As in the night I tried to cheer myself with the consolation that

I would soon be with Jenny again. I told myself I had struck the

blow for her. I hadn't been guilty of murder; rather I had been the

instrument in the hands of justice and retribution. But always at

my heart was that paralysing shadow which numbed me from confident

thinking. I knew I had done a horrible thing, and there would be a

cloud over my life to the end of my days. The sunshine would never be

so bright for me again. In the beautiful breaking of the dawn there

would always be something of the redness of blood. The glory of the

sea would be less buoyant and splendid, for there would be a subduing

sense of tragedy in the swelling and subsiding of the waves. And Jenny

too!... When I thought of her now a spring and a freshness seemed to

have gone out of my heart. Bitterly I said that the Shadow of Fear was

over me more deeply and darkly now that the evil thing was killed.

Yet all this, I tried to persuade myself, was a silly fantasy, due to

the chafing inaction of an idle day after the excitement of such a

night. Once out upon the open seas I should be myself again.

Then I noticed a boat put out from shore, and make for that other boat

where the dead men lay. Eagerly I watched it, wondering what it meant.

On the shore a crowd had gathered, and was fast increasing. Some one

had given notice of the killing. Again I looked at the boat as it rowed

out from the land. In it were three men; officers, to judge by their

uniform. They soon reached their destination, and for a long while

seemed to be examining the corpses. But at length they hauled in the

anchor and towed the deadly freight back to the shore, where I soon

lost the party in the crowd.

I was all the more anxious now for Dirk's return. It seemed foolish

delaying here; some incriminating evidence might lead to our being

suspected. It wasn't till this moment that I realized that there was

any danger threatening us from the law.

So with added anxiety to wear down my spirit I waited through that

harrowing day. At length with the evening Dirk returned, and gave

orders for sailing with the dawn.

He called for me before I went below, and closing the door of the cabin

said, "Wull, Tommy, I've paid my debt at last."

I thought for a moment, and answered, "Yes, you said you would save my

life some day."

"An' it seems I've done it, kiddy," he replied, and shook my hand.

I was too full of doubts and questionings to be moved by the

sentimental aspect of the affair. I merely said, "Thank you, Dirk," and

went on, "But why don't you sail quick?"

"Mustn't seem to be running away," he answered, biting at his quid and

commencing to chew. "They might get thinking things."

"What do they think?" I asked.

"Mighty little," he answered. "Don't seem to have no sort of a scent.

At any rate, kiddy, we're free of it. We can clear out all straight and

easy to-morrow. But it's lost me a day again."

"Has he gone?" I asked.

He stopped in his chewing and spat viciously.

"Slipped clean through my fingers, blast him!" he replied.

He clenched his fist in the way I knew, and his face grew dark and

ugly. "But I'll haul him in short," he added. "The v'yage an't over

yet."

After a pause I said, "How was it you found me?"

"Dunno quite," he told me. "Some one pushed up against me an' said

'There's Tommy in that boat there. They'll kill him.' I couldn't see

the cove what said it; he'd slipped clear away. An' for a bit I

thought it were a gag to have me. But I reckons it out that if you were

there I must see you clear again. So I dips in an' swims quietly up,

an' that's all about it."

I knew it must have been Picardino who had sent Dirk to the rescue. I

had told him of Dirk, and doubtless he could have easily identified

him. But that meant he must have been following me after I left him.

Had he any premonition that I might be attacked? Or was it just kindly

shepherding, or even mere luck? I mentioned nothing of this to Dirk,

for I wished first to unravel the mystery for myself.

I said good night, and trotted off to my bunk. I slept soundly enough

that night, and with the morning was eagerly at work unfurling the

sails and trimming the ship for sea.

CHAPTER XXVIII

A REVELATION

It was still early in the summer when I stood at last before the

Captain's house in London, with the knocker raised in my hand, but half

fearing to strike from bashfulness; for a new access of shyness flooded

my heart at the prospect of seeing Jenny. Something of the hesitation

that had delayed me at Sunset Towers when I had stood fingering the

handle of her door possessed me now. Twice I laid the knocker silently

back, and paced up and down before the dark straight slice of a house,

as it seemed to me, looking eagerly up at the windows, hoping Jenny

might see me and let me in. But she didn't see me; or if she did she

made no sign. So perforce I took the knocker in hand once more, and

followed a feeble tap with a couple of sounding blows which echoed

thunderingly down the street. Then I stood waiting with ill-suppressed

excitement for the door to open.

Presently there were light steps within, and the door opened. A servant

girl stood before me eyeing me dubiously. I was taken aback, for

ignorant of city manners, and not considering that Jenny knew nothing

of my presence there, I had expected to see my little playmate herself.

So I blurted out, "Jenny!" and quickly tried to cover my mistake by

saying, "I want to see Jenny."

"You wish to see Miss Jenny Field?" the maid enquired with smug

politeness, to my complete confusion.

"Yes," I said. "Tell her."

But she stood facing me doubtfully, and asked, "And what name, please?"

Then indeed I drew myself up, conscious of the dignity of my lawful

appellation, and emboldened by the smart new suit I had first taken the

precaution to obtain, and pronounced grandly, "Thomas Garth Playden, of

the brig _Revenge_."

At that I was admitted, and bidden to wait in the hall. The maid

disappeared. Then suddenly there was a glad cry; a door flew open,

and the maid was unceremoniously thrust aside. Before me stood a slim

little figure that I knew at once, though now there was a band of deep

red ribbon restraining the disorderly locks, and the dark eyes had lost

their fierceness but glowed with an intensity of ardour that seemed to

burn into me like the light from the deep heart of a sunset.

"Tommy!" she cried, with hands outstretched to me.

If it hadn't been for that wretched maid huddled so amazedly against

the wall, with wide eyes open and mouth agape at this unladylike

behaviour, I should have flung my arms about my little sweetheart, and

so boldly leapt that line which is so difficult to cross. But I merely

took the outstretched hands in mine, still furtively eyeing the maid,

and said feebly enough, "I've come."

The glow faded from Jenny's eyes. Looking demurely away from me she

said, "Yes."

Then the girl did recover her wits and took herself off. But the chance

had slipped away, and when I would have put my arms about Jenny's

shoulders she gently released herself, and politely invited me to come

and see papa.

As I entered the drawing-room I managed to whisper, "Jenny, I've killed

him."

She started, and would have held me back, but the Captain had seen me,

and called out a hearty, "Tommy, boy, come along in."

I only felt a keen squeeze at my hand. Jenny had understood.

So the vision of my home-coming wasn't realized in all the wonderful

colours in which I had painted it in my imagination. But still, there

was Jenny before me; and while the Captain chatted, questioning me of

my experiences, comparing notes of foreign towns and ways, and storms

and adventures at sea, I watched the slim little girl who had grown

wonderfully tall and slender in the passage of a single year. Indeed

I didn't quite know whether it was the same Jenny I had played and

quarreled with only a twelvemonth ago. It wasn't so much that she had

grown; rather she seemed to have settled to a subdued seriousness not

quite in keeping with the Jenny of my games and squabbles. I couldn't

hear her saying now, "I hate you," as she had used to do. And yet a

gesture here and there, and the tone of her voice when she threw in a

quick word, touched at memories of the past, linking up this grave-eyed

girl with the child of the year before.

As the evening wore away I had quite accepted the change in her, and

the thought did just come to me that she too must have been surveying

me with something of the same enquiry. I wondered whether she was as

satisfied with the new Tommy as I was with the new Jenny. For though

at first the change in her had taken me aback, I soon realized I was

more head over heels in love with the charming girl who sat there at

her father's feet, solemnly resting her eyes on mine, and now and again

broadening her lips in a wonderful smile, than ever I had been with the

bright vivid tempestuous little creature I had known at Sunset Towers.

For now there seemed to be a depth and reserve behind those eyes,

whereas before their glitter had told of a wonderful keen life, it is

true, but one that played merely on the surface of things.

I had little leisure to notice the Captain. He was extraordinarily

kind, even boisterous, in his welcome. He asked but little of my

truancy from Sunset Towers, and spoke chiefly of my doings at sea. He

showed nothing of the dark fear that had used to overshadow his face

even in his most genial moments. I wondered whether somehow he had

heard of his enemy's death, though not knowing who had rid him of his

tormentor. But I said nothing of the matter. With the memory of that

dark evening when I had parted with him last I was cautious how I spoke

of dangerous things. And in any case it would keep. Moreover, the

thought of it only came to me in fitful starts, for my heart was with

the daughter, not the father.

When I rose to go he seemed surprised. "What? How?" he exclaimed,

rising. "But you're not running away again, are you?"

"I must go back to Dirk," I said.

"Dirk, eh?" he repeated.

"I'm under orders," I explained. "I must report every night."

"Tush!" he cried impatiently, "That's over now. You come and live with

me, laddie." Then he looked sharply at me and in a low voice, "You

don't bear me ill-will, Tommy, do you?"

I knew of what he was thinking, and the pain in his voice hurt me like

a physical wound. I gripped his hand and explained as well as I could

that I was under some kind of bond, owing to my father's will, to

apprentice myself to a profession, and I had taken Dirk as my master

and must obey him.

"Right, quite right," said the Captain, evidently recognizing the

necessity of the position, but still feeling for some way to evade

it. After a moment he said, "Well, I reckon you've served your

apprenticeship; and, as for money, you needn't worry your mind about

that. You leave Dirk and come to me. I dare say I can teach you a thing

or two."

