The Wrecker by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne (page 8)

on two hundredweight of Chile silver! What! ain’t that good enough to fetch a fleet? Do you mean to say that won’t affect a ship’s compass? Do you mean to tell me that the lookout won’t turn to and SMELL it?” he cried.

Mac, who had no part nor lot in the bills, the forty pounds of gold, or the two hundredweight of silver, heard this with impatience, and fell into a bitter, choking laughter. “You’ll see!” he said harshly. “You’ll be glad to feed them bills into the fire before you’re through with ut!” And he turned, passed by himself out of the ring of the firelight, and stood gazing seaward.

His speech and his departure extinguished instantly those sparks of better humour kindled by the dinner and the chest. The group fell again to an ill-favoured silence, and Hemstead began to touch the banjo, as was his habit of an evening. His repertory was small: the chords of _Home, Sweet Home_ fell under his fingers; and when he had played the symphony, he instinctively raised up his voice. “Be it never so ‘umble, there’s no plyce like ‘ome,” he sang. The last word was still upon his lips, when the instrument was snatched from him and dashed into the fire; and he turned with a cry to look into the furious countenance of Mac.

“I’ll be damned if I stand this!” cried the captain, leaping up belligerent.

“I told ye I was a voilent man,” said Mac, with a movement of deprecation very surprising in one of his character. “Why don’t he give me a chance then? Haven’t we enough to bear the way we are?” And to the wonder and dismay of all, the man choked upon a sob. “It’s ashamed of meself I am,” he said presently, his Irish accent twenty-fold increased. “I ask all your pardons for me voilence; and especially the little man’s, who is a harmless crayture, and here’s me hand to’m, if he’ll condescind to take me by ‘t.”

So this scene of barbarity and sentimentalism passed off, leaving behind strange and incongruous impressions. True, every one was perhaps glad when silence succeeded that all too appropriate music; true, Mac’s apology and subsequent behaviour rather raised him in the opinion of his fellow- castaways. But the discordant note had been struck, and its harmonics tingled in the brain. In that savage, houseless isle, the passions of man had sounded, if only for the moment, and all men trembled at the possibilities of horror.

It was determined to stand watch and watch in case of passing vessels; and Tommy, on fire with an idea, volunteered to stand the first. The rest crawled under the tent, and were soon enjoying that comfortable gift of sleep, which comes everywhere and to all men, quenching anxieties and speeding time. And no sooner were all settled, no sooner had the drone of many snorers begun to mingle with and overcome the surf, than Tommy stole from his post with the case of sherry, and dropped it in a quiet cove in a fathom of water. But the stormy inconstancy of Mac’s behaviour had no connection with a gill or two of wine; his passions, angry and otherwise, were on a different sail plan from his neighbours’; and there were possibilities of good and evil in that hybrid Celt beyond their prophecy.

About two in the morning, the starry sky–or so it seemed, for the drowsy watchman had not observed the approach of any cloud–brimmed over in a deluge; and for three days it rained without remission. The islet was a sponge, the castaways sops; the view all gone, even the reef concealed behind the curtain of the falling water. The fire was soon drowned out; after a couple of boxes of matches had been scratched in vain, it was decided to wait for better weather; and the party lived in wretchedness on raw tins and a ration of hard bread.

By the 2nd February, in the dark hours of the morning watch, the clouds were all blown by; the sun rose glorious; and once more the castaways sat by a quick fire, and drank hot coffee with the greed of brutes and sufferers. Thenceforward their affairs moved in a routine. A fire was constantly maintained; and this occupied one hand continuously, and the others for an hour or so in the day. Twice a day, all hands bathed in the lagoon, their chief, almost their only pleasure. Often they fished in the lagoon with good success. And the rest was passed in lolling, strolling, yarns, and disputation. The time of the China steamers was calculated to a nicety; which done, the thought was rejected and ignored. It was one that would not bear consideration. The boat voyage having been tacitly set aside, the desperate part chosen to wait there for the coming of help or of starvation, no man had courage left to look his bargain in the face, far less to discuss it with his neighbours. But the unuttered terror haunted them; in every hour of idleness, at every moment of silence, it returned, and breathed a chill about the circle, and carried men’s eyes to the horizon. Then, in a panic of self-defence, they would rally to some other subject. And, in that lone spot, what else was to be found to speak of but the treasure?

That was indeed the chief singularity, the one thing conspicuous in their island life; the presence of that chest of bills and specie dominated the mind like a cathedral; and there were besides connected with it, certain irking problems well fitted to occupy the idle. Two thousand pounds were due to the Sydney firm: two thousand pounds were clear profit, and fell to be divided in varying proportions among six. It had been agreed how the partners were to range; every pound of capital subscribed, every pound that fell due in wages, was to count for one “lay.” Of these, Tommy could claim five hundred and ten, Carthew one hundred and seventy, Wicks one hundred and forty, and Hemstead and Amalu ten apiece: eight hundred and forty “lays” in all. What was the value of a lay? This was at first debated in the air and chiefly by the strength of Tommy’s lungs. Then followed a series of incorrect calculations; from which they issued, arithmetically foiled, but agreed from weariness upon an approximate value of 2 pounds, 7 shillings 7 1/4 pence. The figures were admittedly incorrect; the sum of the shares came not to 2000 pounds, but to 1996 pounds, 6 shillings: 3 pounds, 14 shillings being thus left unclaimed. But it was the nearest they had yet found, and the highest as well, so that the partners were made the less critical by the contemplation of their splendid dividends. Wicks put in 100 pounds and stood to draw captain’s wages for two months; his taking was 333 pounds 3 shillings 6 1/2 pence. Carthew had put in 150 pounds: he was to take out 401 pounds, 18 shillings 6 1/2 pence. Tommy’s 500 pounds had grown to be 1213 pounds 12 shillings 9 3/4 pence; and Amalu and Hemstead, ranking for wages only, had 22 pounds, 16 shillings 1/2 pence, each.

From talking and brooding on these figures, it was but a step to opening the chest; and once the chest open, the glamour of the cash was irresistible. Each felt that he must see his treasure separate with the eye of flesh, handle it in the hard coin, mark it for his own, and stand forth to himself the approved owner. And here an insurmountable difficulty barred the way. There were some seventeen shillings in English silver: the rest was Chile; and the Chile dollar, which had been taken at the rate of six to the pound sterling, was practically their smallest coin. It was decided, therefore, to divide the pounds only, and to throw the shillings, pence, and fractions in a common fund. This, with the three pound fourteen already in the heel, made a total of seven pounds one shilling.

“I’ll tell you,” said Wicks. “Let Carthew and Tommy and me take one pound apiece, and Hemstead and Amalu split the other four, and toss up for the odd bob.”

“O, rot!” said Carthew. “Tommy and I are bursting already. We can take half a sov’ each, and let the other three have forty shillings.”

“I’ll tell you now–it’s not worth splitting,” broke in Mac. “I’ve cards in my chest. Why don’t you play for the slump sum?”

In that idle place, the proposal was accepted with delight. Mac, as the owner of the cards, was given a stake; the sum was played for in five games of cribbage; and when Amalu, the last survivor in the tournament, was beaten by Mac, it was found the dinner hour was past. After a hasty meal, they fell again immediately to cards, this time (on Carthew’s proposal) to Van John. It was then probably two P.M. of the 9th February; and they played with varying chances for twelve hours, slept heavily, and rose late on the morrow to resume the game. All day of the 10th, with grudging intervals for food, and with one long absence on the part of Tommy from which he returned dripping with the case of sherry, they continued to deal and stake. Night fell: they drew the closer to the fire. It was maybe two in the morning, and Tommy was selling his deal by auction, as usual with that timid player; when Carthew, who didn’t intend to bid, had a moment of leisure and looked round him. He beheld the moonlight on the sea, the money piled and scattered in that incongruous place, the perturbed faces of the players; he felt in his own breast the familiar tumult; and it seemed as if there rose in his ears a sound of music, and the moon seemed still to shine upon a sea, but the sea was changed, and the Casino towered from among lamplit gardens, and the money clinked on the green board. “Good God!” he thought, “am I gambling again?” He looked the more curiously about the sandy table. He and Mac had played and won like gamblers; the mingled gold and silver lay by their places in the heap. Amalu and Hemstead had each more than held their own, but Tommy was cruel far to leeward, and the captain was reduced to perhaps fifty pounds.

“I say, let’s knock off,” said Carthew.

“Give that man a glass of Buckle,” said some one, and a fresh bottle was opened, and the game went inexorably on.

Carthew was himself too heavy a winner to withdraw or to say more; and all the rest of the night he must look on at the progress of this folly, and make gallant attempts to lose with the not uncommon consequence of winning more. The first dawn of the 11th February found him well-nigh desperate. It chanced he was then dealer, and still winning. He had just dealt a round of many tens; every one had staked heavily; the captain had put up all that remained to him, twelve pounds in gold and a few dollars; and Carthew, looking privately at his cards before he showed them, found he held a natural.

“See here, you fellows,” he broke out, “this is a sickening business, and I’m done with it for one.” So saying, he showed his cards, tore them across, and rose from the ground.

The company stared and murmured in mere amazement; but Mac stepped gallantly to his support.

“We’ve had enough of it, I do believe,” said he. “But of course it was all fun, and here’s my counters back. All counters in, boys!” and he began to pour his winnings into the chest, which stood fortunately near him.

Carthew stepped across and wrung him by the hand. “I’ll never forget this,” he said.

“And what are ye going to do with the Highway boy and the plumber?” inquired Mac, in a low tone of voice. “They’ve both wan, ye see.”

