VIII

Madrono Cottage lay at the entrance of a little canada already green

with the early winter rains, and nestled in a thicket of the harlequin

painted trees that gave it a name. The young man was a little relieved

to find that Rosey had gone to the post-office a mile away, and that he

would probably overtake her or meet her returning--alone. The

road--little more than a trail--wound along the crest of the hill

looking across the canada to the long, dark, heavily-wooded flank of

Mount Tamalpais that rose from the valley a dozen miles away. A

cessation of the warm rain, a rift in the sky, and the rare spectacle

of cloud scenery, combined with a certain sense of freedom, restored

that lighthearted gayety that became him most. At a sudden turn of the

road he caught sight of Rosey's figure coming towards him, and

quickened his step with the impulsiveness of a boy. But she suddenly

disappeared, and when he again saw her she was on the other side of the

trail apparently picking the leaves of a manzanita. She had already

seen him.

Somehow the frankness of his greeting was checked. She looked up at

him with cheeks that retained enough of their color to suggest why she

had hesitated, and said, "YOU here, Mr. Renshaw? I thought you were in

Sacramento."

"And I thought YOU were in Petaluma," he retorted gayly. "I have a

letter from your father. The fact is, one of those gentlemen who has

been haunting the ship actually made an entry last night. Who he was,

and what he came for, nobody knows. Perhaps your father gives you his

suspicions." He could not help looking at her narrowly as he handed

her the note. Except that her pretty eyebrows were slightly raised in

curiosity she seemed undisturbed as she opened the letter. Presently

she raised her eyes to his.

"Is this all father gave you?"

"All."

"You're sure you haven't dropped anything?"

"Nothing. I have given you all he gave me."

"And that is all it is." She exhibited the missive, a perfectly blank

sheet of paper folded like a note!

Renshaw felt the angry blood glow in his cheeks. "This is

unpardonable! I assure you, Miss Nott, there must be some mistake. He

himself has probably forgotten the inclosure," he continued, yet with

an inward conviction that the act was perfectly premeditated on the

part of the old man.

The young girl held out her hand frankly. "Don't think any more of it,

Mr. Renshaw. Father is forgetful at times. But tell me about last

night."

In a few words Mr. Renshaw briefly but plainly related the details of

the attempt upon the Pontiac, from the moment that he had been awakened

by Nott, to his discovery of the unknown trespasser's flight by the

open door to the loft. When he had finished, he hesitated, and then

taking Rosey's hand, said impulsively, "You will not be angry with me

if I tell you all? Your father firmly believes that the attempt was

made by the old Frenchman, de Ferrieres, with a view of carrying you

off."

A dozen reasons other than the one her father would have attributed it

to might have called the blood to her face. But only innocence could

have brought the look of astonished indignation to her eyes as she

answered quickly:

"So THAT was what you were laughing at?"

"Not that, Miss Nott," said the young man eagerly: "though I wish to

God I could accuse myself of nothing more disloyal. Do not speak, I

beg," he added impatiently, as Rosey was about to reply. "I have no

right to hear you; I have no right to even stand in your presence until

I have confessed everything. I came to the Pontiac; I made your

acquaintance, Miss Nott, through a fraud as wicked as anything your

father charges to de Ferrieres. I am not a contractor. I never was an

honest lodger in the Pontiac. I was simply a spy."

"But you didn't mean to be--it was some mistake, wasn't it?" said

Rosey, quite white, but more from sympathy with the offender's emotion

than horror at the offense.

"I am afraid I did mean it. But bear with me for a few moments longer

and you shall know all. It's a long story. Will you walk on,

and--take my arm? You do not shrink from me, Miss Nott. Thank you. I

scarcely deserve the kindness."

