Transcriber's note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
THE GREAT QUEST
[Illustration: _I gave a quick jerk,--literally my foot was
held,--I lost my balance and all but went over._]
THE
GREAT QUEST
_A romance of 1826, wherein are recorded
the experiences of Josiah Woods of Topham,
and of those others with whom he sailed
for Cuba and the Gulf of Guinea._
BY
CHARLES BOARDMAN HAWES
Author of "The Mutineers"
[Illustration]
_Illustrated by_
GEORGE VARIAN
_The_ ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS
BOSTON
Copyright, 1920, 1921
By THE TORBELL COMPANY
(Publishers of _The Open Road_)
Copyright, 1921
By CHARLES BOARDMAN HAWES
First Impression, September, 1921
Second Impression, January, 1922
_Printed in the United States of America_
_To_
MY FATHER AND MOTHER
CONTENTS
I
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
I The Stranger 3
II My Uncle Behaves Queerly 12
III Higgleby's Barn 18
IV Swords and Ships 26
V A Mysterious Project 36
II
HANDS ACROSS THE SEA
VI Good-bye to Old Haunts and Faces 49
VII A Wild Night 63
VIII The Brig Adventure 81
IX An Old Sea Song 87
III
A LOW LAND IN THE EAST
X Matterson 99
XI New Light on an Old Friend 109
XII Captain North Again 119
XIII Issues Sharply Drawn 132
XIV Land Ho! 137
IV
THREE DESPERATE MEN
XV The Island 151
XVI Strangest of All 165
XVII The Man from the Jungle 173
XVIII A Warning Defied 185
XIX Burned Bridges 193
V
THE HOUSE ON THE HILL
XX Up Stream 201
XXI A Grim Surprise 212
XXII Siege 225
XXIII Sortie 234
VI
FOR OUR VERY LIVES
XXIV Spears in the Dark 247
XXV Cards and Chess 252
XXVI An Unseen Foe 261
XXVII The Fort Falls 268
XXVIII Down the Current 283
XXIX The Fight at the Landing 295
VII
THE LONG ROAD HOME
XXX The Cruiser 307
XXXI A Passage at Arms 321
XXXII Westward Bound 332
XXXIII The Door of Disaster 340
XXXIV An Old, Old Story 352
XXXV Eheu Fugaces! 357
ILLUSTRATIONS
_I gave a quick jerk--literally my foot was held,--I lost my
balance and all but went over_ Frontispiece
_Clapping his hand to the wound, the landlord went white
and leaned back against the bar_ 78
"_In the name of Heaven, Neil, don't tell! Don't tell!_" 142
_There in a chair by the table sat a stark skeleton dressed in
good sound clothes_ 220
_And with that the two sat down by the board ... and began
perhaps the most extraordinary game of chess that ever
two men played_ 258
I
OLD ACQUAINTANCE
[Illustration]
THE GREAT QUEST
CHAPTER I
THE STRANGER
One morning early in the summer of 1826, I brushed the sweat from my
forehead and the flour from my clothes, unrolled my shirt-sleeves to
my wrists, donned my coat, and, with never a suspicion that that day
was to be unlike any other, calmly walked out into the slanting
sunshine. Rain had fallen in the night, and the air was still fresh
and cool. Although the clock had but just struck six, I had been at
work an hour, and now that my uncle, Seth Upham, had come down to
take charge of the store, I was glad that some business discussed
the evening before gave me an excuse to go on an errand to the other
end of the village.
Uncle Seth looked up from his ledger as I passed. "You are prompt to
go," said he. "I've scarce got my hat on the peg. Well, the sooner
the better, I suppose. Young Mackay's last shipment of oil was of
poor quality and color. The rascal needs a good wigging, but the
best you can do is tell the old man my opinion of his son's goods.
If he gets a notion that we're likely to go down to nine cents a
gallon on the next lot, he'll bring the boy to taw, I'll warrant
you. Well, be gone. The sooner you go, the sooner you'll come, and
we're like to have a busy day."
