"Well, it's a good thing," he said, "that you come away. In this heretown you have to be careful. But I'll have a turn round and see if I canfind anything out about this here house and the feller as lives in it."
Then he mopped his face and looked at the sky and told them to go backagain to the ship; and a couple of hours later he came aboard andbeckoned them to talk to him while he smoked his pipe. Everything wasready now for the ship to sail next morning, and most of the othersailors were asleep, and Captain Jeremy had gone to lunch again with thefruit-merchant in the town.
"Well, this here feller," said Lancelot, "seems a queer sort of cove,with a bad name, and he lives all alone; and his wife ran away from himsix years ago, taking their only little girl along with her. But there'ssome folks believe that he went after her and killed her--anyway, shewas found dead in the forest--but what happened to Pepita, who was threeyears old at the time, nobody knows, for she's never been seen."
Then he smoked his pipe for a minute. "But I tell you what," he said."He's pretty sure to be asleep just now. And if you like I'll go andhave a look at the house, and see what there is to it, and come and tellyou."
"But I must come too," said Gwendolen. "I really must."
"And so must I," said Marian. "We must both come," and after a whilethey persuaded him to take them, and they set off again through thetown. It was now so hot that it seemed as if the very earth must beginto melt and crumble away; and when they came to the house there were nosigns of life--there was only that little window, dark and aching. For amoment they stood listening at the front door, and then they cautiouslystepped inside; and there, in a lower room, asleep on the floor, theysaw the big man with the fat face. Then they stole upstairs until theycame to the little room under the roof to which the window belonged; andthen, as they pushed the door open, the tears sprang to their eyes, andLancelot swore a great oath.
For there they saw, tied to a staple in the wall, a little girl of aboutnine years old, ragged and scarred, with timid dark eyes and cheekslike a flower that has never seen the sun. Tied across her mouth was adirty cloth, and when she first saw them she shrank away; but asGwendolen went up to her with outstretched arms, her eyes widened insheer astonishment. Then Lancelot stooped and cut the rope that boundher, and pulled away the cloth that was gagging her mouth; and then hejumped round just as the little girl's father came stumbling fiercelyinto the room.
Gwendolen heard him shouting something and using the word Pepita; and asshe clasped the little girl in her arms she knew why it was that allthese years the sorrowful picture seemed to have been calling to her. Itwas because the little girl's pain and longing for freedom had somehowstolen into the painter's brush. Then she saw Lancelot's fist shoot outlike a bullet, and Pepita's father tumble to the floor; and thenLancelot shouted to them to hurry away, and picking up Pepita, he randown the stairs. In less than a minute they were in the little trackbetween the high garden walls; and in a few seconds more they were outin the street, and then a most strange and awful thing happened. ForMarian stopped short and pointed with her finger.
"Why, what's the matter," she cried, "with the cathedral tower?"
They all stared at it, and saw it rock to and fro; and then Lancelotswung round toward the open country.
"Run for your lives," he said, and then, as they followed him, they feltthe ground beneath them rise and fall. Then they heard a crash, andpeople shouting, and then all was still again, and they stoppedrunning. Lancelot wiped his forehead.
"Well, now you know," he said, "what an earthquake's like. Lucky itwasn't a worse one."
And there was the cathedral tower still standing on its foundations, butwhen they looked for Pepita's house it had fallen down like a pack ofcards, a fitting grave for Pepita's father. For they heard in theevening that he had been killed; and Pepita afterward told them how hehad killed her mother, and how he had kept her for all those years tiedto the wall in that dark upper room. As for Captain Jeremy, he was sorejoiced at seeing Marian and Gwendolen safe that he told Lancelot hewould have forgiven him if he had brought fifty Pepitas on board.Lancelot was very pleased about that, because, in his heart of hearts,he knew that he ought never to have let them come with him. But, as hetold Gwendolen, all was well that ended well, and he hoped that shewould allow him to take care of Pepita.
