THE SILENT MAN’S STORY
ON the following morning I entered Dr. Macfarlane’s consulting-room in
response to a letter from him.
“Your foundling is a lot better, Pickering,” exclaimed the great lunacy
specialist, rising and giving me his hand. “I’ve got him round at last.
Not only is he quite rational, but he has found his voice, or as much of
it as he will ever have. Brand, the surgeon, has discovered that he has
an injury to the tongue which prevents him properly articulating.”
“Is he quite in his right mind?” I asked, eagerly.
“As right as you are, my dear fellow. I thought from the first it was
only temporary,” he answered. “He has told me his story, and, by Jove!
it’s a remarkable one.”
“What account does he give of himself?”
“Oh, you’d better come with me down to Ealing, and hear it from his own
lips. I’m going to High Elms in half an hour.”
When the Mysterious Man entered the doctor’s private room at the asylum
I saw at once what a change had been wrought in him. Neatly dressed in
blue serge, his grey hair was well-trimmed, and he no longer wore that
long Rip Van Winkle beard of which the hands of the _Thrush_ had made
such fun. He was now shaven, with a well-twisted white moustache, smart,
fresh-looking, and no longer decrepit. He walked with springy step, and
seemed at least twenty years younger. Only when he spoke one realized
his infirmity, although he seemed an educated man. His mouth emitted a
strange, hollow sound, and several letters he could not pronounce
intelligibly.
“I have, I believe, to thank you, doctor,” he said, politely, as he came
in. “You were one of those who rescued me.”
“Yes,” I answered. “I found you on board the old ship, the _Seahorse_,
and we took you with us to the steamer.”
“Ah!” he sighed. “I had a narrow escape, doctor—a very narrow escape.
I’ve been mad, they say. It’s true, I suppose, otherwise I should not be
here, in an asylum. But I assure you I recollect very little after I
boarded that coffin-ship.”
I watched his dark eyes. They were no longer shifty, but calm and
steady. He was quite sane now, and had at Macfarlane’s invitation seated
himself between us.
“We are all very much interested in you,” I said. “Will you tell me the
whole story?”
“Well, I can’t talk very plainly, you know, but I’ll try and explain
everything,” he said. Then with a renewed effort he went on:—
“It is no sailor’s yarn, but the truth, even though it may sound a
remarkable story. You see, it was like this. I’d been at sea all my
life, and in Liverpool Bob Usher, first mate of the _City of Chester_,
was well known twelve years ago. Like a good many other men I got sick
of my work, and in a fit of anger with the skipper I deserted in Sydney.
After the _City of Chester_ had sailed for home I joined another
steamer, the _Goldfinch_, bound for Shanghai, but instead of putting in
there we ran up the Chinese coast, and when a couple of cannon were
produced and the forecastle hands armed themselves with rifles and
cutlasses, the truth dawned upon me. It was not long before we painted
our name on the bows, and commenced doing a bit of piracy among the
junks. Our quick-firing guns, manned by old naval men, played havoc
among the Chinese boats, and before a fortnight we had quite a cargo of
loot—silks, ivories, tea, opium, and such things—all of which we ran
to Adelaide, where the skipper disposed of them to one of those agents
who asked no questions.
“At first I had thoughts of leaving the ship, for I had no desire to be
overhauled by a British cruiser, nor to be sunk as a pirate. Still, the
life was full of excitement, and the hands were as adventurous and as
light-hearted a crew as ever sailed the Pacific. Although the gunboats
were constantly on the lookout for us, we had wonderful good luck. In
the China seas there is still a lot of piracy, mostly by the Chinese
themselves, but sometimes by European steamers. We always gave the
British squadron a very wide berth, constantly changing our name and
altering the colour of our funnel. This went on for nearly a year, when
at last the chase after us grew a bit too hot, and we sailed out of
Perth for Liverpool. We had rounded the Cape and were steaming up the
West Coast of Africa, when one day a Danish seaman named Jansen made a
trifling mistake in executing one of the captain’s orders. The skipper
swore, the Dane answered him back, whereupon the captain shot the poor
fellow like a dog, and with the aid of the second mate pitched him to
the sharks before he was dead. This was a bit too much for me. I
remonstrated at such cold-blooded murder, but scarcely had the words
left my mouth when the captain, Bennett by name, fired point-blank at
me.”
“Bennett!” I ejaculated, interrupting. “Do you mean Black Bennett?”
“Yes. The same man,” he answered. “Do you know the brute?”
“I do. Go on. I’ll tell you something when you have finished.”
“Well, the skipper fired at me. He was the worst of bad characters. They
said he’d secured a big fortune after a few years, and that it was
locked up in Consols in England. All I know, however, is that he was the
most cold-blooded, heartless blackguard that I’ve ever met. Of course
Chinese don’t count for much, but I’d be afraid to estimate how many
he’d sent to kingdom come during our exciting cruises in Chinese waters.
But that’s neither here nor there. We quarrelled, he and I. Having
missed me, he at once decided on another plan of getting rid of me. We
were just then hugging a long, broken, and unexplored coast line,
therefore he stopped the vessel and ordered the crew to lower a boat and
put me ashore, knowing too well the fate of a single unarmed man among
the barbarous Moors. It was a fiendish revenge to maroon me, but I was
helpless. That was the last time I saw Bennett—nearly ten years ago
now.”
The man Usher paused for a few moments, the effort of such a long
narrative having been too much for him.
