Cursed be the treasure
where I used to get to I don't know. Then I began to try to piece the
mystery together, but little enough could I fit consistently. I knew
now that my first surmise had been correct: I had been mistaken for my
father's murderer, for it was obvious that Worthing wouldn't knowingly
have treated me as he had done. There would have been no sense in it.
I couldn't help complaining bitterly at the amazing ill luck, as it
seemed, which had taken me to Naples just when Worthing happened to
have traced his quarry there. Of course he couldn't have dreamt of my
presence; and I had grown, and my face was tanned brown; his uncle had
never seen me before, and in the boat when Worthing had first looked
upon me my face was half covered with the gag. All this seemed like a
deliberate trick of some malignant devil of fate, and I felt the weight
of the old curse bear heavily upon me like a burden.
Beyond this I could establish little to my satisfaction. How Worthing
had obtained the manuscript I couldn't think. I supposed he had stolen
it from the murderer, and was using it to show he knew what he was
about. But what puzzled me was that he had seemed to suggest that there
was some piece of information he wanted for which he was willing to
allow my father's murderer to escape. He had wanted, in fact, to learn
the mystery of the treasure cave. Why? I asked myself. I couldn't
believe he had been led away from his quest by the lure of gold.
There must be something deeper underlying it all, something which lay
concealed in the earth which to Worthing was of greater importance even
than the dragging to justice of a murderer. It must be something of
rare importance, I argued, if it were worth such a prize, for I knew
his enthusiasm for justice--which to him was like a physical passion.
And there my reason stayed. But I knew enough to realize I hadn't yet
fulfilled the quest Jenny had set me on. At first it had seemed like
an exquisite piece of irony that I had been searching for her father's
enemy only to learn that all the while I had been tracking down my own
friend. But now I knew I had killed my friend for nothing. My father's
murderer and the Captain's persecutor were still at large. I thought
by Worthing's story they were probably the same man, but I had paid
a terrible price for that little piece of information. So with the
wretched thought at my heart that I had killed my friend, severed
myself from my sweetheart, and had all my work still before me, I felt
utterly weary and deserted, an outcast of fortune, alone in an evil
world.
Little by little, of course I came to face up to the thing. I was no
longer the boy I had been even a year ago when my father had been
killed. I had seen the world since then; I had developed in mind and
body. I think my love for Jenny had helped to give me something of a
man's outlook and self-reliance, though I was still far enough from the
years of manhood. I knew I must take my life into my hands, not mope
stupidly and aimlessly, hoping for something to come to my aid from
Heaven knew where. With the growth of this resolution to see the thing
through I began to turn over the papers I had been given, and to dip
here and there into my father's writings, thinking I might come upon
some clue which would lead me to the heart of the mystery. For I knew
now there would be no peace for me till the evil ghost was laid.
So I turned over the pages, but my mind was still too distracted for
clear thinking, and I learnt little. Then I began to long for Jenny
again, though I knew I mustn't see her. For I had told her that her
father's enemy was dead, that I had killed him, and now I knew he
was still alive, and possibly was already casting his evil snares
once again about the Captain's life. I couldn't face Jenny till I had
really freed her father from his foe. I remembered my father's words,
"Always make sure, Tommy." If he had made sure that night in the hut,
if I hadn't fired into the mirror at Sunset Towers, if I had but torn
aside the mask before I had dealt the fatal blow at Naples!... But such
considerations were clean from the purpose and only left me limp and
dejected, speculating on what might so easily have been, and crying
against the strangling fatality which seemed to have my whole life in
its evil grip. All I knew for certain was that my father's murderer,
the Captain's enemy, was still alive, and I mustn't see Jenny again
until I had killed him beyond all shadow of doubt.
Yet I couldn't keep quite away. I began to wander at night in front of
the tall dark house, and then took to going round to the garden at the
back, where I soon found I could climb the wall and watch the light in
a window up above which somehow I knew must be Jenny's. I used to hide
in a great rhododendron bush and fix my eyes on that light, telling
myself that to-morrow I would pack up my dunnage and make tracks for
the _Dolphin_, and search the coast as I had never searched it before
till I had unravelled the whole tangled mystery. I thought I might even
lie in wait for my enemy there, for Worthing had said the fellow would
be sure to turn up sooner or later as evidently he was in search of the
treasure. But though I kept telling myself I would go the next day, I
was always back at my post watching the light in Jenny's window. And
the summer was half spent.
But one night I was rewarded for my vigil. For Jenny pulled aside her
blind, and I heard her brokenly sighing my name. It wasn't till then
that I realized that she must be in a torment of distress at my sudden
desertion of her. I had been so engrossed with my own troubles that
I hadn't thought of hers. I would have broken cover and called up to
her, but at that moment I heard a door open, and a dark figure slipped
noiselessly out of the house. A voice was saying in the suave kind
tones I knew so well, "Courage, my master. Did I not hear you call me,
and I at the end of the world? Yes, and I will come to you again, be
assured."
