CATHEWE ADVISES AND THE ADMIRAL DISCLOSES
One day they dropped anchor in the sapphire bay of Funchal, in the
summer calm, hot and glaring; Funchal, with its dense tropical growth,
its cloud-wreathed mountains, its amethystine sisters in the faded
southeast. And for two days, while Captain Flanagan recoaled, they
played like children, jolting round in the low bullock-carts, climbing
the mountains or bumping down the corduroy road. It was the strangest
treasure hunt that ever left a home port. It was more like a page out
of a boy's frolic than a sober quest by grown-ups. That danger, menace
and death hid in covert would have appealed to them (those who knew) as
ridiculous, impossible, obsolete. The story of cutlass and pistol and
highboots had been molding in archives these eighty-odd years.
Dangers? From whom, from what direction? No one suggested the
possibility, even in jest; and the only man who could have advanced,
with reasonable assurance, that danger, real and serious, existed, was
too busy apparently with his butterfly-net. Still, he had not yet been
consulted; he was not supposed to know that this cruise was weighted
with something more than pleasure.
Fitzgerald waited with an impatience which often choked him. A secret
agent had not so adroitly joined this expedition for the pleasure of
seeing a treasure dug up from some reluctant grave. What was he after?
If indeed Breitmann was directly concerned, if he knew of the
treasure's existence, of what benefit now would be his knowledge? A
share in the finding at most. And was Breitmann one who was
conditioned of such easy stuff that he would rather be sure and share
than to strike out for all the treasure and all the risks? The more he
gave his thought to Breitmann the more that gentleman retracted into
the fog, as it were. On several occasions he had noticed signs of a
preoccupation, of suppressed excitement, of silence and moroseness.
Fitzgerald could join certain squares of the puzzle, but this led
forward scarce a step. Breitmann had entered the employ of the admiral
for the very purpose for which M. Ferraud had journeyed sundrily into
the cellar and beaten futilely on the chimney. It resolved to one
thing, and that was the secretary had arrived too late. He was sure
that Breitmann had no suspicion regarding M. Ferraud. But for a casual
glance at the little man's hands, neither would he have had any. He
determined to prod M. Ferraud. He was well trained in repression; so,
while he often lost patience, there was never any external sign of it.
Besides, there was another affair which over-shadowed it and at times
engulfed it.
Love. The cross-tides of sense and sentiment made a pretty
disturbance. And still further, there was another counter-tide. Love
does not necessarily make a young man keen-sighted, but it generally
highly develops his talent for suspicion. By subtle gradations,
Breitmann had shifted in Fitzgerald's mind from a possible friend to a
probable rival. Breitmann did not now court his society when the
smoking bouts came round, or when the steward brought the whisky and
soda after the ladies had retired. Breitmann was moody, and whatever
variance his moods had, they retained the gray tone. This Fitzgerald
saw and dilated upon; and it rankled when he thought that this
hypothetical adventurer had rights, level and equal to his, always
supposing he had any.
In this state of mind he drooped idly over the rail as the yacht drew
out of the bay, the evening of the second day. The glories of the
southern sunset lingered and vanished, a-begging, without his senses
being roused by them; and long after the sea, chameleon-like, changed
from rose to lavender, from lavender to gray, the mountains yet
jealously clung to their vivid aureolas of phantom gold. Fitzgerald
saw nothing but writing on the water.
"Well, my boy," said Cathewe, lounging affectionately against
Fitzgerald, "here we are, rolled over again."
"What?"
Cathewe described a circle with his finger lazily.
"Oh!" said Fitzgerald, listless. "Another day more or less, crowded
into the past, doesn't matter."
"Maybe. If we could only have the full days and deposit the others and
draw as we need them; but we can't do it. And yet each day means
something; there ought always to be a little of it worth remembering."
"Old parson!" cried Fitzgerald, with a jab of his elbow.
"All bally rot, eh? I wish I could look at it that way. Yet, when a
man mopes as you are doing, when this sunset. . ."
"New one every day."
"What's the difficulty, Jack?"
"Am I walking around with a sign on my back?" testily.
"Of a kind, yes."
Cathewe spoke so solemnly that Fitzgerald looked round, and saw that
which set his ears burning. Immediately he lowered his gaze and sought
the water again.
"Have I been making an ass of myself, Arthur?"
"No, Jack; but you are laying yourself open to some wonder. For three
or four days now, except for the forty-eight hours on land there,
you've been a sort of killjoy. Even the admiral has remarked it."
"Tell him it's my liver," with a laugh not wholly free of
embarrassment. "Suppose," he continued, in a low voice; "suppose--"
But he couldn't go on.
"Yes, suppose," said Cathewe, taking up the broken thread; "suppose
there was a person who had a heap of money, or will have some day; and
suppose there's another person who has but little and may have less in
days to come. Is that the supposition, Jack? The presumption of an
old friend, a right that ought never to be abrogated." Cathewe laid a
hand on his young friend's shoulder; there was a silent speech of
knowledge and brotherhood in it such as Fitzgerald could not mistake.
