Cursed be the treasure
rising. "But you're not running away again, are you?"
"I must go back to Dirk," I said.
"Dirk, eh?" he repeated.
"I'm under orders," I explained. "I must report every night."
"Tush!" he cried impatiently, "That's over now. You come and live with
me, laddie." Then he looked sharply at me and in a low voice, "You
don't bear me ill-will, Tommy, do you?"
I knew of what he was thinking, and the pain in his voice hurt me like
a physical wound. I gripped his hand and explained as well as I could
that I was under some kind of bond, owing to my father's will, to
apprentice myself to a profession, and I had taken Dirk as my master
and must obey him.
"Right, quite right," said the Captain, evidently recognizing the
necessity of the position, but still feeling for some way to evade
it. After a moment he said, "Well, I reckon you've served your
apprenticeship; and, as for money, you needn't worry your mind about
that. You leave Dirk and come to me. I dare say I can teach you a thing
or two."
"Can you take me to sea?" I asked.
At that he smiled rather sadly, and answered, "Well, no, I should think
my sailing days are done."
He sat down, and with his head in his hands seemed to be musing
regretfully.
I told him where I was lodging, and promised to come as often and stay
as late as I could. He glanced across at Jenny, and said, "Yes, I'd lay
you'll do that right enough, laddie." We shook hands cordially, and his
last words were, "You see, you're always running away from me, Tommy. I
never know where to lay hands on you. You frighten me, my boy. I like
to have you near me."
He seemed strangely moved. I remembered Worthing telling me how
disturbed he had been when he had heard of my escape from Rancey Bridge.
As I said good night to Jenny she stopped me at the door to say, "And
you've really killed him, Tommy?"
"Yes," I said.
"Sure?" she asked, fixing me steadily with her eyes,
"Sure," I replied confidently.
"Oh, Tommy!" she sighed, lifting her face to mine. I kissed her. Then
she slipped away from me, and smiling roguishly cried: "There, good
night. Little boys should be in bed."
So I walked away to my lodging in a dream.
* * * * *
I learnt later why she had enquired so seriously as to whether I was
sure I had accomplished my task. It seemed that once before she had
thought I had fulfilled the mission. Her father had grown wonderfully
cheerful, and she had imagined that at last the terror must have been
lifted from his life. His moving to London had seemed to her a sign
that the evil days were over, and that he could come out of hiding. It
was just before the removal that Picardino had appeared, and she had
given him the message that had reached me at Naples.
I asked her whether she had been angry with me for not obeying her
summons. She replied that she had been so angry that if at last I
had come to her she wouldn't have spoken to me for it had seemed to
her that there was nothing to keep me from her as the task had been
fulfilled; and even without a summons I should have returned to her.
But then she had learnt the reason of my delay. For somehow her father
had been deceived into a false assurance of safety. The enemy had risen
up against him once more.
Poor little Jenny had had a terrible time, for Abou had begged to be
sent back to his own people as his master didn't seem to need him now;
so when the evil had arisen afresh Jenny had been left alone to tend
a half-mad father. He had refused to go back to Sunset Towers without
Abou to take care of him. He had remained in London, determined to face
out the persecution and take what might befall. Jenny had comforted
herself by saying that I must be on the man's track, and some day would
assuredly run him to earth. At that I felt very guilty, for all this
while I had been gaily sailing the seas with Dirk without a notion in
my head as to how my mission was to be accomplished.
However, a few days before my arrival a complete change had come over
the Captain, and Jenny had told herself, that at last I had been
successful. And then she told me she knew I would soon be home again;
and somehow her confidence in me was inexpressibly delicious.
So I spent the days with Jenny; but all that we said to each other,
however precious in my own memory, would be of little interest to
others; and at any rate it doesn't concern the story I have set myself
to tell. It is enough to say that we were wonderfully happy together,
though the words I wanted to speak always seemed to catch at my throat,
yet when alone I could be eloquent enough on the theme of my passion.
Also the Captain fathered me with an overflowing affection which left
no doubt in my mind that when Jenny and I stepped out of girl- and
boyhood nothing would please him better than the fulfilment of the
dream with which I flattered my own heart.
* * * * *
I'm afraid I forgot Worthing for a time. It wasn't until the third or
fourth day that I stepped out for the city to look him up. Even so it
was a duty call, for I grudged every minute away from Jenny. I think I
was relieved when I learnt he was away.
Jenny told me he had called on her father a long time ago. It was
while she was waiting for me to come back to her, and she had told
Worthing what she thought of my desertion. He had smiled darkly at her
when she declared she would never speak to me again; and indeed he had
so angered her that she had stamped her foot at him and told him she
believed it was he himself who was keeping me away from her.
"I was like that," she said simply enough, as she told me the story. "I
was a silly girl, wasn't I, Tommy?" Words thronged to my lips in such
a gush of protestation that I stuttered stupidly and couldn't utter a
coherent syllable. She went on with a laugh, "And he said to me in such
a strange way, 'I _am_ keeping him from you,' and walked away and left
me."
