Cursed be the treasure
I broke out on to the open sands without caution, and before I could
retrieve my error I saw Dirk in front of me. I started back into
hiding, but I heard his voice call me sharply. I went slowly up to him,
hanging my head, for he had discovered my truancy, and I feared he
would be bitterly angry with me.
Without a word he gripped me savagely by the arm and strode me down to
his boat where it tossed at anchor at the water's edge.
"My clothes," I said, not wanting to be stranded with the ragged things
I had on.
He said no word, but pushed me forward. And there in the boat lay my
own clothes in a bundle. Then he knew all about my escapade.
I was dismissed to my bunk immediately we arrived on board. I heard
the anchor hauled in, and the sails run up, and felt the wind take the
canvas and swing us out to sea.
I was troubled at Dirk's silence. I expected him to be angry with me,
for I had disobeyed him. I knew too that I should be punished. But he
seemed more than angry, as though I had done him a personal injury.
Well, the morning would bring forth what it might. I was used to living
in the hour, and I was soon asleep, rocked by the swaying of the brave
ship as she rose to the waves and cut through the furrows.
In the morning I was tied to the mast, and had my first taste of the
rope's end. But I knew it was only just, and though the pain was
terrible I bore Dirk no ill will. When I was released he sent for me,
and looking me steadily in the eyes, said, "Wull, Tommy, kid, that's
that. You've lost me a precious day. He's not in this quarter no
longer. I must seek otherwhere. But you've given him a start."
I began to protest my repentance, but he cut in, "You've taken your
gruelling. Here's my hand."
CHAPTER XXIV
THOMAS GARTH PLAYDEN
It was in London itself where I next set foot on land. Dirk marched me
away to a riverside lodging where he seemed well known, and handing
me some money gave me my freedom for the day, but told me to return
without fail every evening at six, for he didn't know when he would
need to be under way again. I promised faithfully not to fail him,
and he merely gave my arm a little extra squeeze as he repeated his
command, knowing quite well, I think, that I had learnt my lesson too
thoroughly to put myself in fault any more.
So I trotted away to find Worthing. But what with the wonder of the new
sights, the strange confusion of the streets, the stupefying hubbub
of the traffic and the crowds, it was a long time before I reached
the city and hunted out the office of Worthing's uncle. And even then
I was afraid to enter. Everything within looked so neat and orderly,
though dismally dark and stuffy, that I became acutely conscious of
my ungainly seafaring apparel, though I was no longer dressed in the
jersey of the fisherman's boy. But about this time I began to be
aware of my own appearance, and felt a confused shame if my clothes
didn't sit well upon me. So I peeped within, and then looked down at
myself, realizing how my wrists stuck out from the short sleeves of
my jacket; and I was ashamed to enter. I slunk away, but presently
coming across a clothier's, after long hesitation and much passing
and repassing of the stall, I at length made the plunge and demanded a
suit of shore-going apparel. That led to a visit to a barber's where
reluctantly I sacrificed my incipient sailor pig-tail which I had begun
to cultivate with romantic zest.
However, all this is rather needless detail. I soon found myself
trimmed up in a costume that satisfied my sense of the elegant and
the decorous, and returning to the office didn't hesitate this time,
but boldly marching in asked if I might see Worthing Bright. I was
shown into a tiny inner room where I saw my friend perched up at a
ridiculously high desk, a quill behind his ear, and busily scanning an
imposing document. In the moment before he turned round I inhaled such
a lungful of musty air smelling of dust and damp and old leather that I
wondered how he could remain there more than five minutes without being
sick.
At the announcement of my name he pivoted round on his stool, and at
the sight of me dropped the document to the desk, and jumped to the
floor. In a trice we were shaking each other by the hand, beaming our
joy at the reunion.
It was lunch-time, so Worthing whisked me away to an ordinary, and over
a savoury pie and a mug of porter we chatted of our doings. At least I
did, for Worthing didn't have much to say for himself, though I managed
to screw from him the story of the way he had rescued me from Rancey
Bridge. He was able to laugh at the affair now, though something of the
indignity he had suffered still seemed to rankle at his pride. But all
I learnt fresh was that being in the confidence of the Doctor he had
discovered where my knife and pistol were kept, and so had been able to
steal them and bring them to me. He added no comment; and the rest I
knew.
He shrugged at the affair, and dismissed it; but he was excited at
my own particular business. However, he soon calmed down to his usual
sedate self-control, and told me something of his progress in the
solution of the mystery. He had been going into the whole affair,
and his uncle was as keen as himself to unravel the thing, and was
absent even then following up the clue; and though he wouldn't give
me particulars he hinted that the matter was taking on a proportion
that promised to make it of unique interest in the history of crime.
"In fact, Tommy," he said, "I'm afraid your dad's very much in the
background. We're after higher game."
