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Dead Men Tell No Tales
Hornung, E. W.
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D
ead Men Tell No Tales by E. W. Hornung
Dead Men Tell No Tales
2
CHAPTER I − Love on the Ocean
N
othing is so easy as falling in love on a long sea voyage, except falling out of love.
Especially was this the case in the days when the wooden clippers did finely to land you in
Sydney 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 superficial 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 confined to the round voyage of the
Lady Jermyn, in the year 1853. It was no common experience, 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 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 discover, possessed accomplishments which would have made the plainest old maid
a popular personage on board ship. Miss Denison, however, 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, gray eyes.
We were at sea together so many weeks. I cannot think what I was made of then!
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 skipper'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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER I − Love on the Ocean 3
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
expenses. That, however, will surprise you the less when I pause to declare that I have paid
as much as four shillings and sixpence for half a loaf of execrable bread; that my mate and I,
between us, seldom took more than a few pennyweights of gold−dust in any one day; and
never once struck pick into nugget, big or little, though we had the mortification of
inspecting the «mammoth masses» of which we found the papers full on landing, and which
had brought the gold−fever to its height during our very voyage. With me, however, as with
many a young fellow who had turned his back on better things, the malady was short−lived.
We expected to make our fortunes out of hand, and we had reckoned without the vermin and
the villainy which rendered us more than ever impatient of delay. In my fly−blown blankets
I dreamt of London until I hankered after my chambers and my club more than after much
fine gold. Never shall I forget my first hot bath on getting back to Melbourne; it cost five
shillings, but it was worth five pounds, and is altogether my pleasantest reminiscence of
Australia.
There was, however, one slice of luck in store for me. I found the dear old Lady Jermyn
on the very eve of sailing, with a new captain, a new crew, a handful of passengers (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 realized that
he was one of those to whom adventitious honors 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 estate on the
Zambesi, where, a few months later, her mother had died of the malaria. Unable to endure
the place after his wife's death, Senhor Santos had taken ship to Victoria, there to seek fresh
fortune with results as indifferent 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 old
gentleman with the erect though wasted figure, the noble forehead, the steady eye, the
parchment skin, the white imperial, and the eternal cigarette between his shrivelled lips.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER I − Love on the Ocean 4
No need to say that I came more in contact with the young girl. She was not less
charming in my eyes because she provoked me greatly as I came to know her intimately.
She had many irritating faults. Like most young persons of intellect and inexperience, she
was hasty and intolerant in nearly all her judgments, 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
shipboard concerts vastly superior to the average of their order; but I have seen her shudder
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 exasperating 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 little 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 «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 comments,
that I was doomed so soon to repent; 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 bunting
and the foot−lights. The lanterns are trailed forward before they are put out; from the break
of the poop we watch the vivid shifting patch of deck that each lights up on its way. The
stars are very sharp in the vast violet dome above our masts; they shimmer on the sea; and
our trucks describe minute orbits 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. No jarring note offends the ear. In the forecastle a voice is
humming a song of Eva Denison'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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER I − Love on the Ocean 5
«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 owners 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 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? What 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? I must 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? Captains 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 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
presently; 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
flounces; and I am watching her, ay, and worshipping 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 − »
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER I − Love on the Ocean 6
«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 concerts as you like. I won't sing at another unless it's
in the fo'c'sle. I'll sing to the men, but not to Captain Harris. He didn't put in an appearance
tonight. He shall not have another 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!»
«Still, the captain felt the open slight.»
«Then he shouldn't have used such language 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 − except 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 which I blamed myself as I fell to pacing the
weather side of the poop − and so often afterwards! So often, and with such unavailing
bittertness !
Senhor Santos and the captain were in conversation 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 courtesy, 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 delicate gesture which is done almost entirely
with the back − a subtlety beyond the power of British shoulders.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER I − Love on the Ocean 7
«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 forsake the cigarette they were rolling to make
the sacred sign upon his breast. He was always smoking one cigarette and making another;
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 depressed 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 sympathize 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 saloon. Alas? I was a heavy sleeper then.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER I − Love on the Ocean 8
CHAPTER II − THE MYSTERIOUS CARGO
«W
ake 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.
«Have we long to last?» I asked, as I leaped for my clothes.
«Long enough for you to dress comfortably. 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,»
added 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; athletes
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 captain'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
better fettle. If only they get it under! I've not looked like this all the voyage.»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER II − THE MYSTERIOUS CARGO 9
And he admired himself while I dressed in hot haste: a fine young fellow; not at all the
natural egotist, but cast for death by the doctors, and keenly incredulous in his bag of skin. It
revived one's confidence to hear him talk. But he forgot himself in an instant, and gave me a
lead through the saloon with a boyish eagerness that made me actually suspicious as I ran.
We were nearing the Line. I recalled the excesses of my last crossing, and I prepared for
some vast hoax at the last moment. It was only when we plunged upon the crowded
quarter−deck, and my own eyes read lust of life and dread of death in the starting eyes of
others, that such lust and such dread consumed me in my turn, so that my veins seemed
filled with fire and ice.
To be fair to those others, I think that the first wild panic was subsiding even then; at
least there was a lull, and even a reaction in the right direction on the part of the males in the
second class and steerage. A huge Irishman at their head, they were passing buckets towards
the after−hold; the press of people hid the hatchway from us until we gained the poop; but
we heard the buckets spitting and a hose−pipe hissing into the flames below; and we saw the
column of white vapor rising steadily from their midst.
At the break of the poop stood Captain Harris, his legs planted wide apart, very
vigorous, very decisive, very profane. And I must confess that the shocking oaths which had
brought us round the Horn inspired a kind of confidence 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 properly 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.»
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.»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER II − THE MYSTERIOUS CARGO 10
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 officers
would have had more to say about it than Ready, if there had been anything in it.
«Officers be damned!» cried our consumptive, with a sound man's vigor. «They're
ordinary seamen dressed up; I don't believe they've a second mate's certificate between
them, and they're frightened out of their souls.»
«Well, anyhow, the skipper isn't that.»
«No; he's drunk; he can shout straight, but you should hear him try to speak.»
I made my way aft without rejoinder. «Invalid's pessimism,» was my private comment.
And yet the sick man was whole for the time being; the virile spirit was once more master of
the recreant members; and it was with illogical relief that I found those I sought standing
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
hardihood 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 instant), 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, exactly as though they were waiting for a
train. Moreover, I thought that for the first time he was regarding me with no very favoring
glance.
«You don't think it serious?» I asked him abruptly, my heart still bounding with the
most incongruous joy.
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.»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER II − THE MYSTERIOUS CARGO 11
«You see, Miss Denison,» I continued ecstatically, «our rough old diamond of a skipper
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, «although his 'ilarity sims a leetle out of place. But
you must never spik against Captain 'Arrees again, menma.»
«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 blasphemous exhortation; and I began to fear with
Ready that the man was drunk.
My eyes were still upon my darling, devouring 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:
«The flames! The flames !»
I turned, and caught their reflection on the white column of smoke and steam. I ran
forward, 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
another. These did more good than the pure water: the pillar of smoke became blacker,
denser: we were at a crisis; a sudden hush denoted 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, 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 captain. His face was reddened by a fire as
consuming as that within the bowels of our gallant 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?»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER II − THE MYSTERIOUS CARGO 12
His adjectives were too foul for print; they were given with such a special effort at
distinctness, however, that I was smiling one instant, and giving thanks the next that Eva
Denison had not come forward with her guardian. 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 enacted 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 overboard at a bound; one of his bundles preceded
him; the other dropped like a cannon−ball on the deck.
The nigger caught it up and carried it forward to the captain.
Harris held up his hand. We were still before 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 in 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.
McClellan − 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 o'
gossip goin', gossip about my cargo. I give out as I'd none but ship's stores and ballast, 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 o' the ship! What was the use o' frightenin' folks? But where's the sense in keepin' it
back now? We have a bit of a cargo,» shouted Harris; «and it's gunpowder − every damned
ton of it!»
The effect of this announcement may be imagined; my hand has not the cunning to
reproduce 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 eyeballs!
Pell−mell they tumbled down the poop−ladders; 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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER II − THE MYSTERIOUS CARGO 13
«For'ard with ye!» yelled the skipper. «The powder's underneath you in the lazarette!»
They were gone like hunted sheep. And now abaft the flaming hatchway there were
only we four surviving saloon passengers, the captain, his steward, the Zambesi negro, and
the quarter−master at the wheel. The steward and the black I observed putting stores aboard
the captain's gig as it overhung the water from the stern davits.
«Now, gentlemen,» said Harris to the two of us, «I must trouble you to step forward
with the rest. Senhor Santos insists on taking his chance along with the young lady in my
gig. I've told him the risk, but he insists, and the gig'll hold no more.»
«But she must have a crew, and I can row. For God's sake take me, captain!» cried I; for
Eva Denison sat weeping in her deck chair, and my heart bled faint at the thought of leaving
her, I who loved her so, and might die without ever telling her my love! Harris, however,
stood firm.
«There's that quartermaster and my steward, and Jose the nigger,» said he. «That's quite
enough, Mr. Cole, for I ain't above an oar myself; but, by God, I'm skipper o' 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 pistols 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 invertebrate
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?»
«Will 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
deeference. 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, putting in her first and last sweet word.
«Then we all drown, Evasinha,» said her stepfather. «It is impossible.»
«We're too many for her as it is,» said the captain. «So for'ard with ye, Mr. Cole, before
it's too late.»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER II − THE MYSTERIOUS CARGO 14
But my darling's brave word for me had fired my blood, and I turned with equal
resolution on Harris and on the Portuguese. «I 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 Santos, 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 acquiescence.
«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 minutes', 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 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 relieved. 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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER II − THE MYSTERIOUS CARGO 15
«Do you know what I thought you were going to say?»
«No, indeed.»
«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.
«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 ladder; but Ready was no longer in my mind;
even Eva was driven out of it, as I stood aghast on the top−most rung.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER II − THE MYSTERIOUS CARGO 16
CHAPTER III − TO THE WATER'S EDGE
I
t was not the new panic amidships that froze my marrow; it was not that the pinnace
hung perpendicularly by the fore−tackle, and had shot out those who had swarmed aboard
her before she was lowered, as a cart shoots a load of bricks. It was bad enough to see the
whole boat−load struggling, floundering, sinking in the sea; for selfish eyes (and which of us
is all unselfish at such a time?) there was a worse sight yet; for I saw all this across an
impassable gulf of fire.
The quarter−deck had caught: it was in flames to port and starboard of the flaming
hatch; only fore and aft of it was the deck sound to the lips of that hideous mouth, with the
hundred tongues shooting out and up.
Could I jump it there? I sprang down and looked. It was only a few feet across; but to
leap through that living fire was to leap into eternity. I drew back instantly, less because my
heart failed me, I may truly say, than because 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 southeast 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
alive among them; they were looking at something 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
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER III − TO THE WATER'S EDGE 17
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 wriggling; 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 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, common 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 forechains: 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
said so much, however, that in common candor 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 myself.
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
jib−boom into the water with its load of demented human beings. The mainmast followed 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 grandeur, her
flapping idle sails lighted up by the spreading conflagration, so that they were stamped very
sharply upon the black add 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 vessel, 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 reflected it. My gorge rose at the long, low billows−sleek
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER III − TO THE WATER'S EDGE 18
as black satin − lifting and dipping in this ghastly glare. I preferred to keep my eyes upon the
little ship burning like a tar barrel as the picture grew. But presently I thanked God aloud:
there was the gig swimming 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
discovered 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 −
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 getting 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 though the sun had risen, and I saw still a few heads
bobbing and a few arms waving frantically 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 burning
a few seconds before, there remained but a red−hot spine that hissed and dwindled for
another minute, and then left a blackness through which every star shone with redoubled
brilliance.
And now right and left splashed falling missiles; 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 armpits;
in another moment they had found a more solid resting−place.
It was a hen−coop, and it floated bars upwards 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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER III − TO THE WATER'S EDGE 19
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 gingerly; the balance was undisturbed, and I
stretched myself cautiously along the bars on my stomach. A good idea immediately
occurred to me. I had jumped as a matter of course into the flannels which one naturally
wears in the tropics. To their lightness I already 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. Loosening this
belt a little, as I tucked my toes tenaciously 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 bottom 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 secure 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
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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER III − TO THE WATER'S EDGE 20
CHAPTER IV − THE SILENT SEA
R
emember (if indeed there be any need to remind you) that it is a flagrant landsman
who is telling you this 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
misunderstood manouvre. But now I am aboard a craft I handle 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 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 to the deck; now they lay horizontal, a
gridiron six feet long−and my bed. And as each particular bar left its own stripe across my
wearied body, 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.
