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Dead Men Tell No Tales








Dead Men
! Tell No Tales
By E. W. Hornung




Charles Scribner’s Sons
New York 1899


Copyright, 1899, by
Charles Scribner’s Sons

TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKIINOING COMPANY
NKW YORK




Chapter
II.
. To the Water’s Edge .
.<.E
VII.
VIII.
IX.
XII.
Xlll.
XIV.
XV.
CONTENTS
Love on the Ocean
The Mysterious Cargo.
The Silent Sea
My Reward .
The Sole Survivor .
1 Find a Friend .
A Small Precaution
My Convalescent Home .
Wine and Weakness .
I Live Again
My Lady’s Bidding
The Longest Day of My Life .
In the Garden .
First Blood .
Page
.42
m
28;...
. 106
. 123
. 136
. 147
. 163
. 182


Contents
Chapter
XVI. A Deadlock .
XVII. When Thieves Fall Out .
XVIII. A Man of Many Murders
XIX. My Great Hour .
XX. The Statement of Francis Rattray .
Page
. 194
. 209
. 225
. 241
261


Dead Men Tell No Tales


U ‘A_
.-... r“ "





DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES
CHAPTER I
LOVE ON THE OCEAN
Nothing is so easy as falling in love on a long
sea voyage, except falling out of love. Espe-
cially was this the case in the days when the
wooden clippers did finely to land you in Syd-
ney or in Melbourne under the four full months.
We all saw far too much of each other, unless,
indeed, we were to see still more. Our super-
ficial attractions mutually exhausted, we lost
heart and patience in the disappointing strata
which lie between the surface and the bed-rock
of most natures. My own experience was con—
fined to the round voyage of the Lady Jermyn,
in the year 1853. It was no common experi-
ence, as was only too well known at the time.
And I may add that I for my part had not the
faintest intention of falling in love on board;
nay, after all these years, let me confess that I
had good cause to hold myself proof against
3


4x ‘


Dead Men Tell No Tales
such weakness. Yet we carried a young lady,
coming home, who, God knows, might have
made short work of many a better man!
Eva Denison was her name, and she cannot
have been more than nineteen years of age. I
remember her telling me that she had not yet
come out, the very first time I assisted her to
promenade the poop. My own name was still
unknown to her, and yet I recollect being quite
fascinated by her frankness and self-possession.
She was exquisitely young, and yet ludicrously
old for her years; had been admirably educated,
chiefly abroad, and, as we were soon to dis-
cover, possessed accomplishments which would
have made the plainest old maid a popular per-
sonage on board ship. Miss Denison, how-
ever, was as beautiful as she was young, with
the bloom of ideal health upon her perfect skin.
She had a wealth of lovely hair, with strange
elusive strands of gold among the brown, that
drowned her ears (I thought we were to have
that mode again?) in sunny ripples; and a soul
greater than the mind, and a heart greater than
either, lay sleeping somewhere in the depths of
her grave, grey eyes.
We were at sea together so many weeks. I
cannot think what I was made of then!
a


Love on the Ocean
It was in the brave old days of Ballarat and
Bendigo, when ship after ship went out black
with passengers and deep with stores,to bounce
home with a bale or two of wool, and hardly
hands enough to reef topsails in a gale. Nor
was this the worst; for not the crew only, but,
in many cases, captain and officers as well,
would join in the stampede to the diggings;
and we found Hobson’s Bay the congested
asylum of all manner of masterless and deserted
vessels. I have a lively recollection of our skip-
per’s indignation when the pilot informed him
of this disgraceful fact. Within a fortnight,
however, I met the good man face to face upon
the diggings. It is but fair to add that the
Lady Jermyn lost every officer and man in the
same way, and that the captain did obey
tradition to the extent of being the last to quit
his ship. Nevertheless, of all who sailed by
her in January, I alone was ready to return at
the beginning of the following July.
I had been to Ballarat. ‘I had given the
thing a trial. For the most odious weeks I
had been a licensed digger on Black Hill Flats;
and I had actually failed to make running ex-
penses. That, however, will surprise you the
less when I pause to declare that I have paid
3


1‘


Love on the Ocean


'(chiefly steerage), and nominally no cargo at
all. I felt none the less at home when I
stepped over her familiar side.
In the cuddy we were only five, but a more
uneven quintette I defy you to convene. There
was a young fellow named Ready, packed out
for his health, and hurrying home to die
among friends. There was an outrageously
lucky digger, another invalid, for he would
drink nothing but champagne with every meal
and at any minute of the day, and I have seen
him pitch raw gold at the sea-birds by the
hour together. Miss Denison was our only
lady, and her step-father, with whom she was
travelling, was the one man of distinction on
board. He was a Portuguese of sixty or
thereabouts, Senhor Joaquin Santos by name;
at first it was incredible to me that he had no
title, so noble was his bearing; but very soon I
realised that he was one of those to whom ad-
ventitious honours can add no lustre. He
treated Miss Denison as no parent ever treated
a child, with a gallantry and a courtliness quite
beautiful to watch, and not a little touching in
the light of the circumstances under which
they were travelling'together. The girl had
gone straight from school to her step-father’s
__ f'r"
5 -


Dead Men Tell No Tales
estate on the Zambesi, where, a few months
later, her mother had died of the malaria. Un-
able to endure the place after his wife’s death,
Senhor Santos had taken ship to Victoria,
there to seek fresh fortune with results as in-
different as my own. He was now taking Miss
Denison back to England, to make her home
with other relatives, before he himself returned
to Africa (as he once told me) to lay his bones
beside those of his wife. I hardly know which
of the pair I see more plainly as I write—the
young girl with her soft eyes and her sunny
hair, or the 01d gentleman with the erect
though wasted figure, the noble forehead, the
steady eye, the parchment skin, the white im-
perial, and the eternal cigarette between his
shrivelled lips.
No need to say that I came more in contact
with the young girl. She was not less charm-
ing in my eyes because she provoked me great—
1y as I came to know her intimately. She had
many irritating faults. Like most young per-
sons of intellect and inexperience, she was
hasty and intolerant in nearly all her judg-
ments, and rather given to being critical in a
crude way. She was very musical, playing the
guitar and singing in a style that made our
6


Love on the Ocean
shipboard concerts vastly superior to the aver-
age of their order; but I have seen her shud-
der at the efforts of less gifted folks who were
also doing their best; and it was the same in
other directions where her superiority was less
specific. The faults which are most exasper—
ating in another are, of course, one’s own
faults; and I confess that I was very critical of
Eva Denison’s criticisms. Then she had a lit-
tle weakness for exaggeration, for unconscious
egotism in conversation, and I itched to tell
her so. I felt so certain that the girl had a fine
character underneath, which would rise to
noble heights in stress or storm: all the more
would I long now to take her in hand and
mould her in little things, and anon to take
her in my arms just as she was. The latter
feeling was resolutely crushed. To be plain,
I had endured what is euphemistically called a
“ disappointment ” already; and, not being a.
complete coxcomb, I had no intention of
courting a second.
Yet, when I write of Eva Denison, I am
like to let my pen outrun my tale. I lay the
pen down, and a hundred of her sayings ring
in my ears, with my own contradictious com-
ments, that I was doomed so soon to repent;


7


Dead Men Tell No Tales
a hundred visions of her start to my eyes; and
there is the trade-wind singing in the rigging,
and loosening a tress of my darling’s hair, till
it flies like a tiny golden streamer in the tropic
sun. There, it is out! I have called her what
she was to be in my heart ever after. Yet at
the time I must argue with her—with her!
When all my courage should have gone to
love-making, I was plucking it up to sail as
near as I might to plain remonstrance! I little
dreamt how the ghost of every petty word was
presently to return and torture me.
So it is that I can see her and hear her now
on a hundred separate occasions—beneath the
awning—beneath the stars—on deck—below
—at noon or night—but plainest of all in the
evening of the day we signalled the Island of
Ascension, at the close of that last concert on
the quarter-deck. The watch are taking down
the extra awning; they are removing the hunt-
ing and the footlights. The lanterns are
trailed forward before they are put out; from
the break of the poop we watch the vivid shift-
ing patch of deck that each lights up on its
way. The stars are very sharp in the vast vio-
let dome above our masts; they shimmer on
the sea; and our trucks describe minute orbits
8




Love on the Ocean
among the stars, for the trades have yet to fail
us, and every inch of canvas has its fill of the
gentle steady wind. It is a heavenly night.
The peace of God broods upon His waters.
N o jarring note offends the car. In the fore-
castle a voice is humming a song of Eva Deni-
son’s that has caught the fancy of the men; the
young girl who sang it so sweetly not twenty
minutes since—who sang it again and again
to please the crew—she alone is at war with our
little world—she alone would head a mutiny if
she could.
“ I hate the captain! ” she says again.
“ My dear Miss Denison ! ” I begin; for she
has always been severe upon our bluff old man,
and it is not the spirit of contrariety alone
which makes me invariably take his part.
Coarse he may be, and not one whom the own-
ers would have chosen to command the Lady
Jermyn; a good seaman none the less, who
brought us round the Horn in foul weather
without losing stitch or stick. I think of the
ruddy ruffian in his dripping oilskins, on deck
day and night for our sakes, and once more I
must needs take his part; but Miss Denison
stops me before I can get out another word.
“I am not dear, and I’m not yours,” she
9


Dead Men Tell No Tales
cries. “ I’m only a school-girl—you have all
but told me so before to-day! If I were a man
—-if I were you—I should tell Captain Harris
what I thought of him! ”
“ Why? \Vhat has he done now? ”
“ Now? You know how rude he was to
poor Mr. Ready this very afternoon!”
It was true. He had been very rude indeed.
But Ready also had been at fault. It may be
that I was always inclined to take an opposite
view, but I felt bound to point this out, and at
any cost.
“You mean when Ready asked him if we
were out of our course? Imust say I thought
it was a silly question to put. It was the same
the other evening, about the cargo. If the
skipper says we’re in ballast why not believe
him? Why repeat steerage gossip, about
mysterious cargoes, at the cuddy table? Cap-
tains are always touchy about that sort of
thing. I wasn’t surprised at his letting out.”
My poor love stares at me in the starlight.
Her great eyes flash their scorn. Then she
gives a little smile—and then a little nod-—
more scornful than all the rest.
“ You never are surprised, are you, Mr.
Cole?” says she. “You were not surprised


IO


Love on the Ocean
when the wretch used horrible language in
front of me! You were not surprised when it
was a—dying man—whom he abused!”
I try to soothe her. I agree heartily with her
disgust at the epithets employed in her hearing,
and towards an invalid, by the irate skipper.
But I ask her to make allowances for a rough,
uneducated man, rather clumsily touched upon
his tender spot. I shall conciliate her pres-
ently; the divine pout (so childish it was !) is
fading from her lips; the starlight is on the
tulle and lace and roses of her pretty evening
dress, with its festooned skirts and obsolete
fiounces; and I am watching her, ay, and wor-
shipping her, though I do not know it yet.
And as we stand there comes another snatch
from the forecastle:—-
“ What will you do, love, when I am going,
With white sail flowing,
The seas beyond?
What will you do, love—”
“ They may make the most of that song,”
says Miss Denison grimly; “ it’s the last they’ll
have from me. Get up as many more con-
certs as you like. I won’t sing at another un-
less it’s in the fo’c’sle. I’ll sing to the men, but
1 I


Dead Men Tell No Tales
not to Captain Harris. He didn’t put in an
appearance to-night. He shall not have an-
other chance of insulting me.”
' Was it her vanity that was wounded after
all?
“ You forget,” said I, “ that you would not
answer when he addressed you at dinner.”
“ I should think I wouldn’t, after the way
he spoke to Mr. Ready; and he too agitated to
come to table, poor fellow l ”
“ Still, the captain felt the open slight.”
“Then he shouldn’t have used such lan-
guage in front of me.”
“ Your father felt it, too, Miss Denison.”
I hear nothing plainer than her low but
quick reply:
“ Mr. Cole, my father has been dead many,
many years; he died before I can remember.
That man only married my poor mother. He
sympathizes with Captain Harris—against
me; no father would do that. Look at them
together now! And you take his side, too;
oh! I have no patience with any of you-—ex-
cept poor Mr. Ready in his berth.”
“ But you are not going.”
“ Indeed I am. I am tired of you all.”
And she was gone with angry tears for

12


Love on the Ocean


which I blamed myself as I fell to pacing the
weather side of the poop—and so often after-
wards! So often, and with such unavailing
bitterness!
Senhor Santos and the captain were in con-
versation by the weather rail. I fancied poor
old Harris eyed me with suspicion, and I
wished he had better cause. The Portuguese,
however, saluted me with his customary cour—
tesy, and I thought there was a grave twinkle
in his steady eye.
“ Are you in deesgrace also, friend Cole?”
he inquired in his all but perfect English.
“ More or less,” said I ruefully.
He gave the shrug of his country—that deli-
cate gesture which is done almost entirely
with the back—a subtlety beyond the power of
British shoulders.
“ The senhora is both weelful and pivish,”
said he, mixing the two vowels which (with
the aspirate) were his only trouble with our
tongue. “ It is great grif to me to see her
growing so unlike her sainted mother! ”
He sighed, and I saw his delicate fingers for-
sake the cigarette they were rolling to make
the sacred sign upon his breast. He was al-
ways smoking one cigarette and making an-
13


Dead Men Tell No Tales
other; as he lit the new one the glow fell upon
a strange pin that he wore, a pin with a tiny
crucifix inlaid in mosaic. So the religious cast
of Senhor Santos was brought twice home to
me in the same moment, though, to be sure, I
had often been struck by it before. And it de-
pressed me to think that so sweet a child as
Eva Denison should have spoken harshly of so
good a man as her step-father, simply because
he had breadth enough to sympathise with a
coarse old salt like Captain Harris.
I turned in, however, and I cannot say the
matter kept me awake in the separate state—
room which was one luxury of our empty sa-
loon. Alas! I was a heavy sleeper then.

14


CHAPTER II
THE MYSTERIOUS CARGO
“ Wake up, Cole! The ship’s on fire! ”
It was young Ready’s hollow voice, as cool,
however, as though he were telling me I was
late for breakfast. I started up and sought
him wildly in the darkness.
“ You’re joking,” was my first thought and
utterance; for now he was lighting my candle,
and blowing out the match with a care that
seemed in itself a contradiction.
“ I wish I were,” he answered. “ Listen to
that! ”
He pointed to my cabin ceiling; it quivered
and creaked ; and all at once I was as a deaf
man healed.
One gets inured to noise at sea, but to this
day it passes me how even I could have ,slept
an instant in the abnormal din which I now
heard raging above my head. Sea-boots
stamped; bare feet pattered; men bawled;
women shrieked ; shouts of terror drowned the
roar of command.
15


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ Have we long to last? ” I asked, as I leaped
for my clothes.
“ Long enough for you to dress comfort-
ably. Steady, old man! It’s only just been
discovered; they may get it under. The
panic’s the worst part at present, and we’re out
of that.”
But was Eva Denison? Breathlessly I put
the question; his answer was reassuring. Miss
Denison was with her step-father on the poop.
“ And both of ’em as cool as cucumbers,” add-
ed Ready.
They could not have been cooler than this
young man, with death at the bottom of his
bright and sunken eyes. He was of the type
which is all muscle and no constitution; ath-
letes one year, dead men the next; but until
this moment the athlete had been to me a mere
and incredible tradition. In the afternoon I
had seen his lean knees totter under the cap-
tain’s fire. Now, at midnight—the exact time
by my watch—it was as if his shrunken limbs
had expanded in his clothes; he seemed hardly
to know his own flushed face, as he caught
sight of it in my mirror.
“ By Jove! ” said he, “ this has put me in a
fine old fever; but I don’t know when I felt in
16


Dead Men Tell No Tales
poop; but we heard the buckets spitting and a
hose-pipe hissing into the flames below; and
we saw the column of white vapour rising
steadily from their midst.
At the break of the poop stood Captain Har-
ris, his legs planted wide apart, very vigorous,
very decisive, very profane. And I must con-
fess that the shocking oaths which had brought
us round the Horn inspired a kind of con-
fidence in me now. Besides, even from the
poop I could see no flames. But the night
was as beautiful as it had been an hour or two
back; the stars as brilliant, the breeze even
more balmy, the sea even more calm; and we
were hove-to already, against the worst.
In this hour of peril the poop was very prop-
erly invaded by all classes of passengers, in
all manner of incongruous apparel, in all stages
of fear, rage, grief and hysteria; as we made
our way among this motley nightmare throng,
I took Ready by the arm.
“The skipper’s a brute,” said I, " but he’s
the right brute in the right place to—night,
Ready! "
“ I hope he may be,” was the reply. “ But
we were off our course this afternoon; and we
were off it again during the concert, as sure
as we’re not on it now.”
18


The Mysterious Cargo


His tone made me draw him to the rail.
“But how do you know? You didn’t have
another look, did you?”
“ Lots of looks-at the stars. He couldn’t
keep me from consulting them; and I’m just as
certain of it as I’m certain that we’ve a cargo
aboard which we’re none of us supposed to
know anything about.”
The latter piece of gossip was, indeed, all
over the ship; but this allusion to it struck me
as foolishly irrelevant and frivolous. As to
the other matter, I suggested that the ofiicers
would have had more to say about it than
Ready, if there had been anything in it.
“ Officers be damned!” cried our con-
sumptive, with a sound man’s vigour.
“ They’re ordinary seamen dressed up; I don’t
believe they’ve a second mate’s certificate be-
tween them, and they’re frightened out of
their souls.”
“ Well, anyhow, the skipper isn’t that.”
“ N0; he’s drunk; he can shout straight, but
you should hear him try to speak.”
I made my way aft without rejoinder. “ In-
valid’s pessimism,” was my private comment.
And yet the sick man was whole for the time
being; the virile spirit was once more master
I9


Dead Men Tell No Tales
of the recreant members; and it was with il-
logical relief that I found those I sought stand-
ing almost unconcernedly beside the binnacle.
My little friend was, indeed, pale enough,
and her eyes great with dismay; but she stood
splendidly calm, in her travelling cloak and
bonnet, and with all my soul I hailed the hardi-
hood with which I had rightly credited my
love. Yes! I loved her then. It had come
home to me at last, and I no longer denied it
in my heart. In my innocence and my joy I
rather blessed the fire for showing me her true
self and my own; and there I stood, loving her
openly with my eyes (not to lose another in-
stant), and bursting to tell her so with my lips.
But there also stood Senhor Santos, almost
precisely as I had seen him last, cigarette, tie-
pin, and all. He wore an overcoat, however,
and leaned upon a massive ebony cane, while
he carried his daughter’s guitar in its case, ex-
actly as though they were waiting for a train.
Moreover, I thought that for the first time he
was regarding me with no very favouring
glance.
“ You don’t think it serious?” I asked him
abruptly, my heart still bounding with the most
incongruous joy.
20


The Mysterious Cargo


He gave me his ambiguous shrug; and then,
“ A fire at sea is surely sirrious,” said he.
“ Where did it break out? ”
“ No one knows; it may have come of your
concert.”
“ But they are getting the better of it?”
“ They are working wonders so far, senhor.”
“ You see, Miss Denison,” I continued
ecstatically, “ our rough old diamond of a skip-
per is the right man in the right place after all.
A tight man in a tight place, eh? ” and I
laughed like an idiot in their calm grave faces.
“ Senhor Cole is right,” said Santos, “al-
though his ’ilarity sims a leetle out of place.
But you must never spik against Captain ’Ar-
rees again, menina.”
“ I never will,” the poor child said; yet I saw
her wince whenever the captain raised that
hoarse voice of his in more and more blasphe-
mous exhortation; and I began to fear with
Ready that the man was drunk.
My eyes were still upon my darling, devour-
ing her, revelling in her, when suddenly I saw
her hand twitch within her step-father’s arm.
It was an answering start to one on his part.
The cigarette was snatched from his lips.
There was a commotion forward, and a cry
came aft, from mouth to mouth:
21


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“The flames! The flames! ”
I turned, and caught their reflection on the
white column of smoke and steam. I ran for-
ward, and saw them curling and leaping in the
hell-mouth of the hold.
The quarter-deck now staged a lurid scene:
that blazing trap-door in its midst; and each
man there a naked demon madly working to
save his roasting skin. Abaft the mainmast
the deck-pump was being ceaselessly worked
by relays of the passengers; dry blankets were
passed forward, soaking blankets were passed
aft, and flung flat into the furnace one after an-
other. These did more good than the pure
water: the pillar of smoke became blacker,
denser: we were at a crisis; a sudden hush de-
noted it; even our hoarse skipper stood dumb.
I had rushed down into the waist of the ship
—blushing for my delay—and already I was
tossing blankets with the rest. Looking up in
an enforced pause, I saw Santos whispering in
the skipper’s ear, with the expression of a
sphinx, but no lack of foreign gesticulation—
behind them a fringe of terror-stricken faces,
parted at that instant by two more figures, as
wild and strange as any in that wild strange
scene. One was our luckless lucky digger,


22


The Mysterious Cargo


the other a gigantic Zambesi nigger, who for
days had been told off to watch him; this was
the servant (or rather the slave) of Senhor
Santos.
The digger planted himself before the cap-
tain. His face was reddened by a fire as con-
suming as that within the bowels of our gal-
lant ship. He had a huge, unwieldy bundle
under either arm.
“ Plain question—plain answer,” we heard
him stutter. “Is there any —— chance of
saving this ship? ”
His adjectives were too foul for print; they
were given with such a special effort at dis-
tinctness, however, that I was smiling one in-
stant, and giving thanks the next that Eva
Denison had not come forward with her guar-
dian. Meanwhile the skipper had exchanged
a glance with Senhor Santos, and I think we
all felt that he was going to tell us the truth.
He told it in two words——
“ Very little.”
Then the first individual tragedy was enact-
ed before every eye. With a yell the drunken
maniac rushed to the rail. The nigger was at
his heels—he was too late. Uttering another
and more piercing shriek, the madman was




23


Dead Men Tell No Tales
overboard at a bound; one of his bundles pre-
ceded him; the other dropped like a cannon-
ball on the deck. .
The nigger caught it up and carried it for-
ward to the captain.
Harris held up his hand. We were still be-
fore we had fairly found our tongues. His
words did run together a little, but he was not
drunk.
“Men and women,” said he, “ what I told
that poor devil is gospel truth; but I didn’t tell
him we’d no chance of saving our lives, did I?
Not me, because we have! Keep your heads
and listen to me. There’s two good boats on
the davits amidships; the chief will take one,
the second officer the other; and there ain’t no
reason why every blessed one of you shouldn’t
sleep at Ascension to-morrow night. As for
me, let me see every soul off of my ship and
perhaps I may follow; but by the God that
made you, look alive! Mr. Arnott—Mr. Mc-
Clellan—man them boats and lower away.
You can’t get quit o’ the ship too soon, an’ I
don’t mind tellin’ you why. I’ll tell you the
worst, an’ then you’ll know. There’s been a
lot 0’ gossip goin’, gossip about my cargo. I
give out as I’d none but ship’s stores and bal-
=4


The Mysterious Cargo ‘
last, an’ I give out a lie. I don’t mind tellin’
you now. I give out a cussed lie, but I give it
out for the good 0’ the ship! What was the
use 0’ frightenin’ folks? But where’s the
sense in keepin’ it back now? We have a bit
of a cargo,” shouted Harris; “ and it’s gun~
powder—every damned ton of it! ”
The effect of this announcement may be im-
agined; my hand has not the cunning to repro-
duce it on paper; and if it had, it would shrink
from the task. Mild men became brutes,
brutal men devils, women—God help them !—
shrieking beldams for the most part. Never
shall I forget them with their streaming hair,
their screaming open mouths, and the cruel
ascending fire glinting on their starting eye-
balls!
Pell-mell they tumbled down the poop-lad-
ders; pell-mell they raced amidships past that
yawning open furnace; the pitch was boiling
through the seams of the crackling deck; they
slipped and fell upon it, one over another, and
the wonder is that none plunged headlong into
the flames. A handful remained on the poop,
cowering and undone with terror. ' Upon
these turned Captain Harris, as Ready and I,
stemming the torrent of maddened humanity,
regained the poop ourselves.