"Can you take me to sea?" I asked.

At that he smiled rather sadly, and answered, "Well, no, I should think

my sailing days are done."

He sat down, and with his head in his hands seemed to be musing

regretfully.

I told him where I was lodging, and promised to come as often and stay

as late as I could. He glanced across at Jenny, and said, "Yes, I'd lay

you'll do that right enough, laddie." We shook hands cordially, and his

last words were, "You see, you're always running away from me, Tommy. I

never know where to lay hands on you. You frighten me, my boy. I like

to have you near me."

He seemed strangely moved. I remembered Worthing telling me how

disturbed he had been when he had heard of my escape from Rancey Bridge.

As I said good night to Jenny she stopped me at the door to say, "And

you've really killed him, Tommy?"

"Yes," I said.

"Sure?" she asked, fixing me steadily with her eyes,

"Sure," I replied confidently.

"Oh, Tommy!" she sighed, lifting her face to mine. I kissed her. Then

she slipped away from me, and smiling roguishly cried: "There, good

night. Little boys should be in bed."

So I walked away to my lodging in a dream.

* * * * *

I learnt later why she had enquired so seriously as to whether I was

sure I had accomplished my task. It seemed that once before she had

thought I had fulfilled the mission. Her father had grown wonderfully

cheerful, and she had imagined that at last the terror must have been

lifted from his life. His moving to London had seemed to her a sign

that the evil days were over, and that he could come out of hiding. It

was just before the removal that Picardino had appeared, and she had

given him the message that had reached me at Naples.

I asked her whether she had been angry with me for not obeying her

summons. She replied that she had been so angry that if at last I

had come to her she wouldn't have spoken to me for it had seemed to

her that there was nothing to keep me from her as the task had been

fulfilled; and even without a summons I should have returned to her.

But then she had learnt the reason of my delay. For somehow her father

had been deceived into a false assurance of safety. The enemy had risen

up against him once more.

Poor little Jenny had had a terrible time, for Abou had begged to be

sent back to his own people as his master didn't seem to need him now;

so when the evil had arisen afresh Jenny had been left alone to tend

a half-mad father. He had refused to go back to Sunset Towers without

Abou to take care of him. He had remained in London, determined to face

out the persecution and take what might befall. Jenny had comforted

herself by saying that I must be on the man's track, and some day would

assuredly run him to earth. At that I felt very guilty, for all this

while I had been gaily sailing the seas with Dirk without a notion in

my head as to how my mission was to be accomplished.

However, a few days before my arrival a complete change had come over

the Captain, and Jenny had told herself, that at last I had been

successful. And then she told me she knew I would soon be home again;

and somehow her confidence in me was inexpressibly delicious.

So I spent the days with Jenny; but all that we said to each other,

however precious in my own memory, would be of little interest to

others; and at any rate it doesn't concern the story I have set myself

to tell. It is enough to say that we were wonderfully happy together,

though the words I wanted to speak always seemed to catch at my throat,

yet when alone I could be eloquent enough on the theme of my passion.

Also the Captain fathered me with an overflowing affection which left

no doubt in my mind that when Jenny and I stepped out of girl- and

boyhood nothing would please him better than the fulfilment of the

dream with which I flattered my own heart.

* * * * *

I'm afraid I forgot Worthing for a time. It wasn't until the third or

fourth day that I stepped out for the city to look him up. Even so it

was a duty call, for I grudged every minute away from Jenny. I think I

was relieved when I learnt he was away.

Jenny told me he had called on her father a long time ago. It was

while she was waiting for me to come back to her, and she had told

Worthing what she thought of my desertion. He had smiled darkly at her

when she declared she would never speak to me again; and indeed he had

so angered her that she had stamped her foot at him and told him she

believed it was he himself who was keeping me away from her.

"I was like that," she said simply enough, as she told me the story. "I

was a silly girl, wasn't I, Tommy?" Words thronged to my lips in such

a gush of protestation that I stuttered stupidly and couldn't utter a

coherent syllable. She went on with a laugh, "And he said to me in such

a strange way, 'I _am_ keeping him from you,' and walked away and left

me."

I thought nothing of it, partly because I was too intent upon Jenny

herself, and partly because I knew the reserved, bitter way in which

Worthing chose to disguise his real thoughts.

That was all I learnt of Worthing, for Jenny hadn't seen him since.

* * * * *

A few days later I made my way to the city a second time. I remember

Dirk had changed our lodging that same morning, owing to a rather nasty

brawl. There was a strange excitement among the clerks in the office

when I went in and enquired if Worthing had returned yet. The senior

clerk took me gravely aside, and speaking confidentially said: "You

were his friend, I think?"

"Yes," I replied, in unaccountable alarm at something sinister in the

tone of his voice.

"Yes," he repeated, stroking his chin. Then suddenly looking me in the

eyes, and laying a hand very gently on my shoulder, he said sadly,

"He's dead," and as I started back, "Dead," he repeated, "and the

master too. They were found murdered in a boat at Naples."

CHAPTER XXIX

ALONE

To say that the news stunned me would merely be to use an empty

conventional phrase. Not even the shock of my father's death had so

dislocated my whole power of thought and association. My father, I

had always known, lived continually under the shadow of danger. For a

hand to reach for him out of the dark was a chance I had long reckoned

into the scheme of things. The sudden blow had struck merely at my

heart of love. It had been desolating, but not bewildering. And that

was last year. But now I waded in a mist of baffling and unreasonable

extravagances. I was like a thing blind-folded, and set to find my

way through a tangled maze, with voices crying to me conflicting

directions, walls suddenly confronting me where there had seemed to be

an open space, hands pushing me away when I thought I had stumbled on

to a path at last. There seemed no motive, no coherence, no unity, in

the chaos about me. Nothing tangible offered itself to my distracted

clutching. All was fluid, impalpable, as though the world had shifted

its centre, throwing everything into a false relation and perspective.

Where I fed and slept during the days that followed I don't remember.

I suppose I must have wandered mechanically to my lodging every night,

and found my way to some tavern when my appetite prompted me to do

so, without any governance or bidding of my brain. All that is clear

to me is that I haunted the office, gleaning detail upon detail of

the tragedy, hoping with a waning but desperate hope that somewhere

there was an error, that all would come right at last. But from the

first word I knew full well that all would not come right. Worthing was

dead. He had been murdered. It was I myself who had murdered him. Still

I refused to listen to the steady voice within me which day by day

repeated so dully and so obstinately, "You have killed him, you have

killed him." I fought against it, and sometimes shouted wildly to drown

its insistent burden, or rushed away into the streets with my hands at

my ears, till I wonder I wasn't arrested and locked up as a madman. But

the truth had to be faced at last. With every fresh detail, as the news

came slowly through, I felt the fearful reality of the thing closing

about me like the grip of some slow, cruel animal gloating at my pain.

At last I ceased to haunt the office. I knew all I was likely to

know, and I would have given my life to have known nothing. Some

papers were stuffed into my hands, I remember; for Worthing had been

managing my affairs, and now I must find another to steer me through

the legal maze. But just then my helplessness didn't trouble me. It

was the dreadful knowledge that I had killed my friend which stung

me like a stabbing dagger, goading me out of the heavy lethargy that

might mercifully have numbed my feelings, and teasing me to a constant

realization of the maddening truth.

I didn't dare visit Jenny. Indeed I felt a horror at the thought of

ever seeing her again. It was for her I had murdered Worthing. I didn't

blame her; but somehow there seemed to me an unholy fate binding us

together, and unless I could tear myself free even darker consequences

would ensue. There was a bond of blood between us. To think of her even

was to awaken a bitter cry in my heart, an echo as it were from another

world of a reproach I couldn't bear. For Jenny was like a living

monument of the evil I had done. With her image in my mind I was for

ever whipped back to that night at Naples, forced to deal again that

dreadful blow through knowing now whose life it was I was stabbing out

of the world.

I think Dirk must have been away for some days, for I don't remember

his questioning me on the strange shadow that had so suddenly darkened

my life. If he had been at my lodging he couldn't but have seen that

something desperately wrong had taken place. It wasn't till I had

regained something of my self-control that I remember seeing him

again. Then he eyed me wonderingly as though enquiring the cause of my

strangeness. I think he must have told himself some early love affair

had upset me, for he smiled knowingly, and talked about girls being the

devil, declaring they weren't worth a broken heart, nor yet a sleepless

night even. I let him think what he would, and kept my own counsel. I

didn't dare tell him the truth, for he would say the blame was his,

as indeed to some extent it was; for if he hadn't rescued me, as he

imagined, I should soon have been freed of the gag about my face, and

then Worthing would have recognized me, and all would have been well.

So I kept away from Dirk as much as I could. It was easy enough, for he

seemed to be hot on the trail again. I wandered off by myself, though

where I used to get to I don't know. Then I began to try to piece the

mystery together, but little enough could I fit consistently. I knew

now that my first surmise had been correct: I had been mistaken for my

father's murderer, for it was obvious that Worthing wouldn't knowingly

have treated me as he had done. There would have been no sense in it.

