With an exclamation and a hurried glance around him, de Ferrieres threw
himself before the intruder. But slowly lifting his large hand, and
placing it on his lodger's breast, he quietly overbore the sick man's
feeble resistance with an impact of power that seemed almost as moral
as it was physical. He did not appear to take any notice of the room
or its miserable surroundings; indeed, scarcely of the occupant. Still
pushing him, with abstracted eyes and immobile face, to the chair that
Rosey had just quitted, he made him sit down, and then took up his own
position on the pile of cushions opposite. His usually underdone
complexion was of watery blueness; but his dull, abstracted glance
appeared to exercise a certain dumb, narcotic fascination on his lodger.
"I mout," said Nott, slowly, "hev laid ye out here on sight, without
enny warnin', or dropped ye in yer tracks in Montgomery Street,
wherever ther was room to work a six-shooter in comf'ably? Johnson, of
Petaluny--him, ye know, ez had a game eye--fetched Flynn comin' outer
meetin' one Sunday, and it was only on account of his wife, and she a
second-hand one, so to speak. There was Walker, of Contra Costa,
plugged that young Sacramento chap, whose name I disremember, full o'
holes just ez HE was sayin' 'Good by' to his darter. I mout hev done
all this if it had settled things to please me. For while you and
Flynn and that Sacramento chap ez all about the same sort o' men,
Rosey's a different kind from their sort o' women."
"Mademoiselle is an angel!" said de Ferrieres, suddenly rising, with an
excess of extravagance. "A saint! Look! I cram the lie, ha! down his
throat who challenges it."
"Ef by mam'selle ye mean my Rosey," said Nott, quietly laying his
powerful hands on de Ferrieres's shoulders, and slowly pinning him down
again upon his chair, "ye're about right, though she ain't mam'selle
yet. Ez I was sayin', I might hev killed you off-hand if I hed thought
it would hev been a good thing for Rosey."
"For her? Ah, well! Look, I am ready," interrupted de Ferrieres,
again springing to his feet, and throwing open his coat with both
hands. "See! here at my heart--fire!"
"Ez I was sayin'," continued Nott, once more pressing the excited man
down in his chair, "I might hev wiped ye out--and mebbee ye wouldn't
hev keered--or YOU might hev wiped ME out, and I mout hev said,
'Thank'ee,' but I reckon this ain't a case for what's comf'able for you
and me. It's what's good for ROSEY. And the thing to kalkilate is,
what's to be done."
His small round eyes for the first time rested on de Ferrieres's face,
and were quickly withdrawn. It was evident that this abstracted look,
which had fascinated his lodger, was merely a resolute avoidance of de
Ferrieres's glance, and it became apparent later that this avoidance
was due to a ludicrous appreciation of de Ferrieres's attractions.
"And after we've done THAT we must kalkilate what Rosey is, and what
Rosey wants. P'raps, ye allow, YOU know what Rosey is? P'raps you've
seen her prance round in velvet bonnets and white satin slippers, and
sich. P'raps you've seen her readin' tracks and v'yages, without
waitin' to spell a word, or catch her breath. But that ain't the Rosey
ez I know. It's a little child ez uster crawl in and out the
tail-board of a Mizzouri wagon on the alcali pizoned plains, where
there wasn't another bit of God's mercy on yearth to be seen for miles
and miles. It's a little gal as uster hunger and thirst ez quiet and
mannerly ez she now eats and drinks in plenty; whose voice was ez
steady with Injins yelling round her nest in the leaves on Sweetwater
ez in her purty cabin up yonder. THAT'S the gal ez I know! That's the
Rosey ez my ole woman puts into my arms one night arter we left Laramie
when the fever was high, and sez, 'Abner,' sez she, 'the chariot is
swingin' low for me to-night, but thar ain't room in it for her or you
to git in or hitch on. Take her and rare her, so we kin all jine on
the other shore,' sez she. And I'd knowed the other shore wasn't no
Kaliforny. And that night, p'raps, the chariot swung lower than ever
before, and my ole woman stepped into it, and left me and Rosey to
creep on in the old wagon alone. It's them kind o' things," added Mr.
Nott thoughtfully, "that seem to pint to my killin' you on sight ez the
best thing to be done. And yet Rosey mightn't like it."
He had slipped one of his feet out of his huge carpet slippers, and, as
he reached down to put it on again, he added calmly: "And ez to yer
marrying HER it ain't to be done."
