dazzling flood of light.
"Would the gentlemen kindly to step down?"
The gentlemen would, both somewhat surprised at having reached the hotel
so soon, but rather more surprised the next moment at finding that this
was not the hotel at all....
We were in an open, wind-blown street on the water front, where the rain
and salt spray drove in our faces and the few lamps showed neither house
nor garden. Beside the sea wall lay an automobile; we could hear the
churn of its engine, and its headlight split the dark in a sharp wedge
and threw a bright zone against the high stone embankment across the
road. Midway, and just before us, stood the one who welcomed us so
suavely.
It was the roulette banker, he of the spade-cut beard and the superior
clothes. He was still superior, in a topper that shone like varnish and
a long cape tucked most jauntily over one arm. And he smiled and smiled,
like a villain downstage with the spot full upon him.
"Now w'ere," he inquired--"w'ere are that damn doubloon?"
He was effective--the sartorial rogue; and doubtless he knew it. He
stroked his beard and thrust his hand to his hip; and behind him on the
embankment his huge shadow moved alike, as if some monstrous power there
was pulling puppet strings upon him.
"Gentlemen, you been kidnap'," he was good enough to explain. "We are
sorry; but it was of a necessitate. If you got away with that gol' piece
you are--'ow you say?--leaving us dished up. Therefore"--he waved a
ringed hand--"therefore, we arrange' to 'esitate you here, so nize and
comfortable."
He would have passed in comic opera anywhere; but the dart of his black
eye was keen, his voice crisp and assured.
I admired him--with reserve; aware that we were lost in a strange city
and that this amiable brigand seemed to know quite well what he was
about. Aware more particularly of the forward-drooping shoulders and
lowering gaze of Robert Matcham.
I felt rather like a man who travels with a box of dynamite--in no
position to kick very hard at any incidental pocket picking along the
road.
"Is this a holdup or only the request of a loan?" I asked.
"We are many enough to make it whatever we please," he said with a
gleam. "I think maybe you bes' call it a public ex'bition of rare and
valuable coins."
I thought so too. He was not bluffing. I could detect the scrape of feet
all about us in the dark. It seemed to me the one needful thing was to
bring Robert Matcham through in safety. I certainly did not intend that
there should be any explosion on my behalf or for the sake of any single
doubloon. From which considerations I made haste to submit with the best
possible grace.
"Allow me," I said, "to contribute to such a worthy design."
Robert Matcham took a lurching step, but I caught him by the sleeve and
forestalled any other answer by tendering my prize.
There was no pose about the banker when he grabbed it, held it to the
light and loosed a shrill Portuguese yelp of triumph. The whole street
seemed to echo and then fell as suddenly quiet. It was daunting to feel
that lonely place alive with unseen watchers. I hoped that now they
might let us by; but I had not understood their purpose.
"Sir, I give you kindes' thanks." The banker was bowing, in character
again. "Your intelligence are only equal', I 'ope, by that of your
frien'. Jus' one more little, so little favor."
He turned to Robert Matcham and held up the doubloon between finger and
thumb, so that his eyes blazed over it in the light; and I knew then,
with a springing pulse, that the affair had passed quite beyond me and
must take its own fateful course.
"You will inform us please w'ere you fin' this."
"Me?" said Robert Matcham with concentrated vehemence. "I'll see you fry
in hell!"
The other's suavity fell away from him like a disguise. His teeth showed
white in his beard; he gesticulated and the shadow behind him danced
with fury.
"In 'ell! In 'ell? Look out! Tha's a place--tha's a place w'ere people
speak out of their mouths the way they are told! They make you talk in
'ell, mister, whether you like or not!"
He controlled himself with a strong effort.
"Sir, why you should demand so peevish to be sorry? You got no business
with that coin--no; not one damn little affair. What does it make to
you? Be nize, now."
Robert Matcham only glowered at him.
"It was by Machico. Yes? Tell me anyways it was near Machico. It must
'ave been. Tell me that."
"No!" said Robert Matcham.
"No?" But once again he clutched his beard. "You want money to tell? Put
your price."
"No!" said Robert Matcham; and the word came hot as an oath....