“That’s true!” said Carthew aloud. “Amalu and Hemstead, count your winnings; Tommy and I pay that.”

It was carried without speech: the pair glad enough to receive their winnings, it mattered not from whence; and Tommy, who had lost about five hundred pounds, delighted with the compromise.

“And how about Mac?” asked Hemstead. “Is he to lose all?”

“I beg your pardon, plumber. I’m sure ye mean well,” returned the Irishman, “but you’d better shut your face, for I’m not that kind of a man. If I t’ought I had wan that money fair, there’s never a soul here could get it from me. But I t’ought it was in fun; that was my mistake, ye see; and there’s no man big enough upon this island to give a present to my mother’s son. So there’s my opinion to ye, plumber, and you can put it in your pockut till required.”

“Well, I will say, Mac, you’re a gentleman,” said Carthew, as he helped him to shovel back his winnings into the treasure chest.

“Divil a fear of it, sir! a drunken sailor-man,” said Mac.

The captain had sat somewhile with his face in his hands: now he rose mechanically, shaking and stumbling like a drunkard after a debauch. But as he rose, his face was altered, and his voice rang out over the isle, “Sail, ho!”

All turned at the cry, and there, in the wild light of the morning, heading straight for Midway Reef, was the brig Flying Scud of Hull.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A HARD BARGAIN.

The ship which thus appeared before the castaways had long “tramped” the ocean, wandering from one port to another as freights offered. She was two years out from London, by the Cape of Good Hope, India, and the Archipelago; and was now bound for San Francisco in the hope of working homeward round the Horn. Her captain was one Jacob Trent. He had retired some five years before to a suburban cottage, a patch of cabbages, a gig, and the conduct of what he called a Bank. The name appears to have been misleading. Borrowers were accustomed to choose works of art and utility in the front shop; loaves of sugar and bolts of broadcloth were deposited in pledge; and it was a part of the manager’s duty to dash in his gig on Saturday evenings from one small retailer’s to another, and to annex in each the bulk of the week’s takings. His was thus an active life, and to a man of the type of a rat, filled with recondite joys. An unexpected loss, a law suit, and the unintelligent commentary of the judge upon the bench, combined to disgust him of the business. I was so extraordinarily fortunate as to find, in an old newspaper, a report of the proceedings in Lyall v. The Cardiff Mutual Accommodation Banking Co. “I confess I fail entirely to understand the nature of the business,” the judge had remarked, while Trent was being examined in chief; a little after, on fuller information–“They call it a bank,” he had opined, “but it seems to me to be an unlicensed pawnshop”; and he wound up with this appalling allocution: “Mr. Trent, I must put you on your guard; you must be very careful, or we shall see you here again.” In the inside of a week the captain disposed of the bank, the cottage, and the gig and horse; and to sea again in the Flying Scud, where he did well and gave high satisfaction to his owners. But the glory clung to him; he was a plain sailor -man, he said, but he could never long allow you to forget that he had been a banker.

His mate, Elias Goddedaal, was a huge viking of a man, six feet three and of proportionate mass, strong, sober, industrious, musical, and sentimental. He ran continually over into Swedish melodies, chiefly in the minor. He had paid nine dollars to hear Patti; to hear Nilsson, he had deserted a ship and two months’ wages; and he was ready at any time to walk ten miles for a good concert, or seven to a reasonable play. On board he had three treasures: a canary bird, a concertina, and a blinding copy of the works of Shakespeare. He had a gift, peculiarly Scandinavian, of making friends at sight: an elemental innocence commended him; he was without fear, without reproach, and without money or the hope of making it.

Holdorsen was second mate, and berthed aft, but messed usually with the hands.

Of one more of the crew, some image lives. This was a foremast hand out of the Clyde, of the name of Brown. A small, dark, thickset creature, with dog’s eyes, of a disposition incomparably mild and harmless, he knocked about seas and cities, the uncomplaining whiptop of one vice. “The drink is my trouble, ye see,” he said to Carthew shyly; “and it’s the more shame to me because I’m come of very good people at Bowling, down the wa’er.” The letter that so much affected Nares, in case the reader should remember it, was addressed to this man Brown.

Such was the ship that now carried joy into the bosoms of the castaways. After the fatigue and the bestial emotions of their night of play, the approach of salvation shook them from all self-control. Their hands trembled, their eyes shone, they laughed and shouted like children as they cleared their camp: and some one beginning to whistle _Marching Through Georgia,_ the remainder of the packing was conducted, amidst a thousand interruptions, to these martial strains. But the strong head of Wicks was only partly turned.

“Boys,” he said, “easy all! We’re going aboard of a ship of which we don’t know nothing; we’ve got a chest of specie, and seeing the weight, we can’t turn to and deny it. Now, suppose she was fishy; suppose it was some kind of a Bully Hayes business! It’s my opinion we’d better be on hand with the pistols.”

Every man of the party but Hemstead had some kind of a revolver; these were accordingly loaded and disposed about the persons of the castaways, and the packing was resumed and finished in the same rapturous spirit as it was begun. The sun was not yet ten degrees above the eastern sea, but the brig was already close in and hove to, before they had launched the boat and sped, shouting at the oars, towards the passage.

It was blowing fresh outside, with a strong send of sea. The spray flew in the oarsmen’s faces. They saw the Union Jack blow abroad from the Flying Scud, the men clustered at the rail, the cook in the galley door, the captain on the quarter-deck with a pith helmet and binoculars. And the whole familiar business, the comfort, company, and safety of a ship, heaving nearer at each stroke, maddened them with joy.

Wicks was the first to catch the line, and swarm on board, helping hands grabbing him as he came and hauling him across the rail.

“Captain, sir, I suppose?” he said, turning to the hard old man in the pith helmet.

“Captain Trent, sir,” returned the old gentleman.

“Well, I’m Captain Kirkup, and this is the crew of the Sydney schooner Currency Lass, dismasted at sea January 28th.”

“Ay, ay,” said Trent. “Well, you’re all right now. Lucky for you I saw your signal. I didn’t know I was so near this beastly island, there must be a drift to the south’ard here; and when I came on deck this morning at eight bells, I thought it was a ship afire.”

It had been agreed that, while Wicks was to board the ship and do the civil, the rest were to remain in the whaleboat and see the treasure safe. A tackle was passed down to them; to this they made fast the invaluable chest, and gave the word to heave. But the unexpected weight brought the hand at the tackle to a stand; two others ran to tail on and help him, and the thing caught the eye of Trent.

“‘Vast heaving!” he cried sharply; and then to Wicks: “What’s that? I don’t ever remember to have seen a chest weigh like that.”

“It’s money,” said Wicks.

“It’s what?” cried Trent.

“Specie,” said Wicks; “saved from the wreck.”

Trent looked at him sharply. “Here, let go that chest again, Mr. Goddedaal,” he commanded, “shove the boat off, and stream her with a line astern.”

“Ay, ay, sir!” from Goddedaal.

“What the devil’s wrong?” asked Wicks.

“Nothing, I daresay,” returned Trent. “But you’ll allow it’s a queer thing when a boat turns up in mid-ocean with half a ton of specie,–and everybody armed,” he added, pointing to Wicks’s pocket. “Your boat will lay comfortably astern, while you come below and make yourself satisfactory.”

“O, if that’s all!” said Wicks. “My log and papers are as right as the mail; nothing fishy about us.” And he hailed his friends in the boat, bidding them have patience, and turned to follow Captain Trent.

“This way, Captain Kirkup,” said the latter. “And don’t blame a man for too much caution; no offence intended; and these China rivers shake a fellow’s nerve. All I want is just to see you’re what you say you are; it’s only my duty, sir, and what you would do yourself in the circumstances. I’ve not always been a ship-captain: I was a banker once, and I tell you that’s the trade to learn caution in. You have to keep your weather- eye lifting Saturday nights.” And with a dry, business-like cordiality, he produced a bottle of gin.

The captains pledged each other; the papers were overhauled; the tale of Topelius and the trade was told in appreciative ears and cemented their acquaintance. Trent’s suspicions, thus finally disposed of, were succeeded by a fit of profound thought, during which he sat lethargic and stern, looking at and drumming on the table.

“Anything more?” asked Wicks.

“What sort of a place is it inside?” inquired Trent, sudden as though Wicks had touched a spring.

“It’s a good enough lagoon–a few horses’ heads, but nothing to mention,” answered Wicks.

“I’ve a good mind to go in,” said Trent. “I was new rigged in China; it’s given very bad, and I’m getting frightened for my sticks. We could set it up as good as new in a day. For I daresay your lot would turn to and give us a hand?”

“You see if we don’t!” said Wicks.

“So be it, then,” concluded Trent. “A stitch in time saves nine.”

They returned on deck; Wicks cried the news to the Currency Lasses; the foretopsail was filled again, and the brig ran into the lagoon lively, the whaleboat dancing in her wake, and came to single anchor off Middle Brooks Island before eight. She was boarded by the castaways, breakfast was served, the baggage slung on board and piled in the waist, and all hands turned to upon the rigging. All day the work continued, the two crews rivalling each other in expense of strength. Dinner was served on deck, the officers messing aft under the slack of the spanker, the men fraternising forward. Trent appeared in excellent spirits, served out grog to all hands, opened a bottle of Cape wine for the after-table, and obliged his guests with many details of the life of a financier in Cardiff. He had been forty years at sea, had five times suffered shipwreck, was once nine months the prisoner of a pepper rajah, and had seen service under fire in Chinese rivers; but the only thing he cared to talk of, the only thing of which he was vain, or with which he thought it possible to interest a stranger, was his career as a money-lender in the slums of a seaport town.

