Cursed be the treasure
stand out in my memory with vivid distinctness, while the six or seven
years that followed have only left a general impression of their
progress. I can't possibly say where our wanderings led us, for my
father still seemed ill at ease if he lingered too long at one place.
But now they became less harassing. We didn't steal away at the dead
of night, and hide for days in the woods. We journeyed in comfort with
horses or by coach, and sheltered by the welcome of great inn fires.
I remember that this was a time of intensive education for me; not
so much in book-learning--though my father taught me my letters, and
was even anxious that I should master Latin--but rather in the arts
of hiding, tracking, and every kind of physical prowess. It seems to
me now that I had the training of a Redskin rather than of an English
boy; but I know I entered into it with relish, and pleased my father
by my precocious skill in climbing, in fighting with the knife, and
especially in swimming and diving.
We still kept up our tremendous games of hide-and-seek, stalking each
other across great stretches of country, and even taking refuge on
the sea. My father had a power of disguise which was baffling in its
completeness, and in hunting him I would frequently ask news of him
from some wayside beggar or passing carter to find afterwards that
I had been speaking to my father himself. But I soon found a way of
penetrating his disguises, because the scar of the burn and the knife
across his left hand betrayed him to me, and I learnt to suspect anyone
who hid his left hand or wore gloves. And this betraying mark was
disconcerting to him; not so much, I think, because it discovered him
to me, as because he was afraid that it might be a witness against him
when he needed concealment. He tried every means to cover the traces
of the tell-tale burn. The gash of the knife wasn't so serious as it
lay across the palm, and could be hidden by holding the hand half-shut.
But the scar of the burn spread over the back of his hand and up three
fingers. He devised stains and dyes and paints, and at last did manage
to cover the blemish from all but very curious eyes, but naturally
the treatment wasn't permanent, nor could it be applied in a hurry.
Generally he wore gloves.
I don't know to this day the route of our wanderings. My sense of
direction was usually good enough to tell me whether we were travelling
north or south, but actually where we were at any particular time I
seldom knew. Except when we returned to the Dolphin Inn. I knew that
through much acquaintance; for however far afield we strayed we were
sure to return to it sooner or later.
It was a tumble-down, neglected hostelry that seemed to have known
better days. I think its prosperity waned with the suppression of the
smugglers. For it lay so remote and in so wild a country that I can't
conceive how the patronage of the road alone could have ever maintained
it. Indeed, you had to be lost before you could find it. A straggling
path led up to it from a rocky shore through a dense patch of woodland,
and the only dwellings for miles were a few miserable fishermen's huts
and a forest shack or two.
But I was always glad to be back there, for the country was an ideal
playground for a boy trained as I had been. There was the wonderful
flitting life of the woods, secret and passionate, which stirred
something deep within me to a yearning sympathy. And then there was the
sea with its rocky wall where the great waves raced and burst, sucking
back down the green and clinging weeds to gather strength for a fresh
spring. I haunted the wild coast till I thought I knew every bay and
reach and pool, and where one could venture at low water, and where the
cliffs could be scaled. And my father was pleased beyond measure and
encouraged me in my explorations, greeting me as I scrambled back for a
late supper with, "Well, Tommy, what have you found to-day?"
But I never seemed to find what he was sending me in search of; for
that there was something hidden on that coast for which he was hunting
I soon began to realize.
The night was almost as wonderful as the day. For first came my lesson
in fighting with the knife, a time of glorious excitement. In our
combats we used folded lengths of paper so that we could fight with
vigour but without danger of accidents. What added zest to the game
was that my father had promised me a shiny new knife of my own when I
had succeeded in hitting him three times over the heart. I remember
my dancing exultancy when I scored my first success, but after that
he became more cautious, and the second blow was more difficult of
attainment. And then when we had finished our combat came the hour of
the evening story.
The days at the Dolphin Inn were never long enough for me, and the only
time, I think, when I really felt resentment against my father was when
he announced that we must be away again. I could see no reason for it.
I had begun to understand that once--and long enough ago it seemed
to me now--my father had been pursued by some strange and relentless
enemy; but, I reasoned, wasn't that enemy safely dead? The only answer
that I received from my father when I put the question to him was the
somewhat enigmatic, "Ghosts, Tommy."
"Ghosts?" I said inquiringly.
"Sometimes the dead will rise," he announced in his hushed, mysterious
voice, "and sometimes," he added, "the dead will leave the living
behind them."
All I could gather was that he was vaguely uneasy that the pursuer was
still on his track, though there had been no whisper of it for several
years. For once after a long reverie he suddenly roused himself, and
looking keenly at me said, "Tommy, was he lying still?"
I didn't understand; and repeated, "Still, daddy?"
He laughed a little, realizing the incomprehensibility of his question;
and taking me by the shoulders he said slowly, "Now think, Tommy. When
we left him in the hut, was he lying still?"
"He?" I said. "You mean she, daddy?"
"Ah, she," he laughed, "the old witch, Bite-in-the-Dark."