Gwendolen wasn't quite sure at first, but when they arrived home heraunt and Mrs Robertson thought it a good idea. For Mrs Robertson hadmade up her mind to marry Lancelot, and Pepita was just the little girl,she said, that she had always wanted.
We're going the way that Drake went, We shall see what Drake's men saw, A coppery curly cobra-snake, And a scarlet-cloaked macaw.
For we're going the way that Drake went, We're taking the jungle trail, And we'll bring you a dark-eyed damsel home, And a cock with a golden tail.
THE MOON-BOY'S FRIEND
The Lagoon]
XIII
THE MOON-BOY'S FRIEND
It was about a week after Marian and Gwendolen had arrived home fromPorto Blanco that Uncle Joe suddenly asked Cuthbert and Doris to spend afortnight with him at Redington-on-Sea. It was not the sort of town thatUncle Joe liked, because it was full of big houses and glitteringhotels; and most of the people in it wore expensive clothes, and it hada long pier, with a theatre at the end. But he always went there in thefirst week of August, when Mr Parker took his annual holiday, so that hecould visit an old friend of his, who had lodgings on the Marine Parade.
This old friend was called Colonel Stookley, and he had lost both hislegs as the result of wounds; and Uncle Joe generally took rooms nextdoor and played chess with him every evening. He had been very brave,but was now rather wheezy, besides having something wrong with hisliver; and as he had lost most of his friends he was always glad to seeUncle Joe. Generally Uncle Joe went to see him alone, so that he couldbe with him most of the day; but this year he thought that Cuthbertneeded a change, and he asked Doris, because Marian had just had avoyage. At first they were afraid that they would have to take theirbest clothes, but Uncle Joe said that he didn't mind. So long as theybrushed their teeth every day they could wear what they liked, he said,and they could paddle and swim as much as they pleased.
So they met Uncle Joe at the station at eleven o'clock on the 3rd ofAugust, and a couple of hours later they were having lunch with him inthe big dining-car of the express. Through the windows, as they rockedalong, trying their best not to spill their soup, they could see theharvesters at work in the fields, and ribbons of flowers as they crashedthrough the little stations; and a couple of hours after that, wheresome hills had broken apart, Doris was the first of them to see a stitchof blue; and by half-past four they were talking to the landlady ofnumber 70 Marine Parade.
This was next door to where Colonel Stookley lodged, and the landlady'sname was Mrs Bodkin; and she gave Doris a kiss, and said that she wastall for her age and that Cuthbert's cheeks would soon have some rosesin them. Then she showed them their bedrooms, which were at the top ofthe house, looking out to sea over the esplanade; and they found thatthey could talk to each other out of the windows and watch the people inthe gardens below.
These were very trim gardens, like the garden in Bellington Square,separated by railings from the flagged esplanade; and beyond theesplanade there were terraces of pebbles, crumbling into a stretch ofhard, wet sand.
As it was tea-time there were not many people about; but by six o'clockthere were people everywhere--people in the gardens, listening to theband, and looking sideways at each other's clothes; people on theesplanade, sauntering up and down, and saying how-do-you-do to theirfriends; people on the pier staring through telescopes, and people onthe beach reading magazines, and people on the sands building castles orpaddling with their children on the fringe of the sea. The tide was solow that nobody was bathing, and weed-capped rocks stood out of thewater; and after they had paddled a little Doris suggested that theyshould go and listen to the pierrots.
This was th
e hour--just before the children's bedtime, and before thegrown-up people went home to dinner--when the pierrots andbeach-entertainers were all at their busiest, trying to earn money. Upona wooden platform, with three chairs and a piano, two men and two girlswere singing and dancing; and a hundred yards away from them, on asimilar sort of stand, there were three banjo-players with blackenedfaces. But there were such crowds round each of these platforms thatCuthbert and Doris couldn't get near them; and there was a conjurer, alittle farther on, who seemed to be even more popular. They watched himfor a minute or two, and saw the people raining pennies on him, but theywere too far away to be able to see his tricks; and then they saw aclown, farther along still, turning somersaults on the sand.