The afternoon spell told cruelly on the Currency Lasses. Already exhausted as they were with sleeplessness and excitement, they did the last hours of this violent employment on bare nerves; and when Trent was at last satisfied with the condition of his rigging, expected eagerly the word to put to sea. But the captain seemed in no hurry. He went and walked by himself softly, like a man in thought. Presently he hailed Wicks.

“You’re a kind of company, ain’t you, Captain Kirkup?” he inquired.

“Yes, we’re all on board on lays,” was the reply.

“Well, then, you won’t mind if I ask the lot of you down to tea in the cabin?” asked Trent.

Wicks was amazed, but he naturally ventured no remark; and a little after, the six Currency Lasses sat down with Trent and Goddedaal to a spread of marmalade, butter, toast, sardines, tinned tongue, and steaming tea. The food was not very good, and I have no doubt Nares would have reviled it, but it was manna to the castaways. Goddedaal waited on them with a kindness far before courtesy, a kindness like that of some old, honest countrywoman in her farm. It was remembered afterwards that Trent took little share in these attentions, but sat much absorbed in thought, and seemed to remember and forget the presence of his guests alternately.

Presently he addressed the Chinaman.

“Clear out!” said he, and watched him till he had disappeared in the stair. “Now, gentlemen,” he went on, “I understand you’re a joint-stock sort of crew, and that’s why I’ve had you all down; for there’s a point I want made clear. You see what sort of a ship this is–a good ship, though I say it, and you see what the rations are–good enough for sailor-men.”

There was a hurried murmur of approval, but curiosity for what was coming next prevented an articulate reply.

“Well,” continued Trent, making bread pills and looking hard at the middle of the table, “I’m glad of course to be able to give you a passage to ‘Frisco; one sailor-man should help another, that’s my motto. But when you want a thing in this world, you generally always have to pay for it.” He laughed a brief, joyless laugh. “I have no idea of losing by my kindness.”

“We have no idea you should, captain,” said Wicks.

“We are ready to pay anything in reason,” added Carthew.

At the words, Goddedaal, who sat next to him, touched him with his elbow, and the two mates exchanged a significant look. The character of Captain Trent was given and taken in that silent second.

“In reason?” repeated the captain of the brig. “I was waiting for that. Reason’s between two people, and there’s only one here. I’m the judge; I’m reason. If you want an advance you have to pay for it”–he hastily corrected himself–“If you want a passage in my ship, you have to pay my price,” he substituted. “That’s business, I believe. I don’t want you; you want me.”

“Well, sir,” said Carthew, “and what IS your price?”

The captain made bread pills. “If I were like you,” he said, “when you got hold of that merchant in the Gilberts, I might surprise you. You had your chance then; seems to me it’s mine now. Turn about’s fair play. What kind of mercy did you have on that Gilbert merchant?” he cried, with a sudden stridency. “Not that I blame you. All’s fair in love and business,” and he laughed again, a little frosty giggle.

“Well, sir?” said Carthew, gravely.

“Well, this ship’s mine, I think?” he asked sharply.

“Well, I’m of that way of thinking meself,” observed Mac.

“I say it’s mine, sir!” reiterated Trent, like a man trying to be angry. “And I tell you all, if I was a driver like what you are, I would take the lot. But there’s two thousand pounds there that don’t belong to you, and I’m an honest man. Give me the two thousand that’s yours, and I’ll give you a passage to the coast, and land every man-jack of you in ‘Frisco with fifteen pounds in his pocket, and the captain here with twenty-five.”

Goddedaal laid down his head on the table like a man ashamed.

“You’re joking,” said Wicks, purple in the face.

“Am I?” said Trent. “Please yourselves. You’re under no compulsion. This ship’s mine, but there’s that Brooks Island don’t belong to me, and you can lay there till you die for what I care.”

“It’s more than your blooming brig’s worth!” cried Wicks.

“It’s my price anyway,” returned Trent.

“And do you mean to say you would land us there to starve?” cried Tommy.

Captain Trent laughed the third time. “Starve? I defy you to,” said he. “I’ll sell you all the provisions you want at a fair profit.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Mac, “but my case is by itself I’m working me passage; I got no share in that two thousand pounds nor nothing in my pockut; and I’ll be glad to know what you have to say to me?”

“I ain’t a hard man,” said Trent. “That shall make no difference. I’ll take you with the rest, only of course you get no fifteen pound.”

The impudence was so extreme and startling, that all breathed deep, and Goddedaal raised up his face and looked his superior sternly in the eye.

But Mac was more articulate. “And you’re what ye call a British sayman, I suppose? the sorrow in your guts!” he cried.

“One more such word, and I clap you in irons!” said Trent, rising gleefully at the face of opposition.

“And where would I be the while you were doin’ ut?” asked Mac. “After you and your rigging, too! Ye ould puggy, ye haven’t the civility of a bug, and I’ll learn ye some.”

His voice did not even rise as he uttered the threat; no man present, Trent least of all, expected that which followed. The Irishman’s hand rose suddenly from below the table, an open clasp-knife balanced on the palm; there was a movement swift as conjuring; Trent started half to his feet, turning a little as he rose so as to escape the table, and the movement was his bane. The missile struck him in the jugular; he fell forward, and his blood flowed among the dishes on the cloth.

The suddenness of the attack and the catastrophe, the instant change from peace to war and from life to death, held all men spellbound. Yet a moment they sat about the table staring open-mouthed upon the prostrate captain and the flowing blood. The next, Goddedaal had leaped to his feet, caught up the stool on which he had been sitting, and swung it high in air, a man transfigured, roaring (as he stood) so that men’s ears were stunned with it. There was no thought of battle in the Currency Lasses; none drew his weapon; all huddled helplessly from before the face of the baresark Scandinavian. His first blow sent Mac to ground with a broken arm. His second bashed out the brains of Hemstead. He turned from one to another, menacing and trumpeting like a wounded elephant, exulting in his rage. But there was no counsel, no light of reason, in that ecstasy of battle; and he shied from the pursuit of victory to hail fresh blows upon the supine Hemstead, so that the stool was shattered and the cabin rang with their violence. The sight of that post-mortem cruelty recalled Carthew to the life of instinct, and his revolver was in hand and he had aimed and fired before he knew. The ear-bursting sound of the report was accompanied by a yell of pain; the colossus paused, swayed, tottered, and fell headlong on the body of his victim.

In the instant silence that succeeded, the sound of feet pounding on the deck and in the companion leaped into hearing; and a face, that of the sailor Holdorsen, appeared below the bulkheads in the cabin doorway. Carthew shattered it with a second shot, for he was a marksman.

“Pistols!” he cried, and charged at the companion, Wicks at his heels, Tommy and Amalu following. They trod the body of Holdorsen underfoot, and flew up-stairs and forth into the dusky blaze of a sunset red as blood. The numbers were still equal, but the Flying Scuds dreamed not of defence, and fled with one accord for the forecastle scuttle. Brown was first in flight; he disappeared below unscathed; the Chinaman followed head-foremost with a ball in his side; and the others shinned into the rigging.

A fierce composure settled upon Wicks and Carthew, their fighting second wind. They posted Tommy at the fore and Amalu at the main to guard the masts and shrouds, and going themselves into the waist, poured out a box of cartridges on deck and filled the chambers. The poor devils aloft bleated aloud for mercy. But the hour of any mercy was gone by; the cup was brewed and must be drunken to the dregs; since so many had fallen all must fall. The light was bad, the cheap revolvers fouled and carried wild, the screaming wretches were swift to flatten themselves against the masts and yards or find a momentary refuge in the hanging sails. The fell business took long, but it was done at last. Hardy the Londoner was shot on the foreroyal yard, and hung horribly suspended in the brails. Wallen, the other, had his jaw broken on the maintop-gallant crosstrees, and exposed himself, shrieking, till a second shot dropped him on the deck.

This had been bad enough, but worse remained behind. There was still Brown in the forepeak. Tommy, with a sudden clamour of weeping, begged for his life. “One man can’t hurt us,” he sobbed. “We can’t go on with this. I spoke to him at dinner. He’s an awful decent little cad. It can’t be done. Nobody can go into that place and murder him. It’s too damned wicked.”

The sound of his supplications was perhaps audible to the unfortunate below.

“One left, and we all hang,” said Wicks. “Brown must go the same road.” The big man was deadly white and trembled like an aspen; and he had no sooner finished speaking, than he went to the ship’s side and vomited.

“We can never do it if we wait,” said Carthew. “Now or never,” and he marched towards the scuttle.

“No, no, no!” wailed Tommy, clutching at his jacket.

But Carthew flung him off, and stepped down the ladder, his heart rising with disgust and shame. The Chinaman lay on the floor, still groaning; the place was pitch dark.

“Brown!” cried Carthew, “Brown, where are you?”

His heart smote him for the treacherous apostrophe, but no answer came.

He groped in the bunks: they were all empty. Then he moved towards the forepeak, which was hampered with coils of rope and spare chandlery in general.

“Brown!” he said again.

“Here, sir,” answered a shaking voice; and the poor invisible caitiff called on him by name, and poured forth out of the darkness an endless, garrulous appeal for mercy. A sense of danger, of daring, had alone nerved Carthew to enter the forecastle; and here was the enemy crying and pleading like a frightened child. His obsequious “Here, sir,” his horrid fluency of obtestation, made the murder tenfold more revolting. Twice Carthew raised the pistol, once he pressed the trigger (or thought he did) with all his might, but no explosion followed; and with that the lees of his courage ran quite out, and he turned and fled from before his victim.

