A Middy in Command Part 21

This, it appeared, was progressing very satisfactorily, so he re-dressed it--my broken pate had healed itself, and needed no further looking after,--administered a sleeping draught, and then retired, after informing me that I could have Mammy's broth later, but that, in the meantime, sleep was of more value and importance to me than food. He had not been gone ten minutes before I was fast asleep.

Several days elapsed, and I never saw Ricardo, although I was told by Lotta and Mammy that he had frequently looked in upon me while I slept.

Thanks to good nursing, I was making very satisfactory progress, although still far too weak and ill to be able to rise from my bed.

Meanwhile I was able to see, by simply looking out of my bedroom window, that the _Barracouta_ was being rapidly refitted--so rapidly, indeed, that I conjectured Ricardo must have made a point of always keeping an entire spare set of masts, spars, rigging, and sails on hand, in readiness for any such emergency as that which had arisen in connection with his fight with the _Francesca_.

At length, when I had been ash.o.r.e nearly a fortnight, I noticed that the brig was once more all ataunto and apparently ready for sea. That same night Ricardo entered my room, and, having made exhaustive enquiries as to the state of my health, took a seat by my bedside, with the air of a man who purposed to indulge in a long chat.

"This last fortnight has done wonders for you," he said. "Thanks to the unremitting care of Lotta and Mammy, I think you will now be able to pull round without any further attention from Fonseca. And that reminds me to tell you that we go to sea at dawn to-morrow, and of course Fonseca goes with us. But he a.s.sures me that you now need nothing but good nursing and good feeding to restore you completely, and those Lotta and Mammy will be able to give you. You will not mind my leaving you in their charge, I hope?"

"Oh, no," I said, "not at all! Indeed, I have to thank you for quite an extraordinary amount of kindness. You could scarcely have done more for me had you been my father."

"You think so?" he said. "Good! I am glad to hear you say that, because--ah, well, it is useless to think of that now! By the way, is your mother still living?"

"She was when I last heard from home," said I, "and I hope she will live for many long years to come."

"I say amen to that," answered this extraordinary man. "When next you see her, say that d.i.c.k Courtenay saved your life--for her sweet sake.

And tell her also that, despite everything that was said against me, I was innocent. She will understand what I mean and will believe me, perhaps, after all these years. Ah," he continued, springing to his feet and striding up and down the room, "if she had but believed me at the time, I should never have become what I now am! Had she had faith in me, I could have borne everything else--shame, disgrace, dishonour, ruin--I could have borne them all. But when to the loss of those was added the loss of her esteem, her respect, her love, it was too much; I had nothing left to live for--save revenge; and by heaven I have had my fill of that!"

"Do you actually mean to say that you were once my mother's lover?" I gasped.

"Ay," he answered bitterly, "her accepted lover. And I should have been her husband but for the accursed villainy of one who--but why speak of it? The mischief is done, and is irremediable."

"Surely you do not pretend to suggest that my father--?" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"No, certainly not!" he replied quickly. "Do not misunderstand me. It was not your father who was my enemy, oh no! He was my rival for a time, it is true, but he was also my friend, and the very soul of honour. Oh no! the loss of your mother's love was merely one of many results of a piece of as consummate villainy as ever dragged the honour of a British naval officer in the mire. But, pshaw! let us speak of other things. I suppose you have wondered what are my ultimate intentions toward you, have you not? Well, I will tell you. You once reproached me with having ruined your professional career. My dear boy, have no fear of anything of the kind. It was your misfortune, not your fault, that we were too strong for you, and if Sir Timothy Tompion--oh yes," in answer to my look of surprise, "I know Sir Timothy quite well, and he knows me, or thinks he does!--if Sir Timothy had only known that he was sending you out to fight the _Barracouta_, he would have given you, if not a bigger s.h.i.+p, at least twice as heavy an armament, and twice as strong a crew. So, when he comes to hear your story, he will not blame you for failing to take me; have no fear of that. Therefore, because I feel convinced that your ill-success in your fight with me will in nowise prejudice your professional prospects, it is my intention, all being well, to take you to sea with me next trip, and either put you ash.o.r.e somewhere whence you can easily make your way to Port Royal, or else to put you aboard the first s.h.i.+p bound for Kingston that we may chance to fall in with.

"But to provide against any possibility of your fortunes going awry, I have decided to make you my heir; therefore--stop a moment, please; I think I can guess what you would say--that you positively refuse to have anything whatever to do with wealth acquired by robbery and murder.

