Foul Play Part 26

Wylie was taken off his guard, and stammered out something about the _Shannon._

"The _Shannon!_ What have you to do with her? You belong to the _Proserpine."_

"Ay, sir; but I had his orders to ship forty chests of lead and smelted copper on board the _Shannon."_

"Well?"

"Ye see, sir," said Wylie, "Mr. Wardlaw was particular about them, and I feel responsible like, having shipped them aboard another vessel."

"Have you not the captain's receipt?"

"That I have, sir, at home. But you could hardly read it for salt water."

"Well," said Wardlaw senior, "I will direct our agent at Liverpool to look after them, and send them up at once to my cellars in Fenchurch Street. Forty chests of lead and copper, I think you said." And he took a note of this directly. Wylie was not a little discomfited at this unexpected turn things had taken; but he held his tongue now, for fear of making bad worse. Wardlaw senior went on to say that he should have to conduct the business of the firm for a time, in spite of his old age and failing health.

This announcement made Wylie perspire with anxiety, and his three thousand pounds seemed to melt away from him.

"But never mind," said old Wardlaw; "I am very glad you came. In fact, you are the very man I wanted to see. My poor afflicted friend has asked after you several times. Be good enough to follow me."

He led the way into the dining-room, and there sat the sad father in all the quiet dignity of calm, unfathomable sorrow.

Another gentleman stood upon the rug with his back to the fire, waiting for Mr. Wardlaw; this was the family physician, who had just come down from Arthur's bedroom, and had entered by another door through the drawing-room.

"Well, doctor," said Wardlaw, anxiously, "what is your report?"

"Not so good as I could wish; but nothing to excite immediate alarm.

Overtaxed brain, sir, weakened and unable to support this calamity.

However, we have reduced the fever; the symptoms of delirium have been checked, and I think we shall escape brain fever if he is kept quiet. I could not have said as much this morning."

The doctor then took his leave, with a promise to call next morning; and, as soon as he was gone, Wardlaw turned to General Rolleston, and said, "Here _is_ Wylie, sir. Come forward, my man, and speak to the general. He wants to know if you can point out to him on the chart the very spot where the _Proserpine_ was lost?"

"Well, sir," said Wylie, "I think I could."

The great chart of the Pacific was then spread out upon the table, and rarely has a chart been examined as this was, with the bleeding heart as well as the straining eye.

The rough sailor became an oracle; the others hung upon his words, and followed his brown finger on the chart with fearful interest.

"Ye see, sir," said he, addressing the old merchant--for there was something on his mind that made him avoid speaking directly to General Rolleston--"when we came out of Sydney, the wind being south and by west, Hudson took the northerly course instead of running through Cook's Straits. The weather freshened from the same quarter, so that, with one thing and another, by when we were a month out, she was five hundred miles or so nor'ard of her true course. But that wasn't all; when the leak gained on us, Hudson ran the ship three hundred miles by my reckoning to the nor'east; and, I remember, the day before she foundered, he told me she was in lat.i.tude forty, and Easter Island bearing due north."

"Here is the spot, then," said General Rolleston, and placed his finger on the spot.

"Ay, sir," said Wylie, addressing the merchant; "but she ran about eighty-five miles after that, on a northerly course--no--wind on her starboard quarter--and, being deep in the water, she'd make lee way--say eighty-two miles, nor'east by east." The general took eighty-two miles off the scale, with a pair of dividers, and set out that distance on the chart. He held the instrument fixed on the point thus obtained.

Wylie eyed the point, and, after a moment's consideration, nodded his head.

"There, or thereabouts," he said, in a low voice, and looking at the merchant.

A pause ensued, and the two old men examined the speck p.r.i.c.ked on the map, as if it were the waters covering the _Proserpine._

"Now, sir," said Rolleston, "trace the course of the boats;" and he handed Wylie a pencil.

The sailor slowly averted his head, but stretched out his hand and took it, and traced two lines, the one short and straight, running nearly northeast. "That's the way the cutter headed when we lost her in the night."

The other line ran parallel to the first for half an inch, then, turning, bent backward and ran due south.

"This was our course," said Wylie.

General Rolleston looked up, and said, "Why did you desert the cutter?"

The mate looked at old Wardlaw, and, after some hesitation, replied: "After we lost sight of her the men with me declared that we could not reach either Juan Fernandez or Valparaiso with our stock of provisions, and insisted on standing for the sea-track of Australian liners between the Horn and Sydney."

This explanation was received in dead silence. Wylie fidgeted, and his eye wandered round the room.

General Rolleston applied his compa.s.ses to the chart. "I find that the _Proserpine_ was not one thousand miles from Easter Island. Why did you not make for that land?"

"We had no charts, sir," said Wylie to the merchant, "and I'm no navigator."

"I see no land laid down hereaway, northeast of the spot where the ship went down."

"No," replied Wylie, "that's what the men said when they made me 'bout ship."

"Then why did you lead the way northeast at all?"

"I'm no navigator," answered the man sullenly.

He then suddenly stammered out: "Ask my men what we went through. Why, sir" (to Wardlaw), "I can hardly believe that I am alive, and sit here talking to you about this cursed business. And n.o.body offers me a drop of anything."

Wardlaw poured him out a tumbler of wine. His brown hand trembled a little, and he gulped the wine down like water.

General Rolleston gave Mr. Wardlaw a look, and Wylie was dismissed. He slouched down the street all in a cold perspiration; but still clinging to his three thousand pounds, though small was now his hope of ever seeing it.

When he was gone General Rolleston paced that large and gloomy room in silence. Wardlaw eyed him with the greatest interest, but avoided speaking to him. At last he stopped short, and stood erect, as veterans halt, and pointed down at the chart.

"I'll start at once for that spot," said he. "I'll go in the next ship bound to Valparaiso: there I'll charter a small vessel, and ransack those waters for some trace of my poor lost girl."

"Can you think of no better way than that?" said old Wardlaw, gently, and with a slight tone of reproach.

"No--not at this moment. Oh, yes, by the by, the _Greyhound_ and _Dreadnaught_ are going out to survey the islands of the Pacific. I have interest enough to get a berth in the _Greyhound."_

"What! go in a government ship! under the orders of a man, under the orders of another man, under the orders of a board. Why, if you heard our poor girl was alive upon a rock, the _Dreadnaught_ would be sure to run up a bunch of red-tape to the fore that moment to recall the _Greyhound,_ and the _Greyhound_ would go back. No," said he, rising suddenly, and confronting the general, and with the color mounting for once in his sallow face, "you sail in no bottom but one freighted by Wardlaw & Son, and the captain shall be under no orders but yours. We have bought the steam-sloop _Springbok_, seven hundred tons. I'll victual her for a year, man her well, and you shall go out in her in less than a week. I give you my hand on that."

They grasped hands.

But this sudden warmth and tenderness, coming from a man habitually cold, overpowered the stout general. "What, sir," he faltered; "your own son lies in danger, yet your heart goes so with me--such goodness--it is too much for me."

"No, no," faltered the merchant, affected in his turn; "it is nothing.

Your poor girl was coming home in that cursed ship to marry my son. Yes, he lies ill for love of her; G.o.d help him and me too; but you most of all. Don't, general; don't! We have got work to do; we must be brave, sir; brave, I say, and compose ourselves. Ah, my friend, you and I are of one age; and this is a heavy blow for us. And we are friends no more; it has made us brothers. She was to be my child as well as yours; well, now she _is_ my child, and our hearts they bleed together." At this, the truth must be told, the two stout old men embraced one another like two women, and cried together a little.