Pieces of Eight Part 11

_In sunny bays The young shark plays, Among the ripples and nets of light; And the conch-sh.e.l.l crawls Through the glimmering halls The coral builds for the Infinite._

_And every gem In His diadem, From flaming topaz to moon-hushed pearl, Glitters and glances In swaying dances Of waters adream like the eyes of a girl._

_The sea and the stars, And the ghostly bars Of the shoals all bright 'neath the feet of the moon; The night that glistens, And stops and listens To the half-heard beat of an endless tune._

_Here Solitude To itself doth brood, At the furthest verge of the reef-spilt foam; And the world's lone ends Are met as friends, And the homeless heart is at last at home._

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

_Once More in John Saunders's Snuggery._

Need I say that it was a great occasion when I was once more back safe in John Saunders's snuggery, telling my story to my two friends, comfortably enfolded in a cloud of tobacco smoke, John with his old port at his elbow, and Charlie Webster and I flanked by our whiskies and soda, all just as if I had never stirred from my easy chair, instead of having spent an exciting month or so among sharks, dead men, blood-lapping ghosts, card-playing skeletons and such like?

My friends listened to my yarn in characteristic fashion, John Saunders's eyes more like mice peeping out of a cupboard than ever, and Charlie Webster's huge bulk poised almost threateningly, as it were, with the keenness of his attention. His deep-set kind brown eyes glowed like a boy's as I went on, but by their dangerous kindling at certain points of the story, those dealing with our pock-marked friend, Henry P. Tobias, Jr., I soon realised where, for him, the chief interest of the story lay.

"The ---- rebel!" he roared out once or twice, using an adjective peculiarly English.

When I come to think of it, perhaps there is no one in His Britannic Majesty's dominions so wholeheartedly English as Charlie Webster. He is an Englishman of a larger mould than we are accustomed to to-day. He seems rather to belong to a former more rugged era--an Englishman say of Elizabeth's or Nelson's day; big, rough, and simple, honest to the core, slow to anger, but terrible when roused--a true heart of oak, a man with ma.s.sive, slow-moving, but immensely efficient, "governing" brain. A born commander, utterly without fear, yet always cool-headed and never rash.

If there are more Englishmen like him, I don't think you will find them in London or anywhere in the British Isles. You must go for them to the British colonies. There, rather than at home, the sacred faith in the British Empire is still kept pa.s.sionately alive. And, at all events, Charlie Webster may truly be said to have one article of faith--the glory of the British Empire. To him, therefore, the one unforgivable sin is treason against that; as probably to die for England--after having notched a good account of her enemies on his unerring rifle--would be for him not merely a crown of glory, but the purest and completest joy that could happen to him.

Therefore it was--somewhat, I will own, to my disappointment--that for him my story had but one moral--the treason of Henry P. Tobias, Jr. The treasure might as well have had no existence, so far as he was concerned, and the grim climax in the cave drew nothing from him but a preoccupied nod. And John Saunders was little more satisfactory. Both of them allowed me to end in silence. They both seemed to be thinking deeply.

"Well?" I said, somewhat dashed, as one whose story has fallen down on an anti-climax. Still no response.

"I must say you two are a great audience," I said presently, perhaps rather childishly nettled.

"What's happened to your imagination!"

"It's a very serious matter," said John Saunders, and I realised that it was not my crony, but the Secretary to the Treasury of his Britannic Majesty's Government at Na.s.sau that was talking. As he spoke, he looked across at Charlie Webster, almost as if forgetting me. "Something should be done about it, eh, Charlie?" he continued.

"---- traitor!" roared Charlie, once more employing that British adjective. And then he turned to me:

"Look here, old pal, I'll make a bargain with you, if you like. I suppose you're keen for that other treasure, now, eh?"

"I am," said I, rather stiffly.

"Well then, I'll go after it with you--on one condition. You can keep the treasure, if you'll give me Tobias!"

"Give you Tobias?" I laughed.

"Yes! if you go after the treasure, he'll probably keep his word, and go after you. Now it would do my heart good to get him, as you had the chance of doing that afternoon. Whatever were you doing to miss him?"

"I proposed to myself the satisfaction of making good that mistake," I said, "on our next meeting. I feel I owe it to the poor old captain."

"Never mind; hand the captain's rights over to me--and I'll help you all I know with your treasure. Besides, Tobias is a job for an Englishman--eh, John? It's a matter of 'King and Country' with me. With you it would be mere private vengeance. With me it will be an execution; with you it would be a murder. Isn't that so, John?"

"Exactly," John nodded.

"Since you were away," Charlie began again, "I've bought the prettiest yawl you ever set eyes on--the _Flamingo_--forty-five over all, and this time the very fastest boat in the harbour. Yes! she's faster even than the _Susan B._ Now, I've a holiday due me in about a fortnight. Say the word, and the _Flamingo's_ yours for a couple of months, and her captain too. I make only that one condition."

"All right, Charlie," I agreed, "he's yours."

Whereat Charlie shot out a huge paw like a shoulder of mutton, and grabbed my hand with as much fervour as though I had saved his life, or done him some other unimaginable kindness. And, as he did so, his old broad sweet smile came back again. He was thinking of Tobias.

