The Watchers Part 14

There was no doubt I had my thumb on the insinuating George. There was Adam Mayle's fortune, in the first place; there was Adam's look when George Glen let slip the name of the s.h.i.+p when he first came to Tresco; there was Glen's consternation this evening when I repeated it to him, and there was something more than his convincing than his consternation--a table-knife.

He had come very close to me when I mentioned the _Royal Fortune_, and he had stood a little behind me--against the table at which I had eaten my supper. I had eaten that supper at the opposite side of the table, and how should a table-knife have crawled across the table and be now lying so handily on this nearer edge unless George had doubts of my discretion? Yes, I had my thumb upon him and as I went upstairs to bed I wondered whether after all Helen would be justified of her confidence in believing that I had been sent to Tresco to some good end. Her face was very present to me that night. There was much in her which I could not understand. There was something, too, to trouble one, there were concealments, it almost seemed there was a trace of effrontery--such as Lieutenant Clutterbuck had spoken of; but to-night I was conscious chiefly that she set her faith in me and my endeavours. Does the reed always break if you lean upon it? What if a miracle happened and the reed grew strong because some one--any one--leaned upon it! I kept that trustful face of hers as I had seen it in the sunlight, long before my eyes in the darkness of the room.

But it changed, as I knew and feared it would,--it changed to that appalling face which had stared at me out of the dark. I tried to drive that picture of her from my thoughts.

But I could not, until a door creaked gently. I sat up in my bed with a thought of that knife handy on the table edge to the grasp of George Glen. I heard a scuffle of shoeless feet draw towards my door, and I remembered that I had no weapon--not even a knife. The feet stopped at my door, and I seemed to hear the sound of breathing. The moon had already sunk, but the night was clear, and I watched the white door and the white woodwork of the door frame. The door was in the wall on my right; it was about midway between the head and the foot of my bed, and it opened inwards and down towards the foot; so that I should easily see it opening. But suddenly I heard the stair boards creaking.

Whoever it was then, had merely stopped to listen at my door. I fell back on my bed with a relief so great as to surprise me. I was surprised, too, to find myself cold with sweat. I determined to buy myself a knife in the morning, for there was the girl over at Merchant's Point who looked to me. I had thus again a picture of her in the sunlight.

And then I began to wonder at that stealthy descent of the stairs. And why should any one wish to a.s.sure himself I slept? This was a question to be looked into. I got out of bed very cautiously, as cautiously opened the door and peered out.

There was a light burning in the kitchen--a small yellow light as of a candle, but I could hear no sound. I crept to the head of the stairs which were steep and led directly to the very threshold of the kitchen. I lay down on the boards of the landing and stretching my head down the stairs, looked into the room.

George Glen had taken the sailor with the watches, down from the wall.

He was seated with the candle at his elbow, and minutely examining the picture. He looked up towards the stairs, I drew my face quickly back; but he was gazing in a complete abstraction, and biting his thumb, very much puzzled. I crept back to bed and in a little I heard him come shuffling up the stairs. He had been examining that picture to find a reason for my exclamation. It was a dull-witted thing to do and I could have laughed at him heartily, only I had already made a mistake in taking him to be duller-witted than he was. For he was quick enough, at all events, to entertain suspicions.

CHAPTER XI

OUR PLANS MISCARRY UPON CASTLE DOWN

The next morning, you may be sure, I crossed the hill betimes, and came down to the house under Merchant's Rock with my good news. I told her the news with no small elation, and with a like elation she began to hear it. But as I related what had occurred at the Palace Inn, she fell into thought, and now smiled with a sort of pride, and now checked a sigh; and when I came to the knife upon the table's edge she shuddered.

"But you are in danger!" she cried. "Every minute you are in danger of your life, and on my account!"

"Nay," said I lightly, "you exaggerate. The best of women have that fault."

But she did not smile. She laid a hand upon my arm, and said, very earnestly:

"I cannot have it. I am very proud you count the risk so little, but you must go."

"No," said I, "they must go, and we have the means to make them march.

We have but to inform Captain Hathaway at the Garrison that here are some of Bartholomew Robert's fry, and we and the world will soon be quit of them for ever."

"But we cannot," she exclaimed, "for then it would be known that my"--she hesitated for a second, or rather she paused, for there was no hesitation in her voice, as she continued--"my father also was of the band. It may be justice that it should be known. But I cannot help it; I guard his memory. Besides, there is Cullen."

It was to Cullen that she always came in the end, and with such excuses as a girl might make who was loyal to a man whom she must know not to be worth her loyalty. The house in which she lived, the money which she owned were his by right. She dreaded what story these men, if captured, might have to tell of Cullen--she could not be persuaded that Glen and his friends had not a motive of vengeance as well as of gain,--and that story, whatever it was, would never have been enacted, had not Cullen been driven penniless from Tresco. It did not occur to her at all that this house was not Cullen's by any right, but belonged to the scattered sons of many men with whom the s.h.i.+p _Royal Fortune_ had fallen in.

