The day after he returned from Formosa, Elliott received a reply to
his cablegram, which said, simply:
“Find it. Buck up!
“Henninger.”
It was easy to give the order, Elliott thought. But during the next
few days the heat was terrible, even for Hongkong. On the Peak, men
sweltered; in the lower city, they died. It rained, without cease, a
rain that seemed to steam up from the hot earth as fast as it fell,
and, to add terror to discomfort, half a dozen cases of cholera were
discovered in the Chinese city, and an epidemic was feared. Most of
the offices employing white clerks closed daily at noon, and there was
a great exodus of the foreign population to Yokohama.
On Sunday it cooled slightly, however, and the rain ceased. To gain
what advantage they could of the respite, Margaret and Elliott walked
out to the edge of the mountain-top, a quarter of a mile away, and
spent the forenoon there. The missionary dozed at home; he slept a
great deal during the hot weather.
They were returning for lunch, which Margaret persistently refused to
call “tiffin,” and had almost reached the bungalow, when a man stepped
down from the veranda and came toward them along the deeply shaded
street. At the first glance Elliott thought he recognized the
graceful, alert figure, and he was right. It was Sevier, who had just
left the house.
The Alabaman stopped short when he met them, and lifted his hat,
without, however, betraying any particular surprise.
“Good mo’nin’, Elliott. So you’re in Hongkong?”
“As you see,” replied Elliott, a trifle stiffly. “Were you looking for
me?”
“Not particularly. I was looking for another man.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Oh, about a couple of weeks.”
There was a pause, which Elliott felt to be a nervous one.
“How are the bereaved relatives of your wreck’s crew?” Sevier went on.
“I don’t know. Have you found the man you were looking for?”
“Not exactly. Have you?”
“No.”
There was another pause. Margaret was looking puzzled and impatient.
“I beg your pardon, I’m delaying you,” said Sevier, with a slight bow
toward the girl. “I wish you’d dine with me at the Club to-night at
seven o’clock. Can you? I have an idea that I can tell you something
that you’d be glad to know.”
Elliott reflected for a moment, with some suspicion. “Thank you, I
shall be delighted,” he accepted, formally, at last.
“At seven o’clock,” repeated Sevier, bowing once more, and passing on.
“Who was that man? I never saw him before. What were you talking
about?” demanded Margaret, when they were out of earshot.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t exactly know,” Elliott replied, in a
sort of abstracted excitement.
Margaret went to her own room to take off her hat, and Elliott turned
into the big, darkened sitting-room, where he was confronted with the
spectacle of the missionary seated beside the table with his head
buried in his arms.
“What did that man want here?” Elliott demanded, hastily. “Why, what’s
the matter with you?”
Laurie raised a face that was covered with perspiration, and haggard
with some emotion. His mouth trembled, and he looked half-dazed.
“That man!” he moaned, vaguely. “Oh, that man!”
“Yes. What did he want?”
“What did he want?” repeated Laurie, clearly incapable of coherent
thought. “Oh, heavens! what did he not want?”
Elliott mixed an iced glass of water and lime juice, for the
missionary would never touch spirits.
“Here, drink this, and try to brace up,” he said.
Laurie drank it like a docile child, and looked up with frightened
eyes.
“I have done wrong,” he said, pathetically. “I have sinned often. I
have fallen times past counting.”
“I know it,” said Elliott. “What have you been doing now?”
“The question is, what am I going to do?” replied the old man, with a
flash of animation. “It has all been for her—whatever errors I have
made. No one can say that I have ever profited by a dollar that was
not honestly my own.”
“Well—all right. But for goodness’ sake try to tell me what Sevier was
asking about.”
Laurie hesitated for a long time.
“It was about the ship—the _Clara McClay_” he produced, at last.
Elliott stared, speechless for a moment, shocked into utter
bewilderment.
“The _Clara McClay_?” he babbled. “The—” he was going to say the
“gold-ship.”
“What do you know about her? Where did you hear of her?”
“I was on her. I was wrecked with her.”
“The devil you were!”
“Yes, wrecked, and saved only by the Lord’s wonderful mercy. I floated
about for days in an open boat.”
“Look here,” said Elliott. “I rather fancy that you’re running more
risk now than you were in that open boat. You don’t know what deep
waters you’re sailing. Sevier’s a dangerous man. If you want me to
help you, you’ll have to tell me the whole story.”
