Dead Man's Rock Part 5

TELLS HOW THE SAILOR GEORGIO RHODOJANI GAVE EVIDENCE AT THE "LUGGER INN."

I came gradually back to consciousness amid a buzz of voices.

Uncle Loveday was bending over me, his every b.u.t.ton glistening with sympathy, and his face full of kindly anxiety. What had happened, or how I came to be lying thus upon the sand, I could not at first remember, until my gaze, wandering over my uncle's shoulder, met the Captain's eyes regarding me with a keen and curious stare.

He was standing in the midst of a small knot of fishermen, every now and then answering their questions with a gesture, a shrug of the shoulders, or shake of the head; but chiefly regarding my recovery and waiting, as I could see, for me to speak.

"Poor boy!" said Uncle Loveday. "Poor boy! I suppose the sight of this man frightened him."

I caught the Captain's eye, and nodded feebly.

"Ah, yes, yes. You see," he explained, turning to the shipwrecked man, "your sudden appearance upset him: and to tell you the honest truth, my friend, in your present condition--in your present condition, mind you--your appearance is perhaps somewhat--startling.

Shall we say, startling?"

In answer to my uncle's apologetic hesitation the stranger merely spread out his palms and shrugged his shoulders.

"Ah, yes. A foreigner evidently. Well, well, although our coast is not precisely hospitable, I believe its inhabitants are at any rate free from that reproach. Jasper, my boy, can you walk now? If so, Joseph here will see you home, and we will do our best for the--the-- foreign gentleman thus unceremoniously cast on our sh.o.r.es."

My uncle seemed to regard magnificence of speech as the natural due of a foreigner: whether from some hazy conception of "foreign politeness," or a hasty deduction that what was not the language of one part of the world must be that of another, I cannot say. At any rate, the fishermen regarded him approvingly as the one man who could--if human powers were equal to it--extricate them from the present deadlock.

"You do not happen, my friend, to be in a position to inform us whether any--pardon the expression--any corpses are now lying on the rocks to bear witness to this sad catastrophe?"

Again the stranger made a gesture of perplexity.

"Dear, dear! I forgot. Jasper, when you get home, read very carefully that pa.s.sage about the Tower of Babel. Whatever the cause of that melancholy confusion, its reality is impressed upon us when we stand face to face with one whom I may perhaps be allowed to call, metaphorically, a dweller in Mesopotamia."

As no one answered, my uncle took silence for consent, and called him so twice--to his own great satisfaction and the obvious awe of the fishermen.

"It is evident," he continued, "that this gentleman (call him by what name you will) is in immediate need of food and raiment. If such, as I do not doubt, can be obtained at Polkimbra, our best course is to accompany him thither. I trust my proposition meets with his approval."

It met, at any rate, with the approval of the fishermen, who translated Uncle Loveday's speech into gestures. Being answered with a nod of the head and a few hasty foreign words, they began to lead the stranger away in their midst. As he turned to go, he glanced for the last time at me with a strange flickering smile, at which my heart grew sick. Uncle Loveday lingered behind to adjure Joe to be careful of me as we went up the cliff, and then, with a promise that he would run in to see mother later in the day, trotted after the rest. They pa.s.sed out of sight through the archway of Dead Man's Rock.

For a minute or so we plodded across the sand in silence. Joe Roscorla was Uncle Loveday's "man," a word in our parts connoting ability to look after a horse, a garden, a pig or two, or, indeed, anything that came in the way of being looked after. At the present moment I came in that way; consequently, after some time spent in reflective silence, Joe began to speak.

"You'm looking wisht."

"Am I, Joe?"

"Mortal."

There was a pause: then Joe continued--

"I don't hold by furriners: let alone they be so hard to get along with in the way of convarsing, they be but a heathen lot.

But, Jasper, warn't it beautiful?"

"What, Joe?"

"Why, to see the doctor tackle the lingo. Beautiful, I culls it; but there, he's a scholard, and no mistake, and 'tain't no good for to say he ain't. Not as ever I've heerd it said."

"But, Joe, the man didn't seem to understand him."

"Durn all furriners, say I; they be so cursed pigheaded. Understand?

I'll go bail he understood fast enough."

