Cursed be the treasure
of a cat, was far nimbler and subtler than either Dirk or my father.
I found myself breathing heavily as he leapt in and closed with me,
and bounded back and in again before I had well recovered from the
first assault. He kept me dancing to right and left and backwards and
forwards without a moment's pause, till the upshot of the fight became
at first sadly uncertain and then terribly sure. I knew that sooner or
later he must slip past my guard; and since that first mistake of his
I hadn't once touched him. Gradually I lost the power of reasoning the
situation. At first I had been alert enough, judging for the spring in,
watching for the attack; but now I found myself mechanically dodging
and parrying, till at last I wondered what possessed him not to drive
in and settle the unequal combat. He seemed to be merely playing with
me, for I knew that my life was in his hands. Was he afraid of Dirk's
vengeance if he should kill me? And then dully the thought came to me
that he was waiting for the double chance, at one moment to strike and
to escape. That meant he must drive me to the edge of the platform,
where with a blow he might finish me and leap into the pool below.
But I was determined to thwart him. I steered away to the rise of the
cliff, but immediately he wedged me away from it, and I knew my surmise
was correct. I felt desperate. Gradually he was forcing me to the edge,
and I knew that once there he wouldn't delay the fatal stroke. Then
with the fear of death upon me I suddenly grew strong again, calm even.
I remembered Jenny, and said I would not die. I knew just what I would
do. I gave ground, and he came stepping after me, his eyes glowing with
assurance of victory; then trusting to his confidence to slacken his
caution, and even quivering my lip in a semblance of fear, I leapt in,
and pretending to stumble dropped my knife as he gripped my wrist, but
catching it in my left hand struck sideways as Dirk had taught me, and
felt my blade jab at his ribs as it sank into his breast.
For a moment I thought my end had come. His knife was brandished high
over my head, and I had no hand free to stay the impending blow. But
the arm above me faltered and fell limp. The knife slipped and rattled
to my feet. It bounced on the rock, rolled, and fell away over the edge
to splash far down beneath me in the water.
The man collapsed, a huddled bundle. But as he fell he rested his eyes
on mine in such a piteous and reproachful look that I started back half
conscience-stricken at my deed, and with all the hate ebbed out of my
heart.
So he lay, and with one ugly choke of blood was dead.
Dirk stepped up and slapped me on the back, and said, "Wull, you've
robbed me of my vengeance, kiddy. I wish to God he had another life. He
wouldn't slip out of it with a little prick like this." And he spurned
the blood-soaked corpse with his foot.
"Don't, Dirk, don't!" I cried in horror. He stepped back looking
amazedly at me, and saying, "Wull, strike me, Tommy! What's the game
now, eh? Aren't you satisfied?" Then I think seeing the agony in my
face he added, "Come Tommy, you've played fair. Thank the Almighty for
staking on your side, an' me for teaching you the trick, an' yourself
for learning it all so pat an' neat." But his words were lost on me;
for I was gazing on the dead man's face, where death was busy smoothing
out the evil lines of hate, till the lips grew gentle and the glazing
eyes almost merry as though the fellow were amused at the contemplation
of some hidden irony underlying the tragedy.
Dirk was repeating, "It wasn't the prick of a knife he'd a got from me.
Six hours. _Six hours!..._" I knew of what he was thinking, and dimly
realized that although his blood was upon my hands I had saved the poor
wretch from a terrible fate.
And then I gave a cry, and stooped over the body, gazing deep into the
eyes; for the face was the face of Picardino.
Picardino! And then, of course, I could read so many things clearly
which before had been covered in shadow. It was Picardino who had set
fire to the _Snow Man_. It was Dirk who had been on his track and had
frightened him in the night when my father had returned and whistled
to me. It was Picardino who had seen my father rush into the burning
building, and had heard my cry of "Daddy, dad-_dee_!" as I ran up
through the crowd. He had kept the scene in his memory and had planned
the ruse that had trapped my father at last. It was Picardino too who
had drawn both Dirk and Worthing to Naples. It wasn't luck merely that
had brought about the fatal error. For it was outside Picardino's
lodging that Worthing's uncle had been waiting for his quarry, and
had found me instead. And yet I couldn't help the thought that it was
Picardino who would have sheltered me after he had killed my father,
and who had brought me Jenny's message, so that in my gratitude I had
even embraced him. My father he had hated to the death, but me he had
loved; of that I felt certain. Perhaps that was why he had been so
unwilling to strike. Perhaps even at the end it had paralysed the blow
which might so easily have fallen on my unprotected heart. Picardino!
I gazed at him in a mist of sadness and wonder, till the face seemed
to change again. Indeed in life as he had gazed from Dirk to me I had
noticed its shifting mobility of expression, and in death it seemed to
be settling back through all its stages from the hate that had last
inspired it to whatever might have been its ruling emotion in life.
Now the amusement was yielding to a calm and serene content. And of a
sudden it was no longer the face of Picardino, but the face of Abou
that stared up at me. In spite of all absence of that mighty beard
which had veiled the living Abou, I knew him now as he lay dead. Dimly
I remembered how Dirk had said that the fellow had more shapes than a
cloud and more voices than the wind.
