Part 40 (1/2)

”It's all right,” said Mr. Fogo; ”don't trouble. I shall be better out in the open air. There are women in there”--he pointed towards the drawing-room--”and one with a mole. I daresay it's all right-- but it seemed to me a very big mole.”

And leaving the Honourable Frederic to gasp, he staggered from the house.

What happened in the drawing-room of ”The Bower” after he left it will never be known, for the ladies of Troy are silent on the point.

It was ten o'clock at night, the hour when men may cull the bloom of sleep. Already the moon rode in a serene heaven, and, looking in at the Club window, saw the Admiral and Lawyer Pellow--”_male feriatos Troas_”--busy with a mild game of _ecarte_. There were not enough to make up a loo to-night, for Sam and Mr. Moggridge were absent, and so--more unaccountably--was the Honourable Frederic. The moon was silent, and only she, peering through the blinds of ”The Bower,”

could see Mr. and Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys hastily packing their boxes; or beneath the ladder, by the Admiral's quay-door, a figure stealthily unmooring the Admiral's boat.

To say that Sam Buzza did not relish his task were but feebly to paint his feelings, as, with the paddles under one arm, and the thole-pins in his pocket, he crept down the ladder and pushed off.

Never before had the plash of oars seemed so searching a sound; never had the harbour been so crowded with vessels; and as for buoys, small craft, and floating logs, they b.u.mped against his boat at every stroke. The moon, too, dogged him with persistent malice, or why was it that he rode always in a pool of light? The s.h.i.+ps' lamps tracked him as so many eyes. He carried a bull's-eye lantern in the bottom of his boat, and the smell of its oil and heated varnish seemed to smell aloud to Heaven.

With heart in mouth, he crossed the line of the ferry, and picked his way among the vessels lying off the jetties. On one of these vessels somebody was playing a concertina, and as he crept under its counter a voice hailed him in German. He gave no answer, but pulled quickly on. And now he was clear again, and nearing Kit's House under the left bank. There was no light in any window, he noticed, with a glance over his shoulder. Still in the shadow, and only pulling out, here and there, to avoid a jutting rock, he gained the creek's mouth, and rowed softly up until the bulwarks of the old wreck overhung him.

The very silence daunted him now; but it must be gone through.

Thinking to deaden fear by hurry, he caught up the lantern, leapt on board with the painter, fastened it, and crept swiftly towards the p.o.o.p.

He gained the hatch, and paused to turn the slide of his lantern.

The shaft of light fell down the companion as into a pitch-dark well.

He could feel his heart thumping against his ribs as he began the descent, and jumping with every creak of the rotten boards, while always behind his fright lurked a sickening sense of the guilty foolishness of his errand.

At the ladder's foot he put his hand to his damp brow, and peered into the cabin.

In a moment his blood froze. A hoa.r.s.e cry broke from him.

For there--straight ahead--a white face with straining eyes stared into his own!

And then he saw it was but his own reflection in a patch of mirror stuck into the panel opposite.

But the shock of that pallid mask confronting him had already unnerved him utterly.

He drew his eyes away, glanced around, and spied a black portmanteau propped beside a packing-case in the angle made by the wall and the flooring. In mad haste to reach the open air, but dimly remembering Geraldine's caution, he grasped the handles, flung a look behind him, and clambered up the ladder again, and out upon deck.

The worst was over; but he could not rest until again in his boat.

As he untied the painter, he noticed the ray of his lantern dancing wildly up and down the opposite bank with the shaking of his hand.

Cursing his forgetfulness, he turned the slide, slipped the lantern into his pocket, and, lowering himself gently with the portmanteau, dropped, seized the paddles, and rowed away as for dear life.

He had put three boats' lengths between him and the hull, and was drawing a sigh of relief, when a voice hailed him, and then--

A tongue of flame leapt out, and a loud report rang forth upon the night. He heard something whistle by his ear. Catching up the paddles again, he pulled madly out of the creek, and away for the opposite bank of the river; ran his boat in; and, seizing the portmanteau, without attempt to s.h.i.+p the oars or fasten the painter, leapt out; climbed, slipped, and staggered over the slippery stones; and fled up the hill as though a thousand fiends were at his heels.

CHAPTER XIX.

THAT A SILVER BULLET HAS VIRTUE: WITH A WARNING TO COMMODORES.

”Well, sir,” remarked Caleb at ten o'clock that evening, after an hour's watching had pa.s.sed and brought no sign of a ghost, ”I wish this 'ere sperrit, ef sperrit et be, wud put hissel' out to be punkshal. They do say as the Queen must wait while her beer's a-drawin'; but et strikes me ghost-seein' es apt to be like Boscas'le Fair, which begins twelve an' ends at noon.”