The missionary acquiesced with the alacrity which he always showed in
casting his mundane responsibilities upon stronger shoulders.
“I am ashamed to tell you the story,” he said. “And yet it was not my
fault. At least, I had no intention of doing any wrong whatever. I was
in the work at Durban under the British Mission Board. I had been
there for two years, and I may say that my efforts had been abundantly
blessed,” he added, with humble pride.
“But I was tempted, and I was weak. I had a large sum of money in my
hands—nearly five hundred dollars—which the Board had supplied for the
building of a new chapel. I did not covet it for myself, but my salary
was long overdue, and it was past my time to send a remittance to my
daughter. The fund would not be needed for months, and I would have
paid back every cent of it.”
“So you took it,” Elliott interrupted.
“I sent the remittance. About two weeks later an officer of the
Mission Society came through South Africa, and I was called upon for
an account of the fund. I was disgraced. I could have escaped, but I
would not do that. I started to England in charge of the officer to be
tried for embezzlement. There was an American steamer sailing from
Durban, and we embarked on her. The name of the steamer was the _Clara
McClay_.
“I stayed in my cabin all the time, so I do not know anything of the
voyage. I believe we called at Delagoa Bay for cargo and passengers.
We had been out over a week when the ship struck. It was very dark,
with a high sea running, and she seemed to be breaking up. They
launched several boats, but all were sunk before they left the ship’s
side.
“The Society’s officer went in one of them and tried to induce me to
go with him, but I have been many years at sea, and I knew the risk of
trying to launch boats in that position. He was drowned, with most of
the ship’s company. At daylight there were only five of us left,—the
mate, three Boers who had been passengers, and myself. The sea was
quieter then, and we managed to get the last of the boats overboard
and to get clear.
“The mate had been severely injured about the head by falling from the
bridge when she struck, and I felt sure that he could not live unless
we were picked up soon. There was no use in landing on the desert reef
where we had struck, so we sailed north with a fair wind, for there
was fortunately a sail in the boat. We hoped to get into the track of
India-bound vessels,—or at least I hoped for it, for the Boers knew
nothing of navigation, and the mate was growing to be either delirious
or unconscious most of the time.
“It was a week before we were picked up. I won’t tell you of its
horrors. The water ran out, under the sun of the equator. The Boers
drank sea-water, in spite of everything I could say, and all three
went mad and threw themselves overboard. I just managed to keep alive
and to keep the mate alive by dipping myself frequently in the sea and
drenching his clothes with the bailer. But he died about the fourth
day. He was conscious for a few hours before he died, and I did what I
could to prepare his mind.
“I had to throw his body overboard. I could not have kept it in the
boat—in that heat. But I kept his oilskin clothes and his uniform cap,
thinking they might be needful. He had nearly a hundred pounds in
sovereigns in a belt, also, which he told me to take, as he had no
relatives, and I took them.
“It rained the night after he died, and that saved me. Two days later
I was picked up by an Italian steamer, called the _Andrea Sforzia_.”
Elliott emitted an ejaculation.
“Yes, it was providential,” went on the missionary, patiently. “And
then I saw an opportunity of burying my past. I trust it was not
dishonourable. The Italian officers of the steamer could speak very
little English, and as I was wearing the mate’s uniform cap they took
me to be an officer of the wrecked ship. I would not have told them a
falsehood, but I did not undeceive them. They took me to Bombay, and
they made me go to the American consul, but I escaped as soon as I
could, and concealed myself in the city for a couple of weeks. Then I
came on to Hongkong, where I hoped—”
“Do you know just where the _Clara McClay_ was wrecked?” Elliott
demanded, trying to keep cool in the face of this revelation.
“That is what that man asked me. It must have been off the northwest
coast of Madagascar.”
“But don’t you know the exact spot?”
“How could I? I was never out of my cabin till the night she struck.”
Elliott burst into a bitter and uncontrollable roar of laughter. This,
then, was the end of the trail he had followed from the centre of the
United States at such expense and with such hopes. It ended in a man
with whom he had unsuspectingly lived for a month, an aged
ex-missionary of infirm moral habits.
“That man who was here asked me the same thing,” repeated Laurie,
plaintively. “Why did he want to know where she struck—or why do you
want to know? My God! I had almost forgotten it!” he cried,
shuddering. “What shall I do? How can I save myself?”
“What on earth do you mean?” cried Elliott.