Abou! And now the shadow lifted further. The whole mystery lay bare to
me, except indeed the motive which had driven him to kill my father.
For now I knew how it was that Dirk had made that mistake at Sunset
Towers. It was Abou he had been stalking that night. It was Abou who
had been crouched in the darkness of the archway beside me. It was Abou
who in the person of Picardino had told of the haunted house, hoping
that my father would be led into the trap, thinking the mysterious
mansion a good hiding-place. It might even have been Abou who
impersonated the landlord; and it was certainly he who knew the secret
of the passage, and whose reflection in the mirror I had fired at that
night. It was Abou, too, who had deceived even Jenny, when as Picardino
he had promised to find me and deliver her message. It was Abou who
had taken the manuscript to Sunset Towers where Worthing or his uncle
had found it. Indeed it must have been one of them I had heard that
evening in Jenny's room. Worthing must have guessed something of the
bond that united the Captain's story with my father's, and with the
clue I had given him of the opening of the secret passage he had been
able to search for the connecting link at Sunset Towers. Either he or
his uncle; which, I should never know. But the card with the Captain's
address had been discovered, and so they had been able to trace Abou in
London. And lastly I remembered it was Abou who had asked to be sent
back to his own people, because of the persecution of Dirk, I assumed;
and it was in pursuit of him that we had sailed away to the East. But
in his amazing intuition he had felt his master needed him again, and
he had turned back on his journey; and it was his trail we had followed
to such a tragic end at Naples. Yes, it was all quite clear except for
the motive. Again I told myself that Abou loved me, though he had hated
my father. It was he who had been the go-between when Jenny and I had
quarrelled; it was he who had smoothed over the angry passages by his
calm voice and gentle manner. And I had killed him! Yet it was some
consolation to know that at least I had saved him from a death far more
horrible than the one I had dealt him. Abou! Picardino! They had both
loved me, and I could have loved them well, had not this thwart and
evil destiny set us as enemies against each other.
How long I would have stayed there linking up the story, I don't
know. I suppose Dirk stood silently by in deference to my obvious
grief at the work of my hands; and perhaps something of the strange
transformation in the face of the dead man held him, too, in a wonder
of conjecture. But at last his patience was exhausted. Supposing, as I
imagine, that a strong command was what was needed to put backbone into
my collapsed will, he said sharply, "You put on that gear of yours, and
tramp. I know the best hole for this." He nodded down at the corpse,
and jerked his thumb at the pool below. I knew he meant to hide the
body in Drift-Wood Cavern, and the knowledge hurt me.
"No," I cried.
He faced me sternly, and I hung my head. Indeed I knew there was no
other way unless I wished to swing. So I began mechanically pulling
on my clothes, while Dirk shouldered the dead man and set off down the
cliff.
When I was dressed I wiped my knife in the earth. Drawing my various
weapons, my pistol, my stiletto, and the knife I had just cleaned, I
looked mournfully at them, knowing full well how I delighted in them,
yet hating the use to which I had so far put them. I stuffed them back
into my belt in disgust, and climbed up the cliff to the _Dolphin_.
I walked slowly, though I was famishing with hunger, and felt the need
of a stiff glass of spirits. My mind was in a tumult, still questioning
the dark affair. The course of things was clear; but the motive? Abou,
I said, was merely his master's shadow. Somehow I knew that what he had
done must have been for the Captain, not for himself. For the Captain
he had changed from a suave and gracious minister of comfort to the
semblance of that hateful old witch, and had ruthlessly sacrificed, not
my father only, but the unoffending smugglers, in his zeal to serve his
master. Well, he had expiated his sacrifice and his sin. And yet what
had the Captain to do with it? Why had he set Abou to kill my father?
And how would it affect my love for Jenny? Now not only was Worthing's
blood between us, but my father's blood as well. What was my part to
be? Must I take another step forward, wade deeper into the river of
blood, and kill the Captain? But that I knew I could never do. Yet why
had he killed my father?
It was a sudden illumination that gave me the last link I needed. I
remembered the story I had deciphered in the tunnel under the earth
only an hour ago. An hour ago? It seemed an age! I remembered, too,
the tale Worthing's uncle had told me that night beneath the stars:
the tale of the Captain and his brothers. Captain Field--Commander
Meadows! The disguise was so ludicrously thin that I even laughed
aloud when the two names met and mingled in my mind. In that cave of
accursed gold was buried the Captain's deadly secret, the secret that
had tortured him through life, the secret of his murdered comrades, of
his murdered brother. He dared not let another meddle with the thing.
The thought of prying eyes in that dark place of crime and death was
like a madness in his blood; a madness I could well conceive, for I had
heard my father tell so often the story of the Mad Captain, and among
his papers was that other yarn which told of the ruthless hunting of
the treasure-seeker by one who had no cause to hate him except that he
feared the exposing of the secret that had poisoned all his life. Had
my father guessed the motive of his relentless persecution, I asked
myself; or was it but a fancy that had made him write that yarn? That
was something I would never know.