25


The Mysterious Cargo


oar myself; but, by God, I’m skipper 0’ this
here ship, and I’ll skip her as long as I remain-
aboard! ”
I saw his hand go to his belt; I saw the pis-
tols stuck there for mutineers. I looked at
Santos. He answered me with his neutral
shrug, and, by my soul, he struck a match and
lit a cigarette in that hour of life and death!
Then last I looked at Ready; and he leant in-
vertebrate over the rail, gasping pitiably from
his exertions in regaining the poop, a dying
man once more. I pointed out his piteous state.
“ At least,” I whispered, “ you won’t refuse
to take him? ”
“ \Vill there be anything to take?” said the
captain brutally.
Santos advanced leisurely, and puffed his
cigarette over the poor wasted and exhausted
frame.
“It is for you to decide, captain,” said he
cynically; “ but this one will make no deefer-
ence. Yes, I would take him. It will not be
far,” he added, in a tone that was not the less
detestable for being lowered.
“ Take them both! ” moaned little Eva, put-
ting in her first and last sweet word.
“ Then we all drown, Evasinha,” said her
step-father. “ It is impossible.”
27


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ We’re too many for her as it is,” said the
captain. “So for’ard with ye, Mr. Cole, be-
fore it’s too late.”
But my darling’s brave word for me had
fired my blood, and I turned with equal resolu-
tion on Harris and on the Portuguese. “1
will go like a lamb,” said I, “if you will first
give me five minutes’ conversation with Miss
Denison. Otherwise I do not go; and as for
the gig, you may take me or leave me, as you
choose.”
“ What have you to say to her?” asked San-
tos, coming up to me, and again lowering his
voice.
I lowered mine still more. “That I love
her! ” I answered in a soft ecstasy. “ That she
may remember how I loved her, if I die! ”
His shoulders shrugged a cynical acquies-
cence.
“ By all mins, senhor; there is no harm in
that.”
I was at her side before another word could
pass his withered lips.
“ Miss Denison, will you grant me five min-
utes’ conversation? It may be the last that we
shall ever have together! ”
Uncovering her face, she looked at me with
a strange terror in her great eyes; then with a
28


The Mysterious Cargo


questioning light that was yet more strange,
for in it there was a wistfulness I could not
comprehend. She suffered me to take her
hand, however, and to lead her unresisting to
the weather rail.
“ What is it you have to say? ” she asked me
in her turn. “ What is it that you—think? ”
Her voice fell as though she must have the
truth.
“ That we have all a very good chance,” said
I heartily.
“ Is that all? ” cried Eva, and my heart sank
at her eager manner.
She seemed at once disappointed and re-
lieved. Could it be possible she dreaded a
declaration which she had foreseen all along?
My evil first experience rose up to warn me.
No, I would not speak now; it was no time. If
she loved me, it might make her love me less;
better to trust to God to spare us both.
“ Yes, it is all,” I said doggedly.
She drew a little nearer, hesitating. It was
as though her disappointment had gained on
her relief. .
“ Do you know what I thought you were
going to say?”
“ No, indeed.”
29


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ Dare I tell you? ”
“ You can trust me.”
Her pale lips parted. Her great eyes shone.
Another instant, and she had told me that
which I would have given all but life itself. to
know. But in that tick of time a quick step
came behind me, and the light went out of the
sweet face upturned to mine.
“ I cannot! I must not! Here is—that
man! "
Senhor Santos was all smiles and rings of
pale-blue smoke.
“ You will be cut off, friend Cole,” said he.
“ The fire is spreading.”
“ Let it spread! ” I cried, gazing my very
soul into the young girl’s eyes. “ We have
not finished our conversation.”
“ We have! ” said she, with sudden decision.
“ Go—go—for my sake-—for your own sake—-
go at once! ”
She gave me her hand. I merely clasped it.
And so I left her at the rail—ah, heaven! how
often we had argued on that very spot! So I
left her, with the greatest effort of all my life
(but one) ; and yet in passing, full as my heart
was of love and self, I could not but lay a hand
on poor Ready’s shoulders.
30


The Mysterious Cargo
“ God bless you, old boy! ” I said to him.
He turned a white face that gave me half an
instant’s pause.
“It’s all over with me this time,” he said.
“ But, I say, I was right about the cargo?”
And I heard a chuckle as I reached the lad-
der; but Ready was no longer in my mind;
even Eva was driven out of it, as I stood aghast
on the topmost rung.
3r


To the Water’s Edge
my heart failed me, I may truly say, than be-
cause my common sense did not.
Some were watching me, it seemed, across
this hell. “The bulwarks! ” they screamed.
“ Walk along the bulwarks! ” I held up my
hand in token that I heard and understood and
meant to act. And as I did their bidding I
noticed what indeed had long been apparent to
idler eyes: the wind was not; we had lost our
south-east trades; the doomed ship was rolling
in a dead calm.
Rolling, rolling, rolling so that it seemed
minutes before I dared to move an inch. Then
I tried it on my hands and knees, but the
scorched bulwarks burned me to the bone.
And then I leapt up, desperate with the pain;
and, with my tortured hands spread wide to
balance me, I walked those few yards, between
rising sea and falling fire, and falling sea and
rising fire, as an acrobat walks a rope, and by
God’s grace without mishap.
There was no time to think twice about my
feat, or, indeed, about anything else that befell
upon a. night when each moment was more
pregnant than the last. And yet I did think
that those who had encouraged me to attempt
so perilous a trick might have welcomed me
33


Dead Men Tell No Tales
alive among them; they were looking at some-
thing else already; and this was what it was.
One of the cabin stewards had presented
himself on the poop; he had a bottle in one
hand, a glass in the other; in the red glare we
saw him dancing in front of the captain like
an unruly marionette. Harris appeared to
threaten him. What he said we could not
hear for the deep-drawn blast and the high
staccato crackle of the blazing hold. But we
saw the staggering steward offering him a
drink; saw the glass flung next instant in the
captain’s face, the blood running, a pistol
drawn, fired without effect, and snatched away
by the drunken mutineer. Next instant a
smooth black cane was raining blow after blow
on the man’s head. He dropped; the blows
fell thick and heavy as before. He lay wrig-
gling; the Portuguese struck and struck until
he lay quite still; then we saw Joaquin Santos
kneel, and rub his stick carefully on the still
thing’s clothes, as a man might wipe his boots.
Curses burst from our throats; yet the fellow
deserved to die. Nor, as I say, had we time to
waste two thoughts upon any one incident.
This last had begun and ended in the same
minute; in another we were at the starboard
34


To the Water’s Edge
gangway, tumbling helter-skelter aboard the
lowered long-boat.
She lay safely on the water: how we thanked
our gods for that! Lower and lower sank her
gunwale as we dropped aboard her, with no
more care than the Gadarene swine whose fate
we courted. Discipline, order, method, com—
mon care, we brought none of these things
with us from our floating furnace; but we
fought to be first over the bulwarks, and in the
bottom of the long-boat we fought again.
And yet she held us all! All, that is, but a
terror-stricken few, who lay along the jibboom
like flies upon a stick: all but two or three more
whom we left fatally hesitating in the fore-
chains: all but the selfish savages who had
been the first to perish in the pinnace, and
one distracted couple who had thrown their
children into the kindly ocean, and jumped in
after them out of their torment, locked for ever
in each other’s arms.
Yes! I saw more things on that starry night,
by that blood-red glare, than I have told you
in their order, and more things than I shall tell
you now. Blind would I gladly be for my few
remaining years, if that night’s horrors could
be washed from these eyes for ever. I have
3.5


Dead Men Tell No Tales
said so much, however, that in common can-
dour I must say one thing more. I have
spoken of selfish savages. God help me and
forgive me! For by this time I was one my-
self.
In the long-boat we cannot have been less
than thirty; the exact number no man will ever
know. But we shoved off without mischance ;
the chief mate had the tiller; the third mate
the boat-hook;' and six or eight oars were at
work, in a fashion, as we plunged among the
great smooth sickening mounds and valleys of
fathomless ink.
Scarcely were we clear when the foremast
dropped down on the fastenings, dashing the
jibboom into the water with its load of de-
mented human beings. The mainmast fol-
lowed by the board before we had doubled our
distance from the wreck. Both trailed to port,
where we could not see them; and now the
mizzen stood alone in sad and solitary gran-
deur, her flapping idle sails lighted up by the
spreading conflagration, so that they were
stamped very sharply upon the black and starry
sky. But the whole scene from the long-boat
was one of startling brilliancy and horror.
The fire now filled the entire waist of the ves-
36


To the Water’s Edge
sel, and the noise of it was as the rumble and
roar of a volcano. As for the light, I declare
that it put many a star clean out, and dimmed
the radiance of all the rest, as it flooded the sea
for miles around, and a sea of molten glass re-
flected it. My gorge rose at the long low bil-
lows—sleek as black satin—lifting and dipping
in this ghastly glare. I preferred to keep my
eyes upon the little ship burning like a tar bar-
rel as the picture grew. But presently I
thanked God aloud: there was the gig swim-
ming like a beetle over the bloodshot rollers in
our wake.
In our unspeakable gladness at being quit
of the ship, some minutes passed before we dis-
covered that the long-boat was slowly filling.
The water was at our ankles before a man of us
cried out, so fast were our eyes to the poor lost
Lady Jermyn. Then all at once the ghastly
fact dawned upon us; and I think it was the
mate himself who burst out crying like a child.
I never ascertained, however, for I had kicked
off my shoes and was busy baling with them.
Others were hunting for the leak. But the
mischief was as subtle as it was mortal—as
though a plank had started from end to end.
Within and without the waters rose equally—

37


Dead Men Tell No Tales
then lay an instant level with our gunwales—
then swamped us, oh ! so slowly, that I thought
we were never going to sink. It was like get-
ting inch by inch into your tub; I can feel it
now, creeping, crawling up my back. “ It’s
coming! 0 Christ!” muttered one as it
came; to me it was a downright relief to be
carried under at last.
But then, thank God, I have always been a
strong swimmer. The water was warm and
buoyant, and I came up like a cork, as I knew
I should. I shook the drops from my face,
and there were the sweet stars once more; for
many an eye they had gone out for ever; and
there the burning wreck.
A man floundered near me, in a splutter of
phosphorescence. I tried to help him, and
in an instant he had me wildly round the
neck. In the end I shook him off, poor
devil, to his death. And he was the last I
tried to aid: have I not said already what I
was become?
In a little an oar floated my way: I threw
my arms across it and gripped it with my chin
as I swam. It relieved me greatly. Up and
down I rode among the oily black hillocks ; I‘
was down when there was a sudden flare as
38


To the Water’s Edge
though the sun had risen, and I saw still a few
heads bobbing and a few arms waving frantical-
ly around me. At the same instant a terrific
detonation split the ears; and when I rose on
the next bald billow, where the ship lay burn-
ing a few seconds before, there remained but a
red-hot spine that hissed and dwindled for an-
other minute, and then left a blackness through
which every star shone with redoubled brill-
iance.
And now right and left splashed falling mis-
siles; a new source of danger or of temporary
respite; to me, by a merciful Providence, it
proved the latter.
Some heavy thing fell with a mighty splash
right in front of me. A few more yards, and
my brains had floated with the spume. As it
was, the oar was dashed from under my arm-
pits; in another moment they had found a
more solid resting-place.
It was a hen-coop, and it floated bars up-
wards like a boat. In this calm it might float
for days. I climbed upon the bars—and the
whole cage rolled over on top of me.
Coming to the surface, I found to my joy
that the hen-coop had righted itself; so now I
climbed up again, but this time very slowly and
W;;_ __ ..:
39


Dead Men Tell No Tales
gingerly; the balance was undisturbed, and I
stretched myself cautiously along the bars on
my stomach. A good idea immediately oc-
curred to me. I had jumped as a matter of
course into the flannels which one naturally
wears in the tropics. To their lightness I al-
ready owed my life, but the common cricket-
belt which was part of the costume was the
thing to which I owe it most of all. Loosen-
ing this belt a little, as I tucked my toes tena-
ciously under the endmost bar, I undid and
passed the two ends under one of the middle
bars, fastening the clasp upon the other side.
If I capsized now, well, we might go to the bot-
tom together; otherwise the hen-coop and I
should not part company in a hurry; and I
thought, I felt, that she would float.
Worn out as I was, and comparatively se-
cure for the moment, I will not say that I slept;
but my eyes closed, and every fibre rested, as
I rose and slid with the smooth long swell.
Whether I did indeed hear voices, curses, cries,
I cannot say positively to this day. I only
know that I raised my head and looked sharply
all ways but the way I durst not look for fear
of an upset. And, again, I thought I saw first
a tiny flame, and then a tinier glow; and as my
40


To the Water’s Edge
head drooped, and my eyes closed again, I say
I thought I smelt tobacco; but this, of course,
was my imagination supplying all the links
from one.
4!


CHAPTER IV
THE SILENT SEA
Remember (if indeed there be any need to
remind you) that it is a flagrant landsman who
is telling you his tale. Nothing know I of
seamanship, save what one could not avoid
picking up on the round voyage of the Lady
Jermyn, never to be completed on this globe.
I may be told that I have burned that devoted
vessel as nothing ever burned on land or sea.
I answer that I write of what I saw, and that
is not altered by a miscalled spar or a misun-
derstood manoeuvre. But now I am aboard a
craft I handled for myself, and must make shift
to handle a second time with this frail pen.
The hen-coop was some six feet long, by
eighteen or twenty inches in height, breadth,
and depth. It was simply a long box with
bars in lieu of a lid; but it was very strongly
built.
I recognized it as one of two which had stood
lashed against either rail of the Lady Jermyn’s
poop; there the bars had risen at right angles

42


The Silent Sea
to the deck; now they lay horizontal, a grid-
iron six feet long—and my bed. And as each
particular bar left its own stripe across my
weariedbody, and yet its own comfort in my
quivering heart, another day broke over the
face of the “waters, and over me.
Discipline, what there was of it originally,
had been the very first thing to perish aboard
our ill-starred ship; the officers, I am afraid,
were not much better than poor Ready made
them out (thanks to Bendigo and Ballarat),
and little had been done in true ship-shape
style all night. All hands had taken their
spell at everything as the fancy seized them;
not a bell had been struck from first to last;
and I can only conjecture that the fire raged
four or five hours, from the fact that it was
midnight by my watch when I left it on my
cabin drawers, and that the final extinction of
the smouldering keel was so soon followed by
the first deep hint of dawn. The rest took
place with the trite rapidity of the equatorial
latitudes. It had been my foolish way to pooh-
pooh the old saying that there is no twilight in
the tropics. I saw more truth in it as I lay
lonely on this heaving waste.
The stars were out; the sea was silver; the
sun was up.
43


Dead Men Tell No Tales
And oh! the awful glory of that sunrise! It
was terrific; it was sickening; my senses
swam. Sunlit billows smooth and sinister,
without a crest, without a sound; miles and
miles of them as I rose; an oily grave among
them as I fell. Hill after hill of horror, valley
after valley of despair! The face of the waters
in petty but eternal unrest; and now the sun
must shine to set it smiling, to show me its
cruel ceaseless mouthings, to reveal all but the
ghastlier horrors underneath.
How deep was it? I fell to wondering!
Not that it makes any difference whether you
drown in one fathom or in ten thousand,
whether you fall from a balloon or from the
attic window. But the greater depth or dis-
tance is the worse to contemplate; and I was
as a man hanging by his hands so high above
the world, that his dangling feet cover coun-
tries, continents; a man who must fall very
soon, and wonders how long he will be falling,
falling; and how far his soul will bear his body
company.
In time I became more accustomed to the
sun upon this heaving void; less frightened, as
a child is frightened, by the mere picture. And
I have still the impression that, as hour fol-
44


The Silent Sea
'lowed hour since the falling of the wind, the
nauseous swell in part subsided. I seemed
less often on an eminence or in a pit; my glassy
azure dales had gentler slopes, or a distemper
was melting from my eyes.
At least I know that I had now less work to
keep my frail ship trim, though this also may
have come by use and practice. In the begin-
ning one or other of my legs had been for ever
trailing in the sea, to keep the hen-coop from
rolling over the other way; in fact, as I under-
stand they steer the toboggan in Canada, so I
my little bark. Now the necessity for this was
gradually decreasing; whatever the cause, it
was the greatest mercy the day had brought
me yet. With less strain on the attention,
however, there was more upon the mind. No
longer forced to exert some muscle twice or
thrice a minute, I had time to feel very faint,
and yet time to think. My soul flew homing
to its proper prison. I was no longer any unit
at unequal strife with the elements; instincts
common to my kind were no longer my only
stimulus. I was my poor self again; it was my
own little life, and no other, that I wanted to
go on living; and yet I felt vaguely there was
some special thing I wished to live for, some-
45


Dead Men Tell No Tales
thing that had not been very long in my ken;
something that had perhaps nerved and
strengthened me all these hours. What, then,
could it be?
I could not think. For moments or for
minutes I wondered stupidly, dazed as I was.
Then I remembered—and the tears gushed to
my eyes. How could I ever have forgotten?
I deserved it all, all, all! To think that many
a time we must have sat together on this very
coop! I kissed its blistering edge at the
thought, and my tears ran afresh, as though
they never would stop.
Ah! how I thought of her as that cruel day’s
most cruel sun climbed higher and higher in
the flawless flaming vault. A pocket-hand-
kerchief of all things had remained in my trou-
sers’ pocket through fire and water; I knotted
it on the old childish plan, and kept it ever
drenched upon the head that had its own fever
to endure as well. Eva Denison! Eva Deni-
son! I was talking to her in the past, I was
talking to her in the future, and oh! how dif-
ferent were the words, the tone! Yes, I hated
myself for having forgotten her; but I hated
God for having given her back to my tortured
brain; it made life so many thousandfold more
46


Dead Men Tell No Tales
So I undid that belt of mine which fastened
me to my gridiron, and I straddled my craft
with a sudden keen eye for sharks, of which
I never once had thought until now. Then I
tightened the belt about my hollow body, and
just sat there with the problem. The past
hour I had been wholly unobservant; the inner
eye had had its turn; but that was over now,
and I sat as upright as possible, seeking greed—
ily for a sail. Of course I saw none. Had we
indeed been off our course before the fire broke
out? Had we burned to cinders aside and
apart from the regular track of ships? Then,
though my present valiant mood might ignore
the adverse chances, they were as one hundred
to a single chance of deliverance. Our burn-
ing had brought no ship to our succour ; and
how should I, a mere speck amid the waves,
bring one to mine?
Moreover, I was all but motionless; I was
barely drifting at all. This I saw from a few
objects which were floating around me now at
noon; they had been with me when the high
sun rose. One was, I think, the very oar
which had been my first support; another was
a sailor’s cap; but another, which floated near-
er, was new to me, as though it had come to the
48


The Silent Sea
surface while my eyes were turned inwards.
And this was clearly the case; for the thing
was a drowned and bloated corpse.
It fascinated me, though not with extraordi-
nary horror; it came too late to do that. I
thought I recognized the man’s back. I fan-
cied it was the mate who had taken charge of
the long-boat. Was I then the single survivor
of those thirty souls? I was still watching my
poor lost comrade, when that happened to him
against which even I was not proof. Through
the deep translucent blue beneath me a slim
shape glided; three smaller fish led the way;
they dallied an instant a fathom under my feet,
which were snatched up, with what haste you
may imagine; then on they went to surer prey.
He turned over; his dreadful face stared up-
ward; it was the chief officer, sure enough.
Then he clove the water with a rush, his dead
hand waved, the last of him to disappear; and
I had a new horror to think over for my sins.
His poor fingers were all broken and beaten to
a pulp.
The voices of the night came back to me—
the curses and the cries. Yes, I must have
heard them. In memory now I recognised
the voice of the chief mate, but there again
49


Dead Men Tell No Tales
came in the assisted imagination. Yet I was
not so sure of this as before. I thought of
Santos and his horrible heavy cane. Good
God! she was in the power of that] I must
live for Eva indeed; must save myself to save
and protect my innocent and helpless girl.
Again I was a man; stronger than ever was
the stimulus now, louder than ever the call on
every drop of true man’s blood in my perish-
ing frame. It should not perish! It should
not!
Yet my throat was parched; my lips were
caked; my frame was hollow. Very weak I
was already; without sustenance I should sure-
ly die. But as yet I was far enough from
death, or I had done disdaining the means of
life that all this time lay ready to my hand. A
number of dead fowls imparted ballast to my
little craft.
Yet I could not look at them in all these
hours; or I could look, but that was all. So I
must sit up one hour more, and keep a sharper
eye than ever for the tiniest glimmer of a sail.
To what end, I often asked myself? I might
see them; they would never see me.
Then my eyes would fall, and “ you squeam-
ish fool l” I said at intervals, until my tongue
50


The Silent Sea
failed to articulate; it had swollen so in my
mouth. Flying fish skimmed the water like
thick spray; petrels were so few that I could
count them; another shark swam round me
for an hour. In sudden panic I dashed my
knuckles on the wooden bars, to get at a duck
to give the monster for a sop. My knuckles
bled. I held them to my mouth. My cleav—
ing tongue wanted more. The duck went to
the shark; a few minutes more and I had made
my own vile meal as well.
51


CHAPTER MY REWARD
The sun declined; my shadow broadened on
the waters; and now I felt that if my cockle-
shell could live a little longer, why, so could I.
I had got at the fowls without further hurt.
Some of the bars took out, I discovered how.
And now very carefully I got my legs in, and
knelt; but the change of posture was not worth
the risk one ran for it; there was too much
danger of capsizing, and failing to free oneself
before she filled and sank.
With much caution I began breaking the
bars, one by one; it was hard enough, weak as
I was ; my thighs were of more service than my
hands.
But at last I could sit, the grating only cov-
ering me from the knees downwards. And
the relief of that outweighed all the danger,
which, as I discovered to my untold joy, was
now much less than it had been before.
I was better ballast than the fowls.
These I had attached to the lashings which
52


My Reward
1
had been blown asunder by the explosion; at
one end of the coop the ring-bolt had been torn
clean out, but at the other it was the cordage
that had parted. To the frayed ends I tied my
fowls by the legs, with the most foolish pride
in my own cunning. Do you not see? It
would keep them fresh for my use, and it was
a trick I had read of in no book; it was all my
own.
So evening fell and found me hopeful and
even puffed up; but yet, no sail.
Now, however, I could lie back, and use had
given me a strange sense of safety; besides, I
think I knew, I hope I felt, that the hen-coop
was in other Hands than mine.
All is reaction in the heart of man; light fol-
lows darkness nowhere more surely than in
that hidden self, and now at sunset it was my
heart’s high-noon. Deep peace pervaded me
as I lay outstretched in my narrow rocking
bed, as it might be in my cofiin ; a trust in my
Maker’s will to save me if that were for the
best, a trust in His final wisdom and loving-
kindness, even though this night should be my
last on earth. For myself I was resigned, and
for others I must trust Him no less. Who was
I to constitute myself the protector of the help-
53


Dead Men Tell No Tales
less, when He was in His Heaven? Such was
my sunset mood; it lasted a few minutes, and
then, without radically changing, it became
more objective.
The west was a broadening blaze of yellow
and purple and red. I cannot describe it to
you. If you have seen the sun set in the
tropics, you would despise my description;
and, if not, I for one could never make you see
it. Suflice it that a petrel wheeled somewhere
between deepening carmine and paling blue,
and it took my thoughts off at an earthy tan-
gent. I thanked God there were no big sea-
birds in these latitudes; no molly-hawks, no
albatrosses, no Cape-hens. I thought of an
albatross that I had caught going out. Its
beak and talons were at the bottom with the
charred remains of the Lady Iermyn. But I
could see them still, could feel them shrewdly
in my mind’s flesh; and so to the old supersti-
tion, strangely justified by my case; and so to
the poem which I, with my special experience,
not unnaturally consider the greatest poem
ever penned.
But I did not know it then as I do now—
and how the lines eluded me! I seemed to see
them in the book, yet I could not read the
words!
54


My Reward
“ Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink."
That, of course, came first (incorrectly) ; and
it reminded me of my thirst, which the blood
of the fowls had so very partially appeased. I
see now that it is lucky I could recall but little
more. Experience is less terrible than realisa—
tion, and that poem makes me realise what I
went through as memory cannot. It has
verses which would have driven me mad. On
the other hand, the exhaustive mental search
for them distracted my thoughts until the stars
were back in the sky; and now I had a new
occupation, saying to myself all the poetry I
could remember, especially that of the sea; for
I was a bookish fellow even then. But I never
was anything of a scholar. It is odd, there-
fore, that the one apposite passage which re-
curred to me in its entirety was in hexameters
and pentameters:—
Me miserum, quanti montes volvuntur aquarum!
Jam jam tacturos sidera summa putes.
Quanta: diducto subsidunt requore valles !
Jam jam tacturas Tartara nigra putes.
Quocunque adspicio, nihil est nisi pontus et aather;
Fluctibus hic tumidis, nubibus ille minax. . . .
55


Dead Men Tell No Tales
More there was of it in my head; but this
much was an accurate statement of my case;
and yet less so now (I was thankful to reflect)
than in the morning, when every wave was in-
deed a mountain, and its trough a Tartarus.
I had learnt the lines at school; nay, they had
formed my very earliest piece of Latin repeti~
tion. And how sharply I saw the room I said
them in, the man I said them to, ever since my
friend! I figured him even now hearing Ovid
rep., the same passage in the same room. And
I lay saying it on a hen-coop in the middle of
the Atlantic Ocean!
At last I fell into a deep sleep, a long uncon-
scious holiday of the soul, undefiled by any
dream.
They say that our dreaming is done as we
slowly wake; then was I out of the way of it
that night, for a sudden violent rocking awoke
me in one horrid instant. I made it worse by
the way I started to a sitting posture. I had
shipped some water. I was shipping more.
Yet all around the sea was glassy; whence then
the commotion? As my ship came trim again,
and I saw that my hour was not yet, the cause
occurred to me; and my heart turned so sick‘
that it was minutes before I had the courage
to test my theory.
56


My Reward
It was the true one.
A shark had been at my trailing fowls ; had
taken the bunch of them together, dragging
the legs from my loose fastenings. Lucky
they had been no stronger! Else had I been
dragged down to perdition too.
Lucky, did I say? The refinement of cru—
elty rather; for now I had neither meat nor
drink; my throat was a kiln: my tongue a
flame: and another day at hand.
The stars were out; the sea was silver; the
sun was up!
. . . . . . . . .
Hours passed.
I was waiting now for my delirium.
It came in bits.
I was a child. I was playing on the lawn at
home. I was back on the blazing sea.
I was a schoolboy saying my Ovid; then
back once more.
The hen-coop was the Lady I ermyn. I was
at Eva Denison’s side. They were marrying
us on board. The ship’s bell was ringing for
us; a guitar in the background burlesqued the
Wedding March under skinny fingers; the air
was poisoned by a million cigarettes, they
raised a pal] of smoke above the mastheads,
57


Dead Men Tell No Tales
they set fire to the ship; smoke and flame cov-
ered the sea from rim to rim, smoke and flame
filled the universe; the sea dried up, and I was
left lying in its bed, lying in my coffin, with
red-hot teeth, because the sun blazed right
above them, and my withered lips were drawn
back from them for ever.
So once more I came back to my living
death: too weak now to carry a finger to the
salt-water and back to my mouth: too weak to
think of Eva: too weak to pray any longer for
the end, to trouble or to care any more.
Only so- tired. . - . o
Death has no more terrors for me. I have
supped the last horror of the worst death a man
can die. You shall hear now for what I_was
delivered; you shall read of my reward.
My floating coflin was many things in turn;
a railway carriage, a pleasure boat on the
Thames, a hammock under the trees; last of
all it was the upper berth in a not very sweet-
smelling cabin, with a clatter of knives and
forks near at hand, and a very strong odour of
onions in the Irish-stew.
My hand crawled to my head; both felt a
wondrous weight; and my head was covered
58


My Reward
with bristles no longer than those on my chin,
only less stubborn.
“Where am I? ” I feebly asked.
The knives and forks clattered on, and pres-
ently I burst out crying because they had not
heard me, and I knew that I could never make
them hear. Well, they heard my sobs, and a
huge fellow came with his mouth full, and
smelling like a pickle-bottle.
“ Where am I?”
“Aboard the brig Eliza, Liverpool, home-
ward bound; glad to see them eyes open.”
“ Have I been here long?”
“ Matter 0’ ten days.”
“ Where did you find me?”
“ Floating in a hen-coop: thought you was
a dead ’un.”
“ Do you know what ship? ”
“ Do we know? N o, that’s what you’ve got
to tell us! ”
“ I can’t,” I sighed, too weak to wag my
head upon the pillow.
The man went to my cabin door.
“Here’s a go,” said he; “forgotten the
name of his blessed ship, he has. Where’s
that there paper, Mr. Bowles? There’s just a
chance it may be the same.”
59


My Reward
seem to have heard that name before. Won’t
you give me another chance?”
The paper was unfolded with a shrug.
“There was another passenger of the name
of San—Santos. Dutchman, seemin’ly. Ever
heard 0’ him? ”
My disappointment was keen. I could not
say that I had. Yet I would not swear that I
had not.
“Oh, won’t you? Well, there’s only one
more chance. Ever heard of Miss Eva Deni-
son ”
“ By God, yes! Have you? ”
I was sitting bolt upright in my bunk. The
skipper’s beard dropped upon his chest.
“ Bless my soul! The last name 0’ the lot,
too! ”
“ Have you heard of her?” I reiterated.
“ Wait a bit, my ladl Not so fast. Lie
down again and tell me who she was.”
“ Who she was?” I screamed. “ I want to
know where she is! ”
“I can’t hardly say,” said the captain awk-
wardly. “We found the gig 0’ the Lady Jer-
myn the week arter we found you, bein’ be-
calmed like; there wasn’t no lady aboard her,
though.”