Quite right, my dear boy, it is precisely what I should expect--ay, and wish--you to say. But when I was an Englishman I sometimes used to hear people say that 'circ.u.mstances alter cases'; and this is one of them.

The wealth that I propose to bequeath to you has not been acquired by me through any objectionable practices, it came to me through the merest accident, and n.o.body is aware of its existence save Lotta and myself.

If it is indeed a pirate h.o.a.rd, as is not at all unlikely, there is nothing to prove that such is the case; nor, a.s.suming for the moment that it is so, is there anything to tell us either the name of the pirate who got it together, or the names of those from whom he took it.

And, in any case, if it is the spoils of a pirate gang, they must have operated about a hundred years ago; and since they are now all undoubtedly dead and gone, as also are those from whom it was taken, you have as much right to it as anybody, and may as well have it. Lotta will show you where it lies concealed; and, since I shall never make use of it, you are at liberty to help yourself to the whole of it as soon as you please.

"There is one thing more that I wish to say to you. It is about Lotta.

By the way, what do you think of Lotta?" he interrupted himself to enquire.

"I think she is the sweetest, most charming, and most lovely girl that has ever lived!" I exclaimed enthusiastically, for I had fully availed myself of my opportunities for making her acquaintance, and had fallen over head and ears in love with her, although I have hitherto refrained from saying so, because this is not a love story, but one of adventure.

"Ah!" exclaimed Ricardo grimly; "yes, I see the inevitable has happened!

Well, well, I have nothing to say against it, nor will your mother, unless she has greatly altered since I knew her. However, to revert to Lotta, I am afraid that, without in the least intending it, I have done that poor girl a very serious wrong. We fell in with the boat in which she, Mammy, and two Spanish sailors were starving, just as a light air of wind had dropped to a dead calm; as a matter of fact we drifted right up alongside the boat, so that it became impossible to avoid taking those who were living out of her. Even pirates have their gentle moments occasionally, and the sight of those four, peris.h.i.+ng of hunger and of thirst, in a craft that had literally drifted alongside us, was more than we could endure; therefore we hauled them up out of the boat, brought them round, cared for them--and they have been inmates of my house ever since. Lotta seemed quite content to remain; she never murmured, never expressed the slightest desire for a life different from that which she was living ash.o.r.e here. And where Lotta was content, Mammy was supremely happy; therefore--well, I got fond of the child, and resolutely refused to allow my thoughts to turn in the direction of sending her away from me. But your coming has altered everything, I can see that. When you go, she will have to go too; she would never be happy here again without you, that is certain. Moreover, my eyes have been opened of late to the great wrong that I have been doing her. She is a rich heiress, and ought now to be in possession of her property.

Therefore, when I return--by which time you will doubtless be quite well again--I will give you the charge of Lotta and Mammy, and ask you to see that the former is safely placed in the care of her guardians. While I am away this time I will arrange a plan by which these matters can be brought about, and will explain everything to you upon my return. And now I think I have said everything that I had to say, and will therefore bid you good-night, and good-bye, since we shall sail at daybreak, and all hands, myself included, will sleep aboard to-night. I hope that when I return, which will probably be in about a month from now, I shall find you quite well and strong again."

And as Ricardo p.r.o.nounced the last words he rose, with the evident intention of going.

"One moment, please," I said hastily; "pray do not go just yet. You have been doing all the talking thus far, now I wish to say a word or two."

"By all means," he answered with a laugh, as he resumed his seat. "Say on. I promise you my very best attention."

But, now that it came to the point, I suddenly found myself hesitating; I had spoken upon the spur of the moment, with a very definite purpose in my mind, but quite unexpectedly I found myself entirely at a loss for words. At length, seeing Ricardo's look of surprise at my hesitation, I plunged desperately _in medias res_.

"Look here," I stammered, "I--that is to say--oh, hang it, I find it very difficult to know how to begin! I want very particularly to say something to you, and I want to say it, if I can, without hurting your feelings--"

Ricardo laughed grimly. "Say on, without fear," he remarked; "don't stop to pick and choose your words. In my time I have been compelled to listen to words that have seared my very soul, words that drove me desperate, and made me what I am. You can scarcely have anything to say that will hurt me more keenly than I have been hurt already; moreover, I have now grown callous, so say on without fear."