I nodded and went down the steps, but turned again and looked back.
As Uncle Seth sat at his desk just inside the door, his bald head
showing above the ledgers, he made me think of a pigeon-holed
document concerned with matters of trade--weights and measures, and
dollars and cents. He was a brisk, abrupt little man, with keen eyes
and a thin mouth, and lines that cut at sharp angles into his
forehead and drew testy curves around his chin; and in his way he
was prominent in the village. Though ours was a community of
Yankees, he had the reputation, in which he took great pride, of
being an uncommonly sharp hand at a bargain. That it could be a
doubtful compliment, he never suspected.
He owned property in three towns besides our own village of Topham;
he kept a very considerable balance in a Boston bank; he loaned
money at interest from one end of the county to the other, and he
held shares in two schooners and a bark--not to mention the bustling
general store that was the keystone of his prosperity.
If anyone had presumed so far as to suggest that a close bargain
could be aught but creditable, Uncle Seth would have shot a testy
glance at him, with some such comment as, "Pooh! He's drunk or
crazy!" And he would then have atoned for any little trickery by his
generosity, come Sunday, when the offering was taken at church.
There were, to be sure, those who said, by allusion or implication,
that he would beat the devil at his own game, for all his pains to
appear so downright honest. But they were ne'er-do-weels and village
scoundrels, whom Uncle Seth, although he was said to have known them
well enough in early youth, passed without deigning to give them so
much as a nod; and of course no one believed the word of such as
they.
For my own part, I had only friendly feelings toward him, for he was
always a decent man, and since my mother died, his odd bursts of
generosity had touched me not a little. Grumpy old Uncle Seth!
Others might call him "nigh," but for all his abrupt manner, he was
kind to me after a queer, short fashion, and many a bank-note had
whisked from his pocket to mine at moments when a stranger would
have thought him in furious temper.
Turning on my heel, I left him busy at his desk amid his barrels and
cans and kegs and boxes, and unwittingly set forth to meet the
beginning of the wildest, maddest adventure that I ever heard of
outside the pages of fiction.
As I went down past the church, the parsonage, and the smithy,--the
little group of buildings that, together with our general store,
formed the hub on which the life of the country for many miles
thereabouts revolved,--I was surprised to see no one astir. Few
country people then were--or now are--so shameless as to lie in bed
at six o'clock of a summer morning.
By rights I should have heard the clank of metal, the hum of voices,
men calling to their horses, saws whining through wood, and hammers
driving nails. But there was no sound of speech or labor; the
nail-kegs on which our village worthies habitually reposed during
long intervals of the working day were unoccupied; the fire in the
blacksmith's forge, for want of blowing, had died down to a dull
deep red. Three horses were tugging at their halters inside the
smithy, and a well-fed team was waiting outside by a heavy cart; yet
no one was anywhere to be seen.
Perceiving all this from a distance, I was frankly puzzled; and as I
approached, I cast about with lively curiosity to see what could
cause so strange a state of affairs. It was only when I had gone
past the smithy, that I saw the smith and his customers and his
habitual guests gathered on the other side of the building, where I
had not been able to see them before. They were staring at the old
village tavern, which stood some distance away on a gentle rise of
land.
My curiosity so prevailed over my sense of duty that I turned from
the road through the tall grass, temporarily abandoning my errand,
and picked my way among some old wheels and scrap iron to join the
men.
Their talk only aggravated my wonder.
Clearing his throat, the smith gruffly muttered, "It does act like
him, and yet I can't believe it'll be him."
"Why shouldn't he come back?" one of the farmers asked in a louder
voice. "Things done twenty years ago will never be dragged up to
face him, and he'd know that."
The smith grunted. "Where would Neil Gleazen find the money to buy a
suit of good clothes and a beaver hat?"
"That's easy answered," a third speaker put in. And they all
exchanged significant glances.
In the silence that followed I made bold to put a question for
myself. "Of whom are you talking?" I asked.
