Dead Man's Rock Part 45

Bareheaded I stood in the moonlight, the white ray glittering up my knife and lighting up my bared chest and set stern face.

Bareheaded, with the light breeze fanning my curls, I stood there and waited for his leap. But that leap never came.

One step forward he took and then looked, and looking, staggered back with hands thrown up before his face. Slowly, as he cowered back with hands upraised and straining eyeb.a.l.l.s, I saw those eyeb.a.l.l.s grow rigid, freeze and turn to stone, while through his gaping, bloodless lips came a hoa.r.s.e and gasping sound that had neither words nor meaning.

Then as I still watched, with murderous purpose on my face, there came one awful cry, a scream that startled the gulls from slumber and awoke echo after echo along the sh.o.r.e--a scream like no sound in earth or heaven--a scream inhuman and appalling.

Then followed silence, and as the last echo died away, he fell.

As he collapsed within the pit, I made a step forward to the brink and looked. He was now upon his hands and knees before the chest, bathing his hands in the gleaming heap of gems, catching them up in handfuls, and as they ran like sparkling rain through his fingers, muttering incoherently to himself and humming wild s.n.a.t.c.hes of song.

"Colliver--Simon Colliver!" I called.

He paid no attention, but went on tossing up the diamonds and rubies in his hands and watching them as they rattled down again upon the heap.

"Simon Colliver!"

I leapt down into the pit beside him, and laid my hand upon his shoulder. He paused for a moment, and looked up with a vacant gleam in his deep eyes.

"Colliver, I have to speak a word with you."

"Oh, yes, I know you. Trenoweth, of course: Ezekiel Trenoweth come back again after the treasure. But you are too late, too late, too late! You are dead now--ha, ha! dead and rotting.

"For his glittering eyes are the salt sea's prize, And his fingers clutch the sand, my lads.

"Aha! his fingers clutch the sand. Here's pretty sand for you! sand of all colours; look, look, there's a brave sparkle!" And again he ran the priceless shower through his fingers.

"Oh, yes," he continued after a moment, looking up, "oh, yes, I know you--Ezekiel Trenoweth, of course; or is it Amos, or Jasper?

No matter, you are all dead. I killed the last of you last year--no, last night; all dead.

"And the devil has got his due, my lads!

"His due, his due! Look at it! look again! I had a skull just now.

John Railton's skull, no eyes in it though,

"For his glittering eyes are the salt sea's--

"Where is the skull? Let me fit it with a bonny pair of eyes here-- here they are, or here, look, here's a pair that change colour when they move. Where is the skull? Give it me. Oh, I forgot, I lost it. Never mind, find it, find it. Here's plenty of eyes when you find it. Or give it this big, red one. Here's a flaming, fiery eye!"

As he stretched out his hand over the Great Ruby, I caught him by the wrist. But he was too quick for me, and with a sharp snarl and click of his teeth, had whipped his hand round to his back.

Then in a flash, as I grappled with him, he thrust me back with his left palm, and, with a sweep of his right, hurled the great jewel far out into the sea. I saw it rise and curve in one long, sparkling arch of flame, then fall with a dropping line of fire down into the billows. A splash--a jet of light, and it was gone:--gone perhaps to hide amid the rotting timbers of what was once the _Belle Fortune_, or among the bones of her drowned crew to watch with its blood-red tireless eye the extremity of its handiwork. There, for aught I know, it lies to-day, and there, for aught I care, beneath the waters it shall treasure its infernal loveliness for ever.

Into its red heart I have looked once, and this was what I read:--of treachery, l.u.s.t and rapine; of battle and murder and sudden death; of midnight outcries, and poison in the guest-cup; of a curse that said, "Even as the Heart of the Ruby is Blood and its Eyes a Flaming Fire, so shall it be for them that would possess it: Fire shall be their portion, and Blood their inheritance for ever." Of that quest and that curse we were the two survivors. And what were we, that night, as we stood upon the sands with that last h.e.l.lish glitter still dancing in our eyes? The one, a lonely and broken man; the other--

I turned to look at Colliver. He was huddled against the pit's side, with his dark eyes gazing wistfully up at me. In their s.h.i.+ning depths there lurked no more sanity than in the heart of the Great Ruby. As I looked, I knew him to be a hopeless madman, and knew also that my revenge had slipped from me for ever.

We were still standing so when a soft wave came stealing up the beach and flung the lip of its foam over the pit's edge into the chest.

I turned round. The tide was rising fast, and in a minute or so would be upon us. Catching Colliver by the shoulder, I pointed and tried to make him understand; but the maniac had again fallen to playing with the jewels. I shook him; he did not stir, only sat there jabbering and singing. And now wave after wave came splas.h.i.+ng over us, soaking us through, and hissing in phosph.o.r.escent pools among the gems.