The intense and concentrated bitterness with which he uttered those last few words gave me courage; moreover, I felt certain that my companion would recognise the kindly feeling which actuated me, so without more ado I proceeded:

"What I wish to say is this. You have somehow contrived to convey to my mind the impression that you are a very deeply injured man, that you have been driven to the adoption of your present mode of life by some great and terrible wrong; moreover, you have been kind to Lotta, and especially kind to me; and, lastly, your references to your former friends.h.i.+p with my mother have been such that it has been impossible for me to avoid feeling very deeply interested in you. Now, why should you not abandon your present mode of life? You say that you possess treasure which has come into your possession by perfectly honest means, and to which, to use your own words, you have as much right as anybody.

Why not take that treasure then, and go away to some part of the world where you are not known, and there begin life afresh?"

"Ah!" said Ricardo, "I have asked myself that question more than once without obtaining a satisfactory answer to it. I should like to do so, were it possible, for I am very heartily sick of the life that I am now leading. There was a time when, soured and embittered by as cruel a wrong as man could inflict upon his fellow man, I believed that I could find consolation, if not actual happiness, in the wreaking of my vengeance upon every Englishman whom I could get into my power, or whose wealth I could take from him by force; but that time has long pa.s.sed, the revenge which I believed would be so sweet has turned to dust and ashes in my mouth, and now I am so weary of life that the bullet or steel that should rid me of it would be more welcome than any other earthly thing. When it is too late, I have begun to realise the full depth of my villainy, and to see what a contemptibly cowardly creature I have been in permitting myself to seek such an ign.o.ble method of revenge as piracy. But, as I said, it is now too late, yes, too late--"

"Surely not," I broke in. "Have you forgotten the homely old adage that 'It's never too late to mend'? What you have done can never be undone, it is true, but it can be repented of, and reparation can be made, if not directly to the persons injured, yet by doing good to others where you have the opportunity. Will you not think the matter over again, and this time with the determination to arrive at a right decision?"

"I will think it over, certainly," he said. "As to arriving at 'a right decision', that is as may be. If I can see my way to such a decision it may be that I shall take it. I will consider the matter while I am at sea, and I promise you that no wrong shall be done during the progress of this cruise if I can possibly help it, and I think I can. For I always make a point of confining the navigation of the s.h.i.+p strictly to myself; n.o.body aboard ever knows where we are until I choose to tell them, and it will therefore be easy for me to take the brig to some spot where there is little or no chance of our falling in with other craft.

Then, perhaps, if we can cruise for a month or six weeks without taking a prize, the men may be content to accept their share of the booty, and disband, especially as I should tell them that they may divide my own share between them. And now, good-bye, with many thanks for your sympathy!"

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

THE TREASURE CAVE.

When I awoke, rather late, the next morning, after a somewhat troubled and restless night, traceable, no doubt, to my long conversation with Ricardo, the _Barracouta_ had vanished, and nothing remained to mark her late anchorage save the buoy to which she had been moored.

And now ensued a period of almost perfect bliss to me, for I had by this time reached that precise stage of convalescence where all danger is past, yet in which the patient is still so very far from being well that he must be waited upon, hand and foot, and tended with as much solicitude as though he were an utterly helpless babe; and such attention I was afforded in its most perfect and acceptable form by Lotta and Mammy. Small wonder is it, therefore, that my progress toward recovery was rapid, and that in just a month from the day on which the _Barracouta_ sailed I should find myself strong enough to admit of my rising from my bed and donning my clothes for an hour or two. I was now practically myself again, save that I was so weak as to need support whenever I attempted to stand; but, with Lotta on one side, and Mammy on the other, I was soon able, not only to totter from one room to another, but even to get into the garden for a few minutes, and sit there in a comfortable basket chair, drinking in renewed health and strength with every breath of the soft, warm, deliciously perfumed air.

We now began to look daily, nay hourly, for the return of the brig, and I ventured to indulge in the hope that, when she came, I should have the satisfaction of learning that my last conversation with Ricardo had borne good fruit, and that he had decided to abandon piracy, and to devote the remainder of his life to doing good, as some sort of atonement for the countless shocking crimes of which he had been guilty.

Meanwhile my strength came back to me fast from the moment when I was able to get into the open air, and within another fortnight I was practically my former self again.

It is scarcely needful to say that during this long and tedious period of my convalescence I had enjoyed many a long and confidential chat both with Lotta and with Mammy, and sometimes with both together; thus, by the time that even Lotta was fain to p.r.o.nounce me once more quite well, and in no further need of nursing, we had very few secrets from each other, and I had confided to her all my earnest hopes regarding Ricardo, in which hopes she cordially joined me. I also told her what Ricardo had said as to my becoming his heir, and taking possession of his private h.o.a.rd of treasure, which naturally led to an arrangement being made for an early visit to its hiding place. This hiding place, it appeared, was situated in a large natural cavern in a secluded spot on the sh.o.r.e of the bay, and was the spot wherein Ricardo had originally found it hidden. To me, this had a sound of very great insecurity; but Lotta informed me that, so far was this from being the case that, well as she knew the locality of the cavern, she was often greatly puzzled to find the entrance.