I couldn't help complaining bitterly at the amazing ill luck, as it

seemed, which had taken me to Naples just when Worthing happened to

have traced his quarry there. Of course he couldn't have dreamt of my

presence; and I had grown, and my face was tanned brown; his uncle had

never seen me before, and in the boat when Worthing had first looked

upon me my face was half covered with the gag. All this seemed like a

deliberate trick of some malignant devil of fate, and I felt the weight

of the old curse bear heavily upon me like a burden.

Beyond this I could establish little to my satisfaction. How Worthing

had obtained the manuscript I couldn't think. I supposed he had stolen

it from the murderer, and was using it to show he knew what he was

about. But what puzzled me was that he had seemed to suggest that there

was some piece of information he wanted for which he was willing to

allow my father's murderer to escape. He had wanted, in fact, to learn

the mystery of the treasure cave. Why? I asked myself. I couldn't

believe he had been led away from his quest by the lure of gold.

There must be something deeper underlying it all, something which lay

concealed in the earth which to Worthing was of greater importance even

than the dragging to justice of a murderer. It must be something of

rare importance, I argued, if it were worth such a prize, for I knew

his enthusiasm for justice--which to him was like a physical passion.

And there my reason stayed. But I knew enough to realize I hadn't yet

fulfilled the quest Jenny had set me on. At first it had seemed like

an exquisite piece of irony that I had been searching for her father's

enemy only to learn that all the while I had been tracking down my own

friend. But now I knew I had killed my friend for nothing. My father's

murderer and the Captain's persecutor were still at large. I thought

by Worthing's story they were probably the same man, but I had paid

a terrible price for that little piece of information. So with the

wretched thought at my heart that I had killed my friend, severed

myself from my sweetheart, and had all my work still before me, I felt

utterly weary and deserted, an outcast of fortune, alone in an evil

world.

Little by little, of course I came to face up to the thing. I was no

longer the boy I had been even a year ago when my father had been

killed. I had seen the world since then; I had developed in mind and

body. I think my love for Jenny had helped to give me something of a

man's outlook and self-reliance, though I was still far enough from the

years of manhood. I knew I must take my life into my hands, not mope

stupidly and aimlessly, hoping for something to come to my aid from

Heaven knew where. With the growth of this resolution to see the thing

through I began to turn over the papers I had been given, and to dip

here and there into my father's writings, thinking I might come upon

some clue which would lead me to the heart of the mystery. For I knew

now there would be no peace for me till the evil ghost was laid.

So I turned over the pages, but my mind was still too distracted for

clear thinking, and I learnt little. Then I began to long for Jenny

again, though I knew I mustn't see her. For I had told her that her

father's enemy was dead, that I had killed him, and now I knew he

was still alive, and possibly was already casting his evil snares

once again about the Captain's life. I couldn't face Jenny till I had

really freed her father from his foe. I remembered my father's words,

"Always make sure, Tommy." If he had made sure that night in the hut,

if I hadn't fired into the mirror at Sunset Towers, if I had but torn

aside the mask before I had dealt the fatal blow at Naples!... But such

considerations were clean from the purpose and only left me limp and

dejected, speculating on what might so easily have been, and crying

against the strangling fatality which seemed to have my whole life in

its evil grip. All I knew for certain was that my father's murderer,

the Captain's enemy, was still alive, and I mustn't see Jenny again

until I had killed him beyond all shadow of doubt.

Yet I couldn't keep quite away. I began to wander at night in front of

the tall dark house, and then took to going round to the garden at the

back, where I soon found I could climb the wall and watch the light in

a window up above which somehow I knew must be Jenny's. I used to hide

in a great rhododendron bush and fix my eyes on that light, telling

myself that to-morrow I would pack up my dunnage and make tracks for

the _Dolphin_, and search the coast as I had never searched it before

till I had unravelled the whole tangled mystery. I thought I might even

lie in wait for my enemy there, for Worthing had said the fellow would

be sure to turn up sooner or later as evidently he was in search of the

treasure. But though I kept telling myself I would go the next day, I

was always back at my post watching the light in Jenny's window. And

the summer was half spent.

But one night I was rewarded for my vigil. For Jenny pulled aside her

blind, and I heard her brokenly sighing my name. It wasn't till then

that I realized that she must be in a torment of distress at my sudden

desertion of her. I had been so engrossed with my own troubles that

I hadn't thought of hers. I would have broken cover and called up to

her, but at that moment I heard a door open, and a dark figure slipped

noiselessly out of the house. A voice was saying in the suave kind

tones I knew so well, "Courage, my master. Did I not hear you call me,

and I at the end of the world? Yes, and I will come to you again, be

assured."

The Captain replied brokenly out of the shadows, "Oh, Abou, Abou!"

So Abou was back again. His wonderful instinct had told him his master

was in trouble and needed him. I wondered if he had been back long.

Perhaps it was his coming that had set the Captain's mind at rest,

whereas I had thought it was the news of the Naples murder which I had

assumed he must have heard in some way. The thought was but a flash in

my mind, for the Captain went on, "You will find him, Abou, and bring

him back. Tell him, tell him I will be his father. Tell him.... But

what can I say? Boys don't care for that sort of thing. But I love the

bairn, Abou, and I want him back."

"You shall have him, my master," said Abou, and glided away, while I

crouched motionless not daring to breathe.

Then the Captain came out into the garden and strolled up and down a

turn or two muttering my name. I knew I had but to come from my hiding

to be welcomed back into that house with open arms. Yet I knew I

mustn't go. It would be under false pretences. First I must accomplish

my task.

I waited till the Captain had retired, shooting the bolts behind the

closed door before I crept from cover and cautiously made my escape. My

heart was bitterly sore at the thought of all the love I was leaving:

the Captain wanting me back as though I were his son, yet unable to

frame a message for me, thinking I might make fun of his affection, and

doubtless wondering why I had changed my lodging without sending him

word; and my little Jenny perhaps crying herself to sleep with my name

on her lips, her pride broken by longing and anxiety and doubt. My own

eyes were none too dry, nor was my breathing very certain, as I slipped

back to my lodging and hastily packed my knapsack. Then heedless of

Dirk's injunctions I stepped out into the night before my resolution

should waver, and set forth once more for the _Dolphin_ and the mystery

that lay like a shadow of blood over the wonderful coast about Ebb-Tide

Pool.

CHAPTER XXX

DRIFT-WOOD CAVERN

The sight of the familiar scene where I had spent so many happy

summers, and where I had received one desolating blow, seemed to clear

and steady my mind. Sometimes I would remember only the passionate

hours of climbing and swimming I had known there, and would revert

to the delighted boy I had been not so very long ago. But always the

shadow would fall about me again; yet, although it toned down my joy at

being back in the country of my heart, it didn't cloud me from a steady

pursuing of the purpose I had set myself to accomplish.

First of all I re-explored every nook and cranny I had ever visited;

and that alone was the work of some days. I reserved Drift-Wood Cavern

for the last, intending to devote all my energies to tracing it to its

source when once I had satisfied myself that there was nothing else to

learn from the coast to either side of it. In the evenings I sat up

by the open window, or, when darkness had fallen, by the light of my

lamp, studying the papers my father had left behind him. The priest's

manuscript was of little use to me. Its drenching in the sea hadn't

increased its clarity, and as I understood little Latin the text was

of no help. I turned to the map, and tried to wrest the secret from

it; but you can't get the secret from a thing which isn't there. The

fragment that held the clue simply didn't exist, and it was impossible

to reconstruct it except with baseless imaginings.

My father's papers didn't help me much. They were mostly fragments of

stories and poems. It was a sad thing to sit by my lamp night after

night as my father had done before me, and read over those scraps of

broken literature, feeling in every line the marvellous promise and

powers that had been frittered so idly away. Young as I was, I was

judge enough to recognize the work of a master story-teller, and even

the authentic ring of poetry, in the unfinished sketches before me.

Though I tried to remain loyal to my father's memory I couldn't prevent

the cry from rising to my heart, "Oh dad, dad, why did you waste your

days hunting for that accursed treasure when you might have been among

the greatest writers of the land?"

Of the stories I sorted out those which seemed to be based in any way

on the one great story of the hidden gold. Yet even so I couldn't learn

much, for my father modified his facts for dramatic effect, heightening

the colours here and omitting the lesser links of the narrative

elsewhere, so that I couldn't piece together anything consecutive.

Indeed my father's purpose, so I judged, hadn't been to write a

connected history. Elements of the affair appealed to him first in this

light and then in that, and he had transmuted them into imaginative

sketches, suggesting an underlying basis in fact, but misleading in

detail.

There was one story which appealed to me particularly, and it was the

only one which could be called complete. It appealed to me because it

reminded me of the night at Sunset Towers when my father had told the

story of the cursing of the treasure and the terrible fulfilment of the

curse. Here was a tale evidently based on the priest's confession. The

setting was much the same as that of the story I knew, yet there were

details which showed that my father had in mind not only the valley of

the tombs but the coast-line round the _Dolphin_, and so the incidents

were brought more vividly home to me than they would otherwise have

been. First there was an account of the discovery of the treasure by

a party of adventurers; but when half of it had been safely brought

to the light a quarrel broke out, and the Captain of the band found

himself standing almost alone against a mutinous crew. But he was a

wily man, and succeeded in tricking his enemies; and having trapped

them in the cave where the treasure lay he rolled a huge boulder to

the cave's mouth and imprisoned them alive. So far the story was only

a variant of the one I had heard so thrillingly told on that memorable

night; and the account of the frenzy which overwhelmed the Captain with

terror and remorse was much the same as in the account I knew so well

of the Mad Captain and which now, with my own hands stained with blood,

I could appreciate to the full. But after this the story changed. For

a stranger had somehow stolen the plans and learnt of the hidden gold,

though he didn't know the secret of the entrance to the cave. When

the Captain learnt there was some one on the track of the treasure

a terrible fear seized him lest his crime should be discovered.

