Cursed be the treasure
distinguish. Only, as I say, at times a vivid light broke through,
crueller than the shadows that clung about me; for the light was the
light of reality, and reality was more terrible than the spiritual coma
that had stupefied my understanding.
However, the light was bound to triumph in the end. The knocking became
insistent, and I knew I must open the door. And then with the rush
of bitter knowledge upon my naked heart I learnt what it was to have
a friend. Not that Worthing wept over me. Rather it was his severe
strength and calm recognition of actuality that supported me. For in
his presence I accepted the inevitable as a thing not to be questioned,
merely to be endured. It was the contagion of example rather than of
precept, for he never that I remember spoke harshly to me as one must
to the hysterical; it was merely that he faced up to the reality of the
situation, and I caught something of his straight and uncompromising
attitude of soul.
Dirk too nursed me back to sanity in his rough way. Not that I learnt
much philosophy from him; rather it would seem that he tended to
undo the good that Worthing did me. For if Worthing stimulated me to
strength of endurance, Dirk stimulated me to violent rebellion. He took
me with him for long marches across the country, and sometimes for a
tossing at sea; and always the burden of his talk was one of cursing
and vengeance, till in the blackness of my heart I vowed again and
again to track down my father's murderer and kill him without mercy.
And at such times Dirk would encourage me with, "That's the gab, kiddy.
This an't no world for milk-and-water livers. It's red blood that runs
in the heart, my dear, an' that's a stuff that takes some cooling."
But unaccountable as it may seem, the medicine of philosophy and the
medicine of revenge, which might appear to be antidotes, didn't nullify
each other. I felt a stimulation from them both. I suppose it was that
the one taught me to bear and the other taught me to act. But, however
that may be, with the passing of the days I found myself facing the
world again, with a bitter sense of loneliness at my heart, but with no
craven yielding to circumstance.
It wasn't till I had emerged from the shadow that Worthing seriously
set himself to question me on the dark business. And then he was a
hundredfold more exacting than the officers had been. First he made
me go over again and again the ground of the murder and the pursuit,
explaining at every turn just what I had seen and done. And strangely
enough each time I seemed to remember some point which had escaped my
memory before. Though of what use all this exactitude of detail was to
be I couldn't guess. But Worthing was relentless, saying that nothing
however trifling must be passed over as the clue might lie in the most
unexpected place. However, at last he seemed satisfied that nothing
more was to be learnt from the process. But he had reconstructed the
murder with convincing probability of detail. The murderer must have
known of my father's intended visit. Perhaps he had even heard the
song which had warned me of the meeting; or perhaps he had merely
followed him, waiting for a chance to strike. Worthing favoured the
first theory. Then he pointed out the spot where the murderer had
remained concealed till my father should arrive. My father for his
part had sailed down on the schooner we had seen, having arranged
before to be set ashore. He hadn't rowed up the Smuggler's Tunnel as he
didn't know whether the passage was still clear to the woods; the rope
ladder might no longer be there. So not seeing me he had started to
climb the cliffs, intending to make for the _Dolphin_. Then came the
puzzling cry for help. I eagerly explained to Worthing the affair of
the _Snow Man_, and how my father had rushed back into the burning inn
to save me. His enemy must have been on his track even then, and the
incident had given him the idea of a ruse which he hadn't yet tried.
Well, it had succeeded. He had imitated my voice, and my father had
turned, thinking I was below there and in danger. And that was easily
explicable, as I might have been exploring in Drift-Wood Cavern. He
had turned, unarmed of all suspicion in his sudden belief that I was
in peril. And his enemy had caught him off his guard at last, and had
killed him.
The murderer had fled, and I had followed. But the smack towards which
I thought he had been making was still at anchor when Worthing found
me. So then he had had some other retreat in mind. Evidently he knew
the coast well. Actually where he had hidden didn't much matter for he
must have fled the district long before my wits were clear enough to
tell anything of the story. But there was one piece of evidence which
set Worthing questioning me. Across my right hand were two ragged
gashes. How had they come? I laughed at the question for in my blind
pursuit of the murderer I had taken so little heed that it was a wonder
I wasn't gashed and bruised from head to heel. But Worthing wouldn't
leave it at that. I must think where I was most likely to have hurt my
hand. And then it came to me.
"Why," I said, "it was vaulting the jetty."
"Vaulting?" he cried sharply. "You said you jumped it."
I suppose I had done. "Well," I said, "I vaulted over. I saw him vault,
and I followed suit."
Worthing looked at me as though astounded, and then said, "Good God,
Tommy, and you've only just told me that! Come along," he cried, and
raced me off to the spot for a further investigation.
And there on the stump where I had rested my hand were two great rusty
nails sticking out wickedly from the rotten timber. Indeed it looked as
though the gash they had made in the wood had first set it splitting.
Worthing gazed at them, then turned to me and looked at my hand. "Yes,"
he said, "that's it. And yet in your confounded stupidity you wouldn't
have said anything about it!"
