Cursed be the treasure
"Flogged you!" I cried; nearly adding his own comment, "publicly, of
course."
"At least it was an experience," he said.
"Oh, Worthing!" I exclaimed in remorse, feeling behind his calm words
the disgust of the indignity still rankling in his mind. "Worthing, it
was all my fault."
"Look here, Tommy," he replied, "it was my own deliberate choice."
"No!" I said.
"Yes!" he answered curtly. "Please give me credit for knowing my own
mind."
He looked at me in his settled, uncompromising way, and I could say no
more. I wrung his hand in silence, and there was a pause. I didn't dare
ask for further particulars. Indeed there was no need. My imagination
could fill in with abundant details the outline he had drawn for me.
They had flogged him! Worthing, the soul of law and discipline! The
thing seemed incredible. They had flogged him! His very pride seemed a
shield sufficient to ward off such a calamity. But they hadn't spared
him. I turned to him with a cry of gratitude, but he was saying, "The
Captain was terribly uneasy about you when I told him you had escaped
and disappeared."
"Ah," I said; and wondered whether he would mention Jenny.
"I told him," he went on, "that I would find you and send you back to
him."
"Yes," I said doubtfully; and added, "Is that why you followed me?"
"Not exactly," he replied. "I had decided on that before. I had
committed my offence and taken my punishment. There was nothing else to
wait for. I made up my mind to leave the place as soon as the affair
was over. I shall go to my uncle in London. But first I thought I
should like to find you, Tommy."
Again I wrung his hand, and in what stumbling words I could lay tongue
to was trying to tell him how dear he was to me, but suddenly he
pointed below where a schooner was staggering round the headland.
But what I saw was a little boat already threading the channel into
Ebb-Tide Pool, bobbing like a see-saw on the backs of the rearing
waves. The tide was ebbing, and I wondered whether the boat would make
the entrance, but as I looked it rose on a leaping crest and plunged
through the narrow passage into the Pool, where it disappeared under
the overhanging arch. But I had recognized the solitary oarsman, though
his back had been towards me. It was my father.
I waved frantically as he vanished under the brow of rock, and hallooed
into the wind with all my might, though I knew well that my voice
couldn't reach him in that gale. But I was so excited that the wind
beating the words back into my face only made me shout the more; and I
set off down the cliff, slipping and leaping, with Worthing following
more cautiously behind me. I was afraid my father would row in up the
tunnel, where I would be unable to follow unless I swam for it. But
with a cry of relief I welcomed him as I saw him appear again, climbing
up the cliff towards me.
I stopped for a moment and waved to him, but he hadn't seen me, and
suddenly I thought I would hide and lie in wait for him to surprise
him as he came by. I ducked behind a rock and peered out cautiously
to watch for his coming. Looking back I saw Worthing still stepping
deliberately down the path. I motioned to him to hide, but he was too
concerned with his footing to notice me; he came slowly downwards,
pushing into the wind, and steadying himself at every step.
I peeped out again to see if my father were drawing near yet. But he
had stopped, and his face was turned away from me. And suddenly he
sprang round and began racing down the cliff. I jumped up to see what
had alarmed him, but there was no one in sight except Worthing. Then
faintly from below me, and coming as it seemed from Ebb-Tide Cave, I
heard my own voice calling, "Daddy, dad-_dee_!" as though I were in
some terrible peril.
I stood fixed to the spot. A terror such as I had never known set my
every nerve quivering. Not even the ghost at Sunset Towers in the dead
of a stormy night had seemed so unearthly as the sound of my own voice
calling for help there in the light of day. My blood ran cold to hear
it. I clutched at the rock beside me, for I felt faint and would have
fallen. But as my father still sped downwards, evidently deceived by
the cry which kept rising to him, "Daddy, daddy, save me!" I threw off
my stupid fear and started running after him, shouting with all my
power. But the wind was full in my face, and seemed to sweep the cry
from my lips, though I hallooed like one in a frenzy. Then my father
dipped under the arch and vanished.
I raised one last despairing cry, and quickened my pace, stumbling and
clutching, heedless of knocks and tumbles. For there was an agony of
anxiety upon me. A vivid picture was in my mind of my father breaking
back into the flames of the burning inn when he thought he heard me
calling. It was just the picture I could see; I didn't reason that that
had been make-believe merely. Something told me that this at least was
earnest. He was being decoyed into a trap. And of all things it was my
voice which was luring him on.
I jumped the last few feet, and flinging out an arm swung myself round
under the jutting rock. Almost at my feet, so that I nearly fell upon
him, was my father, writhing on the ground and choking blood, with a
gaping gash across his throat.
Something terrible happened within me. The air around me became a red
mist. I felt suddenly possessed of the strength of ten men. A frenzied
desire to kill surged up at my heart. I caught sight of a moving figure
scrambling over the rocks that ringed the Pool. I forgot my father;
and with an insane fury of vengeance driving me on I plunged after the
fugitive, howling and whooping like a crazed animal.