One instant I saw the banker toss his arms like a semaphore; the next we
were overborne. Of that I retained chiefly a bewilderment at the force
of our captors and the ease with which they dealt with us. Shy with the
gun they might be, and indeed it is no natural weapon of their race; but
these operators knew the use of trip and hamstring--the hugger-mugger
arts; none better. My feet were driven from under me; my wrists
paralyzed; I was caught and wound like a cocoon; and when I dropped it
was on the cushions of the automobile. And, though this might be a
slight-enough feat regarding myself, it was the measure of their
cleverness that I found Robert Matcham already there, pocketed in a
helpless bale. I believe he had no chance so much as to lift a hand.
"You won' be nize with me?" The banker's chuckle floated back to us.
"Then you can try being not nize with our Number One, and see 'ow you
like it!"
He left us that threat to ponder during our journey to Machico.... For
it was Machico. Where else? As soon as they whisked us away toward the
eastern coast road I knew it must be Machico. Where else should they
take Robert Matcham, whose five centuries looked down on him this night?
The rain had ceased; the clouds were lightening and shredding out to sea
when we arrived.
There stands a tiny ruined _fortaleza_ on a hill near the southeast
point of Madeira, whereof I know more than most folks. You may seek and
never find it, for it is now quite lost among the sugar fields,
over-topped by the rank cane. Its square tower, whence the first lords
of the soil used to keep stern ward against the Moorish marauder, was
long ago shorn to the lowly uses of husbandry and built about with
arbors; but its walls are a yard thick under the plaster, thick enough
for a dungeon--or an inquisition chamber. No place could be more secret,
and a man might lie hid there, like a toad in a hollow rock, never to be
traced.
This was the obscure prison to which they brought Robert Matcham and
myself by tortuous ways along the terraces. And here they carried us in
from the forecourt to a low-ceiled hall and set us up for judgment,
where many another unhappy captive must have stood before.
It was dim and chill as a vault, relieved only by a hanging iron lamp,
which shed one yellow splash of light in the center. For some time I
could discern nothing outside that wavering radiance on the deep-worn
flags of the floor, though conscious of shifting figures in the gloom,
of whispered stir and preparation.
For myself I had no great fear. The thing was so remote, and in itself
so certain, sure, inexorable; a play of issues that held no part for a
trifler like me. I was only a supernumerary, who had blundered on at the
climax; a spectator who, having bought a stage seat, finds himself
hustled into the riot. I had "come asking"; and it was hard for me to
take our picturesque knave and his plottings and struttings quite
seriously.
But how of Robert Matcham? The case was very different with him. When I
glanced at his face I knew the possibilities for that harried giant to
be just exactly as serious as life and death.
Throughout the long run he had spoken only once; and of all the comments
he might have made:
"It was wrong of me to let you in for this," he had said very quietly;
one of those phrases that throw a lightning glint on a whole nature.
He would yield no more. Circumstance could prod him no further. I swear
the fellow was volcanic to the touch. Heaven help the first brigand
within reach if ever they loosed him again!...
A door opened behind us and closed again with a heavy jar, and quickly
we were aware of a new presence. The waiting hush took an electric
quality, a tension. Some one was standing there, across; and I peered
nervously, for this could only be the chief of the band, the "head
devil," on whose will or whim we must suppose ourselves to hang. I
scarcely know what I expected; what image I had formed of that
mysterious Number One, who had put such strange events in motion.
Something very alarming and formidable, at least, and certainly very far
detached from the sort of greeting that reached us now. Its words came
rippling like notes of music:
"I am sure there must be some meestake. It could not be these who rafuse
a kindness to a stranger! Pedro--these are zaintlemen! Pedro--Pedro--you
shall answer to me! Oh, stupid-head--always to bungle some more!"
I despair of conveying that trick of speech, subtly exotic--like the
tang in some rare wine. But the voice! Each has heard such a voice for
himself, once or twice perhaps, and felt his blood leap to answer,
singing. It was a woman's voice, mellow-throated as a bird's.
Robert Matcham raised his head at the first sound of it; but still we
could see nothing to distinguish the speaker--only a vague apparition,
nebulous, tall and slim. She moved before us, and presently sank
half-reclining on some divan or deep settle midway of the room.
A hurried, anxious mumble seemed to show that the unfortunate Pedro made
his excuse; but she waved them away.
"_Messieurs_," she said--"_Senhores_--I must truly apologize to r'ceive
you so. My friend' have exceed' their instruction. I would not that they
should treat you with such rudeness. I would not have you sink us
_criminel_. Believe me--no!"
But, though she protested warmly, I could not observe any offer to
release us.