Whipped on by a fearful fury of madness, he ruthlessly hunted down the

meddlesome interloper, and eventually capturing the wretch chained him

living in a dungeon and sealed the door up against him, having hung the

stolen plans about his neck for a warning to any who might find him and

be so bold as to follow in his steps.

The tale gripped me chiefly because of the intensity of the atmosphere

of terror and madness which prevaded it, till the reading of it seemed

like the very tones of my father's voice as he had used to speak in

the old times when the night hung black outside the pane, and only the

firelight leapt and sank in the shadowy chamber where we sat together,

he leaning back in his chair, and I huddled at his knees. I knew I was

reading a piece of great literature; and again that regretful reproach

sounded in my heart against my father: Why had he neglected such

talents to squander his life away in a stupid hunt for gold?

But another reason which made the story of interest to me was the

picture of the wretched victim chained into the dungeon with the plans

about his neck, for I thought I had come upon a further link in the

strange series of crimes which had made one tale of horror of the

searching for that evil gold. Here was the explanation of the skeleton

I had found at Sunset Towers. Worthing's uncle had said that the story

of its coming there was interesting enough in its own way. Doubtless

he was referring to this yarn of my father's. But when I began to put

things together I found that after all I had learnt little. The yarn

was probably no more than a yarn, springing from my father's fertile

imagination. And even if it were true it only told me of something so

distant as to be of no value. Yet the story clung to my memory. I kept

turning to it as though somehow it contained the clue to the mystery I

was seeking to unravel.

Reading my father's papers sent me frequently to his grave, which

now was nothing but a grass-grown mound in the woods, nameless and

dateless. I set to work to carve a rough cross with his name upon it. I

had thought to have added something to tell of my love for him, and the

blank which his death had made in my life. But words were so stupidly

inadequate that I merely carved his name and locked my wounded and

inarticulate love in my own heart.

Besides my father's papers there were the papers which Worthing's clerk

had given me. I studied these carefully, but they contained nothing

but a clear and precise account of the investments he had made with my

money. So clear indeed was the statement that even I could understand

it, and I knew I should have no difficulty in conducting my own affairs

when occasion called. I felt a gush of gratitude to my dead friend who

had taken such care of my concerns. I thought of how he had sacrificed

pride and principle to rescue me from Rancey Bridge, and how he had

sustained and guided me in the days that had followed that dreadful

first of May. And in return I had killed him!

Well, I knew it was useless brooding over things which couldn't be

amended, yet my heart was heavy with the weight of sorrows it had to

bear.

Meanwhile by day I was searching the countryside for traces of the

mysterious passage which should reveal to me the secret of the

treasure. Again I enquired of the obstinate Dragon's Mouth; but the

great tongue remained foolishly thrust out at me, and the wide jagged

lips were dumb. I sounded up and down through the Smugglers' Tunnel,

and knocked at the fallen doors of Ebb-Tide Gate; but nothing opened to

my knocking. So at last I set myself to explore Drift-Wood Cavern.

I think I delayed the exploration as long as possible because I still

remembered the strange fear which had possessed me when I first entered

those green and evil waters. There was a dread holding me away from

the place. But I knew I must face the ordeal, so at length I took my

courage in my hands and dived into the darkness. I was gratified to

find that the old fear didn't return, only a sense of faint disgust at

the furtive clinging weeds and the slow smooth drifts of refuse which

had gathered there through the years.

I provided myself with clothes and lantern, and such tools as I thought

might be necessary, also a tin of ship's biscuits, thrusting them into

the crevice from the Smugglers' Tunnel so that I merely had to reach

for them when in the cavern. And so I was sheltered from the cold of

wetness and nakedness, and had a light to search by and tools to probe

with. I was determined that if the place really held a secret I would

wrest it away before I had done.

My first entrance was at high tide, and I soon found I could do little.

The tunnel penetrated far into the land, but sank downwards, so I found

myself held back by the deepening water. Accordingly the next time I

went at low tide, and made an interesting discovery: the roof of the

tunnel sank and rose and sank again, forming pockets, as it were.

All the way beyond the first pocket the roof was slippery with weed,

telling me that at high tide the tunnel was full of water. It was an

unpleasant discovery, for I knew that if I weren't careful I might

be caught in one of the pockets and trapped by the rising tide. At

the first feel of the stealing water about my ankles I beat a hurried

retreat, in alarm at being snared and drowned like a rat in a trap. But

I found my fear was premature. I could have continued my search for a

long time yet without danger.

At my third attempt I started with the tide at half ebb, so as to give

myself the maximum time for exploring. I waded knee-deep up the long

and winding tunnel, thrusting my lantern into every nook and cranny,

and digging with my hands into the thick weeds which dripped from the

walls. And so I passed pocket after pocket, and knew that the tide must

soon be on the turn. I was afraid to stay much longer, but ducked under

one last arch. The tunnel rose up steeply before me. I gazed above; and

the swinging light of my lantern fell full upon the white bones of a

skeleton.

For a moment I stood motionless, gazing, while the crabs scuttled out

of the light. My thought was, "Poor wretch, he must have been caught

in the tide." At that moment there came a little slap of water at my

feet. It was like some evil serpent of the sea thrusting out a cold,

lean throat towards me, flickering about me with a cruel forked tongue,

gathering itself to strike. So unnerving was the swift impression that

with a cold panic at my heart I turned and fled, splashing down the

tunnel to safety; and for a couple of days or more I dared not venture

back, though again and again I dived into the cavern intending to

pursue my search, and unravel the meaning of that skeleton.

But for a while I couldn't bring my courage to the necessary pitch.

The thought of being trapped there like that drowned wretch, of having

my flesh eaten off me by those loathsome, hurrying creatures I had

startled with my lantern, was too dreadful a prospect. I told myself

that in a day or two I should regain my nerve. Meanwhile to erase

the impression I set myself to accomplish a feat I had long vowed

to attempt: the scaling of that great bulging rock that overbrowed

Ebb-Tide Pool.

My various efforts would be of little interest even if I could describe

them in detail. It is enough to record that at the third or fourth

attempt I found a way up. There on the top was the level space I had

often climbed down to from above, but had never before scaled from

below. Beneath me lay the pool of smooth water, so tempting with

the sun blazing upon it, that, although I had never dived from such

a height, without a thought I flung out my arms and shot downwards

through a thrilling rush of air, while the blue pool seemed to leap up

at me from below and engulf me with its closing waters.

I rose to the surface panting and glowing and wonderfully excited. For

the second time I climbed to the level platform to hurl myself once

more into the pool beneath.

* * * * *

I think my success in climbing the great jutting rock heartened me for

my real task. The next day I set forth in great spirit. I clambered

down to the platform, stripped off my clothes, but as always, belted my

knife about me, and plunged into the pool and under the arch. I was

soon at the surface, puffing and treading water, closed about by the

darkness of Drift-Wood Cavern. The tide was almost at full ebb; so not

wasting a moment I was out of the water and had lit my lantern; for I

kept a store of oil in the cavern with my food and other necessaries,

so that I could resume work whenever convenient. I had soon roughly

dried myself and pulled on some clothes, and stuffing some biscuits in

my pocket I set off with all speed down the tunnel, not wasting time by

feeling to left and right, but making straight ahead, intent on finding

the skeleton. It wasn't very long before I was once more standing at

the foot of the slope with the light of my lantern gleaming whitely on

the clean-picked bones above.

I had to climb to reach the thing, for the tunnel rose sharply.

Reaching it I stooped to examine it. There was an earthenware bottle

about its neck, and this immediately caught my eyes. It was tightly

corked, I found; so tightly that when I had pulled the bottle away

from the rotten string that held it, I had some difficulty in digging

out the cork with my knife. But at last I had cut it away. Inside

there was a folded slip of paper. Trembling with excitement I thrust

my finger in, and eventually succeeded in working out the paper. But

it was inconceivably old and yellow; and although the water had been

kept away from it, it was sadly the worse for age, not to mention the

damage caused by my excited fingering as I had worked it free. So it

was only after a careful and close perusal that I began to understand

something of the faded writing. But what I did understand set my blood

madly beating at my ears and temples. The man hadn't been trapped, as I

had thought, having penetrated over-boldly into the tunnel; he had been

working from the other direction, from somewhere deep under the earth,

and had never reached the sea.

Little by little as I studied the paper I began to piece out a story

of crime and horror which struck strangely familiar to my mind.

Here was one who had been searching for that gold; another victim

of the curse, I told myself, darkly wondering how many had been the

victims of the outraged gods if the whole tale of them were numbered.

He too had been one of a party who had found and handled the gold;

but as usual--and the recurrence of the thing seemed absurd in its

inevitability--there had been strife and disagreement. As in the old

story of the manuscript, and also in the fanciful yarn of my father's,

there had been treachery and betrayal. The stone that guarded the

cave-mouth had been rolled back upon a party of wretches imprisoning

them alive. History had repeated itself, I thought. The original crime

of the Mad Captain and his followers had been perpetrated a second

time, not only in imagination, as in my father's yarn, but in reality.

