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Pieces of Eight, a novel by Richard Le Gallienne |
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Book 3 - Chapter 8 |
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_ BOOK III CHAPTER VIII News!
"Do you want to see your friend Tobias?" she said. "Tobias! Impossible!" "Come here," and she led me a yard or two back the way she had come, and then cautiously looked through the trees. "Gone!" she said, "but he was there a minute or two ago--or at least some one that is his photograph--and, of course, he's there yet, hidden in the brush, and probably got his eyes on us all the time. Did you see that seven-year apple tree move?" "His favourite tree," I laughed. "Hardly strong enough to hang him on though." And I realised that she was King Alcinoues's daughter. We crouched lower for a moment or two, but the seven-year apple tree didn't move again, and we agreed that there was no use in waiting for Tobias to show his hand. "He is too good a poker-player," I said. "Like his skeletons, eh?" she said. "But what made you think it was Tobias?" I asked, "and how did it all happen?" "I could hardly fail to recognise him from your flattering description," she answered, "and indeed it all happened rather like another experience of mine. I had gone into Sweeney's store--you remember?--and was just paying my bill." "In the usual coinage?" I ventured. She gave me a long, whimsical smile--once more her father's daughter. "That, I'm afraid, was the trouble," she answered; "for, as I laid my money down on the counter, I suddenly noticed that there was a person at the back of the store ..." "A person?" I interrupted. "Yes! suppose we say 'a pock-marked person'; was it you?" "What a memory you have for details," I parried, "and then?" "Well! I took my change and managed to whisper a word to Sweeney--a good friend, remember--and came out. I took a short cut back, but the 'person' that had stood in the back of the store seemed to know the way almost better than I--so well that he had got ahead of me. He was walking quietly this way, and so slowly that I had at last to overtake him. He said nothing, just watched me, as if interested in the way I was going--but, I'm ashamed to say, he rather frightened me! And here I am." "Do you really think he saw the--doubloon--like that other 'person'?" I asked. "There's no doubt of it." "Well, then," I said, "let's hurry home, and talk it over with the 'King.'" The "King," as I had realised, was a practical "romantic" and at once took the matter seriously, leaving--as might have surprised some of those who had only heard him talk--his conversational fantasies on the theme to come later. Calypso, however, had the first word. "I always told you, Dad," she said;--and the word "Dad" on the lips of that big statuesque girl--who always seemed ready to take that inspired framework of rags and bones and talking music into her protecting arms--seemed the quaintest of paradoxes--, "I always told you, Dad, what would happen, with your fairy-tales of the doubloons." "Quite true, my dear," he answered, "but isn't a fairy-tale worth paying for?--worth a little trouble? And remember, if you will allow me, two things about fairy-tales: there must always be some evil fairy in them, some dragon or such like; and there is always--a happy ending. Now the dragon enters at last--in the form of Tobias; and we should be happy on that very account. It shows that the race of dragons is not, as I feared, extinct. And as for the happy ending, we will arrange it, after lunch--for which, by the way, you are somewhat late." After lunch, the "King" resumed, but in a brief and entirely practical vein: "We are about to be besieged," he said. "The woods, probably, are already thick with spies. For the moment, we must suspend operations on our Golconda"--his name for the ruins that we were to excavate--"and, as our present purpose--yours no less than ours, friend Ulysses--is to confuse Tobias, my suggestion is this: That you walk with me a mile or two to the nor'ard. There is an entertaining mangrove swamp I should like to show you, and also, you can give me your opinion of an idea of mine that you will understand all the better when I have taken you over the ground." So we walked beyond the pines, down onto a long interminable flat land of marl marshes and mangrove trees--so like that in which Charlie Webster had shot the snake and the wild duck--that only Charlie could have seen any difference. "Now," said the "King," "do you see a sort of river there, overgrown with mangroves and palmettos?" "Yes," I answered, "almost--though it's so choked up it's almost impossible to say." "Well," said the "King," "that's the idea; you haven't forgotten those old ruins we are going to explore. You remember how choked up they are. Well, this was the covered water-way, the secret creek, by which the pirates--John Teach, or whoever it was, perhaps John P. Tobias himself--used to land their loot. It's so overgrown nowadays that no one can find the entrance but myself and a friend or two; do you understand?" We walked a little farther, and then at length came to the bank of the creek the "King" had indicated. This we followed for half a mile or so, till we met the fresh murmur of the sea. "We needn't go any farther," said the "King." "It's the same all the way along to the mouth--all over-grown as you see, all the way, right out to the 'white water' as they call it--which is four miles of shoal sand that is seldom deeper than two fathoms, and which a nor'easter is liable to blow dry for a week on end. Naturally it's a hard place to find, and a hard place to get off!--and only two or three persons besides Sweeney--all of them our friends--know the way in. Tobias may know of it; but to know it is one thing, to find it is another matter. I could hardly be sure of it myself--if I were standing in from the sea, with nothing but the long palmetto-fringed coast-line to go by. "Now, you see it? I brought you here, because words--" "Even yours, dear 'King,'" I laughed. "--could not explain what I suggest for us to do. You are interested in Tobias. Tobias is interested in you. I am interested in you both. And Calypso and I have a treasure to guard." "I have still a treasure to seek," I said, half to myself. "Good enough," said the "King." "Now, to be practical. We can assume that Tobias is on the watch. I don't mean that he's around here just now, for, before we left, I spoke to Samson and Erebus and they will pass the word to four men blacker than themselves; therefore we can assume that this square mile or so is for the moment 'to ourselves.' But beyond our fence you may rely that Tobias and his myrmidons--is that the word?" he asked with a concession to his natural foolishness--"are there." "So," he went on, "I want you to go down to your boat to-morrow morning to say good-bye to the commandant, the parson, and the postmaster; to haul up your sail and head for Nassau. Call in on Sweeney on the way, buy an extra box of cartridges, and say '_Dieu et mon Droit_'--it is our password; he will understand, but, if he shouldn't, explain, in your own way, that you come from me, and that we rely upon him to look out for our interest. Then head straight for Nassau; but, about eight o'clock, or anywhere around twilight, turn about and head--well, we'll map it out on the chart at home--anywhere up to eight miles along the coast, till you come to a light, low down right on the edge of the water. As soon as you see it, drop anchor; then wait till morning--the very beginning of dawn. As soon as you can see land, look out for Samson--within a hundred yards of you--all the land will look alike to you. Only make the Captain head straight for Samson, and just as you think you are going to run ashore--Well, you will see!" _ |
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