All this wasn't of much comfort to me. I felt a little hurt that
Worthing could so far forget my loss in the mere thrill of the legal
triumph that he declared lay before him. But I knew his nature. The
human counted for little, the legal for much. Indeed, apart from his
friendship with me I don't think he had a tie to bind him to humanity.
He had set my own personal affairs in order, I soon found. My father
had left, not a fortune indeed, but a competence which with husbanding
would yield an income sufficient to guarantee independence. So at least
Worthing assured me, though the figures which he set down for me in
orderly columns conveyed exactly nothing to me. I asked him to look
after the whole thing, and to let me have money when I wanted it. As
for me, I intended to study seamanship under Dirk.
At this Worthing frowned slightly as though considering the matter;
then drawing out a document he studied it carefully, and at last said
that he thought that would do. It seemed that my father had stipulated
that I was to apprentice myself to some profession, or, if I preferred,
to continue at school till I was seventeen and then proceed to a
university. But the thought of a scholastic career for a fellow like
myself sent me into a roar of laughter.
I needn't detail all the legal business that had to be transacted.
There were documents to sign of whose contents I was blissfully
ignorant, and lawyers and magistrates to visit; but Worthing steered
me safely through the confusing processes. I remembered how my father
had said that Worthing was the kind of fellow to have for a friend.
Evidently his dying thought turning towards me had been that Worthing
would care for me if he left the whole matter in his hands. The matter
was tangled enough too; for my father had no discoverable relations,
and there seemed some difficulty in proving my identity. His money had
been left in a lump sum at a goldsmith's who knew no more of him than
his face and his signature. When in need of funds my father had called
personally and taken what he wanted from the store. However, at last I
found myself master of the inheritance, and entrusting it to Worthing
was assured that I might count on a yearly income of a few hundred
pounds; for he invested the money for me, and saw the deeds safely
banked in my name.
He also handed me some papers of my father's: fragments of poems and
stories for the most part, which I laid aside to examine at my leisure.
The most curious thing to me was the discovery that I really had a
name. Of course at school I had had an appendage dangling in the rear
of Tommy, but I had paid little heed to it, and cannot now remember
what it was. Now I found I had a real name of my own, and felt
extraordinarily elated at the discovery. I could sign myself Thomas
Garth Playden.
But amazing as this discovery was, it was even more amazing to learn
that my father, who hadn't even had a Christian name that I knew of,
had been Walter Noel Playden, Esq. I couldn't reconcile myself to it.
It seemed so utterly foolish to think of my father otherwise than as
Daddy. He was associated in my mind with everything romantic and
mysterious, and should have been nameless to the end of time. To fix
him with a title like this was to strip him of the glamour that had
always clouded him about like a glory. He was no longer an emanation
from the pages of a wonderful tale, but merely a creature of flesh
and blood who clothed himself like another and fed on bread and meat.
It was indeed the first blow levelled at the illusions that had clung
about my childhood. With a name of my own, and with a father who also
had his individual title, I took my first step out of Fairyland into
the world of men and women.
CHAPTER XXV
JENNY SENDS A MESSAGE
My affairs were hardly settled before I was whirled away to sea again.
One day when I reached my lodging a minute before the stroke of six,
puffing, for I had been running so as not to be late, I found a message
from Dirk bidding me to make haste aboard. I gathered up my few
belongings and ran for the quay, and it wasn't many minutes after my
clambering aboard that the anchor was hauled in and we were under way.
I learnt next day from Dirk that he had just missed his quarry again.
I thought I detected a suggestion of an accusation in his voice, and I
cried out, "Oh, Dirk, I'm so sorry."
"Tush, kid, that business is settled," he said sharply.
But I believed that if it hadn't been for my disobedience on the Rancey
he would have run his man to earth by now. However, it seemed that he
had escaped. He had even left the country, and Dirk couldn't hazard a
guess where he might be bound for.
"Slippery he is," said Dirk. "Knows all the tricks, and a few more
besides. But I'll have him, Tommy, I'll have him."
I don't think I was very enthusiastic for Dirk's success. The matter
left me rather cold. And yet I myself was bound, not on one quest
of vengeance, but on two. There was my pledge to Jenny to fulfill;
though how in the world I was to fulfill it I didn't know. And there
was my father's murderer to hunt down, though Worthing seemed to have
shouldered the responsibility for that.
It was a strange position that often set me fretfully brooding. I was
but a boy, with a nature naturally responding to affection and gaiety
and beauty, yet with the burden of two lives upon me that I was to
track down and destroy. At times I felt that the thing was too absurd.
I was under a delusion. Even my father's death began to grow unreal,
till I wondered whether I hadn't merely dreamed the whole fantastic
thing. I should have been glad enough to have awakened one morning to
find it had all been a nightmare, and that my real life was just this
wonder of sea-beauty about me, as the ship sped on day after day like a
white bird, driving down into the south, with the skies growing bluer
and bluer, till their wealth of colour was like a solemn song at my
heart, very deep and holy.
Indeed, I gave myself up to the delight of this wonderful new world