But there was a difference. As I examined the script, making out here

and there another word, and another, I began to find myself on a clue

worth all the rest of the story. When once removed the boulder that

had guarded the cave-mouth had been so delicately poised that a couple

of men could roll it back into place, though it had needed twenty with

ropes and levers to heave it up from the hole it covered. But the thing

that arrested me was that the boulder had originally been at the end

of a short but steep passage rising up from the sea into the land, and

the entrance it had sealed was a large hole in the floor of the tunnel.

When the great stone was released, instead of merely falling back into

place, its impetus as it fell had carried it over the pit it had first

covered, and it had rushed to the mouth of the tunnel itself where it

had stuck, jammed immovably in the narrow opening. I didn't need to

cast about in my mind for a possible locality to suit the description;

I knew at once it was the Dragon's Mouth. I had been right in my

surmise that if that tongue were drawn back into the throat the mystery

would be laid bare. No wonder the priest's map had failed to give my

father the clue he had needed. By the rolling of that stone the trace

of the pit-mouth had been destroyed.

But I wasn't satisfied yet. Again I bent to the withered paper.

However, I learnt little more, for a great deal was illegible, though

I determined when out in the daylight to scan it letter by letter till

all lay clear. But I did learn the personal tragedy of the wretch whose

bones lay before me. When his party had been trapped, and had wasted

their energies making futile efforts to escape, futile appeals to their

enemies, clamouring at the great sealed door as though their voices

could penetrate it, he had set himself to search for some other way of

breaking from his prison. He noticed that in the cave there was a wide

pool of water which rose and sank with the tide, and so he had argued

that it must communicate with the sea. In a desperate resolve he had

written out his story, and corking the paper securely in a bottle he

had tied it round his neck, so that if he perished his body might be

found at sea, and his friends at least be rescued. Then diving into

the pool he had trusted to good fortune to see him out to safety. I

could reconstruct the sequel without much difficulty. He had groped

his way through the water and had found the mouth of a tunnel, where,

risking all, he had entered and swum for dear life. But the fates had

been against him; he had been trapped in this pocket having risen and

plunged again how many times I couldn't say. But I knew he had made his

bid for freedom with the tide well in, for at low water having reached

so far he would have won to safety unless overtaken by sheer physical

exhaustion. I felt the tragedy of the thing; so near and yet so far.

And the old story of the manuscript became vividly real to me with

this witness at my feet of a victim trapped to death. I glanced at the

end of the paper for the fellow's name. Meadows, I made out--Carey

Meadows--and inscribed in thicker letters so that its impression might

never fade was a prayer that if he should die, and his body be found,

justice might be done on his accursed brother who had shut him there to

perish: Commander Evelyn Meadows of the _Tiger_.

I had no time to think what this might mean, for suddenly I became

aware that the tide had risen; high up the slope as I was, the water

was feeling about my ankles. So engrossed had I been in my strange

discovery that I hadn't noticed the waters creeping up over my feet.

Hastily I scrambled down the steep fall to find myself trapped in the

next pocket, with the water already over the mouth of it. Perforce I

dropped my lantern, and in sudden darkness dived beneath the arch and

rose into blackness on the other side, where again I pressed forward in

utmost alarm, for I was blindly stumbling and slipping. Then the roof

came down against my head, again forcing me beneath the water. Once

more I dived, but rose only to crack my head against the rock, with no

space of air to breathe in. I was almost choking for want of breath,

but I kicked out frenziedly against the pressing rock, sinking down and

down until at last I felt the roof rise up again, and I knew I was in

the next pocket. With my lungs near bursting I splashed my way up to

the surface, where fortunately there was room for my head to clear the

water. There I rested for a moment gulping in the dank air; but fearing

to delay plunged once again beneath the arch, and so up into the fifth

pocket, and on to the next. It was a terrible journey, but at length

I came out into the open way, almost sobbing with terror, but knowing

that now I was safe.

I sank upon a rock to recover my breath, and at last felt my courage

return to me, and even laughed at the adventure, though I knew well I

had played a close match with death. Then I stripped off my soaking

garments, and dived for the last time, rising to the good daylight

in Ebb-Tide Pool, where for a long while I lay out on a hot rock and

basked in the sun, till feeling a desire for dinner I set off for my

clothes which I had left on the platform above the pool.

I climbed out on to the great rock by the way I had learnt. I was still

a few feet from the platform when I saw a face looking down at me from

above. It was hastily withdrawn, but the surprise nearly upset me, and

I swung, clinging by my finger-tips, to the face of the rock. Then

gathering my strength I tightened my grip, and was once more climbing

steadily upwards, when I heard a terrible cry above me and the sound of

scuffling feet. My curiosity was aroused, and I tugged myself up in a

last effort. Just as I was about to swing myself on to the platform I

saw two figures swaying above me, locked in a deadly struggle. I clung

to my perch, half fearing they would topple on to me. Then I recognized

Dirk. Immediately I knew what had happened: at last he had tracked

his quarry to earth. I saw the huge fellow slowly bending his enemy

back over the edge of rock, so that his body was curved like a bow.

The man's right hand was raised, and in it gleamed a knife; but Dirk

had him firmly gripped by the wrist. As I looked I saw the knife-hand

slowly opening with the pressure of Dirk's fingers upon it. At last the

knife slipped free and fell to his feet, and the empty hand spread wide

with the palm turned full towards me.

And across the palm were two jagged scars.

In a fever of frenzied excitement I heaved myself on to the platform,

and drawing my knife shouted, "Let him go, Dirk! Let him go! Let me

kill him! He's mine!"

CHAPTER XXXI

EXPIATION

My sudden interruption might have been fatal, for Dirk in his surprise

loosened his hold, and his antagonist nearly slipped free, and stooping

had his fingers within an inch of the fallen knife. But Dirk recovered

in time; and now that his enemy's sting had been drawn he crushed

him tight in his tremendous arms, and had leisure holding him so to

question my strange conduct; for I was still dancing madly about him, a

naked figure save for my belt, crying, "Let him go! Let me kill him!"

"Steady, lad," said Dirk slowly, while the little fellow in his arms

writhed unavailingly, darting from his eyes such a fury of malignant

passion that his very gaze seemed poisonous. And I looking upon him

recognized that evil face I had three times seen.

"He killed my father," I cried to Dirk.

"Can't fathom that, kid," said Dirk. "It's the King's Man."

"But I know," I shouted. "I saw the marks on his hand."

"I too," said Dirk. But I knew he was referring to the mark of the

fire. Still excitedly urging Dirk to let me have the killing of the

fellow I yet had space in my mind for the thought that I knew now

where the mark of the fire had come from. It was from that night in

the blazing hut where my father had burnt his hand. Evidently the old

witch hadn't crawled free without a trace of the flames. All that part

of the story was instantaneously clear to me. The fellow had betrayed

the smugglers, as my father had said, so as to cast suspicion on him;

and had laid a snare for him by informing the smugglers that they would

know their betrayer by the mark of the fire on his hand. But the sign

that was to have betrayed my father had merely served to lead his enemy

into his own trap.

All this was a mere flash of thought. I didn't cease crying to Dirk,

"I tell you; look at his right hand; inside. There's the marks of the

nails."

Dirk pressed at the clenched fist, and slowly the fingers opened,

revealing those two jagged tell-tale scars. I opened out my own hand

beside that of my enemy's for Dirk to see, for he knew the story of

that chase across the sands.

"Yus," he said at length, "you're right, kiddy. It's the same cove

we've been after all the time. But I dessay you'd better let me have

the settling of him."

"No, no," I cried, for my thirst for vengeance, so easily allayed, was

whipped into a madness at the actual sight of my father's murderer.

Dirk still delayed, gripping the fellow in his huge embrace, while I

continued to cry, "Let me, Dirk, let me. I can fight him. I'll kill

him."

All this while the look in the man's eyes was altogether

incomprehensible. For Dirk he had nothing but the evillest hatred I had

ever seen on any face; yet for me he had a look almost of tenderness.

But his countenance was so shifting in its expression that it wasn't

the same for half a minute together. In my frenzy I noticed little

of this at the time, except that it seemed to me that he felt some

kind of wicked gratitude for my appeal to Dirk to spare him so that I

might settle my own account of blood. I guessed he spied a loophole

of safety, as he would only have a boy to fight. This imagined slight

which I sensed in his contempt for me angered me the more, till I

fevered for his blood.

Eventually my clamouring prevailed upon Dirk, though I could see he was

unwilling to let me risk myself in fight against the fellow. But as he

said, "You've more to pay than I have, Tommy. You have first claim."