Indeed so little did Rosey shrink that he was conscious of a slight

reassuring pressure on his arm as they moved forward, and for the

moment I fear the young man felt like exaggerating his offense for the

sake of proportionate sympathy. "Do you remember," he continued, "one

evening when I told you some sea tales, you said you always thought

there must be some story about the Pontiac? There was a story of the

Pontiac, Miss Nott--a wicked story--a terrible story--which I might

have told you, which I OUGHT to have told you--which was the story that

brought me there. You were right, too, in saying that you thought I

had known the Pontiac before I stepped first on her deck that day. I

had."

He laid his disengaged hand across lightly on Rosey's, as if to assure

himself that she was listening.

"I was at that time a sailor. I had been fool enough to run away from

college, thinking it a fine romantic thing to ship before the mast for

a voyage round the world. I was a little disappointed, perhaps, but I

made the best of it, and in two years I was second mate of a whaler

lying in a little harbor of one of the uncivilized islands of the

Pacific. While we were at anchor there a French trading vessel put in,

apparently for water. She had the dregs of a mixed crew of Lascars and

Portuguese, who said they had lost the rest of their men by desertion,

and that the captain and mate had been carried off by fever. There was

something so queer in their story that our skipper took the law in his

own hands, and put me on board of her with a salvage crew. But that

night the French crew mutinied, cut the cables, and would have got to

sea if we had not been armed and prepared, and managed to drive them

below. When we had got them under hatches for a few hours they

parleyed, and offered to go quietly ashore. As we were short of hands

and unable to take them with us, and as we had no evidence against

them, we let them go, took the ship to Callao, turned her over to the

authorities, lodged a claim for salvage, and continued our voyage. When

we returned we found the truth of the story was known. She had been a

French trader from Marseilles, owned by her captain; her crew had

mutinied in the Pacific, killed their officers and the only

passenger--the owner of the cargo. They had made away with the cargo

and a treasure of nearly half a million of Spanish gold for trading

purposes which belonged to the passenger. In course of time the ship

was sold for salvage and put into the South American trade until the

breaking out of the Californian gold excitement, when she was sent with

a cargo to San Francisco. That ship was the Pontiac which your father

bought."

A slight shudder ran through the girl's frame. "I wish--I wish you

hadn't told me," she said. "I shall never close my eyes again

comfortably on board of her, I know."

"I would say that you had purified her of ALL stains of her past--but

there may be one that remains. And THAT in most people's eyes would be

no detraction. You look puzzled, Miss Nott--but I am coming to the

explanation and the end of my story. A ship of war was sent to the

island to punish the mutineers and pirates, for such they were, but

they could not be found. A private expedition was sent to discover the

treasure which they were supposed to have buried, but in vain. About

two months ago Mr. Sleight told me one of his shipmates had sent him a

Lascar sailor who had to dispose of a valuable secret regarding the

Pontiac for a percentage. That secret was that the treasure was never

taken by the mutineers out of the Pontiac! They were about to land and

bury it when we boarded them. They took advantage of their

imprisonment under hatches to BURY IT IN THE SHIP. They hid it in the

hold so securely and safely that it was never detected by us or the

Callao authorities. I was then asked, as one who knew the vessel, to

undertake a private examination of her, with a view of purchasing her

from your father without awakening his suspicions. I assented. You

have my confession now, Miss Nott. You know my crime. I am at your

mercy."

Rosey's arm only tightened around his own. Her eyes sought his. "And

you didn't find anything?" she said.

The question sounded so oddly like Sleight's, that Renshaw returned a

little stiffly--

"I didn't look."

"Why?" asked Rosey simply.

"Because," stammered Renshaw, with an uneasy consciousness of having

exaggerated his sentiment, "it didn't seem honorable; it didn't seem

fair to you."

"Oh, you silly! you might have looked and told ME."

"But," said Renshaw, "do you think that would have been fair to

Sleight?"

"As fair to him as to us. For, don't you see, it wouldn't belong to

any of us. It would belong to the friends or the family of the man who

lost it."

