Down South Part 10

"I shall not take offence at anything you say, sir," I answered.

"After the very great service you have rendered me, you must think I am inhuman to be ungrateful to you so soon," continued Mr. Tiffany. "I a.s.sure you there is nothing like ingrat.i.tude in my heart; and I would wrong myself a thousand times before I would wrong you once."

"I believe every word you say, sir: and it has not even occurred to me to suspect your motives," I replied with energy. "The letter you brought me from my father would cause me to put entire confidence in you; but without that, I should not for an instant suspect you of anything unworthy towards me, or anybody else. When you warned me against Mr. Cornwood, I was surprised on account of something which occurred this afternoon."

"I shall not even ask you what occurred this afternoon; and you may keep your own counsel in regard to Mr. Cornwood. I repeat that I have not the least desire to meddle with your affairs."

"As the best friend of my father, I am sure I should value your advice and counsel very highly."

"I do not often counsel or advise anybody out of my own family, unless I am asked to do so. Here is the market wharf; and I have said all I have to say in regard to Mr. Cornwood. I only desire to warn you to keep your eyes wide open in dealing with him, for I learned from Owen that you have engaged the Florida person for your journey up the river."

"Do you know anything about him, Mr. Tiffany?" I asked, as much surprised to hear that he had nothing more to say as I had been, in the first place, to learn that he had anything to say in regard to the guide.

"I can't say that I do," he replied, with a rather vacant look.

"Why do you warn me against him, then?"

"That is certainly a very pertinent question, Captain Alick. I have no right to say anything against this person, for I know nothing against him. While I will not harm him, I warn you to look out for him."

"I suppose you must have some reason for what you say," I added, as I waved my handkerchief in the direction of the Sylvania, as a signal for a boat.

"Undoubtedly I have some reason for what I say. It may be enough to cause me to suspect him. I have only asked you to look out for him, for I do not feel at liberty to utter a word to his disparagement until I know it is true."

Mr. Tiffany seemed to be very earnest in what he said; but I was disappointed because he did not say more. He had been in Jacksonville a week before he went to St. Augustine; and it was possible that he had seen something of the guide during his stay.

"I see that you are not quite satisfied with what I have said. I cannot blame you for feeling so; but I should blame myself if I said anything more about this man," continued my father's friend. "I make no charge against Cornwood; I only say, as I might if we were facing a strange snake, he may do us harm, and we must look out for ourselves. Really, that is all I can say about the matter."

By this time the port boat had come up to the wharf. Mr. Tiffany bade me good night, and hastened up the pier. I was not satisfied, as he had suggested. He suspected Cornwood of something, but he did not even say what, much less give me the grounds for his suspicion. But I could obtain no more, and went into the boat. In a few minutes I was on the deck of the steamer. My supper was all ready, and I was obliged to attend to it before I looked at my letters.

My state-room was lighted, and I was by myself. At last I was alone with my letters. Washburn was on the forward deck, discussing the condition of the South with Griffin Leeds. I took out the two letters from my father. Both of them were mailed in London, though my father's home was in Shalford, Ess.e.x, about fifty miles from the great city. One was postmarked December 15th, and the other January 2d. I opened the one of the earliest date.

It was written immediately after his return to England from India. He had received no letters or intelligence of any kind from me for many months. He had been so worried about me that he could hardly stay to complete his business in India. He found nothing from me on his arrival at his home, nothing at the office of his solicitor, to whom all my letters had been forwarded, in London. He wrote that he found Mr.

Carrington had gone to America, and his office was in charge of his confidential clerk.

I understood it all. This clerk must have destroyed all my letters to my father as soon as they reached the office, as he had been instructed to do by his employer. I felt sick at heart when I realized the distress of my father at getting no tidings from me. But since I sailed on this cruise from Detroit, six months before, I had supposed he was dead, and of course I wrote no letters to him.

I took up the second letter, expecting to read more of my father's despair on account of my long silence. I opened it: it was bright and cheerful as the first was gloomy and despondent. He had received my "welcome letter of December 4th," which I had written at Jacksonville, after the discovery of all the details of the conspiracy against me. I had written a full account of the matter, with the history of the voyage up to that date. It was after Colonel Shepard's house had been damaged by fire, and the West India trip had been arranged. I had asked him to write me at Jacksonville, but not to be alarmed if he did not hear from me for some time, for I hardly knew where we were going. He had been amazed at the contents of my letter. The clerk had confessed all to him. I was entirely satisfied with the conclusion of the matter.