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
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER IV − THE SILENT SEA 21
drown in one fathom or in ten thousand, whether you fall from a balloon or from the attic
window. But the greater depth or distance 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 countries,
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
followed 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 beginning 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
understand 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, something 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−handkerchief of all things had remained in my trousers
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 Denison! I was
talking to her in the past, I was talking to her in the future, and oh! how different 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 sweet, and
death so many thousandfold more bitter.
She was saved in the gig. Sweet Jesus, thanks for that! But I − I was dying a lingering
death in mid−ocean; she would never know how I loved her, I, who could only lecture her
when I had her at my side.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER IV − THE SILENT SEA 22
Dying? No − no − not yet! I must live − live − live − to tell my darling how I had loved
her all the time. So I forced myself from my lethargy of despair and grief; and this thought,
the sweetest thought of all my life, may or may not have been my unrealized stimulus ere
now; it was in very deed my most conscious and perpetual spur henceforth until the end.
>From this onward, while my sense stood by me, I was practical, resourceful, alert. It
was now high−noon, and I had eaten nothing since dinner the night before. How clearly I
saw the long saloon table, only laid, however, abaft the mast; the glittering glass, the cool
white napery, the poor old dried dessert in the green dishes! Earlier, this had occupied my
mind an hour; now I dismissed it in a moment; there was Eva, I must live for her; there must
be ways of living at least a day or two without sustenance, and I must think of them.
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 greedily 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 burning had
brought no ship to our succor; 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 nearer, was new to me, as though it had come to the
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 extraordinary horror; it came too late to do that. I
thought I recognized the man's back. I fancied 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 com rade, 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 upwards; 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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER IV − THE SILENT SEA 23
The voices of the night came back to me − the curses and the cries. Yes, I must have
heard them. In memory now I recognized the voice of the chief mate, but there again 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 perishing 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 surely 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 fail, and «you squeamish fool!» I said at intervals, until my tongue
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 cleaving tongue wanted
more. The duck went to the shark; a few minutes more and I had made my own vile meal as
well.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER IV − THE SILENT SEA 24
CHAPTER V − MY REWARD
T
he sun declined; my shadow broadened on die 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 covering 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 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 follows 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 coffin; 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 helpless, 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. Suffice it that a petrel wheeled somewhere
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER V − MY REWARD 25
between deepening carmine and paling blue, and it took my thoughts off at an earthy
tangent. 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 Jermyn. But I could see them
still, could feel them shrewdly in my mind's flesh; and so to the old superstition, 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!
«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 realization, and that poem makes me realize 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 therefore, that the one apposite passage which recurred to me
in its entirety was in hexameters and pentameters
Me miserum, quanti montes volvuntur aquarum! Jam jam tacturos sidera summa putes.
Quantae diducto subsidunt aequore valles! Jam jam tacturas Tartara nigra putes. Quocunque
adspicio, nihil est nisi pontus et aether; Fluctibus hic tumidis, nubibus ille minax....
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
indeed a mountain, and its trough a Tartarus. I had learnt the lines at school; nay, they had
formed my very earliest piece of Latin repetition. 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 unconscious 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
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER V − MY REWARD 26
was minutes before I had the courage to test my theory.
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 cruelty 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 Jermyn. 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 pall of smoke above the mastheads, they set fire to the ship; smoke and flame
covered 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.
. . . . .
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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER V − MY REWARD 27
My floating coffin 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 odor
of onions in the Irish stew.
My hand crawled to my head; both felt a wondrous weight; and my head was covered
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 presently 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, homeward bound; glad to see them eyes open.»
«Have I been here long?»
«Matter o' 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? No, 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.»
«I've got it, sir.»
«Well, fetch it along, and come you in, Mr. Bowles; likely you may think o' somethin'.»
A reddish, hook−nosed man, with a jaunty, wicked look, came and smiled upon me in
the friendliest fashion; the smell of onions became more than I knew how to endure.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER V − MY REWARD 28
«Ever hear of the ship Lady Jermyn?» asked the first corner, winking at the other.
I thought very hard, the name did sound familiar; but no, I could not honestly say that I
had beard it before.
The captain looked at his mate.
«It was a thousand to one,» said he; «still we may as well try him with the other names.
Ever heard of Cap'n Harris, mister?»
«Not that I know of.»
«Of Saunderson−stooard?»
«No.»
«Or Crookes−quartermaster.»
«Never.»
«Nor yet of Ready − a passenger?»
«No.»
«It's no use goin' on,» said the captain folding up the paper.
«None whatever, sir,» said the mate
«Ready! Ready!» I repeated. «I do 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 o' 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 Denison −
»
«By God, yes! Have you?»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER V − MY REWARD 29
I was sitting bolt upright in my bunk. The skipper's beard dropped upon his chest.
«Bless my soul! The last name o' the lot, too!»
«Have you heard of her ?» I reiterated.
«Wait a bit, my lad! 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 awkwardly. «We found the gig o' the Lady Jermyn
the week arter we found you, bein' becalmed like; there wasn't no lady aboard her, though.»
«Was there anybody?»
«Two dead 'uns − an' this here paper.»
«Let me see it!»
The skipper hesitated.
«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. Captain 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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER V − MY REWARD 30
CHAPTER VI − THE SOLE SURVIVOR
A
few weeks later I landed in England, I, who no longer desired to set foot on any land
again.
At nine−and−twenty I was gaunt and gray; my nerves were shattered, my heart was
broken; and my face showed it without let or hindrance from the spirit that was broken too.
Pride, will, courage, and endurance, all these had expired in my long and lonely battle with
the sea. They had kept me alive−for this. And now they left me naked to mine enemies.
For every hand seemed raised against me, though in reality it was the hand of
fellowship that the world stretched out, and the other was the reading of a jaundiced eye. I
could not help it: there was a poison in my veins that made me all ingratitude and perversity.
The world welcomed me back, and I returned the compliment by sulking like the recaptured
runaway I was at heart. The world showed a sudden interest in me; so I took no further
interest in the world, but, on the contrary, resented its attentions with unreasonable 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 impudent 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 interest in one thrown into purely accidental and
necessarily painful prominence − the vulgarization of an unspeakable tragedy − that my soul
abhorred. I confess that I regarded it from my own unique and selfish point of view. 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 certainly did no
more. My reticence was rebuked 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 question 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
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER VI − THE SOLE SURVIVOR 31
exchange for the qualities 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 regret. They at least would have sheltered me
from spies and busybodies; 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 invited 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 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
imagination? 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, but − but hardly to be wondered at in a man who has
come through your nervous strain.» A keen professional light glittered in his eyes. «And
almost commonplace,» he added, smiling, «compared with the hallucinations you must have
suffered from on that hen−coop! Ah, my dear sir, the psychological interest of your case is
very great!»
«It may be,» said I, brusquely. «But I come to you to get that hen−coop out of my head,
not to be reminded of it. Everybody asks me about the damned thing, and you follow
everybody else. I wish it and I were at the bottom of the sea together!»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER VI − THE SOLE SURVIVOR 32
This speech had the effect of really interesting the doctor in my present condition,
which was indeed one of chronic irritation and extreme excitability, alternating with fits of
the very blackest despair. Instead of offending my gentleman I had put him on his mettle,
and for half an hour he honored me with the most exhaustive inquisition ever elicited from a
medical man. His panacea was somewhat in the nature of an anti−climax, but at least it had
the merits of simplicity and of common sense. A change of air − perfect quiet − say a
cottage in the country − not too near the sea. And he shook my hand kindly when I left.
«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 realized 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 woman 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.
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 Jermyn. Why should I have been the favored 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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER VI − THE SOLE SURVIVOR 33
CHAPTER VII − I FIND A FRIEND
T
he night after I consulted the specialist I was quite determined to sleep. I had laid in a
bundle of the daily papers. No country cottage 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; 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
reflected 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
had 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 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
answered «Nothing!» for this was not the first time my next−door neighbor had tried to
scrape acquaintance with me.
«But surely, sir, I heard the very dickens of a row?»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER VII − I FIND A FRIEND 34
«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−humor of my
neighbor, «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 matter rest. I shall have to come forward if
you persist, and Heaven knows I have been before 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 amusing disappointment in his gallant, young face.
«I am sorry to have robbed you of a pleasant 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
sympathy 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
about things − won't you drink a glass of brandy−and−water in my room before you turn in
again?»
Brandy−and−water being the very thing I needed, and this young man pleasing me more
andmore, I said that I would join him with all my heart, and returned to my room for my
dressing−gown and slippers. To find them, however, I had to light my candles, when the
first thing I saw was the havoc my marauder had left behind him. The mirror was cracked
across; the dressing−table had lost a leg; and both lay flat, with my brushes and
shaving−table, and the foolish toilet crockery which no one uses (but I should have to
replace) strewn upon the carpet. But one thing I found that had not been there before: under
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER VII − I FIND A FRIEND 35
the window lay a formidable sheath−knife without its sheath. I picked it up with something
of a thrill, which did not lessen when I felt its edge. The thing was diabolically sharp. I took
it with me to show my neighbor, whom I found giving his order to the boots; it seemed that
it was barely midnight, and that he had only just come in when the clatter took place in my
room.
«Hillo!» he cried, when the man was gone, and I produced my trophy. «Why, what the
mischief have you got there?»
«My caller's card,» said I. «He left it behind 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 have
not frowned more heavily if he had recognized 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.»
«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 minute
he had brewed two steaming jorums of spirits−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 «understand.» 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 oval 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 companion
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER VII − I FIND A FRIEND 36
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 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,
manners 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 deliverance. 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 afterwards
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 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 devilry 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 allusion, 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 gratuitous. I thought it did seem strange to
him: that a needless constraint was put upon him by excessive consideration for my feelings.
I desired to set him at his ease as he had set me at mine. On the contrary, he seemed quite
startled by my remark.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER VII − I FIND A FRIEND 37
«It is strange,» he said, with a shudder, followed by the biggest sip of
brandy−and−water he had taken yet. «It must have been horrible − horrible!» he added to
himself, his dark eyes staring into the fire.
«Ah!» said I, «it was even more horrible than you suppose or can ever 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 to me, there I sat with it in the presence of that stranger, without compunction and
without shame.
He sprang up and paced the room. His tact made me realize 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 sympathize! And yet − I wonder 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 goodness, there are other medicines. Only this morning I
consulted the best man on nerves in London. I wish I'd gone to him long ago.»
«Harley Street, was it?»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER VII − I FIND A FRIEND 38
«Yes.»
«Saw you on his doorstep, by Jove!» cried Rattray at once. «I was driving over to
Hampstead, and I thought it was you. Well, 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
fulness.
«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 English
winter sets in.
Was he a sailor after all, or only a well−to−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 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 preoccupied, as if talking of one matter while he
thought upon another. Yet he would not let me go; and presently he confirmed my suspicion,
no less than my first impression of his delightful frankness and cordiality, by candidly
telling me what was on his mind.
«If you really want a cottage in the country,» said he, «and the most absolute peace and
quiet to be got in this world, I know of the very hing 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.»
«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.»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER VII − I FIND A FRIEND 39
«Any fishing?»
«Yes − trout − small but plenty of 'em − in a beck 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'n 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 impatience.
«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 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
already 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!»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER VII − I FIND A FRIEND 40
CHAPTER VIII − A SMALL PRECAUTION
M
y 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 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. Conventional 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 fraternize without fear of a rude reopening 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 morning,
looking wistfully for my new−made 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 Braithwaite has all
ready for you by to−morrow night.»
I thanked him from my heart. «You seem in a hurry!» 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.»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER VIII − A SMALL PRECAUTION 41
«Then I'll stick in mine,» said I impulsively, «and I'll come with you, and doss down in
any corner 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 cosey as possible when you arrive. I simply can't
allow you to come to−day, Mr. Cole!» 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.»
To my surprise his smile faded, and a flush of undisguised annoyance made him, if
anything, 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
emphasized his perfection of feature.
«You mustn't do that either,» said he, shortly. «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 followed 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 Lancaster the day after to−morrow, but I shall give you a
call when I get back.»
With that we parted, as good friends as ever. I observed that my regret at losing him was
shared by the boots, who stood beside me on the steps as his hansom rattled off.
«I suppose Mr. Rattray stays here always when he comes to town?» said I.
«No, sir,» said the man, «we've never had him before, not in my time; but I shouldn't
mind if he came again.» And he looked twice at the coin in his hand before pocketing it with
evident satisfaction.
Lonely as I was, and wished to be, I think that I never felt my loneliness as I did during
the twenty−four hours which intervened between Rattray's departure and my own. They
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER VIII − A SMALL PRECAUTION 42
dragged like wet days by the sea, and the effect was as depressing. I have seldom been at
such a loss for something to do; and in my idleness I behaved like a child, wishing my new
friend back again, or myself on the railway with my new friend, until I blushed for the
beanstalk growth of my regard for him, an utter stranger, and a younger man. I am less
ashamed of it now: he had come into my dark life like a lamp, and his going left a darkness
deeper than before.