I picked up the man's knife and springing back as Dirk released him

tossed it to him. He caught it by the handle in true fashion. Then

naked as I was I faced him, and we circled round one another with eyes

fixed blazingly to each other's eyes. Dirk stood aside, but ready to

leap in if the fellow showed signs of attempting to escape. And indeed

I think that was his purpose. For at first he didn't try to aim a blow

at me; and once I saw his eyes turn for the fraction of a second to

where the cliff dropped sheer from his feet. I believe he would have

plunged and swum for it, but I drove in swiftly and gashed him down

the arm. I heard Dirk's "Bravo!" but I knew I had done foolishly to

wound and not to kill, for the fellow's anger was sharpened, and I

saw the glow of hate in his eyes flash on me for a second as I had

seen it burn against Dirk. Moreover, he began to press me, and I had

to give ground. Twice he lunged in, but I caught his wrist in time

and sprang away. And in my turn I feinted and struck, but he was too

quick for me. I began to feel he was a master of knife-work such as I

had never seen before. My father had been quick in our mock battles,

and Dirk had shown me something of what could be done in agility and

parrying and swift counterfeit. But this lithe, swarthy creature, who

circled stealthily about me and sprang in and away with the lightness

of a cat, was far nimbler and subtler than either Dirk or my father.

I found myself breathing heavily as he leapt in and closed with me,

and bounded back and in again before I had well recovered from the

first assault. He kept me dancing to right and left and backwards and

forwards without a moment's pause, till the upshot of the fight became

at first sadly uncertain and then terribly sure. I knew that sooner or

later he must slip past my guard; and since that first mistake of his

I hadn't once touched him. Gradually I lost the power of reasoning the

situation. At first I had been alert enough, judging for the spring in,

watching for the attack; but now I found myself mechanically dodging

and parrying, till at last I wondered what possessed him not to drive

in and settle the unequal combat. He seemed to be merely playing with

me, for I knew that my life was in his hands. Was he afraid of Dirk's

vengeance if he should kill me? And then dully the thought came to me

that he was waiting for the double chance, at one moment to strike and

to escape. That meant he must drive me to the edge of the platform,

where with a blow he might finish me and leap into the pool below.

But I was determined to thwart him. I steered away to the rise of the

cliff, but immediately he wedged me away from it, and I knew my surmise

was correct. I felt desperate. Gradually he was forcing me to the edge,

and I knew that once there he wouldn't delay the fatal stroke. Then

with the fear of death upon me I suddenly grew strong again, calm even.

I remembered Jenny, and said I would not die. I knew just what I would

do. I gave ground, and he came stepping after me, his eyes glowing with

assurance of victory; then trusting to his confidence to slacken his

caution, and even quivering my lip in a semblance of fear, I leapt in,

and pretending to stumble dropped my knife as he gripped my wrist, but

catching it in my left hand struck sideways as Dirk had taught me, and

felt my blade jab at his ribs as it sank into his breast.

For a moment I thought my end had come. His knife was brandished high

over my head, and I had no hand free to stay the impending blow. But

the arm above me faltered and fell limp. The knife slipped and rattled

to my feet. It bounced on the rock, rolled, and fell away over the edge

to splash far down beneath me in the water.

The man collapsed, a huddled bundle. But as he fell he rested his eyes

on mine in such a piteous and reproachful look that I started back half

conscience-stricken at my deed, and with all the hate ebbed out of my

heart.

So he lay, and with one ugly choke of blood was dead.

Dirk stepped up and slapped me on the back, and said, "Wull, you've

robbed me of my vengeance, kiddy. I wish to God he had another life. He

wouldn't slip out of it with a little prick like this." And he spurned

the blood-soaked corpse with his foot.

"Don't, Dirk, don't!" I cried in horror. He stepped back looking

amazedly at me, and saying, "Wull, strike me, Tommy! What's the game

now, eh? Aren't you satisfied?" Then I think seeing the agony in my

face he added, "Come Tommy, you've played fair. Thank the Almighty for

staking on your side, an' me for teaching you the trick, an' yourself

for learning it all so pat an' neat." But his words were lost on me;

for I was gazing on the dead man's face, where death was busy smoothing

out the evil lines of hate, till the lips grew gentle and the glazing

eyes almost merry as though the fellow were amused at the contemplation

of some hidden irony underlying the tragedy.

Dirk was repeating, "It wasn't the prick of a knife he'd a got from me.

Six hours. _Six hours!..._" I knew of what he was thinking, and dimly

realized that although his blood was upon my hands I had saved the poor

wretch from a terrible fate.

And then I gave a cry, and stooped over the body, gazing deep into the

eyes; for the face was the face of Picardino.

Picardino! And then, of course, I could read so many things clearly

which before had been covered in shadow. It was Picardino who had set

fire to the _Snow Man_. It was Dirk who had been on his track and had

frightened him in the night when my father had returned and whistled

to me. It was Picardino who had seen my father rush into the burning

building, and had heard my cry of "Daddy, dad-_dee_!" as I ran up

through the crowd. He had kept the scene in his memory and had planned

the ruse that had trapped my father at last. It was Picardino too who

had drawn both Dirk and Worthing to Naples. It wasn't luck merely that

had brought about the fatal error. For it was outside Picardino's

lodging that Worthing's uncle had been waiting for his quarry, and

had found me instead. And yet I couldn't help the thought that it was

Picardino who would have sheltered me after he had killed my father,

and who had brought me Jenny's message, so that in my gratitude I had

even embraced him. My father he had hated to the death, but me he had

loved; of that I felt certain. Perhaps that was why he had been so

unwilling to strike. Perhaps even at the end it had paralysed the blow

which might so easily have fallen on my unprotected heart. Picardino!

I gazed at him in a mist of sadness and wonder, till the face seemed

to change again. Indeed in life as he had gazed from Dirk to me I had

noticed its shifting mobility of expression, and in death it seemed to

be settling back through all its stages from the hate that had last

inspired it to whatever might have been its ruling emotion in life.

Now the amusement was yielding to a calm and serene content. And of a

sudden it was no longer the face of Picardino, but the face of Abou

that stared up at me. In spite of all absence of that mighty beard

which had veiled the living Abou, I knew him now as he lay dead. Dimly

I remembered how Dirk had said that the fellow had more shapes than a

cloud and more voices than the wind.

Abou! And now the shadow lifted further. The whole mystery lay bare to

me, except indeed the motive which had driven him to kill my father.

For now I knew how it was that Dirk had made that mistake at Sunset

Towers. It was Abou he had been stalking that night. It was Abou who

had been crouched in the darkness of the archway beside me. It was Abou

who in the person of Picardino had told of the haunted house, hoping

that my father would be led into the trap, thinking the mysterious

mansion a good hiding-place. It might even have been Abou who

impersonated the landlord; and it was certainly he who knew the secret

of the passage, and whose reflection in the mirror I had fired at that

night. It was Abou, too, who had deceived even Jenny, when as Picardino

he had promised to find me and deliver her message. It was Abou who

had taken the manuscript to Sunset Towers where Worthing or his uncle

had found it. Indeed it must have been one of them I had heard that

evening in Jenny's room. Worthing must have guessed something of the

bond that united the Captain's story with my father's, and with the

clue I had given him of the opening of the secret passage he had been

able to search for the connecting link at Sunset Towers. Either he or

his uncle; which, I should never know. But the card with the Captain's

address had been discovered, and so they had been able to trace Abou in

London. And lastly I remembered it was Abou who had asked to be sent

back to his own people, because of the persecution of Dirk, I assumed;

and it was in pursuit of him that we had sailed away to the East. But

in his amazing intuition he had felt his master needed him again, and

he had turned back on his journey; and it was his trail we had followed

to such a tragic end at Naples. Yes, it was all quite clear except for

the motive. Again I told myself that Abou loved me, though he had hated

my father. It was he who had been the go-between when Jenny and I had

quarrelled; it was he who had smoothed over the angry passages by his

calm voice and gentle manner. And I had killed him! Yet it was some

consolation to know that at least I had saved him from a death far more

horrible than the one I had dealt him. Abou! Picardino! They had both

loved me, and I could have loved them well, had not this thwart and

evil destiny set us as enemies against each other.

How long I would have stayed there linking up the story, I don't

know. I suppose Dirk stood silently by in deference to my obvious

grief at the work of my hands; and perhaps something of the strange

transformation in the face of the dead man held him, too, in a wonder

of conjecture. But at last his patience was exhausted. Supposing, as I

imagine, that a strong command was what was needed to put backbone into

my collapsed will, he said sharply, "You put on that gear of yours, and

tramp. I know the best hole for this." He nodded down at the corpse,

and jerked his thumb at the pool below. I knew he meant to hide the

body in Drift-Wood Cavern, and the knowledge hurt me.

"No," I cried.

He faced me sternly, and I hung my head. Indeed I knew there was no

other way unless I wished to swing. So I began mechanically pulling

on my clothes, while Dirk shouldered the dead man and set off down the

cliff.

When I was dressed I wiped my knife in the earth. Drawing my various

weapons, my pistol, my stiletto, and the knife I had just cleaned, I

looked mournfully at them, knowing full well how I delighted in them,

yet hating the use to which I had so far put them. I stuffed them back

into my belt in disgust, and climbed up the cliff to the _Dolphin_.

I walked slowly, though I was famishing with hunger, and felt the need

of a stiff glass of spirits. My mind was in a tumult, still questioning

the dark affair. The course of things was clear; but the motive? Abou,

I said, was merely his master's shadow. Somehow I knew that what he had

done must have been for the Captain, not for himself. For the Captain

he had changed from a suave and gracious minister of comfort to the

semblance of that hateful old witch, and had ruthlessly sacrificed, not

my father only, but the unoffending smugglers, in his zeal to serve his

master. Well, he had expiated his sacrifice and his sin. And yet what

had the Captain to do with it? Why had he set Abou to kill my father?