There were a few children round him, some of them with nurses, but thepeople on the esplanade were taking very little notice of him; and bythe time that Cuthbert and Doris reached him, he had stoppedsomersaulting and was wiping his forehead. Standing near him, dressedlike a gipsy, was a woman, who was evidently his wife, and sitting onthe sand was a queer-looking boy about fourteen who seemed to be theirson. The clown was dressed in a baggy sort of smock, tied round hisankles with pink ribbon, and his face was white, with a crimson diamondpainted on the middle of each cheek. His lips had been coloured to makethem seem smiling, and he wore a wig of carroty hair, but his eyes weretired, and underneath his wig they could see some of his own hair, whichwas quite grey.
Then his wife brought a little box round, but none of the childrenseemed to have any pennies, and the two or three grown-up people who hadbeen watching the performance turned aside without giving anything.Cuthbert and Doris heard one of them say that it was a rotten show andnot worth a farthing; and then the old clown began to sing a song abouta cheese that climbed out of the window. Some of the nurses laughed alittle, but the children didn't understand it, and Cuthbert and Doristhought it rather stupid, but the woman had noticed them and broughtthem the box, and they each put a penny in it, though they didn't muchwant to. Then the old clown and his wife pretended to have a quarrel,and she kept knocking him down with an umbrella; but what interestedthem most was the queer-looking boy, who kept laughing to himself andplaying with his fingers. Once or twice he got up and went strayingamong the audience, and they could see his mother watching him ratheranxiously; and presently he came and talked to them and told them thathe was a moon-boy and that his name was Albert Hezekiah.
It was now nearly seven, and the tide was coming in, and there wasnobody left to watch the old clown, so his wife stopped hitting him withthe umbrella and helped him on with a shabby blue overcoat. Then theyemptied the pennies out of the box, and the old clown counted them inthe palm of his hand.
"Ten and a half," he said, "not much of a catch, old lady," and thenthey looked round for Albert Hezekiah.
He was still talking to Cuthbert and Doris, and the old clown and hiswife came up to them. The woman spoke to Doris.
"Don't you be frightened," she said, and the old clown tapped hisforehead.
"He's a little bit touched," he said, "that's all, my dear. But he's agood lad and he's quite harmless."
Then they said good-night, and the moon-boy shook hands with them andtold them that he liked them, because they had nice faces; and two orthree times during the next few days they saw him playing about near hisfather and mother. Then one day they saw him alone, and he told themthat his father was ill in bed, and that his mother had sent for thedoctor, and that they had no money to pay the rent with. It seemedrather funny to think of a clown being ill, but Doris and Cuthbert eachgave him sixpence, and he ran off singing, and they didn't see himagain till the last day of their holiday.
This was a bright hot day, and they had bathed in the morning, and thenMrs Bodkin had cut them some sandwiches, and they had had their lunch onthe top of Capstan Beacon, which was a high hill about five miles away.Then they had walked inland and had tea at a little village; and it wastoward dusk, just as they were reaching the town, that they saw themoon-boy in the middle of a group of boys on a piece of waste land nearthe gas-works. He was waving his arms and looking rather bewildered, andthe other boys were mocking him and singing a sort of song, "Loony,loony, moon-boy; loony, loony, loo"; and when they came nearer they sawthat he was crying, and that one of the bigger boys was throwing stonesat him.
Doris was so angry that she could hardly speak, but she caught hold ofthe boy who was throwing stones, and when he tried to hit her sheslapped his face and told him that he was the biggest coward that shehad ever seen. Then he tried to hit her again, but Cuthbert jumped infront of her, and after a minute or two Cuthbert knocked him down; andthen the other boys ran away, after throwing stones at them and callingthem names.
"Little beasts," said Doris, "look what they've done," and Cuthbert sawthat they had cut the moon-boy's cheek. So Doris took out herhandkerchief and stopped the bleeding, and then they both took themoon-boy home. He was so excited at first that he lost the way, but atlast he stopped in front of a little house; and in a back room theyfound the old clown, sitting up in bed and trying to shave himself. Hiswife was at the fireplace, frying some fish; and when they heard whathad happened to their son, they shook hands with Cuthbert and Doris andthanked them over and over again.
