Works of W. W. Jacobs

by Jacobs, W. W.

  “Anybody would ha’ thought I was hurting ‘im by the noise he made,” said the impenitent Mr. Russell.

  “I — I’m surprised at you, Bill,” said Mr. Vickers, nervously.

  “Put him outside,” cried Selina, stamping her foot.

  “You’d better get off ‘ome, Bill,” said Mr. Vickers, with a persuasive wink.

  “While you’re safe,” added his daughter, with a threatening gesture.

  “Go and get yourself ‘arf a pint o’ warm lemonade,” chimed in the voice of the daring Joseph.

  Mr. Russell stepped towards him, but Mr. Vickers, seizing him by the coat, held him back and implored him to remember where he was.

  “I’d bump the lot of you for two pins,” said the disappointed Mr. Russell, longingly. “And it’ud do you good; you’d all be the better for it. You’d know ‘ow to behave to people when they come in to see you, then. As for Selina, I wouldn’t marry her now for all her money.”

  “Money?” said the irate Selina, scornfully. “What money?”

  “The money in the paper,” said Mr. Russell, with a diabolical leer in the direction of the unfortunate Mr. Vickers. “The paper what your father found in your box. Didn’t he tell you?”

  He kicked over a chair which stood in his way and, with a reckless swagger, strode to the door. At the “Horse and Groom,” where he spent the remainder of the evening, he was so original in his remarks upon women that two unmarried men offered to fight him, and were only appeased by hearing a full and true account of the circumstances responsible for so much bitterness.

  CHAPTER XVII

  TRIED!” said Captain Bowers, indignantly. “I have tried, over and over again, but it’s no use.”

  “Have you tried the right way?” suggested Edward Tredgold.

  “I’ve tried every way,” replied Captain Bowers, impatiently.

  “We must think of another, then,” said the imperturbable Edward. “Have some more beef?” The captain passed his plate up. “You should have seen her when I said that I was coming to supper with you this evening,” he said, impressively. Mr. Tredgold laid down the carving knife and fork. “What did she say?” he inquired, eagerly. “Grunted,” said the captain. “Nonsense,” said the other, sharply.

  “I tell you she did,” retorted the captain. “She didn’t say a word; just grunted.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Mr. Tredgold; “only you are not using the right word.”

  “All right,” said the captain, resignedly; “I don’t know a grunt when I hear it, then; that’s all. She generally does grunt if I happen to mention your name.”

  Mr. Tredgold resumed his meal and sat eating in silence. The captain, who was waiting for more beef, became restless.

  “I hope my plate isn’t in your way,” he said, at last.

  “Not at all,” said the other, absently.

  “Perhaps you’ll pass it back to me, then,” said the captain.

  Mr. Tredgold, still deep in thought, complied. “I wish I could persuade you to have a little more,” he said, in tones of polite regret. “I’ve often noticed that big men are small eaters. I wonder why it is?”

  “Sometimes it is because they can’t get it, I expect,” said the indignant captain.

  Mr. Tredgold said that no doubt that was the case sometimes, and was only recalled to the true position of affairs by the hungry captain marching up to the beef and carving for himself.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, with a laugh. “I was thinking of something else. I wonder whether you would let me use the crow’s-nest for a day or two? There’s a place we have got on our hands, a mile or two out, and I want to keep my eye on it.”

  The captain, his good humour quite restored, preserved his gravity with an effort. “I don’t see that she could object to that,” he said, slowly. “It’s a matter of business, as you might say.”

  “Of course, I could go straight round to the back without troubling you,” resumed Mr. Tredgold. “It’s so awkward not to be able to see you when I want to.”

  Captain Bowers ventured a sympathetic wink. “It’s awkward not to be able to see anybody when you want to,” he said, softly.

  Two days later Miss Drewitt, peeping cautiously from her bedroom window, saw Mr. Tredgold perched up in the crow’s-nest with the telescope. It was a cold, frosty day in January, and she smiled agreeably as she hurried downstairs to the fire and tried to imagine the temperature up aloft.