And how would it affect my love for Jenny? Now not only was Worthing's

blood between us, but my father's blood as well. What was my part to

be? Must I take another step forward, wade deeper into the river of

blood, and kill the Captain? But that I knew I could never do. Yet why

had he killed my father?

It was a sudden illumination that gave me the last link I needed. I

remembered the story I had deciphered in the tunnel under the earth

only an hour ago. An hour ago? It seemed an age! I remembered, too,

the tale Worthing's uncle had told me that night beneath the stars:

the tale of the Captain and his brothers. Captain Field--Commander

Meadows! The disguise was so ludicrously thin that I even laughed

aloud when the two names met and mingled in my mind. In that cave of

accursed gold was buried the Captain's deadly secret, the secret that

had tortured him through life, the secret of his murdered comrades, of

his murdered brother. He dared not let another meddle with the thing.

The thought of prying eyes in that dark place of crime and death was

like a madness in his blood; a madness I could well conceive, for I had

heard my father tell so often the story of the Mad Captain, and among

his papers was that other yarn which told of the ruthless hunting of

the treasure-seeker by one who had no cause to hate him except that he

feared the exposing of the secret that had poisoned all his life. Had

my father guessed the motive of his relentless persecution, I asked

myself; or was it but a fancy that had made him write that yarn? That

was something I would never know.

My thoughts were in a strange tangle when I arrived at the _Dolphin_,

and even my emotions were clashing conflictingly in my soul. On the one

hand I saw the cruel and useless murder of my father as a thing crying

for revenge. But again so steeped with repetition had I been in the

agonies of the Mad Captain that I felt he couldn't have done otherwise

than he did. The anguish in his soul had goaded him on to a cruelty he

hadn't contemplated. Perhaps even some cause I didn't know had made him

commit that first dreadful crime of imprisoning his comrades in the

cave and leaving them there to perish so miserably. Again I thought

how strange it was that history had repeated itself. The first crime

the priest had told of was the same as the last I had read that day.

The circle was complete, as though the curse had worked itself to a

consummation; and I was determined that it should end now once for all.

I would burn all traces of the clue to the treasure cave. I wouldn't

touch a penny of the evil gold if it should come my way. And come my

way I thought it might, as I knew the Captain was fond of me. And

puzzling out his fondness I thought at first it was merely that he had

been desirous to make amends; but later I felt sure he had come to like

me for my own sake. Well, what my course was to be I couldn't say. Was

a further expiation required? If so, I vowed some other hand than mine

should strike the blow.

At that I thought of Worthing who would have uncompromisingly declared

that blood must atone for blood. Was that the reason, I asked myself,

why my father's murder had sunk into insignificance with him? Had he

come on the trail of a greater crime? Was it for that he had hunted

down Abou, as he thought, promising him life if he would tell the

secret of the entrance? It wasn't gold he was after; that I felt sure

of. Was it justice?

With these questions tumultuously buzzing in my mind I reached the

_Dolphin_, wearily climbed the stairs, and opened the door of my room.

Facing me as I entered was the Captain himself. Without realizing what

I was doing I exclaimed:

"Commander Meadows!" In a frightened whisper I added, "Of the _Tiger_."

CHAPTER XXXII

INTO THE MORNING

I saw a smile of greeting change into a grimace of stupefied dismay.

My mind went back to the morning when in the kitchen just beneath us I

had blurted out, "The smugglers!" I stood horrified at what I had done.

This dismay on the Captain's face grew into an expression of savage

cunning, and I knew that all the deviltry of his lifelong madness was

roused to a ferocious passion. His head sank below his shoulders; his

hands curled and stiffened like the claws of an enraged beast; his eyes

at first swelled glaringly from their sockets, then sank back beneath

the half-closed lids in a terrible scrutiny of menace. And suddenly he

sprang upright with his hands thrown behind his head, and burst into a

peal of demoniac laughter more terrifying than the brutal crouching of

his first posture. And still I stood motionless watching him.

His frenzied mirth subsided at length into broken gigglings, hysterical

and unnatural. Tottering a little he felt about for a chair and sat

down heavily. Then drawing out a huge kerchief he mopped his brow which

was beaded over with perspiration, and still faintly chuckling said,

"Ha, yes, excellent; excellent, indeed. That's good, Tommy; that's a

good joke, a really good joke, 'pon my soul." He threw back his head

and forced out a harsh laugh.

I took a step forward. "Sir," I began, wondering how I might undo the

evil I had done. But at that he sprang up, and his savage madness

returned upon him.

"Stand back," he cried in a terrible voice, "stand back. I know you,

I know who you are. You think you can fool me, do you? You think I

don't know you, eh? God in heaven, what do you take me for, sir?" With

his curled fingers digging at the air as though to tear away some

obstructing veil he stared at me with reddening eyes, and went on, "Ha,

yes, you think you look like Tommy, do you? But I know you. You would

hunt me down, blast your eyes! You would tell me of the bodies lying

there. You would put the world upon my track. Ha, you would drag me out

into the light, point at me, set men's eyes upon me, name me murderer?

So? Murderer, am I? Killed my own brothers, did I? Trapped them and

left them there to die?" His voice rose more shrilly with each word,

and he finished with a scream, suddenly covering his face with his

hands, "And I did, I did! Oh, God!"

He sank sobbing to the floor. I didn't know what to do. It was

terrible, it was piteous. But I knew he was mad, and dared not approach

him.

Presently he seemed to regain control of himself. Still huddled on the

floor he threw out a hand to me, and looking up at me from flushed and

swollen eyes began in a strained, low, monotonous tone, "See here, this

is how it was. And you _will_ know sooner or later. They'd have killed

me. I tell you, they'd have killed me. Yes, my own brothers would have

killed me for the gold. But I found out how it lay. I trapped them

there. But one escaped; the youngest. I loved him. I tell you, I loved

the boy. And he would have killed me for the gold. I tell you...." He

broke off. His head fell between his hands. "You don't believe me," he

moaned reproachfully, "you don't believe a word I say."

"Sir," I cried, "I do believe you."

Slowly he peered up at me, and I saw a wicked gleam lighten his face.

"So," he said. "Then come and kiss me, boy."

I think I would have ventured all and gone to him to see if I might

pacify his tortured spirit, but I remembered how once before he had

snared me so at Sunset Towers. I held back doubtfully, though I

yearned to run to him and comfort him. At my hesitation his face grew

frightful. He sprang to his feet and cried, "He hates me. Tommy hates

me because I killed his father. I killed...." He stopped short, and

staring at me said deliberately, "You lie. It's all a lie. I didn't

kill him. My name is Field; Captain Field, I'd have you know. And the

crying you hear at night, Tommy, it's the ghost. You know it's the

ghost?"

"Yes, sir," I said, "I've seen it." For I thought to lead his mind back

to earlier associations.

But he chuckled to himself and said, "Little fool! Seen it, eh? Little

fool!"

The thought seemed to amuse him. He laughed quietly for a while. Then

again I saw his eyes slanting round at me. He stopped laughing, and

gazing at me stupidly, said, "Still here, eh? What do you want with me,

eh? God in heaven, can't you say what you want?"

He stood so for a moment, and I couldn't say a word.

Then he passed his hands across his eyes, and his face took on a look

of horror. "Tommy?" he asked. "Isn't it Tommy?"

"Yes, sir," I said, "I'm Tommy."

"Liar!" he cried. "Liar! I know you. Pah! There's the smell of blood

in the air. You've come from the grave, from the grave down there in

the woods. I know. Why can't you leave me in peace? Why must you follow

me? They told me it was quiet in the grave. Why can't you lie still?

Why can't you rest? What have I done to you? What have I ever done to

you that you should follow me like this? Yes, always follow me? Away, I

say; away!"

He sprang towards me with his hands before his eyes, lurching blindly

as though afraid to face me. I slipped to one side, and we changed

places. He removed his hands, and looking before him thought for a

moment I had gone, "Ha," he muttered, "I thought I saw him. I must be

going mad." Then he turned. I thought he would have fallen dead at my

feet. With mouth foaming and eyes staring he tottered dizzily forward

and collapsed to the floor without a struggle. I would have stepped to

him, but he lifted his face and looked furtively up at me from under

his brows, and said in a broken-hearted voice, "I tell you I'm sorry.

I can't say more. It had to be. Blood breeds blood. You should have

taken the money and gone away. But you took the money and followed me.

Always you followed. What could I do?"

I knew he was mistaking me for my father. Perhaps I was really growing

more like my father, or perhaps it was just his guilty imagination

tricking him. But I said once more, "Sir, I'm Tommy."

He lay crouched on the floor, breathing heavily, and watched me for a

minute or two. I thought his mind was clearing. "Tommy," he muttered,

"Jenny's Tommy. You'll be rich, Tommy; you'll be rich. And you needn't

fear. You're not to blame, boy. It's evil gold, and there's a curse

on it; but it won't hurt you. There's no blood upon your hands. Thank

God for that, boy; thank God for that. You take the gold, and ask no

questions. Your father asked too many questions. I gave him gold, but

he would ask questions. That's dangerous, boy."

He scrambled unsteadily to his feet, and said, "Come and kiss me,

Tommy."