“He threatened me with disgrace—and arrest, unless I would tell him
where the ship went down. He said he would expose me to the British
Mission Board—and he would put all the proofs of—of more than that, of
other things, in the hands of my daughter. I deserve to be punished. I
can face even disgrace for myself—but not for her—not for my little
girl.”
“No, she mustn’t hear of anything of the sort,” said Elliott. He
considered the situation for several minutes, walking to and fro. “Why
did you tell everybody that the ship went down in deep water?” he
asked.
The missionary started. “How did you know that I did? It was a sudden
temptation. The consul in Bombay asked me if she foundered at sea, and
I said she did. It made no difference to any one, and it seemed safer.
You must remember the state I was in, after a week in an open boat
without water.”
“Well, don’t worry,” said Elliott. “I dare say you didn’t mean any
harm, but that little remark of yours has cost a good deal of trouble
and a good many thousand dollars. But I’ll see that Sevier doesn’t
trouble you. I know him pretty well. I’m going to dine with him
to-night, in fact, and I’ll explain things to him.”
Laurie brightened wonderfully at this assurance. During the past month
he had come to have an almost childlike trust in Elliott’s powers of
saving him from troubles, and at lunch he had almost recovered his
customary serene benignity. But Elliott was far from that placid state
of mind. The whole campaign would have to be altered. There was now no
hope of learning the location of the wreck from any of her survivors.
So far as he could see, there was only the chance of searching all
that portion of the channel till her bones were discovered, and it was
ten to one that the Arab coasters would have been before them. But at
any rate he could now meet Sevier without fear; he had no longer any
plan to conceal.
He spent that afternoon in anxious thought, and finally wrote a long
letter to Henninger, detailing his adventures on the man-hunt that had
ended in a mare’s nest. As the letter might take over a month to reach
Zanzibar, he stopped at the cable office on his way to the Club, and
sent the following message:
“Mate dead, taking secret with him. Shall I join you? Letter follows.”
Sevier was waiting for him when he arrived at the Club’s massive
façade, and a table was already reserved in the farthest corner of the
dining-room. The air was heavy under the swinging punkahs, for it had
come on to rain again, and the drip and splash of the streets came
through the open windows.
They discussed the soup in silence, and with the introduction of a
violently flavoured entrée they talked of the rain.
“The weather’s no fit subject for conversation in this country,”
Sevier broke off all at once. “Look here, Elliott, you’re up against
it, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know that I am, particularly,” answered the treasure-hunter,
coolly. “You’re in something of a blind alley yourself, I fancy.”
“I don’t mind admitting that I am, for the moment. What do you know
about the _Clara McClay_?”
“Nothing—except that she was wrecked.”
“But you know what her cargo was?”
“Yes, I do. Do you know where that cargo is now?”
“No, I don’t. But she never sunk in deep water—I know that. She’s
ashore somewhere in the Mozambique Channel. Now I propose to you,
Elliott, that we join forces. You’re playing a lone hand, I reckon,
and it takes money to play a game like this. I have a partner with me,
and we’ve got $25,000 to spend. What do you say?”
“I’d like to hear a little more,” said Elliott.
“Well, I’ll play my cards face up. Look here. That gold was stolen
from the treasury at Pretoria by a gang of crooked Dutchmen. You may
know that. My partner, Carlton, was in Pretoria at the time, and he
got wind of it, and found out what ship it was going to be sent on. Do
you know what we did? We squared the ship’s mate, Burke, to pile the
old hooker up on the Afu Bata reef, off Mozambique. It cost us five
thousand cash to make the deal with him, and we had to promise him a
share of the plunder. Now do you see why we’re interested?”
Elliott saw, and he saw furthermore that the affair was revealing
mazes of complexity that he had not suspected.
“Yes,” he said, trying not to look surprised. “Then you must know
where she was wrecked, after all.”
“No, because the mate threw us down—the thief! He took our money and
did us dirt. We hung around the Afu Bata reef in a dhow for three
weeks, off and on, and the _Clara McClay_ never showed up. At last we
put into Zanzibar, and found that she hadn’t been sighted anywhere
since she left Lorenzo Marques. A little later we heard that she had
been wrecked, and that the mate had been picked up, and that he had
said that she was sunk in deep water.”
“But that wasn’t the mate at all,” Elliott remarked.
“Yes, I know. I heard the story from that sanctimonious old hypocrite
on the Peak. But it was the mate that sunk her. It was Burke that ran
her ashore somewhere and figured to have all the plunder himself. It
wasn’t his fault that he got drowned or whatever happened to him. The
question now is—where is that wreck?”