"And English too!" Her soft drawl was a caress. "See how _bete_ is that
Pedro--to sink he could make you tell anysing to a r-robber in the
street! Of course you would not tell! But me--I shall ex-plain so clear
and so simple; and then you shall understand. Attend me, please:
"There is a great treasure on the shore of these island. A gr-reat
treasure wrecked with a ship long taime bifore. Always, always it is
known--only where? Thad nobody can know! By Machico, they say--yes. But
z' waters by Machico are deep and cruel, and thad ship has went all to
li'l' piece' hundreds years ago; and only the gold--the heavy, heavy
doubloon gold--r'main down there; and to find it is not possible. So at
last thad story is nearly forgot! You see?...
"But listen now: Only three mon's ago a poor fisher boy finds a one coin
on the rocks. Somewhere--somewhere he finds it, and quick the news
shoots to Portugal, to Spain. My friends and me, we heard thad news. We
are very much excite'; for w'ere thad coin is--you comprehend--there
z'rest must also be! So we make a company among us; and me, bicause--oh,
bicause I am not quite unknown in several co'ntries and I have some
little hinfluence, it may be--I am bicome the Madame Presidente--ze
Number One. Yes.
"We hurry to Madeira. And what do you sink? Thad boy--thad poor fisher
boy--he don't know w'ere he find that coin! True, I tell you! We take
him here; we take him there--no good! He never can rimember w'ere he
found it. He is so stupid--a li'l' fool in the head, that poor Joao, who
now makes drinks in the Casino. _Pobrecito! Pauvre gars!_ And so our
treasure is lost again....
"Until you come along--you big zaintleman there. You are a stranger, a
foreign'--knowing nothing of all this. You take yourself for a walk by
the beach and, very first thing--what? You pick up another one coin of
this treasure! Ah, thad is so remarkable! Thad is a wonderful, truly!
But what can we do? We must know w'ere you pick it up--that is
es-sential to us. And nobody knows but you. So now you understand why my
friends should make you all this trouble."
The red dot of a cigarette glowed to life between her lips, and by that
tormented spark we glimpsed a face that seemed to advance out of the
darkness and to retreat again as swiftly--the merest vision of an
exquisite and roseate loveliness.
She waited for an answer; but Robert Matcham made none.
"Perhaps," she said, with the gentlest concern, "perhaps I do not make
myself yet quite clear. You will r'mark thad we are going to know!
Somehow or another we are going to know. Thees is a too ancient claim of
ours--writ' on ancient parchmen'--and nobody can kip us from it now,
when we are so close. _Voila!_"
The stillness weighed again and I saw Robert Matcham's great chest heave
and fall.
"I, too, have a claim," he said, his full, deep tone rolling under the
roof like an organ pipe.
She drew herself up to stare toward him.
"How?" she breathed.
And it was given Robert Matcham then to have his say out.
"Either that or nothing!" he declared quite simply. "Either I have a
claim or there's no sense to life. Lady--look at me! Do you see a fool,
a weakling or an imbecile? None of these, I think....
"When a man has been knocked blind and silly by his luck; when he's been
hammered out of all hope and pride in himself--what can he do, lady?
Well, there's one of two things for him: he can lie down and curl up
like a worm, and confess he's only a lump of flesh, with no more
control over his destiny than a bit of flotsam on the sea. He can do
that--or else he can sink teeth and claw on the first hold and make it
have a meaning; stick to it, and die sticking!
"I've had enough. I call enough! I'm half a world out of my place. I've
lost everything I ever wanted; stood every mock and failure--a plaything
for events. And now there's got to be a meaning: I'm going to put a
meaning to it. If there's a treasure, as you say, it's mine; it must be
mine; it's got to be mine--and it's going to be mine or nobody's!... And
all hell can't make me speak!"
The fellow seemed to swell beside me; I heard the ropes creak about his
limbs; and heard, too, the sharp-drawn gasp of the woman in the shadow.
"No! And how do you think you can privent?"
"Well," said Robert Matcham--and his voice rang with high exultation at
last--"I can begin this way!"
His bonds snapped from him like thread; his fist went to his breast and
came away armed with glitter--Joao's revolver, which he had hidden
there. It spat saffron, twice and thrice, toward the door. He followed
on and met a rush of opposing figures. I saw the fat croupier fall. I
myself was bowled over, deafened by the bursting clamor, trampled,
kicked in the head. Half-stunned, I writhed round to watch the struggle,
adding my feeble pipe to the din.