6r


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ Was there anybody?”
“ Two dead ’uns-—an’ this here paper.”.
“ Let me see it! ”
The skipper hesitated.
I " Hadn’t you better wait a bit? ”
“ No, no; for Christ’s sake let me see the
worst; do you think I can’t read it in your
face?”
I could—I did. I made that plain to them,
and at last I had the paper smoothed out upon
my knees. It was a short statement of the
last sufferings of those who had escaped in
the gig, and there was nothing in it that I did
not now expect. They had buried Ready
first—then my darling—then her step-father.
The rest expected to follow fast enough. It
was all written plainly, on a sheet of the log-
book, in different trembling hands. Cap-
tain Harris had gone next; and two had been
discovered dead.
How long I studied that bit of crumpled
paper, with the salt spray still sparkling on it
faintly, God alone knows. All at once a peal
of nightmare laughter rattled through the
cabin. My deliverers started back. The
laugh was mine.
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
took no further interest in the world, but, on
the contrary, resented its attentions with un-
reasonable warmth and obduracy; and my
would~be friends I regarded as my very worst
enemies. The majority, I feel sure, meant but
well and kindly by the poor survivor. But
the survivor could not forget that his name
was still in the newspapers, nor blink the fact
that he was an unworthy hero of the passing
hour. And he suffered enough from brazenly
meddlesome and self-seeking folk, from im-
pudent and inquisitive intruders, to justify
some suspicion of old acquaintances suddenly
styling themselves old friends, and of distant
connections newly and unduly eager to claim
relationship. Many I misjudged, and have
long known it. On the whole, however, I
wonder at that attitude of mine as little as I
approve of it.
If I had distinguished myself in any other
way, it would have been a different thing. It
was the fussy, sentimental, inconsiderate in-
terest in one thrown into purely accidental and
necessarily painful prominence—the vulgari-
sation of an unspeakable tragedy—that my
soul abhorred. I confess that I regarded it
from my own unique and selfish point of view.

64


The Sole Survivor
What was a thrilling matter to the world was
a torturing memory to me. The quintessence
of the torture was, moreover, my own secret.
It was not the loss of the Lady Jermyn that I
could not bear to speak about; it was my own
loss; but the one involved the other. My loss
apart, however, it was plain enough to dwell
upon experiences so terrible and yet so recent
as those which I had lived to tell. I did what
I considered my duty to the public, but I cer-
tainly did no more. My reticence was re-
buked in the papers that made the most of me,
but would fain have made more. And yet I
do not think that I was anything but docile
with those who had a manifest right to ques-
tion me; to the owners, and to other interested
persons, with whom I was confronted on one
pretext or another, I told my tale as fully and
as freely as I have told it here, though each
telling hurt more than the last. That was
necessary and unavoidable; it was the private
intrusions which I resented with all the spleen
the sea had left me in exchange for the quali-
ties it had taken away.
Relatives I had as few as misanthropist
could desire; but from self-congratulation on
the fact, on first landing, I soon came to keen
65


Dead Men Tell No Tales
regret. They at least would have sheltered
me from spies and busy-bodies; they at least
would have secured the peace and privacy of
one who was no hero in fact or spirit, whose
noblest deed was a piece of self-preservation
which he wished undone with all his heart.
Self-consciousness no doubt multiplied my
flattering assailants. I have said that my
nerves were shattered. I may have imagined
much and exaggerated the rest. Yet what
truth there was in my suspicions you shall
duly see. I felt sure that I was followed in the
street, and my every movement dogged by
those to whom I would not condescend to turn
and look. Meanwhile, I had not the courage
to go near my club, and the Temple was a
place where I was accosted in every court,
effusively congratulated on the marvellous
preservation of my stale spoilt life, and in-
vited right and left to spin my yarn over a
quiet pipe! Well, perhaps such invitations
were not so common as they have grown in
my memory; nor must you confuse my then
feelings on all these matters with those which
I entertain as I write. I have grown older,
and, I hope, something kindlier and wiser
since then. Yet to this day I cannot blame
66


The Sole Survivor
myself for abandoning my chambers and
avoiding my club.
For a temporary asylum I pitched upon a
small, quiet, empty, private hotel which I
knew of in Charterhouse Square. Instantly
the room next mine became occupied.
All the first night I imagined I heard voices
talking about me in that room next door. It
was becoming a disease with me. Either I
was being dogged, watched, followed, day and
night, indoors and out, or I was the victim of
a very ominous hallucination. That night I
never closed an eye nor lowered my light. In
the morning I took a four-wheel cab and
drove straight to Harley Street; and, upon my
soul, as I stood on the specialist’s door-step,
I could have sworn I saw the occupant of the
room next mine dash by me in a hansom!
“Ah!” said the specialist; “ so you cannot
sleep; you hear voices; you fancy you are
being followed in the street. You don’t think
these fancies spring entirely from the imag-
ination? Not entirely—just so. And you
keep looking behind you, as though somebody
were at your elbow; and you prefer to sit with
your back close to the wall. Just so—
just so. Distressing symptoms, to be sure,
67


The Sole Survivor
“ Keep up your heart, my dear sir,” said he.
“ Keep up your courage and your heart.”
“ My heart!” I cried. “ It’s at the bottom
of the Atlantic Ocean.”
He was the first to whom I had said as
much. He was a stranger. What did it
matter? And, oh, it was so true—so true.
Every day and all day I was thinking of my
love; every hour and all hours she was before
me with her sunny hair and young, young
face. Her wistful eyes were gazing into mine
continually. Their wistfulness I had never
realised at the time; but now I did; and I saw
it for what it seemed always to have been, the
soft, sad, yearning look of one fated to die
young. So young—so young! And I might
live to be an old man, mourning her.
That I should never love again I knew full
well. This time there was no mistake. I have
implied, I believe, that it was for another wom-
an I fled originally to the diggings. Well,
that one was still unmarried, and when the
papers were full of me she wrote me a letter
which I now believe to have been merely kind.
At the time I was all uncharitableness; but
words of mine would fail to tell you how cold
this letter left me; it was as a candle lighted
in the full blaze of the sun.

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Dead Men Tell No Tales
With all my bitterness, however, you must
not suppose that I had quite lost the feelings
which had inspired me at sunset on the lonely
ocean, while my mind still held good. I had
been too near my Maker ever to lose those
feelings altogether. They were with me in the
better moments of these my worst days. I
trusted His wisdom still. There was a reason
for everything; there were reasons for all this.
I alone had been saved out of all those souls
who sailed from Melbourne in the Lady Jer-
myn. Why should I have been the favoured
one; I with my broken heart and now lonely
life? Some great inscrutable reason there
must be; at my worst I did not deny that.
But neither did I puzzle my sick brain with the
reason. I just waited for it to be revealed to
me, if it were God’s will ever to reveal it. And
that I conceive to be the one spirit in which
a man may contemplate, with equal sanity and
reverence, the mysteries and the miseries of
his life.

70


CHAPTER VII
I FIND A FRIEND
The night after I consulted the specialist
I was quite determined to sleep. I had laid in
a bundle of the daily papers. No country cot-
tage was advertised to let but I knew of it by
evening, and about all the likely ones I had
already written. The scheme occupied my
thoughts. Trout—fishing was a desideratum.
I would take my rod and plenty of books,
would live simply and frugally, and it should
make a new man of me by Christmas. It was
now October. I went to sleep thinking of
autumn tints against an autumn sunset. It
must have been very early, certainly not later
than ten o’clock; the previous night I had
not slept at all.
Now, this private hotel of mine was a very
old-fashioned house, dark and dingy all day
long, with heavy old chandeliers and black old
oak, and dead flowers in broken flower-pots
surrounding a grimy grass-plot in the rear.
On this latter my bedroom window looked;
7r


Dead Men Tell No Tales
and never am I likely to forget the vile music
of the cats throughout my first long wakeful
night there. The second night they actually
woke me; doubtless they had been busy long
enough, but it was all of a sudden that I heard
them, and lay listening for more, wide awake
in an instant. My window had been very
softly opened, and the draught fanned my
forehead as I held my breath.
A faint light glimmered through a ground-
glass pane over the door; and was dimly re—
flected by the toilet mirror, in its usual place
against the window. This mirror I saw
moved, and next moment I had bounded from
bed.
The mirror fell with a horrid clatter: the
toilet-table followed it with a worse: the thief
was gone as he had come ere my toes halted
aching amid the debris.
A useless little balcony—stone slab and iron
railing—jutted out from my window. I
thought I saw a hand on the railing, another
on the slab, then both together on the lower
level for one instant before they disappeared.
There was a dull yet springy thud on the grass
below. Then no more noise but the distant
thunder of the traffic, and the one that woke
7:


I Find a Friend
me, until the window next mine was thrown
up.
“ What the devil’s up? ”
The voice was rich, cheery, light-hearted,
agreeable; all that my own was not as I an-
swered “Nothing! ” for this was not the first
time my next-door neighbour had tried to
scrape acquaintance with me.
“ But surely, sir, I heard the very dickens of
a row?”
“ You may have done.”
“I was afraid some one had broken into
your room! ”
“ As a matter of fact,” said I, put to shame
by the undiminished good-humour of my
neighbour, “ some one did; but he’s gone now,
so let him be.”
“ Gone? Not he! He’s getting over that
wall. After him—after him! ” And the head
disappeared from the window next mine.
I rushed into the corridor, and was just in
time to intercept a singularly handsome
young fellow, at whom I had hardly taken the
trouble to look until now. He was in full
evening dress, and his face was radiant with
the spirit of mischief and adventure.
“ For God’s sake, sir,” I whispered, “ let this
73


Dead Men Tell No Tales
matter rest. I shall have to come forward if
you persist, and heaven knows I have been be-
fore the public quite enough! ”
His dark eyes questioned me an instant,
then fell as though he would not disguise
that he recollected and understood. I liked
him for his good taste. I liked him for his
tacit sympathy, and better still for the amus-
ing disappointment in his gallant, young
face.
“ I am sorry to have robbed you of a pleas-
ant chase,” said I. “At one time I should
have been the first to join you. But, to tell
you the truth, I’ve had enough excitement
lately to last me for my life.”
“ I can believe that,” he answered with his
fine eyes full upon me. How strangely I had
misjudged him! I saw no vulgar curiosity in
his flattering gaze, but rather that very sym-
pathy of which I stood in need. I offered him
my hand.
“ It is very good of you to give in,” I said.
“ No one else has heard a thing, you see. I
shall look for another opportunity of thanking
you to-morrow.”
“ No, no! ” cried he, “ thanks be hanged, but
—but, I say, if I promise you not to bore you
74


Dead Men Tel! No Tales
and I produced my trophy. “ Why, what the
mischief have you got there?”
“ My caller’s card,” said I. “ He left it be-
hind him. Feel the edge.”
I have seldom seen a more indignant face
than the one which my new acquaintance bent
over the weapon, as he held it to the light, and
ran his finger along the blade. He could not
have frowned more heavily if he had recog-
nized the knife.
“ The villains!” he muttered. “ The
damned villains! ”
“Villains? ” I queried. “ Did you see more
than one of them, then?”
“Didn’t you?” he asked quickly. “ Yes,
yes, to be sure! There was at least one other
beggar skulking down below.” He stood
looking at me, the knife in his hand, though
mine was held out for it. “ Don’t you think,
Mr. Cole, that it’s our duty to hand this over
to the police? I—I’ve heard of other cases
about these Inns of Court. There’s evidently
a gang of them, and this knife might convict
the lot; there’s no saying; anyway I think the
police should have it. If you like I’ll take it
to Scotland Yard myself, and hand it over
without mentioning your name.”
76


I Find a Friend
“ Oh, if you keep my name out of it,” said I,
“and say nothing about it here in the hotel,
you may do what you like, and welcome! It’s
the proper course, no doubt; only I’ve had
publicity enough, and would sooner have felt
that blade in my body than set my name going
again in the newspapers.”
“I understand,” he said, with his well-bred
sympathy, which never went a shade too far;
and he dropped the weapon into a drawer,
as the boots entered with the tray. In a min-
ute he had_brewed two steaming jorums of
spirit-and-water; as he handed me one, I
feared he was going to drink my health, or
toast my luck; but no, he was the one man I
had met who seemed, as he said, to “ under-
stand.” Nevertheless, he had his toast.
“ Here’s confusion to the criminal classes in
general,” he cried; “ but death and damnation
to the owners of that knife! ”
And we clinked tumblers across the little
ovalv table in the middle of the room. It was
more of a sitting-room than mine; a bright
fire was burning in the grate, and my com—
panion insisted on my sitting over it in the
arm-chair, while for himself he fetched the one
from his bedside, and drew up the table so
77


Dead Men Tell No Tales
that our glasses should be handy. He then
produced a handsome cigar-case admirably
stocked, and we smoked and sipped in the
cosiest fashion, though without exchanging
many words.
You may imagine my pleasure in the society
of a youth, equally charming in looks, man-
ners and address, who had not one word to say
to me about the Lady Jermyn or my hen-coop.
It was unique. Yet such, I suppose, was my
native contrariety, that I felt I could have
spoken of the catastrophe to this very boy with
less reluctance than to any other creature
whom I had encountered since my deliver-
ance. He seemed so full of silent sympathy:
his consideration for my feelings was so
marked and yet so unobtrusive. I have called
him a boy. I am apt to write as the old man
I have grown, though I do believe I felt
older then than now. In any case my young
friend was some years my junior. I after-
wards found out that he was six-and-twenty.
I have also called him handsome. He was
the handsomest man that I have ever met, had
the frankest face, the finest eyes, the brightest
smile. Yet his bronzed forehead was low, and
his mouth rather impudent and bold than truly
78


I Find a Friend
strong. And there was a touch of foppery
about him, in the enormous white tie and the
much-cherished whiskers of the fifties, which
was only redeemed by that other touch of dev-
ilry that he had shown me in the corridor. By
the rich brown of his complexion, as well as
by a certain sort of swagger in his walk, I
should have said that he was a naval officer
ashore, had he not told me who he was of his
own accord.
“ By the way,” he said, “ I ought to give
you my name. It’s Rattray, of one of the
many Kirby Halls in this country. My one’s
down in Lancashire.”
“ I suppose there’s no need to tell my
name?” said I, less sadly, I daresay, than I
had ever yet alluded to the tragedy which I
alone survived. It was an unnecessary al-
lusion, too, as a reference to the foregoing
conversation will show.
“ Well, no,” said he, in his frank fashion ; -“ I
can’t honestly say there is.”
We took a few puffs, he watching the fire,
and I his firelit face.
“ It must seem strange to you to be sitting
with the only man who lived to tell the tale! ”
The egotism of this speech was not wholly
79 '


Dead Men Tell No Tales
gratuitous. . I thought it did seem strange to
him: that a needless constraint was put upon
him by excessive consideration for my feel-
ings. I desired to set him at his case as he
had set me at mine. On the contrary, he
seemed quite startled by my remark.
“ It is strange,” he said, with a shudder, fol-
lowed by the biggest sip of brandy-and-water
he had taken yet. “ It must have been hor»
rible—horrible l” he added to himself, his dark
eyes staring into the fire.
“ Ah! " said I, “it was even more horrible
than you suppose or can even imagine.”
I was not thinking of myself, nor of my
love, nor of any particular incident of the fire
that still went on burning in my brain. My
tone was doubtless confidential, but I was
meditating no special confidence when my
companion drew one with his next words.
These, however, came after a pause, in which
my eyes had fallen from his face, but in which
I heard him emptying his glass.
“ What do you mean?” he whispered.
“ That there were other circumstances—things
which haven’t got into the papers?”
“ God knows there were,” I answered, my
face in my hands; and, my grief brought home
80


q I Find a Friend
to me, there I sat with it in the presence of
that stranger, without compunction and with-
out shame.
He sprang up and paced the room. His
tact made me realise my weakness, and I was
struggling to overcome it when he surprised
me by suddenly stopping and laying a rather
tremulous hand upon my shoulder.
“You—it wouldn’t do you any good to
speak of those circumstances, I suppose? ” he
faltered.
“ No: not now: no good at all.”
“ Forgive me,” he said, resuming his walk.
“ I had no business—I felt so sorry—I cannot
tell you how I sympathise! And yet—I won-
der if you will always feel so? ”
“ No saying how I shall feel when I am a
man again,” said I. “ You see what I am at
present.” And, pulling myself together, I
rose to find my new friend quite agitated in his
turn.
“I wish we had some more brandy,” he
sighed. “I’m afraid it’s too late to get any
now.”
“ And I’m glad of it,” said I. “ A man in
my state ought not to look at spirits, or he
may never look past them again. Thank
8r


Dead Men Tell No Tales
goodness, there are other medicines. Only
this morning I consulted the best man on
nerves in London. I wish I’d gone tolhim
long ago.” W
“ Harley Street, was it? ”
“Yes.”
“ Saw you on his doorstep, by Jove! ” cried
Rattray at once. “ I was driving over to
Hampstead, and I thought it was you. “fell,
what’s the prescription?”
In my satisfaction at finding that he had not
been dogging me intentionally (though I had
forgotten the incident till he reminded me of
it), I answered his question with unusual ful-
ness.
“ I should go abroad,” said Rattray. “ But
then, I always am abroad; it’s only the other
day I got back from South America, and I
shall up anchor again before this filthy Eng-
lish winter sets in.”
Was he a sailor after all, or only a well-t0-
do wanderer on the face of the earth? He
now mentioned that he was only in England
for a few weeks, to have a look at his estate,
and so forth; after which he plunged into more
or less enthusiastic advocacy of this or that
foreign resort, as opposed to the English
82


I Find a Friend
cottage upon which I told him I had set my
heart.
He was now, however, less spontaneous, I
thought, than earlier in the night. His voice
had lost its hearty ring, and he seemed preoc-
cupied, as if talking of one matter while he
thought upon another. Yet he would not let
me go; and presently he confirmed my sus—
picion, no less than my first impression of his
delightful frankness and cordiality, by candid-
ly telling me what was on his mind.
“ If you really want a cottage in the coun-
try,” said he, “ and the most absolute peace and
quiet to be got in this world, I know of the
very thing on my land in Lancashire. It
would drive me mad in a week; but if you
really care for that sort of thing ”
“ An occupied cottage ?” I interrupted.
“ Yes; a couple rent it from me, very decent
people of the name of Braithwaite. The man
is out all day, and won’t bother you when he’s
in; he’s not like other people, poor chap. But
the woman’s all there, and would do her best
for you in a humble, simple, wholesome sort
of way.”
“ You think they would take me in?”
“ They have taken other men—artists as a
rule.”

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Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ Then it’s a picturesque country?”
“ Oh, it’s that if it’s nothing else; but not a
town for miles, mind you, and hardly a village
worthy the name.”
“ Any fishing? ”
“ Yes—trout—small but plenty of ’em—in a
heck running close behind the cottage.”
“ Come,” cried I, “this sounds delightful!
Shall you be up there?”
“ Only for a day or two,” was the reply. “ I
shan’t trouble you, Mr. Cole.”
“ My dear sir, that wasn’t my meaning at all.
I’m only sorry I shall not see something of
you on your own heath. I can’t thank you
enough for your kind suggestion. When do
you suppose the Braithwaites could do with
me ? ”
His charming smile rebuked my impa-
tience.
“We must first see whether they can do
with you at all,” said he. “ I sincerely hope
they can; but this is their time of year for
tourists, though perhaps a little late. I’ll tell
you what I’ll do. As a matter of fact, I’m
going down there to—morrow, and I’ve got to
telegraph to my place in any case to tell them
when to meet me. I’ll send the telegram first
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I Find a Friend
thing, and I’ll make them send one back to
say whether there’s room in the cottage or
not.”
I thanked him warmly, but asked if the
cottage was close to Kirby Hall, and whether
this would not be giving a deal of trouble at
the other end; whereupon he mischievously
misunderstood me a second time, saying the
cottage and the hall were not even in sight of
each other, and I really had no intrusion to
fear, as he was a lonely bachelor like myself,
and would only be up there four or five days at
the most. So I made my appreciation of his
society plainer than ever to him; for indeed I
had found a more refreshing pleasure in it al-
ready than I had hoped to derive from mortal
man again; and we parted, at three o’clock in
the morning, like old fast friends.
“ Only don’t expect too much, my dear Mr.
Cole,” were his last words to me. “ My own
place is as ancient and as tumble-down as
most ruins that you pay to see over. And I’m
never there myself because—I tell you frankly
—I hate it like poison! ”
85


CHAPTER VIII
A SMALL PRECAUTION
My delight in the society of this young
Squire Rattray (as I soon was to hear him
styled) had been such as to make me almost
forget the sinister incident which had brought
us together. When I returned to my room,
however, there were the open window and the
litter on the floor to remind me of what had
happened earlier in the night. Yet I was less
disconcerted than you might suppose. A
common housebreaker can have few terrors
for one who has braved those of mid-ocean
single-handed; my would-be visitor had no
longer any for me; for it had not yet occurred
to me to connect him with the voices and the
footsteps to which, indeed, I had been unable
to swear before the doctor. On the other
hand, these morbid imaginings (as I was far
from unwilling to consider them) had one and
all deserted me in the sane, clean company of
the capital young fellow in the next room.
I have confessed my condition up to the

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A Small Precaution
time of this queer meeting. I have tried to
bring young Rattray before you with some
hint of his freshness and his boyish charm;
and though the sense of failure is heavy upon
me there, I who knew the man knew also that
I must fail to do him justice. Enough may have
been said, however, to impart some faint idea
of what this youth was to me in the bitter and
embittering anti-climax of my life. Conven-
tional figures spring to my pen, but every one
of them is true; he was flowers in spring, he
was sunshine after rain, he was rain following
long months of drought. I slept admirably
after all; and I awoke to see the overturned
toilet-table, and to thrill as I remembered
there was one fellow-creature with whom I
could fraternise without the fear of a rude re-
opening of my every wound.
I hurried my dressing in the hope of our
breakfasting together. I knocked at the next
door, and, receiving no answer, even ventured
to enter, with the same idea. He was not
there. He was not in the coffee-room. He
was not in the hotel.
I broke my fast in disappointed solitude,
and I hung about disconsolate all the morn-
ing, looking wistfully for my new-made
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
friend. Towards mid-day he drove up in a
cab which he kept waiting at the curb.
“It’s all right!” he cried out in his hearty
way. “I sent my telegram first thing, and
I’ve had the answer at my club. The rooms
are vacant, and I’ll see that Jane Braith-
waite has all ready for you by to-morrow
night.”
I thanked him from my heart. “You seem
in a hurry l” I added, as I followed him up the
stairs.
“I am,” said he. “It’s a near thing for the
train. I’ve just time to stick in my things.”
“Then I’ll stick in mine,” said I impulsively,
“and I’ll come with you, and doss down in any
comer for the night.”
He stopped and turned on the stairs.
“You mustn’t do that,” said he; “they won’t
have anything ready. I’m going to make it
my privilege to see that everything is as cosy
as possible when you arrive. I simply can’t
allow you to come to-day, Mr. Cole l” He
smiled, but I saw that he was in earnest, and
of course I gave in.
“All right,” said I; “then I must content
myself with seeing you off at the station.”
T o my surprise his smile faded, and a flush
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A Small Precaution
of undisguised annoyance made him, if any-
thing, better-looking than ever. It brought
out a certain strength of mouth and jaw which
I had not observed there hitherto. It gave
him an ugliness of expression which only em-
phasized his perfection of feature.
“You mustn’t do that either,” said he, short-
ly. “I have an appointment at the station. I
shall be talking business all the time.”
He was gone to his room, and I went to
mine feeling duly snubbed; yet I deserved it;
for I had exhibited a characteristic (though
not chronic) want of taste, of which I am
sometimes guilty to this day. Not to show
ill-feeling on the head of it, I nevertheless fol-
lowed him down again in four or five minutes.
And I was rewarded by his brightest smile
as he grasped my hand.
“Come to-morrow by the same train,” said
he, naming station, line, and hour; “unless I
telegraph, all will be ready and you shall be
met. You may rely on reasonable charges.
As to the fishing, go up-stream——to the right
when you strike the beck—and you’ll find a
good pool or two. I may have to go to Lan-
caster the day after to-morrow, but I shall
give you a call when I get back.”
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A Small Precaution
night’s outrage. It was no common burglar’s
work, for what had I worth stealing? It was
the work of my unseen enemies, who dogged
me in the street, they alone knew why; the
doctor had called these hallucinations, and I
had forced myself to agree with the doctor;
but I could not deceive myself in my present
mood. I remembered the steps, the steps—-
the stopping when I stopped—the drawing
away in the crowded streets—the closing up
in quieter places. Why had I never looked
round? Why? because till to-day I had
thought it mere vulgar curiosity; because a
few had bored me, I had imagined the many
at my heels; but now I knew—I knew! It
was the few again: a few who hated me even
unto death.
The idea took such a hold upon me that I
did not trouble my head with reasons and mo-
tives. Certain persons had designs upon
my life; that was enough for me. On the
whole, the thought was stimulating; it set a
new value on existence, and it roused a cer-
tain amount of spirit even in me. I would
7 give the fellows another chance before I left
town. They should follow me once more,
and this time to some purpose. Last night
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
they had left a knife on me; to-night I would
have a keepsake ready for them.
Hitherto I had gone unarmed since my
landing, which, perhaps, was no more than
my duty as a civilized citizen. On Black Hill
Flats, however, I had formed another habit,
of which I should never have broken myself
so easily, but for the fact that all the firearms
I ever had were reddening and rotting at the
bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. I now went
out and bought me such a one as I had never
possessed before.
The revolver was then in its infancy; but it
did exist; and by dusk I was owner of as
fine a specimen as could be procured in the
City of London. It had but five chambers, but
the barrel was ten inches long; one had to cap
it, and to put in the powder and the wadded
bullet separately; but the last-named would
have killed an elephant. The oak case that I
bought with it cumbers my desk as I write,
and, shut, you would think that it had never
contained anything more lethal than fruit-
knives. I open it, and there are the green-
baize compartments, one with a box of percus-
sion caps, still apparently full, another that
could not contain many more wadded-bullets,
and a third with a powder-horn which can
92


