"Michel," said Mr. Flint, "you may go."
That gentleman, not expecting such an order, hesitated.
"Yes, sur."
"Michel," said the stranger, "your master speaks to you."
"Sure I heard him, sur."
Michel left the room and carefully closed the door after him; but Flint, who knew his inquiring proclivities, opened it suddenly, and found Michel on all fours with his ear to the key-hole. The door was opened so unexpectedly that the listener did not discover the fact for the s.p.a.ce of ten seconds. When he looked up and beheld his master, the intense expression of his face was superbly ludicrous. To say that he shot to the subterranean regions of the kitchen like a flash of lightning, does not border on fiction.
The man laughed--it was a low, peculiar laugh, sadder than some men"s tears.
"Flint!"
"Well."
"Are you glad to see me?" and the man repeated his laugh.
"No: you are a devil!"
"I have been away three years, as I promised you."
"Well, what do you want?"
"Money."
"Have I ever seen you when you did not?"
"No, Flint, you never did. But you saw me once when I had an unstained soul--when I could have looked up to Heaven and said, "I am poor, Father, but I am honest." Have you enough money to pay for a lost soul? Oh Flint, I am a wrecked man! If it had only been murder--if I had killed _a man_ in the heat of pa.s.sion--but a poor innocent babe in the cold snow! The child!
the little babe! Ah, Flint, I never see the white snow coming down but I think of it. Those eyes are always with me. They follow me out to sea. They haunt me in the long watches. One night, when a storm had torn our rigging to tatters, and we heard the breakers on the lee-sh.o.r.e, I saw her standing by the binnacle light, and, so help me Heaven! she had grown to be a woman.
I fainted at the wheel. You heard of the shipwreck. How could a ship keep clear of the rocks and the helmsman in a trance? Forty souls went down, down! Hist! who said that? Not I. No, not I! I am a maniac!"
"Don"t go on that way," pleaded Flint, giving uneasy looks toward the door, which he regretted having locked.
"Why?"
"It is not pleasant."
"What isn"t?"
"Your eyes--your words. What can I do for you?"
The man"s excitement lulled for a moment. He replied, carelessly:
"I am not a chameleon; I cannot live on air; I can earn no money. The elements are against me--storms and shipwrecks follow me.... I have not found him yet," he said, abruptly.
"Who?"
"My boy."
Flint turned aside his head, and laughed quietly.
"I am tired of searching for him," said the man, sorrowfully. "I am not going to sea any more." After a pause--"I wish to live among the fishermen off Nantucket. You ask me what I want?"
"Yes."
"I want two or three hundred dollars to fit up a fishing-smack. Give me this, and I will not trouble you again. G.o.d knows I don"t want to look on your face!"
"And the letter--will you give me the letter?"
"Yes; when I take the money."
The man drew from his bosom several letters, and selected one more worn and crumpled than the rest.
Flint"s eyes fed upon it.
"Of course," said Flint, "I have not such an amount in the house. I have a hundred dollars up stairs, and will give you a check for the remainder.
Will that do?"
"No and yes; but get the money, and I"ll see."
Flint left him alone. From a safe in his bed-chamber he took a small bag of gold, and caressed it for a moment very much as one"s grandmother would a pet cat; then he filled up a check, and called Michel.
"Run to the police station, Michel, and tell Captain L.----to send me three or four men."
Michel shot down stairs, and his master followed him leisurely, patting the gold-bag lovingly at every other step.
"Does he think," said Flint"s visitor to himself, as the library door closed--"_can_ he think I would part with this paper? He, so full of worldly shrewdness, so simple?"
After awhile the door opened.
"There!" gasped Flint, placing the bag on the table before the man; "the letter! the letter!"
The stranger carelessly threw a rumpled paper toward Flint, who grasped it convulsively. His hand touched a bell-rope, and before the bell had ceased tinkling, a heavy measured tramp came through the entry. Four policemen entered the room in single file, with Michel behind them making comical efforts to keep step.
"Arrest him!" cried Flint, hoa.r.s.e with pa.s.sion and triumph, "he has extorted money from me!"
"Flint," said the man, walking toward him, "you know that"s a lie!"
Mr. Flint retreated behind the policeman.
"This person," he cried, "is a stranger to me; he forced his way into my house and has threatened my life. Arrest him quickly, for he is no doubt armed!"
"Gentlemen," said the stranger, turning to the officers, "Mr. Flint, I fear, has given you useless trouble. Michel, more gla.s.ses!"
At this, that astonished individual went off like a rocket.