In my dejection I took a new view of the 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
motives. 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 certain amount
of spirit even in me. I would give the fellows another chance before I left town. They should
follow me once more, and this time to some purpose. Last night 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 percussion caps, still apparently full, another that could not
contain many more wadded−bullets, and a third with a powder−horn which can 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!
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER VIII − A SMALL PRECAUTION 43
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, without 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 already to the gunsmith's!
Convinced of this, I entertained but little hope of another midnight visitor. Nevertheless,
I put my light out early, and sat a long time peeping through my blind; but only an inevitable
Tom, with back hunched 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 compartment 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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER VIII − A SMALL PRECAUTION 44
CHAPTER IX − MY CONVALESCENT HOME
T
he man Braithwaite met me at the station 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 innate 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 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 us 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−light at sea. It was the light of the cottage which was to
be my temporary home.
A very tall, gaunt woman stood in the doorway against the inner glow. She advanced
with a loose, long stride, and invited me to 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
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER IX − MY CONVALESCENT HOME 45
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.
I began to wonder how the young squire had found it in his conscience to recommend
such a pair. I wondered less when the woman 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 unstrapped, 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
condition, 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 ourselves 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 myself.
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 seemingly 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 journey and my cold, damp drive. I was for chatting 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 between the
cottage and the hall; it was «not so 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 colors; even in the
sunshine these were not very gay. But gayety was the last thing I wanted. Peace and quiet
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER IX − MY CONVALESCENT HOME 46
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
hollow, 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 behind
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−office; not even a public − house.»
I inquired in which direction lay the hall. She pointed to the nearest trees, a small forest
of stunted oaks, which shut in the view to the right, after quarter of a mile of a bare and
rugged valley. Through this valley twisted the beck which I had heard faintly in the night. It
ran through the oak plantation and so to the sea, some two or three miles further on, said my
landlady; but nobody would have thought it was so near.
«T'squire was to be away to−day,» observed the woman, with the broad vowel sound
which I shall not attempt to reproduce in print. «He was going to Lancaster, I believe.»
«So I understood,» said I. «I didn't think of troubling him, if that's what you mean. I'm
going to take his advice and fish the beck.»
And I proceeded to do so after a hearty early dinner: the keen, chill air was doing me
good already: the «perfect quiet» was finding its way into my soul. I blessed my specialist, I
blessed Squire Rattray, I blessed the very villains who had brought us within each other's
ken; and nowhere was my thanksgiving more fervent than in the deep cleft threaded by the
beck; for here the shrewd yet gentle wind passed completely overhead, and the silence 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 stranger,» he cried as I turned and he hopped down to my
side with the activity of a much younger man.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER IX − MY CONVALESCENT HOME 47
«Yes,» I said, «I only came down from London yesterday. I find the spot so delightful
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.
«Spot and sport!» laughed the old gentleman. «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 without 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,
making 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 questions from a stranger.
«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 matter.»
He favored me with a brief glance of extraordinary suspicion. It faded away in mere
surprise, and, next instant, my elderly and reverend friend was causing me some
compunction by coloring like a boy.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER IX − MY CONVALESCENT HOME 48
«You may think my curiosity mere impertinence, 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
neighboring 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
apologize for my hasty words.
«Don't name it, sir,» said the clergyman; «you had a perfect right to resent my
questions, 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 demerits he had descanted with so much eloquence and
indignation.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER IX − MY CONVALESCENT HOME 49
CHAPTER X − WINE AND WEAKNESS
S
porting 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 bugbear to 'em.
Yet, I could have sworn I'd never seen this one before. Let's have another 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 hollowed
hands.
«Well, I'm hanged!» exclaimed Rattray, as the hands fell and their owner beat a hasty
retreat. My companion said no more; indeed, for some minutes we pursued our way in
silence. And I thought that it was with an effort that he broke into sudden inquiries
concerning 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
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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER X − WINE AND WEAKNESS 50
«My good fellow,» he cried, «that's the fun of it! How do you suppose I've been
spending the day? Told you I was going to Lancaster, 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 wilderness!»
«So you're quite alone, are you?»
«Yes; as much so as that other beggar who was monarch of all he 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 cottage. «Only first you must let me make myself
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 handsome watch, while, on my way upstairs, I
paused to tell Mrs. Braithwaite that I was dining 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 below; it
was unmistakable in that silent cottage, 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
puzzied and annoyed until we walked away together, when it was his arm which was
immediately 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 compelled to skirt), and then a front door of
ponderous oak, deep−set between walls fully six feet thick, and studded all over with
wooden pegs. The facade, indeed, was wholly grim, with a castellated tower at one end, and
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER X − WINE AND WEAKNESS 51
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 coming 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 beneath 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 welcome 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 dampest and the dullest old
ruin under the sun, and 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 − of seeking oblivion in strong waters. To give way
then was to go on giving way. I realized the danger, and I took stern measures. Not stern
enough, however; for what I did not realize 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 how little I 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 personal 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 intentionally to betray such
anxiety. Vanity was also in the impulse. A vulgar newspaper prominence had been my final
(and very genuine) tribulation; but to please and to interest one so pleasing and so interesting
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER X − WINE AND WEAKNESS 52
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 deliberately 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 together. I had told my dear Rattray of my own
accord more than living man had extracted from me yet. He interrupted me very little; never
once until I came to the murderous attack by Santos on the drunken steward.
«The brute!» cried Rattray. «The cowardly, cruel, foreign devil! And you never let out
one word of that!»
«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, because much of this was clearly against myself. His
eyes flashed. His face was white. I suddenly 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 this
world? Santos was punished as he deserved; his punishment was death, and there's an end
on't.»
«You might 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 muttering; «the
infernal, foreign, blood−thirsty rascal! 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
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER X − WINE AND WEAKNESS 53
capable of anything: I wonder 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
reappeared the charming youth whom I found it impossibile 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?»
«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 Santos.»
«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 mantel−piece, 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 remained 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 Jermyn and my lost love's side.
«So that was all!»
I turned and met a face I could not read.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER X − WINE AND WEAKNESS 54
«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 ourselves?» 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!»
He sprang to a door, I heard his feet clattering 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 oppressively 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 until he
saw my hat.
«Not going?» he cried. «My dear Cole, I can't apologize sufficiently for my abrupt
desertion 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 listening to our conversation. Of course he denies 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 wishing to retire early. He could have no
conception of my weakness, my low and nervous 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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER X − WINE AND WEAKNESS 55
«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
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 splendidly, 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 further
sense of having shown him small gratitude for his kindly anxiety on my behalf. I would
behave differently to−morrow. Meanwhile 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. Already I had left the path. I felt in my pocket for
matches. I had none.
My head was now clear enough, only deservedly heavy. I was still quarrelling with
myself for my indiscretions and my incivilities, one and all the result of his wine and my
weakness, and this new predicament (another and yet more vulgar result) was the final
mortification. 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 heck running over its stones. I could still see an occasional glimmer
from the windows I had left. But the light was now on this side, now on that; the running
water chuckled in one ear 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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER X − WINE AND WEAKNESS 56
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 grotesque
dilemma; at the thought of his laughter I began to smile myself. If he gave me another
chance I would smoke that cigar with him before starting home afresh, and remove, front my
own mind no less than from his, all 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 temporarily, 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 myself 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?
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER X − WINE AND WEAKNESS 57
CHAPTER XI − I LIVE AGAIN
S
quire 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 remember, 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 feeding 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 little, 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 lattice, as I stood spellbound and petrified without.
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 private
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 nevertheless
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 remained obscure.
Suspicious circumstances swarmed upon my slow perception: how innocent I had been!
Less innocent, however, than wilfully and wholly reckless: what had it mattered with whom
I made friends? What had anything mattered to me? What did anything 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 matter once more. It was as though the machinery of my
soul, long stopped, had suddenly 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
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XI − I LIVE AGAIN 58
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 darling before them in the room.
Like a queen she stood, in the very travelling cloak in which I had seen her last; it was
tattered now, but she held it close about her as though a shrewd wind bit 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 present 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 instant,
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 possible,
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. But it was Santos who snatched the
cigarette from his mouth, and opened upon the defenceless 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
Santos 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; helplessness is nothing; you must be met with your own
weapons, and so I lied in my sore extremity 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?»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XI − I LIVE AGAIN 59
«It is perfectly true,» said Rattray in a low voice.
«And poor Mr. Cole told you that he knew nothing of your villany?»
«I found out that he knew absolutely nothing − 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 lips. «You have no right to say that, Miss
Denison!» he cried. "I may be bad, but, as I am ready to answer for my sins, the crime of
murder is not among them.
Well, it is still some satisfaction to remember that my love never punished me with such
a look as was the young squire's reward for this protestation. The curl of the pink nostrils,
the parting of the proud lips, the gleam of the sound white teeth, before a word was spoken,
were more than I, for one, could have borne. For I did not see the grief underlying the scorn,
but actually found it in my heart to pity this poor devil of a Rattray: so humbly fell those fine
eyes of his, so like a dog did he stand, waiting to be whipped.
«Yes; you are very innocent!» she began at last, so softly that I could scarcely hear.
«You have not committed murder, so you say; let it stand to your credit by all means. You
have no blood upon your hands; you say so; that is enough. No! you are comparatively
innocent, I admit. All you have done is to make murder easy for others; to get others to do
the dirty work, and then shelter them and share the gain; all you need have on your
conscience is every ife that was lost with the 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 deliberate 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 settle
against the door), and presented it to her with another bow. And so without a word he led
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XI − I LIVE AGAIN 60
her to the door, opened it, and bowed yet lower as she swept out, but still without a tinge of
mockery in the obeisance.
He was closing the door after her when Joaquin 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 veesitor! 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 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 ceasing 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 evermore!
All the past shone clear behind me; the dark was lightness and the crooked straight. All
the future lay clear ahead it presented no difficulties 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!
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XI − I LIVE AGAIN 61
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.
«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 gray 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 everything.»
«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 darling!»
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?»
«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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XI − I LIVE AGAIN 62
The moon was skimming beneath the surface 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 subdued. 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.
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−plantation 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.
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CHAPTER XI − I LIVE AGAIN 63
CHAPTER XII − MY LADY'S BIDDING
S
cribbled in sore haste, by a very tremulous little hand, with a pencil, on the flyleaf of
some book, my darling's message is still difficult 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−treated, 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 them you knew all. And so you shall as soon
as I can see you for five minutes face to face. In the meantime do nothing − know nothing
when you see Mr. Rattray − unless you wish to be my death.
«It would have been possible last night, and it may be again to−morrow night. They all
go out every night when they can, except Jose, who is left in charge. They are out from nine
or ten till two or three; if they are out to−morrow night my candle will be close to the
window as I shall put it when I have finished this. You can see my window from over the
wall. If the light is in front you must climb the wall, for they will leave the gate locked. I
shall see you and will bribe Jose to let me out for a turn. He has done it before for a bottle of
wine. I can manage him. Can I trust to you? If you break your promise − but you will not?
One of them would as soon kill me as smoke a cigarette, and the rest are under his thumb. I
dare not write more. But my life is in your hands. »EVA DENISON."
«Oh! beware of the woman Braithwaite; she is about the worst of the gang.»
I could have burst out crying in my bitter 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 condition. 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 honor 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.
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CHAPTER XII − MY LADY'S BIDDING 64
Danger and difficulty I had been prepared to face; but the task that I was set was a
hundred−fold 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
invited 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 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 upstairs 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 genuine 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 certainly 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 cottage; 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 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 captive 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 morning 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 beautiful soft tint between white and gray.
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−colored glass. Down the dewy
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XII − MY LADY'S BIDDING 65
slope below my window a few calves fed with toothless mouthings; the beck was very
audible, the oak−trees less so; but for these peaceful 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 window was scarce a dozen feet from the ground. How
easily it could be done, how quickly, how safely in this deep, stillness and bright moonlight!
I would fall so lightly on my stocking soles; a single soft, dull thud; then away under 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 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 murder 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 inactivity, that I must live through with an unsuspecting 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 even now all was over − these came as a relief after the haunting terror which they
interrupted.
I flung the door opcn, 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?»
This second question was rude and fierce with suspicion: the real woman rang out in it,
yet its effect on me was astonishng: 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 nothng 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 bow
that I have hardly slept for two months? And now I shall never sleep again! O my God I
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XII − MY LADY'S BIDDING 66
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 myself 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 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. Intending 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 relieved
themselves in this unpremeditated ebullition, 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
recovered 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 as they'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−morrow night!»
Never, I feel sure, were truth and falsehood more craftily 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, because 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 underneath the sheets; and beneath my very body that 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 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 herself out any further on my account. In the morning,
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XII − MY LADY'S BIDDING 67
finding me really ill, she had gone to the hall in alarm; her subsequent attentions were an act
of obedience; and in their midst came Rattray himself to my bedside.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XII − MY LADY'S BIDDING 68
CHAPTER XIII − THE LONGEST DAY OF MY LIFE
T
he 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.