The rest of the letters were from my friends at the North.

CHAPTER XII.

SUGGESTIONS OF ANOTHER CONSPIRACY.

I felt like a beleaguered general who had just opened communication with his reinforcements, when I again found myself holding intercourse, even by letter, with my father. It seemed as though a new life had begun for me. My father was happy, and so was I. He declared that he should join me as soon as his business would allow him to leave England; and that when he found me, as he should wherever I wandered, he never would leave me again.

My father alluded at considerable length to "his best and truest friend," Mr. Tiffany. He had written to him, and desired him to take an interest in my affairs if he thought I needed any a.s.sistance, either with money or counsel. This was a partial explanation of the conduct of Mr. Tiffany; but he was a very strange man because he said nothing to me about his instructions from my father.

Before I had finished reading the rest of my letters, Washburn came into the room; but when he saw I was engaged, he began to retire. I asked him to remain. He was my ever-faithful friend. He had fathomed the conspiracy against me, and I valued his counsel more than that of any other person. He had my fullest confidence, though he never sought to know my business.

I related to him all the incidents of my visit to the city, including a full account of my adventures with the Boomsbys and the other snake. I need not say that he was intensely interested.

"That Boomsby ought to be hung!" he exclaimed, as soon as I had finished my story.

"Perhaps not," I replied, giving the captain's explanation of the presence of the snake in the closet.

"I should like to follow that lodger's history, if Captain Boomsby had any such person in his house, which I do not believe," added the mate.

"When I go on sh.o.r.e I will try to find out whether or not he had any lodger, and I think I can get at it."

"It is hardly worth the trouble," I replied.

"I think it is. For months we have been satisfied that this villain means you harm; but we have never been able to prove anything," said Washburn, with energy. "It is time to quit fooling with such matters.

If he did not mean to sink the Sylvania for your benefit, he never meant anything in his life; but he explained it away, and everybody that knows anything about it, except you and I, believes that the accident was simply the result of his drunken condition on that morning. It is time to prove some of these things."

"I have no objection to having them proved."

"I will spend all the time I have on sh.o.r.e in this business; and I am--What was that?"

The mate suddenly jumped from his chair, and rushed out of the room by the new door on the port side. I followed him.

"What are you doing at that window?" demanded Washburn, to a man he had collared near the door of the engine-room, for he had pluck enough to pick up a water moccasin, if the occasion required.

I could not make out the man in the darkness; and I did not quite comprehend the reason for his sudden a.s.sault on him. All the windows of our state-room were open, for the evening was warm.

"I wasn't doing anything, Mr. Washburn," pleaded the culprit, in whose voice I recognized that of Griffin Leeds.

"You were standing under the open window of the captain's room!"

continued the mate, releasing his hold on the waiter when he found he offered no resistance.

"No, sir; I wasn't standing there," replied Griffin, in a meeching tone. "I got asleep on the fo'castle after you went in; and I just waked up. I was just going below to turn in when you came out and got hold of me. That's the whole of it, sir."

"If I ever catch you under an open window again, I will throw you overboard. We don't have anything of that kind on board of this steamer," said the mate, in a very decided tone.

Griffin went below to his quarters under the forecastle, and Washburn followed me into the room. I thought he was a little rough on the new waiter, who had given excellent satisfaction in the forward cabin. I said as much as this to the mate.

"The rascal was listening under that window to the talk between you and me," replied Washburn. "If you agree to have that thing done on board, you are the captain, and I have nothing more to say about it."

"If you are satisfied that he was listening to us, you did just right.

But I move to amend by subst.i.tuting his discharge for throwing him overboard," I replied, laughing. "Do you think the fellow heard what we were saying?"

"I have no doubt of it: he had been there for some time, for I heard a slight noise at that window soon after I came in; and I am confident he had been there ever since. I confess that I do not like the fellow very much, for I have seen him skulking about the deck with a hang-dog look which I don't admire. I have suspected him of something, though I don't know what, since the first day he came on board. While I am in for it, Alick, I might as well add that Cornwood is just such another fellow."

"Cornwood?" I asked, very much surprised, for I had not noticed anything in either the Floridian or the waiter to attract my attention.

"I don't know anything about Cornwood; and I suppose you looked up his record before you engaged him. At any rate, he acts like a snake, in my way of thinking," added the mate, whom none could accuse of covering up anything he believed or thought.