She repeated her arguments to me as we walked in the gra.s.s-grown garden at the back of the house. A thick shrubbery of trees grew at the end of the garden, and behind the trees rose the Merchant's Rock.

On one side the Castle Down rolled up towards the sky, on the other a hedge closed the garden in, and beneath the hedge was the sea. Over the hedge I could see the uninhabited island of St. Helen's and the ruined church upon the summit, and a s.h.i.+p or two in St. Helen's Pool; and this side of the s.h.i.+ps the piled boulders of Norwithel. It was at Norwithel that I looked as she spoke, and when she had done I continued:

"I do not propose that we should tell Captain Hathaway, but I can make a bargain with Glen. I can find out what he wants, and strike a bargain with him. We have the upper hand, we can afford to speak freely. I will make a bargain with him to-night, of which one condition shall be that he and his party leave Tresco and nowhere attempt to molest Cullen Mayle."

But she stopped in front of me.

"I cannot have it," she said, with energy. "This means danger to you who propose the bargain."

"I shall propose it in the inn kitchen," said I.

"And the knife on the table's edge?" she asked; "that too was in the inn kitchen. Oh, no! no!" she cried, in a voice of great trouble.

There was great trouble too in her eyes.

"Madam," I said, gently, "I never thought that this would prove a schoolboy's game. If I had thought so, I should be this instant walking down St. James's. But you overrate my peril."

I saw her draw herself erect.

"No; it is I who will propose the bargain and make the conditions. It is I who will charge them with their piracy."

"How?" I asked.

"I will go this morning to the Palace Inn."

"George Glen went out this morning before I rose."

She looked over to Norwithel.

"There is no one to-day on Norwithel," said I.

"I shall find Peter Tortue on the Castle Down."

"But I crossed the Castle Down this morning----" and I suddenly stopped. There had been no one watching on the Castle Down. There was no one anywhere upon the watch to-day. The significance of this omission struck me then for the first time.

"What if already we are quit of them!" I cried. "What if that one tiny word _Royal Fortune_ has sent them at a scamper into hiding?"

Helen caught something of my excitement.

"Oh! if it only could be so!" she exclaimed.

"Most like it _is_ so," I returned. "No man cutting ore-weed upon Norwithel! No man lounging on the Castle Down! It must be so!" and we shook hands upon that likelihood as though it was a certainty. We started guiltily apart the next moment, for a servant came into the garden with word that d.i.c.k Parmiter had sailed round in a boat from New Grimsby, and was waiting for me.

"There is something new!" said Helen, clasping her hands over her heart, and in a second she was all anxiety. I hastened to rea.s.sure her. d.i.c.k had come at my bidding, for I was minded to sail over to St.

Mary's, and discover if there was anywhere upon that island a record of the doings of the _Royal Fortune_. To that end I asked Helen to give me a letter to the chaplain there, who would be likely to know more of what happened up and down the world than the natives of the islands. I was not, however, to allow that I had any particular interest in the matter, lest the Rev. Mr. Milray should smell a rat as they say, and on promising to be very exact in this particular and to return to the house in time for supper, I was graciously given the letter.

I found the Rev. Mr. Milray in his parsonage at Old Town, a small, elderly man, who would talk of nothing but the dampness of his house since the great wave which swept over this neck of land on the day of the earthquake at Lisbon. I left him very soon, therefore, and went about another piece of business.

I had travelled from London with no more clothes and linen than a small valise would hold. On setting out, I had not considered, indeed, that I should be thrown much into the company of a lady, but only that I was journeying into a rough company of fisher-folk. Yesterday, however, it had occurred to me that I must make some addition to my wardrobe and the necessity was yet more apparent to-day. I was pleased, therefore, to find that Hugh Town was of greater importance than I had thought it to be. It is much shrunk and dwindled now, but then s.h.i.+ps from all quarters of the world were continually putting in there, so that they made a trade by themselves, and there was always for sale a great store of things which had been salved from wrecks. I was able, therefore, to fit myself out very properly.

I sailed back to the Palace Inn, dressed with some care, and walked over to sup at Merchant's Rock--little later perhaps. Helen Mayle was standing in the hall by the foot of the stairs. I saw her face against the dark panels as I entered, and it looked very white and strained with fear.

"There is no news of Cullen at St. Mary's," I said, to lighten her fears; and she showed an extravagant relief, before, indeed, she could barely have heard the words. Her face coloured brightly and then she began to laugh. Finally she dropped me a curtsey.

"Shall I lend you some hair-powder?" she asked, whimsically; and when we were seated at table, "How old are you?"

"I was thirty and more a month ago," said I, "but I think that I am now only twenty-two."

"As much as that?" said she, with a laugh, and grew serious in an instant. "What did you discover at St. Mary's besides a milliner?"

"Nothing," said I, "except that the Rev. Milray suffers from the rheumatics."