Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 4

by R. Austin Freeman

  To a seaman there is nothing more exasperating than a prolonged calm. The crew of the Speedwell were not sailors of a strenuous type, but the inaction and monotony that prevailed on the idly ship bored them—if not to tears, at least to bad language and chronic grumbling. They lounged about with sulky looks and yawned over the odd jobs that Osmond found for them, whistling vainly for a breeze and crawling up the rigging from time to time to see if anything—land or another ship—was in sight. As to the captain, he grew daily more sour and taciturn as he saw his stores of provisions dwindling with nothing to show for the expenditure.

  But by two of the ship company the calm was accepted with something more than resignation. The two mates had no complaint whatever to make. They were, indeed, cut off from all the world; marooned on a stationary ship in an unfrequented sea. But they had one another and asked for nothing better; and the longer the calm lasted the more secure were they of the continuance of this happy condition. For the inevitable thing had happened. They had fallen in love.

  It was very natural. Both were more than commonly attractive, and circumstances had thrown them together in the closest and most intimate companionship through every hour of the long days. They had worked together, though the work was more than half play; they had a common interest which kept them apart from the others. Together they had sat, talking endlessly, in little patches of shadow when the sun was high in the heavens, or leaned upon the bulwark rail and watched the porpoises playing round the idle ship or the Portuguese men-of-war gliding imperceptibly past on their rainbow-tinted floats. They had paced the heaving deck together when the daylight was gone and earnestly studied the constellations "that blazed in the velvet blue," or peered down into the dark water alongside where the Nautilus shone like submarine stars and shoals of fish darted away before the pursuing dolphin lurid flashes of phosphorescent light. No more perfect setting for a romance could be imagined.

  And then the personality of each was such as to make a special appeal to the other. In the eyes of the girl, Osmond was a hero, a paladin. His commanding stature, his strength, his mastery of other men, and above all his indomitable courage, had captured her imagination from the first. And in his rugged way he was a handsome man; and if he could be a little brutal on occasion, he had always been, to her, the soul of courtesy and chivalry. As to the "past" of which she had a strong suspicion, that was no concern of hers; perhaps it even invested him with an added interest.

  As to Osmond, he had been captivated at once, and, to do him justice he had instantly perceived the danger that loomed ahead. But he could do nothing to avoid it. Flight was impossible from this little self contained world, so pleasantly cut off from the unfriendly world without; nor could he, even if he had tried, help being thrown constantly into the society of this fascinating little lady. And if, during the long, solitary night-watches, or in his stifling berth, he gnashed his teeth over the perverseness of Fate and thought bitterly of what might have been, that did not prevent him from succumbing during the day to the charm of her frank, unconcealed friendliness.

  It was in the forenoon of the eighth day of the calm that the two cronies were leaning on the rail, each holding a stout line. The previous day Osmond had discovered a quantity of fishing tackle among Redford's effects, and a trial cast had provided not only excellent sport, but a very welcome addition to the ship's meagre diet. Thereupon an epidemic of sea-angling had broken out on board, and Bill Foat, the cook, had been kept busy with the preparation of snappers, horse and other deep-sea fish.

  "I wonder," the girl mused as she peered over the side, "how much longer this calm is going to last."

  "It may last for weeks," Osmond replied. "I hope it won't for your sake. You must be getting frightfully bored."

  "Indeed, I'm not," she rejoined. "It is the jolliest holiday I have ever had. The only fly in the ointment is the fear that my father may be a little anxious about me. But I don't suppose he is really worrying. He is like me—not much given to fussing and he knows that I am fairly well able to take care of myself, though he doesn't know that I have got a Captain James Cook to stand by me. But I expect you are getting pretty sick of this monotonous life, aren't you, Captain J.?"

  Osmond shook his head. "Not a bit," he replied. "It has been a delightful interlude for me. I should be perfectly satisfied for it to go on for the rest of my life."