  Stern in his attention to duty, Mr. Tredgold climbed day after day to his post of observation and kept a bored but whimsical eye on a deserted cowhouse three miles off. On the fourth day the captain was out, and Miss Drewitt, after a casual peep from the kitchen window, shrugged her shoulders and returned to the sitting-room.

  “Mr. Tredgold must be very cold up there, Miss,” said Mr. Tasker, respectfully, as he brought in the tea. “He keeps slapping his chest and blowing on his fingers to keep ‘imself warm.”

  Miss Drewitt said “Oh!” and, drawing the little table up to her easy-chair, put down her book and poured herself out a cup of tea. She had just arranged it to her taste-two lumps of sugar and a liberal allowance of cream — when a faint rap sounded on the front door.

  “Come in!” she said, taking her feet from the fender and facing about.

  The door opened and revealed to her indignant gaze the figure of Mr. Tredgold. His ears and nose were of a brilliant red and his eyes were watering with the cold. She eyed him inquiringly.

  “Good afternoon,” he said, bowing.

  Miss Drewitt returned the greeting.

  “Isn’t Captain Bowers in?” said Mr. Tredgold, with a shade of disappointment in his voice as he glanced around.

  “No,” said the girl.

  Mr. Tredgold hesitated. “I was going to ask him to give me a cup of tea,” he said, with a shiver. “I’m half frozen, and I’m afraid that I have a taken a chill.”

  Miss Drewitt nearly dropped her tea-cup in surprise at his audacity. He was certainly very cold, and she noticed a little blue mixed with the red of his nose. She looked round the cosy room and then at the open door, which was causing a bitter draught.

  “He is not in,” she repeated.

  “Thank you,” said Mr. Tredgold, patiently. “Good afternoon.”

  He was so humble that the girl began to feel uncomfortable. His gratitude for nothing reminded her of a disappointed tramp; moreover, the draught from the door was abominable.

  “I can give you a cup of tea, if you wish,” she said, shivering. “But please make haste and shut that door.”

  Mr. Tredgold stepped inside and closed it with alacrity, his back being turned just long enough to permit a congratulatory wink at the unconscious oak. He took a chair the other side of the fire, and, extending his numbed fingers to the blaze, thanked her warmly.

  “It is very kind of you,” he said, as he took his cup from her. “I was half frozen.”

  “I should have thought that a brisk walk home would have been better for you,” said the girl, coldly.

  Mr. Tredgold shook his head dolefully. “I should probably only have had lukewarm tea when I got there,” he replied. “Nobody looks after me properly.”

  He passed his cup up and began to talk of skating and other seasonable topics. As he got warmer and his features regained their normal colouring and his face its usual expression of cheerfulness, Miss Drewitt’s pity began to evaporate.

  “Are you feeling better?” she inquired, pointedly.

  “A little,” was the cautious reply. His face took on an expression of anxiety and he spoke of a twinge, lightly tapping his left lung by way of emphasis.

  “I hope that I shall not be taken ill here,” he said, gravely.

  Miss Drewitt sat up with a start. “I should hope not,” she said, sharply.

  “So inconvenient,” he murmured.

  “Quite impossible,” said Miss Drewitt, whose experience led her to believe him capable of anything.

  “I should never forgive myself,”
he said, gently.

  Miss Drewitt regarded him in alarm, and of her own accord gave him a third cup of tea and told him that he might smoke. She felt safer when she saw him light a cigarette, and, for fear that a worse thing might befall her, entered amiably into conversation. She even found herself, somewhat to her surprise, discussing the voyage and sympathising with Mr. Tredgold in his anxiety concerning his father’s safety.

  “Mrs. Chalk and Mrs. Stobell are very anxious, too,” he said. “It is a long way for a small craft like that.”

  “And then to find no treasure at the end of it,” said Miss Drewitt, with feminine sweetness.

  Mr. Tredgold stole a look at her. “I did not mean to say that the captain had no treasure,” he said, quietly.

  “You believe in it now?” said the girl, triumphantly.

  “I believe that the captain has a treasure,” admitted the other, “certainly.”

  “Worth half a million?” persisted Miss Drewitt.

  “Worth more than that,” said Mr. Tredgold, gazing steadily into the fire.

  The girl looked puzzled. “More?” she said, in surprise.