Elliott laughed. “Good Lord, that’s the question I’ve been trying to
solve for three months.”
“There is one man that knows.”
“Who is it?”
“Your old sky-pilot”
“You’re all wrong,” said Elliott. “Old Laurie, or Eaton, knows nothing
at all about the thing. And I should like to know how in the world you
came to take up his trail.”
“The same as you did, I expect,” replied Sevier, winking. “We went
from Zanzibar up to Port Said, and waited there till we heard about
the mate being picked up and going to Bombay. I went there too, as you
know, having the honour to be your fellow passenger, but I never
suspected you of being interested in the wreck—not at first.
“In Bombay I lost the trail, same as you did. But when I heard the
American consul describe his man I made sure it couldn’t be the real
mate. It was some fakir, and why should anybody fake the thing unless
he was up to some game. It made me keener than ever. Lord! I worked
like a slave in that accursed city. I searched every consulate, and
the hotels and the boarding-houses. I found that a man answering my
description had come to the Planters’ Hotel about the time the
counterfeit mate turned up. I found that he had gone—sailed for
Hongkong under a different name. I cabled Carlton, my partner, and we
came here.
“It was you who helped us here. I spotted you on the street a week
ago, had you followed to the Peak, and there you were, living hand in
glove with my fakir. I went up there this morning, after learning that
you had gone out, and I put the question straight to the white-headed
old hypocrite. He went all to pieces, just as I expected, but he
wouldn’t tell me anything. However, we have a way to force him.”
“Lost labour,” remarked Elliott, coolly. “He didn’t know even that the
_Clara McClay_ was loaded with gold.”
“Don’t you believe it!” said Sevier, leaning impressively across the
table. “Elliott, that old parson is the slipperiest beggar between
Africa and Oregon. I know all about his doings in the past. As like as
not he murdered the mate himself—”
Elliott gave an exclamation of derision.
“Anyhow, I’m sure that he made up a plant with Burke to turn the trick
on us. He knows where that gold is now; you can bank on that! And if
you’ve been living with him for a month and don’t know too, you’re not
the clever man I take you to be.”
“I think you’re just a little too clever yourself,” Elliott replied.
“I’ll play my cards face up, too. I know just as much as you do about
the location of that wreck, and that old missionary doesn’t know half
as much. You’ve sized up his character wrong. He’s merely a simple,
kind-hearted, unworldly old gentleman with no moral backbone. If he
knew where all that gold was, I don’t believe he’d go after it. He
might steal a hundred dollars if he saw it lying handy and happened to
need it, but he wouldn’t take any interest in a million that he
couldn’t see. As for his conspiring with Burke, much less killing him,
that’s sheer bosh. He doesn’t know where the _Clara McClay_ is, and I
don’t either.”
“You’re too secretive for me,” said Sevier, looking downcast. “You
won’t mind if I say candidly that I think you’re bluffing. Don’t tell
me that you haven’t found out anything from that fellow Laurie, or
Eaton, as he calls himself. Something is preventing you from sailing
back to Africa and fishing up that million. I think we can supply what
is lacking to you. We need you; you need us. Then join us, and we’ll
work together.”
“You are right,” Elliott agreed. “There is something that prevents me
from going there, and that is the fact that I don’t know where to go.
But I don’t mind admitting that I’m going to try to find out. I have
partners with me, too, and we have a little money to throw away.”
“How many partners have you?” Sevier inquired.
“Three.”
“Well, bring them all in. We’ll share and share alike.”
Elliott seriously considered this proposition for a couple of minutes.
But he knew that Henninger would accept no such arrangement.
“I couldn’t make such a deal without consulting the other men,” he
said. “And I know that the chief of our gang would never stand for it.
He’s rather a whole hog or nothing man, and I’m a little that way
myself. No, I’m afraid we’ll have to work separately.”
“Is that your final word?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, I’m sorry. Excuse me a moment,” said Sevier, getting up
hastily. He went out of the dining-room, but returned almost
immediately. “I just then caught sight of a man I wanted to speak to,”
he explained. “Then I can’t induce you to go shares with us?”
“I’m afraid not, thank you,” replied Elliott
“It’s a fair race for a million, then, and let the best man win! But
it seems a fool business for us to cut one another’s throats. We’ve
made you the best proposals we can, but we feel that we have prior
rights on that cargo, and we’ll fight for it if necessary.”
