Part 34 (2/2)
The old fellow went before, and his daughter followed him into the house. There, in the parlour, seated at the table, was Captain Sartoris.
Rose gave way to a little exclamation of surprise and pleasure; and was advancing to greet her visitor, when he arrested her with a gesture of his hand.
”Don't come too nigh, Miss Summerhayes,” he said, with mock gravity. ”I might ha' got the plague or the yaller fever. A man out o' currantine is to be approached with caution. Jest stand up agin' the sideboard, my dear, and let me look at you.” The girl put down her roses, and posed as desired.
”Very pretty,” said Sartoris. ”Pink-and-white, pure bred, English--which, after being boxed in with a menag'ry o' Chinamen and Malays, is wholesome and rea.s.suring.”
”Are you out for good, Captain?”
”They can put me aboard who can catch me, my dear. I'd run into the bush, and live like a savage. I'm not much of a mountaineer, but you would see how I could travel.”
”But what was the disease?” asked the Pilot.
”Some sort of special Chinese fever; something bred o' dirt and filth and foulness; a complaint you have to live amongst for weeks, before you'll get it; a kind o' beri-beri or break-bone, which was new to the doctors here. I've been disinfected and fumigated till I couldn't hardly breathe. Races has their special diseases, just the same as they has their special foods: this war'n't an English sickness; all its characteristics were Chinee, and it killed the Captain because he'd lived that long with Chinamen that, I firmly believe, his pigtail had begun to shoot. Furrin crews, furrin crews! Give me the British sailor, an' I'll sail my s.h.i.+p anywhere.”
”And run her on the rocks, at the end of the voyage,” growled the Pilot.
”I never came ash.o.r.e to argify,” retorted the Captain. ”But if it comes to a matter of navigation, there _are_ points I could give any man, even pilots.”
Seeing that the bone of contention was about to be gnawed by the sea-dogs, Rose interposed with a question.
”Have you just come ash.o.r.e, Captain?”
”In a manner o' speakin' he has,” answered her father, who took the words out of his friend's mouth, ”and in a manner o' speakin' he hasn't.
You see, my dear, we went for a little preliminary cruise.”
”The first thing your father told me was about this here robbery of mails. 'When was that?' I asked. 'On the night of the 8th or early morning of the 9th,' he says. That was when the captain of the barque died. I remembered it well. 'Summerhayes,' I said, 'I have a notion.'
And this is the result, my dear.”
From the capacious pocket of his thick pilot-jacket he pulled a brown and charred piece of canvas.
”What's that?” he asked.
”I haven't the least idea,” replied Rose.
”Does it look as though it might be a part of a mail-bag?” asked Sartoris. ”Look at the sealing-wax sticking to it. Now look at _that_.”
He drew from the deep of another pocket a rusty knife.
”It was found near the other,” he said. ”Its blade was open. And what's that engraved on the name-plate?--your eyes are younger than mine, my dear.” The sailor handed the knife to Rose, who read the name, and exclaimed, ”B. Tresco!”
”That's what the Pilot made it,” said Sartoris. ”And it's what I made it. We're all agreed that B. Tresco, whoever he may be, was the owner of that knife. Now this is evidence: that knife was found in conjunction with this here bit of brown canvas, which I take to be part of a mail-bag; and the two of 'em were beside the ashes of a fire, above high water-mark. On a certain night I saw a fire lighted at that spot: that night was the night the skipper of the barque died and the night when the mails were robbed. You see, when things are pieced together it looks bad for B. Tresco.”
”I know him quite well,” said Rose: ”he's the goldsmith. What would he have to do with the delivery of mails?”
”Things have got this far,” said the Pilot. ”The postal authorities say all the bags weren't delivered on board. They don't accuse anyone of robbery as yet, but they want the names of the boat's crew. These Mr.
<script>