Cursed be the treasure
that was opening around me. I think I was an apt pupil, and Dirk was
pleased enough with my progress; and more pleased with my behaviour, I
believe, for I was able to take my share of duty with the men, though
naturally I was treated with more leniency and consideration. And for
my part I was thankful to Dirk for setting me to labour with the rest,
rather than spoiling me as though I were either too small, or too much
of a gentleman to soil my hands. It wasn't long before I could stow a
royal single-handed, or do my trick at the wheel with the best.
But I mustn't dwell on this, for the brig _Revenge_ was all this while
bearing me away from the real scene of my story. Indeed, the story of
this time is Dirk's rather than mine, though there would be enough to
fill a book if it weren't clean out of the course of my narrative.
Suffice it to say that I grew bigger and stronger and browner. Also
for some months I was strangely subject to moods which puzzled even
myself. For though knowing I was behaving badly I would for days at
a stretch have no word for a soul on board, often scowling at Dirk
himself, when my heart was longing for the rough and kindly converse
that was customary between us. Sometimes too I felt forced against my
will to speak glumly and even angrily, for there seemed to be a stupid
crying at my heart, and I was mortally afraid that a kind word would
set me blubbering. So in self-defence I gave sharp words that sharp
words might be returned. At night when I was curled up in my blankets
I would sometimes cry myself to sleep, cursing myself for a baby,
but unable to restrain my tears. For at times a desolating sense of
loneliness overpowered me; the image of my father would rise before me,
and I would stretch out my arms to him to clasp but a mocking emptiness
of air. And then I would rock myself upon my bunk, that the noise might
cover the sound of my sobbing; and my thoughts would turn to Jenny, and
with the memory of her I would feel vaguely comforted and sink to sleep.
However, these moods were transitory merely, and little by little I
mastered them till gradually they became rare, and at last my spirit
came out into the sunshine. But I have recorded them because I think
they kept alive in me the fluttering purpose to be revenged upon my
own and Jenny's enemy. For it seemed to me that my sufferings were due
to the cloud that had clung about my childhood. The shadow of fear had
left my heart troubled and uncertain, and I felt there would be no real
peace for me till the evil were rotted right out of my life. And with
Jenny it was the same. Her life, too, would be perpetually darkened
unless I could clear her path as well as my own of the gloom that lay
upon it.
But my purpose became chastened from hate or revenge to one of duty,
till I felt that whether I would or not my destiny would call and I
would have to rise and meet it. So I kept my knife sharpened and my
pistol primed, and practised daily at both weapons till hand and eye
were as one thing working in unison.
And the days went by with sun and storm, and I increased in knowledge
of sailor-craft and in love and understanding of the sea.
However, Dirk's quest didn't seem to prosper. Watching his lips at
their continual and ominous chewing it seemed to me that he was
repeating to himself that old vow of his: "I'll follow him to the end
of the world, but I'll have his heart's blood." It seemed to me in my
ignorance that the end of the world couldn't be very far away. For we
passed from port to port always making south, and at length bore off
for the Cape and the stormy eastern seas. I saw the shores of India
and walked the streets of her bazaars, and learnt much of foreign
ports and ways. But always I saw Dirk's face grow darker with the evil
purpose at his heart still baulked and frustrated. I wondered if I,
too, should come to wear such a weight of gloom upon my brow before I
had accomplished my quest. Then unaccountably we bore back upon our
tracks and steered for home, Dirk still hot upon the trail, though what
the clue might be which he was following I couldn't guess, nor did I
greatly care to question. So with the passing of the winter and the
coming of the spring we were back in European waters, and steered one
morning into the bay of Naples.
And here my own story began again, for I came upon Picardino, who had
wandered home to his native land.
I had just made the purchase of a fine stiletto, and was seated in a
tavern sipping wine while I admired the tapering steel, when I heard
a voice suddenly break out into a ripple of song, and immediately I
remembered the minstrel of the _Snow Man_. I slipped the stiletto
under my waist-cloth, and turning cried, "Picardino!"
He actually stopped in his singing, and leaping towards me smothered me
with kisses, chattering his delight in such a race of mingled English
and Italian that I could scarcely follow a word of it, but guessed at
the meaning by the profuse and ardent embraces he treated me to.
It was some while before I could tear myself free. For the first
onslaught over he gazed at me for a moment, and then with a cry of
"Leetle Tommee!" returned to the attack.
Then he whisked me away to another tavern and up a dark flight of
stairs to a little room, evidently his lodging, into which he ushered
me as though I were a duke, bowing for me to enter. At length we were
seated, pledging each other in execrable wine, clinking glasses, and
drinking with faces almost touching. And nothing would satisfy him but
that I must tell my story. Where had I gone that night? What had I been
doing? And so on and so forth.
I told him as much as I thought he should know, merely referring to my
father by saying he was dead.
"Dead! Ahh!" he exclaimed, clapping a hand to his heart. "Yess, in the
fierr. That sad. And he such an arteest! Yess, how he play upon the
gueetarr! And you desolate, yess. How I see eet." Once more he flung
his arms about me and cried, "Ah, leetle Tommee, how you desolate! You
come with Picardino, yess?"