A Small Precaution
never have been much lighter. Within the
lid is a label bearing the makers’ names; the
gentlemen themselves are unknown to me,
even if they are still alive; nevertheless, after
five-and-forty years, let me dip my pen to
Messrs. Deane, Adams and Deane!
That night I left this case in my room,
locked, and the key in my waistcoat pocket; in
the right-hand side-pocket of my overcoat I
carried my Deane-and-Adams, loaded in every
chamber; also my right hand, as innocently
as you could wish. And just that night I was
not followed! I walked across Regent’s
Park, and I dawdled on Primrose Hill, with-
out the least result. Down I turned into the
Avenue Road, and presently was strolling
between green fields towards Finchley. The
moon was up, but nicely shaded by a thin
coating of clouds which extended across the
sky: it was an ideal night for it. It was also
my last night in town, and I did want to give
the beggars their last chance. But they did
not even attempt to avail themselves of it:
never once did they follow me: my ears were
in too good training to make any mistake.
And the reason only dawned on me as I drove
back disappointed: they had followed me al-
ready to the gunsmith’s!
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
Convinced of this, I entertained but little
hope of another midnight visitor. Neverthe-
less, I put my light out early, and sat a long
time peeping through my blind; but only an
inevitable Tom, with back bunched up and tail
erect, broke the moonlit profile of the back-
garden wall; and once more that disreputable
music (which none the less had saved my life)
was the only near sound all night.
I felt very reluctant to pack Deane and
Adams away in his case next morning, and the
case in my portmanteau, where I could not get
at it in case my unknown friends took it into
their heads to accompany me out of town. In
the hope that they would, I kept him loaded,
and in the same overcoat pocket, until late in
the afternoon, when, being very near my
northern destination, and having the compart-
ment to myself, I locked the toy away with
considerable remorse for the price I had paid
for it. All down the line I had kept an
eye for suspicious characters with an eye upon
me; but even my self-consciousness failed to
discover one; and I reached my haven of
peace, and of fresh fell air, feeling, I suppose,
much like any other fool who has spent his
money upon a white elephant.
94


CHAPTER IX
MY CONVALESCENT HOME
The man Braithwaite met me at the sta-
tion with a spring—cart. The very porters
seemed to expect me, and my luggage was in
the cart before I had given up my ticket. Nor
had we started when I first noticed that
Braithwaite did not speak when I spoke to
him. On the way, however, a more flagrant
instance recalled young Rattray’s remark,
that the man was “not like other people.” I
had imagined it to refer to a mental, not a
physical, defect; whereas it was clear to me
now that my prospective landlord was stone-
deaf, and I presently discovered him to be
dumb as well. Thereafter I studied him with
some attention during our drive of four or five
miles. I called to mind the theory that an in—
nate physical deficiency is seldom without its
moral counterpart, and I wondered how far
this would apply to the deaf-mute at my side,
who was ill~grown, wizened, and puny into the
bargain. The brow-beaten face of him was
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
certainly forbidding, and he thrashed his horse
up the hills in a dogged, vindictive, thorough-
going way which at length made me jump out
and climb one of them on foot. It was the
only form of protest that occurred to me.
The evening was damp and thick. It
melted into night as we drove. I could form
no impression of the country, but this seemed
desolate enough. I believe we met no living
soul on the high-road which we followed for
the first three miles or more. At length we
turned into a narrow lane, with a stiff stone
wall on either hand, and this eventually led its
past the lights of what appeared to be a large
farm; it was really a small hamlet; and now we
were nearing our destination. Gates had to be
opened, and my poor driver breathed hard
from the continual getting down and up. In
the end a long and heavy cart-track brought
us to the loneliest light that I have ever seen.
It shone on the side of a hill—in the heart of
an open wilderness—as solitary as a beacon-
!ight at sea. It was the light of the cottage
which was to be my temporary home.
A very tall, gaunt woman stood in the door-
way against the inner glow. She advanced
with a loose long stride, and invited me to
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My Convalescent Home
enter in a voice harsh (I took it) from disuse.
I was warming myself before the kitchen fire
when she came in carrying my heaviest box as
though it had nothing in it. I ran to take it
from her, for the box was full of books, but
she shook her head, and was on the stairs with
it before I could intercept her.
I conceive that very few men are attracted
by abnormal strength in a woman; we cannot
help it; and yet it was not her strength which
first repelled me in Mrs. Braithwaite. It was
a combination of attributes. She had a poll
of very dirty and untidy red hair; her eyes
were set close together; she had the jowl of
the traditional prize-fighter. But far more
disagreeable than any single feature was the
woman’s expression, or rather the expression
which I caught her assuming naturally, and
banishing with an effort for my benefit. To
me she was strenuously civil in her uncouth
way. But I saw her give her husband one
look, as he staggered in with my comparatively
light portmanteau, which she instantly
snatched out of his feeble arms. I saw this
look again before the evening was out, and it
was such a one as Braithwaite himself had
fixed upon his horse as he flogged it up the
hills.
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
I began to wonder how the young squire
had found it in his conscience to recommend
such a pair. I wondered less when the wom-
an finally ushered me upstairs to my rooms.
These were small and rugged, but eminently
snug and clean. In each a good fire blazed
cheerfully; my portmanteau was already un-
strapped, the table in the sitting-room already
laid; and I could not help looking twice at the
silver and the glass, so bright was their condi-
tion, so good their quality. Mrs. Braithwaite
watched me from the door.
“I doubt you’ll be thinking them’s our
own,” said she. “I wish they were; t’ squire
sent ’em in this afternoon.”
“For my use?”
“Ay; I doubt he thought what we had our-
selves wasn’t good enough. An’ it’s him ’at
sent t’ armchair, t’ bed-linen, t' bath, an’ that
there lookin’-glass an’ all.”
She had followed me into the bedroom,
where I looked with redoubled interest at each
object as she mentioned it, and it was in the
glass—a masqueline shaving-glass—that I
caught my second glimpse of my landlady’s
evil expression—levelled this time at my-
self.
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My Convalescent Home
I instantly turned round and told her that I
thought it very kind of Mr. Rattray, but that,
for my part, I was not a luxurious man, and
that I felt rather sorry the matter had not been
left entirely in her hands. She retired seem—
ingly mollified, and she took my sympathy
with her, though I was none the less pleased
and cheered by my new friend’s zeal for my
comfort; there were even flowers on my table,
without a doubt from Kirby Hall.
And in another matter the squire had not
misled me: the woman was an excellent plain
cook. I expected ham and eggs. Sure
enough, this was my dish, but done to a turn.
The eggs were new and all unbroken, the ham
so lean and yet so tender, that I would not
have exchanged my humble, hearty meal for
the best dinner served that night in London.
It made a new man of me, after my long jour-
ney and my cold, damp drive. I was for chat-
ting with Mrs. Braithwaite when she came up
to clear away. I thought she might be glad
to talk after the life she must lead with her
afflicted husband, but it seemed to have had
the opposite effect on her. All I elicited was
an ambiguous statement as to the distance be-
tween the cottage and the hall; it was “not so
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
far. And so she left me to my pipe and to
my best night yet, in the stillest spot I have
ever slept in on dry land; one heard nothing
but the bubble of a beck; and it seemed very,
very far away.
A fine, bright morning showed me my new
surroundings in their true colours; even in the
sunshine these were not very gay. But gai-
ety was the last thing I wanted. Peace and
quiet were my whole desire, and both were
here, set in scenery at once lovely to the eye
and bracing to the soul.
From the cottage doorstep one looked upon
a perfect panorama of healthy open English
country. Purple hills hemmed in a broad,
green, undulating plateau, scored across and
across by the stone walls of the north, and all
dappled with the shadows of rolling leaden
clouds with silver fringes. Miles away a
church spire stuck like a spike out of the hol-
low, and the smoke of a village dimmed the
trees behind. No nearer habitation could I
see. I have mentioned a hamlet which we
passed in the spring-cart. It lay hidden be-
hind some hillocks to the left. My landlady
told me it was better than half a mile away,
and “nothing when you get there; no shop;
no post-oflice; not even a public-house.”
IOO


Dead Men Tell No Tales
was purged of oppression by the ceaseless
symphony of clear water running over clean
stones.
But it was no day for fishing, and no place
for the fly, though I went through the form of
throwing one for several hours. Here the
stream merely rinsed its bed, there it stood so
still, in pools of liquid amber, that, when the
sun shone, the very pebbles showed their
shadows in the deepest places. Of course I
caught nothing; but, towards the close of the
gold-brown afternoon, I made yet another
new acquaintance, in the person of a little old
clergyman who attacked me pleasantly from
the rear.
“ Bad day for fishing, sir,” croaked the
cheery voice which first informed me of his
presence. “ Ah, I knew it must be a stran-
ger,” he cried as I turned and he hopped down
to my side with the activity of a much younger
man.
“Yes,” I said, “I only came down from
London yesterday. I find the spot so de—
lightful that I haven’t bothered much about
the sport. Still, I’ve had about enough of it
now.” And I prepared to take my rod to
pieces.
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My Convalescent Home
“ Spot and sport! ” laughed the old gentle—
man. “ Didn’t mean it for a pun, I hope?
Never could endure puns! So you came
down yesterday, young gentleman, did you?
And where may you be staying?”
I described the position of my cottage with-
out the slightest hesitation; for this parson did
not scare me; except in appearance he had so
little in common with his type as I knew it.
He had, however, about the shrewdest pair of
eyes that I have ever seen, and my answer
only served to intensify their open scrutiny.
“ How on earth did you come to hear of a
God-forsaken place like this?” said he, mak-
ing use, I thought, of a somewhat stronger
expression than quite became his cloth.
“ Squire Rattray told me of it,” said I.
“ Ha! So you’re a friend of his, are you?”
And his eyes went through and through me,
like knitting-needles through a ball of wool.
“ I could hardly call myself that,” said I.
“ But Mr. Rattray has been very kind to me.”
“ Meet him in town?”
I said I had, but I said it with some coolness,
for his tone had dropped into the confidential,
and I disliked it as much as this string of ques-
tions from a stranger.


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Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ Long ago, sir?” he pursued.
“ No, sir; not long ago,” I retorted.
“ May I ask your name? ” said he.
“ You may ask what you like,” I cried, with
a final reversal of all my first impressions of
this impertinent old fellow; “ but I’m hanged
if I tell it you! I am here for rest and quiet,
sir. I don’t ask you your name. I can’t for
the life of me see what right you have to ask
me mine, or to question me at all, for that mat-
ter.”
He favoured me with a brief glance of ex—
traordinary suspicion. It faded away in mere
surprise, and, next instant, my elderly and
reverend friend was causing me some com-
punction by colouring like a boy.
“ You may think my curiosity mere im-
pertinence, sir,” said he; “you would think
otherwise if you knew as much as I do of
Squire Rattray’s friends, and how little you
resemble the generality of them. You might
even feel some sympathy for one of the neigh-
bouring clergy, to whom this godless young
man has been for years as a thorn in their
side.”
He spoke so gravely, and what he said was
so easy to believe, that I could not but apolo-
gise for my hasty words.
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My Convalescent Home
“ Don’t name it, sir,” said the clergyman;
“ you had a perfect right to resent my ques-
tions, and I enjoy meeting young men of
spirit; but not when it’s an evil spirit, such as,
I fear, possesses your friend! I do assure
you, sir, that the best thing I have heard of
him for years is the very little that you have
told me. As a rule, to hear of him at all in
this part of the world, is to wish that we had
not heard. I see him coming, however, and
shall detain you no longer, for I don’t deny
that there is no love lost between us.”
I looked round, and there was Rattray on
the top of the bank, a long way to the left,
coming towards me with a waving hat. An
extraordinary ejaculation brought me to the
right-about next instant.
The old clergyman had slipped on a stone
in mid-stream, and, as he dragged a dripping
leg up the opposite bank, he had sworn an
oath worthy of the “ godless young man”
who had put him to flight, and on whose de-
merits he had descanted with so much elo-
quence and indignation.
105


CHAPTER X
WINE AND WEAKNESS
“ Sporting old parson who knows how to
swear? ” laughed Rattray. “ Never saw him
in my life before; wondered who the deuce he
was.”
“ Really? ” said I. “ He professed to know
something of you.”
“Against me, you mean? My dear Cole,
don’t trouble to perjure yourself. I don’t
mind, believe me. They’re easily shocked,
these country clergy, and no doubt I’m a bug-
bear to ’em. Yet, I could have sworn I’d
never seen this one before. Let’s have an-
other look.”
We were walking away together. We
turned on the top of the bank. And there the
old clergyman was planted on the moorside,
and watching us intently from under his hol-
lowed hands.
“Well, I’m hanged!” exclaimed Rattray,
as the hands fell and their owner beat a hasty
retreat. My companion said no more; in-
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Wine and Weakness
deed, for some minutes we pursued our way in
silence. And I thought that it was with an
effort that he broke into sudden inquiries con-
cerning my journey and my comfort at the
cottage.
This gave me an opportunity of thanking
him for his little attentions. “ It was awfully
good of you,” said I, taking his arm as though
I had known him all my life; nor do I think 7‘
there was another living man with whom I
would have linked arms at that time.
“ Good?” cried he. “ Nonsense, my dear
sir! I’m only afraid you find it devilish
rough. But, at all events, you’re coming to
dine with me to-night.”
“ Am I?” I asked, smiling.
“ Rather!” said he. “ My time here is
short enough. I don’t lose sight of you again
between this and midnight.”
“It’s most awfully good of you,” said I
again.
“ Wait till you see! You’ll find it rough
enough at my place; all my retainers} are out
for the day at a local show.”
“ Then I certainly shall not give you the
trouble—”
He interrupted me with his jovial laugh.
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ My good fellow,” he cried, “ that’s the fun
of it! How do you suppose I’ve been spend-
ing the day? Told you I was going to Lan-
caster, did I? Well, I’ve been cooking our
dinner instead—laying the table—getting up
the wines—never had such a joke! Give you
my word, I almost forgot I was in the wilder-
ness! ”
“ So you’re quite alone, are you? ”
“ Yes; as much so as that other beggar who
was monarch of all be surveyed, his right there
was none to dispute, from the what-is-it down
to the glade—”
“ I’ll come,” said I, as we reached the cot-
tage. “ Only first you must let me make my-
self decent.”
“ You’re decent enough! ”
“ My boots are wet; my hands
“ All serene! I’ll give you five minutes.”
And I left him outside, flourishing a hand-
some watch, while, on my way upstairs, I
paused to tell Mrs. Braithwaite that I was din-
ing at the hall. She was busy cooking, and I
felt prepared for her unpleasant expression;
but she showed no annoyance at my news. I
formed the impression that it was no news to
her. And next minute I heard a whispering
”

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Wine and Weakness
below; it was unmistakable in that silent cot-
tage, where not a word had reached me yet,
save in conversation to which I was myself a
party.
I looked out of window. Rattray I could
no longer see. And I confess that I felt both
puzzled and annoyed until we walked away
together, when it was his arm which was im-
mediately thrust through mine.
“ A good soul, Jane,” said he; “ though she
made an idiotic marriage, and leads a life
which might spoil the temper of an archangel.
She was my nurse when I was a youngster,
Cole, and we never meet without a yarn.”
Which seemed natural enough; still I failed
to perceive why they need yarn in whispers.
Kirby Hall proved startlingly near at hand.
We descended the bare valley to the right, we
crossed the beck upon a plank, were in the
oak-plantation about a minute, and there was
the hall upon the farther side.
And a queer old place it seemed, half farm,
half feudal castle: fowls strutting at large
about the back premises (which we were com-
pelled to skirt), and then a front door of pon-
derous oak, deep-set between walls fully six
feet thick, and studded all over with wooden
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
pegs. The facade, indeed, was wholly grim,
with a castellated tower at one end, and a
number of narrow, sunken windows looking
askance on the wreck and ruin of a once prim,
old-fashioned, high-walled garden. I thought
that Rattray might have shown more respect
for the house of his ancestors. It put me in
mind of a neglected grave. And yet I could
forgive a bright young fellow for never com-
ing near so desolate a domain.
We dined delightfully in a large and lofty
hall, formerly used (said Rattray) as a court-
room. The old judgment seat stood back
against the wall, and our table was the one
at which the justices had been wont to sit.
Then the chamber had been low-ceiled; now
it ran to the roof, and we ate our dinner be-
neath a square of fading autumn sky, with I
, wondered how many ghosts looking down on
us from the oaken gallery! I was interested,
impressed, awed not a little, and yet all in a
way which afforded my mind the most wel-
come distraction from itself and from the past.
To Rattray, on the other hand, it was rather
sadly plain that the place was both a burden
and a bore; in fact he vowed it was the damp-
est and the dullest old ruin under the sun, and
11°


Wine and Weakness
that he would sell it to-morrow if he could
find a lunatic to buy. His want of sentiment
struck me as his one deplorable trait. Yet
even this displayed his characteristic merit of
frankness. Nor was it at all unpleasant to
hear his merry, boyish laughter ringing round
hall and gallery, ere it died away against a
dozen closed doors.
And there were other elements of good
cheer: a log fire blazing heartily in the old
dog—grate, casting a glow over the stone flags,
a reassuring flicker into the darkest corner:
cold viands of the very best: and the finest old
Madeira that has ever passed my lips.
Now, all my life I have been a “ moderate
drinker” in the most literal sense of that
slightly elastic term. But at the sad time of
which I am trying to write, I was almost an
abstainer, from the fear, the temptation—0f
seeking oblivion in strong waters. To give
way then was to go on giving way. I realised
the danger, and I took stern measures. Not
stern enough, however; for what I did not
realise was my weak and nervous state, in
which a glass would have the same effect on
me as three or four upon a healthy man.
Heaven knows how much or hointtle I
III


Dead Men Tell No Tales
took that evening! I can swear it was the
smaller half of either bottle—and the second
we never finished—but the amount matters
nothing. Even me it did not make grossly
tipsy. But it warmed my blood, it cheered my
heart, it excited my brain, and—it loosened
my tongue. It set me talking, with a freedom
of which I should have been incapable in my
normal moments, on a subject whereof I had
never before spoken of my own free will.
And yet the will to speak—to my present
companion—was no novelty. I had felt it at
our first meeting in the private hotel. His
tact, his sympathy, his handsome face, his per-
sonal charm, his frank friendliness, had one
and all tempted me to bore this complete
stranger with unsolicited confidences for
which an inquisitive relative might have
angled in vain. And the temptation was the
stronger because I knew in my heart that I
should not bore the young squire at all; that
he was anxious enough to hear my story from
my own lips, but too good a gentleman inten-
tionally to betray such anxiety. Vanity was
also in the impulse. A vulgar newspaper
prominence had been my final (and very genu—
ine) tribulation; but to please and to interest
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Wine and Weakness
one so pleasing and so interesting to me, was
another and a subtler thing. And then there
was his sympathy—shall I add his admiration?
—for my reward.
I do not pretend that I argued thus delib-
erately in my heated and excited brain. I
merely hold that all these small reasons and
motives were there, fused and exaggerated by
the liquor which was there as well. Nor can
I say positively that Rattray put no leading
questions; only that I remember none which
had that sound; and that, once started, I am
afraid I needed only too little encouragement
to run on and on.
Well, I was set going before we got up from
the table. I continued in an armchair that
my host dragged from a little book-lined room
adjoining the hall. I finished on my legs, my
back to the fire, my hands beating wildly to-
gether. I had told my dear Rattray of my
,own accord, more than living man had ex-
tracted from me yet. He interrupted me very
little; never once until I came to the murder-
ous attack by Santos on the drunken steward.
“ The brute!” cried Rattray. “ The cow-
ardly, cruel, foreign devil! And you never let
out one word of that! ”
n3


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“What was the good?” said I. “ They
are all gone now—all gone to their account.
Every man of us was a brute at the last.
There was nothing to be gained by telling the
public that.”
He let me go on until I came to another
point which I had hitherto kept to myself: the
condition of the dead mate’s fingers: the cries
that the sight of them had recalled.
“ That Portuguese villain again! ” cried my
companion, fairly leaping from the chair
which I had left and he had taken. “ It was
the work of the same cane that killed the
steward. Don’t tell me an Englishman would
have done it; and yet you said nothing about
that either! ”
It was my first glimpse of this side of my
young host’s character. Nor did I admire
him the less, in his spirited indignation, be-
cause much of this was clearly against myself.
His eyes flashed. His face was white. I sud-
denly found myself the cooler man of the
two. .
“ My dear fellow, do consider!” said I.
“ What possible end could have been served
by my stating what I couldn’t prove against
a man who could never be brought to book in
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Wine and Weakness
this world? Santos was punished as he de-
served; his punishment was death, and there’s
an end on’t.”
“ You may be right,” said Rattray, “ but it
makes my blood boil to hear such a story.
Forgive me if I have spoken strongly; ” and
he paced his hall for a little in an agitation
which made me like him better and better.‘
“ The cold-blooded villain!” he kept mutter-
ing; “ the infernal, foreign, blood-thirsty ras-
cal! Perhaps you were right; it couldn’t
have done any good, I know; but—I only wish
he’d lived for us to hang him, Cole! Why, a
beast like that is capable of anything: I won-
der if you’ve told me the worst even now?”
And he stood before me, with candid suspicion
in his fine, frank eyes.
“ What makes you say that? ” said I, rather
nettled.
“ I shan’t tell you if it’s going to rile you,
old fellow,” was his reply. And with it reap-
peared the charming youth whom I found it
impossible to resist. “ Heaven knows you
have had enough to worry you! ” he added in
his kindly, sympathetic voice.
“ So much,” said I, “ that you cannot add
to it, my dear Rattray. Now, then! Why do
you think there was something worse?”
11 5