  She looked at him thoughtfully, speculating on the inward meaning of this statement and noting a certain grave wistfulness that softened the grim face.

  "That sounds rather as if Adaffia were not a perfect Paradise, for it has been a dull life for you since the mutiny collapsed and the calm set in, with no one to talk to but me."

  "Adaffia would be all right under the same conditions," said he.

  "What do you mean by the same conditions?" she asked, flushing slightly; and as he did not immediately answer, she continued: "Do you mean that life would be more pleasant there if you had your second mate to gossip with?"

  "Yes," he answered, reluctantly, almost gruffly. "Of course that is what I mean."

  "It is very nice of you, Jim, to say that, but you needn't have spoiled it by speaking in that crabby tone. It is nothing to be ashamed of. I don't mind admitting that I shall miss you most awfully if we have to separate when this voyage is over. You have been the best of chums to me."

  She flushed again as she said this and then looked at him a little shyly. For nearly a minute he made no response, but continued to gaze intently and rather gloomily at the water below. At length he said, gravely, still looking steadily at the water:

  "There is something, Miss Burleigh, that I feel I ought to tell you; that I wouldn't tell any one else in the world."

  "Thank you, Jim," she said. "But please don't call me Miss Burleigh. It is so ridiculously stiff between old chums like us. And, Jim, you are not to tell me anything that it might be better for you that I should not know. I am not in the least inquisitive about your affairs."

  "I know that," he replied. "But this is a thing that I feel you ought to know. It has been on my mind to tell you for some days past." He paused for a few seconds and then continued: "You remember, Betty, that man Osmond that you spoke about?"

  "Yes; but don't call him 'that man Osmond.' Poor fellow! I don't suppose he had done anything very dreadful, and at any rate we can afford to speak kindly of him now that he is dead."

  "Yes, but that is just the point. He isn't dead."

  "Isn't dead?" she repeated. "But Captain Cockcram saw that other man, Larkom, painting the name on his grave. Was it a dummy grave?"

  "No. But it was Larkom who died. The man Cockeram saw was Osmond."

  "Are you sure? But of course you would be. Oh, Jim! You won't tell anybody else, will you?"

  "I am not very likely to," he replied with a grim smile, "as I happen to be the said John Osmond."

  "Jim!" she gasped, gazing at him with wide eyes and parted lips. "I am astounded! I can't believe it."

  "I expect it is a bit of a shock," he said bitterly, "to find that you have been socialising for more than a week with a man who is wanted by the police."

  I didn't mean that," she exclaimed, turning scarlet. You know I didn't. But it is so astonishing. I can't understand how it happened. It seems so extraordinary, and so—so opportune."

  Osmond chuckled grimly. "It does," he agreed. "Remarkably opportune. Almost as if I had polished Larkom off ad hoc. Well, I didn't."

  "Of course you didn't. Who supposed for a moment that you did? But do tell me exactly how it happened."

  "Well, it was quite simple. Poor old Larkom died of blackwater fever. He was a good fellow. One of the very best, and the only friend I had. He knew all about me—or nearly all—and he did everything he could to help me. It was an awful blow to me when he died. But he never had a chance when once the fever took hold of him. He was an absolute wreck and he went out like the snuff of a candle, though he managed to make a will before he died, leaving the factory and all his effects t
o his friend James Cook. It was he who invented that name for me.

  "Well, of course, when he was dead, I had to bury him and stick up a cross over his grave. And—then I just painted the wrong name on it. That's all."

  She nodded without looking at him and a shadow seemed to fall on her face. "I see," she said, a little coldly. "It was a tempting opportunity; and events have justified you in taking it."

  Something in her tone arrested his attention. He looked at her sharply and with a somewhat puzzled expression. Suddenly he burst out: "Good Lord, Betty! You don't think I did this thing in cold blood, do you?"

  "Didn't you?" she asked. "Then how did you come to do it?"