Wicks sat on the fore hatch, raised the face of a man of seventy, and looked a wordless question. Carthew shook his head. With such composure as a man displays marching towards the gallows, Wicks arose, walked to the scuttle, and went down. Brown thought it was Carthew returning, and discovered himself, half crawling from his shelter, with another incoherent burst of pleading. Wicks emptied his revolver at the voice, which broke into mouse-like whimperings and groans. Silence succeeded, and the murderer ran on deck like one possessed.

The other three were now all gathered on the fore hatch, and Wicks took his place beside them without question asked or answered. They sat close, like children in the dark, and shook each other with their shaking. The dusk continued to fall; and there was no sound but the beating of the surf and the occasional hiccup of a sob from Tommy Hadden.

“God, if there was another ship!” cried Carthew of a sudden.

Wicks started and looked aloft with the trick of all seamen, and shuddered as he saw the hanging figure on the royal yard.

“If I went aloft, I’d fall,” he said simply. “I’m done up.”

It was Amalu who volunteered, climbed to the very truck, swept the fading horizon, and announced nothing within sight.

“No odds,” said Wicks. “We can’t sleep …”

“Sleep!” echoed Carthew; and it seemed as if the whole of Shakespeare’s _Macbeth_ thundered at the gallop through his mind.

“Well, then, we can’t sit and chitter here,” said Wicks, “till we’ve cleaned ship; and I can’t turn to till I’ve had gin, and the gin’s in the cabin, and who’s to fetch it?”

“I will,” said Carthew, “if any one has matches.”

Amalu passed him a box, and he went aft and down the companion and into the cabin, stumbling upon bodies. Then he struck a match, and his looks fell upon two living eyes.

“Well?” asked Mac, for it was he who still survived in that shambles of a cabin.

“It’s done; they’re all dead,” answered Carthew.

“Christ!” said the Irishman, and fainted.

The gin was found in the dead captain’s cabin; it was brought on deck, and all hands had a dram, and attacked their farther task. The night was come, the moon would not be up for hours; a lamp was set on the main hatch to light Amalu as he washed down decks; and the galley lantern was taken to guide the others in their graveyard business. Holdorsen, Hemstead, Trent, and Goddedaal were first disposed of, the last still breathing as he went over the side; Wallen followed; and then Wicks, steadied by the gin, went aloft with a boathook and succeeded in dislodging Hardy. The Chinaman was their last task; he seemed to be light-headed, talked aloud in his unknown language as they brought him up, and it was only with the splash of his sinking body that the gibberish ceased. Brown, by common consent, was left alone. Flesh and blood could go no further.

All this time they had been drinking undiluted gin like water; three bottles stood broached in different quarters; and none passed without a gulp. Tommy collapsed against the mainmast; Wicks fell on his face on the poop ladder and moved no more; Amalu had vanished unobserved. Carthew was the last afoot: he stood swaying at the break of the poop, and the lantern, which he still carried, swung with his movement. His head hummed; it swarmed with broken thoughts; memory of that day’s abominations flared up and died down within him like the light of a lamp in a strong draught. And then he had a drunkard’s inspiration.

“There must be no more of this,” he thought, and stumbled once more below.

The absence of Holdorsen’s body brought him to a stand. He stood and stared at the empty floor, and then remembered and smiled. From the captain’s room he took the open case with one dozen and three bottles of gin, put the lantern inside, and walked precariously forth. Mac was once more conscious, his eyes haggard, his face drawn with pain and flushed with fever; and Carthew remembered he had never been seen to, had lain there helpless, and was so to lie all night, injured, perhaps dying. But it was now too late; reason had now fled from that silent ship. If Carthew could get on deck again, it was as much as he could hope; and casting on the unfortunate a glance of pity, the tragic drunkard shouldered his way up the companion, dropped the case overboard, and fell in the scuppers helpless.

CHAPTER XXV.

A BAD BARGAIN.

With the first colour in the east, Carthew awoke and sat up. A while he gazed at the scroll of the morning bank and the spars and hanging canvas of the brig, like a man who wakes in a strange bed, with a child’s simplicity of wonder. He wondered above all what ailed him, what he had lost, what disfavour had been done him, which he knew he should resent, yet had forgotten. And then, like a river bursting through a dam, the truth rolled on him its instantaneous volume: his memory teemed with speech and pictures that he should never again forget; and he sprang to his feet, stood a moment hand to brow, and began to walk violently to and fro by the companion. As he walked, he wrung his hands. “God–God–God,” he kept saying, with no thought of prayer, uttering a mere voice of agony.

The time may have been long or short, it was perhaps minutes, perhaps only seconds, ere he awoke to find himself observed, and saw the captain sitting up and watching him over the break of the poop, a strange blindness as of fever in his eyes, a haggard knot of corrugations on his brow. Cain saw himself in a mirror. For a flash they looked upon each other, and then glanced guiltily aside; and Carthew fled from the eye of his accomplice, and stood leaning on the taffrail.

An hour went by, while the day came brighter, and the sun rose and drank up the clouds: an hour of silence in the ship, an hour of agony beyond narration for the sufferers. Brown’s gabbling prayers, the cries of the sailors in the rigging, strains of the dead Hemstead’s minstrelsy, ran together in Carthew’s mind, with sickening iteration. He neither acquitted nor condemned himself: he did not think, he suffered. In the bright water into which he stared, the pictures changed and were repeated: the baresark rage of Goddedaal; the blood-red light of the sunset into which they had run forth; the face of the babbling Chinaman as they cast him over; the face of the captain, seen a moment since, as he awoke from drunkenness into remorse. And time passed, and the sun swam higher, and his torment was not abated.

Then were fulfilled many sayings, and the weakest of these condemned brought relief and healing to the others. Amalu the drudge awoke (like the rest) to sickness of body and distress of mind; but the habit of obedience ruled in that simple spirit, and appalled to be so late, he went direct into the galley, kindled the fire, and began to get breakfast. At the rattle of dishes, the snapping of the fire, and the thin smoke that went up straight into the air, the spell was lifted. The condemned felt once more the good dry land of habit under foot; they touched again the familiar guide-ropes of sanity; they were restored to a sense of the blessed revolution and return of all things earthly. The captain drew a bucket of water and began to bathe. Tommy sat up, watched him awhile, and slowly followed his example; and Carthew, remembering his last thoughts of the night before, hastened to the cabin.

Mac was awake; perhaps had not slept. Over his head Goddedaal’s canary twittered shrilly from its cage.

“How are you?” asked Carthew.

“Me arrum’s broke,” returned Mac; “but I can stand that. It’s this place I can’t abide. I was coming on deck anyway.”

“Stay where you are, though,” said Carthew. “It’s deadly hot above, and there’s no wind. I’ll wash out this—-” and he paused, seeking a word and not finding one for the grisly foulness of the cabin.

“Faith, I’ll be obliged to ye, then,” replied the Irishman. He spoke mild and meek, like a sick child with its mother. There was now no violence in the violent man; and as Carthew fetched a bucket and swab and the steward’s sponge, and began to cleanse the field of battle, he alternately watched him or shut his eyes and sighed like a man near fainting. “I have to ask all your pardons,” he began again presently, “and the more shame to me as I got ye into trouble and couldn’t do nothing when it came. Ye saved me life, sir; ye’re a clane shot.”

“For God’s sake, don’t talk of it!” cried Carthew. “It can’t be talked of; you don’t know what it was. It was nothing down here; they fought. On deck–O, my God!” And Carthew, with the bloody sponge pressed to his face, struggled a moment with hysteria.

“Kape cool, Mr. Cart’ew. It’s done now,” said Mac; “and ye may bless God ye’re not in pain and helpless in the bargain.”

There was no more said by one or other, and the cabin was pretty well cleansed when a stroke on the ship’s bell summoned Carthew to breakfast. Tommy had been busy in the meanwhile; he had hauled the whaleboat close aboard, and already lowered into it a small keg of beef that he found ready broached beside the galley door; it was plain he had but the one idea–to escape.

“We have a shipful of stores to draw upon,” he said. “Well, what are we staying for? Let’s get off at once for Hawaii. I’ve begun preparing already.”

“Mac has his arm broken,” observed Carthew; “how would he stand the voyage?”

“A broken arm?” repeated the captain. “That all? I’ll set it after breakfast. I thought he was dead like the rest. That madman hit out like—-” and there, at the evocation of the battle, his voice ceased and the talk died with it.

After breakfast, the three white men went down into the cabin.

“I’ve come to set your arm,” said the captain.

“I beg your pardon, captain,” replied Mac; “but the firrst thing ye got to do is to get this ship to sea. We’ll talk of me arrum after that.”

“O, there’s no such blooming hurry,” returned Wicks.

“When the next ship sails in, ye’ll tell me stories!” retorted Mac.

“But there’s nothing so unlikely in the world,” objected Carthew.

“Don’t be deceivin’ yourself,” said Mac. “If ye want a ship, divil a one’ll look near ye in six year; but if ye don’t, ye may take my word for ut, we’ll have a squadron layin’ here.”

“That’s what I say,” cried Tommy; “that’s what I call sense! Let’s stock that whaleboat and be off.”

“And what will Captain Wicks be thinking of the whaleboat?” asked the Irishman.

“I don’t think of it at all,” said Wicks. “We’ve a smart-looking brig under foot; that’s all the whaleboat I want.”