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ You hinted as much in town: rightly or
wrongly I gathered there was something you
would never speak about to living man.”
I turned from him with a groan.
“ Ah! but that had nothing to do with San-
tos.”
“ Are you sure?” he cried.
“ No,” I murmured; “it had something to
do with him, in a sense; but don’t ask me any
more.” And I leaned my forehead on the
high oak mantelpiece, and groaned again.
His hand was upon my shoulder.
“ Do tell me,” he urged. I was silent. He
pressed me further. In my fancy, both hand
and voice shook with his sympathy.
“ He had a step-daughter,” said I at last.
“ Yes? Yes? ”
“ I loved her. That was all.”
His hand dropped from my shoulder. I re-
mained standing, stooping, thinking only of
her whom I had lost for ever. The silence was
intense. I could hear the wind sighing in the
oaks without, the logs burning softly away at
my feet. And so we stood until the voice of
Rattray recalled me from the deck of the Lady
Iermyn and my lost love’s side.
“ So that was all! ”
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Wine and Weakness
I turned and met a face I could not read.
“ Was it not enough?” cried I. “ What
more would you have?”
“ I expected some more—foul play!”
“ Ah! ” I exclaimed bitterly. “ So that was
all that interested you! No, there was no
more foul play that I know of; and if there
was, I don’t care. Nothing matters to me but
one thing. Now that you know what that is,
I hope you’re satisfied.”
It was no way to speak to one’s host. Yet
I felt that he had pressed me unduly. I hated
myself for my final confidence, and his want of
sympathy made me hate him too. In my
weakness, however, I was the natural prey of
violent extremes. His hand flew out to me.
He was about to speak. A moment more and
I had doubtless forgiven him. But another
sound came instead, and made the pair of us
start and stare. It was the soft shutting of
some upstairs door.
“ I thought we had the house to our-
selves? ” cried I, my miserable nerves on edge
in an instant.
“ So did I,” he answered, very pale. “ My
servants must have come back. By the Lord
Harry, they shall hear of this! ”
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
He sprang to a door, I heard his feet clat-
tering up some stone stairs, and in a trice he
was running along the gallery overhead; in
another I heard him railing behind some upper
door that he had flung open and banged behind
him; then his voice dropped, and finally died
away. I was left some minutes in the oppres-
sively silent hall, shaken, startled, ashamed of
my garrulity, aching to get away. When he
returned it was by another of the many closed
doors, and he found me awaiting him, hat in
hand. He was wearing his happiest look un-
til he saw my hat.
“ Not going?” he cried. “ My dear Cole,
I can’t apologise suflflciently for my abrupt de-
sertion of you, much less for the cause. It
was my man, just come in from the show, and
gone up the back way. I accused him of lis-
tening to our conversation. Of course he de-
nies it; but it really doesn’t matter, as I’m
sorry to say he’s much too ‘fresh ’ (as they
call it down here) to remember anything to-
morrow morning. I let him have it, I can tell
you. Varlet! Caitiff! But if you bolt off
on the head of it, I shall go back and sack him
into the bargain! ”
I assured him I had my own reasons for
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Wine and Weakness
wishing to retire early. He could have no
conception of my weakness, my low and ner-
vous condition of body and mind; much as I
had enjoyed myself, he must really let me go.
Another glass of wine, then? Just one more?
No, I had drunk too much already. I was in
no state to stand it. And I held out my hand
with decision.
Instead of taking it he looked at me very
hard.
“ The place doesn’t suit you,” said he. “ I
see it doesn’t, and I’m devilish sorry! Take
my advice and try something milder; now do,
to-morrow ; for I should never forgive myself
if it made you worse instead of better; and the
air is too strong for lots of people.”
I was neither too ill nor too vexed to laugh
outright in his face.
“ It’s not the air,” said I; “ it’s that splendid
old Madeira of yours that was too strong for.
me, if you like! No, no, Rattray, you don’t
get rid of me so cheaply—much as you seem
to want to! ”
“ I was only thinking of you," he rejoined,
with a touch of pique that convinced me of his
sincerity. “Of course I want you to stop,
though I shan’t be here many days; but I feel
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
responsible for you, Cole, and that’s the fact.
Think you can find your way? ” he continued,
accompanying me to the gate, a postern in the
high garden wall. “ Hadn’t you better have
a lantern?”
No; it was unnecessary. I could see splen-
didly, had the bump of locality and as many
more lies as would come to my tongue. I was
indeed burning to be gone.
A moment later I feared that I had shown
this too plainly. For his final handshake was
hearty enough to send me away something
ashamed of my precipitancy, and with a fur-
ther sense of having shown him small grati-
tude for his kindly anxiety on my behalf. I
would behave differently to-morrow. Mean-
while I had new regrets.
At first it was comparatively easy to see, for
the lights of the house shone faintly among
the nearer oaks. But the moon was hidden
behind heavy clouds, and I soon found myself
at a loss in a terribly dark zone of timber. Al-
ready I had left the path. I felt in my pocket
for matches. I had none.
My head was now clear enough, only de-
servedly heavy. I was still quarrelling with
myself for my indiscretions and my incivilities,
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Wine and Weakness
one and all the result of his wine and my weak-
ness, and this new predicament (another and
yet more vulgar result) was the final mortifica-
tion. I swore aloud. I simply could not see
a foot in front of my face. Once I proved it
by running my head hard against a branch.
I was hopelessly and ridiculously lost within
a hundred yards of the hall!
Some minutes I floundered, ashamed to go
back, unable to proceed for the trees and the
darkness. I heard the beck running over its
stones. I could still see an occasional glim-
mer from the windows I had left. But the
light was now on this side, now on that; the
running water chuckled in one car after the
other; there was nothing for it but to return
in all humility for the lantern which I had been
so foolish as to refuse.
And as I resigned myself to this imperative
though inglorious course, my heart warmed
once more to the jovial young squire. He
would laugh, but not unkindly, at my gro-
tesque dilemma; at the thought of his laugh-
ter I began to smile myself. If he gave me
another chance I would smoke that cigar with
him before starting home afresh, and remove,
from my own mind no less than from his, all
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
ill impressions. After all it was not his fault
that I had taken too much of his wine; but a
far worse offence was to be sulky in one’s cups.
I would show him that I was myself again in
all respects. I have admitted that I was tem-
porarily, at all events, a creature of extreme
moods. It was in this one that I retraced my
steps towards the lights, and at length let my-
self into the garden by the postern at which I
had shaken Rattray’s hand not ten minutes
before.
Taking heart of grace, I stepped up jauntily
to the porch. The weeds muffled my steps.
I myself had never thought of doing so, when
all at once I halted in a vague terror. Through
the deep lattice windows I had seen into the
lighted hall. And Rattray was once more
seated at his table, a little company of men
around him.
I crept nearer, and my heart stopped. Was
I delirious, or raving mad with wine? Or had
the sea given up its dead?


CHAPTER XI
I LIVE AGAIN
Squire Rattray, as I say, was seated at the
head of his table, where the broken meats still
lay as he and I had left them; his fingers, I re-
member, were playing with a crust, and his
eyes fixed upon a distant door, as he leant back
in his chair. Behind him hovered the nigger
of the Lady Jermyn, whom I had been the
slower to recognize, had not her skipper sat
facing me on the squire’s right. Yes, there
was Captain Harris in the flesh, eating heartily
between great gulps of wine, instead of feed-
ing the fishes as all the world supposed. And
nearer still, nearer me than any, with his back
to my window but his chair slued round a lit-
tle, so that he also could see that door, and I
his profile, sat Joaquin Santos with his
cigarette!
None spoke; all seemed waiting; and all
were silent but the captain, whose vulgar
champing reached me through the crazy lat-
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
tice, as I stood spellbound and petrified with-
out.
They say that a drowning man lives his life
again before the last; but my own fight with
the sea provided me with no such moments
of vivid and rapid retrospect as those during
which I stood breathless outside the lighted
windows of Kirby Hall. I landed again. I
was dogged day and night. I set it down to
nerves and notoriety; but took refuge in a pri-
vate hotel. One followed me, engaged the
next room, set a watch on all my movements;
another came in by the window to murder me
in my bed; no party to that, the first one nev-
ertheless turned the outrage to account,
wormed himself into my friendship on the
strength of it, and lured me hither, an easy
prey. And here was the gang of them, to
meet me! No wonder Rattray had not let me
see him off at the station; no wonder I had not
been followed that night. Every link I saw in
its right light instantly. Only the motive re—
mained obscure. Suspicious circumstances
swarmed upon my slow perception: how inno-
cent I had been! Less innocent, however,
than wilfully and wholly reckless: what had it
mattered with whom I made friends? What
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I Live Again
had anything mattered to me? What did any-
thing matter—
I thought my heart had snapped!
Why were they watching that door, Joaquin
Santos and the young squire? Whom did
they await? I knew! Oh, I knew! My
heart leaped, my blood danced, my eyes lay in
wait with theirs. Everything began to mat-
ter once more. It was as though the ma-
chinery of my soul, long stopped, had sudden-
ly been set in motion; it was as though I was
born again.
How long we seemed to wait I need not say.
It cannot have been many moments in reality,
for Santos was blowing his rings of smoke in
the direction of the door, and the first that I
noticed were but dissolving when it opened—
and the best was true! One instant I saw her
very clearly, in the light of a candle which she
carried in its silver stick; then a mist blinded
me, and I fell on my knees in the rank bed into
which I had stepped, to give such thanks to
the Almighty as this heart has never felt before
or since. And I remained kneeling; for now
my face was on a level with the sill; and when
my eyes could see again, there stood my dar-
ling before them in the room.
12 5


Dead Men Tell No Tales
Like a queen she stood, in the very travel-
ling cloak in which I had seen her last; it was
tattered now, but she held it close about her
as though a shrewd wind hit her to the core.
Her sweet face was all peeked and pale in the
candle-light: she who had been a child was
come to womanhood in a few weeks. But a
new spirit flashed in her dear eyes, a new
strength hardened her young lips. She stood
as an angel brought to book by devils; and so
noble was her calm defiance, so serene her
scorn, that, as I watched and listened, all pres-
ent fear for her passed out of my heart.
The first sound was the hasty rising of
young Rattray; he was at Eva’s side next in-
stant, essaying to lead her to his chair, with a
flush which deepened as she repulsed him
coldly.
“ You have sent for me, and I have come,”
said she. “ But I prefer not to sit down in
your presence; and what you have to say, you
will be good enough to say as quickly as pos-
sible, that I may go again before I am—
stifled! ”
It was her one hot word; aimed at them all,
it seemed to me to fall like a lash on Rattray’s
cheek, bringing the blood to it like lightning.
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I Live Again
But it was Santos who snatched the cigarette
from his mouth, and opened upon the defence-
less girl in a torrent of Portuguese, yellow
with rage, and a very windmill of lean arms
and brown hands in the terrifying rapidity of
his gesticulations. They did not terrify Eva
Denison. When Rattray took a step towards
the speaker, with flashing eyes, it was some
word from Eva that checked him; when San-
tos was done, it was to Rattray that she turned
with her answer.
“ He calls me a liar for telling you that Mr.
Cole knew all,” said she, thrilling me with my
own name. “ Don’t you say anything,” she
added, as the young man turned on Santos
with a scowl ; “ you are one as wicked as the
other, but there was a time when I thought
differently of you: his character I have always
known. Of the two evils, I prefer to speak to
you.”
Rattray bowed, humbly enough, I thought;
but my darling’s nostrils only curled the more.
“ He calls me a liar,” she continued; “ so
may you all. Since you have found it out, I
admit it freely and without shame; one must
be false in the hands of false fiends like all of
you. Weakness is nothing to you; helpless-
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
ness is nothing; you must be met with your
own weapons, and so I lied in my sore ex-
tremity to gain the one miserable advantage
within my reach. He says you found me out
by making friends with Mr. Cole. He says
that Mr. Cole has been dining with you in this
very room, this very night. You still tell the
truth sometimes; has that man—that demon
—told it for once? ”
“ It is perfectly true,” said Rattray in a low
voice.
“ And poor Mr. Cole told you that he knew
nothing of your villainy? ”
“ I found out that he knew absolutely noth-
ing—after first thinking otherwise.”
“ Suppose he had known? What would
you have done?”
Rattray said nothing. Santos shrugged as
he lit a fresh cigarette. The captain went on
with his supper.
“ Ashamed to say! ” cried Eva Denison.
“ So you have some shame left still! Well, I
will tell you. You would have murdered him,
as you murdered all the rest; you would have
killed him in cold blood, as I wish and pray
that you would kill me! ”
The young fellow faced her, white to the
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
Lady Jermyn, and every soul that lost itself in
losing them. You call that innocence? Then
give me honest guilt! Give me the man who
set fire to the ship, and who sits there eating
his supper; he is more of a man than you.
Give me the wretch who has beaten men to
death before my eyes; there’s something great
about a monster like that, there’s something to
loathe. His assistant is only little—mean—
despicable! ”
Loud and hurried in its wrath, low and de-
liberate in its contempt, all this was uttered
with a furious and abnormal eloquence, which
would have struck me, loving her, to the
ground. On Rattray it had a different effect.
His head lifted as she heaped abuse upon it,
until he met her flashing eye with that of a
man very thankful to take his deserts and
something more; and to mine he was least
despicable when that last word left her lips.
When he saw that it was her last, he took her
candle (she had put it down on the ancient set—
tle against the door), and presented it to her
with another bow. And so without a word he
led her to the door, opened it, and bowed yet
lower as she swept out, but still without a tinge
of mockery in the obeisance.
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I Live Again
He was closing the door after her when Joa-
quin Santos reached it.
“ Diablo! ” cried he. “ Why let her go?
We have not done with her.”
“ That doesn’t matter; she is done with us,”
was the stern reply.
“ It does matter,” retorted Santos; “ what
is more, she is my step—daughter, and back
she shall come! ”
“ She is also my visitor, and I’m damned if
you’re going to make her! ”
An instant Santos stood, his back to me, his
fingers working, his neck brown with blood;
then his coat went into creases across the
shoulders, and he was shrugging still as he
turned away.
“ Your veesitor! ” said he. “ Your veesi—
tor! Your veesitor! ”
Harris laughed outright as he raised his
glass; the hot young squire had him by the
collar, and the wine was spilling on the cloth,
as I rose very cautiously and crept back to the
path.
“ When rogues fall out! ” I was thinking to
myself. “ I shall save her yet—I shall save
my darling! ”
Already I was accustomed to the thought
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
that she still lived, and to the big heart she
had set beating in my feeble frame; already
the continued existence of these villains, with
the first dim inkling of their villainy, was ceas-
ing to be a novelty in a brain now quickened
and prehensile beyond belief. And yet—but
a few minutes had I knelt at the window—but
a few more was it since Rattray and I had
shaken hands!
Not his visitor; his prisoner, without a
doubt; but alive! alive! and neither guest nor
prisoner for many hours more. 0 my love!
0 my heart’s delight! Now I knew why I
was spared; to save her; to snatch her from
these rascals; to cherish and protect her ever-
more!
All the past shone clear behind me; the dark
was lightness and the crooked straight. All
the future lay clear ahead; it presented no dif-
ficulties yet; a mad, ecstatic confidence was
mine for the wildest, happiest moments of my
life. >
I stood upright in the darkness. I saw her
light!
It was ascending the tower at the building’s
end; now in this window it glimmered, now
in the one above. At last it was steady, high
up near the stars, and I stole below.
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I Live Again
“ Eva! Eva! ”
There was no answer. Low as it was, my
voice was alarming; it cooled and cautioned
me. I sought little stones. I crept back to
throw them. Ah God! her form eclipsed that
lighted slit in the grey stone tower. I heard
her weeping high above me at her window.
“ Eva! Eva! ”
There was a pause, and then a little cry of
gladness.
“ Is it Mr. Cole? ” came in an eager whisper
through her tears.
“ Yes! yes! I was outside the window. I
heard everythin ”
“ They will hear you! ” she cried softly, in a
steadier voice.
“ No—listen ! ” They were quarrelling.
Rattray’s voice was loud and angry. “ They
cannot hear,” I continued, in more cautious
tones; “ they think I’m in bed and asleep half-
a-mile away. Oh, thank God! I’ll get you
away from them; trust me, my love, my dar-
ling! ”
In my madness I knew not what I said; it
was my wild heart speaking. Some moments
passed before she replied.
“ Will you promise to do nothing I ask you
not to do?”

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Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ Of course.”
“ My life might answer for it—”
“ I promise—I promise.”
“ Then wait—hide—watch my light. When
you see it back in the window, watch with all
your eyes! I am going to write and then
throw it out. Not another syllable! ”
She was gone; there was a long yellow slit
in the masonry once more; her light burnt
faint and far within.
I retreated among some bushes and kept
watch.
The moon was skimming beneath the sur-
face of a sea of clouds: now the black billows
had silver crests: now an incandescent buoy
bobbed among them. 0 for enough light,
and no more!
In the hall the high voices were more sub-
dued. I heard the captain’s tipsy laugh. My
eyes fastened themselves upon that faint and
lofty light, and on my heels I crouched among
the bushes.
The flame moved, flickered, and shone small
but brilliant on the very sill. I ran forward
on tip-toe. A white flake fluttered to my feet.
I secured it and waited for one word; none
came; but the window was softly shut.
134


I Live Again
I stood in doubt, the treacherous moonlight
all over me now, and once more the window
opened.
“ Go quickly!”
And again it was shut; next moment I was
stealing close by the spot where I had knelt.
I saw within once more.
Harris nodded in his chair. The nigger
had disappeared. Rattray was lighting a
candle, and the Portuguese holding out his
hand for the match.
“ Did you lock the gate, senhor?” asked
Santos.
" No; but I will now.”
As I opened it I heard a door open within.
I could hardly let the latch down again for the
sudden trembling of my fingers. The key
turned behind me ere I had twenty yards’
start.
Thank God there was light enough now!
I followed the beck. I found my way. I
stood in the open valley,between the oak-plan-
tation and my desolate cottage, and I‘ kissed
my tiny, twisted note again and again in a
paroxysm of passion and of insensate joy.
Then I unfolded it and held it to my eyes in
the keen October moonshine.
135


CHAPTER XII
MY LADY’S BIDDING
Scribbled in sore haste, by a very tremulous
little hand, with a pencil, on the fly-leaf of
some book, my darling’s message is still diffi-
cult to read ; it was doubly so in the moonlight,
five-and-forty autumns ago. My eyesight,
however, was then perhaps the soundest thing
about me, and in a little I had deciphered
enough to guess correctly (as it proved) at the
whole:—
“ You say you heard everything just now,
and there is no time for further explanations.
I am in the hands of villains, but not ill-treat-
ed, though they are one as bad as the other.
You will not find it easy to rescue me. I don’t
see how it is to be done. You have promised
not to do anything I ask you not to do, and I
implore you not to tell a soul until you have
seen me again and heard more. You might
just as well kill me as come back now with
help.
“You see you know nothing, though I told
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
discomfiture, mortification, and alarm: to
think that her life was in my hands, and that
it depended, not on that prompt action which'
was the one course I had contemplated, but on
twenty-four hours of resolute inactivity!
I would not think it. I refused the condi-
tion. It took away my one prop, my one stay,
that prospect of immediate measures which
alone preserved in me such coolness as I had
retained until now. I was cool no longer;
where I had relied on practical direction I
was baffled and hindered and driven mad; on
my honour I believe I was little less for some
moments, groaning, cursing, and beating the
air with impotent fists—in one of them my
poor love’s letter crushed already to a ball.
Danger and difficulty I had been prepared
to face; but the task that I was set was a hun-
dredfold harder than any that had whirled
through my teeming brain. To sit still; to do
nothing; to pretend I knew nothing; an hour
of it would destroy my reason—and I was in-
vited to wait twenty-four!
No ; my word was passed; keep it I must.
She knew the men, she must know best; and
her life depended on my obedience: she made
that so plain. Obey I must and would; to
138


My Lady’s Bidding
make a start, I tottered over the plank that
spanned the beck, and soon I saw the cottage
against the moonlit sky. I came up to it. I
drew back in sudden fear. It was alight up-
stairs and down, and the gaunt strong figure
of the woman Braithwaite stood out as I had
seen it first, in the doorway, with the light
showing warmly through her rank red hair.
“ Is that you, Mr. Cole?” she cried in a
tone that she reserved for me; yet through
the forced amiability there rang a note of gen-
uine surprise. She had been prepared for me
never to return at all!
My knees gave under me as I forced myself
to advance; but my wits took new life from
the crisis, and in a flash I saw how to turn
my weakness into account. I made a false
step on my way to the door; when I reached
it I leant heavily against the jam, and I said
with a slur that I felt unwell. I had cer-
tainly been flushed with wine when I left
Rattray; it would be no bad thing for him to
hear that I had arrived quite tipsy at the cot-
tage; should he discover I had been near an
hour on the way, here was my explanation cut
and dried.
So I shammed a degree of intoxication with
I39


Dead Men Tell No Tales
apparent success, and Jane Braithwaite gave
me her arm up the stairs. My God, how
strong it was, and how weak was mine!
Left to myself, I reeled about my bedroom,
pretending to undress; then out with my
candles, and into bed in all my clothes, until
the cottage should be quiet. Yes, I must lie
still and feign sleep, with every nerve and fibre
leaping within me, lest the she-devil below
should suspect me of suspicions! It was with
her I had to cope for the next four-and-
twenty hours; and she filled me with a greater
present terror than all those villains at the
hall; for had not their poor little helpless cap-
tive described her as “ about the worst of the
gang?”
To think that my love lay helpless there in
the hands of those wretches; and to think that
her lover lay helpless here in the supervision
of this vile virago!
It must have been one or two in the morn-
ing when I stole to my sitting—room window,
opened it, and sat down to think steadily, with
the counterpane about my shoulders.
The moon sailed high and almost full above
the clouds; these were dispersing as the night
wore on, and such as remained were of a beau~

14o


A My Lady’s Bidding
tiful soft tint between white and grey. The
sky was too light for stars, and beneath it the
open country stretched so clear and far that
it was as though one looked out at noonday
through slate—coloured glass. Down the dewy
slope below my window a few calves fed with
toothless mouthings; the heck was very audi-
ble, the oak-trees less so; but for these peace-
ful sounds the stillness and the solitude were
equally intense.
I may have sat there like a mouse for half
an hour. The reason was that I had become
mercifully engrossed in one of the subsidiary
problems: whether it would be better to drop
from the window or to trust to the creaking
stairs. Would the creaking be much worse
than the thud, and the difference worth the
risk of a sprained ankle? Well worth it, I at
length decided ; the risk was nothing; my win-
dow was scarce a dozen feet from the ground.
How easily it could be done, how quickly, how
safely in this deep stillness and bright moon-
light! I would fall so lightly on my stocking
soles; a single soft, dull thud; then away un-
der the moon without fear or risk of a false
step; away over the stone walls to the main
road, and so to the nearest police-station with
14:


Dead Men Tell No Tales
my tale; and before sunrise the villains would
be taken in their beds, and my darling would
be safe!
I sprang up softly. Why not do it now?
Was I bound to keep my rash, blind promise?
Was it possible these murderers would mur-
der her? I struck a match on my trousers,
I lit a candle, I read her letter carefully again,
and again it maddened and distracted me. I
struck my hands together. I paced the room
wildly. Caution deserted me, and I made
noise enough to wake the very mute; lost to
every consideration but that of the terrifying
day before me, the day of silence and of inac-
tivity, that I must live through with an un-
suspecting face, a cool head, a civil tongue!
The prospect appalled me as nothing else
could or did; nay, the sudden noise upon the
stairs, the knock at my door, and the sense
that I had betrayed myself already—that even
now all was over—these came as a relief after
the haunting terror which they interrupted.
I flung the door open, and there stood Mrs.
Braithwaite, as fully dressed as myself.
“ You’ll not be very well, sir? "
“ No, I’m not.”
“ What’s t’ matter wi’ you?”
142


My Lady’s Bidding
This second question was rude and fierce
with suspicion: the real woman rang out in
it, yet its effect on me was astonishing: once
again was I inspired to turn my slip into a
move.
“ Matter? ” I cried. “ Can’t you see what’s
the matter; couldn’t you see when I came in?
Drink’s the matter! I came in drunk, and
now I’m mad. I can’t stand it; I’m not in a fit
state. Do you know nothing of me? Have
they told you nothing? I’m the only man
that was saved from the Lady Jermyn, the ship
that was burned to the water’s edge with every
soul but me. My nerves are in little ends. I
came down here for peace and quiet and sleep.
Do you know that I have hardly slept for two
months? And now I shall never sleep again!
O my God, I shall die for want of it! The
wine has done it. I never should have
touched a drop. I can’t stand it; I can’t sleep
after it; I shall kill myself if I get no sleep!
Do you hear, you woman? I shall kill my-
self in your house if I don’t get to sleep! ”
I saw her shrink, Virago as she was. I
waved my arms, I shrieked in her face. It
was not all acting. Heaven knows how true
it was about the sleep. I was slowly dying of
14s


Dead Men Tell No Tales
insomnia. I was a nervous wreck. She must
have heard it. Now she saw it for herself.
No; it was by no means all acting. Intend-
ing only to lie, I found myself telling little
but the strictest truth, and longing for sleep
as passionately as though I had nothing to
keep me awake. And yet, while my heart
cried aloud in spite of me, and my nerves re-
lieved themselves in this unpremeditated ebul-
lition, I was all the time watching its effect
as closely as though no word of it had been
sincere.
Mrs. Braithwaite seemed frightened; not at
all pitiful; and as I calmed down she recov-
ered her courage and became insolent. I had
spoilt her night. She had not been told she
was to take in a raving lunatic. She would
speak to Squire Rattray in the morning.
“ Morning? ” I yelled after her as she went.
“ Send your husband to the nearest chemist
as soon as it’s dawn; send him for chloral,
chloroform, morphia, anything they’ve got
and as much of it asthey’ll let him have. I’ll
give you five pounds if you get me what’ll
send me to sleep all to-morrow—and to-mor-
row night! ”
Never, I feel sure, were truth and falsehood
I44


My Lady’s Bidding
more craftin interwoven; yet I had thought
of none of it until the woman was at my door,
while of much I had not thought at all. It
had rushed from my heart and from my lips.
And no sooner was I alone than I burst into
hysterical tears, only to stop and compliment
myself because they sounded genuine—as
though they were not! Towards morning I
took to my bed in a burning fever, and lay
there, now congratulating myself upon it, be-
cause when night came they would all think
me so secure; and now weeping because the
night might find me dying or dead. So I
tossed, with her note clasped in my hand un-
derneath the sheets; and beneath my very
body the stout weapon that I had bought in
town. I might not have to use it, but I was
fatalist enough to fancy that I should. In the
meantime it helped me to lie still, my thoughts
fixed on the night, and the day made easy for
me after all.
If only I could sleep!
About nine o’clock Jane Braithwaite paid
me a surly visit; in half an hour she was back
with tea and toast and an altered mien. She
not only lit my fire, but treated me the while
to her original tone of almost fervent civility

I45


Dead Men Tell No Tales
and respect and determination. Her vagaries
soon ceased to puzzle me: the psychology of
Jane Braithwaite was not recondite. In the
night it had dawned upon her that Rattray had
found me harmless and was done with me,
therefore there was no need for her to put her-
self out any further on my account. In the
morning, finding me really ill, she had gone
to the hall in alarm; her subsequent atten-
tions were an act of obedience; and in their
midst came Rattray himself to my bedside.
r46


CHAPTER XIII
THE LONGEST DAY OF MY LIFE
The boy looked so blithe and buoyant, so
gallant and still so frank, that even now I
could not think as meanly of him as poor Eva
did. A rogue he must be, but surely not the
petty rogue that she had made him out. Yet
it was dirty work that he had done by me ; and
there I had to lie and take his kind, false,
felon’s hand in mine.
“ My poor dear fellow,” he cried, “ I’m most
sorry to find you like this. But I was afraid
of it last night. It’s all this infernally strong
air! ”
How I longed to tell him what it was, and
to see his face! The thought of Eva alone
restrained me, and I retorted as before, in a
tone I strove to make as friendly, that it was
his admirable wine and nothing else.
‘5 But you took hardly any.”
“ I shouldn’t have touched a drop. I can’t
stand it. Instead of soothing me it excites
me to the verge of madness. I’m almost over
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
the verge—for want of sleep—my trouble ever
since the trouble.”
Again I was speaking the literal truth, and
again congratulating myself as though it were
a lie: the fellow looked so distressed at my
state; indeed I believe that his distress was as
genuine as mine, and his sentiments as in-
volved. He took my hand again, and his
brow wrinkled at its heat. He asked for the
other hand to feel my pulse. I had to drop
my letter to comply.
“I wish to goodness there was something I
could do for you,” he said. “ Would you——
would you care to see a doctor?”
I shook my head, and could have smiled at
his visible relief.
“ Then I’m going to prescribe for you,” he
said with decision. “ It’s the place that
doesn’t agree with you, and it was I who
brought you to the place; therefore it’s for me
to get you out of it as quick as possible. Up
you get, and I’ll drive you to the station my-
self! ”
I had another work to keep from smiling:
he was so ingenuously disingenuous. There
was less to smile at in his really nervous anx-
iety to get me away. I lay there reading him
148


The Longest Day of My Life
like a book: it was not my health that con-
cerned him, of course: was it my safety? I
told him he little knew how ill I was—an in-
glorious speech that came hard, though not
by any means untrue. “ Move me with this
fever on me?” said I; “it would be as much
as my miserable life is worth.”
“ I’m afraid,” said he, “that it may be as
much as your life’s worth to stay on here! ”
And there was such real fear, in his voice and
eyes, that it reconciled me there and then to
the discomfort of a big revolverv between the
mattress and the small of my back. “We
must get you out 'of it,” he continued, “ the
moment you feel fit to stir. Shall we say to-
morrow? ”
“ If you like,” I said advisedly; “ and if I
can get some sleep to-day.”
“ Then to-morrow it is! You see I know
it’s the climate,” he added, jumping from tone
to tone; “it couldn’t have been those two or
three glasses of sound wine.”
“ Shall I tell you what it is? ” I said, looking
him full in the face, with eyes that I dare say
were wild enough with fever and insomnia.
“It’s the burning of the Lady Jermyn!” I
cried. “ It’s the faces and the shrieks of the
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
women; it’s the cursing and the fighting of
the men; it’s boat-loads struggling in an oily
sea; it’s husbands and wives jumping over-
board together; it’s men turned into devils,
it’s hell'fire afloat ”
“ Stop! stop!” he whispered, hoarse as a
crow. I was sitting up with my hot eyes upon
him. He was white as the quilt, and the bed
shook with his trembling. I had gone as far
as was prudent, and I lay back with a glow of
secret satisfaction.
“ Yes, I will stop,” said I, “ and I wouldn’t
have begun if you hadn’t found it so difficult
to understand my trouble. Now you know
what it is. It’s the old trouble. I came up
here to forget it; instead of that I drink too
much and tell you all about it; and the two
things together have bowled me over. But
I’ll go to-morrow; only give me something to
put me asleep till then.”
“I will! ” he vowed. “ I’ll go myself to the
nearest chemist, and he shall give me the very
strongest stuff he’s got. Good-by, and don’t
you stir till I come back—for your own sake.
I’ll go this minute, and I’ll ride like hell! ”
And if ever two men were glad to be rid of ~
each other, they were this young villain and
myself.