CHAPTER II

_In Which I Learn Something._

While Charlie Webster was arranging his affairs so that he might be able to take his holiday with a free mind, I busied myself with provisioning the _Flamingo,_ and in casually chatting with one and another along the water front, in the hope of gathering some hint that might guide us on our coming expedition. I thought it possible, too, that chance might thus bring me some information as to the recent movements of Tobias.

In this way, I made the acquaintance of several old salts, both white and black, one or two of whom time and their neighbours had invested with a legendary savour of the old "wrecking days," which, if rumour speaks true, are not entirely vanished from the remoter corners of the islands. But either their romantic haloes were entirely due to imaginative gossip, or they themselves were too shrewd to be drawn, for I got nothing out of them to my purpose. They seemed to be more interested in talking religion than the sea, and as navigators of Biblical deep seas little visited except by professional theologians they were remarkable. Generally speaking, indeed, piety would seem to have taken the place of piracy among the sea-going population of Na.s.sau; a fact in which, no doubt, right-thinking folk will rejoice, but which I, I am ashamed to say, found disappointing.

Those who would master the art of talking to the Na.s.sau negro should first brush up on their Bibles; for a pious salutation might almost be said to be Na.s.sau etiquette for opening a conversation. Of course, this applies mainly to negroes or those "conchs" in whom negro blood predominates. The average white man in Na.s.sau must not be considered as implicated in this statement, for he seems to take his religion much as the average white man takes it in any other part of the world.

One afternoon, in the course of these rather fruitless if interesting investigations among the picturesque shipyards of Bay Street, I had wandered farther along that historic water front than is customary with sight-seeing pedestrians; had left behind the white palm-shaded houses, the bazaars of the sellers of tortoise-sh.e.l.l, the negro grog-shops and cabins, and had come to where the road begins to be left alone with the sea, except for a few country houses here and there among the surrounding scrub--when my eye was caught by a little store that seemed to have strayed away from the others--a small timber erection painted in blue and white with a sort of sea-wildness and loneliness about it, and with large nave lettering across its lintel announcing itself as an "Emporium" (I think that was the word) "of Marine Curiosities."

A bladder-shaped fish, set thick with spines like a hedgehog, swung in the breeze over the doorway, and the windows on each side of the doorway displayed, without any attempt at arrangement, all sorts of motley treasures of the sea: purple sea-fans; coral in every fairy shape, white as sea-foam; conches patterned like some tessellated pavement of old Rome; monster star-fish, sharks' teeth, pink pearls, and sh.e.l.ls of every imaginable convolution and iridescence, and many a weird and lovely thing which I had not the knowledge to name; objects, indeed, familiar enough in Na.s.sau, but here ama.s.sed and presented with this attractive difference--that they had not been absurdly polished out of recognition, or tortured into horrible "artistic" shapes of brooch, or earring, or paper-knife, or ash-tray, but had been left with all their simple sea-magic upon them--as they might have been heaped up by the sea itself in some moonlit grotto, paved with white sand.

I pushed open the door. There was no one there. The little store was evidently left to take care of itself. Inside, it was like an old curiosity shop of the sea, every available inch of s.p.a.ce, rough tables and walls, littered and hung with the queer and lovely bric-a-brac of the sea. Presently a tiny girl came in as it seemed from nowhere, and said she would fetch her father. In a moment or two he came, a tall weathered Englishman of the sailor type, brown and lean, with lonely blue eyes.

"You don't seem afraid of thieves," I remarked.

"It ain't a jewelry store," he said, with the curious soft sing-song intonation of the Na.s.sau "conch."

"That's just what I was thinking it was," I said.

"I know what you mean," he replied, his lonely face lighting up as faces do at unexpected understanding in a stranger. "Of course, there are some that feel that way, but they're few and far between."

"Not enough to make a fortune out of?"

"O! I do pretty well," he said; "I mustn't complain. Money's not everything, you see, in a business like this. There's going after the things, you know. One's got to count that in too."

I looked at him in some surprise. I had met something even rarer than the things he traded in. I had met a merchant of dreams, to whom the mere handling of his merchandise seemed sufficient profit: "There's going after the things, you know. One's got to count that in too."

Naturally we were neck-deep in talk in a moment. I wanted to hear all he cared to tell me about "going after the things"--such "things"!--and he was nothing loth, as he took up one strange or beautiful object after another, his face aglow, and he quite evidently without a thought of doing business, and told me all about them--how and where he got them, and so forth.

"But," he said presently, encouraged by my unfeigned interest, "I should like to show you a few rarer things I have in the house, and which I wouldn't sell, or even show to every one. If you'd honour me by taking a cup of tea, we might look them over."

So we left the little store, with its door unlocked as I had found it, and a few steps brought us to a little house I had not before noticed, with a neat garden in front of it, all the garden beds symmetrically bordered with conch-sh.e.l.ls. Sh.e.l.ls were evidently the simple-hearted fellow's mania, his revelation of the beauty of the world. Here in a neat parlour, also much decorated with sh.e.l.ls, tea was served to us by the little girl I had first seen and an elder sister, who, I gathered, made all the lonely dreamer's family. Then, shyly pressing on me a cigar, he turned to show me the promised treasures. He also told me more of his manner of finding them, and of the long trips which he had to take in seeking them, to out-of-the-way cays and in dangerous waters.