I thought nothing of it, partly because I was too intent upon Jenny
herself, and partly because I knew the reserved, bitter way in which
Worthing chose to disguise his real thoughts.
That was all I learnt of Worthing, for Jenny hadn't seen him since.
* * * * *
A few days later I made my way to the city a second time. I remember
Dirk had changed our lodging that same morning, owing to a rather nasty
brawl. There was a strange excitement among the clerks in the office
when I went in and enquired if Worthing had returned yet. The senior
clerk took me gravely aside, and speaking confidentially said: "You
were his friend, I think?"
"Yes," I replied, in unaccountable alarm at something sinister in the
tone of his voice.
"Yes," he repeated, stroking his chin. Then suddenly looking me in the
eyes, and laying a hand very gently on my shoulder, he said sadly,
"He's dead," and as I started back, "Dead," he repeated, "and the
master too. They were found murdered in a boat at Naples."
CHAPTER XXIX
ALONE
To say that the news stunned me would merely be to use an empty
conventional phrase. Not even the shock of my father's death had so
dislocated my whole power of thought and association. My father, I
had always known, lived continually under the shadow of danger. For a
hand to reach for him out of the dark was a chance I had long reckoned
into the scheme of things. The sudden blow had struck merely at my
heart of love. It had been desolating, but not bewildering. And that
was last year. But now I waded in a mist of baffling and unreasonable
extravagances. I was like a thing blind-folded, and set to find my
way through a tangled maze, with voices crying to me conflicting
directions, walls suddenly confronting me where there had seemed to be
an open space, hands pushing me away when I thought I had stumbled on
to a path at last. There seemed no motive, no coherence, no unity, in
the chaos about me. Nothing tangible offered itself to my distracted
clutching. All was fluid, impalpable, as though the world had shifted
its centre, throwing everything into a false relation and perspective.
Where I fed and slept during the days that followed I don't remember.
I suppose I must have wandered mechanically to my lodging every night,
and found my way to some tavern when my appetite prompted me to do
so, without any governance or bidding of my brain. All that is clear
to me is that I haunted the office, gleaning detail upon detail of
the tragedy, hoping with a waning but desperate hope that somewhere
there was an error, that all would come right at last. But from the
first word I knew full well that all would not come right. Worthing was
dead. He had been murdered. It was I myself who had murdered him. Still
I refused to listen to the steady voice within me which day by day
repeated so dully and so obstinately, "You have killed him, you have
killed him." I fought against it, and sometimes shouted wildly to drown
its insistent burden, or rushed away into the streets with my hands at
my ears, till I wonder I wasn't arrested and locked up as a madman. But
the truth had to be faced at last. With every fresh detail, as the news
came slowly through, I felt the fearful reality of the thing closing
about me like the grip of some slow, cruel animal gloating at my pain.
At last I ceased to haunt the office. I knew all I was likely to
know, and I would have given my life to have known nothing. Some
papers were stuffed into my hands, I remember; for Worthing had been
managing my affairs, and now I must find another to steer me through
the legal maze. But just then my helplessness didn't trouble me. It
was the dreadful knowledge that I had killed my friend which stung
me like a stabbing dagger, goading me out of the heavy lethargy that
might mercifully have numbed my feelings, and teasing me to a constant
realization of the maddening truth.
I didn't dare visit Jenny. Indeed I felt a horror at the thought of
ever seeing her again. It was for her I had murdered Worthing. I didn't
blame her; but somehow there seemed to me an unholy fate binding us
together, and unless I could tear myself free even darker consequences
would ensue. There was a bond of blood between us. To think of her even
was to awaken a bitter cry in my heart, an echo as it were from another
world of a reproach I couldn't bear. For Jenny was like a living
monument of the evil I had done. With her image in my mind I was for
ever whipped back to that night at Naples, forced to deal again that
dreadful blow through knowing now whose life it was I was stabbing out
of the world.
I think Dirk must have been away for some days, for I don't remember
his questioning me on the strange shadow that had so suddenly darkened
my life. If he had been at my lodging he couldn't but have seen that
something desperately wrong had taken place. It wasn't till I had
regained something of my self-control that I remember seeing him
again. Then he eyed me wonderingly as though enquiring the cause of my
strangeness. I think he must have told himself some early love affair
had upset me, for he smiled knowingly, and talked about girls being the
devil, declaring they weren't worth a broken heart, nor yet a sleepless
night even. I let him think what he would, and kept my own counsel. I
didn't dare tell him the truth, for he would say the blame was his,
as indeed to some extent it was; for if he hadn't rescued me, as he
imagined, I should soon have been freed of the gag about my face, and
then Worthing would have recognized me, and all would have been well.
So I kept away from Dirk as much as I could. It was easy enough, for he
seemed to be hot on the trail again. I wandered off by myself, though