150


The Longest Day of My Life
But what was his villainy? - It was little
enough that I had overheard at the window,and
still less that poor Eva had told me in her hur-
ried lines. All I saw clearly was that the Lady
Iermyn and some hundred souls had perished
by the foulest of foul play; that, besides Eva
and myself, only the incendiaries had es-
caped ; that somehow these wretches had made
a second escape from the gig, leaving dead
men and word of their own death behind them
in the boat. And here the motive was as
much a mystery to me as the means; but, in
my present state, both were also matters of
supreme indifference. My one desire was to
rescue my love from her loathsome captors;
of little else did I pause to think. Yet Rat-
tray’s visit left its own mark on my mind;
and long after he was gone I lay puzzling over
the connection between a young Lancastrian,
of good name, of ancient property, of great
personal charm, and a crime of unparalleled
atrocity committed in cold blood on the high
seas. That his complicity was flagrant I had
no room to doubt, after Eva’s own indictment
of him, uttered to his face and in my hearing.
Was it then the usual fraud on the underwrit-
ers, and was Rattray the inevitable accomplice
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
on dry land? I could think of none but the
conventional motive for destroying a vessel.
Yet I knew there must be another and a
subtler one; to account not only for the mag-
nitude of the crime, but for the pains which
the actual perpetrators had taken to conceal
the fact of their survival; and for the union of
so diverse a trinity as Senhor Santos, Captain
Harris, and the young squire.
It must have been about mid-day when Rat-
tray re-appeared, ruddy, spurred, and splashed
with mud; a comfort to sick eyes, I declare, in
spite of all. He brought me two little phials,
put one on the chimney-piece, poured the
other into my tumbler, and added a little water.
“ There, old fellow,” said he; “ swallow that,
and if you don’t get some sleep the chemist
who made it up is the greatest liar unhung.”
“ What is it? ” I asked, the glass in my hand,
and my eyes on those of my companion.
“ I don’t know,” said he. “ I just told them
to make up the strongest sleeping-draught
that was safe, and I mentioned something
about your case. Toss it off, man; it’s sure
to be all right.”
Yes, I could trust him; he was not that
sort of villain, for all that Eva Denison had
15:


The Longest Day of My Life
said. I liked his face as well as ever. I liked
his eye, and could have sworn to its honesty as
I drained the glass. Even had it been other-
wise, I must have taken my chance or shown
him all; as it was, when he had pulled down
my blind, and shaken my pillow, and he gave
me his hand once more, I took it with invol-
untary cordiality. I only grieved that so fine
a young fellow should have involved himself
in so villainous a business; yet for Eva’s sake
I was glad that he had; for my mind failed
(rather than refused) 'to believe him so black
as she had painted him.
The long, long afternoon that followed I
never shall forget. The opiate racked my
head; it did not do its work; and I longed to
sleep till evening with a longing I have never
known before or since. Everything seemed
to depend upon it; I should be a man again,
if only I could first be a log for a few hours.
But no; my troubles never left me for an in-
stant; and there I must lie, pretending that
they had! For the other draught was for the
night; and if they but thought the first one
had taken due effect, so much the less would
they trouble their heads about me when they
believed that I had swallowed the second.
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
Oh, but it was cruel! I lay and wept with
weakness and want of sleep; ere night fell I
knew that it would find me useless, if indeed
my reason lingered on. To lie there helpless
when Eva was expecting me', that would be
the finishing touch. I should rise a maniac
_ if ever I rose at all. More probably I would
put one of my five big bullets into my own
splitting head; it was no small temptation,
lying there in a double agony, with the loaded
weapon by my side.
Then sometimes I thought it was coming;
and perhaps for an instant I would be tossing
in my hen-coop; then back once more. And
I swear that my physical and mental torments,
here in my bed, would have been incompar~
ably greater than anything I had endured on
the sea, but for the saving grace of one sweet
thought. She lived! She lived! And the
God who had taken care of me, a castaway,
would surely deliver her also from the hands
of murderers and thieves. But not through
me—I lay weak and helpless—and my tears
ran again and yet again as I felt myself grow-
ing hourly weaker.
I remember what a bright fine day it was,
with the grand open country all smiles be-
154


The Longest Day of My Life
neath a clear, almost frosty sky, once when I
got up on tip-toe and peeped out. A keen
wind whistled about the cottage; I felt it on
my feet as I stood; but never have I known a
more perfect and invigorating autumn day.
And there I must lie, with the manhood ebb-
ing out of me, the manhood that I needed
so for the night! I crept back into bed. I
swore that I would sleep. Yet there I lay,
listening sometimes to that vile woman’s tread
below; sometimes to mysterious whispers,
between whom I neither knew nor cared;
anon to my watch ticking by my side, to the
heart beating in my body, hour after hour—
hour after hour. I prayed as I have seldom
prayed. I wept as I have never wept. I
railed and I blasphemed—not with my lips,
because the woman must think I was asleep—-
but so much the more viciously in my heart.
Suddenly it turned dark. There were no
gradations—not even a tropical twilight. One
minute I saw the sun upon the blind; the
next—thank God! Oh, thank God! No light
broke any longer through the blind; just a
faint and narrow glimmer stole between it and
the casement; and the light that had been
bright golden was palest silver now.
155


Dead Men Tell No Tales
It was the moon. I had been in a dream-
less sleep for hours.
The joy of that discovery! The transport
of waking to it, and waking refreshed! The
swift and sudden miracle that it seemed! I
shall never, never forget it, still less the sick-
ening thrill of fear which was cruelly quick
to follow upon my joy. The cottage was still
as the tomb. What if I had slept too long!
With trembling hand I found my watch.
Luckily I had wound it in the early morning.
I now carried it to the window, drew back the
blind, and held it in the moonlight. It was
not quite ten o’clock. And yet the cottage
was so still—so still.
I stole to the door, opened it by cautious
degrees, and saw the reflection of a light be-
low. Still not a sound could I hear, save the
rapid drawing of my own breath, and the
startled beating of my own heart.
I now felt certain that the Braithwaites were
out, and dressed hastily, making as little noise
as possible, and still hearing absolutely none
from below. Then, feeling faint with hunger,
though a new being after my sleep, I remem-
bered a packet of sandwiches which I had not
opened on my journey north. These I trans-
156


The Longest Day, of My Life
ferred from my travelling-bag (where they had
lain forgotten) to my pocket, before drawing
down the blind, leaving the room on tip-toe,
and very gently fastening the door behind
me. On the stairs, too, I trod with the utmost
caution, feeling the wall with my left hand
(my right was full), lest by any chance I might
be mistaken in supposing I had the cottage to
myself. In spite of my caution there came a
creak at every step. And to my sudden hor-
ror I heard a chair move in the kitchen below.
My heart and I stood still together. But
my right hand tightened on stout wood, my
right forefinger trembled against thin steel.
The sound was not repeated. And at length
I continued on my way down, my teeth set,
an excuse on my lips, but determination in .
every fibre of my frame.
A shadow lay across the kitchen floor; it was
that of the deaf mute, as he stood on a chair
before the fire, supporting himself on the
chimney-piece with one puny arm, while he
reached overhead with the other. I stood by
for an instant, glorying in the thought that he
could not hear me; the next, I saw what it was
he was reaching up for—a bell-mouthed
blunderbuss—and I knew the little devil for
the imposter that he was.
IS7


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“You touch it,” said I, “ and you’ll drop
dead on that hearth.”
He pretended not to hear me, but he heard
the click of the splendid spring which Messrs.
Deane and Adams had put into that early re-
volver of theirs, and he could not have come
down much quicker with my bullet in his
spine.
“ Now then,” I said, “ what the devil do you
mean by shamming deaf and dumb? "
“ I niver said I was owt o’ t’ sort,” he whim-
pered, cowering behind the chair in a sullen
ague.
“But you acted it, and I’ve a jolly good
mind to shoot you dead! ” (Remember, I was
so weak myself that I thought my arm would
break from presenting my five chambers and
my ten-inch barrel; otherwise I should be
sorry to relate how I bullied that mouse of a
man.) “ I may let you off,” I continued, “if
you answer questions. Where’s your wife? ”
“ Eh, she’ll be back directly! ” said Braith-
waite, with some tact; but his look was too
cunning to give the warning weight.
“ I’ve a bullet to spare for her,” said I cheer-
fully; “ now then, where is she? ”
“ Gone wi’ the oothers, for owt I knaw.”

158


The Longest Day of My Life
“ And where are the others gone? ”
“ Where they allus go, ower to t’ say.”
“ Over to the sea, eh? We’re getting on!
What takes them there? ”
“ That’s more than I can tell you, sir,” said
Braithwaite, with so much emphasis and' so
little reluctance as to convince me that for
once at least he had spoken the truth. There
was even a spice of malice in his tone. I be-
gan to see possibilities in the little beast.
“ Well,” I said, “ you’re a nice lot! I don't
know what your game is, and don’t want to.
I’ve had enough of you without that. I’m
off to-night.”
“ Before they get back? ” asked Braith-
waite, plainly in doubt about his duty, and
yet as plainly relieved to learn the extent of
my intention.
“ Certainly,” said I; “ why not? I’m not
particularly anxious to see your wife again,
and you may ask Mr. Rattray from me why
the devil he led me to suppose you were deaf
and dumb? Or, if you like, you needn’t say
anything at all about it,” I added, seeing his
thin jaw fall; “ tell him I never found you out,
but just felt well enough to go, and went.
When do you expect them back? ”
I59


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ It won’t be yet a bit,” said he.
“ Good! Now look here. What would
you say to these? ” And I showed him a cou-
ple of sovereigns: I longed to offer him
twenty, but feared to excite his suspicions.
“ These are yours if you have a conveyance at
the end of the lane—the lane we came up the
night before last—in an hour's time.”
His dull eyes glistened ; but a tremor took
him from top to toe, and he shook his head.
“ I’m ill, man! ” I cried. “If I stay here
I’ll die! Mr. Rattray knows that, and he
wanted me to go this morning; he’ll be only
too thankful to find me gone.”
This argument appealed to him; indeed, I
was proud of it.
“ But I was to stop an’ look after you,” he
mumbled; “it’ll get me into trooble, it will
that! ”
I took out three more sovereigns; not a
penny higher durst I go.
“ Will five pounds repay you? No need to ‘
tell your wife it was five, you know! I should.
keep four of them all to myself.”
The cupidity of the little wretch was at last
overcoming his abject cowardice. I could
see him making up his miserable mind. And
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The Longest Day of My Life
I still flatter myself that I took the only safe
(and really cunning) steps to precipitate the
process. To offer? him more money would
have been madness; instead, I poured it all
back into my pocket. >
“ All right!” I cried; “ you’re allgreedy,
cowardly, old idiot, and I’ll just save my
money.” And out I marched into the moon-
light, very briskly, towards the lane; he was
so quick to follow me that I had no fears of the
blunderbuss, but quickened my step, and soon
had him running at my heels.
“Stop, stop, sir! You’re that hasty wi’ a
poor owd man.” So he whimpered as he fol~
lowed me like the little cur he was.
“ I’m hanged if I stop,” I answered without
looking back; and had him almost in tears be-
fore I swung round on him so suddenly that
he yelped with fear. “ What are you bother-
ing me for?” I blustered. “ Do you want
me to wring your neck?”
“ Oh, I’ll go, sir! I’ll go, I’ll go,” he
moaned.
“ I’ve a good mind not to let you. I
wouldn’t if I was fit to walk five miles.”
“ But I’ll roon ’em, sir! I will that! I’ll
go as fast as iver I can I ”
r6:


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ And have a conveyance at the road-end
of the lane as near an hour hence as you pos-
sibly can?”
“Why, there, sir!” he cried, crassly in-
spired; “ I could drive you in our own trap in
half the time.”
“ Oh, no, you couldn’t! I—I’m not fit to
be out at all; it must be a closed conveyance;
but I’ll come to the end of the lane to save
time, so let him wait there. You needn’t wait
yourself; here’s a sovereign of your money,
and I’ll leave the rest in the jug in my bed-
room. Therel It’s worth your while to
trust me, I think. As for my luggage, I’ll
write to Mr. Rattray about that. But I’ll be
shot if I spend another night on his prop-
erty.”
I was rid of him at last; and there I stood,
listening to his headlong-steps, until they
stumbled out of earshot down the lane; then
back to the cottage, at a run myself, and up
to my room to be no worse than my word.
The sovereigns plopped into the water and
rang together at the bottom of the jug. In
another minute I was hastening through the
plantation, in my hand the revolver that had
served me well already, and was still loaded
and capped in all five chambers.
16:


CHAPTER XIV
IN THE GARDEN
It so happened that I met nobody at all; but
I must confess that my luck was better than
my management. As I came upon the beck,
a new sound reached me with the swirl. It
was the jingle of bit and bridle; the beat of
hoofs came after; and I had barely time to
fling myself flat, when two horsemen emerged
from the plantation, riding straight towards
me in the moonlight. If they continued on
that course they could not fail to see me as
they passed along the opposite bank. How-
ever, to my unspeakable relief, they were
scarce clear of the trees when they turned their
horses’ heads, rode them through the water
a good seventy yards from where I lay, and
so away at a canter across country towards
the road. On my hands and knees I had a
good look at them as they bobbed up and
down under the moon; and my fears subsided
in astonished curiosity. For I have already
boasted of my eyesight, and I could have
163


Dead Men Tel! No Tales
sworn that neither Rattray nor any one of his
guests was of the horsemen; yet the back and
shoulders of one of these seemed somehow
familiar to me. Not that I wasted many mo-
ments over the coincidence, for I had other
things to think about as I ran on to the hall.
I found the rear of the building in darkness
unrelieved from within; on the other hand,
the climbing moon beat so full upon the gar-
den wall, it was as though a lantern pinned me
as I crept beneath it. In passing I thought
I might as well try the gate; but Eva was
right; it was locked; and that made me half
inclined to distrust my eyes in the matter of
the two horsemen, for whence could they have
come, if not from the hall? In any case I was
well rid of them. I now followed the wall some
little distance, and then, to see over it, walked
backwards until I was all but in the beck; and
there, sure enough, shone my darling’s candle,
close as close against the diamond panes of
her narrow, lofty window! It brought those
ready tears back to my foolish, fevered eyes.
But for sentiment there was no time, and every
other emotion was either futile or premature.
So I mastered my full heart, I steeled my
wretched nerves, and braced my limp muscles
for the task that lay before them.


164


In the Garden
Then I began to build; then mounted my
pile, clawing the wall to keep my balance. My
fingers were still many inches from the cop-
ing. I jumped down and gave another ten
minutes to the back-breaking work of carry-
ing more boulders from the water to the wall.
Then I widened my cairn below, so that I
could stand firmly before springing upon the
pinnacle with which I completed it. I knew
well that this would collapse under me if I
allowed my weight to rest more than an in-
stant upon it. And so at last it did; but my
fingers had clutched the coping in time; had
grabbed it even as the insecure pyramid
crumbled and left me dangling.
Instantly exerting what muscle I had left,
and the occasion gave me, I succeeded in pull-
ing myself up until my chin was on a level
with my hands, when I flung an arm over and
caught the inner coping. The other arm fol-
lowed; then a leg; and at last I sat astride the
wall, panting and palpitating, and hardly able
to credit my own achievement. One great dif-
ficulty had been my huge revolver. I had been
terribly frightened it might go off, and had
finally used my cravat to sling it at the back of
my neck. It had shifted a little,and I was work—
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
ing it round again, preparatory to my drop,
when I saw the light suddenly taken from the
window in the tower, and a kerchief waving
for one instant in its place. So she had been
waiting and watching for me all these hours!
I dropped into the garden in a very ecstasy of
grief and rapture, to think that I had been so
long in coming to my love, but that I had
come at last. And I picked myself up in a
very frenzy of fear lest, after all, I should fail
to spirit her from this horrible place.
Doubly desolate it looked in the rays of that
bright October moon. Skulking in the shadow
of the wall which had so long baffled me, I
looked across a sharp border of shade upon a
chaos the more striking for its lingering trim
design. The long, straight paths were bar-
nacled with weeds; the dense, fine hedges,
once prim and angular, had fattened out of all
shape or form; and on the velvet sward of
other days you might have waded waist high
in rotten hay. Towards the garden end this
rank jungle merged into a worse wilderness
of rhododendrons, the tallest I have ever Seen-
On all this the white moon smiled, and the
grim house glowered, to the eternal swirl and
rattle of the beck beyond its walls.
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In the Garden
Long enough I stood where I had dropped,
listening with all my being for some other
sound; but at last that great studded door
creaked and shivered on its ancient hinges,
and I heard voices arguing in the Portuguese
tongue. It was poor Eva wheedling that
black rascal Jose'. I saw her in the lighted
porch; the nigger I saw also, shrugging and
gesticulating for all the world like his hateful
master; yet giving in, I felt certain, though I
could not understand a word that reached me.
And indeed my little mistress very soon
sailed calmly out, followed by final warnings
and expostulations hurled from the step: for
the black stood watching her as she came
steadily my way, now raising her head to sniff
the air, now stooping to pluck up a weed, the
very picture of a prisoner seeking the open
. air for its own sake solely. I had a keen eye
apiece for them as I cowered closer to the
wall, revolver in hand. But ere my love was
very near me (for she would stand long mo-
ments gazing ever so innocently at the moon),
her gaoler had held a bottle to the light, and
had beaten a retreat so sudden and so hasty
that I expected him back every moment, and
so durst not stir. Eva saw me, however, and
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
contrived to tell me so without interrupting
the air that she was humming as she walked.
“ Follow me,” she sang, “ only keep as you
are, keep as you are, close to the wall, close to
the wall.”
And on she strolled to her own tune, and
came abreast of me without turning her head;
so I crept in the shadow (my ugly weapon
tucked out of sight), and she sauntered in the
shine, until we came to the end of the garden,
where the path turned at right angles, run-
ning behind the rhododendrons; once in their
shelter, she halted and beckoned me, and next
instant I had her hands in mine.
“ At last! ” was all that I could say for many
a moment, as I stood there gazing into her
dear eyes, no hero in my heroic hour, but the
bigger love-sick fool than ever. “ But quick
—quick—-quick! ” I added, as she brought
me to my senses by withdrawing her hands.
“ We’ve no time to lose.” And I looked wild-
ly from wall to wall, only to find them as bar-
ren and inaccessible on this side as on the
other.
“ We have more time than you think,” were
Eva’s first words. “ We can do nothing for
half-an-hour.”

r70


In the Garden
“ Why not? ”
“ I’ll tell you in a minute. How did you
manage to get over? ”
“ Brought boulders from the beck, and piled
’em up till I could reach the top.”
I thought her eyes glistened.
“What patience!” she cried softly. “ We
must find a simpler way of getting out—and
I think I have. They’re all gone, you know,
but José."
“ All three?”
“ The captain has been gone all day.”
Then the other two must have been my
horsemen, very probably in some disguise;
and my head swam with the thought of the
risk that I had run at the very moment when
I thought myself safest. Well, I would have
finished them both! But I did not say so to
Eva. I did not mention the incident, I was so
fearful of destroying her confidence in me.
Apologising, therefore, for my interruption,
without explaining it, I begged her to let me
hear her plan.
It was simple enough. There was no fear
of the others returning before midnight; the
chances were that they would be very much
later; and now it was barely eleven, and Eva
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
had promised not to stay out above half-an-
hour. When it was up Iosé would come and
call her.
“It is horrid to have to be so cunning! ”
cried little Eva, with an angry shudder; “ but
it’s no use thinking of that,” she was quick
enough to add, “ when you have such dreadful
men to deal with, such fiends! And I have
had all day to prepare, and have suffered till I
am so desperate I would rather die to-night
than spend another in that house. No; let
me finish! José will come round here to look
for me. But you and I will be hiding on the
other side of these rhododendrons. And when
we hear him here we’ll make a dash for it
across the long grass. Once let us get the
door shut and locked in his face, and he’ll be
in a trap. It will take him some time to break
in; time enough to give us a start; what’s
more, when he finds us gone, he’ll do what
they all used to do in any doubt.”
“ What’s that? ”
“ Say nothing till it’s found out; then lie for
their lives; and it was their lives, poor creat—
ures on the Zambesi l ” She was silent a mo-
ment, her determined little face hard-set upon
some unforgotten horror. “ Once we get
172


In the Garden
away, I shall be surprised if it’s found out till
morning,” concluded Eva, without a word as
to what I was to do with her; neither, indeed,
had I myself given that question a moment’s
consideration.
“ Then let’s make a dash for it now!” was
all I said or thought.
“ N0 ; they can’t come yet, and José is
strong and brutal, and I have heard how ill
you are. That you should have come to me
notwithstanding ” and she broke 05 with
her little hands lying so gratefully on my
shoulders, that I know not how I refrained
from catching her then and there to my heart.
Instead, I laughed and said that my illness was
a pure and deliberate sham, and my presence
there its direct result. And such was the virt—
ue in my beloved’s voice, the magic of her
eyes, the healing of her touch, that I was
scarce conscious of deceit, but felt a whole
man once more as we two stood together in
the moonlight.
In a trance I stood there gazing into her
brave young eyes. In a trance I suffered her
to lead me by the hand through the rank,
dense rhododendrons. And still entranced I
crouched by her side near the further side,

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Dead Men Tell No Tales
with only unkempt grass-plot and a weedy
path between us and that ponderous door,
wide open still, and replaced by a section of
the lighted hall within. On this we fixed our
attention with mingled dread and impatience,
those contending elements of suspense; but
the black was slow to reappear; and my eyes
stole home to my sweet girl’s face, with its
glory of moonlit curls, and the eager, resolute,
embittered look that put the world back two
whole months, and Eva Denison upon the
Lady Jermyn’s poop, in the ship’s last hours.
But it was not her look alone; she had on her
cloak, as the night before, but with me (God
bless her!) she found no need to clasp herself
in its folds; and underneath she wore the very
dress in which she had sung at our last con~
cert, and been rescued in the gig. It looked
as though she had worn it ever since. The
roses were crushed and soiled, the tulle all
torn, and tarnished some strings of beads that
had been gold: 3 tatter of Chantilly lace hung
by a thread: it is another of the relics that I
have unearthed in the writing of this nar-
rative.
“I thought men never noticed dresses?”
my love said suddenly, a pleased light in her
.,| "-an
174


In the Garden
eyes (I thought) in spite of all. “ Do you
really remember it? ”
“ I remember every one of them,” I said in-
dignantly; and so I did.
“ You will wonder why I wear it,” said Eva,
quickly. “ It was the first that came that ter-
rible night. They have given me many since.
But I won’t wear one of them—not one! ”
How her eyes flashed! I forgot all about
José.
“ I suppose you know why they hadn’t
room for you in the gig? ” she went on.
“ No, I don’t know, and I don’t care. They
had room for you,” said I; “that’s all I care
about.” And to think she could not see I
loved her!
“ But do you mean to say you don’t know
that these—murderers—set fire to the ship?”
“ No—yes! I heard you say so last night."
“ And you don’t want to know what for? ”
Out of politeness I protested that I did; but,
as I live, all I wanted to know just then was
whether my love loved me—whether she ever
could—whether such happiness was possible
under heaven!
“ You remember all that mystery about the
cargo? ” she continued eagerly, her pretty
lips so divinely parted!