«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 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 involved. 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 myself!»
I had another work to keep from smiling: he was so ingenuously disingenuous. There
was less to smile at in his really nervous anxiety to get me away. I lay there reading him like
a book: it was not my health that concerned him, of course: was it my safety? I told him he
little knew how ill I was − an inglorious 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
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XIII − THE LONGEST DAY OF MY LIFE 69
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 revolyer 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 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 overboard 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.
But what was his villany? It was little enough that I had overheard at the window, and
still less that poor Eva had told me in her hurried lines. All I saw clearly was that the Lady
Jermyn and some hundred souls had perished by the foulest of foul play; that, besides Eva
and myself, only the incendiaries had escaped; 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 Rattray'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
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XIII − THE LONGEST DAY OF MY LIFE 70
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 underwriters, and was Rattray the inevitable
accomplice 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
magnitude 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 Rattray reappeared, ruddy, spurred, and
splashed with mud; a comfort to sick eyes, I declare, in spite of all. He brought me two little
vials, 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 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 otherwise, 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 involuntary 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 instant; 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.
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
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XIII − THE LONGEST DAY OF MY LIFE 71
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 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 incomparably 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 o 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 growing hourly weaker.
I remember what a bright fine day it was, with the grand open country all smiles
beneath 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 ebbing
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 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 aw 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.
It was the moon. I had been in dreamless 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 sickening
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.
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CHAPTER XIII − THE LONGEST DAY OF MY LIFE 72
I stole to the door, opened it by cautious degrees, and saw the reflection of a light
below. 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 remembered a packet of sandwiches which I
had not opened on my journey north. These I transferred from my travelling−bag (where
they had lain forgotten to my jacket 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 horror 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 impostor that he was.
«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 revolver 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 whimpered, 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?»
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CHAPTER XIII − THE LONGEST DAY OF MY LIFE 73
«Eh, she'll be back directly! » said Braithwaite, with some tact; but his look was too
cunning to give the warning weight. «I've a bullet to spare for her,» said I, cheerfully; «now,
then, where is she?»
«Gone wi' the oothers, for owt I knaw.»
«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 began 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 Braithwaite, 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?»
«It won't be yet a bit,» said he.
«Good! Now look here. What would you say to these?» And I showed him a couple 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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XIII − THE LONGEST DAY OF MY LIFE 74
«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 I still flatter myself that I took 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 a greedy, cowardly, old idiot, and I'll just save my money.»
And out I marched into the moonlight, 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
followed me like the little cur he was.
«I'm hanged if I stop,» I answered without looking back; and had him almost in tears
before I swung round on him so suddenly that he yelped with fear. «What are you bothering
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!»
«And have a conveyance at the road−end of the lane as near an hour hence as you
possibly can?»
«Why, there, sir!» he cried, crassly inspired; «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 bedroom. There! 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 property.»
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CHAPTER XIII − THE LONGEST DAY OF MY LIFE 75
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.
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CHAPTER XIII − THE LONGEST DAY OF MY LIFE 76
CHAPTER XIV − IN THE GARDEN
I
t 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. However, 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
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 moments
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 garden 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.
I had a garden wall to scale, nearly twice my own height, and without notch or cranny in
the ancient, solid masonry. I stood against it on my toes, and I touched it with my
finger−tips as high up as possible. Some four feet severed them from the coping that left
only half a sky above my upturned eyes.
I do not know whether I have made it plain that the house was not surrounded by four
walls, but merely filled a breach in one of the four, which nipped it (as it were) at either end.
The back entrance was approachable enough, but barred or watched, I might be very sure. It
is ever the vulnerable points which are most securely guarded, and it was my one comfort
that the difficult way must also be the safe way, if only the difficulty could be overcome.
How to overcome it was the problem. I followed the wall right round to the point at which it
abutted on the tower that immured my love; the height never varied; nor could my hands or
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CHAPTER XIV − IN THE GARDEN 77
eyes discover a single foot−hole, ledge, or other means of mounting to the top.
Yet my hot head was full of ideas; and I wasted some minutes in trying to lift from its
hinges a solid, six−barred, outlying gate, that my weak arms could hardly stir. More time
went in pulling branches from the oak−trees about the beck, where the latter ran nearest to
the moonlit wall. I had an insane dream of throwing a long forked branch over the coping,
and so swarming up hand−over−hand. But even to me the impracticability of this plan came
home at last. And there I stood in a breathless lather, much time and strength thrown away
together; and the candle burning down for nothing in that little lofty window; and the
running water swirling noisily over its stones at my back.
This was the only sound; the wind had died away; the moonlit valley lay as still as the
dread old house in its midst but for the splash and gurgle of the beck. I fancied this grew
louder as I paused and listened in my helplessness. All at once − was it the tongue of Nature
telling me the way, or common gumption returning at the eleventh hour? I ran down to the
water's edge, and could have shouted for joy. Great stones lay in equal profusion on bed and
banks. I lifted one of the heaviest in both hands. I staggered with it to the wall. I came back
for another; for some twenty minutes I was so employed; my ultimate reward a fine heap of
boulders against the wall.
Then I began to build; then mounted my pile, clawing the wall to keep my balance. My
fingers were still many inches from the coping. I jumped down and gave another ten minutes
to the back−breaking work of carrying 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 instant 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
pulling 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 followed; then a leg; and at last I sat astride the wall,
panting and palpitating, and hardly able to credit my own achievement. One great difficulty
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 working 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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XIV − IN THE GARDEN 78
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
barnacled 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.
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 moments gazing ever so innocently at the moon), her
jailer 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 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, running
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 wildly from wall to wall, only to find them as barren 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.»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XIV − IN THE GARDEN 79
«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've all gone, you know, but Jose.»
«All three?»
«The captain has been gone all day.»
Then the other two must have been my horse−men, 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. Apologizing,
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 had
promised not to stay out above half−an−hour. When it was up Jose 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!
Jose will come round here to look for me. But you and I will be hiding n 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
creatures on the Zambesi!» She was silent a moment, her determined little face hard − set
upon some unforgotten horror. «Once we get 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.
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CHAPTER XIV − IN THE GARDEN 80
«Then let's make a dash for it now!» was all I said or thought.
«No; they can't come yet, and Jose is strong and brutal, and I have heard how ill you
are. »That you should have come to me notwithstanding − " and she broke off 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 sharp, and my presence there its direct result. And such was the virtue 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, 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 hail 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 concert, 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: a tatter of Chantilly
lace hung by a thread: it is another of the relics that I have unearthed in the writing of this
narrative.
«I thought men never noticed dresses?» my love said suddenly, a pleased light in her
eyes (I thought) in spite of all. «Do you really remember it?»
«I remember every one of them,» I said indignantly; and so I did.
«You will wonder why I wear it,» said Eva, quickly. «It was the first that came that
terrible 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 Jose.
«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?»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XIV − IN THE GARDEN 81
«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!
«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 I. 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−by? 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 rehearsing 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 meaning of
the new and subtle horror which I had read in my darling's eyes at the last. Now I
understood; and the one explanation brought such a tribe in its train, that even the perilous
ecstasy of the present moment was temporarily forgotten in the horrible past.
«Now I know why they wouldn't have me in the gig! » I cried softly.
«She carried four heavy men's weight in gold.»
«When on earth did they get it aboard?»
«In provision boxes at the last; but they had been filling the boxes for weeks.»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XIV − IN THE GARDEN 82
«Why, I saw them doing it!» I cried. «But what about the gig? Who picked you up?»
She was watching that open door once more, and she answered with notable
indifference, «Mr. Rattray.»
«So that's the connection!» said I; and I think its very simplicity was what surprised me
most.
«Yes; he was waiting for us at Ascension.»
«Then it was all arranged?»
«Every detail.»
«And this young blackguard is as bad as any of them!»
«Worse,» said she, with bitter brevity. Nor had I ever seen her look so hard but once,
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 violence?»
«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 his way.
You would think the better of Rattray 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
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CHAPTER XIV − IN THE GARDEN 83
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 another 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 better; if I'd had my way it would all be out
already.»
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 your sacred promise that so far as you are
concerned, it shall never come out at all! »
«This monstrous conspiracy? This cold blooded massacre?»
And I crouched aghast.
«Yes; it could do no good; and, at any rate, unless you promise I remain where I am.»
«In their hands?»
«Decidedly − to warn them in time. Leave them I would, but betray them − never!»
What could I say? What choice had I in the face of an alternative so headstrong and so
unreasonable? To rescue Eva from these miscreants I would have let every malefactor in the
country go unscathed: yet the condition was a hard one; and, as I hesitated, my love went on
her knees to me, there in the moonlight among the rhododendrons.
«Promise − promise − or you will kill me!» she gasped. «They may deserve it richly,
but I would rather be torn in little pieces than − than have them − hanged! »
«It is too good for most of them.»
«Promise!»
«To hold my tongue about them all?»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XIV − IN THE GARDEN 84
«Yes − promise!»
«Promise!»
«When a hundred lives were sacrificed − »
«Promise! »
«I can't,» I said. «It's wrong.»
«Then good−by!» she cried, starting to her feet.
«No − no −» and I caught her hand.
«Well, then?»
«I − promise.»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XIV − IN THE GARDEN 85
CHAPTER XV − FIRST BLOOD
S
o 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 earnestly 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
unwilling 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, surprising me so much by her emotion that this
expression of it passed unheeded. I was the best 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
convent 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 Jose until we heard him
calling, «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.»
«Why?»
«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 running grumble of unmistakable threats; a
shambling moonlit figure seen in glimpses through the leaves, very near us for an instant,
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XV − FIRST BLOOD 86
then hidden by the shrubbery as he passed within a few yards of our hiding−place. A
diminuendo of the shuffling steps; then a cursing, 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 upright 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 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 unconsciously 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 Jose hurled himself
against the door. Eva bolted it. But the thud was not repeated, and I gathered myself together
between the door and the nearest window, 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 before the crash
came that I was counting on, and with it a shower 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,
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XV − FIRST BLOOD 87
and remained hideous with the bellowing 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 depriving him of
this, and but small compunction 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 carried 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 sudden sob.
«What is it?»
«They've taken away the key!»
Yes, the keen air came through an empty keyhole; and my lamp, held close, not only
showed 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 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?»
«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 (Rattray'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?»'
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XV − FIRST BLOOD 88
«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 Jose; 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
clatter 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, wildly. «Leave them to me − leave them to me.»
«I like that,» said I; and I did; but I detested 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.»
And I stood with my revolver very ready in my right hand, while with the other I caught
poor Eva to my side, even as a door flew open, and Rattray himself burst upon us, a lantern
in his hand, and the perspiration shining on his handso me face in its light.
I can see him now as he stood dumfounded on the threshold of the hall; and yet, at the
time, my eyes sped past him into the room beyond.
It was the one I have described as being lined with books; there was a long rent in this
lining, where the books had opened with a door, through which Captain Harris, Joaquin
Santos, and Jane Braithwaite followed Rattray in quick succession, the men all with
lanterns, the woman scarlet and dishevelled even for her. It was over the squire's shoulders I
saw their faces;, he kept them from passing him in the doorway by a free use of his elbows;
and when I looked at him again, his black eyes were blazing from a face white with passion,
and they were fixed upon me.
«What the devil brings you here?» he thundered at last.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XV − FIRST BLOOD 89
«Don't ask idle questions,» was my reply to that.
«So you were shamming to−day!»
«I was taking a leaf out of your book.»
«You'll gain nothing by being clever!» sneered the squire, taking a threatening step
forward. For at the last moment I had tucked my revolver behind my back, not only for the
pleasure, but for the obvious advantage of getting them all in front of me and off their guard.
I had no idea that such eyes as Rattray's could be so fierce: they were dancing from me to
my companion, whom their glitter frightened into an attempt to disengage herself from me;
but my arm only tightened about her drooping figure.
«I shall gain no more than I expect,» said I, carelessly. «And I know what to expect
from brave gentlemen like you! It will be better than your own fate, at all events; anything's
better than being taken hence to the place of execution, and hanged by the neck until you're
dead, all three of you in a row, and your bodies buried within the precincts of the prison!»
«The very thing for him,» murmured Santos. «The − very − theeng!»
«But I'm so soft−hearted,» I went insanely on, «that I should be sorry to see that happen
to such fine fellows as you are. Come out of 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 deserts that night. For the nigger of the Lady
Jermyn 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 forgotten 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.
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 hall 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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XV − FIRST BLOOD 90
Jose had not got it − he lay insensible. Santos 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 vanished. 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 battle and a treaty of war.
A log fire was smouldering in the open grate. I darted to it, and had a heavy,
half−burned brand whirling round my head next instant. Harris was the first within my
reach. He came gamely 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 brand met the seaman's skull.