They looked closely at me and again exchanged glances.
"There's someone up yonder at the inn, Joe," the smith said kindly;
"and Ben, here, getting sight of him last night and again this
morning, has took a notion that it's a fellow who used to live here
years ago and who left town--well, in a hurry. As to that, I can't
be sure, but I vum, I'd not be surprised if it was Neil Gleazen
after all."
I now discerned in one of the rocking-chairs on the porch the figure
of a stranger, well dressed so far as we could see at that distance,
who wore a big beaver hat set rakishly a trifle forward. He had
thrust his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, and as he
leaned back, with his feet raised against one of the columns that
supported the porch-roof, he sent clouds of white cigar-smoke
eddying up and away.
The others were so intent on their random speculations that, when I
asked more about who and what Neil Gleazen was, they ignored my
question, and continued to exchange observations in low voices.
I could hear little of their talk without forcing myself into their
very midst, and of what little I heard I made still less, for it was
full of unfamiliar names and reminiscences that meant nothing to me.
When some one spoke of Seth Upham, my mother's brother, I was all
ears on the instant; but I saw the smith glance at me, and probably
he nudged the speaker, for, after a moment's pause, they went on
about indifferent matters. I then perceived that I was unlikely to
learn more, so I returned to the road and continued on my way.
As I passed the tavern I took occasion to see what I could, in
courtesy, of the stranger; but he looked so hard at me while I was
passing that I could steal only glances at him, unless I gave him
stare for stare, which I did not wish to do. So I got only a brief
glimpse of tall hat, bold dark eyes under bushy brows, big nose,
smooth-shaven chin, and smiling mouth, all of which a heavy stock
and voluminous coat seemed to support. I thought that I caught the
flash of a jeweled pin in the man's stock and of a ring on his
finger, but of that I was not sure until later. Pushing on, I left
him in the old inn chair, as proud as a sultan, puffing clouds of
white smoke from a long cigar and surveying the village as grandly
as if he owned it, while I went about my uncle's business at the
other end of the town.
But when I had gone far on my way, his dark face and arrogant manner
were still in my mind. While I was arguing with surly old Dan Mackay
about whale-oil and horses and sugar and lumber, I was thinking of
those proud, keen eyes and that smiling, scornful mouth; while I was
bargaining with Mrs. Mackay for eggs and early peas, I was thinking
of the beaver that the man had worn and the big ring on his finger;
and while I was walking back over two miles of country road, on
which the sun was now pouring down with ever-increasing heat, I was
thinking of how my uncle's name had popped out in the conversation
beside the smithy--and how it had popped, so to speak, discreetly
back again.
I was all eagerness, now, for another and better look at the
stranger, and was resolved to stare him out of countenance, if need
be, to get it. Imagine, then, my disappointment when, hot and
sweaty, I once more came in sight of the tavern and saw the
unmistakable figure under the beaver hat walk jauntily down the
steps, pause a moment in the road, and, turning in the opposite
direction, go rapidly away from me.
The stranger should not escape me like that, I thought with a grim
chuckle; and warm though I was, I lengthened my stride and drew
slowly up on him.
As he passed the smithy, he looked to neither right nor left, yet I
was by no means sure that he did not see the curious faces that
filled the door when he went by. A man can see so much without
turning his head!
While I toiled on after him, trying to appear indifferent and yet
striving to overtake him before he should go beyond the store, where
I must turn in, would I or would I not, he passed the church, the
parsonage, and the schoolhouse. He wore his hat tilted forward at
just such an angle, and to one side over his right eye; swinging his
walking-stick nonchalantly, he clipped the blossoms off the
buttercups as he passed them; now he paused to light a fresh cigar
from the butt of the one that he was smoking; now he lingered a
moment in the shade of an old chestnut tree. All the time I was
gaining on him; but now the store was hard by.