  "I'll tell you. Poor old Larkom's name was John, like mine. I had painted in the 'John' and was just going to begin the 'Larkom' when I happened to look along the beach. And there I saw Cockeram with his armed party bearing down on Adaffia. Of course, I guessed instantly what his business was, and I saw that there was only one thing to be done. There was the blank space on the cross. I had only to fill it in with my own name and the situation would be saved. So I did."

  Her face cleared at this explanation. "I am glad," she said, "that it was only done on the spur of the moment. It did seem a little callous."

  "I should think so," he agreed, "if you thought of me sitting by the poor old fellow's bedside and calmly planning to use his corpse to cover my retreat. As it was, I hated doing it; but necessity knows no law. I have thought more than once of making a dummy grave for myself and shifting the cross to it and of setting up a proper memorial to Larkom. And I will do it when I get back."

  She made no comment on this; and as, at that moment, her line tightened, she hauled it in, and impassively detaching a big red snapper from the hook, re-baited and cast the line overboard with a curiously detached, preoccupied air. Apparently, she was reflecting profoundly on what she had just learned, and Osmond, glancing at her furtively from time to time, abstained from interrupting her meditations. After a considerable interval she turned towards him and said in a low, earnest tone: "There is one thing that I want to ask you. Just now you said that you felt you ought to tell me this; that I ought to know. I don't quite see why."

  "There was a very good reason," he replied, "and I may as well make a clean breast of it. To put it bluntly, I fell in love with you almost as soon as I saw you, and naturally, I have grown to love you more with every day that has passed."

  She flushed deeply, and glancing at him for an instant turned her eyes once more on her line.

  "Still," she said in a low voice, "I don't see why you thought I ought to know."

  "Don't you?" he rejoined. "But surely it is obvious. You accepted me as your chum and you seemed to like me well enough. But you had no inkling as to who or what I was. It was my clear duty to tell you."

  "You mean that there was the possibility that I might come to care for you and that you felt it your duty to warn me off?"

  "Yes. It wasn't very likely that there would be anything more than friendship on your side; but still it was not impossible. Women fall in love with the most unlikely men."

  At this she smiled and looked him squarely in the face, "I thought you meant that," she said, softly, "and, of course, you were quite right. But if your intention was to put me on my guard and prevent me from caring for you, your warning has come too late. You would have had to tell me before I had seen you—and I don't believe it would have made a scrap of difference even then. At any rate, I don't care a fig what you have done—I know it was nothing mean. But all the same, I am glad you told me. I should have hated to find it out afterwards by myself."

  He gazed at her in dismay. "But, Betty," he protested, "you don't seem to grasp the position. There is a warrant out for my arrest."

  "Who cares?" she responded. "Besides, there isn't. John Osmond is dead and there is no warrant out for Captain James Cook. It is you who don't grasp the position."

  "But," he expostulated, "don't you realize that I can never go home? That I can't even show my face in Europe?"

  "Very well," said she. "So much the worse for Europe. But there are plenty of other places; and what is good enough for you is good enough for me. Now, Jim, dear," she added, coaxingly, "don't create difficulties. You have said that you love me—I think I knew it before you told me—and that is all that matters to me. Everything else is trivial. You are the man to whom I have given my heart, and I am not going to have you crying off."

  "Good God, Betty!" he groaned, "don't talk about 'crying off'. If you only know what it means to me to look into Paradise and be forced to turn away! But, my dearest love, it has to be. I would give my life for you gladly, joyfully. I am giving more than my life in refusing the sacrifice that you, in the nobleness of your heart, are willing to make. But I could never accept it. I could never stoop to the mean selfishness of spoiling the life of the woman who is more to me than all the world."

  "I am offering no sacrifice," she said. "I am only asking to share the life of the man I love. What more does a woman want?"

