It was the first of many visits. Sometimes he brought Mr. Tredgold and sometimes Mr. Tredgold brought him. The terrors of the crow"s-nest vanished before his persevering attacks, and perched there with the captain"s gla.s.s he swept the landscape with the air of an explorer surveying a strange and hostile country.
It was a fitting prelude to the captain"s tales afterwards, and Mr.
Chalk, with the stem of his long pipe withdrawn from his open mouth, would sit enthralled as his host narrated picturesque incidents of hairbreadth escapes, or, drawing his chair to the table, made rough maps for his listener"s clearer understanding. Sometimes the captain took him to palm-studded islands in the Southern Seas; sometimes to the ancient worlds of China and j.a.pan. He became an expert in nautical terms. He walked in knots, and even ordered a new carpet in fathoms-after the shop-keeper had demonstrated, by means of his little boy"s arithmetic book, the difference between that measurement and a furlong.
"I"ll have a voyage before I"m much older," he remarked one afternoon, as he sat in the captain"s sitting-room. "Since I retired from business time hangs very heavy sometimes. I"ve got a fancy for a small yacht, but I suppose I couldn"t go a long voyage in a small one?"
"Smaller the better," said Edward Tredgold, who was sitting by the window watching Miss Drewitt sewing.
Mr. Chalk took his pipe from his mouth and eyed him inquiringly.
"Less to lose," explained Mr. Tredgold, with a scarcely perceptible glance at the captain. "Look at the dangers you"d be dragging your craft into, Chalk; there would be no satisfying you with a quiet cruise in the Mediterranean."
"I shouldn"t run into unnecessary danger," said Mr. Chalk, seriously.
"I"m a married man, and there"s my wife to think of. What would become of her if anything happened to me?"
"Why, you"ve got plenty of money to leave, haven"t you?" inquired Mr.
Tredgold.
"I was thinking of her losing me," replied Mr. Chalk, with a touch of acerbity.
"Oh, I didn"t think of that," said the other. "Yes, to be sure."
"Captain Bowers was telling me the other day of a woman who wore widow"s weeds for thirty-five years," said Mr. Chalk, impressively. "And all the time her husband was married again and got a big family in Australia.
There"s nothing in the world so faithful as a woman"s heart."
"Well, if you"re lost on a cruise, I shall know where to look for you,"
said Mr. Tredgold. "But I don"t think the captain ought to put such ideas into your head."
Mr. Chalk looked bewildered. Then he scratched his left whisker with the stem of his churchwarden pipe and looked severely over at Mr. Tredgold.
"I don"t think you ought to talk that way before ladies," he said, primly. "Of course, I know you"re only in joke, but there"s some people can"t see jokes as quick as others and they might get a wrong idea of you."
"What part did you think of going to for your cruise?" interposed Captain Bowers.
"There"s nothing settled yet," said Mr. Chalk; "it"s just an idea, that"s all. I was talking to your father the other day," he added, turning to Mr. Tredgold; "just sounding him, so to speak."
"You take him," said that dutiful son, briskly. "It would do him a world of good; me, too."
"He said he couldn"t afford either the time or the money," said Mr.
Chalk. "The thing to do would be to combine business with pleasure-to take a yacht and find a sunken galleon loaded with gold pieces. I"ve heard of such things being done."
"I"ve heard of it," said the captain, nodding.
"Bottom of the ocean must be paved with them in places," said Mr.
Tredgold, rising, and following Miss Drewitt, who had gone into the garden to plant seeds.
Mr. Chalk refilled his pipe and, accepting a match from the captain, smoked slowly. His gaze was fixed on the window, but instead of Dialstone Lane he saw tumbling blue seas and islets far away.
"That"s something you"ve never come across, I suppose, Captain Bowers?"
he remarked at last.
"No," said the other.
Mr. Chalk, with a vain attempt to conceal his disappointment, smoked on for some time in silence. The blue seas disappeared, and he saw instead the bra.s.s knocker of the house opposite.
"Nor any other kind of craft with treasure aboard, I suppose?" he suggested, at last.
The captain put his hands on his knees and stared at the floor. "No," he said, slowly, "I can"t call to mind any craft; but it"s odd that you should have got on this subject with me."
Mr. Chalk laid his pipe carefully on the table.
"Why?" he inquired.
"Well," said the captain, with a short laugh, "it is odd, that"s all."
Mr. Chalk fidgeted with the stem of his pipe. "You know of sunken treasure somewhere?" he said, eagerly.
The captain smiled and shook his head; the other watched him narrowly.
"You know of some treasure?" he said, with conviction.
"Not what you could call sunken," said the captain, driven to bay.
Mr. Chalk"s pale-blue eyes opened to their fullest extent. "Ingots?" he queried.
The other shook his head. "It"s a secret," he remarked; "we won"t talk about it."
"Yes, of course, naturally, I don"t expect you to tell me where it is,"
said Mr. Chalk, "but I thought it might be interesting to hear about, that"s all."
"It"s buried," said the captain, after a long pause. "I don"t know that there"s any harm in telling you that; buried in a small island in the South Pacific."
"Have you seen it?" inquired Mr. Chalk.
"I buried it," rejoined the other.
Mr. Chalk sank back in his chair and regarded him with awestruck attention; Captain Bowers, slowly ramming home a charge of tobacco with his thumb, smiled quietly.
"Buried it," he repeated, musingly, "with the blade of an oar for a spade. It was a long job, but it"s six foot down and the dead man it belonged to atop of it."
The pipe fell from the listener"s fingers and smashed unheeded on the floor.
"You ought to make a book of it," he said at last.
The captain shook his head. "I haven"t got the gift of story-telling,"
he said, simply. "Besides, you can understand I don"t want it noised about. People might bother me."
He leaned back in his chair and bunched his beard in his hand; the other, watching him closely, saw that his thoughts were busy with some scene in his stirring past.