To tell the truth I was still rather in a maze at the importance of the
find.
"Can't you see?" cried Worthing, reading my dullness in my vacant
stare. "Don't you realize that he's probably marked in the same way?"
"Ah, of course," I said. "He put his hand there too."
"How wise of you to think of that!" was all he answered. But I believe
I would have thought of it long since had it not been for the cloud
which hadn't yet quite lifted from my spirit.
But Worthing hadn't done with me. For days we strolled the country
round, or sat out on the cliffs, or lay in bed with the candle burning
to the socket, while I told him everything I could remember of my past
life; a hundred times as much as I have written in this book, for I
couldn't distinguish then between the relevant and the irrelevant, and
indeed he didn't wish me to distinguish. If I seemed to be keeping
back some trifling detail he would wrest it relentlessly out of me,
declaring that he must know everything I could possibly remember, to
the very clothes I had ever worn and the very meals I had ever eaten.
At times he listened with his eyes half closed, as though waiting for
some hint which would set him on a clue, or throw light on other parts
of the story which seemed shadowy and inexplicable. And at times he
would start up alertly and tell me to repeat something again, spurring
on my memory with hints and suggestions.
He brushed aside my question as to how the old hag, Bite-in-the-Dark,
had changed into a man; for I had recognized the face of the evil old
woman as the blow caught me between the eyes. "Merely a matter of
clothes," said Worthing. But the mention of the manuscript, when I came
to that part of the narrative, excited him immensely as though he had
hit upon the main trail at last; and my father's poring over the plans,
his explorations of the creeks and pools about the _Dolphin_, and his
story of the accursed treasure that night at Sunset Towers, became the
nucleus of Worthing's enquiries. And indeed I wasn't so lacking in
insight as to be unaware of the significance of all this; it was the
unifying element which should explain the mystery that baffled me. For
in my superstitious way I was inclined to believe it was the working
out of the old curse upon yet another victim. The murderer, be he man
or woman, I regarded as merely an instrument in the hand of that darker
impalpable horror which my father had named Shadow-of-Fear.
But Worthing laughed all such stuff to scorn. He set about hunting
for the manuscript among my father's papers, but it was missing. The
discovery of its loss set him darkly thinking; and one night when we
had been lying silently in bed for a while he suddenly sat up and said:
"It's all so ridiculously simple, Tommy, that I'm afraid there's a
catch in it somewhere."
"Simple?" I exclaimed.
"Look here," he replied, "just let's put together what we actually
know. Firstly, it's obvious your father was after that 'unhallowed
gold' as you call it. Secondly, the manuscript with the plan is
missing. There's evidence enough to piece out the whole story, except
the actual identity of the murderer. It's just that somebody else was
after that gold as well. He wanted the plan, and he's got it. If we
hang about here long enough we shall either be put out of the way or,
if we're clever enough to preserve our skins, we shall see the fellow
come back and in turn start hunting for the treasure."
It seemed absurdly clear as Worthing expounded it, but it didn't
satisfy me. Yet I couldn't explain to Worthing why it didn't satisfy
me, for it was merely that in my heart I felt there was something
darker and more mysterious than mere greed of gold that had laid my
father low. The story of the curse had got into my blood. Indeed it
had become a familiar strand woven into all my dreams and colouring my
very outlook on life. And this was but natural considering the fear
and mystery which had shadowed my short but eventful career, till the
unseen world had become as real to me as the seen.
Worthing continued, "How we are to find the murderer is another matter."
"Need we find him?" I asked, forgetting the fine vows I was used to
make when in Dirk's company. For my mind was brooding on the horror and
inexplicability of it all, and I thought it might be as well to wash my
hands of the unholy affair.
"The law demands it," was Worthing's characteristic reply. And he
explained what evidence we had and what clues we might follow. There
was the probable mark on the man's hand. Then too he must have been in
the neighbourhood of the _Snow Man_ when my father rushed back into
the fire. Probably he had been the cause of the fire itself. Again,
he had very likely been at Rancey Bridge when my father had sung the
verse bidding me to the tryst on the first of May. Then there was the
affair of the King's Man. My father himself had suggested that that was
a trick of his enemy's to put false blame upon him, and so bring down
the vengeance of the smugglers on his head. So Worthing went on; and if
the strange fear at my heart hadn't cried halt to the enquiry I should
have delighted in tracing the mystery and connecting it link by link.
But I couldn't throw off the feeling of awe which paralyzed my wits and
dulled my enthusiasm for revenge. In spite of the crying wound in my
heart I couldn't whip myself up into the mood for retaliation.
Meanwhile Dirk had been hanging idly round the _Dolphin_, his brig
lying out to sea, for he had taken it into his head to father me now
that I was left a homeless waif to face the world alone. He kept urging
me to join him on his vessel and learn the sailor's craft, and to tell
the truth I was only too anxious to go, for the call of the sea set my
blood dancing. But I couldn't leave Worthing, not at any rate until
I had satisfied his curiosity. And even when I thought he must know