Poison Island

by Arthur Quiller-Couch

  CHAPTER XXI.

  IN WHICH PLINNY SURPRISES EVERYONE.

  Everybody stared; and this had the effect of making the dear goodcreature blush to the eyes.

  "I beg your pardon, ma'am?" said Mr. Jack Rogers.

  "It--it was not for me to say so, perhaps." Her voice quavered alittle, and now a pair of bright tears trembled on her lashes; butshe kept up her chin bravely and seemed to take courage as she wenton. "I am aware, sir, that in all matters of hazard and enterpriseit is for the gentlemen to take the lead. If I appear forward--if Ispeak too impulsively--my affection for Harry must be my excuse."

  Mr. Rogers stared at Captain Branscome, and from Captain Branscome toMr. Goodfellow, but their faces did not help him.

  "That's all very well, ma'am, but an expedition to the other end ofthe world--if that's what you suggest?--at a moment's notice--onwhat, as like or not, may turn out to be a wild-goose chase--Lordbless my soul!" wound up Mr. Rogers incoherently, falling back in hischair.

  "I was not proposing to start at a moment's notice," replied Plinny,with extreme simplicity. "There will, of course, be many details toarrange; and I do not forget that we are in the house of mourning.The poor dear Major claims our first thoughts, naturally. Yes, yes;there must be a hundred and one details to be discussed hereafter--ata fitting time; and it may be many weeks before we find ourselvesactually launched--if I may use the expression--upon the bosom of thedeep."

  "_We?_" gasped Mr. Rogers, and again gazed around; but we others hadno attention to spare for him. "_We?_ Who are 'we'?"

  "Why, all of us, sir, if I might dare to propose it; or at least asmany as possible of us whom the hand of Providence has somysteriously brought together. I will confess that while you weretalking just now, discussing this secret which properly speakingbelongs to Harry alone, I doubted the prudence of it--"

  "And, by Jingo, you were right!" put in Miss Belcher.

  "With your leave, ma'am," Plinny went on, "I have come to thinkotherwise. To begin with, but for Captain Branscome the map wouldnever have found its way to the Major's room, where Harry discoveredit; but might--nay, probably would--have been stolen by the wickedman who committed this crime to get possession of it. Again, but forMr. Goodfellow this written narrative would undoubtedly have beenlost to us, and the map, if not meaningless, might have seemed a cluenot worth the risk of following. In short, ma'am"--Plinny turnedagain to Miss Belcher--"I saw that each of us at this table had beenwonderfully brought here by the hand of Providence. And from this Iwent on to see, and with wonder and thankfulness, that here was asecret, sought after by many evildoers, which had yet come into thekeeping of six persons, all of them honest, and wishful only to dogood. Consider, ma'am, how unlikely this was, after the many bold,bad hands that have reached out for it. And will you tell me thathere is accident only, and not the finger of Providence itself?At first, indeed, we suspected Captain Branscome and Mr. Goodfellow:they were strangers to us, and, as if that we might be tested, theycame to us under suspicion." Here Mr. Goodfellow put up a hand anddubiously felt his nose, which was yet swollen somewhat from hisfirst encounter with Mr. Rogers. "But they have proved theirinnocence; Harry gives me his word for them; and I do not think,"said Plinny, "that you, ma'am, can have heard Captain Branscome'sstory without honouring him."

  Miss Belcher, thus appealed to, answered only with a grunt, at thesame time shooting from under her shaggy eyebrows an amused glance atthe Captain, who stared at the table-cloth to hide his confusion,which, however, was betrayed by a pair of very red ears.

  "All this," pursued Plinny, "I saw by degrees, and that it wasmarvellous; but next came something more marvellous still, for I sawthat if one had gone forth to choose six persons to carry out thisbusiness, he could not have chosen six better fitted for it."

  From the effect of this astounding proposition Miss Lydia Belcher wasthe first to recover herself.

