Dead Man's Rock Part 18

"Quite."

"You did not leave the other piece behind in the cow-shed by any chance?"

"No, for I looked at the packet before I hid it, and there was only one piece of metal."

"Very well. One half of the golden clasp being lost, the next question is, what has become of it?"

I nodded.

"To this," said Uncle Loveday, bending forward over the table, "two answers are possible. Either it lies at the bottom of the sea with the rest of the freight of the _Belle Fortune_, or it is in Colliver's possession."

"It may lie beneath Dead Man's Rock, in John Railton's pocket," I suggested.

"True, my boy, true; you put another case. But anyhow it makes no difference. If it lies at the bottom of the sea, whether in Railton's pocket or not, the secret is safe. If it is in Colliver's possession the secret is safe, unless he has seen and learnt by heart this half of the inscription. In any case, I am sorry to tell you-- and this is what I was coming to--the secret is closed against us for the time."

"That is not certain," said I.

"Excuse me, Jasper, it is quite certain. You admit yourself that this writing is nonsense. Well and good. But besides this, I would have you remember," pursued Uncle Loveday, turning once more to my father's Journal, "that Ezekiel expressly says, 'The inscription ran right across the clasp.' It could be read easily enough and contained accurate directions for searching in some spot, but where that spot was it did not reveal--"

"Quite so," I interrupted, "and that is just what we have to discover."

"How?"

"Why, by means of the key, as the parchment and the Will plainly show. We may still be beaten, but even so, we shall know whereabouts to look, if we can only catch Colliver."

"Bless the boy!" said Uncle Loveday, "he certainly has a head."

"Uncle," continued I, rising to my feet, "the secret of the Great Ruby is written upon my grandfather's key. That key was to be taken down when he that undertook the task of discovering the secret should have returned and crossed the threshold of Lantrig. Uncle, my father has crossed the threshold of Lantrig--"

"Feet foremost, feet foremost, my boy. Oh, poor Ezekiel!"

"Feet foremost, yes," I continued--"dead and murdered, yes. But he has come: come to find my mother dead, but still he has come.

Uncle, I am the only Trenoweth left to Lantrig; think of it, the only one left--"

"Poor Ezekiel! Poor Margery!"

"Yes, uncle, and all I inherit is the knife that murdered my father, and this key. I have the knife, and I will take down the key.

We are not beaten yet."

I drew a chair under the great beam, and mounted it. When first my grandfather returned he had hung the iron key upon its hook, giving strict injunctions that no one should touch it. There ever since it had hung, the centre of a host of spiders' webs. Even my poor mother's brush, so diligent elsewhere, had never invaded this sacred relic, and often during our lonely winter evenings had she told me the story of it: how that Amos Trenoweth's dying curse was laid upon the person that should touch it, and how the spiders' days were numbered with every day that brought my father nearer home.

There it hung now, scarcely to be seen for cobwebs. Its hour had come at last. Even as I stretched out my hand a dozen horrid things hurried tumultuously back into darkness. Even as I laid my hand on it, a big ungainly spider, scared but half incredulous, started in alarm, hesitated, and finally made off at full speed for shelter.

This, then, was the key that should unlock the treasure--this, that had from the first hung over us, the one uncleansed spot in Lantrig: this was the talisman--this grimy thing lying in my hand.

The spiders had been jealous in their watch.

Stepping down, I got a cloth and brushed away the cobwebs. The key was covered thickly with rust, but even so I could see that something was written upon it. For about a minute I stood polishing it, and then carried it forward to the light.

Yes, there was writing upon it, both on the handle and along the shaft--writing that, as it shaped itself before my eyes, caused them to stare in wrathful incredulity, caused my heart to sink at first in dismay and then to swell in mad indignation, caused my blood to turn to gall and my thoughts to very bitterness. For this was what I read:--

On the handle were engraved in large capitals the initials A. T.

with the date MDCCCXII. Alone the shaft, from handle to wards, ran on either side the following sentence in old English lettering:--

THY HOUSE IS SET UPON THE SANDS AND THY HOPES BY A DEAD MAN.

This was all. This short sentence was the sum of all the vain quest on which my father had met his end. "Thy house is set upon the sands," and even now had crumbled away beneath Amos Trenoweth's curse "Thy hopes by a dead man," and even now he on whom our hopes had rested, lay upstairs a pitiful corpse. Was ever mockery more fiendish? As the full cruelty of the words broke in upon me, once again I seemed to hear the awful cry from the sea, but now among its voices rang a fearful laugh as though Amos Trenoweth's soul were making merry in h.e.l.l over his grim jest--the slaughter of his son and his son's wife.

White with desperate pa.s.sion, I turned and hurled the accursed key across the room into the blazing hearth.

END OF BOOK I.

BOOK II.

THE FINDING OF THE GREAT RUBY.

CHAPTER I.