“Excuse me!” cried Tommy. “That’s childish talk. You’ve got a brig, to be sure, and what use is she? You daren’t go anywhere in her. What port are you to sail for?”

“For the port of Davy Jones’s Locker, my son,” replied the captain. “This brig’s going to be lost at sea. I’ll tell you where, too, and that’s about forty miles to windward of Kauai. We’re going to stay by her till she’s down; and once the masts are under, she’s the Flying Scud no more, and we never heard of such a brig; and it’s the crew of the schooner Currency Lass that comes ashore in the boat, and takes the first chance to Sydney.”

“Captain dear, that’s the first Christian word I’ve heard of ut!” cried Mac. “And now, just let me arrum be, jewel, and get the brig outside.”

“I’m as anxious as yourself, Mac,” returned Wicks; “but there’s not wind enough to swear by. So let’s see your arm, and no more talk.”

The arm was set and splinted; the body of Brown fetched from the forepeak, where it lay still and cold, and committed to the waters of the lagoon; and the washing of the cabin rudely finished. All these were done ere midday; and it was past three when the first cat’s-paw ruffled the lagoon, and the wind came in a dry squall, which presently sobered to a steady breeze.

The interval was passed by all in feverish impatience, and by one of the party in secret and extreme concern of mind. Captain Wicks was a fore-and-aft sailor; he could take a schooner through a Scotch reel, felt her mouth and divined her temper like a rider with a horse; she, on her side, recognising her master and following his wishes like a dog. But by a not very unusual train of circumstance, the man’s dexterity was partial and circumscribed. On a schooner’s deck he was Rembrandt or (at the least) Mr. Whistler; on board a brig he was Pierre Grassou. Again and again in the course of the morning, he had reasoned out his policy and rehearsed his orders; and ever with the same depression and weariness. It was guess-work; it was chance; the ship might behave as he expected, and might not; suppose she failed him, he stood there helpless, beggared of all the proved resources of experience. Had not all hands been so weary, had he not feared to communicate his own misgivings, he could have towed her out. But these reasons sufficed, and the most he could do was to take all possible precautions. Accordingly he had Carthew aft, explained what was to be done with anxious patience, and visited along with him the various sheets and braces.

“I hope I’ll remember,” said Carthew. “It seems awfully muddled.”

“It’s the rottenest kind of rig,” the captain admitted: “all blooming pocket handkerchiefs! And not one sailor-man on deck! Ah, if she’d only been a brigantine, now! But it’s lucky the passage is so plain; there’s no manoeuvring to mention. We get under way before the wind, and run right so till we begin to get foul of the island; then we haul our wind and lie as near south-east as may be till we’re on that line; ’bout ship there and stand straight out on the port tack. Catch the idea?”

“Yes, I see the idea,” replied Carthew, rather dismally, and the two incompetents studied for a long time in silence the complicated gear above their heads.

But the time came when these rehearsals must be put in practice. The sails were lowered, and all hands heaved the anchor short. The whaleboat was then cut adrift, the upper topsails and the spanker set, the yards braced up, and the spanker sheet hauled out to starboard.

“Heave away on your anchor, Mr. Carthew.”

“Anchor’s gone, sir.”

“Set jibs.”

It was done, and the brig still hung enchanted. Wicks, his head full of a schooner’s mainsail, turned his mind to the spanker. First he hauled in the sheet, and then he hauled it out, with no result.

“Brail the damned thing up!” he bawled at last, with a red face. “There ain’t no sense in it.”

It was the last stroke of bewilderment for the poor captain, that he had no sooner brailed up the spanker than the vessel came before the wind. The laws of nature seemed to him to be suspended; he was like a man in a world of pantomime tricks; the cause of any result, and the probable result of any action, equally concealed from him. He was the more careful not to shake the nerve of his amateur assistants. He stood there with a face like a torch; but he gave his orders with aplomb; and indeed, now the ship was under weigh, supposed his difficulties over.

The lower topsails and courses were then set, and the brig began to walk the water like a thing of life, her forefoot discoursing music, the birds flying and crying over her spars. Bit by bit the passage began to open and the blue sea to show between the flanking breakers on the reef; bit by bit, on the starboard bow, the low land of the islet began to heave closer aboard. The yards were braced up, the spanker sheet hauled aft again; the brig was close hauled, lay down to her work like a thing in earnest, and had soon drawn near to the point of advantage, where she might stay and lie out of the lagoon in a single tack.

Wicks took the wheel himself, swelling with success. He kept the brig full to give her heels, and began to bark his orders: “Ready about. Helm’s a-lee. Tacks and sheets. Mainsail haul.” And then the fatal words: “That’ll do your mainsail; jump forrard and haul round your foreyards.”

To stay a square-rigged ship is an affair of knowledge and swift sight; and a man used to the succinct evolutions of a schooner will always tend to be too hasty with a brig. It was so now. The order came too soon; the topsails set flat aback; the ship was in irons. Even yet, had the helm been reversed, they might have saved her. But to think of a stern-board at all, far more to think of profiting by one, were foreign to the schooner-sailor’s mind. Wicks made haste instead to wear ship, a manoeuvre for which room was wanting, and the Flying Scud took ground on a bank of sand and coral about twenty minutes before five.

Wicks was no hand with a square-rigger, and he had shown it. But he was a sailor and a born captain of men for all homely purposes, where intellect is not required and an eye in a man’s head and a heart under his jacket will suffice. Before the others had time to understand the misfortune, he was bawling fresh orders, and had the sails clewed up, and took soundings round the ship.

“She lies lovely,” he remarked, and ordered out a boat with the starboard anchor.

“Here! steady!” cried Tommy. “You ain’t going to turn us to, to warp her off?”

“I am though,” replied Wicks.

“I won’t set a hand to such tomfoolery for one,” replied Tommy. “I’m dead beat.” He went and sat down doggedly on the main hatch. “You got us on; get us off again,” he added.

Carthew and Wicks turned to each other.

“Perhaps you don’t know how tired we are,” said Carthew.

“The tide’s flowing!” cried the captain. “You wouldn’t have me miss a rising tide?”

“O, gammon! there’s tides to-morrow!” retorted Tommy.

“And I’ll tell you what,” added Carthew, “the breeze is failing fast, and the sun will soon be down. We may get into all kinds of fresh mess in the dark and with nothing but light airs.”

“I don’t deny it,” answered Wicks, and stood awhile as if in thought. “But what I can’t make out,” he began again, with agitation, “what I can’t make out is what you’re made of! To stay in this place is beyond me. There’s the bloody sun going down–and to stay here is beyond me!”

The others looked upon him with horrified surprise. This fall of their chief pillar–this irrational passion in the practical man, suddenly barred out of his true sphere, the sphere of action– shocked and daunted them. But it gave to another and unseen hearer the chance for which he had been waiting. Mac, on the striking of the brig, had crawled up the companion, and he now showed himself and spoke up.

“Captain Wicks,” said he, “it’s me that brought this trouble on the lot of ye. I’m sorry for ut, I ask all your pardons, and if there’s any one can say ‘I forgive ye,’ it’ll make my soul the lighter.”

Wicks stared upon the man in amaze; then his self-control returned to him. “We’re all in glass houses here,” he said; “we ain’t going to turn to and throw stones. I forgive you, sure enough; and much good may it do you!”

The others spoke to the same purpose.

“I thank ye for ut, and ’tis done like gentlemen,” said Mac. “But there’s another thing I have upon my mind. I hope we’re all Prodestan’s here?”

It appeared they were; it seemed a small thing for the Protestant religion to rejoice in!

“Well, that’s as it should be,” continued Mac. “And why shouldn’t we say the Lord’s Prayer? There can’t be no hurt in ut.”

He had the same quiet, pleading, childlike way with him as in the morning; and the others accepted his proposal, and knelt down without a word.

“Knale if ye like!” said he. “I’ll stand.” And he covered his eyes.

So the prayer was said to the accompaniment of the surf and seabirds, and all rose refreshed and felt lightened of a load. Up to then, they had cherished their guilty memories in private, or only referred to them in the heat of a moment and fallen immediately silent. Now they had faced their remorse in company, and the worst seemed over. Nor was it only that. But the petition “Forgive us our trespasses,” falling in so apposite after they had themselves forgiven the immediate author of their miseries, sounded like an absolution.

Tea was taken on deck in the time of the sunset, and not long after the five castaways–castaways once more–lay down to sleep.

Day dawned windless and hot. Their slumbers had been too profound to be refreshing, and they woke listless, and sat up, and stared about them with dull eyes. Only Wicks, smelling a hard day’s work ahead, was more alert. He went first to the well, sounded it once and then a second time, and stood awhile with a grim look, so that all could see he was dissatisfied. Then he shook himself, stripped to the buff, clambered on the rail, drew himself up and raised his arms to plunge. The dive was never taken. He stood instead transfixed, his eyes on the horizon.

“Hand up that glass,” he said.

In a trice they were all swarming aloft, the nude captain leading with the glass.

On the northern horizon was a finger of grey smoke, straight in the windless air like a point of admiration.

“What do you make it?” they asked of Wicks.

“She’s truck down,” he replied; “no telling yet. By the way the smoke builds, she must be heading right here.”

“What can she be?”

“She might be a China mail,” returned Wicks, “and she might be a blooming man-of-war, come to look for castaways. Here! This ain’t the time to stand staring. On deck, boys!”

He was the first on deck, as he had been the first aloft, handed down the ensign, bent it again to the signal halliards, and ran it up union down.

