Part 27 (2/2)

MY PERPLEXITIES ARE EXPLAINED

There is no need for me to tell at any length the conversation that pa.s.sed between the three of us that night. Cullen Mayle spoke frankly of his journey to the Sierra Leone River.

”Mr. Berkeley,” he said, ”already knows so much, that I doubt it would not be of any avail to practise mysteries with him. And besides there is no need, for, if I mistake not, Mr. Berkeley can keep a secret as well as any man.”

He spoke very politely, but with a keen eye on me to notice whether I should show any confusion or change colour. But I made as though I attached no significance to his words beyond mere urbanity. He told us how he made his pa.s.sage to the Guinea Coast as a sailor before the mast, and then fell in with George Glen. It seemed prudent to counterfeit a friendly opinion that the cross would be enough for all.

But when they discovered the cross was gone from its hiding place, he took the first occasion to give them the slip.

”For I had no doubt that my father had been beforehand,” said he. ”Had I possessed more wisdom, I might have known as much when I heard him from my bed refuse his a.s.sistance to George Glen, and so saved myself an arduous and a perilous adventure. For my father, was he never so rich, was not the man to turn his back on the King of Portugal's cross.”

Of his father, Cullen spoke with good nature and a certain hint of contempt; and he told us much which he had learned from George Glen.

”He went by the name of Kennedy,” said Cullen, ”but they called him 'Crackers' for the most part. He was not on the _Royal Fortune_ at the time when Roberts was killed, so that he was never taken prisoner with the rest, nor did he creep out of Cape Corse Castle like George Glen.”

”Then he was never tried or condemned,” said Helen, who plainly found some relief in that thought.

”No!” answered Cullen, with a chuckle. ”But why? He played rob-thief--a good game, but it requires a skilled player. I would never have believed Adam had the skill. Roberts put him in command of a sloop called the _Ranger_, which he had taken in the harbour of Bahia, and when he put out to sea on that course which brought him into conjunction with the _Swallow_, he left the _Ranger_ behind in Whydah Bay. And what does Adam do but haul up his anchor as soon as Roberts was out of sight, and, being well content with his earnings, make sail for Maryland, where the company was disbanded. I would I had known that on the day we quarrelled. Body o' me, but I would have made the old man quiver. Well, Adam came home to England, settled at Bristol, where he married, and would no doubt have remained there till his death, had he not fallen in with one of his old comrades on the quay. That frightened him, so he come across to Tresco, thinking to be safe. And safe he was for twenty years, until George Glen nosed him out.”

Thereupon, Cullen, from relating his adventures, turned to questions asking for word of this man and that whom he had known before he went away. These questions of course he put to Helen, and not once did he let slip a single allusion to the meeting he had had with her in the shed on Castle Down. For that silence on his part I was well prepared; the man was versed in secrecy. But Helen showed a readiness no whit inferior; she never hesitated, never caught a word back. They spoke together as though the last occasion when they had met was the night, now four years and a half ago, when Adam Mayle stood at the head of the stairs and drove his son from the house. One thing in particular I learned from her, the negro had died a month ago.

It was my turn when the gossip of the islands had been exhausted, and I had to tell over again of my capture by Glen and the manner of my escape. I omitted, however, all mention of an earlier visitant to the Abbey burial grounds, and it was to this omission that I owed a confirmation of my conviction that Cullen Mayle was the visitant. For when I came to relate how George Glen and his band sailed away towards France without the cross, he said:

”If I could find that cross, I might perhaps think I had some right to it. It is yours, Helen, to be sure, by law, and----”

She interrupted him, as she was sure to do, with a statement that the cross and everything else was for him to dispose of as he thought fit.

But he was magnanimous to a degree.

”The cross, Helen, nothing but the cross, if I can find it. I have a thought which may help me to it. 'Three chains east of the east window in south aisle of St. Helen's Church.' Those were the words, I think.”

”Yes,” said I.

”And Glen measured the distance correctly?”

”To an inch.”

”Well, what if--it is a mere guess, but a likely one, I presume to think,--what if the chains were Cornish chains? There would be a difference of a good many feet, a difference of which George Glen would be unaware. You see I trust you, Mr. Berkeley. I fancy that I can find that cross upon St. Helen's Island.”

”I have no doubt you will,” said I.

Cullen rose from his chair.

”It grows late, Helen,” said he, ”and I have kept you from your sleep with my gossiping.” He turned to me. ”But, Mr. Berkeley, you perhaps will join me in a pipe and a gla.s.s of rum? My father had a good store of rum, which in those days I despised, but I have learnt the taste for it.”

His proposal suited very well with my determination to keep a watch that night over Helen's safety, and I readily agreed.

”You will sleep in your old room, Cullen,” she said, ”and you, Mr.

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