  “Much more,” said the other, still contemplating the fire. “It is priceless.”

  Miss Drewitt sat up suddenly and then let herself back slowly into the depths of the chair. Her face turned scarlet and she hoped fervently that if Mr. Tredgold looked at her the earth might open and swallow him up. She began to realize dimly that in the absence of an obliging miracle of that kind there would never be any getting rid of him.

  “Priceless,” repeated Mr. Tredgold, in challenging tones.

  Miss Drewitt made no reply. Rejoinder was dangerous and silence difficult. In a state of nervous indignation she rang for Mr. Tasker and instructed him to take away the tea-things; to sweep the hearth; and to alter the position of two pictures. By the time all this was accomplished she had regained her wonted calm and was airing some rather strong views on the subject of two little boys who lived with a catapult next door but one.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Month by month the Fair Emily crept down south. The Great Bear and other constellations gave way to the stars of the southern skies, and Mr. Chalk tried hard not to feel disappointed with the arrangement of those in the Southern Cross. Pressed by the triumphant Brisket, to whom he voiced his views, he had to admit that it was at least as much like a cross as the other was a bear.

  As they got farther south he had doffed his jersey and sea boots in favour of a drill suit and bare feet. In this costume, surmounted by a Panama hat, he was the only thing aboard that afforded the slightest amusement to Mr. Stobell, whose temper was suffering severely under a long spell of monotonous idleness, and whose remarks concerning the sea and everything in connection with it were so strangely out of keeping with the idea of a pleasure cruise that Mr. Tredgold lectured him severely on his indiscretion.

  “Stobell is no more doing this for pleasure than I am,” said Captain Brisket to Mr. Duckett. “It’s something big that’s brought him all this way, you mark my words.”

  The mate nodded acquiescence. “What about Mr. Chalk?” he said, in a low voice. “Can’t you get it out of him?”

  “Shuts up like an oyster directly I get anywhere near it,” replied the captain; “sticks to it that it is a yachting trip and that Tredgold is studying the formations of islands. Says he has got a list of them he is going to visit.”

  “Mr. Tredgold was talking the same way to me,” said the mate. “He says he’s going to write a book about them when he goes back. He asked me what I thought’ud be a good title.”

  “I know what would be a good title for him,” growled Brisket, as Mr. Stobell came on deck and gazed despondently over the side. “We’re getting towards the end of our journey, sir.”

  “End?” said Mr. Stobell. “End? I don’t believe there is an end. I believe you’ve lost your way and we shall go sailing on and on for ever.”

  He walked aft and, placing himself in a deckchair, gazed listlessly at the stolid figure of the helmsman. The heat was intense, and both Tredgold and Chalk had declined to proceed with a conversation limited almost entirely on his side to personal abuse. He tried the helmsman, and made that unfortunate thirsty for a week by discussing the rival merits of bitter ale in a pewter and stout in a china mug. The helmsman, a man of liberal ideas, said, with some emotion, that he could drink either of them out of a flower-pot.

  Mr. Chalk became strangely restless as they neared their goal. He had come thousands of miles and had seen nothing fresh with the exception of a few flying-fish, an albatross, and a whale blowing in the distance. Pacing the deck late one night with Captain Brisket he expressed mild yearnings for a little excitement.

  “You want adventure,” said the captain, shaking his head at him. “I know you. Ah, what a sailorman you’d ha’ made. With a crew o’ six like yourself I’d take this little craft anywhere. The way you pick up seamanship is astonishing. Peter Duckett swears you must ha’ been at sea as a boy, and all I can do I can’t persuade him otherwise.”

  “I always had a feeling that I should like it,” said Mr. Chalk, modestly.

  “Like it!” repeated the captain. “O’ course you do; you’ve got the salt in your blood, but this peaceful cruising is beginning to tell on you. There’s a touch o’ wildness in you, sir, that’s always struggling to come to the front. Peter Duckett was saying the same thing only the other day. He’s very uneasy about it.”

  “Uneasy!” repeated Mr. Chalk.

  “Aye,” said the captain, drawing a deep breath. “And if I tell you that I am too, it wouldn’t be outside the truth.”