Santos was upon me next instant, and him, by sheer luck, I managed to serve the same; but I
doubt whether either man was stunned; and I was standing ready for them to rise, when I felt
myself seized round the neck from behind, and a mass of fluffy hair tickling my cheek,
while a shrill voice set up a lusty scream for the squire.
I have said that the woman Braithwaite was of a sinister strength; but I had little dreamt
how strong she really was. First it was her arms that wound themselves about my neck, long,
sinuous, and supple as the tentacles of some vile monster; then, as I struggled, her thumbs
were on my windpipe like pads of steel. Tighter she pressed, and tighter yet. My eyeballs
started; my tongue lolled; I heard my brand drop, and through a mist I saw it picked up
instantly. It crashed upon my skull as I still struggled vainly; again and again it came down
mercilessly in the same place; until I felt as though a sponge of warm water had been
squeezed over my head, and saw a hundred withered masks grinning sudden exultation into
mine; but still the lean arm whirled, and the splinters flew, till I was blind with my blood
and the seven senses were beaten out of me.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XV − FIRST BLOOD 91
CHAPTER XVI − A DEADLOCK
I
t 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 flavor filled my nostrils; the wineglass
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 polissstation; or weel you go and tell the poliss
yourself?» asked the Portuguese, in the same tone of mordant irony.
«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 Senhor
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 Jose; it is
necessary for 'im to die.»
«I agree with the senhor,» 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,
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XVI − A DEADLOCK 92
and pointed to the door with a hand that shook.
«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 regret 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
leaned 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
bandages, and at that I tried to take his hand in mine. He shook it off, and his eyes met mine
more fiercely than before.
«See here, Cole,» said he; "I don t know how the devil you got wind of anything to start
with, and I don't care. What I do know is that you've made bad enough a long chalk worse
for all concerned, and you'll have to get yourself out of the mess you've got yourself into,
and there's only one way. I suppose Miss Denison has really told you everything this time?
What's that? Oh, yes, she's all right again; no thanks to you. Now let's hear what she did tell
you. It'll save time.
I repeated the hurried disclosures made by Eva in the rhododendrons. He nodded grimly
in confirmation of their truth.
«Yes, those are the rough facts. The game was started in Melbourne. My part was to
wait at Ascension till the Lady Jermyn signalled herself, follow her in a schooner we had
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XVI − A DEADLOCK 93
bought and pick up the gig with the gold aboard. Well, I did so; never mind the details now,
and never mind the bloody massacre the others had made of it before I came up. God knows
I was never a consenting party to that, though I know I'm responsible. I'm in this thing as
deep as any of them. I've shared the risks and I'm going to share the plunder, and I'll swing
with the others if it ever comes to that. I deserve it hard enough. And so here we are, we
three and the nigger, all four fit to swing in a row, as you were fool enough to tell us; and
you step in and find out everything. What's to be done? You know what the others want to
do. I say it rests with you whether they do it or not. There's only one other way of meeting
the case.»
«What's that?»
«Be in it yourself, man! Come in with me and split my share!»
I could have burst out laughing in his handsome, eager face; the good faith of this
absurd proposal was so incongruously apparent; and so obviously genuine was the young
villain's anxiety for my consent. Become accessory after the fact in such a crime! Sell my
silence for a price! I concealed my feelings with equal difficulty and resolution. I had plans
of my own already, but I must gain time to think them over. Nor could I afford to quarrel
with Rattray meanwhile.
«What was the haul?» I asked him, with the air of one not unprepared to consider the
matter.
«Twelve thousand ounces!»
«Forty−eight thousand pounds, about?»
«Yes−yes.»
«And your share?»
«Fourteen thousand pounds. Santos takes twenty, and Harris and I fourteen thousand
each.»
«And you offer me seven?»
«I do! I do!»
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
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XVI − A DEADLOCK 94
upon me as it deserted my companion.
«Why make such a sacrifice?» said I, smiling. «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 could possibly do it. God knows how I detested 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 Jose 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
men, in my dilemma, would at least have nursed or played upon good−will so lucky and so
enduring. But there was always a twist in me that made me love (in my youth) to take the
unexpected course; and it amused me the more to lead my young friend on.
«And where have you got this gold?» I asked him, in a low voice so promising that he
instantly lowered his, and his eyes twinkled naughtily into mine.
«In the old tunnel that runs from this place nearly to the sea,» said he. «We Rattrays
have always been a pretty warm lot, Cole, and in the old days we were the most festive
smugglers on the coast; this tunnel's a relic of 'em, although it was only a tradition till I came
into the property. I swore I'd find it, and when I'd done so I made the new connection which
you shall see. I'm rather proud of it. And I won't say I haven't used the old drain once or
twice after the fashion of my rude forefathers; but never was it such a godsend as it's been
this time. By Jove, it would be a sin if you didn't come in with us, Cole; but for the lives
these blackguards lost the thing's gone splendidly; it would be a sin if you went and lost
yours, whereas, if you come in, the two of us would be able to shake off those devils: we
should be too strong for 'em.»
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CHAPTER XVI − A DEADLOCK 95
«Seven thousand pounds!» I murmured. «Forty−eight thousand between us!»
«Yes, and nearly all of it down below, at this end of the tunnel, and the rest where we
dropped it when we heard you were trying to bolt. We'd got it all at the other end, ready to
pop aboard the schooner that's lying there still, if you turned out to know anything and to
have told what you knew to the police. There was always the possibility of that, you see; we
simply daren't show our noses at the bank until we knew how much you knew, and what
you'd done or were thinking of doing. As it is, we can take 'em the whole twelve thousand
ounces, or rather I can, as soon as I like, in broad daylight. I'm a lucky digger. It's all right.
Everybody knows I've been out there. They'll have to pay me over the counter; and if you
wait in the cab, by the Lord Harry, I'll pay you your seven thousand first! You don't deserve
it, Cole, but you shall have it, and between us we'll see the others to blazes!»
He jumped up all excitement, and was at the door next instant.
«Stop!» I cried. «Where are you going?»
«Downstairs to tell them.»
«Tell them what?»
«That you're going in with me, and it's all right.»
«And do you really think I am?»
He had unlocked the door; after a pause I heard him lock it again. But I did not see his
face until he returned to the bedside. And then it frightened me. It was distorted and
discolored with rage and chagrin.
«You've been making a fool of me!» he cried fiercely.
«No, I have been considering the matter, Rattray.»
«And you won't accept my offer?»
«Of course I won't. I didn't say I'd been considering that.»
He stood over me with clenched fists and starting eyes.
«Don't you see that I want to save your life?» he cried. «Don't you see that this is the
only way? Do you suppose a murder more or less makes any difference to that lot
downstairs? Are you really such a fool as to die rather than hold your tongue?»
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CHAPTER XVI − A DEADLOCK 96
«I won't hold it for money, at all events,» said I. «But that's what I was coming to.»
«Very well!» he interrupted. «You shall only pretend to touch it. All I want is to
convince 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
condition.»
«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,
deadly, sinister.
«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
agitation.
«I should hope not! You, 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
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XVI − A DEADLOCK 97
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.
«You do your best to make me one,» he answered 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 fancied,
where he once had lain as a pretty, innocent 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.»
«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 darkened. 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
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CHAPTER XVI − A DEADLOCK 98
sensible chap!»
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 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 give your word unconditionally?»
«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!»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XVI − A DEADLOCK 99
CHAPTER XVII − THIEVES FALL OUT
T
he door slammed. It was invisibly locked and the key taken out. I listened for the last
of an angry stride. It never even began. But after a pause the door was unlocked again, and
Rattray re−entered.
Without looking at me, he snatched the candle from the table on which it stood by the
bedside, and carried it to a bureau at the opposite side of the room. There he stood a minute
with his back turned, the candle, I fancy, on the floor. I saw him putting something in either
jacket pocket. Then I heard a dull little snap, as though he had shut some small morocco
case; whatever it was, he tossed it carelessly back into the bureau; and next minute he was
really gone, leaving the candle burning on the floor.
I lay and heard his steps out of earshot, and they were angry enough now, nor had he
given me a single glance. I listened until there was no more to be heard, and then in an
instant I 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 comparison with my dear Deane and Adams; that
mattered nothing. I went no longer in dire terror of my life; indeed, there was that in Rattray
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) confirmed 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 ultimatum 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
discovered 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
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CHAPTER XVII − THIEVES FALL OUT 100
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 – −between 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.
«Diablo!» came to my horrified ears) in a soft, vindictive voice.
«I told ye so,» muttered another; «the young swab's got the key.»
There was a pause, in which it would seem that Joaquin Santos had his ear at the empty
keyhole.
«I think he must be slipping,» at last I heard him sigh. «It was not necessary to awaken
him in this world. It is a peety.»
«One kick over the lock would do it,» said Harris; «only the young swab'll hear.»
«Not perhaps while he is dancing attendance on the senhora. Was it not good to send
him to her? If he does hear, well, his own turn will come the queecker, that is all. But it
would be better to take them one at a time; so keeck away, my friend, and I will give him no
time to squil.»
While my would−be murderers were holding this whispered colloquy, I had stood
half−petrified by the open window; unwilling to slide down the sheets into the arms of an
unseen enemy, though I had no idea which of them it could be; more hopeful of slipping
past my butchers in the darkness, and so to Rattray and poor Eva; but not the less eagerly
looking for some hiding−place in the room. The best that offered 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 inspected. 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 'ere!»
«He heard us, and he's a−hiding.»
«Make light, my friend, and we shall very soon see.»
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CHAPTER XVII − THIEVES FALL OUT 101
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!»
"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 window, then held the candle close to the tied
sheet, and shrugged expressively.
«You thought he was too quiet!» echoed Rattray with fierce scorn. «You thought I was
too blind − that's what you mean. To tell me that Miss Denison wished to see me, and Miss
Denison that I wished to speak to her! As if we shouldn't find you out in about a minute! But
a minute was better than nothing, eh? And you've made good use of your minute, have you.
You've murdered him, and you pretend he's got out? By God, if you have, I'll murder you!
I've been ready for this all night!»
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CHAPTER XVII − THIEVES FALL OUT 102
And he stood with his back to the window, his pistols raised, and his head carried
proudly − happily − like a man whose self−respect was coming back to him after many
days. Harris shrank before his fierce eyes and pointed barrels. The Portuguese, however, had
merely given a characteristic shrug, and was now rolling the inevitable cigarette.
«Your common sense is almost as remarkable as your sense of justice, my friend,» said
he. «You see us one, two, tree meenutes ago, and you see us now. You see the empty bed,
the empty room, and you imagine that in one, two, tree meenutes we have killed a man and
disposed of his body. Truly, you are very 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 judgment. 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 difference would be than 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
actually 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; that also was your doeeng; and it will be your
fault if ivil comes of it. Yet I have not complained. 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 behind 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 confounded 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 better 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 ingratitude that I may seem now to have displayed towards the
man who had undoubtedly stood between death and me. Was not Eva Denison of more
value than many Rattrays? And it was precisely in relation with this pure young girl that I
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CHAPTER XVII − THIEVES FALL OUT 103
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 Rattray'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 stopped the captain with a sudden flourish of one of
his pistols, the silver mountings making lightning in the room; then he called upon the pair
of them to show him what they had done with me; and to my horror, Santos invited him to
search the room. The invitation was accepted. Yet there I stood. It would have been better to
step forward even then. Yet I cowered among his clothes until his own hand fell upon my
collar, and forth I was dragged to the plain amazement of all three.
Santos was the first to find his voice.
«Another time you will perhaps think twice before you spik, friend squire.»
Rattray simply asked me what I had been doing in there, in a white flame of passion,
and with such an oath that I embellished the truth for him in my turn.
«Trying to give you blackguards the slip,» said I.
«Then it was you who let down the sheet?»
«Of course it was.»
«All right! I'm done with you,» said he; «that settles it. I make you an offer. You won't
accept it. I do my best; you do your worst; but I'll be shot if you get another chance from
me!»
Brandy and the wine−glass stood where Rattray must have set them, on an oak stool
beside 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.
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CHAPTER XVII − THIEVES FALL OUT 104
«You wanted to deal with him,» said Rattray; «you're at liberty to do so. I'm only 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 attention, 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 consciousness 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
me worse, I was only too well aware of my own failure to carry conviction with my words.
«And why couldn't you come out and say so asked Rattray, as even I knew that he must.
»Why wait till now?"
«Ah, why!» echoed Santos, with a smile and a shake of the head; a suspicious tolerance,
an ostentatious truce, upon his parchment face. And already he was sufficiently relieved to
suck his cigarette alight again.
«You know why,» I said, trusting to bluff honesty with the one of them who was not
rotten to the core: «because I still meant escaping.»
«And then what?» asked Rattray fiercely.
«You had given me my chance,» I said; «I hould have given you yours.»
«You would, would you? Very kind of you, Mr. Cole!»