“We’ll try to meet you half-way,” said Elliott carelessly. “And isn’t
it absurd to talk of prior rights when the whole thing is little
better than a steal?”
“A steal? Not a bit of it. The ship is sunk outside the three-mile
limit in neutral seas. It’s treasure-trove.”
“I’ve been trying to look at it that way myself,” replied Elliott.
“But I fancy some government or other would claim it if they heard of
it It’s war, then, is it?”
“That’ll come soon enough. Let’s have peace while we can,” Sevier
responded, poking at the roast beef, which lay a tepid and soggy mass
on his plate. “I must apologize to my guest. I’ve spoiled your dinner
for you. It’s stone cold—or as near it as anything ever gets in this
country. Let me order some more.”
“No—don’t!” said Elliott, sickening at the thought of food in that
reeking atmosphere. “It’s too hot and wet to eat. This climate is
getting too much for me.”
“Thinking of trying Africa? Look here, you come around to my place,
and I’ll mix you a cold drink, anyway. I found a plant the other day
that tastes like mint, and I’ll give you as close an imitation of a
Baltimore julep as can be had in China.”
There were half a dozen palanquins waiting about the front of the Club
as usual, and Sevier gave the coolies an address which Elliott did not
catch. The bearers left Queen’s Road and turned up a street leading to
the mountain, which they ascended for several minutes, and finally
they stopped in the rain, which was now falling heavily. It was one of
the beautiful and shaded streets half-way up the slope, and they were
opposite a small bungalow that showed a glimmer of light through drawn
rattan shutters.
“This is where Carlton and I have lived for the last fortnight,” said
Sevier, getting out. “We can’t afford residences on the Peak, like
you—and, Lord! how we have sizzled here!”
He led the way to the door, which he opened with a latch-key, and
turned into a large sitting-room, lighted with an oil-lamp. The floor
was bare; the room was almost devoid of furniture, containing only a
couple of long chairs, a camp-chair, and a plain wooden table. On the
table was the remnants of a meal, with a couple of empty ale-bottles.
The windows were shut and closely covered with the blinds, and the air
of the room was intolerably hot and close.
“Carlton’s been dining by himself to-night,” said Sevier, without
appearing to observe the heat. “He’ll be back in a few minutes, and
meanwhile we’ll have our drink.”
He produced a bottle from an ice-box, and was crushing some ice, when
the door clicked open and shut again. A heavily built man appeared,
his white duck clothing hanging limply upon him.
“How are you, old man!” said Sevier, glancing up. “Elliott, this is my
friend, Mr. Carlton. He knows all about you.”
Carlton acknowledged the introduction by a nod and a searching glance.
He was a dark and heavy-faced man of perhaps forty, with a thick brown
moustache over lips that were small and close, and a small cold gray
eye.
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Elliott. Yes, I’ve heard of you,” he remarked,
briefly. He sat down in the vacant cane chair and began to fill a
curved briar pipe, which he smoked with much apparent satisfaction.
Sevier presently handed around three glasses crowned with the Chinese
herb that tasted like mint. The whole concoction did not taste much
like a Southern julep, but it was cooling. “Here’s luck for all of
us!” said Sevier, and they drank.
There was a silence for a time, while the heat grew more and more
unbearable.
“Why not have a window open?” Elliott inquired, at last. “Don’t you
find it hot here?”
“No. Leave them closed,” said Carlton, brusquely.
There was another long silence, while Carlton smoked imperturbably.
Elliott began to feel slightly nervous; he scarcely knew why. Every
one in the room seemed to be waiting for something.
“Damn the rain!” Sevier suddenly ejaculated with irritation, and
Carlton rolled an admonishing eye upon him without speaking. Elliott
set down his empty glass and arose.
“Have another drink,” urged Sevier. “Sit down.”
“No, thank you. I must go,” Elliott began.
“No. Sit down!” Carlton gruffly interrupted.
Taken by surprise, Elliott sat down. The rain splashed on the veranda
in the silence.
“But I really must go. I have to get to the Peak,” he said again, once
more getting up; but Sevier held up a warning hand. Outside was heard
the rhythmical grunt of sedan-coolies. There were steps on the
veranda. Sevier hurried to the door and opened it, and, to Elliott’s
amazement, the missionary appeared in the lamplight, his face
streaming with rain and perspiration, while he surveyed the group with
an air of apprehension which he endeavoured to cover with dignity.