“Well,” he continued, “I was put ashore without food or water on a
sandy, desolate spot. The surf was so strong that we narrowly escaped
being upset, but getting to land at last I discovered the mouth of a
river, and pushed my way beside it for a good many miles. The river, I
afterwards found, was called the Tensift, and I had landed in South
Morocco. I need not describe all the adventures that happened to me,
save that I was seized a week after landing and carried as a slave to
Morocco city, where I was sold to a powerful sheik, who probably
considered that it increased his social status to possess an English
slave. I was taken across the deserts and over the Atlas to a place
called Aksabi, and for several years was kindly treated although held in
bondage. After some time, however, my master was ordered by the Sultan
to raise an army against the Riff tribes on the Mediterranean coast, and
I was, of course, enrolled as a man who knew something of war. Our
expedition travelled first to Fez, where we were reviewed by the Sultan
himself, and then we penetrated into the fertile mountain country held
by the revolutionary Riffs. But disaster after disaster befell us in
that unknown country, falling into ambushes almost every day, until with
others I was taken prisoner, and passed from hand to hand until I became
slave to one of the powerful Riff chiefs. All my companions had been
massacred in cold blood, but being a European my life had been spared,
probably because my captors expected they might hold me for ransom. As
slave of a tyrannical barbarian, mine was a dog’s life. On any day or at
any hour I knew not whether my capricious master might not order me to
be put to the torture, bastinadoed, or shot, while the work in the
broiling sun under a harsh negro taskmaster was so hard that it sapped
my manhood. The Sheik Taiba, whose slave I was, defied the Sultan and
lived in a mountain stronghold a few miles from the blue Mediterranean.
Day after day I could see the open sea stretching away beyond. Ah! how I
longed to be free to return to England. On one or two occasions I had
been sent with other slaves (all negroes) to obtain stones from the
seashore. On one occasion, at the mouth of the small river that flowed
down the valley to the sea opposite the island of Alhucemas, there had
been pointed out to me by one of my hapless companions, a decrepit old
negro, the submerged hull of a ship lying about a quarter of a mile up
from the sea, and only just covered by the clear, swift-flowing stream.
It lay like this,” and taking a pencil and paper he drew a plan of its
position.
“It was the _Seahorse_!” I said, quickly.
“Yes. It had been there for ages, a ship the like of which I had never
before seen, but by standing upon the projecting rock above I could look
down upon it. Many times I visited it, for the mystery of it attracted
me. Among both Moors and negroes there was a strange legend that evil
spirits were contained within, hence it was held in superstitious awe.
When it rose to the surface there would, it was believed, emerge from it
a terrible pestilence that would sweep the whole of the Riff tribes from
the face of the earth. I, however, had no such fear. Many times I dived
off the rock and examined the black old hull, finding that the
projecting stern had become wedged beneath the overhanging ledge, and
that this apparently kept it in its place. Through the windows I could
see that the water had not entered, hence it occurred to me that some
buoyancy might be left in it. For two whole years I held this theory,
and it was strengthened by the fact that instead of lying heavily on the
sandy bottom, the bows were raised a foot or two. I could see that it
was a very ancient vessel, which in some remote period had drifted over
the bar into the estuary, and had stranded there when the river was low.
Then when the winter snows of the Atlas had melted, the flood had risen
rapidly, the projecting rock had held down the stern of the old craft,
and the waters had closed over her. The one thought that possessed me
was that if that overhanging rock could be removed the hull might float
again. With this object I waited in patience. From the traders at Tetuan
the Riffs frequently purchased explosives which they used in their
periodical fights against the forces of the Kaid Maclean and the Sultan.
Hence, about two years afterwards, I found in the possession of the
Sheik Taiba some strange-looking substance which, although the Moors
were unaware of its potency, I knew to be dynamite. I managed to secure
some of it, and a week later placed it in the great rift in the rock and
in the middle of the night blew it up. The quantity I used must have
been much more than necessary, for the rock was split, and the ledge,
blown right off, fell into the water ten yards away from the vessel,
while to my great delight the craft came up to the surface, the
strangest-looking object I had ever seen afloat. I swam to it, and
having broken out one of its windows crept into the cabin, the current
carrying me slowly out to sea.
“The explosion had alarmed the Riffs, who poured down to the spot in
hundreds, only to see the strange craft which they held in such dread
actually floating down the stream. The sight of it filled them with
terror, and they fled, attributing the explosion to a supernatural
cause. My object, of course, was to escape from slavery, and in order
not to attract the attention of my enemies, the Riffs, should they board
me, I threw off my slave’s clothing, and finding in the cabin a pair of
old Elizabethan breeches and a doublet, I donned them. The door
communicating with the other part of the ship was secured so firmly that
very soon I realized my position.
“Days passed, how many I cannot tell. I only knew that want of food and
water—of which I had none—told upon me, as well as the punishment that
had been inflicted upon me a month before my escape. For a trifling
offence the Sheik Taiba had ordered my tongue to be cut out, a cruel
mutilation common among the Moors. This had not actually been done, but
so severely was my tongue injured by my inhuman captors that I was now
unable to articulate a single word. What more can I tell you? Alone on
that strange craft, hunger and thirst consumed me, my mind wandered, I
grew worse, and eventually went stark mad and oblivious to everything.
All I recollect is that I was placed in charge of Ben Harding, the man
who acted as Bennett’s second mate on the _Goldfinch_—a broken-down
gentleman who knew little about the sea, and whose previous career
included a long term of imprisonment at Brisbane for being implicated in
the murder of a mail-driver. But you said that you know Black Bennett,”
he added, with anger flashing in his eyes. “He marooned me because he
feared that I should tell the truth of poor Jansen’s murder when we got
to Liverpool. Where is he to be found?”