«No, no,» said Santos; «not kind, but clever! Clever, spicious, and queeck−weeted
beyond belif! Senhor Rattray, we have all been in the dark; we thought we had fool to dii
with, but what admirable knave the young man would make! Such readiness, such resource,
with his tongue or with his peestol; how useful would it be to us! I am glad you have
decided to live him to me, friend Rattray, 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
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CHAPTER XVII − THIEVES FALL OUT 105
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 morning.»
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 Rattray; «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 window.
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 argued) 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 companions; now that
these were allayed, there might be no more bloodshed after all (if, for example, I pretended
to give in), even though Santos had not cared whose blood was shed a few minutes since.
That was evidently the character of the wretch: to compass his ends or to defend his person
he would take life with no more compunction than the ordinary criminal takes money; but
(and hence) murder for murder's sake was no amusement to him.
My confidence was further restored by Captain Harris; ever a gross ruffian, with no
refinements 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 captain 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.
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CHAPTER XVII − THIEVES FALL OUT 106
«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.»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XVII − THIEVES FALL OUT 107
CHAPTER XVIII − A MAN OF MANY MURDERS
I
t was a good−sized wine−cellar, with very little wine in it; only one full bin could I
discover. The bins themselves lined but two of the walls, and most of them were covered in
with cobwebs, close−drawn like mosquito−curtains. The ceiling was all too low: torpid
spiders hung in disreputable parlors, dead to the eye, but loathsomely alive at an involuntary
touch. Rats scuttled when we entered, and I had not been long alone when they returned to
bear me company. I am not a natural 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 manner for me with his revised
opinion of my character; it was a manner almost as courtly as that which had embellished
his relations with Eva Denison, and won him my early regard at sea. Moreover, it was at the
suggestion of Santos that they had detained me in the hall, for much−needed meat and drink,
on the way down. Thereafter they had conducted me through the book−lined door of my
undoing, down stone stairs leading to three cellar doors, one of which they had
double−locked upon me.
As soon as I durst I was busy with this door; but to no purpose; it was a slab of solid
oak, hung on hinges as massive as its lock. It galled me to think that but two doors stood
between me and the secret tunnel to the sea: for one of the other two must lead to it. The
first, however, was all beyond me, and I very soon gave it up. There was also a very small
grating which let in a very little fresh air: the massive foundations had been tunnelled in one
place; a rude alcove was the result, with this grating at the end and top of it, some seven feet
above the earth floor. Even had I been able to wrench away the bars, it would have availed
me nothing, since the aperture formed the segment of a circle whose chord was but a very
few inches long. I had nevertheless a fancy for seeing the stars once more and feeling the
breath of heaven upon my bandaged temples, which impelled me to search for that which
should add a cubit to my stature. And at a glance I descried two packing−cases, rather small
and squat, but the pair of them together the very thing for me. To my amazement, however, I
could at first move neither one nor the other of these small boxes. Was it that I was weak as
water, or that they were heavier than lead? At last I managed to get one of them in my arms
− only to drop it with a thud. A side started; a thin sprinkling of yellow dust glittered on the
earth. I fetched the lantern: it was gold−dust from Bendigo or from Ballarat.
To me there was horror unspeakable, yet withal a morbid fascination, in the spectacle of
the actual booty for which so many lives had been sacrificed before my eyes. Minute
followed minute in which I looked at nothing, and could think of nothing, but the stolen
bullion at my feet; then I gathered what of the dust I could, pocketed it in pinches to hide my
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XVIII − A MAN OF MANY MURDERS 108
meddlesomeness, and blew the rest away. The box had dropped very much where I had
found it; it had exhausted my strength none the less, and I was glad at last to lie down on the
mattress, and to wind my body in Rattray's blankets.
I shuddered at the thought of sleep: the rats became so lively the moment I lay still. One
ventured so near as to sit up close to the lantern; the light showed its fat white belly, and the
thing itself was like a dog begging, as big to my disgusted eyes. And yet, in the midst of
these horrors (to me as bad as any that had preceded them), nature overcame me, and for a
space my torments ceased.
«He is aslip,» a soft voice said.
«Don't wake the poor devil,» said another.
«But I weesh to spik with 'im. Senhor Cole! Senhor Cole!»
I opened my eyes. Santos looked of uncanny stature in the low yellow light, from my
pillow close to the earth. Harris turned away at my glance; he carried a spade, and began
digging near the boxes without more ado, by the light of a second lantern set on one of them:
his back was to me from this time on. Santos shrugged a shoulder towards the captain as he
opened a campstool, drew up his trousers, and seated himself with much deliberation at the
foot of my mattress.
«When you 'ave treasure,» said he, «the better thing is to bury it, Senhor Cole. Our
young friend upstairs begs to deefer; but he is slipping; it is peety he takes such quantity of
brandy! It is leetle wikness of you Engleesh; we in Portugal never touch it, save as a liqueur;
therefore we require less slip. Friend squire upstairs is at this moment no better than a
porker. Have I made mistake? I thought it was the same word in both languages; but I am
glad to see you smile, Senhor Cole; that is good sign. I was going to say, he is so fast aslip
up there, that he would not hear us if we were to shoot each other dead!»
And he gave me his paternal smile, benevolent, humorous, reassuring; but I was no
longer reassured; nor did I greatly care any more what happened to me. There is a point of
last, as well as one of least resistance, and I had reached both points at once.
«Have you shot him dead?» I inquired, thinking that if he had, this would precipitate my
turn. But he was far from angry; the parchment face crumpled into tolerant smiles; the
venerable head shook a playful reproval, as he threw away the cigarette that I am tired of
mentioning, and put the last touch to a fresh one with his tongue.
«What question I» said he; «reely, Senhor 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
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CHAPTER XVIII − A MAN OF MANY MURDERS 109
explained itself already; besides, it is past. With you two against us − but it is past. You see,
I have no longer the excellent Jose. 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 untruly; «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 Zambesi. You cannot expect one to set any value upon
the life of a black nigger; and when you have keeled a great many Kaffirs, by the lash, with
the crocodiles, or what−not, then a white man or two makes less deeference. I acknowledge
there were too many on board that sheep; but what was one to do? You have 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
supposed), he rose and went over to see how Harris 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 shoulder
in my direction, and immediately preceded 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 another
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.
«Bury you? No, not alive,» said Santos, in his playfully reproving tone. «It would be
necessary to deeg so dip!» he added through his few remaining teeth.
«WeIl,» I said, «you'll swing for it. That's something.»
Santos smiled again, benignantly enough this time: in contemplation also: as an artist
smiles upon his work. I was his!
«You live town,» said he; «no one knows where you go. You come down here; no one
knows who you are. Your dear friend squire locks you up for the night, but dreenks too
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CHAPTER XVIII − A MAN OF MANY MURDERS 110
much and goes to slip with the key in his pocket; it is there when he wakes; but the
preesoner, where is he? He is gone, vanished, escaped in the night, and, like the base fabreec
of your own poet's veesion, he lives no trace − is it trace? − be'ind! A leetle earth is so easily
bitten down; a leetle more is so easily carried up into the garden; and a beet of nice strong
wire might so easily be found in a cellar, and afterwards in the lock! No, Senhor Cole, I do
not expect to 'ang. My schims have seldom one seengle flaw. There was just one in the Lady
Jermyn; there was − Senhor Cole! If there is one this time, and you will be so kind as to
point it out, I will − I will run the reesk of shooting you instead of − »
A pinch of his baggy throat, between the fingers and thumbs of both hands,
foreshadowed a cleaner end; and yet I could look at him; nay, it was more than I could do
not to look upon that bloodless face, with the two dry blots upon the parchment, that were
never withdrawn from mine.
«No you won't, messmate! If it's him or us for it, let a bullet do it, and let it do it quick,
you bloody Spaniard! You can't do the other without me, and my part's done.»
Harris was my only hope. I had seen this from the first, but my appeal I had been
keeping to the very end. And now he was leaving me before a word would come! Santos had
gone over to my grave, and there was Harris at the door!
«It is not dip enough,» said the Portuguese.
«It's as deep as I mean to make it, with you sittin' there talkin' about it.»
And the door stood open.
«Captain!» I screamed. «For Christ's sake, captain!»
He stood there, trembling, yet even now not looking my way.
«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 captain −»
But the door slammed; we heard the captain 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 description: as I live to tell the tale (or spoil it, if I
choose) I will make shorter work of this particular 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
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CHAPTER XVIII − A MAN OF MANY MURDERS 111
bloated spider crawling in one: a worse monster is gloating over me: those dull eyes of his,
and my own pistol−barrel, cover me in the lamp−light. 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 revolver is not
cocked; and the hammer goes up − up −
He missed me because a lantern was flashed into his eyes through the grating. He
wasted the next ball in firing wildly at the light. And the last chamber's load became
suddenly too precious for my person; for there were many voices overhead; there were many
feet upon the stairs.
Harris came first − head−first − saw me still living as he reeled − hurled himself upon
the boxes and one of these into the hole − all far quicker than my pen can write it. The
manoeuvre, being the captain's, explained itself: on his heels trod Rattray, with one who
brought me to my feet like the call of silver trumpets.
«The house is surrounded,» says the squire, very quick and quiet; «is this your doing,
Cole?»
«I wish it was,» said I; «but I can't complain; it's saved my life.» And I looked at
Santos, standing dignified and alert, my still smoking pistol in his hand.
«Two things to do,» says Rattray − «I don't care which.» He strode across the cellar and
pulled at the one full bin; something 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 manhole at the back
of the bin. «That's one alternative,» 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 manhole, 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. «We're not half−armed,» he said; «they've caught us fairly on the hop; it should
be fun! Good−by, Cole; I wish you'd had another round for that revolver. Good−by, Eva!»
And he held out his hand to our love, who had been watching him all this time with
eyes of stone; but now she turned her back upon him without a word. His face changed; the
stormlight of passion and remorse played upon it for an instant; he made a step towards her,
wheeled abruptly, and took me by the shoulder instead.
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CHAPTER XVIII − A MAN OF MANY MURDERS 112
«Take care of her, Cole,» said he. «Whatever happens − take care of her.»
I caught him at the foot of the stairs. I do not defend what I did. But I had more
ammunition; a few wadded bullets, caps, and powder−charges, loose in a jacket pocket; and
I thrust them into one of his, upon a sudden impulse, not (as I think) altogether
unaccountable, albeit (as I have said) so indefensible.
My back was hardly turned an instant. I had left a statue of unforgiving coldness. I
started round to catch in my arms a half−fainting, grief−stricken form, shaken with sobs that
it broke my heart to hear. I placed her on the camp−stool. I knelt down and comforted her as
well as I could, stroking her hands, my arm about her heaving shoulders, with the
gold−brown hair streaming over them. Such hair as it was! So much longer than I had
dreamt. So soft − so fine − my soul swam with the sight and touch of it. Well for me that
there broke upon us from above such a sudden din as turned my hot blood cold! A wild
shout of surprise; an ensuing roar of defiance; shrieks and curses; yells of rage and pain; and
pistol−shot after pistol−shot as loud as cannon in the confined space.
I know now that the battle in the hall was a very brief affair; while it lasted I had no
sense of time; minutes or moments, they were (God forgive me!) some of the very happiest
in all my life. My joy was as profound as it was also selfish and incongruous. The villains
were being routed; of that there could be no doubt or question. I hoped Rattray might
escape, but for the others no pity stirred in my heart, and even my sneaking sympathy with
the squire could take nothing from the joy that was in my heart. Eva Denison was free. I was
free. Our oppressors would trouble us no more. We were both lonely; we were both young;
we had suffered together and for each other. And here she lay in my arms, her head upon my
shoulder, her soft bosom heaving on my own! My blood ran hot and cold by turns. I forgot
everything but our freedom and my love. I forgot my sufferings, as I would have you all
forget them. I am not to be pitied. I have been in heaven on earth. I was there that night, in
my great bodily weakness, and in the midst of blood−shed, death, and crime.
«They have stopped!» cried Eva suddenly. «It is over! Oh, if he is dead!»
And she sat upright, with bright eyes starting from a deathly face. I do not think she
knew that she had been in my arms at all: any more than I knew that the firing had ceased
before she told me. Excited voices were still raised overhead; but some sounded distant, yet
more distinct, coming through the grating from the garden; and none were voices that we
knew. One poor wretch, on the other hand, we heard plainly groaning to his death; and we
looked in each other's eyes with the same thought.
«That's Harris,» said I, with, I fear, but little compassion in my tone or in my heart just
then.
«Where are the others ?» cried Eva piteously.
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CHAPTER XVIII − A MAN OF MANY MURDERS 113
«God knows,» said I; «they may be done for, too.»
«If they are!»
«It's better than the death they would have lived to die.»
«But only one of them was a wilful murderer! Oh, Mr. Cole − Mr. Cole − go and see
what has happened; come back and tell me! I dare not come. I will stay here and pray for
strength to bear whatever news you may bring me. Go quickly. I will − wait − and pray!»