"Go on, Robert Matcham!" I yelled. "Go on! Smash through! Oh, smash
'em."
They swarmed upon him, reaching for their deadly holds. Three had him
about the waist; another clung to his feet; still others barred his
path. So I saw him for the click of a shutter; and then, roaring with
battle, he broke away, stripped them off like rats, waded on--plucked up
the last one bodily and used him like a flail.
He was free! Free long enough to tear the door open and step back for a
dash--and there she met him....
A bright bar of light cut in from the outer court and shone full upon
her--a splendor of beauty to stop a man's heart in his breast. She was
dark, like some tinted pearls--dark as he was fair--and ripe as her own
lips. Her eyes, heavy-lidded, were slightly lifted to him with an
amorous languidness. She did not flinch, save for a tiny quiver of
nostril, thin and clear like a roseleaf, and the rise of her bosom, and
when her little hand crept up to her throat.
So she stayed, and so he stayed, while the uproar died and fell away
into the void--long and long; while time lost all count; while these two
exchanged such a message as five centuries could not change, but no man
can guess or words declare. And then--
"Robert," she said, "this is your treasure!"
"Anna!" said Robert Matcham. "Anna!"
I heard them--I, myself; I heard them....
It was the spade-bearded banker who brought me to.
"So," he nodded, with an amazing grin, "you are not a daid? Tha's nize!
Now there are not any daids at all, and everybody being much pleased."
I blinked up at him from the divan on which I lay, and then round the
room, gray and bare in the dawn, which had stolen in by opened door and
casement. The banker sat down at a little table near by and beamed at
me. I noticed that he carried one arm in a sling, but otherwise he was
still the model rogue, jimp and smiling. There was no one else in sight.
"They are all down 'elping to fish up that box of gol'pieces," he
explained. "You didn' know that, eh?"
"Where?"
"Below the beach. Your frien' showed the place; and, sure enough, there
we dived and foun' it. But him--Oh, _la la_!" He chuckled. "Him and
her, what do they care? They 'ave gone off together by their lones to
see the sunrise--those dears!"
"Who was she?" I cried, starting up dizzily.
"What? You not know that divine _ballerina_, that dancer so sublime,
that singer so sweet?" He kissed his finger tips. "Anna Darfetho, of
Lisbon, and Paris, and Madrid! Only now--good-by! It is finish'! She are
going with him to Australia. Imagine! And what for, do you think? To
spend their share--'Oly Virgin!--in raising little woolly sheeps
together!"
"Share?"
"Oh, we all share--that is agree'. Only me--you understand, I am--'ow
you say?--the tiger for eat the mos'. Yes, I get the mos', because truly
it should belong all mine.... Be'old--for this our fazers used to cut
the throat!"
He took up from the table one of several blackish, common-looking lumps,
like slag, and weighed it; and smiled his smile of the gentlemanly
brigand who gloats upon the fortune won. And as I stared at that
superior knave the whole stupendous marvel closed up with a final click.
Pilot? Pilot? I remembered the quaint phrase of the chronicle: "Great
fighting pilot of Spain"--pilot? Pirate, rather. Pirate, of course!...
"Then you must be Pedro Morales?" I gasped.
"Ah, you know my name?" he twinkled pleasantly. "What a coincident!"
But I had had enough--enough of coincidence, of romance and adventure
and authentic thrill to last me for some time, and rather more than I
had bargained for with my ten pounds. I groped my way out into the open
and the brisk morning breeze; and there, looking down to seaward through
an alley in the cane, I saw the new sun come up, as round and broad and
ruddy as--as a Portuguese doubloon.
THE PRACTICING OF CHRISTOPHER
Sutton was startling enough, and brisk, and eager--too eager. For five
minutes after he broke in upon us he held us paralyzed with the story of
his adventure through the back slums of Colootullah and the amazing
discovery he had made there. And yet the gross fact glanced from us
altogether, perhaps through his very vehemence, perhaps because of a
certain obscure unsteadiness in the fellow....
"That's where the chief went to hide himself!" he cried, and we heard
the words, but rather we were listening to the tone and watching Sutton;
he convinced us of nothing.
He stood before us alight with animation; still breathed with hurry.