Joe's opinions coincided so fatally with my certainty that I held my tongue.

"A dweller in--what did he call the spot, Jasper?"

"Mesopotamia."

"Well, I can't azacly say as I've seen any from them parts, but they be all of a piece. Thicky chap warn't in the way when prettiness was sarved out, anyhow. Of all the cut-throat chaps as ever I see--Mark my words, 'tain't no music as he's come after."

This seemed so indisputable that I did not venture to contradict it.

"I bain't clear about thicky wreck. Likely as not 'twas the one I seed all yesterday tacking about: and if so be as I be right, a pretty lot of lubbers she must have had aboard. Jonathan, the coast-guard, came down to Lizard Town this morning, and said he seed a big vessel nigh under the cliffs toward midnight, or fancied he seed her: but fustly Jonathan's a buffle-head, and secondly 'twas pitch-dark; so if as he swears there weren't no blue light, 'tain't likely any man could see, let alone a daft fule like Jonathan.

But, there, 'tain't no good for to blame he; durn Government! say I, for settin' one man, and him a born fule, to mind seven mile o' coast on a night when an airey mouse cou'dn' see his hand afore his face."

"What was the vessel like, Joe, that you saw?"

"East Indyman, by the looks of her; and a pa.s.sel of lubberin'

furriners aboard, by the way she was worked. I seed her miss stays twice myself: so when Jonathan turns up wi' this tale, I says to myself, 'tis the very same. Though 'tis terrible queer he never heard nowt; but he ain't got a ha'porth o' gumption, let alone that by time he's been cloppin' round his seven mile o' beat half a dozen ships might go to kingdom come."

With this, for we had come to the door of Lantrig, Joe bid me good-bye, and turned along the cliffs to seek fresh news at Polkimbra.

Instead of going indoors at once I watched his short, oddly-shaped figure stride away, and then sat down on the edge of the cliff for a minute to collect my thoughts. The day was ripening into that mellow glory which is the peculiar grace of autumn. Below me the sea, still flaked with spume, was gradually heaving to rest; the morning light outlined the cliffs in glistening prominence, and clothed them, as well as the billowy clouds above, with a reality which gave the lie to my morning's adventure. The old doorway, too, looked so familiar and peaceful, the old house so rea.s.suring, that I half wondered if I had not two lives, and were not coming back to the old quiet everyday experience again.

Suddenly I remembered the packet and the letter. I put my hand into my pocket and drew them out. The packet was a tin box, strapped around with a leathern band: on the top, between the band and the box, was a curious piece of yellow metal that looked like the half of a waist-buckle, having a socket but without any corresponding hook.

On the metal were traced some characters which I could not read.

The tin box was heavy and plain, and the strap soaking with salt water.

I turned to the letter; it was all but a pulp, and in its present state illegible. Carefully smoothing it out, I slipped it inside the strap and turned to hide my prize; for such was my fear of the man who called himself Apollyon, that I could know no peace of mind whilst it remained about me. How should I hide it? After some thought, I remembered that a stone or two in the now empty cow-house had fallen loose. With a hasty glance over my shoulder, I crept around and into the shed. The stones came away easily in my hand.

With another hurried look, I slipped the packet into the opening, stole out of the shed, and entered the house by the back door.

My mother had been up for some time--it was now about nine o'clock-- and had prepared our breakfast. Her face was still pale, but some of its anxiety left it as I entered. She was evidently waiting for me to speak. Something in my looks, however, must have frightened her, for, as I said nothing, she began to question me.

"Well, Jasper, is there any news?"

"There was a ship wrecked on Dead Man's Rock last night, but they've not found anything except--"

"What was it called?"

"The _Mary Jane_--that is--I don't quite know."

Up to this time I had forgotten that mother would want to know about my doings that morning. As an ordinary thing, of course I should have told her whatever I had seen or heard, but my terror of the Captain and the awful consequences of saying too much now flashed upon me with hideous force. I had heard about the _Mary Jane_ from the unhappy John. What if I had already said too much? I bent over my breakfast in confusion.

After a dreadful pause, during which I felt, though I could not see, the astonishment in my mother's eyes, she said--

"You don't quite know?"