“Now hear me,” he said, jumping into his trousers, “and everything I say you grip on to. If that’s a man-of-war, she’ll be in a tearing hurry; all these ships are what don’t do nothing and have their expenses paid. That’s our chance; for we’ll go with them, and they won’t take the time to look twice or to ask a question. I’m Captain Trent; Carthew, you’re Goddedaal; Tommy, you’re Hardy; Mac’s Brown; Amalu– Hold hard! we can’t make a Chinaman of him! Ah Wing must have deserted; Amalu stowed away; and I turned him to as cook, and was never at the bother to sign him. Catch the idea? Say your names.”

And that pale company recited their lesson earnestly.

“What were the names of the other two?” he asked. “Him Carthew shot in the companion, and the one I caught in the jaw on the main top-gallant?”

“Holdorsen and Wallen,” said some one.

“Well, they’re drowned,” continued Wicks; “drowned alongside trying to lower a boat. We had a bit of a squall last night: that’s how we got ashore.” He ran and squinted at the compass. “Squall out of nor’-nor’-west-half-west; blew hard; every one in a mess, falls jammed, and Holdorsen and Wallen spilt overboard. See? Clear your blooming heads!” He was in his jacket now, and spoke with a feverish impatience and contention that rang like anger.

“But is it safe?” asked Tommy.

“Safe?” bellowed the captain. “We’re standing on the drop, you moon-calf! If that ship’s bound for China (which she don’t look to be), we’re lost as soon as we arrive; if she’s bound the other way, she comes from China, don’t she? Well, if there’s a man on board of her that ever clapped eyes on Trent or any blooming hand out of this brig, we’ll all be in irons in two hours. Safe! no, it ain’t safe; it’s a beggarly last chance to shave the gallows, and that’s what it is.”

At this convincing picture, fear took hold on all.

“Hadn’t we a hundred times better stay by the brig?” cried Carthew. “They would give us a hand to float her off.”

“You’ll make me waste this holy day in chattering!” cried Wicks. “Look here, when I sounded the well this morning, there was two foot of water there against eight inches last night. What’s wrong? I don’t know; might be nothing; might be the worst kind of smash. And then, there we are in for a thousand miles in an open boat, if that’s your taste!”

“But it may be nothing, and anyway their carpenters are bound to help us repair her,” argued Carthew.

“Moses Murphy!” cried the captain. “How did she strike? Bows on, I believe. And she’s down by the head now. If any carpenter comes tinkering here, where’ll he go first? Down in the forepeak, I suppose! And then, how about all that blood among the chandlery? You would think you were a lot of members of Parliament discussing Plimsoll; and you’re just a pack of murderers with the halter round your neck. Any other ass got any time to waste? No? Thank God for that! Now, all hands! I’m going below, and I leave you here on deck. You get the boat cover off that boat; then you turn to and open the specie chest. There are five of us; get five chests, and divide the specie equal among the five–put it at the bottom–and go at it like tigers. Get blankets, or canvas, or clothes, so it won’t rattle. It’ll make five pretty heavy chests, but we can’t help that. You, Carthew–dash me!–You, Mr. Goddedaal, come below. We’ve our share before us.”

And he cast another glance at the smoke, and hurried below with Carthew at his heels.

The logs were found in the main cabin behind the canary’s cage; two of them, one kept by Trent, one by Goddedaal. Wicks looked first at one, then at the other, and his lip stuck out.

“Can you forge hand of write?” he asked.

“No,” said Carthew.

“There’s luck for you–no more can I!” cried the captain. “Hullo! here’s worse yet, here’s this Goddedaal up to date; he must have filled it in before supper. See for yourself: ‘Smoke observed.–Captain Kirkup and five hands of the schooner Currency Lass.’ Ah! this is better,” he added, turning to the other log. “The old man ain’t written anything for a clear fortnight. We’ll dispose of your log altogether, Mr. Goddedaal, and stick to the old man’s–to mine, I mean; only I ain’t going to write it up, for reasons of my own. You are. You’re going to sit down right here and fill it in the way I tell you.”

“How to explain the loss of mine?” asked Carthew.

“You never kept one,” replied the captain. “Gross neglect of duty. You’ll catch it.”

“And the change of writing?” resumed Carthew. “You began; why do you stop and why do I come in? And you’ll have to sign anyway.”

“O! I’ve met with an accident and can’t write,” replied Wicks.

“An accident?” repeated Carthew. “It don’t sound natural. What kind of an accident?”

Wicks spread his hand face-up on the table, and drove a knife through his palm.

“That kind of an accident,” said he. “There’s a way to draw to windward of most difficulties, if you’ve a head on your shoulders.” He began to bind up his hand with a handkerchief, glancing the while over Goddedaal’s log. “Hullo!” he said, “this’ll never do for us–this is an impossible kind of a yarn. Here, to begin with, is this Captain Trent trying some fancy course, leastways he’s a thousand miles to south’ard of the great circle. And here, it seems, he was close up with this island on the sixth, sails all these days, and is close up with it again by daylight on the eleventh.”

“Goddedaal said they had the deuce’s luck,” said Carthew.

“Well, it don’t look like real life–that’s all I can say,” returned Wicks.

“It’s the way it was, though,” argued Carthew.

“So it is; and what the better are we for that, if it don’t look so?” cried the captain, sounding unwonted depths of art criticism. “Here! try and see if you can’t tie this bandage; I’m bleeding like a pig.”

As Carthew sought to adjust the handkerchief, his patient seemed sunk in a deep muse, his eye veiled, his mouth partly open. The job was yet scarce done, when he sprang to his feet.

“I have it,” he broke out, and ran on deck. “Here, boys!” he cried, “we didn’t come here on the eleventh; we came in here on the evening of the sixth, and lay here ever since becalmed. As soon as you’ve done with these chests,” he added, “you can turn to and roll out beef and water breakers; it’ll look more shipshape–like as if we were getting ready for the boat voyage.”

And he was back again in a moment, cooking the new log. Goddedaal’s was then carefully destroyed, and a hunt began for the ship’s papers. Of all the agonies of that breathless morning, this was perhaps the most poignant. Here and there the two men searched, cursing, cannoning together, streaming with heat, freezing with terror. News was bawled down to them that the ship was indeed a man-of-war, that she was close up, that she was lowering a boat; and still they sought in vain. By what accident they missed the iron box with the money and accounts, is hard to fancy; but they did. And the vital documents were found at last in the pocket of Trent’s shore-going coat, where he had left them when last he came on board.

Wicks smiled for the first time that morning. “None too soon,” said he. “And now for it! Take these others for me; I’m afraid I’ll get them mixed if I keep both.”

“What are they?” Carthew asked.

“They’re the Kirkup and Currency Lass papers,” he replied. “Pray God we need ’em again!”

“Boat’s inside the lagoon, sir,” hailed down Mac, who sat by the skylight doing sentry while the others worked.

“Time we were on deck, then, Mr. Goddedaal,” said Wicks.

As they turned to leave the cabin, the canary burst into piercing song.

“My God!” cried Carthew, with a gulp, “we can’t leave that wretched bird to starve. It was poor Goddedaal’s.”

“Bring the bally thing along!” cried the captain.

And they went on deck.

An ugly brute of a modern man-of-war lay just without the reef, now quite inert, now giving a flap or two with her propeller. Nearer hand, and just within, a big white boat came skimming to the stroke of many oars, her ensign blowing at the stern.

“One word more,” said Wicks, after he had taken in the scene. “Mac, you’ve been in China ports? All right; then you can speak for yourself. The rest of you I kept on board all the time we were in Hongkong, hoping you would desert; but you fooled me and stuck to the brig. That’ll make your lying come easier.”

The boat was now close at hand; a boy in the stern sheets was the only officer, and a poor one plainly, for the men were talking as they pulled.

“Thank God, they’ve only sent a kind of a middy!” ejaculated Wicks. “Here you, Hardy, stand for’ard! I’ll have no deck hands on my quarter-deck,” he cried, and the reproof braced the whole crew like a cold douche.

The boat came alongside with perfect neatness, and the boy officer stepped on board, where he was respectfully greeted by Wicks.

“You the master of this ship?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” said Wicks. “Trent is my name, and this is the Flying Scud of Hull.”

“You seem to have got into a mess,” said the officer.

“If you’ll step aft with me here, I’ll tell you all there is of it,” said Wicks.

“Why, man, you’re shaking!” cried the officer.

“So would you, perhaps, if you had been in the same berth,” returned Wicks; and he told the whole story of the rotten water, the long calm, the squall, the seamen drowned; glibly and hotly; talking, with his head in the lion’s mouth, like one pleading in the dock. I heard the same tale from the same narrator in the saloon in San Francisco; and even then his bearing filled me with suspicion. But the officer was no observer.

“Well, the captain is in no end of a hurry,” said he; “but I was instructed to give you all the assistance in my power, and signal back for another boat if more hands were necessary. What can I do for you?”

“O, we won’t keep you no time,” replied Wicks cheerily. “We’re all ready, bless you–men’s chests, chronometer, papers and all.”

“Do you mean to leave her?” cried the officer. “She seems to me to lie nicely; can’t we get your ship off?”

“So we could, and no mistake; but how we’re to keep her afloat’s another question. Her bows is stove in,” replied Wicks.

The officer coloured to the eyes. He was incompetent and knew he was; thought he was already detected, and feared to expose himself again. There was nothing further from his mind than that the captain should deceive him; if the captain was pleased, why, so was he. “All right,” he said. “Tell your men to get their chests aboard.”

“Mr. Goddedaal, turn the hands to to get the chests aboard,” said Wicks.

