"There!"
I looked up at him. There was something familiar about the man, and I asked, wondering, "Where have I seen you before?"
"Don"t you know me?" he said. He struck a light and held it close to his face. It flickered and went out, but it had remained long enough to disclose his personality. It revealed to me the features of the Smith.
"You!" said I. "Where is young Trevelyan?"
"On his way to England, thank G.o.d!" said the Smith.
"And how did that happen?"
"Well, it"s a long story," said the Smith, "and probably, as every one"s else stories are very tiresome, this one is, too."
"I should like much to hear----" I began.
"I won"t bother you with much," said the Smith. "You know I took your boat. I suppose that young beggar who threw stones at me told you. But it was a fair prize--she was floating out at sea."
"Yes, we dragged it out of him somehow. He said you were going to join a British vessel somewhere down the----"
"Yes, that"s true, too. Didn"t you find the note in the cork of the bottle?"
"Yes, we found that," said I.
"I thought you would, from the Captain"s nose."
"That"s only sunburn," said I. "He"s a very----"
"Excuse me, but we had better start. I can tell you as we walk along."
"Shan"t we wait for the Captain?" said I.
"There"s no chance of his finding us. See there!" He pointed to the great ball of red just showing its upper limb over the gray streak at the edge of the world.
"We had better get away," said I. "Come along," and we began to run toward the West. As we ran, the Smith told me that he had come up with the ship of whose whereabouts he had heard the pirates speak, and put young Trevelyan on board. That the next day he had been sent ash.o.r.e for sand. That the day being fine, he had left the sailors in the boat and had started to walk to a tree, of which he knew, where the mamey apples were particularly fine; that while he was gone he heard firing; that he ran down hurriedly to the sh.o.r.e, and, to his dismay, discovered that the long boat was just nearing the ship. The boat"s "recall" was fluttering at the masthead. Two vessels outside seemed to be engaged in a fight.
That so soon as the small boat reached the vessel the captain wore ship and stood down the coast, as if to avoid the sea fight, and the Lord knew where she was heading for. They will care for young Trevelyan and take him when they go home, if they ever do go, but the Lord alone knows when that will be.
"And you," said I, "how did you get in with these fiends?"
"I have not much breath to tell you," said the Smith. "You walk so fast, and it makes little difference. I knew that I should come across some such wretches sooner or later, and so I set about staining my face at once. I have been in the island before, nearer to l"Arcahaye, a place on the other side of the island. There I learned the language, if you can call it so. I also learned to dance the _chica_ and the _calenda_. It was just for deviltry that I learned. To think that it should come to such good use! Dear me! dear me!"
I then recited to the Smith our painful story, all the time hastening on, for I was anxious as to what might have happened at our new home. I asked how it was possible that the pirate Mauresco had been a Papaloi.
He told me all about Mauresco, or as much as he knew. He said that Mauresco was a wild dare-devil, fond of adventure and hairbreadth escapes. That he had somehow been thrown among these people, coming to them accredited by the then Gran" Papaloi. That the Mamanloi had become infatuated with his beauty. "And he _was_ a handsome devil!" said the Smith. That the then Gran" Papaloi had died, and that Mauresco, through his influence with the Pythoness, had been made the Grand Papaloi; that he had ruled the sect as with a rod of iron, but that probably he had become sick of his bargain.
"We picked him up off this very sh.o.r.e," said the Smith. "I mean the Admiral of the Red did so, about five months ago. I remember to have heard him speak of a wonderful ring that he had possessed and had lost.
He happened to tell me this, because he asked if I could not manage to make him another. He said he knew where there were precious stones in plenty. I recall his saying that he never could hope to find such jewels as made the eyes of the magic symbol, but that I could take my choice.
The Admiral of the Red had stored many hundred pounds of coin and precious stones in the cavern; at least, he had given them to Mauresco to hide away. He only knew the secret. It is my belief that he meant to slip away from those buccaneers some day, and come back and take the jewels for himself."
"He will never do it now," said I, "for two reasons: In the first place, he is buried as deep as h.e.l.l, and, in the second place, so are they."
I then told the Smith of our killing the three knaves. He drew a long breath over each period of my recital, and jerked out the words:
"That"s a good one!"
As I spoke, I gazed out over the water, where our treasure was buried.
The morning sun had flooded the ocean now, and everything was swept with its golden glow. And then, as I raised my eyes, I found that we were approaching the vicinity of the cave.
"There," said I, "is the grave of your pretty friend Mauresco."
"You should thank him at least for dropping the ring," said the Smith in answer. "I can understand why the Papaloi did not want him back again.
He, in that case, would have no more claim on the Pythoness."
And now we started to rise the hill. We had come quickly, walking on the wet sand just where it was hard set, and so escaping the brambles and rough gravel of the nearer sh.o.r.e.
As we struggled up the steep ascent, my heart began to glow in my bosom at the thought of meeting Cynthia. How would she meet me? Would she notice me at all? She would have the little boy whom Zalee had rescued.
That would be a new interest for her. Well, G.o.d bless her, poor soul!
Let her have any interest now and ever that would make her one t.i.the the happier. We were halfway up the slope. I stopped and turned to the Smith.