"Luck's against us, you see," said the old clown. "We're getting pastwork, and the people won't laugh at us. And this here boy of ours is allthat we have, and there's nobody else to look after him."
"Excepting one," said the moon-boy, and the old clown began to laugh.
"That's one of his crazes," he said. "He says that he has a friend whocomes and talks to him once a week."
"Out of the sea," said the boy. "He comes out of the sea. I never seehim except by the sea."
"Nor there either," said his mother, "if the truth was known." But whenCuthbert and Doris said good-bye the moon-boy followed them into thestreet and began speaking to them in a whisper.
"I tell you what," he said. "If you'll meet me to-night at ten o'clockjust by the lighthouse I'll show him to you, if you'll promise not tolaugh. Because if you laugh, he won't come."
For a moment they hesitated because they were pretty sure that Uncle Joewouldn't allow it; but then they decided that they needn't ask him, ashe would be sure to be playing chess with Colonel Stookley. So theypromised to be there, though they thought it very likely that themoon-boy wouldn't come; and just before ten they were on the littlepath that led from the town toward the lighthouse.
This was about a mile from the end of the esplanade, under a great cliffcalled Gannet Head, and at low tide it was possible to reach thelighthouse by climbing over some fifty yards of rocks. But the tide washigh to-night, and the little path that slanted down across the face ofthe cliff came to an end upon a slab of rock not more than a foot abovethe water. There was no moon, but the stars were so bright that the airwas full of a sort of sparkle; and the sea was so still that the waterbeneath them hardly seemed to rise and fall. _Clup, clup_ it went, witha lazy sort of sticky sound, like a piece of gum-paper flapping againsta post, and then slowly becoming unstuck again before doing it all oncemore.
At first they could see nobody, but as they stood looking about themthey heard a soft whistle a little farther on; and there was themoon-boy, with his arms round his knees, squatting on another ledge ofrock. This was broader and flatter than the one at the bottom of thepath, and a little higher above the water; and Cuthbert and Doris weresoon sitting beside him and wondering what was going to happen.
"Where's your friend?" asked Cuthbert.
The moon-boy touched his lips.
"_H'shh_," he said. "He'll be here in a minute. He was here half an hourago, and I told him all about you."
"But where's he gone?" said Doris.
The moon-boy shook his head.
"I don't know," he said. "He might be anywhere. He spends his lifepulling children out of the water. But nobody ever sees him except me."
Doris suddenly felt her heart beginning to beat quicker.
"Why, I
believe I know him!" she said. "Is he a saint?"
The moon-boy nodded.
"Yes, he's a patron saint," he said. "He's the patron saint of water."
"Then I do know him," said Doris. "At least, I've heard of him, and I'vemet his brother, St Uncus."
"This one's St William," said the moon-boy, "but he's generally known asFat Bill."
And then they heard a pant, and there, sitting beside them, was anenormous man with a red face. Like his brother, he was nearly bald, buthe was about seven times as large, and he had blue eyes and a doublechin, and there was a big landing-net in his right hand.
"Good evening," he said, "pleased to meet you. I've heard about the girlof you from my brother Uncus. And the boy of you I saw last year,pulling a little nipper out of a stream."
Cuthbert blushed.
"That was young Liz," he said, "Beardy Ned's kid, but it was quiteeasy."
"Maybe it was," said Fat Bill, "but, as it happened, you really helpedto save two nippers. You see, there was a kid, just at the same moment,fell into a lagoon off Hotoneeta."
"What's Hotoneeta?" asked Cuthbert.
"Bit of an island," he said, "a hundred miles south of the equator."
He cleared his throat.
"Well, I couldn't save 'em both, because I was pulling a boy out of LakeWindermere; and I was just going for Liz when I saw that you were afterher, so that I was able to land Blossom-blossom just in time."
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