_News!_
Calypso was so long coming back that I began to grow anxious--was,
indeed, on the point of going into the town in search of her; when she
suddenly appeared, rather out of breath, and evidently a little
excited--as though, in fact, she had been running away from something.
She caught me by the arm, with a laugh:
"Do you want to see your friend Tobias?" she said.
"Tobias! Impossible!"
"Come here," and she led me a yard or two back the way she had come, and
then cautiously looked through the trees.
"Gone!" she said, "but he was there a minute or two ago--or at least
some one that is his photograph--and, of course, he's there yet, hidden
in the brush, and probably got his eyes on us all the time. Did you see
that seven-year apple tree move?"
"His favourite tree," I laughed.
"Hardly strong enough to hang him on though." And I realised that she
was King Alcinoüs's daughter.
We crouched lower for a moment or two, but the seven-year apple tree
didn't move again, and we agreed that there was no use in waiting for
Tobias to show his hand.
"He is too good a poker-player," I said.
"Like his skeletons, eh?" she said.
"But what made you think it was Tobias?" I asked, "and how did it all
happen?"
"I could hardly fail to recognise him from your flattering description,"
she answered, "and indeed it all happened rather like another experience
of mine. I had gone into Sweeney's store--you remember?--and was just
paying my bill."
"In the usual coinage?" I ventured. She gave me a long, whimsical
smile--once more her father's daughter.
"That, I'm afraid, was the trouble," she answered; "for, as I laid my
money down on the counter, I suddenly noticed that there was a person at
the back of the store ..."
"A person?" I interrupted.
"Yes! suppose we say 'a pock-marked person'; was it you?"
"What a memory you have for details," I parried, "and then?"
"Well! I took my change and managed to whisper a word to Sweeney--a good
friend, remember--and came out. I took a short cut back, but the
'person' that had stood in the back of the store seemed to know the way
almost better than I--so well that he had got ahead of me. He was
walking quietly this way, and so slowly that I had at last to overtake
him. He said nothing, just watched me, as if interested in the way I was
going--but, I'm ashamed to say, he rather frightened me! And here I am."
"Do you really think he saw the--doubloon--like that other 'person'?" I
asked.
"There's no doubt of it."
"Well, then," I said, "let's hurry home, and talk it over with the
'King.'"
The "King," as I had realised, was a practical "romantic" and at once
took the matter seriously, leaving--as might have surprised some of
those who had only heard him talk--his conversational fantasies on the
theme to come later.
Calypso, however, had the first word.
"I always told you, Dad," she said;--and the word "Dad" on the lips of
that big statuesque girl--who always seemed ready to take that inspired
framework of rags and bones and talking music into her protecting
arms--seemed the quaintest of paradoxes--, "I always told you, Dad, what
would happen, with your fairy-tales of the doubloons."
"Quite true, my dear," he answered, "but isn't a fairy-tale worth paying
for?--worth a little trouble? And remember, if you will allow me, two
things about fairy-tales: there must always be some evil fairy in them,
some dragon or such like; and there is always--a happy ending. Now the
dragon enters at last--in the form of Tobias; and we should be happy on
that very account. It shows that the race of dragons is not, as I
feared, extinct. And as for the happy ending, we will arrange it, after
lunch--for which, by the way, you are somewhat late."
After lunch, the "King" resumed, but in a brief and entirely practical
vein:
"We are about to be besieged," he said. "The woods, probably, are
already thick with spies. For the moment, we must suspend operations on
our Golconda"--his name for the ruins that we were to excavate--"and, as
our present purpose--yours no less than ours, friend Ulysses--is to
confuse Tobias, my suggestion is this: That you walk with me a mile or
two to the nor'ard. There is an entertaining mangrove swamp I should
like to show you, and also, you can give me your opinion of an idea of
mine that you will understand all the better when I have taken you over
the ground."
So we walked beyond the pines, down onto a long interminable flat land
of marl marshes and mangrove trees--so like that in which Charlie
Webster had shot the snake and the wild duck--that only Charlie could
have seen any difference.
"Now," said the "King," "do you see a sort of river there, overgrown
with mangroves and palmettos?"
"Yes," I answered, "almost--though it's so choked up it's almost
impossible to say."
"Well," said the "King," "that's the idea; you haven't forgotten those
old ruins we are going to explore. You remember how choked up they are.
Well, this was the covered water-way, the secret creek, by which the
pirates--John Teach, or whoever it was, perhaps John P. Tobias
himself--used to land their loot. It's so overgrown nowadays that no one
can find the entrance but myself and a friend or two; do you
understand?"
We walked a little farther, and then at length came to the bank of the
creek the "King" had indicated. This we followed for half a mile or so,
till we met the fresh murmur of the sea.
"We needn't go any farther," said the "King." "It's the same all the way
along to the mouth--all over-grown as you see, all the way, right out to
the 'white water' as they call it--which is four miles of shoal sand
that is seldom deeper than two fathoms, and which a nor'easter is
liable to blow dry for a week on end. Naturally it's a hard place to
find, and a hard place to get off!--and only two or three persons
besides Sweeney--all of them our friends--know the way in. Tobias may
know of it; but to know it is one thing, to find it is another matter. I
could hardly be sure of it myself--if I were standing in from the sea,
with nothing but the long palmetto-fringed coast-line to go by.
"Now, you see it? I brought you here, because words--"
"Even yours, dear 'King,'" I laughed.
"--could not explain what I suggest for us to do. You are interested
in Tobias. Tobias is interested in you. I am interested in you both. And
Calypso and I have a treasure to guard."
"I have still a treasure to seek," I said, half to myself.
"Good enough," said the "King." "Now, to be practical. We can assume
that Tobias is on the watch. I don't mean that he's around here just
now, for, before we left, I spoke to Samson and Erebus and they will
pass the word to four men blacker than themselves; therefore we can
assume that this square mile or so is for the moment 'to ourselves.' But
beyond our fence you may rely that Tobias and his myrmidons--is that
the word?" he asked with a concession to his natural foolishness--"are
there."
"So," he went on, "I want you to go down to your boat to-morrow morning
to say good-bye to the commandant, the parson, and the postmaster; to
haul up your sail and head for Nassau. Call in on Sweeney on the way,
buy an extra box of cartridges, and say '_Dieu et mon Droit_'--it is our
password; he will understand, but, if he shouldn't, explain, in your own
way, that you come from me, and that we rely upon him to look out for
our interest. Then head straight for Nassau; but, about eight o'clock,
or anywhere around twilight, turn about and head--well, we'll map it out
on the chart at home--anywhere up to eight miles along the coast, till
you come to a light, low down right on the edge of the water. As soon as
you see it, drop anchor; then wait till morning--the very beginning of
dawn. As soon as you can see land, look out for Samson--within a hundred
yards of you--all the land will look alike to you. Only make the Captain
head straight for Samson, and just as you think you are going to run
ashore--Well, you will see!"