Though the gummy heat of the monsoon made the little cabin a sweat box,
he had not stopped to strip his rubber coat. It shone wet and streaky
under the lamp as he gestured, and the rain-drops glistening in his stub
mustache were no brighter than his eyes. And this was a notable thing of
itself--to see him so restored, the jaunty, confident young mate we had
used to know, drawn from the sulky reserve that had held him these many
weeks. But most singular of all, as it seemed to us then, was the way he
wound up his outburst:
"... So I came straight away on the jump to get you both," he declared,
in a rush. "We can straighten out this mess to-night--the three of
us--just as easy. I've a great notion.... Listen, now.
"There was a chap in a book I read, d'y'see? The other Johnnies put a
game on him. Didn't they put up a game on him, to be sure! They made
him think he was a duke or something, d'y'see? When he woke up! And, by
gum, he believed 'em! They made him. Now there's the very tip we need to
bring Chris Wickwire around all serene."
Captain Raff, sitting rigid on the couch, recovered sufficiently to
unclamp his jaw from the fag-end of a dead cheroot. He had the air of
one who goes about to pluck a single straw of sense from a whirl of
fantasy.
"A book," he repeated. "A chap in a book? What in Hull t' Halifax is the
boy talkin' about?"
Literature aboard the _Moung Poh_ was represented between the
chronometer and the bottle rack by a scant half dozen of Admiralty
publications. But Sutton laid no strain on our library. From his own
pocket, like a conjurer that draws a rabbit from a hat, and quite as
astonishingly, he produced a shabby, black-bound octavo. "Here it is,
sir. Shakespeare wrote it. And the chap's name was Christopher too--a
tinker by his trade. Queer thing!"
It was; you must figure here just how queer it was, and how far removed
we were in our lawful occasions from books and people in books and all
such recondite subjects--captain, mate, and acting engineer of a
1,500-ton tub of a country wallah trading between Calcutta, Burma, the
Straits, and the China side.
* * * * *
By common gossip up and down among the brass-buttoned tribe such
billets mostly go to men with a spot in them somewhere. We kept our
spots pretty well hidden if it was so. There was nothing publicly wrong
with any of us. Captain Raff commanded for our Parsee owners, because he
always had commanded for them and never expected to do anything else,
soberly and carefully--a man of simple vision, incapable of vain hopes
and imaginings. Myself, I was following up a long run of ill health,
glad enough of the sure berth and good food. And the only obvious fault
with Sutton--though the same can be serious too--was youth....
Here we were, then, on the old _Moung Poh_. From the chart-room port we
could see the low-lying haze of lights beyond Principe Ghat and hear the
lash of rain down the Hooghly and smell the sickly mixture of
twenty-four different smells that make the breath of that city built on
a sink. We had been coaling and hard at it all day in a grime that
turned to paste upon us. What with heat and weariness, our minds were
pasted as well, you might say. The captain and I were grubbing among
indents over a matter of annas and pice, when along comes Sutton, back
from shore leave, to spring a wondrous tale--ending in Shakespeare! If I
remind you further that there is more truth than poetry about the
mercantile marine, perhaps you may glimpse the net effect.
Sutton doubled the volume hastily between his hands and ruffled its worn
pages. He seemed quite familiar with it. How it had ever reached the
_Moung Poh_ we could not guess, nor did he give us time to inquire.
"I'll show you, sir," he continued in the same nervous key. "These
Johnnies, you should know, they found this old bargee dead drunk. And so
they made out to gammon him for his own good, to practice on him, as
they put it. 'Sirs,' says one of 'em--'sirs, I will practice on this
drunken man.' Here's the place ready marked, d'y'see?"
_Sirs, I will practice on this drunken man,
What think you, if he were convey'd to bed,
Wrapp'd in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,
A most delicious banquet by his bed,
And brave attendants near him when he wakes:
Would not the beggar then forget himself?_
"That was their little game--to make the beggar forget himself. And
they did--by jing, they played him proper! He _did_ forget himself, all
his low habits and such." He hammered the book for emphasis. "Soon as I
saw Wickwire it come to me like that. There's the thing we'd ought to do
for him!"
"'Rings on his fingers--?'" The captain turned a dumb appeal toward me.
"Mr. Sutton says he's found the chief, sir," I suggested, for I had
begun to understand, a little. "He's found Chris Wickwire."
"Wickwire?" With a jerk he caught up the real marvel at last, and the
crop hair seemed to stiffen all over his bullet head. "The chief!" he
roared.
"That's what I've been trying to tell you, sir."
"Alive?"
"Very much alive."
"Well, where is he? Why ain't he here?"