  "Not to share such a life as mine," he replied, bitterly. "Think of it, Betty, darling! For the rest of my days I must sneak about the world under a false name, hiding in obscure places, scanning the face of every stranger with fear and suspicion lest he should discover my secret and drag me from my sham grave. I am an outcast, an Ishmaelite. Every man's hand is against me. Could I allow a woman—a beautiful girl, a lady of position—to share such a sordid existence as mine? I should be a poor lover if I could think of such contemptible selfishness."

  "It isn't so bad as that, Jim, dear," she pleaded. "We could go abroad—to America—and make a fresh start. You would be sure to do well there with your abilities, and we could just shake off the old world and forget it."

  He shook his head, sadly. "It is no use, darling, to delude ourselves. We must face realities. Mine is a wrecked life. It would be a crime, even if it were possible, for me to take you from the surroundings of an English lady and involve you in the wreckage. It was a misfortune, at least for you, that we ever met, and there is only one remedy. When we separate, we must try to forget one another."

  "We shan't, Jim," she exclaimed, passionately. "You know we shan't. We aren't, either of us, of the kind that forgets. And we could be so happy together! Don't let us lose everything for a mere scruple."

  At this moment all on deck were startled by a loud hail from aloft. One of the men had climbed up into the swaying foretop and stood there holding on to the topmast shrouds and with his free hand pointing to the north. Osmond stepped forward and hailed him.

  "Foretop there! What is it?

  A steamer, sir. Seems to be headin' straight on to us."

  Osmond ran below, and having fetched Redford's binocular from the berth, climbed the main rigging to just below the cross-tree. There, securing himself with one arm passed round a shroud, he scanned the northern horizon intently for a minute or two and then descended slowly with a grave, set face. From his loftier station he had been able to make out the vessel's hull; and the character of the approaching ship had left him in little doubt as to her mission. His comrade met him with an anxious, inquiring face as he jumped down from the rail.

  "Small man-o'-war," he reported in response to the unspoken question; "barquentine-rigged, buff funnel, white hull. Looks like a gun-boat."

  "Ha!" she exclaimed. "That will be the Widgeon. She was lying off Accra."

  The two looked at one another in silence for a while as they look who have heard bad tidings. At length Osmond said, grimly: "Well, this is the end of it, Betty. She has been sent out to search for you. It will be 'good-bye' in less than an hour."

  "Not 'good-bye,' Jim," she urged. "You will come, too, won't you?"

  "No," he replied; "I can't leave the old man in this muddle."

  "But you'll have to leave him sooner or later."

  "Yes; but I must give him the chance to get another mate, or at least to ship one or two native hands."

  "Oh, let
him muddle on as he did before. My father will be wild to see you when he hears of all that has happened. Don't forget, Jim, that you saved my life."

  "I saved my own," said he, "and you chanced to benefit. But I couldn't come with you in any case, Betty. You are forgetting that I have to keep out of sight. There may be men up at head-quarters who know me. There may be even on this gun-boat."

  She gazed at him despairingly and her eyes filled. "Oh, Jim," she moaned, "how dreadful it is. Of course I must go. But I feel that we shall never see one another again."

  "It will be better if we don't," said he.

  "Oh, don't say that!" she pleaded. "Think of what we have been to one another and what we could still be for ever and ever if only you could forget what is past and done with. Think of what perfect chums we have been and how fond we are of one another. For we are, Jim. I love you with my whole heart and I know that you are just as devoted to me. It is a tragedy that we should have to part."

  "It is," he agreed, gloomily, "and the tragedy is of my making."

  "It isn't," she dissented, indignantly; and then, softly and coaxingly, she continued: "But we won't lose sight of each other altogether, Jim, will we? You will write to me as soon as you get ashore. Promise me that you will."

  "Much better not," he replied; but with so little decision that she persisted until, in the end, and much against his judgment, he yielded and gave the required promise.

  "That makes it a little easier," she said, with a sigh. "It leaves me something to look forward to."

  She took the glasses from him and searched the rim of the horizon, over which the masts of the approaching ship had begun to appear.