But I told him I was a sailor; and then he would have the story of my
wanderings. So I told him of Dirk, and how he was caring for me and
training me; though of course I said nothing of the purpose of our
voyage. I hinted that Dirk had been trading, which indeed was true too,
for Dirk had made it part of my education to show me about the booths
and markets of the East, and I had a stock of purchases on board by
which I hoped materially to increase my capital.
Then it was my turn to question Picardino, but so vigorously did he ply
me for more details of my life that it was no easy matter to edge in a
word about himself. However, at length I did manage to say, "Tell me,
Picardino, where did you vanish that night? And who was it chasing you?"
"Ah, Tommee"--he smiled knowingly--"that secret."
Then he leant forward, and whispering very quietly as though the affair
were a profound mystery he said, "Picardino know manee thing. He
travell heer and theer. Ladees they say heem, 'You speak my sweethearrt
thees and that,' and papas they angree. Yess, and eef they catch heem
eet ees no pleasant for Picardino. But he plentee love the ladees. Ah,
the sweet theengs they arre! He geeve much to caree message. Yess, eef
eet were hees blood."
He laid his hands across his heart with a theatrical gesture that
amused me; and yet he seemed earnest enough in his story. The
picture of the little minstrel wandering from hall to hall, carrying
love-messages from sweetheart to sweetheart and evading the wrath of
enraged papas was one that flattered my sense of the romantic.
He continued his story by telling me of all the wiles that the ladies
resorted to in getting their messages through to him, sometimes humming
a song that told its own tale, sometimes tossing him a coin with a
name scratched into it, sometimes speaking to him in the language of
flowers. It was amusing enough, and indeed I found a strange charm in
the sentimental glamour of his amorous adventures. He coloured his
stories with such an impassioned glow of whole-hearted appreciation
that I was carried off my feet, and wished that I too had a message for
him to carry to my sweetheart, or better still one to receive from him
from the lady of my love, imprisoned in a lonely tower by a tyrannous
papa.
However, it seemed that he wasn't always successful. He began to wax
melancholy because occasionally he failed to find some lost or erring
swain and bring him back to his lady-love. Even then he was in search
for more than one faithless truant, and he began to tell me of this and
that disloyal one he was still hunting for. Then of a sudden he broke
off, and looking at me in a strange enquiring way said, "Tommee! Why,
yess, eet was Tommee. But you grown. She say a leetle boy. You beeg as
Picardino; beeger. Ah, yess, I not theenk."
Before I was aware of what he was about he brushed his hand across my
forehead and smoothed back my hair, crying out with delight as he did
so, "Yess, eet ees. The scarr, as she say. Tommee, I have message for
you."
I was thrown into a violent flutter of emotion. It was so unexpected,
so incredible. That we should have been tossed together like this, I
from the East and he from the North, was strange enough in itself;
but that he should have a message for me, a message from Jenny, was a
wonder beyond belief.
"Tell me," I said, hardly able to form the words.
But before he would speak I had to endure his winks and nods and smiles
and sighing innuendoes of "Ah, the leetle boy! But he man of the
worrld! He have sweethearrt! Ah, that ees preetty, yess!"
But at last he told me the story. He had made a second visit to the
"beeg house" on the moors, in spite of his vow never to go near it
again. He shuddered as he mentioned the haunted place. However, this
time he had been civilly welcomed; and by his description of the
Captain with his kind fierce eyes, and of the "leetle gerrl with the
voice of a queen," I knew he wasn't deceiving me. "And the leetle
ladee...."
"Jenny," I cried.
"Jenny," he repeated. "Ah, that ees right. She send message to leetle
boy with scarr under the hairr. I say, 'Where I find heem?' She say,
'Hees name Tommee; you ask.' I shrug shoulderr and take message, for I
no can say no. She so decided leetle gerrl."
I laughed at the picture, for it was so like Jenny. She had sent me
forth on my quest in the same way, without a thought as to how I might
possibly succeed.
Picardino seemed to understand me, for he smiled and said, "Ah, you
know the mannerr, yess. But when she say Tommee I not think of my
Tommee. That foolish of me."
I can't report in full the rigmarole he treated me to. The heart of the
message was that I was to seek out Jenny in London. In London! I must
have been near her then before I had set out on this voyage. She wanted
me. I was to go to her at once. And the precious address was supplied.
At once! That was a year ago. In a dim dismay I wondered whether Jenny
would forgive me for deserting her so long. It seemed difficult to make
excuses to her.
However, she wanted me. I was in a glow of expectation at that. She
wanted me. And I was bound for England now, I believed. I would go
to her without delay. Eagerly I pressed Picardino for fresh details
of my little sweetheart, for I understood now the meaning of all the
strange turbulent shyness of the past year. I was a man of the world,
as Picardino had said. I had learnt something of the ways of men and
women. And I knew that the fermenting uneasiness that the thought of
Jenny had aroused in me meant merely that I loved her.
So with a heart in a maze of wonder and delight I took my leave of
Picardino, even returning his embraces with effusion. So kindly did