Part 24 (1/2)
”Nothing of the sort, if you have managed your work cleverly. Come, tell me all, before we are interrupted again.”
”Tell ye all about it! Why, there's part on't I am afraid to think on; let alone talk about it.”
”Spare me your scruples, and give me your facts,” said Wardlaw coldly.
”First of all, did you succeed in s.h.i.+fting the bullion as agreed?”
The sailor appeared relieved by this question.
”Oh, that is all right,” said he. ”I got the bullion safe aboard the _Shannon,_ marked for lead.”
”And the lead on board the _Proserpine?”_
”Ay, s.h.i.+pped as bullion.”
”Without suspicion?”
”Not quite.”
”Great Heaven! Who?”
”One clerk at the s.h.i.+pping agent's scented something queer, I think.
James Seaton. That was the name he went by.”
”Could he prove anything?”
”Nothing. He knew nothing for certain; and what he guessed won't never be known in England now.” And Wylie fidgeted in his chair.
Notwithstanding this a.s.surance Wardlaw looked grave, and took a note of that clerk's name. Then he begged Wylie to go on. ”Give me all the details,” said he. ”Leave _me_ to judge their relative value. You scuttled the s.h.i.+p?”
”Don't say that! don't say that!” cried Wylie, in a low but eager voice.
”Stone walls have ears.” Then rather more loudly than was necessary, ”s.h.i.+p sprung a leak that neither the captain, nor I, nor anybody could find, to stop. Me and my men, we all think her seams opened, with stress of weather.” Then, lowering his voice again, ”Try and see it as we do; and don't you ever use such a word as that what come out of your lips just now. We pumped her hard; but 'twarn't no use. She filled, and we had to take to the boats.”
”Stop a moment. Was there any suspicion excited?”
”Not among the crew. And suppose there was, I could talk 'em all over, or buy 'em all over, what few of 'em is left. I've got 'em all with me in one house, and they are all square, don't you fear.”
”Well, but you said 'among the _crew!'_ Whom else can we have to fear?”
”Why, n.o.body. To be sure, one of the pa.s.sengers was down on me; but what does that matter now?”
”It matters greatly--it matters terribly. Who was this pa.s.senger?”
”He called himself the Reverend John Hazel. He suspected something or other; and what with listening here, and watching there, he judged the s.h.i.+p was never to see England, and I always fancied he told the lady.”
”What, was there a lady there?”
”Ay, worse luck, sir; and a pretty girl she was. Coming home to England to die of consumption; so our surgeon told me.”
”Well, never mind her. The clergyman! This fills me with anxiety. A clerk suspecting us at Sydney, and a pa.s.senger suspecting us in the vessel.