Should I keep on until I had passed him and, turning back, could
meet him face to face? No, Uncle Seth would surely stop me. In my
determination to get a good look at the man, I was about to break
into a run, when, to my amazement, he turned to the left toward the
very place where I was going.
So close to him had I now come that, when he stood on the threshold,
I was setting foot on the lower step. I could see Uncle Seth's
clerks, Arnold Lamont, a Frenchman, and Simeon Muzzy, busily at work
in the back room. I could see, as before, Uncle Seth's bald head
shining above the top of his desk. But my eyes were all for the
stranger, and I now saw plainly that in the ring on his finger there
flashed a great white diamond.
Uncle Seth, hearing our steps, raised his head. "Well?" he said
sharply, in the dictatorial way that was so characteristic of him.
"Well!" repeated the stranger in a voice that startled me. It was
deep and gruff, and into the monosyllable the man put a solid, heavy
emphasis, which made my uncle's sharpness seem as light as a woman's
burst of temper.
Uncle Seth, too, was startled, I think, for he raised his head and
irritably peered over the steel rims of his spectacles. "Well," he
grumpily responded, "what do you want of me?"
"An hour of your time," said the stranger, lowering his voice.
"Time's money," returned my uncle.
"I'm the lad to transmute it into fine gold for you, Seth Upham,"
said the stranger.
"How do you know my name?"
"That's a foolish question to ask. Everyone in town can tell a
stranger the name of the man who keeps the village store."
My uncle grunted irritably, and brushed his chin with the feather of
his quill.
"Come," said the stranger, "where's a chair?"
"Them that come to this store to loaf," my uncle cried, "generally
sit on cracker-boxes. I'm a busy man."
He was still looking closely at the stranger, but his voice
indicated that, after all, it might not be so hard to mollify him.
"Well, I ain't proud," the stranger said with a conciliatory
gesture, but without the faintest flicker of a smile. "It won't be
the first time I've set on a cracker-box and talked to Seth Upham. I
mind a time once when old Parker used to keep the store, and me and
you had stole our hats full of crackers, which we ate in the little
old camp over by the river."
"Who," cried Uncle Seth, "who in heaven's name are you?"
He was pale to the very summit of his bald head; unconscious of what
he was doing, he had thrust his pen down on the open ledger, where
it left a great blotch of wet ink.
"Hgh! You've got no great memory for old friends, have you, Seth?
You're rich now, I hear. Money-bags full of gold. Well, 'time's
money,' you said. You're going to put in a golden hour with me this
day."
Uncle Seth got up and laid a trembling hand on the back of his desk.
"Neil Gleazen! Cornelius Gleazen!" he gasped.
The stranger pushed his beaver back on his head, and with the finger
on which the diamond sparkled flicked the ash from his cigar. "It's
me, Seth," he returned; and for the first time since I had seen him
he laughed a deep, hearty laugh.
"Well, what'll you have?" Uncle Seth demanded hotly. "I'm an honest
man. I'm a deacon in the church. My business is an honest business.
There's nothing here for you, Neil! What do you want?"
In spite of his apparent anger,--or because of it,--Uncle Seth's
voice trembled.
"Well, what do you mean by all this talk of an honest man? Ain't I
an honest man?"
"Why--why--"
"Hgh! You've not got much to say to that, have you?"
"I--why--I don't--know--"
"Of course you don't know. You don't know an honest man when you see
one. Don't talk to me like that, Seth Upham. You and me has robbed
too many churches together when we was boys to have you talk like
that now. You and me--"
"For heaven's sake keep still!" Uncle Seth cried. "Customers are
coming."
Neil Gleazen grunted again. Pushing a cracker-box into the corner
behind Uncle Seth's desk and placing his beaver on it, he settled
back in Uncle Seth's own chair, with a cool impudent wink at me, as
if for a long stay, while Uncle Seth, with an eagerness quite unlike
his usual abrupt, scornful manner, rushed away from his unwelcome
guest and proceeded to make himself surprisingly agreeable to a pair
of country woman who wished to barter butter for cotton cloth.