At length, on a certain afternoon we two set off to find this mysterious hiding place and inspect the treasure, which, according to Lotta's description, promised to be of absolutely fabulous value. We pa.s.sed down through the garden for almost its entire length, then bore away through a side path to the left, in order, as my companion explained, that we might avoid the "s.h.i.+pyard" and, more particularly, the men working therein. Ricardo had most rigorously enjoined Lotta, on several occasions, never to expose herself to the view of these men, or in any wise remind them of her presence in the settlement. But, to speak the truth, I am very strongly inclined to believe that, at all events on this particular occasion, Lotta was very much more anxious for my safety than she was for her own. Be that as it may, we avoided the s.h.i.+pyard by the simple process of pa.s.sing along the back of it, through Ricardo's private garden; and I am compelled to say that I was astonished beyond measure at the completeness of the establishment, as I then saw it for the first time. It was a perfect dockyard in miniature, with warehouses, capstan-house, mast house, rigging shed, sail loft--in fact every possible requisite for keeping not only one but as many as three or four craft in perfect order. And, from what I saw in pa.s.sing, I judged that there must be at least fifty men regularly employed about the place! No wonder that the _Barracouta_ was a busy s.h.i.+p, and her depredations of the most extensive character; they would need to be to maintain adequately such an establishment in working order.

Upon leaving the precincts of the garden we plunged into a wood that completely veiled our movements from the men working in the yard, and upon emerging from it we found ourselves at the edge of a low cliff, down the face of which a path zigzagged to the beach. The yard now was completely hidden from us--and we from it--by a jutting shoulder of the cliff. Descending to the beach, we found ourselves on a narrow expanse of firm, white sand, the whole of which it was evident was covered at high-water, and which was now so hard that we scarcely left any indication of our footprints upon it. Traversing this for about a quarter of a mile we entered a sort of labyrinth of huge ma.s.ses of sandstone that had fallen to the beach from time to time, from the steep and now lofty cliff that impended overhead. Here we were most effectually sheltered from prying gaze by the enormous ma.s.ses of rock between which we wound our devious way for perhaps a hundred yards, until Lotta stopped with the remark:

"Now, d.i.c.k, we have reached the end of our journey. Look about you and see whether you can find the entrance to the cave which we have come to visit."

I looked diligently round me, this way and that, but could see absolutely nothing that in the least degree resembled an opening in the rock, and at length somewhat impatiently said so.

"Neither do I," laughed my companion; "I shall have to look for it, as usual. It is somewhere about here," she continued, pointing to a series of horizontal ledges that ran along the face of the cliff just opposite where we stood. Moving forward, I saw Lotta stoop down to examine the ledges; then she moved slowly along the cliff face for a distance of a few yards, when, to my amazement, she suddenly vanished before my very eyes. I sprang forward until I reached the spot at which she had disappeared, but was still unable to see anything of her.

"Lotta!" I cried anxiously, "where are you? what on earth has become of you?"

"I am here, d.i.c.k," answered the girl, her voice seeming to issue from the ground at my feet. Then, for the first time, I noticed that there was what appeared to be a slight dip in the inner edge of the ledge, but which, upon closer inspection, proved to be a fissure, just wide enough for a man to squeeze through, and it was into this fissure that Lotta had dropped. I promptly followed her, and presently, when my eyes had become accustomed to the dim twilight of the place, I found that we were in a small, cave-like hollow of the rocky cliff, measuring about eight feet in each direction, and floored with very fine, dry sand. But of the treasure there was no sign that I could discover, in any direction-- unless it were artfully concealed in one or more of the many small holes or recesses that I saw here and there in the rocky walls. Lotta observed my perplexity and laughed heartily.

"Well, d.i.c.k, where is the treasure?" she banteringly demanded. "Surely it is not so very difficult to find, now that you have been told of its existence?"

"Oh, I'll find it, never fear, young woman!" I answered; "but I confess that it is so ingeniously concealed that I doubt whether anyone ignorant of its existence would find it, except by the most extraordinary accident." And therewith I proceeded to grope and feel about in the various fissures and cavities with which the rocky walls of the small cavern were honeycombed, but without success. At length, to my great chagrin, I was obliged to abandon the search and confess myself beaten.