The Astonishing History of Troy Town Part 32

For a moment she seemed about to answer, but did not. Sam pulled a dozen vigorous strokes, and the boat shot into the reach opposite Kit's House.

"That," she said, resting her eyes on the weather-stained front of Mr. Fogo's dwelling, "is where the hermit lives, is it not? I should like to meet this man that hates all women."

Sam essayed a gallant speech, but she paid no heed to it.

"What a charming creek that is, beyond the house! Let us row up there and wait for the others."

The creek was wrapped in the first quiet of evening. There was still enough tide to mirror the tall trees that bent towards it, and reflect with a grey gleam one gable of the house behind. Two or three boats lay quietly here by their moorings; beside them rested a huge red buoy, and an anchor protruding one rusty tooth above the water. Where the sad-looking shingle ended, a few long timbers rotted in the ooze. Nothing in this haunted corner spoke of life, unless it were the midges that danced and wheeled over the waveless tide.

"Yonder lies the lepers' burial-ground," said Sam, and pointed.

"I have heard of them" (she shivered); "and that?"

She nodded towards the saddest ruin in this sad spot, the hull of what was once a queenly schooner, now slowly rotting to annihilation beside the further sh.o.r.e. She lay helplessly canted to starboard, her head pointing up the creek. Her timbers had started, her sides were coated with green weed; her rudder, wrenched from its pintle, lay hopelessly askew. On her stern could still be read, in blistered paint, her name, "_The Seven Sisters_ of Troy." There she lay dismantled, with a tangle of useless rigging, not fit for saving, left to dangle from her bulwarks; and a quick fancy might liken her, as the tide left her, and the water in her hold gushed out through a dozen gaping seams, to some n.o.ble animal that had crept to this corner to bleed to death.

Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys looked towards the wreck with curious interest.

"I should like to examine it more closely," she said.

For answer Sam pulled round the schooner, and let the boat drift under her overhanging side.

"You can climb aboard if you like," he said, as he shipped the sculls and, standing up, grasped the schooner's bulwarks. "Stop, let me make the painter fast."

He took up the rope, swung himself aboard, and looped it round the stump of a broken davit; then bent down and gave a hand to his companion. She was agile, and the step was of no great height; but Sam had to take both her hands before she stood beside him, and ah!

but his heart beat cruelly quick.

Once on board Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys displayed the most eager inquisitiveness, almost endangering her beautiful neck as she peered down into the hole where the water lay, black and gloomy. She turned and walked aft with her feet in the scuppers, and her right hand pressed against the deck, so great was the cant on the vessel.

It was uphill walking too, for the schooner was sagged in the waist, and the stern tilted up to a considerable height. Nevertheless she reached the p.o.o.p at last. Sam followed.

"I want to see the captain's cabin," she explained.

Sam wondered, but led the way. It was no easy matter to descend the crazy ladder, and in the cabin itself the light was so dim that he struck a match. Its flare revealed a broken table, a horsehair couch, and a row of cupboards along the walls. On the port side these had mostly fallen open, and the doors in some cases hung by a single hinge. There was a terrible smell in the place.

Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys looked around.

"Does the water ever come up here?" she asked.

Sam lit another match.

"No," he said, stooping and examining the floor.

"You are quite sure?"

Her tone was so eager that he looked up.

"Yes, I am quite sure; but why do you ask?"

She did not answer: nor, in the faint light, could he see her face.

After a moment's silence she said, as if to herself--

"This is just the place."

"For what?"

"For--for an Irish jig," she laughed with sudden merriment.

"Come, try a step upon these old timbers."

"For heaven's sake take care!" cried Sam. "There may be a trap-hatch where you stand, and these boards are rotten through and through.

Ten minutes ago you were mournful," he added, in wonder at her change of mood.

"Was I?" She broke out suddenly into elfish song--

"'Och! Pathrick O'Hea, but I'm sad, Bedad!

Och! darlint, 'tis bad to be sad.'

'Hwat's this?' says he.

'Why, a kiss,' says she.

''Tis a cure,' says he.

'An' that's sure,' says she.

'Och! Pat, you're a sinsible lad, Bedad!

Troth, Pat, you're a joole uv a lad!'"

She broke off suddenly and shivered.

"Come, let us go; this place suffocates me."

She turned and ran up the crazy ladder. At the top she turned and peered down upon the dumbfounded Sam.

"n.o.body comes here, I suppose?"

"I should think not."

"I mean, the owner never comes to--"

"To visit his cargo?" laughed Sam. "No, the owner is dead. He was a wicked old miser, and I guess in the place where he is now he'd give a deal for the water in this ship; but I never heard he was allowed to come back for it."

She leant her hands on the taffrail, and looked over the stern.

"Hark! There are the other boats. Don't you hear the voices?

They have pa.s.sed us by, and we must make haste after them."

She turned upon him with a smile. Without well knowing what he did he laid his hand softly on her arm.

"Stop, I want a word before you go."

"Well?"

Her large eyes, gleaming on him through the dusk, compelled and yet frightened him. He trembled and stammered vaguely--

"You said just now--you hinted, I mean--that you were unhappy with Mr.--with your husband. Is that so?"