Now the picture was very clear in my mind that the old crone was
not lying still as we broke away from the blaze; and as my father
asked me the question I could see her, with infinite pain, slowly
dragging herself along the floor. My imagination, alarmed probably
by the intensity of my father's eagerness, must have exaggerated the
impression, for I could almost picture her crawling from the door. But
all I said was, "No, daddy; I saw her move."
"Ha!" he exclaimed, turning away; and then swinging round added
impressively, "Tommy, always make sure."
"But, daddy," I cried, "is she still alive? Will she find us?"
"No, no, Tommy," he answered easily, patting my head, "she can't be
alive. But," he added, "I haven't seen her ghost."
I took him to mean that he couldn't be certain of her death till he had
seen her disembodied spirit; a theory that seemed by no means fantastic
to me; for it was part of my conception of ghosts that they would haunt
their murderers.
And that closed the subject. Except that I was puzzled and disturbed;
firstly because I didn't quite understand my father's reference to
ghosts, and secondly because he had spoken of the old witch as he.
Was he thinking of Shadow-of-Fear, or was it indeed a man that we had
killed?
However, we set off again on our wanderings, and I eagerly looked out
for signs of the return to the Dolphin Inn, for I loved the place above
all others that I knew, and I wanted to find what the secret was which
my father was trying to unravel.
Now the signs of the return to the _Dolphin_ were two. One was the
approach of summer, and the other was that my father would begin to
grow a beard. For elsewhere he went clean-shaven, but to the _Dolphin_
he always masked his face in a thick black barbous growth which I
suppose was his particular disguise for that corner of the world. So
when I saw the razor had been laid aside, and my father's face changed
from white to blue, and gradually sank concealed beneath a stubbly
brush of beard and whisker, I knew we should soon be tramping back
to the beloved _Dolphin_. And I was more excited than usual at the
prospect. Perhaps my spirit could scent the coming adventures from
afar; or perhaps merely I was beginning to delight in my precocious
strength of body; for though barely turned thirteen I had the girth of
a boy of fifteen. And with the summer we were there again, and I took
up the thread of my life where I had laid it down, initiating what was
to be a memorable season by scoring the second stroke of the three that
were to win me my knife.
We had one room at the _Dolphin_, up a flight of stairs and below us
was the great kitchen which served as bar for the few odd fishermen who
formed almost the only patrons of the inn. Occasionally rougher men
from over-sea would break the sleepy quiet of the place. Where they
hailed from I didn't know, and didn't seek to enquire. They seemed
fierce folk, but kindly enough, tossing huge jests at each other which
I didn't understand, but which were always greeted by immense bursts
of throaty laughter. We could hear them through the floor of our room
if we lay with our ears to the boards; and I remember that whenever
they came my father used to vanish during the day, leaving me to my own
devices.
Not that I ever saw much of these swarthy strangers, for they came
with the morning and vanished with the night; and my father, in that
impressive way he knew so well how to employ, warned me to keep well
to the windward of them. But once in my ramblings I came face to face
with old Dirk Stormaway, whom I had always taken to be the chief of the
mysterious band. My first thought was that I had blundered inexcusably,
for it was part of my training to scent instinctively the presence of a
stranger, and here I had tumbled almost into his arms, not in the least
aware of his nearness to me. He thrust out a huge hand and seized me by
the shoulder, gazing deep into my eyes with a savage intentness which I
returned with interest.
"Wull," he drawled slowly, "an' who be ye?"
Now among the few precepts my father had drilled into me was one never
to be disconcerted in an unexpected crisis, and another was to meet
danger with a smile. So I answered with a child's impertinence, "Maybe
I'm my father's son."
He was chewing something mechanically in his mouth, and at my answer
he turned his head and spat, and I thought I saw the least of wrinkles
pucker the furrows round his eyes.
At length, "Yus," he said, "an' wull you may be." And after a pause he
added, "An' who's your father?"
"Maybe," I began; but the light in his eyes hardened, and his grip
tightened, as though to warn me there was danger in carrying a joke too
far. Instinct told me that the answer direct was the safest course now;
and I said, "He's the gentleman at the inn."
"Heh!" was the reply; but the hand still held me, and the chewing
didn't stop.
"An' what's he doing hereabouts, anyway?" was the next question.
Now this was disconcerting, for to tell the truth I didn't know, and
my father hadn't enlightened me. Also I began to suspect that under
the circumstances the truth might be dangerous knowledge. For that my
father was hunting diligently on the trace of some secret I had assumed
as a fact by now. And might it not be that the secret was somehow
connected with these men? Didn't he always vanish when they appeared?
I felt myself shaken, and the eyes were fiercely fixed on me from under
the man's savage brows. "Come now; what's he doing hereabouts?" he
repeated; adding, "An' see here, kiddy, if ye don't tell me the truth
on't an' no humbug, I'll crack your back like a stick." His other arm
came out, and I felt myself slowly bending in his tremendous hands.