  "Thank you, my dear," she murmured; "on behalf of myself and thecompany, as they say. It is true that in all these years I haveoverlooked my qualifications for a buccaneering job; but I'll thinkthem out as you proceed."

  "Oh!" exclaimed Plinny, "I wasn't counting on you, ma'am, toaccompany this expedition; nor on Mr. Rogers. You are great folks ascompared with us, and have public duties--a stake in the country--great wealth to administer. Yet I was thinking that, while we areabroad, there may happen to be business at home requiring attention,and that we may perhaps rely on you--who have shown so much interestin this sad affair."

  "Meaning that we have been dipping our fingers pretty deep into thispie. Well, and so we have; and thank you again, my dear, for puttingit so delicately."

  "But I meant nothing of the sort--indeed I didn't!" protested Plinny.

  "Tut, tut! Of course you didn't, but it's the truth nevertheless.Well, then, it appears that Jack Rogers and I are to be thespotsmen[1] for this little expedition, and that you and CaptainBranscome, and Mr. Goodfellow, and--yes, and Harry, too, I suppose--are to be the Red Rovers and scour the Spanish Main. All right; onlyyou don't look it, exactly."

  "But is not that half the battle?" urged the indomitable Plinny."They'll be so much the less likely to suspect us."

  "They--whoever they may be--will certainly be so far deluded."

  "And really--if you will consider it, ma'am--what I am proposing isnot ridiculous at all. For what is chiefly wanted for such anadventure? In the first place, a ship--and thank God I have means tohire one, in the second place, a trustworthy navigator--and here, bythe most unexpected good fortune, we have Captain Branscome; in thethird place, a carpenter, to provide us with shelter on the islandand be at hand in case of accident to the vessel--and here is Mr.Goodfellow; while as for Harry--" Plinny hesitated, for the momentat a loss; then her face brightened suddenly. "Harry can climb atree, and the instructions on the back of the map point to this asnecessary. Harry will be invaluable!"

  I could have wrung her hand; but Plinny, having finished herjustification of the ways of Providence, had taken off her spectaclesand was breathing on them and polishing them with a small silkhandkerchief which she ever kept handy for that purpose.

  "Captain Branscome," said Miss Belcher, sharply, "will you be so goodas to give us your opinion?"

  Captain Branscome lifted his head. "My mind, if you'll excuse me,ma'am, works a bit slowly, and always did. But there's no denyingthat Miss Plinlimmon has given the sense of it."

  "Hey?"

  "To be sure," said the Captain, tracing with his finger an imaginarypattern on the table-cloth, "her courage carries her too far--as inthis talk about hiring a ship. A ship needs a crew; a crew thatcould be trusted on a treasure-hunt is perhaps the most difficult tofind in the whole world; and when you've found one to rely upon, yourtroubles are only just beginning. The main trouble is with the ship,and that's what no landsman can ever understand. A ship's the mostpublic thing under heaven. You think of her, maybe, as somethingthat puts out over the horizon and is lost to sight for months.But that helps nothing. She must clear from a port, and to a portsooner or later she must return; and in both ports a hundred curiouspeople at least must know all about her business.

  "I don't say that a ship, once out of sight, cannot be made awaywith--though even that, with a crew to tell tales, has beaten some ofthe cleverest heads; but to take out a ship and fill her up withtreasure, and bring her home _and unload her without any one'sknowing_--that's a feat that (if you'll excuse me) I've heard ahundred liars discuss at one time and another; and one has said itcan be done in this way, and another in that, but never a one in myhearing has found a way that would deceive a child."

  "Yet you said, a moment since, that Miss Plinlimmon had given thesense of it?"

  "I did, ma'am. I am saying that to fetch this treasure will bedifficult, even if we find it--"

  "You don't doubt its existence?"

  "I do not, ma'am. I doubt it so little, ma'am, that I would tentimes sooner engage to find than to fetch it. But I don't eve
ndespair of fetching it, if the lady goes on being as clever as shehas begun."

  "What?" exclaimed Plinny. "I? Clever?"

