowed her far up stream, past bights and
bayous, till he found a narrow canal leading off the main river through
mangrove clumps, and held on up that till the boat reached a great round
vat of black water, walled all around with solemn cypress-trees, and
roofed to darkness by their fringing branches.
One by one the boxes were raised on the gunwale and launched with a
sullen plunge; and it seemed an age before the foul-smelling bubbles came
up to tell that they had sounded bottom. And then away back for another
load. And then for a third. The inky water closed over all, and not so
much as a splinter from one of the boxes floated on the surface.
Small fear of any one raiding that _cache_, Onslow thought; and two days
later, with a clear mind, he was cabling “_Right_” to Theodore Shelf from
the Eastern Union Telegraph Company’s Office in the hotel hall at Point
Sebastian.
* * * * *
Now, modern science enables us to cry a message by wire round half
the earth at breakfast time, and have an answer returned to us before
the gong sounds for luncheon; and it was in anticipation of a quick
exchange of news like this that Onslow had come to the nearest outpost of
civilization.
He had hidden his £500,000 of gold, released the two men in the
chart-house, with instructions that when they felt inclined (or
sufficiently recovered) for work they should, with the negroes’ help, set
about transforming the steamer’s appearance; and afterwards had made his
way, partly overland by an Indian’s path he knew of, partly in dug-out
through lagoon and bayou, to Point Sebastian. It was an entire surprise
to him to meet Miss Kildare there. But this time it was no special shock.
That early morning glimpse of her in the schooner had warned him of her
neighborhood.
He got a return message to his cable it is true; but not before noon on
the following day. It said “_Take no steps: am writing_,” and seemed to
hint at a change of plan.
In another place he might have resented the delay. At least eleven days
must pass, and probably more, before a letter could reach him; and all
the while he would be condemned to inaction and anxiety. But, as it was,
he read Mr. Theodore Shelf’s reply cablegram with a frown, which was
quite evanescent, and felt a mild satisfaction in the respite. In the
afternoon he took out Miss Kildare to fish for tarpon.
By one of those singular chances which occur every century or so, a
tarpon they did actually catch on that first day of fishing, a thirty
pound monster, with glittering silver scales on him as big as dollars,
who gave three hours’ frantic fight before he turned his belly to the
skies, and submitted to traveling beachwards in the boat.
“We got him between us,” said Miss Kildare. “That’s my first, and I’ve
tried for him times out of number.”
“My first also, and I’ve tarpon-fished for weeks.”
“We seem to bring one another luck.”
“It’s an undoubted fact, Elsie, we do.”
The deduction seemed to give rise to thoughts in each of them, and they
let their eyes rove vaguely over the blue Gulf waters for the next few
minutes without speaking, whilst the boat rode gently over the windless
swells which slid in through the outlying keys. A porpoise surged past
them, coughing as he chased a shoal of mullet; and, overhead, a string
of purple and yellow cranes screamed wearily as they flapped home to the
Everglades after a day’s hard fishing on a growing reef.
“They’ve all got to make their living,” said Onslow.
“Who?” asked the girl.
“I was thinking of those animals in the water and in the air, and, by
analogy, the rest of the animal world. We all of us prey on something
else, down to the ass who eats grass; or else we die.”
“That’s a very sage remark, Pat. Have you been reading Schopenhauer
lately, or is your bank account unhealthy?”
Onslow laughed. “Was it pessimistic? I’m not given that way as a general
thing. It’s so much pleasanter, for one’s self and everybody else, to
look at matters from the cheerful point of view. But I was thinking at
the time that if I’d been well off, and if other things had not happened
as they did, my life would have been written very differently.”
“You mean you might have been her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Court of
Timbuctoo?”
“Or something in that line, possibly—yes.”
“Mabel,” said the girl, “is free now.”
Onslow nodded dreamily, and once more let his gaze roam out across the
waters. The boat rode uncared for over the gentle oily swells, and the
sound of the surf crumbling on the distant keys fell on his ears, and
droned to him a lingering tale of might-have-been. Mabel was free! The
woman who had once promised to be his wife—the woman whose memory had
driven him from pillar to post across the world through all those long,
wild years, because his abiding love for her was too great a torment to
be borne when he rested for a breathing space in one spot, and had time
for thought. The woman who had, by pressure, been made to marry another
man, whom neither on her wedding day nor at any after time did she ever
love, was free again. Mabel Duvernay now, and Mabel Kildare no longer;
but Mabel still, and free.