  “But why?” inquired Mr. Chalk, after they had paced once up and down the deck in silence.

  “It’s the mystery we don’t like,” said Brisket, at last. “How are we to know what desperate venture you are going to let us in for? Follow you faithful we will, but we don’t like going in the dark; it ain’t quite fair to us.”

  “There’s not the slightest danger in the world,” said Mr. Chalk, with impressive earnestness.

  “But there’s a mystery; you can’t deny that,” said the captain.

  Mr. Chalk cleared his throat. “It’s a secret,” he said, slowly.

  “From me?” inquired the captain, in reproachful accents.

  “It isn’t my secret,” said Mr. Chalk. “So far as I’m concerned I’d tell you with pleasure.”

  The captain slowly withdrew his arm from Mr. Chalk’s, and moving to the side leaned over it with his shoulders hunched. Somewhat moved by this display of feeling, Mr. Chalk for some time hesitated to disturb him, and when at last he did steal up and lay a friendly hand on the captain’s shoulder it was gently shaken off.

  “Secrets!” said Brisket, in a hollow voice. “From me! I ain’t to be trusted?”

  “It isn’t my doing,” said Mr. Chalk.

  “Well, well, it don’t matter, sir,” said the captain. “Bill Brisket must put up with it. It’s the first time in his life he’s been suspected, and it’s doubly hard coming from you. You’ve hurt me, sir, and there’s no other man living could do that.”

  Mr. Chalk stood by in sorrowful perplexity.

  “And I put my life in your hands,” continued the captain, with a low, hard laugh. “You’re the only man in the world that knows who killed Smiling Peter in San Francisco, and I told you. Well, well!”

  “But you did it in self-defence,” said the other, eagerly.

  “What does that matter?” said the captain, turning and walking forward, followed by the anxious Mr. Chalk. “I’ve got no proof of it. Open your mouth — once — and I swing for it. That’s the extent of my trust in you.”

  Mr. Chalk, much affected, swore a few sailorly oaths as to what he wished might happen to him if he ever betrayed the other’s confidence.

  “Yes,” said the captain, mournfully, “that’s all very well; but you can’t trust me in a smaller matter, however much I swear to keep it secret. And it’s weighing on me in a
nother way: I believe the crew have got an inkling of something, and here am I, master of the ship, responsible for all your lives, kept in ignorance.”

  “The crew!” ejaculated the startled Mr. Chalk.

  Captain Brisket hesitated and lowered his voice. “The other night I came on deck for a look round and saw one of them peeping down through your skylight,” he said, slowly. “I sent him below, and after he’d gone I looked down and saw you and Mr. Tredgold and Stobell all bending over a paper.”

  Mr. Chalk, deep in thought, paced up and down in silence.

  “That’s a secret,” said Brisket. “I don’t want them to think that I was spying. I told you because you understand. A shipmaster has to keep his eyes open, for everybody’s sake.”

  “It’s your duty,” said Mr. Chalk, firmly.

  Captain Brisket, with a little display of emotion, thanked him, and, leaning against the side, drew his attention to the beauty of the stars and sea. Impelled by the occasion and the charm of the night he waxed sentimental, and with a strange mixture of bluffness and shyness spoke of his aged mother, of the loneliness of a seafarer’s life, and the inestimable boon of real friendship. He bared his inmost soul to his sympathetic listener, and then, affecting to think from a remark of Mr. Chalk’s that he was going to relate the secret of the voyage, declined to hear it on the ground that he was only a rough sailorman and not to be trusted. Mr. Chalk, contesting this hotly, convinced him at last that he was in error, and then found that, bewildered by the argument, the captain had consented to be informed of a secret which he had not intended to impart.

  “But, mind,” said Brisket, holding up a warning finger, “I’m not going to tell Peter Duckett. There’s no need for him to know.”

  Mr. Chalk said “Certainly not,” and, seeing no way for escape, led the reluctant man as far from the helmsman as possible and whispered the information. By the time they parted for the night Captain Brisket knew as much as the members of the expedition themselves, and, with a rare thoughtfulness, quieted Mr. Chalk’s conscience by telling him that he had practically guessed the whole affair from the beginning.