He was making off towards the sandy bay. I could see it below me with
the tumble-down jetty at its farther horn, and beyond was a little
smack anchored a stone's throw from the shore out of reach of the
worst of the breakers. I guessed that was his goal, and if he gained
it he would beat off down the coast, where I couldn't hope to follow
with the waves rolling in above my head. In a fog of rage and madness
I stumbled after him, lumbering carelessly and making little ground;
for he was nimble and trod lightly, leaping with ease and dexterity
from rock to rock, in spite of the slippery weed which here began to
drape them treacherously, still wet from the ebbing tide. Then came the
short stretch of clear going before the jetty. I thought I might catch
him there as he climbed the great obstacle, and I pressed forward,
consciously snarling with anger and hate. He reached the space and ran;
and I knew that if he slipped as he climbed the slimy stones I should
have him. But he bore a little up to the left, and I saw he was making
for a gap brokenly boarded in but with the planks and piles hanging
awry. It might be possible there to leap without climbing. I hoped he
would leap and fall. As my feet touched the sand I raced after him with
a yell.
It wasn't till this moment that I remembered my weapons. So primitive
were the passions that had been so suddenly whipped up within me that
my vision had been one of tearing my enemy piecemeal with my nails and
teeth. The memory of my pistol came to me like a shout of laughter.
I stopped, and drew the darling weapon from my belt, and levelled
it at my fleeing foe. My hand was shaky with excitement, and I was
afraid I should miss. Taking as careful aim as I could I pulled the
trigger and with a howl of evil joy was bounding forward again, for I
saw him stumble and fall. He was soon up, however, but was limping in
his run. Drawing my knife I sprang after him, gaining steadily, with
the picture of my vengeance already vivid in my imagination. But he
still ran well, and reaching the gap didn't risk a jump at it with
his damaged leg. I saw where without pausing he rested his hand on a
broken stump, and vaulted over the barrier. A moment, and I was at the
place; and learning wisdom from my foe I didn't risk a fall by a wild
leap, but slipping back my knife into my belt I rested my hand where he
had taught me, and in my turn vaulted after him. But he was crouching
there ready for me, as I might have guessed if my stupid rage hadn't
stupefied my wits. Even as I leapt I saw him; but it was too late.
He caught me a stunning buffet between the eyes; and with the vision
before me of that dreadful face that still haunted my dreams, I fell
senseless.
CHAPTER XXII
WORTHING ASKS QUESTIONS
My memory is too blurred for me to write in any kind of consistent
sequence of what followed. I know it was Worthing who found me lying
stunned by the jetty and brought me back to some faint consciousness
of reality as he had done that night at Sunset Towers. But it was as
though the physical blow had numbed my very reason, for everything was
stupidly confused in my mind. Mercifully so, I think; for I hadn't the
sense to realize the desolating calamity that had befallen me. Even
when I stood beside my dead father and gazed at the pallid face with
that dreadful red gash yawning at the throat, I couldn't understand
what had really happened. I think I even laughed as though some one
were playing a clumsy joke, too extravagant to deceive me. And the
sight of the black hollow in the woods where they laid him, tumbling
the earth in upon him, didn't shake me from my leaden lethargy. Yet at
my heart was a dull pain as though a wound were rankling deep within.
I remember too that certain officers appeared, very officious and
inquisitive, and bullied me from my torpor into answering their
stupid questions. Sometimes I replied sulkily, and sometimes as they
questioned me forgot their very presence, wrapped as I was in a cloud
of weary gloom. Then they caught me by the shoulders and shook me,
till I cursed them and answered I knew not what. At length they must
have abandoned the attempt to pump information from such a dry well,
for I was left in peace. But at times I was aware of Worthing's voice
clear and decided speaking up for me when I sat dully pondering some
enquiry which had been demanded of me, utterly failing to understand
its significance or applicability to myself.
Indeed it was Worthing who saved me from insanity. For with that
incomprehensible slow gloom that had settled upon me, the constant
fretting of the officers would have galled me into a savage madness.
What I needed was rest and peace, so that the evil black vapour might
gradually disperse itself from my spirit, and the light of reality grow
clear about me by easy degrees. But the constant questioning puzzled
me, and set me searching in the confusion of my mind for clues and
traces of the inexplicable enigma which seemed to be dodging me through
the dark complexities of my bemused memory. When it baffled me and
I sank into a gloomy stupor, all was well; but sometimes I caught a
glimpse of the evil thing, and that was like a wrench to a broken limb,
an agony that pierced through the vitals like a sword of white fire.
I gasped as though my very soul had been split apart with a wedge of
lightning. But the pain was too terrible to endure, and foolishly I
dropped back into my moping.
Yet I know that all the while I was saying to myself, "He is dead,
dead, dead!" But the knowledge didn't take root in my mind. It was like
a knocking from outside, but I wouldn't open the door. I felt there was
something evil there; and, though within all was dark and dreadful, yet
I wouldn't open to that unknown thing. I only knew it would stand there
and knock till I relented, but stubbornly I refused, and shrank deeper
into the darkness that closed me round.
All this is but a foolish picture of what I suffered. For everything
about me was a kind of weighing chaos where I couldn't reason or