Swept Out to Sea Part 12

"And why did he swim for your craft instead of to sh.o.r.e?"

"Said he was nearer the Sally when his boat took in so much water. And the tide _was_ running out, no doubt. But it always did seem queer to me," continued Tom.

"What was queer?" I asked the question without the slightest eagerness--indeed, I really was not interested much in what the old sailor was saying.

"Queer that such a smart-appearin', intelligent gent should have got himself in such a fix."

"As how?"

"To set sail in such a leaky old tub."

"Oh!"

"And then, when he found she was sinking under him not to make for the sh.o.r.e."

"What became of him?" I asked.

"He went to New York with us. There he stepped ash.o.r.e and I ain't never seen him since--and only heard of him once, an' that was ten years or so afterward----"

"Hullo!" I cried, suddenly waking up. "When did all this happen, Tom?"

"When did what happen?"

"This man swimming aboard your schooner?"

"Why, nigh as I can remember, it must be fourteen or fifteen years ago--come next spring. It was in April, after the weather was right smart warm. Otherwise he wouldn't have swum so far, I bet ye!"

My voice, I knew, had suddenly become husky. I was startled, though I don't know why I should have felt so strangely as I reviewed this tale he had told.

"What was his name, Tom?" I asked.

"The name of the feller I was tellin' you of?"

"Yes."

"Carver."

"How d'you know it was?"

"Why, he said so!" exclaimed Tom. "A man ought to know his own name, oughtn't he?"

"He should--yes."

"Well!"

"But did he have any way of proving his name to be Carver?"

"Pshaw! the Cap'n never axed him to prove it. Why for should he lie about it? He worked his way to New York and all he got was his grub for it. I let him have an old pilot coat of mine, he having only a thin jacket on him. He agreed to pay me two dollars for it. And he was jest as honest as they make 'em."

"He paid you?"

"He sartinly did," said old Tom, wagging his head. "A feller who would be as good as his word in that particular wouldn't lie about his name, would he?"

"You said you heard from him ten years after?" I asked, without trying to answer Tom's query.

"Well--yes--it was ten years. But I guess the letter had been lying there in the office of Radnor & Blunt--them's the folks we dealt with on the Sally Smith--for a long time. I had left the Sally the year after and only just by chance went into the office when I was in New York. The chief clerk he pa.s.sed me over a letter. In it was a two-dollar bill and a line saying it was for the coat."

"And it had been there waiting for you for some time?"

"'Twas as yellow as saffron. They didn't know where I lived when I was to home. And I had been 'round the world in the Scarboro, too."

"And the letter was from Bolderhead?" I asked, slowly.

"No. That was the funny part of it," said Tom.

I awoke again and once more felt a thrill of excitement in my veins. I watched the old fellow jealously.

"Didn't the man--this Carver--belong in Bolderhead?"

"So I supposed. But the letter come from foreign parts."

"Where?" I asked.

"'Twas from Santiago, Chili."

"Then he had not gone back to Bolderhead?" I stammered.

"Bless ye, lad! how do I know? I only know he sent the money from Chili.

He was something of a mystery, that feller, I allow. Ever heard tell of him in Bolderhead? Are there any Carvers there?"

"It's a mighty small town along the New England coast in which there are no Carvers," I replied.

"Now, ain't that a fact? They're a spraddled out family, I do allow,"

said Tom.

"What did this man look like?" I asked, and I was still eager--I could scarcely have told why.

There was an enlarged crayon picture of my father in my bedroom at home.

When he died my mother only had a cheap little tintype of him. I don't suppose the crayon portrait looked much like Dr. Webb. Certainly there was little in Tom Anderly's description to connect the strange man rescued out of the sea with the portrait of my father. Yet the circ.u.mstances, the time of the happening, and the suspicions that had been roused in my mind by Paul Downes and his father, all dovetailed together and troubled me.

Even Ham Mayberry, who scoffed at the idea that my father had made way with himself, admitted that had Dr. Webb lived my mother and I could never have enjoyed Grandfather Darringford's money. I could never believe that my father had been wicked enough to commit suicide. But, suppose he had merely slipped away from us--gone out of our lives entirely--with the intention of putting his wife and child in a prosperous position?

It was romantic, I suppose. To the perfectly sane and hard-headed such a suspicion would seem utterly ridiculous. But the longer I thought over Tom Anderly's story--the more I allowed my imagination to roam--the more possible the idea seemed. Ham had said my father was not a money-making man. He was in financial difficulties, too. Grandfather had died and there was a heap of money just beyond my mother's grasp. My father had become a stumbling-block in her path--in my path. He it was who kept us from enjoying wealth.

The cruelty of my grandfather in arranging such a situation filled me with anger when I contemplated it. What could my father think but that, if he were out of the way, it would be far, far better for his wife and child?

I could not believe, for an instant, that Dr. Webb would have committed the crime of self-destruction. But in my then romantic state of mind, what more easily believed than that he had deliberately removed himself out of our lives--and in a way to make it appear that he was dead?

As we did, he knew we would at once enter into the enjoyment of the wealth left by old Mr. Darringford. There would be no material suffering caused by his dropping out of sight. I faced the matter with more coolness and a better understanding than most boys of my age possess, because of my knowing my mother's nature so well. Take my own sudden disappearance, for instance. I knew well she would be quite overwhelmed at first; but if good Dr. Eldridge brought her out of it all right, and she had somebody to turn to and depend upon for comfort and encouragement, she would sustain my mysterious absence very well indeed.