  "Yes, indeed, ma'am," Captain Branscome answered, still in a slow,measured voice. "But, indeed, too, I might have been prepared for itwhen you started by taking a line that beats all my experience oflandsmen; or perhaps in this case I ought to say lands_ladies_."

  "Why, what have I done that is wonderful?"

  "You took the line, ma'am, that, from here to Honduras, what is itbut a passage? A few months at the most--oh, to be sure, to a seamanthat's no more than nature; but to hear it from any one land-bred,and a lady too! As a Christian man, I have believed in miracles,but to-day I seem to be moving among them. And after your saying_that_, I had no call to be surprised when you up and suggested a waythat would have taken a seaman twenty years to hit upon! I am nottalking about the ship, ma'am. That part of your plan (if you'llallow me, as a seaman, to give an opinion) won't work at all.But the plan in general is a masterpiece."

  "But I do not see," Plinny confessed, with a small puckering of thebrows, "that I have suggested anything that can be called a plan."

  "Why, ma'am, you have been talking heavenliest common sense, and onceyou've started us upon common sense there's no such thing as adifficulty. 'Let us go to the island,' you said; and with that at astroke you get rid of the worst danger we have to fear, which issuspicion. For who's to suspect such a company as this present, orany part of it, of being after treasure? 'Let us make it a pleasuretrip,' said you, or words to that effect; and what follows but thatthe whole journey is made cheap and simple? We book our passages inthe Kingston packet. Peace has been declared with France, and whatmore natural than that a party of English should be travelling to seethe West Indies? Or what more likely than that, after what hashappened, the doctor has advised a sea-voyage, to soothe your mind?As for me, I am Harry's tutor; every one in Falmouth knows it, andthinks me lucky to get the billet. It won't take five minutes toexplain Mr. Goodfellow here, just as easily--"

  "And as for me," struck in Miss Belcher, "I'm an old madwoman, withmore money than I know what to do with. And as for Jack Rogers, I'meloping with him to a coral island."

  Mr. Rogers checked himself on the edge of a guffaw.

  "But, I say, Lydia, you're not serious about this?" he asked.

  "I don't know, Jack. I rather think I am. I'm getting an old woman,mad or not; and the hours drag with me sometimes up at the house.But"--and here she looked up with one of those rare smiles that setyou thinking she must have been pretty in her time--"there's thisadvantage in having followed my own will for fifty years: that no oneany longer troubles to be surprised at anything I may do.You're something of an eccentric yourself, Jack. You had better jointhe picnic."

  "I ought to warn you, ma'am," said Captain Branscome gravely, "thatalthough the West India route has been fairly well protected for somemonths now, there _is_ a certain amount of risk from Americanprivateers."

  "The Americans are a chivalrous nation, I have always heard."

  "Extremely so, ma'am; nevertheless, there is a risk, in the event ofthe packet being attacked. But I was about to say," pursued CaptainBranscome, "that our being at war with America may actually help usto get across from Jamaica to the island. Quite a number of oldColonial families--loyalists, as we should call them--have beendriven from time to time to cross over from the Main and settle inthe West Indies. But of course they have left kinsfolk behind themin the States; and, in spite of wars and divisions, it is no unusualthing for relatives to slip back and forth and visit one another--secretly, you understand. I have even heard of an old lady, now oruntil lately residing in St. Kitts, who has made no less than elevensuch voyages to the Delaware--whenever, in short, her daughter wasexpecting an addition to her family."

  "Good," said Miss Belcher. "I have found some one to impersonate;and that settles it."

  "I really think, ma'am," said Captain Branscome, "that, once inJamaica, we shall have no difficulty in finding, at the western endof the island, just the ship we require."

  "Bless my soul!" said Miss Belcher. "Except for the sea-voyage, itmight be a middle-aged jaunt in a po'-shay!"

  [1] Miss Belcher was here employing a smuggling term. A "spotsman"is the agent who arranges for a run of goods, and directs theoperation from the shore, without necessarily taking a part in it.