The utterly bewildered expression which transfigured de Ferrieres's
face at this announcement was unobserved by Nott's averted eyes, nor
did he perceive that his listener the next moment straightened his
erect figure and adjusted his cravat.
"Ef Rosey," he continued, "hez read in vy'ges and tracks in Eyetalian
and French countries of such chaps ez you and kalkilates you're the
right kind to tie to, mebbee it mout hev done if you'd been livin' over
thar in a pallis, but somehow it don't jibe in over here and agree with
a ship--and that ship lying comf'able ashore in San Francisco. You
don't seem to suit the climate, you see, and your general gait is
likely to stampede the other cattle. Agin," said Nott, with an
ostentation of looking at his companion but really gazing on vacancy,
"this fixed up, antique style of yours goes better with them ivy
kivered ruins in Rome and Palmyry that Rosey's mixed you up with, than
it would yere. I ain't saying," he added as de Ferrieres was about to
speak, "I ain't sayin' ez that child ain't smitten with ye. It ain't
no use to lie and say she don't prefer you to her old father, or young
chaps of her own age and kind. I've seed it afor now. I suspicioned
it afor I seed her slip out o' this place to-night. Thar! keep your
hair on, such ez it is!" he added as de Ferrieres attempted a quick
deprecatory gesture. "I ain't askin yer how often she comes here, nor
what she sez to you nor you to her. I ain't asked her and I don't ask
you. I'll allow ez you've settled all the preliminaries and bought her
the ring and sich; I'm only askin' you now, kalkilatin you've got all
the keerds in your own hand, what you'll take to step out and leave the
board?"
The dazed look of de Ferrieres might have forced itself even upon
Nott's one-idead fatuity, had it not been a part of that gentleman's
system delicately to look another way at that moment so as not to
embarrass his adversary's calculation. "Pardon," stammered de
Ferrieres, "but I do not comprehend!" He raised his hand to his head.
"I am not well--I am stupid. Ah, mon Dieu!"
"I ain't sayin'," added Nott more gently, "ez you don't feel bad. It's
nat'ral. But it ain't business. I'm asking you," he continued, taking
from his breast-pocket a large wallet, "how much you'll take in cash
now, and the rest next steamer day, to give up Rosey and leave the
ship."
De Ferrieres staggered to his feet despite Nott's restraining hand. "To
leave Mademoiselle and leave the ship?" he said huskily, "is it not?"
"In course. Yer can leave things yer just ez you found 'em when you
came, you know," continued Nott, for the first time looking around the
miserable apartment. "It's a business job. I'll take the bales back
ag'in, and you kin reckon up what you're out, countin' Rosey and loss
o' time."
"He wishes me to go--he has said," repeated de Ferrieres to himself
thickly.
"Ef you mean ME when you say HIM, and ez thar ain't any other man
around, I reckon you do--'yes!'"
"And he asks me--he--this man of the feet and the daughter--asks me--de
Ferrieres--what I will take," continued de Ferrieres, buttoning his
coat. "No! it is a dream!" He walked stiffly to the corner where his
portmanteau lay, lifted it, and going to the outer door, a cut through
the ship's side that communicated with the alley, unlocked it and flung
it open to the night. A thick mist like the breath of the ocean flowed
into the room.
"You ask me what I shall take to go," he said as he stood on the
threshold. "I shall take what YOU cannot give, Monsieur, but what I
would not keep if I stood here another moment. I take my Honor,
Monsieur, and--I take my leave!"
For a moment his grotesque figure was outlined in the opening, and then
disappeared as if he had dropped into an invisible ocean below.
Stupefied and disconcerted at this complete success of his overtures,
Abner Nott remained speechless, gazing at the vacant space until a cold
influx of the mist recalled him. Then he rose and shuffled quickly to
the door.
"Hi! Ferrers! Look yer--Say! Wot's your hurry, pardner?"
But there was no response. The thick mist, which hid the surrounding
objects, seemed to deaden all sound also. After a moment's pause he
closed the door, but did not lock it, and retreating to the centre of
the room remained blinking at the two candles and plucking some
perplexing problem from his beard. Suddenly an idea seized him. Rosey!
Where was she? Perhaps it had been a preconcerted plan, and she had
fled with him. Putting out the lights, he stumbled hurriedly through
the passage to the gangway above. The cabin-door was open; there was
the sound of voices--Renshaw's and Rosey's. Mr. Nott felt relieved but
not unembarrassed. He would have avoided his daughter's presence that
evening. But even while making this resolution with characteristic
infelicity he blundered into the room. Rosey looked up with a slight
start; Renshaw's animated face was changed to its former expression of
inward discontent.