"But there were no heirs," said Renshaw. "That was proved by some

impostor who pretended to be his brother, and libelled the Pontiac at

Callao, but the courts decided he was a lunatic."

"Then it belongs to the poor pirates who risked their own lives for it,

rather than to Sleight, who did nothing." She was silent for a moment,

and then resumed with energy, "I believe he was at the bottom of that

attack last night."

"I have thought so too," said Renshaw.

"Then I must go back at once," she continued impulsively. "Father must

not be left alone."

"Nor must YOU," said Renshaw, quickly. "Do let me return with you, and

share with you and your father the trouble I have brought upon you. Do

not," he added in a lower tone, "deprive me of the only chance of

expiating my offense, of making myself worthy your forgiveness."

"I am sure," said Rosey, lowering her lids and half withdrawing her

arm, "I am sure I have nothing to forgive. You did not believe the

treasure belonged to us any more than to anybody else, until you knew

ME--"

"That is true," said the young man, attempting to take her hand.

"I mean," said Rosey, blushing, and showing a distracting row of little

teeth in one of her infrequent laughs, "oh, you know what I mean." She

withdrew her arm gently, and became interested in the selection of

certain wayside bay leaves as they passed along. "All the same, I

don't believe in this treasure," she said abruptly, as if to change the

subject. "I don't believe it ever was hidden inside the Pontiac."

"That can easily be ascertained now," said Renshaw.

"But it's a pity you didn't find it out while you were about it," said

Rosey. "It would have saved so much talk and trouble."

"I have told you why I didn't search the ship," responded Renshaw, with

a slight bitterness. "But it seems I could only avoid being a great

rascal by becoming a great fool."

"You never intended to be a rascal," said Rosey, earnestly, "and you

couldn't be a fool, except in heeding what a silly girl says. I only

meant if you had taken me into your confidence it would have been

better."

"Might I not say the same to you regarding your friend, the old

Frenchman?" returned Renshaw. "What if I were to confess to you that I

lately suspected him of knowing the secret, and of trying to gain your

assistance?"

Instead of indignantly repudiating the suggestion, to the young man's

great discomfiture, Rosey only knit her pretty brows, and remained for

some minutes silent. Presently she asked timidly,--

"Do you think it wrong to tell another person's secret for their own

good?"

"No," said Renshaw, promptly.

"Then I'll tell you Monsieur de Ferrieres's! But only because I

believe from what you have just said that he will turn out to have some

right to the treasure."

Then with kindling eyes, and a voice eloquent with sympathy, Rosey told

the story of her accidental discovery of de Ferrieres's miserable

existence in the loft. Clothing it with the unconscious poetry of her

fresh, young imagination, she lightly passed over his antique gallantry

and grotesque weakness, exalting only his lonely sufferings and

mysterious wrongs. Renshaw listened, lost between shame for his late

suspicions and admiration for her thoughtful delicacy, until she began

to speak of de Ferrieres's strange allusions to the foreign papers in

his portmanteau. "I think some were law papers, and I am almost

certain I saw the word Callao printed on one of them."

"It may be so," said Renshaw, thoughtfully. "The old Frenchman has

always passed for a harmless, wandering eccentric. I hardly think

public curiosity has ever even sought to know his name, much less his

history. But had we not better first try to find if there IS any

property before we examine his claims to it?"

"As you please," said Rosey, with a slight pout; "but you will find it

much easier to discover him than his treasure. It's always easier to

find the thing you're not looking for."

"Until you want it," said Renshaw, with sudden gravity.

"How pretty it looks over there," said Rosey, turning her conscious

eyes to the opposite mountain.

"Very."

They had reached the top of the hill, and in the near distance the

chimney of Madrono Cottage was even now visible. At the expected sight

they unconsciously stopped--unconsciously disappointed. Rosey broke the

embarrassing silence.

"There's another way home, but it's a roundabout way," she said timidly.

"Let us take it," said Renshaw.