There was no time to be lost. I tore the madman back, stamped down the lid, locked it, and took out the key; then caught Colliver in my arms and heaved him bodily out of the trench. Jumping out beside him, I caught up the spade and shovelled back the wet sand as fast as I could, until the tide drove us back. Colliver stood quite tamely beside me all this while and watched the treasure disappearing from his view; only every now and then he would chatter a few wild words, and with that break off again in vacant wonder at my work.

When all was done that could be, I took my companion's hand, led him up the sands beyond high-water mark, and then sat down beside him, waiting for the dawn.

And there, next morning, by Dead Man's Rock they found us, while across the beach came the faint music of Polkimbra bells as they rang their Christmas peal, "Peace on earth and goodwill toward men."

There is little more to tell. Next day, at low ebb, with the aid of Joe Roscorla (still hale and hearty) and a few Polkimbra fishermen whom I knew, the rest of my grandfather's treasure was secured and carried up from the sea. In the iron chest, besides the gems already spoken of, and beneath the iron tray containing them, was a prodigious quant.i.ty of gold and silver, partly in ingots, partly in coinage. This last was of all nationalities: moidores, dollars, rupees, doubloons, guineas, crown-pieces, louis, besides an amount of coins which I could not trace, the whole proving a most catholic taste in buccaneering. So much did it all weigh, that we found it impossible to stir the chest as it stood, and therefore secured the prize piecemeal. Strangest of all, however, was a folded parchment which, we discovered beneath the tray of gems and above the coins.

It contained but few words, which ran as follows--

FAIR FORTUNE WRECKED, FAIR FORTUNE FOUND, AND ALL BUT THE FINDER UNDERGROUND.--A.T.

This, as, far as I know, was my grandfather's one and only attempt at verse; and its apparent application to the wreck of the _Belle Fortune_ is a coincidence which puzzles me to this day.

The reader will search the chronicles of wrecks in vain for the story of that ill-fated s.h.i.+p. But if he comes upon the record of a certain vessel, the _James and Elizabeth_, wrecked upon the Cornish coast on the night of October 11th, 1849, he may know it to be the same.

For that was the name given by the only survivor, one Georgio Rhodojani, a Greek sailor, and as the _James and Elizabeth_ she stands entered to this day.

If, however, his curiosity lead him further to inquire into the after-history of this same Georgio Rhodojani, let him go on a fine summer day to the County Lunatic Asylum at Bodmin, and, with permission, enter the grounds set apart for private patients.

There he may chance to see a strange sight.

On a garden seat against the sunny wall sit two persons--a man and a woman. The man is decrepit and worn, being apparently about sixty-seven or eight years old; but the woman, as the keepers will tell, is ninety. She is his mother, and as they sit together, she feeds him with sweets and fruit as tenderly as though he were a child. He takes them, but never notices her, and when he has had enough, rises abruptly and walks away humming a song which runs--

"So it's hey! for the homeward bound, my lads!

And ho! for the drunken crew, For his mess-mates round lie dead and drowned, And the devil has got his due, my lads-- Sing ho! but he waits for you!"

This is his only song now, and he will walk round the gravel paths by the hour, singing it softly and muttering. Sometimes, however, he will sit for long beside his mother and let her pat his hand.

They never speak.

Folks say that she is as mad as her son, but she lodges in the town outside the walls and comes to see him every day. Certainly she is as remarkable to look upon, for her skin is of a brilliant and startling yellow, and her withered hands are loaded with diamonds.

As you pa.s.s, she will stare at you with eyes absolutely pa.s.sionless and vague; but see them as she sighs and turns to go, see them as she watches for a responsive touch of love on her son's face, and you may find some meaning in them then.

Mrs. Luttrell was never seen again from the hour when she stood below the river steps and waved her white arms to me, crying "Kill him!

kill him!" I made every inquiry but could learn nothing, save that my boat had been found floating below Gravesend, quite empty.

She can scarcely be alive, so that is yet one soul more added to the account of the Great Ruby.

Failing to find her mother, I had Claire's body conveyed to Polkimbra. She lies buried beside my father and mother in the little churchyard there. Above her head stands a white stone with the simple words, "In memory of C. L., died Dec. 23rd, 1863.

'Love is strong as death.'"

The folk at Polkimbra have many a fable about this grave, but if pressed will shake their heads sagely and refer you to "Master Trenoweth up yonder at Lantrig. Folks say she was a play-actor and he loved her. Anyway you may see him up in the churchyard most days, but dont'ee go nigh him then, unless you baint afeard of th'evil eye."

And I? After the treasure was divided with Government, I still had for my share what I suppose would be called a considerable fortune.

The only use to which I put it, however, was to buy back Lantrig, the home of a stock that will die out with me. There again from the middle beam in the front parlour hangs my grandfather's key, covered with cobwebs as thickly as on the day when my father went forth to seek the treasure. There I live a solitary life--an old man, though scarcely yet past middle age. For all my hopes are buried in the grave where sleeps my lost love, and my soul shall lie for ever under the curse, engulfed and hidden as deeply as the Great Ruby beneath the shadow of Dead Man's Rock.