Dead Man's Rock Part 40

He was in no hurry, but sat and watched me there with those intolerably evil eyes. His left hand was thrust carelessly into his pocket, and as he tilted back upon the stool and surveyed me, his right was playing with the clasp upon the chest. As I painfully turned my head a drop of blood came trickling down into my eyes from a cut in my forehead; I saw, however, that the door was bolted.

An empty bottle and a plate of broken victuals lay carelessly thrust in a corner, and a villainous smell from the lamp filled the whole room and almost choked me; but the only sound in the dead stillness of the place was the monotonous tick-tick of my watch as it lay upon the chest.

How long I had lain there I could not guess, but I noticed that the floor slanted much less than when I first scrambled on deck, so guessed that the tide must have risen considerably. Then having exhausted my wonder I looked again at Colliver, and began to speculate how he would kill me and how long he would take about it.

I found his wolfish eyes still regarding me, and for a minute or two we studied each other in silence. Then without removing his gaze he tilted his stool forward, slowly drew a short heavy knife from his waist-band, slipped it out of its sheath--still without taking his left hand from his pocket--laid it on the table and leant back again.

"I suppose," he said at last and very deliberately as if chewing his words, "you know that if you attempt to cry out or summon help, you are a dead man that instant."

"Well, well," he continued, after waiting a moment for my reply, "as long as you understand that, it does not matter. I confess I should have preferred to talk with you and not merely to you.

However, before I kill you--and I suppose you guess that I am going to kill you as soon as I've done with you--I wish to have just a word, Master Jasper Trenoweth."

From the tone in which he said the words he might have been congratulating me on some great good fortune. He paused awhile as if to allow the full force of them to sink in, and then took up the Golden Clasp. Holding the pieces together with the fore-finger and thumb of his right hand, he advanced and thrust it right under my sight--

"Do you see that? Can you read it?"

As I was still mute he walked back to the chest and laid the clasp down again.

"Aha!" he exclaimed with a short laugh horrible to hear, "you won't speak. But there have been times, Mr. Jasper Trenoweth, when you would have given your soul to lay hands upon this piece of gold and read what is written upon it. It is a pity your hands are tied--a thousand pities. But I do not wish to be hard on you, and so I don't mind reading out what is written here. The secret will be safe with you, don't you see? Quite--safe--with--you."

He rolled out these last words, one by one, with infinite relish; and the mockery in the depths of those eyes seared me far more than my bonds. After watching the effect of his taunt he resumed his seat upon the stool, pulled the clasp towards him and said--

"People might call me rash for entrusting these confidences to you.

But I do not mind admitting that I owe you some reparation--some anterior reparation. So, as I don't wish you to die cursing me, I will be generous. Listen!"

He held the buckle down upon the table and read out the inscription as follows:--

START AT FULL MOON END SOUTH.

POINT 27 FEET N.N.W. 22 FEET.

W. OF RING NORTH SIDE 4.

FEET 6 INCHES DEEP AT POINT.

OF MEETING LOW WATER 1.5 HOURS.

He read it through twice very slowly, and each time as he ceased looked up to see how I took it.

"It does not seem to make much sense, does it?" he asked. "But wait a moment and let me parcel it out into sentences. I should not like you to miss any of its meaning. Listen again." He divided the writing up thus:--

"Start at full moon.

End South Point 27 feet N.N.W.

22 feet W. of Ring. North Side.

4 feet 6 inches deep at point of meeting.

Low water 1.5 hours."

"You still seem puzzled, Mr. Trenoweth. Very well, I will even go on to explain further. The person who engraved this clasp meant to tell us that something--let us say treasure, for sake of argument--could be found by anyone who drew two lines from some place unknown: one 27 feet in length in direction N.N.W. from the South Point of that place; the other 22 feet due West of a certain Ring on the North side of that same place. So far I trust I make my meaning clear.

That which we have agreed to call the treasure lies buried at a depth of 4 feet 6 inches on the spot where these two lines intersect.

But the person (you or I, for the sake of argument) who seeks this treasure must start at full moon. Why? Obviously because the spring tides occur with a full moon, consequently the low ebb. We must expect, then, to find our treasure buried in a spot which is only uncovered at dead low water; and to this conclusion I am also helped by the last sentence, which says, 'Low water 1.5 hours.' It is then, I submit, Mr. Trenoweth, in some such place that we must look for our treasure; the only question being, 'Where is that place?'"