But again the memory of that pursuit round the table held me doubtfully

back. Now there was no Abou to lead the Captain away if he meditated

treachery. The hesitation was fatal. He burst out into a torrent of

reproach: "Tommy hates me. He won't believe me. I say they would have

murdered me, but he won't believe me. Oh, Tommy, Tommy! My boy! And I

loved you." With a sobbing cry he burst through the door and away into

the woods, where I heard his voice echoing brokenly in a dying wail.

I was too exhausted to follow. I sat down where I was, and burying my

face in my hands yielded to a weak self-pity. My whole life lay in

pieces at my feet. I had killed those that had loved me best, driven

on by a fate that had blinded and mastered me. Through no sin of my

own I felt the clinging guiltiness of blood upon my hands. Ahead of me

I saw no cleansing, no healing. For now blackened out of my life was

the one bright gleam that had cheered me forward: my love for Jenny.

There would be no Jenny for me any more. A terrible river of blood lay

between us. The bridge of reconciliation that might have spanned it I

had destroyed with my own hands. If I had stifled my suspicions and

gone to the Captain when he had called me, all might have been well.

But I had closed the one door that he had opened. I had refused the

hand he had offered. I had sealed my own fate.

Jenny's Tommy, he had named me. The name stirred bitterly at my heart.

I remembered how Jenny had sent me forth to find her father's foe. I

remembered, too, how I had believed I had found him and killed him, but

had only killed my own friend. The irony of the thing had stung me at

the time. But now it seemed that the whole conclave of the fates were

heaving in laughter; for I had succeeded only in tracking down myself.

I had been hunting myself about the world. I was the man I had promised

to kill. I thought I couldn't do better than fulfil my promise. Jenny's

Tommy! There would be no Jenny for me.

How Dirk found me I needn't relate; nor how he took me back to London,

comforting me in his rough way when by broken fragments I gave him all

my story. He saw nothing to mope over. "Girls," he said, "don't let a

spot o' blood upset them." But I couldn't bring myself to face Jenny.

Not merely was I afraid of meeting the Captain again, but the thought

of naming love to Jenny sickened and disgusted me.

I was awakened into some kind of alertness when, after we had been in

London some days, Dirk told me the Captain hadn't returned to his home.

He knew the house, for he had tracked Abou there before he had set out

for the _Dolphin_ on his last journey. Jenny had been left in the care

of the maid, while the Captain, too restless to wait for Abou to find

me, had followed him after some days of fretful anxiety. Jenny, Dirk

had learnt, was still awaiting her father, unconscious of the tragedy

that had befallen him.

The news set me packing. I announced to Dirk that I was off to Sunset

Towers to seek the Captain, for I knew where he must have gone, and I

dreaded what might have happened to him. Dirk offered to take me on the

brig, but I asked him merely to sail to the Rancey and await me there.

Somehow I felt I must make the journey alone. The thought of company

was like the rubbing of rough garments on an open wound for I seemed

to be embarked on a pilgrimage of atonement. I determined to find the

Captain, and mad or sane I would beg his forgiveness, and close for

ever the terrible account of blood that lay between us.

Full of this resolve I travelled slowly northwards. On the way I

repeated the whole story to myself, having all the clues in my hands

now, even the mystery of my father's little fortune, which had

evidently been hush money paid by the Captain to turn him from his

quest. I felt chastened and subdued, unable to fix the blame. My father

had certainly not offended to the penalty of death; and on the other

hand the Captain, whipped to a madness at the memory of the crime he

had been forced into, so much against his kindly nature as I knew,

wasn't to be charged to the full with the blood he had shed to cover

his traces. "Blood breeds blood," he had said. There was a fatality in

the affair. My sympathy went out to him, for my father's stories had

so stimulated my imagination that I could put myself in the Captain's

place. Goaded as he had been I knew I should have acted as he had done.

Nor could I reproach Abou for his mistaken devotion to an evil duty.

Indeed something like admiration for him welled up in my heart when

I thought how he had put aside his calm serenity of mind to dog his

master's enemy year after year with the knife of murder in his hand,

when his whole nature I believed craved for quietness and peace. And

what a pursuit it had been! I had only glimpsed it by fleeting scenes,

when those two superb trackers, the hunter and the hunted, had emerged

for a moment into the daylight from their dark and tortuous burrowings

underground. But the course of that tremendous chase, the shifts and

wiles and dodges of that pair of consummate actors, had been a drama

for the gods above, and none but they could tell its story. And so as

I thought of these things I felt as I had so often felt before that I

was moving in the presence of something more than human. The strange

hatred, the madness, the bewildering unreason of the combat between

those men who had no cause to wrong each other turned my mind back to

the old tale of the curse. I yielded to the superstition, otherwise

there was no accounting for the feud: it was that ancient malediction

that had exacted such a penalty of blood.

When I arrived at Sunset Towers all was deathly still. There was no

trace of the Captain upstairs or downstairs. For a while I thought my

pilgrimage had been in vain. Then I remembered the secret chamber,

and knew at once that, of course, the Captain would have taken

refuge there. With my stiletto I had little difficulty in finding

and penetrating the hole through the worm-eaten panel in the old oak

wardrobe. I pressed back the lever which lifted the bar, and the door

swung easily open. I listened for a moment wondering whether I had been

overheard; if so the Captain might be waiting for me at the top of

the narrow stairs. But all was still, and I ascended into the dark. I

hesitated at the top, then boldly pushed open the door. The Captain lay

on the bed, his face turned to the skylight, his hand gripping a dagger

which was buried up to the hilt in his heart.

There was little to do. He had paid the forfeit, and was at rest. When

I recovered from the shock I searched among his papers. I found a copy

of his will bequeathing his property to Jenny and myself, with the hope

strongly expressed that, some day, we might marry each other, and so

reunite the divided inheritance. I knew his real meaning was that the

feud might be healed in reconciliation.

I put the will into my pocket, but vowed never to touch a penny of that

unhallowed gold. I hoped, too, I might persuade Jenny to forswear her

share. That would be the last service I could do her, for I couldn't

see the Captain's desire being fulfilled.

Then there seemed only one thing left to do. I searched the cellars and

grounds for oil and firewood, and stacking the fuel up the stairs, and

flinging open all the doors and windows, I set a light to the stuff,

using as a brand first the manuscript that had caused all the evil, and

then the paper I had found on the skeleton in Drift-Wood Cavern.

With the building once well ablaze I set off for the sea, turning at

every few steps to look behind me to satisfy myself that the flames

were mastering the great ruinous pile, wiping bare for ever all traces

of the crime which had begun there with the finding of the manuscript

and ended there with the suicide of the Captain.

As I left the place farther and farther behind I couldn't help thinking

of that other fire I had watched as my father carried me away from the

blazing hut in the woods where first I had consciously become aware of

the tangled net in which my life had been so strangely and tragically

involved. And here with fire I was freeing myself from the net for

ever. And so I kept casting back over my shoulder to watch the flames,

till at last even the smoke rising in a thick column to the clouds was

merely a patch of blurred shadow on the skyline.

Then again I thought of Jenny. I began to wonder how I should break the

news to her. How was I to tell her the story? For I mustn't wound her

love for her father, yet I must be just to my own. The picture of the

lonely little girl cast out upon the world with none to protect her

took violent hold upon my pity. I yearned towards her, yet knew deep in

my heart that to speak to her of love would be to stab her afresh in

her still-bleeding wound.

I was utterly weary in body, utterly dejected in spirit, when I

reached the sea. I found Dirk waiting me in a shore-side tavern. I

told him my story. The night was falling as we rowed out to the brig. I

retired to my bunk, where I lay a long while sorrowfully tossing, and

at last fell into a troubled sleep.

With the chill of the morning I was up again, cheered at heart as

always at the sight of the good day. I ran out on deck. And there

before me was Jenny.

I stopped short, thinking my eyes were deceiving me. But she walked

gravely up to me and said, "Dirk brought me, Tommy. He has told me

everything."

"Everything?" I repeated.

"Yes," she said.

"And yesterday ..." I began.

"Yesterday, too," she said.

For a minute or two we faced each other in silence. Then I began again.

"I have your father's will," I told her.

"Dirk showed it me," she replied.

"But, Jenny," I went on, "you mustn't touch the gold. It's evil."

"I don't want the gold," she declared, breaking from her coldness and

speaking with a sudden passion.

I looked at her keenly, for there was something unspoken behind her

emotion.

"Then we must say good-bye, I suppose?" I announced, not supposing any

such thing, yet half turning from her. At that she spoke with something

of her old imperiousness.

"You're very stupid, Tommy," she cried. "My father killed your father,

and your father killed my father."

"No," I contradicted.

"Yes," she insisted, "it was so. And so that's all finished. We must

try and begin again. Daddy wants us to. He says so in the will."

At that I flung my arms about her. And in the flush of that wonderful

moment I seemed to steer suddenly free of the dark shadow of Fear that

had closed my life around ever since I could remember, and sailed out

into the clean sweet air, with the breaking dawn about me.

* * * * *

Of the rest what need I say? For how we sailed away to the sun and the

south; and how for three years I increased in knowledge of seamanship,

and put on bulk and muscle, while Jenny grew in sweetness and beauty

and grace; and how Dirk taught me the ways of traffic and barter, till

at length I sailed back to England with a neat little fortune of my

own; and how Dirk retired and bought an inn, and the _Revenge_ was

bequeathed to me and became the _Jenny_ brig; all this and much more

that followed belongs to another story which I may tell some later day.