So I left the poor child on her knees in that vile cellar, white face and straining hands
uplifted to the foul ceiling, sweet lips quivering with prayer, eyelids reverently lowered, and
the swift tears flowing from beneath them, all in the yellow light of the lantern that stood
burning by her side. How different a picture from that which awaited me overhead!
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XVIII − A MAN OF MANY MURDERS 114
CHAPTER XIX − MY GREAT HOUR
T
he library doors were shut, and I closed the secret one behind me before opening the
other and peering out through a wrack of bluish 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 tourniquet round his arm, from which the blood was
dripping like raindrops from the eaves. A third officer stood in the porch, issuing directions
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
escaped. I was still looking when the man in the porch wheeled back into the hall, and
instantly caught sight of me at my door.
«Hillo! here's another of them,» cried he. «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 recognize.
«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 inquisitive 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 escaped?» «Your friend Rattray; but he won't get far.»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XIX − MY GREAT HOUR 115
«What of the Portuguese and the nigger?»
I forgot that I had crippled Jose, but remembered with my words, and wondered the
more where he was.
«I'll show you,» said Royds. «It was the nigger let us in. We heard him groaning round
at the back − who smashed his leg? One of our men was at that cellar grating; there was
some of them down there; we wanted to find our way down and corner them, but the fat got
in the fire too soon. Can you stand something strong? Then come this way.»
He led me out into the garden, and to a tangled heap lying in the moonlight, on the edge
of the long grass. The slave had fallen on top of his master; one leg lay swathed and twisted;
one black hand had but partially relaxed upon the haft of a knife (the knife) that stood up
hilt−deep in a blacker heart. And in the hand of Santos was still the revolver (my Deane and
Adams) which had sent its last ball through the nigger's body.
«They slipped out behind us, all but the one inside,» said Royds, ruefully; «I'm hanged
if I know yet how it happened − but we were on them next second. Before that the nigger
had made us hide him in the grass, but the old devil ran straight into him, and the one fired
as the other struck. It's the worst bit of luck in the whole business, and I'm rather
disappointed on the whole. I've been nursing the job all this week; had my last look round
this very evening, with one of these officers, and only rode back for more to make sure of
taking our gentlemen alive. And we've lost three out of four of 'em, and have still to lay
hands on the gold! I suppose you didn't know there was any aboard ?» he asked abruptly.
«Not before to−night.»
«Nor did we till the Devoren came in with letters last week, a hundred and thirty days
out. She should have been in a month before you, but she got amongst the ice around the
Horn. There was a letter of advice about the gold, saying it would probably go in the Lady
Jermyn; and another about Rattray and his schooner, which had just sailed; the young
gentleman was known to the police out there.»
«Do you know where the schooner is ?»
«Bless you, no, we've had no time to think about her; the man had been seen about
town, and we've done well to lay hands on him in the time.»
«You will do better still when you do lay hands on him,» said I, wresting my eyes from
the yellow dead face of the foreign scoundrel. The moon shone full upon his high forehead,
his shrivelled lips, dank in their death agony, and on the bauble with the sacred device that
he wore always in his tie. I recovered my property from the shrunken fingers, and so turned
away with a harder heart than I ever had before or since for any creature of Almighty God.
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CHAPTER XIX − MY GREAT HOUR 116
Harris had expired in our absence.
«Never spoke, sir,» said the constable in whose arms we had left him.
«More's the pity. Well, cut out at the back and help land the young gent, or we'll have
him giving us the slip too. He may double back, but I'm watching out for that. Which way
should you say he'd head, Mr. Cole?»
«Inland,» said I, lying on the spur of the moment, I knew not why. «Try at the cottage
where I've been staying.»
«We have a man posted there already. That woman is one of the gang, and we've got
her safe. But I'll take your advice, and have that side scoured whilst I hang about the place.»
And he walked through the house, and out the back way, at the officer's heels;
meanwhile 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 loathsome safety.
I had been so long, however, that her patience was exhausted, and as I returned 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 between
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 Jose and − »
«Quick! Quick!»
«Senhor Santos.»
Her face was as though the name meant nothing to her.
«And Mr. Rattray?» she cried. «And Mr. Rattray −»
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CHAPTER XIX − MY GREAT HOUR 117
«Has escaped for the present. He seems to have cut his way through the police and got
over the wall by a ladder they left behind them. They are scouring the country − Miss
Denison! Eva! My poor love!»
She had broken down utterly in a second fit of violent weeping; and a second time I
took her in my arms, and stood trying in my clumsy way to comfort her, as though she were
a little child. A lamp was burning in the library, and I recognized the arm−chair which
Rattray had drawn thence for me on the night of our dinner − the very night before! I led
Eva back into the room, and I closed both doors. I supported my poor girl to the chair, and
once more I knelt before her and took her hands in mine. My great hour was come at last:
surely a happy omen that it was also the hour before the dawn.
«Cry your fill, my darling,» I whispered, with the tears in my own voice. «You shall
never have anything more to cry for in this world! God has been very good to us. He brought
you to me, and me to you. He has rescued us for each other. All our troubles are over; cry
your fill; you will never have another chance so long as I live, if only you will let me live for
you. Will you, Eva? Will you? Will you?»
She drew her hands from mine, and sat upright in the chair, looking at me with round
eyes; but mine were dim; astonishment was all that I could read in her look, and on I went
headlong, with growing impetus and passion.
«I know I am not much, my darling; but you know I was not always what my luck, good
and bad, has left me now, and you will make a new man of me so soon! Besides, God must
mean it, or He would not have thrown us together amid such horrors, and brought us through
them together still. And you have no one else to take care of you in the world! Won't you let
me try, Eva? Say that you will!»
«Then − you − ove me?» she said slowly, in a low, awe−struck voice that might have
told me my fate at once; but I was shaking all over in the intensity of my passion, and for the
moment it was joy enough to be able at last to tell her all.
«Love you?» I echoed. «With every fibre of my being! With every atom of my heart
and soul and body! I love you well enough to live to a hundred for you, or to die for you
to−night!»
«Well enough to − give me up?» she whispered.
I felt as though a cold hand had checked my heart at its hottest, but I mastered myself
sufficiently 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.»
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CHAPTER XIX − MY GREAT HOUR 118
«You are very strong and true,» she murmured. «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
resisted 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 already and once for all. But on the night of the fire I
knew that my love for you was different from all that had gone before or would ever come
again. I gave in to it at last, and oh! 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 happier − until now! You sang through my heart like the wind through the
rigging; my one fear was that I might go to the bottom without telling you my love. When I
asked to say a few last words to you on the poop, it was to tell you my love before we
parted, that you might know I loved you whatever came. I didn't do so, because you seemed
so frightened, poor darling! I hadn't it in my heart to add to your distress. So I left you
without a word. But I fought the sea for days together simply to tell you what I couldn't die
without telling you. When they picked me up, it was your name that brought back my senses
after days of delirium. When I heard that you were dead, I longed to die myself. And when I
found you lived after all, the horror of your surroundings was nothing to be compared with
the mere fact that you lived; that you were unhappy and in danger was my only grief, but it
was nothing to the thought of your death; and that I had to wait twenty−four hours without
coming to you drove me nearer to madness than ever I was on the hen−coop. That's how I
love you, Eva,» I concluded; «that's how I love and will love you, for ever and ever, no
matter what happens.»
Those sweet gray eyes of hers had been fixed very steadily upon me all through this
outburst; as I finished they filled with tears, and my poor love sat wringing her slender
fingers, and upbraiding herself as though she were the most heartless coquette in the
country.
«How wicked I am!» she moaned. «How ungrateful I must be! You offer me the
unselfish love of a strong, brave man. I cannot take it. I have no love to give you in return.»
«But some day you may,» I urged, quite happily in my ignorance. «It will come. Oh,
surely it will come, after all that we have gone through together!»
She looked at me very steadily and kindly through her tears.
«It has come, in a way,» said she; «but it is not your way, Mr. Cole. I do love you for
your bravery and your − love − but that will not quite do for either of us.»
«Why not?» I cried in an ecstasy. «My darling, it will do for me! It is more than I dared
to hope for; thank God, thank God, that you should care for me at all!»
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CHAPTER XIX − MY GREAT HOUR 119
She shook her head.
«You do not understand,» she whispered.
«I do. I do. You do not love me as you want to love.»
«As I could love −»
«And as you will! It will come. It will come. I'll bother you no more about it now. God
knows I can afford to leave well alone! I am only too happy − too thankful − as it is!»
And indeed I rose to my feet every whit as joyful as though she had accepted me on the
spot. At least she had not rejected me; nay, she confessed to loving me in a way. What more
could a lover want? Yet there was a dejection in her drooping attitude which disconcerted
me in the hour of my reward. And her eyes followed me with a kind of stony remorse which
struck a chill to my bleeding heart.
I went to the door; the hall was still empty, and I shut it again with a shudder at what I
saw before the hearth, at all that I had forgotten in the little library. As I turned, another door
opened − the door made invisible by the multitude of books around and upon it − and young
Squire Rattray stood between my love and me.
His clear, smooth skin was almost as pale as Eva's own, but pale brown, the tint of rich
ivory. His eyes were preternaturally bright. And they never glanced my way, but flew
straight to Eva, and rested on her very humbly and sadly, as her two hands gripped the arms
of the chair, and she leant forward in horror and alarm.
«How could you come back?» she cried. «I was told you had escaped!»
«Yes, I got away on one of their horses.»
«I pictured you safe on board!»
«I very nearly was.»
«Then why are you here ?»
«To get your forgiveness before I go.»
He took a step forward; her eyes and mine were riveted upon him; and I still wonder
which of us admired him the more, as he stood there in his pride and his humility, gallant
and young, and yet shamefaced and sad.
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CHAPTER XIX − MY GREAT HOUR 120
«You risk your life − for my forgiveness?» whispered Eva at last. «Risk it? I'll give
myself up if you'll take back some of the things you said to me − last night − and before.»
There was a short pause.
«Well, you are not a coward, at all events!»
«Nor a murderer, Eva!»
«God forbid.»
«Then forgive me for everything else that I have been − to you!»
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
concerned. 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 unintentional 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 subterranean 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.»
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 revisit within an hour of my deliverance from that
very torture−chamber. It had been something more before I left it, but in it I could think only
of the first occupant of the camp−stool. The lantern still burned 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!
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CHAPTER XIX − MY GREAT HOUR 121
And all at once I was on fire to be back in the library; so much so, that half a minute at
the manhole, 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 understood that the curious may traverse it
for themselves to this day on payment of a very modest fee.
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
kissing the tears from her wet, flushed cheek. Her eyelids drooped; she was pale as the dead
without, so pale that her eyebrows looked abnormally 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 forgotten 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.
«You love him ?» I said sternly.
The silence of consent remained unbroken.
«Villain as he is?» I burst out.
And at last Eva spoke.
«I loved him before he was one,» said she. «We were engaged.»
She looked at him standing by, his head bowed, his arms folded; next moment she was
very close to me, and fresh tears were in her eyes. But I stepped backward, for I had had
enough.
«Can you not forgive me?»
«Oh, dear, yes.»
«Can't you understand?»
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CHAPTER XIX − MY GREAT HOUR 122
«Perfectly,» said I.
«You know you said − »
«I have said so many things!»
«But this was that you − you loved me well enough to − give me up.»
And the silly ego in me − the endless and incorrigible I − imagined her pouting for a
withdrawal of those brave words.
«I not only said it,» I declared, «but I meant every word of it.»
None the less had I to turn from her to hide my anguish. I leaned my elbows on the
narrow stone chimney−piece, which, with the 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 merely ugly in its sore distress, merely repulsive in
its bloody bandages. And in the mirror also I saw Rattray, handsome, romantic, audacious,
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
triumph 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. «Now − while you can − and I can let you.
Now! Now!»
Still Rattray hung back.
I saw him glancing wistfully at my great revolver 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!»
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XIX − MY GREAT HOUR 123
He was gone. Without, there was a voice still calling me; but now it sounded overhead.
«Good−by, Eva, I said. »You have not a moment to lose."
Yet those divine eyes lingered on my ugliness.
«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 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−by to you,» she whispered. «And − and I love you − for that!»
«Then you had better choose between us,» said I.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XIX − MY GREAT HOUR 124
CHAPTER XX − THE STATEMENT OF FRANCIS RATTRAY
I
n the year 1858 I received a bulky packet bearing the stamp of the Argentine Republic,
a realm in which, to the best of my belief, I had not a solitary acquaintance. The
superscription told me nothing. In my relations with Rattray his handwriting had never come
under my observation. Judge then of my feelings when the first thing I read was his
signature at the foot of the last page.
For five years I had been uncertain whether he was alive or dead. I had heard nothing of
him from the night we parted in Kirby Hall. All I knew was that he had escaped from
England and the English police; his letter gave no details of the incident. It was an
astonishing letter; my breath was taken on the first close page; at the foot of it the tears were
in my eyes. And all that part I must pass over without a word. I have never shown it to man
or woman. It is sacred between man and man.
