Part 29 (1/2)

I did not learn it from his father. That implacable man I never saw after the night when we listened to his footsteps descending the stairs in the darkness. He was gone the next morning from the islands, nor was any trace of him, for all the hue and cry, discovered for a long while--not, indeed, for ten years, when my son, who was then a lad of eight, while playing one day among the rocks of Peninnis Head on St. Mary's, dropped clean out of my sight, or rather out of Helen's sight, for I was deep in a book, and did not raise my head until a cry from my wife startled me.

We ran to the loose pile of boulders where the boy had vanished, and searched and called for a few minutes without any answer. But in the end a voice answered us, and from beneath our feet. It was the boy's voice sure enough, but it sounded hollow, as though it came from the bowels of the earth. By following the sound we discovered at last between the great boulders an interstice, which would just allow a man to slip below ground. This slit went down perpendicularly for perhaps fifteen or twenty feet, but there were sure footholds and one could disappear in a second. At the bottom of this hole was a little cave, very close and dark, in which one could sit or crouch.

On the floor of this cave I picked up a knife, and, bringing it to the light, I recognised the carved blade, which I had seen Tortue once polish upon his thigh in the red light of a candle. The cave, upon inquiry, was discovered to be well known amongst the smugglers, though it was kept a secret by them, and they called it by the curious name of Issachum--Pucchar.

This discovery was made in the year of 1768, and seven years later I chanced to be standing upon the quay at Leghorn when a vessel from Oporto, laden with wine and oil, dropped anchor in the harbour, and her master came ash.o.r.e. I recognised him at once, although the years had changed him. It was Nathaniel Roper. I followed him up into the town, where he did his business with the s.h.i.+pping agent and thence repaired to a tavern. I entered the tavern, and sitting down over against him at the same table, begged him to oblige me by drinking a gla.s.s at my expense, which he declared himself ready to do. ”But I cannot tell why you should want to drink with me rather than another,”

said he.

”Oh! as to that,” said I, ”we are old acquaintances.”

He answered, with an oath or two, that he could not lay his tongue to the occasion of our meeting.

”You swear very fluently and well,” said I. ”But you swore yet more fluently, I have no doubt, that morning you sailed away from St.

Helen's Island without the Portuguese King's cross.”

His face turned the colour of paper, he half rose from his chair and sat down again.

”I was never on Tresco,” he stammered.

”Who spoke of Tresco, my friend?” said I, with a laugh. ”I made mention of St. Helen's. Yet you were upon Tresco. Have you forgotten?

The shed on Castle Down? The Abbey burial ground?” and then he knew me, though for awhile he protested that he did not.

But I persuaded him in the end that I meant no harm to him.

”You were at Sierra Leone with Cullen, maybe,” said I. ”Tell me how young Peter Tortue came by his death?” and he told me the story which he had before told to old Peter in an alehouse at Wapping.

Peter, it appeared, had not been able to hold his tongue at Sierra Leone. It became known through his chattering that Glen's company and Cullen Mayle were going up the river in search of treasure, and it was decided for the common good to silence him lest he should grow more particular, and relate what the treasure was and how it came to be buried on the bank of that river. George Glen was for settling the matter with the stab of a knife, but Cullen Mayle would have none of such rough measures.

”I know a better and more delicate way,” said he, ”a way very amusing too. You shall all laugh to-morrow;” and calling Peter Tortue to him, he betook himself with the whole party to the house of an old buccaneering fellow, John Leadstone, who kept the best house in the settlement, and lived a jovial life in safety, being on very good terms with any pirate who put in. He had, indeed, two or three bra.s.s guns before his door, which he was wont to salute the appearance of a black flag with. To his house then the whole gang repaired, and while they were making merry, Cullen Mayle addressed himself with an arduous friendliness to Peter Tortue, taking his watch from his fob and bidding the Frenchman admire it. For a quarter of an hour he busied himself in this way, and then of a sudden in a stern commanding voice he said:

”Stand up in the centre of the room,” which Peter Tortue obediently did.

”Now,” continued Cullen, with a chuckle to his companions, ”I'll show you a trick that will tickle you. Peter,” and he turned toward him.

”Peter,” and he spoke in the softest, friendliest voice, ”you talk too much. I'll clap a gag on your mouth, you stinking offal! To-morrow night, my friend, at ten o'clock by my watch, when we are lying in our boat upon the river, you will fall asleep. Do you hear that?”

”Yes,” said Peter Tortue, gazing at Mayle.

”At half-past ten, as you sleep, you will feel cramped for room, and you will dangle a leg over the side of the boat in the river. Do you hear that?”

”Yes!”

”Very well,” said Cullen. ”That will learn you to hold your tongue.

Now come back to your chair.”

Peter obeyed him again.

”When you wake up,” added Cullen, ”you will continue to talk of my watch which you so much admire. You will not be aware that any time has pa.s.sed since you spoke of it before. You can wake up now.”