The four Currency Lasses had waited the while on tenter- hooks. This welcome news broke upon them like the sun at midnight; and Hadden burst into a storm of tears, sobbing aloud as he heaved upon the tackle. But the work went none the less briskly forward; chests, men, and bundles were got over the side with alacrity; the boat was shoved off; it moved out of the long shadow of the Flying Scud, and its bows were pointed at the passage.

So much, then, was accomplished. The sham wreck had passed muster; they were clear of her, they were safe away; and the water widened between them and her damning evidences. On the other hand, they were drawing nearer to the ship of war, which might very well prove to be their prison and a hangman’s cart to bear them to the gallows–of which they had not yet learned either whence she came or whither she was bound; and the doubt weighed upon their heart like mountains.

It was Wicks who did the talking. The sound was small in Carthew’s ears, like the voices of men miles away, but the meaning of each word struck home to him like a bullet. “What did you say your ship was?” inquired Wicks.

“Tempest, don’t you know?” returned the officer.

Don’t you know? What could that mean? Perhaps nothing: perhaps that the ships had met already. Wicks took his courage in both hands. “Where is she bound?” he asked.

“O, we’re just looking in at all these miserable islands here,” said the officer. “Then we bear up for San Francisco.”

“O, yes, you’re from China ways, like us?” pursued Wicks.

“Hong Kong,” said the officer, and spat over the side.

Hong Kong. Then the game was up; as soon as they set foot on board, they would be seized; the wreck would be examined, the blood found, the lagoon perhaps dredged, and the bodies of the dead would reappear to testify. An impulse almost incontrollable bade Carthew rise from the thwart, shriek out aloud, and leap overboard; it seemed so vain a thing to dissemble longer, to dally with the inevitable, to spin out some hundred seconds more of agonised suspense, with shame and death thus visibly approaching. But the indomitable Wicks persevered. His face was like a skull, his voice scarce recognisable; the dullest of men and officers (it seemed) must have remarked that telltale countenance and broken utterance. And still he persevered, bent upon certitude.

“Nice place, Hong Kong?” he said.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said the officer. “Only a day and a half there; called for orders and came straight on here. Never heard of such a beastly cruise.” And he went on describing and lamenting the untoward fortunes of the Tempest.

But Wicks and Carthew heeded him no longer. They lay back on the gunnel, breathing deep, sunk in a stupor of the body: the mind within still nimbly and agreeably at work, measuring the past danger, exulting in the present relief, numbering with ecstasy their ultimate chances of escape. For the voyage in the man-of-war they were now safe; yet a few more days of peril, activity, and presence of mind in San Francisco, and the whole horrid tale was blotted out; and Wicks again became Kirkup, and Goddedaal became Carthew–men beyond all shot of possible suspicion, men who had never heard of the Flying Scud, who had never been in sight of Midway Reef.

So they came alongside, under many craning heads of seamen and projecting mouths of guns; so they climbed on board somnambulous, and looked blindly about them at the tall spars, the white decks, and the crowding ship’s company, and heard men as from far away, and answered them at random.

And then a hand fell softly on Carthew’s shoulder.

“Why, Norrie, old chappie, where have you dropped from? All the world’s been looking for you. Don’t you know you’ve come into your kingdom?”

He turned, beheld the face of his old schoolmate Sebright, and fell unconscious at his feet.

The doctor was attending him, a while later, in Lieutenant Sebright’s cabin, when he came to himself. He opened his eyes, looked hard in the strange face, and spoke with a kind of solemn vigour.

“Brown must go the same road,” he said; “now or never.” And then paused, and his reason coming to him with more clearness, spoke again: “What was I saying? Where am I? Who are you?”

“I am the doctor of the Tempest,” was the reply. “You are in Lieutenant Sebright’s berth, and you may dismiss all concern from your mind. Your troubles are over, Mr. Carthew.”

“Why do you call me that?” he asked. “Ah, I remember– Sebright knew me! O!” and he groaned and shook. “Send down Wicks to me; I must see Wicks at once!” he cried, and seized the doctor’s wrist with unconscious violence.

“All right,” said the doctor. “Let’s make a bargain. You swallow down this draught, and I’ll go and fetch Wicks.”

And he gave the wretched man an opiate that laid him out within ten minutes and in all likelihood preserved his reason.

It was the doctor’s next business to attend to Mac; and he found occasion, while engaged upon his arm, to make the man repeat the names of the rescued crew. It was now the turn of the captain, and there is no doubt he was no longer the man that we have seen; sudden relief, the sense of perfect safety, a square meal and a good glass of grog, had all combined to relax his vigilance and depress his energy.

“When was this done?” asked the doctor, looking at the wound.

“More than a week ago,” replied Wicks, thinking singly of his log.

“Hey?” cried the doctor, and he raised his hand and looked the captain in the eyes.

“I don’t remember exactly,” faltered Wicks.

And at this remarkable falsehood, the suspicions of the doctor were at once quadrupled.

“By the way, which of you is called Wicks?” he asked easily.

“What’s that?” snapped the captain, falling white as paper.

“Wicks,” repeated the doctor; “which of you is he? that’s surely a plain question.”

Wicks stared upon his questioner in silence.

“Which is Brown, then?” pursued the doctor.

“What are you talking of? what do you mean by this?” cried Wicks, snatching his half-bandaged hand away, so that the blood sprinkled in the surgeon’s face.

He did not trouble to remove it. Looking straight at his victim, he pursued his questions. “Why must Brown go the same way?” he asked.

Wicks fell trembling on a locker. “Carthew’s told you,” he cried.

“No,” replied the doctor, “he has not. But he and you between you have set me thinking, and I think there’s something wrong.”

“Give me some grog,” said Wicks. “I’d rather tell than have you find out. I’m damned if it’s half as bad as what any one would think.”

And with the help of a couple of strong grogs, the tragedy of the Flying Scud was told for the first time.

It was a fortunate series of accidents that brought the story to the doctor. He understood and pitied the position of these wretched men, and came whole-heartedly to their assistance. He and Wicks and Carthew (so soon as he was recovered) held a hundred councils and prepared a policy for San Francisco. It was he who certified “Goddedaal” unfit to be moved and smuggled Carthew ashore under cloud of night; it was he who kept Wicks’s wound open that he might sign with his left hand; he who took all their Chile silver and (in the course of the first day) got it converted for them into portable gold. He used his influence in the wardroom to keep the tongues of the young officers in order, so that Carthew’s identification was kept out of the papers. And he rendered another service yet more important. He had a friend in San Francisco, a millionaire; to this man he privately presented Carthew as a young gentleman come newly into a huge estate, but troubled with Jew debts which he was trying to settle on the quiet. The millionaire came readily to help; and it was with his money that the wrecker gang was to be fought. What was his name, out of a thousand guesses? It was Douglas Longhurst.

As long as the Currency Lasses could all disappear under fresh names, it did not greatly matter if the brig were bought, or any small discrepancies should be discovered in the wrecking. The identification of one of their number had changed all that. The smallest scandal must now direct attention to the movements of Norris. It would be asked how he who had sailed in a schooner from Sydney, had turned up so shortly after in a brig out of Hong Kong; and from one question to another all his original shipmates were pretty sure to be involved. Hence arose naturally the idea of preventing danger, profiting by Carthew’s new-found wealth, and buying the brig under an alias; and it was put in hand with equal energy and caution. Carthew took lodgings alone under a false name, picked up Bellairs at random, and commissioned him to buy the wreck.

“What figure, if you please?” the lawyer asked.

“I want it bought,” replied Carthew. “I don’t mind about the price.”

“Any price is no price,” said Bellairs. “Put a name upon it.”

“Call it ten thousand pounds then, if you like!” said Carthew.

In the meanwhile, the captain had to walk the streets, appear in the consulate, be cross-examined by Lloyd’s agent, be badgered about his lost accounts, sign papers with his left hand, and repeat his lies to every skipper in San Francisco: not knowing at what moment he might run into the arms of some old friend who should hail him by the name of Wicks, or some new enemy who should be in a position to deny him that of Trent. And the latter incident did actually befall him, but was transformed by his stout countenance into an element of strength. It was in the consulate (of all untoward places) that he suddenly heard a big voice inquiring for Captain Trent. He turned with the customary sinking at his heart.

“YOU ain’t Captain Trent!” said the stranger, falling back. “Why, what’s all this? They tell me you’re passing off as Captain Trent–Captain Jacob Trent–a man I knew since I was that high.”

“O, you’re thinking of my uncle as had the bank in Cardiff,” replied Wicks, with desperate aplomb.

“I declare I never knew he had a nevvy!” said the stranger.

“Well, you see he has!” says Wicks.

“And how is the old man?” asked the other.

“Fit as a fiddle,” answered Wicks, and was opportunely summoned by the clerk.

This alert was the only one until the morning of the sale, when he was once more alarmed by his interview with Jim; and it was with some anxiety that he attended the sale, knowing only that Carthew was to be represented, but neither who was to represent him nor what were the instructions given. I suppose Captain Wicks is a good life. In spite of his personal appearance and his own known uneasiness, I suppose he is secure from apoplexy, or it must have struck him there and then, as he looked on at the stages of that insane sale and saw the old brig and her not very valuable cargo knocked down at last to a total stranger for ten thousand pounds.

It had been agreed that he was to avoid Carthew, and above all Carthew’s lodging, so that no connexion might be traced between the crew and the pseudonymous purchaser. But the hour for caution was gone by, and he caught a tram and made all speed to Mission Street.

Carthew met him in the door.

“Come away, come away from here,” said Carthew; and when they were clear of the house, “All’s up!” he added.

