It was an awfully long time, that eighteen days at sea, on the Royal
Mail Steamship _Don_, bound for Kingston, Jamaica, with John Cann's
secret for ever on one's mind, and nothing to do all day, by way of
outlet for one's burning energy, but to look, hour after hour, at the
monotonous face of the seething water. But at last the journey was over;
and before Cecil Mitford had been twenty-four hours at Date Tree Hall,
the chief hotel in Kingston, he had already hired a boat and sailed
across the baking hot harbour to Port Royal, to look in the dreary,
sandy cemetery for any sign or token of John Cann's grave.
An old grey-haired negro, digging at a fresh grave, had charge of the
cemetery, and to him Cecil Mitford at once addressed himself, to find
out whether any tombstone about the place bore the name of John Cann.
The old man turned the name over carefully in his stolid brains, and
then shook his heavy grey head with a decided negative. "Massa John
Cann, sah," he said dubiously, "Massa John Cann; it don't nobody buried
here by de name ob Massa John Cann. I sartin, sah, becase I's sexton in
dis here cemetry dese fifty year, an' I know de grabe ob ebbery buckra
gentleman dat ebber buried here since I fuss came."
Cecil Mitford tossed his head angrily. "Since _you_ first came, my good
man," he said with deep contempt. "Since you first came! Why, John Cann
was buried here ages and ages before you yourself were ever born or
thought of."
The old negro looked up at him inquiringly. There is nothing a negro
hates like contempt; and he answered back with a disdainful tone, "Den I
can find out if him ebber was buried here at all, as well as you, sah.
We has register here, we don't ignorant heathen. I has register in de
church ob every pusson dat ebber buried in dis cemetry from de berry
beginnin--from de year ob de great earthquake itself. What year dis
Massa John Cann him die, now? What year him die?"
Cecil pricked up his ears at the mention of the register, and answered
eagerly, "In the year 1669."
The old negro sat down quietly on a flat tomb, and answered with a smile
of malicious triumph, "Den you is ignorant know-nuffin pusson for a
buckra gentleman, for true, sah, if you tink you will find him grabe in
dis here cemetry. Don't you nebber read your history book, dat all Port
Royal drowned in de great earthquake ob de year 1692? We has register
here for ebbery year, from de year 1692 downward; but de grabes, and de
cemetry, and de register, from de year 1692 upward, him all swallowed up
entirely in de great earthquake, bress de Lord!"
Cecil Mitford felt the earth shivering beneath him at that moment, as
verily as the Port Royal folk had felt it shiver in 1692. He clutched at
the headstone to keep him from falling, and sat down hazily on the flat
tomb, beside the grey-headed old negro, like one unmanned and utterly
disheartened. It was all only too true. With his intimate knowledge of
John Cann's life, and of West Indian affairs generally, how on earth
could he ever have overlooked it? John Cann's grave lay buried five
fathoms deep, no doubt, under the blue waters of the Caribbean. And it
was for this that he had madly thrown up his Colonial Office
appointment, for this that he had wasted Ethel's money, for this that he
had burdened his conscience with a world of lies; all to find in the end
that John Cann's secret was hidden under five fathoms of tropical
lagoon, among the scattered and waterlogged ruins of Old Port Royal. His
fortitude forsook him for a single moment, and burying his face in his
two hands, there, under the sweltering midday heat of that deadly
sandbank, he broke down utterly, and sobbed like a child before the very
eyes of the now softened old negro sexton.