"You came in so like a ghost, father," said Rosey with a slight
peevishness that was new to her. "And I thought you were in town.
Don't go, Mr. Renshaw."
But Mr. Renshaw intimated that he had already trespassed upon Miss
Nott's time, and that no doubt her father wanted to talk with her. To
his surprise and annoyance, however, Mr. Nott insisted on accompanying
him to his room, and without heeding Renshaw's cold "Good-night,"
entered and closed the door behind him.
"P'rap's," said Mr. Nott with a troubled air, "you disremember that
when you first kem here you asked me if you could hev that 'er loft
that the Frenchman had down stairs."
"No, I don't remember it," said Renshaw almost rudely. "But," he
added, after a pause, with an air of a man obliged to revive a stale
and unpleasant memory, "if I did--what about it?"
"Nuthin', only that you kin hev it to-morrow, ez that 'ere Frenchman is
movin' out," responded Nott. "I thought you was sorter keen about it
when you first kem."
"Umph! we'll talk about it to-morrow." Something in the look of
wearied perplexity with which Mr. Nott was beginning to regard his own
mal a propos presence, arrested the young man's attention. "What's the
reason you didn't sell this old ship long ago, take a decent house in
the town, and bring up your daughter like a lady?" he asked with a
sudden blunt good humor. But even this implied blasphemy against the
habitation he worshiped did not prevent Mr. Nott from his usual
misconstruction of the question.
"I reckon, now, Rosey's got high-flown ideas of livin' in a castle with
ruins, eh?" he said cunningly.
"Haven't heard her say," returned Renshaw abruptly. "Good-night."
Firmly convinced that Rosey had been unable to conceal from Mr. Renshaw
the influence of her dreams of a castellated future with de Ferrieres,
he regained the cabin. Satisfying himself that his daughter had
retired, he sought his own couch. But not to sleep. The figure of de
Ferrieres, standing in the ship side and melting into the outer
darkness, haunted him, and compelled him in dreams to rise and follow
him through the alleys and by-ways of the crowded city. Again, it was
a part of his morbid suspicion that he now invested the absent man with
a potential significance and an unknown power. What deep-laid plans
might he not form to possess himself of Rosey, of which he, Abner Nott,
would be ignorant? Unchecked by the restraint of a father's roof he
would now give full license to his power. "Said he'd take his Honor
with him," muttered Abner to himself in the dim watches of the night;
"lookin' at that sayin' in its right light, it looks bad."
V
The elaborately untruthful account which Mr. Nott gave his daughter of
de Ferrieres's sudden departure was more fortunate than his usual
equivocations. While it disappointed and slightly mortified her, it
did not seem to her inconsistent with what she already knew of him.
"Said his doctor had ordered him to quit town under an hour, owing to a
comin' attack of hay fever, and he had a friend from furrin parts
waitin' him at the Springs, Rosey," explained Nott, hesitating between
his desire to avoid his daughter's eyes and his wish to observe her
countenance.
"Was he worse?--I mean did he look badly, father?" inquired Rosey
thoughtfully.
"I reckon not exackly bad. Kinder looked ez if he mout be worse soon
ef he didn't hump hisself."
"Did you see him?--in his room?" asked Rosey anxiously. Upon the
answer to this simple question depended the future confidential
relations of father and daughter. If her father had himself detected
the means by which his lodger existed, she felt that her own
obligations to secrecy had been removed. But Mr. Nott's answer
disposed of this vain hope. It was a response after his usual fashion
to the question he IMAGINED she artfully wished to ask, i. e. if he had
discovered their rendezvous of the previous night. This it was part of
his peculiar delicacy to ignore. Yet his reply showed that he had been
unconscious of the one miserable secret that he might have read easily.
"I was there an hour or so--him and me alone--discussin' trade. I
reckon he's got a good thing outer that curled horse hair, for I see
he's got in an invoice o' cushions. I've stored 'em all in the forrard
bulkhead until he sends for 'em, ez Mr. Renshaw hez taken the loft."
But although Mr. Renshaw had taken the loft, he did not seem in haste
to occupy it. He spent part of the morning in uneasily pacing his
room, in occasional sallies into the street from which he purposelessly
returned, and once or twice in distant and furtive contemplation of
Rosey at work in the galley. This last observation was not unnoticed
by the astute Nott, who at once conceiving that he was nourishing a
secret and hopeless passion for Rosey, began to consider whether it was
not his duty to warn the young man of her preoccupied affections. But
Mr. Renshaw's final disappearance obliged him to withhold his
confidence till morning.
