"Perhaps"--he continued, "as we're so near home, you'll let me know your
name? It's not often we pick up a man alive and drifting in
mid-Atlantic."
In mid-Atlantic! What force had flung me there I dared not think, ...
nor whether it was hellish or divine.
"My name?" I murmured, surprised into speech,--how odd it was I had
never thought of myself lately as having a name or any other thing
belonging to me!--"Why certainly! Geoffrey Tempest is my name."
The captain's eyes opened widely.
"Geoffrey Tempest! Dear me! ... _The_ Mr Tempest?----the great
millionaire that _was_?"
It was now my turn to stare.
"That _was_?" I repeated--"What do you mean?"
"Have you not heard?" he asked excitedly.
"Heard? I have heard nothing since I left England some months ago--with
a friend, on board his yacht ... we went on a long voyage and ... a
strange one! We were wrecked, ... you know the rest, and how I owe my
life to your rescue. But of news I am ignorant ..."
"Good heavens!" he interrupted quickly--"Bad news travels fast as a rule
they say,--but you have missed it ... and I confess I don't like to be
the bearer of it ..."
He broke off, and his genial face looked troubled. I smiled,--yet
wondered.
"Pray speak out!" I said--"I don't think you can tell me anything that
will deeply affect me,--_now_. I know the best and worst of most things
in the world, I assure you!"
He eyed me dubiously;--then, going into his smoking-cabin, he brought
me out an American newspaper seven days old. He handed it to me pointing
to its leading columns without a word. There I saw in large type--"A
Millionaire Ruined! Enormous Frauds! Monster Forgeries! Gigantic
Swindle! On the track of Bentham and Ellis!"
My brain swam for a minute,--then I read on steadily, and soon grasped
the situation. The respectable pair of lawyers whom I had implicitly
relied on for the management of all my business affairs in my absence,
had succumbed to the temptation of having so much cash in charge for
investment,--and had become a pair of practised swindlers. Dealing with
the same bank as myself, they had forged my name so cleverly that the
genuineness of the signature had never been even suspected,--and, after
drawing enormous sums in this way, and investing in various 'bubble'
companies with which they personally were concerned, they had finally
absconded, leaving me almost as poor as I was when I first heard of my
inherited fortune. I put aside the paper, and looked up at the good
captain, who stood watching me with sympathetic anxiety.
"Thank you!" I said--"These thieves were my trusted lawyers,--and I can
cheerfully say that I am much more sorry for them than I am for myself.
A thief is always a thief,--a poor man, if he be honest, is at any rate
the thief's superior. The money they have stolen will bring them misery
rather than pleasure,--of that I am convinced. If this account be
correct, they have already lost large sums in bogus companies,--and the
man Bentham, whom I thought the very acme of shrewd caution has sunk an
enormous amount of capital in a worn-out gold mine. Their forgeries must
have been admirably done!--a sad waste of time and cleverness. It
appears too that the investments I have myself made are
worthless;--well, well!--it does not matter,--I must begin the world
again, that's all!" He looked amazed.
"I don't think you quite realize your own misfortune, Mr Tempest"--he
said--"You take it too quietly by half. You'll think worse of it
presently."
"I hope not!" I responded, with a smile--"It never does to think the
worst of anything. I assure you I realize perfectly. I am in the world's
sight a ruined man,--I quite understand!"
He shrugged his shoulders with quite a desperate air, and left me. I am
convinced he thought me mad,--but I knew I had never been so sane. I did
indeed entirely comprehend my 'misfortune,' or rather the great chance
bestowed on me of winning something far higher than all the coffers of
Mammon; I read in my loss of world's cash the working of such a merciful
providence and pity as gave me a grander hope than any I had ever known.
Clear before me rose the vision of that most divine and beautiful
necessity of happiness,--Work!--the grand and too often misprized Angel
of Labour, which moulds the mind of man, steadies his hands, controls
his brain, purifies his passions, and strengthens his whole mental and
physical being. A rush of energy and health filled my veins,--and I
thanked God devoutly for the golden opportunities held out afresh for me
to accept and use. Gratitude there should be in every human soul for
every gift of heaven,--but nothing merits more thankfulness and praise
to the Creator than the call to work, and the ability to respond to it.
England at last! I bade farewell to the good ship that had rescued me,
and to all on board her, most of whom now knew my name and looked upon
me with pity as well as curiosity. The story of my being wrecked on a
friend's yacht was readily accepted,--and the subject of that adventure
was avoided, as the general impression was that my friend, whoever he
was, had been drowned with his crew, and that I was the one survivor. I
did not offer any further explanation, and was content to so let the
matter rest, though I was careful to send both the captain and the
ship's doctor a handsome recompense for their united attention and
kindness. I have reason to believe, from the letters they wrote me, that
they were more than satisfied with the sums received, and that I really
did some actual good with those few last fragments of my vanished
wealth.
On reaching London, I interviewed the police concerning the thieves and
forgers, Bentham and Ellis, and stopped all proceedings against them.
"Call me mad if you like,"--I said to the utterly confounded chief of
the detective force--"I do not mind! But let these rascals keep the
trash they have stolen. It will be a curse to them, as it has been to
me! It is devil's money! Half of it was already gone, being settled on
my late wife,--at her death, it reverted by the same deed of settlement,
to any living members of her family, and it now belongs to Lord Elton. I
have lived to make a noble Earl rich, who was once bankrupt,--and I
doubt if he would lend me a ten-pound-note for the asking! However, I
shall not ask him. The rest has gone into the universal waste of
corruption and sham--let it stay there! I shall never bother myself to
get it back. I prefer to be a free man."
"But the bank,--the principle of the thing!" exclaimed the detective
with indignation.