I was waiting for this, and a great tide of joy swept over me as I reflected that after all he had not solved the mystery. The clasp told nothing, the key told nothing. The secret was safe as yet.

He must have read my thoughts, for he looked steadily at me out of those dark eyes of his, and then said very slowly and deliberately--

"Mr. Trenoweth, it grieves me to taunt your miserable case; but do you mind my saying that you are a fool?"

I simply stared in answer.

"Your father was a fool--a pitiful fool; and you are a fool.

Which would lead me, did I not know better, to believe that your grandfather, Amos Trenoweth, was a fool also. I should wrong him if I called him that. He was a villain, a black-hearted, murderous, cold-blooded, d.a.m.nable villain; but he was only a fool for once in his life, and that was when he trusted in the sense of his descendants."

His voice, as he spoke of my grandfather, grew suddenly shrill and discordant, while his eyes blazed up in furious wrath. In a second or two, however, he calmed himself again and went on quietly as before.

"You wonder, perhaps, why I call you a fool. It is because you have lived for fourteen years with your hand upon riches that would make a king jealous, and have never had the sense to grasp them; it is because you have shut your eyes when you might have seen, have been a beggar when you might have ridden in a carriage. Upon my word, Mr.

Jasper Trenoweth, when I think of your folly I have half a mind to be dog-sick with you myself."

What could the man mean? What was this clue which I had never found?

"And all the time it was written upon this key here, as large as life; not only that, but, to leave you no excuse, Amos Trenoweth actually told you that it was written here."

"What do you mean?" stammered I, forced into speech at last.

"Ah! so you have found your voice, have you? What do I mean? Do you mean to say you do not guess even now? Upon my word, I am loth to kill so fair a fool." He regarded me for a moment with pitying contempt, then stretched out his hand and took up my grandfather's key.

"I read here," he said, "written very clearly and distinctly, certain words. You must know those words; but I will repeat them to you to refresh your memory:--"

"THY HOUSE IS SET UPON THE SANDS. AND THY HOPES BY A DEAD MAN."

"Well?" I asked, for--fool that I was--even yet I did not understand.

"Mr. Jasper Trenoweth, did you ever hear tell of such a place as Dead Man's Rock?"

The truth, the whole horrible certainty of it, struck me as one great wave, and rushed over my bent head as with the whirl and roar of many waters. "Dead Man's Rock!" "Dead Man's Rock!" it sang in my ears as it swept me off my feet for a moment and pa.s.sed, leaving me to sink and battle in the gulf of bottomless despair. And then, as if I really drowned, my past life with all its follies, mistakes, wrecked hopes and baseless dreams, shot swiftly past in one long train.

Again I saw my mother's patient, anxious smile, my father's drowned face with the salt drops trickling from his golden hair, the struggle on the rock, the inquest, the awful face at the window, the corpses of my parents stretched side by side upon the bed, the scene in the gambling-h.e.l.l with all its white and desperate faces, Claire, my lost love, the river, the theatre, Tom's death, and that last dreadful scene, Francesca with the dark blood soaking her white dress and trickling down upon the boards. I tried to put my hands before my eyes, but the cords held and cut my arms like burning steel. Then in a flash I seemed to be striding madly up and down Oxford Street, while still in front of me danced and flew the yellow woman, her every diamond flas.h.i.+ng in the gas-light, her cold black eyes, as they turned and mocked me, blazing marsh-lights of doom. Then came the ringing of many bells in my ears, mingled with silvery laughter, as though the fiends were ringing jubilant peals within the pit.

Presently the sights grew dim and died away, but the chiming laughter still continued.

I looked up. It was Colliver laughing, and his face was that of an arch-devil.

"It does me good to see you," he explained; "oh, yes, it is honey to my soul. Fool! and a thousand times fool! that ever I should have lived to triumph thus over you and your accursed house!"

Once more his voice grew shrill and his eyes flashed; once more he collected himself.

"You shall hear it out," he said. "Look here!" and he pulled a greasy book from his pocket. "Here is a nautical almanack. What day is it? December 23rd, or rather some time in the morning of December 24th, Christmas Eve. On the evening of December 24th it is full moon, and dead low water at Falmouth about 11.30 p.m. Fate (do you believe in fate, Mr. Trenoweth?) could not have chosen the time better. In something under twenty hours one of us will have his hands upon the treasure. Which will it be, eh? Which will it be?"

Well I knew which it would be, and the knowledge was bitter as gall.