But the letter possessed other points of interest − of almost universal interest − to which
no such scruples 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 enterprise 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 day throw on this or that phase of the foregoing narrative; and, lastly,
out of fairness to (I hope) the most gallant and most generous youth who ever slipped upon
the lower slopes of Avemus.
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 pretended 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 voyages were far between and on my own account.
I had given way to our hereditary passion for smuggling. I kept a 'yacht' in Morecambe Bay,
and more French brandy than I knew what to do with in my cellars. It was exciting for a
time, but the excitement did not last. In 1851 the gold fever broke out in Australia. I shipped
to Melbourne as third mate on a barque, and I deserted for the diggings in the usual course.
But I was never a successful digger. I had little luck and less patience, and I have no doubt
that many a good haul has been taken out of claims previously abandoned by me; for of one
or two I had the mortification of hearing while still in the Colony. I suppose I had not the
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CHAPTER XX − THE STATEMENT OF FRANCIS RATTRAY 125
temperament for the work. Dust would not do for me − I must have nuggets. So from
Bendigo I drifted to the Ovens, and from the Ovens to Ballarat. But I did no more good on
one field than on another, and eventually, early in 1853, I cast up in Melbourne again with
the intention of shipping home in the first vessel. But there were no crews for the
homeward−bounders, and while waiting for a ship my little stock of gold dust gave out. I
became destitute first − then desperate. Unluckily for me, the beginning of '53 was the
hey−day of Captain MelviHe, the notorious bushranger. He was a young fellow of my own
age. I determined to imitate his exploits. I could make nothing out there from an honest life;
rather than starve I would lead a dishonest one. I had been born with lawless tendencies;
from smuggling to bushranging was an easy transition, and about the latter there seemed to
be a gallantry and romantic swagger which put it on the higher plane of the two. But I was
not born to be a bushranger either. I failed at the very first attempt. I was outwitted by my
first victim, a thin old gentleman riding a cob at night on the Geelong road.
"'Why rob me?' said he. 'I have only ten pounds in my pocket, and the punishment will
be the same as though it were ten thousand.'
"'I want your cob,' said I (for I was on foot); 'I'm a starving Jack, and as I can't get a ship
I'm going to take to the bush.'
"He shrugged his shoulders.
"'To starve there?' said he. 'My friend, it is a poor sport, this bushranging. I have looked
into the matter on my own account. You not only die like a dog, but you live like 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, because I knew very well that he was not; at which
he shrugged again, and slowly dismounted, after offering me his money, of which I took
half. He shook his head, telling 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 completely as he had been at mine. I made up my mind to being
marched to the nearest police−station. But nothing of the kind. I had misjudged my man as
utterly as you misjudged him a few months later aboard the Lady Jermyn. He took me to his
house on the outskirts of Melbourne, a weather−board bungalow, scantily furnished, but
comfortable enough. And there he seriously repeated the proposal he had made me off−hand
in the road. Only he put it a little differently. Would I go to the hulks for attempting to rob
him of five pounds, or would I stay and help him commit a robbery, of which my share
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XX − THE STATEMENT OF FRANCIS RATTRAY 126
alone would be ten or fifteen thousand? You know which I chose. You know who this man
was. I said I would join him. He made me swear it. And then he told me what his enterprise
was: there is no need for me to tell you; nor indeed had it taken definite shape at this time.
Suffice it that Santos had wind that big consignments of Austrailian gold were shortly to be
shipped home to England; that he, like myself, had done nothing on the diggings, where he
had looked to make his fortune, and out of which he meant to make it still.
"It was an extraordinary life that we led in the bungalow, I the guest, he the host, and
Eva the unsuspecting hostess and innocent daughter of the house. Santos had failed on the
fields, but he had succeeded in making valuable friends in Melbourne. Men of position and
of influence spent their evenings on our veranda, among others the Melbourne agent for the
Lady Jermyn, the likeliest vessel then lying in the harbor, and the one to which the first
consignment of gold−dust would be entrusted if only a skipper could be found to replace the
deserter who took you out. Santos made up his mind to find one., It took him weeks, but
eventually he found Captain Harris on Bendigo, and Captain Harris was his man. More than
that he was the man for the agent; and the Lady Jermyn was once more made ready for sea.
Now began the complications. Quite openly, Santos had bought the schooner Spindrift,
freighted her with wool, given me the command, and vowed that he would go home in her
rather than wait any longer for the Lady Jermyn. At the last moment he appeared to change
his mind, and I sailed alone as many days as possible in advance of the ship, as had been
intended from the first; but it went sorely against the grain when the time came. I would
have given anything to have backed out of the enterprise. Honest I might be no longer; I was
honestly in love with Eva Denison. Yet to have backed out would have been one way of
losing her for ever. Besides, it was not the first time I had run counter to the law, I who came
of a lawless stock; but it would be the first time I had deserted a comrade or broken faith
with one. I would do neither. In for a penny, in for a pound.
"But before my God I never meant it to turn out as it did; though I admit and have
always admitted that my moral responsibility is but little if any the less on that account. Yet
I was never a consenting party to wholesale murder, whatever else I was. The night before I
sailed, Santos and the captain were aboard with me till the small hours. They promised me
that every soul should have every chance; that nothing but unforeseen accident could
prevent the boats from making Ascension again in a matter of hours; that as long as the gig
was supposed to be lost with all hands, nothing else mattered. So they promised, and that
Harris meant to keep his promise I fully believe. That was not a wanton ruffian; but the
other would spill blood like water, as I told you at the hall, and as no man now knows better
than yourself. He was notorious even in Portuguese Africa on account of his atrocious
treatment of the blacks. It was a favorite boast of his that he once poisoned a whole village;
and that he himself tampered with the Lady Jermyn's boats you can take my word, for I have
heard him describe how he left it to the last night, and struck the blows during the applause
at the concert on the quarter−deck. He said it might have come out about the gold in the gig,
during the fire. It was safer to run no risks.
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CHAPTER XX − THE STATEMENT OF FRANCIS RATTRAY 127
"The same thing came into play aboard the schooner. Never shall I forget the horror of
that voyage after Santos came aboard! I had a crew of eight hands all told, and two he
brought with him in the gig. Of course they began talking about the gold; they would have
their share or split when they got ashore; and there was mutiny in the air, with the steward
and the quarter−master of the Lady Jermyn for ring−leaders. Santos nipped it in the bud with
a vengeance! He and Harris shot every man of them dead, and two who were shot through
the heart they washed and dressed and set adrift to rot in the gig with false papers! God
knows how we made Madeira; we painted the old name out and a new name in, on the way;
and we shipped a Portuguese crew, not a man of whom could speak English. We shipped
them aboard the Duque de Mondejo's yacht Braganza; the schooner Spindrift had
disappeared from the face of the waters for ever. And with the men we took in plenty of sour
claret and cigarettes; and we paid them well; and the Portuguese sailor is not inquisitive
under such conditions.
"And now, honestly, I wished I had put a bullet through my head before joining in this
murderous conspiracy; but retreat was impossible, even if I had been the man to draw back
after going so far; and I had a still stronger reason for standing by the others to the bitter
end. I could not leave our lady to these ruffians. On the other hand, neither could I take her
from them, for (as you know) she justly regarded me as the most flagrant ruffian of them all.
It was in me and through me that she was deceived, insulted, humbled, and contaminated;
that she should ever have forgiven me for a moment is more than I can credit or fathom to
this hour ... So there we were. She would not look at me. And I would not leave her until
death removed me. Santos had been kind enough to her hitherto; he had been kind enough (I
understand) to her mother before her. It was only in the execution of his plans that he
showed his Napoleonic disregard for human life; and it was precisely herein that I began to
fear for the girl I still dared to love. She took up an attitude as dangerous to her safety as to
our own. She demanded to be set free when we came to land. Her demand was refused. God
forgive me, it had no bitterer opponent than myself! And all we did was to harden her
resolution; that mere child threatened us to our faces, never shall I forget the scene! You
know her spirit: if we would not set her free, she would tell all when we landed. And you
remember how Santos used to shrug? That was all he did then. It was enough for me who
knew him. For days I never left them alone together. Night after night I watched her cabin
door. And she hated me the more for never leaving her alone! I had to resign myself to that.
"The night we anchored in Falmouth Bay, thinking then of taking our gold straight to
the Bank of England, as eccentric lucky diggers − that night I thought would be the last for
one or other of us. He locked her in her cabin. He posted himself outside on the settee. I sat
watching him across the table. Each had a hand in his pocket, each had a pistol in that hand,
and there we sat, with our four eyes locked, while Harris went ashore for papers. He came
back in great excitement. What with stopping at Madeira, and calms, and the very few knots
we could knock out of the schooner at the best of times, we had made a seven or eight
weeks' voyage of it from Ascension − where, by the way, I had arrived only a couple of days
before the Lady Jermyn, though I had nearly a month's start of her. Well, Harris came back
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XX − THE STATEMENT OF FRANCIS RATTRAY 128
in the highest state of excitement: and well he might: the papers were full of you, and of the
burning of the Lady Jermyn!
"Now mark what happened. You know, of course, as well as I do; but I wonder if you
can even yet realize what it was to us! Our prisoner hears that you are alive, and she turns
upon Santos and tells him he is welcome to silence her, but it will do us ne good now, as you
know that the ship was wilfully burned, and with what object. It is the single blow she can
strike in self−defence; but a shrewder one could scarcely be imagined. She had talked to
you, at the very last; and by that time she did know the truth. What more natural than that
she should confide it to you? She had had time to tell you enough to hang the lot of 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 reserve which was said to characterize all your utterances
concerning the Lady Jermyn. 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 conspiracy 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
great length, so long after the event. My wife wished it. The fact is that she wants you to
think better of me than I deserve; and I − yes − I confess that I should like you not to think
quite as ill of me as you must have done all these years. I was villain enough, but do not
think I am unpunished.
«I am an outlaw from my country. I am morally a transported felon. Only in this
no−man's land am I a free man; let me but step across the border and I am worth a little
fortune to the man who takes me. And we have had a hard time here, though not so hard as I
deserved; and the hardest part of all ... »
But you must guess the hardest part: for the letter ended as it began, with sudden talk of
his inner life, and tentative inquiry after mine. In its entirety, as I say, I have never shown it
to a soul; there was just a little more that I read to my wife (who could not hear enough
about his); then I folded up the letter, and even she has never seen the passages to which I
allude.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XX − THE STATEMENT OF FRANCIS RATTRAY 129
And yet 1 am not one of those who hold that the previous romances of married people
should be taboo between them in after life. On the contrary, much mutual amusement, of an
innocent character, may be derived from a fair and free interchange upon the subject; and
this is why we, in our old age (or rather in mine), find a still unfailing topic in the story of
which Eva Denison was wayward heroine and Frank Rattray the nearest approach to a hero.
Sometimes these reminiscences lead to an argument; for it has been the fate of my life to
become attached to argumentative persons. I suppose because I myself hate arguing. On the
day that I received Rattray's letter we had one of our warmest discussions. I could repeat
every word of it after forty years.
«A good man does not necessarily make a good husband,» I innocently remarked.
«Why do you say that?» asked my wife, who never would let a generalization pass
unchallenged.
«I was thinking of Rattray,» said I. «The most tolerant of judges could scarcely have
described him as a good man five years ago. Yet I can see that he has made an admirable
husband. On the whole, and if you can't be both, it is better to be the good husband!»
It was this point that we debated with so much ardor. My wife would take the opposite
side; that is her one grave fault. And I must introduce personalities; that, of course, is among
the least of mine. I compared myself with Rattray, as a husband, and (with some sincerity) to
my own disparagement. I pointed out that he was an infinitely more fascinating 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 craftiest 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.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
CHAPTER XX − THE STATEMENT OF FRANCIS RATTRAY 130
Table Of Content
CHAPTER I − Love on the Ocean
CHAPTER II − THE MYSTERIOUS CARGO
CHAPTER III − TO THE WATER'S EDGE
CHAPTER IV − THE SILENT SEA
CHAPTER V − MY REWARD
CHAPTER VI − THE SOLE SURVIVOR
CHAPTER VII − I FIND A FRIEND
CHAPTER VIII − A SMALL PRECAUTION
CHAPTER IX − MY CONVALESCENT HOME
CHAPTER X − WINE AND WEAKNESS
CHAPTER XI − I LIVE AGAIN
CHAPTER XII − MY LADY'S BIDDING
CHAPTER XIII − THE LONGEST DAY OF MY LIFE
CHAPTER XIV − IN THE GARDEN
CHAPTER XV − FIRST BLOOD
CHAPTER XVI − A DEADLOCK
CHAPTER XVII − THIEVES FALL OUT
CHAPTER XVIII − A MAN OF MANY MURDERS
CHAPTER XIX − MY GREAT HOUR
CHAPTER XX − THE STATEMENT OF FRANCIS RATTRAY
Dead Men Tell No Tales
Table Of Content 131
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