“O, you’ve heard of the sale, then?” said Wicks.

“The sale!” cried Carthew. “I declare I had forgotten it.” And he told of the voice in the telephone, and the maddening question: “Why did you want to buy the Flying Scud?”

This circumstance, coming on the back of the monstrous improbabilities of the sale, was enough to have shaken the reason of Immanuel Kant. The earth seemed banded together to defeat them; the stones and the boys on the street appeared to be in possession of their guilty secret. Flight was their one thought. The treasure of the Currency Lass they packed in waist-belts, expressed their chests to an imaginary address in British Columbia, and left San Francisco the same afternoon, booked for Los Angeles.

The next day they pursued their retreat by the Southern Pacific route, which Carthew followed on his way to England; but the other three branched off for Mexico.

EPILOGUE:

TO WILL H. LOW.

DEAR LOW: The other day (at Manihiki of all places) I had the pleasure to meet Dodd. We sat some two hours in the neat, little, toy-like church, set with pews after the manner of Europe, and inlaid with mother-of-pearl in the style (I suppose) of the New Jerusalem. The natives, who are decidedly the most attractive inhabitants of this planet, crowded round us in the pew, and fawned upon and patted us; and here it was I put my questions, and Dodd answered me.

I first carried him back to the night in Barbizon when Carthew told his story, and asked him what was done about Bellairs. It seemed he had put the matter to his friend at once, and that Carthew took it with an inimitable lightness. “He’s poor, and I’m rich,” he had said. “I can afford to smile at him. I go somewhere else, that’s all–somewhere that’s far away and dear to get to. Persia would be found to answer, I fancy. No end of a place, Persia. Why not come with me?” And they had left the next afternoon for Constantinople, on their way to Teheran. Of the shyster, it is only known (by a newspaper paragraph) that he returned somehow to San Francisco and died in the hospital.

“Now there’s another point,” said I. “There you are off to Persia with a millionaire, and rich yourself. How come you here in the South Seas, running a trader?”

He said, with a smile, that I had not yet heard of Jim’s last bankruptcy. “I was about cleaned out once more,” he said; “and then it was that Carthew had this schooner built, and put me in as supercargo. It’s his yacht and it’s my trader; and as nearly all the expenses go to the yacht, I do pretty well. As for Jim, he’s right again: one of the best businesses, they say, in the West, fruit, cereals, and real estate; and he has a Tartar of a partner now–Nares, no less. Nares will keep him straight, Nares has a big head. They have their country-places next door at Saucelito, and I stayed with them time about, the last time I was on the coast. Jim had a paper of his own–I think he has a notion of being senator one of these days–and he wanted me to throw up the schooner and come and write his editorials. He holds strong views on the State Constitution, and so does Mamie.”

“And what became of the other three Currency Lasses after they left Carthew?” I inquired.

“Well, it seems they had a huge spree in the city of Mexico,” said Dodd; “and then Hadden and the Irishman took a turn at the gold fields in Venezuela, and Wicks went on alone to Valparaiso. There’s a Kirkup in the Chilean navy to this day, I saw the name in the papers about the Balmaceda war. Hadden soon wearied of the mines, and I met him the other day in Sydney. The last news he had from Venezuela, Mac had been knocked over in an attack on the gold train. So there’s only the three of them left, for Amalu scarcely counts. He lives on his own land in Maui, at the side of Hale-a-ka-la, where he keeps Goddedaal’s canary; and they say he sticks to his dollars, which is a wonder in a Kanaka. He had a considerable pile to start with, for not only Hemstead’s share but Carthew’s was divided equally among the other four–Mac being counted.”

“What did that make for him altogether?” I could not help asking, for I had been diverted by the number of calculations in his narrative.

“One hundred and twenty-eight pounds nineteen shillings and eleven pence halfpenny,” he replied with composure. “That’s leaving out what little he won at Van John. It’s something for a Kanaka, you know.”

And about that time we were at last obliged to yield to the solicitations of our native admirers, and go to the pastor’s house to drink green cocoanuts. The ship I was in was sailing the same night, for Dodd had been beforehand and got all the shell in the island; and though he pressed me to desert and return with him to Auckland (whither he was now bound to pick up Carthew) I was firm in my refusal.

The truth is, since I have been mixed up with Havens and Dodd in the design to publish the latter’s narrative, I seem to feel no want for Carthew’s society. Of course I am wholly modern in sentiment, and think nothing more noble than to publish people’s private affairs at so much a line. They like it, and if they don’t, they ought to. But a still small voice keeps telling me they will not like it always, and perhaps not always stand it. Memory besides supplies me with the face of a pressman (in the sacred phrase) who proved altogether too modern for one of his neighbours, and

Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum

as it were, marshalling us our way. I am in no haste to

–nos proecedens–

be that man’s successor. Carthew has a record as “a clane shot,” and for some years Samoa will be good enough for me.

We agreed to separate, accordingly; but he took me on board in his own boat with the hard-wood fittings, and entertained me on the way with an account of his late visit to Butaritari, whither he had gone on an errand for Carthew, to see how Topelius was getting along, and, if necessary, to give him a helping hand. But Topelius was in great force, and had patronised and– well –out-manoeuvred him.

“Carthew will be pleased,” said Dodd; “for there’s no doubt they oppressed the man abominably when they were in the Currency Lass. It’s diamond cut diamond now.”

This, I think, was the most of the news I got from my friend Loudon; and I hope I was well inspired, and have put all the questions to which you would be curious to hear an answer.

But there is one more that I daresay you are burning to put to myself; and that is, what your own name is doing in this place, cropping up (as it were uncalled-for) on the stern of our poor ship? If you were not born in Arcadia, you linger in fancy on its margin; your thoughts are busied with the flutes of antiquity, with daffodils, and the classic poplar, and the footsteps of the nymphs, and the elegant and moving aridity of ancient art. Why dedicate to you a tale of a caste so modern;–full of details of our barbaric manners and unstable morals;–full of the need and the lust of money, so that there is scarce a page in which the dollars do not jingle;–full of the unrest and movement of our century, so that the reader is hurried from place to place and sea to sea, and the book is less a romance than a panorama–in the end, as blood-bespattered as an epic?

Well, you are a man interested in all problems of art, even the most vulgar; and it may amuse you to hear the genesis and growth of _The Wrecker_. On board the schooner Equator, almost within sight of the Johnstone Islands (if anybody knows where these are) and on a moonlit night when it was a joy to be alive, the authors were amused with several stories of the sale of wrecks. The subject tempted them; and they sat apart in the alley-way to discuss its possibilities. “What a tangle it would make,” suggested one, “if the wrong crew were aboard. But how to get the wrong crew there?”–“I have it!” cried the other; “the so-and-so affair!” For not so many months before, and not so many hundred miles from where we were then sailing, a proposition almost tantamount to that of Captain Trent had been made by a British skipper to some British castaways.

Before we turned in, the scaffolding of the tale had been put together. But the question of treatment was as usual more obscure. We had long been at once attracted and repelled by that very modern form of the police novel or mystery story, which consists in beginning your yarn anywhere but at the beginning, and finishing it anywhere but at the end; attracted by its peculiar interest when done, and the peculiar difficulties that attend its execution; repelled by that appearance of insincerity and shallowness of tone, which seems its inevitable drawback. For the mind of the reader, always bent to pick up clews, receives no impression of reality or life, rather of an airless, elaborate mechanism; and the book remains enthralling, but insignificant, like a game of chess, not a work of human art. It seemed the cause might lie partly in the abrupt attack; and that if the tale were gradually approached, some of the characters introduced (as it were) beforehand, and the book started in the tone of a novel of manners and experience briefly treated, this defect might be lessened and our mystery seem to inhere in life. The tone of the age, its movement, the mingling of races and classes in the dollar hunt, the fiery and not quite unromantic struggle for existence with its changing trades and scenery, and two types in particular, that of the American handy-man of business and that of the Yankee merchant sailor –we agreed to dwell upon at some length, and make the woof to our not very precious warp. Hence Dodd’s father, and Pinkerton, and Nares, and the Dromedary picnics, and the railway work in New South Wales–the last an unsolicited testimonial from the powers that be, for the tale was half written before I saw Carthew’s squad toil in the rainy cutting at South Clifton, or heard from the engineer of his “young swell.” After we had invented at some expense of time this method of approaching and fortifying our police novel, it occurred to us it had been invented previously by some one else, and was in fact–however painfully different the results may seem–the method of Charles Dickens in his later work.

I see you staring. Here, you will say, is a prodigious quantity of theory to our halfpenny worth of police novel; and withal not a shadow of an answer to your question.

Well, some of us like theory. After so long a piece of practice, these may be indulged for a few pages. And the answer is at hand. It was plainly desirable, from every point of view of convenience and contrast, that our hero and narrator should partly stand aside from those with whom he mingles, and be but a pressed-man in the dollar hunt. Thus it was that Loudon Dodd became a student of the plastic arts, and that our globe- trotting story came to visit Paris and look in at Barbizon. And thus it is, dear Low, that your name appears in the address of this epilogue.

For sure, if any person can here appreciate and read between the lines, it must be you–and one other, our friend. All the dominos will be transparent to your better knowledge; the statuary contract will be to you a piece of ancient history; and you will not have now heard for the first time of the dangers of Roussillon. Dead leaves from the Bas Breau, echoes from Lavenue’s and the Rue Racine, memories of a common past, let these be your bookmarkers as you read. And if you care for naught else in the story, be a little pleased to breathe once more for a moment the airs of our youth.

The End.