I75


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“It turned out to be gunpowder,” said I,
still thinking only of her.
“ No—gold! ”
“ But it was gunpowder,” I insisted; for it
was my incorrigible passion for accuracy
which had led up to half our arguments on the
voyage; but this time Eva let me off.
“ It was also gold: twelve thousand ounces
from the diggings. That was the real mystery.
Do you mean to say you never guessed?”
“ No, by Jove I didn’t! ” said 1. She had
diverted my interest at last. I asked her if
she had known on board.
“ Not until the last moment. I found out
during the fire. Do you remember when we
said good-bye? I was nearly telling you
then.”
Did I remember! The very letter of that
last interview was cut deep in my heart; not
a sleepless night had I passed without re-
hearsing it word for word and look for look;
and sometimes, when sorrow had spent itself,
and the heart could bleed no more, vain grief
had given place to vainer speculation, and I
had cudgelled my wakeful brains for the mean-
ing of the new and subtle horror which I had
read in my darling’s eyes at the last. Now I
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
and that was the night before in the old justice
hall, when she told Rattray her opinion of him
to his face. She had now the same angry
flush, the same set mouth and scornful voice;
and I took it finally into my head that she was
unjust to the poor devil, villain though he was.
With all his villainy I declined to believe him
as bad as the others. I told her so in as many
words. And in a moment we were arguing
as though we were back on the Lady Jermyn
with nothing else to do.
“ You may admire wholesale murderers and
thieves,” said Eva. “ I do not.”
“ Nor I. My point is simply that this one
is not as bad as the rest. I believe he was
really glad for my sake when he discovered
that I knew nothing of the villainy. Come
now, has he ever offered you any personal vio-
lence? ”
“ Me? Mr. Rattray? I should hope not,
indeed! ”
“ Has he never saved you from any? "
“ I—I don’t know.”
“ Then I do. When you left them last
night there was some talk of bringing you
back by force. You can guess who suggested
that—and who set his face against it and got
178


In the Garden
his way. You would think the better of Rat-
tray had you heard what passed.”
“ Should I? ” she asked half eagerly, as she
looked quickly round at me; and suddenly I
saw her eyes fill. “ Oh, why will you speak
about him? ” she burst out. “ Why must you
defend him, unless it’s to go against me, as
you always did and always will! I never
knew anybody like you—never! I want you
to take me away from these wretches, and all
you do is to defend them! ”
“ Not all,” said I, clasping her hand
warmly in mine. “ Not all—not all! I will
take you away from them, never fear; in an-
other hour God grant you may be out of their
reach for ever! ”
“ But where are we to go? ” she whispered
wildly. “ What are you to do with me? All
my friends think me dead, and if they knew I
was not it would all come out.”
“ So it shall,” said I; “ the sooner the bet-
ter; if I’d had my way it would all be out al-
ready.”
I see her yet, my passionate darling, as she
turned upon me, whiter than the full white
moon.
“ Mr. Cole,” said she, “ you must give me
I79


CHAPTER XV
FIRST 131.001)
So I bound myself to a guilty secrecy for
Eva’s sake, to save her from these wretches,
or if you will, to win her for myself. Nor did
it strike me as very strange, after a moment’s
reflection, that she should intercede thus ear-
nestly for a band headed by her own mother’s
widower, prime scoundrel of them all though
she knew him to be. The only surprise was
that she had not interceded in his name; that
I should have forgotten, and she should have
allowed me to forget, the very existence of so
indisputable a claim upon her loyalty. This,
however, made it a little difficult to understand
the hysterical gratitude with which my unwill-
ing promise was received. Poor darling! she
was beside herself with sheer relief. She wept
as I had never seen her weep before. She
seized and even kissed my hands, as one who
neither knew nor cared what she did, surpris-
ing me so much by her emotion that this ex-
pression of it passed unheeded. I was the best
182


First Blood
friend she had ever had. I was her one good
friend in all the world; she would trust herself
to me; and if I would but take her to the con-
vent where she had been brought up, she would
pray for me there until her death, but that
would not be very long.
All of which confused me utterly; it seemed
an inexplicable breakdown in one who had
shown such nerve and courage hitherto, and so
hearty a loathing for that damnable Santos. So
completely had her presence of mind forsaken
her that she looked no longer where she had
been gazing hitherto. And thus it was that
neither of us saw José until we heard him call-
ing, “ Senhora Evah! Senhora Evah! ” with
some rapid sentences in Portuguese.
“ Now is our time,” I whispered, crouching
lower and clasping a small hand gone suddenly
cold. “ Think of nothing now but getting out
of this. I’ll keep my word once we are_out;
and here’s the toy that’s going to get us out.”
And I produced my Deane-and-Adams with
no small relish.
A little trustful pressure was my answer and
my reward; meanwhile the black was singing
out lustily in evident suspicion and alarm. ,
“ He says they are coming back,” whispered
Eva; “ but that’s impossible.”


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Dead Men Tell No Tales
U !,
“ Because if they were he couldn’t see them,
and if he heard them he would be frightened
of their hearing him. But here he comes! ”
A shuffling quick step on the path; a run-
ning grumble of unmistakable threats; a
shambling moonlit figure seen in glimpses
through the leaves, very near us for an instant,
then hidden by the shrubbery as he passed
within a few yards of our hiding-place. A di-
minuendo of the shuffling steps; then a curs-
ing, frightened savage at one end of the
rhododendrons, and we two stealing out at the
other, hand in hand, and bent quite double,
into the long neglected grass.
“ Can you run for it? ” I whispered.
“ Yes, but not too fast, for fear we trip.”
“ Come on, then! ” .
The lighted open doorway grew greater at
every stride.
“ He hasn’t seen us yet ”
“ No, I hear him threatening me still.”
“ Now he has, though! ”
A wild whoop proclaimed the fact,'and up-
right we tore at top speed through the last ten
yards of grass, while the black rushed down
one of the side-paths, gaining audibly on us

184


First Blood
over the better ground. But our start had
saved us, and we flew up the steps as his feet
ceased to clatter on the path; he had plunged
into the grass to cut off the corner.
“ Thank God! ” cried Eva. “ Now shut it
quick.”
The great door swung home with a mighty
clatter, and Eva seized the key in both hands.
“ I can't turn it!”
To lose a second was to take a life, and un-
consciously I was sticking at that, perhaps
from no higher instinct than distrust of my aim.
Our pursuer, however, was on the steps when
I clapped my free hand on top of those little
white straining ones, and by a timely effort
bent both them and the key round together;
the ward shot home as José hurled himself
against the door. Eva bolted it. But the thud
was not repeated, and I gathered myself to-
gether between the door and the nearest win-
dow, for by now I saw there was but one thing
for us. The nigger must be disabled, if I could
manage such a nicety; if not, the devil take
his own.
Well, I was not one tick too soon for him.
My pistol was not cocked UtZIOI'e the crash came
that I was counting on, and with it a shower
185


Dead Men Tell No Tales
of small glass driving across the six-foot sill
and tinkling on the flags. Next came a black
and bloody face, at which I could not fire. I
had to wait till I saw his legs, when I promptly
shattered one of them at disgracefully short
range. The report was as deafening as one
upon the stage; the hall filled with white
smoke, and remained hideous with the bellow-
ing of my victim. I searched him without a
qualm, but threats of annihilation instead, and
found him unarmed but for that very knife
which Rattray had induced me to hand over to
him in town. I had a grim satisfaction in de-
priving him of this, and but small compunc-
tion in turning my back upon his pain.
“ Come,” I said to poor Eva, “ don’t pity
him, though I daresay he’s the most pitiable of
the lot; show me the way through, and I’ll
follow with this lamp.”
One was burning on the old oak table, I car-
ried it along a narrow passage, through a great
low kitchen where I bumped my head against
the black oak beams; and I held it on high at
a door almost as massive as the one which we
had succeeded in shutting in the nigger’s face.
“ I was afraid of it! ” cried Eva, with a sud-
den sob.
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First Blood
“ What is it? ”
“ They’ve taken away the key! ”
Yes, the keen air came through an empty
key-hole ; and my lamp, held close, not only
showed us that the door was locked, but that
the lock was one with which an unskilled hand
might tamper for hours without result. I dealt
it a hearty kick by way of a test. The heavy
timber did not budge; there was no play at all i
at either lock or hinges; nor did I see how I
could spend one of my four remaining bullets
upon the former, with any chance of a return.
“ Is this the only other door?”
“ Yes.”
“ Then it must be a window.”
“ All the back ones are barred.”
“ Securely? ”
“ Yes.”
“ Then we’ve no choice in the matter.”
And I led the way back to the hall, where
the poor black devil lay blubbering in his blood.
In the kitchen I found the bottle of wine (Rat-
tray’s best port, that they were trying to make
her take for her health) with which Eva had
bribed him, and I gave it to him before laying
hands on a couple of chairs.
“ What are you going to do? ”
x87


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ Go out the way we came.”
“ But the wall? ”
“ Pile up these chairs, and as many more as
we may need, if we can’t open the gate.”
But Eva was not paying attention any longer,
either to me or to José ; his white teeth were
showing in a grin for all his pain; her eyes
were fixed in horror on the floor.
“ They’ve come back,” she gasped. “ The
underground passage! Hark—hark! ”
There was a muffled rush of feet beneath our
own, then a dull but very distinguishable clat-
ter on some invisible stair.
“ Underground passage! ” I exclaimed, and
in my sheer disgust I forgot what was due to
my darling. “ Why on earth didn’t you tell
me of it before? ”
“ There was so much to tell you! It leads to
the sea. Oh, what shall we do? You must
hide—upstairs—anywhere! ” cried Eva, wild-
ly. “ Leave them to me—leave them to me.”
“ I like that,” said I; and I did; but I de-
tested myself for the tears my words had drawn,
and I prepared to die for them.
“ They’ll kill you, Mr. Cole! ”
“ It would serve me right; but we’ll see
about it.”
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FirSt Blood
that, you little fraud behind there! ” It was
my betrayer skulking in the room. “ Come
out and line up with the rest! No, I’m not
going to see you fellows dance on nothing;
I’ve another kind of ball apiece for you, and
one between ’em for the Braithwaites! ”
Well, I suppose I always had a nasty tongue
in me, and rather enjoyed making play with it
on provocation; but, if so, I met with my de-
serts that night. For the nigger of the Lady
Icrmyn lay all but hid behind Eva and me; if
they saw him at all, they may have thought him
drunk; but, as for myself, I had fairly forgot-
ten his existence until the very moment came
for showing my revolver, when it was twisted
out of my grasp instead, and a ball sang under
my arm as the brute fell back exhausted and
the weapon clattered beside him. Before I
could stoop for it there was a dead weight on
my left arm, and Squire Rattray was over the
table at a bound, with his arms jostling mine
beneath Eva Denison’s senseless form.
“ Leave her to me,” he cried fiercely. “ You
fool,” he added in a lower key, “ do you think
I’d let any harm come to her? ”
I looked him in the bright and honest eyes
that had made me trust him in the beginning.
191


Dead Men Tell No Tales
And I did not utterly distrust him yet. Rather
was the guile on my side as I drew back and
watched Rattray lift the young girl tenderly,
and slowly carry her to the door by which she
had entered and left the ball just twenty-four
hours before. I could not take my eyes off
them till they were gone. And when I looked
for my revolver, it also had disappeared.
José had not got it--he lay insensible. San-
tos was whispering to Harris. Neither of
them seemed armed. I made sure that Rattray
had picked it up and carried it off with Eva.
I looked wildly for some other weapon. Two
unarmed men and a woman were all I had to
deal with, for Braithwaite had long since van-
ished. Could I but knock the worthless life
out of the men, I should have but the squire
and his servants to deal with; and in that
quarter I still had my hopes of a bloodless bat-
tle and a treaty of war.
A log fire was smouldering in the open grate.
I darted to it, and had a heavy, half-burnt brand
whirling round my head next instant. Harris
was the first within my reach. He came game-
ly at me with his fists. I sprang upon him, and
struck him to the ground with one blow, the
sparks flying far and wide as my smoking


192


CHAPTER XVI
A DEADLOCK
It must have been midnight when I opened
my eyes: a clock was striking as though it
never would stop. My mouth seemed fire; a
pungent flavour filled my nostrils; the wine-
glass felt cold against my teeth. “ That’s more
like it! ” muttered a voice close to my ear. An
arm was withdrawn from under my shoulders.
I was allowed to sink back upon some pillows.
And now I saw where I was. The room was
large and poorly lighted. I lay in my clothes
on an old four-poster bed. And my enemies
were standing over me in a group.
“ I hope you are satisfied! ” sneered Joaquin
Santos, with a flourish of his eternal cigarette.
“ I am. You don’t do murder in my house,
wherever else you may do it.”
“ And now better lid ’im to the nirrest poliss-
station ; or wee! you go and tell the poliss your-
self? ” asked the Portuguese, in the same tone
of mordant irony.
194


A Deadlock
“ Ay, ay,” growled Harris; “ that’s the next
thing! ”
“ No,” said Rattray; “the next thing’s for
you two to leave him to me.”
“ We’ll see you damned! ” cried the captain.
“ No, no, my friend,” said Santos, with a
shrug; “let him have his way. He is as fond
of his skeen as you are of yours; he’ll come
round to our way in the end. I know this Sen-
hor Cole. It is necessary for ’im to die. But it
is not necessary this moment; let us live them
together for a leetle beet.”
“ That’s all I ask,” said Rattray.
“ You won’t ask it twice,” rejoined Santos,
shrugging. “ I know this Senhor Cole. There
is only one way of dilling with a man like that.
Besides, he ’as ’alf-keeled my good José ; it is
necessary for ’im to die.”
“ I agree with the senior,” said Harris, whose
forehead was starred with sticking-plaster.
“ It’s him or us, an’ we’re all agen you, squire.
You’ll have to give in, first or last.”
And the pair were gone; their steps grew
faint in the corridor; when we could no longer
hear them, Rattray closed the door and quietly
locked it. Then he turned to me, stern enough,
and pointed to the door with a hand that shook.
I95


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ You see how it is? ”
“ Perfectly.”
“ They want to kill you! ”
“ Of course they do.”
“ It’s your own fault; you’ve run yourself
into this. I did my best to keep you out of it.
But in you come, and spill first blood.”
“ I don’t regret it," said I.
“ Oh, you’re damned mule enough not to re-
gret anything! ” cried Rattray. “ I see the sort
you are; yet but for me, I tell you plainly,
you’d be a dead man now.”
“ I can’t think why you interfered.”
“ You’ve heard the reason. I won’t have
murder done here if I can prevent it; so far I
have; it rests with you whether I can go on
preventing it or not.”
“ With me, does it? ”
He sat down on the side of the bed. He
threw an arm to the far side of my body, and
he leant over me with savage eyes now staring
into mine, now resting with a momentary
gleam of pride upon my battered head. I put
up my hand; it lit upon a very turban of band-
ages, and at that I tried to take his hand in
mine. He shook it off, and his eyes met mine
more fiercely than before.
196


A Deadlock
“ Yes—yes.”
“ And your share?”
“ Fourteen thousand pounds. Santos takes
twenty, and Harris and I fourteen thousand
each.”
“ And you offer me seven? ”
“Idol Idol”
He was becoming more and more eager and
excited. His eyes were brighter than I had
ever seen them, but slightly bloodshot, and a
coppery flush tinged his clear, sunburnt skin.
I fancied he had been making somewhat free
with the brandy. But loss of blood had cooled
my brain; and, perhaps, natural perversity had
also a share in the composure which grew upon
me as it deserted my companion.
“ Why make such a sacrifice? ” said I, smil-
ing. “ Why not let them do as they like? ”
“I’ve told you why! I’m not so bad as
all that. I draw the line at bloody murder!
Not a life should have been lost if I’d had
my way. Besides, I’ve done all the dirty
work by you, Cole; there’s been no help for
it. We didn’t know whether you knew or
not; it made all the difference to us; and
somebody had to dog you and find out how
much you did know. I was the only one who
I99.


Dead Men Tell No Tales
could possibly do it. God knows how I de—
tested the job! I’m more ashamed of it than
of worse things. I had to worm myself into
your friendship; and, by Jove, you made me
think you did know, but hadn’t let it out, and
might any day. So then I got you up here,
where you would be in our power if it was so;
surely you can see every move? But this much
I’ll swear—I had nothing to do with José
breaking into your room at the hotel; they
went behind me there, curse them! And when
at last I found out for certain, down here, that
you knew nothing after all, I was never more
sincerely thankful in my life. I give you my
word it took a load off my heart.”
“ I know that,” I said. “ I also know who
broke into my room, and I’m glad I’m even
with one of you.”
“ It’s done you no good,” said Rattray.
“ Their first thought was to put you out of the
way, and it’s more than ever their last. You
see the sort of men you’ve got to deal with;
and they’re three to one, counting the nigger;
but if you go in with me they’ll only be three
to two.”
He was manifestly anxious to save me in this
fashion. And I suppose that most sensible
200


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ Very well!” be interrupted. “ You shall
only pretend to touch it. All I want is to con-
vince the others that it’s against your interest
to split. Self-interest is the one motive they
understand. Your bare word would be good
enough for me.”
“ Suppose I won’t give my bare word? " said
I, in a gentle manner which I did not mean to
be as irritating as it doubtless was. Yet his
proposals and his assumptions were between
them making me irritable in my turn.
“ For heaven’s sake don’t be such an idiot,
Cole! ” he burst out in a passion. “ You know
I’m against the others, and you know what
they want, yet you do your best to put me on
their side! You know what they are, and yet
you hesitate! For the love of God be sensible;
at least give me your word that you’ll hold
your tongue for ever about all you know.”
“ All right,” I said. “ I’ll give you my word
--my sacred promise, Rattray—on one condi-
tion.”
“ What’s that?”
“ That you let me take Miss Denison away
from you, for good and all! ”
‘ ‘His face was transformed with fury: honest
passion faded from it and left it bloodless, dead~
1y, sinister.
204


A Deadlock
“ Away from me? ” said Rattray, through
his teeth.
“ From the lot of you.”
“ I remember! You told me that night. Ha,
ha, ha! You were in love with her—you—
you! ”
“ That has nothing to do with it,” said I,
shaking the bed with my anger and my agita-
tion.
“ I should hope not! Y on, indeed, to look at
her! ”
“ Well,” I cried, “ she may never love me;
but at least she doesn’t loathe me as she loathes
you—yes, and the sight of you, and your very
name! ”
So I drew blood for blood ; and for an instant
I thought he was going to make an end of it by
incontinently killing me himself. His fists flew
out. Had I been a whole man on my legs, he
took care to tell me what he would have done,
and to drive it home with a mouthful of the
oaths which were conspicuously absent from
his ordinary talk.
“ You take advantage of your weakness, like
any cur,” he wound up.
“ And you of your strength—like the young
bully you are! ” I retorted.
20 5


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ You do your best to make me one,” he an-
swered bitterly. “ I try to stand by you at all
costs. I want to make amends to you, I want
to prevent a crime. Yet there you lie and set
your face against a compromise; and there you
lie and taunt me with the thing that’s gall and
wormwood to me already. I know I gave you
provocation. And I know I’m rightly served.
Why do you suppose I went into this accursed
thing at all? Not for the gold, my boy, but for
the girl! So she won’t look at me. And it
serves me right. But—I say—do you really
think she loathes me, Cole? ”
“ I don’t see how she can think much better
of you than of the crime in which you’ve had a
hand,” was my reply, made, however, with as
much kindness as I could summon. “ The
word I used was spoken in anger,” said I; for
his had disappeared; and he looked such a
miserable, handsome dog as he stood there
hanging his guilty head—in the room, I fan-
cied, where he once had lain as a pretty, inno-
cent child.
“ Cole,” said he, “ I’d give twice my share of
the damned stuff never to have put my hand
to the plough; but go back I can’t; so there’s
an end of it.”
206


A Deadlock
“ I don’t see it,” said I. “ You say you didn’t
go in for the gold? Then give up your share;
the others’ll jump at it; and Eva won’t think
the worse of you, at any rate.”
“ But what’s to become of her if I drop out? ”
“ You and I will take her to her friends, or
wherever she wants to go.”
“ No, no! ” he cried. “ I never yet deserted
my pals, and I’m not going to begin.”
“ I don’t believe you ever before had such
pals to desert,” was my reply to that. “ Quite
apart from my own share in the matter, it
makes me positively sick to see a fellow like
you mixed up with such a crew in such a game.
Get out of it, man, get out of it while you can!
Now’s your time. Get out of it, for God’s
sake! ”
I sat up in my eagerness. I saw him waver.
And for one instant a great hope fluttered in
my heart. But his teeth met. His face dark-
ened. He shook his head.
“ That’s the kind of rot that isn’t worth
talking, and you ought to know it,” said he.
“ When I begin a thing I go through with it,
though it lands me in hell, as this one will. I
can’t help that. It’s too late to go back. I’m
going on; and you’re going with me, Cole,
like a sensible chap! ”
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
I shook my head.
“ Only on the one condition.”
“ You-stick-to-that? ” he said, so rapidly
that the words ran into one, so fiercely that his
decision was as plain to me as my own.
“ I do,” said I, and could only sigh when he
i made yet one more effort to persuade me, in a
distress not less apparent than his resolution,
and not less becoming in him.
“ Consider, Cole, consider! ”
“ I have already done so, Rattray.”
“ Murder is simply nothing to them! ”
“ It is nothing to me either.”
“ Human life is nothing! ”
“ No; it must end one day.”
“ You won’t even give your word uncondi-
tionally ? ”
“ No; you know my condition.”
He ignored it with a blazing eye, his hand
upon the door.
“ You prefer to die, then? ”
“ Infinitely.”
“Then die you may, and be damned to
you!”
208


Dead Men Tell No Tales
was off the bed and on my feet. I reeled a little,
and my head gave me great pain, but greater
still was my excitement. I caught up the
candle, opened the unlocked bureau, and then
the empty case which I found in the very
front.
My heart leapt; there was no mistaking the
depressions in the case. It was a brace of tiny
pistols that Rattray had slipped into his jacket
pockets.
Mere toys they must have been in compari-
son with my dear Deane-and-Adams; that
mattered nothing. I went no longer in dire
terror of my life; indeed, there was that in Rat-
tray which had left me feeling fairly safe, in
spite of his last words to me, albeit I felt his
fears on my behalf to be genuine enough. His
taking these little pistols (of course, there were
but three chambers left loaded in mine) con-
firmed my confidence in him. He would stick
at nothing to defend me from the violence of
his bloodthirsty accomplices. But it should
not come to that. My legs were growing
firmer under me. I was not going to lie there
meekly without making at least an effort at self-
deliverance. If it succeeded—the idea came to
me in a flash—I would send Rattray an ultima-
21°


When Thieves Fall Out
tum from the nearest town; and either Eva
should be set instantly and unconditionally
free, or the whole matter be put unreservedly in
the hands of the local police.
There were two lattice windows, both in the
same immensely thick wall; to my joy, I dis-
covered that they overlooked the open premises
at the back of the hall, with the oak-plantation
beyond; nor was the distance to the ground
very great. It was the work of a moment to
tear the sheets from the bed, to tie the two ends
together and a third round the mullion by
which the larger window was bisected. I had
done this, and had let down my sheets, when a
movement below turned my heart to ice. The
night had clouded over. I could see nobody;
so much the greater was my alarm.
I withdrew from the window, leaving the
sheets hanging, in the hope that they also
might be invisible in the darkness. I put out
the candle, and returned to the window in great
perplexity. Next moment I stood aghast—be-
tween the devil and the deep sea. I still heard
a something down below, but a worse sound
came to drown it. An unseen hand was very
quietly trying the door which Rattray had
locked behind him.
21!


