"Precisely," I agreed. "But since you neither tell the truth nor tell lies, what in the world do you do?"
"Well," answered d.i.c.k, "I say that it"s a secret which mother isn"t to know for a couple of days."
"I see. And when the couple of days has gone?
"Then mother has forgotten all about the secret."
I reflected for a moment or two.
"d.i.c.k."
"Yes."
"Did you ever try that plan with Miss Helen?"
"No," said he, shaking his head.
"I will," said I, airily, "or something like it."
"Something like it would be best," said d.i.c.k.
The story which I told to Helen was not after all very like it. I said:
"The watchers have gone and gone for ever. They were here not for any revenge, but for their profit. There was a treasure in St. Helen"s which Cullen Mayle was to show them the way to--if they could catch him and force him. They had some claim to it--I showed them the way."
"You?" she exclaimed. "How?"
"That I cannot tell you," said I. "I would beg you not to ask, but to let my silence content you. I could not tell you the truth and I do not think that I could invent a story to suit the occasion which would not ring false. The consequence is the one thing which concerns us, and there is no doubt of it. The watchers did not watch for an opportunity of revenge and they are gone."
"Very well," she said. "I was right after all, you see. The hand stretched out of the dark has done this service. For it is your doing that they are gone?"
I did not answer and she laughed a little and continued, "But I will not ask you. I will make shift to be content with your silence. Did d.i.c.k Parmiter come with you this morning?"
"Yes," I answered with a laugh, "but he was not with me last night."
Helen laughed again.
"Ah," she cried! "So it was your doing, and I have not asked you."
Then she grew serious of a sudden. "But since they are gone"--she exclaimed, in a minute, her whole face alight with her thought--"since they are gone, Cullen may come and come in safety."
"Oh! yes, Cullen may come," I answered, perhaps a trifle roughly.
"Cullen will be safe and may come. Indeed, I wonder that he was not here before this. He stole my horse upon the road and yet could not reach here first. I trudged a-foot, Cullen bestrode my horse and yet Tresco still pines for him. It is very strange unless he has a keen nose for danger."
My behaviour very likely was not the politest imaginable, but then Helen"s was no better. For although she displayed no anger at my rough words--I should not have cared a sc.r.a.pe of her wheezy fiddle if she had, but she did not, she merely laughed in my face with every appearance of enjoyment. I drew myself up very stiff. Here were all the limits of courtesy clearly over-stepped, but I at all events would not follow her example, nor allow her one glimpse of any exasperation which I might properly feel.
"Shall I go out and search for him in the highways and hedges?" I asked with severity.
"It would be magnanimous," said she biting her lip, and then her manner changed. "He rode your horse," she cried, "and yet he has fallen behind. He will be hurt then! Some accident has befallen him!"
"Or he has wagered my horse at some roadside inn and lost! It was a good horse, too."
She caught hold of my arm in some agitation.
"Oh! be serious!" she prayed.
"Serious quotha!" said I, drawing away from her hand with much dignity. "Let me a.s.sure you, madam, that the loss of a horse is a very serious affair, that the stealing of a horse is a very serious affair----"
"Well, well, I will buy it from you, saddle and stirrup and all," she interrupted.
"Madam," said I, when I could get my speech. "There is no more to be said."
"Heaven be praised!" said she. "And now it may be, you will condescend to listen to me. What am I to do? Suppose that he is hurt! Suppose that he is in trouble! Suppose that he still waits for my answer to his message! Suppose in a word that he does not come! What can I do?
He may go hungering for a meal."
I did not think the contingency probable, but Helen was now speaking with so much sincerity of distress that I could not say as much.
"Unless he comes to Tresco I am powerless. It is true I have bequeathed everything to him, but then I am young," she said, with a most melancholy look in her big dark eyes. "Neither am I sickly."
"I will go back along the road and search for him," and this I spoke with sincerity. She looked at me curiously.
"Will you do that?" she asked in a doubtful voice, as though she did not know whether to be pleased or sorry.
"Yes," said I, and a servant knocked at the door, and told me Parmiter wished to speak with me. I found the lad on the steps of the porch, and we walked down to the beach.
"What is it?" I asked.
"The Frenchman," said he, with a frightened air.
"Peter Tortue?"
"Yes."
I led him further along the beach lest any of the windows of the house should be open towards us, and any one by the open window.
"Where is he?"
d.i.c.k pointed up the hill.
"At the shed?" I asked.
"Yes. He was lying in wait on the hillside, and ran down when he saw that I was alone. He stays in the shed for you, and you are to go to him alone."
"Amongst the dead sailor-men?" said I, with a laugh. But the words were little short of blasphemy to d.i.c.k Parmiter. "Well, I was there last night, and no harm came to me."
"You were there last night?" cried d.i.c.k. "Then you will not go?"
"But I will," said I. "I am curious to hear what Tortue has to say to me. You may take my word for it, d.i.c.k, there"s no harm in Peter Tortue. I shall be back within the hour. Hush! not a word of this!"
for I saw Helen Mayle coming from the house towards us. I told her that I was called away, and would return.