This time Mr. Renshaw left the ship with the evident determination of
some settled purpose. He walked rapidly until he reached the
counting-house of Mr. Sleight, when he was at once shown into a private
office. In a few moments Mr. Sleight, a brusque but passionless man,
joined him.
"Well," said Sleight, closing the door carefully. "What news?"
"None," said Renshaw bluntly. "Look here, Sleight," he added, turning
to him suddenly. "Let me out of this game. I don't like it."
"Does that mean you've found nothing?" asked Sleight, sarcastically.
"It means that I haven't looked for anything, and that I don't intend
to without the full knowledge of that d----d fool who owns the ship."
"You've changed your mind since you wrote that letter," said Sleight
coolly, producing from a drawer the note already known to the reader.
Renshaw mechanically extended his hand to take it. Mr. Sleight dropped
the letter back into the drawer, which he quietly locked. The
apparently simple act dyed Mr. Renshaw's cheek with color, but it
vanished quickly, and with it any token of his previous embarrassment.
He looked at Sleight with the convinced air of a resolute man who had
at last taken a disagreeable step but was willing to stand by the
consequences.
"I HAVE changed my mind," he said coolly. "I found out that it was one
thing to go down there as a skilled prospector might go to examine a
mine that was to be valued according to his report of the indications,
but that it was entirely another thing to go and play the spy in a poor
devil's house in order to buy something he didn't know he was selling
and wouldn't sell if he did."
"And something that the man HE bought of didn't think of selling;
something HE himself never paid for, and never expected to buy,"
sneered Sleight.
"But something that WE expect to buy from our knowledge of all this,
and it is that which makes all the difference."
"But you knew all this before."
"I never saw it in this light before! I never thought of it until I
was living there face to face with the old fool I was intending to
overreach. I never was SURE of it until this morning, when he actually
turned out one of his lodgers that I might have the very room I
required to play off our little game in comfortably. When he did that,
I made up my mind to drop the whole thing, and I'm here to do it."
"And let somebody else take the responsibility--with the
percentage--unless you've also felt it your duty to warn Nott too,"
said Sleight with a sneer.
"You only dare say that to me, Sleight," said Renshaw quietly, "because
you have in that drawer an equal evidence of my folly and my
confidence; but if you are wise you will not presume too far on either.
Let us see how we stand. Through the yarn of a drunken captain and a
mutinous sailor you became aware of an unclaimed shipment of treasure,
concealed in an unknown ship that entered this harbor. You are
enabled, through me, to corroborate some facts and identify the ship.
You proposed to me, as a speculation, to identify the treasure if
possible before you purchased the ship. I accepted the offer without
consideration; on consideration I now decline it, but without prejudice
or loss to any one but myself. As to your insinuation I need not remind
you that my presence here to-day refutes it. I would not require your
permission to make a much better bargain with a good natured fool like
Nott than I could with you. Or if I did not care for the business I
could have warned the girl--"
"The girl--what girl?"
Renshaw bit his lip but answered boldly, "The old man's daughter--a
poor girl--whom this act would rob as well as her father."
Sleight looked at his companion attentively. "You might have said so
at first, and let up on this camp-meetin' exhortation. Well
then--admitting you've got the old man and the young girl on the same
string, and that you've played it pretty low down in the short time
you've been there--I suppose, Dick Renshaw, I've got to see your bluff.
Well, how much is it! What's the figure you and she have settled on?"
For an instant Mr. Sleight was in physical danger. But before he had
finished speaking Renshaw's quick sense of the ludicrous had so far
overcome his first indignation as to enable him even to admire the
perfect moral insensibility of his companion. As he rose and walked
towards the door, he half wondered that he had ever treated the affair
seriously. With a smile he replied:
"Far from bluffing, Sleight, I am throwing my cards on the table.
Consider that I've passed out. Let some other man take my hand. Rake
down the pot if you like, old man, I leave for Sacramento to-night.
Adios."
When the door had closed behind him Mr. Sleight summoned his clerk.
"Is that petition for grading Pontiac Street ready?"
"I've seen the largest property holders, sir; they're only waiting for
you to sign first." Mr. Sleight paused and then affixed his signature
to the paper his clerk laid before him. "Get the other names and send
it up at once."
"If Mr. Nott doesn't sign, sir?"
"No matter. He will be assessed all the same." Mr. Sleight took up
his hat.
"The Lascar seaman that was here the other day has been wanting to see
you, sir. I said you were busy."