When Thieves Fall Out
some hiding-place in the room. The best that
ofiered was a recess in the thick wall between
the two windows, filled with hanging clothes:
a narrow closet without a door, which would
shelter me well enough if not too curiously in-
spected. Here I hid myself in the end, after a
moment of indecision which nearly cost me my
life. The coats and trousers still shook in front
of me when the door flew open at the first kick,
and Santos stood a moment in the moonlight,
looking for the bed. With a stride he reached
it, and I saw the gleam of a knife from where
I stood among the squire’s clothes; it flashed
over my bed, and was still.
“ He is not ’erel ”
“ He heard us, and he’s a hiding.”
“ Make light, my friend, and we shall very
soon see.”
Harris did so.
“ Here’s a candle,” said Santos; “light it,
and watch the door. Perro mal dicto! What
have we here?”
I felt certain he had seen me, but the candle
passed within a yard of my feet, and was held
on high at the open window.
“ We are too late! ” said Santos. “He’s
gone! ”
213


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ Are you sure? ”
“ Look at this sheet.”
“ Then the other swab knew of it, and we’ll
settle with him.”
“ Yes, yes. But not yet, my good friend—
not yet. We want his asseestance in getting
the gold back to the sea; he will be glad
enough to give it, now that his pet bird has
flown; after that—by all mins. You shall cut
his troth, and I will put one of ’is dear friend’s
bullets in ’im for my own satisfaction.”
There was a quick step on the stairs—in the
corridor. _
“ I’d like to do it now,” whispered Harris;
" no time like the present.”
“ Not yet, I tell you! ”
And Rattray was in the room, a silver-
mounted pistol in each hand; the sight of these
was a surprise to his treacherous confederates,
as even I could see.
“ What the devil are you two doing here? ”
he thundered.
“ We thought he was too quite,” said Santos.
“ You percive the rizzon.”
And he waved from empty bed to open win—
dow, then held the candle close to the tied
sheet, and shrugged expressively.
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Dead Men Tell No Tales
wise and just, and very loyal also to your
friends. You treat a dangerous enemy as
though he were your tween-brother. You let
him escape—let him, I repit—and then you
threaten to shoot those who, as it is, may pay
for your carelessness with their lives. We
have been always very loyal to you, Senhor
Rattray. We have leestened to your advice,
and often taken it against our better judg-
ment. We are here, not because we think it
wise, but because you weeshed it. Yet at the
first temptation you turn upon us, you point
your peestols at your friends.”
-“ I don’t believe in your loyalty,” rejoined
Rattray. “ I believe you would shoot me
sooner than I would you. The only differ-
ence would be that I should be shot in the
back!” \
“ It is untrue,” said Santos, with immense
emotion. “ I call the saints to witness that
never by thought or word have I been disloyal
to you ”—and the blasphemous wretch actu-
ally crossed himself with a trembling, skinny
hand. “ I have leestened to you, though you
are the younger man. I have geeven way to
you in everything from the moment we were
so fullish as to set foot on this accursed coast;
216


When Thieves Fall Out
that also was your doeeng; and it will be your
fault if ivil comes of it. Yet I have not com-
plained. Here in your own ’ouse you have
been the master, I the guest. So far from
plotting against you, show me the man who
has heard me brith one treacherous word be-
hind your back; you will find it deeficult,
friend Rattray; what do you say, captain? ”
“ Me?” cried Harris, in a voice bursting
with abuse. And what the captain said may
or may not be imagined. It cannot be set
down.
But the man who ought to have spoken—-
the man who had such a chance as few men
have off the stage—who could have confound—
ed these villains in a breath, and saved the
wretched Rattray at once from them and from
himself—that unheroic hero remained ignobly
silent in his homely hiding-place. And, what
is more, he would do the same again!
The rogues had fallen out; now was the
time for honest men. They all thought I had
escaped; therefore they would give me a bet-
ter chance than ever of still escaping; and I
have already explained to what purpose I
meant to use my first hours of liberty. That
purpose I hold to have justified any ingrati—
217


Dead'Men Tell No Tales
tude that I may seem now to have displayed
towards the man who had undoubtedly stood
between death and me. Was not Eva Deni-
son of more value than many Rattrays? And
it was precisely in relation with this pure
young girl that I most mistrusted the squire:
obviously then my first duty was to save Eva
’ from Rattray, not Rattray from these traitors.
Not that I pretend for a moment to have
been the thing I never was: you are not so
very grateful to the man who pulls you out of
the mud when he has first of all pushed you in;
nor is it chivalry alone which spurs one to the
rescue of a lovely lady for whom, after all, one
would rather live than die. Thus I, in my
corner, was thinking (I will say) of Eva first;
but next I was thinking of myself; and Rat-
tray’s blood be on his own hot head! I hold,
moreover, that I was perfectly right in all this;
but if any think me very wrong, a sufficient
satisfaction is in store for them, for I was very
swiftly punished.
The captain’s language was no worse in
character than in effect: the bed was bloody
from my wounded head, all tumbled from the
haste with which I had quitted it, and only too
suggestive of still fouler play. Rattray
218


Dead Men Tell No Tales
Brandy and the wine-glass stood where Rat-
tray must have set them, on an oak stool be-
side the bed; as he spoke he crossed the room,
filled the glass till the spirit dripped, and
drained it at a gulp. He was twitching and
wincing still when he turned, walked up to
Joaquin Santos, and pointed to where I stood
with a fist that shook.
“ You wanted to deal with him,” said Rat-
tray; “ you’re at liberty to do so. I’m only
7 sorry I stood in your way.”
But no answer, and for once no rings of
smoke came from those shrivelled lips: the
man had rolled and lighted a cigarette since
Rattray entered, but it was burning unheeded
between his skinny fingers. I had his atten-
tion, all to myself. He knew the tale that I
was going to tell. He was waiting for it; he
was ready for me. The attentive droop of his
head; the crafty glitter in his intelligent eyes;
the depth and breadth of the creased forehead;
the knowledge of his resource, the conscious—
ness of my error, all distracted and confounded
me so that my speech halted and my voice ran
thin. I told Rattray every syllable that these
traitors had been saying behind his back, but
I told it all very ill; what was worse, and made
220


Dead Men Tell No Tales
have decided to live him to me, friend Rat-
tray, for I am quite come round to your way
of thinking. It is no longer necessary for him
to die! ”
“ You mean that?” cried Rattray keenly.
“ Of course I min it. You were quite right.
He must join us. But he will when I talk to
him.”
I could not speak. I was fascinated by this _
wretch: it was reptile and rabbit with us.
Treachery I knew he meant; my death, for
one; my death was certain; and yet I could not
speak.
“ Then talk to him, for God’s sake,” cried
Rattray, “ and I shall be only too glad if you
can talk some sense into him. I’ve tried, and
failed.”
“ I shall not fail,” said Santos softly. “ But
it is better that he has a leetle time to think
over it calmly; better steel for ’im to slip 'upon
it, as you say. Let us live ’im for the night,
what there is of it; time enough in the morn-
ing.” '
I could hardly believe my ears; still I knew
that it was treachery, all treachery; and the
morning I should never see.
“ But we can’t leave him up here,” said Rat—
222


When Thieves Fall Out
tray; “ it would mean one of us watching him
all night.”
“Quite so,” said Santos. “ I will tell you
where we could live him, however, if you will
allow me to wheesper one leetle moment.”
They drew aside; and, as I live, I thought
that little moment was to be Rattray’s last on
earth. I watched, but nothing happened; on
the contrary, both men seemed agreed, the
Portuguese gesticulating, the Englishman
nodding, as they stood conversing at the win—
dow. Their faces were strangely reassuring.
I began to reason with myself, to rid my mind
of mere presentiment and superstition. If
these two really were at one about me (I ar-
gued) there might be no treachery after all.
When I came to think of it, Rattray had been
closeted long enough with me to awake the
worst suspicions in the breasts of his compan-
ions; now that these were allayed, there might
be no more bloodshed after all (if, for exam-
ple, I pretended to give in), even though San-
tos had not cared whose blood was shed a few
minutes since. That was evidently the char-
acter of the wretch: to compass his ends or to
defend his person he would take life with no
more compunction than the ordinary criminal
223


Dead Men Tell No Tales
takes money; but (and hence) murder for mur-
der’s sake was no amusement to him.
My confidence was further restored by Cap-
tain Harris; ever a gross ruflian, with no re-
finements to his rascality, he had been at the
brandy-bottle after Rattray’s example; and
now was dozing on the latter’s bed, taking his
watch below when he could get it, like the
good seaman he had been. I was quite sorry
for him when the conversation at the window
ceased suddenly, and Rattray roused the cap-
tain up.
“ Watches aft! ” said he. “ We want that
mattress; you can bring it along, while I lead
the way with the pillows and things. Come
on, Cole! ”
“ Where to?” I asked, standing firm.
“ Where there’s no window for you to jump
out of, old boy, and no clothes of mine for you
to hide behind. You needn’t look so scared;
it’s as dry as a bone, as cellars go. And it’s
past three o’clock. And you’ve just got to
come.”
,..
224


CHAPTER XVIII
A MAN 0F MANY MURDERS
It was a good-sized wine-cellar, with very
little wine in it; only one full bin could I dis-
cover. The bins themselves lined but two of
the walls, and most of them were covered in
with cobwebs, close-drawn like mosquito-cur-
tains. The ceiling was all too low: torpid
spiders hung in disreputable parlours, dead to
the eye, but loathsomely alive at an involun-
tary touch. Rats scuttled when we entered,
and I had not been long alone when they re-
turned to bear me company. I am not a nat-
ural historian, and had rather face a lion with
the right rifle than a rat with a stick. My
jailers, however, had been kind enough to
leave me a lantern, which, set upon the ground
(like my mattress), would afford a warning, if
not a protection, against the worst; unless I
slept; and as yet I had not lain down.
The rascals had been considerate enough,
more especially Santos, who had a new man-
ner for me with his revised opinion of my
225


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ What question! ” said he; “ reelly, Sen-
hor Cole! But you are quite right: I would
have shot him, or cut his troth ” (and he
shrugged indifference on the point), “ if it had
not been for you; and yet it would have been
your fault! I nid not explain; the poseetion
must have explained itself already; besides,
it is past. With you two against us—but it is
past. You see, I have no longer the excellent
José. You broke his leg, bad man. I fear it
will be necessary to destroy ’im.” Santos
made a pause; then inquired if he shocked
me.
“ Not a bit,” said I, neither truly nor un-
truly; “ you interest me.” And that he did.
“ You see,” he continued, “ I have not the
respect of you Engleesh for ’uman life. We
will not argue it. I have at least some respect
for prejudice. In my youth I had myself such
prejudices; but one loses them on the Zam-
besi. You cannot expect one to set any value
upon the life of a black nigger; and when you
have keeled a great many Kaf’firs, by the lash,
with the crocodiles, or what-not, then a white
man or two makes less deeference. I ac-
knowledge there were too many on board that
sheep; but what was one to do? You have
230


A Man of Many Murders
your Engleesh proverb about the dead men
and the stories; it was necessary to make clin
swip. You see the result.”
He shrugged again towards the boxes; but
this time, being reminded of them (I sup-
posed), he rose and went over to see how Har-
ris was progressing. The captain had never
looked round; neither did he look at Santos.
“ A leetle dipper,” I heard the latter say, “ and,
perhaps, a few eenches—” but I lost the last
epithet. It followed a glance over the shoul-
der in my direction, and immediately preced-
ed the return of Santos to his camp-stool.
“ Yes, it is always better to bury treasure,”
said he once more; but his tone was altered; it
was more contemplative; and many smoke—
rings came from the shrunk lips before an-
other word; but through them all, his dark
eyes, dull with age, were fixed upon me.
“ You are a treasure! ” he exclaimed at last,
softly enough, but quickly and emphatically
for him, and with a sudden and most diabolical
smile.
“ So you are going to bury me? ”
I had suspected it when first I saw the
spade; then not ;'but since the Visit to the hole
I had made up my mind to it.
:31


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ Did you ever see a man hanged? ” asked
Santos, with a vile eye for each of us. “ I
once hanged fifteen in a row; abominable
thifs. And I once poisoned nearly a hundred
at one banquet; an untrustworthy tribe; but
the hanging was the worse sight and the
worse death. Heugh! There was one man
—he was no stouter than you are, cap-
tain ”
But the door slammed; we heard the cap-
tain on the stairs; there was a rustle from the
leaves outside, and then a silence that I shall
not attempt to describe.
And, indeed, I am done with this descrip—
tion: as I live to tell the tale (or spoil it, if I
choose) I will make shorter work of this par-
ticular business than I found it at the time.
Perverse I may be in old age as in my youth ;
but on that my agony—my humiliating agony
—I decline to dwell. I suffer it afresh as I
write. There are the cobwebs on the ceiling,
a bloated spider crawling in one: a worse mon-
ster is gloating over me: those dull eyes of his,
and my own pistol-barrel, cover me in the
lamplight. The crucifix pin is awry in his
cravat; that is because he has offered it me to
kiss. As a refinement (I feel sure) my re-

234


Dead Men Tell No Tales
slid out, it was a binful of empty bottles, and
this time they were allowed to crash upon the
floor ; the squire stood pointing to a man-hole
at the back of the bin. “That’s one alter-
native,” said he; “ but it will mean leaving this
much stuff at least,” pointing to the boxes,
“ and probably all the rest at the other end.
The other thing’s to stop and fight! ”
“ I fight,” said Santos, stalking to the door.
“ Have you no more ammunition for me,
friend Cole ? Then I must live you alive;
adios, senhor! ”
Harris cast a wistful look towards the man-
hole, not in cowardice, I fancy, but in sudden
longing for the sea, the longing of a poor devil
of a sailor-man doomed to die ashore. I am
still sorry to remember that Rattray judged
him differently.
“ Come on, skipper,” said he; “it’s all or
none aboard the lugger, and I think it will be
none. Up you go; wait a second in the room
above, and I’ll find you an old cutlass. I
shan’t be longer.” He turned to me with a
wry smile. “ W'e’re not half armed,” he said;
“ they’ve caught us fairly on the hop; it should
be fun! Good-bye, Cole; I wish you’d had
another round for that revolver. Good-bye,
Eva! ”
2 36


CHAPTER XIX
MY GREAT HOUR
The library doors were shut, and I closed
the secret one behind me before opening the
other and peering out through a wrack of blu-
ish smoke; and there lay Captain Harris, sure
enough, breathing his last in the arms of one
constable, while another was seated on the
table with a very wry face, twisting a tourni-
quet round his arm, from which the blood was
dripping like rain-drops from the eaves. A
third officer stood in the porch, issuing direc-
tions to his men without.
“ He’s over the wall, I tell you! I saw him
run up our ladder. After him every man-of
you—and spread! ”
I looked in vain for Rattray and the rest;
yet it seemed as if only one of them had es-
caped. I was still looking when the man in
the porch wheeled back into the hall, and in-
stantly caught sight of me at my door.
“ Hillo! here’s another of them,” cried he.
24:


Dead Men Tell No Tales
“ Out you come, young fellow! Your mates
are all dead men.”
“ They’re not my mates.”
“ Never mind; come you out and let’s have
a look at you."
I did so, and was confronted by a short,
thickset man, who recognized me with a
smile, but whom I failed to recognise.
“ I might have guessed it was Mr. Cole,”
said he. “ I knew you were here somewhere,
but I couldn’t make head or tail of you through
the smoke.”
“I’m surprised that you can make head or
tail of me at all,” said I.
“Then you’ve quite forgotten the inquis—
itive parson you met out fishing? You see I
found out your name for myself! ”
“ So it was a detective! ”
“ It was and is,” said the little man, nodding.
“ Detective or Inspector Royds, if you’re any
the wiser.”
“ What has happened? Who has es-
caped? ”
“Your friend Rattray; but he won’t get
far.”
“ What of the Portuguese and the nigger? ”
I forgot that I had crippled José, but re-
242 -


Dead Men Tell No Tales
the man with the wounded arm was swaying
where he sat from loss of blood, and I had to
help him into the open air before at last I was
free to return to poor Eva in her place of loath-
some safety. I had been so long, however,
that her patience was exhausted, and as I re-
turned to the library by one door, she entered
by the other.
“ I could bear it no longer. Tell me—the
worst! ”
“ Three of them are dead.”
“ Which three? ”
She had crossed to the other door, and
would not have me shut it. So I stood be-
tween her and the hearth, on which lay the
captain’s corpse, with the hearthrug turned
up on either side to cover it.
“ Harris for one,” said I. “ Outside lie
José and ”
“ Quick! Quick! ”
“ Senhor Santos.”
Her face was as though the name meant
nothing to her.
“ And Mr. Rattray? ” she cried. “ And
Mr. Rattray ”
“ Has escaped for the present. He seems
to have cut his way through the police and got


246


My Great Hour
I felt as though a cold hand had checked my
heart at its hottest, but I mastered myself suf-
ficiently to face her question and to answer it
as honestly as I might.
“ Yes! ” I cried; “ well enough even to do
that, if it was for your happiness; but I might
be rather difficult to convince about that.”
“ You are very strong and true,” she mur-
mured. " Yes, I can trust you as I have never
trusted anybody else! But—how long have
you been so foolish? ” And she tried very
hard to smile.
“ Since I first saw you; but I only knew it
on the night of the fire. Till that night I re-
sisted it like an idiot. Do you remember how
we used to argue? I rebelled so against my
love! I imagined that I had loved once al-
ready and once for all. But on the night of
the fire I knew that my love for you was dif-
ferent from all that had gone before or would
ever come again. I gave in to it at last, and
oh I the joy of giving in! I had fought against
the greatest blessing of my life, and I never
knew it till I had given up fighting. What
did I care about the fire? I was never hap-
pier—until now! You sang through my
heart like the wind through the rigging; my
249


Dead Men Tell No Tales
And he was on his knees where I had knelt
scarce a minute before; nor could I bear to
watch them any longer. I believed that he
loved her in his own way as sincerely as I did
in mine. I believed that she detested him for
the detestable crime in which he had been con-
cerned. I believed that the opinion of him
which she had expressed to his face, in my
hearing, was her true opinion, and I longed to
hear her mitigate it ever so little before he
went. He won my sympathy as a gallant who
valued a kind word from his mistress more
than life itself. I hoped earnestly that that
kind word would be spoken. But I had no
desire to wait to hear it. I felt an intruder. I
would leave them alone together for the last
time.
So I walked to the door, but, seeing a key
in it, I changed my mind, and locked it on the
inside. In the hall I might become the un-
intentional instrument of the squire’s capture,
though, so far as my ears served me, it was
still empty as we had left it. I preferred to run
no risks, and would have a look at the sub-
terranean passage instead.
“ I advise you to speak low,” I said, “ and
not to be long. The place is alive with the
police. If they hear you all will be up.”
>254


My Great Hour
Whether he heard me I do not know. I left
him on his knees still, and Eva with her face
hidden in her hands.
The cellar was a strange scene to re-visit
within an hour of my deliverance from that
very torture-chamber. It had been some-
thing more before I left it, but in it I could
think only of the first occupant of the camp-
stool. The lantern still burnt upon the floor.
There was the mattress, still depressed where
I had lain face to face with insolent death.
The bullet was in the plaster; it could not have
missed by the breadth of many hairs. In the
corner was the shallow grave, dug by Harris
for my elements. And Harris was dead. And
Santos was dead. But life and love were
mine.
I would have gone through it all again!
And all at once I was on fire to be back in
the library; so much so, that half a minute at
the man-hole, lantern in hand, was enough for
me; and a mere funnel of moist brown earth
—-a terribly low arch propped with beams—as
much as I myself ever saw of the subterranean
conduit between Kirby House and the sea.
But I understand that the curious may trav-
erse it for themselves to this day on payment
of a very modest fee.
255


Dead Men Tell No Tales
As for me, I returned as I had come after
(say) five minutes’ absence; my head full once
more of Eva, and of impatient anxiety for the
wild young squire’s final flight; and my heart
still singing with the joy of which my beloved’s
kindness seemed a sufficient warranty. Poor
egotist! Am I to tell you what I found when
I came up those steep stairs to the chamber
where I had left him on his knees to her? Or
can you guess?
He was on his knees no more, but he held
her in his arms, and as I entered he was kiss-
ing the tears from her wet flushed cheek. Her
eyelids drooped; she was pale as the dead
without, so pale that her eyebrows looked ab-
normally and dreadfully dark. She did not
cling to him. Neither did she resist his
caresses, but lay passive in his arms as though
her proper paradise was there. And neither
heard me enter; it was as though they had for-
gotten all the world but one another.
“ So this is it,” said I very calmly. I can
hear my voice as I write.
They fell apart on the instant. Rattray
glared at me, yet I saw that his eyes were dim.
Eva clasped her hands before her, and looked
me steadily in the face. But never a word.
256


Dead Men Tell No Tales
grate below and a small mirror above, formed
an almost solitary oasis in the four walls of
books. In the mirror I saw my face; it was
wizened, drawn, old before its time, and mere-
ly ugly in its sore distress, merely repulsive in
its bloody bandages. And in the mirror also
I saw Rattray, handsome, romantic, auda-
cious, all that I was not, nor ever would be, and
I “ understood ” more than ever, and loathed
my rival in my heart.
I wheeled round on Eva. I was not going
to give her up—to him. I would tell her so
before him—tell him so to his face. But she
had turned away; she was listening to some
one else. Her white forehead glistened.
There were voices in the hall.
“ Mr. Cole! Mr. Cole! Where are you,
Mr. Cole? ”
I moved over to the locked door. My hand
found the key. I turned round with evil tri-
umph in my heart, and God knows what upon
my face. Rattray did not move. With lifted
hands the girl was merely begging him to go,
by the door that was open, down the stair. He
shook his head grimly. With an oath I was
upon them.
“ Go, both of you! ” I whispered hoarsely.
258


My Great Hour
“ Now—while you can—and I can let you.
Now! Now! ”
Still Rattray hung back.
I saw him glancing wistfully at my great re-
volver lying on the table under the lamp. I
thrust it upon him, and pushed him towards
the door.
“ You go first. She shall follow. You will
not grudge me one last word? Yes, I will
take your hand. If you escape—be good to
her!”
He was gone. Without, there was a voice
still calling me; but now it sounded over-
head.
“ Good-bye, Eva,” I said. “ You have not
a moment to lose.”
Yet those divine eyes lingered on my ugli-
ness.
“ You are in a'very great hurry,” said she,
in the sharp little voice of her bitter moments.
“ You love him; that is enough.”
“And you, too! ” she cried. “And you,
too! ”
And her pure warm arms were round my
neck; another instant, and she would have
kissed me, she! I know it. I knew it, then.
But it was more than I would bear. As a.
259


Dead Men Tell No Tales
brother! I had heard that tale before. Back
I stepped again, all the man in me rebelling.
“ That’s impossible,” said I rudely.
“ It isn’t. It's true. I do love you—for
this! ”
God knows how I looked!
“ And I mayn’t say good-bye to you,” she
whispered. “ And—and I love you—for
that! ”
“ Then you had better choose between us,”
said I.
260


Dead Men Tell No Tales
terest—of almost universal interest—to which
no such samples need apply; for it cleared up
certain features of the foregoing narrative
which had long been mysteries to all the
world; and it gave me what I had tried in vain
to fathom all these years, some explanation, or
rather history, of the young Lancastrian’s
complicity with Joaquin Santos in the foul en-
terprise of the Lady Jermyn. And these
passages I shall reproduce word for word;
partly because of their intrinsic interest; partly
for such new light as they may throw on this
or that phase of the foregoing narrative; and,
lastly, out of fairness to (I hope) the most gal—
lant and most generous youth who ever
slipped upon the lower slopes of Avernus.
Wrote Rattray :—
“ You wondered how I could have thrown
in my lot with such a man. You may wonder
still, for I never yet told living soul. I pre-
tended I had joined him of my own free will.
That was not quite the case. The facts were
as follows.
“ In my teens (as I think you know) I was
at sea. I took my second mate’s certificate at
twenty, and from that to twenty-four my voy-
ages were far between and on my own account.
262


The Statement of Francis Rattray
one too. It is not worth while. No crime is
worth while under five figures, my friend. A
starving Jack, eh? Instead of robbing me of
ten pounds, why not join me and take ten
thousand as your share of our first robbery?
A sailor is the very man I want! ’
“ I told him that what I wanted was his cob,
and that it was no use his trying to hoodwink
me by pretending he was one of my_ sort, be-
cause I knew very well that he was not; at
which he shrugged again, and slowly dis-
mounted, after offering me his money, of
which I took half. He shook his head, tell-
ing me I was very foolish, and I was coolly
mounting (for he had never offered me'the
least resistance), with my pistols in my belt,
when suddenly I heard one cocked behind me.
“‘Stop!’ said he. ‘ It’s my turn! Stop,
or I shoot you dead! ’ The tables were
turned, and he had me at his mercy as com-
pletely as he had been at mine. I made up
my mind to being marched to the nearest po-
lice-station. But nothing of the kind. I had
misjudged my man as utterly as you mis-
judged him a few months later aboard the
Lady Jermyn. He took me to his house on the
outskirts of Melbourne, a weather-board
265


The Statement of Francis Rattray
us; and you may imagine our consternation
on hearing that she had told you all she knew!
From the first we were never quite sure
whether to believe it or not. That the papers
breathed no suspicion of foul play was neither
here nor there. Scotland Yard might have
seen to that. Then we read of the morbid re-
serve which was said to characterise all your
utterances concerning the Lady Iermyn. What
were we to do? What we no longer dared to
do was to take our gold-dust straight to the
Bank. What we did, you know.
“ We ran round to Morecambe Bay, and
landed the gold as we Rattrays had landed
lace and brandy from time immemorial.
We left Eva in charge of Jane Braithwaite,
God only knows how much against my will,
but we were in a corner, it was life or death
with us, and to find out how much you knew
was a first plain necessity. And the means we
took were the only means in our power; nor
shall I say more to you on that subject than I
said five years ago in my poor old house.
That is still the one part of the whole con-
spiracy of which I myself am most ashamed.
“ And now it only remains for me to tell you
why I have written all this to you, at such
273


Dead Men Tell No Tales
site side; that is her one grave fault. And I
must introduce personalities; that, of course,
is among the least of mine. I compared my-
self with Rattray, as a husband, and (with some
sincerity) to my own disparagement. I
pointed out that he was an infinitely more fas-
cinating creature, which was no hard saying,
for that epithet at least I have never earned.
And yet it was the word to sting my wife.
“Fascinating, perhaps!” said she. “ Yes,
that is the very word; but—fascination is not
love! ”
And then I went to her, and stroked her hair
(for she had hung her head in deep distress),
and kissed the tears from her eyes. And I
swore that her eyes were as lovely as Eva
Denison’s, that there seemed even more gold
in her glossy brown hair, that she was even
younger to look at. And at the last and crafti-
est compliment my own love looked at me
through her tears, as though some day or other
she might forgive me.
“ Then why did you want to give me up to
him? ” said she.
THE END
276





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BOOKS BY MR. HORNUNG




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A Literary Coincidence The Govemess at Greenhush
“ Authorl Author! " A Farewell Performance
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After the Fact The Star of the “ Grasmere"
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