"That's the supposition," he admitted generously.
"Well, money counts only when you buy horses and yachts and houses, it
never really matters in anything else."
"It is easy to say that."
"It is also easy to learn that it is true."
"Isn't there a good deal of buying these days where there should be
giving?"
"Not among real people. You have had enough experience with both types
to be competent to distinguish the one from the other. You have birth
and brains and industry; you're a decent sort of chap besides,"
genially. "Can money buy these things when grounded on self-respect as
they are in you? Come along now; for the admiral sent me after you.
It's the steward's champagne cocktail; and you know how good they are.
And remember, if you will put your head into the clouds, don't take
your feet off the deck."
Fitzgerald expanded under his tactful interpretation. A long breath of
relief issued from his heart, and the rending doubt was dissipated: the
vulture-shadow spread its dark pennons and wheeled down the west. A
priceless thing is that friend upon whom one may shift the part of a
burden. It seemed to be one of Cathewe's occupations in life to
absorb, in a kindly, unemotional manner, other people's troubles. It
is this type of man, too, who rarely shares his own.
It would be rather graceless to say that after drinking the cocktail
Fitzgerald resumed his aforetime rosal lenses. He was naturally at
heart an optimist, as are all men of action. And so the admiral, who
had begun to look upon him with puzzled commiseration, came to the
conclusion that the young man's liver had resumed its normal functions.
An old woman would have diagnosed the case as one of heart (as Mrs.
Coldfield secretly and readily and happily did); but an old fellow like
the admiral generally compromises on the liver.
When one has journeyed for days on the unquiet sea, a touch of land
underfoot renews, Antaeus-wise, one's strength and mental activity; so
a festive spirit presided at the dinner table. The admiral determined
to vault the enforced repression of his secret. Inasmuch as it must be
told, the present seemed a propitious moment. He signed for the
attendants to leave the salon, and then rapped on the table for
silence. He obtained it easily enough.
"My friends," he began, "where do you think this boat is really going?"
"Marseilles," answered Coldfield.
"Where else?" cried M. Ferraud, as if diversion from that course was
something of an improbability.
"Corsica. We can leave you at Marseilles, Mr. Ferraud, if you wish;
but I advise you to remain with us. It will be something to tell in
your old age."
Cathewe glanced across to Fitzgerald, as if to ask: "Do you know
anything about this?" Fitzgerald, catching the sense of this mute
inquiry, nodded affirmatively.
"Corsica is a beautiful place," said Hildegarde. "I spent a spring in
Ajaccio."
"Well, that is our port," confessed the admiral, laying his precious
documents on the table. "The fact is, we are going to dig up a
treasure," with a flourish.
Laughter and incredulous exclamations followed this statement.
"Pirates?" cried Coldfield, with a good-natured jeer. He had cruised
with the admiral before. "Where's the cutlass and jolly-roger? Yo-ho!
and a bottle o' rum!"
"Yes. And where's the other ship following at our heels, as they
always do in treasure hunts, the rival pirates who will cut our throats
when we have dug up the treasure?"--from Cathewe.
"Treasures!" mumbled M. Ferraud from behind his pineapple. Carefully
he avoided Fitzgerald's gaze, but he noted the expression on
Breitmann's face. It was not pleasant.
"Just a moment," the admiral requested patiently. "I know it smells
fishy. Laura, go ahead and read the documents to the unbelieving
giaours. Mr. Fitzgerald knows and so does Mr. Breitmann."
"Tell us about it, Laura. No joking, now," said Coldfield,
surrendering his incredulity with some hesitance. "And if the treasure
involves no fighting or diplomatic tangle, count me in. Think of it,
Jane," turning to his wife; "two old church-goers like you and me,
a-going after a pirate's treasure! Doesn't it make you laugh?"
Laura unfolded the story, and when she came to the end, the excitement
was hot and Babylonic. Napoleon! What a word! A treasure put
together to rescue him from St. Helena! Gold, French gold, English
gold, Spanish and Austrian gold, all mildewing in a rotting chest
somewhere back of Ajaccio! It was unbelievable, fantastic as one of
those cinematograph pictures, running backward.
"But what are you going to do with it when you find it?"
"Findings is keepings," quoted the admiral. "Perhaps divide it,
perhaps turn it over to France, providing France agrees to use it for
charitable purposes."
"A fine plan, is it not, Mr. Breitmann?" said M. Ferraud.
"Findings is keepings," repeated Breitmann, with a pale smile.
The eyes of Hildegarde von Mitter burned and burned. Could she but
read what lay behind that impassive face! And he took it all with a
smile! What would he do? what would he do now? kept recurring in her
mind. She knew the man, or at least she thought she did; and she was
aware that there existed in his soul dark caverns which she had never
dared to explore. Yes, what would he do now? How would he put his
hand upon this gold? She trembled with apprehension.
And later, when she found the courage to put the question boldly, he
answered with a laugh, so low and yet so wild with fury that she drew
away from him in dumb terror.