TELLS HOW THOMAS LOVEDAY AND I WENT IN SEARCH OF FORTUNE.

Seeing that these pages do not profess to be an autobiography, but rather the plain chronicle of certain events connected with the Great Ruby of Ceylon, I conceive myself ent.i.tled to the reader's pardon if I do some violence to the art of the narrator, and here ask leave to pa.s.s by, with but slight allusion, some fourteen years. This I do because the influence of this mysterious jewel, although it has indelibly coloured my life, has been sensibly exercised during two periods alone--periods short in themselves, but nevertheless long enough to determine between them every current of my destiny, and to supply an interpretation for my every action.

I am the more concerned with advertising the reader of this, as on looking back upon what I have written with an eye as far as may be impartial, I have not failed to note one obvious criticism that will be pa.s.sed upon me. "How," it will be asked, "could any boy barely eight years of age conceive the thoughts and entertain the emotions there attributed to Jasper Trenoweth?"

The criticism is just as well as obvious. As a solitary man for ever brooding on the past, I will not deny that I may have been led to paint that past in colours other than its own. Indeed, it would be little short of a miracle were this not so. A morbid soul--and I will admit that mine is morbid--preying upon its recollections, and nourished on that food alone, cannot hope to attain the sense of proportion which is the proper gift of varied experience. I readily grant, therefore, that the lights and shades on this picture may be wrong, as judged by the ordinary eye, but I do claim them to be a faithful reproduction of my own vision. As I look back I find them absolutely truthful, nor can I give the lie to my own impressions in the endeavour to write what shall seem true to the rest of the world.

This must be, therefore, my excuse for asking the reader to pa.s.s by fourteen years and take up the tale far from Lantrig. But before I plunge again into my story, it is right that I should briefly touch on the chief events that occurred during this interval in my life.

They buried my father and mother in the same grave in Polkimbra Churchyard. I remember now that crowds of fisher-folk lined the way to their last resting-place, and a host, as it seemed to me, of tear-stained faces watched the coffins laid in the earth. But all else is a blurred picture to me, as, indeed, is the time for many a long day after.

Colliver was never found. Captain Merrydew raised the hue and cry, but the sailor Georgio Rhodojani was never seen again from the moment when his evil face leered in through the window of Lantrig. A reward was offered, and more than once Polkimbra was excited with the news of his arrest, but it all came to nothing. Failing his capture, Uncle Loveday was wisely silent on the subject of my father's Journal and the secret of the Great Ruby. He had not been idle, however.

After long consultation with Aunt Elizabeth he posted off to Plymouth to gain news of Lucy Railton and her daughter, but without success.

The "Welcome Home" still stood upon the Barbican, but the house was in possession of new tenants, and neither they nor their landlord could tell anything of the Railtons except that they had left suddenly about two months before (that being the date of the wreck of the _Belle Fortune_) after paying their rent to the end of the Christmas quarter. The landlord could give no reasons for their departure--for the house had a fair trade--but supposed that the husband must have returned from sea and taken them away.

Uncle Loveday, of course, knew better, but on this point held his peace. The one result of all his inquiries was the certainty that the Railtons had vanished utterly.

So Lantrig, for the preservation of which my father had given his life, was sold to strangers, and I went to live with Aunt and Uncle Loveday at Lizard Town. The proceeds of the sale (and they were small indeed) Uncle Loveday put carefully by until such time as I should be cast upon the world to seek my fortune. For twelve uneventful years my aunt fed me, and uncle taught me--being no mean scholar, especially in Latin, which tongue he took great pains to make me perfect in. Thomas Loveday was my only companion, and soon became my dear friend. Poor Tom! I can see his handsome face before me now as it was in those old days--the dreamy eyes, the rare smile with its faint suggestion of mockery, the fair curls in which a breeze seemed for ever blowing, the pursed lips that had a habit of saying such wonderful things. In my dreams--those few dreams of mine that are happy--we are always boys together, climbing the cliffs for eggs, or risking our lives in Uncle Loveday's boat--always boys together. Poor Tom! Poor Tom!

So the unmarked time rolled on, until there came a memorable day in July on which I must touch for a moment. It was evening. I was returning with Tom to Lizard Town from Dead Man's Rock, where we had been basking all the sunny afternoon, Tom reading, and I simply staring vacantly into the heavens and wondering when the time would come that should set me free to unravel the mystery of this ill-omened spot. Finally, after taking our fill of idleness, we bathed as the sun was setting; and I remember wondering, as I dived off the black ledge, whether beneath me there lay any relic of the _Belle Fortune_, any fragment that might preserve some record of her end. I had dived here often enough, but found nothing, nor could I see anything to-day but the clean sand twinkling beneath its veil of blue, though here, as I guessed, must still lie the bones of John Railton. But I must hasten. We were returning over the Downs when suddenly I spied a small figure running towards us, and making frantic signals of distress.