The Captain replied brokenly out of the shadows, "Oh, Abou, Abou!"
So Abou was back again. His wonderful instinct had told him his master
was in trouble and needed him. I wondered if he had been back long.
Perhaps it was his coming that had set the Captain's mind at rest,
whereas I had thought it was the news of the Naples murder which I had
assumed he must have heard in some way. The thought was but a flash in
my mind, for the Captain went on, "You will find him, Abou, and bring
him back. Tell him, tell him I will be his father. Tell him.... But
what can I say? Boys don't care for that sort of thing. But I love the
bairn, Abou, and I want him back."
"You shall have him, my master," said Abou, and glided away, while I
crouched motionless not daring to breathe.
Then the Captain came out into the garden and strolled up and down a
turn or two muttering my name. I knew I had but to come from my hiding
to be welcomed back into that house with open arms. Yet I knew I
mustn't go. It would be under false pretences. First I must accomplish
my task.
I waited till the Captain had retired, shooting the bolts behind the
closed door before I crept from cover and cautiously made my escape. My
heart was bitterly sore at the thought of all the love I was leaving:
the Captain wanting me back as though I were his son, yet unable to
frame a message for me, thinking I might make fun of his affection, and
doubtless wondering why I had changed my lodging without sending him
word; and my little Jenny perhaps crying herself to sleep with my name
on her lips, her pride broken by longing and anxiety and doubt. My own
eyes were none too dry, nor was my breathing very certain, as I slipped
back to my lodging and hastily packed my knapsack. Then heedless of
Dirk's injunctions I stepped out into the night before my resolution
should waver, and set forth once more for the _Dolphin_ and the mystery
that lay like a shadow of blood over the wonderful coast about Ebb-Tide
Pool.
CHAPTER XXX
DRIFT-WOOD CAVERN
The sight of the familiar scene where I had spent so many happy
summers, and where I had received one desolating blow, seemed to clear
and steady my mind. Sometimes I would remember only the passionate
hours of climbing and swimming I had known there, and would revert
to the delighted boy I had been not so very long ago. But always the
shadow would fall about me again; yet, although it toned down my joy at
being back in the country of my heart, it didn't cloud me from a steady
pursuing of the purpose I had set myself to accomplish.
First of all I re-explored every nook and cranny I had ever visited;
and that alone was the work of some days. I reserved Drift-Wood Cavern
for the last, intending to devote all my energies to tracing it to its
source when once I had satisfied myself that there was nothing else to
learn from the coast to either side of it. In the evenings I sat up
by the open window, or, when darkness had fallen, by the light of my
lamp, studying the papers my father had left behind him. The priest's
manuscript was of little use to me. Its drenching in the sea hadn't
increased its clarity, and as I understood little Latin the text was
of no help. I turned to the map, and tried to wrest the secret from
it; but you can't get the secret from a thing which isn't there. The
fragment that held the clue simply didn't exist, and it was impossible
to reconstruct it except with baseless imaginings.
My father's papers didn't help me much. They were mostly fragments of
stories and poems. It was a sad thing to sit by my lamp night after
night as my father had done before me, and read over those scraps of
broken literature, feeling in every line the marvellous promise and
powers that had been frittered so idly away. Young as I was, I was
judge enough to recognize the work of a master story-teller, and even
the authentic ring of poetry, in the unfinished sketches before me.
Though I tried to remain loyal to my father's memory I couldn't prevent
the cry from rising to my heart, "Oh dad, dad, why did you waste your
days hunting for that accursed treasure when you might have been among
the greatest writers of the land?"
Of the stories I sorted out those which seemed to be based in any way
on the one great story of the hidden gold. Yet even so I couldn't learn
much, for my father modified his facts for dramatic effect, heightening
the colours here and omitting the lesser links of the narrative
elsewhere, so that I couldn't piece together anything consecutive.
Indeed my father's purpose, so I judged, hadn't been to write a
connected history. Elements of the affair appealed to him first in this
light and then in that, and he had transmuted them into imaginative
sketches, suggesting an underlying basis in fact, but misleading in
detail.
There was one story which appealed to me particularly, and it was the
only one which could be called complete. It appealed to me because it
reminded me of the night at Sunset Towers when my father had told the
story of the cursing of the treasure and the terrible fulfilment of the
curse. Here was a tale evidently based on the priest's confession. The
setting was much the same as that of the story I knew, yet there were
details which showed that my father had in mind not only the valley of
the tombs but the coast-line round the _Dolphin_, and so the incidents
were brought more vividly home to me than they would otherwise have
been. First there was an account of the discovery of the treasure by
a party of adventurers; but when half of it had been safely brought
to the light a quarrel broke out, and the Captain of the band found
himself standing almost alone against a mutinous crew. But he was a