The Watchers Part 16

Glen bade Roper take the handkerchief from my mouth, and when that was done his creased face smiled at me over the lantern.

"About the _Royal Fortune?_" he said smoothly.

Peter Tortue nodded, and absently cleaned the blade of his knife upon the thighs of his breeches. There was no reply for me to make, and I waited.

"You were over to St. Mary's to-day?"

"Yes."

"What did you do there?"

"I bought a pair of silk stockings and some linen."

George Glen sn.i.g.g.e.red like a man that leaves off a serious conversation to laugh politely at a bad joke.

"But it's true," I cried.

"Did you speak of the _Royal Fortune?_"

"No," and, as luck would have it, I had not--not even to the Rev. Mr.

Milray.

"Not to a living soul?"

"No."

"Did you go up to Star Castle?"

"No."

"Did you speak to Captain Hathaway?"

"No."

"'There's poor old George,' you said. 'Old George Glen,' says you, 'what was quartermaster with Cap'n Roberts on the _Royal_----'"

"No," I cried.

"Did you mention Peter Tortue?" said the Frenchman.

"No. Would you be sitting here if I had? There would be a company of soldiers scouring the island for you."

"That's reasonable," said Tortue, and the rest echoed his words. In a little there was silence. Tortue set to work again with his knife. It flashed backwards and forwards, red with the candle light as though it ran blood. It shone in my eyes and dazzled me, and somehow, there came back to me a recollection of that hot night in Clutterbuck's rooms when everything had glittered with an intolerable brightness, and d.i.c.k Parmiter had been set upon the table to tell his story. I was vaguely wondering what they were all doing at this moment in London, Clutterbuck, Macfarlane, and the rest, when the questions began again.

"You came back from St. Mary's to New Grimsby?"

"Yes."

"Did you tell Parmiter?"

"No."

"From St. Mary's you crossed the island to Merchant's Point?"

"Yes."

"Did you tell the girl?"

Here a lie was obviously needful, and I did not scruple to tell it.

"No."

Peter Tortue leaned forward to me with a shrewd glance in his keen eyes.

"You are her lover," he said. "You told her."

I lifted my eyes from his knife, looked him in the eyes, and sustained his glance.

"I am not her lover," I said; "that is a d.a.m.ned lie."

He did not lose his temper, but repeated:

"You told her," and George Glen looked in again with his whole face screwed into a wink.

"You said to her, 'My dear,' says you, 'there's old George,'" and at that I lost my temper.

"I said nothing of the kind," I cried. "Am I a parrot that I cannot open my lips without old George popping out of them? But what's the use of talking. Do what you will, I have done. If I had betrayed your secret, do you think I should be walking home alone, and you upon the island? But I have done. I had a bargain to strike with you, I thought to find you all at the inn--but I have done."

To tell the truth, I had no longer any hope of life. Glen, for all his winks and smiles, would stop short of no cruelty. Peter Tortue quietly polished his knife upon his thigh. He was a big Brittany man, with shrewd eyes and an unchanging face. The rest squatted and stared curiously at me. The light of the lantern fell upon their callous faces, they were lookers-on at a show, of which perhaps, they had seen the like before, they were not concerned in this affair of the _Royal Fortune_ nor how it ended.

"So you told no one."

"No one."

I closed my eyes and leaned back against the part.i.tion. I was utterly helpless in their hands, and I hoped they would be quick. I remember that I regretted very much I could send no word to the girl at Merchant's Rock, and that I was very glad she had not delayed her music till tomorrow night, but both regret and gladness were of a numbed and languid kind.

Then Glen asked me another question, and it spurred my will to alertness.

"How did you know that I was quartermaster on the _Royal Fortune?_"

I could not remind him that he had let the s.h.i.+p's name drop from his lips four years ago. It would be as much as to say that Helen had told me. It would confess that I had spoken with her of the _Royal Fortune_. Yet I must answer, and without the least show of hesitation.

I caught at the first plausible reason which occurred to me. I said: "Cullen Mayle told me," and that answer saved my life. For Glen remarked, "Yes, he knew," and nodded to Tortue: Tortue lifted the knife in his hand, and again I closed my eyes. But the next thing I heard was a snap as the blade shut into the handle, and the next thing after that Tortue's voice deliberately speaking:

"George Glen, you never had the brains of a louse. You can smirk and wriggle, and you're handy with a weapon, but, you never had no brains."

I opened my eyes pretty wide at that, and I saw that the three younger faces were now kindled out of their sluggishness. It was that mention of Cullen Mayle which had wrought the change. These three took no particular interest in the _Royal Fortune_, but they had every interest in the doings of Cullen Mayle, and they now alertly followed all that Tortue said. George Glen leaned forward.

"Who's cap'en here, Peter Tortue?" said he. "Was you with us on the Sierra Leone River? Nat Roper there, Blads, you James Skyrm, speak up, lads, was he with us?"