"There is something further that I must tell you," I said, "to prevent misunderstandings. The lady whom you will see here is my wedded wife.
We were married by the Captain of the Yankee Blade, by virtue of his position as Captain, and on the deck of his ship on the high seas. For the present we are agreed not to consider ourselves as man and wife, except in name. But I want you to know this, and to know that whosoever harms or injures my wife in any way must reckon with me."
"Bless your soul!" said the Smith, "I have a good wife of my own in Cornwall. She is the keeper of the house of the Lady Trevelyan. I can not say that I have never looked at other women, or that other women have not looked at me. But I have never wronged my good wife in deed, thank G.o.d! I could not hope in any case, were it ever so, that a lady of the standing of your wife would do more than look at one in my station."
"Stop there!" said I. "I did not dream of such a thing, but I want it understood that this lady must be treated with all respect, the more because of her unfortunate condition, and that no word shall be spoken which shall offend her dignity."
"She will get no such word from me," replied the Smith. "Thank the Lord, I know a lady when I see one."
The Smith"s Cornish dialect was, I suppose, excellent. As I am an American, thank G.o.d! I can not pretend to say as to that. I can not speak the brogue, nor can I write it down, so that the Smith"s speech must go for as good as mine. There were many words that I did not know.
I have heard that the English say of us that we in America speak the language of Shakespeare and the Bible. I know little of the former, which, G.o.d forgive me, I placed before the Holy Book, but if we do speak the language of that book, what better can they ask of us? I have sometimes wondered if any one has ever considered what an excellent thing it has been for our country that our Pilgrim Fathers did not hail from Yorkshire, or from any counties but those where the purest English was spoken. Imagine all America speaking like my friend the Smith!
Thankful also should we be that these forefathers of ours had not remained so long in Holland as to obliterate their good old English tongue. And let me say just here, Adoniah, that no matter what misunderstandings we have had with the mother country in the days just pa.s.sed, and no matter how misunderstood we are of them at the day in which I write, I see a coming time when all differences will be forgotten and when English-speaking people shall rule the globe. I have a way of digressing, son Adoniah. You must pardon it.
I asked the Smith as we came along why we had seen no natives if there were so many in the neighbourhood.
He said that these natives had all come from the eastward. That we ourselves had walked toward the eastward when we started out. That the temple was west of all the native homes on that part of the sh.o.r.e. That the vaudoux worshippers had come down from the back-lying districts, and from the southeast. That there had been an uprising against Christophe, and, from what he could learn, that the people from the east, who were on Christophe"s side, had been told that the vaudoux sect who had captured us were inimical to Christophe, and, without asking any questions, they had attacked them, their whereabouts and their collecting together having been discovered and told by one of their native spies. I never tried to understand why the people of the island rose against each other. They had been rising from time immemorial, and one tribe or hamlet had as good reason as another. Sometimes it was because they did not like the French, who had ruled the island for a long time, and were part and parcel of it until Toussaint"s ma.s.sacre.
Now they had returned to conquer it again. Sometimes it was a fight by the blacks against the mulattoes, sometimes the griffe against the white, sometimes the quarteron against any one of the three. They had been subjected to French rule, and Toussaint"s rule, and Dessaline"s, and Regaud"s, and Petion"s, and Christophe"s, and fifty others, and I learned from the Smith that there was no settled conviction about anything. And as to one"s duties toward his neighbour, it was summed up in one word, NONE! The Smith told me that we had seen nothing as yet of the island, as we would discover later. I told him that my discoveries had been extended enough to suit me, and that my one hope was that we should find a ship standing off and on one fair morning ready to take us home. But the Smith did not encourage me in this. He said that the cave was commonly supposed to be haunted, and that was why no one ever came near it but the pirates. Even if they had heard the stories, they would not be afraid. If the ghosts of the people whom they had killed did not rise to haunt them, they need not fear the spirits of the island.
As we talked we walked onward. Now, as we rose the hill, we came to the place where the great rock had slid downward and closed the cavern door.
"So that devil"s hole is shut to the world," said the Smith, "but there is another entrance."
I said nothing. I was willing to let him believe that the gallery of which he knew nothing did not exist.
We struck into the path at the top of the hill which led to the new house. I can not forget, even though I must recall it across the vast chasm of years, the feelings with which I approached the place where my dear girl was waiting for me. No, not waiting for me, that I knew; but she was there, and all that I asked was that she should be there alive and well. It seemed to me as if I had been away a year. So many events and happenings had been crowded into the night between the hour when we set out to snare the cooing doves and the present moment, that I could not believe that it was at the most, eight or nine hours since I had seen Cynthia retire to her room with her constant and devoted companion Lacelle.
"See!" said I to the Smith, as we walked along, "there is where we cut the palms for the laying of our floor. This is where we got the thatch."
A little farther on: "That is where we cut the uprights, and it was of those straight young trees that we made our walls. Up that slight ascent we go; "tis but a few steps more, and then we are on the crown of the hill. There we may stand and look directly down upon our house."
The poor Smith was breathless, for my thoughts and desires sent my legs spinning ahead of him, and he could hardly keep up with me. Yes, there was the old palm. Now we had pa.s.sed the ironwood. Here, at last, was the mahogany which crowned the slope.